Chapter 7

[308] 'I think a person who is terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless.' _The Spectator_, No. 110.

[309] _St. Matthew_, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53. BOSWELL.

[310] Garrick died on Jan. 20, 1779.

[311] Garrick called her _Nine_, (the Nine Muses). 'Nine,' he said, 'you are a _Sunday Woman_.' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 113.

[312] See vol. iii. p. 331. BOSWELL.

[313] See _ante_, ii. 325, note 3.

[314] Boswell is quoting from Johnson's eulogium on Garrick in his _Life of Edmund Smith. Works_, vii. 380. See _ante_, i. 81.

[315] How fond she and her husband had been is shewn in a letter, in which, in answer to an invitation, he says:--'As I have not left Mrs. Garrick one day since we were married, near twenty-eight years, I cannot now leave her.' _Garrick Corres._ ii. 150. 'Garrick's widow is buried with him. She survived him forty-three years--"a little bowed-down old woman, who went about leaning on a gold-headed cane, dressed in deep widow's mourning, and always talking of her dear Davy." (_Pen and Ink Sketches_, 1864).' Stanley's _Westminster Abbey_, ed. 1868, p. 305.

[316] _Love's Labour's Lost_, act ii. sc. i.

[317] See _ante_, ii. 461.

[318] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 346) describes Hollis as 'a most excellent man, a most immaculate Whig, but as simple a poor soul as ever existed, except his editor, who has given extracts from the good creature's diary that are very near as anile as Ashmole's. There are thanks to God for reaching every birthday, ... and thanks to Heaven for her Majesty's being delivered of a third or fourth prince, and _God send he may prove a good man_.' See also Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 287. Dr. Franklin wrote much more highly of him. Speaking of what he had done, he said:--'It is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done by one man, _if he will make a business of it_.' Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 135.

[319] See p. 77 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[320] See _ante_, iii. 97.

[321] On April 6 of the next year this gentleman, when Secretary of the Treasury, destroyed himself, overwhelmed, just as Cowper had been, by the sense of the responsibility of an office which had been thrust upon him. See Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 245, and Walpole's _Letters_, viii. 206.

[322] 'It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords no matter for a narration; but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier, or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his affairs should not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room or the factions of a camp.' _The Idler_, No. 102.

[323] Hannah More wrote of this day (_Memoirs_, i. 212):--'I accused Dr. Johnson of not having done justice to the _Allegro_ and _Penseroso_. He spoke disparagingly of both. I praised _Lycidas_, which he absolutely abused, adding, "if Milton had not written the _Paradise Lost_, he would have only ranked among the minor Poets. He was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry-stones."' See _post_, June 13, 1784. The _Allegro_ and _Penseroso_ Johnson described as 'two noble efforts of imagination.' Of _Lycidas_ he wrote:--'Surely no man could have fancied that he read it with pleasure, had he not known the author.' _Works_, vii. 121, 2.

[324] Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p. 374) says 'Shortly after Garrick's death Johnson was told in a large company, "You are recent from the _Lives of the Poets_; why not add your friend Garrick to the number?" Johnson's answer was, "I do not like to be officious; but if Mrs. Garrick will desire me to do it, I shall be very willing to pay that last tribute to the memory of a man I loved." 'Murphy adds that he himself took care that Mrs. Garrick was informed of what Johnson had said, but that no answer was ever received.

[325] Miss Burney wrote in May:--'Dr. Johnson was charming, both in spirits and humour. I really think he grows gayer and gayer daily, and more _ductile_ and pleasant.' In June she wrote:--'I found him in admirable good-humour, and our journey [to Streatham] was extremely pleasant. I thanked him for the last batch of his poets, and we talked them over almost all the way.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 23, 44. Beattie, a week or two later, wrote:--'Johnson grows in grace as he grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher complexion than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), but he has contracted a gentleness of manner which pleases everybody.' Beattie's _Life_, ed. 1824, p. 289.

[326] See _ante_, iii. 65. Wilkes was by this time City Chamberlain. 'I think I see him at this moment,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 43), 'walking through the crowded streets of the city, as Chamberlain, on his way to Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military boots, and a bag-wig--the hackney-coachmen in vain calling out to him, "A coach, your honour."'

[327] See _ante_, ii. 201, for Beattie's _Essay on Truth_.

[328] Thurot, in the winter of 1759-60, with a small squadron made descents on some of the Hebrides and on the north-eastern coast of Ireland. In a sea fight off Ireland he was killed and his ships were taken. _Gent. Mag_. xxx. 107. Horace Walpole says that in the alarm raised by him in Ireland, 'the bankers there stopped payment.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_, iii. 224.

[329]

'Some for renown on scraps of learning doat, And think they grow immortal as they quote.'

Young's _Love of Fame_, sat. i. Cumberland (_Memoirs_, ii. 226) says that Mr. Dilly, speaking of 'the profusion of quotations which some writers affectedly make use of, observed that he knew a Presbyterian parson who, for eighteenpence, would furnish any pamphleteer with as many scraps of Greek and Latin as would pass him off for an accomplished classic.'

[330] Cowley was quite out of fashion. Richardson (_Corres._ ii. 229) wrote more than thirty years earlier:--'I wonder Cowley is so absolutely neglected.' Pope, a dozen years or so before Richardson, asked,

'Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.'

_Imitations of Horace_, Epis. ii. i. 75.

[331] See _ante_, ii. 58, and iii. 276.

[332] 'There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall that arrogantly called itself The World. Lord Stanhope (now Lord Chesterfield) was a member. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the glasses by each member after dinner. Once when Dr. Young was invited thither, the doctor would have declined writing because he had no diamond, Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote immediately--

"_Accept_ a miracle," &c.'

Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 377. Dr. Maty (_Memoirs of Chesterfield_, i. 227) assigns the lines to Pope, and lays the scene at Lord Cobham's. Spence, however, gives Young himself as his authority.

[333] 'Aug. 1778. "I wonder," said Mrs. Thrale, "you bear with my nonsense." "No, madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense and more wit than any woman I know." "Oh," cried Mrs. Thrale, blushing, "it is my turn to go under the table this morning, Miss Burney." "And yet," continued the doctor, with the most comical look, "I have known all the wits from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint." "Bet Flint!" cried Mrs. Thrale. "Pray, who is she?" "Oh, a fine character, madam. She was habitually a slut and a drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a harlot.... Mrs. Williams," he added, "did not love Bet Flint, but Bet Flint made herself very easy about that."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 87, 90.

[334] Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive [see _ante_, i. 39], remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which have been communicated to me by a young lady of his acquaintance:--

'When first I drew my vital breath, A little minikin I came upon earth; And then I came from a dark abode, Into this gay and gaudy world.' BOSWELL.

[335] The _Sessional Reports of the Old Bailey Trials_ for 1758, p. 278, contain a report of the trial. The Chief Justice Willes was in the Commission, but, according to the _Report_, it was before the Recorder that Bet Flint was tried. It may easily be, however, that either the reporter or the printer has blundered. It is only by the characters * and ‡ that the trials before the Chief Justice and the Recorder are distinguished. Bet had stolen not only the counterpane, but five other articles. The prosecutrix could not prove that the articles were hers, and not a captain's, whose servant she said she had been, and who was now abroad. On this ground the prisoner was acquitted. Of Chief Justice Willes, Horace Walpole writes:--'He was not wont to disguise any of his passions. That for gaming was notorious; for women unbounded.' He relates an anecdote of his wit and licentiousness. Walpole's _Reign of George II_, i. 89. He had been Johnson's schoolfellow (_ante_, i. 45).

[336] Burke is meant. See _ante_, ii. 131, where Johnson said that Burke spoke too familiarly; and _post_, May 15, 1784, where he said that 'when Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the kennel.'

[337] Wilkes imperfectly recalled to mind the following passage in Plutarch:--'[Greek: Euphranor ton Thaesea ton heatou to Parrhasiou parebale, legon tor men ekeinou hroda bebrokenai, tor de eautou krea boeia.]' 'Euphranor, comparing his own Theseus with Parrhasius's, said that Parrhasius's had fed on roses, but his on beef.' _Plutarch_, ed. 1839, iii. 423.

[338] Portugal, receiving from Brazil more gold than it needed for home uses, shipped a large quantity to England. It was said, though probably with exaggeration, that the weekly packet-boat from Lisbon, brought one week with another, more than £50,000 in gold to England. Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, book iv. ch. 6. Portugal pieces were current in our colonies, and no doubt were commonly sent to them from London. It was natural therefore that they should be selected for this legal fiction.

[339] See _ante_, ii. III.

[340] 'Whenever the whole of our foreign trade and consumption exceeds our exportation of commodities, our money must go to pay our debts so contracted, whether melted or not melted down. If the law makes the exportation of our coin penal, it will be melted down; if it leaves the exportation of our coin free, as in Holland, it will be carried out in specie. One way or other, go it must, as we see in Spain.... Laws made against exportation of money or bullion will be all in vain. Restraint or liberty in that matter makes no country rich or poor.' Locke's _Works_, ed. 1824, iv. 160.

[341] 'Nov. 14, 1779. Mr. Beauclerk has built a library in Great Russellstreet, that reaches half way to Highgate. Everybody goes to see it; it has put the Museum's nose quite out of joint.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 273. It contained upwards of 30,000 volumes, and the sale extended over fifty days. Two days' sale were given to the works on divinity, including, in the words of the catalogue, 'Heterodox! et Increduli. Angl. Freethinkers and their opponents.' _Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His Critics_, p. 315. It sold for £5,011 (ante, in. 420, note 4). Wilkes's own library--a large one--had been sold in 1764, in a five days' sale, as is shewn by the _Auctioneer's Catalogue_, which is in the Bodleian.

[342] 'Our own language has from the Reformation to the present time been chiefly dignified and adorned by the works of our divines, who, considered as commentators, controvertists, or preachers, have undoubtedly left all other nations far behind them.' _The Idler_, No. 91.

[343] Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow's first volume, and fourteenth sermon, _'Against foolish Talking and Jesting.'_ My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious _Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule_, calls it 'a profuse description of Wit;' but I do not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out some good circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known, and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shall here subjoin it:--'But first (says the learned preacher) it may be demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness (or _wit_ as he calls it before) doth import? To which questions I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, "'Tis that which we all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression: sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable, and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy, and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as reason teacheth and proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression, doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar; it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dextrously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek: _hepidexioi_], dextrous men, and [Greek: _eustrophoi_], men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness, as semblance of difficulty: (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure:) by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.' BOSWELL. Morris's _Essay_ was published in 1744. Hume wrote:--'Pray do you not think that a proper dedication may atone for what is objectionable in my Dialogues'! I am become much of my friend Corbyn Morrice's mind, who says that he writes all his books for the sake of the dedications.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 147.

[344] The quarrel arose from the destruction by George II. of George I.'s will (_ante_, ii. 342). The King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, was George I.'s grandson. 'Vague rumours spoke of a large legacy to the Queen of Prussia [Frederick's mother]. Of that bequest demands were afterwards said to have been frequently and roughly made by her son, the great King of Prussia, between whom and his uncle subsisted much inveteracy.' Walpole's _Letters_, i. cxx.

[345] When I mentioned this to the Bishop of Killaloe, 'With the goat,' said his Lordship. Such, however, is the engaging politeness and pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes, and such the social good humour of the Bishop, that when they dined together at Mr. Dilly's, where I also was, they were mutually agreeable. BOSWELL. It was not the lion, but the leopard, that shall lie down with the kid. _Isaiah_, xi. 6.

[346] Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, authour of tracts relating to natural history, &c. BOSWELL.

[347] Mrs. Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet:--'I assure you our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has left off his old friends and his blue stockings, and is at operas and other gay assemblies every night.' Montagu's _Letters_, iv. 117.

[348] See _ante_, in. 293, note 5.

[349] Miss Burney thus describes her:--'She is between thirty and forty, very short, very fat, but handsome; splendidly and fantastically dressed, rouged not unbecomingly yet evidently, and palpably desirous of gaining notice and admiration. She has an easy levity in her air, manner, voice, and discourse, that speak (sic) all within to be comfortable.... She is one of those who stand foremost in collecting all extraordinary or curious people to her London conversaziones, which, like those of Mrs. Vesey, mix the rank and the literature, and exclude all beside.... Her parties are the most brilliant in town.' Miss Burney then describes one of these parties, at which were present Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds. 'The company in general were dressed with more brilliancy than at any rout I ever was at, as most of them were going to the Duchess of Cumberland's.' Miss Burney herself was 'surrounded by strangers, all dressed superbly, and all looking saucily.... Dr. Johnson was standing near the fire, and environed with listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 179, 186, 190. Leslie wrote of Lady Corke in 1834 (_Autobiographical Recollections_, i. 137, 243):--'Notwithstanding her great age, she is very animated. The old lady, who was a lion-hunter in her youth, is as much one now as ever.' She ran after a Boston negro named Prince Saunders, who 'as he put his Christian name "Prince" on his cards without the addition of Mr., was believed to be a native African prince, and soon became a lion of the first magnitude in fashionable circles.' She died in 1840.

[350] 'A lady once ventured to ask Dr. Johnson how he liked Yorick's [Sterne's] _Sermons_. "I know nothing about them, madam," was his reply. But some time afterwards, forgetting himself, he severely censured them. The lady retorted:--"I understood you to say, Sir, that you had never read them." "No, Madam, I did read them, but it was in a stage-coach; I should not have even deigned to look at them had I been at large." Cradock's _Memoirs_, p. 208.

[351] See _ante_, iii. 382, note 1.

[352] Next day I endeavoured to give what had happened the most ingenious turn I could, by the following verses:--

To THE HONOURABLE Miss MONCKTON.

'Not that with th' excellent Montrose I had the happiness to dine; Not that I late from table rose, From Graham's wit, from generous wine.

It was not these alone which led On sacred manners to encroach; And made me feel what most I dread, JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach.

But when I enter'd, not abash'd, From your bright eyes were shot such rays, At once intoxication flash'd, And all my frame was in a blaze.

But not a brilliant blaze I own, Of the dull smoke I'm yet asham'd; I was a dreary ruin grown, And not enlighten'd though inflam'd.

Victim at once to wine and love, I hope, MARIA, you'll forgive; While I invoke the powers above, That henceforth I may wiser live.'

The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging answer, and I thus obtained an _Act of Oblivion_, and took care never to offend again. BOSWELL.

[353] See _ante_, ii. 436, and iv. 88, note I.

[354] On May 22 Horace Walpole wrote (_Letters_, viii. 44):--'Boswell, that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he vented his errand. "Had I seen Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_?" I said slightly, "No, not yet;" and so overlaid his whole impertinence.'

[355] See _ante_, iii. 1.

[356] See _ante_, ii. 47, note 2; 352, note I; and iii. 376, for explanations of like instances of Boswell's neglect.

[357] See _ante_, i. 298, note 4.

[358] 'He owned he sometimes talked for victory.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, opening pages.

[359] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE.

[360] Dr. Johnson, being told of a man who was thankful for being introduced to him, 'as he had been convinced in a long dispute that an opinion which he had embraced as a settled truth was no better than a vulgar error, "Nay," said he, "do not let him be thankful, for he was right, and I was wrong." Like his Uncle Andrew in the ring at Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of disputants, was determined neither to be thrown nor conquered.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 139. Johnson, in _The Adventurer_, No. 85, seems to describe his own talk. He writes:--' While the various opportunities of conversation invite us to try every mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, we are frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in themselves strictly defensible; a man heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage of the mistakes or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of concessions to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on his opponent, though he knows himself that they have no force.' J. S. Mill gives somewhat the same account of his own father. 'I am inclined to think,' he writes, 'that he did injustice to his own opinions by the unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny.' Mill's _Autobiography_, p. 201. See also _ante_, ii. 100, 450, in. 23, 277, 331; and _post_, May 18, 1784, and Steevens's account of Johnson just before June 22, 1784.

[361] Thomas Shaw, D.D., author of _Travels to Barbary and the Levant_.

[362] See ante, iii. 314.

[363] The friend very likely was Boswell himself. He was one of 'these _tanti_ men.' 'I told Paoli that in the very heat of youth I felt the _nom est tanti_, the _omnia vanitas_ of one who has exhausted all the sweets of his being, and is weary with dull repetition. I told him that I had almost become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.' Boswell's _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 193.

[364] _Letters on the English Nation: By Batista Angeloni, a Jesuit, who resided many years in London. Translated from the original Italian by the Author of the Marriage Act. A Novel_. 2 vols. London [no printer's name given], 1755. Shebbeare published besides six _Letters to the People of England_ in the years 1755-7, for the last of which he was sentenced to the pillory. _Ante_, iii. 315, note I. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, iii. 74) described him in 1757 as 'a broken Jacobite physician, who has threatened to write himself into a place or the pillory.'

[365] I recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King had pensioned both a _He_-bear and a _She_-bear. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 66, and _post_, April 28, 1783.

[366]

Witness, ye chosen train Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign; Witness ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares, Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.'

_Heroic Epistle_. See _post_, under June 16, 1784.

[367] In this he was unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,' expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 187.

[368] They were published in 1773 in a pamphlet of 16 pages, and, with the good fortune that attends a muse in the peerage, reached a third edition in the year. To this same earl the second edition of Byron's _Hours of Idleness_ was 'dedicated by his obliged ward and affectionate kinsman, the author.' In _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, he is abused in the passage which begins:--

'No muse will cheer with renovating smile, The paralytic puling of Carlisle.'

In a note Byron adds:--'The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his lordship will be permitted to bring forward anything for the stage--except his own tragedies.' In the third canto of _Childe Harold_ Byron makes amends. In writing of the death of Lord Carlisle's youngest son at Waterloo, he says:--

'Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his Sire some wrong.'

For his lordship's tragedy see _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783.

[369] Men of rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as writers, before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his preface to _All for Love_, thus expresses himself:--

'Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and endued with a trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by [with] a smattering of Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of gentlemen, by their poetry:

_"Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in ilia Fortuna,"----[Juvenal_, viii. 73.]

And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to publick view? Not considering that they are not to expect the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their flatterers after the third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents [talent], yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where he said, "That no man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not admit them of their number.' BOSWELL. Boswell, it should seem, had followed Swift's advice:--

'Read all the prefaces of Dryden, For these our critics much confide in; Though merely writ at first for filling, To raise the volume's price a shilling.'

Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 293.

[370] See _ante_, i. 402.

[371] Wordsworth, it should seem, held with Johnson in this. When he read the article in the _Edinburgh Review_ on Lord Byron's early poems, he remarked that 'though Byron's verses were probably poor enough, yet such an attack was abominable,--that a young nobleman, who took to poetry, deserved to be encouraged, not ridiculed.' Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p. 234, note.

[372] Dr. Barnard, formerly Dean of Derry. See _ante_, iii. 84.

[373] This gave me very great pleasure, for there had been once a pretty smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question, whether a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; when Johnson in a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not quite civil. Dr. Barnard made it the subject of a copy of pleasant verses, in which he supposed himself to learn different perfections from different men. They concluded with delicate irony:--

'Johnson shall teach me how to place In fairest light each borrow'd grace; From him I'll learn to write; Copy his clear familiar style, And by the roughness of his file Grow, like _himself, polite_.'

I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had occasion to find that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard increased. BOSWELL. See Appendix A.

[374] See _ante_, ii. 357, iii. 309, and _post_, March 23, 1783.

[375] 'Sir Joshua once asked Lord B---- to dine with Dr. Johnson and the rest, but though a man of rank and also of good information, he seemed as much alarmed at the idea as if you had tried to force him into one of the cages at Exeter-Change.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of Northcote_, p. 41.

[376] Yet when he came across them he met with much respect. At Alnwick he was, he writes, 'treated with great civility by the Duke of Northumberland.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 108. At Inverary, the Duke and Duchess of Argyle shewed him great attention. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25. In fact, all through his Scotch tour he was most politely welcomed by 'the great.' At Chatsworth, he was 'honestly pressed to stay' by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (_post_, Sept. 9, 1784). See _ante_, iii. 21. On the other hand, Mrs. Barbauld says:--'I believe it is true that in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than in most other parts of Europe.' She censures 'the contemptuous manner in which Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned Richardson:--"The doors of the Great," she says, "were never opened to him."' _Richardson Corres._ i. clxxiv.

[377] When Lord Elibank was seventy years old, he wrote:--'I shall be glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 12.

[378] _Romans_, x. 2.

[379] I _Peter_, iii. 15.

[380] Horace Walpole wrote three years earlier:--' Whig principles are founded on sense; a Whig may be a fool, a Tory must be so.' _Letters_, vii. 88.

[381] Mr. Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the celebrated apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as much of the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with primitive simplicity, BOSWELL.

[382] Now Bishop of Llandaff, one of the _poorest_ Bishopricks in this kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the propriety of _equalizing_ the revenues of Bishops. He has informed us that he has burnt all his chemical papers. The friends of our excellent constitution, now assailed on every side by innovators and levellers, would have less regretted the suppression of some of this Lordship's other writings. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to _A Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury by Richard, Lord Bishop of Landaff_, 1782. If the revenues were made more equal, 'the poorer Bishops,' the Bishop writes, 'would be freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical preferments _in commendam_ with their Bishopricks,' p. 8.

[383] De Quincey says that Sir Humphry Davy told him, 'that he could scarcely imagine a time, or a condition of the science, in which the Bishop's _Essays_ would be superannuated.' De Quincey's _Works_, ii. 106. De Quincey describes the Bishop as being 'always a discontented man, a railer at the government and the age, which could permit such as his to pine away ingloriously in one of the humblest among the Bishopricks.' _Ib_. p. 107. He was, he adds, 'a true Whig,' and would have been made Archbishop of York had his party staid in power a little longer in 1807.'

[384] _Rasselas_, chap. xi.

[385] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30.

[386] 'They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.' _Genesis_, iii. 8.

[387]

... 'Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.'

'And sure the man who has it in his power To practise virtue, and protracts the hour, Waits like the rustic till the river dried; Still glides the river, and will ever glide.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Epist_. i. 2. 41.

[388] See _ante_, p. 59.

[389] See _ante_, iii. 251.

[390] See _ante_, iii. 136.

[391] This assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first four satires of Young were published in 1725; The South Sea scheme (which appears to be meant,) was in 1720. MALONE. In Croft's _Life of Young_, which Johnson adopted, it is stated:--'By the _Universal Passion_ he acquired no vulgar fortune, more than £3000. A considerable sum had already been swallowed up in the South Sea.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 430. Some of Young's poems were published before 1720.

[392] Crabbe got Johnson to revise his poem, _The Village_ (_post_, under March 23, 1783). He states, that 'the Doctor did not readily comply with requests for his opinion; not from any unwillingness to oblige, but from a painful contention in his mind between a desire of giving pleasure and a determination to speak truth.' Crabbe's _Works_, ii. 12. See _ante_, ii. 51, 195, and iii. 373.

[393] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. See _ante_, iii. 6, note 2.

[394] He had within the last seven weeks gone up drunk, at least twice, to a lady's drawing-room. _Ante_, pp. 88, note 1, and 109.

[395] Mr. Croker, though without any authority, prints _unconscious_.

[396] I Corinthians, ix. 27. See _ante_, 295.

[397] 'We walk by faith, not by sight.' 2 Corinthians, v. 7

[398] Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon _On the Articles of the Christian Faith_, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, which we find in this life: 'It would be severe in GOD, you think, to _degrade_ us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents: but you can allow him to _place_ us in it without any inducement. Are our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less reason to look for its amendment.' BOSWELL.

[399] 'Which taketh away the sin' &c. St. John, i. 29.

[400] See Boswell's Hebrides, August 22.

[401] This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer, afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister to a congregation of the sect who called themselves _Unitarians_, from a notion that they distinctively worship ONE GOD, because they _deny_ the mysterious doctrine of the TRINITY. They do not advert that the great body of the Christian Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also the _Unity_ of the GODHEAD; the 'TRINITY in UNITY!--three persons and ONE GOD.' The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in the holy Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent Constitution, as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by a Jury, the Court of Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to transportation for fourteen years. A loud clamour against this sentence was made by some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the settlement for convicts in New South Wales. BOSWELL. This note first appears in the third edition. Mr. Palmer was sentenced to seven (not fourteen) years transportation in Aug. 1793. It was his fellow prisoner, Mr. Muir, an advocate, who was sentenced to fourteen years. _Ann. Reg._ 1793, p. 40. When these sentences were brought before the House of Commons, Mr. Fox said that it was 'the Lord-Advocate's fervent wish that his native principles of justice should be introduced into this country; and that on the ruins of the common law of England should be erected the infamous fabric of Scottish persecution. ... If that day should ever arrive, if the tyrannical laws of Scotland should ever be introduced in opposition to the humane laws of England, it would then be high time for my hon. friends and myself to settle our affairs, and retire to some happier clime, where we might at least enjoy those rights which God has given to man, and which his nature tells him he has a right to demand.' _Parl. Hist._ xxx. 1563. For _Unitarians_, see _ante_, ii. 408, note I.

[402] Taken from Herodotus. [Bk. ii. ch. 104.] BOSWELL.

[403] 'The mummies,' says Blakesley, 'have straight hair, and in the paintings the Egyptians are represented as red, not black.' _Ib_. note.

[404] See _ante_, i. 441, and _post_, March 28, and June 3, 1782.

[405] Mr. Dawkins visited Palmyra in 1751. He had 'an escort of the Aga of Hassia's best Arab horsemen.' Johnson was perhaps astonished at the size of their caravan, 'which was increased to about 200 persons.' The writer treats the whole matter with great brevity. Wood's _Ruins of Palmyra_, p. 33. On their return the travellers discovered a party of Arab horsemen, who gave them an alarm. Happily these Arabs were still more afraid of them, and were at once plundered by the escort, 'who laughed at our remonstrances against their injustice.' Wood's _Ruins of Balbec_, p. 2.

[406] He wrote a _Life of Watts_, which Johnson quoted. _Works_, viii. 382.

[407] See _ante_, iii. 422, note 6.

[408] In the first two editions _formal_.

[409] Johnson maintains this in _The Idler_, No. 74. 'Few,' he says, 'have reason to complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of memory ... The true art of memory is the art of attention.' See _ante_, iii. 191.

[410]The first of the definitions given by Johnson of _to remember_ is _to bear in mind anything; not to forget. To recollect_ he defines _to recover to memory_. We may, perhaps, assume that Boswell said, 'I did not recollect that the chair was broken;' and that Johnson replied, 'you mean, you did not remember. That you did not remember is your own fault. It was in your mind that it was broken, and therefore you ought to have remembered it. It was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that is, recover to memory, what is not in our mind.' In the passage _ante_,