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THIS BOOK
FORMS PART OF THE
ORIGINAL LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHICAN
BOUGHT IN EUROPE
1838 TO |839
BY
ASA GRAY

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IE S S A. Y S,
Biographical, CRITICAL, AND HISTORICAL,
ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE
RAMBLER, ADVENTURER, 3 IDLER,
A ND OF THE WARIOUS
PERIOD I C A L PA PE IRS
wh ICH,
In Imitation of the Writings of Steele and Addison,
HIAVE BEEN PUBLISHE I)
Between the Close of the eighth volume of the Spectator,
and the commencement of the year 1809.
BY NATHAN DRAKE, M. D.
AUTHOR OF LITERARY HOURS,
AND OF
Essays on THE TATLER, SPECTAtoR, AND GUARDIAN.
º
--
Evolvendi penitus auctores qui de virtute praecipiunt, ut
—vita cum scientia divinarum rerum sit humanarum-
que conjuncta. QUINTILIANUS.
sk
IN Two vo LUM Es.
POL. I.
*
~~~~~
PRINTED BY J. SEELEY, BUCKINGHAM,
For w. suTTABY, STATIONERS court, LoNDON.
ammam
1809.
cow TENTS
VOL. I.
-º-
PART I.
Essay 1. Observations on the Taste which
had been generated by Steele and
Addison for Periodical Composi-
tion. Enumeration of the Perio-
dical Papers which were written
during the publication of the Tat-
ler, Spectator, and Guardian....
Ess AY 2. Observations on the Periodical Pa-
pers which were written between
the Close of the eighth volume
Page
iw CON TENTS,
Page
of the Spectator, and the com-
mencement of the Rambler; with
some general remarks on their
tendency and complexion. . . . . . 28
PART II.
Ess A Y 1. The Literary Life of Dr. Johnson I 11
Appendix, N° 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489
tº º ſº e º 'º e G No 2 e e s e o e s e e e g c e e 493
PR EFACE.
Twº plan of these volumes being,
in several respects, different from that
which was adopted for the Essays on
the Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian,
I have thought it necessary to place
before the reader, in this Preface, a
connected view of its construction.
It is divided, as in the former work,
into five Parts, and these parts into
Essays; but, for the purpose of com-
pression, the Dissertations on Style,
Humour, Ethics, &c. instead of being
ii I REFACE.
given in separate essays, are inter-
woven with the biographical branch.
So numerous have been the Biogra-
phies and Anecdotes of Dr. Johnso N,
that, with regard to the occurrences
of his life and conversation, nothing
new can be expected. But, when he
is considered merely in the capacity
of a man of letters, the field is still
open for novelty of remark and vari-
ety of illustration. I have, therefore,
chiefly confined myself to the con-
templation of his Literary Character,
into which I have entered, I trust,
more fully than will be found in any
preceding work. The arrangement,
too, which has been chosen for the
narrative, has not, I have reason to
think, been anticipated, and removes
the monotony resulting from a close
PREFA CE. iii
adherence to chronological order.
The capital work, for instance, in
every province of literature which he
embellished, is seized, as it occurs, in
the progress of his career, for the
foundation of a full consideration of
whatever, at any period of his life, he
produced under each department.
In this mode his powers and pro-
ductions as a PoET, a BIBLIog RA-
PHER, a BIOGRAPHER, an Ess AYIST,
a PHILo Lo GER, a Nov ELLIST, a CoM-
MENTAToR, a PoliticiaN, a Tour-
IST, a CRITIC, an EP IsTo LARY WRI-
TER, and a THEo Log IAN, are dwelt
upon at great length; and, though
the illustration be occasionally mi-
nute, it blends sufficiently with the
design, I hope, to constitute an har-
monious whole.
1V FR EFACE.
jº
The entire plan will be at once per-
ceived from the following Sketch.
PART I.
Essay 1. Observations on the Taste which had
been generated by Steele and Addi-
son for Periodical Composition. Enu-
meration of the Periodical Papers
which were written during the publi-
cation of the Tatler, Spectator, and
Guardian.
Ess AY 2. Observations on the Periodical Papers
which were written between the Close
of the eighth volume of the Spectator,
and the commencement of the Ram-
bler, with some general remarks on
their tendency and complexion.
PART II.
Essay 1. The Literary Life of Dr. Johnson.
Essay 2. The Literary Life of Dr. Hawkesworth.
PREFACE. V
PART III.
Essay 1. Sketches Biographical and Critical of
the Occasional Contributors to the
Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler.
Essay 2. The same continued.
Essay 3. The same concluded
PART IV.
Essay 1. Observations on the Periodical Papers
which were written during the Publi-
cation of the Rambler, Adventurer,
and Idler.
Essay 2. Observations on the Periodical Papers
which have been published between
the Close of the Idler and the present
period.
Essay 3. The same concluded.
vi PREFA CF.
PART V.
Essay. Conclusion of the whole Work. Table
of Periodical Papers from the year
1709 to the year 1809, being the
*...* completion of a Century from the
* * commencement of the Tatler.
IIadleigh, Suffolk,
July 1st, 1808.
ESSAYS,
BIOGRAPHICAL, CRITICAL, AND HISTORICAL.
P A R T I.
ESSA Y I.
o BS ER v ATIONS ON THE TASTE WHICH H AD
B E E N G E N E RATED BY STEELE AND A D-
D IS ON FOR PER IO DICAL COMPOSITION.
EN U M E R ATION OF T H E PERIO DICAL PA-
PE R S W H ICH W E R. E. WR ITT EN ID U R IN G.
THE PUBLICATION OF THE TATLER, SPEC-
TAtoR, AND GUARDIAN.
Tiar the highly-finished models of Periodical

Composition which had been given to the world
emulation, and give birth to a number of com-
petitors, was an event equally to be wished for
and expected. Such, however, was the literary
excellence of which the Spectator had to boast,
that many years elapsed before a Paper was
VOL. IV. B
2 ENU M ERATION OF
produced whose merits afforded any very just title
to the claim of rivalship. In the interim, it pro-
perly becomes a part of our province not wholly
to overlook the crowd of publications which,
under the appellation of periodical, issued in
succession from the press. An attention to these
various works, and they are infinitely more nu-
merous than has been generally supposed, will,
if duly proportioned to their moral and literary
rank, not only be singularly curious, as affording
a novel view of the progress of polite literature,
but will, at the same time, prove the best intro-
duction to the classical labours of the Rambler.
The popularity which attended the periodical
productions of Steele and Addison, and the admi-
ration which they had excited throughout the
kingdom, speedily established a decided taste for
a species of composition alike adapted to grave or
gay subjects, to the purposes of instruction and
amusement; and fortunate would it have been
for the interests of general literature, had the
swarm of imitators strictly confined themselves to
the plan of the Spectator, to a laudable attempt
at reforming the morals and the manners of the
age. The facility, however, with which this mode
of writing might be rendered a vehicle for slan-

*† — ...------~~
der, for rancorous politics and virulent satire,
*…* Tº -----~~~~.
soon tempted many to devià
tº
*** ---, ...~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"
*~…, ... --~~~~...~~~~--**
*****~~~~~~~~~...~…a...e...s.…”
PERIO DICAL PAIPERS, 3
example of the authors of the Tatler and Speeta- -
tor; and the former of these papers had not run
half its course before it was assailed by a multi-
tude of writers, who were actuated by no other
motives than those of envy and ill-nature. Of a
few of these antagonists, Addison has conde-
scended to take some notice in the Tatler, N°
229, and has probably preserved the names of
several productions which had otherwise been
unknown to posterity. “I was threatened,” he
observes, “to be answered weekly tit for tat; I
was undermined by the Whisperer; haunted by
Tom Brown's Ghost; scolded at by a Female
Tatler.—I have been annotated, re-tattled, eram-
ined, and condoled.”
In the catalogue of periodical works which I
am about to place before the reader, I shall, as a
matter of mere curiosity, enumerate, as far as my
researches have enabled me to proceed, every
Paper, literary or political, which, in its form or
mode of publication, has adopted the plan of the
Spectator and Freeholder. As the principal in-
tention, however, of these pages is to mark the
progress of elegant literature, and of moral
improvement, and to ascertain how far the peri-
odical Essayists have contributed towards their
promotion, I shall dwell on those productions
alone which have been written, not only in the
4. FNU M ERATION OF
form, but with a portion of the spirit and purport,
of their great originals, the Tatler, Spectator,
and Guardian. -
Of the various papers that appeared during
the publication of these standard works, and
which adopted their structure, I shall commence
with those that seem to have arisen from an eager
desire to calumniate, or to share the profits of, the
Tatler; and the authors of which, as Addison re-
marks, every day turned a penny by nibbling at
the lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff.” Foremost
of the train are, 1. The RE-TATLER, and 2.
The CoN Do LER, of whose existence, however,
no other proof now remains than what is to be
found in the pages of Addison.f 3. The TIT
For TAT, the first number of which appeared
on March 2d, 1709-10, was published under
the assumed Name of John Partridge, Esq. who “"
by a glaring misnomer has termed his papers
Dilucidations; they are a compound of nonsense
and obscurity, but happily reach no further than
No. 5, which is dated March 11th, 1709.
4. THE FEMALE TATLER. This work was
written by Mr. Thomas Baker, and commenced
its circulation in 1709. It extended to many
numbers, most of which are now no longer extant.
Its gross personalities obtained its author a sound
& Tatler, No. 229. t See Tatler, No. 229, Note, Edit. 1739.
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 5
*
cudgelling from an offended family in the city;
and in the month of October, 1709, it was pre-
sented as a nuisance by the grand jury at the Old
Bailey. Mr. Baker, whose general style of
writing was ironical, took every opportunity of
recording the singularities of Steele, whether per-
sonal or moral. In number 72, for instance, he
has ridiculed Sir Richard's absence of mind and
peculiarity of attitude in walking the streets. “I
saw Mr. Bickerstaff going to the corner of St.
James's in the beginning of December. It was a
great fog, yet the 'squire wore his hat under his left
arm, and, as if that side had been lame, all the
stress of his gait was laid upon the other; he
stooped very much forward; and whenever his
right foot came to the ground, which was always
set down with a more than ordinary and affected
force, his cane, with a great vibration of the arm
struck the stones, whilst a violent jerk of his head
kept time with the latter. I observed several be-
sides myself that took notice of this strange singu-
larity, which nobody could imagine to proceed from
less than either madness or despair. It is not to
be conceived how any wise man alive, that had
been such an implacable enemy to all singularities
and mimic postures, and writ so learnedly con-
cerning the use of the cane, could make such a
ridiculous figure of himself in the street, at the
6 EN U M ERATION OF
very moment that his Os homini sublime, &c. was
a-printing.” The allusion in the last line of this
quotation is to the motto of the Tatler, N° 108.
Steele is supposed to have ridiculed Mr. Baker
under the character of Nick Doubt, in N° 91
of the Tatler.
5. THE To R Y TATLER. Of this paper, which
seems from its title to have been written in oppo-
sition to the political principles of Steele, I have
been able to obtain no other information than
that it was worthless and short-lived.
6. The TELL Tale is another ephemeral
production, of whose existence scarcely a trace
remains. It is noticed, however, by Gay in his
Essay on the Present State of Wit, and is there
said to have been christened the Tell Tale in
order to please the ladies. -
7. THE GAZETTE A-LA-MoDE. The first
number of this paper was published on Thursday
May 12th, 1709. It appears to have soon de-
servedly dropped into oblivion.
8. THE TATLING HARLoT. Of this foolish
paper three numbers are extant in the British
Museum, the first of which is dated August 22d,
1709.
9. THE WHIs PERER. Though this work
(to which Addison has given the epithet under-
mining) is said to have been written by Mrs.
T'ERIODICAL PAPERS, 7
Jenny Bickerstaff, half-sister to Isaac Bickerstaff,
Esq. no proof of the relationship is visible in the
construction of her style and sentiments. “It is
clear,” says the annotator on N° 229 of the Tat-
ler, “ she was not related even in a left-handed
way to the family of the Staffs. Her undermi-
ning was like the work of a mole on the site of
Alnwick Castle, which measures a mile round the
walls.” $’ . . .
10. THE GENERAL Postsch IPT. A peri-
odical paper under this title was published in
1709. N° 19, dated November 9th, 1709, is
quoted by the annotator on N° 91 of the Tatler.
It is probable that Mr. Baker, the author of the
Female Tatler, contributed to its support, as an
advertisement by him is subjoined to N° 19.
11. THE Mon THLY AM Us EMENT. Twope-
riodical publications under this title made their
appearance about the commencement of the
eighteenth century. The first was projected by
Mr. Ozell; but, being principally occupied by
translations from French novels or plays, it can-
not with propriety have a place in this enumera-
tion; the second, by Hughes, was, more assimi-
lated to the form as originally established by
Steele, and began its career in November, 1709.
12. THE TATLER, vol. THE FIFTH. This
spurious Tatler, of which I have given some
8 EN U M ERATION OF
account in vol. 3d, p. 366, of my Essays, was
conducted by Harrison and Swift, with the occa-
sional assistance of Henley and Congreve. It
consists of 52 numbers, the first published on the
13th of January, 1710-11, and the last on the
19th of May, 1711.
It is chiefly valuable for the light occasionally
thrown on the history of the genuine Tatler. In
N° 28, Swift has described Steele under the
appellation of Hilario. -
13. THE TATLER, BY BAKER. No sooner
had Steele given up the censorship, than a num-
ber of spurious Tatlers immediately issued from
the press. Besides Harrison's, which we have
just mentioned, the following advertisement indi-
cates that two more were at that period in exist-
ence, and that one of them was conducted by
Mr. Baker, who had been under the necessity of
relinquishing his former attempt through the inter-
ference of the law.” “Whereas an advertisement
was yesterday delivered out by the author of the
late Female Tatler, insinuating, according to his
custom, that he is Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq. This is
to give notice, that this paper is continued to be
sold by John Morphew as formerly, and may
easily be distinguished from the spurious paper
by the number and publisher's name he has
3. * The Female Tatler.
PERIO DICAL PA PERS. 9
assumed.” This curious notice is subjoined to a
Tatler in folio, pretending to be a continuation of
the original Tatler, dated January 13th, 1710, and
numbered 276.
14. AN NoTATIONs on TII E TAT I, ER. This
publication, to which Addison alludes in N° 229
of the Tatler, was written by William Oldisworth,
under the fictitious name of Walter Wagstaff,
Esq. and was published in 1710, in 2 vols. 24to.
The author, however, to shield himself as much
as possible from the chastisement which he justly
merited, asserted in his title-page that the work was
a translation from the French of a Monsieur Bour-
nelle. On this virulent but foolish production,
Steele is supposed to have passed sentence in the
concluding paragraph of N°. 79 of the Tatler.
15. THE VISIONS OF SIR HEISTER RYLEy.
Though these Visions are a professed imitation of
the Tatler in point of form, every paper being
separated into two or three parts, and these again
dated from different places, with regard to man-
ner and style they are placed at an infinite dis-
tance from their model. They consist of eighty
numbers,” the first of which was published on
* Printed in small 4to; and, as the title-page expresses
Vol. 1, we may presume that a continuation was intended;
but, probably, the want of sale gave a broad hint to the
Editor, which he had just wit enough to take.
10 EN U M ERATION OF
August 21st, 1710, and the last on February 21st,
1710-11. So worthless, however, is the entire
texture of this compilation, that I know not
whether a single page can be deemed worthy of
preservation. -
16. THE GRow LER. The only information
that I have been able to obtain relative to this
paper is from Gay's Essay on the Present State of
Wit. Speaking of the multitude of Papers to
which the Tatler had given birth, he remarks,
that “the expiration of Bickerstaff's Lucubra-
tions was attended with much the same conse-
quences as the death of Melibaeus's ox, in Virgil ;
as the latter engendered swarms of bees, the for-
mer immediately produced whole swarms of little
satirical scribblers. One of these authors called
himself the Growler, and assured us, that, to make
amends for Mr. Steele's silence, he was resolved
to growl at us weekly as long as we should think
fit to give him any encouragement.”
17. THE ExA MIN ER. The political lucubra-
tions of Steele in the Tatler, though neither nume-
rous, nor written with much asperity, gave such
offence to the Tories, who were then rising into
power, that they thought it necessary to establish a
periodical paper under the title of the Examiner,
as a defence of their principles and views. The
authors of this once celebrated Paper were, for
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 11
the most part, persons of considerable ability;
but the virulence and rancour with which they
attacked Steele and calumniated their opponents,
reflect no small share of disgrace upon their
memory. The early numbers of the Examiner
were published under the superintendence of Dr.
William King, who was the author of the fifth,
eleventh, and twelfth papers. He was assisted by
Bolingbroke, by Prior, who contributed N° 6,
by Dr. Atterbury, and Dr. Friend. Dr. King
was soon Superseded, however, by Swift, who,
commencing with N° 14, wrote thirty-three
Essays in succession, and then relinquished the
task to Mrs. Manley, who concluded the first
volume, in point of literary merit the best portion
of the work. The management of this scurrilous
undertaking was then entrusted to Mr. Oldis-
worth, who completed the fifth volume, pub-
lished nineteen numbers of a sixth, and would
probably have printed many more had not the
death of the Queen arrested the progress of his
pen. The Examiner existed during the four last
years of Queen Anne, the first number being
dated August 3d, 1710, and the last July 26th,
1714. It had the merit of giving origin to the
Whig-Examiner of Addison, to the Reader of
Steele, and to, < .
18. The MEDLEY. This paper, which was
12 EN U M ERATION OF
not strictly confined to politics, immediately
succeeded the Whig-Examiner, and carried on,
with considerable spirit, the attack upon Swift
and his party. It began on the 5th of October,
1710, under the auspices of Mr. Maynwaring, a
gentleman of great accomplishments and ability,
and of whom, as intimately connected with Steele,
I shall give a short biographical sketch. He was
born at Ightfield in Shropshire, in 1668; and, after
the usual grammatical education, was sent, at the
age of seventeen, to Christ Church, Oxford. Hav-
ing employed a residence of several years at this
university, in the ardent cultivation of classical
literature, he retired, for a short time, into the
country; but, adopting the profession of the law,
he found it necessary to fix in the metropolis.
Here he prosecuted his studies until the conclu-
sion of the peace of Ryswic; when, availing
himself of that event, he visited Paris, and
became intimately acquainted with the celebrated
Boileau. Upon his return to England, he was
made a commissioner of the customs; and, on the
accession of Queen Anne, through the interest
of the lord-treasurer Godolphin, auditor of the
imprests, a place of great pecuniary emolument.
In 1705 he was chosen a member of parlia-
ment for Preston in Lancashire. He died at St.
Alban's, November 13th, 1712, aged 44. Mr.
PERIO DICAL PAPERS, 13
Maynwaring was greatly attached to Mrs. Oldfield,
whose theatrical abilities at that time excited the
admiration of the lovers of the drama; and by her
he left an only son. Oldmixon, who published in
1715, in 8vo, the life and posthumous works of our
author, affirms, that he “loved that lady for about
eight or nine years before his death, and with a
passion that could hardly have been stronger had
it been both her and his first love.” For Mrs.
Oldfield he wrote many prologues and epilogues,
and took infinite pains and delight in improving
her talents for the stage. The elegance of his
manners and taste, and his proficiency in the belle
lettres, attracted many friends and admirers, and
among these were Addison and Steele, the latter
of whom dedicated to him the first volume of the
Tatler. He was universally allowed, says the
Biographia Britannica, to be the best critic of his
times; and Mr. Egerton, in his Memoirs of Mrs.
Oldfield, has declared, that his learning was with-
out pedantry, his wit without affectation, his
judgment without malice, his friendship without
interest, his zeal without violence; in a word, he
was the best subject, the best friend, the best re-
lation, the best master, the best critic, and the
best political writer in Great Britain. Though
this be doubtless exaggerated praise, Mr. Mayn-
waring is entitled to most respectable distinction
14 ENU MERATION OF
for his good sense and moderation in politics, at a
time when faction and party zeal ran with so
headstrong a current. His Medleys are gene-
rally written with much strength of argument,
and freedom from abuse. They were continued,
with occasional assistance, until August 6th, 1711,
extending to forty-five numbers, one of which was
contributed by Steele, and another by Anthony
Henley; and several were the composition of Mr.
Oldmixon. After an interval of some months,
they were resumed, and a new Medley appeared
on the 3d of March, 1712, which, having likewise
reached to forty-five numbers, finally expired on
August 4th, 1712. - A selection from the
first Medley was published in 1789, by Mr.
Nichols, together with the Lover, and Reader,
of Steele. w
19. THE OBSERVATo R. Though this poli-
tical paper commenced many years anterior to
the Tatler, it continued to exist until 1712; when
an act of parliament, annexing a stamp of a half-
penny to every half-sheet, effected its ruin. It
was a weekly Essay, originally published by John
Tutchin, who, for his participation in the rebel-
lion of Monmouth, and for a defence of that
chieftain, which he subsequently printed, was
sentenced by Jefferies to be whipped through
several towns in the west. The sentence was
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 15
carried into execution with so much severity,
that the unfortunate man absolutely petitioned
James II. to be hanged. Dying in September,
1707, his paper was continued by other hands,
but never merited or acquired much celebrity.
Gay, in May, 1711, thus notices it, “The Obser-
vator, since our party struggles have run so high,
is much mended for the better; which is imputed
to the charitable assistance of some outlying
friends.” And Swift, in his journal to Stella, dated
August 7th, 1712, has exultingly recorded its ex-
tinction. “Do you know that Grub-street is dead
and gone last week No more ghosts or murders
now for love or money. I plied it pretty close
the last fortnight, and published at least seven
papers of my own, besides some of other peo-
ple's; but now every single half-sheet pays a
half-penny to the Queen. The Observator is
fallen.” -
20. THE RAMBLER. It is probable, from cir-
cumstances which we shall afterwards have occa-
sion to mention, that Dr. Johnson was ignorant
of this anticipation of title. The first Rambler
appeared in 1712, but only one number has
escaped the ravages of time; this is in the British
Museum, and does not appear, observes the anno-
tator on the Tatler, inferior to any of the earlier
16 FNU M ERATION OF
imitations of the Tatler, &c. in respect of wit,
humour, or literary composition.” To what extent
this paper was carried is unknown.
21. THE LAY Mon Astery. Sir Richard
Blackmore, the chief author of this production,
and a most indefatigable writer, was the son of an
Attorney in the county of Wiltshire, and, after
the usual routine of education, was in 1668
entered at Edmund Hall, Oxford. He took his
degree of M.A. in this university, in 1676,
where he resided thirteen years; at the expiration
of which period, it is probable, that for a short
time he assumed the employment of a school-
master. He soon, however, relinquished this
occupation for the study of physic,f and visiting
the continent, graduated at Padua. After a tour
of eighteen months, he returned to his native
* Tatler of 1797, 8vo, vol. 4, p. 262, 263.
t The following severe lines, alluding to Sir Richard's
two professional employmeuts, are, in Cibber's Lives of the
Poets, ascribed to Dr. James Drake, the author of the An-
thropologia Nova. *
By nature form’d, by want a pedant made,
Blackmore at first set up the whipping trade:
Next quack commenc'd ; then fierce with pride he swore,
That tooth-ach, gout, and corns, should be no more.
In vain his drugs, as well as birch he tried,
His boys grew blockheads, and his patients died.
PERIO DICAL PAPERS, 17
country, and, commencing practice in London,
was created a Fellow of the College of Physicians
in 1687. Having acquired considerable celebrity
in his profession, he had the honour, in 1697, of
being appointed physician in ordinary to King
William ; this was speedily followed by the rank
of Knighthood; and when Queen Anne ascended
the throne, he was also nominated one of her
physicians, and continued to officiate as such for
several years. He died in October, 1729, after a
long life of industry, piety, and unblemished mo-
rality. - r - -
The numerous compositions of Sir Richard
Blackmore, may be arranged under the heads of
medical, poetical, theological, and miscellaneous.
They are now, in a great measure, and perhaps
not undeservedly, neglected; though, as they
were uniformly written in support of virtue and
moral order, and occasionally display passages of
some literary merit, they were by no means proper
subjects for the ridicule and abuse with which
they were indiscriminately overwhelmed. He ac-
quired, however, no inconsiderable share of fame
by his first epic production, entitled Prince Arthur,
a poem which passed through three editions in
two years, could boast of Locke and Molyneux
among the number of its admirers, and which
strongly excited the attention of the critics.
VO L., IV. - C -
i8 ENU MERATION OF
Unhappily, the encouragement of the public giveſ;
to this first effort, stimulated Sir Richard to fur-
ther exertions, and by the year 1723, he had
produced three more bulky epics, King Arthur,
Eliza, and Alfred; the four poems including no
less than forty-four books. With the mediocrity
and perseverance of our author, the world,
however, soon grew satiated, and his heroes were
scarcely ushered into life, before they began to
exhibit symptoms of dissolution. Yet, notwith-
standing the length of these poetical flights, Sir
Richard found time for a vast variety of other
excursions into the regions of Parnassus; and
among these, for one on which his reputation, as
a disciple of the Muses, seems now solely to rest.
In 1712 appeared his Creation, a philosophical
poem in seven books, of which both the matter
and stile have been highly commended by Addi-
son and Johnson; the latter affirming, that “this
poem, if he had written nothing else, would have
transmitted him to posterity among the first fa-
vourites of the English muse.”" To this opinion
few will probably assent; and though the recom-
mendation of the Doctor has introduced this
work into the body of our English Poetry, we
may venture to predict that it will not long main-
tain its station. Splendid as the subject is, the
~. * , * Lives of the Poets. *
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 19
sentiments and imagery are trite, and the versifi-
cation insufferably tedious and languid.
Of the prose of Blackmore, his Essays and the
Lay Monastery are the best. This last production
was intended as a sequel to the Spectators, the
seventh volume of which was at that time suppo-
sed to have closed the undertaking. It was
originally published in single papers, under the
title of the Lay Monk, and the first number ap-
peared on November 16th, 1713. It was pre-
sented to the public thrice a week, on Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday; and, having reached
forty numbers, expired on February 15th, 1714.
It was re-published the same year in one volume,
and under its present title, and passed through a .
second edition, which now lies before me, in
1727. Sir Richard was assisted in this work by
Mr. Hughes, who wrote all the Friday's papers.
The Lay Monastery, though never popular,
contains some essays of no inconsiderable merit,
and, in imitation of the Spectator, has adopted a
dramatic plan, for the purpose of binding the
parts into a whole; an advantage of which, un-
fortunately, few periodical papers have since
availed themselves. That Blackmore very justly
appreciated the value of this resource, and had a
correct idea of the peculiar laws of periodical
composition, as exemplified in the Spectator, is
20 ENU MERATION OF
strikingly evident from the first paragraph of his
preface. “The world,” says he, “has been
obliged to an author of distinguished merit, now
living, for having been the inventor of a manner
of writing, no less entertaining than any which
had been established by the practice of the most
celebrated antients. The form into which the
best writer among the Romans generally chose to
cast his thoughts, was that of dialogue, or of con-
versations related, in which the persons intro-
duced were all philosophers, and the discourses
wholly serious; yet this he borrowed from Plato
and others of the Greeks whom he professed to
imitatc. But the introducing a set of persons of
different humours and characters, acting on some
imaginary occasion which might draw out a vari-
ety of incidents and discourses, and in which
every paper should be an entire piece, at the same
time that it is a part of the whole, is the inven-
tion of the writer already mentioned, who seems
at once to have introduced it, and carried it to
perfection.”
In conformity with the approbation expressed
in this passage, Sir Richard has formed a club
consisting of six characters, who, retiring to a
house in the country, assemble twice a week for
the purpose of reading and discussing the merits
of various essays, of their own composition, on
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 21.
literature and manners. This select fraternity
consists of a Mr. Johnson, a gentleman of great
genius, erudition, and accomplishments; of Dr.
Lacon, a physician; of Sir Eustace Locker, whose
favourite studies are metaphysics and theology;
of Sir Arthur Wimbleton, a widower, a man of
uncommon beneficence and humanity; of Ned
Freeman, a compound of gallantry, good humour,
and classical elegance; and of Mr. Ravenscroft,
the secretary, the history of whose eventful life is
given in the third number.
Of these personages, five owe their existence
to Sir Richard Blackmore ; and the sixth, the
portrait of Ned Freeman, is the conception of
Mr. Hughes. They are supported with consist-
ency and spirit; and it was the opinion of Hughes,
that, had not Sir Richard been unexpectedly di-
verted from the prosecution of the plan, the work
would have gained its share of popularity, and
might have been continued with credit and ad-
vantage to its authors. The style is, in several
of the papers, elegant and correct, and the sub-
ject-matter occasionally interesting. Two Essays,
N° 31 and 32, contain an ingenious parallel be-
tween poetry and painting; they are, being
Monday and Wednesday papers, the composition
of Sir Richard; and, as specimens of his diction
22 ENU MERATION OF
}
and manner, I shall select, from the first of them
a couple of passages.
“With what wonderful success has nature
painted all the scenes of this wide theatre, the
world! How masterly are her designs, how strong
and bold her draughts, how delicate her touches,
and how rich and beautiful is her colouring! It
is with inimitable skill that she manages and
proportions her lights and shades, and mixes and
works in her colours; the gardens smile with her
fruits of different dye, and the verdure of the
fields is beautifully varied by different flowers.
What pencil can express the glowing blushes of
the rose, the glossy white of the lily, or the rich
crimson of the amaranth 2 What master can
delineate the changeable colours in the neck of
the dove, and in the tail of the peacock, arising
from the rays of light glancing and playing among
their feathers?” * .
“As the epic and tragic poets by the warm
ideas they convey, touch all the springs and
movements of our minds, and take possession of
our hearts, by propagating their own passions,
and transmitting their very souls into our bosoms;
so the masters of the great manner in painting
history, who express in their pieces great design,
generous sentiments, and the dignity of the
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 23
sublime style, animate their canvas with the most
lively and active passions. All the emotions of
the heart appear in the faces of their figures with
the utmost spirit and vivacity: the whole soul is
collected and exerted in the eyes, which sometimes
flash with fury, and sometimes are transported with
joy, or uplifted with admiration; in one piece
they are filled with horror and consternation, and
at another they melt with tender affection.
“What poetical design and description, what
an epic imagination does lèaphael show in his
celebrated piece of Constantine and Marentius /
And what masterly and admirable painting does
Virgil express, when he describes the battle of
the Latins and the Trojans.” - -r
22. The Mercator, or CoMMERCE RE-
TRIEVE D. So general had become the taste for
periodical composition, that even subjects of a
commercial as well as a political nature, were
conceived capable of being published to advan-
tage in this form. Mercator appeared in 1713,
and was soon followed by . . . . .
23. THE BRITIs H MERCHANT, or Com-
MERCE PRESERVED. Both these papers are
noticed in the following advertisement at the close
of N* 129 of the Guardian, dated August 8th,
1713. “This day is published, The British Mer-
chant, or Commerce Preserved, N° 1, to be
24 FNU MERATION OF
published every Tuesday and Friday, in answer to
the Mercator, or Commerce Retrieved.” It’
cannot be supposed, that productions of this kind
would long survive the occasion which gave them
birth; and it is probable, that Mercator and The
British Merchant can now only be said to have
once existed.
24. THE RHApsody.
25. THE HIs To RIAN. Of these papers, over
which time seems to have thrown nearly an im-
penetrable veil, I know nothing more than that
it is with some probability we assign their pub-
lication to the period under discussion; their titles
lead in some degree to a general conception of
their contents. - . :
26. THE HIGH GERMAN Doctor. This
tissue of nonsense and political abuse was the pro-
duction of one Philip Horneck, who is very de-
servedly stigmatized in the Dunciad of Pope. It
consists of one hundred numbers, which were pub-
lished twice a week; the first being dated May
4th, 1714, and the last May 12th, 1715. They
were collected in 2 vols. 12mo, of which the first
was published in 1715, and the second in 1719.
After much loss of time in perusing this mass of
ribaldry and inanity, I can safely declare that
there is not a single paragraph in the work which
merits preservation. . . * *
PERIODICAL PAPERs. 25
It should not be forgotten, that during a great
part of the five years which this sketch embraces,
three periodical papers, which were noticed in
our first Essay illustrative of the Tatler, &c. con-
tinued to meet the public eye; the Rehearsal of
Leslie, the British Apollo, and the Review of De
Foe; the first expired in 1711, the second in the
same year, and the third in 1713.
Such and so numerous were the periodical
compositions that attempted to imitate and to rival
the essays of Steele and Addison, whilst the town
was yet daily receiving their elegant contribu-
tions. That they completely failed in their de-
sign, is evident from the circumstance, that not
one of them, with the exception of the Lay
Monastery, can be read with any degree of inter-
est or pleasure; and even this small volume is
so neglected and obscure, that it is now procured
with much difficulty. . -
It was a step, indeed, fatal to the reputation
and longevity of the greater number of the au-
thors of these productions, that, when they found
themselves incompetent to contend with their
prototypes in wit, humour, or literature, they
endeavoured to attract attention by depreciating
and abusing what they could not imitate, and by
Presenting a copy which retained all the defects
26 ENUMERATION or
in caricature, and scarcely any of the beauties of
the original. s
Of this charge we have sufficient proof from an
appeal to their contemporaries; one of whom, in
an Essay on the Present State of Wit, written in
1711, has remarked, that “they seemed at first
to think that what was only the garnish of the
former Tatlers, was that which recommended
them, and not those substantial entertainments
which they every where abound in.
“Accordingly, they were continually talking
of their maid, night-cap, spectacles, and Charles
Lillie. However, there were, now and then, some
faint endeavours at humour, and sparks of wit,
which the town, for want of better entertainment,
was content to hunt after, through a heap of im-
pertinencies: but even those are at present be-
come wholly invisible, and quite swallowed up in
the blaze of the Spectator.— .
“They found, the new Spectator come on like
a torrent, and sweep away all before him; they
despaired ever to equal him ;—and, therefore,
rather chose to fall on the author, and to call out
for help to all good christians, by assuring them
again and again, that they were the first original,
true, and undisputed Isaac Bickerstaff.” -
, To imitate the Tatler in its exterior, in its form
* Swift's works by Nichols, 8vo ed. vol.18, p. 40 and 41.
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 27.
and subdivisions, as it originally commenced, was
a task which might be executed by the most infe-
rior writers; and consequently, Tatlers, addressed
rather to the eye than to the understanding, inun-
dated the press; to catch, however, the spirit
which so abundantly animated the greater, and
especially the latter, portion of this work, was an
achievement beyond their strength, and, of course,
the public soon justly consigned such imitators to
oblivion. ,
28. EN U M ERATION OF
P A R T [.
-sº-
ESSAY II.
O BS E R V ATIONS O N T H E PER IO DICAL PA PERS
W H ICH W E R E W R ITT EN BET W E E N THE
CLOSE OF THIE EIGHT HI VO I, U M E O F, T H E
SPECT ATO R, AND THE COMMEN C E M ENT
OF THE RAM B L E R ; W IT II SOME GENERAL
R EMA RKS ON THEIR TENDENCY AND
COMPLECTION.
T F so arduous proved the attempt to transplant
the graces of the Tatler, the difficulty appeared
tenfold enhanced when the Spectator became the
object of rivalry; and though its imitators have
been infinitely more numerous and respectable
than were those of the Tatler, it may justly be
said, that, if a few have made a near approach to
its merits and construction, not one has altogether
equalled its great and varied excellence.
From the close of the eighth volume of the
Spectator on December 20th, 1714, to the appear-
ance of the Rambler in 1750, we possess a long
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 29
and unbroken catalogue of periodical papers. Of
these some are respectable, and written on topics
embracing general literature and manners; seve-
ral are political, and many trifling and jejune.
The first, in order of time, was an attempt to con-
tinue the Spectator, both in title and form; it
was therefore termed
1. SPECTA to It, volu ME NIN TH AND LAST.
This work, which we formerly had occasion to
mention and condemn, was published twice a
week, commencing on January 3d, 1715, and ter-
minating with the sixty-first number on August
3d of the same year. It was conducted by a Mr.
William Bond, whose signature is affixed to a
dedication to the Viscountess Falconberg; in
which, whilst acknowledging the contributions of
his friends, he remarks, “two excellent ones
(essays) were presented me by a friend, celebrated
for his vast genius, and who furnished ( I won't
say the former Spectators, but) the Tatlers with a
better fame than they would, perhaps, have ob-
tained, if he had not lent his hand, and scattered
life and lustre through these loose pages.—I
fear that these may be the only witty pieces in the
whole set.” I apprehend that this boast, which
appears intended to insinuate that Dr. Swift had
afforded his assistance, must be considered as a
mere tow et praeterea nihil; for, after a thorough
50 ENU MERATION OF
investigation, I have been utterly disappointed in
discovering a single paper in the smallest degree
entitled to the appellation of witty. Bond wrote
a poem in ridicule of Mr. Pope, and was rewarded,
for his temerity, with a niche in the Dunciad.
2. THE CEN sort. To the laborious Mr. Lewis'
Theobald are we to ascribe the pages of the Cen-
sor. This gentleman was born at Sittingbourn in
Kent, and, having received a grammatical educa-
tion at Isleworth in Middlesex, applied himself to
his father's profession, which was that of the Law.
This, however, he soon relinquished to become a
poet, an essayist, and an editor; in the first of
these departments he early published a pamphlet
called the Cave of Poverty, and which Bond, in
Nos. 23 and 25 of his Spectator, has loaded with
ridiculous and hyperbolical praise. -
To this succeeded, in the same year, the first
volume of the Censor, the numbers of which
originally appeared in Mist's Weekly Journal, a
mode of publication to which Pope alludes in the
following lines from the quarto edition of the
Dunciad in 1728.
But what can I? my Flaccus cast aside,
Take up the Attorney’s (once my better) guide?
Or rob the Roman geese of all their glories,
And save the state by cackling to the Tories 2
Yes, to my Country I my pen consign,
Yes, from this moment, mighty Mist! am thine.
PERIodic AL PAPERs. 31
After some abortive efforts in dramatic poetry,
one of which, The Double Falsehood, he endea-
voured to impose upon'the public as a production
of Shakspeare, our author fortunately directed
his talents into their proper channel, and by be-
coming the editor of our great dramatic poet,
conferred an obligation of some weight upon the
numerous admirers of the illustrious bard. It
was in the year 1726 that he first entered upon
the subject, by publishing a pamphlet entitled
“Shakspeare Restored,” in which his vanity led
him to affirm “that what care might for the fu-
ture be taken either by Mr. Pope, or any other
assistants, he would give above five hundred
emendations that would escape them all;” an
assertion that gave just offence to Mr. Pope, and
which occasioned the immediate elevation of Mr.
Theobald to the honours of the Hero of the Dun-
ciad; a station, however, from which he was soon
after hurled, to make way for the enthronement
of Cibber. -
The year 1733 ushered in our author's
Shakspeare in eight volumes; a work which, not-
withstanding the abuse of Pope and Warburton,
merited and acquired much reputation: it is
indeed, superior to any preceding attempt of the
kind, and has laid a firm foundation, by pointing
out the proper path of illustration, for the valuable
32 ENUMERATION or
commentaries of Johnson and of Steevens. Theo-
bald survived this, his best, undertaking nine
years, closing in 1742 a life of poverty and
literary labour.
The first number of the Censor appeared in
Mist's Journal on April 11th, 1715; and it was
continued thrice a week, without intermission, un-
til thirty numbers had been published; they were
then collected into a volume, in the preface to
which Theobald has remarked, that his papers
“followed too close upon the heels of the inimi-
table Spectator, whose excellent vein of good
sense, spirit, wit, and humour, made that PAPER
the entertainment of all the gay, polite, and vir-
tuous part of mankind. It was a hard task,” he
proceeds, “to come after such a writer, and avoid
striking into the paths he had trod; and still a
harder, to invent new subjects, and work upon
them with any degree of the same genius and deli-
cacy. This the publishers of the Censor knew so
well, that they were obliged to give a new turn
both of character and dress to their performances.
“Another disadvantage was, the vast multi-
tude of papers that pretended to give an equal
diversion to the town; which, though they died
soon, and left no memory behind them, yet found
readers heavy enough to sympathize with their
dullness. That period of time may be well called
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 33
the age of counsellors, when every blockhead who
could write his own name attempted to inform
and amuse the public.” After an interval of
about a year and a half the Censor was resumed
thrice a week on January 1st, 1717, and closed,
after completing the ninety-sixth number, on June
1st, 1717; when the whole was thrown into three
volumes.
Theobald discovered much want of judgment in
attributing to his assumed character of Censor
talents of the highest order, his very first para-
graph informing us that he was lineally descended
from Benjamin Johnson of surly memory, whose
name, as well as a considerable portion of his spirit,
he was heir to. Such a declaration excited
expectations which were certainly by no means
gratified ; for though the work be not des-
titute of merit, it is far from supporting any
claim to the pedigree which he chose to adopt.
The rough and unsparing invective, too, which
pervades many of its parts, procured him seve-
ral bitter enemies, and among these was the
critic Dennis, who, being represented in N° 33,
under the name of Furius, as “an object rather
of pity, than that which he daily provokes, laugh-
ter and contempt,” retorted in terms to which
the language of Theobald is mildness itself;
“there is,” says he, in his Remarks on Pope's
WOL. I.W. D
34 ‘ENU MERATION OF ...
Homer, “a notorious idiot, one hight Whacum;
who, from an under-spur-leather to the law, is
become an understrapper to the play-house, who
has lately burlesqued the Metamorphoses of Ovid,
by a vile translation, &c. The fellow is con-
cerned in an impertinent paper called the
Censor.” :
To the style in which the Censor is composed
no praise is due ; it is too often bald, vulgar, and
ungrammatical; there are, however, a few papers.
which are worthy of being rescued from oblivion;
and among these I would particularly distinguish
N° 60 on the Prometheus of Æschylus, N° 83 on,
Hope, and N° 84 on Sleep.
It is some, though not an unequivocal proof of
merit, that, of the numerous periodical papers.
which were published during the era under con-
sideration, when Theobald produced his essays,
the Censor may still be procured by research ;
the rest, whose mere names I have only to pro-
duce, no enquiry on my part has yet been able to
detect; they are now, as the Editor of the Tatler
remarks, seen but seldom, and seldomer read...
The following list, if not complete, is sufficiently
extensive to shew how very general this mode of.
publication had become, even in the first few
years after the close of the Spectator. -
3. THE MISCELLANY.

TERIODICAL PAPERS. 35
4. THE HERMIT.
5. THE SURPRIz E.
6. Th E SILENT Mon ITo R.
7. THE IN QUISITOR.
8. THE PILGRIM.
9. THE REST or E.R.
10. The Instructor.
11. THE GRUMBLER. This, which was a
weekly paper, was probably the production of
Ducket, and is alluded to in the following lines of
the quarto edition of the Dunciad, 1728; -
Behold yon pair in strict embraces join’d ;
How like in manners, and how like in mind
Fam'd for good nature Burnet and for truth,
Ducket for pious passion to the youth:
Equal in wit, and equally polite,
Shall this a Pasquin, that a Grumbler write. *
From this barren catalogue, we now turn to a
paper of a superior kind, and which, though not
included, as a whole, in the number of our
classical productions, yet possesses several essays
which would confer honour on any work; it was
conducted by Ambrose Phillips, and entitled,
12. THE FREETHINKER. Phillips, of whose
* The author of these sketches would be happy to re-
ceive any information relative to these almost forgotten
papers, through the medium of the Gentleman's, or any
ether respectable Magazine. - . . .
36 ... ENU MERATION OF
life we have already given a sketch, as a contri-
butor to the Spectator, was powerfully aided in
the prosecution of the Freethinker by some of
the most respectable characters in the kingdom;
by Boulter, Archbishop of Armagh; by Pearce,
Bishop of Rochester; and by the Right Hon.
Richard IWest, Lord Chancellor of Ireland. To
these may be added the Rev. George Stubbs, the
Rev. Gilbert Burnet, and the Rev. Henry
Steevens.
Of these contributors by far the most consider-
able was Mr. Stubbs, many of the best papers
in the collection being of his composition. He
was Rector of Granville in Dorsetshire, and pub-
lished, in the London Journal of 1724, and after-
wards separately in octavo, an interesting little
work under the title of “A new Adventure of
Telemachus,” intended as an illustration of the
principles of genuine liberty and free government.
He was the author also of “ A. Dialogue on
Beauty,” in imitation of the style and manner
of Socrates, and of a translation of Madame
Sevigne's Letters. He was gifted with taste and
genius, but secluded and reserved in his life, and
manners. - . . . -
The Freethinker began its career on Monday,
March 24th, 1718; was published twice a
week, and terminated with the one hundred and
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 37
fifty-ninth paper, on Monday, September 28th,
1719, forming three volumes duodecimo, the
second edition of which appeared in 1733.
The great object of these essays is, to correct
the prejudices and mistakes which exist in re-
ligion, general politics, and literature; and, con-
sequently, a large portion of the work is of a
serious and argumentative kind. The observa-
tions on knowledge and learning, which occupy
Nos. 85, 87, 89,91, 111, 113, 115, and 117, are
peculiarly worthy of attention. The essay in
N° 114, on the shortness and vanity of life, is
from the pen of Dr. Pearce, and is highly estima-
ble for its invention and morality.
To mitigate the severity, however, attendant
on such topics, and to superadd the charm of
variety, the authors of the Freethinker have
occasionally interspersed several pieces of wit,
humour, and imagination; nor are the interests,
the manners, and conduct of the fair sex, by any
means forgotten; indeed, the work is dedicated to
the ladies of Great Britain, and they will find in
its pages many pertinent and useful remarks.
Of the papers which are devoted to fiction, the
“Winter Evening Tales” in Nos. 80, 84, 92,
109, and 110, display a happy combination of
fancy and precept; and the story of Cha-Abbas,
King of Persia, in Nos. 128 and 129, is, in a high
38 ENUMERATION or
degree, pleasing, pathetic, and instructive. The
diction usually employed by the Freethinker is
easy and perspicuous; and I am persuaded that a
very interesting selection might be made from his
volumes. | -
13. THE PATR1c1AN. The first number of
this political paper was printed on March 21st,
1719; it was written as an answer to the Plebeian
of Sir Richard Steele, and was intended to have
been continued weekly. It reached, however,
but four numbers, and expired on April 11th,
1719. The first number was republished by Mr.
Nichols in 1790, in an octavo edition of the
Town Talk, &c. &c. of Steele. - r
14. THE MoDERATo R. In the volume just
mentioned, Mr. Nichols has given the only num-
ber of this work which was printed. . It was
meant to steer between the contending parties on
the celebrated Peerage Bill; it appeared on
April 4th, 1719, and went through a second
edition on November 28th of the same year.
15. THE MANUFacture R.
16. THE BRITISH MERCHANT. .
17. The Weaver. These three periodical
papers owe their origin to a dispute between the
dealers in the woollen and calico manufactures.
The first appeared on October 30th, 1719,
under the title of “The Manufacturer, or British
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 39
Trade truly stated;” wherein the case of the
weavers, and the wearing of calicoes, are con-
sidered; to be continued every Wednesday and
Friday. The second began to be published on
November 10th, 1719, in answer to the Manufac-
turer, and was printed every Tuesday; and the
third, which professed to consider the state of our
home-manufactures, followed on November 23d,
1719, and likewise issued from the press weekly.
The subject seemed strongly to have arrested the
public attention, and was at length noticed by the
patriotic pen of Sir Richard Steele, who, as we
have already recorded in his life, presented the
world with a paper in support of the woollen
trade, under the appellation of the Spinster.
The British Merchant was, it is probable, con-
tinued for nearly two years, as it appears to have
attained in 1721 to the bulk of three volumes
duodecimo. 3. - --
18. THE BRITISH HARLEQUIN. Of this
insignificant paper the first number was published
on January 5th or 6th, 1719-20; the second
came out on January 12th, wherein, says the
title-page, Masquerades are defended against the
Free-thinker, and Free-thinker Extraordinary, and
every other sour old fellow. It was printed
weekly for a short period, and then deservedly
dropped into oblivion. -
40 ENUMERATION or
19. THE INDEPENDENT WHIG. A politi-
cal paper conducted by Gordon and Trenchard,
of whom we shall shortly have occasion to speak,
in order to oppose the High-Church party. It
was continued by Gordon after Trenchard's
death, commenced on January 20th, 1719-20,
and terminated on January 4th, 1720-1, having
extended to fifty-three numbers. It has passed
through a second edition, and is written with a
considerable degree of spirit.
20. THE ANti-THEATRE. The purport
of this publication, which consists of fifteen
numbers, was, to invalidate the sentiments and
opinions of Sir Richard Steele, in his popular
paper entitled “The Theatre,’ written, as he ex-
presses it, for the preservation and improvement
of the English Theatre.” The first number, of
which all but one paragraph has perished, was
published on February 15th, 17 19-20, and the
last on April 4th, 1720. The author, who
assumes the name of Sir John Falstaffe, has con-
ducted the controversy, as he promised in his
introductory essay, with civility and good man-
ners; a mode of treatment which to Steele, who
had been grossly abused on this very subject by
the implacable Dennis, was a pleasing novelty.
In argument and composition, however, the
r * Theatre, No. 1.
PERIoDICAL PAPERs. 41
Anti-Theatres are much inferior to the work of
Steele. -
21. THE MUs es' Gazette. This produc-
tion, of which one principal object was the ridi-
cule of Steele and Cibber, made its first appear-
ance on March 12th, 1719-20, in Applebee's
Original Weekly Journal. N° 8, which has
been re-published by Mr. Nichols, is dated April
20th, 1720. It was in every respect a despicable
undertaking, and soon ceased to exist. --
22. CATo’s LETTERs. These Letters, or
Essays, on Liberty civil or religious, were pub-
lished periodically in the “London” and after-
wards in the “ British Journal,” and commenced
in November, 1720. They were continued very
successfully for nearly three years, and were then
collected into four volumes 12mo. They are the
effusions of John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon.
The former, who was born in 1669, had a liberal
education, and was intended for the practice of
the law; but being appointed, during the reign of
King William, a commissioner of the forfeited
estates in Ireland, and inheriting a good fortune
from his uncle, which he greatly increased by
marriage, he relinquished his profession, and
turned his attention to the study of politics. In
this department he early signalized himself by
two pamphlets against standing armies, printed
42 * ENU MERATION OF
in 1697 and 1698; and becoming acquainted with
Gordon, who had embarked in the Bangorian
controversy, he took him into his house as an
amanuensis, and shortly afterwards admitted him
as a coadjutor in the conduct and composition of
Cato's Letters. Mr. Trenchard was a man of
a vigorous mind, and strict integrity; he was a
zealous and patriotic Whig, and was, for many
years, a member of parliament for Taunton, in
Somersetshire. He died in 1723.
" . His friend, Mr. Gordon, was a native of Kir-
cudbright in Scotland, and, after an academical
education in his own country, fixed in London as
a teacher of the learned languages. The ſatious
politics of the age, however, diverted his atten-
tion, for a time, from classical pursuits, and he
enlisted under the banners of the Earl of Oxford.
Soon after this event, he gained the esteem and
patronage of Mr. Trenchard, by his two pam-
phlets in defence of Bishop Hoadley; and having
shewn his abilities as a polemic writer in Cato's
Letters, and the Independent Whig, Sir Robert
Walpole, on the death of Mr.Trenchard, appointed
him first commissioner of the wine-licences, and
engaged his pen in support of government. In
1739, Mr. Gordon published a translation of
Tacitus, and in 1743 a version of Sallust. They
are both literally faithful to their respective
PERIODICAL PAPERS. '43
originals, and are illustrated by discourses rela-
tive to each author, which display erudition; but
the style, owing to an injudicious attempt to copy
the conciseness of the Latin Historians, is pecu-
liarly harsh and inverted. They are now super-
seded by the more elegant versions of Murphy
and Steuart. Our author married, for his second
wife, the widow of Mr. Trenchard ; and by her
he had several children. He died July 28th,
1750, at the age of sixty-six. s
The best production of these writers was cer-
tainly the Letters of Cato, which, for the period
they were published in, are singularly impartial.
The language is clear and nervous, though some-
times coarse; and the principles of liberty are
supported with a bold and manly spirit, and with
no subserviency to faction or cabal. . . The fourth
edition of Cato's Letters was printed in 1737,
with a preface by Gordon.
23. TERRAE FILIUs. To Nicholas Amhurst
is to be ascribed this witty but intemperate work.
Mr. Amhurst was a native of Marden, in Kent,
and was educated at Merchant-Taylor's school in
London. From this seminary he was sent to St.
John's College, Oxford; where, owing to his
irregularity and misconduct, he gave great offence
to the head of the College, and was ultimately
expelled. His resentment on this occasion was
44. EN U M ERATION OF
singularly violent: he published several pieces,
in prose and verse, and among these the Terrae
Filius, reflecting strongly on the discipline of the
University, and on the characters of its members.
Our author's expulsion took place about the
year 1720, and, shortly after this event, he fixed
in London, where he supported himself by the
labours of his pen. He was a zealous Whig, and
an inveterate enemy to the clergy of high-church
principles; he entered with alacrity, therefore,
into a warfare against priestly power and tory
politics; his “Convocation,” a poem in five can-
tos, was written in defence of Bishop Hoadley;
and he conducted “The Craftsman,” with un-
common popularity and success, in opposition to
the measures of Sir Robert Walpole. He was,
nevertheless, cruelly neglected by his party,
when, in the year 1742, they were admitted into
power; an instance of ingratitude which so aſ-
fected his health and spirits, that he survived the
shock but a few months, and expired at Twick-
enham on April 27th, 1742, a martyr to his
dependence on the promises of the great. “Poor
Amhurst!” exclaims his friend Mr. Ralph, “after
having been the drudge of his party for the best
part of twenty years together, was as much for-
gotten in the famous compromise of 1742, as if
' he had never been born 1 and when he died of
PERIoDICAL PAPERs. 45
what is called a broken heart, which happened
within a few months afterwards, became indebted
to the charity of his very Bookseller for a grave;
not to be traced now, because then no otherwise to
be distinguished, than by the freshness of the turf,
borrowed from the next common to cover it.”
This worthy bookseller was Mr. Richard Frank-
lin, of Russel-street, Covent Garden, our author's
printer and publisher. Mr. Amhurst was a man
of powerful talents, but of strong passions; his
imprudencies were many, and his morals not.
correct; but nothing can justify the base desertion
of his employers, who ascended to power through
the medium of his exertions.
The Terra Filius is a sharp and too frequently
a virulent satire on the statutes, the manners,
and the politics of the University of Oxford:
many faults and glaring inconsistencies are pointed
out; but mixed with so much personal invective,
and gross scurrility, as to defeat the salutary
purposes which the author might have in view.
For the title which he has given to his paper he
thus accounts in his first number. “It has till of
late,” says he, “been a custom, from time imme-
morial, for one of our family, who was called
Terræ Filius, to mount the Rostrum at Oxford at . .
certain seasons, and divert an innumerable crowd
of spectators, who flocked thither to hear him
46 ENUMERATION or
from all parts, with a merry oration in the
Fescennine manner, interspersed with secret his-
tory, raillery, and sarcasm, as the occasions of
the times supplied him with matter. Something
like this jovial solemnity were the famous Satur-
nalian feasts among the Romans.” And in
his second essay he declares, that he shall not
confine himself to any particular method, “but
shall be grave or whimsical, serious or ludicrous,
prosaical or poetical, philosophical or satirical,
argue or tell stories, weep over his subject, or
laugh over it, be in humour or out of humour,
according to whatever passion is uppermost in his
breast.” It must be conceded, that the charac-
ter which he has chosen is not ill supported;
there is much wit and humour in the work, with
several curious anecdotes, and there is also a
plentiful portion of the coarseness and vulgarity of
the Saturnalia.” One great object of the work is,
to reprobate the attachment of the University
* Nos. 15 and 16 of Terra Filius contain a severe attack
upon Mr. Warton, then professor of poetry, and father of
the late Laureat, for preaching, as the author supposed, a
masqued sermon in favour of the exiled family; and Nos.
25 and 26 exhibit a very ludicrous description of a poetical
club and its laws, of which the poetical professor is consti-
tuted president. Mr. Warton was a worthy and amiable
man, and these papers display in a striking light the
virulence and exaggeration of Amhurst.
PERIODICAL PAPERs. 47.
to the Stuarts, and to prove that his own perse- •
cution and expulsion originated from his zeal
in support of the House of Hanover.
The Terrae Filius was published twice a week,
commencing on Wednesday, January 11th, 1721,
and concluding with the fiftieth number on
Saturday, July 6th, of the same year. A second
edition, now before me, appeared in 1726, in
two vols. 12mo, with a preface; a dedication to
Dr. Mather, President of Corpus Christi College,.
and Vice-Chancellor; and an Appendix, addressed.
to Dr. Newton, Principal of Hart-Hall, and occa-
sioned by his book entitled University Education.
24. Mist's Jour NAL, A SELEction FRom.
A, re-publication of Essays which had originally
been printed in a Newspaper with this title, and
which was undertaken to oppose the government,
of George I, and the claims of the protestant suc-,
cession. Some of these essays, which include
manners as well as politics, possess merit; they
form 2 vols. 12mo, and appeared in 1722. . 3.
25. PAsqui N. This paper, whose title is
taken from the celebrated statue in Rome (Pas-
quino,) to which the people are accustomed to affix,
lampoons and satires, was written in defence of,
government. It started in January, 1723, was
published twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays,
and, about six months after its commencement,
48 . ENUMERATIox of
entered into a controversy with the True Britorſ.
Its literary merit is not great; and, being confined
to temporary and political topics, it is now no
kinger remembered.
26. The TRU E BRIton. Of this publica-
tion, which was written in opposition to the
measures of Administration, and in defence of
Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, the profligate
Duke of Wharton was the author. It displays
abilities which might have been rendered service-
able to his country, but which debauchery, and
want of all principle, either stifled or directed into
a wrong channel. The True Briton was published
twice a week, and several thousands of each num-
ber were regularly dispersed; it began cn June 3d,
1723, and, having reached the seventy-fourth num-
ber, closed on February 17th, 1724. A portion
of it has been re-printed in two volumes octavo.
27. THE HUMoU R1st. The period to which
these papers in their single state * ought to be
ascribed, I am not able to ascertain. The first
volume of my copy, which is in 12mo, and the
third edition, is dated 1724; and the second,
owing to the encouragement which the former
collection had received, appeared in 1725. The
*The author says in his preface, that they had already
appeared abroad singly, and, being well received, the
bookseller was encouraged to gather them into a volume.
PERIODICAL PAIPERS, 49
first volume is dedicated, in a humorous and
satirical style, to the Man in the Moon, and the
second to the Right Honourable James Lord Ty-
rawley and Killmain. They consist of seventy-
seven essays, thirty-three in the first volume, and
forty-four in the second, on a great variety of
subjects. They are written with much vivacity,
and a few might be selected which display con-
siderable wit and humour; of this kind are
“Travels made and performed from Exeter to
London,” vol. 2, page 47; and the Essay on
“ Modern Inventions,” a satire on Quack Adver-
tisements, vol. 2, p. 82. The style, however, of
the Humourist is not only inelegant, but coarse,
and loaded with vulgar and idiomatic expressions,
and there is much ribaldry interspersed through
its pages. In an essay on Coffee-Houses the
author remarks, that “ after the Restoration, the
king, who brought back with him many of the
manners of the French nation, insinuated the
same conversible humour into his favourites and
followers. There were several Coffee-Houses
then erected, where assemblies of the Literati
professed to meet; and the Town had due no-
tice given them, at which hour the respective
boards sat, to speak sentences, and say things
worth the hearing. John Dryden took his place
very solemnly every evening at Will's, which is
WQL. I W. E :*
50 EN U M ERATION OF .
Yemembered and duly honoured for his sake, to this
day.” To whom we are indebted for this mot-
ley work I am, at present, totally ignorant.
28. The PLAIN DEA LER. The writers of
this periodical paper were Aaron Hill and W.
Bond. Aaron Hill was born in London on
February 10th, 1685; and after his school edu-
cation at Westminster, not being able, from the
destitute state in which he was left by his father,
to complete his studies at an university, he cm-
braced the resolution of applying to his relation
Lord Paget, then Ambassador at the Court of
Constantinople. For this city, therefore, he em-
barked in 1700, and was fortunately well received
by his Lordship, who procured him an able tutor,
under whose directions he travelled through a
great part of the East, visiting Egypt, Palestine,
$.c. He returned to England in 1703, in the
Ambassador's suite; and, upon the death of Lord
Paget, accompanied Sir William Wentworth, of
Yorkshire, on a tour through Europe, which
occupied nearly three years. Mr. Hill appeared
before the public as an author in 1709, by pub-
lishing “A History of the Ottoman Empire,”
and “Camillus,” a poem, a panegyric on the Earl
of Peterborough, which obtained him the patron-
age of that nobleman. The succeeding year was
* Vol. 2, p. 185.
Tº ER. IO DICAL PA 15 ERS. 51
a most propitious period in our author's annals;
he married a lady of great beauty, wealth, and
accomplishments; was appointed manager of
Drury Lane Theatre; wrote his first tragedy,
entitled “ Elfrid, or the Fair Inconstant,” which
he had written at the request of Booth, and pro-
duced an Opera at the Haymarket, called “Ri-
naldo,” which was received with great applause.
His prospects, however, soon clouded; a dis-
agreement with the Duke of Kent, Lord Cham-
berlain, induced him, in a few months, to give up
the management of the Theatre; and the failure
of a scheme, for which he had obtained a patent
in 1713, to make sweet oil from beech-nuts, in-
volved him in heavy pecuniary losses. The
spirit of projecting, indeed, seems, from this pe-
riod, never to have deserted Hill; he undertook
a plan, shortly after the ruin of his first attempt,
for the establishment of a plantation in Georgia;
and, in 1728, entered into a contract with the
York Buildings Company in the Highlands of
Scotland, for cutting timber upon their estates,
and floating it down the river Spey; but these
schemes, like the former, proved abortive. In
the mean time he was equally industrious with
his pen; in 1718, a poem, called “The Northern
Star,” in honour of Peter the Great, procured him.
a gold medal from the Empress Catherine; and
52 ENU MERATION OF-
his politics, though but sparingly mingled with the
“ Plain Dealer,” introduced him, most unde-
servedly, among the heroes of the Dunciad. It
was in the province of a dramatic poet, however,
that he was best known to his contemporaries;
and in this, more as a translator than an original
writer; his “ Fall of Siam,” performed in 1716,
and his “ Athelstan” in 1731, are now forgotten;
but his adaptations from Voltaire, his “ Zara,”
“Alzira,” and “Merope,” have great merit, and
the first and third still keep possession of the stage.
The loss of his amiable and beloved wife, in
1731, was an irreparable shock; she had borne
him nine children, and in her he had possessed a
consolation in adversity however severe. He
endeavoured to amuse his mind by literature,
and to bury his sorrows in retirement: at Plais-
tow, in Essex, he composed most of his latter
pieces; and in the dedication of his Merope t()
Lord Bolingbroke, thus pathetically paints his soli-
tude and resignation, and his hopes of immortality:
Cover'd in Fortune's shade, I rest reclin'd,
My griefs all silent, and my joys resign'd;
With patient eye life's ev'ning gleam survey,
Nor shake th’ out-hast'ning sands, nor bid them stay :
Yet, while from life my setting prospects fly,
Fain would my mind's weak offspring shun to die;
Fain would their hope some light through time explore,
. The name's kind passport, when the man's no more.
PERIODICAL PAPERs. 53.
"Our author did not long survive the production
of his Merope; he expired on February 8th,
1750, in the sixty-eighth year of his age, and was
buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey in
the same grave with his wife.
Aaron Hill was a man of amiable manners and
of great moral worth; but his wishes for the lon-
gevity of his mental offspring are not likely to be
gratified. Many of his best pieces were collected,
shortly after his death, in four volumes octavo ;
but they are little read, nor do they, with a few
exceptions, rise much beyond mediocrity.”
It was unfortunate, that in writing the Plain
Dealer he should have fixed upon a coadjutor so
inferior to himself as Mr. Bond...f Notwith-
standing this unhappy choice, it is, as a miscel-
laneous paper, the best that has come under our
review since the Free-Thinker; and, though not
worthy of re-publication as a whole, contains
several essays from which both amusement and
* His Dramatic Works were collected in two volumes
octavo, 1760. *
t “ The Plain Dealer,” observes Dr. Johnson, “ was a
periodical paper written by Mr. Hill and Mr. Bond, whom
Savage called the two contending powers of light and
darkness. They wrote by turns each six essays; and the
character of the work was observed regularly to rise in
Mr. Hill's weeks, and fall in Mr. Bond's,” Life of Sa-
vage. Note.
54 ENU M ERATION OF
instruction may be derived. The preface is a
critique on Essay-writing; and N° 1, dated March
23d, 1724, is occupied by the discussion of a
party assembled to choose a proper name for the
paper. As this task, which was a difficulty then,
has been rendered still more laborious by the
multitude of subsequent publications, it may not
be superfluous to present my readers with the
proposed list, which includes nine appellations;
namely, The Inquisitor; The Truth-Teller; The
Secret; The Coquet ; The Bagpipe ; The Flute;
The Good-Fellow ; The Sweet-Heart ; and The
Whirligig. The Plain Dealer was published twice
a week, and was concluded on May 7th, 1725,
having reached one hundred and seventeen num-
bers; it was re-printed in 1734, and forms two
octavo volumes.
The thirtieth number of the Plain Dealer, which
contains an eulogium on Inoculation, and on its
benevolent introducer Lady Montague, gives a
curious detail of the prejudices and opposition
which it had to encounter. “With what violence
and malice,” remarks the author, “has it not been
railed at, and opposed ?—How many false affir-
mations have we seen, with unblushing boldness,
insulting truth in our public newspapers!—Nay,
the pulpits, too, have trembled under the zeal of
IReverend Railers; who, in the holy blindness of
F ERIODICAE PAPERS. 55
their passion, have shewn us Job upon his dunghill,
inoculated for the Small-Poe by the Devil for
his Surgeon.
“It has been represented as a wilful murder, a
new and wicked presumption! an assault on the
prerogative of Heaven, and a taking God's own
work out of his hands, to be mended by man's
arrogance.
“But the common arguments, however despi-
cable, give me diversion and entertainment.
When H hear a pious old woman wisely wondering,
what this wortd would come to 1 and concluding
her remarks with the great maxim of resignation,
that God's own time is best / I compare this
force of female reasoning, to the representation
which, a late writer tells us, the old Boyars, or
Grandees of Russia, gravely made to the present
Czar, when he attempted a communication, by
digging a canal, between the Volga and the Ta-
nais. The design, they said, was great;-But
they humbly conceived it impious :-For, since
God had made the rivers to run one way, man
ought not to turn them another.” -
An opposition equally violent, though not
founded upon reasoning quite so ludicrous, is, in
the present day, formed against a still more salu-
tary inoculation, that of the Cow-pox.
To every improvement, indeed, however great
and important, there has usually been opposed a
56 ENU MERATION OF
host of prejudices, the removal of which requires
considerable address, and much patience and
perseverance. So incontrovertible, however, is
now the nature of the evidence in support of vac-
cination, that it becomes an imperious duty on
the part of government and individuals, to pro-
mote, to the utmost of their power, its extension -
and utility. One important step to this effect,
the establishment of the Royal Jennerian Society,
has already, under the sanction of the highest
authority in the kingdom, been carried into exe-
cution. More, however, remains to be done be-
fore we can congratulate our country on the pro -
bability of beholding the complete extinction of
variolous contagion. A second, and most powerful
mean, would be, the interdiction of the practice of
inoculation for the Small-Por throughout the
British Empire; a practice which, if not speedily
superseded by authority, must necessarily, from
the lingering prejudices of individuals, for a long
period keep alive the seeds of a most loathsome
and destructive plague. A third, and scarcely
less effectual plan, would be, an injunction of the
Legislature on every clergyman, and on every
sponsor at the font, to take care, both as a religious
and moral duty, that every infant be protected
Jrom danger by immediate vaccination.”
* At Geneva this very plan has, for some time, I dinder-
stand, been strictly enjoined.
PERIODICAL PAPER5, 57
These regulations, which with perfect ease and
safety might be universally adopted, would
speedily, and beyond the power of reversal, estab-
lish a preventive, which every fact and every ex-
periment has proved to be as certain and salutary
as the warmest wishes of humanity could either
hope for or suggest,
As to individuals, whether we consider them
as christians, as men, as parents, or as members of
society, they are called upon by every considera-
tion due to themselves, their children, and their
friends, to embrace and circulate a blessing,
which, from the evidence widely propagating in
its favour, cannot now be neglected without a
violation of piety, of sympathy, and affection.
29. THE LoN Do N Jo U R N A L. The Journal
was a species of newspaper, including letters and
essays on every topic, but too frequently on con-
troversial subjects. It was a great deterioration
of the admirable plan of Steele and Addison, and,
for a time, the town was deluged with these mot-
ley productions. Aaron Hill, in the preface to
his Plain Dealer, speaking of the dramatic plan of
the Spectator and Guardian, remarks, that “wri-
ting under an assumptive character was a fine.
improvement;” and he then proceeds to say, that
“it must eternally please, if, as new matter is
continually rising, some geniuses could be found
58 ENU M ERATION OF
able to treat it in a manner equal to their prede-
cessors. Though perhaps the stamp-act first,
and then the rise and multiplication of Weekly Jour-
mals, are now such impediments to a fair hearing in
this method, as almost amount to a prohibition
of such essays for the future. The invention of
Weekly Journals was,” he observes, “owing to the
taste which the town began to entertain from the
writings of the Tatler, Spectator, and others.
Small essays were so much liked, that it was
imagined worth while to put a little wit, and a
great deal of history, in a large quantity of paper,
and sell it for the same or a less price than the
stamp-duty had raised the half-sheet treatise to.—
The general way now of communicating our
thoughts to the public, is, by distinct and uncon-
nected letters to the author of this or that jour-
nal.” The London Journal commenced about
the year 1726, and its politics were in favour of
government. It had been preceded by Mist's
Journal, the Daily Gazetteer, and several others,
and was succeeded by the Weekly Medley, and
Literary Journal 1728, by the British Journal in
1731, by the Weekly Register 1731, by Fog's
Journal in 1732, by Read's Journal, and by the
Weekly Miscellany 1736. Of these Journals,
therefore, as they are not the legitimate offspring
of the periodical papers as established by Steele,
PERIO DICAL PAPERS, 59
I shall take no further notice, except when a
selection of essays shall have been published from
their contents, and of which the immediately
succeeding article is a specimen.
30. Ess A Ys on T H E W Ices AND Fol LIES
of T H E TIMEs. This volume is the production
of Amhurst, the author of Terrae Filius, and con-
sists of “select papers formerly published in
Pasquin and the London Journal.” It appeared
in the year 1726.
31. TILE CRAFTS MAN. Amhurst was, for
several years, the principal conductor of this
political paper, which commenced on December
5th, 1726. It was written to oppose the adminis-
tration of Sir Robert Walpole, and he was assisted
in the attack by very powerful coadjutors. “Ile
was the able associate,” remarks Davies, “ of
Bolingbroke and Pulteney in writing the cele-
brated weekly paper called The Craftsman. His
abilities were unquestionable; he had almost as
much wit, learning, and various knowledge, as
his two partners; and when these great masters
chose not to appear in public themselves, he
supplied their places so well that his essays were
often ascribed to them.” Such was the popu-
larity of these essays, and such the indignation of
the country against the measures of Walpole,
* Lord Chesterfield's characters reviewed, p, 42.
60 ENU MERATION OF .
that ten or twelve thousand were frequently sold
in a day. A complete set of the Craftsman
forms fourteen volumes duodecimo.
2. THE INTELLIGENCE R. Dr. Thomas
Sheridan, the chief author of this work, was a
native of the county of Cavan in Ireland, and
born about 1684. Though his parents were not
able, from their narrow circumstances, to afford
him the benefit of a liberal education, he had for-
tunately that great advantage conferred upon him
by the generosity of a friend to the family, who,
perceiving in young Sheridan indications of un-
common ability, sent him to Trinity College,
Dublin, and supported him there during the
necessary period of education. At this univer-
sity he took his Doctor's degree, entered into holy
orders, and shortly afterwards established a school
at Dublin, which, for several years, was esteemed
the first in the kingdom. His intimacy with
Swift, which commenced soon after the Dean's
settlement in Ireland, might, had he possessed
common prudence and economy, have been of
essential service to him; but carelessness and
extravagance were the rocks on which Sheridan's
fortunes were continually wrecked. He had no
sooner obtained a living from the Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland, to whom he had been appointed chap-
lain, and which was meant but as an earnest of
PERIOI) ICAL PAPERS. 61
future promotion, than his inadvertency destroyed
all his hopes of subsequent preferment. On
going to be inducted into his living in the South
of Ireland, he was requested, by Archdeacon
Russel, of Cork, to preach for him on the follow-
ing Sunday. The day happened to be the anni-
versary of the Hanoverian accession to the crown
of Great Britain; and the Doctor, not recollecting
the circumstance, unfortunately pitched upon a
sermon with the following text, “Sufficient for
the day is the evil thereof.” The clamour occa-
sioned by this unhappy choice, notwithstanding
the discourse was altogether free from a political
tendency, proved so great, that he was ultimately
erased from the chaplains' list, and ordered to
appear no more at the castle. -
Though the Doctor had thus, to use Swift's
phrase, “shot his own fortune dead by one single
text,” he was nevertheless indebted to the acci-
dent for a considerable addition to his property;
for the Archdeacon, considering himself, by his
request, as in some measure instrumental to the
ruin of Sheridan's expectations in the church,
made over to him, with unparalleled generosity,
by a deed of gift, the manor of Drumlane in the
county of Cavan, the clear rent of which amounted
to two hundred and fifty pounds per annum.
Dr. Sheridan had now an income arising from
62 ENU MERATION OF
his landed property, his living, and his school, of
not less than twelve hundred pounds a year; a
fortune which should have exempted him from
the possibility of want; but such was his prodi-
gality, and his love of company, that his school
gradually decreased; he was compelled to mort-
gage his land, and, to add to his difficulties, he
foolishly exchanged his living in the county of
Cork, worth nearly one hundred and fifty pounds
a year, for one at Dunboyne, within a few miles of
Dublin, whose value did not exceed eighty pounds
per annum. This he again gave up, in a short
time, for the free-school of Cavan ; but, finding
the situation unhealthy, he sold the school for
four hundred pounds, and, after a residence of
two years, returned to Dublin, in the neighbour-
hood of which he soon after died of a polypus in
the heart. He was apprised of the nature of his
complaint, and of the probability of his sudden
death, by his physician Dr. Helsham, who ad-
vised him instantly to settle his affairs. He
adopted the advice, and having made his will on
September 10th, 1738, in his fifty-fifth year, he
appeared afterwards singularly cheerful. He
dined that day in great spirits, with a few friends;
one of whom Temarking that the wind was easterly,
the Doctor exclaimed, “let it blow east, west,
north, or south, the immortal soul will take its
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 63
*
flight to the destined point,” and immediately
falling back in his chair, expired without a groan
or a struggle.
Dr. Sheridan was an excellent classical scholar,
and a very worthy man; for, though extravagant,
he was never vicious. Being totally ignorant of
the world, he was the perpetual dupe of the art-
ful and designing; and having no value for money,
he had consequently no regard for economy.
IHe was generous, charitable, and of an independ-
ent spirit; a most affectionate friend, and, as a
companion, unrivalled for wit, humour, and taste.
The Intelligencer was published weekly in
Dublin, in the years 1728 and 1729. It is a
miscellaneous paper, and had the occasional
assistance of Dr. Swift. In the first number,
which was written by the Dean, we meet with
the following account of the object and plan of
these essays. “There is a society,” he observes,
“lately established, who, at great expence, have
erected an office of intelligence, from which they
are to receive weekly information of all impor-
tant events and singularities which this famous
metropolis can furnish. Strict injunctions are
given to have the truest information; in order to
which, certain qualified persons are employed to
attend upon duty at their several posts; some at
the play-house, others in churches; some at balls,
64 EN U M ERATION OF
assemblies, coffee-houses, and meetings for qua-
drille; some at the several courts of justice, both
spiritual and temporal; some at the college, some
upon my lord mayor and aldermen in their pub-
lic affairs; lastly, some to converse with favourite
chambermaids, and to frequent those ale-houses
and brandy-shops where the footmen of great fami-
lies meet in a morning; only the barracks and par-
liament-house are excepted, because we have yet
found no enfans perdus bold enough to venture
their persons at either. Out of these and some
other store-houses we hope to gather materials
enough to inform, or divert, or correct, or vex
the town.” Beside letters and the first number,
Dr. Swift contributed N° 3, a defence of the
Beggar's Opera of Gay, and N° 19, dated De-
cember 24, 1728, on the grievances of Ireland.
The Intelligencer was warmly attacked by Dr.
Delany, and, though said to have been well
received, was suddenly relinquished by Sheridan
early in 1729; for Swift, in a letter to Pope, on
March 6th of this year, speaking of a copy of
verses, says, “I sent it to be printed in a paper
which Doctor Sheridan had engaged in, called the
Intelligencer, of which he made but sorry work,
and then dropped it.” These verses are a satire
on Dr. Delany, who, in censuring the Intelligencer,
* Swift's Works, Vol. 18, p. 264.
sº
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 65
had unfortunately stumbled on the Dean's con-
tributions. -
33. THE To UCH-Sto.N E. The Touch-Stone
is a collection of Essays, historical, critical,
moral, philosophical, and theological, upon the
reigning diversions of the town; it was published
in the year 1728, and contains seven essays, on
Music, on Poetry, on Dancing, on Chorusses
ancient and modern, on Audiences, on Masque-
rades, and on Theatres. It is a production alto-
gether worthless, and written in a style of ex-
treme vulgarity.
34. THE FREE-BRITON. A political paper
in support of Sir Robert Walpole's administra-
tion, and of course the antagonist of the Crafts-
man. It appeared about the latter end of the
year 1729, or beginning of 1730, and was pub-
lished under the fictitious name of Francis Wal-
singham, Esq; but was, in reality, the production
of William Arnall, an Attorney, and the suc-
cessor of Concanen in the British Journal. Arnall
began his political career under the age of
twenty, and carried on a furious party-war for
several years; in which having libelled several of
Pope's particular friends, he was rewarded, not
undeservedly, with a conspicuous station in the
Dunciad. The commentator on Pope declares,
that “he writ for hire and valued himself upon
W O L. I.W. F 3 *
66 'ENU MERATION OF
it, and that he received for Free-Britons and
other writings, in the space of four years, no less
than ten thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven
pounds, sir shillings and eight pence, out of the
Treasury.” Arnall was a most virulent and
intemperate controversialist, and frequently ex-
ceeded in scurrility and abuse even the wishes of
his patrons. #. -
35. MEM or Rs of T H E SocIETY of G R U B-
street. This is a paper of considerable wit
and humour, in ridicule of the host of bad writers
which at that time infested the republic of letters.
Most of these gentlemen had previously figured
in the Dunciad, but are here more minutely held
up to public contempt. The productions of
Eusden, Cibber, Concanen, Curll, Dennis, Henley,
Ralph, Arnall, Theobald, Welsted, &c. &c. are
exposed with wholesome severity, and in a strain
of the most keen and sarcastic irony. The first
number of this work appeared on Thursday,
January 8th, 1730, and it was continued once a
week for nearly three years; the last essay, N°
138, being dated August 24th, 1732. From these
papers a selection was made in the year 1737,
and published in two volumes 12mo; it contains
a vast variety of matter, and much information.
relative to the obscure literature of the age.
The principal writers of these satirical effusions
PERIoDICAL PAPERs. 67
were, Dr. Richard Russel, a physician, and the
author of a Treatise on Sea Water; and Dr. John
Martyn,” a celebrated botanist, who was born in
London in 1699, and whose love of literature and
science rendered him a very useful and dis-
tinguished character during a great part of the
18th century. In 1720 he translated Tourne-
fort's History of Plants, and, in imitation of this
valuable work, formed a similar catalogue of
plants growing in the environs of London. In
1726 he succeeded Dr. Bradley as Professor of
Botany in the University of Cambridge, and
in 1727 was admitted a fellow of the Royal
Society. His profession was that of Physic,
which he practised in the city of London, and
afterwards at Chelsea. Dr. Martyn was inde-
fatigable as an author, and published a variety of
works on Botany, Medicine, &c. In the de-
partment of classical literature, he printed a
translation of the Georgics and Bucolics of Vir-
gil, with very valuable notes; his knowledge of
botany, and rural economy, rendering his illustra-
tions peculiarly pertinent and interesting: he
also wrote some curious Dissertations on the
Æneids of Virgil, 12mo, which were published
after his death, in 1771. He retired to streatham
*Their signatures in the Memoirs of the Society of Grub-
*treet are Bavius and Maevius, -
68 ENU MERATION OF
in 1752, and in the year 1761 resigned his
professorship at Cambridge. He was one of the
writers in the General Dictionary; and, after a
life of great literary exertion, he expired at Chel-
sea, 1768, in the seventieth year of his age.
To the Memoirs of the Society of Grub-Street,
the literary world is greatly indebted ; for, in
fact, to this publication we owe the Gentleman's
Magazine. The Memoirs “meeting with en-
couragement,” says Sir John Hawkins, “ Cave
projected an improvement thereon in a pamphlet
of his own ; and in the following year gave to the
world the first number of the Gentleman's Maga-
zine, with a notification, that the same would be
continued monthly; incurring thereby a charge of
plagiarism, which, as he is said to have confessed
it, we may suppose he did not look upon as
criminal.” -
36. THE SPECULAT1st. Matthew Concanen,
a native of Ireland, was the author of this collec-
tion. He was bred to the law; but not succeeding
in this line, he resolved to try his fortune in
London as a party-writer, and enlisted under the
banners of administration in the “ British” and
“London Journals.” In these papers, and in the
Speculatist, he was, to adopt the language of the
* Memoirs of the Society of Grub-street, Preface, p. 12.
Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 32. 3.
PERIODICAL PAPERs. 69
annotator on Pope, “the author of several dull
and dead scurrilities, and, by abusing the Poet
and his friend Bolingbroke, obtained an introduc-
tion into the Dunciad. He was, however, not-
withstanding this promotion, by no means devoid
of ability, and had he abstained from party viru-
lence, and personal allusion, would have been
viewed by posterity in a more respectable light.
His poems, and his play entituled “Wexford
Wells,” have merit; and it tells highly to his
honour, that when appointed, by the interest of
the Duke of Newcastle, attorney-general of the
island of Jamaica, he filled that post for seventeen
years with unblemished integrity, and with the
universal esteem of the inhabitants. He retired
to London in December, 1748, with an ample
fortune most honourably acquired, and with the
expectation of enjoying the close of life in ease
and affluence; in this, however, he was miserably
disappointed; for the change of climate so affected
his constitution, that he survived his arrival but
a few weeks, dying of a rapid consumption on
January 22d, 1749.
The Speculatist procured Concanen no reputa-
tion, and not much pecuniary profit. The ex-
pences of printing, indeed, were defrayed by sub-
scription; but the subscribers had reason to
complain that it was little more than a re-pub-
70 ENUMERATION OF
lication of our author's former periodical papers.
In N° 35 of the Memoirs of the Society of Grub-
street, dated September 3d, 1730, this conduct
of Concanen is severely and justly censured.
“It was but lately,” says the writer, “that I met
with a book called The Speculatist, though by
enquiry I find it has been above a month privately
dispersed (in the manner proper to libels,) and
hath crept about, in that blind way, as far as it
had strength to go. I found it to be a great
fraud and imposition on the subscribers; being no
other than a wretched relique, patched up from
the wrecks of British and London Journals. No
doubt it will soon be (like its author) to be sold to
more than will buy it. In some weeks it will be
crying out for help in the advertisements, under
the usual and laudable form of a few copies of the
Speculatist being yet left undisposed of, may be had
at .” Concanen endeavoured to refute the
charge, and his letter to this purpose is intro-
duced into N° 38 of the Memoirs, where he
asserts, that nine-tenths of the subscribers were
his particular friends, and previously knew that
the Speculatist was intended for little more than
a re-publication. This is no apology, however,
as he suffered many to subscribe who were igno-
rant of the circumstance. The Speculatist occu-
pies one volume octavo. -
* Vol. 1, p. 169.
PERIO DICAL PAIPER.S. 71
37. THE UNIv ERs AL SPECTA To R. The
essays which form this work, and which were
afterwards collected into four volumes 12mo,
were originally prefixed to a weekly journal under
this title; and on the top of the paper, which was
printed in single sheets, it was said to be con-
ducted “by Henry Stonecastle, of Northumber-
land, Esq.” One of the real publishers and authors,
however, was the industrious antiquary William
Oldys; but who succeeded him in this office, for
he continued in it no great length of time, I am
unable to ascertain. Oldys was born in the year
1687, and was the son of William Oldys, LL.D.
chancellor of Lincoln. Having early in life con-
sumed his patrimony by extravagance, he was
condemned for the greater part of the residue of
his days to work for the Booksellers. IIe enjoyed
the post, however, of Norroy king at arms, and
was for some years librarian to the Earl of Ox-
ford; upon whose death, he was employed by
Osborne the Bookseller, who had purchased the
Earl's books for thirteen thousand pounds, to
form a catalogue, or rather a Bibliotheque Raisonné,
of that valuable collection. He executed but two
yolumes of the five which compose the catalogue,
owing probably to the difficulties under which,
about this period, he had the misfortune to
labour, being a resident in the Fleet. Dr.
72 ENU MERATION or
Johnson completed the undertaking. Biography
and Literary History have been much indebted
to the researches of Oldys; he was the author of
“The British Librarian, exhibiting a compendi-
ous review of all unpublished and valuable books
in all sciences,” 8vo. 1737; of “The Life of Sir
Walter Raleigh;” of those articles in the Biogra-
phia Britannica to which is affixed the signature
G; of several articles in the General Historical
Dictionary; of the “Life of Mr. Richard Carew;”
of an “Introduction to Hayward's British Muse;”
of the “Scarborough Miscellany,” 1732, 1734;
and of the “Life and Writings of Thomas Moffett,
M.D.” He assisted in many other works; and
his manuscripts, which were numerous and valu-
able, were purchased by the booksellers for the
new edition of the Biographia Britannica. In his
manners and mode of living, Oldys was vulgar
and irregular, and his death, it has been said, was
hastened by his excesses; he attained, however,
the age of 74, and died in 1761. The following
curious anagram on his name was found among
his manuscripts. -
In word and Will I AM a friend to you,
And one friend OLD Is worth an hundred new.
The first number of The Universal Spectator
was published on October 12th, 1728, and it con-
tinued to appear weekly until the latter end of
f
PERIODICAL PAPERs. 73
the year 1742. In the year 1736, a selection
from these papers was first printed in two vo-
lumes 12mo; a second edition appeared in 1747,
in four volumes 12mo, containing two hundred
and twenty-six numbers; and a third issued from
the press in 1756. Of these impressions the second
and third are in my possession, and to the first is
prefixed a preface, in which the editor declares that
most of them “ were written by a gentleman not
long since dead, and whose name alone, if we were
at liberty to mention it, would give them a suffi-
cient passport into the world.” The person thus
alluded to, cannot, of course, be Oldys; and to
whom we are indebted, therefore, for the majo-
rity of these essays, cannot now probably be
ascertained; John Kelly, however, the dramatic
poet, and Sir John Hawkins, are said to have
been contributors.”
The selection appears to have been made with
judgment, and to verify the assertion of the
publisher, that much caution had been used to
purge it of all immorality and indecency, of all
party spirit and private scandal; t and the au-
thor observes in N° 3, “that he did not give his
paper the title of Spectator, in order to put it
upon a comparison with those most excellent
* Wide Biographical Dictionary, article Hawkins.
f Wide Preſace to the second edition in 4 vols.
74. ENU MERATION OF
essays which bear that name, but as it is a
prosecution of the same design with them, viz.
to correct vice, to ridicule folly, and reprove
impertinence; to represent virtue all bright and
lovely as it is; to calm the rougher passions, and
to encourage those that are more soft and amia-
ble; to point out the mistakes of life, and regu-
late the conduct of mankind.” The work is
certainly, as a whole, very much inferior to its
original; yet it contains some instructive and
entertaining sketches, exhibits no mean know-
ledge of mankind, and has occasional flashes of
wit and humour. It abounds also in tales,
visions, allegories, and delineations of characters;
and were the four volumes, by omitting all the
triſling matter, condensed into one, this second
selection might stand a chance of escaping the
oblivion which now threatens the larger work.
38. The HYP-Doctor. This foolish paper,
as we have already mentioned,t was the produc-
tion of John Henley. It appeared in 1731, and
was written in defence of Sir Robert Walpole's
administration. It is very strongly and very de-
servedly censured in the Memoirs of the Society
of Grub-street; and it is, indeed, extraordinary
that any minister would submit to the degradation
of such support. The periodical papers for and
* Vol. 1, p. 15. f Essays, vol. 3, p. 304.
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 75
against government at this period are thus
enumerated in the Memoirs just noticed, “I
mention only two weekly papers, because I know
but of two that can with any justice be ascribed to
the discontented party, viz. The Craftsman and
Fog's Journal.—But then, on the side of the
ministry, besides the London Journal and Read's
Journal, the Free-Briton, Weekly Register, and
Hyp-Doctor, there appear two or three minis-
terial papers every week in the Daily Courants:
so that, generally speaking, eight or nine papers
are published every week in defence of the minis-
try.” The Hyp-Doctor was continued for some
years, and was only exceeded in virulence and
folly by its predecessor The High German Doctor.
39. THE TEMPLA R. *
40. THE Co R.R. Es Pon DENT. Of these pa-
pers I have not been able to obtain copies; but
with the first I am partially acquainted through
the medium of the Gentleman's Magazine. They
both made their appearance in the year 1731 ;
the Templar in London, who assumes the honour
of being nephew to the Spectator's Templar; and
the Correspondent, in Dublin.
41. THE Com EDIAN, or PHILoso PHICAL
EN QUIRER. The author of this work, which
came out monthly in 1732, was Mr. Thomas
* Vol. 2, No. 34, p. 109, 110.
76 ENU MERATION OF
Cooke. He was born at Braintree in Essex, in
1707, was educated at Felsted school in the same
county, and at the age of nineteen printed an
excellent edition of Andrew Marvel's Works,
with a life of the author. In the year 1728 he
brought before the public his principal literary
labour, a translation of Hesiod, with notes; of
which notes part was contributed by Theobald,
and part by the Earl of Pembroke, whose patron-
age he had been fortunate enough to obtain.
This is a respectable effort, though by no means
superseding the necessity of a more modern ver-
sion, the elegance and sweetness of Iſesiod's ver-
sification demanding all the melody which the
most polished English poetry can communicate.
The fragment of his “Shield of Hercules” has
met with an adequate translator in the volume
entitled “Exeter Essays.” Mr. Cooke, whose
pen was seldom unemployed, published likewise
translations of Cicero de Natura Deorum, of
Terence, and of the Amphitryon of Plautus; he
contributed also to the British, London, and Daily
Journals, and wrote several plays and farces
which met with little success. One of these,
entitled, “ Penelope, a dramatic opera,” and his
poem called “The Battle of the Poets,” in which
Phillips and Welsted are the victors, to the dis-
comfiture of Swift and Pope, gave him a ready
FERIODICAL PAPERS. 77
passport to the Dunciad. He died, in distressed
circumstances, about the year 1750. The Come-
dian, which is censured for its ignorance and
impiety, in the Memoirs of the Society of Grub-
street, vol. 2, p. 310, was continued but for eight
months, and then expired, from its inability to
defray the expences of printing and paper. .
42. Fog's Jo U R N A L, A S E L Ect 1o N F Ro M.
The Journal from which these essays are selected,
was written in opposition to the government; it
commenced in 1728, and became so popular that
it continued to be published for nearly eight
years. The selection, however, which we are
now noticing, appeared in 1732, in two volumes
Octavo; and, as its last number is dated December
25th, 1781, and its first September 28th, 1728, it,
of course, embraces little more than three years
of the long career which the Journal ran. Seve-
ral of the essays in these volumes display con-
siderable ability. -*
43. THE BEE. This paper, the production of
Budgell, we have already noticed in that author's
life. He began it in 1733, continued it weekly
for about two years, and then, owing to a disa-
greement with the booksellers relative to the
mode of conducting it, suddenly dropped the
work. In its structure and contents, it resembles
more a magazine than the legitimate periodical
78 YºM UMERATION OF
essay; great part of it is, indeed, a mere com-
pilement, and it has, not undeservedly, fallen into
oblivion. $
44. THE PRom PTER. I believe this paper
is not to be obtained in a collected state; at
least, I have been unsuccessful in my researches
for its acquisition. It was published in the years
1734 and 1735; is mentioned in a note to the Me-
moirs of the Society of Grub-street, where it is
censured for its abuse;” and is occasionally intro-
duced into the Gentleman's Magazine. Not
much, however, can be reported in its favour
from the specimens given in that valuable work.
Popple and Budgell are said to have contributed
to its contents. . .
45. THE OLD WHIG, on CoNs Is TENT
PRotest ANT. A great portion of this weekly
publication, not less, according to Dr. Kippis, t
than fifty papers, was written by that learned
and worthy dissenting minister, Dr. Chandler. It
was continued for three years; the first number
being dated March 13th, 1735, and the conclud-
ing one, March 13th, 1738. Many of these
essays are conducted with great spirit and ability.
Dr. Chandler was zealously attached to the person
and character of George II. *
* Vol. 2, p. 297.
# Wide Biographia Britannica, vol. 3, p. 436, Note.
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 79
46. CoMM on SEN's E. Upon the decease of
Fog's Journal, this paper was commenced in
behalf of the same party and cause. It was supe-
rior to its predecessor in literary execution, and
was supported by several characters of high rank,
both in the fashionable and learned world. Lord
Chesterfield and Lord Lyttelton were contribu-
tors; and their essays, many of which are upon
topics of more permanent interest than politics,
add much to the value of the work. It came
before the public in February, 1737, and was
carried on with considerable success for some
years, -
47. THE CHAMPro N. The greater part of
this work was written by the celebrated Henry
Fielding, who was born at Sharpham Park, near
Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, on April 22d, 1707.
After a classical education at Eton, he was sent
to study the civil law at Leyden; but, owing to
the pecuniary difficulties of his father, who had a
large family, he was under the necessity of relin-
quishing the university, after a residence of two
years. Strong passions, an ardent imagination,
and a taste for dissipation, soon plunged young
Fielding, on his return to London, into all the
gaieties of the metropolis. To supply a fund for
his indulgences, he became, at the early age of
twenty, a writer for the stage, and in the year
80 ENU M ERATION OF
1727 produced his first Drama, entituled “Love
in several Masques.” This, though it immedi-
ately succeeded the popular comedy of the “Pro-
vok'd Husband,” was well received by the public,
and inducing our author to continue his dramatic
labours, he annually brought forward, for a num-
ber of years, a regular supply for the stage, and,
all together, wrote not less than twenty-six come-
dies and farces, few of which are now remem-
bered, and but one or two occasionally repre-
sented. Many of them are, indeed, but transla-
tions from the French, and they were all written
to obtain a temporary popularity, and a provision
for the day; they are defective in plot, consist-
ency, and finishing, and their humour is too
generally coarse and extravagant.
At a period when, notwithstanding a series of
excrtions for the theatre of nearly seven years
duration, and the patronage of several distin-
guished noblemen, the finances of Fielding were
still in the most deplorable state, two events oc-
curred, which, with common prudence, might
have placed him beyond the reach of future
want. He married, in his twenty-seventh year,
a Miss Craddock, of Salisbury, a young lady of
great beauty and worth, and with a fortune of
fifteen hundred pounds; to this accession of
happiness and wealth, was soon after added, by
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 81
the death of his mother, an estate at Stower, in
Dorsetshire, the value of which exceeded two
hundred pounds per annum.
It was now within the power of Fielding, with-
this property, and the produce of his literary
talents, to have enjoyed a permanent and liberal
income; but, intoxicated with the sudden change
of circumstances, totally void of economy, and
ambitious of figuring as a gentleman of large
landed property, he lived upon his estate in Dor-
setshire with a splendor and with an establish-
ment which would have demanded tenfold the
amount of his income. In short, his servants,
horses, and hounds, his luxury and unlimited
hospitality, soon effected his ruin; and in less
than three years, he beheld himself entirely
stripped of his wife's fortune and his own patri-
mony |
Having thus dissipated what might have proved
an elegant competency, and having a rising family
to provide for, it became necessary to look round
for a resource more permanent than what litera-
ture was likely to afford. At the age of thirty,
therefore, he resumed his profession, entered as a
student of the Temple, and in due time was
called to the bar. His life was now a scene of
great and varied industry; he attended the
courts and circuits with regularity, and, until
V O L. IV. a -
82 ENU M ERATION OF
professional emoluments began to flow, supported
himself by the efforts of his pen. He again com-
posed for the stage, published a number of politi-
cal pamphlets and miscellaneous pieces, and
engaged in several periodical papers. -
His extraordinary powers in fictitious narra-
tive, however, were not developed until the year
1742, when the publication of his “Joseph An-
drews” unveiled to the public a vein of humour
and invention, and a facility and truth in the
delineation of character, which rivalled the happi-
est effusions of Cervantes and Addison. The
reputation which he acquired by this production
was, however, much overbalanced, by a series
of afflictions, the consequence of broken health
and domestic anxiety. The effects of early in-
temperance had now made visible inroads upon
a constitution otherwise strong, and he was ago-
nized by violent and protracted fits of the gout;.
to this bodily suffering, was added the most poig-
nant grief for the loss of a faithful and beloved
wife, a blow, which, for some months, had nearly
deprived him of reason. .
Time, however, as in most human calamities,
mitigated the severity of his sorrow, and he was
roused to further exertion by the critical situa-
tion of the empire, when, in the year 1745, it
was shaken by the terrors of rebellion. He
*
PERIODICAL PAPERS, S3
wrote in support of government and the protestant
religion, and was rewarded by an appointment to
the office of an acting magistrate for the county
of Middlesex, a situation of some profit, but of
great labour, and almost necessarily exposed to
calumny and reproach. He discharged its du-
ties, notwithstanding, with unwearied vigilance,
and published several useful tracts, on the causes
of crime, and on the maintenance of the poor.
Great as were the fatigues of this official em-
ployment, his imagination, ever active, seemed to
acquire fresh strength, and, during the intervals of
business, was engaged in the composition of a
tissue of adventures, which, for felicity of conduct
and combination, may be pronounced unrivalled.
No fable, indeed, ancient or modern, can vie with
that of “Tom Jones” in variety and management
of incident; no event or circumstance, however mi-
mute, even though mingled with a plot apparently
intricate, seems lost or useless in the completion
of the tale, and the characters are drawn with
astonishing vivacity and skill. To the seductive
tendency of some portions of the narrative, to a
few scenes too warmly coloured, objections may
be perhaps justly made, but the result of the
whole is not unfriendly to morality; vice is invari-
ably punished, the noblest feelings and affections
are frequently awakened, and no unprejudiced
84. ENU M ERATION OF
person can peruse the work without being con- .
vinced that the author, as was really the case,
was a lover of virtue, and a believer in reveaked
religion.
Neither poverty nor disease, nor the distrac-
tions of public business, could repress the activity
of Fielding's mind. In 1751 he produced his
“Amelia;” which, if not equal in the texture and
variety of the fable, or in humorous delineation,
to Tom Jones, is nevertheless possessed of great
merit, and abounds more in pathos, and moral
observation, than any other of the author's works.
In a year or two after this publication, the
health of Fielding so rapidly declined, though he
continued to amuse himself by literary employ-
ment, that it became evident to his friends that he
could not long survive; a dropsy had supervened,
and he was advised by his physicians to under-
take a voyage to Lisbon, in hopes that the mild-
ness and stability of the climate might renovate
his powers; the experiment, however, failed, and
he lived but two months after his arrival in Por-
tugal, expiring on October 8th, 1754, in his .
forty-eighth year. --
Though guilty of numerous errors in the early
period of life, for which he afterwards severely .
atoned, the moral and religious principles of .
Fielding were never shaken; and had health been
*
PERIODICAL, PAPERs. | 85
allowed him, it was his intention to have published
a refutation of the sceptical tenets of Boling-
broke. As a writer, he is truly original, and in
the comic epopeia without a rival.
The Champion was published thrice a week, on
Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and consists
of ninety-four numbers, the first of which is dated
November 15th, 1739, and the last June 19th,
1740. The first edition in its collected form,
which is that in my possession, was printed in
1741, in two volumes duodecimo, and the work
has undergone, I believe, three impressions.
An advertisement prefixed to the first volume
informs us, that “several persons having been
concerned in writing the Champion, and it not
being reasonable that any one should be answera-
ble for the rest, it has been thought proper to
signify to the reader, that all the papers distin-
guished with a C, or an L, are the work of one
hand.” The numbers thus distinguished were the
composition of Fielding, and stamp a considerable
value on the production, which, with the excep-
tion of the Freethinker, is superior to any that
we have noticed since the close of the eighth vo-
lume of the Spectator. A great portion of the
Champion is employed on the follies, vices,
amusements, and literature of the age; and the re-
mainder is occupied by political wit and discussion,
86 ENUMERATION or
uniformly directed against the administration
of Walpole; to every paper, indeed, is annexed
what is termed an “Index to the Times,” con-
sisting of news miscellaneous and political, and
frequently charged with the most sarcastic irony.
The assumed name under which the Champion
issues his lucubrations, is Captain Hercules Vine-
gar; and in the introductory number is given a
detail of the whole family of the Vinegars, to
whom different departments in the paper are dis-
tributed. To Mr. Nehemiah Vinegar, for instance,
the Captain's father, history and politics are
allotted; to Mr. Counsellor Vinegar, Nehemiah's
brother, all subjects of law and judicature; to
Dr. John Vinegar, the Counsellor's son, medicine
and natural philosophy; to Nol Vinegar, the
Captain's brother, classical literature; to Tom
Vinegar, his eldest son, modern poetry; to Jack
Vinegar, his youngest son, the superintendance
of fashionable manners; and to Mrs. Joan Vine-
gar, his wife, domestic news. This good lady,
who takes a conspicuous share in the conduct of
the work, is celebrated for her loquacity; and in
a paper dated February 5th, 1740, her powers in
this department are noticed in the following ludi-
CrOllS II)anner. - -
“I was waked this morning by a very great
noise, which, in my first confusion, I imagined to
PERIO DICAL PAPERS. 87
have been thunder; but recollecting it was a
season of the year when that rarely happens, I
began to think the great guns were firing on some
public solemnity; till at last, I was very much
surprized, and I believe the reader will be so too,
to understand that this dreadful hurricane was
nothing more than my wife Joan, who was laying
about her with great vigour, and exercising her
lungs on a maid-servant for the benefit of my
family. - . . .
“This good woman is one of those notable
housewives, whom the careless part of the world
distinguish by the name of a scold. This musical
talent of hers, when we were first married, did
not so well agree with me. I have often thought
myself in the cave of AEolus, or perhaps wished
myself there-on account of this wind-music; but
it is now become so habitual to me, that I am
little more alarmed at it, than a garrison at the
tattoo or reveille; indeed, I have, I thank God,
for these thirty years last past, seldom laid myself
down, or rose up, without; all the capitulations I
have made are, that she would keep the garrison-
hours, and not disturb my repose by such her
performances. ~ * . . . . . . . . .
“. It hath been remarked by some naturalists,
that nature hath given all creatures some arms for
their defence; some are armed with horns, some
38 EN U M ERATION OF
with tusks, some with claws, some with strength,
others with swiftness; and the tongue may. I
think, be properly said to be the arms which
nature has bestowed on a woman.”
It is obvious from the plan chalked out in this
first number of the Champion, that if properly
carried into execution, much variety and enter-
tainment may be expected as the result; nor
will the reader be disappointed; for, though the
portion employed on politics be now uninterest-
ing, there are numerous essays, where humour,
invention, and criticism, will afford ample remu-
neration. As specimens in the first of these pro-
vinces, I would refer to N° 11, vol. 1, p. 69, on a
club in the possession of Captain Vinegar, which
has the singular property “ of falling, of its own
accord, on every egregious knave who comes in
its way;” to N° 16, p. 111, on the different ages
of the world which have occurred since the iron
one of Ovid, and what the autaor divides into the
age of flint, the age of lead, and the age of wood;
and to N° 47, on the Art of getting a Name.
Under the head of Invention, might be enume-
rated several dreams, visions, and allegories, and I
would particularly distinguish the vision of the Pa-
lace of Riches in Nos. 19 and 20, vol. 1, p. 132–
139, which exhibits a fertile stock of satirical
PERIOD ICAL PAPERS. 89
imagination. In the critical department are to
be found many ingenious dissertations and lite-
rary remarks; of these, N° 50, vol. 1, p. 340,
on the “Ruins of Rome” by Dyer, is an elegant
and pleasing example; and from the literary
articles which are frequently appended to the
“Index to the Times,” I shall beg leave to copy
one, which, being on the subject of periodical
composition, will require no apology for its in-
sertion.
“Short occasional essays,” observes the author,
“on the follies, vices, humours, controversies,
and amusements of the age, have been esteemed
both so useful and entertaining, that not a library
in the three kingdoms, and scarce a lady's closet,
is without those great originals, the Tatlers and
Spectators.-And that no subsequent pieces have
obtained the like success, is perhaps as much
owing to an opinion, that those volumes had
exhausted all the wit and humour the subject
was capable of, as that the merits of Steele and
Addison are above comparison and imitation.
“But there's a sort of craft attending vice
and absurdity; and when hunted out of society in
one shape, they seldom want address to re-insinu-
ate themselves in another:—Hence the modes of
licence vary almost as often as those of dress,
and consequently require continual observation
90 ENU M ERATION OF
to detect and explode them anew.—There is
room, then, for other papers to shine as well as
those quoted with so much deference and honour
above; and ’tis an affront to the nation to imagine
its whole stock of genius depended on any two
lives whatever. Those justly celebrated gentle-
men have, certainly, a claim to be placed at the
head of this Table of Fame, but the door ought
not to be shut on their successors; and among
them, the Free-Thinker has a legitimate title to
be introduced the foremost. *
“In the volumes under that title, is contained
a great variety of discourses on subjects not
touched, or but slightly, by the two accomplished
masters, his predecessors; some handled with wit
and pleasantry, some with great force of reason,
some with the charms of eloquence and persua-
sion, and all with the strictest regard to polite-
ness, good sense, and virtue. There are in par-
ticular certain papers on government, laws, re-
ligion, enthusiasm, and superstition, which are
admirable; and many short pieces of poetry, that
would have done honour to the most eminent
writers among us.” -
Of the coadjutors of Fielding in this paper, a
Mr. Ralph, whom we shall have occasion shortly
to notice, was the principal; he, it is probable,
* Vol. 1, p. 258.
PERIODICAL PAPERS. 91
wrote the Indea to the Times, and the numbers
marked with two asterisks, or signed Lil-
bourne.
48. Old ENGLAND, or THE CoNSTITU-
TIon AL Jou RNAL, was a weekly paper written
to oppose the ministry which succeeded to the
long reign of Sir Robert Walpole. It commenced
in February, 1743, and had many contributors,
of which William Guthrie, the author of the
Geographical Grammar, and who died in 1769,
was the principal. It was continued for several
years, and had, in the early part of its progress,
the occasional assistance of Lord Chesterfield.
49. THE FEMALE SPECTATOR. Eliza Hay-
wood, the author of the Female Spectator, was
the daughter of a tradesman, and born in Lon-
don in the year 1693. She early imbibed a taste
for dramatic poetry and the stage; and having
received a good education, and, though not beau-
tiful, possessing a fine person, she made her
appearance on the Dublin Theatre in 1715.
Neither in this attempt, however, nor in writing
for the stage, had she any success, and therefore
turned her attention to novel-writing, in which
her first productions, entitled, “ The Court of
Caramania,” and “The New Utopia," owing to
their looseness and immorality, involved her in
considerable disgrace, and promoted her to a
situation in the Dunciad of Pope.
º
92 EN U M ERATION OF
Her subsequent life and writings, however,
amply atoned for the errors of her youth; as she
became undeviatingly correct in the former, and
in the latter it was her constant aim to inculcate
the purest precepts of morality and decorum.
Her imagination was fertile, her industry great,
and in the course of the last twelve or fifteen
years of her existence, she produced the follow-
ing effusions of fancy. The Female Spectator;
Epistles for the Ladies; Fortunate Foundling;
Adventures of Nature; History of Betsy Thought-
less; Jenny and Jemmy Jessamy; Invisible Spy;
The Husband; and The Wife; in all, nineteen
volumes 12mo, independent of pamphlets, miscel-
laneous pieces, and a collection of some of her
early productions in four volumes 12mo, with her
portrait,
In flow’rs and pearls by bounteous Kirkall dress'd.*
Mrs. Haywood died in 1756, in the sixty-fourth
year of her age. X-
The Female Spectator was published monthly
in books; the first in April, 1744, and the twenty-
fourth and last in March, 1746. As soon as
completed, they were immediately collected into
four volumes 12mo, and have gone through
several impressions; the seventh, and, I believe,
the last edition, is now before me, and was
* Dunciad, b. 2, l. 160.
pp.RIO DICAL PAPERS. 93.
printed in 1771. Mrs. Haywood and three
female friends, a wife, a widow, and a maid, and
who are represented as highly accomplished, are
supposed to meet two evenings in every week at
Mrs. H-'s lodgings, for the purpose of commu-
nicating their essays and remarks, and selecting
and arranging the topics of future lucubrations.
The subjects are well chosen, and are rendered
very interesting by a great variety of anecdotes,
characters, and tales, which are usually related
with vivacity and judgment, and in a style, if not
elegant, yet easy and perspicuous, and, with a few
exceptions, free from vulgarisms. If love, mar-
riage, modesty, coquetry, jealousy, scandal, in-
trigue, dress, &c. are topics more immediately ad-
dressed to the ladies, there are many also which
are equally adapted to either sex, and to every age;
such as taste, imagination, good nature, ingrati-
tude, gaming, truth, superstition, religion, &c.
and one strong recommendation of the whole
work is, that its tendency is powerfully and uni-
formly in favour of all that is decent and virtu-
ous. The eleventh book, which contains a disser-
tation on the intellectual world, is singularly
curious and entertaining; and in the fifth, the
author, while speaking with approbation of pro-
perly regulated dramatic exhibitions, expresses
an opinion of Shakspeare's merit, which does
94 ENU MERATION OF
honour to her taste and discrimination, and, at
the same time, discovers, how little, even in a
period so late as the middle of the last century,
his genius was either known or valued. “Some
ladies,” remarks Mrs. Haywood, “ have shewn a
truly public spirit in rescuing the admirable, yet
almost forgotten Shakspeare, from being totally
sunk in oblivion:—they have contributed to raise
a monument to his memory, and frequently
honoured his works with their presence on the
stage:—an action which deserves the highest en-
comiums, and will be attended with an adequate
reward; since, in preserving the fame of the dead
bard, they add a brightness to their own, which
will shine to late posterity.” The Female Spec-
tator was very popular during the time of its
publication, and for many years subsequent to its
first appearance, and merits revival in a form
better accommodated to the modern taste in
typography and embellishment. º:
50. The REMEMBRANCER. Mr. James Ralph,
the author of this paper, and of many essays in
the Champion and Old England, was originally a
schoolmaster at Philadelphia, in North America.
He came over to England about the year 1728,
and commenced an author by profession. He
wrote in the London Journal, the Weekly
* Vol. 1, p. 259,260,
PERIoD1cAL PAPERs. 95
Medley, &c. and by his industry and perseverance
obtained the patronage of some individuals of
considerable rank and influence. Among these
was Mr. Doddington, afterwards Lord Melcombe,
to whose party views he was long an useful and
subservient instrument. His ambition to become
a poet, and his temerity in attacking his superi-
ors in the commonwealth of letters, at length intro-
duced him to the honours of the Dunciad, where
his poem, entituled Night, is not undeservedly
satirized; he was immediately indebted, however,
for his insertion among the dunces, to some
foolish lines entituled Sawney, an abusive satire on
Swift, Gay, and Pope. He was, likewise, an
unsuccessful votary of the comic Muse, and at-
tempted a still higher flight in what is termed a
Pindaric Ode in blank verse, The Muse's Address
to the King.” His prose compositions were,
nevertheless, far from being despicable; and his
“History of England” from the revolution to the
restoration, in which he received the assistance of
his patron Lord Melcombe, and by whose advice,
indeed, it was written, is a curious and valuable
compilation. Ralph had frequently experienced
the miseries attendant upon writing for bread;
* See some curious strictures on his Night, his Fashion-
able Lady, a Farce, and his Pindaric Ode, in the Memoirs *
of the Society of Grub-street, vol. 1, Nos. 5, 16, and 31.
96 ENU MERATION OF
and his last production, a pamphlet styled “The
Case of Authors by Profession,” 8vo. 1758, is com-
posed with spirit and feeling: it enumerates all the
bitter evils incident to an employment so preca-
rious, and so inadequately rewarded; and abounds
in anecdote and entertainment. Ralph died, a
martyr to the gout, on January 24th, 1762.
The Remembrancer was a weekly paper, under-
taken a short time previous to the rebellion, to
serve the purposes of Lord Melcombe's party;
and in his lordship's Diary Ralph is frequently
mentioned with distinguished approbation.
51. THE TRUE PATRIOT.
52. THE JAco BITE Jou RNAL. Both these
papers were written by Fielding, who, zealously
attached to the house of Hanover and the protes-
tant religion, exerted all his efforts in their cause.
The True Patriot made its appearance on No-
vember 5th, 1745, and on its decease was suc-
ceeded by the Jacobite Journal. Many of these
essays were very popular and impressive, and
contributed essentially to awaken the public mind
to the dangers and the ruin that would result
from the success of the Pretender and his party.
53. THE Fool, a paper of a miscellaneous
kind, though chiefly devoted to politics, was pub-
lished for about eight months in the Daily Ga-
zetteer. The first number is dated Thursday,
PERIODICAL PAPERS, 97
July 10th, 1746, and the last and ninety-third
number, Wednesday, February 25th, 1747. It
was re-printed in 1748, in two volumes 12mo,
with a preface and index. A few just observa-
tions and remarks are scattered through this
work, and some faint scintillations of wit and
humour occasionally sparkle in its pages; but the
style is often coarse, and very incorrect; and after
a perusal of the whole, I cannot say that I have
found more than three or four essays which merit
preservation.* -
54. THE PARRot. This periodical paper was
written in the year 1746, by Mrs. Haywood and
her associates in the composition of the Female
* Warburton in his Commentary on the Dunciad, speak-
ing of the Daily Gazetteer, observes, that “ into this, as a
common sink, was received all the trash, which had been
before dispersed in severał journals, and circulated at the
public expence of the nation. The authors were the same
obscure men, though sometimes relieved by occasional
essays from statesmen, courtiers, bishops, deans, and doc-
tors. The meaner sort were rewarded with money; others
with places or benefices, from an hundred to a thousand a
year. It appears from the Report of the Secret Committee
for enquiring into the conduct of R. Earl of O. that no
less than fifty thousand seventy-seven pounds, eighteen shil-
lings, were paid to authors and printers of newspapers,
such as Free-Britons, Daily Courants, Corn-Cutters, Jour-
nals, Gazetteers, and other political papers, between Feb-
ruary 10th, 1731, and February 10th, 1741.” -
W 0 L, IW, - II
98 EN U M ERATION OF
Spectator. It consists but of nine numbers,
which were published weekly, and which form, in
their collected state, a thin octavo volume. The
first number is dated August 2d, 1746, and the
last October 4th, 1746. To every essay is ap-
pended a Compendium of the Times, containing,
among other political affairs, a variety of particu-
lars relative to the rebellion, and the execution of
its vanquished chiefs. The first compendium, for
instance, mentions the execution of nine rebel
officers, on the 28th of September, 1746; and
among these is the name of James Dawson, the
unfortunate youth who furnished the subject of
Shenstone's very pathetic ballad. The melan-
choly proof of female constancy and tenderness
which was exhibited on this awful occasion, is
thus circumstantially narrated.
“A young lady, of a good family and handsome
fortune, had, for some time, extremely loved and
been equally beloved by Mr. James Dawson, one
of those unhappy gentlemen, who suffered on
Wednesday last at Kennington Common for high
treason; and had he been acquitted, or after
condemnation found the royal mercy, the day of
his enlargement, was to have been that of their
marriage. -
“I will not prolong the narrative by any repeti-
tion of what she suffered on sentence being passed
FERIOD ICAI, PAPERS, 99
upon him; none, excepting those utterly incapable
of feeling any soft or generous emotions, but may
easily conceive her agonies; beside, the sad ca-
tastrophe will be sufficient to convince you of
their sincerity.
“Not all the persuasions of her kindred could
prevent her from going to the place of execution;
she was determined to see the last of a person so
dear to her, and accordingly followed the sledges
in a hackney coach, accompanied by a gentleman
nearly related to her, and one female friend.—
She got near enough to see the fire kindled, which
was to consume that heart she knew so much de-
voted to her, and all the other dreadful prepara-
tions for his fate, without being guilty of any of
those extravagances her friends had apprehended;
but when all was over, and that she found he
was no more, she drew her head back into the
coach and crying out,-My dear, I follow thee,_
Lord Jesus receive both our.souls together, fell on
the neck of her companion, and expired in the
very moment she was speaking.” -
Not even the muse of Shenstone, who has lite-
rally copied the latter part of this description,
could add to the force and simple pathos with
which it is related. The lines which correspond
with the last paragraph of Mrs. Haywood's liarra-
tive, I shall transcribe for the sake of immediate
comparison. -
100 EN U M ERATION OF
She follow'd him, prepar'd to view
The terrible behests of law,
And the last scene of Jemmy's woes
With calm and steadfast eye she saw.
Distorted was that blooning face
Which she had fondly lov’d so long,
And stifled was that tuneful breath
Which in her praise had sweetly sung.
And sever'd was that beauteous neck
Round which her arms had fondly clos'd,
And mangled was that beauteous breast
On which her love-sick head repos'd.
And ravish'd was that constant heart
She did to every heart prefer ;
For though it could its king forget,
'Twas true and loyal still to her.
Amid those unrelenting flames
She bore this constant heart to see,
But when 'twas moulder'd into dust,
“Yet, yet,” she cried, “I follow thee.”
“My death, my death alone, can show
The pure, the lasting love I bore:
Accept, O Heaven' of woes like ours,
And let us, let us weep no more.”
The dismal scene was o'er and past,
The lover's mournful hearse retir’d ;
The maid drew back her languid head,
And, sighing forth his name, expir'd.
The essays in this publication are interesting,
and abound in curious anecdote. N°4 is written
PE, RIO DICAL PAPERS, 101
to reprobate the avidity shewn by every class of
society to witness the dreadful executions which
so frequently occurred at this unhappy era; and,
as a proof of the extreme misery sometimes result-
ing from this savage curiosity, an incident is re-
lated that took place only a very few years previ-
ous to the publication of the volume upon which
we are commenting. As the Parrot is one of the
most rare of our old periodical papers, I shall
offer no apology for the introduction of this story,
more especially as it will afford a proper speciz
men of the style and manner in which the work is
conducted.
“A poor labouring man in the west of Eng-
land had a son, who, when he came to be about
eleven or twelve years of age, discovered a quick-
ness of apprehension and ready wit, beyond what
could be expected in a boy that had never been
at any school, and could neither write nor read;
—the smart answers he gave whenever he was
asked any question, and many things were told of
him, made him be taken notice of by a neighbour-
ing gentleman of a good estate, who, when he saw
him with his father in the field, would often call
to him and talk to him.
“This worthy person thought it a pity that a
lad, of so good a capacity, should be brought up
to follow the plough; he therefore took him from
102 EN U M ERATION OF
his father, cloathed him in clean decent apparel,
and had him instructed as far as was necessary for
an ordinary tradesman; then sent him to London to
a pewterer, of whom he had some knowledge, and
soon after, coming up himself to parliament, bound
him apprentice, 3.
“The charity was not thrown away,+the
young man was extremely ingenious at his busi-
ness, very honest and obliging, and had no other
fault than an insatiable curiosity of seeing every
thing he found others eager to be spectators of;
but his master overlooked this in him, in con-
sideration of his good qualities, and they agreed
extremely well the whole time they were together.
—His apprenticeship being expired, he married a
young woman, to whom he had the good fortune
to be agreeable: she had a better portion than
his circumstances could have given him room to
hope for; and his patron, making a considerable
addition to the sum she brought, set him up in a
handsome manner; and being so, his honesty,
industry, and frugality, soon improved his stock,
and in a very few years he became a man of
consequence among those of his trade.
“Finding himself perfectly at ease, and hav-
ing a good journeyman whom he could entrust with
his business, he began to have a desire of seeing
his old father, and the place which had given him
PERIO DICAL PAPERS. 103
birth, and to take his wife with him on this visit;
she was a good sort of a woman, and perhaps, like
most of her sex, fond of a jaunt into the country,
did not oppose his inclination to it in the least;
and the matter being soon agreed upon between
them, he hired a horse, mounted her behind him,
and set out for Devonshire. —I shall pass over the
particulars of their journey, as having nothing in
it material to my purpose, and only tell you, that
when they came within a few miles of the village
to which they were going, they saw a great num-
ber of people, some riding, others running towards
a road which turned out of that they were in ;
on asking the occasion of this unusual concourse,
he was told they were going to see the execution
of a man who was to be hanged for sheep-stealing.
“ His natural curiosity for such spectacles
would not suffer him to pursue his journey with-
out gratifying that prevailing passion; and in spite
of all his wife, who would not go with him, could
say, to hinder him, he left her at the first inn they
came to, and followed the crowd he saw before
him with all the speed he could, till he came to
the gallows, which he very well remembered,
having, when a boy, seen many a one brought to
it.—He got thither almost at the same time with
the condemned person; but what was his astonish-
ment, when, no sooner casting his eyes upon him,
104. EN U M ERATION OF
he knew him to be his own father. — He flung him-
self off his horse, without regarding what became
of him, flew to those who had the care of con-
ducting the malefactor, and begged the liberty of
speaking to him; which being granted, he made
himself known to him, and there passed between
them all that could be expected on so mournful
an occasion.—The son expressed the utmost con-
cern that his father had not acquainted him, by
letter, with his misfortune, that he might have
come sooner down in order to endeavour to save
him from so shameful an end, if all he had in the
world could have done it; and the father an-
swered, that he did not repent his not having
done so, because as he had never any thing to give
him, he should not have had any comfort in life,
if prolonged by the ruin of so dutiful a child, and
that he was only grieved at the disgrace which
the crime he suffered for must entail on him.—
He told him that it was extreme poverty, and the
unwillingness he had of being burthensome to
him, as he had a wife and children, which had
made him do that in his old age, which in his
youth he should have trembled at the thoughts
of; and uttered many other expressions of grief
and tenderness, which drew tears from all who
were near enough to hear them, till the offi-
cers of justice obliging them to break off any
PERIODICAL PAP F.R.S. 105
further discourse, they embraced and parted; the
old man was dragged to his fate, and the young
one, struck with horror, fell that instant into violent
convulsion fits; the people about him had charity
enough to give him what assistance was in their
power; and hearing that, in his intervals of rea-
son, he desired to be carried to that inn where he
had left his wife, some of them took him up and
bore him on their shoulders.
“The poor woman was extremely frighted, as
you may suppose, to see her husband in this con-
dition; but on enquiring where, and in what
manner they had found him, and being informed
of the dreadful occasion, fell into agonies little
inferior to his.--A physician was immediately
sent for to them both ; the wife was soon upon
her legs, but the man lay a long time ill; at
length, however, he recovered enough to return
to London, which was all that could be done for
him;-the sad success of his journey had such
an effect upon him, that it turned his brain, and
he died soon after in a mad-house, leaving a wife
and three children, in circumstances very much
impaired by the expences this misfortune had
rendered unavoidable.” -
The same paper contains an observation not
very honourable to our dramatic taste at this
period, and which proves how greatly, in the
106 EN U M ERATION OF
course of half a century, refinement and civiliza-
tion have increased. “Even in your most elegant
diversions,” remarks the author, addressing the
British public,” a sanguinary disposition is dis-
coverable in you ; those of the theatre I mean ;
and for proof of this assertion, I can mention
several plays, particularly those entituled The
Libertine, and Titus Andronicus, both which con-
tain only a series of the most shocking murders,
from their first to their last acts, and yet seldom
fail of being honoured with the most crowded
audiences, and numbers frequently turned away
for want of room in the house to contain them.”
N° 8 of the Parrot is a valuable essay on the
muse of satire and panegyric, and is written with
more than the author's usual vigour.
55. THE TATLER REv1 v E D. Of this effort,
which I believe is the last that has been made to
continue the plan and title of Steele's essays, I
know nothing more than that it was attempted in
the year 1750, and, after a short trial, completely
failed. The specimens which were brought be-
fore the public are, I understand, now no longer
procurable.
Mr. Boswell, in his Life of Johnson, has re-
marked, that “a few days before the first of his
essays (The Rambler) came out, there started
another competitor for fame in the same form,
PERIO DICA Y, PA PERS. 107
under the title of “The Tatler Revived,” which I
believe was born but to die;” and Johnson him-
self, in his first Idler, dated April 15th, 1758, has
alluded both to this abortive attempt, and to the
Universal and Female Spectators. “Those,” says
he, “who attempt periodical essays seem to be
often stopped in the beginning, by the difficulty
of finding a proper title. Two writers since the
time of the Spectator, have assumed his name,
without any pretensions to lawful inheritance; an
effort was once made to revive the Tatler; and
the strange appellations. by which other papers
have been called, shew that the authors were dis-
tressed, like the natives of America, who came to
the Europeans to beg a name.”
56. THE STUDENT. This is a miscellany of
great merit, which was published monthly in
numbers at Oxford, in the years 1750, and 1751,
It rejects all politics and party discussion, but
embraces a wide field in polite literature, and
professes to insert nothing in its pages that had
previously been published. It includes many
curious documents in history and biography;
several interesting experiments and observations
in physics; some critical dissertations; a valuable
contribution of poetry by some of the first bards
of the age, among which are various pieces by
Warton and Smart; many essays on ethics,
108 ENU MERATION OF
religion, and morality; and a copious seasoning
of wit and humour. N° 1 is dated January 31st,
1750, and N° 9, September 16th, 1750; these,
with a supplement, form the first volume in oc-
tavo; the second consists of nine more, to which
are affixed the names of the nine muses, together
with a tenth under the title of Apollo, which is
dated July 3d, 1751. This work preceded the
Rambler of Dr. Johnson, therefore, not quite two
months; and in the first number of vol. 2d, enti-
tled Clio, and printed in October, 1750, the fol-
lowing very just and handsome tribute is paid to
the merits of this excellent paper, and which
proves how soon its value was properly estimated.
Y The author is writing on the subject of gratitude,
and declares for himself and his associates, that
“there is one gentleman from whom we should
be proud to borrow, if our plan forbad it not ;
and, since the text is Gratitude, we beg leave to
return our acknowledgments to him for the noble
and rational entertainment he has given us; we
mean the admirable author of the Rambler, a
work that exceeds any thing of the kind ever
published in this kingdom, some of the SPECTA-
Toks excepted—if indeed they may be excepted.
We own ourselves unequal to the task of com.
mending such a work up to its merits—where the
diction is the most high-wrought imaginable, and
PERIQ DICAL PAPERS, 109
yet, like the brilliancy of a diamond, exceeding
perspicuous in its richness—where the sentiments
ennoble the style, and the style familiarizes the
sentiments—where every thing is easy and natu-
ral, yet every thing is masterly and strong. May
the public favour crown his merits, and may not
the English, under the auspicious reign of George
II. neglect a man who, had he lived in the first
century, would have been one of the greatest
favourites of Augustus.”
As we are just verging upon the consideration
of the Johnsonian papers, this high encomium,
whilst yet the Rambler had but run a small part
of its course, may be considered as an immediate
and apposite introduction to the subsequent
essays.
We have now enumerated, as the subject of our
second essay, the periodical papers which were
published between the close of the eighth volume
of the Spectator, and the commencement of the
Rambler; a series which presents us with a great
variety, both in matter and manner. About one
third of the number may be included under the
head of politics; and of these Cato's Letters, The
Craftsman, Common Sense, and The True Patriot,
are the best. * -
Of the miscellaneous essays, the most valuable
are The Free-thinker, The Universal Spectator, The
i 10 ” ENUMERATION, &c.
Grub-street Journal, The Champion, The Female
Spectator, and The Student. In a class of an
inferior kind, but of which some few parts merit
a rescue from oblivion, are to be arranged The
Censor, The Plain Dealer, The Humourist, Terræ
Filius, The Fool, and the Selections from Mist's
and Fog's Journal.
To none of these, however, can we ascribe the
praise of having rivalled either the Spectator,
Guardian, or Tatler; the Free-thinker has, per-
haps, made the nearest approach; but in the
arrangement of our classical essayists, though a
period of thirty-six years intervenes, the Rambler
must ever immediately follow the close of the
Guardian.
Yet it must not be forgotten, that, with few ex-
ceptions, all the papers, in this long interval,
which have been written upon universal topics,
upon men, manners, and morals, have in their
general tendency been friendly to virtue, litera-
ture, and religion; and there are many excellent
essays interspersed among them, which, were they
collected into two or three volumes, would by
such selection and approximation acquire a lustre
and a value that cannot attach to them while
Jistantly scattered, and overwhelmed amid infe-
rior materials.
P A R T II.
ESSAY I.
THE LITERARY LIFE OF DB, JOHNSON.
Samuel. Johnson was born at Lichfield, in
Staffordshire, on September the 7th, 1709. From
his father, who was a native of Cubley in Derby-
shire, and a bookseller at Lichfield, he inherited
that morbid melancholy which so frequently
embittered his existence; nor was this the only
disease with which he had to struggle; from his
nurse, he imbibed the distemper called the king's
evil, and, for the removal of which his parents,
who were staunch Jacobites, presented him to
Queen Anne for the royal touch. An operation,
however, notwithstanding this potent remedy,
became necessary, and the lower part of his face
continued ever afterwards disfigured by the
marks of the knife. His hearing also, and the
sight of his left eye, were injured by this com
plaint. . --- --
112 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
In the education of Johnson no deviation from
the common plan is perceptible; after acquir-
ing the elements of his own language, he was
sent to the free-school at Lichfield, where, under
the care of two very able masters, he made a
rapid progress in classical literature. At the age
of fifteen, and in the year 1725, he resided for
some months with the Rev. Cornelius Ford,
his cousin; a man of licentious manners, but
possessed of considerable talents and learning,
and from him he received much and important
assistance in his studies. On quitting the roof
of this relation, he was placed, by his direction,
in a school at Stourbridge in Worcestershire, at
that time conducted by Mr. Wentworth, and,
having remained there rather better than a twelve-
month, he returned to his father's house.
During this early period of his life, many of
the features which distinguished his character
through life, were apparent. He was ambitious
to excel, to be considered as the chieftain of his
class at school, and he demanded from his com-
panions great deference and attention. His
memory was peculiarly strong and retentive, and
he was uncommonly inquisitive, but, at the same
time, exhibited a constitutional indolence, and an
aversion from regular study; what he had to
perform, he would delay to execute as long as
I, ITERARY LIFE OF DIR., JOHNSON . 113
possible, and then dispatch it with singular promp-
titude and vigour. He seldom mingled in the
common diversions of his school-fellows, but
preferred sauntering in the fields, where he was
usually employed in talking to himself.
At Lichfield he spent two years in a very de-
sultory course of reading, a mode of acquiring
knowledge to which he had been attached
whilst a very young boy, and which was after-
wards confirmed by the advice of Mr. Ford;
“ obtain,” said he, “some general principles of
every science: he who can talk only on one sub-
ject, or act only in one department, is seldom
wanted, and, perhaps, never wished for; while
the man of general knowledge can often benefit,
and always please.” Like Milton, he was pas-
sionately fond of romances; and Dr. Percy has
recorded, that when a boy, and spending part of a
summer at his parsonage-house in the country,
he chose for his regular reading the old Spanish
romance of Felirmarte of Hercania in folio, which
he read quite through. During his residence at
Lichfield, however, though his reading was various
and without system, it did not consist of works of
mere amusement; to adopt his own words, he
studied “all literature, all ancient authors,” and
he attempted translations from Homer, Virgil,
and Horace. Of those early efforts, Mr. Boswell
VO L. IV. I -
114 LITERARY 1.IFE of DR. Jo HNson.
has collected some specimens, of which the two
versions from Horace are, by many degrees, the
best. It is probable, indeed, that as he never
embraced any profession, the plan, if it can be so
termed, that he now pursued, and which he con-
tinued, with few exceptions, through life, was the
one best calculated for the situation that he was
destined to fill in the republic of letters; it was
adapted, in fact, for the acquisition of uncommon
and multifarious knowledge. *...
Owing to the poverty of his parents, it was not
likely that Johnson should ever enjoy the benefits
to be derived from an University; fortunately,
however, when about nineteen, he was selected
by Mr. Corbet, of Shropshire, to attend and
assist the studies of his son at Oxford; this young
man had been the school-fellow of Johnson, and on
the 31st of October, 1728, they were both entered
of Pembroke College: it is uncertain, however,
notwithstanding a previous promise of support,
whether Johnson received any pecuniary assist-
ance from Mr. Corbet; at least, his poverty,
which, during his short residence at college, was
sometimes extreme, seems strongly to indicate a
disgraceful failure on the part of his supposed
friend. :
His studies whilst at Oxford were, as they
had hitherto been, vigorous, but unmethodical,
LITERARY LIFE of DR. JOHNSON, 115
What he read solidly at Oxford, he told Mr.
Boswell, was Greek; not the Grecian historians,
but Homer and Euripides, and now and then a
little epigram; that the study of which he was
the most fond was metaphysicks, but he had not
read much, even in that way. What materially
contributed to produce irregularity both in his
manners and literary pursuits, was the insuffici-
ency of his tutor, Mr. Jorden, who, though a man
of moral worth, possessed no abilities of a supe-
rior kind; and while Johnson loved the man, he
held his literature in contempt. The conse-
quence of this was, a neglect of his stated duties
and attendance, and an attempt to seduce others
into the same conduct. “I have heard from
some of his contemporaries,” relates Dr. Percy,
“that he was generally seen lounging at the
college-gate, with a circle of young students
round him, whom he was entertaining with wit,
and keeping from their studies, if not spiriting
them up to rebellion against the college disci-
pline, which in his maturer years he so much
extolled.” - - . . . . . .
It must not be inferred, however, from this
account, that he neglected the cultivation of his
intellectual powers; he was, in fact, during the
three years which he spent at Pembroke College,
an intense, though desultory reader, and stored
116 LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNson.
up a vast fund of useful and varied knowledge.
He was, also, highly esteemed in the university,
for his facility and harmony in the composition
of Latin verse, to which, from an early period, at
school, he had been strongly attached. A trans-
lation of Pope's Messiah into Latin hexameters,
performed at the request of Mr. Jorden for a
Christmas exercise, was the first production of
Johnson's which was published; his father, with
an excusable vanity, having printed it at Lichfield
without the consent of his son, and it afterwards
appeared in a Poetical Miscellany at Oxford, in
1731. With this version Pope was so much
delighted, that he returned a copy of it to Mr.
Arbuthnot, with this declaration: “the author
will leave it a question to posterity, whether
his poem or mine be the original.” It is, indeed,
a performance, which, from the dignity and me-
lody of the versification, and the ease and accu-
racy with which the ideas of the original are
transfused, merits much applause. -
For mathematics and physics, Johnson appears
to have had little relish ; theology, ethics, and
philosophy, were his favourite departments, and
in these he made great progress during his
academical life. In religion his opinions had
been very lax and unsettled; and it was not until
the accidental perusal of “Law's Serious Call to
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Join Nson. I 17
the Unconverted,” whilst at Oxford, that he en-
tered earnestly into the inquiry. He took up
Law, he relates, expecting to find it a very dull
book, and with a view of ridiculing it; but he
soon discovered that the author was an over-
match for him; and from this era, piety, sincere
though often gloomy, was a predominant feature
in his character.
It was about this period, likewise, while spend-
ing the college vacation at Lichfield, and in his
twentieth year, that he was first violently attacked
with that hypochondriac affection from which,
during the residue of life, he was seldom alto-
gether free. Like Cowper, though by no means
in so intense a degree, his judgment was frequently
subjected to the partial influence of a disordered
imagination. In the former instance, a perma-
nent derangement of many years was, unhappily,
the result; but, in the latter, no shade of insanity
was ever produced; for, though often languid and
inefficient to such a degree, that he sometimes
could not distinguish the hour upon the town
clock, yet was he always able to correct, though
he could not preclude, the aberrations of fancy.
The apprehension of approaching insanity, in a
great measure the unavoidable consequence of
morbid sensation, was the ingredient in Johnson's
cup which poisoned the blessings of life. He
118 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Jon Nson.
endured, however, with pious resignation, though
in gloom and horror; and often exhibited, in his
worst paroxysms of dejection, the most astonish-
ing efforts of mental power. Of this he gave a
remarkable proof in his first sufferance under
the complaint, by drawing up a statement of
his case, with so much judgment, perspicuity,
and eloquence, that Dr. Swinfen of Lichfield, to
whom it was addressed, inconsiderately and in-
delicately circulated it among his friends, as an
instance of extraordinary sagacity and research;
a proceeding which so much and so justly offended
his patient, that the Doctor, though his god-
father, was never perfectly forgiven.
He returned to college, however, in the year
1730, in tolerable health, and continued to avail
himself of its numerous opportunities for literary
research, until the autumn of 1731 ; when, no
longer able to support himself in the university,
owing to the distressed circumstances of his
father, who had become insolvent, he returned to
Lichfield without a degree, destitute with regard
to pecuniary resources, and totally undetermined
what plan of life he should pursue. Soon after
this event, in December 1731, his father died, in
the seventy-ninth year of his age; and the share
of his effects, which, after providing for his
mother, he received on his decease, did not
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 119
amount to more than twenty pounds. The spirit
and independence of Johnson, however, were not
to be shaken by the pressure of adversity; and
the following note, which is copied from his diary,
exhibits, on this occasion, a high tone of forti-
tude and virtue. “ 1732, Junii 15. Undecim
aureos deposui, quodie, quidquid ante matris
ponus (quod serum sit precor) de paternis bonis
sperare licet, viginti scilicet libras, accepi. Usque
adeo mihi mea fortuna pingenda est interea, et ne
paupertate vires animi languescant, ne in flagitia
egestas adigat, cavendum.”
Thus situated, it became necessary to adopt
some plan for immediate subsistence; and he,
therefore, readily embraced the offer of offici-
ating as under-master of the grammar-school at
Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire. To this
place he went on foot, on the sixteenth of July,
1732; but, owing to the pride and insolence of
Sir Wolstan Dixie, the patron of the seminary,
and in whose house he resided as a kind of do-
mestic chaplain, he speedily relinquished the en-
gagement, nor could he ever reflect on the few
months that were spent in this situation, without
the most marked abhorrence.
At this juncture, he received and accepted an
invitation from a Mr. Hector, who had formerly
been his school-fellow, and who was now practising
120 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. J O HNSON.
as a Surgeon at Birmingham, to spend a few
months with him as his guest. This gentleman
then lodged with Mr. Warren, a bookseller of
eminence in that city, and who finding Johnson
a man of literature, obtained from him some pe-
riodical essays for insertion in a newspaper, of
which he was proprietor; these are, it is said, no
longer in existence.
After a residence of six months with Mr. Hec-
tor, and wishing still to enjoy the solace of his
society and advice, he took lodgings of a Mr.
Jarvis in another part of the town; and here, at
the solicitation of his friend, and Mr. Warren, he
translated and abridged Lobo's Voyage to Abys-
sinia from the French of the Abbé Le Grand.
For this work, a considerable portion of which
was dictated to Mr. Hector as Johnson lay in
bed, he received from Mr. Warren but five gui-
neas; a sum, that with all allowances for the
value , of money at the period in question, must
be considered as miserably inadequate to the
time and labour which were bestowed. The
book was printed in octavo at Birmingham, but
published anonymously in London in 1735 by
Bettesworth and Hitch, of Pater-noster Row.
To the narrative of Lobo, which details the
fruitless efforts of a company of Portuguese mis-
sionaries to convert the natives of Abyssinia to
LTTERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON. 121
the church of Rome, Le Grand has added an
account of the final expulsion of the Jesuits from
that country, and fifteen dissertations on the his-
tory, religion, manners, &c. of Abyssinia. To
the whole Johnson has prefixed a preface, and a
dedication in the name of his bookseller to John
Warren, Esq. of Pembrokeshire. The produc-
tion is remarkable on two accounts; as the first
prose composition of Johnson, and as containing
a relation of the discovery of the head of the
Nile. -
In the version itself, there are no traces of the
style which Johnson subsequently assumed; all is
unaffected and plain, and in correspondence with
the tone of the original; but the preface and dedi-
cation display, in several instances, the rudiments
of that structure of sentence, and mode of ex-
pression, for which the author was afterwards so
celebrated. The Voyage to Abyssinia is very
interesting, nor can there be any doubt, that,
with regard to the discovery of the fountains of
the Nile, Mr. Bruce has been anticipated com-
pletely; but, according to Mr. Murray, the very
accurate and learned editor of Bruce's Travels,
not by Lobo, but by Pedro Paez, a Portuguese
missionary, whose description of the sources was
published by Kercher, and by Isaac Vossius, and
copied by Lobo, and who better than a century
122 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
and a half ago described accurately what our.
modern adventurer, under the stimulating idea
of a first explorer, endured so many dangers and
fatigues to witness.” It is likewise probable, as
Mr. Boswell has suggested, that Johnson's atten-
tion to the version of Le Grand might have in-
duced him, many years afterwards, to place the
chief scene of his Rasselas in Abyssinia.
Shortly after the completion of his translation,
and in the commencement of the year 1734, he
returned to Lichfield; but seeing the necessity of
recurring to his pen for subsistence, he issued
proposals, in the August following, for an edition
of the Latin Poems of Politian, to be published
by subscription, and intituled Angeli Politiani
Poemata Latina, quibus notas, cum historia Latinae
poeseos, a Petrarchae arvo ad Politiani tempora
deducta et vita Politiani fusius quam antehac
* The question whether Mr. Bruce ever actually visited
the sources in Geesh, is finally settled by the industry of
Mr. Murray, who has discovered the journal of Mr.
Bruce's sole companion to the fountains, Balugnani the
Italian. “ This manuscript is in Italian, in Balugnani's
hand-writing, on the smooth cream-coloured cotton paper
of the east. It contains a complete detail of the hours and
days in which they travelled; of the villages, rivers, moun-
tains, and, in short, of every remarkable object they met
with, from their leaving Gondar on Sunday 28th of Octo-
ber, 1770, at half after nine A. M. till their return, Sunday
18th of November, one o'clock P. M. in the same year.”
LITERARY LIFE OF Drt. JOHNSON. 123
enarrata addidit SAM. Johnson. Though the
volume was to contain thirty sheets in octavo,
and was offered at the very moderate price of
five shillings, so few were the subscribers, that
the editor, apprehensive of an insufficient sale,
thought it prudent to relinquish the design.
The failure of this scheme, the lovers of
learning have reason to lament; a history of
Latin poetry from the age of Petrarch to the time
of Politian, would, from the pen of Johnson,
have been a most valuable accession to our stock
of literary information; nor would the life of
Politian, written, as the editor intended, at large,
have been less fertile in interest, as few of those.
who flourished during the revival of literature
possess equal claims to our notice and applause.
Of the poems of Politian, the Nutricia is the most
elegant and pleasing; for, as the author asserts.'
in one of his epistles, historiam continet omnium
feré vatum; it was his intention, had not death at
the age of forty prematurely closed all his views,
to have accompanied it with an extensive com-
mentary; and an edition, thus illustrated, would,
if conducted by a man of taste and various read-
ing, be still a most acceptable labour. The Mis-
cellanea and Epistole of Politian highly merit,
likewise, a republication.”
* In an elegant preface by Bishop Atterbury to a little
124 LITERAT&Y LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
On his proposals proving abortive, Johnson.
returned to Birmingham, and from that place
addressed a letter to Mr. Cave, editor of the
Gentleman's Magazine, offering to assist him, on
reasonable terms, in conducting that miscellany,
by the contribution of poems, inscriptions, lite-
rary dissertations, and critical remarks on authors
ancient and modern. The offer was gladly ac-
cepted by Cave, who was now struggling to push
his valuable compilation into notice. It may
readily be supposed, however, that the profits
arising from such an engagement could not be
considerable, and Johnson, therefore, found it
necessary to look around him for further support;
volume which he published in 1684, entitled Anthologia sew
selecta quardam Poemata Italorum qui Latine scripserunt, is
the following very terse but just and admirable critique on
‘the literary character of Politian. “Politianus eo successu
quo vix alter quisquam eruditorum, humaniores literas
excoluit: In soluta autem oratione, quam ligata, longe
felicior—Ingenio ad omnia ferebatur vivido, vegetoque.
Effusus tamen, et exultans, et Lucano quain Maroni simi-
lior, sententiarum ubique pompam studiose conquisivit;
quas tractu numerorum plus aequo excurrentium productas,
aculcatis, ut plurimum, finibus concludere voluit. Quod
consilium rebus in medio dicendi genere positis prout
Rusticum ejus oportuit fuisse, haud ita belle conveniet.
At multa in eo venuste dicta reperias, et digna quantivis
pretii; quae si criticorun examini subjicientur, in pleris-
que se prebeant aestimanda.”
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 125
he accordingly tendered his assistance as an usher
to the Rev. Mr. Budworth, master of the gram-
mar-school at Brerewood, in Staffordshire, but
was rejected, from an apprehension on the part
of Mr. Budworth, that the involuntary contrac-
tions to which Johnson had, from an early period,
been subjected, might excite ridicule, and at
length even imitation, in the boys committed to
his care. - -
What his literature and talents failed to obtain,
love in some degree effected. Johnson, though
by no means calculated, by the graces of his per-
son or manner, to conciliate the favour of the
female sex, was of an amatory constitution; he
had felt, even at school, the tumults of the tender
passion, and had fallen deeply in love with a
young quaker of the name of Olivia Lloyd; some
years after, at Lichfield, he was equally attracted
by the charms of Lucy Porter; and in the year
1735, he became, at Birmingham, an ardent ad-
mirer and the husband of the mother of the lady
last mentioned. She was the widow of a Mr.
Henry Porter, a mercer, double her lover's age,
and, according to the description of Garrick, by
no means peculiarly inviting in her person; she
had, however, in her possession about eight
hundred pounds; and to Johnson this, in his
present circumstances, was an object of important
*
126 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
consideration; it is not, however, to be inferred
that he married merely from pecuniary motives;
from his Prayers and Meditations, and from the
epitaph which he wrote to record her memory, it
is evident that he thought her beautiful, and that
he was sincerely and ardently attached to her.
They were married at Derby, on the 9th of July,
1736; and with the view of employing his wife's
money to the best advantage, he took a large
house at Edial, near Lichfield, and opened an
academy for classical education. The design,
however, did not succeed, though patronized by
Mr. Walmsley, and duly advertised;" he ob-
tained, indeed, but three pupils, the celebrated
David Garrick, then eighteen years of age, whose
father lived at Lichfield, his brother George, and
a Mr. Offely, the son of a gentleman of fortune
and consequence in the county. Of the leisure
of Johnson, which of course was, at this time,
considerable, a great part was employed in the
composition of his Irene; and, as a book of enter-
tainment and relaxation, and, at the same time,
of multifarious and recondite learning, he had
recourse to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, of
which he has affirmed, that “it was the only book
that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner
than he wished to rise.”
• In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1736, p.418.
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 127
The prospect of succeeding in his academy
growing every day less promising, Johnson at
length determined to try his fortune in the metro-
polis, persuaded that there, if any where, genius
and talents would meet their due reward. It is
remarkable, that his friend and pupil, David
Garrick, had conceived a similar design; and in
March 1737, these successful candidates for fame
in their respective, though widely different, de-
partments, reached London together. They
were introduced by a letter from Mr. Walmsley
to a Mr. Colson, a mathematician, and master of
an academy, with the information that Johnson
was “to try his fate with a tragedy, and to see to
get himself employed in some translation, either
from the Latin or the French.” Of the tragedy,
however, only three acts were written; and as
the finances of the poet were such as would
shortly demand a recruit, it became essential, in
the mean time, to obtain some productive engage-
ment. With this view, having taken lodgings at
Greenwich, he sent a letter, subscribed with his
own name, and dated July 12th, 1737, to Mr.
Cave, in which he proposed to translate the His-
tory of the Council of Trent, by Paul Sarpi,
from a late French version by Dr. Le Courayer,
whose copious notes he thought could not fail of
procuring to the work a favourable reception.
128 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON.
The offer was accepted; but Johnson, averse to
the labour of translating, soon meditated other
plans, nor was the task commenced until August
2d, 1738; when, after printing twelve quarto
sheets, for which he had received of Cave forty-
nine pounds, seven shillings, the design was given
up, in consequence of a very singular rivalship;
for another Mr. Samuel Johnson, librarian and
curate of St. Martin's in the Fields, having en-
gaged in the same laborious undertaking, under
the patronage of Dr. Zachary Pearce, and the
clergy, the interest exerted for the rival ver-
sions proved destructive to both, and, after some
skirmishing between the two translators, the
attempt was mutually relinquished. Notwith-
standing the high character to which the history
of Sarpi is justly entitled, it cannot, I think, be
lamented that Johnson should, by this accident,
have been compelled to change his plan of lite-
rary exertion, and to substitute original for trans-
lated composition. -#
Soon after his application to Cave in July,
1737, our author returned to Lichfield, with the
double purpose of visiting his wife, and finishing
his tragedy. Here, after three months additional
| labour, the latter was completed, and he once
more removed to town, accompanied by Mrs.
Johnson, and high in expectation of beholding
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson. 129
his Irene on the stage. His hopes, however,
were bitterly disappointed; Mr. Fleetwood, the
manager of Drury-lane Theatre, (though strongly
solicited in its favour,) rejected his tragedy; and
his scheme of support from this quarter was, for
a time, completely annihilated.
In this situation, his thoughts reverted to Mr.
Cave; he now became a regular coadjutor in
the conduct of his monthly publication, and for
several years, indeed, derived his chief means of
support from the assistance which he imparted
to this celebrated periodical pamphlet. His first
known contribution to the Gentleman's Maga-
zine is dated March, 1738, and consists of a very
beautiful Latin Ode Ad Urbanum, in which he
compliments the editor in a style of great ele-
gance and ingenuity. - ->
About two months after this address to Mr.
Urban, the poetical powers of Johnson were ex-
hibited to the world in all their strength, by the
publication of his London, a poem in imitation of
the third satire of Juvenal. It appeared on the
same morning with Pope's satire, entituled
“ 1738,” and immediately attracted so many
readers, that a second edition was required in
the course of a week. Dodsley purchased the
entire property of this poem for ten guineas, a
sum certainly disproportioned to the merit of the
W O L., IV, K .
130 litenary Life of Dr. Johnson,
\-
work; but if the author's pecuniary reward was
not great, the reputation which he acquired by
the effort, must have equalled his most sanguine
expectations. It was praised wherever it was
read; and, what more particularly must have de-
lighted Johnson, it was praised by Pope, who,
having for some time in vain solicitousky endea-
voured to discover the new poet, is said to have
declared, that “whoever he was, he would soon
be deterré.”
As this spirited imitation of Juvenal forms an
epoch in our author's literary life, and is one
of his best poetical productions, I shall consider
it as introductory to an uninterrupted considera-
tion of his compositions in this branch, and to a
discussion of his general character as a PoET;
and this plan I shall pursue with regard to the
other numerous departments of literature in
which he excelled, and according to the order in
which the first in merit of a class shall in suc-
cession rise to view; persuaded that, by this mode,
the monotony arising from a stricter chronologi.
cal detail of his various writings, the arrangement
hitherto adopted by his biographers, may, in a
great measure, be obviated. g
Of the three imitators of the third satire of the
Roman poet, Boileau, Oldham, and Johnson, the
latter is, by many degrees, the most vigorous
LITERARY LIFE OF BR. JOHNSON. I31.
and poetical. No man, indeed, was better cal-
culated to transfuse the stern invective, the sub-
lime philosophy, and nervous painting of Juvenal,
than our author; and his, London, whilst it rivals
the original in these respects, is, at the same time,
greatly superior to it in purity of illustration, and
harmony of versification. The felicity with which
he has adapted the imagery and allusions of the
Latin poem to modern manners, vices, and
events; and the richness and depth of thought
which he exhibits when the hint is merely taken
from the Roman bard, or when he chooses alto-
gether to desert him, are such as to render this
satire the noblest moral poem in our language.
At the period when Johnson wrote his London,
he must, from his peculiar circumstances, have
been prone to imbibe all the warmth and indig-
nation of the ancient satirist, who depicts in the
boldest colours the unmerited treatment to which
indigence is subjected, and the multiform oppres-
sions arising from tyranny and ill-acquired wealth.
He was, indeed, at this time, “steeped up to
the lips in poverty,” and was likewise a zealous.
opponent of what he deemed a corrupt adminis-
tration. It is impossible to read the following
passage, one of the finest in the poem, and
especially its concluding line, which the author
distinguished by capitals, without deeply eutering
132 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON .
into, and severely sympathising with, the feelings
and sufferings of the writer.
By numbers here from shame or censure free,
All crimes are safe but hated poverty.
This, only this, the rigid law pursues,
This, only this, provokes the snarling muse.
The sober trader at a tatter'd cloak
Wakes from his dream, and labours for a joke;
With brisker air the silken courtiers gaze,
And turn the varied taunt a thousand ways.
Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the gen’rous heart,
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.
Has Heaven reserv'd, in pity to the poor,
No pathless waste, or undiscover'd shore ?
No secret island in the boundless main 2
No peaceful desert yet unclaim'd " by Spain?
Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore,
And bear oppression's insolence no more.
This mournful truth is every where confess'd,
Slow rises worth, by poverty depress'd.
Of the energy and compression which charac-
terize the sentiment and diction of “London,”
this last line is a striking example; for the origi-
nal, though strong in its expression, is less terse
and happy:
Haud facile emergunt, quorum virtutibus obstat
Res angusta domi.
"The Spaniards had at this time laid claim to several of
sur American provinces.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR., JOHNSON. 133
The next poem of distinguished merit which
Johnson produced, was the Prologue for the open-
ing of Drury-lane Theatre in 1747. His friend,
and former pupil, David Garrick, had this year
obtained the office of joint patentee and manager
of Drury-lane; and the prologue of Johnson,
whilst it traced with skill the varied fortunes of
the stage and of dramatic taste, was intended as
a compliment to the new manager, under whose
direction it was predicted that the reign of Na-
ture and of Sense would revive. The commence-
ment of these verses, which delineates the genius
of Shakspeare, is, in point of invention and en-
thusiasm, the first that poetry has produced upon
the subject; the tribute of Gray does not exceed
it. In prose, the portrait of our great Dramatist
by Dryden was unrivalled, until Mr. Morgann,
in his “Essay on the dramatic character of Sir
John Falstaff,” produced a delineation, the vi-
vacity and discrimination of which demand
almost unqualified praise. - With what a vivid
spirit of animation has he clothed the following
prediction, alluding to Voltaire, who, in the arro-
gance of criticism, had termed the immortal poet
a barbarian He exclaims, “Whatever may be
the neglect of some, or the censure of others,
there are those who firmly believe that this wild
and uncultivated Barbarian has not obtained
134 LITERARY LIFTE OF TR. JOHNSON,
one half of his fame.—When the hand of time
shall have brushed off his present editors and
commentators, and when the very name of Wol-
taire, and even the memory of the language in
which he has written, shall be no more, the
Apalachian mountains, the banks of the Ohio,
and the plains of Sciola, shall resound with the
accents of this Barbarian. In his native tongue
he shall roll the genuine passions of nature; no
shall the griefs of Lear be alleviated, or §.
charms and wit of Rosalind be abated, by time.”
In the commencement of the year 1749, nearly
eleven years after the production of his “Lon-
don,” our author published his second imitation
of the Roman Satirist, entituled The Vanity of
Human Wishes, being the tenth satire of Juvenal
imitated. For this poem, though his literary
fame had considerably increased in the space
which had elapsed between the two performan-
ces, he received from Dodsley but fifteen gui-
neas. If with this sum, for a piece of no great
kength, he was satisfied, he certainly was not, and
had no reason to be, with the general remunera-
tion of his labours; and in the poem before us, he
has drawn in one line, and in his strongest man-
ner, the usual fate of literary labour: w
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause awhile from letters, to be wise;
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 135
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the gaol.
The Vanity of Human Wishes, the subject of
which is in a great degree founded on the ALCI-
BIADEs of PLATo, possesses not the point and
fire which animates the “London.” It breathes,
however, a strain of calm and dignified philoso-
phy, much more pleasing to the mind, and cer-
tainly much more consonant to truth, than the
party exaggeration of the prior satire. The po-
et's choice of modern examples, in place of those
brought forward by the ancient bard, is happy
and judicious; and he has every where availed
himself, and in a style the most impressive, of the
solemnity, the pathos, and sublime morality of
the christian code. In consequence of this sub-
stitution of a purer system of ethics, and of a
striking selection of characters, among which
that of Charles of Sweden is conspicuously emi-
nent, the whole has the air of an original, and, to
be understood, requires not to be collated with its
prototype. . .
To enter into competition with the tenth satire
of Juvenal, which is, without doubt, the most
Perfect composition of its author, was a daring
and a hazardous attempt. Dryden had led the
Way, and, though occasionally successful, has
failed to equal the general merit of the Latin
Poem. The imitation of Johnson, of the
136 LITER A R Y LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON.
contrary, may be said to vie with the Roman in
every line, and in some instances to surpass the
original; particularly in the sketch of Charles,
and in the conclusion of the satire, which, though
nobly moral as it is in the page of Juvenal, is
greatly heightened by the pen of Johnson, and
forms one of the finest lessons of piety and resig-
nation discoverable in the works of any uninspired
writer. After reprobating the too frequent folly
of our wishes and our prayers, it is enquired of
the poet whether we shall upon no occasion
implore the mercy of the skies; he replies,
Inquirer, cease; petitions yet remain,
Which heav'n may hear, nor deem religion vain.
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to heav'n the measure and the choice.
Safe in his pow'r, whose eyes discern afar
The secret ambush of a specious prayer;
Implore his aid, in his decisions rest,
Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best.
Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires,
And strong devotion to the skies aspires,
Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resign'd,
For love, which scarce collective man can fill;
For patience, sov’reign o'er transmuted ill;
For faith, that, panting for a happier seat,
Counts death kind nature's signal of retreat :
These goods for man the laws of heav'n ordain,
These goods he grants, who grants the pow'r to gain;
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 137
The month succeeding the publication of “The
Vanity of Human Wishes,” witnessed the crisis of
our poet's dramatic fame; on the 6th of Febru-
ary, 1749, Irene was brought upon the stage, after
being submitted, though with great reluctance by
the author, to the alterations which Garrick, from
his knowledge of stage effect, had very properly
suggested. Yet, though the whole force of the
theatre was employed on the occasion, and no
direct interruption was given to the representa-
tion, it was tolerated but nine nights, and then
vanished from the theatre for ever.
It is somewhat singular, that Johnson, who has
pointed out with so much judgment and precision
the defects of Addison's Cato, and, in his Pro-
logue on the opening of Drury-lane Theatre, has
censured the dramatic poetry of the eighteenth
century, as substituting declamation for passion,
should have himself produced a tragedy more
frigid and declamatory, than perhaps any drama
in the annals of the English stage. Irene can
boast of a strict adherence to the unities; of
harmonious versification; of diction vigorous and
splendid; of sentiment morally correct and phi-
losophically beautiful; but its fable is without
interest, its characters without discrimination,
and neither terror nor pity is excited.
If it fail, however, as a drama, in delineating
I38 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson.
the ebullitions of passion, it will, as a series of
ethic dialogues, replete with striking observations
on human conduct, and rich in poetic expression,
be long studied and admired in the closet. No one
of the productions of Johnson, indeed, was more
carefully elaborated than his Irene; and, though
commenced at an early period of life, no one more
evidently discovers his exclusive love of moral
philosophy, and his ample store of nervous and
emphatic language. *.
Of the numerous passages which illustrate this
remark, and which, for their moral excellence,
should dwell upon the memory, I shall in this
place adduce two, in conception and in execution
alike happy. Demetrius, addressing the aged
Visier Cali on the dangers of protracting the blow
which he intended until the morrow, exclaims,
To-morrow's action can that hoary wisdom,
Borne down with years, still doat upon to-norrow !
That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy,
The coward, and the fool, condemn'd to lose
An useless life in waiting for to-morrow,
To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow,
Till interposing death destroys the prospect
Strangeſ that this gen'ral fraud from day to day
, Should fill the world with wretches undetected.
The soldier, lab'ring through a winter's march,
Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph;
Still to the lover's long-expecting arms,
To-morrow brings the visionary bride.

LITERARY LIFE OF Dr. Johnson. 139
But thou, too old to bear another cheat,
Learn, that the present hour alone is man's.
Aspasia, reprobating the ambition and medi-
tated apostacy of Irene, endeavours to reconcile
her mind to the loss of life, rather than of virtue
and religion, and bids her
Reflect that life and death, affecting sounds !
Are only varied modes of endless being;
Reflect that life, like ev’ry other blessing,
Derives its value from its use alone;
Not for itself, but for a nobler end,
Th’ Eternal gave it, and that end is virtue.
When inconsistent with a greater good,
Reason commands to cast the less away 3
Thus life, with loss of wealth, is well preserv'd,
And virtue cheaply sav'd with loss of life.
In act the first, scene the second, is a passage.
which has been frequently and justly admired;
it is put into the mouth of the Visier Cali, who,
execrating the miseries of arbitrary power, alludes
to a report which he had received, of the nicely
balanced structure of the British Constitution.
If there be any land, as fame reports,
Where common laws restrain the prince and subject,
A happy land, where circulating pow'r
Flows through each member of th’ embodied state;
Sure, not unconscious of the mighty blessing,
Her grateful sons sline bright with ev'ry virtue;
Untainted with the Lust of 1N Novation,
*
140 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR., JOHNSON,
Sure all unite to hold her league of rule
Unbroken as the sacred chain of nature,
That links the jarring elements in peace.
“These are British sentiments,” remarks Mr.
Murphy; “above forty years ago, they found an
echo in the breast of applauding audiences; and
to this hour they are the voice of the people, in
defiance of the metaphysics and the new lights of
certain politicians, who would gladly find their
private advantage in the disasters of their coun-
try; a race of men, quibus nulla er honesto spes.””
It is worthy of remark, that Cicero, more than
eighteen hundred years ago, seems to have pointed
out with great precision the constituent parts of
the British Constitution. In theory, at least, the
ancients appear to have been well aware of the
value of a mixed constitution; and though they
had not the happiness of seeing the fabric re-
alized, and probably considered such an event
as altogether impracticable, they had the merit,
however, of conceiving and depicting the blessing.
How closely, in the following fragment, does the
great philosopher approximate to that constitu-
tion, which, long after Rome had ceased to exist
as the capital of the world, was to rise an unri-
valled Inonument of the aggregate wisdom of
* Murphy's Essay on the Life and Genius of Johnson,
P. 153. -
LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON, 141
Britain! Statuo esse optime constitutam rempubli-
cam, QUIE EXTRIBUS GENERIBUS ILLIS, REGALI,
opti Mo, ET POPULARI con FUSA MoDICE, nec
puniendo irritet animum immanem ac ferum, nec
omnia praeter mittendo, licentia cives deteriores
reddat.* .
After the four capital poems that we have just
noticed, a fifth may be brought forward, which,
in its kind, approaches much nearer to perfection
than any of the preceding; I allude to the stanzas
On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet, the constant
companion of Johnson at his morning's meal, for
near forty years. This reserved but most amia-
ble man was a practitioner in physic among the
lower orders of people in London; his fees were
very small, but his business so extensive, that his
walk was frequently from Houndsditch to Mary-
bone; he lived, however, in great obscurity,
though perpetually and conscientiously employed
in mitigating the sorrows of poverty and disease.
The stanzas on this man of great but humble
utility are beyond all praise. The wonderful
powers of Johnson were never shewn to greater
advantage than on this occasion, where the sub-
ject, from its obscurity and mediocrity, seemed
to bid defiance to poetical efforts; it is, in fact,
warm from the heart, and is the only poem from
* Ex M. Tullii Ciceronis De Republica, libro 2.
I+2 LITERARY LIFE OF D:R. JOHNSON &
the pen of Johnson that has been bathed with
tears. Would to God, that on every medical
man who attends the poor, the following enco-
miums could be justly passed
Well tried through many a varying year,
See Levet to the grave descend;
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of ev'ry friendless name the friend.
When fainting nature call'd for aid,
And hov'ring death prepar'd the blow,
His vig'rous remedy display'd
The pow'r of art without the show.
In Misry's darkest cavern known,
His wseful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless, Anguish pour'd his groan,
And lonely Want retir'd to die.
How boldly painted, how exquisitely pathetic,
as a description of the sufferings of human life, is
this last stanza! I am acquainted with nothing
superior to it in the productions of the moral
in USe, :
Of the residue of the English poetry of John-
son, the greater portion consists of lyric effusions;
a department in which he did not possess the
requisites for excellence. He wanted enthusi-
asm for the higher ode, and gaiety for the lesser;
in his perception of the beauties of nature, also,
he was defective; and his odes on the seasons are,
with respect to description, lifeless copies of
r1TERARY LIFE or DR. JoHNson. 145
traditionary imagery; that on Winter is the best,
and this, though written with vivacity, is but a
transcript from Horace. The Address to Friend-
ship is of the moral species of ode, and therefore
better adapted to his powers; in its sentiment it
is tender and correct; in its diction elegant and
beautiful. His Evening, an Ode, furnishes also
a pleasing proof that the severe moralist occa-
sionally felt, and could adequately describe, the
influence of female charms; he thus, in a strain
of voluptuous delicacy, addresses his beloved
Stella:
the Queen of Night,
Round us pours a lambent light;
Light that seems but just to show
Breasts that beat, and cheeks that glow.
To the English poetry of Johnson, may now be
added a very beautiful translation of some noble
lines from the Medea of Euripides. It has es-
caped all the editors of his works, and was very
lately introduced to the world in a volume of
considerable merit, entituled “Translations from
the Greek Anthology, with Tales and Miscella-
neous Poems.” A parody, indeed, by our author
upon this passage of the Grecian poet was pub-
lished by Mrs. Piozzi in her “Anecdotes,” but
it is of little value, while the following version has
preserved all the elegance and pathos of the
original. * , . .
144
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON,
Of this exquisite morsel of Euripides, Dr.
Joseph Warton has likewise attempted an imita-
tion, which possesses, in a striking degree, the
tender sentiment of the tragedian, clothed in
versification of the sweetest melody.
transcribe it for the gratification of my readers,
and in,order that they may compare it with the
Med. Eurip. v. 190.
The rites deriv'd from ancient days,
With thoughtless reverence we praise;
The rites that taught us to combine
The joys of music and of wine;
That bade the feast, the song, the bowl,
O'erfill the saturated soul;
But ne'er the lute nor lyre applied,
To soothe Despair or soften Pride,
Nor call'd them to the gloomy cells
Where Madness raves and Vengeance swells,
Where Hate sits musing to betray,
And Murder meditates his prey.
To dens of guilt and shades of care,
Ye sons of melody, repair,
Nor deign the festive hour to cloy
With superfluity of joy;
The board with varied plenty crown'd
May spare the luxury of sound.
more literal copy of Johnson.
Queen of ev'ry moving measure,
Sweetest source of purest pleasure,
Music why thy pow'rs employ
Only for the sons of joy;
I shall
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 145
Only for the smiling guests
At natal or at nuptial feasts?
Rather thy lenient numbers pour
On those whom secret griefs devour.
Bid be still the throbbing hearts
Of those whom death or absence parts,
And with some softly whisper'd air
Smoothe the brow of dumb despair.
Of the Poemata of Johnson, I know not that
much can be said; like Milton, Addison, and
Gray, he was, in early life, partial to Latin metri-
cal composition; but he has failed to rival the
triumvirate. To the first and last he is inferior
in originality, a character with difficulty obtained
in the fetters of classical versification; to the
second in the grace and suavity of his numbers.
The best and most interesting poem in the collec-
tion, is that entituled Tvø9, a savtov; as it paints, in
colours equally strong and vivid, the peculiar
features of his own mind and character, and will,
therefore, in a future stage of this work, attract
more of our notice. Next. in merit. to this
effusion, we may place his lyric compositions,
of which the odes under the appellation of
“Skia,” and “Ode De Skia Insula,” are the
most valuable. *.
To the two specimens of Greek poetry that we
possess from the pen of our author, and which
, are addressed to Dr. Birch, and Mrs. Carter, a
WOL, IW. L
146 LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNSoN.
third has been just annexed by the translator
from the Greek Anthology. It is an epigram
which the doctor had formed and condensed from
his own Latin epitaph on his friend Goldsmith,
and runs thus:
Toy Tapov 'storopaz; toy 'Ox3xploio Kovny
Apgoal un a spyny 5 give Toºed at Talet.
'Oia, Asunae pvaig, ust gov x&pi;, sºya Taxaloy,
Kaaists Tointny, isogizov, pvaikov.
I add the version of the ingenious communicator
of these lines.
Thou see'st the tomb of Oliver: retire,
Unholy feet, nor o'er his ashes tread.
Ye whom the deeds of old, verse, nature, fire, .
Mourn nature's priest, the bard, historian, dead.
Had the fame of Johnson rested entirely on his
poetical productions, he would not have descended
to posterity with the lustre which now surrounds
his name. As a moral and satiric bard, indeed,
his merit is considerable; but to the enthusiasm
which characterizes the higher branches of the
art, he has no pretensions. He was a disciple of
the school of Dryden and Pope, and successfully
emulated their excellencies, as far as harmony of
versification, and pointed and splendid diction,
could enable him to effect his design; but he is
infinitely inferior to the former in ease and variety
liter ARY LIFE of DR. Joinsox. 147
of melody, and to both in the energies of imagi-
nation. I speak merely of his poetry; for in his
prose works he has exhibited a much wider range
of fancy. -
Of that wonderful exuberance of invention, of
that inexhaustible fertility in the combination of
ideas, of those creative powers, which burn with
such a vivid flame in the strains of Spenser,
Shakspeare, and Milton, we find few, if any,
traces in the poetry of Johnson. That he had a
strong conception, indeed, of the mighty genius
of Shakspeare, may be drawn from the opening
of his celebrated prologue; but that he had no
relish for those wild and exquisite flashes of
fancy which shoot with such unrivalled brilliancy
along every line of Comus and the Tempest, is
too indisputably evident from the tenor of his
critical writings. The morbid melancholy which
pressed so heavily on his soul, might have a con-
siderable share in producing this insensibility;
but, independent of any constitutional failing, he
was a systematic contemner of all in poetry that
had not a direct practical tendency; hence his
compositions in that department, are entirely of
this description, and his two satires, and his
verses on the death of Levett, are finished models
of the kind.
If we compare him as a poet with Addison,
148 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson.
and the comparison is naturally suggested by the
similar walks of literature in which they were
engaged, it must be acknowledged, that, if all
consideration of dramatic genius be excepted, he
was greatly superior to his illustrious predecessor.
There is a want of nerve, both in the diction and
versification of the miscellaneous poetry of Addi-
son, which has deprived him of what would
otherwise have been his rank among our bards;
while the never-failing vigour and compression
of Johnson, united with very correct and splendid
versification, have justly given him a high station
in the third class of English poets; a station to
which, from the defects that we have alluded to,
Addison is precluded a claim.
Great, however, as were the merits of his
“London,” his first and noblest poem, it was
productive of little advantage to him in a pecuni-
ary light; and, willing to escape from the necessity
of writing for bread, he endeavoured to avail
himself, in the year 1738, of the offer of the mas-
tership of the free-school at Appleby, in Leices-
tershire. It was required, however, by the sta-
tutes of the school, that this situation should be
filled by a Master of Arts, and a difficulty oc-
curred as to the mode of obtaining this degree.
Pope very generously, without any personal
knowledge of our author, and stimulated merely
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON. 149
by the merits of his “London,” recommended
him to Lord Gower, by whom a letter was written
to a friend of Swift, with the view of engaging the
Dean's interest in procuring the necessary degree
from Trinity-College, Dublin. Swift, however,
it is said, declined interfering in the business, and
Johnson was finally disappointed of the master-
ship; a failure which must now be considered by
the literary world as a subject of congratulation;
for had his solicitations succeeded, there is every
reason to suppose, that his life might have been
one uniform scene of obscure and uninteresting
employment. ~
He likewise attempted, soon after this unsuc-
cessful application, to obtain an introduction, as
an advocate, to the bar of Doctors' Commons.
Dr. Adams exerted his interest for him, on this
occasion, and consulted Dr. Smalbroke, of the
Commons, whether he was admissible to practice
without the formality of the doctor's degree in
civil law. This dignity, however, being con-
sidered as indispensable, Johnson was compelled
to relinquish also this pursuit, and to revert to
literature as his profession. -
It is distressing to reflect, that at this period
his poverty was probably so great, that he was
sometimes obliged to pass the day without food ;
at least, in one of his letters addressed this year
150 LITERARY I,IFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
to Mr. Cave, he confesses his inability to pur-
chase a dinner, by affixing the signature Impran-
sus; and Mr. Cumberland, in his late interesting
Memoirs of his own Life, observes, that “the
variety we find in his (Johnson's) writings, was not
the variety of choice arising from the impulse of
his proper genius, but tasks imposed upon him by
the dealers in ink, and contracts on his part sub-
mitted to in satisfaction of the pressing calls of
hungry want; for, painful as it is to relate, I
have heard that illustrious scholar assert, (and he
never varied from the truth of fact,) that he sub-
sisted himself for a considerable space of time,
upon the scanty pittance of four-pence halfpenny
per day. How melancholy,” he remarks, “to
reflect, that his vast trunk and stimulating appe-
tite, were to be supported by what will barely
feed the weaned infant.”
Under circumstances such as these, he was
willing to embrace any reputable opportunity of
employing his pen, and he became, as we have
already remarked, a regular and powerful con-
tributor to the Gentleman's Magazine. On the
pieces which he wrote for this miscellany, con-
sisting principally of biographical and political
matter, we shall have occasion shortly to expa-
tiate; in the mean time, we shall consider our
author in the character which he assumed in
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON. 151
1742, and in his thirty-third year, when he ap-
peared before the public as a BIBLiog RAPHER.
Large collections of books, which are so essen-
tially necessary to the interests of literature,
would, however, prove of little utility, were they
not properly classed and arranged, and their
contents made familiar to the public. “By the
means of catalogues only can it be known,”
remarks Johnson, “what has been written on
every part of learning; and the hazard avoided of
encountering difficulties which have already been
cleared, discussing questions which have already
been decided, and digging in mines of literature
which former ages have exhausted.”* For the
task of forming what the French term a catalogue
raisonné, no man was better qualified than John-
son; his ruling passion was the love of books,
and his memory was in a very extraordinary
degree capacious and retentive; “it was won-
derful to see,” observes one of his biographers,
“when he took up a book, with what eagerness
he perused, and with what haste his eye travelled
over it: he has been known to read a volume,
and that not a small one, at a sitting; nor was
he inferior in the power of memory to Antonio
Magliabechi; whatever he read, became his own
for ever, with all the advantages that a penetrating
* Account of the Harleian Library, Murphy's edition.
152 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
judgment and deep reflection could add to it. I
have heard him repeat with scarcely a mistake of
a word, passages from favourite authors, of three
or four octavo pages in length.”
* Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 16, 2d edition.
“ The most extraordinary example of the power of
memory in this, or perhaps in any country, was the cele-
brated Jedediah Buxton. He was able, by his memory
alone, to answer the most difficult arithmetical questions
that could be proposed; of which the following are a few
specimens.
“He was asked, in a field 351 yards long, and 261
yards wide, how many acres there were. In eleven mi-
nutes he replied, 18 acres, 3 roods, 28 perches, and 14
remained. 3.
“A second question put to him was, suppose sound
moves 1142 feet in one second of time, how long after the
firing of a cannon, could the same be heard at the distance
of five miles? In about a quarter of an hour he replied, 2
seconds, 7 thirds, and 46 remained. -
* A third question was, if I set 3584 plants in rows four
feet asunder, and the plants seven feet apart, in a rectan-
gular piece of ground, how much land will the plants take
up 2 In half an hour he said, 2 acres, 1 rood, 8% perches.
“The following was the hardest question ever proposed
to him. What dimensions must I give my joiner to make
a cubical corn-bin, that shall hold just a quarter of malt,
Winchester measure ? In an hour's time he replied, it
would be a little more than 25% inches on a side, and that
26 inches would be too much-All which answers are as
true and correct as possible.”
Wide Beloe's Aulus Gellius, vol. 2, p. 125,126.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 153
It was with singular propriety, therefore; that
he was selected by Osborne, a bookseller in
Gray's Inn, to form a descriptive catalogue of the
immense library of the Earl of Oxford, which he
had purchased on the Earl's death, at the price of
thirteen thousand pounds; a sum totally inade-
quate to the value of the collection; the mere
binding of which, as Oldys declared, had even
cost more than was now given for the entire li-
brary. The catalogue, as projected by Os-
borne, was to consist of five octavo volumes, at
five shillings each, and to be entituled Bibliotheca
Harleiana; only four volumes of the work, how-
ever, merit this title, the fifth being entirely occu-
pied by an enumeration of the bookseller's old
stock.
In this laborious undertaking, Johnson was
slightly assisted by Mattaire, then one of the ,
masters of Westminster school, and the chief au-
thor of the Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum
Angliae et Hibernia: ; who furnished him with
some hints for the classification, and supplied the
Latin dedication to Lord Carteret. Dr. Oldys
also is believed to have had a share in the con-
struction of the catalogue, but the portion which
he contributed has not been well ascertained.
To engage the attention of the learned, and
to induce them to become purchasers of the
154. LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
catalogue, our author issued proposals for printing
the Bibliotheca, which he afterwards, with some
modification and enlargement, prefixed as a pre-
face to the first volume of the work, in which the
description of books in the Latin language was
exclusively of his own composition. This preface
is drawn up with great acumen and skill, and
presents a very perspicuous view of the amplitude
and value of the collection, and of the plan
adopted for the enumeration of its contents.
What he undertook to perform, was to distribute
the books into distinct classes; to arrange every
class with some regard to the age of the writers;
to describe every volume accurately; to enume-
rate the peculiarities of editions, and to occasion-
ally intersperse observations from the authors of
literary history. The plan was executed with
great perseverance and industry, and what John-
son allowed himself to hope in the conclusion of
his preface, was fully verified; the catalogue be-
came an object of public curiosity; it was pur-
chased as the record of a most valuable collec-
tion, and preserved as one of the memorials of
learning.”
With a view also of snatching from oblivion a
number of valuable tracts and small pamphlets
which were scattered through this vast library,
* Murphy's edition, vol. 2, p. 183,
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 155
Osborne employed Oldys to compile a selection
of the most rare and curious, and engaged John-
son to write, as an introduction to the first vol-
ume, An Essay on the Origin and Importance of
Small Tracts and Fugitive Pieces. This he exe-
cuted, with his usual judgment and research, in
the year 1744; and the selection entituled The
Harleian Miscellany, was given to the public in
1749, in eight volumes quarto. - w -
Though, in consequence of the publication of
the Bibliotheca Harleiana, and of the Miscellany
just mentioned, the utility of this splendid col-
lection was not altogether lost, its dispersion must
nevertheless be considered as a national misfor-
tune. Had it been purchased by government,
as the foundation of an extensive public library,
the advantages accruing to literature from such
an institution had been incalculable. Johnson
was a warm friend to establishments of this kind,
and, when speaking of the famous collection of
editions of Horace by Douglas, gave it as his
opinion, that “every man should try to collect
one book in that manner, and present it to a
public library.” “Nothing,” remarks Mr. Be-
loe, “ could be more honourable, or perhaps
more useful to a nation, than a great national
library. It may be said, that in this country
* Boswell's Johnson, vol. 4, p. 293,
156 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
such a library would be superfluous, as there exist
so many valuable and curious collections. This
is true, but this is not enough.-I know that
many such collections exist among us, but I ob-
ject that they are not sufficiently easy of access.
The ingenuous pride and delicacy of a scholar,
will often make him diffident of applying for
books, where alone they are to be had ; particu-
larly, which is often the case, when the loan of
them is considered as a great personal obliga-
tion.” It is to be hoped, that this desideratum
will be in time supplied by the recent establish-
ment of the Royal Institution, in which the library
forms a very prominent part of the design.
It was the misfortune of Johnson, during the
time he laboured on the Harleian Catalogue, to
be connected with a bookseller, who was, in
almost every respect, a disgrace to literature.
Osborne was alike destitute of morality and of
shame, and, having acquired by all the arts of
trade a very opulent fortune, thought he had a
right to treat with brutal insolence every man of
genius and learning, whose poverty unhappily
placed him within the sphere of his influence and
power. Our author, it has been related, whilst
* Note on book 6, chap. 17, of the Attic Nights of Aulus
Gellius.
f Johnson, in his Life of Pope, says, that Osborne “was
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 157
employed in Gray's Inn, was coarsely taxed by
Osborne with intentional delay; and when he en-
deavoured to defend himself, by affirming that it
was often necessary to peruse not only the title-
page, but the contents of a book, in order accu-
rately to describe the article, the worthless
Osborne enforced his opposition by giving him
the lie. To this Johnson immediately replied
by seizing a folio, and knocking the bookseller
down. Of this account, which has been fre-
quently repeated, part is true, and part without
foundation; when the story was mentioned to
Johnson, he answered, “Sir, he was impertinent
to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his
shop; it was in my own chamber.”” *
That a man of such ability and comprehension
of intellect as was Johnson, should, from the
compulsion of poverty, be subjected to the pride
entirely destitute of shame, without sense of any disgrace
but that of poverty. He purchased a number of unsold
copies of Mr. Pope’s Iliad, of the folio size, printed on an
inferior paper, and without cuts, and, cutting off the top
and bottom margins, which were very large, had the impu-
dence to call them the subscription books, and to vend
them as such. His insolence to his customers was also
frequently past bearing. If one came for a book in his
catalogue, he would endeavour to force on him some new
publication of his own, and, if he refused, would affront
him.” Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 150. …
* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 126, edit, of 1799.
3.
158 1.1TERARY LIFE or Dr. Johnson.
and ignorance of a being like Osborne, must
certainly, with every feeling mind, be a theme of
perpetual regret; “with me,” says Sir John Haw-
kins, in a strain of eloquence and pathos much
beyond his usual manner, “with me it has always
been a subject of melancholy reflection. In our
estimation of the enjoyments of this life, we place
wisdom, virtue, and learning in the first class,
and riches and other adventitious giſts of fortune
in the last. The natural subordination of the
one to the other, we see and approve, and when
that is disturbed we are sorry. How then must
it affect a sensible mind to contemplate that
misfortune, which could subject a man endued
with a capacity for the highest offices, a philoso-
pher, a poet, an orator, and, if fortune had so
ordered, a chancellor, a prelate, a statesman, to
the insolence of a mean, worthless, ignorant fel-
low, who had nothing to justify the superiority
he exercised over a man so endowed, but those
advantages which Providence indiscriminately
dispenses to the worthy and the worthless to see
such a man, for the supply of food and raiment,
submitting to the commands of his inferior, and,
as a hireling, looking up to him for the reward of
his work, and receiving it accompanied with re-
proach and contumely; this, I say, is a subject of
melancholy reflection.”
* Hawkins's Life, p. 151,
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson. 159
To emancipate himself from the necessity of
labouring under the direction of booksellers,
Johnson had, at an early period of his literary
career, projected various publications, which he
conceived would at the same time extend his
fame, and recruit his finances. This catalogue
he continued through life to enlarge; but it can-
not be recorded without regret, that of the many
noble and useful designs which the list includes,
not one was ever executed by him, or even com-
menced; it must be allowed, however, that many
of the plans which he had chalked out, were of
immense extent, and required the unembarrassed
leisure of competence to conduct with vigour
and success.
As a curious and interesting proof of great
intimacy with books and general literature, I
shall transcribe the catalogue, more especially
as it will strongly tend to illustrate the fertility
and resources of our author, under the depart-
ment of which we are treating.
“ IDI v IN IT.Y.
1. “A small book of precepts and directions
for piety, the hint taken from the directions in
the Countess of Morton's (daily) exercise.
“PHILOSOPHY, History, AND LITERATURE
IN GENERAL.
2. “History of Criticism, as it relates to judging
160 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
of authors, from Aristotle to the present age.
An account of the rise and improvements of that
art; of the different opinions of authors ancient
and modern. f
3. “Translation of the History of Herodian.
4. “New edition of Fairfax's Translation of
Tasso, with notes, glossary, &c.
5. “ Chaucer, a new edition of him, from
manuscripts and old editions, with various read-
ings, conjectures, remarks on his language and
the changes it had undergone from the earliest
times to his age, and from his to the present.
With notes explanatory of customs, &c. and
references to Boccace and other authors from
whom he has borrowed, with an account of the
liberties he has taken in telling the stories, his
life, and an exact etymological glossary.
6. “Aristotle's Rhetoric, a translation of it
into English.
7. “A Collection of Letters, translated from
the modern writers, with some account of the
several authors. - - -
8. “Oldham's Poems, with notes historical
and critical.
9. “Roscommon's Poems, with notes.
10. “Lives of the Philosophers, written with
a polite air, in such a manner as may divert as
well as instruct,
*
Liter ARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 161
11. “History of the Heathen Mythology, with
an explication of the fables, both allegorical and
historical, with references to the poets.
12. “History of the State of Venice, in a
tompendious manner. -
13. “Aristotle's Ethics, an English translation
of them with notes. -
14. “Geographical Dictionary from the French.
15. “IHierocles upon Pythagoras, translated
into English, perhaps with notes. This is done
by Norris.
16. “A book of Letters upon all kinds of
subjects. .
17. “Claudian, a new edition of his works,
cum notis variorum, in the manner of Burman.
18. “Tully's Tusculan Questions, a transla-
tion of them. * , -
19. “Tully de Natura Deorum. ; -
20. “Benzo's New History of the New World,
to be translated. . - -
21. “Machiavel's History of Florence, to be
translated. w
22. “History of the Revival of Learning in
Europe, containing an account of whatever con-
tributed to the restoration of literature; such as
controversies, printing, the destruction of the
Greek empire, the encouragement of great men,
with the lives of the most eminent patrons and
WOL. I. We M
162 LITERARY Life of DB. Johnson.
most eminent early professors of all kinds of
learning in different countries.
23. “A body of Chronology, in verse, with
historical notes.” -
24. “A table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and
Guardians, distinguished by figures into six de-
grees of value, with notes giving the reasons of
preference or degradation.t
25. “A Collection of Letters from English
authors, with a preface giving some account of
the writers, with reasons for selection and criti-
cism upon styles, remarks on each letter, if
needful. -
26. “A Collection of Proverbs from various
languages. Jan. 6,-53.
27. “A Dictionary to the Common Prayer,
in imitation of Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible.
March,-52.
28. “A Collection of Stories and Examples
like those of Valerius Maximus. Jan. 10,–53.
*Johnson actually commenced a body of Geography in
verse, to which he gave the title of Geographia Metrica.
The opening lines of this curious undertaking, which few
perhaps will regret was left unfinished, close the poemata
in Murphy's edition.
t I do not think that this design could be carried into
execution with much degree of accuracy, and would
therefore be liable to constant objections from the vari-
ations of taste and feeling.
liter ARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 163
29. “From Ælian, a volume of select stories,
perhaps from others. Jan. 28,-53.
30. “Collections of Travels, Voyages, Adven-
tures, and Descriptions of Countries.
31. “ Dictionary of Ancient History and
Mythology.
32. “Treatise on the Study of Polite Litera-
ture, containing the history of learning, directions
for editions, commentaries, &c.
33. “Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments,
after the manner of Bruyére, collected out of
ancient authors, particularly the Greek, with
Apophthegms.
34. “Classical Miscellanies, Select Transla-
tions from ancient Greek and Latin authors.
35. “Lives of illustrious persons, as well of
the active as the learned, in imitation of Plu-
tarch. *
36. “Judgment of the learned upon English
authors. ~.
37. “Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue.
38. “Considerations upon the present state of
London. %.
39. “Collection of Epigrams, with notes and
observations. - # ,
40. “Observations on the English language,
relating to words, phrases, and modes of speech... .
164 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
. 41. “Minutiae Literarias, Miscellaneous re-
flections, criticisms, emendations, notes.”
42. “History of the Constitution. -
43. “Comparison of Philosophical and Chris-
tian Morality, by sentences collected from the
moralists and fathers.
44. “Plutarch's Lives in English, with notes.
POETR Y A N D WO R K S OF IMAG IN ATION .
45. “Hymn to Ignorance.
46. “The Palace of Sloth—a vision.
47. “Coluthus, to be translated.
48. “Prejudice—a poetical essay.
49. “The Palace of Nonsense—a vision.”
Though a great portion of this catalogue was
drawn up half a century ago, several of its arti-
cles must still be considered as desiderata in
English literature. Of these I shall mention a
few as more particularly meriting consideration.
N° 2. A History of Criticism, upon the com-
prehensive outline of Johnson, would, if con-
ducted with adequate erudition and acumen, be
a most valuable accession to the republic of
letters. Nothing of the kind has, I believe, been
attempted in this country; and he, indeed, who
should commence the arduous undertaking, would
*This would form a work very similar to the Noctes
Attica of Aulus Gellius.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 165
find it necessary to devote his life to the due
completion of the plan. -
N° 4. Of the three entire translations which
we possess of Tasso, by Fairfax, Doyne, and
Hoole, I confess the first appears to me, though
occasionally inaccurate, to have done most jus-
tice to the original. The versification is peculiarly
harmonious; the imagery most distinct and
lively, and the pastoral scenery is given with un-
common felicity. It is somewhat singular, that,
in an age so laudably attentive to old English
literature, this valuable classic should have been
overlooked; and that no edition with notes and a
glossary, appendages so essential to a work of the
sixteenth century, should have issued from our
press. I could wish indeed, that Fairfax * might
be rendered not only more popular by elucida-
tions of this description, but that he should be
decorated likewise with good engravings from the
designs of Fuseli, an artist admirably adapted to
body forth the conceptions of a Tasso.f
* First printed in 1600.
t The translation of Tasso by Philip Doyne, Esq. which
is now little known, and very rarely to be met with, is in
blank verse, and was published at Dublin in 1761, in two
volumes 8vo. Prefixed are a life of the Italian poet by
Mr. Layng, and an essay on the poem by the translator.
It is printed with great inaccuracy, especially the first four
166 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson,
N° 5. Of this proposed edition of Chaucer, a
part has been well executed in the elaborate
edition of the Canterbury Tales, by Mr. Tyrwhitt,
and in the copious life of the poet by Mr.
books, which abound with errors both verbal and metrical.
The version is very unequal; numerous passages are re-
markable for little else than slovenly diction and careless
versification, and several, on the contrary, are faithfully
rendered, and successfully emulate the beauties of the ori-
ginal. As the book is extremely scarce, two or three spe-
cimens will, I trust, be deemed acceptable.
Not distant from the christian camp arose,
Amidst the wide and solitary vales, .
A forest vast, crowded with ancient trees,
Whose horrid arms did cast a deadly shade:
There, when the sun in mid-day glory shines,
Uncertain, faded, dismal is the light:
Such as appears within the clouded heav'n,
When ev'ning dun with gath'ring darkness strives;
But when the sun retires, in ocean's waves
Quenching his fiery orb, then clouds, and night,
Horror, and ten-fold shade, obscure the place,
Resembling hell, and cover mortal eyes
With blindness deep, and with sad terror shake
The guilty soul: thither no shepherd brings
His tender sheep; no herdsman drives his beeves
To pasture in the gloom; no traveller there
Or pilgrim enters, but at distance turns
His steps away; so awful seems the wood.—
thither went
Ismeno, horrid Mage!
Thrice to the east he turn'd his baleful eyes,
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 167
Godwin; but there still remains the greater por-
tion of his works untouched by any skilful editor;
for neither Speight nor Urry can be deemed at
all competent to the task which they undertook.
And westward thrice where sets the sacred sun;
Thrice wav'd that pow'rful wand that calls the ghosts
Back to their bodies, rising from their tombs
In dreadful apparition; thrice the ground
He struck with unshod feet, and utter'd thus
His curses dire, with accents terrible.
Hear, hear, ye sprites that from the golden stars
Down to the gulph of hell precipitate
were, by the stroke of roaring thunder, driv'n :
And ye, who rove inhabitants of air,
And tempests raise, and storms: hear, all ye fiends
In Tartarus, who torture damned ghosts,
The ministers of everlasting pains:
Ye dwellers of Avernus, you I call:
And thou, great monarch of th’ infernal realms,
Receive in charge this forest.
Canto 13th, line 10,
There welleth from the rock a silver spring
Sparkling and clear, whose waters pure entice
The thirsty guest to drink; yet such the pow'r
Lies in the liquor cold, such poison strange,
The smallest taste of that transparent wave
Inebriates every sense, and all the soul
Transports with sudden joy: the man begins
Unusual merriment, nor ceases once
From that vast laughter, 'till he breathes his last.
Far from these deadly streams with loathing turn,
Your thirsty lips, nor let the faithless maids
You next shall meet, upon the verdant bank
168 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
By the indefatigable industry of our literary anti-
quaries, much light has lately been thrown upon
the state of our language anterior to the age of
Chaucer; its mutations have been traced, its his-
tory ascertained, its poetry commented upon,
and of course the diction and versification of
Chaucer, their merits and defects, better under-
stood and defined. The application of these re-
sources to a new edition of the entire works of the
venerable bard, would, there is little doubt, be well
received by the public.
N° 7. A Collection of Letters translated from
the modern writers would be, if it was meant to
include the epistles of those who flourished dur-
ing the revival of literature, a most interesting
production. A happy selection from the cor-
respondence of Petrarch, Boccacio, Politian,
Entice you, with their syren songs; tho’ sweet
And wanton is their voice, tho' fair their form,
Smiling in joy, and glowing with delight.
- Canto 14th, line 576.
A ruin now, imperial Carthage lies, -
That scarce the remnants of her palaces
Surpass the weeds in height; so cities fall,
So perish kingdoms, and their pride and pomp
Are buried in the sands, and grass conceals
Their ruins. Wherefore then should man repine
That he is mortal, or be proud of life -
Whose breath is fleeting air?
s
Canto 15th, line 156.
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 169
Erasmus, Bembus, Sadoletus, Flaminius, &c.
could not fail to convey a vast fund of literary
anecdote and instruction.
N° 22. A History of the Revival of Learn-
ing in Europe, upon the plan described in this ca-
talogue, no individual, however extensive his eru-
dition might be, could hope to execute. So
gigantic is the scale indeed on which it is drawn,
that an association of the most learned in this or
any other country would alone be competent to
the undertaking. The scheme in some degree
corresponded with the powers of Johnson, and
was familiar to the mighty mind of Bacon. “Ar-
gumentum non aliud est,” says he, “quam ut ex
omni memoria repetatur quae doctrinae et artes
quibus mundi astatibus et regionibus floruerint.
Earum antiquitates, progressus, etiam pcragra-
tiones per diversus orbis partes (migrant enim.
scientiae non secus ac populi) rursus declinationes,
obliviones instaurationes commemorentur. Ob-
servatur simul per singulas artes, inventionis causa.
et origo; tradendi mos et disciplina; colendi et
exercendi ratio et instituta. Adjiciantur etiam
secta et controversiae maxime celebres, quae
homines doctos tenuerunt calumniae quibus patu-
erunt, laudes et honores quibus decorati sunt.
Notentur auctores praecipui, libri prestantio-
res, scholae, successiones, academiae, societates,
-
170 LTTERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson.
*
collegia, ordines, denique omnia quae ad statum
literarum spectant.” *
It is within the scope, however, of a scholar of
judgment, copious reading, and talents, to select
the most splendid and interesting portions of the
subject, to trace in a general way the causes of
its progress or obstruction, and to enliven the
whole with biographic detail. On this plan dur-
ing the last century Collins and Warton published
proposals for a History of the Revival of Learn-
ing; but it was left for Mr. Roscoe to carry into
execution a part of the design in his Lives of
Lorenzo de Medici and Leo the tenth. These pro-
ductions, however, valuable as they are, have not
filled up the outline even of the second scheme of
composition; an express work on the enquiry, un-
mixed with extensive political discussion, the de-
tail of military crime or private depravity, remains
still to be achieved; nor have we reason to
despair that the comprehensive plan of Bacon and
Johnson shall not be realized, if we reflect that,
among the Italians, the celebrated Tiraboschi has,
as far as Italian literature is concerned, ap-
proached nearly to the model.
That Johnson failed to execute any of the nu-
merous projects which his catalogue had sketched,
will be readily forgiven when we reflect, that he
* Do Augment. Scient, Lib. 2, cap. 4. -
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 171
relinquished them to become the first BiographER
of his country. In the year 1744 his publication
of the Life of Richard Savage gave him an undis-
puted claim to this appellation. In considering,
however, the efforts of our author in this instruc-
tive branch of literature, I shall dismiss any atten-
tion to his biography of the poets until a subse-
quent period of the narrative, where they will,
with more propriety, attract our notice under the
head of Criticism, and shall, in this place, confine
myself to those lives which were the product of
his pen between the commencement of the year
1788 and the close of 1763.
It has been justly observed by Aristotle, that
individual narrative, from its embracing but a
single object, is better understood and conse-
quently more satisfactory and pleasing than the
complicated details of general history, in which
numerous characters are at the same time acting
their various parts upon the stage of existence.
It is likewise, as enumerating the events of domes-
tic life, and unfolding the result of circumstances
to which we are all liable to be subjected, infinitely
more instructive than the relation, however
splendid and elegant, of the conduct of kings or
the conquest of empires. *
“I have often thought,” remarks our great
moralist, “ that there has rarely passed a life
172 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
of which a judicious and faithful narrative would
not be useful;” and indeed all that is wanting
to render any life useful is, on the acquisition of
facts, to draw such inferences as may render them
applicable to valuable purposes; and of facts ca-
pable of such application, no life, where sanity
exists, has been destitute. “Biography,” observes
Dr. Kippis, “may be considered in two lights.
It is very agreeable and useful, when it hath no
other view than merely to relate the circumstan-
ces of the lives of eminent men, and to give an
account of their writings. But it is capable of a
still nobler application. It may be regarded as
presenting us with a variety of events, that, like
experiments in Natural Philosophy, may become
the materials from which general truths and prin-
ciples are to be drawn. When Biographical
knowledge is employed in enlarging our ac-
quaintance with human nature, in exciting an
honourable emulation, in correcting our preju-
dices, in refining our sentiments, and in regulating
our conduct, it then attains its true excellence.
Besides its being a pleasing amusement, and a
just tribute of respect to illustrious characters, it
rises to the dignity of SciENCE ; and of such
science as must ever be esteemed of peculiar im-
portance, because it hath MAN for its object.”f
- - * Rambler, No. 60. .
t Preface to Biographia Britannica, vol. 1, 2d edition,
*
I, ITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON. 173.
Before Johnson produced the admirable bio-
graphy of his unfortunate friend, there had been
very few elegant compositions in this branch, of
the growth of England. Compilations indeed,
heavy, dry, and incomplete, had issued in consi-
derable numbers from our press; Leland, Bale,
Pits, Dempster, Ware, Fuller, Bates, Wood, and
Ward, had all published, either in Latin or English,
their ponderous folios, and as mere repositories
of facts they are valuable; but with the exception
of Sprat's Life of Cowley, and Middleton's Life
of Cicero, which last work appeared in 1741, and
is written in a classical style, we had no speci-
men of biography which could safely be referred
to as a model.
Previous, indeed, to the publication of the Life
of Savage, our author had contributed several
very judicious and spirited biographical sketches
to the Gentleman's Magazine. In the year 1738
appeared in that Miscellany his Life of Father
Paul Sarpi; in 1739 his Life of Boerhaave; in
1740 the Lives of Sir Francis Drake, of Admiral
Blake, and of Philip Barretier; and in 1742 the
lives of Peter Burman and of Sydenham, of which
the last was afterwards prefixed to a translation
of his Works by John Swan, M.D. of Newcastle,
in Staffordshire. r T.;
Of these Lives, those of Boerhaave, Drake, and
174. LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
Sydenham appear to me to be the best written.
To the study of medicine and chemistry, Johnson
was peculiarly partial; in the year 1743 he dedi-
cated the Dictionary of his friend Dr. James to
the celebrated Mead, and contributed likewise
some of the articles in that elaborate work. His
predilection for these sciences, indeed, is very
visible in his Life of the Leyden Professor, to
whose piety and virtue also he has paid the most
eloquent tribute, concluding his narrative with a
paragraph which cannot be too often repeated.
“So far,” says he, “was this man from being
made impious by philosophy, or vain by know-
ledge, or by virtue, that he ascribed all his abili-
ties to the bounty, and all his goodness to the
grace of God; may his example extend its influ-
ence to his admirers and followers 1 May those
who study his writings imitate his life and those
who endeavour after his knowledge aspire likewise
to his piety!” . . .
The merit of these biographical attempts was,
however, completely eclipsed by the appearance
of the Life of Savage. With this unfortunate but
imprudent man Johnson became acquainted early
in the year 1738, having met him occasionally at
St. John's Gate, to which place both were im-
pelled to resort from motives of necessity.
Disowned and persecuted by his mother, and
. LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 175
at the same time combining with this singular mis-
fortune, fascinating manners, and considerable
vigour and versatility of intellect, Savage was
entitled to, and indeed at first met with, a liberal
patronage from the public. But the irregularity
of his habits, his dissipation, insolence, and ingra-
titude, soon alienated the friends which either his
abilities or his misfortunes had obtained. “It
was his peculiar happiness,” remarks his Biogra-
pher, “that he scarcely ever found a stranger,
whom he did not leave a friend; but it must like-
wise be added, that he had not often a friend long,
without obliging him to become a stranger;” a
confession than which nothing can paintin stronger
colours the folly and ruinous tendency of his con-
duct.
The story of Savage was early known to the
world through the medium of the Plain Dealer;
in N° 28 of which Mr. Hill had written a letter
in order to arrest the attention of the public, and, if
possible, to excite the compassion of his mother.
It contains the following pathetic lines, said to
have been composed by Mr. Savage, but which
were, in reality, the production of the Plain
Dealer:
Hopeless, abandon'd, aimless, and oppress'd;
Lost to delight, and every way distress'd;
176 LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNson.
'Cross his cold bed, in wild disorder, thrown,
Thus sigh’d Alexis, friendless and alone:
Why do I breathe What joy can being give,
When she, who gave me life, forgets I live
Feels not these wintry blasts;–nor heeds my smart,
But shuts me from the shelter of her heart!
Saw me expos'd, to want ' to shame! to scorn 1
To ills —which make it mis’ry to be born
Cast me, regardless, on the world's bleak wild,
And bad me be a wretch while yet a child !
Where can he hope for pity, peace, or rest,
Who moves no softness in a mother's breast 2
Custom, law, reason, all ! my cause forsake,
And nature sleeps, to keep my woes awake
Crimes, which the cruel scarce believe can be,
The kind are guilty of, to ruin me!
Even she who bore me blasts me with her hate,
And, meant my fortune, makes herself my fate |
Yet has this sweet neglecter of my woes
The softest, tend’rest breast that pity knows!
Her eyes shed mercy wheresoe'er they shine;
And her soul melts at every woe, but mine.
Sure then I some secret faté, for guilt unwill’d,
Some sentence, pre-ordain’d to be fulfill'd
Plung'd me, thus deep, in sorrow's searching flood,
And wash'd me from the mem'ry of her blood.
But, oh whatever cause has mov’d her hate,
Let me but sigh in silence at my fate.
The God within, perhaps, may touch her breast;
And when she pities, who can be distress'd 2.
This letter, which was published in 1724, was
succeeded in 1727 by a more circumstantial ac-
count of the life and sorrows of the unhappy man;
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 177
and such was the influence of these appeals, that
had he conducted himself with common prudence
there is every reason to suppose, from the subse-
quent exertions in his favour, that, if not afflu-
ence, at least competence, might have been his
portion.
It is somewhat singular, that with a man so viti-
ated in his habits as was Savage, Johnson should
have delighted to associate; there were, however,
some points of contact; they were both authors,
both in a state of extreme poverty, and both indig-
nant at the reception which their talents had
hitherto received; Savage also had acquirements
which Johnson was solicitous to participate; his
deportment and engaging manners he much ad-
mired; and his intimate knowledge of all the varie-
ties of life enabled Johnson to obtain with safety
that information which, on the part of his friend,
had been so dearly purchased by experience. 4
As it was impossible, however, to be the com-
panion of Savage without, in some degree, par-
taking of his follies and licentious indulgences, it
was fortunate for our author's peace of mind that
the connection proved of short duration. It ter-
minated in July, 1739, when Savage left London
to reside at Swansea, in Wales, upon a small pen-
sion contributed by his friends. They parted to
meet no more; for on August 1st, 1743, Savage
WOL. IV, N
178 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
died in the Newgate of Bristol, where he had
been imprisoned for a debt of but eight pounds.
The most irregular, and probably the most un-
happy period of Johnson's life, and that on which
he reflected with the least complacency, was
passed during his intimacy with Savage. Such
was the indigence of these extraordinary charac-
ters, that they have been known to pass whole
nights wandering together through the streets
and squares of London, because they actually
could not raise, between them, a sum sufficient
for the procurement of the meanest lodging.”
“ Johnson,” relates Mr. Boswell, “ told Sir
Joshua Reynolds, that one night in particular,
when Savage and he walked round St. James's
Square for want of a lodging, they were not at
all depressed by their situation ; but in high
spirits, and brimful of patriotism, traversed the
square for several hours, inveighed against the
minister, and resolved they would stand by their
country.t” : ,
To this connection, dangerous as it was to the
* Sir John Hawkins is inclined to attribute a short tem-
porary separation which took place at this time between
Johnson and his wife, to these nocturnal excursions; but
it is more probable, that Mrs. Johnson, who retired to a
friend's house near the Tower, left her husband because
he was incapable of supporting her.
t Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 137.
Y. ITERARY LIFE OF DR. Jo HNSON. 179
moral principles of our author, we are indebted
for one of the most instructive pieces of biogra-
phy extant. It was written warm from the heart,
with a most intimate knowledge of the character
which the author was delineating, and with a
flow of composition that is truly astonishing,
forty-eight of the printed octavo pages having
been executed at a sitting, and the whole com-
pleted in thirty-six hours.” No sooner had it
issued from the press, than it became the theme
of general admiration, and a warm eulogium was
immediately passed upon it in the periodical pa-
per entituled “The Champion.” The strongest
and most valuable proof of its attraction, however,
was given by Sir Joshua Reynolds, who declared,
“ that upon his return from Italy, he met with it
in Devonshire, knowing nothing of its author, and
began to read it while he was standing with his arm
leaning against a chimney-piece. It seized his
attention so strongly, that, not being able to lay
down the book till he had finished it, when he
attempted to move, he found his arm totally
benumbed.”t The unparalleled misfortunes, in-
deed, and the truly eccentric character of Savage,
wanted nothing but the style of Johnson to sur-
round them with the most powerful interest.
* Wide Boswell's Life, p. 139, and Sir John Hawkins's
Life, p. 152, f Boswell's Life, p. 139.
180 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
Yet the great merit and utility of the Life of
Savage arises from the just views of human life
which the writer exhibits, from the numerous
moral precepts and prudential lessons which he
has copiously interspersed through its pages, and
from the salutary and warning example which he
every where takes care shall be forcibly impressed
upon the reader's mind. Johnson, it is true, was
strongly prejudiced in favour of his friend; he has
estimated his talents much too highly, and he has
occasionally become the apologist of his conduct;
but in doing this, he has never lost sight of what
is due to virtue and to piety. To the singular
situation of Savage, and to the relentless perse-
cutions which he endured, he has justly attributed
several of his faults; but he has, at the same
time, amply shewn how these might have been
corrected ; and he has fully proved, that with
regard to his vices and licentious habits, he was
the architect of his own ruin.
Upon the genius and literary acquirements of
his friend, Johnson has lavished eulogies, which
an inspection of his works will by no means jus-
tify. Much allowance, indeed, must be given to
a man whose distresses and indigence were fre-
quently such as to deprive him of all the requi-
sites for finished composition. “During a con-
siderable part of the time,” relates his biographer,
I,ITERARY LIFE OF DIR., JOHNSON, 181
“in which he was employed on his tragedy of
Sir Thomas Overbury, he was without lodging,
and often without meat; nor had he any other
conveniences for study than the fields or the
streets allowed him; there he used to walk and
form his speeches, and afterwards step into a
shop, beg for a few moments the use of the pen
and ink, and write down what he had composed,
upon paper which he had picked up by acci-
dent;” but even when his pieces were written
under very dissimilar circumstances, at a period
when prospects of affluence and ease surrounded
him, they are far from being entitled to the epi-
thets which his critic has lavished upon them.
“His works,” he exclaims, “are the productions
of a genius truly poetical—his descriptions are
striking, his images animated, his fictions justly
imagined, and his allegories artfully pursued; his
diction is elevated, though sometimes forced, and
his numbers sonorous and majestic.”
From this description, who could suppose that
the general character of the poetry of Savage is
mediocrity such, however, is the case; for even
The Wanderer, one of the best of his productions,
and composed under the most auspicious situ-
ation of his affairs, though it displays a few
vigorous and splendid lines, is, upon the whole,
flat, perplexed, and uninteresting. The encomia
182 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON.
of Johnson have, for a time, given Savage a
place in the collections of our national poetry;
but the lapse of a few years will strip him of a
rank which he has obtained from aid altogether
extrinsic, and he will descend to mingle with the
croud who, from adventitious circumstances,
have attained a temporary elevation, and have
then fallen to rise no more. Savage will be
known to posterity only by the Life of Johnson.
The reputation which our author justly ob-
tained by the biography of this eccentric cha-
racter,” induced him at subsequent periods of his
life, and previous to his great work on the poets,
to present the public with several other valuable
productions in this class of literature. In 1751,
appeared his Life of Cheynel, printed in “The
Student,” a periodical paper published at Oxford.
"It does not appear that Johnson reaped much imme-
diate profit from his Life of Savage; for Mr. Walter Harte,
author of the Life of Gustavus Adolphus, has recorded, that
“ soon after Savage's Life was published, he dimed with
Edward Cave, and occasionally praised it. Soon after, meet-
ing him, Cave said, ‘You made a man very happy t'other
day.”—“How could that be 2' replied Harte; ' nobody was
there but ourselves.” Cave answered, by reminding him
that a plate of victuals was sent behind a screen, which
was to Johnson, dressed so shabbily, that he did not choose
to appear; but on hearing the conversation, was highly
delighted with the encomiums on his book.” Boswell,
vol. 1, p. 136.
LITERARY, LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 183
In 1754, he contributed to the Gentleman's
Magazine The Life of Cave, the founder of that
useful miscellany, and his earliest patron; and
though the even tenor of the days of this indus-
trious printer presented little that was likely to
arrest or gratify curiosity, he has contrived to
render it a pleasing and instructive narrative. -
A more elaborate effort in biography issued
from his pen in 1756, “The Life of Sir Thomas
Browne,” prefixed to a new edition of his “Chris-
tian Morals.” To the works of this learned
physician, Johnson was peculiarly partial; and it
is well known, that for many of the ponderous
words which are scattered through the pages of
the Rambler, he was indebted to the study of the
Religio Medici and the Pseudo-doria Epidemicu.
It was to be expected therefore, that the subject
would be treated by him with more than com-
mon attention ; it is, indeed, written con amore,
and ranks among the best of his biographical
attempts. - .
The same year he likewise produced in the
Literary Magazine, or Universal Review, The
Life ºf Frederick III. King of Prussia, “a mo-
del,” says Mr. Murphy, “ of the biographical
style.” The narrative, which, in point of lan-
guage and arrangement, is remarkably clear and
perspicuous, terminates with the close of the
184 LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Jon Nson.
year 1745, and exhibits our author's political
and diplomatic talents in a very favourable point
of view. There is a reflection, however, in this
life which ought not to have fallen from the pen
of Johnson, and which, as it is perfectly unquali-
fied, is an unjustifiable satire on literature and
its professors. Expatiating on the auspicious
manner in which the young king commenced his
reign, he relates, that “he still continued that
correspondence with learned men which he began
when he was a prince; and the eyes of all scho-
lars, a race of mortals formed for dependence,
were upon him.” An independent spirit was one
of Johnson's own characteristics; and he might
have recollected, that not only many of the first
persons in the republic of letters have been re-
markable for energy of mind and freedom of spirit;
but that literature and science, when properly
pursued, have in themselves a strong tendency to
emancipate their cultivators from the slavery of
adulation, and the baseness of sycophantic sub-
mission.
After a long pause in his biographical labours,
our authºr wrote, in 1763, The Life of Roger
Ascham, ſpr the purpose of being prefixed to a
quarto edition of that writer's English Works,
undertaken by the Reverend Mr. Bennet. The
philological learning of Ascham, and particularly

LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON. 185
º
his skill in English composition during the reign
of Henry VIII. justly entitled him to the grati-
tude and attention of his country; it was one of
his principal objects “to give an example of
diction more natural and more truly English,
than was used by the common writers of that age,
whom he censures for mingling exotic terms with
their native language;” and, in this he has, for the
most part, happily succeeded. The life of this
waluable scholar is written with Johnson's usual
vigour and richness of style, and, though short,
contains much just sentiment, and many inter-
esting remarks. The following paragraph, for
instance, on Ascham's admission into the univer-
sity in 1530, delineates in a brief, but very striking
manner, the peculiar state of learning at that
important aera. “Ascham entered Cambridge,”
he remarks, “at a time when the last great revo-
lution of the intellectual world was filling every
academical mind with ardour or anxiety. The
destruction of the Constantinopolitan empire had
driven the Greeks, with their language, into the
interior parts of Europe, the art of printing had
made the books easily attainable, and Greek now
began to be taught in England. The doctrines
of Luther had already filled all the nations of the
Romish communion with controversy and dissen-
tion. New studies of literature, and new tenets
186 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
of religion, found employment for all who were
desirous of truth, or ambitious of fame. Learn-
ing was at that time prosecuted with that eager-
ness and perseverance which, in this age of indif-
ference and dissipation, it is not easy to conceive. .
To teach or to learn, was at once the business
and the pleasure of the academical life; and an
emulation of study was raised by Cheke and
Smith, to which even the present age perhaps
owes many advantages, without remembering or
knowing its benefactors.” -
From an attentive perusal of the Lives which
we have now noticed, and more particularly the
Life of Savage, Johnson's talent for biography
may be readily ascertained. He had embraced
with avidity every opportunity of which his cir-
cumstances admitted, to acquire a correct know-
ledge of mankind; he had, at the period when he
commemorated the misfortunes of his friend,
studied with uncommon attention and success the
shades and variations of character which distin-
guish the lower and many of the middle classes
of society; and his mind was singularly fertile in
drawing lessons of moral wisdom from events,
opinions, and modes of action. His prejudices,
however, were strong and early formed, and,
though he never intentionally deserts the standard
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson. 187
of virtue and of truth, they have sometimes
warped his sentiments and feelings, sometimes in-
duced him to overlook what should have been
reprobated, and to extol what was not worthy of
encomium. Yet these blemishes are not numerous
in the specimens that we have been considering,
and are amply atoned for by the general solidity
of judgment which they display, by originality
of thought, and felicity of expression.
Though the poetry and biography of Johnson
had placed him high in the public esteem, they
had contributed but little to exempt him even
from the most pressing necessities; and in the
year 1745, he had to look around for some mode
of literary exertion more permanent and produc-
tive. His favourite subject had long been a
“Life of Alfred,” but this he now relinquished
for a new edition of Shakespeare, of which he pub-
lished anonymous proposals; these, however,
dropped powerless from the press, owing to the.
well known fact that Warburton, whose reputa-
tion was then at its height, had been for some
time engaged on a similar design. It was his for-
tune, nevertheless, to commute this scheme for
one much more important and profitable, and he
contracted with the booksellers for the produc-
tion of an English Dictionary; an engagement
188 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON,
which enabled him to live more at his ease,
and to occupy a house in Gough-square, Fleet-
Street. … .
From this great work, the labour of years, and
which will subsequently attract our attention, I
shall turn, to state that our author, with a view to
relieve his mind, now “tugging at the oar,” by the
charms of conversation, and the pleasures of ele-
gant literature, instituted a club, and commenced
a periodical paper. ;
The club, which was a weekly meeting in Ivy-
lane, Paternoster-row, commenced with nine
persons beside himself, all men of much respecta-
bility, and several of whom afterwards attained
considerable celebrity in the literary world.
With these select friends, who consisted of Dr.
Richard Bathurst, Dr. Hawkesworth, the Rev.
Dr. Salter, Mr. Ryland, a merchant, Mr. John
Payne, a bookseller, Mr. Samuel Dyer, educated
for a dissenting minister, Dr. William M'Ghie, a
Scotch physician, Dr. Edmund Barker, a physi-
cian, and Mr. afterwards Sir John Hawkins, he
spent his evening hours in the luxury of innocent
gaiety and literary discussion. For the enjoy-
ment of society of this description, unfettered by
the restraints of domestic regulation, Johnson had
a peculiar relish; a tavern-chair, he would assert,
was the throne of human felicity. “As soon,”
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 189
said he, “as I enter the door of a tavern, I expe-
rience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from
solicitude: when I am seated, I find the master
courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call;
anxious to know and ready to supply my wants;
wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me
to free conversation and an interchange of dis-
course with those whom I most love; I dogma-
tize, and am contradicted, and in this conflict of
opinions and sentiments I find delight.” The
very late hours to which Johnson had accustomed
himself, and which were incompatible with the
routine of a regular family, was one great motive
for the assemblage of his friends beneath a tavern
roof; he could there act with the independence
which he loved ; and to this mode of collecting
his friends, though he shortly afterwards entirely
relinquished the use of wine, he was partial to
the close of his days.
The second relaxation to which Johnson had
recourse from the fatigue of philological compila-
tion, has given him a most exalted rank in the
character of an Essayist. In the year 1750,
he commenced a periodical paper under the title
of The Rambler; a work which, from its peculiar
style and manner, and its powerful influence on
language and composition, has fixed a new era in
the annals of English literature.
190 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
Thirty-six years had now elapsed since the
close of the eighth volume of the Spectator; a
period indeed, during which, as we have already
seen in the first essays of this volume, numerous
attempts had been made to rival or to copy the
productions of Steele and Addison. Not one,
however, fully succeeded in the arduous under-
taking; and of eighty-two efforts which we have
enumerated, probably not more than half a dozen
are, in the present day, known to have existed by
any other persons than those whose curiosity may
have induced them to trace the literary history of
their country.
Johnson, therefore, had not to contend with
any recent productions of such acknowledged ex-
cellence as might render his attempt either pre-
sumptuous or hazardous; and in the long interval
which had taken place since the retreat of the
Spectator, so many changes had occurred in soci-
ety, literature, and manners, that to a writer of
ability and observation it became no very difficult
task to impress upon periodical composition the
stamp of novelty and originality.
Of these changes it may be necessary, before
we enter upon the history of the publication of
the Rambler, to enumerate the most material, as
they will serve to throw a strong light on the
scope and tendency of our author's papers.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson. 191
During the reign of George II. the commer-
cial consequence of Great Britain had rapidly in-
creased, and had given rise to various alterations
in our modes of living, and to characters which
had not hitherto subsisted. Luxury and refine-
ment, the invariable attendants on extended com-
merce, had pervaded a much larger portion of
society than in the days of Addison, and the mu-
tations in the fashionable world had kept pace
with the facilities of extravagance and caprice.
. The dissipation and manners of the metropolis,
Fhich, during the publication of the Tatler and
*Spectator, had few opportunities of spreading far
beyond the capital that gave them birth, possessed,
towards the middle of the eighteenth century, a
free and rapid access to every quarter of the
kingdom; and, as Sir John Hawkins has observed,
“the maid of honour and the farmer's wife put
on, a cap of the latest form, almost at the same
instant.” To the great improvements in travel-
ling, occasioned by the universal establishment of
turnpike roads, good inns, and light carriages, are
we to attribute this remarkable alteration, which
imparted, if not an improved, yet certainly a
very novel appearance to provincial life, excited
a very curious emulation, added fresh efferves-
cence to affectation, and gave play.to a new series
of eccentricities and follies.
192 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. John SON.
The state also both of the capital and the
country had received great modification from the
wide dissemination of literature; the foundation
for this salutary change had been laid by Steele
and Addison, and, at the period when the
Rambler started into existence, its effects on
society were very evident and striking. To be
acquainted with letters was now no longer a dis-
grace to the fine gentleman; classical studies,
indeed, were deemed necessary to all whose cir-
cumstances placed them above manual labour;
and the ladies, to whom spelling and writing had
been formerly acquisitions of great magnitude,
were, in the days of Johnson, very universally
partakers of the most elegant refinements of
education.
To this general distribution of literary intelli-
gence, which, at the period under consideration,
not only operated strongly upon the upper and
middle, but likewise on the lower ranks of society,
great assistance had been given by the establish-
ment of the Gentleman’s Magazine, in 1731 ; a
miscellany which soon acquired an unprecedented
circulation, and, by affording a most respectable
arena for diffident scholars and young authors,
created in the English republic of letters a very
ardent spirit of emulation. To the Journal of
Cave was added, in the year 1749, the “Monthly
LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON. 193
Review,” the herald of a vast and increasing series
of periodical criticism. These productions, still
among the most respectable of their kind, have a
just claim, through their influence in accelerating
the dispersion of knowledge, to the formation of
distinct epochs in the annals of our literature.
In the year 1750, the former had for nineteen
years been contributing powerfully toward the
progress of literary information; and the latter
had very successfully begun a career which has
gradually converted the nation into a body of
critics.
Another natural consequence of a diffused
taste for letters was a vast increase in the num-
ber of authors; many of whom, as will ever be the
case, were notoriously inadequate to the duties of
their profession. Collectively, however, their in-
fluence upon society became every day more pow-
erful and decided; they were the directors of public
opinion, and consequently their precepts and con-
duct became an object of serious attention. The
state of literature and its disciples has, therefore,
furnished Johnson with a new and fertile topic of
discussion ; he delighted to expatiate on the fate
and fortunes, the pleasures and miseries, the vices
and follies, of the sons of learning; and he has al-
ternately launched with success the shafts of ridi-
cule and the weapons of reproof.
WOL. I.W. O
194 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joii Nso N.
The modes of town life, its dissipation, and
the characters that figured in the Beau Monde,
were likewise, in 1750, very dissiumilar to those
which existed at the period of the Spectator, and
they have consequently furnished our author with
some novel and poignant themes for satire. The
fashionable hours, even in domestic life, began to
intrude upon the night; the amusements of the
capital were commencing that career of continuity
to which we are now familiarized; the play, the
opera, and the masquerade, soliciting their votaries
on the same night in regular succession. The
Beau and Belle, such as they are described in the
pages of Steele, no longer were in being; Will
Honeycombe would have been an object of con-
tempt, for the fop now assumed a much greater
portion of frivolity, levity, and extravagance.
The professions were dropping their exterior cha-
racteristics; the divine was too often mistaken
for the layman; the physician had dismissed his
cane and wig, and the lawyer his suit of black.
The merchant, the tradesman, and the mechanic,
had each stepped beyond their former spheres;
the first had assumed the airs of a man of gallan-
try and fashion, and was as often seen in the ball-
room as the counting-house; the shop-keeper
had arrogated to himself the name and conse-
quence of the merchant; and the mechanic, having
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson. 195
laid aside his apron, had no longer the mortifica-
tion of carrying a badge, which from its form, or
colour, or material, might be indicative of his em-
ployment.
To these mutations and follies was added a
subject of very serious animadversion, the in-
creasing scepticism of the age ; a topic which has
drawn from the pen of Johnson several admirable
papers in support of religion and its evidences.
It is probable, that for many months previous to
the publication of the first number of the Ram-
bler, its author had been weighing in his mind the
propriety and utility of such a vehicle for public
instruction, and had been collecting materials for
his purpose, as they were presented to him in his
intercourse with society; at least, this was cer-
tainly the case with the early part of the work, as
on the first blank leaf of a Common Place Book,
which was afterwards in the possession of Mr.
Boswell, he had written “To the hundred and
twenty-eighth page, collections for the Rambler,”
and subsequently, “In all, taken of provided ma-
terials, thirty.” With these hints, or notanda,
and with a mind rich in observation on life and
manners, he commenced “ The Rambler;” a
title, however, by no means happily chosen, as it
corresponds not with the tenor of the work, of
196 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
which the great characteristic is uniform dignity.
He appears, indeed, to have had no well founded
motive for the adoption of the name, nor do we
possess a more satisfactory reason for his prefer-
ence than what he chose to assign to Sir Joshua
Reynolds; “What must be done, Sir,” said he,
“will be done. When I was to begin publishing
that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I
sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved
that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its
title. The Rambler seemed the best that oc-
curred, and I took it.” -
However apparently precipitate he might be
in the selection of a title, it is evident, from the
following solemn address, which he called his
“Prayer on the Rambler,” that he entered upon
his labours, not only with a due sense of their im-
portance to his literary fame, but with the pious
hope of rendering them subservient to the highest
interests of virtue and religion.
“Almighty God, the giver of all good things,
without whose help all labour is ineffectual, and
without whose grace all wisdom is folly : grant, I
beseech thee, that in this my undertaking, thy
Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but
* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 170. The Italians
have translated this title by Il Vagabondo.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh N son. 197
that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation
both of myself and others; grant this, O Lord '
for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.”
Having strengthened his mind by this act of
devotion, he commenced the publication of his
essays on the 20th of March, 1750, and conti-
nued regularly to produce a number every Tues-
day and Saturday for two years, the two hundred
and eighth and last paper being dated March
14th, 1752.” To each nuinber was affixed the
price of two-pence, and it was weil and accu-
rately printed on a sheet and a half of fine paper.
Of the energy and fertility of resource with
which this work was conducted, there cannot be
a more striking proof, than that during the whole
* It is somewhat remarkable, that out of four biographies
of our author, only one should be right in the simple state-
ment of the days and dates of the publication of the Ram-
bler. Boswell has affirmed, that it appeared every Tuesday
and Friday till Saturday the 17th of March. Mr. Mur-
phy is correct ; Dr. Anderson has followed implicitly Mr.
Boswell; and Mr. Chalmers, who is right with regard to
the days, has given the close on the 17th of March.
Nothing but gross inattention could lead to the substitution
of Friday for Saturday; but the date of the 17th appears to
have been copied either from the folio in the Edinburgh
edition, in eight volumes, in which No. 207 is dated Tues-
day, March 10th, 1752, and No. 208 Saturday, March 17th,
1752; a manifest mistake, as the latter day must necessa-
rily have been the 14th. The late editions are correct.
198 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
course of publication, its author, who was afflicted
with disease, and harassed with the toils of lexi-
cography, with the exception of four or five con-
tributions, neither required nor obtained assist-
ance. One consequence, however, of this solitary
labour, was an uniformity of texture not well
calculated to procure immediate popularity. The
public had been accustomed, in the pages of the
Spectator, to great variety of style, to a fascinating
gaiety of manner, and to a perpetual interchange
of topic, and it was not therefore hastily taught
to relish the solemn and majestic tone of the
preceptive Rambler. It gradually gained ground,
however, with the learned, the wise, and the
good; and though not more than five hundred of
each paper were taken off during its publication
in numbers, as soon as it was collected into vo-
lumes, its circle of attraction began rapidly to
enlarge. Yet that it acquired enthusiastic ad-
mirers, if not numerous yet select, even from its
earliest appearance, may be drawn from con-
temporary publications; from the newspapers of
the day, from the Gentleman's Magazine, and
from The Student, a miscellany of which, in the
second essay of this volume, we have exhibited a
passage of high praise in favour of the Rambler.
Fresh proofs, however, of an early and zealous
support of this paper, have very lately appeared
LITERARY LIFE OF DB, JOHNSON, 199
in the Correspondence of Richardson, edited by
Mrs. Barbauld, and which, as singularly striking
and curious, cannot fail of being acceptable to
my readers. In a letter to Mr. Cave, dated Au-
gust 9th, 1750, the author of Clarissa thus forci-
bly expresses his opinion:
“Though I have constantly been a purchaser
of the Ramblers from the first five that you was
so kind as to present me with, yet I have not had
time to read any further than those first five, till
within these two or three days past. But I can
go no further than the thirteenth, now before me,
till I have acquainted you that I am inexpressibly
pleased with them. I remember not any thing
in the Spectators that I read, for I never found
time—(alas! my life has been a trifling busy one)
to read them all, that half so much struck me;
and yet I think of them highly.
“I hope the world tastes them ; for its own
sake, I hope the world tastes them; the author
I can only guess at. There is but one man, I
think, that could write them ; I desire not to
know his name; but I should rejoice to hear
that they succeed; for I would not, for any con-
sideration, that they should be laid down through
discouragement.
“I have, from the first five, spoke of them
with honour. I have the vanity to think that I
200 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. Joh NSON.
have procured them admirers ; that is to say,
readers. And I am vexed that I have not taken
larger draughts of them before, that my zeal for
their merit might have been as glowing as now I
find it.
“Excuse the overflowing of a heart highly de-
lighted with the subject; and believe me to be an
equal friend to Mr. Cave and the Rambler, as
well as
“Their most humble servant,
“S. RICHARDso N.”
To this, Mr. Cave in a letter written August
the 13th, 1750, replies, “that Mr. Johnson is the
Great Rambler; being, as you observe, the only
man who can furnish two such papers in a week,
besides his other great business, and has not been
assisted with above three.
“I may discover to you that the world is not
so kind to itself as you wish it. The encourage-
ment, as to sale, is not in proportion to the high
character given to the work by the judicious, not
to say the raptures expressed by the few that do
read it; but its being thus relished in numbers,
gives hope that the sets must go off; as it is a fine
paper, and, considering the late hour of having
the copy, tolerably printed.
“When the author was to be kept private,
(which was the first scheme,) two gentlemen,
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHN so N. 201
belonging to the prince's court, came to me to en-
quire his name, in order to do him service; and
also brought a list of seven gentlemen to be
served with the Rambler. As I was not at
liberty, an inference was drawn, that I was de-
sirous to keep to myself so excellent a writer.
Soon after, Mr. Doddington sent a letter directed
to the Rambler, inviting him to his house, when
he should be disposed to enlarge his acquaint-
ance. In a subsequent number a kind of excuse
was made, with a hint that a good writer might
not appear to advantage in conversation.
“I have had letters of approbation from Dr.
Young, Dr. Hartley, Dr. Sharpe, Miss C 2
&c. &c. most of them, like you, setting them in a
rank equal, and some superior, to the Spectators,
(of which I have not read many for the reasons
which you assign;) but, notwithstanding such re-
commendation, whether the price of two-pence, or
the unfavourable season of their first publication,
hinders the demand, no boast can be made of it.”
These letters clearly evince that the uncommon
merit of the Rambler was very soon appreciated
by men of taste and genius. Dr. Young, it is
said, was particularly struck with the serious
papers; and in his copy of the Rambler, which
was inspected by Mr. Boswell, numerous passages
202 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
were marked by single and double folds as indica-
tive of different degrees of excellence.
Johnson was highly gratified by the minute at-
tention of Young, and not less so by the applause
of one who was peculiarly dear to him. “John-
son told me,” says Mr. Boswell, “ with an amia-
ble fondness, that Mrs. Johnson, in whose judg-
ment and taste he had great confidence, said to
him, after a few numbers of the Rambler had
come out, ‘I thought very well of you before;
but I did not imagine you could have written any
thing equal to this.’ Distant praise, from what-
ever quarter, is not so delightful as that of a wife
whom a man loves and esteems. Her approba-
tion may be said to come home to his bosom ;
and being so near, its effect is most sensible and
permanent.” "
The passage alluded to by Cave, as an apology
for the non-acceptance of Mr. Doddington's invi-
tation, is one of the most eloquent in the Rambler,
and was probably written under the conscious
sense of that exterior roughness and dictatorial
manner which too often rendered his conver-
sation painfully oppressive. “A transition from an
author's book,” he remarks, “to his conversation,
is too often like an entrance into a large city,
* Life, vol. 1, p. 178.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 203
after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see
nothing but spires of temples, and turrets of
palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour,
grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have
passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow
passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, em-
barrassed with obstructions, and clouded with
smoke.*
The slow progress of the Rambler toward the
possession of that fame which it ultimately ac-
quired, affected not our author, however, in a pe-
cuniary light. He had entered into a contract
with a bookseller of great worth and liberality, a
Mr. John Payne, of Paternoster-Row, who had
agreed to give him two guineas for each paper as
it appeared, and to admit him to a share of the
profits arising from the sale of the collected
work. He received regularly, therefore, four
guineas a week for two years; an engagement that
enabled him to live comfortably, and which, if
not productive of much present advantage, was
eventually a most lucrative bargain, to the pub-
lisher.
During the appearance of the Rambler in sin-
gle numbers, Mr. James Elphinstone, a friend
to Johnson, and who happened then to be in
Edinburgh, undertook to publish them in that
* Rambler, No. 14.
204 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. J O HNSON.
metropolis almost immediately after issuing from
the London press. They were neatly printed in
duodecimo, and sold by W. Gordon, C. Wright,
and the other booksellers. Of this Edinburgh
Rambler, which is now before me, and which was
first circulated in single papers, and afterwards
collected into eight small volumes, there were two
editions; and on the last page of the sixth number
of the first edition is the following advertisement,
which was continued on several of the subsequent
numbers. -
“ EDINBURGH,
To be continued on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Printed for the AUTHoR : Sold by W. Gordon,
and C. Wright, at their shops in the Parliament-
close, price one penny; and regularly delivered
to subscribers in town, or sent to the country
by post.”
The second edition, one volume of which is
likewise in my possession, came out in 1752. To
both editions are annexed, at the close of each vo-
lume, versions of the mottos by Mr. Elphinstone.
I have been the more particular with regard to
this Scotch edition, as it is remarkably scarce, is
a literal transcript from the first folio, and will
be subsequently referred to. -
Upon the completion of the folio copies, the
Rambler was almost immediately re-printed in
LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNSON. 205
London, in six volumes duodecimo, 1752, and
again in four volumes octavo. It has since
passed through more than twenty editions, ten of
which, independent of those which were surrep-
titiously published in Scotland, Ireland, and Ame-
rica, were circulated in the author's life-time.
So great a favourite, indeed, has this work be-
come with the public, that Mr. Boswell, in the
year 1791, asserts, upon good grounds, that its
sale had then far exceeded that of any other pe-
riodical papers since the reign of Queen Anne.*
It may be worth while, in this place, to remark,
that many of the translations of the mottos in the
London editions of the Rambler, were from the
pen of Johnson, and are very happily executed.
To Mr. James Elphinstone, and to a Mr. F. Lewis,
he was indebted for the remainder.f
* After a few editions had passed the press, the Ram-
bler was accommodated with an Index compilest by the
Rev. Mr. Flexman, a gentleman of whom, as we may
collect from a curious anecdote preserved by Mr. Boswell,
Johnson appears to have entertained no very favourable
opinion. “Johnson would sometimes,” he remarks, “found
his dislike upon very slender circumstances. Happening
one day to mention Mr. Fiexman, a dissenting minister,
with some compliment to his exact memory in chronological
matters, the doctor replied, ‘Let me hear no more of him,
sir; that is the fellow who made the index to my Ramblers,
and set down the name of Milton thus: Milton, Mr. John.”
Boswell's Life, vol. 4, p. 340. t Vol. 1, p. 194.
206 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
The great reputation which Johnson had now ac-
quired as a writer of periodical essays occasioned
an application to be made to him, towards the
close of the same year in which the Rambler had
ceased to favour the world, to assist in the ar-
rangement and conduct of a similar production
under the title of The Adventurer. With this in-
vitation he complied, and contributed, during the
course of the publication, twenty-nine numbers,
Nos. 34, 39, 41, 45, 50, 53, 58, 6.2, 67, 69, 74,
81, 84, 85, 92, 95, 99, 102, 107, 108, 111, 115,
119, 120, 126, 128, 131, 137, and 138. Of
these the first is dated March 3d, 1753, and the
last March 2d, 1754. They are written with his
usual energy of style and manner, and on topics
similar to those which engaged his attention in
the Rambler; he has distinguished them by the
signature T; and the sum that he received for
their composition, which was two guineas per
paper, he presented to Dr. Bathurst, who is sup-
posed to have acted as his amanuensis on the
occasion; at least we have the authority of Mrs.
Williams for the assertion “ that he dictated
them while Bathurst wrote.” "
After an interval of four years, Johnson again
resumed his pen as an essayist, and on the 15th
of April, 1758, commenced another periodical
* Boswell, vol. 1, p. 218.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson. 207
paper under the title of The Idler. This
was not, however, printed singly like the Ram-
bler and Adventurer, but appeared every Satur-
day, in a newspaper published by Mr. John
Newbery, and called “The Universal Chronicle,
or Weekly Gazette.” It was continued regularly
for two years, as long indeed as the Chronicle was
enabled to exist, and consists of one hundred and
three numbers, of which the last is dated April
the 5th, 1760. The author's remuneration, it is
said, was a share in the profits of the Chronicle;
but this, it is probable, could not be great, as
want of encouragement was the ostensible cause
of that paper being relinquished ; and yet from
the lines distinguished by Italics in the following
curious advertisement, which was written by Dr.
Johnson, in order to suppress the piratical prac-
tice of introducing his Idlers without acknow-
ledgment into other publications, it would appear,
that although he was himself a proprietor, he had
likewise, as a distinct object from the general
concern, a separate and very liberal payment for
his essays.
“London, Jan. 5th, 1759. Advertisement.
“The proprietors of the paper, entituled ‘The
Idler,’ having found that those essays are inserted
in the newspapers and magazines with so little re-
gard to justice or decency, that the Universal
208 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Joh N so N.
Chronicle, in which they first appear, is not
always mentioned, think it necessary to declare
to the publishers of those collections, that how-
ever patiently they have hitherto endured these
injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt,
they have now determined to endure them no
longer. They have already seen essays, for which
a very large price is paid, transferred with the
most shameless rapacity into the weekly or
monthly compilations, and their right, at least for
the present, alienated from them before they
could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they
would not willingly be thought to want tender-
ness even for men by whom no tenderness hath
been shewn. The past is without remedy, and
shall be without resentment. But those who
have been thus busy with their sickles in the
fields of their neighbours are henceforward to
take notice, that the time of impunity is at an
end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the
hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that
we shall vindicate our due, by the means which
justice prescribes, and which are warranted by
the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade.
We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies,
degrade them from the pomp cf wide margin, and
diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow
space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 209
with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for
we think not much better of money got by
punishment, than by crimes: we shall, therefore,
when our losses are repaid, give what profit
shall remain to the magdalens: for we know not
who can be more properly taxed for the support
of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom
there yet appears neither penitence nor shame.”
In the composition of his Idlers, Johnson re-
ceived much more assistance than while writing
the Rambler; twelve papers were contributed by
his friends, but of the authors of five of these we
are, at present, ignorant. When the Idler was
published in two volumes 12mo, the author; for
reasons which cannot now be ascertained, omitted
N° 22 of the original folio edition; and he like-
wise added to the second volume, an Essay on
Epitaphs, a Dissertation on the Epitaphs of Pope,
and an Essay on the Bravery of the English com-
mon Soldiers.
That the Idlers, which are in general little
more than half the length of the Ramblers, were
sometimes written with great rapidity, and with-
out any preparatory materials, is evident from the
following anecdote communicated by Mr. Bos-
well. “Mr. Langton,” he relates, “remembers
Johnson, when on a visit at Oxford, asking him
W 0 L, IW. P
210 LITERARY LIFE of DR, Johnson.
one evening, how long it was till the post went
out; and on being told about half an hour, he
exclaimed, “then we shall do very well.’ He
upon this instantly sat down and finished an Idler,
which it was necessary should be in London the
next day. Mr. Langton having signified a wish
to read it, ‘Sir,’ said he, “you shall not do more
than I have done myself.’ He then folded it up,
and sent it off.”* This hurry of composition will
in some measure account for the general omission
in the Idler, of what has been considered as the
usual accompaniment of a periodical paper, the
prefixion of a motto.
In point of plan, the Rambler, Adventurer, and
Idler, are much inferior to the Spectator; they
are, indeed, merely a series of essays, without any
other connection than what their title and juxta-
position may impart; whilst in the papers of
Addison, the institution of a permanent club, and
the frequent agency of its well-drawn and hap-
pily-conceived characters, form a bond of union
which cements the mass into a perfect whole.
The deficiency, however, is, with very few excep-
tions, common to all the writers of periodical
essays since the appearance of the Spectator and
Guardian; and in almost every other respect, the
* Boswell, vol. 1, p. 292.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON. 21 1
papers that we are commenting upon, are entitled
to the highest consideration and applause.”
It was in the Rambler that Johnson first pre-
sented to the public those peculiarities and promi-
nent beauties of style which immediately distin-
guished him, in so striking a manner, from all
preceding writers, and which have made so dura-
ble an impression upon our language. It will,
therefore, be a subject both of curiosity and
utility, not only to offer a few observations on the
novel style and diction of this justly celebrated
work; but, as a preliminary step, to ascertain also
what had been the state and progress of compo-
sition, between the close of the Spectator and the
publication of the Rambler; a disquisition which
will directly continue the series of quotations and
remarks that were introduced in our essays on
Addison, and which will together form a history
* It is somewhat remarkable, that Johnson has, in the
twenty-third number of his Rambler, introduced an asser-
tion which must be considered as in direct opposition to
the fact. “My readers,” says he, “ having, from the per-
jormances of my predecessors, established an idea of uncon-
nected essays.” If by his predecessors he means to allude
to Addison and Steele, the observation is truly extraordi-
nary; as the connection pervading the whole of seven vo-
lumes of the Spectator, through the medium of the club, is
one of the most conspicuous and valuable features of that
work.
212 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOIINSON.
of the progress of English style, from the year
1590, to the middle of the eighteenth century.
To this it will be necessary to add some remarks
on the effects of the Johnsonian style on the lan-
guage and composition of the present period.
The author whose prose writings merit, imme-
diately after those of Addison, the tribute of our
praise, is the celebrated Pope. He, like his master
Dryden, though his chief renown be derived from
his poetical powers, has attained such excellence
in prose composition as will fully qualify him for
one of our best models. If he possess not the
mellow richness of Dryden, he can claim greater
correctness, and greater elegance; if he exhibit
not the variety, the copiousness, and volubility of
the elder bard, he is, however, more pure, con-
cise, and emphatic. The structure of his sen-
tences is peculiarly clear and neat, and at the
same time accompanied with a due portion of
melody and cadence. He seldom, if ever, vio-
lates the genius of the language, either in his words
or collocation; but he is sometimes too declama-
tory, sparkling, and antithetic. In ease and sim-
plicity, he is inferior to Addison; in force, spirit,
and concinnity, superior. .
Of the prose of Pope, the “Postscript to the
Odyssey,” and the “Preface to Shakspeare,” are
the best specimens; and from these interesting
I, ITERARY LIFE OF DR., JOHNSON. 213
pieces of criticism I shall select a couple of
quotations.
“Upon the whole, he (Longinus) affirms the
Odyssey to have less sublimity and fire than the
Iliad, but he does not say it wants the sublime, or
wants fire. He affirms it to be narrative, but not
that the narration is defective. He affirms it to
abound in fictions, not that those fictions are ill
invented, or ill executed. He affirms it to be
nice and particular in painting the manners, but
not that those manners are ill painted. If Homer
has fully in these points accomplished his own
design, and done all that the nature of his poem
demanded or allowed, it still remains perfect in
its kind, and as much a master-piece as the Iliad.
“The Battle of Constantine, and the School of
Athens, are both pieces of Raphael: shall we
censure the School of Athens as faulty, because it
has not the fury and fire of the other ? or shall
we say that Raphael was grown grave and old,
because he chose to represent the manners of old
men and philosophers ? There is all the silence,
tranquillity, and composure in the one, and all
the warmth, hurry, and tumult in the other,
which the subject of either required: both of them
had been imperfect, if they had not been as they
are. And let the painter or poet be young or
old, who designs and performs in this manner, it
214 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
proves him to have made the piece at a time of
life, when he was master not only of his art, but
of his discretion. -
“The Odyssey is a perpetual source of poetry:
the stream is not the less full for being gentle;
though it is true (when we speak only with regard
to the sublime,) that a river foaming and thunder-
ing in cataracts from rocks and precipices, is
what more strikes, amazes, and fills the mind,
than the same body of water, flowing afterwards
through peaceful vales, and agreeable scenes of
pasturage.”
“If ever any author deserved the name of an
original, it was Shakspeare. Homer himself drew
not his art so immediately from the fountains of
Nature; it proceeded through Egyptian strainers
and channels, and came to him not without some
tincture of the learning, or some cast of the mo-
dels, of those before him. The poetry of Shak-
speare was inspiration indeed: he is not so much
an imitator, as an instrument, of Nature; and it
is not so just to say that he speaks from her, as
that she speaks through him.
“His Characters are so much Nature herself,
that it is a sort of injury to call them by so dis-
tant a name as copies of her. Those of other
'poets have a constant resemblance, which shews
" Postscript to the Odyssey.
L1TERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 215
that they received them from one another, and
were but multipliers of the same image; each
picture, like a inock-rainbow, is but the reflection
of a reflection. But every single character in
Shakspeare is as much an individual, as those in
life itself; it is as impossible to find any two
alike; and such as from their relation or affinity
in any respect appear most to be twins, will, upon
comparison, be found remarkably distinct. To
this life and variety of character, we must add
the wonderful preservation of it; which is such
throughout his plays, that had all the speeches
been printed without the very names of the per-
sons, I believe one might have applied them with
certainty to every speaker.
“The Power over our Passions was never pos-
sessed in a more eminent degree, or displayed in
so different instances. Yet all along, there is
seen no labour, no pains to raise them ; no pre-
paration to guide or guess to the effect, or be
perceived to lead toward it: but the heart swells,
and the tears burst out, just at the proper places:
we are surprised the moment we weep; and yet,
upon reflection, find the passion so just, that we
should be surprised if we had not wept, and wept
at that very moment. - - . . .
“How astonishing is it again, that the passions
directly opposite to this, laughter and spleen, are
216 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
no less at his command; that he is not more a
master of the great than the ridiculous in human
nature; of our noblest tendernesses, than of our
vainest foibles; of our strongest emotions, than of
our idlest sensations !” ”
The diction of these extracts in general corre-
sponds with the character which we have given of
the style of Pope : there is, however, one passage
in the third paragraph on Shakspeare, which de-
tracts from the eulogium, and is a gross violation
both of grammar and construction; no prepara-
tion to guide or guess to the effect, or be perceived
to lead toward it: to guess to an effect is certainly
a vile idiom, and the conclusion of the clause is
almost equally aukward and flat.
ATTERBURY, the friend of Pope, and a
preacher of great eloquence and popularity, is the
next author who, on account of his style, has a
claim upon our attention. His sermons are writ-
ten, for the period in which they were composed,
with uncommon purity and correctness of dic-
tion. Their style is frequently elegant and beauti-
ful, but it seldom rises to much energy or warmth,
and is sometimes rendered insipid and tedious, by
slovenly construction and protracted sentences.
It possesses, however, both more animation and
pmore sweetness than the style of Tillotson, but not
* Preface to the Works of Shakspeare,
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh Nso N. 217
more variety; a passage therefore from the first,
and perhaps the best, sermon in his works, the
subject of which is the duty of praise and thanks-
giving, will afford a sufficiently clear idea of the
style and manner of Atterbury.
“”Tis one of the earliest instructions given us
by philosophy, and which has ever since been
approved and inculcated by the wisest men of all
ages, that the original design of making man was,
that he might praise and honour him who made
him. When God had finished this goodly frame
of things we call the world, and put together the
several parts of it, according to his infinite wis-
dom, in exact number, weight, and measure, there
was still wanting a creature, in these lower re-
gions, that could apprehend the beauty, order, and
exquisite contrivance of it; that from contem-
plating the gift, might be able to raise itself to
the great Giver, and do honour to all his attri-
butes. Every thing indeed that God made, did,
in some sense, glorify its author, inasmuch as it
carried upon it the plain mark and impress of
the Deity, and was an effect worthy of that first
cause from whence it flowed; and thus might the
heavens be said, at the first moment in which
they stood forth, to declare his glory, and the
firmament to shew his handy work. But this was an
jmperfect and defective glory; the sign was of no
218 LTTERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
signification here below, whilst there was no one
here as yet to take notice of it. Man, therefore,
was formed to supply this want, endowed with
powers fit to find out, and to acknowledge, these
unlimited perfections; and then put into this
Temple of God, this lower world, as the Priest of
Nature, to offer up the incense of Thanks and
Praise for the mute and insensible part of the
Creation.— -
“Other parts of devotion, such as confession
and prayer, seem not originally to have been de-
signed for man, nor man for them. They imply
guilt and want, with which the state of innocence
was not acquainted. Had man continued in that
estate, his worship (like the devotions of angels)
had been paid to heaven in pure acts of thanks-
giving; and nothing had been left for him to do,
beyond the enjoying the good things of life, as
nature directed, and praising the God of nature
who bestowed them. But being fallen from inno-
eence and abundance; having contracted guilt,
and forfeited his right to all sorts of mercies;
prayer and confession became necessary, for a
time, to retrieve the loss, and to restore him to
that state wherein he should be able to live with-
out them. These are fitted, therefore, for a lower
dispensation; before which, in paradise, there
was nothing but praise, and after which, there
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 219
shall be nothing but that in heaven. Our per-
fect state did at first, and will at last, consist in
the performance of this duty; and herein, there-
fore, lies the excellence and the honour of our
nature.” “
A great portion of the popularity which at-
tended Atterbury as a preacher, was most proba-
bly derived from the excellence of his delivery,
and from his habit of preaching extempore; a
custom that almost necessarily imparts animation
and spirit, and which is noticed by Steele in N*
66 of the Tatler, as the peculiar practice of Atter-
bury; “ he has,” says he, “ so much regard to his
congregation, that he commits to his memory
what he has to say to them ; and has so soft and
graceful a behaviour, that it must attract your
attention.”f
Contemporary with Atterbury was Joseph
SPENCE; whose “Essay on Pope's Odyssey,” pub-
lished in 1727, is one of the most pleasing and
useful pieces of criticism which we possess. It is
written in the dialogue form, and contributed to
render popular a species of composition very diffi-
cult to execute. He had been preceded in this
mode of writing by Henry More, Addison, and
Shaftesbury, and was immediately succeeded by
* Vol. 1st, Sermon 1st.
f Tatler, vol. 2, p. 133, 134, 8vo edition of 1797.
220 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh Nson.
Berkeley, Harris, and Hurd. The good sense,
candour, and learning, which are every where
displayed in this work, “a work,” as Dr. Warton
observes, “ of the truest taste, and soundest criti-
cism,” demand some notice of the style in which
they are enveloped; and more especially as no
book is better calculated to direct the taste of
the poetical student, or more adapted to excite a
relish for just and liberal criticism.
Vivacity, ease, and purity, should form the
leading features in the composition of the dia-
logue, which admits, more than any other species
of style, of idiomatic expression. The licence,
however, should be free from vulgarisms, and the
general texture should exhibit the most finished
specimen of colloquial simplicity, combined with
elegance, which the progress of civilization can
afford. In facility and animation, the diction of
Spence is in no degree deficient; but it is too
much loaded with idiom, and that, too, not al-
ways of the best kind; hence his style, though
occasionally simply elegant, is too often careless
and slovenly; owing probably to the wish of im-
parting to his language a conversational fami-
liarity. This is the more to be regretted, as the
taste and judgment which he displays in criti-
cising the version of Pope are exquisitely delicate
and correct.
IITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson. 221
Of these Dialogues, now almost forgotten, but
yet exhibiting one of the most interesting models
of English criticism, I shall insert an ample speci-
men; not only with the view of affording an ex-
ample of their style, but of alluring, likewise, to
their perusal, all who wish to learn the rare art
of mingling candour and politeness with the
wholesome severities of criticism.
“The designs of Painting and Poetry are so
united, that to me the Poet and the Painter seem
scarcely to differ in any thing, except the mean
they make use of, to arrive at one and the same
end. Both are to express Nature; but the ma-
terials of the one are words and sound; of the
other, figure and colours. Poetry can paint
more particularly, more largely, and with greater
coherence : Painting is the more concise and
emphatical. If this may excel in shewing one
view distinctly, that can shew several in succes-
sion, without any manner of confusion. Any
figure in Painting is confined to one attitude;
but Poetry can give as great a variety of motion
and postures, as the reality itself. What seems a
paradox of art in either, is their power of ex-
pressing two opposite passions in the same face.
Of this sort, (among a multitude of like instances)
is the mother of Lewis XIII. in the Gallery of
Luxembourgh; and every piece in that fine
222 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
episode which concludes the sixth Iliad. In that
picture, the queen's face strongly expresses the
pain and anguish of her condition, mixed with a
regard toward her son, full of the greatest plea-
sure and complacency. In the poem we have the
greater variety, and each piece is perfectly just
and finished. Hector shews a fierceness for the
war, and tenderness that inclines him to stay for
a last interview; little Astyanar has a fondness
and a terror in his eyes, at the sight of his father;
while Andromache's face is all softened into a
tender smile ; and, at the same time, wet with
the tears that fall for her Hector.
“I remember, says Antiphaus, it was to you that
I was obliged for the first observation I ever met
with, on these double passions. I have since read
several things (in the AEneid as well as the works
of Homer) with a pleasure perfectly new, on ac-
count of the light you then gave me into this
particular: and out of a thousand places, that I
have observed it in since, I know none more beau-
tiful than that of Achaemenides in Virgil, which
you mentioned to me the first time we ever talked
of this subject.
“That you know (replied Philypsas) to have
been always my favourite—but”—
“I must not forget here, that one of the finest
of the modern Italian poets has expressed this
LITERARY LIFE OF . DR. JOHNSON. 223
mixture of opposite passions, on an occasion
which is attended with such a circumstance as
exceeds any of the other. The particular in
which he shews it, shews at the same time the
swiftness of the intervening passion; and ex-
presses, the strongest of any, how immediately
one flow of spirits succeeds upon a former and
quite contrary emotion. Armida, deserted by
her Rinaldo, breathes nothing but fury and re-
venge; she pursues him in the heat of the battle;
forgetful of her former passion, she aims an arrow
at his heart: but see, while it is yet in its flight,
how the passions vary in her face! her rage and
fury soften into tenderness, and apprehension of
his danger l in an instant her love is too strong
for her resentment: in an instant, she dreads.lest
her design should be effectual, and longs to be
disappointed in her aim:
Swift flies the shaft: as swiftly flies her pray’r,
That all its vehemence be spent in air.
“IIow finely are the passions blended in this
piece! The transition from the extremity of fury
to an excess of love, is managed in such a
manner, as to be wholly imperceptible: as when
two colours are lost in the shades of each other,
the eye is agreeably deceived; and we are de-
lighted with the delicacy of their union, though
224 LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson.
unable to discover where the one commences, or
the other ends. k
“In this particular there is not any thing that
can equal poetry, or bear to be compared with
it, except its sister-art of painting ; and certainly
what makes so beautiful a figure in the finest
poets, might deserve the imitation of the best
painters. Was not the Dolon and Calypso of
Homer, worthy the hand of a Zeuris or Apelles 2
Would not the Aruns and Achaemenides of Virgil
have been a fine design even for Corregio or Ra-
phael to have worked upon — *
“There is perhaps scarce a figure or mann
in poetry, which I should not imagine to have its
tally in the schools of the painters: I could find
it even in the very next point which comes in
my way, in the Emphatical. **** til
tions, as they are pictures which take in the vari-
ous circumstances of a place or action, give us
generally several groups of finished figures; this,
on the contrary, is a way of expressing nature in
poetry, not unlike sketches and first draughts in
painting; and as the lines in sketches are fewer,
and more animated, this must be always concise,
and very expressive. -
“There are several masterly strokes of the em-
phatical kind in the Odyssey: such is that speech
of Telemachus, where he says, -
{



A.ITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh Nson. 225
Prepar'd I stand. He was but born to try
The lot of Man: To suffer, and to die.”
“Such is Circe's whole speech—such, in an
high degree, is the first rencounter of the hero
with that Goddess.
Hence to thy fellows, dreadful she began,
Go, be a beast.—I heard, and yet was man.t
“This manner is necessary in all sententious
passages, and moral reflections; 'tis often strong
in expressing the passions, and peculiarly useful
in the sublime. Take an instance of each from
–Pirates and conquerors, of harden'd mind,
The foes of peace, and scourges of mankind,
To whom offending men are made a prey,
When Jove in vengeance gives a land away:
Ev’n these, when of their ill-got spoils possess'd,
Find sure tormentors in the guilty breast:
Some voice of God close whispring from within,
“Wretch I this is villany, and this is sin.”:
“The reflection upon seeing Agamemnon in
Hades, is of this kind.
Now all Atrides is an empty shade $
“Just after, Atrides speaks thus passionately in
the account of his own death by the treachery
of Ægisthus: .
But not with me the direful murder ends:
These, these expir’d –Their crime they were my friends.]
* B. 3, 1.119. B. 10, 1,382. : B. 14, l. 110.
$ B, 11, l. 490. || B. 11, 1.512.
WOL. I.W. Q -

226 LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson.
“In the sublime, nothing can be higher than
the language of his Gods, Neptune and Jupiter.
If such thy will.--We will it, Jove replies.”
“This latter is that short full way of expres-
sion so frequent in Virgil and Homer, copied
perhaps by both from the admired example of it
in Moses, and grown since into an aviom among
the critics.—
“Antiphaus could scarce imagine, that these
were all clear improvements upon Homer; he
immediately consulted the passages in the origi-
nal; and was surprized to find, how far they fell
short of the translation; especially in the lines
that answer Circe's threat, and the complaint of
Agamemnon. I am pleased, says he, beyond
measure, in consulting these parts of the poem,
to see how much strength and force there is
added to them; have you not observed more
instances of this kind impart them to me, good
Philypsas: 'tis no matter for method or regu-
larity; give them to me immediately.”—
• In a subsequent page, Philypsas observes that
Mr. Pope has “improved much upon the original
in his poetical repetition of the same word, the
figure in which he is most frequent. Thus,” he
remarks, “is it used in the following lines: s
"B, 13, 1, 177. . .
*
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 227
A scene, where if a God should cast his sight,
A God might gaze, and wander with delight.”
Never, never wicked man was wise.t
“”Tis yet more beautiful, when the repetition
holds further; as in this passage: f
Transported with the song, the list'ning train
Again with loud applause demand the strain:
Again Ulysses veil’d his pensive head,
Again, unmann'd, a show'r of sorrow shed.:
“This sometimes gives an additional solem-
nity, and rises stronger and stronger each line:
Celestial as thou art, yet stand deny'd : -
Or swear that oath, by which the Gods are ty'd,
Swear, in thy soul no latent frauds remain,
Swear, by the vow which never can be vain.5
“This is sometimes carried yet farther; and
in Virgil particularly, there is a fine instance of
this sort of repetition being doubled.|
But in nothing is this figure more beautiful,
than in the Siren's Song: that piece of ancient
music is greatly enlivened in the translation; the
whole flows on in a peculiar harmony, and the
chorus is very happily added in the conclusion
of it. - *
Celestial music warbles from their tongue,
And thus the sweet deluders tune the song.
* B.5, 1.96, t B. 2, 1.320. # B. 8, 1,90.
§ B, 10, 1,410, Ecl. 8, 1.50.
228 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON s
O stay, oh pride of Greece'ſ Ulysses stay !
O cease thy course, and listen to our lay !
Blest is the man ordain’d our voice to hear,
The song instructs the soul and charms the ear.
Approach thy soul shall into raptures rise !
Approach 1 and learn new wisdom from the wise:
We know whate'er the kings of mighty name
Atchiev'd at Ilion in the field of fame;
Whate'er beneath the sun's bright journey lies.
Ostay, and learn new wisdom from the wise t”
These quotations from Spence, while they suf-
ficiently evince the beauties and defects of his
style, cannot, I should imagine, fail to impress
upon the reader a most favourable idea of his
critical taste and acumen.t
Coexistent with Spence, flourished the cele-
brated Bishop SHERLock, a divine who supports
a high character in the church, as well for the
merits of his style, as the soundness of his doc-
trines. He commenced a publisher of sermons
as early as the year 1725, and continued a very
popular preacher and writer until near 1750.
Of Sherlock, Mr. Godwin has asserted, that
his “elegance is rather to be found in his ideas;
* B. 12, 1.220. Essay on the Odyssey, 2d edition, 1737,
12mo, p. 73, 74, 79, 80, 81, 83, 84, 85, 88, 89, and 90.
t In his beautiful “Tales of the Genii” Mr. James Rid-
ley has given an amiable portrait of Spence under the
character of the “Dervise of the Groves,” whose name is
“Phesoi Ecneps,” or Joseph Spence, if read backwards.
$
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JoHNson. 229
and it is chiefly from a confusion of mind in his
readers, that it has been transferred from its pro-
per seat, and ascribed to his composition. His
manner is for the most part close to his subject,
and he disdains every thing impertinent and
merely ornamental; but he is usually hard, scho-
lastic, and even somewhat repellent in his lan-
guage.
“His famous parallel between Christ and Ma-
homet, which is perhaps the only truly eloquent
passage in his works, is indeed happily expressed.
He must have been a very cursory observer of
style, who does not know, that enthusiasm of sen-
timent seldom fails to produce a momentary hap-
piness of language. But, as if this were wholly
foreign to the writer, no sooner does he close the
descriptive part, and attempt to sum up the re-
sult, than his manner becomes comparatively
bald and mean.” " -
These strictures are more severe than just; the
style of Sherlock, it is true, is in general plain,
and exhibits little ornament; but its usual cha-
racter is calumniated by the epithets hard, scho-
tastic, and repellent. Though plain, it is nervous
and emphatic, and in the construction of its sen-
tences peculiarly clear and neat. That this cast
of diction was the result of judgment, and not of
* Godwin's Enquirer, p. 460.
230 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
#
inability to impart more warmth of colouring,
is evident from very many passages in his dis-
courses, which display uncommon richness and
harmony of style. The parallel between Christ
and Mahomet, is only one among a number of
pages that might be quoted in proof of the asser-
tion. For instance, let us take the close of the
first sermon in volume the third.
“Should the punishments of another life be,
what we have but too much reason to fear they
will be, what words can then express the folly of
sin Short are our days in this world, and soon
they shall expire: and should religion at last
prove a mere deceit, we know the worst of it; it
is an error for which we cannot suffer after death :
nor will the infidels there have the pleasure to
reproach us with our mistake; they and we, in
equal rest, shall sleep the sleep of death. But
should our hopes, and their fears, prove true;
should they be so unhappy, as not to die for ever;
which miserable hope is the only comfort that
infidelity affords; what pains and torments must
they then undergo Could I represent to you
the different states of good and bad men; could
I give you the prospect which the blessed martyr
St. Stephen had, and shew you the blessed Jesus
at the right hand of God surrounded with angels,
and the spirits of just men made perfect; could I
I,ITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 231
open your ears to hear the never-ceasing hymns
of praise, which the blessed above sing to him
that was, and is, and is to come; to the Lamb that
was slain, but liveth for ever; could I lead you
through the unbounded regions of eternal day,
and shew you the mutual and ever-blooming joys
of saints who are at rest from their labour, and
live for ever in the presence of God! or, could I
change the scene, and unbar the iron gates of
hell, and carry you, through solid darkness, to
the fire that never goes out, and to the worm that
never dies: could I shew you the apostate angels
fast bound in eternal chains, or the souls of
wicked men overwhelmed with torment and des-
pair: could I open your ears to hear the deep
itself groan with the continual cries of misery;
cries which can never reach the throne of mercy,
but return in sad echoes, and add even to the
very horrors of hell! could I thus set before you
the different ends of religion and infidelity, you
would want no other proof to convince you, that
nothing can recompense the hazard men run of
being for ever miserable through unbelief. But,
though neither the tongues of man nor of angels
can express the joys of heaven, or describe the
pains of hell; yet, if there be any truth in religion,
these things are certain and near at hand.””
• *Wol. 3, p. 18, 19, 6th edition, 1772, in 5 vols. 8vo,
232 LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson.
Here the imagery, which is remarkably hold
and striking, is rendered still more impressive, by
the strength and harmony of the language in
which it is produced to view. The subdued and
plaintive theme at the commencement of this fine
passage, the rapture immediately succeeding, and
the tremendous close which harrows up the very
soul, have each their diction so luminous and
appropriate, that, in my opinion, no alteration
could improve the style. .
Of the ordinary language of Sherlock, of that
plain but nervous diction which has distinguished
him among his contemporaries, the following
may be considered as an adequate specimen.
“So far is it from being an objection to the
reality of grace, that the works of grace are works
of reason, that the very best evidence we can
have that the grace of God is in us, is this, that
we live up to the pure and sincere dictates of rea-
son. We ascribe not to grace, that we know our
duty; but this we ascribe to it, that we are able
to perform it. And upon this state of the case
it appears, that the evidence which christians can
make to themselves and others, that the Spirit of
God dwelleth in them, must arise from their works
of love and obedience." >.
“ Unbelievers may have many objections to
make against the operations of the Holy Spirit,
LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON. 233
which need not affect or disturb the faith of
a christian. But when they object to us the
want of evidence in the works of christians, they
raise a difficulty, which every believer is bound
to answer for himself, or to quit his pretensions
to the hopes and promises of the gospel. The
confidence of some, that they have the Spirit of
God, though they have nothing but their own
confidence to allege in proof of it, is a conceit,
unknown to the churches of God: the gospel is a
stranger to it, and it was taught in some other
school than that of Christ.””
As an author whose style and manner form a
perfect contrast to the general diction of Sher-
lock, I have now to mention LoRD Boling-
BROKE, who commenced a party writer at an
early period of the eighteenth century. His most
finished work, however, his “Idea of a Patriot
King,” though composed in 1738, was not pub-
lished until 1749, and having received his most
sedulous revision may be considered as the most
perfect specimen of his style.
* Sermons, Vol. 3, p. 300, 301. Bishop Berkeley might
here be quoted as an excellent writer of the Platonic Dia-
logue; but as his works were altogether abstruse and meta-
physical, and never had a general admittance, they cannot
be supposed to have operated much, if at all, in accelerat-
ing the improvement of English style.
234. LITERARY LIFE of Dr. JoHNson.
*
Bolingbroke was a man of warm passions, and
possessed an ardent imagination; he was likewise
high in reputation as a powerful and successful
orator; and he appears to have carried into his
closet the same heat and impetuosity which ani-
mated his soul in the tumult of debate. Hence
his style is vehement, declamatory, and highly
figurative; bold, rich, and energetic, it rushes on
its course like some mighty river, and bears
down every obstacle which opposes its progress;
but, like the torrent that we are alluding to, its
very rapidity is too often destructive of its beauty
and transparency. The construction of his sen-
tences is therefore frequently incorrect, and they
are not seldom rendered intricate and parentheti-
cal, by the uncontrouled accumulation of his
ideas. There is a fire, however, a spirit of viva-
city in the composition of Bolingbroke, which,
when accompanied, as is occasionally the case,
with perspicuity and ease, must give him rank
as one of the happiest models of the vehement
style.
Of the extracts which I have selected from the
“Patriot King,” the first, on the character of
Elizabeth, will convey a just idea of the usual
style of Bolingbroke in this his most finished
work; and the second will afford examples of that
spirit, strength, and climax in the arrangement
I, ITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 235
of sentences, for which he has been so much
celebrated.
“Our Elizabeth was queen in a limited monar-
chy, and reigned over a people at all times more
easily led than driven; and at that time capable
of being attached to their prince and their coun-
try, by a more generous principle than any of
those which prevail in our days, by affection.
There was a strong prerogative then in being,
and the crown was in possession of greater legal
power. Popularity was, however, then, as it is
now, and as it must be always in mixed govern-
ment, the sole true foundation of that sufficient
authority and influence, which other constitu-
tions give the prince gratis, and independently of
the people, but which a king of this nation must
acquire. The wise queen saw it, and she saw
too, how much popularity depends on those ap-
pearances, that depend on the decorum, the de-
cency, the grace, and the propriety of behaviour,
of which we are speaking. A warm concern for
the interest and honour of the nation, a tender-
ness for her people, and a confidence in their
affections, were appearances that ran thro’ her
whole public conduct, and gave life and color to
it. She did great things, and she knew how to
set them off according to their full value, by her
manner of doing them. In her private behaviour
236 LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson.
she shewed great affability, she descended even
to familiarity; but her familiarity was such as
could not be imputed to her weakness, and was,
therefore, most justly ascribed to her goodness.
Tho' a woman, she hid all that was womanish
about her: and if a few equivocal marks of co-
quetry appeared on some occasions, they passed
like flashes of lightning, vanished as soon as they
were discerned, and imprinted no blot on her
character. She had private friendships, she had
favourites; but she never suffered her friends to
forget she was their queen.”
Speaking of the importance of the personal
manners of a Patriot King, he observes that,
“It is of his personal behaviour, of his man-
ner of living with other men, and, in a word, of
his private as well as public life, that I mean
to speak. It is of that decency and grace,
that bienseance of the French, that decorum of
the Latins, that weszroy of the Greeks, which can
never be reflected on any character that is not
laid in virtue: but for want of which, a charac-
ter that is so laid will lose, at all times, part of
the lustre belonging to it, and may be sometimes
not a little misunderstood and undervalued.
Beauty is not separable from health, nor this
* Bolingbroke's Works, vol. 3d, p. 118, quarto edition
of 1754,
LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNson. 237
lustre, said the Stoics, from virtue; but as a man
may be healthful without being handsome, so he
may be virtuous without being amiable.
“There are certain finishing strokes, a last
hand, as we commonly say, to be given to all the
works of art. When that is not given, we may
see the excellency of a general design, and the
beauty of some particular parts. A judge of the
art may see further; he may allow for what is
wanting, and discern the full merit of a complete
work, in one that is imperfect. But vulgar eyes
will not be so struck. The work will appear to
them defective, because unfinished : so that with-
out knowing precisely what they dislike, they
may admire, but they will not be pleased. Thus
in moral characters, tho’ every part be virtuous
and great, or tho’ the few and small defects in it
be concealed under the blaze of those shining
qualities that compensate for them; yet is not
this enough even in private life : it is less so in
public life, and still less so in that of a prince.—
“This decency, this grace, this propriety of
manners to character, is so essential to princes
in particular, that whenever it is neglected, their
virtues lose a great degree of lustre, and their de-
fects acquire much aggravation. Nay more; by
neglecting this decency and this grace, and, for
want of a sufficient regard to appearances, even
238 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
their virtues may betray them into failings, their
failings into vices, and their vices into habits un-
worthy of princes and unworthy of men.”
In the year 1741, the public was presented
with a work which has been usually, and upon
the whole, justly, considered as a model of ele-
gant composition. The “Life of Cicero” by
MIDDLEToN may indeed be esteemed, in point
of style, the earliest classical production which
we possess in the department of history. Its re-
putation, however, as a specimen of fine writing,
is on the decline; for though it may, in this re-
spect, be still read with some degree of pleasure, it
is, without doubt, much inferior to the style of the
first rate authors of the present reign. The chief
defects of the composition of the “Life of Cicero”
have arisen from the labour bestowed upon it:
the sentences are too often, in their construction,
pedantic and stiff, owing, in a great measure, to
the perpetual adoption of circumlocutions, in order
to avoid customary phrases and modes of expres-
sion. The Author has indeed, upon this plan, given
a kind of verbose dignity to his style; but, at the
same time, frequently sacrificed ease, perspicuity,
and spirit. In grammatical construction, he is
for the most part pure and correct; but in his
choice of words he has exhibited frequent marks
: * Vol. 3, p. 109, 110, 116. • *
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 239
of defective taste. He is occasionally elegant
and precise, but more commonly appears majes-
tic, yet encumbered, struggling under the very
mass of diction which he has laboured to accu- .
mulate. He has contributed, however, to im-
prove English composition, by affording examples
of unusual correctness in the construction of his
sentences, and of that roundness, plenitude, and
harmony of period, for which his favourite Cicero
has been so universally renowned.
The beauties and defects of the style of Middle-
ton may be pretty accurately estimated from the
following extracts; the first of which gives a sum-
mary of the education of Cicero; and the second,
a most impressive description of the close of his
Consulship.
“Cicero had now run through all that course
of discipline, which he lays down as necessary to
form the complete orator.—He had learnt the ru-
diments of grammar and languages from the
ablest teachers; gone through the studies of
humanity, and the politer letters, with the poet
Archias; been instructed in philosophy by the
principal professors of each sect; Phaedrus the
Epicurian, Philo the Academic, Diodotus the
Stoic; acquired a perfect knowledge of the law,
from the greatest lawyers, as well as the greatest
statesmen of Rome, the two Scavola's; all which
240 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson.
accomplishments were but ministerial and sub-
servient to that on which his hopes and ambition
were singly placed, the reputation of an orator:
to qualify himself therefore particularly for this,
he attended the pleadings of all the speakers of
his time; heard the daily lectures of the most
eminent orators of Greece, and was perpetually
composing somewhat at home, and declaiming
under their correction : and that he might neg-
lect nothing, which could help in any degree to
improve and polish his style, he spent the inter-
vals of his leisure in the company of the ladies;
especially of those who were remarkable for a
politeness of language, and whose fathers had
been distinguished by a fame and reputation of
their eloquence. While he studied the law,
therefore, under Scaevola the Augur, he frequently
conversed with his wife Laºlia, whose discourse, he
says, was tinctured with all the elegance of her
father Lelius, the politest speaker of his age: he
was acquainted, likewise, with her daughter Mu-
cia, who married the great orator L. Crassus ;
and with her grand-daughters, the two Licinia;
one of them the wife of L. Scipio; the other of
young Marius; who all excelled in that delicacy
of the Latin tongue, which was peculiar to their
families, and valued themselves on preserving
and propagating it to their posterity.
LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON. 241
“Thus adorned and accomplished, he offered
himself to the bar about the age of twenty-six ;
not as others generally did, raw and ignorant of
their business, and wanting to be formed to it by
use and experience; but finished, and qualified at
once to sustain any cause which should be com-
mitted to him.”” & -
“Before we close the account of the memora-
ble events of this year, (Cicero's Consulship,) we
must not omit the mention of one, which distin-
guished it afterwards as a particular aera in the
annals of Rome, the birth of Octavius, surnamed
Augustus, which happened on the twenty-third of
September. Velleius calls it an accession of glory
to Cicero's Consulship: but it excites speculations
rather of a different sort; on the inscrutable me-
thods of providence, and the short-sighted policy of
man ; that in the moment when Rome was pre-
served from destruction, and its liberty thought
to be established more firmly than ever, an infant
should be thrown into the world, who, within the
course of twenty years, effected what Catiline
had attempted, and destroyed both Cicero and
the republic. If Rome could have been saved
by human counsel, it would have been saved by
the skill of Cicero: but its destiny was now
* The History of the Life of Marcus Tullius Cicero, in
three volumes, vol. 1, third edition, 1742, p. 36, 37.
WOL. IV, R.
2:42, LITERARY LIFE OF D R. Joſh NSON,
approaching: for governments, like natural bodies,
have; with the principles of their preservation, the
seeds of ruin also essentially mixt in their con-
stitution, which after a certain period begin to
operate and exert themselves to the dissolution
of the vital frame. These seeds had long been
fermenting in the bowels of the republic; when
Octavius came, peculiarly formed by nature, and
instructed by art, to quicken their operation and
exalt them to their maturity. -
“Cicero's administration was now at an end,
and nothing remained but to resign the Consul-
ship, according to custom, in an assembly of the
people, and to take the usual oath, of his having
discharged it with fidelity. This was generally
accompanied with a speech from the eapiring
Consul; and after such a year, and from such a
speaker, the city was in no small expectation of
what Cicero would say to them: but Metellus,
one of the new Tribunes, who affected commonly
to open their magistracy by some remarkable act,
as a specimen of the measures which they in-
tended to pursue, resolved to disappoint both the
orator and the audience: for when Cicero had
mounted the rostra, and was, ready to perform
this last act of his office, the Tribune would not
suffer him to speak, or to do any thing more, than
barely take the oath; declaring, that he who had
LTTERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON, 24.3
put citizens to death unheard, ought not to be per-
mitted to speak for himself: upon which Cicero,
who was never at a loss, instead of pronouncing
the ordinary form of the oath, eralting the tone
of his voice, swore out aloud, so as all the people
might hear him, that he had saved the républic and
the city from ruin; which the multitude below
confirmed with an universal shout, and with one
voice cried out, that what he had sworn was
true.” #
We now approach a writer who has been al-
most universally praised for the beauty and sim-
plicity of his style, the philosophic historian
HUME. The appeal, however, in proof of this
encomium has been usually made to his “History
of England;” a production which, great as its
merits assuredly are, is, in point of style, many
degrees inferior to his Essays.
Hume commenced an author as early as the
year 1738, by printing his “Treatise on Human
Nature;” but he was little known until the year
1742; when, owing to the publication of his
“ Essays, moral, political, and literary,” he .
acquired much celebrity as a writer of great depth
of thought, and of great elegance of diction.
The style of these Essays, which has certainly
contributed, in a high degree, to accelerate the
{} Wol. 1, P. 240, 241. #
244. LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
progress of taste in composition, forms, with few
exceptions, a model of perspicuity, simplicity,
and just refinement. A few grammatical errors
may be detected, and some negligencies in the
construction and cadence of sentences; but, upon
the whole, it is much more pure and correct than
the style of his History, which is often debased by
ill-chosen words, and even by colloquial vulgar-
isms, and merits not the very high praise which
has been lavished upon it.
The Essays of Hume, in fact, sometimes pre-
sent the reader with the grace and sweetness of
Addison, accompanied with a higher finishing and
more accurate tact in the arrangement and struc-
ture of periods; so that no language is more clear
and lively, more neat and chaste, more durably
and delicately pleasing to the ear, than what may
be produced from the best portions of those ela-
borate but very sceptical disquisitions. Let us,
in proof of our assertion, take a passage from the
first essay of the first volume, on “Delicacy of
Taste.”
“Nothing,” remarks the philosopher, “is so
improving to the temper as the study of the
beauties, either of poetry, eloquence, music, or
painting. They give a certain elegance of senti-
ment, to which the rest of mankind are strangers.
The emotions which they excite are soft and
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON, 245
tender. They draw off the mind from the hurry
of business and interest; cherish reflection; dis-
pose to tranquillity ; and produce an agreeable
melancholy, which, of all dispositions of the mind,
is the best suited to love and friendship.
“In the second place, a delicacy of taste is
favourable to love and friendship, by confining
our choice to few people, and making us indiffer-
ent to the company and conversation of the
greater part of men. You will seldom find, that
mere men of the world, whatever strong sense
they may be endowed with, are very nice in dis-
tinguishing characters, or in marking those insen-
sible differences and gradations, which make one
man preferable to another. Any one, that has
competent sense, is sufficient for their entertain-
ment: they talk to him of their pleasure and
affairs, with the same frankness that they would
to another; and finding many, who are fit to
supply his place, they never feel any vacancy or
want in his absence. But to make use of the
allusion of a celebrated French * author, the
judgment may be compared to a clock or watch,
where the most ordinary machine is sufficient to
tell the hours; but the most elaborate alone can
point out the minutes and seconds, and distinguish
the smallest differences of time. One that has
* M. Fontenelle, Pluralité des Mondes, Soir 6.
246 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Joh Nson.
well digested his knowledge both of books and
men, has little enjoyment but in the company of
a few select companions. He feels too sensibly,
how much all the rest of mankind fall short of
the notions which he has entertained. And, his
affections being thus confined within a narrow
circle, no wonder he carries them further, than if
they were more general and undistinguished.
The gaiety and frolic of a bottle companion im-
proves with him into a solid friendship; and the
ardours of a youthful appetite become an elegant
passion.” " * -
The twentieth essay, on Simplicity and Refine-
ment, which is written in the best manner of the
author, shall furnish us with another specimen.
“It is a certain rule, that wit and passion are
entirely incompatible. When the affections are
moved, there is no place for the imagination.
The mind of man being naturally limited, it is
impossible that all its faculties can operate at
once: and the more any one predominates, the
less room is there for the others to exert their
vigour. For this reason, a greater degree of sim-
plicity is required in all compositions, where men,
and actions, and passions are painted, than in
such as consist of reflections and observations.
And as the former species of writing is the more
* Essays, 2 vols. 8vo. vol. 1, p. 6, 7, edit, of 1777,
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 247
engaging and beautiful, one may safely, upon
this account, give the preference to the extreme
of simplicity above that of refinement.
“We may also observe, that those composi-
tions which we read the oftenest, and which
every man of taste has got by heart, have the re-
commendation of simplicity, and have nothing
surprizing in the thought, when divested of that
elegance of expression, and harmony of numbers,
with which it is ciothed. If the merit of the
composition lie in a point of wit ; it may strike
at first; but the mind anticipates the thought in
the second perusal, and is no longer affected by
it. When I read an epigram of MARTIAL, the
first line recals the whole; and I have no plea-
sure in repeating to myself what I know already.
But each line, each word in CATULLUs, has its.
merit; and I am never tired with the perusal of
him. It is sufficient to run over Cow Ley once :
but PARNEL, after the fiftieth reading, is as fresh
as at the first. Besides, it is with books as with
women, where a certain plainness of manner and
of dress is more engaging than that glare of paint,
and airs, and apparel, which may dazzle the eye,
but reaches not the affections. TERENCE is a
modest and bashful beauty, to whom we grant
every thing, because he assumes nothing, and
248 LITERAR. Y LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON,
whose purity and nature make a durable, though
not a violent impression on us.””
I shall conclude these examples of the style of
Hume, with a quotation from his essay on the
** Standard of Taste.”
“The same HoMER who pleased at ATHEN s
and Rom E two thousand years ago, is still admi-
red at PARIs and at LoN Do N. All the changes
of climate, government, religion, and language,
have not been able to obscure his glory. Autho-
rity or prejudice may give a temporary vogue to a
bad poet or orator; but his reputation will never
be durable or general. When his compositions
are examined by posterity or by foreigners, the
enchantment is dissipated, and his faults appear
in their true colours. On the contrary, a real
genius, the longer his works endure, and the more
wide they are spread, the more sincere is the
admiration which he meets with. Envy and
jealousy have too much place in a narrow circle;
and even familiar acquaintance with his person
may diminish the applause due to his performan-
ces: But when these obstructions are removed,
the beauties which are naturally fitted to excite
agreeable sentiments, immediately display their
energy; and while the world endures they main-
tain their authority over the minds of men.”t
* Vol. 1, p. 210, 211. f Vol. 1, p. 248,
& t
LITERARY LIFE of 5R. Johnson. 249,
The last author who contributed, previous to
the appearance of the Rambler, to the improve-
ment of English style, was MELMoth. His “Let-
ters of Sir Thomas Fitzosborne, on several sub-
jects,” were published in the year 1742, and
have passed through numerous editions; the first
edition also of his translation of the Letters of
Pliny the Consul, was printed in the year 1746,
the second in 1747, and the third in 1748.
The style of Melmoth, both in his original and
translated works, is easy, perspicuous, and ele-
gant He is more correct in grammatical con-
struction, more select in his choice of words,
than any preceding writer, but he is sometimes
languid and verbose. His taste, which was very
refined and pure, has seldom permitted him to
adopt ornament not congenial to the subject of
discussion, and his diction is therefore singularly
chaste and free from inflation. His language,
however, where the topic demands it, is often
truly animated and warm, and the encomium
which he has given to the style of a friend, may
be justly applied to that of his own works; his
expressions, says he, are glowing, but not glaring,
his metaphors are natural but not common, his
periods are harmonious but not poetical." As
an adequate specimen of the composition of
* FitzOsborne's Letters, p. 317, 318, tenth edition.
250 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
Melmoth, I shall transcribe his remarks upon
grace in writing.
“When I mention grace as essential in consti-
tuting a fine writer, I rather hoped to have found
my sentiments reflected back with a clearer light
by yours; than imagined you would have called
upon me to explain in form, what I only threw
out by accident. To confess the truth, I know
not whether, after all that can be said to illus-
trate this uncommon quality, it must not at last
be resolved into the poet's mequeo monstrare et
sentio tantum. In cases of this kind, where lan-
guage does not supply us with proper words to
express the notions of one's mind, we can only
convey our sentiments in figurative terms: a de-
fect which necessarily introduces some obscurity.
“I will not, therefore, undertake to mark out,
with any sort of precision, that idea which I
would express by the word grace : and, perhaps,
it can no more be clearly described than justly
defined. To give you, however, a general inti-
mation of what I mean, when I apply that term
to compositions of genius, I would resemble it to
that easy air, which so remarkably distinguishes
certain persons Qf a genteel and liberal cast. He
consists, not only in the particular beauty of
single parts, but arises from the general symmetry
and construction of the whole. An author may
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON. 251
be just in his sentiments, lively in his figures, and
clear in his expression; yet may have no claim
to be admitted into the rank of finished writers.
Those several members must be so agreeably
united, as mutually to reflect beauty upon each
other: their arrangement must be so happily dis-
posed as not to admit of the least transposition,
without manifest prejudice to the entire piece.
The thoughts, the metaphors, the allusions, and
the diction, should appear easy and natural, and
seem to arise like so many spontaneous produc-
tions, rather than as the effects of art or labour.
“Whatever, therefore, is forced or affected in
the sentiments; whatever is pompous or pedantic
in the expression; is the very reverse of grace.
Her mien is neither that of a pedant nor a coquet;
she is regular without formality, and sprightly
without being fantastical. Grace, in short, is to
good writing, what a proper light is to a fine pic-
ture; it not only shews all the figures in their
several proportions and relations, but shews them
in the most advantageous manner.
“As gentility (to resume my former illustra-
tion) appears in the minutest action, and im-
proves the most inconsiderable gesture; so grace
is discovered in the placing even of a single word,
or the turn of a mere expletive. Neither is this
inexpressible quality confined to one species of

252 . LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
composition only, but extends to all the various
kinds; to the humble pastoral as well as the
lofty epic; from the slightest letter to the most
solemn discourse. *
“I know not whether Sir William Temple may
not be considered as the first of our prose au-
thors, who introduced a graceful manner into our
language. At least, that quality does not seem
to have appeared early, or spread far, aimongst
us. But wheresoever we may look for its origin,
it is certainly to be found in its highest perfec-
tion, in the essays of a gentleman, whose writings
will be distinguished so long as politeness and
good sense have any admirers. That becoming
air which Tully esteemed the criterion of fine
composition, and which every reader, he says,
imagines so easy to be imitated, yet will find so
difficult to attain, is the prevailing characteristic
of all that author's most elegant performances.
In a word, one may justly apply to him what
Plato, in his allegorical language, says of Aristo-
phanes; that the graces having searched all the
world round for a temple wherein they might for
ever dwell, settled at last in the breast of Mr.
Addison.”” -
That a large portion of the grace which Mr.
Mclnoth has so happily described in this passage,
* Fitzosborne's Letters, p. 133–136.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joiſ Nso N. 253
is to be found in his own classical pages, no scho-
lar who has studied his writings will probably
deny; nor will he hesitate to allow, that by ver-
bal elegance and harmony of period, by delicacy
of pl. rase and beauty of arrangement, he im-
parted a high degree of polish and refinement to
English composition.
Of the eight authors which we have now enu-
merated as occupying the space that elapsed
between Addison and Johnson, all have contribu-
ted, either by perspicuity, simplicity, energy, or
modulation of style, to the progress of fine wri-
ting in this country. It must be obvious, how-
ever, that several authors, learned or popular,
who flourished during this period, have been
omitted; an omission easily accounted for, when
it is considered, that great as might be their erudi-
tion or their powers of imagination, the style which
they had formed, was rather calculated to dete-
riorate than improve their native language. As
a profound theologian, as an acute controver-
sialist, as an ingenious but imperious critic, War-
burton for many years filled a large space in the
public eye, but his diction was singularly slovenly,
coarse, and impure. As writers of fiction in
prose, as men intimately acquainted with human
nature, and possessed of powers adequate, in their
own department, to the representation of all her
%54 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Joh Nso N.
varied passions, what nation can bring forward
greater names than those of Richardson, Fielding,
and Smollet; and yet, strange as it may appear,
to their style they are, assuredly, very little in-
debted for the durable impressions which, they
have created. Than the diction of Richardson,
nothing can be more careless, jejune, and incom-
pact; than that of Fielding, nothing more nerve-
less, ungrammatical, and vulgar: the style of
Smollet, indeed, is superior to both in spirit and
animation; but it is equally incorrect, and alike
void of modulation.*
When Johnson commenced his Rambler, one
of his primary objects was the improvement of
his native language, by the formation of a more
correct and dignified style. “I have laboured,”
he remarks in his concluding Rambler, “to refine
our language to grammatical purity, and to clear
it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms,
and irregular combinations. Something, perhaps,
I have added to the elegance of its construction,
and something to the harmony of its cadence.”
How far he has succeeded in his efforts, and in
* I am speaking in this place, solely of his novels; the
diction in his “History of England” is of another cast;
he has there laboured to attain harmony of cadence, but
has generally failed, and his style is frequently clogged
with injudicious metaphors.
Liter ARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 255
what degree fallen short of his purpose, it is now
our business to enquire; and in doing this, we
shall first notice the defects, and afterwards the
beauties of his style.
He has laid it down as a position in the pre-
face to his Dictionary, that “our language, for
almost a century, has been deviating toward a
Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it.
ought to be our endeavour to recal it.” In his
attempt to correct this tendency, however, he has
not applied, as was incumbent upon him, and as
he professed to do, to the wells of English unde-
filed, to those ancient volumes whose style was
grounded on a Teutonick original, but to the au-
thors of ancient Rome, to a language in its genius
and construction totally dissimilar to his own.
In his Life of Milton, our author has censured
that great poet for his pedantry in attempting “to
use English words with a foreign idiom.” There
is assuredly, however, not less pedantry in the
reverse of this, in the plan which Johnson has
adopted, of using Latin words with the English
idiom. To this he was probably led, not only
by his partiality to, and critical knowledge of,
the Latin language, but by his attachment to the
works of Sir Thomas Browne, the most copious
master of the Anglo-Latin style, and by his
aversion to a Gallic structure, apprehensive, as
256 LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson.
he says, that we should be reduced to babble a
dialect of France. -
The reasons, however, which Johnson has
himself assigned for the adoption of so many
Latin polysyllables, are harmony and precision.
“Where common words,” he remarks, “were less
pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signi-
fication, I have familiarized the terms of philoso-
phy, by applying them to known objects and
popular ideas; but have rarely admitted any word
not authorized by former writers.” “Difference
of thoughts,” he observes in another place, “will
produce difference of language: he that thinks
with more extent than another, will want words
of larger, meaning; he that thinks with more
subtilty, will seek for terms of more nice discri-
mination.”t
Had our author been writing on abstruse or
scientific subjects, the use of Latin derivatives,
and recondite philosophical terms, would readily,
for the sake of minute precision, have been ac-
ceded to; but when composing popular essays,
addressed to the unlearned as well as the learned,
to the female as well as the male sex, English
received words, of sufficient distinctness of signi-
fication and smoothness of sound, might certainly
have been discovered without much labour or
* Rambler, No. 208. † Idler, No. 70.
1.ITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 257
research. To Johnson, who, while publishing
his Ramblers, was at the same time busily en-
gaged in the compilation of his Dictionary, the
powers, the strength and melody of English words,
must have been accurately familiar; he knew
that our language, in its native wealth, had not
sunk beneath our most sublime and energetic
writers; and he has himself declared, that “ few
ideas would be lost to mankind, for want of Eng-
dish words, in which they might be expressed.”"
In a periodical publication, therefore, the business
of which is not to discuss the niceties of the casuist,
but to direct the practice of common life,t surely,
our great lexicographer would have shewn more
judgment by an exquisite selection of terms purely
and radically English, than by the intrusion of so
many exotics, so many abstract substantives of
Latin derivation.
It is not the occasional use of technical terms
and foreign words, that we have reason to blame
in the Rambler; it is the general tenor of the
style that demands censure; the characteristic of
which is, that every page, and almost every sen-
tence, though the work was intended for popular
instruction, is replete with abstract substantives
taken from a learned language, and therefore
wnintelligible to mere English readers. To point
*Preface to his Dictionary. t vide Idler, No.79.
WOL, IW. - S
258 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
out any of these gigantic strangers were super-
fluous; nothing more is required than to open
the volume.
Next to the obscurity arising from this uniform
preference of Latin derivatives, is the monotony
with which it envelopes every character and sub-
ject introduced into the work. Each rank, age,
sex, and occupation, speaks a similar language; a
language, too, so far removed from simplicity, as
frequently to throw an air of burlesque over what
was intended to be serious and monitory. “AH
the correspondents of the Rambler,” observes
Mr. Burrowes, “ seem infected with the same
literary contagion, and the Johnsonian distemper
“appears” to have been equally communicated
to all. Thus Papilius talks of ‘garrulity, erratic
industry, and heterogeneous notions, dazzling the
attention with sudden scintillations of conceit.”
‘Victoria passes through the cosmetic discipline,
covered with emollients, and punished with arti-
ficial excoriations. Misocapelus tells of his
“officinal state, adhesions of trade, and ambula-
tory projects;' and Hypertatus describes the
‘flaccid sides of a foot-ball swelling out into
stiffness and extension,’ and talks of ‘concen-
tration of understanding, barometrical pneuma-
tology,’ and “tenuity of a defecated air.’ In
such writings the hand of the master must be
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson. 259
immediately perceived; the existence of the ima-
ginary correspondents cannot even for a mo-
ment be believed; and the Rambler stands con-
victed of an ineffectual and unnecessary attempt
to raise his own consequence by forging letters to
himself. - . . . .
“The second occasion on which this fault is
equally glaring, is where ordinary, or perhaps
mean, subjects become necessary to be treated
of; and a few instances from our author may
well warrant my asserting that on such occasions,
as he himself says less deservedly of Dr. Young,
‘ burlesque cannot go beyond him.’ Thus a
calamity which will not admit being complained
of, is, in Johnson's language, such as : will not
justify the acerbity of exclamation, or support
the solemnity of vocal grief:’ to deny and to
profess, are to pronounce the monosyllables of
coldness and the sonorous periods of respectful
profession: when the skillet is watched on the
fire, we see it ‘simmer with the due degree of
heat, and snatch it off at the moment of pro-
jection:’ for sun-set, we read “ the gentle
coruscations of declining day;’ and for wash-
ing the face with exactness, we have, “washing
with oriental scrupulosity.’ Mean and vul-
gar expressions cannot have a more powerful
recommendation, than that one of the ablest
260 LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNSON.
writers in the English language could only thus
avoid them.” "
The Grammatical Inaccuracies of Johnson are
but few ; he was indeed, in the year 1750, by
many degrees, the most correct writer that had
then appeared in the language; and his example
has had such influence on our literature, that
scarcely an author of any authority is now to be
found who is liable to censure for deficiencies
with regard to grammar. It is, however, neces-
sary, in proportion to the reputation which a
writer has obtained, that his faults of this kind,
although trivial, be accurately pointed out, in or-
der to prevent inferior candidates for fame adopt-
ing the blemishes together with the beauties of
genius. Nearly all the deviations from correct
grammar that are discoverable in the pages of the
Rambler, may be reduced to three heads; namely,
the substitution of the imperfect tense for the
perfect participle; the substitution of the indica-
tive for the subjunctive mood, and the use of the
plural verb with the disjunctive conjunction.
Of these anomalies, I shall present the reader
with a few instances in the order in which they
have been enumerated. . . . - -
s 1. Rambler, N° 1. “We are not condemned to
: * Essay on the Style of Dr. Johnson. Transactions of
the Royal Irish Academy, vol. 1, for 1787. . . . . . . . .
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 261
toil through half a folio, to be convinced that the
writer has broke his promise.” c
Rambler, N° 46. “I have been informed how
every estate in the neighbourhood was originally
got.”
Rambler, N° 60. “Thus Sallust, the great
master of nature, has not forgot.”
2. Rambler, N° 1. “If he finds”—“ if he
thinks.” :
Rambler, N° 4. “If the power of example is
so great.” 4f
Rambler, N° 21. “Whether he continues or
ceases to write.” .
Rambler, N° 74. “Though it bursts not out.”
Rambler, N° 74. Unless his superiority ap-
pears.” -
Rambler, N° 75. “If there is.” .
Rambler, N°77. “Though it is avident”—
“yet.” *
3. Rambler, N° 99. “Those whom wisdom
or virtue have placed.”
It is a law of English grammar, that the con-
junctions if, though, unless, whether, &c. when
contingency or doubt is implied, require the sub-
junctive mood; and against this canon Johnson
has very generally transgressed. .” º
To the desire of imparting unusual dignity and
importance to his diction, is to be attributed the
262 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
numerous licentious constructions and inversions
which characterize our author's most elaborate
works, and especially his Rambler. One great en-
gine in effecting these purposes, and which has oc-
casioned many of the peculiarities of his style, has
been the almost perpetual substitution of substan-
tives for the other parts of speech. Accordingly in
the sentences of Johnson, the personal pronoun is
either omitted, or deprived of its customary
station; and in its place the instrument, or mo-
tive, or quality, which is usually employed by
others in the oblique case, takes the lead; where
likewise in common construction, the adjective
agrees with the substantive, a new substantive is
formed from the adjective governing the former
in the possessive case. One class of substantives,
however, our author seems to have neglected;
the participle of the verb used substantively is
rarely to be found in his pages, though employed
by our first writers, and authorized by our first
grammarians. “Some arguments will be neces-
sary to prove,” remarks. Mr. Burrowes, “that
the words, renewing, vanishing, shadowing and re-
calling, should give place to “renovation, evan-
escence, adumbration and revocation,’ when it is
considered, that all who understand English know
the meaning of the former, while the latter are
, - A • * * . . . . . . .
1ITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson. 263
intelligible to such only of them as understand
Latin.” ”
It is not meant to be inferred, however, that these
deviations from the customary construction are
uniformly injudicious; they are, on the contrary,
sometimes productive of great beauty, energy,
and strength; it is their indiscriminate use only
that we reprobate, which, together with his per-
petual endeavours after magnificence and har-
mony, have given to him, more than to any other
writer, the garb of a rigid mannerist. The
parallelisms, the triads, and the antitheses of the
Rambler, occasionally the sources of great rich-
ness and splendour, are so abundantly employed
as to pall upon the ear; and if, as is frequently the
case, the subject demand rather simplicity than
ornament, their adoption must excite either ridi-
cule or disgust. . . . . . . . . . .
If relinquishing, however, the view of its de-
fects, we turn our attention to the beauties of our
author's style, we shall find an ample theme for
praise and admiration. Where the topic' is reli-
gious, moral, or sublime, no writer has clothed
his ideas in more appropriate terms, or expressed
them with equal harmony, dignity, and energy.
He has judiciously avoided, in the solemn march
of his periods, all ellipses of the relative pronoun;
and in this respect he is the most correct model
* Essay on the Style of Dr. Johnson. Transactions, p. 47.
264. LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
that we possess. In conversation, or in epistolary
correspondence, the ellipsis may be used with ad-
vantage, inasmuch as it contributes to rapidity and
ease; but in elevated and didactic composition,
in all works which aspire to the character of cor-
rect elegance, it should be deemed an unwar-
rantable omission. t
Precision in the adoption and use of terms,
one of the first requisites toward a perspicuous
style, is peculiarly the characteristic of Johnson's
composition; for, though his words are fre-
quently on a gigantic scale, abstract, and of
classic derivation, they are formed with a strict
adherence to the analogy of the English language;
they are accurately discriminated from each
other, perfectly determinate in their meaning,
and exclusively appropriated to their respective
ideas. Hence, however definite may be the
thoughts of our author, his language will be found
accurately to express his conceptions, and will,
consequently, to the learned reader prove uncom-
monly distinct, clear, and luminous.
To verbal precision it was the perpetual effort
of Johnson to add all that harmony and splendour
could confer; to words, therefore, peculiarly for-
cible and sonorous, he has given a construc-
tion and an arrangement admirably calculated to
impart the utmost dignity, melody, and nerve,
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 265
Parallelisms, alliteration, verbal recurrences, and
an abundant use of metaphorical expression, are
some of the chief instruments to which he has
had recourse. In the employment of metaphor
he has been singularly happy; he has seldom, if
ever, confounded the literal with the figurative
sense; both his metaphors and similies, there-
fore, are consistent and complete in themselves,
and display a resemblance sufficiently close to
form the intended picture and impression on the
mind. Pointed phrases, measured pauses, and
correspondent lengths of period, are, likewise, for
the purposes of strength and harmony, in con-
stant employ through the pages of the Rambler,
and are very frequently productive of the most
pleasing effects upon the ear, and of that richness
and fulness of melody so well calculated to excite
the emotions of elevation and grandeur. #
The result of these exertions has been, what
the author ever held in view, the formation of a
style perfectly original, and greatly more correct,
dignified, and majestic, than any to which we
had been accustomed. If we compare, indeed,
the diction of any writer previous to the appear-
ance of the Rambler with the style of that cele-
brated work, we must necessarily be astonished
at the contrast; the warmth, the strength, and
magnificence of colouring which give such life.
266 LITERARY LIFE or Dr. Johnson.
and vigour to the periods of Johnson, are very
sparingly discoverable in the works of his prede-
cessors; at the same time it must be confessed,
that in sweetness, simplicity and ease, he is but
too often their inferior. *
As specimens of the style of Johnson, and
with the view of completing the series of exam-
ples that we have already given from the ablest
writers in the language, we shall adduce three
quotations, taken from the Rambler and Adven-
turer; the first on a didactic, the second on a
moral, and the third on a religious subject; pas-
sages which will place in a very striking light the
prominent peculiarities and excellencies of the
most splendid and powerful moralist of which
this country can boast. .
Animadverting on the necessity of accommo-
dating knowledge to the purposes of life, the Ram-
bler thus proceeds:
“To lessen that disdain with which scholars
are inclined to look on the common business of
the world, and the unwillingness with which they
condescend to learu what is not to be found in
any system of philosophy, it may be necessary
to consider, that though admiration is excited by
abstruše researches and remote discoveries, yet
pleasure is not given, nor affection conciliated,
but by softer accomplishments, and qualities mora
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh Nson. 267
easily communicable to those about us. He
that can only converse upon questions, about
which only a small part of mankind has know-
ledge sufficient to make them curious, must lose
his days in unsocial silence, and live in the crowd
of life without a companion. He that can only
be useful in great occasions, may die without ex-
erting his abilities, and stand a helpless spectator
of a thousand vexations which fret away happi-
ness, and which nothing is required to remove
but a little dexterity of conduct and readiness of
expedients. - . -
“No degree of knowledge attainable by man is
able to set him above the want of hourly assis--
tance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endear-
ments and tender officiousness; and therefore, no
one should think it unnecessary to learn those
arts by which friendship may be gained. Kind-
ness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of
benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such
benefits only can be bestowed, as others are capa-
ble to receive, and such pleasures only imparted,
as others are qualified to enjoy. .
- “By this descent from the pinnacles of art no
honour will be lost; for the condescensions of
learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An
elevated genius employed in little things, appears,
to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his
268 LITERARY LIFE, OF DR, JOHNSON,
evening declination; he remits his splendour but
retains his magnitude, and pleases more though
he dazzles less.” .
The following passage on the iniquity of re-
venge, and on the meanness of regulating our
conduct by the opinions of men, is alike eminent
for its style and for its sentiments; the purest mo-
rality is here clothed in diction powerfully im-
pressive. .
“A wise man will make haste to forgive, be-
cause he knows the true value of time, and will
not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
He that willingly suffers the corrosions of inveter-
ate hatred, and gives up his days and nights to
the gloom of malice and perturbations of strata-
gem, cannot surely be said to consult his ease.
Resentment is an union of sorrow with malignity,
a combination of a passion which all endeavour
to avoid, with a passion which all concur to
detest. The man who retires to meditate mis-
chief, and to exasperate his own rage; whose
thoughts are employed only on means of distress
and contrivances of ruin; whose mind never
pauses from the remembrance of his own suffer-
ings, but to indulge some hope of enjoying the
calamitics of another, may justly be numbered
among the most miserable of human beings,
* Rambler, No. 137.
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 269
among those who are guilty without reward, who
have neither the gladness of prosperity nor the
calm of innocence. -
“Whoever considers the weakness both of him-
self and others will not long want persuasives to
forgiveness. We know not to what degree of ma-
lignity any injury is to be imputed; or how
much its guilt, if we were to inspect the mind of
him that committed it, would be extenuated by
mistake, precipitance, or negligence; we cannot
be certain how much more we feel than was in-
tended to be inflicted, or how much we increase
the mischief to ourselves by voluntary aggrava-
tions. We may charge to design the effects of
accident; we may think the blow violent only be-
cause we have made ourselves delicate and ten-
der; we are on every side in danger of error and
of guilt, which we are certain to avoid only by
speedy forgiveness.
“From this pacific and harmless temper, thus
propitious to others and ourselves, to domestick
tranquillity and to social happiness, no man is
withheld but by pride, by the fear of being in-
sulted by his adversary, or despised by the world.
“It may be laid down as an unfailing and uni-
versal axiom, that “all pride is abject and mean.”
It is always an ignorant, lazy, or cowardly acqui-
escence in a false appearance of excellence, and
270 IITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
proceeds not from consciousness of our attain-
ments, but insensibility of our wants.
“Nothing can be great which is not right.
Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable
to the dignity of the human mind. To be driven
by external motives from the path which our own
heart approves, to give way to any thing but con-
viction, to suffer the opinion of others to rule
our choice or overpower our resolves, is to sub-
mit tamely to the lowest and most ignominious
slavery, and to resign the right of directing our
own lives. . , ; ; sº
“The utmost excellence at which humanity
can arrive, is a constant and determinate pursuit
of virtue without regard to present dangers or ad-
vantage; a continual reference of every action to
the divine will; an habitual appeal to everlasting
justice; and an unvaried elevation of the intel-
lectual eye to the reward which perseverance only
can obtain. But that pride which many, who
presume to boast of generous sentiments, allow to
regulate their measures, has nothing nobler in
view than the approbation of men, of beings
whose superiority we are under no obligation to
acknowledge, and who, when we have courted
them with the utmost assiduity, can confer no
valuable or permanent reward; of beings who
ignorantly judge of what they do not understand,
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JopīNson. 27 i
or partially determine what they never have ex-
amined; and whose sentence is therefore of no
weight till it has received the ratification of our
own conscience.
“He that can descend to bribe suffrages like these
at the price of his innocence; he that can suffer
the delight of such acclamations to withhold his
attention from the commands of the universal
sovereign, has little reason to congratulate himself
upon the greatness of his mind; whenever he
awakes to seriousness and reflection, he must
become despicable in his own eyes, and shrink
with shame from the remembrance of his cowar-
dice and folly. #
“Of him that hopes to be forgiven, it is indis.
pensably required that he forgive. It is there:
fore superfluous to urge any other motive. On this
great duty eternity is suspended; and to him that
refuses to practise it the throne of mercy is inac-
cessible, and the SAVIou R of the world has been
born in vain.” ” - . . . .
Admirably, however, as these noble precepts are
expressed, the specimen that we have next to
quote will, it is probable, be deemed still superior
bothin diction and imagery. The close is, indeed,
one of the most exquisite and sublime passages in
the works of its eloquent author. Speaking of
* Rambler, No. 185. .
272 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
those who retire from the world that “they may
employ more time in the duties of religion; that
they may regulate their actions with stricter vigi-
lance, and purify their thoughts by more frequent
meditation,” he adds,
“To men thus elevated above the mists of mor-
tality, I am far from presuming myself qualified
to give directions. On him that appears “to pass
through things temporal,’ with no other care
than ‘not to lose finally the things eternal, I
look with such veneration as inclines me to ap-
prove his conduct in the whole, without a minute
examination of its parts; yet I could never for-
bear to wish, that while Vice is every day multi-
plying seducements, and stalking forth with more
hardened effrontery, Virtue would not withdraw
the influence of her presence, or forbear to assert
her natural dignity by open and undaunted per-
severance in the right. Piety practised in soli-
tude, like the flower that blooms in the desart, may
give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and de-
light those unbodied spirits that survey the works
of GoD and the actions of men ; but it bestows no
assistance upon earthly beings, and however free
from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splen-
dor of beneficence.” . . * * *
. It has been the opinion of many of the friends
* Adventurer, No. 126.
LITERARY I, IFE OF DIR. JOHNSON. 273
of Johnson, of Mr. Boswel L., Sir Jo II N H Aw-
KINs, and Mr. MURPH Y, and through them of
the public in general, that the essays in the Ram-
bler were written apparently without much effort,
without any of the limit labor which compositions
so elegant and correct would lead the critic to
suppose had been assiduously bestowed upon
them. The fact is, that Johnson, having once well
weighed the subject in his mind, had, from an
habitual practice of using the most correct and
forcible language on every occasion, the most co-
pious stores of diction at command; and most
usually, after having written with great rapidity,
sent his sheets to the press without either trans-
scription or revision. That he deserted his off-
spring, however, as these gentlemen conceived,
after thus committing it to the public eye, is now
known to be an idea altogether unfounded; and
it is a most extraordinary circumstance, that the
very elaborate correction which he subsequently
bestowed on these papers should have escaped the
detection of his most intimate associates. For
the discovery we are indebted to Mr. Alexander
Chalmers, who in his preface to the Rambler,
having quoted the three biographers of Johnson,
thus proceeds: * -
“Such are the opinions of those friends of Dr.
Johnson who had long lived in his society, ha
W O L. I W. . T . .
274 LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON .
studied his writings, and were eager to give to
the public every information by which its curio-
sity to know the history of so eminent a character
might be gratified. But by what fatality it has
happened that they were ignorant of the vast la-
bour Dr. Johnson employed in correcting this
work after it came from the first press, it is not
easy to determine. This circumstance indeed
might not fall within the scope of Mr. MURPHY's
elegant essay; but had it been known to Sir Jo HN
HAw KINs or to Mr. Boswell, they would un-
doubtedly have been eager to bring it forward as
a prominent part of Dr. Johnson's literary history.
Mr. Boswell has given us some various readings
of the “Lives of the Poets;’ and the reader will
probably agree with him, that although the au-
thor's ‘amendments in that work are for the better,
there is nothing of the pannus afflatus: the tex-
ture is uniform, and indeed what had been there
at first is very seldom unfit to have remained.’”
* “These were the alterations made by the author in the
manuscript, or in the proof before publication for the se-
cond edition. Mr. Boswell does not seem to have known
that Dr. Johnson made so many alterations for the third
edition, as to induce Mr. Nichols to collect them in an oc-
tavo pamphlet of three sheets closely printed, which was
given to the purchasers of the second octavo edition. Since
Mr. Nichols obligingly furnished me with the history of
this pamphlet, I have been the less surprized at Mr. Bos-
well's not suspecting the alterations in the Rambler.”
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 275
At the conclusion of these various readings he of.
fers an apology, of which I may be permitted to
avail myself. “Should it be objected, that many
of my various readings are inconsiderable, those
who make the objection will be pleased to consi-
der, that such small particulars are intended for
those who are nicely critical in composition, to
whom they will be an acceptable collection.’
“Is it not surprizing, that this friend and com-
panion of our illustrious author, who has obliged
the public with the most perfect delineation ever
exhibited of any human being, and who declared
so often that he was determined -
To lose no drop of that immortal man;
that one so inquisitive after the most trifling cir-
cumstance connected with Dr. Johnson's charac-
ter or history, should have never heard or disco-
vered that Dr. Johnson almost RE-wrote the
RAMBLER after the first folio edition? Yet the
fact was, that he employed the lima laborem not
only on the second, but on the third edition, to
an extent, I presume, never known in the annals
of literature, and may be said to have carried
Horace's rule far beyond either its letter or spirit:
Vos O
carmen reprehendite, quod non-
Multa dies et multa litura coercuit, atque
Perfectum decies non castigavit ad unguem.
276 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON,
Never the verse approve, and hold as good,
Till many a day and many a blot has wrought
The polish’d work, and chasten’d ev'ry thought,
By tenfold labour to perfection brought.
CoLMAN.
“The alterations made by Dr. Johnson in the
second and third editions of the RAMBLER far
exceed six THous AND; a number which may
perhaps justify the use of the word re-wrote, al-
though it must not be taken in its literal accept-
ation. If it be asked, of what nature are these
alterations, or why that was altered which the
world thought perfect, the author may be allowed
to answer for himself. Notwithstanding its fame
while printing in single numbers, the encomiums
of the learned, and the applause of friends, he
knew its imperfections, and determined to remove
them. He foresaw that upon this foundation his
future fame would rest, and he determined that
the superstructure thrown up in haste should be
strengthened and perfected at leisure. A few
passages from N° 169 will explain his sentiments
on this subject.
“‘Men have sometimes appeared, of such
transcendent abilities, that their slightest and most
cursory performances excel all that labour and
study can enable meaner intellects to compose;
as there are regions of which the spontaneous
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 277
products cannot be equalled in other soils by
care and culture. But it is no less dangerous for
any man to place himself in this rank of under-
standing, and fancy that he is born to be illustri-
ous without labour, than to omit the cares of hus-
bandry, and expect from his ground the blossoms
of Arabia.”—“Among the writers of antiquity I
remember none except Statius, who ventures to
mention the speedy production of his writings,
either as an extenuation of his faults, or as a proof
of his facility. Nor did Statius, when he consi-
dered himself as a candidate for lasting reputation,
think a closer attention unnecessary; but amidst all
his pride and indigence, the two great hasteners
of modern poems, employed twelve years upon
the Thebaid, and thinks his claim to renown
proportionate to his labour.”—“To him, whose
eagerness of praise hurries his productions soon
into the light, many imperfections are unavoid-
able, even where the mind furnishes the materials,
as well as regulates their disposition, and nothing
depends upon search or information, Delay opens
new veins of thought, the subject dismissed for
a time appears with a new train of dependent
images, the accidents of reading or conversation
supply new ornaments or allusions, or mere inter-
mission of the fatigue of thinking enables the mind
to collect new force and make new excursions.”
!
278 LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON.
“With such sentiments it must appear at least
probable, that our author would in his own case
endeavour to repair the mischiefs of haste or neg-
ligence; but as these were not very obvious to
his friends, they made no inquiry after them, nor
entertained any suspicion of the labour he en-
dured to render his writings more worthy of their
praise; and when his contemporaries had de-
parted, he might not think it necessary to tell a
new generation that he had not reached perfec-
tion at once.—On one occasion Mr. Boswell came
so near the question, that if Dr. Johnson had
thought it worth entering upon, he had a very fair
opportunity. Being asked by a lady, whether he
thought he could make his RAMBLER better, he
answered that he certainly could.—Boswell.
I'll lay you a bet, Sir, you cannot.—John-
son. But I will, Sir, if I choose. I shall make
the best of them you shall pick out, better.—
Boswell, But you may add to them; I will
not allow of that.—Johnson. Nay, Sir, there
are three ways of making them better, putting
out, adding, or correcting.”.”
In corroboration of his assertions, Mr.Chalmers
has transcribed N° 180 of the original folio Ram-
bler, marking the variations by italics. To enable
* Historical and Biographical Preface to the Rambler,
p. 25–29. **
LITERARY LIFE OF Dr. Johnson. 279
my readers, however, to judge of the general
nature of these alterations, a shorter specimen will,
I think, suffice; and I shall therefore copy a few
paragraphs from the folio edition of the extract
already given " from N° 185 on the Iniquity of
Revenge, distinguishing the various readings by
italics. x-
“The man who retires to meditate mischief,
and to exasperate his own rage; whose thoughts
are employed only on scenes of distress and con-
trivances of ruin; whose mind never pauses from
the remembrance of his own sufferings, but to in-
dulge some hope of enjoying the miseries of an-
other; may justly be numbered among the most
miserable of human beings.”
“Nothing can be great which is not right.
Nothing which reason condemns can be suitable
to the dignity of the human mind. To permit
ourselves to be driven by external motives from
the way which our own heart approves; to give
way to any thing but conviction; to suffer the
opinion of others to overrule our choice, and over-
power our resolves, is to submit tamely to the
lowest and most ignominious slavery, and to re-
sign the right of directing our own lives.”
“That pride which many, who yet presume to
boast of enlarged and generous sentiments, allow
* Wide p. 268–271.
28O L ITERARY LIFE OF DR. J O HNSON .
to regulate their measures, has nothing higher or
nobler in view than the favour and approbation
of men.”
“ IIe that can descend to bribe suffrages like
thcse at the price of his innocence; he who can
suffer the delight of such acclamations to suspend
his attention to the commands of the universal
Sovereign; he that suffers himself to be lulled by
such flattery into negligence of his duty; has very
little reason to congratulate himself upon the
greatness of his mind: but, whenever he awakes
to seriousness and reflection, must become despi-
cable in his own eyes, and shrink with shame from
the contemplation of his cowardice and folly.”
That these alterations are for the better cannot
be denied, and the same unremitting attention to
correctness and improvement is visible, upon col-
lation, through every page of the Rambler; a
circumstance which should teach aspiring genius
how necessary, even to the greatest abilities, is
diligent and patient revision.
The publication of the Rambler produced a
very rapid revolution in the tone of English com-
position; an elevation and dignity, an harmony
and energy, a precision and force of style, pre-
viously unknown in the history of our literature,
speedily became objects of daily emulation; and
the school of Johnson increased with such celerity,
I, ITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON. 281
that it soon embraced the greater part of the
rising literary characters of the day, and was
consequently founded on such a basis as will not
easily be shaken by succeeding modes. Of his
immediate contemporaries, who strove to wield
the weapons of Achilles, Mr. Courtenay, in his
“Poetical Review of the moral and literary Cha-
racter of Dr. Johnson,” has given us, in very ele-
gant verse, the following discriminative catalogue:
By Nature's gifts ordain'd mankind to rule,
He, like a Titian, form'd his brilliant school,
And taught congenial spirits to excel,
While from his lips impressive wisdom fell.
Our boasted Goldsmith felt the sov’reign sway,
From him deriv'd the sweet yet nervous lay.
To Fame's proud cliff he bade our Raphael rise;
Hence REYNoLDs' pen with REYNolds' pencil vies.
With Johnson's flame melodious Bu RNEY glows,
While the grand strain in smoother cadence flows.
And you, MA LoNE, to critic learning dear,
Correct and elegant, refin'd tho' clear,
By studying him acquir'd that classic taste
Which high in Shakspeare's fane thy statue plac’d.
Near Johnson STEEvens stands on stemic ground,
Acute, laborious, fertile, and profound.
Ingenious Hawkesworth to this school we owe,
And scarce the pupil from the tutor know.
Here early parts accomplish'd Jones sublimes,
And science blends with Asia's lofty rhymes:
Harmonious Jones! who in his splendid strains
Sings Camdeo's sports on Agra's flow'ry plains !
282 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Jo HNSON.
In Hindu fictions while we fondly trace
Love and the Muses, deck'd with Attic grace.
Amid these names can Boswell be forgot,
Scarce by North Britons now esteem’d a Scot?
Who to the sage devoted from his youth,
Imbib'd from him the sacred love of truth,
The keen research, the exercise of mind,
And that best art, the art to know mankind.—
Nor was his energy confin’d alone
To friends around his philosophic throne;
Its influence wide improv'd our letter'd isle,
And lucid vigour mark'd the gen'ral style.
As Nile's proud waves, swoln from their oozy bed,
First o'er the neighbºring meads majestic spread;
Till gath'ring force, they more and more expand,
And with new virtue fertilize the land.
To the celebrated scholars which Mr.Courtenay
has thus commemorated for their casual imitation
of the style of Johnson, may be now added many
more writers of acknowledged genius, and whose
works are calculated to impart a very increased
value to the language in which they are composed.
The resemblance has with many of them been
unintentional, and is consequently a strong proof
of the wide influence which the diction of Johnson
had already acquired over the literature of his
country. When such writers as Dr. Robertson,
Dr. Blair, Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Burke, Dr. Leland, *
Madame D'Arblay, Dr. Ferguson, Dr. Knox,
Dr. Stuart, Dr. Parr, Dr. Gillies, Archdeacon
I, ITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON . 283
Nares, Mr. Mackenzie, Mr. Chalmers, Mr. Ros-
coe, and Dr. Anderson, can be brought forward
as having, in a greater or less degree, founded
their style on that of the author of the Rambler,
it may be presumed that the merits of the model
which they had chosen, or unconsciously imitated,
must have been great. In fact, the adoption of
the style of Johnson by the Critic, the Orator,
and the Historian, has been frequently attended
with the best effects; as the weight, the splendor,
and dignity of the subjects have often been such
as would most happily harmonize with the strong
and nervous periods of their prototype. On to-
pics of a more familiar kind, however; on topics
which detail the history of minute manners, where
humour, irony, and delicate satire are demanded;
it surely would be no mark of judgment to employ
the elaborate and sonorous phraseology so uni-
formly characteristic of the lucubrations of the
Rambler. The Novel and the familiar periodical
Essay seldom require the grand and stately march
of the Johnsonian period; Goldsmith, Mackenzie,
and Madam D'Arblay have occasionally adopted,
it is true, the splendour and force of Joshnon with
great felicity; but the general cast of their diction
is widely different; on the contrary, the Essays of
Dr. Knox, though truly valuable for their moral
and literary wealth, are, in point of composition,
284 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
too studiously and exclusively copies from this
great master. It has been too generally forgotten,
indeed, that, bold, impressive, and magnificent as
is the language of Johnson when occupied on
themes of great importance, it has frequently
been his misfortune to lavish it upon subjects too
delicate to support its weight; on subjects where
ease and plainness only were required, where so-
norous words served only to excite burlesque, and
elaborate periods only to encumber.
To him, however, who possesses a correct taste
and a strong discriminative judgment, the study
of the style of Johnson must be attended with the
best results; he will have before him specimens
of the noblest and the richest diction of which our
literature can boast; a diction, indeed, from its
nature considerably limited in its due application;
but when employed on subjects of true dignity
and serious moment, to record the labours of the
hero or the legislator, or to clothe with fresh
energy the maxims of virtue and of piety, perhaps
unparalleled in the powers of impression.
If we turn from the style of the Ramblers, to
the consideration of their merit in the delineation
of character and the exhibition of humour, we
shall find abundant reason to conclude that John-
son was a most accurate and discriminating ob-
server of human life in all its various shades and
LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNson. 285
modifications. Though destined, during the most
vigorous portion of his existence, to obtain a pre-
carious, and very often a most scanty support, by
the daily labours of his pen, he was yet enabled,
in consequence of his powers, and rapidity of ex-
ecution, to pass much of his time in the bosom of
society. Excelling in conversation, expert in
appreciating and drawing forth the talents of his
companions, and often anxious, from morbid sen- .
sation, to escape from himself, he delighted not
only in the frequent association of his intimate
friends, but in that variety and information which
are to be derived from mingling with every class
of mankind. As he affirmed of himself, he had
been “running about the world more than almost
any body;” and the result of this habit was, in a
mind uncommonly retentive and acute, a most
exuberant fund of character and anecdote.
To stores thus ample and rich was added a
strong but peculiar vein of humour; widely differ-
ent, indeed, from the delicate and indirect satire
of Addison, but nearly as powerful, and much
more highly coloured. Had the language of
Johnson been more plastic and accommodating,
this talent would have appeared still more promi-
nent; for, owing to the unvarying swell of his dic-
tion, which almost necessarily induces a tone
of mind inimical to ridicule, his object has
286 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
sometimes escaped the penetration of his readers;
though it must be noticed, that occasionally the
humour has been unintentionally heightened by
the singular contrast of style and subject.
“Johnson,” says Mr. Murphy, “had a fund of
humour, but he did not know it;” * an assertion
which appears extremely paradoxical when ap-
plied to a man of strong intellect. In fact, John-
son was in conversation, when the subject did not
admit of argument or contest, more distinguish-
able for humour than in composition; and the
club or private party was frequently protracted to
a late hour through the mere fascination of his
pleasantry and powers of ridicule. “In the ta-
lent of humour, observes Sir John Hawkins, there
hardly ever was his equal, except perhaps among
the old comedians, such as Tarleton, and a few
others mentioned by Cibber. By means of this,
he was enabled to give to any relation that re-
quired it, the graces and aids of expression, and
to discriminate with the nicest exactness the cha-
racters of those whom it concerned. In aping
this faculty, I have seen Warburton disconcerted,
and when he would fain have been thought
a man of pleasantry, not a little out of counte-
nance.” f * -
: * Essay, p. 159.
f Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 258, 259.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR: JOHNSON. 287
That the author of the Rambler, however arti-
ficial might be his language, could, from general
observation, delineate characters so accordant to
individual nature, as to be actually claimed by
imaginary sufferers, we have a pleasant proof
from the pen of Mrs. Piozzi. “When first the
Rambler,” she relates, “ came out in separate
numbers, as they were the objects of attention
to multitudes of people, they happened, as it
seems, particularly to attract the notice of a
society who met every Saturday evening, du-
ring the summer, at Rumford in Essex, and
were known by the name of the Bowling-green
Club. These men, seeing one day the character
of Leviculus the fortune-hunter, or Tetrica the
old maid; another day, some account of a person
who spent his life in hoping for a legacy, or of
him who is always prying into other folk's affairs,
began sure enough to think they were betrayed;
and that someone of the coterie sat down to divert
himself by giving to the public the portrait of all
the rest. Filled with wrath against the traitor of
Rumford, one of them resolved to write to the
printer and enquire the author's name; Samuel
Johnson was the reply. No more was necessary;
Samuel Johnson was the name of the curate, and
soon did each begin to load him with reproaches
for turning his friends into ridicule in a manner
288 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
so cruel and unprovoked. In vain did the guilt-
less curate protest his innocence; one was sure
that Aliger meant Mr. Twigg, and that Cupidus
was but another name for neighbour Baggs; till
the poor parson, unable to contend any longer,
rode to London, and brought them full satisfac-
tion concerning the writer; who from his own
knowledge of general manners, quickened by a
vigorous and warm imagination, had happily de-
lineated, though unknown to himself, the mem-
bers of the Bowling-green Club.”
Occasionally, however, his characters were in-
tended as copies of real life; and among these,
Mrs. Piozzi has observed, that “the character of
Prospero in the fourth volume of the Rambler,
Garrick took to be his ; and I have heard the
author say,” she proceeds, “that he never for-
gave the offence. Sophron was likewise a picture
drawn from reality; and by Gelidus the philoso-
pher, he meant to represent Mr. Coulson, a mathe-
matician, who formerly lived at Rochester. The
man immortalized for purring like a cat, was, as
he told me, one Busby, a proctor in the Com-
mons. He who barked so ingeniously, and then
called the drawer to drive away the dog, was
father to Dr. Salter of the Charter-house. He
who sung a song, and by correspondent motions
*Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 233,234, 235.
#
*
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh N sox. 289
of his arm chalked out a giant on the wall, was
one Richardson, an attorney.”
The talents of Johnson for humour and deline-
ation of character will be best pointed out, how-
ever, by a minute review of what he has effected
in these departments during the course of his
periodical labours. In the Rambler, N° 12, con-
taining a letter from a young woman who applies
in London for service, may be selected not only
as an instance of humour and close observation,
but of what the author could effect, when, drop-
ping his customary state, he chose to adopt a
style of simplicity and ease. The characters of
Polyphilus and Anthea, in Nos. 19 and 34, the
first exposing the folly of ranging from one study
to another, the second ridiculing the affectation
of cowardice in the female sex, are drawn with
great spirit and satirical force.
Though Johnson possessed little taste for the
business or the pleasures of the country, he ap-
pears to have viewed both with an observing eye;
and he has selected from rural life and occupa-
tions, especially in the female department, several
subjects very happily susceptible of ludicrous re-
presentation. Of this description are the mis-
chiefs of rural faction, in N° 46; the portrait of
a Housewife in the country, in Nº. 51; and the
* Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 49.
WOL. I W. U.
200 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh Nson.
character of Mrs. Busy, in N° 138. These suffi-
ciently prove, what would otherwise not have
been readily conceived, that our author was inti-
mately acquainted with the various employments
of domestic life in the country; and that even
from the farm-yard and the stable, the kitchen
and the dairy, he could draw abundant materials
for humourous delineation.
N° 59, which contains the character of Suspi-
rius the Screech-owl, gave birth to the Croaker
of Goldsmith in the Good-Natured Man, and is
a just and poignant ridicule of a very troublesome
species of eccentricity. The introductory matter
in this essay includes an assertion to which the
life of Johnson was nearly a perpetual contradic-
tion. “Though I have,” says he, “like the rest
of mankind, many failings and weaknesses, I have
not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged
with superstition.” Now, it is certain, that both
Johnson and his entertaining biographer, Bos-
well, were singularly addicted to a love of the
mysterious; the latter has indeed endeavoured to
disprove the charge of credulity so often attached
to the character of his friend, but with so little
success, that from his own life of the Doctor the
strongest testimonies in behalf of the accusation
may be drawn. Not only was Johnson a believer
in the re-appearance of the departed, but he was
LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNso N. 291
likewise inclined to give credit to the existence
of witches. In defence of the reality of appa-
ritions, he would observe, that “a total disbelief
of them is adverse to the opinion of the existence
of the soul between death and the last day; the
question simply is, whether departed spirits ever
have the power of making themselves perceptible
to us; a man who thinks he has seen an appari-
tion, can only be convinced himself; his authority
will not convince another, and his conviction, if
rational, must be founded on being told some-
thing which cannot be known but by supernatu-
ral means.” *
“Talking of ghosts, he said, he knew one
friend, who was an honest man and a sensible
man, who told him, he had seen a ghost, old Mr.
Edward Cave, the printer at St. John's Gate.
He said, Mr. Cave did not like to talk of it, and
seemed to be in great horror whenever it was
mentioned. Boswell. ‘Pray, Sir, what did he
say was the appearance P Johnson. “Why,
Sir, something of a shadowy being.’ -
“I mentioned witches, and asked him what
they properly meant. Johnson. “Why, Sir,
they properly mean those who make use of the
aid of evil spirits.” Boswell. “There is, no
doubt, Sir, a general report and belief of their
* Boswell's Life, vol. 1, p. 96.
292 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNs O'N.
having existed.’ Jo HNso N. “You have not
only the general report and belief, but you have
many voluntary solemn confessions.” IIe did not
affirm any thing positively upon a subject which
it is the fashion of the times to laugh at as a mat-
ter of absurd credulity. He only seemed willing,
as a candid enquirer after truth, however strange
and inexplicable, to shew that he understood
what might be urged for it.”
The author of the Rambler was, also, a strict
observer of several superstitious practices; one
of these was “his anxious care to go out or in
at a door or passage, by a certain number of
steps from a certain point, or at least so as that
either his right or his left foot, (I am not certain
which,) should constantly make the first actual
movement when he came close to the door or
passage. Thus I conjecture: for I have, upon
innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly
stop, and then seem to count his steps with a
deep earnestness; and when he had neglected or
gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I
have seen him go back again, put himself in a
proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, hav-
ing gone through it, break from his abstraction,
walk briskly on, and join his companion.”+
* Boswell's Life, vol. 2, p. 175,176.
* Roswell's Life, vol. 1, p. 439.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 293
To return, however, from this digression to our
immediate subject, the consideration of papers of
humour and characteristic delineations. In this
glass, the following, in addition to those which
we have already mentioned, may be selected from
the Rambler, as very happy specimens, and as
possessing a great share of originality. Nº 61, a
Londoner's visit to the country; N° 62, a young
lady's impatience to see London ; N° 73, the
lingering expectation of an heir ; Nº. 82, The vir-
tuoso's account of his rarities; N° 107, Prope-
rantia's hopes of a year of confusion; Nos. I 13,
and 1 15, Hymenaeus's history of his courtship ;
N° 117, the advantages of living in a garret; N°
123, the young trader turned gentleman; N°
157, the bashful scholar; N° 161, the revolu-
tions of a garret; N° 177, the club of antiquaries;
N° 179, the awkward merriment of a student;
N° 182, Leviculus the fortune-hunter; No 191,
busy life of a young lady; N° 192, love unsuc-
cessful without riches; Nº. 194, a young noble-
man's progress in politeness; N° 195, a young
nobleman's introduction to the knowledge of the
town; Nos. 197 and 198, the legacy-hunter;
N° 200, Asper's complaint of the insolence of
Prospero. - . . .
Of these papers, Nos. 117 and 161, on the
advantages and revolutions of a garret, may be
294 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Jo HNSON.
distinguished for a vein of peculiar humour and
pleasantry. The Bashful Scholar has given origin
to Hawkesworth's admirable Adventurer on the
Distresses of an Author invited to read his play,”
and to Repton's essay, in his collection intituled
“Variety,” on the Distresses of a modest Man.'t
From the numbers which Johnson contributed
to the Adventurer, three may be chosen, of which
vivacity and delicate irony are the prominent fea-
tures; these are N°74, an apology for neglect-
ing officious advice; N* 84, a journey in a stage
coach; and N° 102, on the infelicities of retire-
ment to men of business. The journey in N*
84 has been honoured with several imitations,
but not one has equalled the exquisite satire of
the original. - -
It is in the Idler, however, that our author has
exhibited to the greatest extent his talents for
dry and sarcastic humour; his sketches of char-
acter too are more numerous, considering the size
of the work, than in his Rambler, and it displays,
likewise, a greater variety, and a more intimate
knowledge of real life. Of the papers which fall
distinctly under the class of which we are treat-
ing, the following appear to be the most entitled
to notice. Nº 5, a proposal for a female army;
N°6, a lady's performance on horseback; this
* No, 52. † No. 22.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 295
was an actual achievement, a young lady having
engaged to ride a thousand miles in a thousand
hours in six weeks; she completed the exploit,
however, in less than a month. “At her coming
in, the country people strewed flowers in her way,
and made great rejoicings on the occasion.”
N° 8, plan of military discipline; N° 10, politi-
cal credulity; N° 16, Drugget's retirement, a
paper of exquisite humour; N° 19, character of
Jack Whirler; Nº 21, character of Dick Linger;
N° 28, the wedding-day; N° 31, character of
Sober; this sketch, as we have already observed,
was intended by the author as a delineation of
himself. Johnson was constitutionally idle, nor
was he roused to any great effort, but by the im-
perious call of necessity; his exertions, indeed,
when sufficiently stimulated, were gigantic, but
they were infrequent and uncertain. He was
destined to complain of the miseries of idleness,
and to mitigate his remorse by repeated but too
often ineffectual resolutions of industry. The
portrait which he has drawn, as it is faithful and
divested of flattery, a result not common in auto-
biography, has a claim to insertion. . . . . .
“Sober is a man of strong desires and quick
imagination, so exactly balanced by the love of
ease, that they can seldom stimulate him to any
"London Chronicle, May 6th, 1758,
&
296 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Joli Nso N.
difficult undertaking; they have, however, so
much power, that they will not suffer him to lie
quite at rest, and though they do not make him
sufficiently useful to others, they make him at
least weary of himself.
“Mr. Sober's chief pleasure is conversation;
there is no end of his talk or his attention; to
speak or to hear is equally pleasing; for he still
fancies that he is teaching or learning something,
and is free for the time from his own reproaches.
“But there is one time at night when he must .
go home, that his friends may sleep; and another
time in the morning, when all the world agrees to
shut out interruption. These are the moments
of which poor Sober trembles at the thought.
But the misery of these tiresome intervals, he has
many means of alleviating. He has persuaded
himself that the manual arts are undeservedly
overlooked; he has observed in many trades the
effects of close thought, and just ratiocination.
From speculation he proceeded to practice, and
supplied himself with the tools of a carpenter,
with which he mended his coal-box very success-
fully, and which he still continues to employ as
he finds occasion.
“He has attempted at other times the crafts of
the shoemaker, tinman, plumber, and potter; in
all these arts he has failed, and resolves to qualify
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Jo HNSON. 297
himself for them by better information. But his
daily amusement is chemistry. He has a small
furnace, which he employs in distillation, and
which has long been the solace of his life. He
draws oils, and waters, and essences, and spirits,
which he knows to be of no use; sits and counts
the drops as they come from his retort; and for-
gets that whilst a drop is falling, a moment flies
away.
“Poor Sober I have often teazed him with
reproof, and he has often promised reformation;
for no man is so much open to conviction as the
Idler, but there is none on whom it operates so
little. What will be the effect of this paper I
know not; perhaps he will read it, and laugh,
and light the fire in his ſurnace; but my hope is,
that he will quit his trifles, and betake himself to
rational and useful diligence.” •w
To these specimens of character and humour
may be added Nº. 39, the Bracelet, the last para-
graph of which contains some very severe politi-
cal satire and allusions; N° 47, the City-Wit;
N° 49, Marvel's Journey, an excellent example
of solemn irony; Nos. 60 and 61, Dick Minim
the critic; Nos. 62 and 64, Tim Ranger's account
of the vanity of riches; No 71, Dick Shifter's
rural excursion; Nos. 78 and 83, the Club; and
N° 100, the Good Sort of Woman. -
298 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson.
The great, however, the prevailing excellence
of the Rambler, depends upon its moral and reli-
gious tendency; upon the vigour and originality
of style and manner with which it inculcates the
purest precepts of practical virtue. An entire
system of ethics, and many of the most important
duties of christianity, may be readily drawn from
the pages of this work.
It would be difficult indeed to discover, in our
language, any production where the vices and the
virtues are depicted with equal eloquence, with
equal distinctness and force of colouring. The
workings of the human heart, the principles which
usually influence the mind of man, were, to a
great degree, laid bare to the comprehensive in-
tellect of Johnson. Few, like him, have been
able to detect the various disguises which guilt
assumes, in order to conceal, not only from the
view of others, but from itself, its own turpitude
and horror; and few, if any, like him, have
clothed in such pointed, nervous, and splendid
diction, the persuasives to mutual forgiveness, to
active benevolence, and unostentatious piety.
The natural bias of our author's mind, and the
privations to which he had been subjected for the
greater portion of his life, almost unavoidably in-
clined him to dwell upon the serious and even
awful circumstances of existence. This has given
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 299
a severer and more didactic tone to his essays
than will be found in any other periodical work,
and at first indeed considerably checked its popu-
larity; a feature of which he was very sensible,
and to which he has himself alluded in the con-
cluding essay of the Rambler. “As it has been
my principal design,” he remarks, “ to inculcate
wisdom or piety, I have allotted few papers to
the idle sports of imagination. Some, perhaps,
may be found, of which the highest excellence is
harmless merriment; but scarcely any man is so
steadily serious as not to complain, that the seve-
rity of dictatorial instruction has been too seldom
relieved, and that he is driven by the sternness of
the Rambler's philosophy to more cheerful and
airy companions.”
A more weighty, however, and to a certain ex-
tent, a well-founded charge, has been brought
against the Rambler, for representing human life
under a more gloomy and melancholy aspect than
the real state of our existence can warrant. Of
this tendency he was himself so much aware, that
in N° 109 he has ridiculed with good-humoured
pleasantry his own desponding cast of temper.
This clouded view of life, and the consequent
exaggeration of its infelicities, arose, in a great
measure, from that morbid melancholy, which, as
we have already related, very early broke in upon
3OO LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON.
the happiness which he might otherwise have en-
joyed. Solitude, poverty, and neglect contri-
buted, likewise, to aggravate the defect of consti-
tution, and both gave origin to the following
gloomy creed: “that life is miserable we all
feel—to hope happiness and immortality is equally
vain. Our state may, indeed, be more or less
embittered, as our duration may be more or less
contracted: yet the utmost felicity which we can
ever attain, will be little better than alleviation of
misery, and we shall always feel more pain from
our wants than pleasure from our enjoyments.”
To the passage distinguished by italics in this
quotation, there are few, I trust, who can give
credit; for, though great or long-continued hap-
piness be unattainable in our present state of ex-
istence, the comforts and enjoyments of life are
surely something more than the mere negation of
misery. But Johnson, in fact, instead of painting
the sum of good and evil, as it is apportioned to
the million, was too often engaged in depicting
his own feelings; and those, unhappily for him-
self, were frequently the result of diseased asso-
ciation. With due allowance, however, for the
sombre tinting originating from this source, and
which he has generally taken care to alleviate by
the consolatory prospects of another and a better
* Rambler, No. 165.
LITER A R Y LIFE OF DR, JOLINSON, 301
life, his essays on the obligations of morality and
religion are above all praise; nor will the self-
gratulation, with which he pathetically closes his
arduous undertaking, be deemed by any friend to
virtue in the smallest degree irrelevant or unme-
rited. “The essays professedly serious, if I have
been able to execute my own intentions,” he ob-
serves, “will be found exactly conformable to the
precepts of christianity, without any accommoda-
tion to the licentiousness and levity of the present
age. I therefore look back on this part of my
work with pleasure, which no blame or praise of
man shall diminish or augment. I shall never
envy the honours which wit and learning obtain
in any other cause, if I can be numbered among
the writers, who have given ardour to virtue, and
confidence to truth.”
Of the various papers which, on the subjects of
morality and religion, are interspersed through
the Rambler, l shall enumerate those which ap-
pear to me the most valuable, and occasionally
insert a few extracts and observations; a pro-
ceeding that will, more directly than on any other
plan, enable the reader to form a just estimate of
the mass of useful instruction to be derived from
this portion of the labours of our author.
The didactic strain which so remarkably distin-
guishes this paper commences early; and Nos. 5,
302 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Jo HNSON.
6, 7, and 8, on Spring, on the Non-locality of
Happiness, on Abstraction and Self Ewamination,
and on the Regulation of Thought, present the
serious mind with a most favourable specimen of
the harvest that awaits it. It must not be omit-
ted, however, that Johnson, who had, by his own
confession, no taste for rural beauty, has, in his
Meditation on the Spring, affected to consider
the fields and woods, at this season of the year,
as productive of “almost every thing that our
present state makes us capable of enjoying;” and
he then adds, “ there are men to whom these
scenes are able to give no delight, and who hurry
away from all the varieties of rural beauty, to
lose their hours and divert their thoughts by
cards, or assemblies, a tavern dinner, or the prat-
tle of the day.” Now nothing can be ascertained
with greater authenticity, than that our encomiast
on the Spring preferred a tavern dinner to all the
beauties which the finest season in the finest cli-
mate could produce. A deficiency in the per-
ception of picturesque beauty, indeed, seems to
have been a constitutional defect with Johnson.
N°17, on the Necessity of a frequent Contem-
plation of Death; N° 28, on Self Delusion; N°
29, on the Folly of anticipating Misfortunes; N*
32, on the Value of Patience; and Nº 47, on the
Regulation of Sorrow; will, if duly studied, (and
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 303
I wish to impress it on my readers, that few ethic
productions require more study,) supply to every
thinking man the best materials for moral im-
provement, clothed in the most impressive diction
that literature can give. - -
The subject of N°48 is on the Value of a sound
Constitution, and includes a prose version from a
Greek fragment of a Hymn to Health. This,
* *
though well and accurately performed, yet, as it
wants the charm of metrical melody, cannot be
said to do perfect justice to the original. I shall
therefore venture to introduce a translation of
these beautiful lines from the pen of Dr. Beddoes,
which are prefixed to his essays intituled Hygeia:
Invocation by Ariphron of Sicyon.
O Thou! among the blissful host
Deserving mortal incense most
What yet of days remain to me,
Hygeia! let me pass with thee,
And THou my willing inmate bel
If aught of solace coffer'd hoards—
Whatever progeny affords—
Or sov’reign sway,
Exalting mortals to the Gods above—
: Or that sweet prey -
Which struggles secret in the snares of love—
To toil-worn man, by Heav'n's behest,
If balms unnam'd refreshment bring—
All owe, benignant Pow'r to the E their zest;
Thou giv'st its radiance to the Graces' spring;
Nor but with thee may child of earth be blest.
304 LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON.
Our author has likewise, in his essay N°52, on
the contemplation of the calamities of others, as a
remedy for grief, given us a prose version of a few
lines from Lucretius. As the entire passage, how-
ever, is one of the finest in the elaborate work of
this great poet, and has been lately very admirably
translated by Mr. Good, its insertion in this place
will not, probably, be deemed inapposite.
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
E terrà magnum alterius spectare laborem:
Non, quia vexari quemguam est joconda voluptas,
Sed, quibus ipse malus careas, quia cernere suave est.
Per campos instructa, tuâ sine parte pericli,
Suave etiam belli certamina magna tueri:
Sed nihil dulcius est, bene quan, munita tenere,
Edita doctrină sapientum, templa serena;
Despicere unde queas alios, passingue videre
Errare, atque viam palanteis quaerere vitae;
Certare ingenio, contendere nobilitate,
Nocteis atque dies miti praxstante labore
Ad summas emergere opes, rerumque potiri.
-- Lib. 2.
How sweet to stand, when tempests tear the main,
On the firm cliff, and mark the seaman's toil 1
Not that another's danger soothes the soul;
But from such toil how sweet to feel secure
How sweet, at distance from the strife, to view
Contending hosts, and hear the clash of war !
But sweeter far, on Wisdom's heights serene,
Upheld by Truth, to fix our firm abode;
To watch the giddy crowd that, deep below,
LITERARY LIFE or DR. John SON. 305
For ever wander in pursuit of bliss;
To mark the strife for honours, and renown,
For wit and wealth, insatiate, ceaseless urg'd,
Day after day, with labour unrestrain'd.
Good's Lucretius, vol. 1, p. 181.
Reverting to the enumeration of the ethic num-
bers of the Rambler, we shall proceed to remark
that N° 50, on the Respectability of a Virtuous
Old Age; N° 54, on a Death-bed as the true
school of wisdom; N° 57, on Frugality; N° 64,
on the Requisites for Friendship; N° 68, on
Happiness or Misery, as chiefly dependent on do-
mestic circumstances; N°71, on the Shortness
of Life; N972, on Good Humour, and N° 77, on
the IWickedness of Immoral Composition, display,
together with great felicity of illustration, force
of expression, and keenness of penetration, abun-
dant evidence, not only of a feeling heart, but of a
mind peculiarly alive to all the social duties.
In the paper on Good Humour, occurs a most
striking proof of Johnson's occasional happiness
in the adaptation of his imagery; he is contrast-
ing the effect of gaiety and good humour: “It
is imagined by many,” says he, “that whenever
they aspire to please, they are required to be
merry, and to shew the gladness of their souls by
flights of pleasantry and bursts of laughter. But
though these men may be for a time heard with
vol. IV. X -
306 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
applause and admiration, they seldom delight us
long. We enjoy them a little, and then retire to
easiness and good humour, as the eye gazes awhile
on eminences glittering with the sun, but soon
turns aching away to verdure and to flowers.
Gaiety is to good-humour as animal perfumes to
vegetable fragrance; the one overpowers weak
spirits, and the other recreates and revives them.”
One of the best written and most impressive of
the essays of the Rambler is N° 78, on the Power
of Novelty, in which he appears to have exerted
the full force of his genius. It is in this paper
that the horror of Death, which imbittered so
many of the hours of Johnson, is depicted in more
vivid colours than in any other part of his periodi-
cal writings. “Surely,” he remarks, “nothing can
so much disturb the passions or perplex the intel-
lects of man, as the disruption of his union with visi-
ble nature; a separation from all that has hitherto
delighted or engaged him; a change not only of the
place, but the manner of his being; an entrance into
a state not simply which he knows not, but which
perhaps he has not faculties to know; an imme-
diate and perceptible communication with the
supreme Being, and, what is above all distressful
and alarming, the final sentence, and unalterable
allotment;” a passage which, in its sentiment and
tendency, strongly reminds us of the admirable
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 307.
description of Claudio in the Measure for Mea-
sure of Shakspeare. . . . .
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside -
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice; .
To be imprison'd in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence round about
The pendent world; or to be worse than worst
Of those, that lawless and incertain thoughts .
Imagine howling !—’tis too horrible ! .
The weariest and most loathed worldly life,
That age, ach, penury, and imprisonment
Can lay on nature, is a paradise . a
To what we fear of death.
*
Our author seems likewise to have remembered
a couplet in the Aureng-Zebe of Dryden,
Deathin itself is nothing; but we fear *
To be we know not what, we know not where;
& Act. 4, Scene 1.
It is in this paper, also, that one of the few
pathetic paragraphs which are scattered through
the pages of Johnson may be found. Whether
considered with regard to its diction or its tender,
appeal to the heart, it is alike exquisite. . . . . . .
“It is not possible,” observes, the moralist,
“ to be regarded with tenderness.except by a few;


308 LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON,
That merit which gives greatness and renown,
diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts
weakly on every single breast; it is placed at a
distance from common spectators, and shines like
one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches
us, but not the heat. The wit, the hero, the phi-
losopher, whom their tempers or their fortunes
have hindered from intimate relations, die, with-
out any other effect than that of adding a new
topick to the conversation of the day. They im-
press none with any fresh conviction of the fra-
gility of our nature, because none had any par-
ticular interest in their lives, or was united to
them by a reciprocation of benefits and endear-
ments. -
“Thus it often happens, that those who in
their lives were applauded and admired, are laid
at last in the ground without the common honour
of º because by those excellencies with
which many were delighted, none had been
obliged, and though they had many to celebrate,
they had none to love them.”
N° 87, on the Causes of the General Ineffi-
ciency of giving Advice; N° 110, on Penitence and
the Placability of the Livine Nature; N° 114, on
proportioning Punishments to Crimes; Nº. 134,
on the Misery of Idleness; and N° 137, on the
Necessity of a Knowledge of Common Life to Men
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnso N. 309
of Learning; convey the justest precepts and mo-
nitions in language which has imparted to them
an air of uncommon originality. Such, indeed,
are the weight, the power of conviction, and the
brilliancy, arising from the composition and
arrangement of our essayist, that the reader no
longer recollects what had faintly impressed him
in the diction of his fathers, but attributes to the
pointed sentences of the eloquent moralist the
palm of discovery.
In the essay on the utility to men of literature
of an acquaintance with the daily pursuits of
mankind, there occurs a passage of such peculiar
excellence, and which so strikingly evinces John-
son’s intimacy with human nature, that I am
irresistibly tempted to detach it for the benefit
of those who may honour these pages with a pe-
rusal. #5
“It may be necessary to consider,” he remarks,
“ that though admiration is excited by abstruse
researches and remote discoveries, yet pleasure is
not given, nor affection conciliated, but by softer
accomplishments, and qualities more easily com-
municable to those about us. He that can only
converse upon questions, about which only a
small part of mankind has knowledge sufficient to
make them curious, must lose his days in unso-
cial silence, and live in the crowd of life without
*

310 LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON.
a companion. He that can only be useful on
great occasions, may die without exerting his
abilities, and stand a helpless spectator of a thou-
sand vexations which fret away happiness, and
which nothing is required to remove but a little
dexterity of conduct and readiness of expedients.
“No degree of knowledge attainable by man
is able to set him above the want of hourly assist-
ance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endear-
ments and tender officiousness; and therefore,
no one should think it unnecessary to learn those
arts by which friendship may be gained. Kind-
ness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of
benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such
benefits only can be bestowed, as others are ca-
pable to receive, and such pleasures only im-
parted, as others are qualified to enjoy.”
To the moral essays in the Rambler which we
have already enumerated, may be added N° 148,
on Parental Cruelty; N° 149, on Benefits not
being always cntitled to Gratitude; N° 155, on
the Utility of Advice, on the Danger of Habits,
and on the Necessity of Reviewing Life; N° 167,
on the Requisites to Happiness in the Marriage
State; and N9203, on the Consolations of Futu-
rity. - -c
Of these, N° 155 and N° 203 appear to me
peculiarly excellent, and their repeated study as

Y. ITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 31 1
likely to be attended with the most beneficial
effects. In the former, the danger arising from
the indulgence of indolence is strongly delineated;
and in the latter, the necessity of a hope beyond
this world inculcated with irresistible argument.
The contributions of our author to the Adven-
TURER, on topicks of a moral and ethic ten-
dency, are not numerous. They are, however,
in value not inferior to those which render the
Rambler so instructive. The story of Misargyrus
in Nos. 34 and 41, unfolds in a vivid and interesting
manner the folly of extravagance; N° 69, on
Idle Hope is a paper of great merit. In Nº 99,
on Projectors, and on the absurdity of judging of
actions by the event, occurs the following passage:
“The last royal PROJECTORs with whom the
world has been troubled, were CHARLEs of Swe-
DEN and the CZAR of MUScow Y. CHARLEs, if
any judgment may be formed of his designs by his
measures and his enquiries, had purposed first to
dethrone the CzAR, then to lead his army through
pathless desarts into China, thence to make his
way by the sword through the whole circuit of
Asia, and by the conquest of Turkey to unite
Sweden with his new dominions: but this mighty
PROJECT was crushed at Pultowa; and CHARLEs
has since been considered as a madman by those
powers, who sent their ambassadors to solicit his
312 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON.
friendship, and their generals to learn under him
the art of war.” -
The present age has been doomed to witness
the too successful ambition of another royal Pro-
jector, whose plans are still in progression, and
who appears destined to unite under one monar-
chy the continents of Europe and Asia. As dar-
ing and enterprising as Charles, as crafty and
politic as the Cz AR, and more void of principle
Ahan either, he combines the greatest military
"talents with the wary foresight and prospective
cunning of the legislator. The only obstacle
indeed to the complete subjugation and conse-
quent slavery of the civilized world, is the gallant
and spirited resistance of these islands, the sole
remaining seat of rational liberty, and whose
maritime power is now so vast and extended, as
to thwart the views of the Tyrant, to whatever
quarter of the globe they are directed.”
* Since this paragraph was written, Spain, awaking from
the torpor of ages, has burst the chains which the Gallic Des-
pot had vainly hoped to rivet on her neck; and once more
assuming that high chivalric character, which so proudly
marked her days of heroism, seems prepared to hurl ruin
on the head of her unprincipled invader, and to snatch the
continent from destruction.
It is scarcely possible on such a subject to confine the
pen within the sober limits of prose; the reader, therefore,

LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON. 313
There are but three papers more in the Adven-
turer on moral subjects, which we shall notice in
this place; N° 111, on the Pleasures and Advan-
tages of Industry; N° 120, on the Miseries of
Life; and N° 130, on the Happiness and Misery
of Writers. The second of these essays is charged
with the same dolorous declamation which too fre-
qently casts a gloom over the pages of the Ram-
bler ; the following paragraph, though it contain
some truth, is a most tremendous libel on the con-
dition of humanity. “The world, in its best state,
is nothing more than a larger assembly of beings,
combining to counterfeit happiness which they do
not feel, employing every art and contrivance to
embellish life, and to hide their real condition
from the eyes of one another.”
will, I trust, pardon me the intrusion of a single stanza,
the birth and exultation of the moment.
Who is he, rising 'mid the thunder of the storm,
Rejoicing in the greatness of his might?
It is Liberty l—he, majestic in his form,
He, glorying in the plenitude of light:
Gigantic is his step, resistless is his course,
Yea, matchless are the workings of his hands!
IIark thy people shout, Iberia, with tremendous force
Thy armed nations shout along the lands:
They bless thy presence, Liberty —
July 28, 1808.
314 LTTERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
Though the general tone of the IDLER be
much more gay and sportive than any other por-
'tion of our author's works, it occasionally presents
us with papers which in ethic and moral excel-
lence need not shrink from a comparison with
‘the more extended essays of the Rambler. Of
these, N° 32, on Sleep; N° 41, on the Death of
a Friend; N° 43, on the Flight of Time; No 51,
on the Impossibility of Attaining Domestic Great-
mess; N°75, the Story of Gelaleddin of Bassora ;
. Nº 89, on Physical Evil as Productive of Moral
Good; and N° 103, on the Horror of the Last,
deserve selection for their depth of thought and
utility of precept. Than N° 103, which closes
the Idler, I know not, in the range of periodical
composition, a more impressive paper; it is im-
possible to read the passage I am about to quote,
without feeling emotions at once strongly pathetic
and awfully serious.
“There are few things not purely evil,” says
the moralist, “ of which we can say, without
some emotion of uneasiness, this is the last.
Those who never could agree together shed tears
when mutual discontent has determined them to
final separation; of a place which has been fre-
quently visited, though without pleasure, the last
look is taken with heaviness of heart; and the
Idler, with all his chillness of tranquillity, is not
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. "JOHNSON, 3.15
wholly unaffected by the thought that his last
essay is now before him.
“ This secret horror of the last is inseparable
from a thinking being whose life is limited, and to
whom death is dreadful. We always make a
secret comparison between a part and the whole;
the termination of any period of life reminds us
that life itself has likewise its termination; when
we have done any thing for the last time, we in-
voluntarily reflect that a part of the days allotted
us is past, and that as more is past there is less re-
maining. -
“It is very happily and kindly provided, that
in every life there are certain pauses and interrup-
tions, which force consideration upon the careless,
and seriousness upon the light; points of time
where one course of action ends and another be-
gins: and by vicissitude of fortune, or alteration
of employment, by change of place, or loss of
friendship, we are forced to say of something,
this is the last.” 3
Very shortly after the commencement of the
Rambler, Johnson was unconsciously implicated
in one of the Inost extraordinary literary impos-
tures that the public ever witnessed. William
Lauder, a Scotchman, a teacher of Latin, and a
man of considerable ingenuity, attempted in the
year 1747, through the mean of various commu-
316 LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson.
nications in the Gentleman's Magazine, to fix up-
on Milton the charge of extensive plagiarism from
several modern but obscurelatin poets. In order to
carry this plan into execution, he had the shame-
less audacity to interpolate the passages which
he extracted from these writers with entire lines,
either translated by himself from the Paradise
Lost, or literally taken from Hog's Version of
that poem. That he might the better escape de-
tection, he had with due foresight fixed upon
some of the least known of the continental poets,
concluding that from the pages of Masenius,
Staphorstius, Walmarana, Catsius, and Taubman-
nus, he might purloin, without danger, all that
was necessary for his design.
What was the motive which could induce him
to make this malevolent attack upon the fame
of Milton is not yet satisfactorily ascertained.
He has himself, at different times, assigned differ-
ent reasons; at first, he declared that having
edited an edition of Arthur Johnston's Latin
Psalms, from the sale of which he had flattered
himself with an annual income, his hopes had been
completely blasted by the following couplet of
Pope, who speaking of Benson in his Dunciad,
exclaims
On two unequal crutches propp'd he came,
Milton's on this—on that one Johnston's name.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON. 317
This contemptuous mention of poor Arthur, as
contrasted with our great national poet, con-
demned, as Lauder affirms, his edition to the
shelf, and excited in him an abhorrence of Milton;
when in fact, his resentment, though in any view
without rational motive, would have been more
naturally directed against Pope. “I had no parti-
cular pleasure,” he says, “in subverting the repu-
tation of Milton, which I had myself once endea-
voured to exalt, and of which the foundation had
always remained untouched by me, had not my
credit and my interest been blasted, or thought
to be blasted, by the shade which it cast from its
boundless elevation.” He afterwards, however,
chose to assert that his enmity to Milton was oc-
casioned by the discovery, on his part, that the
prayer of Pamela in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia,
was inserted by our great poet in an edition of
the Eikon Basilike, with an express view of fixing
a charge of impiety on the memory of Charles the
First. The true cause of this infamous attack,
however, may be attributed to a design which
Lauder had embraced, and indeed subsequently
carried into execution, of publishing an edition
of these almost forgotten Latin Poets; and in
order to excite the curiosity of the public for
their re-appearance, he had recourse to the un-
318 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joni NSON.
principled line of conduct which we have been re-
lating.
For a time he had reason to suppose that the
attempt would prove successful, and that the re-
putation of Milton would be permanently in-
jured; emboldened by this idea, he had the teme-
rity in 1750 to re-publish his papers, with addi-
tions, in the form of a pamphlet, and under the
title of “An Essay on Milton's Use and Imita-
tion of the Moderns, in his Paradise Lost, 8vo.”
To this work Johnson was, unhappily, induced to
contribute a Preface and a PostScript'
Detection and punishment speedily overtook
the miserable Lauder. The very year in which
he commenced his atrocious efforts produced a
defence of the injured poet from the pen of Mr.
Richardson, of Clare Hall, entituled Zoilomastix,
or, a Vindication of Milton; but the total discom-
fiture of the virulent impostor was reserved for
Dr. Douglas, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, who,
towards the close of the year 1750, published a
letter addressed to the Earl of Bath, and enti-
tuled “Milton vindicated from the charge of
plagiarism brought against him by Mr. Lauder.”
In this very able pamphlet, after fully disclosing
many of the forgeries of Lauder, he thus very
candidly adverts to the author of the Preface and
Postscript. “It is to be hoped, (he observes) nay
LITERARY LIFE or DR. JoHNson. 319
it is to be expected, that the elegant and nervous
writer, whose judicious sentiments and inimitable
style point out the author of Lauder's preface
and postscript, will no longer allow one to plume
himself with his feathers, who appeareth so little
to have deserved his assistance; an assistance
which, I am persuaded, would never have been
communicated had there been the least suspicion.
of those facts, which I have been the instrument
of conveying to the world.”
Johnson, indeed, no sooner discovered the ini-
quity of the man whom he had espoused, and the
imposition which had been practised on himself,
than he immediately compelled the reluctant
Lauder to publish an ample confession of his
guilt, which he took care to draw up for him,
and in which he is represented as suing, with
apparent contrition, for the pardon of his offences;
it is entituled “A Letter to the Rev. Mr. Doug-
las, occasioned by his Vindication of Milton, by
William Lauder, M.A. 4to. 1751,” and would,
from its tone of humiliation, have, no doubt, ob-
tained for its object the forgiveness of the public,
had not the subsequent conduct of Lauder been,
such as completely to prove his want of sincerity, .
and his total dereliction of all moral, principle-
Scarcely had he yielded to the wishes of Johnson,
in publishing his expiatory letter, when he ad-
320 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. Johnson,
dressed an apology to the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, soliciting his patronage for an edition of the
very poets whose works he had so grossly misap-
plied, and concluding it with the following repre-
hensible paragraph: “As for the interpolations,”
he remarks, “ (for which I am so highly blamed,)
when passion is subsided, and the minds of men
can patiently attend to truth, I promise amply to
replace them, with passages equivalent in value,
that are genuine, that the public may be con-
vinced that it was rather passion and resentment,
than a penury of evidence, the twentieth part of
which has not as yet been produced, that obliged
me to make use of them.” Nor did he pause
here; in 1752 he printed the first volume of the
edition of the Latin Poets, and in 1753, a second ;
these he accompanied with notes, written both in
English and Latin, and in a style of such malig-
nant asperity as almost to convict their author of
actual derangement; he terms Milton an arch- .
felon, and he introduces an epigram for the pur-
pose of proving the poet to have been an atheist.
The fictitious contrition and the extreme baseness
of this accuser of Milton were not, however, fully
developed until 1754, when he brought forward a
pamphlet entituled “ King Charles vindicated
from the charge of plagiarism, brought against
him by Milton, and Milton himself convicted of
LITER A R Y LIFE OF DIR., JOHN $O N. 321
forgery and a gross imposition on the public,” in
which he threatens to resume his former attack,
and to “reinforce the charge of plagiarism against
the English poet, and to fix it upon him, by irre-
fragable conviction, in the face of the whole
world.” * -
By bringing forward this charge against Mil-
ton, which we need not say is without the smallest
evidence or probability, he was in hopes of ingra-
tiating himself with the zealots of the royalist
party; but such was the infamy now attached to
the character of Lauder, that even had the story
been specious, the medium through which it had
passed would alone have condemned it to neglect;
accompanied, however, as it was with the most
glaring marks of falsehood, and with an utter con-
tempt of all decency, the detestation of the public
became so strongly marked, that he was obliged
to quit his country, and to seek a refuge in the
island of Barbadoes, where, after fruitlessly en-
deavouring to establish a school, he perished
miserably poor, and the object of universal ab-
horrence.
The connection of Johnson with this violent
and fraudulent character, the most unfortunate
occurrence of his life, has given rise to much
variety of opinion, to much severe accusation,
and to some candid exculpations.
W 0 L, IW, Y
322 LITERARY LIFE OF DR, Jo HNson.
That the great moralist had imbibed many pre-
judices against Milton, and that these originated
in, and were fostered by, the warmth of party
zeal, cannot, by any impartial person, be denied.
It must also be conceded, that this strong aversion
to the politics of Milton made him unwilling
to do justice to his poetical powers, without a
species of qualification that nearly rendered nu-
gatory his previous applause: and even occa-
sioned him to view the supposed discovery of
what might lower the author of Paradise Lost in
the public estimation, with some degree of com-
placency. &
Beyond this step, I think, we are not war-
ranted to proceed in the charge. No man than
Johnson was a greater lover of truth, or more de-
tested any approach to imposition; and his con-
duct, on the detection of Lauder, was such as
fully evinced his utter abhorrence of the attempt.
All that could be done to appease the manes of
injured genius, he instantly performed, so far at
least as the design of Lauder had a tendency to
depreciate his moral and poetical worth; for I am
sorry to say, as we shall hereafter perceive, that
his dislike of Milton the politician was so inveter-
ate, as never to leave his mind open to an un-
prejudiced discussion of his talents as a poet.
Three very different opinions on the scope and
LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson. 323
intentions of our author in this temporary con-
naction with Lauder, have within these few years
been given to the world by Biographers of consi-
derable celebrity. Mr. Boswell has declared
that his friend was actuated by no other motives
than an ardent curiosity and a love of truth, both
which were gratified by the investigation which
Lauder commenced.” Mr. Hayley, on the con-
trary, conceives, that, owing to his strong politi-
cal bias, he had long entertained a species of
malevolence towards the principles and even the
talents of Milton; “prejudice against Milton in
Lauder,” he remarks, “arose almost to madness;
in Johnson it amounted only to a degree of male-
volence, too commonly produced by political dis-
agreement; it had induced him to cherish too
eagerly a detractive deception, fabricated to sink
an illustrious character, without allowing himself
the due exercise of his keen understanding to
investigate its falsehood, or to perceive its absur-
dity;” and further on he has well observed, that,
“it should afford us an antidote against the poi-
son of party rage in all literary discussions, to
observe, that by indulging it, a very strong and
a very devout mind was hurried into the want of
clear moral perception, and of true christian
charity, in describing the conduct, and in scruti-
* Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 199.
324 LITERARY LIFE OF Dr. Jo HNson. .
nizing the motives, of Milton. It seems as if the
good angel of this extraordinary poet had deter-
mined that his poetical renown should pass (like
his virtue and his genius) through trials most
wonderfully adapted to give it lustre; and hence
(as imagination at least may please itself in sup-
posing) might such enemies be combined against
him, as the world, perhaps, never saw before
in a similar confederacy. A base artificer of
falsehood, and a magnanimous teacher of moral
philosophy, united in a wild endeavour to di-
minish his reputation; but, like the rash as-
sailants of Jupiter, in the fables of paganism,
they only confirmed the pre-eminence they at-
tacked with preposterous temerity. The philoso-
pher, indeed, made an honourable retreat; and .
no candid mind will severely censure him for an
ill-starred alliance, which, however clouded by .
prejudice, he might originally form in compassion.
to indigence, and which he certainly ended by re-
jection of imposture.”” t
Severity of censure for this ill-starred alliance
has, however, been very lately bestowed upon
Johnson by a biographer of great learning and
acumen; but in terms, I think, much too strong
for the occasion, and unwarranted by the argu-
* Life of Milton, 4to edition, p. 238,242, 243.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh N so N. 325
ments brought forward to substantiate the accu-
sation. When Dr. Symmons charges Johnson
with “a notable and hardy contempt of truth ;”
when he asserts that he “survived the disgrace
of his infamous alliance to enjoy the opportunity
of attempting, with much deeper, though not more
effectual wounds, the impassible reputation of
Milton;” and concludes with declaring that “the
delinquency of the libellous biographer is ill
compensated by the merit of the monotonous
and heavy-gaited morality of the sombre and
dogmatic essayist;”+ he must be allowed, by
every impartial reader, to have fallen into the
very error which he had repeatedly reprobated in
another, and to have adopted, with regard to the
departed moralist, the language of prejudice and
aversion. -
No man indeed will or can succoed in attempt-
ing to fix upon the memory of Johnson the
adoption of the arts of fraud and falsehood; for, to
repeat the expression of his accuser, he will for
ever remain impassible to efforts such as these.
There is one part, however, of Dr. Symmons's
observations on the conduct of Johnson towards
Milton, which exhibits not only much acuteness
of reasoning, but also some probability. In April
t Life of Milton, 8vo, p. 559, 560, 566,
326. LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
1750, Johnson wrote a prologue, which was
spoken by Garrick at Drury Lane Theatre, on
the representation of the Masque of Comus, for
the benefit of Mrs. Foster, Milton's grand-
daughter. He had entertained the idea of miti-
gating the poverty of this descendant of the poet
when he wrote his postscript in Lauder's book,
and recommended a subscription for the purpose;
and on the day preceding the performance of
Comus, he inserted a letter in the General Ad-
vertizer, dated April 4th, strongly recommend-
ing the public to honour the illustrious dead by
relieving the necessities of his last relative. This
charitable interference, together with the occa-
sional encomia of the critic on the poetry of
Milton, induced Mr. Boswell and Mr. Murphy
to suppose that it was impossible Johnson could
be inimical to the poet, the latter observing that
“the man, who had thus exerted himself to serve
the grand-daughter, cannot be supposed to have
entertained personal malice to the grand-father.”
In answer to this inference Dr. Symmons replies;
“I must be forgiven if I remark that this offer of
vindication is both irrelevant and defective;—
irrelevant, as benevolence to the living, allowing
it to be unalloyed with any base mixture of osten-
tation or interest, may unite, in perfect consis-
tency, with enmity to the dead:—defective, as
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON, 327
the praise, to which the appeal has been so confi-
dently made, is evidently penurious, reluctant,
compelled by the demand of the critic's own cha-
racter, and uniformly dashed and qualified with
something of an opposite nature:
medio de fonte leporum
Surgit amari aliquid quod in ipsis floribus augat.
“While he was depreciating the fame of the illus-
trious ancestor, Johnson could not act more pru-
dently, or in a way more likely to lead him to his
final object, than by acquiring easy credit as the
friend of the distressed grandchild; and the pro-
logue which he wrote for her benefit, and which
is little more than a versification of what he had
before attached to the pamphlet sullied with
Lauder's malignity and forgeries, has fully an-
swered the writer's purposes by the imputed li-
berality which it has obtained for him, and the
means with which it has thus supplied him of
striking, during the repose of suspicion, the more
pernicious blow. Avowed hostility generally de-
feats its own object; and the semblance of kind-
ness has commonly been assumed by the efficient
assassin for the perpetration of his design. Whe-
ther, in short, in the instance before us, Johnson
indulged, as his friends would persuade us to be-
lieve, the charitable propensities of his own
heart, or availed himself of the opportunity to
*... -
328 LITERARY LIFE OF D R., JOHNSON,
provide for the interests of his own character, the
measure may be allowed to have been good, or
to have been wise, but cannot be admitted, in
opposition to the testimony of formidable facts,
to have been demonstrative of his favourable dis-
position towards Milton.””
Though some expressions in this extract re-
quire a little softening, the argument must be
allowed to be cogent; Johnson certainly disliked
the character of Milton, and was probably not
averse to witness a diminution of his reputation;
but, from the tenor of his life and writings, no.
thing can induce me to believe that he would for
a moment submit to, or connive at, imposition
or falsehood, for the purpose of obtaining such a
result.
The year 1752 saw Johnson overwhelmed with
the most oppressive affliction; scarcely had he
closed the pages of the Rambler, the last num-
ber of which is dated March the 14th, when he
lost his wife, who expired on the 17th of that
month, after an union of seventeen years.” She
* Life of Milton, p. 560, 561, 562.
*There is a strange contradiction, not only in the biogra-
phers, but in Johnson himself, with regard to the day of her
death. Sir John Hawkins places her decease on the 28th
of March; Mr. Boswell on the 17th; Mr. Murphy on the
28th, and Dr. Anderson on the 17th. Johnson in his
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JoHNso N. 329
was deposited in the church of Bromley, in Kent.
The attachment of Johnson to his wife was sin-
cere and ardent, and was cherished to the last mo-
ment of his existence with unabated tenderness.
He preserved her wedding-ring as long as he
lived, enclosed in a small wooden box, within
which was pasted the following inscription:
Elieu !
E1.1z. Jo HN so N,
Nupta Jul. 9° 1736,
Mortua, cheu !
Mart. 17° 1752.
His prayers and meditations also, which we
shall afterwards have occasion to notice, bear a
strong and singular testimony to the durability
and warmth of his affection. .
To mitigate the poignancy of his grief, and dis-
pel the tedium of solitude, he now took into his
house, which was in Gough-Square, a Mrs. Anne
Williams, who had been the intimate friend of his
wife. She was the daughter of Dr. Zachary Wil-
liams, a physician in South Wales, and, though
blind, had uncommon talents, and great powers
of conversation. To this lady, though by no
means possessed of a good temper, Johnson was
Prayers commemorates her death on the 28th, and in the
inscription on her wedding-ring mentions the 17th as the
period of that event :
330 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON,
uniformly kind and attentive. She published by
subscription, in 1766, a quarto volume of Miscel-
lanies, to which her patron contributed a few
pieces of considerable value. *
It was at this period too, that, deprived of his
customary domestic gratifications, he began to
extend the circle of his acquaintance, and not
only to mix more in society abroad, but to receive
more frequently at his own house those with
whom he had formerly associated. Among the
friends who were, at the death of his wife, the
consolers of his distress, it may be satisfactory to
mention the names of Dr. Bathurst, Dr. Taylor,
Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, Mrs.
Macauley; Mr. Millar, Mr. Dodsley, Mr. Bou-
quet, Mr. Payne, booksellers; Mr. Strahan the
printer; the Earl of Orrery, Lord Southwell,
Mr. Garrick, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Bennet Lang-
ton, Esq. and Mr. Topham Beauclerck; who all,
there is every reason to believe, held the author
of the Rambler in the highest veneration, as well
for the goodness of his heart, as the extraordinary
powers of his intellect.
The well-earned fame of Johnson, however,
did not attain its greatest altitude until the year
1755; when he appeared to the expecting world,
by the publication of his Dictionary of the Eng-
lish Language, in the character of a LExicogha-
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson. 331
PII ER. His announcement of this important un-
dertaking had taken place so early as 1747, in
which year he printed his Prospectus, entituled,
“The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Lan-
guage, addressed to the Right Honourable Philip
Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, one of his Majesty's
principal Secretaries of State.” It is probable
that he had, for some years previous to the date
of this pamphlet, meditated on the utility, and
mode of construction, of an English Dictionary,
as he told Mr. Boswell that the idea “had grown
up in his mind insensibly.” As soon, however,
as he proposed seriously engaging in the arduous
task, he met with liberal patronage among the
booksellers of the metropolis; seven of whom,
namely, Mr. Robert Dodsley, Mr. Charles Hitch,
Mr. Andrew Millar, the two Messieurs Longman,
and the two Messieurs Knapton, agreed to remu-
nerate him for his labours with the sum of fifteen
hundred and seventy-five pounds, a reward which,
though at that time justly considered ample and
munificent, would now be deemed totally inade-
quate to the time and effort necessarily required
for such a work.
By what means he was induced to address his
“Plan” to Lord Chesterfield, he himself confi-
dentially communicated to Mr. Boswell. “Sir,”
said he, “ the way in which the Plan of my
333 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
Dictionary came to be inscribed to Lord Chester-
field, was this: I had neglected to write it by the
time appointed. Dodsley suggested a desire to
have it addressed to Lord Chesterfield. I laid
hold of this as a pretext for delay, that it might
be better done, and let Dodsley have his de-
sire. I said to my friend Dr. Bathurst, ‘Now if
any good comes of my addressing to Lord Ches-
terfield, it will be ascribed to deep policy, when,
in fact, it was only a casual excuse for laziness.”
The manuscript was communicated to his Lord-
ship through the hands of Mr. Whitehead, after-
wards Poet Laureat.
The Plan thus addressed to the supposed Mae-
cenas of the age, is written with peculiar perspi-
cuity both of style and method, and delivers a
very distinct relation of what its author hoped to
execute; “a dictionary by which the pronunci-
ation of our language may be fixed, and its
attainment facilitated; by which its purity may
be preserved, its use ascertained, and its duration
lengthened. And though, perhaps,” he con-
tinues, “to correct the language of nations by
books of grammar, and amend their manners by
discourses of morality, may be tasks equally diffi-
cult; yet, as it is unavoidable to wish, it is natural
likewise to hope, that your Lordship's patronage
* Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 155.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON, 333
may not be wholly lost; that it may contribute
to the preservation of ancient, and the improve-
ment of modern writers; that it may promote
the reformation of those translators, who, for
want of understanding the characteristical differ-
ence of tongues, have formed a chaotic dialect of
heterogeneous phrases; and awaken to the care of
purer diction some men of genius, whose atten-
tion to argument makes them negligent of style,
or whose rapid imagination, like the l’eruvian
torrents, when it brings down gold, mingles it
with sand.””
The patronage of Lord Chesterfield was soon
discovered by Johnson to be nothing more than
a mere name. No two characters, indeed, could
be more opposed, and it was not probable, there-
fore, that they should assimilate either in mat-
ter or manner. Void of all exterior accom-
plishments, the rigid moralist, the retired and
uncourtly scholar, was appealing to a man who
placed little value upon any thing that was not
subservient to elegance of address, to the blan-
dishments of flattery, and the arts of consum-
mate hypocrisy; who inculcated, in his system
of education, as a duty, the vices most destructive
of domestic peace and happiness, and who thought
it unnecessary, in his plan, to advert either to the
* Johnson's Works, Murphy's edition, vol. 2, p. 28, 29.
g
334 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
principles of religion or morality. From such a
man, nearly as deficient in literature as he was
in virtue, what could genius and learning, truth
and piety expect? nothing but what they en-
countered in the person of Johnson, insincerity
and neglect.
The interviews that were obtained shortly after
the publication of the “Plan” were productive
only of mutual disgust; and Johnson was speedily
taught to deplore the mistake which he had made
in the choice of a patron, to view his acquirements
with contempt, and his principles with abhorrence.
He ceased, therefore, to indulge any hopes of
support from this quarter, and, gradually prose-
cuting his laborious task, looked forward solely
to the approbation of the public as his best
reward.
Seven years had now been consumed in the
construction of this vast design; when, towards
the close of the year 1754, Lord Chesterfield
again made his appearance on the stage, and,
with a meanness only equalled by his previous
neglect, attempted to soothe the resentment of
the Lexicographer, and obtain the honour of a
dedication, by printing two essays in the periodi-
cal work entituled “The World,” in recommen-
dation of his Dictionary, which was, at this
period, expected to appear in the course of a few
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 335
months. These papers were dated November the
28th, and December the 5th, 1754, and, though
written with studied elegance, and in a high strain
of compliment, justly excited the indignation of
our author, who exclaimed in anger to his friend
Garrick, “I have sailed a long and painful voy-
age round the world of the English language;
and does he now send out two cock-boats to tow
me into harbour º' Determined that his Lord-
ship should be apprised of what he felt upon this
occasion, he addressed to him the following letter,
dated February the 7th, 1755; a composition,
which for the keenness of its sarcasm, the ele-
gance of its language, and the lofty tone of repre-
hension which it displays, is, perhaps, unrivalled.
“To THE RIGHT HONou RABLE THE EARL
OF CHESTER FIELD.
“My Lord,
“I have been lately informed, by the
proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which
my Dictionary is recommended to the publick,
were written by your Lordship. To be so dis-
tinguished, is an honour, which, being very little
accustomed to favours from the great, I know not
well how to receive, or in what terms to acknow-
ledge. - -
“When, upon some slight encouragement, I
first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered,
336 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Jo IINson.
like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of
your address; and could not forbear to wish that
I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de
la terre ;-that I might obtain that regard for
which I saw the world contending; but I found
my attendance so little encouraged, that neither
pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it.
When I had once addressed your Lordship in
publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing
which a retired and uncourtly scholar can pos-
sess. I had done all that I could ; and no man
is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it
ever so little.
“Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since
I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed
from your door; during which time I have been
pushing on my work through difficulties, of which
it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at
last, to the verge of publication, without one act of
assistance, one word of encouragement, or one
smile of favour. Such treatment I did not ex-
pect, for I never had a Patron before.
“The shepherd in Virgil grew at last ac-
quainted with Love, and found him a native of
the rocks.
“Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks .
with unconcern on à man struggling for life in the
water, and, when he has reached the ground,
I, ITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNs ON. 337
encumbers him with help? The notice which you
have been pleased to take of my labours, had it
been early, had been kind ; but it has been de-
layed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it;
till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am
known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very
cynical asperity not to confess obligations where
no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling
that the publick should consider me as owing that
to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to
do for myself.
“Having carried on my work thus far with so
little obligation to any favourer of learning, I
shall not be disappointed though I should con-
clude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have
been long wakened from that dream of hope, in
which I once boasted myself with so much exul-
tation, “My Lord,
“Your Lordship's most humble,
“Most obedient servant,
“SAM. Johnson.”
With this spirited letter the celebrated Dr.
Warburton was highly pleased, and requested
Dr. Adams to tell Johnson, with his compliments,
that he honoured him for his manly conduct.
The effect which it produced upon the mind of
Chesterfield was undoubtedly great; but he, with
his accustomed policy, appeared to treat the mat-
WOL. I.W. 2.
338 I, ITERA RY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON.
ter with the most perfect indifference, and after
reading the letter to Mr. Dodsley, and praising
the expression of various passages in it, made no
other apology for his scandalous neglect of the
author, than that “he had heard he had changed
his lodgings, and he did not know where he
lived ''”
After this open rupture with his Lordship,
Johnson no longer forbore publicly to express his
opinion of him. In the next edition of his Vanity
of Human Wishes, the last line of the following
couplet, -
Yet think what ills the scholar's life assail,
Pride, envy, want, the garret, and the jail :
was thus altered,
Pride, envy, want, the Patron, and the jail :
and speaking of him to his friends, “This man,”
would he say, “I thought had been a Lord
among wits, but, I find, he is only a wit among
Lords!” Whatever severity there may be in
this observation, the opinion which he pronounced
upon the Letters of this nobleman to his son, is,
I am sorry to say, perfectly correct, “they teach,”
said he, “the morals of a whore, and the man-
hers of a dancing-master.”
In August 1754, Johnson visited Oxford, for
the express purpose of examining the libraries of
that university; and in November of the same
IITERARY LIFE OF DIR., JOHNSON. 339
year he was induced, with the advice and assist-
ance of his friends Mr. Thomas Warton, and Mr.
Wise, Radclivian Librarian, to solicit from the
University the degree of Master of Arts, an
honour which was deemed of essential conse-
quence, as it would carry much weight with it
on the title-page of his Dictionary. The degree,
by diploma, was, on the recommendation of the
Chancellor, conferred upon him by the Univer-
sity, on the 20th of February, 1755, without a
single dissentient voice, and in terms expressive
of a high sense of his literature and writings;
“cumque vir doctissimus SAMUEL Jo HNSON, e
Collegio Pembrochiensi, scriptis suis popularium
mores informantibus dudum literato orbi innotu-
erit; quin et lingua patriae tum ornandae tum
stabiliendae (Lexicon scilicet Anglicanum summo
studio, summo a se judicio congestum propediem
editurus) etiam nunc utilissimam impendat ope-
ram; Nos,” &c. &c.
. This great work was at length published in
May, 1755, in two volumes folio, to which were
prefixed a Grammar and History of the English
Language. Johnson had supposed, when he began
his labours on this subject, that three years of
regular application would be sufficient for the
performance of the task; and he therefore gave
the proprietors and the public reason to hope for
340 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. J O HNSON.
its completion on the expiration of that period.
In this calculation he was, however, so greatly
deceived, that eight years elapsed before his
folios were ushered into the world; and one
consequence of this delay was, that he had spent
all the copy-money, which he had been in the
habit of receiving by drafts, and an additional
hundred pounds, long previous to the conclusion
of his undertaking. The patience of his employ-
ers was, therefore, severely tried; and when the
last sheet was brought to Mr. Millar, he could
not avoid exclaiming, “thank God I have done
with him;” a sally which when repeated to John-
son, he replied with a smile, “I am glad that he
thanks God for any thing.”
What was merely mechanical in the construc-
tion of his Dictionary he entrusted to six amanu-
enses, five of whom were Scotchmen. These he
placed in an upper room of his house in Gough-
square, which he fitted up conveniently with
desks; their employment was to write down the
words, which he had chosen, with spaces between
them, then to insert as fast as he delivered them
in writing, their etymologies, definitions, and va-
rious significations, and afterwards to copy the
authorities from books, in which he had distin-
guished the passages selected by the stroke of a
black-lead pencil.
LITERARY LIFE OF Dr. Jo HNSON. 341
The models which Johnson followed in the
formation of his work, were the Vocabulario of
the Academia della Crusca, and the Dictionaire
of the French Academicians, both productions of
merit and utility, but both the offspring of a
number of associated individuals; whereas, with
the exception of about twenty etymologies, sent
him by Dr. Pearce, the whole stress and burthen
of the undertaking fell upon our author; com-
pared with whose gigantic exertions, the labours
of the Academicians of France and Italy must be
considered as altogether trifling. The disparity
gave rise to a very elegant jeu d'esprit from the
pen of Garrick, in allusion to the forty members
of which the French Academy consisted, and
who were all engaged upon their boasted Dic-
tionary ; a production, which, though displaying
industry and research, did not equal the public
expectation.
Talk of war with a Briton, he’ll boldly advance,
That one English soldier will beat ten of France:
Would we alter ſhe boast from the sword to the pen,
Our odds are still greater, still greater our men;
In the deep mines of science, though Frenchmen may toil,
Can their strength be compar'd to Locke, Newton, & Boyle?
Let them rally their heroes, send forth all their powers,
Their verse-men and prose-men; then match them with ours;
First Shakspeare and Milton, like gods in the fight,
Have put their whole drama and epic to flight;
342. LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh Nso N.
In satires, epistles, and odes would they cope,
Their numbers retreat before Dryden and Pope;
And Johnson, well arm'd like a hero of yore,
Has beat forty French, and will beat forty more 1
That a work of this kind was a great deside-
ratum in our language, must be confessed by
all who are acquainted with the low state of
English Lexicography previous to its publication.
Nothing can more distinctly point out our po-
verty in this branch of literature, than the few
native resources to which Johnson was enabled to
apply. The “Glossographia” of Thomas Blount,
which was printed in 1656; the “New World of
Words,” a folio published by Edward Philips, the
nephew of Milton, in 1657; and the Dictionary
of Nathan Bailey, which has passed through
many improved editions, were the only vocabula-
ries of any consequence, devoted solely and im-
mediately to the English language, that had pre-
ceded his volumes.
Latin and English Dictionaries, and Polyglots
including our language, where the signification of
English appellations are occasionally given, were,
however, more numerous, and to these he may
be supposed to have occasionally referred. Sir
Thomas Elyot, Thomas Cooper, John Baret, Phi-
lemon Holland, John Rider, Thomas Holyoak,
Elisha Cole, Francis Gouldman, Adam Littleton,
LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON. 343
and Robert Ainsworth, are the chief authors of
these useful compilations, and form a host highly
honourable to the classical literature of the island.
To Etymologists and technical Lexicographers
our author was necessarily much indebted, and
of these we may mention, as his peculiar authori-
ties, the Law Dictionaries of Cowel and Blount,
the “Guide” of Minshew, the Saxon Dictionary
of Somner, the Glossarium of Spelman, the Glos-
sarium Gothicum, and the Etymologicon Angli-
canum of Junius, and the Etymologicon Linguæ
Anglicanae of Skinner.
With this assistance, and the models which we
have already mentioned, Johnson produced a ver-
nacular Dictionary, in many points of view su-
perior to any which the world had yet seen. It
was received with great and proportionate ap-
plause, the circulation at home was large and
rapid, nor were testimonies wanting abroad of
the high estimation in which the author and
his work were held. The Earl of Corke presented
it to the Florentine Academy, and the members
immediately sent a very fine set of their Vocabu.
lario to Johnson, who received, nearly at the
same time, from the French Academy, and
through the hands of Mr. Langton, a similar
mark of regard, by the transmission of a copy of
their Dictionaire. - *
The Preface with which Johnson has intro-
344 I.ITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON,
duced his Dictionary, is the most eloquent pro-
duction of his pen. In it he has taken a most
elaborate and comprehensive view of his subject,
and has amply proved, that in theory, at least,
if not in practice, he was acquainted with all the
duties of a perfect Lexicographer. The style is
uncommonly correct, perspicuous, and strong, and
the conclusion forms the most pathetic passage in
the works of its author. It is an appeal, indeed,
which, as founded on rigid truth, scarcely any hu-
man heart, not sered to apathy, can resist ; and
it contains, likewise, an apology admissible by
every candid mind, for what has been since found
to be its principal defect, omission.
“In this work, when it shall be found that
much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much
likewise is performed; and though no book was
ever spared out of tenderness to the author, (and
the world is little solicitous to know whence pro-
ceed the faults of that which it condemns,) yet it
may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English
Dictionary was written with little assistance of
the learned, and without any patronage of the
great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement,
or under the shelter of academick bowers, but
amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness
and in sorrow. It may repress the triumph of
malignant criticism to observe, that if our lan-
º
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 345
guage is not here fully displayed, I have only
failed in an attempt, which no human powers
have hitherto completed. If the lexicons of an-
cient tongues, now immutably fixed, and compri-
zed in a few volumes, be yet, after the toil of suc-
cessive ages, inadequate and delusive; if the
aggregated knowledge, and co-operating diligence
of the Italian academicians, did not secure them
from the censure of Beni; if the embodied cri-
ticks of France, when fifty years had been spent
upon their work, were obliged to change its
Geconomy, and give their second edition another
form, I may surely be contented without the
praise of perfection, which, if I could obtain, in
this gloom of solitude, what would it avail me !
I have protracted my work till most of those
whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave,
and success and miscarriage are empty sounds :
I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, hav-
ing little to fear or hope from censure or from
praise.”
More than half a century has now elapsed
since the publication of this great work, which,
notwithstanding the defects in its execution that
have within these few years been pointed out,
and these are certainly numerous, was, at the
time of its appearance, a vast and important ac-
cession to our literature; an accession which
346 LITERARY I, I FE OF DIR. JOHNSON,
has not yet been paralleled. Before the Lexicon
of Johnson was printed, ne Dictionary to which
the epithet classical could be affixed, had arisen
in this country; our language was loose and dis-
arranged, and, though etymology had been culti-
vated with success by Bailey, we had no authori-
ties or definitions for our words. These, although
many exceptions may be selected, constitute the
chief excellence of our author's philological la-
bours, and still render his book a work of most
useful reference; whilst a deficiency in the philo-
sophy of grammar and language, and in the
knowledge of the Teutonic dialects, together with
much ignorance of old English literature, are his
prominent faults. It may be said, indeed, in
mitigation, that the first of these defects was the
fault rather of the age than of the individual, and
that, with few exceptions, nothing of much value
on the subject was published before the Epea
Pteroenta of Horne Tooke; with regard to the
second, the study of the Gothic tongue and its
sister idioms had, at that time, been little culti-
vated in England, nor was its utility in the illus-
tration of our language become so apparent as
in the present day; and as to the importance of
black letter reading, it must be confessed that
until within these thirty years, few were ac-
quainted with the riches that it held in store.
Liter ARY LIFE OF Dr. Johnson. 347
“It would have been a matter of national advan-
tage,” observes Mr. Headly, “ had Johnson, after
an attentive perusal of the poets of this age,
distinguished in his Dictionary those particular
obsolete words which, from their sound and sig-
nificance, merit use and adoption; the sanction
of his authority might have gone far towards re-
storing them to that rank, both in writing and
conversation, which they have too long unde-
servedly forfeited : but, by the contracted list of
authors his quotations are drawn from, it is evi-
dent he neglected dirtying himself in the dust of
the Black Letter; a task, which, however unin-
viting, was indispensably requisite to the comple-
tion of his plan; and without which, no man can
clearly survey the foundations of our language.”
For near thirty years, however, the censure
which the Lexicon of Johnson had to encounter
was trifling; the ridicule of Wilkes, the threats
of Kenrick, the “Lexiphanes” of Campbell, and
the “Deformities of Johnson” by Callender,
though they might excite a smile at the expence
of our author, were too imbecile to make any
impression on the fabric which they meant to
injure.
* Introduction to his “Select Beauties of Ancient Eug-
lish Poetry,” p. 18.
348 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
It appears, indeed, to be admitted by all who
have devoted themselves to English philology,
that, however numerous may be the omissions of
Johnson, the excellence of the plan, and in part
of the execution, remain undisputed; and even
the defects have indirectly been of essential ser-
vice to the cause of literature, by stimulating the
exertions and emulation of others. Since the era
of the publication of this classical Vocabulary,
the attention of the British 'literati has been
peculiarly fixed on the cultivation and systematic
improvement of our language, and its structure
and its wealth of words are at length much bet-
ter known and appreciated.
The Dictionaries which, with small intervals,
immediately succeeded the work of Johnson, are
not of great value. In 1761, appeared Rider's
Universal English Dictionary, 4to ; and in 1773,
“A new Dictionary of the English Language,”
by William Kenrick, LL.D. 4to; this is princi-
pally directed towards the correction of orthoepy,
but his plan is complicated and incorrect. In
1775, was published “ A Dictionary of the
English Language, answering at once the purposes
of Rhyming, Spelling, and Pronouncing, on a plan
not hitherto attempted,” 8vo, by J. Walker. The
plan of this production is certainly novel, and, in
LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson. 349
the mechanism of rhyme, may prove a work of
some utility. In the same year was printed also,
A new and complete Dictionary of the English
Language, 2 vols. 8vo; by John Ash, LL.D.
which, in the mere accumulation of words, is
extensive beyond any precedent in this country;
it includes obsolete, provincial, and cant words
and phrases, besides a multitude of technical
terms, and is, therefore, from its copiousness, an
useful, and has been a popular compilation; but
as a standard of authority it cannot be held in
any estimation.
It was not, indeed, until the year 1780, that a
Dictionary was published which might be placed
on the same shelf with that of Johnson. What
the author of the Rambler had done for the or-
thography of our language, was executed by Mr.
Sheridan for its orthoepy; his labours were
given to the world in two volumes 4to, and have
established the principles and the general rules
upon which our pronunciation is founded; an
effort attended, perhaps, with more difficulty and
hazard of success than accompanies the ortho-
graphical department. - -
In the year 1783, an attempt was made by the
Rev. George William Lemon, to furnish the pub-
lic with an English Derivative Dictionary; in a
ponderous quarto, entituled English Etymology,
350 LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON.
this gentleman endeavours to prove that the foun-
dations and structure of outr language are derived
solely from the Greek. “Let the channel or
channels,” he says, “for there are undoubtedly
many, through which the words of our modern
English have been derived to us, be whatever
they may, Roman, Gothic, Celtic, Saxon, Teu-
tonic, or Icelandic, still it is the Greek alone that
is the true basis of the English tongue.” A posi-
tion so unlimited and absurd, very soon consigned
the etymologies of Mr. Lemon to oblivion.
During the construction of the Dictionary of
Johnsan, and of those which we have just errume-
rated, some light was thrown upon the philosophy
of language and grammar by the productions of
Harris, of Lowth, and of Monboddo; the Hermes
of the first in 1752, the Grammar of the second
in 1762, and the Origin and Progress of Language
of the third, the first volume of which was pub-
lished in 1773, certainly contributed in no small
degree to the progress of philological learning;
but it is, nevertheless, to the exertions of the last
twenty-three years, that English Grammar will
be indebted for its systematic correctness, its
consistency and truth. In Lexicography, indeed,
if no work has yet appeared which can boast of
any pretensions to supersede the work of John-
son, preparations are rapidly making for such a
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 351
production; an event which cannot, in the small-
est degree, detract from the just fame of Johnson;
all efforts of this kind, in a living language, are
necessarily imperfect; and he will still possess the
undoubted merit of having, in part, established
the foundation on which the fabric is to rest.
Notwithstanding what had been effected by the
elaborate Lexicon of Sheridan, the lovers of
English Philology were still further gratified in
1784, by the publication of Nares's Elements of
Orthoepy: containing a distinct view of the whole
Analogy of the English Language, so far as it
relates to Pronunciation, Accent, and Quantity.
8vo. This is a work of distinguished excellence;
the arrangement is systematic and perspicuous;
great industry, research, and judgment are ex-
hibited throughout its pages, and it forms, without
any controversy, the most useful and complete
treatise on the subject. -
It is to the Year 1806, however, that we are
to look for an entire revolution in the theory of
grammar, occasioned by the appearance of the
ETIEA ITTEPOENTA of John Horne Tooke,
This production, the first part of which was origi-
nally published in octavo, immediately opened a
new track to the grammarian and lexicographer,
and at onee swept away the accumulating rubbish
of centuries. It reduced the necessary words of
352 LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON.
anguage to two, the Noun and the Verb, includ-
ing all the other parts of speech under the title
of abbreviations; proving that particles or inde-
clinable words, are the signs of other words, and
are traceable to a clear corporeal signification.”
The truth and stability of this doctrine, it is
probable, neither time nor research will ever in-
validate; and we may assert with a periodical
critic of great acumen, “ that of all the disco-
veries of this age, those of our author are most
creditable to human sagacity and ingenuity. If
he has been proscribed civil distinctions, and if it
has been denied to him to become, like Lord Ba-
con, the head of the law, his name will descend
to posterity, as having rendered services to human
knowledge, not less brilliant than those of the
philosophical chancellor.”t
The lexicographic omissions of Johnson, which
every day became more apparent, at length led
to various attempts in order to supply the hiatus.
In 1792, the Rev. Herbert Croft (now Sir Her-
bert) printed proposals for publishing by sub-
scription, in four volumes folio, “A new edition
of Johnson's Dictionary, corrected without the
* A second edition in quarto of this first part was pub-
lished in 1798, and was followed in 1805 by a second vo-
lume; a third, it is supposed, will finish the work.
t Monthly Review, New Series, vol. 51, p. 407.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 353.
smallest omission: considerably improved : and
enlarged with more than twenty thousand words,
illustrated by examples from the books quoted by
Dr. Johnson, and from others of the best autho-
rity in our own and former times.” The subscrip-
tion for this magnificent work was to be twelve
guineas; but as it failed to fill, owing to an idea,
I believe, that Mr. Croft was not, at that time,
sufficiently acquainted with the northern lan-
guages, the design was, for a period at least,
relinquished.
It was probably in consequence of this alleged
defect, that Mr. Croft, soon after, left England
for the Continent, and devoted himself with un-
common ardour to the study of the Low and
High German dialects. He became intimate
with the best philologers and poets of Germany,
and particularly with the celebrated epic bard
Klopstock; and in 1797, he printed a quarto
pamphlet at Hamburgh, which was likewise sold
in London, entituled A Letter, from Germany, to
the Princess Royal of England, on the English and
German languages. IWith a Table of the differ-
ent Northern Languages, and of different periods
of the German: and with an Inder.
In this pamphlet Mr. Croft, after expressing his
regret for the failure of his former proposals, has
given ample proofs of his intimacy with the Gothic
VO I, , I W. A. A
354 LITERARY LIFE of DR, Joh Nson.
languages, and of his perfect adequacy to the task
which he had formerly undertaken. It is hoped
and expected, therefore, that he will proceed in
his vast design; nor will the public now withhold
its patronage from a scholar, who has given such
clear evidence of abilities commensurate with the
execution of his plan.
The year which produced this pamphlet gave
birth, likewise, at Hamburgh, to a prospectus for
a New Dictionary of the French Language. In
speaking of this work, the Discours Preliminaire
of A. C. De Rivarol, the Monthly Reviewer has
introduced some very pertinent observations on
the deficiencies of the classical Dictionaries of
Europe, which, as they immediately coalesce with
our subject, and the Lexicon of Johnson is in-
cluded in the detail, I shall make no hesitation in
transcribing. * - -
* Certain it is,” he remarks, “that, of the se-
veral dictionaries hitherto reputed classical in Eu-
rope, not one contains above two thirds of the
words freely circulating in the language of which
it treats. The Vocabolario degli Academici della
Crusca is fallen into the yellow leaf, and is be-
come rather a glossary of those declining terms,
which give a mellow tint to the immortal poetry
and the mortal prose of the Medicean age, than a
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 355
collection of the green and living words of fashion
and of use. - . . . -
“The Dictionnaire de l'Academie Française, like
the epopee of its projector Chapelain, is only not
sunken into sufficient obscurity to be screened
from contempt. A total ignorance of the theory
of language and of the art of definition; a servile
deference for what its authors mistook for usage,
and what was in fact the provincialism of the me-
tropolis; an affection for low traditional phrases;
and a pedantic rage for regulating trifles; dis-
honourably distinguish this boasted pillar of
French literature. It has long been superseded
by the private work of Richelet, which has, in its
turn, become too scanty a repository for the mul-
tiplying nomenclature of his country.
“The Dictionary of Dr. Samuel Johnson should
next be mentioned. His predecessor Bailey had
displayed a more radical knowledge of etymology.
Johnson's ignorance of the philosophy of language
was the misfortune of his time, more than the
fault of his own negligence: but his loose and
pedantic style of definition, his passion for the
needless subdivision of meanings, his misarrange-
ment of significations, (so as frequently to place
the metaphorical before the proper,) his inelegant
taste for neoteric importation, (which was exclu-
sively confined to Latin polysyllables,) his partial
356 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
estimate of the value of authorities, and his in-
numerable omissions, combine to shew the imper-
fection of all human labour.
“The Diccionario de la Lengua Castellana,
published in 1783 by the Academy of Madrid,
has the merit of being drawn up with conciseness
and selected with judgment; and, as its defini-
tions are often inserted in Latin, it is very conve-
nient for strangers to the Spanish language. Its
neglect of etymology, however, destroys its claim
to rank among enterprizes of the higher class.
Besides its words of Latin origin, the Spanish con-
tains a multitude of terms of Biscayan and of Ara-
bic derivation; and it is important to the ascer-
tainment of many speculative questions, to be
able to discriminate between them :—but these
academicians do not teach us to discern which
ideas their nation has derived from its primaeval
inhabitants, which from its Roman, and which
from its Moorish conquerors. To Larramenda
and Haouy, to Erpenius and Golius, we must
still recur for a laborious separation of this min-
gled oratory into its elemental dialects.
“ The Versuch eines grammatisch-kritischen
Wörterbucks of Adelung comes nearer to the idea
of a perfect dictionary, than any other effort of
individual diligence and modern culture. An
acute theory of the origin of speech, which guides
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 357
the erudition of his etymological researches to the
sensible idea latent in the parent-word of the
most abstract and metaphorical ramifications of
thought—an historical familiarity with the migra-
tions and shifting civilization of the tribes, whose
confluent jargons have supplied the reservoirs of
the German tongue – and a comprehensive know-
ledge of the nature of polished style and of the
fine literature of his country—only leave room
for the wish, that he had elevated himself yet
higher above the prejudices of ceremonious gram-
marians, and had discussed the whole doctrine of
phraseology with the liberal insight of Gregory
Sharpe, of Schultens, and of Tooke. His ex-
cellent grammar resembles that of our Wallis:
but it sternly resists innovation with a frown
which the practice of his countrymen has not
heeded.” + ---
About four years after the publication of Sir
Herbert Croft's Letter from Germany, another
attempt was made to supply the deficiencies of
Johnson's Dictionary. This, the production of
Mr. George Mason, is entituled A Supplement to
Johnson's Dictionary; of which the palpable Er-
rors are attempted to be rectified, and its material
omissions supplied. (With a separate Appendix.)
4to. 1801.
* Monthly Review, vol.xxiv.N.s. p. 539–560.
358 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joiſ NSON.
The list of words which this supplementalist
has added to the Lexicon of his predecessor is
highly useful and valuable; and it is to be hoped
that, in future, his labours will be incorporated
with those of his prototype. Even when this is
done, however, much will still be wanting to com-
plete the fabric of a perfect Dictionary.
In the mean time, namely, in June 1800, the
Rev. Walter Whiter presented the public with a
most elaborate and learned volume on etymology,
under the title of Etymologicon Magnum, or Uni-
versal Etymological Dictionary, on a new Plan.
With Illustrations drawn from various Languages:
English, Gothic, Savon, German, Danish, &c.
Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish,_Galic,
Irish, ſ/elsh, Bretagne, &c. the Dialects of the
Sclavonic; and the Eastern Languages, Hebrew,
Arabic, Persian, Sanscrit, Gypsey, Coptic, &c. &c.
Part I, 4to, pp. 570. -
In this very original and ingenious work, which,
whatever may become of its theory, will be always
highly estimated by the profound etymologist,
the author, after stating as his preliminary posi-
tions, 1st, that in all questions of etymology the
vowels are to be entirely omitted or disregarded;
and 2d, that certain consonants, which are recog-
nized as cognate, are always to be considered as
equivalent or identical; proceeds to include his
LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson. 359
entire system in the following concise theorem:
“That the same combination of the same or of
equivalent consonants have the same virtual and
elementary meaning, in all the languages with
which we are acquainted.”
An introductory discourse of forty pages is de-
voted to the illustration of the positions, and the
body of the work is appropriated to the discussion
and proof of the theorem.
Of the abilities of Mr. Whiter, as exhibited in
this stupendous undertaking, no scholar can with-
hold his admiration; but to the truth of his sys-
tem, notwithstanding the acuteness and erudition
brought forth in its support, there are, probably,
not many who will subscribe.
A very operose specimen of what may be
termed an annotated edition of Johnson's Dic-
tionary, made its appearance in the year 1806.
It is the production of Benjamin Dawson, LL.D.
who terms it Philologia Anglica; or, a Philologi-
cal and Synonymical Dictionary of the English
Language; in which the Words are deduced from
their Originals, their Sense defined, and the same
illustrated and supported by proper Examples and
Wotes critical and explanatory. 4to. *
The design of this laborious undertaking is, to
strike out the superfluities of Johnson, to correct
his errors, to amend his definitions, to vary his
360 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Jo IIM so N.
examples, and to supply his onissions. The plan of
our great lexicographer is minutely followed; but
in the number before us such is the multiplicity of
notes, that, if in the remainder of the work the
author should distribute them with equal profu-
sion, the bulk will be immense, and too unweildy
for utility. It should also be remarked, that
Dr. Dawson appears more intimate with classical
than Teutonic literature; great industry, however,
and much research are evinced.
The year 1807 was productive of several at-
tempts to improve and extend the lexicography of .
our country. Of these I shall mention two; 1st,
A Supplement to Dr. Johnson's Dictionary of the
English Language ; or a Glossary of obsolete and
provincial IWords. By the late Rev. Jo NATHAN
Bouch ER, A. M. Part the First. 4to.—2d, An
Introduction to an Analytical Dictionary of the
English Language, by D. Boot II. 8vo.
The glossary of Mr. Boucher is peculiarly va-
luable, and it is greatly to be regretted that the
worthy author did not live to complete his labours.
He had proceeded no farther than to the letter G.
Such are the productions to which the Dic-
tionary of Johnson has given rise; and it is not
one of the smallest benefits resulting from the ex-
eeution of that great work, that it speedily turned
the attention of the literary world to the ardent
LITERARY LIFE or DR. JoHNSON. 361
study and improvement of our language. The
plan which our author adopted has been consi-
dered unexceptionable; and had he not too im-
plicitly copied the English portion of the Lexicon
of Ainsworth, his vocabulary would have been
much more copious and complete. As it is, it
has been an invaluable gift to his country; and
he who shall succeed in approximating nearer
to perfection, though he may justly claim the re-
ward of industry, and, perhaps, of more recondite
learning, must, if he be candid and grateful, ever
refer to the Dictionary of Johnson as the original,
the basis of the fabric to which he shall owe his
reputation.
The labours of Johnson, notwithstanding he
had now produced the Rambler and his Diction-
ary, were not only insufficient to procure the
blessings of competence, but were, in fact, not
able to screen him from the pressure of absolute
poverty. The year which succeeded the publi-
cation of his Lexicon saw him under an arrest
for the paltry sum of five pounds eighteen shillings.
In this dilemma he applied, by letter, to Richard-
son the Novellist, who immediately sent him six
guineas. To add to his distress, relaxation from
mental exertion, which now became absolutely
necessary, in order to relieve his powers, wearied
by the tension of long and severe employment,
362 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Jo HNSON.
brought with it, in his morbid habit, the custom-
ary accompaniment of melancholy and dejection.
It was in a frame of mind similar to this that he
produced his pathetic effusion in Latin hexame-
ters, entituled,
TNOG)I XEATTON,
Post Lewicon Anglicanum auctum et emendatum;
in which he has given a representation so minutely
accurate of his own feelings and failings, that pro-
bably no one of his numerous biographers, how-
ever free from bias, has touched the prominent
features of his character with such fidelity, with
such a perfect subserviency to truth and impar-
tiality. After mentioning the labours of Scaliger
in the composition of his Lexicon, and after ex-
tolling his genius and imagination, as exhibited in
his various productions, he thus alludes to him-
self; a passage which I shall give from the spi-
rited version of Mr. Murphy: >
For me, though his example strike my view,
Oh! not for me his footsteps to pursue.
Whether first Nature, unpropitious, cold,
This clay compounded in a ruder mould;
Or the slow current, loit’ring at my heart,
No gleam of wit or fancy can impart;
Whate'er the cause, from me no numbers flow,
No visions warm me, and no raptures glow.
A mind like Scaliger's, superior still,
No grief could conquer, no misfortune chill.
&
LiTERARY LIFE or Dr. JoHNson. 363
Though for the maze of words his native skies
He seem'd to quit, 'twas but again to rise;
To mount once more to the bright source of day,
And view the wonders of th’ aetherial way.
The love of fame his gen’rous bosom fir’d;
Each Science hail'd him, and each Muse inspir’d.
For him the Sons of Learning trimm'd the bays,
And nations grew harmonious in his praise.
My task perform’d, and all my labours o'er,
For me what lot has Fortune now in store?
The listless will succeeds, that worst disease,
The rack of indoleuce, the sluggish ease.
Care grows on care, and o'er my aching brain
Black Melancholy pours her morbid train.
No kind relief, no lenitive at hand,
I seek, at midnight clubs, the social band;
But midnight clubs, where wit with moise conspires,
Where Comus revels, and where wine inspires,
Delight no more : I seek my lonely bed,
And call on Sleep to soothe my languid head:
But sleep from these sad lids flies far away;
I mourn all night, and dread the coming day.
Exhausted, tir'd, I throw my eyes around,
To find some vacant spot on classic ground;
And soon, vain hope I form a grand design;
Languor succeeds, and all my pow'rs decline.
If Science open not her richest vein,
Without materials all our toil is vain.
A form to rugged stone when Phidias gives,
Beneath his touch a new creation lives.
Remove his marble, and his genius dies;
With nature then no breathing statue vies.
364 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
Whate'er I plan, I feel my pow'rs confin'd
By Fortune's frown and penury of mind.
I boast no knowledge glean'd with toil and strife,
That bright reward of a well-acted life.
I view myself, while Reason's feeble light
Shoots a pale glimmer through the gloom of night,
While passions, error, phantoms of the brain,
And vain opinions, fill the dark domain;
A dreary void, where fears with grief combin’d
Waste all within, and desolate the mind.
It was impossible, therefore, for Johnson long
to continue idle, unmenaced by the apprehension,
which for ever haunted his mind, of approaching
insanity. It was essentially necessary to the pre-
servation of his faculties that he should have in-
tellectual employment ; and accordingly, if not
engaged in any extensive and elaborate design, he
was ever ready to favour his friends with Prefaces
and Introductions to their respective works, or
willing to assist in the construction of Magazines,
Reviews, and other periodical publications. Soon
after he had printed his Dictionary he wrote, for
Zachariah Williams, the father of the blind lady
whom he had so kindly taken into his house, An
Account of an attempt to ascertain the Longitude
at Sea, by an eract Theory of the Variations of the
Magnetical Needle; with a Table of the Variations
at the most remarkable Cities in Europe, from the
year 1660 to 1860; and as a proof of the versa-
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Jo HNson. 365
tility of his talents, it may not be irrelevant to
mention, that in the year following he contributed
a Preliminary Address to the Literary Magazine,
or Universal Review; a Dedication and Preface
to Payne's Introduction to the Game of Draughts;
and an Introduction to the London Chronicle, an
evening newspaper! -
In the year 1756, also, he published an Abridge-
ment of his Dictionary, in two vols. 8vo; several
Essays in the Universal Visitor, or Monthly Me-
morialist; six Original Essays in the Literary
Magazine; and many Reviews. It was in this
year, likewise, that he issued his Proposals for an
edition of Shakspeare, an undertaking of which
we shall have occasion to say more hereafter.
By the sums arising from these miscellaneous
contributions, from the subscriptions for his Shak-
speare, and from the circulation of his Idler, in
1758, our author contrived to live. He might
indeed, had he chosen to enter the church, have
been placed in a state of comparative opulence;
for the father of his beloved friend Bennet Langton
offered, in 1757, to present him, if he would take
orders, to a rectory, in his gift, of considerable
value. This mode of provision, however, he de-
clined from conscientious motives. “I have not,”
said he, “ the requisites for the office, and I can-
not, in my conscience, shear that flock which I am
366 LITERARY LIFE of DR, Johnson.
.*
unable to feed.” “Upon conversing with him on
that inability,” relates Sir John Hawkins, “which
was his reason for declining the offer, it was found
to be a suspicion of his patience to undergo the
fatigue of catechizing and instructing a great
number of poor ignorant persons, who, in religious
matters, had, perhaps, every thing to learn.” “ In
the Adventurer he has given his opinions on this
subject at full length, and with his usual ability.f
To the commencement of the year 1759 we
have to ascribe an event, which, however afflict-
ing at the time to the feelings of Johnson, was pro-
ductive of one of the noblest efforts of his pen,
and which demands from us the distinct consider-
ation of its author under the character of a No-
V E L LIST.
In January, at the very advanced age of ninety,
he lost his mother, for whom, to the latest mo-
ment of her existence, he preserved a reverential
affection, unsubdued by time or absence. Though
his literary engagements precluded his personal
attendance upon her, a circumstance which he
ever regretted; yet to his filial piety she was
indebted for her sole support; and his motive for
the composition of Rasselas was, that with the
profits of the sale he might discharge his mother's
debts, and pay the expences of her funeral.
* Life of Johnson, p. 365, t No. 126.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 367
Promptitude in the execution of his task, there-
fore, became a duty; and he declared to Sir Joshua
Reynolds, that “he composed it in the evenings
of one week, sent it to the press in portions as it
was written, and had never since read it over !”
The sum obtained from the sale of this work, thus
consecrated to filial affection, amounted to one
hundred and twenty-five pounds.
To oriental fiction Johnson was peculiarly par-
tial; and it is probable, that to his translation of
Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia in early life we are, in
a great measure, indebted for this attachment.
He has, moreover, given us various specimens of
his skill in the difficult departments of Vision and
Allegory; and his papers of this kind are, with the
exception of the inimitable Mirza of the Specta-
tor, inferior to none which have been produced
by his predecessors in periodical literature. His
first, however, and probably one of his best, at-
tempts in the realms of fancy, was published in
the Preceptor of Dodsley in 1748, under the title
of “The Vision of Theodore the Hermit of Tene-
riffe, found in his cell.” This very interesting
allegory, of which its author's opinion was so
high, that he declared to the Bishop of Dromore
that he considered it as the best thing he ever
wrote, paints in very vivid colours the condition
and vicissitudes of mortality, and represents, under
368 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joiſ Nsox.
the well conceived fiction of the ascent of the
Mountain of Existence, the effects of education
and religion, of the appetites, passions, and ha-
bits, on the mind and frame of man.
Of the productions which, under this head, di-
versify the pages of the Rambler, the principal
are, Criticism, an Allegory, N°3; Wit and Learn-
ing, an Allegory, N° 22; Rest and Labour, an
Allegory, N° 33; The Garden of Hope, a Dream,
N°67; Patronage, an Allegory, N°91; Truth,
Falsehood, and Fiction, an Allegory, N° 06; The
Voyage of Life, a Dream, N° 102; and The Uni-
versal Register, a Dream, N° 105.
Among these, the Voyage of Life may be
pointed out as superior to the rest, whether its
imagery or its moral be considered. The Alle-
gory on Patronage exhibits the experience of the
author on the subject; nor shall we therefore be
surprized that it concludes with the following pa-
ragraph, which, there is reason to regret, was not
merely suggested by individual suffering, but by
the general fate of those who have placed any de-
pendence upon a source so capricious as private
patronage. “The Sc1 ENcts, after a thousand
indignities, retired from the palace of PATRoN-
AGE, and having long wandered over the world in
grief and distress, were led at last to the cottage of
INDEPEN BENCE, the daughter of Fort ITUDE;
1.1TERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 369
where they were taught by PRUDENCE and PAR-
sIMony to support themselves in dignity and
quiet.” %
On fictions illustrative of the common and do-
mestic occurrences of life, our author has not
bestowed many pages. The story of Misella,
however, in Nos. 170 and 171 of the Rambler,
and that of Mysargyrus in Nos. 34, 41, and 53 of
the Adventurer, depict the miseries of prostitu-
tion and dissipation with a pencil of peculiar
strength; nor was the passion of love, the assi-
duities of affection, ever placed in a more enter-
taining or pleasing light than in the Greenland
story of Anningait and Ajut,” which, owing to its
wild and savage imagery, and the felicity with
which it is adapted to the circumstances of the
narrative, possesses the attractions of no ordinary
share of originality.t
* Rambler, Nos. 186,187.
t Mr. Campbell, in his truly sublime poem on the Plea-
sures of Hope, has thus beautifully alluded to the story o
Anningait and Ajut: - - - - º
Oh! vainly wise, the moral Muse hath sung
That suasive Hope hath but a syren tongue!
True; she may sport with life's untutor'd day,
. Nor heed the solace of its last decay,
The guileless heart, her happy mansion, spurn,
And part like Ajut—never to return. * *
Part 2, line 213.
WOL. Iv. a s r
370 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
It is in the oriental tales of the Rambler and
Idler, however, and more particularly in the His-
tory of Rasselas, that we behold, in full splendor,
the imagination of Johnson. Like Addison, he
has reserved the creations of his fancy for prose
composition; and, while his poetry can claim
little more than the merit of moral and satiric
energy, clothed in harmonious numbers, his nar-
ratives in language devoid of metre exhibit a pro-
fusion of the most distinct and luxuriant imagery.
In the Rambler, the Apologue of Hamet and
Raschid, N° 38; the Story of Obidah and the
Hermit, N°65; the History of Almamoulin the
son of Nouradin, N° 120; the Story of Abouzaid
the son of Morad, N° 190; and the History of
Ten Days of Seged Emperor of Ethiopia, Nos. 204
and 205; greatly enliven, while they add, in the
most alluring form, to the preceptive wisdom of
the work. In the Idler too we have three orien-
tal tales, under the titles of Gelaleddin of Bassora,
N°75; Ortogrul of Basra, N°99; and Omar's
Plan of Life, N° 101; to these we may annex
The Fountains, a Fairy Tale, published in Mrs.
Williams's Miscellanies. . .
The popularity which the oriental tales in the
Rambler and Idler acquired probably induced
Johnson, when he was anxious to obtain an im-
mediate sum, to recur, on a larger scale, to this
IITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNson. 371
species of fiction. The attempt completely suc-
ceeded ; for Rasselas is a production which, as
Mr. Boswell has remarked, “though he had writ-
ten nothing else, would have rendered his name
immortal in the world of literature. *
The language of this excellent work is uncom-
monly pure and elegant; its imagery rich and
vivid, and full of strength; and its display of hu-
man life and manners profound and various. It
is defective, however, in incident and plot, and
its representations of our portion in this world are
too uniformly gloomy and desponding.
Rasselas appears to have been intended by its
author as the vehicle for the communication of
his peculiar opinions of, and experience in life;
and these we well know to have been tinctured
by prejudice, and narrowed by too much indivi-
duality of feeling. Perfect happiness, it is true,
is not attainable on earth; but does it therefore
follow, that perpetual vexation and disappointment
are to be our inseparable companions? If the
former would render a future state of bliss nuga-
tory, the latter would totally unfit us for the duties
of existence, and annihilate the apprehension of
ulterior punishment. Yet there is, notwithstand-
ing this tendency, so much deep and original
thinking, so much just reflection in the volume,
* Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 391.
372 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
that, if the author's intention be steadily held in
view, which was, by exhibiting the vanity of all
sublunary things, to fix the affections on another
and a better state of being, it will be impossible
to study it without an increase of wisdom and of
virtue. -
Many of the topics which are eagerly discussed
in the History of Rasselas are known to have
greatly interested, and even agitated, the mind of
Johnson. Of these the most remarkable are, on
the Efficacy of Pilgrimage, on the State of De-
parted Souls, on the Probability of the Re-appear-
ance of the Dead, and on the Danger of Insanity.
The apprehension of mental derangement seems
to have haunted the mind of Johnson during the
greater part of his life; and he has therefore very
emphatically declared, that “ of the uncertainties
in our present state, the most dreadful and alarm-
ing is the uncertain continuance of reason.”” It
is highly probable, that his fears and feelings on
this head gave rise to the character of the Mad
Astronomer in Rasselas, who declared to Imlac,
that he had possessed for five years the regulation
of the weather, and the distribution of the sea-
sons; that the sun had listened to his dictates,
and passed from tropic to tropic by his direction;
that the clouds at his call had poured their waters,
*Rasselas, chap. 42.
LTTERARY LIFE OF DR. JOIINSON. 373
and the Nile had overflowed at his command.
This tremendous visitation he has ascribed prin-
cipally to the indulgence of imagination in the
shades of solitude.
“Disorders of intellect,” he remarks, “happen
much more often than superficial observers will
easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous
exactness, no human mind is in its right state.
There is no man whose imagination does not
sometimes predominate over his reason, who can
regulate his attention wholly by his will, and
whose ideas will come and go at his command.
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions
do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to
hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probabi-
lity. All power of fancy over reason is a degree
of insanity; but while this power is such as we
can control and repress, it is not visible to others,
nor considered as any depravation of the mental
faculties: it is not pronounced madness but when
it becomes ungovernable, and apparently influ-
ences speech or action.
“To indulge the power of fiction, and send
imagination out upon the wing, is often the sport
of those who delight too much in silent specula-
tion. When we are alone we are not always busy;
the labour of excogitation is too violent to last
long; the ardour of inquiry will sometimes give
374, LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
way to idleness or satiety. He who has nothing
external that can divert him, must find pleasure
in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself
what he is not; for who is pleased with what he
is ? He then expatiates in boundless futurity,
and culls from all imaginable conditions that
which for the present moment he should most
desire, amuses his desires with impossible enjoy-
ments, and confers upon his pride unattainable
dominion. The mind dances from scene to scene,
unites all pleasures in all combinations, and riots
in delights which nature and fortune, with all
their bounty, cannot bestow. -
“In time, some particular train of ideas fixes
the attention; all other intellectual gratifications
are rejected; the mind, in weariness or leisure,
recurs constantly to the favourite conception, and
feasts on the luscious falsehood, whenever she is
offended with the bitterness of truth. By degrees.
the reign of Fancy is confirmed; she grows first
imperious, and in time despotick. Then fictions
begin to operate as realities, false opinions fasten
upon the mind, and life passes in dreams of rap-
ture or of anguish. . ; : . . . .
“This, Sir, is one of the dangers of solitude.”
, In, the paragraphs which we have, just quoted:
there is much reason to suppose, that our moralist
* . . . . . . . • *Rasselas, chap, 43.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. JoFINson. 375
was describing what he had himself repeatedly
experienced; and to this circumstance Sir John
Hawkins has attributed his uncommon attachment
to society. - - .
Notwithstanding the deficiency, of character
and incident which marks the pages of Rasselas,
it soon became a favourite with the public; nor.
was its reception upon the Continent less auspi-
cious; it was early taught to charm and to in-
struct in the most polished languages of Europe;
and there is every probability that, from its har-
mony of diction, from its beauty and sublimity of
description, it will long continue to be admired.
The abrupt and unsatisfactory nature of its
conclusion, however, must have been felt with
regret by every reader; especially when we learn,
on the authority of Sir John Hawkins, that it was,
thus purposely left incomplete by Johnson, in or-
der to admit of a continuation; that he had, in
fact, meditated a second part, , and that “he
meant to marry his hero, and place him in a state
of permanent felicity.” This anecdote gave ori-
gin, in the year 1790, to an anonymous continu-
ation of Rasselas, under the title of Dinarbass in
the introduction to which, the ingenious author
remarks, that “it is much to be regretted, that
the same pencil which so forcibly painted, the
evils attendant on humanity, had not delineated
*
376 LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson.
the fairer prospect. That such a prospect exists,
will scarcely be denied; and if the narrative of
DtNARBAs, however defective, shall be found to
afford any consolation or relief to the wretched
traveller, terrified and disheartened at the rugged
paths of life, this reflection will compensate the
want of genius and literary fame of its author, who,
under the veil of concealment, anxiously awaits
the judgment of the critic, not wholly without
ambition to merit the favour and indulgence of a
candid public.”
The success which attended the production of
this elegant completion of Rasselas soon induced
the fair author to step forward in her own person;
and to Miss E. Cornelia Knight the public is not
only indebted for Dinarbas, but for many subse-
quent important and classical compositions.”
For nearly seven years after the publication of
Rasselas, the world received little from the pen of
Johnson, except occasional prefaces, critiques,
and dedications. Many alterations, however,
took place, during this period, in the external
circumstances of our author; some of which merit
peculiar notice, not only as arising exclusively
from his literary character, but as fixing the
* Marcus Flaminius, 2 vols. 8vo, 1792. A Description
of Latium, 4to, 1805. - 3.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 377
destiny of his future life. Finding it necessary, in
the year 1759, notwithstanding all his exertions,
to retrench his expences, he left his house in
Gough-square, and removed to Grays Inn. Miss
Williams retired to lodgings; and shortly after-
wards Johnson again altered his abode for cham-
bers in the Inner Temple Lane, where, whatever
his poverty may have been, his celebrity appears
to have been undiminished; for Sir John Hawkins
has related, upon the authority of a person who
resided at the corner of Temple Lane, that “dur-
ing the time he dwelt there, more inquiries were
made at his shop for Mr. Johnson, than for all the
inhabitants put together of both the Inner and
Middle Temple.””
After a short excursion about this time to Ox-
ford, Johnson returned to town to receive the ho-
mage of Mr. Murphy, who addressed to him “A
Poetical Epistle,” the principal object of which,
however, was to repel the critical shafts of Dr.
Franklin. The encomia upon the poetry of our
great moralist, in this epistle, are, by many de-
grees, too hyperbolical and extravagant; but the
following couplets, toward the conclusion, may,
with the exception perhaps of one line, be con-
sidered as a just tribute to his memory.
* Life of Johnson, p. 383.
378 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR., JOHNSON.
Thou, then, my friend, who seest the dang'rous strife
In which some demon bids me plunge my life,
To the Aonian fount direct my feet,
Say where the Nine thy lonely musings meet 2
Where warbles to thy ear the sacred throng
Thy moral sense, thy dignity of song?
Tell, for you can, by what unerring art
You wake to finer feelings every heart;
In each bright page some truth iuportant give,
And bid to future times thy RAMBLER live.
About six years before the production of this
poetical letter, Mr. Murphy had obtained an ine
troduction to Johnson through the medium of a
very singular occurrence, which I shall relate in
the words of Mrs. Piozzi. Mr. Murphy “being
in those days engaged in a periodical paper, he
found himself at a friend's house out of town;
and, not being disposed to lose pleasure for the
sake of business, wished rather to content his
bookseller by sending some unstudied, essay to
London by the servant; than deny himself the
company of his acquaintance, and drive away to
his chambers for the purpose of writing something
more correct. He therefore took up a French
Journal Literaire that lay about the room, and
translating something that he liked from it, sent
it away without further examination. Time,
however, discovered that he had translated from
the French a Rambler of Johnson's, which had
LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Johnson. 379
been but a month before taken from the English;
and thinking it right to make him his personal
excuses, he went next day, and found our friend
all covered with soot like a chimney-sweeper, in
a little room, with an intolerable heat and strange.
smell, as if he had been acting Lungs in the Al-
-- chymist, making aether. “Come, come, (Says
Johnson to Mr. Murphy, who was one day relat-
ing the circumstances of their meeting before him
in company,) dear Mur, the story is black enough
now; and it was a very happy day for me that
brought you first to my house, and a very happy
mistake about the Ramblers.” ” The friendship
to which this incident led was preserved inviolate,
and is one of the many attachments that speak so
strongly in favour of the companionability and
social worth of Johnson.
;In the year 1762, and in the fifty-third year of
his age, an event occurred which effected a com-
plete revolution in the pecuniary circumstances
and domestic enjoyments of our author. The
accession of George the third, through the pa-
tronage of the throne, infused, among the disci-
ples of literature, science, and the arts, new life
and animation; nor was it long before his Majesty,
well acquainted with the literary merit and moral
excellence of the writings of Johnson, and at the
* Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 235,236. . . . . ."
*
380 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
same time apprized of the difficulties with which
he had to struggle, nobly determined to rescue
such a man from the fangs of poverty, and to in-
vigorate the pursuit of learning by adequately
rewarding its beneficial exertions. Accordingly,
in the month of July, a pension was granted to
him of three hundred pounds per annum, un-
shackled by any stipulations; for Lord Bute ex-
pressly told him, on his accepting the bounty of
his Sovereign, that it was given him, not for any
thing he was to do, but for what he had done.
A pension thus honourably conferred, and im-
plying not the smallest obligation to adopt the de-
fence of any party or political tenet, no man,
however independent in principle, would be war-
ranted, especially under circumstances of pecu-
niary embarrassment, in refusing. The defini-
tions, indeed, which Johnson had given in his Dic-
tionary, in so unqualified a manner, of the words
pension and pensioner, appeared to him at first a
very formidable objection to the acceptance of
the royal stipend; but the opinions of his friends,
that the definitions of his Lexicon could by no
In eanS apply to himself, or to a recompense of
his labours in every sense so liberal and honour-
able, at length convinced him that he might,
without humiliation or the violation of his inte-
grity, avail himself of the beneficence of his so-
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 381
vereign. Thus was Johnson rendered, for the re-
sidue of his life, independent; indeed, we may say
affluent, if we consider that to his pension he
continued to add the fruits of his literary in-
dustry.
The year succeeding this well-bestowed in-
stance of regal patronage conferred on the author
of the Rambler, in the person of Mr. Boswell, the
invaluable blessing of an assiduous, a devoted,
and intelligent friend. To this connection we are
indebted for the most ample and interesting spe-
cimen of biography which either ancient or mo-
dern times have afforded. In the pages of Bos-
well, in fact, the manners and opinions, the ha-
bits, the very figure and costume of Johnson, are
delineated with a pencil so minutely accurate, so
spirited and racy, that the very man exists before
us, instinct with all the freshness of life, and all
the prominence of original genius.
To the freedom and conversational hilarity of
a club Johnson, as we have remarked, was always
peculiarly partial; and in 1764, in conjunction
with Sir Joshua Reynolds, he established one
which subsequently assumed the appellation of
the Liter ARY Club. Of this society, which, I
believe, still exists, and which included in its cir-
cle most of the celebrated writers of its age, the
original members were, independent of the two
$82 1.ITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
founders, Mr. Burke, Dr. Nugent, Mr. Beauclerk,
Mr. Langton, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Chamier, and
Sir John Hawkins. Their place of meeting was
originally at the Turk's Head, in Gerard-street,
Soho, on the evening of every Monday, where
they supped, and usually sate until a late hour.
The relaxation arising from a frequent assemblage
of his friends was the more necessary at this pe-
riod, as he laboured under a return, much severer
than common, of his morbid depression of mind:
so distressing, indeed, did he find this hypochon-
driacal complaint, that he declared to Dr. Adams,
“ he would consent to have a limb amputated to
recover his spirits.”
About a twelvemonth after the incorporation of
the Literary Club, the University of Dublin pre-
sented Johnson with the Degree of Doctor of
Laws, and, as the diploma expresses it, ob egre-
giam scriptorum elegantiam ct utilitatem; a testi-
mony of admiration for his talents and literature
which reflects no small honour on the members
of that learned body.
The year 1765 was, likewise, productive of an
event of the first importance to the future comfort
of our author, by his introduction to Mr. Thrale,
an eminent brewer, and member of parliament
for Southwark! Though in the bustle of a very
lucrative trade, this gentleman was a regular scho-
LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON . 383
lar, and to classical attainments added the ines-
timable advantages of a good heart and a sound
understanding. Having heard much, through the
medium of Mr. Murphy, of Johnson's conversa-
tion, he expressed a wish to be acquainted with
him; this was soon gratified; the Doctor accepted
an invitation to dinner at his house, and a friend-
ship mutually ardent and beneficial to both par-
ties was the result. For eleven years his visits to
Mr. Thrale's continued to increase in frequency,
till at length he became a part of the family, hav-
ing a room allotted to him wherever they were,
whether at their villa or town residence.
The patronage of Johnson has bestowed on the
name of Thrale a well-merited immortality.” In
the house of this noble-minded merchant he pos-
sessed all the comforts and even luxuries of life;
the gloom which had so frequently and so deeply
clouded his days were dissipated by the charms of
conversation, by the cheerful business and routine
of a well-regulated family. The affectionate
* “Mr. Thrale,” says Dr. Beattie, in a letter to Sir Wil-
liam Forbes, “ was a most respectable character; intelli-
gent, modest, communicative, and friendly ; and I greatly
admired his wife for her vivacity, learning, affability, and
beauty: I thought her indeed one of the most agreeable
women l ever saw.”
Forbes's Life of Dr. Beattie, vol. 3, p. 49.
384 LITER A R Y LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON.
respect, also, with which he was treated, and the
varied succession of men eminent for literature
and science, who were ever welcome guests at the
table of Mr. Thrale, enhanced to a high degree
the enjoyments of our Essayist, who was thus en-
abled amply to exhibit those powers in conversa-
tion for which he has been so justly celebrated.
In October, 1765, he at length, by the publica-
tion of his Shakspeare, appeared before the world
in the long-expected character of a CoMMENTA-
To R. This edition, which was in eight volumes
octavo, had occupied his occasional attention for
nine years, a period which seemed to the public
of uncommon duration; more especially as in
1756, when he issued his proposals, he professed
such confidence in his industry, as to promise the
completion of the work before Christmas, 1757.
Shakspeare, however, and the propriety of un-
dertaking a new edition of his plays, had, as we
have remarked in a prior part of this volume,
engaged his thoughts so early as 1745; for in
that year he printed a pamphlet, entituled “Mis-
cellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Mac-
beth, with Remarks on Sir T.H.’s Edition of Shak-
speare.” To these Observations, which were ano-
nymous, he affixed proposals for his intended
edition; but as Warburton was known to have
entered into the execution of a similar design,
LITERARY LIFF, O F D R. J O LIN SO N. 3 S5
they attracted little notice. The pamphlet, not-
withstanding, exhibits much acuteness and inge-
nuity; and when Warburton, two years after-
ward, published his Shakspeare, he made honour-
able mention of it in his Preface, observing that
it appeared to him to be written “ by a man of
parts and genius;” a remark that highly gratified
Johnson, and which induced him ever after to
speak of Warburton in terms of praise.
The vernacular erudition of Johnson had led
the public to expect from his labours on Shak-
speare more than perhaps an individual can per-
form. The disappointment, therefore, was pro-
portionably great, when it was discovered that he
had been strangely defective in the important re-
quisites of industry and research, and that he had
omitted to consult the very literature and books
best calculated to elucidate his author. When a
little time, however, had mitigated the disgust
arising from this unexpected failure, occasioned
rather by the indolence than the inability of the
editor, the value of the work, as originating from
other sources, became apparent. The mode of
annotation which he had chalked out for himself,
though he sunk beneath the labour of exemplifi-
cation, was justly deemed excellent, and has in-
deed been the basis on which subsequent com-
mentators have established their fame. Mr. Reed,
V O L. IV. C C
386 LITERAT&Y LIFE of Dr. Jori Nson.
in the last edition of Shakspeare, adverting to the
improvements of Mr. Steevens, observes, that to
him “the praise is due of having first adopted and
carried into execution Dr. Johnson's admirable
plan of illustrating Shakspeare by the study of
writers of his own time. By following this track,
most of the difficulties of the author have been
overcome, his meaning (in many instances appa-
rently lost) has been recovered, and much wild
unfounded conjecture has been happily got rid of.
by perseverance in this plan, he effected more to
the elucidation of his author than any if not all
his predecessors, and justly entitled himself to
the distinction of being confessed the best editor
of Shakspeare.”
* Reed's Shakspeare, 21 vols. 8vo, 1803. Vol. 1, Ad-
vertisement, p. 3, 4. The last line of the following beau-
tiful epitaph on Steevens, by Mr. Hayley, will equally
apply to the memory of Johnson:
Peace to these ashes! once the bright attire
Of Steevens, sparkling with ethereal fire
Whose talents varying as the diamond's ray,
Could fascinate alike the grave or gay
How oſt has pleasure in the social hour,
Smil'd at his wit’s exhilarating pow'r?
And truth attested, with delight intense,
The serious charms of his colloquial sense;
His genius, that to wild luxuriance swell'd,
His large yet latent charity excell'd :
LIT ERA R Y Ll FF O N DIR. J. OHNSON, 387
To have framed the plan by which this excel-
lence was attained, is no trivial boast; yet a me-
rit equally conspicuous must be attributed to his
Preface, which is perhaps the most eloquent and
acute piece of dramatic criticism of which our
language can boast. The characteristic excellen-
cies of Shakspeare, his beauties and defects, are
delineated with powers of discrimination not easily
parallelled; and though the panegyric on his
genius be high and uncommonly splendid, his
faults are laid open with an impartial and un-
sparing hand. To the prose encomia of Dryden
and Addison on our unrivalled bard may be ad-
ded, as worthy of juxta-position, the following
admirable paragraph of our author, from this
preface, the conclusion of which is alike excellent
for its imagery and sublimity.
“As the personages of Shakspeare act upon
principles arising from genuine passion, very lit-
tle modified by particular forms, their pleasures
Want with such true beneficence he cheer'd,
All that his bounty gave his zeal endear'd.
Learning, as vast as mental pow'r could seize,
In sport displaying and with graceful ease,
Lightly the stage of chequer'd life he trod,
Careless of chance, confiding in his God!
This tomb may perish, but not so his name,
Who shed new lustre upon ShakspeaRE's fame!
388 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. J. O. HNSON.
and vexations are communicable to all times and
to all places; they are natural, and therefore
durable; the adventitious peculiarities of personal
habits are only superficial dyes, bright and pleas-
ing for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim
tinct, without any remains of former lustre; and
the discrimination of true passion are the colours
of nature; they pervade the whole mass, and can
only perish with the body that exhibits them.
The accidental compositions of heterogeneous
modes are dissolved by the chance that combined
them; but the uniform simplicity of primitive
qualities neither admits increase nor suffers de-
cay. The sand heaped by one flood is scattered
by another, but the rock always continues in its
place. The stream of time, which is continually
washing the dissoluble fabricks of other poets,
passes without injury by the adamant of Shak-
speare.”" .
To the noble passage distinguished by italics it
is probable that Dr. Wolcot was indebted for the
prima stamina of the following exquisite stanza,
which will ever hold a most elevated station
among the best poetical tributes to the genius of
the bard of Avon:
* Murphy's Johnson, vol. 2, page 89.
LITER A R Y LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON, 389
Thus, while I wond'ring pause o'er Shakspeare's page,
I mark, in visions of delight, the Sage
High o'er the wrecks of man who stands sublime;
A column in the melancholy waste,
(Its cities humbled, and its glories past,)
Majestic 'mid the solitude of time.*
Another peculiarity of considerable value at-
tending this edition of Shakspeare, is the critical
* For the following very elegant and fanciful descrip-
tion of the genius of Shakspeare, we are indebted to an
incident which is thus recorded by Dr. Beattie in a letter
to Mrs. Montagu. “You certainly know,” says the Doc-
tor, “that Garrick erected a statue of Shakspeare, in a
niche in the wall of the town-house, facing the street. As
a friend of mine was contemplating this statue, he saw,
perched on one of the hands, a dove, which at first he took
for an emblem, as the creature was quite motionless; but
which, in a little time, began to move, and scramble up-
wards, till it reached the bosom of the statue, in which, as
in its home, it nestled, with great appearance of satisfac-
tion. Charles Boyd, Lord Erroll's brother, has, I hear,
composed a little poem on the subject, of which I shall
send you a copy, as soon as I have seen the author. If
Mr. Garrick comes in your way before you leave England,
I am sure he will be pleased with this little narrative.”—
To this Mrs. Montagu replies in a letter dated September
3d, 1775. -
“I wish much to see the verses on the pretty incident
of the duve's alighting on Shakspeare's statue. Of what-
ever nature and disposition the animal had been, he might
have been presented as a symbol of Shakspeare. The gra-
vity and deep thought of the bird of wisdom; the sublime
390 LITERARY LIFE of D R. Johnson.
summary at the close of each play; this is drawn
up with much judgment and precision, and
usually displays a thorough acquaintance with
the writings and genius of the poet. The notes
too, though defective in that illustration which
has since been drawn from writers contemporary
with, or living near the period of Shakspeare, are,
with few exceptions, highly to be estimated for
acuteness in emendatory criticism, and for fre-
quent elucidation of apparent obscurity. Mr.
Malone, indeed, than whom no one has been more
diligent in his researches into whatever could tend
to familiarize the dramas of Shakspeare, has de-
clared, that “Johnson's vigorous and compre-
hensive understanding threw more light on his
author than all his predecessors had done.”
Much has certainly been done towards restor-
ing the purity of the text of Shakspeare, by pur-
suing the excellent scheme which our author laid
flight of the eagle to the starry regions and the throne of
Jove; the pensive song of the mightingale, when she shuns
the noise of folly, and soothes the midnight visionary; the
pert jackdaw, that faithfully repeats the chit-chat of the
market or the shop; the sky-lark, that, soaring, seems to
sing to the denizens of the air, and set her inusic to the
tone of beings of another region;–would all assort with
the genius of universal Shakspeare.”
Forbes's Life of Beattie, vol. 2, p. 113, 117.
* Reed's edition of Shakspeare, vol. 1, p. 491.
Lite R A R Y LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON. 39:
down for future annotators in 1756; but, though
I agree with Mr. Malone, that “when our poet's
entire library shall have been discovered, and the,
fables of all his plays traced to their original
source, when every temporary allusion shall have
been pointed out, and every obscurity elucidated,
then, and not till then, let the accumulation of,
notes be complained of;”” still I must contend,
that the vast bulk of the late editions has been.
unnecessarily increased by controversial notes,
which serve rather to shew the acuteness and
erudition of the commentator, than the simple
meaning of the text. Another source too of the
gigantic size which the works of the poet now dis-
play, has arisen from the admission of plays,
which, notwithstanding all their apparatus of an-
notation, no rational lover of Shakspeare would
wish to see included in the list of his compositions.
Why, in the name of common sense, should such
plays as Titus Andronicus and the First Part of
Henry the Sirth, which are now clearly ascer-
tained not to have a sentence of Shakspeare in
their composition, any longer be suffered to en-
cumber and to enhance the price of his genuine
productions • .
I would again inquire if any favour be con-
ferred on the public by the insertion of plays
* Reed's edition, vol. 1, p. 479.
392 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. J O II NSON.
among the works of this immortal bard which
were originally written by others, and which are
in themselves truly contemptible; but have been
attributed to Shakspeare merely because, in de-
ference to the wretched taste of the times, he
contributed to their ill-acquired popularity, by
the contribution of a score or two of lines or
phrases? In this predicament stand Love's La-
bour Lost, the Comedy of Errors, and Pericles
Prince of Tyre; productions which are a disgrace
to the name of Shakspeare, and which, could he
again start into existence, he would immediately
expunge from his works. The originals of these
miserable plays were, probably, according to the
custom of the theatre at that period, placed by
the manager in the hands of Shakspeare for the
purpose of slight amendment; I call it slight, for,
if from the first of these dramas about fifty lines
and the song at the close were withdrawn, nothing
indicative of the genius of Shakspeare would re-
main. The Comedy of Errors, which has been
partly taken, by some wretched playwright, from
the Menaechmi of Plautus, is still more intolera-
bly stupid: that it may occasionally display the
touch of Shakspeare cannot be denied; but these
purpurei panni are lamentably infrequent; and,
to adopt the language of Mr. Steevens, “that the
entire play was no work of his, is an opinion
LITE RA R Y LIFE of D R. Jo HN so M. 393
which (as Benedick says) fire cannot melt out of
me; I will die in it at the stake.’” ”
Of the play of Pericles Mr. Steevens has given
an opinion in which most of the readers of Shak-
speare will coincide. “This drama,” he observes,
“contains no discrimination of manners, (except
in the comic dialogues,) very few traces of original
thought, and is evidently destitute of that intelli-
gence and useful knowledge that pervade even
the meanest of Shakspeare's undisputed perform-
ances. Pericles, in short, is nothing more than a
string of adventures, so numerous, so inartificially 3.
crouded together, and so far removed from pro-
bability, that, in my private judgment, I must
acquit even the irregular and lawless, Shakspeare
of having constructed the fabrick of the drama,
though he has certainly bestowed some decora-
tion on its parts. Yet even this decoration, like
embroidery on a blanket, only serves by contrast
to expose the meanness of the original materials.
That the plays of Shakspeare have their inequali-
ties, likewise, is sufficiently understood; but they
are still the inequalities of Shakspeare. He may
occasionally be absurd, but is seldom foolish; he
may be censured, but can rarely be despised.”f
* Note on Comedy of Errors, Reed's edition, vol. 20,
p. 461, - .
t Reed's Shakspeare, vol. 21, p. 396, 397.
394 Lit FRARY L. F.E or DR. JOIINSON.
It would be adviseable, therefore, in every ſu-
ture edition of Shakspeare intended for general
use, to omit altogether the plays of Titus Andro-
nicus and Henry the Sixth, part 1st, and to col-
lect in a small Appendix, after giving an outline
of each fable, those few passages in Love's Labour
Lost, the Comedy of Errors, and Pericles, which
seem to have issued from the pen of Shakspeare.
On this plan we shall have no drama in the works
of our poet but what is either entirely of his
composition, or so greatly improved by his genius
as justly to be considered as his property, An-
other circumstance, likewise of great importance,
arising from this arrangement, will be, that we
shall then meet with no play in this collection
but what may be read with instruction and de-
light. It would be impossible, I think, to induce
any one but a commentator to peruse the plays
we propose to omit, a second time; and why,
under the circumstances which have been noticed,
they should be suffered, with all their parapher-
nalia of notes, to occupy nearly two octavo vo-
lumes of the last edition, the public, I think, has
a right to inquire.
Returning, however, to the consideration of
Johnson as an editor and a commentator, it may
be remarked, that his excellencies in this depart-
ment have long since atoned for his defects; and
I, ITERARY LIFE OF D R. Joli NSON. 395
with the exception of one attack, conducted very
illiberally and very virulently, by Dr. William
Kenrick, he had not much reason to complain of
the fate which attended his labours on Shak-
speare.
Shortly after this period our author removed to
a respectable looking house in Johnson's Court,
Fleet-street, where he again enjoyed the society
of Miss Williams, who had a room on the ground
floor, and was as usual attended upon by Mr.
Levett and his servant Francis. -
The year 1707 was rendered memorable to
Johnson by the opportunity which it afforded him
of a private conversation with his Majesty at
Buckingham House. The interview took place by
desire of the King, and unknown to our author,
who, being in the habit of occasionally visiting
the noble library at the Queen's Palace, was one
day surprized by the sovereign, whilst sitting by
the fire, intent on the perusal of a book. The
dialogue which ensued is equally honourable to
both parties; and the King complimented Johnson
on his writings in a style so handsome, that he
declared to Mr. Boswell that “it was fit for a king
to pay; it was decisive.” His Majesty having
inquired whether the Doctor meant to present the
public with any more productions, and being an-
swered by Johnson that he thought he had written
l
396 LITE RA R Y Lly E or DR. Jon N son.
enough; “And I should have thought so too,”
replied the King, “if you had not written so
well.” 2.
“During the whole of this interview,” says
Mr. Boswell, “Johnson talked to his Majesty
with profound respect, but still in his firm manly
manner, with a sonorous voice, and never in that
subdued tone which is commonly used at the le-
vee and in the drawing-room. After the King
withdrew, Johnson shewed himself highly pleased
with his Majesty's conversation and gracious be-
haviour. He said to Mr. Bernard (the librarian,)
‘Sir, they may talk of the King as they will; but
he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.’ And
he afterwards observed to Mr. Langton, “Sir, his
manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we
may suppose Lewis the Fourteenth or Charles the
Second.’” ” *
On the institution of the Royal Academy of
Arts, Johnson was honoured by an appointment
to the Professorship of Ancient Literature. This
promotion took place early in 1769, a year which
seems to have been dedicated by him to excur-
sive amusement, as he visited Oxford and Lich-
field in the summer, and Brighthelmstone in the
autumn. -
It is with some reluctance that, in consequence
* Life of Johnson, vol. 2, p. 41, 42.
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Joh Nson. 307
of the publication of his False Alarm in 1770, we
now turn to the consideration of Johnson as a
Po LITICIAN ; a province in which, notwith-
standing his talents and power of language, he
appears to little advantage. It will not be neces-
sary, however, to dwell long upon such an un-
grateful subject.
So early indeed as 1738 Johnson had been en-
gaged by Mr. Cave to revise the Parliamentary
Debates which were printed in the Gentleman's
Magazine from the notes and arrangement of
Guthrie; but in November, 1740, the entire task
devolved upon our author of composing the
speeches from the notes of persons employed to
attend the two houses, an engagement which he
continued punctually to fulfil for about three
years. The elegance and occasional energy of
the style of these debates, and the splendor of
their eloquence, have been much and justly ad-
mired. They occasioned, however, at a subse-
quent period of his life, much uneasiness to their
author, who deemed them a culpable deception
on the public. They were considered indeed as
genuine for many years, nor did the secret tran-
spire otherwise than by the confession of Johnson
himself, who one day dining at Mr. Foote's with
Mr.Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Loughborough,
Dr. Francis, (the translator of Horace,) Mr. Mur-
398 LITERARY LIFE OF D R. Jo HNso N.
º
phy, and other literary characters, an important
debate towards the end of Sir Robert Walpole's
administration being mentioned, Dr. Francis ob-
served, that “Mr. Pitt's speech on that occasion
was the best he had ever read.” He added, that
“he had employed eight years of his life in the
study of Demosthenes, and finished a translation
of that celebrated orator, with all the decorations
of style and language within the reach of his ca-
pacity; but he had mct with nothing equal to the
speech above-mentioned.” Many of the com-
pany remembered the debate; and some passages
were cited, with the approbation and applause of
all present. During the ardour of conversation
Johnson remained silent. As soon as the warmth
of praise subsided, he opened with these words:
“That speech I wrote in a garret in Exeter-
street.” The company was struck with astonish-
ment. After staring at each other in silent
amaze, Dr. Francis asked, “How that speech
could be written by him f" “Sir,” said Johnson,
“ I wrote it in Exeter-street. I never had been
in the gallery of the House of Commons but once.
Cave had interest with the door-keepers. He,
and the persons under him, gained admittance:
they brought away the subject of discussion, the
names of the speakers, the side they took; and the
order in which they rose, together with notes of
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh N son. 399
the arguments advanced in the course of the de-
bate. The whole was afterwards communicated
to me, and I composed the speeches in the form
which they now have in the Parliamentary De-
bates.” To this discovery Dr. Francis made an-
swer, “Then, Sir, you have exceeded Demos-
thenes himself; for to say that you have exceeded
Francis's Demosthenes, would be saying nothing.”
The rest of the company bestowed lavish encomi-
ums on Johnson: one, in particular, praised his
impartiality, observing that he dealt out reason
and eloquence with an equal hand to both par-
ties. “That is not quite true,” said Johnson;
“I saved appearances tolerably well; but I took
care that the W H IG Dogs should not have the
best of it.” ” -
This strong bias in favour of a party runs
through the whole of his political works, though
not so discernible in his early compositions of this
kind. In 1756 he contributed to the Literary
Magazine “An Introduction to the Political State
of Great Britain;” “Remarks on the Militia
Bill;” “Observations on his Britannick Majes-
ty's Treaties with the Empress of Russia and the
Landgrave of Hesse Cassel;” and “Observations
* Murphy's Essay on the Life and Genius of Johnson,
P. 44, 45–Johnson's Debates were collected in two vo-
lumes octavo by Mr. Stockdale,
400 LITERA RY LIFE OF DR. J O IINSON,
on the Present State of Affairs.” These all ex-
hibit along with his customary excellence of style,
an extensive field of political information and le-
gislative knowledge; but it was not until the pub-
lication of his False Alarm that he attracted the
attention of the public as a writer in support of
government. This once celebrated pamphlet was
written in justification of the conduct of minis-
ters, who attempted to prove that the expulsion of
a member of Parliament was equivalent to exclu-
sion; a doctrine upon which they had the auda-
city to act, by declaring the election of Colonel
Luttrel to be valid, although Mr.Wilkes had ob-
tained a decided majority of votes. . So flagrant
a violation of the right of election excited an un-
usual alarm throughout the kingdom ; and to dis-
sipate this, and prove it void of foundation, was
the Herculean task of our author, who, it is almost
unnecessary to say, completely failed in the un-
dertaking, though he exerted all his talents and
command of language in the cause. The coarse
abuse indeed, and the arbitrary sentiments which
he sometimes descends to adopt, reflect no credit
on his memory; and though, as coming from his
pen, it was read at the time with avidity, it may
now without any regret be resigned to oblivion.
The House of Commons, it should be remarked,
have since seen the folly of their intemperate
LITER A R Y LIFE OF DIR. J O HNSON. 401
attack on the constitution, and have rescinded the
resolution from their journals.
The political career of Johnson received no
check from the numerous aspersions on his cha-
racter which the opposite party took care to dis-
seminate. The year succeeding the publication
of his False Alarm, he printed Thoughts on the
late Transactions respecting Falkland's Islands,
8vo; the materials of which were furnished by the
ministry, and were intended as a defence of the
line which they pursued in their dispute with the
Court of Spain concerning the right of dominion
over those barren tracks. This ranks among the
most splendid of the compositions of Johnson, and,
though perhaps erroneous in a political light, will
be read with great pleasure by every friend to hu-
manity, as containing one of the most eloquent
dissuasives from offensive war. It comprises,
likewise, a severe and well-merited attack on the
character and writings of Junius.
The temporary celebrity which our moralist had
now acquired as a politician, induced his friend
Mr. Strahan to wish for his introduction in the
House of Commons. Well acquainted with his
predilection for government, and justly entertain-
ing a high idea of his oratorial powers, he con-
cluded that as a member of parliament he might
be of essential service to administration. He
WOL, IV. I) D
402 LITERARY LIFE OF DR., JOHNSON .
accordingly proposed the plan to one of the Secre-
taries of State; but, from some cause not hitherto
discovered, the application proved ineffectual.
On the return of a general election in 1774, in
which his friend Mr. Thrale had the unpleasant
prospect of a warm contest, Johnson again came
forward in the arena, and published a short pam-
phlet under the title of The Patriot ; addressed to
the Electors of Great Britain, 8vo. To define
what a Patriot is ; to expose the characters of the
opposition who arrogated to themselves the appel-
lation of Patriots; indirectly to defend the outrage
of the Commons with regard to the Middlesex
election; and to repel the claims of America, are
the objects of this address, which includes much
sophistry in argument, much asperity of language,
and much sarcastic contempt of his adversaries.
The production, however, which displays, in the
broadest light, the arbitrary principles, and party
zeal of Johnson, was published in 1775, and enti-
tled Taration mo Tyranny, an Answer to the Reso-
lutions and Address of the American Congress,
8vo. In this intemperate performance will be
found the most violent and unmerited abuse of
the Americans, who, he contended, though pos-
sessing a legislature of their own, ought to be
taxed by a British Parliament, in which they had
neither peers nor representatives; and in default
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON. 403
of consent to this reasonable proposition, he re-
commends the employment of force, “ such a
force as may take away, not only the power, but
the hope of resistance.”
With regard to this virulent philippic, even his
enthusiastic friend Mr. Boswell speaks in a tone
of decided reprehension; “ the extreme vio-
lence,” he says, “which it breathed, appeared to
me so unsuitable to the mildness of a christian
philosopher, and so directly opposite to the prin-
ciples of peace which he had so beautifully re-
commended in his pamphlet respecting Falkland's
Islands, that I was sorry to see him appear in so
unfavourable a light. Besides, I could not per-
ceive in it that ability of argument, or that felicity
of expression, for which he was, upon other
occasions, so eminent. Positive assertion, sarcas-
tical severity, and extravagant ridicule, which he
himself reprobated as a test of truth, were united
in this rhapsody.” +
For these high-toned ministerial pamphlets he
was severely censured by many respectable lite-
rary characters, nor was his situation as a pen-
sioner spared in the controversy. It does not
appear, however, that in writing these pamphlets,
notwithstanding the last was undertaken at the ex-
* Murphy's edition of Johnson, vol. 8, p.201.
f Life of Johnson, vol. 2. p. 321.
404 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Jo HNSON.
press desire of the ministry, he was delivering any
other than his own real sentiments; and it is
highly probable that, if he had never received a
farthing from government, and had voluntarily
engaged in the contest, he would have expressed
himself with the same vehemence and partiality.
As early as 1769, speaking of the Americans to
Dr. John Campbell, he exclaimed, “Sir, they
are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful
for any thing we allow them short of hanging.”.”
For rancour and abuse, for want of candour
and of justice, however, there can be no apology,
and it must be greatly regretted by every good
and wise man, that Johnson, whose pen had been
productive of so much moral excellence, should
ever be induced to dip it in party politics.t
By the publication, in 1775, of his Journey to
the Western Islands of Scotland, Johnson became
entitled to the appellation of a Tou RIST. This
excursion he undertook, in company with Mr.
Boswell, in the autumn of 1773; it had long
been an object of contemplation with him, and he
had for many years delighted to talk over the
intended route; his father, indeed, when he was
* Life of Johnson, vol. 2, p. 321.
+ Johnson published these Tracts in one volume 8vo,
in 1775, under the title of Political Tracts, by the author
of the Rambler.
. … --~~. ---------- -**----… . . . … v …º.º
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 405
very young, had put Martin's Voyage to St.
Kilda into his hands; with which he was so highly
pleased, that it is probable the wish of visiting
these remote islands then commenced.
He reached Scotland on the 18th of August,
and left it, on his return to London, the 22d of
November. He went by the way of Berwick
upon Tweed to Edinburgh ; where having passed
a few days, he prosecuted his route to the iIe-
brides, through St. Andrews, Aberdeen, Inverness,
and Fort Augustus. He then visited the isles of
Sky, Rasay, Col, Mull, Inchkenneth, and
Icolmkill, and, regaining the continent, travelled
through Argyleshire, by Inverary, and thence by
Lochlomond, Dumbarton, Glasgow, &c. to the
northern metropolis, where he again spent some
time before he finally quitted it for England.
The conversation which took place between
Johnson and the literati of Scotland, and the va-
rious adventures which occurred during this sin-
gular peregrination, have been recorded with
characteristic fidelity by Mr. Boswell, in his
“Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides;” a work
abundantly stored with amusement, and which
Mr. Courtenay has delineated in the following
just, though encomiastic lines: speaking of John-
son, he says, - -
406 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
With Reynolds' pencil, vivid, bold, and true,
So fervent Boswell gives him to our view:
In every trait we see his mind expand;
The master rises by the pupil's hand;
We love the writer, praise his happy vein,
Grac'd with the naiveté of the sage Montaigne.
Hence not alone are brighter parts display’d,
But e'en the specks of character pourtray'd :
We see the Rambler, with fastidious smile,
Mark the lone tree, and note the heath-clad isle;
But when th’ heroick tale of Flora charms,
Teck’d in a kilt, he wields a chieftain's arms:
The tuneful piper sounds a martial strain,
And Samuel sings, “The King shall have his ain.”
The very interesting narrative which Johnson
himself published of this Journey, in 1775, is very
deservedly esteemed a first-rate performance, and
a model for those travellers, who traverse a
country rather with a view of describing the man-
ners and literature of the people, than the ap-
pearance and natural productions of the territory.
Yet, though principally occupied during this tour,
in noting the progress of civilization, and in phi-
losophising on the various stages of society, he
has occasionally sketched the face of the country
with the pencil of a master, with touches that
would not have disgraced the genius of Ruysdale,
or Salvator Rosa. A passage taken from that
part of his journey, in which he passes from
Anoch to Glensheals, will bear ample testimony
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 407
to the truth of this encomium. Describing the
mountains of this wild and unfrequented region,
he remarks, .
“Of the hills, many may be called, with Homer's
Ida, abundant in springs, but few can deserve the
epithet which he bestows upon Pelion, by waving
their leaves. They exhibit very little variety;
being almost wholly covered with dark heath,
and even that seems to be checked in its growth.
What is not heath is nakedness, a little diversified
by now and then a stream rushing down the
steep. An eye accustomed to flowery pastures
and waving harvests, is astonished and repelled
by this wide extent of hopeless sterility. The
appearance is that of matter incapable of form or
usefulness ; dismissed by nature from her care,
and disinherited of her favours; left in its original
elemental state, or quickened only with one sul-
len power of useless vegetation.
“Regions mountainous and wild, thinly inha-
bited, and little cultivated, make a great part of
the earth; and he that has never seen them, must
live unacquainted with much of the face of na-
ture, and with one of the great scenes of human
€X1Stence, : .
“As the day advanced towards noon, we en-
tered a narrow valley not very flowery, but suffi-
ently verdant. Our guides told us, that the
408 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Jori Nso N.
horses could not travel all day without rest or
meat, and entreated us to stop here, because no
grass would be found in any other place. The
request was reasonable, and the argument cogent.
We therefore willingly dismounted, and diverted
ourselves as the place gave us opportunity. 3.
“I sat down on a bank, such as a writer of
romance might have delighted to feign. I had
indeed no trees to whisper over my head, but a
clear rivulet streamed at my feet. The day was
calm, the air was soft, and all was rudeness, si-
lence, and solitude. Before me, and on either
side, were high hills, which, by hindering the eye
from ranging, forced the mind to find entertainment
for itself. Whether I spent the hour well I know
not; for here I first conceived the thoughts of
this narration.”” N. §
“We congratulate the public,” say very ele-
gantly the Critical Reviewers of Johnson's Jour-
ney, “on the event with which this quotation
concludes, and are fully persuaded, that the
hour in which the entertaining traveller conceived
this narrative, will be considered, by every reader
of taste, as a fortunate event in the annals of
literature. Were it suitable to the task in which
we are at present engaged, to indulge ourselves in
a poetical flight, we would invoke the winds of
* Murphy's Johnson, vol. 8, p. 253, 254, 255,
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh NSON. 409
the Caledonian mountains to blow for ever,
with their softest breezes, on the bank where our
author reclined ; and request of Flora, that it
might be perpetually adorned with the gayest and
most fragrant productions of the year.”
That Johnson, long previous to the commence-
ment of his tour, was somewhat prejudiced against
the Scotch, cannot be denied; but that he has in
his narrative wilfully misrepresented their country,
their manners, and progress in civilization, no
impartial person will admit. He had observed,
indeed, with strong dislike, the peculiar nation-
ality of the Scotch; but he had likewise declared,
that “whenever he found a Scotchman to whom
an Englishman was as a Scotchman, that Scotch-
man should be as an Englishman to him.” In de-
scribing the face of the soil he has unintentionally
given great offence, by stating the simple truth
that it is bare of trees; a defect, which time, and
the taste and spirit of the present generation, will
in a few years remove; to the bold, the sublime,
and wild features of Caledonian landscape, he has
done abundant justice; * and, with regard to the
* The following exquisite picture of the Highlands of
Scotland, is from the pen of Dr. Beattie. “ The High-
lands of Scotland are a picturesque, but, in general, a
melancholy country. Long tracts of mountainous desert,
£overed with dark heath, and often obscured by misty
410 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
people, if we take into consideration his rooted
aversion to calvinism, and the numerous conveni-
ences to which he had been accustomed in a large
weather; narrow vallies, thinly inhabited, and bounded by
precipices, resounding with the fall of torrents; a soil so
rugged, and a climate so dreary, as in many parts to
admit neither the amusements of pasturage, nor the la-
bours of agriculture; the mournful dashing of waves along
the friths and lakes that intersect the country; the por-
tentous noises which every change of the wind, and every
increase and diminution of the waters, is apt to raise, in a
lonely region, full of cohoes, and rocks, and caverns; the
grotesque and ghastly appearance of such a landscape by
the light of the moon —Objects like these diffuse a gloom
over the fancy, which may be compatible enough with
occasional and social merriment, but cannot fail to tincture
the thoughts of a native in the hour of silence and soli-
tude.—Most of their superstitions are of a melancholy
cast. That second sight, where with some of them are still
supposed to be haunted, is considered by themselves as a
misfortune, on account of the many dreadful images it is
said to obtrude upon the fancy. I have been told, that
the inhabitants of some of the Alpine regions do likewise
lay claim to a sort of second sight. Nor is it wonderful,
that persons of lively imagination, immured in deep
solitude, and surrounded with the stupendous scenery of
clouds, precipices, and torrents, should dream, even when
they think themselves awake, of those few striking ideas
with which their lonely lives are diversified; of corpses,
funeral processions, and other objects of terror; or of mar-
riages, and the arrival of strangers, and such like matters of
more agreeable curiosity. Let it be observed also, that
,’
LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON . ,411
metropolis, we shall no longer wonder at his
occasional fretfulness and irritation. It should
never be forgotten, likewise, that to the hospi-
tality, the kindness and courtesy which he so
generally experienced on his route through the
Highlands, he has paid the most grateful ac-
knowledgments. -
Another source of invective, which he expe-
rienced from the publication of his travels, origi-
nated in his denial of the authenticity of the
Poems ascribed to Ossian. The enthusiasm of
the Scotch for their supposed epic poet, was, at
this period, at its height; and the scepticism of
Johnson, as it was likely to carry great weight,
and was expressed in his usual bold and un-
daunted manner, gave great offence. Mr. Mac-
pherson, in particular, was roused to the highest
pitch of resentment by the following paragraph:
“I believe,” says the tourist, “they (the Poems of
Ossian) never existed in any other form than that
which we have seen. The editor, or author, never
the ancient Highlanders of Scotland had hardly any other
way of supporting themselves, than by hunting, fishing, or
war, professions that are continually exposed to fatal acci-
dents. And hence, no doubt, additional horrors would
often haunt their solitude, and a deeper gloom overshadow
the imagination even of the hardiest native.”
Beattie on Poetry and Music, p. 169, 170, 171, 172,
173, 8vo edition.
412 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JoHNson.
could shew the original; nor can it be shewn by
any other. To revenge reasonable incredulity,
by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence,
with which the world is not yet acquainted; and
stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt.”
Macpherson had the folly to suppose that he
could stifle the just indignation of Johnson by
intimidation, and he accordingly sent him a let-
ter, in which he threatened, it is said, to have
recourse to corporal chastisement. Nothing
could, perhaps, be more indicative of conscious
guilt than this conduct; and nothing could more
decidedly prove his total ignorance of the charac-
ter and temper of his opponent, who replied to
him in the subsequent terms. *
“ MR. JAMES M A CPH ERSON,
“I received your foolish and impudent letter.
Any violence offered me I shall do my best to
repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law
shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred
from detecting what I think a cheat, by the me-
naces of a ruffian.
“What would you have me retract I thought
your book an imposture; I think it an imposture
still. For this opinion I have given my reasons
to the publick, which I here dare you to refute.
Your rage I deſy. Your abilities, since your
Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 4, 13
of your morals, inclines me to pay regard, not to
what you shall say, but to what you shall prove.
You may print this if you will. -
r “SAM. Jo HNson.”
This spirited defiance effectually cooled the
ardour of the editor of Ossian, more especially
when he learnt that Johnson had provided him-
self with an oaken stick, six feet in height, an
inch in diameter at the lower end, and three
inches near the upper, which was surmounted by
a head of the size of an orange; a weapon
calculated to make a durable impression when
wielded by the gigantic arm of our sturdy
moralist.
The opinion of Johnson as to the authenticity
of Ossian has gained ground with the public, and
there are now few unprejudiced persons who per-
sist in crediting the antiquity of these poems.
Whether ancient or modern, however, their merit
is certainly considerable; and our author deserves
no small portion of censure, for suffering contro-
versial asperity so far to blind him to their beau-
ties, as to declare, that “many men, many wo-
men, and many children, could have written
such poems.” - -
The year 1775 was likewise productive of
another event of much importance in his literary
* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 355.
414 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
life; in the month of March, the university of
Oxford, at the request of Lord North, conferred
on him the degree of Doctor in Civil Law by
diploma, accompanying it with the highest praise
of his writings and genius. With this dignity,
and with the mode of bestowing it, he was much
gratified, though, it has been said, he seldom
assumed the title.” .
In the September also of this year, he made a
tour to France with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, and
Mr. Baretti, the only time that he ever visited the
continent. This excursion occupied about two
months, and he preserved minutes of what he
saw, with an intention of one day presenting them
to the world in a revised and much augmented
state; an intention, however, which he never
found leisure to execute. *…
* “It is remarkable,” observes Mr. Boswell, “ that he
never, so far as I knew, assumed his title of IDoctor, but
called himself Mr. Johnson, as appears from many of his
cards or notes to myself; and I have seen many from him
to other persons, in which he uniformly takes that desig-
nation. I once observed on his table a letter directed to
him with the addition of Esquire, and objected to it as
being a designation inferior to that of Doctor; but he
checked me, and seemed pleased with it, because, as I con-
jectured, he liked to be sometimes taken out of the class of
literary men, and to be merely genteel—un gentilhomme
Gºlę unautre.” * +
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 415
A few months after his return from France, he
left his house in Johnson's Court, and took a
larger in Bolt Court, Fleet-street. Here he had
the enjoyment of a garden, and a larger space for
his books, which now amounted to five thousand
volumes, and occupied the upper floors of the
mansion. He continued also to amuse himself
with chemistry, and had here, and likewise at
Streatham, a laboratory and apparatus. #
The charity of Dr. Johnson, the most amiable
feature in his character, encreased in proportion
to his power; he not only accommodated Miss
Williams, in Bolt Court, with a room on the
ground floor, but he likewise appropriated an
apartment in his house for Mrs. Desmoulins, her
daughter, and a Miss Carmichael; allowing the
first of these ladies, the daughter of his god-father,
Dr. Swinfen, half-a-guinea a week. Indeed, no
object of distress or poverty ever left the presence
of Johnson, if it fell within his means, unrelieved.
In the year 1777, the compassion of our au-
thor was strongly excited by the miserable fate of
the Rev. Dr. Dodd, condemned to death for
forgery; a man who had been extremely popular
as a preacher, had written many theological
works, and had been peculiarly active in the en-
couragement of public charities. Void of all
economy, and latterly licentious in his manners,
416 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
he was induced, in order to prevent a disclosure
of his circumstances, to forge a bond, and falsify
the name of Lord Chesterfield, to whom he had
formerly been a tutor. In the hour of his distress,
he implored, through the medium of Lady Har-
rington, the assistance of Johnson, who, with his
customary benevolence, did all he could to save
him. He accordingly composed for him his
Speech to the Recorder of London; the Convict's
Address to his unhappy Brethren, a sermon; two
Letters, one to Lord Bathurst, and another to
Lord Mansfield; A Petition from Dr. Dodd to
the King; A Petition from Mrs. Dodd to the
Queen ; Observations on a Petition for mercy to
Dr. Dodd, signed by twenty thousand names; 4
Petition from the City of London; and Dr. Dodd's
Last Solemn Declaration.
When every application for the royal mercy
had failed, Dr. Dodd prepared himself for death
in a manner truly worthy of a christian, and at
midnight, on June 25th, about two days previous
to his execution, wrote the following affecting
farewel letter to Dr. Johnson.
“Accept, thou great and good heart, my ear-
nest and fervent thanks and prayers for all thy
benevolent and kind efforts in my behalf—Oh !
Dr. Johnson' as I sought your knowledge at an
early hour in life, would to heaven I had cultivated.
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 417
#
the love and acquaintance of so excellent a man!
I pray God, most sincerely, to bless you with
the highest transports, -the infelt satisfaction of
humane and benevolent exertions! And admit-
ted, as I trust I shall be, to the realms of bliss
before you, I shall hail your arrival there with
transports, and rejoice to acknowledge that you
was my comforter, my advocate, and my friend ?
God be ever with you !”
To this, on the next day, Dr. Johnson replied
in the subsequent impressive manner.
“TO THE REW. D.R. DODD.
“DEAR SIR,
“That which is appointed to all men is now
coming upon you. Outward circumstances, the
eyes and the thoughts of men, are below the no-
tice of an immortal being about to stand the trial
for eternity, before the supreme judge of heaven
and earth. Be comforted : your crime, morally
or religiously considered, has no very deep dye of
turpitude. It corrupted no man's principles; it
attacked no man's life. It involved only a tem-
porary and reparable injury. Of this, and of all
other sins, you are earnestly to repent; and may
God, who knoweth our frailty, and desireth not
our death, accept your repentance, for the sake
of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. * ,
“In requital of those well-intended offices,
vol. Iv. P. E. . . .
418 LITERARY LIFE or DR. JoHNson.
which you are pleased so emphatically to acknow-
ledge, let me beg that you make in your devo-
tions one petition for my eternal welfare. I am,
dear Sir, -
“Your affectionate servant,
“SAM. Jo HNso N.”
The part which Dr. Johnson took in behalf of
this unhappy man, is strongly indicative of the
great tenderness and goodness of his heart.
In the May of this year, our author entered
into an engagement, which has been productive
of the most interesting of all his labours, the Lives
of the English Poets; and in 1779, by the publi-
cation of the first four volumes of this work, he
immediately took his rank as the first CRITIC of
his nation. -
He had long previously, however, by many
detached pieces of criticism, independent of his
exertions as a biographer, lexicographer, and com-
mentator, given the world a very favourable idea
of his powers in this department, and, before we
enter upon the consideration of his Lives, it will
be necessary to take a cursory review of these
elegant, though less important, specimens.
His earliest production, in this pleasing branch
of literature, was published in 1740, in the Gen-
tleman's Magazine, and entituled, An Essay on
Epitaphs; in which he attempts to shew in what
1.1TERARY LIFE or DR. Joh Nso N. 419
the perfection of Epitaphs consists, and what rules
are to be observed in composing them.
In 1748, he prefixed an elaborate Preface to
Dodsley's Preceptor. It commences with general
observations on the importance of education;
then draws a masterly outline of the scope and
intention of the book; and lastly, enumerates and
describes its various subdivisions. The style is
easy and perspicuous, and the remarks such as
indicate an intimate knowledge of the subject.
The RAMBLER can boast of several very ex-
cellent critical papers, though not so numerous
as might have been expected from Johnson's pre-
dilection for this study. Nos. 36 and 37 discuss
the frequently-considered topic of Pastoral Poe-
try; and if nothing very original can be found in
these essays, they, at least, present us with a very
just and correct view of the subject. Our author
appears, indeed, to have entertained opinions on
the structure of the pastoral, very similar to those
which actuated Gesner in the composition of his
beautiful Idyls: “Pastoral admits of all ranks
of persons, because persons of all ranks inhabit
the country. It excludes not, therefore, on ac-
count of the characters necessary to be intro-
duced, any elevation or delicacy of sentiment;
those ideas only are improper, which, not owing
their original to rural objects, are not pastoral;”
420 LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNSON.
a definition which, if more attended to by our
poets, might soon remove the accusation of ser-
vile imitation, hitherto, with few exceptions, so
justly attached to this species of poetry.
N° 60, on the Dignity and Usefulness of Bi-
ography, is an eulogy, not exaggerated, on a spe-
cies of composition, which was deservedly a great
favourite with the author. Than literary biogra-
phy, indeed, if well executed, I know not a more
interesting, or more useful study.
Remarks on the Versification of Milton, oc-
cupy Nos. 80, 88, 90, 92, and 94; his elisions,
pauses, and adaptations of sound to sense, are
dwelt upon with minute discrimination, with
great candour, and great judgement. N° 93, on
the Prejudices and Caprices of Criticism; N° 106,
on the Vanity of authors, and the neglect of good
authors; and N° 121, on Imitation, possess much
curious and interesting discussion; this last paper
insists much on the folly and impropriety of imi-
tating the language and stanza of Spenser; the
obsolete words of this amiable poet, indeed, it
would be pedantry to attempt to revive; but who,
that has read the productions of Mickle and
Beattie, would wish the structure of the stanza of
Spenser, and the occasional use of his more pol-
ished diction, laid aside #:
The critique on the English Historians, in N*
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 421
122, is chiefly remarkable for an ill-founded
eulogium on the style of Knolles; which, so far
from meriting the appellations of pure, nervous,
elevated, and clear, has contributed, from its in-
tricacy and mal-construction, more than any
other circumstance, to cover his memory with
oblivion.
Our author again recurs to Milton in Nos. 139
and 140, where he has presented us with a review
of Sampson Agonistes; to this sublime drama,
however, he has done evident injustice, by assert-
ing, that it wants a middle, and that “ nothing’
passes betwen the first act and the last, that either
hastens or delays the death of Sampson.” Mr.
Cumberland, nevertheless, has most satisfac-
torily proved, that this middle part of the tragedy.
is occupied by incidents which directly conduce
to the catastrophe, and but for which it could
not have come to pass. To this able defence,
therefore, of the injured poet, I refer the reader.”
The seven following essays, which complete our
list of the critical papers of the Rambler, exhibit
little to which the most fastidious reader can ob-
ject; namely, N° 143, On the Criterions of Pla-
giarism; N°152, On Epistolary Writing; N°
156, On Dramatic Laws; Nº. 158, On the Fallacy
and Uncertainty of Critical Rules; N° 168, On
. . . * Wide Observer, No. 111. >
t
422 LITERARY LIFE OF Dr. Johnsox. '
the Debasement of Poetry by Mean Expressions;
N° 169, On Labour as necessary to Ercellence;
and N° 176, On the various Degrees of critical
Perspicacity. Elegance of style, and acuteness of
remark, characterize these as well as most of the
lucubrations of the Rambler.
Of the papers which our author contributed to
the Aove NTURER, there are but four that can
properly rank under the present head; N° 58,
On the Presumption of Modern Criticism; N° 92,
On the Pastorals of Virgil ; N° 95, An Apology
for apparent Plagiarism; and N° 137, On the
Utility of Authors. The critique on the Eclogues of
Virgil, is peculiarly discriminative and just; though
when he affirms of the second eclogue, that it
contains not “one affecting sentiment, or pleasing
description, or one passage that strikes the imagi-
nation, or awakens the passions,” it must be con-
fessed, that the severity of the critic, occasioned
probably by the unnatural passion alluded to in
that pastoral, has blinded him to the perception
of some very beautiful lines. *
The second volume of the IDLER includes not
less than twelve papers, the object of which is
criticism. N° 59 treats On the Cause of the neg-
lect of Books; N° 63, On the Progress of Arts
and Languages ; Nº. 65, On Posthumous Works;
N°66, On the Loss of Ancient Writings; N° 68,
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 423
and N°69, On the History of Translations; N°
70, On Hard Words; N977, On Easy Writing;
N°84, On the best Mcthod of writing Biography;
N° 85, On Compilations; N° 91, On the Suff-
ciency of the English Language; and N° 97, On
the Narratives of Travellers. - • ,
The Apology, in N* 70, for the use of Hard
Words, may be considered by the reader, as it
was certainly by Johnson himself, as a kind of
self-defence; and it may be added, that it is
satisfactory and well supported. “ They,” he
remarks, “that content themselves with general
ideas, may rest in general terms; but those whose
studies or employments force them upon closer in-
spection, must have names for particular parts, and
words by which they may express various modes
of combination, such as none but themselves have
occasion to consider.” -
The critical essays in the Idler, though brief,
and not so much elaborated as those that are
dispersed through the Rambler, display much
sound judgment, and preceptive acumen, in an
easy style of expression, and therefore please
more generally, and are better understood, than
more recondite observation, in more studied
periods. - - - -
We have related that Johnson, principally out
of friendship to Smart, was a contributor to the
424. LITERARY LIFE OF TR. JOHNSON.
Universal Visitor; and among these papers we
have to record two; a Dissertation on Pope's Epi-
taphs, which was afterwards appended to the
second volume of the Idler, and a Dissertation
on the state of literature and authors. Many
very ingenious remarks may be found in the first
of these contributions; but the criticism is too
minute, and sometimes trifling and fastidious.
To the Literary Magazine, which commenced
in May, 1736, our author sent twenty-five re-
views; many of these are very brief, but a
few may be selected, which are worthy of the
genius of the writer. Under the subject of
which we are at present treating, two of them
may be arranged, as very elegant and judicious
critiques; viz. the Review of Warton's Essays on
the Writings and Genius of Pope, vol. 1; and of
Blackwell's Memoirs of the Court of Augustus.
He likewise contributed to the Gentleman's Mag-
azine, a Review of Tytler's Vindication of Mary
Queen of Scots; to the London Chronicle, a Re-
view of Grainger's Sugar Cane, a Didactic
Poem ; and to the Critical Review, a Review of
Goldsmith's Traveller, and of Graham's Telema-
thus, a Masque.
But the volumes which, in this department,
from their striking features and extent, are best
entitled to our full consideration, are the “Lives
LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Jon Nson. 425
of THE ENGL1s H Poets;” a work that has ex-
cited a large portion both of praise and censure.
Before the appearance of this poetic biography,
little had been done to preserve the memory, or
illustrate the writings, of our bards. Shakspeare,
indeed, had been amply attended to ; but, beyond
the pale of the Drama, few of the cultivators of
English poetry had attracted due notice. The
catalogue, therefore, of those who preceded Dr.
Johnson will necessarily be short.
In the year 1675, Edward Phillips, the nephew
of Milton, published his “ Theatrum Poetarum,
or a complete collection of the Poets, especially
the most eminent of all ages; the ancients dis-
tinguished from the moderns in their several
alphabets.-With some observations and reflec-
tions upon many of them, particularly those of
our own nation.--Together with a prefatory
discourse of the poets, and poetry in general.”
The notices in this work are very short, and are
seldom productive of biographic incident; the
Prefatory Discourse is an essay of much taste
and merit.”
“The Lives of the most famous English Poets,”
by William Winstanley, which were published in
* A further account of the Theatrum Poetarum, will be
found in the second volume of my Essays on the Tatler,
Spectator, and Guardian, p. 135. .
426 LITERARY LIKE of DR. Johnson.
one volume 8vo, in 1687, are little more than
the characters of Phillips extended by common
biographic matter, and in a style of insufferable
vulgarity. t
Giles Jacob, in 1723, printed in two volumes
octavo, “The Poetical Register: or the lives and
characters of all the English poets, with an ac-
count of their writings.-Adorned with curious
sculptures, engraven by the best masters.” Of
this work, the second volume is devoted to the
dramatic poets, but the first, which is more
immediately our object, includes no less than two
hundred and seventeen names' Except in the
industry, however, of collecting together many
almost forgotten writers, it possesses little value.
To a Mr. Coxeter, a man well versed in old
English literature, and an industrious collector of
scarce books, we are indebted for many curious
materials for the biography of our poets. John-
son, when talking to Mr. Boswell of the propriety
of forming a collection of all the English Poets
who had published a volume of poems, added,
“that a Mr. Coxeter, whom he knew, had gone
the greatest lengths toward this ; having col-
lected about five hundred volumes of poets whose
works were little known; but that upon his death
Tom Osborne bought them, and they were dis-
persed; which he thought a pity, as it was curious
LITERARY LIFE or DR. JoHNson. 427.
to see any series complete; and in every volume
of poems something good may be found.” Mr.
Coxeter died in 1747; but the materials which he
had so laboriously amassed, were made use of in
a publication which appeared in 1753, in five vol-
umes duodecimo, under the following title:
“The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and
Ireland, to the time of Dean Swift.—Compiled
from ample materials, scattered in a variety of
books, and especially from the M1S notes of the
late ingenious Mr. Coxeter and others, collected
for this design. By Mr. Cibber.”
Dr. Johnson believed that Mr. Shiels, a Scotch-
man, and one of his amanuenses, was the sole
author of these lives ; and that the booksellers
imposed upon the public, by giving ten guineas to
Theophilus Cibber, that they might be allowed to
place Mr. Cibber on the title-page; by which
means, they were in hopes that the work would
be ascribed to the elder Cibber, and obtain, in
consequence, a rapid sale.” - -
This account, however, which our author con-
sidered as a fact, and has himself published in the
Life of Hammond, has been clearly disproved in
the Monthly Review for May, 1792; which in-
forms us, that “Shiels was the principal collec-
tor and digester of the materials for the work; but
* See Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 3, P. 29, 30, 31.
428 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON.
as he was very raw in authorship, an indifferent
writer in prose, and his language full of Scotti-
cisms, Cibber, who was a clever, lively fellow, and
then soliciting employment among the booksellers,
was engaged to correct the style and diction of
the whole work, then intended to make only four
volumes, with power to alter, expunge, or add, as
he liked. He was also to supply notes, occasion-
ally, especially concerning those dramatic poets
with whom he had been chiefly conversant. He
also engaged to write several of the Lives;
which (as we are told,) he, accordingly, per-
formed. He was farther useful, in striking out
the jacobitical and tory sentiments, which Shiels
had industriously interspersed, wherever he could
bring them in:—and, as the success of the work
appeared, after all, very doubtful, he was content
with twenty-one pounds for his labour, beside a
few sets of the books, to disperse among his
friends.-Shiels had nearly seventy pounds, be-
side the advantage of many of the best lives in the
work being communicated by friends to the
undertaking, and for which Mr. Shiels had the
same consideration as for the rest, being paid by
the sheet, for the whole. -
“As to the alleged design of making the com
pilement pass for the work of old Mr. Cibber,
the charges seem to have been founded on a
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Joh NSON. 429
somewhat uncharitable construction. We are
assured that the thought was not harboured by
some of the proprietors, who are still living; and
we hope that it did not occur to the first designer
of the work, who was also the printer of it, and
who bore a respectable character.
‘‘We have been induced to enter thus circum-
stantially into the foregoing detail of facts, re-
lating to the Lives of the Poets compiled by
Messrs. Cibber and Shiels, from a sincere regard
to that sacred principle of truth, to which Dr.
Johnson so rigidly adhered, according to the best
of his knowledge; and which, we believe, no con-
sideration would have prevailed on him to violate.
In regard to the matter, which we now dismiss,
he had, no doubt, been misled by partial and
wrong information: Shiels was the Doctor's
amanuensis; he had quarrelled with Cibber; it
is natural to suppose, that he told his story in his
own way; and it is certain that he was not “a
very sturdy moralist.” -
Cibber's Lives are not devoid of merit; they
communicate some traditionary information; are,
in point of style, tolerably correct; and embrace
two hundred and thirteen names, from the period
of Chaucer, to about the middle of the eighteenth
century.
Such were the productions on English Poetic
430 LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON.
Biography, before the era of Johnson; and it
must be allowed, I think, by every one conver-
sant with the subject, that very little had been
done, and that much more was required, in this
department.
The immediate origin of our author’s “Lives
of the Poets” must be ascribed, however, to the
booksellers, and has been circumstantially related
by Mr. Dilly, in a letter to Mr. Boswell. From
this account, it appears that the idea of an inva-
sion of their literary property, by the publication
of Martin and Bell’s small edition of the Poets,
occasioned a meeting of the principal booksellers
in London, who agreed to print an accurate and
uniform edition of the English Poets, from Chau-
cer to their own times; and, to secure the utmost
respectability to the plan, solicited Dr. Johnson
to write a concise narrative of the life of each
author. To this the Doctor very readily consented,
and, commencing the undertaking in his sixty-
eighth year, completed it in his seventy-second,
and in the year 1781.
Fortunately for the literary world, our biogra-
pher was induced to extend his original design,
and, instead of a meagre catalogue of dates, to
enter fully into the merits and defects of the pro-
ductions which fell beneath his notice. So sen-
sible were the proprietors of the great additional
*
Y. ITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON. 431
value arising from this deviation, that they volun-
tarily added one hundred pounds, to the two hun-
dred guineas which the Doctor had demanded.
It has been regretted, however, and, indeed,
it is somewhat singular, that the choice of the
poets for this publication should have been given
to the booksellers. Yet this regret will admit of
much abatement, when it is considered, that one
of the great prejudices of Johnson, in the execu-
tion of his “Lives,” has originated from an al-
most uniform endeavour to depreciate exalted,
and to elevate inferior, merit; and that to the
number of minor poets, minor in point of quality,
which the booksellers have introduced in this
collection, the Doctor chose to add the names of
Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden ' It is
probable, therefore, that had the selection been
left, as assuredly it ought to have been, to the
author of the lives, the multitude of poetasters
that now encumber the work, would not have
been materially diminished. It is surprising,
however, that Johnson did not object to this arbi-
trary conduct of his employers; for that he saw
the impropriety and humiliation of such submis-
sion, is evident from a passage in his twenty-first
Rambler; where, among the anxieties and incon-
veniences of literature, he enumerates one, as
arising from this very cause; “It very often
4.32 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
happens,” he says, “that the works of learning,
or of wit, are performed at the directions of those
by whom they are to be rewarded ; the writer
has not always the choice of his subject, but is
compelled to accept any task which is thrown
before him, without much consideration of his
own convenience, and without time to prepare
himself by previous studies.” *
It would be still more surprising, if we did not
advert to the unhappy tendency just mentioned
of our author's mind, that he should not, when
we consider the following paragraphs, insist upon
the omission of several names which now disgrace
his Poets. “The learned,” he remarks, “ often
bewail the loss of ancient writers, whose charac-
ters have survived their works; but perhaps, if
we could now retrieve them, we should find them
only the Granvilles, Montagues, Stepneys, and
Sheffields of their time, and wonder by what in-
fatuation or caprice they could be raised to no-
tice.”—“ It cannot, however, be denied, that
many have sunk into oblivion, whom it were
unjust to number with this despicable class.”
Surely had Johnson thus spoken of these writers
to the patrons of his edition, their instant rejec-
tion would necessarily have been the result.
The first intention of the booksellers was, as
'* Rambler, No. 106.
I,ITE RA R Y LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON, 433
we have seen by Mr. Dilly's letter, to com-
mence their catalogue of poets with Chaucer.
What could have induced them to drop this de-
sign, I know not ; but the consequence has been,
that by opening their collection with Cowley,
they have passed over several of the noblest poets
either of this or any other country; and the pub-
lic has lost the opportunity of witnessing the
great powers of Johnson employed on subjects
worthy of their most intense exertion, and where,
it is probable, the prejudices which disfigure so
many of his modern lives, would have had no
room to operate. -
Mr. Egerton Brydges, speaking of the first
volume of his new edition of Phillips's Theatrum
Poetarum, which closes with the year 1603, ob-
serves, that in it “are recorded more than one
hundred and sixty English poets, who lived pre-
vious to the period at which the booksellers in-
structed Dr. Johnson to commence his cele-
brated Lives; and among them are included
two names, whom one alone of all their successors
can rival. And surely it will not be denied, that
they who are unacquainted with the works of the
most eminent of those, of whom I have here
given an account, must have a very imperfect
idea of the compass, of the profuse and copious
WOL. I'v. F F
434 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Jori Nson.
fancy, of the energy, and the simplicity of En-
glish poetry.” -
The range therefore to which Johnson was so
unfortunately limited, from Cowley to Lyttelton,
included, with one or two exceptions, only the
modern poets, and extended to but fifty-two
lives; and yet of these lives, nearly one half may
be truly said to have little or no claim, in a po-
etical light, to distinction. “ Nothing,” remarks
Mr. Godwin, “can be more pernicious than the
opinion, which idleness and an incurious temper
alone have hitherto sufficed to maintain, that the
modern writers of verse in any country, are to be
styled the poets of that country. This absurdity
was never carried to a greater extreme than in
the book entituled Johnson's Lives of the most
Eminent English Poets. The first Poet in his
series is Cowley; and, if the title of his book were
properly filled up, it would stand, Lives of the
most Eminent English Poets, from the Decline of
Poetry in England, to the time of the Author.
The brilliant and astonishing ages of our poetry
are wholly omitted. Milton is the only author
in Johnson's series, who can lay claim to a true
sublimity of conception, and an inexhaustible
* Preface to his edition of Phillips's Theatrum Poeta-
tuña, p. 49, - . • . . .
I, ITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 435
storehouse of imagery. Pope is an elegant writer,
and expresses himself with admirable neatness
and compression : Dryden is a man of an ardent
and giant mind, who pours out his sentiments in a
fervour and tumult of eloquence, and imparts an
electricity of pleasure to every reader capable of
understanding his excellence. But it is not in
Dryden and Pope, in their contemporaries and
successors, that we are to look for the peculiar
and appropriate features of poetry, for that which
separates and distinguishes poetry from every
other species of composition. It is Spenser, it is
Shakspeare, it is Fletcher, with some of their
contemporaries and predecessors, who are our
genuine poets, who are the men that an English-
man of a poetical soul would gather round him,
when he challenges all the world, and stands up
and proudly asks, where, in all the ages of litera-
ture and refinement, he is to find their competi-
tors, and their rivals.”*
Several of the Lives of Johnson, however, not-
withstanding his inveterate political prejudices,
and his erroneous estimate of the excellence of
poetry, will always be held in high estima-
tion, for their vigour of expression, their occa-
sional acuteness of criticism, the knowledge of
* Godwin's Life.of Chaucer, 8vo edition, vol. 1, p. 391,
392, 393. - . . . . . .”
430 LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNson. -
life which they display, and the pure morality
which they ever inculcate. His indiscriminate
hatred of Whig principles; his detestation of
blank verse; his dislike of pastoral, lyric, and
descriptive poetry; his total want of enthusiasm;
and his perpetual efforts to veil the splendor of
genius, are frequently lost in the admiration which
the blaze and vigour of his intellectual powers so
strongly excite. This is, in fact, the work in
which the excellencies and defects of Johnson
are placed before the reader with their full pro-
minence; in which the lovers of philology and
biography, the friends of moral and ethic wisdom,
will find much to applaud; but in which also the
disciples of candour and impartiality, the votaries
of creative fancy, and of genuine poetry, will
have much to regret, and much to condemn.
The first volume of the “Lives of the English
Poets,” in Mr. Murphy's edition, contains four.
teen names, viz. Cowley, Denham, Milton,
Butler, Rochester, Roscommon, Otway, l'aller,
Pomfret, 1)orset, Stepney, J. Philips, IWalsh, and
Dryden. Of these, only two, Milton and Dry-
den, can claim the appellation of great poets; in
a secondary class, we may enumerate four, Cow-
ley, Butler, Waller, and Philips; but the remain-
ing eight merit no place either in this, or any
other selection. In making this remark, I must
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 437
be understood not to allude to the Dramatic pow-
ers of Otway, which, in the pathetic, are above
all praise. -
It is certainly desirable, both to the philolo-
gist, and the lover of poetry, to possess a collec-
tion, in which every poet, who has, in the sinall-
est degree, contributed to the progress of our
language, and the improvement of versification,
may be included; but a sclection for general
use, such as Johnson's was intended to be, should
exhibit only our best and most pleasing poets;
such, for instance, as display either considerable
sublimity, pathos, beauty, or wit. I should be
tempted, indeed, in a selection, to omit the name
of Cowley; for though his volumes abound in
what, in his days, was deemed wit, a more im-
proved age has discovered it to be worthless and
false; neither do I think that much regret would
be felt by any reader, if the mythological and in-
sipid love verses of Waller had no place in such
a work. -
Johnson's Life of Cowley, however, is one of
his most valuable pieces of biography; and par-
ticularly so, for his most able exposure of the
absurd mode of writing, to which the poets, at
the commencement of the seventeenth century,
were so unfortunately addicted ; a mode which
438 LITERARY LIFE OF D. R. JOHNSON,
#
happily not long survived the death of Cowley, its
last and greatest disciple.
The unconquerable bias, the vehement preju-
judices which jaundiced the mind of Johnson, are
very offensively prominent in his biography of Mil-
ton, whose public life he viewed with abhorrence,
and whose poetry he professed not to enjoy. He
who should judge of the character of Milton
from this Life, would conclude him to have been
not only unamiable, but that his breast was the
seat of the most violent and vindictive passions:
he who should look into it for an estimate of his
poetical worth, would be told that his “Paradise
Lost” is an object of forced admiration; that “it
is one of the books which the reader admires and
lays down, and forgets to take up again.” It is
true, that the critique on the “Paradise Lost,”
is one of the most splendid and eloquent passages
in criticism; but the encomium terminates in a
sentence which totally destroys the effect of the
previous eulogy.
It has been the lot of Milton to encounter im-
placable enemies, and enthusiastic friends; when
probably the mean would have given the true
character of the man. In saying this, I allude
merely to his political, moral, and domestic con-
duct; for of his poetical excellence, no encomium
rº
LITERARY LIFE of Dr. Joh Nso N. 439
can be sufficiently expressive. What a harsh,
what a gloomy and ferocious tinting, has Johnson
given to his portrait of Milton, in the two follow-
ing paragraphs it would seem rather intended
for a delineation of the “arch apostate” of the
poet. . -
“Milton's 'republicanism was, I am afraid,
founded in an envious hatred of greatness, and a
sullen desire of independence; in petulance im-
patient of controul, and pride disdainful of supe-
riority. He hated monarchs in the state, and
prelates in the church; for he hated all whom
he was required to obey. It is to be suspected,
that his predominant desire was to destroy, rather
than establish; and that he felt not so much the
love of liberty, as repugnance to authority.
“It has been observed, that they who most
loudly clamour for liberty, do not most liberally
grant it. What we know of Milton's character,
in domestick relations, is, that he was severe and
arbitrary. His family consisted of women; and
there appears in his books, something like a Turk-
ish contempt of females, as subordinate and infe-
rior beings. That his own daughters might not
break the ranks, he suffered them to be depressed
by a mean and penurious education. He thought
women made only for obedience, and man only:
for rebelſion.” #”
440 LITER A R Y LIFE OF DIR., JOHNSON.
A more striking contrast to this dark and hos-
tile colouring, cannot be produced than from the
pages of the very last biographer of our great
poet, who concludes his bold and ardent delinea-
tion in the subsequent terms:
“We have now completed the history of John
MILto N.—a man in whom were illustriously
combined all the qualities that could adorn, or
could elevate the nature to which he be-
longed;—a man, who at once possessed beau-
ty of countenance, symmetry of form, ele-
gance of manners, benevolence of temper, magna-
nimity and loftiness of soul, the brightest illumi-
nation of intellect, knowledge the most various
and extended, virtue that never loitered in her
career, nor deviated from her course;—a man,
who, if he had been delegated as the representa-
tive of his species to one of the superior worlds,
would have suggested a grand idea of the human
race, as of beings affluent in moral and intellectual
treasure-raised and distinguished in the universe,
as the favourites and heirs of heaven.” “.
I cannot here forbear inserting the very glow-
ing and highly-finished tribute which Dr. Sym-
mons has paid to the poems of Milton; a tribute
from which no true critic, however free from en-
thusiasm, would wish to subduct an atom:
*Symmons's Life of Milton, p. 526, 527.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 44.1
“Their reputation,” says he, “seems to be
still increasing; and we may venture to predict,
that it will yet increase, till some of those great
vicissitudes, to which all that is human is perpe-
tually exposed, and which all must eventually
experience, shall blot out our name and our lan-
guage, and bury us in barbarism. But even
amid the ruins of Britain, Milton will survive :
Europe will preserve one portion of him ; and
his native strains will be cherished in the ex-
panding bosom of the great queen of the Atlantic,
when his own London may present the spectacle
of Thebes, and his Thames roll a silent and soli-
tary stream through heaps of blended desolation.”
The Lives of Milton and Dryden fully devel-
ope Johnson's confined taste in poetry; he has
declared of Lycidas, that “surely no man could
have fancied that he read it with pleasure, had
he not known the author;” and he has termed
Comus “inelegantly splendid, and tediously in-
structive.” Dryden's very indifferent pocm on
the death of Mrs. Killigrew, he has been pleased
to call “the noblest ode that our language ever
has produced;” while the FABLEs, the most per-
fect and poetical production of the bard, he has
scarcely condescended to notice! In short, the
Doctor limited his ideas of excellence in poetry,
* Life of Milton, p. 81. #
:*
442 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
to ratiocination in harmonious numbers, a limita-
tion which has led him into manifold acts of in-
justice to the most exalted of our poets.
The second volume of Johnson's Lives, or the
tenth of Murphy's edition, embraces twenty-two
poets, viz. Smith, Duke, King, Sprat, Halifar,
Parnell, Garth, Rowe, Addison, Hughes, Sheffield,
Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Fenton, Gay, Gran-
ville, Kalden, Tickell, Hammond, Somerville, and
Savage; and yet how few among this list of
names merit to be rescued from oblivion, as
writers of miscellaneous poetry! Rowe and Con-
greve have obtained their fame entirely in another
sphere; and when we have enumerated Parnell,
Addison, and Prior, Gay, Tickell, and Somerville,
all that should be found in the pages of a selec-
tion will have been taken from the croud. The
Dispensary of Garth, as a local and satiric poem,
has enjoyed its day, but is now little capable,
from any intrinsic merit, of affording either plea-
sure or instruction. -
These twenty-two Lives are written, in general,
with sufficient impartiality, or freedom from pre-
judice; those of Addison and Savage are the
best; and the latter, as we have already observed,
a master-piece of biography. x
The succeeding volume of the Poets, however,
again presents us with marked specimens of our
LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON. 443
author's want of judgment, taste, and candour.
It includes sixteen bards; Swift, Broome, Pope,
Pitt, Thomson, Watts, A. Philips, ſest, Collins,
Dyer, Shenstone, Young, Mallet, Akenside, Gray,
and Lyttelton. Of these, eight might be spared,
namely, Swift, Broome, Pitt, Watts, Philips,
West, Mallet, and Lyttelton. In the bulky
verses of Swift, there is nothing that can touch
the heart, or exalt the imagination ; they are, for
the most part, either trifling, or disgustingly in-
delicate; and what merit they possess, arises
chiefly from the simplicity and ease of the lan-
guage and versification.
Of the poets whom we wish to omit, either in
this or the preceding volumes, all that is truly
valuable might be condensed in a couple of duo-
decimos; for instance, from the eight writers just
rejected, not more than half a dozen short poems
would be required, and among these, the Ballads
of Mallet, and the Monody of Lyttelton.
To the genius of Pope, of Thomson, and of
Young, Dr. Johnson has done ample justice; the
parallel between Pope and Dryden, and the po-
etical characters of Thomson and Young, are
written with the utmost felicity of language and
imagery. It is highly to be lamented, that with
several other very eminent poets in this volume,
he has pursued a very different plan; to Collins,
*
444. LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
to Dyer, to Shenstone, to Akenside, and Gray, he
has dealt forth little more than indiscriminate
censure; while his criticism on the odes of Gray
descends to absolute puerility.
With all the faults, however, which we have
pointed out in the critical biography of Johnson,
his Lives must nevertheless be esteemed, for their
frequent acuteness and vigour, a work truly great
and splendid. It may, indeed, be said, that what
chaff there is in them is so gross, so soon disco-
vered, and so easily separable from the wheat,
that little trouble is required, and the grain, when
thus cleansed, is of so pure and fine a texture, as
richly to compensate the labour of sifting; to
drop the metaphor, whatever injury the apathy
and prejudice of Johnson might, during his life-
time, and the prewalence of his popularity, inflict,
has been since completely obliterated, by a calm
and dispassionate public, which, naturally inclined
to take part with the oppressed, has fostered with
peculiar favour the objects of our author's criti-
cal persecution. -
The very defective catalogue of poets, to which
Johnson, through the direction of the proprietors
of his edition, was unfortunately limited, induced
some enterprising booksellers at Edinburgh to
publish, in the year 1792, a collection upon a
much more comprehensive plan. In this edition,
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 445
which now extends to fourteen volumes, large
octavo, printed in double columns, and in a very
small type, the biographical and critical prefaces
are the composition of Robert Anderson, M. D.
and place his talents for the undertaking in a
most respectable light. I cannot avoid wishing,
however, that, since this publication was intended
as a more complete and general collection of
British Poets than had hitherto been printed, it
was not more extensive, embracing the old Scotch,
as well as more of the old English, bards. It con-
tains, however, one hundred and fourteen authors,
and is carried down nearly to the year 1795, at
which period the thirteenth volume closed.
Of this copious collection, eleven volumes are
devoted to the original poets;
Vol. 1, contains
Chaucer. Carew. Davenant.
Wyat. Suckling. 5.
Surrey. 4. Milton.
Sackville. Donne. Cowley.
2. Daniel. Waller.
Spenser. Browne. Butler.
Shakspeare. Fletcher, P. Denham.
Davies. Fletcher, G. 6.
Hall. Jonson. Dryden.
3. Drummond. Rochester.
Drayton. Crashaw. Roscommon.
446 LITERARY Life of DR. Johnson.
Otway.
Pomfret.
Stepney.
Philips, J.
Walsh.
Smith,
Duke.
King.
Sprat.
Halifax.
7.
Parnell.
Garth.
Rowe.
Addison.
Hughes.
Sheffield.
Prior.
Congreve.
Blackmore.
Fenton.
Granville.
Yalden.
8.
Pope.
Gay.
Tickell.
. Somerville.
Pattison.
Hammond.
Savage.
Hill.
Broome.
Pitt.
Blair.
9.
Swift.
Thomson.
Watts.
Hamilton.
Philips, A.
West, G.
Collins.
Dyer.
Shenstone.
Mallet.
Akenside.
Harte.
1 O.
Young.
Gray. .
West, R.
Lyttelton.
Moore.
Boyse.
Thompson.
Cawthorne. . .
Churchill.
Falconer.
Lloyd.
Cunningham.
Green.
Cooper.
Goldsmith.
Whitehead, P.
Brown.
Shaw.
Armstrong.
11. -
Wilkie.
Langhorne.
Scott.
Dodsley,
Chatterton.
Bruce.
Graeme.
Glover.
Jago.
Grainger.
Smart.
Penrose.
Mickle.
Johnson.
Whitehead,W.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 447
Jenyns. Lovibond. Blacklock.
Logan. Cotton.
Warton, T. Smollet.
To have rendered this edition an entire body
of British Poetry, still a desideratum to the phi.
lologer and critical reader of poetry, the follow-
ing names should have been included; Langland,
Barbour, Gower, Lydgate, James I. Barclay,
Hawes, Dunbar, Douglas, Lyndsay, Skelton,
Maitland, Montgomery, Churchyard, Tusser, Gas-
coign, Marlowe, Turberville, Sydney, Watson,
Warner, Southwell, Raleigh, Quarles, H. King,
Herrick, Marvell, Oldham.
In a still greater degree, however, is a selection
wanted, which shall comprehend all the truly
genuine and first-rate British poetry, of ancient
and modern times, omitting all that has, or ap-
proaches to, the stamp of mediocrity. We have
seen that Johnson, having left out a very large
portion of our best poetry, has, in obedience to
the mandate of his employers, crouded his pages
with poetasters of the lowest order; and subse-
quent editors have been but too much inclined to
pursue a similar track. - --
In presenting my readers with the following
list for a selection, I have excluded all dramatic,
and all living authors. I have, likewise, arranged
my poets in three classes; in the first of which I
448 LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON.
have, for the only time, I believe, in a collection
of poetry, introduced the name of DUN BAR, a
poet, in language and versification superior, in
imagery, force of imagination, and humour equal,
to CHA UCER. Entertaining the idea, that mere
wit, and satire, are, in the scale of excellence, far
inferior to sublimity and pathos, I have placed
Butler and Prior, Gay and Green, Churchill and
Anstey, in the third class. A fourth might be
formed, which would be very productive in point
of names, but would include a large mass of
common-place matter ; instead, therefore, of :
printing the entire works of these poets, I would
preserve their very best parts, and form six
volumes of them, as an elegant appendix to
the edition.
I am conscious, that, as much depends upon
individual association, and consequent peculiarity
of taste, several objections may be made to this,
as to every other arrangement; yet the first class,
I think, will not require much revision, whatever
may be thought of the second and third.
FIRST CLASS,
Chaucer. Dryden. Young. Cowper.
Dunbar.” Pope. Gray.
Spenser. Thomson. Chatterton.
Milton. Collins. Burns.
* No complete or good edition of the works of this
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. 449
S ECON ID CLASS.
Sackville. Warton, Tho. Hole.
Glover. Smollet. Beattie.
Akenside. Grainger. White, Kirke.
Dyer. Mason. Moore, Henry.
Johnson. Jones, Sir Wm. Hurdis.
Goldsmith. Darwin.
TH IR. I.) C L A SS.
Surrey. Philips, John. Gay.
Drummond. Parnell. Tickell.
Butler. Prior. Somerville.
great poet, I believe, exists. “ Humour, description, alle-
gory,” says Mr. Pinkerton, “great poetical genius, and a
vast wealth of words, all unite to form the complexion of
Dunbar's poetry. He unites in himself, and generally sur-
passes, the qualities of the chief old Inglish poets; the
morals and satire of Langland; Chaucer's humour, poetry,
and knowledge of life; the allegory of Gower ; the de-
scription of Lydgate. * -
“The pieces of Dunbar, now published, would, with
those formerly in print, nake a considerable volume; and
I hope to be able, in time, to give a correct edition of The
Works of William Dunbar.” Ancient Scotish Poems, vol.
1, p. 94.
This edition, however, has not yet appeared. The tale
published by Mr. Pinkerton, in these volumes, and enti-
tuled The Freirs of Berwik, supposit To Be Writtin Be
Dunbar, is one of the best contrived and most humorous
narratives which I have ever read. It has been imitated,
but in a very inferior manner, by Allan Ramsay,
WOL, IW, G G ~.
450 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. J O HNSON.
Shenstone. Green. Mickle.
Blair. Bruce. Anstey.
Churchill. Shaw. Day.
Armstrong. Langhorne. Warton, Joseph.
Falconer. Scott. Smith, Charlotte.
Smart. Penrose. Mercer.
To this selection, which includes fifty-seven
poets, the appendir, to complete the design,
might be drawn from the following authors; and,
should the specimens be chosen with taste, a very
elegant and interesting miscellany would be
formed.
Douglas. Waller.
Gascoigne. Addison.
Sydney. Fenton.
Warner. Hammond.
Southwell. Swift.
Raleigh. Hamilton.
Drayton. Philips, Ambr.
Carew. The two Wests.
Herrick. Mallet.
Suckling. Lyttelton.
Browne. Moore, Edward.
Fletcher, Phin. Thompson.
Fletcher, Giles. Cawthorn.
Jonson. Ramsay.
Cowley.
Lloyd.
Cunningham.
F erguson.
Cooper.
The two White-
heads.
Brown, Moses.
Dodsley.
Graeme.
Jago.
Jenyns.
Logan.
Lovibond.
Cotton.
In the arrangement which I have now given,
LITERARY LIFE of Dr. JoHNso N. 45t
only seventeen of the fifty-two poets, in Johnson's
edition, are admitted, and forty new names are
added. There are, also, seventeen authors, not
to be found in the collection of Anderson.
The effect of the critical biography of Johnson
on the literary world, and on the public at large,
has been very considerable, and, in many re-
spects, beneficial. It has excited a laudable at-
tention to preserve the memory of those, who
have, by intellectual exertions, contributed to our
instruction and amusement; whereas, previous to
the appearance of our author’s “Lives,” biography,
with few exceptions, had been confined to military
and political characters; it has given rise, also, to
much discussion and research into the merits and
defects of our national poets; and the edition to
which it was annexed, has led the way to several
subsequent collections on an improved and more
extended scale. Among these, the editions su-
perintended by Dr. Aikin and Mr. Park, have
much claim to distinction.
With the “Lives of the Poets,” Johnson ter-
minated his literary career; but, as some post-
humous writings have been, on indisputable au-
thority, ascribed to him, it will be expedient t
consider them in this place. .
The publication of two volumes octavo, in the
year 1788, with the subsequent title, “LETTERs
452. LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joh NSON.
to and from the late SAMUEL JoHNson, LL.D.
To which are added some PoEMs, never before
printed. Published from the original MSS. in
her possession, By HESTER LYNCH PIozz1,”
brings our author to view as an EPISTOLARY
WRITER.
This correspondence, which is chiefly carried
on between the Doctor and Mrs. Thrale, (after-
wards Piozzi,) commences in the year 1765, and
only terminated with the death of the former.
From the general style of his writings, it was
not to be expected that Johnson would excel in
the structure of a familiar letter, a species of
composition which requires so much unaffected
ease and simplicity. The reader of this collec-
tion will, however, be agreeably surprised in the
discovery, that, although the style be still indi-
cative of the master's hand, it is apparently unla-
boured, free, pure, and flowing. As hath been
well observed by Mrs. Piozzi, “the good taste by
which our countrymen are distinguished, will lead
them to prefer the native thoughts, and unstudied
phrases, scattered over these pages, to the more
laboured elegance of his other works—as bees
have been observed to reject roses, and fix upon
the wild fragrance of a neighbouring heath.”
How accurately he could appretiate the mode
* Preface to the Letters, p. 4, and 5,
LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON, 453
in which a confidential letter should be written,
will fully appear from the following epistle to
Mrs. Thrale, dated Lichfield, October 27, 1777.
“Dear Madam, -
“You talk of writing and writing, as if you
had all the writing to yourself. If our corre-
spondence were printed, I am sure posterity, for
posterity is always the author's favourite, would
say that I am a good writer too.—Anch'io sons
pittore. To sit down so often with nothing to
say ; to say something so often, almost without
consciousness of saying, and without any remem-
brance of having said, is a power of which I will
not violate my modesty by boasting, but I do no
believe that every body has it. ... •
“Some, when they write to their friends, are
all affection ; some are wise and sententious;
some strain their powers for efforts of gaiety;
some write news, and some write secrets; but to
make a letter without affection, without wisdom,
without gaiety, without news, and without a se-
cret, is, doubtless, the great epistolick art. -
“In a man's letters, you know, Madam, his
soul lies naked; his letters are only the mirrour
of his breast; whatever passes within him, is
shown undisguised in its natural process; nothing
is inverted, nothing distorted; you see systems in
454 LITERARY LIFE OF DR , J OHNSON.
their elements; you discover actions in their
motives.
“Of this great truth, sounded by the knowing
to the ignorant, and so echoed by the ignorant to
the knowing, what evidence have you now before
you! Is not my soul laid open in these veracious
pages Do not you see me reduced to my first
principles This is the pleasure of corresponding
with a friend, where doubt and distrust have no
place, and every thing is said as it is thought.
The original idea is laid down in its simple purity,
and all the supervenient conceptions are spread
over it stratum super stratum, as they happen to
be formed. These are the letters, by which souls
are united, and by which minds, naturally in uni-
son, move each other as they are moved them-
selves. I know, dearest lady, that in the perusal
of this, such is the consanguinity of our intellects,
you will be touched as I am touched. I have in-
deed concealed nothing from you, nor do I expect
ever to repent of having thus opened my heart.
. “I am, &c.” -
In fact, the Letters of Johnson place him before
us stript of all disguise; they teach us to love as
well as to admire the man, and are frequently
written with a pathos and an ardour of affection,
which impress us with a much more amiable idea
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON, 455
of the writer than can be drawn from any portion
of his more elaborated works. I greatly regret,
that of the multitude of letters which our author
is known to have written, only those preserved by
Mrs. Piozzi, and a few scattered through the
biography of Boswell, can now be subjected to
our perusal. º
It has been remarked by many writers, and,
among the rest, by Johnson, though, I think,
without any just foundation, that this country is
not distinguished by excellence in epistolary com-
position. “It has happened,” he observes, “that
among the numerous writers which our nation
has produced, equal, perhaps, always in force
and genius, and, of late, in elegancy and accu-
racy, to those of any other country, very few
have endeavoured to distinguish themselves by
the publication of letters, except such as were
written in the discharge of publick trusts, and
during the transaction of great affairs; which,
though they afford precedents to the minister, and
memorials to the historian, are of no use as ex-
amples of the familiar style, or models of private
correspondence.”” -
At the period when this was written, we were
in possession of the Letters of Lady Russel, Pope,
Swift, and Lady Wortley Montague; and though,
- * Rambler, No. 152. º
456 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
probably, the productions of the two ladies, whe
separately considered, do not rival those of the
celebrated Marchioness de Sevigné; yet it may
be said with truth, that the letters of Russel ex-
hibit the tenderness of the amiable French wo-
man, and those of Montague her vivacity and
ease. Many of the letters of Pope have been
injured by elaboration, and the affectation of wit;
but there are several in the collection which are
free from these defects, and are truly valuable for
their spirit, and elegant simplicity. The letters
of Swift, too, are remarkable for their freedom
and perspicuity. - sº
To invalidate the opinion of Johnson, the pro-
duction of these writers would be sufficient; but
it is to some authors of very late date, that we
must appeal for the complete triumph of this.
country in epistolary composition. The names
of Gray, of Burns, and Cowper, will call to our
recollection, a series of epistles, which have no
superiors in modern Europe. With the letters of
Burns and Cowper, indeed, I know none, that
for ease and spirit, for sweetness and simplicity,
both in style and matter, can be placed in com-
petition. 3. . . . .
The remaining posthumous works of Dr. John-
son, namely, Sermons on different subjects, left for
publication by John T.aylor, LL.D. and published §
LITERARY LIFE or DR. JoHNson. 457
by the Rev. Samuel Hayes, A. M. two volumes
octavo ; and Prayers and Meditations, published
from his manuscripts, by George Strahan, A. M.
call upon us for the consideration of our author,
under the character of a THEO LoGIAN.
To these publications, in this department, we
may likewise add several religious papers in the
Rambler, and three reviews, in the Literary Maga-
zine, of Sir Isaac Newton's Arguments in proof of
a Deity; of Brown's Christian Morals ; and of
Jenyns's Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin
of Evil. The critique on Jenyns's Enquiry is a
most masterly disquisition, on a subject of great
metaphysical obscurity, and a complete refutation
and exposure of the weak and arrogant parts of
that singular production.
The Sermons, which are twenty-five in num-
ber, were part of the stock which Dr. Taylor car-
ried with him to the pulpit. As compositions,
they are little inferior to any of our author's best
works, and they inculcate, without enthusiasm or
dogmatism, the purest precepts and doctrines of
religion and morality. The last of the second vol-
ume was written for the funeral of his wife, and
under the expectation of its being delivered by
Dr. Taylor, who refused the office, declaring, that
he thought it too laudatory for the occasion; an
opinion, to which, probably, few of its readers will
458 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
assent; for there is nothing of unqualified praise in
this discourse, and it is, more than any other ser-
mon in the collection, remarkable for its solemn
and pathetic tone; it was written, indeed, between
the death and burial of Mrs. Johnson, and there-
fore with a warmth of feeling, and a fervour of
devotion, which a loss so great and recent might
be expected to impress.
From our author's acknowledgement to Mr.
Boswell, it appears that he had written various ser-
mons beside these presented to Taylor; and much is
it to be wished, from the value of those which we
possess, that the remainder, if still existing in
manuscript, were delivered to the press.
It is in the Prayers and Meditations of John-
son, however, that we become acquainted with
the inward heart of the man; he had left them
for publication, under the idea that they were
calculated to do good; and depraved, indeed,
must be that individual, who rises unbenefited
from their perusal.
The contrast between the languags of this
little volume, and the style of the Rambler, is
striking in the extreme, and a strong proof of the
judgement, the humility, and the piety of the
author. With a deep sense of human frailty, and
individual error, he addresses the throne of mercy
in a strain remarkable for its simplicity and
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Jo IIN son. 459
plainness; but which, though totally stripped of
the decorations of art, possesses a native dignity,
approaching to that which we receive from our
most excellent liturgy. The first prayer which
he has preserved, is dated September 10th, 1738,
and the last, December 5th, 1784, eight days
previous to his decease.
The “ Meditations” connected with these
Prayers correspond not with the title; they are, in
fact, little more than memoranda, and I wish that
many of them had been spared. They reveal,
however, the workings of his mind, his fears, his
apprehensions, and his sorrows; they reveal also,
what no human being is exempt from, many
singular weaknesses; but, as Mr. Murphy has
justly observed, “they are the weaknesses of a
good, a pious, and a most excellent man.”
To enter somewhat further, however, into the
theological opinions of Johnson, it will be neces-
sary to take a cursory review of his tenets, his
superstitions, and his piety.
He was, with some few speculative differences,
an orthodox churchman; but with a zeal perhaps
rather too ardent,” and with an inclination to-
wards the Roman Catholic religion. His belief in
the doctrines and statement of the Trinity,f the
* Wide Boswell's Life, vol. 1, p.470.
+ Ibid. Vol. 2, P. 256.
#
460 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
resurrection,” and vicarious punishments,t were
strictly conformable to the protestant creed.
He possessed, nevertheless, too much depth and
originality of reasoning, to submit implicitly to
the dictates of any church, where human opinion
was mingled with divine revelation; on subjects
of this kind, however, he was never dogmatic, but
communicated his ideas with awe and hesitation.}
His deviations from rigid protestantism, owe
their origin chiefly to his love of the marvellous
and mysterious, to his gloomy apprehensions rela-
tive to a future state, to his longing wish to know
with more certainty, the condition of the
dead hereafter, and to his ardent desire of more
extrinsic assistance toward the obtainment of sal-
vation. To this latter circumstance, we are prin-
cipally to attribute his bias to the church of
Rome. “A good man,” he has declared, “ of a
timorous disposition, in great doubt of his accept-
ance with God, and pretty credulous, might be
glad to be of a church where there are so many
helps to get to heaven. I would be a Papist if I
could. I have fear enough; but an obstinate
rationality prevents me. I shall never be a Pa-
pist, unless on the near approach of death, of
* Boswell’s Life, Vol. 4, 96. f Vol. 4, 127. *
# See his opinion on the eternity of punishment. Bos-
z well, vol. 3, p. 216.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 461
which I have a very great terror.”” His fears of
death, or rather of the consequences which might
result from if, appear to have been morbidly
great; “he never,” he told Mr. Boswell, “ had
a moment in which death was not terrible to
him.”f To be confident of acceptance hereafter,
would certainly be presumption; but such a
horror of futurity as Johnson entertained, was,
let us hope, never, in a state of perfect sanity,
known to haunt the mind but of enormous guilt;
and was, assuredly, in our great moralist, not the
consequence of moral turpitude, but of organic
infirmity. . - ..!
The idea of preserving a mysterious communi-
cation with, and exerting some influence over the
destiny of the departed, was cherished by John-
son with a species of awful delight. Hence his
inclination to the doctrine of purgatory, and his
belief in the utility of prayers for the dead. It
was highly consolatory to him, to suppose that a
kind of spiritual intercourse might be permitted
between the beings of this world and its former
inhabitants; and it is evident, from his devotions,
and occasional conversation, that he conceived a
mutual influence to exist between himself and
the spirit of his departed wife. Shortly after the
• Boswell's Life, vol. 4, p. 304.
• ? Boswell's Life, vol. 3, p. 167.
462 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
death of Mrs. Johnson, he commenced the habit
of recommending her to mercy in his prayers;
but always with a clause, which exhibits proof of
doubt in the propriety of the custom. “O
Lord, so far as it may be lawful for me, I com-
mend to thy fatherly goodness, the soul of my de-
parted wife : beseeching thee to grant her what-
ever is best in her present state, and finally to
receive her to eternal happiness.”” That he be-
lieved the benefit of intercession might be mutual,
appears from the following memorandum in his
diary. “This is the day on which, in 1752,
dear Tetty died. I have now uttered a prayer
of repentance and contrition; perhaps Tetty
knows that I prayed for her. Perhaps Tetty is
now praying for me. God help me.”
From these passages, it would seem that an
intermediate state, a state appropriated to ameli-
oration between death and final judgement,
formed part of the creed of Johnson; a quota-
tion from his Life by Boswell, will place his opi-
nion of this doctrine in a clearer light. Bos-
w ELL. “What do you think, Sir, of purgatory,
as believed by the Roman Catholicks "Jo HNson.
“Why, Sir, it is a very harmless doctrine. They
are of opinion, that the generality of mankind are
neither so obstinately wicked as to deserve ever-
* Prayers and Meditations, p. 14, 15, edition of 1806.
LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson. 463
lasting punishment, nor so good as to merit being
admitted into the society of blessed spirits; and
therefore that God is graciously pleased to allow
of a middle state, where they may be purified by
certain degrees of suffering. You see, Sir, there
is nothing unreasonable in this.” Boswell.
“ But then, Sir, their masses for the dead.”
Johnson. “Why, Sir, if it be once established,
that there are souls in purgatory, it is as proper
to pray for them, as for our brethren of mankind
who are yet in this life.” “
The same turn of mind which led him to the
adoption of a belief in purgatory, induced him to
give too much credence, perhaps, to the proba-
bility of the re-appearance of the departed. It
was his earnest wish to see, and to commune
with, some being who had passed the limits of
terrestrial life, who was granted to re-visit the
light of day, and to dissipate some portion of that
hitherto impenetrable gloom, which shrouds the
Secrets of the world to come. In his Itasselas,
he first explicitly gave his opinion on this mys-
terious subject: “that the dead are seen no
more,” he remarks, “.. I will not undertake to
maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried
testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There
is no people, rude or unlearned, among whom
* Vol. 2, P. 98,
464. LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
apparitions of the dead are not related and be-
lieved. This opinion, which perhaps prevails as
far as human nature is diffused, could become
universal only by its truth: those that never heard
of one another, would not have agreed in a tale,
which nothing but experience can make credible.
That it is doubted by single cavillers, can very
little weaken the general evidence; and some
who deny it with their tongues, confess it by their
fears.”* This bias towards a belief in supernatu-
ral agency, he indulged to the latest period of
his life; in 1778, when talking with Miss Seward
on the supposed appearance of a spectre to Mr.
John Wesley, he exclaimed, “Madam, this is a
question, which, after five thousand years, is yet
undecided; a question, whether in theology or
philosophy, one of the most important that can
come before the human understanding:” + and
in 1781, he observed to Mrs. Hall, that “a total
disbelief of apparitions, is adverse to the opinion
of the existence of the soul between death and
the last day.”f - - -
The comprehensive creed of Johnson, with re-
gard to spiritual agency, embraced likewise the
doctrine of demoniacal influence, and the now
- *Rasselas, chap. 30.
* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 3, p. 318;
# Boswell's Life, vol. 4, p. 96.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Jon Nson. 465
obsolete superstition of Witchcraft. In addition
to the passage on Johnson's belief of the existence
of witches, quoted from Mr. Boswell in page 291
of this volume, we have to relate, that at a party
in Edinburgh, where witchcraft was again in-
troduced, “Mr. Crosbie said, he thought it the
greatest blasphemy to suppose evil spirits coun-
teracting the Deity, and raising storms, for in-
stance, to destroy his creatures.—Johnson.
“Why, sir, if moral evil be consistent with the
government of the Deity, why may not physical
evil be also consistent with it? It is not more
strange that there should be evil spirits, than
evil men: evil unembodied spirits, than evil em-
bodied spirits. And as to storms, we know there
are such things; and it is no worse that evil
spirits raise them, than that they rise.”—Crosbie.
“But it is not credible, that witches should have
effected what they are said in stories to , have
done.”—Johnson. “Sir, I am not defending
their credibility. I am only saying, that your
arguments are not good, and will not overturn the
belief of witchcraft.—(Dr. Ferguson said to me,
(Mr. Boswell) aside, ‘He is right.') And then,
sir, you have all mankind, rude and civilized,
agreeing in the belief of the agency of preterna-
tural powers. You must take evidence: you
must consider, that wise and great men have
WOL. IV. H H - ->. -
466 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Johnson.
condemned witches to die.”—Crosbie. “But an
act of parliament put an end to witchcraft.”—
Johnson. No, sir, witchcraft had ceased, and
therefore an act of parliament was passed to pre-
vent persecution for what was not witchcraft.
Why it ceased we cannot tell, as we cannot tell
the reason of many other things.” " -
The principal argument of Dr. Johnson for
the existence of witchcraft and spectral appear-
ances is taken, we perceive, from the universality
of opinion in their favour; a mode of arguing,
however, which is as likely to protect error as to
enforce truth. What Dr. Aikin has advanced
upon this very subject, in his Letters to his Son,
appears to me so cogent and satisfactory, that I
shall beg leave to present a considerable portion
of it to my readers.
“That a great part of mankind,” he remarks,
“agree in giving credit to a thing, even though
it be somewhat which comes under their personal
observation, will be a very slight argument of its
truth, provided there be a manifest source of
error in the case, which is of a nature to operate
equally upon all. Thus, the once universal and
still common notion, that the earth is stationary,
while the sun and other luminaries move round
* Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edi-
tion, ps 33, 34.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 467
_*
it, is not in the least strengthened by the num-
bers who adopt it, since all have formed their be-
lief upon the very same testimony, that of their
senses, which is liable to the same error in all
as in one. The same may be asserted of the
supposition of a supernaturăl voice speaking in
thunder; of lightning being the weapon of an
angry Deity; of the place of future punishment
being a dark cavern under ground; and of vari-
ous other opinions, in which uniform associations
of ideas have occasioned uniform deductions.
—To apply this principle in the present case.
When mankind, from whatever causes, had ad-
mitted the belief of a state of existence continued
beyond the present life, they must have endea-
voured to form some conception of the mode of
that existence. Now, as the body lay before
their eyes, a lifeless mass, or was destroyed by
fire, corruption, or other material agents, they
must necessarily have had recourse to some sub-
stance of a rarer and subtler texture, which, es-
caping from this gross and perishable part, might
carry with it such impressed marks and qualities,
as would preserve the stamp of personal identity.
How metaphysical soever this process of think-
ing may appear, it must actually have been gone
through by the rudest peopſe, if they thought at
all on the subject. Further; that form and:
468 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
jigure were capable of being impressed upon
matter of much greater tenuity than their own
bodies, they must experimentally have known,
from the familiar instances of shadows, and the
reflexion of their image from water or mirrors.
In these cases they would plainly perceive, that
a something, resembling themselves, might, in
some measure, stand apart from their bodies.
“Thus, I conceive, it almost necessarily hap-
pened, that all nations formed similar ideas of the
corporeal attributes of those who had passed
through death without total extinction of being.
It was no longer gross body in which they were
clad : —that, it was manifest, was left behind.
But as, in thinking of the dead, it was impossible
to abstract from them shape, lineaments, looks,
and gestures, these properties were annexed to a
thin, airy, or shadowy body, which, while it
might be an object of sight, and perhaps of hear-
ing, was none to the touch.-
“This uniformity of conception respecting men
in another state of existence being established, it
is, I imagine, an easy step to the supposition of
their sensible appearance under such a form.
Reveries and dreams of the fancy in persons of
heated imaginations, are so extremely like re-
alities, that they are readily taken for such. A
mourning mother, filled with the vivid image of
f
LITERARY Life of Dr. Johnson. .469
her lost child, might easily, in the dark and silent
hours of night, when just sinking into disturbed
slumber, imagine that the beloved form actually
stood before her. The long-revered face of an
aged parent, might be fancied to clothe itself in a
visible garb of light, in order to console, admonish,
or inform the troubled and solitary child. Still
more readily, the murderer, appalled by con-
scious guilt, and in continual dread of an aven-
ger, might body forth the mangled corpse of the
slain, to upbraid him with terrific looks and
gestures for the bloody deed. All this appears to
me so perfectly natural, and so correspondent to
the universal history of the human mind, that I
only wonder so few persons, among those who
are thoroughly persuaded of the reality of appari-
tions, can be met with, who pretend themselves
to have been witnesses of them. And surely,
the gradual diminution of these supposed events,
now amounting in enlightened countries almost
to a total cessation, is a much stronger argument
against them, than the most general concurrence
in their belief among ignorant and credulous peo-
ple, can be in their favour.
In the deep windings of the grove, no more
The hag obscene, and grisly phantom dwell
Nor in the fall of mountain-stream, or roar
Of winds, is heard the angry spirit's yell;
No wizard mutters the tremendous spell,
470 LITERARY LIFE OF DIR. JOHNSON,
Nor sinks convulsive in prophetic swoon;
Nor bids the noise of drums and trumpets swell,
To ease of fancied pangs the labouring moon,
Or chase the shade that blots the blazing orb of noon.
Minstrel.
“Of the various superstitions which the poet
here represents as put to flight by Reason, some
have been nearly as universal as the belief of
apparitions of the dead; yet it will not, surely,
be now asserted of them, that they have ‘become
universal by their truth.”” º,
Whatever may be thought of the speculative
reveries of Johnson with regard to immaterial
agency, there can be but one opinion as to his piety,
sincerity, and, in the privacy of prayer, his tho-
rough humility and contrition. He had a per-
petual struggle against morbid sensation, consti-
tutional indolence, and strong appetites; and how
well he succeeded in the contest must be appa-
rent to all who shall view his life in the pages of
Mr. Boswell, or open his Prayers and Medita-
tions; if not a happy, he was, assuredly, a truly
good and pious, man.f -
We have now closed the literary career of
Johnson, and have only to record the few remain-
* Vol. 1, Letter 25.
t For instances of his extraordinary piety, see Boswell's
Life, vol. 2, p. 44 and 212; vol. 3, p. 100 and 101; and
vol. 4, p. 400 and 425.
LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON, 471
ing events which preceded his fast approaching
dissolution. They distinguish a period of suffer-
ing and of sorrow, in which, in rapid succession,
he lost many of his old and most valued friends.
Scarcely had he finished his “Lives of the Poets”
when death deprived him of Mr. Thrale, an
event which he has thus pathetically related.
“On Wednesday, “ May” 11, “ 1781,” was
buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on Wed-
nesday 4; and with him were buried many of
my hopes and pleasures. About five, I think,
on Wednesday morning he expired; I felt al-
most the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for
the last time upon the face that for fifteen years
had never been turned upon me but with respect
or benignity. Farewel. May God, that de-
lighteth in mercy, have mercy on thee!
“I had constantly prayed for him sometime
before his death. -
“The decease of him, from whose friendship
I had obtained many opportunities of amuse-
ment, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a
refuge from misfortunes, has left me heavy.
But my business is with myself. >
“My first knowledge of Thrale was in 1765.
I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of
my life.”
*Prayers and Meditations, p. 159, 160.
472 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
The year succeeding the decease of Mr.
Thrale, brought with it a deprivation almost as
great as he had experienced from the loss of that
worthy man. On January 17th, 1782, about
seven in the morning, died, by an almost in-
stantaneous death, his old and faithful friend
Levett. The verses with which he has honoured
his memory will, as long as the language in which
they are written shall endure, best speak the
grateful tenderness, the durable affection of our
author's heart. >
At Streatham Johnson soon perceived that he
was no longer welcomed with the cordiality to
which he had formerly been accustomed; his
visits, therefore, were less frequent, and on the
6th of October of this year, he took a final
leave of this once hospitable villa and its inhabi-
tants. His correspondence, however, with Mrs.
Thrale did not cease until July the 8th, 1784; a
few days before which date she had become,
much against his wishes and advice, Mrs. Piozzi.
“What you have done,” he says in his farewell
epistle, “however I may lament it, I have no
pretence to resent, as it has not been injurious to
me: I therefore breathe out one sigh more of
tenderness, perhaps useless, but at least sincere.
“I wish that God may grant you every bles-
sing; that you may be happy in this world for its
I, ITERAR Y LIFE OF DIR. J O II NSON. 473
short continuance, and eternally happy in a
better state ; and whatever I can contribute to
your happiness I am very ready to repay, for
that kindness which soothed twenty years of a
life radically wretched.—
—“The tears stand in my eyes.”
In the mean time disease had pressed heavily.
upon his frame ; besides an asthmatic complaint
for which he had been bled frequently, he was
occasionally afflicted with the gout, endured for
some months considerable pain from a sarcocele,
and on the 17th of June, 1783, suffered a para-
lytick stroke, which for some hours deprived him
of his powers of speech. From these formidable
attacks, however, such was the strength of his
constitution, he rapidly recovered. A few
months annihilated all traces of the palsy, the
sarcocele disappeared without an operation, and
the gout and asthma, though not entirely re-
moved, were greatly mitigated.
In consequence of this amendment he was
able to partake of the advantages of change of air,
and made tours into Kent and Wiltshire, on visits
to his friends Mr. Langton and Mr. Bowles. It
was during his residence at the house of Mr.
Bowles that he was informed, by Dr. Brock!esby,
of the death of Mrs. Williams, a loss which he
* Johnson's Letters, vol. 2, p. 375, 376. -
474. LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
now more severely felt, as she was the last but
one of his domestic companions.
To console himself for these home depri-
vations, he instituted early in December, 1783,
a new Evening Club at the Essex Head, in Essex-
street, the master of which was an old servant of
Mr. Thrale’s. The members met thrice a week,
and the absentees forfeited three-pence per night.
His returning complaints, however, precluded
much enjoyment from this social plan; towards
the end of the year he was seized with a most
violent fit of spasmodic asthma, which was soon
followed by dropsical swellings of his legs and
thighs, that encreased rapidly, but suddenly sub-
sided in the February following, in consequence
of a most profuse and unexpected evacuation.
After this fortunate event he again rallied, and
during the summer of 1784 visited Oxford,
Lichfield, and Birmingham. He had also enter-
tained a wish, from the hope of assistance in
warmth of climate, to visit Italy; an inclination
in which he was not only supported, but even
anticipated, by the kindness of his friends, who,
considering his pension as not adequate to the ex-
penses incident to such a journey, had applied
to the minister through the medium of Lord
Chancellor Thurlow, for an augmentation of
two hundred pounds per annum. The Chancellor
LITERARY LIFE OF D R. JOHNSON. 475
exerted himself to the utmost in the affair, but
without success; and, on its failure, generously
came forward to supply Johnson with a loan of
five hundred pounds; this, together with an offer
of an hundred per annum, during his Italian
Tour, from his amiable physician, Dr. Brocklesby,
he declined. Of his gratitude, however, for the
zeal and affection of his friends, the letter which
he wrote to the Chancellor, and the following
passage from Mr. Iłoswell, just after the applica-
tion had been made, are striking proofs.
Boswell. “I am very anxious about you, sir,
and particularly that you should go to Italy for
the winter, which I believe is your own wish.”
Johnson. “It is, sir.” Boswell. “You have no
objection, I presume, but the money it would re-
quire.” Johnson. “Why, no, sir.”—Upon which
I gave him a particular account of what had
been done, and read to him the Lord Chancellor's
letter.—He listened with much attention; then
warmly said, “this is taking prodigious pains
about a man.”—“O! sir, (said I, with most sincere
affection,) your friends would do every thing for
you. He paused,—grew more and more agi-
tated,—till tears started into his eyes, and he
exclaimed with fervent emotion, “God bless you
all.” I was so affected that I also shed tears.—
After a short silence, he renewed and extended
476 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Jo HNso N.
his grateful benediction, “God bless you all, for
Jesus Christ's sake.” We both remained for some
time unable to speak.-He rose suddenly and
quitted the room, quite melted in tenderness.””
Having taken a tender, and, as he justly appre-
hended, a last farewel of his friends in Stafford-
shire, Johnson returned, by the way of Oxford,
to London, and reached the Capital on the six-
teenth of November.
Both the asthma and dropsy had, for several
weeks before his arrival in town, threatened him
with a serious return, and he was, soon after that
event, seized with a most violent and alarming
paroxysm. His attachment to literature, how-
ever, still continued as strong as ever; he amused
himself, during his restless nights, in translating
from the Greek into Latin Verse several Epi-
grams in the Anthologia, and sent to Mr. Nichols
a Catalogue of the Authors of the Universal
History, with an account of their respective
shares in that arduous undertaking; a piece of
information which he had derived from Mr.
Swinton, one of the most laborious writers of the
work, and which he now requested Mr. Nichols
to deposit in the British Museum. -
All that could be effected by the powers of me-
* Life of Johnson, vol. 4. p. 351, 352.
LITERARY LIFE of DR. JoHNson. 477
dicine was assiduously procured for him, and he
had the diligent and gratuitous attendance of
Drs. Heberden, Brocklesby, Warren, Butter, and
Mr. Cruikshank. His constitution was, however,
too much broken to admit of any thing but pallia-
tives, and he therefore prepared for death with
firmness and resignation. His apprehensions of
dissolution, which had so frequently embittered
his hours of comparative health, ceased with his
hope of recovery, and his last days were com-
posed, and apparently exempt from all despon-
dency.
In the week previous to his decease, he burnt
all his papers and letters; of the latter “those
written by his mother drew from him a flood of
tears, when the paper they were written on was,
all consumed. Mr. Sastres saw him cast a melan-
choly look upon their ashes, which he took up
and examined, to see if a word was still legible.”*
Among his papers we have to regret the loss of
two quarto volumes, “ containing a full, fair, and
most particular account of his own life, from his
earliest recollection.t. A fragment, however, if
not of this work, of another written by Johnson
with the title of Annals, has been preserved and
* Johnson's Letters, vol. 2. p. 383.
t Boswell's Johnson, vol. 4. p. 434.
478 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
published; it extends but to his eleventh year,
and is, consequently, of little value.” -
The period was now at hand, when this great,
this good and pious man was destined to ex-
change the sorrows and anxieties of this feverish
world, for a more pure and perfect state of being.
On the evening of the 13th of December, 1784,
and in the 75th year of his age, he expired so
calmly, that the persons who were sitting in the
room only knew that he had ceased to breathe -
by the sudden failure of the sound which had
for some days accompanied his respiration.
His remains were deposited in Westminster
Abbey, adjoining the tomb of Garrick; they
were attended to that venerable pile by most of
his friends, and by many of the members of the
Literary Club. Over the grave, at his own re-
quest, was laid a large blue flag stone with the
following inscription, º
SAMUEL Joh Nso N, LL.D.
Obiit xiii die Decembris
Anno Domini -
M. D. C C L XXXI Ve
AEtatis suae Lxxv.
* It is entitled, “An Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel
Johnson, from his Birth to his Eleventh Year, written by
himself. To which are added, original Letters to Dr.
Samuel Johnson, by Miss Hill Boothby. From the MSS.
11ter ARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 479
A subscription for a cenotaph to his memory
in St. Paul's Cathedral was, soon after his death,
commenced by the Literary Club. The friends
and admirers of Johnson hastened to contribute
their support; and on February 23d, 1796, it was
Aopened to the public curiosity. This monument,
which was executed by Bacon, at an expence of
eleven hundred guineas, exhibits a colossal
figure of the Moralist leaning against a column;
and beneath is the following classical and appro-
priate epitaph from the pen of the Rev. Dr. Parr:
A R. Q
SAMVELI " JOHNSON.
- GRAMMATICO " ET " CRITICO #
scRIPTORUM ANGLIcoruM. LITTERATE • PERITo
PoETAE • LUMINIBUs sentBNTIARUM
ET * PONDERIBUS VERBORUM " ADMIRABILI
MAGISTRO “ VIRTUTIS • GRAVISSIMO *
nomini optiMo: Et singularis' exempºr
QUI vix1T - ANN Lxxv MENs Il DIEB xIIIl
DECESSIT * IDIB DECEMBR • ANN CHRIST. Clo locC* LXXXIIIl
SEPULT * IN AFD "SANCT * PETR • WESTMONASTERIENS.
xiil' KAL. JANUAR ANN' christ' clo' locc Lxxxv
× AMICI ET * sold ALEs LITTERARII.
Pecunia • conLATA
H - M - FAciund curAver.
preserved by the Doctor; and now in possession of
Richard Wright, Surgeon; Proprietor of the Museum of .
Antiquities, Natural and Artificial Curiosities, &c. Lich-
field, 12mo, 1805. - - 3.
480 LITERARY LIFE of DR. Johnson.
In a transept, or recess, near the South door
of the Cathedral Church of Lichfield, a bust has
been, likewise, erected to his memory, with this
Inscription on the sarcophagus beneath:
The Friends of
Samuel Johnson, LL. D.
A native of Lichfield,
Erected this Monument,
To the Memory of
A man of extensive learning,
A distinguished moral writer, and
A sincere Christian,
He died the 13th of December, 1784,
Aged 75 years.
From the narration which we have now given
of the studies and pursuits of Dr. Johnson, his
literary character will, I trust, be accurately ap-
preciated; in order, however, to present the sub-
ject under one view, it will be necessary to con-
tract the picture, and to exhibit a retrospective
miniature of his mind and its productions. -
It cannot be affirmed of Johnson, that his erudi-
tion was either very profound, or very extensive;
he was an excellent Latin scholar, but his know-
ledge of Greek was neither copious nor intimate.
With French and Italian he was grammatically
well acquainted, but spoke neither with facility.
His reading, however, was vast and various,
though desultory, and his memory was of pro-
Ltter ARY LIFE of DR. JoHNSON. 481
digious strength. But his great characteristic was
uncommon vigour and logical precision of intel-
lect, which, combined with a keen and penetrating
judgment, and with a varied and close acquaint-
ance with the different classes of mankind, ena-
bled him to display, from the sources of his own
mind, and independent of books, such a compre-
hensive view of his subject, such accuracy of
perception and lucidity of discrimination, as
threw light upon every question, however intri-
cate, and proved the best of all practical guides
in the customary occurrences of life.
To the possession of these inestimable qua-
lities, in a degree seldom, if ever, exceeded, was
added such a masterly intimacy with his native
language, such a promptitude and precision in its
use, that his conversation, which abounded like-
wise in wit and humour, had all the force, the
elegance, and arrangement of the best written
page.
Yet the style which he adopted as an author
was polished with great care and corrected with
indefatigable attention. It has beauties of pecu-
liar lustre, and defects which are very apparent;
but it has, upon the whole, greatly contributed,
and more than the style of any other writer, to
the correctness, the dignity, and harmony of
English composition.
WOL. I. V. I It
482 LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson.
To much knowledge of the sciences of natural
and experimental philosophy he had few preten-
sions; but he possessed the most valuable of all
the arts in full perfection, “the art of thinking,
the art of using his own mind,” the most difficult
of all acquisitions. His mind too was stored
with an exhaustless fund of imagery, which has
rendered his prose, if not his poetry, in a very
high degree rich and splendid. -
After this brief summary of the general cha-
racter of his mind, let us recapitulate the various
channels into which its efforts were directed.
As a PoET he cannot claim a station in the
first rank. He is a disciple of Pope; all that
strong sentiment, in nervous language and har-
monious metre, can effect, he possesses in a high
degree. We may further affirm, that his London,
his Vanity of Human Wishes, his Prologue on the
Opening of Drury-Lane Theatre, and his Stanzas
on the Death of Levet, will never die.
To excellence as a BIBLIoGRAPHER he had
many pretensions; strength of memory, an insa-
tiable love of books, and a most extraordinary
facility in acquiring an intimacy with their con-
tents. What he has produced in this department
is not of much extent, but it is well performed.
His merits as a BiographER are so prominent
as to be beyond all dispute. His Lives of Savage,
-
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 483
of Cowley, of Dryden, and of Pope, are master-
pieces, which, in many respects, can fear no
rivalry. An intimate acquaintance with the
human heart, and the most skilful introduction
of moral and monitory precept, combine to ren-
der many of his productions under this head un-
speakably valuable to the dearest interests of
mankind. It must not be concealed, however,
that they are occasionally deformed by his pre-
judices, his aversions, and his constitutional
gloom. -
In his character as an Ess A Y1st, though
essentially different in mode from, he ranks next
in value to, Addison. He lashes the vices rather
than ridicules the follies of mankind; and his wit
and humour are, by no means, so delicate and
finely shaded, as those of his predecessor. In
force, in dignity, in splendour of eloquence; in
correctness of style, melody of cadence and
rotundity of period; in precision of argument, -
and perspicuity of inference, he is much superior
to the author of the Spectator; but, on the other
hand, he must yield the palm in ease and sweet-
ness, in simplicity and vivacity. The three great
faults, indeed, of Johnson as an Essayist, are, a
style too uniformly laboured and majestic for the
purposes of a popular essay, a want of variety
in the choice of subject, and in his survey of
484. LITERARY LIFE OF DR, JOHNSON.
human life, a tone too gloomy and austere,
too querulous and desponding. The Rambler is,
however, notwithstanding these defects, a work
that, in vigour of execution, and comprehensive-
ness of utility, will not easily be paralleled; it is,
in fact, a vast treasury of moral precept, and
ethic instruction. .
The reputation of Johnson as a PIIILo LoGER
appears to be somewhat on the decline. The
attention which has been lately paid to Lexico-
graphy has laid open many omissions and defects
in his Dictionary; but it should be considered,
that a work of this kind must necessarily be de-
fective; and that with our author rests the sole
merit of having chalked out a plan, which, if not
filled up by his own execution, must, there is every
reason to think, be closely followed by his emu-
lators, to attain the perfection at which he aimed.
When we consider Johnson under the appella-
tion of a Nov ELLIST, it is impossible not to regret
that Rasselas is the only work on which he can
properly found a claim to the title. Yet we
must add, that if in beauty of imagery, sublimity
of sentiment, and knowledge of men and man-
ners, too much praise cannot be given to this
philosophic tale, it is obligatory on us to confess
that it is greatly deficient in two essential quali-
fications of a legitimate novel, plot and incident.
LITERARY LIFE or DR. Johnson. 485
Rasselas indeed is merely the vehicle of the
author's opinions on human life, and which, we
are sorry to remark, partake of the same gloom
which darkens the pages of the Rambler.
A very few lines will sketch our author's preten-
sions to the honours of a CoMMENTAton. The
plan of his edition of Shakspeare has been much
and justly admired; and no greater proof can be
given of its excellence, than that every subsequent
annotator has pursued the path which he had
laid open. He was himself, however, too indo-
lent, and too deficient in the very line of reading
which he had recommended for the illustration
of his bard, to carry his own instructions into
effect; his edition, therefore, though it has been
the parent of the best that we possess, is now of
little value. -
Not much, I am afraid, can be said in favour of
our author as a Politici AN. He was at one
time a most furious Jacobite, and his tenets at
all times with regard to legislation were vehe-
ment, confined, and partial; so arbitrary, indeed,
as to be frequently repugnant to the spirit of the
British Constitution. He was, however, a high-
flown Tory on principle; and his political pam-
phlets, though deficient in candour, display con-
siderable subtlety in point of argument, and,
much energy and perspicuity of style.
480 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. Joli Nson.
With a few deductions for prejudices which
he had early imbibed, his merits as a Tou R1st
will appear great and unclouded. His object
was to analyse and compare men, manners, and
modes of life; and his volume is at once elegant,
philosophic, and ingenious.
That he is entitled, in the most honourable
sense of the term, to the appellation of a CRITIc,
those who shall merely peruse his Preface to
Shakspeare, and his Lives of Cowley, Dryden, and
Pope, will not probably deny. Since the days of
Quintilian, indeed, no better specimens of criti-
cism than these have been given to the world.
How highly is it to be lamented then, that, prose-
cuting the study of his “Lives,” we find the
residue for the most part tinctured and deformed
by relentless prejudices; by party-zeal and un-
feeling dogmatism; by a spirit systematically
hostile to received opinion, and unfriendly to con-
temporary merit. With all these defects, how-
ever, and they are strikingly prominent, great
has been the benefit derived to elegant literature,
from the publication of his Critical Biography.
It has established an era in the Republic of
Letters; it has set an example in this country,
which has been assiduously followed, of recording
the events attendant on the lives, the studies, and
publications of literary men; and it has given birth
LITERARY LIFE or DR. JoHNson. 487
to a widely extending taste for critical disqui-
sitions. - -
From the usual tenour of his style it was not
to be expected that our great moralist would-
excel as an Epistol A R Y WRITER. The letters
of Johnson, however, though sometimes not en-
tirely free from his customary elaboration, are,
in general, graceful, easy, and perspicuous. They
fully develope the character of the man; some
are gloomy, some pathetic and beautifully moral,
others lively, domestic, and interesting. If they
cannot be said to rival the letters of Cowper,
yet will they still take their station among the
best epistolary collections in our language. e
The opinions and principles of the Doctor
as a THEOLOGIAN are chiefly to be gathered
from his conversation, as preserved by Mr.
Boswell, and from his prayers. He appears from
these to have been a zealous High-churchman,
with a strong bias towards some of the Roman
Catholic tenets. His piety and devotion were
warm and sincere; and his prayers, the language
of which is altogether plain, simple, and una-
dorned, teach us, that his faith, his humility, and
gratitude, were great. From an ardent desire of
further evidence with regard to the state of the
departed, he was solicitous to ascertain the possie
bility of the re-appearance of the dead. His
488 LITERARY LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON.
anxiety on this subject rendered him superstitious,
though not credulous; for he was, in a very extra-
ordinary degree, minute and cautious in examin-
ing the supposed proofs, and was, more than
once, instrumental in detecting their fallacy, and
exposing the arts of imposture. To many of his
Sermons much praise is due for their perspicuity
of style, their felicity of illustration, and their
sound practical morality.
We may, indeed, close this summary, with the
affirmation, that, if Addison be excepted, no wri-
ter of the eighteenth century can be said to have
contributed so highly, so copiously, and so perma-
Inently, to the improvement of our literature and
language as Johnson. Whether considered as a
BIOGRAPHER, an Ess A YIST, a LExico GRA-
PHER, or a CRITIc, he is alike entitled to the
gratitude of his country and of mankind.”
* There were two works that Johnson had long wished
to carry into execution, and which, if health had been
allowed him, would most probably have seen the light;
namely, a Translation of Thuanus, and a Life of Oliver
Cromwell. -
APPENDIX, No. 1.
-º-
Though all the works upon which the reputa-
tion of Dr. Johnson rests, have been amply no-
ticed in the preceding Life; yet many small fugi-
tive pieces, such as Prefaces, Dedications, Intro-
ductions, Proposals, &c. &c. have been purposely
omitted. To give a catalogue of these will afford
proof of the Doctor's versatility of talent, and of
his readiness to oblige those who petitioned for
his assistance.
So altogether temporary or local, however, are
the chief of these contributions, that to introduce
them in a regular edition of our author's produc-
tions, would be to most readers uselessly to en-
hance its bulk. To record that they have existed,
is sufficient for our present purpose.
1738. Preface to the Gentleman's Magazine. . .
1739. Address to the Reader of the Gentleman's
Magazine.
Appeal to the Public in behalf of the
Editor. # 4.
Considerations on the case of Dr. Trapp's
Sermons. -
1740 Preface to the Gentleman's Magazine.
490
APPEN DIX.
1741.
1742.
1743.
1744.
1748.
1751.
1753.
1756.
Preface to the Gentleman's Magazine. ,
Abridged Debate on the Humble Petition
and Advice of the Rump Parliament to
Cromwell.
Translation of Abbe Guyon's Disserta-
tion on the Amazons.
Preface to the Gentleman's Magazine.
Essay on the Account of the Conduct of
the Duchess of Marlborough.
Foreign History for the Gentleman's Mag-
azine. .
Preface to the Gentleman's Magazine.
Advertisement for Osborne concerning the
Harleian Catalogue.
Dedication to Dr. Mead of James's Medi-
cal Dictionary.
Preface to the Gentleman's Magazine.
Foreign History for the Gentleman's
Magazine.
Dedication to the Earl of Middlesex of
Mrs. Lennox's Female Quixotte.
Dedication to Lord Orrery of Mrs. Len-
nox's Shakspeare Illustrated.
Preliminary Address to the Literary Mag-
azine. - *
Dedication and Preface to Payne's Game
of Draughts.
A PPEN DIX. * 491
1700.
1762.
1768.
1773.
1775.
1776.
Address of the Painters to George the
IIId, on his Accession to the Throne.
Dedication of Baretti's Italian and English
Dictionary. -
Introduction to the Proceedings of the
Committee for Cloathing the French
Prisoners. -
Dedication to the King of Dr. Kennedy's
System of Astronomical Chronology.
Preface to the Catalogue of the Artist's
Exhibition.
Dedication to the Earl of Shaftesbury of
Roger Ascham's English Works.
Dedication to the Queen of Hooie's Tasso.
Account of the Detection of the Impos-
ture of the Cock-Lane Ghost.
Dedication to the King of Adams's Trea-
tise on the Globes.
Preface to Macbean's Dictionary of Anci-
ent Geography. :
Proposals for publishing the Works of
Mrs. Charlotte Lennox.
Preface to Baretti's Easy Lessons in
Italian and English.
Proposals for publishing an Analysis of
the Scotch Celtick Language, by the
Rev. William Shaw.
492 APPEN DIX.
1777. Dedication to the King of the Posthumous
Works of Dr. Pearce.
1780. Advertisement for Mr. Thrale to the
Worthy Electors of the Borough of
Southwark.
The Prefaces and Introductions not included
in this catalogue, have been, as of superior im-
portance, noticed in the Life of our Author.
APPENDIX, No. 2.
* ºne-
Tur very important station which Johnson had
filled in the world of Letters, and the high cha-
racter which he had uniformly sustained, both as
a man and as a scholar, combined to render his
decease an object of long-continued regret and
literary commemoration. His every word, and
every action, have been recorded with unprece-
dented minuteness, and his works have been re-
peatedly published. . To offer a list of these
Memoirs, and of the best editions of his writings,
is the object of this appendix. The former may
be divided into Sermons, Poems, Sketches, Anec-
dotes and Lives.
Sermons. A Sermon preached before the Univer-
sity of Oxford on his Death, by the
Rev. Mr. Agutter.
Tribute to his Memory by Dr. Fordyce,
in his “Addresses to the Deity.”
12mo. 1785. S :-
Poems. “Elegy on the Death of Dr. Johnson,”
< by Samuel Hobhouse, Esq. 4to.
1785. - 3
“Poetical Review of the Moral and
494 APPEN DIX.
Literary Character of Dr. Johnson,”
by John Courtenay, Esq. M. P. 4to.
1788. -
Sketches. “Biographical Sketch of Dr. Johnson,”
by Thomas Tyers, Esq. in the Gen-
tleman's Magazine, 1784. -
“Essay on the Life, Character, and
Writings of Dr. Johnson,” by Joseph
Towers, LL.D. 8vo. 1786. -
Character of Dr. Johnson, by Dr.
Horne, Bishop of Norwich, in the
Olla Podrida, N° 13. 1787.
“Two Dialogues; containing a Com-
parative View of the Lives, Charac-
ters, and Writings, of Philip the late
Earl of Chesterfield, and Dr. Samuel
Johnson,” 12mo. 1787.
“The Journal of a Tour to the Hebri-
des, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D.”
by James Boswell, Esq. 8vo. 1785.
Anecdotes. Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, by Mrs.
Piozzi, 8vo. 1785. -
Lives. “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.
by Sir John Hawkins, 8vo. 1787.
“Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.” by
James Boswell, Esq. 2 vol. 4to.
1791. and since repeatedly in 4 vol. .
8vo, , - -
APPEN DIX. '495
“An Essay on the Life and Genius of
Samuel Johnson, LL.D.” by Arthur
Murphy, Esq.
“The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.
With Critical Observations on his
Works,” by Robert Anderson, M. D.
The minute, and, sometimes, trivial, anecdotes
with which a few of these productions abound,
have given rise to some pleasant ridicule from
the pens of Colman and Dr. Wolcot. An Ode,
the production of the first of these gentlemen,
we shall transcribe for the amusement of our
readers.
A Posthumous Work of S. Johnson. An Ode.
April 15, 1786.
1
St. Paul's deep bell, from stately tow'r,
Had sounded once and twice the hour,
Blue burnt the midnight taper;
Hags their dark spells o'er cauldron brew’d,
While Sons of Ink their work pursu’d,
Printing the Morning Paper.
2.
Say Herald, Chronicle, or Post,
Which then beheld great Johnson’s Ghost,
Grim, horrible, and squallid?
Compositors their letters dropt,
Pressmen their groaning engine stopt,
And Devils all grew pallid.
496
APPEN DIX.
3.
Enough the Spectre cried; Enough f
No more of your fugacious stuff,
Trite Anecdotes and Stories ;
Rude Martyrs of SAM. Johnson’s name,
You rob him of his honest fame,
And tarnish all his glories.
- 4.
First in the futile tribe is seen
ToM Ty ers in the Magazine, \
That teazer of Apollo !
With goose-quill he, like desperate knife,
Slices, as Vauxhall beef, my life,
And calls the town to swallow.
5.
The cry once up, the Dogs of News,
Who hunt for paragraphs the stews,
Yelp out Johnson IANA |
Their nauseous praise but moves my bile,
Like Tartar, Carduus, Camomile, -
Or Ipecacuanha.
6. -
Next Boswell comes (for 'twas my lot
To find at last one honest Scot)
With constitutional vivacity,
Yet, garrulous, he tells too much,
On fancied failings prone to touch,
With sedulous loguacity.
At length—Job’s patience it would tire—
Brew'd on my lees, comes THRALE’s Entire,
Straining to draw my picture;
For She a common-place-book kept,
Jon Nson at Streatham din’d and slept,
And who shall contradict her?
APPEN DIX. 497
8.
Thn ALE, lost 'mongst Fidlers and Sopranos,
With them play Fortes and Pianos,
Adagio and Allegro !
I lov’d THRALE’s widow and THRALE’s wife;
But now, believe, to write my life
I’d rather trust my Negro."
9.
I gave the Public works of merit,
Written with vigour, fraught with spirit;
Applause crown'd all my labours:
But thy delusive pages speak
My palsied pow'rs, exhausted, weak,
The scoff of friends and neighbours.
r 10,
They speak me insolent and rude,
Light, trivial, puerile, and crude,
The child of Pride and Vanity;
Poor Tuscan-like Improvisation
Is but of English sense castration,
And infantine inanity.
11.
Such idle rhymes, like Sybil's leaves,
Kindly the scattring wind receives;
The gath’rer proves a scorner.
But hold ! I see the coming day ! .
—The Spectre said, and stalk'd away
To sleep in Poet's CoRNER.t
* His Black Servant.
f Colman's Prose on several Occasions, accompanied by
seme Pieces in Verse, 3 vols. 12mo, 1787.
vol. Iv. K. K.
498 APPEN DIX,
Of the EDITIONs of the Works of Johnson
the two principal are by Sir John Hawkins and
Mr. Murphy. Sir John's appeared in 1787, in
eleven volumes 8vo; and four volumes more
were at different periods subsequently added.
The collection was hasty and indigested, and
several pieces were included decidedly not the
productions of Johnson. The Life too was
bulky, inelegant, and full of irrelevant matter.
In consequence of these defects, another edi-
tion was brought forward in 1792, under the su-
perintendance of Arthur Murphy, Esq. which oc-
cupies twelve volumes in octavo, with the Essay
on the Genius and Writings of Johnson prefixed.
It has passed through the press several times: a
proof that the public is satisfied with the arrange-
ment and execution; the former of which is chro-
nological, and the latter correct and elegant.
We must, notwithstanding, declare, that no
complete edition of the Works of Johnson has
yet been published; not one in which his “Pray-
ers and Meditations,” his “Letters,” and his
“Sermons,” are included. It is true, that Mr.
Murphy has given us a few of his Prayers and a
few of his Letters; but they ought, as best unfold-
ing the heart of the man, to have been published
APPENDIX, - 499
entire: he has also omitted his “Sermons,” and
his “ Fountains, a Fairy Tale.””
When these shall have been added, all that is
necessary will probably have been done; for the
catalogue which we have given in Appendix, N°
I, and the “ Debates in Parliament,” are, with
perhaps one or two exceptions, of a nature too
local and temporary to admit of republication,
and the “Dictionary” should always be a separate
work.
* I allude to the edition of 1801.
E N D OF WO L. iV,
J. Seeley, Printer, Buckingham.