THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 
 BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 
 G. BIRKBECK HILL
 
 <U D'liTi 3 DT! a 
 
 Jew J; vi-, Harper ^ Bivtiiers
 
 Bo SWELL'S 
 
 Llfe of Johnson 
 
 INCLUDING BOSWELVS JOURNAL OF A TOUR TO THE HEBRIDES 
 AND JOHNSON'S DIARY OF A JOURNEY INTO NORTH IV ALES 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L. 
 
 PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 IN SIX VOLUMES, 
 VOLUME I.— LIFE (1709-1765) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 
 1891
 
 3: 
 
 V'
 
 {Title page to the Third Edition.] 
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 COMPREHENDING 
 
 AN ACCOUNT OF HIS STUDIES 
 AND NUMEROUS WORKS, 
 
 IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER; 
 
 A SERIES OF HIS EPISTOLARY CORRESPONDENCE 
 AND CONVERSATIONS WITH MANY EMINENT PERSONS ; 
 
 AND 
 
 VARIOUS ORIGINAL PIECES OF HIS COMPOSITION, 
 NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED: 
 
 THE WHOLE EXHIBITING A VIEW OF LITERATURE AND 
 
 LITERARY MEN IN GREAT-BRITAIN, FOR NEAR 
 
 HALF A CENTURY, DURING WHICH 
 
 HE FLOURISHED. 
 
 By JAMES BOS WELL, Esq. 
 
 Quo fit /// OMNIS 
 
 Votiva pateat vehiti descripia tabelhi 
 Vita senis. 
 
 HOUAT. 
 
 THE THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND AUGMENTED, 
 IN FOUR VOLUMES. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED BY H. BALDWIN AND SON, 
 
 FOR CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY. 
 
 MDCCXCIX.
 
 TO 
 
 THE REVEREND BENJAMIN JOWETT, M.A, 
 
 MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD 
 
 HONORARY LL.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH 
 
 HONORARY D.D. OF THE UNIVERSITY OF LEYDEN 
 
 WHO IS NOT ONLY 
 
 'AN ACUTE AND KNOWING CRITIC 
 
 BUT ALSO 
 
 'JOHNSONIANISSIMUS' 
 
 IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 KINDLY INTEREST THAT HE HAS THROUGHOUT TAKEN 
 
 IN THE PROGRESS OF THIS WORK 
 
 THIS EDITION 
 OF 
 
 BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 
 3s fUebicntcb
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 TAGS 
 
 Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds .... i 
 
 Advertisement to the First Edition .... 5 
 
 Advertisement to the Second Edition .... 11 
 
 Advertisement to the Third Edition .... 17 
 
 Chronological Catalogue of the Prose Works of 
 
 Samuel Johnson, LL.D 19 
 
 Life of Samuel Johnson (Sept. 18, 1709 — October 1765) 29-5791 
 
 Appendices 
 
 A. Johnson's Debates in Parliament . . . 581 
 
 B. Johnson's Letters to his Mother and Miss 
 
 Porter in 1759 594 
 
 C. Johnson at Cambridge 599 
 
 D. Johnson's Letter to Dr. Leland . . ■ . . 600 
 
 E. Johnson's ' Engaging in Politicks with H n ' 601 
 
 F. Johnson's first acquaintance with the Thrales 
 
 AND his serious IlLNESS 603
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, Etc. 
 Volume I. 
 
 Samuel Johnson, after the Portrait by Sir Joshua 
 
 Reynolds in the National Gallery, London . Frontispiece. 
 
 The House in which Dr. Johnson was born. Facing p. 40 
 
 Michael Johnson " 44 
 
 Grammar School, Lichfield " 54 
 
 Pembroke College, Oxford " 84 
 
 Facsimile of Dr. Johnson's Handwriting in 
 
 HIS 20TH year " 70 
 
 Edial Hall, near Lichfield " 114 
 
 St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell .... "130 
 
 TuNBRiDGE Wells in 1748 " 220 
 
 Samuel Johnson, from Miniature worn by Mrs. 
 
 Johnson " 248 
 
 Facsimile of Letter of Dr. Johnson relat- 
 ing TO Rasselas " 394 
 
 Samuel Johnson, from a Portrait by Sir Joshua 
 
 Reynolds, 1756 " 454
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Fielding, it is said, drank confusion to the man who 
 invented the fifth act of a play. He who has edited an ex- 
 tensive work, and has concluded his labours by the prepara- 
 tion of a copious index, might well be pardoned, if he omitted 
 to include the inventor of the Preface among the benefactors 
 of mankind. The long and arduous task that years before 
 he had set himself to do is done, and the last thing that he 
 desires is to talk about it. Liberty is what he asks for, 
 liberty to range for a time wherever he pleases in the wide 
 and fair fields of literature. Yet with this longing for free- 
 dom comes a touch of regret and a doubt lest the ' fresh 
 woods and pastures new ' may never wear the friendly and 
 familiar face of the plot of ground within whose narrower 
 confines he has so long been labouring, and whose every 
 corner he knows so well. May- be he finds hope in the 
 thought that should his new world seem strange to him and 
 uncomfortable, ere long he may be called back to his old 
 task, and in the preparation of a second edition find the 
 quiet and the peace of mind that are often found alone in 
 ' old use and wont.' 
 
 With me the preparation of these volumes has, indeed, 
 been the work of many years. Boswell's Life of Johnson I 
 read for the first time in my boyhood, when I was too young 
 for it to lay any hold on me. When I entered Pembroke 
 College, Oxford, though I loved to think that Johnson had 
 
 been
 
 xii Preface. 
 
 been there before me, yet I cannot call to mind that I ever 
 opened the pages of Boswell. By a happy chance I was 
 turned to the study of the literature of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. Every week we were required by the rules of the 
 College to turn into Latin, or what we called Latin, a pas- 
 sage from TJie Spectator. Many a happy minute slipped by 
 while, in forgetfulness of my task, I read on and on in its 
 enchanting pages. It was always with a sigh that at last I 
 tore myself away, and sat resolutely down to write bad Latin 
 instead of reading good English. From Addison in the 
 course of time I passed on to the other great writers of his 
 and the succeeding age, finding in their exquisitely clear 
 style, their admirable common sense and their freedom from 
 all the tricks of affectation, a delightful contrast to so many 
 of the eminent authors of our own time. Those trouble- 
 some doubts, doubts of all kinds, wdiich since the great 
 upheaval of the French Revolution have harassed mankind, 
 had scarcely begun to ruffle the waters of their life. Even 
 Johnson's troubled mind enjoyed vast levels of repose. The 
 unknown world alone was wrapped in stormy gloom ; of this 
 world ' all the complaints which were made were unjust '.' 
 Though I was now familiar with many of the great writers, 
 yet Boswell I had scarcely opened since my boyhood. A 
 happy day came just eighteen years ago when in an old 
 book-shop, almost under the shadow of a great cathedral, I 
 bought a second-hand copy of a somewhat early edition of 
 the Life in five well-bound volumes. Of all my books none 
 I cherish more than these. In looking at them I have known 
 what it is to feel Bishop Percy's ' uneasiness at the thoughts 
 of leaving his books in death ^' They became my almost 
 inseparable companions. Before long I began to note the 
 parallel passages and allusions not only in their pages, but 
 in the various authors whom I studied. Yet in these early 
 
 * Post, iv. 198. - Post, iii. 355. 
 
 days
 
 Preface. xiii 
 
 days I never dreamt of preparing a new edition. It fell to 
 my lot as time went on to criticise in some of our leading 
 publications works that bore both on Boswell and Johnson. 
 Such was my love for the subject that on one occasion, when 
 I was called upon to write a review that should fill two col- 
 umns of a weekly newspaper, I read a new edition of the 
 Life from beginning to end without, I believe, missing a 
 single line of the text or a single note. At length, ' tower- 
 ing in the confidence ' ' of one who as yet has but set his 
 foot on the threshold of some stately mansion in which he 
 hopes to find for himself a home, I was rash enough more 
 than twelve years ago to offer myself as editor of a new 
 edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. Fortunately for me 
 another writer had been already engaged by the publisher 
 to whom I applied, and my offer was civilly declined. From 
 that time on I never lost sight of my purpose but when in 
 the troubles of life I well-nigh lost sight of every kind of 
 hope. Everything in my reading that bore on my favourite 
 author was carefully noted, till at length I felt that the 
 materials which I had gathered from all sides were sufficient 
 to shield me from a charge of rashness if I now began to 
 raise the building. Much of the work of preparation had 
 been done at a grievous disadvantage. My health more 
 than once seemed almost hopelessly broken down. Never- 
 theless even then the time was not wholly lost. In the 
 sleepless hours of many a winter night I almost forgot my 
 miseries in the delightful pages of Horace Walpole's Letters, 
 and with pencil in hand and some little hope still in heart, 
 managed to get a few notes taken. Three winters I had to 
 spend on the shores of the Mediterranean. During two of 
 them my malady and my distress allowed of no rival, and 
 my work made scarcely any advance. The third my strength 
 was returning, and in the six months that I spent three 
 
 ' Post, i. 375- 
 
 years
 
 xiv Preface. 
 
 years ago in San Remo I wrote out very many of the notes 
 which I am now submitting to my readers. 
 
 An interval of some years of comparative health that I 
 enjoyed between my two severest illnesses allowed me to 
 try my strength as a critic and an editor. In Dr. Jolinson : 
 His Friends and his Critics, which I published in the year 
 1878, I reviewed the judgments passed on Johnson and 
 Boswell by Lord Macaulay and Mr. Carlyle, I described 
 Oxford as it was known to Johnson, and I threw light on 
 more than one important passage in the Life. The follow- 
 ing year I edited Boswell's Journal of a Tour to Corsiea and 
 his curious correspondence with the Hon. Andrew Erskine. 
 The somewhat rare little volume in which are contained the 
 lively but impudent letters that passed between these two 
 friends I had found one happy day in an old book-stall un- 
 derneath the town hall of Keswick. I hoped that among 
 the almost countless readers of Boswell there would be many 
 who would care to study in one of the earliest attempts of 
 his joyous youth the man whose ripened genius was to place 
 him at the very head of all the biographers of whom the 
 world can boast. My hopes were increased by the elegance 
 and the accuracy of the typography with which my pub- 
 lishers, Messrs. De La Rue & Co., adorned this reprint. I 
 was disappointed in my expectations. These curious Letters 
 met with a neglect which they did not deserve. Twice, 
 moreover, I was drawn away from the task that I had set 
 before me by other works. By the death of my uncle, Sir 
 Rowland Hill, I was called upon to edit his History of the 
 Penny Postage, and to write his Life. Later on General 
 Gordon's correspondence during the first six years of his 
 government of the Soudan was entrusted to me to prepare 
 for the press. In my Colonel Gordon in Central Africa I 
 attempted to do justice to the rare genius, to the wise and 
 pure enthusiasm, and to the exalted beneficence of that 
 
 great
 
 Preface. xv 
 
 great man. The labour that I gave to these works was, as 
 regards my main purpose, by no means wholly thrown away., 
 I was trained by it in the duties of an editor, and by study- 
 ing the character of two such men, who, though wide as the 
 poles asunder in many things, were as devoted to truth and 
 accuracy as they were patient in their pursuit, I was strength- 
 ened in my hatred of carelessness and error. 
 
 With all these interruptions the summer of 1885 was upon 
 me before I was ready for the compositors to make a begin- 
 ning with my work. In revising my proofs very rarely 
 indeed have I contented myself in verifying my quotations 
 with comparing them merely with my own manuscript. In 
 almost all instances I have once more examined the originals. 
 ' Diligence and accuracy,' writes Gibbon, ' are the only merits 
 which an historical writer may ascribe to himself ; if any 
 merit indeed can be assumed from the performance of an 
 indispensable duty '.' By diligence and accuracy I have 
 striven to win for myself a place in Johnson's school — 'a 
 school distinguished,' as Sir Joshua Reynolds said, * for a love 
 of truth and accuracy ^' I have steadily set before myself 
 Boswell's example where he says : — ' Let me only observe, 
 as a specimen of my trouble, that I have sometimes been 
 obliged to run half over London, in order to fix a date cor- 
 rectly ; which, when I had accomplished, I well knew would 
 obtain me no praise, though a failure would have been to 
 my discredit'.' When the variety and the number of my 
 notes are considered, when it is known that a great many of 
 the authors I do not myself possess, but that they could only 
 be examined in the Bodleian or the British Museum, it will 
 be seen that the labour of revising the proofs was, indeed, 
 unusually severe. In the course of the eighteen months 
 during which they have been passing through the press, 
 
 ' History of the Decline and Fall of the Roma7i Empire, ed. 1 807, vol. i. 
 p. xi. ' Post, iii. 260. ^ Post, i. 7. 
 
 1.— B fresh
 
 xvi Preface. 
 
 fresh reading has given fresh information, and caused many 
 an addition, and not a few corrections moreover to be made, 
 in passages which I had previously presumed to think already 
 complete. Had it been merely the biography of a great 
 man of letters that I was illustrating, such anxious care 
 would scarcely have been needful. But Boswell's Life of 
 Johnson, as its author with just pride boasts on its title-page, 
 * exhibits a view of literature and literary men in Great 
 Britain, for near half a century during which Johnson flour- 
 ished.' Wide, indeed, is the gulf by which this half-century 
 is separated from us. The reaction against the thought and 
 style of the age over which Pope ruled in its prime, and 
 Johnson in its decline, — this reaction, wise as it was in many 
 ways and extravagant as it was perhaps in more, is very far 
 from having spent its force. Young men are still far too 
 often found in our Universities who think that one proof of 
 their originality is a contempt of authors whose writings 
 they have never read. Books which were in the hands of 
 almost every reader of the Life when it first appeared are 
 now read only by the curious. Allusions and quotations 
 which once fell upon a familiar and a friendly ear now fall 
 dead. Men whose names were known to every one, now 
 often have not even a line in a Dictionary of Biography. 
 Over manners too a change has come, and as Johnson justly 
 observes, ' all works which describe manners require notes 
 in sixty or seventy years, or less'.' But it is not only Bos- 
 well's narrative that needs illustration. Johnson in his talk 
 ranges over a vast number of subjects. In his capacious 
 memory were stored up the fruits of an almost boundless 
 curiosity, and a wide and varied reading. I have sought to 
 follow him wherever a remark of his required illustration, 
 and have read through many a book that I might trace to 
 its source a reference or an allusion. I have examined, 
 
 » Post, ii. 243. 
 
 moreover
 
 Preface. xvii 
 
 moreover, all the minor writings which are attributed to him 
 by Boswell, but which are not for the most part included in 
 his collected works. In some cases I have ventured to set 
 my judgment against Boswell's, and have refused to admit 
 that Johnson was the author of the feeble pieces which were 
 fathered on him. Once or twice in the course of my reading 
 I have come upon essays which had escaped the notice of 
 his biographer, but which bear the marks of his workman- 
 ship. To these I have given a reference. While the minute 
 examination that I have so often had to make of Boswell's 
 narrative has done nothing but strengthen my trust in his 
 statements and my admiration of his laborious truthfulness, 
 yet in one respect I have not found him so accurate as I had 
 expected. ' I have,' he says, ' been extremely careful as to 
 the exactness of my quotations '.' Though in preparing his 
 manuscript he referred in each case ' to the originals,' yet he 
 did not, I conjecture, examine them once more in revising 
 his proof-sheets. At all events he has allowed errors to slip 
 in. These I have pointed out in my notes, for in every case 
 where I could I have, I believe, verified his quotations. 
 
 I have not thought that it was my duty as an editor to 
 attempt to refute or even to criticise Johnson's arguments. 
 The story is told that when Peter the Great was on his 
 travels and far from his country, some members of the Rus- 
 sian Council of State in St. Petersburgh ventured to with- 
 stand what was known to be his wish. His walking-stick 
 was laid upon the table, and silence at once fell upon all. 
 In like manner, before that editor who should trouble him- 
 self and his readers with attempting to refute Johnson's 
 arguments, paradoxical as they often were, should be placed 
 Reynold's portrait of that 'labouring working mind°.' It 
 might make him reflect that if the mighty reasoner could 
 rise up and meet him face to face, he would be sure, on 
 
 ^ Post/x.-]. •" Post,\v.^\\. 
 
 which
 
 xvfii Preface. 
 
 which ever side the right might be, even if at first his pistol 
 missed fire to knock him down with the butt-end of it '. I 
 have attempted therefore not to criticise but to illustrate 
 Johnson's statements. I have compared them with the 
 opinions of the more eminent men among his contempora- 
 ries, and with his own as they are contained in other parts 
 of his Life, and in his writings. It is in his written works 
 that his real opinion can be most surely found. ' He owned 
 he sometimes talked for victory ; he was too conscientious 
 to make error permanent and pernicious by deliberately 
 writing it ^' My numerous extracts from the eleven vol- 
 umes of his collected works will, I trust, not only give a truer 
 insight into the nature of the man, but also will show the 
 greatness of the author to a generation of readers who have 
 wandered into widely different paths. 
 
 In my attempts to trace the quotations of which both 
 Johnson and Boswell were somewhat lavish, I have not in 
 every case been successful, though I have received liberal as- 
 sistance from more than one friend. In one case my long 
 search was rewarded by the discovery that Boswell was 
 quoting himself. That I have lighted upon the beautiful 
 lines which Johnson quoted when he saw the Highland girl 
 singing at her wheeP, and have found out who was 'one 
 Giffard,' or rather Gifford, ' a parson,' is to me a source of 
 just triumph. I have not known many happier hours than 
 the one in which in the Library of the British Museum my 
 patient investigation was rewarded and I perused Contem- 
 plation. 
 
 Fifteen hitherto unpublished letters of Johnson*; his 
 college composition in Latin prose'; a long extract from his 
 manuscript diary^ ; a suppressed passage in his Journey to the 
 
 ' Post, ii. 115. ^ Post, iv. 495 ; V. 18. * Post, v. 133. 
 
 " Post, i. 546, ;?. 4; iv. 300, ;/. 2 ; v. 461, ;/. 4, 518, 11. i ; vi. xxi-xxxvii. 
 ■' Post, i. 70, ji. 3. « Post, ii. 547. 
 
 Western
 
 Pf'cface. xix 
 
 Western Islands^ ; Boswell's letters of acceptance of the 
 office of Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to the Royal 
 Academy"; the proposal for the publication of a Geograph- 
 ical Dictionary issued by Johnson's beloved friend, Dr. Bath- 
 urst'; and Mr. Recorder Longley's record of his conversa- 
 tion with Johnson on Greek metres \ will, I trust, throw 
 some lustre on this edition. 
 
 In many notes I have been able to clear up statements in 
 the text which were not fully understood even by the au- 
 thor, or were left intentionally dark by him, or have be- 
 come obscure through lapse of time. I would particularly 
 refer to the light that I have thrown on Johnson's engaging 
 in politics with William Gerard Hamilton", and on Burke's 
 'talk of retiring \' In many other notes I have established 
 Boswell's accuracy against attacks which had been made on 
 it apparently with success. It was with much pleasure that 
 I discovered that the story told of Johnson's listening to Dr. 
 Sacheverel's sermon is not in any way improbable', and 
 that Johnson's 'censure' of Lord Kames was quite just'. 
 The ardent advocates of total abstinence will not, I fear, be 
 pleased at finding at the end of my long note on Johnson's 
 wine-drinking that I have been obliged to show that he 
 thought that the gout from which he suffered was due to 
 his temperance. ' I hope you persevere in drinking,' he 
 wrote to his friend, Dr. Taylor. ' My opinion is that I have 
 drunk too little".' 
 
 In the Appendices I have generally treated of subjects 
 which demanded more space than could be given them in 
 the narrow limits of a foot-note. In the twelve pages of 
 the essay on Johnson's Debates in Parliament^" I have com- 
 
 2 
 
 ' Post, vi. xxxii. * Post, iv. 9, ;/. 5. ^ Post, iii. 387, n. i. 
 
 Post, iii. 525. ^ Post, i. 566, 601. " Post, i. 120, n. 2. 
 
 = Post, vi. xxii. ' Post, iv. 258, «. i. "* Post, \. 581. 
 
 ' Post, i. 45, n. 2. 
 
 pressed
 
 XX Preface. 
 
 pressed the result of the reading of many weeks. In ex- 
 amining the character of George Psalmanazar' I have com- 
 pHed with the request of an unknown correspondent who 
 was naturally interested in the history of that strange man, 
 'after whom Johnson sought the most'.' In my essay on 
 Johnson's Travels and Love of Travelling' I have, in oppo- 
 sition to Lord Macaulay's wild and wanton rhetoric, shown 
 how ardent and how elevated was the curiosity with which 
 Johnson's mind was possessed. In another essay I have ex- 
 plained, I do not say justified, his strong feelings towards 
 the founders of the United States^; and in a fifth I have, 
 examined the election of the Lord Mayors of London, at a 
 time when the City was torn by political strife ^ To the 
 other Appendices it is not needful particularly to refer. 
 
 In my Index, which has cost me many months' heavy 
 work, ' while I bore burdens with dull patience and beat the 
 track of the alphabet with sluggish resolution ^' I have, I 
 hope, shown that I am not unmindful of all that I owe to 
 men of letters. To the dead we cannot pay the debt of 
 gratitude that is their due. Some relief is obtained from its 
 burthen, if we in our turn make the men of our own gener- 
 ation debtors to us. The plan on which my Index is made 
 will, I trust, be found convenient. By the alphabetical ar- 
 rangement in the separate entries of each article the reader, 
 I venture to think, will be greatly facilitated in his research- 
 es. Certain subjects I have thought it best to form into 
 groups. Under America, France, Ireland, London, Oxford, 
 Paris, and Scotland, are gathered together almost all the ref- 
 erences to those subjects. The provincial towns of France, 
 however, by some mistake I did not include in the general 
 article. One important but intentional omission I must 
 justify. In the case of the quotations in which my notes 
 
 1 Post, iii. 503. ^ Post, iii. 510. ^ Post, iii. 521. 
 
 - Post, iii. 357. * Post, ii. 549, 550. ^ Post, i. 219, n. i. 
 
 abound
 
 Preface. xxi 
 
 abound I have not thought it needful in the Index to refer 
 to the book unless the eminence of the author required a 
 separate and a second entry. My labour would have been 
 increased beyond all endurance and my Index have been 
 swollen almost into a monstrosity had I always referred to 
 the book as well as to the matter which was contained in 
 the passage that I extracted. Though in such a variety of 
 subjects there must be many omissions, yet I shall be great- 
 ly disappointed if actual errors are discovered. Every entry 
 I have made myself, and every entry I have verified in the 
 proof-sheets, not by comparing it with my manuscript, but 
 by turning to the reference in the printed volumes. Some 
 indulgence nevertheless may well be claimed and granted. 
 If Homer at times nods, an index-maker may be pardoned, 
 should he in the fourth or fifth month of his task at the end 
 of a day of eight hours' work grow drowsy. May I fondly 
 hope that to the maker of so large an Index will be extend- 
 ed the gratitude which Lord Bolingbroke says was once 
 shown to lexicographers? * I approve,' writes his Lordship, 
 ' the devotion of a studious man at Christ Church, who was 
 overheard in his oratory entering into a detail with God, 
 and acknowledging the divine goodness in furnishing the 
 world with makers of dictionaries'.' 
 
 In the list that I give in the beginning of the sixth vol- 
 ume of the books which I quote, the reader will find stated 
 in full the titles which in the notes, through regard to space, 
 I was forced to compress. 
 
 The Concordance of Johnson's sayings which follows the 
 
 Index* will be found convenient by the literary man who 
 
 desires to make use of his strong and pointed utterances. 
 
 Next to Shakespeare he is, I believe, quoted and misquoted 
 
 the most frequently of all our writers. ' It is not every man 
 
 that can carry a bon-mot"^.' Bons-mots that are miscarried 
 
 * Post, i. 343, n. 3. ^ Post, vi. ^ Post, ii. 401. 
 
 of
 
 xxii Preface. 
 
 of all kinds of good things suffer the most. In this Con- 
 cordance the general reader, moreover, may find much to 
 delight him. Johnson's trade was wit and wisdom', and 
 some of his best wares are here set out in a small space. It 
 was, I must confess, with no little pleasure that in revising 
 my proof-sheets I found that the last line in my Concord- 
 ance and the last line in my six long volumes is Johnson's 
 quotation of Goldsmith's fine saying: ' I do not love a man 
 who is zealous for nothing.' 
 
 In the ' forward ' references in the notes to other passages 
 in the book, the reader may be surprised at finding that 
 while often I only give the date under which the reference 
 will be found, frequently I am able to quote the page and 
 volume. The explanation is a simple one : two sets of com- 
 positors were generally at work, and two volumes were pass- 
 ing through the press simultaneously. 
 
 In the selection of the text which I should adopt I hesi- 
 tated for some time. In ordinary cases the edition which 
 received the author's final revision is the one which all fut- 
 ure editors should follow. The second edition, which was 
 the last that was brought out in Boswell's lifetime, could 
 not, I became convinced, be conveniently reproduced. As it 
 was passing through the press he obtained many additional 
 anecdotes and letters. These he somewhat awkwardly in- 
 serted in an Introduction and an Appendix. He was en- 
 gaged on his third edition when he died. ' He had pointed 
 out where some of these materials should be inserted,' and ' in 
 the margin of the copy which he had in part revised he had 
 written notes'^.' His interrupted labours were completed by 
 Edmond Malone, to whom he had read aloud almost the 
 whole of his original manuscript, and who had helped him in 
 the revision of the first half of the book when it was in type^ 
 * These notes,' says Malone, 'are faithfully preserved.' He 
 
 ! Post, iii. 155, n. 2, 442. '' Post, i. 17, 18. ' Post, i. 8. 
 
 'J .. adds
 
 Preface. xxiii 
 
 adds that ' every new remark, not written by the author, for 
 the sake of distinction has been enclosed within crotchets'.' 
 In the third edition therefore we have the work in the con- 
 dition in which it would have most approved itself to Bos- 
 well's own judgment. In one point only, and that a trifling 
 one, had Malone to exercise his judgment. But so skilful an 
 editor was very unlikely to go wrong in those few cases in 
 which he was called upon to insert in their proper places the 
 additional material which the author had already published 
 in his second edition. Malone did not, however, correct the 
 proof-sheets. I thought it my duty, therefore, in revising 
 my work to have the text of Boswell's second edition read 
 aloud to me throughout Some typographical errors might, 
 I feared, have crept in. In a few unimportant cases early in 
 the book I adopted the reading of the second edition, but 
 as I read on I became convinced that almost all the verbal 
 alterations were Boswell's own. Slight errors, often of the 
 nature of Scotticisms, had been corrected, and greater accu- 
 racy often given. Some of the corrections and additions in 
 the third edition that were undoubtedly from his hand were 
 of considerable importance. 
 
 I have retained Boswell's spelling in accordance with the 
 wish that he expressed in the preface to his Accoitnt of Cor- 
 sica. ' If this work,' he writes, * should at any future period 
 be reprinted, I hope that care will be taken of my orthog- 
 raphy".' The punctuation too has been preserved. 
 
 I should be wanting in justice were I not to acknowledge 
 
 that I owe much to the labors of Mr. Croker. No one can 
 
 know better than I do his great failings as an editor. His 
 
 remarks and criticisms far too often deserve the contempt 
 
 that Macaulay so liberally poured on them. Without being 
 
 deeply versed in books, he was shallow in himself. Johnson's 
 
 strong character was never known to him. Its breadth and 
 
 ' Post, i. 17, i8. "^ Post, iv. 37, «. I. 
 
 length.
 
 xxiv Preface. 
 
 length, and depth and height were far beyond his measure. 
 With his writings even he shows few signs of being famihar. 
 Boswell's genius, a genius which even to Lord Macaulay 
 was fooHshness, was altogether hidden from his dull eye. 
 No one surely but a 'blockhead,' a 'barren rascal',' could 
 with scissors and paste -pot have mangled the biography 
 which of all others is the delight and the boast of the Eng- 
 lish-speaking world. He is careless in small matters, and his 
 blunders are numerous. These I have only noticed in the 
 more important cases, remembering what Johnson some- 
 where points out, that the triumphs of one critic over an- 
 other only fatigue and disgust the reader. Yet he has added 
 considerably to our knowledge of Johnson. He knew men 
 who had intimately known both the hero and his biographer, 
 and he gathered much that but for his care would have been 
 lost for ever. He was diligent and successful in his search 
 after Johnson's letters, of so many of which Boswell with all 
 his persevering and pushing diligence had not been able to 
 get a sight. The editor of Mr. Croker's Correspondence and 
 Diaries'^ goes, however, much too far when, in writing of Ma- 
 caulay's criticism, he says : ' The attack defeated itself by its 
 very violence, and therefore it did the book no harm what- 
 ever. Between forty and fifty thousand copies have been 
 sold, although Macaulay boasted with great glee that he had 
 smashed it.' The book that Macaulay attacked was with- 
 drawn. That monstrous medley reached no second edition. 
 In its new form all the worst excrescences had been cleared 
 away, and though what was left was not Boswell, still less 
 was it unchastened Croker. His repentance, however, was 
 not thorough. He never restored the text to its old state ; 
 wanton transpositions of passages still remain, and numerous 
 insertions break the narrative. It was my good fortune to 
 become a sound Boswellian before I even looked at his 
 
 * ii. 199. ' vol. ii. p. 47. 
 
 edition
 
 Preface. xxv 
 
 edition. It was not indeed till I came to write out my notes 
 for the press that I examined his with any thoroughness. 
 
 'Notes,' says Johnson, 'are often necessary, but they are 
 necessary evils'.' To the young reader who for the first 
 time turns over Boswell's delightful pages I would venture 
 to give the advice Johnson gives about Shakespeare: — 
 
 'Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shake- 
 speare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama 
 can give, read every play from the first scene to the last with utter 
 negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on 
 the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation. When his 
 attention is strongly engaged let it disdain alike to turn aside to 
 the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read on through 
 brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption ; let 
 him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest 
 in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased let 
 him attempt exactness and read the commentators ^' 
 
 So too let him who reads the Life of JoJmson for the first 
 time read it in one of the Pre-Crokerian editions. They are 
 numerous and good. With his attention undiverted by notes 
 he will rapidly pass through one of the most charming nar- 
 ratives that the world has ever seen, and if his taste is uncor- 
 rupted by modern extravagances, will recognise the genius 
 of an author Avho, in addition to other great qualities, has 
 an admirable eye for the just proportions of an extensive 
 work, and who is the master of a style that is as easy as it 
 is inimitable. 
 
 Johnson, I fondly believe, would have been pleased, per- 
 haps would even have been proud, could he have foreseen 
 this edition. Few distinctions he valued more highly than 
 those which he received from his own great University. The 
 honorary degrees that it conferred on him, the gown that it 
 entitled him to wear, by him were highly esteemed. In the 
 
 ' Johnson's Works, ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 152. ■' id. 
 
 Clarendon
 
 xxvi Preface. 
 
 Clarendon Press he took a great interest \ The efforts which 
 that famous estabhshment has made in the excellence of the 
 typography, the quality of the paper, and the admirably-ex- 
 ecuted illustrations and facsimiles to do honor to his memory 
 and to the genius of his biographer would have highly de- 
 lighted him. To his own college he was so deeply attached 
 that he would not have been displeased to learn that his 
 editor had been nursed in that once famous ' nest of sing- 
 ing birds.' Of Boswell's pleasure I cannot doubt. How 
 much he valued any tribute of respect from Oxford is shown 
 by the absurd importance that he gave to a sermon which 
 was preached before the University by an insignificant cler- 
 gyman more than a year and a half after Johnson's death \ 
 When Edmund Burke witnessed the long and solemn pro- 
 cession entering the Cathedral of St. Paul's, as it followed 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds to his grave, he wrote : ' Eveiything, I 
 think, was just as our deceased friend would, if living, have 
 wished it to be ; for he was, as you know, not altogether in- 
 different to this kind of observances I' It would, indeed, be 
 presumptuous in me to flatter myself that in this edition 
 everything is as Johnson and Boswell would, if living, have 
 wished it. Yet to this kind of observances, the observances 
 that can be shown by patient and long labour, and by the fa- 
 mous press of a great University, neither man was altogether 
 indifferent. 
 
 Should my work find favour with the world of readers, I 
 hope again to labour in the sam.e fields. I had indeed at 
 one time intended to enlarge this edition by essays on Bos- 
 well, Johnson, Mrs. Thrale, and perhaps on other subjects. 
 Their composition, would, however, have delayed publication 
 more than seemed advisable, and their length might have 
 rendered the volumes bulky beyond all reason. A more 
 
 ' See. post, ii. 39, 486-8, 504. ^ See post, iv. 486. 
 
 ^ Correspo7idencc of Edmund Burke, ii. 425. 
 
 favourable
 
 Preface. xxvii 
 
 favourable opportunity may come. I have in hand a Selec- 
 tion of the Wit and Wisdom of Dr. JoJmson. I purpose, 
 moreover, to collect and edit all of his letters that are not in 
 the Life. Some hundreds of these were published by Mrs. 
 Piozzi ; many more are contained in Mr. Croker's edition ; 
 while others have already appeared in Notes and Querics\ 
 Not a few, doubtless, are still lurking in the desks of the col- 
 lectors of autographs. As a letter- writer Johnson stands 
 VQ.xy high. While the correspondence of David Garrick has 
 been given to the world in two large volumes, it is not right 
 that the letters of his far greater friend should be left scat- 
 tered and almost neglected. ' He that sees before him to his 
 third dinner,' says Johnson, 'has a long prospect'.' My 
 prospect is still longer ; for, if health be spared, and a fair 
 degree of public favour shown, I see before me to my third 
 book. When I have published my Letters, I hope to enter 
 upon a still more arduous task in editing the Lives of the 
 Poets. 
 
 In my work I have received much kind assistance, not only 
 from friends, but also from strangers to whom I had applied 
 in cases where special knowledge could alone throw light on 
 some obscure point. My acknowledgments I have in most 
 instances made in my notes. In some cases, either through 
 want of opportunity or forgetfulness, this has not been done. 
 I gladly avail myself of the present opportunity to remedy 
 this deficiency. The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres I have 
 to thank for so liberally allowing the original of the famous 
 Round Robin, which is in his Lordship's possession, to be 
 reproduced by a photographic process for this edition. It is 
 by the kindness of Mr. J. L. G. Mowat, M.A., Fellow and 
 Bursar of Pembroke College, Oxford, that I have been able 
 to make a careful examination of the Johnsonian manuscripts 
 
 ' To this interesting and accurate publication I am indebted for 
 many valuable notes. " Post, iii. 59, n. 3. 
 
 in
 
 xxviii Preface. 
 
 in which our college is so rich. If the vigilance with which 
 he keeps guard over these treasures while they are being in- 
 spected is continued by his successors in office, the college will 
 never have to mourn over the loss of a single leaf. To the 
 Rev. W. D. Macray, M.A., of the manuscript department of 
 the Bodleian, to Mr. Falconer Madan, M.A., Sub-Librarian of 
 the same Library, and to Mr. George Parker, one of the As- 
 sistants, I am indebted for the kindness with which they have 
 helped me in my inquiries. To Mr. W. H. Allnutt, another 
 of the Assistants, I owe still more. When I was abroad, I 
 too frequently, I fear, troubled him with questions which no 
 one could have answered who was not well versed in biblio- 
 graphical lore. It was not often that his acuteness was baf- 
 fled, while his kindness was never exhausted. My old friend 
 Mr. E. J. Payne, M.A., Fellow of University College, Oxford, 
 the learned editor of the Seltxt Works of Burke published by 
 the Clarendon Press, has allowed me, whenever I pleased, to 
 draw on his extensive knowledge of the history and the lit- 
 erature of the eighteenth century. Mr. C. G. Crump, B.A., 
 of Balliol College, Oxford, has traced for me not a few of the 
 quotations which had baffled my search. To Mr. G. K. For- 
 tescue, Superintendent of the Reading Room of the British 
 Museum, my most grateful acknowledgments are due. His 
 accurate and extensive knowledge of books and his unfailing 
 courtesy and kindness have lightened many a day's heavy 
 work in the spacious room over wliich he so worthily pre- 
 sides. But most of all am I indebted to Mr. C. E. Doble, 
 M.A., of the Clarendon Pres^. He has read all my proof- 
 sheets, and by his almost unrivalled knowledge of the men 
 of letters of the close of the seventeenth and of the begin- 
 ning of the eighteenth centuries, he has saved my notes from 
 some blunders and has enriched them with much valuable 
 information. In my absence abroad he has in more in- 
 stances than I care to think of consulted for me the Bodleian 
 
 Library
 
 Preface. xxix 
 
 Library'. It is some relief to my conscience to know that the 
 task was rendered Hghter to him by his intimate familiarity 
 with its treasures, and by the deep love for literature with 
 which he is inspired. 
 
 There are other thanks due which I cannot here fittingly 
 express. * An author partakes of the common condition of 
 humanity ; he is born and married like another man ; he has 
 hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs 
 and joys like a courtier or a statesman *.' In the hopes and 
 fears, in the expectations and disappointments, in the griefs 
 and joys — nay, in the very labours of his literary life, if 
 his hearth is not a solitary one, he has those who largely 
 share. 
 
 I have now come to the end of my long labours. ' There 
 are few things not purely evil,' wrote Johnson, * of which 
 we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, tJiis is the 
 last""' From this emotion I cannot feign that I am free. 
 My book has been my companion in many a sad and many 
 a happy hour. I take leave of it with a pang of regret, but 
 I am cheered by the hope that it may take its place, if a 
 lowly one, among the works of men who have laboured pa- 
 tiently but not unsuccessfully in the great and shining fields 
 of English literature. 
 
 G. B. H. 
 
 Clarens, Switzerland; 
 March i6, 1887. 
 
 ' Johnson's Works, ed. 1825, vol. iv. p. 446. ^ Post, i. 384, n. 3.
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 Every liberal motive that can actuate an Au- 
 thour in the dedication of his labours, concurs in directing 
 me to you, as the person to whom the following Work 
 should be inscribed. 
 
 If there be a pleasure in celebrating the distinguished 
 merit of a contemporary, mixed with a certain degree of 
 vanity not altogether inexcusable, in appearing fully sensi- 
 ble of it, where can I find one, in complimenting whom I 
 can with more general approbation gratify those feelings? 
 Your excellence not only in the Art over which you have 
 long presided with unrivalled fame, but also in Philosophy 
 and elegant Literature, is well known to the present, and 
 will continue to be the admiration of future ages. Your 
 equal and placid temper*, your variety of conversation, 
 your true politeness, by which you are so amiable in private 
 society, and that enlarged hospitality which has long made 
 your house a common centre of union for the great, the ac- 
 complished, the learned, and the ingenious ; all these quali- 
 ties I can, in perfect confidence of not being accused of flat- 
 tery, ascribe to you. 
 
 If a man may indulge an honest pride, in having it known 
 to the world, that he has been thought worthy of particular 
 
 ' Johnson said of him : — ' Sir Joshua Reynolds is the same all the 
 year round;' post, March 28, 1776. Boswell elsewhere describes him 
 as ' he who used to be looked upon as perhaps the most happy man 
 in the world.' Letters 0/ Boswell, p. 344. 
 
 I. — I attention
 
 Dedication. 
 
 attention by a person of the first eminence in the age in 
 which he Hved, whose company has been universally court- 
 ed, I am justified in availing myself of the usual privilege of 
 a Dedication, when I mention that there has been a long 
 and uninterrupted friendship between us. 
 
 If gratitude should be acknowledged for favours received, 
 I have this opportunity, my dear Sir, most sincerely to thank 
 you for the many happy hours which I owe to your kind- 
 ness, — for the cordiality with which you have at all times 
 been pleased to welcome me, — for the number of valuable 
 acquaintances to whom you have introduced me, — for the 
 nodes coencBqiie De2hn\ which I have enjoyed under your 
 roof*. 
 
 If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the 
 subject of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure 
 it credit and success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the 
 greatest propriety, dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who 
 was the intimate and beloved friend of that great man ; the 
 friend, whom he declared to be ' the most invulnerable man 
 he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, he should 
 find the most difficulty how to abuse'.' You, my dear Sir, 
 studied him, and knew him well : you venerated and ad- 
 mired him. Yet, luminous as he was upon the whole, you 
 
 ' ' O noctes coenseque Deum !' 
 ' O joyous nights ! delicious feasts ! 
 At which the gods might be my guests.' 
 
 Francis. Horace, Sat. ii. 6. 65. 
 ^ Six years before this Dedication Sir Joshua had conferred on him 
 another favour. ' I have a proposal to make to you,' Bosvvell had 
 written to him, 'I am for certain to be called to the English bar next 
 February. Will you now do my picture ? and the price shall be paid 
 out of the first fees which I receive as a barrister in Westminster 
 Hall. Or if that fund should fail, it shall be paid at any rate five 
 years hence by myself or my representatives.' Boswell told him at 
 the same time that the debts which he had contracted in his father's 
 lifetime would not be cleared off for some years. The letter was en- 
 dorsed by Sir Joshua :— ' I agree to the above conditions ;' and the 
 portrait was painted. Taylor's Rcyjiolds, ii. 477. 
 - See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773. 
 
 perceived
 
 Dedicatioti. 
 
 perceived all the shades which mingled in the grand com- 
 position ; all the little peculiarities and slight blemishes 
 which marked the literary Colossus. Your very warm com- 
 mendation of the specimen which I gave in my Journal of 
 a Tour to the Hebrides, of my being able to preserve his 
 conversation in an authentick and lively manner, which 
 opinion the Publick has confirmed, was the best encourage- 
 ment for me to persevere in my purpose of producing the 
 whole of my stores'. 
 
 In one respect, this Work will, in some passages, be dif- 
 ferent from the former. In my Tour, I was almost unbound- 
 edly open in my communications, and from my eagerness to 
 display the wonderful fertility and readiness of Johnson's 
 wit, freely shewed to the world its dexterity, even when I 
 was myself the object of it. I trusted that I should be lib- 
 erally understood, as knowing very well what I was about, 
 and by no means as simply unconscious of the pointed ef- 
 fects of the satire. I own, indeed, that I was arrogant 
 enough to suppose that the tenour of the rest of the book 
 would sufficiently guard me against such a strange imputa- 
 tion. But it seems I judged too well of the world ; for, 
 though I could scarcely believe it, I have been undoubtedly 
 informed, that many persons, especially in distant quarters, 
 not penetrating enough into Johnson's character, so as to 
 understand his mode of treating his friends, have arraigned 
 my judgement, instead of seeing that I was sensible of all 
 that they could observe. 
 
 It is related of the great Dr. Clarke \ that when in one of 
 
 ' ' I surely have the art of writing agreeably. The Lord Chancellor 
 [Thurlow] told me he had read every word of my Hebridian Joitr/mt / 
 he could not help it; adding, 'could you give a rule how to write a 
 book that a man must read ? I believe Longinus could not.' Letters 
 of Boswelt, p. 322. 
 
 2 Boswell perhaps quotes from memory the following 'passage in 
 Goldsmith's Life of Nash : — ' The doctor was one day conversing 
 with Locke and two or three more of his learned and intimate com- 
 panions with that freedom, gaiety, and cheerfulness, which is ever 
 the result of innocence. In the midst of their mirth and laughter, the 
 
 his
 
 Dedication. 
 
 his leisure hours he was unbending himself with a few 
 friends in the most playful and frolicksome manner, he ob- 
 served Beau Nash approaching; upon which he suddenly- 
 stopped : — ' My boys, (said he,) let us be grave : here comes 
 a fool.' The world, my friend, I have found to be a great 
 fool, as to that particular, on which it has become necessary 
 to speak very plainly. I have, therefore, in this Work been 
 more reserved', and though I tell nothing but the truth, I 
 have still kept in my mind that the whole truth is not al- 
 ways to be exposed. This, however, I have managed so as 
 to occasion no diminution of the pleasure which my book 
 should afford; though malignity may sometimes be disap- 
 pointed of its gratifications. 
 I am, 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Your much obliged friend, 
 
 And faithful humble servant, 
 
 JAMES BOSWELL. 
 London, 
 April 20, 1 791. 
 
 doctor, looking from the window, saw Nash's chariot stop at the door. 
 " Boys, boys," cried the philosopher, " let us now be wise, for here is 
 a fool coming,"' Cunningham's Goldsmith's Works, iv. 96. Dr. 
 Warton in his criticism on Pope's line 
 
 ' Unthought of frailties cheat us in the wise,' 
 
 {Moral Essays, i. 69) 
 says : — ' For who could imagine that Dr. Clarke valued himself for his 
 agility, and frequently amused himself in a private room of his house 
 in leaping over the tables and chairs.' Warton's Essay on Pope, ii. 
 125. ' It is a good remark of Montaigne's,' wrote Goldsmith, 'that 
 the wisest men often have friends with whom they do not care how 
 much they play the fool.' Forster's Goldsmith, i. 166. Mr. Seward 
 says in his Anecdotes, ii. 320, that ' in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, Dr. 
 Clarke was the most complete literary character that England ever 
 produced.' . For Dr. Clarke's sermons ste.post, April 7, 1778. 
 ' See post, Oct. 16, 1769, note.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TO THE 
 
 FIRST EDITION. 
 
 I AT last deliver to the world a Work which I have long 
 promised, and of ivJiich, I aifi afraid, too high expectations 
 have been raised.^ The delay of its publication must be im- 
 puted, in a considerable degree, to the extraordinary seal ivJiich 
 has been shezun by distinguished persotis in all quarters to sup- 
 ply me with additional information concerning its illustrious 
 subject ; resetnbling in this the grateful tribes of ancient na- 
 tions, of IV hie h every individual %vas eager to throw a stone 
 tipon the grave of a departed Hero, and thus to share in the 
 pious office of erecting an honourabh: Dionument to his mem- 
 ory? 
 
 ' How much delighted would Boswell have been, had he been shewn 
 the following passage, recorded by Miss Burney, in an account she 
 gives of a conversation with the Queen : — The Queen : — ' Miss Bur- 
 ney, have you heard that Boswell is going to publish a life of your 
 friend Dr. Johnson ?' ' No, ma'am ! ' 'I tell you as I heard, I don't 
 know for the truth of it, and I can't tell what he will do. He is so 
 extraordinary a man that perhaps he will devise something extraor- 
 dinary.' Mme. D'Arblafs Diary, ii. 400. 'Dr. Johnson's history,' 
 wrote Horace Walpole, on June 20, 1785, 'though he is going to have 
 as many lives as a cat, might be reduced to four lines ; but I shall wait 
 to extract the quintessence till Sir John Hawkins, Madame Piozzi. and 
 Mr. Boswell have produced their quartos.' Horace Walpole's Letters, 
 viii. 557. 
 
 "^ The delay was in part due to Boswell's dissipation and place-hunt- 
 ing, as is shewn by the following passages in his Letters to Temple : — 
 'Feb. 24, 1788, I have been wretchedly dissipated, so that I have not 
 
 The
 
 Advertisement to the First Edition. 
 
 The labour and anxious attention with which I have col- 
 lected and arranged the materials of which these volumes are 
 composed, ivill Jiardly be conceived by those who read them with 
 careless facility.'- The stretch of mind and prompt assiduity 
 by which so many conversations were preserved^' I myself at 
 
 written a line for a fortnight.' p. 266. ' Nov. 28, 1789, Malone's hos- 
 pitality, and my other invitations, and particularly my attendance at 
 Lord Lonsdale's, have lost us many evenings.' lb. p. 311. 'June 21. 
 1790, How unfortunate to be obliged to interrupt my work! Never 
 was a poor ambitious projector more mortified. I am suffering 
 without any prospect of reward, and only from my own folly.' lb. 
 p. 326. 
 
 > ' You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity, what vexation 
 I have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials, 
 in supplying omissions, in searching for papers, buried in different 
 masses, and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing; 
 many a time have I thought of giving it up.' Letters of Boswell, 
 p. 311. 
 
 '^ Boswell writing to Temple in 1775, says :— ' I try to keep a journal, 
 and shall shew you that I have done tolerably ; but it is hardly credi- 
 ble what ground I go over, and what a variety of men and manners I 
 contemplate in a day ; and all the time I myself am pars magna, for 
 my exuberant spirits will not let me listen enough.' lb. p. 18S. Mr. 
 Barclay said that 'he had seen Boswell lay down his knife and fork, 
 and take out his tablets, in order to register a good anecdote.' Croker's 
 Boszvell, p. 837. The account given by Paoli to Miss Burney, shows 
 that very early in life Boswell took out his tablets :— ' He came to my 
 country, and he fetched me some letter of recommending him ; but I 
 was of the belief he might be an impostor, and I supposed in my minte 
 he was an espy ; for I look away from him, and in a moment I look to 
 him again, and I behold his tablets. Oh ! he was to the work of writing 
 downfall I say. Indeed I was angry. But soon I discover he was no 
 impostor and no espy ; and I only find I was myself the monster he 
 had come to discern. Oh ! he is a very good man ; I love him indeed ; 
 so cheerful, so gay, so pleasant ! but at the first, oh ! I was indeed an- 
 gry.' Mme. D'Arblays Diary, ii. 155. Boswell not only recorded the 
 conversations, he often stimulated them. On one occasion 'he as- 
 sumed,' he said, 'an air of ignorance to incite Dr. Johnson to talk, for 
 which it was often necessary to employ some address.' SQ&post, April 
 12, 1776. 'Tom Tyers,' said Johnson, 'described me the best. He 
 once said to me, " Sir, you are like a ghost : you never speak till 3-ou 
 are spoken to." ' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 20, 1773. Boswell writing 
 
 some
 
 Advertisement to the First Edition. 7 
 
 some distance of time, contemplate zvith wonder ; and I must 
 be allowed to suggest, that the nature of the work, in other re- 
 spects, as it consists of innumerable detached particulars, all 
 which, even the most minute, J have spared jw pains to ascertain 
 with a scrupulo2is authenticity, has occasiojted a degree of trou- 
 ble far beyond that of any other species of composition. Were 
 I to detail the books which I have consulted, and the inquiries 
 which I Jiave found it necessary to make by variojis channels, I 
 should probably be thought ridiculously ostentatious. Let vie 
 otily observe, as a specimen of my trouble, that I have sometimes 
 been obliged to run half over London, in order to fix a date cor- 
 rectly ; ivJiich, when / had accomplished, L well knew would 
 obtain me no praise, though a failure would have been to my 
 discredit. A nd after all, perhaps, hard as it may be, L shall 
 not be surprized if omissions or mistakes be pointed out tvith 
 invidious severity. L have also been extremely careful as to the 
 exactness of my quotations ; holding that there is a respect due 
 to the publick which should oblige every Author to attend to 
 this, and never to presume to introduce them zuith, — ' I think 
 I have read;' — or, — 'If I remember right;' — when the orig- 
 inals may be examined^ 
 
 of this Tour said : — ' I also may be allowed to claim some merit in 
 leading the conversation ; I do not mean leading, as in an orchestra, 
 by playing the first fiddle ; but leading as one does in examining a 
 witness — starting topics, and making him pursue them.' lb. Sept. 28. 
 One day he recorded :— ' I did not exert myself to get Dr. Johnson to 
 talk, that I might not have the labour of writing down his conversa- 
 tion.' lb. Sept. 7. His industry grew much less towards the close of 
 Johnson's life. Under May 8, 1781, he records : — ' Of his conversation 
 on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected to keep 
 any regular record.' On May 15, 1783 : — ' I have no minute of any in- 
 terview with Johnson [from May i] till May 15.' May 15, 1784: — 
 ' Of these days and others on which I saw him I have no memo- 
 rials.' 
 
 ' It is an interesting question how far Boswell derived his lov^c of 
 truth from himself, and how far from Johnson's training. He was one 
 of Johnson's school. He himself quotes Reynolds's observation, ' that 
 all who were of his school arc distinguished for a love of truth and ac- 
 curacy, which they would not have possessed in the same degree if 
 
 I beg
 
 8 Advertisement to the First Edition. 
 
 I beg leave to express my warmest thanks to those who have 
 been pleased to favour me with communications and advice in 
 the conduct of my Work. But I cannot sufficicTitly acknowledge 
 my obligations to my friend Mr. Malone, who zaas so good as 
 to alloxv me to read to hitn almost the tuhole of my manuscript, 
 and make such remarks as were greatly for the advantage of 
 the Work\- though it is but fair to him to mention, that upon 
 ma?iy occasions I differed from him, and followed my own 
 judgement. I regret exceedingly that I was deprived of the 
 benefit of his revision, when not more than one half of the book 
 had passed through the press ; but after havifig completed his 
 very laborious and admirable edition of Shakspeare,/<?r which 
 he generotisly zvould accept of no other rczvard but that fame 
 which lie has so deservedly obtained, he fulfilled his promise 
 of a long-wished for visit to Ids relations in Irclatid ; from 
 whence his safe return finibus Atticis is desired by his friends 
 here, with all the classical ardour of Sic te Diva potens 
 Cypri ^; for there is no man in whom more elegant and wor- 
 thy qualities are united ; and wliose society, therefore, is more 
 valued by those ivho knoiv him. 
 
 It is painfid to me to think, that while I was carrying on 
 this Work, several of those to zvhom it ivould have been most 
 interesting have died. Such melancholy disappointments we 
 knozv to be incident to humatiity ; but ive do not feel them the 
 
 they had not been acquainted with Johnson ' {post, under March 30, 
 1778). Writing to Temple in 1789, he said : — 'Johnson taught me to 
 cross-question in common Hfe.' Letters of Boswcll, p. 280. His quota- 
 tions, nevertheless, are not unfrequently inaccurate. Yet to him might 
 fairly be applied the words that Gibbon used of Tillemont : — ' His in- 
 imitable accuracy almost assumes the character of genius/ Gibbon's 
 Misc. Works, i. 213. 
 
 ' ' The revision of my Life of Johnson, by so acute and knowing a 
 critic as Mr. Malone, is of most essential consequence, especially as he 
 is Jo/insonianissimusJ Letters of Boswe!/,"^. 2,10. A few weeks earlier 
 he had written : — ' Yesterday afternoon Malone and I made ready for 
 the press thirty pages of Johnson's Life ; he is much pleased with it ; 
 but I feel a sad indifference [he had lately lost his wife], and he says 
 I have not the use of my faculties.' lb. p. 308. 
 
 ■^ Horace, Odes, i. 3. i, 
 
 less
 
 Advertisement to the First Edition. 9 
 
 less. Let nic particularly lament the Reverend Thomas War- 
 ton, and the Reveretid Dr. Adams. Mr. Warton, amidst his 
 variety of genius and lear?ting, was an excellent Biographer. 
 His contributiofis to my Collection are highly estimable ; and 
 as lie had a true relish of my Tour to the Hebrides, / trust I 
 should now have been gratified with a larger share of his kind 
 approbation. Dr. Adams, eminent as the Head of a College, 
 as a writer\ and as a most amiable man, had knozvn Johnson 
 from his early years, atid was his friend through life. What 
 reasofi I had to hope for the countenance of that venerable 
 Gentletnan to this Work, will appear from what he wrote to 
 me upon a former occasion from Oxford, November 17, 1785 : 
 — * Dear Sir, I hazard this letter, not knowing where it will 
 find you, to thank you for your very agreeable Tour, which 
 I found here on my return from the country, and in which 
 you have depicted our friend so perfectly to my fancy, in 
 every attitude, every scene and situation, that I have thought 
 myself in the company, and of the party almost throughout. 
 It has given very general satisfaction ; and those who have 
 found most fault with a passage here and there, have agreed 
 that they could not help going through, and being enter- 
 tained with the whole. I wish, indeed, some few gross ex- 
 pressions had been softened, and a few of our hero's foibles 
 had been a little more shaded ; but it is useful to see the 
 weaknesses incident to great minds ; and you have given 
 us Dr. Johnson's authority that in history all ought to be 
 told\' 
 
 Such a safiction to my faculty of giving a just represcjtta- 
 tion of Dr. Johnson / could not conceal. Nor will I suppress 
 my satisfaction in the consciousness, that by recording so con- 
 siderable a portion of the wisdom and wit of ' the brightest 
 
 ' He had published an answer to Hume's Essay on Miracles. See 
 post, March 20, 1776. 
 
 * ' Macleod asked if it was not wrong in Orrery to expose the defects 
 of a man [Swift] with whom he lived in intimacy. Johnson, " Why no, 
 Sir, after the man is dead ; for then it is done historically." ' Boswell's 
 Hebrides, Sept. 22, 1773. See 2i\?,o post, Sept, 17, 1777, 
 
 ornament
 
 lo Advertisement to the First Edition. 
 
 ornament of the eighteenth Q.Q.vA.\xry\' I have largely provided 
 for the instruction and entertainment of mankind. 
 
 London, April 20, 1791^ 
 
 ' See Mr. Malone's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare. Boswell. 
 
 2 'April 6, 1 791. 
 
 ' My Life of Johnson is at last drawing to a close ... I really hope 
 to publish it on the 25th current ... I am at present in such bad 
 spirits that I have every fear concerning it — that I may get no profit, 
 nay, may lose — that the Public may be disappointed, and think that I 
 have done it poorly — that I may make many enemies, and even have 
 quarrels. Yet perhaps the very reverse of all this may happen.' Let- 
 ters of Boswelt, p. 335. 
 
 'August 22, 1791. 
 
 ' My magnnm opt(s sells wonderfully ; twelve hundred are now gone, 
 and we hope the whole seventeen hundred may be gone before Christ- 
 mas.' lb. p. 342. 
 
 Malone in his Preface to the fourth edition, dated June 20, 1804, 
 says that ' near four thousand copies have been dispersed.' The first 
 edition was in 2 vols., quarto ; the second (1793) in 3 vols., octavo ; the 
 third (1799), the fourth (1804), the fifth (1807), and the sixth (181 1), 
 were each in 4 vols., octavo. The last four were edited by Malone, 
 Boswell having died while he was preparing notes for the third 
 edition.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 • TO THE 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 That I zuas a^txious for the success of a Work which had 
 employed iniicJi of viy time and labour, I do not zvish to con- 
 ceal: but wJiatcver doubts I at any time entertained, have been 
 entirely removed by the very favourable reception with ivhich 
 it has been honotired\ That reception has excited my best exer- 
 tions to re7ider my Book more perfect ; aiid in this endeavour 
 I have had the assistance not only of some of my particular 
 friends, but of many other learned and ingenious men, by 
 which I have been enabled to rectify some mistakes, arid to en- 
 rich the Work zuith many valuable additiofis. These I have 
 ordered to be printed separately in quarto, for the accommoda- 
 tion of the purchasers of the first edition '. May I be permit- 
 ted to say that the typography of both editions does hofiour to 
 the press of Mr. Henry Baldwin, 7iow blaster of the Worship- 
 ful Company of Stationers, whom I have long known as a 
 worthy man arid an obliging friend. 
 
 In the strangely mixed scenes of huma?i existence, our feel- 
 ings arc often at once pleasing and painful. Of this trutJi, 
 the progress of the present Work furnishes a striking instance. 
 It zvas highly gratifying to me that my friend. Sir Joshua 
 
 1 'Burke affirmed that Boswell's Life was a greater monument to 
 Johnson's fame than all his writings put together.' Life of Mac/cin- 
 tosh, i. 92. 
 
 ^ It is a pamphlet of forty-two pages, under the title of The Princi- 
 pal Corrections and Additions to the First Edition of Mr. Boswell's Life 
 of Dr. Johnson. Price two shillings and sixpence. 
 
 Reynolds,
 
 12 Advertiseme7it to the Second Edition. 
 
 Reynolds, to zuhom it is inscribed, lived to pernsc it, and to 
 give the strongest testimony to its fidelity ; but before a scco7id 
 edition, wJiich he contributed to improve, could be finished, the 
 world has been deprived of that most valuable man \' a loss of 
 which the regret zvill be deep, and lasting, and extensive, pro- 
 portionate to the felicity which he diffused through a zvide 
 circle of admirers and friends" . 
 
 In reflecting that the illustrious subject of this Work, by be- 
 ing more extensively and intimately known, however elevated 
 before, has risen in the veneration and love of mankind, I feel 
 a satisfaction beyond what fame can afford. We catinot, in- 
 deed, too much or too often admire his wonderfid poivers of 
 mind, when zve consider that the principal store of zvit and 
 wisdom zvhich this Work cojitaiiis, zvas not a particular selec- 
 tion from his general conversation, btit tvas merely his occa- 
 sional talk at such times as I had the good fortune to be in his 
 company' ; and, without doubt, if his discourse at other periods 
 
 ' Reynolds died on Feb. 23, 1792. 
 
 - Sir Joshua in his will left ;^200 to Mr. Boswell ' to be expended, if 
 he thought proper, in the purchase of a picture at the sale of his paint- 
 ings, to be kept for his sake.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 636. 
 
 2 Of the seventy-five years that Johnson lived, he and Boswell did 
 not spend two years and two months in the same neighbourhood. 
 Excluding the time they were together on their tour to the Hebri- 
 des, they were dwelling within reach of each other a few weeks less 
 than two years. Moreover, when they were apart, there were great 
 gaps in their correspondence. Between Dec. 8, 1763, and Jan. 14, 1766, 
 and again between Nov. 10, 1769, and June 20, 1771, during which pe- 
 riods they did not meet, Boswell did not receive a single letter from 
 Johnson. The following table shows the times they were in the same 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 1763, May 16 to Aug. 6 London. 
 
 1766, a few days in February „ 
 
 1768, „ „ March, Oxford. 
 
 1768 May, London. 
 
 1769, end of Sept. to Nov. 10 
 
 1772, March 21 to about May 10, ... . ., 
 
 1773, April 3 to May 10 „ 
 
 „ Aug. 14 to Nov. 22, Scotland. 
 
 1775, March 21 to April 18, May 2 to May 23, London. 
 
 had
 
 Advertisement to the Second Editio7i. 13 
 
 had been collected with the same attention, the zuhole tenor of 
 what he uttered wojild have becji found equally excellent. 
 
 His strotig, clear, and animated enforcement of religion, 
 morality, loyalty, and subordination, while it delights and im- 
 proves the wise and the good, will, I trust, prove an effectual 
 antidote to that detestable sophistry which has been lately im- 
 ported from France, under the false name of Philosophy, aiui 
 with a malignant industry has been employed against the peace, 
 good order, ajid happiness of society, in our free and prosperous 
 country ; but thanks be to QOY), without producing the perni- 
 cious effects which were hoped for by its propagators. 
 
 It seems to me, in my inoments of selfcomplacejtcy, that this 
 extensive biographical zuork, however inferior in its nature, 
 may in one respect be assimilated to the Odyssey. Amidst a 
 thousaiid cjitertaijiing atid instructive episodes the Hero is 
 never long out of sight ; for they are all in some degree con- 
 nected with him; and He, in the whole course of the History, 
 is exhibited by the A ut hour for the best advantage of his readers. 
 
 ' — Quid virtus et quid sapientia possit, 
 Utile proposuit nobis exemplar Ulyssen'.' 
 
 Should there be a?iy cold-blooded and morose mortals who 
 really dislike this Book, I will give them a story to apply. 
 
 1776, March 15 to May 16, with an inter- 
 val of about a fortnight, when John- 
 son was at Bath and Boswell at 
 London, 
 
 London, 
 
 Oxford, 
 
 Birmingham, 
 
 Lichfield, 
 
 Ashbourne, 
 
 and Bath. 
 
 1777, Sept. 14 to Sept. 24 Ashbourne. 
 
 1778, March 18 to May 19 London. 
 
 1779, March 15 to May 3 
 
 „ Oct. 4 to Oct. 1 8 
 
 1781, March 19 to June 5, . . London and Southill. 
 
 1783, March 21 to May 30 London. 
 
 1784, May 5 to June 30, . . . London and Oxford. 
 
 ' To shew what wisdom and what sense can do, 
 The poet sets Ulysses in our view.' 
 
 Francis. Horace, Ep. i. 2. 17. 
 
 When
 
 14 Advertisement to the Second Edition. 
 
 WJie7i the great Duke of Marlborough, accompanied by Lord 
 Cadogan, was one day rcconnoitcring the army in Flanders, a 
 heavy rain came on, and they both called for their cloaks. 
 Lord Cadogan's servant, a good Jiumoured alert lad, brought 
 his Lordship's in a minute. The Duke's servant, a lazy sulky 
 dog, zvas so sluggish, that his Grace being wet to the skin, re- 
 proved him, and had for anszver with a grunt, ' I came as 
 fast as I could,' upon zuhich the Duke calmly said, ' Cadogan, 
 I luould not for a thousand pounds have that fellow's temper.' 
 
 There are some men, I believe^ who have, or think they have, 
 a very small share of vanity. Such may spe-ak of their liter- 
 ary fame in a decorous style of diffidence. But I confess, that 
 I am so for^ned by natiire and by habit, that to restrain the 
 effusion of delight, on having obtained such fame, to me zvould 
 be truly painful. Why then should I suppress it ? Why ' out 
 of the abiuidance of the heart ' should I not speak ' ? Let me 
 then mention ivith a zvarm, but no insolent exultation, that L 
 Jiave been regaled ivitJi spontaneojis praise of my work by 
 many and various persons eminent for their rank, learning, 
 talents and accomplishments ; much of which praise L have 
 under their hands to be reposited in my archives at Auchin- 
 leck \ A n honourable and reverend friend speaking of the 
 favourable reception of my volumes, even in the circles of 
 fashion and elegance, said to me, '■you have made them all 
 talk JoJinson,' — Yes, / may add, L have Johnsonised the land; 
 and L trust they zvill not only talk, but X\\\rC^, JoJinson. 
 
 To enufnerate those to ivJiom L have been thus indebted, 
 would be tediously ostentatious. L caiinot Jiozvevcr btit name 
 one whose praise is tridy valuable, not only on account of his 
 knowledge and abilities, but on account of t lie magnificent, yet 
 
 ' In his Letter to the People of Scotland, p. 92, he wrote: — 'Allow 
 me, my friends and countrymen, while I with honest zeal maintain 
 yotir cause — allow me to indulge a little more my own egotism and 
 vanity. They are the indigenous plants of my mind ; they distinguish 
 it. I may prune their luxuriancy ; but I must not entirely clear it of 
 them ; for then I should be no longer " as I am ;" and perhaps there 
 might be something not so good.' 
 
 * See post, April 17, 1778, note. 
 
 da7igerous
 
 Advertisement to the Second Editioji. 15 
 
 dangerous embassy, in zvhich he is now employed'', which makes 
 every flung that relates to tiivi peculiarly interesting. Lord 
 Macartney favoured me with Ids ozvn copy of my book, ivith 
 a ftumber of notes, of zvhich I have availed myself On the 
 first leaf I found in Ids Lordship's Jiand-ivriting, an inscrip- 
 tion of such high commendation, that even I, vain as L am, 
 cannot prevail on myself to publish it. 
 
 [Jtity 1,1792,-.] 
 
 ' Lord Macartney was the first English ambassador to the Court of 
 Pekin. He left England in 1792 and returned in 1794. 
 
 •^ Boswell writing to Temple ten days earlier had said: — 'Behold 
 my hand! the robbery is only of a few shillings ; but the cut on my 
 head and bruises on my arms were sad things, and confined me to 
 bed, in pain, and fever, and helplessness, as a child, many days. . . . 
 This shall be a crisis in my life : I trust I shall henceforth be a sober 
 regular man. Indeed, m}^ indulgence in wine has, of late years espe- 
 cially, been excessive.' Letters of Boswell, p. 346.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 TO THE 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 Several valuable letters, and other curious matter, having 
 been covununicatcd to the AutJior too late to be arranged in 
 that chronological order which he had endeavoured uniforvily 
 to observe in his work, he was obliged to introduce them in his 
 Second Edition, by zvay of Addenda, as commodiously as lie 
 could. In the present edition these have been distributed in 
 their proper places. In revisijig his volumes for a new edi- 
 tion, he Jiad pointed out where some of these materials should 
 be inserted; but unfortunately in the midst of his labours, he 
 was seised with a fever, of whicJi, to the great regret of all his 
 friends, he died on the \C)th of May, 1795*. All the Notes 
 
 ' On this day his brother wrote to Mr. Temple : ' I have now the 
 painful task of informing you that my dear brother expired this morn- 
 ing at two o'clock; we have both lost a kind, affectionate friend, and 
 I shall never have such another.' Letters of Bosivell, p. 357. What 
 was probably Boswell's last letter is as follows : — 
 
 'Mv DEAR Temple, 
 
 ' I would fain write to you in my own hand, but really cannot. 
 [These words, which are hardly legible, and probably the last poor 
 Boswell ever wrote, afford the clearest evidence of his utter physical 
 prostration.] Alas, my friend, what a state is this ! My son James is 
 to write for me what remains of this letter, and I am to dictate. The 
 pain which continued for so many weeks was very severe indeed, and 
 when it went off I thought myself quite well ; but I soon felt a convic- 
 tion that I was by no means as I should be — so exceedingly weak, as 
 my miserable attempt to write to you afforded a full proof. All then 
 that can be said is, that I must wait with patience. But, O my friend ! 
 I.— 2 tJiat
 
 1 8 Advertisement to the TJii7'd Edition. 
 
 that he had written in the margin of the copy luJiich he had 
 in part revised, are here faitJifully preserved ; and a few new 
 Notes have been added, prineipally by sonic of those friends to 
 whom the Author in the former editions acknozvlcdged his ob- 
 ligations. Those subscribed zvith the letter B, zvere communi- 
 cated by Dr. Burney : tJiosc to ivhicli the letters J B are 
 annexed, by the Rev. J. Blakeway, of SJireivsbury, to zvhom 
 Mr. Boswell acknozvlcdged Jiimsclf indebted for some judicious 
 remarks on the first edition of his work : and the letters J 
 B — O. are annexed to some re^narks furnished by the Author s 
 second son, a Student of Brazen-Nose College in Oxford. Some 
 valuable observations zvere communicated by James Bindley, 
 Esq. First Commissioner i?i the Stamp-Office, zvhich have been 
 acknozvlcdged in their proper places. For all those zvithout 
 any signature, Mr. Malone is anszverable. — Every nczv remark, 
 not zvritten by t lie Author, for the sake of distinction has been 
 enclosed zvithin crotchets : in one instance, hozvever, the printer 
 by mistake has affixed this mark to a note relative to the Rev. 
 Thomas Fysche Palmer, which was written by Mr. Boswell, 
 and therefore ought not to have been thus distinguished. 
 
 I have only to add, that the proof-sheets of the present edi- 
 tion not having passed through my hands, I am not anszverable 
 for any typographical errours that may be found in it. Hav- 
 ing, hozvever, been printed at the very accurate press of Mr. 
 Baldwin, /;;/<^/^(? 710 doubt it zvill'bc found not less perfect tJian 
 the former edition ; the greatest care having been taken, by 
 correctness and elegance to do justice to one of the most in- 
 structive and entertaining works in the English language. 
 
 EDMOND MALONE'. 
 April Z, 1799. 
 
 how strange is it that, at this very time of my illness, you and Miss 
 Temple should have been in such a dangerous state. Much occasion 
 for thankfulness is there that it has not been worse with you. Pray 
 write, or make somebody write frequently. I feel myself a good deal 
 stronger to-day, notwithstanding the scrawl. God bless you, my dear 
 Temple ! I ever am your old and affectionate friend, here and I trust 
 hereafter. James Boswell.' Letters of Boswell, -p. zSo- 
 
 ^ Malone died on May 25, 1812.
 
 CHRONOLOGICAL CATALOGUE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PROSE WORKS' OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 [N. B. To those which he himself acknowledged is added ac- 
 knowl. To those which may be fully believed to be his from in- 
 ternal evidence, is added intern, evid.^ 
 
 1735. Abridgement and translation of Lobo's Voyage to Abys- 
 sinia, ackfiowl. 
 
 1738. Part of a translation of Father Paul Sarpi's History of the 
 
 Council of Trent, acknowl. 
 [N. B. As this work after some sheets were printed, suddenly 
 stopped, I know not whether any part of it is now to be found.] 
 
 For the Gentietnan's Magazine. 
 Preface, intern, evid. 
 Life of Father Paul, acknowl. 
 
 1739. A complete vindication of the Licenser of the Stage from 
 
 the malicious and scandalous aspersions of Mr. Brooke, 
 authour of Gustavus Vasa. acknowl. 
 
 ' I do not here include his Poetical Works ; for, excepting his Latin 
 Translation of Pope's Messiah, his London, and his Vanity of Human 
 Wishes imitated from Juvenal ; his Prologue on the opening of 
 Drury-Lane Theatre by Mr. Garrick, and his Irene, a Tragedy, they are 
 very numerous, and in general short ; and I have promised a complete 
 edition of them, in which I shall with the utmost care ascertain their 
 authenticity, and illustrate them with notes and various readings. 
 BoswELL. Boswell's meaning, though not well expressed, is clear 
 enough. Mr, Croker needlessly suggests that he wrote ' they are not 
 very numerous.' Boswell a second time {post, under Aug. 12, 1784, 
 note) mentions his intention to edit Johnson's poems. He died with- 
 out doing it. See aX'so post, 1750, Boswell's note on Addison's style. 
 
 Marmor
 
 20 A Chronological Catalogue of tJic 
 
 Marmor Norfolciense : or, an Essay on an ancient prophetical 
 inscription in monkish rhyme, lately discovered near 
 Lynne in Norfolk ; by Probus Britannicus. acknowl. 
 
 For the Gentleman'' s Magazine. 
 
 Life of Boerhaave. acknowl. 
 
 Address to the Reader, intern, evid. 
 
 Appeal to the Publick in Behalf of the Editor, intern, evid. 
 
 Considerations on the case of Dr. Trapp's Sermons ; a 
 plausible attempt to prove that an authour's work may be 
 abridged without injuring his property, acknowl. 
 
 1740. For the Gentleman'' s Magazine. 
 
 Preface, intern, evid. 
 Life of Admiral Drake, acknowl. 
 Life of Admiral Blake, acknowl. 
 Life of Philip Barretier. acknowl. 
 Essays on Epitaphs, acknowl. 
 
 1 741. For the Gentleman's Magazine. 
 
 Preface, intern, evid. 
 
 A free translation of the Jests of Hierocles, with an intro- 
 duction, intern, evid. 
 
 Debate on the Humble Petition and Advice of the Rump Par- 
 liament to Cromwell in 1657, to assume the Title of King ; 
 abridged, methodized and digested, intern, evid. 
 
 Translation of Abbe Guyon's Dissertation on the Amazons. 
 interti. evid. 
 
 Translation of Fontenelle's Panegyrick on Dr. Morin. in- 
 tern, evid. 
 
 I J ^2. For the Gentleman's Magazine. 
 
 Preface, intern, evid. 
 
 Essay on the Account of the Conduct of the Duchess of 
 
 Marlborough, acknoivl. 
 An Account of the Life of Peter Burman. acknowl. 
 The Life of Sydenham, afterwards prefixed to Dr. Swan's 
 
 edition of his Works, acknotvl. 
 Proposals for printing Bibliotheca Harleiana, or a Catalogue 
 
 of the Library of the Earl of Oxford, afterwards prefixed 
 
 to
 
 Prose Works of Samuel Johnson^ LL.D. 2 1 
 
 to the first Volume of that Catalogue, in which the Latin 
 Accounts of the Books were written by him. acknowl. 
 
 Abridgement intitled, Foreign History, mteni. evid. 
 
 Essay on the Description of China, from the French of Du 
 Halde. intern, evid. 
 
 1743. Dedication to Dr. Mead of Dr. James's Medicinal Diction- 
 
 ary, intern, evid. 
 
 For the Getitieman's Magazine. 
 
 Preface, intern, evid. 
 
 Parliamentary Debates under the Name of Debates in the 
 Senate of Lilliput, from Nov. 19, 1740, to Feb. 23, 1742-3, 
 inclusive, acknowl. 
 
 Considerations on the Dispute between Crousaz and War- 
 burton on Pope's Essay on Man. intern, evid. 
 
 A Letter announcing that the Life of Mr. Savage was speed- 
 ily to be published by a person who was favoured with 
 his Confidence, intern, evid. 
 
 Advertisement for Osborne concerning the Harleian Cata- 
 logue, intern, evid. 
 
 1744. Life of Richard Savage, acknowl. 
 
 Preface to the Harleian Miscellany, acknowl. 
 
 For the Gentleman^ s Magazine. 
 Preface, intern, evid. 
 
 1745. Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, 
 
 with remarks on Sir T. H.'s (Sir Thomas Hanmer's) 
 Edition of Shakspeare, and proposals for a new Edition 
 of that Poet, acknowl. 
 
 1747. Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language, addressed 
 
 to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, acknowl. 
 
 For the Gentleman'' s Magazine. 
 
 1748. Life of Roscommon, acknowl. 
 Foreign History, November, intern, evid. 
 
 For Dodslefs Preceptor. 
 
 Preface, acknowl. 
 
 Vision of Theodore the Hermit, achiowl. 
 1750. The Rambler, the first Paper of which was published 20th 
 
 of
 
 2 2 A Chronological Catalogue of the 
 
 of March this year, and the last 17th of March, 1752, the 
 day on which Mrs. Johnson died, acknowl. 
 Letter in the General Advertiser to excite the attention of 
 the Publick to the Performance of Conius, which was 
 next day to be acted at Drury-Lane Playhouse for the 
 Benefit of Milton's Grandaughter. acknowl. 
 Preface and Postscript to Lauder's Pamphlet intitled, ' An 
 Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in 
 his Paradise Lost.' acknoivl. 
 1 75 1. Life of Cheynel in the Miscellany called 'The Student.' 
 ack)i07vl. 
 Letter for Lauder, addressed to the Reverend Dr. John 
 Douglas, acknowledging his Fraud concerning Milton in 
 Terms of suitable Contrition, acktiowl. 
 Dedication to the Earl of Middlesex of Mrs. Charlotte Len- 
 nox's 'Female Quixotte.' intern, evid.^ 
 1753. Dedication to John Earl of Orrery, of Shakspeare Illus- 
 trated, by Mrs. Charlotte Lennox, acknowl. 
 During this and the following year he wrote and gave to 
 his much loved friend Dr. Bathurst the Papers in the Ad- 
 venturer, signed T. acknowl. 
 7754. Life of Edw. Cave in the Gentleman's Magazine, acknowl. 
 
 1755. A Dictionary, with a Grammar and History, of the Eng- 
 
 lish Language, acknowl. 
 An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at 
 Sea, by an exact Theory of the Variations of the Magnet- 
 ical Needle, with a Table of the Variations at the most 
 remarkable Cities in Europe from the year 1660 to 16S0. 
 acknozvl. This he wrote for Mr. Zachariah Williams, an 
 ingenious ancient Welch Gentleman, father of Mrs. Anna 
 Williams whom he for many years kindly lodged in his 
 House. It was published with a Translation into Italian 
 by Signor Baretti. In a Copy of it which he presented 
 to the Bodleian Library at Oxford, is pasted a Character 
 of the late Mr. Zachariah Williams, plainly written by 
 Johnson, intern, evid. 
 
 1756. An Abridgement of his Dictionary, acknowl. 
 
 Several Essays in the Universal Visitor, which there is 
 
 ■ The Female Quixote was published in 1752. See post, 1762, note. 
 
 some
 
 Prose Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. 23 
 
 some difficulty in ascertaining. All that are marked with 
 two Asterisks have been ascribed to him, although I am 
 confident from internal Evidence, that we should except 
 from these ' The Life of Chaucer,' ' Reflections on the 
 State of Portugal,' and ' An Essay on Architecture :' And 
 from the same Evidence I am confident that he wrote 
 ' Further Thoughts on Agriculture,' and ' A Dissertation 
 on the State of Literature and Authours.' The Disser- 
 tation on the Epitaphs written by Pope he afterwards 
 acknowledged, and added to his ' Idler.' 
 Life of Sir Thomas Browne prefixed to a new Edition of 
 his Christian Morals, ackmnul. 
 
 In ihe Literary Magazine; or, Universal Review, which began in 
 
 January, 1756. 
 
 His Original Essays are 
 
 Preliminary Address, intern, evid. 
 
 An introduction to the Political State of Great Britain. 
 
 intern, evid. 
 Remarks on the Militia Bill. i?itern. evid. 
 Observations on his Britannick Majesty's Treaties with the 
 
 Empress of Russia and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel. 
 
 intern, evid. 
 Observations on the Present State of Afifairs. intern, evid. 
 Memoirs of Frederick IH. King of Prussia, intern, evid. 
 
 In the same Magazine his Reviews are of the following books : 
 'Birch's History of the Royal Society.' — 'Browne's Chris- 
 tian Morals.' — 'Warton's Essay on the Writings and 
 Genius of Pope, Vol. L' — 'Hampton's Translation of 
 Polybius.' — ' Sir Isaac Newton's Arguments in Proof of 
 a Deity.' — ' Borlase's History of the Isles of Scilly.' — 
 ' Home's Experiments on Bleaching.' — ' Browne's His- 
 tory of Jamaica.' — 'Hales on Distilling Sea Waters, 
 Ventilators in Ships, and curing an ill Taste in Milk.' — 
 ' Lucas's Essay on Waters.' — ' Keith's Catalogue of the 
 Scottish Bishops.' — 'Philosophical Transactions, Vol. 
 XLIX.' — ' Miscellanies by Elizabeth Harrison.' — Evans's 
 Map and Account of the Middle Colonics in America.' 
 
 The
 
 24 A Chronological Catalogue of the 
 
 — 'The Cadet, a Military Treatise.' — 'The Conduct of 
 the Ministry relating to the present War impartially ex- 
 amined.' intern, evid. 
 
 * Mrs. Lennox's Translation of Sully's Memoirs.'—' Letter 
 on the Case of Admiral Byng.' — ' Appeal to the People 
 concerning Admiral Byng.' — ' Han way's Eight Days' 
 Journey, and Essay on Tea.' — ' Some further Particulars 
 in Relation to the Case of Admiral Byng, by a Gentleman 
 of Oxford.' acknowl. 
 
 Mr. Jonas Hanway having written an angry Answer to the 
 Review of his Essay on Tea, Johnson in the same Col- 
 lection made a Reply to it. acknowl. This is the only 
 Instance, it is believed, when he condescended to take 
 Notice of any Thing that had been written against him : 
 and here his chief Intention seems to have been to make 
 Sport. 
 
 Dedication to the Earl of Rochford of, and Preface to, Mr. 
 Payne's Introduction to the Game of Draughts, acknowl. 
 
 Introduction to the London Chronicle, an Evening Paper 
 which still subsists with deserved credit, acknowl. 
 
 1757. Speech on the Subject of an Address to the Throne after 
 
 the Expedition to Rochefort; delivered by one of his 
 Friends in some publick Meeting : it is printed in the 
 Gentleman's Magazine for October 1785. intern, evid. 
 The first two Paragraphs of the Preface to Sir William 
 Chambers's Designs of Chinese Buildings, &c. acknowl. 
 
 1758. The Idler, which began April 5, in this year, and vi^as con- 
 
 tinued till April 5, 1760. acknowl. 
 An Essay on the Bravery of the English Common Soldiers 
 was added to it when published in Volumes, acknowl. 
 
 1759. Rasselas Prince of Abyssinia, a Tale, acknowl. 
 Advertisement for the Proprietors of the Idler against cer- 
 tain Persons who pirated those Papers as they came out 
 singly in a Newspaper called the Universal Chronicle or 
 Weekly Gazette, intern, evid. 
 
 For Mrs. Charlotte Lennox's English Version of Brumoy, 
 — ' A Dissertation on the Greek Comedy,' and the Gen- 
 eral Conclusion of the Book, ifitern. evid. 
 
 Introduction to the World Displayed, a Collection of Voy- 
 ages and Travels, acknowl. 
 
 Throe
 
 Prose Works of Safnuel yohjisoji, LL.D. 25 
 
 Three Letters in the Gazetteer, concerning the best plan for 
 Blackfriars Bridge, acknowl. 
 
 1760. Address of the Painters to George III. on his Accession to 
 
 the Throne, intern, evid. 
 Dedication of Baretti's Italian and English Dictionary to 
 
 the Marquis of Abreu, then Envoy-Extraordinary from 
 
 Spain at the Court of Great-Britain, intern, evid. 
 Review in the Gentleman's Magazine of Mr. Tytler's acute 
 
 and able Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots, acknowl. 
 Introduction to the Proceedings of the Committee for 
 
 Cloathing the French Prisoners, acknowl. 
 
 1 761. Preface to Rolt's Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, ac- 
 
 k7iowl. 
 Corrections and Improvements for Mr. Gwyn the Archi- 
 tect's Pamphlet, intitled ' Thoughts on the Coronation of 
 George III.' acknowl. 
 
 1762. Dedication to the King of the Reverend Dr. Kennedy's 
 
 Complete System of Astronomical Chronology, unfolding 
 
 the Scriptures, Quarto Edition, acknowl. 
 Concluding Paragraph of that Work, intern, evid. 
 Preface to the Catalogue of the Artists' Exhibition, intern. 
 
 evid. 
 
 1763. Character of Collins in the Poetical Calendar, published by 
 
 Fawkes and Woty. acknowl. 
 
 Dedication to the Earl of Shaftesbury of the Edition of 
 Roger Ascham's English Works, published by the Rev- 
 erend Mr. Bennet. acknowl. 
 
 The Life of Ascham, also prefixed to that edition, acknowl. 
 
 Review of Telemachus, a Masque, by the Reverend George 
 Graham of Eton College, in the Critical Review, ac- 
 knowl. 
 
 Dedication to the Queen of Mr. Hoole's Translation of 
 Tasso. acknowl. • 
 
 Account of the Detection of the Imposture of the Cock- 
 Lane Ghost, published in the Newspapers and Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, acknowl. 
 
 1764. Part of a Review of Grainger's ' Sugar Cane, a Poem,' in the 
 
 London Chronicle, acknowl. 
 Review of Goldsmith's Traveller, a Poem, in the Critical 
 Review, acknowl. 
 
 1765.
 
 26 A Chronological Catalogue of the 
 
 1765. The Plays of William Shakspeare, in eight volumes, 8vo. 
 
 with Notes, acknowl. 
 
 1766. The Fountains, a Fairy Tale, in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies. 
 
 acknowl. 
 
 1767. Dedication to the King of Mr. Adams's Treatise on the 
 
 Globes, acknowl. 
 
 1769. Character of the Reverend Mr. Zachariah Mudge, in the 
 
 London Chronicle, acknowl. 
 
 1770. The False Alarm, acknowl. 
 
 1 77 1. Thoughts on the late Transactions respecting Falkland's 
 
 Islands, acknowl. 
 
 1772. Defence of a Schoolmaster; dictated to me for the House 
 
 of Lords, acknoivl. 
 Argument in Support of the Law of Vicious Intromission ; 
 dictated to me for the Court of Session in Scotland, ac- 
 knoivl. 
 
 1773. Preface to Macbean's ' Dictionary of Ancient Geography.' 
 
 achiowl. 
 Argument in Favour of the Rights of Lay Patrons ; dictated 
 to me for the General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
 land, acknowl. 
 
 1774. The Patriot, acknowl. 
 
 ^775- -^ Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, acknowl. 
 
 Proposals for publishing the Works of Mrs. Charlotte Len- 
 nox, in Three Volumes Quarto, acknowl. 
 Preface to Baretti's Easy Lessons in Italian and English. 
 
 intern, evid. 
 Taxation no Tyranny; an Answer to the Resolutions and 
 
 Address of the American Congress, acknozul. 
 Argument on the Case of Dr. Memis ; dictated to me for 
 
 the Court of Session in Scotland, acknowl. 
 Argument to prove that the Corporation of Stirling was cor- 
 rupt ; dictated to me for the House of Lords, acknowl. 
 1776. Argument in Support of the Right of immediate, and per- 
 sonal reprehension from the Pulpit ; dictated to me. ac- 
 knowl. 
 Proposals for publishing an Analysis of the Scotch Celtick 
 Language, by the Reverend William Shaw, acknowl. 
 ijjj. Dedication to the King of the Posthumous Works of Dr. 
 Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, acknowl. 
 
 Additions
 
 Prose Works of Saimiel Johnson, LL.D. 27 
 
 Additions to the Life and Character of that Prelate ; pre- 
 fixed to those Works, acktiowl. 
 
 Various Papers and Letters in Favour of the Reverend Dr. 
 Dodd. acknowl. 
 1780. Advertisement for his Friend Mr. Thrale to the Worthy 
 Electors of the Borough of Southwark. acknowl. 
 
 The first Paragraph of Mr. Thomas Davies's Life of Garrick. 
 acknowl. 
 17S1. Prefaces Biographical and Critical to the Works of the most 
 eminent English Poets; afterwards published with the 
 Title of Lives of the English Poets', acknowl. 
 
 Argument on the Importance of the Registration of Deeds; 
 dictated to me for an Election Committee of the House of 
 Commons, acknowl. 
 
 On the Distinction between Tory and Whig ; dictated to 
 me. ack?iowl. 
 
 On Vicarious Punishments, and the great Propitiation for 
 the Sins of the World, by Jesus Christ; dictated to me. 
 acknowl. 
 
 Argument in favour of Joseph Knight, an African Negro, 
 who claimed his Liberty in the Court of Session in Scot- 
 land, and obtained it ; dictated to me. acknowl. 
 
 Defence of Mr. Robertson, Printer of the Caledonian Mer- 
 cury, against the Society of Procurators in Edinburgh, 
 for having inserted in his Paper a ludicrous Paragraph 
 against them ; demonstrating that it was not an injurious 
 Libel ; dictated to me. acknowl. 
 1782. The greatest part, if not the whole, of a Reply, by the Rev- 
 erend Mr. Shaw, to a Person at Edinburgh, of the Name 
 of Clark, refuting his arguments for the authenticity of 
 the Poems published by Mr. James Macpherson as Trans- 
 lations from Ossian. intern, cvid. 
 1784. List of the Authours of the Universal History, deposited in 
 the British Museum, and printed in the Gentleman's 
 Magazine for December, this year, acknoivl. 
 
 ' The first four volumes of the Lives were published in 1779, ^^e last 
 six in 1781. 
 
 Various
 
 28 A Chronological Catalogue, &c. 
 
 Various Years. 
 
 Letters to Mrs. Thrale. acknowl. 
 
 Prayers and Meditations, which he delivered to the Rev, 
 Mr. Strahan, enjoining him to publish them, acknowl. 
 
 Sermons left for Publication by John Taylor, LL.D. Pre- 
 bendary of Westminster, and given to the World by the 
 Reverend Samuel Hayes, A.M. intern, evid. 
 
 Such was the number and variety of the Prose Works of this 
 extraordinary man, which I have been able to discover, and am at 
 liberty to mention ; but we ought to keep in mind, that there must 
 undoubtedly have been many more which are yet concealed ; and 
 we may add to the account, the numerous Letters which he wrote, 
 of which a considerable part are yet unpublished. It is hoped that 
 those persons in whose possession they are, will favour the world 
 with them. 
 
 JAMES BOS WELL. 
 
 ' After my death I wish no other herald, 
 ' No other speaker of my living actions, 
 ' To keep mine honour from corruption, 
 ' But such an honest chronicler as Griffith '.' 
 
 Shakspeare, Henry FILL [Act LV. Sc. 2.] 
 
 ' See Dr. Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Ostick in Skie, Sep- 
 tember 30, 1773: — ' Boswell writes a regular Journal of our travels, 
 which I think contains as much of what I say and do, as of all other 
 occurrences together ; "for such a faithful chronicler is Griffith." ' 
 BoswELL. See Piozzi Letters, i. 159, where however we read 'as 
 Griffith.'
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 TO write the Life of him who excelled all mankind in 
 writing the lives of others, and who, whether we con- 
 sider his extraordinary endowments, or his various works, 
 has been equalled by few in any age, is an arduous, and may 
 be reckoned in me a presumptuous task. 
 
 Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with 
 the opinion which he has given ', that every man's life may 
 be best written by himself ; had he employed in the preser- 
 vation of his own history, that clearness of narration and 
 elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many 
 eminent persons, the world would probably have had the 
 most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited. 
 But although he at different times, in a desultory manner, 
 committed to writing many particulars of the progress of 
 his mind and fortunes, he never had persevering diligence 
 enough to form them into a regular composition \ Of these 
 
 ' Idler, No. 84. Boswell. — In this paper he says: 'Those relations 
 are commonly of most value in which the writer tells his own story. 
 He that recounts the life of another . . . lessens the familiarity of his 
 tale to increase its dignity . . . and endeavours to hide the man that 
 he may produce a hero.' 
 
 * ' It very seldom happens to man that his business is his pleasure. 
 What is done from necessity is so often to be done when against the 
 present inclination, and so often fills the mind with anxiety, that an 
 habitual dislike steals upon us, and we shrink involuntarily from the 
 remembrance of our task. . . . From this unwillingness to perform more 
 than is required of that which is commonly performed with reluct- 
 ance it proceeds that few authors write their own lives.' Idler, No. 
 102. See also /(?j-/'. May i, 1783. 
 
 memorials
 
 30 The author s qualifications. 
 
 memorials a few have been preserved ; but the greater 
 part was consigned by him to the flames, a few days before 
 his death. 
 
 As I had the honor and happiness of enjoying his friend- 
 ship for upwards of twenty years ; as I had the scheme of 
 writing his Hfe constantly in view ; as he was well apprised 
 of this circumstance', and from time to time obligingly sat- 
 isfied my inquiries, by communicating to me the incidents of 
 his early years ; as I acquired a facility in recollecting, and 
 was very assiduous in recording, his conversation, of which 
 the extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the 
 
 ' Mrs. Piozzi records the following conversation with Johnson, 
 which, she says, took place on July i8, 1773. 'And who will be my 
 biographer,' said he, 'do you think?' 'Goldsmith, no doubt,' re- 
 plied I ; ' and he will do it the best among us.' ' The dog would 
 write it best to be sure,' replied he; 'but his particular malice tow- 
 ards me, and general disregard for truth, would make the book 
 useless to all, and injurious to my character.' ' Oh ! as to that,' said 
 I, 'we should all fasten upon him, and force him to do you justice; 
 but the worst is, the Doctor does not know your life ; nor can I tell 
 indeed who does, except Dr. Taylor of Ashbourne.' ' Why Taylor,' 
 said he, ' is better acquainted with my heart than any man or wom- 
 an now alive ; and the history of my Oxford exploits lies all between 
 him and Adams ; but Dr. James knows my veiy early days better 
 than he. After my coming to London to drive the world about a 
 little, you must all go to Jack Hawkesworth for anecdotes : I lived in 
 great familiarity with him (though I think there was not much affec- 
 tion) from the year 1753 till the time Mr. Thrale and you took me up. 
 I intend, however, to disappoint the rogues, and either make you write 
 the life, with Taylor's intelligence ; or, which is better, do it myself 
 after outliving you all. I am now,' added he, ' keeping a diary, in 
 hopes of using it for that purpose some time.' Piozzi's Ancc. p. 31. 
 How much of this is true cannot be known. Boswell some time be- 
 fore this conversation had told Johnson that he intended to write his 
 Life, and Johnson had given him many particulars (see /c'.y/', March 
 31, 1772, and April 11, 1773). He read moreover in manuscript most 
 of Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, and from it learnt of his intention. 
 ' It is no small satisfaction to me to reflect,' Boswell wrote, ' that Dr. 
 Johnson, after being apprised of my intentions, communicated to me, 
 at subsequent periods, many particulars of his life.' Boswell's Heb- 
 rides, Oct. 14, 1773. 
 
 first
 
 The Life by Sir J. Hawkins. 31 
 
 first features of his character ; and as I have spared no pains 
 in obtaining- materials concerning him, from every quarter 
 where I could discover that they were to be found, and 
 have been favoured with the most liberal communications 
 by his friends ; I flatter myself that few biographers have 
 entered upon such a work as this, with more advantages ; 
 independent of literary abilities, in which I am not vain 
 enough to compare myself with some great names who have 
 gone before me in this kind of writing. 
 
 Since my work was announced, several Lives and Memoirs 
 of Dr. Johnson have been published', the most voluminous 
 of which is one compiled for the booksellers of London, by 
 Sir John Hawkins, Knight', a man, whom, during my long 
 intimacy with Dr. Johnson, I never saw in his company, 
 I think but once, and I am sure not above twice. John- 
 son might have esteemed him for his decent, religious de- 
 meanour, and his knowledge of books and literary history ; 
 but from the rigid formality of his manners, it is evident that 
 they never could have lived together with companionable 
 ease and familiarity'; nor had Sir John Hawkins that nice 
 
 ' ' It may be said the death of Dr. Johnson kept the public mind 
 in agitation beyond all former example. No literary character ever 
 excited so much attention.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 3. 
 
 " The greatest part of this book was written while Sir John Hawkins 
 was alive ; and I avow, that one object of my strictures was to make 
 him feel some compunction for his illiberal treatment of Dr. Johnson. 
 Since his decease, I have suppressed several of my remarks upon his 
 work. But though I would not ' war with the dead ' offensively, I think 
 it necessary to be strenuous in defence of my illustrious friend, which 
 I cannot be without strong animadversions upon a writer who has 
 greatly injured him. Let me add, that though I doubt I should not 
 have been very prompt to gratify Sir John Hawkins with any com- 
 pliment in his lifetime, I do now frankly acknowledge, that, in my 
 opinion, his volume, however inadequate and improper as a life of 
 Dr. Johnson, and however discredited by unpardonable inaccuracies 
 in other respects, contains a collection of curious anecdotes and obser- 
 vations, which few men but its author could have brought together. 
 
 BOSWELL. 
 
 ' 'The next name that was started was that of Sir John Hawkins; 
 and Mrs. Thrale said, " Why nov/. Dr. Johnson, he is another of those 
 
 perception
 
 32 Ike Life by Sir J. Hawkins. 
 
 perception which was necessary to mark the finer and less 
 obvious part of Johnson's character. His being appointed 
 one of his executors, gave him an opportunity of taking pos- 
 session of such fragments of a diaiy and other papers as were 
 left ; of which, before delivering them up to the residuary 
 legatee, whose property they were, he endeavoured to ex- 
 tract the substance. In this he has not been very successful, 
 as I have found upon a perusal of those papers, which have 
 been since transferred to me. Sir John Hawkins's ponderous 
 labours, I must acknowledge, exhibit a farrago, of which a 
 considerable portion is not devoid of entertainment to the 
 lovers of literary gossiping ; but besides its being swelled 
 out with long unnecessary extracts from various works (even 
 one of several leaves from Osborne's Harleian Catalogue, 
 and those not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys), a very 
 small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of 
 the book ; and, in that, there is such an inaccuracy in the 
 statement of facts, as in so solemn an authour is hardly 
 excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatis- 
 factory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the 
 whole of it a dark, uncharitable cast, by which the most 
 unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circum- 
 stance in the character and conduct of my illustrious 
 
 whom you suffer nobody to abuse but yourself : Garrick is one too ; 
 for, if any other person spealvs against him, you brow-beat him in a 
 minute." "Why madam," answered he, "they don't know when to 
 abuse him, and when to praise him ; I will allow no man to speak ill 
 of David that he does not deserve ; and as to Sir John, why really I 
 believe him to be an honest man at the bottom ; but to be sure he is 
 penurious, and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a degree of bru- 
 tality, and a tendency to savageness, that cannot easily be defended." 
 . . . He said that Sir John and he once belonged to the same club, but 
 that as he eat no supper, after the first night of his admission he de- 
 sired to be excused paying his share. "And was he excused?" "O 
 yes ; for no man is angry at another for being inferior to himself. We 
 all scorned him, and admitted his plea. For my part, I was such a 
 fool as to pay my share for wine, though I never tasted any. But 
 Sir John was a most unchibable man." ' Madame D'Arblay's Diary, 
 i.65. 
 
 friend ;
 
 Warb2irtoii s vieiv of biography. 3'' 
 
 a 
 
 friend' ; who, I trust, will, by a true and fair delineation, be 
 vindicated both from the injurious misrepresentations of this 
 authour, and from the slighter aspersions of a lady who 
 once lived in great intimacy with him^. 
 
 There is, in the British Museum, a letter from Bishop War- 
 burton to Dr. Birch, on the subject of biography ; which, 
 though I am aware it may expose me to a charge of art- 
 fully raising the value of my own work, by contrasting it 
 with that of which I have spoken, is so well conceived and 
 expressed, that I cannot refrain from here inserting it : — 
 
 ' I shall endeavour, (says Dr. Warburton,) to give you what satis- 
 faction I can in any thing you want to be satisfied in any subject 
 of Milton, and am extremely glad you intend to write his life. 
 Almost all the life-writers we have had before Toland and Des- 
 maiseaux^, are indeed strange insipid creatures; and yet I had 
 rather read the worst of them, than be obliged to go through with 
 
 ' ' In censuring Mr. \sic\ J. Hawkins's book I say : "There is through- 
 out the whole of it a dark, uncharitable cast, which puts the most un- 
 favourable construction on my illustrious friend's conduct." Malone 
 maintains cast will not do ; he will have " malignancy." Is that not 
 too strong ? How would " disposition " do ? . . . Hawkins is no doubt 
 very malevolent. Observe how he talks of ?ne as quite unknown.' Let- 
 ters of Boswell, p. 281. Malone wrote of Hawkins as follows: 'The 
 bishop [Bishop Percy of Dromore] concurred with every other person 
 I have heard speak of Hawkins, in saying that he was a most detest- 
 able fellow. He was the son of a carpenter, and set out in life in the 
 very lowest line of the law. Dyer knew him well at one time, and the 
 bishop heard him give a character of Hawkins once that painted him 
 in the blackest colours ; though Dyer was by no means apt to deal in 
 such portraits. Dyer said he was a man of the most mischievous, un- 
 charitable, and malignant disposition. Sir Joshua Reynolds observed 
 to me that Hawkins, though he assumed great outward sanctity, was 
 not only mean and grovelling in disposition, but a.bsolutely dishonest. 
 He never lived in any real intimacy with Dr. Johnson, who never 
 opened his heart to him, or had in fact any accurate knowledge of 
 his character.' Prior's Malone, pp. 425-7. S&e. post, Feb. 1764, note. 
 
 - Mrs. Piozzi. See post, under June 30, 1784. 
 
 * Voltaire in his account of Bayle says : ' Des Maizeaux a ecrit sa 
 vie en un gros volume ; elle ne devait pas contenir six pages.' Vol- 
 taire's I Tor ks, edition of 1819, xvii. 47. 
 
 I. — 3 this
 
 34 The authors mode of procedure. 
 
 this of Milton's, or the other's life of Boileau, where there is such 
 a dull, heavy succession of long quotations of disinteresting pas- 
 sages, that it makes their method quite nauseous. But the verbose, 
 tasteless Frenchman seems to lay it down as a principle, that eveiy 
 life must be a book, and what's worse, it proves a book without a 
 life ; for what do we know of Boileau, after all his tedious stuff ? 
 You are the only one, (and I speak it without a compliment,) that 
 by the vigour of your stile and sentiments, and the real importance 
 of your materials, have the art, (which one would imagine no one 
 could have missed,) of adding agreements to the most agreeable 
 subject in the world, which is literary history'. 
 'Nov. 24, 1737.' 
 
 Instead of melting down my materials into one mass, and 
 constantly speaking in my own person, by which I might 
 have appeared to have more merit in the execution of the 
 work, I have resolved to adopt and enlarge upon the excel- 
 lent plan of Mr. Mason, in his Memoirs of Gray^ Wher- 
 ever narrative is necessary to explain, connect, and supply, 
 I furnish it to the best of my abilities ; but in the chrono- 
 logical series of Johnson's life, which I trace as distinctly as 
 I can, year by year, I produce, wherever it is in my power, 
 his own minutes, letters or conversation, being convinced 
 that this mode is more lively, and will make my readers 
 better acquainted with him, than even most of those were 
 who actually knew him, but could know him qnly partially; 
 whereas there is here an accumulation of intelligence from 
 various points, by which his character is more fully under- 
 stood and illustrated \ 
 
 ' Brit. Mus. 4320, Ayscough's Catal., Sloane MSS. Boswell. — Hor- 
 ace Walpole describes Birch as ' a worthy, good-natured soul, full of 
 industry and activity, and running about like a young setting-dog in 
 quest of anything, new or old, and with no parts, taste, or judgment.' 
 Walpole's Letter s,v'\\. 326. Ste. post, Sept. 1743. 
 
 - ' You have fixed the method of biography, and whoever will write 
 a life well must imitate you.' Horace Walpole to Mason ; Walpole's 
 Letters, \i. 211. 
 
 ^ ' I am absolutely certain that my mode of biography, which gives 
 not only a History of Johnson's visible progress through the world, 
 and of his publications, but a view of his mind in his letters and con- 
 Indeed
 
 Not a panegyrick, but a Life. 35 
 
 Indeed I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing 
 any man's life, than not only relating all the most important 
 events of it in their order, but interweaving what he pri- 
 vately wrote, and said, and thought ; by which mankind are 
 enabled as it were to see him live, and to ' live o'er each 
 scene' ' with him, as he actually advanced through the sev- 
 eral stages of his life. Had his other friends been as diligent 
 and ardent as I was, he might have been almost entirely 
 preserved. As it is, I will venture to say that he will be 
 seen in this work more completely than any man who has 
 ever yet lived '. 
 
 And he will be seen as he really was ; for I profess to 
 write, not his panegyrick, which must be all praise, but his 
 Life ; which, great and good as he was, must not be sup- 
 posed to be entirely perfect. To be as he was, is indeed sub- 
 ject of panegyrick enough to any man in this state of being ; 
 but in every picture there should be shade as well as light, 
 and when I delineate him without reserve, I do what he 
 himself recommended, both by his precept and his example \ 
 
 ' If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes 
 haste to gratify the publick curiosity, there is danger lest his 
 
 versations, is the most perfect that can be conceived, and will be more 
 of a Life than any work that has ever yet appeared.' Letters of Bos- 
 well, p. 265. 
 
 ' Pope's Prologue to Addison's Cato, 1. 4. 
 
 * ' . . . Boswell is the first of biographers. He has distanced all his 
 competitors so decidedly that it is not worth while to place them. 
 Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere.' Macaulay's Essays, i. 374. 
 
 ^ See post, Sept. 17, 1777, and Malone's note of March 15, 1781, and 
 Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22, 1773. Hannah More met Boswell when 
 he was carrying through the press his Journal of a Tour to the Heb- 
 rides. ' Boswell tells me,' she writes, ' he is printing anecdotes of 
 Johnson, not his Lzfe, but, as he has the vanity to call it, his pyramid. 
 I besought his tenderness for our virtuous and most revered departed 
 friend, and begged he would mitigate some of his asperities. He said 
 roughly : " He would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat, to 
 please anybody." It will, I doubt not, be a very amusing book, but, I 
 hope, not an indiscreet one; he has great enthusiasm and some fire.' 
 H. More's Memoirs, i. 403. 
 
 interest,
 
 36 Conversatio7t best displays character. 
 
 interest, his fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness overpower his 
 fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if not to invent. There are 
 many who think it an act of piety to hide the faults or failings of 
 their friends, even when they can no longer suffer by their detec- 
 tion ; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned with 
 uniform panegyrick, and not to be known from one another but 
 by extrinsick and casual circumstances. " Let me remember, 
 (says Hale,) when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that 
 there is likewise a pity due to the country." If we owe regard to 
 the memory of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to 
 knowledge, to virtue and to truth'.' 
 
 What I consider as the peculiar value of the following 
 work, is, the quantity it contains of Johnson's conversation ; 
 which is universally acknowledged to have been eminently 
 instructive and entertaining ; and of which the specimens 
 that I have given upon a former occasion ^ have been re- 
 ceived with so much approbation, that I have good grounds 
 for supposing that the world will not be indifferent to more 
 ample communications of a similar nature. 
 
 That the conversation of a celebrated man, if his talents 
 have been exerted in conversation, will best display his char- 
 acter, is, I trust, too well established in the judgment of man- 
 kind, to be at all shaken by a sneering observation of Mr. 
 Mason, in his Memoirs of Mr. William Whitehead, in which 
 there is literally no Life, but a mere dry narrative of facts ^ 
 I do not think it was quite necessary to attempt a deprecia- 
 tion of what is universally esteemed, because it was not to 
 be found in the immediate object of the ingenious writer's 
 pen ; for in truth, from a man so still and so tame, as to be 
 contented to pass many years as the domestick companion of 
 a superannuated lord and lady ', conversation could no more 
 
 ' Rambler, No. 60. Boswell. 
 
 - In the Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. 
 
 ' ' Mason's Life of Gray is excellent, because it is interspersed with 
 letters which show us the man. His Life of Whitehead is not a life 
 at all, for there is neither a letter nor a saying from first to last.' Let- 
 ters of Boswell, p. 265. 
 
 * The Earl and Countess of Jersey. Wright. 
 
 be
 
 Dr. Jolmsoii on biograpJiy. 37 
 
 be expected, than from a Chinese mandarin on a chimney- 
 piece, or the fantastick figures on a gilt leather skreen. 
 
 If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the 
 prince of ancient biographers. Oi^re rat? liri^avearcnai^ 
 Trpd^ecn ttclvtw^ evea-ri B)]\a>(Ti(; dpeTi]<i 17 KaKta<i, dWa irpdyixa 
 ^payv 7roWdKL<i, ical prjfia, Koi iraihid Ti<i €fi(f)aaiv ydov^ 
 iiroirjaev fxaWov i) fid-^ai fivpioveKpoL, Kat 7rapaTa^ei<? at 
 fxiyiarai, kuI iroXLopKiai TroXecov. ' Nor is it always in the 
 most distinguished achievements that men's virtues or vices 
 may be best discerned ; but very often an action of small 
 note, a short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person's 
 real character more than the greatest sieges, or the most 
 important battles '.' 
 
 To this may be added the sentiments of the very man 
 whose life I am about to exhibit. 
 
 ' The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over 
 those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, 
 to lead the thoughts into domestick privacies, and display the 
 minute details of daily life, where exteriour appendages are cast 
 aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and by virtue. 
 The account of Thuanus is with great propriety said by its authour 
 to have been written, that it might lay open to posterity the private 
 and familiar character of that man, cujus ingcuiufn ct avidoron ex 
 ipsius scriptis sunt oUm semper 7niraturi, whose candour and genius 
 will to the end of time be by his writings preserved in admiration. 
 
 'There are many invisible circumstances, which whether we read 
 as enquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend 
 to enlarge our science, or increase our virtue, are more important 
 than publick occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master of nat- 
 ure, has not forgot in his account of Catiline to remark, that his 
 walk was now quick, and again slow, as an indication of a mind 
 revolving'' with violent commotion. Thus the story of Melanch- 
 thon affords a striking lecture on the value of time, by informing 
 us, that when he had made an appointment, he expected not only 
 the hour, but the minute to be fixed, that the day might not run 
 out in the idleness of suspence ; and all the plans and enterprises 
 
 ' Plutarch's Li/e of Alexander, Langhorne's Translation. BOSWELL. 
 * In the original, revolving something. 
 
 of
 
 38 Reply to possible objections. 
 
 of De Witt are now of less importance to the world than that part 
 of his personal character, which represents him as careful of his 
 health, and negligent of his life. 
 
 'But biography has often been allotted to writers, who seem 
 very little acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negli- 
 gent about the performance. They rarely afford any other account 
 than might be collected from publick papers, but imagine them- 
 selves writing a life, when they exhibit a chronological series of 
 actions or preferments; 'and have so little regard to the manners' 
 or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained 
 of a man's real character, by a short conversation with one of his 
 servants, than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his 
 pedigree, and ended with his funeral. 
 
 'There are indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives 
 are often written by such as were not likely to give much instruc- 
 tion or delight, and why most accounts of particular persons are 
 barren and useless. If a life be delayed till interest and envy are 
 at an end, we may hope for impartiality, but must expect little 
 intelligence ; for the incidents which give excellence to biography 
 are of a volatile and evanescent kind, such as soon escape the 
 memory, ^and are transmitted '• by tradition. We know how few 
 can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by his most prominent 
 and observable particularities, and the grosser features of his 
 mind ; and it may be easily imagined how much of this little 
 knowledge may be lost in imparting it, and how soon a succession 
 of copies will lose all resemblance of the original I' 
 
 I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to 
 the minuteness on some occasions of my detail of Johnson's 
 conversation, and how happily it is adapted for the petty 
 exercise of ridicule, by men of superficial understanding and 
 ludicrous fancy ; but I remain firm and confident in my opin- 
 ion, that minute particulars are frequently characteristick, and 
 always amusing, when they relate to a distinguished man. I 
 am therefore exceedingly unwilling that anything, however 
 slight, which my illustrious friend thought it worth his while 
 to express, with any degree of point, should perish. For 
 
 ' In the original, attd so little regard the 7nanners. 
 ^ In the original, and are rarely transmitted. 
 ' Rambler, No. 60. BoswELL. 
 
 this
 
 Reply to possible objections. 39 
 
 this almost superstitious reverence, I have found very old 
 and venerable authority, quoted by our great modern prel- 
 ate, Seeker, in whose tenth sermon there is the following 
 passage : 
 
 ^ Rabbi David Kimchi, a noted Jewish Commentator, who lived 
 about five hundred years ago, explains that passage in the first 
 Psalm, His leaf also shall twt wither, from Rabbins yet older than 
 himself, thus : That even the idle talk, so he expresses it, of a good 
 man ought to be regarded ; the most superfluous things he saith are 
 always of some value. And other ancient authours have the same 
 phrase, nearly in the same sense.' 
 
 Of one thing I am certain, that considering how highly 
 the small portion which we have of the table-talk and other 
 anecdotes of our celebrated writers is valued, and how earn- 
 estly it is regretted that we have not more, I am justified in 
 preserving rather too many of Johnson's sayings, than too 
 few ; especially as from the diversity of dispositions it can- 
 not be known w^ith certainty beforehand, whether what may 
 seem trifling to some, and perhaps to the collector himself, 
 may not be most agreeable to many ; and the greater num- 
 ber that an authour can please in any degree, the more pleas- 
 ure does there arise to a benevolent mind. 
 
 To those who are weak enough to think this a degrading 
 task, and the time and labour which have been devoted to 
 it misemployed, I shall content myself with opposing the 
 authority of the greatest man of any age, JULIUS C/ESAR, 
 of whom Bacon observes, that ' in his book of Apothegms 
 which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour 
 to make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and 
 pithy words of others, than to have every word of his own 
 to be made an apothegm or an oracle'.' 
 
 Having said thus much by way of introduction, I commit 
 the following pages to the candour of the Publick. 
 
 « Bacon's Advancement of Learning, Book I. Boswell. 
 
 Samuel
 
 40 yo/iJisons birth and baptism. [a.d. 1709. 
 
 Samuel' Johnson was born at Lichfield, in Stafford- 
 shire, on the 1 8th of September, N.S., 1709; and his initia- 
 tion into the Christian Church was not delayed ; for his 
 baptism is recorded, in the register of St. Mary's parish in 
 that city, to have been performed on the day of his birth. 
 His father is there stiled Gentleman, a circumstance of which 
 an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud ; 
 when the truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though 
 now lost in the indiscriminate assumption of Esquire"^, was 
 commonly taken by those who could not boast of gentility. 
 His father was Michael Johnson, a native of Derbyshire, of 
 obscure extraction \ who settled in Lichfield as a book- 
 seller and stationer \ His mother was Sarah Ford, de- 
 scended of an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in War- 
 wickshire ^ They were well advanced in years when they 
 
 > Johnson's godfather, Dr. Samuel Swinfen, according to the author 
 of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. fo/mson, 1785, p. 10, was 
 at the time of his birth lodging with Michael Johnson. Johnson had 
 uncles on the mother's side, named Samuel and Nathaniel (see Notes 
 and Queries, 5th S. v. 13), after whom he and his brother may have 
 been named. It seems more likely that it was his godfather who 
 gave him his name. 
 
 ^ So early as 1709 The Tatler complains of this 'indiscriminate as- 
 sumption.' ' I'll undertake that if you read the superscriptions to all 
 the offices in the kingdom, you will not find three letters directed to 
 any but Esquires. ... In a word it is now Populus Armigeroriim, a 
 people of Esquires. And I don't know but by the late act of natural- 
 isation, foreigners will assume that title as part of the immunity of 
 being Englishmen.' The Tatler, No. 19. 
 
 ^ ' I can hardly tell who was my grandfather,' said Johnson. See 
 post. May 9, 1773. 
 
 * Michael Johnson was born in 1656. He must have been engaged 
 in the book-trade as early as 1681 ; for in the Life of Dryden his son 
 says, 'The sale of Absalom and Achitophel was so large, that my 
 father, an old bookseller, told me, he had not known it equalled but 
 by Sacheverel's Trial.' Johnson's Works, vii. 276. In the Life of 
 Sprat he is described by his son as 'an old man who had been no 
 careless observer of the passages of those times.' lb. 392. 
 
 * Her epitaph says that she was born at Kingsnorton. Kingsnorton 
 is in Worcestershire, and not, as the epitaph says, ' in agro Varvicensi.' 
 When Johnson a few days before his death burnt his papers, some 
 
 married.
 
 HOUSE IX LICHFIELD 
 (in "which Dr. Johnson was born).
 
 A. D. 1709.] His parentage. 41 
 
 married, and never had more than two children, both sons ; 
 Samuel, their first born, who lived to be the illustrious char- 
 acter whose various excellence I am to endeavour to record, 
 and Nathaniel, who died in his twenty-fifth year. 
 
 Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of a large and robust 
 body, and of a strong and active mind ; yet, as in the most 
 solid rocks veins of unsound substance are often discovered, 
 there was in him a mixture of that disease, the nature of 
 which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the effects 
 are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about 
 those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and 
 a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness'. From him 
 then his son inherited, with some other qualities, ' a vile 
 melancholy,' which in his too strong expression of any dis- 
 turbance of the mind, 'made him mad all his life, at least 
 not sober\' Michael was, however, forced by the narrow- 
 ness of his circumstances to be very diligent in business, not 
 only in his shop^ but by occasionally resorting to several 
 
 fragments of his Annals escaped the flames. One of these was never 
 seen by Boswell ; it was pubHshed in 1805 under the title oi An Ac- 
 count of the Life of Dr. Samuel Jo/mson,fro?n his Birth to his Eleventh 
 Year, written by hiinself. In this he says ( p. 14), ' My mother had no 
 value for my father's relations ; those indeed whom we knew of were 
 much lower than hers.' Writing to Mrs. Thrale on his way to Scot- 
 land he said : ' We changed our horses at Darlington, where Mr. Cor- 
 nelius Harrison, a cousin-german of mine, was perpetual curate. He 
 was the only one of my relations who ever rose in fortune above pen- 
 ury, or in character above neglect.' Pioszi Letters, i. 105. His uncle 
 Harrison he described as 'a very mean and vulgar man, drunk every 
 night, but drunk with little drink, very peevish, very proud, very osten- 
 tatious, but luckily not rich.' Annals, p. 28. In Notes and Queries, 6th 
 S. X. 465, is given the following extract of the marriage of Johnson's 
 parents from the Register of Packwood in Warwickshire : — 
 
 '1706. Mickell Johnsones of lichfield and Sara ford maried June 
 the 9th.' 
 
 ' Mrs. Piozzi {Anec. p. 3) records that Johnson told her that 'his 
 father was wrong-headed, positive, and afflicted with melancholy.' 
 
 ' Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 213 [Sept. 16]. Bos- 
 
 WELL. 
 
 ^ Stockdale in his Memoirs, ii. 102, records an anecdote told him 
 
 towns
 
 42 Character of Michael Johnson. [a.d. 1709. 
 
 towns in the neighbourhood', some of which were at a con- 
 siderable distance from Lichfield''. At that time book- 
 sellers' shops in the provincial towns of England were very 
 rare, so that there was not one even in Birmingham, in 
 which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every 
 market-day. He was a pretty good Latin scholar, and a 
 citizen so creditable as to be made one of the magistrates 
 of Lichfield"; and, being a man of good sense, and skill in 
 
 by Johnson of 'the generosity of one of the customers of his father. 
 " This man was purchasing a book, and pressed my father to let him 
 have it at a far less price than it was worth. When his other topics 
 of persuasion failed, he had recourse to one argument which, he 
 thought, would infallibly prevail : — You know, Mr. Johnson, that I 
 buy an almanac of you every year." ' 
 
 ' Extract of a letter, dated ' Trentham, St. Peter's day, 1716/ written 
 by the Rev. George Plaxton, Chaplain at that time to Lord Gower, 
 which may serve to show the high estimation in which the Father 
 of our great Moralist was held : 'Johnson, the Litchfield Librarian, is 
 now here ; he propagates learning all over this diocese, and advanceth 
 knowledge to its just height ; all the Clergy here are his Pupils, and 
 suck all they have from him ; Allen cannot make a warrant without 
 his precedent, nor our quondam John Evans draw a recognizance si7ie 
 directionc Michaclis! Gentleman' s Magazme, October, 1 79 1 . Boswell. 
 
 ^ In Notes a7id Queries, 3rd S. v. 33, is given the following title-page 
 of one of his books ■ ' ^apfiaKo-jSaanvos : or tJie ToucJtstonc of Medicine 
 etc. By Sir John Floyer of the City of Litchfield, Kt., M.D., of Queen's 
 College, Oxford. London : Printed for Michael Johnson, Bookseller, 
 and are to be sold at his shops at Litchfield and Uttoxiter, in Stafford- 
 shire; and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, 1687.' 
 
 ^ Johnson writing of his birth says : ' My father being that year 
 sheriff of Lichfield, and to ride the circuit of the county [Mr. Croker 
 suggests city, not being aware that ' the City of Lichfield was a coun- 
 ty in itself.' See Harwood's Lichfield, p. i. In like manner, in the. 
 Militia Bill of 1756 {post 1756) we find entered, 'Devonshire with 
 Exeter City and County,' ' Lincolnshire with Lincoln City and Coun- 
 ty '] next day, which was a ceremony then performed with great pomp, 
 he was asked by my mother whom he would invite to the Riding; 
 and answered, "all the town now." He feasted the citizens with 
 uncommon magnificence, and was the last but one that maintained 
 the splendour of the Riding,' Annals, p. 10. He served the office of 
 church-warden in 1688; of sheriff in 1709; of junior bailiff' in 171 8; 
 and senior bailiff in 1725.' Harwood's Lichfield, p. 449. 
 
 his
 
 A.D. 1709.] An incident in his life. 43 
 
 his trade, he acquired a reasonable share of wealth, of which 
 however he afterwards lost the greatest part, by engaging 
 unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment'. He was a. 
 zealous high-church man and royalist, and retained his attach- 
 ment to the unfortunate house of Stuart, though he recon- 
 ciled himself, by casuistical arguments of expediency and 
 necessity, to take the oaths imposed by the prevailing power\ 
 There is a circumstance in his life somewhat romantick, 
 but so well authenticated, that I shall not omit it. A young 
 woman of Leek, in Staffordshire, while he served his appren- 
 ticeship there, conceived a violent passion for him ; and 
 though it met with no favourable return, followed him to 
 Lichfield, where she took lodgings opposite to the house in 
 which he lived, and indulged her hopeless flame. When he 
 
 ' ' My father and mother had not much happiness from each other. 
 The}' seldom conversed ; for my father could not bear to talk of his 
 affairs, and my mother being unacquainted with books cared not to 
 talk of anything else. Had my mother been more literate, they had 
 been better companions. She might have sometimes introduced her 
 unwelcome topic with more success, if she could have diversified her 
 conversation. Of business she had no distinct conception ; and there- 
 fore her discourse was composed only of complaint, fear, and suspi- 
 cion. Neither of them ever tried to calculate the profits of trade, or 
 the expenses of living. My mother concluded that we were poor, 
 because we lost by some of our trades; but the truth was, that my 
 father, having in the early part of his life contracted debts, never had 
 trade sufficient to enable him to pay them and maintain his family; 
 he got something, but not enough.' Annals, p. 14. Mr. Croker no- 
 ticing the violence of Johnson's language against the Excise, with 
 gi-eat acuteness suspected 'some cause of personal aniviosity; this 
 mention of the trade in parchment (an exciseable article) afforded a 
 clue, which has led to the confirmation of that suspicion.' In the 
 records of the Excise Board is to be found the following letter, ad- 
 dressed to the supervisor of excise at Lichfield: 'July 27, 1725. The 
 Commissioners received yours of the 22nd instant, and since the 
 justices would not give judgment against Mr. Michael Johnson, the 
 tanticr, notwithstanding the facts were fairly against him, the Board 
 direct that the next time he offends, you do not lay an mformation 
 against him, but send an affidavit of the fact, that he may be prose- 
 cuted in the Exchequer.' 
 
 ' Sec post, March 27, 1775. 
 
 was
 
 44 Sarah Johnson. [a.d.1713. 
 
 was informed that it so preyed upon her mind that her life 
 was in danger, he with a generous humanity went to her 
 . and offered to marry her, but it was then too late : her vital 
 power was exhausted ; and she actually exhibited one of the 
 very rare instances of dying for love. She was buried in 
 the cathedral of Lichfield ; and he, with a tender regard, 
 placed a stone over her grave with this inscription : 
 
 Here lies the body of 
 
 Mrs. Elizabeth Blaney, a stranger. 
 
 She departed this life 
 
 20 of September, 1694. 
 
 Johnson's mother was a woman of distinguished under- 
 standing. I asked his old school-fellow, Mr. Hector, surgeon 
 of Birmingham, if she was not vain of her son. He said, 
 ' she had too much good sense to be vain, but she knew her 
 son's value.' Her piety was not inferiour to her understand- 
 ing ; and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of 
 religion upon the mind of her son, from which the world 
 afterwards derived so much benefit. He told me, that he 
 remembered distinctly having had the first notice of Heaven, 
 ' a place to which good people went,' and hell, ' a place to 
 which bad people went,' communicated to him by her, when 
 a little child in bed with her'; and that it might be the 
 better fixed in his memory, she sent him to repeat it to 
 Thomas Jackson, their man-servant ; he not being in the 
 way, this was not done ; but there was no occasion for any 
 artificial aid for its preservation. 
 
 In following so very eminent a man from his cradle to his 
 grave, every minute particular, which can throw light on the 
 progress of his mind, is interesting. That he was remark- 
 able, even in his earliest years, may easily be supposed ; for 
 to use his own words in his Life of Sydenham, 
 
 ' ' I remember, that being in bed with my mother one morning, I 
 was told by her of the two places to which the inhabitants of this 
 world were received after death : one a fine place filled with happi- 
 ness, called Heaven ; the other, a sad place, called Hell. That this 
 account much afl^ected my imagination I do not remember.' Annals, 
 p. 19. 
 
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 MICHAEL JOHNSON, 
 
 Father of Dr. Samuel Johnson.
 
 Aetat. 3.] Anecdotes of Johnson'' s childhood. 45 
 
 'That the strength of his understanding, the accuracy of his dis- 
 cernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked 
 from his infancy, by a diligent observer, there is no reason to 
 doubt. For, there is no instance of any man, whose history has 
 been minutely related, that did not in every part of life discover 
 the same proportion of intellectual vigour'.' 
 
 In all such investigations it is certainly unwise to pay too 
 much attention to incidents which the credulous relate 
 with eager satisfaction, and the more scrupulous or witty en- 
 quirer considers only as topicks of ridicule : Yet there is 
 a traditional story of the infant Hercules of toryism, so 
 curiously characteristick, that I shall not withhold it. It 
 was communicated to me in a letter from Miss Mary Adye, 
 of Lichfield: 
 
 ' When Dr. Sacheverel was at Lichfield, Johnson was not quite 
 three years old. My grandfather Hammond observed him at the 
 cathedral perched upon his father's shoulders, listening and gaping 
 at the much celebrated preacher. Mr. Hammond asked Mr. John- 
 son how he could possibly think of bringing such an infant to 
 church, and in the midst of so great a croud. He answered, be- 
 cause it was impossible to keep him at home ; for, young as he 
 was, he believed he had caught the publick spirit and zeal for 
 Sacheverel, and would have staid for ever in the church, satisfied 
 with beholding him'-'.' 
 
 '& 
 
 ' Johnson's Works, vi. 406. 
 
 ^ Mr. Croker disbelieves the story altogether. ' Sacheverel,' he 
 says, 'by his sentence pronounced in Feb. 1710, was interdicted for 
 three years from preaching ; so that he could not have preached at 
 Lichfield while Johnson was under three years of age. Sacheverel, 
 indeed, made a triumphal progress through the midland counties in 
 1710 ; and it appears by the books of the corporation of Lichfield that 
 he was received in that town, and complimented by the attendance of 
 the corporation, "and a present of three dozen of wine," on June 16, 
 1710 ; but then "the infant Hercules of Toryism " was just 7titie months 
 old.' It is quite possible that the story is in the mam correct. Sache- 
 verel was received in Lichfield in 1710 on his way down to Shropshire 
 to take possession of a living. At the end of the suspension in March 
 171 3 he preached a sermon in London, for which, as he told Swift, 
 'a bookseller gave him ^100, intending to print 30,000' (Swift's 
 
 Nor
 
 46 yoJmsons infant precocity. [a.d. 1712. 
 
 Nor can I omit a little instance of that jealous indepen- 
 dence of spirit, and impetuosity of temper, which never for- 
 sook him. The fact was acknowledged to me by himself, 
 upon the authority of his mother. One day, when the ser- 
 vant who used to be sent to school to conduct him home, 
 had not come in time, he set out by himself, though he was 
 then so near-sighted, that he was obliged to stoop down on 
 his hands and knees to take a view of the kennel before he 
 ventured to step over it. His school-mistress, afraid that he 
 might miss his way, or fall into the kennel, or be run over by 
 a cart, followed him at some distance. He happened to 
 turn about and perceive her. Feeling her careful attention 
 as an insult to his manliness, he ran back to her in a rage, 
 and beat her, as well as his strength would perm.it. 
 
 Of the power of his memory, for which he was all his life 
 eminent to a degree almost incredible ', the following early 
 instance was told me in his presence at Lichfield, in 1776, 
 by his step-daughter, Mrs. Lucy Porter, as related to her by 
 his mother. When he was a child in petticoats, and had 
 learnt to read, Mrs. Johnson one morning put the common 
 prayer-book into his hands, pointed to the collect for the day, 
 and said, ' Sam, you must get this by heart.' She went up 
 stairs, leaving him to study it : But by the time she had 
 reached the second floor, she heard him following her. 
 'What's the matter?' said she. 'I can say it,' he replied, 
 and repeated it distinctly, though he could not have read it 
 more than twice. 
 
 But there has been another story of his infant precocity 
 generally circulated, and generally believed, the truth of 
 which I am to refute upon his own authority. It is told", 
 that, when a child of three years old, he chanced to tread 
 
 Journal to Stella, April 2, 171 3). It is likely enough that either on 
 his way up to town or on his return journey he preached at Lichfield. 
 In the spring of 171 3 Johnson was three years old. 
 
 ' See post, p. 56, and April 25, 1778, note; and Boswell's Hebrides, 
 Oct. 28, 1773. 
 
 - Anecdotes of Dr. Jo/inson, by Hester Lynch Piozzi, p. 11. Lzfe of 
 Dr. Johnson-, by Sir John Hawkins, p. 6. Boswell. 
 
 upon
 
 A.D. 1712.] yohnsons infant precocity. 47 
 
 upon a duckling, the eleventh of a brood, and killed it ; 
 upon which, it is said, he dictated to his mother the follow- 
 ing epitaph : 
 
 ' Here lies good master duck, 
 
 Whom Samuel Johnson trod on ; 
 If it had liv'd, it had been good luck, 
 For then we'd had an odd one.'' 
 
 There is surely internal evidence that this little composition 
 combines in it, what no child of three years old could pro- 
 duce, without an extension of its faculties by immediate in- 
 spiration ; yet Mrs. Lucy Porter, Dr. Johnson's step-daughter, 
 positively maintained to me, in his presence, that there could 
 be no doubt of the truth of this anecdote, for she had heard 
 it from his mother. So difficult is it to obtain an authen- 
 tick relation of facts, and such authority may there be for 
 errour ; for he assured me, that his father made the verses, 
 and wished to pass them for his child's. He added, ' my 
 father was a foolish old man ' ; that is to say, foolish in talk- 
 ing of his children \' 
 
 * ' My father had much vanity which his adversity hindered from 
 being fully exerted.' Annals, p. 14. 
 
 * This anecdote of the duck, though disproved by internal and ex- ■ 
 ternal evidence, has nevertheless, upon supposition of its truth, been 
 made the foundation of the following ingenious and fanciful reflec- 
 tions of Miss Seward, amongst the communications concerning Dr. 
 Johnson with which she has been pleased to favour me : ' These in- 
 fant numbers contain the seed of those propensities which through 
 his life so strongly marked his character, of that poetick talent which 
 afterwards bore such rich and plentiful fruits; for, excepting his or- 
 thographick works, every thing which Dr. Johnson wrote was Poetry, 
 whose essence consists not in numbers, or in jingle, but in the strength 
 and glow of a fancy, to which all the stores of nature and of art stand 
 in prompt administration ; and in an eloquence which conveys their 
 blended illustrations in a language " more tuneable than needs or 
 rhyme or verse to add more harmony." 
 
 *The above little verses also shew that superstitious bias which 
 "grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength," and, of 
 late years particularly, injured his happiness, by presenting to him 
 the gloomy side of religion, rather than that bright and cheering one 
 which gilds the period of closing life with the light of pious hope.' 
 
 Young
 
 48 His eyesight. [Aetat. 3. 
 
 Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted 
 with the scrophula, or king's evil, which disfigured a counte- 
 nance naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so 
 much, that he did not see at all with one of his eyes, though 
 its appearance was little different from that of the other. 
 There is amongst his prayers, one inscribed ' When my EYE 
 zvas restored to its 7ise\' which ascertains a defect that many 
 of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it^ I 
 supposed him to be only near-sighted ; and indeed I must 
 observe, that in no other respect could I discern any defect 
 in his vision ; on the contrary, the force of his attention and 
 perceptive quickness made him see and distinguish all man- 
 ner of objects, whether of nature or of art, with a nicety that 
 is rarely to be found. When he and I were travelling in the 
 Highlands of Scotland, and I pointed out to him a mountain 
 which I observed resembled a cone, he corrected my inac- 
 curacy, by shewing me, that it was indeed pointed at the 
 top, but that one side of it was larger than the other". And 
 the ladies with whom he was acquainted agree, that no man 
 was more nicely and minutely critical in the elegance of 
 female dress*. When I found that he saw the romantick 
 beauties of Islam, in Derbyshire, much better than I did, I 
 
 This is so beautifully imagined, that I would not suppress it. But 
 like many other theories, it is deduced from a supposed fact, which is, 
 indeed, a fiction. Boswell. 
 
 ' Prayers and Meditatio7is, p. 27. BoswELL. 
 
 - Speaking himself of the imperfection of one of his eyes, he said to 
 Dr. Burney, 'the dog was never good for much.' Malone. 
 
 ' ^O'S^N^iMs Hebrides, Sept. i, 1773. 
 
 ^ ' No accidental position of a riband,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, ' escaped 
 him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his demands of pro- 
 priety.' Piozzi's Anee. p. 287. Miss Burney says : — ' Notwithstanding 
 Johnson is sometimes so absent and always so near-sighted, he scru- 
 tinizes into every part of almost everybody's appearance [at Streat- 
 ham].' And again she writes : — ' His blindness is as much the effect 
 of absence [of mind] as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at times. 
 He can see the colour of a lady's top-knot, for he often finds fault 
 with it.' Mine. D'Arblays Diary, i. 85, ii. 174. He could, when well, 
 distinguish the hour on Lichfield town-clock. Post, p. 74. 
 
 toki
 
 The kino;'s evil. 49 
 
 <b 
 
 told him that he resembled an able performer upon a bad 
 instrument '. How false and contemptible then are all the 
 remarks which have been made to the prejudice either of his 
 candour or of his philosophy, founded upon a supposition 
 that he was almost blind. It has been said, that he con- 
 tracted this grievous malady from his nurse". His mother 
 yielding to the superstitious notion, which, it is wonderful to 
 think, prevailed so long in this country, as to the virtue of 
 the regal touch ; a notion, which our kings encouraged, and 
 to which a man of such inquiry and such judgement as 
 Carte' could give credit; carried him to London, where he 
 
 1 See post, Sept. 22, 1777. 
 
 * This was Dr. Swinfen's opinion, who seems also to have attributed 
 Johnson's short-sightedness to the same cause. 'My mother,' he 
 says, 'thought my diseases derived from her family.' Annals, p. 12. 
 When he was put out at nurse, ' She visited me,' he says, ' every day, 
 and used to go different ways, that her assiduity might not expose her 
 to ridicule.' 
 
 ^ In 1738 Carte published a masterly 'Account of Materials, etc., for 
 a History of England with the method of his undertaking.' {Gent. 
 Mag. viii. 227.) He proposed to do much of what has been since 
 done under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. He asked for 
 subscriptions to carry on his great undertaking, for in its researches 
 it was to be very great. In 1744 the City of London resolved to sub- 
 scribe £50 for seven years (ib. xiv. 393). In vol. i. of his history, which 
 only came down to the reign of John (published in 1748), he went out 
 of his way to assert that the cure by the king's touch was not due to 
 the ' regal tmction ' / for he had known a man cured who had gone over 
 to France, and had been there ' touched by the eldest lineal descend- 
 ant of a race of kings who had not at that time been crowned or 
 anointed!' (ib. xviii. 13.) Thereupon the Court of Common Council 
 by a unanimous vote withdrew its subscription, (ib. 185). The old 
 Jacobites maintained that the power did not descend to Mary, Will- 
 iam, or Anne. It was for this reason that Boswell said that Johnson 
 should have been taken to Rome ; though indeed it was not till some 
 years after he was ' touched' by Queen Anne that the Pretender dwelt 
 there. The Hanoverian kings never ' touched.' The service for the 
 ceremony was printed in the Book of Common Prayer as late as 17 19. 
 {Pettny Cyclo. xxi. 113.) 'It appears by the newspapers of the time,' 
 says Mr. Wright, quoted by Croker, 'that on March 30, 17 12, two 
 hundred persons were touched by Queen Anne.' Macaulay says that 
 I. — 4 was
 
 50 yohnso7i at a dames school. 
 
 was actually touched by Queen Anne. Mrs. Johnson in- 
 deed, as Mr. Hector informed me, acted by the advice of the 
 celebrated Sir John Floyer', then a physician in Lichfield. 
 Johnson used to talk of this very frankly ; and Mrs. Piozzi 
 has preserved his very picturesque description of the scene, 
 as it remained upon his fancy. Being asked if he could re- 
 member Queen Anne, ' He had (he said) a confused, but 
 somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds, 
 and a long black hood".' This touch, however, was without 
 any effect. I ventured to say to him, in allusion to the 
 political principles in which he was educated, and of which 
 he ever retained some odour, that ' his mother had not car- 
 ried him far enough ; she should have taken him to ROME.' 
 He was first taught to read English by Dame Oliver \ a 
 widow, who kept a school for young children in Lichfield. 
 He told me she could read the black letter, and asked him 
 to borrow for her, from his father, a bible in that character. 
 When he was going to Oxford, she came to take leave of 
 him, brought him, in the simplicity of her kindness, a present 
 of gingerbread, and said, he was the best scholar she ever 
 had. He delighted in mentioning this early compliment: 
 adding, with a smile, that ' this was as high a proof of his 
 merit as he could conceive.' His next instructor in English 
 was a master, whom, when he spoke of him to me, he 
 familiarly called Tom Brown, who, said he, ' published a 
 spelling-book, and dedicated it to the UNIVERSE ; but, I 
 fear, no copy of it can now be had\' 
 
 'Charles the Second, in the course of his reign, touched near a hun- 
 dred thousand persons. . . . The expense of the ceremony was little 
 less than ten thousand pounds a year.' Macaulay's Englatid, ch. xiv. 
 
 * S&& post, p. io6, note. 
 
 " Anecdotes, p. lo. Boswell. 
 
 ^ Johnsoh, writing of Addison's schoolmasters, says : — ' Not to name 
 the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature is a kind of 
 historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished. I 
 would therefore trace him through the whole process of his educa- 
 tion.' Johnson's Works, \'n. 4i?>. 
 
 * Neither the British Museum nor the Bodleian Library has a copy. 
 
 He
 
 Lichfield School. 51 
 
 He began to learn Latin' with Mr. Hawkins, usher, or 
 under-master of Lichfield school, ' a man (said he) ver}' skil- 
 ful in his little way.' With him he continued two years '\ 
 and then rose to be under the care of Mr. Hunter, the head- 
 master, who, according to his account, ' was very severe, and 
 wrong-headedly severe. He used (said he) to beat us un- 
 mercifully ; and he did not distinguish between ignorance 
 and negligence ; for he would beat a boy equally for not 
 knowing a thing, as for neglecting to know it. He would 
 ask a boy a question ; and if he did not answer it, he would 
 beat him, without considering whether he had an oppor- 
 tunity of knowing how to answer it. For instance, he 
 would call up a boy and ask him Latin for a candlestick, 
 which the boy could not expect to be asked. Now, Sir, if a 
 boy could answer every question, there would be no need of 
 a master to teach him.' 
 
 It is, however, but justice to the memory of Mr. Hunter 
 to mention, that though he might err in being too severe, 
 the school of Lichfield was very respectable in his time^ 
 
 ' 'When we learned Propria guce f;iar37(s, we were examined in the 
 Accidence ; particularly we formed verbs, that is, went through the 
 same person in all the moods and tenses. This was very difficult to 
 me, and I was once very anxious about the next day, when this exer- 
 cise was to be performed in which I had failed till I was discouraged. 
 My mother encouraged me, and I proceeded better. When I told 
 her of my good escape, "We often," said she, dear mother! "come 
 off best when we are most afraid." She told me that, once when she 
 asked me about forming verbs, I said, " I did not form them in an 
 ugly shape." " You could not," said she, " speak plain ; and I was 
 proud that I had a boy who was forming verbs." These little memo- 
 rials soothe my mind.' Annals, p. 22. 
 
 * ' This was the course of the school which I remember with pleas- 
 ure ; for I was indulged and caressed by my master; and, I think, 
 really excelled the rest.' Atiitals, p. 25. 
 
 ' Johnson said of Hunter : — ' Abating his brutality, he was a very 
 good master;' post, March 21, 1772. Steele in the Spectaior.'i^o. 157, 
 two years after Johnson's birth, describes these savage tyrants of the 
 grammar-schools. ' The boasted liberty we talk of,' he writes, ' is but 
 a mean reward for the long servitude, the many heartaches and ter- 
 rors to which our childhood is exposed in going through a grammar- 
 
 The
 
 52 JohnsoiLS scJiool-fellows. 
 
 The late Dr. Taylor, Prebendary of Westminster, who was 
 educated under him, told me, that ' he was an excellent 
 master, and that his ushers were most of them men of emi- 
 nence ; that Holbrook, one of the most ingenious men, 
 best scholars, and best preachers of his age, was usher dur- 
 ing the greatest part of the time that Johnson was at 
 school'. Then came Hague, of whom as much might be 
 said, with the addition that he was an elegant poet. Hague 
 was succeeded by Green, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, 
 whose character in the learned world is well known ^ In 
 the same form with Johnson was Congreve^ who after- 
 wards became chaplain to Archbishop Boulter, and by that 
 connection obtained good preferment in Ireland. He was 
 a younger son of the ancient family of Congreve, in Staf- 
 fordshire, of which the poet was a branch. His brother 
 
 school. . . . No one who has gone through what they call a great 
 school but must remember to have seen children of excellent and in- 
 genuous natures (as has afterwards appeared in their manhood); I 
 say no man has passed through this way of education but must have 
 seen an ingenuous creature expiring with shame, with pale looks, be- 
 seeching sorrow and silent tears, throw up its honest eyes and kneel 
 on its tender knees to an inexorable blockhead to be forgiven the 
 false quantity of a word in making a Latin verse.' Likely enough 
 Johnson's roughness was in part due to this brutal treatment; for 
 Steele goes on to say : — ' It is wholly to this dreadful practice that we 
 may attribute a certain hardiness and ferocity which some men, though 
 liberally educated, carry about them in all their behaviour. To be 
 bred like a gentleman, and punished like a malefactor, must, as we 
 see It does, produce that illiberal sauciness which we see sometimes 
 in men of letters.' 
 
 ' Johnson described him as 'a peevish and ill-tempered man,' and 
 not so good a scholar or teacher as Taylor made out. Once the boys 
 perceived that he did not understand a part of the Latin lesson ; an- 
 other time, when sent up to the upper-master to be punished, they 
 had to complain that when they ' could not get the passage,' the as- 
 sistant would not help them. Annals, pp. 26, 32. 
 
 * One of the contributors to the Athenian Letters. See Gent. Mag. 
 liv. 276. 
 
 ' Johnson, ^c^/, March 22, 1776, describes him as one 'who does not 
 get drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.' 
 
 sold
 
 Mr. Hunter. 53 
 
 sold the estate. There was also I. owe, afterwards Canon of 
 Windsor'.' 
 
 Indeed Johnson was very sensible how much he owed to 
 Mr, Hunter. Mr. Langton one day asked him how he had 
 acquired so accurate a knowledge of Latin, in which, I be- 
 lieve, he was exceeded by no man of his time ; he said, ' My 
 master whipt me very well. Without that, Sir, I should 
 have done nothing.' He told Mr. Langton, that while 
 Hunter was flogging his boys unmercifully, he used to say, 
 'And this I do to save you from the gallows.' Johnson, 
 upon all occasions, expressed his approbation of enforcing 
 instruction by means of the rod*. ' I would rather (said he) 
 
 ' A tradition had reached Johnson through his school-fellow An- 
 drew Corbet that Addison had been at the school and had been the 
 leader in a barring out. (Johnson's Works, vii. 419). Garrick entered 
 the school about two years after Johnson left. According to Garrick's 
 biographer, Tom Davies (p. 3), ' Hunter was an odd mixture of the ped- 
 ant and the sportsman. Happy was the boy who could slily inform 
 his offended master where a covey of partridges was to be found ; this 
 notice was a certain pledge of his pardon.' Lord Campbell in his Lwes 
 of the Chief fitstices, ii. 279, says : — ' Hunter is celebrated for having 
 flogged seven boys who afterwards sat as judges in the superior courts 
 at Westminster at the same time. Among these were Chief Justice 
 Wilmot, Lord Chancellor Northington, Sir T. Clarke, Master of the 
 Rolls, Chief Justice Willes, and Chief Baron Parker. It is remark- 
 able that, although Johnson and Wilmot were several years class- 
 fellows at Lichfield, there never seems to have been the slightest 
 intercourse between them in after life; but the Chief Justice used 
 frequently to mention the Lexicographer as " a long, lank, lounging 
 boy, whom he distinctly remembered to have been punished by Hun- 
 ter for idleness." ' Lord Campbell blunders here. Northington and 
 Clarke were from Westminster School (Campbell's Chancel/ors^v. 176). 
 The school-house, famous though it was, was allowed to fall into decay. 
 A writer in the Gent. Mag. in 1794 (p. 413) says that ' it is now in a 
 state of dilapidation, and unfit for the use of either the master or boys.' 
 
 " Johnson's observation to Dr. Rose, on this subject, deserves to be 
 recorded. Rose was praising the mild treatment of children at school, 
 at a time when flogging began to be less practised than formerly : 
 ' But then, (said Johnson,) they get nothing else : and what they gain 
 at one end, they lose at the other.' Burney. See post, under Dec. 
 '7. 1775- 
 
 have
 
 54 
 
 Mr. Hunter. 
 
 have the rod to be the general terrour to all, to make them 
 learn, than tell a child, if you do thus, or thus, you will be 
 more esteemed than your brothers or sisters. The rod pro- 
 duces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid 
 of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on't ; 
 whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superior- 
 ity, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief ; you make 
 brothers and sisters hate each other'.' 
 
 When Johnson saw some young ladies in Lincolnshire 
 who were remarkably well behaved, owing to their mother's 
 strict discipline and severe correction", he exclaimed, in one 
 of Shakspeare's lines a little varied, 
 
 '■Rod, I will honour thee for this thy duty\' 
 
 ' This passage is quoted from Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773. 
 Mr. Boyd had told Johnson that Lady Errol did not use force or fear 
 in educating her children; whereupon he replied, 'Sir, she is wrong,' 
 and continued in the words of the text. 
 
 Gibbon in his Aittobiography says: — ^'The domestic discipline of 
 our ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness of the 
 acre : and if my father remembered that he had trembled before a 
 stern parent, it was only to adopt with his son an opposite mode of 
 behaviour.' Gibbon's Works, i. 112. Lord Chesterfield writing to a 
 friend on Oct. 18, 1752, says : — ' Pray let my godson never know what 
 a blow or a whipping is, unless for those things for which, were he a 
 man, he would deserve them ; such as lying, cheating, making mis- 
 chief, and meditated malice.' Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iv. 130. 
 
 ^ Johnson, however, hated anything that came near to tyranny in 
 the management of children. Writing to Mrs. Thrale, who had told 
 him that she had on one occasion gone against the wish of her nurses. 
 he said : — 'That the nurses fretted will supply me during life with an 
 additional motive to keep every child, as far as is possible, out of a 
 nurse's power. A nurse made of common mould will have a pride 
 in overcoming a child's reluctance. There are few minds to which 
 tyranny is not delightful ; power is nothing but as it is felt, and the 
 delight of superiority is proportionate to the resistance overcome." 
 Piozzi Letters, ii. 67. 
 
 ' ' Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed.' 2 Henry VL act iv. 
 sc. 10. John "Wesley's mother, writing of the way she had brought up 
 her children, boys and girls alike, says: — 'When turned a year old 
 (and some before) they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly ; 
 
 That
 
 o 
 
 > 
 s 
 
 > 
 
 tn 
 
 n 
 K 
 o 
 o 
 
 r 
 n 
 
 r 
 o
 
 yohnsoii a King of men. 55 
 
 That superiority over his fellows, which he maintained 
 with so much dignity in his march through life, was not 
 assumed from vanity and ostentation, but was the natural 
 and constant effect of those extraordinary powers of mind, 
 of which he could not but be conscious by comparison ; the 
 intellectual diiTerence, which in other cases of comparison of 
 characters, is often a matter of undecided contest, being as 
 clear in his case as the superiority of stature in some men 
 above others. Johnson did not strut or stand on tip-toe : 
 He only did not stoop. From his earliest years his superior- 
 ity was perceived and acknowledged'. He was from the be- 
 ginning "Ai/a^ dvBpcov, a king of men. His school-fellow, Mr. 
 Hector, has obligingly furnished me with many particulars 
 of his boyish days'^: and assured me that he never knew 
 him corrected at school, but for talking and diverting other 
 boys from their business. He seemed to learn by intuition ; 
 for though indolence and procrastination were inherent in 
 his constitution, whenever he made an exertion he did more 
 than any one else. In short, he is a memorable instance 
 of what has been often observed, that the boy is the man 
 in miniature : and that the distinguishing characteristicks of 
 each individual are the same, through the whole course of 
 life. His favourites used to receive very liberal assistance 
 from him ; and such was the submission and deference with 
 which he was treated, such the desire to obtain his regard, 
 that three of the boys, of whom Mr. Hector was sometimes 
 one, used to come in the morning as his humble attendants, 
 and carry him to school. One in the middle stooped, while 
 
 by which means they escaped abundance of correction they might 
 otherwise have had.' Wesley's Journal, i. 370. 
 
 ' ' There dwelt at Lichfield a gentleman of the name of Butt, to 
 whose house on holidays he was ever welcome. The children in the 
 family, perhaps offended with the rudeness of his behaviour, would 
 frequently call him the great boy, which the father once overhearing 
 said: — 'You call him the great boy, but take my word for it, he will 
 one day prove a great man.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 6. 
 
 ' See post, March 22, 1776 and Johnson's visit to Birmingham in 
 Nov. 1784. 
 
 he
 
 56 yohnsons tenacious memo}'y. 
 
 he sat upon his back, and one on each side supported him ; 
 and thus he was borne triumphant. Such a proof of the 
 early predominance of intellectual vigour is very remarkable, 
 and does honour to human nature. Talking to me once 
 himself of his being much distinguished at school, he told 
 me, ' they never thought to raise me by comparing me to 
 any one ; they never said, Johnson is as good a scholar as 
 such a one ; but such a one is as good a scholar as Johnson ; 
 and this was said but of one, but of Lowe ; and I do not 
 think he was as good a scholar.' 
 
 He discovered a great ambition to excel, which roused 
 him to counteract his indolence. He was uncommonly in- 
 quisitive ; and his memory was so tenacious, that he never 
 forgot any thing that he either heard or read. Mr. Hector 
 remembers having recited to him eighteen verses, which, 
 after a little pause, he repeated verbatim^ varying only one 
 epithet, by which he improved the line. 
 
 He never joined with the other boys in their ordinary 
 diversions : his only amusement was in winter, when he took 
 a pleasure in being drawn upon the ice by a boy barefooted, 
 who pulled him along by a garter fixed round him ; no very 
 easy operation, as his size was remarkably large. His de- 
 fective sight, indeed, prevented him from enjoying the com- 
 mon sports ; and he once pleasantly remarked to me, ' how 
 wonderfully well he had contrived to be idle without them.' 
 Lord Chesterfield, however, has justly observed in one of his 
 letters, when earnestly cautioning a friend against the per- 
 nicious effects of idleness, that active sports are not to be 
 reckoned idleness in young people ; and that the listless tor- 
 por of doing nothing, alone deserves that name'. Of this 
 dismal inertness of disposition, Johnson had all his life too 
 great a share. Mr. Hector relates, that ' he could not oblige 
 him more than by sauntering away the hours of vacation in 
 
 ' 'You should never suffer your son to be idle one minute. I do 
 not call play, of which he ought to have a good share, idleness; but J 
 mean sitting still in a chair in total inaction ; it makes boys lazy and 
 indolent.' Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iv. 248. 
 
 the
 
 His fondness for romances. 5 7 
 
 the fields, during which he was more engaged in talking to 
 himself than to his companion.' 
 
 Dr. Percy \ the Bishop of Dromore, who was long inti- 
 mately acquainted with him, and has preserved a few anec- 
 dotes concerning him, regretting that he was not a more 
 diligent collector, informs me, that ' when a boy he was im- 
 moderately fond of reading romances of chivalry, and he re- 
 tained his fondness for them through life ; so that (adds his 
 Lordship) spending part of a summer' at my parsonage- 
 house in the country, he chose for his regular reading the 
 old Spanish romance of Fclixmarte of Hircania, in folio, 
 which he read quite through'. Yet I have heard him at- 
 tribute to these extravagant fictions that unsettled turn of 
 mind which prevented his ever fixing in any profession.' 
 
 1725: ^TAT. 16. — After having resided for some time 
 at the house of his uncle, Cornelius Ford', Johnson was, at 
 the age of fifteen, removed to the school of Stourbridge, in 
 Worcestershire, of which Mr. Wentworth was then master. 
 
 ' The author of the Rcliques, 
 
 2 The summer of 1764. 
 
 3 Johnson, writing of Paradise Lost, book ii. 1. 879, says : — ' In the 
 history of Don Be/lianzs, when one of the knights approaches, as I 
 remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open, 
 grating harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges' Johnson's Works, 
 V. 76. S&e post, March 27, 1776, where ' he had with him upon a jaunt 
 II Palmerino d'Inghilterra.' Prior says of Burke that ' a very favour- 
 ite study, as he once confessed in the House of Commons, was the 
 old romances, Palmerin of England and Doti Belianis of Greece, upon 
 which he had wasted much valuable time.' Prior's Burke, p. 9. 
 
 * Hawkins {Life, p. 2) says that the uncle was Dr. Joseph Ford 'a 
 physician of great eminence.' The son, Parson Ford, was CorneHus. 
 In Boswcll's Hebrides, Oct. 15, 1773, Johnson mentions an uncle who 
 very Ukely was Dr. Ford. In Notes and Queries, 5th S. v. 13, it is shown 
 that by the will of the widow of Dr. Ford the Johnsons received /200 
 in 1722. On the same page the Ford pedigree is given, where it is 
 seen that Johnson had an uncle Cornelius. It has been stated that 
 'Johnson was brought up by his uncle till his fifteenth year.' I un- 
 der.stand Boswell to say that Johnson, after leaving Lichfield School, 
 resided for some time with his uncle before going to Stourbridge. 
 
 This
 
 58 Stourbridge School. 
 
 This step was taken by the advice of his cousin, the Rever- 
 end Mr. Ford, a man in whom both talents and good dispo- 
 sitions were disgraced by licentiousness ', but who was a very 
 able judge of what was right. At this school he did not 
 receive so much benefit as was expected. It has been said, 
 that he acted in the capacity of an assistant to Mr. Went- 
 worth, in teaching the younger boys. ' Mr. Wentworth (he 
 told me) was a very able man, but an idle man, and to me 
 very severe ; but I cannot blame him much. I was then 
 a big boy ; he saw I did not reverence him ; and that he 
 should get no honour by me. I had brought enough with 
 me, to carry me through ; and all I should get at his school 
 would be ascribed to my own labour, or to my former mas- 
 ter. Yet he taught me a great deal.' 
 
 He thus discriminated, to Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, 
 his progress at his two grammar-schools. 'At one, I learnt 
 much in the school, but little from the master ; in the other, 
 I learnt much from the master, but little in the school.' 
 
 The Bishop also informs me, that ' Dr. Johnson's father, 
 before he was received at Stourbridge, applied to have him 
 admitted as a scholar and assistant to the Reverend Samuel 
 Lea, M.A., head master of Newport school, in Shropshire (a 
 very diligent, good teacher, at that time in high reputation, 
 under whom Mr. Hollis" is said, in the Memoirs of his Life, 
 to have been also educated '). This application to Mr. Lea 
 
 ' He is said to be the original of the parson in Hogarth's Modern 
 Midmght Conversatio7t. Boswell. 
 
 In the Life 0/ Fenton Johnson describes Ford as 'a clergyman at 
 that time too well known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing con- 
 vivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled 
 him to excel among the virtuous and the wise.' Johnson's Works, 
 viii. 57. Writing to Mrs. Thrale on July 8, 1771, he says, 'I would 
 have been glad to go to Hagley [close to Stourbridge] for I should 
 have had the opportunity of recollecting past times, and wandering 
 per Jiionfes notos ct fliimina 7wta, of recalling the images of sixteen, 
 and reviewing my conversations with poor Ford.' Pioz:2i Letters, \. 
 42. See ^'i.opost, May 12, 1778. ^ Sq& post, April 20, 1781. 
 
 ^ As was likewise the Bishop of Dromore many years afterwards. 
 Boswell. 
 
 was
 
 yoknsojis youtJiftil compositions. 59 
 
 was not successful ; but Johnson had afterwards the gratifi- 
 cation to hear that the old gentleman, who lived to a veiy 
 advanced age, mentioned it as one of the most memorable 
 events of his life, that ' he was very near having that great 
 man for his scholar.' 
 
 He remained at Stourbridge little more than a year, and 
 then returned home, where he may be said to have loitered, 
 for two years, in a state very unworthy his uncommon abili- 
 ties. He had already given several proofs of his poetical 
 genius, both in his school-exercises and in other occasional 
 compositions. Of these I have obtained a considerable col- 
 lection, by the favour of Mr. Wentworth, son of one of his 
 masters, and of Mr. Hector, his school -fellow and friend; 
 from which I select the following specimens : 
 
 Translation ^Virgil. Pastoral I. 
 
 MELIBCEUS. 
 
 Now, Tityrus, you, supine and careless laid, 
 Play on your pipe beneath this beechen shade ; 
 While wretched we about the world must roam. 
 And leave our pleasing fields and native home, 
 Here at your ease you sing your amorous flame. 
 And the wood rings with Amarillis' name. 
 
 TITYRUS. 
 
 Those blessings, friend, a deity bestow'd. 
 For I shall never think him less than God; 
 Oft on his altar shall my firstlings lie. 
 Their blood the consecrated stones shall dye : 
 He gave my flocks to graze the flowery meads, 
 And me to tune at ease th' unequal reeds. 
 
 MELIBCEUS. 
 
 My admiration only I exprest, 
 (No spark of envy harbours in my breast) 
 That, when confusion o'er the country reigns, 
 To you alone this happy state remains. 
 Here I, though faint myself, must drive my goats, 
 Far from their antient fields and humble cots. 
 This scarce I lead, who left on yonder rock 
 
 Two
 
 6o yohnsons youthful compositioiis. 
 
 Two tender kids, the hopes of all the flock. 
 Had we not been perverse and careless grown, 
 This dire event by omens was foreshown ; 
 Our trees were blasted by the thunder stroke, 
 And left-hand crows, from an old hollow oak, 
 Foretold the coming evil by their dismal croak. 
 
 Translatmi ^Horace. Book I. Ode xxii. 
 
 The man, my friend, whose conscious heart 
 
 With virtue's sacred ardour glows, 
 Nor taints with death the envenom'd dart. 
 
 Nor needs the guard of Moorish bows : 
 
 Though Scythia's icy cliffs he treads. 
 
 Or horrid Africk's faithless sands ; 
 Or where the fam'd Hydaspes spreads 
 
 His liquid wealth o'er barbarous lands. 
 
 For while by Chloe's image charm'd 
 
 Too far in Sabine's woods I stray'd ; 
 Me singing, careless and unarm'd, 
 
 A grizly wolf surprised, and fled. 
 
 No savage more portentous stain'd 
 
 Apulia's spacious wilds with gore ; 
 No fiercer Juba's thirsty land, 
 
 Dire nurse of raging lions, bore. 
 
 Place me where no soft summer gale 
 Among the quivering branches sighs ; 
 
 Where clouds condens'd for ever veil 
 With horrid gloom the frowning skies : 
 
 Place me beneath the burning line, 
 
 A clime deny'd to human race ; 
 ril sing of Chloe's charms divine, 
 
 Her heav'nly voice, and beauteous face. 
 
 Translation <?/" Horace. Book H. Ode ix. 
 
 Clouds do not always veil the skies. 
 
 Nor showers immerse the verdant plain ; 
 
 Nor do the billows always rise, 
 Or storms afflict the ruffled main. 
 
 Nor
 
 yoJuisoiis youthful compositions. 6i 
 
 Nor, Valgius, on th' Armenian shores 
 
 Do the chain 'd waters always freeze ; 
 Not always furious Boreas roars, 
 
 Or bends with violent force the trees. 
 
 But you are ever drown'd in tears. 
 
 For Mystes dead you ever mourn ; 
 No setting Sol can ease your care. 
 
 But finds you sad at his return. 
 
 The wise experienc'd Grecian sage 
 
 Mourn'd not Antilochus so long; 
 Nor did King Priam's hoary age 
 
 So much lament his slaughter'd son. 
 
 Leave off, at length, these woman's sighs, 
 
 Augustus' numerous trophies sing; 
 Repeat that prince's victories, 
 
 To whom all nations tribute bring. 
 
 Niphates rolls an humbler wave, 
 
 At length the undaunted Scythian yields, 
 
 Content to live the Roman's slave, 
 And scarce forsakes his native fields. 
 
 Translation of part of the Dialogue hetiveen Hector and Androm- 
 ache ; from the Sixth Book ^Homer's Iliad. 
 
 She ceas'd : then godlike Hector answer'd kind, 
 
 (His various plumage sporting in the wind) 
 
 That post, and all the rest, shall be my care ; 
 
 But shall I, then, forsake the unfinished war .^ 
 
 How would the Trojans brand great Hector's name ! 
 
 And one base action sully all my fame. 
 
 Acquired by wounds and battles bravely fought ! 
 
 Oh! how my soul abhors so mean a thought. v 
 
 Long since I learn'd to slight this fleeting breath, 
 
 And view with cheerful eyes approaching death. 
 
 The inexorable sisters have decreed 
 
 That Priam's house, and Priam's self shall bleed : 
 
 The day will come, in which proud Troy shall yield. 
 
 And spread its smoking ruins o'er the field. 
 
 Yet Hecuba's, nor Priam's hoary age. 
 
 Whose blood shall quench some Grecian's thirsty rage, 
 
 Nor
 
 62 yohnson s youthful compositions. 
 
 Nor my brave brothers, that have bit the ground, 
 
 Their souls dismiss'd through many a ghastly wound. 
 
 Can in my bosom half that grief create. 
 
 As the sad thought of your impending fate : 
 
 When some proud Grecian dame shall tasks impose, 
 
 Miniick your tears, and ridicule your woes ; 
 
 Beneath Hyperia's waters shall you sweat, 
 
 And, fainting, scarce support the liquid weight : 
 
 Then shall some Argive loud insulting cry, 
 
 Behold the wife of Hector, guard of Troy ! 
 
 Tears, at my name, shall drown those beauteous eyes, 
 
 And that fair bosom heave with rising sighs ! 
 
 Before that day, by some brave hero's hand 
 
 May I lie slain, and spurn the bloody sand. 
 
 To a Young Lady on her Birth-day '. 
 This tributary verse receive my fair. 
 Warm with an ardent lover's fondest pray'r. 
 May this returning day for ever find 
 Thy form more lovely, more adorn'd thy mind ; 
 All pains, all cares, may favouring heav'n remove, 
 All but the sweet solicitudes of love ! 
 May powerful nature join with grateful art, 
 To point each glance, and force it to the heart ! 
 O then, when conquered crouds confess thy sway, 
 When ev'n proud wealth and prouder wit obey, 
 My fair, be mindful of the mighty trust. 
 Alas ! 'tis hard for beauty to be just. 
 Those sovereign charms with strictest care employ ; 
 Nor give the generous pain, the worthless joy : 
 With his own form acquaint the forward fool, ^ 
 
 Shewn in the faithful glass of ridicule ; 
 Teach mimick censure her own faults to find, 
 No more let coquettes to themselves be blind, 
 So shall Belinda's charms improve mankind. 
 
 The Young Authour^ 
 When first the peasant, long inclin'd to roam, 
 Forsakes his rural sports and peaceful home, 
 
 1 Mr. Hector informs me, that this was made almost iinproJiiptu, in 
 his presence. Boswell. 
 
 - This he inserted, with many alterations, in the Gefiileitian's ?Jaga- 
 
 Pleas'd
 
 yohnso7ts youlh/iil coinpositions. 63 
 
 Pleas'd with the scene the smiling ocean yields, 
 
 He scorns the verdant meads and flow'ry fields ; 
 
 Then dances jocund o'er the watery way, 
 
 While the breeze whispers, and the streamers play: 
 
 Unbounded prospects in his bosom roll, 
 
 And future millions lift his rising soul ; 
 
 In blissful dreams he digs the golden mine, 
 
 And raptur'd sees the new-found ruby shine. 
 
 Joys insincere ! thick clouds invade the skies, 
 
 Loud roar the billows, high the waves arise ; 
 
 Sick'ning with fear, he longs to view the shore, 
 
 And vows to trust the faithless deep no more. 
 
 So the young Authour, panting after fame. 
 
 And the long honours of a lasting name, 
 
 Entrusts his happiness to human kind, 
 
 More false, more cruel, than the seas or wind. 
 
 ' Toil on, dull croud, in extacies he cries. 
 
 For wealth or title, perishable prize ; 
 
 While I those transitory blessings scorn. 
 
 Secure of praise from ages yet unborn.' 
 
 This thought once form'd, all council comes too late, 
 
 He flies to press, and hurries on his fate ; 
 
 Swiftly he sees the imagin'd laurels spread. 
 
 And feels the unfading wreath surround his head. 
 
 Warn'd by another's fate, vain youth be wise. 
 
 Those dreams were Settle's ° once, and Ogilby's': 
 
 The pamphlet spread's, incessant hisses rise, 
 
 To some retreat the baffled writer flies ; 
 
 Where no sour criticks snarl, no sneers molest. 
 
 Safe from the tart lampoon, and stinging jest ; 
 
 There begs of heaven a less distinguished lot, 
 
 Glad to be hid, and proud to be forgot. 
 
 zme, 1743 [p. 378]. BoswELL. The alterations are not always for the 
 better. Thus he alters 
 
 ' And the long honours of a lasting name ' 
 into 
 
 'And fir'd with pleasing hope of endless fame.' 
 ''■ Settle was the last of the city-poets ; post. May 1 5, 1776. 
 ^ ' Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great.' Dunciad, i. 
 141. 
 
 Epilogue,
 
 64 yohnsoiis youthful composilions. [a.d. 172S. 
 
 Epilogue, intended to have been spoken by a Lady wJio was to per- 
 sonate the Ghost ^Hermione '. 
 
 Ye blooming train, who give despair or joy, 
 Bless with a smile, or with a frown destroy ; 
 In whose fair cheeks destructive Cupids wait, 
 And with unerring shafts distribute fate ; 
 Whose snowy breasts, whose animated eyes, 
 Each youth admires, though each admirer dies ; 
 Whilst you deride their pangs in barb'rous play, 
 Unpitying see them weep, and hear them pray. 
 And unrelenting sport ten thousand lives away ; 
 For you, ye fair, I quit the gloomy plains ; 
 Where sable night in all her horrour reigns ; 
 No fragrant bowers, no delightful glades. 
 Receive the unhappy ghosts of scornful maids. 
 For kind, for tender nymphs the myrtle blooms. 
 And weaves her bending boughs in pleasing glooms : 
 Perennial roses deck each purple vale. 
 And scents ambrosial breathe in every gale : 
 Far hence are banish'd vapours, spleen, and tears, 
 Tea, scandal, ivory teeth, and languid airs : 
 No pug, nor favourite Cupid there enjoys 
 The balmy kiss, for which poor Thyrsis dies ; 
 Form'd to delight, they use no foreign arms, 
 Nor torturing whalebones pinch them into charms ; 
 No conscious blushes there their cheeks inflame. 
 For those who feel no guilt can know no shame ; 
 Unfaded still their former charms they shew. 
 Around them pleasures wait, and joys for ever new. 
 But cruel virgins meet severer fates ; 
 Expell'd and exil'd from the blissful seats. 
 To dismal realms, and regions void of peace, 
 Where furies ever howl, and serpents hiss. 
 O'er the sad plains perpetual tempests sigh, 
 And pois'nous vapours, black'ning all the sky, 
 With livid hue the fairest face o'ercast, 
 
 ' Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act The Dis- 
 tressed Mother^ ]ohY\son wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to convey 
 it privately to them. Boswell. See post, 1747, for JVw Distressed 
 Mother. 
 
 And
 
 Aetat. 19.] Johnsou two years at home. 65 
 
 And every beauty withers at the blast : 
 
 Where e'er they fly their lovers' ghosts pursue, 
 
 Inflicting all those ills which once they knew ; 
 
 Vexation, Fury, Jealousy, Despair, 
 
 Vex ev'ry eye, and every bosom tear; 
 
 Their foul deformities by all descry'd, 
 
 No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide. 
 
 Then melt, ye fair, while crouds around you sigh, 
 
 Nor let disdain sit lowring in your eye ; 
 
 With pity soften every awful grace, 
 
 And beauty smile auspicious in each face ; 
 
 To ease their pains exert your milder power, 
 
 So shall you guiltless reign, and all mankind adore.' 
 
 The two years which he spent at home, after his return 
 from Stourbridge, he passed in what he thought idleness ', 
 and was scolded by his father for his want of steady applica- 
 tion ^ He had no settled plan of life, nor looked forward 
 at all, but merely lived from day to day. Yet he read a 
 great deal in a desultory manner, without any scheme of 
 study, as chance threw books in his way, and inclination di- 
 rected him through them. He used to mention one curious 
 instance of his casual reading, when but a boy. Having 
 imagined that his brother had hid some apples behind a 
 large folio upon an upper shelf in his father's shop, he 
 climbed up to search for them. There were no apples ; but 
 
 ' Yet he said to Boswell : — ' Sir, in my early years I read very hard. 
 It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at 
 eighteen as I do now ' {post,]v\y 21, 1763). He told Mr. Langton, that 
 ' his great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of 
 eighteen ' (lb. note). He told the King that his reading had later on 
 been hindered by ill-health {post, Feb. 1767). 
 
 - Hawkins {Life, p. 9) says that ' his father took him home, probably 
 with a view to bring him up to his own trade ; for I have heard John- 
 son say that he himself was able to bind a book.' ' It were better 
 bind books again,' wrote Mrs. Thrale to him on Sept. 18, 1777, 'as you 
 did one year in our thatched summer-house.' Pwzzi Letters, i. 375. 
 It was most likely at this time that he refused to attend his father to 
 Uttoxetcr market, for which fault he made atonement in his old age 
 (/c.f/, November 1784). 
 
 I.— 5 the
 
 66 His wide 7'eading. [a.d. 1728. 
 
 the large folio proved to be Petrarch, whom he had seen 
 mentioned in some preface, as one of the restorers of learn- 
 ing. His curiosity having been thus excited, he sat down 
 with avidity, and read a great part of the book. What he 
 read during these two years he told me, was not works of 
 mere amusement, 'not voyages and travels, but all literature, 
 Sir, all ancient writers, all manly : though but little Greek, 
 only some of Anacreon and Hesiod ; but in this irregular 
 manner (added he) I had looked into a great many books, 
 which were not commonly known at the Universities, where 
 they seldom read any books but what are put into their hands 
 by their tutors; so that when I came to Oxford, Dr. Adams, 
 now master of Pembroke College, told me I was the best quali- 
 fied for the University that he had ever known come there'.' 
 In estimating the progress of his mind during these two 
 years, as well as in future periods of his life, we must not 
 regard his own hasty confession of idleness ; for we see, 
 when he explains himself, that he was acquiring various 
 stores ; and, indeed he himself concluded the account with 
 saying, ' I would not have you think I was doing nothing 
 then.' He might, perhaps, have studied more assiduously; 
 but it may be doubted whether such a mind as his was 
 not more enriched by roaming at large in the fields of 
 literature than if it had been confined to any single spot. 
 The analogy between body and mind is very general, and 
 the parallel will hold as to their food, as well as any other 
 particular. The flesh of animals who feed excursively, is 
 allowed to have a higher flavour than that of those who are 
 cooped up. May there not be the same difference between 
 
 1 Perhaps Johnson had his own early reading in mind when he 
 thus describes Pope's reading at about the same age. ' During this 
 period of his life he was indefatigably diligent and insatiably curious ; 
 wanting health for violent, and money for expensive pleasures, and 
 having excited in himself very strong desires of intellectual eminence, 
 he spent much of his time over his books ; but he read only to store 
 his mind with facts and images, seizing all that his authors presented 
 with undistinguishing voracity, and with an appetite for knowledge 
 too eager to be nice.' Johnson's Works, viii. 239. 
 
 men
 
 Aetat. 19.] jfoJiiisoii enters Oxford. 67 
 
 men who read as their taste prompts and men who are con- 
 fined in cells and colleges to stated tasks? 
 
 That a man in Mr. Michael Johnson's circumstances should 
 think of sending his son to the expensive University of Ox- 
 ford, at his own charge, seems very improbable. The sub- 
 ject was too delicate to question Johnson upon. But I have 
 been assured by Dr. Taylor that the scheme never would 
 have taken place had not a gentleman of Shropshire, one 
 of his school-fellows, spontaneously undertaken to support 
 him at Oxford, in the character of his companion ; though, 
 in fact, he never received any assistance whatever from that 
 gentleman'. 
 
 He, however, went to Oxford, and was entered a Com- 
 moner of Pembroke College on the 31st of October, I728\ 
 being then in his nineteenth year\ 
 
 * Andrew Corbet, according to Hawkins. Corbet had entered 
 Pembroke College in 1727. Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's godfather, was 
 a member of the College. I find the name of a Swinfen on the 
 books in 1728. 
 
 ' In the Caution Book of Pembroke College are found the two fol- 
 lowing entries: — 
 
 'Oct. 31, 1728. Reed, then of Mr. Samuel Johnson Comr. of Pern. 
 Coll. ye sum of seven Pounds for his Caution, which is to remain in 
 ye Hands of ye Bursars till ye said Mr. Johnson shall depart ye said 
 College leaving ye same fully discharg'd. 
 
 ' Reed, by me, John Ratcliflf, Bursar.' 
 
 'March 26, 1740. At a convention of the Master and Fellows to 
 settle the accounts of the Caution it appear'd that the Persons Ac- 
 counts under-written stood thus at their leaving the College : 
 
 Caution not Repay'd 
 Mr. Johnson ^700 
 Battells not discharg'd 
 Mr. Johnson £j o o 
 Mr. Carlyle is in error in describing Johnson as a servitor. He was a 
 commoner as the above entry shows. Though he entered on Oct. 31, 
 he did not matriculate till Dec. 16. It was on Palm Sunday of this 
 same year that Rousseau left Geneva, and so entered upon his event- 
 ful career. Goldsmith was born eleven days after Johnson entered 
 (Nov. 10, 1728). Reynolds was five years old. Burke was born before 
 Johnson left Oxford. 
 
 ' He was in his twentieth year. He was born on Sept. 18, 1709, and 
 
 The
 
 68 His first tutor. [a.d. 1728. 
 
 The Reverend Dr. Adams, who afterwards presided over 
 Pembroke College with universal esteem, told me he was 
 present, and gave me some account of what passed on the 
 night of Johnson's arrival at Oxford'. On that evening, his 
 father, who had anxiously accompanied him, found means to 
 have him introduced to Mr. Jorden, who was to be his tutor. 
 His being put under any tutor reminds us of what Wood 
 says of Robert Burton, authour of the 'Anatomy of Melan- 
 choly,' when elected student of Christ Church : ' for form's 
 sake, though he ivanted not a tutor, he was put under the 
 tuition of Dr. John Bancroft, afterwards Bishop of Oxon'.' 
 
 His father seemed very full of the merits of his son, and 
 told the company he was a good scholar, and a poet, and 
 wrote Latin verses. His figure and manner appeared strange 
 to them ; but he behaved modestly, and sat silent, till upon 
 something which occurred in the course of conversation, he 
 suddenly struck in and quoted Macrobius; and thus he gave 
 the first impression of that more extensive reading in which 
 he had indulged himself. 
 
 His tutor, Mr. Jorden, fellow of Pembroke, was not, it 
 seems, a man of such abilities as we should conceive requi- 
 site for the instructor of Samuel Johnson, who gave me the 
 following account of him. ' He was a very worthy man, 
 but a heavy man, and I did not profit much by his instruc- 
 tions. Indeed, I did not attend him much^ The first day 
 
 was therefore nineteen. He was somewhat late in entering. In his 
 Life of Ascham he says, ' Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1 534, 
 in the eighteenth year of his age ; a time of life at which it is more 
 common now to enter the universities than to take degrees.' John- 
 son's Works, vi. 505. It was just after Johnson's entrance that the 
 two Wesleys began to hold small devotional meetings at Oxford. 
 
 ' Builders were at work in the college during all his residence. 
 'July 16, 1728. About a quarter of a year since they began to build a 
 new chapel for Pembroke Coll. next to Slaughter Lane.' Hearne's 
 Remains, iii. 9. 
 
 - At hen. Oxon. edit. 1721, i. 627. Boswell. 
 
 ^ 'Johnson would oftener risk the payment of a small fine than 
 attend his lectures . . . Upon occasion of one such imposition he said 
 to Jorden : — " Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non- 
 after
 
 Aetat. 19.] The fifth of Novembe7\ 69 
 
 after I came to college I waited upon him, and then staid 
 away four. On the sixth, Mr. Jorden asked me why I had 
 not attended. I answered I had been sliding in Christ- 
 Church meadow'. And this I said with as much noncha- 
 lance as I am now'' talking to you. I had no notion that 
 I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor'. BOSWELL : 'That, 
 Sir, was great fortitude of mind.' JOHNSON : ' No, Sir ; stark 
 insensibility*.' 
 
 The fifth of November' was at that time kept with great 
 
 attendance at a lecture not worth a penny." ' Hawkins's Johnson, 
 p. 9. A passage in Whitefield's Diary shows that the sconce was 
 often greater. He once neglected to give in the weekly theme which 
 every Saturday had to be given to the tutor in the Hall ' when the 
 bell rang.' He was fined half-a-crown. Tyerman's Whiteficld, i. 22. 
 In my time (1855-8) at Pembroke College every Saturday when the 
 bell rang we gave in our piece of Latin prose — themes were things of 
 the past. 
 
 ' This was on Nov. 6, O. S., or Nov. 17, N. S. — a very early time for 
 ice to bear. The first mention of frost that I find in the newspapers 
 of that winter is in the Weekly Journal for Nov. 30, O. S. ; where it is 
 stated that 'the passage by land and water [i. e. the Thames] is now 
 become very dangerous by the snow, frost, and ice.' The record of 
 meteorological observations began a few years later. 
 
 * Oxford, 2oth March, 1776. Boswell. 
 
 ^ Mr. Croker discovers a great difference between this account and 
 that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton {post, under July 16, 1754). 
 There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, ' to an ear spoiled 
 by flattery.' A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts 
 refer to different hours of the same day. Johnson's 'stark insensibil- 
 ity' belonged to the morning, and his 'beating heart' to the after- 
 noon. He had been impertinent before dinner, and when he was 
 sent for after dinner ' he expected a sharp rebuke.' 
 
 * It ought to be remembered that Dr. Johnson was apt, in his liter- 
 ary as well as moral exercises, to overcharge his defects. Dr. Adams 
 informed me, that he attended his tutor's lectures, and also the lect- 
 ures in the College Hall, very regularly. Boswell. 
 
 * Early in every November was kept 'a great gaudy [feast] in the 
 college, when the Master dined in publick, and the juniors (by an an- 
 cient custom they were obliged to comply with) went round the fire 
 in the hall.' Philipps's Diary, Notes and Queries, 2nd S., x. 443. We 
 can picture to ourselves among the juniors in November 1728, Samuel 
 
 solemnity
 
 JO The fifth of November. [Aetat. 19. 
 
 solemnity at Pembroke College, and exercises upon the sub- 
 ject of the day were required'. Johnson neglected to per- 
 form his, which is much to be regretted ; for his vivacity of 
 imagination, and force of language, would probably have pro- 
 duced something sublime upon the gunpowder plot\ To 
 apologise for his neglect, he gave in a short copy of verses, 
 entitled Sornniuvi, containing a common thought ; ' that the 
 Muse had come to him in his sleep, and whispered, that it 
 did not become him to write on such subjects as politicks ; 
 he should confine himself to humbler themes:' but the ver- 
 sification was truly Virgilian\ 
 
 Johnson, going round the fire with the others. Here he heard day 
 after day the Latin grace which Camden had composed for the society. 
 'I believe I can repeat it,' Johnson said at St. Andrew's, 'which he 
 did.' Boswell's Hebrides, K\ig. 19, 1773. 
 
 * Seven years before Johnson's time, on Nov. 5, ' Mr. Peyne, Bachelor 
 of Arts, made an oration in the hall suitable to the day.' Philipps's 
 Diary. 
 
 ■ Boswell forgot Johnson's criticism on Milton's exercises on this 
 day. ' Some of the exercises on Gunpowder Treason might have 
 been spared.' Johnson's PVor^s,vu. 119. 
 
 3 It has not been preserved. There are in the college library four 
 of his compositions, two of verse and two of prose. One of the copies 
 of verse I give pos/, under July 16, 1754. Both have been often printed. 
 As his prose compositions have never been published I will give 
 one: — 
 
 ' Mea nee Falernae 
 Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles.' 
 
 ' Ouaedam minus attente spectata absurda videntur, quae tamen 
 penitus perspecta rationi sunt consentanea. Non enim semper facta 
 per se, verum ratio occasioque faciendi sunt cogitanda. Deteriora ei 
 offerre cui meliorum ingens copia est, cui non ridiculum videtur? 
 Quis sanus hirtam agrestemque vestem Lucullo obtulisset, cujus 
 omnia fere Serum opificia, omnia Parmae vellera, omnes Tyri colores 
 latuerunt? Hoc tamen fecisse Horatium non puduit, quo nuUus 
 urbanior, nullus procerum convictui magis assuetus. Maecenatem 
 scilicet norat non quaesiturum an meliora vina domi posset bibere, 
 verum an inter domesticos quenquam propensiori in se animo posset 
 invenire. Amorem, non lucrum, optavit patronus ille munifentissimus 
 (sic). Pocula licet vino minus puro implerentur, satis habuit, si hos- 
 pitis vultus laetitia perfusus sinceram puramque amicitiam testaretur. 
 
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 t- 

 
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 ^i^nAxM^ jhJyuA ^ucWi Lu^L^ JLJ. 
 
 Facsimilk ni- Dr. JniiNsoN's Hanijwritino in his 20th year. 
 
 (Stl pagtt 70 .7/;,/ 31 sJ 
 
 /^
 
 A.D. 1728.] Johnsons version of Popes Messiah, 71 
 
 He had a love and respect for Jorden, not for his htera- 
 ture, but for his worth. ' Whenever (said he) a young man 
 becomes Jorden's pupil, he becomes his son.' 
 
 Having given such a specimen of his poetical powers, he 
 was asked by Mr. Jorden, to translate Pope's Messiah into 
 Latin verse, as a Christmas exercise. He performed it with 
 uncommon rapidity, and in so masterly a manner, that he' 
 obtained great applause from it, which ever after kept him 
 high in the estimation of his College, and, indeed, of all the 
 University'. 
 
 It is said that Mr. Pope expressed himself concerning it 
 in terms of strong approbation \ Dr. Taylor told me, that 
 it was first printed for old Mr. Johnson, without the knowl- 
 edge of his son, who was very angry when he heard of it. 
 A Miscellany of Poems collected by a person of the name 
 of Husbands, was published at Oxford in I73i\ In that 
 
 Ut ubi poetam carmine celebramus, non fastidit, quod ipse melius 
 posset scribere, verum poema licet non magni facit (^sic), amorem 
 scriptoris libenter amplectitur, sic amici munuscula animum gratum 
 testantia licet parvi sint, non nisi a superbo et moroso contemnentur. 
 Deos thuris fumis indigere nemo certe unquam credidit, quos tamen 
 iis gratos putarunt, quia homines se non beneficiorum immemores his 
 testimoniis ostenderunt.' Johnson. 
 
 ' 'The accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained Addison the 
 patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards Provost of Queen's College, 
 by whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as 
 a Demy' [a scholar]. Johnson's Works, \'\\. ^,10. Johnson's verses 
 gained him nothing but ' estimation.' 
 
 ' He is reported to have said : — ' The writer of this poem will leave 
 it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original.' Haw- 
 kins, p. 13. 
 
 ^ ' A Miscellany of Poems by several hands. Published by J. Hus- 
 bands, A.M., Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxon., Oxford. Printed 
 by Leon. Lichfield, near the East -Gate, In the year mdccxxxi.' 
 Among the subscribers I notice the name of Richard Savage, Esq., 
 for twenty copies. It is very doubtful whether he paid for one. Pope 
 did not subscribe. Johnson's poem is thus mentioned in the pref- 
 ace : — 'The translation of Mr. Pope's Messiah was deliver'd to his 
 Tutor as a College Exercise by Mr. Johnson, a commoner of Pem- 
 broke-College in Oxford, and 'tis hoped will be no discredit to the 
 excellent original.' 
 
 Miscellany 
 
 '&'
 
 72 Mr. Coiirteiiays eulogy. [a.d. 1728. 
 
 Miscellany Johnson's Translation of the Messiah appeared, 
 with this modest motto from Scaliger's Poeticks. Ex alieno 
 ingcnio Pocta, ex siio tantian versificator. 
 
 I am not ignorant that critical objections have been made 
 to this and other specimens of Johnson's Latin Poetry'. I 
 acknowledge myself not competent to decide on a question 
 of such extreme nicety. But I am satisfied with the just 
 and discriminative eulogy pronounced upon it by my friend 
 Mr. Courtenay. 
 
 ' And with like ease his vivid lines assume 
 The garb and dignity of ancient Rome. — 
 Let college verse-men trite conceits express, 
 Trick'd out in splendid shreds of Virgil's dress ; 
 From playful Ovid cull the tinsel phrase. 
 And vapid notions hitch in pilfer'd lays : 
 Then with mosaick art the piece combine. 
 And boast the glitter of each dulcet line : 
 Johnson adventur'd boldly to transfuse 
 His vigorous sense into the Latian muse ; 
 Aspir'd to shine by unreflected light, 
 And with a Roman's ardour think and write. 
 He felt the tuneful Nine his breast inspire, 
 And, like a master, wak'd the soothing lyre : 
 Horatian strains a grateful heart proclaim, 
 While Sky's wild rocks resound his Thralia's name^ 
 Hesperia's plant, in some less skilful hands, 
 To bloom a while, factitious heat demands : 
 Though glowing Maro a faint warmth supplies. 
 The sickly blossom in the hot-house dies : 
 By Johnson's genial culture, art, and toil, 
 Its root strikes deep, and owns the fost'ring soil ; 
 Imbibes our sun through all its swelling veins. 
 And grows a native of Britannia's plains ^' 
 
 The 'morbid melancholy,' which was lurking in his con- 
 stitution, and to which we may ascribe those particularities, 
 
 1 See. post, under July i6, 1754. 
 ' See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 6, 1773. 
 
 ^ Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johjt- 
 son, by John Courtenay, Esq., M.P. Boswell. 
 
 and
 
 Aetat. 19.] yoJinsou s ^ mor bid melancholy! J^) 
 
 and that aversion to regular life, which, at a very early 
 period, marked his character, gathered such strength in his 
 twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. 
 While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the 
 year 1729', he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible 
 hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and im- 
 patience ; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which 
 
 * Hector, in his account of Johnson's early life, says :— ' After a long 
 absence from Lichfield, when he returned, I was apprehensiv^e of 
 something wrong in his constitution which might either impair his 
 intellect or endanger his life ; but, thanks to Almighty God, my fears 
 have proved false.' Hawkins, p. 8. The college books show that 
 Johnson was absent but one week in the Long Vacation of 1729. It 
 is by no means unlikely that he went to Lichfield in that week to con- 
 sult Dr. Swinfen about his health. In that case his first attack, when 
 he tried to overcome the malady by frequently walking to Birming- 
 ham, must have been at an earlier date. In his time students often 
 passed the vacation at the University. The following table shows the 
 number of graduates and undergraduates in residence in Pembroke 
 College at the end of each fourth week, from June to December 
 
 1729:— 
 
 Members in residence. 
 
 June 20, 1729 54 
 
 34 
 
 25 
 
 16 
 
 July 
 
 18, , 
 
 Aug. 
 
 15. . 
 
 Sept. 
 
 12, , 
 
 Oct. 
 
 10, , 
 
 Nov. 
 
 7. . 
 
 Dec. 
 
 5. . 
 
 30 
 
 52 
 
 49 
 
 At Christmas there were still sixteen men left in the college. That 
 under a zealous tutor the vacation was by no means a time of idleness 
 is shown by a passage in Wesley's yourna/, in which he compares the 
 Scotch Universities with the English. ' In Scotland,' he writes, 'the 
 students all come to their several colleges in November, and return 
 home in May. So they may study five months in the year, and lounge 
 all the rest ! O where was the common sense of those who instituted 
 such colleges ? In the English colleges everyone may reside all the 
 year, as all my pupils did; and I should have thought myself little 
 better than a highwayman if I had not lectured them every day in the 
 year but Sundays.' Wesley's Joicr7ial, iv. 75. Johnson lived to see 
 Oxford empty in the Long Vacation. Writing on Aug. i, 1775, he 
 said : — 'The place is now a sullen solitude.' Piozzi Letters, i. 294. 
 
 made
 
 74 yohnsons ' morbid nielmicJioly' [a.d. 1729. 
 
 made existence misery'. From this dismal malady he never 
 afterwards was perfectly relieved ; and all his labours, and 
 all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its 
 baleful influence". How wonderful, how unsearchable are 
 the ways of GoD ! Johnson, who was blest with all the 
 powers of genius and understanding in a degree far above 
 the ordinary state of human nature, was at the same time 
 visited with a disorder so afflictive, that they who know it 
 by dire experience, will not envy his exalted endowments. 
 That it was, in some degree, occasioned by a defect in his 
 nervous system, that inexplicable part of our frame, appears 
 highly probable. He told Mr. Paradise^ that he was some- 
 times so languid and inefficient, that he could not distin- 
 guish the hour upon the town-clock. 
 
 Johnson, upon the first violent attack of this disorder, 
 strove to overcome it by forcible exertions*. He frequently 
 walked to Birmingham and back again', and tried many oth- 
 er expedients, but all in vain. His expression concerning 
 
 ' Johnson, perhaps, was thinking of himself when he thus criticised 
 the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. 'The variable weather of 
 the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to 
 time cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to 
 exhibit that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting 
 his own design.' Johnson's Works, v\\. \'i)\. 
 
 * Writing in his old age to Hector, he said, — ' My health has been 
 from my twentieth year such as has seldom afforded me a single day 
 of ease' {post, under March 21, 1782). Hawkins writes, that he once 
 told him 'that he knew not what it was to be totally free from pain.' 
 Hawkins, p. 396. 
 
 ^ See jz^^;^/, Oct. 27, 1784, note. 
 
 * In the Rambler, No. 85, he pointed out 'how much happiness is 
 gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agita- 
 tion of the body.' See post, July 21, 1763, for his remedies against 
 melancholy. 
 
 ' Thirty-two miles in all. Southey mentions that in 1728, the Wes- 
 leys, to save the more money for the poor, began to perform their 
 journeys on foot. He adds, — ' It was so little the custom in that age 
 for men in their rank of life to walk any distance, as to make them 
 think it a discovery that four or five-and-twenty miles are an easy and 
 safe day's journey.' Southey's Wesley, i. 52. 
 
 it
 
 Aetat. 20.] J^o/insoji an hypocho7idriack. 75 
 
 it to me was ' I did not then know how to manage it.' 
 His distress became so intolerable, that he applied to Dr. 
 Swinfen, physician in Lichfield, his god-father, and put into 
 his hands a state of his case, written in Latin. Dr. Swinfen 
 was so much struck with the extraordinary acuteness, re- 
 search, and eloquence of this paper, that in his zeal for his 
 godson he shewed it to several people. His daughter, Mrs. 
 Desmoulins, who was many years humanely supported in 
 Dr. Johnson's house in London, told me, that upon his 
 discovering that Dr. Swinfen had communicated his case, 
 he was so much offended, that he was never afterwards 
 fully reconciled to him. He indeed had good reason to be 
 offended ; for though Dr. Swinfen's motive was good, he 
 inconsiderately betrayed a matter deeply interesting and of 
 great delicacy, which had been entrusted to him in confi- 
 dence ; and exposed a complaint of his young friend and 
 patient, which, in the superficial opinion of the generality of 
 mankind, is attended with contempt and disgrace'. 
 
 But let not little men triumph upon knowing that Johnson 
 was an HypoCHONDRIACK, was subject to what the learned, 
 philosophical, and pious Dr. Cheyne has so well treated un- 
 der the title of 'The English Malady".' Though he suffered 
 severely from it, he was not therefore degraded. The powers 
 of his great mind might be troubled, and their full exercise 
 suspended at times ; but the mind itself was ever entire. As 
 a proof of this, it is only necessary to consider, that, when he 
 was at the very worst, he composed that state of his own 
 case, which shewed an uncommon vigour, not only of fancy 
 and taste, but of judgement. I am aware that he himself 
 was too ready to call such a complaint by the name of 
 madness'^ ; in conformity with which notion, he has traced 
 
 1 Boswell himself suflfered from hypochondria. He seems at times 
 to boast of it, as Dogberry boasted of his losses ; so that Johnson had 
 some reason for writing to him with severity, as if he were 'affecting 
 it from a desire of distinction.' Post, July 2, 1776. 
 
 "^ Johnson on April 7, 1776, recommended Boswell to read this book, 
 and again on July 2 of the same year. 
 
 * On Dec. 24, 1754, writing of the poet Collins, who was either mad 
 
 its
 
 76 yohnsons dread of insanity. [a.d. 1739. 
 
 its gradations, with exquisite nicety, in one of the chapters 
 of his Rasselas'. But there is surely a clear distinction 
 between a disorder which affects only the imagination and 
 spirits, while the judgement is sound, and a disorder by 
 which the judgement itself is impaired. This distinction 
 was made to me by the late Professor Gaubius of Leyden, 
 physician to the Prince of Orange, in a conversation which 
 I had with him several years ago, and he expanded it thus : 
 'If (said he) a man tells me that he is grievously disturbed, 
 for that he imagines he sees a ruffian coming against him 
 with a drawn sword, though at the same time he is conscious 
 it is a delusion, I pronounce him to have a disordered im- 
 agination ; but if a man tells me that he sees this, and in 
 consternation calls to me to look at it, I pronounce him to 
 be mad.' 
 
 It is a common effect of low spirits or melancholy, to 
 make those who are afflicted with it imagine that they are 
 actually suffering those evils which happen to be most 
 strongly presented to their minds. Some have fancied 
 themselves to be deprived of the use of their limbs, some 
 to labour under acute diseases, others to be in extreme pov- 
 erty; when, in truth, there was not the least reality in any 
 of the suppositions ; so that when the vapours were dis- 
 pelled, they were convinced of the delusion. To Johnson, 
 whose supreme enjoyment was the exercise of his reason, 
 the disturbance or obscuration of that faculty was the evil 
 mo&t to be dreaded. Insanity, therefore, was the object 
 
 or close upon it, he said, — ' Poor dear Collins ! I have often been 
 near his state.' Wooll's Warion, p. 229. ' I inherited,' Johnson said, 
 ' a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my 
 life, at least not sober.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 16, 1773. 'When I 
 survey my past life,' he wrote in 1777, ' I discover nothing but a barren 
 waste of time, with some disorders of body and disturbances of the 
 mind very near to madness.' Pr. and Med., p. 155. Reynolds recorded 
 that 'what Dr. Johnson said a few days before his death of his dispo- 
 sition to insanity was no new discovery to those who were intimate 
 with him.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii, 455. See also/<?.f/, Sept. 20, 1777. 
 ' Ch. 44. 
 
 of
 
 Aetat. 20.] History of his mind as to religion. 'j'] 
 
 of his most dismal apprehension'; and he fancied himself 
 seized by it, or approaching to it, at the very time when 
 he was giving proofs of a more than ordinary soundness 
 and vigour of judgement. That his own diseased imagina- 
 tion should have so far deceived him, is strange ; but it is 
 stranger still that some of his friends should have given 
 credit to his groundless opinion, when they had such un- 
 doubted proofs that it was totally fallacious ; though it is 
 by no means surprising that those who wish to depreciate 
 him, should, since his death, have laid hold of this circum- 
 stance, and insisted upon it with very unfair aggravation'. 
 
 Amidst the oppression and distraction of a disease which 
 very few have felt in its full extent, but many have experi- 
 enced in a slighter degree, Johnson, in his writings, and in 
 his conversation, never failed to display all the varieties of 
 intellectual excellence. In his march through this world to 
 a better, his mind still appeared grand and brilliant, and 
 impressed all around him with the truth of Virgil's noble 
 sentiment — 
 
 'Igneus est ollis vigor et ccsksfis origo^.' 
 
 The history of his mind as to religion is an important 
 article. I have mentioned the early impressions made upon 
 his tender imagination by his mother, who continued her 
 pious care with assiduity, but, in his opinion, not with judge- 
 ment. ' Sunday (said he) was a heavy day to me when I 
 was a boy. My mother confined me on that day, and made 
 me read '* The Whole Duty of Man," from a great part of 
 which I could derive no instruction. When, for instance, I had 
 read the chapter on theft, which from my infancy I had been 
 taught was wrong, I was no more convinced that theft was 
 wrong than before ; so there was no accession of knowledge. 
 
 ' 'Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and 
 alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.' Rassclas, ch. 43. 
 
 ^ Boswell refers to Mrs. Piozzi {^hur., pp. 77, 127), and Hawkins (LZ/e, 
 pp. 287-8). 
 
 ' ' Quick in these seeds is might of fire and birth of heavenly place." 
 Morris, ^Eneids, vi. 730. 
 
 A boy
 
 78 Laws Serious Call. [a.d. 1729. 
 
 A boy should be introduced to such books, by having his 
 attention directed to the arrangement, to the style, and 
 other excellencies of composition ; that the mind being 
 thus engaged by an amusing variety of objects, may not 
 grow weary.' 
 
 He communicated to me the following particulars upon 
 the subject of his religious progress. * I fell into an inatten- 
 tion to religion, or an indifference about it, in my ninth year. 
 The church at Lichfield, in which we had a seat, wanted 
 reparation', so I was to go and find a seat in other churches; 
 and having bad eyes, and being awkward about this, I used 
 to go and read in the fields on Sunday. This habit con- 
 tinued till my fourteenth year; and still I find a great reluc- 
 tance to go to church*. I then became a sort of lax talker 
 against religion, for I did not much think against it ; and 
 this lasted till I went to Oxford, where it would not be 
 suffered''. When at Oxford, I took up 'Law's Serioiis Call 
 
 ' On Easter Sunday 1716 during service some pieces of stone from 
 the spire of St. Mary's fell on the roof of the church. The congrega- 
 tion, thinking that the steeple was coming down, in their alarm broke 
 through the windows. Johnson, we may well believe, witnessed the 
 scene. The church was pulled down, and the new one was opened in 
 Dec. 1 72 1. Harwood's Lichfield, p. 460. 
 
 ^ 'Sept. 23, 1 77 1. I have gone voluntarily to church on the week 
 day but few times in my life. I think to mend. April 9, 1773. I 
 hope in time to take pleasure in public worship. April 6, 1777. I 
 have this year omitted church on most Sundays, intending to supply 
 the deficience in the week. So that I owe twelve attendances on wor- 
 ship. I will make no more such superstitious stipulations, which en- 
 tangle the mind with unbidden obligations.' Pr. and Med. pp. 108, 
 121, 161. In the following passage in the Life of Milton, Johnson, no 
 doubt, is thinking of himself : — ' In the distribution of his hours there 
 was no hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household ; omitting 
 public prayers he omitted all. . . . That he lived without prayer can 
 hardly be affirmed ; his studies and meditations were an habitual 
 prayer. The neglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which 
 he condemned himself, and which he intended to correct, but that 
 death, as too often happens, intercepted his reformation.' Johnson's 
 Works, vii. 115. S&e. post, Oct. 10, 1779. 
 
 " We may compare with this a passage in Verecundulus's letter in 
 
 to
 
 Aetat. 20.] yohusou gj^ouncied in religio7i. 79 
 
 to a Holy Life\' expecting to find it a dull book (as such 
 books generally are), and perhaps to laugh at it. But I 
 found Law quite an overmatch for me ; and this Avas the 
 first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion, after I 
 
 T/ie Rambler, No. 157 : — ' Though many among my fellow students [at 
 the university] took the opportunity of a more remiss discipline to 
 gratify their passions, yet virtue preserved her natural superiority, 
 and those who ventured to neglect were not suffered to insult her.' 
 Oxford at this date was somewhat wayward in her love for religion. 
 Whitefield records : — ' I had no sooner received the sacrament pub- 
 licly on a week-day at St. Mary's, but I was set up as a mark for all 
 the polite students that knew me to shoot at. By this they knew 
 that I was commenced Methodist, for though there is a sacrament at 
 the beginning of every term, at which all, especially the seniors, are 
 by statute obliged to be present, yet so dreadfully has that once faith- 
 ful city played the harlot, that very few masters, and no undergradu- 
 ates but the Methodists attended upon it. I daily underwent some 
 contempt at college. Some have thrown dirt at me ; others by de- 
 grees took away their pay from me.' Tyerman's Whitefield, i. 19. 
 Story, the Quaker, visiting Oxford in 1731, says, 'Of all places wher- 
 ever I have been the scholars of Oxford were the rudest, most giddy, 
 and unruly rabble, and most mischievous.' Story's Journal, p. 675. 
 
 * John Wesley, who was also at Oxford, writing of about this same 
 year, says : — ' Meeting now with Mr. Law's C/irzstzan Perfection and 
 Serious Call the light flowed in so mightily upon my soul that every- 
 thing appeared in a new view.' Wesley's Journal, i. 94. Whitefield 
 writes : — ' Before I went to the University, I met with Mr. Law's Serious 
 Call, but had not then money to purchase it. Soon after my coming 
 up to the University, seeing a small edition of it in a friend's hand I 
 soon procured it. God worked powerfully upon my soul by that and 
 his other excellent treatise upon Christian perfection.' Tyerman's 
 
 Whitefield, \. i6. Johnson called the Serious Call ' the finest piece of 
 hortatory theology in any language;' post, 1770. A few months before 
 his death he said: — 'William Law wrote the best piece of parenetic 
 divinity; but William Law was no reasoner;' />ost, June 9, 1784. Law 
 was the tutor of Gibbon's father, and he died in the house of the his- 
 torian's aunt. In describing the Serious Call Gibbon says : — ' His pre- 
 cepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel ; his satire is sharp, 
 but it is drawn from the knowledge of human life; and many of his 
 portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a 
 spark of piety in his reader's mind he will soon kindle it to a flame.' 
 Gibbon's Afisc. Works, i. 21. 
 
 became
 
 8o yohnson groiLudcd in religion. [a.d. 1729. 
 
 became capable of rational inquiry'.' From this time for- 
 ward religion was the predominant object of his thoughts^ ; 
 
 ' Mrs. Piozzi has given a strange fantastical account of the original 
 of Dr. Johnson's belief in our most holy religion. 'At the age ol ten 
 years his mind was disturbed by scruples of infidelity, which preyed 
 upon his spirits, and made him very uneasy, the more so, as he re- 
 vealed his uneasiness to none, being naturally (as he said) of a sullen 
 temper, and reserved disposition. He searched, however, diligently, 
 but fruitlessly, for evidences of the truth of revelation ; and, at length, 
 rccolleciing a book he had o?tce seen \I suppose at Jive years old] in his 
 father's shop, intitled De veritate Religionis, etc., he began to think 
 himself highly culpable for neglecting such a means of information, 
 and took himself severely to task for this si7i, adding many acts of 
 voluntary, and, to others, unknown penafice. The first opportunity 
 which offered, of course, he seized the book with avidity ; but, on ex- 
 amination, not finding himself scholar enough to peruse its contents, set 
 his heart at rest ; and not thinking to enquire whether there were any 
 English books written on the subject, followed his usual amusements 
 and considered his conscience as lightened of a crime. He redoubled his 
 diligence to learn the language that contained the information he 
 most wished for ; but from the pain which guilt [namely having omitted 
 to readiuhat he did not understafid] had given him, he now began to 
 deduce the soul's immortality [a sensation of pain in this -world being 
 aji 2inquestionable proof of existence in another], which was the point 
 that belief first stopped at; and from that moment resolving to be a 
 Christian, became one of the most zealous and pious ones our nation 
 ever produced.' Anecdotes, p. 17. 
 
 This is one of the numerous misrepresentations of this lively lady, 
 which it is worth while to correct ; for if credit should be given to 
 such a childish, irrational, and ridiculous statement of the foundation 
 of Dr. Johnson's faith in Christianity, how little credit would be due 
 to it. Mrs. Piozzi seems to wish, that the world should think Dr. 
 Johnson also under the influence of that easy logick, Stet pro ratione 
 voluntas. BOSWELL. On April 28, 1783, Johnson said: — 'Religion 
 had dropped out of my mind. It was at an early part of my life. 
 Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never lost it since." 
 Most likely it was the sickness in the long vacation of 1729 men- 
 tioned ajtte, p. 73. 
 
 " In his Life of Milton, writing of Paradise Lost, he says : — ' But 
 these truths are too important to be new; they have been taught to 
 our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary thoughts and famil- 
 iar conversations, and are habitually interwoven with the whole text- 
 ure of life.' Johnson's Works, \\i. 134. 
 
 though
 
 Aetat.20.] yoJiusoiL s stiidies at Oxford. 8i 
 
 though, with the just sentiments of a conscientious Christian, 
 he lamented that his practice of its duties fell far short of 
 what it ought to be. 
 
 This instance of a mind such as that of Johnson being 
 first disposed, by an unexpected incident, to think with 
 anxiety of the momentous concerns of eternity, and of ' what 
 he should do to be saved ',' may for ever be produced in op- 
 position to the superficial and sometimes profane contempt 
 that has been thrown upon those occasional impressions 
 which it is certain many Christians have experienced ; 
 though it must be acknowledged that weak minds, from an 
 erroneous supposition that no man is in a state of grace who 
 has not felt a particular conversion, have, in some cases, 
 brought a degree of ridicule upon them ; a ridicule of which 
 it is inconsiderate or unfair to make a general application. 
 
 How seriously Johnson was impressed with a sense of re- 
 ligion, even in the vigour of his youth, appears from the 
 following passage in his minutes kept by way of diary: 
 Sept. 7", 1736. I have this day entered upon my twenty- 
 eighth year. ' Mayest thou, O God, enable me, for jESUS 
 Christ's sake, to spend this in such a manner that I may 
 receive comfort from it at the hour of death, and in the day 
 of judgement ! Amen.' 
 
 The particular course of his reading while at Oxford, and 
 during the time of vacation which he passed at home, cannot 
 be traced. Enough has been said of his irregular mode of 
 study. He told me that from his earliest years he loved to 
 read poetry, but hardly ever read any poem to an end ; that 
 he read Shakspeare at a period so early, that the speech of 
 the ghost in Hamlet terrified him when he was alone' ; that 
 Horace's Odes were the compositions in which he took most 
 
 ' Acts xvi. 30. 
 
 - Sept. 7, Old Style, or Sept. 18, New Style. 
 
 ' ' He that peruses Shakespeare looks round alarmed, and starts to 
 find himself alone.' Johnson's Works, \.']\. 'I was many years ago 
 so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever en- 
 dured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to 
 revise them as an editor.' lb. p. 175. 
 
 I.— 6 delight,
 
 82 His knowledge of books. [a. d. 17-29. 
 
 delight, and it was long before he liked his Epistles and 
 Satires. He told me what he read solidly at Oxford was 
 Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer' and Eurip- 
 ides, 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. I always thought that 
 he did himself injustice in his account of what he had read, 
 and that he must have been speaking with reference to the 
 vast portion of study which is possible, and to which a few 
 scholars in the whole history of literature have attained ; for 
 when I once asked him whether a person, whose name I 
 have now forgotten, studied hard, he answered ' No, Sir ; I do 
 not believe he studied hard. I never knew a man who studied 
 hard, I conclude, indeed, from the effects, that some men 
 have studied hard, as Bentley and Clarke.' Trying him by 
 that criterion upon which he formed his judgement of others, 
 we may be absolutely certain, both from his writings and 
 his conversation, that his reading was very extensive. Dr. 
 Adam Smith, than whom few were better judges on this 
 subject, once observed to me that ' Johnson knew more 
 books than any man alive.' He had a peculiar facility in 
 seizing at once what was valuable in any book, without sub- 
 mitting to the labour of perusing it from beginning to end^ 
 
 ' He told Mr. Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey 
 completely. Windham's Diary, p. 17. At college, he said, he had 
 been 'very idle and neglectful of his studies.' lb. 
 
 ^ ' It may be questioned whether, except his Bible, he ever read a 
 book entirely through. Late in life, if any man praised a book in his 
 presence, he was sure to ask, " Did you read it through ?" If the an- 
 swer was in the affirmative, he did not seem willing to believe it.' 
 Murphy's Johnson, p. 12. It would be easy to show that Johnson read 
 many books right through, though, according to Mrs. Piozzi, he asked, 
 'was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished 
 longer by its readers excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and 
 the Pilgrim's Progress?' PiozzVs Anec. p. 281. Nevertheless in Mur- 
 phy's statement there is some truth. See what has been just stated 
 by Boswell, that ' he hardly ever read any poem to an end,' and pos/, 
 April 19, 1773, and June 15, 1784. To him might be applied his own 
 description of Barretier:— ' He had a quickness of apprehension and 
 
 He
 
 Aetat.20.j His rapid reading a7id composition. 83 
 
 He had, from the irritabihty of his constitution, at all times, 
 an impatience and \\\xvxy when he either read or wrote. A 
 certain apprehension, arising from novelty, made him write 
 his first exercise at College twice over ' ; but he never took 
 that trouble with any other composition ; and we shall see 
 that his most excellent works were struck off at a heat, with 
 rapid exertion '. 
 
 Yet he appears, from his early notes or memorandums in 
 my possession, to have at various times attempted, or at least 
 planned, a methodical course of study, according to com- 
 putation, of which he was all his life fond, as it fixed his 
 
 firmness of memory which enabled him to read with incredible rapid- 
 ity, and at the same time to retain what he read, so as to be able to 
 recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and 
 selected what was useful for his purpose.' Johnson's Works, vi. 390. 
 
 1 Ste post, June 15, 1784. Mr. Windham {Dzary, p. 17) records the 
 following ' anecdote of Johnson's first declamation at college ; having 
 neglected to write it till the morning of his being {sic) to repeat it, 
 and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart while he was 
 walking into the hall, and the rest he supplied as well as he could ex- 
 tempore.' Mrs. Piozzi, recording the same anecdote, says that 'hav- 
 ing given the copy into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it 
 as he passed, he was obliged to begin by chance, and continue on how 
 he could. ..." A prodigious risk, however," said some one. " Not at 
 all," exclaims Johnson, "no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep 
 water who does not know how to swim." ' Piozzi's A7tec. p. 30. 
 
 * He told Dr. Burney that he never wrote any of his works that were 
 printed, twice over. Dr. Burney 's wonder at seeing several pages of 
 his Lives of the Poets, in Manuscript, with scarce a blot or erasure. 
 drew this observation from him. Malone. ' He wrote forty-eight 
 of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting {post, 
 Feb. 1744), and a hundred lines of the Vanity of LIunian Wishes 
 in a day {post, under Feb. 15, 1766). The Ramblers were written in 
 haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him 
 before they were printed' {post, beginning of 1750). In the second 
 edition, however, he made corrections. ' He composed Rassclas in 
 the evenings of one week' {post, under January 1759). ' The False 
 Alarm was written between eight o'clock on Wednesday night and 
 twelve o'clock on Thursday night.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 41. ' The Pa- 
 triot,' he says, 'was called for on Friday, was written on Saturday' 
 {post, Nov. 26, 1774). 
 
 attention
 
 84 Johnson's rooms in College. [a.d. 1729. 
 
 attention steadily upon something without, and prevented 
 his mind from preying upon itself. Thus I find in his 
 handwriting the number of lines in each of two of Euripides' 
 Tragedies, of the Georgicks of Virgil, of the first six books 
 of the ^Eneid, of Horace's Art of Poetry, of three of the 
 books of Ovid's Metamorphosis, of some parts of Theocritus, 
 and of the tenth Satire of Juvenal ; and a table, shewing at 
 the rate of various numbers a day (I suppose verses to be 
 read), what would be, in each case, the total amount in a 
 week, month, and year^ 
 
 No man had a more ardent love of literature, or a higher 
 respect for it than Johnson. His apartment in Pembroke 
 College was that upon the second floor, over the gateway. 
 The enthusiasts of learning will ever contemplate it with 
 veneration. One day, while he was sitting in it quite alone, 
 Dr. Panting', then master of the College, whom he called ' a 
 fine Jacobite fellow,' overheard' him uttering this soliloquy 
 in his strong, emphatick voice : ' Well, I have a mind to see 
 what is done in other places of learning. I'll go and visit 
 
 ' 'When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, 
 his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic,' Piozzi's Anec. 
 p. ']']. ' Ethics, or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of 
 talk he most delighted in ;' ib. p. 80. See post, Sept. 24, 1777. 
 
 * 'Sept. 18, 1764, I resolve to study the Scriptures; I hope in the 
 original languages. 640 verses every Sunday will nearly comprise the 
 Scriptures in a year.' Pr. and Med. p. 58. '1770, ist Sunday after 
 Easter. The plan which I formed for reading the Scriptures was to 
 read 600 verses in the Old Testament, and 200 in the New, every 
 week ;' ib. p. 100. 
 
 '' August I, 171 5. This being the day on which the late Queen 
 Anne died, and on which George, Duke and Elector of Brunswick, 
 usurped the English throne, there was very little rejoicing in Oxford. 
 . . . There was a sermon at St. Marie's by Dr. Panting, Master of 
 Pembroke; ... He is an honest gent. His sermon took no notice, 
 at most very little, of the Duke of Brunswick.' Hearne's Remains, 
 ii.6. 
 
 * The outside wall of the gateway-tower forms an angle with the 
 wall of the Master's house, so that anyone sitting by the open window 
 and speaking in a strong emphatic voice might have easily been over- 
 heard. 
 
 the
 
 PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD.
 
 Aetat. 20.] j^okiisoii a frolicksome fellow. 85 
 
 the Universities abroad. I'll go to France and Italy. I'll 
 go to Padua'. — And I'll mind my business. For an Athenian 
 blockhead is the worst of all blockheads ^' 
 
 Dr. Adams told me that Johnson, while he was at Pem- 
 broke College, ' was caressed and loved by all about him, 
 was a gay and frolicksome ^ fellow, and passed there the 
 happiest part of his life.' But this is a striking proof of the 
 fallacy of appearances, and how little any of us know of the 
 real internal state even of those whom we see most frequent- 
 ly ; for the truth is, that he was then depressed by poverty, 
 and irritated by disease. When I mentioned to him this 
 
 ^ Goldsmith did go to Padua, and stayed there some months. 
 Forster's Goldsmith, i. 71. 
 
 - I had this anecdote from Dr. Adams, and Dr. Johnson confirmed 
 it. Bramston, in his Man of Taste, has the same thought : 
 
 ' Sure, of all blockheads, scholars are the worst.' Boswell. 
 Johnson's meaning, however, is, that a scholar who is a blockhead 
 must be the worst of all blockheads, because he is without excuse. 
 But Bramston, in the assumed character of an ignorant coxcomb, 
 maintains that ^/Z scholars are blockheads on account of their schol- 
 arship. J. BoswELL, JuN. There is, I believe, a Spanish proverb to 
 the effect that, ' to be an utter fool a man must know Latin.' A writer 
 in Notes and Queries ( 5th S. xii. 285 ) suggests that Johnson had in 
 mind Acts xvii. 21. 
 
 ' ' It was the practice in his time for a servitor, by order of the 
 Master, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and knocking at 
 the door to enquire if they were within ; and if no answer was returned 
 to report them absent. Johnson could not endure this intrusion, and 
 would frequently be silent, when the utterance of a word would have 
 ensured him from censure, and would join with others of the young 
 men in the college in hunting, as they called it, the servitor who was 
 thus diligent in his duty, and this they did with the noise of pots and 
 candlesticks, singing to the tune of Chevy Chase the words in the old 
 ballad, — 
 
 "To drive the deer with hound and horn!"' Hawkins, t^. 12. 
 Whitefield, writing of a fev/ years later, says : — ' At this time Satan 
 used to terrify me much, and threatened to punish me if I discovered 
 his wiles. It being my duty, as servitor, in my turn to knock at the 
 gentlemen's rooms by ten at night, to sec who were in their rooms, I 
 thought the devil would appear to me every stair I went up.' Tyer- 
 man's Whitefield, \. 20. 
 
 account
 
 86 Dr. Adams. [a.d. 1730. 
 
 account as given me by Dr. Adams, he said, ' Ah, Sir, I was 
 mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook 
 for frohck '. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight 
 my way by my literature and my wit ; so I disregarded all 
 power and all authority".* 
 
 The Bishop of Dromore observes in a letter to me, 
 
 'The pleasure he took in vexing the tutors and fellows has been 
 often mentioned. But I have heard him say, what ought to be 
 recorded to the honour of the present venerable master of that 
 College, the Reverend William Adams, D.D., who was then very 
 young, and one of the junior fellows ; that the mild but judicious 
 expostulations of this worthy man, whose virtue awed him, and 
 whose learning he revered, made him really ashamed of himself, 
 "though I fear (said he) I was too proud to own it." 
 
 ' I have heard from some of his cotemporaries that he was gen- 
 erally seen lounging at the College gate, with a circle of young 
 students round him, whom he was entertaining with wit, and keep- 
 ing from their studies, if not spiriting them up to rebellion against 
 the College discipline, which in his maturer years he so much ex- 
 tolled.' 
 
 He very early began to attempt keeping notes or memo- 
 randums, by way of a diary of his life. I find, in a parcel of 
 loose leaves, the following spirited resolution to contend 
 against his natural indolence : 
 
 ' Oct. 1729. Desidice valedixi ; syrcnis is tins caiitibus surdam posi- 
 hac anrem obversurus. — I bid farewell to Sloth, being resolved 
 -henceforth not to listen to her syren strains.' 
 
 I have also in my possession a few leaves of another Libelhis, 
 or little book, entitled Annales, in which some of the early 
 particulars of his history are registered in Latin. 
 
 I do not find that he formed any close intimacies with 
 
 ' See post , junQ 12, 1784. 
 
 - Perhaps his disregard of all authority was in part due to his genius, 
 still in its youth. In his Life of Lyttelton he says : — ' The letters [Lyt- 
 telton's Persian Letter's'] have something of that indistinct and head- 
 strong ardour for liberty which a man of genius always catches when 
 he enters the world, and always sutfers to cool as he passes forward.' 
 Johnson's Wor/cs, viii. 4S8. 
 
 his
 
 Aetat. 21.] His regaled for Pembroke College. 87 
 
 his fellow-collegians. But Dr. Adams told me that he con- 
 tracted a love and regard for Pembroke College, which he 
 retained to the last. A short time before his death he sent 
 to that College a present of all his works, to be deposited 
 in their library ' ; and he had thoughts of leaving to it his 
 house at Lichfield ; but his friends who were about him 
 very properly dissuaded him from it, and he bequeathed it 
 to some poor relations'. He took a pleasure in boasting of 
 the many eminent men who had been educated at Pem- 
 broke, In this list are found the names of Mr. Hawkins the 
 Poetry Professor \ Mr. Shenstone, Sir William Blackstone, 
 and others*; not forgetting the celebrated popular preacher, 
 
 ' Dr. Hall [formerly Master of the College] says, ' Certainly not all.' 
 Croker. 
 
 - ' I would leave the interest of the fortune I bequeathed to a col- 
 lege to my relations or my friends for their lives. It is the same thing 
 to a college, which is a permanent society, whether it gets the money 
 now or twenty years hence ; and I would wish to make my relations 
 or friends feel the benefit of it ;' post, April 17, 1778. Hawkins {Life, 
 p. 582,) says that ' he meditated a devise of his house to the corpora- 
 tion of that city for a charitable use, but, it being freehold he said, " I 
 cannot live a twelvemonth, and the last statute of Mortmain stands 
 in my way." ' The same statute, no doubt, would have hindered the 
 bequest to the College. 
 
 " Garrick refused to act one of Hawkins's plays. The poet towards 
 the end of a long letter which he signed, — ' Your much dissatisfied 
 humble servant,' said : — 'After all, Sir, I do not desire to come to an 
 open rupture with you. 1 wish not to exasperate, but to convince ; 
 and I tender you once more my friendship and my play.' Garrick 
 Corres. ii. 8. See post, April 9, 1778. 
 
 * See Nash's History of Worcestershire, vol. i. p. 529. Boswell. 
 To the list should be added, Francis Beaumont, the dramatic writer; 
 Sir Thomas Browne, whose life Johnson wrote ; Sir James Dyer, Chief 
 Justice of the King's Bench, Lord Chancellor Harcourt, John Pym, 
 Francis Rous, the Speaker of Cromwell's parliament, and Bishop 
 Bonner. Wright. Some of these men belonged to the ancient 
 foundation of Broadgates Hall, which in 1624 was converted into 
 Pembroke College. It is strange that Boswell should have passed 
 over Sir Thomas Browne's name. John.son in his life of Browne says 
 that he was 'the first man of eminence graduated from the new col- 
 lege, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most can 
 
 Mr.
 
 88 A nest of singing-birds. [a.d. 1730. 
 
 Mr. George VVhitefield, of whom, though Dr. Johnson did 
 not think very highly', it must be acknowledged that his 
 eloquence was powerful, his views pious and charitable, his 
 assiduity almost incredible ; and, that since his death, the 
 integrity of his character has been fully vindicated. Being 
 himself a poet, Johnson was peculiarly happy in mentioning 
 how many of the sons of Pembroke were poets ; adding, 
 with a smile of sportive triumph, ' Sir, we are a nest of sing- 
 ing birds^* 
 
 wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.' John- 
 son's Works, vi. 476. To this list Nash adds the name of the Rev^d. 
 Richard Graves, author of The Spz'ritual Quixote,^\\o took his degree 
 of B.A. on the same day as Whitefield, whom he ridiculed in that 
 romance. 
 
 ' S&c. post, Oct. 6, 1769, and Boswell's Hebrides, h.\x^. 15, 1773. 
 
 '^ In his Life of Shenstone he writes: — ' From school Shenstone was 
 sent to Pembroke College in O.xford, a society which for half a cen- 
 tury has been eminent for English poetry and elegant literature. Here 
 it appears that he found delight and advantage ; for he continued his 
 name in the book ten years, though he took no degree.' Johnson's 
 Works, viii. 408. Johnson's name would seem to have been in like 
 manner continued for more than eleven years, and perhaps for the 
 same reasons. {An/e, p. 67 note.) Hannah More was at Oxford in 
 June 1782, during one of Johnson's visits to Dr. Adams. ' You cannot 
 imagine,' she writes, 'with what delight Dr. Johnson showed me every 
 part of his own college. . . . After dinner he begged to conduct me to 
 see the college ; he would let no one show it me but himself. " This 
 was my room ; this Shenstone's." Then, after pointing out all the 
 rooms of the poets who had been of his college, " In short," said he, 
 " we were a nest of singing-birds. Here we walked, there we played 
 at cricket." [It may be doubted whether he ever played.] He ran 
 over with pleasure the history of the juvenile days he passed there. 
 When we came into the Common Room, we spied a fine large print 
 of Johnson, framed and hung up that very morning, with this motto : 
 "And is not Johnson ours, himself a host;" under which stared you 
 in the face, "From Miss More's Sensibility^' Hannah More's Me- 
 ffioirs, i. 261. At the end of 'the ludicrous analysis of Pocockius' 
 quoted by Johnson in the Life of Edimind Smith are the following 
 lines : — ' Subito ad Batavos proficiscor, lauro ab illis donandus. Prius 
 vero Pembrochienses voco ad certamen poeticum.' Smith was at 
 Christ Church. He seems to be mocking the neighbouring ' nest of 
 singing-birds.' Johnson's Works, wn. 1^1. 
 
 He
 
 Aetat. 21.J Dr. Taylor at Christ Church. 89 
 
 He was not, however, blind to what he thought the defects 
 of his own College ; and I have, from the information of Dr. 
 Taylor, a very strong instance of that rigid honesty which 
 he ever inflexibly preserved. Taylor had obtained his fa- 
 ther's consent to be entered of Pembroke, that he might 
 be with his school-fellow Johnson, with whom, though some 
 years older than himself, he was very intimate. This would 
 have been a great comfort to Johnson. But he fairly told 
 Taylor that he could not, in conscience, suffer him to enter 
 where he knew he could not have an able tutor. He then 
 made inquiry all round the University, and having found 
 that Mr. Bateman, of Christ Church, was the tutor of highest 
 reputation, Taylor was entered of that College'. Mr. Bate- 
 man's lectures were so excellent, that Johnson used to come 
 and get them at second-hand from Taylor, till his poverty 
 being so extreme that his shoes were worn out, and his feet 
 appeared through them, he saw that this humiliating cir- 
 cumstance was perceived by the Christ Church men, and he 
 came no more^ He was too proud to accept of money, 
 and somebody having set a pair of new shoes at his door, 
 he threw them away with indignation \ How must we feel 
 when we read such an anecdote of Samuel Johnson ! 
 
 * Taylor matriculated on Feb. 24, 1729. Mr. Croker in his note has 
 confounded him with another John Taylor who matriculated more 
 than a year later. Richard West, writing of Christ Church in 1735, 
 says : — ' Consider me very seriously here in a strange country, inhab- 
 ited by things that call themselves Doctors and Masters of Arts ; a 
 country flowing with syllogisms and ale, where Horace and Virgil are 
 equally unknown.' Gray's Letters, ii. i. 
 
 ■^ 'Si toga sordidula est et rupta calceus alter 
 
 Pellc patet.' 
 'Or if the shoe be ript, or patches put.' Dryden, Juvenal, iii. 149. 
 Johnson in his London, in describing 'the blockhead's insults,' while 
 he mentions ' the tattered cloak,' passes over the ript shoe. Perhaps 
 the wound had gone too deep to his generous heart for him to bear 
 even to think on it. 
 
 ' ' Yet some have refused my bounties, more ofifcnded with my 
 quickness to detect their wants than pleased with my readiness to 
 succour them.' Rasselas,ch.. 2^. ' His [Savage's] distresses, however 
 afflictive, never dejected him ; in his lowest state he wanted not spirit 
 
 His
 
 go yohnsons wor7t-out Shoes. [a.d. 1730. 
 
 His spirited refusal of an eleemosynary supply of shoes, 
 arose, no doubt, from a proper pride. But, considering his 
 ascetick disposition at times, as acknowledged by himself 
 in his ' Meditations,' and the exaggeration with which some 
 have treated the peculiarities of his character, I should not 
 wonder to hear it ascribed to a principle of superstitious 
 mortification ; as we are told by Tursellinus, in his Life of 
 St. Ignatius Loyola, that this intrepid founder of the order 
 of Jesuits, when he arrived at Goa, after having made a 
 severe pilgrimage through the Eastern desarts persisted in 
 wearing his miserable shattered shoes, and when new ones 
 were offered him rejected them as an unsuitable indulgence. 
 
 The res august a domi' prevented him from having the 
 advantage of a complete academical education". The friend 
 to whom he had trusted for support had deceived him. His 
 debts in College, though not great, were increasing' ; and his 
 scanty remittances from Lichfield, which had all along been 
 made with great difificulty, could be supplied no longer, his 
 father having fallen into a state of insolvency. Compelled, 
 
 to assert the natural dignity of wit, and was always ready to repress 
 that insolence which the superiority of fortune incited ; ... he never 
 admitted any gross familiarities, or submitted to be treated otherwise 
 than as an equal. . . . His clothes were worn out, and he received 
 notice that at a cofifee-house some clothes and linen were left for him. 
 But though the offer was so far generous, it was made with some neg- 
 lect of ceremonies, which Mr. Savage so much resented that he refused 
 the present, and declined to enter the house till the clothes that had 
 been designed for him were taken away.' Johnson's Works, \\\\. i6i 
 and 169. 
 
 ' , ' Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat 
 
 Res angusta domi.' Juvenal, SaL iii. 164. 
 
 Paraphrased by Johnson in his London, ' Slow rises worth by poverty 
 depressed.' 
 
 - Cambridge thirty-six years later neglected Parr as Oxford neg- 
 lected Johnson. Both these men had to leave the University through 
 poverty. There were no open scholarships in those days. 
 
 3 Yet his college bills came to only some eight shillings a week. 
 As this was about the average amount of an undergraduate's bill it is 
 clear that, so far as food went, he lived, in spite of Mr. Carlyle's asser- 
 tion, as well as his fellow-students. 
 
 therefore.
 
 Aetat. 21.] JoJuison leaves Oxford. 91 
 
 therefore, by irresistible necessity, he left the College in au- 
 tumn, 1 73 1, without a degree, having been a member of it 
 little more than three years'. 
 
 ' Mr. Croker states that ' an examination of the college books proves 
 that Johnson, who entered on the 31st October, 1728, remained there, 
 even during the vacations, to the 12th December, 1729, when he per- 
 sonally left the college, and never returned — though his name remained 
 on the books till 8th October, 1731.' I have gone into this question 
 at great length in my Dr. Johnson : His Friends and His Critics^ p. 329. 
 I am of opinion that Mr. Croker's general conclusion is right. The 
 proof of residence is established, and alone established, by the entries 
 in the buttery books. Now these entries show that Johnson, with the 
 exception of the week in October 1729 ending on the 24th, was in res- 
 idence till December 12, 1729. He seems to have returned for a week 
 in March 1730, and again for a week in the following September. On 
 three other weeks there is a charge against him of fivepence in the 
 books. Mr. Croker has made that darker which was already dark 
 enough by confounding, as I have shewn, two John Taylors who both 
 matriculated at Christ Church. Boswell's statement no doubt is pre- 
 cise, but in this he followed perhaps the account given by Hawkins. 
 He would have been less likely to discover Hawkins's error from the 
 fact that, as Johnson's name was for about three years on the College 
 books, he was so long, in name at least, a member of the College. 
 Had Boswell seen Johnson's letter to Mr. Hickman, quoted by Mr. 
 Croker (Croker's Boswell, p. 20), he would at once have seen that John- 
 son could not have remained at college for a little more than three 
 years. For within three years all but a day of his entrance at Pem- 
 broke, he writes to Mr. Hickman from Lichfield, 'As I am yet tmem- 
 ployed, I hope you will, if anything should offer, remember and recom- 
 mend, Sir, your humble servant, Sam. Johnson." 
 
 In Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (Aug. 15, 1773) there 
 is a very perplexing passage bearing on Johnson's residence at Col- 
 lege. ' We talked of Whitefield. He said he was at the same college 
 with him, and knew him before he began to be better than other 
 people.' Now Johnson, as Boswell tells us, read this journal in manu- 
 script. The statement therefore seems to be well-established indeed. 
 Yet Whitefield did not matriculate till Nov. 7, 1732, a full year after 
 Johnson, according to Boswell, had left Oxford. We are told that, 
 when Johnson was living at Birmingham, he borrowed Lobo's Abys- 
 sinia from the library of Pembroke College. It is probable enough 
 that a man who frequently walked from Lichfield to Birmingham and 
 back would have trudged all the way to Oxford to fetch the book. In 
 that case he might have seen Whitefield. But Thomas Warton says 
 
 Dr.
 
 92 His destitute state. [a.u. 1731. 
 
 Dr. Adams, the worthy and respectable master of Pem- 
 broke College, has generally had the reputation of being 
 Johnson's tutor. The fact, however, is, that in 1731 Mr. 
 Jorden quitted the College, and his pupils were transferred 
 to Dr. Adams ; so that had Johnson returned, Dr. Adams 
 ivouid have been his tutor. It is to be washed, that this con- 
 nection had taken place. His equal temper, mild disposition, 
 and politeness of manner, might have insensibly softened 
 the harshness of Johnson, and infused into him those more 
 delicate charities, those petites morales, in which, it must be 
 confessed, our great moralist was more deficient than his 
 best friends could fully justify. Dr. Adams paid Johnson 
 this high compliment. He said to me at Oxford, in 1776, ' I 
 was his nominal tutor' ; but he was above my mark.' When 
 I repeated it to Johnson, his eyes flashed with grateful sat- 
 isfaction, and he exclaimed, ' That was liberal and noble.' 
 
 And now (I had almost said poor) Samuel Johnson re- 
 turned to his native city, destitute, and not knowing how he 
 should gain even a decent livelihood. His father's misfor- 
 tunes in trade rendered him unable to support his son '^•, and 
 
 that 'the first time of his being at Oxford after quitting the University 
 was in 1754' (/^^Z, under July 16, 1754). 
 
 ' ' March 16, 1728-9. Yesterday in a Convocation Mr. Wm. Jorden 
 of Pembroke Coll. was elected by the Univ. of Oxford rector of As- 
 tocke in com. Wilts (which belongs to a Roman Catholic family).' 
 Hearne's Remains, iii. 17. His fellowship was filled up on Dec. 23, 
 1730. Boswell's statement therefore is inaccurate. If Johnson re- 
 mained at college till Nov. 1 731, he would have really been for at least 
 ten months Adams's pupil. We may assume that as his name re- 
 mained on the books after Jorden left so he was ^^tfiw/Vw/Z^ transferred 
 to Adams. It is worthy of notice that Thomas Warton, in the account 
 that he gives of Johnson's visit to Oxford in 1754, says: — * He much 
 regretted that \\\?, first tutor was dead.' 
 
 '■^ According to Hawkins {Life, pp. 17, 5S2, and post, Dec. 9, 1784) 
 Johnson's father was at one time a bankrupt. Johnson, in the epi- 
 taph that he wrote for him {post, Dec. 2, 1784), describes him as ' bibli- 
 opola admodum peritus,' but 'rebus adversis diu conflictatus.' He 
 certainly did not die a bankrupt, as is shown by his leaving property 
 to his widow and son, and also by the following MS. letter, that is 
 preserved with two others of the same kind in Pembroke College. 
 
 for
 
 Aetat. 22.] Michael Johnsons death. 93 
 
 for some time there appeared no means by which he could 
 maintain himself. In the December of this year his father 
 died. 
 
 The state of poverty in which he died, appears from a 
 note in one of Johnson's little diaries of the following year, 
 which strongly displays his spirit and virtuous dignity of 
 mind. 
 
 ' 1732, jfiiHi- 15- Undecim aureos deposui, quo die quicquid ante 
 mairis funiis {quod serum sit precor) de pateniis bonis spcrari licet, 
 viginti scilicet libras, accepi. Usque adeo mihi fortuna Jiiigenda est. 
 Interea, ne paupertate vires animi languescant, nee in fiagitia egestas 
 abigat, cavendmn. — I layed by eleven guineas on this day, when I 
 received twenty pounds, being all that I have reason to hope for 
 out of my father's effects, previous to the death of my mother ; an 
 event which I pray God may be very remote. I now therefore 
 see that I must make my own fortune. Meanwhile, let me take 
 
 Ashby, April 19, 1736. 
 Good S""., 
 
 I must truble you again, my sister who desiurs her survis to 
 
 you, & begs you will be so good if you can to pravale with Mr. Wums- 
 
 ley to paye you the little money due to her you may have an opertunity 
 
 to speak to him & it will be a great truble for me to have a jerney for 
 
 it when if he pleasd he might paye it you, it is a poore case she had 
 
 but little left by Mr. Johnson but his books (not but he left her all he 
 
 had) & those sold at a poore reat, and be kept out of so small a sume 
 
 by a gentleman so well able to paye, if you will doe y best for the 
 
 widow will be varey good in you, which will oblige y reall freund 
 
 James Bate. 
 
 To Mr. John Newton a Sider Seller at Litchfield. 
 
 Pd. £<i to Mr. Newton. 
 In another hand is written, 
 
 To Gilbert Walmesley Esq. at Lichfield. 
 And in a third hand, 
 
 Pd. ^5 to Mr. Newton. 
 The exact amount claimed, as is shewn by the letter, dated Jan. 31, 
 1735, was ^5 6s. 4.d. There is a yet earlier letter demanding payment 
 of £s 6s. 4.d. as ' due to me ' for books, signed D. Johnson, dated Swark- 
 stone, Aug. 21, 1733. ^^ must be the same account. Perhaps D.John- 
 son was the executor. He writes from Ashby, where Michael Johnson 
 had a branch business. But I know of no other mention of him or 
 of James Bate. John Newton was the father of the Bishop of Bristol. 
 /'ost, ]unc 3, 1784, and Bishop Newton's Works, i. i. 
 
 care
 
 94 Gilbert Walmsky. [a.d. I7ai. 
 
 care that the powers of my mind may not be debilitated by poverty, 
 and that indigence do not force me into any criminal act.' 
 
 Johnson was so far fortunate, that the respectable char- 
 acter of his parents, and his own merit, had, from his earliest 
 years, secured him a kind reception in the best families at 
 Lichfield. Among these I can mention Mr. Howard', Dr. 
 Swinfcn, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Levett', Captain Garrick, father 
 of the great ornament of the British stage ; but above all, 
 Mr. Gilbert Walmsley^ Register of the Prerogative Court of 
 Lichfield, whose character, long after his decease. Dr. John- 
 son has, in his Life of Edmund Smith \ thus drawn in the 
 glowing colours of gratitude : 
 
 'Of Gilbert Walmsley'', thus presented to my mind, let me in- 
 dulge myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was 
 one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope 
 that, at least, my gratitude made me worthy of his notice. 
 
 ' He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy, yet he 
 never received my notions with contempt. He was a whig, with 
 all the virulence and malevolence of his party ; yet difference of 
 opinion did not keep us apart. I honoured him and he endured 
 me. 
 
 ' He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from its 
 vices or its follies ; but had never neglected the cultivation of his 
 
 ' Johnson, in a letter to Dr. Taylor, dated Aug. i8, 1763, advised him, 
 in some trouble that he had with his wife, 'to consult our old friend 
 Mr. Howard. His profession has acquainted him with matrimonial 
 law, and he is in himself a cool and wise man.' Notes and Queries, 
 6th S. V. 342. See post, March 20, 1778, for mention of his son. 
 
 .^ See post, Dec. i, 1743, note. Robert Levett, made famous by John- 
 son's lines (post, Jan. 20, 1782), was not of this family. 
 
 ' Mr. Warton informs me, ' that this early friend of Johnson was en- 
 tered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged seventeen, in 1698 ; 
 and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in the Gent. Mag. 
 (vol. XV. 102). One of them is a translation of 
 
 ' My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent,' &c. 
 He died Aug. 3, 1751, and a monument to his memory has been erected 
 in the Cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr. Sew- 
 ard, one of the Prebendaries. Boswell. 
 
 * Johnson's Works, vii. 380. 
 
 ' See post, 1780, note at end of Mr. Langton's ' Collection.' 
 
 mind.
 
 Aetat. 22.] Lichfield society. 95 
 
 mind. His belief of revelation was unshaken ; his learning pre- 
 served his principles; he grew first regular, and then pious. 
 
 ' His studies had been so various, that I am not able to name a 
 man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great, 
 and what he did not immediately know, he could, at least, tell 
 where to find. Such was his amplitude of learning, and such his 
 copiousness of communication, that it may be doubted whether a 
 day now passes, in which I have not some advantage from his 
 friendship. 
 
 ' At this man's table I enjoyed many cheerful and instructive 
 hours, with companions, such as are not often found — with one 
 who has lengthened, and one who has gladdened life ; with Dr. 
 James', whose skill in physick will be long remembered ; and with 
 David Garrick, whom I hoped to have gratified with this character 
 of our common friend. But what are the hopes of man ! I am 
 disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety 
 of nations, and impoverished the publick stock of harmless pleas- 
 ure''.' 
 
 In these families he passed much time in his early years. 
 In most of them, he was in the company of ladies, particu- 
 larly at Mr. Walmsley's, whose wife and sisters-in-law, of the 
 name of Aston, and daughters of a Baronet, were remarkable 
 for good breeding ; so that the notion which has been in- 
 dustriously circulated and believed, that he never was in 
 good company till late in life, and, consequently .had been 
 confirmed in coarse and ferocious manners by long habits, 
 is wholly without foundation. Some of the ladies have 
 assured me, they recollected him well when a young man, as 
 distinguished for his complaisance. 
 
 And that this politeness was not merely occasional and 
 temporary, or confined to the circles of Lichfield, is ascer- 
 tained by the testimony of a lady, who, in a paper with 
 which I have been favoured by a daughter of his intimate 
 friend and physician. Dr. Lawrence, thus describes Dr. John- 
 son some years afterwards: 
 
 ' As the particulars of the former part of Dr. Johnson's life do 
 
 1 Sec posl, 1743. ' Sec post, April 24, 1779. 
 
 not
 
 ge Molly Ast07t. [A.D. 1732. 
 
 not seem to be very accurately known, a lady hopes that the fol- 
 lowing information may not be unacceptable. 
 
 ' She remembers Dr. Johnson on a visit to Dr. Taylor, at Ash- 
 bourn, some time between the end of the year 37, and the middle 
 of the year 40 ; she rather thinks it to have been after he and his 
 wife were removed to London '. During his stay at Ashbourn, he 
 made frequent visits to Mr. Meynell ■, at Bradley, where his com- 
 pany was much desired by the ladies of the family, who were, per- 
 haps, in point of elegance and accomplishments, inferiour to few 
 of those with whom he was afterwards acquainted. Mr. Meynell's 
 eldest daughter was afterwards married to Mr. Fitzherbert', father 
 to Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert, lately minister to the court of Russia. 
 Of her, Dr. Johnson said, in Dr. Lawrence's study, that she had the 
 best understanding he ever met with in any human being*. At 
 Mr. Meynell's he also commenced that friendship with Mrs. Hill 
 Boothby", sister to the present Sir Brook Boothby, which con- 
 tinued till her death. The young woman whom he used to call Molly 
 Aston", was sister to Sir Thomas Aston, and daughter to a Baronet ; 
 
 I Hawkins {Life, p. 61) says that in August, 1738 (? 1739), Johnson 
 went to Appleby, in Leicestershire, to apply for the mastership of 
 Appleby School. This was after he and his wife had removed to 
 London. It is likely that he visited Ashbourne. 
 
 - 'Old Meynell ' is mentioned, /t*^/, 1780, in Mr. Langton's ' Collec- 
 tion,' as the author of ' the observation, " For anything I see, foreigners 
 are fools;"' and ' Mr. Meynell,' /c?^-/, April i, 1779, as saying that 'The 
 chief advantage of London is, that a man is always so near his burrow? 
 
 ' See /^j/, under March 16, 1759, note, and April 21,1773. Mr. 
 Alleyne Fitzherbert was created Lord St. Helens. 
 
 * See. post, 1780, end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.' 
 
 ' Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on July 31, 1756, said,—' I find my- 
 self very unwilling to take up a pen, only to tell my friends that I am 
 well, and indeed I never did exchange letters regularly but with dear 
 Miss Boothby.' Azotes and Queries, 6th S. v. 304. At the end of the 
 Piozzi Letters are given some of his letters to her. They were repub- 
 lished together with her letters to him in An Account of the Life of 
 Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1805. 
 
 ' The words of Sir John Hawkins, p. 316. Boswell. ' When Mr. 
 Thrale once asked Johnson which had been the happiest period of his 
 past life, he replied, "it was that year in which he spent one whole 
 evening with Molly Aston. That, indeed," said he, "was not happi- 
 ness, it was rapture ; but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole 
 year." I must add that the evening alluded to was not passed tete-a- 
 
 she
 
 Aetat. 23.] Johnson ail Usher. 97 
 
 she was also sister to the wife of his friend Mr. Gilbert Wahiis- 
 ley'. Besides his intimacy with the above-mentioned persons 
 who were surely people of rank and education, while he was yet 
 at Lichfield he used to be frequently at the house of Dr. Swin- 
 fen, a gentleman of a very ancient family in Staffordshire, from 
 which, after the death of his elder brother, he inherited a good 
 estate. He was, besides, a physician of very extensive practice ; 
 but for want of due attention to the management of his domestick 
 concerns, left a very large family in indigence. One of his daugh- 
 ters, Mrs. Desmoulins, afterwards found an asylum in the house of 
 her old friend, whose doors were always open to the unfortunate, 
 and who well observed the precept of the Gospel, for he " was kind 
 to the unthankful and to the evir."' 
 
 In the forlorn state of his circumstances, he accepted of 
 an offer to be employed as usher in the school of Market- 
 Bosworth, in Leicestershire, to which it appears, from one of 
 his little fragments of a diary, that he went on foot, on the 
 1 6th of July. — ' Julii 16. Bosvortiam pedes petin But it 
 
 tete, but in a select company of which the present Lord Kilmorey was 
 one. " Molly," says Dr. Johnson, " was a beauty and a scholar, and a 
 wit and a whig ; and she talked all in praise of liberty ; and so I made 
 this epigram upon her — She was the loveliest creature I ever saw — 
 ' Liber ut esse velim suasisti pulchra Maria ; 
 Ut maneam liber — pulchra Maria vale.' 
 
 ' Will it do this way in English, Sir,' said I : — 
 
 ' Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you ; 
 If freedom we seek — fair Maria, adieu !' 
 
 ' It will do well enough,' replied he ; 'but it is translated by a lady, 
 and the ladies never loved Molly Aston.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 157. See 
 post. May 8, 1 778. 
 
 ' Sir Thomas Aston, Bart., who died in January 1724-5, left one 
 son, named Thomas also, and eight daughters. Of the daughters, 
 Catherine married Johnson's friend, the Hon. Henry Hervey {post, 
 1737]; Margaret, Gilbert Walmsley. Another of these ladies married 
 the Rev. Mr. Gastrell [the man who cut down Shakspeare's mulberry 
 t.T&&,post, March 25, 1776] ; Mary, or Mol/y Aston, as she was usually 
 called, became the wife of Captain Brodie of the navy. Malone. 
 
 2 Luke vi. 35. 
 
 ' If this was in 1732 it was on the morrow of the day on which he 
 received his share of his father's property, «;?/<', p. 93. A letter pub- 
 
 I. -7
 
 98 jfohnson an usher. [a.d. 1732. 
 
 is not true, as has been erroneously related, that he was 
 assistant to the famous Anthony Blackwall, whose merit has 
 been honoured by th« testimony of Bishop Hurd', who was 
 his scholar; for Mr. Blackwall died on the 8th of April, 1730', 
 more than a year before Johnson left the University ^ 
 
 This employment was very irksome to him in every 
 respect, and he complained grievously of it in his letters to 
 his friend Mr. Hector, who was now settled as a surgeon at 
 Birmingham. The letters are lost ; but Mr. Hector recol- 
 lects his writing 'that the poet had described the dull same- 
 ness of his existence in these words, " Vitam continct una 
 dies'' (one day contains the whole of my life); that it was 
 unvaried as the note of the cuckow ; and that he did not 
 know whether it was more disagreeable for him to teach, or 
 the boys to learn, the grammar rules.' His general aversion 
 to this painful drudgery was greatly enhanced by a disagree- 
 ment between him and Sir Wolstan Dixey, the patron of 
 the school, in whose house, I have been told, he officiated 
 as a kind of domestick chaplain, so far, at least, as to say 
 grace at table, but was treated with what he represented as 
 intolerable harshness^ ; and, after suffering for a few months 
 such complicated misery^ he relinquished a situation which 
 
 lished in Notes and Queries, 6th S. x. 421, shews that for a short time 
 he was tutor to the son of Mr. Whitby of Heywood. 
 
 ' Bishop Hurd docs not praise Blackwall, but the Rev. Mr. Bud- 
 worth, headmaster of the grammar school at Brewood, who had himself 
 been bred under Blackwall. Malone. Mr. Nichols relates {post,T)cc. 
 1784) that Johnson applied for the post of assistant to Mr. Budworth. 
 
 - See Gent. Mag. Dec. 1784, p. 957. Boswell. 
 
 ' See ante, p. 91. 
 
 * The patron's manners were those of the neighbourhood. Hutton, 
 writing of this town in 1770, says, — ' The inhabitants set their dogs at 
 me merely because I was a stranger. Surrounded with impassable 
 roads, no intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce 
 to smooth their rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature.' 
 Lz/e of IV. Hutton, p. 45. 
 
 * It appears from a letter of Johnson's to a friend, dated Lichfield, 
 July 27, 1732, that he had left Sir Wolstan Dixie's house recently, be- 
 fore that letter was written. Malone. 
 
 all
 
 Aetat.23.] His life in Birmi7igJiam. 99 
 
 all his life afterwards he recollected with the strongest aver- 
 sion, and even a degree of horrour'. But it is probable that 
 at this period, whatever uneasiness he may have endured, he 
 laid the foundation of much future eminence by application 
 to his studies. 
 
 Being now again totally unoccupied, he was invited by 
 Mr. Hector to pass some time with him at Birmingham, 
 as his guest, at the house of Mr. Warren, with whom Mr. 
 Hector lodged and boarded. Mr. Warren was the first 
 established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very atten- 
 tive to Johnson, who he soon found could be of much ser- 
 vice to him in his trade, by his knowledge of literature ; and 
 he even obtained the assistance of his pen in furnishing 
 some numbers of a periodical Essay printed in the news- 
 paper, of which Warren was proprietor\ After very diligent 
 inquiry, I have not been able to recover those early speci- 
 mens of that particular mode of writing by which Johnson 
 afterwards so greatly distinguished himself. 
 
 He continued to live as Mr. Hector's guest for about six 
 months, and then hired lodgings in another part of the 
 
 ' 'The despicable wretchedness of teaching,' wrote Carlyle. in his 
 twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, 'can be known 
 only to those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and 
 knows it all. One meets with few spectacles more afflicting than that 
 of a young man with a free spirit, with impetuous though honourable 
 feelings, condemned to waste the flower of his life in such a calling; 
 to fade in it by slow and sure corrosion of discontent ; and at last ob- 
 scurely and unprolitably to leave, with an indignant joy, the miseries 
 of a world which his talents might have illustrated and his virtues 
 adorned. Such things have been and will be. But surely in that 
 better life which good men dream of, the spirit of a Kepler or a Milton 
 will find a more propitious destiny.' Conway's Carlyle, p. 176. 
 
 '^ This newspaper was the Birmingham 'Journal. In the oflfice of 
 the Birmingham Daily Post is preserved the number (No. 28) for May 
 21, 1733. It is believed to be the only copy in existence. Warren is 
 described by W. Hutton {Li/c,^. 77) as one of the 'three eminent 
 booksellers' in Birmingham in 1750. 'His house was "over against 
 the Swan Tavern," in High Street; doubtless in one of the old half- 
 timbered houses pulled down in 1838 [1850].' Timmins's Dr. Johnson 
 in Birmingham, p. 4. 
 
 town.
 
 lOO Lobds Voyage to Abyssinia. [a. d. 1733. 
 
 town', finding himself as well situated at Birmingham" as 
 he supposed he could be any where, while he had no set- 
 tled plan of life, and very scanty means of subsistence. He 
 made some valuable acquaintances there, amongst whom 
 were Mr. Porter, a mercer, whose widow he afterwards mar- 
 ried, and Mr. Taylor', who by his ingenuity in mechanical 
 inventions, and his success in trade, acquired an immense 
 fortune. But the comfort of being near Mr. Hector, his 
 old school- fellow and intimate friend, was Johnson's chief 
 inducement to continue here. 
 
 In what manner he employed his pen at this period, or 
 whether he derived from it any pecuniary advantage, I have 
 not been able to ascertain. He probably got a little money 
 from Mr. Warren ; and we are certain, that he executed 
 here one piece of literary labour, of which Mr. Hector has 
 favoured me with a minute account. Having mentioned 
 that he had read at Pembroke College a Voyage to Abys- 
 sinia, by Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit, and that he thought 
 an abridgment and translation of it from the French into 
 English might be an useful and profitable publication, Mr. 
 Warren and Mr. Hector joined in urging him to undertake it. 
 
 ' ' In the month of June 1733, I find him resident in the house of a 
 person named Jarvis, at Birmingham.' Hawkins, p. 21. His wife's 
 maiden name was Jarvis or Jervis. 
 
 ' In 1741. Hutton, a runaway apprentice, arrived at Birmingham. 
 He says, — ' I had never seen more than five towns, Nottingham, Derby, 
 Burton, Lichfield and Walsall. The outskirts of these were composed 
 of wretched dwellings, visibly stamped with dirt and poverty. But the 
 buildings in the exterior of Birmingham rose in a style of elegance. 
 Thatch, so plentiful in other places, was not to be met with in this. 
 The people possessed a vivacity I had never beheld. I had been 
 among dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step along 
 the street showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know what he was 
 about. The faces of other men seemed tinctured with an idle gloom; 
 but here with a pleasing alertness. Their appearance was strongly 
 marked with the modes of civil life.' Life of W. Huttoti, p. 41. 
 
 ^ Hutton, in his account of the Birmingham riots of 1791, describing 
 the destruction of a Mr. Taylor's house, says, — ' The sons of plunder 
 forgot that the prosperity of Birmingham was owing to a Dissenter, 
 father to the man whose property they were destroying;' ib. p. 181. 
 
 He
 
 Aetat. 24.] Lobd S VoYAGE TO AbYSSINIA. IOI 
 
 He accordingly agreed ; and the book not being to be found 
 in Birminghann, he borrowed it of Pembroke College. A part 
 of the work being very soon done, one Osborn, who was Mr. 
 Warren's printer, was set to work with what was ready, and 
 Johnson engaged to supply the press with copy as it should 
 be wanted ; but his constitutional indolence soon prevailed, 
 and the work was at a stand. Mr. Hector, who knew that 
 a motive of humanity would be the most prevailing argu- 
 ment with his friend, went to Johnson, and represented to 
 him, that the printer could have no other employment till 
 this undertaking was finished, and that the poor man and 
 his family were suffering. Johnson upon this exerted the 
 powers of his mind, though his body was relaxed. He lay 
 in bed with the book, which was a quarto, before him, and 
 dictated while Hector wrote. Mr. Hector carried the sheets 
 to the press, and corrected almost all the proof sheets, very 
 few of which were even seen by Johnson. In this manner, 
 with the aid of Mr. Hector's active friendship, the book was 
 completed, and was published in 1735, with LONDON upon 
 the title-page, though it was in reality printed at Birming- 
 ham, a device too common with provincial publishers. For 
 this work he had from Mr. Warren only the sum of five 
 guineas'. 
 
 This being the first prose work of Johnson, it is a curious 
 object of inquiry how much may be traced in it of that 
 style which marks his subsequent writings with such peculiar 
 excellence ; with so happy an union of force, vivacity, and 
 perspicuity. I have perused the book with this view, and 
 have found that here, as I believe in every other transla- 
 tion, there is in the work itself no vestige of the translator's 
 own style ; for the language of translation being adapted to 
 the thoughts of another person, insensibly follows their cast, 
 and, as it were, runs into a mould that is ready prepared''. 
 
 ' Johnson, it should seem, did not think himself ill-used by Warren ; 
 for writing to Hector on April 15, 1755, he says,—' What news of poor 
 Warren ? I have not lost all my kindness for him.' Notes and (2ueries, 
 6th S. iii. 301, 
 
 ^ That it is by no means an exact translation Johnson's Preface 
 
 Thus,
 
 I02 Lobds Voyage to Abyssinia. [a.d. 1733. 
 
 Thus, for instance, taking the first sentence that occurs at 
 the opening of the book, p. 4. 
 
 * I lived here above a year, and completed my studies in divinity ; 
 in wliich time some letters were received from the fathers of 
 Ethiopia, with an account that Sultan Segned', Emperour of 
 Abyssinia, was converted to the church of Rome ; that many of 
 his subjects had followed his example, and that there was a great 
 want of missionaries to improve these prosperous beginnings. 
 Every body was very desirous of seconding the zeal of our fathers, 
 and of sending them the assistance they requested ; to which we 
 were the more encouraged, because the Emperour's letter informed 
 our Provincial, that we might easily enter his dominions by the 
 way of Dancala ; but, unhappily, the secretary wrote Geila^ for 
 Dancala, which cost two of our fathers their lives.' 
 
 Every one acquainted with Johnson's manner will be sen- 
 sible that there is nothing of it here ; but that this sentence 
 might have been composed by any other man. 
 
 But, in the Preface, the Johnsonian style begins to appear; 
 and though use had not yet taught his wing a permanent 
 and equable flight, there are parts of it which exhibit his 
 best manner in full vigour. I had once the pleasure of ex- 
 amining it with Mr. Edmund Burke, who confirmed me in 
 this opinion, by his superiour critical sagacity, and was, I 
 remember, much delighted with the following specimen : 
 
 'The Portuguese traveller, contrary to the general vein of his 
 countrymen, has amused his reader with no romantick absurdity, 
 or incredible fictions ; whatever he relates, whether true or not, is 
 at least probable ; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds 
 of probability, has a right to demand that they should believe him 
 who cannot contradict him. 
 
 ' He appears, by his modest and unaffected narration, to have 
 described things as he saw them, to have copied nature from the 
 life, and to have consulted his senses, not his imagination. He 
 meets with no basilisks that destroy with their eyes, his crocodiles 
 
 shows. He says that in the dissertations alone an exact translation 
 has beeri attempted. The rest of the work he describes as an epitome. 
 
 ' In the original, Segued. 
 
 ' In the ox\^\n^,Zeila. 
 
 devour
 
 Aetat. 24.] Lobd s Voyage to Abyssinia. 103 
 
 devour their prey without tears, and his cataracts fall from the 
 rocks without deafening the neighbouring inhabitants'. 
 
 ' The reader will here find no regions cursed with irremediable 
 barrenness, or blessed with spontaneous fecundity ; no perpetual 
 gloom, or unceasing sunshine ; nor are the nations here described 
 either devoid of all sense of humanity, or consummate in all private 
 or social virtues. Here are no Hottentots without religious polity 
 or articulate language'^ ; no Chinese perfectly polite, and com- 
 pletely skilled in all sciences ; he will discover, what will always 
 be discovered by a diligent and impartial enquirer, that wherever 
 human nature is to be found, there is a mixture of vice and virtue, 
 a contest of passion and reason ; and that the Creator doth not 
 appear partial in his distributions, but has balanced, in most coun- 
 tries, their particular inconveniences by particular favours.' 
 
 Here we have an early example of that brilliant and en- 
 ergetick expression, which, upon innumerable occasions in 
 his subsequent life, justly impressed the world with the 
 highest admiration. 
 
 Nor can any one, conversant with the writings of Johnson, 
 fail to discern his hand in this passage of the Dedication to 
 John Warren, Esq. of Pembrokeshire, though it is ascribed 
 to Warren the bookseller: 
 
 ' A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more 
 certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity^ ; nor is that curiosity 
 
 ' Lobo, in describing a waterfall on the Nile, had said : — ' The fall of 
 this mighty stream from so great a height makes a noise that may be 
 heard to a considerable distance; but I could not observe that the 
 neighbouring inhabitants were at all deaf. I conversed with several, 
 and was as easily heard by them as I heard them,' p. loi. 
 
 ' In the original, without reh'gwn, polity, or articulate language. 
 
 3 See Rambler, No. 103. BOSWELL. Johnson in other passages in- 
 sisted on the high value of curiosity. In this same Rambler he says : 
 — ' Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a 
 vigorous intellect.' In the allegory in Rambler, No. 105, he calls curi- 
 osity his 'long-loved protectress,' who is known by truth 'among the 
 most faithful of her followers.' In No. 150 he writes: — 'Curiosity is 
 in great and generous minds the first passion and the last ; and per- 
 haps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the con- 
 templative faculties.' In No. 5 he asserts that ' he that enlarges his 
 
 ever
 
 I04 Proposals to print Politian. [a.d. 1734. 
 
 ever more agreeably or usefully employed, than in examining the 
 laws and customs of foreign nations. I hope, therefore, the pres- 
 ent I now presume to make, will not be thought improper ; which, 
 however, it is not my business as a dedicator to commend, nor as 
 a bookseller to depreciate.' 
 
 It is reasonable to suppose that his having been thus acci- 
 dentally led to a particular study of the history and manners 
 of Abyssinia, was the remote occasion of his writing, many 
 years afterwards, his admirable philosophical tale', the prin- 
 cipal scene of which is laid in that country. 
 
 Johnson returned to Lichfield early in 1734, and in Au- 
 gust' that year he made an attempt to procure some little 
 subsistence by his pen ; for he published proposals for print- 
 ing by subscription the Latin Poems of Politian': ^Angcli 
 Politiani Poenmta Latifia, quibus, Notas ciini historid Latince 
 poeseos, a PctrarcJicE csvo ad Politiani teinpora deductd, et 
 vita Politiani fitsiiis qiiain antehac ejiarraid, addidit Sam. 
 Johnson'. 
 
 curiosity after the works of nature demonstrably multiplies the inlets 
 to happiness.' 
 
 ' Rasselas,^^^/, 1759. 
 
 ' Hawkins (p. 163) gives the following extract from Johnson's A}i- 
 nales : — ' Friday, August 27 (1734), 10 at night. This day I have trifled 
 away, except that I have attended the school in the morning. I read 
 to-night in Rogers's sermons. To-night I began the breakfast law 
 (sic) anew." 
 
 * May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and 
 Johnson .'' Huetius, speaking of Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius, says, 
 ' ... in quo Natura, ut olim in Angelo Politiano, deformitatem oris 
 excellentis ingenii prsestantia compensavit.' Comment, de reb. adeicm 
 pertin. Edit. Amstel. 1718, p. 200. Boswell. In Paulus Pelissonius 
 Fontanerius we have difficulty in detecting Mme. de Sevigne's friend, 
 Pelisson, of whom M. de Guilleragues used the phrase, 'qu'il abusait 
 de la permission qu'ont les hommes d'etre laids.' See Muie. de Sevigne's 
 Letter, 5 Jan., 1674. Croker. 
 
 * The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, the price to be 
 two shillings and sixpence at the time of subscribing, and two shillings 
 and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires. Boswell. 
 ' Among the books in his library, at the time of his decease, I found a 
 very old and curious edition of the works of Politian, which appeared 
 to belong to Pembroke College, Oxford.' Hawkins, p. 445. Se^&post, 
 
 If
 
 Aetat.25.] First letter to Edzuard Cave. 105 
 
 It appears that his brother Nathanael' had taken up his 
 father's trade ; for it is mentioned that ' subscriptions are 
 taken in by the Editor, or N. Johnson, bookseller, of Lich- 
 field.' Notwithstanding the merit of Johnson, and the cheap 
 price at which this book was offered, there w^ere not subscri- 
 bers enough to insure a sufficient sale ; so the work never 
 appeared, and probably, never was executed. 
 
 We find him again this year at Birmingham, and there is pre- 
 served the following letter from him to Mr. Edward Cave", the 
 original compiler and editor of the Gcntleniaiis Magazine : 
 
 To Mr. Cave. 
 ' Sir, Nov. 25, 1734. 
 
 ' As you appear no less sensible than your readers of the de- 
 fects of your poetical article, you will not be displeased, if, in order 
 to the improvement of it, I communicate to you the sentiments of 
 a person, who will undertake, on reasonable terms, sometimes to 
 fill a column. 
 
 * His opinion is, that the publick would not give you a bad 
 
 Nov. 1784. In his last work he shev/s his fondness for modern Latin 
 poetry. He says : — ' Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a 
 region not known to have been explored by many other of the Eng- 
 lish writers ; he had consulted the modern writers of Latin poetr)% a 
 class of authors whom Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, 
 and who are too generally neglected.' Johnson's Works, viii. 299. 
 
 ' A writer in Notes and Queries, ist S. xii. 266, says 'that he has a 
 letter written by Nathanael, in which he makes mention of his brother 
 "scarcely using him with common civility," and says, "I believe I 
 shall go to Georgia in about a fortnight !" ' Nathanael died in Lich- 
 field in 1737 ; see post, Dec. 2, 1784, for his epitaph. Among the MSS. 
 in Pembroke College Library are bills for books receipted by Nath. 
 Johnson and by Sarah Johnson (his mother). She writes like a per- 
 son of little education. 
 
 ■^ Miss Cave, the grand-niece of Mr. Edward Cave, has obligingly 
 shewn me the originals of this and the other letters of Dr. Johnson, 
 to him, which were first published in the Gent. Mag. [Iv. 3], with notes 
 by Mr. John Nichols, the worthy and indefatigable editor of that valu- 
 able miscellany, signed N. ; some of which I shall occasionally tran- 
 scribe in the course of this work. Boswell. I was able to examine 
 some of these letters while they were still in the possession of one of 
 Cave's collateral descendants, and I have in one or two places cor- 
 rected errors of transcription. 
 
 reception,
 
 io6 First letter to Edward Cave. [a.d. 1734. 
 
 reception, if, beside the current wit of the month, which a critical 
 examination would generally reduce to a narrow compass, you ad- 
 mitted not only poems, inscriptions, &c. never printed before, which 
 he will sometimes supply you with ; but likewise short literary dis- 
 sertations in Latin or English, critical remarks on authours ancient 
 or modern, forgotten poems that deserve revival, or loose pieces, 
 like Floyer's', worth preserving. By this method, your literary 
 article, for so it might be called, will, he thinks, be better recom- 
 mended to the publick than by low jests, aukward buffoonery, or 
 the dull scurrilities of either party. 
 
 ' If such a correspondence will be agreeable to you, be pleased 
 to inform me in two posts, what the conditions are on which you 
 shall expect it. Your late offer" gives me no reason to distrust 
 
 ' Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths. Ce7it. Mag. 1734, p. 197. 
 BOSWELL. This letter shews how uncommon a thing a cold bath was. 
 Floyer, after recommending 'a general method of bleeding and purg- 
 ing ' before the patient uses cold bathing, continues, ' I have commonly 
 cured the rickets by dipping children of a year old in the bath every 
 morning; and this wonderful efifect has encouraged me to dip four 
 boys at Lichfield in the font at their baptism, and none have suffered 
 any inconvenience by it.' (For mention of Floyer, see ante, p. 50, and 
 post, March 27 and July 20, 1784.) Locke, in his Treatise on Educa- 
 tion, had recommended cold bathing for children. Johnson, in his 
 review of Lucas's Essay on Waters {post, 1756), thus attacks cold bath- 
 ing : — ' It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, 
 to mistake subsequence for consequence. " The old gentleman," says 
 Dr. Lucas, " that uses the cold bath, enjoys in return an uninterrupted 
 state of health." This instance does not prove that the cold bath 
 produces health, but only that it will not always destroy it. He is 
 well with the bath, he would have been well without it.' Literary 
 Magazine, p. 229. 
 
 '^ A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on ' Life, Death, Judge- 
 ment, Heaven, and Hell.' See Getit. Mag. vol. iv. p. 560. N. Boswell. 
 ' Cave sometimes offered subjects for poems, and proposed prizes for 
 the best performers. The first prize was fifty pounds, for which, being 
 but newly acquainted with wealth, and thinking the influence of fifty 
 pounds extremely great, he expected the first authors of the kingdom 
 to appear as competitors ; and offered the allotment of the prize to 
 the universities. But when the time came, no name was seen among 
 the writers that had ever been seen before ; the universities and sev- 
 eral private men rejected the province of assigning the prize.' John- 
 son's Works, vi. 432. 
 
 your
 
 Aetat. 25.] Verses on a sprig of myrtle. 107 
 
 your generosity. If you engage in any literary projects besides 
 this paper, I have other designs to impart, if I could be secure 
 from having others reap the advantage of what I should hint. 
 
 ' Your letter by being directed to S. Smith, to be left at the 
 Castle in' Birmingham, Warwickshire, will reach 
 
 ' Your humble servant.' 
 
 Mr. Cave has put a note on this letter, 'Answered Dec. 2.' 
 But whether anything was done in consequence of it we are 
 not informed. 
 
 Johnson had, from his early youth, been sensible to the 
 influence of female charms. When at Stourbridge school, 
 he was much enamoured of Olivia Lloyd, a young quaker, 
 to whom he wrote a copy of verses, which I have not been 
 able to recover; but with what facility and elegance he could 
 warble the amorous lay, will appear from the following lines 
 which he wrote for his friend Mr. Edmund Hector. 
 
 Verses to a Lady, on receiving from her a Sprig of Myrtle. 
 
 ' What hopes, what terrours does thy gift create, 
 Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate : 
 The myrtle, ensign of supreme command, 
 Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand ; 
 Not less capricious than a reigning fair. 
 Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer. 
 In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain. 
 In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain ; 
 The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads, 
 The unhappy lovers' grave the myrtle spreads : 
 O then the meaning of thy gift impart, 
 And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart ! 
 Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom, 
 Adorn Philander's head, or grace his tomb'.' 
 
 ' I suspect that Johnson wrote 'the Castle Inn, Birmingham.' 
 " Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this Httle composition 
 from Dr. Johnson's own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it 
 was rightly attributed to him : — ' I think it is now just forty years ago, 
 that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he 
 courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present 
 her in return. I promised, but forgot ; and when he called for his 
 
 His
 
 :o8 Bos weirs controversy with Miss Seward. | a.d. i734. 
 
 Mis juvenile attachments to the fair sex were, however, 
 very transient ; and it is certain that he formed no criminal 
 
 lines at the time agreed on — Sit still a moment, (says I) dear Mund' 
 [see fiost, May 7, 1773, for Johnson's 'way of contracting the names 
 of his friends'], 'and I'll fetch them thee — So stepped aside for five 
 minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about.' 
 
 Ancc. p. 34. 
 
 In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this 
 account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me 
 from Miss Seward, of Lichfield : — ' I kno7u those verses were addressed 
 to Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, 
 two or three years before he had seen her mother, his future wife. He 
 wrote them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the pres- 
 ence of my mother, to whom he showed them on the instant. She 
 used to repeat them to me, when I asked her for the Verses Dr. John- 
 son gave her on a Sprig of Myrtle, which he had stolen or begged from 
 her bosom. We all know honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable 
 of the mean vanity of applying to herself a compliment not intended 
 for her.' Such was this lady's statement, which I make no doubt she 
 supposed to be correct ; but it shews how dangerous it is to trust too 
 implicitly to traditional testimony and ingenious inference ; for Mr. 
 Hector has lately assured me that Mrs. Piozzi's account is in this in- 
 stance accurate, and that he was the person for whom Johnson wrote 
 those verses, which have been erroneously ascribed to Mr. Hammond. 
 
 I am obliged in so many instances to notice Mrs. Piozzi's incorrect- 
 ness of relation, that I gladly seize this opportunity of acknowledging, 
 that however often, she is not always inaccurate. 
 
 The author having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna 
 Seward, in consequence of the preceding statement, (which may be 
 found in the Gent. Mag. vol. liii. and liv.) received the following letter 
 from Mr. Edmund Hector, on the subject : 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a Lady, 
 who seems unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would 
 be more ingenuous to acknowledge, than to persevere. 
 
 • Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the 
 original manuscript of the J/yr/Zr, with the date on it, 1731, which I 
 have inclosed. 
 
 'The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows: Mr. Mor- 
 gan Graves, the elder brother of a worthy Clergyman near Bath, with 
 whom I was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, 
 who at parting presented him the branch. He shewed it to me. and 
 wished much to return the compliment in verse. I applied to John- 
 
 connection
 
 Aetat.25.] JoJinsoii s personal appearance, 109 
 
 connection whatsoever. Mr. Hector, who lived with him in 
 his younger days in the utmost intimacy and social freedom, 
 has assured me, that even at that ardent season his conduct 
 was strictly virtuous in that respect' ; and that though he 
 loved to exhilarate himself with wine, he never knew him 
 intoxicated but once\ 
 
 In a man whom religious education has secured from 
 licentious indulgences, the passion of love, when once it 
 has seized him, is exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by 
 dissipation, and totally concentrated in one object. This 
 was experienced by Johnson, when he became the fervent 
 admirer of Mrs. Porter, after her first husband's death\ Miss 
 Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her 
 mother, his appearance was very forbidding: he was then 
 lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was 
 hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrophula 
 
 son, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses 
 which I sent to my friend. 
 
 ' I most solemnly declare, at that time Johnson was an entire stran- 
 ger to the Porter family ; and it was almost two years after that I 
 introduced him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my 
 cloaths of. 
 
 ' If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, and to exhibit to 
 the publick the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make 
 what use you please of this statement. 
 
 ' I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. 
 Wishing you multos ct felices aii7tos, I shall subscribe myself, 
 
 ' Your obliged humble servant, 
 
 'E. HECTOR.' 
 
 Birmittgham, Jan. 9th, 1794. 
 
 BoswELL. For a further account of Boswell's controversy with 
 Miss Seward, set post, June 25, 1784. 
 
 ' Sec posf, beginning of 1744, April 28, 1783, and under Dec. 2, 1784. 
 
 - See. post, near end of 1762, note. 
 
 ' In the registry of St. Martin's Church, Birmingham, are the fol- 
 lowing entries: — 'Baptisms, Nov. 8, 171 5, Lucy, daughter of Henry 
 Porter. Jan. 29, 1717 [O. S.], Jarvis Henry, son of Henry Porter. 
 Burials, Aug. 3, 1734, Henry Porter of Edgbaston.' There were two 
 sons; one, Captain Porter, who died in 1763 (Croker's Boswell,^. 130), 
 the other who died in 1783 {post, Nov. 29, 1783). 
 
 were
 
 I lo Mrs. Porter. [a.d. 1735. 
 
 were deeply visible'. He also wore his hair", which was 
 strai<^ht and stiff, and separated behind : and he often had, 
 seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which 
 tended to excite at once surprize and ridicule'. Mrs. Por- 
 ter was so much engaged by his conversation that she over- 
 looked all these external disadvantages, and said to her 
 daughter, 'this is the most sensible man that I ever saw in 
 my life.' 
 
 Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of Johnson \ and 
 her person and manner, as described to me by the late Mr. 
 Garrick, were by no means pleasing to others, she must have 
 had a superiority of understanding and talents, as she cer- 
 tainly inspired him with a more than ordinary passion ; and 
 she having signified her willingness to accept of his hand, 
 
 ' According to Malone, Reynolds said that ' he had paid attention 
 to Johnson's limbs ; and far from being unsightly, he deemed them 
 well formed.' Prior's Malone, p. 175. Mrs. Piozzi says : — ' His stature 
 was remarkably high, and his limbs exceedingly large ; his features 
 were strongly marked, and his countenance particularly rugged ; 
 though the original complexion had certainly been fair, a circumstance 
 somewhat unusual ; his sight was near, and otherwise imperfect ; j'^et 
 his eyes, though of a light-grey colour, were so wild, so piercing, and 
 at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the 
 hearts of all iiis beholders.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 297. See post, end of 
 the book, and Boswell's Hebrides, near the beginning. 
 
 ^ If Johnson wore his own hair at Oxford, it must have exposed him 
 to ridicule. Graves, the author of The Spiritual (Quixote, tells us that 
 Shenstone had the courage to wear his own hair, though ' it often ex- 
 posed him to the ill-natured remarks of people who had not half his 
 sense. After I was elected at All Souls, where there was often a party 
 of loungers in the gateway, on my expostulating with Mr. Shenstone 
 for not visiting me so often as usual, he said, " he was ashamed to face 
 his enemies in the gate." ' 
 
 ^ Se&post, 1739. 
 
 * Mrs. Johnson was born on Feb. 4, 1688-9. Malone. She was 
 married on July 9, 1735, in St. Werburgh's Church, Derby, as is shewn 
 by the following copy of the marriage register: ' 1735, July 9, Mard 
 Samll Johnson of ye parish of St Mary's in Litchfield, and Elizt'i Porter 
 of ye parish of S* Phillip in Burmingham.' lYotes and Queries, 4th S. 
 vi. 44. At the time of their marriage, therefore, she was forty-six, and 
 Johnson only two months short of twenty-six. 
 
 he
 
 Aetat. 25.] yolmsou s marriage. 1 1 1 
 
 he went to Lichfield to ask his mother's consent to the 
 marriage, which he could not but be conscious was a very 
 imprudent scheme, both on account of their disparity of 
 years, and her want of fortune'. But Mrs. Johnson knew 
 too well the ardour of her son's temper, and was too tender 
 a parent to oppose his inclinations. 
 
 I know not for what reason the marriage ceremony was 
 not performed at Birmingham ; but a resolution was taken 
 that it should be at Derby, for which place the bride and 
 bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in very good 
 humour. But though Mr. Topham Beauclerk used archly to 
 mention Johnson's having told him, with much gravity, 'Sir, 
 it was a love m.arriage on both sides,' I have had from my 
 
 ' The author of the Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr. John- 
 son, 17S5, p. 25, says : — ' Mrs. Porter's husband died insolvent, but her 
 settlement was secured. She brought her second husband about sev- 
 en or eight hundred pounds, a great part of which was expended in 
 fitting up a house for a boarding-school.' That she had some money 
 can be almost inferred from what we are told by Boswell and Haw- 
 kins. How otherwise was Johnson able to hire and furnish a large 
 house for his school } Boswell says that he had but three pupils. 
 Hawkins gives him a few more. ' His number,' he writes (p. 36) 'at 
 no time exceeded eight, and of those not all were boarders.' After 
 nearly tv^enty months of married life, when he went 9o London, ' he 
 had,' Boswell says, 'a little money.' It was not till a year later still 
 that he began to write for the Gent. Mag. If Mrs. Johnson had not 
 money, how did she and her husband live from July 1735 to the spring 
 of 1738? It could scarcely have been on the profits made from their 
 school. Inference, however, is no longer needful, as there is positive 
 evidence. Mr. Timmins in his Dr. fohnson in Birmingham (p. 4) 
 writes: — 'My friend, Mr. Joseph Hill, says, A copy of an old deed 
 which has recently come into my hands, shews that a hundred pounds 
 of Mrs. Johnson's fortune was left in the hands of a Birmingham at- 
 torney named Thomas Perks, who died insolvent; and in 1745, a bulky 
 deed gave his creditors ']s.\d. m the pound. Among the creditors for 
 ^Tioo were "Samuel Johnson, gent., and Elizabeth his wife, executors 
 of the last will and testament of Harry Porter, late of Birmingham 
 aforesaid, woollen draper, deceased." Johnson and his wife were al- 
 most the only creditors who did not sign the deed, their seals being 
 left void. It is doubtful, therefore, whether they ever obtained the 
 amount of the composition ^36 13^. 4^/.' 
 
 illustrious
 
 112 His school at Edial. [a.d. i736. 
 
 illustrious friend the following curious account of their jour- 
 ney to church upon the nuptial morn : 
 
 Qth July: — 'Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got 
 into her head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should 
 use her lover like a dog. So, Sir, at first she told me that I rode 
 too fast, and she could not keep up with me ; and, when I rode a 
 little slower, she passed me, and complained that I lagged behind. 
 I was not to be made the slave of caprice ; and I resolved to begin 
 as I meant to end. I therefore pushed on briskly, till I was fairly 
 out of her sight. The road lay between two hedges, so I was sure 
 she could not miss it ; and I contrived that she should soon come 
 up with me. When she did, I observed her to be in tears.' 
 
 This, it must be allowed, was a singular beginning of con- 
 nubial felicity ; but there is no doubt that Johnson, though 
 he thus shewed a manly firmness, proved a most affectionate 
 and indulgent husband to the last moment of Mrs. John- 
 son's life : and in his Prayers and Meditations, we find very 
 remarkable evidence that his regard and fondness for her 
 never ceased, even after her death. 
 
 He now set up a private academy', for which purpose he 
 hired a large house, well situated near his native city. In 
 the Gentleman s Magazine for 1736, there is the following 
 advertisement : 
 
 'At Edial, near Lichfield*, in Staffordshire, young gentlemen 
 are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by Sam- 
 uel Johnson.' 
 
 But the only pupils that were put under his care were the 
 celebrated David Garrick and his brother George, and a 
 Mr, Offely, a young gentleman of good fortune who died 
 early. As yet, his name had nothing of that celebrity which 
 afterwards commanded the highest attention and respect of 
 mankind. Had such an advertisement appeared after the 
 
 ' Sir Walter Scott has recorded Lord Auchinleck's 'sneer of most 
 sovereign contempt,' while he described Johnson as 'a dominie, mon 
 — an auld dominie ; he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy,' 
 Croker's Boswell, p. 397, note. 
 
 ^ ' Edial is two miles west of Lichfield.' Harwood's Lichfield, p. 564. 
 
 publication
 
 Aetat. 27.] Johnsou as a teacher. 113 
 
 publication of his LondoJi, or his Rambler, or his Dictionary, 
 how would it have burst upon the world ! with what eagerness 
 would the great and the wealthy have embraced an oppor- 
 tunity of putting their sons under the learned tuition of 
 Samuel Johnson. The truth, however, is, that he was 
 not so well qualified for being a teacher of elements, and a 
 conductor in learning by regular gradations, as men of infe- 
 riour powers of mind. His own acquisitions had been made 
 by fits and starts, by violent irruptions into the regions of 
 knowledge ; and it could not be expected that his impa- 
 tience would be subdued, and his impetuosity restrained, 
 so as to fit him for a quiet guide to novices. The art of 
 communicating instruction, of whatever kind, is much to be 
 valued ; and I have ever thought that those who devote 
 themselves to this employment, and do their duty with 
 diligence and success, are entitled to very high respect from 
 the community, as Johnson himself often maintained'. 
 Yet I am of opinion that the greatest abilities are not 
 only not required for this ofifice, but render a man less fit 
 for it. 
 
 ' Johnson in more than one passage in his writings seems to have 
 in mind his own days as a schoolmaster. Thus in theZZ/k' of Milton 
 he says : — ' This is the period of his Hfe from which all his biographers 
 seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling that Milton should be 
 degraded to a schoolmaster ; but, since it cannot be denied that he 
 taught boys, one finds out that he taught for nothing, and another 
 that his motive was only zeal for the propagation of learning and 
 virtue ; and all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse 
 an act which no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful. His 
 father was alive ; his allowance was not ample ; and he supplied its 
 deficiencies by an honest and useful employment.' Johnson's Works, 
 vii. 75. In the Life of Blackniorc he says : — ' In some part of his life, 
 it is not known when, his indigence compelled him to teach a school, 
 an humiliation with which, though it certainly lasted but a little while, 
 his enemies did not forget to reproach him, when he became conspic- 
 uous enough to excite malevolence ; and let it be remembered for his 
 honour, that to have been once a schoolmaster is the only reproach 
 which all the perspicacity of malice, animated by wit, has ever fixed 
 upon his private life.' Johnson's Works, viii. 36. 
 
 I.— 8 While
 
 114 Mrs. Johnson. [a.d. 1736. 
 
 While we acknowledge the justness of Thomson's beauti- 
 ful remark, 
 
 ' Delightful task ! to rear the tender thought, 
 And teach' the young idea how to shoot!' 
 
 we must consider that this delight is perceptible only by 
 'a mind at ease,' a mind at once calm and clear; but that 
 a mind gloomy and impetuous like that of Johnson, cannot 
 be fixed for any length of time in minute attention, and 
 must be so frequently irritated by unavoidable slowness and 
 crrour in the advances of scholars, as to perform the duty, 
 with little pleasure to the teacher, and no great advantage 
 to the pupils\ Good temper is a most essential requisite in 
 a Preceptor. Horace paints the character as bland . • 
 
 ''.... Ut piieris olim daiit cnistida blandi 
 Dodores, ekmenta velint ut discere prhna^.' 
 
 Johnson was not more satisfied with his situation as the 
 master of an academy, than with that of the usher of a 
 school ; we need not wonder, therefore, that he did not keep 
 his academy above a year and a half. From Mr. Garrick's 
 account he did not appear to have been profoundly rever- 
 enced by his pupils. His oddities of manner, and uncouth 
 gesticulations, could not but be the subject of merriment to 
 them ; and, in particular, the young rogues used to listen 
 at the door of his bed-chamber, and peep through the key- 
 hole, that they might turn into ridicule his tumultuous 
 and awkward fondness for Mrs. Johnson, whom he used to 
 name by the familiar appellation of Tctty or Tetscy, which, 
 
 ' In the original To Teach. Seasons, Spring, 1. 1149, Thomson is 
 speaking, not of masters, but of parents. 
 
 " In the Life of Milton, Johnson records his own experience. 
 'Every man that has ever undertaken to instruct others can tell 
 what slow advances he has been able to make, and how much 
 patience it requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate slug- 
 gish indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.' Johnson's 
 IVor-ks, vii. 76. 
 ^ ' As masters fondly soothe their boys to read \ 
 
 With cakes and sweetmeats.' 
 
 Francis, Hor. i. Sat. i. 25. 
 
 like
 
 
 ^ 
 
 z 
 
 5 T- 
 
 '> 2 
 
 ~ o 

 
 Aetat. 27.] A Scheme of study. 1 1 5 
 
 like Betty or Betsey, is provincially used as a contraction for 
 Elisabeth, her christian name, but which to us seems ludicrous 
 when apphed to a woman of her age and appearance. Mr. 
 Garrick described her to me as very fat, with a bosom of 
 more than ordinary protuberance, with swelled cheeks of a 
 florid red, produced by thick painting, and increased by the 
 liberal use of cordials ; flaring and fantastick in her dress, 
 and affected both in her speech and her general behaviour. 
 I have seen Garrick exhibit her, by his exquisite talent of 
 mimickry, so as to excite the heartiest bursts of laughter; 
 but he, probably, as is the case in all such representations, 
 considerably aggravated the picture'. 
 
 That Johnson well knew the most proper course to be 
 pursued in the instruction of youth, is authentically ascer- 
 tained by the following paper" in his own hand -writing, 
 given about this period to a relation, and now in the pos- 
 session of Mr. John Nichols: 
 
 ' Scheme for the Classes of a Grammar School. 
 
 ' When the introduction, or formation of nouns and verbs, is 
 perfectly mastered, let them learn 
 
 ' Corderius by Mr. Clarke, beginning at the same time to trans- 
 late out of the introduction, that by this means they may learn the 
 syntax. Then let them proceed to 
 
 ' Erasmus, with an English translation, by the same authour. 
 
 > As Johnson kept Garrick much in awe when present, David, when 
 his back was turned, repaid the restraint with ridicule of him and his 
 dulcinea, which should be read with great abatement. Percy. He 
 was not consistent in his account, for ' he told Mrs. Thrale that she 
 was a little painted puppet of no value at all.' . . . ' He made out,' 
 Mrs. Piozzi continues, 'some comical scenes, by mimicking her in a 
 dialogue he pretended to have overheard. I do not know whether he 
 meant such stuff to be believed or no, it was so comical. The picture 
 I found of her at Lichfield was very pretty, and her daughter said it 
 was like. Mr. Johnson has told me that her hair was eminently beau- 
 tiful, quite blonde like that of a baby.' Piozzi's Atiec. p. 148. 
 
 " Mr. Croker points out that in this paper 'there are two separate 
 schemes, the first for a school — the second for the individual studies 
 of some young friend.' 
 
 ' Class
 
 Ii6 A scheme of study. [a. d. 1736. 
 
 'Class II. Learns Eutropius and Cornelius Nepos, or Justin, 
 with the translation. 
 
 ' N.B. The first class gets for their part every morning the rules 
 which they have learned before, and in the afternoon learns the 
 Latin rules of the nouns and verbs. 
 
 ' They are examined in the rules which they have learned every 
 Thursday and Saturday. 
 
 ' The second class does the same whilst they are in Eutropius ; 
 afterwards their part is in the irregular nouns and verbs, and in 
 the rules for making and scanning verses. They are examined as 
 the first. 
 
 'Class III. Ovid's Metamorphoses in the morning, and Caesar's 
 Commentaries in the afternoon. 
 
 ' Practise in the Latin rules till they are perfect in them ; after- 
 wards in Mr. Leeds's Greek Grammar. Examined as before. 
 
 ' Afterwards they proceed to Virgil, beginning at the same time 
 to write themes and verses, and to learn Greek ; from thence pass- 
 ing on to Horace, &c. as shall seem most proper. 
 
 ' I know not well what books to direct you to, because you have 
 not informed me what study you will apply yourself to. I believe 
 it will be most for your advantage to apply yourself wholly to the 
 languages, till you go to the University. The Greek authours I 
 think it best for you to read are these : 
 
 ' Cebes. 
 
 ' ^lian. \ 
 
 ' Lucian by Leeds. >- Attick. 
 
 ' Xenophon. ) 
 
 ' Homer. lonick. 
 
 ' Theocritus. Dorick. 
 
 ' Euripides. Attick and Dorick. 
 
 ' Thus you will be tolerably skilled in all the dialects, beginning 
 with the Attick, to which the rest must be referred. 
 
 ' In the study of Latin, it is proper not to read the latter au- 
 thours, till you are well versed in those of the purest ages ; as 
 Terence, Tully, Cagsar, Sallust, Nepos, Velleius Paterculus, Virgil, 
 Horace, Phcedrus. 
 
 ' The greatest and most necessary task still remains, to attain a 
 habit of expression, without which knowledge is of little use. This 
 is necessary in Latin, and more necessary in English ; and can 
 only be acquired by a daily imitation of the best and correctest 
 authours. 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 While
 
 Aetat. 27.] Johiisou tries his fortune in London. 1 1 7 
 
 While Johnson kept his academy, there can be no doubt 
 that he was insensibly furnishing his mind with various 
 knowledge ; but I have not discovered that he wrote any 
 thing except a great part of his tragedy of Irene.- Mr. Peter 
 Garrick, the elder brother of David, told me that he remem- 
 bered Johnson's borrowing the Turkish History^ of him, in 
 order to form his play from it. When he had finished some 
 part of it, he read what he had done to Mr. Walmsley, who 
 objected to his having already brought his heroine into great 
 distress, and asked him, ' how can you possibly contrive to 
 plunge her into deeper calamity?' Johnson, in sly allusion 
 to the supposed oppressive proceedings of the court of which 
 Mr. Walmsley was register, replied, ' Sir, I can put her into 
 the Spiritual Court !' 
 
 Mr. Walmsley, however, was well pleased with this proof 
 of Johnson's abilities as a dramatick writer, and advised him 
 to finish the tragedy, and produce it on the stage. 
 
 Johnson now thought of trying his fortune in London, the 
 great field of genius and exertion, where talents of every kind 
 have the fullest scope, and the highest encouragement. It is 
 a memorable circumstance that his pupil David Garrick went 
 thither at the same time\ with intention to complete his ed- 
 ucation, and follow the profession of the law, from which 
 he was soon diverted by his decided preference for the stage. 
 
 ' In the Rambler, No. 122, Johnson, after stating that ' it is observed 
 that our nation has been hitherto remarkably barren of historical 
 genius,' praises Knolles, who, he says, ' in his History of the Turks, has 
 displayed all the excellencies that narration can admit.' 
 
 •^ Both of them used to talk pleasantly of this their first journey to 
 London. Garrick, evidently meaning to embellish a little, said one 
 day in my hearing, 'we rode and tied.' And the Bishop of Killaloe 
 informed me, that at another time, when Johnson and Garrick were 
 dining together in a pretty large company, Johnson humorously as- 
 certaining the chronology of something, expressed himself thus : ' that 
 was the year when I came to London with two-pence half-penny in 
 my pocket.' Garrick overhearing him, exclaimed, 'eh? what do you 
 say .'* with two-pence half-penny in your pocket.'' — Johnson, 'Why 
 yes ; when I came with two-pence half-penny in ;/// pocket, and thou, 
 Davy, with three half-pence in thine.' Boswell. 
 
 This
 
 ii8 Mr. Walmsleys Letter. [a.d. 1737. 
 
 This joint expedition of those two eminent men to the 
 metropolis, was many years afterwards noticed in an alle- 
 gorical poem on Shakspeare's Mulberry Tree, by Mr. Lovi- 
 bond, the ingenious authour of The Tears of Old-May-day\ 
 
 They were recommended to Mr. Colson^ an eminent 
 mathematician and master of an academy, by the following 
 letter from Mr. Walmsley : 
 
 'To THE Reverend Mr. Colson. 
 
 ' Lichfield, March 2, 1737. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I had the favour of yours, and am extremely obliged to you ; 
 but I cannot say I had a greater affection for you upon it than I 
 had before, being long since so much endeared to you, as well 
 by an early friendship, as by your many excellent and valuable 
 qualifications ; and, had I a son of my own, it would be my am- 
 bition, instead of sending him to the University, to dispose of him 
 as this young gentleman is. 
 
 ' He, and another neighbour of mine, one Mr. Samuel Johnson, 
 set out this morning for London together. Davy Garrick is to be 
 with you early the next week, and Mr. Johnson to try his fate with 
 a tragedy, and to see to get himself employed in some translation, 
 either from the Latin or the French. Johnson is a very good 
 scholar and poet, and I have great hopes will turn out a fine trag- 
 edy-writer. If it should any way lie in your way, doubt ^ not but 
 you would be ready to recommend and assist your countryman. 
 
 ' G. Walmsley.' 
 
 How he employed himself upon his first coming to Lon- 
 don is not particularly known \ I never heard that he 
 
 ' See Genf. Mag. xxiv. 333. 
 
 ° Mr. Colson was First Master of the Free School at Rochester. In 
 1739 he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cam- 
 bridge. Malone. Mrs. Piozzi {Aiiec. p. 49) says that ' by Gelidus the 
 philosopher {Rambler, No. 24), Johnson meant to represent Colson.' 
 
 ^ This letter is printed in the Garrick Corres. i. 2. There we read / 
 doubt not. 
 
 * One curious anecdote was communicated by himself to Mr. John 
 Nichols. Mr. Wilcox, the bookseller, on being informed by him that 
 his intention was to get his livelihood as an authour, eyed his robust 
 frame attentively, and with a significant look, said, ' You had better 
 buy a porter's knot.' He however added, ' Wilcox was one of my best 
 
 found
 
 Aetat. 28.J Life 171 London. 119 
 
 found any protection or encouragement by the means of 
 Mr. Colson, to whose academy David Garrick went. Mrs. 
 Lucy Porter told me, that Mr. Walmsley gave him a letter 
 of introduction to Lintot' his bookseller, and that Johnson 
 wrote some things for him ; but I imagine this to be a mis- 
 take, for I have discovered no trace of it, and I am pretty 
 sure he told me that Mr. Cave was the first publisher by 
 whom his pen was engaged in London. 
 
 He had a little money when he came to town, and he 
 knew how he could live in the cheapest manner. His first 
 lodgings were at the house of Mr. Norris, a staymaker, in 
 Exeter-street, adjoining Catharine-street, in the Strand. ' I 
 dined (said he) very well for eight-pence, with very good 
 company, at the Pine Apple in New-street, just by. Several 
 
 friends.' Boswell. Hawkins {Life, p. 43) states that Johnson and 
 Garrick had soon exhausted their small stock of money in London, 
 and that on Garrick's suggestion they appHed for a loan to Wilcox, of 
 whom he had a slight knowledge. ' Representing themselves to him, 
 as they really were, two young men, friends and travellers from the 
 same place, and just arrived with a view to settle here, he was so 
 moved with their artless tale, that on their joint note he advanced 
 them all that their modesty would permit them to ask (five pounds), 
 which was soon after punctually repaid.' Perhaps Johnson was think- 
 ing of himself when he recorded the advice given by Gibber to Fen- 
 ton, ' When the tragedy of Mariamne was shewn to Gibber, it was 
 rejected by him, with the additional insolence of advising Fenton to 
 engage himself in some employment of honest labour, by which he 
 might obtain that support which he could never hope from his poetry. 
 The play was acted at the other theatre ; and the brutal petulance of 
 Gibber was confuted, though perhaps not shamed, by general ap- 
 plause.' Johnson's Works, viii, 56. Adam Smith in the Wealth of 
 Nations (Book i. ch. 2) says that ' the difference between the most dis- 
 similar characters, between a philosopher and a common street-porter, 
 for example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit, 
 custom, and education.' Wilcox's shop was in Little Britain. Ben- 
 jamin Franklin, in 1725, lodged next door to him. * He had,' says 
 Franklin {Memoirs, x.dA,), 'an immense collection of second-hand 
 books. Girculating libraries were not then in use ; but we agreed that 
 on certain reasonable terms I might read any of his books.' 
 
 > Bernard Lintot {post, July 19, 1763) died Feb. 3, 1736. Gefit. Mag. 
 vl. 1 10. This, no doubt, was his son. 
 
 of
 
 I20 Abstinence from zvinc. [a. d. 1737. 
 
 of them had travelled. They expected to meet every day ; 
 but did not know one another's names. It used to cost the 
 rest a shilling, for they drank wine ; but I had a cut of meat 
 for six-pence, and bread for a penny, and gave the waiter a 
 penny"; so that I was quite well served, nay, better than the 
 rest, for they gave the waiter nothing'.' 
 
 He at this time, I believe, abstained entirely from fer- 
 mented liquors : a practice to which he rigidly conformed 
 for many years together, at different periods of his life^ 
 
 ' Dr. A. Carlyle {Auto. p. 195) says that being in London in 1746 he 
 dined frequently with a club of officers, where they had an excellent 
 dinner at ten-pence. From what he adds it is clear that the tavern- 
 keeper made his profit on the wine. At Edinburgh, four years earlier, 
 he and his fellow-students used to get • at four-pence a-head a very 
 good dinner of broth and beef, and a roast and potatoes every day, 
 with fish three or four times a-week, and all the small beer that was 
 called for till the cloth was removed ' {ib. p. 63). W. Hutton, who in 
 1750 opened a very small book-shop in Birmingham, for which he paid 
 rent at a shilling a week, says {Life of Hutton, p. 84) : — ' Five shillings 
 a week covered every expense ; as food, rent, washing, lodging, &c.' 
 He knew how to live wretchedly. 
 
 ' On April 17, 1778, Johnson said : — ' Early in life I drank wine ; for 
 many years I drank none. I then for some years drank a great deal. 
 I then had a severe illness, and left it off, and I have never begun it 
 again.' Somewhat the same account is given in Boswell's Hebrides, 
 Sept. 16, 1773. Roughly speaking, he seems to have been an abstainer 
 from about 1736 to at least as late as 1757, and from about 1765 to the 
 end of his life. In 1751 Hawkins (Life, p. 286) describes him as drink- 
 ing only lemonade ' in a whole night spent in festivity ' at the Ivy 
 Lane Club. In 1757 he described himself 'as a hardened and shame- 
 less tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only 
 tea ' (Johnson's Works, vi. 21). It was, I believe in his visit to Oxford 
 in 1759 that ' University College witnessed his drinking three bottles 
 of port without being the worse for it" (post, April 7, 1778). When 
 he was living in the Temple (between 1760-65) he had the frisk with 
 Langton and Beauclerk when they made a bowl of Bishop (post, 
 1753)- On his birthday in 1760, he 'resolved to drink less strong 
 liquors' (Pr. and Med. -p. ^2). In 1762 on his visit to Devonshire he 
 drank three bottles of wine after supper. This was the only time 
 Reynolds had seen him intoxicated. (Northcote's Reynolds, ii. 161). 
 In 1763 he affected Boswell's nerv^es by keeping him up late to drink 
 port with him (post, July 14, 1763). On April 21, 1764, he records: — 
 
 His
 
 Aetat.28.] An Ivisk Ofellus. 121 
 
 His Ofellus in the Art of Living in London, I have heard 
 him relate, was an Irish painter, whom he knew at Birmingham, 
 
 ' From the beginning of this year I have in some measure forborne 
 excess of strong drink' {Pr. and Med. p. 51). On Easter Sunday he 
 records : ' Avoided wine ' (ib. p. 55). On March i, 1765, he is described 
 at Cambridge as ' giving Mrs. Macaulay for his toast, and drinking her 
 in two bumpers.' It was about this time that he had the severe ill- 
 ness {post, under Oct. 17, 1765, note). In Feb. 1766, Boswell found 
 him no longer drinking wine. He shortly returned to it again ; for 
 on Aug. 2, 1767, he records, ' I have for some days forborne wine ;' atid 
 on Aug. 17, 'By abstinence from wine and suppers I obtained sudden 
 and great relief {Pr. and Med. pp. 73, 4). According to Hawkins, 
 Johnson said : — ' After a ten years' forbearance of every fluid except 
 tea and sherbet, I drank one glass of wine to the health of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds on the evening of the day on which he was knighted ' 
 (Hawkins's Johnsons Works (1787), xi. 215). As Reynolds was 
 knighted on April 21, 1769 (Taylor's Reynolds, i. 321), Hawkins's report 
 is grossly inaccurate. In Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 16, 1773, and jZJ^j-/, 
 March 16, 1776, we find him abstaining. In 1778 he persuaded Bos- 
 well to be 'a water-drinker upon trial' {post, April 28, 1778). On 
 April 7, 1779, 'he was persuaded to drink one glass of claret that he 
 might judge of it, not from recollection.' On March 20, 1781, Boswell 
 found that Johnson had lately returned to wine. ' I drink it now 
 sometimes,' he said, 'but not socially.' He seems to have generally 
 abstained however. On April 20, 1 781, he would not join in drinking 
 Lichfield ale. On March 17, 1782, he made some punch for himself, 
 by which in the night he thought ' both his breast and imagination 
 disordered ' {Pr. and Med. p. 205). In the spring of this year Hannah 
 More urged him to take a little wine. ' I can't drink a little, child,' 
 he answered ; ' therefore I never touch it ' (H. More's Memoirs, i. 251). 
 On July I, 1784; Beattie, who met him at dinner, says, 'he cannot be 
 prevailed on to drink wine ' (Beattie's Life, p. 316). On his death-bed 
 he refused any 'inebriating sustenance' {post, Dec. 1784). It is re- 
 markable that writmg to Dr. Taylor on Aug. 5, 1773, he said : — ' Drink 
 a great deal, and sleep heartily;' and that on June 23, 1776, he again 
 wrote to him : — ' I hope you persevere in drinking. My opinion is 
 that I have drunk too little, and therefore have the gout, for it is of 
 my own acquisition, as neither my father had it nor my mother ' 
 (Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. pp. 422, 3). On Sept. 19, 1777 {post), 
 he even ' owned that in his opinion a free use of wine did not 
 shorten life.' Johnson disapproved of fermented liquors only in 
 the case of those who, like himself and Boswell. could not keep from 
 excess. 
 
 and
 
 122 All Irish Ofellus. [a. d. 1737. 
 
 and who had practised his own precepts of ceconomy for 
 several years in the British capital'. He assured Johnson, 
 who, I suppose, was then meditating to try his fortune in 
 London, but was apprehensive of the expence, ' that thirty 
 pounds a year was enough to enable a man to live there 
 without being contemptible. He allowed ten pounds for 
 clothes and linen. He said a man might live in a garret at 
 eighteen-pence a week ; few people would inquire where he 
 lodged ; and if they did, it was easy to say, " Sir, I am to be 
 found at such a place." By spending three-pence in a coffee- 
 house, he might be for some hours every day in very good 
 company; he might dine for six-pence, breakfast on bread 
 and milk for a penny, and do without supper. On clean- 
 sJdrt-day he went abroad, and paid visits.' I have heard 
 him more than once talk of this frugal friend, whom he rec- 
 ollected with esteem and kindness, and did not like to have 
 one smile at the recital. ' This man (said he, gravely) was a 
 very sensible man, v/ho perfectly understood common affairs: 
 a man of a great deal of knowledge of the world, fresh from 
 life, not strained through books\ He borrowed a horse and 
 ten pounds at Birmingham. Finding himself master of so 
 much money, he set off for West Chester^ in order to get 
 
 ' Ofellus, or rather Ofella, is the ' rusticus, abnormis sapiens, crassa- 
 que Minerva' of Horace's Satire, ii. 2. 3. What he teaches is briefly 
 expressed in Pope's Imitation, ii. 2. i : 
 
 ' What, and how great, the virtue and the art 
 To live on little with a cheerful heart ' 
 (A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine) ; 
 Let's talk, my friends, but talk before we dine.' 
 In 1769 was published a worthless poem called The Art of Living in 
 London; in which 'instructions were given to persons who live in a 
 garret, and spend their evenings in an ale-house.' Gent. Mag. xxxix. 
 45. To this Boswell refers. 
 
 - ' Johnson this day, when we were by ourselves, observed how com- 
 mon it was for people to talk from books ; to retail the sentiments of 
 others, and not their own ; in short, to converse without any original- 
 ity of thinking. He was pleased to say, " You and I do not talk from 
 books." ' Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 3, 1773. 
 
 ^ The passage to Ireland was commonly made from Chester. 
 
 to
 
 Aetat. 28.] Mr. Heuiy Hervey. 123 
 
 to Ireland. He returned the horse, and probably the ten 
 pounds too, after he got home.' 
 
 Considering Johnson's narrow circumstances in the early- 
 part of his life, and particularly at the interesting aera of his 
 launching into the ocean of London, it is not to be won- 
 dered at, that an actual instance, proved by experience of 
 the possibility of enjoying the intellectual luxury of social 
 life, upon a very small income, should deeply engage his 
 attention, and be ever recollected by him as a circumstance 
 of much importance. He amused himself, I remember, by 
 computing how much more expence was absolutely neces- 
 sary to live upon the same scale with that which his friend 
 described, when the value of money was diminished by the 
 progress of commerce. It may be estimated that double 
 the money might now with difficulty be sufficient. 
 
 Amidst this cold obscurity, there was one brilliant cir- 
 cumstance to cheer him ; he was well acquainted with Mr. 
 Henry Hervey', one of the branches of the noble family of 
 that name, who had been quartered at Lichfield as an 
 officer of the army, and had at this time a house in Lon- 
 don, where Johnson was frequently entertained, and had an 
 opportunity of meeting genteel company. Not very long 
 before his death, he mentioned this, among other particulars 
 of his life, which he was kindly communicating to me ; and 
 he described this early friend, ' Harry Hervey,' thus : ' He 
 was a vicious man, but very kind to me. If you call a dog 
 Hervey, I shall love him.' 
 
 He told me he had now written only three acts of his 
 Irene, and that he retired for some time to lodgings at 
 Greenwich, where he proceeded in it somewhat further, and 
 used to compose, walking in the Park"; but did not stay 
 long enough at that place to finish it. 
 
 ' The honourable Henry Hervey, third son of the first Earl of Bris- 
 tol, quitted the army and took orders. He married a sister of Sir 
 Thomas Aston, by whom he got the Aston Estate, and assumed the 
 name and arms of that family. Vide CoUins's Peerage. Boswell. 
 
 * The following brief mention of Greenwich Park in 1750 is found 
 in one of Miss Talbot's Letters. 'Then when I come to talk of 
 
 At
 
 124 Letter to Mr. Cave. [a.d. 1737. 
 
 At this period we find the following letter from him to 
 Mr. Edward Cave, which, as a link in the chain of his literary 
 history, it is proper to insert : 
 
 ' To Mr. Cave. 
 
 ' Greenwich, next door to the Golden Heart, 
 Church-street, July 12, 1737. 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' Having observed in your papers very uncommon offers of 
 encouragement to men of letters, I have chosen, being a stranger 
 in London, to communicate to you the following design, which, I 
 hope, if you join in it, will be of advantage to both of us. 
 
 'The History of the Council of Trent having been lately trans- 
 lated into French, and published with large Notes by Dr. Le Cou- 
 rayer', the reputation of that book is so much revived in England, 
 that, it is presumed, a new translation of it from the Italian, together 
 with Le Courayer's Notes from the French, could not fail of a 
 favourable reception. 
 
 ' If it be answered, that the History is already in English, it must 
 be remembered, that there was the same objection against Le Cou- 
 rayer's undertaking, with this disadvantage, that the French had a 
 version by one of their best translators, whereas you cannot read 
 three pages of the English History without discovering that the 
 style is capable of great improvements ; but whether those im- 
 provements are to be expected from the attempt, you must judge 
 from the specimen, which, if you approve the proposal, I shall sub- 
 mit to your examination. 
 
 ' Suppose the merit of the versions equal, we may hope that the 
 addition of the Notes will turn the balance in our favour, consider- 
 ing the reputation of the Annotator. 
 
 ' Be pleased to favour me with a speedy answer, if you are not 
 willing to engage in this scheme ; and appoint me a day to wait 
 upon you, if you are. 
 
 ' I am. Sir, Your humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 Greenwich — Did you ever see it ? It was quite a new world to me, 
 and a very charming one. Only on the top of a most inaccessible hill 
 in the park, just as we were arrived at a view that we had long been 
 aiming at, a violent clap of thunder burst over our heads.' — Carter 
 and Talbot Corres. i. 345. 
 
 ' At the Oxford Commemoration of 1733 Courayer returned thanks 
 
 It
 
 Aetat. 28.] yohnso7i rcttiviis to Lichfield. 125 
 
 It should seem from this letter, though subscribed with his 
 own name, that he had not yet been introduced to Mr. Cave. 
 We shall presently see what was done in consequence of the 
 proposal which it contains. 
 
 In the course of the summer he returned to Lichfield, 
 where he had left Mrs. Johnson, and there he at last finished 
 his tragedy, which was not executed with his rapidity of 
 composition upon other occasions, but was slowly and pain- 
 fully elaborated. A few days before his death, while burning 
 a great mass of papers, he picked out from among them the 
 original unformed sketch of this tragedy, in his own hand- 
 writing, and gave it to Mr. Langton, by whose favour a copy 
 of it is now in my possession. It contains fragments of the 
 intended plot, and speeches for the different persons of the 
 drama, partly in the raw materials of prose, partly worked 
 up into verse ; as also a variety of hints for illustration, bor- 
 rowed from the Greek, Roman, and modern writers. The 
 hand-writing is very difficult to be read, even by those who 
 were best acquainted with Johnson's mode of penmanship, 
 which at all times was very particular. The King having 
 graciously accepted of this manuscript as a literary curiosity, 
 Mr. Langton made a fair and distinct copy of it, which he 
 ordered to be bound up with the original and the printed 
 tragedy; and the volume is deposited in the King's library'. 
 His Majesty was pleased to permit Mr. Langton to take a 
 copy of it for himself. 
 
 The whole of it is rich in thought and imagery, and happy 
 expressions; and of the disjecta membra^ scattered through- 
 out, and as yet unarranged, a good dramatick poet might 
 avail himself with considerable advantage. I shall give my 
 readers some specimens of different kinds, distinguishing 
 them by the Italick character. 
 
 in his robes to tlie University for the honour it had done him two 
 years before in presenting him with his degree. Dr. yoknson : His 
 Friends and His Critics, p. 94. 
 
 ' This hbrary was given by George IV to the British Museum. 
 Croker. 
 
 ' Ovid, Meta. iii. 724. 
 
 ' Nor
 
 126 Irene. [a.d. 1737. 
 
 * Nor think to say, here will I stop. 
 Here 7vill I fix the limits of transgression, 
 Nor farther tempt the avenging rage of heaven. 
 When guilt like this once harbours in the lucast, 
 Those holy beings, whose unseen direction 
 Guides through the maze of life the steps of man, 
 Fly the detested mansio7is of impiety, 
 And quit their charge to horrour atid to ruin!' 
 
 A small part only of this interesting admonition is pre- 
 served in the play, and is varied, I think, not to advantage : 
 
 'The soul once tainted with so foul a crime, 
 No more shall glow with friendship's hallow'd ardour, 
 Those holy beings whose superior care 
 Guides erring mortals to the paths of virtue, 
 Affrighted at impiety like thine. 
 Resign their charge to baseness and to ruin*.' 
 
 ^I feel the soft infection 
 Flush in my cheek, and wander in my veins. 
 Teach 7ne the Grecian arts of soft persuasion.'' 
 
 ' Sure this is love, ^vhich heretofore I conceived the dream of idle 
 maids, and wanton poets! 
 
 ' Though no comets or prodigies foretold the ruin of Greece, signs 
 which heaven must by another miracle enable us to widerstand, yet 
 might it be foreshewn, by tokens no less certain, by the vices which 
 ahvays bring it on.' 
 
 This last passage is worked up in the tragedy itself, as 
 
 follows : 
 
 Leontius. 
 
 ' That power that kindly spreads 
 
 The clouds, a signal of impending showers, 
 To warn the wand'ring linnet to the shade, 
 Beheld, without concern, expiring Greece, 
 And not one prodigy foretold our fate. 
 
 Demetrius. 
 
 'A thousand horrid prodigies foretold it; 
 A feeble government, eluded laws, 
 
 • Act ill. sc. 8. 
 
 A factious
 
 Aetat. 38.] IrenE. 1 2 7 
 
 A factious populace, luxurious nobles, 
 And all the maladies of sinking States. 
 When publick villainy, too strong for justice, 
 Shows his bold front, the harbinger of ruin, 
 Can brave Leontius call for airy wonders, 
 Which cheats interpret, and which fools regard? 
 When some neglected fabrick nods beneath 
 The weight of years, and totters to the tempest, 
 Must heaven despatch the messengers of light. 
 Or wake the dead, to warn us of its fall' ?' 
 
 Mahomet (to Irene). *■ I have tried thee, and joy to find that thou 
 desemest to be loved by Afaho??iet, — with a mind great as his own. 
 Sure, thou art an errour of nature, and an exception to the rest of thy 
 sex, and art immortal ; for sefitiments like thine were never to sink 
 into nothing. I thought all the thoughts of the fair had been to select 
 the graces of the day, dispose the colours of the flaunting ( flowing') 
 robe, tune the voice afid roll the eye, place the gem, choose the dress, and 
 add new roses to the fading cheek, but — sparkling? 
 
 Thus in the tragedy : 
 
 * Illustrious maid, new wonders fix me thine ; 
 Thy soul completes the triumphs of thy face : 
 I thought, forgive my fair, the noblest aim, 
 The strongest effort of a female soul 
 Was but to choose the graces of the day, 
 To tune the tongue, to teach the eyes to roll. 
 Dispose the colours of the flowing robe. 
 And add new roses to the faded cheeks' 
 
 I shall select one other passage, on account of the doctrine 
 which it illustrates. IRENE observes, 
 
 '■That the Supreme Being will accept of virtue, whatever outward 
 circumstances it 7nay be accompanied with, and may be delighted with 
 varieties of worship : but is answered. That variety cannot affect that 
 Being, who, infinitely happy in his owfi perfections, 7vanis no external 
 gratifications ; nor can infinite truth be delighted with falsehood ; that 
 though he may guide or pity those he leaves in darkness, he abandons 
 those who shut their eyes against the bea?ns of day.' 
 
 ' Act i. sc. I, * Act ii. sc. 7. 
 
 Johnson's
 
 128 yohnson settles in London. [a.d, 1737. 
 
 Johnson's residence at Lichfield, on his return to it at this 
 time, was only for three months ; and as he had as yet seen 
 but a small part of the wonders of the Metropolis, he had 
 Httle to tell his townsmen. He related to me the following 
 minute anecdote of this period : ' In the last age, when my 
 mother lived in London, there were two sets of people, those 
 who gave the wall, and those who took it ; the peaceable and 
 the quarrelsome. When I returned to Lichfield, after hav- 
 ing been in London, my mother asked me, whether I was one 
 ■ of those who gave the wall, or those who took it. Nozv it is 
 fixed that every man keeps to the right ; or, if one is taking 
 the wall, another yields it ; and it is never a dispute'.' 
 
 He now removed to London with Mrs. Johnson ; but her 
 daughter, who had lived with them at Edial, was left with 
 her relations in the country'. His lodgings were for some 
 time in Woodstock-street, near Hanover-square, and after- 
 wards in Castle-street, near Cavendish-square. As there is 
 something pleasingly interesting, to many, in tracing so great 
 a man through all his different habitations, I shall, before 
 this work is concluded, present my readers with an exact list 
 of his lodgings and houses, in order of time, which, in placid 
 condescension to my respectful curiosity, he one evening 
 dictated to me', but without specifying how long he lived 
 at each. In the progress of his life I shall have occasion 
 to mention some of them as connected with particular inci- 
 dents, or with the writing of particular parts of his works. 
 To some, this minute attention may appear trifling; but 
 when we consider the punctilious exactness with which the 
 different houses in which Milton resided have been traced 
 
 ' Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 232 [Sept. 20, lyj^j. 
 
 BOSWELL. 
 
 • Johnson's letter to her of Feb. 6, 1759, shows that she was, at that 
 time, hving in his house at Lichfield. Miss Seward {Lciiers, i. 116) 
 says that ' she boarded in Lichfield with his mother.' Some passages 
 ui other of his letters (Croker's Boswcll, pp. 144, 145, 173) lead me to 
 think that she stayed on in this house till 1766, when she had built 
 herself a house with money left by her brother. 
 
 ' Se.t post, Oct. 10, 1779. 
 
 by
 
 Aetat. 28.J ThR GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. 1 29 
 
 by the writers of his hfe, a similar enthusiasm may be par- 
 doned in the biographer of Johnson. 
 
 His tragedy being by this time, as he thought, completely 
 finished and fit for the stage, he was very desirous that it 
 should be brought forward. Mr. Peter Garrick told me, that 
 Johnson and he went together to the Fountain tavern, and 
 read it over, and that he afterwards solicited Mr. Fleetwood, 
 the patentee of Drur)/'-lane theatre, to have it acted at his 
 house ; but Mr. Fleetwood would not accept it, probably 
 because it was not patronized by some man of high rank'; 
 and it was not acted till 1749, when his friend David Garrick 
 was manager of that theatre. 
 
 TJie Gentlcmari s Magazine, begun and carried on by Mr. 
 Edward Cave, under the name of SvLVANUS Urban', had 
 attracted the notice and esteem of Johnson, in an eminent 
 deeree, before he came to London as an adventurer in litera- 
 ture. He told me, that when he first saw St. John's Gate, 
 the place where that deservedly popular miscellany' was 
 originally printed, he 'beheld it with reverence'.' I suppose, 
 
 ' He could scarcely have solicited a worse manager. Horace Wal- 
 pole writing in 1744 {Letters, i. 332) says: 'The town has been trying 
 all this winter to beat pantomimes off the stage very boisterously. 
 Fleetwood, the master of Drury-Lane, has omitted nothing to sup- 
 port them as they supported his house. About ten days ago, he let 
 into the pit great numbers of Bear-garden bruisers (that is the term) 
 to knock down everybody that hissed. The pit rallied their forces 
 and drove them out.' 
 
 ' It was not till volume v. that Cave's name was given on the title- 
 page. In volumes viii. and ix., and volumes xii. to xvii. the name is 
 Edward Cave, Jun. Cave in his examination before the House of 
 Lords on April 30, 1747, said : — ' That he was concerned in the Gentle- 
 inans Magazitie at first with his nephew ; and since the death of his 
 nephew he has done it entirely himself.' Pari. Hist. xiv. 59. 
 
 ' Its sale, according to Johnson, was ten thousand copies. Post, 
 April 25, 1778. So popular was it that before it had completed its 
 ninth year the fifth edition of some of the earliest numbers was 
 printed. Johnson's Works, v. 349. In the Life of Cave Johnson de- 
 scribes it as ' a periodical pamphlet, of which the scheme is known 
 wherever the English language is spoken.' lb. vi. 431. 
 
 * Yet the early numbers contained verses as grossly indecent as 
 I. — 9 indeed,
 
 130 A list of Johnsons writings. [a.d. 1738. 
 
 indeed, that every young authour has had the same kind of 
 feeling for the magazine or periodical publication which has 
 first entertained him, and in which he has first had an oppor- 
 tunity to see himself in print, without the risk of exposing 
 his name. I myself recollect such impressions from ' TJie 
 Scots Magazine," which was begun at Edinburgh in the year 
 1739, and has been ever conducted with judgement, accuracy, 
 and propriety. I yet cannot help thinking of it with an 
 affectionate regard. Johnson has dignified the Gentleman s 
 Magazine, by the importance with which he invests the life 
 of Cave ; but he has given it still greater lustre by the 
 various admirable Essays which he wrote for it. 
 
 Though Johnson was often solicited by his friends to 
 make a complete list of his writings, and talked of doing it, 
 I believe with a serious intention that they should all be col- 
 lected on his own account, he put it off from year to year, 
 and at last died without having done it perfectly. I have one 
 in his own hand-writing, which contains a certain number' ; 
 I indeed doubt if he could have remembered every one of 
 them, as they were so numerous, so various, and scattered in 
 such a multiplicity of unconnected publications ; nay, several 
 of them published under the names of other persons, to 
 whom he liberally contributed from the abundance of his 
 mind. We must, therefore, be content to discover them, 
 partly from occasional information given by him to his 
 friends, and partly from internal evidence\ 
 
 His first performance in the Gentleman s Magazine, which 
 
 they were dull. Cave moreover advertised indecent books for sale at 
 St. John's Gate, and in one instance, at least, the advertisement was in 
 very gross language. 
 
 ' See /(?j/, April 25, 1778. 
 
 ^ While in the course of my narrative I enumerate his writings, I 
 shall take care that my readers shall not be left to waver in doubt, 
 between certainty and conjecture, with regard to their authenticity ; 
 and, for that purpose, shall mark with an asterisk (*) those which he 
 acknowledged to his friends, and with a dagger (f) those which are 
 ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces 
 are ascribed to him, I shall give my reasons. Boswell. 
 
 for
 
 ST. JOHN S GATE, 
 
 The Residence of Edward Cave.
 
 Aetat. 29.] Edward Cave. i -x i 
 
 for many years was his principal source for employment 
 and support, was a copy of Latin verses, in March 1738, 
 addressed to the editor in so happy a style of compliment, 
 that Cav^e must have been destitute both of taste and sen- 
 sibility had he not felt himself highly gratified'. 
 
 ^Ad Urbanum*. 
 ' Urbane'^ millis /esse laborihiis. 
 Urbane, millis vide calumiiiis^, 
 
 ' Hawkins says that ' Cave had few of those quahties that constitute 
 the character of urbanity. Upon the first approach of a stranger his 
 practice was to continue sitting, and for a few minutes to continue 
 silent. If at any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, it was 
 generally by putting a leaf of the Magazine then in the press into the 
 hand of his visitor and asking his opinion of it. He was so incompe- 
 tent a judge of Johnson's abilities that, meaning at one time to dazzle 
 him with the splendour of some of those luminaries in literature who 
 favoured him with their correspondence, he told him that, if he would 
 in the evening be at a certain alehouse in the neighbourhood of Clerk- 
 enwell, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. Browne and another or 
 two of the persons mentioned in the preceding note. [The note con- 
 tained the names of some of Cave's regular writers.] Johnson ac- 
 cepted the invitation ; and being introduced by Cave, dressed in a 
 loose horseman's coat, and such a great bushy uncombed wig as he 
 constantly wore, to the sight of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting 
 at the upper end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his 
 curiosity gratified.' [Mr. Carlyle writes of ' bushy-wigged Cave;' but 
 it was Johnson whose wig is described, and not Cave's. On p. 327 
 Hawkins again mentions his 'great bushy wig,' and says that 'it was 
 ever nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge.'] Haw- 
 kins's JoJmson, pp. 45-50. Johnson, after mentioning Cave's slowness, 
 says: 'The same chillness of mind was observable in his conversa- 
 tion ; he was watching the minutest accent of those whom he disgusted 
 by seeming inattention ; and his visitant was surprised, when he came 
 a second time, by preparations to execute the scheme which he sup- 
 posed never to have been heard.' Johnson's Works, vi. 434. 
 
 ^ ' The first lines put one in mind of Casimir's Ode to Pope Urban : — 
 " Urbane, regum maxime, maxime 
 Urbane vatum." 
 The Polish poet was probably at that time in the hands of a man 
 who had meditated the histor}/- of the Latin poets.' Murphy's John- 
 son, p. 42. 
 
 ^ Cave had been grossly attacked by rival booksellers ; sec Gent. 
 
 Ctii
 
 132 'Ad UrBANUM'. [a.d. 1738. 
 
 Cui fronte sertiim in ertidita 
 Perpetiib viret et virebit ; 
 
 Quid moliatur gens i7niiantium, 
 Quid et minetur, solicitiis parum, 
 Vacare solis perge Musis, 
 jfuxta animo studiisque fclix. 
 
 LingucB procacis phunbea spicula, 
 Fidetis, superbo f range sikntio ; 
 Vicirix per obstantes catervas 
 Sedulitas a7iimosa tendet. 
 
 Intende nervos,fortis, inanibus 
 Risurns olim nisibus CBmuli ; 
 Intende jn?n nervos, habebis 
 Farticipes opera. Camcenas. 
 
 Non ulla Musis pagina graiior, 
 Quam quce severis ludicra jimgere 
 Novit, fatigatavique nugis 
 Utilibus recreare 77ientem. 
 
 Texente Ny77iphis se7-ta Lycoride, 
 Rosce rubo7-e/n sie viola adjuvat 
 Im77iista, sie Iris refulget 
 
 ^thereis variata fucisK'' S. J. 
 
 ^fag. viii. 1 56. Hawkins says {Life, p. 92), ' With that sagacity which 
 we frequently observe, but wonder at, in men of slow parts, he seemed 
 to anticipate the advice contained in Johnson's ode, and forbore a 
 reply, though not his revenge.' This he gratified by reprinting in his 
 own Magazine one of the most scurrilous and foolish attacks. 
 
 ' A translation of this Ode, by an unknown correspondent, appeared 
 in the Magazine for the month of May following : 
 
 ' Hail, Urban ! indefatigable man, 
 
 Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil ! 
 
 Whom num'rous slanderers assault in vain ; 
 
 Whom no base calumny can put to foil. 
 But still the laurel on thy learned brow 
 Flourishes fair, and shall for ever grow. 
 
 'What mean the servile imitating crew, 
 What their vain blust'ring, and their empty noise, 
 
 Ne'er seek : but still thy noble ends pursue, 
 Unconquer'd by the rabble's venal voice. 
 
 It
 
 Aetat.29.] Connected wWl GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. I3'> 
 
 o 
 
 It appears that he was now enhsted by Mr. Cave as a regu- 
 lar coadjutor in his magazine, by which he probably obtained 
 a tolerable livelihood. At what time, or by what means, 
 he had acquired a competent knowledge both of French' 
 
 Still to the Muse thy studious mind apply, 
 Happy in temper as in industry. 
 
 ' The senseless sneerings of an haughty tongue. 
 
 Unworthy thy attention to engage, 
 
 Unheeded pass : and tho' they mean thee wrong, 
 
 By manly silence disappoint their rage. 
 Assiduous diligence confounds its foes. 
 Resistless, tho' malicious crouds oppose. 
 
 ' Exert thy powers, nor slacken in the course, 
 Thy spotless fame shall quash all false reports : 
 
 Exert thy powers, nor fear a rival's force. 
 But thou shaft smile at all his vain efforts ; 
 
 Thy labours shall be crown 'd with large success ; 
 
 The Muse's aid thy Magazine shall bless. 
 
 ' No page more grateful to th' harmonious nine 
 Than that wherein thy labours we survey ; 
 
 Where solemn themes in fuller splendour shine, 
 (Delightful mixture,) blended with the gay, 
 Where in improving, various joys we find, 
 A welcome respite to the wearied mind. 
 
 ' Thus when the nymphs in some fair verdant mead, 
 Of various flow'rs a beauteous wreath compose. 
 
 The lovely violet's azure-painted head 
 Adds lustre to the crimson-blushing rose. 
 Thus splendid Iris, with her varied dye, 
 Shines in the a;ther, and adorns the sky. BRITON.' 
 
 BoswEr.i.. 
 ' ' I have some reason to think that at his first coming to town he 
 frequented Slaughter's coffee-house with a view to acquire a habit of 
 speaking French, but he never could attain to it. Lockman used the 
 same method and succeeded, as Johnson himself once told me.' Haw- 
 kins's Johnson, p. 516. Lockman is I'lllnstre Lockman mentioned /^j7, 
 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. It was at 'Old Slaughter's Cof- 
 fee-house, when a number of foreigners were talking loud about lit- 
 tle matters, that Johnson one evening said, " Does not this confirm 
 old Meynell's observation, For anything I see, foreig7iers are fools" Y 
 post, ib. 
 
 and
 
 134 Reports of the Debates. [a.d.1738. 
 
 and Italian', I do not know ; but he was so well skilled in 
 them, as to be sufficiently qualified for a translator. That 
 part of his labour which consisted in emendation and im- 
 provement of the productions of other contributors, like 
 that employed in levelling ground, can be perceived only 
 by those who had an opportunity of comparing the original 
 with the altered copy. What we certainly know to have 
 been done by him in this way, was the Debates in both 
 houses of Parliament, under the name of * The Senate of 
 Lilliput,' sometimes with feigned denominations of the sev- 
 eral speakers, sometimes with denominations formed of the 
 letters of their real names, in the manner of what is called 
 anagram, so that they might easily be decyphered. Parlia- 
 ment then kept the press in a kind of mysterious awe, which 
 made it necessary to have recourse to such devices. In our 
 time it has acquired an unrestrained freedom, so that the 
 people in all parts of the kingdom have a fair, open, and 
 exact report of the actual proceedings of their representa- 
 tives and legislators, which in our constitution is highly to 
 be valued; though, unquestionably, there has of late been 
 too much reason to complain of the petulance with which 
 obscure scribblers have presumed to treat men of the most 
 respectable character and situation*. 
 
 ' He had read Petrarch ' when but a boy ;' a7jie, p. 66. 
 
 'Horace Walpole, writing of the year 1770, about libels, says: 
 ' Their excess was shocking, and in nothing more condemnable than 
 in the dangers they brought on the liberty of the press.' This evil 
 was chiefly due to ' the spirit of the Court, which aimed at despotism, 
 and the daring attempts of Lord Mansfield to stifle the liberty of the 
 press. His innovations had given such an alarm that scarce a jury 
 would find the rankest satire libellous.' Memoirs of the Reign of 
 George I I I , iv. 167. Smollett in Humphrey C/inker (published in 1771) 
 makes Mr. Bramble write, in his letter of June 2 : ' The public papers 
 are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious 
 defamation ; every rancorous knave — every desperate incendiary, that 
 can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind 
 the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in 
 the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or pun- 
 ishment.' The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were 
 
 This
 
 Aetat.29.] William Guthrie. 135 
 
 This important article of the Gentleman's Magazine was, 
 for several years, executed by Mr. William Guthrie, a man 
 who deserves to be respectably recorded in the literary 
 annals of this country-. He was descended of an ancient 
 family in Scotland; but having a small patrimony, and being 
 an adherent of the unfortunate house of Stuart, he could not 
 accept of any office in the state ; he therefore came to Lon- 
 don, and employed his talents and learning as an 'Authour 
 by profession'.' His writings in history, criticism, and poli- 
 ticks, had considerable merit". He was the first English 
 historian who had recourse to that authentick source of 
 information, the Parliamentary Journals ; and such was the 
 power of his political pen, that, at an early period. Govern- 
 ment thought it worth their while to keep it quiet by a pen- 
 sion, which he enjoyed till his death. Johnson esteemed him 
 enough to wish that his life should be written'. The debates 
 
 not always obscure. Such scurrilous but humorous pieces as Proba- 
 tionary Odes for tlic Laureateship, T/ie Rolliad, and Royal Recollections, 
 which were all published while Boswell was v/riting The Life of John- 
 son, were written, there can be little doubt, by men of position. In 
 the first of the three (p. 27) Boswell is ridiculed. He is made to say : 
 — ' I know Mulgrave is a bit of a poet as well as myself ; for I dined 
 in company once where he dined that very day twelvemonth.' This 
 evil of libelling had extended to America. Benjamin Franklin {Me- 
 7noirs, i. 148J, writing in 1784, says that 'libelling and personal abuse 
 have of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Many of 
 our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals 
 by false accusations of the fairest characters.' 
 
 ' Boswell perhaps refers to a book published in 1758, called The 
 Case of Authors by Profession. Gent. Mag, xxviii. 130. Guthrie applies 
 the term to himself in the letter below. 
 
 - How much poetry he wrote, I know not : but he informed me, that 
 he was the authour of the beautiful little piece, The Eagle and Robin 
 Redbreast, in the collection of poems entitled The Union, though it is 
 there said to be written by Archibald Scott, before the year 1600. 
 Boswell. Mr. P. Cunningham has seen a letter of Jos. Warton's 
 which states that this poem was written by his brother Tom, who 
 edited the volume. Croker. 
 
 ' Dr. A. Carlyle in his Autobiography (p. 191) describes a curious 
 scene that he witnessed in the British Coffee-house. A Captain 
 
 in
 
 I '>6 William Guthrie. [a.d. 1738. 
 
 o 
 
 in Parliament, which were brought home and digested by 
 Guthrie, whose memory, though surpassed by others who 
 have since followed him in the same department, was yet 
 very quick and tenacious, were sent by Cave to Johnson 
 for his revision' ; and, after some time, when Guthrie had 
 
 Cheap ' was employed by Lord Anson to look out for a proper person 
 to write his voyage. Cheap had a predilection for his countrymen, 
 and having heard of Guthrie, he had come down to the coffee-house 
 to inquire about him. Not long after Cheap had sat down, Guthrie 
 arrived, dressed in laced clothes, and talking loud to everybody, and 
 soon fell awrangling with a gentleman about tragedy and comedy and 
 the unities, &c., and laid down the law of the drama in a peremptory 
 manner, supporting his arguments with cursing and swearing. I saw 
 Cheap was astonished, when, going to the bar, he asked who this was, 
 and finding it was Guthrie he paid his coffee and slunk oft" in silence.' 
 Guthrie's meanness is shown by the following letter in D'Israeli's 
 
 Calamities of Authors, i. 5 : — 
 
 'June 3, 1762. 
 ' My Lord, 
 
 ' In the year 1745-6 Mr. Pelham, then First Lord of the Treas- 
 ury, acquainted me that it was his Majesty's pleasure I should receive 
 till better provided for, which never has happened, 200/. a year, to be 
 paid by him and his successors in the Treasury. I was satisfied with 
 the august name made use of, and the appointment has been regularly 
 and quarterly paid me ever since. I have been equally punctual in 
 doing the Government all the services that fell within my abilities or 
 sphere of life, especially in those critical situations that call for una- 
 nimity in the service of the Crown. 
 
 ' Your Lordship may possibly now suspect that I am an Author by 
 profession ; you are not deceived ; and will be less so, if you believe 
 that I am disposed to serve his Majesty under your Lordship's future 
 patronage and protection with greater zeal, if possible, than ever. 
 
 ' I have the honour to be my Lord &c. 
 
 'William Guthrie.' 
 The lord's name is not given. See post, spring of 1768, and 1780 in 
 Mr. Langton's Collection for further mention of Guthrie. 
 
 ■ Perhaps there were Scotticisms for Johnson to correct ; for 
 Churchill in The Author, writing of Guthrie, asks : — 
 ' With rude unnatural jargon to support 
 Half Scotch, half English, a declining Court 
 
 Is there not Guthrie ?' 
 
 Churchill's Poems, ii. 39. 
 
 attained
 
 Aetat.29.J LoNDON, A PoEM. 1 37 
 
 attained to greater variety of employment, and the speeches 
 were more and more enriched by the accession of Johnson's 
 cfenius, it was resolved that he should do the whole himself, 
 from the scanty notes furnished by persons employed to 
 attend in both houses of Parliament. Sometimes, however, 
 as he himself told me, he had nothing more communicated 
 to him than the names of the several speakers, and the part 
 which they had taken in the debate'. 
 
 Thus was Johnson employed during some of the best years 
 of his life, as a mere literary labourer ' for gain, not glory^' 
 solely to obtain an honest support. He however indulged 
 himself in occasional little sallies, which the French so hap- 
 pily express by the term jeiix cf esprit, and which will be 
 noticed in their order, in the progress of this work. 
 
 But what first displayed his transcendent powers, and 
 'gave the world assurance of the Man',' was his London, a 
 Poem, in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal : which 
 came out in May this year, and burst forth with a splendour, 
 the rays of which will for ever encircle his name. Boileau 
 had imitated the same satire with great success, applying it 
 to Paris; but an attentive comparison will satisfy every 
 reader, that he is much excelled by the English Juvenal. 
 Oldham had also imitated it, and applied it to London ; all 
 which performances concur to prove, that great cities, in 
 every age, and in every country, will furnish similar topicks 
 of satire'. Whether Johnson had previously read Oldham's 
 imitation, I do not know ; but it is not a little remarkable, 
 
 ' See Appendix A. 
 
 ' Pope, Imitations of Horace, ii. i. 71. 
 
 ' ' To give the world assurance of a man.' Hamlet, Act iii. sc. 4. 
 ' * In his Life of Pope Johnson says : ' This mode of imitation . . . 
 was first practised in the reign of Charles II. by Oldham and Roches- 
 ter ; at least I remember no instances more ancient. It is a kind of 
 middle composition between translation and original design, which 
 pleases when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable and the paral- 
 lels lucky. It seems to have been Pope's favourite amusement, for 
 he has carried it farther than any former poet.' Johnson's Works, 
 viii. 295. 
 
 that
 
 138 Oldham and JoJmson compared, [a. d. 1738. 
 
 that there is scarcely any coincidence found between the 
 two performances, though upon the very same subject. The 
 only instances are, in describing London as the sink of for- 
 eign worthlessness : 
 
 ' the common shore. 
 
 Where France does all her filth and ordure pour.' 
 
 Oldham. 
 'The common shore of Paris and of Rome.' 
 
 Johnson. 
 and, 
 
 *No calling or profession conies amiss, 
 A 7iceih' 77ionsietir can be what he please.' 
 
 Oldham. 
 'All sciences -a. fasting monsieur knows.' 
 
 Johnson. 
 
 The particulars which Oldham has collected, both as ex- 
 hibiting the horrours of London, and of the times, contrasted 
 with better days, are different from those of Johnson, and in 
 general well chosen, and well exprest'. 
 
 There are, in Oldham's imitation, many prosaick verses 
 and bad rhymes, and his poem sets out with a strange inad- 
 vertent blunder : 
 
 'Tho' much concern'd to leave my dear old friend, 
 I must, however, his design commend 
 Of fixing in the country .' 
 
 ' I own it pleased me to find amongst them one trait of the manners 
 of the age in London, in the last century, to shield from the sneer of 
 Engh'sh ridicule, which was some time ago too common a practice in 
 my native city of Edinburgh : — 
 
 ' If what I've said can't from the town affright. 
 Consider other dangers of the night ; 
 When brickbats are from upper stories thrown. 
 And emptied ciiamberpots come pouring dozvn 
 From garret windows.' BoswELL. 
 
 See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 14, 1773, where Johnson, on taking his 
 first walk in Edinburgh, 'grumbled in Boswell's ear, "I smell you in 
 the dark." ' I once spent a night in a town of Corsica, on the great 
 road between Ajaccio and Bastia, where, I was told, this Edinburgh 
 practice was universal. It certainly was the practice of the hotel. 
 
 It
 
 Aetat. 29.] The publication of London. 139 
 
 It is plain he was not going to leave \\\s friend', his friend 
 was going to leave him. A young lady at once corrected 
 this with good critical sagacity, to 
 
 'Tho' much concern'd to tose my dear old friend.' 
 
 There is one passage in the original, better transfused by 
 Oldham than by Johnson : 
 
 'iV// habet infelix paupertas duritis in se, 
 Quchn quod ridicidos homines facit ■' 
 
 which is an exquisite remark on the galling meanness and 
 contempt annexed to poverty : Johnson's imitation is, 
 
 'Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, 
 Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.' 
 
 Oldham's, though less elegant, is more just : 
 
 'Nothing in poverty so ill is borne, 
 As its exposing men to grinning scorn.' 
 
 Where, or in what manner this poem was composed, I am 
 sorry that I neglected to ascertain with precision, from John- 
 son's own authority. He has marked upon his corrected 
 copy of the first edition of it, 'Written in 1738;' and, as it 
 was published in the month of May in that year, it is evident 
 that much time was not employed in preparing it for the 
 press. The history of its publication I am enabled to give 
 in a very satisfactory manner ; and judging from myself, and 
 many of my friends, I trust that it will not be uninteresting 
 to my readers. 
 
 We may be certain, though it is not expressly named 
 in the following letters to Mr. Cave, in 1738, that they all 
 relate to it : 
 
 'To Mr. Cave. 
 
 * Castle-street, Wednesday Morning. 
 [No date. 1738.J 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' When I took the liberty of writing to you a few days ago, I 
 did not expect a repetition of the same pleasure so soon ; for a 
 pleasure I shall always think it, to converse in any manner with 
 an ingenious and candid man; but having the inclosed poem in 
 
 my
 
 140 JoJmsons letters to Cave. [a.d. 1738. 
 
 my hands to dispose of for the benefit of the authour (of whose 
 abilities I shall say nothing, since I send you his performance,) I 
 believed I could not procure more advantageous terms from any 
 person than from you, who have so much distinguished yourself 
 by your generous encouragement of poetry ; and whose judgment 
 of that art nothing but your commendation of my trifle' can give 
 me any occasion to call in question. I do not doubt but you will 
 look over this poem with another eye, and reward it in a different 
 manner, from a mercenary bookseller, who counts the lines he is 
 to purchase', and considers nothing but the bulk. I cannot help 
 taking notice, that, besides what the authour may hope for on ac- 
 count of his abilities, he has likewise another claim to your regard, 
 as he lies at present under very disadvantageous circumstances of 
 fortune. I beg, therefore, that you will favour me with a letter to- 
 morrow, that I may know what you can afford to allow him, that 
 he may either part with it to you, or find out, (which I do not ex- 
 pect,) some other way more to his satisfaction. 
 
 ' I have only to add, that as I am sensible I have transcribed it 
 very coarsely, which, after having altered it, I was obliged to do, I 
 will, if you please to transmit the sheets from the press, correct it 
 for you ; and take the trouble of altering any stroke of satire which 
 you may dislike. 
 
 ' By exerting on this occasion your usual generosity, you will 
 not only encourage learning, and relieve distress, but (though it 
 be in comparison of the other motives of very small account) 
 oblige in a very sensible manner. Sir, 
 
 ' Your very humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' To Mr. Cave. 
 
 ' Monday, No. 6, Castle-street. 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I am to return you thanks for the present you were so kind 
 as to send by me , and to intreat that you will be pleased to in- 
 form me by the penny -post*, whether you resolve to print the 
 
 1 His Ode Ad Urbafium probably. Nichols. Boswell. 
 
 "^ Johnson, on his death-bed, had to own that ' Cave was a penurious 
 paymaster ; he would contract for lines by the hundred, and expect 
 the long hundred.' S&eposf, Dec. 1784. 
 
 ^ Cave sent the present by Johnson to the unknown author. 
 
 * See post, p. 151, note 5. 
 
 poem.
 
 Aetat. 39.] JoJiHsons letters to Cave. 141 
 
 poem. If you please to send it me by the post, with a note to 
 Dodsley, I will go and read the lines to him, that we may have his 
 consent to put his name in the title-page. As to the printing, if 
 it can be set immediately about, I will be so much the authour's 
 friend, as not to content myself with mere solicitations in his fa- 
 vour. I propose, if my calculation be near the truth, to engage for 
 the reimbursement of all that you shall lose by an impression of 
 500; provided, as you very generously propose, that the profit, if 
 any, be set aside for the authour's use, excepting the present you 
 made, which, if he be a gainer, it is fit he should repay. I beg 
 that you will let one of your servants write an exact account of 
 the expense of such an impression, and send it with the poem, 
 that I may know what I engage for. I am very sensible, from your 
 generosity on this occasion, of your regard to learning, even in its 
 unhappiest state , and cannot but think such a temper deserving 
 of the gratitude of those who suffer so often from a contrary dis- 
 position. I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson'.' 
 
 ' To Mr. Cave. 
 
 \No date^.'] 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I waited on you to take the copy to Dodsley's : as I remem- 
 ber the number of lines which it contains, it will be no longer than 
 Eugenio^^ with the quotations, which must be subjoined at the bot- 
 tom of the page ; part of the beauty of the performance (if any 
 beauty be allowed it) consisting in adapting Juvenal's sentiments 
 to modern facts and persons. It will, with those additions, very 
 conveniently make five sheets. And since the expense will be no 
 
 ' The original letter has the following additional paragraph : — ' I 
 beg that you will not delay your answer.' 
 
 " In later life Johnson strongly insisted on the importance of fully 
 dating all letters. After giving the date in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he 
 would add, — ' Now there is a date, look at it ' {Piozsi Letters, ii. 109) ; 
 or, ' Mark that — you did not put the year to your last ' {lb. p. 1 12) ; or, 
 ' Look at this and learn ' (lb. p. 138). She never did learn. The ar- 
 rangement of the letters in the Piozzi Letters is often very faulty. 
 For an omission of the date by Johnson in late life see post, under 
 March 5, 1774. 
 
 ' A poem, published in 1737, of which see an account under April 
 30, 1773. BOSWELL. 
 
 more.
 
 142 Airs. Carter. [a.d. 1738. 
 
 more, I shall contentedly insure it, as I mentioned in my last. If 
 it be not therefore gone to Dodsley's, I beg it may be sent me by 
 the penny-post, that I may have it in the evening. I have com- 
 posed a Greek epigram to Eliza', and think she ought to be cele- 
 brated in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand\ Pray 
 send me word when you will begin upon the poem, for it is a long 
 way to walk. I would leave my Epigram, but have not daylight to 
 transcribe it^ I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your's, &c., 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson*.' 
 
 ' The learned Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. Boswell. She was born 
 Dec. 1 717, and died Feb. 19, 1806. She never married. Her father 
 gave her a learned education. Dr. Johnson, speaking of some cele- 
 brated scholar [perhaps Langton], said, 'that he understood Greek 
 better than any one whom he had ever known, except Elizabeth 
 Carter.' Pennington's Carter, i. 13. Writing to her in 1756 he said, 
 ' Poor dear Cave ! I owed him much ; for to him I owe that I have 
 known you ' {lb. p. 40). Her father wrote to her on June 25, 1738 : — 
 ' You mention Johnson ; but that is a name with which I am utterly 
 unacquainted. Neither his scholastic, critical, or poetical character 
 ever reached my ears. I a little suspect his judgment, if he is very 
 fond of Martial ' {lb. p. 39). Since 1734 she had written verses for the 
 Gent. Mag. under the name of Eliza {lb. p. 37). They are very poor. 
 Her Ode to Melancholy her biographer calls her best. How bad it is 
 three lines will show ; — • 
 
 ' Here, cold to pleasure's airy forms, 
 Consociate with my sister worms. 
 And mingle with the dead.' Gent. Mag. ix. 599. 
 
 Hawkins records that Johnson, upon hearing a lady commended for 
 her learning, said : — ' A man is in general better pleased when he has 
 a good dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek. My 
 old friend, Mrs. Carter, could make a pudding as well as translate 
 Epictetus.' Johnson's Works ( 1787 ), xi. 205. Johnson, joining her 
 with Hannah More and Fanny Burney, said : — ' Three such women 
 are not to be found.' Post, May 15, 1784. 
 
 "^ See Voltaire's Steele de Louis XIV, ch. xxv. 
 
 ^ At the end of his letter to Cave, quoted post, 1742, he says : — ' The 
 bo}'' found me writing this almost in the dark, when I could not quite 
 easily read yours.' A man who at times was forced to walk the 
 streets, for want of money to pay for a lodging, was likely also at 
 times to be condemned to idleness for want of a light. 
 
 * At the back of this letter is written : — ' Sir, Please to publish the 
 
 'To
 
 Aetat. 29.J Negotiations witJi Dodsley. 143 
 
 'To Mr. Cave. 
 
 INo date?^ 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I am extremely obliged by your kind letter, and will not fail 
 to attend you to-morrow with Irene, who looks upon you as one of 
 her best friends. 
 
 ' I was to day with Mr. Dodsley, who declares very warmly in 
 favour of the paper you sent him, which he desires to have a share 
 in, it being, as he says, a creditable thing to be concerned in. I knew 
 not what answer to make till I had consulted you, nor what to de- 
 mand on the authour's part, but am very willing that, if you please, 
 he should have a part in it, as he will undoubtedly be more diligent 
 to disperse and promote it. If you can send me word to-morrow 
 what I shall say to him, I will settle matters, and bring the poem 
 with me for the press, which, as the town empties, we cannot be 
 too quick with. I am. Sir, 
 
 ' Your's, &:c., 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 To us who have long known the manly force, bold spirit, 
 and masterly versification of this poem, it is a matter of 
 curiosity to observe the diffidence with which its authour 
 brought it forward into publick notice, while he is so cau- 
 tious as not to avow it to be his own production; and with 
 what humility he offers to allow the printer to ' alter any 
 stroke of satire which he might dislike'.' That any such 
 alteration was made, we do not know. If we did, we could 
 not but feel an indignant regret ; but how painful is it to see 
 that a writer of such vigorous powers of mind was actually 
 in such distress, that the small profit which so short a poem, 
 however excellent, could yield, was courted as a 'relief.' 
 
 It has been generally said, I know not with what truth, 
 that Johnson offered his London to several booksellers, none 
 
 enclosed in your paper of first, and place to ace' of Mr. Edward Cave. 
 For whom I am, Sir, your hum. sert J. Bland. St. John's Gate, April 
 6, 1738.' London therefore was written before April 6. 
 
 * Boswell misread the letter. Johnson does not offer to allow the 
 printer to make alterations. He says : — ' I will take the trouble of 
 altering any stroke of satire which you may dislike.' The law against 
 libel was as unjust as it was severe, and printers ran a great risk. 
 
 of
 
 144 Payment for London. [a.d. 1738. 
 
 of whom would purchase it. To this circumstance Mr. Der- 
 rick alludes in the following lines of his Fortune, a Rhapsody: 
 
 ' Will no kind patron Johnson own ? 
 Shall Johnson friendless range the town? 
 And every publisher refuse 
 The offspring of his happy Muse ' .'" 
 
 But we have seen that the worthy, modest, and ingenious 
 Mr. Robert Dodsley^ had taste enough to perceive its un- 
 common merit, and thought it creditable to have a share in 
 it. The fact is, that, at a future conference, he bargained 
 for the whole property of it, for which he gave Johnson ten 
 guineas'; who told me, 'I might, perhaps, have accepted of 
 less ; but that Paul Whitehead had a little before got ten 
 guineas for a poem and I would not take less than Paul 
 Whitehead.' 
 
 I may here observe, that Johnson appeared to me to 
 undervalue Paul Whitehead upon every occasion when he 
 was mentioned, and, in my opinion, did not do him justice; 
 but when it is considered that Paul Whitehead was a mem- 
 ber of a riotous and profane club\ we may account for 
 Johnson's having a prejudice against him. Paul Whitehead 
 was, indeed, unfortunate in being not only slighted by 
 
 ' Derrick was not merely a poet, but also Master of the Ceremonies 
 at Bath; post. May i6, 1763. For Johnson's opinion of /u's ' Muse ' see 
 posf, under March 30, 1783. Fortiine, a Rhapsody, was published in 
 Nov. 175 1. Gent. Mag. xxi. 527. He is described in Humphrey Clinker 
 in the letters of April 6 and May 6. 
 
 ^ Ste post, March 20, 1776. 
 
 ^ Six years later Johnson thus wrote of Savage's Wanderer: — ' FroKi 
 a poem so diligently laboured, and so successfully finished, it might 
 be reasonably expected that he should have gained considerable ad- 
 vantage ; nor can it without some degree of indignation and concern 
 be told, that he sold the copy for ten guineas.' Johnson's Works, viii. 
 131. Mrs. Piozzi sold in 1788 the copyright of her collection of John- 
 son's Letters for ;!{J5oo; post, Feb. 1767. 
 
 * The Monks of Medmenham Abbey. See Almon's Life of Wilkes, 
 iii. 60, for Wilkes's account of this club. Horace Walpole {Letters, 1. 
 92) calls Whitehead ' an infamous, but not despicable poet.' 
 
 Johnson,
 
 Aetat.29.] Paul Whitehead. 145 
 
 Johnson, but violently attacked by Churchill, who utters the 
 following imprecation : 
 
 ' May I (can worse disgrace on manhood fall ?) 
 Be born a Whitehead, and baptiz'd a Paul ' !' 
 
 yet I shall never be persuaded to think meanly of the 
 authour of so brilliant and pointed a satire as Manners'. 
 Johnson's London was published in May 1738'; and it is 
 
 ' From The Conference, Churchill's Poems, ii. 15. 
 
 * In the Life of Pope Johnson writes : — ' Paul Whitehead, a small 
 poet, was summoned before the Lords for a poem called Manners, 
 together with Dodsley his publisher. Whitehead, who hung loose 
 upon society, sculked and escaped ; but Dodsley's shop and family 
 made his appearance necessar)\' Johnson's Works,\\\\.20i'j. Manners 
 was published in 1739. Dodsley was kept in custody for a week. 
 Gent. Mag. ix. 104. ' The whole process was supposed to be intended 
 rather to intimidate Pope [who in his Seventeen Hundred and Thirty- 
 Eight had given oflfence] than to punish Whitehead, and it answered 
 that purpose.' Chalmers, quoted in Pari. Hist. x. 1325. 
 
 ^ Sir John Hawkins, p. 86, tells us : — ' The event is atitedated, in the 
 poem of London ; but in every particular, except the difference of a 
 year, what is there said of the departure of Thales, must be under- 
 stood of Savage, and looked upon as true history.' This conjecture 
 is, I believe, entirely groundless. I have been assured, that Johnson 
 said he was not so much as acquainted with Savage when he wrote 
 his L^ondon. If the departure mentioned in it was the departure of 
 Savage, the event was not antedated but foreseen ; for London was 
 published in May 1738, and Savage did not set out for Wales till July 
 1739. However well Johnson could defend the credibility of second 
 sight [sQe post, Feb. 1766], he did not pretend that he himself was pos- 
 sessed of that faculty. Boswell. I am not sure that Hawkins is 
 altogether wrong in his account. Boswell does not state of his oivn 
 knowledge that Johnson was not acquainted with Savage when he 
 wrote London. The death of Queen Caroline in Nov. 1737 deprived 
 Savage of her yearly bounty, and ' abandoned him again to fortune ' 
 (Johnson's Works, viii. 166). The elegy on her that he composed on 
 her birth-day (March i) brought him no reward. He was 'for some 
 time in suspense,' but nothing was done. ' He was in a short time 
 reduced to the lowest degree of distress, and often wanted both 
 lodging and food' {lb. p. 169). His friends formed a scheme that 
 'he should retire into Wales.' 'While this scheme was ripening,' he 
 lodged ' in the liberties of the Fleet, that he might be secure from his 
 I. — 10 remarkable, 
 
 V
 
 146 IVas Richard Savage Thales? [a.d. 1738. 
 
 remarkable, that it came out on the same morning with 
 
 creditors ' {lb. p. 170). After many delays a subscription was at length 
 raised to provide him with a small pension, and he left London in 
 July 1739 (/^. p. 173)- London, as I have shewn, was written before 
 April 6, 1738. That it was written with great rapidity we might mfer 
 from the fact that a hundred lines of The Vatiity of Human Wishes 
 were written in a day. At this rate London might have been the work 
 of three days. That it was written in a very short time seems to be 
 shown by a passage in the first of these letters to Cave. Johnson 
 says : — ' When I took the liberty of writing to you a few days ago, I 
 did not expect a repetition of the same pleasure so soon ; . . . but 
 having the enclosed poem, &c.' It is probable that in these few days 
 the poem was written. If we can assume that Savage's elegy was 
 sent to the Court not later than March i — it may have been sent 
 earlier — and that Johnson's poem was written in the last ten days of 
 March, we have three weeks for the interv^ening events. They are 
 certainly not more than sufficient, if indeed they are sufficient. The 
 coincidence is certainly very striking between Thales's retirement to 
 ' Cambria's solitary shore ' and Savage's retirement to Wales. There 
 are besides lines in the poem — additions to Juvenal and not transla- 
 tions — which curiously correspond with what Johnson wrote of Sav- 
 age in his Life. Thus he says that Savage ' imagined that he should 
 be transported to scenes of flowery felicity ; ... he could not bear . . . 
 to lose the opportunity of listening, without intermission, to the mel- 
 ody of the nightingale, which he believed was to be heard from every 
 bramble, and which he did not fail to mention as a very important 
 part of the happiness of a country life ' {lb. p. 170). In like manner 
 Thales prays to find : — 
 
 ' Some pleasing bank where verdant osiers play, 
 Some peaceful vale, with nature's paintings gay. 
 
 There every bush with nature's musick rings ; 
 
 There every breeze bears health upon its wings.' 
 Mr. Croker objects that ' if Thales had been Savage, Johnson could 
 never have admitted into his poem two lines that point so forcibly at 
 the drunken fray, in which Savage stabbed a Mr. Sinclair, for which 
 he was convicted of murder : — 
 
 " Some frolic drunkard, reeling from a feast. 
 
 Provokes a. broil, and s/abs you in a jest." ' 
 But here Johnson is following Juvenal. Mr. Croker forgets that, if 
 Savage was convicted of murder, ' he was soon after admitted to bail, 
 and pleaded the King's pardon.' ' Persons of distinction ' testified 
 that he was ' a modest inoffensive man, not inclined to broils or to in- 
 
 Pope's
 
 Aetat. 29.] General Oglethorpe. 147 
 
 Pope's satire, entitled ' 1738' ; ' so that England had at once 
 its Juvenal and Horace'' as poetical monitors. The Rever- 
 end Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, to whom I am 
 indebted for some obliging communications, was then a stu- 
 dent at Oxford, and remembers well the effect which London 
 produced. Every body was delighted with it ; and there 
 being no name to it, the first buz of the literary circles was 
 ' here is an unknown poet, greater even than Pope,' And 
 it is recorded in the Gcntlcj)ians Magazine of that year\ that 
 it 'got to the second edition in the course of a week.' 
 
 One of the warmest patrons of this poem on its first 
 appearance was General Oglethorpe, whose 'strong benevo- 
 lence of sour,' was unabated during the course of a very 
 
 science ;' the witnesses against him were of the lowest character, and 
 his judge had shewn himself as ignorant as he was brutal. Sinclair 
 had been drinking in a brothel, and Savage asserted that he had 
 stabbed him ' by the necessity of self defence ' {lb. p. 1 17). It is, how- 
 ever, not unlikely that Wales was suggested to Johnson as Thales's 
 retreat by Swift's lines on Steele, in ]\liscellanies in Prose and Verse 
 (v. 181), published only three years before London : — 
 
 ' Thus Steele who owned what others writ. 
 And flourished by imputed wit. 
 From perils of a hundred jails 
 "Withdrew to starve and die in Wales.' 
 ' The first dialogue was registered at Stationers' Hall, 12th May, 
 1738, under the title One Thousand Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight. 
 The second dialogue was registered 17th July, 1738, as One Thousand 
 Seven Hundred and Thirty Eight, Dialogue 2. Elwin's Pope, iii. 455. 
 
 David Hume was in London this spring, finding a publisher for his 
 first work, A Treatise of Human Nature. J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 66. 
 ■■' Pope had published Imitations of Horace. 
 
 ^ P. 269. BoswELL. * Short extracts from London, a Poem, become 
 remarkable for having got to the second edition in the space of a 
 week.' Gent. Mag. V\\\.i6(). The price of the poem was one shilling. 
 Pope's satire, though sold at the same price, was longer in reaching 
 its second edition {lb. p. 280). 
 * ' One driven by strong benevolence of soul 
 
 Shall fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole.' 
 
 Pope's Imitations of Horace, it. 2. 276. 
 'General Oglethorpe, died 1785, earned commemoration in Pope's 
 gallery of worthies by his Jacobite politics. He was, however, a re- 
 long
 
 148 General OgletJiorpe. [a.d. 1738. 
 
 lono- life' : thoueh it is painful to think, that he had but too 
 much reason to become cold and callous, and discontented 
 with the world, from the neglect which he experienced of his 
 publick and private worth, by those in whose power it was to 
 gratify so gallant a veteran with marks of distinction. This 
 extraordinary person was as remarkable for his learning and 
 taste, as for his other eminent qualities; and no man was 
 more prompt, active, and generous, in encouraging merit. I 
 have heard Johnson gratefully acknowledge, in his presence, 
 the kind and effectual support which he gave to his London, 
 though unacquainted with its authour. 
 
 Pope, who then filled the poetical throne without a rival, 
 it may reasonably be presumed, must have been particularly 
 
 markable man. He first directed attention to the abuses of the Lon- 
 don jails. His relinquishment of all the attractions of English Hfe 
 and fortune for the settlement of the colony of Georgia is as romantic 
 a story as that of Bishop Berkeley* (Pattison's Pope,\). 152). It is 
 very likely that Johnson's regard for Oglethorpe was greatly increased 
 by the stand that he and his brother -trustees in the settlement of 
 Georgia made against slavery (see post, Sept. 23, 1777). ■ 'The first 
 principle which they laid down in their laws was that no slave should 
 be employed. This was regarded at the time as their great and fun- 
 damental error; it was afterwards repealed ' (Southey's Wesley, i. 75). 
 In spite, however, of Oglethorpe's ' strong benevolence of soul ' he at 
 one time treated Charles Wesley, who was serving as a missionary 
 in Georgia, with great brutality {lb. p. 88). According to Benjamin 
 Franklin (Memoirs, i. 162) Georgia was settled with little forethought. 
 ' Instead of being made with hardy industrious husbandmen, it was 
 with families of broken shop-keepers, and other insolvent debtors; 
 many of idle habits, taken out of the jails, who being set down in the 
 woods, unqualified for clearing land, and unable to endure the hard- 
 ships of a new settlement, perished in numbers, leaving many helpless 
 children unprovided for.' Johnson wished to write Oglethorpe's life ; 
 post, April 10, 1775. 
 
 I Horace Walpole {Letters, viii. 548), writing of him 47 years after 
 Lojidon was published, when he was 87 years old, says: — 'His eyes, 
 cars, articulation, limbs, and memory would suit a boy, if a boy could 
 recollect a century backwards. His teeth are gone ; he is a shadow, 
 and a wrinkled one ; but his spirits and his spirit are in full bloom : 
 two years and a-half ago he challenged a neighbouring gentleman for 
 trespassing on his manor.' 
 
 struck
 
 Aetat.29.] Pope admires London. 149 
 
 struck by the sudden appearance of such a poet ; and, to 
 his credit, let it be remembered, that his fecHngs and con- 
 duct on the occasion were candid and hberal. He requested 
 Mr. Richardson, son of the painter', to endeavour to find 
 out who this new authour was. Mr. Richardson, after some 
 inquiry, having informed him that he had discovered only 
 that his name was Johnson, and that he was some obscure 
 man. Pope said, 'he will soon be deterrc'! We shall pres- 
 ently see, from a note written by Pope, that he was himself 
 afterwards more successful in his inquiries than his friend. 
 
 That in this justly-celebrated poem may be found a few 
 rhymes' which the critical precision of English prosody at 
 this day would disallow, cannot be denied ; but with this 
 small imperfection, which in the general blaze of its excel- 
 lence is not perceived, till the mind has subsided into cool 
 attention, it is, undoubtedly, one of the noblest productions 
 in our language, both for sentiment and expression. The 
 nation was then in that ferment against the court and the 
 
 ' ' Once Johnson being at dinner at Sir Joshua's in company with 
 many painters, in the course of conversation Richardson's Treatise on 
 Painting happened to be mentioned. " Ah !" said Johnson, " I re- 
 member, when I was at college, I by chance found that book on my 
 stairs. I took it up with me to my chamber, and read it through, 
 and truly I did not think it possible to say so much upon the art." 
 Sir Joshua desired of one of the company to be informed what John- 
 son had said ; and it being repeated to him so loud that Johnson 
 heard it, the Doctor seemed hurt, and added, " But I did not wish. Sir, 
 that Sir Joshua should have been told what I then said." ' North- 
 cote's Reynolds, i. 236. Jonathan Richardson the painter had published 
 several works on painting before Johnson went to college. He and 
 his son, Jonathan Richardson, junior, brought out together Explana- 
 tory Notes on Paradise Lost. 
 
 '^ Sir Joshua Reynolds, from the information of the younger Richard- 
 son. BoswELL. See post, Oct. 16, 1769, where Johnson himself re- 
 lates this anecdote. According to Murphy, ' Pope said, " The author, 
 whoever he is, will not be long concealed ;" alluding to the passage in 
 Terence [Etm. ii. 3,4], Udi, ubi est, din celari non potest.' Murphy's 
 Johnson, p. 35. 
 
 ' Such as far and air, which comes twice ; vain and vtan, despair 
 and bar. 
 
 ministry
 
 150 yohnso7i a ' trtce-born Englishman! [a.d. 1738. 
 
 ministr}^, which some years after ended in the downfall of Sir 
 Robert Walpole ; and as it has been said, that Tories are 
 Whigs when out of place, and Whigs, Tories when in place; 
 so, as a Whig administration ruled with what force it could, 
 a Tory opposition had all the animation and all the elo- 
 quence of resistance to power, aided by the common topicks 
 of patriotism, liberty, and independence ! Accordingly, we 
 find in Johnson's London the most spirited invectives against 
 tyranny and oppression, the warmest predilection for his own 
 country, and the purest love of virtue; interspersed with 
 traits of his own particular character and situation, not omit- 
 ting his prejudices as a 'true-born Englishman',' not only 
 against foreign countries, but against Ireland and Scotland^ 
 On some of these topicks I shall quote a few passages : 
 
 ' The cheated nation's happy fav'rites see ; 
 Mark whom the great caress, who frown on me.' 
 
 ' Has heaven reserv'd in pity to the poor, 
 No pathless waste, or undiscover'd shore ? 
 No secret island in the bovmdless main ? 
 No peaceful desart yet unclaim'd by Spain ? 
 
 ■ It is, however, remarkable, that he uses the epithet, which un- 
 doubtedly, since the union between England and Scotland, ought to 
 denominate the natives of both parts of our island : — 
 
 ' Was early taught a Briton's rights to prize.' Boswell. 
 Swift, in his Journal to Stella (Nov. 23, 171 1), having to mention 
 England, continues : — ' I never will call it Britain, pray don't call it 
 Britain.' In a letter written on Aug. 8, 1738, again mentioning Eng- 
 land, he adds, — ' Pox on the modern phrase Great Britain, which is 
 only to distinguish it from Little Britain, where old clothes and old 
 books are to be bought and sold' (Swift's Works, 1803, xx. 185). 
 George III 'gloried in being born a Briton;' post, 1760. Boswell 
 thrice more at least describes Johnson as ' a true-born Englishman ;' 
 post, under Feb. 7, 1775. under March 30, 1783, and Boswell's Hebrides 
 under Aug. 11, 1773. The quotation is from Richard II, Act i. sc. 3. 
 " ' For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land. 
 
 Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand ? 
 There none are swept by sudden fate away, 
 But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.' 
 
 London, 1. 9-12. 
 
 Quick
 
 Aetat.29.] Sir Robert Walpole. 151 
 
 Quick let us rise, the happy seats explore, 
 And bear Oppression's insolence no more'.' 
 
 ' How, when competitors like these contend, 
 Can sicrly Virtue hope to fix a friend ?' 
 
 ' This mournful truth is every where confess'd, 
 Slow rises worth,- by poverty depress'd^ !' 
 
 We may easily conceive with what feeling a great mind like 
 his, cramped and galled by narrow circumstances, uttered 
 this last line, which he marked by capitals. The whole of the 
 poem is eminently excellent, and there are in it such proofs 
 of a knowledge of the world, and of a mature acquaintance 
 with life, as cannot be contemplated without wonder, wdien 
 we consider that he was then only in his twenty-ninth year, 
 and had yet been so little in the 'busy haunts of men\' 
 
 Yet, while we admire the poetical excellence of this poem, 
 candour obliges us to allow, that the flame of patriotism and 
 zeal for popular resistance with which it is fraught, had no 
 just cause. There was, in truth, no ' oppression ; ' the ' nation ' 
 w^as not ' cheated.' Sir Robert Walpole was a wise and 3 
 benevolent minister, who thought that the happiness and 
 prosperity of a commercial country like ours, would be best 
 
 ' In the Life of Savage, Johnson, criticising the settlement of colo- 
 nies, as it is considered by the poet and the politician, seems to be 
 criticising himself. ' The politician, when he considers men driven 
 into other countries for shelter, and obliged fo retire to forests and 
 deserts, and pass their lives, and fix their posterity, in the remotest 
 corners of the world, to avoid those hardships which they suffer or 
 fear in their native place, may very properly enquire, why the legisla- 
 ture does not provide a remedy for these miseries, rather than encour- 
 age an escape from them. He may conclude that the flight of every 
 honest man is a loss to the community. . . . The poet guides the un- 
 happy fugitive from want. and persecution to plenty, quiet, and secur- 
 ity, and seats him in scenes of peaceful solitude, and undisturbed 
 repose.' Johnson's Works, \'\\\.\t,6. 
 
 - Three years later Johnson wrote : — ' Mere unassisted merit ad- 
 vances slowly, if, what is not very common, it advances at all.' //>. vi. 
 
 393- 
 
 ' ' The busy /item of men.' Milton's L' Allegro, 1. 1 18. 
 
 promoted
 
 152 Hardships of writing for bread, [a.d. 1738. 
 
 promoted by peace, which he accordingly maintained, with 
 credit, during a very long period. Johnson himself after- 
 wards honestly acknowledged the merit of Walpole, whom 
 he called 'a fixed star;' while he characterized his oppo- 
 nent, Pitt, as 'a meteor\' But Johnson's juvenile poem was 
 naturally impregnated with the fire of opposition, and upon 
 every account was universally admired. 
 
 Thoueh thus elevated into fame, and conscious of uncom- 
 mon powers, he had not that bustling confidence, or, I may 
 rather say, that animated ambition, which one might have 
 supposed would have urged him to endeavour at rising in 
 life. But such was his inflexible dignity of character, that 
 he could not stoop to court the great ; without which, hardly 
 any man has made his way to a high station". He could not 
 expect to produce many such works as his Lotidon, and he 
 felt the hardships of writing for bread ; he was, therefore, 
 willing to resume the office of a schoolmaster, so as to have 
 
 ' See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 21, 1773, and post, March 21, 1775, fo'' 
 Johnson's attack on Lord Chatham. In the Life of Thomson Johnson 
 wrote : — ' At this time a long course of opposition to Sir Robert Wal- 
 pole had filled the nation with clamours for liberty, of which no man 
 felt the want, and with care for liberty, which was not in danger.' 
 Johnson's Works, viii. 370. Hawkins says {Ltje, p. 514) : — ' Of Walpole 
 he had a high opinion. He said of him that he was a fine fellow, and 
 that his very enemies deemed him so before his death. He honoured 
 his memory for having kept this country in peace many years, as also 
 for the goodness and placability of his temper.' Horace Walpole 
 {Letters v. 509), says : — ' My father alone was capable of acting on one 
 great plan of honesty from the beginning of his life to the end. He 
 could for ever wage war with knaves and malice, and preserve his 
 temper ; could know men, and yet feel for them ; could smile when 
 opposed, and be gentle after triumph.' 
 
 * Johnson in the Life of Milton describes himself: — 'Milton was 
 naturally a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities, and dis- 
 dainful of help or hindrance. From his contemporaries he neither 
 courted nor received support; there is in his writings nothing by 
 which the pride of other authors might be gratified, or favour gained ; 
 no exchange of praise, nor solicitation of support.' Johnson's Works, 
 vii. 142. Stcpost, Feb. 1766, for Johnson's opinion on 'courting great 
 men.' 
 
 a sure,
 
 Aetat. 29.] Appleby School. 153 
 
 a sure, though moderate income for his life ; and an offer 
 being made to him of the mastership of a schoor, provided 
 
 ' In a billet written by Mr. Pope in the following year, this school 
 is said to have been in Shropshire ; but as it appears from a letter 
 from Earl Gower, that the trustees of it were ' some worthy gentlemen 
 in Johnson's neighbourhood,' I in my first edition suggested that Pope 
 must have, by mistake, written Shropshire, instead of Staflfordshire. 
 But I have since been obliged to Mr. Spearing, attorney-at-law, for 
 the following information : — ' William Adams, formerly citizen and 
 haberdasher of London, founded a school at Newport, in the county 
 of Salop, by deed dated 27th November, 1656, by which he granted 
 " the }'early sum of sixty poiuids to such able and learned schoolmaster 
 from time to time, being of godly life and conversation, who should 
 have been educated at one of the Universities of Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge, and had taken the degree of Master of Arts, and was well read 
 in the Greek and Latin tongues, as should be nominated from time to 
 time by the said William Adams, during his life, and after the decease 
 of the said William Adams, by the Governours (namely, the Master 
 and Wardens of the Haberdashers' Company of the City of London) 
 and their successors." The manour and lands out of which the reve- 
 nues for the maintenance of the school were to issue are situate at 
 Knighton and Adbaston, in the county of Stafford! From the fore- 
 going account of this foundation, particularly the circumstances of 
 the salary being sixty pounds, and the degree of Master of Arts being 
 a requisite qualification in the teacher, it seemed probable that this 
 was the school in contemplation ; and that Lord Gower erroneously 
 supposed that the gentlemen who possessed the lands, out of which 
 the revenues issued, were trustees of the charity. 
 
 Such was probable conjecture. But in the Gcfit. Mag. for May 
 1793, there is a letter from Mr. Henn, one of the masters of the school 
 of Appleby, in Leicestershire, in which he writes as follows : — 
 
 ' I compared time and circumstance together, in order to discover 
 whether the school in question might not be this of Appleby. Some 
 of the trustees at that period were " worthy gentlemen of the neigh- 
 bourhood of Litchfield." Appleby itself is not far from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Litchfield. The salary, the degree requisite, together 
 with the time of election, all agreeing with the statutes of Appleby. 
 The election, as said in the letter, " could not be delayed longer than 
 the nth of next month," which was the nth of September, just three 
 months after the annual audit-day of Appleby school, which is always 
 on the nth of June; and the statutes enjoin 7ie ulliiis prccceptormn 
 electio diutius tribus mensibus moraretur, etc. 
 
 'These I thought to be convincing proofs that my conjecture was 
 
 he
 
 154 Ea7'l Gowers letter of reeommendatio?t. [a. d. 1738. 
 
 he could obtain the degree of Master of Arts, Dr. Adams 
 was applied to, by a common friend, to know whether that 
 could be granted him as a favour from the University of Ox- 
 ford, But though he had made such a figure in the literary 
 world, it was then thought too great a favour to be asked. 
 
 Pope, without any knowledge of him but from his London, 
 recommended him to Earl Gower, who endeavoured to pro- 
 cure for him a degree from Dublin, by the following letter to 
 a friend of Dean Swift : 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' Mr. Samuel Johnson (authour of London, a satire, and some 
 other poetical pieces) is a native of this country, and much re- 
 spected by some worthy gentlemen in his neighbourhood, who are * 
 trustees of a charity school now vacant ; the certain salary is sixty 
 pounds a year, of which they are desirous to make him master ; 
 but, unfortunately, he is not capable of receiving their bounty, 
 which would make him happy for life, by not being a Master of Arts ; 
 which, by the statutes of this school, the master of it must be. 
 
 ' Now these gentlemen do me the honour to think that I have 
 interest enough in you, to prevail upon you to write to Dean Swift, 
 to persuade the University of Dublin to send a diploma to me, 
 constituting this poor man Master of Arts in their University. 
 
 not ill-founded, and that, in a future edition of that book, the circum- 
 stance might be recorded as fact. 
 
 ' But what banishes every shadow of doubt is the Minute-book of 
 the school, which declares the headmastership to be at that time 
 
 VACANT.' 
 
 I cannot omit returning thanks to this learned gentleman for the 
 very handsome manner in which he has in that letter been so good as 
 to speak of this work. Boswell. 
 
 Hawkins {Life, p. 6i) says that 'Johnson went to Appleby in Aug. 
 1738, and offered himself as a candidate for the mastership.' The 
 date of 1738 seems to be Hawkins's inference. If Johnson went at 
 all, it was in 1739. Pope, the friend of Swift, would not of course 
 have sought Lord Gower's influence with Swift. He applied to his 
 lordship, no doubt, as a great midland-county landowner, likely to have 
 influence with the trustees. Why, when the difficulty about the degree 
 of M.A. was discovered, Pope was not asked to solicit Swift cannot be 
 known. See post, beginning of 1780 in Boswell's account of the 
 Life of Swift. 
 
 They
 
 Aetat. 21).] yohnsons wish to practise law. 155 
 
 They highly extol the man's learning and probity ; and will not be 
 persuaded, that the University will make any difficulty of confer- 
 ring such a favour upon a stranger, if he is recommended by the 
 Dean. They say he is not afraid of the strictest examination, 
 though he is of so long a journey ; and will venture it, if the Dean 
 thinks it necessary ; choosing rather to die upon the road, than be 
 starved to death in frafislating for booksellers ; which has been his 
 only subsistence for some time past. 
 
 ' I fear there is more difficulty in this affair, than those good- 
 natured gentlemen apprehend ; especially as their election cannot 
 be delayed longer than the nth of next month. If you see this 
 matter in the same light that it appears to me, I hope you will burn 
 this, and pardon me for giving you so much trouble about an im- 
 practicable thing ; but, if you think there is a probability of obtain- 
 ing the favour asked, I am sure your humanity, and propensity to 
 relieve merit in distress, will incline you to serve the poor man, 
 without my adding any more to the trouble I have already given 
 you, than assuring you that I am, with great truth, Sir, 
 
 ' Your faithful servant, 
 
 ' GOWER. 
 
 ' Trentham, Aug. i, 1739.' 
 
 It was, perhaps, no small disappointment to Johnson that 
 this respectable application had not the desired effect ; yet 
 how much reason has there been, both for himself and his 
 country, to rejoice that it did not succeed, as he might prob- 
 ably have wasted in obscurity those hours in which he after- 
 wards produced his incomparable works. 
 
 About this time he made one other effort to emancipate 
 himself from the drudgery of authorship. He applied to Dr. 
 Adams, to consult Dr. Smalbrokc of the Commons, whether a 
 person might be permitted to practise as an advocate there, 
 without a doctor's degree in Civil Law. ' I am (said he) a 
 total stranger to these studies ; but whatever is a profession, 
 and maintains numbers, must be within the reach of com- 
 mon abilities, and some degree of industry.' Dr. Adams was 
 much pleased with Johnson's design to employ his talents in 
 that manner, being confident he would have attained to great 
 eminence. And, indeed, I cannot conceive a man better 
 qualified to make a distinguished figure as a lawyer ; for, he 
 
 would
 
 156 Paul Sarpis History. [a.d. 1738, 
 
 would have brought to his profession a rich store of various 
 knowledge, an uncommon acuteness, and a command of lan- 
 guage, in which few could have equalled, and none have 
 surpassed him'. He who could display eloquence and wit 
 in defence of the decision of the House of Commons upon 
 Mr. Wilkes's election for Middlesex", and of the unconstitu- 
 tional taxation of our fellow-subjects in America^ must have 
 been a powerful advocate in any cause. But here, also, the 
 want of a degree was an insurmountable bar. 
 
 He was, therefore, under the necessity of persevering in 
 that course, into which he had been forced ; and we find, 
 that his proposal from Greenwich to Mr. Cave, for a transla- 
 tion of Father Paul Sarpi's History, was accepted*. 
 
 Some sheets of this translation were printed off, but 
 the design was dropt ; for it happened, oddly enough, that 
 
 ' ' What a pity it is, Sir,' said to him Sir William Scott, afterwards 
 Lord Stovvell, ' that you did not follow the profession of the law ! You 
 might have been Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.' Post, April 17, 
 1778. 
 
 "^ See post, beginning of 1770. 
 
 " St&post, March 21, 1775. 
 
 * In the Weekly Aliscellaiiy, October 21, 1738, there appeared the 
 following advertisement : — ' Just published, Proposals for printing the 
 History of the Coimcil of 7>-t7//, translated from the Italian of Father 
 Paul Sarpi ; with the Authour's Life, and Notes theological, historical, 
 and critical, from the French edition of Dr. Le Courayer. To which 
 are added. Observations on the History, and Notes and Illustrations 
 from various Authours, both printed and manuscript. By S. Johnson. 
 I. The work will consist of two hundred sheets, and be two volumes 
 in quarto, printed on good paper and letter. 2. The price will be 18^-. 
 each volume, to be paid, half-a-guinea at the delivery of the first 
 volume, and the rest at the delivery of the second volume in sheets. 
 3. Two-pence to be abated for every sheet less than two hundred. It 
 may be had on a large paper, in three volumes, at the price of three 
 guineas ; one to be paid at the time of subscribing, another at the de- 
 livery of the first, and the rest at the delivery of the other volumes. 
 The work is now in the press, and will be diligently prosecuted. Sub- 
 scriptions are taken in by Mr. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, Mr. Rivington in 
 St. Paul's Church-yard, by E. Cave at St. John's Gate, and the Trans- 
 lator, at No. 6, in Castle-street, by Cavendish-square.' Boswell. 
 
 another
 
 Aetat. 29.] Mr. Cave s insinuation. 157 
 
 another person of the name of Samuel Johnson, Librarian of 
 St. Martin's in the Fields, and Curate of that parish, engaged 
 in the same undertaking, and was patronised by the Clergy, 
 particularly by Dr. Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Rochester. 
 Several light skirmishes passed between the rival translators, 
 in the newspapers of the day; and the consequence was, that 
 they destroyed each other, for neither of them went on with 
 the work. It is much to be regretted, that the able per- 
 formance of that celebrated genius Fra Paolo, lost the 
 advantage of being incorporated into British literature by 
 the masterly hand of Johnson. 
 
 I have in my possession, by the favour of Mr. John Nich- 
 ols, a paper in Johnson's hand -writing, entitled 'Account 
 between Mr. Edward Cave and Sam. Johnson, in relation to 
 a version of Father Paul, &c. begun August the 2d, 1738;' 
 by which it appears, that from that day to the 21st of April, 
 1739, Johnson received for this work ^49 'js. in sums of one, 
 two, three, and sometimes four guineas at a time, most fre- 
 quently two. And it is curious to observe the minute and 
 scrupulous accuracy with which Johnson has pasted upon it 
 a slip of paper, which he has entitled * Small Account,' and 
 which contains one article, ' Sept. 9th, Mr. Cave laid down 
 2s. 6d! There is subjoined to this account, a list of some 
 subscribers to the work, partly in Johnson's hand-writing, 
 partly in that of another person ; and there follows a leaf or 
 two on which are written a number of characters which have 
 the appearance of a short hand, which, perhaps, Johnson was 
 then trying to learn. 
 
 'To Mr. Cave. 
 
 ' Wednesday. 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I did not care to detain your servant while I wrote an answer 
 to your letter, in which you seem to insinuate that I had promised 
 more than I am ready to perform. If I have raised your expecta- 
 tions by any thing that may have escaped my memory, I am sorry ; 
 and if you remind me of it, shall thank you for the favour. If I 
 made fewer alterations than usual in the Debates, it was only 
 because there appeared, and still appears to be, less need of 
 
 alteration.
 
 158 His literary work. [a.d. 173S. 
 
 alteration. The verses to Lady Firebrace ' may be had when you 
 please, for you know that such a subject neither deserves much 
 thought, nor requires it. 
 
 ' The Chinese Stories^ may be had folded down when you please 
 to send, in which I do not recollect that you desired any altera- 
 tions to be made. 
 
 ' An answer to another query I am very willing to write, and had 
 consulted with you about it last night if there had been time ; for 
 I think it the most proper way of inviting such a correspondence 
 as may be an advantage to the paper, not a load upon it. 
 
 ' As to the Prize Verses, a backwardness to determine their de- 
 grees of merit is not peculiar to me. You may, if you please, still 
 have what I can say ; but I shall engage with little spirit in an 
 affair, which I shall hardly end to my own satisfaction, and certainly 
 not to the satisfaction of the parties concerned'. 
 
 ' As to Father Paul, I have not yet been just to my proposal, but 
 have met with impediments, which, I hope, are now at an end ; and 
 if you find the progress hereafter not such as you have a right to 
 expect, you can easily stimulate a negligent translator. 
 
 ' If any or all of these have contributed to your discontent, I will 
 endeavour to remove it ; and desire you to propose the question 
 to which you wish for an answer. 
 
 ' I am. Sir, 
 
 ' Your humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'To Mr. Cave. ^^^ ^ ^ 
 
 ' Sir, 
 
 ' I am pretty much of your opinion, that the Commentary can- 
 not be prosecuted with any appearance of success ; for as the 
 names of the authours concerned are of more weight in the per- 
 formance than its own intrinsick merit, the publick will be soon 
 satisfied with it. And I think the Examen should be pushed 
 forward with the utmost expedition. Thus, " This day, &c., An 
 
 ' They afterwards appeared in the Gent. Mag. [viii. 486] v,-ith this 
 title — Verses to Lady Firebrace, at Bury Assizes. Boswell. 
 
 * Du Halde's Description of China was then publishing by Mr. Cave 
 in weekly numbers, whence Johnson was to select pieces for the em- 
 bellishment of the Magazine. Nichols. Boswell. 
 
 ' The premium of forty pounds proposed for the best poem on the 
 Divine Attributes is here alluded to. Nichols. Boswell. 
 
 Examen
 
 Aetat. 29.] ' Inipransus^ 159 
 
 Examen of Mr. Pope's Essay, &c., containing a succinct Account 
 of the Philosophy of Mr. Leibnitz on the System of the Fatalists, 
 with a Confutation of their Opinions, and an Illustration of the 
 Doctrine of Free-will;" [with what else you think proper]. 
 
 ' It will, above all, be necessary to take notice, that it is a thing 
 distinct from the Commentary. 
 
 ' I was so far from imagining they stood still', that I conceived 
 them to have a good deal before-hand, and therefore was less anx- 
 ious in providing them more. But if ever they stand still on my 
 account, it must doubtless be charged to me ; and whatever else 
 shall be reasonable, I shall not oppose ; but beg a suspense of 
 judgment till morning, when I must entreat you to send me a dozen 
 proposals, and you shall then have copy to spare. 
 
 ' I am. Sir, 
 
 ' Your's, impransus^, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson. 
 
 ' Pray muster up the Proposals if you can, or let the boy recall 
 them from the booksellers.' 
 
 But although he corresponded with Mr. Cave concerning a 
 translation of Crousaz's Exavien of Pope's Essay on Man, and 
 gave advice as one anxious for its success, I was long ago 
 convinced by a perusal of the Preface, that this translation 
 was erroneously ascribed to him ; and I have found this 
 point ascertained, beyond all doubt, by the following article 
 in Dr. Birch's Manuscripts in the Bt'itish Mtcscuin : 
 
 ' Elis^ Carter-e. S. p. D. Thomas Birch. 
 ' Versionem tuam ExajJtinis Crotisaziani jam perlegi. Siimmam 
 styli et elegantiam, et in re difficillijna proprietatem, admiratus. 
 '■ Dabam Novemh. 27"^ I738^' 
 
 Indeed Mrs. Carter has lately acknowledged to Mr. Sew- 
 ard, that she was the translator of the Examen. 
 
 ' The Compositors in Mr. Cave's printing-office, who appear by this 
 letter to have then waited for copy. Nichols. Boswell. 
 
 ^ Twenty years later, when he was lodging in the Temple, he had 
 fasted for two days at a time ; ' he had drunk tea, but eaten no bread ; 
 this was no intentional fasting, but happened just in the course of a 
 literary life.' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 4, 1773. See post, Aug. 5, 1763. 
 
 " Birch MSS. Brit. Mus. 4323. Boswell. 
 
 It
 
 i6o Mr. Macbean. [a.d. 1738. 
 
 It is remarkable, that JohnsoYi's last quoted letter to Mr. 
 Cave concludes with a fair confession that he had not a din- 
 ner; and it is no less remarkable, that, though in this state 
 of want himself, his benevolent heart was not insensible to 
 the necessities of an humble labourer in literature, as appears 
 from the very next letter : 
 
 'To Mr. Cave. 
 
 YNo daie.] 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' You may remember I have formerly talked with you about a 
 
 Military Dictionary. The eldest Mr. Macbean', who was with Mr. 
 
 Chambers", has very good materials for such a work, which I have 
 
 seen, and will do it at a very low rate^ I think the terms of War 
 
 and Navigation might be comprised, with good explanations, in 
 
 one 8vo. Pica, which he is willing to do for twelve shillings a sheet, 
 
 to be made up a guinea at the second impression. If you think 
 
 on it, I will wait on you with him. 
 
 ' I am. Sir, 
 
 ' Your humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson. 
 
 ' Pray lend me Topsel on Animals\' 
 
 I must not omit to mention, that this Mr. Macbean was a 
 native of Scotland. 
 
 In the Gentleman s Magazine of this year, Johnson gave a 
 Life of Father Paul ;^ and he wrote the Preface to the Vol- 
 ume\ which, though prefixed to it when bound, is always 
 published with the Appendix, and is therefore the last com- 
 position belonging to it. The ability and nice adaptation 
 
 ' Stepost, under Dec. 30, 1747, and Oct. 24, 1780. 
 " See post, 1750. 
 
 ^ This book was published. Boswell. I have not been able to 
 find it. 
 
 * The Historic of four-footed beasts and serpents. By Edward Top- 
 sell. London, 1607. Isaac Walton, in the Complete Angler, more than 
 once quotes Topsel. See p. 99 in the reprint of the first edition, where 
 he says : — ' As our Topsel hath with great dihgence observed.' 
 
 * In this preface he describes some pieces as ' deserving no other 
 fate than to be hissed, torn, and forgotten.' Johnson's Works, v. 346. 
 
 with
 
 Aetat.2<J.] BoETHIUS DE CoNSOL AT/ONE. l6l 
 
 with which he could draw up a prefatory address, was one 
 of his pecuHar excellencies. 
 
 It appears too, that he paid a friendly attention to Mrs. 
 Elizabeth Carter; for in a letter from Mr. Cave to Dr. Birch, 
 November 28, this year, I find ' Mr. Johnson advises Miss C. 
 to undertake a translation of BoctJihis de Cons, because there 
 is prose and verse, and to put her name to it when published.' 
 This advice was not followed ; probably from an apprehen- 
 sion that the work was not sufficiently popular for an exten- 
 sive sale. How well Johnson himself could have executed 
 a translation of this philosophical poet, we may judge from 
 the following specimen which he has given in the Rambler: 
 {Motto to No. 7.) 
 
 ' O qui perpetiia mundiun raiiojie gubernas, 
 
 Terrarum caelique sator ! 
 
 Disjice terrejice nebulas et ponder a niolis, 
 Atque tuo splendore mica I Tu namqiie serenum, 
 Tu requies tranquilla piis. Te cernere fijiis^ 
 Principium, vector, dux, semita, terminus, ide7n.'' 
 
 ' O thou whose power o'er moving worlds presides, 
 Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides, 
 On darkling man in pure effulgence shine. 
 And cheer the clouded mind with light divine. 
 'Tis thine alone to calm the pious breast, 
 With silent confidence and holy rest ; 
 From thee, great God ! we spring, to thee we tend. 
 Path, motive, guide, original, and end !' 
 
 In 1739, beside the assistance which he gave to the Parlia- 
 mentary Debates, his writings in the Gcntlevians Magazine^ 
 were, 'The Life of Boerhaave,'*^' in which it is to be observed, 
 that he discovers that love of chymistry" which never forsook 
 him; 'An appeal to the publick in behalf of the Editor ;'f 
 
 ' The letter to Mr. Urban in the January number of this year (p. 3) 
 is, I believe, by Johnson. 
 
 - ' Yet did Boerhaave not sufifer one branch of science to withdraw 
 his attention from others ; anatomy did not withhold him from chy- 
 mistry, nor chymistry, enchanting as it is, from the study of botany.' 
 Johnson's Works, vi. 276. See post, under Sept. 9, 1779. 
 
 I.— II 'An
 
 1 62 Ab)''idg7ftents. [a. d. 1739. 
 
 *An Address to the Reader ;'t 'An Epigram both in Greek 
 and Latin to Eliza','* and also English verses to her*;'^'' and, 
 'A Greek Epigram to Dr. Birch\'^' It has been erroneously 
 supposed, that an Essay published in that Magazine this year, 
 entitled 'The Apotheosis of Milton,' was written by Johnson; 
 and on that supposition it has been improperly inserted in 
 the edition of his works by the Booksellers, after his decease. 
 Were there no positive testimony as to this point, the style 
 of the performance, and the name of Shakspeare not being 
 mentioned in an Essay professedly reviewing the principal 
 English poets, would ascertain it not to be the production of 
 Johnson. But there is here no occasion to resort to internal 
 evidence ; for my Lord Bishop of Salisbury (Dr. Douglas) has 
 assured me, that it was written by Guthrie. His separate pub- 
 lications were\ 'A Complete Vindication of the Licensers of 
 
 ^ Gent. Mag. viii. 210, and Johnson's Works, i. 170. 
 
 * What these verses are is not clear. On p. 372 there is an epigram 
 Ad El/savi Popi Horto Laiiros car-pcnicm, of which on p. 429 there are 
 three translations. That by Urbanus may be Johnson's. 
 
 ^ lb. p. 654, and Johnson's Works, i. 170. On p. 21 1 of this volume 
 of the Gent. Mag. is given the epigram ' To a lady who spoke in de- 
 fence of liberty.' This was ' Molly Aston ' mentioned ante, p. 96. 
 
 * To the year 1739 belongs Considerations on the Case of Dr. 
 T\rapp^s Sermons. Abridged by Mr. Cave, 1739; first published in 
 the Gent. Mag. of July 1787. (See post under Nov. 5, 1784, note.) 
 Cave had begun to publish in the Gent. Mag. an abridgment of four 
 sermons preached by Trapp against Whitefield. He stopped short in 
 the publication, deterred perhaps by the threat of a prosecution for an 
 infringement of copy-right. 'On all difficult occasions,' writes the 
 Editor in 1787, ' Johnson was Cave's oracle ; and the paper now before 
 us was certainly written on that occasion.' Johnson argues that 
 abridgments are not only legal but also justifiable. ' The design of 
 an abridgment is to benefit mankind by facilitating the attainment of 
 knowledge . . . for as an incorrect book is lawfully criticised, and false 
 assertions justly confuted ... so a tedious volume may no less lawfully 
 be abridged, because it is better that the proprietors should suffer 
 some damage, than that the acquisition of knowledge should be ob- 
 structed with unnecessary difficulties, and the valuable hours of thou- 
 sands thrown away.' Johnson's Works, v. 465. Whether we have 
 here Johnson's own opinion cannot be known. He was writing as 
 Cave's advocate. See also Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 20, 1773. 
 
 the
 
 Aetat. 30.] M ARMOR NoRFOLCIENSE. 1 63 
 
 the Stage, from the mahcious and scandalous Aspersions of 
 Mr. Brooke, Authour of Gustavus Vasa,'* being an ironical 
 Attack upon them for their Suppression of that Tragedy'; 
 and, ' Marmor Norfolciense ; or an Essay on an ancient pro- 
 phetical Inscription in monkish Rhyme, lately discovered 
 near Lynne in Norfolk, by Probus Britaxnicus.'* In this 
 performance, he, in a feigned inscription, supposed to have 
 been found in Norfolk, the county of Sir Robert Walpole, 
 then the obnoxious prime minister of this country, inveighs 
 against the Brunswick succession, and the measures of gov- 
 ernment consequent upon it*. To this supposed prophecy 
 he added a Commentary, making each expression apply to 
 the times, with warm Anti-Hanoverian zeal. 
 
 This anonymous pamphlet, I believe, did not make so 
 much noise as was expected, and, therefore, had not a very 
 extensive circulation^ Sir John Hawkins relates^ that, 
 'warrants were issued, and messengers employed to appre- 
 hend the authour ; who, though he had forborne to subscribe 
 his name to the pamphlet, the vigilance of those in pursuit 
 of him had discovered ;' and we are informed, that he lay 
 concealed in Lambeth-marsh till the scent after him g-rew 
 cold. This, however, is altogether without foundation ; for 
 Mr. Steele, one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, who 
 amidst a variety of important business, politely obliged me 
 with his attention to my inquiry, informed me, that ' he 
 
 ' In his Life of Thomson Johnson writes : — ' About this time the act 
 was passed for Hcensing plays, of which the first operation was the 
 prohibition of Gustavus Vasa, a tragedy of Mr. Brooke, whom the 
 public recompensed by a very liberal subscription ; the next was the 
 refusal of Edward and Eleonor a, offered by Thomson. It is hard to 
 discover why either play should have been obstructed.' Johnson's 
 Works, viii. 373. 
 
 '^ The Inscription and the Translation of it are preserved in the Lon- 
 don Magazine for the year 1739, p. 244. Boswell. See Johnson's 
 Works, vi. 89. 
 
 ' It is a little heavy in its humour, and does not compare well with 
 the like writings of Swift and the earlier wits. 
 
 * Hawkins's fo/inson, p. 72. 
 
 directed
 
 164 Reprint of M armor Norfolciense. [a.d. 1739. 
 
 directed every possible search to be made in the records of 
 the Treasury and Secretary of State's Office, but could find 
 no trace whatever of any warrant having been issued to ap- 
 prehend the authour of this pamphlet.' 
 
 Marmor Norfolciense became exceedingly scarce, so that 
 I, for many years, endeavoured in vain to procure a copy of 
 it. At last I was indebted to the malice of one of Johnson's 
 numerous petty adversaries, who, in 1775, published a new 
 edition of it, 'with Notes and a dedication to SAMUEL 
 Johnson, LL.D. by Tribunus ;' in which some puny 
 scribbler invidiously attempted to found upon it a charge of 
 inconsistency against its authour, because he had accepted 
 of a pension from his present Majesty, and had written in 
 support of the measures of government. As a mortification 
 to such impotent malice, of which there are so many in- 
 stances towards men of eminence, I am happy to relate, that 
 this tehun iutbelle^ did not reach its exalted object, till about 
 a year after it thus appeared, when I mentioned it to him, 
 supposing that he knew of the re-publication. To my sur- 
 prize, he had not yet heard of it. He requested me to go 
 directly and get it for him, which I did. He looked at it 
 and laughed, and seemed to be much diverted with the 
 feeble efforts of his unknown adversary, who, I hope, is alive 
 to read this account. ' Now (said he) here is somebody who 
 thinks he has vexed me sadly ; yet, if it had not been for 
 you, you rogue, I should probably never have seen it.' 
 
 As Mr. Pope's note concerning Johnson, alluded to in a 
 former page, refers both to his London, and his Marvwr Nor- 
 folciense, I have deferred inserting it till now. I am indebted 
 for it to Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, who permitted 
 me to copy it from the original in his possession. It was 
 presented to his Lordship by Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom 
 it was given by the son of Mr. Richardson the painter, 
 the person to whom it is addressed. I have transcribed it 
 
 ' ' ^ic fatus senior, telumque imbelle sine ictu 
 
 Conjecit.' 
 ' So spake the elder, and cast forth a toothless spear and vain.' 
 Morris, ^neids, ii. 544. 
 
 with
 
 Aetat.30.] 'Paper-Sparing Pope'. 165 
 
 with minute exactness, that the pecuHar mode of writing, 
 and imperfect spelhng of that celebrated poet, may be ex- 
 hibited to the curious in hterature. It justifies Swift's 
 epithet of ' paper-sparing Pope',' for it is written on a sHp 
 no larger than a common message-card, and was sent to 
 Mr. Richardson, along with the Imitation of Jiivenal. 
 
 'This is imitated by one Johnson who put in for a PubHck- 
 school in Shropshire', but was disappointed. He has an infirmity 
 of the convulsive kind, that attacks him sometimes, so as to make 
 him a sad Spectacle. Mr. P. from the Merit of this Work which 
 was all the knowledge he had of him endeavour'd to serve him 
 without his own application ; & wrote to my L^ gore, but he did 
 not succeed. Mr. Johnson published afterw^s another Poem in 
 Latin with Notes the whole very Humerous call'd the Norfolk 
 Prophecyl' ^p, 
 
 Johnson had been told of this note ; and Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds informed him of the compliment which it contained, 
 
 1 ' Get all your verses printed fair, 
 
 Then let them well be dried ; 
 And Curll must have a special care 
 
 To leave the margin wide. 
 Lend these to paper -sparing Pope; 
 
 And when he sits to write, 
 No letter with an envelope 
 Could give him more delight.' 
 
 Advice to the Grub-Street Verse- Writers. 
 (Swift's Works, 1803, xi. 32.) Nichols, in a note on this passage, says : 
 — ' The original copy of Pope's Homer is almost entirely written on 
 the covers of letters, and sometimes between the lines of the letters 
 themselves.' Johnson, in his Life of Pope, writes : — ' Of Pope's domes- 
 tic character frugality was a part eminently remarkable . . . This gen- 
 eral care must be universally approved ; but it sometimes appeared in 
 petty artifices of parsimony, such as the practice of writing his com- 
 positions on the back of letters, as may be seen in the remaining copy 
 of the Iliad, by which perhaps in five years five shillings were saved.' 
 Johnson's JF^r/i'j, viii. 312. » 
 
 ^ See note, p. 153. BOSWELL. 
 
 ^ The Marinor Norfolciense, price one shilling, is advertised in the 
 Gent. Mag. for 1739 (p. 220) among the books for April. 
 
 but,
 
 1 66 yohnsons tricks of body. [a.d. 1739. 
 
 but, from delicacy, avoided shewing him the paper itself. 
 When Sir Joshua observed to Johnson that he seemed very 
 desirous to see Pope's note, he answered, ' Who would not 
 be proud to have such a man as Pope so solicitous in in- 
 quiring about him ?' 
 
 The infirmity to which Mr. Pope alludes, appeared to me 
 also, as I have elsewhere ' observed, to be of the convulsive 
 kind, and of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitus's 
 dance ; and in this opinion I am confirmed by the descrip- 
 tion which Sydenham gives of that disease. ' This disorder 
 is a kind of convulsion. It manifests itself by halting or un- 
 steadiness of one of the legs, which the patient draws after 
 him like an ideot. If the hand of the same side be applied 
 to the breast, or any other part of the body, he cannot keep 
 it a moment in the same posture, but it will be drawn into a 
 different one by a convulsion, notwithstanding all his efforts 
 to the contrary.' Sir Joshua Reynolds, however, was of a 
 different opinion, and favoured me with the following paper: 
 
 'Those motions or tricks of Dr. Johnson are improperly called 
 convulsions'^ He could sit motionless, when he was told so to do, 
 
 ' Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 8. Boswell. 
 
 ^ According to Sir Joshua Reynolds, ' Every person who knew Dr. 
 Johnson must have observed that the moment he was left out of the 
 conversation, whether from his deafness or from whatever cause, but 
 a few minutes without speaking or listening, his mind appeared to 
 be preparing itself. He fell into a reverie accompanied with strange 
 antic gestures ; but this he never did when his mind was engaged by 
 the conversation. These were therefore improperly called convul- 
 sions, which imply involuntary contortions ; whereas, a word addressed 
 to him, his attention was recovered. Sometimes, indeed, it would be 
 near a minute before he would give an answer, looking as if he laboured 
 to bring his mind to bear on the question.' (Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 456). 
 ' I still, however, think,' wrote Boswell, 'that these gestures were in- 
 voluntary; for surely had not that been the case, he would have re- 
 strained them in the public streets ' (Boswell's Hebrides, under date 
 of Aug. II, 1773, note). Dr. T. Campbell, in his Diary of a Visit to 
 England, p. 33, writing of Johnson on March 16, 1775, says : — ' He has 
 the aspect of an idiot, without the faintest ray of sense gleaming from 
 any one feature — with the most awkward garb, and unpowdered grey 
 
 as
 
 Aetat. 30.] His dread of SO litude. 167 
 
 as well as any other man ; my opinion is that it proceeded from a 
 habit which he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his 
 thoughts with certain untoward actions, and those actions always 
 appeared to me as if they were meant to reprobate some part of 
 his past conduct. Whenever he was not engaged in conversation, 
 3uch thoughts were sure to rush into his mind ; and, for this rea- 
 son, any company, any employment whatever, he preferred to being 
 alone". The great business of his life (he said) was to escape 
 
 wig, on one side only of his head — he is for ever dancing the devil's 
 jig. and sometimes he makes the most driveling effort to whistle some 
 thought in his absent paroxysms.' Miss Burney thus describes him 
 when she first saw him in 1778: — 'Soon after we were seated this 
 great man entered. I have so true a veneration for him that the very 
 sight of him inspires me with delight and reverence, notwithstanding 
 the cruel infirmities to which he is subject ; for he has almost per- 
 petual convulsive movements, either of his hands, lips, feet, or knees, 
 and sometimes of all together.' Mine. D'Arblays Diary, i. 63. See 
 post, under March 30, 1783, Boswell's note on Johnson's peculiarities. 
 
 * 'Solitude,' wrote Reynolds, 'to him was horror; nor would he 
 ever trust himself alone but when employed in writing or reading. 
 He has often begged me to go home with him to prevent his being 
 alone in the coach. Any company was better than none ; by which 
 he connected himself with many mean persons whose presence he 
 could command.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii.45S. Johnson writing to Mrs. 
 Thrale, said : — ' If the world be worth winning, let us enjoy it; if it is 
 to be despised, let us despise it by conviction. But the world is not 
 to be despised but as it is compared with something better. Company 
 is in itself better than solitude, and pleasure better than indolence.' 
 Piozsi Letters, i. 242. In The Idler, No. 32, he wrote: — 'Others are 
 afraid to be alone, and amuse themselves by a perpetual succession 
 of companions ; but the difference is not great ; in solitude we have 
 our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in con- 
 cert. The end sought in both is forgetfulness of ourselves." In The 
 Rambler, No. 5, he wrote : — ' It may be laid down as a position which 
 will seldom deceive, that when a man cannot bear his own company, 
 there is something wrong. He must fly from himself, either because 
 he feels a tediousness in life from the equipoise of an empty mind . . . 
 or he must be afraid of the intrusion of some unpleasing ideas, and, 
 perhaps, is struggling to escape from the remembrance of a loss, the 
 fear of a calamity, or some other thought of greater horror.' 
 
 Cowper, whose temperament was in some respects not unlike John- 
 son's, wrote : — 'A vacant hour is my abhorrence ; because, when I am 
 
 from
 
 1 68 Hogarth meets Johnson. [a.d. 1739. 
 
 from himself ; this disposition he considered as the disease of his 
 mind, which nothing cured but company. 
 
 ' One instance of his absence and particularity, as it is character- 
 istick of the man, may be worth relating. When he and I took a 
 journey together into the West, we visited the late Mr. Banks, of 
 Dorsetshire ; the conversation turning upon pictures, which John- 
 son could not well see, he retired to a corner of the room, stretch- 
 ing out his right leg as far as he could reach before him, then 
 bringing up his left leg, and stretching his right further on. The 
 old gentleman observing him, went up to him, and in a very cour- 
 teous manner assured him, that though it was not a new house, 
 the flooring was perfectly safe. The Doctor started from his rev- 
 erie, like a person waked out of his sleep, but spoke not a word.' 
 
 While we are on this subject, my readers may not be dis- 
 pleased with another anecdote, communicated to me by the 
 same friend, from the relation of Mr. Hogarth. 
 
 Johnson used to be a pretty frequent visitor at the house 
 of Mr. Richardson, authour of Clarissa, and other novels of 
 extensive reputation. Mr, Hogarth came one day to see 
 Richardson, soon after the execution of Dr. Cameron, for 
 having taken arms for the house of Stuart in 1745-6; and 
 being a warm partisan of George the Second, he observed to 
 Richardson', that certainly there must have been some very 
 unfavourable circumstances lately discovered in this particu- 
 lar case, which had induced the King to approve of an ex- 
 ecution for rebellion so long after the time when it was 
 committed, as this had the appearance of putting a man to 
 death in cold blood\ and was very unlike his Majesty's usual 
 
 not occupied, I suffer under the whole influence of my unhappy tem- 
 perament.' Southey's Ctfa//(?r, vi. 146. 
 
 * Richardson was of the same way of thinking as Hogarth. Writing 
 of a speech made at the Oxford Commemoration of 1754 by the Jaco- 
 bite Dr. King {se& post, Feb. 1755), he said : — 'There cannot be a greater 
 instance of the lenity of the government he abuses than his pestilent 
 harangues so publicly made with impunity furnishes (sic) all his read- 
 ers with.' — R/ch, Corrcsp. ii. 197. 
 
 " Impartial posterity may, perhaps, be as little inclined as Dr. John- 
 son was to justify the uncommon rigour exercised in the case of Dr. 
 Archibald Cameron. He was an amiable and truly honest man ; and 
 
 clemency.
 
 Aetat. 30.] George the Second's cruelty. 169 
 
 clemency. While he was talking, he perceived a person 
 standing at a window in the room, shaking his head, and 
 rolling himself about in a strange ridiculous manner. He 
 concluded that he was an ideot,'whom his relations had put 
 under the care of Mr. Richardson, as a very good man. To 
 his great surprize, however, this figure stalked forwards to 
 where he and Mr. Richardson were sitting, and all at once 
 took up the argument, and burst out into an invective against 
 George the Second, as one, who, upon all occasions, was 
 unrelenting and barbarous' ; mentioning many instances, 
 
 his offence was owing to a generous, though mistaken principle of 
 duty. Being obhged, after 1746, to give up his profession as a physi- 
 cian, and to go into foreign parts, he was honoured with the rank of 
 Colonel, both in the French and Spanish service. He was a son of the 
 ancient and respectable family of Cameron, of Lochiel ; and his brother, 
 who was the Chief of that brave clan, distinguished himself by mod- 
 eration and humanity, while the Highland army marched victorious 
 through Scotland. It is remarkable of this Chief, that though he had 
 earnestly remonstrated against the attempt as hopeless, he was of too 
 heroick a spirit not to venture his life and fortune in the cause, when 
 personally asked by him whom he thought his prince. Boswell. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott states, in his Introduction to Redgautitlet, that the 
 government of George II were in possession of sufficient evidence 
 that Dr. Cameron had returned to the Highlands, not, as he alleged 
 on his trial, for family affairs merely, but as the secret agent of the 
 Pretender in a new scheme of rebellion : the ministers, however, 
 preferred trying this indefatigable partisan on the ground of his un- 
 deniable share in the insurrection of 1745, rather than rescuing them- 
 selves and their master from the charge of harshness, at the expense 
 of making it universally known, that a fresh rebellion had been in 
 agitation so late as 1752. Lockhart. He was executed on June 7, 
 1753. Gent. Mag. xxiii. 292. Lord Campbell {Lives of the Chancellors, 
 V. 109) says :— ' I regard his execution as a wanton atrocity.' Horace 
 Walpole, however, inclined to the belief that Cameron was engaged 
 in a new scheme of rebellion. Walpole's Memoirs of George II, i. 333. 
 
 ' Horace Walpole says that towards convicts under sentence of 
 death 'George II's disposition in general was merciful, if the offence 
 was not murder.' He mentions, however, a dreadful exception, when 
 the King sent to the gallows at Oxford a young man who had been 
 'guilty of a most trifling forgery,' though he had been recommended 
 to mercy by the Judge, who 'had assured him his pardon.' Mercy 
 
 particularly.
 
 170 Johnsofis writings in 1740. [a.d. 1740. 
 
 particularly, that when an officer of high rank had been ac- 
 quitted by a Court Martial, George the Second had with his 
 own hand, struck his name off the list. In short, he displayed 
 such a power of eloquence, that Hogarth looked at him with 
 astonishment, and actually imagined that this ideot had 
 been at the moment inspired. Neither Hogarth nor John- 
 son were made known to each other at this interview'. 
 
 1740'': ^TAT. 31.] — In 1740 he wrote for the Gcntlcnimis 
 Magaaine the ' Preface °,'t ' Life of Sir Francis Drake,'* and 
 the first parts of those of ' Admiral Blake*,'* and of ' Philip 
 BaretierV* both which he finished the following year. He 
 
 was refused, merely because the Judge, Willes, ' was attached to the 
 Prince of Wales.' It is very likely that this was one of Johnson's 
 ' instances,' as it had happened about four years earlier, and as an ac- 
 count of the young man had been published by an Oxonian. Wal- 
 pole's Memoirs of the Reign of George II, i. 175. 
 
 ' It is strange that when Johnson had been sixteen years in London 
 he should not be known to Hogarth by sight. ' Mr. Hogarth,' writes 
 Mrs. Piozzi, ' was used to be very earnest that I should obtain the ac- 
 quaintance, and if possible, the friendship of Dr. Johnson, " whose con- 
 versation was to the talk of other men, like Titian's painting compared 
 to Hudson's," he said. ... Of Dr. Johnson, when my father and he were 
 talking together about him one day, "That man," says Hogarth, "is 
 not contented with believing the Bible, but he fairly resolves, I think, 
 to believe nothing btti the Bible." ' Piozzi's Anec. p. 136. 
 
 2 On October 29 of this year James Boswell was born. 
 
 ^ In this preface is found the following lively passage: — 'The Ro- 
 man Gazetteers are defective in several material ornaments of style. 
 They never end an article with the mystical hint, tkis occasions great 
 speculation. They seem to have been ignorant of such engaging in- 
 troductions as, we hear it is strongly reported ; and of that ingenious, 
 but thread-bare excuse for a downright lie, // wants confirmation.' 
 
 * The Lives of Blake and Drake were certainly written with a polit- 
 ical aim. The war with Spain was going on, and the Tory party was 
 doing its utmost to rouse the country against the Spaniards. It was 
 'a time,' according to Johnson, 'when the nation was engaged in a 
 war with an enemy, whose insults, ravages, and barbarities have long 
 called for vengeance.' Johnson's Works, vi. 293. 
 
 * Barretter's childhood surpassed even that of J. S. Mill. At the 
 age of nine he was master of five languages, Greek and Hebrew being 
 two of them. ' In his twelfth year he applied more particularly to 
 
 also
 
 Aetat. 31.] Epitaph on Philips. 171 
 
 also wrote an ' Essay on Epitaphs ','t and an ' Epitaph on 
 Phihps, a Musician,'* which was afterwards pubHshed with 
 some other pieces of his, in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies. 
 This Epitaph is so exquisitely beautiful, that I remember 
 even Lord Karnes'^, strangely prejudiced as he was against 
 Dr. Johnson, was compelled to allow it very high praise. It 
 has been ascribed to Mr. Garrick, from its appearing at first 
 with the signature G ; but I have heard Mr. Garrick declare, 
 that it was written by Dr. Johnson, and give the following 
 account of the manner in which it was composed. Johnson 
 and he were sitting together; when, amongst other things, 
 Garrick repeated an Epitaph upon this Philips by a Dr. 
 Wilkes, in these words : 
 
 ' Exalted soul ! whose harmony could please 
 The love-sick virgin, and the gouty ease ; 
 Could jarring discord, like Amphion, move 
 To beauteous order and harmonious love; 
 Rest here in peace, till angels bid thee rise, 
 And meet thy blessed Saviour in the skies.' 
 
 Johnson shook his head at these common-place funereal 
 lines, and said to Garrick, ' I think, Davy, I can make a better.' 
 Then, stirring about his tea for a little while, in a state of med- 
 itation, he almost extempore produced the following verses : 
 
 ' Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove 
 The pangs of guilty power or^ hapless love ; 
 Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more. 
 Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before ; 
 
 the study of the fathers.' At the age of fourteen he pubhshed Atiti- 
 Arte7noiiius ; sive initium evangelii S. Joafrnts adversus Artemonium 
 vindicatum. The same year the University of Halle ofifered him the 
 degree of doctor in philosophy. ' His theses, or philosophical posi- 
 tions, which he printed, ran through several editions in a few weeks.' 
 He was a deep student of mathematics, and astronomy was his fa- 
 vourite subject. His health broke down under his studies, and he died 
 in 1740 in the twentieth year of his age. Johnson's IVorh-, vi. 376. 
 
 * He wrote also in 1 756 ^ Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by Pope. 
 
 ' See post, Oct. 16, 1769. 
 
 ' In the original and. Gent. Mag. x. \(>\. The title of this poem 
 
 Sleep,
 
 172 Epigram on Cibber. [a. d. 1741. 
 
 Sleep, undisturb'd, within this peaceful shrine, 
 Till angels wake thee with a note like thine' !' 
 
 At the same time that Mr. Garrick favoured me with this 
 anecdote, he repeated a very pointed Epigram by Johnson, 
 on George the Second and Colley Cibber, which has never 
 yet appeared, and of which I know not the exact date". Dr. 
 Johnson afterwards gave it to me himself^ : 
 
 as there given is: — 'An epitaph upon the celebrated Claudy Philips, 
 Musician, who died very poor.' 
 
 ' The epitaph of Phillips is in the porch of Wolverhampton Church. 
 The prose part of it is curious : — 
 
 ' Near this place lies 
 
 Charles Claudius Phillips, 
 
 Whose absolute contempt of riches 
 
 and inimitable performances upon the violin 
 
 made him the admiration of all that knew him. 
 
 He was born in Wales, 
 
 made the tour of Europe, 
 
 and, after the experience of both kinds of fortune. 
 
 Died in 1732.' 
 
 Mr. Garrick appears not to have recited the verses correctly, the 
 
 original being as follows : — 
 
 ' Exalted soul, thy various sounds could please 
 The love-sick virgin and the gouty ease ; 
 Could jarring crowds, like old Amphion, move 
 To beauteous order and harmonious love ; 
 Rest here in peace, till Angels bid thee rise, 
 And meet thy Saviour's consort in the skies.' Blakeway. 
 Consort is defined in Johnson's Dictionary as a number of instru- 
 ments playing together. 
 
 ^ I have no doubt that it was written in 1741 ; for the second line is 
 clearly a parody of a line in the chorus of Cibber's Birthday Ode for 
 that year. The chorus is as follows : 
 
 ' While thou our Master of the Main 
 Revives Eliza's glorious reign, 
 The great Plantagenets look down. 
 And see your race adorn your crown. 
 
 Gent. Mag. xi. 549. 
 In the Life of Barretier Johnson Yias also this fling at George II : 
 — ' Princes are commonly the last by whom merit is distinguished.' 
 Johnson's Works, x'x.^^^i. 
 
 ^ See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 23 and Nov. 21, 1773. 
 
 'Augustus
 
 Aetat. 32.] One of CromwelVs speeches. 173 
 
 ' Augustus still survives in Maro's strain, 
 And Spenser's verse prolongs Eliza's reign ; 
 Great George's acts let tuneful Gibber sing ; 
 For Nature form'd the Poet for the King.' 
 
 In 1 741' he wrote for the Gentleman s Alagasine ' the Pre- 
 face,'* 'Conclusion of his lives of Drake and Baretier,'f ' A 
 free translation of the Jests of Hierocles\ with an Introduc- 
 tion ;'f and, I think, the following pieces : ' Debate on the 
 Proposal of Parliament to Cromwell, to assume the Title of 
 King, abridged, modified, and digested^ ;'f ' Translation of 
 Abbe Guyon's Dissertation on the Amazons ;'f ' Translation 
 of Fontenelle's Panegyrick on Dr. Morin.'f Two notes upon 
 this appear to me undoubtedly his. He this year, and the 
 
 ' Hester Lynch Salusbury, afterwards Mrs. Thrale, and later on Mrs. 
 Piozzi, was born on Jan. 27, 1741. 
 
 ^ This piece is certainly not by Johnson. It contains more than 
 one ungrammatical passage. It is impossible to believe that he wrote 
 such a sentence as the following :—' Another having a cask of wine 
 sealed up at the top, but his servant boring a hole at the bottom stole 
 the greatest part of it away ; sometime after, having called a friend to 
 taste his wine, he found the vessel almost empty,' &c. 
 
 ^ Mr. Carlyle, by the use of the term ' Imaginary Editors' {Crom- 
 welVs Letters and Speeches, iii. 229), seems to imply that he does not 
 hold with Boswell in assigning this piece to Johnson. I am inclined 
 to think, nevertheless, that Boswell is right. If it is Johnson's it is 
 doubly interesting as showing the method which he often followed 
 in writing the Parliamentary Debates. When notes were given him, 
 while for the most part he kept to the speaker's train of thoughts, he 
 dealt with the language much as it pleased him. In the Ge}tt. Mag. 
 Cromwell speaks as if he were wearing a flowing wig and were ad- 
 dressing a Parliament of the days of George II. He is thus made to 
 conclude Speech xi.: — 'For my part, could I multiply my person or 
 dilate my power, I should dedicate myself wholly to this great end, in 
 the prosecution of which I shall implore the blessing of God upon 
 your counsels and endeavours.' Gctjt. Mag. xi. 100. The following 
 are the words which correspond to this in the original : — ' If I could 
 help you to many, and multiply myself into many, that would be to 
 serve you in regard to settlement. . . . But I shall pray to God Almighty 
 that He would direct you to do what is according to His will. And 
 this is that poor account I am able to give of myself in this thing.' 
 Carlyle's Cromwell, iii. 255. 
 
 two
 
 174 Caves Parliamentary Debates, [a.d. 1741. 
 
 two following, wrote the Parliamentary Debates. He told 
 me himself, that he was the sole composer of them for those 
 three years only. He was not, however, precisely exact in 
 his statement, which he mentioned from hasty recollection ; 
 for it is sufficiently evident, that his composition of them 
 began November 19, 1740, and ended February 23, 1742-3'. 
 
 It appears from some of Cave's letters to Dr. Birch, that 
 Cave had better assistance for that branch of his Magazine, 
 than has been generally supposed ; and that he was indefat- 
 igable in getting it made as perfect as he could. 
 
 Thus, 2ist July, 1735. ' I trouble you with the inclosed, 
 because you said you could easily correct what is here given 
 
 for Lord C Id's'' speech. I beg you will do so as soon as 
 
 you can for me, because the month is far advanced.' 
 
 And 15th July, 1737. 'As you remember the debates so 
 far as to perceive the speeches already printed are not exact, 
 I beg the favour that you will peruse the inclosed, and, in 
 the best manner your memory will serve, correct the mis- 
 taken passages, or add anything that is omitted. I should 
 
 be very glad to have something of the Duke of N le's' 
 
 speech, which would be particularly of service. 
 
 * A gentleman has Lord Bathurst's speech to add some- 
 thing to.' 
 
 And July 3, 1744. ' You will see what stupid, low, abomi- 
 nable stuff is put* upon your noble and learned friend's^ 
 character, such as I should quite reject, and endeavour to 
 do something better towards doing justice to the character. 
 But as I cannot expect to attain my desires in that re- 
 spect, it would be a great satisfaction, as well as an honour 
 to our work to have the favour of the genuine speech. It 
 is a method that several have been pleased to take, as I 
 could show, but I think myself under a restraint. I shall 
 say so far, that I have had some by a third hand, which I 
 
 ' See Appendix A. 
 "^ Lord Chesterfield. 
 ^ Duke of Newcastle. 
 
 * I suppose in another compilation of the same kind. BoswELL. 
 
 * Doubtless, Lord Hardwick. Boswell. 
 
 understood
 
 Aetat. 32.] yoJinsoii s Parliamentary Debates. 175 
 
 understood well enough to come from the first ; others by 
 penny-post', and others by the speakers themselves, who have 
 been pleased to visit St. John's Gate, and show particular 
 marks of their being pleased\' 
 
 There is no reason, I believe, to doubt the veracity of 
 Cave. It is, however, remarkable, that none of these letters 
 are in the years during which Johnson alone furnished the 
 Debates, and one of them is in the very year after he ceased 
 from that labour. Johnson told me that as soon as he found 
 that the speeches were thought genuine, he determined that 
 he would write no more of them ; for ' he would not be ac- 
 cessary to the propagation of falsehood.' And such was the 
 tenderness of his conscience, that a short time before his 
 death he expressed his regret for having been the authour 
 of fictions, which had passed for realities\ 
 
 He nevertheless agreed with me in thinking, that the de- 
 bates which he had framed were to be valued as orations 
 upon questions of publick importance. They have accord- 
 ingly been collected in volumes, properly arranged, and rec- 
 ommended to the notice of parliamentary speakers by a 
 preface, written by no inferior hand\ I must, however, 
 observe, that although there is in those debates a wonderful 
 store of political information, and very powerful eloquence, 
 
 ' The delivery of letters by the penny-post 'was originally confined 
 to the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark 
 and the respective suburbs thereof.' In 1801 the postage was raised 
 to two-pence. The term ' suburbs ' must have had a very hmited sig- 
 nification, for it was not till 1831 that the limits of this delivery were 
 extended to all places within three miles of the General Post Ofiice. 
 Ninth Report of the Comtnissioners of the Post Office, 1837, p. 4. 
 
 ^ Birch's MSS. in the British Museum, 4302. BOSWELL. 
 
 ■' Set post, Dec. 1784, in Nichols's Anecdotes. If we may trust Haw- 
 tcins, it is likely that Johnson's ' tenderness of conscience ' cost Cave a 
 good deal ; for he writes that, while Johnson composed the Debates, 
 the sale of the Magazine increased from ten to fifteen thousand cop- 
 ies a month. ' Cave manifested his good fortune by buying an old 
 coach and a pair of older horses.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 123. 
 
 * I am assured that the editor is Mr. George Chalmers, whose com- 
 mercial works are well known and esteemed. Boswell. 
 
 I cannot
 
 1 76 Negotiations for Irene. [a.d. 1742. 
 
 I cannot agree that they exhibit the manner of each particu- 
 lar speaker, as Sir John Hawkins seems to think. But, in- 
 deed, what opinion can we have of his judgement, and taste 
 in pubhck speaking, who presumes to give, as the character- 
 isticks of two celebrated orators, ' the deep-mouthed rancour 
 of Pulteney', and the yelping pertinacity of Pitt'.' 
 
 This year I find that his tragedy of Irene had been for 
 some time ready for the stage, and that his necessities made 
 him desirous of getting as much as he could for it, without 
 delay; for there is the following letter from Mr. Cave to Dr. 
 Birch, in the same volume of manuscripts in the British 
 Museum, from which I copied those above quoted. They 
 were most obligingly pointed out to me by Sir William 
 Musgrave, one of the Curators of that noble repositoiy. 
 
 'Sept. 9, 1741. 
 
 * I have put Mr. Johnson's play into Mr. Gray's^ hands, in order 
 to sell it to him, if he is inclined to buy it ; but I doubt whether 
 he will or not. He would dispose of the copy, and whatever ad- 
 vantage may be made by acting it. Would your society "*, or any 
 gentleman, or body of men that you know, take such a bargain ? 
 He and I are very unfit to deal with theatrical persons. Fleet- 
 wood was to have acted it last season, but Johnson's diffidence 
 or ^ prevented it.' 
 
 I have already mentioned that Irene was not brought into 
 publick notice till Garrick was manager of Drury-lane 
 theatre. 
 
 ' The characteristic of Pulteney 's oratory is thus given in Hazlitt's 
 Northcotcs Conversations (p. 28S) : — 'Old Mr. Tolcher used to say 
 of the famous Pulteney — " My Lord Bath always speaks in blank 
 verse." ' 
 
 ' Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 100. Boswell. 
 
 ^ A bookseller of London. Boswell. 
 
 * Not the Royal Society; but the Society for the encouragement 
 of learning, of which Dr. Birch was a leading member. Their object 
 was to assist authors in printing expensive works. It existed from 
 about 1735 to 1746, when having incurred a considerable debt, it was 
 dissolved. Boswell. 
 
 ' There is no erasure here, but a mere blank ; to fill up which may 
 be an exercise for ingenious conjecture. Boswell. 
 
 1742:
 
 Aetat.33.] BiBLIOTHECA HaRLEIANA. 1 77 
 
 1742 : ^TAT. 33.] — In 1742' he wrote for the Gentlenia7i s 
 Magastne the' Preface/f the ' Parhamentary Debates,'*' Essay 
 on the Account of the conduct of the Duchess of Marl- 
 borough,'* then the popular topick of conversation. This 
 ' Essay ' is a short but masterly performance. We find him 
 in No. 13 of his Rambler, censuring a profligate sentiment in 
 that 'Account';' and again insisting upon it strenuously in 
 conversation^ ' An account of the Life of Peter Burman,'* 
 I believe chiefly taken from a foreign publication ; as, indeed, 
 he could not himself know much about Burman ; 'Additions 
 to his Life of Baretier;'* 'The Life of Sydenham,'* after- 
 wards prefixed to Dr. Swan's edition of his works ; ' Propo- 
 sals for Printing Bibliotheca Harleiana, or a Catalogue of 
 the Library of the Earl of Oxford \'* His account of that 
 celebrated collection of books, in which he displays the im- 
 portance to literature of what the French call a catalogue 
 raisonne, when the subjects of it are extensive and various, 
 and it is executed with ability, cannot fail to impress all his 
 readers with admiration of his philological attainments. It 
 was afterwards prefixed to the first volume of the Catalogue, 
 in which the Latin accounts of books were written by him. 
 
 ' Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on June 10, 1742, says : — ' I propose 
 to get Charles of Sweden ready for this winter, and shall therefore, 
 as I imagine, be much engaged for some months with the dramatic 
 writers into whom I have scarcely looked for many years. Keep Irene 
 close, you may send it back at your leisure.' Notes and Queries, 6th 
 S., v. 303. Charles of Sweden must have been a play which he pro- 
 jected. 
 
 - The profligate sentiment was, that ' to tell a secret to a friend is 
 no breach of fidelity, because the number of persons trusted is not 
 multiplied, a man and his friend being virtually the same.' Rambler. 
 No. 13. 
 
 ^ Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 167. [Sept. 10, 1773.] 
 
 BOSWELL. 
 
 * This piece contains a passage in honour of some great critic. 
 ' May the shade, at least, of one great English critick rest without 
 disturbance ; and may no man presume to insult his memory, who 
 wants his learning, his reason, or his wit.' Johnson's Works, v. 182. 
 Bentley had died on July 14 of this year, and there can be little ques- 
 tion that Bentley is meant. 
 
 I.~i2 He
 
 I y8 Osborne the bookseller. [a.d. 1742. 
 
 He was employed in this business by Mr. Thomas Osborne 
 the bookseller, who purchased the library for 13,000/., a sum 
 which Mr. Oldys' says, in one of his manuscripts, was not 
 more than the binding of the books had cost ; yet, as Dr. 
 Johnson assured me, the slowness of the sale was such, 
 that there was not much gained by it. It has been con- 
 fidently related, with many embellishments, that Johnson 
 one day knocked Osborne down in his shop, with a folio, 
 and put his foot upon his neck. The simple truth I had 
 from Johnson himself. ' Sir, he was impertinent to me, and 
 I beat him. But it was not in his shop : it was in my own 
 chamber\' 
 
 A very diligent observer may trace him where we should 
 not easily suppose him to be found. I have no doubt that 
 he wrote the little abridgment entitled ' Foreign History,' 
 in the Magazine for December. To prove it, I shall quote 
 the Introduction. ' As this is that season of the year in 
 which Nature may be said to command a suspension of hos- 
 tilities, and which seems intended, by putting a short stop to 
 violence and slaughter, to afford time for malice to relent, 
 and animosity to subside ; we can scarce expect any other 
 accounts than of plans, negotiations and treaties, of proposals 
 for peace, and preparations for war.' As also this passage : 
 ' Let those who despise the capacity of the Swiss, tell us 
 by what wonderful policy, or by what happy conciliation of 
 interests, it is brought to pass, that in a body made up of 
 
 ' See post, end of 1 744. 
 
 ° ' There is nothing to tell, dearest lady, but that he was insolent 
 and I beat him, and that he was a blockhead and told of it, which I 
 should never have done. ... I have beat many a fellow, but the rest 
 had the wit to hold their tongues.' Piozzi's Aiiec. p. 233. In the Life 
 of Pope Johnson thus mentions Osborne : — ' Pope was ignorant enough 
 of his own interest to make another change, and introduced Osborne 
 contending for the prize among the booksellers YDiinciad, ii. 167]. 
 Osborne was a man entirely destitute of shame, without sense of any 
 disgrace but that of poverty. . . . The shafts of satire were directed 
 equally in vain against Gibber and Osborne ; being repelled by the 
 impenetrable impudence of one, and deadened by the impassive dul- 
 ness of the other.' Johnson's Works, viii. 302. 
 
 different
 
 Aetat. 33.] A projected par liame7Uary history. lyg 
 
 different communities and different religions, there should 
 be no civil commotions', though the people are so warlike, 
 that to nominate and raise an army is the same.' 
 
 I am obliged to Mr. Astle' for his ready permission to 
 copy the two following letters, of which the originals are in 
 his possession. Their contents shew that they were written 
 about this time, and that Johnson was now engaged in pre- 
 paring an historical account of the British Parliament. 
 
 ' To Mr. Cave. [j^o da^e.] 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I believe I am going to write a long letter, and have there- 
 fore taken a whole sheet of paper. The first thing to be written 
 about is our historical design. 
 
 ' You mentioned the proposal of printing in numbers, as an al- 
 teration in the scheme, but I believe you mistook, some way or 
 other, my meaning ; I had no other view than that you might rather 
 print too many of five sheets, than of five and thirty. 
 
 ' With regard to what I shall say on the manner of proceeding, 
 I would have it understood as wholly indifferent to me, and my 
 opinion only, not my resolution. Einptoris sit eligere. 
 
 ' I think the insertion of the exact dates of the most important 
 events in the margin, or of so many events as may enable the 
 reader to regulate the order of facts with sufficient exactness, the 
 proper medium between a journal, which has regard only to time, 
 and a history which ranges facts according to their dependence on 
 each other, and postpones or anticipates according to the conven- 
 ience of narration. I think the work ought to partake of the spirit 
 of history, which is contrary to minute exactness, and of the regu- 
 larity of a journal, which is inconsistent with spirit. For this 
 reason, I neither admit numbers or dates, nor reject them. 
 
 ' I am of your opinion with regard to placing most of the reso- 
 lutions &c., in the margin, and think we shall give the most com- 
 plete account of Parliamentary proceedings that can be contrived. 
 The naked papers, without an historical treatise interwoven, require 
 some other book to make them understood. I will date the 
 
 ' In the original content io7is. 
 
 '^ 'Dec. 21, 1775. In the Paper Office there is a wight, called Thomas 
 Astle, who lives like moths on old parchments.' Walpole's Letters, 
 vi. 299. 
 
 succeeding
 
 i8o Payment for work. [a.d. 1742. 
 
 succeeding: facts with some exactness, but I think in the marsrin. 
 You told me on Saturday that I had received money on this work, 
 and found set down 13/. 2^-. (yd., reckoning the half guinea of last 
 Saturday. As you hinted to me that you had many calls for money, 
 I would not press you too hard, and therefore shall desire only, as 
 I send it in, two guineas for a sheet of copy ; the rest you may pay 
 me when it may be more convenient ; and even by this sheet-pay- 
 ment I shall, for some time, be very expensive. 
 
 ' The Life of Savage ' I am ready to go upon ; and in Great 
 Primer, and Pica notes, I reckon on sending in half a sheet a day ; 
 but the money for that shall likewise lye by in your hands till it is 
 done. With the debates, shall not I have business enough ? if I 
 had but good pens. 
 
 'Towards Mr. Savage's Life what more have you got.'' I would 
 willingly have his trial, &c., and know whether his defence be at 
 Bristol, and would have his collection of poems, on account of the 
 Preface. — The Plain Dealer'^ — all the magazines that have any- 
 thing of his, or relating to him. 
 
 ' I thought my letter would be long, but it is now ended ; and 
 I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Yours, &:c. Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' The boy found me writing this almost in the dark, when I could 
 not quite easily read yours. 
 
 ' I have read the Italian — nothing in it is well. 
 
 ' I had no notion of having any thing for the Inscription^ . I 
 hope you don't think I kept it to extort a price. I could think of 
 nothing, till to day. If you could spare me another guinea for the 
 history, I should take it very kindly, to night ; but if you do not I 
 shall not think it an injury. — I am almost well again.' 
 
 'To Mr. Cave. 
 
 ' Sir, 
 
 ' You did not tell me your determination about the ' Soldier's 
 
 ' Savage died on Aug. i, 1743, so that this letter is misplaced. 
 
 * The Plain Dealer was published in 1724, and contained some ac- 
 count of Savage. Boswell. 
 
 ' In the Gent. Mag. for Sept. 1743 (p. 490) there is an epitaph on 
 R — d S — e, Esq., which may perhaps be this inscription. ' His life was 
 want,' this epitaph declares. It is certainly not the Runick Inscription 
 in the number for March 1742, as Malone suggests; for the eadiest 
 possible date of this letter is seventeen months later. 
 
 Letter,
 
 Aetat.33.] Ad Lauram pavituva^n Epigra7mna. i8i 
 
 Letter',' which I am confident was never printed. I think it will 
 not do by itself, or in any other place, so well as the Mag. Extraor- 
 dinary'^. If you will have it at all, I believe you do not think I 
 set it high, and I will be glad if what you give, you will give quickly. 
 ' You need not be in care about something to print, for I have 
 got the State Trials, and shall extract Layer, Atterbury, and Mac- 
 clesfield from them, and shall bring them to you in a fortnight ; 
 after which I will try to get the South Sea Report.' 
 
 [A'tf date, tior signature.^ 
 
 I would also ascribe to him an ' Essay on the Description 
 of China, from the French of Du Halde'.'f 
 
 His writings in the Gentlcniaiis Magazine in 1743, are, the 
 ' Preface\'t the ' Parliamentary Debates,'f ' Considerations 
 on the Dispute between Crousaz^and Warburton, on Pope's 
 Essay on Man -'^ in which, while he defends Crousaz, he 
 shews an admirable metaphysical acuteness and temperance 
 in controversy'; 'Ad Lauram parituram Epigramma' ;'* 
 
 ' I have not discovered what this was. Boswell. 
 
 ^ The Mag. -Extraordinary is perhaps the Supplement to the De- 
 cember number of each year. 
 
 ^ This essay contains one sentiment eminently Johnsonian. The 
 writer had shown how patiently Confucius endured extreme indi- 
 gence. He adds:— 'This constancy cannot raise our admiration after 
 his former conquest of himself ; for how easily may he support pain 
 who has been able to resist pleasure.' Gent. Mag. xii. 355. 
 
 * In this Preface there is a complaint that has been often repeated 
 — ' All kinds of learning have given way to politicks.' 
 
 ■■* In the Life of Pope (Johnson's Works, viii. 287) Johnson says that 
 Crousaz, ' however little known or regarded here, was no mean antag- 
 onist.' 
 
 ' It is not easy to believe that Boswell had read this essay, for there 
 is nothing metaphysical in what Johnson wrote. Two-thirds of the 
 paper are a translation from Crousaz. Boswell does not seem to have 
 distinguished between Crousaz's writings and Johnson's. We have 
 here a striking instance of the way in which Cave sometimes treated 
 his readers. One-third of this essay is given in the number for March, 
 the rest in the number for November. 
 
 ' Angliacas inter pulc/ierrinia Latira puellas, 
 
 Mox uteri pondus deposit nr a grave, 
 Adsit, Laura, tibi facilis Lueitta dolenti, 
 Neve tibi noceat prantituisse Dea;. 
 
 and.
 
 1 82 Friendship, an Ode. [a.d.1743. 
 
 and, ' A Latin Translation of Pope's Verses on his Grotto' ;'* 
 and, as he could employ his pen with equal success upon a 
 small matter as a great, I suppose him to be the authour of 
 an advertisement for Osborne, concerning the great Harleian 
 Catalogue'. 
 
 But I should think myself much wanting, both to my il- 
 lustrious friend and my readers, did I not introduce here, 
 with more than ordinary respect, an exquisitely beautiful 
 Ode, which has not been inserted in any of the collections 
 of Johnson's poetry, written by him at a very early period, 
 as Mr. Hector informs me, and inserted in the Gentleman s 
 Magazine of this year. 
 
 Friendship, an Ode.* 
 
 ' Friendship, peculiar boon of heav'n, 
 
 The noble mind's delight and pride, 
 To men and angels only giv'n, 
 To all the lower world deny'd. 
 
 While love, unknown among the blest, 
 Parent of thousand wild desires, 
 
 The savage and the human breast 
 Torments alike with raging fires; 
 
 Mr. Hector was present when this Epigram was made impromptu. 
 The first line was proposed by Dr. James, and Johnson was called 
 upon by the company to finish it, which he instantly did. Boswell. 
 Macaulay {_Essays, i. 364) criticises Mr. Croker's criticism of this epi- 
 gram. 
 
 ' The lines with which this poem is introduced seem to show that 
 it cannot be Johnson's. He was not the man to allow that haste of 
 performance was any plea for indulgence. They are as follows: — 
 ' Though several translations of Mr. Pope's verses on his Grotto have 
 already appeared, we hope that the following attempt, which, we are 
 assured, was the casual amusement of half an hour during several 
 solicitations to proceed, will neither be unacceptable to our readers, 
 nor (these circumstances considered) dishonour the persons concerned 
 by a hasty publication.' Gent. Mag. xiii. 550. 
 
 " See Gent. Mag. xiii. 560. I doubt whether this advertisement be 
 from Johnson's hand. It is very unlikely that he should make the 
 advertiser in one and the same paragraph when speaking of himself 
 use us and mine. Boswell does not mention the Preface to vol. iii. of 
 
 With
 
 Aetat. 34.] Dr. Jamcs and Dr. Mead. 183 
 
 With bright, but oft destructive, gleam, 
 
 Alike o'er all his lightnings fly; 
 Thy lambent glories only beam 
 
 Around the fav'rites of the sky. 
 
 Thy gentle flows of guiltless joys 
 On fools and villains ne'er descend ; 
 
 In vain for thee the tyrant sighs, 
 And hugs a flatterer for a friend. 
 
 Directress of the brave and just, 
 
 O guide us through life's darksome way ! 
 
 And let the tortures of mistrust 
 On selfish bOsoms only prey. 
 
 Nor shall thine ardours cease to glow. 
 When souls to blissful climes remove ; 
 
 What rais'd our virtue here below. 
 Shall aid our happiness above.' 
 
 Johnson had now an opportunity of obliging his school- 
 fellow Dr. James, of whom he once observed, ' no man brings 
 more mind to his profession'.' James published this year his 
 Medicinal Dictionary, in three volumes folio. Johnson, as I 
 understood from him, had written, or assisted in writing, the 
 proposals for this work ; and being very fond of the study of 
 physick, in which James was his master, he furnished some 
 of the articles^ He, however, certainly wrote for it the Dedi- 
 cation to Dr. Mead,t which is conceived with great address, 
 to conciliate the patronage of that very eminent man^ 
 
 the Harleian Catalogue. It is included in Johnson's Works (v. 198). 
 Its author, be he who he may, in speaking of literature, says : — ' I have 
 idly hoped to revive a taste well-nigh extinguished.' 
 
 ' Johnson did not speak equally well of Dr. James's morals. ' He 
 will not,' he wrote, ' pay for three box tickets which he took. It is a 
 strange fellow.' The tickets were no doubt for Miss Williams's bene- 
 fit (Crocker's Boswell, 8vo. p. loi). See ante, p. 95, din^ post, March 28, 
 1776, end of 1780, note. 
 
 * See. post, April 5, 1776. 
 
 * 'to dr. mead. 
 •Sir, 
 
 ' That the Medicinal Dictionary is dedicated to you, is to be im- 
 puted only to your reputation for superior skill in those sciences 
 
 It
 
 1 84 Dr. Birch. [a.d. 1743. 
 
 It has been circulated, I know not with what authenticity, 
 that Johnson considered Dr. Birch as a dull writer, and said 
 of him, ' Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation ; but 
 no sooner does he take a pen in his hand, than it becomes a 
 torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties'.' That the 
 literature of this country is much indebted to Birch's activity 
 and diligence must certainly be acknowledged. We have 
 seen that Johnson honoured him with a Greek Epigram^ ; 
 and his correspondence with him, during many years, proves 
 that he had no mean opinion of him. 
 
 which I have endeavoured to explain- and facilitate : and you are, 
 therefore, to consider this address, if it be agreeable to you, as one of 
 the rewards of merit ; and if, otherwise, as one of the inconveniences 
 of eminence. 
 
 ' However you shall receive it, my design cannot be disappointed ; 
 because this publick appeal to your judgement will shew that I do not 
 found my hopes of approbation upon the ignorance of my readers, and 
 that I fear his censure least, whose knowledge is most extensive. 
 ' I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 'R.James.' 
 BoswELL. See post, May 16, 1778, where Johnson said, 'Dr. Mead 
 lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man.' 
 
 ' 'Johnson was used to speak of him in this manner : — " Tom is a 
 lively rogue ; he remembers a great deal, and can tell many pleasant 
 stories; but a pen is to Tom a torpedo, the touch of it benumbs his 
 hand and his brain." ' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 209. Goldsmith in his 
 Life of Nash (Cunningham's Goldsmith's Works, \\\ 54) says: — -'Nash 
 was not born a writer, for whatever humour he might have in conver- 
 sation, he used to call a pen his torpedo ; whenever he grasped it, it 
 benumbed all his faculties.' It is very likely that Nash borrowed this 
 saying from Johnson. In Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 24, 1773, we read : 
 ' Dr. Birch being mentioned. Dr. Johnson said he had more anecdotes 
 than any man. I said, Percy had a great many; that he flowed with 
 them like one of the brooks here. JOHNSON. " If Percy is like one 
 of the brooks here, Birch was like the River Thames. Birch excelled 
 Percy in that as much as Percy excels Goldsmith." ' Disraeli {Curi- 
 osities of Literature, iii. 425) describes Dr. Birch as 'one to whom 
 British history stands more indebted than to any superior author. 
 He has enriched the British Museum by thousands of the most 
 authentic documents of genuine secret history.' 
 
 ■•^ Afite, p. 162. 
 
 To
 
 Aetat.34.] Letter to Mr. Levett. 185 
 
 'To Dr. Birch. 
 
 'Thursday, Sept. 29, 1743. 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I hope you will excuse me for troubling you on an occasion 
 on which I know not whom else I can apply to ; I am at a loss for 
 the Lives and Characters of Earl Stanhope, the two Craggs, and 
 the minister Sunderland ; and beg that you will inform [me] where 
 I may find them, and send any pamphlets, &c. relating to them to 
 Mr. Cave, to be perused for a few days by. Sir, 
 
 ' Your most humble servant, 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 His circumstances were at this time much embarrassed; 
 yet his affection for his mother was so warm, and so liberal, 
 that he took upon himself a debt of her's, which, though 
 small in itself, was then considerable to him. This appears 
 from the following letter which he wrote to Mr. Levett, of 
 Lichfield, the original of which lies now before me. 
 
 'To Mr. Levett; in Lichfield. 
 
 ' December i, 1743. 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I am extremely sorry that we have encroached so much upon 
 your forbearance with respect to the interest, which a great per- 
 plexity of affairs hindered me from thinking of with that attention 
 that I ought, and which I am not immediately able to remit to you, 
 but will pay it (I think twelve pounds,) in two months. I look 
 upon this, and on the future interest of that mortgage, as my own 
 debt ; and beg that you will be pleased to give me directions how 
 to pay it, and not mention it to my dear mother. If it be necessary 
 to pay this in less time, I believe I can do it ; but I take two 
 months for certainty, and beg an answer whether you can allow 
 me so much time. I think myself very much obliged to your for- 
 bearance, and shall esteem it a great happiness to be able to serve 
 you. I have great opportunities of dispersing anything that you 
 may think proper to make publick'. I will give a note for the 
 
 ' In 1 76 1 Mr. John Levett was returned for Lichfield, but on petition 
 was declared to be not duly elected {Pari. Hist. xv. 1088). Perhaps 
 he was already aiming at public life. 
 
 money,
 
 1 86 The Life of Savage. [a.d. 1744, 
 
 money, payable at the time mentioned, to any one here that you 
 shall appoint. I am. Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obedient, 
 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson. 
 ' At Mr. Osborne's, bookseller, in Gray's Inn.' 
 
 1744: ^TAT. 35,] — It does not appear that he wrote any 
 thing in 1744 for the Gcntlemaiis Magazine, but the Preface.f 
 His Life of Baretier was now re-published in a pamphlet by 
 itself. But he produced one work this year, fully sufficient to 
 maintain the high reputation which he had acquired. This 
 was The Life of Richard Savage ;^ a man, of whom it is dif- 
 ficult to speak impartially, without wondering that he was 
 for some time the intimate companion of Johnson' ; for his 
 character was marked by profligacy, insolence, and ingrati- 
 tude^ : yet, as he undoubtedly had a warm and vigorous, 
 
 ' One explanation may be found of Johnson's intimacy with Savage 
 and with other men of loose character. ' He was,* writes Hawkins, 
 ' one of the most quick-sighted men I ever knew in discovering the 
 good and amiable qualities of others' (Hawkins's Johnson, -^.z^o). 
 ' He was,' says Boswell impost, April 13, 1778), 'willing to take men as 
 they are, imperfect, and with a mixture of good and bad qualities.' 
 How intimate the two men were is shown by the following passage in 
 Johnson's Life of Savage : — ' Savage left London in July, 1739, having 
 taken leave with great tenderness of his friends, and parted from the 
 author of this narrative with tears in his eyes.' Johnson's Works,v\\\. 
 
 173- 
 
 - As a specimen of his temper, I insert the following letter from him 
 to a noble Lord, to whom he was under great obligations, but who, on 
 account of his bad conduct, was obliged to discard him. The original 
 was in the hands of the late Francis Cockayne Cust, Esq., one of His 
 Majesty's Counsel learned in the law : 
 ' Right Honourable Brute, and BooBY, 
 
 ' I FIND you want (as Mr. is pleased to hint,) to swear away 
 
 my life, that is, the life of your creditor, because he asks you for a 
 debt. — The publick shall soon be acquainted with this, to judge 
 whether you are not fitter to be an Irish Evidence, than to be an Irish 
 Peer. — I defy and despise you. ' I am, 
 
 ' Your determined adversary, 
 
 ' R. S.' 
 though
 
 Aetat. 35.] Jokiisoiis frie7idship with Savage. 187 
 
 though unregulated mind, had seen Hfe in all its varieties, 
 and been much in the company of the statesmen and wits of 
 his time', he could communicate to Johnson an abundant 
 supply of such materials as his philosophical curiosity most 
 eagerly desired ; and as Savage's misfortunes and miscon- 
 duct had reduced him to the lowest state of wretchedness 
 as a writer for bread", his visits to St. John's Gate naturally 
 brought Johnson and him together'. 
 
 BoswELL. The noble Lord was no doubt Lord Tyrconnel. See 
 Johnson's Works, viii. 140. Mr. Cust is mentioned /c^/, p. 170. 
 
 ' ' Savage took all opportunities of conversing familiarly with those 
 who were most conspicuous at that time for their power or their in- 
 fluence ; he watched their looser moments, and examined their domes- 
 tic behaviour with that acuteness which nature had given him, and 
 which the uncommon variety of his life had contributed to increase, 
 and that inquisitiveness which must always be produced in a vigorous 
 mind by an absolute freedom from all pressing or domestic engage- 
 ments.' Johnson's Works, v\\\.\i'^. 
 
 '^ ' Thus he spent his time in mean expedients and tormenting sus- 
 pense, living for the greatest part in the fear of prosecutions from his 
 creditors, and consequently skulking in obscure parts of the town, of 
 which he was no stranger to the remotest corners.' lb. p. 165. 
 
 ^ Sir John Hawkins gives the world to understand, that Johnson, 
 ' being an admirer of genteel manners, was captivated by the address 
 and demeanour of Savage, who, as to his exterior, was, to a remarkable 
 degree, accomplished.' Hawkins's Life, p. 52. But Sir John's notions 
 of gentility must appear somewhat ludicrous, from his stating the fol- 
 lowing circumstance as presumptive evidence that Savage was a good 
 swordsman : ' That he understood the exercise of a gentleman's weap- 
 on, may be inferred from the use made of it in that rash encounter 
 which is related in his life.' The dexterity here alluded to was, that 
 Savage, in a nocturnal fit of drunkenness, stabbed a man at a coffee- 
 house, and killed him ; for which he was tried at the Old-Bailey, and 
 found guilty of murder. 
 
 Johnson, indeed, describes him as having ' a grave and manly de- 
 portment, a solemn dignity of mien ; but which, upon a nearer ac- 
 quaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners.' [John- 
 son's Works, v'ni. 187.] How highly Johnson admired him for that 
 knowledge which he himself so much cultivated, and what kindness 
 he entertained for him, appears from the following lines in the Crfi- 
 tlemans Magazme for April 1738, which I am assured were written 
 by Johnson : 
 
 It
 
 1 88 Dmin(^ bcJiind the screen. [a.d. 1744, 
 
 It is melancholy to reflect, that Johnson and Savage were 
 sometimes in such extreme indigence', that they could not 
 pay for a lodging ; so that they have wandered together 
 whole nights in the streets'. Yet in these almost incredible 
 
 'Ad RiCARDUM Savage. 
 ' Humanz siudhim generis cut pectore fervet 
 O colat huma7iiini tc fcn'catqtte genus! 
 BoswELL. The epigram is inscribed Ad Ricardum Savage, Arm. 
 Humani Generis Amatorem. Gent. Mag. viii. 210. 
 
 ' The following striking proof of Johnson's extreme indigence, when 
 he pubHshed the Life of Savage, was communicated to the author, by 
 Mr. Richard Stow, of Apsley, in Bedfordshire, from the information 
 of Mr. Walter Harte, author of the Life of Gust arms Adolphiis : 
 
 ' Soon after Savage's Life was published, Mr. Harte dined with 
 Edward Cave, and occasionally praised it. Soon after, meeting him, 
 Cave said, " You made a man very happy t'other day." — " How could 
 that be," says Harte; "nobody was there but ourselves." Cave an- 
 swered, 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 de- 
 lighted with the encomiums on his book.' M.a.lone. ' He desired 
 much to be alone, yet he always loved good talk, and often would get 
 behind the screen to hear it.' Great-Heart's account of Fearing, Pi/- 
 gritiis Progress, Part II. Harte was tutor to Lord Chesterfield's son. 
 S^e post, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's Co/tectanea, Sindi March 30, 1781. 
 
 ^ 'Johnson has told me that whole nights have been spent by him 
 and Savage in a perambulation round the squares of Westminster, 
 St. James's in particular, when all the money they could both raise 
 was less than sufficient to purchase for them the shelter and sordid 
 comforts of a night's cellar.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 53. Where was 
 Mrs. Johnson living at this time } This perhaps was the time of which 
 Johnson wrote, when, after telling of a silver cup which his mother 
 had bought him, and marked SAM. I., he says : — ' The cup was one of 
 the last pieces of plate which dear Tetty sold in our distress.' Ac- 
 cou7it of Johnson s Early Life, p. 18. Yet it is not easy to understand 
 how, if there was a lodging for her, there was not one for him. She 
 might have been living with friends. We have a statement by Haw- 
 kins fp. 89) that there was ' a temporary separation of Johnson from 
 his wife.' He adds that, 'while he was in a lodging in Fleet Street, 
 she was harboured by a friend near the Tower.' This separation, he 
 insinuates, rose by an estrangement caused by Johnson's ' indifference 
 in the discharge of the domestic virtues.' It is far more likely that it 
 rose from destitution. 
 
 scenes
 
 Aetat. 35.] Jolinso^i ill Want of a lodging. 189 
 
 scenes of distress, we may suppose that Savage mentioned 
 many of the anecdotes with which Johnson afterwards en- 
 riched the hfe of his unhappy companion, and those of other 
 Poets. 
 
 Me 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 situa- 
 tion ; 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^ ' 
 
 I am afraid, however, that by associating with Savage, who 
 was habituated to the dissipation and licentiousness of the 
 town, Johnson, though his good principles remained steady, 
 did not entirely preserve that conduct, for which, in days of 
 greater simplicity, he was remarked by his friend Mr. Hec- 
 tor; but was imperceptibly led into some indulgencies which 
 occasioned much distress to his virtuous mind^ 
 
 That Johnson was anxious that an authentick and favour- 
 able account of his extraordinary friend should first get 
 
 Shenstone, in a letter written in 1743, gives a curious account of the 
 streets of London through which Johnson wandered. He says : — 
 ' London is really dangerous at this time ; the pickpockets, formerly 
 content with mere filching, make no scruple to knock people down 
 with bludgeons in Fleet Street and the Strand, and that at no later 
 hour than eight o'clock at night ; but in the Piazzas, Covent Garden, 
 they come in large bodies, armed with coutcaiis, and attack whole par- 
 ties, so that the danger of coming out of the play-houses is of some 
 weight in the opposite scale, when I am disposed to go to them oftener 
 than I ought.' Shenstone's Works (3rd edit.), iii. 73. 
 
 ' ' Savage lodged as much by accident as he dined, and passed the 
 night sometimes in mean houses, . . . and sometimes, when he had 
 not money to support even the expenses of these receptacles, walked 
 about the streets till he was weary, and lay down in the summer upon 
 a bulk, or in the winter, with his associates in poverty, among the 
 ashes of a glasshouse. In this manner were passed those days and 
 those nights which nature had enabled him to have employed in ele- 
 vated speculations, useful studies, or pleasing conversation.' John- 
 son's Works, viii. 1 59. 
 
 * See ante, p. 109. 
 
 possession
 
 190 The Life of Savage. [a.d. 1744. 
 
 possession of the publick attention, is evident from a letter 
 which he wrote in the Geiitlevians Magazine for August of 
 the year preceding its pubHcation. 
 
 ' Mr. Urban, 
 
 ' As your collections show how often you have owed the orna- 
 ments of your poetical pages to the correspondence of the unfort- 
 unate and ingenious Mr. Savage, I doubt not but you have so 
 much regard to his memory as to encourage any design that may 
 have a tendency to the preservation of it from insults or calurnnies ; 
 and therefore, with some degree of assurance, intreat you to inform 
 the publick, that his life will speedily be published by a person who 
 was favoured with his confidence, and received from himself an 
 account of most of the transactions which he proposes to mention, 
 to the time of his retirement to Swansea in Wales. 
 
 ' From that period, to his death in the prison of Bristol, the ac- 
 count will be continued from materials still less liable to objection ; 
 his own letters, and those of his friends, some of which will be in- 
 serted in the work, and abstracts of others subjoined in the margin. 
 
 ' It may be reasonably imagined, that others may have the same 
 design ; but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same 
 materials, it must be expected they will supply from invention the 
 want of intelligence ; and that under the title of "The Life of 
 Savage," they will publish only a novel, filled with romantick ad- 
 ventures, and imaginary amours. You may therefore, perhaps, grat- 
 ify the lovers of truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them 
 in your Magazine, that my account will be published in 8vo. by 
 Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane \' 
 
 YNo sig)iatiire?[ 
 
 In February 1744, it accordingly came forth from the shop 
 
 ' Cave was the purchaser of the copyright, and the following is a 
 copy of Johnson's receipt for the money : — ' The 14th day of Decem- 
 ber, received of Mr. Ed. Cave the sum of fifteen guineas, in full, for 
 compiling and writing The Life of Richard Savage, Esq., deceased ; 
 and in full for all materials thereto applied, and not found by the said 
 Edward Cave. I say, received by me, Sam. Johnson. Dec. 14, 1743." 
 Wright. The title-page is as follows : — ' An account of the Life of 
 Mr. Richard Savage, son of the Earl Rivers. London. Printed for 
 J. Roberts, in Warwick-Lane, mdccxliv.' It reached a second edi- 
 tion in 1748, a third in 1767, and a fourth in 1769. A French transla- 
 tion was published in 1771. 
 
 of
 
 Aetat. 35.] Reynolds reads The Life of Savage. 191 
 
 of Roberts, between whom and Johnson I have not traced 
 any connection, except the casual one of this pubHcation'. 
 In Johnson's Life of Savage, although it must be allowed 
 that its moral is the reverse of — ' Respicere exemplar vttce 
 inoriimqiie jubebo^^ a very useful lesson is inculcated, to guard 
 men of warm passions from a too free indulgence of them ; 
 and the various incidents are related in so clear and animated 
 a manner, and illuminated throughout with so much philoso- 
 phy, that it is one of the most interesting narratives in the 
 English language. Sir Joshua Reynolds told me, that upon 
 his return from Italy^ he met with it in Devonshire, knowing 
 nothing of its authour, 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. The rapidity 
 with which this work was composed, is a wonderful circum- 
 stance. Johnson has been heard to say, ' I wrote forty-eight 
 of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sit- 
 ting; but then I sat up all night',' 
 
 He exhibits the genius of Savage to the best advantage 
 in the specimens of his poetry which he has selected, some 
 of which are of uncommon merit. We, indeed, occasionally 
 find such vigour and such point, as might make us suppose 
 that the generous aid of Johnson had been imparted to his 
 friend. Mr. Thomas Warton made this remark to me ; and, 
 in support of it, quoted from the poem entitled The Bastard, 
 a line, in which the fancied superiority of one ' stamped in 
 Nature's mint with extasy^' is contrasted with a regular law- 
 ful descendant of some great and ancient family: 
 
 ' Roberts published in 1745 Johnson's Observations on Macbeth. 
 See Gent. Mag. xv. 112, 224. 
 
 * Horace, Ars Poet tea, 1. 317. 
 
 ^ In the autumn of 1752. Northcote's Reynolds, i. 52. 
 
 " Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 35 [p. 55- Aug. 19, 
 1773]. BOSWELL. 
 
 ^- ' mint (■'/■ ecstasy :' Savage's Works {1777), ii. 91. 
 
 'No
 
 192 Resemblance of yohnson to Savage, [a.d. 1744. 
 
 'No tenth transmitter of a foolish face'.' 
 
 But the fact is, that this poem was published some years 
 before Johnson and Savage were acquainted". 
 
 > ' He lives to build, not boast a generous race : 
 
 No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.' 
 
 Savage's Works (1777), ii. 91. 
 
 "^ ' The Bastard : A poem, inscribed with all due reverence to Mrs. 
 Bret, once Countess of Macclesfield. By Richard Savage, son of the 
 late Earl Rivers. London, printed for T. Worrall, 1728.' Fol. first 
 edition. P. Cunningham. Between Savage's character, as drawn 
 by Johnson, and Johnson himself there are many points of likeness. 
 Each 'always preserved a steady confidence in his own capacity,' and 
 of each it might be said : — ' Whatever faults may be imputed to him, 
 the virtue of suffering well cannot be denied him.' Each ' excelled in 
 the arts of conversation and therefore willingly practised them.' In 
 Savage's refusal to enter a house till some clothes had been taken 
 away that had been left for him ' with some neglect of ceremonies,' 
 we have the counterpart of Johnson's throwing away the new pair of 
 shoes that had been set at his door. Of Johnson the following lines 
 are as true as of Savage: — 'His distresses, however afflictive, never 
 dejected him ; in his lowest state he wanted not spirit to assert the 
 natural dignity of wit, and was always ready to repress that insolence 
 which the superiority of fortune incited ; ... he never admitted any 
 gross familiarities, or submitted to be treated otherwise than as an 
 equal.' Of both men it might be said that ' it was in no time of his 
 life any part of his character to be the first of the company that de- 
 sired to separate.' Each 'would prolong his conversation till mid- 
 night, without considering that business might require his friend's 
 application in the morning;' and each could plead the same excuse 
 that, ' when he left his company, he was abandoned to gloomy reflec- 
 tions.' Each had the same ' accurate judgment,' the same ' quick 
 apprehension,' the same ' tenacious memory.' In reading such lines 
 as the following who does not think, not of the man whose biography 
 was written, but of the biographer himself? — 'He had the peculiar 
 felicity that his attention never deserted him ; he was present to every 
 object, and regardful of the most trifling occurrences ... To this 
 quality is to be imputed the extent of his knowledge, compared with 
 the small time which he spent in visible endeavours to acquire it. He 
 mingled in cursory conversation with the same steadiness of atten- 
 tion as others apply to a lecture ... His judgment was eminently ex- 
 act both with regard to writings and to men. The knowledge of life 
 was indeed his chief attainment.' Of Johnson's London, as of Savage's 
 
 It
 
 Aetat. 35.] JoJinsoii s prejudice against players. 193 
 
 It is remarkable, that in this biographical disquisition there 
 appears a very strong symptom of Johnson's prejudice against 
 players'; a prejudice which may be attributed to the follow- 
 ing causes: first, the imperfection of his organs, which were so 
 defective that he was not susceptible of the fine impressions 
 which theatrical excellence produces upon the generality of 
 mankind ; secondly, the cold rejection of his tragedy ; and, 
 lastly, the brilliant success of Garrick, who had been his pupil, 
 who had come to London at the same time with him, not 
 in a much more prosperous state than himself, and whose 
 talents he undoubtedly rated low, compared with his own. 
 His being outstripped by his pupil in the race of immediate 
 fame, as well as of fortune, probably made him feel some 
 indignation, as thinking that whatever might be Garrick's 
 merits in his art, the reward was too great when compared 
 with what the most successful efforts of literary labour could 
 attain. At all periods of his life Johnson used to talk con- 
 temptuously of players' ; but in this work he speaks of them 
 with peculiar acrimony ; for which, perhaps, there was for- 
 merly too much reason from the licentious and dissolute 
 manners of those engaged in that profession". It is but 
 
 The IVattderer, it might equally well be said : — ' Nor can it without 
 some degree of indignation and concern be told that he sold the copy 
 for ten guineas.' 
 
 ' ' Savage was now again abandoned to fortune without any other 
 friend than Mr. Wilks ; a man who, whatever were his abilities or skill 
 as an actor, deserves at least to be remembered for his virtues, which 
 are not often to be found in the world, and perhaps less often in his 
 profession than in others. To be humane, generous, and candid is a 
 very high degree of merit in any case, but those qualities deserve still 
 greater praise when they are found in that condition which makes 
 alrnost every other man, for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, 
 petulant, selfish, and brutal.' Johnson's Works, \'m. 107. 
 
 ■' In his old age he wrote as he had written in the vigour of his man- 
 hood :— ' To the censure of Collier ... he [Dryden] makes little reply ; 
 being at the age of sixty-eight attentive to better things than the claps 
 of a play-house.' Johnson's Works, vii. 295. S^Qpost, April 29, 1773, 
 and Sept. 21, 1777. 
 
 3 Johnson, writing of the latter half of the seventeenth century, 
 
 says : — ' The playhouse was abhorred by the Puritans, and avoided by 
 
 I. — 13 justice
 
 194 Garric/cs mistakes i7i etnphasis. [a.d. 1744. 
 
 justice to add, that in our own time such a change has taken 
 place, that there is no longer room for such an unfavourable 
 distinction'. 
 
 His schoolfellow and friend. Dr. Taylor, told me a pleasant 
 anecdote of Johnson's triumphing over his pupil David Gar- 
 rick. When that great actor had played some little time at 
 Goodman's Fields, Johnson and Taylor went to see him per- 
 form, and afterwards passed the evening at a tavern with him 
 and old Giffard\ Johnson, who was ever depreciating stage- 
 players, after censuring some mistakes in emphasis which 
 Garrick had committed in the course of that night's acting, 
 said, ' the players. Sir, have got a kind of rant, with which they 
 run on, without any regard either to accent or emphasis^' 
 Both Garrick and Giffard were offended at this sarcasm, 
 and endeavoured to refute it; upon which Johnson rejoined, 
 'Well now, I'll give you something to speak, with which you 
 
 those who desired the character of seriousness or decency. A grave 
 lawyer would have debased his dignity, and a young trader would 
 have impaired his credit, by appearing in those mansions of dissolute 
 licentiousness.' Johnson's Works, vii. 270. The following lines in 
 Churchill's Apology (Poems, i. 65), published in 1761, shew how strong, 
 even at that time, was the feeling against strolling players : — 
 ' The strolling tribe, a despicable race. 
 Like wand'ring Arabs shift from place to place. 
 Vagrants by law, to Justice open laid. 
 They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid. 
 And fawning cringe, for wretched means of life, 
 To Madam May'ress, or his Worship's Wife.' 
 ' Johnson himself recognises the change in the public estimation : 
 — ' In Dryden's time,' he writes, ' the drama was very far from that 
 universal approbation which it has now obtained.' Works, vii. 270. 
 
 ^ Giffard was the manager of the theatre in Goodman's Fields, where 
 Garrick, on Oct. 19, 1741, made his first appearance before a London 
 audience. Murphy's Garrick, pp. 13, 16. 
 
 ^ ' Colonel Pennington said, Garrick sometimes failed in emphasis ; 
 as, for instance, in Hamlet, 
 
 "I will speak daggers to her; but use none;" 
 instead of 
 
 "I v^'\\\ speak daggers to her; but use none."' 
 Bbswell's Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773. 
 
 are
 
 Aetat.35.] A Ycview ill The Champion. 195 
 
 are little acquainted, and then we shall see how just my ob- 
 servation is. That shall be the criterion. Let me hear you 
 repeat the ninth Commandment, " Thou shalt not bear false 
 witness against thy neighbour." ' Both tried at it, said Dr. 
 Taylor, and both mistook the emphasis, which should be upon 
 not 2iX\di false 2vitncss\ Johnson put them right, and enjoyed 
 his victory with great glee. 
 
 His Life of Savage was no sooner published, than the fol- 
 lowing liberal praise was given to it, in The Champion, a 
 periodical paper: 'This pamphlet is, without flattery to its 
 authour, as just and well written a piece as of its kind I ever 
 saw ; so that at the same time that it highly deserves, it 
 certainly stands very little in need of this recommendation. 
 As to the history of the unfortunate person, whose memoirs 
 compose this work, it is certainly penned with equal accuracy 
 and spirit, of which I am so much the better judge, as I know 
 many of the facts mentioned to be strictly true, and fairly 
 related. Besides, it is not only the story of Mr. Savage, but 
 innumerable incidents relating to other persons, and other 
 affairs, which renders this a very amusing, and, withal, a very 
 instructive and valuable performance. The authour's obser- 
 vations are short, significant, and just, as his narrative is re- 
 markably smooth, and well disposed. His reflections open 
 to all the recesses of the human heart ; and, in a word, a 
 more just or pleasant, a more engaging or a more improving 
 treatise, on all the excellencies and defects of human nat- 
 ure, is scarce to be found in our own, or, perhaps, any other 
 language\' 
 
 ' I suspect Dr. Taylor was inaccurate in this statement. The em- 
 phasis should be equally upon shalt and not, as both concur to form 
 the negative injunction ; dindfatse witness, like the other acts prohib- 
 ited in the Decalogue, should not be marked by any peculiar emphasis, 
 but only be distinctly enunciated. Boswell. 
 
 '^ This character of the L(fe of Savage was not written by Fielding 
 as has been supposed, but most probably by Ralph, who, as appears 
 from the minutes of the partners of The Champion, in the possession 
 of Mr. Reed of Staple Inn, succeeded Fielding in his share of the 
 paper, before the date of that eulogium. Boswell. Ralph is men- 
 Johnson's
 
 1 96 Parentage of Richard Savage. [a.d. 1744. 
 
 Johnson's partiality for Savage made him entertain no 
 doubt of his story, however extraordinary and improbable. 
 It never occurred to him to question his being the son of 
 the Countess of Macclesfield, of whose unrelenting barbarity 
 he so loudly complained, and the particulars of which are 
 related in so strong and affecting a manner in Johnson's life 
 of him. Johnson was certainly well warranted in publishing 
 his narrative, however offensive it might be to the lady and 
 her relations, because her alledged unnatural and cruel con- 
 duct to her son, and shameful avowal of guilt, were stated in 
 a Life of Savage now lying before me, which came out so 
 early as 1727, and no attempt had been made to confute it, 
 or to punish the authour or printer as a libeller: but for the 
 honour of human nature, we should be glad to find the shock- 
 ing tale not true ; and, from a respectable gentleman' con- 
 nected with the lady's family, I have received such informa- 
 tion and remarks, as joined to my own inquiries, will, I think, 
 render it at least somewhat doubtful, especially when we con- 
 sider that it must have originated from the person himself 
 who went by the name of Richard Savage. 
 
 If the maxim, fa/sum m iino, falsiim in omnibus, w&re to be 
 received without qualification, the credit of Savage's narra- 
 tive, as conveyed to us, would be annihilated ; for it contains 
 some assertions which, beyond a question, are not true". 
 
 I. In order to induce a belief that Earl Rivers, on ac- 
 count of a criminal connection with whom. Lady Macclesfield 
 is said to have been divorced from her husband, by Act of 
 
 tioned in T/te Duftczad, iii. 165. A curious account of him is given in 
 Benjamin Franklin's Memoirs, \. 54-87, and 245. 
 
 ' The late Francis Cockayne Cust, Esq., one of his Majesty's Coun- 
 sel. BOSWELL. 
 
 ^ ' Savage's veracity was questioned, but with little reason ; his ac- 
 counts, though not indeed always the same, were generally consistent. 
 When he loved any man, he suppressed all his faults : and, when he 
 had been offended by him, concealed all his virtues : but his charac- 
 ters were generally true so far as he proceeded ; though it cannot be 
 denied that his partiality might have sometimes the effect of false- 
 hood.' Johnson's Works, V\\\. \<^q. 
 
 Parliament,
 
 Aetat.35.] Parentage of RicJiard Savage. 197 
 
 Parliament", had a peculiar anxiety about the child which 
 she bore to him, it is alledged, that his Lordship gave him 
 his own name, and had it duly recorded in the register of 
 St. Andrew's, Holborn". I have carefully inspected that 
 register, but no such entry is to be found \ 
 
 2. It is stated, that ' Lady Macclesfield having lived for some 
 
 ' 1697. BOSWELL. 
 
 ^ Johnson's Works, viii. 98. 
 
 ^ The story on which Mr. Cust so much relies, that Savage was a 
 supposititious child, not the son of Lord Rivers and Lady Macclesfield, 
 but the offspring of a shoemaker, introduced in consequence of her 
 real son's death, was, without doubt, grounded on the circumstance of 
 Lady Macclesfield having, in 1696, previously to the birth of Savage, 
 had a daughter by the Earl Rivers, who died in her infancy ; a fact 
 which was proved in the course of the proceedings on Lord Maccles- 
 field's Bill of Divorce. Most fictions of this kind have some admixt- 
 ure of truth in them. Malone. From The Earl of Macclesfield's Case, 
 it appears that ' Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, under the name of 
 Madam Smith, in Fox Court, near Brook Street, Holborn, was deliv- 
 ered of a male child on the i6th of January, 1696-7, who was baptized 
 on the Monday following, the i8th, and registered by the name of 
 Richard, the son of John Smith, by Mr. Burbridge ; and, from the pri- 
 vacy, was supposed by Mr. Burbridge to be "a by-blow or bastard." ' 
 It also appears, that during her delivery, the lady wore a mask ; and 
 that Mary Pegler, on the next day after the baptism, took a male child, 
 whose mother was called Madam Smith, from the house of Mrs. 
 Pheasant, in Fox Court [running from Brook Street in Gray's Inn 
 Lane], who went by the name of Mrs. Lee. 
 
 Conformable to this statement is the entry in the register of St. 
 Andrew's, Holborn, which is as follows, and which unquestionably re- 
 cords the baptism of Richard Savage, to whom Lord Rivers gave his 
 own Christian name, prefixed to the assumed surname of his mother : 
 — 'Jan. 1696-7. Richard, son of John Smith and Mary, in Fox Court, 
 in Gray's Inn Lane, baptized the i8th.' Bindley. According to 
 Johnson's account Savage did not learn who his parents were till the 
 death of his nurse, who had always treated him as her son. Among 
 her papers he found some letters written by Lady Macclesfield's 
 mother proving his origin. Johnson's Works, x\n. 102. Why these 
 letters were not laid before the public is not stated. Johnson was 
 one of the least credulous of men, and he was convinced by Savage's 
 story. Horace Walpole, too, does not seem to have doubted it. Wal- 
 pole's Letters, i, cv. 
 
 time
 
 198 Lady Macclesfield's divorce. [a.d. 1744. 
 
 time upon very uneasy terms with her husband, thought a 
 pubhck confession of adultery the most obvious and ex- 
 peditious method of obtaining her hberty';' and Johnson, 
 assuming this to be true, stigmatises her with indignation, as 
 'the wretch who had, without scruple, proclaimed herself an 
 adulteress\' But I have perused the Journals of both houses 
 of Parliament at the period of her divorce, and there find it 
 authentically ascertained, that so far from voluntarily sub- 
 mitting to the ignominious charge of adultery, she made a 
 strenuous defence by her Counsel ; the bill having been first 
 moved 15th January, 1697, in the House of Lords, and pro- 
 ceeded on, (with various applications for time to bring up 
 witnesses at a distance, &c.) at intervals, till the 3d of March, 
 when it passed. It was brought to the Commons, by a mes- 
 sage from the Lords, the 5th of March, proceeded on the 
 7th, loth, nth, 14th, and 15th, on which day, after a full ex- 
 amination of witnesses on both sides, and hearing of Counsel, 
 it was reported without amendments, passed, and carried to 
 the Lords. 
 
 That Lady Macclesfield was convicted of the crime of 
 which she was accused, cannot be denied ; but the question 
 now is, whether the person calling himself Richard Savage 
 was her son. 
 
 It has been said^ that when Earl Rivers was dying, and 
 anxious to provide for all his natural children, he was in- 
 formed by Lady Macclesfield that her son by him was dead. 
 Whether, then, shall we believe that this was a malignant lie, 
 invented by a mother to prevent her own child from receiv- 
 ing the bounty of his father, which was accordingly the con- 
 sequence, if the person whose life Johnson wrote, was her 
 son ; or shall we not rather believe that the person who then 
 assumed the name of Richard Savage was an impostor, being 
 in reality the son of the shoemaker, under whose wife's care* 
 
 ' Johnson's Works, viii. 97. * lb. p. 142. ' lb. p. loi. 
 
 * According to Johnson's account (Johnson's JVorks, viii. 102), the 
 shoemaker under whom Savage was placed on trial as an apprentice 
 was not the husband of his nurse. 
 
 Lady
 
 Aetat.So.] Lady Macclesfield's alleged cruelly. 199 
 
 Lady Macclesfield's child was placed; that after the death of 
 the real Richard Savage, he attempted to personate him ; 
 and that the fraud being known to Lady Macclesfield, he 
 was therefore repulsed by her with just resentment ? 
 
 There is a strong circumstance in support of the last sup- 
 position, though it has been mentioned as an aggravation of 
 Lady Macclesfield's unnatural conduct, and that is, her hav- 
 ing prevented him from obtaining the benefit of a legacy left 
 to him by Mrs. Lloyd his god-mother. For if there was such 
 a legacy left, his not being able to obtain payment of it, must 
 be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real 
 person. The just inference should be, that by the death of 
 Lady Macclesfield's child before its god-mother, the legacy 
 became lapsed, and therefore that Johnson's Richard Savage 
 was an impostor. If he had a title to the legacy, he could 
 not have found any difiiculty in recovering it ; for had the 
 executors resisted his claim, the whole costs, as well as the 
 legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the 
 child to whom it was given'. 
 
 The talents of Savage, and the mingled fire, rudeness, 
 pride, meanness, and ferocity of his character^ concur in 
 making it credible that he was fit to plan and carry on an 
 ambitious and daring scheme of imposture, similar instances 
 of which have not been wanting in higher spheres, in the 
 history of different countries, and have had a considerable 
 degree of success. 
 
 * He was in his tenth year when she died. ' He had none to prose- 
 cute his claim, to shelter him from oppression, or call in law to the 
 assistance of justice.' Johnson's Works, viii. p. 99. 
 
 * Johnson's companion appears to have persuaded that lofty-minded 
 man, that he resembled him m having a noble pride ; for Johnson, 
 after painting in strong colours the quarrel between Lord Tyrconnel 
 and Savage, asserts that ' the spirit of Mr. Savage, indeed, never suflfered 
 him to solicit a reconciliation : he returned reproach for reproach, and 
 insult for insult.' [/^. p. 141.] But the respectable gentleman to 
 whom I have alluded, has in his possession a letter from Savage, after 
 Lord Tyrconnel had discarded him, addressed to the Reverend Mr. 
 Gilbert, his Lordship's Chaplain, in which he requests him, in the 
 humblest manner, to represent his case to the Viscount. BoswEU.. 
 
 Yet,
 
 200 Lord Tyrcoiinel. [a.d. 1744. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, to the companion of Johnson, 
 (who through whatever medium he was conveyed into this 
 world, — be it ever so doubtful ' To whom related, or by 
 whom begot V was, unquestionably, a man of no common 
 endowments,) we must allow the weight of general repute 
 as to his Status or parentage, though illicit ; and supposing 
 him to be an impostor, it seems strange that Lord Tyrcon- 
 nel, the nephew of Lady Macclesfield, should patronise him, 
 and even admit him as a guest in his family\ Lastly, it 
 must ever appear very suspicious, that three different ac- 
 counts of the Life of Richard Savage, one published in The 
 Plain Dealer, in 1724, another in 1727, and another by the 
 powerful pen of Johnson, in 1744, and all of them while 
 Lady Macclesfield was alive, should, notwithstanding the 
 severe attacks upon her', have been suffered to pass without 
 any publick and effectual contradiction. 
 
 ' How loved, how honoured once, avails thee not, 
 To whom related, or by whom begot.' 
 
 Pope's Elegy to the Memory of an Unforttinate Lady. 
 
 * Trusting to Savage's information, Johnson represents this unhappy 
 man's being received as a companion by Lord Tyrconnel, and pensioned 
 by his Lordship, as if posteriour to Savage's conviction and pardon. 
 But I am assured, that Savage had received the voluntary bounty of 
 Lord Tyrconnel, and had been dismissed by him, long before the mur- 
 der was committed, and that his Lordship was very instrumental in 
 procuring Savage's pardon, by his intercession with the Queen, through 
 Lady Hertford. If, therefore, he had been desirous of preventing the 
 publication by Savage, he would have left him to his fate. Indeed I 
 must observe, that although Johnson mentions that Lord Tyrconnel's 
 patronage of Savage was ' upon his promise to lay aside his design of 
 exposing the cruelty of his mother,' [Johnson's Works, \\\\. 124], the 
 great biographer has forgotten that he himself has mentioned, that 
 Savage's story had been told several years before in The Plaz'ti Dealer ; 
 from which he quotes this strong saying of the generous Sir Richard 
 Steele, that 'the inhumanity of his mother had given him a right to 
 find every good man his father.' [//;. p. 104.] At the same time it 
 must be acknowledged, that Ladj^ Macclesfield and her relations might 
 still wish that her story should not be brought into more conspicuous 
 notice by the satirical pen of Savage. Boswell. 
 
 3 According to Johnson, she was at Bath when Savage's poem of 
 
 I have
 
 Aetat. 85.] Lady Macclesfield's latter career'. 201 
 
 I have thus endeavoured to sum up the evidence upon 
 the case, as fairly as I can ; and the result seems to be, that 
 the world must vibrate in a state of uncertainty as to what 
 was the truth. 
 
 This digression, I trust, will not be censured, as it relates 
 to a matter exceedingly curious, and very intimately con- 
 nected with Johnson, both as a man and an authour'. 
 
 The Bastard was published. ' She could not,' he wrote, ' enter the 
 assembly-rooms or cross the walks without being saluted with some 
 lines from The Bastard. This was perhaps the first time that she ever 
 discovered a sense of shame, and on this occasion the power of wit 
 was very conspicuous; the wretch who had without scruple proclaimed 
 herself an adulteress, and who had first endeavoured to starve her son, 
 then to transport him, and afterwards to hang him, was not able to 
 bear the representation of her own conduct ; but fled from reproach, 
 though she felt no pain from guilt, and left Bath with the utmost 
 haste to shelter herself among the crowds of London.' Johnson's 
 Works, viii. 141. 
 
 ' Miss Mason, after having forfeited the title of Lady Macclesfield 
 by divorce, was married to Colonel Brett, and, it is said, was well 
 known in all the polite circles. CoUey Gibber, I am informed, had so 
 high an opinion of her taste and judgement as to genteel life, and 
 manners, that he submitted every scene of his Careless Husband to 
 Mrs. Brett's revisal and correction. Colonel Brett was reported to be 
 too free in his gallantry with his Lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came into 
 a room one day in her own house, and found the Colonel and her 
 maid both fast asleep in two chairs. She tied a white handkerchief 
 round her husband's neck, which was a sufficient proof that she had 
 discovered his intrigue ; but she never at any time took notice of it 
 to him. This incident, as I am told, gave occasion to the well-wrought 
 scene of Sir Charles and Lady Easy and Edging. Boswell. Lady 
 Macclesfield died 1753, aged above 80. Her eldest daughter, by Col. 
 Brett, was, for the few last months of his life, the mistress of George 
 L (Walpole's Reminiscences, i. cv.) Her marriage ten years after her 
 royal lover's death is thus announced in the Gent. Mag., 1737: — 'Sept. 
 17. Sir IV. Leman, of Nor t hall, Bart., to Miss Brett [Britt] of Bond 
 Street, aft heiress ;' and again next month — ' Oct. 8. Sir William Le- 
 man, of Northall, Baronet, to Miss Brett, half sister to Mr. Savage, son 
 to the late Earl Rivers ;' for the difference of date I know not how to 
 account ; but the second insertion was, no doubt, made by Savage to 
 countenance his own pretensions. Croker. 
 
 He
 
 202 Observations on Macbeth. [a.d. 1746. 
 
 He this year wrote the Preface to the Harleiaii Miscel- 
 la7iy\^ The selection of the pamphlets of which it was 
 composed was made by Mr. 01dys^ a man of eager curiosity 
 and indefatigable diligence, who first exerted that spirit of 
 inquiry into the literature of the old English writers, by 
 which the works of our great dramatick poet have of late 
 been so signally illustrated. 
 
 In 1745 he published a pamphlet entitled Miscellaneous 
 Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks on 
 Sir T. H.'s {Sir Thomas Hamners) Edition of Shakspearer" 
 To which he affixed, proposals for a new edition of that 
 poet\ 
 
 As we do not trace any thing else published by him during 
 the course of this year, we may conjecture that he was occu- 
 pied entirely with that work. But the little encouragement 
 
 ' 'Among the names of subscribers to the Harlcmn Miscellany 
 there occurs that of " Sarah Johnson, bookseller in Lichfield." ' JoJin- 
 soniana, p. 466. 
 
 ■•^ A brief account of Oldys is given in the Gc7ii. Mag. liv. 161, 260. 
 Like so many of his fellows he was thrown into the Fleet. ' After 
 poor Oldys's release, such was his affection for the place that he con- 
 stantly spent his evenings there.' 
 
 ^ In the Feb. number of the Gent. Mag. for this year (p. 112) is 
 the following advertisement: — 'Speedily will be published (price ij-.) 
 Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks 
 on Sir T. H.'s edition of Shakespcar ; to which is affix'd proposals for 
 a new edition of Shakespcar, with a specimen. Printed for J. Roberts 
 in Warwick Lane.' In the March number (p. 114), under the date of 
 March 31, it is announced that it will be published on April 6. In 
 spite of the two advertisements, and the title-page which agrees with 
 the advertisements, I believe that the Proposals were not published 
 till eleven years later {see post, end of 1756). I cannot hear of any 
 copy of the Miscellaneous Observations which contains them. The 
 advertisement is a third time repeated in the April number of the 
 Cc?tt. Mag. for 1745 (p. 224), but the Proposals are not this time men- 
 tioned. Tom Davies the bookseller gives 1756 as the date of their 
 publication {Misc. and Fugitive Pieces, ii. 2>7). Perhaps Johnson or 
 the booksellers were discouraged by Hanmer's Shakespeare as well as 
 by Warburton's. Johnson at the end of the Miscellaneous Observa- 
 tions says : — ' After the foregoing pages were printed, the late edition 
 of Shakespeare ascribed to Sir T. H. fell into my hands.' 
 
 which
 
 Aetat. 37.] The Rebellion of 1745. 203 
 
 which was given by the pubHck to his anonymous pro- 
 posals for the execution of a task which Warburton was 
 known to have undertaken, probably damped his ardour. 
 His pamphlet, however, was highly esteemed, and was for- 
 tunate enough to obtain the approbation even of the super- 
 cilious Warburton himself, who, in the Preface to his Shaks- 
 peare published two years afterwards, thus mentioned it : 
 ' As to all those things which have been published under 
 the titles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, &c. on Shaks- 
 peare, if you except some critical notes on Macbeth, given as 
 a specimen of a projected edition, and written, as appears, 
 by a man of parts and genius, the rest are absolutely below 
 a serious notice.' 
 
 Of this flattering distinction shewn to him by Warburton, 
 a very grateful remembrance was ever entertained by John- 
 son, who said, ' He praised me at a time when praise was of 
 value to me.' 
 
 1746: /ETAT. 37.] — In 1746 it is probable that he was still 
 employed upon his Shakspeare, which perhaps he laid aside 
 for a time, upon account of the high expectations which 
 were formed of Warburton's edition of that great poet'. It 
 is somewhat curious, that his literary career appears to have 
 been almost totally suspended in the years 1745 and 1746, 
 those years which were marked by a civil war in Great- 
 Britain, when a rash attempt was made to restore the House 
 of Stuart to the throne. That he had a tenderness for that 
 unfortunate House, is well known ; and some may fancifully 
 imagine, that a sympathetick anxiety impeded the exertion 
 of his intellectual powers : but I am inclined to think, that 
 he was, during this time, sketching the outlines of his great 
 philological work^ 
 
 ' ' The excellence of the edition proved to be by no means proportion- 
 ate to the arrogance of the editor.' Catnbridge Shakespeare, i. xxxiv. 
 
 "^ 'When you see Mr. Johnson pray [give] my compliments, and tell 
 him I esteem him as a great genius — quite lost both to himself and 
 the world.' Gilbert Walmesley to Garrick, Nov. 3, 1746. Garrick Cor- 
 respondence, i. 45. Mr. Walmesley 's letter docs not shew that Johnson 
 was idle. The old man had expected great things from him. ' I have 
 
 None
 
 204 jfohnson not an ardejit yacobite. [a.d. 1747. 
 
 None of his letters during those years are extant, so far 
 as I can discover. This is much to be regretted. It might 
 
 great hopes,' he had written in 1737 (see <7«/^, p. 118), 'that he will 
 turn out a fine tragedy writer.' In the nine years in which Johnson 
 had been in town he had done, no doubt, much admirable work ; but 
 by his poem of Lo7idon only was he known to the public. His Life 
 of Savage did not bear his name. His Observations on Macbeth were 
 published in April, 1745 ; his Plan of the Dictionary in 1747. What 
 was Johnson doing meanwhile.^ Boswell conjectures that he was 
 engaged on his Shakespeare and his Dictionary. That he went on 
 working at his Shakespeare when the prospect of publishing was so 
 remote that he could not issue his proposals is very unlikely. That 
 he had been for some time engaged on his Dictionary before he ad- 
 dressed Lord Chesterfield is shewn by the opening sentences of the 
 Plan. Mr. Croker's conjecture that he was absent or concealed on 
 account of some difficulties which had arisen through the rebellion 
 of 1745 is absurd. At no time of his life had he been an ardent Jaco- 
 bite. 'I have heard him declare,' writes Boswell, ' that if holding 
 up his right hand would have secured victory at Culloden to Prince 
 Charles's army, he was not sure he would have held it up ;' post, July 
 14, 1763. 'He had never in his life been in a nonjuring meeting- 
 house ;' post, June 9, 1784. 
 
 For the fact that he wrote very little, if indeed anything, in the 
 Gent. Mag. during these years more than one reason may be given. 
 In the first place, public affairs take up an unusual amount of room 
 in its columns. Thus in the number for Dec. 1745 we read: — 'Our 
 readers being too much alarmed by the present rebellion to relish 
 with their usual delight the Debates in the Senate of Lilliput we shall 
 postpone them for a season, that we may be able to furnish out a 
 fuller entertainment of what we find to be more suitable to their 
 present taste.' In the Preface it is stated : — ' We have sold more of 
 our books than we desire for several months past, and are heartily 
 sorry for the occasion of it, the present troubles.' During these years 
 then much less space was given to literature. But besides this, John- 
 son likely enough refused to write for the Magazifie when it shewed 
 itself strongly Hanoverian. He would highly disapprove of A New 
 Protestant Litany, which was written after the following fashion : — 
 'May Spaniards, or French, all who join with a Highland, 
 In disturbing the peace of this our bless'd island, 
 Meet tempests on sea and halters on dry land. 
 We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.' 
 
 Gent. Mag. xv. 551. 
 He would be disgusted the following year at seeing the Duke of 
 
 afford
 
 Aetat.38.] The LifE OF AlFRED. 205 
 
 afford some entertainment to see how he then expressed 
 himself to his private friends, concerning State affairs. Dr. 
 Adams informs me, that ' at this time a favourite object 
 which he had in contemplation was The Life of Alfred ; in 
 which, from the warmth with which he spoke about it, he 
 would, I believe, had he been master of his own will, have 
 engaged himself, rather than on any other subject.' 
 
 1747 : ^TAT. 38.] — In 1747 it is supposed that the Gentlc- 
 ina?is magazine for May was enriched by him with five' 
 short poetical pieces, distinguished by three asterisks. The 
 first is a translation, or rather a paraphrase, of a Latin 
 Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer. Whether the Latin was 
 his, or not, I have never heard, though I should think it 
 probably was, if it be certain that he wrote the English^; 
 as to which my only cause of doubt is, that his slighting 
 character of Hanmer as an editor, in his Observations on 
 Macbeth, is very different from that in the ' Epitaph.' It 
 may be said, that there is the same contrariety between the 
 character in the Observations, and that in his own Preface to 
 Shakspeare' ; but a considerable time elapsed between the 
 
 Cumberland praised as ' the greatest man alive ' {Gent. Mag. xvi. 235), 
 and sung in verse that would have almost disgraced Cibber (p. 36). 
 It is remarkable that there is no mention of Johnson's Plan of a Dtc- 
 tio7iary in the Magazine. Perhaps some coolness had risen between 
 him and Cave. 
 
 * Boswell proceeds to mention six. 
 
 "^ In Mrs. Williams's Miscellafiies, in which this paraphrase is in- 
 serted, it is stated that the Latin epitaph was written by Dr. Freind. 
 I do not think that the English version is by Johnson. I should be 
 sorry to ascribe to him such lines as : — 
 
 ' Illustrious age ! how bright thy glories shone, 
 When Hanmer filled the chair — and Anne the throne.' 
 ' In the Observations, Johnson, writing of Hanmer, says: — 'Surely 
 the weapons of criticism ought not to be blunted against an editor 
 who can imagine that he is restoring poetry while he is amusing 
 himself with alterations like these : — 
 For, — This is the sergeant 
 
 Who like a good and hardy soldier fought ; 
 
 — This is the sergeant who 
 
 Like a rzght good and hardy soldier fought. 
 
 one
 
 2o6 Poems wrongly assigned to yohnson. [a.d. 1747. 
 
 one publication and the other, whereas the Observations and 
 the ' Epitaph ' came close together. The others are ' To 
 Miss , on her giving the Authour a gold and silk net- 
 work Purse of her own weaving ;' ' Stella in Mourning ;' 
 ' The Winter's Walk ;' ' An Ode ;' and, ' To Lyce, an elderly 
 Lady.' I am not positive that all these were his produc- 
 tions'; but as 'The Winter's Walk' has never been contro- 
 verted to be his, and all of them have the same mark, it is 
 reasonable to conclude that they are all written by the same 
 hand. Yet to the Ode, in which we find a passage very 
 characteristick of him, being a learned description of the 
 gout, 
 
 'Unhappy, whom to beds of pain 
 Arthritick tyranny consigns ;' 
 
 Such harmless industry may surely be forgiven, if it cannot be praised ; 
 may he therefore never want a monosyllable who can use it with 
 such wonderful dexterity.' Johnson's Works, v. 93. In his Preface 
 to Shakespeare published eighteen years later, he describes Hanmer 
 as ' A man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for such 
 studies.' lb. p. 139. The editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare 
 (i. xxxii) thus write of Hanmer ; — ' A country gentleman of great in- 
 genuity and lively fancy, but with no knowledge of older literature, 
 no taste for research, and no ear for the rhythm of earlier English 
 verse, amused his leisure hours by scribbling down his own and his 
 friend's guesses in Pope's Shakespeare.' 
 
 ■ In the Universal Visiter, to which Johnson contributed, the mark 
 which is affixed to some pieces unquestionably his, is also found sub- 
 joined to others, of which he certainly was not the author. The mark 
 therefore will not ascertain the poems in question to have been writ- 
 ten by him. They were probably the productions of Hawkesworth, 
 who, it is believed, was afflicted with the gout. Malone. 
 
 It is most unlikely that Johnson wrote such poor poems as these. 
 I shall not easily be persuaded that the following lines are his : — 
 ' Love warbles in the vocal groves, 
 
 And vegetation paints the plain.' 
 ' And love and hate alike implore 
 
 The skies — "That Stella mourn no more."' 
 
 ' The Winter's Walk ' has two good lines, but these may have been 
 supplied by Johnson. The lines to ' Lyce, an elderly Lady,' would, if 
 written by him, have been taken as a satire on his wife. 
 
 there
 
 Aetat,38.] Poems wrongly assigned to Johnson. 207 
 
 there is the following note : ' The authour being ill of the 
 gout :' but Johnson was not attacked with that distemper 
 till at a very late period of his life'. May not this, however, 
 be a poetical fiction ? Why may not a poet suppose himself 
 to have the gout, as well as suppose himself to be in love, 
 of which we have innumerable instances, and which has 
 been admirably ridiculed by Johnson in his Life of Cowley"^? 
 I have also some difficulty to believe that he could produce 
 such a group of conceits^ as appear in the verses to Lyce, in 
 which he claims for this ancient personage as good a right to 
 be assimilated to heaven, as nymphs whom other poets have 
 flattered ; he therefore ironically ascribes to her the at- 
 tributes of the sky, in such stanzas as this : 
 
 ' Her teeth the night with darkness dies. 
 She's starred with pimples o'er ; 
 Her tongue like nimble lightning plies. 
 And can with thunder roar,' 
 
 But as at a very advanced age he could condescend to 
 trifle in namby-pamby" rhymes, to please Mrs. Thrale and her 
 daughter, he may have, in his earlier years, composed such a 
 piece as this. 
 
 It is remarkable, that in this first edition of The Winter s 
 Walk, the concluding line is much more Johnsonian than 
 it was afterwards printed ; for in subsequent editions, after 
 praying Stella to ' snatch him to her arms,' he says, 
 
 'And shield me from the ills of life.' 
 
 Whereas in the first edition it is 
 
 'And hide me from the sight of life.' 
 
 ' See post under Sept. 18, 1783. 
 
 ^ See Johnson's Works, vii. 4, 34. 
 
 ' Boswell italicises conceits to shew that he is using it in the sense 
 in which Johnson uses it in his criticism of Cowley: — 'These conceits 
 Addison calls mixed wit ; that is, wit which consists of thoughts true 
 in one sense of the expression and false in the other.' lb. vii. 35. 
 
 * Namby Pamby was the name given to Ambrose Philips by Pope. 
 
 lb. viii. 395. 
 
 A horrour
 
 2o8 Verses on Lord Lovat. [a.d. 1747. 
 
 A horrour at life in general is more consonant with John- 
 son's habitual gloomy cast of thought. 
 
 I have heard him repeat with great energy the following 
 verses, which appeared in the Gentleman s Magazine for 
 April this year ; but I have no authority to say they were 
 his own. Indeed one of the best criticks of our age' suggests 
 to me, that ' the word indijfercjitly being used in the sense of 
 zuithont concern,' and being also very unpoetical, renders it 
 improbable that they should have been his composition. 
 
 ' On Lord Lovat's Execution. 
 
 ' Pity'd by gentle minds Kilmarnock died ; 
 The brave, Balmerino, were on thy side ; 
 Radcliffe, unhappy in his crimes of youth ", 
 Steady in what he still mistook for truth. 
 Beheld his death so decently unmov'd. 
 The soft lamented, and the brave approv'd. 
 
 ^ Malone most likely is meant. Mr. Croker says: — 'Johnson has 
 " indifferently " in the sense of " without coticern " in his Dictionary, 
 with this example from Shakespeare, ' And I will look on death in- 
 differently." ' Johnson however here defines indifferently as in a 
 fteutral state ; without wish or aversion; which is not the same as 
 without concern. The passage, which is from Julius Co'sar, i. 2, is not 
 correctly given. It is — 
 
 ' Set honour in one eye and death i' the other 
 And I will look on both indifferently.' 
 We may compare Johnson's use of indifferent in his Letter to Chester- 
 field, /t;^/, Feb. 7, 1755 : — 'The notice which you have been pleased to 
 take of my labours . . . has been delayed till I am indift'erent, and can- 
 not enjoy it.' 
 
 ^ ' Radcliffe, when quite a boy, had been engaged in the rebellion 
 of 171 5, and being attainted had escaped from Newgate. . . . During 
 the insurrection [of 1745], having been captured on board a French 
 vessel bound for Scotland, he was arraigned on his original sentence 
 which had slumbered so long. The only trial now conceded to him 
 was confined to his identity. For such a course there was no prec- 
 edent, except in the case of Sir Walter Raleigh, which had brought 
 shame upon the reign of James I.' Campbell's Chancellors (edit. 
 1846), V. 108. Campbell adds, 'his execution, I think, reflects great 
 disgrace upon Lord Hardwicke [the Lord Chancellor].' 
 
 But
 
 Aetat.38.] A Prologue by Johnson. 209 
 
 But Lovat's fate' indifferently we view, 
 True to no Kitig, to no religion true : 
 No fair forgets the ruin he has done ; 
 No child laments the tyrant of his son; 
 No tory pities, thinking what he was ; 
 No whig compassionSjT^r he left the cause ; 
 The brave regret not, for he was not brave ; 
 The honest mourn not, knowing him a knave' !' 
 
 This year his old pupil and friend, David Garrick, having 
 become joint patentee and manager of Drury-lane theatre, 
 Johnson honoured his opening of it with a Prologue',* 
 which for just and manly dramatick criticism, on the whole 
 range of the English stage, as well as for poetical excellence\ 
 
 * In the original e7id. 
 
 ■ These verses are somewhat too severe on the extraordinary person 
 who is the chief figure in them, for he was undoubtedly brave. His 
 pleasantry during his solemn trial (in which, by the way, I have heard 
 Mr. David Hume observe, that we have one of the very few speeches 
 of Mr. Murray, now Earl of Mansfield, authentically given) was very 
 remarkable. When asked if he had any questions to put to Sir 
 Everard Fawkener, who was one of the strongest witnesses against 
 him, he answered, ' I only wish him joy of his young wife.' And after 
 sentence of death, in the horrible terms in cases of treason, was pro- 
 nounced upon him, and he was retiring from the bar, he said, ' Fare 
 you well, my Lords, we shall not all meet again in one place.' He 
 behaved with perfect composure at his execution, and called out 
 ' Dulce ei decorum est pro patrid mori.' 
 
 [' What joys, what glories round him wait, 
 Who bravely for his country dies !' 
 
 Francis. Horace, C(r/^^, iii. 2. 13.] Boswell. 
 ' Old Lovat was beheaded yesterday,' wrote Horace Walpole on 
 April 10, 1747, 'and died extremely well: without passion, affectation, 
 buffoonery, or timidity ; his behaviour was natural and intrepid.' 
 Letters, ii. ']']. 
 
 ^ S>Q.& post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. 
 
 * My friend, Mr. Courtenay, whose eulogy on Johnson's Latin Poetry 
 has been inserted in this Work [ante, p. 72], is no less happy in prais- 
 ing his English poetry. 
 
 But hark, he sings ! the strain ev'n Pope admires ; 
 Indignant virtue her own bard inspires. 
 L— 14 is
 
 2IO The Plan of the Dictionary, [a.d. 1747. 
 
 is unrivalled. Like the celebrated Epilogue to the Dis- 
 tressed Mot]ier\ it was, during the season, often called for by 
 the audience. The most striking and brilliant passages of it 
 have been so often repeated, and are so well recollected by 
 all the lovers of the drama and of poetry, that it would be 
 superfluous to point them out. In the Gentleman s Magazine 
 for December this year, he inserted an ' Ode on Winter,' 
 which is, I think, an admirable specimen of his genius for 
 lyrick poetry\ 
 
 But the year 1747 is distinguished as the epoch, when 
 Johnson's arduous and important work, his DICTIONARY OF 
 THE English Language, was announced to the world, by 
 the publication of its Plan or Prospectus. 
 
 How long this immense undertaking had been the object 
 of his contemplation, I do not know. I once asked him by 
 what means he had attained to that astonishing knowledge 
 of our language, by which he was enabled to realise a design 
 of such extent, and accumulated dif^culty. He told me, 
 that ' it was not the effect of particular study ; but that it 
 had grown up in his mind insensibly.' I have been informed 
 by Mr. James Dodsley, that several years before this period, 
 
 Sublime as Juvenal he pours his lays, 
 And with the Roman shares congenial praise ; — 
 In glowing numbers now he fires the age, 
 And Shakspeare's sun relumes the clouded stage. Boswell. 
 ' The play is by Ambrose Philips. ' It was concluded with the 
 most successful Epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the English 
 theatre. The three first nights it was recfted twice ; and not only 
 continued to be demanded through the run, as it is termed, of the 
 play ; but, whenever it is recalled to the stage, where by peculiar 
 fortune, though a copy from the French, it yet keeps its place, the 
 Epilogue is still expected, and is still spoken.' Johnson's Works, viii. 
 389. ?>Q& post, April 21, 1773, note on Eustace Budgel. The Epilogue 
 is given in vol. v. p. 228 of Bohn's Addison, and the great success that 
 it met with is described in T/ie Spectator, No. 341. 
 " Such poor stuff as the following is certainly not by Johnson : — 
 ' Let musick sound the voice of joy ! 
 Or mirth repeat the jocund tale ; 
 Let Love his wanton wiles employ, 
 And o'er the season wine prevail.' 
 
 when
 
 Aetat. 38.] ThE PlAN OF THE DICTIONARY. 211 
 
 when Johnson was one day sitting in his brother Robert's 
 shop, he heard his brother suggest to him, that a Dictionary 
 of the EngHsh Language would be a work that would be 
 well received by the publick' ; that Johnson seemed at first 
 to catch at the proposition, but, after a pause, said, in his 
 abrupt decisive manner, ' I believe I shall not undertake it.' 
 That he, however, had bestowed much thought upon the 
 subject, before he published his Plan, is evident from the en- 
 larged, clear, and accurate views which it exhibits ; and we 
 find him mentioning in that tract, that many of the writers 
 whose testimonies were to be produced as authorities, were 
 selected by Pope* ; which proves that he had been furnished, 
 probably by Mr. Robert Dodsley, with whatever hints that 
 eminent poet had contributed towards a great literary proj- 
 ect, that had been the subject of important consideration in 
 a former reign. 
 
 The booksellers who contracted with Johnson, single and 
 unaided, for the execution of a work, which in other coun- 
 tries has not been effected but by the co-operating exertions 
 of many, were Mr. Robert Dodsley, Mr. Charles Hitch', Mr. 
 Andrew Millar, the two Messieurs Longman, and the two 
 Messieurs Knapton. The price stipulated was fifteen hun- 
 dred and seventy-five pounds\ 
 
 ' ' Dodsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English Diction- 
 ary ; but I had long thought of it.' Post, Oct. lo, 1779. 
 
 * It would seem from the passage to which Boswell refers that Pope 
 had wished that Johnson should undertake the Dictimiary. Johnson, 
 in mentioning Pope, says : — ' Of whom I may be justified in affirming 
 that were he still alive, solicitous as he was for the success of this 
 work, he would not be displeased that I have undertaken it.' Works, 
 v. 20. As Pope died on May 30, 1744, this renders it likely that the 
 work was begun earlier than Boswell thought. 
 
 ^ In the title-page of the first edition after the name of Hitch comes 
 that of L. Hawes. 
 
 * ' During the progress of the work he had received at different 
 times the amount of his contract ; and when his receipts were pro- 
 duced to him at a tavern-dinner given by the booksellers, it appeared 
 that he had been paid a hundred pounds and upwards more than his 
 due.' Murphy's 7<?/^;^^£?;/, p. 78- See /^j/, beginning of 1756. 
 
 The
 
 212 Address to the Earl of Chesterfield, [a.d. 1747. 
 
 The Plan was addressed to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chester- 
 field, then one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of 
 State' ; a nobleman who was veiy ambitious of literary dis- 
 tinction, and who, upon being informed of the design, had 
 expressed himself in terms very favourable to its success. 
 There is, perhaps in every thing of any consequence, a secret 
 history which it would be amusing to know, could we have 
 it authentically communicated. Johnson told me\ ' Sir,. the 
 way in which the Plan of my Dictionary came to be in- 
 scribed to Lord Chesterfield, 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 desire. I said to my friend, Dr. Ba- 
 thurst, " Now if any good comes of my addressing to Lord, 
 Chesterfield, it will be ascribed to deep policy, when, in fact, 
 it was only a casual excuse for laziness." ' 
 
 It is worthy of observation, that the Plan has not only 
 the substantial merit of comprehension, perspicuity, and 
 precision, but that the language of it is unexceptionably ex- 
 cellent ; it being altogether free from that inflation of style, 
 and those uncommon but apt and energetick words^ which 
 in some of his writings have been censured, with more 
 petulance than justice ; and never was there a more dignified 
 
 * ' The truth is, that the several situations which I have been in 
 having made me long Xh^ plastron [butt] of dedications, I am become 
 as callous to flattery as some people are to abuse.' Lord Chesterfield, 
 date of Dec. 15, 1755 ; Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iv. 266. 
 
 ^ September 22, 1777, going from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, to see 
 Islam. BoswELL. 
 
 ^ Boswell here says too much, as the following passages in the Plan 
 prove : — ' Who upon this survey can forbear to wish that these fun- 
 damental atoms of our speech might obtain the firmness and im- 
 mutability of the primogenial and constituent particles of matter?' 
 ' Those translators who, for want of understanding the characteristical 
 difTerence of tongues, have formed a chaotick dialect of heterogeneous 
 phrases;' 'In one part refinement will be subtilised beyond exactness, 
 and evidence dilated in another beyond perspicuity.' Johnson's Works, 
 V. 12, 21, 22. 
 
 strain
 
 Aetat. 38.] The style of the Plan. 2 1 3 
 
 strain of compliment than that in which he courts the atten- 
 tion of one who, he had been persuaded to beheve, would be 
 a respectable patron. 
 
 ' With regard to questions of purity or propriety, (says he) I was 
 once in doubt whether I should not attribute to myself too much 
 in attempting to decide them, and whether my province was to ex- 
 tend beyond the proposition of the question, and the display of the 
 suffrages on each side ; but I have been since determined by your 
 Lordship's opinion, to interpose my own judgement, and shall 
 therefore endeavour to support what appears to me most conso- 
 nant to grammar and reason. Ausonius thought that modesty for- 
 bade him to plead inability for a task to which Caesar had judged 
 him equal : 
 
 Ctir me posse negem posse quod ille ptitat ' .? 
 
 And I may hope, my Lord, that since you, whose authority in our 
 language is so generally acknowledged, have commissioned me to 
 declare my own opinion, I shall be considered as exercising a kind 
 of vicarious jurisdiction • and that the power which might have 
 been denied to my own claim, will be readily allowed me as the 
 delegate of your Lordship.' 
 
 This passage proves, that Johnson's addressing his Plan 
 to Lord Chesterfield was not merely in consequence of. the 
 result of a report by means of Dodsley, that the Earl 
 favoured the design ; but that there had been a particular 
 communication with his Lordship concerning it. Dr. Tay- 
 lor told me, that Johnson sent his Plan to him in manu- 
 script, for his perusal ; and that when it was lying upon his 
 table, Mr. William Whitehead'' happened to pay him a visit, 
 and being shewn it, was highly pleased with such parts 
 of it as he had time to read, and begged to take it home 
 with him, which he was allowed to do ; that from him 
 
 ' Ausonius, Epigram i. 12. 
 
 * Whitehead in 1757 succeeded Colley Gibber as poct-laurcate, and 
 dying in 1785 was followed by Thomas Warton. From Warton the 
 line of succession is Pye, Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson. See. post, 
 under June 13, 1763. 
 
 it
 
 2 14 ^^^ Earl of Orrery. [a.d. 1747. 
 
 it got into the hands of a noble Lord, who carried it to 
 Lord Chesterfield'. When Taylor observed this might be 
 an advantage, Johnson replied, ' No, Sir ; it would have come 
 out with more bloom, if it had not been seen before by any 
 body.' 
 
 The opinion conceived of it by another noble authour, 
 appears from the following extract of a letter from the Earl 
 of Orrery to Dr. Birch : 
 
 'Caledon, Dec. 30, 1747. 
 ' I have just now seen the specimen of Mr. Johnson's Dictionary, 
 addressed to Lord Chesterfield. I am much pleased with the plan, 
 and I think the specimen is one of the best that I have ever read. 
 Most specimens disgust, rather than prejudice us in favour of the 
 work to follow ; but the language of Mr. Johnson's is good, and 
 the arguments are properly and modestly expressed. However, 
 some expressions may be cavilled at, but they are trifles. I'll 
 mention one. The barren Laurel. The laurel is not barren, in 
 any sense whatever ; it bears fruits and flowers '. Scd /ice sunt 
 fiugce, and I have great expectation from the performance^' 
 
 That he was fully aware of the arduous nature of the un- 
 dertaking, he acknowledges ; and shews himself perfectly 
 sensible of it in the conclusion of his Plan* ; but he had a 
 
 ' Hawkins {Life,-^. 176) likewise says that the manuscript passed 
 through Whitehead and ' other hands ' before it reached Chesterfield. 
 Mr. Croker had seen ' a draft of the prospectus carefully written by 
 an amanuensis, but signed in great form by Johnson's own hand. It 
 was evidently that which was laid before Lord Chesterfield. Some 
 useful remarks are made in his lordship's hand, and some in another. 
 Johnson adopted all these suggestions.' 
 
 ' This poor piece of criticism confirms what Johnson said of Lord 
 Orrery :— ' He grasped at more than his abilities could reach ; tried 
 to pass for a better talker, a better writer, and a better thinker than 
 he was.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22, 1773. See post, under April 7, 
 1778. 
 
 ^ Birch, MSS. Brit. Mtis. 4303. Boswell. 
 
 "■ ' When I survey the Plan which I have laid before you, I cannot, 
 my Lord, but confess that I am frighted at its extent, and, like the 
 soldiers of Caesar, look on Britain as a new world, which it is almost 
 madness to invade.' Johnson's Works, v. 21. 
 
 noble
 
 Aetat. 38.] The Dictionary of the French Academy, 215 
 
 noble consciousness of his own abilities, which enabled him 
 to go on with undaunted spirit". 
 
 Dr. Adams found him one day busy at his Dictionary, 
 when the following dialogue ensued. 'Adams. This is a 
 great work, Sir. How are you to get all the etymologies? 
 Johnson. Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and Skin- 
 ner", and others ; and there is a Welch gentleman who has 
 published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me 
 with the Welch", Adams. But, Sir, how can you do this 
 in three years? JOHNSON. Sir, I have no doubt that I can 
 do it in three years. Adams. But the French Academy, 
 which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile 
 their Dictionary. JOHNSON. Sir, thus it is. This is the 
 proportion. Let me see ; forty times forty is sixteen hun- 
 dred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of 
 an Englishman to a Frenchman.' With so much ease and 
 pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he 
 had undertaken to execute. 
 
 The publick has had, from another pen\ a long detail of 
 
 ' There might be applied to him what he said of Pope : — ' Self- 
 confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. He, in- 
 deed, who forms his opinion of himself in solitude without know- 
 ing the powers of other men, is very liable to error ; but it was the 
 felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value.' Johnson's Works, 
 viii. 237. 
 
 * ' For the Teutonick etymologies I am commonly indebted to Ju- 
 nius and Skinner . . . Junius appears to have excelled in extent of 
 learning and Skinner in rectitude of understanding . . . Skinner is 
 often ignorant, but never ridiculous : Junius is always full of knowl- 
 edge, but his variety distracts his judgment, and his learning is very 
 frequently disgraced by his absurdities.' lb. v. 29. Francis Junius 
 the younger was born at Heidelberg in 1589, and died at Windsor, at 
 the house of his nephew Isaac Vossius, in 1678. His Etymologicum 
 Anglicanum was not published till 1743. Stephen Skinner, M.D., was 
 born in 1623, and died in 1667. His Etymologicon Lingua: AtiglicancB 
 was published in 1671. Knight's Etig. Cyclo. 
 
 ^ Thomas Richards published in 1753 Antiqiia; Li7tgncc Britannica; 
 Thesaurus, to which is prefixed a Welsh Grammar and a collection of 
 British proverbs. 
 
 * See Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson [p. 171]. Boswell. 
 
 what
 
 2i6 yohnsons amanuenses. [a.d. 1748. 
 
 what had been done in this country by prior Lexicographers ; 
 and no doubt Johnson was wise to avail himself of them, so 
 far as they went : but the learned, yet judicious research of 
 etymology', the various, yet accurate display of definition, 
 and the rich collection of authorities, were reserved for the 
 superior mind of our great philologist\ For the mechanical 
 part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses ; and let it 
 be remembered by the natives of North-Britain, to whom he 
 is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were 
 of that country. There were two Messieurs Macbean ; Mr. 
 Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote the Lives 
 of the Poets to which the name of Gibber is affixed' ; Mr. 
 Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edin- 
 burgh ; and a Mr. Maitland. The sixth of these humble 
 assistants was Mr. Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, 
 and published some elementary tracts. 
 
 To all these painful labourers, Johnson shewed a never- 
 ceasing kindness, so far as they stood in need of it. The 
 elder Mr. Macbean had afterwards the honour of being 
 Librarian to Archibald, Duke of Argyle, for many years, but 
 was left without a shilling. Johnson wrote for him a Pref- 
 ace to A System of Ancient Geography ; and, by the favour 
 of Lord Thurlow, got him admitted a poor brother of the 
 Charterhouse\ For Shiels, who died of a consumption, he 
 
 ' ' The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, into 
 one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist.' Macaulay's 
 Misc. Writings, p. 382. See post, May 13, 1778, for mention of Home 
 Tooke's criticism of Johnson's etymologies. 
 
 * ' The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the 
 volumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered . . . But to 
 COLLECT the WORDS of our language was a task of greater difficulty : 
 the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent ; and when 
 they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortu- 
 itous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry 
 should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of a 
 living speech.' Johnson's Works, v. 31. 
 
 ^ See /<7J/, under April 10, 1776. Boswell. 
 
 " ' Mr. Macbean,' said Johnson in 1778, ' is a man of great learning, 
 
 had
 
 Aetat. 39.] The tipper room in Gough-square. 2 1 7 
 
 had much tenderness ; and it has been thought that some 
 choice sentences in the Lives of the Poets were suppHed by 
 him'. Peyton, when reduced to penury, had frequent aid 
 from the bounty of Johnson, who at last was at the expense 
 of burying both him and his wife\ 
 
 While the Dictionary was going forward, Johnson Hved 
 part of the time in Holborn, part in Gough-square, Fleet- 
 street ; and he had an upper room fitted up like a count- 
 ing-house for the purpose, in which he gave to the copy- 
 ists their several tasks". The words, partly taken from 
 other dictionaries, and partly supplied by himself, having 
 been first written down with spaces left between them, 
 he delivered in writing their etymologies, definitions, and 
 
 and for his learning I respect him, and I wish to serve him. He 
 knows many languages, and knows them well ; but he knows nothing 
 of life. I advised him to write a geographical dictionary ; but I have 
 lost all hopes of his ever doing anything properly, since I found he 
 gave as much labour to Capua as to Rome.' Mme. UArblays Diary, 
 i. 114. Set post, beginning of 1773, and Oct. 24, 1780. 
 
 ' Boswell is speaking of the book published under the name of 
 Cibber mentioned above, but 'entirely compiled,' according to John- 
 son, by Shiels. Ste post, April lo, 1776. 
 
 " See Ptoazi Letters, i. 312, Q.nd post. May 21, 1775, note. 
 
 ^ ' We ourselves, not without labour and risk, lately discovered 
 Gough Square . . . and on the second day of search the very House 
 there, wherein the Ettglish Dictionary was composed. It is the first 
 or corner house on the right hand, as you enter through the arched 
 way from the North-west ... It is a stout, old-fashioned, oak-balus- 
 traded house : " I have spent many a pound and penny on it since 
 then," said the worthy Landlord; "here, you see, this bedroom was 
 the Doctor's study; that was the garden" (a plot of delved ground 
 somewhat larger than a bed-quilt) "where he walked for exercise; 
 these three garret bedrooms " (where his three [six] copyists sat and 
 wrote) "were the place he kept his — pupils in"! Tempus cdax 
 rermn! Yet ferax also: for our friend now added, with a wistful 
 look, which strove to seem merely historical : " I let it all in lodg- 
 ings, to respectable gentlemen ; by the quarter or the month ; it's 
 all one to me." — " To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as 
 we went pensively our ways.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, edit, of 1872, 
 iv. 112. 
 
 various
 
 2i8 AtUhors quoted in The Dictionary. [a.d.1748. 
 
 various significations'. The authorities were copied from 
 the books themselves, in which he had marked the pas- 
 sages with a black-lead pencil, the traces of which could 
 easily be effaced'. I have seen several of them, in which 
 that trouble had not been taken ; so that they were just 
 as when used by the copyists\ It is remarkable, that he 
 was so attentive in the choice of the passages in which 
 words were authorised, that one may read page after page 
 of his Dictio7iary with improvement and pleasure ; and it 
 should not pass unobserved, that he has quoted no authour 
 whose writings had a tendency to hurt sound religion and 
 morality^ 
 
 ^ Boswell's account of the manner in which Johnson compiled his 
 Dt'cttonary is confused and erroneous. He began his task (as he 
 himself expressly described to me), by devoting his first care to a 
 diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct 
 in their language, and under every sentence which he meant to 
 quote he drew a line, and noted in the margin the first letter of 
 the word under which it was to occur. He then delivered these 
 books to his clerks, who transcribed each sentence on a separate 
 slip of paper, and arranged the same under the word referred to. 
 By these means he collected the several words and their different 
 significations; and when the whole arrangement was alphabetically 
 formed, he gave the definitions of their meanings, and collected their 
 etymologies from Skinner, Junius, and other writers on the subject. 
 Percy. 
 
 " ' The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own 
 collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he 
 could borrow ; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent 
 them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning, and yet some of 
 his friends were glad to receive and entertain them as curiosities.' 
 Hawkins, p. 175. 
 
 ^ In the copy that he thus marked of Sir Matthew Hale's Prhnitive 
 Origination of Mankind, opposite the passage where it is stated, that 
 ' Averroes says that if the world were not eternal ... it could never 
 have been at all, because an eternal duration must necessarily have 
 anteceded the first production of the world,' he has written : — ' This 
 argument will hold good equally against the writing that I now 
 write.' 
 
 ^ Boswell must mean ' whose writings taken as a whole had a ten- 
 dency,' &c. Johnson quotes Dryden, and of Dryden he says : — ' Of 
 
 The
 
 Aetat. 39.] ' Ttiggmg at Ilis oar! 2 1 9 
 
 The necessary expense of preparing a work of such magni- 
 tude for the press, must have been a considerable deduction 
 from the price stipulated to be paid for the copy-right. I 
 understand that nothing was allowed by the booksellers on 
 that account ; and I remember his telling me, that a large 
 portion of it having by mistake been written upon both 
 sides of the paper, so as to be inconvenient for the com- 
 positor, it cost him twenty pounds to have it transcribed 
 upon one side only. 
 
 He is now to be considered as 'tugging at his oar',' as 
 engaged in a steady continued course of occupation, sufficient 
 to employ all his time for some years ; and which was the 
 
 the mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute 
 itself with ideal wickedness for the sake of spreading the contagion 
 in society, I wish not to conceal or excuse the depravity. Such deg- 
 radation of the dignity of genius, such abuse of superlative abilities, 
 cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. What con- 
 solation can be had Dryden has afforded by living to repent, and to 
 testify his repentance.' Johnson's Works, vii. 293. He quotes Con- 
 greve, and of Congreve he says : ' It is acknowledged, with universal 
 conviction, that the perusal of his works will make no man better ; 
 and that their ultimate effect is to represent pleasure in alliance with 
 vice, and to relax those obligations by which life ought to be regu- 
 lated.' lb. viii. 28. He would not quote Dr. Clarke, much as he ad- 
 mired him, because he was not sound upon the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 Post, Dec. 1784, note. 
 
 ' In the Plan to the Dictiotiary, written in 1747, he describes his task 
 as one that ' may be successfully performed without any higher qual- 
 ity than that of bearing burdens with dull patience, and beating the 
 track of the alphabet with sluggish resolution.' Works, v. i. In 175 1, 
 in the Rambler, No. 141, he thus pleasantly touches on his work ; ' The 
 task of every other slave [except the "wit"] has an end. The rower 
 in time reaches the port ; the lexicographer at last finds the conclu- 
 sion of his alphabet.' On April 15, 1755, he writes to his friend Hec- 
 tor :— ' I wish, come of wishes what will, that my work may please you, 
 as much as it now and then pleased me, for I did not find dictionary 
 making so very unpleasant as it may be thought.' Notes and Queries, 
 6th S., 1 1 1, 301. He told Dr. Blacklock that ' it was easier to him to 
 write poetry than to compose his Dictionary. His mind was less on 
 the stretch in doing the one than the other.' Boswell's Hebrides, 
 Aug. 17, 1773. 
 
 best
 
 2 20 The Ivy Lane Club. [a.d. 1748. 
 
 best preventive of that constitutional melancholy which was 
 ever lurking about him, ready to trouble his quiet. But his 
 enlarged and lively mind could not be satisfied without 
 more diversity of employment, and the pleasure of animated 
 relaxation'. He therefore not only exerted his talents in 
 occasional composition very different from Lexicography, 
 but formed a club in Ivy-lane, Paternoster-row, with a view 
 to enjoy literary discussion, and amuse his evening hours. 
 The members associated with him in this little society 
 were his beloved friend Dr. Richard Bathurst', Mr. Hawkes- 
 worth", afterwards well known by his writings, Mr. John 
 
 ' The well-known picture of the company at Tunbridge Wells in 
 Aug. 1748, with the references in Richardson's own writing, is given 
 as a frontispiece to vol. iii. of Richardson's Correspondence. There 
 can be no doubt that the figure marked by Richardson as Dr. John- 
 son is not Samuel Johnson, who did not receive a doctor's degree till 
 more than four years after Richardson's death. 
 
 ^ 'Johnson hardly ever spoke of Bathurst without tears in his eyes.' 
 Murphy's Johnson, p. 56. Mrs. Piozzi, after recording an anecdote that 
 he had related to her of his childhood, continues :— ' " I cannot imag- 
 ine," said he, " what makes me talk of myself to you so, for I really 
 never mentioned this foolish story to anybody except Dr. Taylor, not 
 even to my dear, dear Bathurst, whom I loved better than ever I loved 
 any human creature ; but poor Bathurst is dead !" Here a long pause 
 and a few tears ensued.' Piozzi's Artec, p. 18. Another day he said 
 to her: — 'Dear Bathurst was a man to my very heart's content: he 
 hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig ; he was a 
 very good hater.' lb. p. 83. In his Meditations on Easter-Day, 1764, 
 he records : — ' After sermon I recommended Tetty in a prayer by her- 
 self ; and my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst in another.' Pr. 
 and Med. p. 54, See z\so post, under March 18, 1752, and 1780 in Mr. 
 Langton's Collection. 
 
 ^ Of Hawkesworth Johnson thus wrote : ' An account of Dr. Swift 
 has been already collected, with great diligence and acuteness, by Dr. 
 Hawkesworth, according to a scheme which I laid before him in the 
 intimacy of our friendship. 1 cannot therefore be expected to say 
 much of a life concerning which I had long since communicated my 
 thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations with so much 
 elegance of language and force of sentiment.' Johnson's Works, 
 viii. 192. Hawkesworth was an imitator of Johnson's style; post, un- 
 der Jan. I, 1753. 
 
 Hawkins,
 
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 51 
 
 3
 
 Aetat. 39.] Mr. yohu Hawkins, an attorney. 221 
 
 Hawkins, an attorney', and a few others of different pro- 
 fessions*. 
 
 ' He was afterwards for several years Chairman of the Middlesex 
 Justices, and upon occasion of presenting an address to the King, ac- 
 cepted the usual ofTer of Knighthood. He is authour of 'A His- 
 tory of Musick,' in five volumes in quarto. By assiduous attendance 
 upon Johnson in his last illness, he obtained the office of one of his 
 executors ; in consequence of which, the booksellers of London em- 
 ployed him to publish an edition of Dr. Johnson's works, and to write 
 his Life. Boswell. This description of Hawkins, as ' Mr. John 
 Hawkins, an attorney,' is a reply to his description of Boswell as ' Mr. 
 James Boswell, a native of Scotland.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 472. 
 According to Miss Hawkins, ' Boswell complained to her father of the 
 manner in which he was described. Where was the offence } It was 
 one of those which a complainant hardly dares to embody in words ; 
 he would only repeat, " Well, but Mr. James Boswell, surely, surely, 
 Mr. James Boswell."' Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, \. 2-^1. Boswell in 
 thus styling Hawkins remembered no doubt Johnson's sarcasm against 
 attorneys. See post, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's Collectanea. Hawkins's 
 edition of Johnsons Works was published in 1787-9, in 13 vols., 8vo., 
 the last two vols, being edited by Stockdale. In vol. xi. is a collection 
 of Johnson's sayings, under the name of Apothegms, many of which I 
 quote in my notes. 
 
 * Boswell, it is clear, has taken his account of the club from Haw- 
 kins, who writes : — ' Johnson had, in the winter of 1749, formed a club 
 that met weekly at the King's Head, a famous beef-steak house in 
 I\y Lane, near St. Paul's, every Tuesday evening. Thither he con- 
 stantly resorted with a disposition to please and be pleased. Our 
 conversations seldom began till after a supper so very solid and sub- 
 stantial as led us to think that with him it was a dinner. By the help 
 of this refection, and no other incentive to hilarity than lemonade, 
 Johnson was in a short time after our assembling transformed into a 
 new creature ; his habitual melancholy and lassitude of spirit gave 
 way; his countenance brightened.' Hawkins's yi3//;/.s7w, pp. 219, 250. 
 Other parts of Hawkins's account do not agree with passages in John- 
 son's letters to Mrs. Thrale written in 1783-4. ' I dined about a fort- 
 night ago with three old friends [Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne] ; we 
 had not met together for thirty years. In the thirty years two of our 
 set have died.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 339. ' We used to meet weekly about 
 the year fifty.' lb. p. 361. 'The people whom I mentioned in my 
 letter are the remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy Lane 
 about three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkes- 
 worth and Dyer, the rest are yet on this side the grave.' lb. p. 363. 
 
 In
 
 222 The Vision of Theodore. [a.d. 1749. 
 
 In the Gentleman s Magazine for May of this year he 
 wrote a ' Life of Roscommon,'* with Notes, which he after- 
 wards much improved, indented the notes into text, and in- 
 serted it amongst his Lives of the English Poets. 
 
 Mr. Dodsley this year brought out his Preceptor, one of 
 the most valuable books for the improvement of young 
 minds that has appeared in any language ; and to this 
 meritorious work Johnson furnished ' The Preface,'* con- 
 taining a general sketch of the book, with a short and per- 
 spicuous recommendation of each article ; as also, ' The 
 Vision of Theodore the Hermit, found in his Cell,'* a most 
 beautiful allegory of human life, under the figure of ascend- 
 ing the mountain of Existence. The Bishop of Dromore 
 heard Dr. Johnson say, that he thought this was the best 
 thing he ever wrote\ 
 
 1749: ^TAT. 40.] — In January 1749, he published The 
 Vanity of Human Wishes, being the Tenth Satire of Juve- 
 nal imitated''. He, I believe, composed it the preceding 
 
 Hawkins says the club broke up about 1756 (Zz/>, p. 361). Johnson 
 in the first of the passages says they had not met at all for thirty years 
 — that is to say, not since 1753 ; while in the last two passages he im- 
 plies that their weekly meetings came to an end about 1751. I cannot 
 understand moreover how, if Bathurst, ' his beloved friend,' belonged 
 to the club, Johnson should have forgotten it. Bathurst died in the 
 expedition to the Havannah about 1762. Two others of those given 
 in Hawkins's list were certainly dead by 1783, M'Ghie, who died 
 while the club existed {lb. p. 361), and Dr. Salter. A writer in the 
 Builder (Dec. 1884) says, 'The King's Head was burnt down twenty- 
 five years ago, but the cellarage remains beneath No. 4, Alldis's din- 
 ing-rooms, on the eastern side.' 
 
 I Tom Tyers said that Johnson ' in one night composed, after finish- 
 ing an evening in Holborn, his Hermit of Teneriffe! Gent. Mag. for 
 1784, p. 901. The high value that he set on this piece may be ac- 
 counted for in his own words. ' Many causes may vitiate a writer's 
 judgment of his own works. . . . What has been produced without 
 toilsome efforts is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous 
 faculties and fertile invention.' Johnson's Works, vn. no. He had 
 said much the same thirty years earlier in The Rambler (No. 21). 
 
 "^ ' On January 9 was published, long wished, another satire from 
 Juvenal, by the author of Lomlon.' Gent. Mag. xviii. 598, 9. 
 
 year.
 
 Aetat. 40.] The payment of poets. 22 
 
 a 
 
 year'. Mrs. Johnson, for the sake of country air, had lodgings 
 at Hampstead, to which he resorted occasionally, and there 
 the greatest part, if not the whole, of this Imitation was writ- 
 ten\ The fervid rapidity with which it was produced, is 
 scarcely credible. I have heard him say, that he composed 
 seventy lines of it in one day, without putting one of them 
 upon paper till they were finished\ I remember when I 
 once regretted to him that he had not given us more of 
 Juvenal's Satires, he said he probably should give more, for 
 he had them all in his head ; by which I understood that he 
 had the originals and correspondent allusions floating in his 
 mind, which he could, when he pleased, embody and render 
 permanent without much labour. Some of them, however, 
 he observed were too gross for imitation. 
 
 The profits of a single poem, however excellent, appear to 
 have been very small in the last reign, compared with what 
 a publication of the same size has since been known to yield. 
 I have mentioned, upon Johnson's own authority, that for 
 his London he had only ten guineas ; and now, after his fame 
 was established, he got for his Vanity of Human Wishes but 
 
 ' Sir John Hawkins, with solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem 
 as a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the 
 fact is, that the poem was pubHshed on the 9th of January, and the 
 tragedy was not acted till the 6th of the February following. Bos- 
 WELL. Hawkins perhaps implies what Boswell says that he repre- 
 sents ; but if so. he implies it by denying it. Hawkins's Johnson, p. 
 
 20I. 
 
 ' ' I wrote,' he said, 'the first seventy lines in The Vanity of Huma7i 
 Wishes in the course of one morning in that small house beyond the 
 church at Hampstead.' Works (1787), xi. 212. 
 
 ^ Ste posf under Feb. 15, 1766. That Johnson did not think that in 
 hasty composition there is any great merit, is shewn by 'jyie Rambler, 
 No. 169, entitled Labour necessary to excellence. There he describes 
 ' pride and indigence as the two great hasteners of modern poems.' 
 He continues : — ' that no other method of attaining lasting praise 
 [than mult a dies ct multa litura\ has been yet discovered may be con- 
 jectured from the blotted manuscripts of Milton now remaining, and 
 from the tardy emission of Pope's compositions.' He made many 
 corrections for the later editions of his poem. 
 
 five
 
 2 24 The Vanity of Human Wishes, [a.d. 1749. 
 
 five guineas more, as is proved by an authentick document 
 in my possession'. 
 
 It will be observed, that he reserves to himself the right 
 of printing one edition of this satire, which was his practice 
 upon occasion of the sale of all his writings ; it being his 
 fixed intention to publish at some period, for his own profit, 
 a complete collection of his works\ 
 
 His Vanity of Htiman WisJics has less of common life, but 
 more of a philosophick dignity than his London. More 
 readers, therefore, will be delighted with the pointed spirit 
 of London^ than with the profound reflection of The Vajiity 
 of Human Wishes.'' Garrick, for instance, observed in his 
 
 ' ' Nov. 25, 1748. I received of Mr. Dodsley fifteen guineas, for which 
 I assign to him the right of copy of an imitation of the Tenth Satire 
 of fuvefial, written by me ; reserving to myself the right of printing 
 one edition. Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' London, 29 June, 1786. A true copy, from the original in Dr. John- 
 son's handwriting. Ja'. Dodsley.' Boswell. 
 
 London was sold at a shilling a copy. Johnson was paid at the rate 
 of about c^d. a line for this poem ; for The Vanity of Humati Wishes 
 at the rate of about \od. a line. Dryden by his engagement with 
 Jacob Tonson (see Johnson's Works, vii. 298) undertook to furnish 
 10,000 verses at a little over 6d. a verse. Goldsmith was paid for The 
 Traveller f2.i,or about \\\d. a line. 
 
 - He never published it. Sqg. post under Dec. 9, 1784. 
 
 ^ 'Jan. 9, 1 82 1. Read Johnson's Vanity of Hu matt Wishes, — all the 
 examples and mode ot giving them sublime, as well as the latter part, 
 with the exception of an occasional couplet. I do not so much ad- 
 mire the opening. The first line, " Let observation," etc., is certainly 
 heavy and useless. But 'tis a grand poem — and so true/ — true as the 
 Tenth of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages chajiges all things — time 
 — language — the earth — the bounds of the sea — the stars of the sky, 
 and everything " about, around, and underneath " man, except tnan 
 himself. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the 
 infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment.' Byron, vol. v. p. 66. 
 Wright. Sir Walter Scott said ' that he had more pleasure in read- 
 ing Z^;;rt'(9«, and The Vanity of Human Wishes than any other poetical 
 composition he could mention.' Lockhart's Scott, iii. 269. Mr. Lock- 
 hart adds that 'the last line of MS. that Scott sent to the press was a 
 quotation from The Vatiity of Human Wishes.' Of the first lines 
 
 sprightly
 
 Aetat.40.] ThE VaNITY OF HuMAN WiSHES. 225 
 
 sprightly manner, with more vivacity than regard to just 
 discrimination, as is usual with wits, 'When Johnson lived 
 much with the Herveys, and saw a good deal of what was 
 passing in life, he wrote his London, which is lively and easy. 
 When he became more retired, he gave us his Vanity of 
 Human Wishes, which is as hard as Greek. Had he gone 
 on to imitate another satire, it would have been as hard as 
 Hebrew'.' 
 
 But The Vanity of Human Wishes is, in the opinion of 
 the best judges, as high an effort of ethick poetry as any 
 language can shew. The instances of variety of disappoint- 
 ment are chosen so judiciously and painted so strongly, that, 
 the moment they are read, they bring conviction to every 
 thinking mind. That of the scholar must have depressed 
 the too sanguine expectations of many an ambitious student'. 
 
 ' Let observation with extensive view 
 Survey mankind from China to Peru,' 
 De Quincey quotes the criticism of some writer, who ' contends with 
 some reason that this is saying in effect : — " Let observation with ex- 
 tensive observation observe mankind extensively." ' De Quincey 's 
 Works, X. 72. 
 
 ' From Mr. Langton. Boswell. 
 
 - In this poem one of the instances mentioned of unfortunate 
 learned men is Lydiat : 
 
 ' Hear Lydiat 's life, and Galileo's end.' 
 The history of Lydiat being little known, the following account of him 
 may be acceptable to many of my readers. It appeared as a note in 
 the Supplement to the Gent. Mag. for 1748, in which some passages 
 extracted from Johnson's poem were inserted, and it should have been 
 added in the subsequent editions. — A very learned divine and mathe- 
 matician, fellow of New College, Oxon, and Rector of Okerton, near 
 Banbury. He wrote, among many others, a Latin treatise Dc Naiura 
 cceli, etc., in which he attacked the sentiments of Scaliger and Aristotle, 
 not bearing to hear it urged, that some things are true m philosophy 
 and false in divinity. He made above 600 Sermons on the harmony 
 of the Evangelists. Being unsuccessful in publishing his works, he 
 lay in the prison of Bocardo at Oxford, and in the King's Bench, till 
 Bishop Usher, Dr. Laud, Sir William Boswell, and Dr. Pink, released 
 him by paying his debts. He petitioned King Charles I. to be sent 
 into Ethiopia, etc., to procure MSS. Having spoken in favour of 
 I.— 15 That
 
 2 26 The conclusion of yohnsojis poe77t. [a.d. 1749. 
 
 That of the warrior, Charles of Sweden, is, I think, as high- 
 ly finished a picture as can possibly be conceived. 
 
 Were all the other excellencies of this poem annihilated, 
 it must ever have our grateful reverence from its noble con- 
 clusion ; in which we are consoled with the assurance that 
 happiness may be attained, if we ' apply our hearts' ' to 
 piety : 
 
 'Where then shall hope and fear their objects find? 
 Shall dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind ? 
 Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, 
 Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate ? 
 Shall no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, 
 No cries attempt the mercy of the skies ? 
 Enthusiast*, cease ; petitions yet remain. 
 Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain. 
 Still raise for good the supplicating voice. 
 But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice. 
 Safe in His hand, whose eye discerns afar 
 The secret ambush of a specious pray'r ; 
 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, sovereign o'er transmuted ill ; 
 For faith, which panting for a happier seat. 
 Counts death kind Nature's signal for retreat. 
 These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain, 
 These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain ; 
 With these celestial wisdom calms the mind, ^ 
 
 And makes the happiness she does not find.' 
 
 Monarchy -and bishops, he was plundered by the parliament forces, 
 and twice carried away prisoner from his rectory; and afterwards had 
 not a shirt to shift him in three months, without he borrowed it, and 
 died very poor in 1646. BoswELL. 
 
 ' Psalm xc. 12. 
 
 * In the original Inquirer. 
 
 Garrick
 
 Aetat. 40.] I RENE OH the stage. 227 
 
 Garrick being now vested with theatrical power by being 
 manager of Drury-lane theatre, he kindly and generously 
 made use of it to bring out Johnson's tragedy, which had 
 been long kept back for want of encouragement. But in 
 this benevolent purpose he met with no small difficulty from 
 the temper of Johnson, which could not brook that a drama 
 which he had formed with much study, and had been obliged 
 to keep more than the nine years of Horace', should be re- 
 vised and altered at the pleasure of an actor\ Yet Garrick 
 knew well, that without some alterations it would not be fit 
 for the stage. A violent dispute having ensued between 
 them, Garrick applied to the Reverend Dr. Taylor to inter- 
 pose. Johnson was at first very obstinate. 'Sir, (said he) 
 the fellow wants me to make Mahomet run mad, that he 
 may have an opportunity of tossing his hands and kicking 
 his heels\* He was, however, at last, with difficulty, prevailed 
 on to comply with Garrick's wishes, so as to allow of some 
 changes ; but still there were not enough. 
 
 Dr. Adams was present the first night of the representation 
 of Irene, and gave me the following account : ' Before the 
 curtain drew up, there were catcalls whistling, which alarmed 
 Johnson's friends. The Prologue, which was written by him- 
 self in a manly strain, soothed the audience\ and the play 
 
 * ' . . . nonumque prematur in annum.' Horace, Ars Poet. 1. 388. 
 
 * ' Of all authors,' wrote Johnson, ' those are the most wretched who 
 exhibit their productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate 
 first the manager and then the public. Many an humble visitant have 
 I followed to the doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch 
 the knocker with a shaking hand, and after long deliberation advent- 
 ure to solicit entrance by a single knock.' Works, v. 360. 
 
 ^ Mahomet was, in fact, played by Mr. Barry, and Demetrius by Mr. 
 Garrick : but probably at this time the parts were not yet cast. Bos- 
 
 WELL. 
 
 * The expression used by Dr. Adams was ' soothed.' I should 
 rather think the audience was awed by the extraordinary spirit and 
 dignity of the following lines : 
 
 ' Be this at least his praise, be this his pride. 
 To force applause no modern arts are tried : 
 
 went
 
 2 28 The Epilog2ie to Irene, [a.d. 1749. 
 
 went off tolerably, till it came to the conclusion, when Mrs, 
 Pritchard^ the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon 
 the stage, and was to speak two lines with the bow-string 
 round her neck. The audience cried out ''Murder! Mur- 
 der"!''' She several times attempted to speak; but in vain. 
 At last she was obliged to go off the stage alive.' This pas- 
 sage was afterwards struck out, and she was carried ofT to 
 be put to death behind the scenes, as the play now has it\ 
 The Epilogue, as Johnson informed me, was written by Sir 
 William Yonge\ I know not how his play came to be thus 
 
 Should partial catcalls all his hopes confound. 
 He bids no trumpet quell the fatal sound ; 
 Should welcome sleep relieve the weary wit, 
 He rolls no thunders o'er the drowsy pit ; 
 No snares to captivate the judgement spreads, 
 Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads. 
 Unmov'd, though witlings sneer and rivals rail, 
 Studious to please, yet not asham'd to fail, 
 He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain. 
 With merit needless, and without it vain ; 
 In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust ; 
 Ye fops be silent, and ye wits be just !' Boswell. 
 
 ' Johnson said of Mrs. Pritchard's playing in general that 'it was 
 quite mechanical;' post, April 7, 1775. See also post under Sept. 30, 
 
 1783- 
 
 ^ ' The strangling of Irene in the view of the audience was suggested 
 by Mr. Garrick.' Davies's Garrick, i. 128. Dryden in his Essay of 
 Dramatick Pocsie (edit. 1701, i. 13), says: — 'I have observed that in 
 all our tragedies the audience cannot forbear laughing when the actors 
 are to die ; 'tis the most comick part of the whole play.' ' Suppose 
 your piece admitted, acted ; one single ill-natured jest from the pit is 
 sufficient to cancel all your labours.' Goldsmith's Present State of 
 Polite Learning, chap. x. 
 
 ^ In her last speech two of the seven lines are very bad : — 
 ' Guilt and despair, pale spectres ! grin around me. 
 And stun me with the yellings of damnation !' Act. v. sc. 9. 
 
 * Murphy referring to BosweU's statement says : — ' The Epilogue, 
 we are told in a late publication, was written by Sir William Young_ 
 This is a new discovery, but by no means probable. When the ap- 
 pendages to a Dramatic Performance are not assigned to a friend, or 
 an unknown hand, or a person of fashion, they are always supposed to 
 
 graced
 
 Aetat. 40.1 Cold reception of Irene. 2 2g 
 
 graced by the pen of a person then so eminent in the politi- 
 cal world. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the support of such performers as Gar- 
 rick, Barry, Mrs. Gibber, Mrs. Pritchard, and every advantage 
 of dress and decoration, the tragedy of Irene did not please 
 the publick'. Mr. Garrick's zeal carried it through for nine 
 nights", so that the authour had his three nights' profits; and 
 from a receipt signed by him, now in the hands of Mr, James 
 
 be written by the author of the Play.' Murphy's Johnso7i, p. 154. He 
 overlooks altogether the statement in the Gent. Mag. (xix. 85) that the 
 Epilogue is ' by another hand.' Mr. Croker points out that the words 
 ' as Johnson informed me ' first appear in the second edition. The 
 wonder is that Johnson accepted this Epilogue, which is a little coarse 
 and a little profane. Yonge was Secretary at War in Walpole's minis- 
 tr}^ Walpole said of him ' that nothing but Yonge's character could 
 keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character.' 
 Horace Walpole's Letta-s, i. 98, note. 
 
 ' I know not what Sir John Hawkins means by the cold rcceptioti of 
 Irene. (See a7iie, note, p. 223.) I was at the first representation, and 
 most of the subsequent. It was much applauded the first night, partic- 
 ularly the speech on to-inorroiu [Act. iii. sc. 2]. It ran nine nights at 
 least. It did not indeed become a stock-play, but there was not the 
 Ipast opposition during the representation, except the first night in the 
 last act, where Irene was to be strangled on the stage, which John 
 could not bear, though a dramatick poet may stab or slay by hun- 
 dreds. The bow-string was not a Christian nor an ancient Greek or 
 Roman death. But this offence was removed after the first night, and 
 Irene went off the stage to be strangled. — -Burney. 
 
 ^ According to the Gefit. Mag. (xix. 76) ' it was acted from Monday, 
 Feb. 6, to Monday, Feb. 20, inclusive.' A letter in the Gai-rick Corrcs. 
 (i. 32), dated April 3, 1745, seems to shew that so long a run was un- 
 common. The writer addressing Garrick says : — ' You have now per- 
 formed it [ Tancred\ for nine nights ; consider the part, and whether 
 nature can well support the frequent repetition of such shocks. Per- 
 mit me to advise you to resolve not to act upon any account above 
 three times a week.' Yet against this may be set the following pas- 
 sage in The Rambler, No. 123: — 'At last a malignant author, whose 
 performance I had persecuted through the nine nights, wrote an 
 epigram upon Tape the critic, which drove me from the pit for 
 ever.' Murphy writing in 1792 said that Ire7ie had not been exhib- 
 ited on any stage since its first representation. Murphy's Johnson, 
 p. 52. 
 
 Dodsley,
 
 230 yoJnison no tragedy-writer. [a.d. 1749. 
 
 Dodsley, it appears that his friend Mr. Robert Dodsley gave 
 him one hundred pounds for the copy, with his usual reserva- 
 tion of the right of one edition'. 
 
 Irene, considered as a poem, is intitled to the praise of 
 superiour excellence\ Analysed into parts, it will furnish 
 a rich store of noble sentiments, fine imagery, and beautiful 
 language ; but it is deficient in pathos, in that delicate power 
 of touching the human feelings, which is the principal end of 
 the drama". Indeed Garrick has complained to me, that 
 Johnson not only had not the faculty of producing the im- 
 pressions of tragedy, but that he had not the sensibility to 
 perceive them. His great friend Mr. Walmsley's prediction, 
 that he would 'turn out a fine tragedy -writer\' was, there- 
 fore, ill-founded. Johnson was wise enough to be convinced 
 that he had not the talents necessary to write successfully for 
 the stage, and never made another attempt in that species of 
 composition\ 
 
 * Mr. Croker says that ' it appears by a MS. note in Isaac Reed's 
 copy of Murphy's Life, that the receipts of the third, sixth, and ninth 
 nights, after deducting sixty guineas a night for the expenses of the 
 house, amounted to £^9'^ ijs.: Johnson cleared therefore, with the 
 copyright, very nearly ^300.' Irene was sold at the price of is.6d.a. 
 copy {Gent. Mag. xix. 96) ; so that Dodsley must have looked for a 
 very large sale. 
 
 ^ See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection for Johnson's estimate 
 of Irene in later life. 
 
 ' Aaron Hill (vol. ii. p. 355), in a letter to Mr. Mallett, gives the fol- 
 lowing account of Irene after having seen it : ' I was at the anomalous 
 Mr. Johnson's benefit, and found the play his proper representative ; 
 strong sense ungraced by sweetness or decorum.' Boswell. 
 
 * See ante, p. 118. 
 
 ' Murphy {Life, p. 53) says that ' some years afterwards, when he 
 knew Johnson to be in distress, he asked Garrick why he did not pro- 
 duce another tragedy for his Lichfield friend } Garrick's answer was 
 remarkable : " When Johnson writes tragedy, declamation roars, and 
 passion sleeps : when Shakespeare wrote, he dipped his pen in his own 
 heart." ' Johnson was perhaps aware of the causes of his failure as a 
 tragedy-writer. In his criticism of Addison's Cato he says :— ' Of Cato 
 it has been not unjustly determined, that it is rather a poem in dia- 
 logue than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant 
 
 When
 
 Aetat.40.] ''Like the Monument' 231 
 
 When asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, 
 he replied, 'Like the Monument';' meaning that he con- 
 tinued firm and unmoved as that column. And let it be 
 remembered, as an admonition to the genus irritabilc^ of 
 dramatick writers, that this great man, instead of peevish- 
 ly complaining of the bad taste of the town, submitted to 
 its decision without a murmur. He had, indeed, upon all 
 
 language than a representation of natural affections, or of any state 
 probable or possible in human life. . . . The events are expected with- 
 out solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. ... Its 
 success has introduced or confirmed among us the use of dialogue too 
 declamatory, of unaffecting elegance and chill philosophy.' Works, 
 vii. 456. 'Johnson thought Cato the best model of tragedy we had; 
 yet he used to say, of all things the most ridiculous would be to see a 
 girl cry at the representation of it.' Johnson's Works (1787) xi. 207. 
 Cato, if neglected, has added at least eight ' habitual quotations ' to 
 the language (see Thackeray's English Humourists, p. 98). Irene has 
 perhaps not added a single one. It has nevertheless some quotable 
 lines, such as — 
 
 ' Crowds that hide a monarch from himself.' Act i. sc. 4. 
 ' To cant ... of reason to a lover.' Act iii. sc. i. 
 
 'When e'en as love was breaking off from wonder, 
 And tender accents quiver'd on my lips.' 
 ' And fate lies crowded in a narrow space.' 
 ' Reflect that life and death, affecting sounds, 
 Are only varied modes of endless being.' 
 ' Directs the planets with a careless nod.' 
 ' Far as futurity's untravell'd waste.' 
 ' And wake from ignorance the western world.' Act iv. sc. 2. 
 ' Through hissing ages a proverbial coward. 
 The tale of women, and the scorn of fools.' Act iv. sc. 3. 
 ' No records but the records of the sky.' lb. 
 
 '. . . thou art sunk beneath reproach.' Act v. sc. 2. 
 
 ' Oh hide me from myself.' Act v. sc. 3. 
 
 ' Johnson wrote of Milton : — ' I cannot but conceive him calm and 
 confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own 
 merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the 
 vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.' 
 Johnson's Works, vii. 108. 
 
 ^ ' Genus irritabile vatum.' 
 
 ' The fretful tribe of rival poets.' 
 
 Francis, Horace, Ep. ii. 2. 102. 
 occasions. 
 
 
 
 lb 
 
 Act 
 
 iii. 
 
 sc. 6 
 
 Act 
 
 iii. 
 
 sc. 8 
 lb 
 
 Act 
 
 iv. 
 
 sc. I
 
 232 Deference for the general opi7iion. [a.d. 1749, 
 
 occasions, a great deference for the general opinion' : 'A man 
 (said he) who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier 
 than the rest of mankind ; he supposes that he can instruct 
 or amuse them, and the publick to whom he appeals, must, 
 after all, be the judges of his pretensions.' 
 
 On occasion of his play being brought upon the stage, 
 Johnson had a fancy that as a dramatick authour his dress 
 should be more gay than what he ordinarily wore ; he there- 
 fore appeared behind the scenes, and even in one of the side 
 boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and a gold- 
 laced hat^ He humourously observed to Mr. Langton, 'that 
 when in that dress he could not treat people with the same 
 ease as when in his usual plain clothes\' Dress indeed, we 
 
 ' This deference he enforces in many passages in his writings ; as 
 for instance : — ' Dryden might have observed, that what is good only 
 because it pleases, cannot be pronounced good till it has been found 
 to please.' Johnson's Works, vii. 252. ' The authority of Addison is 
 great ; yet the voice of the people, when to please the people is the 
 purpose, deserves regard.' lb. 376. • About things on which the pub- 
 lic thinks long, it commonly attains to think right.' lb. 456. ' These 
 apologies are always useless : " de gustibus non est disputandum ;" 
 men may be convinced, but they cannot be pleased against their will.' 
 lb. viii. 26. ' Of things that terminate in human life, the world is the 
 proper judge ; to despise its sentence, if it were possible, is not just ; 
 and if it were just, is not possible.' lb. viii. 316. Lord Chesterfield in 
 writmg to his son about his first appearance in the world said, ' You 
 will be tried and judged there, not as a boy, but as a man ; and from 
 that moment there zs no appeal for character.' Lord Chesterfield's 
 Letters, iii. 324. Addison in The Guardian, No. 98, had said that ' men 
 of the best sense are always diffident of their private judgment, till it 
 receives a sanction from the public. Pro^wco ad popuhan, I appeal to 
 the people, was the usual saying of a very excellent dramatic poet, 
 when he had any disputes with particular persons about the justness 
 and regularity of his productions.' See post, March 23, 1783. 
 
 ^ ' Were 1,' he said, ' to wear a laced or embroidered waistcoat, it 
 should be very rich. I had once a very rich laced waistcoat, which I 
 wore the first night of my tragedy.' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 27, 1773. 
 
 ^ ' Topham Beauclerc used to give a pleasant description of this 
 greenroom finery, as related by the author himself : " But," said John- 
 son, with great gravity, " I soon laid aside my gold-laced hat, lest it 
 should make me proud." ' Murphy's Johnson, p. 52. In The Idler (No. 
 
 must
 
 .Aetat.4i.] yohnso7i in the Green Room. 233 
 
 must allow, has more effect even upon strong minds than one 
 should suppose, without having had the experience of it. 
 His necessary attendance while his play was in rehearsal, and 
 during its performance, brought him acquainted with many 
 of the performers of both sexes, which produced a more 
 favourable opinion of their profession than he had harshly 
 expressed in his Life of Savagc\ With some of them he 
 kept up an acquaintance as long as he and they lived, and 
 was ever ready to shew them acts of kindness. He for a con- 
 siderable time used to frequent the Green Room, and seemed 
 to take delight in dissipating his gloom, by mixing in the 
 sprightly chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found 
 there'. Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick, 
 that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement, from 
 considerations of rigid virtue; saying, 'I'll come no more 
 behind your scenes, David ; for the silk stockings and white 
 bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.' 
 
 1750: ^TAT. 41.]— In 1750 he came forth in the character 
 for which he was eminently qualified, a majestick teacher of 
 moral and religious wisdom. The vehicle which he chose 
 was that of a periodical paper, which he knew had been, upon 
 former occasions, employed with great success. The Tatler, 
 Spectator, and Guardian, were the last of the kind published 
 in England, which had stood the test of a long triaF; and 
 such an interval had now elapsed since their publication, as 
 made him justly think that, to many of his readers, this form 
 
 62) we have an account of a man who had longed to ' issue forth in 
 all the splendour of embroidery.' When his fine clothes were brought, 
 ' I felt myself obstructed,' he wrote, ' in the common intercourse of 
 civility by an uneasy consciousness of my new appearance ; as I 
 thought myself more observed, I was more anxious about my mien 
 and behaviour ; and the mien which is formed by care is commonly 
 ridiculous.' 
 
 * See ante, p. 193. 
 
 ' See. post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. 
 
 ^ The Tatler came to an end on Jan. 2, 1710-1 ; the first series of 
 The Spectator on Dec. 6, 1712 ; The Guardian on Oct. i, 1713 ; and the 
 second series of The Spectator on Dec. 20, 17 14. 
 
 of
 
 234 The Rambler. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 of instruction would, in some degree, have the advantage of 
 novelty. A few days before the first of his Essays came out, 
 there started another competitor for fame in the same form, 
 under the title of The Tatler Revived\ which I believe was 
 'born but to die\' Johnson was, I think, not very happy in 
 the choice of his title. The Rambler, which certainly is not 
 suited to a series of grave and moral discourses ; which the 
 Italians have literally, but ludicrously translated by // Vaga- 
 bondo^; and which has been lately assumed as the denomina- 
 tion of a vehicle of licentious tales, The Rambler s Magazine. 
 He gave Sir Joshua Reynolds the following account of its 
 getting this name : ' What viust be done. Sir, tvill 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 occurred, and I took it*.' 
 
 With what devout and conscientious sentiments this paper 
 was undertaken, is evidenced by the following prayer, which 
 he composed and offered up on the occasion: 'Almighty 
 God, the giver of all good things, without whose help all 
 labor is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is 
 
 ' ' Two new designs have appeared about the middle of this month 
 [March 1750], one entitled, The Tatler Revived ; or The Christian 
 Philosopher and Politieian, half a sheet, price id. (stamped) ; the other. 
 The Rambler, three half sheets (unstamped) ; price 2.d.' Getit. Mag. 
 XX. 126, 
 
 "^ Pope's Essay on Man, ii. 10. 
 
 ^ S&t post, under Oct. 12, 1779. 
 
 * I have heard Dr. Warton mention, that he was at Mr. Robert 
 Dodsley's with the late Mr. Moore, and several of his friends, con- 
 sidering what should be the name of the periodical paper which Moore 
 had undertaken. Garrick proposed The Sallad, which, by a curious 
 coincidence, was afterwards applied to himself by Goldsmith : 
 ' Our Garrick's a sallad, for in him we see 
 Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree !' 
 
 \^Rctaliation,\\TiQ. 11.] 
 At last, the company having separated, without any thing of which 
 they approved having been offered, Dodsley himself thought of The 
 World. BoswELL. 
 
 folly;
 
 Aetat. 41.] Contributors to The Rambler. 235 
 
 folly ; grant, I beseech Thee, that in this undertaking' thy 
 Holy Spirit may not be with-held from me, but that I may 
 promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others : 
 grant this, O LORD, for the sake of thy son Jesus Christ. 
 Amen".' 
 
 The first paper of The Rambler was published on Tuesday 
 the 20th of March, 1750; and its authour was enabled to 
 continue it, without interruption, every Tuesday and Friday, 
 till Saturday the 17th of March, 1752', on which day it closed. 
 This is a strong confirmation of the truth of a remark of his, 
 which I have had occasion to quote elsewhere*, that 'a man 
 may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it'^;' 
 for, notwithstanding his constitutional indolence, his depres- 
 sion of spirits, and his labour in carrying on his Dictionary, 
 he answered the stated calls of the press twice a week from 
 the stores of his mind, during all that time; having received 
 no assistance, except four billets in No. 10, by Miss Mulso, 
 now Mrs. Chapone°; No. 30, by Mrs. Catharine Talbot'; No. 
 97, by Mr. Samuel Richardson, whom he describes in an in- 
 troductory note as 'An author who has enlarged the knowl- 
 edge of human nature, artd taught the passions to move at 
 
 > In the original MS. ' in this my undertaking,' and below, ' the sal- 
 vation both of myself and others.' 
 
 * Prayers and Meditations, p. 9. BoswELL. 
 
 ' In the original folio edition of The Ra/nbier the concluding paper 
 is dated Saturday, March 17. But Saturday was in fact March 14. 
 This circumstance is worth notice, for Mrs. Johnson died on the 17th. 
 Ma LONE. 
 
 * Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 28. [Aug. 16, 1773]. 
 ♦ Boswell. 
 
 * ' Gray had a notion not very peculiar, that he could not write 
 but at certain times, or at happy moments ; a fantastic foppery, to 
 which my kindness for a man of learning and virtue wishes him to 
 have been superior.' Johnson's Works, viii. 482. See Jtost, under 
 April 15, 1758. 
 
 * Her correspondence with Richardson and Mrs. Carter was pub- 
 lished in 1807. 
 
 ' The correspondence between her and Mrs. Carter was published 
 in 1808. 
 
 the
 
 236 Revision of The Rambler. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 the command of virtue ;' and Nos. 44 and 100 by Mrs. Eliza- 
 beth Carter. 
 
 Posterity will be astonished when they are told, upon the 
 authority of Johnson himself, that many of these discourses, 
 which we should suppose had been laboured with all the slow 
 attention of literary leisure, were written in haste as the mo- 
 ment pressed, without even being read over by him before 
 they were printed'. It can be accounted for only in this 
 way; that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspec- 
 tion of life, he had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous 
 knowledge, which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was 
 ever ready at his call, and which he had constantly accus- 
 tomed himself to clothe in the most apt and energetick ex- 
 pression. Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him by what 
 
 ' Dr. Birch says : — ' The proprietor of the Rambler, Cave, told me 
 that copy was seldom sent to the press till late in the night before the 
 day of publication.' Croker's Bosiuell, p. 121, note. Sec post, April 12, 
 1776, and beginning of 1781. 
 
 Johnson carefully revised the Ramblers for the collected edition. 
 The editor of the O.xford edition of Johnson's Works states (ii. x), 
 that 'the alterations exceeded six thousand.' The following passage 
 from the last number affords a good instance of this revision. 
 
 First edition. 
 ' I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor furnished my 
 readers with abilities to discuss the topic of the day ; I have seldom 
 exemplified my assertions by living characters ; from my papers there- 
 fore no man could hope either censures of his enemies or praises of 
 himself, and they only could be expected to peruse them, whose pas- 
 sions left them leisure for the contemplation of abstracted truth, and 
 whom virtue could please by her native dignity without the assistance 
 of modish ornaments.' Gent. Mag. xxii. 117. * 
 
 Revised Edition. 
 ' I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled my 
 readers to discuss the topic of the day ; I have rarely exemplified my 
 assertions by living characters ; in my papers no man could look for 
 censures of his enemies, or praises of himself ; and they only were ex- 
 pected to peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for abstracted 
 truth, and whom virtue could please by its naked dignity.' Johnson's 
 Works, iii. 462. 
 
 means
 
 Aetat.4i.] jfohusoji s rapid composition. 237 
 
 means he had attained his extraordinary accuracy and flow 
 of language. He told him, that he had early laid it down as 
 a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every 
 company ; to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible 
 language he could put it in ; and that by constant practice, 
 and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, 
 or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them 
 in the clearest manner, it became habitual to him'. 
 
 Yet he was not altogether unprepared as a periodical 
 writer; for I have in my possession a small duodecimo vol- 
 ume, in which he has written, in the form of Mr. Locke's 
 Common-Place Book, a variety of hints for essays on different 
 subjects. He has marked upon the first blank leaf of it, 'To 
 the 128th page, collections for the Rambler \ and in another 
 place, ' In fifty-two there were seventeen provided ; in 97 — 
 21 ; in 190 — 25.' At a subsequent period (probably after 
 the work was finished) he added, ' In all, taken of provided 
 materials, 30^' 
 
 Sir John Hawkins, Avho is unlucky upon all occasions, tells 
 us, that 'this method of accumulating intelligence had been 
 practised by Mr. Addison, and is humourously described in 
 one of the Spectators'^ , wherein he feigns to have dropped his 
 paper of notanda, consisting of a diverting medley of broken 
 sentences and loose hints, which he tells us he had collected, 
 and meant to make use of. Much of the same kind is John- 
 son's Adversaria^ ' But the truth is, that there is no resem- 
 blance at all between them. Addison's note was a fiction, 
 in which unconnected fragments of his lucubrations were pur- 
 posely jumbled together, in as odd a manner as he could, in 
 order to produce a laughable effect. Whereas Johnson's 
 
 ' ' Such relicks [Milton's early manuscripts] shew how excellence is 
 acquired ; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to 
 do with diligence.' Johnson's Works, vii. 119. 
 
 " Of the first 52 Ramblers 49 were wholly by Johnson ; of the last 
 156, 154. He seems to say that in the first 49, 17 were written from 
 notes, and in the last 154 only 13. 
 
 " No. 46. 
 
 * Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 268 [p. 265]. Bosweli.. 
 
 abbreviations
 
 238 Hints for The Rambler. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 abbreviations are all distinct, and applicable to each subject 
 of which the head is mentioned. 
 
 For instance, there is the following specimen : 
 
 Yoiitlis Entry, &c. 
 
 'Baxter's account of things in which he had changed his 
 mind as he grew up. Voluminous. — No wonder.— If every 
 man was to tell, or mark, on how many subjects he has 
 changed, it would make vols, but the changes not always 
 observed by man's self. — From pleasure to bus. ^business'] to 
 quiet ; from thoughtfulness to reflect, to piety ; from dissi- 
 pation to domestic, by impercept. gradat. but the change is 
 certain. Dial' 7ion progredi, progress, esse conspicinms. Look 
 back, consider what was thought at some dist. period. 
 
 ' Hope predom. in youth. Mind not willingly indulges un- 
 pleasing thoughts. The world lies all enameled before him, 
 as a distant prospect sun-gilt"; inequalities only found by com- 
 ing to it. Love is to be all Joy — children exeellent — Fame to be 
 constant — caresses of the great — applauses of the learned — 
 smiles of Beauty. 
 
 ' Fear of disgrace — bashfulness — Finds things of less im- 
 portance. Miscarriages forgot like excellencies ; — if remem- 
 bered, of no import. Danger of sinking into negligence of 
 reputation. Lest the fear of disgrace destroy activity. 
 
 ' Confidence in himself. Long tract of life before him. — No 
 thought of sickness. — Embarrassment of affairs. — Distraction 
 of family. Publick calamities. — No sense of the prevalence 
 of bad habits. — Negligent of time — ready to undertake — care- 
 less to pursue — all changed by time. 
 
 ' Confident of others — unsuspecting as unexperienced — im- 
 agining himself secure against neglect, never imagines they 
 will venture to treat him ill. Ready to trust ; expecting to 
 
 ' ' The sly shadow steals away upon the dial, and the quickest eye 
 can distinguish no more than that it is gone.' Glanville, quoted in 
 Johnson's Dictionary. 
 
 ^ This most beautiful image of the enchanting delusion of youthful 
 prospect has not been used in any of Johnson's essays. Boswell. 
 
 be
 
 Aetat. 41.] Hints for The Rambler. 239 
 
 be trusted. Convinced by time of the selfishness, the mean- 
 ness, the cowardice, the treachery of men. 
 
 'Youth ambitious, as thinking honours easy to be had. 
 
 ' Different kinds of praise pursued at different periods. Of 
 the gay in youth, dang, hurt, &c. despised. 
 
 * Of the fancy in manhood. Ambit. — stocks — bargains. — 
 Of the wise and sober in old age — seriousness — formality — 
 maxims, but general — only of the rich, otherwise age is 
 happy — but at last every thing referred to riches — no hav- 
 ing fame, honour, influence, without subjection to caprice. 
 
 ' Horace'. 
 
 ' Hard it would be if men entered life with the same views 
 with which they leave it, or left as they enter it. — No hope — 
 no undertaking — no regard to benevolence — no fear of dis- 
 grace, &c. 
 
 ' Youth to be taught the piety of age — age to retain the 
 honour of youth.' 
 
 This, it will be observed, is the sketch of Number 196 of TJie 
 Rambler. I shall gratify my readers with another specimen : 
 
 ' Confederacies difficult ; why. 
 
 * Seldom in war a match for single persons — nor in peace , 
 therefore kings make themselves absolute. Confederacies 
 in learning — every great work the work of one. Bruy. 
 Scholar's friendship like ladies. Scribebamus, &c. Mart." 
 the apple of discord— the laurel of discord — the poverty of 
 criticism. Swift's opinion of the power of six geniuses 
 united\ That union scarce possible. His remarks just ; 
 
 * From Horace {Ars Poet. 1. 175) he takes his motto for the num- 
 ber : — 
 
 ' Malta ferunt anni venientes commoda sccum, 
 
 Multa recedentes adimunt.' 
 ' The blessings flowing in with life's full tide 
 Down with our ebb of life decreasing glide.' Francis. 
 " Lib. xii. 96 [95]. ' In Tuccam a^mulum omnium suorum studio- 
 rum.' Malone. 
 
 ' 'There never appear,' says Swift, 'more than five or six men of 
 genius in an age ; but if they were united, the world could not stand 
 before them.' Johnson's Works, iv. 18. 
 
 man
 
 240 Hints for The Rambler. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 man a social, not steady nature. Drawn to man by words, 
 repelled by passions. Orb drawn by attraction rep. [repelled^ 
 by centrifugal. 
 
 ' Common danger unites by crushing other passions — but 
 they return. Equality hinders compliance. Superiority pro- 
 duces insolence and envy. Too much regard in each to pri- 
 vate interest — too little. 
 
 ' The mischiefs of private and exclusive societies — the 
 fitness of social attraction diffused through the whole. The 
 mischiefs of too partial love of our country. Contraction of 
 moral duties — 6t (fiiXoi ov (f)i\o<i\ 
 
 ' Every man moves upon his own center, and therefore re- 
 pels others from too near a contact, though he may comply 
 with some general laws. 
 
 * Of confederacy with superiours, every one knows the in- 
 convenience. With equals, no authority ; — every man his 
 own opinion — his own interest. 
 
 'Man and wife hardly united; — scarce ever without chil- 
 dren. Computation, if two to one against two, how many 
 against five ? If confederacies were easy — useless ; — many 
 oppresses many. — If possible only to some, dangerous. Pn'n- 
 cipjim aniicitias^' 
 
 Here we see the embryo of Number 45 of The Adventurer \ 
 and it is a confirmation of what I shall presently have occa- 
 sion to mention^ that the papers in that collection marked 
 T. were written by Johnson. 
 
 ' In the first edition this is printed J ^Ckoi ov cfuXos ; in the second, 
 (S (jiikoi ov (^tXoff ; in the ' Corrections ' to the second, we find ' for co 
 read o? ;' in the third it is printed as above. In three editions we have 
 therefore five readings of the first word. See pos^, April 15, 1778, 
 where Johnson says : ' An old Greek said, " He that has friends has 
 no friend," ' and April 24, 1779, where he says; ' Garrick had friends 
 but no friend.' 
 
 " ' gravesque 
 
 Principum amicitias.' 
 ' And fatal friendships of the guilty great.' 
 
 Francis, Horace, Odes, ii. i. 4. 
 ^ Fos/, under Jan. i, 1753. 
 
 This
 
 Aetat.4l.] Fertility of yoJi7iso7is mind. 241 
 
 This scanty preparation of materials will not, however, 
 much diminish our wonder at the extraordinary fertility of 
 his mind ; for the proportion which they bear to the num- 
 ber of essays which he wrote, is very small ; and it is remark- 
 able, that those for which he had made no preparation, are as 
 rich and as highly finished as those for which the hints were 
 lying by him. It is also to be observed, that the papers 
 formed from his hints are worked up with such strength and 
 elegance, that we almost lose sight of the hints, which be- 
 come like 'drops in the bucket.' Indeed, in several instances, 
 he has made a very slender use of them, so that many of them 
 remain still unapplied'. 
 
 As The Rambler was entirely the work of one man, there 
 was, of course, such a uniformity in its texture, as very much 
 to exclude the charm of variety'' ; and the grave and often 
 solemn cast of thinking, which distinguished it from other 
 periodical papers, made it, for some time, not generally liked. 
 So slowly did this excellent work, of which twelve editions 
 
 ' Sir John Hawkins has selected from this little collection of ma- 
 terials, what he calls the ' Rudiments of two of the papers of the 
 Rambler' But he has not been able to read the manuscript distinctly. 
 Thus he writes, p. 266, ' Sailor's fate any mansion ;' whereas the origi- 
 nal is ' Sailor's life my aversion.' He has also transcribed the unap- 
 propriated hints on Writers for bread, in which he decyphers these 
 notable passages, one in 'L?i\.m,fatia tion favia, instead oi fatni fion 
 fafucB; Johnson having in his mind what Thuanus says of the learned 
 German antiquary and linguist, Xylander, who, he tells us, lived in 
 such poverty, that he was supposed fa mi non fama; scribere ; and an- 
 other in French, Degeiite de fate [fatu] et ajfamd d' argent, instead of 
 Degoute de fa7ne, (an old word for renomvi^e~) et aff ami d' argent. The 
 manuscript being written in an exceedingly small hand, is indeed very 
 hard to read ; but it would have been better to have left blanks than 
 to write nonsense. Boswell. 
 
 * When we know that of the 208 Ramblers all but five were written 
 by Johnson, it is amusing to read a passage in one of Miss Talbot's 
 letters to Mrs. Carter, dated Oct. 20, 1750: — 'Mr. Johnson would, I 
 fear, be mortified to hear that people know a paper of his own by the 
 sure mark of somewhat a little excessive, a little exaggerated in the 
 expression.' Carter Cor res. i. 357. 
 
 I. — 16 have
 
 242 Praise for The Rambler. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 have now issued from the press, gain upon the world at large, 
 that even in the closing number the authour says, ' I have 
 never been much a favourite of the publick'.' 
 
 Yet, very soon after its commencement, there were who 
 felt and acknowledged its uncommon excellence. Verses in 
 its praise appeared in the newspapers ; and the editor of the 
 Gentlej7mns Magazine mentions, in October, his having re- 
 ceived several letters to the same purpose from the learned". 
 
 * The Ramblers certainly were little noticed at first. Smart, the 
 poet, first mentioned them to me as excellent papers, before I had 
 heard any one else speak of them. When I went into Norfolk, in the 
 autumn of 1751, I found but one person, (the Rev. Mr. Squires, a man 
 of learning, and a general purchaser of new books,) who knew any- 
 thing of them. Before I left Norfolk in the year 1760, the Ramblers 
 were in high favour among persons of learning and good taste. 
 Others there were, devoid of both, who said that the hard words in 
 the Rambler were used by the authour to render his Dictiotiary indis- 
 pensably necessary. Burney. We have notices of The Rambler in 
 the Carter Corres. : — ' May 28, 1750. The author ought to be cautioned 
 not to use over many hard words. In yesterday's paper (a very pretty 
 one indeed) we had equipoiiderant, and another so hard I cannot re- 
 member it [adscititious], both in one sentence.' ' Dec. 17, 1750: — Mr. 
 Cave complains of him for not admitting correspondents ; this does 
 mischief. In the main I think he is to be applauded for it. But why 
 then does he not write now and then on the living manners of the 
 times .>' In writing on April 22, 1752, just after The Rambler had come 
 to an end, Miss Talbot says : — ' Indeed 'tis a sad thing that such a 
 paper should have met with discouragement from wise and learned 
 and good people too. Many are the disputes it has cost me, and not 
 once did I come off triumphant.' Mrs. Carter replied : — ' Many a bat- 
 tle have I too fought for him in the country, but with little success.' 
 Murphy says : — ' Of this excellent production the number sold on each 
 day did not amount to five hundred; of course the bookseller, who 
 paid the author four guineas a week, did not carry on a successful 
 trade.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 59. 
 
 ^ Richardson wrote to Cave on Aug. 9, 1750, after forty-one numbers 
 had appeared : — ' 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.' Rich. Corres. i. 165, 
 Cave replied : — ' Mr. Johnson is the Great Rambler, being, as you ob- 
 serve, the only man who can furnish two such papers in a week, be- 
 
 The
 
 Aetat. 41.] Gcorge II. not an Augustus. 243 
 
 ■ ■ " • — • — ■ » 
 
 The Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany, in whicli 
 Mr. Bonnell Thornton and Mr. Colman were the principal 
 writers, describes it as ' a work that exceeds anything of the 
 kind ever pubhshed in this kingdom, some of the Spectators 
 excepted — if indeed they may be excepted.' And after- 
 wards, ' May the publick favours crown his merits, and may 
 not the EngHsh, under the auspicious reign of George the 
 Second, neglect a man, who, had he hved in the first centur}', 
 would have been one of the greatest favourites of Augustus.' 
 This flattery of the monarch had no effect. It is too well 
 known, that the second George never was an Augustus to 
 learning or genius'. 
 
 Johnson told me, with an amiable fondness, a little pleasing 
 circumstance relative to this work. Mrs. Johnson, in whose 
 judgement 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 anything equal to this".' Distant praise, from 
 whatever quarter, is not so delightful as that of a wife whom 
 a man loves and esteems. Her approbation may be said to 
 ' come home to his bosom ;' and being so near, its effect is 
 most sensible and permanent. 
 
 Mr. James Elphinston^ who has since published various 
 
 sides his other great business.' He mentioned the recommendation 
 it received from high quarters, and continued : — ' Notwithstanding, 
 whether the price of two-pence, or the unfavourable season of their 
 first publication hinders the demand, no boast can be made of it.' 
 Johnson had not wished his name to be known. Cave says that ' Mr. 
 Garrick and others, who knew the author's powers and style from the 
 first, unadvisedly asserting their suspicions, overturned the scheme of 
 secrecy.' lb. pp. 168-170. 
 
 ' Horace Walpole, while justifying George H. against 'bookish men 
 who have censured his neglect of literature,' says : — ' In truth; I be- 
 lieve King George would have preferred a guinea to a composition as 
 perfect as Alexander s Feast.' Reii^n of George III, iii. 304. 
 
 ' ' Dr. Johnson said to an acquaintance of mine, " My other works 
 are v/ine and water; but my Rambler is pure wine." Rogers's Table 
 'ralk,\). 10. 
 
 ^ 'St&post, April 5, 1772 ; April 19, 1773 ; and April 9, 1778. 
 
 works,
 
 244 Letters to Mr. Elphmsto7i. [a.d. itoO. 
 
 1 — — — — — ■ 
 
 works, and who was ever esteemed by Johnson as a worthy 
 man, happened to be in Scotland while The Rambler was com- 
 ing out in single papers at London. With a laudable zeal 
 at once for the improvement of his countrymen, and the 
 reputation of his friend, he suggested and took the charge 
 of an edition of those Essays at Edinburgh, which followed 
 progressively the London publication'. 
 
 The following letter written at this time, though not 
 dated, will show how much pleased Johnson was with this 
 publication, and what kindness and regard he had for Mr. 
 Elphinston. 
 
 'To Mr. James Elphinston. 
 
 {No date.] 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I cannot but confess the failures of my correspondence, but 
 hope the same regard which you express for me on every other 
 occasion, will incline you to forgive me. I am often, very often, 
 ill ; and, when I am well, am obliged to work : and, indeed, have 
 never much used myself to punctuality. You are, however, not to 
 make unkind inferences, when I forbear to reply to your kindness ; 
 for be assured, I never receive a letter from you without great 
 pleasure, and a very warm sense of your generosity and friendship, 
 which I heartily blame myself for not cultivating with more care. 
 In this, as in many other cases, I go wrong, in opposition to con- 
 viction; for I think scarce any temporal good equally to be de- 
 sired with the regard and familiarity of worthy men. I hope we 
 shall be some time nearer to each other, and have a more ready 
 way of pouring out our hearts. 
 
 ' I am glad that you still find encouragement to proceed in your 
 publication, and shall beg the favour of six more volumes to add 
 to my former six, when you can, with any convenience, send them 
 me. Please to present a set, in my name, to Mr. Ruddiman^ of 
 
 ' It was executed in the printing-office of Sands, Murray, and Coch- 
 ran, with uncommon elegance, upon writing-paper, of a duodecimo 
 size, and with the greatest correctness ; and Mr. Elphinston enriched 
 it with translations of the mottos. When completed, it made eight 
 handsome volumes. It is, unquestionably, the most accurate and 
 beautiful edition of this work ; and there being but a small impression, 
 it is now become scarce, and sells at a very high price. Boswell. 
 
 * Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland, well 
 
 whom.
 
 Aetat.-ii.] Letters to Mr. Elphinston. 245 
 
 whom, I hear, that his learning is not his highest excellence. 1 
 have transcribed the mottos, and returned them, I hope not too late, 
 of which I think many very happily performed. Mr. Cave has put 
 the last in the magazine", in which I think he did well. I beg of 
 you to v/rite soon, and to write often, and to write long letters, 
 which I hope in time to repay you ; but you must be a patient 
 creditor. I have, however, this of gratitude, that I think of you 
 with regard, when I do not, perhaps, give the proofs which I ought, 
 of being, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obliged and 
 
 ' Most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 This year he wrote to the same gentleman another letter, 
 upon a mournful occasion. 
 
 'To Mr. James Elphinston. 
 'Dear Sir, -September 25. 1750. 
 
 ' You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excel- 
 lent mother ; and I hope you will not think me incapable of par- 
 taking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of 
 age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose'', unless it please God that 
 she rather should mourn for me. I read the letters in which you 
 relate your mother's death to Mrs. Strahan\ and thmk I do myself 
 honour, when I tell you that I read them with tears ; but tears are 
 neither to yon nor to me of any further use, when once the tribute 
 of nature has been paid. The business of life summons us away 
 from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of 
 which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit 
 
 known for his various excellent works, and for his accurate editions of 
 several authours. He was also a man of a most worthy private char- 
 acter. His zeal for the Royal House of Stuart did not render him 
 less estimable in Dr. Johnson's eye. Boswell. 
 
 ' In the Gent. Mag. for Sept. 1750, and for Oct. 1752, translations of 
 many of the mottoes were given ; but in each number there are several 
 of Elphinston 's. Johnson seems to speak of only one. 
 
 ° Writing to Miss Porter on July 12, 1749, he said : — ' I was afraid 
 your letter had brought me ill news of my mother, whose death is one 
 of the few calamities on which I think with terror.' Croker's Boswell, 
 p. 62. 
 
 ^ Mr. Strahan was Elphinston's brother-in-law. Post, April 9, 1778. 
 
 which
 
 246 The death of a mother. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard, and excite, 
 and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you 
 diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her death : a 
 life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent ; and a death 
 resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention, that 
 neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope, that you may in- 
 crease her happiness by obeying her precepts ; and that she may, 
 in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to 
 which her instructions or example have contributed. Whether this 
 be more than a pleasing dream, or a just opinion of separate 
 spirits, is, indeed, of no great importance to us, when we consider 
 ourselves as acting under the eye of God : yet, surely, there is 
 something pleasing in the belief, that our separation from those 
 whom we love is merely corporeal ; and it may be a great incitement 
 to virtuous friendship, if it can be made probable, that that union 
 that has received the divine approbation shall continue to eternity. 
 ' There is one expedient by which you may, in some degree, con- 
 tinue her presence. If you write down minutely what you remem- 
 ber of her from your earliest years, you will read it with great 
 pleasure, and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection, 
 v/hen time shall remove her yet farther from you, and your grief 
 shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the 
 present, I cannot but advise you, as to a source of comfort and 
 satisfaction in the time to come ; for all comfort and all satisfac- 
 tion is sincerely wished you by, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obliged, most obedient, 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 Ike Rambler has increased in fame as in age. Soon after 
 its first folio edition was concluded, it was published in 
 six duodecimo volumes' ; and its authour lived to see ten 
 numerous editions" of it in London, beside those of Ireland 
 and Scotland\ 
 
 1 In the Gent. Mag. for Januar>' 1752, in the list of books published 
 is : — ' A correct and beautiful edition of the Rambler in 4 volumes, in 
 i2mo. Price 12^.' The Rambler was not concluded till the following 
 March. The remaining two volumes were published in July. Getit. 
 Mag. xxii. 338. 
 
 '^ According to Hawkins {Life, p. 269) each edition consisted of 1250 
 copies. . ' See post, July 20, 1763. 
 
 I profess
 
 Aetat.4i.] Goldsmith's debt to yohnson. 247 
 
 I profess myself to have ever entertained a profound 
 veneration for the astonishing force and vivacity of mind 
 which 77/r Rambler exhibits. That Johnson had penetration 
 enough to see, and seeing would not disguise the general 
 misery of man in this state of being, may have given rise to 
 the superficial notion of his being too stern a philosopher. 
 But men of reflection will be sensible that he has given a 
 true representation of human existence, and that he has, at 
 the same time, with a generous benevolence displayed every 
 consolation which our state affords us ; not only those arising 
 from the hopes of futurity, but such as may be attained in 
 the immediate progress through life. He has not depressed 
 the soul to despondency and indifference. He has ever>'- 
 where inculcated study, labor, and exertion. Nay, he has 
 shewn, in a very odious light, a man whose practice is to go 
 about darkening the views of others by perpetual complaints 
 of evil, and awakening those considerations of danger and 
 distress, which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet 
 oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his character 
 of Suspirius', from which Goldsmith took that of Croaker, 
 in his comedy of TJic Good-Natiircd Maif, as Johnson told 
 me he acknowledged to him, and which is, indeed, very 
 obvious'. 
 
 * No. 55 [59]. BOSWELL. 
 
 " Miss Burney records in her Diary that one day at Streatham, 
 while she and Mrs. Thrale 'were reading this Rambler, Dr. Johnson 
 came in. We told him what we were about. " Ah, madam !" cried 
 he, " Goldsmith was not scrupulous ; but he would have been a great 
 man had he known the real value of his own internal resources." ' 
 Mme. D' Arblay s Diary, i. 83. S^^ post, beginning of 1768. 
 
 ' It is possible that Mrs. Hardcastle's drive in She Stoops io Conquer 
 was suggested by Tlie Rambler, No. 34. In it a young gentleman de- 
 scribes a lady's terror on a coach journey. ' Our whole conversation 
 passed in dangers, and cares, and fears, and consolations, and stories 
 of ladies dragged in the mire, forced to spend all the night on a heath, 
 drowned in rivers, or burnt with lightning . . . We had now a new- 
 scene of terror, every man we saw was a robber, and we were ordered 
 sometimes to drive hard, lest a traveller whom we saw behind should 
 overtake us ; and sometimes to stop, lest we should come up to him 
 
 To
 
 248 The Beauties of Dr. Johnson, [a. d. 1750. 
 
 To point out the numerous subjects which TJie Rambler 
 treats, with a dignity and perspicuity which are there united 
 in a manner which we shall in vain look for any where else, 
 would take up too large a portion of my book, and would, I 
 trust, be superfluous, considering how universally those vol- 
 umes are now disseminated. Even the most condensed and 
 brilliant sentences which they contain, and which have very 
 properly been selected under the name of Beauties', are of 
 considerable bulk. But I may shortly observe, that The 
 Rambler furnishes such an assemblage of discourses on prac- 
 tical religion and moral duty, of critical investigations, and 
 allegorical and oriental tales, that no mind can be thought 
 veiy deficient that has, by constant study and meditation, as- 
 similated to itself all that may be found there. No. 7, written 
 in Passion-week on abstraction and self-examination^ and 
 No. 1 10, on penitence and the placability of the Divine Nat- 
 ure, cannot be too often read. No. 54, on the effect which 
 the death of a friend should have upon us, though rather too 
 dispiriting, may be occasionally very medicinal to the mind. 
 Every one must suppose the writer to have been deeply im- 
 pressed by a real scene ; but he told me that was not the 
 case; which shews how well his fancy could conduct him 
 
 who was passing before us. She alarmed many an honest man by 
 beggmg him to spare her life as he passed by the coach.' 
 
 ' Dr. Johnson was gratified by seeing this selection, and wrote to 
 Mr. Kearsley, bookseller in Fleet-Street, the following note : — 
 
 ' Mr. Johnson sends compliments to Mr. Kearsley, and begs the 
 favour of seeing him as soon as he can. Mr. Kearsley is desired to 
 bring with him the last edition of what he has honoured with the 
 name of Beauties. May 20, 1782.' Boswell. The correspondence, 
 post, May 15, 1782, shews that Johnson sent for this book, not because 
 he was gratified, but because he was accused, on the strength of one 
 of the Beauties, of recommending suicide. On that day, being in the 
 country, he wrote : ' I never saw the book but by casual inspection, 
 and considered myself as utterly disengaged from its consequences.' 
 lie adds : — ' I hope some time in the next week to have all rectified.' 
 The letter of May 20 shews that on his return to town he lost little 
 time, if any, in sending for Kearsley. 
 
 * SQ&posi, April 12, 1781. 
 
 to
 
 DR. JOHNSON. 
 
 From a iiiiiiia/Kiv worn in a bracelet by Mrs. Jo/msoii.
 
 Aetat. 41.] ''More bark and steel for the mind! 249 
 
 to the 'house of mourning'.' Some of these more solemn 
 papers, I doubt not, particularly attracted the notice of Dr. 
 Young, the authour of TJic NigJU Thoughts, of whom my 
 estimation is such, as to reckon his applause an honour even 
 to Johnson. I have seen some volumes of Dr. Young's copy 
 of The Rambler, in which he has marked the passages which 
 he thought particularly excellent by folding down a corner 
 of the page; and such as he rated in a super-eminent de- 
 gree, are marked by double folds. I am sorry that some of 
 the volumes are lost. Johnson was pleased when told of the 
 minute attention with which Young had signified his appro- 
 bation of his Essays. 
 
 I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be 
 found more bark aiid steel for the mind, if I may use the ex- 
 pression ; more that can brace and invigorate every manly 
 and noble sentiment. No. 32 on patience, even under ex- 
 treme misery, is wonderfully lofty, and as much above the 
 rant of stoicism, as the Sun of Revelation is brighter than 
 the twilight of Pagan philosophy. I never read the follow- 
 ing sentence without feeling my frame thrill: 'I think there 
 is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind 
 are not so proportioned, that the one can bear all which can 
 be inflicted on the other ; whether virtue cannot stand its 
 ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled, will 
 not be sooner separated than subdued\' 
 
 Though instruction be the predominant purpose of The 
 Rambler, yet it is enlivened with a considerable portion of 
 amusement. Nothing can be more erroneous than the no- 
 tion which some persons have entertained, that Johnson was 
 then a retired authour, ignorant of the world ; and, of con- 
 sequence, that he wrote only from his imagination when 
 he described characters and manners. He said to me, that 
 
 ' Ecclesiastes vii. 4. 
 
 " In the original ' separated sooner than subdued.' Johnson acted 
 up to what he said. When he was close on his end, ' all who saw him 
 beheld and acknowledged the invictum animum Caionis . . . Talking 
 of his illness he said : — " I will be conquered ; I will not capitulate." ' 
 See post, Oct. 1 784. 
 
 before
 
 250 A Club 171 Essex. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 before he wrote that work, he had been ' running about the 
 world,' as he expressed it, more than almost any body; and 
 I have heard him relate, with much satisfaction, that several 
 of the characters in Tlie Rambler were drawn so naturally, 
 that when it first circulated in numbers, a club in one of the 
 towns in Essex imagined themselves to be severally exhibited 
 in it, and were much incensed against a person who, they 
 suspected, had thus made thCm objects of publick notice ; 
 nor were they quieted till authentick assurance was given 
 them, that The Rambler was written by a person who had 
 never heard of any one of them'. Some of the characters 
 are believed to have been actually drawn from the life, par- 
 ticularly that of Prospero from Garrick\ who never entirely 
 
 ' In the Spectator, No. 568, Addison tells of a village in which 'there 
 arose a current report that somebody had written a book against the 
 'squire and the whole parish.' The book was The Whole Duty of 
 Man. 
 
 "^ ' The character of Prospero was, beyond all question, occasioned 
 by Garrick's ostentatious display of furniture and Dresden china.' 
 Murphy's Johnson, p. 144. If Garrick was aimed at, it is surprising 
 that the severity of the satire did not bring to an end, not only all 
 friendship, but even any acquaintance between the two men. The 
 writer describes how he and Prospero had set out in the world to- 
 gether, and how for a long time they had assisted each other, till his 
 friend had been lately raised to wealth by a lucky project. ' I felt at 
 his sudden shoot of success an honest and disinterested joy.' Pros- 
 pero reproached him with his neglect to visit him at his new house. 
 When however he went to see him, he found that his friend's impa- 
 tience 'arose not from any desire to communicate his happiness, but 
 to enjoy his superiority.' He was kept waiting at the door, and when 
 at length he was shewn up stairs, he found the staircase carefully 
 secured by mats from the pollution of his feet. Prospero led him into 
 a back room, where he told him he always breakfasted when he had 
 not great company. After the visitor had endured one act of inso- 
 lence after another, he says : — ' I left him without any intention of 
 seeing him again, unless some misfortune should restore his under- 
 standing.' Rambler, No. 200. See post. May 15, 1776, where Johnson, 
 speaking of the charge of meanness brought against Garrick, said, ' he 
 might have been much better attacked for living with more splendour 
 than is suitable to a player.' 
 
 forgave
 
 Aetat. 41.] The character of Prospero. 251 
 
 forgave its pointed satire*. For instances of fertility of fancy, 
 and accurate description of real life, I appeal to No. 19, a 
 man who wanders from one profession to another, with most 
 plausible reasons for every change. No. 34, female fastidious- 
 ness and timorous refinement. No. 82, a Virtuoso who has 
 collected curiosities. No. 88", petty modes of entertaining a 
 company, and conciliating kindness. No. 182, fortune-hunt- 
 ing. No. 194-195, a tutor's account of the follies of his pupil. 
 No. 197-198, legacy-hunting. He has given a specimen of 
 his nice observation of the mere external appearances of life, 
 in the following passage in No. 179, against affectation, that 
 frequent and most disgusting quality : ' He that stands to 
 contemplate the crouds that fill the streets of a populous 
 city, will see many passengers whose air and motion it will 
 be difficult to behold without contempt and laughter; but if 
 he examine what are the appearances that thus powerfully 
 excite his risibility, he will find among them neither poverty 
 nor disease, nor any involuntary or painful defect. The dis- 
 position to derision and insult, is awakened by the softness 
 of foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or 
 
 ' In C. C. Greville's Journal {\\. 316) we have an instance how stories 
 about Johnson grew. He writes : — ' Lord Holland told some stories 
 of Johnson and Garrick which he had heard from Kemble . . . When 
 Garrick was in the zenith of his popularity, and grown rich, and lived 
 with the great, and while Johnson was yet obscure, the Doctor used 
 to drink tea with him, and he would say, "Davy, I do not envy you 
 your money nor your fine acquaintance, but I envy you your power of 
 drinking such tea as this." " Yes," said Garrick, "It is very good tea, 
 but it is not my best, nor that which I give to my Lord this and Sir 
 somebody t'other." ' There can be little doubt that the whole story 
 is founded on the following passage in the character of Prospero : 
 ' Breakfast was at last set, and, as I was not willing to indulge the 
 peevishness that began to seize me, I commended the tea. Prospero 
 then told me that another time I should taste his finest sort, but that 
 he had only a very small quantity remaining, and reserved it for those 
 whom he thought himself obliged to treat with particular respect.' 
 Se.t. post, April 10, 1778, where Johnson maintained that Garrick bore 
 his good-fortune with modesty. 
 
 " No. 98. 
 
 the
 
 252 The style of The Rambler. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 the solemnity of grandeur ; by the sprightly trip, the stately 
 stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mien ; by gestures in- 
 tended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as 
 evidences of importance.' 
 
 Every page of The Rambler shews a mind teeming with 
 classical allusion and poetical imagery : illustrations from 
 other writers are, upon all occasions, so ready, and mingle so 
 easily in his periods, that the whole appears of one uniform 
 vivid texture. 
 
 The style of this work has been censured by some shallow 
 criticks as involved and turgid, and abounding with anti- 
 quated and hard words. So ill-founded is the first part of 
 this objection, that I will challenge all who may honour this 
 book with a perusal, to point out any English writer whose 
 language conveys his meaning with equal force and perspi- 
 cuity. It must, indeed, be allowed, that the structure of his 
 sentences is expanded, and often has somewhat of the inver- 
 sion of Latin ; and that he delighted to express familiar 
 thoughts in philosophical language ; being in this the reverse 
 of Socrates, who, it was said, reduced philosophy to the sim- 
 plicity of common life. But let us attend to what he himself 
 says in his concluding paper: 'When common words were 
 less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I 
 have familiarised the terms of philosophy, by applying them 
 to popular ideas\' And, as to the second part of this objec- 
 tion, upon a late careful revision of the work, I can with 
 confidence say, that it is amazing how few of those words, 
 for which it has been unjustly characterised, are actually to 
 be found in it ; I am sure, not the proportion of one to each 
 paper. This idle charge has been echoed from one babbler 
 to another, who have confounded Johnson's Essays with 
 
 ' Yet his style did not escape the harmless shafts of pleasant hu- 
 mour; for the ingenious Bonnell Thornton published a mock Ram- 
 bler in the Drtcry-iane Journal. Boswell. Murphy {Life, p. 1 57), 
 criticising the above quotation from Johnson, says: — 'He forgot the 
 observation of Dryden : " If too many foreign words are poured in 
 upon us, it looks as if they were designed, not to assist the natives, 
 but to conquer them." ' 
 
 Johnson's
 
 Aetat. 41.] j'o/inso7is masters in style. 25'' 
 
 o 
 
 Johnson's Dictionary ; and because he thought it right in a 
 Lexicon of our language to collect many words which had 
 fallen into disuse, but were supported by great authorities, 
 it has been imagined that all of these have been interwoven 
 into his own compositions. That some of them have been 
 adopted by him unnecessarily, may, perhaps, be allowed ; 
 but, in general they are evidently an advantage, for with- 
 out them his stately ideas would be confined and cramped. 
 ' He that thinks with more extent than another, will want 
 words of larger meaning'.' He once told me, that he had 
 formed his style upon that of Sir William Temple^ and upon 
 Chambers's Proposal for his Dictionary^ , He certainly was 
 
 ' Idler, No. 70. BoswELL. In the same number Johnson writes : — 
 ' Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity 
 of a more numerous class of readers than the use of hard words . . . 
 But words are hard only to those who do not understand them ; and 
 the critic ought always to inquire, whether he is incommoded by the 
 fault of the writer or by his own. Every author does not write for 
 every reader.' See post, Sept. 19, 1777, where Johnson says: — 'If 
 Robertson's style be faulty he owes it to me ; that is, having too many 
 words, and those too big ones.' 
 
 ^ The following passages in Temple's writings shew that a likeness 
 may be discovered between his style and Johnson's : — ' There may be 
 firmness and constancy of courage from tradition as well as of belief: 
 nor, methinks, should any man know how to be a coward, that is 
 brought up with the opinion, that all of his nation or city have ever 
 been valiant.' Temple's Works, i. 167. 'This is a disease too refined 
 for this country and people, who are well, when they are not ill, and 
 pleased, when they are not troubled ; are content, because they think 
 little of it ; and seek their happiness in the common eases and com- 
 modities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves 
 with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of 
 pleasure.' lb. p. 170. ' They send abroad the best of their own butter 
 into all parts, and buy the cheapest out of Ireland, or the north of 
 England, for their own use. In short they furnish infinite luxury 
 which they never practise, and traffic in pleasures which they never 
 taste.' lb. p. 195. See post, April 9, 1778, where Johnson says: — 
 'Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose.' 
 
 ^ Dean Stanley calls Ephraim Chambers ' the Father of Cyclopae- 
 dias.' Memorials of IVestinzfister Abbey, p. 299, note. The epitaph 
 which Chambers wrote for himself the Dean gives as : — ' Multis per- 
 
 mistaken ;
 
 2 54 -^ Great Personage. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 mistaken ; or if he imagined at first that he was imitating 
 Temple he was very unsuccessful ; for nothing can be more 
 unlike than the simplicity of Temple, and the richness of 
 Johnson. Their styles differ as plain cloth and brocade. 
 Temple, indeed, seems equally erroneous in supposing that 
 he himself had formed his style upon Sandys's Viciv of the 
 State of Religion in the Western parts of the World. 
 
 The style of Johnson was, undoubtedly, much formed upon 
 that of the great writers in the last century, Hooker, Bacon, 
 Sanderson, Hakewell, and others ; those ' GlANTS',' as they 
 were well characterised by A GREAT PERSONAGE', whose 
 
 vulgatus, paucis notus, qui vitam inter lucem et umbram, nee eruditus 
 nee idioticis literis deditus, transegit.' In the Gent. Mag. for 1740, p. 
 262, the last line is given, no doubt correctly, as : — ' Nee eruditus nee 
 idiota, literis* deditus.' The second edition of Chambers's Cyclopadia 
 was published in 1738. There is no copy of his Proposal in the Brit- 
 ish Museum or Bodleian. The resemblance between his style and 
 Johnson's is not great. The following passage is the most Johnsonian 
 that I could find : — ' None of my predecessors can blame me for the 
 use I have made of them ; since it is their own avowed practice. It 
 is a kind of privilege attached to the office of lexicographer ; if not by 
 any formal grant, yet by connivance at least. I have already assumed 
 the bee for my device, and who ever brought an action of trover or 
 trespass against that avowed free-booter .? 'Tis vain to pretend any- 
 thing of property in things of this nature. To offer our thoughts to 
 the public, and yet pretend a right reserved therein to oneself, if it be 
 not absurd, yet it is sordid. The words we speak, nay the breath we 
 emit, is not more vague and common than our thoughts, when di- 
 vulged in print.' Chambers's Preface, p. xxiii. 
 
 ' * There were giants in the earth in those daj'S.' Gen. vi. 4. 
 
 2 A GREAT Personage first appears in the second edition. In the 
 first edition we merely find ' by one whose authority,' &c. Boswell 
 in his Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773, speaks of George III. as 'a Great Per- 
 sonage.' In his Letter to the People of Scotland (p. 90) he thus intro- 
 duces an anecdote about the King and Paoli : — ' I have one other 
 circumstance to communicate ; but it is of the highest value. I com- 
 municate it wnth a mixture of awe and fondness. — That Great Person- 
 age, who IS allowed by all to have the best memory of any man born a 
 Briton,' &c. In the Probationary Odes for the Laurcateship, published 
 a few months after Boswell's Letter, a ' Great Personage ' is ludicrously 
 introduced ; pp. xxx. 63. 
 
 authority.
 
 Aetat.4i.] The motto to the Dictionary. 255 
 
 authority, were I to name him, would stamp a reverence on 
 the opinion. 
 
 We may, with the utmost propriety, apply to his learned 
 style that passage of Horace, a part of which he has taken 
 as the motto to his Dictionary^ : 
 
 ' Cum tabtilis animuin caisoris sumd honest i ; 
 Audebit qucccumquc paritm splendoris habebunt 
 Et sine pondere erunt, et honore indigna ferentnr. 
 Verba movere loco, quamvis invita recedant, 
 Et versentur adhuc intra penetralia Vesta;. 
 Obscurata dm populo bonus eruet, atque 
 Proferet in luceni speciosa vocabula rerum, 
 QucB priscis memorata Catonibus atque Cethegis, 
 Niinc situs ififonnis premit et descrta vetustas : 
 Adsciscet nova, quce genitor produxerit usus : 
 Veheniens, et liquidus,puroque similliinus amni, 
 Fundet opes Latiumque beabit divite lingua '.' 
 
 To so great a master of thinking, to one of such vast and 
 various knowledge as Johnson, might have been allowed a 
 
 ' The first nine lines form the motto. 
 
 ^ Herat. Epist. Lib. ii. Epist. ii. [1. i lo]. BOSWELL. 
 ' But how severely with themselves proceed 
 The men, who write such verse as we can read ! 
 Their own strict judges, not a word they spare 
 That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care, 
 Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place, 
 Nay, though at court, perhaps, it may find grace : 
 Such they'll degrade ; and sometimes, in its stead, 
 In downright charity revive the dead ; 
 Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears. 
 Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years; 
 Command old words that long have slept to wake. 
 Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake ; 
 Or bid the new be English, ages hence, 
 (For use will father what's begot by sense ;) 
 Pour the full tide of eloquence along. 
 Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong, 
 Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue.' 
 
 Pope, Imitations of Horace, ii. 2. 157. 
 
 liberal
 
 256 Johnson not a coiner of words. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 liberal indulgence of that licence which Horace claims in 
 
 another place : 
 
 ' Si forte nccesse est 
 
 ludiciis nionstrare receiitibus ahdita rerum, 
 Fingere cinctutis 7ion exaudita Cethegis 
 Continget, dabiturqiie licentia sumpta pudenter : 
 Et 7wva Jictaque nuper habebunt verba fidcm si 
 Grceco fonte cadant, parce detorta. Quid aiitcfn 
 Ccecilio Plautoqiic dahit Ro77iatius, ade77iptu7/i 
 Vi/gilio Varioque / Ego cur, acquire/e pauca 
 Si possu77i, iuvideor ; cu77i lingua Cat07iis et E7ini 
 Se7-77io/ie?n pat ri 11771 ditaverit, et 7iova re7-um 
 No77Wia p)-otulerit I Liciiit se77iperque liccbit 
 Signatu77i priesente Tiotd p7-oducere 7iome7i\' 
 
 Yet Johnson assured me, that he had not taken upon him 
 to add more than four or five words to the English language, 
 of his own formation' ; and he was very much offended at 
 the general licence, by no means ' modestly taken ' in his 
 time, not only to coin new words, but to use many words 
 in senses quite different from their established meaning, 
 and those frequently very fantastical'. 
 
 Sir Thomas Brown', whose life Johnson wrote, was 
 
 ' Horat. De Arte Poetica. [1. 48.] BOSWELL. 
 
 2 See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 29, 1773, where Boswell says that up 
 to that date he had twice heard Johnson coin words, /^r^'^r/;//// and 
 depeditatio7i. 
 
 '■' ' The words which our authors have introduced by their knowl- 
 edge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or 
 wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have 
 registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, 
 and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to 
 the injury of the natives. . . . Our language for almost a century has, 
 by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its 
 original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick struct- 
 ure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to 
 recall it, by making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style. . . . 
 From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might 
 be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance.' John- 
 son's IVor^^s, V. pp. 31, 39- See post, May 12, 1778. 
 
 * If Johnson sometimes indulged his Brow7iistn {see post, beginning 
 
 remarkably
 
 Aetat. 41.J yo/nisofis injluence on style. 257 
 
 remarkably fond of Anglo-Latian diction ; and to his exam- 
 ple we are to ascribe Johnson's sometimes indulging himself 
 in this kind of phraseology'. Johnson's comprehension of 
 mind was the mould for his language. Had his conceptions 
 been narrower, his expression would have been easier. His 
 sentences have a dignified march ; and, it is certain, that his 
 example has given a general elevation to the language of his 
 country, for many of our best writers have approached very 
 near to him ; and, from the influence which he has had upon 
 our composition, scarcely any thing is written now that is 
 not better expressed than was usual before he appeared to 
 lead the national taste. 
 
 This circumstance, the truth of which must strike every 
 critical reader, has been so happily enforced by Mr. Court- 
 enay, in his Moral and Literary Character of Dr. Jolinson, 
 that I cannot prevail on myself to withhold it, notwith- 
 standing his, perhaps, too great partiality for one of his 
 friends : 
 
 of 1756), yet he saw much to censure in Browne's style. 'His style 
 is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous 
 words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally 
 appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of 
 another. He must however be confessed to have augmented our 
 philosophical diction. . . . His innovations are sometimes pleasing, 
 and his temerities happy.' Johnson's Works, vi. 500. ' It is remark- 
 able that the pomp of diction, which has been objected to Johnson, 
 was first assumed in the Rambler. His Dicttottary was going on at 
 the same time, and in the course of that work, as he grew familiar 
 with technical and scholastic words, he thought that the bulk of his 
 readers were equally learned ; or at least would admire the splendour 
 and dignity of the style.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 156. 
 
 ' The observation of his having imitated Sir Thomas Brown has 
 been made by many people ; and lately it has been insisted on, and 
 illustrated by a variety of quotations from Brown, in one of the popu- 
 lar Essays written by the Reverend Mr. Knox [the Essay is No. xxii. 
 of Winter Evem'ftgs, Knox's Works, ii. 397], master of Tunbridge 
 school, whom I have set down in my list \post, under Dec. 6, 17S4] of 
 those who have sometimes not unsuccessfully imitated Dr. Johnson's 
 style. BoswELL. 
 
 I.— 17 By
 
 258 Cotirieiiays lines on Johnsons school, [a.d. 1750. 
 
 * 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 sovereign 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 Burney glows. 
 While the grand strain in smoother cadence flows. 
 And you, M alone, to critick learning dear, 
 Correct and elegant, refin'd though clear. 
 By studying him, acquir'd that classick taste. 
 Which high in Shakspeare's fane thy statue plac'd. 
 Near Johnson Steevens stands, on scenick 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 flowery plains : 
 In Hindu fictions while we fondly trace 
 Love and the Muses, deck'd with Attick 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 following observation in Mr. Boswell's Journal of a Tour to 
 the Hebrides [p. 9] may sufficiently account for that Gentleman's being 
 ' now scarcely esteem'd a Scot ' by many of his countrymen : — ' If he 
 [Dr. Johnson] was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was 
 because they were more in his way ; because he thought their success 
 in England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; 
 and because he could not but see in them that nationality which, I 
 believe, no liberal-minded Scotchman will deny.' Mr. Boswell, indeed, 
 is so free from national prejudices, that he might with equal propriety 
 have been described as — 
 
 ' Scarce by South Britons now esteem'd a Scot.' 
 
 Courtenay. Boswell. 
 
 The
 
 Aetat.4i.] The styles of Addison and yoknson. 259 
 
 The keen research, the exercise of mind. 
 
 And that best art, the art to know mankind. — 
 
 Nor was his energ}- confin'd alone 
 
 To friends around his philosophick throne ; 
 
 Its influence wide iinprov'd our letter d isle, 
 
 And lucid vigour marked the general style: 
 
 As Nile's proud waves, swoln from their oozy bed, 
 
 First o'er the neighbouring meads majestick spread ; 
 
 Till gathering force, they more and more expand, 
 
 And with new virtue fertilise the land.' 
 
 Johnson's language, however, must be allowed to be too 
 masculine for the delicate gentleness of female writing. His 
 ladies, therefore, seem strangely formal, even to ridicule ; 
 and are well denominated by the names which he has given 
 them, as Misella', Zozima, Properantia, Rhodoclia. 
 
 It has of late been the fashion to compare the style of 
 Addison and Johnson, and to depreciate, I think very unjust- 
 ly, the style of Addison as nerveless and feeble^ because it 
 has not the strength and energy of that of Johnson. Their 
 prose may be balanced like the poetry of Dryden and Pope. 
 
 ' Malone says that ' Baretti used sometimes to walk with Johnson 
 through the streets at night, and occasionally entered into conversa- 
 tion with the unfortunate women who frequent them, for the sake of 
 hearing their stories. It was from a history of one of these, which a 
 girl told under a tree in the King's Bench Walk in the Temple to 
 Baretti and Johnson, that he formed the story of Misella in the Ram- 
 bler [Nos. 170 and 171].' Prior's Malone, p. 161. 'Of one [of these 
 women] who was very handsome he asked, for what she thought God 
 had given her so much beauty. She answered : — " To please gentle- 
 men." ' Wa-wkms'?, Johnson, p. 321. See dlso post, under Dec. 2, 1784. 
 - Hawkins {Life, p. 270) had said that 'the characteristics of Addi- 
 son's style are feebleness and inanity.' He was thus happily ridiculed 
 by Porson : — ' Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a parcel 
 of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., instead 
 of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or performing 
 any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print (see the 
 Microcosm, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's vn'ddllng 
 style. . . . But what can you expect, as Lord Kames justly observes, 
 from a school where boys are taught to rob on the highway .''' Porson, 
 Tracts, p. 339. 
 
 Both
 
 26o The styles of Addison and yohnson. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 Both are excellent, though in different ways. Addison 
 writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy 
 that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; 
 so that he insinuates his sentiments and taste into their 
 minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like 
 a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academ- 
 ical chair. They attend with awe and admiration ; and his 
 precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding elo- 
 quence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases every- 
 body from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, 
 seems too strong at first, but, by degrees, is highly relished ; 
 and such is the melody of his periods, so much do they 
 captivate the ear, and seize upon the attention, that there is 
 scarcely any writer, however inconsiderable, who does not 
 aim, in some degree, at the same species of excellence. But 
 let us not ungratefully undervalue that beautiful style, which 
 has pleasingly conveyed to uc much instruction and enter- 
 tainment. Though comparatively weak, opposed to John- 
 son's Herculean vigour, let us not call it positively feeble. 
 Let us remember the character of his style, as given by 
 Johnson himself: 'What he attempted, he performed; he 
 is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetick ; he is 
 never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have 
 neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity : his pe- 
 riods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy^ 
 
 ' Works, vii. 473. 
 
 - When Johnson shewed me a proof-sheet of the character of Addi- 
 son, in which he so highly extols his style, I could not help observing, 
 that it had not been his own model, as no two styles could differ more 
 from each other. — 'Sir, Addison had his style, and I have mine.' — 
 When I ventured to ask him, whether the difference did not consist 
 in this, that Addison's style was full of idioms, colloquial phrases, and 
 proverbs ; and his own more strictly grammatical, and free from such 
 phraseology and modes of speech as can never be literally translated 
 or understood by foreigners; he allowed the discrimination to be iust. 
 — Let any one who doubts it, try to translate one of Addison's Spec- 
 tators into Latin, French, or Italian ; and though so easy, familiar, and 
 elegant, to an Englishman, as to give the intellect no trouble ; yet he 
 
 Whoever
 
 Aetat.4i.] Boswell's projected works. 261 
 
 Whoever wishes to attain an EngHsh style, famihar but not 
 coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days 
 and nights to the volumes of Addison'.' 
 
 Though The Rambler was not concluded till the year 
 1752, I shall, under this year, say all that I have to ob- 
 serve upon it. Some of the translations of the mottos by 
 himself are admirably done. He acknowledges to have 
 received ' elegant translations ' of many of them from Mr. 
 James Elphinston ; and some are very happily translated by 
 a Mr. /^ Lewis'^, of whom I never heard more, except that 
 
 would find the transfusion into another language extremely difficult, 
 if not impossible. But a Rambler, Adventurer, or Idler^ of Johnson, 
 would fall into any classical or European language, as easily as if it 
 had been originally conceived in it. Burney. Mrs. Piozzi {Anec. 
 p. 125) recounts how Johnson recommended Addison's works as a 
 model for imitation to Mr. Woodhouse, a poetical shoemaker. ' " Give 
 nights and days, Sir, (said he) to the study of Addison, if you mean 
 either to be a good writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man." 
 When I saw something like the same expression in his criticism on 
 that author, I put him in mind of his past injunctions to the young 
 poet, to which he replied, "That he wished the" shoemaker might 
 have remembered them as well." ' Yet he says in his Life of Pope 
 ( Works, viii. 284), ' He that has once studiously formed a style rarely 
 writes afterwards with complete ease.' 
 
 ' I shall probably, in another work, maintain the merit of Addison's 
 poetry, which has been very unjustly depreciated. Boswell. He 
 proposed also to publish an edition of Johnson's poems {ante, p. 19), 
 an account of his own travels {post, April 17, 1778), a collection, with 
 notes, of old tenures and charters of Scotland {post, Oct. 27, 1779), and 
 a History of James IV. of Scotland, 'the patron,' as he said, 'of my 
 family' (Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 23, 1773). 
 
 ' Lewis thus happily translates the lines in Martial, — 
 
 ' Diligat ilia senem quondam : sed et ipsa marito, 
 Tunc quoque cum fuerit, non videatur, anus. 
 ' Wrinkled with age, may mutual love and truth 
 To their dim eyes recall the bloom of youth.' 
 
 Rambler, No. 167. 
 Some of Johnson's own translations are happy, as :— 
 
 ' Quam juvat immites vcntos audire cubantem — 
 Aut, gelidas hibernus aquas quum fuderit auster, 
 Securum somnos, imbre juvante, sequi ! 
 
 Johnson
 
 262 The last Rambler. [a.d. 1750. 
 
 Johnson thus described him to Mr. Malone : ' Sir, he Hved 
 in London, and hung loose upon society.' The concluding 
 paper of his Rambler is at once dignified and pathetick. I 
 cannot, however, but wish that he had not ended it with an 
 unnecessaiy Greek verse, translated also into an English 
 couplet". It is too much like the conceit of those dramatick 
 poets, who used to conclude each act with a rhyme; and the 
 expression in the first line of his couplet, ' Celestial pozvcrs^ 
 though proper in Pagan poetry, is ill suited to Christianity, 
 with 'a conformity" to which he consoles himself. How 
 much better would it have been, to have ended with the 
 prose sentence ' 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\' 
 
 His friend, Dr. Birch, being now engaged in preparing an 
 edition of Ralegh's smaller pieces, Dr. Johnson wrote the 
 following letter to that gentleman : 
 
 'To Dr. Birch. 
 
 40 - ' Gough-square, May 12, 1750. 
 
 ' Knowing that you are now preparing to favour the publick 
 
 ' How sweet in sleep to pass the careless hours, 
 Lull'd by the beating winds and dashing show'rs.' 
 
 lb. No. 117. 
 
 ' Celestial powers ! that piety regard, 
 From you my labours wait their last reward.' 
 A modification of the Greek line is engraved on the scroll in John- 
 son's monument in St. Paul's (/>osf, Dec. 1784). 
 
 - ' The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my 
 own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of 
 Christianity. ... I therefore look back on this part of my work with 
 pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment.' 
 Ra7nbler, No. 208. 
 
 ^ I have little doubt that this attack on the concluding verse is an 
 indirect blow at Hawkins, who had quoted the whole passage, and 
 had clearly thought it the more 'awful' on account of the couplet. 
 See Hawkins's yoknson, p. 291. 
 
 with
 
 Aetat.4i.] Miltoii s grand-daugliter. 263 
 
 with a new edition of Ralegh's' miscellaneous pieces, I have taken 
 the liberty to send you a Manuscript, which fell by chance within 
 my notice. I perceive no proofs of forgery in my examination of 
 it ; and the owner tells me, that he^ has heard, the handwriting is 
 Sir Walter's. If you should find reason to conclude it genuine, it 
 will be a kindness to the owner, a blind person^, to recommend it 
 to the booksellers. I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 His just abhorrence of Milton's political notions was ever 
 strong. But this did not prevent his warm admiration of 
 Milton's great poetical merit, to which he has done illustrious 
 justice, beyond all who have written upon the subject. And 
 this year he not only wrote a Prologue, which was spoken 
 by Mr. Garrick before the acting of Covms at Drury-lane 
 theatre, for the benefit of Milton's grand-daughter, but took 
 a very zealous interest in the success of the charity*. On 
 the day preceding the performance, he published the follow- 
 ing letter in the General Advertiser, addressed to the printer 
 of that paper : 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 'That a certain degree of reputation is acquired merely by 
 approving the works of genius, and testifying a regard to the 
 
 * In the original Raleigh's. 
 "^ The italics are Boswell's. 
 
 ^ Mrs. Williams is probably the person meant. Boswell. 
 
 * 'In 1750, April 5, Comus was played for her benefit. She had so 
 little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know 
 what was intended when a benefit was oft'ered her. The profits of 
 the night were only £\y:>, though Dr. Newton brought a large contri- 
 bution ; and £p.o were given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised 
 as often as he is named. . . . This was the greatest benefaction that 
 Paradise Lost ever procured the author's descendants ; and to this 
 he who has now attempted to relate his life had the honour of con- 
 tributing a Prologue.' Johnson's Works, V\\. 118. In the Gent. Mag. 
 (xx. 152) we read that, as on ' April 4, the night first appointed, many 
 inconvenient circumstances happened to disappoint the hopes of suc- 
 cess, the managers generously quitted the profits of another night, in 
 which the theatre was expected to be fuller. Mr. Samuel Johnson's 
 prologue was afterwards printed for Mrs. Foster's benefit.' 
 
 memor)- 
 
 /
 
 264 BeJieJit of Mrs. Foster. [a.d.1750. 
 
 memory of authours, is a truth too evident to be denied ; and 
 therefore to ensure a participation of fame with a celebrated poet, 
 many who would, perhaps, have contributed to starve him when 
 alive, have heaped expensive pageants upon his grave'. 
 
 ' It must, indeed, be confessed, that this method of becoming 
 known to posterity with honour, is peculiar to the great, or at least 
 to the wealthy ; but an opportunity now offers for almost every 
 individual to secure the praise of paying a just regard to the 
 illustrious dead, united with the pleasure of doing good to the 
 living. To assist industrious indigence, struggling with distress 
 and debilitated by age, is a display of virtue, and an acquisition of 
 happiness and honour. 
 
 . ' Whoever, then, would be thought capable of pleasure in read- 
 ing the works of our incomparable Milton, and not so destitute of 
 gratitude as to refuse to lay out a trifle in rational and elegant en- 
 tertainment, for the benefit of his living remains, for the exercise 
 of their own virtue, the increase of their reputation, and the pleas- 
 ing consciousness of doing good, should appear at Drury-lane 
 theatre to-morrow, April 5, when Conius will be performed for the 
 benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, grand-daughter to the author, 
 and the only surviving branch of his family. 
 
 'N.B. There will be a new prologue on the occasion, written 
 
 * Johnson is thinking of Pope's lines — 
 
 ' But still the great have kindness in reserve, 
 He helped to bury whom he helped to starve.' 
 
 Prologue to the Satires, 1. 247. 
 In the Life of Milton he writes: — ' In our time a monument has been 
 erected in Westminster Abbey To the author of Paradise Lost by Mr. 
 Benson, who has in the inscription bestowed more words upon him- 
 self than upon Milton.' Johnson's Works, vii. 112. Pope has a hit at 
 Benson in the Dunciad, iii. 325 : — 
 
 ' On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ !' 
 Moore, describing Sheridan's funeral, says: — 'It was well remarked 
 by a French Journal, in contrasting the penury of Sheridan's latter 
 years with the splendour of his funeral, that " France is the place for 
 a man of letters to live in, and England the place for him to die in." ' 
 Moore himself wrote :— 
 
 ' How proud they can press to the funeral array 
 Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow- 
 How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day. 
 Whose pall shall be held up by Nobles to-morrow.' 
 
 Moore's Sheridan, ii. 460-2. 
 
 by
 
 Aetat.42.] Lauder s i7nposiiion. 265 
 
 by the author of Irene ', and spoken by Mr. Garrick ; and, by par- 
 ticular desire, there will be added to the Masque a dramatick satire, 
 called Lethe, in which Mr. Garrick will perform.' 
 
 1751: ^TAT. 42.] — In 1751'' we are to consider him as 
 carrying on both his Dictionary and Rambler. But he also 
 wrote The Life of CheyneP,"^ in the miscellany called The 
 Student ; and the Reverend Dr. Douglas having, with un- 
 common acuteness, clearly detected a gross forgery and im- 
 position upon the publick by William Lauder, a Scotch 
 schoolmaster, who had, with equal impudence and ingenuity, 
 represented Milton as a plagiary from certain modern Latin 
 poets, Johnson, who had been so far imposed upon as to 
 furnish a Preface and Postscript to his work, now dictated 
 a letter for Lauder, addressed to Dr. Douglas, acknowledg- 
 ing" his fraud in terms of suitable contrition\ 
 
 'fc. 
 
 1 Johnson's Works, i. 115. 
 
 * Among the advertisements in the Ge7tt. Mag. for February of this 
 year is the following : — ' An elegy wrote in a country churchyard, 6d' 
 
 ' See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 17, 1773. 
 
 * Lest there should be any person, at any future period, absurd 
 enough to suspect that Johnson was a partaker in Lauder's fraud, 
 or had any knowledge of it, when he assisted him with his masterly 
 pen, it is proper here to quote the words of Dr. Douglas, now Bishop 
 of Salisbur}^ at the time when he detected the imposition. ' It is to 
 be hoped, nay it is expected, that the elegant and nervous writer, 
 whose judicious sentiments and inimitable style point out the au- 
 thour of Lauder's Preface and Postscript, will no longer allow one 
 to plutne himself with his feathers, who appeareth so little to deser\'e 
 [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 in 
 these sheets.' Alilton tw F/agiary, 2nd edit. p. 78. And his Lordship 
 has been pleased now to authorise me to say, in the strongest man- 
 ner, that there is no ground whatever for any unfavourable reflection 
 against Dr. Johnson, who expressed the strongest indignation against 
 Lauder. Boswell. To this letter Lauder had the impudence to add 
 a shameless postscript and some 'testimonies' concerning himself. 
 Though on the face of it it is evident that this postscript is not by 
 Johnson, yet it is included in his works (v. 283). The letter was dated 
 Dec. 20, 1750. In the Gent. Mas^. for the next month (xxi. 47) there is 
 
 This
 
 266 yohnson tricked by Lauder. [a.d. 1751. 
 
 This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no sudden 
 effort. He had brooded over it for many years: and to 
 this hour it is uncertain what his principal motive was, un- 
 less it were a vain notion of his superiority, in being able, 
 by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To effect this, 
 he produced certain passages from Grotius, Masenius, and 
 others, which had a faint resemblance to some parts of the 
 Paradise Lost. In these he interpolated some fragments of 
 Hog's Latin translation of that poem, alledging that the 
 mass thus fabricated was the archetype from which Milton 
 copied'. These fabrications he published from time to time 
 in the Gentleman s Magazine ; and, exulting in his fancied 
 success, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet, 
 entitled An Essay on Milton s Use and Imitation of the 
 Moderns in his Paradise Lost. To this pamphlet Johnson 
 wrote a Preface", in full persuasion of Lauder's honesty, and 
 
 the following paragraph :— ' Mr. Lauder confesses here and exhibits 
 all his forgeries; for which he assigns one motive in the book, and 
 after asking pardon assigns another in the postscript; he also takes 
 an opportunity to publish several letters and testimonials to his former 
 character.' Goldsmith in Retatiation has a hit at Lauder: — 
 ' Here Douglas retires from his toils to relax, 
 The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks. 
 New Landers and Bowers the Tweed shall cross over, 
 No countryman living their tricks to discover.' 
 Dr. Douglas was afterwards Bishop of Salisbury {aiife, p. 147). See 
 post, ]wvi^ 25, 1763, for the part he took in exposing the Cock Lane 
 Ghost imposture. 
 
 ' Scott writing to Southey in 1810 said :— ' A witty rogue the other 
 day, who sent me a letter signed Detector, proved me guilty of steal- 
 ing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen 
 or heard of.' The passage alleged to be stolen ends with, — 
 ' When pain and anguish wring the brow, 
 A ministering angel thou !' 
 which in Vida ad Eratten. El. ii. v. 21, ran, — 
 
 ' Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor, 
 Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.' 
 'It is almost needless to add,' says Mr. Lockhart, 'there are no such 
 lines.' Life of Scott, iii. 294. 
 
 ■•' The greater part of this Preface was given in the Gent. Mag. for 
 August 1747 (xvii. 404). 
 
 a Postscript
 
 Aetat.43.] Johnsoii s admh^atioii of Milton. 267 
 
 a Postscript recommending, in the most persuasive terms', a 
 subscription for the rehef of a grand-daughter of Milton, of 
 whom he thus speaks : 
 
 ' It is yet in the power of a great people to reward the poet 
 whose name they boast, and from their alliance to whose genius, 
 they claim some kind of superiority to every other nation of the 
 earth ; that poet, whose works may possibly be read when every 
 other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated \ to re- 
 ward him, not with pictures or with medals, which, if he sees, he 
 sees with contempt, but with tokens of gratitude, which he, per- 
 haps, may even now consider as not unworthy the regard of an 
 immortal spirit.' 
 
 Surely this is inconsistent with ' enmity towards Milton,' 
 which Sir John Hawkins" imputes to Johnson upon this 
 occasion, adding, 
 
 ' I could all along observe that Johnson seemed to approve not 
 only of the design, but of the argument ; and seemed to exult in 
 a persuasion, that the reputation of Milton was likely to suffer by 
 this discovery. That he was not privy to the imposture, I am well 
 persuaded ; but that he wished well to the argument, may be inferred 
 from the Preface, which indubitably was written by Johnson.' 
 
 Is it possible for any man of clear judgement to suppose 
 that Johnson, who so nobly praised the poetical excellence 
 of Milton in a Postscript to this very ' discovery,' as he then 
 supposed it, could, at the same time, exult in a persuasion 
 that the great poet's reputation was likely to suffer by it ? 
 
 ' ' Persuasive * is scarcely a fit description for this noble outburst of 
 indignation on the part of one who knew all the miseries of poverty. 
 After quoting Dr. Newton's account of the distress to which Milton's 
 grand-daughter had been reduced, he says: — 'That this relation is 
 true cannot be questioned : but surely the honour of letters, the dig- 
 nity of sacred poetry, the spirit of the English nation, and the glory 
 of human nature require — that it should be true no longer. ... In an 
 age, which amidst all its vices and all its follies has not become infa- 
 mous for want of charity, it may be surely allowed to hope, that the 
 living remains of Milton will be no longer suffered to languish in dis- 
 tress.' Johnson's Works, v. 270. 
 
 ' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 275. 
 
 This
 
 268 Mrs. Anna Williams. [a.d. 1751. 
 
 This is an inconsistency of which Johnson was incapable ; 
 nor can any thing more be fairly inferred from the Preface, 
 than that Johnson, who was alike distinguished for ardent 
 curiosity and love of truth, was pleased with an investiga- 
 tion by which both were gratified. That he was actuated 
 by these motives, and certainly by no unworthy desire to 
 depreciate our great epick poet, is evident from his own 
 words ; for, after mentioning the general zeal of men of 
 genius and literature ' to advance the honour, and distin- 
 guish the beauties of Paradise Lost,' he says, 
 
 ' Aniong the inquiries to which this ardour of criticism has natu- 
 rally given occasion, none is more obscure in itself, or more v>'orthy 
 of rational curiosity, than a retrospect' of the progress of this 
 mighty genius in the construction of his work ; a view of the fab- 
 rick gradually rising, perhaps, from small beginnings, till its foun- 
 dation rests in the centre, and its turrets sparkle in the skies ; 
 to trace back the structure through all its varieties, to the simplic- 
 ity of its first plan ; to find what was first projected, whence the 
 scheme was taken, how it was improved, by what assistance it was 
 executed, and from what stores the materials were collected ; wheth- 
 er its founder dug them from the quarries of Nature, or demolished 
 other buildings to embellish his own.' 
 
 Is this the language of one who wished to blast the laurels 
 of Milton' ? 
 
 Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far 
 from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was 
 constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter 
 of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more 
 
 ' In the original 7-etrospection. Johnson's Works, v. 268. 
 
 ^ In this same year Johnson thus ends a severe criticism on Samson 
 Agonistes: — 'The everlasting verdure of Milton's laurels has nothing 
 to fear from the blasts of malignity; nor can my attempt produce any 
 other effect than to strengthen their shoots by lopping their luxuri- 
 ance.' The Rambler, No. 140. ' Mr. Nichols shewed Johnson in 17S0 
 a book called Remarks on Johnson's Life of Milton, in which the 
 affair of Lauder was renewed with virulence. He read the libellous 
 passage with attention, and instantly wrote on the margin : — " In the 
 business of Lauder I was deceived ; partly by thinking the man too 
 frantic to be fraudulent." ' Murphy's Johnson, p. 66. 
 
 than
 
 Aetat. 42.] Mrs. An7ia Williams. 269 
 
 than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London 
 in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which 
 afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a 
 constant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived ; and 
 after her death, having come under his roof in order to have 
 an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to 
 her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him during 
 the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house'. 
 
 ' ' Johnson turned his house,' writes Lord Macaulay, ' into a place 
 of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no 
 other asylum ; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary 
 out his benevolence.' {Essays, i. 390). In his Biography of Johnson 
 (p. 388) he says that Mrs. Williams's 'chief recommendations were 
 her blindness and her poverty.' No doubt in Johnson's letters to Mrs. 
 Thrale are found amusing accounts of the discord of the inmates of 
 his house. But it is abundantly clear that in Mrs. Williams's com- 
 pany he had for years found pleasure. A few months after her death 
 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale : ' You have more than once wondered at 
 my complaint of solitude, when you hear that I am crowded with 
 visits, hiopem vie copia fecit. Visitors are no proper companions in 
 the chamber of sickness. . . . The amusements and consolations of 
 languor and depression are conferred by familiar and domestic com- 
 panions. . . . Such society I had with Levett and Williams' {Piozzz 
 Letters, ii. 341). To Mrs. Montagu he wrote : — ' Thirty years and more 
 she had been my companion, and her death has left me very desolate ' 
 (Croker's Boswell, p. 739). Boswell says that 'her departure left a 
 blank in his house ' {post, Aug. 1783). ' By her death,' writes Murphy, 
 ' he was left in a state of destitution, with nobody but his black servant 
 to soothe his anxious moments' (Murphy's Johnson, p. 122). Haw- 
 kins {Life, p. 558) says that 'she had not only cheered him in his 
 solitude, and helped him to pass with comfort those hours which 
 otherwise would have been irksome to him, but had relieved him 
 from domestic cares, regulated and watched over the expenses of his 
 house, etc' 'She had,' as Boswell says {post, Aug. 1783), 'valuable 
 qualities.' ' Had she had,' wrote Johnson, 'good humour and prompt 
 elocution, her universal curiosity and comprehensive knowledge would 
 have made her the delight of all that knew her ' {Piozzi Letters, ii. 311). 
 To Langton he wrote : — ' I have lost a companion to whom I have 
 had recourse for domestic amusement for thirty years, and whose 
 variety of knowledge never was exhausted' {post, Sept. 29, 1783). 
 ' Her acquisitions,' he wrote to Dr. Burney, ' were many and her curi- 
 osity universal ; so that she partook of every conversation ' {post, 
 
 1752:
 
 270 The close of The Rambler. [a.d. 1752. 
 
 1752: ^TAT. 43.] — In 1752 he was almost entirely occu- 
 pied with his Dictionary. The last paper of his Ratnblcr 
 was pubHshed March 2', this year; after which, there was a 
 
 Sept. 1783). Murphy {Life, t^. 72) says: — 'She possessed uncommon 
 talents, and, though blind, had an alacrity of mind that made her 
 conversation agreeable, and even desirable.' According to Hawkins 
 {Lz/e, 322-4) ' she had acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, 
 and had made great improvements in literature. She was a woman 
 of an enlightened understanding. Johnson in many exigencies found 
 her an able counsellor, and seldom shewed his wisdom more than 
 when he hearkened to her advice.' Perhaps Johnson had her in his 
 thoughts when, writing of Pope's last years and Martha Blount, he 
 said : — •' Their acquaintance began early; the life of each was pictured 
 on the other's mind ; their conversation therefore was endearing, for 
 when they met there was an immediate coalition of congenial notions.' 
 (Johnson's Works, vm. 2,0^). Miss Mulso (Mrs. Chapone) writing to 
 Mrs. Carter in 1753, says: — 'I was charmed with Mr. Johnson's be- 
 haviour to Mrs. Williams, which was like that of a fond father to his 
 daughter. She shewed very good sense, with a great deal of modesty 
 and humility; and so much patience and cheerfulness under her mis- 
 fortune that it doubled my concern for her ' {Mrs. Chapone s Life, 
 p. 73). Miss Talbot wrote to Mrs. Carter in 1756 : — ' My mother the 
 other day fell in love with your friend, Mrs. Williams, whom we met 
 at Mr. Richardson's [where Miss Mulso also had met her], and is par- 
 ticularly charmed with the sweetness of her voice ' (Talbot and Carter, 
 Corrcsp. ii. 221). Miss Talbot was a niece of Lord Chancellor Talbot. 
 Hannah More wrote in 1774 :— ' Mrs. Williams is engaging in her man- 
 ners ; her conversation lively and entertaining ' (More's Memoirs, i. 49). 
 Boswell, however, more than once complains that she was ' peevish ' 
 {post, Oct. 26, 1769 and April 7, 1776). At a time when she was very 
 ill, and had gone into the country to try if she could improve her 
 health, Johnson wrote : — ' Age, and sickness, and pride have made her 
 so peevish, that I was forced to bribe the maid to stay with her by a 
 secret stipulation of half-a-crown a week over her wages ' {post, July 
 22, 1777). Malone, in a note on August 2, 1763, says that he thinks 
 she had of her own ' about ^35 or £\o a year.' This was in her latter 
 days ; Johnson had prevailed on Garrick to give her a benefit and 
 Mrs. Montagu to give her a pension. She used, he adds, to help in 
 the house-work. 
 
 ' March 14. See ante, p. 235, note 3. He had grown weary of his 
 work. In the last Rambler but one he WTOte : — 'When once our 
 labour has begun, the comfort that enables us to endure it is the 
 
 cessation
 
 Aetat.43.] Suspcns207i of his literary labors. 271 
 
 cessation for some time of any exertion of his talents as an 
 essayist. But, in the same year, Dr. Hawkesworth, who was 
 his warm admirer, and a studious imitator of his style', and 
 then lived in great intimacy with him, began a periodical 
 paper, entitled The Adventurer, in connection with other gen- 
 tlemen, one of whom was Johnson's much-loved friend, Dr. 
 Bathurst ; and, without doubt, they received many valuable 
 hints from his conversation, most of his friends having been 
 so assisted in the course of their works. 
 
 That there should be a suspension of his literary labours 
 during a part of the year 1752, will not seem strange, when 
 it is considered that soon after closing his Rambler, he suf- 
 fered a loss which, there can be no doubt, affected him with 
 the deepest distress'. For on the 17th of March, O.S., his 
 
 prospect of its end. . . . He that is himself weary will soon weary the 
 public. Let him therefore lay down his employment, whatever it be, 
 who can no longer exert his former activity or attention ; let him not 
 endeavour to struggle with censure, or obstinately infest the stage, till 
 a general hiss commands him to depart.' 
 
 ' How successful an imitator Hawkesworth was is shewn by the 
 following passage in the Carter and Talbot Corresp., ii. 109: — 'I dis- 
 cern Mr. Johnson through all the papers that are not marked A, as 
 evidently as if I saw him through the keyhole with the pen in his 
 hand.' 
 
 'In The Rambler for Feb. 25 of this year (No. 203) he wrote in the 
 following melancholy strain : — ' Every period of life is obliged to bor- 
 row its happiness from the time to come. In youth we have nothing 
 past to entertain us, and in age we derive little from retrospect but 
 hopeless sorrow. Yet the future likewise has its limits which the im- 
 agination dreads to approach, but which we see to be not far distant. 
 The loss of our friends and companions impresses hourly upon us the 
 necessity of our own departure ; we know that the schemes of man 
 are quickly at an end, that we must soon lie down in the grave with 
 the forgotten multitudes of former ages, and yield our place to others, 
 who, like us, shall be driven a while by hope or fear about the surface 
 of the earth, and then like us be lost in the shades of death.' In Pray- 
 ers a7id Meditations, pp. 12-15, i" ^ service that he used on May 6, 'as 
 preparatory to my return to life to-morrow,' he prays : — ' Enable me 
 to begin and perfect that reformation which I promised her, and to 
 persevere in that resolution which she implored Thee to continue, in 
 
 wife
 
 272 Death of yohnsoiis wife. [a.d. 1752. 
 
 wife died. Why Sir John Hawkins should unwarrantably 
 take upon him even to suppose that Johnson's fondness for 
 her was dissembled (meaning simulated or assumed,) and to 
 assert, that if it was not the case, ' it was a lesson he had 
 learned by rote',* I cannot conceive ; unless it proceeded 
 from a want of similar feelings in his own breast. To argue 
 from her being much older than Johnson, or any other cir- 
 cumstances, that he could not really love her, is absurd ; for 
 love is not a subject of reasoning, but of feeling, and there- 
 fore there are no common principles upon which one can 
 persuade another concerning it. Every man feels for him- 
 self, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in 
 the person he admires, the impressions of which are too mi- 
 nute and delicate to be substantiated in language. 
 
 The following very solemn and affecting prayer was found 
 after Dr. Johnson's decease, by his servant, Mr. Francis Bar- 
 ber, who delivered it to my worthy friend the Reverend Mr. 
 Strahan^ Vicar of Islington, who at my earnest request has 
 obligingly favoured me with a copy of it, which he and I 
 compared with the original. I present it to the world as 
 an undoubted proof of a circumstance in the character of 
 my illustrious friend, which though some whose hard minds 
 I never shall envy, may attack as superstitious, will I am 
 sure endear him more to numbers of good men\ I have an 
 
 the purposes which I recorded in Thy sight when she lay dead before 
 me.' See post, Jan. 20, 1780. The author of Memoirs of the Life and 
 Writings of Dr. Johnson, 1785, says, p. 113, that on the death of his 
 wife, ' to walk the streets of London was for many a lonesome night 
 Johnson's constant substitute for sleep.' 
 
 ' ' I have often been inclined to think that, if this fondness of John- 
 son for his wife was not dissembled, it was a lesson that he had learned 
 by rote, and that, when he practised it, he knew not where to stop till 
 he became ridiculous.' \i2Lwk.ins's Johfison, p. 313. 
 
 ^ The son of William Strahan, M.P., 'Johnson's old and constant 
 friend. Printer to His Majesty' {post, under April 20, 1781). He at- 
 tended Johnson on his death-bed, and published the volume called 
 Prayers and Meditatiofis. 
 
 ^ Southey in his Life of Wesley, i. 359, writes : — ' The universal atten- 
 tion which has been paid to dreams in all ages proves that the super- 
 additional,
 
 Aetat.43.] yolmsofi s Icve for his wife. 273 
 
 additional, and that a personal motive for presenting it, be- 
 cause it sanctions what I myself have always maintained 
 and am fond to indulge. 
 
 ' April 26, 1752, being after 12 at Night of the 25th. 
 'O Lord! Governour of heaven and earth, in whose hands are 
 embodied and departed Spirits, if thou hast ordained the Souls of 
 the Dead to minister to the Living, and appointed my departed 
 Wife to have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects 
 of her attention and ministration, whether exercised by appearance, 
 impulses, dreams' or in any other manner agreeable to thy Gov- 
 ernment. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and 
 however meaner agents are employed, grant me the blessed influ- 
 ences of thy holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.' 
 
 What actually followed upon this most interesting piece of 
 devotion by Johnson, we are not informed; but I, whom it 
 has pleased GOD to afflict in a similar manner to that which 
 occasioned it, have certain experience of benignant commu- 
 nication by dreams". 
 
 That his love for his wife was of the most ardent kind, and, 
 during the long period of fifty years, was unimpaired by the 
 lapse of time, is evident from various passages in the series 
 of his Prayers and Meditations, published by the Reverend 
 Mr. Strahan, as well as from other memorials, two of which 
 I select, as strongly marking the tenderness and sensibility 
 of his mind. 
 
 'March 28, 1753. I kept this day' as the anniversary of my 
 
 stition is natural ; and I have heard too many well-attested facts (facts 
 to which belief could not be refused upon any known laws of evidence) 
 not to believe that impressions are sometimes made in this manner, 
 and forewarnings communicated, which cannot be explained by mate- 
 rial philosophy or mere metaphysics.' 
 
 ' Warburton in his Divine Legation, i. 284, quotes the ' famous 
 sepulchral inscription of the Roman widow.' ' Ita peto vos Manes 
 sanctissimi commendatum habeatis meum conjugem et velitis huic 
 indulgentissimi esse horis nocturnis ut eum videam,' etc. 
 
 ^ Mrs. Boswell died in June 1789. Johnson's prayer with Boswell's 
 comments on it was first inserted in the Additions to the second 
 edition. 
 
 ^ Mrs. Johnson died on March 17, O. S., or March 28, N. S. The 
 I.— 18 Tctty's
 
 2 74 Her wedding-ring. [a. d. 1753. 
 
 Tetty's death', with prayer and tears in the morning. In the even- 
 ing I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful.' 
 
 'April 23, 1753. I know not whether I do not too much in- 
 dulge in vain longings of affection ; but I hope they intenerate my 
 heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be 
 acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the mean time I 
 am incited by it to piety. I will, however, not deviate too much 
 from common and received methods of devotion.' 
 
 Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after her 
 death, preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an affec- 
 tionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the inside of 
 
 change of style was made in September 1752. He might have kept 
 either the 17th, or the 28th as the anniversary. In like manner, 
 though he was born on Sept. 7, after the change he kept the iSth as 
 his birth-day. See post, beginning of 1753, where he writes, 'Jan. i, 
 N. S., which I shall use for the future.' 
 
 ' In Prayers mid Meditations, p. 22, he recorded : ' The melancholy 
 of this day hung long upon me.' P. 53: 'April 22, 1764, Thought on 
 Tetty, dear, poor Tetty, with my eyes full.' P. 91 : ' March 28, 1770. 
 This is the day on which, in 1752, I was deprived of poor, dear Tetty. 
 . . . When I recollect the time in which we lived together, my grief 
 for her departure is not abated ; and I have less pleasure in any good 
 that befalls me because she does not partake it.' P. 170: 'April 20, 
 1778. Poor Tetty, whatever were our faults and failings, we loved 
 each other. I did not forget thee yesterday [Easter Sunday]. Couldest 
 thou have lived! — ^ P. 210: 'March 28, 1782. This is the day on 
 which, in 1752, dear Tetty died. I have now uttered a prayer of re- 
 pentance and contrition ; perhaps Tetty knows that I prayed for her. 
 Perhaps Tetty is now praying for me. God help me.' In a letter to 
 Mrs. Thrale on the occasion of the death of her son (dated March 30, 
 1776) he thus refers to the loss of his wife: — ' I know that a whole 
 system of hopes, and designs, and expectations is swept away at once, 
 and nothing left but bottomless vacuity. What you feel I have felt, 
 and hope that your disquiet will be shorter than mine.' Piozsi Let- 
 ters, i. 310. In a letter to Mr. Elphinston, who had just lost his wife, 
 written on July 27, 1778, he repeats the same thought : — ' A loss such 
 as yours lacerates the mind, and breaks the whole system of purposes 
 and hopes. It leaves a dismal vacuity in life, which affords nothing 
 on which the affections can fix, or to which endeavour may be directed. 
 All this I have known.' Croker's BosiucU, p. 66, note. See 2\?,o post, 
 his letter to Mr. Warton of Dec. 21, 1754, and to Dr. Lawrence of Jan. 
 20, 1780. 
 
 which
 
 Aetat.43.] Her weddiiig-ring. 275 
 
 which he pasted a slip of paper, thus inscribed by him in fair 
 characters, as follows : 
 
 ' Eheu ! 
 
 EUz. jfohiison, 
 
 Nupta Jul. 9° 1736, 
 
 Mortiia, eheu ! 
 
 Mart. 17° 1752'. 
 
 After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful servant 
 and residuary legatee, offered this memorial of tenderness to 
 Mrs. Lucy Porter, Mrs. Johnson's daughter ; but she having 
 declined to accept of it, he had it enamelled as a mourning 
 ring for his old master, and presented it to his wife, Mrs. Bar- 
 ber, who now has it. 
 
 The state of mind in which a man must be upon the death 
 of a woman whom he sincerely loves, had been in his con- 
 templation many years before. In his Irene, we find the 
 following fervent and tender speech of Demetrius, addressed 
 to his Aspasia : 
 
 ' From those bright regions of eternal day, 
 Where now thou shin'st amongst thy fellow saints, 
 Array'd in purer light, look down on me ! 
 In pleasing visions and delusive dreams, 
 O ! sooth mv soul, and teach me how to lose thee".' 
 
 I have, indeed, been told by Mrs. Desmoulins, who, before 
 her marriage, lived for some time with Mrs. Johnson at Hamp- 
 stead^ that she indulged herself in country air and nice living, 
 at an unsuitable expense^ while her husband was drudging in 
 the smoke of London, and that she by no means treated him 
 
 ' In the usual monthly list of deaths in the Gent. Mag. her name is 
 not given. Johnson did not, I suppose, rank among ' eminent persons.' 
 
 "^ Irene, Act i. sc. i. 
 
 ^ Se.e post, Nov. 16, 1784, note. 
 
 •* The Anderdon MSS. contain an importunate letter, dated July 3, 
 1751, from one Mitchell, a tradesman in Chandos-strect, pressing John- 
 son to pay £2, due by his wife ever since August, 1749, and threatening 
 legal proceedings to enforce payment. This letter Mr. Boswell had 
 endorsed, ' Proof of Dr. Johnson's wretched circumstances in 1751.' 
 Croker. 
 
 with
 
 276 The shock of separatioji. [a.d. 1753. 
 
 with that complacency which is the most engaging quahty 
 in a wife. But all this is perfectly compatible with his fond- 
 ness for her, especially when it is remembered that he had a 
 high opinion of her understanding, and that the impressions 
 which her beauty, real or imaginary, had originally made upon 
 his fancy, being continued by habit, had not been effaced, 
 though she herself was doubtless much altered for the worse. 
 The dreadful shock of separation took place in the night ; 
 and he immediately dispatched a letter to his friend, the 
 Reverend Dr. Taylor, which, as Taylor told me, expressed 
 grief in the strongest manner he had ever read ; so that it is 
 much to be regretted it has not been preserved'. The letter 
 was brought to Dr. Taylor, at his house in the Cloisters, 
 Westminster, about three in the morning ; and as it signified 
 an earnest desire to see him, he got up, and went to Johnson 
 as soon as he was dressed, and found him in tears and in ex- 
 treme agitation. After being a little while together, Johnson 
 requested him to join with him in prayer. He then prayed 
 extempore, as did Dr. Taylor ; and thus, by means of that 
 piety which was ever his primary object, his troubled mind 
 was, in some degree, soothed and composed. 
 The next day he wrote as follows : 
 
 ' To THE Reverend Dr. Taylor. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 'Let me have your company and instruction. Do not live 
 
 away from me. My distress is great. 
 
 ' Pray desire Mrs. Taylor to inform me what mourning I should 
 
 buy for my mother and Miss Porter, and bring a note in writing 
 
 with you. 
 
 ' Remember m.e in your prayers, for vain is the help of man. 
 
 ' I am, dear Sir, &c. 
 
 ,, , „ , ' Sam. Johnson. 
 
 ' March 18, 1752. 
 
 ' In the Gent. Mag. for February 1794, (p. 100,) was printed a letter 
 pretending to be that written by Johnson on the death of his wife. 
 But it is mereh'^ a transcript of the 41st number of The Idler. A ficti- 
 tious date (March 17, 1751, O. S.) was added by some person previous 
 to this paper being sent to the pubhsher of that miscellany, to give a 
 colour to this deception. Malone. 
 
 That
 
 Aetat.43.] Fraiicis Barber. 277 
 
 That his sufferings upon the death of his wife were severe, 
 beyond what are commonly endured, I have no doubt, from 
 the information of many who were then about him, to none 
 of whom I give more credit than to Mr. Francis Barber, 
 his faithful negro servant', who came into his family about 
 a fortnight after the dismal event. These sufferings were 
 aggravated by the melancholy inherent in his constitution ; 
 and although he probably was not oftener in the wrong 
 than she was, in the little disagreements which sometimes 
 troubled his married stated during which, he owned to me, 
 that the gloomy irritability of his existence was more painful 
 
 ' Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and was brought to England 
 in 1750 by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson's very intimate friend, 
 Dr. Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jack- 
 son's school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him 
 his freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into 
 Johnson's service, in which he continued from 1752 till Johnson's 
 death, with the exception of two intervals ; in one of which, upon 
 some difference with his master, he went and served an apothecary in 
 Cheapside, but still visited Dr. Johnson occasionally ; in another, he 
 took a fancy to go to sea. Part of the time, indeed, he was, by the 
 kindness of his master, at a school in Northamptonshire, that he 
 might have the advantage of some learning. So early and so lasting 
 a connection was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend. 
 BOSWELL. ' I believe that Francis was scarcely as much the object of 
 Mr. Johnson's personal kindness as the representative of Dr. Bathurst, 
 for whose sake he would have loved anybody or anything.' Piozzi's 
 Anec. p. 212. 
 
 ' ' I asked him,' writes Mrs. Piozzi {Anec. pp. 146-150), ' if he ever 
 disputed with his wife. " Perpetually," said he; " my wife had a par- 
 ticular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in 
 her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become trouble- 
 some to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh 
 for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and 
 useless lumber. A clean floor is so comfortable, she would say some- 
 times by way of twitting ; till at last I told her that I thought we had 
 had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the 
 ceiling." I asked him if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner. 
 "So often," replied he, "that at last she called to me and said, Nay, 
 hold, Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a 
 dinner which in a few minutes you will protest not eatable." ' 
 
 to
 
 2/8 Prayers for the dead. [a. d. 1752. 
 
 to him than ever, he. might very naturally, after her death, 
 be tenderly disposed to charge himself with slight omissions 
 and offences, the sense of which would give him much uneasi- 
 ness'. Accordingly we find, about a year after her decease, 
 that he thus addressed the Supreme Being : ' O LORD, who 
 givest the grace of repentance, and hearest the prayers of the 
 penitent, grant that by true contrition I may obtain forgive- 
 ness of all the sins committed, and of all duties neglected in 
 my union with the wife whom thou hast taken from me ; 
 for the neglect of joint devotion, patient exhortation, and 
 mild instruction^' The kindness of his heart, notwithstand- 
 ing the impetuosity of his temper, is well known to his 
 friends ; and I cannot trace the smallest foundation for the 
 following dark and uncharitable assertion by Sir John Haw- 
 kins : 'The apparition of his departed wife was altogether of 
 the terrifick kind, and hardly afforded him a hope that she 
 was in a state of happiness\' That he, in conformity with 
 the opinion of many of the most able, learned, and pious 
 Christians in all ages, supposed that there was a middle state 
 after death, previous to the time at which departed souls are 
 finally received to eternal felicity, appears, I think, unques- 
 tionably from his devotions*: 'And, O Lord, so far as it may 
 be lawful in me^ I commend to thy fatherly goodness tJie soul 
 
 1 ' When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for 
 every weakness, and palliations of every fault ; we recollect a thousand 
 endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, 
 a thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed ; and 
 wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive, as 
 that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which 
 before we never understood.' Rainbler, No. 54. 
 
 * Pr. and Med. p. 19. Boswell. 
 
 ' Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 316. Boswell. 
 
 ■* Sqc post, Oct. 26, 1769, where the Roman Catholic doctrine of pur- 
 gatory, or 'a middle state,' as Johnson calls it is discussed, and Bos- 
 well's Hebrides, Oct. 25, 1773. 
 
 ^ In the original, ' lawful /i^r me.' Much the same prayer Johnson 
 made for his mother. Pr. arid Med. p. 38. On Easter Day, 1764, he 
 records: — 'After sermon I recommended Tetty in a prayer by herself; 
 and my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst in another. I did it only 
 
 of
 
 Aetat. 43.] The funeral sermoii on Mrs. yohnson. 279 
 
 of my departed wife ; beseeching thee to grant her whatever 
 is best in her present state, and finally to receive her to eternal 
 happiness".' But this state has not been looked upon with 
 horrour, but only as less gracious. 
 
 He deposited the remains of Mrs. Johnson in the church 
 of Bromley, in Kent*, to which he was probably led by the 
 residence of his friend Hawkesworth at that place. The 
 funeral sermon which he composed for her, which was never 
 preached, but having been given to Dr. Taylor, has been pub- 
 lished since his death^ is a performance of uncommon excel- 
 lence, and full of rational and pious comfort to such as are 
 depressed by that severe affliction which Johnson felt when 
 he wrote it. When it is considered that it was written in such 
 an agitation of mind, and in the short interval between her 
 death and burial, it cannot be read without wonder\ 
 
 once, so far as it might be lawful for me.' lb. p. 54. On the death of 
 Mr. Thrale he wrote, ' May God that delighteth in mercy have had 
 mercy on thee.' lb. p. 191 ; and later on, ' for Henry Thrale, so far as 
 is lawful, I humbly implore thy mercy in his present state.' lb. p. 197. 
 ' Pr. and Med. p. 20. BoSWELL. 
 
 " Shortly before his death (see post, July 12, 1784) Johnson had a 
 stone placed over her grave with the following inscription : — 
 
 Hie conduntur reliquiae 
 
 ELIZABETHAE 
 
 Antiqua Jarvisiorum gente, 
 
 Peatlingae, apud Leicestrienses, ortae ; 
 
 Formosae, cultae, ingeniosae, piae ; 
 Uxoris, primis nuptiis, Henrici Porter, 
 
 Secundis Samuelis Johnson : 
 
 Qui multum amatam, diuque defletam 
 
 Hoc lapide contexit. 
 
 Obiit Londini Mense Mart. 
 
 A.D. MDCC LIII. 
 
 As Mrs. Johnson died in 1752, the date is wrong. 
 
 ^ S)e.epos/, Sept. 21, 1777. 
 
 ^ He described her as a woman ' whom none, who were capable of 
 distinguishing either moral or intellectual excellence, could know 
 without esteem or tenderness. She was extensively charitable in her 
 judgements and opinions, grateful for every kindness that she received, 
 and willing to impart assistance of every kind to all whom her little 
 
 From
 
 28o JoJmsoris friends in 1752. [a.d. 1753. 
 
 From Mr. Francis Barber I have had the following authen- 
 tick and artless account of the situation in which he found 
 him recently after his wife's death : 
 
 He was in great affliction. Mrs. Williams was then living in his 
 house, which was in Gough-square. He was busy with the Dic- 
 tionary. Mr. Shiels, and some others of the gentlemen who had 
 formerly written for him, used to come about him. He had then 
 little for himself, but frequently sent money to Mr. Shiels when in 
 distress'. The friends who visited him at that time, were chiefly 
 Dr. Bathiu-st^ and Mr. Diamond, an apothecary in Cork-street, 
 
 power enabled her to benefit. She passed through many months of 
 langour, weakness, and decay without a single murmur of impatience, 
 and often expressed her adoration of that mercy which granted her so 
 long time for recollection and penitence.' Johnson's Works, ix. 523. 
 
 ' See ante, p. 216. 
 
 ' Dr. Bathurst, though a Physician of no inconsiderable merit, had 
 not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was, there- 
 fore willing to accept of employment abroad, and, to the regret of all 
 who knew him, fell a sacrifice to the destructive cHmate, in the expe- 
 dition against the Havannah. Mr. Langton recollects the following 
 passage in a letter from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Beauclerk : ' The Havan- 
 nah is taken ; — a conquest too dearly obtained ; for, Bathurst died be- 
 fore it. "Vix Priamus tanti totaque Trojafuit."' Boswell. 
 
 The quotation is from Ovid, Heroides, i. 4. Johnson {post, Dec. 21, 
 1762) wrote to Baretti, 'Bathurst went physician to the army, and 
 died at the Havannah.' Mr. Harwood in his History of Lichfield,'^. 
 451, gives two letters from Bathurst to Johnson dated 1757. In the 
 postscript to one he says : — ' I know you will call me a lazy dog, and 
 in truth I deserve it ; but I am afraid I shall never mend. I have in- 
 deed long known that I can love my friends without being able to tell 
 them so. . . . Adieu my dearest friend.' He calls Johnson 'the best 
 of friends, to whom I stand indebted for all the little virtue and 
 knowledge that I have.' ' Nothing,' he continues, ' I think, but abso- 
 lute want can force me to continue where I am.' Jamaica he calls 
 'this execrable region.' Hawkins (Zz/,?, p. 235) says that 'Bathurst, 
 before leaving England, confessed to Johnson that in the course of 
 ten years' exercise of his faculty he had never opened his hand to 
 more than one guinea.' Johnson perhaps had Bathurst in mind when, 
 many years later, he wrote : — ' A physician in a great city seems to be 
 the mere plaything of fortune ; his degree of reputation is for the most 
 part totally casual ; they that employ him know not his excellence ; 
 
 Burlington-gardens,
 
 Aetat. 4a.j yohnsoii s friends in 1752. 28 1 
 
 Burlington - gardens, with whom he and Mrs. Williams generally 
 dined every Sunday. There was a talk of his going to Iceland 
 with him, which would probably have happened had he lived. 
 There were also IMr. Cave, Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Ryland', mer- 
 chant on Tower Hill, Mrs. Masters, the poetess", who lived with 
 Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, and sometimes Mrs. Macaulay^ also Mrs. 
 Gardiner, wife of a tallow-chandler on Snow-hill, not in the learned 
 way, but a worthy good woman* ; Mr. (now Sir Joshua) Reynolds^ ; 
 Mr. Millar, Mr. Dodsley, Mr. Bouquet, Mr. Payne of Paternoster- 
 row, booksellers ; Mr. Strahan, the printer ; the Earl of Orrery', 
 Lord Southwell', Mr. Garrick.' 
 
 Many are, no doubt, omitted in this catalogue of his friends, 
 and, in particular, his humble friend, Mr. Robert Levet. an ob- 
 scure practiser in physick amongst the low^er people, his fees 
 being sometimes very small sums, sometimes whatever pro- 
 visions his patients could afford him ; but of such extensive 
 
 they that reject him know not his deficience. By any acute observer, 
 who had looked on the transactions of the medical world for half a 
 century, a very curious book might be written on the Fortune of Phy- 
 sz'cians.' Works, \\\\. A^Ji. 
 
 ' Mr. Ryland was one of the members of the old club in Ivy Lane 
 who met to dine in 1783. Mr. Payne was another, {post, end of 1783). 
 
 ^ Johnson revised her volumes : post, under Nov. 19, 1783. 
 
 ' Catherine Sawbridge, sister of Mrs. [.' Mr.] Alderman Sawbridge, 
 was born in 1733 ; but it was not till 1760 that she was married to Dr. 
 Macaulay, a physician ; so that Barber's account was incorrect either 
 in date or name. Croker. For Alderman Sawbridge see post, May 
 17, 1778, note. 
 
 * See post, under Nov. 19, 1783. Johnson bequeathed to her a book 
 to keep as a token of remembrance (post, Dec. 9, 1784). I find her 
 name in the year 1765 in the list of subscribers to the edition of Swift's 
 Works, in 17 vols., so that perhaps she was more ' in the learned way ' 
 than Barber thought. 
 
 ' Reynolds did not return to England from Italy till the October 
 of this year, seven months after Mrs. Johnson's death. Taylor's Pcy- 
 itolds,\. 87. He writes of his 'thirty years' intimacy with Dr. John- 
 son.' He must have known him therefore at least as early as 1754. 
 lb. ii. 454. 
 
 ' See atite, p. 214. 
 
 ^ 'Lord Southwell,' said Johnson, 'was the most qtialitied man I 
 ever saw.' Post, March 23, 1783. 
 
 practice
 
 282 Robert Level. [a.d.1752. 
 
 practice in that way, that Mrs. Williams has told me, his 
 walk was from Hounsditch to Marybone. It appears from 
 Johnson's diary that their acquaintance commenced about 
 the year 1746; and such was Johnson's predilection for him, 
 and fanciful estimation of his moderate abilities, that I have 
 heard him say he should not be satisfied, though attended by 
 all the College of Physicians, unless he had Mr. Levet with 
 him. Ever since I was acquainted with Dr. Johnson, and 
 many years before, as I have been assured by those who knew 
 him earlier, Mr. Levet had an apartment in his house, or his 
 chambers, and waited upon him every morning, through the 
 whole course of his late and tedious breakfast. He was of a 
 strange grotesque appearance, stiff and formal in his manner, 
 and seldom said a word while any company was present'. 
 
 ' The account given of Levet in Gent. Mag. vl. loi, shews that he 
 was a man out of the common run. He would not otherwise have 
 attracted the notice of the French surgeons. The writer says : — ' Mr. 
 Levet, though an Englishman by birth, became early in life a waiter 
 at a coffee-house in Paris. The surgeons who frequented it, finding 
 him of an inquisitive turn and attentive to their conversation, made a 
 purse for him, and gave him some mstructions m their art. They 
 afterwards furnished him with the means of other knowledge, by pro- 
 curing him free admission to such lectures in pharmacy and anatomy 
 as were read by the ablest professors of that period.' When he lived 
 with Johnson, ' much of the day was employed in attendance on his 
 patients, who were chiefly of the lowest rank of tradesmen. The re- 
 mainder of his hours he dedicated to Hunter's lectures, and to as 
 many different opportunities of improvement as he could meet with 
 on the same gratuitous conditions.' ' All his medical knowledge,' said 
 Johnson, ' and it is not inconsiderable, was obtained through the ear. 
 Though he buys books, he seldom looks into them, or discovers any 
 power by which he can be supposed to judge of an author's merit.' 
 ' Dr. Johnson has frequently observed that Levet was indebted to him 
 for nothing more than house-room, his share in a penny-loaf at break- 
 fast, and now and then a dinner on a Sunday. His character was 
 rendered valuable by repeated proof of honesty, tenderness, and grati- 
 tude to his benefactor, as well as by an unwearied diligence in his pro- 
 fession. His single failing was an occasional departure from sobriety. 
 Johnson would observe, " he was perhaps the only man who ever be- 
 came intoxicated through motives of prudence. He reflected that, if 
 
 The
 
 Aetat. 43.] Sir yosliiia Reynolds. 283 
 
 - ■ ■ ■■ 1 — ' 
 
 The circle of his friends, indeed, at this time was extensive 
 and various, far beyond what has been generally imagined. 
 To trace his acquaintance with each particular person, if it 
 could be done, would be a task, of which the labour would 
 not be repaid by the advantage. But exceptions are to be 
 made ; one of which must be a friend so eminent as Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, who was truly his dulcc decus\ and with 
 whom he maintained an uninterrupted intimacy to the last 
 hour of his life. When Johnson lived in Castle-street, Cav- 
 endish-square, he used frequently to visit two ladies who 
 
 he refused the gin or brandy offered him by some of his patients, he 
 could have been no gainer by their cure, as they might have had 
 nothing else to bestow on him. This habit of taking a fee, in what- 
 ever shape it was exhibited, could not be put off by advice. He would 
 swallow what he did not like, nay what he knew would injure him, 
 rather than go home with an idea that his skill had been exerted 
 without recompense. Though he took all that was offered him, he 
 demanded nothing from the poor." ' The writer adds that 'Johnson 
 never wished him to be regarded as an inferior, or treated him like a 
 dependent.' Mrs. Piozzi says :—' When Johnson raised contributions 
 for some distressed author, or wit in want, he often made us all more 
 than amends by diverting descriptions of the lives they were then 
 passing in corners unseen by anybody but himself, and that odd old 
 surgeon whom he kept in his house to tend the out-pensioners, and 
 of whom he said most truly and sublimely, that 
 
 " In misery's darkest caverns known," ' etc. 
 
 Piozzi's Altec, p. 118. 
 
 ' Levet, madam, is a brutal fellow, but I have a good regard for him ; 
 for his brutality is in his manners, not in his mind.' iMf/ir. D'Arblays 
 Diary, i. 1 15. ' Whoever called in on Johnson at about midday found 
 him and Levet at breakfast, Johnson, in deshabille, as just risen from 
 bed, and Levet filling out tea for himself and his patron alternately, 
 no conversation passing between them. All that visited him at these 
 hours were welcome, A night's rest and breakfast seldom failed to 
 refresh and fit him for discourse, and whoever withdrew went too 
 soon.' Hawkins's 7i^//7wo;z, p. 435. 
 
 How much he valued his poor friend he showed at his death, /^i-/*, 
 Jan. 20, 1782. 
 
 ' ' O et praesidium et dulce decus meum.' 
 
 ' My joy, my guard, and sweetest good.' 
 
 Creech. Horace, Odes, i. i. 2. 
 
 lived
 
 284 One of 'Dr. yohnso7is school' [a.d. 1753. 
 
 ') ~~ 
 
 lived opposite to him, Miss Cotterells, daughters of Admiral 
 Cotterell. Reynolds used also to visit there, and thus they 
 met'. Mr. Reynolds, as I have observed above", had, from 
 the first reading of his Life of Savage, conceived a very high 
 admiration of Johnson's powers of writing. His conversation 
 no less delighted him ; and he cultivated his acquaintance 
 with the laudable zeal of one who was ambitious of general 
 improvement'. Sir Joshua, indeed, was lucky enough at their 
 
 1 It was in 1738 that Johnson was living in Castle Street. At the 
 time of Reynolds's arrival in London in 1752 he had been living for 
 some years in Gough Square. Boswell, I suppose, only means to say 
 that Johnson's acquaintance with the Cotterells was formed when he 
 lived in their neighbourhood. Northcote {Life of Reynolds, i. 69) says 
 that the Cotterells lived ' opposite to Reynolds's,' but his account 
 seems based on a misunderstanding of Boswell. 
 
 ••^ Ante, p. 191. 
 
 3 ' We are both of Dr. Johnson's school,' wrote Reynolds to some 
 friend. ' For my own part, I acknowledge the highest obligations to 
 him. He may be said to have formed my mind, and to have brushed 
 from it a great deal of rubbish. Those very persons whom he has 
 brought to think rightly will occasionally criticise the opinions of 
 their master when he nods. But we should always recollect that it 
 is he himself who taught us and enabled us to do it.' Taylor's Rey- 
 nolds, ii. 461. Burke, writing to Malone, said :— ' You state very prop- 
 erly how much Reynolds owed to the writings and conversation of 
 Johnson ; and nothing shews more the greatness of Sir Joshua's parts 
 than his taking advantage of both, and making some application of 
 them to his profession, when Johnson neither understood nor desired 
 to understand anything of painting.' lb. p. 638. Reynolds, there can 
 be little question, is thinking of Johnson in the following passage in 
 his SeveJith Discourse : — ' What partial and desultory reading cannot 
 aflord may be supplied by the conversation of learned and ingenious 
 men, which is the best of all substitutes for those who have not the 
 means or opportunities of deep study. There are many such men in 
 this age : and they will be pleased with communicating their ideas to 
 artists, when they see them curious and docile, if they are treated 
 with that respect and deference which is so justly their due. Into 
 such society young artists, if they make it the point of their ambition, 
 will by degrees be admitted. There, without formal teaching, they 
 will insensibly come to feel and reason like those they live with, and 
 find a rational and systematic taste imperceptibly formed in their 
 minds, which they will know how to reduce to a standard, by appl)^- 
 
 very
 
 Aetat. 43.] The Miss Co iter ells, 285 
 
 very first meeting to make a remark, which was so much 
 above the common-place style of conversation, that Johnson 
 at once perceived that Reynolds had the habit of thinking for 
 himself. The ladies were regretting the death of a friend, to 
 whom they owed great obligations ; upon which Reynolds 
 observed, 'You have, however, the comfort of being relieved 
 from a burthen of gratitude'.' They were shocked a little 
 at this alleviating suggestion, as too selfish, but Johnson de- 
 fended it in his clear and forcible manner, and was much 
 pleased with the mind, the fair view of human nature, which 
 it exhibited, like some of the reflections of Rochefaucault. 
 The consequence was that he went home with Reynolds, and 
 supped with him. 
 
 Sir Joshua told me a pleasant characteristical anecdote 
 of Johnson about the time of their first acquaintance. 
 When they were one evening together at the Miss Cot- 
 terells', the then Duchess of Argyle and another lady of 
 high rank came in. Johnson thinking that the Miss Cot- 
 terells were too much engrossed by them, and that he and 
 his friend were neglected, as low company of whom they 
 were somewhat ashamed, grew angry ; and resolving to 
 shock their supposed pride, by making their great visitors 
 
 ing general truth to their own purposes, better perhaps than those 
 to whom they owned [? owed] the original sentiment.' Reynolds's 
 Works, edit. 1824, i. 149. 'Another thing remarkable to shew how- 
 little Sir Joshua crouched to the great is, that he never gave them 
 their proper titles. I never heard the words " your lordship " or " your 
 ladyship " come from his mouth ; nor did he ever say " Sir " in speak- 
 ing to any one but Dr. Johnson ; and when he did not hear distinctly 
 what the latter said (which often happened) he would then say " Sir.?" 
 that he might repeat it.' Northcote's Com^crsations, p. 289. Gibbon 
 called Johnson ' Reynolds's oracle.' Gibbon's Ah'sc. Works, \. 149. 
 See also /f J-/, under Dec. 29, 1778. 
 
 ' The thought may have been suggested to Reynolds by Johnson's 
 writings. In The Rambler, No. 87, he had said : — ' There are minds 
 so impatient of inferiority, that their gratitude is a species of revenge, 
 and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but 
 because obligation is a pain.' In No. 166, he says : — ' To be obliged is 
 to be in some respect inferior to another.' 
 
 imagine
 
 286 Be7i7iet Langton. [a.d. 1752 
 
 iman-ine that his friend and he were low indeed, he addressed 
 himself in a loud tone to Mr. Reynolds, saying, ' How much 
 do you think you and I could get in a week, if we were to 
 zvork as hard as we could?' — as if they had been common 
 mechanicks'. 
 
 His acquaintance w^ith Bennet Langton, Esq. of Langton, 
 in Lincolnshire, another much valued friend, commenced 
 soon after the conclusion of his Rambler ; which that gentle- 
 man, then a youth, had read with so much admiration, that 
 he came to London chiefly with the view of endeavouring 
 to be introduced to its authour\ By a fortunate chance he 
 happened to take lodgings in a house where Mr. Levet 
 frequently visited ; and having mentioned his wish to his 
 landlady, she introduced him to Mr. Levet, who readily 
 obtained Johnson's permission to bring Mr. Langton to 
 him' ; as, indeed, Johnson, during the whole course of his 
 life, had no shyness, real or affected, but was easy of access 
 to all who were properly recommended, and even wished 
 
 ' Northcote tells the following story on the authority of Miss Rey- 
 nolds. It is to be noticed, however, that in her Recollections (Croker's 
 Bosivcll, p. 832) the story is told somewhat differently. Johnson, 
 Reynolds and Miss Reynolds one day called on the Miss Cotterells. 
 ' Johnson was the last of the three that came in ; when the maid, see- 
 ing this uncouth and dirty figure of a man, and not conceiving he 
 could be one of the company, laid hold of his coat, just as he was 
 going up-stairs, and pulled him back, saying, " You fellow, what is 
 your business here? I suppose you intended to rob the house." 
 This most unlucky accident threw him into such a fit of shame and 
 anger that he roared out like a bull, " What have I done } What have 
 I done ?" ' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 73. 
 
 - Johnson writing to Langton on January 9, 1759, describes him as 
 ' towering in the confidence of twenty-one.' The conclusion of The 
 Rambler was in March 1752, when Langton must have been only four- 
 teen or just fifteen at most ; Johnson's first letter to him dated May 
 6, 1755, shews that at that time their acquaintance had been but short. 
 Langton's subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles in the Register of 
 the University of Oxford was on July 7, 1757. Johnson's first letter to 
 him at Oxford is dated June 28, 1757. 
 
 ^ See/c^/, March 20, 1782. 
 
 to
 
 Aetat. 43.] TopJiam Beaticlerk. 287 
 
 to see numbers at his levcc\ as his morning circle of com- 
 pany might, with strict propriety, be called. Mr. Langton 
 was exceedingly surprised when the sage first appeared. 
 He had not received the smallest intimation of his figure, 
 dress, or manner. From perusing his writings, he fancied 
 he should see a decent, well-drest, in short, a remarkably 
 decorous philosopher. Instead of which, down from his 
 bedchamber, about noon, came, as newly risen, a huge un- 
 couth figure, with a little dark wig which scarcely covered 
 his head, and his clothes hanging loose about him. But his 
 conversation was so rich, so animated, and so forcible, and 
 his religious and political notions so congenial with those in 
 which Langton had been educated, that he conceived for 
 him that veneration and attachment which he ever pre- 
 served. Johnson was not the less ready to love Mr. Lang- 
 ton, for his being of a very ancient family; for I have heard 
 him say, with pleasure, ' Langton, Sir, has a grant of free 
 warren from Henry the Second ; and Cardinal Stephen 
 Langton, in King John's reign, was of this family'.' 
 
 Mr. Langton afterwards went to pursue his studies at 
 Trinity College, Oxford, where he formed an acquaintance 
 with his fellow student, Mr. Topham Beauclerk^ , who, 
 
 ' 'My friend Maltby and I,' said Samuel Rogers, 'when we were 
 very young men, had a strong desire to see Dr. Johnson ; and we de- 
 termined to call upon him, and introduce ourselves. We accordingly 
 proceeded to his house in Bolt Court ; and I had my hand on the 
 knocker when our courage failed us, and we retreated. Many years 
 afterwards I mentioned this circumstance to Boswell.who said," What 
 a pity that you did not go boldly in ! he would have received you 
 with all kindness." ' Rogers's Tabic Talk, p. 9. For Johnson's levee 
 see post, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's Collectanea. 
 
 '^ 'George Langton,' writes Mr. Best in his Metnorz'als (p. 66), 
 ' shewed me his pedigree with the names and arms of the families 
 with which his own had intermarried. It was engrossed on a piece 
 of parchment about ten inches broad, and twelve to fifteen feet long. 
 " It leaves off at the reign of Queen Elizabeth," said he.' 
 
 ^ Topham Beauclerk was the only son of Lord Sidney Beauclerk, 
 fifth son of the first Duke of St. Alban's. He was therefore the great- 
 grandson of Charles II. and Nell Gwvnnc. He was born in Dec. 1739. 
 
 though
 
 288 Topliam Beauclerk. [a.d. 1752. 
 
 though their opinions and modes of Hfe were so different, 
 that it seemed utterly improbable that they should at all 
 asrree, had so ardent a love of literature, so acute an under- 
 standing, such elegance of manners, and so well discerned 
 the excellent qualities of Mr. Langton, a gentleman eminent 
 not only for worth and learning, but for an inexhaustible 
 fund of entertaining conversation', that they became inti- 
 mate friends. 
 
 Johnson, soon after their acquaintance began, passed a 
 considerable time at Oxford". He at first thought it strange 
 that Langton should associate so much with one who had 
 the character of being loose, both in his principles and prac- 
 tice ; but, by degrees, he himself was fascinated. Mr. Beau- 
 clerk's being of the St. Alban's family, and having, in some 
 particulars, a resemblance to Charles the Second, contributed, 
 in Johnson's imagination, to throw a lustre upon his other 
 qualities^; and, in a short time, the moral, pious Johnson, 
 
 In my D}-. Johnson : His Friozds and his Critics I have put together 
 such facts as I could find about Langton and Beauclerk. 
 
 ' Mr. Best describes Langton as ' a very tall, meagre, long-visaged 
 man, much resembling a stork standing on one leg near the shore in 
 Raphael's cartoon of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes. His man- 
 ners were, in the highest degree, polished ; his conversation mild, 
 equable and always pleasing.' Best's Memorials, p. 62. Miss Haw- 
 kins writes' — 'If I were called on to name the person with whom 
 Johnson might have been seen to the fairest advantage, I should cer- 
 tainly name Mr. Langton.' Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, \. 144. Mrs. 
 Piozzi wrote in 1817: — 'I remember when to have Langton at a 
 man's house stamped him at once a literary character.' Hayward's 
 Piozzi, ii. 203. 
 
 ^ In the summer of 1759. Sqg. post, under April 15, 1758, and 1759. 
 
 ^ Lord Charlemont said that ' Beauclerk possessed an exquisite 
 taste, various accomplishments, and the most perfect good breeding. 
 He was eccentric, often querulous, entertaining a contempt for the 
 generality of the world, which the politeness of his manners could 
 not always conceal ; but to those whom he liked most generous and 
 friendly. Devoted at one time to pleasure, at another to literature, 
 sometimes absorbed in play, sometimes in books, he was altogether 
 one of the most accomplished, and when in good humour and sur- 
 rounded by those who suited his fancy, one of the most agreeable 
 
 and
 
 Aetat. 43.] Bcaticler/cs propensity to satire. 289 
 
 and the gay, dissipated Beauclerk, were companions. 'What 
 a coaHtion ! (said Garrick, when he heard of this ;) I shall 
 have my old friend to bail out of the Round-house'.' But I 
 can bear testimony that it was a very agreeable association. 
 Beauclerk was too polite, and valued learning and wit too 
 much, to offend Johnson by sallies of infidelity or licentious- 
 ness ; and Johnson delighted in the good qualities of Beau- 
 clerk, and hoped to correct the evil. Innumerable were the 
 scenes in which Johnson was amused by these young men. 
 Beauclerk could take more liberty with him, than any body 
 with whom I ever saw him ; but, on the other hand, Beau- 
 clerk was not spared by his respectable companion, when re- 
 proof was proper. Beauclerk had such a propensity to 
 satire, that at one time Johnson said to him, 'You never 
 open your mouth but with intention to give pain ; and you 
 have often given me pain, not from the power of what you 
 said, but from seeing your intention.' At another time 
 applying to him, with a slight alteration, a line of Pope, he 
 
 ' ' Thy love of folly, and th}^ scorn of fools — " 
 
 Every thing thou dost shews the one, and every thing thou 
 say'st the other.' At another time he said to him, ' Thy 
 
 men that could possibly exist.' Lord Charlemont's Life, i. 210. Haw- 
 kins writes iyLtfe, p. 422) that ' over all his behaviour there beamed 
 such a sunshine of cheerfuhiess and good-humour as communicated 
 itself to all around him.' Mrs. Piozzi said of him : — ' Topham Beau- 
 clerk (wicked and profligate as he wished to be accounted) was yet a 
 man of very strict veracity. Oh Lord ! how I did hate that horrid 
 Beauclerk.' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 348. Rogers (Tabk-Talk, p. 40) said 
 that ' Beauclerk was a strangely absent person.' He once went to 
 dress for a dinner-party in his own house. ' He forgot all about his 
 guests ; thought that it was bed-time, and got into bed. His servant, 
 coming to tell him that his guests were waiting for him, found him 
 fast asleep.' 
 
 ' It was to the Round-house that Captain Booth was first taken in 
 Fielding's Amelia, Book i, chap. 2. 
 
 * ' Blends, in exception to all general rules, 
 
 Your taste of follies with our scorn of fools.* 
 
 Pope, Moral Essays, ii. 275. 
 I. — 19 body
 
 290 Johnson the Idle Apprentice. [a.d. 1753. 
 
 body is all vice, and thy mind all virtue.' Beauclerk not 
 seeming to relish the compliment, Johnson said, ' Nay, Sir, 
 Alexander the Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, 
 could not have desired to have had more said to him.' 
 
 Johnson was some time with Beauclerk at his house at 
 Windsor, where he was entertained with experiments in 
 natural philosophy'. One Sunday, when the weather was 
 very fine, Beauclerk enticed him, insensibly, to saunter about 
 all the morning. They went into a church-yard, in the time 
 of divine service, and Johnson laid himself down at his ease 
 upon one of the tomb-stones. ' Now, Sir, (said Beauclerk) 
 you are like Hogarth's Idle Apprentice.' When Johnson 
 got his pension, Beauclerk said to him, in the humorous 
 phrase of Falstaff, ' I hope you'll now purge and live cleanly 
 like a gentleman".' 
 
 One night when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a 
 tavern in London, and sat till about three in the morning, 
 it came into their heads to go and knock up Johnson, and 
 see if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. 
 They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the 
 Temple, till at last he appeared in his shirt, with his little 
 black wig on the top of his head, instead of a nightcap, 
 and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that some 
 ruffians were coming to attack him. When he discovered 
 who they were, and was told their errand, he smiled, and 
 with great good humour agreed to their proposal : ' What, 
 is it you, you dogs! I'll have a frisk with you.' He was 
 soon drest, and they sallied forth together into Covent- 
 
 ' In the college which The Club was to set up at St. Andrew's, 
 Beauclerk was to have the chair of natural philosophy. Boswell's 
 Hebrides, Aug. 25, 1773. Goldsmith, writing to Langton in 1771, says : 
 — ' Mr. Beauclerk is now going directly forward to become a second 
 Boyle ; deep in chymistry and physics.' Forster's Goldsmz'ih, ii. 283. 
 Boswell described to Temple, in 1775, Beauclerk's villa at Muswell 
 H ill, with its ' observatory, laboratory for chymical experiments.' Bos- 
 well's Letters, p. 194. 
 
 '■' ' I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should 
 do.' I Henry IV. Act v. sc. 4. 
 
 Garden.
 
 Aetat.44.] A fvisk with Beanclevk and Laiigton. 291 
 
 Garden, where the greengrocers and fruiterers were begin- 
 ning to arrange their hampers, just come in from the coun- 
 try. Johnson made some attempts to help them ; but the 
 honest gardeners stared so at his figure and manner, and 
 odd interference, that he soon saw his services were not 
 rehshed. They then repaired to one of the neighbouring 
 taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called Bishop\ 
 which Johnson had always liked ; while in joyous contempt 
 of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the 
 festive lines, 
 
 ' Short, O short then be thy reign. 
 And give us to the world again" !' 
 
 They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, 
 took a boat, and rowed to Billingsgate, Beauclerk and 
 Johnson were so well pleased with their amusement, that 
 they resolved to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the 
 day : but Langton deserted them, being engaged to break- 
 fast with some young Ladies. Johnson scolded him for 
 ' leaving his social friends, to go and sit with a set of 
 wretched tin-idea d girls.' Garrick being told of this ram- 
 ble, said to him smartly, ' I heard of your frolick t'other 
 night. You'll be in the Chronicle.' Upon which Johnson 
 afterwards observed, ' iZr durst not do such a thing. His 
 wife would not let him ! ' 
 
 1753: ^TAT. 44.] — He entered upon this year 1753 with 
 his usual piety, as appears from the following prayer, which 
 
 ' ' Bishop. A cant word for a mixture of wine, oranges, and sugar.' 
 Johnson's Dictionary. 
 
 ^ Mr. Langton has recollected, or Dr. Johnson repeated, the passage 
 wrong. The lines are in Lord Lansdowne's Drinking Song to Sleep, 
 and run thus : — 
 
 ' Short, very short be then thy reign. 
 For I'm in haste to laugh and drink again.' 
 
 BOSWELL. 
 
 Lord Lansdowne was the Granville of Pope's couplet — 
 ' But why then publish ? Granville the polite. 
 And knowing Walsh, would tell me I could write.' 
 
 Prologue to the Satires, 1. 135. 
 I transcribed
 
 292 The Adventurer. [a.d. 1753, 
 
 I transcribed from that part of his diary which he burnt a 
 few days before his death' : 
 
 'Jan. I, 1753, N. S. which I shall use for the future. 
 
 ' Almighty God, who hast continued my life to this day, grant 
 that, by the assistance of thy Holy Spirit, I may improve the time 
 which thou shalt grant me, to my eternal salvation. Make me to 
 remember, to thy glory, thy judgements and thy mercies. Make 
 me so to consider the loss of my wife, whom thou hast taken from 
 me, that it may dispose me, by thy grace, to lead the residue of my 
 life in thy fear. Grant this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake. 
 Amen.' 
 
 He now relieved the drudgery of his Dictionary, and the 
 melancholy of his grief, by taking an active part in the 
 composition of The Adventurer, in which he began to write 
 April lo", marking his essays with the signature T', by which 
 most of his papers in that collection are distinguished : 
 those, however, which have that signature and also that of 
 Mysargyrus, were not written by him, but, as I suppose, by 
 Dr. Bathurst. Indeed Johnson's energy of thought and rich- 
 ness of language, are still more decisive marks than any 
 signature. As a proof of this, my readers, I imagine, will 
 not doubt that Number 39, on sleep, is his ; for it not only 
 
 ' Boswell in his Hebrides (Aug. i8, 1773) says that Johnson, on start- 
 ing from Edinburgh, left behind in an open drawer in Boswell's house 
 ' one volume of a pretty full and curious Diary of his life, of which I 
 have a few fragments.' He also states {post, under Dec. 9, 1784) : — ' I 
 owned- to him, that having accidentally seen them [two quarto vol- 
 umes of his Life\ I had read a great deal in them.' It would seem 
 that he had also transcribed a portion. 
 
 " This is inconsistent with what immediately follows, for No. 39 on 
 Sleep was published on March 20. 
 
 ^ Hawkesworth in the last number of The Adventurer says that he 
 had help at first from A. ; ' but this resource soon failing, I was obliged 
 to carry on the publication alone, except some casual supplies, till I 
 obtained from the gentlemen who have distinguished their papers by 
 T and Z, such assistance as I most wished.' In a note he says that 
 the papers signed Z are by the Rev. Mr. Warton. The papers signed 
 A are written in a light style. In Southey's Coivper, i. 47, it is said 
 that Bonnell Thornton wrote them. 
 
 has
 
 Aetat. 44.] A letter to Dr. War ton. 293 
 
 has the general texture and colour of his style, but the 
 authours with whom he was peculiarly conversant are 
 readily introduced in it in cursory allusion. The translation 
 of a passage in Statius' quoted in that paper, and marked 
 C. B. has been erroneously ascribed to Dr. Bathurst, whose 
 Christian name was Richard. How much this amiable man 
 actually contributed to The Adventurer, cannot be known. 
 Let me add, that Hawkesworth's imitations of Johnson are 
 sometimes so happy, that it is extremely difificult to distin- 
 guish them, with certainty, from the compositions of his 
 great archetype. Hawkesworth was his closest imitator, a 
 circumstance of which that writer would once have been 
 proud to be told ; though, when he had become elated by 
 having risen into some degree of consequence, he, in a con- 
 versation with me, had the provoking effrontery to say he 
 was not sensible of it°. 
 
 Johnson was truly zealous for the success of The Ad- 
 venturer ; and very soon after his engaging in it, he wrote 
 the following letter : 
 
 'To THE Reverend Dr. Joseph Warton. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I ought to have written to you before now, but I ought to do 
 many things which I do not ; nor can I, indeed, claim any merit 
 from this letter ; for being desired by the authours and proprietor 
 of The Adventurer to look out for another hand, my thoughts 
 necessarily fixed upon you, whose fund of literature will enable you 
 to assist them, with very little interruption of your studies. 
 
 They desire you to engage to furnish one paper a month, at two 
 
 ' Boswell had read the passage carelessly. Statins is mentioned, 
 but the writer goes on to quote CowIlj, whose Latin lines C. B. has 
 translated. Johnson's Works, iv. 10. 
 
 * Malone says that 'Johnson was fond of him, but latterly owned 
 that Hawkesworth — who had set out a modest, humble man — was 
 one of the many whom success in the world had spoiled. He was 
 latterly, as Sir Joshua Reynolds told me, an affected insincere man, 
 and a great coxcomb in his dress. He had no literature whatever.' 
 Prior's Malone, p. 441. See post, April 1 1 and May 7, 1773, and Bos- 
 well's Hebrides, Oct. 3. 
 
 guineas
 
 294 The yohnson-Bathurst papers. [a.d. 1753. 
 
 guineas a paper, which you may very readily perform. We have 
 considered that a paper should consist of pieces of imagination, 
 pictures of life, and disquisitions of literature. The part which 
 depends on the imagination is very well supplied, as you will find 
 when you read the paper ; for descriptions of life, there is now a 
 treaty almost made with an authour and an authouress ; and the 
 province of criticism and literature they are very desirous to assign 
 to the commentator on Virgil. 
 
 ' I hope this proposal will not be rejected, and that the next post 
 will bring us your compliance. I speak as one of the fraternity, 
 though I have no part in the paper, beyond now and then a motto ; 
 but two of the writers are my particular friends, and I hope the 
 pleasure of seeing a third united to them, will not be denied to, 
 dear Sir, ' Your most obedient, 
 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'March 8, 1753.' 
 
 The consequence of this letter was, Dr. Warton's enrich- 
 ing the collection with several admirable essays. 
 
 Johnson's saying ' I have no part in the paper beyond 
 now and then a motto,' may seem inconsistent with his being 
 the authour of the papers marked T. But he had, at this 
 time, written only one number' ; and besides, even at any 
 after period, he might have used the same expression, con- 
 sidering it as a point of honour not to own them ; for Mrs. 
 Williams told me that, ' as he had given those Essays to Dr. 
 Bathurst, who sold them at two guineas each, he never would 
 
 ^ Johnson's statement to Warton is definite and is borne out by in- 
 ternal evidence, if internal evidence can be needful when he had once 
 made a definite statement. The papers signed Mtsargyrus, the first 
 of which appeared on March 3, are all below his style. They were 
 not, I feel sure, written by him, and are improperly given in the Ox- 
 ford edition of his works. I do not find in them even any traces of 
 his hand. The paper on Sleep. No. 39, is, I am almost sure, partly 
 his, but I believe it is not wholly. In the frequency of quotations in 
 the first part of it I see another, and probably a younger author. The 
 passage on the ' low drudgery of digesting dictionaries ' is almost cer- 
 tainly his. Dr. Bathurst, perhaps, wrote the Essay, and Johnson cor- 
 rected it. Whether it was Johnson's or not, it was published after the 
 letter to Dr. Warton was written. 
 
 own
 
 Aetat.44.] Literary childreii. 295 
 
 own them ; nay, he used to say he did not write them : but 
 the fact was, that he dictated them, while Bathurst wrote.' 
 I read to him Mrs. WilHams's account ; he smiled, and said 
 nothing'. 
 
 I am not quite satisfied with the casuistry by which the 
 productions of one person are thus passed upon the world 
 for the productions of another. I allow that not only 
 knowledge, but powers and qualities of mind may be com- 
 municated ; but the actual effect of individual exertion 
 never can be transferred, with truth, to any other than its 
 own original cause. One person's child may be made the 
 child of another person by adoption, as among the Romans, 
 or by the ancient Jewish mode of a wife having children 
 born to her upon her knees, by her handmaid. But these 
 were children in a different sense from that of nature. It 
 was clearly understood that they were not of the blood of 
 their nominal parents. So in literary children, an authour 
 may give the profits and fame of his composition to another 
 man, but cannot make that other the real authour. A High- 
 land gentleman, a younger branch of a family, once consult- 
 ed me if he could not validly purchase the Chieftainship of 
 his family, from the Chief who was willing to sell it. I told 
 him it was impossible for him to acquire, by purchase, a 
 right to be a different person from what he really was ; for 
 that the right of Chieftainship attached to the blood of 
 primogeniture, and, therefore, was incapable of being trans- 
 ferred. I added, that though Esau sold his birth-right, or 
 the advantages belonging to it, he still remained the first- 
 born of his parents ; and that whatever agreement a Chief 
 might make with any of the clan, the Herald's Office could 
 not admit of the metamorphosis, or with any decency at- 
 test that the younger was the elder ; but I did not convince 
 the worthy gentleman. 
 
 Johnson's papers in TJie Adventurer are very similar to 
 those of The Rambler ; but being rather more varied in their 
 
 1 See post, April 25, 1778, for an instance where Johnson's silence 
 did not imply assent. 
 
 subjects,
 
 296 Mrs. Lennox. [a.d. 1754. 
 
 subjects, and being mixed with essays by other writers, upon 
 topicks more generally attractive than even the most elegant 
 ethical discourses, the sale of the work, at first, was more ex- 
 tensive. Without meaning, however, to depreciate The Ad- 
 venturer, I must observe that as the value of The Rambler 
 came, in the progress of time, to be better known, it grew 
 upon the publick estimation, and that its sale has far exceed- 
 ed that of any other periodical papers since the reign of 
 Queen Anne, 
 
 In one of the books of his diary I find the following entry : 
 
 'Apr. 3, 1753- I began the second vol. of my Dictionary, room 
 being left in the first for Preface, Grammar, and History, none of 
 them yet begun. 
 
 ' O God, who hast hitherto supported me, enable me to proceed 
 in this labour, and in the whole task of my present state ; that 
 when I shall render up, at the last day, an account of the talent 
 committed to me, I may receive pardon, for the sake of Jesus 
 Christ. Amen.' 
 
 He this year favoured Mrs. Lennox' with a Dedication* 
 to the Earl of Orrery, of her SJiakspeare Illustrated. 
 
 1754: ^TAT. 45.] — In 1754 I can trace nothing published 
 by him, except his numbers of The Adventurer, and 'The 
 Life of Edward Cave,'" in the Getitlemans Magaaine for 
 February. In biography there can be no question that he 
 excelled, beyond all who have attempted that species of 
 
 ^ ' One evening at the Club Johnson proposed to us the celebrating 
 the birth of Mrs. Lennox's first literary child, as he called her book, 
 [ The Life of Harriet Stuart, a novel, published Dec. 1750] by a whole 
 night spent in festivity. Our supper was elegant, and Johnson had 
 directed that a magnificent hot apple-pie should make a part of it, 
 and this he would have stuck with bay-leaves, because, forsooth, Mrs. 
 Lennox was an authoress, and had written verses ; and further, he 
 had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with which, but not till he 
 had invoked the Muses by some ceremonies of his own invention, he 
 encircled her brows. About five Johnson's face shone with meridian 
 splendour, though his drink had been only lemonade.' Hawkins's 
 JoJmson, p. 286. Set post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection, and May 
 15, 1784. 
 
 composition ;
 
 Aetat. 45.] ThE LifE OF EdWAKD CaVE. 297 
 
 composition ; upon which, indeed, he set the highest value. 
 To the minute selection of characteristical circumstances, 
 for which the ancients were remarkable, he added a philo- 
 sophical research, and the most perspicuous and energetick 
 language. Cave was certainly a man of estimable qualities, 
 and was eminently diligent and successful in his own busi- 
 ness', which, doubtless, entitled him to respect. But he was 
 peculiarly fortunate in being recorded by Johnson, who, of 
 the narrow life of a printer and publisher, without any di- 
 gressions or adventitious circumstances, has made an interest- 
 ing and agreeable narrative\ 
 
 The Dictionary, we may believe, afforded Johnson full 
 occupation this year. As it approached to its conclusion, 
 he probably worked with redoubled vigour, as seamen in- 
 crease their exertion and alacrity when they have a near 
 prospect of their haven. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield, to whom Johnson had paid the high 
 compliment of addressing to his Lordship the Plan of his 
 Dictionary, had behaved to him in such a manner as to ex- 
 cite his contempt and indignation. The world has been for 
 many years amused with a story confidently told, and as 
 confidently repeated with additional circumstances^ that a 
 sudden disgust was taken by Johnson upon occasion of his 
 having been one day kept long in waiting in his Lordship's 
 antechamber, for which the reason assigned was, that he had 
 company with him ; and that at last, when the door opened, 
 out walked Colley Cibber; and that Johnson was so violent- 
 ly provoked when he found for whom he had been so long 
 excluded, that he went away in a passion, and never would 
 
 ' In a document in the possession of one of Cave's collateral de- 
 scendants, which I have seen, dated May 3, 1754, and headed, ' Present 
 state of the late Mr. Edward Cave's effects,' I found entered 'Maga- 
 zine, ;£3,ooo. Daily Advertiser, ;£9C)0.' The total value of the effects 
 was £Z,']o%. 
 
 " Johnson records of his friend that ' one of the last acts of reason 
 which he exerted was fondly to press the hand that is now writing 
 this little narrative.' Works, vi. 433. 
 
 ' See Hawkins's Johnson, p. 189. 
 
 return.
 
 298 Dedication of his Dictionary. [a.d. 1754. 
 
 return. I remember having mentioned this story to George 
 Lord Lyttelton, who told me, he was very intimate w^ith 
 Lord Chesterfield ; and holding it as a well-known truth, de- 
 fended Lord Chesterfield, by saying, that ' Cibber, who had 
 been introduced familiarly by the back-stairs, had probably 
 not been there above ten minutes.' It may seem strange 
 even to entertain a doubt concerning a story so long and so 
 widely current, and thus implicitly adopted, if not sanctioned, 
 by the authority which I have mentioned ; but Johnson 
 himself assured me, that there was not the least foundation 
 for it. He told me, that there never was any particular in- 
 cident which produced a quarrel between Lord Chesterfield 
 and him ; but that his Lordship's continued neglect was 
 the reason why he resolved to have no connection with 
 him*. When the Dictionary was upon the eve of publica- 
 tion. Lord Chesterfield, who, it is said, had flattered himself 
 with expectations that Johnson would dedicate the work to 
 him\ attempted, in a courtly manner, to sooth, and insinuate 
 
 ' Lord Chesterfield writing to his son in 1751 {Letters, iii. 136) said : 
 — ' People in high life are hardened to the wants and distresses of 
 mankind, as surgeons are to their bodily pains ; they see and hear of 
 them all day long, and even of so many simulated ones, that they do 
 not know which are real, and which are not. Other sentiments are 
 therefore to be applied to than those of mere justice and humanity; 
 their favour must be captivated by the stcaintcr in inodo ; their love 
 of ease disturbed by unwearied importunity; or their fears wrought 
 upon by a decent intimation of implacable, cool resentment : this is 
 the xxM^fortiter m re.' He was himself to experience an instance of 
 the trueforttter in re. 
 
 " If Lord Chesterfield had read the last number of The Rajnbler 
 (published in March 1752) he could scarcely have flattered himself 
 with these expectations. Johnson, after saying that he would not 
 endeavour to overbear the censures of criticism by the influence of a 
 patron, added : — ' The supplications of an author never yet reprieved 
 him a moment from oblivion ; and, though greatness has sometimes 
 sheltered guilt, it can afford no protection to ignorance or dulness. 
 Having hitherto attempted only the propagation of truth, I will not 
 at last violate it by the confession of terrors which I do not feel ; hav- 
 ing laboured to maintain the dignity of virtue, I will not now degrade 
 it by the meanness of dedication.' 
 
 himself
 
 Aetat.45.] Lord Chesterfield's fiat iery. 299 
 
 himself with the Sage, conscious, as it should seem, of the 
 cold indifference with which he had treated its learned au- 
 thour; and further attempted to conciliate him, by writing 
 two papers in TJie lVor/d\ in recommendation of the work ; 
 and it must be confessed, that they contain some studied 
 compliments, so finely turned, that if there had been no pre- 
 vious offence, it is probable that Johnson would have been 
 highly delighted^ Praise, in general, was pleasing to him ; 
 but by praise from a man of rank and elegant accomplish- 
 ments, he was peculiarly gratified. 
 His Lordship says, 
 
 ' I think the publick in general, and the republick of letters in 
 particular, are greatly obliged to Mr. Johnson, for having under- 
 taken, and executed, so great and desirable a work. Perfection 
 is not to be expected from man ; but if we are to judge by the 
 
 1 On Nov. 28 and Dec. 5, 1754. T/ie World, by Adam Fitz-Adam, 
 Jan. 1753 to Dec. 1765. The editor was Edward Moore. Among 
 the contributors were the Earls of Chesterfield and Corke, Horace 
 Walpole, R. O. Cambridge, and Soame Jenyns. See posl, July i, 
 
 1763- 
 
 ^ With these papers as a whole Johnson would have been highly 
 offended. The anonymous writer hopes that his readers will not sus- 
 pect him ' of being a hired and interested puff of this work.' ' I most 
 solemnly protest,' he goes on to say, ' that neither Mr. Johnson, nor 
 any booksellers have ever offered me the usual compliment of a pair 
 of gloves or a bottle of wine.' It is a pretty piece of irony for a wealthy 
 nobleman solemnly to protest that he has not been bribed by a poor 
 author, whom seven years before he had repulsed from his door. But 
 Chesterfield did worse than this. By way of recommending a work 
 of so much learning and so much labour he tells a foolish story of an 
 assignation that had failed ' between a fine gentleman and a fine lady.' 
 The letter that had passed between them had been badly spelt, and 
 they had gone to different houses. ' Such examples.' he wrote, ' really 
 make one tremble ; and will, I am convinced, determme my fair fel- 
 low-subjects and their adherents to adopt and scrupulously conform 
 to Mr. Johnson's rules of true orthography.' Johnson, in the last year 
 of his life, at a time of great weakness and depression, defended the 
 roughness of his manner. ' I have done more good as I am. Ob- 
 scenity and impiety have always been repressed in my company 
 (J)05i, June 11, 1784). 
 
 various
 
 300 Lord Chesterfield's fiattery. [a.d. 1754. 
 
 various works of Johnson' already published, we have good reason 
 to believe, that he will bring this as near to perfection as any man 
 could do. The Plan of it, which he published some years ago, 
 seems to m.e to be a proof of it. Nothing can be more rationally 
 imagined, or more accurately and elegantly expressed. I therefore 
 recommend the previous perusal of it to all those who intend to 
 buy the Dictionary, and who, I suppose, are all those who can af- 
 ford it.' 
 
 ******* 
 
 ' It must be owned, that our language is, at present, in a state of 
 anarchy, and hitherto, perhaps, it may not have been the worse for 
 it. During our free and open trade, many words and expressions 
 have been imported, adopted, and naturalized from other lan- 
 guages, which have greatly enriched our own. Let it still preserve 
 what real strength and beauty it may have borrowed from others ; 
 but let it not, like the Tarpeian maid, be overwhelmed and crushed 
 by unnecessary ornaments". The time for discrimination seems 
 to be now come. Toleration, adoption, and naturalization have 
 run their lengths. Good order and authority are now necessary. 
 But where shall we find them, and, at the same time, the obedience 
 due to them ? We must have recourse to the old Roman expedient 
 in times of confusion, and chuse a dictator. Upon this principle, 
 I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. 
 And I hereby declare, that I make a total surrender of all my 
 rights and privileges in the English language, as a free-born Brit- 
 ish subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his dicta- 
 torship. Nay more, I will not only obey him, like an old Roman, 
 as my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe 
 in him as my Pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair, 
 but no longer. More than this he cannot well require ; for, I pre- 
 sume, that obedience can never be expected, when there is neither 
 terrour to enforce, nor interest to invite it.' 
 
 ******* 
 
 ' But a Grammar, a Dictionary, and a History of our Language 
 through its several stages, were still wanting at home, and impor- 
 tunately called for from abroad. Mr. Johnson's labours will now, 
 I dare say '\ very fully supply that want, and greatly contribute to 
 
 ' In the original ' Mr. Johnson.' 
 
 s In the original ' unnecessary foreign ornaments.' 
 
 ■' In the original, 'will now, and. I dare say.' 
 
 the
 
 Aetat.45.] Its failure. 301 
 
 the farther spreading of our language in other countries. Learners 
 were discouraged, by finding no standard to resort to ; and, conse- 
 quently, thought it incapable of any. They will now be undeceived 
 and encouraged.' 
 
 This courtly device failed of its effect'. Johnson, who 
 thought that 'all was false and hollow\' despised the 
 honeyed words, and was even indignant that Lord Chester- 
 field should, for a moment, imagine that he could be the 
 dupe of such an artifice. His expression to me concerning 
 Lord Chesterfield, upon this occasion, was, ' Sir, after making 
 great professions\ he had, for many years, taken no notice of 
 me ; but when my Dictionary was coming out, he fell a 
 scribbling in The World about it. Upon which, I wrote 
 him a letter expressed in civil terms, but such as might shew 
 him that I did not mind what he said or wrote, and that I 
 had done with him\' 
 
 ' Hawkins (Zz/V, p. 191) says that Chesterfield, further to appease 
 Johnson, sent to him Sir Thomas Robinson (see /ijj'/, July 19, 1763), 
 who was 'to apologise for his lordship's treatment of him, and to 
 make him tenders of his future friendship and patronage. Sir Thomas, 
 whose talent was flattery, was profuse in his commendations of John- 
 son and his writings, and declared that, were his circumstances other 
 than they were, himself would settle ;^5oo a year on him. ' And who 
 are you,' asked Johnson, 'that talk thus liberally.?' 'I am,' said the 
 other, 'Sir Thomas Robinson, a Yorkshire baronet.' 'Sir,' replied 
 Johnson, ' if the first peer of the realm w^ere to make me such an 
 offer, I would shew him the way down stairs.' 
 
 ' Paradise Lost, ii. 1 1 2. 
 
 ' Johnson, perhaps, was thinking of his interviews with Chesterfield, 
 v/hen in his Rambler on ' The Mischiefs of following a Patron ' (No. 
 163) he wrote: — 'If you, Mr. Rambler, have ever ventured your phi- 
 losophy within the attraction of greatness, you know the force of such 
 language, introduced with a smile of gracious tenderness, and im- 
 pressed at the conclusion with an air of solemn sincerity.' 
 
 * Johnson said to 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.?' Murphy's Johnson, 
 p. 74. This metaphor may perhaps have been suggested to Johnson 
 by Warburton. ' I now begin to see land, after having wandered, ac- 
 
 This
 
 302 yoknson's spelling. [a.d. 1754, 
 
 This is that celebrated letter of which so much has been 
 said, and about which curiosity has been so long excited, 
 without being gratified. I for many years solicited Johnson 
 to favour me with a copy of it', that so excellent a composi- 
 tion might not be lost to posterity. He delayed from time 
 to time to give it me° ; till at last in 1781, when we were 
 on a visit at Mr. Dilly's, at Southill in Bedfordshire, he was 
 pleased to dictate it to me from memory\ He afterwards 
 found among his papers a copy of it, which he had dictated 
 to Mr. Baretti, with its title and corrections, in his own hand- 
 writing. This he gave to Mr. Langton ; adding that if it 
 were to come into print, he wished it to be from that copy. 
 By Mr. Langton's kindness, I am enabled to enrich my work 
 with a perfect transcript* of what the world has so eagerly 
 desired to see. 
 
 cording to Mr. Warburton's phrase, in this vast sea of words.' Post, 
 Feb. I, 1755. 
 
 ' See post, Nov. 22, 1779, and April 8, 1780. Sir Henry Ellis says 
 that 'address' in Johnson's own copy of his letter to Lord Chester- 
 field is spelt twice with one d. Croker's Corres. ii. 44. In the series 
 of Letters by Johnson given in Notes and Queries, 6th S. v, Johnson 
 \\r\tts persuit (p. 325); 'I cannot butt' (p. 342); 'to retain council' 
 (p. 343) ; harrassed {^. 423) ; imbecillity (p. 482). In a letter to Nichols 
 quoted by me:, post, beginning of 1783, he writes ilncss. He common- 
 ly, perhaps always, spelt Boswcll Boswcl, and Nichols's name in one 
 series of letters he spelt Nichols, Nichol, and Nicol. Post, beginning 
 of 1 78 1, note. 
 
 * Dr. Johnson appeared to have had a remarkable delicacy with 
 respect to the circulation of this letter ; for Dr. Douglas, Bishop of 
 Salisbury, informs me that, having many years ago pressed him to be 
 allowed to read it to the second Lord Hardwicke, who was very de- 
 sirous to hear it (promising at the same time, that no copy of it should 
 be taken), Johnson seemed much pleased that it had attracted the 
 attention of a nobleman of such a respectable character ; but after 
 pausing some time, declined to comply with the request, saying, with 
 a smile, ' No, Sir ; I have hurt the dog too much already;' or words to 
 that purpose. Boswell. 
 
 ^ See /i^i-/, June 4, 1781. 
 
 * In 1790, the year before the Life of Johnson came out, Boswell 
 published this letter in a separate sheet of four quarto pages under 
 
 'To
 
 Aetat. 45.] yoknsoii s Utter to Lord Chesterfield. ^P 
 
 o 
 
 'To THE Right Honourable the Earl of Chesterfield. 
 
 iHT T ' February 7, I755- 
 
 '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 distinguished, 
 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 ac- 
 knowledge. 
 
 'When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your 
 Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the en- 
 chantment of your address ; and could not forbear to wish that I 
 might boast myself Le vainqiieur du vainqiieiir 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 possess. 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 
 
 the following title: — The celebrated Letter from Samuel Johnson, 
 LL.D., to Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield ; Now first 
 published with Notes, by James Bo.swell, Esq., London. Printed by 
 Henry Baldwin: for Charles Dllly In the Poultry, RIDCCXC. Price 
 Half- a -Guinea. Entered In the Hall- Book of the Compatiy of Sta- 
 tioners. It belongs to the same impression as The Life of Johnson. 
 
 ' 'Je chante le vainqueur des vainqueurs de la terre.' Boileau, 
 L'Art podtlque, iii. 272. 
 
 * The following note is subjoined by Mr. Langton : — ' Dr. Johnson, 
 when he gave me this copy of his letter, desired that I would annex 
 to it his information to me, that whereas it is said in the letter that 
 " no assistance has been received," he did once receive from Lord 
 Chesterfield the sum of ten pounds ; but as that was so inconsider- 
 able a sum, he thought the mention of it could not properly find 
 place in a letter of the kind that this was.' Boswkll. ' This surely 
 is an unsatisfactory excuse,' writes Mr. Crokcr. He read Johnson's 
 
 encouragement,
 
 304 Johnsons letter to Lord Chesterfield, [a.d. 1754. 
 
 encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not 
 expect, for I never had a Patron before. 
 
 ' The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and 
 found him a native of the rocks. 
 
 ' Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a 
 man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached 
 ground, 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 delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot 
 enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it' ; till I am known, 
 
 letter carelessly, as the rest of his note shews. Johnson says, that 
 during the seven years that had passed since he was repulsed from 
 Chesterfield's door he had pushed on his work without one act of 
 assistance. These ten pounds, we may feel sure, had been receiv^ed 
 before the seven years began to run. No doubt they had been given 
 in 1747 as an acknowledgment of the compliment paid to Chester- 
 field in the Plan. He had at first been misled by Chesterfield's one 
 .act of kindness, but he had long had his eyes opened. Like the shep- 
 herd in Virgil {Eclogues, \'\\\. A^"^) he could say :— ' Av/;/^- scio quid sit 
 Amor.' 
 
 ' In this passage Dr. Johnson evidently alludes to the loss of his 
 wife. We find the same tender recollection recurring to his mind 
 upon innumerable occasions: and, perhaps no man ever more forci- 
 bly felt the truth of the sentiment so elegantly expressed by my friend 
 Mr. Malone, in his Prologue to Mr. Jephson's tragedy of Julia [Jjili'a 
 or the Italian Lover was acted for the first time on April 17, 1787. 
 Gent. Mag. 1787, p. 354] : — 
 
 *Vain — wealth, and fame, and fortune's fostering care, 
 If no fond breast the splendid blessings share ; 
 And, each day's bustling pageantry once past, 
 There, only there, our bliss is found at last.' BoswELL. 
 Three years earlier, when his wife was dying, he had written in one 
 of the last Rainblers (No. 203) : — ' It is necessary to the completion of 
 every good, that it be timely obtained ; for whatever comes at the 
 close of life will come too late to give much delight . . . What we 
 acquire by bravery or science, by mental or corporal diligence, comes 
 at last when we cannot communicate, and therefore cannot enjoy it.' 
 Chesterfield himself was in no happy state. ■ Less than a month be- 
 fore he received Johnson's letter he wrote ( Works, \\\. 308) : — ' For 
 these six months past, it seems as if all the complaints that ever at- 
 tacked heads had joined to overpower mine. Continual noises, head- 
 ache, giddiness, and impenetrable deafness; I could not stoop to 
 
 and
 
 Aetat.45.j Wardjirtofis compliments. 305 
 
 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 conclude 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 exultation, 
 
 ' My Lord, 
 ' Your Lordship's most humble, 
 
 ' Most obedient servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson".' 
 
 * While this was the talk of the town, (says Dr. Adams, in 
 a letter to me) I happened to visit Dr. Warburton, who find- 
 ing that I was acquainted with Johnson, desired me earnestly 
 to carry his compliments to him, and to tell him, that he 
 honoured him for his manly behaviour in rejecting these con- 
 descensions of Lord Chesterfield, and for resenting the treat- 
 ment he had received from him, with a proper spirit. John- 
 son was visibly pleased with this compliment, for he had 
 
 write ; and even reading, the only resource of the deaf, was painful 
 to me.' He wrote to his son a year earlier {Lctiers, iv. 43), ' Reading, 
 which was always a pleasure to me in the time even of my greatest 
 dissipation, is now become my only refuge ; and I fear I indulge it too 
 much at the expense of my eyes. But what can I do .'' I must do 
 something. I cannot bear absolute idleness ; my ears grow every 
 day more useless to me, my eyes consequently more necessary. I 
 will not hoard them like a miser, but will rather risk the loss than 
 not enjoy the use of them.' « 
 
 ' ' The Engh'sh 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.' 
 Johnson's Works^v.^x. 
 
 '^ Upon comparing this copy with that which Dr. Johnson dictated 
 to me from recollection, the variations are found to be so slight, that 
 this must be added to the many other proofs which he gave of the 
 wonderful extent and accuracy of his memory. To gratify the curious 
 in composition, I have deposited both the copies in the British Mu- 
 seum. BOSWELL. 
 
 L — 20 always
 
 3o6 yohnsons Imitations of yiivenal. [a.d. 1754. 
 
 always a high opinion of Warburton'. Indeed, the force of 
 mind which appeared in this letter, was congenial with that 
 which Warburton himself amply possessed\' 
 
 There is a curious minute circumstance which struck me, 
 in comparing the various editions of Johnson's imitations of 
 Juvenal. In the tenth Satire, one of the couplets upon the 
 vanity of wishes even for literary distinction stood thus : 
 
 ' Yet think' what ills the scholar's life assail, 
 Pride\ envy, want, the garret, and the jail.' 
 
 But after experiencing the uneasiness which Lord Chester- 
 field's fallacious patronage made him feel, he dismissed the 
 
 * Soon after Edwards's Canons of Criticism came out, Johnson was 
 dining at Tonson the Bookseller's, with Hayman the Painter and 
 some more company. Hayman related to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that 
 the conversation having turned upon Edwards's book, the gentlemen 
 praised it much, and Johnson allowed its merit. But when they went 
 farther, and appeared to put that authour upon a level with Warbur- 
 ton, ' Nay, (said Johnson,) he has given him some smart hits to be 
 sure ; but there is no proportion between the two men ; they must 
 not be named together. A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and 
 make him wince ; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse 
 still.' BOSWELL. Johnson in his Preface to Shakespeare ( Works, 
 V. 141) wrote : — ' Dr. Warburton's chief assailants are the authors of 
 The Canons of Criticism, and of The Revisal of Shakespeare' s Text. 
 . . . The one stings like a fly, sucks a little blood, takes a gay flutter 
 and returns for more ; the other bites like a viper. . . . When I think 
 on one with his confederates, I remember the danger of Coriolanus, 
 who was afraid that # girls with spits, and boys with stones, should 
 slay him in puny battle ;" when the other crosses my imagination, I 
 remember the prodigy in Macbeth : 
 
 "A falcon tow'ring in his pride of place. 
 Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at and kill'd." 
 Let me, however, do them justice. One is a wit and one a scholar.' 
 
 ^ To Johnson might be applied what he himself said of Dryden : — 
 'He appears to have known in its whole extent the dignity of his 
 character, and to have set a very high value on his own powers and 
 performances.' Works, vii. 291. 
 ^ In the original Yet mark. 
 
 * In the original Toil. 
 
 word
 
 Aetat.45.] For 'garret'' read 'patron' 307 
 
 word garret from the sad group, and in all the subsequent 
 editions the line stands 
 
 ' Pride', envy, want, the Patron', and the jail.' 
 
 That Lord Chesterfield must have been mortified by the 
 lofty contempt, and polite, yet keen satire with which John- 
 son exhibited him to himself in this letter, it is impossible to 
 doubt. He, however, with that glossy duplicity which was 
 his constant study, affected to be quite unconcerned. Dr. 
 Adams mentioned to Mr. Robert Dodsley that he was sorry 
 Johnson had written his letter to Lord Chesterfield. Dods- 
 ley, with the true feelings of trade, said 'he was very sorry 
 too ; for that he had a property in the Dictionary, to which 
 his Lordship's patronage might have been of consequence.' 
 He then told Dr. Adams, that Lord Chesterfield had shewn 
 him the letter. ' I should have imagined (replied Dr. Adams) 
 that Lord Chesterfield would have concealed it.' 'Poh! (said 
 Dodsley) do you think a letter from Johnson could hurt Lord 
 Chesterfield? Not at all. Sir. It lay upon his table, where 
 any body might see it. He read it to me; said, "this man 
 has great powers," pointed out the severest passages, and 
 observed how well they were expressed.' This air of indiffer- 
 ence, which imposed upon the worthy Dodsley, was certainly 
 nothing but a specimen of that dissimulation which Lord 
 Chesterfield inculcated as one of the most essential lessons 
 for the conduct of life'. His Lordship endeavoured to justify 
 
 ' In the original Toil. 
 
 * In his Dictionary he defined patron as 'commonly a wretch who 
 supports with insolence and is paid with flattery.' This definition 
 disappears in the Abridgoiiciit, but remains in the fourth edition. 
 
 ^ Chesterfield, when he read Johnson's letter to Dodsley, was acting 
 up to the advice that he had given his own son six years earlier {Let- 
 ters, ii. 172) : — 'When things of this kind [bons mots] happen to be 
 said of you, the most prudent way is to seem not to suppose that they 
 are meant at you, but to dissemble and conceal whatever degree of 
 anger you may feel inwardly ; and, should they be so plain, that you 
 cannot be supposed ignorant of their meaning, to join in the laugh of 
 the company against yourself; acknowledge the hit to be a fair one, 
 and the jest a good one, and play off the whole thing in seeming good 
 
 himself
 
 ^o8 Defensive pride. [a.d. 1754. 
 
 o 
 
 himself to Dodsley from the charges brought against him by 
 Johnson; but we may judge of the f^imsiness of his defence, 
 from his having excused his neglect of Johnson, by saying 
 that 'he had heard he had changed his lodgings, and did 
 not know where he lived ;' as if there could have been the 
 smallest difificulty to inform himself of that circumstance, 
 by inquiring in the literary circle with which his Lordship 
 was well acquainted, and was, indeed, himself one of its 
 ornaments. 
 
 Dr. Adams expostulated with Johnson, and suggested, that 
 his not being admitted when he called on him, was, probably, 
 not to be imputed to Lord Chesterfield ; for his Lordship 
 had declared to Dodsley, that ' he would have turned off the 
 best servant he ever had, if he had known that he denied him 
 to a man who would have been always more than welcome ;' 
 and, in confirmation of this, he insisted on Lord Chesterfield's 
 general affability and easiness of access, especially to literary 
 men. ' Sir, (said Johnson) that is not Lord Chesterfield ; he is 
 the proudest man this day existing'.' ' No, (said Dr. Adams) 
 there is one person, at least, as proud ; I think, by your own 
 account, you are the prouder man of the two.' ' But mine, 
 (replied Johnson, instantly) was defensive pride.' This, as 
 Dr. Adams well observed, was one of those happy turns for 
 which he was so remarkably ready. 
 
 Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord 
 Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concern- 
 ing that nobleman with pointed freedom: 'This man (said 
 he) I thought had been a Lord among wits ; but, I find, he 
 is only a wit among Lords'!' And when his Letters to his 
 
 humour ; but by no means reply in the same way ; which only shows 
 that you are hurt, and publishes the victory which you might have 
 concealed.' 
 
 ' See post, March 23, 1783, where Johnson said that ' Lord Chester- 
 field was dignified, but he was insolent;' and June 27, 1784, where he 
 said that ' his manner was exquisitely elegant.' 
 " ' Whate'er of mongrel no one class admits, 
 
 A wit with dunces, and a dunce with wits.' 
 
 Pope's Dtmciad, iv. 90. 
 natural
 
 Aetat.45.] ChesterJielcV s 'Respectable Hottentot! 309 
 
 natural son were published, he observed, that ' they teach the 
 morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master'.' 
 
 The character of ' a respectable Hottentot,' in Lord Ches- 
 terfield's letters^, has been generally understood to be meant 
 for Johnson, and I have no doubt that it was. But I remem- 
 ber when the Literary Property of those letters was contested 
 in the Court of Session in Scotland, and Mr. Henry Dundas^ 
 
 ' A true choice spirit we admit ; 
 With wits a fool, with fools a wit.' 
 
 Churchill's Duellist, Book iii. 
 ' The solemn fop, significant and budge ; 
 A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.' 
 
 Cowper's Poems, Conversation, 1. 299. 
 According to Rebecca Warner {Original Letters, p. 204), Johnson tell- 
 ing Joseph Fowke about his refusal to dedicate his Dictionary to 
 Chesterfield, said : — ' Sir, I found I must have gilded a rotten post.' 
 
 ' That collection of letters cannot be vindicated from the serious 
 charge of encouraging, in some passages, one of the vices most de- 
 structive to the good order and comfort of society, which his Lordship 
 represents as mere fashionable gallantry ; and, in others, of inculcating 
 the base practice of dissimulation, and recommending, with dispro- 
 portionate anxiety, a perpetual attention to external elegance of man- 
 ners. But it must, at the same time, be allowed, that they contain 
 many good precepts of conduct, and much genuine information upon 
 life and manners, very happily expressed ; and that there was con- 
 siderable merit in paying so much attention to the improvement of 
 one who was dependent upon his Lordship's protection ; it has, prob- 
 ably, been exceeded in no instance by the most exemplary parent ; 
 and though I can by no means approve of confounding the distinction 
 between lawful and illicit offspring, which is, in effect, insulting the 
 civil establishment of our countr)^ to look no higher; I cannot help 
 thinking it laudable to be kindly attentive to those, of whose existence 
 we have, in any way, been the cause. Mr. Stanhope's character has 
 been unjustly represented as diametrically opposite to what Lord 
 Chesterfield wished him to be. He has been called dull, gross, and 
 aukward : but I knew him at Dresden, when he was Envoy to that 
 court; and though he could not boast of the graces, he was, in truth, 
 a sensible, civil, well-behaved man. Boswell. Sec post, March 28, 
 1775, under April 29, 1776, and June 27, 1784. 
 
 • Chesterfield's Letters, iii. 129. 
 
 ^ Now one of his Majesty's principal Secretaries of State. Bos- 
 well. Afterwards Viscount Melville. 
 
 one
 
 3IO Chesterfield's 'Respectable Hottentot! [a. d. 1754. 
 
 one of the counsel for the proprietors, read this character as 
 an exhibition of Johnson, Sir David Dalrymple, Lord Hailes, 
 one of the Judges, maintained, with some warmth, that it was 
 not intended as a portrait of Johnson, but of a late noble 
 Lord, distinguished for abstruse science'. I have heard John- 
 son himself talk of the character, and say that it was meant 
 for George Lord Lyttelton, in v/hich I could by no means 
 agree ; for his Lordship had nothing of that violence which 
 is a conspicuous feature in the composition. Finding that 
 my illustrious friend could bear to have it supposed that it 
 might be meant for him, I said, laughingly, that there was 
 one trait which unquestionably did not belong to him ; ' he 
 throws his meat anywhere but down his throat.' ' Sir, (said 
 he,) Lord Chesterfield never saw me eat in his life\' 
 
 ' Probably George, second Earl of Macclesfield, who was, in 1752, 
 elected President of the Royal Society. Croker. Horace Walpole 
 {Letters, ii. 321) mentions him as 'engaged to a party for finding out 
 the longitude.' 
 
 2 In another work {Dr. Johnson : His Friends and his Critics, p. 
 214), I have shewn that Lord Chesterfield's ' Respectable Hottentot' 
 was not Johnson. From the beginning of 1748 to the end of 1754 
 Chesterfield had no dealings of any kind with Johnson. At no time 
 had there been the slightest intimacy between the great nobleman 
 and the poor author. Chesterfield had never seen Johnson eat. The 
 letter in which the character is drawn opens with the epigram : 
 Non amo te, Sabidi, nee possum dicere quare, 
 Hoc tantum possum dicere, non amo te. 
 Chesterfield goes on to show ' how it is possible not to love anybody, 
 and yet not to know the reason why. . . . How often,' he says, ' have 
 I, in the course of my life, found myself in this situation with regard 
 to many of my acquaintance whom I have honoured and respected, 
 without being able to love.' He then instances the case of the man 
 whom he describes as a respectable Hottentot. It is clear that he is 
 writing of a man whom he knows well and who has some claim upon 
 his affection. Twice he says that it is impossible to love him. The 
 date of this letter is Feb. 28, 1751, more than three years after Johnson 
 had for the last time waited in Chesterfield's outward rooms. More- 
 over the same man is described in three other letters (Sept. 22, 1749; 
 Nov. 1749; and May 27, 1753), and described as one with whom Ches- 
 terfield lived on terms of intimacy. In the two former of these letters 
 
 On
 
 Aetat. 45.] BoUugbvokes PHILOSOPHY. 3 1 I 
 
 On the 6th of March came out Lord BoHngbroke's works, 
 published by Mr. David Mallet'. The wild and pernicious rav- 
 ings, under the name of Philosophy, which were thus ushered 
 into the world, gave great offence to all well-principled men. 
 Johnson, hearing of their tendency", which nobody disputed, 
 
 he is called Mr. L. Lyttelton did not become Sir George Lyttelton 
 till Sept. 14, 1751. He was raised to the peerage in 1757. Horace 
 Walpole {Reign of George III, i. 256) says of him : — ' His ignorance of 
 mankind, want of judgment, with strange absence and awkwardness, 
 involved him in mistakes and ridicule.' Had Chesterfield's letter 
 been published when it was written, no one in all likelihood would 
 have so much as dreamt that Johnson was aimed at. But it did not 
 come before the world till twenty-three years later, when Johnson's 
 quarrel with Chesterfield was known to every one, when Johnson 
 himself was at the very head of the literary world, and when his pe- 
 culiarities had become a matter of general interest. 
 
 ' About four years after this time Gibbon, on his return to England, 
 became intimate with Mr. and Mrs. Mallet. He thus wrote of them : 
 — ' The most useful friends of my father were the Mallets ; they re- 
 ceived me with civility and kindness at first on his account, and after- 
 wards on my own ; and (if I may use Lord Chesterfield's words) I was 
 soon do7nesticated in their house. Mr. Mallet, a name among the 
 English poets, is praised by an unforgiving enemy for the ease and 
 elegance of his conversation, and his wife was not destitute of wit or 
 learning.' Gibbon's Alisc. Works, \. 115. The 'unforgiving enemy' 
 was Johnson, who wrote ( Works, viii. 468) : — ' His conversation was 
 elegant and easy. The rest of his character may, without injury to 
 his memory, sink into silence.' Johnson once said : — ' I have seldom 
 met with a man whose colloquial ability exceeded that of Mallet.' 
 Johnson's Works, 1787, xi. 214. See post, March 27, 1772, and April 
 28, 1783 ; and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 10, 1773. 
 
 * Johnson had never read BoHngbroke's Philosophy. ' I have never 
 read BoHngbroke's impiety,' he said (pos/, under March i, 1758). In 
 the memorable sentence that he, notwithstanding, pronounced upon 
 the author, he exposed himself to the retort which he had recorded 
 in his Lz/e of Boerhaave ( Works, vi. 277). ' As Boerhaave was sitting 
 in a common boat, there arose a conversation among the passengers 
 upon the impious and pernicious doctrine of Spinosa, which, as they 
 all agreed, tends to the utter overthrow of all religion. Boerhaave 
 sat and attended silently to this discourse for some time, till one of 
 the company . . . instead of confuting the positions of Spinosa by ar- 
 gument began to give a loose to contumelious language and virulent 
 
 was
 
 312 A beggarly Scotchman. [a.d. 1754, 
 
 was roused with a just indignation, and pronounced this 
 memorable sentence upon the noble authour and his edi- 
 tor. 'Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward': a scoundrel, 
 for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality ; a 
 coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, 
 but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman, to draw the 
 trigger after his death'' !' Garrick, who I can attest from 
 my own knowledge, had his mind seasoned with pious rev- 
 erence, and sincerely disapproved of the infidel writings of 
 several, whom, in the course of his almost universal gay inter- 
 course with men of eminence, he treated with external civil- 
 ity, distinguished himself upon this occasion. Mr. Pelham 
 having died on the very day on which Lord Bolingbroke's 
 
 invectives, which Boerhaave was so little pleased with, that at last he 
 could not forbear asking him, whether he had ever read the author 
 he declaimed against.' 
 
 * Lord Shelburne said that ' Bolingbroke was both a political and 
 personal coward.' Fitzmaurice's Shclbitrtte, i. 29. 
 
 * It was in the summer of this year that Murphy became acquainted 
 with Johnson. {See. post, 1760.) 'The first striking sentence that he 
 heard from him was in a few days after the publication of Lord Bo- 
 lingbroke's posthumous works. Mr. Garrick asked him, " if he had 
 seen them." "Yes, I have seen them." "What do you think of 
 them ?" " Think of them !" He made a long pause, and then re- 
 plied : "Think of them! a scoundrel and a coward! A scoundrel 
 who spent his life in charging a gun against Christianity; and a cow- 
 ard, who was afraid of hearing the report of his own gun ; but left 
 half-a-crown to a hungry Scotchman to draw the trigger after his 
 death !" His mind, at this time strained and over laboured by con- 
 stant exertion, called for an interval of repose and indolence. But 
 indolence was the time of danger ; it was then that his spirits, not 
 employed abroad, turned with inward hostility against himself.' Mur- 
 phy's yohjtson, p. 79, and Piozzi's Anec. p. 235. Adam Smith, perhaps, 
 had this saying of Johnson's in mind, when in 1776 he refused the 
 request of the dying Hume to edit after his death his Dialogues on 
 Natural Religion. Hume wrote back : — ' I think your scruples ground- 
 less. Was Mallet anywise hurt by his publication of Lord Boling- 
 broke ? He received an office afterwards from the present King and 
 Lord Bute, the most prudish man in the world.' Smith did not yield. 
 J. H. Burton's Htwte, ii. 491. 
 
 works
 
 Aetat. 45.] Ode Oil Mr. Pclha77ts deatJ7. 1 1 x 
 
 o' J 
 
 works came out, he wrote an elegant Ode on his death, be- 
 ginning 
 
 ' Let others hail the rising sun, 
 I bow to that whose course is run ;' 
 
 in which is the following stanza : 
 
 ' The same sad morn, to Church and State 
 (So for our sins 'twas fix'd by fate,) 
 
 A double stroke was given ; 
 Black as the whirlwinds of the North, 
 St. John's fell genius issued forth, 
 
 And Pelham fled to heaven'.' 
 
 Johnson this year found an interval of leisure to make 
 an excursion to Oxford, for the purpose of consulting the 
 libraries there. Of this, and of many interesting circum- 
 stances concerning him, during a part of his life when he 
 conversed but little with the world, I am enabled to give a 
 particular account, by the liberal communications of the Rev- 
 erend Mr. Thomas Warton^ who obligingly furnished me with 
 several of our common friend's letters, which he illustrated 
 with notes. These I shall insert in their proper places. 
 
 ' According to Horace Walpole {Letters, ii. 374), Pelham died of a 
 surfeit. As Johnson says {Works, viii. 310): — 'The death of great 
 men is not always proportioned to the lustre of their lives. The 
 death of Pope was imputed by some of his friends to a silver sauce- 
 pan, in which it was his delight to heat potted lampreys.' Fielding 
 in The Voyage to Lisbon ( Works, x. 201) records : — ' I was at the worst 
 on that memorable day when the public lost Mr. Pelham. From that 
 day I began slowly, as it were, to draw my feet out of the grave.' ' " I 
 shall now have no more peace," the King said with a sigh ; being told 
 of his Minister's death.' Walpole's George LI, i. 378. 
 
 "^ Thom.as Waiton, the younger brother of Dr. Warton, was a fellow 
 of Trinity College, Oxford. He was Poetry Professor from 1758 to 
 1768. Mant's Warton,'\.yX\M. In 1785 he was made Poet Laureate. 
 Lb. Ixxxiii. Mr. Mant, telling of an estrangement between Johnson 
 and the Wartons, says that he had heard ' on unquestionable author- 
 ity that Johnson had lamented, with tears in his eyes, that the Wartons 
 had not called on him for the last four years; and that he has been 
 known to declare that Tom Warton was the only man of genius whom 
 he knew without a heart.' lb. xxxix. 
 
 Of
 
 314 Thomas Warton. [a.d. 1754. 
 
 'To THE Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton. 
 'Sir, 
 
 'It is but an ill return for the book with which you were 
 pleased to favour me', to have delayed my thanks for it till now. 
 I am too apt to be negligent ; but I can never deliberately shew 
 my disrespect to a man of your character : and I now pay you a 
 very honest acknowledgement, for the advancement of the litera- 
 ture of our native country. You have shewn to all, who shall here- 
 after attempt the study of our ancient authours, the way to success ; 
 by directing them to the perusal of the books which those authours 
 had read. Of this method, Hughes^ and men much greater than 
 Hughes, seem never to have thought. I'he reason why the au- 
 thours, which are yet read, of the sixteenth century, are so little 
 understood, is, that they are read alone ; and no help is borrowed 
 from those who lived with them, or before them. Some part of 
 this ignorance I hope to remove by my book', which now draws 
 towards its end ; but which I cannot finish to my mind, without 
 visiting the libraries at Oxford, which I, therefore, hope to see in a 
 fortnight*. I know not how long I shall stay, or where I shall 
 lodge : but shall be sure to look for you at my arrival, and we shall 
 easily settle the rest. I am, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obedient, &:c. 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 ' [London] July 16, 1754.' 
 
 Of his conversation while at Oxford at this time, Mr. 
 Warton preserved and communicated to me the following 
 memorial, which, though not written with all the care and 
 attention which that learned and elegant writer bestowed on 
 those compositions which he intended for the publick eye, 
 is so happily expressed in an easy style, that I should injure 
 it by any alteration : 
 
 ' ' Observations on Spenser's Fairy Queen, the first edition of which 
 was now just published.' Warton. 
 
 ^ ' Hughes published an edition of Spenser.' Warton. See John- 
 son's Works, vii. 476. 
 
 ' ' His Dictionary.' Warton. 
 
 ■' ' He came to Oxford within a fortnight, and stayed about five 
 weeks. He lodged at a house called Kettel-hall, near Trinity College. 
 But during this visit at Oxford, he collected nothing in the libraries 
 for his Dictionary.' Warton. 
 
 ' When
 
 Aetat. 45.] yoJiusoiis visit to Oxford. 315 
 
 'When Johnson came to Oxford in 1754', the long vacation was 
 beginning, and most people were leaving the place. This was the 
 first time of his being there, after quitting the University. The 
 next morning after his arrival, he wished to see his old College, 
 Pembroke. I went with him. He was highly pleased to find all 
 the College-servants^ which he had left there still remaining, par- 
 ticularly a very old butler^; and expressed great satisfaction at 
 being recognised by them, and conversed with them familiarly. 
 He waited on the master, Dr. Radcliffe, who received him very 
 coldly. Johnson at least expected, that the master would order a 
 copy of his Dictionary, now near publication : but the master did 
 not choose to talk on the subject, never asked Johnson to dine, nor 
 even to visit him, while he stayed at Oxford. After we had left 
 the lodgings, Johnson said to me, " There lives a man, who lives by 
 the revenues of literature, and will not move a finger to support it. 
 If I come to live at Oxford, I shall take up my abode at Trinity." 
 We then called on the Reverend Mr. Meeke, one of the fellows, 
 and of Johnson's standing. Here was a most cordial greeting on 
 both sides. On leaving him, Johnson said, " I used to think 
 
 ' Pitt this year described, in the House of Commons, a visit that he 
 had paid to Oxford the summer before. He and his friends ' were at 
 the window of the Angel Inn ; a lady was desired to sing God save 
 great George our Kwg. The chorus was re-echoed by a set of young 
 lads drinking at a college over the way [Queen's], but with additions 
 of rank treason.' Walpole's George II, i. 413. 
 
 '^ A Fellow of Pembroke College, of Johnson's time, described the 
 college servants as in ' the state of servitude the most miserable that 
 can be conceived amongst so many masters.' He says that 'the kicks 
 and cuffs and bruises they submit to entitle them, when those who 
 were displeased relent,' to the compensation that is afforded by 
 draughts of ale. ' There is not a college servant, but if he have 
 learnt to suffer, and to be officious, and be inclined to tipple, may 
 forget his cares in a gallon or two of ale every day of his life.' Dr. 
 yo/mson: His Friends, &^e., p. 45. 
 
 ^ It was against the Butler that Johnson, in his college days, had 
 written an epigram : — 
 
 ' Quid mirum Maro quod digne canit arma virumque, 
 Quid quod putidulum nostra Camoena sonat .' 
 Limosum nobis Promus dat callidus haustum ; 
 
 Virgilio vires uva Falerna dedit. 
 Carmina vis nostri scribant meliora Poetac.? 
 Ingenium jubeas purior haustus alat.' 
 
 Mcckc
 
 3i6 Stories of old college days. [a. d. 1754. 
 
 Meeke had excellent parts, when we were boys together at the 
 College : but, alas ! 
 
 'Lost in a convent's solitary gloom'!' 
 
 I remember, at the classical lecture in the Hall, I could not bear 
 Meeke's superiority, and I tried to sit as far from him as I could, 
 that I might not hear him construe." 
 
 'As Ave were leaving the College, he said, "Here I translated 
 Pope's Messiah. Which do you think is the best line in it 'i — My 
 own favourite is, 
 
 '■Vallis aromatkas fiindit Saronica nuhcs^y 
 
 I told him, I thought it a very sonorous hexameter. I did not tell 
 him, it was not in the Virgilian style^ He much regretted that 
 \i\'i first tutor* was dead ; for whom he seemed to retain the great- 
 est regard. He said, " I once had been a whole morning sliding 
 in Christ-Church Meadow, and missed his lecture in logick. After 
 dinner, he sent for me to his room. I expected a sharp rebuke for 
 my idleness, and went with a beating heart. When we were seated, 
 he told me he had sent for me to drink a glass of wine with him, 
 and to tell me, he was not angry with me for missing his lecture. 
 This was, in fact, a most severe reprimand. Some more of the 
 boys were then sent for, and we spent a very pleasant afternoon." 
 Besides Mr. Meeke, there was only one other Fellow of Pembroke 
 now resident : from both of whom Johnson received the greatest 
 civilities during this visit, and they pressed him very much to have 
 a room in the College. 
 
 'In the course of this visit (1754,) Johnson and I walked, three 
 
 ' Pope, Eloisa to Abelard^ 1. 38. 
 
 ^ Johnson or Warton misquoted the line. It stands : — 
 ' Mittit aromaticas vallis Saronica nubes.' 
 
 Husbands's Miscellatiy, p. 112. 
 
 ' De Ouincey ( Works, xiii. 162), after saying that Johnson did not 
 understand Latin ' with the elaborate and circumstantial accuracy 
 required for the editing critically of a Latin classic,' continues : — ' But 
 if he had less than that, he also had more : he possessed that language 
 in a way that no extent of mere critical knowledge could confer. He 
 wrote it genially, not as one translating into it painfully from English, 
 but as one using it for his original organ of thinking. And in Latin 
 verse he expressed himself at times with the energy and freedom of a 
 Roman.' 
 
 ^ Mr. Jorden. See ante, p. 6Z. 
 
 or
 
 Aetat. 45.] Ah'. Wises house at Ellsjicld. 317 
 
 or four times, to Ellsfield, a village beautifully situated about three 
 miles from Oxford, to see Mr. Wise, Radclivian librarian, with 
 whom Johnson was much pleased. At this place, Mr. Wise had 
 fitted up a house and gardens, in a singular manner, but with great 
 taste. Here was an excellent library ; particularly, a valuable col- 
 lection of books in Northern literature, with which Johnson was 
 often very busy. One day Mr. Wise read to us a dissertation 
 which he was preparing for the press, intitled, " A History and 
 Chronology of the fabulous Ages." Some old divinities of Thrace, 
 related to the Titans, and called the Cabiri, made a very important 
 part of the theory of this piece ; and in conversation afterwards, 
 Mr. Wise talked much of his Cabiri. As we returned to Oxford 
 in the evening, I out-walked Johnson, and he cried out Sufflamina, 
 2l Latin word which came from his mouth with peculiar grace, and 
 was as much as to say, Ftit on your drag chain. Before we got 
 home, I again walked too fast for him ; and he now cried out, 
 " Why, you walk as if you were pursued by all the Cabiri in a 
 body." In an evening, we frequently took long walks from Oxford 
 into the country, returning to supper. Once, in our way home, we 
 viewed the ruins of the abbies of Oseney and Rewley, near Oxford. 
 After at least half an hour's silence, Johnson said, " I viewed them 
 with indignation' !" We had then a long conversation on Gothick 
 buildings ; and in talking of the form of old halls, he said, " In 
 these halls, the fire place was anciently always in the middle of the 
 room^ till the Whigs removed it on one side." — About this time 
 there had been an execution of two or three criminals at Oxford 
 on a Monday. Soon afterwards, one day at dinner, I was saying 
 that Mr. Swinton the chaplain of the gaol, and also a frequent 
 preacher before the University, a learned man, but often thought- 
 less and absent, preached the condemnation-sermon on repentance, 
 before the convicts, on the preceding day, Sunday ; and that in the 
 close he told his audience, that he should give them the remainder 
 
 ' Boswell {Hebrides, Aug. 19, 1773) says that Johnson looked at the 
 ruins at St. Andrew's 'with a strong indignation. I happened to ask 
 where John Knox was buried. Dr. Johnson burst out, " I hope in the 
 highway. I have been looking at his reformations." ' 
 
 '■^ In Erasmus Philipps's Diary it is recorded that in Pembroke Col- 
 lege early in every November 'was kept a great Gaudy [feast], when 
 the Master dined in public, and the juniors (by an ancient custom 
 they were obliged to observe) went round the fire in the hall.' Notes 
 &^ Queries, 2nd S. x. 443. 
 
 of
 
 3i8 Rev. Mr. Meeke. [a.d. 1754. 
 
 of what he had to say on the subject, the next Lord's Day. Upon 
 which, one of our company, a Doctor of Divinity, and a plain mat- 
 ter-of-fact man, by way of offering an apology for Mr. Swinton, 
 gravely remarked, that he had probably preached the same sermon 
 before the University : " Yes, Sir, (says Johnson) but the Univer- 
 sity were not to be hanged the next morning." 
 
 ' I forgot to observe before, that when he left Mr. Meeke, (as I 
 have told above) he added, " About the same time of life, Meeke 
 was left behind at Oxford to feed on a Fellowship, and I went to 
 London to get my living : now, Sir, see the difference of our liter- 
 ary characters !" ' 
 
 The following letter was written by Dr. Johnson to Mr. 
 Chambers, of Lincoln College, afterwards Sir Robert Cham- 
 bers, one of the judges in India' : 
 
 'To Mr. Chambers of Lincoln College. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 'The commission which I delayed to trouble you with at your 
 departure, I am now obliged to send you ; and beg that you will 
 be so kind as to carry it to Mr. Warton, of Trinity, to whom I 
 should have written immediately, but that I know not if he be yet 
 come back to Oxford. 
 
 ' In the Catalogue of MSS. of Or. Brit, see vol. L pag. i8. MSS. 
 Bodl. Martyrium xv. martyrum sub jfiiUano, auctore Theophylacto. 
 
 ' It is desired that Mr. Warton will inquire, and send word, what 
 will be the cost of transcribing this manuscript. 
 
 'Vol. II. pag. 32. Num. 1022. 58. Coll. Nov. — ConDucntaria in 
 Acta Apostol. — Comment, m SeptC7n Epistolas Catholicas. 
 
 'He is desired to tell what is the age of each of these manu- 
 scripts : and what it will cost to have a transcript of the two first 
 pages of each. 
 
 ' If Mr. Warton be not in Oxford, you may try if you can get it 
 done by any body else ; or stay till he comes, according to your 
 own convenience. It is for an Italian litcrato. 
 
 ' The answer is to be directed to his Excellency Mr. Zon, Vene- 
 tian Resident, Soho-Square. 
 
 * Communicated by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton, who had 
 the original. Boswell. In the imaginary college which was to be 
 opened by The Club at St. Andrew's, Chambers was to be the professor 
 of the law of England. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 25, 1773; also 
 post,]u\y 5, 1773 and March 30, 1774. 
 
 ' I hope.
 
 Aetat.45.] yoJiHsou desires the Degree of M.A. 319 
 
 ' I hope, dear Sir, that you do not regret the change of London 
 
 for Oxford. Mr. Baretti is well, and Miss Williams' ; and we shall 
 
 all be glad to hear from you, whenever you shall be so kind as to 
 
 write to, Sir, ' Your most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'Nov. 21, 1754.' 
 
 The degree of Master of Arts, which, it has been observed\ 
 could not be obtained for him at an early period of his life, 
 was now considered as an honour of considerable importance, 
 in order to grace the title-page of his Dictionary ; and his 
 character in the literary world being by this time deservedly 
 high, his friends thought that, if proper exertions were made, 
 the University of Oxford would pay him the compliment'. 
 
 ' ' I presume she was a relation of Mr. Zachariah Williams, who died 
 in his eighty-third year, July 12, 1755. When Dr. Johnson was with 
 me at Oxford, in 1755, he gave to the Bodleian Library a thin quarto 
 of twenty-one pages, a work in Italian, with an English translation on 
 the opposite page. The English title-page is this : " An Account of 
 an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact Variation 
 of the Magnetical Needle, &c. By Zachariah Williams. London, 
 printed for Dodsley, 1755." The English translation, from the strong- 
 est internal marks, is unquestionably the work of Johnson. In a blank 
 leaf, Johnson has written the age, and time of death, of the authour 
 Z. Williams, as I have said above. On another blank leaf, is pasted 
 a paragraph from a newspaper, of the death and character of Williams, 
 which is plainly written by Johnson. He was very anxious about 
 placing this book in the Bodleian : and, for fear of any omission or 
 mistake, he entered, in the great Catalogue, the title-page of it with 
 his own hand.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 In this statement there is a slight mistake. The English account, 
 which was written by Johnson, was the origi?ial; the Italian was a 
 translatum, done by Baretti. So-e. post, end of 1755. Malone. John- 
 son has twice entered in his own hand that ' Zachariah Williams, died 
 July 12, 1755, in his eighty-third year,' and also on the title-page that 
 he was 82. 
 
 2 See ajitc, p. 1 54. 
 
 ' The compliment was, as it were, a mutual one. Mr. Wise urged 
 Thomas Warton to get the degree conferred before the Dictionary 
 was published. ' It is in truth,' he wrote, ' doing ourselves more hon- 
 our than him, to have such a work done by an Oxford hand, and so 
 able a one too, and will show that wc have not lost all regard for good 
 
 'To
 
 320 Collins the Poet. [a.d. 1754. 
 
 'To THE Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I am extremely obliged to you and to Mr. Wise, for the un- 
 common care which you have taken of my interest' : if you can 
 accomplish your kind design, I shall certainly take me a little 
 habitation among you. 
 
 ' The books which I promised to Mr. Wise^, I have not been able 
 to procure : but I shall send him a Fmnick Dictionary, the only 
 copy, perhaps, in England, which was presented me by a learned 
 Swede : but I keep it back, that it may make a set of my own 
 books^ of the new edition, with which I shall accompany it, more 
 welcome. You will assure him of my gratitude. 
 
 ' Poor dear Collins* ! — Would a letter give him any pleasure .'' I 
 have a mind to write. 
 
 letters, as has been too often imputed to us by our enemies.' Wooll's 
 Warton, p. 228. 
 
 ' ' In procuring him the degree of Master of Arts by diploma at 
 Oxford.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 "^ ' Lately fellow of Trinity College, and at this time Radclivian 
 librarian, at Oxford. He was a man of very considerable learning, 
 and eminently skilled in Roman and Anglo-Saxon antiquities. He 
 died in 1767.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 ' No doubt T/w Rambler. 
 
 * ' Collins (the poet) was at this time at Oxford, on a visit to Mr. 
 Warton ; but labouring under the most deplorable languor of body, 
 and dejection of mind.' Warton. — Boswell. Johnson, writing to 
 Dr. Warton on March 8, 1754, thus speaks of Collins : — ' I knew him a 
 few years ago full of hopes, and full of projects, versed in many lan- 
 guages, high in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy and forcible 
 mind is nov/ under the government of those who lately would not 
 have been able to comprehend the least and most narrow of its de- 
 signs.' Wooll's Warton, i. 219. Again, on Dec. 24, 1754: — ' Poor dear 
 Collins ! Let me know whether you think it would give him pleasure 
 if I should write to him. I have often been near his state, and there- 
 fore have it in great commiseration.' lb. p. 229. Again, on April 15, 
 1756: — 'That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the 
 uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty : but it is yet 
 more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally 
 liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and 
 depart, that it may blaze and expire.' lb. p. 239. See post, beginning 
 of 1763. ■ 
 
 • I am
 
 Aetat.45.] Collins the Poet. 321 
 
 ' I am glad of your hindrance in your Spenserian design', yet \ 
 would not have it delayed. Three hours a day stolen from sleep 
 and amusement will produce it. Let a Servitour" transcribe the 
 quotations, and interleave them with references, to save time. 
 This will shorten the work, and lessen the fatigue. 
 
 ' Can I do any thing to promoting the diploma ? I would not 
 be wanting to co-operate with your kindness ; of which, whatever 
 be the effect, I shall be, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obliged, &c. 
 
 ' [London,] Nov. 28, 1754.' ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 , ^ „ To THE Same. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I am extremely sensible of the favour done me, both by Mr. 
 
 Wise and yourself. The book^ cannot, I think, be printed in less 
 
 than six weeks, nor probably so soon ; and I will keep back the 
 
 title-page, for such an insertion as you seem to promise me. Be 
 
 pleased to let me know what money I shall send you, for bearing 
 
 the expence of the affair ; and I will take care that you may have 
 
 it ready at your hand. 
 
 ' I had lately the favour of a letter from your brother, with some 
 account of poor Collins, for whom I am much concerned. I have 
 a notion, that by very great temperance, or more properly absti- 
 nence, he may yet recover*. 
 
 ' There is an old English and Latin book of poems by Barclaj-, 
 called "The Ship of Fools ;" at the end of which are a number of 
 Eglogues ; so he writes it, from Eg/oga^, which are probably the 
 
 ' ' Of publishing a volume of observations on the best of Spenser's 
 works. It was hindered by my taking pupils in this College.' War- 
 ton. — BOSWELL. 
 
 * ' Young students of the lowest rank at Oxford are so called.' 
 Warton. — Boswell. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773. 
 
 ' ' His Dictionarj\' Warton. — BosWELL. 
 
 * Johnson says {IVor/cs, viii. 403) that when Collins began to feel the 
 approaches of his dreadful malady 'with the usual weakness of men 
 so diseased he eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the 
 table and the bottle flatter and seduce.' 
 
 * ' Petrarch, finding nothing in the word eclogue of rural meaning, 
 supposed it to be corrupted by the copiers, and therefore called his 
 own pastorals aeglognes, by which he meant to express the talk of 
 goatherds, though it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name 
 was adopted by subsequent writers.' Johnson's Works, viii. 390. 
 
 I. — 21 first
 
 32 2 The death of a Wife. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 first in our language. If you cannot find the book I will get Mr. 
 Dodsley to send it you. 
 
 *I shall be extremely glad to hear from you again, to know, if 
 the affair proceeds'. I have mentioned it to none of my friends 
 for fear of being laughed at for my disappointment. 
 
 ' You know poor Mr. Dodsley has lost his wife ; I believe he is 
 much affected. I hope he will not suffer so much as I yet suffer 
 for the loss of mine. 
 
 Oi/iot. Tt S ot/xoi ; Gi/fjra yap Treifovdanfv^. 
 
 I have ever since seemed to myself broken off from mankind ; a 
 kind of solitary wanderer in the wild of life, without any direction, 
 or fixed point of view : a gloomy gazer on a world to which I have 
 little relation. Yet I would endeavour, by the help of you and your 
 brother, to supply the want of closer union, by friendship : and 
 hope to have long the pleasure of being, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Most affectionately your's, 
 ' [London,] Dec. 21, 1754-' ' ^^^^- Johnson.' 
 
 1755: yETAT. 46.] — In 1755 we behold him to great ad- 
 vantage ; his degree of Master of Arts conferred upon him, 
 his Dictionary published, his correspondence animated, his 
 benevolence exercised. 
 
 'To THE Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I wrote to you some weeks ago, but believe did not direct 
 accurately, and therefore know not whether you had my letter. I 
 would, likewise, write to your brother, but know not where to find 
 him. I now begin to see land, after having wandered, according 
 to Mr. Warburton's phrase, in this vast sea of words. What recep- 
 tion I shall meet with on the shore, I know not ; whether the sound 
 of bells, and acclamations of the people, which Ariosto talks of in 
 his last Canto ^ or a general murmur of dislike, I know not: 
 
 ' ' Of the degree at Oxford.' Warton.— Boswell. 
 
 - This verse is from the long-lost Bellcropho}i, a tragedy by Euripides. 
 It is preserved by Suidas. Charles Burney. ' Alas ! but wherefore 
 alas ? Man is born to sorrow.' 
 
 3 ' Sento venir per allegrezza un tuono 
 
 Que fremer I'aria, e rimbombar fa I'onde; 
 
 Odo di squille,' &c. 
 
 Orlando Furz'oso, g. xlvi. s. 2. 
 
 whether
 
 Aetat. 46.] His doubts as to the critics. ^ '^ ^ 
 
 o-o 
 
 whether I shall find upon the coast a Calypso that will court, or a 
 Polypheme that will resist. But if Polypheme comes, have at his 
 eye. I hope, however, the criticks will let me be at peace ; for 
 though I do not much fear their skill and strength, I am a little 
 afraid of myself, and would not willingly feel so much ill-will in my 
 bosom as literary quarrels are apt to excite. 
 
 ' Mr. Baretti is about a work for which he is in great want of 
 Crescimbeni, which you may have again when you please. 
 
 'There is nothing considerable done or doing among us here. 
 We are not, perhaps, as innocent as villagers, but most of us seem 
 to be as idle. I hope, however, you are busy; and should be glad 
 to know what you are doing. 
 
 ' I am, dearest Sir, 
 
 ' Your humble servant, 
 
 ' [London,] Feb. 4, 1755.' ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I received your letter this day, with great sense of the favour 
 
 that has been done me' ; for which I return my most sincere 
 
 thanks : and entreat you to pay to Mr. ^Vise such returns as I 
 
 ousht to make for so much kindness so little deserved. 
 
 ' I sent Mr. Wise the Lexicon, and afterwards wrote to him ; but 
 know not whether he had either the book or letter. Be so good 
 as to contrive to enquire. 
 
 ' But why does my dear Mr. Warton tell me nothing of himself .^ 
 Where hangs the new volume" "i Can I help ? Let not the past 
 labour be lost, for want of a little more : but snatch what time you 
 can from the Hall, and the pupils', and the coffee-house, and the 
 parks'', and complete your design. I am, dear Sir, &c. 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 '[London,] Feb. 4, 1755.' 
 
 1 ' His degree had now past, according to the usual form, the suf- 
 frages of the heads of Colleges ; but was not yet finally granted by 
 the University. It was carried without a single dissentient voice.' 
 Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 ^ ' On Spenser.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 = Lord Eldon wrote of him : — ' Poor Tom Warton ! He was a tutor 
 at Trinity; at the beginning of every term he used to send to his pu- 
 pils to know whether they would wish to attend lecture that term.' 
 Twiss's Eldon, iii. 302. 
 
 * The fields north of Oxford. 
 
 To
 
 324 Dr. King. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 To THE Same. 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I had a letter last week from Mr. Wise, but have yet heard 
 nothing from you, nor know in what state my affair stands' ; of 
 which I beg you to inform me, if you can, to-morrow, by the re- 
 turn of the post. 
 
 ' Mr. Wise sends me word, that he has not had the Finnick Lexi- 
 con yet, which I sent some time ago ; and if he has it not, you must 
 enquire after it. However, do not let your letter stay for that. 
 
 ' Your brother, who is a better correspondent than you, and not 
 much better, sends me word, that your pupils keep you in College : 
 but do they keep you from writing too .'' Let them, at least, give 
 you time to write to, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate, &c. 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 '[London,] Feb. 13, 1755.' 
 
 .^ „ To THE Same. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Dr. King" was with me a few minutes before your letter ; this, 
 
 however, is the first instance in which your kind intentions to me 
 
 have ever been frustrated^ I have now the full effect of your care 
 
 ' ' Of the degree.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 - ' Principal of St. Mary Hall at Oxford. He brought with him the 
 diploma from Oxford.' Warton. — Boswell. Dr. King {Ancc. p. 196) 
 says that he was one of the Jacobites who were presented to the Pre- 
 tender when, in September 1750, he paid a stealthy visit to England. 
 The Pretender in 1783 told Sir Horace Mann that he was in London 
 in that very month and year and had met fifty of his friends, among 
 whom was the Earl of Westmoreland, the future Chancellor of the 
 University of Oxford. Mahon's England, iv. 11. Hume places the 
 visit in 1753. Burton's Hume, ii.462. See also in Boswell's Hebrides, 
 the account of the Young Pretender. In 1754, writes Lord Shelburne, 
 ' Dr. King in his speech upon opening the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, 
 before a full theatre introduced three times the word Redeat, pausing 
 each time for a considerable space, during which the most unbounded 
 applause shook the theatre, which was filled with a vast body of peers, 
 members of parliament, and men of property. Soon after the rebel- 
 lion [of 1745], speaking of the Duke of Cumberland, he described him 
 as a man, qui timet omnia prater Deian. I presented this same Dr. 
 King to George HI. in 1760.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 35. 
 
 ' ' I suppose Johnson means that my kind intention of being the 
 
 and
 
 Aetat.46.] The Chancellor of Oxford'' s letter. 325 
 
 and benevolence ; and am far from thinking it a slight honour, or 
 a small advantage ; since it will put the enjoyment of your conver- 
 sation more frequently in the power of, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obliged and affectionate 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' P.S. I have enclosed a letter to the Vice-Chancellor', which you 
 will read ; and, if you like it, seal and give him. 
 '[London,] Feb. 1755.' 
 
 As the Publick will doubtless be pleased to see the whole 
 progress of this well-earned academical honour, I shall insert 
 the Chancellor of Oxford's letter to the University\ the di- 
 ploma, and Johnson's letter of thanks to the Vice-Chancellor. 
 
 ' To the Reverend Dr. Huddesford, Vice-Chancellor of the Univer- 
 sity ^yOxford ; to be covmiunicated to the Heads of Houses, and pro- 
 posed in Convocation. 
 
 ' Mr. Vice-Chancellor, and Gentlemen, 
 
 ' Mr. Samuel Johnson, who was formerly of Pembroke College, 
 having very eminently distinguished himself by the publication of 
 a series of essays, excellently calculated to form the manners of the 
 people, and in which the cause of religion and morality is every 
 where maintained by the strongest powers of argument and lan- 
 guage ; and who shortly intends* to publish a Dictionary of the Eng- 
 lish Tongue^ formed on a new plan, and executed with the greatest 
 labour and judgement ; I persuade myself that I shall act agree- 
 ably to the sentiments of the whole University, in desiring that it 
 may be proposed in convocation to confer on him the degree of 
 Master of Arts by diploma, to which I readily give my consent; 
 
 and am, 
 
 ' Mr. Vice-Chancellor, and Gentlemen, 
 
 ' Your affectionate friend and servant, 
 ' Grosvenor-street, Feb. 4, 1755.' Arran . 
 
 first to give him the good news of the degree being granted was 
 frustrated, because Dr. King brought it before my intelligence ar- 
 rived.' Warton.— Boswell. 
 
 ' ' Dr. Huddesford, President of Trinity College.' WarTon.— Bos- 
 well. 
 
 " Extracted from the Convocation-Register, Oxford. Boswell. 
 
 ^ The Earl of Arran, ' the last male of the illustrious House of Or- 
 
 Tcrm.
 
 326 Diploma Magistri yohnson. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 Term. S"^''. 
 Hilarii. 'DIPLOMA Magistri Johnson. 
 
 1755- 
 
 ' CANCELLARJUS, Magistri et Scholares Universiiatis Oxoni- 
 
 ensis omnibus ad quos hoc presens scripium pervenerit, salutem in 
 
 Dofnino sempiteniam. 
 
 ' Cicm eufn infinem gracilis acadeniici a majoribus 7iostris instituii fue- 
 
 rint, ut viri ingenio et dodrinct press tanies iitidis quoqiie prceter ccBteros 
 
 insignirentur ; cnmque vir doctissivuis Samuel Johnson e Collegio Pem- 
 
 brochiensi, scriptis suis popuiariufti moixs informatitibiis dudutn literato 
 
 orbi innotuerit ; qiiin et lingucB pat rice turn ornandcB turn stabiliendce 
 
 {Lexicon scilicet Anglicaniitn sunwio studio, summo a se judicio conges- 
 
 tu7n propediem editurus) etiam nunc utilissimam iinpcndat operant ; Nos 
 
 igitur Cance/Iarius, Magistri, et Scholares antedicti, ne viruni de Uteris 
 
 humanioribus optitne nteritufn diutius inhonoratum prcetereamus, in 
 
 sokfini Convocatione Doctorum, Magistrorum, Regentium, et noti Re- 
 
 gentium, decimo die Mensis Februarii Anno Dofnini Millesimo Septin- 
 
 gentesimo Qiiinquagesinio quinfo habita, prcefatum viricm Samuelem 
 
 Johnson (conspirantibus omnium suj^ragiis) Magistrum in Artibus 
 
 re?iunciavimus et constituimus ; eumque, virtute prcesentis diplojnatis, 
 
 singulis Juribus privilegiis et ho7ioribus ad istutn gradum quaqua per- 
 
 tinentibus frui et gaudere Jussimus. 
 
 mond,' was the third ChanceUor in succession that that family had 
 given to the University. The first of the three, the famous Duke of 
 Ormond, had, on his death in 1688, been succeeded by his grandson, 
 the young Duke. Macaulay's England, iii. 1 59. He, on his impeach- 
 ment and flight from England in 171 5, was succeeded by his brother, 
 the Earl of Arran. Richardson, writing in 1754 {Corres. ii. 198), said 
 of the University, ' Forty years ago it chose a Chancellor in despite 
 of the present reigning family, whose whole merit was that he was 
 the brother of a perjured, yet weak, rebel.' On Arran's death in 1758, 
 the Earl of Westmoreland, ' old dull Westmoreland ' as Walpole calls 
 him {Letters, i. 290), was elected. It was at his installation that John- 
 son clapped his hands till they were sore at Dr. King's speech {post, 
 1759). ' I hear,' wrote Walpole of what he calls the coronation at Ox- 
 ford, 'my Lord Westmoreland's own retinue was all be-James'd with 
 true-blue ribands.' Letters, iii. 237. It is remarkable that this noble- 
 man, who in early life was a Whig, had commanded ' the body of 
 troops which George I. had been obliged to send to Oxford, to teach 
 the University the only kind of passive obedience which they did not 
 approve.' Wal pole's George II, iii. 167. 
 
 'In
 
 Aetat.46.] yokfisofi s letter of thanks. 327 
 
 ' In cujus ret testimonium sigilliim Universitatis Oxoiiiensis prcBsenti- 
 bus appojiifecimus. 
 
 '■Datum in Domo nostrcB Cofivocationis die 20° Mens is Feb. 
 Anno Dom. prcedicto. 
 
 ' Diploma supra scriptum per Registrarium ledum erat, et ex decreto 
 venerabilis Domfis commwii Ufiiversitatis sigillo 7nunitum\' 
 
 ' Dom. Doctori Huddesford, Oxoniensis Academic Vice- 
 
 Cancellario. 
 
 ' INGRATUS plane et tibi et viihi videar, nisi quanta me gaud io 
 affecerint., quos nuper mi/ii honores {te credo auctore) decrevit Senatus 
 Academicus, literaru?n, quo tamen nihil levins, officio, sigjiificem: ifigratus 
 etiam, nisi comitatem, qua vir eximius" mihi vestri testimonium amoris 
 in vianus tradidit, agnoscam et latidcm. ' Si quid est tind^ rei tarn 
 gratce accedat gratia, hoc ipso magis 7nihi placet, quod eo tempore in 
 ordines Academicos denuo cooptatus sim, quo tuani imminuere auctori- 
 tatem,fama7nque Oxonii IcBdere^ , omnibus niodis conantur homines vafri, 
 nee tafften acuti: quibus ego, prout viro umbratico licuit, sonper restiti, 
 semper restiturus. Qui enim, inter has renmi procellas, vel Tibi vel 
 AcademicB defuerit, ilium virtuti et Uteris, sibique ct posteris, defuturmn 
 
 existifjio. 
 
 ' S. Johnson.' 
 
 'To THE Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' After I received my diploma, I wrote you a letter of thanks, 
 with a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, and sent another to Mr. Wise ; 
 but have heard from nobody since, and begin to think myself 
 
 ' The original is in my possession. Boswell. 
 
 * We may conceive what a high gratification it must have been to 
 Johnson to receive his diploma from the hands of the great Dr. King, 
 whose principles were so congenial with his own. Boswell. 
 
 s Johnson here alludes, I believe, to the charge of disloyalty brought 
 against the University at the time of the famous contested election 
 for Oxfordshire in 1754. A copy of treasonable verses was found, it 
 was said, near the market-place in Oxford, and the grand jury made a 
 presentment thereon. 'We must add,' they concluded, 'that it is the 
 highest aggravation of this crime to have a libel of a nature so false 
 and scandalous, published in a famous University, &c.' Gent. Mag. 
 XXXV. 339. A reward of ^200 was offered in the London Gazette lot the 
 detection of the writer or publisher. lb. p. 377. 
 
 forgotten.
 
 328 A projected Review. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 forgotten. It is true, I sent you a double letter", and you may fear 
 
 an expensive correspondent ; but I would have taken it kindly, if 
 
 you had returned it treble : and what is a double letter to a petty 
 
 king, that \\:i\\x\gfel lotas hip and fines, can sleep without a Modus in 
 
 his head" ? 
 
 ' Dear Mr. Warton, let me hear from you, and tell me something, 
 
 I care not what, so I hear it but from you. Something I will tell 
 
 you : — I hope to see my Dictionary bound and lettered, next week ; — 
 
 vasta mole snpcrbus. And I have a great mind to come to Oxford 
 
 at Easter ; but you will not invite me. Shall I come uninvited, or 
 
 stay here where nobody perhaps would miss me if I went ? A hard 
 
 choice ! But such is the world to, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Yours, &c. 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 '[London] March 20, 1755. 
 
 To THE Same. 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 'Though not to write, when a man can write so well, is an 
 offence sufficiently heinous, yet I shall pass it by. I am very glad 
 that the Vice-Chancellor was pleased with my note. I shall impa- 
 tiently expect you at London, that we may consider what to do 
 next. I intend in the winter to open a Bibliothegne, and remember, 
 that you are to subscribe a sheet a year ; let us try, likewise, if we 
 
 ' A single letter was a single piece of paper ; a second piece of 
 paper, however small, or any inclosure constituted a double letter; 
 it was not the habit to prepay the postage. The charge for a single 
 letter to Oxford at this time was three-pence, which was gradually in- 
 creased till in 181 2 it was eight-pence. Pentiy Cyclo. xviii. 455. 
 
 ° 'The words in Italicks are allusions to passages in Mr. Warton's 
 poem, called The Progress of Dzscontefit, now lately published.' War- 
 ton. — Boswell. 
 
 ' And now intent on new designs, 
 Sighs for a fellowship — and fines. 
 
 These fellowships are pretty things, 
 We live indeed like petty kings. 
 
 ^F ^ ^ ^ Jp sp 
 
 And ev'ry night I went to bed, 
 Without a Modus in my head.' 
 
 Warton's Poems, ii. 192. 
 For modus 2ir\6. fines s&Qposi, April 25, 1778. 
 
 cannot
 
 Aetat.46.] Dr. Maiy. 329 
 
 cannot persuade your brother to subscribe another. My book is 
 
 now coming /// liitninis oras\ What will be its fate I know not, nor 
 
 think much, because thinking is to no purpose. It must stand the 
 
 censure of the great vulgar a?id the smalP ; of those that understand 
 
 it, and that understand it not. But in all this, I suffer not alone : 
 
 every writer has the same difficulties, and, perhaps, every writer 
 
 talks of them more than he thinks. 
 
 ' You will be pleased to make my compliments to all my friends : 
 
 and be so kind, at every idle hour, as to remember, dear Sir, 
 
 'Your, &c. 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 '[London,] March 25, 1755.' 
 
 Dr. Adams told me, that this scheme of a BibliotJieqiic was 
 a serious one : for upon his visiting him one day, he found 
 his parlour floor covered with parcels of foreign and English 
 literary journals, and he told Dr. Adams he meant to under- 
 take a Review. ' How, Sir, (said Dr. Adams,) can you think 
 of doing it alone ? All branches of knowledge must be con- 
 sidered in it. Do you know Mathematicks ? Do you know 
 Natural History?' Johnson answered, 'Why, Sir, I must do 
 as well as I can. My thief purpose is to give my country- 
 men a view of what is doing in literature upon the continent ; 
 and I shall have, in a good measure, the choice of my sub- 
 ject, for I shall select such books as I best understand.' Dr. 
 Adams suggested, that as Dr. Maty had just then finished his 
 BibliotJilqnc Britanniquc^ , which was a well-executed work, 
 giving foreigners an account of British publications, he might, 
 with great advantage, assume him as an assistant. 'He, 
 (said Johnson) the little black dog ! I'd throw him into the 
 Thames'.' The scheme, however, was dropped. 
 
 ' Lucretius, i. 23. 
 
 ' ' Hence ye prophane ; I hate ye all. 
 
 Both the Great Vulgar and the Small.' 
 
 Cowley's /;;//■/. of Horace, Odes, iii. i. 
 ^ Journal Brtianm'gue. It was to Maty that Gibbon submitted the 
 manuscript of his first work. Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 123. 
 
 * Maty, as Prof, de Morgan pointed out, had in the autumn of 1755 
 been guilty of 'wilful suppression of the circumstances of Johnson's 
 attack on Lord Chesterfield.' In an article in his Journal he regrets 
 
 In
 
 330 Dr. Birclis letter. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 In one of his little memorandum-books I find the follow- 
 ing" hints for his intended Review or Literary Journal: 
 
 ' The Annals of Literature, foreigti as well as domestick. Imitate 
 Le Clerk — Bayle — Barbeyrac. Infelicity of Journals in England. 
 Works of the learned. We cannot take in all. Sometimes copy 
 from foreign Journalists. Always tell.' 
 
 'To Dr. Birch. -March 29, 1755- 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I have sent some parts of my Dictionary, such as were at hand, 
 for your inspection. The favour which I beg is, that if you do not 
 like them, you will say nothing. I am. Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 . 'To Mr. Samuel Johnson. 
 
 ' Norfolk-street, April 23, 1755. 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' The part of your Dictionary which you have favoured me with 
 the sight of has given me such an idea of the whole, that I most 
 sincerely congratulate the publick upon the acquisition of a work 
 long wanted, and now executed with an industry, accuracy, and 
 judgement, equal to the importance of "the subject. You might, 
 perhaps, have chosen one in which your genius would have ap- 
 peared to more advantage ; but you could not have fixed upon any 
 other in which your labours would have done such substantial ser- 
 vice to the present age and to posterity. I am glad that your 
 health has supported the application necessary to the performance 
 of so vast a task; and can undertake to promise you as one 
 (though perhaps the only) reward of it, the approbation and thanks 
 of every well-wisher to the honour of the English language. I am, 
 with the greatest regard, 
 
 'Sir, 
 'Your most faithful and 
 
 ' Most affectionate humble servant, 
 
 'Tho. Birch.' 
 
 the absence from the Dictionary of the Plan. ' Elle eut epargne a 
 I'auteur la composition d'une nouvelle preface, qui ne contient qu'en 
 partie les memes choses, et qu'on est tente de regarder comme desti- 
 nee a faire perdre de vue quelques-unes des obligations que M.John- 
 son avait contractees, et le Mecene qu'il avait choisi.' A/'otes and 
 Queries, 2nd S. iv. 341. 
 
 Mr.
 
 Aetat.46.] yokfisoiis letter to Mr. Biiriiey. 331 
 
 Mr. Charles Burney, who has since distinguished himself 
 so much in the science of Musick, and obtained a Doctor's 
 degree from the University of Oxford, had been driven from 
 the capital by bad health, and was now residing at Lynne 
 Regis, in Norfolk'. He had been so much delighted with 
 Johnson's Rambler and the Plan of his Dictionary, that when 
 the great work was announced in the news-papers as near!}- 
 finished, he wrote to Dr. Johnson, begging to be informed 
 when and in what manner 'W\'s> Dictionary \\o\x\A be published ; 
 intreating, if it should be by subscription, or he should have 
 any books at his own disposal, to be favoured with six copies 
 for himself and friends. 
 
 In answer to this application. Dr. Johnson wrote the fol- 
 lowing letter, of which (to use Dr. Burney's own words) ' if it 
 be remembered that it was written to an obscure young man, 
 who at this time had not much distinguished himself even 
 in his own profession, but whose name could never have 
 reached the authour of The Rambler, the politeness and ur- 
 banity may be opposed to some of the stories which have 
 been lately circulated of Dr. Johnson's natural rudeness and 
 ferocity.' 
 
 'To Mr. Burney, in Lynne Regis, Norfolk. 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 'If you imagine that by delaying my answer I intended to 
 shew any neglect of the notice with which you have favoured me, 
 you will neither think justly of yourself nor of me. Your civilities 
 were offered with too much elegance not to engage attention ; and 
 I have too much pleasure in pleasing men like you, not to feel very 
 sensibly the distinction which you have bestowed upon me. 
 
 ' Few consequences of my endeavours to please or to benefit 
 mankind have delighted me more than your friendship thus vol- 
 untarily offered, which now I have it I hope to keep, because I 
 hope to continue to deserve it. 
 
 ' I have no Dictio?iaries to dispose of for myself, but shall be glad 
 to have you direct your friends to Mr. Dodsley, because it was by 
 his recommendation that I was employed in the work. 
 
 ' He left London in 1751 and returned to it in 1760. Memoirs of 
 Dr. Burney, i. 85, 133. 
 
 ' When
 
 332 A^idrew Millar. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 'When you have leisure to think again upon me, let me be fa- 
 voured with another letter ; and another yet, when you have looked 
 into my Dictionary. If you find faults, I shall endeavour to mend 
 them ; if you find none, I shall think you blinded by kind partiality ; 
 but to have made you partial in his favour, will very much gratify 
 the ambition of, Sir, 
 
 'Your most obliged 
 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 
 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 ' Gough-square, Fleet-street, 
 
 'April 8, 1755.' ♦ 
 
 Mr. Andrew Millar, bookseller in the Strand, took the prin- 
 cipal charge of conducting the publication of Johnson's Dic- 
 tionary ; and as the patience of the proprietors was repeat- 
 edly tried and almost exhausted, by their expecting that the 
 work would be completed within the time which Johnson had 
 sanguinely supposed, the learned authour was often goaded 
 to dispatch, more especially as he had received all the copy- 
 money, by different drafts, a considerable time before he had 
 finished his task'. When the messenger who carried the last 
 sheet to Millar returned, Johnson asked him, ' Well, what did 
 he say ?' — ' Sir, (answered the messenger) he said, thank GOD 
 I have done with him.' 'I am glad (replied Johnson, with a 
 smile) that he thanks GOD for any thing^' It is remarkable 
 that those with whom Johnson chiefly contracted for his lit- 
 erary labours were Scotchmen, Mr. Millar and Mr. Strahan. 
 Millar, though himself no great judge of literature, had good 
 sense enough to have for his friends very able men to give 
 him their opinion and advice in the purchase of copyright ; 
 the consequence of which was his acquiring a very large fort- 
 une, with great liberality'. Johnson said of him, * I respect 
 
 ^ See ante, p. 211, note 4. 
 
 " Sir John Hawkins, p. 341, inserts two notes as having passed for- 
 mally between Andrew Millar and Johnson, to the above effect. I 
 am assured this was not the case. In the way of incidental remark it 
 was a pleasant play of raillery. To have deliberately written notes in 
 such terms would have been morose. Boswell. 
 
 ' ' Talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to 
 
 Millar,
 
 Aetat.46.] Liberality of pub lis hers. 2^2,2) 
 
 Millar, Sir ; he has raised the price of literature.* The same 
 praise may be justly given to Panckoucke, the eminent book- 
 seller of Paris. Mr. Strahan's liberality, judgement, and suc- 
 cess, are well known. 
 
 'To Bennet Langton, Esq., at Langton near Spilsby, 
 
 Lincolnshire. 
 'Sir, 
 
 'It has been long observed, that men do not suspect faults 
 which they do not commit; your own elegance of manners, and 
 punctuality of complaisance, did not suffer you to impute to me 
 that negligence of which I was guilty, and which I have not since 
 atoned. I received both your letters, and received them with 
 pleasure proportionate to the esteem which so short an acquaint- 
 ance strongly impressed, and which I hope to confirm by nearer 
 knowledge, though I am afraid that gratification will be for a time 
 withheld. 
 
 'I have, indeed, published my Book\ of which I beg to know 
 your father's judgement, and yours ; and I have now staid long 
 
 give to literature and literary men, " Andrew Millar," says Johnson, 
 "is the Maecenas of the age."' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 200. 
 Horace Walpole, writing on May 18, 1749 {Letters, ii. 163), says: — 
 ' Millar the bookseller has done very generously by Fielding ; finding 
 Tom Jones, for which he had given him six hundred pounds, sell so 
 greatly, he has since given him another hundred.' Hume writing on 
 July 6, 1759, says: — 'Poor Andrew Millar is declared bankrupt; his 
 debts amount to above ^^40,000, and it is said his creditors will not 
 get above three shillings in the pound. All the world allows him to 
 have been diligent and industrious ; but his misfortunes are ascribed 
 to the extravagance of his wife, a very ordinary case in this city.' J. 
 H. Burton's Hume, ii.64. He must soon have recovered his position, 
 for Dr. A. Carlyle {Auto. p. 434) met Millar at Harrogate in 1763. In 
 the inn were several baronets, and great squires, members of parlia- 
 ment, who paid Millar civility for the use of his two newspapers which 
 came to him by every post. ' Yet when he appeared in the morning, 
 in his well-worn suit of clothes, they could not help calling him Peter 
 Pamphlet ; for the generous patron of Scotch authors, with his city 
 wife and her niece, were sufficiently ridiculous when they came into 
 good company.' Mr. Croker {Boswell, p. 630) says that Millar was the 
 bookseller described by Johnson, ;^tfj/, April 24, 1779, as 'habitually 
 and equably drunk.' He is, I think, mistaken. 
 ' His Dictionary. BOSWELL. 
 
 enough
 
 334 ^^2 excursion to Langton deferred. [a.d.1755. 
 
 enough to watch its progress into the world. It has, you see, no 
 patrons, and, I think, has yet had no opponents, except the criticks 
 of the coffee-house, whose outcries are soon dispersed into the air, 
 and are thought on no more : from this, therefore, I am at liberty, 
 and think of taking the opportunity of this interval to make an ex- 
 cursion ; and why not then into Lincolnshire ? or, to mention a 
 stronger attraction, why not to dear Mr. Langton 1 I will give the 
 true reason, which I know you will approve : — I have a mother 
 more than eighty years old, who has counted the days to the pub- 
 lication of my book, in hopes of seeing me ; and to her, if I can 
 disengage myself here, I resolve to go. 
 
 'As I know, dear Sir, that to delay my visit for a reason like this, 
 will not deprive me of your esteem, I beg it may not lessen your 
 kindness. I have very seldom received an offer of friendship which 
 I so earnestly desire to cultivate and mature. I shall rejoice to 
 hear from you, till I can see you, and will see you as soon as I can • 
 for when the duty that calls me to Lichfield is discharged, my incli- 
 nation will carry me to Langton. I shall delight to hear the ocean 
 roar, or see the stars twinkle, in the company of men to whom Nat- 
 ure does not spread her volumes or utter her voice in vain. 
 
 ' Do not, dear Sir, make the slowness of this letter a precedent 
 for delay, or imagine that I approved the incivility that I have com- 
 mitted; for I have known you enough to love you, and sincerely 
 to wish a further knowledge ; and I assure you, once more, that to 
 live in a house that contains such a father and such a son, will be 
 accounted a very uncommon degree of pleasure, by, dear Sir, your 
 most obliged and 
 
 'Most humble servant, 
 
 'May 6. 1755.' 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'To THE Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 'I am grieved that you should think me capable of neglect- 
 ing your letters ; and beg you will never admit any such suspicion 
 again. I purpose to come down next week, if you shall be there • 
 or any other week, that shall be more agreeable to you. Therefore 
 let me know. I can stay this visit but a week, but intend to make 
 preparations for a longer stay next time ; being resolved not to lose 
 sight of the University. How goes Apollonius' ? Don't let him 
 
 ' 'A translation of Apollonius Rhodius was now intended by Mr. 
 Warton.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 be
 
 Aetat. 46.] Letters to Mr. War ton. 335 
 
 be forgotten. Some things of this kind must be done, to keep us 
 up. Pay my compliments to Mr, Wise, and all my other friends. 
 I think to come to Kettel-Hall'. 
 
 'I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate, &c. 
 '[London.] May 13. 1755-' ' ^^''- Johnson.' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' It is strange how many things will happen to intercept every 
 pleasure, though it [be] only that of two friends meeting together. 
 I have promised myself every day to inform you when you might 
 expect me at Oxford, and have not been able to fix a time. The 
 time, however, is, I think, at last come ; and I promise myself to 
 repose in Kettel-Hall, one of the first nights of the next week. I 
 am afraid my stay with you cannot be long ; but what is the infer- 
 ence ? We must endeavour to make it chearful. I wish your 
 brother could meet us, that we might go and drink tea with Mr. 
 Wise in a body. I hope he will be at Oxford, or at his nest of Brit- 
 ish and Saxon antiquities".' I shall expect to see Spenser finished, 
 and many other things begun. Dodsley is gone to visit the 
 Dutch. The Dictionary sells welP. The rest of the world goes 
 on as it did. Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate, &c. 
 
 TT A lT„„«T^T^rr' ' SAM. TOHNSON.' 
 
 '[London,] June 10, 1755. ■' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' To talk of coming to you, and not yet to come, has an air of 
 trifling which I would not willingly have among you ; and which, I 
 believe, you will not willingly impute to me, when I have told you, 
 that since my promise, two of our partners* are dead, and that I 
 
 ^ Kettel Hall is an ancient tenement built about the year 161 5 by 
 Dr. Ralph Kettel, President of Trinity College, for the accommodation 
 of commoners of that Society. It adjoins the College ; and was a few 
 years ago converted into a private house. Malone. 
 
 "^ ' At Ellsfield, a village three miles from Oxford.' Warton. — 
 Boswell. 
 
 ^ It was published on April 15, 1755, in two vols, folio, price £\ \os. 
 bound. Johnson's ^Fiyr/'j, V. 51. 
 
 * ' Booksellers concerned in his Dictionary.' Warton. — BoswELL. 
 
 was
 
 336 Letters to Mr, War ton. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 was solicited to suspend my excursion till we could recover from 
 our confusion. 
 
 'I have not laid aside my purpose; for every day makes me 
 more impatient of staying from you. But death, you know, hears 
 not supplications, nor pays any regard to the convenience of mor- 
 tals. I hope now to see you next week ; but next week is but 
 another name for to-morrow, which has been noted for promising 
 and deceiving. 
 
 ' I am, &c. 
 
 .rr A IT ^. ^^^< 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 '[London,] June 24, 1755. ■' 
 
 To THE Same. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 'I told you, that among the manuscripts are some things of 
 Sir Thomas More. I beg you to pass an hour in looking on them, 
 and procure a transcript of the ten or twenty first lines of each, to 
 be compared with what I have ; that I may know whether they are 
 yet published. The manuscripts are these : 
 
 'Catalogue of Bodl. MS. pag. 122. F. 3. Sir Thomas More. 
 
 'i. Fall of angels. 2. Creation and fall of mankind. 3. Deter- 
 mination of the Trinity for the rescue of mankind. 4. Five lect- 
 ures of our Saviour's passion. 5. Of the institution of the sacra- 
 ment, three lectures. 6. How to receive the blessed body of our 
 Lord sacramentally. 7. Neomenia, the new moon. 8. De tristitia, 
 txdio^ pavore, et oratione Christie ante captionan ejus. 
 
 'Catalogue, pag. 154. Life of Sir Thomas More. ^7/. Whether 
 Roper's ? Pag. 363. De resignatmie Magni Sigilli in manus Regis 
 per D. Thomain Afornm. Pag. 364. Alori Defefisio Moricv. 
 
 ' If you procure the young gentleman in the library to write out 
 what you think fit to be written, I will send to Mr. Prince the book- 
 seller to pay him what you shall think proper. 
 
 ' Be pleased to make my compliments to Mr. Wise, and all my 
 
 friends. 
 
 'I am, Sir, 
 
 'Your affectionate, &c. 
 
 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 '[London] Aug. 7, 1755.' 
 
 'June 12, Mr. Paul Knapton, bookseller. June 18, Thos. Longman, 
 Esq., bookseller.' Gent. Mag. xxv. 284. The ' Esq.' perhaps is a sign 
 that even so early as 1755 the Longmans ranked higher than most of 
 their brethren. 
 
 The
 
 Aetat.46.] Publication of the Dictionary. 337 
 
 The Dictionary, with a Grammar and History of the 
 English Language, being now at length pubHshed, in two 
 volumes folio, the world contemplated with wonder so 
 stupendous a work atchieved by one man, while other coun- 
 tries had thought such undertakings fit only for whole 
 academies. Vast as his powers were, I cannot but think 
 that his imagination deceived him, when he supposed that 
 by constant application he might have performed the task 
 in three years. Let the Preface be attentively perused, 
 in which is given, in a clear, strong, and glowing style, a 
 comprehensive, yet particular view of what he had done ; 
 and it will be evident, that the time he employed upon it 
 was comparatively short. I am unwilling to swell my book 
 with long quotations from what is in every body's hands, 
 and I believe there are few prose compositions in the English 
 language that are read with more delight, or are more im- 
 pressed upon the memory, than that preliminary discourse. 
 One of its excellencies has always struck me with peculiar 
 admiration : I mean the perspicuity with which he has ex- 
 pressed abstract scientifick notions. As an instance of this, 
 I shall quote the following sentence : ' When the radical 
 idea branches out into parallel ramifications, how can a con- 
 secutive series be formed of senses in their own' nature 
 collateral?' We have here an example of what has been 
 often said, and I believe with justice, that there is for every 
 thought a certain nice adaptation of words which none other 
 could equal, and which, when a man has been so fortunate 
 as to hit, he has attained, in that particular case, the perfec- 
 tion of language. 
 
 The extensive reading which was absolutely necessary for 
 the accumulation of authorities, and which alone may ac- 
 count for Johnson's retentive mind being enriched with a 
 very large and various store of knowledge and imager>% 
 must have occupied several years. The Preface furnishes 
 an eminent instance of a double talent, of which Johnson 
 was fully conscious. Sir Joshua Reynolds heard him say, 
 
 ' Own not in the original. Johnson's Works, v. 36. 
 I. 22 'There
 
 338 The Preface to the Dictionary, [a.d. 1755. 
 
 ' There are two things which I am confident I can do very 
 well : one is an introduction to any literary work, stating 
 what it is to contain, and how it should be executed in 
 the most perfect manner ; the other is a conclusion, shew- 
 ing from various causes why the execution has not been 
 equal to what the authour promised to himself and to the 
 publick.' 
 
 How should puny scribblers be abashed and disappointed, 
 when they find him displaying a perfect theory of lexico- 
 graphical excellence, yet at the same time candidly and 
 modestly allowing that he ' had not satisfied his own ex- 
 pectations'.' Here was a fair occasion for the exercise of 
 Johnson's modesty, when he was called upon to compare 
 his own arduous performance, not with those of other indi- 
 viduals, (in which case his inflexible regard to truth would 
 have been violated, had he affected diffidence,) but with 
 speculative perfection'^ ;• as he, who can outstrip all his com- 
 petitors in the race, may yet be sensible of his deficiency 
 when he runs against time. Well might he say, that ' the 
 English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the 
 learned',' for he told me, that the only aid which he received 
 was a paper containing twenty etymologies, sent to him by 
 a person then unknown, who he was afterwards informed 
 was Dr. Pearce, Bishop of Rochester'. The etymologies, 
 
 ' ' I have not always executed my own scheme, or satisfied my own 
 expectations.' Johnson's Works, "p. ^i. 
 
 ■' In the Plan of an English Dictionary {ib. p. i6) Johnson, writing 
 of 'the word pcr/cc/ion,' says : — 'Though in its philosophical and ex- 
 act sense it can be of little use among human beings, it is often so 
 much degraded from its original signification, that the academicians 
 have inserted in their work, the perfection of a language, and, with a 
 little more licentiousness, might have prevailed on themselves to have 
 added the perfection of a Dictionary.' In the Preface to the fourth 
 edition he writes : — ' He that undertakes to compile a Dictionary un- 
 dertakes that, which if it comprehends the full extent of his design, 
 he knows himself unable to perform.' lb. p. 52. 
 
 ' 7/5. p. 51. 
 
 * See/<?j/, under May 19, 1777. 
 
 though
 
 Aetat. 46.] Ervoueotis definitions. 339 
 
 though they exhibit learning and judgement, are not, I 
 think, entitled to the first praise amongst the various parts 
 of this immense work. The definitions have always ap- 
 peared to me such astonishing proofs of acuteness of intel- 
 lect and precision of language, as indicate a genius of the 
 highest rank'. This it is which marks the superiour excel- 
 lence of Johnson's Dictionary over others equally or even 
 more voluminous, and must have made it a work of much 
 greater mental labour than mere Lexicons, or Word-books, as 
 the Dutch call them. They, who will make the experiment 
 of trying how they can define a few words of whatever 
 nature, will soon be satisfied of the unquestionable justice of 
 this observation, which I can assure my readers is founded 
 upon much study, and upon communication with more minds 
 than my own. 
 
 A few of his definitions must be admitted to be erroneous. 
 Thus, Windward and Leeward"^, though directly of opposite 
 meaning, are defined identically the same way ; as to which 
 inconsiderable specks it is enough to observe, that his Pref- 
 ace announces that he was aware there might be many 
 such in so immense a work^ ; nor was he at all disconcerted 
 
 ' See ante, p. 216, note i. 
 
 ^ He defines both towards the Tvind. The definitions remain un- 
 changed in the fourth edition, the last corrected by Johnson, and also 
 in the third edition of the abridgment, though this abridgment was 
 made by him. Pastern also remains unaltered in this latter edition. 
 In the fourth edition he corrected it. ' The drawback of his charac- 
 ter,' wrote Sir Joshua Reynolds, ' is entertaining prejudices on very 
 slight foundations ; giving an opinion, perhaps, first at random, but 
 from its being contradicted he thinks himself obliged always to sup- 
 port it, or, if he cannot support, still not to acquiesce. Of this I re- 
 member an instance of a defect or forgetfulness in his Dictionary. I 
 asked him how he came not to correct it in the second edition. " No," 
 says he, " they made so much of it that I would not flatter them by 
 altering it." ' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 461. 
 
 ' In his Preface ( Works, v. 50) he anticipated errors and laughter. 
 ' A few wild blunders and risible absurdities, from which no work of 
 such multiplicity was ever free, may for a time furnish folly with 
 laughter, and harden ignorance into contempt.' In a letter written 
 
 when
 
 340 Humorous definitions. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 when an instance was pointed out to him. A lady once 
 asked him how he came to define Pastern the knee of a 
 horse : instead of making an elaborate defence, as she ex- 
 pected, he at once answered, ' Ignorance, Madam, pure igno- 
 rance'.' His definition of Netivork" has been often quoted 
 with sportive mahgnity', as obscuring a thing in itself very 
 plain. But to these frivolous censures no other answer is 
 necessary than that with which we are furnished by his own 
 Preface. 
 
 'To explain, requires the use of terms less abstruse than that 
 which is to be explained, and such terms cannot always be found. 
 For as nothing can be proved but by supposing something intui- 
 tively known, and evident without proof, so nothing can be defined 
 but by the use of words too plain to admit of definition\ Some- 
 times easier words are changed into harder ; as, burial, into sepul- 
 ture or interment ; dry", into desieeative; dryness, into sieeity or aridity ; 
 Jit, into paroxism ; for the easiest word, whatever it be, can never 
 be translated into one more easy.' 
 
 His introducing his own opinions, and even prejudices, un- 
 der general definitions of words, while at the same time the 
 original meaning of the words is not explained, as his Tory", 
 
 neariy thirty years later he said : — ' Dictionaries are like watches, the 
 worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite 
 true.' Pioszi Letters, ii. 406. 
 
 ' See post, under July 20, 1762. 
 
 ^ ' Network. Anything reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, 
 with interstices between the intersections.' Reticulated is defined 
 ' Made of network ; formed with interstitial vacuities.' 
 
 ^ ' That part of my work on which I expect malignity most frequent- 
 ly to fasten is the Explanation Such is the fate of hapless lexicog- 
 raphy, that not only darkness, but light, impedes and distresses it ; 
 things may be not only too little, but too much known, to be happily 
 illustrated.' Johnson's Works, v. 34. 
 
 " In the original 'to admit a definition.' lb. 
 
 ^ In the original, 'drier.' lb. 38. 
 
 * 'Tory. (A cant term derived, I suppose, from an Irish word sig- 
 nifying a savage.) One who adheres to the ancient constitution of 
 the state, and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England : 
 opposed to a whig.' 
 
 Whig,
 
 Aetat. 46.] Humorous dejinitions. 341 
 
 WJiig\ Pensioi^, Oats'", Excise*, and a few more, cannot be 
 fully defended, and must be placed to the account of 
 
 ''Whig. The name of a faction.' Lord Marchmont (/^i-/, May 12, 
 1778) said that 'Johnson was the first that brought Whig and Tory 
 into a dictionary.' In this he was mistaken. In the fourth edition 
 of Dr. Adam Littleton's Linguae Latinae Liber Dictionarius, published 
 in 1703, Whig is translated Homo fanaticiis, factiosus ; Whiggism, 
 Enihiisiasnucs, Perditellio ; Tory, bog-trotter or Lrish robber, Praedo 
 Hibernicus ; Tory opposed to whig, Regiarum partiiivi assertor. 
 These definitions are not in the first edition, published in 1678. A 
 pensioner or bride [bribed'] person is rendered Mercenarius. 
 
 ^ ' Pension. An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. 
 In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state 
 hireling for treason to his country.' Pensioner is defined as ' One 
 who is supported by an allowance paid at the will of another ; a de- 
 pendant.' These definitions remain in the fourth edition, corrected 
 by Johnson in 1773. 
 
 ^ ' Oats. A grain which in England is generally given to horses, 
 but in Scotland supports the people.' See post, March 23, 1776, and 
 March 21, 1783. 'Did you ever hear,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'of 
 Lord Elibank's reply when Johnson's famous definition of oats was 
 pointed out first to him. "Very true, and where will you find such 
 men and such Jtorses}" ' Croker's Corres. ii. 35. 
 
 * He thus defines Excise: 'A hateful tax levied upon commodities, 
 and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches 
 hired by those to whom Excise is paid.' The Commissioners of Ex- 
 cise being offended by this severe reflection, consulted Mr. Murray, 
 then Attorney General, to know whether redress could be legally ob- 
 tained. I wished to have procured for my readers a copy of the 
 opinion which he gave, and which may now be justly considered as 
 history ; but the mysterious secrecy of office, it seems, would not 
 permit it. I am, however, informed, by very good authority, that its 
 import was, that the passage might be considered as actionable ; but 
 that it would be more prudent in the board not to prosecute. John- 
 son never made the smallest alteration in this passage. We find he 
 still retained his early prejudice against Excise ; for in 77ie Idler, No. 
 65, there is the following very extraordinary paragraph ; ' The authen- 
 ticity of Clarendon s history, though printed with the sanction of one 
 of the finst Universities of the world, had not an unexpected manu- 
 script been happily discovered, would, with the help of factious credu- 
 lity, have been brought into question by the two lowest of all human 
 beings, a Scribbler for a party, and a Commissioner of Excise.' — The 
 
 capricious
 
 342 Humorous definitions. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 capricious and humorous indulgence'. Talking to me upon 
 this subject when we were at Ashbourne in 1777, he men- 
 tioned a still stronger instance of the predominance of his 
 private feelings in the composition of this work, than any 
 now to be found in it. ' You know, Sir, Lord Gower for- 
 sook the old Jacobite interest. When I came to the word 
 
 persons to whom he alludes were Mr. John Oldmixon and George 
 Ducket, Esq. Boswell. Mr. Croker obtained a copy of the case. 
 ' Case for the opinion of Mr. Attorney-Geiieral . 
 
 ' Mr. Samuel Johnson has lately published ''A Dictio7tary of the Eng- 
 lish La?iguage," in which are the following words : — 
 
 ' " Excise, n. s. A hateful tax levied upon commodities and ad- 
 judged not by the common judges of property, but by wretches hired 
 by those to whom excise is paid." 
 
 ' The author's definition being observed by the Commissioners of Excise, 
 they desire t lie favour of your opinion. " Ou. Whether it will not be 
 considered as a libel, attd if so, whether it is fiot proper to proceed against 
 the author, printers, and publishers thereof, or any and which of them, 
 by information, or how otherwise?" 
 
 ' I am of opinion that it is a libel. But under all the circicmstances, 
 I should thi}ik it better to give him an opportunity of altering his defi- 
 fiition ; and, iti case he do not, to threaten him with an information. 
 
 ' zgth Nov. 1755. W. Murray. ' 
 
 In one of the Pari. Debates of 1742 Johnson makes Pitt say that ' it is 
 probable that we shall detect bribery descending through a long sub- 
 ordination of wretches combined against the public happiness, from 
 the prime minister surrounded by peers and officers of state to the 
 exciseman dictating politics amidst a company of mechanics whom 
 he debauches at the public expense, and lists in the service of his 
 master with the taxes which he gathers.' Pari. Hist. xii. 570. See 
 ante, p. 43, note i . 
 
 ' He defined Favourite as ' One chosen as a companion by a supe- 
 riour ; a mean wretch, whose whole business is by any means to 
 please :' and Revolution as ' change in the state of a government or 
 country. It is used among us Kar e^oxr]" for the change produced by 
 the admission of King William and Queen Mary.' For these defini- 
 tions Wilkes attacked him in The North Briton, No. xii. In the fourth 
 edition Johnson gives a second definition oi patriot : — ' It is sometimes 
 used for a factious disturber of the government.' Premier and prime 
 minister are not defined. Post, April 14, 1775. See also atite, p. 307, 
 note 2, for the definition oi patron ; a.nd post, April 28, 1783 for that of 
 alias. 
 
 Renegado,
 
 Aetat.46.] Humorous dejiiiitioiis. 34^ 
 
 o 
 
 Renegado, after telling that it meant "one who deserts to 
 the enemy, a revolter," I added, Sometimes we say a GOWER'. 
 Thus it went to the press ; but the printer had more wit 
 than I, and struck it out.' 
 
 Let it, however, be remembered, that this indulgence does 
 not display itself only in sarcasm towards others, but some- 
 times in playful allusion to the notions commonly enter- 
 tained of his own laborious task. Thus : ' Grub-street, the 
 name of a street in London, much inhabited by writers of 
 small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems ; whence 
 any mean production is called Griib-strcet'! — Lexicographer, 
 a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge''.'' 
 
 ' ' There have been great contests in the Privy Council about the 
 trial of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford [on a charge of Jacobitism] : 
 Lord Gower pressed it extremely. He asked the Attorney-General 
 his opinion, who told him the evidence did not appear strong enough. 
 Lord Gower said : — " Mr. Attorne3^ you seem to be very lukewarm for 
 your party." He replied : — " My Lord, I never was lukewarm for my 
 party, nor ever was but of one party." ' Walpole's Letters, ii. 140. Mr. 
 Croker assumes that Johnson here 'attempted a pun, and wrote the 
 name (as pronounced) Goer.' Johnson was very little likely to pun, 
 for ' he had a great contempt for that species of wit.' Post, April 30, 
 
 1773- 
 * Boswell omits the salutation which follows this definition : 
 
 Xaip' IdaKT] fier luffka, fX(T uXyea ncKpa 
 ' A(nra(Tia>s riov ov8as iKavoixai. 
 ' Dr. Johnson,' says Miss Burney, 'inquired if I had ever yet visited 
 Griib-strcet, but was obliged to restrain his anger when I answered 
 "No;" because he had never paid his respects to it himself. " How- 
 ever," says he, "you and \, Burney, will go together; we have a very 
 good right to go, so we'll visit the mansions of our progenitors, and 
 take up our own freedom together." ' Mine. D'Arblays Diary, i. 41 5. 
 ^ Lord Bolingbroke had said ( Works, iii. 317) : — ' I approve the de- 
 votion of a studious man at Christ Church, who was overheard in his 
 oratory entering into a detail with God, and acknowledging the divine 
 goodness in furnishing the world with makers of dictionaries. These 
 men court fame, as well as their betters, by such means as God has 
 given them to acquire it. They deserve encouragement while they 
 continue to compile, and neither affect wit, nor presume to reason." 
 Johnson himself in T/ie Adventurer, No. 39, had in 1753 described a 
 
 At
 
 344 ^^^ gloom of solitude. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 At the time when he was concluding his very eloquent 
 Preface, Johnson's mind appears to have been in such a 
 state of depression', that we cannot contemplate without 
 wonder the vigorous and splendid thoughts which so highly 
 distinguish that performance. ' I (says he) 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 mis- 
 carriage are empty sounds. I therefore dismiss it with frigid 
 tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or 
 from praise'.' That this indifference was rather a temporary 
 than an habitual feeling, appears, I think, from his letters to 
 Mr. Warton^ ; and however he may have been affected for 
 
 class of men who 'employed their minds in such operations as re- 
 quired neither celerity nor strength, in the low drudgery of collating 
 copies, comparing authorities, digesting dictionaries,' &c. Lord Mon- 
 boddo, in his Origin of Language, v. 273, says that ' J.C. Scaliger called 
 the makers of dictionaries les portefaix de la repitbliqiie dcs let ires.' 
 
 ' Great though his depression was, yet he could say with truth in 
 his Preface : — ' Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress 
 me to negligence.' Works, v. 43. 
 
 ^ /^. p. 51. 'In the preface the author described the difficulties 
 with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically 
 that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, 
 Home Tooke, never could read that passage without tears.' Macau- 
 lay's Misc. Writings, p. 382. It is in A Letter to John Diatning, Esq. 
 (p. 56) that Home Tooke, or rather Home, wrote : — ' I could never 
 read his preface without shedding a tear.' See post. May 13, 1778. 
 On Oct. 10, 1779, Boswell told Johnson, that he had been 'agreeably 
 mistaken ' in saying : — ' What would it avail me in this gloom of soli- 
 tude?' 
 
 ' It appears even by many a passage in the Preface — one of the 
 proudest pieces of writing in our language. ' The chief glory,' he 
 writes, ' of every people arises from its authors : whether I shall add 
 anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature 
 must be left to time.' ' I deliver,' he says, ' my book to the world with 
 the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well. ... 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 
 
 the
 
 Aetat. 46.] The gloom of solitude. 345 
 
 the moment, certain it is that the honours which his great 
 work procured him, both at home and abroad, were very 
 grateful to him'. His friend the Earl of Corke and OxxQ.xy, 
 being at Florence, presented it to \X\q Acadcmia dclla Criisca. 
 That Academy sent Johnson their Vocabidario, and the 
 French Academy sent him their Dictionnairc, which Mr. 
 Langton had the pleasure to convey to him'. 
 
 It must undoubtedly seem strange, that the conclusion of 
 his Preface should be expressed in terms so desponding, 
 when it is considered that the authour was then only in his 
 forty-sixth year. But we must ascribe its gloom to that 
 miserable dejection of spirits to which he was constitution- 
 ally subject, and which was aggravated by the death of his 
 
 out of tenderness to the author, and the world is Httle solicitous to 
 know whence proceeded 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 patron- 
 age of the great ; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under 
 the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and dis- 
 traction, in sickness and in sorrow.' Works, v. pp. 49-51. Thomas 
 Warton wrote to his brother : — ' I fear his preface will disgust by the 
 expressions of his consciousness of superiority, and of his contempt 
 of patronage.' WooU's Warton, p. 231. 
 
 ' That praise was slow in coming is shown by his letter to Mr. Bur- 
 ney, written two years and eight months after the publication of the 
 Dictionary. ' Your praise,' he wrote, ' was welcome, not only because 
 I believe it was sincere, but because praise has been very scarce. . . . 
 Yours is the only letter of good-will that I have received ; though, 
 indeed, I am promised something of that sort from Sweden.' Post, 
 Dec. 24, 1757. 
 
 " In the Edinburgh Review (No. i, 1755) — a periodical which only 
 lasted two years — there is a review by Adam Smith of Johnson's 
 Dictionary. Smith admits the 'very extraordinary merit' of the au- 
 thor. ' The plan,' however, ' is not sufficiently grammatical.' To ex- 
 plain what he intends, he inserts 'an article or two from Mr. Johnson, 
 and opposes to them the same articles, digested in the manner which 
 we would have wished him to have followed.' He takes the words 
 but and humour. One part of his defmition of humour is curious — 
 'something which comes upon a man by fits, which he can neither 
 command nor restrain, and which is not perfectly consistent with 
 true politeness.' This essay has not, I believe, been reprinted. 
 
 wife
 
 34^ His melancJwly at its meridian, [a.d. 1755. 
 
 wife two years before'. I have heard it ingeniously observed 
 by a lady of rank and elegance, that * his melancholy was 
 then at its meridian'.' It pleased GOD to grant him almost 
 thirty years of life after this time ; and once, when he was 
 in a placid frame of mind, he was obliged to own to me that 
 he had enjoyed happier days, and had many more friends, 
 since that gloomy hour than before^ 
 
 ' She died in March 1752; the Dictionary was published in April 
 
 1755- 
 
 - In the Preface he writes ( Works, v. 49) : — ' Much of my life has 
 been lost under the pressures of disease; much has been trifled away; 
 and much has always been spent in provision for the day that was 
 passing over me.' In his fine Latin poem lvu>6i. o-eavTov ' he has left,' 
 says Mr. Murphy (Lz/c, p. 82), 'a picture of himself drawn with as 
 much truth, and as firm a hand, as can be seen in the portraits of 
 Hogarth or Sir Joshua Reynolds.' He wrote it after revising and 
 enlarging his Dictionary, and he sadly asks himself what is left for 
 him to do. 
 
 Me, pensi immunis cum jam mihi reddor, inertis 
 Desidise sors dura manet, graviorque labore 
 Tristis et atra quies, et tardae taedia vitae. 
 Nascuntur curis curse, vexatque dolorum 
 Importuna cohors, vacuse mala somnia mentis. 
 Nunc clamosa juvant nocturnae gaudia mensae, 
 Nunc loca sola placent ; frustra te, somne, recumbens, 
 Alme voco, impatiens noctis, metuensque diei. 
 Omnia percurro trepidus, circum omnia lustro, 
 Si qua usquam pateat melioris semita vitae, 
 Nee quid agam invenio. . . . 
 
 Quid faciam ? tenebrisne pigram damnare senectam 
 Restat.? an accingar studiis gravioribus audax .? 
 Aut, hoc si nimium est, tandem nova lexica poscam } 
 
 Johnson's Works, i. 164. 
 ^ A few weeks before his wife's death he wrote in The Rambler 
 (No. 196): — 'The miseries of life would be increased beyond all hu- 
 man power of endurance, if we were to enter the world with the same 
 opinions as we carry from it.' He would, I think, scarcely have ex- 
 pressed himself so strongly towards his end. Though, as Dr. Max- 
 well records, in his Collectanea {post, 1770), 'he often used to quote 
 with great pathos those fine lines of Virgil : — 
 
 " Optima quaeque dies miseris mortalibus aevi 
 Prima fugit, &c." ' 
 
 It
 
 Aetat.4G.] FrieiidsJiip kept in constant repair. 347 
 
 It is a sad saying, that ' most of those whom he wished to 
 please had sunk into the grave ;' and his case at forty-five 
 was singularly unhappy, unless the circle of his friends was 
 very narrow. I have often thought, that as longevity is 
 generally desired, and I believe, generally expected, it would 
 be wise to be continually adding to the number of our 
 friends, that the loss of some may be supplied by others. 
 Friendship, ' the wine of life',' should like a well-stocked 
 cellar, be thus continually renewed ; and it is consolatory to 
 think, that although we can seldom add what will equal the 
 ^Qntrons fir st-grozvths of our youth, yet friendship becomes 
 insensibly old in much less time than is commonly imagined, 
 and not many years are required to make it very mellow and 
 pleasant. Warmth will, no doubt, make a considerable 
 difference. Men of affectionate temper and bright fancy 
 will coalesce a great deal sooner than those who are cold 
 and dull. 
 
 The proposition which I have now endeavoured to illus- 
 trate was, at a subsequent period of his life, the opinion of 
 Johnson himself. He said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, ' If a 
 man does not make new acquaintance as he advances 
 through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, 
 Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.' 
 
 The celebrated Mr. Wilkes, whose notions and habits of 
 life were very opposite to his, but who was ever eminent for 
 literature and vivacity, sallied forth with a little Jen d' Esprit 
 upon the following passage in his Grammar of the English 
 Tongue, prefixed to the Dictionary: ' //" seldom, perhaps 
 never, begins any but the first syllable.' In an Essay print- 
 ed in TJie Public/: Advertiser, this lively writer enumerated 
 many instances in opposition to this remark ; for example, 
 ' The authour of this observation must be a man of a quick 
 apprc-Jiension, and of a most conipre-Jioisivc genius.' The 
 position is undoubtedly expressed with too much latitude. 
 
 yet he owned, and the pages of Boswell amply testify, that it was in 
 the latter period of his life that he had his happiest days. 
 * Macbeth, Act ii. sc. 3. 
 
 This
 
 34S Garrick's complimentary epigram, [a.d. 1755. 
 
 This light sally, we may suppose, made no great impres- 
 sion on our Lexicographer ; for we find that he did not alter 
 the passage till many years afterwards'. 
 
 He had the pleasure of being treated in a very different 
 manner by his old pupil Mr. Garrick, in the following com- 
 plimentary Epigram^ : 
 
 ' On Johnson's Dictionary. 
 'Talk of war with a Briton, he'll boldly advance, 
 That one English soldier will beat ten of France ; 
 Would we alter the 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, and Boyle t 
 Let them rally their heroes, send forth all their pow'rs. 
 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 epick to flight; 
 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!' 
 
 Johnson this year gave at once a proof of his benevolence, 
 quickness of apprehension, and admirable art of composition, 
 in the assistance which he gave to Mr. Zachariah Williams, 
 father of the blind lady whom he had humanely received 
 under his roof. Mr. Williams had followed the profession 
 of physic in Wales ; but having a very strong propensity to 
 
 ' In the third edition, published in 1773, he left out the \\ovA=> per- 
 haps never, and added the following paragraph : — 
 
 ' It sometimes begins middle or final syllables in words compounded, 
 as block-head, or derived from the Latin, as compre-hoided! Boswell. 
 In the Abridgment, which was published some years earlier, after never 
 is added 'except in compounded words.' 
 
 • It was published in the Gent. Mag. for April 1755 (xxv. 190), just 
 below the advertisement of the Dictionary. 
 
 ^ In the original, ' Milton and Shakespeare.' 
 
 * The number of the French Academy employed in settling their 
 language. Boswell. 
 
 the
 
 Aetat. 46.] Zachariah Williams. 349 
 
 the study of natural philosophy, had made many ingenious 
 advances towards a discovery of the longitude, and repaired 
 to London in hopes of obtaining the great parliamentary 
 reward'. He failed of success ; but Johnson having made 
 himself master of his principles and experiments, wrote for 
 him a pamphlet, published in quarto, with the following 
 title: An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude 
 at Sea, by an exact Theory of the Variation of the Magnetical 
 Needle ; with a Table of the Variations at the most remark- 
 able Cities in Europe, from the year 1660 to i68o.t To 
 diffuse it more extensively, it was accompanied with an 
 Italian translation on the opposite page, which it is supposed 
 was the work of Signer Baretti% an Italian of considerable 
 
 ' The maximum reward ofifered by a bill passed in 1714 was £20,000 
 for a method that determined the longitude at sea to half a degree 
 of a great circle, or thirty geographical miles. For less accuracy 
 smaller rewards were offered. Ami. Eeg. viii. 114. In 1765 John 
 Harrison received £7,500 for his chronometer; he had previously 
 been paid £2,500; zd. 128. In this Act of Parliament 'the legislature 
 never contemplated the invention of a method, but only of the means 
 of making existing methods accurate.' Penny Cyclo.xW. 139. An old 
 sea-faring man wrote to Swift that he had found out the longitude. 
 The Dean replied 'that he never knew but two projectors, one of 
 whom ruined himself and his family, and the other hanged himself; 
 and desired him to desist lest one or other might happen to him.' 
 Swift's Works (1803), xvii. 157. In She Stoops to Conquer (Act i. sc. 2), 
 when Tony ends his directions to the travellers by telling them, — 
 ' coming to the farmer's barn you are to turn to the right, and then 
 to the left, and then to the right about again, till you find out the old 
 mill ;' Marlow exclaims : ' Zounds, man ! we could as soon find out 
 the longitude.' 
 
 ^ Joseph Baretti, a native of Piedmont, came to England in 1750 
 (see Preface to his Account of Italy, p. ix). He died in May, 1789. 
 In his Journey from London to Genoa (ii. 276), he says that his father 
 was one of the two architects of the King of Sardinia. Shortly after 
 his death a writer in the Gent. Mag. (Hx. 469, 570), who was believed 
 to be Vincent, Dean of Westminster, thus wrote of him: — 'Though 
 his severity had created him enemies, his talents, conversation, and 
 integrity had conciliated the regard of many valuable friends and 
 acquaintances. His manners were apparently rough, but not unso- 
 
 literature
 
 350 Zachariah Williams. [a.d. 1755. 
 
 literature, who having come to England a few years before, 
 had been employed in the capacity both of a language- 
 master and an authour, and formed an intimacy with Dr. 
 Johnson. This pamphlet Johnson presented to the Bodleian 
 Library'. On a blank leaf of it is pasted a paragraph cut 
 out of a news-paper, containing an account of the death and 
 character of Williams, plainly written by Johnson\ 
 
 In July this year he had formed some scheme of mental 
 improvement, the particular purpose of which does not ap- 
 pear. But we find in his Prayers and Meditations, p. 25, a 
 prayer entitled ' On the Study of Philosophy, as an Instru- 
 ment of living ;' and after it follows a note, ' This study was 
 not pursued.' 
 
 On the 13th of the same month he wrote in his Journal 
 the following scheme of life for Sunday: 
 
 'Having lived' (as he with tenderness of conscience expresses 
 himself) ' not without an habitual reverence for the Sabbath, yet with- 
 out that attention to its religious duties which Christianity requires ; 
 
 cial. His integrity was in every period of his distresses constant and 
 unimpeached. His wants he never made known but in the last ex- 
 tremity. He and Johnson had been friends in distress. One even- 
 ing, when they had agreed to go to the tavern, a foreigner in the 
 streets, by a specious tale of distress, emptied the Doctor's purse of 
 the last half-guinea it contained. When the reckoning came, what 
 was his surprise upon his recollecting that his purse was totally ex- 
 hausted. Baretti had fortunately enough to answer the demand, and 
 has often declared that it was impossible for him not to reverence a 
 man, who could give away all that he was worth, without recollecting 
 his own distress.' Sec post, Oct. 20, 1769. 
 
 ' See note by Mr. Warton, mite, p. 319. Boswell. 
 
 ^ 'On Saturday the 12th, about twelve at night, died Mr. Zachariah 
 Williams, in his eighty-third year, after an illness of eight months, in 
 full possession of his mental faculties. He has been long known to 
 philosophers and seamen for his skill in magnetism, and his proposal 
 to ascertain the longitude by a peculiar system of the variation of the 
 compass. He was a man of industry indefatigable, of conversation 
 inoffensive, patient of adversity and disease, eminently sober, temper- 
 ate, and pious; and worthy to have ended life with better fortune.' 
 Boswell. 
 
 'I. To
 
 Aetat.47.] A Scheme of life for Sunday. 351 
 
 ' I. To rise early, and in order to it, to go to sleep early on 
 Saturday. 
 
 '2. To use some extraordinary devotion in the morning. 
 
 '3. To examine the tenour of my life, and particularly the last 
 week ; and to mark my advances in religion, or recession from it. 
 
 '4. To read the Scripture methodically with such helps as are 
 at hand. 
 
 '5. To go to church twice. 
 
 '6. To read books of Divinity, either speculative or practical. 
 
 '7. To instruct my family. 
 
 'S. To wear off by meditation any worldly soil contracted in the 
 week.' 
 
 1756: ^TAT, 47.] — In 1756 Johnson found that the great 
 fame of his Dictionary had not set him above the necessity of 
 'making provision for the day that was passing over him\' 
 
 ' Johnson's Works, v. 49. Malone, in a note on this passage, says : — 
 'Johnson appears to have been in this year in great pecuniary dis- 
 tress, having been arrested for debt ; on which occasion Richardson 
 became his surety.' He refers to the following letter in the Richard- 
 son Corrcs.v. 285 : — 
 
 'To Mr. Richardson. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, ' Tuesday, Feb. 19, 1756. 
 
 ' I return you my sincerest thanks for the favour which you were 
 pleased to do me two nights ago. Be pleased to accept of this little 
 book, which is all that I have published this winter. The inflammation 
 is come again into my eye, so that I can write very little. I am, Sir, 
 your most obliged and most humble servant, Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 The ' little book ' is not (as Mr. Croker suggests) Williams's Longitude, 
 for it was published in Jan. 1755 {Gent. Mag. xxv. 47) ; but the Abridg- 
 ment of the Dictionary, which was advertised in the Gent. Mag. for 
 Jan. 1756. Murphy says {Life, p. 86), that he has before him a letter 
 in Johnson's handwriting, which shows the distress of the man who 
 had written The Rambler, and finished the great work of his Diction- 
 ary. It is directed to Mr. Richardson, and is as follows : — 
 
 ' Sir, — I am obliged to entreat your assistance. I am now under 
 an arrest for five pounds eighteen shillings. Mr. Strahan, from whom 
 I should have received the necessary help in this case, is not at home, 
 and I am afraid of not finding Mr. Millar. If you will be so good as 
 to send me this sum, I will very gratefully repay you, and add it to all 
 former obligations. I am. Sir, your most obedient and most humble 
 servant, 'Samuel JoilNSON.' 
 
 ' Gough-Square, 16 March.' 
 
 No
 
 352 Payment for the Dictionary. [a. d. 1756. 
 
 No royal or noble patron extended a munificent hand to 
 give independence to the man who had conferred stability 
 on the language of his country. We may feel indignant that 
 there should have been such unworthy neglect; but we must, 
 at the same time, congratulate ourselves, when we consider, 
 that to this very neglect, operating to rouse the natural indo- 
 lence of his constitution, we owe many valuable productions, 
 which otherwise, perhaps, might never have appeared. 
 
 He had spent, during the progress of the work, the money 
 for which he had contracted to write his Dictionary. We 
 have seen that the reward of his labour was only fifteen 
 hundred and seventy-five pounds ; and when the expence of 
 amanuenses and paper, and other articles are deducted, his 
 clear profit was very inconsiderable. I once said to him, ' I 
 am sorry. Sir, you did not get more for your Dictionary.' 
 His answer was, ' I am sorry, too. But it was very well. 
 The booksellers are generous, liberal-minded men'.' He, 
 
 In the margin of this letter there is a memorandum in these words : — 
 ' March 1 6, 1756. Sent six guineas. Witness, Wm. Richardson.' In 
 the European Mag., vii. 54, there is the following anecdote recorded, 
 for which Steevens most likely was the authority : — ' I remember writ- 
 ing to Richardson ' said Johnson, ' from a spunging-house ; and was 
 so sure of my deliverance through his kindness and liberahty, that 
 before his reply was brought I knew I could afford to joke with the 
 rascal who had me in custody, and did so over a pint of adulterated 
 wine, for which at that instant I had no money to pay.' It is very 
 likely that this anecdote has no other foundation than Johnson's 
 second letter to Richardson, which is dated, not from a spunging- 
 house, but from his own residence. What kind of fate awaited a man 
 who was thrown into prison for debt is shown by the following pas- 
 sage in Wesley's Jourtial (ii. 267), dated Feb. 3, 1753 : — ' I visited one 
 in the Marshalsea prison, a nursery of all manner of wickedness. O 
 shame to man, that there should be such a place, such a picture of 
 hell upon earth !' A few days later he writes : — ' I visited as many 
 more as I could. I found some in their cells under ground ; others 
 in their garrets, half starved both with cold and hunger, added to 
 weakness and pain.' 
 
 ' In a Debate on the Copy-right Bill on May 16, 1774, Governor 
 Johnstone said : — ' It had been urged that Dr. Johnson had received 
 an after gratification from the booksellers who employed him to com- 
 
 upon
 
 Aetat. 47.] Jokuson s opinion of booksellers. 353 
 
 upon all occasions, did ample justice to their character in 
 this respect'. He considered them as the patrons of litera- 
 ture ; and, indeed, although they have eventually been con- 
 siderable gainers by his Dictionary, it is to them that we owe 
 its having been undertaken and carried through at the risk 
 of great expence, for they were not absolutely sure of being 
 indemnified. 
 
 On the first day of this year we find from his private de- 
 votions, that he had then recovered from sickness'' ; and in 
 February that his eye was restored to its use\ The pious 
 gratitude with v/hich he acknowledges mercies upon every 
 occasion is very edifying ; as is the humble submission which 
 he breathes, when it is the will of his heavenly Father to try 
 him with afflictions. As such dispositions become the state 
 
 pile his Dictionary. He had in his hand a letter from Dr. Johnson, 
 which he read, in which the doctor denied the assertion, but declared 
 that his employers fulfilled their bargain with him, and that he was 
 satisfied.' Pari. Hist. xvii. 1 105. 
 
 ' He more than once attacked them. Thus in Ati Appeal to the 
 Public, which he wrote for the Geiit. Mag. in 1739 ( Works, \. 348), he 
 said : — ' Nothing is more criminal in the opinion of many of them, 
 than for an author to enjoy more advantage from his own works than 
 they are disposed to allow him. This is a principle so well established 
 among them, that we can produce some who threatened printers with 
 their highest displeasure, for their having dared to print books for 
 those that wrote them.' In the Life of Savage {ib.vm. 132), written 
 in 1744, he writes of the 'avarice, by which the booksellers are fre- 
 quently incited to oppress that genius by which they are supported.' 
 In the Life of Dry den (z^. vii. 299), written in 1779, he speaks of an 
 improvement. ' The general conduct of traders was much less liberal 
 in those times than in our own ; their views were narrower, and their 
 manners grosser. To the mercantile ruggedness of that race the deli- 
 cacy of the poet was sometimes exposed.' 
 
 '-' Prayers and Meditatiojts, p. 40 [25]. ROSWELL. Johnson wrote 
 to Miss Boothby on Dec. 30, 1755 : — ' If I turn my thoughts upon my- 
 self, what do I perceive but a poor helpless being, reduced by a blast 
 of wind to weakness and misery.? . . . Mr. Fitzhcrbert sent to-day to 
 offer me some wine ; the people about me say I ought to accept it. I 
 shall therefore be obliged to him if he will send me a bottle.' Pioszi 
 Letters, ii. 393. 
 
 Prayers and Meditations, p. 27. BOSWELL. 
 
 I. — 23 of 
 
 3
 
 354 Christopher Smart. [a.d, 175G. 
 
 of man here, and are the true effects of religious disciphne, 
 we cannot but venerate in Johnson one of the most exercised 
 minds that our holy religion hath ever formed. If there be 
 any thoughtless enough to suppose such exercise the weak- 
 ness of a great understanding, let them look up to Johnson 
 and be convinced that what he so earnestly practised must 
 have a rational foundation. 
 
 His works this year were, an abstract or epitome, in octavo, 
 of his folio Dictionary, and a few essays in a monthly publi- 
 cation, entitled. The Universal Visiter. Christopher Smart, 
 with whose unhappy vacillation of mind he sincerely sympa- 
 thised, was one of the stated undertakers of this miscellany ; 
 and it was to assist him that Johnson sometimes employed 
 his pen'. All the essays marked with two asterisks have 
 been ascribed to him ; but I am confident, from internal 
 evidence, that of these, neither ' The Life of Chaucer,' ' Re- 
 flections on the State of Portugal,' nor an 'Essay on Archi- 
 tecture,' were written by him. I am equally confident, upon 
 the same evidence, that he wrote ' Further Thoughts on Ag- 
 riculture" ;'f being the sequel of a very inferiour essay on the 
 same subject, and which, though carried on as if by the same 
 hand, is both in thinking and expression so far above it, and 
 so strikingly peculiar, as to leave no doubt of its true par- 
 ent ; and that he also wrote ' A Dissertation on the State of 
 
 ' See post, April 6, 1775. Kit Smart, once a Fellow of Pembroke 
 Hall, Cambridge, ended his life in the King's Bench Prison ; ' where 
 he had owed to a small subscription, of which Dr. Burney was at the 
 head, a miserable pittance beyond the prison allowance. In his latest 
 letter to Dr. Burney, he passionately pleaded for a fellow-sufferer, 
 "whom I myself," he impressively adds, "have already assisted ac- 
 cording to my willing poverty." In another letter to the same friend 
 he said : — " I bless God for your good nature, which please to take for 
 a receipt." ' Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 205, 280. 
 
 ^ In this Essay Johnson writes ( JFd7r/t.y, v. 315) : — 'I think there is 
 room to question whether a great part of mankind has yet been in- 
 formed that life is sustained by the fruits of the earth. I was once, in- 
 deed, provoked to ask a lady of great eminence for genius, " Whether 
 she knew of what bread is made." ' 
 
 Literature
 
 Aetat.47.] ThE LiTERARY MaGAZINE. 355' 
 
 Literature and Authours','t and 'A Dissertation on the Epi- 
 taphs written by Pope.'f The last of these, indeed, he 
 afterwards added to his Idler'. Why the essays truly writ- 
 ten by him are marked in the same manner with some 
 which he did not write, I cannot explain ; but with defer- 
 ence to those who have ascribed to him the three essays 
 which I have rejected, they want all the characteristical 
 marks of Johnsonian composition. 
 
 He engaged also to superintend and contribute largely to 
 another monthly publication, entitled The Literary Magazine, 
 or Universal Rcvieiv ;^ the first number of which came out 
 in May this year\ What were his emoluments from this 
 
 ' In The Universal Visiter this Essay is entitled, ' Reflections on the 
 Present State of Literature ;' and in Johnson's Works, v. 355,' A Proj- 
 ect for the Employment of Authors.' The whole world, he says, is 
 turning author. Their number is so large that employment must be 
 found for them. ' There are some reasons for which they may seem 
 particularly qualified for a military life. They are used to suffer want 
 of every kind ; they are accustomed to obey the word of command 
 from their patrons and their booksellers ; they have always passed a 
 life of hazard and adventure, uncertain what may be their state on the 
 next day. . . . There are some whom long depression under supercili- 
 ous patrons has so humbled and crushed, that they will never have 
 steadiness to keep their ranks. But for these men there may be found 
 fifes and drums, and they will be well enough pleased to inflame others 
 to battle, if they are not obliged to fight themselves.' 
 2 He added it also to his L(fe of Pope. 
 
 = ' This employment,' wrote Murphy {U/e, p. 88), ' engrossed but 
 little of Johnson's time. He resigned himself to indolence, took no 
 exercise, rose about two, and then received the visits of his friends. 
 Authors long since forgotten waited on him as their oracle, and he 
 gave responses in the chair of criticism. He listened to the com- 
 plaints, the schemes, and the hopes and fears of a crowd of inferior 
 writers, " who," he said, in the words of Roger Ascham, " lived, men 
 knew not how, and died obscure, men marked not when." He be- 
 lieved, that he could give a better history of Grub Street than any 
 man living. His house was filled with a succession of visitors till four 
 or five in the evening. During the whole time he presided at his tea- 
 table.' In The Rainbler, No. 145, Johnson takes the part of these in- 
 ferior writers :— ' a race of beings equally obscure and equally indigent, 
 who, because their usefulness is less obvious to vulgar apprehensions, 
 
 undertaking,
 
 ^56 yohnsons original essays. [a.d. 1756. 
 
 undertakine, and what other writers were employed in it, I 
 have not discovered. He continued to write in it, with in- 
 termissions, till the fifteenth number ; and I think that he 
 never gave better proofs of the force, acuteness, and vivacity 
 of his mind, than in this miscellany, whether we consider his 
 original essays, or his reviews of the works of others. The 
 'Preliminary Address 'f to the Publick is a proof how this 
 great man could embellish, with the graces of superiour com- 
 position, even so trite a thing as the plan of a magazine. 
 
 His original essays are, 'An Introduction to the Political 
 State of Great Britain'ff ' Remarks on the Militia Bill';'t 
 ' Observations on his Britannick Majesty's Treaties with 
 the Empress of Russia and the Landgrave of Hesse Cas- 
 seP ;'t ' Observations on the Present State of Affairs' ;'t and 
 
 live unrewarded and die unpitied, and who have been long exposed to 
 insult without a defender, and to censure without an apologist.' 
 
 * In this essay {Works, vi. 129) Johnson describes Canada as a 
 ' region of desolate sterility,' ' a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting region, 
 from which nothing but furs and fish were to be had.' 
 
 * The bill of 1756 that he considers passed through the Commons 
 but was rejected by the Lords. It is curious as showing the compara- 
 tive population of the different counties. Devonshire was to furnish 
 3200 men — twice as many as Lancashire. Essex, Kent, Norfolk and 
 Suffolk were each to furnish 1920 men; Lancashire, Surrey, Sussex, 
 and Wiltshire 1600; Durham and Bedfordshire 800. From the three 
 Ridings of Yorkshire 4800 were to be raised. The men were to be 
 exercised every Sunday before and after service. The Literary Mag- 
 azine, p. 48. 
 
 ' In this paper are found the forcible words, ' The desperate remedy of 
 desperate distress,' which have been used since by orators. lb. p. 121. 
 
 * Johnson considers here the war in America between the English 
 
 and French, and shows a strong feeling for the natives who had been 
 
 wronged by both nations. ' Such is the contest that no honest man 
 
 can heartily wish success to either party. . . . The American dispute 
 
 between the French and us is only the quarrel of two robbers for the 
 
 spoils of a passenger.' The French had this in their favour, that they 
 
 had treated the natives better than we. ' The favour of the Indians 
 
 which they enjoy with very few exceptions among all the nations of 
 
 the northern continent we ought to consider with other thoughts ; this 
 
 favour we might have enjoyed, if we had been careful to deserve it.' 
 
 Works, \\. 114, 122. 
 
 * Memoirs
 
 Aetat. 47.J ^0/111 SOUS ' Browuism' 357 
 
 ' Memoirs of Frederick III, King of Prussia". 'f In all these 
 he displays extensive political knowledge and sagacity, ex- 
 pressed with uncommon energ}^ and perspicuity, without any 
 of those words which he sometimes took a pleasure in adopt- 
 ing in imitation of Sir Thomas Browne ; of whose Christian 
 Morals he this year gave an edition, with his 'Life'* prefixed 
 to it, which is one of Johnson's best biographical perform- 
 ances. In one instance only in these essays has he indulged 
 his Broivnisn^ . Dr. Robertson, the historian, mentioned it to 
 me, as having at once convinced him that Johnson was the 
 authour of the 'Memoirs of the King of Prussia.' Speaking 
 of the pride which the old King, the father of his hero, took 
 in being master of the tallest regiment in Europe, he says, 
 ' To review this towering regiment w^as his daily pleasure ; 
 and to perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met 
 a tall woman he immediately commanded one of his Titanian 
 retinue to marry her, that they might propagate procerity^ ." 
 For this Anglo-Latian word procerity, Johnson had, however, 
 the authority of Addison*. 
 
 His reviews are of the following books: 'Birch's History 
 of the Royal Society ;'t 'Murphy's Gray's Inn Journal ;'f 
 * Warton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of Pope, Vol. 
 I.'t ' Hampton's Translation of Polybius;'f ' Blackwell's Me- 
 moirs of the Court of Augustus ;'t ' Russel's Natural History 
 of AleppoVt ' Sir Isaac Newton's Arguments in Proof of a 
 
 ■ These Memoirs end with the year 1745. Johnson had intended to 
 continue them, for he writes : — ' We shall here suspend our narrative.' 
 Works, vi. 474. 
 
 ' See a?ite, p. 256. 
 
 ^ The sentence continues : — 'and produce heirs to the father's ha- 
 biliments.' Works, vi. 436. Another instance may be adduced of his 
 Brownism in the following line : — ' The war continued in an equilibra- 
 tion by alternate losses and advantages.' lb. 473. 
 
 * In a letter from the Secretary of the Tall Club in The Guardian, 
 No. 108. ' If the fair sex look upon us with an eye of favour, we shall 
 make some attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it 
 to its ancient procerity.' 
 
 * StG post, March 23, 1783. 
 
 Dcitv;'
 
 358 The earthquake of Lisbon. [a.d. 1756. 
 
 Deity ;'t ' Borlase's History of the Isles of Scilly;'f 'Home's 
 Experiments on Bleaching ;'f ' Browne's Christian Morals ;'t 
 'Hales on Distilling Sea -Water, Ventilators in Ships, and 
 curing an ill Taste in Milk;'f 'Lucas's Essay on Waters ;'f 
 ' Keith's Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops ;'t ' Browne's His- 
 tory of Jamaica ;'f ' Philosophical Transactions, Vol. XLIX.'f 
 ']\Irs. Lennox's Translation of Sully's Memoirs;'* ' Miscella- 
 nies by Elizabeth Harrison ;'f ' Evans's Map and Account of 
 the Middle Colonies in America';'t 'Letter on the Case of 
 Admiral Byng;'* 'Appeal to the People concerning Admiral 
 Byng ;'* ' Hanway's Eight Days Journey, and Essay on Tea ;'* 
 ' The Cadet, a Military Treatise ;'t ' Some further Particulars 
 in Relation to the Case of Admiral Byng, by a Gentleman 
 of Oxford;'* 'The Conduct of the Ministry relating to the 
 present War impartially examined ;'t 'A free Inquiry into the 
 N^ature and Origin of Evil.'* All these, from internal evi- 
 dence, were written by Johnson; some of them I know he 
 avowed, and have marked them with an asterisk accordingly^ 
 
 * ' As power is the constant and unavoidable consequence of learn- 
 ing, there is no reason to doubt that the time is approaching when the 
 Americans shall in their turn have some influence on the affairs of 
 mankind, for literature apparently gains ground among them. A li- 
 brary is established in Carolina and some great electrical discoveries 
 were made at Philadelphia. . . . The fear that the American colonies 
 will break off their dependence on England I have always thought 
 chimerical and vain. . . . They must be dependent, and if they forsake 
 us, or be forsaken by us, must fall into the hands of France.' Literary 
 Maga2i7ie, pp. 293, 299. 
 
 ° Johnson, I have no doubt, wrote the Reviei.u of A True Accoitnt of 
 Lisbon smce the Earthquake, in which it is stated that the destruction 
 was grossly exaggerated. After quoting the writer at length, he con- 
 cludes : — ' Such then is the actual, real situation of that place which 
 ofice was Lisbon, and has been since gazetically and pamphletically 
 quite destroyed, consumed, annihilated ! Now, upon comparing this 
 simple narration of things and facts with the false and absurd accounts 
 which have rather insulted and imposed upon us than informed us, 
 who but must see the enormous disproportion ? . . . Exaggeration 
 and the absurdities ever faithfully attached to it are inseparable attri- 
 butes of the ignorant, the empty, and the affected. Hence those elo- 
 
 Mr.
 
 Aetat.47.] yohnson s ardour for liberty. 359 
 
 Mr. Thomas Davies indeed, ascribed to him the Review of 
 Mr. Burke's ' Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the 
 SubHme and Beautiful;' and Sir John Hawkins, with equal 
 discernment, has inserted it in his collection of Johnson's 
 works: whereas it has no resemblance to Johnson's composi- 
 tion, and is well known to have been written by Mr. Murphy, 
 who has acknowledged it to me and many others. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, in justice to Johnson's political 
 character, which has been misrepresented as abjectly submis- 
 sive to power, that his 'Observations on the Present State of 
 Affairs' glow with as animated a spirit of constitutional lib- 
 erty as can be found anywhere. Thus he begins : 
 
 ' The time is now come, in which every Englishman expects to 
 be informed of the national afifairs ; and in which he has a right to 
 have that expectation gratified. For, whatever may be urged by 
 Ministers, or those whom vanity or interest make the followers of 
 ministers, concerning the necessity of confidence in our govern- 
 ours, and the presumption of prying with profane eyes into the 
 recesses of policy, it is evident that this reverence can be claimed 
 only by counsels yet unexecuted, and projects suspended in delib- 
 eration. But when a design has ended in miscarriage or success, 
 when every eye and every ear is witness to general discontent, or 
 general satisfaction, it is then a proper time to disentangle confu- 
 sion and illustrate obscurity; to shew by what causes every event 
 was produced, and in what effects it is likely to terminate ; to lay 
 down with distinct particularity what rumour always huddles in gen- 
 eral exclamation, or perplexes by indigested' narratives ; to shew 
 whence happiness or calamity is derived, and whence it may be 
 expected ; and honestly to lay before the people what inquiry can 
 gather of the past, and conjecture can estimate of the future\' 
 
 quent tropes so familiar in every conversation, inonstrously pretty, 
 vastly little; . . . hence your eminent shoe-maker, farriers, and under- 
 takers. ... It is to the same muddy source we owe the many falsehoods 
 and absurdities we have been pestered with concerning Lisbon. 
 Thence your extravagantly sublime figures : Lisbon is no more ; can be 
 seen no more, etc., . . . with all the other prodigal effusions of bombast 
 beyond the stretch of time or temper to enumerate.' lb. p. 22. See 
 post, under March 30, 1778. 
 
 ' In the original undigested. ' Johnson's Works, vi. 113. 
 
 Here
 
 360 Dr. Lucas. [a.d. 1756, 
 
 Here we have it assumed as an incontrovertible principle, 
 that in this country the people are the superintendants of 
 the conduct and measures of those by whom government is 
 administered ; of the beneficial effect of which the present 
 reign afforded an illustrious example, when addresses from 
 all parts of the kingdom controuled an audacious attempt to 
 introduce a new power subversive of the crown'. 
 
 A still stronger proof of his patriotick spirit appears in his 
 review of an ' Essay on Waters, by Dr. Lucas;' of whom, after 
 describing him as a man well known to the world for his 
 daring defiance of power, when he thought it exerted on the 
 side of wrong, he thus speaks : 
 
 ' The Irish ministers drove him from his native country by a proc- 
 lamation, in which they charged him with crimes of which they 
 never intended to be called to the proof, and oppressed by methods 
 equally irresistible by guilt and innocence. 
 
 ' Let the man thus driven into exile, for having been the friend 
 of his country, be received in every other place as a confessor of 
 liberty ; and let the tools of power be taught in time, that they may 
 rob, but cannot impoverish'.' 
 
 Some of his reviews in this Magazine are very short ac- 
 counts of the pieces noticed, and I mention them only that 
 Dr. Johnson's opinion of the works may be known ; but 
 many of them are examples of elaborate criticism, in the 
 
 ' In the spring of 1784, after the king had taken advantage of Fox's 
 India Bill to dismiss the Coalition Ministry. ^0.0. post, March 28, 1784. 
 
 "^ In Ireland there was no act to limit the duration of parliament. 
 One parliament sat through the whole reign of George II. — thirty- 
 three years. Dr. Lucas, a Dublin physician, in attacking other griev- 
 ances, attacked also this. In 1749 he would have been elected mem- 
 ber for Dublin, had he not, on a charge of seditious writings, been 
 committed by the House of Commons to prison. He was to be con- 
 fined, he was told, ' in the common hall of the prison among the 
 felons.' He fled to England, which was all that the government 
 wanted, and he practised as a physician in London. In 1761 he was 
 restored to the liberties of the City of Dublm and was also elected 
 one of its members. Hardy's Lord Charlemont, i. 249, 299 ; and Gent. 
 Mag., XX. 58 and xxxi. 236. 
 
 most
 
 Aetat. 47.] Johnsmi s orthodoxy a7id ca7idour. 361 
 
 most masterly style. In his review of the ' Memoirs of the 
 Court of Augustus,' he has the resolution to think and speak 
 from his own mind, regardless of the cant transmitted from 
 age to age, in praise of the ancient Romans'. Thus, 
 
 ' I know not why any one but a school-boy in his declamation 
 should whine over the Common-wealth of Rome, which grew great 
 only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like 
 others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt ; and in their cor- 
 ruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one 
 another'".' 
 
 Again, 
 
 ' A people, who, while they were poor, robbed mankind ; and as 
 soon as they became rich, robbed one another^' 
 
 In his review of the Miscellanies in prose and verse, pub- 
 lished by Elizabeth Harrison, but written by many hands, 
 he gives an eminent proof at once of his orthodoxy and 
 candour : 
 
 'The authours of the essays in prose seem generally to have 
 imitated, or tried to imitate, the copiousness and luxuriance of Mrs. 
 Rowe*. This, however, is not all their praise ; they have laboured 
 to add to her brightness of imagery, her purity of sentiments. The 
 poets have had Dr. Watts before their eyes ; a writer, who, if he 
 stood not in the first class of genius, compensated that defect by a 
 ready application of his powers to the promotion of piety. The 
 attempt to employ the ornaments of romance in the decoration of 
 religion, was, I think, first made by Mr. Boyle's Martyrdom of Theo- 
 dora ; but Boyle's philosophical studies did not allow him time for 
 the cultivation of style ; and the completion of the great design 
 was reserved for Mrs. Rowe. Dr. Watts was one of the first who 
 taught the Dissenters to write and speak like other men, by shewing 
 
 ' Boswell himself falls into this 'cant.' Set post, Sept. 23, 1777, 
 
 - Johnson's Works, vi. 11. 
 
 ^ lb. p. 13. He vigorously attacks the style in which these 'Me- 
 moirs' are written. 'Sometimes,' he writes, 'the reader is suddenly 
 ravished with a sonorous sentence, of which, when the noise is past, 
 the meaning does not long remain.' Id. p. 15. 
 
 * The author of Friendship in Death. 
 
 tiiem
 
 362 Dr. Watts. [A.D. 175G. 
 
 them that elegance might consist with piety'. They would have 
 both done honour to a better society", for they had that char- 
 ity which might well make their failings be forgotten, and with 
 which the whole Christian world might wish for communion. They 
 were pure from all the heresies of an age, to which every opin- 
 ion is become a favourite that the universal church has hitherto 
 detested ! 
 
 ' This praise, the general interest of mankind requires to be given 
 to writers who please and do not corrupt, who instruct and do not 
 weary. But to them all human eulogies are vain, whom I believe 
 applauded by angels, and numbered with the justl' 
 
 His defence of tea against Mr. Jonas Hanway's violent 
 attack upon that elegant and popular beverage', shews how 
 
 ' In the Lives of the Poets ( Works, viii. 383) Johnson writes : — ' Dr. 
 Watts was one of the first authors that taught the Dissenters to court 
 attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them 
 before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and 
 blunted by coarseness and inelegance of style. He showed them that 
 zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction.' 
 
 "^ ' Such he [Dr. Watts] was as every Christian Church would rejoice 
 to have adopted.' /<5. p. 380. See also /^^/, July 7, 1777, and May 19, 
 1778. 
 
 ^ Johnson's Works, vi. 79. 
 
 * Mr. Hanway would have had the support of Johnson's father, who, 
 as his son writes, 'considered tea as very expensive, and discouraged 
 my mother from keeping company with the neighbours, and from pay- 
 ing visits or receiving them. She lived to say, many years after, that 
 if the time were to pass again, she would not comply with such un- 
 social injunctions.' Account of Johnson's Early Life, p. 18. The 
 Methodists, ten years earlier than Hanway, had declared war on tea. 
 ' After talking largely with both the men and women Leaders,' writes 
 Wesley, ' we agreed it would prevent great expense, as well of health 
 as of time and of money, if the poorer people of our society could he 
 persuaded to leave off drinking of tea.' Wesley's Journal, i. 526. 
 Pepys, writing in 1660, says: 'I did send for a cup of tee, (a China 
 drink) of which I never had drank before.' Pepys' Diary, i. 137. 
 Horace Walpole {Letters, i. 224) writing in 1743 says: — 'They have 
 talked of a new duty on tea, to be paid by every housekeeper for all 
 the persons in their families ; but it will scarce be proposed. Tea is so 
 universal, that it would make a greater clamour than a duty on wine.' 
 In October 1734 tea was sold in London at the following prices : — 
 
 very
 
 Aetat.47.] yohnso7is tea-drinking. 363 
 
 v^ery well a man of genius can write upon the slightest sub- 
 ject, when he writes, as the Italians say, con ainorc: I sup- 
 pose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of 
 that fragrant leaf than Johnson'. The quantities which he 
 drank of it at all hours were so great, that his nerves must 
 have been uncommonly strong, not to have been extremely 
 relaxed by such an intemperate use of it". He assured me, 
 that he never felt the least inconvenience from it ; which is a 
 proof that the fault of his constitution was rather a too great 
 tension of fibres, than the contrary. Mr. Hanway wrote an 
 angry answer to Johnson's review of his Essay oti Tea, and 
 Johnson, after a full and deliberate pause, made a reply to 
 it ; the only instance, I believe, in the whole course of his 
 
 Ordinary Bohea 95-. per lb. 
 
 Fine " io.y. to 12s. ,, 
 
 Pekoe 15.?. „ 
 
 Hyson 20s. to 25^. „ 
 
 GenL Mag. iv. 575. 
 
 ' Yet in his reply to Mr. Hanway he said ( Works, vi. 33) :— ' I allowed 
 tea to be a barren superfluity, neither medicinal nor nutritious, that 
 neither supplied strength nor cheerfulness, neither relieved weariness, 
 nor exhilarated sorrow.' Cumberland writes (Memoirs, i. 357) : — ' I 
 remember when Sir Joshua Reynolds at my house reminded Dr. John- 
 son that he had drank eleven cups, he replied : — " Sir, I did not count 
 your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?'' 
 And then laughing in perfect good humour he added : — " Sir, I should 
 have released the lady from any further trouble, if it had not been for 
 your remark ; but you have reminded me that I want one of the dozen, 
 and I must request Mrs» Cumberland to round up my number." ' 
 
 ^ In this Review Johnson describes himself as ' a hardened and 
 shameless tea- drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals 
 with only the infusion of this fascinating plant ; whose kettle has 
 scarcely time to cool ; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea 
 solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.' Johnson's 
 Works, vi. 21. That ' he never felt the least inconvenience from it' 
 may well be doubted. His nights were almost always bad. In 1774 
 he recorded : — ' I could not drink this day either coffee or tea after 
 dinner. I know not when I missed before.' The ne.xt day he record- 
 ed : — ' Last night my sleep was remarkably quiet. I know not whether 
 by fatigue in walking, or by forbearance of tea.' Diary of a Journey 
 into North Wales, Aug. 4. 
 
 life.
 
 364 Admiral Byng. [a.d. 175G. 
 
 life, when he condescended to oppose any thing that was 
 written against him'. I suppose when he thought of any of 
 his Httle antagonists, he was ever justly aware of the high 
 sentiment of Ajax in Ovid: 
 
 ' Iste tulit prdium jam mmc certamhiis fmjus, 
 Qui, dim victus erit, mecimi certasse fej-etiir^ .'' 
 
 But, indeed, the good Mr. Hanway laid himself so open to 
 ridicule, that Johnson's animadversions upon his attack were 
 chiefly to make sport\ 
 
 The generosity with which he pleads the cause of Admiral 
 Byng is highly to the honour of his heart and spirit. Though 
 Voltaire affects to be witty upon the fate of that unfortunate 
 officer, observing that he was shot 'pour cncoiiragcr les autrcs\' 
 the nation has long been satisfied that his life was sacrificed 
 to the political fervour of the times. In the vault belonging 
 to the Torrington family, in the church of SouthilP, in Bed- 
 fordshire, there is the following Epitaph upon his monument, 
 which I have transcribed : 
 
 ' See post. May 1 768. 
 
 ^ ' Losing, he wins, because his name will be 
 
 Ennobled by defeat who durst contend with me.' 
 
 Dryden, Ovid, Mcta. xiii. 19. 
 
 ^ In Hanway's Essay Johnson found much to praise. Hanway often 
 went to the root when he dealt with the evils of life. Thus he writes : 
 — ' The introducing new habits of life is the most substantial charity.' 
 But he thus mingles sense and nonsense : — ' Though tea and gin have 
 spread their baneful influence over this island and his Majesty's other 
 dominions, yet you may be well assured that the Governors of the 
 Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost skill and vigilance to pre- 
 vent the children under their care from being poisoned, or enervated, 
 by one or the other.' Johnson's Works, v\. 26, 28. 
 
 * ' Et pourquoi tuer cet amiral ? C'est, lui dit-on, parce qu'il n'a pas 
 fait tuer assez de monde ; il a livre un combat a un amiral frangais, 
 et on a trouve qu'il n'etait pas assez pres de lui. Mais, dit Candide, 
 I'amiral frangais etait aussi loin de I'amiral anglais que celui-ci I'etait 
 de I'autre. Cela est incontestable, lui repliquat-on ; mais dans ce 
 pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encoura- 
 ger les autres.' Candide, ch. xxiii. 
 
 * See post, June 3, 1781, when Boswell went to this church. 
 
 'To
 
 Aetat.4T.] Soame jfeyiyns. 365 
 
 'To THE PERPETUAL DISGRACE 
 
 OF PUBLIC Justice, 
 
 The Honourable John Byng, Esq. 
 
 Admiral of the Blue, 
 
 Fell a Martyr to political 
 
 Persecution, 
 
 March 14, in the Year, 1757 ; 
 
 WHEN Bravery and Loyalty 
 
 WERE INSUFFICIENT SECURITIES 
 
 FOR THE Life and Honour of 
 a Naval Officer.' 
 
 Johnson's most exquisite critical essay in the Literary 
 Magazine, and indeed any where, is his review' of Soame 
 Jenyns's Inquiry into the Origin of Evil. Jenyns was pos- 
 sessed of hvely talents, and a style eminently pure and easy, 
 and could very happily play with a light subject, either in 
 prose or verse ; but when he speculated on that most difficult 
 and excruciating question, the Origin of Evil, he 'ventured 
 far beyond his depth\' and, accordingly, was exposed by 
 Johnson, both with acute argument and brilliant wit. I re- 
 member when the late Mr. Bicknell's humorous perform- 
 ance, entitled The Musical Travels of Joel Collyer\ in which 
 a slight attempt is made to ridicule Johnson, was ascribed to 
 Soame Jenyns, ' Ha ! (said Johnson) I thought I had given 
 him enough of it.' 
 
 His triumph over Jenyns is thus described by my friend 
 Mr. Courtenay in his Poetical Rcvieiv of the literary and 
 moral Character of Dr. Johnson ; a performance of such 
 
 ' Johnson reprinted this Review in a small volume by itself. See 
 Johnson's Works, vi. 47, note. 
 
 » ' I have ventured. 
 
 Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders, 
 This many summers in a sea of glory, 
 But far beyond my depth.' 
 
 Henry VIII. Act iii. sc. 2. 
 
 3 Musical Travels through Enghxfid, by Joel Collier [not CollyerJ, 
 Organist, 1774. This book was written in ridicule of Dr. Burney's 
 Travels, who, says his daughter, ' was much hurt on its first appear- 
 ance.' Dr. Burney's Memoirs, i. 259. 
 
 merit.
 
 o 
 
 66 Jo/msoiis triumph over Jenyus. [a.d. 1756. 
 
 merit, that had I not been honoured with a very kind and 
 partial notice in it', I should echo the sentiments of men of 
 the first taste loudly in its praise: 
 
 ' When specious sophists with presumption scan 
 The source of evil hidden still from man ; 
 Revive Arabian tales, and vainly hope 
 To rival St. John, and his scholar Pope : 
 Though metaphysicks spread the gloom of night, 
 By reason's star he guides our aching sight ; 
 The bounds of knowledge marks, and points the way 
 To pathless wastes, where wilder'd sages stray; 
 Where, like a farthing link-boy, Jenyns stands. 
 And the dim torch drops from his feeble hands'.' 
 
 * See ante, p. 258. 
 
 •^ Some time after Dr. Johnson's death there appeared in the news- 
 papers and magazines an illiberal and petulant attack upon him, in 
 the form of an Epitaph, under the name of Mr. Soame Jenyns, very 
 unworthy of that gentleman, who had quietly submitted to the critical 
 lash while Johnson lived. It assumed, as characteristicks of him, all 
 the vulgar circumstances of abuse which had circulated amongst the 
 io-norant. It was an unbecoming indulgence of puny resentment, at 
 a time when he himself was at a very advanced age, and had a near 
 prospect of descending to the grave. I Avas truly sorry for it ; for he 
 was then become an avowed, and (as my Lord Bishop of London, who 
 had a serious conversation with him on the subject, assures me) a sin- 
 cere Christian. He could not expect that Johnson's numerous friends 
 would patiently bear to have the memory of their master stigmatized 
 by no mean pen, but that, at least, one would be found to retort. Ac- 
 cordingly, this unjust and sarcastick Epitaph was met in the same 
 publick field by an answer, in terms by no means soft, and such as 
 wanton provocation only could justify : 
 
 ' EPITAPH, 
 
 ' Prepared for a creature not quite dead j<?/. 
 ' Here lies a little ugly nauseous elf, 
 Who judging only from its wretched self, 
 Feebly attempted, petulant and vain. 
 The " Origin of Evil " to explain. 
 A mighty Genius at this elf displeas'd, 
 W^ith a strong critick grasp the urchin squeez'd. 
 For thirty years its coward spleen it kept. 
 Till in the dust the mighty Genius slept; 
 
 This
 
 Aetat. 47.] Draug/its and cards. 367 
 
 This year Mr, William Payne, brother of the respectable 
 Bookseller' of that name, published An Introduction to the 
 Game of DrangJits, to which Johnson contributed a Dedi- 
 cation to the Earl of Rochford,* and a Preface,* both of 
 which are admirably adapted to the treatise to which they 
 are prefixed. Johnson, I believe, did not play at draughts 
 after leaving College", by which he suffered ; for it would 
 have afforded him an innocent soothing relief from the 
 melancholy which distressed him so often. I have heard 
 him regret that he had not learnt to play at cards^; and the 
 game of draughts we know is peculiarly calculated to fix the 
 attention without straining it. There is a composure and 
 gravity in draughts which insensibly tranquillises the mind ; 
 and, accordingly, the Dutch are fond of it, as they are of 
 smoaking, of the sedative influence of which, though he him- 
 self never smoaked, he had a high opinion\ Besides, there 
 is in draughts some exercise of the faculties ; and, accord- 
 ingly, Johnson wishing to dignify the subject in his Dedica- 
 tion with what is most estimable in it, observes, 
 
 'Triflers may find or make any thing a trifle ; but since it is the 
 great characteristick of a wise man to see events in their courses, 
 to obviate consequences, and ascertain contingencies, your Lord- 
 ship will think nothing a trifle by which the mind is inured to cau- 
 tion, foresight, and circumspection'.' 
 
 Then stunk and fretted in expiring snuff, 
 
 And blink'd at Johnson with its last poor puff.' 
 
 BOSWELL. 
 
 The epitaph is very likely Boswell's own. For Jenyns's conversion 
 stepost, April 12 and 15, 1778. 
 
 ' Mr. John Payne, afterwards chief accountant of the Bank, one of the 
 four surviving members of the Ivy Lane Club who dined together in 
 1783. See Hawkins's Johnson, ^1^. 220, 563; and post, Uecember 1783. 
 
 "^ See post, under March 19, 1776. 
 
 " ' He said, " I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is 
 very useful in life ; it generates kindness and consolidates society." ' 
 Bosv/ell's Hebrides, Nov. 21, 1773. 
 
 * Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit, p. 48. [Aug. 19.] Bos- 
 WELL. 
 
 ^ Johnson's Works, v. 435. 
 
 As
 
 368 Dr. Madden. [a.d. 1756. 
 
 As one of the little occasional advantages which he did 
 not disdain to take by his pen, as a man whose profession 
 was literature, he this year accepted of a guinea' from Mr. 
 Robert Dodsley, for writing the introduction to TJic London 
 Chronicle, an evening news-paper ; and even in so slight a 
 performance exhibited peculiar talents. This Chronicle still 
 subsists, and from what I observed, when I was abroad, has 
 a more extensive circulation upon the Continent than any 
 of the English newspapers. It was constantly read by John- 
 son himself ; and it is but just to observe, that it has all 
 along been distinguished for good sense, accuracy, modera- 
 tion, and delicacy. 
 
 Another instance of the same nature has been communi- 
 cated to me by the Reverend Dr. Thomas Campbell, who 
 has done himself considerable credit by his own writings\ 
 
 ' Sitting with Dr. Johnson one morning alone, he asked me if I 
 had known Dr. Madden, who was authour of the premium-scheme 
 in Ireland*. On my answering in the affirmative, and also that I 
 had for some years lived in his neighbourhood, &:c., he begged of 
 me that when I returned to Ireland, I would endeavour to procure 
 for him a poem of Dr. Madden's called Boulter's Monu77ient. The 
 reason (said he) why I wish for it, is this : when Dr. Madden came 
 to London, he submitted that work to my castigation ; and I re- 
 member I blotted a great many lines, and might have blotted many 
 more, without making the poem worse. However, the Doctor was 
 very thankful, and very generous, for he gave me ten guineas, which 
 was to mc at that time a great sum^i' 
 
 ' He was paid at the rate of a little over twopence a line. For this 
 Introduction see Works, v. 206. 
 "^ See post, Oct. 26, 1769. ' See post, April 5, 1775. 
 
 * In 1740 he set apart the yearly sum of ^100 to be distributed, by 
 way of premium, to the authors of the best inventions, &c., in Ireland 
 Chalmers's Bioj^. Diet. 
 
 * Boulter's Mo7tume?tt. A Panegyrical Poem, sacred to the mem- 
 ory of that great and excellent prelate and patriot, the Most Rever- 
 end Dr. Hugh Boulter; Late Lord- Archbishop of Ardmagh, and 
 Primate of All Ireland. Dublin, 1745. Such lines as the follow- 
 ing might well have been blotted, but of them the poem is chiefly 
 formed : — 
 
 He
 
 Aetat. 47.] yohuSOU S ShAKSPEARE. 369 
 
 He this year resumed his scheme of giving an edition of 
 Shakspcare with notes'. He issued Proposals of consider- 
 able length',* in which he shewed that he perfectly well 
 knew what a variety of research such an undertaking re- 
 quired ; but his indolence prevented him from pursuing it 
 with that diligence which alone can collect those scattered 
 facts that genius, however acute, penetrating, and luminous, 
 cannot discover by its own force. It is remarkable, that at 
 this time his fancied activity was for the moment so vigor- 
 ous, that he promised his work should be published before 
 Christmas, I757^ Yet nine years elapsed before it saw the 
 light*. His throes in bringing it forth had been severe and 
 
 ' My peaceful song in lays instructive paints 
 The first of mitred peers and Britain's saints.' p. 2. 
 
 'Ha! mark! wliat gleam is that which paints the air.^ 
 The blue serene expands ! Is Boulter there Y p. 88. 
 
 The poet addresses Boulter's successor Hoadley, who he says, 
 ' Shall equal him ; while, like Elisha, you 
 Enjoy his spirit, and his mantle too.' p. 89. 
 
 A note to inantle says ' Alluding to the metropolitan pallium.' 
 
 Boulter is the bishop in Pope's lines, {Prologue to the Satires, 1. 99) : — 
 ' Does not one table Bavius still admit } 
 Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit }' 
 
 Pattison's Pope's Satires, p. 107. 
 In the Life of Addison, Johnson mentioning Dr. Madden adds: — 'a 
 name which Ireland ought to honour.' Johnson's Works, vii. 455. 
 
 ' See ante, p. 202. Hawkins writes {Life, p. 363) : — ' I congratulated 
 him on his being now engaged in a work that suited his genius. His 
 answer was: — "I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary; it is 
 all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but 
 the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of." ' 
 
 * They have been reprinted by Mr. Malone, in the Preface to his 
 edition of Shakspeare. Boswell. 
 
 ^ At Christmas, 1757, he said that he should publish about March, 
 1758 {post, Dec. 24, 1757). When March came he said that he should 
 publish before summer {post, March i, 1758). 
 
 * In what Johnson says of Pope's slow progress in translating the 
 Iliad, he had very likely his own case in view. ' Indolence, interrup- 
 tion, business, and pleasure all take their turns of retardation ; and 
 every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten 
 thousand that cannot be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multi- 
 
 I. — 24 remittent ;
 
 370 Johnson refuses a counlry living, [a. d. 1756. 
 
 remittent ; and at last we may almost conclude that the 
 Caesarian operation was performed by the knife of Churchill, 
 whose upbraiding satire, I dare say, made Johnson's friends 
 urge him to despatch', 
 
 ' He for subscribers bates his hook, 
 And takes your cash; but where's the book? 
 No matter where ; wise fear, you know, 
 Forbids the robbing of a foe ; 
 But what, to serve our private ends, 
 Forbids the cheating of our friends'" ?' 
 
 About this period he was offered a living of considerable 
 value in Lincolnshire, if he were inclined to enter into holy 
 orders. It was a rectory in the gift of Mr. Langton, the 
 father of his much valued friend. But he did not accept of 
 it ; partly I believe from a conscientious motive, being per- 
 suaded that his temper and habits rendered him unfit for 
 
 farious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed 
 in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against time has an antag- 
 onist not subject to casualties.' Johnson's TFtT/fi-, viii. 255. In Prior's 
 Goldsmith (i. 238) we have the following extracts from, letters written 
 by Dr. Grainger {post, March 21, 1776) to Dr. Percy: — 'June 27, 1758. 
 I have several times called on Johnson to pay him part of your sub- 
 scription [for his edition of Shakcspcare\. I say, part, because he 
 never thinks of working if he has a couple of guineas in his pocket ; 
 but if you notwithstanding order me, the whole shall be given him at 
 once.' 'July 20, 1758. As to his Shakespeare, movet sed non promovct. 
 I shall feed him occasionally with guineas.' 
 
 ' Hawkins {Life, p. 440) says that ' Reynolds and some other of his 
 friends, who were more concerned for his reputation than himself 
 seemed to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other 
 pecuniary engagement, to perform his task by a certain time.' Just 
 as Johnson was oppressed by the engagement that he had made to 
 edit Shakespeare, so was Cowper by his engagement to edit Milton. 
 ' The consciousness that there is so much to do and nothing done is a 
 burthen I am not able to bear. Afilton especially is my grievance, and 
 I might almost as well be haunted by his ghost, as goaded with such 
 continual reproaches for neglecting him.' Southey's Cozaper, v'n. 163. 
 
 * From The Ghost, Bk. iii. 1. 801. Boswell makes two slight errors 
 in quoting: 'Your cash' should be 'their cash;' and 'you know' 
 should be ' we know.' 
 
 that
 
 Aetat.48.] yohiisous love of London life. 371 
 
 that assiduous and familiar instruction of the vulvar and 
 ignorant which he held to be an essential duty in a clergy- 
 man' ; and partly because his love of a London life was so 
 strong, that he would have thought himself an exile in any 
 other place, particularly if residing in the country". Who- 
 ever would wish to see his thoughts upon that subject dis- 
 played in their full force, may peruse TJlc Adventurer, Num- 
 ber 126'. 
 
 1757: ^TAT. 48.] — In 1757 it does not appear that he 
 published any thing, except some of those articles in The 
 Literary Magazine, which have been mentioned. That 
 magazine, after Johnson ceased to write in it, gradually de- 
 clined, though the popular epithet oi Antigallican* was added 
 to it; and in July 1758 it expired. He probably prepared 
 a part of his Shakspearc this year, and he dictated a speech 
 on the subject of an Address to the Throne, after the ex- 
 pedition to Rochfort, which was delivered by one of his 
 friends, I know not in what publick meeting\ It is printed 
 
 ' See /^^A April 17, 1778. 
 
 ^ Mrs. Thrale writing to him in 1777, says: — 'You would rather be 
 sick in London than well in the country.' Piozzi Letters, i. 394. Yet 
 Johnson, when he could afford to travel, spent far more time in the 
 country than is commonly thought. Moreover a great part of each 
 summer from 1766 to 1782 inclusive he spent at Streatham. 
 '' The motto to this number 
 
 — ' Steriles nee legit arenas, 
 Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum.' 
 
 (Lucan). 
 Johnson has thus translated : — 
 
 ' Canst thou believe the vast eternal mind 
 Was e'er to Syrts and Libyan sands confin'd } 
 That he would choose this waste, this barren ground, 
 To teach the thin inhabitants around, 
 And leave his truth in wilds and deserts drown'd ?' 
 * It was added to the January number of 1758, but it was dropped 
 in the following numbers. 
 
 ' According to the note in the Getit. Mag. the speech was delivered 
 'at a certain respectable talking society.' The chairman of the meet- 
 ing is addressed as Mr. President. The speech is vigorously written 
 and is, I have no doubt, by Johnson. ' It is fit,' the speaker says, ' that 
 
 in
 
 372 Irish literature. [a.d. 1757, 
 
 in The Gentleman s Magazine for October 1785 as his, and 
 bears sufficient marks of authenticity. 
 
 By the favour of Mr. Joseph Cooper Walker, of the Treas- 
 ury, DubHn, I have obtained a copy of the following letter 
 from Johnson to the venerable authour of Dissertations on 
 the History of IrelaJid. 
 
 'To Charles O'Connor, Esq'. 
 ' Sir, 
 
 ' I have lately, by the favour of Mr. Faulkner', seen your 
 
 account of Ireland, and cannot forbear to solicit a prosecution 
 
 of your design. Sir William Temple complains that Ireland 
 
 is less known than any other country, as to its ancient state \ 
 
 The natives have had little leisure, and little encouragement for 
 
 enquiry; and strangers, not knowing the language, have had no 
 
 ability. 
 
 ' I have long wished that the Irish literature were cultivated*. 
 
 Ireland is known by tradition to have been once the seat of piety 
 
 and learning^; and surely it would be very acceptable to all those 
 
 those whom for the future we shall employ and pay may know they 
 are the servants of a people that expect duty for their money. It is 
 said an address expresses some distrust of the king, or may tend to 
 disturb his quiet. An English king, Mr. President, has no great right 
 to quiet when his people are in misery.' 
 
 ^ Sec post, May 19, 1777. 
 
 ■ See post, March 21, 1772. 
 
 ^ ' I have often observed with wonder, that we should know less 
 of Ireland than any other country in Europe.' Temple's Works, 
 iii. 82. 
 
 * The celebrated oratour, Mr. Flood, has shewn himself to be of Dr. 
 Johnson's opinion ; having by his will bequeathed his estate, after the 
 death of his wife Lady Frances, to the University of Dublin ; ' desir- 
 ing that immediately after the said estate shall come into their pos- 
 session, they shall appoint two professors, one for the study of the 
 native Erse or Irish language, and the other for the study of Irish 
 antiquities and Irish history, and for the study of any other European 
 language illustrative of, or auxiliary to, the study of Irish antiquities 
 or Irish history ; and that they shall give yearly two liberal premiums 
 for two compositions, one in verse, and the other in prose, in the Irish 
 language.' Boswell. 
 
 ' Dr. T. Campbell records in his Diary of a Visit to Etigtand (p. 62), 
 
 who
 
 Aetat. 48.] The affinities of language. 373 
 
 who are curious either in the original of nations, or the affinities 
 of languages, to be further informed of the revolution of a people 
 so ancient, and once so illustrious. 
 
 ' What relation there is between the Welch and Irish language, 
 or between the language of Ireland and that of Biscay, deserves 
 enquiry. Of these provincial and unextended tongues, it seldom 
 happens that more than one are understood by any one man ; and, 
 therefore, it seldom happens that a fair comparison can be made. 
 I hope you will continue to cultivate this kind of learning, which 
 has too long lain neglected, and which, if it be suffered to remain 
 in oblivion for another century, may, perhaps, never be retrieved. 
 As I wish well to all useful undertakings, I would not forbear to 
 let you know how much you deserve in my opinion, from all lovers 
 of study, and how much pleasure your work has given to. Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obliged, 
 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 •London, April 9, 1757.' 
 
 ' To THE Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Dr. Marsili' of Padua, a learned gentleman, and good Latin 
 poet, has a mind to see Oxford. I have given him a letter to Dr. 
 Huddesford', and shall be glad if you will introduce him, and shew 
 him any thing in Oxford. 
 
 ' I am printing my new edition of Shakspeare. 
 
 ' I long to see you all, but cannot conveniently come yet. You 
 might write to me now and then, if you were good for any thing. 
 
 that at the dinner at Messieurs Dilly's {post, April 5, 1775) he 'ven- 
 tured to say that the first professors of Oxford, Paris, &c., were Irish. 
 " Sir," says Johnson, " I believe there is something in what you say. 
 and I am content with it, since they are not Scotch." ' 
 
 ' On Mr. Thrale's attack of apoplexy in 1779, Johnson wrote to 
 Mrs. Thrale:— ' I remember Dr. Marsigli, an Italian physician, whose 
 seizure was more violent than Mr. Thrale's. for he fell down help- 
 less, but his case was not considered as of much danger, and he 
 went safe home, and is now a professor at Padua.' Piozzi Letters, 
 
 ii. 48. 
 
 2 ' Now, or late, Vice-Chancellor.' Warton.— Boswell. He was 
 Vice-Chancellor when Johnson's degree was conferred (aw/t-, p. 327), 
 but his term of office had now come to an end. 
 
 But
 
 374 Subscribers to yohnsons Shakspeare. [a.d. 1757. 
 
 But honores mutant mores. Professors forget their friends'. I shall 
 certainly complain to Miss Jones'. I am, 
 
 ' Your, &c. 
 
 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 '[London,] June 21, 1757.' 
 
 ' Please to make my compliments to Mr. Wise.' 
 
 Mr. Barney having enclosed to him an extract from the 
 review of his Dictionary in the BibliotJicque dcs Savans^, and 
 a list of subscribers to his Shakspeare, which Mr. Burney had 
 procured in Norfolk, he wrote the following answer : 
 
 'To Mr. Burney, in Lynne, Norfolk. 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' That I may shew myself sensible of your favours, and not 
 commit the same fault a second time, I make haste to answer the 
 letter which I received this morning. The truth is, the other like- 
 wise was received, and I wrote an answer ; but being desirous to 
 transmit you some proposals and receipts, I waited till I could find 
 a convenient conveyance, and day was passed after day, till other 
 things drove it from my thoughts ; yet not so, but that I remember 
 with great pleasure your commendation of my Dictionary. Your 
 praise was welcome, not only because I believe it was sincere, but 
 because praise has been very scarce. A man of your candour will 
 be surprised when I tell you, that among all my acquaintance there 
 were only two, who upon the publication of my book did not en- 
 deavour to depress me with threats of censure from the publick, or 
 with objections learned from those who had learned them from 
 my own Preface. Your's is the only letter of goodwill that I have 
 
 ' ' Mr. Warton was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in the pre- 
 ceding year.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 ^ ' Miss Jones lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She 
 was a very ingenious poetess, and published a volume of poems ; and, 
 on the whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman. 
 She was a sister to the Reverend Riv'er Jones, Chanter of Christ 
 Church Cathedral at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the Chant- 
 ress. I have heard him often address her in this passage from 11 
 Penseroso : 
 
 " Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among 
 I woo," etc. 
 She died unmarried.' Warton. 
 3 Tom. iii. p. 482. BosWELL. 
 
 received;
 
 Aetat.48.] The danger of delay. 375 
 
 received ; though, indeed, I am promised something of that sort 
 from Sweden. 
 
 ' How my new edition' will be received I know not ; the sub- 
 scription has not been very successful. I shall publish about 
 March. 
 
 ' If you can direct me how to send proposals, I should wish that 
 they were in such hands. 
 
 'I remember, Sir, in some of the first letters with which you 
 favoured me, you mentioned your lady. May I enquire after her ? 
 In return for the favours which you have shewn me, it is not much 
 to tell you, that I wish you and her all that can conduce to your 
 happiness. I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obliged, 
 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' Gougli-square, Dec. 24, 1757.' 
 
 In 1758 Ave find him, it should seem, in as easy and 
 pleasant a state of existence, as constitutional unhappiness 
 ever permitted him to enjoy. 
 
 'To Bennet Langton, Esq., at Langton, Lincolnshire'. 
 
 ' Dearest Sir, 
 
 ' I must indeed have slept very fast, not to have been awakened 
 by your letter. None of your suspicions are true ; I am not much 
 richer than when you left me; and, what is worse, my omission of 
 an answer to your first letter, will prove that I am not much wiser. 
 But I go on as I formerly did, designing to be some time or other 
 both rich and wise ; and yet cultivate neither mind nor fortune. 
 Do you take notice of my example, and learn the danger of delay. 
 When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty- 
 one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now 
 am. 
 
 ' But you do not seem to need my admonition. You are busy 
 in acquiring and in communicating knowledge, and while you are 
 
 ' Of Shakspeare. Boswell. 
 
 '•* This letter is misdated. It was written in Jan. 1759, and not in 
 1758. Johnson says that he is forty-nine. In Jan. 17 58 he was forty- 
 eight. He mentions the performance of Clconc, which was at the cud 
 of 1758; and he says that 'Murphy is to have his Orphan of China 
 acted next month.' It was acted in the spring of 1759. 
 
 studying,
 
 176 Dodsleys Cleone. [a. d. 1758. 
 
 studying, enjoy the end of study, by making others wiser and hap- 
 pier. I was much pleased with the tale that you told me of being 
 tutour to your sisters. I, who have no sisters nor brothers, look 
 with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to 
 be born to friends ; and cannot see, without wonder, how rarely 
 that native union is afterwards regarded. It sometimes, indeed, 
 happens, that some supervenient cause of discord may overpower 
 this original amity ; but it seems to me more frequently thrown 
 away with levity, or lost by negligence, than destroyed by injury or 
 violence. We tell the ladies that good wives make good husbands ; 
 I believe it is a more certain position that good brothers make 
 good sisters. 
 
 ' I am satisfied with your stay at home, as Juvenal with his 
 friend's retirement to Cumae : I know that your absence is best, 
 though it be not best for me. 
 
 ' Quaftivis digrcssu veteris confiisus amid, 
 Laudo tamen vacuis quod sedem figere Cumis 
 Destinet, atqiu uniini civem donare Sibyllce^ .'' 
 
 ' Langto7i is a good Cumae, but who must be Sibylla ? Mrs. 
 Langton is as wise as Sibyl, and as good ; and will live, if my 
 wishes can prolong life, till she shall in time be as old. But she 
 differs in this, that she has not scattered her precepts in the wind, 
 at least not those which she bestowed upon you. 
 
 ' The two Wartons just looked into the town, and were taken to 
 see Cleone, where, David' says, they were starved for want of com- 
 pany to keep them warm. David and Doddy^ have had a new 
 
 ' Jtivenal, Sat. iii. i. 
 
 ' Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel, 
 When injured Thales bids the town farewell, 
 Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend, 
 I praise the hermit, but regret the friend ; 
 Resolved at length from vice and London far 
 To breathe in distant fields a purer air, 
 And fixed on Cambria's solitary shore 
 Give to St. David one true Briton more.' 
 
 Johnson's London, 1. I. 
 " Mr. Garrick. BoswELL. 
 
 » Mr. Dodsley, the Authour of Clcojic. Boswell. Garrick, accord- 
 ing to Davies, had rejected Dodsley 's Cleone, ' and had termed it a 
 cruel, bloody, and unnatural play.' Davies's Garrick, i. 223. Johnson 
 himself said of it : — ' I am afraid there is more blood than brains.' 
 
 quarrel,
 
 Aetat.49.] Dodsleys C LEONE. 377 
 
 quarrel, and, I think, cannot conveniently quarrel any more. Cleone 
 was well acted by all the characters, but Bellamy' left nothing to 
 
 Post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. The night it was brought out 
 at Covent Garden, Garrick appeared for the first time as Marplot in 
 the Busy Body at Drury Lane. The next morning he wrote to con- 
 gratulate Dodsley on his success, and asked him at the same time to 
 let him know how he could support his interest without absolutely 
 giving up his own. To this Dodsley returned a cold reply. Garrick 
 wrote back as follows : — 
 
 ' Master Robert Dodsley, 
 
 ' When I first read your peevish answer to my well-meant proposal 
 to you, I was much disturbed at it — but when I considered, that some 
 minds cannot bear the smallest portion of success, I most sincerely 
 pitied you ; and when I found in the same letter, that you were gracious- 
 ly pleased to dismiss me from your acquaintance, I could not but con- 
 fess so apparent an obligation, and am with due acknowledgements, 
 
 ' Master Robert Dodsley, 
 
 ' Your most obliged 
 
 ' David Garrick.' 
 Garrick Corres. i. 80 (where the letters that passed are wrongly dated 
 1757). Mrs. Bellamy in her Life (iii. 109) says that on the evening of 
 the performance she was provoked by something that Dodsley said, 
 'which,' she continues, ' made me answer that good man with a petu- 
 lance which afterwards gave me uneasiness. I told him that I had a 
 reputation to lose as an actress ; but, as for his piece, Mr. Garrick had 
 anticipated the damnation of it publicly, the preceding evening, at the 
 Bedford Coffee-house, where he had declared that it could not pass 
 muster, as it was the very worst piece ever exhibited.' Shenstone 
 ( Works, iii. 288) writing five weeks after the play was brought out, 
 says : — ' Dodsley is now going to print his fourth edition. He sold 
 2000 of his first edition the very first day he published it.' The price 
 was eighteen-pence. 
 
 ' Mrs. Bellamy {Life, iii. 108) says that Johnson was present at the 
 last rehearsal. ' When I came to repeat, " Thou shalt not murder," 
 Dr. Johnson caught me by the arm, and that somewhat too briskly, 
 saying, at the same time, " It is a commandment, and must be spoken. 
 Thou shalt not murder." As I had not then the honour of knowing 
 personally that great genius, I was not a little displeased at his inforc- 
 ing his instructions with so much vehemence.' The next night she 
 heard, she says, amidst the general applause, ' the same voice which 
 had instructed me in the commandment, exclaim aloud from the pit, 
 " I will write a copy of verses upon her myself." I knew that my suc- 
 cess was insured.' Sco. post, May 11, 1783. 
 
 be
 
 378 Reynolds s prices for portraits. [a.d. 1758. 
 
 be desired. I went the first night, and supported it, as well as I 
 might ; for Doddy, you know, is my patron', and I would not de- 
 sert him. The play was very well received. Doddy, after the 
 danger was over, went every night to the stage-side, and cried at 
 the distress of poor Cleone\ 
 
 ' I have left off housekeeping^ and therefore made presents of 
 the game which you were pleased to send me. The pheasant I 
 gave to Mr. Richardson*, the bustard to Dr. Lawrence, and the pot 
 I placed with Miss Williams, to be eaten by myself. She desires 
 that her compliments and good wishes may be accepted by the 
 family ; and I make the same request for myself. 
 
 'Mr. Reynolds has within these few days raised his 'price to 
 twenty guineas a head\ and Miss is much employed in miniatures^ 
 I know not any body [else] whose prosperity has encreased since 
 you left them. 
 
 ' Murphy is to have his Orphan of China acted next month ; and 
 is therefore, I suppose, happy'. I wish I could tell you of any 
 
 ' Dodsley had published his London and his Vanity of Human 
 Wishes {ante, pp. 144, 223, 224, note), and had had a large share in the 
 Dictionary, {ante, p. 211). 
 
 " It is to this that Churchill refers in the following lines : — 
 ' Let them [the Muses] with Glover o'er Medea doze ; 
 Let them with Dodsley wail Cleone's woes, 
 Whilst he, fine feeling creature, all in tears, 
 Melts as they melt, and weeps with weeping Peers.' 
 
 77ie fourney. Poems, ii. 328. 
 ' See post, p. 405, note 3 
 
 * Mr. Samuel Richardson, authour of Clarissa. Boswell, 
 ' In 1753 when in Devonshire he charged five guineas a head (Tay- 
 lor's Reynolds, i. 89) ; shortly afterwards, when he removed to London, 
 twelve guineas {ib. p. loi) ; in 1764, thirty guineas ; for a whole length 
 150 guineas (ib. p. 224). Northcote writes that 'he sometimes has 
 lamented the being interrupted in his work by idle visitors, saying, 
 "those persons do not consider that my time is worth to me five 
 guineas an hour." ' Northcote's Reytiolds, i. 83. 
 
 ^ ' Miss Reynolds at first amused herself by painting miniature por- 
 traits, and in that part of the art was particularly successful. In her 
 attempts at oil-painting, however, she did not succeed, which made 
 Reynolds say jestingly, that her pictures in that way made other 
 people laugh and him cry; and as he did not approve of her painting 
 in oil, she generally did it by stealth.' Ib. ii. 160. 
 
 ^ Murphy was far from happy. The play was not produced till 
 
 great
 
 Aetat. 49.] Johfisofi s Shakspeare delayed, 379 
 
 great good to which I was approaching, but at present my pros- 
 pects do not much delight me ; however, I am always pleased when 
 I find that you, dear Sir, remember, 
 
 ' Your affectionate, humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'Jan. 9, 1758.* 
 
 'To Mr, Burnev, at Lynne, Norfolk. 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' Your kindness is so great, and my claim to any particular 
 regard from you so little, that I am at a loss how to express my 
 sense of your favours' ; but I am, indeed, much pleased to be thus 
 distinguished by you. 
 
 ' I am ashamed to tell you that my Shakspeare will not be out so 
 soon as I promised my subscribers ; but I did not promise them 
 more than I promised myself. It will, however, be published be- 
 fore summer. 
 
 ' I have sent you a bundle of proposals, which, I think, do not 
 profess more than I have hitherto performed. I have printed 
 many of the plays, and have hitherto left very few passages unex- 
 plained ; where I am quite at a loss, I confess my ignorance, which 
 is seldom done by commentators". 
 
 ' I have, likewise, enclosed twelve receipts ; not that I mean to 
 impose upon you the trouble of pushing them, with more impor- 
 tunity than may seem proper, but that you may rather have more 
 than fewer than you shall want. The proposals you will dissemi- 
 nate as there shall be an opportunity. I once printed them at 
 length in the Chronicle^ and some of my friends (I believe Mr. 
 Murphy, who formerly wrote the Grafs-Inn Journal) introduced 
 them with a splendid encomium. 
 
 ' Since the Life of Browne, I have been a little engaged, from 
 time to time, in the Literary Magazine, but not very lately. I have 
 
 April ; by the date of Johnson's letter, he had not by any means 
 reached the end of what he calls 'the first, and indeed, the last, dis- 
 agreeable controversy that he ever had with Mr. Garrick.' Murphy's 
 Carrick, p. 213. 
 
 * This letter was an answer to one in which was enclosed a draft for 
 the payment of some subscriptions to his Shakspeare. Boswell. 
 
 " In the Preface he says -.—{Works, v. 152) ' I have not passed over 
 with affected superiority what is equally difficult to the reader and to 
 myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my ignorance." 
 
 not
 
 380 The garret in Gough-sqtiare. [a. d. 1758. 
 
 not the collection by me, and therefore cannot draw out a catalogue 
 of my own parts, but will do it, and send it. Do not buy them, for 
 I will gather all those that have anything of mine in them, and 
 send them to Mrs. Burney, as a small token of gratitude for the 
 regard which she is pleased to bestow upon me. 
 
 ' I am. Sir, 
 ' Your most obliged 
 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'London, March 8, 1758.' 
 
 Dr. Burney has kindly favoured me with the following 
 memorandum, which I take the liberty to insert in his own 
 genuine easy style. I love to exhibit sketches of my illus- 
 trious friend by various eminent hands. 
 
 ' Soon after this, Mr. Burney, during a visit to the capital, had 
 an interview with him in Gough-square, where he dined and drank 
 tea with him, and was introduced to the acquaintance of Mrs. 
 Williams. After dinner, Mr. Johnson proposed to Mr. Burney to 
 go up with him into his garret, which being accepted, he there 
 found about five or six Greek folios, a deal writing-desk, and a 
 chair and a half. Johnson giving to his guest the entire seat, tot- 
 tered himself on one with only three legs and one arm'. Here he 
 
 ' Northcote gives the following account of this same garret in de- 
 scribing how Reynolds introduced Roubiliac to Johnson. 'Johnson 
 received him with much civility, and took them up into a garret, 
 which he considered as his library ; where, besides his books, all 
 covered with dust, there was an old crazy deal table, and a still worse 
 and older elbow chair, having only three legs. In this chair Johnson 
 seated himself, after having, with considerable dexterity and evident 
 practice, first drawn it up against the wall, which ser\'ed to support it 
 on that side on which the leg was deficient.' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 
 75. Miss Reynolds improves on the account. She says that 'before 
 Johnson had the pension he literally dressed like a beggar ; and, from 
 what I have been told, he as literally lived as such ; at least as to com- 
 mon conveniences in his apartments, wanting even a chair to sit on, 
 particularly in his study, where a gentleman who frequently visited 
 him, whilst writing his Idlers, constantly found him at his desk, sitting 
 on one with three legs ; and on rising from it, he remarked that Dr. 
 Johnson never forgot its defect, but would either hold it in his hand, 
 or place it with great composure against some support, taking no 
 
 gave
 
 Aetat. 49.] Theobald a7id VVarburton. 381 
 
 gave Mr, Burney Mrs. Williams's history, and shewed him some 
 volumes of his Shakspeare already printed, to prove that he was in 
 earnest. Upon Mr. Burney's opening the first volume, at the Aler- 
 chant of Venice, he observed to him, that he seemed to be more 
 severe on AVarburton than Theobald. " O poor Tib. ! (said John- 
 son) he was ready knocked down to my hands ; Warburton stands 
 between me and him." " But, Sir, (said Mr. Burney,) you'll have 
 Warburton upon your bones, won't you ?" " No, Sir ; he'll not 
 come out : he'll only growl in his den." " But you think. Sir, that 
 Warburton is a superiour critick to Theobald ?" " O, Sir, he'd 
 make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices' ! The worst of War- 
 burton is, that he has a rage for saying something, when there's 
 nothing to be said." Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had 
 seen the letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pam- 
 phlet addressed "To the most impudent Man alive*." He answered 
 in the negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be writ- 
 ten by Mallet. The controversy now raged between the friends 
 
 notice of its imperfection to his visitor. It was remarkable in John- 
 son, that no external circumstances ever prompted him to make any 
 apology, or to seem even sensible of their existence.' Croker's Bos- 
 well, p. 832. There can be little question that she is describing the 
 same room — a room in a house in which Miss Williams was lodged, 
 and most likely Mr. Levet, and in which Mr. Burney dined; and in 
 which certainly there must have been chairs. Yet Mr. Carlyle, misled 
 by her account, says : — ' In his apartments, at one time, there were 
 unfortunately no chairs.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, ed. 1872, iv. 127. 
 
 ' In his Life of Pope {Works, v\\\. 272) Johnson calls Theobald 'a 
 man of heavy diligence, with very slender powers.' In the Preface to 
 Shakspeare he admits that 'what little he did was commonly right.' 
 Ib.\. 137. The Editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare on the other 
 hand say : — ' Theobald, as an Editor, is incomparably superior to his 
 predecessors, and to his immediate successor Warburton, although the 
 latter had the advantage of working on his materials. Many most 
 brilliant emendations are due to him.' On Johnson's statement that 
 'Warburton would make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices,' they 
 write : — ' From this judgment, whether they be compared as critics or 
 editors, we emphatically dissent.' Cambridge Shakespeare, i., xxxi., 
 xxxiv., note. Among Theobald's ' brilliant emendations ' are ' a' bab- 
 bled of green fields ' (Henry V, ii. 3), and ' lackeying the varying tide.' 
 {Antony and Cleopatra, \. 4). 
 
 ' ' A familiar epistle [by Lord Bolingbroke] to the most impudent 
 man living, 1 749.' Brit. Miis. Catal. 
 
 of
 
 382 The Idler, [a.d. 1758. 
 
 of Pope and Bolingbroke ; and Warburton and Mallet were the 
 leaders of the several parties'. Mr. Burney asked him then if he 
 had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's Philosophy"'} 
 " No, Sir, I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore 
 am not interested about its confutation." ' 
 
 On the fifteenth of April he began a new periodical paper, 
 entitled The Idler^* which came out every Saturday in a 
 weekly news-paper, called The Utiiversal Chronicle, or Week- 
 ly Gazette, published by Newbery*. These essays were con- 
 tinued till April 5, 1760. Of one hundred and three, their 
 total number, twelve were contributed by his friends ; of 
 which, Numbers 33, 93, and 96, were written by Mr. Thomas 
 Warton ; No. 67 by Mr. Langton ; and Nos. ^6, jg, and 82, 
 
 ' ' Mallet, by address or accident, perhaps by his dependence on the 
 prince [of Wales], found his way to Bolingbroke, a man whose pride 
 and petulance made his kindness difficult to gain or keep, and whom 
 Mallet was content to court by an act, which, I hope, w^as unwillingly 
 performed. When it was found that Pope had clandestinely printed 
 an unauthorised number of the pamphlet called The Patriot Knig, 
 Bolingbroke, in a fit of useless fury, resolved to blast his memory, and 
 employed Mallet (1749) as the executioner of his vengeance. Mallet 
 had not virtue, or had not spirit, to refuse the office ; and was rewarded 
 not long after with the legacy of Lord Bolingbroke's works.' John- 
 son's Works, viii. 467. See ante, p. 311, and Walpole's Letters, ii. 159. 
 
 "^ A View of Lord Bolmgbroke's Philosophy in Four Letters to a 
 Friend, 1754-5. 
 
 ^ A paper under this name had been started seven years earlier. See 
 Carter and Talbot Corres. ii. 33. 
 
 * In the two years in which Johnson wrote for this paper it saw 
 many changes. The first Idler appeared in No. 2 of the Universal 
 Chronicle or Weekly Gazette, which was published not by Newbery, 
 but by J. Payne. On April 29, this paper took the title of Payne's 
 Universal Chronicle, etc. On Jan. 6, 1759, 't resumed the old title and 
 was published by R. Stevens. On Jan. 5, 1760, the title was changed 
 to The Universal Chronicle and Westtninster Journal, and it was pub- 
 lished by W. Faden and R. Stevens. On March 15, 1760, it was pub- 
 lished by R. Stevens alone. The paper consisted of eight pages. The 
 Idler, which varied in length, came first, and was printed in larger 
 characters, much like a leading article. The changes in title and 
 ownership seem to show that in spite of Johnson's contributions it 
 was not a successful publication. 
 
 b>'
 
 Aetat.49.] The IdlER. 38 
 
 "> 
 
 by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the concluding words of No. 82, 
 ' and pollute his canvas with deformity,' being added by 
 Johnson, as Sir Joshua informed me*. 
 
 The Idler is evidently the work of the same mind which 
 produced The Rambler^ but has less body and more spirit. 
 It has more variety of real life, and greater facility of lan- 
 guage. He describes the miseries of idleness, with the live- 
 ly sensations of one who has felt them" ; and in his private 
 memorandums while engaged in it, we find ' This year I 
 hope to learn diligence^' Many of these excellent essays 
 were written as hastily as an ordinary letter. Mr. Langton 
 remembers Johnson, when on a visit at Oxford\ asking him 
 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 my- 
 self.' He then folded it up and sent it off. 
 
 Yet there are in The Idler several papers which shew as 
 much profundity of thought, and labour of language, as any 
 of this great man's writings. No. 14, ' Robbeiy of Time ;' 
 No. 24, 'Thinking;' No. 41, 'Death of a Friend';' No. 43, 
 
 ' ' Those papers may be considered as a kind of syllabus of all Rey- 
 nolds's future discourses, and certainly occasioned him some thinking 
 in their composition. I have heard him say, that Johnson required 
 them from him on a sudden emergency, and on that account, he sat 
 up the whole night to complete them in time ; and by it he was so 
 much disordered, that it produced a vertigo in his head.' Northcote's 
 Reynolds, i. 89. Reynolds must have spoken of only one paper ; as the 
 three, appearing as they did on Sept. 29, Oct. 20, and Nov. 10, could 
 not have been required at one time. 
 
 ' ' To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and there- 
 fore every man endeavours with his utmost care to hide his poverty 
 from others, and his idleness from himself.' The Idler, No. 17. 
 
 ' Prayers and Medllalwns, p. 30 [36]. BoSWELL. 
 
 * In July 1759. 
 
 ' This number was published a few days after his mother's death. 
 It is in the form of a letter, which is thus introduced: — 'The follow- 
 
 ' Flight
 
 384 Infiuence of the weather. [a.d. 1758. 
 
 'Flight of Time;' No. 51, ' Domestick greatness unattain- 
 able;' No. 52, 'Self-denial;' No. 58, 'Actual, how short of 
 fancied, excellence' ;' No. 89, ' Physical evil moral good' ;' 
 and his concluding paper on ' The horrour of the last' ;' will 
 prove this assertion. T know not why a motto, the usual 
 trapping of periodical papers, is prefixed to very few of the 
 Idlers, as I have heard Johnson commend the custom : and 
 he never could be at a loss for one, his memory being stored 
 with innumerable passages of the classicks*. In this series 
 of essays he exhibits admirable instances of grave humour, 
 of which he had an uncommon share. Nor on some oc- 
 casions has he repressed that power of sophistry which he 
 possessed in so eminent a degree. In No. 11, he treats 
 with the utmost contempt the opinion that our mental 
 faculties depend, in some degree, upon the weather ; an 
 opinion, which they who have never experienced its truth 
 
 ing letter relates to an affliction perhaps not necessary to be imparted 
 to the publick ; but I could not persuade myself to suppress it, be- 
 cause I think I know the sentiments to be sincere, and I feel no dis- 
 position to provide for this day any other entertainment.' 
 
 ' In the table of contents the title of No. 58 is, ' Expectations of 
 pleasure frustrated.' In the original edition of The Idler no titles are 
 given. In this paper he shews that ' nothing is more hopeless than a 
 scheme of merriment.' 
 
 ^ In this paper he begins by considering, ' why the only thinking 
 being of this globe is doomed to think merely to be wretched, and to 
 pass his time from youth to age in fearing or in suffering calamities.' 
 He ends by asserting that ' of what virtue there is, misery produces 
 far the greater part.' 
 
 ^ ' There are few things,' he writes, ' not purely evil, of which we 
 can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, this is the last. . . . The 
 secret horrour of the last is inseparable from a thinking being, whose 
 life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful.' 
 
 * ' I asked him one day, why the Idlers were published without mot- 
 toes. He replied, that it was forborne the better to conceal himself, 
 and escape discovery. " But let us think of some now," said he, " for 
 the next edition. We can fit the two volumes in two hours, can't we ?" 
 Accordingly he recollected, and I wrote down these following [nine 
 mottoes], till some friend coming in, in about five minutes, put an end 
 to our further progress on the subject.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 388. 
 
 are
 
 Aetat. 49.] lufiiience of the weather. 3S5 
 
 are not to be envied, and of which he himself could not but 
 be sensible, as the effects of weather upon him were \Qxy 
 visible. Yet thus he declaims : — 
 
 ' Surely, nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with 
 reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and 
 live in dependence on the weather and the wind for the only bless- 
 ings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevo- 
 lence. This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination 
 operating on luxury. To temperance, every day is bright ; and 
 every hour is propitious to diligence. He that shall resolutely 
 excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will soon make himself 
 superiour to the seasons ; and may set at defiance the morning 
 mist and the evening damp, the blasts of the east, and the clouds 
 of the south'.' 
 
 ' See /^.y/, July 14 and 26, 1763, April 14, 1775, and Aug. 2, 1784, note, 
 for instances in which Johnson ridicules the notion that weather and 
 seasons have any necessary effect on man ; also April 17, 1778. In the 
 Life of Milto7i ( Works, vii. 102), he writes :— ' This dependence of the 
 soul upon the seasons, those temporary and periodical ebbs and flows 
 of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be derided as the fumes of vain im- 
 agination. Sapiejis doniinabittir astrz's. The author that thinks him- 
 self weather-bound will find, with a little help from hellebore, that he 
 is only idle or exhausted. But while this notion has possession of 
 the head, it produces the inability which it supposes. Our powers 
 owe much of their energy to our hopes ; possinii qtiia posse videniier.' 
 Boswell records, in his Hebrides (Aug. 16, 1773), that when 'somebody 
 talked of happy moments for composition,' Johnson said : — ' Nay, a 
 man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.' Rey- 
 nolds, who avowed how much he had learnt from Johnson {ante, p. 
 284), says much the same in his Seve7ith Discourse: 'But when, in 
 plain prose, we gravely talk of courting the Muse in shady bowers; 
 vvaiting the call and inspiration of Genius ... of attending to times 
 and seasons when the imagination shoots with the greatest vigour, 
 whether at the summer solstice or the vernal equinox . . . when we 
 talk such language or entertain such sentiments as these, we generally 
 rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions not only 
 groundless but pernicious.' Reynolds's Works, i. 150. On the other 
 hand, in 1773 Johnson recorded : — ' Between Easter and Whitsuntide, 
 having always considered that time as propitious to study, I attempted 
 to learn the Low-Dutch language.' Post, under May 9, 1773. In The 
 Ratnbler, No. 80, he says : — ' To the men of study and imagination the 
 
 I.— 25 Al? 
 
 as !
 
 3S6 The attendant on a Conrt. [a.d. 1758. 
 
 
 
 Alas! it is too certain, that where the frame has deHcate 
 fibres, and there is a fine sensibihty, such influences of the 
 air are irresistible. He might as well have bid defiance to 
 the ague, the palsy, and all other bodily disorders. Such 
 boasting of the mind is false elevation. 
 
 ' I think the Romans call it Stoicism'.' 
 
 But in this number of his Idler his spirits seem to run riot ; 
 for in the wantonness of his disquisition he forgets, for a 
 moment, even the reverence for that which he held in high 
 respect'' ; and describes ' the attendant on a Court,' as one 
 ' whose business is to watch the looks of a being, weak and 
 foolish as himself\' 
 
 winter is generally the chief time of labour. Gloom and silence pro- 
 duce composure of mind and concentration of ideas.' In a letter to 
 Mrs. Thrale, written in 1775, he says: — 'Most men have their bright 
 and their cloudy days, at least they have days when they put their 
 powers into act, and days when they suffer them to I'epose.' Piozzi 
 Letters, i. 265. In 1781 he wrote :— ' I thought myself above assistance 
 or obstruction from the seasons ; but find the autumnal blast sharp 
 and nipping, and the fading world an uncomfortable prospect.' lb. ii. 
 220. Again, in the last year of his life he wrote : — ' The weather, you 
 know, has not been balmy. I am now reduced to think, and am at 
 least content to talk, of the weather. Pride must have a fall.' Post, 
 Aug. 2, 1784. 
 
 ' Addison's Cato, act i. sc. 4. 
 
 ' Johnson, reviewing the Duchess of Marlborough's attack on Queen 
 Mary, says {Works, v\. 8) : — 'This is a character so different from all 
 those that have been hitherto given of this celebrated princess, that 
 the reader stands in suspense, till he considers that ... it has hitherto 
 had this great advantage, that it has only been compared with those 
 of kings.' 
 
 ^ Johnson had explained how it comes to pass that Englishmen talk 
 so commonly of the weather. He continues : — ' Such is the reason of 
 our practice ; and who shall treat it with contempt } Surely not the 
 attendant on a court, whose business is to watch the looks of a being 
 weak and foolish as himself, and whose vanity is to recount the names 
 of men, who might drop into nothing, and leave no vacuity. . . . The 
 weather is a nobler and more interesting subject ; it is the present 
 state of the skies and of the earth, on which plenty and famine are 
 
 His
 
 Aetat.49.] JoJinso7i not a plagiary. 2>^^ 
 
 His unqualified ridicule of rhetorical gesture or action is 
 not, surely, a test of truth ; yet we cannot help admiring 
 how well it is adapted to produce the effect which he 
 wished. 'Neither the judges of our laws, nor the represen- 
 tatives of our people, would be much affected by laboured 
 gesticulation, or believe any man the more because he rolled 
 his eyes, or puffed his cheeks, or spread abroad his arms, 
 or stamped the ground, or thumped his breast ; or turned 
 his eyes sometimes to the ceiling, and sometimes to the 
 floor\' 
 
 A casual coincidence with other writers, or an adoption of 
 a sentiment or image which has been found in the writings 
 of another, and afterwards appears in the mind as one's own, 
 is not unfrequent. The richness of Johnson's fancy, which 
 could supply his page abundantly on all occasions, and the 
 strength of his memory, which at once detected the real 
 owner of any thought, made him less liable to the imputa- 
 tion of plagiarism than, perhaps, any of our wTiters^ In 
 Tlie Idler, however, there is a paper\ in which conversation 
 is assimilated to a bowl of punch, where there is the same 
 train of comparison as in a poem by Blacklock, in his collec- 
 tion published in I756\ in which a parallel is ingeniously 
 drawn between human life and that liquor. It ends, — 
 
 suspended, on which millions depend lor the necessaries of life.' 
 ' Garrick complained that when he went to read before the court, not 
 a look or a murmur testified approbation ; there was a profound still- 
 ness — every one only watched to see what the king thought.' Hazlitt's 
 Conversations of Northcotc, p. 262. 
 
 * Tfie Idler, No. 90. See post, April 3, 1773, where he declaims 
 against action in public speaking. 
 
 - He now and then repeats himself. Thus, in The Idler, No. 37, he 
 moralises on the story, how Socrates, passing through the fair at 
 Athens, cried out: — 'How many things are here which I do not 
 need !' though he had already moralised on it in The Adventurer, Nos. 
 
 67,119- 
 
 ' No. 34. 
 
 "^ Poems on Several Occasions, by Thomas Blacklock, p. 179. See 
 post, Aug. 5, 1763, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 17, 1773. 
 
 'Say,
 
 o 
 
 S8 Profits on the Idler. [a.d. 1758. 
 
 'Dr. 
 
 £ 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 Paid for Advertising, . 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 Printing two vols., 1,500 
 
 41 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 Paper 
 
 52 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 ' Say, then, physicians of each kind. 
 Who cure the body or the mind. 
 What harm in drinking can there be, 
 Since punch and life so well agree ?' 
 
 To T/ie Idler, when collected in volumes', he added, beside 
 the ' Essay on Epitaphs ' and the ' Dissertation on those of 
 Pope^' an Essay on the ' Bravery of the English common 
 Soldiers.' He, however, omitted one of the original papers, 
 which in the folio copy is No. 22\ 
 
 ' 'Among the papers of Newbery, in the possession of Mr. Murray, 
 is the account rendered on the collection of T/ie Idler into two small 
 volumes, when the arrangement seems to have been that Johnson 
 should receive two-thirds of the profits. 
 
 The Idler. 
 
 'Cr. £ s. d. 
 
 1,500 Sets at 16/. per 100 240 o o 
 
 Dr. Johnson two-thirds 84 2 4 
 Mr, Newbery one-third 42 i 2 
 
 '^ -^ /I2D 3 6 
 
 Profit on the edition . . 126 3 6 ^ -> 
 
 ^240 o o 
 
 Forster's Goldsntith, i. 204. 
 If this account is correctly printed, the sale must have been slow. 
 The first edition (2 vols. 5.^.) was published in Oct. 1761, {Gc7ii. Mag. 
 xxxi. 479). Johnson is called Dr. in the account; but he was not 
 made an LL.D. till July 1765. Prior, in his Life of Goldsmith (i. 459), 
 publishes an account between Goldsmith and Newbery in which the 
 first entry is : — 
 
 ' 1761. Oct. 14, I set of 
 
 The Idler ^o 5 o.' 
 
 Johnson, as Newbery 's papers show, a year later bought a copy of 
 Goldsmith's Life of Nash ; id. p. 405. 
 
 " See anle, p. 355. 
 
 ^ This paper may be found in Stockdale's supplemental volume of 
 Johnson's Miscellaneous Pieces. Boswell. Stockdale's supplemental 
 volumes — for there are two — are vols. xii. and xiii. of what is known 
 as ' Hawkins's edition.' In this paper ( Works, iv. 450) he represents 
 in a fable two vultures speculating on that mischievous being, man, 
 ' who is the only beast who kills that which he does not devour,' who 
 at times is seen to move in herds, while ' there is in every herd one 
 
 'To
 
 Aetat.49.] Letters to Air. T/iomas Warton. 389 
 
 To THE Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your notes upon my poet were very acceptable. I beg that 
 you will be so kind as to continue your searches. It will be repu- 
 table to my work and suitable to your professorship, to have some- 
 thing of yours in the notes. As you have given no directions about 
 your name, I shall therefore put it. I wish your brother would take 
 the same trouble. A commentary must arise from the fortuitous 
 discoveries of many men in devious walks of literature. Some of 
 your remarks are on plays already printed : but I purpose to add 
 an Appendix of Notes, so that nothing comes too late. 
 
 ' You give yourself too much uneasiness, dear Sir, about the loss 
 of the papers'. The loss is nothing, if nobody has found them ; 
 nor even then, perhaps, if the numbers be known. You are not the 
 only friend that has had the same mischance. You may repair 
 your want out of a stock, which is deposited with Mr. Allen, of 
 Magdalen-Hall ; or out of a parcel which I have just sent to Mr. 
 Chambers^ for the use of any body that will be so kind as to want 
 them. Mr. Langtons are well ; and Miss Roberts^ whom I have 
 at last brought to speak, upon the information which you gave me, 
 that she had something to say. 
 
 ' I am, &c. 
 
 '[London] April 14, 1758.' 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'To THE Same. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 'You will receive this by Mr. Baretti, a gentleman particularly 
 intitled to the notice and kindness of the Professor of poesy. He 
 has time but for a short stay, and will be glad to have it filled up 
 with as much as he can hear and see. 
 
 ' In recommending another to your favour, I ought not to omit 
 thanks for the kindness which you have shewn to myself. Have 
 you any more notes on Shakspeare ? I shall be glad of them. 
 
 ' I see your pupil sometimes'' : his mind is as exalted as his 
 
 that gives directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently de- 
 lighted with a wide carnage.' 
 
 ' ' Receipts for Shakespeare.' Warton.— BoswELL. 
 
 ^ ' Then of Lincoln College. Now Sir Robert Chambers, one of the 
 Judges in India.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 '^ Old Mr. Langton's niece. See pos/, July 14, 1763. 
 
 * ' Mr. Langton.' Warton.— BoswELL. 
 
 stature.
 
 390 Experience compared zvith expectation, [a.d. 1758. 
 
 stature'. I am half afraid of him ; but he is no less amiable than 
 formidable. He will, if the forwardness of his spring be not 
 blasted, be a credit to you, and to the University. He brings some 
 of my plays' with him, which he has my permission to shew you, 
 on condition you will hide them from every body else. 
 
 'I am, dear Sir, &c. 
 • [London,] June i, 1758.' ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'To Bennet Langton, Esq., of Trinity College, Oxford. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Though I might have expected to hear from you, upon your 
 entrance into a new state of life at a new place, yet recollecting, 
 (not without some degree of shame,) that I owe you a letter upon 
 an old account, I think it my part to write first. This, indeed, I do 
 not only from complaisance but from interest ; for living on in the 
 old way, I am very glad of a correspondent so capable as yourself, 
 to diversify the hours. You have, at present, too many novelties 
 about you to need any help from me to drive along your time. 
 
 'I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than 
 to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to 
 time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind 
 of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed'. 
 
 * Boswell records : — ' Lady Di Beauclerk told me that Langton had 
 never been to see her since she came to Richmond, his head was so 
 full of the militia and Greek. "Why," said \, " Madam, he is of such 
 a length, he is awkward and not easily moved." " But," said she, " if 
 he had laid himself at his length, his feet had been in London, and 
 his head might have been here codcm die." ' BosivcUia7ia, p. 297. 
 
 ^ ' Part of the impression of the Shakespeare, which Dr. Johnson 
 conducted alone, and published by subscription. This edition came 
 out in 1765.' Warton. — Boswell. 
 
 ^ Stockdale records {Memoirs, ii. 191), that after he had entered on 
 his charge as domestic tutor to Lord Craven's son, he called on John- 
 son, who asked him how he liked Jhis place. On his hesitating to an- 
 swer, he said : — ' " You must expect insolence." He added that in his 
 youth he had entertained great expectations from a powerful family. 
 "At length," he said, " I found that their promises, and consequently 
 my expectations, vanished into air. . . . But, Sir, they would have 
 treated me much worse, if they had known that the motives from 
 which I paid my court to them were purely selfish, and what opinion 
 I had formed of them." He added, that since he knew mankind, he 
 
 You,
 
 Aetat. 49.] All acadeniical life. 391 
 
 You. who are very capable of anticipating futurity, and raising 
 phantoms before your own eyes, must often have imagined to your- 
 self an academical life, and have conceived what would be the 
 manners, the views, and the conversation, of men devoted to let- 
 ters ; how they would choose their companions, how they would 
 direct their studies, and how they would regulate their lives. Let 
 me know what you expected, and what you have found. At least 
 record it to yourself before custom has reconciled you to the scenes 
 before you, and the disparity of your discoveries to your hopes has 
 vanished from your mind. It is a rule never to be forgotten, that 
 whatever strikes strongly, should be described while the first im- 
 pression remains fresh upon the mind. 
 
 ' I love, dear Sir, to think on you, and therefore, should willingly 
 write more to you, but that the post will not now give me leave to 
 do more than send my compliments to Mr. Warton, and tell you 
 that I am, dear Sir, most affectionately, 
 
 ' Your very humble servant, 
 
 'June 28, 1757'.' 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'To Bennet Langton, Esq., at Langton, near Spilsby, 
 
 Lincolnshire. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 'I should be sorry to think that what engrosses the attention 
 of my friend, should have no part of mine. Your mind is now full 
 of the fate of Dury"; but his fate is past, and nothing remains but 
 
 had not, on any occasion, been the sport of such delusion ; and that 
 he had never been disappointed by anybody but himself.' 
 
 ' This, and some of the other letters to Langton, v/ere not received 
 bv Boswell till the first volume of the second edition had been carried 
 through the press. He gave them as a supplement to the second 
 volume. The date of this letter was there wrongly given as June 27, 
 1758. In the third edition it was corrected. Nevertheless the letter 
 was misplaced as if the wrong date were the right one. Langton, as 
 I have shewn {atitc, p. 286), subscribed the articles at Oxford on July 
 7, 1757. He must have come into residence, as Johnson did {ante, 
 p. 67), some little while before this subscription. 
 
 ^ Major -General Alexander Dury. of the first regiment of foot- 
 guards, who fell in the gallant discharge of his duty, near St. Cas. 
 in the well-known unfortunate expedition against France, in 1758. 
 His lady and Mr. Langton's mother were sisters. He left an only son, 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Dury, who has a company in the same regiment. 
 
 to
 
 392 A violent death. [a.d. 1759. 
 
 to try what reflection will suggest to mitigate the terrours of a vio- 
 lent death, which is more formidable at the first glance, than on a 
 nearer and more steady view. A violent death is never very pain- 
 ful ; the only danger is lest it should be unprovided. But if a man 
 can be supposed to make no provision for death in war, what can 
 be the state that would have awakened him to the care of futurity? 
 When would that man have prepared himself to die, who went to 
 seek death without preparation ? What then can be the reason 
 why we lament more him that dies of a wound, than him that dies 
 of a fever .' A man that languishes with disease, ends his life with 
 more pain, but with less virtue ; he leaves no example to his 
 friends, nor bequeaths any honour to his descendants. The only 
 reason why we lament a soldier's death, is, that we think he might 
 have lived longer ; yet this cause of grief is common to many other 
 kinds of death which are not so passionately bewailed. The truth 
 is, that every death is violent which is the effect of accident ; every 
 death, which is not gradually brought on by the miseries of age, or 
 when life is extinguished for any other reason than that it is burnt 
 out. He that dies before sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in 
 reality, by a violent death ; yet his death is borne with patience 
 only because the cause of his untimely end is silent and invisi- 
 ble. Let us endeavour to see things as they are, and then enquire 
 whether we ought to complain. Whether to see life as it is, will 
 give us much consolation, I know not ; but the consolation which is 
 drawn from truth, if any there be, is solid and durable ; that which 
 may be derived from errour must be, like its original, fallacious and 
 fugitive. I am, dear, dear Sir, your most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'Sept 21, 1758.' 
 
 1759 : ^TAT. 50.]— In 1759, in the month of January, his 
 mother died at the great age of ninety, an event which 
 deeply affected him'; not that 'his mind had acquired no 
 firmness by the contemplation of mortality'' ; but that his 
 
 BoswELL. The expedition had been sent against St. Malo early in 
 September. Failing in the attempt, the land forces retreated to St. 
 Cas, where, while embarking, they were attacked by the French. 
 About 400 of our soldiers were made prisoners, and 600 killed and 
 wounded. Ann. Reg. i. 68. 
 
 ' See^osf, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's Collectanea. 
 
 ' Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 365. BoswELL. ' In the beginning 
 
 reverential
 
 Aetat.50.] The death of yohnsoiis mother. 393 
 
 reverential affection for her was not abated by years, as in- 
 deed he retained all his tender feelings even to the latest 
 period of his life'. I have been told that he regretted much 
 his not having gone to visit his mother for several years, 
 previous to her death\ But he was constantly engaged in 
 
 of the year 1759 an event happened for which it might be imagined 
 he was well prepared, the death of his mother, who had attained the 
 age of ninety; but he, whose mind had acquired no firmness by the 
 contemplation of mortality, was as little able to sustain the shock, as 
 he would have been had this loss befallen him in his nonage.' 
 
 ' We may apply to Johnson in his behaviour to his mother what he 
 said of Pope in his behaviour to his parents: — 'Whatever was his 
 pride, to them he was obedient ; and whatever was his irritability, to 
 them he was gentle. Life has among its soothing and quiet comforts 
 few things better to give than such a son.' Johnson's Wtn-ks, viii. 281. 
 In T/ie Idler of January 27, 1759 (No. 41), Johnson shews his grief for 
 his loss. ' The last year, the last day must come. It has come, and 
 is past. The life which made my own life pleasant is at an end, and 
 the gates of death are shut upon my prospects. . . . Such is the con- 
 dition of our present existence that life must one time lose its asso- 
 ciations, and every inhabitant of the earth must walk downward to 
 the grave alone and unregarded, without any partner of his joy or 
 grief, without any interested witness of his misfortunes or success. 
 Misfortune, indeed, he may yet feel ; for where is the bottom of the 
 misery of man } But what is success to him that has none to enjoy 
 it? Happiness is not found in self-contemplation; it is perceived 
 only when it is reflected from another.' In Rassclas (ch. xlv.) he 
 makes a sage say with a sigh : — ' Praise is to an old man an empty 
 sound. I have neither mother to be delighted with the reputation 
 of her son, nor wife to partake the honours of her husband.' He here 
 says once more what he had already said in his Letter to Lord Chester- 
 field (ante, p. 303), and in the Preface to the Dictionary {ante, p. 344). 
 
 2 Writing to his Birmingham friend, Mr. Hector, on Oct. 7, 1756, he 
 said :— ' I have been thinking every month of coming down into the 
 country, but every month has brought its hinderanccs. From that 
 kind of melancholy indisposition which I had when wc lived together 
 at Birmingham I have never been free, but have always had it oper- 
 ating against my health and my life with more or less violence. I 
 hope however to see all my friends, all that arc remaining, in no very 
 long time.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. iii. 301. No doubt his constant 
 poverty and the need that he was under of making 'provision for the 
 day that was passing over him ' had had much to do in keeping him 
 
 literary
 
 394 Rasselas. [a.d. 1759. 
 
 literary labours which confined him to London ; and though 
 he had not the comfort of seeing his aged parent, he con- 
 tributed liberally to her support'. 
 
 Soon after this event, he wrote his Rasselas", Prince of 
 Abyssinia ;'^ concerning the publication of which Sir John 
 
 from a journey to Lichfield. A passage in one of his letters shews 
 that fourteen years later the stage-coach took twenty-six hours in 
 going from London to Lichfield. {Piozzi Letters, i. 55.) The return 
 journey was veiy uncertain ; for ' our carriages,' he wrote, ' are only 
 such as pass through the place sometimes full and sometimes vacant.' 
 A traveller had to watch for a place {ib.y. 51). As measured by time 
 London was, in 1772, one hour farther from Lichfield than it now is 
 from Marseilles. It is strange, when we consider the long separation 
 between Johnson and his mother, that in Rasselas, written just after 
 her death, he makes Imlac say: — 'There is such communication [in 
 Europe] between distant places, that one friend can hardly be said to 
 be absent from another.' Rasselas, ohz.'^.'sX. His step-daughter, Miss 
 Porter, though for many years she was well off, had never been to 
 London. Post, March 23, 1776. Nay, according to Horace Walpole 
 {Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 327), ' George HL had never 
 seen the sea, nor ever been thirty miles from London at the age of 
 thirty-four.' 
 
 ' For the letters written at this time by Johnson to his mother and 
 Miss Porter, see Appendix B. 
 
 ■^ Rasselas was published in two volumes, duodecimo, and was sold 
 for five shillings. It was reviewed in the Gent. Mag. for April, and 
 was no doubt published in that month. In a letter to Miss Porter 
 dated March 23, 1759 (See Appendix), Johnson says : — ' I am going to 
 publish a little story-book, which I will send you v/hen it is out.' I 
 may here remark that the Gent. Mag. was published at the end of the 
 month, or even later. Thus the number for April 1759, contains news 
 as late as April 30. The name Rasselas Johnson got from Lobo's 
 Voyage to Abyssinia. On p. 102 of that book he mentions 'Rassela 
 Christos, Lieutenant -General to Sultan Segued,' On p. 262 he ex- 
 plains the meaning of the first part of the word : — 'There is now a 
 Generalissimo established under the title of Ras, or Chief! The title 
 still exists. Colonel Gordon mentions Ras Arya and Ras Aloula. 
 The Rev. W. West, in his Introduction to Rasselas, p. xxxi. (Sampson 
 Low and Co.), says : — ■' The word Ras, which is common to the Amha- 
 ric, Arabic, and Hebrew tongues, signifies a head, and hence a prince, 
 chief, or captain. . . . Sela Christos means either "Picture of Christ," 
 or " For the sake of Christ." ' 
 
 Hawkins

 
 
 k^iu 
 
 
 iw Ota.- (|.(x>woLCm^ Ov (Awi-Otf %^(llui;n-r^^4«. 
 
 -iAw 
 
 
 
 -K/V- 
 
 K*^"' '1(5 
 
 Facsimiik of a Lkttkr 111- Dk. Johnson REi.AiiNd to J?.i.'^s/:l.is. 
 
 (See AiUrn,!,! to Vol. V.) 
 
 ^ 
 
 n
 
 Aetat. 50.] RasSELAS. 395 
 
 Hawkins guesses vaguely and idly', instead of having taken 
 the trouble to inform himself with authentick precision. Not 
 to trouble my readers with a repetition of the Knight's rev- 
 eries, I have to mention, that the late Mr. Strahan the printer 
 told me, that Johnson wrote it, that with the profits he 
 might defray the expence of his mother's funeral, and pay 
 some little debts which she had left. He told 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. Mr. Strahan, Mr. Johnston, and 
 Mr. Dodsley purchased it for a hundred pounds^ but after- 
 wards paid him twenty-five pounds more, when it came to a 
 second edition. 
 
 Considering the large sums which have been received for 
 compilations, and works requiring not much more genius 
 than compilations*, we cannot but wonder at the very low 
 price which he was content to receive for this admirable per- 
 formance ; which, though he had written nothing else, would 
 have rendered his name immortal in the world of literature. 
 None of his writings has been so extensively diffused over 
 Europe ; for it has been translated into most, if not all, of 
 the modern languages\ This Tale, with all the charms of 
 oriental imagery, and all the force and beauty of which the 
 English language is capable, leads us through the most im- 
 portant scenes of human life, and shews us that this stage of 
 
 ' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 367. 
 
 "^ See post, June 2, 1781. Finding it then accidentally in a chaise 
 with Mr. Boswell, he read it eagerly. This was doubtless long after 
 his declaration to Sir Joshua Reynolds. Malone. 
 
 ^ Baretti told Malone that 'Johnson insisted on part of the money 
 being paid immediately, and accordingly received £^0. Any other 
 person with the degree of reputation he then possessed would have 
 got ^400 for that work, but he never understood the art of making 
 the most of his productions.' Prior's Malone, p. 160. Some of the 
 other circumstances there related by Baretti arc not correct. 
 
 * Hawkesworth received ;^6ooo for his revision of Cook's Voyages ; 
 post. May 7, 1773. 
 
 * SQQpost, March 4, 1773. 
 
 our
 
 39^ Rasselas and Candide. [a.d. 1759. 
 
 our being is full of ' vanity and vexation of spirit'.' To those 
 who look no further than the present life, or who maintain 
 that human nature has not fallen from the state in which it 
 was created, the instruction of this sublime story will be of 
 no avail. But they who think justly, and feel with strong- 
 sensibility, will listen with eagerness and admiration to its 
 truth and wisdom. Voltaire's Candide, wxxXXqxv to refute the 
 system of Optimism, which it has accomplished with brilliant 
 success, is wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to ]o\\x\- 
 son's Rasse/as; insomuch, that I have heard Johnson say'', that 
 if they had not been published so closely one after the other 
 that there was not time for imitation, it would have been in 
 vain to deny that the scheme of that which came latest was 
 taken from the other. Though the proposition illustrated 
 by both these works was the same, namely, that in our pres- 
 ent state there is more evil than good, the intention of the 
 writers was very different. Voltaire, I am afraid, meant only 
 by wanton profaneness to obtain a sportive victory over 
 religion, and to discredit the belief of a superintending Provi- 
 dence : Johnson meant, by shewing the unsatisfactory nature 
 of things temporal, to direct the hopes of man to things 
 eternal. Rasselas, as was observed to me by a verj' accom- 
 plished lady, may be considered as a more enlarged and more 
 deeply philosophical discourse in prose, upon the interesting 
 truth, which in his Va7iity of Human Wishes he had so suc- 
 cessfully enforced in verse. 
 
 The fund of thinking which this work contains is such, 
 that almost every sentence of it may furnish a subject of long 
 
 ' Ecclesiastes, i. 14. 
 
 ^ See post. May 16, 1778. It should seem that Candide was published 
 in the latter half of February 1759. Grimm in his letter of March i, 
 speaks of its having just appeared. ' M. de Voltaire vient de nous 
 egayer par un petit reman.' He does not mention it in his previous 
 letter of Feb. 15. Qr\n\m,Corrcs. Lit. (edit. 1829), ii. 296. Johnson's 
 letter to Miss Porter, quoted in the Appendix, shows that Rasselas 
 was written before March 23 ; how much earlier cannot be known. 
 Candide is in the May list of books in the Gent. Mag. (pp. 233-5), price 
 2s. 6d., and with it two translations, each price \s. 6d. 
 
 meditation.
 
 Aetat.50.] Apparitions. . 397 
 
 meditation. I am not satisfied if a year passes without my 
 having read it through ; and at every perusal, my admiration 
 of the mind which produced it is so highly raised, that I can 
 scarcely believe that I had the honour of enjoying the inti- 
 macy of such a man. 
 
 I restrain myself from quoting passages from this excellent 
 work, or even referring to them, because I should not know 
 what to select, or rather, what to omit. I shall, however, 
 transcribe one, as it shews how well he could state the argu- 
 ments of those who believe in the appearance of departed 
 spirits ; a doctrine which it is a mistake to suppose that he 
 himself ever positively held' : 
 
 ' If all your fear be of apparitions, (said the Prince,) I will prom- 
 ise you safety : there is no danger from the dead; he that is once 
 buried will be seen no more.' 
 
 'That the dead are seen no more, (said Imlac,) I will not under- 
 take to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of 
 all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, 
 among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. 
 This opinion, which 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 cavil- 
 lers, can very little weaken the general evidence; and some who 
 deny it with their tongues, confess it by their fears.' 
 
 Notwithstanding my high admiration of Rassclas, I will 
 not maintain that the ' morbid melancholy' ' in Johnson's con- 
 stitution may not, perhaps, have made life appear to him 
 more insipid and unhappy than it generally is ; for I am sure 
 that he had less enjoyment from it than I have. Yet, what- 
 ever additional shade his own particular sensations may have 
 thrown on his representation of life, attentive observation 
 
 * See /£'j/, June 13, 1763. 
 
 ^ In the original, — ' which, perhaps, prevails.' Rassclas, ch. xx.xi. 
 
 = This is the second time that Boswell puts ' morbid melancholy * 
 in quotation marks {ante, p. 72). Perhaps he refers to a passage in 
 Hawkins's JoJmson (p. 287), where the author speaks of Johnson's 
 melancholy as 'this morbid affection, as he was used to call it.' 
 
 and
 
 )9^ *" Live pleasant^ [a.d. 1759. 
 
 and close inquiry have convinced me, that there is too much 
 of reahty in the gloomy picture. The truth, however, is, 
 that we judge of the happiness and misery of hfe differently 
 at different times, according to the state of our changeable 
 frame. I always remember a remark made to me by a Turk- 
 ish lady, educated in France, 'Ma foi, Monsieur, notre bojihciir 
 depend de la faqon que notre sang circnle' This have I learnt 
 from a pretty hard course of experience, and would, from sin- 
 cere benevolence, impress upon all who honour this book 
 with a perusal, that until a.steady conviction is obtained, that 
 the present life is an imperfect state, and only a passage to 
 a better, if we comply with the divine scheme of progressive 
 improvement ; and also that it is a part of the mysterious 
 plan of Providence, that intellectual beings must ' be made 
 perfect through suffering';' there will be a continual recur- 
 rence of disappointment and uneasiness. But if we walk 
 with hope in ' the mid-day sun' of revelation, our temper and 
 disposition will be such, that the comforts and enjoyments 
 in our way will be relished, while we patiently support the 
 inconveniences and pains. After much speculation and va- 
 rious reasonings, I acknowledge myself convinced of the truth 
 of Voltaire's conclusion, 'Apres tout cest nn monde passable^.' 
 But we must not think too deeply ; 
 
 'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise^' 
 is, in many respects, more than poetically just. Let us cul- 
 tivate, under the command of good principles, ' la theorie des 
 sensations agreables f and, as Mr. Burke once admirably coun- 
 selled a grave and anxious gentleman, ' live pleasant^' 
 
 ' ' Perfect through sufferings.' Hebrews, ii. 10. 
 
 ' Perhaps the reference is to the conclusion of Le Monde coinnie il 
 va: — ' II resolut . . . de laisser aller te vionde comme il va ; car, dit-il, 
 si tout Ji est pas bien, tout est passable.' 
 
 ^ Gray, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College. 
 
 * Johnson writing to Mrs. Thrale said :— ' Viw'te lacti is one of the 
 great rules of health.' Fiozzi Letters, ii. 55. ' It was the motto of a 
 bishop very eminent for his piety and good works in King Charles 
 the Second's reign, Inservi Deo et laetare — " Serve God and be cheer- 
 ful." ' Addison's Freeholder, No. 45. 
 
 The
 
 Aetat. 50.] The Idler pirated. 399 
 
 The effect of Rassclas, and of Johnson's other moral tales, 
 is thus beautifully illustrated by Mr. Courtenay : 
 
 'Impressive truth, in splendid fiction drest, 
 Checks the vain wish, and calms the troubled breast; 
 O'er the dark inind a light celestial throws, 
 And sooths the angry passions to repose ; 
 As oil effus'd illumes and smooths the deep, 
 When round the bark the swelling surges sweep'.' 
 
 It will be recollected, that during all this year he carried 
 on his Idler", and, no doubt, was proceeding, though slowly, 
 
 ' Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson. Boswell. 
 
 - This paper was in such high estimation before it was collected 
 into volumes, that it was seized on with avidity by various publishers 
 of news-papers and magazines, to enrich their publications. John- 
 son, to put a stop to this unfair proceeding, wrote for the Universal 
 Chronicle the following advertisement; in which there is, perhaps, 
 more pomp of words than the occasion demanded : 
 
 'London, January 5, 1759. Adver,tisement. The proprietors of 
 the paper intitled The Idler, having found that those essays are 
 inserted in the news-papers and magazines with so little regard to 
 justice or decency, that the Universal Chronicle, in which they first 
 appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to 
 the publishers of those collections, that however patiently they have 
 hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by con- 
 tempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They 
 have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, trans- 
 ferred, ViMth 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 tenderness, 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, arc 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 honour- 
 able trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade 
 them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract 
 them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not 
 with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not mucii 
 
 in
 
 400 Air. jfoseph Simpson. [a.d. 1759. 
 
 in his edition of Shakspeare. He, however, from that Hber- 
 aHty which never failed, when called upon to assist other 
 labourers in literature, found time to translate for Mrs. Len- 
 nox's English version of Brumoy, ' A Dissertation on the 
 Greek Comedy,'f and 'The General Conclusion of the book.'f 
 
 An inquiry into the state of foreign countries was an object 
 that seems at all times to have interested Johnson. Hence 
 Mr. Newbery found no great difficulty in persuading him to 
 write the Introduction* to a collection of voyages and travels 
 published by him under the title of The World Displayed ; 
 the first volume of which appeared this year, and the remain- 
 ing volumes in subsequent years. 
 
 I would ascribe to this year' the following letter to a son 
 of one of his early friends at Lichfield, Mr. Joseph Simpson, 
 Barrister, and authour of a tract entitled Reflections on the 
 Study of the Latu. 
 
 better of money got by punishment than by crimes. We shall, there- 
 fore, 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.' Boswell. 
 
 ' I think that this letter belongs to a later date, probably to 1765 or 
 1766. As we learn, /<;«/, April lo, 1776, Simpson was a barrister 'who 
 fell into a dissipated course of life.' On July 2, 1765, Johnson records 
 that he repaid him ten guineas which he had borrowed in the lifetime 
 of Mrs. Johnson (his wife). He also lent him ten guineas more. If 
 it was in 1759 that Simpson was troubled by small debts, it is most 
 unlikely that Johnson let six years more pass without repaying him a 
 loan which even then was at least of seven years' standing. More- 
 over, in this letter Johnson writes : — ' I have been invited, or have in- 
 vited myself, to several parts of the kingdom.' The only visits, it 
 seems, that he paid between 1754-1762 were to Oxford in 1759 and 
 to Lichfield in the winter of 1761-2. After 1762, when his pension 
 gave him means, he travelled frequently. Besides all this, he says of 
 his step-daughter : — ' I will not incommode my dear Lucy by coming 
 to Lichfield, while her present lodging is of any use to her.' Miss 
 Porter seems to have lived in his house till she had built one for 
 herself. Though his letter to her of Jan. 10, 1764 (Croker's Bosivcll, 
 p. 163), shews that it was then building, yet she had not left his house 
 on Jan. 14, 1766 {zb. p. 173). 
 
 'To
 
 Aetat. 50.] Pai'ental tyranny. 401 
 
 ' To Joseph Simpson, Esq. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 'Your father's inexorability not only grieves but amazes me': 
 he is your father ; he was always accounted a wise man ; nor do I 
 remember anything to the disadvantage of his good-nature ; but in 
 his refusal to assist you there is neither good-nature, fatherhood, 
 nor wisdom. It is the practice of good-nature to overlook faults 
 which have already, by the consequences, punished the delinquent. 
 It is natural for a father to think more favourably than others of 
 his children ; and it is always wise to give assistance while a little 
 help will prevent the necessity of a greater. 
 
 ' If you married imprudently, you miscarried at your own hazard, 
 at an age when you had a right of choice. It would be hard if 
 the man might not choose his own wife, who has a right to plead 
 before the Judges of his country. 
 
 ' If your imprudence has ended in difficulties and inconveniences, 
 you are yourself to support them ; and, with the help of a little 
 better health, you would support them and conquer them. Surely, 
 that want which accident and sickness produces, is to be supported 
 in every region of humanity, though there were neither friends nor 
 fathers in the world. You have certainly from your father the 
 highest claim of charity, though none of right ; and therefore I 
 would counsel you to omit no decent nor manly degree of impor- 
 tunity. Your debts in the whole are not large, and of the whole 
 but a small part is troublesome. Small debts are like small shot; 
 
 ^ In the Ra7nblcr, No. 148, entitled ' The cruelty of parental tyranny,' 
 Johnson, after noticing the oppression inflicted by the perversion of 
 legal authority, says : — ' Equally dangerous and equally detestable are 
 the cruelties often exercised in private families, under the venerable 
 sanction of parental authority.' He continues : — ' Even though no 
 consideration should be paid to the great law of social beings, by 
 which every individual is commanded to consult the happiness of 
 others, yet the harsh parent is less to be vindicated than any other 
 criminal, because he less provides for the happiness of himself.' See 
 also post, March 29, 1779. A passage in one of Boswell's Letters to 
 Temple (p. in) may also be quoted here : — ' The time was when such 
 a letter from my father as the one I enclose would have depressed ; 
 but I am now firm, and, as my revered friend, Mr. Samuel Johnson, 
 used to say, I feel the privileges of an independent /in man being ; how- 
 ever, it is hard that I cannot have the pious satisfaction of being well 
 with my father.' 
 
 I. — 26 they
 
 402 An excursion to Ox/oj'd. [a.d. 1759. 
 
 they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped with- 
 out a wound : great debts are like cannon ; of loud noise, but little 
 danger. You must, therefore, be enabled to discharge petty debts, 
 that you may have leisure, with security, to struggle with the rest. 
 Neither the great nor little debts disgrace you. I am sure you 
 have my esteem for the courage with which you contracted them, 
 and the spirit with which you endure them. I wish my esteem 
 could be of more use. I have been invited, or have invited my- 
 self, to several parts of the kingdom ; and will not incommode my 
 dear Lucy by coming to Lichfield, while her present lodging is of 
 any use to her. I hope, in a few days, to be at leisure, and to make 
 visits. Whither I shall fly is matter of no importance. A man 
 unconnected is at home every where ; unless he may be said to be 
 at home no where. I am sorry, dear Sir, that where you have 
 parents, a man of your merits should not have an home. I wish 
 I could give it you. I am, my dear Sir, 
 
 ' Affectionately yours, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 He now refreshed himself by an excursion to Oxford, of 
 which the following short characteristical notice, in his own 
 words, is preserved : — 
 
 ' * * * ' is now making tea for me. I have been in my gown ever 
 since I came here". It was, at my first coming, quite new and 
 handsome. I have swum thrice, which I had disused for many 
 years. I have proposed to Vansittart'"', climbing over the wall, but 
 he has refused me. And I have clapped my hands till they are 
 sore, at Dr. King's speech\' 
 
 ' Perhaps ' Van,' for Vansittart. 
 
 ' Lord Stowell informs me that Johnson prided himself in being, 
 during his visits to Oxford, accurately academic in all points : and he 
 wore his gown almost ostentaizously. Croker. 
 
 ^ Dr. Robert Vansittart, of the ancient and respectable family of 
 that name in Berkshire. He was eminent for learning and worth, 
 and much esteemed by Dr. Johnson. Boswell. Johnson perhaps 
 proposed climbing over the wall on the day on which ' University 
 College witnessed him drink three bottles of port without being the 
 worse for it.' Post, April 7, 1778. 
 
 * Gentlema?ts Magazine, April, 1785. Boswell. The speech was 
 made on July 7, 1759, the last day of 'the solemnity of the install- 
 ment ' of the Earl of Westmoreland as Chancellor of the University. 
 
 His
 
 Aetat. 50.] The great Cham of literature. 403 
 
 His negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and 
 been some time at sea, not pressed as has been supposed, 
 but with his own consent, it appears from a letter to John 
 Wilkes, Esq., from Dr. Smollet, that his master kindly inter- 
 ested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of 
 which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He 
 said, ' No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough 
 to get himself into a jail ; for being in a ship is being in a 
 jail, with the chance of being drowned'.' And at another 
 time, 'A man in a jail has more room, better food, and com- 
 monly better company^' The letter was as follows: — 
 
 'Chelsea, March 16, 1759. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I am again your petitioner, in behalf of that great Cham' of 
 literature, Samuel Johnson. His black servant, whose name is 
 
 On the 3rd ' the ceremony began with a grand procession of noble- 
 men, doctors, &c., in their proper habits, which passed through St. 
 Mary's, and was there joined by the Masters of Arts in their proper 
 habits ; and from thence proceeded to the great gate of the Sheldo- 
 nian Theatre, in which the most numerous and brilHant assembly of 
 persons of quality and distinction was seated, that had ever been seen 
 there on any occasion.' Gent. Mag. xxix. 342. Would that we had 
 some description of Johnson, as, in his new and handsome gown, he 
 joined the procession among the Masters ! See ante, p. 326. 
 
 ' Jonr7ial of a Toitr to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 126 [Aug. 31]. Bos- 
 WELL. The chance of death from disease would seem also to have 
 been greater on the ship than in a jail. In The Idler (No. 38) John- 
 son estimates that one in four of the prisoners dies every year. In 
 his Review of Hanway's Essay on Tea {lVorhs,vi. 31) he states that 
 he is told that 'of the five or six hundred seamen sent to China, some- 
 times half, commonly a third part, perish in the voyage.' See post, 
 April 10, 1778. 
 
 • Id/d. p. 251 [Sept. 23]. BoswELL. 
 
 ' In my first edition this word was printed Chum, as it appears in 
 one of Mr. Wilkes's Miscellanies, and I animadverted on Dr. Smollet's 
 ignorance ; for which let me propitiate the viancs of that ingenious 
 and benevolent gentleman. Chum was certainly a mistaken reading 
 for Chain, the title of the Sovereign of Tartary, which is well applied 
 to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature; and was an epithet familiar 
 to Smollet. See Roderick Random, chap. 56. For this correction I 
 
 Francis
 
 404 Johnsoiis black servant at sea. [a.d. 1759. 
 
 Francis Barber, has been pressed on board the Stag Frigate, Cap- 
 tain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great distress. He says 
 the boy is a sickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly subject 
 to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his 
 Majesty's service. You know what manner of animosity the said 
 Johnson has against you'; and I dare say you desire no other 
 opportunity of resenting it than that of laying him under an obliga- 
 tion. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on this occa- 
 sion, though he and I were never cater-cousins; and I gave him 
 to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. 
 Wilkes, who, perhaps, by his interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, 
 might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would 
 be superfluous to say more on the subject, which I leave to your 
 own consideration ; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of declar- 
 ing that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, 
 dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your affectionate, obliged, humble servant, 
 
 'T. Smollet.' 
 
 Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occasions has acted, as a private 
 
 gentleman, with most polite liberality, applied to his friend 
 
 Sir George Hay, then one of the Lords Commissioners of the 
 
 Admiralty ; and Francis Barber was discharged, as he has 
 
 am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquire- 
 ments accord well with his respectable pedigree of Temple. Bos- 
 well. 
 
 After the publication of the second edition of this work, the authour 
 was furnished by Mr. Abercrombie, of Philadelphia, with the copy of 
 a letter written by Dr. John Armstrong, the poet, to Dr. Smollet at 
 Leghorne, containing the following paragraph :— ' As to the K. Bench 
 patriot, it is hard to say from what motive he published a letter of 
 yours asking some trifling favour of him in behalf of somebody, for 
 whom the great Cham of literature, Mr. Johnson, had interested him- 
 self.' Malone. In the first edition Boswell had said :—' Had Dr. 
 Smollet been bred at an English University, he would have known 
 that a chum is a student who lives with another in a chamber common 
 to them both. A chum of lit ej- at tire is nonsense.' 
 
 ^ In a note to that piece of bad book-making, Almon's Memoirs of 
 Wilkes (i.47), this allusion is thus explained :— 'A pleasantry of Mr. 
 Wilkes on that passage in Johnson's Grammar of the English Tongue, 
 prefixed to the Dictionary— " H seldom, perhaps never, begins any but 
 the first syllable." ' For this ' pleasantry ' see ante, p. 347. 
 
 told
 
 Aetat.oO.] Life ill Inner Temple-lane. 405 
 
 told me, without any wish of his own. He found his old 
 master in Chambers in the Inner Temple', and returned to 
 his service. 
 
 What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view 
 this year, I have not discovered ; but that he meditated one 
 of some sort, is clear from his private devotions, in which we 
 find", ' the change of outward things which I am now to 
 make ;' and, ' Grant me the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that 
 the course which I am now beginning may proceed accord- 
 ing to thy laws, and end in the enjoyment of thy favour.' 
 But he did not, in fact, make any external or visible change'. 
 
 ' Mr. Croker says that he was not discharged till June 1760. Had 
 he been discharged at once he would have found Johnson moving 
 from Gough Square to Staple Inn; for in a letter to Miss Porter, 
 dated March 23, 1759, given in the Appendix, Johnson said : — ' I have 
 this day moved my things, and you are now to direct to me at Staple 
 Inn.' 
 
 - Prayers mid Meditations, pp. 30 [39] and 40. Boswell. 
 
 ^ ' I have left off housekeeping' wrote Johnson to Langton on Jan. 
 9, 1759. Murphy {Life, p. 90), writing of the beginning of the year 
 1759, says: — 'Johnson now found it necessary to retrench his ex- 
 penses. He gave up his house in Gough Square. Mrs. Williams went 
 into lodgings [see post, July i, 1763]. He retired to Gray's-Inn, [he 
 had first m.oved to Staple Inn], and soon removed to chambers in the 
 Inner Temple-lane, where he lived in poverty, total idleness, and the 
 pride of literature, Magni stat nominis umbra. Mr. Fitzherbert used 
 to say that he paid a morning visit to Johnson, intending from his 
 chambers to send a letter into the city; but, to his great surprise, he 
 found an authour by profession without pen, ink, or paper.' (It was 
 Mr. Fitzherbert, who sent Johnson some wine. See ante, p. 353, note 
 2. See 2\?>o post, Sept. 15, 1777). The following documents confirm 
 Murphy's statement of Johnson's poverty at this time : 
 
 ' May 19, 1759. 
 
 ' I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of forty-two pounds, nine- 
 teen shillings, and ten pence on demand, value received. £^2 19 10. 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' I promise to pay to Mr. Newbery the sum of thirty pounds upon 
 demand. ;^3o o o. ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 In 175 1 he had thrice borrowed money of Newbery, but the total 
 amount of the loans was only four guineas. Prior's Goldsmith, \. 340. 
 With Johnson's want of pen, ink, and paper we may compare the ac- 
 
 At
 
 4o6 B lackfriars-bridge. [a.d. 1759. 
 
 At this time, there being a competition among the archi- 
 tects of London to be employed in the building of Black- 
 friars-bridge, a question was very warmly agitated whether 
 semicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the de- 
 sign offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, 
 and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. 
 Johnson's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to en- 
 gage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne' ; and after being 
 
 count that he gives of Savage's destitution {Worhs^\\\\. in) : — '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 after- 
 wards 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 accident.' Hawkins {Life, p. 383) says that Johnson's 
 chambers were two doors down the Inner Temple Lane. ' I have 
 been told,' he continues, ' by his neighbour at the corner, that during 
 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.' In a court opening out of Fleet Street, Gold- 
 smith at this very time was still more miserably lodged. In the be- 
 ginning of March 1759, Percy found him 'employed in writing his 
 Enquiry into Polite Learning in a wretched dirty room, in which there 
 was but one chair, and when he from civility offered it to his visitant, 
 himself was obliged to sit in the window.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, 
 i.6i. 
 
 1 Sir John Hawkins {Life, p. 373) has given a long detail of it, in 
 that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, 
 amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of ' pro- 
 portions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and 
 adjusted by Nature — masculine and feminine — in a man, sesguioctave 
 of the head, and in a woman sesquinonal \ nor has he failed to intro- 
 duce a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to corre- 
 spond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. 
 To follow the Knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to 
 myself, and not a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, 
 only make a few remarks upon his statement.— He seems to exult in 
 having detected Johnson in procuring 'from a person eminently skilled 
 in Mathematicks and the principles of architecture, answers to a string 
 of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength 
 of semicircular and elliptical arches.' Now I cannot conceive how 
 Johnson could have acted more wisely. Sir John complains that the 
 
 at
 
 Aetat. 50.] B lackfriars-bricige. 407 
 
 at considerable pains to study the subject, he wrote three 
 several letters in the Gazetteer, in opposition to his plan. 
 
 opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did 
 not preponderate in favour of the semicircular arch. But he should 
 have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher 
 parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little versed in mixed 
 and practical mechanicks. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the 
 scholastick father of all the great engineers which this country has 
 employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly 
 in favour of the elliptical arch. 
 
 It is ungraciously suggested, that Johnson's motive for opposing 
 Mr. Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a na- 
 tive of North Britain ; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the 
 aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates ; and so 
 far was he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he 
 afterwards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of 
 acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, 
 indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars- 
 bridge, calling it 'an edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in 
 vain sought for ; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated 
 their own disgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of 
 foreigners.' Whoever has contemplated, //c?r/V/('; Iiunine [Horace, Odes, 
 iv. 3. 2], this stately, elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an 
 efifect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, must 
 wonder at such unjust and ill-tempered censure ; and I appeal to all 
 foreigners of good taste, whether this bridge be not one of the most 
 distinguished ornaments of London. As to the stability of the fab- 
 rick, it is certain that the City of London took every precaution to 
 have the best Portland stone for it ; but as this is to be found in the 
 quarries belonging to the publick, under the direction of the Lords of 
 the Treasury, it so happened that parliamentary interest, which is 
 often the bane of fair pursuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwith- 
 standing this disadvantage, it is well known that not only has Black- 
 friars-bridge never sunk either in its foundation or in its arches, which 
 were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has 
 suffered from the effects of severe frosts have been already, in some 
 measure, repaired with sounder stone, and every necessary renewal 
 can be completed at a moderate expence. Boswell. Horace Wal- 
 pole mentions an ineffectual application made by the City to Parlia- 
 ment in 1764 'for more money for their new bridge at Blackfriars,' 
 when Dr. Hay, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, 'abused the Com- 
 mon Council, whose late behaviour, he said, entitled them to no 
 
 If
 
 4o8 'Born a Briioit' [a. d. 1760. 
 
 If it should be remarked that this was a controversy which 
 lay quite out of Johnson's way, let it be remembered, that 
 after all, his employing his powers of reasoning and eloquence 
 upon a subject which he had studied on the moment, is not 
 more strange than what we often observe in lawyers, who, as 
 Quicqiiid agiint Jioniines' is the matter of law-suits, are some- 
 times obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art 
 or science, of which they understood nothing till their brief 
 was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it. In like 
 manner, members of the legislature frequently introduce and 
 expatiate upon subjects of which they have informed them- 
 selves for the occasion. 
 
 1760: .^TAT. 51.] — In 1760 he wrote An Address of the 
 Painters to George III. on his Aeeession to the Throne of these 
 Kingdoms,^ which no monarch ever ascended with more sin- 
 cere congratulations from his people. Two generations of 
 foreign princes had prepared their minds to rejoice in having 
 again a King, who gloried in being ' born a Briton'.' He also 
 wrote for Mr. Baretti the Dedicationf of his Italian and Eng- 
 lish Dictionary to the Marquis of Abreu, then Envoy-Ex- 
 traordinary from Spain at the Court of Great Britain. 
 
 favour.' Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 390. The 
 late behaviour was the part taken by the City in Wilkes's case. It 
 was the same love of liberty no doubt that lost the City the Portland 
 stone. Smollett goes out of the way to praise his brother-Scot, Mr. 
 Mylne, in Humphry Clinker — 'a party novel written,' says Horace 
 Walpole, 'to vindicate the Scots' {Rcis^n of George III, iv. 328). In 
 the letter dated May 29, he makes Mr. Bramble say : — ' The bridge at 
 Blackfriars is a noble monument of taste and public spirit — I wonder 
 how they stumbled upon a work of such magnificence and utility.' 
 
 * Juvenal, Sat. i. 85. 
 
 "^ ' Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton.' 
 — George Ill's first speech to his Parliament. It appears from the 
 Hardwicke Papers, writes the editor of the Pari. Hist. (xv. 982), that 
 after the draft of the Speech had been settled by the cabinet, these 
 words and those that came next were added in the King's own hand. 
 Wilkes in his Dedication of Mortimer {see post. May 15, 1776) asserted 
 that 'these endearing words, " Born, &c.," were permitted to be seen 
 in the royal orthography of Britain for Briton.' Almon's Wor/cs, i. 84. 
 
 Johnson
 
 Aetat. 51.] Relief of tJie French Prisoners. 409 
 
 Johnson was now either very idle, or very busy with his 
 SJiakspeare ; for I can find no other pubUck composition by 
 him except an Introduction to the proceedings of the Com- 
 mittee for cloathing the French Prisoners' ;* one of the many 
 
 ' In this Introduction ( Works, vi. 148) Johnson answers objections 
 that had been raised against the rehef. ' We know that for the pris- 
 oners of war there is no legal provision ; we see their distress and are 
 certain of its cause ; we know that they are poor and naked, and poor 
 and naked without a crime. . . . The opponents of this charity must 
 allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be the best. 
 That charity is best of which the consequences are most extensive ; 
 the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal 
 affection.' The Committee for which Johnson's paper was written 
 began its work in Dec. 1759. In the previous October Wesley records 
 in his Journal (ii.461) : — ' I walked up to Knowle, a mile from Bristol, 
 to see the French prisoners. Above eleven hundred of them, we were 
 informed, were confined in that little place, without anything to lie 
 on but a little dirty straw, or anything to cover them but a few foul 
 thin rags, either by day or night, so that they died like rotten sheep. 
 I was much affected, and preached in the evening on Exodus xxiii. 9.' 
 Money was at once contributed, and clothing bought. ' It was not 
 long before contributions were set on foot in various parts of the 
 Kingdom.' On Oct. 24 of the following year he records : — ' I visited 
 the French prisoners at Knowle, and found many of them almost 
 naked again.' lb. iii. 23. ' The prisoners,' wrote Hume {Private 
 Corres. p. 55), ' received food from the public, but it was thought that 
 their own friends would supply them with clothes, which, however, 
 was found after some time to be neglected. The cry arose that the 
 brave and gallant men, though enemies, were perishing with cold in 
 prison , a subscription was set on foot ; great sums were given by all 
 ranks of people ; and, notwithstanding the national foolish prejudices 
 against the French, a remarkable zeal everywhere appeared for this 
 charity. I am afraid that M. Rousseau could not have produced 
 many parallel instances among his heroes, the Greeks; and still fewer 
 among the Romans.' Baretti, in his Jouriicy from London to Genoa 
 (i. 62, 66), after telling how on all foreigners, even on a Turk wearing 
 a turban, ' the pretty appellation of Freftch dog was liberally bestowed 
 by the London rabble,' continues: — 'I have seen the populace of 
 England contribute as many shillings as they could spare towards the 
 maintenance of the French prisoners ; and I have heard an universal 
 shout of joy when their parliament voted ;^ 100,000 to the Portuguese 
 on hearing of the tremendous earthquake.' 
 
 proofs
 
 4 ^ o Mary Queen of Scots. [a.d. 1760. 
 
 proofs that he was ever awake to the calls of humanity ; and 
 an account which he gave in the Gentleman s Magazine of 
 Mr. Tytler's acute and able vindication of Mary Queen of 
 Scots.* The generosity of Johnson's feelings shines forth in 
 the following sentence : — 
 
 ' It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame 
 and vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign 
 of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead 
 cannot pay for praise ; and who will, without reward, oppose the 
 tide of popularity ? Yet there remains still among us, not wholly 
 extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right in oppo- 
 sition to fashion'.' 
 
 In this year I have not discovered a single private letter 
 written by him to any of his friends. It should seem, how- 
 ever, that he had at this period a floating intention of 
 writing a history of the recent and wonderful successes of 
 the British arms in all quarters of the globe ; for among his 
 resolutions or memorandums, September i8, there is, 'Send 
 for books for Hist, of War\' How much it is to be regretted 
 
 ' Johnson's Works, vi. 8i. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. i6, 1773, 
 where Johnson describes Mary as ' such a Oueen as every man of any 
 gallantry of spirit would have sacrificed his life for.' ' There are,' 
 wrote Hume, ' three events in our history which may be regarded as 
 to'uch-stones of party-men. An English Whig who asserts the reality 
 of the popish plot, an Irish Catholic who denies the massacre in 1641, 
 and a Scotch Jacobite who maintains the innocence of Queen Mary, 
 must be considered as men beyond the reach of argument or reason, 
 and must be left to their prejudices.' History of England, ed. 1802, 
 V. 504. 
 
 ^ Prayers and Meditations, p. 42. Boswell. The following is his 
 entry on this day : — 
 
 ' 1760, Sept. 18. 
 
 Resolved D[eo] j[uvante] 
 
 To combat notions of obligation. 
 
 To apply to study. 
 
 To reclaim imagination. 
 
 To consult the resolves on Tetty's cofhn. [In a prayer made less 
 than a month after his wife's death he mentions 'the purposes 
 which I recorded in thy sight, when she lay dead before me.' lb. 
 p. 12.J 
 
 that
 
 Aetat. 51.] Consecrated lies. 411 
 
 that this intention was not fulfilled. His majestick ex- 
 pression would have carried down to the latest posterity the 
 glorious achievements of his country with the same fervent 
 glow which they produced on the mind at the time. He 
 would have been under no temptation to deviate in any de- 
 gree from truth, which he held very sacred, or to take a 
 licence, which a learned divine told me he once seemed, in 
 a conversation, jocularly to allow to historians. 
 
 'There are (said he) inexcusable lies, and consecrated lies. For 
 instance, we are tokl that on the arrival of the news of the unfort- 
 unate battle of Fontenoy, every heart beat, and every eye was in 
 tears. Now we know that no man eat his dinner the worse', but 
 there should have been all this concern ; and to say there was^ 
 (smiling) may be reckoned a consecrated lie.' 
 
 This year Mr. Murphy, having thought himself ill-treated 
 by the Reverend Dr. Francklin, who was one of the writers 
 of The Critical Reviczv, published an indignant vindication 
 in A Poetical Epistle to Samuel jfo/niso?!, A .M. in which he 
 compliments Johnson in a just and elegant manner: 
 
 ' Transcendant Genius ! whose prolifick vein 
 Ne'er knew the frigid poet's toil and pain ; 
 To whom Apollo opens all his store. 
 And every Muse presents her sacred lore ; 
 Say, pow'rful Johnson, whence thy verse is fraught 
 With so much grace, such energy of thought ; 
 
 To rise early. 
 To study religion. 
 To go to church. 
 To drink less strong liquors. 
 To keep a journal. 
 
 To oppose laziness, by doing what is to be done to-morrow. 
 Rise as early as I can. 
 Send for books for Hist, of War. 
 Put books in order. 
 Scheme of life.' 
 
 ' See post, Oct. 19, 1769, and May 15, 1783, for Johnson's measure of 
 emotion by eating. 
 
 Whether
 
 412 Arthur Murphy. [a. d. 1760. 
 
 ■Whether thy Juvenal instructs the age 
 
 In chaster numbers, and new-points his rage \ 
 
 Or fair Irene sees, alas ! too late 
 
 Her innocence exchang'd for guilty state ; 
 
 Whate'er you write, in every golden line 
 
 Sublimity and elegance combine ; 
 
 Thy nervous phrase impresses every soul. 
 
 While harmony gives rapture to the whole.' 
 
 Again, towards the conclusion : 
 
 ' Thou then, my friend, who see'st 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 1 
 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 important give, 
 And bid to future times thy Rambler live'.' 
 
 I take this opportunity to relate the manner in which an 
 acquaintance first commenced between Dr. Johnson and 
 Mr. Murphy. During the publication of The Grays-Inn 
 Journal, a periodical paper which was successfully carried 
 on by Mr. Murphy alone, when a very young man, he hap- 
 pened to be in the country with Mr. Foote; and having 
 mentioned that he was obliged to go to London in order to 
 get ready for the press one of the numbers of that Journal, 
 Foote said to him, 'You need not go on that account. 
 Here is a French magazine, in which you will find a very 
 pretty oriental tale ; translate that, and send it to your 
 printer.' Mr. Murphy having read the tale, was highly 
 pleased with it, and followed Foote's advice. When he 
 returned to town, this tale was pointed out to him in The 
 Rambler, from whence it had been translated into the 
 French magazine. Mr. Murphy then waited upon Johnson, 
 
 ' Mr. Croker points out that Murphy's Epistle was an imitation of 
 Boileau's Epttre a Moliere. 
 
 to
 
 Aetat. 51.] Letter to Air. Langton. 413 
 
 to explain this curious incident. His talents, literature, and 
 gentleman-like manners, were soon perceived by Johnson, 
 and a friendship was formed which was never broken'. 
 
 'To Bennet Langton, Esq., at Langton, near Spilsby, 
 
 Lincolnshire. 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' You that travel about the world, have more materials for 
 letters, than I who stay at home • and should, therefore, write with 
 frequency equal to your opportunities. I should be glad to have 
 all England surveyed by you, if you would impart your observations 
 
 ' The paper mentioned in the text is No. 38 of the second series of 
 the Grays-Imi Journal, published on June 15, 1754; which is a trans- 
 lation from the French version of Johnson's Rambler, No. 190. Ma- 
 lone. Mrs. Piozzi relates how Murphy ' used to tell before Johnson 
 of the first time they met. He 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 Alchymist, making 
 aether. " Come, come," says Dr. Johnson, " 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." ' 
 Piozzi's Anec. p. 235. Murphy quotes her account, Murphy's Jolmson, 
 p. 79. See also/oj/, 1770, where Dr. Maxwell records in his Collec/anea 
 how Johnson 'very much loved Arthur Murphy.' Miss Burney thus 
 describes him : — ' He is tall and well-made, has a very gentleman-iike 
 appearance, and a quietness of manner upon his first address that to 
 me is very pleasing. His face looks sensible, and his deportment is 
 perfectly easy and polite.' A few days later she records : — ' Mr. Mur- 
 phy was the life of the party ; he was in good spirits, and extremely 
 entertaining; he told a million of stories admirably well.' Mine. 
 D'Arblay's Diary, i. 195, 210. Rogers, who knew Murphy well, says 
 that ' towards the close of his life, till he received a pension of ^200 
 from the King, he was in great pecuniary difficulties. He had eaten 
 himself out of every tavern from the other side of Temple-Bar to the 
 west end of the town.' He owed Rogers a large sum of money, which 
 he never repaid. ' He assigned over to me the whole of his works ; 
 and I soon found that he had already dispo.sed of them to a book- 
 seller. One thing,' Rogers continues, ' ought to be remembered to 
 his honour; an actress with whom he had lived bequeathed to him 
 all her property, but he gave up every farthing of it to her relations.' 
 He was pensioned in 1803, and he died in 1805. Rogers's Table-Talk, 
 p. 106. 
 
 in
 
 414 Thomas Shet'idan. [a.d. 1760. 
 
 in narratives as agreeable as your last. Knowledge is always to 
 be wished to those who can communicate it well. While you 
 have been riding and running, and seeing the tombs of the learned, 
 and the camps of the valiant, I have only staid at home, and in- 
 tended to do great things, which I have not done. Beau' went 
 away to Cheshire, and has not yet found his way back. Chambers 
 passed the vacation at Oxford. 
 
 ' I am very sincerely solicitous for the preservation or curing of 
 Mr. Langton's sight, and am glad that the chirurgeon at Coventry 
 gives him so much hope. Mr. Sharpe is of opinion that the 
 tedious maturation of the cataract is a vulgar errour, and that it 
 may be removed as soon as it is formed. This notion deserves to 
 be considered ; I doubt whether it be universally true ; but if it 
 be true in some cases, and those cases can be distinguished, it 
 may save a long and uncomfortable delay. 
 
 ' Of dear Mrs. Langton you give me no account ; which is the 
 less friendly, as you know how highly I think of her, and how 
 much I interest myself in her health. I suppose you told her of 
 my opinion, and likewise suppose it was not followed ; however, I 
 still believe it to be right. 
 
 ' Let me hear from you again, wherever you are, or whatever 
 you are doing ; whether you wander or sit still, plant trees or 
 make Rusticks'. play with your sisters or muse alone ; and in re- 
 turn I will tell you the success of Sheridan^ who at this instant is 
 playing Cato, and has already played Richard twice. He had 
 more company the second than the first night, and will make, I 
 believe, a good figure in the whole, though his faults seem to be 
 very many ; some of natural deficience, and some of laborious 
 affectation. He has, I think, no power of assuming either that 
 dignity or elegance which some men, who have little of either in 
 common life, can exhibit on the stage. His voice when strained 
 is unpleasing, and when low is not always heard. He seems to 
 think too much on the audience, and turns his face too often to 
 the galleries\ 
 
 ' Topham Beauclerk, Esq. Boswell. 
 
 ^ Essays with that title, written about this time by Mr. Langton, but 
 not published. Boswell. 
 
 = Thomas Sheridan, born 1721, died 1788. He was the son of Swift's 
 friend, and the father of R. B. Sheridan (who was born in 1751), and 
 the great-great-grandfather of the present Earl of Dufiferin. 
 
 * Sheridan was acting in Garrick's Company, generally on the nights 
 
 ' However,
 
 Aetat. 53.] Mr. Rolt. 4 1 5 
 
 ' However, I wish him well ; and among other reasons, because 
 
 I like his wife'. 
 
 ' Make haste to write to, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'Oct. 18, 1760.' 
 
 1761 : ^TAT. 52.] — In 1761 Johnson appears to have 
 done little. He was still, no doubt, proceeding in his edition 
 of Shakspeare ; but what advances he made in it cannot be 
 ascertained. He certainly was at this time not active ; for 
 in his scrupulous examination of himself on Easter eve, he 
 laments, in his too rigorous mode of censuring his own con- 
 duct, that his life, since the communion of the preceding 
 Easter, had been ' dissipated and useless\' He, however, 
 contributed this year the Preface* to Rolt's Dictionary of 
 Trade and Commerce, in which he displays such a clear and 
 comprehensive knowledge of the subject, as might lead the 
 reader to think that its authour had devoted all his life to 
 it. I asked him whether he knew much of Rolt, and of his 
 work. ' Sir, (said he) I never saw the man, and never read 
 the book. The booksellers wanted a Preface to a Dictionary 
 of Trade and Commerce. I knew very well what such a 
 Dictionary should be, and wrote a Preface ■ accordingly.' 
 Rolt, who wrote a great deal for the booksellers, was, as 
 Johnson told me, a singular character\ Though not in the 
 least acquainted with him, he used to say, ' I am just come 
 from Sam. Johnson.' This was a sufificient specimen of his 
 vanity and impudence. But he gave a more eminent proof 
 
 on which Garrick did not appear. Davies's Garrick, i. 299. Johnson 
 criticises his reading, /f.f/, April 18, 1783. 
 
 ' Mrs. Sheridan was authour of Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddtiiph, 
 a novel of great merit, and of some other pieces. — See her character, 
 post, beginning of 1763. Boswell. 
 
 ■•' Prayers and Meditatums, p. 44. BoswELL. ' 1761. Easter Eve. 
 Since the communion of last Easter I have led a life so dissipated 
 and useless, and my terrours and perplexities have so much increased, 
 that I am under great depression and discouragement.' 
 
 ' St&post, April 6, 1775. 
 
 of
 
 4i6 Instances of literary frand. [a.d. 1761. 
 
 of it in our sister kingdom, as Dr. Johnson informed me. 
 When Akenside's Pleasures of the Lnaginatioii first came 
 out, he did not put his name to the poem. Rolt went over 
 to DubHn, published an edition of it, and put his own name 
 to it. Upon the fame of this he Hved for several months, 
 being entertained at the best tables as the ingenious Mr. 
 Rolt'.' His conversation indeed, did not discover much of 
 the fire of a poet ; but it was recollected, that both Addi- 
 son and Thomson were equally dull till excited by wine. 
 Akenside having been informed of this imposition, vindi- 
 cated his right by publishing the poem with its real au- 
 thour's name. Several instances of such literary fraud have 
 been detected. The Reverend Dr. Campbell, of St. An- 
 drew's, wrote An Enquiry into the original of Moral Virtue, 
 the manuscript of which he sent to Mr. Innes, a clergyman 
 in England, who was his countryman and acquaintance. 
 Innes published it with his own name to it ; and before the 
 imposition was discovered, obtained considerable promotion, 
 as a reward of his merit". The celebrated Dr. Hugh Blair, 
 
 ' I have had inquiry made in Ireland as to this story, but do not 
 find it recollected there. I give it on the authority of Dr. Johnson, 
 to which may be added that of the Biographical Dictionary, and 
 Biographia Drainafica ; in both of which it has stood many years. 
 Mr. Malone observes, that the truth probably is, not that an edition 
 was published with Rolt's name in the title-page, but, that the poem 
 being then anonymous, Rolt acquiesced in its being attributed to him 
 in conversation. Boswell. 
 
 '^ I have both the books. Innes was the clergyman who brought 
 Psalmanazar to England, and was an accomplice in his extraordinary 
 fiction. BoswELL. It was in 1728 that Innes, who was a Doctor of 
 Divinity and Preacher-Assistant at St. Margaret's, Westminster, pub- 
 lished this book. In his impudent Dedication to Lord Chancellor 
 King he says that ' were matters once brought to the melancholy pass 
 that mankind should become proselytes to such impious delusions ' 
 as Mandeville taught, ' punishments must be annexed to virtue and 
 rewards to vice.' It was not till 1730 that Dr. Campbell 'laid open 
 this imposture.' Preface, p. xxxi. Though he was Professor of Ec- 
 clesiastical History in St. Andrew's, yet he had not, it should seem, 
 heard of the fraud till then : so remote was Scotland from London in 
 
 and
 
 Aetat. 52.] ThE Man OF FeeLING. 417 
 
 and his cousin Mr. George Bannatine, when students in 
 divinity, wrote a poem, entitled, The Resurrection, copies of 
 which were handed about in manuscript. They were, at 
 length, very much surprised to see a pompous edition of it 
 in folio, dedicated to the Princess Dowager of Wales, by a 
 Dr. Douglas, as his own. Some years ago a little novel, en- 
 titled The Man of Feeling, was assumed by Mr. Eccles, a 
 young Irish clergyman, who was afterwards drowned near 
 Bath'. He had been at the pains to transcribe the whole 
 book, with blottings, interlineations, and corrections, that it 
 might be shewn to several people as an original. It was, in 
 truth, the production of Mr. Henry Mackenzie, an Attorney 
 in the Exchequer at Edinburgh, who is the authour of 
 several other ingenious pieces ; but the belief with regard to 
 Mr. Eccles became so general, that it was thought necessary-- 
 for Messieurs Strahan and Cadell to publish an advertise- 
 ment in the newspapers, contradicting the report, and men- 
 tioning that they purchased the copy-right of Mr. Macken- 
 zie". I can conceive this kind of fraud to be very easily 
 practised with successful effrontery. The Filiation of a 
 literary performance is difficult of proof ; seldom is there 
 any witness present at its birth. A man, either in confidence 
 or by improper means, obtains possession of a copy of it in 
 
 those days. It was not till 1733 that he published his own edition. 
 For Psalmanazar, sqq. post, April 18, 1778. 
 
 ' ' Died, the Rev. Mr. Eccles, at Bath. In attempting to save a boy, 
 whom he saw sinking in the Avon, he, together with the youth, were 
 both drowned.' Gent. Mag. Aug. 15, 1777. And in the magazine for 
 the next month are some verses on this event, with an epitaph, of 
 which the first line is, 
 
 ' Beneath this stone the "Man of Feeling" lies.' Croker., 
 
 "^ ' Harry Mackenzie,' wrote Scott in 18 14, ' never put his name in a 
 title-page till the last edition of his works.' Lockhart's Scott, iv. 178. 
 He wrote also The Man of the World, which Johnson ' looked at, but 
 thought there was nothing in it.' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 2, 1773. 
 Scott, however, called it 'a very pathetic tale.' Croker's Bosivell, 
 p. 359. Burns, writing of his twenty-third year, says: — ' Tristram 
 Shandy and the Ma7i of Feeling were my bosom favourites.' Curric's 
 Life of Burns, ed. 1846, p. 21. 
 
 I. — 27 manuscript,
 
 4i8 Letter to Mr. Baretti. [a.d.1761. 
 
 manuscript, and boldly publishes it as his own. The true 
 authour, in many cases, may not be able to make his title 
 clear. Johnson, indeed, from the peculiar features of his lit- 
 erary offspring, might bid defiance to any attempt to appro- 
 priate them to others. 
 
 ' But Shakspeare's magick could not copied be, 
 Within that circle none durst walk but he' !' 
 
 He this year lent his friendly assistance to correct and 
 improve a pamphlet written by Mr. Gwyn, the architect, en- 
 titled, ThougJits on the Coronation of George III.^ 
 
 Johnson had now for some years admitted Mr. Baretti 
 to his intimacy ; nor did their friendship cease upon their 
 being separated by Baretti's revisiting his native country, as 
 appears from Johnson's letters to him. 
 
 'To Mr. Joseph Baretti, at Milan". 
 
 ' You reproach me very often with parsimony of writing : but 
 you may discover by the extent of my paper, that I design to rec- 
 ompence rarity by length. A short letter to a distant friend is, 
 in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salu- 
 tation ; — a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there 
 is a necessity of doing something. Yet it must be remembered, 
 that he who continues the same course of life in the same place, 
 will have little to tell. One week and one year are very like one 
 another. The silent changes made by time are not always per- 
 ceived ; and if they are not perceived, cannot be recounted. I 
 have risen and lain down, talked and mused, while you have roved 
 over a considerable part of Europe^ ; yet I have not envied my 
 Baretti any of his pleasures, though, perhaps, I have envied others 
 
 ' From the Prologue to Dryden's adaptation of The Tempest. 
 
 ^ The originals of Dr. Johnson's three letters to Mr. Baretti, v/hich 
 are among the very best he ever wrote, were communicated to the 
 proprietors of that instructive and elegant monthly miscellany, The 
 European Magazine, in which they first appeared. Boswell. 
 
 ^ Baretti left London for Lisbon on Aug. 14, 1760. He went through 
 Portugal, Spain, and France to Antibes, whence he went by sea to 
 Genoa, where he arrived on Nov. 18. In 1770 he published a lively 
 account of his travels under the title of A Journey from London to 
 Genoa. 
 
 his
 
 Aetat. 52.] Barettis hiow ledge of languages. 419 
 
 his company : and I am glad to have other nations made acquaint- 
 ed with the character of the Enghsh, by a traveller who has so 
 nicely inspected our manners, and so successfully studied our 
 literature. I received your kind letter from Falmouth, in which 
 you gave me notice of your departure for Lisbon, and another 
 from Lisbon, in which you told me, that you were to leave Portu- 
 gal in a few days. To either of these how could any answer be 
 returned .-* I have had a third from Turin, complaining that I have 
 not answered the former. Your English style still continues in 
 its purity and vigour. With vigour your genius will supply it ; but 
 its purity must be continued by close attention. To use two lan- 
 guages familiarly, and without contaminating one by the other, is 
 very difficult : and to use more than two is hardly to be hoped'. 
 The praises which some have received for their multiplicity of 
 languages, may be sufficient to excite industry, but can hardly 
 generate confidence. 
 
 ' I know not whether I can heartily rejoice at the kind reception 
 which you have found, or at the popularity to which you are ex- 
 alted. I am willing that your merit should be distinguished ; but 
 cannot wish that your affections may be gained. I would have 
 you happy wherever you are : yet I would have you wish to return 
 to England. If ever you visit us again, you will find the kindness 
 of your friends undiminished. To tell you how many enquiries 
 are made after you, would be tedious, or if not tedious, would 
 be vain ; because you may be told in a very few words, that all 
 who knew you wish you well ; and that all that you embraced 
 at your departure, will caress you at your return : therefore do not 
 let Italian academicians nor Italian ladies drive us from your 
 thoughts. You may find among us what you will leave behind, 
 
 ' Malone says of Baretti that 'he was certainly a man of extraordi- 
 nary talents, and perhaps no one ever made himself so completely 
 master of a foreign language as he did of English.' Prior's Malone, 
 p. 392. Mrs. Piozzi gives the following ' instance of his skill in our 
 low street language. Walking in a field near Chelsea he met a fel- 
 low, who, suspecting him from dress and manner to be a foreigner, 
 said sneeringly, "Come, Sir, will you show me the way to France?" 
 "No, Sir," says Baretti instantly, "but I will show you the way to 
 Tyburn." ' He travelled with her in France. ' Oh how he would court 
 the maids at the inns abroad, abuse the men perhaps, and that with a 
 facility not to be exceeded, as they all confessed, by any of the natives. 
 But so he could in Spain, I find.' Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 347. 
 
 soft
 
 420 The Exhibition of Pictures. [a.d. 1761. 
 
 soft smiles and easy sonnets. Yet I shall not wonder if all our 
 invitations should be rejected ; for there is a pleasure in being 
 considerable at home, which is not easily resisted. 
 
 ' By conducting Mr. Southwell' to Venice, you fulfilled, I know, 
 the original contract : yet I would wish you not wholly to lose him 
 from your notice, but to recommend him to such acquaintance as 
 may best secure him from suffering by his own follies, and to take 
 such general care both of his safety and his interest as may come 
 within your power. His relations will thank you for any such 
 gratuitous attention : at least they will not blame you for any evil 
 that may happen, whether they thank you or not for any good, 
 
 ' You know that we have a new King and a new Parliament. 
 Of the new Parliament Fitzherbert^ is a member. We were so 
 weary of our old King, that we are much pleased with his succes- 
 sor ; of whom we are so much inclined to hope great things, that 
 most of us begin already to believe them. The young man is 
 hitherto blameless ; but it would be unreasonable to expect much 
 from the immaturity of juvenile years, and the ignorance of prince- 
 ly education. He has been long in the hands of the Scots, and 
 has already favoured them more than the English will contentedly 
 endure. But, perhaps, he scarcely knows whom he has distin- 
 guished, or whom he has disgusted. 
 
 ' The Artists have instituted a yearly Exhibition^ of pictures 
 and statues, in imitation, as I am told, of foreign academies. This 
 year was the second Exhibition. They please themselves much 
 
 ' Johnson was intimate with Lord Southwell, ante, p. 281. It seems 
 unlikely that Baretti merely conducted Mr. Southwell from Turin to 
 Venice ; yet there is not a line in his yoiirney to show that any Eng- 
 lishman accompanied him from London to Turin. 
 
 ^ See anfe, p. 405, note 3. 
 
 ' The first of these annual exhibitions was opened on April 31, 
 1760, at the Room of the Society of Arts, in the Strand. 'As a con- 
 sequence of their success, grew the incorporation of a Society of 
 Artists in 1765, by secession from which finally was constituted the 
 Royal Academy [in Dec. 1768].' Taylor's Reynolds, i. 179. For the 
 third exhibition Johnson wrote the Preface to the Catalogue. In 
 this, speaking for the Committee of the Artists, he says : — ' The pur- 
 pose of this Exhibition is not to enrich the artist, but to advance the 
 art; the eminent are not flattered with preference, nor the obscure in- 
 sulted with contempt ; whoever hopes to deserve public favour is here 
 invited to display his merit.' Northcote's Reynolds, i. loi. 
 
 with
 
 Aetat. 52.] yohnso7i s indifference to pictures. 421 
 
 with the multitude of spectators, and imagine that the English 
 School will rise in reputation. Reynolds is without a rival, and 
 continues to add thousands to thousands, which he deserves, 
 among other excellencies, by retaining his kindness for Baretti. 
 This Exhibition has filled the heads of the Artists and lovers of 
 art. Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced 
 to call in the assistance of so many trifles' to rid us of our time, 
 of that time which never can return. 
 
 ' Hawkins {Life, p. 318) says that Johnson told him 'that in his 
 whole life he was never capable of discerning the least resemblance 
 of any kind between a picture and the subject it was intended to rep- 
 resent.' This, however, must have been an exaggeration on the part 
 either of Hawkins or Johnson. His general ignorance of art is shown 
 by Mrs. Piozzi {Anec. p. 98) : — ' Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned some 
 picture as excellent. " It has often grieved me, Sir," said Mr. John- 
 son, " to see so much mind as the science of painting requires, laid 
 out upon such perishable materials : why do not you oftener make 
 use of copper .'' I could wish your superiority in the art you profess 
 to be preserved in stuff more durable than canvas." Sir Joshua urged 
 the difficulty of procuring a plate large enough for historical subjects. 
 " What foppish obstacles are these !" exclaims on a sudden Dr. John- 
 son. " Here is Thrale has a thousand tun of copper ; you may paint 
 it all round if you will, I suppose ; it will serve him to brew in after- 
 wards. Will it not. Sir?" to my husband who sat by. Indeed his 
 utter scorn of painting was such, that I have heard him say, that he 
 should sit very quietly in a room hung round with the works of the 
 greatest masters, and never feel the slightest disposition to turn them, 
 if their backs were outermost, unless it might be for the sake of tell- 
 ing Sir Joshua that he had turned them.' Such a remark of John- 
 son's must not, however, be taken too strictly. He often spoke at 
 random, often with exaggeration. ' There is in many minds a kind 
 of vanity exerted to the disadvantage of themselves.' This reflection 
 of his is the opening sentence to the number of The Idler (No. 45) in 
 which he thus writes about portrait -painting: — 'Genius is chiefly 
 exerted in historical pictures ; and the art of the painter of portraits 
 is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as 
 in life ; what is greatest is not always best. I should grieve to see 
 Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to empty splendour 
 and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in difl:using friend- 
 ship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, 
 and continuing the presence of the dead.' It is recorded in Johnson's 
 Works, (1787) xi. 208, that 'Johnson, talking with some persons about 
 
 ' I know
 
 42 2 Monastick life. [a.d. 17G1. 
 
 ' I know my Baretti will not be satisfied with a letter in which 
 I give him no account of myself : yet what account shall I give 
 him ? I have not, since the day of our separation, suffered or 
 done any thing considerable. The only change in my way of life 
 is, that I have frequented the theatre more than in former seasons. 
 But I have gone thither only to escape from myself. We have 
 had many new farces, and the comedy called The Jealous Wifc\ 
 which, though not written with much genius, was yet so well 
 adapted to the stage, and so well exhibited by the actors, that it 
 was crowded for near twenty nights. I am digressing from myself 
 to the play-house ; but a barren plan must be filled with episodes. 
 Of myself I have nothing to say, but that I have hitherto lived 
 without the concurrence of my own judgment ; yet I continue to 
 flatter myself, that, when you return, you will find me mended. I 
 do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every 
 order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will 
 submit to any rule, by which they may be exempted from the 
 tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to supply by ex- 
 ternal authority their own want of constancy and resolution, and 
 court the government of others, when long experience has con- 
 vinced them of their own inability to govern themselves'. If I 
 
 allegorical painting said, " I had rather see the portrait of a dog that 
 I know than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the 
 world."' He bought prints of Burke, Dyer, and Goldsmith— 'Good 
 impressions ' he said to hang in a little room that he was fitting up 
 with prints. Croker"s Boswell, p. 639. Among his effects that were 
 sold after his death were ' sixty-one portraits framed and glazed, '/t^^/, 
 under Dec. 9, 1784. When he was at Paris, and saw the picture-gal- 
 lery at the Palais Royal, he entered in his Diary :— ' I thought the 
 pictures of Raphael fine;' post, Oct. 16, 1775. The philosopher Hume 
 was more insensible even than Johnson. Dr. J. H. Burton says : — ' It 
 does not appear from any incident in his life, or allusions in his let- 
 ters, which I can remember, that he had ever really admired a picture 
 or a statue.' Life of Hwnc, ii. 134. 
 
 ' By Colman. ' There is nothing else new,' wrote Horace Walpole 
 on March 7, 1761 {Letters, iii. 382), 'but a very indifferent play, called 
 The Jealous Wife, so well acted as to have succeeded greatly.' 
 
 ' In Chap. 47 of Rasselas Johnson had lately considered monastic 
 life. Imlac says of the monks : — ' Their time is regularly distributed , 
 one duty succeeds another, so that they are not left open to the dis- 
 traction of unguided choice, nor lost in the shades of listless inactiv- 
 
 were
 
 Aetat.52.] Mouastick life. 423 
 
 were to visit Italy, my curiosity would be more attracted by con- 
 vents than by palaces : though I am afraid that I should find ex- 
 pectation in both places equally disappointed, and life in both 
 places supported with impatience and quitted with reluctance. 
 That it must be so soon quitted, is a powerful remedy against im- 
 patience ; but what shall free us from reluctance ? Those who 
 have endeavoured to teach us to die well, have taught few to die 
 willingly: yet I cannot but hope that a good life might end at last 
 in a contented death. 
 
 ' You see to what a train of thought I am drawn by the mention 
 of myself. Let me now turn my attention upon you. I hope you 
 take care to keep an exact journal, and to register all occurrences 
 and observations' ; for your friends here expect such a book of 
 travels as has not been often seen. You have given us good 
 specimens in your letters from Lisbon. I wish you had staid 
 longer in Spain^, for no country is less known to the rest of 
 Europe ; but the quickness of your discernment must make 
 amends for the celerity of your motions. He that knows which 
 way to direct his view, sees much in a little time. 
 
 ' Write to me very often, and I will not neglect to write to you ; 
 
 and I may, perhaps, in time, get something to write : at least, you 
 
 will know by my letters, whatever else they may have or want, 
 
 that I continue to be 
 
 ' Your most affectionate friend, 
 
 .TIT «/:■<' ' Sam. Johnson,' 
 
 ' London, June 10, 1761^ •' 
 
 ity. ... He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives 
 in a monastery. But perhaps every one is not able to stem the 
 temptations of publick life ; and, if he cannot conquer, he may prop- 
 erly retreat.' See 2X?>o post, March 15, 1776, and Boswell's Hebrides, 
 Aug. 19, 1773. 
 
 ' Baretti, in the preface to his Journey (p.vi.), says that the method 
 of the book was due to Dr. Johnson. ' It was he that exhorted me to 
 write daily, and with all possible minuteness ; it was he that pointed 
 out the topics which would most interest and most delight in a future 
 publication.' 
 
 5 He advised Boswell to go to Spain. Post, June 25 and July 26. 
 1763. 
 
 ^ Dr. Percy records that ' the first visit Goldsmith ever received 
 from Johnson was on May 31, 1761, [ten days before this letter was 
 written] when he gave an invitation to him, and much other company, 
 many of them literary men, to a supper in his lodgings in Wine Office 
 
 1762:
 
 424 Chronology of the Scriptures. [a.d. 1762, 
 
 1762: ^TAT. 53.] — In 1762 he wrote for the Reverend 
 Dr. Kennedy, Rector of Bradley in Derbyshire, in a strain of 
 very courtly elegance, a Dedication to the King* of that 
 gentleman's work, entitled, y^ Complete System of Astronom- 
 ical Chronology^ unfolding the Scriptures. He had certainly 
 looked at this work before it was printed ; for the conclud- 
 ing paragraph is undoubtedly of his composition, of which 
 let my readers judge : 
 
 'Thus have I endeavoured to free Religion and History from 
 the darkness of a disputed and uncertain chronology ; from diffi- 
 culties which have hitherto appeared insuperable, and darkness 
 which no luminary of learning has hitherto been able to dissipate. 
 I have established the truth of the Mosaical account, by evidence 
 which no transcription can corrupt, no negligence can lose, and no 
 interest can pervert. I have shewn that the universe bears wit- 
 ness to the inspiration of its historian, by the revolution of its 
 orbs and the succession of its seasons ; that the stars in their 
 courses Jight against^ incredulity, that the works of God give hourly 
 confirmation to the lazv, the prophets, and the gospel, of which one 
 day telleth another, and one 7iight certijieth another' ; and that the va- 
 lidity of the sacred writings can never be denied, while the moon 
 shall increase and wane, and the sun shall know his going down^' 
 
 He this year wrote also the Dedicationf to the Earl of 
 Middlesex of Mrs. Lennox's Female Quixote", and the Pref- 
 ace to the Catalogue of the Artists Exhibition.^ 
 
 Court, Fleet Street. Percy being intimate with Johnson, was desired 
 to call upon him and take him with him. As they went together the 
 former was much struck with the studied neatness of Johnson's dress. 
 He had on a new suit of clothes, a new wig nicely powdered, and 
 everything about him so perfectly dissimilar from his usual appearance 
 that his companion could not help inquiring the cause of this singu- 
 lar transformation. " Why, Sir," said Johnson, " I hear that Gold- 
 smith, who is a very great sloven, justifies his disregard of cleanliness 
 and decency by quoting my practice, and I am desirous this night to 
 show him a better example." ' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 62. 
 
 ' Judges. V. 20. ' Psalms, xix. 2. ^ Psalms, civ. 19. 
 
 * Boswell is ten years out in his date. This work was published in 
 1752. The review of it in the Gent. Mag. for that year, p. 146, was, I 
 believe, by Johnson. 
 
 The
 
 Aetat. 53.] The care of /ivifig. 425 
 
 The following letter, which, on account of its intrinsick 
 merit, it would have been unjust both to Johnson and the 
 publick to have with-held, was obtained for me by the solici- 
 tation of my friend Mr. Seward : 
 
 ' To Dr. Staunton, (now Sir George Staunton, Baronet'). 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I make haste to answer your kind letter, in hope of hearing 
 again from you before you leave us. I cannot but regret that a 
 man of your qualifiGations should find it necessary to seek an es- 
 tablishment in Guadaloupe, which if a peace should restore to the 
 French^, I shall think it some alleviation of the loss, that it must 
 restore likewise Dr. Staunton to the English. 
 
 ' It is a melancholy consideration, that so much of our time is 
 necessarily to be spent upon the care of living, and that we can 
 seldom obtain ease in one respect but by resigning it in another ; 
 yet I suppose we are by this dispensation not less happy in the 
 whole, than if the spontaneous bounty of Nature poured all that 
 we want into our hands. A few, if they were thus left to them- 
 selves, would, perhaps, spend their time in laudable pursuits ; but 
 the greater part would prey upon the quiet of each other, or, in 
 the want of other objects, would prey upon themselves. 
 
 'This, however, is our condition, which we must improve and 
 solace as we can : and though we cannot choose always our place 
 of residence, we may in every place find rational amusements, and 
 possess in every place the comforts of piety and a pure conscience. 
 
 ' In America there is little to be observed except natural curiosi- 
 ties. The new world must have many vegetables and animals 
 with which philosophers are but little acquainted. Thope you 
 will furnish yourself with some books of natural history, and some 
 glasses and other instruments of observation. Trust as little as 
 you can to report ; examine all you can by your own senses. I do 
 not doubt but you will be able to add much to knowledge, and, 
 perhaps, to medicine. Wild nations trust to simples ; and, per- 
 haps, the Peruvian bark is not the only specifick which those ex- 
 tensive regions may afford us. 
 
 ' Wherever you are, and whatever be your fortune, be certain, 
 
 ' He accompanied Lord Macartney on his embassy to China in 
 1792. In 1797 he published his Account of the Embassy. 
 
 ^ It was taken in 1759, and restored to France in 1763. Penny Cycle. 
 xi. 463. 
 
 dear
 
 426 Improper expectatio7is. [a.d. 17G2. 
 
 dear Sir, that you carry with you my kind wishes ; and that whether 
 you return hither, or stay in the other hemisphere', to hear that 
 you are happy will give pleasure to, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate humble servant, 
 'June 1, 1762.' ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 A lady having at this time solicited him to obtain the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury's patronage to have her son sent 
 to the University, one of those solicitations which are too 
 frequent, where people, anxious for a particular object, do 
 not consider propriety, or the opportunity which the persons 
 whom they solicit have to assist them, he wrote to her the 
 following answer, with a copy of which I am favoured by 
 the Reverend Dr. Farmer', Master of Emanuel College, 
 Cambridge. 
 
 ' Madam, 
 
 ' I hope you will believe that my delay in answering your letter 
 could proceed only from my unwillingness to destroy any hope 
 that you had formed. Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, 
 perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords' : but, like all 
 other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must 
 be expiated by pain ; and expectations improperly indulged, must 
 end in disappointment. If it be asked, what is the improper ex- 
 pectation which it is dangerous to indulge, experience will quickly 
 answer, that it is such expectation as is dictated not by reason, 
 but by desire ; expectation raised, not by the common occurrences 
 of life, but by the wants of the expectant ; an expectation that 
 
 ' W. S. Landor ( Works, ed. 1876, v. 99) says: — ' Extraordinary as 
 were Johnson's intellectual powers, he knew about as much of poetry 
 as of geography. In one of his letters he talks of Guadaloupe as being 
 in another hemisphere. Speaking of that island, his very words are 
 these : " Whether you return hither or stay in another hemisphere." ' 
 Guadaloupe, being in the West Indies, is in another hemisphere. 
 
 " Sqg. post, April 12, 1776. 
 
 ^ ' It is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded ; 
 for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are 
 less dreadful than its extinction.' Tke Idler, No. 58. See also post, 
 under March 30, 1783, where he ranks the situation of the Prince of 
 Wales as the happiest in the kingdom, partly on account of the enjoy- 
 ment of hope. 
 
 requires
 
 Aetat. 53.] yoJiiisons second letter to Baretti. 427 
 
 requires the common course of things to be changed, and the gen- 
 eral rules of action to be broken. 
 
 'When you made your request to me, you should have con- 
 sidered, Madam, what you were asking. You ask me to solicit a 
 great man, to whom I never spoke, for a young person whom I had 
 never seen, upon a supposition which I had no means of knowing 
 to be true. There is no reason why, amongst all the great, I 
 should chuse to supplicate the Archbishop, nor why, among all the 
 possible objects of his bounty, the Archbishop should chuse your 
 son. I know, Madam, how unwillingly conviction is admitted, 
 when interest opposes it ; but surely, Madam, you must allow, that 
 there is no reason why that should be done by me, which every 
 other man may do with equal reason, and which, indeed, no man 
 can do properly, without some very particular relation both to the 
 Archbishop and to you. If I could help you in this exigence by 
 any proper means, it would give me pleasure ; but this proposal is 
 so very remote from all usual methods, that I cannot comply with 
 it, but at the risk of such answer and suspicions as I believe you 
 do not wish me to undergo. 
 
 ' I have seen your son this morning ; he seems a pretty youth, 
 and will, perhaps, find some better friend than I can procure him ; 
 but, though he should at last miss the University, he may still be 
 wise, useful, and happy. I am. Madam, 
 
 ' Your most humble servant, 
 
 'June 8, 1762.' ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' To Mr. Joseph Baretti, at Milan. 
 
 ' London, July 20, 1762'. 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' However justly you may accuse me for want of punctuality 
 
 in correspondence, I am not so far lost in negligence as to omit 
 
 the opportunity of writing to you, which Mr. Beauclerk's passage 
 
 through Milan affords me. 
 
 ' I suppose you received the Idlers^ and I intend that you shall 
 
 soon receive S/iakspcare, that you may explain his works to the 
 
 ladies of Italy, and tell them the story of the editor, among the 
 
 other strange narratives with which your long residence in this 
 
 unknown region has supplied you. 
 
 ' Though Johnson wrote this same day to Lord Bute to thank him 
 for his pension, he makes no mention to Baretti of this accession to 
 his fortune. 
 
 'As
 
 428 Johnson's visit to Lichfield. [a.d. 1762. 
 
 ' As you have now been long away, I suppose your curiosity may 
 pant for some news of your old friends. Miss Williams and I live 
 much as we did. Miss Cotterel' still continues to cling to Mrs. 
 Porter, and Charlotte'' is now big of the fourth child. Mr. Rey- 
 nolds gets six thousands a year^ Levet is lately married, not 
 without much suspicion that he has been wretchedly cheated in his 
 match\ Mr. Chambers is gone this day, for the first time, the cir- 
 cuit with the Judges. Mr. Richardson is dead of an apoplexy^, and 
 his second daughter has married a merchant. 
 
 ' My vanity, or my kindness, makes me flatter myself, that you 
 would rather hear of me than of those whom I have mentioned; 
 but of myself I have very little which I care to tell. Last winter 
 I went down to my native town", where I found the streets much 
 
 ' See ante, p. 284. Mrs. Porter, the actress, lived some time with 
 Mrs. Cotterel and her eldest daughter. Croker. 
 
 ^ Miss Charlotte Cotterel, married to Dean Lewis. Sqq post, Dec. 
 21, 1762. 
 
 ^ Reynolds's note-book shows that this year he had close on 150 
 sitters. T2iy\or's Reynolds, \.2\?,. 
 
 * ' He married a woman of the town, who had persuaded him (not- 
 withstanding their place of congress was a small coalshed in Fetter 
 Lane) that she was nearly related to a man of fortune, but was inju- 
 riously kept by him out of large possessions. She regarded him as a 
 physician already in considerable practice. He had not been married 
 four months, before a writ was taken out against him for debts in- 
 curred by his wife. He was secreted ; and his friend then procured 
 him a protection from a foreign minister. In a short time afterwards 
 she ran away from him, and was tried (providentially in his opinion) 
 for picking pockets at the Old Bailey. Her husband was with diffi- 
 culty prevented from attending the Court, in the hope she would be 
 hanged. She pleaded her own cause and was acquitted. A separa- 
 tion between them took place.' Gent. Mag. Iv. loi. 
 
 ' Richardson had died more than a year earlier, — on July 4, 1761. 
 That Johnson should think it needful at the date of his letter to in- 
 form Baretti of the death of so famous a writer shows how slight was 
 the communication between London and Milan. Nay, he repeats the 
 news in his letter of Dec. 21, 1762. 
 
 ' On Dec. 8, 1765, he wrote to Hector: — 'A few years ago I just 
 saluted Birmingham, but had no time to see any friend, for I came in 
 after midnight with a friend, and went away in the morning.' Notes 
 and Queries, 6th S. iii. 321. He passed through Birmingham, I con- 
 jecture, on his visit to Lichfield, 
 
 narrower
 
 Aetat. 53.] Johnsons visit to Lichfield. 429 
 
 narrower and shorter than I thought I had left them, inhabited by 
 a new race of people, to whom I was very little known. My play- 
 fellows were grown old, and forced me to suspect that I was no 
 longer young. My only remaining friend has changed his prin- 
 ciples, and was become the tool of the predominant faction. My 
 daughter-in-law, from whom I expected most, and whom I met with 
 sincere benevolence, has lost the beauty and gaiety of youth, with- 
 out having gained much of the wisdom of age'. I wandered about 
 for five days^ and took the first convenient opportunity of return- 
 ing to a place, where, if there is not much happiness, there is, at 
 least, such a diversity of good and evil, that slight vexations do not 
 fix upon the heart\ 
 
 ' I think in a few weeks to try another excursion^ ; though to 
 w'hat end ? Let me know, my Baretti, what has been the result of 
 your return to your own country: whether time has made any 
 alteration for the better, and whether, when the first raptures of 
 salutation were over, you did not find your thoughts confessed 
 their disappointment. 
 
 ' Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have 
 no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his own town : 
 yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of 
 life ; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensi- 
 bility, a mind able to see common incidents in their real state, is 
 disposed by very common incidents to very serious contemplations. 
 Let us trust that a time will come, when the present moment shall 
 
 ' Writing to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on July 20, 1767, he says : — 
 ' Miss Lucy [Porter, his step-daughter, not his daughter-in-law, as he 
 calls her above] is more kind and civil than I expected, and has raised 
 my esteem by many excellencies very noble and resplendent, though 
 a little discoloured by hoary virginity. Everything else recalls to my 
 remembrance years, in which I proposed what I am afraid I have not 
 done, and promised myself pleasure which I have not found.' Piozzi 
 Letters, i. 4. 
 
 ^ In his Journey into Wales (Aug. 24, 1774), he describes how Mrs. 
 Thrale visited one of the scenes of her youth. ' She remembered the 
 rooms, and wandered over them with recollection of her childhood. 
 This species of pleasure is always melancholy. The walk was cut 
 down and the pond was dry. Nothing was better.' 
 
 '' This is a very just account of the relief which London affords to 
 melancholy minds. Boswell. 
 
 * To Devonshire. 
 
 be
 
 430 The accession of George III. [a.d. 1762. 
 
 be no longer irksome ; when we shall not borrow all our happiness 
 from hope, which at last is to end in disappointment. 
 
 'I beg that you will shew Mr. Beauclerk all the civilities which 
 you have in your power ; for he has always been kind to me. 
 
 ' I have lately seen Mr. Stratico, Professor of Padua, who has 
 told me of your quarrel with an Abbot of the Celestine order ; but 
 had not the particulars very ready in his memory. When you write 
 to Mr. Marsili', let him know that I remember him with kindness. 
 
 ' May you, my Baretti, be very happy at Milan", or some other 
 place nearer to. Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate humble servant, 
 
 'Sam, Johnson.' 
 
 The accession of George the Third to the throne of these 
 kingdoms, opened a new and brighter prospect to men of 
 literary merit, who had been honoured with no mark of royal 
 favour in the preceding reign. His present Majesty's edu- 
 cation in this country, as well as his taste and beneficence, 
 prompted him to be the patron of science and the arts ; and 
 early this year Johnson, having been represented to him as 
 a very learned and good man, without any certain provision, 
 his Majesty was pleased to grant him a pension of three 
 hundred pounds a year^ The Earl of Bute, who was then 
 
 ' See ante, p. 373. 
 
 * Dr. T. Campbell {Diary of a visit to England, p. 32) recorded on 
 March 16, 1775, that ' Baretti said that now he could not live out of 
 London. He had returned a few years ago to his own country, but 
 he could not enjoy it; and he v/as obliged to return to London to 
 those connections he had been making for near thirty years past.' 
 Baretti had come to England in 1750 ((^?«/^, p. 349), so that thirty years 
 is an exaggeration. 
 
 ' How great a sum this must have been in Johnson's eyes is shown 
 by a passage in his Life of Savage ( Works, viii. 125). Savage, he says, 
 was received into Lord Tyrconnel's family and allowed a pension of 
 ^200 a year. ' His presence,' Johnson writes, ' was sufficient to make 
 anyplace of publick entertainment popular; and his approbation and 
 example constituted the fashion. So powerful is genius when it is 
 invested with the glitter of affluence !' In the last summer of his life, 
 speaking of the chance of his pension being doubled, he said that 
 with six hundred a year ' a man would have the consciousness that 
 he should pass the remainder of his life /;/ splendour, how long soever 
 
 Prime
 
 Aetat.53.] yoJmsous pension. 431 
 
 Prime Minister, had the honour to announce this instance of 
 his Sovereign's bounty, concerning which, many and various 
 stories, all equally erroneous, have been propagated : mali- 
 ciously representing it as a political bribe to Johnson, to desert 
 his avowed principles, and become the tool of a government 
 which he held to be founded in usurpation. I have taken 
 care to have it in my power to refute them from the most 
 authentick information. Lord Bute told me, that Mr. Wed- 
 derburne, now Lord Loughborough, was the person who first 
 mentioned this subject to him'. Lord Loughborough told 
 
 it might be.' Posi,]nviQ 30, 1784. David Hume writing in 1751, says : 
 — ' I have ^50 a year, a ;^ioo worth of books, great store of linens and 
 fine clothes, and near ^{^loo in my pocket ; along with order, frugality, 
 a strong spirit of independency, good health, a contented humour, and 
 an unabating love of study. In these circumstances I must esteem 
 myself one of the happy and fortunate.' J. H. Burton's Hume, \. 342. 
 Goldsmith, in his Present State of Polite Learning (chap, vii.), makes 
 the following observation on pensions granted in France to authors : 
 — ' The French nobility have certainly a most pleasing way of satisfy- 
 ing the vanity of an author without indulging his avarice. A man of 
 literary merit is sure of being caressed by the great, though seldom 
 enriched. His pension from the crown just supplies half a compe- 
 tence, and the sale of his labours makes some small addition to his 
 circumstances ; thus the author leads a life of splendid poverty, and 
 seldom becomes wealthy or indolent enough to discontinue an exer- 
 tion of those abilities by which he rose.' Whether Johnson's pension 
 led to his writing less than he would otherwise have done may be 
 questioned. It is true that in the next seventeen years he did little 
 more than finish his edition of Shakespeare, and write his Jourtiey to 
 the Wester7i Islands and two or three political pamphlets. But since 
 he wrote the last number of The Idler in the spring of 1760 he had 
 done very little. His mind, which, to use Murphy's words {Life, p. 80). 
 had been 'strained and over-laboured by constant exertion,' had not 
 recovered its tone. It is likely, that without the pension he would 
 not have lived to write the second greatest of his works — the Lives 
 of the Poets. 
 
 ' Mr. Forster {Life of Goldsmith, i. 281) says: — ' Bute's pensions to 
 his Scottish crew showing meaner than ever in Churchill's daring 
 verse, it occurred to the shrewd and wary Wedderburne to advise, for 
 a set off, that Samuel Johnson should be pensioned.' The Prophecy 
 of Famine in which Churchill's attack was made on the pensioned 
 
 me.
 
 432 Johnsons pension. [a.d. 1762. 
 
 me, that the pension was granted to Johnson solely as the 
 reward of his literary merit, without any stipulation what- 
 ever, or even tacit understanding that he should write for 
 administration. His Lordship added, that he was confident 
 the political tracts which Johnson afterwards did write, as 
 they were entirely consonant with his own opinions, would 
 have been written by him though no pension had been 
 granted to him'. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Sheridan and Mr. Murphy, who then lived a 
 good deal both with him and Mr. Wedderburne, told me, 
 that they previously talked with Johnson upon this matter, 
 
 Scots was published in Jan. 1763. nearly half a year after Johnson's 
 pension was conferred. 
 
 ' For his Falkland's Islands ' materials were furnished to him by 
 the ministry' {post, 1771). ' The Patriot was called for,' he writes, 
 'by my political friends' (post, Nov. 26, 1774). 'That Taxation no 
 Tyranny was written at the desire of those who were then in power, 
 I have no doubt, 'writes Boswell (j256ij-/, under March 21, 1775). 'John- 
 son complained to a friend that, his pension having been given to 
 him as a literary character, he had been applied to by administration 
 to write political pamphlets' iib.). Are these statements inconsistent 
 with what Lord Loughborough said, and with Boswell's assertion (ib?) 
 that 'Johnson neither asked nor received from government any re- 
 ward whatsoever for his political labours }' I think not. I thin'tc that, 
 had Johnson unpensioned been asked by the Ministry to write these 
 pamphlets, he would have written them. He would have been pleased 
 by the compliment, and for pay would have trusted to the sale. Speak- 
 ing of the first two of these pamphlets — the third had not yet appeared 
 — he said, ' Except what I had from the booksellers, I did not get a 
 farthing by them' {post, March 21, 1772). They had not cost him 
 much labour. The False Alarm was written between eight o'clock of 
 one night and twelve o'clock of the next. It went through three edi- 
 tions in less than two months {post, 1770). T/te Patriot was written 
 on a Saturday {post, Nov. 26, 1774). At all events Johnson had re- 
 ceived his pension for more than seven years before he did any work 
 for the Ministry. In Croft's Life of Yo2tng, -which. Johnson adopted 
 ( Works, viii. 422), the following passage was perhaps intended to be a 
 defence of Johnson as a writer for the Ministry: — 'Yet who shall say 
 with certainty that Young was a pensioner } In all modern periods 
 of this country, have not the writers on one side been regularly called 
 hirelings, and on the other patriots?' 
 
 and
 
 Aetat. 53.] yolinsoii s intcrvieiv with Lord Bide. 43'* 
 
 o 
 
 and that it was perfectly understood by all parties that the 
 pension was merely honorary. Sir Joshua Reynolds told 
 me, that Johnson called on him after his Majesty's intention 
 had been notified to him, and said he wished to consult his 
 friends as to the propriety of his accepting this mark of the 
 royal favour, after the definitions which he had given in his 
 Dictionary oi pejision 2SiA pcnsioncrs\ He said he would not 
 have Sir Joshua's answer till next day, when he would call 
 again, and desired he might think of it. Sir Joshua answered 
 that he was clear to give his opinion then, that there could 
 be no objection to his receiving from the King a reward for 
 literary merit ; and that certainly the definitions in his Dic- 
 tionary v^^xo: not applicable to him. Johnson, it should seem, 
 was satisfied, for he did not call again till he had accepted 
 the pension, and had waited on Lord Bute to thank him. 
 He then told Sir Joshua that Lord Bute said to him ex- 
 pressly, ' It is not given you for anything you are to do, but 
 for what you have done.' His Lordship, he said, behaved 
 in the handsomest manner. He repeated the words twice, 
 that he might be sure Johnson heard them, and thus set 
 his mind perfectly at ease. This nobleman, who has been 
 so virulently abused, acted with great honour in this in- 
 stance, and displayed a mind truly liberal. A minister of 
 a more narrow and selfish disposition would have availed 
 himself of such an opportunity to fix an implied obliga- 
 tion on a man of Johnson's powerful talents to give him his 
 support. 
 
 Mr. Murphy and the late Mr. Sheridan severally contended 
 for the distinction of having been the first who mentioned 
 to Mr. Wedderburne that Johnson ought to have a pension. 
 When I spoke of this to Lord Loughborough, wishing to 
 know if he recollected the prime mover in the business, he 
 said, ' All his friends assisted :' and when I told him that 
 Mr. Sheridan strenuously asserted his claim to it, his Lord- 
 ship said, ' He rang the bell.' And it is but just to add, that 
 Mr. Sheridan told me, that when he communicated to Dr. 
 
 1 See ante, p. 341. 
 L — 28 Johnson
 
 434 Miirphys account of the pensiofi, [a.d. it63. 
 
 Johnson that a pension was to be granted him, he rephed 
 in a fervour of gratitude, ' The English language does not 
 afford me terms adequate to my feelings on this occasion. 
 I must have recourse to the French. I am //;/i'/n' with his 
 Majesty's goodness.' When I repeated this to Dr. Johnson, 
 he did not contradict it'. 
 
 His definitions oi pension 2.nd pensioner, partly founded on 
 the satirical verses of Pope^ which he quotes, may be gener- 
 ally true; and yet every body must allow, that there may be. 
 
 ' Murphy's account is nearly as follows yLifc, p. 92) : — ' Lord Lough- 
 borough was well acquainted with Johnson ; but having heard much 
 of his independent spirit, and of the downfall of Osborne the book- 
 seller {ante, p. 178), he did not know but his benevolence might be 
 rewarded with a folio on his head. He desired me to undertake the 
 task. I went to the chambers in the Inner Temple Lane, which, in 
 fact, were the abode of wretchedness. By slow^ and studied approaches 
 the message was disclosed. Johnson made a long pause; he asked if 
 it was seriously intended. He fell into a profound meditation, and 
 his own definition of a pensioner occurred to him. He desired to 
 meet ne.xt day, and dine at the Mitre Tavern. At that meeting he 
 gave up all his scruples. On the following day Lord Loughborough 
 conducted him to the Earl of Bute. The conversation that passed 
 was in the evening related to me by Dr. Johnson. He expressed his 
 sense of his Majesty's bounty, and thought himself the more highly 
 honoured, as the favour was not bestowed on him for having dipped 
 his pen in faction. " No, Sir," said Lord Bute, " it is not offered to 
 you for having dipped your pen in faction, nor with a design that you 
 ever should." ' The reviewer of Hawkins's Johnsoti in the Monthly 
 Review, lx.xvi. 375, w^ho was, no doubt. Murphy, adds a little circum- 
 stance : — ' On the next day Mr. Murphy was in the Temple Lane soon 
 after nine; he got Johnson up and dressed in due time; and saw him 
 set off at eleven.' Malone's note on what Lord Bute said to Johnson 
 is as follows : — ' This was said by Lord Bute, as Dr. Burnej'^ was in- 
 formed by Johnson himself, in answer to a question which he put, 
 previously to his acceptance of the intended bounty: "Pray, my Lord, 
 v/hat am I expected to do for this pension .?" ' 
 
 ■ ' In Britain's senate he a seat obtains 
 
 And one more pensioner St. Stephen gains.' 
 
 Moral Essays, iii. 393. 
 Johnson left the definition oi pension and pensioner unchanged in the 
 fourth edition of the Dictionary, corrected by him in 1773. 
 
 and
 
 Aetat.o3.] yoJiusofi s letter to Lord Bute. 435 
 
 and have been, instances of pensions given and received upon 
 liberal and honourable terms. Thus, then, it is clear, that 
 there was nothing inconsistent or humiliating in Johnson's 
 accepting of a pension so unconditionally and so honourably 
 offered to him. 
 
 But I shall not detain my readers longer by any words of 
 my own, on a subject on which I am happily enabled, by the 
 favour of the Earl of Bute, to present them with what John- 
 son himself wrote ; his lordship having been pleased to com- 
 municate to me a copy of the following letter to his late 
 father', which does great honour both to the writer, and to 
 the noble person to whom it is addressed : 
 
 'To' THE Right Honourable the Earl of Bute. 
 'My Lord, 
 
 'When the bills" were yesterday delivered to me by Mr. Wed- 
 derburne, I was informed by him of the future favours which his 
 
 ' He died on March 10, 1792. This paragraph and the letter are 
 not in the first two editions. 
 
 * 'The Treasury, Home Office, Exchequer of Receipt and Audit 
 Office Records have been searched for a warrant granting a pension 
 to Dr. Johnson without success. In 1782, by Act of Parliament all 
 pensions on the Civil List Establishment were from that time to be 
 paid at the Exchequer. In the Exchequer Order Book, Michaelmas 
 1782, No. 46, p. 74, the following memorandum occurs : — " Memdum. 
 3 Dec. 17S2. There was issued to the following persons (By order 
 6th of Nov. 1782) the sums set against their names respectively, etc. : — 
 
 Persons names: Johnson Sam', LL.D. 
 
 Pensions p. ann. ^jpo. Due to 5 July 1782, two quarters, ^150." ' 
 
 This pension was paid at the Exchequer from that time to the 
 quarter ending 10 Oct. 1784. ' It is clear that the pension was pay- 
 able quarterly [for confirmation of this, SQe post, Nov. 3, 1762, and July 
 16, 1765] and at the old quarter days, July 5, Oct. 10, Jan. 5, April 5, 
 though payment was sometimes delayed. [Once he was paid half- 
 yearly; see /(9j/, under March 20, 1771]. The expression " bills " was 
 a general term at the time for notes, cheques, and warrants, and no 
 doubt covered some kind of Treasury warrant.' The above informa- 
 tion I owe to the kindness of my friend Mr. Leonard H.Courtney, 
 M.P., late Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The 'future favours' 
 are the future payments. His pension was not for life, and depended 
 therefore entirely on the king's pleasure (see post, under March 21, 
 
 Majesty
 
 436 A visit to Devonshire. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 Majesty has, by your Lordship's recommendation, been induced to 
 intend for me. 
 
 'Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in 
 which it is bestowed ; your Lordship's kindness includes every 
 circumstance that can gratify delicacy, or enforce obligation. You 
 have conferred your favours on a man who has neither alliance nor 
 interest, who has not merited them by services, nor courted them 
 ^Dy officiousness ; you have spared him the shame of solicitation, 
 and the anxiety of suspense. 
 
 ' What has been thus elegantly given, will, I hope, not be re- 
 proachfully enjoyed ; I shall endeavour to give your Lordship the 
 only recompense which generosity desires, — the gratification of 
 finding that your benefits are not improperly bestowed. I am, my 
 Lord, ' Your Lordship's most obliged, 
 
 ' Most obedient, and most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'July 20, 1762.' 
 
 This year his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds paid a visit of 
 some weeks to his native country, Devonshire, in which he 
 was accompanied by Johnson, who was much pleased with 
 this jaunt, and declared he had derived from it a great ac- 
 cession of new ideas'. He was entertained at the seats of 
 
 1775). The following letter in the Grentiille Papers, ii. 68, seems to 
 show that Johnson thought the pension due on the ficw quarter- 
 day: — 
 
 'Dr. Johnson to Mr. Grenville. ^ , 
 'Sir. 'July 2, 1763. 
 
 ' Be pleased to pay to the bearer seventy-five pounds, being the 
 
 quarterly payment of a pension granted by his Majesty, and due on 
 
 the 24th day of June last, to Sir, 
 
 ' Your most humble serv^ant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 * They left London on Aug. 16 and returned to it on Sept. 26. 
 Taylor's Reynolds, i. 214. Northcote records of this visit: — 'I re- 
 member when Mr. Reynolds was pointed out to me at a public 
 meeting, where a great crowd was assembled, I got as near to him as 
 I could from the pressure of the people to touch the skirt of his coat, 
 which I did with great satisfaction to my mind.' Northcote's Reyn- 
 olds, \. 116. In like manner Reynolds, when a youth, had in a great 
 crowd touched the hand of Pope. lb. p. 19. Pope, when a boy of 
 eleven, 'persuaded some friends to take him to the coffee-house 
 
 several
 
 Aetat. 53.] yoliftson at Plymouth. 437 
 
 several noblemen and gentlemen in the West of England'; 
 but the greatest part of the time was passed at Plymouth, 
 where the magnificence of the navy, the ship-building and all 
 its circumstances, afforded him a grand subject of contempla- 
 tion. The Commissioner of the Dock-yard paid him the com- 
 pliment of ordering the yacht to convey him and his friend 
 to the Eddystone, to which they accordingly sailed. But the 
 weather was so tempestuous that they could not land'. 
 
 Reynolds and he were at this time the guests of Dr. 
 Mudge', the celebrated surgeon, and now physician of that 
 
 which Dryden frequented.' Johnson's \Vorks,\\\\.i'i)(3. Who touched 
 old Northcote's hand ? Has the apostoHc succession been continued ? 
 — Since writing these lines I have read with pleasure the following 
 passage in Mr. Ruskin's Pradcrita, chapter i. p. 16 : — 'When at three- 
 and-a-half I was taken to have my portrait painted by Mr. Northcote, 
 I had not been ten minutes alone with him before I asked him w^hy 
 there were holes in his carpet.' Dryden, Pope, Reynolds, Northcote, 
 Ruskin, so runs the chain of genius, with only one weak link in it. 
 
 ' At one of these seats Dr. Amyat, Physician in London, told me he 
 happened to meet him. In order to amuse him till dinner should be 
 ready, he was taken out to walk in the garden. The master of the 
 house, thinking it proper to introduce something scientifick into the 
 conversation, addressed him thus : 'Are you a botanist. Dr. Johnson ?' 
 ' No, Sir, (answered Johnson,) I am not a botanist; and, (alluding, no 
 doubt, to his near sightedness) should I wish to become a botanist, I 
 must first turn myself into a reptile.' Boswell. 
 
 * Mrs. Piozzi {Anec. 285) says: — 'The roughness of the language 
 used on board a man of war, where he passed a week on a visit to 
 Captain Knight, disgusted him terribly. He asked an officer what 
 some place was called, and received for answer that it was where the 
 loplolly man kept his loplolly; a reply he considered as disrespectful, 
 gross and ignorant.' Mr. Croker says that Captain Knight of the 
 Belleisle lay for a couple of months in 1762 in Plymouth Sound. 
 Croker's Boswell, p. 480. It seems unlikely that John.son passed a 
 whole week on ship-board. Loplolly, or Loblolly, is explained in Rod- 
 crick Random, chap, xxvii. Roderick, when acting as the surgeon's 
 assistant on a man of war, ' suffered,' he says, ' from the rude insults 
 of the sailors and petty officers, among whom I was known by the 
 name of Loblolly Boy.' 
 
 ^ He was the father of Colonel William Mudge, distinguished by his 
 trigonometrical survey of England and Wales. Wright. 
 
 place,
 
 438 The guest of Dr. Miidge. [a.d. 1762. 
 
 place, not more distinguished for quickness of parts and va- 
 riety of knowledge, than loved and esteemed for his amiable 
 manners; and here Johnson formed an acquaintance with 
 Dr. Mudge's father, that very eminent divine, the Reverend 
 Zachariah Mudge', Prebendary of Exeter, who was idolised 
 in the west, both for his excellence as a preacher and the uni- 
 form perfect propriety of his private conduct. He preached 
 a sermon purposely that Johnson might hear him; and we 
 shall see afterwards that Johnson honoured his memory by 
 drawing his character\ While Johnson was at Plymouth, he 
 saw a great many of its inhabitants, and was not sparing of 
 his very entertaining conversation. It was here that he made 
 that frank and truly original confession, that ' ignorance, 
 pure ignorance,' was the cause of a wrong definition in his 
 Dictionary of the word pastern'', to the no small surprise of 
 the Lady who put the question to hirn ; who having the 
 most profound reverence for his character, so as almost to 
 suppose him endowed with infallibility, expected to hear an 
 explanation (of what, to be sure, seemed strange to a com- 
 mon reader,) drawn from some deep -learned source with 
 which she was unacquainted. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, to whom I was obliged for my infor- 
 mation concerning this excursion, mentions a very charac- 
 teristical anecdote of Johnson while at Plymouth. Having 
 observed that in consequence of the Dock-yard a new town' 
 had arisen about two miles off as a rival to the old ; and 
 knowing from his sagacity, and just observation of human 
 nature, that it is certain if a man hates at all, he will hate his 
 next neighbour ; he concluded that this new and rising town 
 could not but excite the envy and jealousy of the old, in 
 
 * ' I have myself heard Reynolds declare, that the elder Mr. Mudge 
 was, in his opinion, the wisest man he had ever met with in his life. 
 He has always told me that he owed his first disposition to generalise, 
 and to view things in the abstract, to him.' Northcote's Reynolds, 
 i. 112, 118. 
 
 = See post, under March 20, 1781. 
 = See ante, p. 340. Boswell. 
 
 * The present Devonport. 
 
 which
 
 Aetat.53.] All enemy of the Dockers. 439 
 
 which conjecture he was verj' soon confirmed ; he therefore 
 set himself resolutely on the side of the old town, the es- 
 tablished town, in which his lot was cast, considering it as 
 a kind of duty to stand by it. He accordingly entered warm- 
 ly into its interests, and upon ever}^ occasion talked of the 
 dockers, as the inhabitants of the new town were called, as 
 upstarts and aliens. Plymouth is very plentifully supplied 
 with water by a river brought into it from a great distance, 
 which is so abundant that it runs to waste in the town. 
 The Dock, or New-town, being totally destitute of water, 
 petitioned Plymouth that a small portion of the conduit 
 might be permitted to go to them, and this was now under 
 consideration. Johnson, affecting to entertain the passions 
 of the place, was violent in opposition ; and, half-laughing at 
 himself for his pretended zeal where he had no concern, ex- 
 claimed, 'No, no! I am against the dockers; I am a Plym- 
 outh-man. Rogues ! let them die of thirst. They shall not 
 have a drop'!' 
 
 ' A friend of mine once heard him, during this visit, exclaim with 
 the utmost vehemence 'I hate a Docker.' Blakeway. Northcote 
 {Life of Reynolds, i. ii8) says that Reynolds took Johnson to dine at 
 a house where ' he devoured so large a quantity of new honey and of 
 clouted cream, besides drinking large potations of new cyder, that the 
 entertainer found himself much embarrassed between his anxious re- 
 gard for the Doctor's health and his fear of breaking through the 
 rules of politeness, by giving him a hint on the subject. The strength 
 of Johnson's constitution, however, saved him from any unpleasant 
 consequences.' 'Sir Joshua informed a friend that he had never seen 
 Dr. Johnson intoxicated by hard drinking but once, and that happened 
 at the time that they were together in Devonshire, when one night 
 after supper Johnson drank three bottles of wine, which afTected his 
 speech so much that he was unable to articulate a hard word, which 
 occurred in the course of his conversation. He attempted it three 
 times but failed ; yet at last accomplished it, and then said, "Well, Sir 
 Joshua, I think it is now time to go to bed." ' lb. ii. 161. One part 
 of this story however is wanting in accuracy, and therefore all may be 
 untrue. Reynolds at this time was not knighted. Johnson said {post, 
 April 7, 1778) : ' I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; 
 I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. 
 University College has witnessed this.' See however post, April 24. 
 
 Lord
 
 440 Johnsoiis third letter to Baretti. [a.d.1763. 
 
 Lord Macartney obligingly favoured me with a copy of the 
 following letter, in his own hand-writing, from the original, 
 which was found, by the present Earl of Bute, among his 
 father's papers. 
 
 'To THE Right Honourable the Earl of Bute. 
 'My Lord, 
 
 ' That generosity, by which I was recommended to the favour 
 of his Majesty, will not be offended at a solicitation necessary to 
 make that favour permanent and effectual. 
 
 'The pension appointed to be paid me at Michaelmas I have 
 not received, and know not where or from whom I am to ask it. I 
 beg, therefore, that your Lordship will be pleased to supply Mr. 
 Wedderburne with such directions as may be necessary, which, I 
 believe, his friendship will make him think it no trouble to convey 
 to me. 
 
 ' To interrupt your Lordship, at a time like this, with such petty 
 difficulties, is improper and unseasonable ; but your knowledge of 
 the world has long since taught you, that every man's affairs, how- 
 ever little, are important to himself. Every man hopes that he 
 shall escape neglect ; and, with reason, may every man, whose vices 
 do not preclude his claim, expect favour from that beneficence 
 which has been extended to, 
 
 ' My Lord, 
 
 'Your Lordship's 
 ' Most obliged 
 ' And 
 ' Most humble servant, 
 ' Temple Lane, ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'Nov. 3, 1762.' 
 
 'To Mr. Joseph Baretti, at Milan. 
 
 'Sir, ' London, Dec. 21, 1762. 
 
 ' You are not to suppose, with all your conviction of my idle- 
 ness, that I have passed all this time without -writing to my Baretti. 
 I gave a letter to Mr. Beauclerk, who, in my opinion, and in his 
 own, was hastening to Naples for the recovery of his health' ; but 
 
 1779, where he said :— ' I used to slink home when I had drunk too 
 much ;' also attte, p. 120, ■HlXvA post, April 28, 1783. 
 
 ' George Selwyn wrote :— ' Topham Beauclerk is arrived. I hear 
 he lost ^10,000 to a thief at Venice, which thief, in the course of the 
 
 he
 
 Aetat. 53.] Love ujid mai'viage. 441 
 
 he has stopped at Paris, and I know not when he will proceed. 
 Langton is with him. 
 
 ' I will not trouble you with speculations about peace and war. 
 The good or ill success of battles and embassies extends itself to 
 a very small part of domestick life : we all have good and evil, 
 which we feel more sensibly than our petty part of publick miscar- 
 riage or prosperity'. I am sorry for your disappointment, with 
 which you seem more touched than I should expect a man of your 
 resolution and experience to have been, did I not know that general 
 truths are seldom applied to particular occasions ; and that the 
 fallacy of our self-love extends itself as wide as our interest or 
 affections. Every man believes that mistresses are unfaithful, and 
 patrons capricious ; but he excepts his own mistress, and his own 
 patron. NVe have all learned that greatness is negligent and con- 
 temptuous, and that in Courts life is often languished away in un- 
 gratified expectation ; but he that approaches greatness, or glitters 
 in a Court, imagines that destiny has at last exempted him from 
 the common lot. 
 
 ' Do not let such evils overwhelm you as thousands have suf- 
 fered, and thousands have surmounted ; but turn your thoughts 
 with vigour to some other plan of life, and keep always in your 
 mind, that, with due submission to Providence, a man of genius has 
 been seldom ruined but by himself". Your Patron's weakness or 
 insensibility will finally do you little hurt, if he is not assisted by 
 your own passions. Of your love I know not the propriety, nor 
 can estimate the power ; but in love, as in every other passion, of 
 which hope is the essence, we ought always to remember the un- 
 certainty of events. There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces 
 reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amia- 
 ble woman ; and if all would happen that a lover fancies, I know 
 not what other terrestrial happiness would deserve pursuit. But 
 love and marriage are different states. Those who are to suft'er 
 the evils together, and to suffer often for the sake of one another, 
 soon lose that tenderness of look, and that benevolence of mind, 
 
 year, will be at Cashiobury.' (The reference to this quotation I have 
 mislaid.) 
 
 ' Two years later he repeated this thought in the lines that he added 
 to Goldsmith's Traveller. Post, under Feb. 1766. 
 
 ^ We may compare with this what ' old Bentlcy ' said : — ' Depend 
 upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself.' Boswell's 
 Hebrides, Oct. i, 1773. 
 
 which
 
 442 Love and marriage. [a.d. 1762. 
 
 which arose from the participation of unmingled pleasure and suc- 
 cessive amusement. A woman, we are sure, will not be always 
 fair; we are not sure she will always be virtuous : and man cannot 
 retain through life that respect and assiduity by which he pleases 
 for a day or for a month. I do not, however, pretend to have dis- 
 covered that life has any thing more to be desired than a prudent 
 and virtuous marriage ; therefore know not what counsel to give you. 
 
 ' If you can quit your imagination of love and greatness, and 
 leave your hopes of preferment and bridal raptures to try once 
 more the fortune of literature and industry, the way through France 
 is now open'. We flatter ourselves that we shall cultivate, with 
 great diligence, the arts of peace ; and every man will be welcome 
 among us who can teach us any thing v^-e do not know''*. For your 
 part, you will find all your old friends willing to receive you. 
 
 ' Reynolds still continues to increase in reputation and in riches. 
 Miss Williams, who very much loves you, goes on in the old way. 
 Miss Cotterel is still with Mrs. Porter. Miss Charlotte is married 
 to Dean Lewis, and has three children. Mr. Levet has married a 
 street-walker'. But the gazette of my narration must now arrive 
 to tell you, that Bathurst went physician to the army, and died at 
 the Havannah\ 
 
 ' I know not whether I have not sent you word that Huggins' 
 and Richardson" are both dead. When we see our enemies and 
 friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject 
 to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom 
 will be fixed for ever. 
 
 ' I pray God to bless you, and am. Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate humble servant, 
 
 'Write soon.' 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' The preliminaries of peace between England and France had been 
 signed on Nov. 3 of this year. A}in. Reg. v. 246. 
 
 " Of Baretti's Travels through Spain, &^c., Johnson wrote to Mrs. 
 Thrale : — ' That Baretti's book would please you all I made no doubt. 
 I know not whether the world has ever seen such Travels before. 
 Those whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who 
 know how to write very seldom ramble.' Piozzi Letters, i. 32. 
 
 ^ See ante, p. 428. 
 
 ' See ante, p. 280, note 2. 
 
 '' Huggins had quarrelled with Johnson and Baretti (Croker's Bos- 
 well, 129, note). See ^Xio post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. 
 
 * See aiite, p. 428. 
 
 1763:
 
 Aetat.54.] yokuSOU S LiFE OF CoLLINS. 443 
 
 1763: ^TAT. 54.] — In 1763 he furnished to The Poetical 
 Calendar, pubHshed by Fawkes and Woty, a character of 
 Colhns*, which he afterwards ingrafted into his entire hfe of 
 that admirable poet', in the collection of liv^es which he wrote 
 for the body of English poetry, formed and published by the 
 booksellers of London. His account of the melancholy de- 
 pression with which Collins was severely afflicted, and which 
 brought him to his grave, is, I think, one of the most tender 
 and interesting passages in the whole series of his writings'. 
 He also favoured Mr. Hoole with the Dedication of his 
 translation of Tasso to the Qiieeii,'^ which is so happily con- 
 ceived and elegantly expressed, that I cannot but point it 
 out to the peculiar notice of my readers'. 
 
 ' Cowper, writing in 17S4 about Collins, says : — ' Of whom I did not 
 know that he existed till I found him there '—in the Lives of the Poets, 
 that is to say. Southey's Cowper, v. 1 1 . 
 
 * To this passage Johnson, nearly twenty years later, added the fol- 
 lowing {Works, viii. 403) : — ' Such was the fate of Collins, with whom 
 I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tender- 
 ness.' 
 
 ' ' Madam, 
 
 To approach the high and the illustrious has been in all ages 
 the privilege of Poets ; and though translators cannot justly claim 
 the same honour, yet they naturally follow their authours as attend- 
 ants ; and I hope that in return for having enabled Tasso to diffuse 
 his fame through the British dominions, I may be introduced by him 
 to the presence of Your Majesty. 
 
 Tasso has a peculiar claim to Your Majesty's favour, as follower 
 and panegyrist of the House of Este, which has one common ancestor 
 with the House of Hanover ; and in reviewing his life it is not easy 
 to forbear a wish that he had lived in a happier time, when he might, 
 among the descendants of that illustrious family, have found a more 
 liberal and potent patronage. 
 
 I cannot but observe, Madam, how unequally reward is propor- 
 tioned to merit, when I reflect that the happiness which was withheld 
 from Tasso is reserved for me ; and that the poem which once hardly 
 procured to its authour the countenance of the Princess of Ferrara, 
 has attracted to its translator the favourable notice of a British 
 Queen. 
 
 Had this been the fate of Tasso, he would have been able to have 
 
 This
 
 444 Boswell meets Johnson. [a.d. 1763, 
 
 This is to me a memorable year ; for in it I had the happi- 
 ness to obtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary man 
 whose memoirs I am now writing ; an acquaintance which I 
 shall ever esteem as one of the most fortunate circumstances 
 in my life. Though then but two -and -twenty', I had for 
 
 celebrated the condescension of Your Majesty in nobler language, 
 but could not have felt it with more ardent gratitude, than 
 
 Madam, 
 
 Your Majesty's 
 Most faithful and devoted servant.' 
 
 — BOSWELL. 
 
 ' Young though Boswell was, he had already tried his hand at more 
 than one kind of writing. In 1761 he had published anonymously an 
 Elegy on the Death of an Amiable Youtig Lady, with an Epistle from 
 Menalcas to Lycidas. (Edinburgh, Donaldson.) The Elegy is full of 
 such errors as 'Thou liv'd,' 'Thou led,' but is recommended by a puff- 
 ing preface and three lettprs — one of which is signed J — B — . About 
 the same time he brought out a piece that was even more impudent. 
 ItwAS An Ode to Tragedy. By a gentleman of Scotland. (Edinburgh, 
 Donaldson, 1761. Price sixpence.) In the ' Dedication to James Bos- 
 well, Esq.,' he says : — ' I have no intention to pay you compliments — 
 To entertain agreeable notions of one's own character is a great in- 
 centive to act with propriety and spirit. But I should be sorry to 
 contribute in any degree to your acquiring an excess of self-sufficiency 
 ... I own indeed that when ... to display my extensive erudition, I 
 have quoted Greek, Latin, and French sentences one after another 
 with astonishing celerity; or have got into my Old-hock humour and 
 fallen a-raving about princes and lords, knights and geniuses, ladies 
 of quality and harpsichords ; you, with a peculiar comic smile, have 
 gently reminded me of the importance of a man to himself, and slily 
 left the room with the witty Dean lying open at — "P.Y^. clerk of this 
 parish [Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xxiii. 142]. I, Sir, who enjoy the pleas- 
 ure of your intimate acquaintance, know that many of your hours of 
 retirement are devoted to thought.' The Ode is serious. He describes 
 himself as having 
 
 ' A soul by nature formed to feel 
 Grief sharper than the tyrant's steel. 
 And bosom big with swelling thought 
 From ancient lore's remembrance brought.' 
 In the winter of 1 761-2 he had helped as a contributor and part-editor 
 in bringing out a Collect io7i of Original Poems. {Boswell and Erskincs 
 Letters, p. 27.) His next publication, also anonymous, was The Cub 
 
 several
 
 Aetat. 54.] Dictionary yohnson. 445 
 
 several years read his works with deh'ght and instruction, 
 and had the highest reverence for their authour, which had 
 grown up in my fancy into a kind of mysterious veneration', 
 by figuring to myself a state of solemn elevated abstraction, 
 in which I supposed him to live in the immense metropolis 
 of London. Mr. Gentleman, a native of Ireland, who passed 
 some years in Scotland as a player, and as an instructor in 
 the English language, a man whose talents and worth were 
 depressed by misfortunes\ had given me a representation of 
 the figure and m.anner of DICTIONARY JOHNSON ! as he was 
 then generally called"; and during my first visit to London, 
 
 at Newmarket, written, as the Preface says, ' in the Newmarket Coffee 
 Room, in which the author, being elected a member of the Jockey 
 Club, had the happiness of passing several sprightly good-humoured 
 evenings.' It is very poor stuff. In the winter of 1762-3 he joined in 
 writing the Critical Strictures, mentioned post, June 25, 1763. Just 
 about the time that he first met Johnson he and his friend the Hon. 
 Andrew Erskine had published in their own names a very impudent 
 little volume of the correspondence that had passed between them. 
 Of this I pubHshed an edition with notes in 1879, together with 
 Boswell's Journal of a Tour to Corsica. (Messrs. Thos. De La Rue 
 &Co.) 
 
 ' Boswell, in 1768, in the preface to the third edition of his Corsica 
 described ' the warmth of affection and the dignity of veneration ' with 
 which he never ceased to think of Mr. Johnson. 
 
 * In the Garrick Corres. (ii. 83) there is a confused letter- from this 
 unfortunate man, asking Garrick for the loan of five guineas. He 
 had a scheme for delivering dramatic lectures at Eton and Oxford ; 
 ' but,' he added, ' my externals have so unfavourable an appearance 
 that I cannot produce myself with any comfort or hope of success.' 
 Garrick sent him five guineas. He had been a Major in the army, an 
 actor, and dramatic author. ' For the last seven years of his life he 
 struggled under sicknesL and want to a degree of uncommon misery.' 
 Gent. Mag. for 1784, p. 959. 
 
 ' As great men of antiquity such as Scipio Africanus had an epithet 
 added to their names, in consequence of some celebrated action, so 
 my illustrious friend was often called Dictionary Johnson, from 
 that wonderful atchievement of genius and labour, his Dictionary of 
 the Etiglish Language ; the merit of which I contemplate with more 
 and more admiration. Boswell. In like manner we have ' Hermes 
 Harris,' ' Pliny Melmoth,' ' Demosthenes Taylor,' ' Persian Jones,' 
 
 which
 
 446 yohnsons quarrel with Sheridan, [a.d. 1763. 
 
 which was for three months in 1760, Mr. Derrick the poet', 
 who was Gentleman's friend and countryman, flattered me 
 with hopes that he would introduce me to Johnson, an hon- 
 our of which I was very ambitious. But he never found an 
 opportunity ; which made me doubt that he had promised 
 to do what was not in his power ; till Johnson some years 
 afterwards told me, ' Derrick, Sir, might very well have intro- 
 duced you. I had a kindness for Derrick, and am sorry he 
 is dead.' 
 
 In the summer of 1761 Mr. Thomas Sheridan was at Edin- 
 burgh, and delivered lectures upon the English Language 
 and Publick Speaking to large and respectable audiences. I 
 was often in his company, and heard him frequently expa- 
 tiate upon Johnson's extraordinary knowledge, talents, and 
 virtues, repeat his pointed sayings, describe his particularities, 
 and boast of his being his guest sometimes till two or three 
 in the morning. At his house I hoped to have many oppor- 
 tunities of seeing the sage, as Mr. Sheridan obligingly assured 
 me I should not be disappointed. 
 
 When I returned to London in the end of 1762, to my 
 surprise and regret I found an irreconcileable difference had 
 taken place between Johnson and Sheridan. A pension of 
 two hundred pounds a year had been given to Sheridan. 
 Johnson, who, as has been already mentioned, thought slight- 
 ingly of Sheridan's art, upon hearing that he was also pen- 
 sioned, exclaimed, ' What ! have they given Jiini a pension ? 
 Then it is time for me to give up mine.' Whether this pro- 
 ceeded from a momentary indignation, as if it were an affront 
 to his exalted merit that a player should be rewarded in the 
 same manner with him, or was the sudden effect of a fit of 
 peevishness, it was unluckily said, and, indeed, cannot be 
 justified. Mr. Sheridan's pension was granted to him not as 
 a player, but as a sufferer in the cause of government, when 
 
 ' Abyssinian Bruce,' ' Microscope Baker,' ' Leonidas Glover.' ' Hesiod 
 Cooke,' and ' Corsica Boswell.' 
 
 ' See ante, p. 144. He introduced Boswell to Davies, who was ' the 
 immediate introducer.' Post, under June 18, 1783, note. 
 
 he
 
 Aetat. 54.] Skericiaii as a teackei' 447 
 
 he was manager of the Theatre Royal in Ireland, when par- 
 ties ran high in 1753'. And it must also be allowed that he 
 was a man of literature, and had considerably improved the 
 arts of reading and speaking with distinctness and propriety. 
 Besides, Johnson should have recollected that Mr. Sheri- 
 dan taught pronunciation to Mr. Alexander VVedderburne', 
 whose sister was married to Sir Harry Erskine\ an intimate 
 friend of Lord Bute, who was the favourite of the King ; and 
 surely the most outrageous Whig will not maintain, that, 
 whatever ought to be the principle in the disposal of offices, 
 a pension ought never to be granted from any bias of court 
 connection. Mr. Macklin', indeed, shared with Mr. Sheridan 
 the honour of instructing Mr. Wedderburne ; and though it 
 was too late in life for a Caledonian to acquire the genuine 
 English cadence, yet so successful were Mr. Wedderburne's 
 instructors, and his own unabating endeavours, that he got 
 rid of the coarse part of his Scotch accent, retaining only as 
 much of the ' native wood-note wild%' as to mark his country; 
 
 ' On March 2, 1754 (not 1753), the audience called for a repetition 
 of some lines which they applied against the government. ' Diggs, 
 the actor, refused by order of Sheridan, the manager, to repeat them ; 
 Sheridan would not even appear on the stage to justify the prohibition. 
 In an instant the audience demolished the inside of the house, and 
 reduced it to a shell.' Walpole's Reign of George II, i. 389, and Gent. 
 Mag. xxiv. 141. Sheridan's friend. Mr. S. Whyte, says {Miseellanea 
 Nova, p. 16) : — ' In the year 1762 Sheridan's scheme for an English 
 Dictionary was published. That memorable year he was nominated 
 for a pension.' He quotes (p. u i) a letter from Mrs. Sheridan, dated 
 Nov. 29, 1762, in which she says: — ' I suppose you must have heard 
 that the King has granted him a pension of 200/. a year, merely as an 
 encouragement to his undertaking.' 
 
 ^ S&Q post, March 28, 1776. 
 
 ' Horace Walpole describes Lord Bute as ' a man that had passed 
 his life in solitude, and was too haughty to admit to his familiarity 
 but half a dozen silly authors and flatterers. Sir Henry Erskine, a 
 military poet, Home, a tragedy -writing parson,' &c. Mem. of the 
 Reign of George III, i. 37. 
 
 * See post, March 28, 1776. 
 
 ' ' Native \vood-710tes wild.' Milton's L Allegro, 1. 134. 
 
 which.
 
 44^ Lord Loughborough. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 which, if any Scotchman should affect to forget, I should 
 heartily despise him. Notwithstanding the difficulties which 
 are to be encountered by those who have not had the ad- 
 vantage of an English education, he by degrees formed a 
 mode of speaking to which Englishmen do not deny the 
 praise of elegance. Hence his distinguished oratory, which 
 he exerted in his own country as an advocate in the Court 
 of Session, and a ruling elder of the Kirk, has had its fame 
 and ample reward, in much higher spheres. When I look 
 back on this noble person at Edinburgh, in situations so un- 
 worthy of his brilliant powers, and behold LoRD LOUGH- 
 BOROUGH at London, the change seems almost like one of 
 the metamorphoses in Ovid ; and as his two preceptors, by 
 refining his utterance, gave currency to his talents, we may 
 say in the words of that poet, ' Nam vos imitastis\' 
 
 I have dwelt the longer upon this remarkable instance of 
 successful parts and assiduity ; because it affords animating 
 encouragement to other gentlemen of North-Britain to try 
 their fortunes in the southern part of the Island, where they 
 may hope to gratify their utmost ambition ; and now that 
 we are one people by the Union, it would surely be illiberal 
 to maintain, that they have not an equal title with the na- 
 tives of any other part of his Majesty's dominions. 
 
 Johnson complained that a man who disliked him repeated 
 his sarcasm to Mr. Sheridan, without telling him what fol- 
 lowed, which was, that after a pause he added, ' However, I 
 am glad that Mr. Sheridan has a pension, for he is a very 
 good man.' Sheridan could never forgive this hasty con- 
 temptuous expression. It rankled in his mind ; and though 
 I informed him of all that Johnson said, and that he would 
 
 * ' In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas 
 
 Corpora. Di coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas) 
 Adspirate meis.' 
 'Of bodies changed to various forms I sing: — 
 Ye Gods from whence these miracles did spring 
 Inspire, &c.'— Drvden, Ov. Met. i. i. 
 S&e post under March 30, 1783, for Lord Loughborough. 
 
 be
 
 Aetat. 54.] Slie7'idans attack on yohnsoit. 449 
 
 be very glad to meet him amicably, he positively declined 
 repeated offers which I made, and once went off abruptly 
 from a house where he and I were engaged to dine, because 
 he was told that Dr. Johnson was to be there'. I have no 
 sympathetick feeling with such persevering resentment. It 
 is painful when there is a breach between those who have 
 lived together socially and cordially; and I wonder that 
 there is not, in all such cases, a mutual wish that it should 
 be healed. I could perceive that Mr. Sheridan was by no 
 means satisfied with Johnson's acknowledging him to be a 
 good man*. That could not sooth his injured vanity. I 
 could not but smile, at the same time that I was offended, to 
 observe Sheridan in The Life of Szviff, which he afterwards 
 
 ' See post. May 17, 1783, and June 24, 1784. Sheridan was not of a 
 forgiving nature. For some years he would not speak to his famous 
 son : yet he went with his daughters to the theatre to see one of his 
 pieces performed. ' The son took up his station by one of the side 
 scenes, opposite to the box where they sat, and there continued, un- 
 observed, to look at them during the greater part of the night. On 
 his return home he burst into tears, and owned how deeply it had 
 Sfone to his heart, " to think that there sat his father and his sisters 
 before him, and yet that he alone was not permitted to go near 
 them."' Moore's Sheridan, i. 167. 
 
 - As Johnson himself said : — ' Men hate more steadily than they 
 love; and if I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get 
 the better of this by saying many things to please him.' Post, Sept. 
 
 15. ^m- 
 
 ^ P. 447. BoswELL. ' There is another writer, at present of gigantic 
 fame in these days of little men, who has pretended to scratch out 
 a life of Swift, but so miserably executed as only to reflect back on 
 himself that disgrace which he meant to throw upon the character of 
 the Dean.' The Life of Doctor Swift, Swift's Works, ed. 1803, ii. 200. 
 There is a passage in the Lives of the Poets {Works, viii. 43) in which 
 Johnson might be supposed playfully to have anticipated this attack. 
 He is giving an account of Blackmore's imaginary Literary Club of 
 Lay Monks, of which the hero was 'one Mr. Johnson.' 'The rest of 
 the Lay Monks' he writes, ' seem to be but feeble mortals, in compari- 
 son with the gigantick Johnson.' See also /^.f/, Oct. 16. 1769. Horace 
 Walpole {Letters, v. 458) spoke no less scornfully than Sheridan of 
 Johnson and his contemporaries. On April 27, 1773. after saying that 
 he should like to be intimate with Anstcy (the author of the New 
 I. — 29 published,
 
 450 Mrs. Sherida7i. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 published, attempting, in the writhings of his resentment, to 
 depreciate Johnson, by characterising him as 'A writer of 
 gigantick fame in these days of Httle men ;' that very John- 
 son whom he once so highly admired and venerated. 
 
 This rupture with Sheridan deprived Johnson of one of his 
 most agreeable resources for amusement in his lonely even- 
 ings; for Sheridan's well-informed, animated, and bustling 
 mind never suffered conversation to stagnate ; and Mrs. 
 Sheridan' was a most agreeable companion to an intellectual 
 man. She was sensible, ingenious, unassuming, yet com- 
 municative. I recollect, with satisfaction, many pleasing 
 hours which I passed with her under the hospitable roof of 
 her husband, who was to me a very kind friend. Her novel, 
 entitled Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulp/i, contains an ex- 
 cellent moral while it inculcates a future state of retribution" ; 
 
 Balk Guide), or with the author of the Heroic Epistle, he continues : — 
 ' I have no thirst to know the rest of my contemporaries, from the 
 absurd bombast of Dr. Johnson down to the silly Dr. Goldsmith ; 
 though the latter changeling has had bright gleams of parts, and the 
 former had sense, till he changed it for words, and sold it for a pen- 
 sion. Don't think me scornful. Recollect that I have seen Pope and 
 lived with Gray.' 
 
 ' Johnson is thus mentioned by Mrs. Sheridan in a letter dated, 
 Blois, Nov. 1 6, 1743, according to the Garrick Corres. i. 17, but the date 
 is wrongly given, as the Sheridans went to Blois in 1764: ' I have 
 heard Johnson decry some of the prettiest pieces of writing we have 
 in English ; yet Johnson is an honourable man — that is to say, he is a 
 good critic, and in other respects a man of enormous talents.' 
 
 " My position has been very well illustrated by Mr. Belsham of 
 Bedford, in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry. ' The fashionable doctrine 
 (says he) both of moralists and criticks in these times is, that virtue 
 and happiness are constant concomitants ; and it is regarded as a 
 kind of dramatick impiety to maintain that virtue should not be re- 
 warded, nor vice punished in the last scene of the last act of every 
 tragedy. This conduct in our modern poets is, however, in my opin- 
 ion, extremely injudicious ; for, it labours in vain to inculcate a doc- 
 trine in theory, which every one knows to be false in fact, vis. that 
 virtue in real life is always productive of happiness ; and vice of mis- 
 ery. Thus Congreve concludes the Tragedy of The Mournittg Bride 
 with the following foolish couplet : — 
 
 and
 
 Aetat.54.] Mrs. Sheridan. 451 
 
 and what it teaches is impressed upon the mind by a series 
 of as deep distress as can affect humanity, in the amiable and 
 pious heroine who goes to her grave unreHeved, but resigned, 
 and full of hope of ' heaven's mercy.' Johnson paid her this 
 high compliment upon it : ' I know not. Madam, that you 
 have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers 
 suffer so much'.' 
 
 ■ For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, 
 And though a late, a sure reward succeeds.' 
 
 ' When a man eminently virtuous, a Brutus, a Cato, or a Socrates, 
 finally sinks under the pressure of accumulated misfortune, we are not 
 only led to entertain a more indignant hatred of vice than if he rose 
 from his distress, but we are inevitably induced to cherish the sublime 
 idea that a day of future retribution will arrive when he shall receive 
 not merely poetical, but real and substantial justice.' Essays Philo- 
 sophical, Historical, and Literary, London, 1791, vol. II. 8vo. p. 317. 
 
 This is well reasoned and well expressed. I wish, indeed, that the 
 ingenious authour had not thought it necessary to introduce any iii- 
 staficc of 'a man eminently virtuous;' as he would then have avoided 
 mentioning such a ruffian as Brutus under that description. Mr. Bel- 
 sham discovers in his Essays so much reading and thinking, and good 
 composition, that I regret his not having been fortunate enough to 
 be educated a member of our excellent national establishment. Had 
 he not been nursed in nonconformity, he probably would not have 
 been tainted with those heresies (as I sincerely, and on no slight in- 
 vestigation, think them) both in religion and politicks, which, while I 
 read, I am sure, with candour, I cannot read without offence. Bos- 
 WELL. Boswell's ' position has been illustrated ' with far greater force 
 by Johnson. ' It has been the boast of some swelling moralists, that 
 every man's fortune was in his own power, that prudence supplied the 
 place of all other divinities, and that happiness is the unfailing conse- 
 quence of virtue. But surely the quiver of Omnipotence is stored 
 with arrows against which the shield of human virtue, however ada- 
 mantine it has been boasted, is held up in vain ; we do not always 
 suffer by our crimes; we are not always protected by our innocence.' 
 The Adventurer, No. 120. See also Rasselas, chap. 27. 
 
 ' 'Charles Fox said that Mrs. Sheridan's Sydney Biddulph was the 
 best of all modern novels. By the by [R. B.J Sheridan used to de- 
 clare that he had never read it.' Rogers's Table- Talk, p. 90. The 
 editor says, in a note on this passage : — ' The incident in The School 
 for Scandal of Sir Oliver's presenting himself to his relations in dis- 
 guise is manifestly taken by Sheridan from his mother's novel.' 
 
 Mr.
 
 452 Mr. Thomas Davies. [a.d. 17G3. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Davies the actor, who then kept a bookseller's 
 shop in Russel-street, Covent-garden", told me that Johnson 
 was very much his friend, and came frequently to his house, 
 where he more than once invited me to meet him ; but by 
 some unlucky accident or other he was prevented from com- 
 ing to us. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Davies was a man of good understanding and 
 talents, with the advantage of a liberal education'. Though 
 somewhat pompous, he was an entertaining companion ; and 
 his literary performances' have no inconsiderable share of 
 merit. He was a friendly and very hospitable man. Both 
 he and his wife, (who has been celebrated for her beauty',) 
 
 ' No. 8. — The very place where I was fortunate enough to be intro- 
 duced to the illustrious subject of th-is work, deserves to be particu- 
 larly marked. I never pass by it without feeling reverence and regret. 
 
 BOSWELL. 
 
 * Johnson said : — ' Sir, Davies has learning enough to give credit to 
 a clergyman.' Post, 17S0, in Mr. Langton's Collcctiot. The spiteful 
 Steevens thus wrote about Davies : — ' His concern ousfht to be with 
 the outside of books ; but Dr. Johnson, Dr. Percy, and some others 
 have made such a coxcomb of him, that he is now hardy enough to 
 open volumes, turn over their leaves, and give his opinions of their 
 contents. Did I ever tell you an anecdote of him } About ten years 
 ago I wanted the Oxford Horner, and called at Daviess to ask for it, as 
 I had seen one thrown about his shop. Will you believe me, when I 
 assure you he told me " he had but one, and that he kept for his own 
 reading}" ' Carrie/: Corrcs. i. 608. 
 
 ^ Johnson, writing to Beattie, jz^cj-/, Aug. 21, 1780, says : — ' Mr. Davies 
 has got great success as an author, generated by the corruption of a 
 bookseller.' His principal works are Memoirs of Carrie/:, 1780, and 
 Dramatie Miscellanies, 1784. 
 
 * Churchill, in the Rosciad, thus celebrated his wife and mocked his 
 recitation : — 
 
 'With him came mighty Davies. On my life 
 That Davies hath a very pretty wife : — 
 Statesman all over ! — In plots famous grown !— 
 He mouths a sentence, as curs mouth a bone.' 
 
 Churchill's Poems, i. 16. 
 See post, under April 20, 1764, and March 20, 1778. Charles Lamb in 
 a note to his Essay on the Tragedies of Shakespeare says of Davies, 
 that he ' is recorded to have recited the Paradise Lost better than any 
 
 though
 
 Aetat.54.] Mr. Davics s back-par lour. 45^ 
 
 J 
 
 though upon the stage for many years, maintained an uni- 
 form decency of character; and Johnson esteemed them, 
 and Hved in as easy an intimacy with them, as with any 
 family which he used to visit'. Mr. Davies recollected sev- 
 eral of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was one of the 
 best of the many imitators of his voice and manner, while 
 relating them. He increased my impatience more and more 
 to see the extraordinary man whose works I highly valued, 
 and whose conversation was reported to be so peculiarly 
 excellent. 
 
 At last, on Monday the i6th of May, when I was sitting 
 in Mr. Davies's back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him 
 and Mrs. Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop^ ; 
 and Mr. Davies having perceived him through the glass-door 
 in the room in which we were sitting, advancing towards us, 
 — he announced his aweful approach to me, somewhat in the 
 manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses 
 Hamlet on the appearance of his father's ghost, ' Look, my 
 Lord, it comes.' I found that I had a very perfect idea of 
 Johnson's figure, from the portrait of him painted by Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds soon after he had published his Dictionary, 
 in the attitude of sitting in his easy chair in deep medita- 
 tion, which was the first picture his friend did for him, which 
 Sir Joshua very kindly presented to me, and from which an 
 
 man in England in his day (though I cannot help thinking there must 
 be some mistake in this tradition).' Lamb's Works, ed. 1840, p. 517. 
 
 ' See Johnson's letter to Davies, /^j/, June 18, 1783. 
 
 * Mr. Murphy, in his Essay on the Life and Genms 0/ Dr. Johnson. 
 [p. 106], has given an account of this meeting considerably different 
 from mine, I am persuaded without any consciousness of errour. His 
 memory, at the end of near thirty years, has undoubtedly deceived 
 him, and he supposes himself to have been present at a scene, which 
 he has probably heard inaccurately described by others. In my note 
 taken on the very day, in which I am confident I marked every thing 
 material that passed, no mention is made of this gentleman ; and I am 
 sure, that I should not have omitted one so well known in the literary 
 world. It may easily be imagined that this, my first interview with 
 Dr. Johnson, with all its circumstances, made a strong impression on 
 my mind, and wouW be registered with peculiar attention. Boswell. 
 
 engraving
 
 454 BoswcWs iiitrodnction to yohnson. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 engraving has been made for this work. Mr. Davies men- 
 tioned my name, and respectfully introduced me to him. I 
 was much agitated ; and recollecting his prejudice against the 
 Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said to Davies, ' Don't 
 tell where I come from.' — ' From Scotland,' cried Davies 
 roguishly. ' Mr. Johnson, (said I) I do indeed come from 
 Scotland, but I cannot help it'.' I am willing to flatter my- 
 self that I meant this as light pleasantry to sooth and con- 
 ciliate him, and not as an humiliating abasement at the 
 expence of my country. But however that might be, this 
 speech was somewhat unlucky ; for with that quickness of 
 wit for which he was so remarkable, he seized the expression 
 ' come from Scotland,' which I used in the sense of being of 
 that country; and, as if I had said that I had come away 
 from it, or left it, retorted, ' That, Sir, I find, is what a very 
 great many of your countrymen cannot help.' This stroke 
 stunned me a good deal ; and when we had sat down, I felt 
 myself not a little embarrassed, and apprehensive of what 
 might come next. He then addressed himself to Davies : 
 'What do you think of Garrick? He has refused me an 
 order for the play for Miss Williams, because he knows the 
 house will be full, and that an order would be worth three 
 shillings.' Eager to take any opening to get into conversa- 
 tion with him, I ventured to say, ' O, Sir, I cannot think Mr. 
 Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you.' ' Sir, (said he, 
 with a stern look,) I have known David Garrick longer than 
 you have done : and I know no right you have to talk to me 
 on the subject.' Perhaps I deserved this check ; for it was 
 rather presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any 
 doubt of the justice of his animadversion upon his old ac- 
 quaintance and pupil*. I now felt myself much mortified, 
 
 • SQ&post, April 8, 1775. 
 
 ^ That this was a momentary sally against Garrick there can be no 
 doubt ; for at Johnson's desire he had, some years before, given a 
 benefit-night at his theatre to this very person, by which she had got 
 two hundred pounds. Johnson, indeed, upon all other occasions, when 
 I was in his company, praised the very liberal charity of Garrick. I 
 
 and
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 
 After tJw portrait hy Sir Jos/ma Reynolds, 1756.
 
 Aetat.54.] His first record of JoJinsoti s talk. 455 
 
 and began to think that the hope which I had long indulged 
 of obtaining his acquaintance was blasted. And, in truth, 
 had not my ardour been uncommonly strong, and my reso- 
 lution uncommonly persevering, so rough a reception might 
 have deterred me for ever from making any further attempts. 
 Fortunately, however, I remained upon the field not wholly 
 discomfited ; and was soon rewarded by hearing some of his 
 conversation, of which I preserved the following short min- 
 ute, without marking the questions and observations by 
 which it was produced. 
 
 * People (he remarked) maybe taken in once, who imagine 
 that an authoui- is greater in private life than other men. 
 Uncommon parts require uncommon opportunities for their 
 exertion. 
 
 ' In barbarous society, superiority of parts is of real conse- 
 quence. Great strength or great wisdom is of much value to 
 an individual. But in more polished times there are people 
 to do every thing for money; and then there are a number 
 of other superiorities, such as those of birth and fortune, and 
 rank, that dissipate men's attention, and leave no extraordi- 
 nary share of respect for personal and intellectual superior- 
 ity. This is wisely ordered by Providence, to preserve some 
 equality among mankind.' 
 
 ' Sir, this book {TJie Elements of Criticisni\ which he had 
 taken up,) is a pretty essay, and deserves to be held in some 
 estimation, though much of it is chimerical.' 
 
 once mentioned to him, ' It is observed, Sir, that you attack Garrick 
 yourself, but will suffer nobody else to do it.' Johnson, (smiling) 
 ' Why. Sir, that is true.' Boswell. See post. May 15, 1776, and April 
 17, 1778. 
 
 ' By Henry Home, Lord Kames, 3 vols. Edinbur<;h, 1762. See />os/, 
 Oct. 16, 1769. 'Johnson laughed much at Lord Karnes's opinion that 
 war was a good thing occasionally, as so much valour and virtue were 
 exhibited in it. " A fire," says Johnson, " might as well be thought a 
 good thing; there is the bravery and address of the firemen cmpKjycd 
 in extinguishing it; there is much humanity exerted in saving the 
 lives and properties of the poor sufferers ; yet after all this, who can 
 say a fire is a good thing.'" ' Johnson's IVorls, (1787) xi. 209. 
 
 Speaking
 
 456 Sheridan s lectures on Oratory. [a.d. 17G3. 
 
 Speaking of one who with more than ordinary boldness 
 attacked pubhck measures and the royal family, he said, 
 
 ' I think he is safe from the law, but he is an abusive 
 scoundrel ; and instead of applying to my Lord Chief Justice 
 to punish him, I would send half a dozen footmen and have 
 him well ducked'.' 
 
 ' The notion of liberty amuses the people of England, and 
 helps to keep off the tcEdium vitce. When a butcher tells 
 you that his heart bleeds for his country, he has, in fact, no 
 uneasy feeling.' 
 
 ' Sheridan will not succeed at Bath with his oratory. Ridi- 
 cule has gone down before him, and, I doubt, Derrick is his 
 enemy'^' 
 
 ' No. 45 of the North Britot had been published on April 23. 
 Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant on April 30. On May 6 
 he was discharged from custody by the Court of Common Pleas, be- 
 fore which he had been brought by a writ of Habeas Corpjts. A few 
 days later he was served with a subpoena upon an information exhib- 
 ited against him by the Attorney- General in the Court of King's 
 Bench. He did not enter an appearance, holding, as he said, the serv- 
 ing him with the subpoena as a violation of the privilege of parlia- 
 ment. Pari. Hist. xv. 1 360. 
 
 ° Mr. Sheridan was then reading lectures upon Oratory at Bath, 
 where Derrick was Master of the Ceremonies ; or, as the phrase is. 
 King. Boswell. Dr. Parr, who knew Sheridan well, describes him 
 'as a wrong-headed, whimsical man.' 'I remember,' he continues, 
 ' hearing one of his daughters, in the house where I lodged, trium- 
 phantly repeat Dryden's Ode upon St. Cecilia s Day, according to the 
 instruction given to her by her father. Take a sample : — 
 " None but the brave 
 None but the brave 
 None but the brave deserve the fair." 
 Naughty Richard [R. B. Sheridan], like Gallio, seemed to care nought 
 for these things.' Moore's S/ieridajt, i. 9, 11. Sheridan writing from 
 Dublin on Dec. 7, 1771, says: — 'Never was party violence carried to 
 such a height as in this session ; the House [the Irish House of Par- 
 liament] seldom breaking up till eleven or twelve at night. From 
 these contests the desire of improving in the article of elocution is 
 become very general. There are no less than iive persons of rank and 
 fortune now waiting my leisure to become my pupils.' lb. p. 60. See 
 post, ]u\y 28, 1763. 
 
 * Derrick
 
 Aetat. 54.] BosweWs first call on yohnson. 457 
 
 ' Derrick may do very well, as long as he can outrun his 
 character; but the moment his character gets up with him, 
 it is all over.' 
 
 It is, however, but just to record, that some years after- 
 wards, when I reminded him of this sarcasm, he said, ' Well, 
 but Derrick has now got a character that he need not run 
 away from.' 
 
 I was highly pleased with the extraordinary vigour of his 
 conversation, and regretted that I was drawn away from it 
 by an engagement at another place. I had, for a part of the 
 evening, been left alone with him, and had ventured to make 
 an observation now and then, which he received very civilly ; 
 so that I was satisfied that though there was a roughness in 
 his manner, there was no ill-nature in his disposition. Davies 
 followed me to the door, and when I complained to him a 
 little of the hard blows which the great man had given me, 
 he kindly took upon him to console me by saying, ' Don't 
 be uneasy. I can see he likes you very well.' 
 
 A few days afterwards I called on Davies, and asked him 
 if he thought I might take the liberty of waiting on Mr. 
 Johnson at his Chambers in the Temple. He said I certainly 
 might, and that Mr. Johnson would take it as a compliment. 
 So upon Tuesday the 24th of May, after having been enliv- 
 ened by the witty sallies of Messieurs Thornton', Wilkes, 
 Churchill and Lloyd^ with whom I had passed the morning. 
 
 ' Bonnell Thornton. See /(7.y/, July i, 1763. 
 
 ''■ Lloyd was one of a remarkable group of Westminster boys. He 
 was a school-fellow not only of Churchill, the elder Colman. and Cum- 
 berland, but also of Cowper and Warren Hastings. Bonnell Thornton 
 was a few years their senior. Not many weeks after this meeting with 
 Boswell, Lloyd was in the Fleet prison. Churchill in Indepe7idcnce 
 {Poems, ii. 310) thus addresses the Patrons of the age : — 
 ' Hence, ye vain boasters, to the Fleet repair 
 And ask, with blushes ask, if Lloyd is there.' 
 Of the four men who thus ' enlivened ' Boswell, two were dead before 
 the end of the following year. Churchill went first. When Lloyd 
 heard of his death, ' " I shall follow poor Charles," was all he said, as 
 he went to the bed from which he never rose again.' Thornton lived 
 
 I boldly
 
 458 The Giant in his den. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 I boldly repaired to Johnson. His Chambers were on the 
 first floor of No. i, Inner-Temple-lane, and I entered them 
 with an impression given me by the Reverend Dr. Blair', of 
 Edinburgh, who had been introduced to him not long before, 
 and described his having ' found the Giant in his den :' an 
 expression, which, when I came to be pretty well acquainted 
 with Johnson, I repeated to him, and he was diverted at this 
 picturesque account of himself. Dr. Blair had been presented 
 to him by Dr. James Fordyce^ At this time the controversy 
 concerning the pieces published by Mr. James Macpherson, 
 as translations of Ossian^,\\2iS at its height. Johnson had 
 all along denied their authenticity; and, what was still more 
 provoking to their admirers, maintained that they had no 
 merit. The subject having been introduced by Dr. Fordyce, 
 Dr. Blair, relying on the internal evidence of their antiquity, 
 asked Dr. Johnson whether he thought any man of a modern 
 age could have written such poems? Johnson replied, ' Yes, 
 Sir, many men, many women, and many children* ' Johnson, 
 at this time, did not know that Dr. Blair had just published 
 a Dissertation, not only defending their authenticity, but 
 seriously ranking them with the poems of Homer and Virgil; 
 and when he was afterwards informed of this circumstance, 
 he expressed some displeasure at Dr. Fordyce's having sug- 
 gested the topick, and said, ' I am not sorry that they got 
 thus much for their pains. Sir, it was like leading one to 
 
 three or four years longer. Forster's Essays, ii. 217, 270, 289. See also 
 his Life of Goldsmith, i. 264, for an account how ' Lloyd invited Gold- 
 smith to sup with some friends of Grub Street, and left him to pay the 
 reckoning.' Thornton, Lloyd, Colman, Cowper, and Joseph Hill, to 
 whom Cowper's famous Epistle was addressed, had at one time been 
 members of the Nonsense Club. Southey's Coivper, i. 37. 
 
 ' The author of the well-known sermons, see post, under Dec. 21, 
 1776. 
 
 * Sttpost, under Dec. 9, 1784. 
 
 ' See post, Feb. 7, 1775, under Dec. 24, 1783, and Boswell's Hebrides, 
 Nov. 10, 1773. 
 
 * ' Sir,' he said to Reynolds, ' a man might write such stuff for ever, 
 if he would abandon his mind to it ;' post, under March 30, 1783. 
 
 talk
 
 Aetat. 54.] Christopher Smart's madness. 459 
 
 talk of a book when the authour is concealed behind the 
 door'.' 
 
 He received me very courteously; but, it must be con- 
 fessed, that his apartment, and furniture, and morning dress, 
 were sufificiently uncouth. His brown suit of cloaths looked 
 Very rusty; he had on a little old shrivelled unpowdcred wig, 
 which was too small for his head ; his shirt-neck and knees 
 of his breeches were loose ; his black worsted stockings ill 
 drawn up ; and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of 
 slippers. But all these slovenly particularities were forgotten 
 the moment that he began to talk. Some gentlemen, whom 
 I do not recollect, were sitting with him ; and when they 
 went away, I also rose ; but he said to me, ' Nay, don't go.' 
 ' Sir, (said I,) I am afraid that I intrude upon you. It is 
 benevolent to allow me to sit and hear you.' He seemed 
 pleased with this compliment, which I sincerely paid him, 
 and answered, ' Sir, I am obliged to any man who visits me.' 
 I have preserved the following short minute of what passed 
 this day : — 
 
 ' Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessar}' 
 deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor 
 friend Smart shewed the disturbance of his mind, by falling 
 upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any 
 other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it 
 is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart 
 did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that 
 their understanding is not called in question.' 
 
 Concerning this unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart, who 
 was confined in a mad-house, he had, at another time, the 
 following conversation with Dr. Burney : — BURNEY. ' How 
 does poor Smart do. Sir ; is he likely to recover?' JOHNSON. 
 * It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the dis- 
 ease ; for he grows fat upon it.' BURNEV. ' Perhaps, Sir, 
 that may be from want of exercise.' JOHNSON. ' No, Sir ; he 
 has partly as much exercise as he used to have, for he digs 
 in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for 
 
 ' ' Or behind the screen ' some one might have added, ante, i. 188. 
 
 exercise
 
 460 yohnsons Christianity. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 exercise to walk to the ale-house ; but he was carried back 
 again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmi- 
 ties were not noxious to society. He insisted on people 
 praying with hirn' ; and I'd as Hef pray with Kit Smart as 
 any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love 
 clean linen ; and I have no passion for it.' — Johnson con- 
 tinued. ' Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual 
 labour''; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attain- 
 able, more people would be content to be ignorant than 
 would take even a little trouble to acquire it.' 
 
 ' The morality of an action depends on the motive from 
 which we act. If I fling half a crown to a beggar with in- 
 tention to break his head, and he picks it up and buys vic- 
 tuals with it, the physical effect is good ; but, with respect to 
 me, the action is very wrong. So, religious exercises, if not 
 performed with an intention to please GOD, avail us nothing. 
 As our Saviour says of those who perform them from other 
 motives, " Verily they have their reward\" 
 
 ' The Christian religion has very strong evidences'. It, 
 indeed, appears in some degree strange to reason ; but in 
 History we have undoubted facts, against which, reasoning a 
 priori, we have more arguments than we have for them ; but 
 then, testimony has great weight, and casts the balance. I 
 would recommend to every man whose faith is yet unsettled, 
 Grotius, — Dr. Pearson, — and Dr. Clarke'.' 
 
 ' Wesley was told that a whole waggon-load of Methodists had been 
 lately brought before a Justice of the Peace. When he asked what 
 they were charged with, one replied, ' Why they pretended to be better 
 than other people, and besides they prayed from morning to night.' 
 Wesley's Journal, \. 361. See also post, 1780, near the end of Mr. 
 Langton's Collection. 
 
 ^ ' The progress which the understanding makes through a book 
 has,' he said, ' more pain than pleasure in it ;' post, May i, 1783. 
 
 ' Matthew, vi. 16. 
 
 * Boswell, it is clear, in the early days of his acquaintance with 
 Johnson often led the talk to this subject. See post, June 25, July 14, 
 21, and 28, 1763. 
 
 * See/^.y/, April 7, 1778. 
 
 Talking
 
 Aetat. 54.] yoknsoiis mode of life. 46 1 
 
 Talking of Garrick, he said, ' He is the first man in the 
 world for sprightly conversation.' 
 
 When I rose a second time he again pressed me to stay, 
 which I did. 
 
 He told me, that he generally went abroad at four in the 
 afternoon, and seldom came home till two in the morning'. 
 I took the liberty to ask if he did not think it wrong to live 
 thus, and not make more use of his great talents'. He owned 
 it was a bad habit. On reviewing, at the distance of many 
 years, my journal of this period, I wonder how, at my first 
 visit, I ventured to talk to him so freely, and that he bore it 
 with so much indulgence. 
 
 Before we parted, he was so good as to promise to favour 
 me with his company one evening at my lodgings ; and, as I 
 took my leave, shook me cordially by the hand. It is almost 
 needless to add, that I felt no little elation at having now so 
 happily established an acquaintance of which I had been so 
 long ambitious. 
 
 My readers will, I trust, excuse me for being thus minutely 
 circumstantial, when it is considered that the acquaintance 
 of Dr. Johnson was to me a most valuable acquisition, and 
 laid the foundation of whatever instruction and entertain- 
 ment they may receive from my collections concerning the 
 great subject of the work which they are now perusing. 
 
 I did not visit him again till Monday, June 13, at which 
 time I recollect no part of his conversation, except that when 
 I told him I had been to see Johnson ride upon three horses', 
 
 ' He finished his day, 'however late it might be,' by taking tea at 
 Miss Williams's lodgings ; post, July i, 1763. 
 
 "^ See post, under Feb. 15, 1766, Feb. 1767, March 20, 1776, and Bos- 
 well's Hebrides, Sept. 20, 1773, where Johnson says :— ' I have been 
 trying to cure my laziness all my life, and could not do it.' It was 
 this kind of life that caused so much of the remorse which is seen in 
 his Prayers and Meditations. 
 
 ' Horace Walpole writing on June 12, 1759 {Letters, iii. 231), says :— 
 ' A war that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace, and from Madras to 
 California, don't produce an article half so long as Mr. Johnson's rid- 
 ing three horses at once.' I have a curious copper -plate 'showing 
 
 he
 
 462 Johnson the horse-rider. [a.d.1763. 
 
 he said, * Such a man, Sir, should be encouraged ; for his per- 
 formances shew the extent of the human powers in one in- 
 stance, and thus tend to raise our opinion of the faculties of 
 man. He shews what may be attained by persevering appli- 
 cation ; so that every man may hope, that by giving as much 
 application, although perhaps he may never ride three horses 
 at a time, or dance upon a wire, yet he may be equally expert 
 in whatever profession he has chosen to pursue.' 
 
 He again shook me by the hand at parting, and asked me 
 why I did not come oftener to him. Trusting that I was 
 now in his good graces, I answered, that he had not given 
 me much encouragement, and reminded him of the check I 
 had received from him at our first interview, ' Poh, poh ! 
 (said he, with a complacent smile,) never mind these things. 
 Come to me as often as you can. I shall be glad to see you.' 
 
 I had learnt that his place of frequent resort was the Mitre 
 tavern in Fleet-street, where he loved to sit up late, and I 
 begged I might be allowed to pass an evening with him there 
 soon, which he promised I should. A few days afterwards I 
 met him near Temple-bar, about one o'clock in the morning, 
 and asked if he would then go to the Mitre. ' Sir, (said he) 
 it is too late ; they won't let us in. But I'll go with you 
 another night with all my heart.' 
 
 A revolution of some importance in my plan of life had 
 just taken place ; for instead of procuring a commission in 
 the foot-guards, which was my own inclination', I had, in 
 
 Johnson standing on one, or two, and leading a third horse in full 
 speed.' It bears the date of November 1758. See /c^/, April 3, 1778. 
 ' In the impudent Correspondence (pp. 63, 65) which Boswell and 
 Andrew Erskine published this year, Boswell shows why he wished to 
 enter the Guards. 'My fondness for the Guards,' he writes, 'must 
 appear very strange to you, who have a rooted antipathy at the glare 
 of scarlet. But I must inform you, that there is a city called London, 
 for which I have as violent an afifection as the most romantic lover 
 ever had for his mistress. ... I am thinking of the brilliant scenes of 
 happiness, which I shall enjoy as an officer of the guards. How I 
 shall be acquainted with all the grandeur of a court, and all the ele- 
 gance of dress and diversions ; become a favourite of ministers of state, 
 
 compliance
 
 Aetat.54.] A revolution in BosweWs life. 46 
 
 'I 
 
 compliance with my father's wishes, agreed to study the law ; 
 and was soon to set out for Utrecht, to hear the lectures of 
 an excellent Civilian in that University, and then to proceed 
 on my travels. Though very desirous of obtaining Dr. 
 Johnson's advice and instructions on the mode of pursuing 
 my studies, I was at this time so occupied, shall I call it ? or 
 so dissipated, by the amusements of London, that our next 
 meeting was not till Saturday, June 25, when happening to 
 dine at Clifton's eating-house, in Butcher-row', I was sur- 
 prized to perceive Johnson come in and take his seat at an- 
 other table. The mode of dining, or rather being fed, at 
 such houses in London, is well known to many to be partic- 
 ularly unsocial, as there is no Ordinary, or united company, 
 but each person has his own mess, and is under no obligation 
 to hold any intercourse with any one. A liberal and full- 
 minded man, however, who loves to talk, will break through 
 this churlish and unsocial restraint. Johnson and an Irish 
 gentleman got into a dispute concerning the cause of some 
 part of mankind being black. 'Why, Sir, (said Johnson,) it 
 has been accounted for in three ways : either by supposing 
 that they are the posterity of Ham, who was cursed ; or that 
 
 and the adoration of ladies of quality, beauty, and fortune ! How 
 many parties of pleasure shall I have in town ! How many fine jaunts 
 to the noble seats of dukes, lords, and members of parliament in the 
 country! I am thinking of the perfect knowledge which I shall ac- 
 quire of men and manners, of the intimacies which I shall have the 
 honour to form with the learned and ingenious in every science, and of 
 the many amusing literary anecdotes which I shall pick up,' etc. Bos- 
 well, in his Hebrides (Aug. i8, 1773), says of himself : — ' His inclination 
 was to be a soldier; but his father, a respectable Judge, had pressed 
 him into the profession of the law.' 
 
 A row of tenements in the Strand, between Wych Street and 
 Temple Bar, and ' so called from the butchers' shambles on the south 
 side.' {Strype, B. iv. p. 118.) Butcher Row was pulled down in 1813, 
 and the present Pickett Street erected in its stead. P. Cunningham. 
 In Humphry Clinker, in the letter of June 10, one of the poor authors 
 is described as having been 'reduced to a woollen night-cap and liv- 
 ing upon sheep's-trottcrs, up three pair of stairs backward in Butcher 
 Row.' 
 
 God
 
 464 The Mitre. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 God at first created two kinds of men, one black and another 
 white ; or that by the heat of the sun the skin is scorched, 
 and so acquires a sooty hue. This matter has been much 
 canvassed among naturahsts, but has never been brought to 
 any certain issue.' What the Irishman said is totally obht- 
 erated from my mind ; but I remember that he became very 
 warm and intemperate in his expressions; upon which John- 
 son rose, and quietly walked away. When he retired, his 
 antagonist took his revenge, as he thought, by saying, ' He 
 has a most ungainly figure, and an affectation of pomposity, 
 unworthy of a man of genius.' 
 
 Johnson had not observed that I was in the room. I fol- 
 lowed him, however, and he agreed to meet me in the even- 
 ing at the Mitre. I called on him, and we went thither at 
 nine. We had a good supper, and port wine, of which he 
 then sometimes drank a bottle. The orthodox high-church 
 sound of the MiTRE, — the figure and manner of the cele- 
 brated Samuel Johnson, — the extraordinary power and 
 precision of his conversation, and the pride arising from find- 
 ing myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of 
 sensations, and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I 
 had ever before experienced. I find in my journal the fol- 
 lowing minute of our conversation, which, though it will give 
 but a very faint notion of what passed, is in some degree a 
 valuable record ; and it will be curious in this view, as shew- 
 ing how habitual to his mind were some opinions which ap- 
 pear in his works. 
 
 * Colley Gibber', Sir, was by no means a blockhead ; but 
 by arrogating to himself too much, he was in danger of los- 
 ing that degree of estimation to which he was entitled. His 
 friends gave out that he intended his birth-day Odes should 
 
 ' Gibber was poet-laureate from 1730 to 1757. Horace Walpole de- 
 scribes him as ' that good humoured and honest veteran, so unworthily 
 aspersed by Pope, whose Metnozrs, with one or two of his comedies, 
 will secure his fame, in spite of all the abuse of his contemporaries.' 
 His successor Whitehead, Walpole calls ' a man of a placid genius.' 
 Reign of George II, iii. 81. See ante, pp. 172, 213, and post, Oct. 19, 
 1769, May 15, 1776, and Sept. 21, 1777. 
 
 be
 
 Aetat. 54.] Cibber and IVhitehcad. 465 
 
 be bad : but that was not the case, Sir ; for he kept them 
 many months by him, and a few years before he died he 
 shewed me one of them, with great soHcitude to render it as 
 perfect as might be, and I made some corrections, to which 
 he was not very willing to submit. I remember the follow- 
 ing couplet in allusion to the King and himself : 
 
 " Perch'd on the eagle's soaring wing, 
 The lowly linnet loves to sing." 
 
 Sir, he had heard something of the fabulous talc of the wren 
 sitting upon the eagle's wing, and he had applied it to a lin- 
 net. Gibber's familiar style, however, was better than that 
 which Whitehead has assumed. Grand nonsense is insup- 
 portable'. Whitehead is but a little man to inscribe verses 
 to players.' 
 
 I did not presume to controvert this censure, which was 
 tinctured with his prejudice against players'* ; but I could not 
 help thinking that a dramatick poet might with propriety 
 
 ' The following quotations show the difference of style in the two 
 poets : — 
 
 Co L LEY Cibber. 
 ' When her pride, fierce in arms. 
 
 Would to Europe give law; 
 At her cost let her come, 
 To our cheer of huzza ! 
 Not lightning with thunder more terrible darts, 
 Than the burst of huzza from our bold British hearts.* 
 
 Gent. Mag. xxv. 515. 
 Wm. Whitehead. 
 ' Ye guardian powers, to whose command, 
 At Nature's birth, th' Almighty mind 
 The delegated task assign 'd 
 To watch o'er Albion's favour'd land. 
 What time your hosts with choral lay. 
 Emerging from its kindred deep. 
 Applausive hail'd each verdant steep. 
 And white rock, glitt'ring to the new-born day !' 
 
 lb, xxix. 32. 
 
 ' See ante, p. 193. 
 
 I.— 30 pay
 
 466 The abruptness of Grays Ode. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 pay a compliment to an eminent performer, as Whitehead 
 has very happily done in his verses to Mr. Garrick'. 
 
 ' Sir, I do not think Gray a first-rate poet. He has not a 
 bold imagination, nor much command of words. The ob- 
 scurity in which he has involved himself will not persuade 
 us that he is sublime\ His Elegy in a CJmrch-yard has a 
 happy selection of images, but I don't like what are called 
 his great things. His Ode which begins 
 
 " Ruin seize thee, ruthless King, 
 Confusion on thy banners wait !" 
 
 has been celebrated for its abruptness, and plunging into the 
 subject all at once\ But such arts as these have no merit, 
 unless when they are original. We admire them only once ; 
 and this abruptness has nothing new in it. We have had 
 it often before. Nay, we have it in the old song of Johnny 
 Armstrone^: 
 
 ' 'Whitehead was for some while Garrick's "reader" of new plays 
 for Drury-lane.' Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 41. See post, April 25, 1778, 
 note. The verses to Garrick are given in Chalmers's English Poets, 
 xvii. 222. 
 
 ^ ' In 1757 Gray published The Progress of Poetry and TJie Bard, 
 two compositions at which the readers of poetry were at first content 
 to gaze in mute amazement. Some that tried them confessed their 
 inability to understand them. . . . Garrick wrote a few lines in their 
 praise. Some hardy champions undertook to rescue them from neg- 
 lect ; and in a short time many were content to be shown beauties 
 which they could not see.' Johnson's Works, viii. 478. See post, 
 March 28, and April 2, 1775, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's Colleetion. 
 Goldsmith, no doubt, attacked Gray among 'the misguided innova- 
 tors,' of whom he said in his Life of Par7iell\ — ' They have adopted a 
 language of their own, and call upon mankind for admiration. All 
 those who do not understand them are silent, and those who make 
 out their meaning are willing to praise to show they understand.' 
 Goldsmith's Mise. Works, iv. 22. 
 
 ^ Johnson, perhaps, refers to the anonymous critic quoted by Mason 
 in his notes on this Ode,yNh.o says: — 'This abrupt execration plunges 
 the reader into that sudden fearful perplexity which is designed to 
 predominate through the whole.' Mason's Gray, ed. 1807, i. 96. 
 
 * ' Of the first stanza [of The Bard] the abrupt beginning has been 
 
 "Is
 
 Aetat. 54.] yolinsoiis opinion of Grays poetry. 467 
 
 "Is there ever a man in all Scotland 
 From the highest estate to the lowest degree, &c." 
 
 And then, Sir, 
 
 "Yes, there is a man in Westmoreland, 
 And Johnny Armstrong they do him call." 
 
 There, now, you plunge at once into the subject. You have 
 no previous narration to lead you to it. The two next lines 
 in that Ode are, I think, very good : 
 
 "Though fann'd by conquest's crimson wing, 
 They mock the air with idle state'." ' 
 
 Here let it be observed, that although his opinion of Gray's 
 poetry was widely different from mine, and I believe from 
 that of most men of taste'", by whom it is with justice highly- 
 admired, there is certainly much absurdity in the clamour 
 which has been raised, as if he had been culpably injurious 
 
 celebrated ; but technical beauties can give praise only to the invent- 
 or. It is in the power of any man to rush abruptly upon his subject 
 that has read the ballad of Johnny Armstrong .' Johnson's Works, 
 viii.485. 
 
 ' My friend Mr. Malone, in his valuable comments on Shakspeare, 
 has traced in that great poet the disjecta membra of these lines. Bos- 
 well. Gray, in the edition of The Bard of the year 1768, in a note 
 on these lines had quoted from King John, act v. so. i : — ' Mocking 
 the air with colours idly spread.' Gosse's Gray, i. 41. But Malone 
 quotes also from Macbeth, act i. sc. 2 : — 
 
 ' Where the Norweyan banners flout the sky 
 And fan our people cold.' 
 ' Out of these passages,' he said, ' Mr. Gray seems to have framed the 
 first stanza of his celebrated Ode.' Malone's Shakespeare, xv. 344. 
 
 ^ Cradock records {Memoirs, i. 230) that Goldsmith said to him : — 
 ' You are so attached to Hurd, Gray, and Mason, that you think noth- 
 ing good can proceed but out of that formal school ; — now, I'll mend 
 Gray's Elegy by leaving out an idle word in every line. 
 "The curfew tolls the knell of day, 
 The lowing herd winds o'er the lea, 
 The ploughman homeward plods his way. 
 
 And " 
 
 Enough, enough, I have no ear for more.' 
 
 to
 
 468 Boswell opens his mind. [a.d.1763. 
 
 to the merit of that bard, and had been actuated by envy. 
 Alas! ye Httle short-sighted criticks, could JOHNSON be en- 
 vious of the talents of any of his contemporaries? That his 
 opinion on this subject was what in private and in publick 
 he uniformly expressed, regardless of what others might 
 think, we may wonder, and perhaps regret ; but it is shallow 
 and unjust to charge him with expressing what he did not 
 think. 
 
 Finding him in a placid humour, and wishing to avail my- 
 self of the opportunity which I fortunately had of consulting 
 a sage, to hear whose wisdom, I conceived in the ardour of 
 youthful imagination, that men filled with a noble enthusiasm 
 for intellectual improvement would gladly have resorted from 
 distant lands; — I opened my mind to him ingenuously, and 
 gave him a little sketch of my life, to which he was pleased 
 to listen with great attention'. 
 
 I acknowledged, that though educated very strictly in the 
 principles of religion, I had for some time been misled into 
 a certain degree of infidelity; but that I was come now to a 
 better way of thinking, and was fully satisfied of the truth of 
 the Christian revelation, though I was not clear as to every 
 point considered to be orthodox. Being at all times a curi- 
 ous examiner of the human mind, and pleased with an undis- 
 guised display of what had passed in it, he called to me with 
 warmth, ' Give me your hand ; I have taken a liking to you.' 
 He then began to descant upon the force of testimony, and 
 the little we could know of final causes ; so that the objec- 
 tions of, why was it so? or why was it not so? ought not to 
 disturb us: adding, that he himself had at one period been 
 guilty of a temporary neglect of religion, but that it was not 
 the result of argument, but mere absence of thought\ 
 
 After having given credit to reports of his bigotry, I was 
 
 ' So, less than two years later, Boswell opened his mind to Paoli. 
 ' My time passed here in the most agreeable manner. I enjoyed a sort 
 of luxury of noble sentiment. Paoli became more afTable with me. I 
 made myself known to him.' Boswell's Corsica, p. 167. 
 
 ^ See ante, p. 'jZ. ' 
 
 agreeably
 
 Aetat.o4.] The differences of Christians. 469 
 
 agreeably surprized when he expressed the following very- 
 liberal sentiment, which has the additional value of obvi- 
 ating an objection to our holy religion, founded upon the 
 discordant tenets of Christians themselves : ' For my part, 
 Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, 
 agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are 
 trivial, and rather political than religious'.' 
 
 We talked of belief in ghosts. He said, ' Sir, I make a 
 distinction between what a man may experience by the 
 mere strength of his imagination, and what imagination 
 cannot possibly produce. Thus, suppose I should think that 
 I saw a form, and heard a voice cry " Johnson, you are a 
 very wicked fellow, and unless you repent you will certainly 
 be punished ;" my own unworthiness is so deeply impressed 
 upon my mind, that I might imagine I thus saw and heard, 
 and therefore I should not believe that an external com- 
 munication had been made to me. But if a form should 
 appear, and a voice should tell me that a particular man had 
 died at a particular place, and a particular hour, a fact which 
 I had no apprehension of, nor any means of knowing, and 
 this fact, with all its circumstances, should afterwards be 
 unquestionably proved, I should, in that case, be persuaded 
 that I had supernatural intelligence imparted to me,' 
 
 Here it is proper, once for all, to give a true and fair 
 statement of Johnson's way of thinking upon the question, 
 whether departed spirits are ever permitted to appear in this 
 world, or in any way to operate upon human life. He has 
 been ignorantly misrepresented as weakly credulous upon 
 that subject ; and, therefore, though I feel an inclination to 
 disdain and treat with silent contempt so foolish a notion 
 concerning my illustrious friend, yet as I find it has gained 
 ground, it is necessary to refute it. The real fact then is, 
 that Johnson had a very philosophical mind, and such a 
 rational respect for testimony, as to make him submit his 
 understanding to what was authentically proved, though he 
 could not comprehend why it was so. Being thus disposed, 
 
 I S&e post, Sept. 22, 1777.
 
 470 The Cock-lane Ghost. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 he was willing to inquire into the truth of any relation of 
 supernatural agency, a general belief of which has prevailed 
 in all nations and ages'. But so far was he from being the 
 dupe of implicit faith, that he examined the matter with a 
 jealous attention, and no man was more ready to refute its 
 falsehood when he had discovered it. Churchill, in his poem 
 entitled The Ghost, availed himself of the absurd credulity 
 imputed to Johnson, and drew a caricature of him under 
 the name of ' POMPOSO',' representing him as one of the 
 believers of the story of a Ghost in Cock-lane, which, in 
 the year 1762, had gained very general credit in London'. 
 Many of my readers, I am convinced, are to this hour under 
 an impression that Johnson was thus foolishly deceived. It 
 will therefore surprise them a good deal when they are in- 
 formed upon undoubted authority, that Johnson Avas one 
 of those by whom the imposture was detected. The story 
 had become so popular, that he thought it should be in- 
 vestigated' ; and in this research he was assisted by the 
 
 ' Sec posf, March 30, 1778, where in speaking of the appearance of 
 spirits after death he says :— ' All argument is against it ; but all belief 
 is for it." See also ajite, p. 397, and post, April 1 5, 1778. under May 4. 
 1779, April 15, 1781, and June 12, 1784. 
 ^ The caricature begins : — . 
 
 ' Pomposo, insolent and loud, 
 Vain idol of a scribbling crowd, 
 Whose very name inspires an awe, 
 Whose ev'ry word is Sense and Law.' 
 
 Churchill's Poems, i. 216. 
 ' The chief impostor, a man of the name of Parsons, had, it should 
 seem, set his daughter to play the part of the ghost in order to pay 
 out a grudge against a man who had sued him for a debt. The ghost 
 was made to accuse this man of poisoning his sister-in-law, and to de- 
 clare that she should only be at ease in her mind if he were hanged. 
 ' When Parsons stood on the Pillory at the end of Cock Lane, instead 
 of being pelted, he had money given him.' Gefil. Mag. xxxii. 43, 82, 
 and xxxiii. 144. 
 
 * Horace Walpole, writing on Feb. 2, 1762 {Letters, iii. 481), says :— 
 ' I could send you volumes on the Ghost, and I believe, if I were to 
 stay a little, I might send its life, dedicated to my Lord Dartmouth, 
 by the Ordinary of Newgate, its two great patrons. A drunken par- 
 Reverend
 
 Aetat. 54.] The Cock-laue Ghost. 471 
 
 Reverend Dr. Douglas', now Bishop of Salisbur}% the great 
 detector of impostures; who informs me, that after the gen- 
 tlemen who went and examined into the evidence were satis- 
 fied of its falsity, Johnson wrote in their presence an account 
 of it, which was published in the newspapers and Gcntlc- 
 ma7is Ulagazme, and undeceived the world\ 
 
 ish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the Methodists have adopted 
 it, and the whole town of London think of nothing else. ... I went 
 to hear it, for it is not an apparitiott, but an audition, . . . the Duke of 
 York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord Hertford, and L 
 all in one Hackney-coach : it rained torrents ; yet the lane was full of 
 mob, and the house so full we could not get in.' See. post, April 10, 
 
 1778. 
 
 ' Described by Goldsmith in Retaliation as 'The scourge of im- 
 postors, the terror of quacks.' See ajitc, p. 265. 
 
 ■•* The account was as follows: — 'On the night of the ist of Feb- 
 ruary [1762] many gentlemen eminent for their rank and character 
 were, by the invitation of the Reverend Mr. Aldrich, of Clerkenwell, 
 assembled at his house, for the examination of the noises supposed 
 to be made by a departed spirit, for the detection of some enormous 
 crime. 
 
 ' About ten at night the gentlemen met in the chamber in which 
 the girl, supposed to be disturbed by a spirit, had, with proper caution, 
 been put to bed by several ladies. They sat rather more than an hour, 
 and hearing nothing, went down stairs, when they interrogated the 
 father of the girl, who denied, in the strongest terms, any knowledge 
 or belief of fraud. 
 
 'The supposed spirit had before publickly promised, by an affirma- 
 tive knock, that it would attend one of the gentlemen into the vault 
 under the Church of St. John, Clerkenwell, where the body is depos- 
 ited, and give a token of her presence there, by a knock upon her 
 coffin ; it was therefore determined to make this trial of the existence 
 or veracity of the supposed spirit. 
 
 ' While they were enquiring and deliberating, they were summoned 
 into the girl's chamber by some ladies who were near her bed, and 
 who had heard knocks and scratches. When the gentlemen entered, 
 the girl declared that she felt the spirit like a mouse upon her back, 
 and was required to hold her hands out of bed. From that time, 
 though the spirit was very solemnly required to manifest its existence 
 by appearance, by impression on the hand or body of any present, by 
 scratches, knocks, or any other agency, no evidence of any preter-nat- 
 ural power was exhibited. 
 
 Our
 
 472 Subordmaiion. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 Our conversation proceeded. ' Sir, (said he) I am a friend 
 to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of 
 society'. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and 
 being governed.' 
 
 'The spirit was then very seriously advertised that the person to 
 whom the promise was made of striking the coffin, was then about 
 to visit the vault, and that the performance of the promise was then 
 claimed. The company at one o'clock went into the church, and the 
 gentleman to whom the promise was made, went with another into 
 the vault. The spirit was solemnly required to perform its promise, 
 but nothing more than silence ensued : the person supposed to be ac- 
 cused by the spirit, then went down with several others, but no effect 
 was perceived. Upon their return they examined the girl, but could 
 draw no confession from her. Between two and three she desired 
 and was permitted to go home with her father. 
 
 ' It is, therefore, the opinion of the whole assembly, that the child 
 has some art of making or counterfeiting a particular noise, and that 
 there is no agency of any higher cause.' Boswell. Geni. Mag. xxxii. 
 8i. The following MS. letter is in the British Museum: — 
 
 ' Revd. Sir, 
 
 The appointment for the examination stands as it did when I 
 saw you last, viz., between 8 and 9 this evening. Mr. Johnson was 
 applied to by a friend of mine soon after you left him, and promised 
 to be with us. Should be glad, if convenient, you'd show him the way 
 hither. Mrs. Oakes, of Dr. Macauley's recommendation, I should be 
 glad to have here on the occasion ; and think it would do honour to 
 the list of examiners to have Dr. Macauley with us. 
 
 I am, Dear Sir, 
 your most obedient ser\'ant, 
 
 Ste. Aldrich. 
 
 If Dr. Macauley can conveniently attend, should be glad you'd 
 acquaint Lord Dartmouth with it, who seemed to be at loss to rec- 
 ommend a gentleman of the faculty at his end of the town. 
 
 St. John's Square. Monday noon. 
 To the Revd. Dr. Douglas.' 
 
 Endorsed ' Mr. Aldrich, Feb. 1762, about the Cock Lane ghost. — Ex- 
 amination at his house.' 
 
 ' Boswell was with Paoli when news came that a Corsican under 
 sentence of death ' had consented to accept of his life, upon condition 
 of becoming hangman. This made a great noise among the Corsi- 
 cans,who were enraged at the creature, and said their nation was now 
 disgraced. Paoli did not think so. He said to me: — "I am glad of 
 
 Dr.
 
 Aetat. 54.J Criticism. 4^^ 
 
 a 
 
 ' Dr. Goldsmith is one of the first men we now have as 
 an authour, and he is a very worthy man too. He has been 
 loose in his principles, but he is coming right.' 
 
 I mentioned Mallet's tragedy of Ehnra\ which had been 
 acted the preceding winter at Drury-lane, and that the 
 Honourable Andrew Erskine^ Mr. Dempster', and myself, 
 had joined in writing a pamphlet, entitled, Critical Strictures, 
 against it'. That the mildness of Dempster's disposition 
 had, however, relented ; and he had candidly said, ' We have 
 hardly a right to abuse this tragedy : for bad as it is, how 
 vain should either of us be to write one not near so good.' 
 Johnson. 'Why no. Sir; this is not just reasoning. You 
 may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You 
 may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though 
 you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make 
 tables.' 
 
 When I talked to him of the paternal estate to which I 
 was heir, he said, ' Sir, let me tell you, that to be a Scotch 
 
 this. It will be of service. It will contribute to form us to a just 
 subordination. As we must have Corsican tailours, and Corsican 
 shoemakers, we must also have a Corsican hangman." ' Boswell's 
 Corsica, p. 201. See post, July 20 and 21, 1763, April 13, 1773, and 
 March 28, 1775. 
 
 ■ ' Mallet's Dramas had their day, a short day, and are forgotten.' 
 Johnson's Works, v'\\\. \^%. 
 
 '^ See ante, p. 445, note. 
 
 * 'A man had heard that Dempster was very clever, and therefore 
 expected that he could say nothing but good things. Being brought 
 acquainted, Mr. Dempster said to him with much politeness, " I hope, 
 Sir, your lady and family are well." "Ay, ay, man," said he, "pray 
 where is the great wit in that speech ?" ' Boswctliatia, p. 307. Mr. 
 Dempster is mentioned by Burns in The Author s Earnest Cry and 
 Prayer to the Scotch Representatives in the House of Comtnotts : — 
 'Dempster, a true-blue Scot I'se warran.' In 1769 he was elected 
 member for the Forfar Boroughs. J\irt. Hist. xvi. 453. 
 
 * The Critical Review, in which Mallet himself sometimes wrote, 
 characterised this pamphlet as 'the crude elTorts of envy, petulance 
 and self-conceit.' There being thus three epithets, we, the three au- 
 thours, had a humourous contention how each should be appropri- 
 ated. BOSWELL. 
 
 landlord,
 
 474 Scotch landlords. [a. d. 1763. 
 
 landlord, where you have a number of families dependent 
 upon you, and attached to you, is, perhaps, as high a situa- 
 tion as humanity can arrive at. A merchant upon the 
 'Change of London, with a hundred thousand pounds, is 
 nothing ; an English Duke, with an immense fortune, is 
 nothing ; he has no tenants who consider themselves as 
 under his patriarchal care, and who will follow him to the 
 field upon an emergency.' 
 
 His notion of the dignity of a Scotch landlord had been 
 formed upon what he had heard of the Highland Chiefs; for 
 it is long since a lowland landlord has been so curtailed in 
 his feudal authority, that he has little more influence over 
 his tenants than an English landlord ; and of late years most 
 of the Highland Chiefs have destroyed, by means too well 
 known, the princely power which they once enjoyed'. 
 
 He proceeded: 'Your going abroad, Sir, and breaking off 
 idle habits, may be of great importance to you. I would go 
 where there are courts and learned men. There is a good 
 deal of Spain that has not been perambulated. I would 
 have you go thither". A man of inferiour talents to yours 
 may furnish us with useful observations upon that country.' 
 His supposing me, at that period of life, capable of writing 
 an account of my travels that would deserve to be read, 
 elated me not a little. 
 
 I appeal to every impartial reader whether this faithful 
 detail of his frankness, complacency, and kindness to a young 
 man, a stranger and a Scotchman, does not refute the unjust 
 opinion of the harshness of his general demeanour. His oc- 
 casional reproofs of folly, impudence, or impiety, and even 
 the sudden sallies of his constitutional irritability of temper, 
 which have been preserved for the poignancy of their wit, 
 have produced that opinion among those who have not con- 
 sidered that such instances, though collected by Mrs. Piozzi 
 
 * Johnson ( Works, ix. 86) talks of the chiefs 'gradually degenerating 
 from patriarchal rulers to rapacious landlords.' In Boswell's Hebrides, 
 the subject is often examined. 
 
 ' See ante, i. 423. 
 
 into
 
 Aetat. 54.] Boswell and yoluisoii. 475 
 
 into a small volume, and read over in a few hours, were, in 
 fact, scattered through a long series of years ; years, in which 
 his time was chiefly spent in instructing and delighting man- 
 kind by his writings and conversation, in acts of piety to 
 God, and good-will to men'. 
 
 I complained to him that I had not yet acquired much 
 knowledge, and asked his advice as to my studies\ He said, 
 ' Don't talk of study now. I will give you a plan ; but it 
 will require some time to consider of it.' 'It is very. good 
 in you (I replied,) to allow me to be with you thus. Had it 
 been foretold to me some years ago that I should pass an 
 evening with the authour of The Rambler, how should I 
 have exulted !' What I then expressed, was sincerely from 
 the heart. He was satisfied that it was, and cordially an- 
 swered, ' Sir, I am glad we have met. I hope we shall pass 
 many evenings and mornings too, together.' We finished 
 a couple of bottles of port, and sat till between one and two 
 in the morning. 
 
 He wrote this year in the Critical Reviezu the account of 
 ' Telemachus, a Mask,' by the Reverend George Graham, of 
 Eton College'. The subject of this beautiful poem was par- 
 ticularly interesting to Johnson, who had much experience 
 of ' the conflict of opposite principles,' which he describes as 
 ' The contention between pleasure and virtue, a struggle 
 
 ' ' Dr. Burney spoke with great warmth of affection of Dr. Johnson ; 
 said he was the kindest creature in the world when he thought he 
 was loved and respected by others. He would play the fool among 
 friends, but he required deference. It was neccssar>' to ask questions 
 and make no assertion. If you said two and two make four, he would 
 say, "How will you prove that. Sir.?" Dr. Burney seemed amiably 
 sensitive to every unfavourable remark on his old friend.' II. C. Rob- 
 inson's Diary, iii. 485. 
 
 - S&t posi, April 24, 1777, note, and Oct. 10, 1779, where he consults 
 Johnson about the study of Greek. He formed wishes, scarcely plans 
 of study, but never studied. 
 
 * Sqg. post, Feb. 18, 1777. It was Graham who so insulted Goldsmith 
 by saying:— "Tis not you I mean, Dr. Minor; 'tis Dr. Major there.' 
 Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773. 
 
 which
 
 47^ Oliver Goldsmith. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 which will always be continued while the present system of 
 nature shall subsist: nor can history or poetry exhibit more 
 than pleasure triumphing over virtue, and virtue subjugating 
 pleasure.' 
 
 As Dr. Oliver Goldsmith will frequently appear in this 
 narrative, I shall endeavour to make my readers in some 
 degree acquainted with his singular character. He was a 
 native of Ireland, and a contemporary with Mr. Burke at 
 Trinity College, Dublin, but did not then give much promise 
 of future celebrity'. He, however, observed to Mr. Malone, 
 that 'though he made no great figure in mathematicks', 
 which was a study in much repute there, he could turn an 
 Ode of Horace into English better than any of them.' He 
 afterwards studied physick at Edinburgh, and upon the Con- 
 tinent ; and I have been informed, was enabled to pursue 
 his travels on foot", partly by demanding at Universities to 
 enter the lists as a disputant, by which, according to the 
 custom of many of them, he was entitled to the premium of 
 a crown, when luckily for him his challenge was not accept- 
 ed ; so that, as I once observed to Dr. Johnson, he disputed 
 his passage through Europe'. He then came to England, 
 and was employed successively in the capacities of an usher 
 to an academy, a corrector of the press, a reviewer, and a 
 writer for a news-paper. He had sagacity enough to culti- 
 vate assiduously the acquaintance of Johnson, and his facul- 
 ties were gradually enlarged by the contemplation of such 
 a model. To me and many others it appeared that he 
 
 * See pos/, Sept. 19, 1777. 
 
 ^ Of Mathematics Goldsmith wrote :— ' This seems a science to which 
 the meanest intellects are equal.' Seeposi, March 15, 1776, note. 
 
 = In his Present State of Polite Learning, ch. 13 {Misc. IVorks, i. 266), 
 Goldsmith writes : — 'A man who is whirled through Europe in a post- 
 chaise, and the pilgrim who walks the grand tour on foot, will form 
 very dififerent conclusions. Hand inexpertus loquor.' The last three 
 words are omitted in the second edition. 
 
 * George Primrose in the Vicar of Wakefield (ch. 20), after describ- 
 ing these disputations, says : — ' In this manner I fought my way tow- 
 ards England.' 
 
 studiously
 
 Aetat. 54.] Oliver Goldsmith. 477 
 
 studiously copied the manner of Johnson', though, indeed, 
 upon a smaller scale. 
 
 At this time I think he had published nothing with his 
 name", though it was pretty generally known that one Dr. 
 GoldsmitJi was the authour of An Etiquiry into the present 
 State of polite Learning in Europe", and of The Citi::en of 
 the World\ a series of letters supposed to be written from 
 London by a Chinese. No man had the art of displaying 
 with more advantage as a writer, whatever literary acquisi- 
 tions he made. ^ Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit" .' His mind 
 resembled a fertile, but thin soil. There was a quick, but 
 not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to be thrown 
 upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of the 
 forest did not grow there ; but the elegant shrubbery and 
 the fragrant parterre appeared in gay succession. It has 
 been generally circulated and believed that he was a mere 
 fool in conversation" ; but, in truth, this has been greatly 
 
 ' Dr. Warton wrote to his brother on Jan. 22, 1766 : — ' Of all solemn 
 coxcombs Goldsmith is the first ; yet sensible — but afifects to use John- 
 son's hard words in conversation.' Wooll's Warton, p. 312. 
 
 "^ It was long believed that the author of one of Goldsmith's early 
 works was Lord Lyttelton. ' " Whenever I write anything," said Gold- 
 smith, " I think the public 7nake a point to know nothing about it." 
 So the present book was issued as a History of Eftgland in a series of 
 Letters from a Noblctnan to his Son. The persuasion at last became 
 general that the author was Lord Lyttelton, and the name of that 
 grave good lord is occasionally still seen affixed to it on the book- 
 stalls.' Forster's Goldsmith, \. 301. The Traveller was the first of his 
 works to which he put his name. It was published in 1 764. lb. p. 364. 
 
 ^ Published in 1759. 
 
 * Published in 1 760-1. 
 
 * See his Epitaph in Westminster Abbey, written by Dr. Johnson. 
 
 BOSWELL. 
 
 'Qui nullum fere scribendi genus Non tetigit, 
 Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.' 
 
 Post, under June 22, 1776. 
 « In allusion to this, Mr. Horace Walpolc, who admired his writings, 
 said he was 'an inspired ideot ;' and Garrick described him as one 
 
 ' for shortness call'd Noll, 
 
 Who wrote like an angel, and talk'd like poor Poll.' 
 
 exaggerated.
 
 478 Oliver Goldsmith, [a. d. 1763. 
 
 exaggerated. He had, no doubt, a more than common share 
 of that hurry of ideas which we often find in his country- 
 men, and which sometimes produces a laughable confusion 
 in expressing them. He was very much what the French 
 call im etoiirdi\ and from vanity and an eager desire of be- 
 ing conspicuous wherever he was, he frequently talked care- 
 lessly without knowledge of the subject, or even without 
 thought. His person was short, his countenance coarse and 
 vulgar, his deportment that of a scholar aukwardly affecting 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds mentioned to me tiiat he frequently heard 
 Goldsmith talk warmly of the pleasure of being liked, and observe 
 how hard it would be if literary excellence should preclude a man 
 from that satisfaction, which he perceived it often did, from the envy 
 which attended it ; and therefore Sir Joshua was convinced that he 
 was intentionally more absurd, in order to lessen himself in social in- 
 tercourse, trusting that his character would be sufficiently supported 
 by his works. If it indeed was his intention to appear absurd in com- 
 pany, he was often very successful. But with due deference to Sir 
 Joshua's ingenuity, I think the conjecture too refined. Boswell. 
 
 Horace Walpole's saying of the ' inspired ideot ' is recorded in 
 Davies's Garrick, ii. 151. Walpole, in his Letters, describes Goldsmith 
 as ' a changeling that has had bright gleams of parts,' (v. 458) ; ' a fool, 
 the more wearing for having some sense,' (vi. 29) ; 'a poor soul that 
 had sometimes parts, though never common sense,' {ib. p. 73); and 
 'an idiot, with once or twice a fit of parts,' {ib. p. 379). Garrick's 
 lines — 
 
 ' Here lies Nolly Goldsmith, for shortness called Noll, 
 Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll,' 
 are his imaginary epitaph on Goldsmith, which, with the others, gave 
 rise to Retaliation. Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 405. 
 
 ' Rousseau accounting for the habit he has ' de balbutier prompte- 
 ment des paroles sans idees,' continues, 'je crois que voila de quoi 
 faire assez comprendre comment n'etant pas un sot, j'ai cependant 
 souvent passe pour I'etre, meme chez des gens.en etat de bien juger. 
 . . . Le parti que j'ai pris d'ecrire et de me cacher est precisement 
 celui qui me convenait. Moi present on n'aurait jamais su ce que je 
 valois, on ne I'aurait pas soupconne meme.' Les Confessions, Livre iii. 
 See post, Ai^rW 27, 1773, where Boswell admits that 'Goldsmith was 
 often very fortunate in his witty contests, even when he entered the 
 lists with Johnson himself:' and April 30, 1773, where Reynolds says 
 of him : ' There is no man whose company is more liked.' 
 
 the
 
 Aetat. 54.] Oliver Goldsmith. 479 
 
 the easy gentleman'. Those who were in any way distin- 
 guished, excited envy in him to so ridiculous an excess, that 
 the instances of it are hardly credible". When accompanying 
 two beautiful young ladies' with their mother on a tour in 
 France, he was seriously angry that more attention was paid 
 to them than to him' ; and once at the exhibition of the 
 Fantoccini'' in London, when those who sat next him ob- 
 served with what dexterity a puppet was made to toss a 
 
 ' Northcote, a few weeks before his death, said to Mr. Prior: — 
 'When Goldsmith entered a room, Sir, people who did not know him 
 became for a moment silent from awe of his literary reputation ; when 
 he came out again, they were riding upon his back.' Prior's Gold- 
 smith, \. if\o. According to Dr. Percy: — 'His face was marked with 
 strong lines of thinking. His first appearance was not captivating ; 
 but when he grew easy and cheerful in company, he relaxed into such 
 a display of good humour as soon removed every unfavourable im- 
 pression.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 117. 
 
 ^ ' Dr. Goldsmith told me, he himself envied Shakespeare.' Wal- 
 pole's Letters, \\. 379. Boswell, later on {post, May 9, I'JT^), says: — 
 ' In my opinion Goldsmith had not more of it [an envious disposi- 
 tion] than other people have, but only talked of it freely.' See also 
 post, April 12, 1778. According to Northcote, 'Sir Joshua said that 
 Goldsmith considered public notoriety or fame as one great parcel, 
 to the whole of which he laid claim, and whoever partook of any part 
 of it, whether dancer, singer, slight of hand man, or tumbler, deprived 
 him of his right.' Northcote's Reynolds, \. 248. '^o.^ post, April 7, 1778, 
 where Johnson said that ' Goldsmith was not an agreeable companion, 
 for he talked always for fame :' and April 9, 1778. 
 
 ^ Miss Hornecks, one of whom is now married to Henry Bunbury, 
 Esq., and the other to Colonel Gwyn. Boswell. 
 
 * ' Standing at the window of their hotel [in Lisle] to see a com- 
 pany of soldiers in the Square, the beauty of the sisters Horneck 
 drew such marked admiration, that Goldsmith, heightening his drol- 
 lery with that air of solemnity so generally a point in his humour and 
 so often more solemnly misinterpreted, turned off from the window 
 with the remark that elsewhere he too could have his admirers. The 
 Jessamy Bride, Mrs. Gwyn, was asked about the occurrence not many 
 years ago ; remembered it as a playful jest ; and said how shocked 
 she had subsequently been " to see it adduced in print as a proof of 
 his envious disposition." ' Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 217. 
 
 ' Puppets. 
 
 J) ike,
 
 480 The Vicar of Wakefield. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 pike, he could not bear that it should have such praise, and 
 exclaimed with some warmth, ' Pshaw ! 1 can do it better 
 myself'.' 
 
 He, I am afraid, had no settled system of any sort% so 
 that his conduct must not be strictly scrutinised ; but his af- 
 fections were social and generous, and when he had money 
 he gave it away very liberally. His desire of imaginary con- 
 sequence predominated over his attention to truth. When 
 he began to rise into notice, he said he had a brother who 
 was Dean of Durham", a fiction so easily detected, that it is 
 wonderful how he should have been so inconsiderate as to 
 hazard it. He boasted to me at this time of the power of 
 his pen in commanding money, which I believe was true in 
 a certain degree, though in the instance he gave he was by 
 no means correct. He told me that he had sold a novel for 
 four hundred pounds. This was his Vicar of Wakefield. 
 But Johnson informed me, that he had made the bargain 
 for Goldsmith, and the price was sixty pounds*. ' And, Sir, 
 
 ' He went home with Mr. Burke to supper; and broke his shin by 
 attempting to exhibit to the company how much better he could jump 
 over a stick than the puppets. Boswell. Mr. Hoole was one day 
 in a coach with Johnson, when 'Johnson, who dehghted in rapidity of 
 pace, and had been speaking of Goldsmith, put his head out of one of 
 the windows to see they were going right, and rubbing his hands with 
 an air of satisfaction exclaimed: — "This man drives fast and well; 
 were Goldsmith here now he would tell us he could do better." ' 
 Prior's Goldsmith, ii. 127. 
 
 * See posf, April 9, 1773; also April 9, 1778, where Johnson says, 
 ' Goldsmith had no settled notions upon any subject.' 
 
 ^ I am willing to hope that there may have been some mistake as 
 to this anecdote, though I had it from a Dignitary of the Church. 
 Dr. Isaac Goldsmith, his near relation, was Dean of Cloyne, in 1747. 
 Boswell. This note first appears in the second edition. 
 
 * Mr. Welsh, in A Bookseller of the Last Century, p. 58, quotes the 
 following entry from an account-book of B. Collins of Salisbury, the 
 printer of the first edition of the Vicar : — ' Vicar of Wakefield, 2 vols. 
 i2mo., ^rd. B. Collins, Salisbury, bought of Dr. Goldsmith, the au- 
 thor, October 28, 1762, ^21.' Goldsmith, it should seem from this, as 
 Collins's third share was worth twenty guineas, was paid not sixty 
 pounds, but sixty guineas. Collins shared in many of the ventures of 
 
 (said
 
 Aetat.54.] ThE VicAR OF WaKEFIELD. 48 1 
 
 (said he,) a sufficient price too, when it was sold ; for then 
 the fame of Goldsmith had not been elevated, as it after- 
 wards w^as, by his Traveller ; and the bookseller had such 
 faint hopes of profit by his bargain, that he kept the manu- 
 script by him a long time, and did not publish it till after 
 The Traveller had appeared'-. Then, to be sure, it was acci- 
 dentally worth more money\' 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi^ and Sir John Hawkins^ have strangely mis- 
 stated the history of Goldsmith's situation and Johnson's 
 friendly interference, when this novel was sold. I shall give 
 it authentically from Johnson's own exact narration : — ' I 
 received one morning a message from poor Goldsmith that 
 he was in great distress, and as it was not in his power to 
 come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as 
 possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him 
 directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was drest, and 
 found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at 
 which he w^as in a violent passion. I perceived that he 
 had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of 
 
 Newbery, Goldsmith's publisher. Mr. Welsh says {ib. p. 61) that Col- 
 lins's accounts show 'that the iirst three editions resulted in a loss.' 
 If this was so, the booksellers must have been great bunglers, for the 
 book ran through three editions in six or seven months. Forster's 
 Goldsmith, i. 425. 
 
 ' The Traveller (price one shilling and sixpence) was published in 
 December 1764, and The Vicar of Wakefield in March 1766. In Au- 
 gust 1765 the fourth edition of The Traveller appeared, and the ninth 
 in the year Goldsmith died. He received for xX. lp.\. Forster's Gold- 
 smith, i. 364, 374, 409. See ante, p. 224, note i. 
 
 ^ '"Miss Barney," said Mrs. Thrale [to Dr. Johnson], "is fond of 
 The Vicar of Wakefield, and so am I. Don't you like it. Sir?" " No, 
 madam, it is very faulty;- there is nothing of real life in it, and very 
 little of nature. It is a mere fanciful performance." ' Mme. D'Arblays 
 Diary, i.S^. 'There are a hundred faults in this Thing,' said Gold- 
 smith in the preface, ' and a hundred things might be said to prove 
 them beauties. But it is needless. A book may be amusing with 
 numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity." 
 See post, April 25, 1778. 
 
 ' Anecdotes of Johnson, p. 1 19. BOSWELL. 
 
 * Life of Johnson, p. 420. BoSWELL. 
 
 I. 31 Madeira
 
 482 The Vicar of Wakefield. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 Madeira and a glass before him". I put the cork into the 
 bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him 
 of the means by which he might be extricated. He then 
 told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he 
 produced -to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told 
 the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a 
 bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith 
 the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating 
 his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ilP.' 
 
 My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday the ist of 
 July, when he and I and Dr. Goldsmith supped together at 
 the Mitre. I was before this time pretty well acquainted 
 with Goldsmith, who was one of the brightest ornaments of 
 
 ' In his imprudence he was like Savage, of whom Johnson says 
 {Works, V\\\. 161):— 'To supply him with money was a hopeless at- 
 tempt ; for no sooner did he see himself master of a sum sufficient to 
 set him free from care for a day, than he became profuse and luxu- 
 rious.' When Savage was 'lodging in the liberties of the Fleet, his 
 friends sent him every Monday a guinea, which he commonly spent 
 before the next morning, and trusted, after his usual manner, the re- 
 maining part of the week to the bounty of fortune.' lb. p. 170. 
 
 '' It may not be improper to annex here Mrs. Piozzi's account of 
 this transaction, in her own words, as a specimen of the extreme in- 
 accuracy with which all her anecdotes of Dr. Johnson are related, or 
 rather discoloured and distorted :— ' I have forgotten the year, but it 
 could scarcely, I think, be later than 1765 or 1766 that he was called 
 abruptly from our house after dmiter, and returning in about three 
 hours, said he had been with an enraged authour, whose landlady 
 pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him 
 without ; that he was drinkvig himself drunk with Madeira, to drown 
 care, and fretting over a novel, which, when finished, was to be his 
 whole fortune, but he could not get it done for distraction, nor could 
 he step out of doors to offer it for sale. Mr. Johnson, therefore, sent 
 away the bottle, and went to the bookseller, recommending the per- 
 formance, and desiring some immediate relief ; which when he brought 
 back to the writer, he called the woman of the house directly to partake 
 of punch, and pass their time in inerriment.' Anecdotes of Dr. John- 
 son, p. 119. BosvvELL. The whole transaction took place in 1762, as 
 is shown, ante, p. 480, note 4; Johnson did not know the Thrales till 
 1764. 
 
 the
 
 Aetat.54.] Dr. John Campbell. 48 3 
 
 the Johnsonian school'. Goldsmith's respectful attachment 
 to Johnson was then at its height ; for his own literary repu- 
 tation had not yet distinguished him so much as to excite 
 a vain desire of competition with his great Master. He had 
 increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson's heart, 
 by incidental remarks in the course of conversation, such as, 
 when I mentioned Mr. Levet, whom he entertained under 
 his roof, ' He is poor and honest, which is recommendation 
 enough to Johnson ;' and when I wondered that he was very 
 kind to a man of whom I had heard a very bad character, 
 ' He is now become miserable, and that insures the protec- 
 tion of Johnson.' 
 
 Goldsmith attempted this evening to maintain, I suppose 
 from an affectation of paradox, ' that knowledge was not de- 
 sirable on its own account, for it often was a source of un- 
 happiness.' JOHNSON. ' Why, Sir, that knowledge may in 
 some cases produce unhappiness, I allow. But, upon the 
 whole, knowledge, /rr sc, is certainly an object which every 
 man would wish to attain, although, perhaps, he may not 
 take the trouble necessary for attaining it'.' 
 
 Dr. John Campbell', the celebrated political and biograph- 
 ical writer, being mentioned, Johnson said, 'Campbell is a 
 man of much knowledge, and has a good share of imagina- 
 tion. His Hermippiis Redivivus^ is very entertaining, as an 
 account of the Hermetick philosophy, and as furnishing a 
 curious history of the extravagancies of the human mind. 
 If it were merely imaginary it would be nothing at all. 
 Campbell is not always rigidly careful of truth in his con- 
 versation ; but I do not believe there is any tiling of this 
 
 ' Through Goldsmith Boswell became acquainted with Reynolds. 
 In his Letter to the People of Seottand (p. 99), he says: — ' I exhort you, 
 my friends and countrymen, in the words of my departed Goldsmitli, 
 who gave me many nodes Atticae, and gave me a jewel of the finest 
 water — the acquaintance of Sir Joshua Reynolds.' 
 
 ° See ^(^^/, July 30, 1763. 
 
 ^ See post, March 20, 1776, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 17, 1773. 
 
 * Set post, March 15, 1776. 
 
 carelessness
 
 484 Dr. yohn Cajnpbell. [a.d. 17G3. 
 
 carelessness in his books'. Campbell is a good man, a 
 pious man. I am afraid he has not been in the inside of a 
 church for many years'' ; but he never passes a church 
 without pulling off his hat\ This shews that he has good 
 principles\ I used to go pretty often to Campbell's on a 
 Sunday evening^ till I began to consider that the shoals of 
 
 ' Dr. Campbell was an entertaining story-teller, which \sic\ some- 
 times he rather embellished ; so that the writer of this once heard 
 Dr. Johnson say : — " Campbell will lie, but he never lies on paper." ' 
 Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 969. 
 
 ^ I am inclined to think that he was misinformed as to this circum- 
 stance. I own I am jealous for my worthy friend Dr. John Campbell. 
 For though Milton could without remorse absent himself from pub- 
 lick worship [Johnson's Works, V\\. 115] I cannot. On the contrary, 
 I have the same habitual impressions upon my mind, with those of a 
 truely venerable Judge, who said to Mr. Langton, ' Friend Langton, If 
 I have not been at c'hurch on Sunday, I do not feel myself easy.' Dr. 
 Campbell was a sincerely religious man. Lord Macartney, who is 
 eminent for his variety of knowledge, and attention to men of talents, 
 and knew him well, told me, that when he called on him in a morn- 
 ing, he found him reading a chapter in the Greek New Testament, 
 which he informed his Lordship was his constant practice. The 
 quantity of Dr. Campbell's composition is almost incredible, and his 
 labours brought him large profits. Dr. Joseph Warton told me that 
 Johnson said of him, ' He is the richest authour that ever grazed the 
 common of literature.' BOSWELL. 
 
 ^ See. posf, April 7, 1778. Campbell complied with one of the Monita 
 Padagpgzca of Erasmus. ' Si quem prajteribis natu grandem, magistra- 
 tum,sacerdotem,doctorem . . . memento aperire caput. . . . Itidem faci- 
 to quum praeteribis sedem sacram.' Erasmus's CoUoqtnes, ed. 1867, i. 36. 
 
 ^ Reynolds said of Johnson : — ' He was not easily imposed upon by 
 professions to honesty and candour; but he appeared to have little 
 suspicion of hypocrisy in religion.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 459. Bos- 
 well, in one of his penitent letters, wrote to Temple on July 21, 1790: 
 — ' I am even almost inclined to think with you, that my great oracle 
 Johnson did allow too much credit to good principles, without good 
 practice.' Letters of Boswell, p. 327. 
 
 ^ Campbell lived in ' the large new-built house at the north-west- 
 corner of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, whither, particularly on a Sun- 
 day evening, great numbers of persons of the first eminence for science 
 and literature resorted for the enjoyment of conversation.' Hawkins's 
 Johnson, p. 210. 
 
 Scotchmen
 
 Aetat. 54.] Churcliiirs attack on yohnson. 485 
 
 Scotchmen who flocked about him might probably say, when 
 anything of mine was well done, " Ay, ay, he has learnt this 
 of Cawmell!" ' 
 
 He talked very contemptuously of Churchill's poetry, ob- 
 serving, that ' it had a temporary currency, only from its 
 audacity of abuse, and being filled with living names, and 
 that it would sink into oblivion.' I ventured to hint that he 
 was not quite a fair judge, as Churchill had attacked him 
 violently. JOHNSON. ' Nay, Sir, I am a very fair judge. 
 He did not attack me violently till he found I did not like 
 his poetry' ; and his attack on me shall not prevent me from 
 continuing to say what I think of him, from an apprehension 
 that it may be ascribed to resentment. No, Sir, I called the 
 fellow a blockhead'' at first, and I will call him a blockhead 
 still. However, I will acknowledge that I have a better 
 opinion of him now, than I once had ; for he has shewn 
 more fertility than I expected\ To be sure, he is a tree 
 that cannot produce good fruit : he only bears crabs. But, 
 Sir, a tree that produces a great many crabs is better than a 
 tree which produces only a few.' 
 
 ' Churchill, in his first poem, TJic Rosciad {Poe/iis, i. 4), mentions 
 Johnson without any disrespect among those who were thought of as 
 judge. 
 
 ' For Johnson some, but Johnson, it was feared, 
 Would be too grave; and Sterne too gay appeared.' 
 In The Author {ib. ii. 36), if I mistake not, he grossly alludes to the 
 convulsive disorder to which Johnson was subject. Attacking the 
 pensioners he says — the italics are his own : — 
 
 'Others, half-palsied only, mutes become, 
 And what makes Smollett write makes Johnson dumb.' 
 ^ See post, April 6, 1772, where Johnson called Fielding a blockhead. 
 ^ Churchill published his first poem, The Rosciad, in March or April 
 1761 {Gent. Mag. xxxi. 190) ; The Apology in May or June {ib. p. 286) ; 
 Night in Jan. 1762 (/i^. xxxii. 47) ; The First and Second Parts of The 
 Ghost in March {ib. p. 147) ; The Third Part in the autumn {ib. p. 449) ; 
 The Prophecy of Famine in Jan. 1763 {ib. xxxiii. 47), and The Epistle 
 to Hogarth in this month of July {ib. p. 363). He wrote the fourth 
 part of The Ghost, and nine more poems, and died on Nov. 4, 1764, 
 aged thirty-two or thirty-three. 
 
 In
 
 486 Churchill's poetry. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 In this depreciation of Churchill's poetry I could not 
 agree with him'. It is very true that the greatest part of 
 it is upon the topicks of the day, on which account, as it 
 brought him great fame and profit at the time\ it must pro- 
 portionally slide out of the publick attention as other oc- 
 casional objects succeed. But Churchill had extraordinary 
 vigour both of thought and expression. His portraits of 
 the players will ever be valuable to the true lovers of the 
 drama ; and his strong caricatures of several eminent men 
 of his age, will not be forgotten by the curious. Let me 
 add, that there are in his works many passages which are of 
 a general nature' ; and his Prophecy of Famine is a poem of 
 no ordinary merit. It is, indeed, falsely injurious to Scotland, 
 but therefore may be allowed a greater share of invention. 
 
 Bonnell Thornton had just published a burlesque Ode on 
 St. Cecilia s day, adapted to the ancient British mnsick, via. 
 the salt-box, the Jew's-harp, the marrow-bones and cleaver, the 
 
 ^ ' Cowper had a higher opinion of Churchill than of any other 
 contemporary writer. " It is a great thing," he said, "to be indeed a 
 poet, and does not happen to more than one man in a century; but 
 Churchill, the great Churchill, deserved that name." He made him, 
 more than any other writer, his model.' Southey's Cowper, i. 87, 8. 
 
 - Mr. Forster says that ' Churchill asked five guineas for the manu- 
 script of T/tc Rosciad (according to Southey, but Mr. Tooke says he 
 asked twenty pounds).' Finding no purchaser he brought the poem 
 out at his own risk. Mr. Forster continues : — ' The pulpit had starved 
 him on forty pounds a year; the public had given him a thousand 
 pounds in two months.' Forster's Essays, ii. 226, 240. As The Rosciad 
 was sold at one shilling a copy, it seems incredible that such a gain 
 could have been made, even with the profits of TIw Apology included. 
 ' Blotting and correcting was so much Churchill's abhorrence that I 
 have heard from his publisher he once energetically expressed him- 
 self, that it was like cutting away one's own flesh.' D'Israeli's Curios- 
 ities of Literature, ^di. 1834, iii. 129. D'Israeli 'had heard that after a 
 successful work he usually precipitated the publication of another, 
 relying on its crudeness being passed over by the public curiosity ex- 
 cited by its better brother. He called this getting double pay, for thus 
 he secured the sale of a hurried work.' 
 
 ^ In the opening lines of Gotham, Bk. iii, there is a passage of great 
 beauty and tenderness. 
 
 hiinistriun
 
 Aetat. 54.] Bo?inell Thoriitoii s Ode. 487 
 
 humstrum or hurdy-gurdy, &c. Johnson praised its humour, 
 and seemed much diverted with it. He repeated the follow- 
 ing passage : — 
 
 'In strains more exalted the salt-box shall join. 
 And clattering and battering and clapping combine ; 
 With a rap and a tap while the hollow side sounds, 
 Up and down leaps the flap, and with rattling rebounds'.' 
 
 I mentioned the periodical paper called The Connoisseur^ . 
 He said it wanted matter. — No doubt it has not the deep 
 thinking of Johnson's writings. But surely it has just views 
 of the surface of life, and a vary sprightly manner. His 
 opinion of The Worhi was not much higher than of The 
 Connoisseur. 
 
 Let me here apologize for the imperfect manner in which 
 I am obliged to exhibit Johnson's conversation at this period. 
 In the early part of my acquaintance with him, I was so 
 wrapt in admiration of his extraordinary colloquial talents, 
 and so little accustomed to his peculiar mode of expression, 
 that I found it extremely difficult to recollect and record 
 his conversation with its genuine vigour and vivacity. In 
 progress of time, when my mind was, as it were, strongly im- 
 pregnated with the Johnsonian ccther, I could, with much 
 more facility and exactness, carry in my memory and com- 
 mit to paper the exuberant variety of his wisdom and wit. 
 
 At this time Miss Williams, as she was then called, though 
 she did not reside with him in the Temple under his roof, 
 but had lodgings in Bolt-court, Fleet-street', had so much of 
 
 ' In 1769 I set Thornton's burlesque Ode. It was performed at 
 Ranelagh in masks, to a very crowded audience, as I was told; for I 
 then resided in Norfolk. Burney. Dr. Barney's note cannot be 
 correct. He came to reside in London in 1760 (Memoirs of Dr. Biir- 
 7iey,\. 133). The Ode is in the list of 'new books, published ' in the 
 Ge7it.Mag.iox]\xnQ. 1763, and is described as having been performed 
 at Ranelagh. 
 
 - The Connoisseur was started by Thornton and Colnian in 1754. 
 Cowper and Lloyd were contributors. Southey's Cowper, i.46, 49, 65. 
 
 ' See ante, p. 405, note 3. 
 
 his
 
 4^8 Tea with Miss Williams. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 his attention, that he every night drank tea with her before 
 he went home, however late it might be, and she always 
 sat up for him. This, it may be fairly conjectured, was not 
 alone a proof of his regard for her, but of his own unwilling- 
 ness to go into solitude, before that unseasonable hour at 
 which he had habituated himself to expect the oblivion of 
 repose. Dr. Goldsmith, being a privileged man, went with 
 him this night, strutting away, and calling to me with an air 
 of superiority, like that of an esoterick over an exoterick 
 disciple of a sage of antiquity, ' I go to Miss Williams.' I 
 confess, I then envied him this mighty privilege, of which he 
 seemed so proud ; but it was not long before I obtained the 
 same mark of distinction'. 
 
 On Tuesday the 5th of July, I again visited Johnson. He 
 told me he had looked into the poems of a pretty volumi- 
 nous writer, Mr. (now Dr.) John Ogilvie, one of the Presby- 
 terian ministers of Scotland, which had lately come out, but 
 could find no thinking in them. BOSWELL. ' Is there not 
 imagination in them, Sir?' Johnson. 'Why, Sir, there is 
 in them what %vas imagination, but it is no more imagination 
 in liim than sound is sound in the echo. And his diction too 
 is not his own. We have long ago seen zvJiite-robed inno- 
 cence, and floivcr-bcspangled meads! 
 
 Talking of London, he observed, 'Sir, if you wish to have 
 a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be 
 satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must 
 survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in 
 the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of 
 human habitations which are crouded together, that the won- 
 derful immensity of London consists.' — I have often amused 
 myself with thinking how different a place London is to 
 different people. They, whose narrow minds are contracted 
 to the consideration of some one particular pursuit, view it 
 only through that medium. A politician thinks of it merely 
 as the seat of government in its different departments ; a gra- 
 zier, as a vast market for cattle ; a mercantile man, as a place 
 
 ' See/^^/, Aug. 2, 1763, and Oct. 26, 1769. 
 
 where
 
 Aetat.54.] Fertility of Johnsons mind. 489 
 
 where a prodigious deal of business is done upon 'Change ; a 
 dramatick enthusiast, as the grand scene of theatrical enter- 
 tainments ; a man of pleasure, as an assemblage of taverns, 
 and the great emporium for ladies of easy virtue. But the 
 intellectual man is struck with it, as comprehending the whole 
 of human life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is 
 inexhaustible'. 
 
 On Wednesday, July 6, he was engaged to sup with me at 
 my lodgings in Downing-street, Westminster. But on the 
 preceding night my landlord having behaved very rudely to 
 me and some company who were with me, I had resolved 
 not to remain another night in his house. I was exceedingly 
 uneasy at the aukward appearance I supposed I should make 
 to Johnson and the other gentlemen whom I had invited, 
 not being able to receive them at home, and being obliged 
 to order supper at the Mitre. I went to Johnson in the 
 morning, and talked of it as a serious distress. He laughed, 
 and said, ' Consider, Sir, how insignificant this will appear a 
 twelvemonth hence.' — Were this consideration to be applied 
 to most of the little vexatious incidents of life, by which our 
 quiet is too often disturbed, it would prevent many painful 
 sensations. I have tried it frequently, with good effect. 
 ' There is nothing (continued he) in this mighty misfortune ; 
 nay, we shall be better at the Mitre.' I told him that I had 
 been at Sir John Fielding's office, complaining of my land- 
 lord, and had been informed, that though I had taken my 
 lodgings for a year, I might, upon proof of his bad behaviour, 
 quit them when I pleased, without being under an obligation 
 to pay rent for any longer time than while I possessed them. 
 The fertility of Johnson's mind could shew itself even upon 
 so small a matter as this. ' Why, Sir, (said he,) I suppose 
 this must be the law, since you have been told so in Bow- 
 street. But, if your landlord could hold you to your bar- 
 gain, and the lodgings should be yours for a year, you may 
 certainly use them as you think fit. So, Sir, you may quarter 
 two life-guardsmen upon him ; or you may send the greatest 
 
 ' See/(3iA Sept. 20, 1777, note. 
 
 scoundrel
 
 490 Goldsmitlis eagerness to shine. [a.d. 17G3. 
 
 scoundrel you can find into your apartments ; or you may 
 say that you want to make some experiments in natural 
 philosophy, and may burn a large quantity of assafcetida in 
 his house.' 
 
 I had as my guests this evening at the Mitre tavern, Dr. 
 Johnson, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Thomas Davies, Mr. Eccles, an 
 Irish gentleman, for whose agreeable company I was obliged 
 to Mr. Davies, and the Reverend Mr. John Ogilvie', who was 
 desirous of being in company with my illustrious friend, 
 while I, in my turn, was proud to have the honour of shewing 
 one of my countrymen upon what easy terms Johnson per- 
 mitted me to live with him. 
 
 Goldsmith, as usual, endeavoured, with too much eager- 
 ness to shine', and disputed very warmly with Johnson against 
 the well-known maxim of the British constitution, 'the King 
 can do no wrong;' affirming, that 'what was morally false 
 could not be politically true ; and as the King might, in the 
 exercise of his regal power, command and cause the doing of 
 what was wrong, it certainly might be said, in sense and in 
 reason, that he could do wrong.' JOHNSON. ' Sir, you are to 
 consider, that in our constitution, according to its true prin- 
 ciples, the King is the head ; he is supreme ; he is above 
 every thing, and there is no power by which he can be tried. 
 Therefore, it is, Sir, that we hold the King can do no wronp": 
 that whatever may happen to be wrong in government may 
 
 ' The northern bard mentioned page 488. When I asked Dr. John- 
 son's permission to introduce him, he obligingly agreed ; adding, how- 
 ever, with a sly pleasantry, ' but he must give us none of his poetry.' 
 It is remarkable that Johnson and Churchill, however much they dif- 
 fered on other points, agreed on this subject. See Churchill's Journey. 
 [' Under dark Allegory's flimsy veil 
 Let Them with Ogilvie spin out a tale 
 Of rueful length.' Churchill's Poems, ii. 329.] 
 
 It is, however, but justice to Dr. Ogilvie to observe, that his Day of 
 'Judgement has no inconsiderable share of merit. Boswell. 
 
 ' 'Johnson said : — " Goldsmith should not be for ever attempting to 
 shitie in conversation."' Post, h.^x'\\ 27, 1773. See also /^.y/, May 7, 
 1773- 
 
 not
 
 Aetat. 54.] The laivftihiess of rebellion. 491 
 
 not be above our reach, by being ascribed to Majesty'. Re- 
 dress is always to be had against oppression, by punishing 
 the immediate agents. The King, though he should com- 
 mand, cannot force a Judge to condemn a man unjustly; 
 therefore it is the Judge whom we prosecute and punish. 
 Political institutions are formed upon the consideration of 
 what will most frequently tend to the good of the whole, 
 although now and then exceptions may occur. Thus it is 
 better in general that a nation should have a supreme legis- 
 lative power, although it may at times be abused. And then, 
 Sir, there is this consideration, that if the abuse be enormous. 
 Nature zvill rise up, and elainiing her original rights, overturn 
 a eorrupt politieal system! I mark this animated sentence 
 with peculiar pleasure, as a noble instance of that truly digni- 
 fied spirit of freedom which ever glowed in his heart, though 
 he was charged with slavish tenets by superficial observers ; 
 because he was at all times indignant against that false 
 patriotism, that pretended love of freedom, that unruly rest- 
 lessness, which is inconsistent with the stable authority of 
 any good government". 
 
 This generous sentiment, which he uttered with great fer- 
 vour, struck me exceedingly, and stirred my blood to that 
 pitch of fancied resistance, the possibility of which I am glad 
 to keep in mind, but to which I trust I never shall be forced. 
 
 '■ Great abilities (.said he) are not requisite for an Historian ; 
 for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the 
 human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand ; 
 
 ' Fifteen years later Lord George Germaine, Secretary of State, as- 
 serted in a debate 'that the King "was his own Minister," which 
 Chades Fox took up admirably, lamenting that His Majesty " was his 
 own tinadvised Minister." ' Walpole's Jotimal of the Reign of George 
 III, ii. 314. 
 
 * ' The general story of mankind will evince that lawful and settled 
 authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed. . . . Men 
 are easily kept obedient to those who have temporal dominion in their 
 hands, till their veneration is dissipated by such wickedness and folly 
 as can neither be defended nor concealed." The Rambler, No. 50. See 
 post, March 31, 1772. 
 
 so
 
 492 Mr. Ogilvies praise of Scotland, [a. d. 1763. 
 
 so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not re- 
 quired in any high degree ; only about as much as is used in 
 the lower kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and 
 colouring will fit a man for the task, if he can give the appli- 
 cation which is necessary'.' 
 
 ' Bayle's Dictionary is a very useful work for those to con- 
 sult who love the biographical part of literature, which is 
 what I love most^' 
 
 Talking of the eminent writers in Queen Anne's reign, he 
 observed, ' I think Dr. Arbuthnot the first man among them\ 
 He was the most universal genius, being an excellent physi- 
 cian, a man of deep learning, and a man of much humour. 
 Mr. Addison was, to be sure, a great man ; his learning was 
 not profound ; but his morality, his humour, and his elegance 
 of writing, set him very high.' 
 
 Mr. Ogilvie was unlucky enough to choose for the topick 
 of his conversation the praises of his native country. He be- 
 gan with saying, that there was very rich land round Edin- 
 burgh. Goldsmith, who had studied physick there, contradict- 
 ed this, very untruly, with a sneering laugh\ Disconcerted 
 
 ' ' It is natural to believe . . . that no writer has a more easy task 
 than the historian. The philosopher has the works of omniscience to 
 examine. , . . The poet trusts to his invention. . . . But the happy his- 
 torian has no other labour than of gathering what tradition pours 
 down before him, or records treasure for his use.' The Rambler, No. 
 
 I 22. 
 
 ' See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 21, 1773. 
 
 * ' Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his pro- 
 fession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and 
 able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagi- 
 nation ; a scholar with great brilHancy of wit ; a wit, who in the crowd 
 of life retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.' John- 
 son's Works, viii. 296. 
 
 * Goldsmith wrote from Edinburgh in 1753 : — ' Shall I tire you with 
 a description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you over 
 their hills all brown with heath, or their vallies scarce able to feed a 
 rabbit ? Man alone seems to be the only creature who has arrived to 
 the natural size in this poor soil. Every part of the country presents 
 the same dismal landscape.' Forster's Goldsmith, i. 433. 
 
 a little
 
 Aetat. 54.] A ScotcJwian s noblest prospect. 493 
 
 a little by this, Mr. Ogilvie then took new ground, where, I 
 suppose, he thought himself perfectly safe ; for he observed, 
 that Scotland had a great many noble wild prospects. JOHN- 
 SON. ' I believe, Sir, you have a great many. Norway, too, 
 has noble wild prospects , and Lapland is remarkable for 
 prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, 
 the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the 
 high road that leads him to England'!' This unexpected 
 and pointed sally produced a roar of applause. After all, 
 however, those, who admire the rude grandeur of Nature, 
 cannot deny it to Caledonia. 
 
 On Saturday, July 9, I found Johnson surrounded with a 
 numerous levee, but have not preserved any part of his con- 
 versation. On the 14th we had another evening by ourselves 
 at the Mitre. It happening to be a very rainy night, I made 
 some common-place observations on the relaxation of nerves 
 and depression of spirits which such weather occasioned" ; 
 adding, however, that it was good for the vegetable creation. 
 Johnson, who, as we have already seen^ denied that the tem- 
 perature of the air had any influence on the human frame, 
 answered, with a smile of ridicule, ' Why yes, Sir, it is good 
 for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, 
 and for the animals who eat those animals.' This observa- 
 tion of his aptly enough introduced a good supper ; and I 
 soon forgot, in Johnson's company, the influence of a moist 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Feeling myself now quite at ease as his companion, though 
 I had all possible reverence for him, I expressed a regret 
 that I could not be so easy with my father', though he was 
 
 ' See Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 10, 1773. 
 
 ^ Johnson would sufifer none of his friends to fill up chasms in con- 
 versation with remarks on the weather ; ' Let us not talk of the 
 weather.' Burney. 
 
 ^ See a7ite, p. 385. 
 
 * Boswell wrote to Temple on Sept. 9. 1767 :— ' Mow unaccountable 
 is it that my father and I should be so ill together ! He is a man of 
 sense and a man of worth ; but from some unhappy turn in his dis- 
 
 not
 
 494 BoswelFs father. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 not much older than Johnson, and certainly however respect- 
 able had not more learning and greater abilities to depress 
 me. I asked him the reason of this. Johnson. ' Why, Sir, 
 I am a man of the world. I live in the world, and I take, in 
 some degree, the colour of the world as it moves along. 
 Your father is a Judge in a remote part of the island, and 
 all his notions are taken from the old world. Besides, Sir, 
 there must always be a struggle between a father and son, 
 while one aims at power and the other at independence'.' I 
 said, I was afraid my father would force me to be a lawyer. 
 Johnson. ' Sir, you need not be afraid of his forcing you to 
 be a laborious practising lawyer; that is not in his power. 
 For as the proverb says, "One man may lead a horse to the 
 water, but twenty cannot make him drink." He may be dis- 
 pleased that you are not what he wishes you to be ; but that 
 displeasure will not go far. If he insists only on your having 
 as much law as is necessary for a man of property, and then 
 endeavours to get you into Parliament, he is quite in the right.' 
 He enlarged very convincingly upon the excellence of 
 
 position he is much dissatisfied with a son whom j^ou know. I write 
 to him with warmth, with an honest pride, wishing that he should 
 think of me as I am ; but my letters shock him, and every expression 
 in them is interpreted unfavourably. To give you an instance, I send 
 you a letter I had from him a few days ago. How galling is it to the 
 friend of Paoli to be treated so ! I have answered him in my own 
 style; I will be myself.' Letters of Boswcll,-^. no. In the following 
 passage in one of his Hypochondriacks he certainly describes his father. 
 ' I knew a father who was a violent Whig, and used to attack his son 
 for being a Tory, upbraiding him with being deficient in " noble senti- 
 ments of liberty," while at the same time he made this son live under 
 his roof in such bondage, that he was not only afraid to stir from home 
 without leave, like a child, but durst scarcely open his mouth in his 
 father's presence. This was sad living. Yet I would rather see such 
 an excess of awe than a degree of familiarity between father and son 
 by which all reverence is destroyed.' London Mag. 1781, p. 253. 
 
 ' Boswell, the day after this talk, wrote : — ' I have had a long letter 
 from my father, full of affection and good counsel. Honest man ! he 
 is now very happy : it is amazing to think how much he has had at 
 heart, my pursuing the road of civil life.' Letters of Boswell, p. 25. 
 
 rhyme
 
 Aetat. 54.] The evidences of Christiaiiity. 495 
 
 rhyme over blank verse in English poetn,'". I mentioned 
 to him that Dr. Adam Smith, in his lectures upon composi- 
 tion, when I studied under him in the Collefrc of Glastiow, 
 had maintained the same opinion strenuously, and I repeated 
 some of his arguments. JOHNSON. ' Sir, I was once in com- 
 pany with Smith, and we did not take to each other"; but 
 had I known that he loved rhyme as much as you tell me he 
 does, I should have HUGGED him.' 
 
 Talking of those who denied the truth of Christianity, he 
 said, ' It is always easy to be on the negative side. If a man 
 were now to deny that there is salt upon the table, you could 
 not reduce him to an absurdity. Come, let us try this a little 
 further. I deny that Canada is taken, and I can support my 
 denial by pretty good arguments. The French are a much 
 more numerous people than we; and it is not likely that 
 they would allow us to take it. " But the ministry have 
 assured us, in all the formality of TJic Gazette, that it is 
 taken." — Very true. But the ministry have put us to an 
 enormous expence by the war in America, and it is their in- 
 terest to persuade us that we have got something for our 
 money. — " But the fact is confirmed by thousands of men 
 who were at the taking of it." — Ay, but these men have still 
 more interest in deceiving us. They don't want that you 
 
 ' Gray, says Nicholls, 'disliked all poetry in blank verse, except Mil- 
 ton.' Gray's Works, ed. 1858, v. 36. Goldsmith, in his Present S/ate 
 of Polite Learning (ch. xi.), wrote in 1759: — 'From a desire in the 
 critic of grafting the spirit of ancient languages upon the English have 
 proceeded of late several disagreeable instances of pedantry. Among 
 the number, I think, we may reckon blank verse. Nothing but the 
 greatest sublimity of subject can render such a measure pleasing; 
 however, we now see it used upon the most trivial occasions.' On 
 the same page he speaks of 'the tuneless flow of our blank verse.' 
 See post, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's Collectanea and the beginning of 
 1781, under The Life of Milton, for Johnson's opinion of blank 
 verse. 
 
 ^ 'Johnson told me, that one day in London, when Dr. Adam Smith 
 was boasting of Glasgow, he turned to him and said. " Pray, Sir, have 
 you ever seen Brentford.^'" "QosyNitW ■6 Hebrides, Oct. 29, 1773. See 
 post, April 29, 1778. 
 
 should
 
 496 Idleness a disease. [a.d. 17G0. 
 
 should think the French have beat them, but that they have 
 beat the French. Now suppose you should go over and find 
 that it is really taken, that would only satisfy yourself ; for 
 when you come home we will not believe you. We will say, 
 you have been bribed. — Yet, Sir, notwithstanding all these 
 plausible objections, we have no doubt that Canada is really 
 ours. Such is the weight of common testimony. How much 
 stronger are the evidences of the Christian religion !' 
 
 ' Idleness is a disease which must be combated ; but I 
 would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of 
 study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two 
 days together. A man ought to read just as inclination leads 
 him ; for what he reads as a task will do him little good. 
 A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may 
 acquire a great deal of knowledge'.' 
 
 To a man of vigorous intellect and arduous curiosity like 
 his own, reading without a regular plan may be beneficial ; 
 though even such a man must submit to it, if he would attain 
 a full understanding of any of the sciences. 
 
 To such a degree of unrestrained frankness had he now 
 accustomed me, that in the course of this evening I talked of 
 the numerous reflections which had been thrown out against 
 him^ on account of his having accepted a pension from his 
 
 ' ' He advised me to read just as inclination prompted me, which 
 alone, he said, would do me any good ; for I had better go into com- 
 pany than read a set task. He said, too, that I should prescribe to 
 myself five hours a day, and in these hours gratify whatever literary 
 desires may spring up.' Letters of Boswell, p. 28. The Editor of these 
 Letters compares Tranio's advice : — 
 
 ' No profit grows where is no pleasure ta'en : 
 In brief. Sir, study what you most affect.' 
 
 Taming of t lie Shrezu, act i. sc. i. 
 'Johnson used to say that no man read long together with a folio on 
 his table. " Books," said he, " that you may carry to the fire, and hold 
 readily in your hand, are the most useful after all." ' Johnson's Works 
 (1787), xi. 197. See also The Idler, No. 6"], and post, April 12, 1776, and 
 under Sept. 22, 1777. 
 
 * Wilkes, among others, had attacked him in Aug. 1762 in T/ie North 
 Briton, Nos. xi. and xii. 
 
 present
 
 Aetat. 54.] yohnsoii s pension. 497 
 
 present Majesty. ' Why, Sir, (said he, with a hearty laugh.) 
 it is a mighty foolish noise that they make'. I have accepted 
 of a pension as a reward which has been thought due to my 
 literary merit ; and now that I have this pension, I am the 
 same man in every respect that I have ever been^ I retain 
 the same principles. It is true, that I cannot now curse 
 (smiling) the House of Hanover; nor would it be decent for 
 me to drink King James's health in the wine that King 
 George gives me money to pay for. But, Sir, I think that 
 the pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover, and drinking 
 King James's health, are amply overbalanced by three hun- 
 dred pounds a year.' 
 
 There was here, most certainly, an affectation of more 
 Jacobitism than he really had ; and indeed an intention of 
 admitting, for the moment, in a much greater extent than it 
 really existed, the charge of disaffection imputed to him by 
 the world^ merely for the purpose of shewing how dexter- 
 ously he could repel an attack, even though he were placed 
 in the most disadvantageous position ; for I have heard him 
 declare, that if holding up his right hand would have secured 
 victory at Culloden to Prince Charles's army, he was not sure 
 
 * When I mentioned the same idle clamour to him several years 
 afterwards, he said, with a smile, ' I wish my pension were twice as 
 large, that they might make twice as much noise.' Boswell. 
 
 * In one thing at least he was changed. He could now indulge in 
 the full bent, to use his own words {Works, viii. 136), 'that inquisitive- 
 ness which must always be produced in a vigorous mind, by an abso- 
 lute freedom from all pressing or domestick engagements." 
 
 ^ See post, April 13, 1773, Sept. 17 and 19, 1777, March 21, 17S3, and 
 June 9, 1784. Lord Shelburne says : — ' After the Revolution the Tory 
 and Jacobite parties had become almost identified by their together 
 opposing the Court for so many years, and still more by the persecu- 
 tion which they sufTered in common, for it was the policy of Sir Robert 
 Walpole to confound them as much as possible, so as to throw the 
 Jacobite odium upon every man who opposed government.' Fitz- 
 maurice's Shelburne, \. 35. Lord Rolingbroke {Works, iii. 28) com- 
 plains that the writers on the side of the ministry 'frequently throw 
 out that every man is a friend to the Pretender who is not a friend to 
 Walpole.' 
 
 I.— 32 he
 
 49S yohnsoiis Jacobitisin. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 he would have held it up ; so little confidence had he in the 
 right claimed by the house of Stuart, and so fearful was he 
 of the consequences of another revolution on the throne of 
 Great-Britain; and Mr.Topham Beauclerk assured me, he had 
 heard him say this before he had his pension. At another 
 time he said to Mr. Langton, ' Nothing has ever offered, that 
 has made it worth my while to consider the question fully.' 
 He, however, also said to the same gentleman, talking of 
 King James the Second, ' It was become impossible for him 
 to reign any longer in this country'.' He no doubt had an 
 early attachment to the House of Stuart ; but his zeal had 
 cooled as his reason strengthened. Indeed I heard him once 
 say, that 'after the death of a violent Whig, with whom he 
 used to contend with great eagerness, he felt his Toryism 
 much abated'.' I suppose he meant Mr. Walmsley". 
 
 Yet there is no doubt that at earlier periods he was wont 
 often to exercise both his pleasantry and ingenuity in talk- 
 ing Jacobitism. My much respected friend. Dr. Douglas, 
 now Bishop of Salisbury, has favoured me with the follow- 
 ing admirable instance from his Lordship's own recollection. 
 One day when dining at old Mr. Langton's where Miss Rob- 
 erts\ his niece, was one of the company, Johnson, with his 
 usual complacent attention to the fair sex, took her by the 
 hand and said, ' My dear, I hope you are a Jacobite.' Old 
 Mr. Langton, who, though a high and steady Tory, was at- 
 tached to the present Royal Family, seemed offended, and 
 asked Johnson, with great warmth, what he could mean by 
 putting such a question to his niece ? ' Why, Sir, (said John- 
 son) I rneant no offence to your niece, I meant her a great 
 compliment. A Jacobite, Sir, believes in the divine right 
 of Kings. He that believes in the divine right of Kings 
 
 ' See/fj-/", April 6, 1775. 
 
 ■■^ 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 402 [Nov. 10]. Bos- 
 WELL. 
 
 ^ Mr. Walmsley died in 1751 {ants, p. 94). Johnson left Lichfield in 
 1737- Unless Mr. Walmsley after 1737 visited London from time to 
 time, he can scarcely be meant. 
 
 * See ante, p. 389. 
 
 believes
 
 Aetat. 54.] WhiggisiH. 499 
 
 believes in a Divinity. A Jacobite believes in the divine 
 right of Bishops. He that believes in the divine right of 
 Bishops believes in the divine authority of the Christian re- 
 ligion. Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor 
 a Deist. That cannot be said of a Whig ; for Whiggism is 
 a negation of all principle^.' 
 
 He advised me, when abroad, to be as much as I could 
 with the Professors in the Universities, and with the Clerg)-; 
 for from their conversation I might expect the best accounts 
 of every thing in whatever country I should be, with the 
 additional advantage of keeping my learning alive. 
 
 It will be observed, that when giving me advice as to my 
 travels, Dr. Johnson did not dwell upon cities, and palaces, 
 and pictures, and shows, and Arcadian scenes. He was of 
 Lord Essex's opinion, who advises his kinsman Roger Earl 
 of Rutland, ' rather to go an hundred miles to speak with 
 one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town\' 
 
 ' He used to tell, with great humour, from my relation to him, the 
 following little story of my early years, which was literally true : ' Bos- 
 well, in the year 1745, was a fine boy, wore a white cockade, and prayed 
 for King James, till one of his uncles (General Cochran) gave him a 
 shilling on condition that he should pray for King George, which he 
 accordingly did. So you see (says Boswell) that Whigs of all ages 
 are made the same way! BoswELL. Johnson, in his Dictionary under 
 Whiggism, gives only one quotation, namely, from Swift : ' I could 
 quote passages from fifty pamphlets, wholly made up of whiggism and 
 atheism.' Sto. post, April 28, 1778, where he said : ' I have always said, 
 the first Whig was the Devil;' and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 21 and 
 Nov. 8, 1773. To Johnson's sayings might be opposed one of Lord 
 Chatham's in the House of Lords : ' There are some distinctions which 
 are inherent in the nature of things. There is a distinction between 
 right and wrong — between Whig and Tory.' Pari. Hist. xvi. 1 107. 
 
 = Letter to Rutland on Travel, i6mo. 1569. BoswELL. This letter 
 is contained in a little volume entitled. Profitable Instructions ; describ- 
 ing what special observations are to be ta/cen by travellers in all nations, 
 states and countries ; pleasant and profitable. By the three much ad- 
 mired, Robert, late Earl of Essex, Sir Philip .Sidney, and Secretary 
 Davison. Lomlon. Printed for Bc7ijamin Fisher, at the Sign of the 
 Talbot, without Aldersgate. 1633. (Lowndes gives the date of 161 3, 
 but the earliest edition seems to be this of 1633.) The letter from 
 
 I described
 
 500 Lord Hailes. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 I described to him an impudent fellow' from Scotland, who 
 affected to be a savage, and railed at all established systems. 
 Johnson. 'There is nothing surprizing in this, Sir. He 
 wants to make himself conspicuous. He would tumble in 
 a hogstye, as long as you looked at him and called to him 
 to come out. But let him alone, never mind him, and he'll 
 soon give it over.' 
 
 I added, that the same person maintained that there was 
 no distinction between virtue and vice. JOHNSON. ' Why, 
 Sir, if the fellow does not think as he speaks, he is lying; 
 and I see not what honour he can propose to himself from 
 having the character of a lyar. But if he does really think 
 that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why. Sir, 
 when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons\' 
 
 Sir David Dalrymple, now one of the Judges of Scotland 
 by the title of Lord Hailes, had contributed much to increase 
 my high opinion of Johnson, on account of his writings, long 
 before I attained to a personal acquaintance with him ; I, in 
 return, had informed Johnson of Sir David's eminent char- 
 acter for learning and religion^; and Johnson was so much 
 
 which Boswell quotes is entitled. The late E. of E. his advice to the E. 
 of R.tfi his Travels. It is dated Greenwich, Jan. 4, 1596. Mr. Sped- 
 ding (Bacon's Works, ix. 4) suggests that ' it may have been (wholly 
 or in part) written by Bacon.' 
 
 ' Boswell {Bosmelliana, p. 210) says that this ' impudent fellow ' was 
 Macpherson. 
 
 "^ Boswell repeated this saying and some others to Paoli. ' I felt an 
 elation of mind to see Paoli delighted with the sayings of Mr. John- 
 son, and to hear him translate them with ItaHan energy to the Corsi- 
 can heroes.' Here Boswell describes the person as ' a certain au- 
 thour.' Boswell's Corsica, p. 199. 
 
 ^ Boswell thus takes him off in his comic poem The Court of Session 
 Garland : — 
 
 '"This cause," cries Hailes, "to judge I can't pretend,, 
 Yor justice, I perceive, wants an e at the end.'" 
 Mr. R. Chambers, in a note on this, says : — ' A story is told of Lord 
 Hailes once making a serious objection to a law-paper, and in conse- 
 quence to the whole suit, on account of the word justice being thus 
 spelt.' Traditions of Edinburgh, W. 161. Burke says that he 'found 
 
 pleased.
 
 Aetat. 54.] yo2irnal-keeping. 50 1 
 
 pleased, that at one of our evening meetings he gave him 
 for his toast. I at this time kept up a very frequent corre- 
 spondence with Sir David ; and I read to Dr. Johnson to- 
 night the following passage from the letter which I had 
 last received from him : — 
 
 ' It gives me pleasure to think that you have obtained the friend- 
 ship of Mr. Samuel Johnson. He is one of the best moral writers 
 which England has produced. At the same time, I envy you the 
 free and undisguised converse with such a man. May I beg you 
 to present my best respects to him, and to assure him of the ven- 
 eration which I entertain for the authour of the Ravibler and of 
 Rasselas'i Let me recommend this last work to you; with the 
 Rambler you certainly are acquainted. In Rasselas you will see a 
 tender-hearted operator, who probes the wound only to heal it. 
 Swift, on the contrary, mangles human nature. He cuts and 
 slashes, as if he took pleasure in the operation, like the tyrant who 
 said, Itaferi ut se sentiat emorp.^ 
 
 Johnson seemed to be much gratified by this just and well- 
 turned compliment. 
 
 He recommended to me to keep a journal of my life, full and 
 unreserved^ He said it would be a very good exercise, and 
 would yield me great satisfaction when the particulars were 
 faded from my remembrance. I was uncommonly fortunate 
 in having had a previous coincidence of opinion with him 
 upon this subject, for I had kept such a journal for some 
 
 him to be a clever man, and generally knowing.' Burke's Con-es. iii. 
 301. See ante, p. 310, and post. May 12, 1774, and Boswell's Hebrides, 
 Aug. 17, 1773. 
 
 ■ ' Ita feri ut se mori sentiat.' Suetonius, Caligula, chap. xxx. 
 
 ^ Johnson himself was constantly purposing to keep a journal. On 
 April II, 1773, he told Boswell 'that he had twelve or fourteen times 
 attempted to keep a journal of his life,'/^.f/, April 11, 1773. The day 
 before he had recorded : — ' I hope from this time to keep a journal.' 
 Pr. and Med. p. 124. Like records follow, as :— ' Sept. 24, 1773. My 
 hope is, for resolution I dare no longer call it, to divide my time regu- 
 larly, and to keep such a journal of my time, as may give me comfort 
 in reviewing it.' 7(5. p. 132. ' April 6, 1777. My purpose once mon: 
 is To keep a journal.' lb. p. 161. 'Jan. 2, 1781. My hope is To keep 
 a journal.' lb. p. 188. See 2\%o post, April 14, 1775. and April 10, 177S. 
 
 time ;
 
 502 Jo^irnal-keeping. [a. d. 1763. 
 
 time'; and it was no small pleasure to me to have this to tell 
 him, and to receive his approbation. He counselled me to 
 keep it private, and said I might surely have a friend who 
 would burn it in case of my death. From this habit I have 
 been enabled to give the world so many anecdotes, which 
 would otherwise have been lost to posterity. I mentioned 
 that I was afraid I put into my journal too many little inci- 
 dents. Johnson. 'There is nothing. Sir, too little for so 
 little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that 
 we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much 
 happiness as possible\' 
 
 Next morning Mr. Dempster happened to call on me, and 
 was so much struck even with the imperfect account which 
 I gave him of Dr. Johnson's conversation, that to his honour 
 be it recorded, when I complained that drinking port and 
 sitting up late with him affected my nerves for some time 
 after, he said, ' One had better be palsied at eighteen than 
 not keep company with such a man\' 
 
 On Tuesday, July i8\ I found tall Sir Thomas Robinson^ 
 
 ' Boswell, when he was only eighteen, going with his father to the 
 [Scotch] Northern Circuit, 'kept,' he writes, 'an exact journal.' Let- 
 ters of Boswell, p. 8. In the autumn of 1762 he also kept a journal 
 which he sent to Temple to read. lb. p. 19. 
 
 " ' It has been well observed, that the misery of man proceeds not 
 from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations 
 continually repeated.' Johnson's Works, viii. 333. ' The main of life 
 is indeed composed of small incidents and petty occurrences.' lb. ii. 
 322. Dr. Franklin {Memoirs, i. 199) says: — 'Human felicity is pro- 
 duced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom hap- 
 pen as by little advantages that occur every day.' 
 
 ^ Boswell wrote the next day : — ' We sat till between two and three. 
 He took me by the hand cordially, and said, " My dear Boswell, I love 
 you very much." Now Temple, can I help indulging vanity ?' Letters 
 of Boswell, p. 27. Fourteen years later Boswell was afraid that he kept 
 Johnson too late up. ' No, Sir,' said he, ' I don't care though I sit all 
 night with you.' Post, Sept. 23, 1777. See also post, April 7, 1779, 
 where Johnson, speaking of these early days, said to Boswell, ' it was 
 not the wifie that made your head ache, but the sense that I put into it.' 
 
 * Tuesday was the 19th. 
 
 ^ ' The elder brother of the first Lord Rokeby, called long Sir 
 
 sitting
 
 Aetat.54.] Sir T/iomas Robinson. 50'^ 
 
 J 
 
 sitting with Johnson. Sir Thomas said, that the King of 
 Prussia valued himself upon three things; — upon being a 
 hero, a musician, and an authour. Johnson. ' Pretty well, 
 Sir, for one man. As to his being an authour, I have not 
 looked at his poetry; but his prose is poor stuff. He writes 
 just as you might suppose Voltaire's footboy to do, who has 
 been his amanuensis. He has such parts as the valet might 
 have, and about as much of the colouring of the style as 
 might be got by transcribing his works.' When I was at 
 Ferney, I repeated this to Voltaire, in order to reconcile him 
 somewhat to Johnson, whom he, in affecting the English 
 mode of expression', had previously characterised as ' a super- 
 stitious dog;' but after hearing such a criticism on Frederick 
 the Great, with whom he was then on bad terms, he ex- 
 claimed, 'An honest fellowM' 
 
 Thomas Robinson, on account of his height, and to distinguish him 
 from Sir Thomas Robinson, first Lord Grantham. It was on his re- 
 quest for an epigram that Lord Chesterfield made the distich : — 
 " Unlike my subject will I make my song, 
 It shall be witty, and it shan't be long," 
 and to whom he said in his last illness, "Ah, Sir Thomas, it will be 
 sooner over with me than it would be with you, for I am dying by 
 inches." Lord Chesterfield wa,s very short.' Croker. Southey, 
 writing of Rokeby Hall, which belonged to Robinson, says that * Long 
 Sir Thomas found a portrait of Richardson in the house ; thinking 
 Mr. Richardson a very unfit personage to be suspended in effigy among 
 lords, ladies, and baronets, he ordered the painter to put on him the 
 star and blue riband, and then christened the picture Sir Robert Wal- 
 pole.' Southey 's Life. iii. 346. See also ante, p. 301 note i, and post, 
 1770, near the end of Dr. Maxwell's Collectanea. 
 
 ' Pennant, who visited Voltaire in 1765, says that, 'in his attempt 
 to speak English he satisfied us that he was perfect master of our 
 oaths and curses.' Pennant's Literary Life, p. 6. 
 
 ° Johnson (Works, V\. 440) had written of Frederick the Great in 
 1756:— 'His skill in poetry and in the French language has been 
 loudly praised by Voltaire, a judge without exception if his honesty 
 were equal to his knowledge.' Boswell, in his Ilypochondriacks, re- 
 cords a conversation that he had with Voltaire on memory : — ' I asked 
 him if he could give me any notion of the situation of our ideas which 
 we have totally forgotten at the time, yet shall afterwards recollect. 
 
 But
 
 504 The King of Prussia. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 But I think the criticism much too severe ; for the Me- 
 moirs of the House of Brandenbiirgli are written as well as 
 many works of that kind. His poetry, for the style of which 
 he himself makes a frank apology, ' Jarg07inant tin Franqois 
 barbare,' though fraught with pernicious ravings of infidel- 
 ity, has, in many places, great animation, and in some a 
 pathetick tenderness'. 
 
 Upon this contemptuous animadversion on the King of 
 Prussia, I observed to Johnson, ' It would seem then, Sir, 
 that much less parts are necessary to make a King, than to 
 make an Authour; for the King of Prussia is confessedly 
 the greatest King now in Europe, yet you think he makes 
 a very poor figure as an Authour.' 
 
 Mr. Levet this day shewed me Dr. Johnson's library, 
 which was contained in two garrets over his Chambers, where 
 Lintot, son of the celebrated bookseller of that name, had 
 formerly his warehouse\ I found a number of good books, 
 but very dusty and in great confusion". The floor was 
 
 He paused, meditated a little, and acknowledged his ignorance in the 
 spirit of a philosophical poet by repeating as a very happy allusion a 
 passage in Thomson's Seasons — " Aye," said he, " Whci-e sleep the winds 
 zuhen it is calm?"' Londofi Mag. 1783, p. 157. The passage is in 
 Thomson's Winter, \. i\6: — 
 
 ' In what far-distant region of the skjr, 
 Hush'd in deep silence, sleep ye when 'tis calm?' 
 
 ' See post, ii. 62, note 2. 
 
 * Bernard Lintot, the father, published Pope's /Had and Odyssey. 
 Over the sale of the Odyssey a quarrel arose between the two men. 
 Johnson's Works, vm. 251, 274. Lintot is attacked in the Diinciad, i. 
 40 and ii. 53. He was High-Sheriff for Sussex in 1736 — the year of 
 his death. Gent. Mag. V\. no. The son is mentioned in Johnson's 
 Works, viii. 282. 
 
 ^ 'July 19, 1763. I was with Mr. Johnson to-day. I was in his gar- 
 ret up four pair of stairs ; it is very airy, commands a view of St. 
 Paul's and many a brick roof. He has many good books, but they 
 are all lying in confusion and dust.' Letters of Bosivcll, p. 30. On 
 Good Friday, 1764, Johnson made the following entry: — 'I hope to 
 put my rooms in order : Disorder I have found one great cause of 
 idleness.' On his birth-day in the same year he wrote : — 'To-morrow 
 I purpose to regulate my room.' Pr. and Med. pp. 50, 60. 
 
 strewed
 
 Aetat.54.] yohiisou s library. 505 
 
 strewed with manuscript leaves, in Johnson's own hand- 
 writing, which I beheld with a degree of veneration, suppos- 
 ing they perhaps might contain portions of The Rambler or 
 of Rasselas. I observed an apparatus for chymical experi- 
 ments, of which Johnson was all his life very fond'. The 
 place seemed to be very favourable for retirement and medi- 
 tation. Johnson told me, that he went up thither without 
 mentioning it to his servant, when he wanted to study, 
 secure from interruption ; for he would not allow his servant 
 to say he was not at home when he really was. ' A servant's 
 strict regard for truth, (said he) must be weakened by such a 
 practice. A philosopher may know that it is merely a form 
 of denial; but few servants are such nice distinguishers. If 
 I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason 
 to apprehend tiiat he will tell many lies for himself.'' I am, 
 however, satisfied that every servant, of any degree of intelli- 
 gence, understands saying his master is not at home, not at 
 all as the affirmation of a fact, but as customary words, in- 
 timating that his master wishes not to be seen ; so that 
 there can be no bad effect from it. 
 
 Mr. Temple, now vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwair, who had 
 been my intimate friend for many years, had at this time 
 chambers in Farrar's-buildings, at the bottom of Inner Tem- 
 ple-lane, which he kindly lent me upon my quitting my 
 lodgings, he being to return to Trinity Hall, Cambridge. I 
 
 ' See ante, p. 161, and posf, under Sept. 9, 1779. 
 
 " Afterwards Rector of Mamhead, Devonshire. He is the grandfa- 
 ther of the present Bishop of London. He and Boswcll had been 
 fellow-students at the University of Edinburgh, and seemed in youth 
 to have had an equal amount of conceit. ' Recollect,' wrote Boswcll, 
 ' how you and I flattered ourselves that we were to be the greatest 
 men of our age.' Lcffers of Boswcll, p. 1 59. They began to correspond 
 at least as early as 1758. The last letter was one from Boswell on 
 his death-bed. Johnson thus mentions Temple ( IVorls, viii. 480) :— 
 ' Gray's character I am willing to adopt, as Mr. Mason has done, from 
 a letter written to my friend Mr. Boswell by the Revd. Mr. Temple, 
 Rector of St. Gluvias in Cornwall ; and am as willing as his warmest 
 well-wisher to believe it true.' 
 
 found
 
 5o6 Copyright in books. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 found them particularly convenient for me, as they were so 
 near Dr. Johnson's. 
 
 On Wednesday, July 20, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Dempster, and 
 my uncle Dr. Boswell, who happened to be now in London, 
 supped with me at these Chambers. JOHNSON. ' Pity is 
 not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages 
 are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the 
 cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations 
 from seeing a creature in distress, without pity ; for we have 
 not pity unless we wish to relieve them. When I am on my 
 way to dine with a friend, and finding it late, have bid the 
 coachman make haste, if I happen to attend when he whips 
 his horses, I may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put 
 to pain, but I do not wish him to desist. No, Sir, I wish 
 him to drive on.' 
 
 Mr. Alexander Donaldson, bookseller of Edinburgh, had 
 for some time opened a shop in London, and sold his cheap 
 editions of the most popular English books, in defiance of the 
 supposed common-law right oi Literary Proper ty\ Johnson, 
 though he concurred in the opinion which was afterwards 
 sanctioned by a judgement of the House of Lords^ that 
 there was no such right, was at this time very angry that 
 
 * Johnson ( Works, vii. 240) quotes the following by Edmund Smith 
 written some time after 1708 : — ' It will sound oddly to posterity, that, 
 in a polite nation, in an enlightened age, under the direction of the 
 most wise, most learned, and most generous encouragers of knowledge 
 in the world, the property of a mechanick should be better secured 
 than that of a scholar ! that the poorest manual operations should be 
 more valued than the noblest products of the brain ! that it should be 
 felony to rob a cobbler of a pair of shoes, and no crime to deprive the 
 best authour of his whole subsistence ! that nothing should make a 
 man a sure title to his own writings but the stupidity of them !' See 
 post, May 8, 1773, and Feb. 7, 1774; and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 17 
 and 20, 1773. 
 
 ^ ' The question arose, after the passing of the first statute respect- 
 ing literary property in 1710, whether by certain of its provisions this 
 perpetual copyright at common law was extinguished for the future. 
 The question was solemnly argued before the Court of King's Bench, 
 when Lord Mansfield presided, in 1769. The result was a decision in 
 
 tlie
 
 Aetat.54.] Copyright in books. 507 
 
 the Booksellers of London, for whom he uniformly pro- 
 fessed much regard, should suffer from an invasion of what 
 they had ever considered to be secure : and he was loud 
 and violent against Mr. Donaldson. ' He is a fellow who 
 takes advantage of the law to injure his brethren ; for, not- 
 withstanding that the statute secures only fourteen years 
 of exclusive right, it has always been understood by tJic 
 tradc\ that he, who buys the copyright of a book from the 
 authour, obtains a perpetual property; and upon that belief, 
 numberless bargains are made to transfer that property 
 after the expiration of the statutory term. Now Donald- 
 son, I say, takes advantage here, of people who have really 
 an equitable title from usage ; and if we consider how few 
 of the books, of which they buy the property, succeed so 
 well as to bring profit, we should be of opinion that the 
 term of fourteen years is too short ; it should be sixty 
 years.' DEMPSTER. ' Donaldson, Sir, is anxious for the 
 
 favour of the common-law right as unaltered by the statute, with the 
 disapproval however of Mr. Justice Yates. In 1774 the same point 
 was brought before the House of Lords, and the decision of the court 
 below reversed by a majority of six judges in eleven, as Lord Mans- 
 field, who adhered to the opinion of the minority, declined to inter- 
 fere ; it being very unusual, from motives of delicacy, for a peer to 
 support his own judgment on appeal to the House of Lords.' Pc7wy 
 Cyclo.N\\\.\. See /tij/, Feb. 7, 1774. Lord Shelburne, on Feb. 27, 1774, 
 humorously describes the scene in the Lords to the Earl of Chat- 
 ham : — ' Lord Mansfield showed himself the merest Captain Bobadil 
 that, I suppose, ever existed in real life. You can, perhaps, imagine to 
 yourself the Bishop of Carlyle, an old metaphysical head of a college, 
 reading a paper, not a speech, out of an old sermon book, with very 
 bad sight, leaning on the table. Lord Mansfield sitting at it, with eyes 
 of fixed melancholy looking at him, knowing that the bishop's were 
 the only eyes in the House who could not meet his ; the judges be- 
 hind him, full of rage at being drawn into so absurd an opinion, and 
 abandoned in it by their chief ; the Bishops waking, as your Lordship 
 knows they do, just before they vote, and staring on finding some- 
 thing the matter ; while Lord Townshend was close to the bar. getting 
 Mr. Dunning to put up his glass to look at the head of criminal jus- 
 tice.' Chatham Corres. iv. 327. 
 » S&tpost, April 15, 1778, note. 
 
 encouragement
 
 5o8 Humes style. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 encouragement of literature. He reduces the price of books, 
 so that poor students may buy them\' JOHNSON, (laughing) 
 ' Well, Sir, allowing that to be his motive, he is no better 
 than Robin Hood, who robbed the rich in order to give to 
 the poor.' 
 
 It is remarkable, that when the great question concerning 
 Literary Property came to be ultimately tried before the 
 supreme tribunal of this country, in consequence of the very 
 spirited exertions of Mr. Donaldson^ Dr. Johnson was zeal- 
 ous against a perpetuity; but he thought that the term of 
 the exclusive right of authours should be considerably en- 
 larged. He was then for granting a hundred years. 
 
 The conversation now turned upon Mr. David Hume's style. 
 Johnson. ' Why, Sir, his style is not English ; the struct- 
 ure of his sentences is French^ Now the French structure 
 
 ' Dr. Franklin {Memoirs, iii. 178), complaining of the high prices of 
 English books, describes ' the excessive artifices made use of to pul? 
 up a paper of verses into a pamphlet, a pamphlet into an octavo, and 
 an octavo into a quarto with white-lines, exorbitant margins, &c., to 
 such a degree that the selling of paper seems now the object, and 
 printing on it only the pretence.' 
 
 ^ Boswell was on friendly terms with him. He wrote to Erskine on 
 Dec. 2, 1 76 1 : — ' I am just now returned from eating a most excellent 
 pig with the most magnificent Donaldson.' Boswell a7id Erskine Cor- 
 respondence, p. 20. 
 
 ' Dr. Carlyle {Auto. p. 516) says that Lord Mansfield this year (1769) 
 'talking of Hume and Robertson's Histories, said that though he could 
 point out few or no faults in them, yet, when he was reading their 
 books, he did not think he was reading English.' See post, ii. 72, for 
 Hume's Scotticisms. Hume went to France in 1734 when he was 23 
 years old and stayed there three years. Wnm&'s Autobiography, p.vii. 
 He never mastered French colloquially. Lord Charlemont, who met 
 him in Turin in 1748, says: — 'His speech in English was rendered 
 ridiculous by the broadest Scotch accent, and his French was, if pos- 
 sible, still more laughable.' Hardy's Charlemont, i. 15. Horace Wal- 
 pole, who met him in Paris in 1765, writes {Letters, iv. 426): — 'Mr. 
 Hume is the only thing in the world that they [the French] believe 
 implicitly; which they must do, for I defy them to understand any 
 language that he speaks.' Gibbon {Misc. Works, i. 122) says of Hume's 
 writings : — ' Their careless inimitable beauties often forced me to close 
 
 and
 
 Aetat.54.] Merit set against fortune. 509 
 
 and the English structure may, in the nature of things, be 
 equally good. But if you allow that the English language 
 is established, he is wrong. My name might originally have 
 been Nicholson, as well as Johnson ; but were you to call 
 me Nicholson now, you would call me very absurdly.' 
 
 Rousseau's treatise on the inequality of mankind' was at 
 this time a fashionable topick. It gave rise to an observa- 
 tion by Mr. Dempster, that the advantages of fortune and 
 rank were nothing to a wise man, who ought to value only 
 merit. JOHNSON. ' If man were a savage, living in the 
 woods by himself, this might be true; but in civilized society 
 we all depend upon each other, and our happiness is very 
 much owing to the good opinion of mankind. Now, Sir, in 
 civilized society, external advantages make us more respect- 
 ed. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a 
 better reception than he who has a bad one\ Sir, you may 
 analyse this, and say what is there in it ? But that will 
 avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system. 
 Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single 
 atom ; it is, to be sure, good for nothing : but, put all these 
 atoms together, and you have St. Paul's Church. So it is 
 with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, 
 each of which may be shewn to be very insignificant. In 
 civilized society, personal merit will not serve you so much 
 as money will. Sir, you may make the experiment. Go 
 
 the volume with a mixed sensation of delight and despair.' Dr. Beat- 
 tie {Life, p. 243) wrote on Jan. 5, 1778 : — ' We who live in Scotland are 
 obliged to study English from books, like a dead language, which we 
 understand, but cannot speak.' He adds : — ' I have spent some years 
 in labouring to acquire the art of giving a vernacular cast to the Eng- 
 lish we write.' Dr. A. Carlyle (Attto. p. 222) says : — ' Since we began 
 to affect speaking a foreign language, which the English dialect is to 
 us, humour, it must be confessed, is less apparent in conversation.' 
 
 ' Discours sur lorigine et les fondemens de rint^galiW partni Ics 
 homines, 1754. 
 
 "^ ' I have indeed myself observed that my banker ever bows lowest 
 to me when I wear my full-bottomed wig, and writes me Mr. or Esq., 
 accordingly as he sees me dressed.' Spectator, No. 150. 
 
 into
 
 5IO The use of money. [a.d. 1763, 
 
 into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and 
 another a shilling, and see which will respect you most. If 
 you wish only to support nature. Sir William Petty fixes 
 your allowance at three pounds a year' ; but as times are 
 much altered, let us call it six pounds. This sum will fill 
 your belly, shelter you from the weather, and even get you 
 a strong lasting coat, supposing it to be made of good bull's 
 hide. Now, Sir, all beyond this is artificial, and is desired 
 in order to obtain a greater degree of respect from our 
 fellow-creatures. And, Sir, if six hundred pounds a year 
 procure a man more consequence, and, of course, more happi- 
 ness than six pounds a year, the same proportion will hold 
 as to six thousand, and so on as far as opulence can be 
 carried. Perhaps he who has a large fortune may not be so 
 happy as he who has a small one ; but that must proceed 
 from other causes than from his having the large fortune : for, 
 ccctcris paribus, he who is rich in a civilized society, must be 
 happier then he who is poor ; as riches, if properly used, 
 (and it is a man's own fault if they are not,) must be pro- 
 ductive of the highest advantages. Money, to be sure, of 
 itself is of no use ; for its only use is to part with it. Rous- 
 seau, and all those who deal in paradoxes, are led away by 
 a childish desire of novelty". When I was a boy, I used 
 always to choose the wrong side of a debate, because most 
 
 ■ Mr. Croker, quoting Mr. Wright, says : — ' See his Qiiantubimanque 
 (sic) conca-ning Money.' I have read Petty 's Qtiantulutncwique, but 
 do not find the passage in it. 
 
 - Johnson told Dr. Burney that Goldsmith said, when he first began 
 to write, he determined to commit to paper nothing but what was 
 new; but he afterwards found that what was new was false, and from 
 that time was no longer solicitous about novelty. Burney. Mr. 
 Forster (^Life of Goldsmith, i. 421) says that this note ' is another in- 
 stance of the many various and doubtful forms in v/hich stories about 
 Johnson and Goldsmith are apt to appear when once we lose sight of 
 the trustworthy Boswell. This is obviously a mere confused recollec- 
 tion of what is correctly told by Boswell \posi, March 26, 1779J.' 
 There is much truth in Mr. Forster's general remark : nevertheless 
 Burney likely enough repeated to the best of his memory what he had 
 himself heard from Johnson. 
 
 ingenious
 
 Aetat. 54.] The ' advantages ' of poverty. 5 1 1 
 
 ingenious things, that is to say, most new things, could be 
 said upon it. Sir, there is nothing for which you may not 
 muster up more plausible arguments, than those which arc 
 urged against w^calth and other external advantages. Why, 
 now, there is stealing ; why should it be thought a crime ? 
 When we consider by what unjust methods property has 
 been often acquired, and that what was unjustly got it must 
 be unjust to keep, where is the harm in one man's taking the 
 property of another from him ? Besides, Sir, when we con- 
 sider the bad use that many people make of their property, 
 and how much better use the thief may make of it, it may 
 be defended as a very allowable practice. Yet, Sir, the ex- 
 perience of mankind has discovered stealing to be so very 
 bad a thing, that they make no scruple to hang a man for it. 
 When I was running about this town a veiy poor fellow, I 
 was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty ; but I was, 
 at the same time, very sorry to be poor. Sir, all the argu- 
 ments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew 
 it to be evidently a great evil. You never find people la- 
 bouring to convince you that you may live very happily 
 upon a plentiful fortune. — So you hear people talking how 
 miserable a King must be ; and yet they all wish to be in his 
 
 place'.' 
 
 It was suggested that Kings must be unhappy, because 
 they are deprived of the greatest of all satisfactions, easy 
 and unreserved society. JOHNSON. 'That is an ill-founded 
 notion. Being a King does not exclude a man from such 
 society. Great Kings have always been social. The King 
 of Prussia, the only great King at present, is very social'. 
 
 ' 'Their [the ancient moralists'] arguments have been, indeed, so 
 unsuccessful, that I know not whether it can be shewn, that by all the 
 wit and reason which this favourite cause has called forth a single 
 convert was ever made ; that even one man has refused to be rich, 
 when to be rich was in his power, from the conviction of the greater 
 happiness of a narrow fortune.' Johnson's Works, ii. 278. Sec post, 
 June 3, 1781, and June 3, Sept. 7, and Dec. 7, 1782. 
 
 * Johnson ( Works, vi. 440) shows how much Frederick owed to ' the 
 difficulties of his youth.' ' Kings, without this help from temporary 
 
 Charles
 
 512 Distijiction of rank. [a.d. 1703. 
 
 Charles the Second, the last King of England who was a man 
 of parts, was social; and our Henrys and Edwards were all 
 social.' 
 
 Mr. Dempster having endeavoured to maintain that in- 
 trinsick merit ought to make the only distinction amongst 
 mankind. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, mankind have found that 
 this cannot be. How shall we determine the proportion 
 of intrinsick merit ? Were that to be the only distinction 
 amongst mankind, we should soon quarrel about the degrees 
 of it. Were all distinctions abolished, the strongest would 
 not long acquiesce, but would endeavour to obtain a superi- 
 ority by their bodily strength. But, Sir, as subordination is 
 very necessary for society, and contensions for superiority 
 very dangerous, mankind, that is to say, all civilized nations, 
 have settled it upon a plain invariable principle. A man 
 is born to hereditary rank; or his being appointed to cer- 
 tain offices, gives him a certain rank. Subordination tends 
 greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equal- 
 ity, we should have no other enjoym.ent than mere animal 
 pleasure'.' 
 
 I said, I considered distinction of rank to be of so much 
 importance in civilised society, that if I were asked on the 
 same day to dine with the first Duke in England, and with 
 the first man in Britain for genius, I should hesitate which 
 to prefer. JOHNSON. 'To be sure, Sir, if you were to dine 
 only once, and it were never to be known where you dined, 
 you would choose rather to dine with the first man for 
 
 infelicity, see the warld in a mist, which magnifies everything near 
 them, and bounds their view to a narrow compass, which few are able 
 to extend by the mere force of curiosity.' He next points out what 
 Cromwell ' owed to the private condition in which he first entered the 
 world ;' and continues : — ' The King of Prussia brought to the throne 
 the knowledge of a private man, without the guilt of usurpation. Of 
 this general acquaintance with the world there may be found some 
 traces in his whole life. His conversation is like that of other men 
 upon common topicks, his letters have an air of familiar elegance, and 
 his whole conduct is that of a man who has to do with men.' 
 ' See ante, p. 472. 
 
 genius ;
 
 Aetat. 54.] yohnsoii s respect for rank. 5 1 3 
 
 genius ; but to gain most respect, you should dine with the 
 first Duke in England. For nine people in ten that you 
 meet with, would have a higher opinion of you for having 
 dined with a Duke ; and the great genius himself would re- 
 ceive you better, because you had been with the great Duke.' 
 He took care to guard himself against any possible sus- 
 picion that his settled principles of reverence for rank and 
 respect for wealth were at all owing to mean or interested 
 motives ; for he asserted his own independence as a literary 
 man. ' No man (said he) who ever lived by literature, has 
 lived more independently than I have done.' He said he 
 had taken longer time than he needed to have done in com- 
 posing his Dictionary. He received our compliments upon 
 that great work with complacency, and told us that the 
 Academy delta Crusca' could scarcely believe that it was 
 done by one man. 
 
 Next morning I found him alone, and have preserved the 
 following fragments of his conversation. Of a gentleman'' 
 who was mentioned, he said, ' I have not met with any man 
 for a long time who has given me such general displeasure. 
 He is totally unfixed in his principles, and wants to puzzle 
 other people.' I said his principles had been poisoned by a 
 noted infidel writer, but that he was, nevertheless, a benevo- 
 lent good man. JOHNSON. 'We can have no dependance 
 upon that instinctive, that constitutional goodness which is 
 not founded upon principle. I grant you that such a man 
 may be a very amiable member of society. I can conceive 
 
 ' See anfe, p. 345. 
 
 "" That this was Mr. Dempster seems likely from the Letters of Bos- 
 well (p. 34), where Boswell says :— ' I had prodigious satisfaction to 
 find Dempster's sophistry (which he has learnt from Hume and Rous- 
 seau) vanquished by the solid sense and vigorous reasoning of Johnson. 
 Dempster," he continues, ' was as happy as a vanquished argumcntator 
 could be.' The character of the ' benevolent good man ' suits Demp- 
 ster {see post, under Feb. 7, 1775. where Boswell calls him * the virtuous 
 and candid Dempster'), while that of the 'noted infidel writer' suits 
 Hume. We find Boswell. Johnson, and Dempster again dining to- 
 gether on May 9, 1772. 
 
 I.-33 ^'''''
 
 5^4 Sceptical innovators. [a.d.17G3. 
 
 him placed in such a situation that he is not much tempted 
 to deviate from what is right ; and as every man prefers vir- 
 tue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress 
 its precepts, I can conceive him doing nothing wrong. But 
 if such a man stood in need of money, I should not like to 
 trust him ; and I should certainly not trust him with young 
 ladies, for there there is always temptation. Hume, and 
 other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify 
 themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient 
 food to their vanity ; so they have betaken themselves to 
 errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no 
 more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull'. If I could 
 have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of 
 truth, what fame might I have acquired. Every thing which 
 Hume has advanced against Christianity had passed through 
 my mind long before he wrote. Always remember this, that 
 after a system is well settled upon positive evidence, a few 
 partial objections ought not to shake it. The human mind 
 is so limited, that it cannot take in all the parts of a sub- 
 ject, so that there may be objections raised against any 
 thing. There are objections against a //<?;z?^w, and objections 
 against a vac2iuin ; yet one of them must certainly be true'.' 
 I mentioned Hume's argument against the belief of mir- 
 acles, that it is more probable that the witnesses to the 
 
 * ' Thou wilt at best but suck a bull, 
 
 Or sheer swine, all cry and no wool.' 
 
 Hudibras, Part i. Canto 1. 1. 851. 
 Dr. Z. Grey, in his note on these lines, quotes the proverbial saying 
 ' As wise as the Waltham calf that went nine times to suck a bull.' 
 He quotes also from The Spectator, No. 138, the passage where the 
 Cynic said of two disputants, ' One of these fellows is milking a ram. 
 and the other holds the pail.' 
 
 ^ The writer of the article Vacuum in the Penny Cyclo. (xxvi. 76), 
 quoting Johnson's words, adds : — ' That is, either all space is full of 
 matter, or there are parts of space which have no matter. The alter- 
 native is undeniable, and the inference to which the modern philoso- 
 phy would give the greatest probability is, that all space is full of 
 matter in the com.mon sense of the word, but really occupied by par- 
 ticles of matter with vacuous interstices.' 
 
 truth
 
 Aetat. 54.] The proofs of Christianity. 5 1 5 
 
 truth of them are mistaken, or speak falsely, than that the mir- 
 acles should be true'. JOHXSOX. ' Why, Sir, the great diffi- 
 culty of proving miracles should make us ver}^ cautious in be- 
 lieving them. But let us consider ; although GOD has made 
 Nature to operate by certain fixed laws, yet it is not unrea- 
 sonable to think that he may suspend those laws, in order to 
 establish a system highly advantageous to mankind. Now 
 the Christian religion is a most beneficial system, as it gives 
 us light and certainty where we were before in darkness and 
 doubt. The miracles which prove it are attested by men who 
 had no interest in deceiving us ; but who, on the contrary, 
 were told that they should suffer persecution, and did actu- 
 ally lay down their lives in confirmation of the truth of the 
 facts which they asserted. Indeed, for some centuries the 
 heathens did not pretend to deny the miracles ; but said they 
 were performed by the aid of evil spirits. This is a circum- 
 stance of great weight. Then, Sir, when we take the proofs 
 derived from prophecies which have been so exactly fulfilled, 
 we have most satisfactory evidence. Supposing a miracle 
 possible, as to which, in my opinion, there can be no doubt, 
 we have as strong evidence for the miracles in support of 
 Christianity, as the nature of the thing admits.' 
 
 At night Mr. Johnson and I supped in a private room at 
 the Turk's Head coffee-house, in the Strand'. ' I encourage 
 this house (said he;) for the mistress of it is a good civil 
 woman, and has not much business.' 
 
 'Sir, I love the acquaintance of young people ; because, in 
 the first place, I don't like to think myself growing old. In 
 the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they 
 do last ; and then, Sir, young men have more virtue than old 
 
 ' ' When any one tells me that he saw a dead man restored to life, 
 I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable that 
 this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact which 
 he relates should really have happened.' Hume's Essay on Miracles, 
 Part i. See post, Sept. 22, 1777, where Boswell again quotes this pas- 
 sage. 
 
 =" A coiTee-house over against Catherine Street, now the site of a 
 tourists' ticket ofhce. Ai/ienaum, No. 3041. 
 
 men ;
 
 5 1 6 yohnsmis recollection of early years, [a.d. 1763. 
 
 men ; they have more generous sentiments in every respect'. 
 I love the young dogs of this age : they have more wit and 
 humour and knowledge of life than we had ; but then the 
 dogs are not so good scholars. Sir, in my early years I read 
 very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew 
 almost as much at eighteen as I do now^ My judgement, to 
 be sure, was not so good ; but I had all the facts, I remem- 
 ber very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said 
 to me, " Young man, ply your book diligently now, and ac- 
 quire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, 
 you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome 
 task.' " 
 
 This account of his reading, given by himself in plain 
 words, sufficiently confirms what I have already advanced 
 upon the disputed question as to his application. It recon- 
 ciles any seeming inconsistency in his way of talking upon it 
 at different times ; and shews that idleness and reading hard 
 were with him relative terms, the import of which, as used 
 by him, must be gathered from a comparison with what 
 scholars of different degrees of ardour and assiduity have 
 been known to do. And let it be remembered, that he was 
 now talking spontaneously, and expressing his genuine sen- 
 timents ; whereas at other times he might be induced from 
 his spirit of contradiction, or more properly from his love of 
 argumentative contest, to speak lightly of his own application 
 
 ' Stockdale records {Memoirs, \. 202) that Johnson once said to him: 
 — ' Whenever it is the duty of a young and old man to act at the same 
 time with a spirit of independence and generosity; we may always 
 have reason to hope that the young man will ardently perform, and 
 to fear that the old man will desert, his duty.' 
 
 - Boswell thus writes of this evening : — ' I learn more from him than 
 from any man I ever was with. He told me a very odd thing, that he 
 knew at eighteen as much as he does now ; that is to say, his judge- 
 ment is much stronger, but he had then stored up almost all the facts 
 he has now, and he says that he has led but an idle life ; only think. 
 Temple, of that !' Letters of Boswell, p. 34. See ante, p. 65, and post, 
 ii. 41. He told Windham in 1784 'that he read Latin with as much 
 ease when he went to college as at present.' Windham's Diary, p. 17. 
 
 to
 
 Aetat. 54.] Remedies for vtelancJioly. 5 1 7 
 
 to study. It is pleasing to consider that the old gentleman's 
 gloomy prophecy as to the irksomeness of books to men of 
 an advanced age, which is too often fulfilled, was so far from 
 being verified in Johnson, that his ardour for literature never 
 failed, and his last writings had more ease and vivacity than 
 any of his earlier productions. 
 
 He mentioned to me now, for the first time, that he had 
 been distrest by melancholy, and for that reason had been 
 obliged to fly from study and meditation, to the dissipating 
 variety of life. Against melancholy he recommended con- 
 stant occupation of mind, a great deal of exercise, modera- 
 tion in eating and drinking, and especially to shun drinking 
 at night. He said melancholy people were apt to fly to in- 
 temperance for relief, but that it sunk them much deeper in 
 misery'. He observed, that labouring men who work hard, 
 and live sparingly, are seldom or never troubled with low 
 spirits. 
 
 He again insisted on the duty of maintaining subordina- 
 tion of rank. ' Sir, I would no more deprive a nobleman of 
 
 ' Johnson in 1739 wrote of 'those distempers and depressions, from 
 which students, not well acquainted with the constitution of the hu- 
 man body, sometimes fly for relief to wine instead of exercise, and 
 purchase temporary ease, by the hazard of the most dreadful conse- 
 quences.' Works, v'\. 271. In The Rambler, No. 85, he says: — ' How 
 much happiness is gained, and how much misery is escaped, by fre- 
 quent and violent agitation of the body.' Boswell records {Hebrides, 
 Sept. 24, 1773) :— ' Dr. Johnson told us at breakfast, that he rode harder 
 at a fox-chace than anybody.' Mrs. Piozzi {Ajiec. p. 206) says : — ' He 
 certainly rode on Mr. Thrale's old hunter with a good firmness, and. 
 though he would follow the hounds fifty miles an end sometimes, 
 would never own himself either tired or amused. I think no praise 
 ever went so close to his heart, as when Mr. Hamilton called out one 
 day upon Brighthelmstone Downs, " Why Johnson rides as well, for 
 aught I see, as the most illiterate fellow in England." ' He wrote to 
 Mrs. Thrale in 1777 : — ' No season ever was finer. Barley, malt, beer 
 and money. There is the series of ideas. The deep logicians call it 
 a sorites. I hope my mas/er will no lotit^er endure (he reproach of not 
 keeping me a horse.' Piozzi Letters, i. 360. Sec post, March 19 and 28, 
 1776, Sept. 20, 1777, and Nov. 21, 1778. 
 
 his
 
 5 1 8 Mrs. Macaiilay s footman. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 his respect, than of his money. I consider myself as acting 
 a part in the great system of society, and I do to others as I 
 would have them to do to me. I would behave to a noble- 
 man as I should expect he would behave to me, were I a 
 nobleman and he Sam. Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Ma- 
 caulay' in this town, a great republican. One day when I 
 was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and 
 said to her, "■ Madam, I am now become a convert to your 
 way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon 
 an equal footing ; and to give you an unquestionable proof. 
 Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, 
 well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman ; I desire that he 
 may be allowed to sit down and dine with us"." I thus. Sir, 
 shewed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has 
 never liked me since. Sir, your levellers wish to level dozun 
 as far as themselves ; but they cannot bear levelling up to 
 themselves. They would all have some people under them ; 
 why not then have some people above them ?' I mentioned 
 a certain authour who disgusted me by his forwardness, and 
 by shewing no deference to noblemen into whose company 
 he was admitted. JOHNSON. ' Suppose a shoemaker should 
 claim an equality with him, as he does with a Lord ; how he 
 would stare. " Why, Sir, do you stare ? (says the shoemaker,) 
 I do great service to society. 'Tis true I am paid for doing 
 it ; but so are you, Sir : and I am sorry to say it, paid better 
 
 ^ This one Mrs. Macaulay was the same personage who afterwards 
 made herself so much known as 'the celebrated female historian.' 
 BOSWELL. Hannah More {Memoirs, i. 234) tells the following story 
 of Mrs. Macaulay 's daughter : — ' Desirous from civility to take some 
 notice of her, and finding she was reading Shakespeare, I asked her if 
 she was not delighted with many parts of King John. " I never read 
 the Kings, ma'am," was the truly characteristic reply.' See pos/, 
 April 13, 1773, and May 15, 1776. 
 
 " This speech was perhaps suggested to Johnson by the following 
 passage in The Go%)er7inient of the Tongue (p. 106) — a book which he 
 quotes in his Dictionary : — ' Lycurgus once said to one who impor- 
 tuned him to establish a popular parity in the state, " Do thou," says 
 he, " begin it first in thine own family." ' 
 
 than
 
 Aetat.o4.] ' Dr. Joseph War ton. 519 
 
 than I am, for doing something not so neccssar>-. For man- 
 kind could do better without your books, than without my 
 shoes." Thus, Sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for 
 precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the dis- 
 tinction of rank, which creates no jealousy, as it is allowed to 
 be accidental.' 
 
 He said, Dr. Joseph Warton was a very agreeable man, and 
 his Essay on the Gciims and Writings of Pope, a very pleasing 
 book. I wondered that he delayed so long to give us the 
 continuation of it'. JOHNSON. ' Why, Sir, I suppose he finds 
 himself a little disappointed, in not having been able to per- 
 suade the world to be of his opinion as to Pope.' 
 
 We have now been favoured with the concludintj volume, 
 in which, to use a parliamentary expression, he has explained, 
 so as not to appear quite so adverse to the opinion of the 
 world, concerning Pope, as was at first thought"; and we 
 must all agree that his work is a most valuable accession to 
 English literature. 
 
 A writer of deserved eminence" being mentioned, Johnson 
 
 ' The first volume was published in 1756, the second in 1782. 
 
 ^ Warton, to use his own words, ' did not think Pope at the head of 
 his profession. In other words, in that species of poetry wherein 
 Pope excelled, he is superior to all mankind ; and I only say that this 
 species of poetry is not the most excellent one of the art.' He dis- 
 poses the English poets in four classes, placing in the first only Spen- 
 ser, Shakespeare, and Milton. ' In the second class should be ranked 
 such as possessed the true poetical genius in a more moderate degree, 
 but who had noble talents for moral, ethical, and panegyrical poetry.' 
 In this class, in his concluding volume, he says, 'we may venture to 
 assign Pope a place, just above Drydcn. Yet, to bring our minds 
 steadily to make this decision, we must forget, for a moment, the 
 divine Music Ode of Drydai ; and may, perhaps, then be compelled to 
 confess that though Dryden be the greater genius, yet Pope is the 
 better artist.' Warton's Essay, i. i, vii. and ii. 404. See post, March 31 , 
 1772. 
 
 ^ Mr. Croker believes Joseph Warton was meant. His father, how- 
 ever, had been Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and was after- 
 wards Vicar of Rasingstroke and Cobham, and Professor of Poetry in 
 his own University, so that the son could scarcely be described as 
 
 said,
 
 520 Sir y antes Macdonald. ' [a.d. 1763. 
 
 said, ' Why, Sir, he is a man of good parts, but being origi- 
 nally poor, he has got a love of mean company and low joc- 
 ularity ; a very bad thing, Sir. To laugh is good, as to talk 
 is good. But you ought no more to think it enough if you 
 laugh, than you are to think it enough if you talk. You 
 may laugh in as many ways as you talk ; and surely cvcrj^ 
 way of talking that is practised cannot be esteemed.' 
 
 I spoke of Sir James Macdonald' as a young man of most 
 distinguished merit, who united the highest reputation at 
 Eaton and Oxford, with the patriarchal spirit of a great 
 Highland Chieftain. I mentioned that Sir James had said 
 to me, that he had never seen Mr. Johnson, but he had a 
 
 being 'originally poor.' It is, no doubt, after Boswell's fashion to in- 
 troduce in consecutive paragraphs the same person once by name 
 and once anonymously; but then the 'certain author who disgusted 
 Boswell by his forwardness,' mentioned just before Warton, may be 
 Warton himself. 
 
 ^ ' When he arrived at Eton he could not make a verse ; that is, he 
 wanted a point indispensable with us to a certain rank in our system. 
 But this wonderful boy, having satisfied the Master [ Dr. Barnard ] 
 that he was an admirable scholar, and possessed of genius, was at 
 once placed at the head of a form. He acquired the rules of Latin 
 verse ; tried his powers ; and perceiving that he could not rise above 
 his rivals in Virgil, Ovid, or the lyric of Horace, he took up the ser- 
 nioni propiora, and there overshadowed all competitors. In the fol- 
 lowing lines he describes the hammer of the auctioneer with a mock 
 sublimity which turns Horace into Virgil : — 
 
 'Jam-jamque cadit, celerique recursu 
 Erigitur, lapsum retrahens, perque aera nutat.' 
 
 Nichols's Lit. Alice, viii. 547. 
 Horace Walpole wrote of him in Sept. 1765 {Letters, iv. 411) : — ' He is 
 a very extraordinary young man for variety of learning. He is rather 
 too wise for his age, and too fond of showing it ; but when he has 
 seen more of the world, he will choose to know less.' He died at 
 Rome in the following year. Hume, on hearing the news, wrote to 
 Adam Smith: — 'Were you and I together, dear Smith, we should 
 shed tears at present for the death of poor Sir James Macdonald. 
 We could not possibly have suffered a greater loss than in that valu- 
 able young man.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 349. See Boswell's Heb- 
 rides, Sept. 5, 1773. 
 
 great
 
 Aetat.54.] Martins Western Isles. 521 
 
 great respect for him, though at the same time it was mixed 
 with some degree of terrour'. JOHNSON. ' Sir, if he were 
 to be acquainted with me, it might lessen both.' 
 
 The mention of this gentleman led us to talk of the West- 
 ern Islands of Scotland, to visit which he expressed a wish 
 that then appeared to me a very romantick fancy, which I 
 little thought would be afterwards realised". He told me, 
 that his father had put Martin's account of those islands into 
 his hands when he was very young, and that he was high- 
 ly pleased with it ; that he was particularly struck with the 
 St. Kilda man's notion that the high church of Glasgow had 
 been hollowed out of a rock' ; a circumstance to which old 
 
 ' Boswell says that Macdonald had for Johnson 'a great terrour.' 
 {Boswclliana, p. 216.) Northcote {Life of Reynolds, i. 329) says: — 'It 
 is a fact that a certain nobleman, an intimate friend of Reynolds, had 
 strangely conceived in his mind such a formidable idea of all those 
 persons who had gained great fame as literary characters, that I have 
 heard Sir Joshua say, he verily believed he could no more have pre- 
 vailed upon this noble person to dine at the same table with Johnson 
 and Goldsmith than with two tigers.' According to Mr. Seward {Bio- 
 graphiana, p. 600), Mrs. Cotterell having one day asked Dr. Johnson 
 to introduce her to a celebrated writer, ' Dearest madam,' said he, 
 ' you had better let it alone ; the best part of every author is in gen- 
 eral to be found in his book, I assure you.' Mr. Seward refers to The 
 Rambler, No. 14, where Johnson says that 'there has often been ob- 
 served a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an 
 authour and his writings.' 
 
 " See post, Jan. 19, 1775. In his Hebrides (p. i) Boswell writes: — 
 ' When I was at Ferney, in 1764, I mentioned our design to Voltaire. 
 He looked at me as if I had talked of going to the North Pole, and 
 said, " You do not insist on my accompanying you .''" " No. Sir." 
 "Then I am very willing you should go."' 
 
 ^ ' When he went through the streets he desired to have one to 
 lead him by the hand. They asked his opinion of the high church. 
 He answered that it was a large rock, yet there were some in St. 
 Kilda much higher, but that these were the best caves he ever saw ; 
 for that was the idea which he conceived of the pillars and arches 
 upon which the church stands.' M. Martin's Western Isles, p. 297. 
 Mr. Croker compares the passage in T/ie Spectator (No. 50), in which 
 an Indian king is made to say of St. Paul's : — ' It was probably at first 
 an huge misshapen rock that grew upon the top of the hill, which the 
 
 Mr.
 
 522 A schoolboys happiness. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 Mr. Johnson had directed his attention. He said he would 
 go to the Hebrides with me, when I returned from my 
 travels, unless some very good companion should offer when 
 I was absent, which he did not think probable ; adding, 
 ' There are few people to whom I take so much to as you.' 
 And when I talked of my leaving England, he said with a 
 very affectionate air, ' My dear Boswell, I should be very un- 
 happy at parting, did I think we were not to meet again'.' 
 I cannot too often remind my readers, that although such 
 instances of his kindness are doubtless very flattering to me, 
 yet I hope my recording them will be ascribed to a better 
 motive than to vanity ; for they afford unquestionable evi- 
 dence of his tenderness and complacency, which some, while 
 they were forced to acknowledge his great powers, have been 
 so strenuous to deny. 
 
 He maintained that a boy at school was the happiest of 
 human beings^ I supported a different opinion, from which 
 I have never yet varied, that a man is happier ; and I en- 
 larged upon the anxiety and sufferings which are endured 
 at school. Johnson. ' Ah ! Sir, a boy's being flogged is 
 not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against 
 him. Men have a solicitude about fame^ ; and the greater 
 
 natives of the country (after having cut it into a kind of regular figure) 
 bored and hollowed with incredible pains and industry.' 
 
 ■ Boswell, writing to Temple the next day, slightly varies these 
 words : — ' He said, " My dear Boswell, it would give me great pain to 
 part with you, if I thought we were not to meet again." ' Letters of 
 Bos-vell, p. 34. 
 
 " Gibbon {Alisc. Works, i. 43) protests against ' the trite and lavish 
 praise of the happiness of our boyish years, which is echoed with so 
 much affectation in the world. That happiness I have never known, 
 that time I have never regretted. The poet may gaily describe the 
 short hours of recreation ; but he forgets the daily tedious labours of 
 the school, which is approached each morning with anxious and re- 
 luctant steps.' See ante, p. 51. and post, under Feb. 27, 1772. 
 
 ' About fame Gibbon felt much as Johnson did. ' I am disgusted,' 
 he wrote {ib. 272), 'with the affectation of men of letters, who com- 
 plain that they have renounced a substance for a shadow, and that 
 their fame (which sometimes is no insupportable weight) affords a 
 
 share
 
 Aetat. 54.] Praise of Sir David Dalrymple. 523 
 
 share they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it.' 
 I silently asked myself, ' Is it possible that the great SAMUEL 
 Johnson really entertains any such apprehension, and is not 
 confident that his exalted fame is established upon a founda- 
 tion never to be shaken?' 
 
 He this evening drank a bumper to Sir David Dalrymple', 
 ' as a man of worth, a scholar, and a wit.' ' I have (said he) 
 never heard of him except from you ; but let him know my 
 opinion of him : for as he does not shew himself much in 
 the world, he should have the praise of the few who hear of 
 him.' 
 
 On Tuesday, July 26, I found Mr. Johnson alone. It was 
 a very wet day, and I again complained of the disagreeable 
 effects of such weather. JOHNSON. ' Sir, this is all imagi- 
 nation, which physicians encourage : for man lives in air, as 
 a fish lives in water ; so that if the atmosphere press heavy 
 from above, there is an equal resistance from below. To be 
 sure, bad weather is hard upon people who are obliged to be 
 abroad ; and men cannot labour so well in the open air in 
 bad weather, as in good : but. Sir, a smith or a taylor, whose 
 work is within doors, will surely do as much in rainy weather, 
 as in fair. Some very delicate frames, indeed, may be af- 
 fected by wet weather ; but not common constitutions\' 
 
 We talked of the education of children ; and I asked him 
 what he thought was best to teach them first. JOHNSON. 
 ' Sir, it is no matter what you teach them first, any more 
 than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. Sir, 
 you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in 
 the meantime your breech is bare. Sir, while you are con- 
 sidering which of two things you should teach your child 
 first, another boy has learnt them both.' 
 
 poor compensation for envy, censure, and persecution. My own ex- 
 perience, at least, has taught me a very different lesson ; twenty happy 
 years have been animated by the labour of my History, and its success 
 has given me a name, a rank, a character, in the world, to which I 
 should not otherwise have been entitled.' 
 
 ' See ante, p. 500. * See ante, p. 385. 
 
 On
 
 524 The Tale of a Tub. [a.d.1763. 
 
 On Thursday, July 28, we again supped in private at the 
 Turk's Head coffee-house. Johnson. ' Swift has a higher 
 reputation than he deserves. His excellence is strong sense; 
 for his humour, though very well, is not remarkably good. 
 I doubt whether The Talc of a Tub be his ; for he never 
 owned it, and it is much above his usual manner\' 
 
 * Thompson, I think, had as much of the poet about him 
 as most writers. Every thing appeared to him through the 
 medium of his favourite pursuit. He could not have viewed 
 those two candles burning but with a poetical eye\' 
 
 1 This opinion was given by him more at large at a subsequent 
 period. See Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 32 [Aug. 
 16]. BoswELL. ' That Swift was its authour, though it be universal- 
 1}^ believed, was never owned by himself, nor very well proved by any 
 evidence ; but no other claimant can be produced, and he did not 
 deny it when Archbishop Sharpe and the Duchess of Somerset, by 
 shewing it to the Queen, debarred him from a bishoprick.' Johnson's 
 Works, viii. 197. See also post, March 24, 1775. Stockdale records 
 {Memoirs, ii.6i) that Johnson said 'that if Swift was really the author 
 of The Tale of a Tub, as the best of his other performances were of a 
 very inferior merit, he should have hanged himself after he had writ- 
 ten it.' Scott {Life of Stvift, ed. 1834, p. ']']') says: — ' Mrs. Whiteway 
 observed the Dean, in the latter years of his life [in 1735], looking 
 over the Tale, when suddenly closing the book he muttered, in an 
 unconscious soliloquy, " Good God ! what a genius I had when I wrote 
 that book !" She begged it of him, who made some excuse at the 
 moment ; but on her birthday he presented her with it inscribed, 
 "From her affectionate cousin." On observing the inscription, she 
 ventured to say, " I wish, Sir, you had said the gift of the author !" 
 The Dean bowed, smiled good-humouredly, and answered, " No, I 
 thank you," in a very significant manner.' There is this to be said of 
 Johnson's incredulity about the Tale of a Tub, that the History of John 
 Bull and the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblertis, though both by Arbuth- 
 not, were commonly assigned to Swift, and are printed in his Works. 
 
 * 'Thomson thinks in a peculiar train, and he thinks always as a 
 man of genius ; he looks round on Nature and on Life with the eye 
 which Nature bestows only on a poet ; — the eye that distinguishes in 
 everything presented to its view whatever there is on which imagina- 
 tion can delight to be detained, and with a mind that at once compre- 
 hends the vast, and attends to the minute.' Johnson's Works, vin. 377. 
 See post, ii. 72, and April 11, 1776. 
 
 'Has
 
 Aetat.54.] Mr. Thomas Sheridan s dulness. 525 
 
 'Has not ' a great deal of wit, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'I 
 
 do not think so, Sir. He is, indeed, continually attempting 
 wit, but he fails. And I have no more pleasure in hearing 
 a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man \.xy- 
 ing to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it.' 
 
 He laughed heartily, when I mentioned to him a saying 
 of his concerning Mr. Thomas Sheridan, which Foote took 
 a wicked pleasure to circulate. ' Why, Sir, Sherry is dull, 
 naturally dull ; but it must have taken him a great deal of 
 pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of 
 stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.' ' So (said he,) I allowed 
 him all his own merit.' 
 
 He now added, ' Sheridan cannot bear me. I bring his 
 declamation to a point. I ask him a plain question, " What 
 do you mean to teach ?" Besides, Sir, what influence can 
 Mr. Sheridan have upon the language of this great country, 
 by his narrow exertions? Sir, it is burning a farthing can- 
 dle at Dover, to shew light at Calais".' 
 
 Talking of a young man' who was uneasy from thinking 
 that he was very deficient in learning and knowledge, he 
 said, ' A man has no reason to complain who holds a middle 
 place, and has many below him ; and perhaps he has not 
 six of his years above him ; — perhaps not one. Though he 
 may not know any thing perfectly, the general mass of 
 
 ' Burke seems to be meant. S&c post, April 25, 1778, and Boswell's 
 Hebrides, Aug. 1 5, and Sept. 1 5, 1773. It is strange however that, while 
 in these three places Boswell mentions Burke's name, he should leave 
 a blank here. In BoswcHuma, p. 328, Boswell records : — ' Langton said 
 Burke hammered his v/it upon an anvil, and the iron was cold. There 
 were no sparks flashing and flying all about.' 
 
 " In Boswelliatia (p. 214) this anecdote is thus given : — ' Boswell was 
 talking to Mr. Samuel Johnson of Mr. Sheridan's enthusiasm for the 
 advancement of eloquence. " Sir," said Mr. Johnson, "it won't do. 
 He cannot carry through his scheme. He is like a man attempting 
 to stride the English Channel. Sir, the cause bears no proportion to 
 the effect. It is setting up a candle at Whitechapel to give light at 
 Westminster." ' Sec also ante, p. 446, and^fj-/, Oct. 16, 1769, April 18 
 and May 17, 1783. 
 
 ' Most likely Boswell himself. See atiie, p. 475. 
 
 knowledge
 
 526 Experience the test of truth. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 knowledge that he has acquired is considerable. Time will 
 do for him all that is wanting.' 
 
 The conversation then took a philosophical turn. JOHN- 
 SON. ' Human experience, which is constantly contradicting 
 theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the 
 discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, 
 than what is produced by the mere workings of any one 
 mind, which, of itself, can do little. There is not so poor a 
 book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were 
 it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of 
 prior investigators. The French writers are superficial' ; be- 
 cause they are not scholars, and so proceed upon the mere 
 power of their own minds ; and we see how very little power 
 they have.' 
 
 ' As to the Christian religion, Sir, besides the strong evi- 
 dence which we have for it, there is a balance in its favour 
 from the number of great men who have been convinced of 
 its truth, after a serious consideration of the question. Gro- 
 tius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to ex- 
 amine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a 
 recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias 
 to the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel', 
 and came to be a very firm believer.' 
 
 ' ' Let a Frenchman talk twice with a minister of state, he desires 
 no more to furnish out a volume.' Swift's \Vo7-ks, ed. 1803, xvi. 197. 
 Lord Chesterfield wrote from Paris in 1741 : — 'They [the Parisians] 
 despise us, and with reason, for our ill-breeding; on the other hand, 
 we despise them for their want of learning, and we are in the right of 
 it.' Supplement to Chesterfield's Letters, "1^. \(). See 'Q,o%'N€iV^ Hebrides, 
 Oct. 14, 1773. 
 
 * ' Dr. Johnson said that he had been told by an acquaintance of 
 Sir Isaac Newton, that in early life he started as a clamorous infidel.' 
 Seward's Anecdotes, ii. 324. In Brewster's Life of Newton I find no 
 mention of early infidelity. On the contrary, Newton had been de- 
 scribed as one who ' had been a searcher of the Scriptures from his 
 youth' (ii. 314). Brewster says that 'some foreign writers have en- 
 deavoured to shew that his theological writings were composed at a 
 late period of life, when his mind was in its dotage.' It was not so, 
 however, /i^. p. 315. 
 
 He
 
 Aetat. 54.] The University of Salamancha. 527 
 
 He this evening again recommended me to perambulate 
 Spain'. I said it would amuse him to get a letter from me 
 dated at Salamancha. Johnson. ' I love the University of 
 Salamancha ; for when the Spaniards were in doubt as to 
 the lawfulness of their conquering America, the University 
 of Salamancha gave it as their opinion that it was not law- 
 ful.' He spoke this with great emotion, and with that gen- 
 erous warmth which dictated the lines in his London, against 
 Spanish encroachment\ 
 
 I expressed my opinion of my friend Derrick as but a poor 
 writer. JOHNSON. ' To be sure, Sir, he is ; but you are to con- 
 sider that his being a literary man has got for him all that he 
 has. It has made him King of Bath\ Sir, he has nothing 
 to say for himself but that he is a writer. Had he not been 
 a writer, he must have been sweeping the crossings in the 
 streets, and asking halfpence from every body that past.' 
 
 In justice, however, to the memory of Mr. Derrick, who 
 was my first tutor in the ways of London, and shewed me 
 the town in all its variety of departments, both literary and 
 
 ' I fully intended to have followed advice of such weight ; but hav- 
 ing staid much longer both in Germany and Italy than I proposed to 
 do, and having also visited Corsica, I found that I had exceeded the 
 time allowed me by my father, and hastened to France in my way 
 homewards. Boswell. See ante, p. 474. 
 
 - ' Has heaven reserved, in pity to the poor. 
 
 No pathless waste, or undiscovered shore ? 
 No secret island in the boundless main ? 
 No peaceful desert, yet unclaimed by Spain ?' 
 Johnson looked upon the discover)'' of America as a misfortune to 
 mankind. In Taxation no Tyranny ( Works, vi. 233) he says that ' no 
 part of the world has yet had reason to rejoice that Columbus found 
 at last reception and employment. In the same year, in a year hith- 
 erto disastrous to mankind, by the Portuguese was discovered the 
 passage of the Indies, and by the Spaniards the coast of America.' 
 On March 4, 1773, he wrote (Croker's Boswell, p. 248): — 'I do not 
 much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in 
 conquest and robbery.' See ante, p. 356, note 4, and post, March 21, 
 1775, and under Dec. 24, 1783. 
 
 ^ See ante, p. 456, note 2. 
 
 sportive,
 
 528 Mr. Derrick. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 sportive, the particulars of which Dr. Johnson advised me to 
 put in writing, it is proper to mention what Johnson, at a sub- 
 sequent period, said of him both as a writer and an editor : 
 ' Sir, I have often said, that if Derrick's letters' had been writ- 
 ten by one of a more established name, they would have been 
 thought very pretty letters'.' And, ' I sent Derrick to Dry- 
 den's relations to gather materials for his life ; and I believe 
 he got all that I myself should have got^' 
 
 Poor Derrick ! I remember him with kindness. Yet I can- 
 not with-hold from my readers a pleasant humorous sally 
 which could not have hurt him had he been alive, and now is 
 perfectly harmless. In his collection of poems, there is one 
 upon entering the harbour of Dublin, his native city, after a 
 long absence. It begins thus : 
 
 ' Eblana ! much lov'd city, hail ! 
 Where first I saw the light of day.' 
 
 And after a solemn reflection on his being ' numbered with 
 forgotten dead,' there is the following stanza : 
 
 'Unless my lines protract my fame, 
 
 And those, who chance to read them, cry, 
 I knew him ! Derrick was his name. 
 In yonder tomb his ashes lie.' 
 
 Which was thus happily parodied by Mr. John Home, to 
 whom we owe the beautiful and pathetick tragedy of Douglas: 
 
 'Unless my deeds protract my fame. 
 
 Arid he who passes sadly sings, 
 I knew him ! Derrick was his name, 
 On yonder tree his carcase swings P 
 
 I doubt much whether the amiable and ingenious authour 
 
 ' Letters written from Leverpoole, Chester, Corke, &^c., by Samuel Der- 
 rick, 1767. 
 
 ^ Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 104 [Aug. 27, 1773]. 
 
 BOSWELL. 
 
 ^ Ibid. p. 142 [242, Sept. 22, 1773J. BoswELL. Johnson added: — 
 'but it was nothing.' Derrick, in 1760, published Dryden's Misc. 
 Works, with an Accotint of his Life. 
 
 of
 
 Aetat. 54.] A day at Greenwich, 529 
 
 of these burlesque lines will recollect them, for they were 
 produced extempore one evening while he and I were walk- 
 ing together in the dining-room at Eglintoune Castle, in 1760, 
 and I have never mentioned them to him since. 
 
 Johnson said once to me, ' Sir, I honour Derrick for his 
 presence of mind. One night, when Floyd', another poor 
 authour, was wandering about the streets in the night, he 
 found Derrick fast asleep upon a bulk" ; upon being sud- 
 denly waked, Derrick started up, " My dear Floyd, I am sorry 
 to see you in this destitute state ; will you go home with me 
 to my lodgings f ' 
 
 I again begged his advice as to my method of study at 
 Utrecht. * Come, (said he) let us make a day of it. Let us 
 go down to Greenwich and dine, and talk of it there.' The 
 following Saturday was fixed for this excursion. 
 
 As we walked along the Strand to-night, arm in arm, a 
 woman of the town accosted us, in the usual enticing man- 
 ner. ' No, no, my girl, (said Johnson) it won't do.' He, how- 
 ever, did not treat her with harshness, and we talked of the 
 wretched life of such women ; and agreed, that much more 
 miser}' than happiness, upon the whole, is produced by illicit 
 commerce between the sexes. 
 
 On Saturday, July 30, Dr. Johnson and I took a sculler at 
 the Temple-stairs, and set out for Greenwich. I asked him 
 if he really thought a knowledge of the Greek and Latin lan- 
 guages an essential requisite to a good education. JOHN- 
 SON. ' Most certainly, Sir ; for those who know them have a 
 
 ' He published a biographical work, containing an account of emi- 
 nent writers, in three vols. 8vo. Boswell. 
 
 ^ ' Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day. 
 
 And stretched on bulks, as usual, poets lay.' 
 
 T/w Dunciad, ii. 420. 
 In Humphry Clinker, in the Letter of June 10, in which is described 
 
 the dinner given by S to the poor authors, of one of them it is 
 
 said : — ' The only secret which he ever kept was the place of his lodg- 
 ings; but it was believed that during the heats of summer he com- 
 monly took his repose upon a bulk.' Johnson defines bulk as a part 
 of a buildi7tg juttitig out. 
 
 L— 34 very
 
 53© The desire of knowledge. [a. d. 1763. 
 
 very great advantage over those who do not. Nay, Sir, it 
 is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people 
 even in the common intercourse of life, which does not ap- 
 pear to be much connected with it.' ' And yet, (said I) people 
 go through the world very well, and carry on the business of 
 life to good advantage, without learning,' JOHNSON. ' Why, 
 Sir, that may be true in cases where learning cannot possibly 
 be of any use ; for instance, this boy rows us as well without 
 learning, as if he could sing the song of Orpheus to the Ar- 
 gonauts, who were the first sailors.' He then called to the 
 boy, 'What would you give, my lad, to know about the Ar- 
 gonauts?' ' Sir, (said the boy,) I would give what I have.' 
 Johnson was much pleased with his answer, and we gave him 
 a double fare. Dr. Johnson then turning to me, ' Sir, (said 
 he,) a desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind ; 
 and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will 
 be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge'.' 
 
 We landed at the Old Swan°, and walked to Billingsgate, 
 where we took oars, and moved smoothly along the silver 
 Thames. It was a very fine day. We were entertained with 
 the immense number and variety of ships that w^ere lying 
 at anchor, and with the beautiful country on each side of 
 the river. 
 
 I talked of preaching, and of the great success which those 
 called Methodists' have. JOHNSON. * Sir, it is owing to their 
 
 ' ' Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is con- 
 fessed by the natural desire which ever)^ mind feels of increasing its 
 ideas . . . without knowing why we always rejoice when we learn, and 
 grieve when we forget.' Rassclas, ch. xi. 
 
 * In the days of Old London Bridge, as Mr. Croker points out, even 
 when the tide would have allowed passengers to shoot it, those who were 
 prudent landed above the bridge, and walked to some wharf below it. 
 
 ' All who are acquainted with the history of religion, (the most im- 
 portant, surely, that concerns the human mind,) know that the appel- 
 lation of Methodists was first given to a society of students in the 
 University of Oxford, who about the year 1730 were distinguished by 
 an earnest and jnethodical 2X.\.Q.x\t\on to devout exercises. This dispo- 
 sition of mind is not a novelty, or peculiar to any sect, but has been, 
 and still may be found, in many Christians of ever}'^ denomination. 
 
 expressing
 
 Aetat.54.] The MetJiodists. 531 
 
 expressing themselves in a plain and familiar manner, which 
 is the only way to do good to the common people, and 
 which clergymen of genius and learning ought to do from a 
 
 Johnson himself was, in a dignified manner, a Methodist. In his 
 Rambler, No. no, he mentions with respect 'the whole discipline of 
 regulated piety;' and in his Prayers attd Meditations, many instances 
 occur of his anxious examination into his spiritual state. That this 
 religious earnestness, and in particular an observ^ation of the influence 
 of the Holy Spirit, has sometimes degenerated into folly, and some- 
 times been counterfeited for base purposes, cannot be denied. But it 
 is not, therefore, fair to decry it when genuine. The principal argu- 
 ment in reason and good sense against methodism is, that it tends to 
 debase human nature, and prevent the generous exertions of good- 
 ness, by an unworthy supposition that GOD will pay no regard to 
 them; although it is positively said in the scriptures that He 'will 
 reward every man according to his works.' [St. Matthew, xvi. 27.] 
 But I am happy to have it [in] my power to do justice to those whom 
 it is the fashion to ridicule, without any knowledge of their tenets; 
 and this I can do by quoting a passage from one of their best apolo- 
 gists, Mr. Milner, who thus expresses their doctrine upon this subject. 
 'Justified by faith, renewed in his faculties, and constrained by the 
 love of Christ, their believer moves in the sphere of love and grati- 
 tude, and all his duties flow more or less from this principle. And 
 though they are accumnlatittg for him in heaven a treasure of bliss 
 proportioned to his faithfulness and activity, and it is by no means in- 
 consistent with his principles to feci the force of this consideration, yet 
 love itself sweetens every duty to his mind ; and he thinks there is 
 no absurdity in his feeling the love of GOD as the grand commanding 
 principle of his life.' Essays on several religious Subjects, &'C., by Jo- 
 seph Milner, A.M., Master of the Grammar School of Kingston-upon- 
 Hull, 1789, p. II. BoswELL. Southey (yLife of Wesley, i. 41 ), men- 
 tioning the names given at Oxford to Wesley and his followers, 
 continues : — ' One person with less irreverence and more learning 
 observed, in reference to their methodical manner of life, that a new 
 sect of Methodists was sprung up, alluding to the ancient school of 
 physicians known by that name.' Wesley, in 1744, wrote The Humble 
 Address to the King of the Societies in derision called Methodists. 
 Journal, i. 437. He often speaks of ' the people called Methodists,' 
 but sometimes he uses the term without any qualification. Mrs. 
 Thrale, in 1780, wrote to Johnson: — 'Methodist is considered always 
 a term of reproach, I tru.st, because I never yet did hear that any one 
 person called himself a Methodist.' Piozsi Letters, ii. 1 19. 
 
 principle
 
 532 Greenwich hospital. [a.d. i763. 
 
 principle of duty, when it is suited to their congregations ; a 
 practice, for which they will be praised by men of sense'. To 
 insist against drunkenness as a crime, because it debases rea- 
 son, the noblest faculty of man, would be of no service to 
 the common people : but to tell them that they may die in 
 a fit of drunkenness, and shew them how dreadful that would 
 be, cannot fail to make a deep impression. Sir, when your 
 Scotch clergy give up their homely manner, religion will soon 
 decay in that country.' Let this observation, as Johnson 
 meant it, be ever remembered. 
 
 I was much pleased to find myself with Johnson at Green- 
 wich, which he celebrates in his Loyidon as a favourite scene. 
 I had the poem in my pocket, and read the lines aloud 
 with enthusiasm : 
 
 ' On Thames's banks in silent thought we stood : 
 Where Greenwich smiles upon the silver flood : 
 Pleas'd"' with the seat which gave Eliza birth. 
 We kneel, and kiss the consecrated earth.' 
 
 He remarked that the structure of Greenwich hospital was 
 too magnificent for a place of charity, and that its parts 
 were too much detached to make one great whole. 
 
 Buchanan, he said, was a very fine poet ; and observed, 
 that he was the first who complimented a lady, by ascribing 
 to her the different perfections of the heathen goddesses^ ; 
 but that Johnston^ improved upon this, by making his lady, 
 at the same time, free from their defects. 
 
 ' Wesley said : — ' We should constantly use the most common, lit- 
 tle, easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language 
 affords. When first I talked at Oxford to plain people in the Castle 
 [the prison] or the town, I observed they gaped and stared. This 
 quickly obliged me to alter my style, and adopt the language of those 
 I spoke to ; and yet there is a dignity in their simplicity, which is not 
 disagreeable to those of the highest rank.' Southey's Wesley, i. 431. 
 Stcpost, 1770, in Dr. Ma.xwell's Collectanea, Oct. 12, 1779, Aug. 30, 1780, 
 and Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 10, 1773. 
 
 ^ In the original, struck. 
 
 = Epigram, Lib. ii. ' In Elizabeth. Anglise Reg.' MalONE. 
 
 * See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 23. 
 
 He
 
 Aetat. 54.] A course of study. 5 -^ -^ 
 
 Jv5 
 
 He dwelt upon Buchanan's elegant verses to Mary Queen 
 of Scots, NyuipJia Calcdonu2,%iz., and spoke with enthusiasm 
 of the beauty of Latin verse. ' All the modern languages 
 (said he) cannot furnish so melodious a line as 
 
 *■ Fonnosam resonare doces Amarillida silvas^.^ 
 
 Afterwards he entered upon the business of the day, which 
 was to give me his advice as to a course of study. And here 
 I am to mention with much regret, that my record of what he 
 said is miserably scanty. I recollect with admiration an ani- 
 mating blaze of eloquence, which rouzed every intellectual 
 power in me to the highest pitch, but must have dazzled 
 me so much, that my memoiy could not preserve the sub- 
 stance of his discourse'^; for the note which I find of it is no 
 more than this : — ' He ran over the grand scale of human 
 knowledge ; advised me to select some particular branch to 
 excel in, but to acquire a little of every kind.' The defect 
 of my minutes will be fully supplied by a long letter upon 
 the subject which he favoured me with, after I had been 
 some time at Utrecht, and which my readers will have the 
 pleasure to peruse in its proper place. 
 
 We walked in the evening in Greenwich Park. He asked 
 me, I suppose, by way of trying my disposition, ' Is not this 
 very fine ?' Having no exquisite relish of the beauties of 
 Nature^ and being more delighted with 'the busy hum of 
 men*,' I answered, ' Yes, Sir; but not equal to Fleet-street\' 
 Johnson. ' You are right. Sir.' 
 
 ' Virgil, Eclogues, \. 5. Johnson, when a boy, turned the line thus : — 
 'And the wood rings with Amarillis' name.' Ante, p. 59. 
 
 ^ Boswell said of Paoli's talk about great men : — ' I regret that the 
 fire with which he spoke upon such occasions so dazzled me, that I 
 could not recollect his sayings, so as to write them down when I re- 
 tired from his presence.' Corsica, p. 197. 
 
 ' More passages than one in Boswell's Letters to Tetnple shew this 
 absence of relish. Thus in 1775 he writes: — 'I perceive some dawn- 
 ings of taste for the country' (p. 216); and again: — 'I will force a 
 taste for natural beauties ' (p. 219). 
 
 * Milton's L' Allegro, 1. 118. 
 
 ' SQQpost, April 3, 1775, and April 17, 177S. 
 
 I am
 
 534 Affected by the temperature. [a. d. 1763. 
 
 I am aware that many of my readers may censure my 
 want of taste. Let me, however, shelter myself under the 
 authority of a very fashionable Baronet' in the brilliant 
 world, who, on his attention being called to the fragrance of 
 a May evening in the country, observed, ' This may be very 
 well ; but, for my part, I prefer the smell of a flambeau at 
 the play-house',' 
 
 We staid so long at Greenwich, that our sail up the river, 
 in our return to London, was by no means so pleasant as in 
 the morning; for the night air was so cold that it made me 
 shiver. I was the more sensible of it from having sat up all 
 the night before, recollecting and writing in my journal what 
 I thought worthy of preservation ; an exertion, which, during 
 the first part of my acquaintance with Johnson, I frequently 
 made. I remember having sat up four nights in one week, 
 without being much incommoded in the day time. 
 
 Johnson, whose robust frame was not in the least affected 
 by the cold, scolded me, as if my shivering had been a pal- 
 try effeminacy, saying, ' Why do you shiver?' Sir William 
 Scott\ of the Commons, told me, that when he complained 
 of a head-ach in the post-chaise, as they were travelling to- 
 gether to Scotland, Johnson treated him in the same manner : 
 
 ' My friend Sir Michael Le Fleming. This gentleman, with all his 
 experience of sprightly and elegant life, inherits, with the beautiful 
 family Domain, no inconsiderable share of that love of literature, 
 which distinguished his venerable grandfather, the Bishop of Carlisle. 
 He one day observed to me, of Dr. Johnson, in a felicity of phrase, 
 ' There is a blunt dignity about him on every occasion.' Boswell. 
 
 ' Wordsworth's lines to the Baronet's daughter, Lady Fleming, 
 might be applied to the father: — 
 
 ' Lives there a man whose sole delights 
 
 Are trivial pomp and city noise, 
 Hardening a heart that loathes or slights 
 What every natural heart enjoys ?' 
 
 Wordsworth's Poems, iv. 338. 
 ^ Afterwards Lord Stowell. He was a member of Doctors' Com- 
 mons, the College of Civilians in London, who practised in the Eccle- 
 siastical Courts and the Court of the Admiralty. See Boswell's Heb- 
 rides, Aug. 14, 1773. 
 
 'At
 
 Aetat. 54.] Auchiiileck. 535 
 
 ' At your age, Sir, I had no head-ach.' It is not easy to 
 make allowance for sensations in others, which we ourselves 
 have not at the time. We must all have experienced how 
 very differently we are affected by the complaints of our 
 neighbours, when we are well and when we are ill. In full 
 health, we can scarcely believe that they suffer much ; so 
 faint is the image of pain upon our imagination : when soft- 
 ened by sickness, we readily sympathize with the sufferings 
 of others. 
 
 We concluded the day at the Turk's Head coffee-house 
 very socially. He was pleased to listen to a particular ac- 
 count which I gave him of my family, and of its hereditary 
 estate, as to the extent and population of which he asked 
 questions, and made calculations; recommending, at the same 
 time, a liberal kindness to the tenantry, as people over whom 
 the proprietor was placed by Providence'. He took delight 
 in hearing my description of the romantick seat of my an- 
 cestors. ' I must be there. Sir, (said he) and we will live in 
 the old castle ; and if there is not a room in it remaining, 
 we vv'ill build one.' I was highly flattered, but could scarcely 
 indulge a hope that Auchinleck would indeed be honoured 
 by his presence, and celebrated by a description, as it after- 
 wards was, in his Journey to the IVestern Islands'^. 
 
 After we had again talked of my setting out for Holland, 
 he said, ' I must see thee out of England ; I will accompany 
 you to Harwich.' I could not find words to express what I 
 felt upon this unexpected and very great mark of his affec- 
 tionate regard. 
 
 Next day, Sunday, July 31, I told him I had been that 
 morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I 
 had heard a woman preach. JOHNSON. ' Sir, a woman's 
 preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is 
 not done well ; but you are surprized to find it done at all.' 
 
 ' He repeated this advice on the death of Boswcll's father, /(^j/, 
 Sept. 7, 1782. 
 
 '■' Johnson {Works, ix. 159) describes 'the sullen dignity of the old 
 castle.' See also Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 4, 1773. 
 
 On
 
 53^ Tea witk Miss Williains. [a.d.1763. 
 
 On Tuesday, August 2, (the day of my departure from 
 London having been fixed for the 5th,) Dr. Johnson did me 
 the honour to pass a part of the morning with me at my 
 Chambers. He said, that ' he always felt an inclination to 
 do nothing.' I observed, that it was strange to think that 
 the most indolent man in Britain had written the most 
 laborious work, TJic English Dictionary. 
 
 I mentioned an imprudent publication', by a certain friend 
 of his, at an early period of life, and asked him if he thought 
 it would hurt him. JOHNSON. ' No, Sir ; not much. It 
 may, perhaps, be mentioned at an election.' 
 
 I had now made good my title to be a privileged man', 
 and was carried by him in the evening to drink tea with 
 Miss Williams, whom, though under the misfortune of having 
 lost her sight, I found to be agreeable in conversation ; for 
 she had a variety of literature, and expressed herself well ; 
 but her peculiar value was the intimacy in which she had 
 long lived with Johnson, by which she was well acquainted 
 with his habits, and knew how to lead him on to talk. 
 
 After tea he carried me to what he called his walk, which 
 was a long narrow paved court in the neighbourhood, over- 
 shadowed by some trees. There we sauntered a consider- 
 able time ; and I complained to him that my love of London 
 and his company was such, that I shrunk almost from the 
 thought of going away, even to travel, which is generally so 
 much desired by young men\ He roused me by manly and 
 spirited conversation. He advised me, when settled in any 
 place abroad, to study with an eagerness after knowledge, 
 and to apply to Greek an hour every day ; and when I was 
 moving about, to read diligently the great book of mankind. 
 
 ' Probably Burke's Vindication of Natural Society, published in 
 1756 when Burke was twenty-six. 
 
 ^ See ante, p. 488. 
 
 = Boswell wrote to Temple on July 28, 1763:— 'My departure fills 
 me with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could 
 almost weep to think of leaving dear London, and the calm retire- 
 ment of the Inner Temple. This is very effeminate and very young, 
 but I cannot help it.' Letters of Boswell, p. 46. 
 
 On
 
 Aetat. 54.] Convocation. 537 
 
 On Wednesday, August 3, we had our last social evening 
 at the Turk's Head coffee-house, before my setting out for 
 foreign parts. I had the misfortune, before we parted, to 
 irritate him unintentionally. I mentioned to him how com- 
 mon it was in the world to tell absurd stories of him, and to 
 ascribe to him very strange sayings. JOHNSON. 'What do 
 they make me say, Sir?' BoswELL. 'Why, Sir, as an in- 
 stance very strange indeed, (laughing heartily as I spoke,) 
 David Hume told me, you said that you would stand before 
 a battery of cannon, to restore the Convocation to its full 
 powers.' Little did I apprehend that he had actually said 
 this : but I was soon convinced of my errour ; for, with a 
 determined look, he thundered out 'And would I not, Sir? 
 Shall the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland have its General 
 Assembly, and the Church of England be denied its Con- 
 vocation?' He was walking up and down the room while 
 I told him the anecdote ; but when he uttered this explo- 
 sion of high-church zeal, he had come close to my chair, 
 and his eyes flashed with indignation'. I bowed to the 
 storm, and diverted the force of it, by leading him to ex- 
 patiate on the influence which religion derived from main- 
 taining the church with great external respectability. 
 
 I must not omit to mention that he this year wrote TJie 
 Life of AscJiani^, and the Dedication to the Earl of Shaftes- 
 buryf , prefixed to the edition of that writer's English works, 
 published by Mr. Bennet". 
 
 ' Mrs. Piozzi says {Aiiec. p. 297) that 'Johnson's eyes were so wild, 
 so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first 
 emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.' 
 
 "^ Johnson was, in fact, the editor of this work, as appears from a 
 letter of Mr. T. Davies to the Rev. Edm. Bettesworth :—' Reverend Sir, 
 — I take the liberty to send you Roger Ascham's works in EngHsh. 
 Though Mr. Bennet's name is in the title, the editor was in reality 
 Mr. Johnson, the author of The Rambler, who wrote the life of the au- 
 thor, and added several notes. Mr. Johnson gave it to Mr. Bennet, 
 for his advantage,' &c. — Croker. Very likely Davies exaggerated 
 Johnson's share in the book. Bennet's edition was published, not in 
 1763, but in 1 761. 
 
 On
 
 53^ In the Harwich stage coach. [a. d. 1763. 
 
 On Friday, August 5, we set out early in the morning in 
 the Harwich stage coach. A fat elderly gentlewoman, and 
 a young Dutchman, seemed the most inclined among us to 
 conversation. At the inn where we dined, the gentlewoman 
 said that she had done her best to educate her children ; and 
 particularly, that she had never suffered them to be a mo- 
 ment idle. Johnson. ' I wish, madam, you would educate 
 me too ; for I have been an idle fellow all my life.' ' I am 
 sure. Sir, (said she) you have not been idle.' Johnson. ' Nay, 
 Madam, it is very true ; and that gentleman there (pointing 
 to me,) has been idle. He was idle at Edinburgh. His 
 father sent him to Glasgow, where he continued to be idle. 
 He then came to London, where he has been very idle ; and 
 now he is going to Utrecht, where he will be as idle as ever.' 
 I asked him privately how he could expose me so. JOHNSON. 
 ' Poh, poh ! (said he) they knew nothing about you, and will 
 think of it no more.' In the afternoon the gentlewoman 
 talked violently against the Roman Catholicks, and of the 
 horrours of the Inquisition. To the utter astonishment of 
 all the passengers but myself, who knew that he could talk 
 upon any side of a question, he defended the Inquisition, and 
 maintained, that ' false doctrine should be checked on its first 
 appearance ; that the civil power should unite with the church 
 in punishing those who dared to attack the established reli- 
 gion, and that such only were punished by the Inquisition'.' 
 He had in his pocket ^ Poviponius Mela dc situ Or bis,' in which 
 he read occasionally, and seemed very intent upon ancient 
 
 * Lord Sheffield describes the change in Gibbon's opinions caused 
 by the Reign of Terror :— ' He became a warm and zealous advocate 
 for every sort of old establishment. I recollect in a circle where 
 French affairs were the topic and some Portuguese present, he, seem- 
 ingly with seriousness, argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, 
 and said he would not, at the present moment, give up even that old 
 establishment.' Gibbon's Mzsc. Works, i. 328. One of Gibbon's cor- 
 respondents told him in 1792, that the Wealth of Nations had been 
 condemned by the Inquisition on account of ' the lowness of its style 
 and the looseness of the morals which it inculcates.' lb. ii. 479. See 
 also post. May 7, 1773. 
 
 geography.
 
 Aetat.54.] BlacklocMs poetry. 539 
 
 geography. Though by no means niggardly, his attention 
 to what was generally right was so minute, that having ob- 
 served at one of the stages that I ostentatiously gave a shil- 
 ling to the coachman, when the custom was for each passen- 
 ger to give only six-pence, he took me aside and scolded me, 
 saying that what I had done would make the coachman dis- 
 satisfied with all the rest of the passengers, who gave him no 
 more than his due. This was a just reprimand ; for in what- 
 ever way a man may indulge his generosity or his vanity in 
 spending his money, for the sake of others he ought not to 
 raise the price of any article for which there is a constant 
 demand. 
 
 He talked of Mr. Blacklock's poetry, so far as it was de- 
 scriptive of visible objects ; and observed, that ' as its authour 
 had the misfortune to be blind, we may be absolutely sure 
 that such passages are combinations of what he has remem- 
 bered of the works of other writers who could see. That fool- 
 ish fellow, Spence, has laboured to explain philosophically 
 how Blacklock may have done, by means of his own faculties, 
 what it is impossible he should do.' The solution, as I have 
 given it, is plain. Suppose, I know a man to be so lame that 
 he is absolutely incapable to move himself, and I find him in 
 a different room from that in which I left him ; shall I puzzle 
 myself with idle conjectures, that, perhaps, his nerves have 
 by some unknown change all at once become effective? 
 
 * Johnson wrote on Aug. 17, 1773 : — ' This morning I saw at break- 
 fast Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have 
 seen light, and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and 
 French. He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him 
 with reverence.' Ptozzi Letters, \. wo. See also '^o'ssnqW?, Hebrides, 
 Aug. 17, 1773. Spence published an Account of Blacklock, in which he 
 meanly omitted any mention of Hume's great generosity to the blind 
 poet. J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether 
 he connected colour and sound. ' He answered, that as he met so 
 often with the terms expressing colours, he had formed some false 
 associations, but that they were of the intellectual kind. The illumi- 
 nation of the sun, for instance, he supposed to resemble the presence 
 of a friend.' lb. p. 389. 
 
 No,
 
 540 Torture in Holland. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 No, Sir ; it is clear how he got into a different room : he was 
 carried.' 
 
 Having stopped a night at Colchester', Johnson talked of 
 that town with veneration, for having stood a siege for 
 Charles the First. The Dutchman alone now remained with 
 us. He spoke English tolerably well ; and thinking to rec- 
 ommend himself to us by expatiating on the superiority of 
 the criminal jurisprudence of this country over that of Hol- 
 land, he inveighed against the barbarity of putting an accused 
 person to the torture, in order to force a confession". But 
 Johnson was as ready for this, as for the Inquisition. 'Why, 
 Sir, you do not, I find, understand the law of your own 
 country. The torture of Holland is considered as a favour 
 
 ' They left London early and yet they travelled only 51 miles that 
 day. The whole distance to Harwich is 71 miles. Paterson's Itiner- 
 ary, i. 323. 
 
 ^ Mackintosh {^Lifc, ii. 162) writing of the time of William III, says 
 that 'torture was legal in Scotland, and familiar in every country of 
 Europe but England. Was there a single writer at that time who had 
 objected to torture? I think not.' In the Gent. Mag. for 1742 (p- 
 660) it is stated that ' the King of Prussia has forbid the use of torture 
 in his dominions.' In 1747 (p. 298) we read that Dr. Blackwell, an 
 English physician, had been put to the torture in Sweden. Montes- 
 quieu in the Esprit des Lois,V\. 17, published in 1748, writing of 'la 
 question ou torture centre les criminels,' says : — ' Nous voyons au- 
 jourd'hui une nation tres-bien policee [la nation anglaise] la rejeter 
 sans inconvenient. Elle n'est done pas necessaire par sa nature.' 
 Boswell in 1765 found that Paoli tortured a criminal with fire. Cor- 
 sica, p. 1 58. Voltaire, in 1777, after telling how innocent men had 
 been put to death with torture in the reign of Lewis XIV, continues 
 — ' Mais un roi a-t-il le temps de songer a ces menus details d'hor- 
 reurs au milieu de ses fetes, de ses conquetes, et de ses maitresses? 
 Daignez vous en occuper, 6 Louis XVI, vous qui n'avez aucune de ces 
 distractions !' Voltaire's Works, xxvi. 332. Johnson, two years before 
 Voltaire thus wrote, had been shown la chambre de question — the tort- 
 ure-chamber — in Paris. Post, Oct. 17, 1775. It v/as not till the Rev- 
 olution that torture was abolished in France. One of the Scotch 
 judges in 1793, at the trial of Messrs. Palmer and Muir for sedition 
 {post, June 3, 1781, note), ' asserted that now the torture was banished, 
 there was no adequate punishment for sedition.' Pari. Hist. xxx. 1 569. 
 
 to
 
 Aetat. 54.] yohnson s relish for good eating. 541 
 
 to an accused person ; for no man is put to the torture there, 
 unless there is as much evidence against him as would amount 
 to conviction in England. An accused person among you, 
 therefore, has one chance more to escape punishment, than 
 those who are tried among us.' 
 
 At supper this night he talked of good eating with uncom- 
 mon satisfaction. ' Some people (said he,) have a foolish 
 way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they 
 eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very 
 carefully ; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his 
 belly will hardly mind anything else'.' He now appeared to 
 me Jean Bull philosophc, and he was, for the moment, not 
 only serious but vehement. Yet I have heard him, upon 
 other occasions, talk with great contempt of people who 
 were anxious to gratify their palates ; and the 206th number 
 of his Rambler is a masterly essay against gulosity^. His 
 practice, indeed, I must acknowledge, may be considered 
 as casting the balance of his different opinions upon this 
 
 ' ' A cheerful and good heart will have a care of his meat and drink.' 
 Ecclcsiasticiis, xxx. 25. 
 
 ' Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet, 
 Nam ibi de divinis atque humanis cernitur.' 
 
 Trzmanmus, act 2, so. 4. 
 Mrs. Piozzi {Anec. p. 149) records that 'Johnson often said, "that 
 wherever the dinner is ill got, there is poverty, or there is avarice, or 
 there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong; 
 for," continued he, " a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of 
 anything than he does of his dinner ; and if he cannot get that well 
 dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things."' Yet 
 he ' used to say that a man who rode out for an appetite consulted but 
 little the dignity of human nature.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 204. 
 
 ^ This essay is more against the practices of the parasite than gu- 
 losity. It is entitled The art of living at the cost of others. Johnson 
 wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's children : — ' Gluttony is, I think, less 
 common among women than among men. Women commonly eat 
 more sparingly, and are less curious in the choice of meat; but if once 
 you find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her 
 mind is enslaved to the lowest and grossest temptation,' Piozzi Let- 
 ters, ii. 298. 
 
 subject;
 
 542 yohnsons relish for good eating, [a.d. 17G3. 
 
 subject ; for I never knew any man who relished good eating 
 more than he did. When at table, he was totally absorbed 
 in the business of the moment ; his looks seemed rivetted to 
 his plate ; nor would he, unless when in very high company, 
 say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was 
 said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite', which was 
 so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in 
 the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and gen- 
 erally a strong perspiration was visible'^ To those whose 
 sensations were delicate, this could not but be disgusting; 
 and it was doubtless not very suitable to the character of a 
 philosopher, who should be distinguished by self-command. 
 But it must be owned, that Johnson, though he could be 
 rigidly abstemious, was not a temperate man either in eating 
 or drinking. He could refrain, but he could not use mod- 
 erately\ He told me, that he had fasted two days without 
 inconvenience, and that he had never been hungry but once\ 
 They who beheld with wonder how much he eat upon all 
 occasions when his dinner was to his taste, could not easily 
 
 * Hawkins {Life, p. 355) mentions 'the greediness with which he 
 ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his 
 profound silence at the moment of refection.' 
 
 '^ Cumberland {Memoirs, i. 357) says: — 'He fed heartily, but not 
 voraciously, and was extremely courteous in his commendations of 
 any dish that pleased his palate.' 
 
 ^ Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 10, 1780 : — ' Last week I saw 
 flesh but twice and I think fish once ; the rest was pease. You are 
 afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to 
 violence ; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every 
 man has \v\^ genius, and that the great rule by which all excellence is 
 attained and all success procured, is to ioWo^ genius ; and have you 
 not observed in all our conversations that my genius is always in ex- 
 tremes ; that I am very noisy or very silent ; very gloomy or very 
 merry ; very sour or very kind "> And would you have me cross my 
 genius when it leads me sometimes to voracity and sometimes to ab- 
 stinence ?' Piozzi Letters, ii. 166. 
 
 * 'This,' he told Boswell, 'was no intentional fasting, but happened 
 just in the course of a literary life.' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 4, 1773. 
 See post, April 17, 1778. 
 
 conceive
 
 Aetat. 54.] A critic k of cookery. 543 
 
 conceive what he must have meant by hunger; and not only 
 was he remarkable for the extraordinary quantity which he 
 eat, but he was, or affected to be, a man of very nice discern- 
 ment in the science of cookery. He used to descant critically 
 on the dishes which had been at table where he had dined 
 or supped, and to recollect very minutely what he had liked". 
 I remember, when he was in Scotland, his praising 'Gordoiis 
 palates,' (a dish of palates at the Honourable Alexander Gor- 
 don's) with a warmth of expression which might have done 
 honour to more important subjects. ' As for Maclaurin's 
 imitation of a made disk, it was a wretched attempt'"'.' He 
 about the same time was so much displeased with the per- 
 formances of a nobleman's French cook, that he exclaimed 
 with vehemence, ' I'd throw such a rascal into the river ;' and 
 he then proceeded to alarm a lady at whose house he was to 
 sup^ by the following manifesto of his skill : ' I, Madam, who 
 live at a variety of good tables, am a much better judge of 
 cookery, than any person who has a very tolerable cook, but 
 lives much at home ; for his palate is gradually adapted to 
 the taste of his cook ; whereas. Madam, in trying by a wider 
 range, I can more exquisitely judge\' When invited to dine, 
 even with an intimate friend, he was not pleased if some- 
 thing better than a plain dinner was not prepared for him. 
 I have heard him say on such an occasion, ' This was a good 
 
 ' In the last year of his Hfe, when he knew that his appetite was 
 diseased, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale : — ' I have now an inchnation to 
 luxury which even your table did not excite ; for till now my talk ivas 
 more about the dishes than 7ny thoughts. I remember you commended 
 me for seeming pleased with my dinners when you had reduced your 
 table ; I am able to tell you with great veracity, that I never knew 
 when the reduction began, nor should have known that it was made, 
 had not you told me. / now thitik and consult to-day what I shall cat 
 to-morrow. This disease will, I Jiope, be cured.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 362. 
 
 ^ Johnson's visit to Gordon and Maclaurin are just mentioned in 
 Boswell's Hebrides, under Nov. 11, 1773. 
 
 ' The only nobleman with whom he dined 'about the same time' 
 was Lord Elibank. After dining with him, ' he supped,' says Boswell, 
 'with my wife and myself.' lb. 
 
 * Stcpost, April 15, 1778. 
 
 dinner
 
 544 Shidied behaviour. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 dinner enough, to be sure ; but it was not a dinner to ask a 
 man to.' On the other hand, he was wont to express, with 
 great glee, his satisfaction when he had been entertained 
 quite to his mind. One day when we had dined with his 
 neighbour and landlord in Bolt-court, Mr. Allen, the printer, 
 whose old housekeeper had studied his taste in every thing, 
 he pronounced this eulogy : ' Sir, we could not have had a 
 better dinner had there been a Synod of Cooks^J 
 
 While we were left by ourselves after the Dutchman had 
 gone to bed, Dr. Johnson talked of that studied behaviour 
 which many have recommended and practised. He disap- 
 proved of it ; and said, ' I never considered whether I should 
 be a grave man, or a merry man, but just let inclination, for 
 the time, have its course^.' 
 
 He flattered me with some hopes that he would, in the 
 course of the following summer, come over to Holland, and 
 accompany me in a tour through the Netherlands. 
 
 I teized him with fanciful apprehensions of unhappiness. A 
 moth having fluttered round the candle, and burnt itself, he 
 laid hold of this little incident to admonish me; saying, with a 
 sly look, and in a solemn but quiet tone, ' That creature was 
 its own tormentor, and I believe its name was BOSWELL.' 
 
 Next day we got to Harwich to dinner ; and my passage 
 
 ' Mrs. Piozzi {Anec. p. 102) says, 'Johnson's own notions about eating 
 were nothing less than delicate ; a leg of pork boiled till it dropped 
 from the bone, a veal-pie- with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of 
 a salt buttock of beef were his favourite dainties.' Cradock saw 
 Burke at a tavern dinner send Johnson a very small piece of a pie, the 
 crust of which was made with bad butter. ' Johnson soon returned 
 his plate for more. Burke exclaimed : — " I am glad that you are able 
 so well to relish this pie." Johnson, not at all pleased that what he 
 ate should ever be noticed, retorted: — "There is a time of life. Sir, 
 when a man requires the repairs of a table." ' Cradock's Memoirs, i. 
 229. A passage in Baretti's Italy, ii. 316, seems to show that English 
 eating in general was not delicate. ' I once heard a Frenchman swear,' 
 he writes, ' that he hated the English " parce qu'ils versent du beurre 
 fondu sur leur veau roti." ' 
 
 * ' He had an abhorrence of affectation,' said Mr. Langton. Post, 
 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. 
 
 in
 
 Aetat. 54.] Bishop Berkeley's sophistry. 545 
 
 in the packet-boat to Helvoetsluys being secured, and my 
 baggage put on board, we dined at our inn by ourselves. I 
 happened to say it would be terrible if he should not find a 
 speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined 
 to so dull a place. JOHNSON. ' Don't, Sir, accustom your- 
 self to use big words for little matters'. It would not be ter- 
 rible, though I ivcrc to be detained some time here.' The 
 practice of using words of disproportionate magnitude, is, no 
 doubt, too frequent everywhere ; but, I think, most remark- 
 able among the French, of which, all who have travelled in 
 France must have been struck with innumerable instances. 
 
 We went and looked at the church, and having gone into 
 it and walked up to the altar, Johnson, whose piety was con- 
 stant and fervent, sent me to my knees, saying, ' Now that 
 you are going to leave your native country, recommend your- 
 self to the protection of your CREATOR and Redeemer.' 
 
 After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some 
 time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to 
 prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in 
 the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are 
 satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. 
 I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, 
 striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till 
 he rebounded from it, ' I refute it thus^l This was a stout 
 exemplification of the first truths of Pcre Bonfficr'^, or the 
 original principles of Reid and of Beattie ; without admit- 
 ting which, we can no more argue in metaphysicks, than we 
 can argue in mathematicks without axioms. To me it is 
 not conceivable how Berkeley can be answered by pure 
 
 ' At college he would not let his companions %2.y prodigious. Post, 
 April 17, 1778. 
 
 ^ See post, Sept. 19, 1777, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's Collection. 
 Dugald Stewart quotes a saying of Turgot : — ' He who had never 
 doubted of the existence of matter might be assured he had no turn 
 for metaphysical disquisitions.' Life of Reid, p. 416. 
 
 ' Claude Buffer, born 1661, died 1737. Author of Traitd des pre- 
 mihres viritds et de la source de nosjugevicnts. 
 
 I. — 35 reasoning;
 
 546 Boswcll embarks for Holland. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 reasoning; but I know that the nice and difficult task was 
 to have been undertaken by one of the most luminous minds 
 of the present age, had not politicks ' turned him from calm 
 philosophy aside'.' What an admirable display of subtilty, 
 united with brilliance, might his contending with Berkeley 
 have afforded us^! How must we, when we reflect on the 
 loss of such an intellectual feast, regret that he should be 
 characterised as the man, 
 
 'Who born for the universe narrow'd his mind, 
 And to party gave up what was meant for mankind'?' 
 
 My revered friend walked down with me to the beach, 
 where we embraced and parted with tenderness, and engaged 
 to correspond by letters. I said, ' I hope, Sir, you will not 
 forget me in my absence,' JOHNSON. ' Nay, Sir, it is more 
 likely you should forget me, than that I should forget you.' 
 As the vessel put out to sea, I kept my eyes upon him for a 
 considerable time, while he remained rolling his majestick 
 frame in his usual manner : and at last I perceived him walk 
 back into the town, and he disappeared*. 
 
 J ' Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride 
 
 Turns you from sound philosophy aside.' 
 
 Pope's Satires, ii. 5. 
 
 * Mackintosh {Life, i. 71) said that ' Burke's treatise on the Sublime 
 and Beautiful is rather a proof that his mind was not formed for pure 
 philosophy ; and if we may believe Boswell that it was once the inten- 
 tion of Mr. Burke to have written against Berkeley, we may be assured 
 that he would not have been successful in answering that great spec- 
 ulator; or, to speak more correctly, that he could not have discovered 
 the true nature of the questions in dispute, and thus have afforded 
 the only answer consistent with the limits of the human faculties.' 
 
 ^ Goldsmith's Retaliation. 
 
 * I have the following autograph letter written by Johnson to Dr. 
 Taylor three weeks after Boswell's departure. 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ' Having with some impatience reckoned upon hearing from you 
 these two last posts, and been disappointed, I can form to myself no 
 reason for the omission but your perturbation of mind, or disorder of 
 body arising from it, and therefore I once more advise removal from 
 Ashbourne as the proper remedy both for the cause and the effect. 
 
 Utrecht
 
 Aetat. 54.] yohnso7t s first letter to Boswcll. 547 
 
 Utrecht seeming at first very dull to me, after the animated 
 scenes of London, my spirits were grievously affected ; and I 
 wrote to Johnson a plaintive and desponding letter, to which 
 he paid no regard. Afterwards, when I had acquired a firmer 
 tone of mind, I wrote him a second letter, expressing much 
 anxiety to hear from him. At length I received the follow- 
 ing epistle, which was of important service to me, and, I trust, 
 will be so to many others. 
 
 'A M. M. BOSWELL, X LA COUR DE l'EmPEREUR, UtRECHT. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' You are not to think yourself forgotten, or criminally neg- 
 lected, that you have had yet no letter from me. I love to see my 
 friends, to hear from them, to talk to them, and to talk of them ; 
 but it is not without a considerable effort of resolution that I pre- 
 vail upon myself to write. I would not, however, gratify my own 
 
 ' You perhaps ask, whither should I go ? any whither where your 
 case is not known, and where your presence will cause neither looks 
 nor whispers. Where you are the necessary subject of common talk, 
 you will not safely be at rest. 
 
 ' If you cannot conveniently write to me yourself let somebody 
 
 write for you to 
 
 ' Dear Sir, 
 
 ^ ' Your most affectionate, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'August 25, 1763. 
 
 ' To the Reverend Dr. Taylor 
 
 in Ashbourne, 
 
 Derbyshire.' 
 
 Five other letters on the same subject are given in Notes and Queries, 
 6th S. V. pp. 324, 342, 382. Taylor and his wife ' never lived very well 
 together ' (p. 325), and at last she left him. On May 22nd of the next 
 year Johnson congratulated Taylor 'upon the happy end of so vexa- 
 tious an affair, the happyest [sic] that could be next to reformation 
 and reconcilement ' (p. 382). Taylor did not follow the advice to leave 
 Ashbourne ; for on Sept. 3 Johnson wrote to him : — ' You seem to be 
 so well pleased to be where you are, that I shall not now press your 
 removal ; but do not believe that every one who rails at your wife 
 wishes well to you. A small country town is not the place in which 
 one would chuse to quarrel with a wife ; every human being in such 
 places is a spy.' lb. p. 343. 
 
 indolence
 
 548 jfohnson's first letter to Boswell. [a.d. 1763. 
 
 indolence by the omission of any important duty, or any office of 
 real kindness. 
 
 ' To tell you that I am or am not well, that I have or have not 
 been in the countrj^-, that I drank your health in the room in which 
 we sat last together, and that your acquaintance continue to speak 
 of you with their former kindness, topicks with which those letters 
 are commonly filled which are written only for the sake of writing, 
 I seldom shall think worth communicating ; but if I can have it in 
 my power to calm any harassing disquiet, to excite any virtuous 
 desire, to rectify any important opinion, or fortify any generous res- 
 olution, you need not doubt but I shall at least wish to prefer the 
 pleasure of gratifying a friend much less esteemed than yourself, 
 before the gloomy calm of idle vacancy. Whether I shall easily 
 arrive at an exact punctuality of correspondence, I cannot tell. I 
 shall, at present, expect that you will receive this in return for two 
 which I have had from you. The first, indeed, gave me an account 
 so hopeless of the state of your mind, that it hardly admitted or 
 deserved an answer ; by the second I was much better pleased : 
 and the pleasure will still be increased by such a narrative of the 
 progress of your studies, as may evince the continuance of an equal 
 and rational application of your mind to some useful enquiry. 
 
 ' You will, perhaps, wish to ask, what study I would recommend. 
 I shall not speak of theology, because it ought not to be consid- 
 ered as a question whether you shall endeavour to know the will 
 of God. 
 
 ' I shall, therefore, consider only such studies as we are at liberty 
 to pursue or to neglect ; and of these I know not how you will 
 make a better choice, than by studying the civil law, as your father 
 advises, and the ancient languages, as you had determined for 
 yourself ; at least resolve, while you remain in any settled resi- 
 dence, to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your 
 books. The dissipation of thought, of which you complain, is 
 nothing more than the vacillation of a mind suspended between 
 different motives, and changing its direction as any motive gains 
 or loses strength. If you can but kindle in your mind any strong 
 desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some partic- 
 ular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break 
 away, without any eft'ect upon your conduct, and commonly with- 
 out any traces left upon the memory. 
 
 ' There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinc- 
 tion, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, 
 
 that
 
 Aetat. 54.] BoswelVs character sketched by yoJinson, 549 
 
 that Nature has given him something peculiar to himself. This 
 vanity makes one mind nurse aversion, and another actuate desires, 
 till they rise by art much above their original state of power ; and 
 as affectation, in time, improves to habit, they at last tyrannise over 
 him who at first encouraged them only for show. Every desire is 
 a viper in the bosom, who, while he was chill, was harmless ; but 
 when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison. You know 
 a gentleman, who, when first he set his foot in the gay world, as he 
 prepared himself to whirl in the vortex of pleasure, imagined a 
 total indifference and universal negligence to be the most agree- 
 able concomitants of youth, and the strongest indication of an airy 
 temper and a quick apprehension. Vacant to every object, and 
 sensible of every impulse, he thought that all appearance of dili- 
 gence would deduct something from the reputation of genius ; and 
 hoped that he should appear to attain, amidst all the ease of care- 
 lessness, and all the tumult of diversion, that knowledge and those 
 accomplishments which mortals of the common fabrick obtain only 
 by mute abstraction and solitary drudgery. He tried this scheme 
 of life awhile, was made weary of it by his sense and his virtue ; 
 he then wished to return to his studies ; and finding long habits 
 of idleness and pleasure harder to be cured than he expected, still 
 willing to retain his claim to some extraordinary prerogatives, re- 
 solved the common consequences of irregularity into an unalter- 
 able decree of destiny, and concluded that Nature had originally 
 formed him incapable of rational employment. 
 
 'Let all such fancies, illusive and destructive, be banished hence- 
 forward from your thoughts for ever. Resolve, and keep your res- 
 olution ; choose, and pursue your choice. If you spend this day 
 in study, you will find yourself still more able to study to-morrow ; 
 not that you are to expect that you shall at once obtain a complete 
 victory. Depravity is not very easily overcome. Resolution will 
 sometimes relax, and diligence will sometimes be interrupted ; but 
 let no accidental surprise or deviation, whether short or long, dis- 
 pose you to despondency. Consider these failings as incident to 
 all mankind. Begin again where you left off, and endeavour to 
 avoid the seducements that prevailed over you before. 
 
 ' This, my dear Boswell, is advice which, perhaps, has been often 
 given you, and given you without effect. But this advice, if you 
 will not take from others, you must take from your own reflections, 
 if you purpose to do the duties of the station to which the bounty 
 of Providence has called you. 
 
 'Let
 
 550 The Frisick language. [a.d. 1764. 
 
 ' Let me have a long letter from you as soon as you can. I hope 
 
 you continue your journal, and enrich it with many observations 
 
 upon the country in which you reside. It will be a favour if you 
 
 can get me any books in the Frisick language, and can enquire 
 
 how the poor are maintained in the Seven Provinces. I am, dear 
 
 Sir, ' Your most affectionate servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 ' London, Dec. 8, 1763.' 
 
 I am sorry to observe, that neither in my own minutes, nor 
 in my letters to Johnson, which have been preserved by him, 
 can I find any information how the poor are maintained in 
 the Seven Provinces. But I shall extract from one of my 
 letters what I learnt concerning the other subject of his 
 curiosity. 
 
 ' I have made all possible enquiry with respect to the Frisick 
 language, and find that it has been less cultivated than any other 
 of the northern dialects ; a certain proof of which is their deficiency 
 of books. Of the old Frisick there are no remains, except some 
 ancient laws preserved by Schotanus in his Beschryvinge van die 
 Hee7-lykheid van Friesland ; and his Hisioria Frisica. I have not 
 yet been able to find these books. Professor Trotz, who formerly 
 was of the University of Vranyken in Friesland, and is at present 
 preparing an edition of all the Frisick laws, gave me this informa- 
 tion. Of the modern Frisick, or what is spoken by the boors at 
 this day, I have procured a specimen. It is Gisbert jfapix^s Ry7ne- 
 lerie, which is the only book that they have. It is amazing, that 
 they have no translation of the bible, no treatises of devotion, nor 
 even any of the ballads and story-books which are so agreeable to 
 country people. You shall have Japix by the first convenient op- 
 portunity. I doubt not to pick up Sc/iotanus. Mynheer Trotz has 
 promised me his assistance.' 
 
 1764: ^TAT. 55.] — Early in 1764 Johnson paid a visit to 
 the Langton family, at their seat of Langton, in Lincolnshire, 
 where he passed some time, much to his satisfaction'. His 
 
 1 According to Mrs. Piozzi {Ancc. p. 210) he was accompanied by 
 his black servant Frank. ' I must have you know, ladies,' said he, 
 •that Frank has carried the empire of Cupid further than most men. 
 When I was in Lincolnshire so many years ago he attended me 
 thither ; and when we returned home together, I found that a female 
 
 friend
 
 Aetat. 55.] yoJuisofi s visit to Langioii. 551 
 
 friend Bennet Langton, it will not be doubted, did every 
 thing in his power to make the place agreeable to so illus- 
 trious a guest ; and the elder Mr. Langton and his lady, being 
 fully capable of understanding his value, were not wanting 
 in attention. He, however, told me, that old Mr. Langton, 
 though a man of considerable learning, had so little allow- 
 ance to make for his occasional ' laxity of talk*,' that because 
 in the course of discussion he sometimes mentioned what 
 might be said in favour of the peculiar tenets of the Romish 
 church, he went to his grave believing him to be of that 
 communion'. 
 
 Johnson, during his stay at Langton, had the advantage of 
 a good library, and saw several gentlemen of the neighbour- 
 hood. I have obtained from Mr. Langton the following par- 
 ticulars of this period. 
 
 He was now fully convinced that he could not have been 
 satisfied with a country living'; for, talking of a respectable 
 clergyman in Lincolnshire, he observed, ' This man, Sir, fills 
 up the duties of his life well. I approve of him, but could 
 not imitate him.' 
 
 To a lady who endeavoured to vindicate herself from 
 blame for neglecting social attention to worthy neighbours, 
 by saying, ' I would go to them if it would do them any 
 good,' he said, ' What good. Madam, do you expect to have 
 in your power to do them ? It is shewing them respect, and 
 that is doing them good.' 
 
 So socially accommodating was he, that once when Mr. 
 Langton and he were driving together in a coach, and Mr. 
 
 haymaker had followed him to London for love.' If this story is gen- 
 erally true, it bears the mark of Mrs. Piozzi's usual inaccuracy. The 
 visit was paid early in the year, and was over in February ; what hay- 
 makers were there at that season } 
 
 ' Boswell by his quotation marks refers, I think, to his Hebrides, 
 Oct. 24, 1773, where Johnson says: — 'Nobody, at times, talks more 
 laxly than I do.' See also /<?.?/, ii. 83. 
 
 ^ See post, April 26, 1776, for old Mr. Langton's slowness of under- 
 standing. 
 
 * See ante, i. 370, 371. 
 
 Langton
 
 552 The Literary Club. [a.d. 17G4. 
 
 Langton complained of being sick, he insisted that they 
 should go out and sit on the back of it in the open air, which 
 they did. And being sensible how strange the appearance 
 must be, observed, that a countryman whom they saw in a 
 field, would probably be thinking, ' If these two madmen 
 should come down, what would become of me'?' 
 
 Soon after his return to London, which was in February, 
 was founded that Club which existed long without a name, 
 but at Mr. Garrick's funeral became distinguished by the title 
 of The Literary Club'. Sir Joshua Reynolds had the 
 merit of being the first proposer of it", to which Johnson ac- 
 ceded, and the original members were. Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 Dr. Johnson, Mr. Edmund Burke, Dr. Nugent', Mr. Beauclerk, 
 
 ' Mr. Best {Memorials, p. 65) thus writes of a visit to Langton : — 
 ' We walked to the top of a very steep hill behind the house. Mr. 
 Langton said, " Poor dear Dr. Johnson, when he came to this spot, 
 turned back to look down the hill, and said he was determined to 
 take a roll down. When we understood what he meant to do, we en- 
 deavoured to dissuade him ; but he was resolute, saying, he had not 
 had a roll for a long time; and taking out of his lesser pockets what- 
 ever might be in them, and laying himself parallel with the edge of 
 the hill, he actually descended, turning himself over and over till he 
 came to the bottom." This story was told with such gravity, and 
 with an air of such affectionate remembrance of a departed friend, 
 that it was impossible to suppose this extraordinary freak an invention 
 of Mr. Langton.' It must have been in the winter that he had this roll. 
 
 ^ Boswell himself so calls it in a letter to Temple written three or 
 four months after Garrick's death. Letters of Boswell, p. 242. See 
 also Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 25, 1773. 
 
 ^ Malone says: — ' Reynolds was the original founder of our Literary 
 Club about the year 1762, the first thought of which he started to Dr. 
 Johnson at his own fireside.' Prior's Malone, p. 434. Mrs. Piozzi 
 {Anec.i^. 122) says: — 'Johnson called Reynolds their Romulus, or said 
 somebody else of the company called him so, which was more likely.' 
 According to Hawkins {Life, p. 425) the Club was founded in the 
 winter of 1763, i. e. 1763-4. 
 
 ' Dr. Nugent, a physician, was Burke's father-in-law. Macaulay 
 {Essays, i. 407) says: — 'As we close Boswell's book, the club-room is 
 before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and 
 the lemons for Johnson.' It was from Mrs. Piozzi that Macaulay 
 learnt of the omelet. Nugent was a Roman Catholic, and it was on 
 
 Mr.
 
 Aetat. 55.] The Literary Club. 553 
 
 Mr. Langton, Dr. Goldsmith, Mr. Chamier', and Sir John 
 Hawkins". They met at the Turk's Head, in Gerrard-strcct, 
 Soho, one evening in every week, at seven, and generally con- 
 tinued their conversation till a pretty late hour\ This club 
 
 Friday that the Club before long came to meet. We may assume 
 that he would not on that day eat meat. ' I fancy,' Mrs. Piozzi writes 
 {Alice, p. 122), ' Dr. Nugent ordered an omelet sometimes on a Friday 
 or Saturday night ; for I remember Mr. Johnson felt very painful sen- 
 sations at the sight of that dish soon after his death, and cried : — " Ah 
 my poor dear friend ! I shall never eat omelet with thee again !" quite 
 in an agony.' Dr. Nugent, in the imaginary college at St. Andrews, 
 was to be the professor of physic. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 25, 1773. 
 
 * Mr. Andrew Chamier was of Huguenot descent, and had been a 
 stock-broker. He was a man of liberal education. 'He acquired 
 such a fortune as enabled him, though young, to quit business, and 
 become, what indeed he seemed by nature intended for, a gentleman.' 
 Hawkins's Johnson, p. 422. In 1764 he was Secretary in the War 
 Office. In 1775 he was appointed Under Secretary of State. Fors- 
 ter's Goldsmith, i. 310. He was to be the professor of commercial 
 politics in the imaginary college. Johnson passed one of his birth- 
 days at his house ; post, under Sept. 9, 1779, note. 
 
 • 'It was Johnson's intention,' writes Hawkins {Life, p. 423), 'that 
 their number should not exceed nine.' Nine was the number of the 
 Ivy Lane Club {ante, p. 220). Johnson, I suppose, looked upon nine 
 as the most clubable number. * It was intended,' says Dr. Percy, 'that 
 if only two of these chanced to meet for the evening, they should be 
 able to entertain each other.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 70. Haw- 
 kins adds that 'Mr. Dyer {post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection), a 
 member of the Ivy Lane Club, who for some 3'^ears had been abroad, 
 made his appearance among us, and was cordially received.' Accord- 
 ing to Dr. Percy, by 1768 not only had Hawkins formally withdrawn, 
 but Beauclerk had forsaken the club for more fashionable ones. 
 'Upon this the Club agreed to increase their number to twelve; 
 every new member was to be elected by ballot, and one black ball 
 was sufficient for exclusion. Mr. Beauclerk then desired to be re- 
 stored to the Society, and the following new members were introduced 
 on Monday, Feb. 15, 1768: Sir R. Chambers, Dr. Percy and Mr. Col- 
 man.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 72. In the list in Croker's Boswcll, 
 ed. 1844, ii. 326, the election of Percy and Chambers is placed in 1765. 
 
 ' Boswell wrote on April 4, 1775:— 'I dine, Friday, at the Turk's 
 Head, Gerrard-street, with our Club, Sir Joshua Reynolds, etc., who 
 now dine once a month, and sup every Friday.' Letters of Boswell, 
 
 has
 
 554 Z^i-/ of the members. [a.d.17G4. 
 
 has been gradually increased to its present number, thirty - 
 five'. After about ten years, instead of supping weekly, it 
 was resolved to dine together once a fortnight during the 
 meeting of Parliament. Their original tavern having been 
 converted into a private house, they moved first to Prince's 
 in Sackville-street, then to Le Teller's in Dover-street, and 
 now meet at Parsloe's, St. James's-street\ Between the time 
 of its formation, and the time at which this work is passing 
 through the press, (June 1792,)' the following persons, now 
 dead, were members of it : Mr. Dunning, (afterwards Lord 
 Ashburton,) Mr. Samuel Dyer, Mr. Garrick, Dr. Shipley 
 Bishop of St. Asaph, Mr. Vesey, Mr. Thomas Warton and 
 Dr. Adam Smith. The present members are, — Mr. Burke, 
 Mr. Langton, Lord Charlemont, Sir Robert Chambers, Dr. 
 Percy Bishop of Dromore, Dr. Barnard Bishop of Killaloe, 
 Dr. Marlay Bishop of Clonfert, Mr. Fox, Dr. George Fordyce, 
 Sir William Scott, Sir Joseph Banks, Sir Charles Bunbury, 
 Mr. Windham of Norfolk, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Gibbon, Sir 
 William Jones, Mr. Colman, Mr. Steevens, Dr. Burney, Dr. 
 Joseph Warton, Mr. Malone, Lord Ossory, Lord Spencer, 
 
 p. 186. In 1766, Monday was the night of meeting. Post, May 10, 
 1766. In Dec. 1772 the night was changed to Friday. Goldsmith's 
 Misc. Works, i. 72. Hawkins says {Life, pp. 424, 5) : — ' We seldom got 
 together till nine ; preparing supper took up till ten ; and by the time 
 that the table was cleared, it was near eleven. Our evening toast 
 was the motto of Padre Paolo, Esto perpetiia.' Esto perpetua was not 
 Padre Paolo's motto, but his dying prayer. ' As his end evidently ap- 
 proached, the brethren of the convent came to pronounce the last 
 prayers, with which he could only join in his thoughts, being able to 
 pronounce no more than these words, " Esto perpetua," mayst thou last 
 for ever ; which was understood to be a prayer for the prosperity of 
 his country.' Johnson's Works, vi. 269. 
 
 ' See. post, March 14, 1777. 
 
 ' 'After 1783 it removed to Prince's, in Sackville-street, and on his 
 house being soon afterwards shut up, it removed to Baxter's, which 
 subsequently became Thomas's, in Dover-street. In January 1792 it 
 removed to Parsloe's, in St. James's-street ; and on February 26, 1799, 
 to the Thatched-house in the same street.' Forster's Goldsmith, i. 31 1. 
 
 ^ The second edition is here spoken of. Malone. 
 
 Lord
 
 Aetat. 55.] Garrick ajid the L.iterary Club. 555 
 
 Lord Lucan, Lord Palmerston, Lord Eliot, Lord Macartney, 
 Mr. Richard Burke junior. Sir William Hamilton, Dr. War- 
 ren, Mr. Courtenay, Dr. Hinchcliffe Bishop of Peterborough, 
 the Duke of Leeds, Dr. Douglas Bishop of Salisbury, and 
 the writer of this account. 
 
 Sir John Hawkins' represents himself as a ^ secedcr' from 
 this society, and assigns as the reason of his ' xv it h drawing' 
 himself from it, that its late hours were inconsistent with his 
 domestick arrangements. In this he is not accurate ; for the 
 fact was, that he one evening attacked Mr. Burke, in so rude 
 a manner, that all the company testified their displeasure ; 
 and at their next meeting his reception was such, that he 
 
 never came again^ 
 
 He is equally inaccurate with respect to Mr. Garrick, of 
 whom he says, * he trusted that the least intimation of a de- 
 sire to come among us, would procure him a ready admis- 
 sion ; but in this he was mistaken. Johnson consulted me 
 upon it ; and when I could find no objection to receiving 
 him, exclaimed, — '' He will disturb us by his buffoonery;" — 
 and afterwards so managed matters that he was never for- 
 mally proposed, and, by consequence, never admitted^' 
 
 * Life of Johnson, p. 425. Boswell. 
 
 "^ From Sir Joshua Reynolds. Boswell. The Knight having re- 
 fused to pay his portion of the reckoning for supper, because he 
 usually eat no supper at home, Johnson observed, ' Sir John, Sir, is a 
 very unclubable man.' Burney. Hawkins {Life, p. 231) says that 
 ' Mr. Dyer had contracted a fatal intimacy with some persons of des- 
 perate fortunes, who were dealers in India stock, at a time when the 
 afifairs of the company were in a state of fluctuation.' Malone, com- 
 menting on this passage, says that ' under these words Mr. Burke is 
 darkly alluded to, together with his cousin.' He adds that the char- 
 acter given of Dyer by Hawkins ' is discoloured by the malignant 
 prejudices of that shallow writer, who, having quarrelled with Mr. 
 Burke, carried his enmity even to Mr. Burke's friends.' Prior's Ma- 
 lone, p. 419. See also anfe, p. 31. Hawkins (Z//V, p. 420) said of Gold- 
 smith : — ' As he wrote for the booksellers, we at the Club looked on him 
 as a mere literary drudge, equal to the task of compiling and translat- 
 ing, but little capable of original, and still less of poetical composition.' 
 
 ^ Life of Johnson, p. 425. BoswELL. Hawkins is 'equally inaccu- 
 
 In
 
 556 Garrick and the Literary Club. [a. d. 1764. 
 
 In justice both to Mr. Garrick and Dr. Johnson, I think it 
 necessary to rectify this mis-statement. The truth is, that 
 not very long after the institution of our club, Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds was speaking of it to Garrick. ' I like it much, 
 (said he,) I think I shall be of you.' When Sir Joshua men- 
 tioned this to Dr. Johnson, he was much displeased with the 
 actor's conceit. '■He'll be of 21s, (said Johnson) how does he 
 know we will permit him ? The first Duke in England has 
 no right to hold such language.' However, when Garrick 
 was regularly proposed some time afterwards, Johnson, 
 though he had taken a momentary offence at his arrogance, 
 warmly and kindly supported him, and he was accordingly 
 elected, was a most agreeable member, and continued to at- 
 tend our meetings to the time of his death. 
 
 Mrs. Piozzi' has also given a similar misrepresentation of 
 
 Johnson's treatment of Garrick in this particular, as if he had 
 
 used these contemptuous expressions: ' If Garrick does apply, 
 
 I'll black-ball him. Surely, one ought to sit in a society like 
 
 ours, 
 
 "Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player\" ' 
 
 I am happy to be enabled by such unquestionable author- 
 ity as that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as well as from my own 
 knowledge, to vindicate at once the heart of Johnson and 
 the social merit of Garrick^ 
 
 rate' in saying 'that Johnson was so constant at our meetings as 
 never to absent himself.' {lb. p. 424.) See post, Johnson's letter to 
 Langton of March 9, 1766, where he says: — 'Dyer is constant at the 
 Club ; Hawkins is remiss ; I am not over diligent.' 
 
 * Letters to and from Dr. Johnson. Vol. ii. p. 278 [387]. BOSWELL. 
 The passage is as follows : — ■' " If he does apply," says our Doctor to 
 Mr. Thrale, " I'll black-ball him." "Who, Sir? Mr. Garrick, your 
 friend, your companion, — black-ball him!" "Why, Sir, I love my 
 little David dearly, better than all or any of his flatterers do, but sure- 
 ly one ought, &c." ' 
 
 ' Pope's Moral Essays, iii. 242. 
 
 ^ Malone says that it was from him that Boswell had his account 
 of Garrick's election, and that he had it from Reynolds. He adds 
 that 'Johnson warmly supported Garrick, being in reality a very 
 
 In
 
 Aetat. 55.] Grainger s Sugar Cane. 557 
 
 In this year, except what he may have done in revis- 
 ing SJiakspcarc,\v& do not find that he laboured much in 
 literature. He wrote a review of Grainger's Sugar Cane, 
 a Poem, in the Lonelon Chronicle. He told me, that Dr. 
 Percy wrote the greatest part of this review ; but, I im- 
 agine, he did not recollect it distinctly, for it appears to be 
 mostly, if not altogether, his own'. He also wrote in The 
 
 tender aflfectionate man. He was merely offended at the actor's 
 conceit.' He continues : — ' On the former part of this story it prob- 
 ably was that Hawkins grounded his account that Garrick nex'er was 
 of the Club, and that Johnson said he never ought to be of it. And 
 thus it is that this stupid biographer, and the more flippant and mali- 
 cious Mrs. Piozzi have miscoloured and misrepresented almost every 
 anecdote that they have pretended to tell of Dr. Johnson." Prior's 
 Malonc, p. 392. Whatever was the slight cast upon Garrick, he was 
 nevertheless the sixth new member elected. Four, as I have shown, 
 were added by 1768. The next elections were in 1773 (Croker's Bos- 
 well, ed. 1844, ii. 326), when five were added, of whom Garrick was the 
 second, and Boswell the fifth. In 1774 five more were elected, among 
 whom were Fox and Gibbon. Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 249) says 
 that ' upon Garrick's death, when numberless applications were made 
 to succeed him [in the Club], Johnson was deaf to them all. He said, 
 " No, there never could be found any successor worthy of such a 
 man;" and he insisted upon it there should be a year's widowhood 
 in the club, before they thought of a new election.' 
 
 Grainger wrote to Percy on April 6, 1764: — 'Sam. Johnson says 
 he will review it in The Critical. In August 1765, he wrote: — ' I am 
 perfectly satisfied with the reception the Sugar Cafte has met with, 
 and am greatly obliged to you and Mr. Johnson for the generous care 
 you took of it in my absence.' Prior's Goldstnil/i, i. 238. He was ab- 
 sent in the West Indies. He died on Dec. 16, 1766. lb. p. 241. The 
 review of the Sugar Cane in the Critical Review (p. 270) is certainly 
 by Johnson. The following passage is curious: — 'The last book 
 begins with a striking invocation to the genius of Africa, and goes 
 on to give proper instructions for the buying and choice of negroes. 
 . . . The poet talks of this ungenerous commerce without the least 
 appearance of detestation ; but proceeds to direct these purchasers 
 of their fellow-creatures with the same indifference that a groom 
 would give instructions for choosing a horse. 
 
 ' Clear roll their ample eye ; their tongue be red ; 
 Broad swell their chest ; their shoulders wide expand ; 
 
 Critical
 
 558 yo/msoiis self-accusations. [a.d. 1764. 
 
 Critical Reviezv, an accountf of Goldsmith's excellent poem, 
 The Traveller^ . 
 
 The ease and independence to which he had at last at- 
 tained by royal munificence, increased his natural indolence. 
 In his Meditations he thus accuses himself : — 
 
 'Good Friday, April 20, 1764. — I have made no reformation; 
 I have lived totally useless, more sensual in thought, and more ad- 
 dicted to wine and meat'.' 
 
 And next morning he thus feelingly complains: — 
 
 ' My indolence, since my last reception of the sacrament, has 
 sunk into grosser sluggishness, and my dissipation spread into 
 wilder negligence. My thoughts have been clouded with sensual- 
 ity; and, except that from the beginning of this year I have, in 
 some measure, forborne excess of strong drink, my appetites have 
 predominated over my reason. A kind of strange oblivion has 
 overspread me, so that I know not what has become of the last 
 year; and perceive that incidents and intelligence pass over me, 
 without leaving any impression.' 
 
 He then solemnly says, 
 
 'This is not the life to which heaven is promised';' 
 
 and he earnestly resolves an amendment. 
 
 It was his custom to observe certain days with a pious 
 abstraction ; viz. New-year's-day, the day of his wife's death. 
 Good Friday, Easter-day, and his own birth-day. He this 
 year says' : — ' I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving ; 
 
 Not prominent their belly; clean and strong 
 Their thighs and legs in just proportion rise.' 
 See 2}l?>o post, March 21, 1776. 
 
 ' Johnson thus ends his brief review : — ' Such is the poem on which 
 we now congratulate the public as on a production to which, since 
 the death of Pope, it will not be easy to find anything equal.' Critical 
 Review, p. 462. 
 ^ Pr. and Med. p. 50. BoswELL. He adds :— 
 ' I hope 
 
 To put my rooms in order. 
 
 Disorder I have found one great cause of idleness.' 
 ^ /<^. p. 51. BOSVVELL. 
 
 * It was on his birth-day that he said this. He wrote on the same 
 
 having,
 
 Aetat. 55.] A Severe attack of hypochondria. 559 
 
 having, from the earHest time almost that I can remember, 
 been forming schemes of a better Hfe. I have done nothing. 
 The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of 
 doing is short. O GOD, grant me to resolve aright, and to 
 keep my resolutions, for jESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen'.' 
 
 Such a tenderness of conscience, such a fervent desire of 
 improvement, will rarely be found. It is, surely, not decent 
 in those who are hardened in indifference to spiritual improve- 
 ment, to treat this pious anxiety of Johnson with contempt. 
 
 About this time he was afflicted with a very severe return 
 of the hypochondriack disorder, which was ever lurking about 
 him. He was so ill, as, notwithstanding his remarkable love 
 of company, to be entirely averse to society, the most fatal 
 symptom of that malady. Dr. Adams told me, that as an 
 old friend he was admitted to visit him, and that he found 
 him in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to him- 
 self, and restlessly walking from room to room. He then 
 used this emphatical expression of the misery which he felt : 
 ' I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my 
 spirits'.' 
 
 Talking to himself was, indeed, one of his singularities ever 
 since I knew him. I was certain that he was frequently 
 uttering pious ejaculations ; for fragments of the Lord's 
 Prayer have been distinctly overheard^ His friend Mr. 
 Thomas Davies, of whom Churchill says. 
 
 day: — 'I have outlived many friends. I have felt many sorrows. I 
 have made few improvements.' 
 
 ' Prayers and Meditations, p. 58. Boswell. In his Vision of 
 Theodore ( Works, ix. 174) he describes the state of mind which he 
 has recorded in his Meditations : — ' There were others whose crime 
 it was rather to neglect Reason than to disobey her ; and who re- 
 treated from the heat and tumult of the way, not to the bowers of 
 Intemperance, but to the maze of Indolence. They had this peculi- 
 arity in their condition, that they were always in sight of the road of 
 Reason, always wishing for her presence, and always resolving to re- 
 turn to-morrow.' 
 
 ' See Appendix F. 
 
 ' It used to be imagined at Mr. Thrale's, when Johnson retired to a 
 
 ' That
 
 560 yohnsojts particularities. [a.d. 1764. 
 
 'That Davies hath a very pretty wife',' 
 
 when Dr. Johnson muttered ' lead us not into temptation,' 
 used with waggish and gallant humour to whisper Mrs. 
 Davies, ' You, my dear, are the cause of this.' 
 
 He had another particularity, of which none of his friends 
 ever ventured to ask an explanation". It appeared to me 
 some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and 
 
 window or corner of the room, by perceiving his Hps in motion, and 
 hearing a murmur without audible articulation, that he was praying : 
 but this was not ahvays the case, for I was once, perhaps unperceived 
 by him, writing at a table, so near the place of his retreat, that I heard 
 him repeating some lines in an ode of Horace, over and over again, 
 as if by iteration, to exercise the organs of speech, and fix the ode in 
 his memory: 
 
 Atidtet cives acuisse ferrtan 
 Quo graves Persae melius perirent, 
 Audiet pjigiias. . . . Odes, i. 2. 21. 
 
 ['Our sons shall hear, shall hear to latest times. 
 Of Roman arms with civil gore imbrued, 
 Which better had the Persian foe subdued.' 
 
 Franc^s^^ 
 It was during the American War. Burney. Boswell in his Hebrides 
 (Oct. 12, 1773) records, ' Dr. Johnson is often uttering pious ejacula- 
 tions, when he appears to be talking to himself ; for sometimes his 
 voice grows stronger, and parts of the Lord's Prayer are heard.' In 
 the same passage he describes other 'particularities,' and adds in a 
 note : — ' It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should have read this ac- 
 count of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying anything on 
 the subject, which I hoped he would have done.' Sqq post, Dec. 1784, 
 note. 
 
 ' Churchill's Poems, i. 16. See ajife, p. 452. 
 
 '■^ ' It is in vain to try to find a meaning in every one of his particu- 
 larities, which, I suppose, are mere habits contracted by chance ; of 
 which every man has some that are more or less remarkable.' Bos- 
 well's Hebrides, Oct. 12,1773. ' The love of symmetry and order, which 
 is natural to the mind of man, betrays him sometimes into very whim- 
 sical fancies. " This noble principle," says a French author, " loves 
 to amuse itself on the most trifling occasions. You may see a pro- 
 found philosopher," says he, "walk for an hour together in his cham- 
 ber, and industriously treading at every step upon every other board 
 in the flooring." ' The Spectator, No. 632. 
 
 from
 
 Aetat.oo.] yolinsoii s particiilarities. 561 
 
 from which he had never called upon his reason to disen- 
 tangle him. This 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 mov'ement 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, having gone through it, break from his 
 abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his companion'. A 
 strange instance of something of this nature, even when on 
 horseback, happened when he was in the isle of Sky^ Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds has observed him to go a good way about, 
 rather than cross a particular alley in Leicester-fields ; but 
 this Sir Joshua imputed to his having had some disagreeable 
 recollection associated with it. 
 
 That the most minute singularities which belonged to him, 
 and made very observable parts of his appearance and man- 
 ner, may not be omitted, it is requisite to mention, that while 
 talking or even musing as he sat in his chair, he commonly 
 
 ' Mr. S. Whyte {Miscellafiea Norm, p. 49) tells how from old Mr. 
 Sheridan's house in Bedford-street, opposite Henrietta-street, with an 
 opera-glass he watched Johnson approaching. ' I perceived him at a 
 good distance working along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, 
 and an awkward sort of measured step. Upon every post as he passed 
 along, he deliberately laid his hand ; but missing one of them, when 
 he had got at some distance, he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, 
 and immediately returning carefully performed the accustomed cere- 
 mony, and resumed his former course, not omitting one till he gained 
 the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me, was his constant prac- 
 tice.' 
 
 » Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 316. Bos WELL. 
 'The day that we left Talisker, he bade us ride on. He then turned 
 the head of his horse back towards Talisker, stopped for some time ; 
 then wheeled round to the same direction with ours, and then came 
 briskly after us.' BosweU's Hebrides, Oct. 12, 1773. 
 
 I.— 36 held
 
 562 Illness of Joshua Reynolds. [a.d. 17G4. 
 
 held his head to one side towards his right shoulder, and 
 shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards 
 and forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direc- 
 tion, with the palm of his hand. In the intervals of articu- 
 lating he made various sounds with his mouth, sometimes as 
 if ruminating, or what is called chewing the cud, sometimes 
 giving a half whistle, sometimes making his tongue play- 
 backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a 
 hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in 
 front, as if pronouncing quickly under his breath, too, too, too : 
 all this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but 
 more frequently with a smile. Generally when he had con- 
 cluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he 
 was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he 
 used to blow out his breath like a Whale. This I supposed 
 was a relief to his lungs ; and seemed in him to be a con- 
 temptuous mode of expression, as if he had made the argu- 
 ments of his opponent fly like chaff before the wind. 
 
 I am fully aware how very obvious an occasion I here give 
 for the sneering jocularity of such as have no relish of an 
 exact likeness ; which to render complete, he who draws it 
 must not disdain the slightest strokes. But if witlings should 
 be inclined to attack this account, let them have the candour 
 to quote what I have offered in my defence. 
 
 He was for some time in the summer at Easton Maudit, 
 Northamptonshire, on a visit to the Reverend Dr. Percy, now 
 Bishop of Dromore. Whatever dissatisfaction he felt at 
 what he considered as a slow progress in intellectual im- 
 provement, we find that his heart was tender, and his affec- 
 tions warm, as appears from the following veiy kind letter: 
 
 'To Joshua Reynolds, Esq., in Leicester-fields, London. 
 
 'Dear Sir, 
 
 ' I did not hear of your sickness till I heard likewise of your 
 recovery, and therefore escaped that part of your pain, which 
 every man must feel, to whom you are known as you are known 
 to me. 
 
 ' Having had no particular account of your disorder, I know not 
 
 in
 
 Aetat. 5G.] Johnsou at Cambridge. 563 
 
 in what state it has left you. If the amusement of my company 
 can exhilarate the languor of a slow recovery, I will not delay a 
 clay to come to you ; for I know not how I can so effectually pro- 
 mote my own pleasure as by pleasing you, or my own interest as 
 by preserving you, in whom, if I should lose you, I should lose 
 almost the only man whom I call a friend. 
 
 ' Pray let me hear of you from yourself, or from dear Miss Reyn- 
 olds'. Make my compliments to Mr. Mudge. I am, dear Sir, 
 
 ' Your most affectionate 
 
 'And most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 ' At the Rev. Mr. Percy's, at Easton 
 Maudit, Northamptonshire, (by 
 Castle Ashby,) Aug. 19, 1764.' 
 
 1765: ^TAT. 56.] — Early in the year 1765 he paid a 
 short visit to the University of Cambridge, with his friend 
 Mr. Beauclerk. There is a lively picturesque account of his 
 behaviour on this visit, in TJie Gentleman s Magazine for 
 March 1785, being an extract of a letter from the late Dr. 
 John Sharp. The two following sentences are very charac- 
 teristical : — 
 
 * Sir Joshua's sister, for whom Johnson had a particular affection, 
 and to whom he wrote many letters which I have seen, and which I 
 am sorry her too nice delicacy will not permit to be published. Bos- 
 WELL. ' Whilst the company at Mr. Thrale's were speculating upon 
 a microscope for the mind, Johnson exclaimed :— " I never saw one 
 that would bear it, except that of my dear Miss Reynolds, and hers is 
 very near to purity itself." ' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 80. Once, says 
 Northcote, there was a coolness between her and her brother. She 
 wished to set forth to him her grievances in a letter. Not finding it 
 easy to write, she consulted Johnson, ' who offered to write a letter 
 himself, which when copied should pass as her own.' This he did. It 
 began : — ' I am well aware that complaints are always odious, but com- 
 plain I must.' Such a letter as this she saw would not pass with Sir 
 Joshua as her own, and so she could not use it. lb. p. 203. Of John- 
 son's letters to her Malone published one, and Mr. Croker several 
 more. Mme. D'Arblay, in the character she draws of her {Mcvtoirs 
 of Dr. Burney, i. 332), says that ' Dr. Johnson tried in vain to cure her 
 of living in an habitual perplexity of mind and irresolution of conduct, 
 which to herself was restlessly tormenting, and to all around her was 
 teazingly wearisome.' 
 
 'lie
 
 564 Trmity College, Dublin. [a.d. 1765, 
 
 ' He drank his large potations of tea with me, interrupted by 
 many an indignant contradiction, and many a noble sentiment.' 
 
 ' Several persons got into his company the last evening at 
 
 Trinity, where, about twelve, he began to be very great ; stripped 
 poor Mrs. Macaulay to the very skin, then gave her for his toast, 
 and drank her in two bumpers'.' 
 
 The strictness of his self-examination and scrupulous 
 Christian humility appear in his pious meditation on Easter- 
 day this year. 
 
 ' I purpose again to partake of the blessed sacrament ; yet when 
 I consider how vainly I have hitherto resolved at this annual com- 
 memoration of my Saviour's death, to regulate my life by his laws, 
 I am almost afraid to renew my resolutions.' 
 
 The concluding words are very remarkable, and shew that 
 he laboured under a severe depression of spirits. 
 
 ' Since the last Easter I have reformed no evil habit, my time 
 has been unprofitably spent, and seems as a dream that has left 
 nothing behind. My metnory grows confused, and I know not how 
 the days pass over vie. Good Lord deliver meM' 
 
 No man was more gratefully sensible of any kindness done 
 to him than Johnson. There is a little circumstance in his 
 diary this year, which shews him in a very amiable light. 
 
 'July 2. — I paid Mr. Simpson ten guineas, which he had for- 
 merly lent me in my necessity, and for which Tetty expressed her 
 gratitude.' 
 
 ' July 8. — I lent Mr. Simpson ten guineas more^' 
 
 Here he had a pleasing opportunity of doing the same 
 kindness to an old friend, which he had formerly received 
 from him. Indeed his liberality as to money was very re- 
 markable. The next article in his diary is, 
 
 'July 16. — I received seventy-five pounds\ Lent Mr. Davis 
 twenty-five.' 
 
 Trinity College, Dublin, at this time surprised Johnson 
 with a spontaiieous compliment of the highest academical 
 
 ' See Appendix C. "" Pr. attd Med. p. 61. Boswell. 
 
 ' See ante, p. 400. * His quarter's pension. See ante, p. 435. 
 
 honours.
 
 Aetat. 5G.] Johuson created Doctor' of Laws. 565 
 
 honours, by creating him Doctor of Laws'. The diploma, 
 which is in my possession, is as follows : 
 
 ' OMAUB US ad quos pr^sentes UiercB pervenerint, salutcm. Nos 
 Prcepositus et Socii setiiorcs CoUegii sacrosaucfce ct individual Trini- 
 tatis RegijKz Elizabcthce juxta Dubliji, testamur^ Samueli Johnson, 
 Armigcro", ob egregiani scriptorum degantiain et utilitatem, gratiavi 
 concessam fiiissc pro gradii DoctoraWis in utroque Jure^ octavo die 
 
 ' Mr. Croker, misunderstanding a passage in Hawkins, writes : — 
 ' Hawkins says that he disHked to be called Doctor, as reminding 
 him that he had been a schoolmaster.' What Hawkins really says 
 {^Lifc, p. 446) is this : — ' His attachment to Oxford prevented Johnson 
 from receiving this- honour as it was intended, and he never assumed 
 the title which it conferred. He was as little pleased to be called 
 Doctor in consequence of it, as he was with the title of Dominc, which 
 a friend of his once incautiously addressed him by. He thought it 
 alluded to his having been a schoolmaster.' It is clear that ' it ' in 
 the last line refers only to the title of Domine. Murphy {Life, p. 98) 
 says that Johnson never assumed the title of Doctor, till Oxford con- 
 ferred on him the degree. Boswell states {post, March 31, 1775, note) : 
 — ' It is remarkable that he never, so far as I know, assumed his title 
 of Doctor, but called himself Mr. Johnson.' In this, as I show there, 
 Boswell seems to be not perfectly accurate. I do not believe Haw- 
 kins's assertion that Johnson 'was little pleased to be called Doctor 
 in consequence of his Dublin degree.' In Boswell's Hebrides, most of 
 which was read by him before he received his Oxford degree, he is 
 commonly styled Doctor. Boswell says in a note on Aug. 15, 1773: — 
 'It was some time before I could bring myself to call him Doctor.' 
 Had Johnson disliked the title it would have been known to Boswell. 
 Mrs. Thrale, it is true, in her letters to him, after he had received both 
 his degrees, commonly speaks of him as Mr. Johnson. We may as- 
 sume that he valued his Oxford degree of M.A. more highly than the 
 Dublin degree of LL.D. ; for in the third edition of the Abridgment 
 0/ /lis Dictionary, published in 1766, he is styled Samuel Johnson, A.M. 
 In his Lives of the Poets he calls himself simply Samuel Johnson. He 
 had by that time risen above degrees. In his Journey to the Hebrides 
 {Works, ix. 14), after stating that 'An English or Irish doctorate can- 
 not be obtained by a very young man,' he continues : — ' It is reasona- 
 ble to suppose . . . that he who is by age qualified to be a doctor, has 
 in so much time gained learning sufficient not to disgrace the title, or 
 wit sufficient not to desire it.' 
 
 ''■ Trinity College made him, it should seem, Armiger at the same 
 time that it made him Doctor of Laws. 
 
 Julii,
 
 566 On becoming a politician. [a.d. 1765. 
 
 yulii, Anno Domini millesimo septingentesimo sexagesimo-quinto. In 
 cujns rei testimonium singiilorum f?iantis et sigillum quo in hisce nti- 
 mur apposuimus ; vicesimo tertio die yuiii, An?io Domitii millesimo 
 septingejitesimo sexagesimo-quinto. 
 
 ' GuL, Clement. Fran. Andrews. R. Murray. 
 ' Tho. Wilson. Prceps. Rob*"^ Law. 
 
 'Tho. Leland. Mich. Kearney.' 
 
 This unsolicited mark of distinction, conferred on so great 
 a literary character, did much honour to the judgement and 
 liberal spirit of that learned body. Johnson acknowledged 
 the favour in a letter to Dr. Leland, one of their number; 
 but I have not been able to obtain a copy of it'. 
 
 He appears this year to have been seized with a tempo- 
 rary fit of ambition, for he had thoughts both of studying 
 law and of engaging in politics. His 'Prayer before the 
 Study of Law' is truly admirable : — 
 
 ' Sept. 26, 1765. 
 
 ' Almighty God, the giver of wisdom, without whose help resolu- 
 tions are vain, without whose blessing study is ineffectual ; enable 
 me, if it be thy will, to attain such knowledge as may quaJify me 
 to direct the doubtful, and instruct the ignorant ; to prevent wrongs 
 and terminate contentions ; and grant that I may use that knowl- 
 edge which I shall attain, to thy glory and my own salvation, for 
 Jesus Christ's sake. Amen^' 
 
 His prayer in the view of becoming a politician is enti- 
 tled, ' Engaging in POLITICKS with H n,' no doubt his 
 
 friend, the Right Honourable William Gerard Hamilton', for 
 whom, during a long acquaintance, he had a great esteem, 
 and to whose conversation he once paid this high compli- 
 ment : ' I am very unwilling to be left alone, Sir, and there- 
 fore I go with my company down the first pair of stairs, in 
 some hopes that they may, perhaps, return again. I go 
 with you, Sir, as far as the street-door.' In what particular 
 
 ' See Appendix D for this letter. 
 
 * Pr. and Med. p. 66. Boswell. 
 
 ' Single-speech Hamilton, as he was commonly called, though in the 
 House of Commons he had spoken more than once. For above thirty 
 sessions together, however, he held his tongue. Prior's Burke, p. 6"]. 
 
 department
 
 Aetat. 5G.] yohusofi s mtroducHou to the Thrales. 567 
 
 department he intended to engage does not appear, nor can 
 Mr. Hamilton explain'. His prayer is in general terms: — 
 
 ' Enlighten my understanding with knowledge of right, and gov- 
 ern my will by thy laws, that no deceit may mislead me, nor temp- 
 tation corrupt me ; that I may always endeavour to do good, and 
 hinder evil''.' 
 
 There is nothing upon the subject in his diar)\ 
 
 This year^ was distinguished by his being introduced into 
 the family of Mr. Thrale, one of the most eminent brewers 
 in England, and Member of Parliament for the borough of 
 Southwark, Foreigners are not a little amazed when they 
 hear of brewers, distillers, and men in similar departments of 
 trade, held forth as persons of considerable consequence. In 
 this great commercial country it is natural that a situation 
 which produces much wealth should be considered as very 
 respectable ; and, no doubt, honest industry is entitled to 
 esteem. But, perhaps, the too rapid advance of men of low 
 extraction tends to lessen the value of that distinction by 
 birth and gentility, which has ever been found beneficial to 
 the grand scheme of subordination. Johnson used to give 
 this account of the rise of Mr. Thrale's father: ' He worked 
 at six shillings a week for twenty years in the great brewery, 
 which afterwards was his own. The proprietor of it had an 
 only daughter, who was married to a nobleman. It was not 
 fit that a peer should continue the business. On the old 
 man's death, therefore, the brewery was to be sold. To find 
 a purchaser for so large a property was a difficult matter; 
 and, after some time, it was suggested, that it would be 
 adviseable to treat with Thrale, a sensible, active, honest 
 man, who had been employed in the house, and to transfer 
 the whole to him for thirty thousand pounds, security being 
 taken upon the property. This was accordingly settled. In 
 eleven years Thrale paid the purchase-money*. He acquired 
 
 ' See Appendix E for an explanation. 
 ^ Pr. and A fed. p. 67. BoswELL. 
 ' See Appendix F. 
 
 ■' Mr. Blakcway, in a note on this passage, says: — 'The predecessor 
 
 a large
 
 568 Old Thrale. [a.d. 1765. 
 
 a large fortune, and lived to be Member of Parliament for 
 Southwark, But what was most remarkable was the liber- 
 ality with which he used his riches. He gave his son and 
 daughters the best education. The esteem which his good 
 conduct procured him from the nobleman who had married 
 his master's daughter, made him be treated with much atten- 
 tion ; and his son, both at school and at the University of 
 Oxford, associated with young men of the first rank. His 
 allowance from his father, after he left college, was splendid ; 
 no less than a thousand a year. This, in a man who had 
 risen as old Thrale did, was a very extraordinary instance of 
 generosity. He used to say, "If this young dog does not 
 find so much after I am gone as he expects, let him remem- 
 ber that he has had a great deal in my own time." ' 
 
 The son, though in affluent circumstances, had good sense 
 enough to carry on his father's trade, which was of such ex- 
 tent, that I remember he once told me, he would not quit it 
 for an annuity of ten thousand a year; ' Not (said he,) that 
 I get ten thousand a year by it, but it is an estate to a family.' 
 Having left daughters only, the property was sold for the im- 
 mense sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds'; 
 a magnificent proof of what may be done by fair trade in no 
 long period of time. 
 
 of old Thrale was Edmund Halsey, Esq. ; the nobleman who married 
 his daughter was Lord Cobham. The family of Thrale was of some 
 consideration in St. Albans; in the Abbey -church is a handsome 
 monument to the memory of Mr. John Thrale, late of London, mer- 
 chant, who died in 1704.' He describes the arms on the monument. 
 Mr. Hayward, in Mrs. Piozzi's Autobiography, i. 9, quotes her marginal 
 note on this page in Boswell. She says that Edmund Halsey, son of 
 a miller at St. Albans, married the only daughter of his master, old 
 Child, of the Anchor Brewhouse, Southwark, and succeeded to the 
 business upon Child's death. ' He sent for one of his sister's sons to 
 London (my Mr. Thrale 's father) ; said he would make a man of him, 
 and did so ; but made him work very hard, and treated him very 
 roughly.' He left him nothing at his death, and Thrale bought the 
 brewery of Lord and Lady Cobham. 
 
 ' Set post, under April 4, 1781, and June 16, 1781. 
 
 There
 
 Aetat.56.] A new System of gentility. 569 
 
 There may be some who think that a new system of gen- 
 tiHty' might be estabhshed, upon principles totally different 
 from what have hitherto prevailed. Our present heraldry, 
 it may be said, is suited to the barbarous times in which it 
 had its origin. It is chiefly founded upon ferocious merit, 
 upon military excellence. Why, in civilised times, we may 
 be asked, should there not be rank and honours, upon prin- 
 ciples, which, independent of long custom, are certainly not 
 less worthy, and which, when once allowed to be connected 
 with elevation and precedency, would obtain the same dig- 
 nity in our imagination? Why should not the knowledge, 
 the skill, the expertness, the assiduity, and the spirited haz- 
 ards of trade and commerce, when crowned with success, be 
 entitled to give those flattering distinctions by which man- 
 kind are so universally captivated? 
 
 Such are the specious, but false arguments for a proposi- 
 tion which always will find numerous advocates, in a nation 
 where men are every day starting up from obscurity to wealth. 
 To refute them is needless. The general sense of mankind 
 cries out, with irresistible force, ' Un gentilJwmme est toiijoiirs 
 ^etitilhomme 
 
 ,2 ' 
 
 ' Mrs. Burney informs me that she heard Dr. Johnson say, 'An 
 English Merchant is a new species of Gentleman.' He perhaps, had 
 in his mind the following ingenious passage in The Conscwus Lovers, 
 act iv. scene ii., where Mr. Sealand thus addresses Sir John Bevil : — 
 ' Give me leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that 
 have grown into the world this last century, and are as honourable, 
 and almost as useful as you landed-folks, that have always thought 
 yourselves so much above us; for your trading forsooth is extended 
 no farther than a load of hay, or a fat ox. — You are pleasant people 
 indeed ! because you are generally bred up to be lazy, therefore, I war- 
 rant your industry is dishonourable.' Boswell. 
 
 T/ie Conscwus Lovers is by Steele. ' I never heard of any plays fit 
 for a Christian to read,' said Parson Adams, ' but Cafo and T/ic Con- 
 scious Lovers; and I must own, in the latter there are some things 
 almost solemn enough for a sermon.' Joseph yltidrews, Book III. 
 chap. xi. 
 
 ' In the first number of The IIyf)Ocho7idriack Boswell writes : — ' It 
 is a saying in feudal treatises, Setnel Baro semper Baro, " Once a baron 
 
 Mr.
 
 570 A new home for Johnson. [a.d. 17C5. 
 
 Mr.Thrale had married Miss Hesther Lynch Salusbury, of 
 good Welsh extraction', a lady of lively talents, improved by 
 education. That Johnson's introduction into Mr. Thrale's 
 family, which contributed so much to the happiness of his 
 life, was owing to her desire for his conversation, is very prob- 
 able and a general supposition : but it is not the truth. Mr. 
 Murphy, who was intimate with Mr. Thrale\ having spoken 
 very highly of Dr. Johnson, he was requested to make them 
 acquainted\ This being mentioned to Johnson, he accepted 
 of an invitation to dinner at Thrale's, and was so much 
 pleased with his reception, both by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, 
 and they so much pleased with him, that his invitations to 
 their house were more and more frequent, till at last he be- 
 came one of the family, and an apartment was appropriated 
 to him, both in their house in Southwark, and in their villa 
 at Streatham\ 
 
 always a baron."' Lotido'n Mag. 1777, p. 493. He seems at times to 
 mark his sense of Mr. Thrale's inferiority by speaking of him as 
 Thrale and his house as Thrale's. See post, April 5 and 12, 1776, 
 April 7, 1778, and under March 30, 1783. He never, I believe, is thus 
 familiar in the case ot Beauclerk, Burke, Langton, and Reynolds. 
 
 ^ For her extraction see Hayward's Mrs. Piozzi, \. 238. 
 
 "^ Miss Burney records in May 1779, how one day at Streatham ' Mr. 
 Murphy met with a very joyful reception ; and Mr. Thrale, for the first 
 time in his life, said he was "a good fellow;" for he makes it a sort 
 of rule to salute him with the title of " scoundrel," or " rascal." They 
 are very old friends ; and I question if Mr. Thrale loves any man so 
 well.' Mjuc. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 210. 
 
 ^ From the Garrick Carres, i. 116, it seems that Murphy introduced 
 Garrick to the Thrales. He wrote to him on May 13, 1760: — 'You 
 stand engaged to Mr. Thrale for Wednesday se'ennight. You need 
 not apprehend drinking; it is a very easy house.' 
 
 * Murphy {Life, p. 98) says that Johnson's introduction to the 
 Thrales 'contributed more than anything else to exempt him from 
 the solicitudes of life.' He continues that ' he looks back to the share 
 he had in that business with self congratulation, since he knows the 
 tenderness which from that time soothed Johnson's cares at Streat- 
 ham, and prolonged a valuable life.' Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale 
 from Lichfield on July 20, 1767: — 'I have found nothing that with- 
 draws my affections from the friends whom I left behind, or which 
 
 Johnson
 
 Aetat. 56.] Mr. Thrale. 571 
 
 Johnson had a very sincere esteem for Mr. Thrale, as a man 
 of excellent principles, a good scholar, well skilled in trade, 
 of a sound understanding, and of manners such as presented 
 the character of a plain independent English 'Squire'. As 
 this family will frequently be mentioned in the course of the 
 following pages, and as a false notion has prevailed that Mr. 
 Thrale was inferiour, and in some degree insignificant, com- 
 pared with Mrs. Thrale, it may be proper to give a true state 
 of the case from the authority of Johnson himself in his 
 own words. 
 
 ' I know no man, (said he,) who is more master of his wife 
 and family than Thrale. If he but holds up a finger, he is 
 obeyed. It is a great mistake to suppose that she is above 
 him in literary attainments'. She is more flippant ; but he 
 
 makes me less desirous of reposing at that place which your kindness 
 and Mr. Thrale's allows me to call my home! Piozsi Letters, i. 4. 
 From Mull, on Oct. 15, 1773, he wrote: — ' Having for many weeks had 
 no letter, my longings are very great to be informed how all things 
 are at home, as you and mistress allow me to call it.' lb. p. 166. Miss 
 Barney in 1778 wrote that 'though Dr. Johnson lives almost wholly 
 at Streatham, he always keeps his apartments in town.' Mvie. D'Ar- 
 blay's Diary, \. 58. Johnson ( Works, viii. 381) tells how, in the house 
 of Sir Thomas Abney, ' Dr. Watts, with a constancy of friendship and 
 uniformity of conduct not often to be found, was treated for thirty-six 
 years with all the kindness that friendship could prompt, and all the 
 attention that respect could dictate.' He continues: — 'A coalition 
 like this, a state in which the notions of patronage and dependence 
 were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal benefits, deserves a 
 particular memorial.' It was such a coalition which he formed with 
 the Thrales — a coalition in which, though the benefits which he re- 
 ceived were great, yet those which he conferred were still greater. 
 
 ' On this Mrs. Piozzi notes: — ' No, no ! Mr. Thrale's manners pre- 
 sented the character of a gay man of the town; like Miliamant, in 
 Congreve's comedy, he abhorred the country and everything in it.' 
 Hayward's Piozzi, i. 10. Mrs. Miliamant, in The Way of the World, 
 act iv. sc. iv., says : — ' I loathe the country and everything that relates 
 to it.' 
 
 ' ' It is but justice to Mr. Thrale to say, that a more ingenuous frame 
 of mind no man possessed. His education at Oxford gave him the 
 habits of a gentleman ; his amiable temper recommended his conver- 
 
 has
 
 572 Mrs. Thrale, [a.d.1765. 
 
 has ten times her learning: he is a regular scholar; but her 
 learning is that of a school-boy in one of the lower forms.' 
 My readers may naturally wish for some representation of 
 the figures of this couple. Mr. Thrale was tall, well propor- 
 tioned, and stately. As for Madam, or my Mistrcss\ by which 
 epithets Johnson used to mention Mrs. Thrale, she was short, 
 plump, and brisk'. She has herself given us a lively view of 
 the idea which Johnson had of her person, on her appearing 
 before him in a dark-coloured gown; 'You little creatures 
 should never wear those sort of clothes, however ; they are 
 unsuitable in every way. What ! have not all insects gay 
 colours'?' Mr. Thrale gave his wife a liberal indulgence, 
 both in the choice of their company, and in the mode of 
 
 sation, and the goodness of his heart made him a sincere friend.' 
 Murphy's Johnson, p. 99. Johnson wrote of him to Mrs. Thrale :— 
 ' He must keep well, for he is the pillar of the house ; and you must 
 get well, or the house will hardly be worth propping.' Piozzi Letters, 
 i. 340. See/^^/, April 18, 1778. Mme. D'Arblay {Me7noirs of Dr. Biir- 
 iiey, ii. 104) gives one reason for Thrale's fondness for Johnson's so- 
 ciety. ' Though entirely a man of peace, and a gentleman in his 
 character, he had a singular amusement in hearing, instigating, and 
 provoking a war of words, alternating triumph and overthrow, be- 
 tween clever and ambitious colloquial combatants, where there was 
 nothing that could inflict disgrace upon defeat.' 
 
 * In like manner he called Mr. Thrale Master or My master. 'I 
 hope Master's walk will be finished when I come back.' Piozzi Let- 
 ters, i. 355. ' My master may plant and dig till his pond is an ocean.' 
 lb. p. 357. See post, July 9, i -j-j-j. 
 
 == Miss Burney thus described her in 1776 :— ' She is extremely lively 
 and chatty ; and showed none of the supercilious or pedantic airs so 
 scofBngly attributed to women of learning or celebrity ; on the con- 
 trary, she is full of sport, remarkably gay, and excessively agreeable. 
 I liked her in everything except her entrance into the room, which 
 was rather florid and flourishing, as who should say, " It is I ! — No less 
 a person than Mrs. Thrale !" Hov/ever, all that ostentation wore out 
 in the course of the visit, which lasted the whole morning; and you 
 could not have helped liking her, she is so very entertaining — though 
 not simple enough, I believe, for quite winning your heart.' Memoirs 
 of Dr. Burney, ii. 88. 
 
 ^ Mrs. Piozzts Anecdotes, p. 279. Boswell. 
 
 entertaining
 
 Aetat. 56.] Mrs. T/irale. 573 
 
 entertaining them. He understood and valued Johnson, 
 without remission, from their first acquaintance to the day 
 of his death. Mrs. Thrale was enchanted with Johnson's 
 conversation, for its own sake, and had also a ver>' allowable 
 vanity in appearing to be honoured with the attention of so 
 celebrated a man. 
 
 Nothing could be more fortunate for Johnson than this 
 connection'. He had at Mr. Thrale's all the comforts and 
 even luxuries of life ; his melancholy was diverted, and his 
 irregular habits lessened' by association with an agreeable 
 and well-ordered family. He was treated with the utmost 
 respect, and even affection. The vivacity of Mrs. Thrale's 
 literary talk roused him to cheerfulness and exertion, even 
 when they were alone. But this was not often the case ; for 
 he found here a constant succession of what gave him the 
 highest enjoyment : the society of the learned, the witty, and 
 the eminent in every way, who were assembled in numerous 
 companies', called forth his wonderful powers, and gratified 
 him with admiration, to which no man could be insensible. 
 
 ' Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Oct. 13, 1777: — 'I cannot but 
 think on your kindness and my master's. Life has upon the whole 
 fallen short, very short, of my early expectation ; but the acquisition 
 of such a friendship, at an age when new friendships are seldom ac- 
 quired, is something better than the general course of things gives 
 man a right to expect. I think on it with great delight ; I am not 
 very apt to be delighted.' Pz'ozzi Letters, ii. 7. Johnson's friends suf- 
 fered from this connection. See post, March 20, 1778, where it is said 
 that ' at Streatham he was in a great measure absorbed from the so- 
 ciety of his old friends.' 
 
 ^ Yet one year he recorded : — ' March 3, I have never, I thank God, 
 since new year's day deviated from the practice of rising. In this 
 practice I persisted till I went to Mr. Thrale's sometime before Mid- 
 summer; the irregularity of that family broke my habit of rising. I 
 was there till after Michaelmas.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 458, note. 
 Hawkins places this in 1765 ; but Johnson states (/V. and Mai. p. 71), 
 ' I returned from Streatham, Oct. i, — 66, having lived there more than 
 three months.' 
 
 ' Boswell wrote to Temple in 1775: — 'I am at present in a tour- 
 billon of conversations ; but how come you to throw in the Thralcs 
 
 In
 
 574 Johnsojis Shakspeare published, [a.d. 17G5. 
 
 In the October of this year' he at length gave to the world 
 his edition of Shakspeare', which, if it had no other merit but 
 that of producing his Preface^ in which the excellencies and 
 defects of that immortal bard are displayed with a masterly 
 hand, the nation would have had no reason to complain. A 
 blind indiscriminate admiration of Shakspeare had exposed 
 the British nation to the ridicule of foreigners\ Johnson, by 
 
 among the Reynoldses and the Beauclerks? Mr. Thrale is a worthy, 
 sensible man, and has the wits much about his house ; but he is not 
 one himself. Perhaps you mean Mrs. Thrale.' Letters of Boswell, p. 
 192. Murphy {Life, p. 141) says : — ' It was late in life before Johnson 
 had the habit of mixing, otherwise than occasionally, with polite com- 
 pany. At Mr. Thrale's he saw a constant succession of well-accom- 
 plished visitors. In that society he began to wear ofT the rugged 
 points of his own character. The time was then expected when he 
 was to cease being what George Garrick, brother to the celebrated 
 actor, called him the first time he heard him converse, " A Tremen- 
 dous Companion." ' 
 
 ' Johnson wrote to Dr. Warton on Oct. 9 : — ' Mrs. Warton uses me 
 hardly in supposing that I could forget so much kindness and civility 
 as she showed me at Winchester.' Wooll's Warton, p. 309. Malone 
 on this remarks : — ' It appears that Johnson spent some time with that 
 gentleman at Winchester in this year.' I believe that Johnson is 
 speaking of the year 1762, when, on his way to Devonshire, he passed 
 two nights in that town. See Taylor's Reynolds, i. 214. 
 
 ^ It was in 1745 that he published his Observations on Macbeth, as a 
 specimen of his projected edition {atite, p. 202). In 1756 he issued 
 Proposals undertaking that his work should be published before 
 Christmas, 1757 (p. 369). On June 21, 1757, he writes: — ' I am print- 
 ing my new edition of Shakspeare' (p. 373). On Dec. 24 of the same 
 year he says, ' I shall publish about March ' (p. 375). On March 8, 
 1758, he writes: — 'It will be published before summer. ... I have 
 printed many of the plays ' (p. 379). In June of the same year Lang- 
 ton took some of the plays to Oxford (p. 390). Churchill's Ghost 
 (Parts I and 2) was published in the spring of 1762 (p. 370). On July 
 20, 1762, Johnson wrote to Baretti, ' I intend that you shall soon re- 
 ceive Shakspeare' (p. 427). In October 1765 it was published. 
 
 ^ According to Mr. Seward (Anee. ii. 464), ' Adam Smith styled it 
 the most manly piece of criticism that was ever published in any 
 country.' 
 
 * George III, at all events, did not share in this blind admiration. 
 
 candidly
 
 Aetat. oG.] Praise of Shakspeare. 575 
 
 candidly admitting the faults of his poet, had the more credit 
 in bestowing on him deserved and indisputable praise ; and 
 doubtless none of all his panegyrists have done him half so 
 much honour. Their praise was, like that of a counsel, upon 
 his own side of the cause : Johnson's was like the grave, well- 
 considered, and impartial opinion of the judge, which falls 
 from his lips with weight, and is received with reverence. 
 What he did as a commentator has no small share of merit, 
 though his researches were not so ample, and his investiga- 
 tions so acute as they might have been, which wc now cer- 
 tainly know from the labours of other able and ingenious 
 criticks who have followed him'. He has enriched his edi- 
 tion with a concise account of each play, and of its charac- 
 teristick excellence. Many of his notes have illustrated 
 obscurities in the text, and placed passages eminent for 
 beauty in a more conspicuous light ; and he has in general 
 exhibited such a mode of annotation, as may be beneficial 
 to all subsequent editors\ 
 
 'Was there ever,' cried he, 'such stuff as great part of Shakespeare? 
 only one must not say so. But what think you ? What ? Is there 
 not sad stuff ? What ? What ?' ' Yes, indeed. I think so. Sir, though 
 mixed with such excellencies that — ' ' O !' cried he, laughing good- 
 humouredly, ' I know it is not to be said ! but it's true. Only it's 
 Shakespeare, and nobody dare abuse him.' Mine. D' Arblay's Diary, 
 ii. 39S. 
 
 ' That Johnson did not slur his work, as has been often said, we 
 have the best of all evidence — his own word. ' I have, indeed,' he 
 writes ( Works, v. 152), ' disappointed no opinion more than my own ; 
 yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. 
 Not a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt 
 which I have not attempted to restore ; or obscure which I have not 
 attempted to illustrate.' 
 
 " Steevens wrote to Garrick : — ' To say the truth, the errors of War- 
 burton and Johnson are often more meritorious than such corrections 
 of them as the obscure industry of Mr. Farmer and myself can furnish. 
 Disdaining crutches, they have sometimes had a fall ; but it is my duty 
 to remember, that I, for my part, could not have kept on my legs at 
 all without them.' Garrick Corrcs. ii. 130. 'Johnson's preface and 
 notes are distinguished by clearness of thought and diction, and by 
 masterly common sense.' Camdridq-e Shakespeare, i. xxxvi. 
 
 His
 
 576 Dr. Kenrick. [a.d. 17G5. 
 
 His SJiakspcarc was virulently attacked by Mr. William 
 Kenrick, who obtained the degree of LL.D. from a Scotch 
 University, and wrote for the booksellers in a great variety 
 of branches. Though he certainly was not without consider- 
 able merit, he wrote with so little regard to decency and 
 principles, and decorum', and in so hasty a manner, that his 
 reputation was neither extensive nor lasting. I remember 
 one evening, when some of his works were mentioned, Dr. 
 Goldsmith said, he had never heard of them ; upon which 
 Dr. Johnson observed, ' Sir, he is one of the many who have 
 made themselves /z^(5'/zVX', without making themselves knowi^' 
 
 A young student of Oxford, of the name of Barclay, wrote 
 an answer to Kenrick's review of Johnson's Shakspearc. 
 Johnson was at first angry that Kenrick's attack should have 
 the credit of an answer. But afterwards, considering the 
 young man's good intention, he kindly noticed him, and 
 probably would have done more, had not the young man 
 died\ 
 
 In his Preface to Shakspearc, Johnson treated Voltaire very 
 contemptuously, observing, upon some of his remarks, ' These 
 are the petty criticisms of petty wits\' Voltaire, in revenge, 
 
 * Kenrick later on was the gross libeller of Goldsmith, and the far 
 grosser libeller of Garrick. ' When proceedings were commenced 
 against him in the Court of King's Bench [for the libel on Garrick], 
 he made at once the most abject submission and retractation.' Prior's 
 Golds77iith, i. 294. In the Garrick Corres. (ii. 341) is a letter addressed 
 to Kenrick, in which Garrick says : — ' I could have honoured you by 
 giving the satisfaction of a gentleman, if yoic could (as Shakespeare 
 says) have scre%ued your courage to the sticking place, to have taken it.' 
 It is endorsed : — ' This was not sent to the scoundrel Dr. Kenrick. . . . 
 It was judged best not to answer any more of Dr. Kenrick's notes, he 
 had behaved so unworthily.' 
 
 "^ Ephraim Chambers, in the epitaph that he made for himself (ante, 
 p. 253, note 3), had described himself as mult is pervidgatus paucis 
 notus.' Gent. Mag. x. 262. 
 
 ^ See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. i, 1773. 
 
 * Johnson had joined Voltaire with Dennis and Rymer. ' Dennis 
 and Rymer think Shakespeare's Romans not sufficiently Roman; and 
 Voltaire censures his kings as not completely royal. Dennis is 
 
 made
 
 Aetat. 56.] Voltaire s attack on yohnson. 577 
 
 made an attack upon Johnson, in one of his numerous h'ter- 
 ary sallies, which I remember to have read ; but there being 
 no general index to his voluminous works, have searched in 
 vain, and therefore cannot quote it'. 
 
 offended that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon ; 
 and Voltaire, perhaps, thinks decency violated when the Danish 
 usurper is represented as a drunkard. But Shakespeare always makes 
 nature predominate over accident. ... His story requires Romans or 
 kings, but he thinks only on men. He knew that Rome, like every 
 other city, had men of all dispositions ; and wanting a buffoon, he 
 went into the senate-house for that which the senate-house would 
 certainly have afforded him. He was inclined to show an usurper 
 and a murderer, not only odious, but despicable ; he therefore added 
 drunkenness to his other qualities, knowing that kings love wine like 
 other men, and that wine exerts its natural power upon kings. These 
 are the petty cavils of petty minds; a poet overlooks the casual dis- 
 tinction of country and condition, as a painter, satisfied with the figure, 
 neglects the drapery.' Johnson's Works, v. 109. Johnson had pre- 
 viously attacked Voltaire, in his Memoirs of Frederick the Great. 
 {Ante, i. 503, note 2.) In these Memoirs he writes : — ' Voltaire has 
 asserted that a large sum was raised for her [the Queen of Hungary's] 
 succour by voluntary subscriptions of the English ladies. It is the 
 great failing of a strong imagination to catch greedily at wonders. 
 He was misinformed, and was perhaps unwilling to learn, by a second 
 enquiry, a truth less splendid and amusing.' lb. vi. 455. See post, 
 Oct. 27, 1779. 
 
 ' ' Voltaire replied in the Dictiomiaire Philosophique. ( Works, 
 xxxiii. 566.) ' J'ai jete les yeux sur une edition de Shakespeare, don- 
 nee par le sieur Samuel Johnson. J'y ai vu qu'on y traite de petits 
 esprits les etrangers qui sont etonnes que dans les pieces de ce grand 
 Shakespeare un senateur romain fasse le bouffon ; et qiiun roi paraisse 
 sur le theatre en ivrogne. Je ne veux point soupgonner le sieur John- 
 son d'etre un mauvais plaisant, et d'aimer trop le vin ; mais je trouve 
 un peu extraordinaire qu'il compte la bouffonnerie et I'ivrognerie 
 parmi les beautes du theatre tragique ; la raison qu'il en donne n'est 
 pas moins singuliere. Le poete, dit-il, didaigne ces distinctions acci- 
 dent elles de conditions et de pays, comme un peintre qui, content d' avoir 
 peint la figure, neglige la draper ie. La comparaison serait plus juste, 
 s'il parlait d'un peintre qui, dans un sujet noble, introduirait des 
 grotesques ridicules, peindrait dans la bataille d'Arbelles Alexandrc- 
 le-Grand monte sur un ane, et la femme de Darius buvant avec des 
 goujats dans un cabaret.' Johnson, perhaps, had this attack in mind 
 I. — 37 Voltaire
 
 578 yohnsoiis letter to Burney. [a.d. 1765. 
 
 Voltaire was an antagonist with whom I thought Johnson 
 should not disdain to contend. I pressed him to answer. 
 He said, he perhaps might ; but he never did. 
 
 Mr. Burney having occasion to write to Johnson for some 
 receipts for subscriptions to his Shakspcarc, which Johnson 
 had omitted to deliver when the money was paid', he availed 
 himself of that opportunity of thanking Johnson for the great 
 pleasure which he had received from the perusal of his Pref- 
 ace to SJiakspeare ; which, although it excited much clamour 
 against him at first, is now justly ranked among the most 
 excellent of his writings. To this letter Johnson returned 
 the following answer : — 
 
 'To Charles Burney, Esq., in Poland-street. 
 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' I am sorry that your kindness to me has brought upon you 
 so much trouble, though you have taken care to abate that sorrow, 
 by the pleasure which I receive from your approbation. I defend 
 my criticism in the same manner with you. We must confess the 
 faults of our favourite, to gain credit to our praise of his excellencies. 
 He that claims, either in himself or for another, the honours of per- 
 fection, will surely injure the reputation which he designs to assist. 
 ' Be pleased to make my compliments to your family. 
 ' I am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your most obliged 
 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 'Oct. 16, 1765.' 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 From one of his journals I transcribed what follows : 
 
 ' At church, Oct. — 65. 
 
 'To avoid all singularity"; Bonaventura^. 
 
 when, in his Life of Pope ( Works, viii. 275), he thus wrote of Voltaire : 
 — •' He had been entertained by Pope at his table, when he talked 
 with so much grossness, that Mrs. Pope was driven from the room. 
 Pope discovered by a trick that he was a spy for the court, and never 
 considered him as a man worthy of confidence.' 
 
 " See post, under May 8, 1781. 
 
 * See post, ii. 85. 
 
 ' He was probably proposing to himself the model of this excellent 
 person, who for his piety was named the Seraphic Doctor. Boswell. 
 
 'To
 
 Aetat. 56.] Resoltitioiis at clinrch. 579 
 
 'To come in before service, and compose my mind by medita- 
 tion, or by reading some portions of scriptures, 'rctty. 
 
 ' If I can hear the sermon, to attend it, unless attention be more 
 troublesome than useful. 
 
 " To consider the act of prayer as a reposal of myself upon God. 
 and a resignation of all into his holy hand.' 
 
 APPENDIX
 
 APPENDIX A. 
 
 Johnson's DEBAtES in Parliament. 
 
 {Pages 136 and 174.) 
 
 The publication of the ' Debates ' in the Gentleman'' s Magazine 
 began in July 1732. The names of the speakers were not printed 
 in full ; Sir Robert Walpole was disguised — if a disguise it can be 
 called — as Sir R — t W — le, and Mr. Pelham as Mr. P-lh-m. 
 Otherwise the report was open and avowed. During the first few 
 years, however, it often happened that no attempt was made to 
 preserve the individuality of the members. Thus in a debate on 
 the number of seamen {Gent. Mag. v. 507), the speeches of the 
 ' eight chief speakers ' were so combined as to form but three. 
 First come ' the arguments made use of for 30,000 men ;' next ' an 
 answer to the following effect ;' and lastly, ' a reply that was in 
 substance as follows.' Each of these three speeches is in the first 
 person, though each is formed of the arguments of two members 
 at least, perhaps of many. In the rejDort of a two days' debate in 
 1737, in which there were fourteen chief speakers, the substance 
 of thirteen of the speeches was given in three {ib. vii. 746, 775). 
 In July 1736 {ib. vi. 363) we find the beginning of a great change. 
 ' To satisfy the impatience of his readers,' the publisher promises 
 ' to give them occasionally some entire speeches.' He prints one 
 which likely enough had been sent to him by the member who had 
 spoken it, and adds that he shall be 'grateful for any authentic 
 intelligence in matters of such importance and tenderness as the 
 speeches in Parliament ' {ib. p. 365). Cave, in his examination be- 
 fore the House of Lords on April 30, 1747, on a charge of having 
 printed in the Gentleman's Magazine an account of the trial of Lord 
 Lovat, owned that ' he had had speeches sent him by the members 
 themselves, and had had assistance from some members who have 
 taken notes of other members' speeches ' {Pari. Hist. xiv. 60). 
 
 It
 
 582 Appendix A. 
 
 It was chiefly in the numbers of the Magazine for the latter half 
 of each year that the publication took place. The parliamentary 
 recess was the busy time for reporters and printers. It was com- 
 monly believed that the resolution on the Journals of the House 
 of Commons against publishing any of its proceedings was only in 
 force w^hile parliament was sitting. But on April 13, 1738, it was 
 unanimously resolved 'that it is an high indignity to, and a notori- 
 ous breach of the privilege of this House to give any account of 
 the debates, as well during the recess as the sitting of parliament ' 
 (Pari. Hist. X. 812). It was admitted that this privilege expired 
 at the end of every parliament. When the dissolution had come 
 every one might publish what he pleased. With the House of 
 Lords it was far otherwise, for 'it is a Court of Record, and as 
 such its rights and privileges never die. It may punish a printer 
 for printing any part of its proceedings for thirty or forty years 
 back' (Jb. p. 807). Mr. Winnington, when speaking to this resolu- 
 tion of April 13, said that if they did not put a speedy stop to this 
 practice of reporting ' they will have every word that is spoken 
 here by gentlemen misrepresented hy fellows who thrust themselves 
 into our gallery ' {ib. p. 806). Walpole complained ' that he had 
 been made to speak the very reverse of what he meant. He had 
 read debates wherein all the wit, the learning, and the argument had 
 been thrown into one side, and on the other nothing but what was low, 
 mean, and ridiculous ' {ib. p. 809). Later on, Johnson in his reports 
 ' saved appearances tolerably well ; but took care that the Whig 
 Dogs should not have the best of it ' (Murphy's jfohnson, p. 45). 
 
 It was but a few days after he became a contributor to the Maga- 
 zine that this resolution was passed. Parliament rose on May 20, 
 and in the June number the reports of the debates of the Senate 
 of Lilliput began. To his fertile mind was very likely due this 
 humorous expedient by which the resolution of the House was 
 mocked. That he wrote the introduction in which is narrated the 
 voyage of Captain Gulliver's grandson to Lilliputia can scarcely 
 be doubted. It bears all the marks of his early style. The Lords 
 become Hurgoes, and the Commons Clinabs, Walpole becomes 
 Walelop, Pulteney Pulnub, and Pitt Ptit ; otherwise the report is 
 much as it had been. At the end of the volume for 1739 was 
 given a key to all the names. The London Magazine had boldly 
 taken the lead. In the May number, which was published at the 
 close of the month, and therefore after parliament had risen, began 
 
 the
 
 Appendix A. 5S3 
 
 the report of the proceedings and debates of a political and learned 
 club of young noblemen and gentlemen, who hoped one day to 
 enter parliament, and who therefore, the better to qualify them- 
 selves for their high position, only debated questions that were 
 there discussed. To the speakers were given the names of the 
 ancient Greeks and Romans. Thus we find the Hon. Marcus 
 Cato and the Right Hon. M. Tullius Cicero. By the key that was 
 published in 1742 Cicero was seen to be Walpole, and Cato, Pulte- 
 ney. What risks the publishers and writers ran was very soon 
 shown. In December 1740 the ministers proposed to lay an em- 
 bargo on various articles of food. As the members entered the 
 House a printed paper was handed to each, entitled Considerations 
 upon the Embargo. Adam Smith had just gone up as a young 
 student to the University of Oxford. There are ' considerations ' 
 suggested in this paper which the great authority of the author of 
 the Wealth of Nations has not yet made pass current as truths. 
 The paper contained, moreover, charges of jobbery against 'great 
 men,' though no one was named. It was at once voted a malicious 
 and scandalous libel, and the author, William Cooley, a scrivener, 
 was committed to Newgate. With him was sent the printer of the 
 Daily Post., in which part of the Consideratiotis had been published. 
 After seven weeks' imprisonment in the depth of winter in that 
 miserable den, 'without sufificient sustenance to support life,' 
 Cooley was discharged on paying his fees. He was in knowledge 
 more than a hundred years before his time, and had been made to 
 suffer accordingly. The printer would have been discharged also, 
 but the fees were more than he could pay. Two months later he 
 petitioned for mercy. The fees by that time were £^.21. His 
 petition was not received, and he was kept in prison till the close 
 of the session {Pari. Hist. xi. 867-894). 
 
 Such were the risks run by Cave and Johnson and their fellow- 
 workers. That no prosecution followed was due perhaps to that 
 dread of ridicule which has often tempered the severity of the law. 
 'The Hurgolen Branard, who in the former session was Pretor of 
 Mildendo,' might well have been unwilling to prove that he was 
 Sir John Barnard, late Lord Mayor of London. 
 
 Johnson, it should seem, revised some of the earliest Debates. 
 In a letter to Cave which cannot have been written later than Sep- 
 tember 1738, he mentions the alterations that he had made {ante, 
 p. 136). The more they were written by him. the less autlientic 
 
 did
 
 584 Appendix A. 
 
 did they become, for he was not one of those ' fellows who thrust 
 themselves into the gallery of the House.' His employer, Cave, if 
 we can trust his own evidence, had been in the habit of going there 
 and taking notes with a pencil {Pari. Hist. xiv. 60). But Johnson, 
 Hawkins says {Life, p. 122), 'never was within the walls of either 
 House.' According to Murphy {Life, p. 44), he had been inside 
 the House of Commons once. Be this as it may, in the end the 
 Debates were composed by him alone {ante, p. 137). From that 
 time they must no longer be looked upon as authentic records, in 
 spite of the assertions of the Editor of the Pari. IList. (xi. Preface). 
 Johnson told Boswell {a72te, p. 137) ' that sometimes he had nothing 
 more communicated to him than the names of the several speakers, 
 and the part which they had taken in the debate ;' sometimes ' he 
 had scanty notes furnished by persons employed to attend in both 
 Houses of Parliament.' Often, his Debates were written 'from no 
 materials at all — the mere coinage of his own imagination' {post, 
 under Dec. 9, 1784). 
 
 ' He never wrote any part of his works with equal velocity. 
 Three columns of the Magazine in an hour was no uncommon 
 effort, which was faster than most persons could have transcribed 
 that quantity ' {il>.). According to Hawkins {Life, p. 99), ' His 
 practice was to shut himself up in a room assigned to him at St. 
 John's Gate, to which he would not suffer any one to approach, ex- 
 cept the compositor or Cave's boy for matter, which, as fast as he 
 composed it, he tumbled out at the door.' 
 
 From Murphy we get the following curious story : — 
 
 'That Johnson was the author of the debates during that period 
 [Nov. 1740 to Feb. 1743] v/as not generally known ; but the secret trans- 
 pired several years afterwards, and was avowed by himself on the fol- 
 lowing occasion : — Mr. Wedderburne (now Lord Loughborough), Dr. 
 Johnson, Dr. Francis (the translator of Horace), the present writer, and 
 others dined with the late Mr. Foote. An important debate towards 
 the end of Sir Robert Walpole's administration being mentioned. Dr. 
 Francis observed, " 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 capacity; but he had met with nothing equal 
 to the speech above mentioned." Many of the company remembered 
 the debate ; and some passages were cited with the approbation and 
 applause of aU present. During the ardour of conversation, Johnson 
 remained silent. As soon as the warmth of praise subsided, he opened 
 
 with
 
 Appe?idix A. 58^ 
 
 with these words : — " That speech I wrote in a garret in Exeter Street." 
 The company was struck with astonishment. After staring at each 
 other in silent amaze, Dr. Francis asked how that speech could be 
 written by him? "Sir," said Johnson, "I wrote it in Exeter Street. 
 I never had been in the gallery of thQ House of Commons but once. 
 Cave had interest with the door-keepers. He, and the persons em- 
 ployed 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 the arguments ad- 
 vanced in the course of the debate. The whole was afterwards com- 
 municated to me, and I composed the speeches in the form which they 
 now have in the Parliamentary Debates." To this discovery Dr. 
 Francis made answer: — "Then, sir, you have exceeded Demosthenes 
 himself, for to say that you have exceeded Francis's Dcmosiheues, would 
 be saying nothing." The rest of the company bestowed lavish en- 
 comiums on Johnson : one, in particular, praised his impartiality ; ob- 
 serving, that he dealt out reason and eloquence with an equal hand to 
 both parties. "That is not quite true,'' said Johnson; "I saved ap- 
 pearances tolerably well, but I took care that the Whig dogs should 
 not have the best of it." ' Murphy's Life of Jo/mson, p. 343. 
 
 Murphy, we must not forget, wrote from memory, for there is no 
 reason to think that he kept notes. That his memory cannot alto- 
 gether be trusted has been shown by Boswell {ante, p. 391, note 4). 
 This dinner with Foote must have taken place at least nineteen 
 years before this account was published, for so many years had 
 Dr. Francis been dead. At the time when Johnson was living in 
 Exeter-street he was not engaged on the magazine. Nevertheless 
 the main facts may be true enough. Johnson himself told Boswell 
 {post. May 13, 1778) that in Lord Chesterfield's Aliscellancous 
 Works (ii. 319) there were two speeches ascribed to Chesterfield 
 which he had himself entirely written. Horace Walpole {Letters, 
 i. 147) complained that the published report of his own first speech 
 'did not contain one sentence of the true one.' Johnson, in his 
 preface to the Literary Magazine of 1756, seems to confess what 
 he had done, unless, indeed, he was altogether making himself the 
 mere mouth -piece of the publisher. He says: — 'We shall not 
 attempt to give any regular series of debates, or to amuse our 
 readers with senatorial rhetorick. The speeches inserted in other 
 papers have been long known to be fictitious, and produced some- 
 times by men who never heard the debate, nor had any authentick 
 information. We have no design to impose thus grossly on our 
 readers.' ( /-F^r/C'j, v. 363.) 
 
 The
 
 586 Appe7tdix A. 
 
 The secret that Johnson wrote these Debates was indeed well 
 kept. He seems to be aimed at in a question that was put to Cave 
 in his examination before the House of Lords in 1747. 'Being 
 asked " if he ever had any person whom he kept in pay to make 
 speeches for him," he said, " he never had," ' {Pari. Hist. xiv. 60.) 
 Herein he lied in order, no doubt, to screen Johnson. Forty-four 
 years later Horace Walpole wrote {Letters, ix. 319), ' I never knew 
 Johnson wrote the speeches in the Gentkfnan' s Magazine till he 
 died.' Johnson told Boswell ' that as soon as he found that they 
 were thought genuine he determined that he would write no more 
 of them, "for he would not be accessory to the propagation of 
 falsehood."' {Ante, p. 175.) One of his Debates was translated 
 into French, German, and Spanish {Gent. Mag. xiii. 59), and, no 
 doubt, was accepted abroad as authentic. When he learnt this his 
 conscience might well have received a shock. That it did receive 
 a shock seems almost capable of proof. It was in the number of 
 the Magazine iox February 1743 — at the beginning of March, that 
 is to say — that the fact of these foreign translations was made 
 known. The last Debate that Johnson wrote was for the 22nd day 
 of February in that year. In 1740, 1741, and 1742, he had worked 
 steadily at his Debates. The beginning of 1743 found him no less 
 busy. His task suddenly came to an end. Among foreign nations 
 his speeches were read as the very words of English statesmen. 
 To the propagation of such a falsehood as this he would no longer 
 be accessory. Fifteen years later Smollett quoted them as if they 
 were genuine {History of England, iii. 73). Here, however, John- 
 son's conscience was void of offence ; for ' he had cautioned him 
 not to rely on them, for that they were not authentic' (Hawkins, 
 Life, p. 129.) 
 
 That they should generally have passed current shews how un- 
 acquainted people at that time were with real debating. Even if 
 we had not Johnson's own statement, both from external and in- 
 ternal evidence we could have known that they were for the most 
 part ' the mere coinage of his imagination.' They do not read like 
 speeches that had ever been spoken. ' None of them,' Mr. Flood 
 said, 'were at all like real debates' impost, under March 30, 1771). 
 They are commonly formed of general statements which suit any 
 one speaker just as well as any other. The scantier were the notes 
 that were given him by those who had heard the debate, the more 
 he had to draw on his imagination. But his was an imagination 
 
 which
 
 Appendix A. 58 7 
 
 which supplied him with what was general much more readily than 
 with what was particular. Had De Foe been the composer he 
 would have scattered over each speech the most ingenious and 
 probable matters of detail, but De Foe and Johnson were wide as 
 the poles asunder. Neither had Johnson any dramatic power. 
 His parliamentary speakers have scarcely more variety than the 
 characters in Irene. Unless he had been a constant frequenter of 
 the galleries of the two Houses, he could not have acquired any 
 knowledge of the style and the peculiarities of the different mem- 
 bers. Nay, even of their modes of thinking and their sentiments 
 he could have gained but the most general notions. Of debating 
 he knew nothing. It was the set speeches in Livy and the old 
 historians that he took as his models. In his orations there is very 
 little of * the tart reply ;' there is, indeed, scarcely any examination 
 of an adversary's arguments. So general are the speeches that the 
 order in which they are given might very often without inconven- 
 ience be changed. They are like a series of leading articles on 
 both sides of the question, but all written by one man. Johnson 
 is constantly shifting his character, and, like Falstaff and the 
 Prince, playing first his own part and then his opponent's. It is 
 wonderful how well he preserves his impartiality, though he does 
 ' take care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.' 
 
 He not only took the greatest liberties in his reports, but he 
 often took them openly. Thus an army bill was debated in com- 
 mittee on Dec. 10, 1740, and again the following day on the report 
 in the full House. ' As in these two debates,' he writes, ' the argu- 
 ments were the same, Mr. Gulliver has thrown them into one to 
 prevent unnecessary repetitions.' {Gent. Mag. Dec. 1742, p. 676.) 
 In each House during the winter of 1742-3 there was a debate on 
 taking the Hanoverian troops into pay. 'i'he debate in the Lords 
 was spread over five numbers of the Magazine in the following 
 summer and autumn. It was not till the spring of 1744 that the 
 turn of the Commons came, and then they were treated somewhat 
 scurvily. ' This debate,' says the reporter, who was Johnson, 'we 
 thought it necessary to contract by the omission of those argu- 
 ments which were fully discussed in the House of Hurgoes, and of 
 those speakers who produced them, lest we should disgust our 
 readers by tedious repetitions.' {Tb. .\iv. 125.) Many of these de- 
 bates have been reported somewhat briefly by Bishop (afterwards 
 Archbishop) Seeker. '1 o follow his account requires an accurate 
 
 knowledge
 
 588 Appendix A. 
 
 knowledge of the times, whereas Johnson's rhetorick for the most 
 part is easily understood even by one very ignorant of the histor}' 
 of the first two Georges. Much of it might have been spoken on 
 almost any occasion, for or against almost any minister. It is true 
 that we here and there find such a correspondence between the 
 two reports as shews that Johnson, as he has himself told us, was 
 at times furnished with some information. But, on the other hand, 
 we can no less clearly see that he was often drawing solely on his 
 imagination. Frequently there is but the slightest agreement be- 
 tween the reports given by the two men of the same speeches. Of 
 this a good instance is afforded by Lord Carteret's speech of Feb. 
 13, 1741. According to Johnson 'the Hurgo Quadrert began in 
 this manner' :— 
 
 ' As the motion which I am about to make is of the highest impor- 
 tance and of the most extensive consequences ; as it cannot but meet 
 with all the opposition which the prejudices of some and the interest 
 of others can raise against it ; as it must have the whole force of min- 
 isterial influence to encounter without any assistance but from justice 
 and reason, I hope to be excused by your Lordships for spending some 
 time in endeavouring to shew that it wants no other support ; that it 
 is not founded upon doubtful suspicions but upon uncontestable facts,' 
 and so on for eight more lines. {Gent. Mag. xi. 339.) 
 
 The Bishop's note begins as follows : — 
 
 ' Carteret. I am glad to see the House so full. The honour of 
 the nation is at stake. And the oldest man hath not known such cir- 
 cumstances as we are in. When storms rise you must see what pilots 
 you have, and take methods to make the nation easy. I shall (i) go 
 through the foreign transactions of several years; (2) The domestic; 
 (3) Prove that what I am about to propose is a parliamentary method.' 
 {Pari. Hist. xi. 1047.) 
 
 Still more striking is the difference in the two reports of a speech 
 by Lord Talbot on May 25, 1742. According to the Gent. Mag. 
 xii. 519, ' the Hurgo Toblat spoke to this effect' : — 
 
 'So high is my veneration for this great assembly that it is never 
 without the utmost efforts of resolution that I can prevail upon myself 
 to give my sentiments upon any question that is the subject of debate, 
 however strong may be my conviction, or however ardent my zeal.' 
 
 The Bishop makes him say : — 
 
 ' I rise up only to give time to others to consider how they will carry 
 on the debate.' {Pari. Plist. xii. 646.) 
 
 On
 
 Apperidix A, -go 
 
 On Feb. 13, 1741, the same Lord, being called to order for say- 
 ing that there were Lords who were influenced by a place, ex- 
 claimed, according to the Bishop, * " By the eternal G — d, I will 
 defend my cause everywhere — ." But Lords calling to order, he 
 recollected himself and made an excuse.' {Pari. Hist. xi. 1063.) 
 In the Gent. Mag. xi. 419, 'the Hurgo Toblat resumed: — "My 
 Lords, whether anything has escaped from me that deserves such 
 severe animadversions your Lordships must decide." ' 
 
 Once at least in Johnson's reports a speech is given to the wrong 
 member. In the debate on the Gin Bill on Feb. 22, 1743 {Gent. 
 Mag. xiii. 696), though the Bishop's notes show that he did not 
 speak, yet a long speech is put into his mouth. It was the Earl 
 of Sandwich who had spoken at this turn of the debate. The edi- 
 tor of the Pari. Hist, (xii, 1398), without even notifying the change, 
 coolly transfers the speech from the 'decent' Seeker', who was 
 afterwards Primate, to the grossly licentious Earl. A transference 
 such as this is, however, but of little morhent. For the most part 
 the speeches would be scarcely less lifelike, if all on one side were 
 assigned to some nameless Whig, and all on the other side to some 
 nameless Tory. It is nevertheless true that here and there 
 are to be found passages which no doubt really fell from the 
 speaker in whose mouth they are put. They mention some fact 
 or contain some allusion which could not otherwise have been 
 known by Johnson. Even if we had not Cave's word for it, we 
 misht have inferred that now and then a member was himself his 
 own reporter. Thus in the Gent. Mag. for February 1744 (p. 68) 
 we find a speech by Sir John St. Aubyn that had appeared eight 
 months earlier in the very same words in the London Magazine. 
 That Johnson copied a rival publication is most unlikely — impos- 
 sible, I might say. St. Aubyn, I conjecture, sent a copy of his 
 speech to both editors. In the Gent. Mag. for April 1743 (p, 184), 
 a speech by Lord Percival on Dec. 10, 1742, is reported apparently 
 at full length. The debate itself was not published till the spring 
 of 1744, when the reader is referred for this speech to the back 
 number in which it had already been inserted. {Il>. xiv. 123). 
 
 The London Magazine generally gave the earlier report; it was, 
 however, twitted by its rival with its inaccuracy. In one debate, 
 
 1 ' E'en in a bishop I can spy desert, 
 Seeker is decent, Rundcl has a heart.' 
 
 Pope, Epil. Sal. 1 1 . 70. 
 
 it
 
 590 Appendix A. 
 
 it was said, ' it had introduced instead of twenty speakers but six, 
 and those in a very confused manner. It had attributed to Caecil- 
 ius words remembered by the whole audience to be spoken by 
 M. Agrippa.' {Gent. Mag. xii. 512.) The .report of the debate of 
 Feb. 13, 1 741, in the London Magazine fills more than twenty-two 
 columns of the Pari. Hist. (xi. 1130) with a speech by Lord 
 Bathurst. That he did speak is shewn by Seeker (//;. p. 1062). 
 No mention of him is made, however, in the report in the Gent. 
 Mag. (xi. 339). But, on the other hand, it reports eleven speakers, 
 while the London Alagazine gives but five. Seeker shows that 
 there were nineteen. Though the London Magazine was generally 
 earlier in publishing the debates, it does not therefore follow that 
 Johnson had seen their reports when he wrote his. His may have 
 been kept back by Cave's timidity for some months even after 
 they had been set up in type. In the staleness of the debate there 
 was some safeguard against a parliamentary prosecution. 
 
 Mr. Croker maintains (Croker's Boswell, p. 44) that Johnson 
 wrote the Debates from the time (June 1738) that they assumed 
 the Lilliputian title till 1744. In this he is certainly wrong. Even 
 if we had not Johnson's own statement, from the style of the 
 earlier Debates we could have seen that they were not written by 
 him. No doubt we come across numerous traces of his work ; 
 but this we should have expected. Boswell tells us that Guthrie's 
 reports were sent to Johnson for revision {ante, p. 136). Nay, 
 even a whole speech now and then may be from his hand. It is 
 very likely that he wrote, for instance, the Debate on buttons and 
 button-holes [Gent. Mag. viii. 627) and the Debate on the registra- 
 tion of seamen {ib. xi. i). But it is absurd to attribute to him 
 passages such as the following, which in certain numbers are 
 plentiful enough long after June 1738, 'There never was any 
 measure pursued more consistent with, and more- consequential 
 of, the sense of this House ' {ib. ix. 340). ' It gave us a handle of 
 making such reprisals upon the Iberians as this Crown found the 
 sweets of {ib. x. 281). 'That was the only expression that the 
 least shadow of fault was found with ' {ib. xi. 292). 
 
 'Johnson told me himself,' says Boswell {ante, p. 174), 'that he 
 was the sole composer of the Debates for those three years only 
 ( 1 741-2-3). He was not, however, precisely exact in his state- 
 ment, which he mentioned from hasty recollection ; for it is suffi- 
 ciently evident that his composition of them began November 19, 
 
 1740,
 
 Appendix A. 591 
 
 1740, and ended February 23 [22], 1742-3.' Some difficulty is 
 caused in following BoswelTs statement by the length of time that 
 often elapsed between the debate itself and its publication. The 
 speeches that were spoken between Nov. 19, or, more strictly 
 speaking, Nov. 25, 1740, and Feb. 22, 1743, were in their publica- 
 tion spread through the Magazine from July 1741 to March 1744. 
 On Feb. 13, 1741, Lord Carteret in the House of Lords, and Mr. 
 Sandys, ' the Motion-maker V in the House of Commons, moved 
 an address to the King for the removal of Sir Robert Walpole. 
 Johnson's report of the debate in the Lords was published in the 
 Magazine for the next July and August. The year went round. 
 Walpole's ministry was overthrown, and Walpole himself was ban- 
 ished to the House of Lords. A second year went by. At length, 
 in three of the spring numbers of 1743, the debate on Sandys's 
 motion was reported. It had been published in the London Mag- 
 azine eleven months earlier. 
 
 Cave, if he was tardy, nevertheless was careful that his columns 
 should not want variety. Thus in the number for July 1743, we 
 have the middle part of the debate in the Lords on Feb. i, 1743, 
 the end of the debate in the Commons on March 9, 1742, and the 
 beginning of another in the Commons on the following March 23. 
 From the number for July 1741 to the number for March 1744 John- 
 son, as I have already said, w'as the sole composer of the Debates. 
 The irregularity with which they were given at first sight seems 
 strange ; but in it a certain method can be discovered. The pro- 
 ceedings of a House of Commons that had come to an end might, 
 as I have shown, be freely published. There had been a disso- 
 lution after the session which closed in April 1741. The publi- 
 cation of the Debates of the old parliament could at once begin, 
 and could go on freely from month to month all the year round. 
 But they would not last for ever. In 1742, in the autumn recess, 
 the time when experience had shewn that the resolution of the 
 House could be broken with the least danger, the Debates of the 
 new parliament were published. They were continued even in 
 the short session before Christmas. But the spring of 1743 saw 
 a cautious return to the reports of the old parliament. The ses- 
 sion closed on April 21, and in the May number the comparatively 
 fresh Debates began again. In one case the report was not six 
 months after date. In the beginning of 1744 lliis publication 
 ' So Smollett calls him in his History of Etigltnnt, ill. i6. 
 
 went
 
 592 
 
 Appe7idix A. 
 
 went on even in the session, but it was confined to the proceedings 
 of the previous winter. 
 
 The following table shews the order in which Johnson's Debates 
 were published : — 
 
 Gentlemati's 
 
 Magazine. 
 
 T 1 r T-T.T ^ Parliament was dissolved 
 
 July, 1741 ', 
 
 ■^ (on April 25, 1741. 
 
 Aui 
 Sept. 
 
 Oct. 
 
 Nov. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 Supplement to 1741 
 Jan. 1742 
 
 S The new Parliament met 
 \ on Dec. i. 
 
 ) 
 
 Feb. , 
 
 Mar. , 
 
 April , 
 May , 
 June , 
 
 July . 
 
 Aug. , 
 Sept. , 
 
 Oct. . 
 
 Nov. 
 
 Dec. 
 
 Supplement to 1742 
 
 Jan. 1743 
 Feb. „ 
 Mar. „ 
 April , 
 
 Debate or part 
 of debate of 
 
 Feb. 13, 1741 
 
 Feb. 13, 
 Jan. 27, 
 Mar. 2, 
 Mar. 2, 
 Mar. 2, 
 
 Dec. 9, 1740 
 
 Dec. 2, „ 
 Dec. 12, „ 
 ^ Feb. 3, 1 741 
 \ Feb. 27, „ 
 K Jan. 26, „ 
 \ April 13, „ 
 ^ Feb. 24, „ 
 ( April 13, „ 
 Jan. 27, „ 
 Feb. 24, „ 
 Nov. 25, 1740 
 < Nov. 25, „ 
 ( April 8, 1 741 
 
 ( The Session ended on July ) JP ' ' " 
 
 ^" (Dec. 4, » 
 
 Dec. 4, 
 
 S Dec. 4, 
 
 I Dec. 8, „ 
 
 ^ Dec. 8. „ 
 ( May 25, 1742 
 
 May 25, „ 
 
 \ May 25, „ 
 ( June I, „ 
 Dec. 10, 1740 
 une I, 1742 
 
 Dec. 10, 1740 
 
 Feb. 13, 1 741 
 
 Feb. 13, „ 
 
 The Session ended on April 21 Feb. 13, „ 
 
 Gentlemati s 
 
 The Session opened on i 
 Nov. 16. I 

 
 Appendix A. 593 
 
 Gentleman's , Debate or part 
 
 Magazine. of debate of 
 
 May 1743 ,< ^^a'"- 9. 1742 
 
 June 
 
 { Nov. 16, 
 
 \ Mar. 9, 
 
 \ Feb. I, 1743 
 
 ( Mar. 9, 1742 
 July „ \ Mar. 23, „ 
 
 I Feb. I, 1743 
 
 Aug. „ Feb. I, 
 
 Sept. „ Feb. i, 
 
 Oct Feb. I. „ 
 
 Nov. ,, ...... Feb. 22, ., 
 
 Dec. „ The Session opened on Dec. i Feb. 22, „ 
 Supplement to 1743 .... Feb. 22, ,, 
 
 Jan. 1744 Feb. 22, „ 
 
 P , S Dec. 10. 1742 
 
 ( Feb. 22. 1743 
 Mar. „ Dec. 10, 1742 
 
 During the rest of 1744 the debates were given in the old form, 
 and in a style that is a close imitation of Johnson's. Most likely 
 they were composed by Hawkesworth {antc^ p. 293). In 1745 they 
 were fewer in number, and in 1746 the reports of the Senate of 
 Lilliputia with its Hurgoes and Clinabs passed away for ever. 
 They had begun, to quote the words of the Preface to the Maga- 
 zhieiox \lAt1i at a time when 'a determined spirit of opposition in 
 the national assemblies communicated itself to almost every indi- 
 vidual, multiplied and invigorated periodical papers, and rendered 
 politics the chief, if not the only object, of curiosity.' They are a 
 monument to the greatness of Walpole, and to the genius of John- 
 son. Had that statesman not been overthrown, the people would 
 have called for these reports even though Johnson had refused to 
 write them. Had Johnson still remained the reporter, even though 
 Walpole no longer swayed the Senate of the Lilliputians, the 
 speeches of that tumultuous body would still have been read. For 
 though they are not debates, yet they have a vast vigour and a great 
 fund of wisdom of their own. 
 I.-38 
 
 APPENDIX
 
 594 Appendix B. 
 
 APPENDIX B. 
 
 Johnson's Letters to his Mother and Miss Porter in 1759. 
 
 {Page 394.) 
 
 Malone published seven of the following letters in the fourth 
 edition, and Mr. Croker the rest. 
 
 'To Mrs. Johnson in Lichfield. 
 
 ' Honoured Madam, 
 
 ' The account which Miss [Porter] gives me of your health pierces 
 my heart. God comfort and preserve you and save you, for the sake 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 ' I would have Miss read to you from time to time the Passion of 
 our Saviour, and sometimes the sentences in the Communion Service, 
 beginning " Come tifito me, all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and 
 I willgive yoii rest." 
 
 ' I have just now read a physical book, which inclines me to think 
 that a strong infusion of the bark would do you good. Do, dear 
 mother, try it. 
 
 ' Pray, send me your blessing, and forgive all that I have done amiss 
 to you. And whatever you would have done, and what debts you 
 would have paid first, or any thing else that you would direct, let Miss 
 put it down ; I shall endeavour to obey you. 
 
 ' I have got twelve guineas ' to send you, but unhappily am at a loss 
 how to send it to-night. If I cannot send it to-night, it will come by 
 the next post. 
 
 ' Pray, do not omit any thing mentioned in this letter : God bless 
 
 you for ever and ever. 
 
 ' I am your dutiful son, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'Jan. 13, 1758'.' 
 
 'To Miss Porter, at Mrs. Johnson's, in Lichfield. 
 •My dear Miss, 
 
 ' I think myself obliged to you beyond all expression of gratitude 
 for your care of my dear mother. God grant it may not be without 
 
 ' Six of these twelve guineas Johnson appears to have borrowed from Mr. 
 Allen, the printer. See Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 366 n. Malone. 
 
 ^ Written by mistake for 1759. On the outside of the letter of the 13th was 
 written by another hand — ' Pray acknowledge the receipt of this by return of 
 post, without fail.' Malone. 
 
 success.
 
 Appendix B. 595 
 
 success. Tell Kitty ' that I shall never forget her tenderness for her 
 mistress. Whatever you can do, continue to do. My heart is very full. 
 'I hope you received twelve guineas on Monday. I found a way 
 of sending them by means of the postmaster, after I had written my 
 letter, and hope they came safe. 1 will send you more in a few days. 
 God bless you all. 
 
 ' I am. my dear, 
 
 ■ Your most obliged 
 
 ' And most humble servant, 
 
 • SA.\r. Johnson.' 
 •Jan. 16, 1759. 
 'Over the leaf is a letter to my mother.' 
 
 ' Dear honoured Mother, 
 
 'Your weakness afflicts me beyond what I am willing to commu- 
 nicate to you. I do not think you unfit to face death, but I know 
 not how to bear the thought of losing you. Endeavour to do all you 
 [can] for yourself. Eat as much as you can. 
 
 ' I pray often for you ; do you pray for me. I have nothing to add 
 to my last letter. 
 
 ' I am, dear, dear mother, 
 
 ' Your dutiful son, 
 
 ' Sam. J0HN.SON.' 
 'Jan. 16, 1759.' 
 
 'To Mrs. Johnson, IN Lichfield. 
 ' Dear honoured Mother, 
 
 'I fear you are too ill for long letters; therefore I will only tell 
 you, you have from me all the regard that can possibly subsist in the 
 heart. I pray God to bless you for evermore, for Jesus Christ's sake. 
 Amen. 
 
 ' Let Miss write to me every post, however short. 
 
 ' I am, dear mother, 
 
 * Your dutiful son, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'Jan. 18, 1759.' 
 
 'To Miss Porter, at Mrs. Johnson'.s, in Lichkield. 
 ' Dear Miss, 
 
 ' I will, if it be possible, come down to you. God grant I may yet 
 [find] my dear mother breathing and sensible. Do not tell her, lest I 
 disappoint her. If I miss to write next post, I am on the road. 
 
 ' I am, my dearest Miss, 
 
 'Your most humble servant, 
 
 ' Sa.m. Johnson.' 
 'Jan. 20, 1759.' 
 
 > Catherine Chambers, Mrs. Johnson's maid-servant. Slie died in October, 
 1767. Malone. .Scc/£7j-A ii- 49- 
 
 On
 
 596 Appendix B. 
 
 On the other side, 
 'Dear honoured Mother', 
 
 ' Neither your condition nor your character make it fit for me to 
 say much. You have been the best mother, and I beheve the best 
 woman in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and 
 beg forgiveness of all that I have done ill, and all that I have omitted 
 to do well. God'grant you his Holy Spirit, and receive you to ever- 
 lasting happiness, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Lord Jesus receive 
 your spirit. Amen. 
 
 ' I am, dear, dear mother, 
 
 ' Your dutiful son, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'Jan. 20, 1759.' 
 
 'To Miss Porter in Lichfield. 
 
 ' You will conceive my sorrow for the loss of my mother, of the 
 best mother. If She were to live again surely I should behave better 
 to her. But she is happy, and what is past is nothing to her; and for 
 me, since I cannot repair my faults to her, I hope repentance will 
 efface them. I return you and all those that have been good to 
 her my sincerest thanks, and pray God to repay you all with infinite 
 advantage. Write to me, and comfort me, dear child. I shall be 
 glad likewise, if Kitty will write to me. I shall send a bill of twenty 
 pounds in a few days, which I thought to have brought to my moth- 
 er ; but God suffered it not. I have not power or composure to say 
 much more. God bless you, and bless us all. 
 ' I am, dear Miss, 
 
 ' Your affectionate humble servant, 
 
 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 'Jan. 23, 1759-.' 
 
 'To Miss Porter. 
 ( TJie begimiiiig is torn and lost.] 
 
 ' You will forgive me if I am not yet so composed as to give any 
 directions about any thing. But you are wiser and better than I, and 
 I shall be pleased with all that you shall do. It is not of any use for 
 me now to come down ; nor can I bear the place. If you want any 
 
 • Tills letter was written on the second leaf of the preceding, addressed to 
 Miss Porter. Malone. 
 
 * Mrs. Johnson probably died on the 20th or 2ist January, and was buried on 
 the day this letter was written. Malone. On the day on which his mother was 
 buried Johnson composed a prayer, as being ' now about to return to the com- 
 mon comforts and business of the world.' Pr. and AFed. p. 38. After his wife's 
 death he had allowed forty days to pass before his ' return to life.' See ante, p. 271, 
 note 2. 
 
 directions,
 
 Appeiidix B. 597 
 
 directions, Mr. Howard * will advise you. The twenty pounds I could 
 
 not get a bill for to-night, but will send it on Saturday. 
 
 ' I am, my dear, your affectionate servant. 
 
 'S.AM. Johnson.' 
 'Jan. 25. 1759.' 
 
 'To Miss Porter. 
 
 ' Dear Miss, 
 
 ' I have no reason to forbear writing, but that it makes my heart 
 heavy, and I had nothing particular to say which might not be de- 
 layed to the next post ; but had no thoughts of ceasing to correspond 
 with my dear Lucy, the only person now left in the world with whom 
 I think myself connected. There needed not my dear mother's de- 
 sire, for every heart must lean to somebody, and I have nobody but 
 you ; in whom I put all my little affairs with too much confidence to 
 desire you to keep receipts, as you prudently proposed. 
 
 ' If you and Kitty will keep the house, I think I shall like it best. 
 Kitty may carry on the trade for herself, keeping her own stock apart, 
 and laying aside any money that she receives for any of the goods 
 which her good mistress has left behind her. I do not sec, if this 
 scheme be followed, any need of appraising the books. My mother's 
 debts, dear mother, I suppose I may pay with little difficulty; and the 
 little trade may go silently forward. I fancy Kitty can do nothing 
 better ; and I shall not want to put her out of a house, where she has 
 lived so long, and with so much virtue. I am very sorry that she is 
 ill, and earnestly hope that she will .soon recover; let her know that I 
 have the highest value for her, and would do any thing for her ad- 
 vantage. Let her think of this proposal. I do not see any likelier 
 method by which she may pass the remaining part of her life in 
 quietness and competence. 
 
 'You must have what part of the house you please, while you arc 
 inclined to stay in it ; but I flatter myself with the hope that you and 
 I shall some time pass our days together. I am very solitary and 
 comfortless, but will not invite you to come hitiier till I can hope of 
 making you live here so as not to dislike your situation. Pray, my 
 dearest, write to me as often as you can. 
 ' I am, dear Madam, 
 
 'Your affectionate humble servant, 
 
 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 
 ' Feb. 6, 1759.' 
 
 •To Miss Portkr. 
 'Dear Madam, 
 
 ' I thought your last letter long in coming; and did not require 
 or expect such an inventory of little things as you have sent me. I 
 could have taken your word for a matter of much greater value. 1 
 
 > See aiitt\ p. 94. 
 
 am
 
 598 Appendix B. 
 
 am glad that Kitty is better ; let her be paid first, as my dear, dear 
 mother ordered, and then let me know at once the sum necessary to 
 discharge her other debts, and I will find it you very soon. 
 
 ' I beg, my dear, that you would act for me without the least scru- 
 ple, for I can repose myself very confidently upon your prudence, and 
 hope we shall never have reason to love each other less. I shall take 
 it very kindly if you make it a rule to write to me once at least every 
 week, for I am now very desolate, and am loth to be universally for- 
 gotten. 
 
 ' I am, dear sweet, 
 
 ' Your affectionate servant, 
 
 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 •March i, i758[9j.' 
 
 'To Miss Porter. 
 'Dear Madam, 
 
 ' I beg your pardon for having so long omitted to write. One 
 thing or other has put me oft'. I have this day moved my things and 
 you are now to direct to me at Staple Inn, London. I hope, my dear, 
 you are well, and Kitty mends. I wish her success in her trade. I 
 am going to publish a little story book {^Rassclas], which I will send 
 you when it is out. Write to me, my dearest girl, for I am always 
 glad to hear from you. 
 
 ' I am, my dear, your humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'March 23, 1759.' 
 
 'To Miss Porter. 
 ' Dear Madam, 
 
 ' I am almost ashamed to tell you that all your letters came safe, 
 and that I have been always very well, but hindered, I hardly know 
 how, from writing. I sent, last week, some of my works, one for you, 
 one for your aunt Hunter, who was with my poor dear mother when 
 she died, one for Mr. Howard, and one for Kitty. 
 
 ' I beg you, my dear, to write often to me, and tell me how you like 
 
 my little book. 
 
 ' I am, dear love, your alTectionate humble servant, 
 
 ' Sam. Johnson.' 
 'May 10, 1759." 
 
 APPENDIX
 
 Appendix C. 599 
 
 APPENDIX C. 
 
 Johnson at Cambridge. 
 
 (I^age 563.) 
 
 The following is the full extract of Dr. Sharp's letter giving an 
 account of Johnson's visit to Cambridge in 1765 : — 
 
 ' Camb. Mar. i, 1765. 
 ' As to Johnson, j-^ou will be surprised to hear that I have had 
 him in the chair in which I am now writing. He has ascended my 
 aerial citadel. ' He came down on a Saturday evening, with a Mr. 
 Beauclerk, who has a friend at Trinity. Caliban, you may be sure, 
 was not roused from his lair before next day noon, and his breakfast 
 probably kept him till night. I saw nothing of him, nor was he heard 
 of by any one, till Monday afternoon, when I was sent for home to 
 two gentlemen unknown. In conversation I made a strange /^n/'-i-^^.y 
 about Burnaby Greene's poem, in which Johnson is drawn at full 
 length'. He drank his large potations of tea with me, interrupted 
 by many an indignant contradiction, and many a noble sentiment. 
 He had on a better wig than usual, but, one whose curls were not, 
 like Sir Cloudesly's", formed for 'eternal buckled' Our conversation 
 was chiefly on books, you may be sure. He was much pleased with a 
 small Milton of mine, published in the author's lifetime, and with the 
 Greek epigram on his own effigy, of its being the picture, not of him. 
 but of a bad painter*. There are many manuscript stanzas, for aught 
 I know, in Milton's own handwriting, and several interlined hints 
 and fragments. We were puzzled about one of the sonnets, which 
 
 ' Burnaby Greene had just published The Laiircat, a poem, in which Johnson 
 is abused. It is in the February list of books in the Gent. Mog. for 1765. 
 
 ^ Sir Cloudesly Shovel's monument is thus mentioned by Addison in The 
 Spectator, No. 26 : — ' It has very often given me great offence ; instead of the 
 brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that 
 plain gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by tlie figure of a beau, dressed 
 in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of 
 state.' 
 
 ^ 'That live-long wig, which Gorgon's self might own. 
 
 Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.' 
 
 Pope's A/oral Essays, iii. 295- 
 
 * Milton's Epigram is in his Sylvannn Liber, and is entitled //; EJ/igiei ejus 
 Sculptor em. 
 
 we
 
 6oo Appendix D. 
 
 we thought was not to be found in Newton's edition ', and differed 
 from all the printed ones. But Johnson cried, "No, no!" repeated 
 the whole sonnet instantly, nii-iiiori/er, and shewed it us in Newton's 
 book. After which he learnedly harangued on sonnet-writing, and 
 its different numbers. He tells me he will come hither again quickly, 
 and is promised "an habitation in Emanuel College''." He went back 
 to town next morning; but as it began to be known that he was in 
 the university, several persons got into his company the last evening 
 at Trinity, where, about twelve, he began to be very great ; stripped 
 poor Mrs. Macaulay to the very skin, then gave her for his toast, and 
 drank her in two bumpers.' {Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 173.) 
 
 APPENDIX D. 
 
 Johnson's Letter to Dr. Leland. 
 
 {Page 566.) 
 
 'To THE Rev. Dr. Leland. 
 'Sir, 
 
 ' Among the names subscribed to the degree which I have had 
 the honour of receiving from the university of Dublin, I find none of 
 which I have any personal knowledge but those of Dr. Andrews and 
 yourself. 
 
 ' Men can be estimated by those who know them not, only as they 
 are represented by those who know them ; and therefore I flatter 
 myself that I owe much of the pleasure which this distinction gives 
 me to your concurrence with Dr. Andrews in recommending me to 
 the learned society. 
 
 ' Having desired the Provost to return my general thanks to the 
 University, I beg that you, sir, will accept my particular and imme- 
 diate acknowledgements. 
 
 ' I am. Sir, 
 ' Your most obedient and most humble servant, 
 
 'Sam. Johnson.' 
 ' Johnson's-court, Fleet-street, 
 London, Oct. 17, 1765.' 
 
 ' Johnson's acquaintance, Bishop Newton (/(v/, June 3, 1784), published an 
 edition of Milton. 
 
 ^ It was no doubt by the Master of Emanuel College, his friend Dr. Farmer 
 {ante, p. 426), that Johnson was promised 'an habitation' there. 
 
 APPENDLX
 
 Appc7idix E, 60 r 
 
 APPENDIX E. 
 
 Johnson's ' Engaging in Politicks with H n. 
 
 {Page 566.) 
 
 In a little volume entitled Parliamentary Logiek, by the Right 
 Hon. \V. G, Hamilton, published in 180S, twelve years after the 
 author's death, is included Considerations on Corn, by Dr. Johnson 
 {Works, \. ^21). It was written, says Hamilton's editor, in No- 
 vember 1766. A dearth had caused riots. 'Those who want the 
 supports of life,' Johnson wrote, ' will seize them wherever they 
 can be found.' {lb. p. 322.) He supported in this tract the 
 bounty for exporting corn. If more than a year after he had en- 
 gaged in politics with Mi". Hamilton nothing had been produced 
 but this short tract, the engagement was not of much importance. 
 But there was, I suspect, much more in it. Indeed, the editor 
 says {Preface, p. ix.) that 'Johnson had entered into some engage- 
 ment with Mr. Hamilton, occasionally to furnish him with his sen- 
 timents on the great political topicks that should be considered in 
 Parliament.' Mr. Croker draws attention to a passage in John- 
 son's letter to Miss Porter of Jan. 14, 1766 (Croker's Boswell, p. 
 173), in which he says : ' I cannot well come [to Lichfield] during 
 the session of parliament.' In the spring of this same year Burke 
 had broken with Hamilton, in whose service he had been. 'The 
 occasion of our difference,' he wrote, 'was not any act whatsoever 
 on my part ; it was entirely upon his, by a voluntary but most in- 
 solent and intolerable demand, amounting to no less than a claim 
 of servitude during the whole course of my life, without leaving to 
 me at any time a power either of getting forward with honour, or 
 of retiring with tranquillity' (Burke's Corres. i. 77). It seems to 
 me highly probable that Hamilton, in consequence of his having 
 just lost, as I have shewn, Burke's services, sought Johnson's aid. 
 He had taken Burke 'as a companion in his studies.' {lb. p. 48.) 
 ' Six of the best years of my life,' wrote Burke, ' he took me from 
 every pursuit of literary reputation or of improvement of my fort- 
 une. In that time he made his own fortune (a very great one.)' 
 {lb. p. 67.) Burke had been recommended to Hamilton by Dr. 
 Warton. On losing him Hamilton, on Fob. 12, 1765, wrote to 
 
 Warton,
 
 )02 Appendix E. 
 
 VVavton, giving a false account of his separation with Burke, and 
 asking him to recommend some one to fill his place — some one 
 'who, in addition to a taste and an understanding of ancient 
 authors, and what generally passes under the name of scholarship, 
 has likewise a share of modern knowledge, and has applied him- 
 self in some degree to the study of the law.' By way of payment 
 he offers at once ' an income, which would neither be insufficient 
 for him as a man of letters, or disreputable to him as a gentleman,' 
 and hereafter ' a situation ' — a post, that is to say, under govern- 
 ment. (Wooll's Warton, i. 299.) Warton recommended Cham- 
 bers. Chambers does not seem to have accepted the post, for we 
 find him staying on at Oxford {post, ii. 28, 52). Johnson had all 
 the knowledge that Hamilton required, except that of law. It is 
 this very study that we find him at this very time entering upon. 
 All this shows that for some time and to some extent an engage- 
 ment was formed between him and Hamilton. Boswell, writing to 
 Malone on Feb. 25, 1791, while The Life of Johnson was going 
 through the press, says : — 
 
 ' I shall have more cancels. That -dcrvous mortal W. G. H. is not 
 satisfied with my report of some particulars luhich I wrote down from 
 his own mouth, and is so much agitated that Courtenay has persuaded 
 me to allow a new edition of them by H. himself to be made at H.'s 
 expense.' 
 
 (Croker's Boswell, p. 829). This would seem to show that there 
 was something that Hamilton wished to conceal. Horace Walpole 
 {Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iii. 402) does not give him a 
 character for truthfulness. He writes on one occasion :— ' Hamil- 
 ton denied it, but his truth was not renowned.' Miss Burney, who 
 met Hamilton fourteen years after this, thus describes him : — ' This 
 ISIr. Hamilton is extremely tall and handsome : has an air of 
 haughty and fashionable superiority ; is intelligent, dry, sarcastic, 
 and clever. I should have received much pleasure from his con- 
 versational powers, had I not previously been prejudiced against 
 him, by hearing that he is infinitely artful, double, and crafty." 
 {Mmc. D'Arblafs Diary, i. 293.) 
 
 APPENDIX
 
 Appendix F. 603 
 
 APPENDIX F. 
 
 Johnson's First Acquaintance with the Thrales 
 AND HIS Serious Illness. 
 
 {Page 567.) 
 
 Johnson {Pr. and Med. p. 191) writes : — * My first knowledge of 
 Thrale was in 1765.' In a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he says : — ' Vou 
 were but fave-and-twenty when I knew you first." {Piozzi Lct/crs, 
 i. 284.) As she was born on Jan. \y, 1741, this would place their 
 introduction in 1766. In another letter, written on July 8, 1784, 
 he talks of her 'kindness which soothed twenty years of a life 
 radically wretched.' {Il>. ii. 376.) Perhaps, however, he here spoke 
 in round numbers. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 125) says they first met 
 in 1764. Mr. Thrale, she writes, sought an excuse for inviting 
 him. 'The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse {post, ii. 146), a shoe- 
 maker, whose verses were at that time the subject of common dis- 
 course, soon afforded a "pretence." ' There is a notice of Wood- 
 house in the Gent. Mag. for June 1764 (p. 289). Johnson, she 
 says, dined with them every Thursday through the winter of 
 1764-5, and in the autumn of 1765 followed them to Brighton. In 
 the Piozzi Letters (i. i) there is a letter of his, dated Aug. 13, 1765, 
 in which he speaks of his intention to join them there. 
 
 'From that time,' she writes, 'liis visits grew more frequent till, in 
 the year 1766, his health, which he had always complained of, grew so 
 exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of his room in the court 
 he inhabited for ma.r\y "weeks together, I think months. Mr. Thrale's 
 attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him, that he 
 often lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which, lie 
 said, was nearly distracted : and though he charged us to make him 
 odd solemn promises of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when we 
 waited on him one morning, and heard him, in the most pathetic 
 terms, beg the prayers of Dr. Dclap [the Rector of Lewcs| who had 
 left him as we came in, I felt excessively affected with grief, and well 
 remember my husband involuntarily lifted up one hand to shut his 
 mouth, from provocation at hearing a man so widely proclaim what 
 he could at last persuade no one to believe; and what, if true, would 
 haV'C been so unfit to reveal. Mr. Thrale went away soon after, leav- 
 ing me with him, and bidding me prevail on iiim to quit his close 
 habitation in the court, and come with us to Strcatham, where 1 
 
 unclcrtook
 
 6o4 Appe7idix F. 
 
 undertook the care of his health, and had the honour and happiness 
 of contributing to its restoration.' 
 
 It is not possible to reconcile the contradiction in dates between 
 Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi, nor is it easy to fix the time of this ill- 
 ness. That before February 1766, he had had an illness so seri- 
 ous as to lead him altogether to abstain from wine is beyond a 
 doubt. Boswell, on his return to England in that month, heard it 
 from his own lips {post, if. 9). That this illness must have at- 
 tacked him after March i, 1765, when he visited Cambridge, is 
 also clear; for at that time he was still drinking wine {atite. Ap- 
 pendix C). That he was unusually depressed in the spring of this 
 year is shewn by his entry at Easter {ante, p. 564). From his visit 
 to Dr. Percy in the summer of 1764 {ante, p. 562) to the autumn of 
 1765, we have very little information about him. For more than 
 two years he did not write to Boswell {post, ii. i). Dr. Adams 
 {a7ite, p. 559) describes the same kind of attack as Mrs. Piozzi. 
 Its date is not given. Boswell, after quoting an entry made on 
 Johnson's birthday, Sept. 18, 1764, says 'about this time he was 
 afiflicted ' with the illness Dr. Adams describes. From Mrs. Piozzi, 
 from Johnson's account to Boswell, and from Dr. Adams we learn 
 of a serious illness. Was there more than one ? If there was only 
 one, then Boswell is wrong in placing it before March i, 1765, 
 when Johnson was still a wine-drinker, and Mrs. Piozzi is wrong 
 in placing it after February 1766, when he had become an ab- 
 stainer. Johnson certainly stayed at Streatham from before Mid- 
 summer to October in 1766 {post, ii. 28, and Pr. and Med. p, 71), 
 and this fact lends support to Mrs. Piozzi's statement. But, on 
 the other hand, his meetings with Boswell in February of that year, 
 and his letters to Langton of March 9 and May 10 {post, ii. 18, 19), 
 shew a not unhappy frame of mind. Boswell, in his Hebrides (Oct. 
 16, 1773), speaks of Johnson's illness in 1766. If it was in 1766 
 that he was ill, it must have been after May 10 and before Mid- 
 summer-day, and this period is almost too brief for Mrs. Piozzi's 
 account. It is a curious coincidence that Cowper was introduced 
 to the Unwins in the same year in which Johnson, according to his 
 own account, had his first knowledge of the Thrales. (Southey's 
 Cowpei\ i. 171.) 
 
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