JOHNSONIAN MISCELLANIES

G. BIRKBECK HILL

VOL II.

HENRY FROWDE, M.A.

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE AMEN CORNER, E.C.

JOHNSONIAN MISCELLANIES

ARRANGED AND EDITED

BY

GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL, D.C.L., LL.D.

HONORARY FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD

EDITOR OF ' BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON ' AND OF ' THE LETTERS OF SAMUEL JOHNSON '

IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

MDCCCXCVII

Ojforfc

PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

BY HORACE HART, M.A. PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

v. x

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Apophthegms, &c, from Hawkins's Edition of Johnson's Works . . I Extracts from James Boswell's Letters to Edmond Malone . . .21 Anecdotes from the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell's Diary of a Visit to

England in 1775 39

Anecdotes from Pennington's Memoirs of Mrs. Carter .... 58

Anecdotes from Joseph Cradock's Memoirs 61

Anecdotes from Richard Cumberland's Memoirs 72

Extracts from Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson . . . -79

Anecdotes from Miss Hawkins's Memoirs 139

Narrative by John Hoole of Johnson's end . . . . . . 145

Anecdotes from the Life of Johnson published by Kearsley . . . 161

Anecdotes by Lady Knight 171

Anecdotes from Hannah More's Memoirs 177

Anecdotes by Bishop Percy 208

Sir Joshua Reynolds on Johnson's Character 219

Sir Joshua Reynolds on Johnson's Influence 229

Sir Joshua Reynolds's Two Dialogues in Imitation of Johnson's Style of Conversation —

Dialogue I ' . . 232

Dialogue II 237

Recollections of Dr. Johnson by Miss Reynolds 250

Anecdotes by William Seward 301

Anecdotes by George Steevens . . . . . . . .312

vi Contents.

PAGE

Anecdotes from the Rev. Percival Stockdale's Memoirs . . . 330

A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Samuel Johnson by Thomas Tyers . 335

Narrative of the Last Week of Dr. Johnson's Life by the Right Hon.

William Windham 382

MINOR ANECDOTES—

By Robert Barclay "389

By H. D. Best 390

By Sir Brooke Boothby 391

By the Rev. W. Cole . 392

By William Cooke . 393

From the European Magazine 394

By Richard Green 397

By T. Green -399

By Ozias Humphry 400

By Dr. Lettsom 402

From Croker's Edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson . . . 403

By Dr. John Moore 408

By John Nichols 409

By the Rev. Mr. Parker 413

By William Weller Pepys 416

By the Rev. Hastings Robinson 417

By Mrs. Rose 419

From Shaw's History of Staffordshire 422

Adam Smith on Dr. Johnson 423

Dugald Stewart on Boswell's Anecdotes 425

From Gilbert Stuart's History of the Rise of the Arts of Design in

the United States 425

By the Rev. Richard Warner 426

By Mr. Wickins 427

Styan Thirlby, by Dr. Johnson . . . . . . . 430

LETTERS OF DR. JOHNSON—

To Samuel Richardson -435

To Samuel Richardson 436

To Samuel Richardson . . . . . . . . 438

To Dr. George Hay 439

To the Rev. Thomas Percy 440

Contents. vii

PAGE

To the Rev. Thomas Percy . .441

To the Rev. Edward Lye 441

To William Strahan 442

To James Macpherson 446

To— . . . .447

To the Rev. Dr. Taylor 447

To Miss Reynolds 448

To Miss Reynolds . . 449

To Miss Reynolds 450

To Miss Porter 450

To the Rev. Mr. Allen 451

To Miss Thrale 451

To the Rev. Dr. Taylor 452

To the Rev. James Compton 453

To Miss Reynolds 453

To Francesco Sastres 454

To Griffith Jones 454

To Miss Reynolds (enclosing a letter to be sent in her name to

Sir Joshua Reynolds) 455

Sir Joshua Reynolds to Miss Reynolds . . . . . . . 456

James Boswell to Sir Joshua Reynolds 457

James Boswell to Lord Thurlow 459

Sir Joshua Reynolds to James Boswell 460

Dr. Adams to Dr. Scott . 460

ADDENDA 463

INDEX , 469

DICTA PHILOSOPHI . 511

APOPHTHEGMS, SENTIMENTS OPINIONS, & OCCASIONAL REFLECTIONS1

DR. JOHNSON used to say, that where secrecy or mystery began, vice or roguery was not far off; and that he leads in general an ill life, who stands in fear of no man's observation 2.

When a friend of his who had not been very lucky in his first wife, married a second, he said — Alas ! another instance of the triumph of hope over experience 3.

Of Sheridan's writings on Elocution, he said, they were a continual renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments 4.

1 From the eleventh volume of Sir John Hawkins's edition of Johnson's

Works (pp. 195-216), published in 1787-9, in 13 vols. 8vo. Many of the 'Apophthegms,' £c., there in cluded, which had been copied from Steevens's Collection in the Euro pean Magazine for January, 1875, will be found post, under Anecdotes by George Steevens. One or two, moreover, which in like manner were borrowed from Seward, will be found post, under his name.

2 See ante, i. 326, for his dislike of * mysteriousness in trifles,' and post, p. 8, for ' the vices of retire ment.3 Boswell, recounting how Johnson in the Oxford post-coach * talked without reserve of the state of his affairs,' continues : — * Indeed his

VOL. II.

openness with people at a first inter view was remarkable.' Life, iv. 284. See/0j/, in Seward's Anecdotes.

3 Life, ii. 128. The Lord Chan cellor Audley, in his speech in par liament on Henry VIII's troubles in his two first marriages, said : — ' What man of middle condition would not this deter from marrying a third time ? Yet this our most excellent prince again condescends to contract matrimony.' Part. Hist. i. 528.

4 For Johnson's contempt of Sheri dan's oratory see Life, i. 453, iv.

222.

In the Life, ii. 122, this anecdote is thus recorded on the authority of Dr. Maxwell : — * Of a certain player he remarked, that his conversation usually threatened and announced B He

Apophthegms, Sentiments

He 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. He would say, such books form the man of general and easy reading z.

He was a great friend to books like the French E sprits d'un tel; for example, Beauties of Watts 2, &c., &c., at which, said he, a man will often look and be tempted to go on, when he would have been frightened at books of a larger size and of a more erudite appearance.

C Being once asked if he ever embellished a story — No, said A! he; a story is to lead either to the knowledge of a fact or f character, and is good for nothing if it be not strictly and L. literally true3.

Round numbers, said he, are always false 4. Watts's Improvement of the Mind was a very favourite book with him 5 ; he used to recommend it, as he also did Le Diction- AbbeL'Avocat6.

he distinguished himself by the vio lence of his attacks, first on Washing ton and John Adams, and next on Jefferson. Diet, of Nat. Biog. It was a long step from The Beauties of Johnson.

Lamb wrote on Feb. 26, 1808: — 'We have Specimens of Ancient Eng lish Poets, Specimens of Modern English Poets, Specimens of Ancient English Prose Writers without end. They used to be called Beauties. You have seen Beauties of Shake speare; so have many people that never saw any beauties in Shake speare.' Ainger's Letters of Lamb, i. 244.

3 Ante, i. 225.

4 Life, iii. 226, n. 4.

5 In his Life of Watts he says :— ' Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his Improvement of the Mind? Works, viii. 385.

6 This work is not in the British Museum.

He

more than it performed ; that he fed you with a continual renovation of hope, to end in a constant succes sion of disappointment.'

According to the Edinburgh Cou- rant, June 16, 1792, this player was Macklin. Foote accused him ' of reading in the morning for the pur pose of shewing off at night.' Cooke's Memoirs of Macklin, p. 246. See post, in Steevens's Anecdotes.

1 'Johnson advised me to read just as inclination prompted me, which alone, he said, would do me any good ; for I had better go into company than read a set task.' Let ters of Boswell, p. 28.

2 In 1781 The Beauties of Johnson was published. Life,'\v. 148. Accord ing to Dr. Anderson (Life of Johnson, ed. 1815, p. 231) the selection was made by Thomson Callender, the nephew of the poet Thomson, who eleven years later fled to America to escape a prosecution for his Political Progress of Great B?itain. There

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. 3

He has been accused of treating Lord Lyttelton roughly in his life of him ; he assured a friend, however, that he kept back a very ridiculous anecdote of him, relative to a question he put to a great divine of his time *.

Johnson's account of Lord Lyttelton's envy to Shenstone for his improvements in his grounds, &c. 8, was confirmed by an in genious writer. Spence was in the house for a fortnight with the Lytteltons, before they offered to shew him Shenstone's place.

When accused of mentioning ridiculous anecdotes in the lives of the poets, he said, he should not have been an exact bio grapher if he had omitted them. The business of such a one, ( said he, is to give a complete account of the person whose life is writing, and to discriminate him from all other persons any peculiarities of character or sentiment he may happen to have 3.

He spoke Latin with great fluency and elegance. He said, indeed, he had taken great pains about it 4.

A very famous schoolmaster said, he had rather take Johnson's

1 'Dr. Johnson, in \\\<=>Lifeof Lyttel- of a walk to detect a deception ; in to;*, suppressed an anecdote which juries of which Shenstone would would have made his memory ridi- heavily complain.' Works, viii. 410. culous. He was a man rather melan- 3 Malone, recording a conversa- choly in his disposition, and used to tion with Johnson about the account declare to his friends, that when he he gave of Addison's reclaiming his went to Vauxhall he always supposed loan to Steele by an execution, con- pleasure to be in the next box to his tinues : — ' I then mentioned to him — at least, that he himself was so that some people thought that Mr. unhappily situated as always to be Addison's character was so pure, that in the wrong box for it.' European the fact, though trtte, ought to have Magazine, 1798, p. 376. been suppressed. He saw no reason

For the Life of Lyttelton see Life, for this. " If nothing but the bright

iv. 57, 64. side of characters should be shewn,

2 * For a while the inhabitants of we should sit down in despondency,

Hagley affected to tell their ac- and think it utterly impossible to

quaintance of the little fellow that imitate them in any thing."' Life,

was trying to make himself admired; iv. 53. ' M'Leod asked, if it was not

but when by degrees the Leasowes wrong in Orrery to expose the defects

forced themselves into notice, they of a man with whom he lived in

took care to defeat the curiosity intimacy. JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir,

which they could not suppress, by after the man is dead ; for then it is

conducting their visitants perversely done historically." ' Ib. v. 238.

to inconvenient points of view, and See also ib. i. 9, 30, 32.

introducing them at the wrong end 4 Ib. ii. 125, 404. Ante, \. 417.

B 2 opinion

Apophthegms, Sentiments

opinion about any Latin composition, than that of any other person in England.

Dr. Sumner, of Harrow x, used to tell this story of Johnson : they were dining one day, with many other persons, at Mrs. Macaulay's ; she had talked a long time at dinner about the natural equality of mankind ; Johnson, when she had finished her harangue, rose up from the table, and with great solemnity of countenance, and a bow to the ground, said to the servant, who was waiting behind his chair, Mr. John, pray be seated in my place, and permit me to wait upon you in my turn : your mistress says, you hear, that we are all equal 2.

When some one was lamenting Foote's unlucky fate in being kicked in Dublin, Johnson said he was glad of it ; he is rising in the world, said he : when he was in England, no one thought it worth while to kick him 3.

He was much pleased with the following repartee: Fiat experimental* in corpore vili, said a French physician to his colleague, in speaking of the disorder of a poor man that understood Latin, and who was brought into an hospital ; corpus non tarn vile est, says the patient, pro quo Chris tus ipse non dedignatus est mori 4.

Johnson used to say, a man was a scoundrel that was afraid of any thing 5.

After having disused swimming for many years, he went into the river at Oxford, and swam away to a part of it that he had been told of as a dangerous place, and where some one had been drowned 6.

He waited on Lord Marchmont 7 to make some inquiries after particulars of Mr. Pope's life ; his first question was, — What kind of a man was Mr. Pope in his conversation ? his lordship answered, that if the conversation did not take something

1 Ante, i. 161. 5 For Johnson's one dread see

2 Life, i. 447 ; iii. 77. post, p. 16 ; for his use of the word

3 Ante, i. 424. scoundrel see Life, iii. i.

4 * Let the experiment be tried 6 Ib. ii. 299.

on a worthless body.' « Not so 7 Ib. iii. 392. Lord Marchmont's worthless is the body for which daughter gave Sir Walter Scott 'per- Christ himself thought it no scorn sonal reminiscences of Pope.' Lock- to die.' hart's Scott, ed. 1839, i. 343.

of

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. 5

of a lively or epigrammatick turn, he fell asleep, or perhaps pretended to do so x.

Talking one day of the patronage the great sometimes affect to give to literature, and literary men : — ' Andrew Millar,' says he, ' is the Maecenas of the age V

Of the state of learning among the Scots, he said : — ' It is with their learning as with provisions in a besieged town, every one has a mouthful, and no one a bellyful!3.1

Of Sir Joshua Reynolds he requested three things ; that he would not work on a Sunday ; that he would read a portion of Scripture on that day; and that he would forgive him a debt which he had incurred for some benevolent purpose 4.

When he first felt the stroke of palsy, he prayed to God that he would spare his mind, whatever he thought fit to do with his body 5.

To some lady who was praising Shenstone's poems very much, and who had an Italian greyhound lying by the fire, he said, e Shenstone holds amongst poets the same rank your dog holds amongst dogs ; he has not the sagacity of the hound, the docility of the spaniel, nor the courage of the bull-dog, yet he is still a pretty fellow 6.'

1 'When he wanted to sleep he 4 In these requests Reynolds " nodded in company " ; and once ' readily acquiesced.' However, after slumbered at his own table while the a time he resumed his Sunday work. Prince of Wales was talking of poetry.' Ib. iv. 414, n. i. 'Sir Godfrey Works, viii. 309. Kneller,' according to Pope, ' called

2 For Andrew Millar, the book- employing the pencil the prayer of a seller, see Life, i. 287, n. 3. painter.' Warton's Pope's Works,

3 Ib. ii. 363. ed. 1822, viii. 213. Szt post, p. 203. Sir Walter Scott, in his Address 5 Describing the stroke to Mrs.

at the opening of the Edinburgh Thrale, he wrote : — ' I was alarmed Academy, quoting Johnson's saying, and prayed God that however he continued : — ' Sturdy Scotsman as might afflict my body he would spare he was, he was not more attached to my understanding. This prayer that Scotland than to truth ; and it must I might try the integrity of my facul- be admitted that there was some ties I made in Latin verse.' Letters, foundation for the Doctor's remark.' ii. 301 ; Life, iv. 230 ; ante, i. in. Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, vii. 271. 6 'We talked of Shenstone. Dr. ' A Scotchman must be a very sturdy Johnson said he was a good layer- moralist who does not love Scot- out of land, but would not allow him land better than truth.' Life, ii. to approach excellence as a poet.' 311, #. 4. Ib. v. 267.

Johnson

Apophthegms, Sentiments

Johnson said he was better pleased with the commendations bestowed on his account of the Hebrides than on any book he had ever written. Burke, says he, thought well of the philosophy of it ; Sir William Jones of the observations on language ; and Mr. Jackson of those on trade x.

Of Foote's wit and readiness of repartee he thought very highly ; — * He was/ says he, * the readiest dog at an escape I ever knew ; if you thought you had him on the ground fairly down, he was upon his legs and over your shoulders again in an instant V

When some one asked him, whether they should introduce Hugh Kelly, the author, to him ; — ' No, Sir,' says he, ' I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.' Yet when his play was acted for the benefit of his widow, Johnson furnished a prologue 3.

He repeated poetry with wonderful energy and feeling. He was seen to weep whilst he repeated Goldsmith's character of the English in his Traveller •, beginning thus :

' Stern o'er each bosom,' &c.4

1 ' Dr. Johnson observed, that every body commended such parts of his Journey to the Western Islands, as were in their own way. "For in stance, (said he,) Mr. Jackson (the all-knowing) told me there was more good sense upon trade in it, than he should hear in the House of Com mons in a year, except from Burke. Jones commended the part which treats of language ; Burke that which describes the inhabitants of moun tainous countries." ' Life, iii. 137. It was in the reflections on the life and economy of the Highlanders, and on the changes rapidly taking place in the clan system, that 'the philosophy' was found.

For Jackson see ib. iii. 19; Let- ters, ii. 349.

' One species of wit Foote has in an eminent degree, that of escape. You drive him into a corner with

both hands ; but he's gone, Sir, when you think you have got him — like an animal that jumps over your head.3 Life, iii. 69. * Foote is the most in compressible fellow that I ever knew ; when you have driven him into a corner, and think you are sure of him, he runs through between your legs, or jumps over your head, and makes his escape.' Ib. v. 391.

3 Id. iii. 113 ; ante, i. 181, 432.

' On reading over this Prologue to Dr. Johnson the morning after it was spoken, the Doctor told me that instead of renewed hostilities he wrote revengeful petulance, and did not seem pleased with the alteration.' MS. note by Rev. J. Hussey.

The couplet as altered, stands : — 'Let no renewed hostilities invade Th' oblivious grave's inviolable shade.'

4 It was at Oban that this hap-

He

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. 7

He was supposed to have assisted Goldsmith very much in that poem, but has been heard to say, that he might have contributed three or four lines, taking together all he had done r.

He held all authors very cheap, that were not satisfied with the opinion of the publick about them. He used to say, that every man who writes, thinks he can amuse or inform mankind, and they must be the best judges of his pretensions2.

Of Warburton he always spoke well. He gave me, says he, his good word when it was of use to me. Warburton, in the Preface to his Shakespeare, has commended Johnson's Observa tions on Macbeth 3.

Two days before he died, he said, with some pleasantry, — Poor Johnson is dying; **** will say, he dies of taking a few grains more of squills than were ordered him ; **** will say, he dies of the scarifications made by the surgeon in his leg4. His last act of understanding is said to have been exerted in giving his blessing to a young lady that requested it of him 5.

He was always ready to assist any authors in correcting their works, and selling them to booksellers. — I have done writing, said he, myself, and should assist those that do write 6.

pened. 'We talked of Goldsmith's prose?"' Warton's Pope's Works,

Traveller, of which Dr. Johnson iv. 199, n.

spoke highly; and, while I was help- 3 Life, i. 175; jv. 288. Johnson,

ing him on with his great coat, he in his Shakespeare, often ridicules

repeated from it the character of the Warburton. See ante, i. 381, and

British nation, which he did with post, in Steevens's Anecdotes.

such energy, that the tear started 4 The supposed speakers were

into his eye.' Life, v. 344. Brocklesby and Heberden. The wit

1 Ib. ii. 5. has been lost in the narration ; for

2 Ib. iv. 172 ; post, p. 19. Smollett, what Johnson said see/tfj/, in Wind- writing of the Age of George II, ham's Anecdotes.

says : — ' Genius in writing spon- 3 Life, iv. 418 ; ante, i. 447, n. 5. taneously arose; and, though neg- 6 Ib. ii. 195 ; iii. 373; iv. 121. lected by the great, flourished under The Rev. John Hussey wrote on the culture of a public which had his copy of the first edition of Bos- pretensions to taste, and piqued it- well, opposite a passage about profits self on encouraging literary merit.' of authors (Ib. iv. 121) : — ' Mem. History of England, ed. 1800, v. Mr. Townshend's manuscripts. I 379- think it was Mr. Allen, the late ' When somebody was highly prais- Minister of Wandsworth, who told ing Milton George II asked, "Why me that Mr.Townshend (if that were did he not write his Paradise Lost in his name, he was afterwards either

When

8

Apophthegms, Sentiments

When some one asked him for what he should marry, he replied, first, for virtue ; secondly, for wit ; thirdly, for beauty ; and fourthly, for money1.

He thought worse of the vices of retirement than of those of society 2.

He attended Mr. Thrale in his last moments, and stayed in the room praying, as is imagined, till he had drawn his last breath. — His servants, said he, would have waited upon him in this awful period, and why not his friend 3 ?

He was extremely fond of reading the lives of great and learned persons 4. Two or three years before he died, he applied to a friend of his to give him a list of those in the French language that were well written and genuine. He said, that Bolingbroke had declared he could not read Middleton's life of Cicero 5.

He was a great enemy to the present fashionable way of supposing worthless and infamous persons mad.

He was not apt to judge ill of persons without good reasons ;

Printer or Stationer to .the East India Company) in the early part of his life was seized with the cacotthes scribendi, and having finished a Pam phlet wished much to have Mr. John son's opinion of it, before he offered it to the Publick. So without any previous knowledge or introduction, he called on Johnson, and humbly requested him to peruse the Manu script of his first production ; which was with great good nature im mediately acquiesced in : when he had finished it he said to Mr. Towns- hend, " Pray, Sir, are you of any profession?" "A Printer, at your service." "Then, Sir, I would recom mend you to print any work rather than your own ; it will turn out more to your advantage if you get paid for it, and if it be worth printing, in finitely more to your credit." This interview Townshend spoke of in his latter days with grateful remem

brance ; a different reception, he said, would have flattered his vanity and allured him to poverty and con tempt.'

1 Life, ii. 128 ; iv. 131.

2 Ib. v. 62.

3 Ib. iv. 84 ; ante, i. 96.

* Ib. \. 425 ; v. 79.

5 Johnson would not read Boling- broke's works — at all events his Philosophical works. Ib. i. 330.

* My Lord Bolingbroke has lost his wife. . . . Dr. Middleton told me a compliment she made him two years ago which I thought pretty. She said she was persuaded that he was a very great writer, for she un derstood his works better than any other English book, and that she had observed that the best writers were always the most intelligible.' [She was a Frenchwoman.] Wai- pole's Letters, ii. 202.

an

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. 9

an old friend of his used to say, that in general he thought too well of mankind J.

One day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the fire-side at Streatham, he said. Presto, you are, if possible, a more lazy dog than I am 2.

Being told that Churchill had abused him under the character of Pomposo, in his Ghost, — I always thought, said he, he was a shallow fellow and I think so still 3.

When some one asked him how he felt at the indifferent reception of his tragedy at Drury-lane ; — Like the Monument, said he, and as unshaken as that fabrick 4.

Being asked by Dr. Lawrence what he thought the best system of education, he replied, — School in school-hours, and home-instruction in the intervals 5.

I would never, said he, desire a young man to neglect his business for the purpose of pursuing his studies, because it is unreasonable ; I would only desire him to read at those hours when he would otherwise be unemployed. I will not promise that he will be a Bentley ; but if he be a lad of any parts, he will certainly make a sensible man 6.

The picture of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which was painted for Mr. Beauclerk, and is now Mr. Langton's, and scraped in

1 f As he was ever one of the most had ; for he has shewn more fertility quick-sighted men I ever knew in than I expected. To be sure, he is discovering the good and amiable a tree that cannot produce good fruit : qualities of others, so was he ever he only bears crabs. But, Sir, a inclined to palliate their defects.' tree that produces a great many Hawkins, p. 50. crabs is better than a tree which

'Reynolds said of Johnson: — produces only a few.' Life, 1.418. See

" He was not easily imposed upon also ib. i. 406.

by professions to honesty and can- 4 Ib. i. 199.

dour ; but he appeared to have little 5 See ante, i. 1 6 1, where he op- suspicion of hypocrisy in religion." ' posed the imposition of holiday tasks Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 459. See also by the schoolmaster. For Dr. Law- Life, ii. 236. rence see Life, ii. 296.

2 Ante, i. 189. 6 ' Snatches of reading (said John-

3 'No, Sir, I called the fellow a son) will not make a Bentley or blockhead at first, and I will call a Clarke. They are however in a him a blockhead still. However, I certain degree advantageous.' Ib. will acknowledge that I have a better iv. 21.

opinion of him now, than I once

mezzotinto

io Apophthegms, Sentiments

mezzotinto by Doughty, is extremely like him ; there is in it that appearance of a labouring working mind, of an indolent reposing body, which he had to a very great degree. Beauclerk wrote under his picture,

lingenium ingens

Inculto habet hoc sub corpore*.'

Indeed, the common operations of dressing, shaving, &c., were a toil to him ; he held the care of the body very cheap 2. He used to say, that a man who rode out for an appetite consulted but little the dignity of human nature.

He was much pleased with an Italian improvvisatore, whom he saw at Streatham, and with whom he talked much in Latin. He told him, if he had not been a witness to his faculty himself, he should not have thought it possible. He said, Isaac Hawkins Browne3 had endeavoured at it in English, but could not get beyond thirty verses.

When a Scotsman was one day talking to him of the great writers of that country that were then existing, he said : * We have taught that nation to write 4, and do they pretend to be our teachers ? let me hear no more of the tinsel of Robertson, and the foppery of Dalrymple V He said, Hume has taken his style from Voltaire6. He would never hear Hume mentioned with any temper: — 'A man,' said he, 'who endeavoured to persuade his friend who had the stone to shoot himself7.'

1 Ante, i. 458; Life, iv. 180. rymple.' Life, ii. 236.

2 Ante, i. 241 ; Life, i. 396 ; ii. 406. 6 'When I talked of our advance-

3 Ante, i. 266. ment in literature, " Sir, (said he,)

4 Dr. Beattie wrote on Jan. 5, you have learnt a little from us, and 1778: — 'We who live in Scotland you think yourselves very great men. are obliged to study English from Hume would never have written books, like a dead language, which History, had not Voltaire written it we understand, but cannot speak.' before him. He is an echo of Vol- He adds : — ' I have spent some years taire." ' Ib. ii. 53.

in labouring to acquire the art of Wordsworth said : — 'the Scotch hi s-

giving a vernacular cast to the Eng- torians did infinite mischief to style,

lish we write.' Forbes's Beattie, with the exception of Smollett, who

P- 243. wrote good pure English.' Words-

5 * Doubtless Goldsmith's His- worth's Life, ii. 459. See Life, i. 439, tory is better than the verbiage of for Hume's style.

Robertson or the foppery of Dal- 7 Seven years after Hume's death

Upon

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. n

Upon hearing a lady of his acquaintance commended for her learning, he 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 x, said he, could make a pudding, as well as translate Epictetus from the Greek, and work a handker chief as well as compose a poem.' He thought she was too reserved in conversation upon subjects she was so eminently able to converse upon, which was occasioned by her modesty and fear of giving offence2.

Being asked whether he had read Mrs. Macaulay's second volume of the History of England ; — ' No, Sir,' says he, 'nor her

' a work was published in London called Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Sou/, ascribed to the late David Hume, Esq. That Hume wrote these Essays, and in tended to publish them, is an inci dent in his life which ought not to be passed over; but it is also part of his history that he repented of the act at the last available mo ment, and suppressed the publication.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 13. See also Letters of Hume to Strahan, pp. 230-3, 355, 362. The work was published not seven years, but one year after his death. In the Essay on Suicide he says : — ' Let us here endeavour to restore men to their native liberty by examining all the common arguments against suicide, and shewing that that action may be free from every imputation of guilt or blame, according to the sentiments of all the ancient phi losophers.' Ed. 1777, p. 5. On p. 15 he says :— ' When the horror of pain prevails over the love of life ; when a voluntary action anticipates the effects of blind causes, 'tis only in consequence of those powers and principles which he [the supreme creator] has implanted in his creatures.'

I cannot find any account of his

endeavouring to persuade his friend to shoot himself. Perhaps it was as sumed that the Essay was written for some one man.

1 Life, i. 122, n. 4. * Dr. Johnson maintained to me, contrary to the common notion, that a woman would not be the worse wife for being learned.' Ib. ii. 76. See also ib. v. 226.

* It is, indeed, an unhappy circum stance in a family, where the wife has more knowledge than the hus band ; but it is better it should be so than that there should be no know ledge in the whole house.' Addison's Works, ed. 1864, iv. 319. ' If I had a daughter,' wrote Lord Chester field, ' I would give her as much learning as a boy.' Chesterfield's Letters to A. C. Stanhope, ed. 1817, p. 151.

2 She is, no doubt, the Lady meant in the following passage in Sir Charles Grandison (ed. 1754, i. 63), where Miss Byron says : — ' Who, I, a woman know anything of Latin and Greek ! I know but one Lady who is mistress of both ; and she finds herself so much an owl among the birds, that she wants of all things to be thought to have unlearned them.'

first

12

Apophthegms, Sentiments

first neither1.' He would not be introduced to the Abbe Raynal, when he was in England 2.

He said, that when he first conversed with Mr. Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, he was very much inclined to believe he had been there ; but that he had afterwards altered his opinion 3.

He was much pleased with Dr. Jortin's Sermons, the language of which he thought very elegant 4 ; but thought his life of Erasmus a dull book.

He was very well acquainted with Psalmanaazar, the pretended Formosan, and said, he had never seen the close of the life of any one that he wished so much his own to resemble, as that of him, for its purity and devotion. He told many anecdotes of him; and said he was supposed by his accent to have been a Gascon. He said, that Psalmanaazar spoke English with the city accent, and coarsely enough. He for some years spent his evenings at a publick house near Old-Street 5, where many persons went to talk with him ; Johnson was asked whether he ever contradicted Psalmanaazar ; — ' I should as soon,' said he, 'have thought of contradicting a bishop6;' so high did he hold

1 Of her he said : — < She is better employed at her toilet, than using her pen. It is better she should be reddening her own cheeks, than blackening other people's characters.' Life, iii. 46. In the Sale Catalogue of his Library, Lot 68 is ' Macaulay's History of England, 2 v. 1763-5.'

2 Mrs. Chapone wrote to Mrs. Carter on June 15, 1777 :— ' I sup pose you have heard a great deal of the Abbe' Raynal, who is in London. I fancy you would have served him as Dr. Johnson did, to whom when Mrs. Vesey introduced him, he turned from him, and said he had read his book, and would have nothing to say to him.' Mrs. Chapone's Posthumous Works, i. 172. His book was burnt by the common hangman in Paris. C<tf\y\&s French Revolution,^. 1857, i. 45. Carlyle wrote to his future wife in 1824 :— ' If you are for fiery-

spirited men, I recommend you to the Abbe* Raynal, whose History, at least the edition of 1781, is, to use the words of my tailor respecting Africa, " wan coll (one coal) of burn ing sulphur." ' Early Letters of T. Carlyle, ii. 268. See ante, i. 211.

3 Ante, i. 365, n. I ; Life, ii. 333 ; Letters, i. 313, n. i.

Southey, reviewing Lord Valen- tia's Travels, agreed with his lord ship in questioning Bruce's state ments. * I think Lord Valentia is rather unfair to Bruce ; (wrote Scott) I know that surly Patagonian.' He adds that he must have been in Abyssinia. Letters of Sir Walter Scott, Boston, U.S.A. i. 148.

4 Life, iii. 248 ; iv. 161 ; Letters, ii. 276, n. i.

5 Life, iv. 187.

6 Ib. iv. 274. See id. iii. 443-9 for my note on Psalmanazar, and ante, i. 266.

his

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. 13

his character in the latter part of his life. When he was asked whether he had ever mentioned Formosa before him, he said, he was afraid to mention even China.

He thought Cato the best model of tragedy we had z ; yet he used to say, of all things, the most ridiculous would be, to see a girl cry at the representation of it 2.

He thought the happiest life was that of a man of business, with some literary pursuits for his amusement ; and that in general no one could be virtuous or happy, that was not com pletely employed 3.

Johnson had read much in the works of Bishop Taylor ; in his Dutch Thomas a Kempis he has quoted him occasionally in the margin 4.

1 See ante, i. 185, for Johnson's random talk about authors, and Life, i. 199, n. 2, and Works, vii. 456, for his criticism of Cato in his Life of Addison. In the Preface to his Shakespeare he says (ed. 1765, p. 35) : — ' Voltaire expresses his wonder that our authour's extravagancies are endured by a nation which has seen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be answered, that Addison speaks the language of poets and Shakespeare of men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties which enamour us of its authour, but we see nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments or human actions. . . . We pronounce the name of Cato, but we think on Addison.'

' I have always thought that those pompous Roman sentiments are not so difficult to be produced, as is vulgarly imagined. A stroke of nature is worth a hundred such thoughts as "When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,

The post of honour is a private

station."

Cato is a fine dialogue on liberty and the love of one's country.' J. War- ton's Essay on Pope, 2nd ed., i. 259 ;

Warton published this Essay four teen years before Wordsworth was born.

2 ' A lady observing to one of her maid-servants, when she came in from the play [Hannah More's Fatal Falsehood}, that her eyes looked red, as if she had been crying, the girl, by way of apology, said, "Well, Ma'am, if I did, it was no harm ; a great many respectable people cried too." ' H. More's Memoirs, i. 164.

3 ' That accurate judge of human life, Dr. Johnson, has often been heard by me to observe, that it was the greatest misfortune which could be fall a man to have been bred to no profession, and pathetically to regret that this misfortune was his own.' More's Practical Piety, p. 313. See Life, iii. 309. See ante, i. 238, n. 2, and fast in S e ward's A necdotes.

4 ' In the latter part of his life, in order to satisfy himself whether his mental faculties were impaired, he resolved that he would try to learn a new language, and fixed upon the Low Dutch, for that purpose, and this he continued till he had read about one half of Thomas a Kempis? Life, iv. 21.

He

Apophthegms, Sentiments

He is said to have very frequently made sermons for clergy men at a guinea a-piece z ; that delivered by Dr. Dodd, in the chapel of Newgate, was written by him, as was also his Defence, spoken at the bar of the Old Bailey 2.

Of a certain lady's entertainments, he said, — What signifies going thither ? there is neither meat, drink, nor talk 3.

He advised Mrs. Siddons to play the part of Queen Catherine in Henry VIII. 4 and said of her, that she appeared to him to be one of the few persons that the great corruptors of mankind, money and reputation, had not spoiled s.

He had a great opinion of the knowledge procured by

1 'Johnson was never greedy of money, but without money could not be stimulated to write. I have been told by a clergyman with whom he had been long acquainted, that, being to preach on a particular occasion, he applied to him for help. " I will write a sermon for thee," said John son, " but thou must pay me for it." ' Hawkins, p. 84. See ante, i. 82, and Life, v. 67.

2 Ib. iii. 141 ; ante, i. 432.

3 ' I advised Mrs. Thrale, who has no card-parties at her house, to give sweet-meats, and such good things, in an evening, as are not commonly given, and she would find company fcnough come to her ; for every body loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.'. Life, iii. 186.

4 ' He asked her which of Shake speare's characters she was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen Catherine in Henry the Eighth the most natural : — " I think so too, Madam, (said he,) and whenever you perform it I will once more hobble out to the theatre myself." ' Ib. iv. 242.

'The meek sorrows and virtuous distress of Catherine have furnished some scenes which may be justly

numbered among the greatest efforts of tragedy. But the genius of Shake speare [in Henry VIII} comes in and goes out with Catherine. Every other part may be easily conceived and easily written.' Johnson's Shake speare, ed. 1765, v. 491. Of the second scene of the fourth act he writes : ' This scene is above any other part of Shakespeare's tragedies, and perhaps above any scene of any other poet, tender and pathetick, without gods, or furies, or poisons, or precipices, without the help of ro- mantick circumstances, without im probable sallies of poetical lamenta tion, and without any throes of tumultuous misery.' Ib. p. 462. The piety of the sentiments perhaps in fluenced his judgement.

5 He wrote of Mrs. Siddons to Mrs. Thrale : — ' Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seem to have depraved her.' Letters, ii. 345. ' Being asked if he could not wish to compose a part in a new tragedy to display her powers, he replied, "Mrs. Siddons excels in the pathetic, for which I have no talent." Then says his friend, " Imperial tragedy must be long to you " (alluding to his Irene). Johnson smiled.' Gentleman's Maga zine, 1785, p. 86.

conversation

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. 15

conversation with intelligent and ingenious persons1. His first question concerning such as had that character, was ever, What is his conversation 2 ?

Johnson said of the Chattertonian controversy, — It is a sword that cuts both ways. It is as wonderful to suppose that a boy of sixteen years old had stored his mind with such a train of images and ideas as he had acquired, as to suppose the poems, with their ease of versification and elegance of language, to have been written by Rowlie in the time of Edward the Fourth 3.

Talking with some persons about allegorical painting, he said, 1 1 had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can shew me in the world V

When a Scotsman was talking against Warburton 5, Johnson said he had more literature than had been imported from Scotland since the days of Buchanan. Upon his mentioning other eminent writers of the Scots, — ' These will not do,' said Johnson, * let us have some more of your northern lights, these are mere farthing candles V

A Scotsman upon his introduction to Johnson said : — ' I am afraid, Sir, you will not like me, I have the misfortune to come from Scotland.' ' Sir,' answered he, * that is a misfortune ; but such a one as you and the rest of your countrymen cannot help V

1 Life, ii. 361 ; iii. 22. On this saying Mr. Pattison re-

2 Ib. iv. 19. marks:— * A modest admission, yet

3 ' Johnson said of Chatterton, strictly true, even understood of bare "This is the most extraordinary quantity. But Johnson was not young man that has encountered my thinking of volumes by number. He knowledge. It is wonderful how the knew that Warburton's readings whelp has written such things." ' ranged over whole classes of books Ib. iii. 51. into which he himself had barely

4 For his feelings towards art see dipped.' Mark Pattison's Essays, ib. i. 363, n. 3, and ante, i. 214. ed. 1889, ii. 122. On p. 131 Pattison

5 Fielding, addressing Learning, says that Bishop Newton, in his says : — ' Give me a while that key to parallel between Jortin and War- all thy treasures which to thy War- burton, ' adds that Jortin " was per- burton thou hast entrusted.' Tom haps the better Greek and Latin Jones, Bk. xiii. ch. i. (Warburton scholar." "Better" implies corn- was the nephew by marriage of parison. The fact was that Jortin Fielding's patron, Allen.) Johnson was a scholar in every sense of the told George III that 'he had not word; Warburton in none.'

read much compared with Dr. War- 6 Life, v. 57, 80. burton.' Life, ii. 36. 7 The Scotsman was Boswell ; for

To

16 Apophthegms, Sentiments

To one who wished him to drink some wine and be jolly, adding, — ; You know Sir, in vino veritas! ' Sir,' answered he, ' this is a good recommendation to a man who is apt to lie when sober1/

When he was first introduced to General Paoli, he was much struck with his reception of him ; he said he had very much the air of a man who had been at the head of a nation : he was par ticularly pleased with his manner of receiving a stranger at his own house, and said it had dignity and affability joined together2.

Johnson said, he had once seen Mr. Stanhope, Lord Chester field's son. at Dodsley's shop, and was so much struck with his awkward manners and appearance, that he could not help asking Mr. Dodsley who he was 3.

Speaking one day of tea, he said, — What a delightful beverage must that be, that pleases all palates, at a time when they can take nothing else at breakfast 4 1

To his censure of fear in general, he made however one exception, with respect to the fear of death, timorum maximus ; he thought that the best of us were but unprofitable servants, and had much reason to fear 5.

Johnson thought very well of Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism ; of other of his writings he thought very indifferently, and laughed much at his opinion, that war was a good thing occasionally, as so much valour and virtue were exhibited in it 6. A fire, says Johnson, might as well be thought a good thing ; there is the bravery and address of the firemen employed in

what was really said see Life, i. 392, rosity and disinterestedness, which

and ante, i. 427. are always attended with conscious-

1 Ante, i. 321 ; Life, ii. 188. ness of merit and dignity.' Sketches

2 ' General Paoli (he said) had the of the History of Man, ed. 1819, ii. loftiest port of any man he had ever 74. Tennyson, when he wrote Maud, seen.' Ib. ii. 82. thought with him. For Johnson's

3 Ib. iv. 333. See my Introduction estimate of The Elements of Criti- (p. 43) to the Worldly Wisdom of cism see Life, i. 393 ; ii. 89. ' Adam Lord Chesterfield. Smith, on being complimented on

4 Ante, i. 414. the group of great writers who were

5 Ante, i. 330, 445 ; Life, iv. 299. then reflecting glory on Scotland,

6 Kames, speaking of the 'less said, "Yes, but we must every one savage aspect ' of modern wars, of us acknowledge Kames for our says :—' Such wars give exercise to master."' Life of Adam Smith by the elevated virtues of courage, gene- John Rae, p. 31.

extinguishing

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. 17

extinguishing it ; there is much humanity exerted in saving the lives and properties of the poor sufferers ; yet, says he, after all this, who can say a fire is a good thing ?

Speaking of schoolmasters, he used to say, they were worse than the Egyptian task-masters of old. No boy, says he, is sure any day he goes to school to escape a whipping : how can the schoolmaster tell what the boy has really forgotten, and what he has neglected to learn ; what he has had no oppor tunities of learning, and what he has taken no pains to get at the knowledge of? yet for any of these, however difficult they may be, the boy is obnoxious to punishment x.

He used to say something tantamount to this : When a woman affects learning, she makes a rivalry between the two sexes for the same accomplishments, which ought not to be, their provinces being different 2. Milton said before him,

' For contemplation he and valour form'd, For softness she and sweet attractive grace3.'

He used to say, that in all family-disputes the odds were in favour of the husband, from his superior knowledge of life and manners: he was, nevertheless, extremely fond of the company and conversation of women, and was early in life much attached to a most beautiful woman at Lichfield, of a rank superior to his own 4.

He never suffered any one to swear before him. When

, a libertine, but a man of some note, was talking before

him, and interlarding his stories with oaths, Johnson said, ' Sir, all this swearing will do nothing for our story, I beg you will not swear.' The narrator went on swearing: Johnson said, * I must again intreat you not to swear.' He swore again : Johnson quitted the room 5.

1 For the brutality of schoolmasters not the learning itself.

of old see Life, i. 44, n. 2 ; ii. 144, n. 2 ; 3 Paradise Lost, iv. 297.

146,157. ' There is now less flogging 4 Molly Aston. Ante, i. 255.

in our great schools than formerly, 5 * Davies reminded Dr. Johnson of

but then less is learned there ; so Mr. Murphy's having paid him the

that what the boys get at one end highest compliment that ever was

they lose at the other.' Life, ii. 407. paid to a layman, by asking his par-

2 Ante, ii. n. It was the affecta- don for repeating some oaths in the tion of learning that he disliked, course of telling a story.' Life, iii.4O.

VOL. ii. c He

i8

Apophthegms, Sentiments

He was no great friend to puns, though he once by accident made a singular one. A person who affected to live after the Greek manner, and to anoint himself with oil, was one day mentioned before him. Johnson, in the course of conversation on the singularity of his practice, gave him the denomination of, This man of Greece, or grease, as you please to take it x.

Of a member of parliament, who, after having harangued for some hours in the house of commons, came into a company where Johnson was, and endeavoured to talk him down, he said, This man has a pulse in his tongue.

He was not displeased with a kind of pun made by a person, who (after having been tired to death by two ladies who talked

' Obscenity and impiety (he said) have always been repressed in my company/ Life, iv. 295. See also ib. iii. 189.

Susan Burney, sending her sister a report of a conversation at Streat- ham when Johnson was present, re ports Mrs. Thrale as crying out : — ' Good G-d ! why somebody else mentioned that book to me.' Mrs. Raine Ellis, who has edited Fanny Burney's Early Diary with great skill, says in a footnote: — ' The care less old ejaculations have, in almost every case, been modified, or effaced in the manuscripts of the diaries, old and new; in many cases by Mme. D'Arblay herself, in more by her niece, who was the editor of her later diaries. These almost unmean ing expletives seem to have passed unrebuked by Dr. Johnson in the case of Mrs. Thrale, although he would not suffer Boswell to write "by my soul." [« My illustrious friend said, " It is very well, Sir ; but you should not swear." ' Life, ii. in.] His ear had become used to them, or she was incorrigible.' Early Diary of F. Burney r, ii. 234.

1 'Johnson had a great contempt for that species of wit.' Life, ii. 241. Boswell, recording a pun by John

son, says:— 'It was the first time that I knew him stoop to such sport.' Ib. iii. 325. In his Dictionary, he defines punster as a low wit, who endeavours at reputation by double meaning.

Dryden, after quoting Horace's pun on ' Mr. King' (Satires, i. 7. 35), continues : — ' But it may be puns were then in fashion, as they were wit in the sermons of the last age and in the Court of King Charles II.' Scott's Dryden 's Works, xiii. 97.

' A great Critic formerly held these clenches in such abhorrence that he declared " he that would pun would pick a pocket." Yet Mr. Dennis's works afford us notable examples in this kind.' The Dunciad, 2nd ed. i. 6i,». Shaftesbury wrote in 1714: — 'All Humour had something of the Quibble. The very Language of the Court was Punning. But 'tis now banish'd the Town and all Good Company. There are only some few Footsteps of it in the Country ; and it seems at last confin'd to the Nurserys of Youth, as the chief Entertain ment of Pedants and their Pupils.' Char act eri sticks, ed. 1714, i. 64.

* I never knew an enemy to puns who was not an ill-natured man.' Lamb's Letters, ed. 1888, ii. 148.

of

Opinions, and Occasional Reflections. 19

of the antiquity and illustriousness of their families, himself being quite a new man) cried out, with the ghost in Hamlet,

' This eternal blazon

Must not be to ears of flesh and blood1.'

One who had long known Johnson, said of him, In general you may tell what the man to whom you are speaking will say next : this you can never do of Johnson : his images, his allusions, his great powers of ridicule throw the appearance of novelty upon the most common conversation 2.

He was extremely fond of Dr. Hammond's Works 3, and some times gave them as a present to young men going into orders : he also bought them for the library at Streatham. 1 Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock, said Johnson, is a scoundrel : — having nothing in particular to do himself, and having none of his time appropriated, he was a troublesome guest to persons who had much to do 4.

He rose as unwillingly as he went to bed s.

He said, he was always hurt when he found himself ignorant of any thing 6.

He was extremely accurate in his computation of time 7. He could tell how many heroick Latin verses could be repeated in such a given portion of it ; and was anxious that his friends should take pains to form in their minds some measure for estimating the lapse of it.

Of authors he used to say, that as they think themselves wiser or wittier than the rest of the world, the world, after all, must be the judge of their pretensions to superiority over them 8.

1 Hamlet, Act i. sc. 5. 1. 21. nothing so minute or inconsiderable,

2 W. G. Hamilton said of him : — that I would not rather know it than * He has made a chasm which not not." ' Life, ii. 357. Reynolds wrote only nothing can fill up, but which of him : — ' He sometimes, it must be nothing has a tendency to fill up. confessed, covered his ignorance by Johnson is dead. Let us go to the generals rather than appear ignorant.5 next best : — there is nobody ; no Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 457.

man can be said to put you in mind 7 Life, i. 72.

of Johnson.' Life, iv. 420. 8 * He had indeed, upon all occa-

3 Ante, i. 107, and Life, iii. 58. sions, a great deference for the

4 Ante, i. 231. 5 Ante, i. 340. general opinion : "A man (said he) 6 ' He observed, " All knowledge who writes a book, thinks himself

is of itself of some value. There is wiser or wittier than the rest of man-

C 2 Complainers

20 Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions, &c.

Complainers, said he, are always loud and clamorous x.

He thought highly of Mandeville's Treatise on the Hypochron- driacal Disease 2.

He would not allow the verb derange, a word at present much in use, to be an English word. Sir, said a gentleman who had some pretensions to literature, I have seen it in a book. Not in a bound book, said Johnson ; disarrange is the word we ought to use instead of it 3.

He thought very favourably of the profession of the law 4, and said, that the sages thereof, for a long series backward, had been friends to religion. Fortescue says, that their afternoon's employment was the study* of the Scriptures 5.

kind ; he supposes that he can in struct or amuse them, and the pub- lick to whom he appeals must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions.' Life, i. 200. See ante, ii. 7.

1 Ante, i. 315.

2 Treatise of Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions, vulgarly called Hypo in Men, and Vapours in Women, 1711.

Of Mandeville's Fable of the Bees he said :— ' I read Mandeville forty, or I believe, fifty years ago. He did not puzzle me ; he opened my views into life very much.' Life, iii. 292. See also Hawkins' s Johnson, p. 263.

3 Neither derange nor disarrange is in Johnson's Dictionary. Of de range he might have said that it was a word ' lately innovated from France without necessity.' Life,

iii. 343-

In a note on ' the wide arch of the rang'd empire,' in Antony and Cleo patra, Act i. sc. i, he says : — * It is not easy to guess how Dr. Warbur- ton missed this opportunity of in serting a French word by reading —

" And the wide arch Of derang'd empire fall ! " — Which, \iderange4wtt an English

word, would be preferable both to raised and. ranged? Johnson's Shake speare, ed. 1765, vii. 107.

4 Attorneys apparently he did not include in the profession of the law. Life, ii. 126. He had himself wished to become a lawyer. ' Sir (he said) it would have been better that I had been of a profession. I ought to have been a lawyer.' Ib. iii. 309. See ib. i. 134, for his wish to practise in Doctors' Commons.

5 * Quare Justiciarii, postquam se refecerint, totum Diei residuum per- transeunt studendo in Legibus, sa- cram legendo Scripturam, et aliter ad eorum Libitum contemplando, ut Vita ipsorum plus contemplativa vi- deatur quam activa. Sicque quietam illi Vitam agunt ab omni Sollici- tudine et Mundi Turbinibus semo- tam.' Fortescue, De Laudibus, cap. Ii.

'When a lawyer, a warm partisan of Lord Chancellor Eldon, called him one of the pillars of the Church ; " No," said another lawyer, " he may be one of its buttresses ; but certain ly not one of its pillars, for he is never found within it." ' Twiss's Life of Eldon, ed. 1844, iii. 488.

EXTRACTS

FROM JAMES BOSWELLS LETTERS TO EDMOND MA LONE1

DEC. 4. 1790. Let me begin with myself. On the day after your departure, that most friendly fellow Courtenay 2 (begging the pardon of an M.P. for so free an epithet) called on me, and took my word and honour that, till the ist of March, my allowance of wine per diem should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a pint after it 3 : and this I have kept, though I have dined with Jack Wilkes 4 ; at the London Tavern, after the launch of an Indiaman ; with dear Edwards ; Dilly 5 ; at home with Courtenay ; Dr. Barrow 6 ; at the mess of the Cold-

1 Published in Croker's Boswell, x. 209, from the MSS. in Mr. Upcott's collection.

2 John Courtenay. In the new Parliament which met on Nov. 25 he sat for Tamworth. For his Moral and Literary Character of Dr. John son see Life, i. 222.

3 ' Under the solemn yew,' fifteen years earlier, he had promised his friend Temple not to exceed a bottle of old Hock a day. The following year he wrote : — ' General Paoli has taken my word of honour that I shall not taste fermented liquor for a year.' Life, ii. 436, n. I.

4 Boswell complacently recorded in his Journal : — ' When Wilkes and I sat together, each glass of wine produced a flash of wit, like gun powder thrown into the fire. Puff ! puff ! ' Rogers's Boswelliana, p. 322.

5 Charles Dilly, Boswell's pub lisher, at whose house * Johnson owned that he always found a good dinner.' Life, iii. 285.

6 Boswell wrote to Temple on Nov. 28, 1789 : — ' My second son is an extraordinary boy ; he is much of his father (vanity of vanities). . . . He is still in the house with me ; indeed he is quite my companion, though only eleven in September. He goes in the day to the academy in Soho Square, kept by the Rev. Dr. Barrow, formerly of Queen's, Oxford, a coarse north-countryman, but a very good scholar.' Letters of Boswell, p. 315.

Barrow wrote to John James on Jan. 26, 1786:— 'The reviews and papers will tell you better than I can, that the booksellers are engaged in a contest who shall publish the first stream ;

22 Extracts from James Boswell's Letters

stream x ; at the Club ; at Warren Hastings's 2 ; at Hawkins the Cornish member's 3 ; and at home with a colonel of the guards, &c. This regulation I assure you is of essential advantage in many respects. The Magnum Opus advances. I have revised p. 2i64. The additions which I have received are a Spanish quotation from Mr. Cambridge 5 ; an account of Johnson at Warley Camp from Mr. Langton 6 ; and Johnson's letters to Mr. Hastings — three in all7 — one of them long and admirable; but what sets the diamonds in pure gold of Ophir is a letter from Mr. Hastings to me, illustrating them and their writer. I had this day the honour of a long visit from the late governor-general of India. There is to be no more impeachment8. But you will see his character nobly vindicated9. Depend upon this.

and best edition of Johnson's Dic tionary, and that his friends are running a race who shall be foremost in giving, or rather selling, to the world some scrap or fragment of our literary Leviathan — an anecdote, a letter, or a character, a sermon, a prayer, or a bon-mot.' Letters of Radcliffe and James, p. 266. * I do not quite affect John's friend Barrow,' wrote J. Boucher ; ' he seems too rough and rugged a northern. He would overawe me.' Ib. p. 267.

1 The Coldstream Guards. Bos- well nearly thirty years earlier had described his 'fondness for the Guards.' Life, i. 400.

2 For Hastings's letter to Bos well dated the 2nd of this month see ib. iv. 66.

3 Sir Christopher Hawkins, mem ber for Michell. W. P. Courtney's Parl. Repres. of Cornwall, p. 319.

4 Of the second volume.

5 Life, iii. 25 1. In another passage (ib. iv. 195) Boswell records a con versation between Cambridge and Johnson about a Spanish translation of Sallust. Dr. Franklin wrote to W. Strahan from Passy, on Dec. 4,

1781 : — 'A strong Emulation exists at present between Paris and Madrid with regard to beautiful Printing. Here a M. Didot 1'aine has a Passion for the Art, and besides having pro cured the best Types, he has much improv'd the Press. The utmost Care is taken of his Press-work ; his Ink is black, and his Paper fine and white. He has executed several charming Editions. But the Salust [sic] and the Don Quixote of Madrid are thought to excel them.'

6 Life, iii. 360.

1 Ib. iv. 68.

8 BoswelPs hope was from the new Parliament. ' The friends of Hastings entertained a hope that the new House of Commons might not be disposed to go on with the impeach ment.' Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, iii. 455. Their hope was disappointed. Dr. Burney wrote to his daughter on May 7, 1795:— 'And so dear Mr. Hastings is honourably acquitted ; and I visited him the next morning, and we cordially shook hands.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, vi. 36.

9 In the Life of Johnson, that is to say. See Life, iv. 66.

And

to Edmond Malone.

And now for my friend. The appearance of Malone's Shake speare on the 29th November was not attended with any external noise ; but I suppose no publication seized more speedily and surely on the attention of those for whose critical taste it was chiefly intended r. At the Club on Tuesday, where I met Sir Joshua, Dr. Warren, Lord Ossory2, Lord Palmerston 3, Windham, and Burke in the chair, — Burke was so full of his anti-French revolution rage, and poured it out so copiously, that we had almost nothing else4. He, however, found time

1 It was published in ten volumes ; ' in fifteen months a large edition was nearly sold.' Unfortunately the type and paper were bad. Prior's Malone, p. 168.

Horace Walpole describes it as ' the heaviest of all books, in ten thick octavos, with notes that are an extract of all the opium that is spread through the works of all the bad play-wrights of that age : — mercy on the poor gentleman's patience.' Letters, ix. 326.

2 It was to Lord Ossory's wife that Horace Walpole wrote so many of his letters. In a note to the letter of Feb. i, 1779 (vii. 169), the following quotation is given from Lord Ossory's Memoranda : — 'In Italy I became acquainted with Garrick, and from my earliest youth having admired him on the stage, was happy to be familiarly acquainted with him, culti vated his society from that time till his death, and then accompanied him to his grave as one of his pall bearers. He and Mrs. Garrick (I think it was in 1777) have been with us in the country; Gibbon and Reynolds at the same time, all three delightful in society. The vivacity of the great actor, the keen sarcastic wit of the great historian, and the genuine pleasantry of the great painter, mixed up well together, and made a charming party. Garrick's

mimicry of the mighty Johnson was excellent.'

Reynolds, by his will, left Lord Ossory the first choice of any picture of his own painting. Taylor's Rey nolds, ii. 636.

3 Lord Palmerston, the father of the Prime Minister, when proposed at the Club in 1783 was, writes Johnson, * against my opinion re jected.' Life, iv. 232. He was elected a few months later.

4 Burke, acknowledging Malone's gift of his Shakespeare, sent him his Reflections on the Revolution in France. ' You have sent me gold,' he wrote, ' which I can only repay you in my brass.' Prior's Malone, p. 170.

Horace Walpole wrote of Burke's book (Letters, ix. 268) : — ' Every page shows how sincerely he is in earnest — a wondrous merit in a political pamphlet. All other party writers act zeal for the public, but it never seems to flow from the heart.'

Burke told Malone, in Sept. 1791, that 18,000 copies had been sold, and 12,000 in Paris of the French trans lation. Prior's Malone, p. 183.

Bennet Langton told H. D. Best that ' Burke was rude and violent in dispute ; instancing, " if any one as serted that the United States were in the wrong in their quarrel with the mother country, or that England

to

24

Extracts from James Boswell's Letters

to praise the clearness and accuracy of your dramatic history ; and Windham found fault with you for not taking the profits of so laborious a work. Sir Joshua is pleased, though he would gladly have seen more disquisition — you understand me ! Mr. Daines Barrington J is exceedingly gratified. He regrets that there should be a dryness between you and Steevens 2, as you have treated him with great respect. I understand that, in a short time, there will not be one of your books to be had for love or money.

Dec. 7. I dined last Saturday at Sir Joshua's with Mr. Burke, his lady, son, and niece, Lord Palmerston, Windham, Dr. Lawrence 3, Dr. Blagden 4, Dr. Burney, Sir Abraham Hume, Sir William Scott 5. I sat next to young Burke at dinner,

had a right to tax America, Burke, instead of answering his arguments, would, if seated next to him, turn away in such a manner as to throw the end of his own tail into the face of the arguer."' Personal and Literary Memorials, p. 63. Burke no doubt wore his hair tied up in a pig-tail.

1 Barrington was not a member of the Literary Club. He had belonged to Johnson's Essex Head Club. Life, iv. 254.

2 Steevens, five years earlier, had taken offence at some notes on Shakespeare which Malone furnished to Isaac Reid. Prior's Malone, p. 122. Malone wrote to Lord Charlemont on Nov. 15, 1793, about Steevens's last edition of Shakespeare : — * In my new edition I mean to throw down the gauntlet, not by the hints and hesitations of oblique deprecia tion, as he has on all occasions served me in his late book, but by a fair and direct attack.' Hist. MSS. Com., Thirteenth Report, App. viii. 221.

3 Not Johnson's friend, the physi cian, who had been dead some years, but Dr. French Lawrence, the

Civilian, whose correspondence with Burke was published in 1827.

4 'Talking of Dr. Blagden's co piousness and precision of communi cation, Dr. Johnson said: — "Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow." ' Life, iv. 30. Charlotte Burney describes him at a Twelfth Night Ball in 1784 as ' too elegant to undergo the fatigue of dancing.' Early Diary of F. Burney, ii. 316. Hannah More {Memoirs, ii. 98) met him at Mrs. Montagu's in 1788: — 'He is (she wrote) a new blue-stocking and a very agreeable one. He is Secretary to the Royal Society.' Later on he became Sir Charles Blagden.

5 To many of these guests Sir Joshua, who died on Feb. 23, 1792, left bequests — to Burke, ^2000, with the cancelling of a bond for the same amount borrowed ; to young Burke, a miniature of Oliver Cromwell ; to Lord Palmerston, the second choice of any picture of his own painting ; to Sir Abraham Hume, the choice of his Claude Lorraines ; and to Boswell ^200 to be expended in the purchase of one of his pictures.

Malone too, and Burke, as executors,

who

to Edmond Malone. 25

who said to me, that you had paid his father a very fine compliment \ I mentioned Johnson, to sound if there was any objection. He made none. In the evening Burke told me he had read your Henry VI., with all its accompaniment, and it was exceedingly well done. He left us for some time ; I suppose on some of his cursed politics ; but he returned — I at him again, and heard from his lips what, believe me, I delighted to hear, and took care to write down soon after. ' I have read his History of the Stage, which is a very capital piece of criticism and anti-agrarianism 2. I shall now read all Shakspeare through, in a very different manner from what I have yet done, when I have got such a commentator.' Will not this do for you my friend ? Burke was admirable company all that day. He never once, I think, mentioned the French revolution 3, and was easy with me, as in days of old*.

Dec. 1 6. I was sadly mortified at the Club on Tuesday, where I was in the chair, and on opening the box found three

had each the same sum left for the 2 Bos well, I suppose, wrote anti-

same object. Taylor's Reynolds, ii. quarianism.

636. 3 Burke this day never 'thought

Sir William Scott was Dr. Scott of convincing, while they thought of

(Lord Stowell), who with Reynolds dining.'

and Hawkins had been Johnson's 4 In 1783 Boswell visited Burke

executor. He outlived this dinner at Beaconsfield. Life, iv. 210. A

forty-five years. few weeks later he wrote : — ' I men-

1 * At length the task of revising tioned my expectations from the

these plays was undertaken by interest of an eminent person then in

one [Johnson] whose extraordinary power ' (no doubt Burke). Ib. p. 223.

powers of mind, as they rendered On May 28, 1794, Malone wrote of

him the admiration of his contempo- the Club : — 'We are now so distracted

raries, will transmit his name to pos- by party there, in consequence of

terity as the brightest ornament of Windham and Burke, and I might

the eighteenth century ; and will add the whole nation, being on one

transmit it without competition, if we side, and Fox and his little phalanx

except a great orator, philosopher on the other, that we in general keep

and statesman x now living, whose as clear of politics as we can, and

talents and virtues are an honour to did so yesterday.' Hist. MSS.

human nature.' Malone's Shake- Com., Thirteenth Report, App. viii.

speare, ed. 1790, i. Preface, p. 68. 239.

1 The Right Honourable Edmund Burke. Note by Malone.

balls

26 Extracts from James BoswelVs Letters

balls against General Burgoyne1. Present, besides moi^ Lord Ossory, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Burney, young Burke, Courtenay, Steevens. One of the balls, I do believe, was put into the no side by Fordyce by mistake2. You may guess who put in the other two. The Bishop of Carlisle and Dr. Blagden are put up 3. I doubt if the latter will be admitted, till Burgoyne gets in first 4. My work has met with a delay for a little while — not a whole day, however — by an unaccountable neglect in having paper enough in readiness. I have now before me p. 256. My utmost wish is to come forth on Shrove Tuesday (8th March) 5. ' Wits are game cocks,' &c. Langton is in town, and dines with me to-morrow quietly, and revises his Collectanea 6.

Jan. 1 8. 1791. I have been so disturbed by sad money- matters, that my mind has been quite fretful : 5oo/. which I

1 For his defeat at Saratoga, see Life, iii. 355. My friend, Mr. E. L. Bigelow, of Maryborough, Mass., U.S.A., has Burgoyne's folio Greek dictionary, one of the spoils of that battle. Richard Tickell celebrates his * manly sense.' Ib. iii. 388 n. According to Horace Walpole 'he had written the best modern comedy.' Letters, ix. 96.

2 Dr. George Fordyce. For an anec dote of his drinking see Life, ii. 274.

3 The Bishop (Dr. John Douglas, * the detector of quacks ') was elected on May 22, 1792 (he was at that time Bishop of Salisbury), and Dr. Blagden on March 18, 1794. Croker's Boswell, ii. 327.

4 It was no easy matter to get into the Club. ' When Bishops and Chan cellors,' wrote William Jones in 1780, ' honour us by offering to dine with us at a tavern, it seems very extra ordinary that we should ever reject such an offer.' Life of Sir W.Jones, p. 240.

Malone wrote to Lord Charlemont

on April 5, 1779 : — ' I have lately made two or three attempts to get into your club, but have not yet been able to succeed — though I have some friends there — Johnson, Burke, Steevens,Sir J. Reynolds and Marlay. At first they said, I think, they thought it a respect to Garrick's memory [see Life, i. 481, n. 3] not to elect any one for some time in his room.' Hist. MS S. Com., Twelfth Report, App. x. 344. He was elected on Feb. 5, 1782. Croker's Bosivell, ed. 1844, ii. 327.

'In the height of revolutionary proceedings in France, Rogers, not at all reserved in giving full swing to Whig opinions of the day, came forward as candidate for the Club, and was black-balled. This he at tributed to Malone.' Prior's Malone, p. 204.

5 Reynolds wrote to Malone on this day : — ' To-day is Shrove Tues day, and no Johnson.' Prior's Malone, p. 174.

6 Life, iv. I.

borrowed

to Edmond Malone. 27

borrowed and lent to a first cousin, an unlucky captain of an Indiaman, were due on the I5th to a merchant in the city. I could not possibly raise that sum, and was apprehensive of being hardly used. He, however, indulged me with an allowance to make partial payments ; i5o/. in two months, i$ol. in eight months, and the remainder, with the interests, in eighteen months. How I am to manage I am at a loss, and I know you cannot help me. So this, upon my honour, is no hint. I am really tempted to accept of the iooc/. for my Life of Johnson. Yet it would go to my heart to sell it at a price \ which I think much too low. Let me struggle and hope. I cannot be out on Shrove Tuesday, as I flattered myself. P. 376. ] of Vol. II. is ordered for press, and I expect another proof to-night. But I have yet near 200 pages of copy besides letters, i and the death, which is not yet written. My second volume \ will, I see, be forty or fifty pages more than my first. Your absence is a woful want in all respects. You will, I dare say, perceive a difference in the part which is revised only by myself, and in which many insertions will appear. My spirits are at present bad : but I will mention all I can recollect.

Jan. 29. 1791. You will find this a most desponding and disagreeable letter, for whidi I ask your pardon. But your vigour of mind and warmth of heart make your friendship of such consequence, that it is drawn upon like a bank. I have, for some weeks, had the most woful return of melancholy, insomuch that I have not only had no relish of any thing, but a continual uneasiness, and all the prospect before me for the rest of life has seemed gloomy and hopeless. The state of my affairs is exceedingly embarrassed. I mentioned to you that the 5oo/. which I borrowed several years ago, and lent to a first cousin, an unfortunate India captain, must now be paid ; i5o/. on the 1 8th of March, i5o/. on the i8th of October, and 257^ I5S- &d. on the i8th of July, 1792. This debt presses upon my mind, and it is uncertain if I shall ever get a shilling of it again. The clear money on which I can reckon out of my estate is scarcely 9OO/. a year. What can I do ? My grave brother urges me to quit London, and live at my seat in the

country ;

28 Extracts from James Boswell's Letters

country; where he thinks that I might be able to save so as gradually to relieve myself. But, alas ! I should be absolutely miserable. In the mean time, such are my projects and sanguine expectations, that you know I purchased an estate which was given long ago to a younger son of our family, and came to be sold last autumn, and paid for it 25007. — i$ool. of which I borrow upon itself by a mortgage. But the remaining iooo/. I cannot conceive a possibility of raising, but by the mode of annuity ; which is, I believe, a very heavy disadvantage. I own it was imprudent in me to make a clear purchase at a time I was sadly straitened ; but if I had missed the opportunity, it never again would have occurred, and I should have been vexed to see an ancient appanage, a piece of, as it were, the flesh and blood of the family, in the hands of a stranger. And now that I have made the purchase, I should feel myself quite despicable should I give it up.

f In this situation, then, my dear Sir, would it not be wise in me to accept of iooo guineas for my Life of Johnson, supposing the person who made the offer should now stand to it, which I fear may not be the case ; for two volumes may be considered as a disadvantageous circumstance ? Could I indeed raise iooo/. ' upon the credit of the work, I should incline to game, as Sir Joshua says x ; because it may produce double the money, though Steevens kindly tells me that I have over-printed, and that the curiosity about Johnson is now only in our own circle 2. Pray decide for me ; and if, as I suppose, you are for my taking the offer, inform me with whom I am to treat. In my present state of spirits, I am all timidity. Your absence has been a severe stroke to me. I am at present quite at a loss what to do. Last week they gave me six sheets3. I have now before me in proof p. 456 4: yet I have above 100 pages of my copy remaining, besides his death, which is yet to be written,

1 Perhaps gamble, a word not in 2 For Steevens's malignancy see

Johnson's Dictionary (where gam- Life, iii. 281.

bier, though given, is called ' a cant 3 48 pages, as the first edition was

word '), was in common use, and in quarto.

Reynolds was singular in sticking to 4 Vol. iii. p. 223 of my edition, an old-fashioned word.

and

to Edmond Malone.

29

and many insertions, were there room, as also seven-and-thirty letters, exclusive of twenty to Dr. Brocklesby, most of which will furnish only extracts. I am advised to extract several of those to others, and leave out some ; for my first volume makes only 516 pages, and to have 600 in the second will seem awkward, besides increasing the expense considerably z. The coun sellor, indeed, has devised an ingenious way to thicken the first volume, by prefixing the index. I have now desired to have but one compositor. Indeed, I go sluggishly and comfortlessly about my work. As I pass your door I cast many a longing look.

I am to cancel a leaf of the first volume, having found that though Sir Joshua certainly assured me he had no objection to my mentioning that Johnson wrote a dedication for him, he now thinks otherwise. In that leaf occurs the mention of Johnson having written to Dr. Leland, thanking the University of Dublin for their diploma2. What shall I say as to it?

shall see afterwards accepted of the same kind of assistance, well observed to me, " Writing a dedication is a knack. It is like writing an advertise ment."

'In this art no man excelled Dr. Johnson. Though the loftiness of his mind prevented him from ever dedicating in his own person, he wrote a great number of Dedications for others. After all the diligence I have bestowed, some of them have escaped my inquiries. He told me he believed he had dedicated to all the Royal Family round.'

Advertisement in the above passage is not used in its modern sense. What we should call the Prefaces to the first and second edition of the Life, Boswell calls the Advertisements. For the Advertisements which John son had intended for the English Poets, see Life, iv. 35 n.

Percy, in later editions of the Reliques, suppressed the Dedication. He wrote to Dr. Anderson :— * Though not wholly written by Dr. Johnson, it owed its finest strokes to his pen, and

I have

1 It contained 588 pages.

2 The cancel came on vol. i. p. 272 of the first edition. In the second edition a change was made in the order of the paragraphs, by which Dr. Leland and the Dedications were separated by ten pages. In my edition Dr. Leland is found on vol. i. p. 489, and the Dedications on vol. ii. p. I. By the kindness of my friend, Mr. R. B. Adam, of Buffalo, who has in his collection the proof-sheets of the Life, with Boswell's autograph corrections, I am able to give the passage as it first stood. It ran as follows: — 'He furnished his friend, Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore, with a Dedication to the Countess of Northumberland, which was prefixed to his collection of " Reliques of ancient English Poetry," in which he pays compliments to that most illustrious family in the most courtly style. It should not be wondered at, that one who can himself write so well as Dr. Percy should accept of a Dedication from Johnson's pen ; for as Sir Joshua Reynolds, who we

30 Extracts from James Boswell's Letters

I have also room to state shortly the anecdote of the college cook1, which I beg you may get for me. I shall be very anxious till I hear from you.

Having harassed you with so much about myself, I have left no room for any thing else. We had a numerous club on Tuesday : Fox in the chair, quoting Homer and Fielding, &c. to the astonishment of Jo. Warton 2 ; who, with Langton and Seward, eat a plain bit with me, in my new house, last Saturday. Sir Joshua has put up Dr. Lawrence, who will be blackballed as sure as he exists 3.

We dined on Wednesday at Sir Joshua's ; thirteen without Miss P.4 Himself, Blagden, Batt5, [Lawrence6,] Erskine7, Langton, Dr. Warton, Metcalfe8, Dr. Lawrence, his brother, a clergyman, Sir Charles Bunbury 9, myself.

I could not any longer allow myself to strut in borrowed feathers.' Ander son's Johnson, ed. 1815, p. 309.

1 This, no doubt, is explained by the following correspondence between Malone and Lord Charlemont. Ma- lone wrote on Nov. 7, 1787 : — ' Dr. Johnson very kindly wrote to some man who was employed in the College kitchen [Trinity College, Dublin] who had a mind to breed his son a scholar, and wrote to Johnson for advice. Perhaps Dr. J. Kearney could recover this/ Charlemont replied :— ' The letter to an officer in the College kitchen is well remembered, and John Kearney has promised, if pos sible, to find it, though he seems almost to despair.' Two days later he wrote : — ' The other letter is, I fear, absolutely irrecoverable, as no trace can be found of any papers be longing to the College steward, who has long since been dead.' Hist. MSS. Com., Thirteenth Report, App. viii. 62, 3, 5.

2 Why Warton should have been astonished is not clear. He had been a member of the Club for nearly fourteen years, and so was likely to

have met Fox and learnt that he was a scholar.

3 Dr. Lawrence was black-balled, and did not become a member of the Club till December, 1802. CHOKER.

4 Sir Joshua's niece, Miss Palmer. For the dinners which he gave, see Life, Hi. 375 n. ; iv. 312 n.

5 Thomas Batt, who in 1789 was one of the Commissioners for audit ing the Public Accounts. Walpole's Letters, ix. 181 n.

When Miss Burney escaped from her Court servitude she met him at a party. ' " How I rejoice," he cried, " to see you at length out of thral dom!" "Thraldom?" quoth I, " that's rather a strong word ! " ' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, v. 270.

6 Croker inserts this name, appa rently to complete the thirteen, but Dr. Lawrence's brother is included in BoswelFs list.

7 Afterwards Lord Chancellor. Life, ii. 173.

8 Philip Metcalfe, one of Reynolds's executors. Ib. iv. 159, n. 2.

9 The brother of H. W. Bunbury, the caricaturist. Ib. ii. 274. Sir Charles was the only man of heredi-

Feb.

to Edmond Malone. 31

Feb. 10. 1791. Yours of the 5th reached me yesterday. I instantly went to the Don, who purchased for you at the office of Hazard and Co. a half, stamped by government and warranted undrawn, of No. 43 m 152. in the English State Lottery. I have marked on the back of it Edward, Henrietta, and Catherine Malone, and if Fortune will not favour those three united, I shall blame her. This half shall lie in my bureau with my own whole one, till you desire it to be placed elsewhere. The cost with registration is 8/. 12.?. 6d. A half is always proportionally dearer than a whole. I bought my ticket at Nicholson's the day before, and paid i6/. 8s. for it1. I did not look at the number, but sealed it up. In the evening a handbill was circulated by Nicholson, that a ticket the day before sold at his office for i6/. 8s. was drawn a prize for 5ooo/. The number was mentioned in the handbill. I had resolved not to know what mine was till after the drawing of the lottery was finished, that I might not receive a sudden shock of blank ; but this unexpected circumstance, which elated me by calculating that mine must certainly be one of 100, or at most 200 sold by Nicholson the day before, made me look at the two last figures of it ; which, alas ! were 48, whereas those of the fortunate one were 33. I have remanded my ticket to its secrecy. O ! could I but get a few thousands, what a difference would it make upon my state of mind, which is harassed by thinking of my debts2. I am anxious to hear your determination as

tary rank who attended Johnson's for 1791 is entered on May 19,

funeral. He married Lady Sarah * Profit in 50,000 lottery-tickets at

Lennox, with whom George III had £16. 2. 6 — .£306,250.' Annual

been in love. Being divorced, she Register, 1791, Appendix, i. 116.

married the Hon. George Napier, by The difference bet ween £16. 2. 6 and

whom she was the mother of Sir £16. 8 was, I suppose, the dealer's

Charles Napier, the conqueror of profit. The total sum paid at this

Scinde, and Sir William Napier, the rate for the tickets was ,£820,000, of

historian. Walpole's Letters, iii. which little more than £500,000

373 n. She died in 1826 — a great was returned in prizes, while over

grand-daughter of Charles II. Top- £13,000 went to the dealers,

ham Beauclerk and Charles James 2 I learnt on good authority at

Fox, both of whom Johnson called Auchinleck that Boswell left his

his friends, were descended from estates nearly clear of debt, but that

Charles II. they became encumbered by his

1 In the Table of Way sand Means son, Sir Alexander, and his grand-

to

32 Extracts from James Boswell* s Letters

to my magnum opus. I am very unwilling to part with the property of it, and certainly would not, if I could but get credit for iooc/. for three or four years. Could you not assist me in that way, on the security of the book, and of an assign ment to one half of my rents, 7oo/. which, upon my honour, are always due, and would be forthcoming in case of my decease ? I will not sell, till I have your answer as to this.

On Tuesday we had a Club of eleven. Lords Lucan x (in the chair), Ossory, Macartney 2, Eliot 3, Bishop of Clonfert 4, young Burke, myself, Courtenay, Windham, Sir Joshua, and Charles Fox, who takes to us exceedingly, and asked to have dinner a little later ; so it was to be at \ past five. Burke had made a great interest for his drum-major5, and, would you believe it ? had not Courtenay and I been there, he would have been chosen. Banks was quite indignant, but had company at home. Lord Ossory ventured to put up the Bishop of Peterborough, and I really hope he will get in. Courtenay and I will not be there, and probably not again till you come. It was poor work last week, the whelp 6 would not let us hear Fox .... I am strangely ill, and doubt if even you could dispel the demoniac

son, Sir James Boswell. The popu lation of Auchinleck had risen, be tween 1834 and 1889, from 1,600 to nearly 7,000. This rapid increase was due to the coal mines which were opened about 1854, and at one time added ,£5,000 a year to the Boswell rental.

1 Life, iv. 326.

2 ' Lord Macartney (wrote Boswell in the Advertisement to the second edition of the Life, i. 13) favoured me with his own copy of my book, with a number of notes, of which I have availed myself. On the first leaf I found in his Lordship's hand-writing, an inscription of such high commen dation, that even I, vain as I am, cannot prevail on myself to publish it.' I hope that this volume will find its way into a public library.

3 It was he of whom Johnson said,

' I did not think a young Lord could have mentioned to me a book in the English history that was not known to me.' Life, iv. 333.

4 Richard Marlay, once Dean of Ferns and afterwards Bishop of Waterford. Life, iv. 73. On Jan. 27, 1782, he wrote to Lord Charle- mont : — ' Our club black-balled lord Camden. This conduct should dis grace the society. The bishop of St. Asaph was once black-balled, but is now elected. The club must have some wretched members belonging to it, or the two greatest and most virtuous characters in the kingdom could not be treated with such dis respect.' Hist. MSS. Com., Twelfth Report, App. x. 396.

5 Dr. Lawrence.

6 Perhaps young Burke.

influence.

to Edmond Malone. 33

influence. I have now before me p. 488. in print: the 923 pages of the copy only is exhausted, and there remains 80, besides the death ; as to which I shall be concise, though solemn ; also many letters. Pray how shall I wind up ? Shall I give the character in my Tour, somewhat enlarged * ?

London, Feb. 25. 1791. I have not seen Sir Joshua I think for a fortnight. I have been worse than you can possibly imagine, or I hope ever shall be able to imagine ; which no man can do without experiencing the malady. It has been for some time painful to me to be in company. I, however, am a little better, and to meet Sir Joshua to-day at dinner at Mr. Dance's2, and shall tell him that he is to have good Irish claret.

I am in a distressing perplexity how to decide as to the property of my book. You must know, that I am certainly informed that a certain person who delights in mischief has been depreciating it 3, so that I fear the sale of it may be very dubious. Two quartos and two guineas sound in an alarming manner. I believe, in my present frame, I should accept even of 5oc/. ; for I suspect that were I now to talk to Robinson 4, I should find him not disposed to give iooo/. Did he abso lutely offer it, or did he only express himself so as that you concluded he would give it ? The pressing circumstance is, that I must lay down iooo/. by the 1st of May, on account of the purchase of land, which my old family enthusiasm urged me to make. You, I doubt not, have full confidence in my honesty. May I then ask you if you could venture to join with me in

1 In the entry of Feb. 10, 1791, In consequence of his political I have followed the reprint of the phrenzy, he at this moment is appre- original in Mr. A. Morrison's Auto- hensive of judgment being pro- graphs, 2nd series, i. 375. nounced against him by the King's

2 There were two painters of this Bench for selling Paine's pamphlet, name, George and Nathaniel. Tay- and may probably be punished for lor's Reynolds, i. 260 ; ii. 609. his zeal in the " good old cause," as

3 George Steevens, no doubt. they called it in the last century, by

4 Malone, writing on Nov. 15, 1793, six months imprisonment. I shall about Mr. George Robinson, who had not have the smallest pity for him.' undertaken to publish a new edition Hist. MSS. Com., Thirteenth Report, of his Shakespeare, says : — ' He is App. viii. 222.

unluckily a determined republican.

VOL. ii. D a bond

34 Extracts from James Boswell's Letters

a bond for that sum, as then I would take my chance, and, as Sir Joshua says, game with my book ? Upon my honour, your telling me that you cannot comply with what I propose will not in the least surprise me, or make any manner of difference as to my opinion of your friendship. I mean to ask Sir Joshua if he will join ; for indeed I should be vexed to sell my Magnum Opus for a great deal less than its intrinsic value. I meant to publish on Shrove Tuesday ; but if I can get out within the month of March I shall be satisfied. I have now, I think, four or five sheets to print, which will make my second volume about 575 pages. But I shall have more cancels. That nervous mortal W. G. H. is not satisfied with my report of some particulars which 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 x. Besides, it has occurred to me, that when I mention a literary fraud, by Rolt the historian, in going to Dublin, and publishing Akenside's Pleasures of the Imagination, with his own name2, I may not be able to authenticate it, as Johnson

1 W. G. H. was William Gerard Hamilton. The cancel occurs at vol. ii. 396 of the first edition ; vol. iv. 1 1 1 of mine ; where, instead of the paragraph which now begins, ' One of Johnson's principal talents,' the following had stood: — 'His friend, Mr. Hamilton, when dining at my house one day expressed this so well that I wrote down his words : — " Johnson's great excellence in main taining the wrong side of an argu ment was a splendid perversion. If you could contrive it so as to have his fair opinion upon a subject, without any bias from personal pre judice, or from a wish to con quer — it was wisdom, it was justice, it was convincing, it was over powering." '

The blank on the next page was filled by Hamilton. ' Mr. Hamilton,' wrote Malone, ' has all his life been distinguished for political timidity

and indecision.' Prior's Malone, p. 418.

On Feb. 10 Boswell wrote to Ma- lone : — ' I must have a cancelled leaf in vol. ii. [p. 302] of that passage where there is a conversation as to conjugal infidelity on the husband's side, and his wife saying she did not care how many women he went to, if he loved her alone, with my pro posing to mark in a pocket-book, every time a wife refuses, &c., &c. I wonder how you and I admitted this to the public eye, for Windham, &c. were struck with its indelicacy, and it might hurt the book much. It is however mighty good stuff.'

The passage occurs in vol. iii. p. 406 of my edition, where Johnson says : — ' Wise married women don't trouble themselves about the infi delity in their husbands.'

2 Life ,i. 359. No change was made; ' literary fraud ' remains in the text.

is

to Edmond Malone.

35

is dead, and he may have relations who may take it up as an offence, perhaps a libel1. Courtenay suggests, that you may perhaps get intelligence whether it was true. The Bishop of Dromore2 can probably tell, as he knows a great deal about Rolt. In case of doubt, should I not cancel the leaf, and either omit the curious anecdote or give it as a story which Johnson laughingly told as having circulated ?

March 8. I have before me your volunteer letter of February , and one of 5th current, which, if you have dated it right, has come with wonderful expedition. You may be perfectly sure that I have not the smallest fault to find with your dis inclination to come again under any pecuniary engagements for others, after having suffered so much. Dilly proposes that he and Baldwin3 should each advance 2oo/. on the credit of my book ; and if they do so, I shall manage well enough, for I now find I can have 6oo/. in Scotland on the credit of my rents ; and thus I shall get the iooo/. paid in May.

1 See Life, iii. 15 for the agitation of ' the question, whether legal re- dress could be obtained, even when a man's deceased relation was calum- niated in a publication.' Johnson said, 'the law does not regard that uneasiness which a man feels on having his ancestor calumniated.'

Boswell, in a note on this, says : — * It is held in the books, that an attack on the reputation even of a dead man may be punished as a libel, because tending to a breach of the peace. There is, however, I believe, no modern decided case to that effect.'

' Chief Justice Mansfield laid down for law that satires even on dead kings were punishable.' Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George 77, iii. 153. See also his Letters, viii. 533. Blackstone makes no mention of libels on the dead.

Antony a Wood was expelled from

the University of Oxford, and fined ^34, for libelling the memory of the first Earl of Clarendon. With this fine the statues at the entrance of the Physic Garden were set up. Bliss's Antony a Wood, pp. 381-2.

A friend of mine travelling lately in the East of Europe, found that a number of a Vienna newspaper was confiscated, as it contained an attack on Maria Theresa, who, like Socrates, 'has been dead a hundred years ago.'

2 Dr. Percy.

3 Boswell, in the ' Advertisement to the Second Edition,' says : — ' May I be permitted to say that the typo- graphy of both editions does honour to the press of Mr. Henry Baldwin, now Master of the Worshipful Com- pany of Stationers, whom I have long known as a worthy man and an obliging friend.' Life, \. 10.

2 You

36 Extracts from James Boswell's Letters

You would observe some stupid lines on Mr. Burke in the 'Oracle' by Mr. Boswelll I instantly wrote to Mr. Burke, expressing my indignation at such impertinence, and had next morning a most obliging answer. Sir William Scott told me I could have no legal redress. So I went civilly to Bell, and he promised to mention handsomely that James Boswell, Esq. was not the author of the lines z. The note, however, on the subject was a second impertinence. But I can do nothing. I wish Fox, in his bill upon libels 2, would make a heavy penalty the con sequence of forging any person's name to any composition, which, in reality, such a trick amounts to.

In the night between the last of February and first of this month, I had a sudden relief from the inexplicable disorder, which occasionally clouds my mind and makes me miserable3, and it is amazing how well I have been since. Your friendly admonition as to excess in wine has been often too applicable ; but upon this late occasion I erred on the other side. However, as I am now free from my restriction to Courtenay 4, I shall be much upon my guard ; for, to tell the truth, I did go too deep the day before yesterday; having dined with Michael Angelo Taylor5, and then supped at the London Tavern with the stewards of the Humane Society, and continued till I know not what hour in the morning. John Nichols was joyous to a pitch of bacchanalian vivacity. I am to dine with him next Monday ; an excellent city party, Alderman Curtis, Deputy Birch6, &c. &c. I rated him gently on his saying so little of your Shake speare 7. He is ready to receive more ample notice. You may

1 Life, i. 190, n. 4. [ed. 1799, p. 247. See also ib. p.

2 On Feb. 21 Fox had given notice 295]. Windham replied : — ' Mr. that he intended to bring before the Taylor is fair game enough, and House ' the conduct of the Court of likes that or any other way whatever King's Bench in giving judgment of obtaining notice.' Mme. D'Ar- and sentence upon libels.' Parl. blay's Diary, iv. 139.

Hist, xxviii. 1261. 6 < Every Alderman has his Deputy,

3 Life, i. 343 ; iii. 421. chosen out of the Common Council, Ante, ii. 21. and in some of the wards that are

5 Miss Burney complained to very large the Alderman has two Windham that her father and M. A. Deputies.' Dodsley's London, i. 147. Taylor ' had been most impertinently 7 In the Gentleman's Magazine, of coupled ' in the Probationary Odes which Nichols was editor.

depend

to Edmond Malone. 37

depend on your having whatever reviews that mention you sent directly. Have I told you that Murphy has written An Essay on the Life and Writings of Dr. Johnson, to be prefixed to the new edition of his works? He wrote it in a month, and has received 2OO/. for it 1. I am quite resolved now to keep the property of my Magnum Opus ; and I flatter myself I shall not repent it.

My title, as we settled it, is 'The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., comprehending an account of his studies and various works, in chronological order, his conversations with many eminent persons, a series of his letters to celebrated men, and several original pieces of his composition: the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century, during which he flourished2.' It will be very kind if you will suggest what yet occurs. I hoped to have published to-day ; but it will be about a month yet before I launch.

March 12. Being the depositary of your chance in the lottery, I am under the disagreeable necessity of communicating the bad news that it has been drawn a blank. I am very sorry, both on your account and that of your sisters, and my own ; for had your share of good fortune been 31667. 13^. 4^. I should have hoped for a loan to accommodate me. As it is, I shall, as I wrote to you, be enabled to weather my difficulties for some time : but I am still in great anxiety about the sale of my book, I find so many people shake their heads at the two quartos and two guineas. Courtenay is clear that I should sound Robinson, and accept of a thousand guineas, if he will give that sum. Mean time, the title-page must be made as good as may be. It appears to me that mentioning his studies, works, conversations, and letters is not sufficient ; and I would suggest comprehending an account, in chronological order, of his studies, works, friend ships, acquaintance, and other particulars ; his conversation with eminent men ; a series of his letters to various persons ; also several original pieces of his composition never before published.

1 He received ,£300 for it. Nichols, 2 This title Bos well somewhat Lit. Anec.j ix. 159. modified.

The

38 Extracts from BosweWs Letters to Malone.

The whole, &c. You will, probably, be able to assist me in ex pressing my idea, and arranging the parts. In the advertisement I intend to mention the letter to Lord Chesterfield, and perhaps the interview with the King, and the names of the correspondents in alphabetical order z. How should chronological order stand in the order of the members of my title? I had at first 'celebrated correspondents', which I don't like. How would it do to say ' his conversations and epistolary correspondence with eminent (or celebrated) persons ? ' Shall it be ' different works,' and ' various particulars ' ? In short, it is difficult to decide.

Courtenay was with me this morning. What a mystery is his going on at all ! Yet he looks well, talks well, dresses well, keeps his mare — in short is in all respects like a parliament man. Do you know that my bad spirits are returned upon me to a certain degree ; and such is the sickly fondness for change of place, and imagination of relief, that I sometimes think you are happier by being in Dublin, than one is in this great metropolis, where hardly any man cares for another. I am persuaded I should relish your Irish dinners very much. I have at last got chambers in the Temple, in the very staircase where Johnson lived 2 ; and when my Magnum Opus is fairly launched, there shall I make a trial 3.

1 The advertisement is the pre face. In it he does not make this mention.

2 Letters, i. 90, n. 3.

3 Boswell wrote to Temple on April 6 : — ' My Life of Johnson is at last drawing to a close. I am cor recting the last sheet, and have only to write an advertisement, to make out a note of Errata, and to correct a second sheet of Contents, one being done. 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 hap pen.' Letters to Temple, p. 335.

On Aug. 22 he wrote : — * My magnum opus sells wonderfully ; twelve hundred are now gone, and we hope the whole seventeen hundred may be gone before Christmas.' Ib. p. 342.

ANECDOTES

BY THE

REV. DR. THOMAS CAMPBELL1

MARCH nth [1775]. It rained incessantly from the hour I awoke, that is, eight, till near twelve, that I went to bed, and how much further that night, I know not. This day I dined with the Club at the British Coffee [house] 2, introduced by my old College friend Day. The President was a Scotch Member of Parliament, Mayne, and the prevalent interest Scottish. They did nothing but praise Macpherson's new history3, and decry Johnson and Burke. Day humorously gave money to the waiter, to bring him Johnson's Taxation no Tyranny. One of them desired him to save himself the expense, for that he should have it from him, and glad that he would take it away, as it was worse than nothing. Another said it was written in Johnson's manner, but worse than usual, for that there was nothing new in it.

1 From A Diary of a Visit to 3 ( The History of Great Britain England in 1775. By an Irishman from the Restoration to the Acces- (The Reverend Dr. Thomas Camp- sion of the House of Hanover. 2 vols. bell), with Notes by Samuel Ray- quarto, £2. is' Gent. Mag. 1775, mond, M.A., Prothonotary of the p. 192. Hume, writing to Strahan, Supreme Court of New South Wales. described it as ' one of the most Sydney: Waugh & Cox, 1854. For wretched Productions that ever came the question of the authenticity of from your Press.' Letters of Hume to this Diary see Life, ii. 338, n. 2. * In Strahan, p. 308. ' For Macpherson,' a marginal note Mrs. Thrale says of wrote Horace Walpole, * I stopped Dr. Campbell: " He was a fine showy dead short in the first volume; talking man, Johnson liked him of never was such a heap of insignifi- all things in a year or two." ' Hay- cant trash and lies.' Walpole's Let- ward's Piozzi, 2nd ed., i. 99. ters, vi. 202.

2 Life, ii. 195 ; iv. 179, n. I.

I4th.

40 Anecdotes by

1 4th. The first entire fair day, since I came to London. This day I called at Mr. Thrale's, where I was received with all respect by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. She is a very learned lady *, and joyns to the charms of her own sex, the manly understanding of ours. The immensity of the Brewery astonished me. One large house contains, and cannot contain more, only four store vessels, each of which contains fifteen hundred barrels ; and in one of which one hundred persons have dined with ease 2. There are besides in other houses, thirty six of the same construction, but of one half the contents.

1 5th. A fair day. Dined with Archdeacon Congreve, to whom Dr. S. Johnson was schoolfellow at Litchfield 3. The Doctor had visited the Archdeacon yesterday, by which accident I learned this circumstance.

i6th. A fair day. Dined with Mr. Thrale along with Dr. John son, and Baretti. Baretti is a plain sensible man, who seems to know the world well. He talked to me of the invitation given him by the College of Dublin, but said it (one hundred pounds a year, and rooms,) was not worth his acceptance ; and if it had been, he said, in point of profit, still he would not have accepted it, for that now he could not live out of London. He had returned a few years ago to his own country 4, but he could not enjoy it; and he was obliged to return to London, to those connections he had been making for near thirty years past. He told me he had several families, with whom, both in town and country, he could go at any time, and spend' a month : he is at this time on these terms at Mr. Thrale's, and he knows how to keep his ground. Talking as we were at tea of the magnitude of the beer vessels, he said there was one thing in Mr. Thrale's house, still more extraordinary ; meaning his wife. She gulped

' Her learning,' said Johnson, him to brew in afterwards.' Ante,

' is that of a school-boy in one of the i. 214.

lower forms.' Life, i. 494. 3 Life, i. 45. Johnson described

' Here is Thrale has a thousand him as 'a very pious man, but always

tun of copper (said Johnson to Rey- muddy.' Ib. ii. 460. See also ib. ii.

nolds) ; you may paint it all round 474 ; Letters, i. 304, 378, 9.

if you will, I suppose; it will serve 4 Life, i. 361.

the

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell. 41

the pill very prettily — so much for Baretti x ! Johnson, you are the very man Lord Chesterfield describes : — a Hottentot indeed 2, and tho' your abilities are respectable, you never can be respected yourself. 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 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 paroxisms 3. He came up to me and took me by the hand, then sat down on a sofa, and mumbled out that he had heard two papers had appeared against him in the course of this week — one of which was — that he was to go to Ireland next .summer in order to abuse the hospitality of that place also 4. His awkwardness at table is just what Chesterfield described, and his roughness of manners kept pace with that. When Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster's Sermons, he flew in a passion and said that Foster was a man of mean ability, and of no original thinking 5. All which tho' I took to be most true, yet I held it not meet to have it so set down. He said that he looked upon Burke to be the author of Junius, and that though he would not take him contra mundum, yet he would take him against any man6. Baretti was of the same mind,

1 Mrs. Thrale thus ends- some lines 4 He was charged with having she wrote on Baretti : — abused the hospitality of the Scotch

' While tenderness, temper and in \i\sjourney to the Western Islands

truth he despises, just published. Life, ii. 305. Of

And only the triumph of victory Ireland he said : — ' It is the last

prizes, place where I should wish to travel

Yet let us be candid, and where . . . Yet he had a kindness for the

shall we find Irish nation.' Ib. iii. 410.

So active, so able, so ardent a 5 ' Mr. Beauclerk one day repeated

mind ? to Dr. Johnson Pope's lines,

To your children more soft, more " Let modest Foster, if he will,

polite with your servant, excel

More firm in distress, or in friend- Ten metropolitans in preaching

ship more fervent ? ' well " ;

Hayward's Piozzi, 2nd ed. ii. 177. then asked the Doctor, "Why did

2 It was not Johnson that Chester- Pope say this?" JOHNSON. "Sir, field described. Ante, i. 384, 451; he hoped it would vex somebody." ' Life, i. 267, n. 2. Ib. iv. 9.

3 Life, iii. 357. 6 * JOHNSON. " I should have be-

tho'

42 Anecdotes by

tho' he mentioned a fact which made against the opinion, which was that a paper having appeared against Junius, on this day, a Junius came out in answer to that the very next, when (every body knew) Burke was in Yorkshire. But all the Juniuses were evidently not written by the same hand. Burke's brother is a good writer, tho' nothing like Edward \sic\. The Doctor as he drinks no wine, retired soon after dinner, and Baretti, who I see is a sort of literary toad-eater to Johnson, told me that he was a man nowise affected by praise or dispraise1, and that the journey to the Hebrides would never have been published but for himself. The Doctor however returned again, and with all the fond anxiety of an author, I saw him cast out all his nets to know the sense of the town about his last pamphlet, Taxation no Tyranny, which he said did not sell 2. Mr. Thrale told him such and such members of both houses admired it, and why did you not tell me this, quoth Johnson3. Thrale asked him what Sir Joshua Reynolds said of it. Sir Joshua, quoth the Doctor, has not read it. I suppose, quoth Thrale, he has been very busy of late ; no, says the Doctor, but I never look at his pictures, so he won't read my writings. Was this like a man insensible to glory ! Thrale then asked him if he had got Miss Reynolds' opinion, for she it seems is a politician ; as to that, quoth the Doctor, it is no great matter, for she could not tell after she had read it, on which side of the question Mr. Burke's speech was. N.B. — We had a great deal of conversation about Archdeacon Congreve, who was his class-fellow at Litchfield School. He talked of him as a man of great coldness of mind, who could be two years in London without letting him know it till a few weeks ago, and then apologising by saying, that he did not know where to enquire for him4. This plainly raised his

lieved Burke to be Junius, because 2 On April 2, 'his Taxation no

I know no man but Burke who is Tyranny being mentioned, he said,

capable of writing these letters ; but " I think I have not been attacked

Burke spontaneously denied it to enough for it." ' Ib. ii.335- Six days

me."' Life, iii. 376. See ante, i. 172. later he wrote : — 'The patriots pelt

1 'He loved praise when it was me with answers.' Letters, i. 314. brought to him ; but was too proud 3 See Life, iv. 32.

to seek for it. He was somewhat 4 Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on

susceptible of flattery.' Life, iv. 427. Dec. 22, 1774 :— ' How long Charles

indignation

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell. 43

indignation, for he swelled to think that his celebrity should not be notorious to every porter in the street. The Archdeacon, he told me, has a sermon upon the nature of moral good and evil, preparing for the press, and should he die before publication, he leaves fifty pounds for that purpose. He said he read some of it to him, but that as he had interrupted him to make some remarks, he hopes never to be troubled with another rehearsal I.

25th. Eddying winds in the forenoon rendered the streets very disagreeable with dust, which was laid in the evening by rain from three. Dined at Mr. Thrale's, where there were ten or more gentlemen, and but one lady besides Mrs. Thrale. The dinner was excellent 2 : first course, soups at head and foot removed by fish and a saddle of mutton ; second course, a fowl they call Galena at head, and a capon larger than some of our Irish turkeys at foot ; third course, four different sorts of Ices, Pineapple, Grape, Raspberry and a fourth ; in each remove, there were I think fourteen dishes. The two first courses were served in massy plate. I sat beside Baretti, which was to me the richest part of the entertainment. He and Mr. and Mrs. Thrale joyn'd in expressing to me Dr. Johnson's concern that he could not give me the meeting that day, but desired that I should go and see him. Baretti was very humourous about his new publication3, which he expects to put out next month. He there introduces a dialogue about Ossian, wherein he ridicules the idea of its double translation into Italian, in hopes, he said, of having it abused by the Scots, which would give it an im primatur for a second edition, and he had stipulated for twenty five guineas additional if the first should sell in a given time. He repeated to me upon memory the substance of the letters which passed between Dr. Johnson and Mr. McPherson. The latter tells the Doctor, that neither his age nor infirmity's should protect him if he came in his way. The Doctor responds that

Congreve has been here, I know not. Letters, i. 304. The sermon prob-

He told me he knew not how to find ably was not published ; it is not

me.' Letters^ i. 304. in the British Museum.

1 'He is going to print a sermon, 2 Life, iii. 423, n. I.

but I thought he appeared neither 3 Ib. ii. 449. very acute nor very knowing.'

no

44 Anecdotes by

no menaces of any rascal should intimidate him from detecting imposture wherever he met it x.

APRIL i st. A fair day, dined at Mr. Thrale's, whom in proof of the magnitude of London, I cannot help remarking, no coach man, and this is the third I have called, could find without enquiry 2. But of this by the way. There was Murphy, Boswell, and Baretti, the two last, as I learned just before I entered, are mortal foes, so much so that Murphy and Mrs. Thrale agreed that Boswell expressed a desire that Baretti should be hanged upon that unfortunate affair of his killing, &c. 3 Upon this hint I went, and without any sagacity it was easily dis- cernable, for upon Baretti's entering, Boswell did not rise, and upon Baretti's descry of Boswell, he grinned a perturbed glance. Politeness however smooths the most hostile brows, and theirs were smoothed. Johnson was the subject, both before and after dinner, for it was the boast of all but myself, that under that roof were the Doctor's first friends. His bon mots were retailed in such plenty, that they, like a surfeit, could not lye upon my memory. Boswell arguing in favour of a cheerful glass, adduced the maxim in vino veritas^ 'well,' says Johnson, 'and what then unless a man has lived a lye4.' B. then urged that it made a man forget all his cares, 'that, to be sure' says Johnson 'might be of use if a man sat by such a' person as you V Boswell confessed that he liked a glass of whiskey in the Highland tour, and used to take it ; at length says Johnson, ' let me try wherein the pleasure of a Scotsman consists/ and so tips off a brimmer of whiskey6. But Johnson's abstemiousness is new to him, for within a few years he would swallow two bottles of Port

1 Life, ii. 298. some note in London ' who wondered

2 His town - house was in the who was the author of the Pater Borough, on the southern side of Noster. Ib. v. 121. Boswell's ac- the Thames. count of his trial for murder is not

3 Boswell coldly describes him as such an account as a friend would 'an Italian of considerable literature.' have written. Ib. ii. 97.

Life, i. 302. He most likely was 4 Ib. ii. 188; ante, i. 321.

'the foreign friend of Johnson's, so 5 Life, ii. 193.

wretchedly perverted to infidelity 6 ' Come (said he) let me know

that he treated the hopes of im- what it is that makes a Scotchman

mortality with a brutal levity.' Ib. happy.' Ib. v. 346.

ii. 8. He also was the * Italian of

without

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell. 45

without any apparent alteration, and once in the company with whom I dined this day, he said, pray Mr. Thrale give us another

>ttle V It is ridiculous to pry so nearly into the movements of such men, yet Boswell carrys it to a degree of superstition. The Doctor it appears has a custom of putting the peel of oranges into his pocket, and he asked the Doctor what use he made of them, the Doctor's reply was, that his dearest friend should not know that 2. This has made poor Boswell unhappy, and I verily think he is as anxious to know the secret as a green sick girl. N.B. The book wherewith Johnson presented the highland lady was Cocker's Arithmetic 3.

Murphy gave it (on Garrick's authority) that when it was asked what was the greatest pleasure, Johnson answered * * But Garrick is his most intimate friend, they came to London together and he4 is very correct both in his conduct and language ; as a proof of this, they all agreed in a story of him and Dr. James 5, who is, it seems, a very lewd fellow, both verbo et facto. James, it seems, in a coach with his whoor, took up Johnson, and set him down at a given place Johnson hearing afterwards what the lady was attacked James, when next he met him, for carrying him about in such company. James apologised by saying * * . ' Damn the rascal 6,' says Johnson, * he is past sixty the * .'

Boswell desirous of setting his native country off to the best advantage expatiated upon the beauty of a certain prospect, particularly upon a view of the sea. * O Sir,' says Johnson, * the sea is the same everywhere V

1 * Talking of drinking wine John- were neither uttered by Johnson, nor son said, " I did not leave off wine reported of him at a table where his because I could not bear it; I have a version to profanity was known; nor drunk three bottles of port without is it at all likely that he uttered any- being the worse for it. University thing which the editor of Dr. Camp- College has witnessed this." ' Life, bell's Diary could not have printed, iii. 245. Reynolds, who knew him so well,

3 It was on the morning of this said that ' he would never suffer the same day that Boswell received this least immorality or indecency of con- reply. Id. ii. 330. See also Letters, versation to proceed without a severe i. 49. check.' Post in Sir J. Reynolds's

3 Life, v. 138. Anecdotes ; ante, ii. 17.

4 Johnson, not Garrick, is meant. 7 Life, v. 54.

5 Ib. i. 8l, 159; iii. 389, n. 2. • Johnson, in a letter as printed by

6 These words, we may be sure, Mrs. Piozzi, wrote : — ' I am glad that

Dr.

Anecdotes by

Dr. Johnson calls the act in Braganza x with the monk, para- lytick on one side ; i. e. the monk is introduced without any notification of his character, so that any monk, or any other person might as well be introduced in the same place, and for the same purpose. And I myself say, that Velasquez quitting his hold of the Dutchess, upon sight of the monk, is an effect without a sufficient cause. The cool, intrepid character of Velasquez required that he should either have dispatched, or attempted to dispatch the monk, and then there would have been a pretext for losing hold of the Dutchess. The Duke is a poor, tame animal, and by no means equal to his historic character. A whimsical incident I was witness to there. Murphy told a very comical story of a Scotchman's interview with Dr. Johnson, upon his earnest desire of being known to the Doctor. This was Boswell himself2. N.B. The Tour to the Western Isles was written in twenty days 3, and the Patriot in three 4. Taxation no Tyranny within a week 5, and not one of them would have yet seen the light, had it not been for Mrs. Thrale and Baretti, who stirred him up by laying wagers 6.

the ladies find so much novelty at Weymouth. Ovid says that the sun is undelightfully uniform.' I con jectured in a note that he wrote not sun but sea. Letters, ii. 325. I could not however find the reference to Ovid. I have no doubt however that he was referring to the line which he quoted to Boswell at Leith :—

'Una est injusti caerula forma maris.'

Ovid, Amor. L. ii. El. xi.

1 A tragedy by Robert Jephson, acted at Drury Lane 1775. Post, p. 182.

2 Ante, \. 428.

3 He ' conceived the thought of it ' on Sept. I, 1773. Life, v. 141. For part of his material he used his letters to Mrs. Thrale. In the following winter he was collecting information. Ib. ii. 269, 271. In March he wrote to Boswell :— ' I think I shall be very

diligent next week about our travels, which I have too long neglected.' Ib. ii. 277. On June 20 he 'put the first sheets to the press.' Ib. p. 278. On July 4 he had still two sheets to write. Ib. p. 288. Owing to the delay of the printer the last sheet was not corrected till Nov. 25. Ib. p. 288.

4 < The Patriot was called for by my political friends on Friday, was written on Saturday.' Ib. ii. 288.

5 On Jan. 21, 1775, he wrote to Boswell : — ' I am going to write about the Americans.' Ib. ii. 292. On Feb. 3 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale :— ' My pamphlet has not gone on at all.' Letters, i. 308. By March i it had been not only written, but altered by some one in the Ministry. Ib. i. 309. ' The False Alarm was written be tween eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve o'clock on Thurs day night.' Ante, i. 173.

6 According to Hawkins, 'it was

APRIL

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell. 47

APRIL 5th. Dined with Dilly in the Poultry1, as guest to Mr. Boswell, where I met Dr. Johnson, (and a Mr. Miller, who lives near Bath2, who is a dilletanti man, keeps a weekly day for the Litterati, and is himself so litterate, that he gathereth all the flowers that ladies write, and bindeth into a garland, but enough of him) with several others, particularly a Mr. Scott3, who seems to be a very sensible plain man. The Doctor, when I came in, had an answer titled Taxation and Tyranny to his last pamphlet, in his hand. He laughed at it, and said he would read no more of it, for that it paid him compliments, but gave him no information. He asked if there were any more of them. I told him I had seen another, and that the Monthly Review had handled it in what I believed he called the way of information. ' Well,' says he, ' I should be glad to see it/ Then Boswell (who understands his temper well4) asked him somewhat, for I was not attending, relative to the Provincial Assemblies5. The Doctor, in process of discourse with him, argued with great vehemence that the Assemblies were nothing more than our Vestries. I asked him, was there not this difference, that an Act of the Assemblies required the King's assent to pass into a law : his answer had more of wit than of argument. 'Well Sir,' says he, 'that only gives it more weight.' I thought I had gone too far, but dinner was then announced, and Dilly, who paid all attention to him, in placing him next to the fire, said, * Doctor, perhaps you will be too warm 6.' ' No Sir,' says the Doctor, ' I am neither hot

by a wager, or some other pecuniary to talk, for which it was often neces-

engagement ' that he was moved to sary to employ some address.'

finish his Shakespeare. Life, i. 319, s The assemblies of the thirteen

n. 4. American colonies.

1 At Billy's table 'Johnson, who 6 'Johnson told Sir Joshua Rey- boasted of the niceness of his palate, nolds, that once when he dined in owned that " he always found a good a numerous company of booksellers, dinner.'" Life, iii. 285. For this where, the room being small, the particular dinner see id. ii. 338. head of the table at which he sat

2 Ib. ii. 336. was almost close to the fire, he

3 John Scott of Amwell, the Quaker persevered in suffering a great deal poet. Ib. ii. 338, 351. of inconvenience from the heat,

4 See ib. iii. 39, where Boswell rather than quit his place, and let asked him a question 'with an as- one of them sit above him.' Ib. sumed air of ignorance, to incite him iii. 311.

nor

48 Anecdotes by

nor cold.' ' And yet,' said I ; Doctor, you are not a lukewarm man/ This I thought pleased him, and as I sat next him, I had a fine opportunity of attending to his phiz ; and I could clearly see he was fond of having his quaint things laughed at, and they (without any force) gratified my propensity to affuse grinning. Mr. Dilly led him to give his opinion of men and things, of which he is very free, and Dilly will probably retail them all. Talking of the Scotch, (after Boswell was gone) he said, though they were not a learned nation, yet they were far removed from ignorance. Learning was new among them, and he doubted not but they would in time be a learned people, for they were a fine, bold enterprising people. He compared England and Scotland to two lions, the one saturated with his belly full, and the other prowling for prey. But the test he offered to prove that Scotland, tho' it had learning enough for common life, yet had not sufficient for the dignity of literature, was, that he defied any one to produce a classical book, written in Scotland since Buchanan x. Robertson, he said, used pretty words, but he liked Hume better2, and neither of them would he allow to be more to Clarendon 3, than a rat to a cat. ' A Scotch surgeon,' says he ' may have more learning than an English one. and all Scotland could not muster learning enough for Louth's prelections4.' Turning to me, he said, 'you have produced classical writers and scholars ; I don't know,' says he, ( that any man is before Usher 5, as a scholar, unless it may be Seldon [stc], and you have a philosopher, Boyle, and you have Swift and Congreve, but the latter,' says he, c denied you 6 ' ; and he might have added the former too7. He then said, you

1 Ante, ii. 5, 15. and a greater, he added, no church

2 In 1773 Johnson said: — 'I have could boast of, at least in modern not read Hume.' Life, ii. 236 ; ante, times.3 Ib. ii. 132.

ii. 10. 6 ' Southern mentioned Congreve

3 ' Clarendon (said Johnson) is with sharp censure as a man that supported by his matter. It is in- meanly disowned his native coun- deed owing to a plethory of matter try.' Works, viii. 23.

that his style is so faulty.' Life, iii. 7 * Swift was contented to be called

258. an Irishman by the Irish, but would

4 For Lowth see ib. ii. 37. occasionally call himself an English-

5 'Usher (Johnson said) was the man.' Ib. viii. 192. great luminary of the Irish church ;

certainly

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell. 49

certainly have a turn for the drama, for you have Southerne and Farquhar and Congreve *, and many living authors and players. Encouraged by this, I went back to assert the genius of Ireland in old times, and ventured to say that the first professors of Oxford and Paris, &c., were Irish. ' Sir,' says he, ' I believe there is something in what you say 2 ; and I am content with it, since they are not Scotch V

APRIL 8th. Very cold, and some rain, but not enough to allay the blowing of the dust. Dined with Thrale4, where Dr. Johnson was, and Boswell, (and Baretti as usual.) The Doctor was not in as good spirits as he was at Dilly's. He

,had supped the night before with Lady Miss JefFry's, one

of the maids of honour, Sir Joshua Reynolds, &c., at Mrs. Abington's 5. He said Sir C. Thompson, and some others who were there, spoke like people who had seen good company, and so did Mrs. Abington herself, who could not have seen good company 6. He seems fond of Boswell, and yet he is always abusing the Scots before him, by way of joke 7 : talking of their nationality, he said they were not singular : the Negros and Jews being so too. Boswell lamented there was no good map of Scotland. ' There never can be a good (map) of Scot land,' says the Doctor sententiously. This excited Boswell to ask wherefore. 'Why Sir, to measure land, a man must go over it; but who could think of going over Scotland8.' When Dr. Goldsmith was mentioned, and Dr. Percy's intention of writing his life 9, he expressed his approbation strongly, adding that Goldsmith was the best writer he ever knew, upon every

1 He passes over Goldsmith. know not how much kiss of Mrs.

2 Johnson described Ireland as Abington, and very good looks from

having once been ' the school of the Miss , the maid of honour.'

west, the quiet habitation of sanctity Letters, i. 316.

and literature.' Life, iii. 112. 6 Northcote described her as 'the

3 'The Irish (he said) have not Grosvenor Square of Comedy.' Con- that extreme nationality which we versations of Northcote, p. 298. find in the Scotch.' Ib. ii. 242. 7 Boswell describes ' the good-

4 Ib. ii. 349. humoured pleasantry with which he

5 Ib. On March 27 he had gone played off his wit against Scotland.' with ' a body of wits ' to her benefit. Life, ii. 77.

Ib. ii. 324. On May 12 he wrote to 8 Ib. ii. 356.

Mrs. Thrale :—' Yesterday I had I 9 Ib. iii. 100, n. i.

VOL. ii. E subject

50 Anecdotes by

subject he wrote upon x. He said that Kendric 2 had borrowed all his dictionary from him. f Why,' says Boswell, e every man who writes a dictionary must borrow.' ' No Sir/ says Johnson, 'that is not necessary.' 'Why/ says Boswell, 'have not you a great deal in common with those who wrote before you/ ' Yes Sir/ says Johnson, ( I have the words, but my business was not to make words but to explain them.5 Talking of Garrick and Barry 3, he said he always abused Garrick himself, but when anybody else did so, he fought for the dog like a tiger 4 ; as to Barry, he said he supposed he could not read. ' And how does he get his part ?' says one. ' Why, somebody reads it to him, and yet I know/ says he, ' that he is very much admired.' Mrs. Thrale then took him by repeating a repartee of Murphy, the setting Barry up in com petition with Garrick, is what irritates the English Criticks, and Murphy standing up for Barry. Johnson said that he was fit for nothing but to stand at an auction room door with his pole. Murphy said that Garrick would do the business as well, and pick the people's pockets at the same time. Johnson admitted the fact, but said, Murphy spoke nonsense, for that people's pockets were riot picked at the door, but in the room 5 ; then said I, he was worse than the pick- pockets, forasmuch as he was Pandar to them ; this went off with a laugh. Vive la bagatelle 6. It was a case decided here, that there was no harm, and much pleasure in laughing at our absent friends, and I own, if the character is not damaged, I can see no injury done.

APRIL 9th. A fair day, went to St. Clements to hear Mr. Burrows 7, so cried up by Lord Dartrey 8, preach, but I was wofully disappointed ; his matter is cold, his manner hot, his voice weak, and his action affected. Indeed I thought he

1 'JOHNSON. "Whether indeed 6 Swift's 'favourite maxim.' Works ^ we take Goldsmith as a poet, as a viii. 217.

comick writer, or as an historian, he 7 Life, iii. 379.

stands in the first class.'" Life, 8 Dartrey, Lord. Thomas Daw-

ii. 236. son, created a peer of Ireland, May

2 William Kenrick. /<$. i. 497 ; ii. 61. 28, 1770, as Baron Dartrey, of Daw-

3 Spranger Barry, the actor. son's Grove, and also Viscount

4 Ib. i. 397, n. I ; iii. 70, 312. Cremorne, June, 1785. B. 1725 ;

5 Ib. ii. 349. d. 1813.

preached

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell. 51

preached from a printed book, a book it certainly was, and it seemed at my distance, which was the perpendicular to the side of the pulpit, to have a broad margin-like print, and he did not seem master of it, yet he affected much emphasis and action. Dined with Mr. Combe, and spent the evening with Dr. Campbell *.

APRIL loth. Rain, but not enough to soften the asperity of the weather. Dined with General Oglethorpe 2, who was in lieu of Aid-de-Camp, (for he had no such officer about him) to Prince Eugene, and celebrated by Mr. Pope3. Dr. Johnson pressed him to write his life ; adding, that no life in Europe was so well worth recording 4. The old man excused himself, saying the life of a private man was not worthy public notice. He however desired Boswell to bring him some good Almanack, that he might recollect dates, and seemed to excuse himself also on the article of incapacity, but Boswell desired him only to furnish the skeleton, and that Dr. Johnson would supply bones and sinews. * He would be a good Doctor,' says the General, ' who would do that.' 'Well/ says I, 'he is a good Doctor,' at which he, the Doctor, laughed very heartily. Talking of America, it was observed that his works would not be admired there. ' No,' says Boswell, ' we shall soon hear of his being hung in effigy.' ' I should be glad of that,' says the Doctor, ' that would be a new source of fame ; ' alluding to some conversation on the fulness of his fame which had gone before. And says Boswell, ' I wonder he has not been hung in effigy from the Hebrides to England.' ' I shall suffer them to do it corporeally,' says the Doctor, ' if they can find me a tree to do it upon V

1 Dr. John Campbell. * JOHNSON. Oglethorpe's as he had been taken " I used to go pretty often to Camp- to Billy's. Ib. ii. 350.

bell's on a Sunday evening, till I 3 Ib. i. 127 ; ii. 181. began to consider that the shoals of 4 'Dr. Johnson urged General Ogle- Scotchmen who flocked about him thorpe to give the world his Life, might probably say, when anything He said, " I know no man whose of mine was well done, { Ay, ay, he Life would be more interesting. If has learnt this of Cawmell.' " ' Life, I were furnished with materials I i. 418. should be very glad to write it.'"

2 It was by Boswell that Dr. Ib. ii. 351. Thomas Campbell was taken to 5 Ib. ii. 311,

E a The

52 Anecdotes by

The Poem of the Graces became the topic ; Boswell asked if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master x. * Aye, and a dancing mistress too/ says the Doctor, ' but I own to you I never took a lesson but one or two, my blind eyes showed me I could never make a proficiency.' Boswell led him to give his opinion of Gray, he said there were but two good stanzas in all lis works, viz., the elegy2. Boswell desirous of eliciting his opinion upon too many subjects, as he thought, he rose up and took his hat3. This was not noticed by anybody as it was nine o'clock, but after we got into Mr. Langton's coach, who gave us a set down, he said, ' Boswell's conversation consists entirely in asking questions, and it is extremely offensive Y we

fended it upon Boswell's eagerness to hear the Doctor speak.

Talking of suicide 5, Boswell took up the defence for argument's sake, and the Doctor said that some cases were more excusable than others, but if it were excusable, it should be the last resource; 'for instance,5 says he, 'if a man is distressed in circumstances, (as in the case I mentioned of Denny) he ought to fly his country.' ' How can he fly,' says Boswell, ' if he has wife and children?' 'What Sir/ says the Doctor, shaking his head as if to promote the fermentation of his wit, ' doth not a man fly from his wife and children if he murders himself?'

APRIL i6th. Dined with Archdeacon Congreve, my Lord Pri mate6 came there in the evening. He asked me sneeringly if I had seen the lions 7. I told him I had neither seen them nor the crown, nor the jewels, nor the whispering-gallery at St. Paul's. The conversation turned upon other things, and came round to his picture by Reynolds, which led on talk of Sir Joshua and other great artists, and without any force, I introduced something of Johnson. ' What/ says he, ' do you know him ?' ' Yes my Lord I do, and Barretti [sic], and several others, whom I have been

1 Life, iv. 79. 4 < Questioning (said Johnson) is

2 This he had said to Boswell not the mode of conversation among about a fortnight earlier. Ib. ii. gentlemen.' Ib. ii. 472. See also 328. For two 'very good lines ' in ib. iii. 57, 268 ; iv. 439.

the Bard see ib. i. 403. 5 Ib. iv. 225 ; v. 54.

3 * He was not much in the humour 6 The Archbishop of Armagh, of talking.' Ib. ii. 352. 7 In the Tower.

fortunate

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell. 53

fortunate enough to find willing to extend my acquaintance among their friends, for these, my Lord, were the lions I came to see in London.' 'Aye,' says he, 'these indeed are lions worth seeing, and the sight of them may be of use to you.'

APRIL 2Oth. Fair, and somewhat softened by the fall of hail yesterday. Dined at Thrale's x, with Dr. Johnson, Barretti, and a Dean Wetherall of Oxford 2, who is soliciting for a riding house at Oxford. When I mentioned to the Doctor another answer, entitled Resistance no Rebellion, coming out, he said, 'that is the seventh, the author finds the other six will not do, and I foresee that the title is the best part of the book.' He desired that I should visit him. N.B. — Talking after dinner of the measures he would pursue with the Americans, he said the first thing he would do, would be to quarter the army on the citys, and if any refused free quarters, he would pull down that person's house, if it was joyned to other houses, but would burn it if it stood alone3. This and other schemes he proposed in the manuscript of Taxation no Tyranny, but these, he said, the Ministry expunged 4.

34th. Rainy morning. Sat an hour with Dr. Johnson about noon. He was at breakfast with a Pindar5 in his hand, and after saluting me with great cordiality, he, after whistling in his way 6 over Pindar, layed the book down, and then told me he had seen my Lord Primate at Sir Joshua's, and ' I believe/ says he, ' I have not recommended myself much to him, for I differed widely in opinions from him, yet I hear he is doing good things in Ireland V I mentioned Skelton to him as a man of strong

1 Boswell was absent from London the Americans ' Rascals — Robbers — from April 1910 May 2. Life, ii. 371. Pirates; exclaiming he'd burn and

2 Dr. Wetherell was Master of destroy them,' and post, p. 55. University College, Oxford, and Dean 4 Life, ii. 313. For Hume's wise of Hereford. Johnson had written views see his Letters to Strahan, to Mrs. Thrale on April I :— ' Dr. p. 288.

Wetherell is very desirous of seeing 5 Boswell had sent him an ' elegant

the brewhouse ; I hope Mr. Thrale Pindar.' Life, ii. 204.

will send him an invitation.' Letters, 6 ' He half-whistled in his usual

i. 313. For the riding-school see way when pleasant.' Ib. iii. 357.

Life, ii. 424 ; Letters, i. 309, n. I. 7 For Johnson's views* about Ire-

3 See Life, iii. 290, where he called land see Life, ii. 121, 130, 255.

imagination,

54 Anecdotes by

imagination, and told him the story of his selling his library for the support of the poor z. He seemed much affected by it, and then fell a rowling and muttering to himself, and I could hear him plainly say after several minutes pause from con versation, ' Skelton is a great good man.' He then said, ' I purpose reading his Ophiomachis, for I have never seen anything of his, but some allegoric pieces which I thought very well of.' He told me he had seen Delany when he was in every sense gravis annis^ l but he was [an] able man,' says he, * his " Reve lation examined with candour" was well received, and I have seen an introductory preface to a second edition of one of his books, which was the finest thing I ever read in the declamatory way2.' He asked me whether Clayton was an English or Irish man. ' He endeavoured to raise a hissy 3 among you,' says he, ' but without effect I believe.' I told him one effect in the case of the parish clerks. His indignation was prodigious. 'Aye/ says he, ' these are the effects of heretical notions upon vulgar minds.'

JUNE nth. 1781. I went to see Dr. Johnson, found him alone, Barretti came soon after. Barretti (after some pause in conver sation) asked me, if the disturbances were over in Ireland. I told him I had not heard of any disturbances there. ' What,' says he, ' have you not been up in arms?' ' Yes, and a great number of men continue so to be.' ' And dont you call that disturb ance?' returned Barretti. 'No,' said I, 'the Irish volunteers have demeaned themselves very peaceably, and instead of disturbing the peace of the country, have contributed much to its preservation4.' The Doctor, who had been long silent,

1 Rev. Philip Skelton, born near came to London to publish his Reve- Lisburne, 1707; died in 1787. In lation examined with Candour. He 1750 he obtained the living of Pel- died at Bath in 1768. Ib. p. 155. tigo, in Donegal. Here, in a time of Johnson praised his Observations on scarcity, he even sold his library to Swift. Life, iii. 249.

supply his indigent parishioners with 3 This word is not in Johnson's

bread. His works are in 7 vols. 8vo. Dictionary.

Universal Biography, quoted by the 4 Horace Walpole thus describes

editor of Campbell's Diary, p. 154. public affairs in February, 1779:—

2 Patrick Delany, friend of Dr. 'The navy disgusted, insurrections Swift, born about 1686. In 1731 he in Scotland, Wales mutinous, a re turned

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell. 55

turned a sharp ear to what I was saying, and with vehemence said, ' What Sir, dont you call it disturbance to oppose legal government with arms in your hands, and compel it to make laws in your favour ? Sir, I call it rebellion ; rebellion as much as the rebellion of Scotland.' ' Doctor,' said I, ' I am sorry to hear that fall from you, I must however say that the Irish consider themselves as the most loyal of His Majesty's subjects, at the same time that they firmly deny any allegiance to a British Parliament. They have a separate Legislature, and that they have never showed any inclination to resist/ * Sir/ says the Doctor, ' you do owe allegiance to the British Parliament as a conquered nation x, and had I been Minister I would have made you submit to it. I would have done as Oliver Cromwell did ; I would have burned your cities, and wasted you in the fires (or flames) of them 2/ I, after allowing the Doctor to vent his indignation upon Ireland, cooly replyed, •' Doctor, the times are altered, and I dont find that you have succeeded so well in burning the cities, and roasting the inhabitants of America/ ' Sir/ says he gravely, and with a less vehement tone, ' what you say is true, the times are altered, for power is now nowhere, we live under a government of influence, not of power 3 ; but Sir, had we

bellion ready to break out in Ireland penalties, as rebels, was monstrous

where 15,000 Protestants were in injustice. King William was not

arms, without authority, for their their lawful sovereign ; he had not

own defence, many of them well- been acknowledged by the Parlia-

wishers to the Americans, and all so ment of Ireland when they appeared

ruined that they insisted on relief in arms against him." ' Life, ii. 255.

from Parliament, or were rea4y to 2 'Johnson severely reprobated the

throw off subjection/ Journal of the barbarous debilitating policy of the

Reign of George ///, ii. 339. British government [in Ireland],

1 On May 7, 1773, 'bursting forth which, he said, was the most detest-

with a generous indignation he said, able method of persecution. To a

" The Irish are in a most unnatural gentleman who hinted such policy

state ; for we see there Jhe minority might be necessary to support the

prevailing over the majority. There authority of the English government

is no instance, even in the ten perse- he replied by saying, " Let the au-

cutions, of such severity as that which thority of the English government

the Protestants of Ireland have exer- perish rather than be maintained by

cised against the Catholicks. Did we iniquity.'" Ib. ii. 121.

tell them we have conquered them, 3 Boswell, arguing with Johnson

it would be above board : to punish on Sept. 23, 1777, says : — * I insisted

them by confiscation and other that America might be very well

treated

Anecdotes by

treated the Americans as we ought, and as they deserved, we

should have at once razed all their towns, and let them

enjoy their forests .' After this wild rant, argument would

but have enraged him, I therefore let him vibrate into calmness, then turning round to me, he, with a smile, says, * After all Sir, though I hold the Irish to be rebels, I dont think they have been so very wrong, but you know that you compelled our Parliament, by force of arms, to pass an act in your favour. That, I call rebellion/ ' But Doctor,' said I, ' did the Irish claim anything that ought not to have been granted, though they had not made the claim.' { Sir, I wont dispute that matter with you, but what I insist upon is that the mode of requisition was rebellious.' * Well Doctor, let me ask you but one question, and I shall ask you no more on this subject, do you think that Ireland would have obtained what it has got by any other means?' 'Sir,' says he candidly, 'I believe it would not. However, a wise government should not grant even a claim of justicerif an attempt is made to extort it by force1.' I said no more 2.

governed, and made.to yield sufficient revenue by the means of influence, as exemplified in Ireland, while the people might be pleased with the imagination of their participating of the British constitution, by having a body of representatives without whose consent money could not be extracted from them.' Life, iii. 205. For influence see Ib. iii. 205, n. 4, and Letters, i. 107, n. I.

When in March, 1782, Lord North's government was overthrown, Johnson said :— ' I am glad the Minis try is removed. Such a bunch of imbecility never disgraced a country.' Life, iv. 139.

1 Johnson wrote on Aug. 4, 1782 : — * Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish, having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should say

we will have a King and ally our selves with the house of Bourbon, what could be done to hinder or to overthrow them.' Letters, ii. 264.

2 Campbell published the following account of this conversation in his Strictures on the History of Ireland, ed. 1789, p. 336: — 'This considera tion was vehemently urged against me by Dr. Johnson, in a conversation I once held with him respecting the affairs of this country (Ireland). The conversation appeared to my dear friend Dr. Wilkinson (to whom I re peated it within an hour or two after it passed) so extraordinary that he gave me pen, ink and paper to set it down immediately. But first let me premise a circumstance or two. — Having spent the winter of the year 1777 in London, I had been honoured (and it is my pride to acknowledge it) with his familiarity and friendship. I had not seen him from that time

the Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell.

57

till the nth of June, 1781, when I went to pay him a morning visit. I found him alone, and nothing but mutual enquiries respecting mutual friends had passed, when Barretti came in. Barretti, more curious than the Doctor, soon asked me if the Disturbances in Ireland were over. The question, I own, surprized me, as I had left all things quiet, and was not at first altogether aware of the tendency of his question. I therefore in return asked what disturbances he meant, for that I had heard of none. "What!" said he, "have you not been in arms ?" To which I answered < categorically, "Yes ! and many bodies of men continue so to be." "And don't you call this Disturbance ? " re joined Barretti. " No ! " said I, "the Irish volunteers have demeaned them selves very peaceably," ' &c.

[Here follows a long explanation of the volunteers which I omit.]

' Dr. Johnson, who all this while sat

silent, but with a very attentive ear to what passed, at length turned to me with an apparent indignation which I had never before experienced from him.'

Here follows Johnson's speech in much the same words as in the text, except that ' wasted in the flames ' is ' roasted in the flames.' Wasted probably is a misprint. Campbell continues : — * After this explosion I perhaps warmly replied' [In the text Campbell 'cooly replyed ']. Johnson continues as in the text, but adds : — 4 in a jocular way, repeating what he before said, " when we should have roasted the Americans as rebels we only whipped them as children, and we did not succeed because my advice was not taken." ' The con versation ends with his saying: — 1 Why, Sir, I don't know but I might have acted as you did, had I been an Irishman; but I speak as an Englishman.'

ANECDOTES

FROM PENNINGTON'S MEMOIRS OF MRS. CARTER

MRS. CARTER always spoke in high terms of Dr. Johnson's constant attendance to religious duties, and the soundness of his moral principles. In one of their latest conversations she was expressing this opinion of him to himself ; he took her by the hand, and said with much eagerness ; ' You know this to be true, and testify it to the world when I am gone.' Vol. i. p. 41.

The following epigram by Dr. Johnson, found among Mrs. Carter's poems, in his own hand-writing has never, I believe, been published before.

'Quid mihi cum cultu? Probitas inculta nitescit,

Et juvat Ingenii vita sine arte rudis. Ingenium et mores si pulchra probavit Elisa, Quid majus inihi spes ambitiosa dabit1?'

Vol. i. p. 398.

To these parties [at Mrs. Montagu's and Mrs. Vesey's] it was not difficult for any person of character to be introduced. There was no ceremony, no cards and no supper. Even dress was so little regarded, that a foreign gentleman, who was to go there with an acquaintance, was told in jest that it was so little necessary that he might appear there, if he pleased, in blue stockings. This he understood in the literal sense ; and when he spoke of it in French called it the Bas Bleu meeting. And this was the origin

1 For his other epigrams to her, see Life, i. 122, 140, and Works, i. 170.

of

Anecdotes from Pennington's Memoirs. 59

of the ludicrous appellation of the Blue Stocking Club, since given to these meetings, and so much talked of1.

Nothing could be more agreeable, nor indeed more instructive, than these parties. Mrs. Vesey2 had the almost magic art of putting all her company at their ease, without the least appear ance of design. Here was no formal circle to petrify an unfor tunate stranger on his entrance; no rules of conversation to observe; no holding forth of one to his own distress, and the stupefying of his audience, no reading of his works by the author. The company naturally broke into little groups, perpetually varying and changing3. They talked or were silent, sat or walked about, just as they pleased. Nor was it absolutely necessary even to talk sense. There was no bar to harmless mirth and gaiety : and while perhaps Dr. Johnson in one corner held forth on the moral duties, in another, two or three young people might be talking of the fashions and the Opera ; and in a third Lord Orford (then Mr. Horace Walpole) might be amusing a little group around him with his lively wit and intelligent conversation 4.

1 For another explanation of the name, see Life, iv. 108.

1 Blue-stocking. Wearing blue worsted (instead of black silk) stock ings ; hence, not in full dress, in homely dress (contemptuous]. Ap plied to the " Little Parliament " of 1653, with reference to the puritani cally plain or mean attire of its mem bers. Applied depreciatively to the assemblies that met at Montagu House, and those who frequented them or imitated them. Hence of women : Having or affecting literary tastes. Transferred sneeringly to any woman showing a taste for learning. Much used by reviewers of the first quarter of the nineteenth century ; but now, from the general change of opinion on the education of women, nearly abandoned.' New English Dictionary.

Wraxall (Memoirs, ed. 1815, i. 140)

says that the Blue Stockings ' formed a very numerous, powerful, compact phalanx in the midst of London.'

* Lord Jeffrey said that there was no objection to the blue-stocking, provided the petticoat came low enough down.' Cockburn's Memoirs, ed. 1856, p. 268.

2 Life, iii. 424-6. Hannah More's Bas Bleu is addressed to her.

3 According to Miss Burney, ' Lord Harcourt said, " Mrs. Vesey's fear of ceremony is really troublesome ; for her eagerness to break a circle is such that she insists upon every body's sitting with their backs one to another ; that is, the chairs are drawn into little parties of three together in a confused manner all over the room." ' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 184.

4 Life, iii. 425, n. 3.

Now

60 Anecdotes from Pennington's Memoirs.

Now and then perhaps Mrs. Vesey might call the attention of the company in general to some circumstance of news, politics, or literature, of peculiar importance ; or perhaps to an anecdote, or interesting account of some person known to the company in general. Of this last kind a laughable circumstance occurred about the year 1778, when Mrs. Carter was confined to her bed with a fever, which was thought to be dangerous. She was attended by her brother-in-law, Dr. Douglas, then a physician in Town, and he was in the habit of sending bulletins of the state of her health to her most intimate friends, with many of whom he was well acquainted himself. At one of Mrs. Vesey 's parties a note was brought to her, which she immediately saw was from Dr. Douglas. 'Oh!' said she, before she opened it, 'this contains an account of our dear Mrs. Carter. We are all interested in her health : Dr. Johnson, pray read it out for the information of the company.' There was a profound silence ; and the Doctor, with the utmost gravity, read aloud the physician's report of the happy effect which Mrs. Carter's medicines had produced, with a full and complete account of the circumstances attending them. Vol. i. p. 465.

ANECDOTES BY JOSEPH CRADOCK^

THE first time I dined in company with Dr. Johnson was at T. Davies's2, Russell Street, Covent Garden, as mentioned by Mr. Boswell, in his Life of Johnson*. On mentioning my engagement previously to a friend, he said, ' Do you wish to be well with Johnson?' 'To be sure, Sir,' I replied, 'or I should not have taken any pains to have been introduced into his company.5 'Why then, Sir,' says he, 'let me offer you some advice: you must not leave him soon after dinner to go to the play; during dinner he will be rather silent — it is a very

years after this dinner Johnson wrote to Mrs. Montagu :— ' Poor Davies, the bankrupt bookseller, is soliciting his friends to collect a small sum for the repurchase of part of his house hold stuff.3 Letters, ii. 64.

3 < On Friday, April 12 [1776], I dined with him at our friend Tom Davies's, where we met Mr. Cradock, of Leicestershire, authour ofZobeide, a tragedy ; a very pleasing gentleman ; and Dr. Harwood, who has written and published various works ; par ticularly a fantastical translation of the New Testament, in modern phrase, and with a Socinian twist.' Life, iii. 38.

* There is a new tragedy at Covent Garden, called Zobeide, which, I am told, is very indifferent, though written by a country-gentleman.' Walpole's Letters, v. 356.

serious

1 * From Mr. Cradock's Memoirs. \Literary Memoirs, 4 vols. London, 1828.] These anecdotes are certainly very loose and inaccurate ; but as they have been republished in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1828, "with some corrections and additions from the author's MS.," I think it right to notice them ; and, as they profess to be there enlarged from the MS., I copy this latter ver sion, which differs, in some points, from the memoirs.' — Croker, ix. 236. Croker does not always follow the version in the Gentlemaris Magazine.

2 Life, i. 390.

Dr. Campbell said of Davies : — ' he was not a bookseller, but a gentleman dealing in books.' Nichols's Lit. Anec. vi. 429 n. Perhaps he was too much of a gentleman, and too little of a tradesman, for less than two

62 Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock.

serious business with him x ; between six and seven he will look about him, and see who remains, and, if he then at all likes the party, he will be very civil and communicative. He exactly fulfilled what my friend had prophesied. Mrs. Davies 2 did the honours of the table : she was a favourite with Johnson, who sat betwixt her and Dr. Harwood ; I sat next, below, to Mr. Boswell opposite. Nobody could bring Johnson forward more civilly or properly than Davies. The subject of conversation turned upon the tragedy of CEdipus*. This was particularly interesting to me, as I was then employed in endeavouring to make such alterations in Dryden's play 4, as to make it suitable to a revival at Drury Lane theatre. Johnson did not seem to think favourably of it ; but I ventured to plead, that Sophocles wrote it expressly for the theatre, at the public cost, and that it was one of the most celebrated dramas of all antiquity. Johnson said, * CEdipus was a poor miserable man, subjected to the greatest distress, without any degree of culpability of his own.' I urged, that Aristotle, as well as most of the Greek poets, were [sic] partial to this character ; that Addison considered that, as terror and pity were particularly excited, he was the properest5 here Johnson suddenly becoming loud, I paused,

1 'When at table he was totally him to talk, for which it was often absorbed in the business of the necessary to employ some address." ' moment ; his looks seemed rivetted Ib. iii. 39. Boswell does not mention to his plate ; nor would he, unless any talk about CEdipus.

when in very high company, say one 4 l CEdipus is a tragedy formed by

word, or even pay the least attention Dryden and Lee in conjunction, from

to what was said by others, till he the works of Sophocles, Seneca and

had satisfied his appetite.' Life, Corneille. Dryden planned the

i. 468. scenes and composed the first and

2 Ib. i. 391, n. 2, 484. third acts.' Johnson's Works, vii. * I am strongly affected by Mrs. 269.

Davies's tenderness/ Johnson wrote 5 Addison quotes Aristotle's obser-

to her husband. Ib. iv. 231. vation — 'if we see a man of virtue,

3 ' I introduced ' (writes Boswell) mixt with infirmities, fall into any ' Aristotle's doctrine in his Art of misfortune, it does not only raise our Poetry, of " the KaOapats T&V iraOr)- pity, but our terror ; because we are fidroav, the purging of the passions," afraid that the like misfortune may as the purpose of tragedy. " But happen to ourselves, who resemble how are the passions to be purged the character of the suffering person.' by terrour and pity ? said I, with an The Spectator, No. 273. See also assumed air of ignorance, to incite ib. No. 297.

and

Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock. 63

and rather apologized that it might not become me, perhaps, too strongly to contradict Dr. Johnson. ' Nay, Sir,' replied he, hastily, 'if I had not wished to have heard your arguments, I should not have disputed with you at all.' All went on quite pleasantly afterwards. We sat late, and something being men tioned about my going to Bath, when taking leave, Johnson very graciously said, ' I should have a pleasure in meeting you there V Either Boswell or Davies immediately whispered to me. 'You're landed2.'

The next time I had the pleasure of meeting him was at the Literary Club dinner at the coffee-house in St. James's Street 3, to which I was introduced by my partial friend, Dr. Percy. Johnson that day was not in very good humour. We rather waited for dinner. Garrick came late, and apologized that he had been to the House of Lords, and Lord Camden insisted on conveying him in his carriage 4. Johnson said nothing, but he looked a volume. The party was numerous. 1 sat next Mr. Burke at dinner. There was a beef-steak pie placed just before us ; and I remarked to Mr. Burke that something smelt very disagreeable, and looked to see if there was not a dog under the table. Burke with great good humour said, ' I believe, Sir, I can tell you what is the cause ; it is some of my country

1 Three days later Johnson went to breakfast with Garrick, who was very Bath with the Thrales. Letters, i. 391. vain of his intimacy with Lord Cam-

2 ' My record upon this occasion den, he accosted me thus : — " Pray does great injustice to Johnson's ex- now, did you — did you meet a little pression, which was so forcible and lawyer turning the corner, eh?"- brilliant, that Mr. Cradock whispered " No, Sir, (said I.) Pray what do me, "O that his words were written you mean by the question?" — "Why, in a book ! " ' Life, iii. 39. (replied Garrick, with an affected in-

When, thirteen years earlier, Bos- difference, yet as if standing on tip- well was introduced to Johnson in the toe,) Lord Camden has this moment same parlour, Davies said to him, as left me. We have had a long walk he was leaving, 'Don't be uneasy, together." JOHNSON. "Well, Sir, I can see he likes you very well.' Garrick talked very properly. Lord Ib. i. 395. Camden was a little lawyer to be

3 Croker says that to this club no associating so familiarly with a stranger is ever invited. Croker's player.'" Life, iii. 311.

Boswell, ix. 237 n. It met for some 'Lord Camden,' Bentham said,

time at Parsloe's, St. James's Street. ' was a hobbledy-hoy, and had no

4 ' I told Johnson ' (writes Boswell) polish of manners.' Bentham's 'that one morning, when I went to Works, x. 118.

butter

64 Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock.

butter in the crust that smells so disagreeably.' Dr. Johnson just at this time, sitting opposite, desired one of us to send him some of the beef-steak pie. We sent but little, which he soon dispatched, and then returned his plate for more. Johnson particularly disliked that any notice should be taken of what he eat1, but Burke ventured to say he was glad to find that Dr. Johnson was anywise able to relish the beef-steak pie. Johnson, not perceiving what he alluded to, hastily exclaimed, ' Sir, there is a time of life when a man requires the repairs of the table ! ' The company rather talked for victory than social intercourse. I think it was in consequence of what passed that evening, that Dr. Goldsmith wrote his Retaliation 2. Mr. Richard Burke was present, talked most, and seemed to be the most free and easy of any of the company3. I had never met him before. Burke seemed desirous of bringing his relative forward. In Mr. Chalmers's account of Goldsmith, different sorts of liquor are offered as appropriate to each guest. To the two Burkes ale from Wicklow, and wine from Ferney to me : my name is in italics, as supposing I am a wine-bibber ; but the author's allusion to the wines of Ferney was meant for me, I rather think, from my having taken a plan of a tragedy from Voltaire.

Mrs. Percy, afterwards nurse to the Duke of Kent4, at Buckingham House, told me that Johnson once stayed near a month with them at their dull parsonage at Easton Mauduit 5 ; that Dr. Percy looked out all sorts of books to be ready

x Boswell says that on their tour Richard,' thus described in Retalia te the Highlands he contrived ' that tion : —

Dr. Johnson should not be asked * What spirits were his ! what wit

twice to eat or drink anything and what whim !

(which always disgusts him).' Life, Now breaking a jest, and now

v. 264. breaking a limb !

2 Cradock first met Johnson in Now wrangling and grumbling to 1776, more than two years after keep up the ball ! Goldsmith's death. Such a blunder Now teasing and vexing, yet laugh- as this shows that not much trust ing at all ! '

can be placed in his anecdotes. Ac- 4 Letters, \. 414, n. 2. The Duke of

cording to Cumberland (Memoirs, i. Kent was the father of Queen Victoria.

369) it was at the St. James's Coffee s Johnson spent with the Percies

House that the dinner took place part of June, July, and August of

which led to Retaliation. 1764. Life, i. 486, and/^J/ in Percy's

3 Edmund Burke's brother, ' honest Anecdotes. ' The little terrace in the

for

Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock. 65

for his amusement after breakfast, and that Johnson was so attentive and polite to her, that, when Dr. Percy mentioned the literature proposed in the study, he said, ' No, Sir, I shall first wait upon Mrs. Percy to feed the ducks.' But those halcyon days were about to change, — not as to Mrs. Percy, for to the last she remained a favourite with him.

I happened to be in London once when Dr. Percy returned from Northumberland, and found that he was expected to preach a charity sermon almost immediately. This had escaped his memory, and he said, that, though much fatigued, he had been obliged to sit up very late to furnish out something from former discourses; but, suddenly recollecting that Johnson's fourth Idler was exactly to his purpose, he had freely engrafted the greatest part of it. He preached, and his discourse was much admired; but being requested to print it, he most strenuously opposed the honour intended him. till he was assured by the governors, that it was absolutely necessary, as the annual con tributions greatly depended on the account that was given in the appendix. In this dilemma, he earnestly requested that I would call upon Dr. Johnson, and state particulars. I assented, and endeavoured to introduce the subject with all due solemnity; but Johnson was highly diverted with his recital, and, laughing, said, * Pray, Sir, give my kind respects to Dr. Percy, and tell him, I desire he will do whatever he pleases in regard to my Idler ; it is entirely at his service V

garden [of the vicarage] is still called Diary, v. 256. It was Miss Percy

Dr. Johnson's walk.' Wheatley's whom, when a little girl, Johnson set

Percy's Religues, i. Preface, p. 75. down from his knee, telling her that

Miss Burney wrote in 1781 or he did not care one farthing for her

1782 : — * Mrs. Percy is a vulgar, fus- as she had not read Pilgrim's Pro-

socking, proud woman ; but very civil gress. Life, ii. 238, n. 5.

to us. Miss Percy is among the very * This sermon, I have no doubt,

well? Early Diary of F. Burney, ii. was the one preached before the Sons

297. In 1 79 1 she wrote : — 'Mrs.Percy of the Clergy on May n, 1769;

is very uncultivated and ordinary published by J. and F. Rivington, a

in manners and conversation, but a copy of which is in the Bodleian

good creature, and much delighted Library. Johnson's thoughts are

to talk over the Royal Family, to one borrowed, but not his words,

of whom she was formerly a nurse. This sermon was preached seven

Miss Percy is a natural and very years before Cradock first met

pleasing character.' Mme. D'Arblay's Johnson.

VOL. II. F But

66

Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock.

But these days of friendly communication were, from various causes, speedily to pass away, and worse than indifference to succeed ; for, one morning Dr. Percy said to Mr. Cradock, 1 1 have not seen Dr. Johnson for a long time. I believe I must just call upon him, and greatly wish that you would accompany me. I intend,' said he, 'to tease him a little about Gibbon's pamphlet.' ' I hope not, Dr. Percy,' was my reply. ' Indeed I shall ; for I have a great pleasure in combating his narrow prejudices.' We went together; and Dr. Percy opened with some anecdote from Northumberland House x, mentioned some rare books that were in the library ; and then threw out that the town rang with applause of Gibbon's Reply to Davis]' that the latter 'had written before he had read,' and that the two * confederate doctors,' as Mr. Gibbon termed them, c had fallen into some strange errors 2.' Johnson said, he knew nothing of

1 He had an apartment in North umberland House, ' in which,' says Boswell, ' I have passed many an agreeable hour.3 Life, iii. 420, n. 5.

2 H. E. Davis, a Bachelor of Arts of Oxford, published in 1778 An Examination of the \$th and \6th Chapters of Mr. Gibbon's History. Gibbon, in A Vindication, answered at the same time the attacks of two Doctors of Divinity — Randolph and Chelsum. He describes how, 'op pressed with the same yoke, covered with the same trappings, they heavily move along, perhaps not with an equal pace, in the same beaten track of prejudice and preferment. ... It was the misfortune of Mr. Davis that he undertook to write before he had read. But the two confederate doctors appear to be scholars of a higher form and longer experience ; they enjoy a certain rank in their academical world ; and as their zeal is enlightened by some rays of know ledge, so their desire to ruin the credit of their adversary is occasion ally checked by the apprehension of

injuring their own.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, iv. 604.

Gibbon, in his Autobiography (ib. i. 231) writes : — ' At the distance of twelve years I calmly affirm my judgment of Davis, Chelsum, &c. A victory over such antagonists was a sufficient humiliation. They, how ever, were rewarded in this world. Poor Chelsum was, indeed, neglected . . . but I enjoyed the pleasure of giving a royal pension to Mr. Davis.' Ib. i. 231.

Horace Walpole wrote to Gibbon (Letters, vii. 158):— 'Davis and his prototypes tell you Middleton, &c. have used the same objections, and they have been confuted j answering, in the theologic dictionary, signifying confuting?

'How utterly,' wrote Macaulay, ' all the attacks on Gibbon's History are forgotten ! this of Whitaker ; Randolph's ; Chelsum's ; Davies's ; that stupid beast Joseph Milner's ; even Watson's.' Trevelyan's Mac aulay, ed. 1877, ii. 285.

Davis's

Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock. 67

Davis's pamphlet, nor would he give him any answer as to Gibbon ; but, if the ' confederate doctors,' as they were termed, had really made such mistakes as he had alluded to, they were blockheads. Dr. Percy talked on in the most careless style possible, but in a very lofty tone T ; and Johnson appeared to be excessively angry. I only wished to get released : for, if Dr. Percy had proceeded to inform him that he had lately intro duced Mr. Hume to dine at the King's chaplains' table, there must have been an explosion 2.

Afterwards Percy rather loftily mentioned that he knew that the Duke of Northumberland would have a pleasure in lending him any books from his library. 'And if the offer is made, Sir,' Johnson only coldly replied, ' from a good motive it is very well ; ' and some time after, turning to me, said with a sigh : ' Many offer me crusts now, but I have no teeth to bite them.'

With all my partiality for Johnson, I freely declare, that I think Dr. Percy received very great cause to take real offence at one, who, by a ludicrous parody on a stanza in the Hermit of Warkwortk, had rendered him contemptible. It was urged,

1 If this story is true a strange and while Boswell wrote of him : — ' He sudden change had come over Percy. is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, It was less than a year earlier that and poisons our Literary Club to Boswell's ' friendly scheme ' obtained me.' Life, iv. 73. Malone, writing for him from Johnson a letter of ex- on Feb. 20, 1794, about the loss of planation of which he said :— * I would Gibbon to the club by death, says : — rather have this than degrees from ' Independent of his literary merit, all the Universities in Europe.' In as a companion Gibbon was un it Johnson wrote : — ' Percy is a man commonly agreeable. He had an whom I never knew to offend any immense fund of anecdote and of one.' Life, iii. 276, 278. erudition of various kinds, both

2 Gibbon's Vindication is dated ancient and modern ; and had ac- Feb. 3, 1779; Hume died on Aug. quired such a facility and elegance of 25> 1776. Percy, writing to Hume talk that I had always great pleasure in 1772, describes himself 'as not in listening to him. The manner and unknown to you when you resided voice, though they were peculiar, in London.' Letters of Eminent and I believe artificial at first, did Persons to David Hume, p. 317. not at all offend, for they had become

Gibbon, who belonged to the so appropriated as to appear natural.' Literary Club, was disliked by John- Hist. MSS. Com., Thirteenth Report, son and Boswell. ' Johnson talked App. viii. 230. with some disgust of his ugliness ' ;

F 2 that

68 Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock.

that Johnson only meant to attack the metre ; but he certainly turned the whole poem into ridicule : —

* I put my hat upon my head, And walk'd into the Strand, And there I met another man With his hat in his hand1.'

Mr. Garrick, in a letter to me, soon afterwards asked me, ' Whether I had seen Johnson's criticism on the Hermit ; it is already,' said he, ' over half the town.' Almost the last time that I ever saw Johnson, he said to me, * Notwithstanding all the pains that Dr. Farmer and I took to serve Dr. Percy, in regard to his Ancient Ballads, he has left town for Ireland 2, without taking leave of either of us.'

Admiral Walsingham, who sometimes resided at Windsor, and sometimes in Portugal Street, frequently boasted that he was the only man to bring together miscellaneous parties, and make them all agreeable ; and, indeed, there never before was so strange an assortment as I have occasionally met there. At one of his dinners were the Duke of Cumberland 3, Dr. Johnson,

1 The Hermit was published in who took the name of Walsingham ; 1771. There is no stanza of which but it is hardly possible that Dr. this is a close parody, so far as the Johnson should have met the Duke words are concerned. The nearest of Cumberland at dinner without is the third : — Mr. Boswell's having mentioned it.'

4 With hospitable haste he rose, Croker's Bosivell, ix. 242 n. Mr.

And wak'd his sleeping fire ; Croker forgets that there are men

And snatching up a lighted brand who can dine with a Duke and not

Forth hied the reverend sire.' boast of it.

2 Percy was made Bishop of Dro- ' Having observed the vain osten- more in 1782. According to Dr. tatious importance of many people Anderson (Life of Johnson, 3rd ed., in quoting the authority of Dukes p. 252), * Percy from a high sense of and Lords, as having been in their duty constantly resided there. The company, Dr. Johnson said, he went episcopal palace, which none of his to the other extreme, and did not predecessors had inhabited, and the mention his authority when he should demesne, formerly rude and un- have done it, had it noi been of a cultivated, owe to him their magnifi- Duke or a Lord.' Life, iv. 183. cence and picturesque beauty.' Boswell accused him of making 'but

3 ' It is possible,' writes Mr. Croker, an awkward return ' in leaving in his 'Dr. Johnson may have been ac- Lives of the Poets l an acknowledge- quainted with the Hon. Robert Boyle, ment unappropriated to his Grace,'

Mr.

Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock. 69

Mr. Nairn, the optician T, and Mr. Leoni, the singer : at another, Dr. Johnson, &c., and a young dashing officer, who determined, he whispered, to attack the old bear that we seemed all to stand in awe of. There was a good dinner, and during that important time Johnson was deaf to all impertinence. However, after the wine had passed rather freely, the young gentleman was resolved to bait him, and venture out a little further. ' Now, Dr. John son, do not look so glum, but be a little gay and lively, like others : what would you give, old gentleman, to be as young and sprightly as I am ? ' ' Why, Sir,' said he, * I think I would almost be content to be as foolish V

Johnson, it is well known, professed to recruit his acquaintance with younger persons 3, and, in his latter days, I, with a few others, were \sic\ more frequently honoured by his notice. At times he was very gloomy, and would exclaim, ' Stay with me, for it is a comfort to me' — a comfort that any feeling mind would wish to administer to a man so kind, though at times so boisterous, when he seized your hand, and repeated, 'Ay, Sir, but to die and go we know not where4,' &c. — here his morbid melan choly prevailed, and Garrick never spoke so impressively to the heart. Yet, to see him in the evening (though he took nothing stronger than lemonade 5), a stranger would have concluded that our morning account was a fabrication. No hour was too late

the Duke of Newcastle. Life, iv. 63. curious to electricians, are painful to

Neither Boswell nor any of Johnson's the humane.'

biographers knew of his second inter- 2 In a book entitled Lord Chester-

view with the king. Ib. ii. 42, n. 2. field's Witticisms, 1774, p. 53, this

The Admiral must, indeed, have story is assigned to Quin.

been happy in his son, for Mr. Croker 3 ' He said to Sir Joshua Reynolds,

says : — ' I have heard George IV " If a man does not make new ac-

speak most highly of this young quaintance as he advances through

Boyle Walsingham.' Walpole's Z<?/- life, he will soon find himself left

ters, viii. 502 n. alone. A man, Sir, should keep his

1 In the Gentleman's Magazine, friendship in constant repair" ' Life,

1774, p. 472, is an account of ' Elec- i. 300.

trical Experiments by Mr. Edward 4 Ante, i 439.

Nairne, made with a Machine of his 5 See post, p. 100, where 'about five

own Workmanship.' The writer says, in the morning Johnson's face shone

'the discharges of an electrical battery with meridian splendour, though his

at ducks, cocks, and turkeys, however drink had been only lemonade.'

to

70 Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock.

to keep him from the tyranny of his own gloomy thoughts. A gentleman venturing to say to Johnson, ' Sir, I wonder some times that you condescend so far as to attend a city club.' ' Sir, the great chair of a full and pleasant club is, perhaps, the throne of human felicity1.'

I had not the honour to be at all intimate with Johnson till about the time he began to publish his Lives of the Poets ; and how he got through that arduous labour is, in some measure, still a mystery to me : he must have been greatly assisted by booksellers 2. I had some time before lent him Euripides with Milton's manuscript notes : this, though he did not minutely examine (see Joddrel's Euripides), yet he very handsomely re turned it, and mentioned it in his Life of Milton 3. In the course of conversation one day I dropped out to him, that Lord Harborough (then the Rev.4) was in possession of a very valu able collection of manuscript poems, and that amongst them there were two or three in the handwriting of King James I ; that they were bound up handsomely in folio, and were entitled Sackvilles Poems. These he solicited me to borrow for him, and Lord Harborough very kindly intrusted them to me for his perusal.

Harris's Hermes was mentioned. I said, ' I think the book is too abstruse ; it is heavy.' ' It is ; but a work of that kind

1 Cradock misquotes Hawkins communication, and must have Ham- (post, p. 91) — 'A tavern chair is mond again. Mr. Johnson would be the throne of human felicity.' See glad of Blackmore's Essays for a few also Life, ii. 452. days.' Id. ii. 159.

2 Cradock, I suppose, means that 3 'HisZswrz^dfons by Mr. Cradock' s they lent him books, and supplied kindness now in my hands ; the mar- him with facts, and not as Mr. Croker gin is sometimes noted, but I have thinks (ix. 243 n.) that they assisted found nothing remarkable.' Works, him in his manuscript. Thus he vii. 114.

writes to John Nichols desiring that 4 When Johnson was writing the

* some volumes published of Prior's Lives the Rev. Robert Sherard was

papers in two vols. 8vo. may be pro- Earl of Harborough, for it was in

cured.' Letters, ii. 130. Another 1770 that he succeeded his brother,

day he writes: — 'Mr. Johnson is who, in spite of marrying four times,

obliged to Mr. Nicol [sic] for his left no heir. Burke's Peerage.

must

Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock. 71

must be heavy V * A rather dull man of my acquaintance asked me,' said I, 'to lend him some book to entertain him, and I offered him Harris's Hermes, and as I expected, from the title, he took it for a novel ; when he returned it, I asked him how he liked it, and, what he thought of it? "Why, to speak the truth," says he, " I was not much diverted ; I think all these imitations of Tristram Shandy fall far short of the original!'" This had its effect, and almost produced from Johnson a rhinocerous laugh 2.

One of Dr. Johnson's rudest speeches was to a pompous

gentleman coming out of Lichfield cathedral, who said, ' Dr.

Johnson, we have had a most excellent discourse to-day !' 'That

, may be,' said Johnson ; ' but, it is impossible that you should

know it.'

Of his kindness to me during the last years of his most valuable life, I could enumerate many instances. One slight circumstance, if any were wanting, would give an excellent proof of the goodness of his heart, and that to a person whom he found in distress. In such a case he was the very last man that would have given even the least momentary uneasiness to any one, had he been aware of it. The last time I saw him was just before I went to France. He said, with a deep sigh, c I wish I was going with you.' He had just then been disappointed of going to Italy 3. Of all men I ever knew, Dr. Johnson was the most instructive.

1 Ante, i. 187. described it drolly enough : " He ' For my own part, I like Harris's laughs like a rhinoceros." ' Life,

writings much. But Tooke thought ii. 378.

meanly of them: he would say, "Lord 3 Cradock started for Italy on

Malmesbury is as great a fool as his Oct. 29, 1783. Johnson was dis-

father" [Harris was the father of the appointed of going there in 1776.

first Earl of Malmesbury].' Rogers's Life, iii. 27. There was some project

Table Talk, p. 128. of his going in 1780 and 1781 (Let-

2 'Johnson's laugh was a kind of ters, ii. 191), and again in 1784. good-humoured growl. Tom Davies Life, iv. 326.

ANECDOTES BY RICHARD CUMBERLAND

[FROM Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, written by himself. 2 vols. London, 1807.

Johnson, writing to Mrs. Thrale, who was at Brighton, says : — 1 The want of company is an inconvenience, but Mr. Cumberland is a million.' Letters, ii. in. There is nothing in Boswell to show that Cumberland was much with Johnson. Northcote told Hazlitt that Johnson and his friends ' never admitted him as one of the set ; Sir Joshua did not invite him to dinner.' Conversations of Northcote, p. 385.

Rogers described him as 'a most agreeable companion, and a very entertaining converser. His theatrical anecdotes were related with infinite spirit and humour/ Rogers's Table Talk, p. 136.

'I once (says W. Maltby) dined at Billy's with Parr, Priestley, Cumberland, and some other distinguished people. Cumberland, who belonged to the family of the Blandishes, be- praised Priestley to his face, and after he had left the party spoke of him very disparagingly. This excited Parr's extremest wrath. When I met him a few days after he said : — * Only think of Mr. Cumberland ! that he should have presumed to talk before me, — before me, Sir — in such terms of my friend Dr. Priestley ! Pray, Sir, let Mr. Dilly know my opinion of Mr. Cumberland — that his ignorance is equalled only by his impertinence, and that both are exceeded by his malice.' Ib. p. 314.

Sir Walter Scott thus writes of Cumberland : — * January 12, 1826.' — Mathews last night gave us a very perfect imitation of

old

Anecdotes by Richard Cumberland. 73

old Cumberland, who carried the poetic jealousy and irritability farther than any man I ever saw. He was a great flatterer, too, the old rogue. ... A very high-bred man in point of manners in society.' Lockhart's Scott, ed. 1839, viii. 193.

In his Biographical Memoirs (ed. 1834, iii. 227) Scott adds : * In the little pettish sub-acidify of temper which Cumberland sometimes exhibited there was more of humorous sadness than of ill-will, either to his critics or his contemporaries. . . . These imperfections detract nothing from the character of the man of worthj the scholar and the gentleman.'

For his jealousy see Letters, ii. 112, 115, 122. His grave in Westminster Abbey is close to Johnson's.

His anecdotes must be received with great distrust. His account of the dinner before the first night of She Stoops to Conquer, at which Johnson took the chair, is so manifestly {a romance' — to use Mr. Forster's words — that I have not quoted it. See Cumberland's Memoirs, i. 367, and Forster's Goldsmith, ed. 1871, ii. 339.]

WHO will say that Johnson himself would have been such a champion in literature, such a front-rank soldier in the fields of fame, if he had not been pressed into the service, and driven on to glory with the bayonet of sharp necessity pointed at his back ? If fortune had turned him into a field of clover, he would have laid down and rolled in it. The mere manual labour of writing would not have allowed his lassitude and love of ease to have taken the pen out of the inkhorn 1, unless the cravings of

1 c I allow (said Johnson) you may than writing.' Mason's Gray, ii. 25.

have pleasure from writing, after it ' I am,' wrote Hume to Strahan,

is over, if you have written well ; ' perhaps the only author you ever

but you don't go willingly to it knew who gratuitously employed

again.' Life, iv, 219. great industry in correcting a work

' There is not a more painful action of which he has fully alienated

of the mind than invention.' Addison the property.' Letters of Hume to

in The Spectator, No. 487. Strahan, p. 183.

'His ditty sweet Of Pope, Johnson wrote: — 'To

He loathed much to write, ne make verses was his first labour,

cared to repeat.' and to mend them was his last. . . .

Castle of Indolence, canto i. stanza 68. He was one of those few whose

' Reading, Mr. Gray has often told labour is their pleasure.' Works,

me, was much more agreeable to him viii. 32 1. See also post, p. 90.

hunger

74 Anecdotes by Richard Cumberland.

hunger had reminded him that he must fill the sheet before he saw the table cloth. He might indeed have knocked down Osbourne for a blockhead, but he would not have knocked him down with a folio of his own writing x. He would perhaps have been the dictator of a club, and wherever he sat down to con versation, there must have been that splash of strong bold thought about him, that we. might still have had a collectanea after his death ; but of prose I guess not much, of works of labour none, of fancy perhaps something more, especially of poetry, which, under favour, I consider was not his tower of strength. I think we should have had his Rasselas at all events, for he was likely enough to have written at Voltaire, and brought the question to the test, if infidelity is any aid to wit2. An orator he must have been; not improbably a parliamen tarian, and, if such, certainly an oppositionist, for he preferred to talk against the tide. He would indubitably have been no member of the Whig Club, no partisan of Wilkes, no friend of Hume, no believer in Macpherson ; he would have put up prayers for early rising, and laid in bed all day, and with the most active resolutions possible been the most indolent mortal living. (Volume i. p. 353.)

Alas ! I am not fit to paint his character : nor is there need of it; Etiam mortuus loquitur* \ every man, who can buy a book, has bought a Boswell\ Johnson is known to all the reading world. I also knew him well, respected him highly, loved him sincerely: it was never my chance to see him in those moments of moroseness and ill humour, which are im puted to him, perhaps with truth, for who would slander him ? But I am not warranted by any experience of those humours to speak of him otherwise than of a friend, who always met me with kindness, and from whom I never separated without regret. — When I sought his company he had no capricious excuses for withholding it, but lent himself to every invitation with cordiality, and brought good humour with him, that gave life to the circle

1 Ante, i. 304, 381. dide. Life, i. 342 ; Letters, i. 79 n.

2 Cumberland wrongly thought 3 * He being dead yet speaketh.' that Rasselas was an answer to Can- Heb. xi. 4.

he

Anecdotes by Richard Cumberland.

75

he was in. He presented himself always in his fashion of apparel ; a brown coat with metal buttons, black waistcoat and worsted stockings, with a flowing bob wig T was the style of his wardrobe, but they were in perfectly good trim 2, and with the ladies, which he generally met, he had nothing of the slovenly philosopher about him ; he fed heartily, but not vora ciously3, and was extremely courteous in his commendations of any dish that pleased his palate ; he suffered his next neigh bour to squeeze the China oranges4 into his wine glass after dinner, which else perchance had gone aside, and trickled into his shoes, for the good man had neither straight sight nor steady nerves.

At the tea table he had considerable demands upon his favourite beverage, and I remember when Sir Joshua Reynolds at my house reminded him that he had drank eleven cups, he replied — e Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine 5, 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

1 Johnson defines a bobwig as a short wig, so \\&& flowing seems an inconsistent epithet.

2 Cumberland could only have known him after his dress had been improved by associating with the Thrales. Life, iii. 325. Johnson seems to show how regardless he was of dress by his note on King John, Act iv. sc. 2, where Hubert describes a smith,

' Standing on slippers, which his

nimble haste Had falsely thrust upon contrary

feet.'

On this Johnson remarks : — ' Shakespeare seems to have con founded a man's shoes with his gloves. He that is frighted or hurried may put his hand into the wrong glove, but either shoe will equally admit either foot. The authour seems to be disturbed by the disorder which he describes.' Johnson's slippers were his old shoes. Life, i. 396 ; ii. 406.

3 This is at variance with the ac counts of Boswell (Life, i. 468 ; iv. 72) and Hawkins (post, p. 105).

'Violent hunger, though upon many occasions not only natural, but unavoidable, is always indecent, and to eat voraciously is universally regarded as a piece of ill manners.' Adam Smith's Moral Sentiments, ed. 1801, i. 45.

4 Life, ii. 330.

5 Johnson wrote on Jan. 2 1, 1 775: — ' Reynolds has taken too much to strong liquor, and seems to delight in his new character.' Life, ii. 292. 'SiR JOSHUA. "You have sat by quite sober, and felt an envy of the happiness of those who were drink ing." JOHNSON. "Perhaps con tempt." ' Ib. iii. 41. ' SIR JOSHUA. " At first the taste of wine was dis agreeable to me ; but I brought my self to drink it, that I might be like other people.' Ib. iii. 329.

from

76 Anecdotes by Richard Cumberland.

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