Chapter VII: Sunset Days

The high lights in Johnson’s career for the last twenty years in his life are thus summed up:

1765. His edition of Shakespeare published.

1767. He had a conversation with King George III in the library at
Buckingham palace.

1770. His Pamphlet, “The False Alarm,” published.

1773. He visited Scotland with Boswell, August 14 to November 22.

1774. He visited Wales with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.

1775. He received the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford University and
spent October and November in France with the Thrales. The same year
he published (1) Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, and (2)
Taxation no Tyranny.

1779. The first four volumes of his Lives of the Poets published.

1781. He completed his Lives of the Poets.

1782. His health began to fail.

1783. He had a stroke of paralysis in June and, on his recovery,
instituted a Club at the Essex Head.

1784. After staying at Lichfield, Ashbourne and Oxford seeking
improvement in his health, he died in London at Bolt Court, December
13. He was buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of Goldsmith.

But to list what I have called the high lights, especially in connection with his literary work, conveys no conception at all of the man’s intense application and activity. There were written by him in those twenty years introductions, dedications, pamphlets, articles, essays and sermons, for the man was interested in all kinds of human activities. We find him writing a fairy tale, The Fountains, in 1766, which appeared in Mrs. William’s Miscellanies. Then, in 1771, he is interested in the Falkland Islands and publishes Thoughts on Certain Late Transactions connected with them. There is internal evidence that he wrote a preface for Baretti’s Easy Lessons in Italian and English, and other like trifles. We have seen how whole heartedly he threw himself into the case of Dr. Dodd, and in 1781 we find him equally energetic in penning an argument in favor of Joseph Knight, an African negro, who claimed his liberty in the Court of Common Session in Scotland, and, through Johnson’s influence, obtained it.

Naturally then, such a man would be drawn into politics, especially when such a tremendous event was afoot as the disposition of the American colonies. His stand on the question of separation was, of course, exactly opposite to that of his friend Edmund Burke, but, nevertheless, they were firm and fast friends. Each had the greatest admiration for the other. “Burke,” he said, “is such a man that if you met him for the first time in the street, where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five minutes, he’d talk to you in such manner that, when you parted, you would say, That is an extraordinary man. He is never what we call humdrum; never unwilling to begin to talk, nor in haste to leave off.” When Burke became a member of Parliament, Johnson said, “Now we who know Burke, know that he will be one of the first men in the country.” Yet Burke was the intellectual support and standard of the Whigs, and Johnson, the rock-ribbed Tory, declared that the devil was the first Whig. Burke set forth views in his pamphlet on Conciliation directly opposed to those set forth by Johnson in his Taxation no Tyranny. Yet they were inseparables. Bennet Langton, who was present at the death bed interview of Burke with Johnson, four others being in the room, told of the final parting thus: “Mr. Burke said to him (Johnson): ‘I am afraid sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you.’ ‘No, sir,’ said Johnson, ‘it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state, indeed, when your company is not a delight to me.’ Mr. Burke, in a tremulous voice, expressive of being very tenderly affected, replied, ‘My dear sir, you have always been good to me.’ Immediately afterwards he went away. This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these two eminent men.”

Yet Johnson, opposing Burke, had expressed himself regarding America and the Americans in no doubtful way. “They are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging:” “I am willing to love all mankind, except an American:” “Rascals--Robbers--Pirates”: there is much of it. To get the real Johnsonian attitude, we must imagine some one in the Philippine Islands demanding a Congress of Philippine States to frame a bill of rights, or to form an independent state, a Philippine commonwealth. Lurid things would be said by many today, were such an insurrection led by someone who had dabbled in small local politics in Manila, a tax collector who had been found short in his accounts as Hosmer tells us Samuel Adams had been. (Life of Samuel Adams, pp. 37-47, 240). Again, there had filtered to England strange tales of lawless deeds, of mob rules, of mass cruelty. Because Francis Greene had signed a farewell address to Governor Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, the mob had driven him out of Norwich as another mob had driven him out of Windham. Another mob had laid waste the lands of the loyalist, David Ingersoll; the house of Daniel Leonard had been riddled with bullets; Brigadier Ruggles alone had fought off a mob, though the mane and tail of his horse had been cut off, and his other horse poisoned; judges had been stopped in the highway; the house of Sewell, Attorney-General of Massachusetts, had been wrecked; Oliver, president of council, had been beaten by a disorderly crowd; a gang of five thousand armed men at Worcester had compelled the judge, sheriffs and gentlemen of the bar to march up and down thirty times, bare headed. As time went on, things grew worse. In South Carolina there were cases of the tarring and feathering of loyalists and in Baltimore an inoffensive merchant had narrowly escaped with his life after having been ordered to pay five hundred pounds to the revolutionary convention. In other places men were ridden on fence rails; were gagged; were bound for days together; were advertised as public enemies. Turn to the American Archives, 4th series, ii. p. 922, to see an incident, one of many. Indeed, our present word “lynch” comes from those days, from the name of the brother of the man who founded Lynchburgh, Virginia. (Atlantic Monthly, vol. xxxviii, p. 731.) Then, too, the liberty of the press was no more. The transition state indeed, was one of something very like anarchy. That Johnson called the Americans robbers and pirates was not to be wondered at. Even John Adams, as we know by his diary, had his grave doubts as to the wisdom of the move he was engaged in. (Works of John Adams, vol. ii, p. 420.)

Realizing all this, we are not at all disposed to find fault with Johnson for his excoriation of the American rebels. It explains why his eloquent pamphlet, called The Patriot, had so wide a success. It explains why the motto of his pamphlet seemed applicable to the followers of Adams and his friends:

They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
Yet still revolt when truth would set them free.
License they mean when they cry liberty.
For who loves that must first be wise and good.

A fine old gentleman, this Doctor Samuel Johnson. For cant, pretense and frothiness he had no place; in schemes of institutional reform he had no faith. In these days, when all seems to be endless unrest, when there are cross purposes, political failures, noisy charlatans and self seekers everywhere, it is good to turn to old Samuel Johnson, to live for a time with a man who saw that the multitudinous family of man constitutes a vital unit. It is good to be with the old Tory who so heartily believed in his religion with its pathetic mystery and its glorious traditions of purity and devotion. Accept what he accepted or not, just as we choose, it does not matter, for the mere being in touch with his sincerity serves to revive and strengthen us.

NOTES.

JOHNSON ON AMERICA.

Johnson’s famous remark on the loudest yelps for liberty being heard from the drivers of negroes was probably made upon seeing a copy of the Boston Gazette of July 22, 1776. It contained the Declaration of Independence in full and also an advertisement of a slave for sale.

That Johnson was bitter against the Whigs can be easily understood, for, in England, it was openly charged that by their expressed sympathy, lawlessness in the colonies was encouraged. Others, in newspapers and pamphlets, openly charged that information was being sent out from England by certain Whigs. In this connection, read Lecky’s England in the Eighteenth Century, ed. 1882, vol. iii, p. 545. In short, it was a time of doubt, suspicion and, to a great extent, of manufactured hate. When London merchants forwarded their famous petition to Parliament, a petition that had the effect of making it seem that there was a growing sentiment in favor of granting the Americans the freedom from taxation that they asked, there was a counter charge that the move was born of greed and fear, the merchants being those who had sent shipments to America and wanted to be sure of their pay. (See Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, p. 172.) To make matters more confusing, it seemed to Johnson and all those who thought as he did on the matter, that the rebellion was the work of a small and active minority which knew what it wanted, and a vast majority either apathetic or cowardly. Certainly, any student who examines original documents today, must be puzzled to account for the weakness of the patriots, as evidenced by the size of Washington’s army. (See Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 2nd series, vol. ii, p. 204). Out of an entire population of the colonies, some 2,200,000 with drafting, urging, the offering of bounties and the gifts of land resulted in an army that was not more than 25,000, and the Valley Forge incident with Washington’s force of less than nine thousand almost starving in a rich section of country, tells its tale of apathy. In Graydon’s Memoirs, ed. 1846, pp. 34 and 37, we find the direct evidence that he, a patriot recruiting officer, came to the conclusion that love for the cause “was far from prevalent among the lower ranks of the people, at least in Pennsylvania.” There is a pathetic passage too in which he writes of his long journey in Maryland with the gain of one lone recruit. Obviously, there was no widespread enthusiasm for independence and Washington knew and admitted it. “From their form of government and steady attachment heretofore to royalty, my countrymen will come reluctantly into the idea of independence: but time and persecution bring wonderful things to pass.” So said Washington, as quoted by Bancroft in his History of the United States, edition of 1884, vol. iv. page 338.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The books listed below are suggested for those who have a further interest in the subject. All of the books listed are bound in cloth and can be secured from Haldeman-Julius Company, Clothbound Book Department, Girard, Kansas. The prices quoted include carriage charges:

Johnson’s “Letters,” 2 volumes, per set, $8.50.

Johnson’s “Life of Milton,” 75c.

Johnson’s “Life of Dryden and Pope,” $1.25.

Johnson’s “Lives of the English Poets,” 3 volumes, per set, $12.50.

Johnson’s “Rasselas,” $1.10.

Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson,” Everyman Edition, Cloth Binding,
2 volumes, per set, $1.75.

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Transcriber’s note

Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.