Chapter XXIII: Letter IV: 'sir, (3)

[253] It was not 'last year' but on June 22, 1772, that the negro, James Somerset--who had been brought to England by his master, had escaped from him, had been seized, and confined in irons on board a ship in The Thames that was bound for Jamaica, and had been brought on a writ of _Habeas Corpus_ before the Court of King's Bench was discharged by Lord Mansfield. Howell's _State Trials_, xx. 79, and Lofft's _Reports_, 1772, p. 1. 'Lord Mansfield,' writes Lord Campbell (_Lives of the Chief Justices_, ii. 418), 'first established the grand doctrine that the air of England is too pure to be breathed by a slave.' According to Lord Campbell, Mansfield's judgment thus ended:--'The air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it. Every man who comes into England is entitled to the protection of English law, whatever oppression he may heretofore have suffered, and whatever may be the colour of his skin:

'"Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses."

'Let the negro be discharged.'

Where Lord Campbell found this speech, that is to say if he did not put it together himself, I cannot guess. Mansfield's judgment was very brief. He says in the conclusion:--'The only question before us is, whether the cause on the return [to the writ of _habeas corpus_] is sufficient. If it is, the negro must be remanded; if it is not, he must be discharged. Accordingly the return states that the slave departed, and refused to serve; whereupon he was kept to be sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be recognised by the law of the country where it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been extremely different in different countries. The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political.... It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences therefore may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.' Lofft's _Reports_, 1772, p. 19. 'The judgment of the court,' says Broom (_Constitutional Law_, 1885, p. 99), 'was delivered by Lord Mansfield, C.J., after some delay, and with evident reluctance.' The passage about the air of England that Campbell puts into Mansfield's mouth is found in Mr. Hargrave's argument on May 14, 1772, where he speaks of England as 'a soil whose air is deemed too pure for slaves to breathe in.' Lofft's _Reports_, p. 2. Mr. Dunning replied:--'Let me take notice, neither the air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe in, nor the laws of England have rejected servitude.' _Ib_. p. 12. Serjeant Davy rejoined:--'It has been asserted, and is now repeated by me, this air is too pure for a slave to breathe in. I trust I shall not quit this court without certain conviction of the truth of that assertion.' _Ib_. p. 17. Lord Mansfield said nothing about the air. The line from Virgil, with which Lord Campbell makes Mansfield's speech end, was 'the happily chosen motto' to Maclaurin's published argument for the negro; Joseph Knight, _post_, under Nov. 29, 1777.

[254] The son of Johnson's old friend, Mr. William Drummond. (See vol. ii. pp. 26-29.) He was a young man of such distinguished merit, that he was nominated to one of the medical professorships in the College of Edinburgh without solicitation, while he was at Naples. Having other views, he did not accept of the honour, and soon afterwards died. BOSWELL.

[255] In the third and subsequent editions the date is wrongly given as the 16th.

[256] A Florentine nobleman, mentioned by Johnson in his _Notes of his Tour in France_ [_ante_, Oct. 18, 1775]. I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with him in London, in the spring of this year. BOSWELL. Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson from Bath on May 16:--'Count Manucci would wait seven years to come with you; so do not disappoint the man, but bring him along with you. His delight in your company is like Boniface's exultation when the squire speaks Latin; for understand you he certainly cannot.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 328. It was not the squire, but the priest, Foigard, who by his Latin did Boniface good. _The Beaux Strategem_, act iii. sc. 2.

[257] _Pr. and Med_. p. 151.

[258] _St. James_, i. 17.

[259] See _ante_, ii. 175. Seven and even eight years later Paterson was still a student in need of Johnson's recommendation. _Post_, June 2, 1783, and April 5, 1784.

[260] See _ante_, p. 58.

[261] Why his Lordship uses the epithet _pleasantly_, when speaking of a grave piece of reasoning, I cannot conceive. But different men have different notions of pleasantry. I happened to sit by a gentleman one evening at the Opera-house in London, who, at the moment when _Medea_ appeared to be in great agony at the thought of killing her children, turned to me with a smile, and said, '_funny_ enough.' BOSWELL.

[262] Dr. Johnson afterwards told me, that he was of opinion that a clergyman had this right. BOSWELL.

[263] Johnson, nearly three years earlier, had said of Granger:--'The dog is a Whig. I do not like much to see a Whig in any dress; but I hate to see a Whig in a parson's gown.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 24, 1773.

[264] 'I did my utmost,' wrote Horace Walpole (_Letters_, v. 168), 'to dissuade Mr. Granger from the dedication, and took especial pains to get my _virtues_ left out of the question.'

[265]

'In moderation placing all my glory, While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.'

Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Bk. ii Sat. I. 1. 67.

[266] 'One of the dippers at Brighthelmstone, seeing Mr. Johnson swim in the year 1766, said:--"Why, Sir, you must have been a stout-hearted gentleman forty years ago."' _Piozzi's Anec_. p. 113. Johnson, in his verses entitled, _In Rivum a Mola Stoana Lichfeldiæ diffluentem_ (_Works_, i. 163), writes:--

'Errat adhuc vitreus per prata virentia rivus,
Quo toties lavi membra tenella puer;
Hic delusa rudi frustrabar brachia motu,
Dum docuit blanda voce natare pater.'

[267] For this and Dr. Johnson's other letters to Mr. Levett, I am indebted to my old acquaintance Mr. Nathaniel Thomas, whose worth and ingenuity have been long known to a respectable, though not a wide circle; and whose collection of medals would do credit to persons of greater opulence. BOSWELL.

[268] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew the difference between modern Brighton and the Brighthelmstone of his days. Thus he writes:-- 'Ashbourne, Sept. 27, 1777. I know not when I shall write again, now you are going to the world's end [i.e. Brighton]. _Extra anni solisque vias_, where the post will be a long time in reaching you. I shall, notwithstanding all distance, continue to think on you.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 387. 'Oct. 6, 1777. Methinks you are now a great way off; and if I come, I have a great way to come to you; and then the sea is so cold, and the rooms are so dull; yet I do love to hear the sea roar and my mistress talk--For when she talks, ye gods! how she will talk. I wish I were with you, but we are now near half the length of England asunder. It is frightful to think how much time must pass between writing this letter and receiving an answer, if any answer were necessary.' _Ib_. ii. 2.

[269] Boswell wrote to Temple on Nov. 3, 1780:--'I could not help smiling at the expostulation which you suggest to me to try with my father. It would do admirably with some fathers; but it would make mine much worse, for he cannot bear that his son should talk with him as a man. I can only lament his unmelting coldness to my wife and children, for I fear it is hopeless to think of his ever being more affectionate towards them. Yet it must be acknowledged that his paying £1000 of my debt some years ago was a large bounty. He allows me £300 a year.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 255.

[270] See _ante_, Aug. 27, 1775, note.

[271] See _ante_, p. 48, note 4.

[272] 'He said to me often that the time he spent in this Tour was the pleasantest part of his life, and asked me if I would lose the recollection of it for five hundred pounds.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 22, 1773.

[273] Chap. viii. 10. A translation of this work is in _Bibliotheca Pastorum_, ed. J. Ruskin, vol. i.

[274] 'The chief cause of my deficiency has been a life immethodical and unsettled, which breaks all purposes, confounds and suppresses memory, and perhaps leaves too much leisure to imagination.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 136.

[275] Johnson wrote to Boswell (_ante_, June 12, 1774):--'I have stipulated twenty-five for you to give in your own name.' The book was published early in 1775. On Feb. 25, 1775, he wrote:--'I am sorry that I could get no books for my friends in Scotland. Mr. Strahan has at last promised to send two dozen to you.' It is strange that not far short of two years passed before the books were sent.

[276] Boswell had 'expressed his extreme aversion to his father's second marriage.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 255--On Sept. 2, 1775, he thus described his step-mother:--'His wife, whom in my conscience I cannot condemn for any capital bad quality, is so narrow-minded, and, I don't know how, so set upon keeping him under her own management, and so suspicious and so sourishly tempered that it requires the utmost exertion of practical philosophy to keep myself quiet.' _Ib_. p. 216.

[277] See _ante_, Jan. 19 and May 6, 1775.

[278] See _ante_, p. 86.

[279] See _ante_, May 27, 1775.

[280] Macquarry was the chief of Ulva's Isle. 'He told us,' writes Boswell, 'his family had possessed Ulva for nine hundred years; but I was distressed to hear that it was soon to be sold for payment of his debts.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct 16, 1773.

[281] See _ante_, March 24, 1776.

[282] Mrs. Thrale gives a long but scarcely credible account of her quarrel with Baretti. It is very unlikely that he used to say to her eldest daughter 'that, if her mother died in a lying-in which happened while he lived here, he hoped Mr. Thrale would marry Miss Whitbred, who would be a pretty companion for her, and not tyrannical and overbearing like me.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 336. No doubt in 1788 he attacked her brutally (see _ante_, p. 49). 'I could not have suspected him,' wrote Miss Burney, 'of a bitterness of invective so cruel, so ferocious.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, iv. 185. The attack was provoked. Mrs. Piozzi, in January, 1788, published one of Johnson's letters, in which he wrote--at all events she says he wrote:--'Poor B----i! do not quarrel with him; to neglect him a little will be sufficient. He means only to be frank, and manly, and independent, and perhaps, as you say, a little wise. To be frank he thinks is to be cynical, and to be independent is to be rude. Forgive him, dearest lady, the rather because of his misbehaviour I am afraid he learnt part of me. I hope to set him hereafter a better example.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 277. Malone, in 1789, speaks of 'the roughness for which Baretti was formerly distinguished.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 391. Mrs. Thrale thus describes his departure: 'My daughter kept on telling me that Mr. Baretti was grown very old and very cross, would not look at her exercises, but said he would leave this house soon, for it was no better than Pandæmonium. The next day he packed up his cloke-bag, which he had not done for three years, and sent it to town; and while we were wondering what he would say about it at breakfast, he was walking to London himself, without taking leave of any one person, except it may be the girl, who owns they had much talk, in the course of which he expressed great aversion to me and even to her, who, [_sic_] he said, he once thought well of.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 339. Baretti, in the _Eur. Mag_. xiii. 398, told his story. He said:--'Madam took it into her head to give herself airs, and treat me with some coldness and superciliousness. I did not hesitate to set down at breakfast my dish of tea not half drank, go for my hat and stick that lay in the corner of the room, turn my back to the house _insalutato hospite_, and walk away to London without uttering a syllable.' In a marginal note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 338, he says he left Streatham on June 4, 1776. 'I had,' he writes, 'by that time been in a manner one of the family during six years and a-half. Johnson had made me hope that Thrale would at last give me an annuity for my pains, but, never receiving a shilling from him or from her, I grew tired at last, and on some provocation from her left them abruptly.' It should seem that he afterwards made it up with them, for in a note on vol. ii. p. 191, he says of the day of Mr. Thrale's death, 'Johnson and I, and many other friends, were to dine with him that day.' The rest of the note, at all events, is inaccurate, for he says that 'Mrs. Thrale imparted to Johnson the news [of her husband's death],' whereas Johnson saw him die.

[283] Mrs. Piozzi says that this money was given to Baretti as a consolation for the loss of the Italian tour (_ante_, iii. 6). Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 337.

[284] The Duke of York was present when Foote had the accident by which he lost his leg (_ante_, ii. 95). Moved by compassion, he obtained for him from the King a royal patent for performances at the Haymarket from May 14 to Sept. 14 in every year. He played but thrice after his retirement. Forster's Essays, ii. 400, 435.

[285] Strahan showed greater sagacity about Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, which had been declined by Elmsly. 'So moderate were our hopes,' writes Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 223), 'that the original impression had been stinted to five hundred, till the number was doubled by the prophetic taste of Mr. Strahan.' Carrick called Strahan 'rather an _obtuse_ man.' _Post_, April 9 1778.

[286] See _post_, Sept. 19, 1777, and April 20, 1781.

[287] Johnson, I believe, at this time suffered less than usual from despondency. See _ante_, iii. 25, note 1. The passage in which these words are found applies to one day only. It is as follows:--'March 28. This day is Good Friday. It is likewise the day on which my poor Tetty was taken from me. My thoughts were disturbed in bed. I remembered that it was my wife's dying day, and begged pardon for all our sins, and commended her; but resolved to mix little of my own sorrows or cares with the great solemnity. Having taken only tea without milk I went to church; had time before service to commend my wife, and wished to join quietly in the service, but I did not hear well, and my mind grew unsettled and perplexed. Having rested ill in the night I slumbered at the sermon, which, I think, I could not as I sat perfectly hear.... At night I had some ease. L.D. [Laus Deo] I had prayed for pardon and peace.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 153. Hawkins, however (_Life_, p. 532), says, perhaps with considerable exaggeration, that at this time, 'he sunk into indolence, till his faculties seemed to be impaired; deafness grew upon him; long intervals of mental absence interrupted his conversation, and it was difficult to engage his attention to any subject. His friends concluded that his lamp was emitting its last rays, but the lapse of a short period gave them ample proofs to the contrary.' The proofs were _The Lives of the Poets_. Johnson himself says of this time:--'Days and months pass in a dream; and I am afraid that my memory grows less tenacious, and my observation less attentive.' _Pr. and Med_. 160.

[288]

'Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.'

Pope's _Essay on Man_, i. 99.

[289] '"I inherited," said Johnson, "a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 16, 1773. See _ante_, i. 65, and _post_, Sept. 20, 1777.

[290] _Pr. and Med_. p. 155. BOSWELL.

[291] _Pr. and Med_. p. 158. BOSWELL.

[292] He continues:--'I passed the afternoon with such calm gladness of mind as it is very long since I felt before. I passed the night in such sweet uninterrupted sleep as I have not known since I slept at Fort Augustus.' See _post_, Nov. 21, 1778, where in a letter to Boswell he says:--'The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort Augustus.' In 1767 he mentions (_Pr. and Med_. p. 73) 'a sudden relief he once had by a good night's rest in Fetter Lane,' where he had lived many years before. His good nights must have been rare indeed.

[293] Bishop Percy says that he handed over to Johnson various memoranda which he had received from 'Goldsmith's brother and others of his family, to afford materials for a _Life of Goldsmith_, which Johnson was to write and publish for their benefit. But he utterly forgot them and the subject.' Prior successfully defends Johnson against the charge that he did not include Goldsmith's _Life_ among the _Lives of the Poets_. 'The copy-right of _She Stoops to Conquer_ was the property of Carnan the bookseller (surviving partner of F. Newbery); and Carnan being "a most impracticable man and at variance with all his brethren," in the words of Malone to the Bishop, he refused his assent, and the project for the time fell to the ground.' But Percy clearly implies that it was a separate work and not one of the _Lives_ that Johnson had undertaken. See Prior's _Goldsmith_, Preface, p. x. Malone, in a note on Boswell's letter of July 9, 1777, says:--'I collected some materials for a _Life of Goldsmith_, by Johnson's desire.' He goes on to mention the quarrel with Carnan. It should seem then that Johnson was gathering materials for Goldsmith's _Life_ before the _Lives of the Poets_ were projected; that later on he intended to include it in that series, but being thwarted by Carnan that he did nothing.

[294] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[295] 'I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.' _Ib_. Oct. 14.

[296] 'The Duke of Argyle was obliging enough to mount Dr. Johnson on a stately steed from his grace's stable. My friend was highly pleased, and Joseph [Boswell's Bohemian servant] said, "He now looks like a bishop."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 26.

[297] See _ante_, ii. 196.

[298] Even Burke falls into the vulgarism of 'mutual friend.' See his _Correspondence_, i. 196, ii. 251. Goldsmith also writes of 'mutual acquaintance.' Cunningham's _Goldsmith's Works_, iv. 48.

[299] He means to imply, I suppose, that Johnson was the father of plantations. See _ante_, under Feb. 7, 1775. note.

[300] For a character of this very amiable man, see _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 36. [Aug. 17.] BOSWELL.

[301] By the then course of the post, my long letter of the 14th had not yet reached him. BOSWELL.

[302] _History of Philip the Second_. BOSWELL.

[303] See _ante_, Jan. 21, 1775.

[304] See _ante_, iii. 48.

[305] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Jan. 15, 1777, that he had had about twelve ounces of blood taken, and then about ten more, and that another bleeding was to follow. 'Yet I do not make it a matter of much form. I was to-day at Mrs. Gardiner's. When I have bled to-morrow, I will not give up Langton nor Paradise. But I beg that you will fetch me away on Friday. I do not know but clearer air may do me good; but whether the air be clear or dark, let me come to you.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 344. See _post_, Sept. 16, 1777, note.

[306] See _ante_, i. 411, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[307] Johnson tried in vain to buy this book at Aberdeen. _Ib_. Aug. 23.

[308] See _ante_, May 12, 1775.

[309] No doubt her _Miscellanies_. _Ante_, ii. 25.

[310] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 22.

[311] John_son_ is the most common English formation of the Sirname from _John_; John_ston_ the Scotch. My illustrious friend observed that many North Britons pronounced his name in their own way. BOSWELL. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Oct. 21, 1773) tells of one Lochbuy who, 'being told that Dr. Johnson did not hear well, bawled out to him, "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro, or of Ardnamurchan?"'

[312] See _post_, under Dec. 24, 1783.

[313] Johnson's old amanuensis. _Ante_, i. 187. Johnson described him as 'a man of great learning.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 654.

[314] On account of their differing from him as to religion and politicks. BOSWELL. See _post_, April 13, 1778. Mr. Croker says that 'the Club had, as its records show, for many of his latter years very little of his company.'

[315] See _ante_, i. 225 note 2, July 4, 1774, and March 20, 1776.

[316] Boswell was no reader. 'I don't believe,' Johnson once said to him, 'you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more.' _Ante_, April 16, 1775. Boswell wrote to Temple on March 18, 1775:--'I have a kind of impotency of study.' Two months later he wrote:--'I have promised to Dr. Johnson to read when I get to Scotland, and to keep an account of what I read. I shall let you know how I go on. My mind must be nourished.' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 181, 195.

[317] Chesterfield's _Letters to his Son_ were published in 1774, and his _Miscellaneous Works_, together with _Memoirs and Letters to his Friends_, early in 1777.

[318] 'Whatso it is, the Danaan folk, yea gift-bearing I fear.' Morris, Æneids, ii. 49.

[319] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 19, 1777:--'You are all young, and gay, and easy; but I have miserable nights, and know not how to make them better; but I shift pretty well a-days, and so have at you all at Dr. Burney's to-morrow.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 345.

[320] A twelfth was born next year. See _post_, July 3, 1778.

[321] It was March 29.

[322] _Pr. and Med_. p. 155. BOSWELL

[323] See _ante_, i. 341, note 3.

[324] See _ante_, i. 439.

[325] Johnson's moderation in demanding so small a sum is extraordinary. Had he asked one thousand, or even fifteen hundred guineas, the booksellers, who knew the value of his name, would doubtless have readily given it. They have probably got five thousand guineas by this work in the course of twenty-five years. MALONE.

[326] See _post_, beginning of 1781.

[327] See _ante_, ii. 272, note 2.

[328] Mr. Joseph Cooper Walker, of the Treasury, Dublin, who obligingly communicated to me this and a former letter from Dr. Johnson to the same gentleman (for which see vol. i. p. 321), writes to me as follows: --'Perhaps it would gratify you to have some account of Mr. O'Connor. He is an amiable, learned, venerable old gentleman, of an independent fortune, who lives at Belanagar, in the county of Roscommon; he is an admired writer, and Member of the Irish Academy.--The above Letter is alluded to in the Preface to the 2nd edit, of his _Dissert_, p. 3.'--Mr. O'Connor afterwards died at the age of eighty-two. See a well-drawn character of him in the _Gent. Mag_. for August 1791. BOSWELL.

[329] Mr. Croker shows good reason for believing that in the original letter this parenthesis stood:--'_if such there were_.'

[330] See _ante_, i. 292.

[331] 'Johnson had not heard of Pearce's _Sermons_, which I wondered at, considering that he wrote all the _Life_ published by the Chaplain Derby, except what his Lordship wrote himself.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 242. See ante, March 20, 1776.

[332] Boswell, it seems, is here quoting himself. See his _Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 201 (Sept. 13, 1773), where, however, he lays the emphasis differently, writing '_fervour_ of loyalty.'

[333] 'An old acquaintance' of the Bishop says that 'he struggled hard ten years ago to resign his Bishopric and the Deanery of Westminster, in which our gracious King was willing to gratify him; but upon a consultation of the Bishops they thought it could not be done with propriety; yet he was permitted to resign the Deanery.' _Gent. Mag_. 1775, p. 421.

[334] 'This person, it is said, was a stay-maker, but being a man of wit and parts he betook himself to study, and at a time when the discipline of the inns of court was scandalously lax, got himself called to the Bar, and practised at the quarter-sessions under me, but with little success. He became the conductor of a paper called _The Public Ledger_ and a writer for the stage, in which he met with some encouragement, till it was insinuated that he was a pensioner of the minister, and therefore a fit object of patriotic vengeance.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 518. See _ante_, ii. 48 note, and _post_, 1784, in Mr. Nichols's account of Johnson's last days.

[335] 'This address had the desired effect. The play was well received.' Murphy's _Garrick_, p. 302. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield, 'Lucy [his step-daughter] thinks nothing of my prologue for Kelly, and says she has always disowned it.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 352.

[336] It was composed at a time when Savage was generally without lodging, and often without meat. Much of it was written with pen and ink that were borrowed, on paper that had been picked up in the streets. The unhappy poet 'was obliged to submit himself wholly to the players, and admit with whatever reluctance the emendations of Mr. Cibber, which he always considered as the disgrace of his performance.' When it was brought out, he himself took the part of Overbury. 'He was so much ashamed of having been reduced to appear as a player, that he always blotted out his name from the list when a copy of his tragedy was to be shown to his friends.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 110-112.

[337] It was not at Drury-lane, but at Covent Garden theatre, that it was acted. MALONE.

[338] Part First, Chap 4. BOSWELL. See _ante_ ii. 225.

[339] _Life of Richard Savage_, by Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.

[340] See _ante_, i. 387, and _post_, May 17, 1783.

[341] Sheridan joined the Literary Club in March, 1777. _The Rivals_ and _The Duenna_ were brought out in 1775; _The Trip to Scarborough_ on Feb. 24, 1777, and _The School for Scandal_ in the following May. Moore (_Life of Sheridan_, i. 168), speaking of _The Duenna_, says, 'The run of this opera has, I believe, no parallel in the annals of the drama. Sixty-three nights was the career of _The Beggar's Opera_; but _The Duenna_ was acted no less than seventy-five times during the season.' _The Trip to Scarborough_ was a failure. Johnson, therefore, doubtless referred to _The Rivals_ and _The Duenna_.

[342] The date is wrongly given. Boswell says that he wrote again on June 23 (_post_, p. 120), and Johnson's letter of June 28 is in answer to both letters. The right date is perhaps June 9.

[343] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11, 1773.

[344] See pp. 29, 30, of this volume. BOSWELL.

[345] Johnson, describing 'the fond intimacy' of Quin and Thomson, says (_Works_, viii. 374):--'The commencement of this benevolence is very honourable to Quin, who is reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his genius, from an arrest by a very considerable present; and its continuance is honourable to both, for friendship is not always the sequel of obligation.'

[346] See _ante_, ii. 63, and _post_, June 18, 1778.

[347] Formerly Sub-preceptor to his present Majesty, and afterwards a Commissioner of Excise. MALONE.

[348] The physician and poet. He died in 1779.

[349] Boswell nine years earlier (_ante_, ii. 63) had heard Johnson accuse Thomson of gross sensuality.

[350] 'Savage, who lived much with Thomson, once told me he heard a lady remarking that she could gather from his works three parts of his character, that he was a great lover, a great swimmer, and rigorously abstinent; but, said Savage, he knows not any love but that of the sex; he was perhaps never in cold water in his life; and he indulges himself in all the luxury that comes within his reach.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 377.

[351] Dr. Johnson was not the _editor_ of this Collection of _The English Poets_; he merely furnished the biographical prefaces. MALONE. See _post_, Sept. 14, 1777.

[352] See _ante_, under April 18, 1775.

[353] One letter he seems to have sent to him from this spot. See _ante_, ii. 3, note 1.

[354] Dr. Johnson had himself talked of our seeing Carlisle together. _High_ was a favourite word of his to denote a person of rank. He said to me, 'Sir, I believe we may at the house of a Roman Catholick lady in Cumberland; a high lady, Sir.' I afterwards discovered he meant Mrs. Strickland, sister of Charles Townley, Esq., whose very noble collection of pictures is not more to be admired, than his extraordinary and polite readiness in shewing it, which I and several of my friends have agreeably experienced. They who are possessed of valuable stores of gratification to persons of taste, should exercise their benevolence in imparting the pleasure. Grateful acknowledgments are due to Welbore Ellis Agar, Esq., for the liberal access which he is pleased to allow to his exquisite collection of pictures. BOSWELL.

[355] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 11, 1773.

[356] It is no doubt, on account of its brevity that Boswell in speaking of it writes:--'What is called _The Life_.'

[357] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct, 29, 1773.

[358] See _ante_, under Feb. 7, 1775.

[359] See post, p. 139.

[360] See _ante_, i. 494.

[361] From Prior's imitation of _Gualterus Danistonus ad Amicos_; the poem mentioned by Boswell in his _Hebrides_, Aug. 18, 1773.

[362] _Copy_ is _manuscript for printing_.

[363] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 521) says that the jury did not at the trial recommend Dodd to mercy. To one of the petitions 'Mrs. Dodd first got the hands of the jury that found the bill against her husband, and after that, as it is supposed, of the jury that tried him.' Ib. p. 527. He says that the public were at first very little interested in his fate, 'but by various artifices, and particularly the insertion of his name in public papers, with such palliatives as he and his friends could invent, never with the epithet of _unfortunate_, they were betrayed into such an enthusiastic commiseration of his case as would have led a stranger to believe that himself had been no accessory to his distresses, but that they were the inflictions of Providence.' Ib. p. 520. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on May 19:--'Poor Dodd was sentenced last week.... I am afraid he will suffer. The clergy seem not to be his friends. The populace, that was extremely clamorous against him, begins to pity him. _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., v. 423.

[364] Horace Walpole says 'the criminal was raised to the dignity of a confessor in the eyes of the people--but an inexorable judge had already pronounced his doom. Lord Mansfield, who never felt pity, and never relented unless terrified, had indecently declared for execution even before the judges had given their opinion. An incident that seemed favourable weighed down the vigorous [qu. rigorous] scale. The Common Council had presented a petition for mercy to the king. Lord Mansfield, who hated the popular party as much as he loved severity, was not likely to be moved by such intercessors. At Court it grew the language that the king must discountenance such interposition.' Walpole adds that 'as an attempt to rescue Dodd might be apprehended, two thousand men were ordered to be reviewed in Hyde Park during the execution.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 125.

[365] Johnson, in the '_Observations_ inserted in the newspapers' (_post_, p. 142), said 'that though the people cannot judge of the administration of justice so well as their governors, yet their voice has always been regarded. That if the people now commit an error, their error is on the part of mercy; and that perhaps history cannot shew a time in which the life of a criminal, guilty of nothing above fraud, was refused to the cry of nations, to the joint supplication of three and twenty thousand petitioners.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 528. Johnson's earnestness as a petitioner contrasts with the scornful way in which he had spoken of petitions. 'There must be no yielding to encourage this,' the minister might have answered in his own words. _Ante_, ii. 90.

[366] The king signs no sentences or death warrants; but out of respect to the Royal perogative of mercy, expressed by the old adage, '_The King's face gives grace_,' the cases of criminals convicted in London, where the king is supposed to be resident, were reported to him by the recorder, that his Majesty might have an option of pardoning. Hence it was seriously doubted whether a recorder's report need or, indeed, could be made at Windsor. All his Majesty did on these occasions was, to express verbally his assent or dissent to or from the execution of the sentence; and, though the King was on such occasions attended by his Ministers and the great legal Privy Councillors, the business was not technically a council business, but the individual act of the King. On the accession of Queen Victoria, the nature of some cases that it might be necessary to report to her Majesty occasioned the abrogation of a practice which was certainly so far unreasonable that it made a difference between London and all the rest of the kingdom. CROKER. 'I was exceedingly shocked,' said Lord Eldon, 'the first time I attended to hear the Recorder's report, at the careless manner in which, as it appeared to me, it was conducted. We were called upon to decide on sentences affecting no less than the lives of men, and yet there was nothing laid before us to enable us to judge whether there had or had not been any extenuating circumstances; it was merely a recapitulation of the judge's opinion and the sentence. I resolved that I never would attend another report, without having read and duly considered the whole of the evidence of each case, and I never did.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 398.

[367] Under-Secretary of State and a member of the Literary Club. _Ante_, i. 478.

[368] Johnson does not here let Boswell know that he had written this address (_post_, p. 141). Wesley, two days before Dodd's execution, records (_Journal_, iv. 99):--'I saw Dr. Dodd for the last time. He was in exactly such a temper as I wished. He never at any time expressed the least murmuring or resentment at any one; but entirely and calmly gave himself up to the will of God. Such a prisoner I scarce ever saw before; much less such a condemned malefactor. I should think none could converse with him without acknowledging that God is with him.' In earlier years Wesley was more than once refused admittance to a man under sentence of death who was 'earnestly desirous' to speak with him. Wesley's _Journal_, ed. 1827, i. 255, 292, 378.

[369] Between the Methodists and the Moravians there was no good-will. In 1749 the Moravians published a declaration that 'whosoever reckons that those persons in England who are usually called Moravians, and those who are called Methodists, are the same, he is mistaken.' Thereupon Wesley recorded in his _Journal_, ii. l20:--'The Methodists, so called, heartily thank Brother Louis for his Declaration; as they count it no honour to be in any connexion either with him or his Brethren.'

[370] Since they have been so much honoured by Dr. Johnson I shall here insert them:

'TO MR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

'MY EVER DEAR AND MUCH-RESPECTED SIR,

'You know my solemn enthusiasm of mind. You love me for it, and I respect myself for it, because in so far I resemble Mr. Johnson. You will be agreeably surprized when you learn the reason of my writing this letter. I am at Wittemberg in Saxony. I am in the old church where the Reformation was first preached, and where some of the reformers lie interred. I cannot resist the serious pleasure of writing to Mr. Johnson from the Tomb of Melancthon. My paper rests upon the gravestone of that great and good man, who was undoubtedly the worthiest of all the reformers. He wished to reform abuses which had been introduced into the Church; but had no private resentment to gratify. So mild was he, that when his aged mother consulted him with anxiety on the perplexing disputes of the times, he advised her "to keep to the old religion." At this tomb, then, my ever dear and respected friend! I vow to thee an eternal attachment. It shall be my study to do what I can to render your life happy: and, if you die before me, I shall endeavour to do honour to your memory; and, elevated by the remembrance of you, persist in noble piety. May GOD, the Father of all beings, ever bless you! and may you continue to love,

'Your most affectionate friend, and devoted servant, 'JAMES BOSWELL.' 'Sunday, Sept. 30, 1764.'

'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. 'Wilton-house, April 22, 1775. 'My DEAR SIR,

'Every scene of my life confirms the truth of what you have told me, "there is no certain happiness in this state of being."--I am here, amidst all that you know is at Lord Pembroke's; and yet I am weary and gloomy. I am just setting out for the house of an old friend in Devonshire, and shall not get back to London for a week yet. You said to me last Good-Friday, with a cordiality that warmed my heart, that if I came to settle in London, we should have a day fixed every week, to meet by ourselves and talk freely. To be thought worthy of such a privilege cannot but exalt me. During my present absence from you, while, notwithstanding the gaiety which you allow me to possess, I am darkened by temporary clouds, I beg to have a few lines from you; a few lines merely of kindness, as--a _viaticum_ till I see you again. In your _Vanity of Human Wishes_, and in Parnell's _Contentment_, I find the only sure means of enjoying happiness; or, at least, the hopes of happiness. I ever am, with reverence and affection,

'Most faithfully yours,

'JAMES BOSWELL.'

[371] William Seward, Esq., F.R.S., editor of _Anecdotes of some distinguished persons_, etc., in four volumes, 8vo., well known to a numerous and valuable acquaintance for his literature, love of the fine arts, and social virtues. I am indebted to him for several communications concerning Johnson. BOSWELL. Miss Burney frequently mentions him as visiting the Thrales. 'Few people do him justice,' said Mrs. Thrale to her, 'because as Dr. Johnson calls him, he is an abrupt young man; but he has excellent qualities, and an excellent understanding.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 141. Miss Burney, in one of her letters, says:--'Mr. Seward, who seems to be quite at home among them, appears to be a penetrating, polite, and agreeable young man. Mrs. Thrale says of him, that he does good to everybody, but speaks well of nobody.' _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 89. He must not be confounded with the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield.

[372] See _post_, under date of June 18, 1778.

[373] In the list of deaths in the _Gent. Mag_. for 1779, p. 103, we find, 'Feb. 8. Isaac de Groot, great-grandson to the learned Grotius. He had long been supported by private donations, and at length was provided for in the Charterhouse, where he died.'

[374] The preceding letter. BOSWELL.

[375] This letter was addressed not to a Mr. Dilly, but to Mr. W. Sharp, Junior. See _Gent. Mag_. 1787, p. 99. CROKER.

[376] See _ante_, i. 312.

[377] See _ante_, p. 101.

[378] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 16.

[379] See ante, p. 86, and _post_, under Nov. 29, 1777.

[380] Johnson gives both _epocha_ and _epoch_ in his _Dictionary_.

[381] Langton. See _ante_, p. 48, and _post_, Sept. 22, 1777.

[382] This very just remark I hope will be constantly held in remembrance by parents, who are in general too apt to indulge their own fond feelings for their children at the expence of their friends. The common custom of introducing them after dinner is highly injudicious. It is agreeable enough that they should appear at any other time; but they should not be suffered to poison the moments of festivity by attracting the attention of the company, and in a manner compelling them from politeness to say what they do not think. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 28.

[383] Gibbon wrote to Garrick from Paris on Aug. 14:--'At this time of year the society of the Turk's-head can no longer be addressed as a corporate body, and most of the individual members are probably dispersed: Adam Smith in Scotland; Burke in the shades of Beaconsfield; Fox, the Lord or the devil knows where, etc. Be so good as to salute in my name those friends who may fall in your way. Assure Sir Joshua, in particular, that I have not lost my relish for _manly_ conversation and the society of the brown table.' _Garrick Corres_. ii. 256. I believe that in Gibbon's published letters no mention is found of Johnson.

[384] See _ante_, ii. 159, and _post_, April 4, 1778. Of his greatness at the Bar Lord Eldon has left the following anecdote;--'Mr. Dunning, being in very great business, was asked how he contrived to get through it all. He said, "I do one third of it, another third does itself, and the remaining third continues undone."' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 327.

[385] It is not easy to detect Johnson in anything that comes even near an inaccuracy. Let me quote, therefore, a passage from one of his letters which shews that when he wrote to Mrs. Boswell he had not, as he seems to imply, eaten any of the marmalade:--'Aug. 4, 1777. I believe it was after I left your house that I received a pot of orange marmalade from Mrs. Boswell. We have now, I hope, made it up. I have not opened my pot.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 350.

[386] See _ante_, March 19, 1776.

[387] What it was that had occured is shewn by Johnson's letter to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 4:--'Boswell's project is disconcerted by a visit from a relation of Yorkshire, whom he mentions as the head of his clan [see _ante_, ii. 169, note 2]. Boszy, you know, make a huge bustle about all his own motions and all mine. I have inclosed a letter to pacify him, and reconcile him to the uncertainties of human life.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 350.

[388] When she was about four months old, Boswell declared that she should have five hundred pounds of additional fortune, on account of her fondness for Dr. Johnson. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773. She died, says Malone, of a consumption, four months after her father.

[389] See _ante_, March 23, 1776.

[390] By an odd mistake, in the first three editions we find a reading in this line to which Dr. Johnson would by no means have subscribed, _wine_ having been substituted for _time_. That error probably was a mistake in the transcript of Johnson's original letter. The other deviation in the beginning of the line (_virtue_ instead of nature) must be attributed to his memory having deceived him. The verse quoted is the concluding line of a sonnet of Sidney's:--

'Who doth desire that chast his wife should bee,
First be he true, for truth doth truth deserve;
Then be he such, as she his worth may see,
And, alwaies one, credit with her preserve:
Not toying kynd nor causelessly unkynd,
Nor stirring thoughts, nor yet denying right,
Nor spying faults, nor in plaine errors blind,
Never hard hand, nor ever rayns (reins) too light;
As far from want, as far from vaine expence,
Th' one doth enforce, the t'other doth entice:
Allow good companie, but drive from thence
All filthie mouths that glorie in their vice:
This done, thou hast no more but leave the rest
To _nature_, fortune, _time_, and woman's breast.'

MALONE.

[391] 2 Corinthians, iv. 17.

[392] Boswell says (ante, i. 342):--'I am not satisfied if a year passes without my having read _Rasselas_ through.'

[393] It appears that Johnson, now in his sixty-eighth year, was seriously inclined to realise the project of our going up the Baltick, which I had started when we were in the Isle of Sky [Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 16]; for he thus writes to Mrs. Thrale; _Letters_, vol. i. p. 366:--

'Ashbourne, Sept. 13, 1777.

'BOSWELL, I believe, is coming. He talks of being here to day: I shall be glad to see him: but he shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power: what we shall substitute I know not. He wants to see Wales; but, except the woods of _Bachycraigh_, what is there in Wales, that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity? We may, perhaps, form some scheme or other; but, in the phrase of _Hockley in the Hole_, it is a pity he has not a _better bottom_.'

Such an ardour of mind, and vigour of enterprise, is admirable at any age: but more particularly so at the advanced period at which Johnson was then arrived. I am sorry now that I did not insist on our executing that scheme. Besides the other objects of curiosity and observation, to have seen my illustrious friend received, as he probably would have been, by a Prince so eminently distinguished for his variety of talents and acquisitions as the late King of Sweden; and by the Empress of Russia, whose extraordinary abilities, information, and magnanimity, astonish the world, would have afforded a noble subject for contemplation and record. This reflection may possibly be thought too visionary by the more sedate and cold-blooded part of my readers; yet I own, I frequently indulge it with an earnest, unavailing regret. BOSWELL. In _The Spectator_, No. 436, Hockley in the Hole is described as 'a place of no small renown for the gallantry of the lower order of Britons.' Fielding mentions it in _Jonathan Wild_, bk. i. ch. 2:-- 'Jonathan married Elizabeth, daughter of Scragg Hollow, of Hockley in the Hole, Esq., and by her had Jonathan, who is the illustrious subject of these memoirs.' In _The Beggar's Opera_, act i. Mrs. Peachum says to Filch: 'You should go to Hockley in the Hole, and to Marylebone, child, to learn valour. These are the schools that have bred so many brave men.' Hockley in the Hole was in Clerkenwell. That Johnson had this valour was shewn two years earlier, when he wrote to Mrs. Thrale about a sum of £14,000 that the Thrales had received: 'If I had money enough, what would I do? Perhaps, if you and master did not hold me, I might go to Cairo, and down the Red Sea to Bengal, and take a ramble in India. Would this be better than building and planting? It would surely give more variety to the eye, and more amplitude to the mind. Half fourteen thousand would send me out to see other forms of existence, and bring me back to describe them.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 266. To the 'King of Sweden' _late_ was added in the second edition; Gustavus III having been assassinated in March 1792. The story is somewhere told that George III, on hearing the news, cried out, 'What, what, what! Shot, shot, shot!' The Empress of Russia was Catherine II.

[394] It so happened. The letter was forwarded to my house at Edinburgh. BOSWELL. Arthur Young (_Tour through the North of England_, iv. 431-5) describes, in 1768, some of the roads along which Boswell was to travel nine years later. 'I would advise all travellers to consider the country between Newcastle-under-Line and Preston as sea, and as soon think of driving into the ocean as venturing into such detestable roads. I am told the Derby way to Manchester is good, but further is not penetrable.' The road from Wigan to Preston he calls 'infernal,' and 'cautions all travellers, who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer; what therefore must it be after a winter?'

[395] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 15, 1777:--'Last night came Boswell. I am glad that he is come. He seems to be very brisk and lively, and laughs a little at ---- [no doubt Taylor].' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 368. On the 18th he wrote:--'Boswell is with us in good humour, and plays his part with his usual vivacity.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:--'That is, he makes more noise than anybody in company, talking and laughing loud.' On p. 216 in vol. i. he noted:--'Boswell is not quite right-headed in my humble opinion.'

[396] In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1777, p. 458, it is described as a 'violent shock.'

[397] 'Grief has its time' he once said (_post_, June 2, 1781). 'Grief is a species of idleness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 77). He constantly taught that it is a duty not to allow the mind to prey on itself. 'Gaiety is a duty when health requires it' (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 529). 'Encourage yourself in bustle, and variety, and cheerfulness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale ten weeks after the death of her only surviving son (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 341). 'Even to think in the most reasonable manner,' he said at another time, 'is for the present not useful as not to think.' _Ib_ i. 202. When Mr. Thrale died, he wrote to his widow:--'I think business the best remedy for grief, as soon as it can be admitted.' _Ib_. ii 197. To Dr. Taylor Johnson wrote:--'Sadness only multiplies self.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., v. 461.

[398] 'There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved, nor will by me at least be thought worthy of esteem.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 198. Against this Baretti has written in the margin:-- 'Johnson never grieved much for anything. His trade was wisdom.' See _ante_, ii. 94.

[399] See _ante_, iii 19. Mr. Croker gives a reference to p. 136 of his edition. Turning to it we find an account of Johnson, who rode upon three horses. It would seem from this that, because John=Jack, therefore Johnson=Jackson.

[400] Mr. Croker remarks on this:--'Johnson evidently thought, either that Ireland is generally mountainous, or that Mr. Burke came from a part which was: but he was mistaken.' The allusion may well be, not to Burke as a native of Ireland, but to him as a student of national politics and economy, to whom any general reflections on the character of mountaineers would be welcome. In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 201, it is stated that 'it was the philosophy of the book that Burke thought well of.'

[401] Mr. Langley, I have little doubt, is the Mr. L---- of the following passage in Johnson's letter, written from Ashbourne on July 12, 1775:--'Mr. L---- and the Doctor still continue at variance; and the Doctor is afraid and Mr. L---- not desirous of a reconciliation. I therefore step over at by-times, and of by-times I have enough.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 267.

[402] See _ante_, ii. 52.

[403] George Garrick. See Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 141.

[404] See _ante_, March 26, 1776, and _post_, Sept. 21, 1777.

[405] 'While Lord Bathurst held the Great Seal, an attempt was in vain made to corrupt him by a secret offer to Lady Bathurst of three thousand guineas for the living of St. George's, Hanover Square. The offer was traced to the famous Dr. Dodd, then a King's Chaplain, and he was immediately dismissed.' Campbell's _Chancellors_, v. 464. See Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 298.