Chapter XXIV: Letter IV: 'sir, (4)

[406] Horace Walpole, who accompanied Prince Edward to a service at the Magdalen House in 1760, thus describes the service (_Letters_, iii. 282): --'As soon as we entered the chapel the organ played, and the Magdalens sung a hymn in parts. You cannot imagine how well. The chapel was dressed with orange and myrtle, and there wanted nothing but a little incense to drive away the devil,--or to invite him. Prayers then began, psalms and a sermon; the latter by a young clergyman, one Dodd, who contributed to the Popish idea one had imbibed, by haranguing entirely in the French style, and very eloquently and touchingly. He apostrophised the lost sheep, who sobbed and cried from their souls: so did my Lady Hertford and Fanny Pelham, till, I believe, the city dames took them both for Jane Shores. The confessor then turned to the audience, and addressed himself to his Royal Highness, whom he called most illustrious prince, beseeching his protection. In short, it was a very pleasing performance, and I got _the most illustrious_ to desire it might be printed.' Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 503) heard Dodd preach in 1769. 'We had,' he says, 'difficulty to get tolerable seats, the crowd of genteel people was so great. The unfortunate young women were in a latticed gallery, where you could only see those who chose to be seen. The preacher's text was, "If a man look on a woman to lust after her," &c. The text itself was shocking, and the sermon was composed with the least possible delicacy, and was a shocking insult on a sincere penitent, and fuel for the warm passions of the hypocrites. The fellow was handsome, and delivered his discourse remarkably well for a reader. When he had finished, there were unceasing whispers of applause, which I could not help contradicting aloud, and condemning the whole institution, as well as the exhibition of the preacher, as _contra bonos mores_, and a disgrace to a Christian city.' Goldsmith in 1774 exposed Dodd as a 'quacking divine' in his _Retaliation_. He describes Dr. Douglas as a 'The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks,' and he continues,--

'But now he is gone, and we want a detector, Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture.'

See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[407] The fifth earl, the successor of the celebrated earl. On Feb. 22, 1777, Dodd was convicted of forging a bond for £4,200 in his name; _Ann. Reg_. xx. 168. The earl was unfortunate in his tutors, for he had been also under Cuthbert Shaw (_ante_, ii 31 note 2).

[408] Mr. Croker quotes the following letter of Dodd, dated 1750:--'I spent yesterday afternoon with Johnson, the celebrated author of _The Rambler_, who is of all others the oddest and most peculiar fellow I ever saw. He is six feet high, has a violent convulsion in his head, and his eyes are distorted. He speaks roughly and loud, listens to no man's opinions, thoroughly pertinacious of his own. Good sense flows from him in all he utters, and he seems possessed of a prodigious fund of knowledge, which he is not at all reserved in communicating; but in a manner so obstinate, ungenteel, and boorish, as renders it disagreeable and dissatisfactory. In short it is impossible for words to describe him. He seems often inattentive to what passes in company, and then looks like a person possessed by some superior spirit. I have been reflecting on him ever since I saw him. He is a man of most universal and surprising genius, but in himself particular beyond expression.' Dodd was born in 1729.

[409] 'One of my best and tenderest friends,' Johnson called him, _post_, July 31, 1784. See _post_, April 10, 1778.

[410] _The Convict's Address to his Unhappy Brethren: Being a Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Dodd, Friday, June 6, 1777, in the Chapel of Newgate, while under sentence of death, for forging the name of the Earl of Chesterfield on a bond for £4,200. Sold by the booksellers and news-carriers. Price Two-pence_. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on Aug. 9:--'Lucy said, "When I read Dr. Dodd's sermon to the prisoners, I said Dr. Johnson could not make a better."'

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 352. See _post_, p. 167.

[411] 'What must I do to be saved?' _Acts_ xvi. 30.

[412] 'And finally we must commend and entrust our souls to Him who died for the sins of men; with earnest wishes and humble hopes that He will admit us with the labourers who entered the vineyard at the last hour, and associate us with the thief whom he pardoned on the cross.' p. 14.

[413] _The Gent. Mag_. for 1777 (p. 450) says of this address:--'As none but a convict could have written this, all convicts ought to read it; and we therefore recommend its being framed, and hung up in all prisons.' Mr. Croker, italicising _could_ and suppressing the latter part of the sentence, describes it as a criticism that must have been offensive to Johnson. The writer's meaning is simple enough. The address, he knew, was delivered in the Chapel of Newgate by a prisoner under sentence of death. If, instead of 'written' he had said 'delivered,' his meaning would have been quite clear.

[414] Having unexpectedly, by the favour of Mr. Stone, of London Field, Hackney, seen the original in Johnson's hand-writing, of 'The Petition of the City of London to his Majesty, in favour of Dr. Dodd,' I now present it to my readers, with such passages as were omitted in-closed in crotchets, and the additions or variations marked in Italicks.

'That William Dodd, Doctor of Laws, now lying under sentence of death _in your Majesty's gaol of Newgate_, for the crime of forgery, has for a great part of his life set a useful and laudable example of diligence in his calling, [and as we have reason to believe, has exercised his ministry with great fidelity and efficacy,] _which, in many instances, has produced the most happy effect_.

'That he has been the first institutor, [or] _and_ a very earnest and active promoter of several modes of useful charity, and [that] therefore [he] may be considered as having been on many occasions a benefactor to the publick.

'[That when they consider his past life, they are willing to suppose his late crime to have been not the consequence of habitual depravity, but the suggestion of some sudden and violent temptation.]

'[That] _Your Petitioners_ therefore considering his case, as in some of its circumstances unprecedented and peculiar, _and encouraged by your Majesty's known clemency_, [they] most humbly recommend the said William Dodd to [his] your Majesty's most gracious consideration, in hopes that he will be found not altogether [unfit] _unworthy_ to stand an example of Royal Mercy.' BOSWELL.

[415] His Speech at the Old Bailey, when found guilty. BOSWELL.

[416] In the second edition he is described as 'now Lord Hawkesbury.' He had entered public life as Lord Bute's private secretary, and, according to Horace Walpole, continued in it as his tool.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv. 70, 115. Walpole speaks of him as one of 'the Jesuits of the Treasury' (_Ib_. p. 110), and 'the director or agent of all the King's secret counsels. His appearance was abject, his countenance betrayed a consciousness of secret guilt; and, though his ambition and rapacity were insatiate, his demeanour exhibited such a want of spirit, that had he stood forth as Prime Minister, which he really was, his very look would have encouraged opposition.' _Ib_. p. 135. The third Earl of Liverpool wrote to Mr. Croker on Dec. 7, 1845: --'Very shortly before George III's accession my father became confidential secretary of Lord Bute, if you can call secretary a man who all through his life was so bad a penman that he always dictated everything, and of whom, although I have a house full of papers, I have scarcely any in his own hand.' _Croker Corres_. iii. 178. The editor is in error in saying that the Earl of Liverpool who wrote this was son of the Prime Minister. He was his half-brother.

[417] Burke wrote to Garrick of Fitzherbert:--'You know and love him; but I assure you, until we can talk some late matters over, you, even you, can have no adequate idea of the worth of that man.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 190. See _ante_, i. 82.

[418] 'I remember a man,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonomy_, i. 2l7), 'much delighted in by the upper ranks of society, who upon a trifling embarrassment in his affairs hanged himself behind the stable door, to the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and most agreeable converser breathing. "What upon earth," said one at our house, "could have made--[Fitzherbert] hang himself?" "Why, just his having a multitude of acquaintance," replied Dr. Johnson, "and ne'er a friend."' See _ante_, ii. 228.

[419] Dr. Gisborne, Physician to his Majesty's Household, has obligingly communicated to me a fuller account of this story than had reached Dr. Johnson. The affected Gentleman was the late John Gilbert Cooper, Esq., author of a _Life of Socrates_, and of some poems in Dodsley's _Collection_. Mr. Fitzherbert found him one morning, apparently, in such violent agitation, on account of the indisposition of his son, as to seem beyond the power of comfort. At length, however, he exclaimed, 'I'll write an Elegy.' Mr. Fitzherbert being satisfied, by this, of the sincerity of his emotions, slyly said, 'Had not you better take a postchaise and go and see him?' It was the shrewdness of the insinuation which made the story be circulated. BOSWELL. Malone writes:--'Mr. Cooper was the last of the _benevolists_ or sentimentalists, who were much in vogue between 1750 and 1760, and dealt in general admiration of virtue. They were all tenderness in words; their finer feeling evaporated in the moment of expression, for they had no connection with their practice.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 427. See _ante_, ii. 129. This fashion seems to have reached Paris a few years later. Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:--'Dans notre brillante capitale, où dominent les airs et la mode, s'attendrir, s'émouvoir, s'affliger, c'est le bon ton du moment. La bonté, la sensibilité, la tendre humanité sont devenues la fantaisie universelle. On ferait volontiers des malheureux pour goûter la douceur de les plaindre.' Garrick _Corres_. ii. 561.

[420] Johnson had felt the truth of this in the case of 'old Mr. Sheridan.' _Ante_, i. 387.

[421] Johnson, in his letters from Ashbourne, used to joke about Taylor's cattle:--'July 23, 1770. I have seen the great bull, and very great he is. I have seen likewise his heir apparent, who promises to enherit all the bulk and all the virtues of his sire, I have seen the man who offered an hundred guineas for the young bull, while he was yet little better than a calf.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 33. 'July 3, 1771. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great bull; and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence.' _Ib_. p. 39. 'July 10, 1771. There has been a man here to-day to take a farm. After some talk he went to see the bull, and said that he had seen a bigger. Do you think he is likely to get the farm?' _Ib_. p. 43. 'Oct. 31, 1772. Our bulls and cows are all well; but we yet hate the man that had seen a bigger bull.' _Ib_. p. 61.

[422] Quoted by Boswell in his _Hebrides_, Aug. 16, 1773.

[423] In the letters that Boswell and Erskine published (_ante_, 384, note) are some verses by Erskine, of very slight merit.

[424] Horace, _Odes_, ii. 4.

[425]

'The tender glance, the red'ning cheek,
O'erspread with rising blushes,
A thousand various ways they speak
A thousand various wishes.'

Hamilton's _Poems_, ed. 1760, p. 59.

[426] In the original, _Now. Ib_. p. 39.

[427] Thomson, in _The Seasons_, Winter, 1. 915, describes how the ocean

'by the boundless frost
Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd.'

In 1. 992, speaking of a thaw, he says,

'The rivers swell of bonds impatient.'

[428] See _ante_ March 24, 1776.

[429] Johnson wrote of Pope (_Works_, viii. 309):--'The indulgence and accommodation which his sickness required had taught him all the unpleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary man.'

[430] When he was ill of a fever he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'The doctor was with me again to-day, and we both think the fever quite gone. I believe it was not an intermittent, for I took of my own head physick yesterday; and Celsus says, it seems, that if a cathartick be taken the fit will return _certo certius_. I would bear something rather than Celsus should be detected in an error. But I say it was a _febris continua_, and had a regular crisis.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 89.

[431] Johnson must have shortened his life by the bleedings that he underwent. How many they were cannot be known, for no doubt he was often bled when he has left no record of it. The following, however, I have noted. I do not know that he was bled more than most people of his time. Dr. Taylor, it should seem, underwent the operation every quarter.

Dec. 1755. Thrice. 54 ounces. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 100.

Jan. 1761. Once. _Ib_. p. 122.

April 1770. Cupped. _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

Winter of 1772-3. Three times. _Ante_, ii. 206, and _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

May 1773. Two copious bleedings. _Pr. and Med_. 130.

1774. Times not mentioned. 36 ounces. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 209.

Jan. 1777. Three bleedings. 22 ounces in first two. _Ib_. i. 343.

Jan. 1780. Once. _Post_, Jan. 20, 1780.

June 1780. Times not mentioned. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 649.

Jan. and Feb. 1782. Thrice. 50 ounces. _Post_, Feb. 4 and March 20, 1782.

May 1782. At least once. _Post_, under March 19, 1782, and _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 240.

Yet he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, 'I am of the chymical sect, which holds phlebotomy in abhorrence.' _Ib_. ii. 240. 'O why,' asks Wesley, who was as strongly opposed to bleeding as he was fond of poulticing, 'will physicians play with the lives of their patients? Do not others (as well as old Dr. Cockburn) know that "no end is answered by bleeding in a pleurisy, which may not be much better answered without it?"' Wesley's _Journal_, ii. 310. 'Dr. Cheyne,' writes Pope, 'was of Mr. Cheselden's opinion, that bleeding might be frequently repeated with safety, for he advised me to take four or five ounces every full moon.' Elwin and Courthope's _Pope's Works_, ix. 162.

[432] 'It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to tell him he is at the end of his nature.' _Sir Thomas Browne _quoted in Johnson's _Works_, vi. 485. See _post_, April 15, 1778, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 12, 1773.

[433] In the last number of _The Idler_ Johnson says:--'There are few things not purely evil of which we can say without some emotion of uneasiness, _this is the last_.... The secret horrour of the last is inseparable from a thinking being whose life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful.'

[434] In the first edition for _scarce any man_ we find _almost no man_. See _ante_, March 20, 1776, note.

[435] Bacon, in his _Essay on Death_, says:--'It is worthy the observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can win the combat of him.' In the _De Aug. Sci_. vi. 3. 12, he says:--'Non invenias inter humanos affetum tam pusillum, qui si intendatur paullo vehementius, non mortis metum superet.'

[436] Johnson, in his _Lives of Addison and Parnell_ (_Works_, vii. 399, 449), mentions that they drank too freely. See _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784.

[437] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. 3d edit. p. 240 [Sept. 22]. BOSWELL.

[438] In the _Life of Addison_ (_Works_, vii. 444) he says:--'The necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons, is the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent monuments and records; but Lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it might be told, it is no longer known. The delicate features of the mind, the nice discriminations of character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct, are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy, frolick and folly, however they might delight in the description, should be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my contemporaries, I begin to feel myself "walking upon ashes under which the fire is not extinguished," and coming to the time of which it will be proper rather to say "nothing that is false, than all that is true."' See _ante_, i. 9, and 30.

[439] Dr. Taylor was very ready to make this admission, because the party with which he was connected was not in power. There was then some truth in it, owing to the pertinacity of factious clamour. Had he lived till now, it would have been impossible for him to deny that his Majesty possesses the warmest affection of his people. BOSWELL. See _post_, March 21, 1783.

[440] The Duke of York in 1788, speaking in the House of Lords on the King's illness, said:--'He was confident that his Royal Highness [the Prince of Wales] understood too well the sacred principles which seated the House of Brunswick on the throne of Great Britain ever to assume or exercise any power, be his claim what it might, not derived from the will of the people, expressed by their representatives, and their lordships in parliament assembled.' _Parl. Hist_. xxvii. 678.

[441] See _ante_, i. 430.

[442] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 18, 1773, and _post_, under date of Sept. 9, 1779, note.

[443] 'The return of my birth-day,' he wrote in 1773, 'if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 134. In 1781 he viewed the day with calmness, _if not with cheerfulness_. He writes:--'I rose, breakfasted, and gave thanks at church for my creation, preservation and redemption. As I came home, I thought I had never begun any period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little festivity was not improper. I had a dinner; and invited Allen and Levet.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 198. In 1783 he again had 'a little dinner,' and invited four friends to keep the day. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 739. At Streatham the day, it would seem, was always kept. Mrs. Piozzi writes (_Anec_. p. 211):--'On the birthday of our eldest daughter, and that of our friend, Dr. Johnson, the 17th and 18th of September, we every year made up a little dance and supper to divert our servants and their friends.'

[444] The son of a Mr. Coxeter, 'a gentleman,' says Johnson, 'who was once my friend,' enlisted in the service of the East India Company. Johnson asked Mr. Thrale to use his influence to get his discharge. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 33.

[445] The bookseller whom Johnson beat, _ante_, i. 154.

[446] 'When a well-known author published his poems in the year 1777, "Such a one's verses are come out," said I: "Yes," replied Johnson, "and this frost has struck them in again. Here are some lines I have written to ridicule them; but remember that I love the fellow dearly now--for all I laugh at him.

'Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new; Endless labour all along, Endless labour to be wrong; Phrase that time has flung away; Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.'"'

Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 64.

Thomas Warton in 1777 published a volume of his poems. He, no doubt, is meant.

[447] In _The Rambler_, No. 121. Johnson, twenty-six years earlier, attacked 'the imitation of Spenser, which, by the influence of some men of learning and genius, seems likely to gain upon the age.... They seem to conclude that, when they have disfigured their lines with a few obsolete syllables, they have accomplished their design, without considering that they ought, not only to admit old words, but to avoid new. The laws of imitation are broken by every word introduced since the time of Spenser.'

[448] Warton's _Ode on the First of April_ is found a line which may have suggested these two lines:--'The morning hoar, and evening chill.'

[449] 'Collins affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival; and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to write poetry.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 404. Goldsmith, eleven years earlier, said in his _Life of Parnell_ (_Misc. Works_, iv. 22):--'These misguided innovators have not been content with restoring antiquated words and phrases, but have indulged themselves in the most licentious transpositions and the harshest constructions, vainly imagining that the more their writings are unlike prose, the more they resemble poetry.' Collins and Warton might have quoted by way of defence the couplet in Milton's _L'Allegro_.--

'While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of _darkness thin_.'

[450] As some of my readers may be gratified by reading the progress of this little composition, I shall insert it from my notes. 'When Dr. Johnson and I were sitting _tête-à-tête_ at the Mitre tavern, May 9, 1778, he said "_Where_ is bliss," would be better. He then added a ludicrous stanza, but would not repeat it, lest I should take it down. It was somewhat as follows; the last line I am sure I remember:

"While I thus cried, The hoary seer reply'd, Come, my lad, and drink some beer."

In spring, 1779, when in better humour, he made the second stanza, as in the text. There was only one variation afterwards made on my suggestion, which was changing _hoary_ in the third line to _smiling_, both to avoid a sameness with the epithet in the first line, and to describe the hermit in his pleasantry. He was then very well pleased that I should preserve it.' BOSWELL.

[451] When I mentioned Dr. Johnson's remark to a lady of admirable good sense and quickness of understanding, she observed, 'It is true, all this excludes only one evil; but how much good does it let in?'--To this observation much praise has been justly given. Let me then now do myself the honour to mention that the lady who made it was the late Margaret Montgomerie, my very valuable wife, and the very affectionate mother of my children, who, if they inherit her good qualities, will have no reason to complain of their lot. _Dos magna parentum virtus_. BOSWELL. The latter part of this note was first given in the second edition. The quotation if from Horace:--

'Cos est magna parentium Virtus.' 'The lovers there for dowry claim The father's virtue and the mother's fame.'

FRANCIS, Horace, Odes, iii. 24. 21.

[452] He saw it in 1774 on his way to Wales; but he must, I think, have seen it since, for it does not appear from his _Journal of a Tour into Wales_ that he then saw Lord Scarsdale. He met him also at Dr. Taylor's in July 1775. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 267.

[453] I do not find the description in Young's _Six Months' Tour through the North of England_, but in Pilkington's _Present State of Derbyshire_, ii. 120.

[454]

'Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?' 'What place, what land in all the earth but with our grief is stored?'

Morris, _Æneids_, i. 460.

[455] See _ante_, March 21 and 28, 1776.

[456] At Derby.

[457] Baretti in his _Italy_, i. 236, says:--'It is the general custom for our authors to make a present of their works to booksellers, who in return scarcely give a few copies when printed.' The Venetian bookseller to whom Metastasio gave his cleared, Baretti says, more than £10,000. Goldoni scarcely got for each of his plays ten pounds from the manager of the Venetian theatre, and much less from the booksellers. 'Our learned stare when they are told that in England there are numerous writers who get their bread by their productions only.'

[458] I am now happy to understand, that Mr. John Home, who was himself gallantly in the field for the reigning family, in that interesting warfare, but is generous enough to do justice to the other side, is preparing an account of it for the press. BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle, who knew Home well, says (_Auto_. p. 295):--'All his opinions of men and things were prejudices, which, though it did not disqualify him for writing admirable poetry, yet made him unfit for writing history.' See _ante_, i. 225, for Boswell's projected works.

[459] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale the next day:--'The finer pieces [of the Derby china] are so dear that perhaps silver vessels of the same capacity may be sometimes bought at the same price; and I am not yet so infected with the contagion of china-fancy as to like anything at that rate which can so easily be broken.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 380.

[460] See _ante_, April 14, 1775.

[461] See Hutton's _History of Derby_, a book which is deservedly esteemed for its information, accuracy, and good narrative. Indeed the age in which we live is eminently distinguished by topographical excellence. BOSWELL. According to Hutton the Italians at the beginning of the eighteenth century had 'the exclusive art of silk-throwing.' Lombe went to Italy, and by bribery got admittance into the works. Having mastered the secret he returned to England with two of the workmen. About the year 1717 he founded a great silk-mill at Derby. He died early, being poisoned, it was asserted, by an Italian woman who had been sent over to destroy him. In this mill, Hutton, as a child, 'had suffered intolerable severity.' Hutton's _Derby_, pp. 193-205.

[462] 'I have enlarged my notions,' recorded Johnson in his _Journal of a Tour into Wales_ (Aug. 3, 1774), after he had seen some iron-works.

[463] Young. BOSWELL.

'Think nought a trifle, though it small appear.' Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.'

_Love of Fame_, Satire vi.

[464] 'Pray, Sir, don't leave us;' said Johnson to an upholder of Berkeley's philosophy, 'for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.' _Post_, 1780, in Langton's _Collection_. See also _ante_, i. 471.

[465] Perhaps Boswell is thinking of Gray's lines at the close of the _Progress of Poesy_:--

'Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate.'

[466] Goldsmith wrote:--'In all Pope's letters, as well as in those of Swift, there runs a strain of pride, as if the world talked of nothing but themselves. "Alas," says he in one of them, "the day after I am dead the sun will shine as bright as the day before, and the world will be as merry as usual." Very strange, that neither an eclipse nor an earthquake should follow the loss of a poet!' Cunningham's _Goldsmith's Works_, iv. 85. Goldsmith refers, I suppose, to Pope's letter to Steele of July 15, 1712, where he writes:--'The morning after my exit the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green, the world will proceed in its old course, people will laugh as heartily, and marry as fast as they were used to do.' Elwin's Pope's _Works_, vi. 392. Gray's friend, Richard West, in some lines suggested by this letter, gives a pretty turn to Pope's thoughts where he says:--

'For me, whene'er all-conquering Death shall spread His wings around my unrepining head, I care not; tho' this face be seen no more, The world will pass as cheerful as before; Bright as before the day-star will appear, The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear.'

Mason's _Gray_, ed. 1807, i. 152.

[467] See _post_, April 12, 1778.

[468] A brother of Dodd's wife told Hawkins that 'Dodd's manner of living was ever such as his visible income would no way account for. He said that he was the most importunate suitor for preferment ever known; and that himself had been the bearer of letters to great men, soliciting promotion to livings, and had hardly escaped kicking down stairs.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 435.

[469] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 523) says that a Mr. Selwin, who just missed being elected Chamberlain of the City, went by request to see a man under sentence of death in Newgate, 'who informed him that he was in daily expectation of the arrival of the warrant for his execution; "but," said he, "I have £200, and you are a man of character, and had the court-interest when you stood for Chamberlain; I should therefore hope it is in your power to get me off." Mr. Selwin was struck with so strange a notion, and asked, if there were any alleviating circumstances in his case. The man peevishly answered "No;" but that he had enquired into the history of the place where he was, and could not find that any one who had £200 was ever hanged. Mr. Selwin told him it was out of his power to help him, and bade him farewell--"which," added he, "he did; for he found means to escape punishment."'

[470] Dodd, in his Dedication of this Sermon to Mr. Villette, the Ordinary of Newgate, says:--'The following address owes its present public appearance to you. You heard it delivered, and are pleased to think that its publication will be useful. To a poor and abject worm like myself this is a sufficient inducement to that publication.'

[471] See _ante_, p. 97. 'They have,' says Lowndes (_Bibl. Man_.), 'passed through innumerable editions.' To how many the book-stalls testify, where they are offered second-hand for a few pence.

[472] Goldsmith was thirty when he published _An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_; thirty-six when he published The _Traveller_; thirty-seven when he published _The Vicar of Wakefield_, and thirty-nine when he brought out _The Good-Natured Man_. In flowering late he was like Swift. 'Swift was not one of those minds which amaze the world with early pregnancy; his first work, except his few poetical Essays, was the _Dissentions in Athens and Rome_, published in his thirty-fourth year.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 197. See _post_, April 9, 1778.

[473] Burke, I think, is meant.

[474] This walking about his room naked was, perhaps, part of Lord Monboddo's system that was founded 'on the superiority of the savage life.' _Ante_, ii. 147.

[475] This regimen was, however, practised by Bishop Ken, of whom Hawkins (_not Sir John_) in his life of that venerable Prelate, p. 4, tells us: 'And that neither his study might be the aggressor on his hours of instruction, or what he judged his duty prevent his improvements; or both, his closet addresses to his GOD; he strictly accustomed himself to but one sleep, which often obliged him to rise at one or two of the clock in the morning, and sometimes sooner; and grew so habitual, that it continued with him almost till his last illness. And so lively and chearful was his temper, that he would be very facetious and entertaining to his friends in the evening, even when it was perceived that with difficulty he kept his eyes open; and then seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing and enabling him with more vigour and chearfulness to sing his morning hymn, as he then used to do to his lute before he put on his cloaths.' BOSWELL.

[476] See _ante_, under Dec. 17, 1775.

[477] Boswell shortened his life by drinking, if, indeed, he did not die of it. Less than a year before his death he wrote to Temple:--'I thank you sincerely for your friendly admonition on my frailty in indulging so much in wine. I _do_ resolve _anew_ to be upon my guard, as I am sensible how very pernicious as well as disreputable such a habit is! How miserably have I yielded to it in various years!' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 353. In 1776 Paoli had taken his word of honour that he would not taste fermented liquor for a year, that he might recover sobriety. _Ib_. p. 233. For a short time also in 1778 Boswell was a water-drinker, _Post_, April 28, 1778.

[478] Sir James Mackintosh told Mr. Croker that he believed Lord Errol was meant here as well as _post_, April 28, 1778. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[479] 'Must give us pause.' _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 1.

[480] 'He was the first,' writes Dr. T. Campbell (_Survey of the South of Ireland_, p. 373), 'who gave histories of the weather, seasons, and diseases of Dublin.' Wesley records (_Journal_, iv. 40):--'April 6, 1775. I visited that venerable man, Dr. Rutty, just tottering over the grave; but still clear in his understanding, full of faith and love, and patiently waiting till his change should come.'

[481] Cowper wrote of Johnson's _Diary_:--'It is certain that the publisher of it is neither much a friend to the cause of religion nor to the author's memory; for, by the specimen of it that has reached us, it seems to contain only such stuff as has a direct tendency to expose both to ridicule.' Southey's _Cowper_, v. 152.

[482] Huet, Bishop of Avranches, born 1630, died 1721, published in 1718 _Commentarius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus. Nouv. Biog. Gene_. xxv. 380.

[483] When Dr. Blair published his Lectures, he was invidiously attacked for having omitted his censure on Johnson's style, and, on the contrary, praising it highly. But before that time Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_ had appeared, in which his style was considerably easier than when he wrote _The Rambler_. It would, therefore, have been uncandid in Blair, even supposing his criticism to have been just, to have preserved it. BOSWELL.

[484] Johnson refers no doubt to the essay _On Romances, An Imitation_, by A. L. Aikin (Mrs. Barbauld); in _Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose_, by J. and A. L. Aikin (1773), p. 39. He would be an acute critic who could distinguish this _Imitation_ from a number of _The Rambler_.

[485] See _post_, under Dec. 6, 1784.

[486] _Id est, The Literary Scourge_.

[487] See _ante_, ii. 236, where Johnson attacks 'the _verbiage_ of Robertson.'

[488] 'We were now treading that illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and from my friends, be such rigid philosophy, as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery or virtue. The [That] man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.' Had our Tour produced nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. Sir Joseph Banks, the present respectable President of the Royal Society, told me, he was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration. BOSWELL. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 19, 1773, and Johnson's _Works_, ix. 145.

[489] 'He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning.' _Ante_, i. 218.

[490] In the original _island_.

[491] See _ante_, ii. 203, note 3.

[492] In this censure which has been carelessly uttered, I carelessly joined. But in justice to Dr. Kippis, who with that manly candid good temper which marks his character, set me right, I now with pleasure retract it; and I desire it may be particularly observed, as pointed out by him to me, that 'The new lives of dissenting Divines in the first four volumes of the second edition of the _Biographia Brittanica_, are those of John Abernethy, Thomas Amory, George Benson, Hugh Broughton the learned Puritan, Simon Browne, Joseph Boyse of Dublin, Thomas Cartwright the learned Puritan, and Samuel Chandler. The only doubt I have ever heard suggested is, whether there should have been an article of Dr. Amory. But I was convinced, and am still convinced, that he was entitled to one, from the reality of his learning, and the excellent and candid nature of his practical writings.

'The new lives of clergymen of the Church of England, in the same four volumes, are as follows: John Balguy, Edward Bentham, George Berkley Bishop of Cloyne, William Berriman, Thomas Birch, William Borlase, Thomas Bott, James Bradley, Thomas Broughton, John Brown, John Burton, Joseph Butler Bishop of Durham, Thomas Carte, Edmund Castell, Edmund Chishull, Charles Churchill, William Clarke, Robert Clayton Bishop of Clogher, John Conybeare Bishop of Bristol, George Costard, and Samuel Croxall.--"I am not conscious (says Dr. Kippis) of any partiality in conducting the work. I would not willingly insert a Dissenting Minister that does not justly deserve to be noticed, or omit an established Clergyman that does. At the same time, I shall not be deterred from introducing Dissenters into the _Biographia_, when I am satisfied that they are entitled to that distinction, from their writings, learning, and merit."'

Let me add that the expression 'A friend to the Constitution in Church and State,' was not meant by me, as any reflection upon this reverend gentleman, as if he were an enemy to the political constitution of his country, as established at the revolution, but, from my steady and avowed predilection for a _Tory_, was quoted from Johnson's _Dictionary_, where that distinction is so defined. BOSWELL. In his _Dictionary_ a _Tory_ is defined as 'one who adheres to the ancient constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of England.' It was on the _Biographia Britannica_ that Cowper wrote the lines that end:--

'So when a child, as playful children use, Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news, The flame extinct he views the roving fire, There goes my lady, and there goes the squire, There goes the parson, oh! illustrious spark, And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.'

Cowper's Works, viii. 320.

Horace Walpole said that the '_Biographia Britannica_ ought rather to be called _Vindicatio Britannica_, for that it was a general panegyric upon everybody.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 115.

[493] See _ante_, p. 99.

[494]

'Great wits are sure to madness near allied, And thin partitions do their bounds divide.'

Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_, 1, 163.

[495] _Observations on Insanity_, by Thomas Arnold, M.D., London, 1782. BOSWELL.

[496] We read in the Gospels, that those unfortunate persons who were possessed with evil spirits (which, after all, I think is the most probable cause of madness, as was first suggested to me by my respectable friend Sir John Pringle), had recourse to pain, tearing themselves, and jumping sometimes into the fire, sometimes into the water. Mr. Seward has furnished me with a remarkable anecdote in confirmation of Dr. Johnson's observation. A tradesman, who had acquired a large fortune in London, retired from business, and went to live at Worcester. His mind, being without its usual occupation, and having nothing else to supply its place, preyed upon itself, so that existence was a torment to him. At last he was seized with the stone; and a friend who found him in one of its severest fits, having expressed his concern, 'No, no, Sir, (said he) don't pity me: what I now feel is ease compared with that torture of mind from which it relieves me.' BOSWELL.

[497] See _ante_, i. 446. 'Johnson was a great enemy to the present fashionable way of supposing worthless and infamous persons mad.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 203.

[498] See _post_, April 1, 1779.

[499] See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[500] 'Reynolds,' writes Malone, 'was as fond of London as Dr. Johnson; always maintaining that it was the only place in England where a pleasant society might be found.' Prior's _Malone_ p. 433. Gibbon wrote to Holroyd _Misc. Works_, ii 126:--'Never pretend to allure me by painting in odious colours the dust of London. I love the dust, and whenever I move into the Weald it is to visit you and my Lady, and not your trees.' Burke, on the other hand, wrote (_Corres_. iii 422):--'What is London? clean, commodious, neat; but, a very few things indeed excepted, and endless addition of littleness to littleness, extending itself over a great tract of land.' 'For a young man,' he says, 'for a man of easy fortune, London is the best place one can imagine. But for the old, the infirm, the straightened in fortune, the grave in character or in disposition, I do not believe a much worse place can be found.' _Ib_. iv. 250.

[501]

'Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captos Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui.' Ovid, _Ep. ex Ponto_, i. 3. 35.

[502] 'In the morn and liquid dew of youth.' _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 3.

[503] Now, at the distance of fifteen years since this conversation passed, the observation which I have had an opportunity of making in Westminster Hall has convinced me, that, however true the opinion of Dr. Johnson's legal friend may have been some time ago, the same certainty of success cannot now be promised to the same display of merit. The reasons, however, of the rapid rise of some, and the disappointment of others equally respectable, are such as it might seem invidious to mention, and would require a longer detail than would be proper for this work. BOSWELL. Boswell began to eat his dinners in the Inner Temple in 1775. _Ante_, p. 45 note 1, and _Letters of Boswell_, p. 196. In writing to Temple he thus mentions his career as a barrister. 'Jan. 10, 1789. In truth I am sadly discouraged by having no practice, nor probable prospect of it; and to confess fairly to you, my friend, I am afraid that, were I to be tried, I should be found so deficient in the forms, the _quirks_ and the _quiddities_, which early habit acquires, that I should expose myself. Yet the delusion of Westminster Hall, of brilliant reputation and splendid fortune as a barrister, still weighs upon my imagination.' _Ib_. p. 267. 'Aug. 23, 1789. The Law life in Scotland amongst vulgar familiarity would now quite destroy me. I am not able to acquire the Law of England.' _Ib_. p. 304. 'Nov. 28, 1789. I have given up my house and taken good chambers in the Inner Temple, to have the appearance of a lawyer. O Temple! Temple! is this realising any of the towering hopes which have so often been the subject of our conversations and letters? ... I do not see the smallest opening in Westminster Hall but I like the scene, though I have attended only one day this last term, being eager to get my _Life of Johnson_ finished.' _Ib_. p. 314. 'April 6, 1791. When my book is launched, I shall, if I am alone and in tolerable health and spirits, have some furniture put into my chambers in the Temple, and force myself to sit there some hours a-day, and to attend regularly in Westminster Hall. The chambers cost me £20 yearly, and I may reckon furniture and a lad to attend there occasionally £20 more. I doubt whether I shall get fees equal to the expense.' _Ib_. p. 335. 'Nov. 22, 1791. I keep chambers open in the Temple, I attend in Westminster Hall, but there is not the least prospect of my having business.' _Ib_. p. 344. His chambers, as he wrote to Malone, were 'in the very staircase where Johnson lived.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 830.

[504] Sunday was the 21st.

[505] See _ante_, March 26, 1776, and _post_, under Nov. 17, 1784.

[506] In _Notes and Queries_ for April, May, and June 1882, is a series of Johnson's letters to Taylor, between June 10, 1742 and April 12, 1784. In the first Johnson signs himself:--'Your very affectionate,' (p. 304). On Nov. 18, 1756, he writes:--'Neither of us now can find many whom he has known so long as we have known each other.... We both stand almost single in the world,' (p. 324). On July 15, 1765, he reproaches Taylor with not writing:--'With all your building and feasting you might have found an hour in some wet day for the remembrance of your old friend. I should have thought that since you have led a life so festive and gay, you would have [invited] me to partake of your hospitality,' (p. 383). On Oct. 19, 1779, he says:--'Write to me soon. We are both old. How few of those whom we have known in our youth are left alive!' (p. 461). On April 12, 1784, he writes:--'Let us be kind to one another. I have no friend now living but you and Mr. Hector that was the friend of my youth,' (p. 482, and _post_, April 12, 1784). See _ante_, p. 131, for his regret on the death of his school-fellow, Henry Jackson, who seemed to Boswell (_ante_, under March 22, 1776) to be a low man, dull and untaught. 'One of the old man's miseries,' he wrote, (_post_, Feb. 3, 1778), 'is that he cannot easily find a companion able to partake with him of the past.' 'I have none to call me Charley now,' wrote Charles Lamb on the death of a friend of his boyhood (Talfourd's _Lamb_, ed. 1865, p. 145). Such a companion Johnson found in Taylor. That, on the death of his wife, he at once sent for him, not even waiting for the light of morning to come, is a proof that he had a strong affection for the man.

[507] _Ecclesiasticus_, ch. xxxviii. verse 25. The whole chapter may be read as an admirable illustration of the superiority of cultivated minds over the gross and illiterate. BOSWELL.

[508] Passages in Johnson's Letters to Mrs. Thrale are to the same effect. 'Aug. 3, 1771. Having stayed my month with Taylor I came away on Wednesday, leaving him, I think, in a disposition of mind not very uncommon, at once weary of my stay, and grieved at my departure.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 52. 'July 13, 1775. Dr. Taylor and I spend little time together, yet he will not yet be persuaded to hear of parting.' _Ib_. p. 276. 'July 26, 1775. Having stayed long enough at Ashbourne, I was not sorry to leave it. I hindered some of Taylor's diversions, and he supplied me with very little.' _Ib_ p. 287.

[509] The second volume of these Sermons, which was published in 1789, a year after the first, contains the following addition to the title:--'To which is added a Sermon written by Samuel Johnson, L.L.D., for the Funeral of his Wife.' 'Dr. Taylor had,' writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 171), 'The LARGEST BULL in England, and some of the best Sermons.'

[510] If the eminent judge was Lord Mansfield, we may compare with Boswell's regret the lines in which Pope laments the influence of Westminster Hall and Parliament:--

'There truant Windham every muse gave o'er, There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more. How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast! How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!'

_The Dunciad_, iv. 167.

[511] Boswell's brother David had been settled in Spain since 1768. (_Boswelliana_, p. 5.) He therefore is no doubt the son, and Lord Auchinleck the father.

[512] See _ante_, ii. 129, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773.

[513] 'Jack' had not shown all his manners to Johnson. Gibbon thus describes him in 1762 (_Misc. Works_, i. 142):--'Colonel Wilkes, of the Buckinghamshire militia, dined with us. I scarcely ever met with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge; but a thorough profligate in principle as in practice, his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and indecency. These morals he glories in--for shame is a weakness he has long since surmounted.' The following anecdote in _Boswelliana_ (p. 274) is not given in the _Life of Johnson_:--'Johnson had a sovereign contempt for Wilkes and his party, whom he looked upon as a mere rabble. "Sir," said he, "had Wilkes's mob prevailed against government, this nation had died of _phthiriasis_. Mr. Langton told me this. The expression, _morbus pediculosus_, as being better known would strike more."'

[514] See _ante_, p. 79, note 1.

[515] See _ante_, p. 69.

[516] See _ante_, i. 402.

[517] See _ante_, i. 167.

[518] See _post_, under Sept. 30, 1783.

[519] See _post, ib_., where Johnson told Mrs. Siddons that 'Garrick was no declaimer.'

[520] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, ii. 16) says that she once asked Garrick 'why Johnson was so often harsh and unkind in his speeches both of him and to him:--"Why," he replied, "it is very natural; is it not to be expected he should be angry that I, who have so much less merit than he, should have had so much greater success?"'

[521] Foote died a month after this conversation. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Did you see Foote at Brighthelmstone? Did you think he would so soon be gone? Life, says Falstaff, is a shuttle [_Merry Wives of Windsor_, act v. sc. 1]. He was a fine fellow in his way; and the world is really impoverished by his sinking glories. Murphy ought to write his life, at least to give the world a _Footeana_. Now will any of his contemporaries bewail him? Will genius change _his sex_ to weep? I would really have his life written with diligence.' This letter is wrongly dated Oct. 3, 1777. It was written early in November. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 396. Baretti, in a marginal note on _Footeana_, says:--'One half of it had been a string of obscenities.' See _post_, April 24, 1779, note.

[522] See _ante_, i. 447.

[523] _To pit_ is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[524] Very likely Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254.

[525] Two months earlier Johnson had complained that Langton's table was rather coarse. _Ante_, p. 128.

[526] See _post_, April 13, 1781, where he again mentions this advice. 'He said of a certain lady's entertainments, "What signifies going thither? There is neither meat, drink, nor talk."' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 207.

[527] William, third Duke of Devonshire, who died in 1755. Johnson (_post_, April 1, 1779) 'commended him for a dogged veracity.' Horace Walpole records of him a fact that 'showed a conscientious idea of honesty in him. Sometime before his death he had given up to two of his younger sons £600 a-year in land, that they might not perjure themselves, if called upon to swear to their qualifications as Knights of the Shire.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_, ii. 86.

[528] Philip Francis wrote to Burke in 1790:--'Once for all, I wish you would let me teach you to write English. To me who am to read everything you write, it would be a great comfort, and to you no sort of disparagement. Why will you not allow yourself to be persuaded that polish is material to preservation?' Burke's _Corres_, iii. 164.

[529] Edit. 2, p. 53. BOSWELL.

[530] This is a mistake. The Ports had been seated at Islam time out of mind. Congreve had visited there, and his _seat_, that is _the bench_ on which he sometimes sat, used to be shown. CROKER. On the way to Islam, Johnson told Boswell about the dedication of his _Plan_ to Lord Chesterfield. _Ante_, i. 183, note 4.

[531] See _ante_, i. 41.

[532] 'I believe more places than one are still shown in groves and gardens where he is related to have written his _Old Bachelor_.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 23.

[533] Page 89. BOSWELL.

[534] See Plott's _History of Staffordshire_, p. 88, and the authorities referred to by him. BOSWELL.

[535] See _ante_, ii. 247, and _post_, March 31, 1778.

[536] See _ante_, i. 444.

[537] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 109):--'In answer to the arguments urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc. against showy decorations of the human figure, I once heard him exclaim:--"Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues! ... Alas! Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one."' See _ante_, i, 405.