The Life of Samuel Johnson

^a Pr. and Med. p. 155.

^a [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.]

^b 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 p. 172), 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.

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

^a Part First, Chap. 4.

^b Life of Richard Savage, by Dr. Johnson.

^a See ante, p. 534.

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

^c [Dr. Johnson was not the editor of this Collection of The English Poets; he merely furnished the biographical prefaces.]

^d 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 meet at the house of a Roman Catholick lady in Cumberland; a high lady, Sir.’ I afterwards discovered that he meant Mrs. Strickland, sister of Charles Townley, Esq., whose very noble collection of statues and 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.

^a 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,

‘Sunday, Sept. 30, 1764.’ ‘JAMES BOSWELL.’

‘To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

‘MY DEAR SIR, ‘Wilton-house, April 22, 1775.

‘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 viaticum⁶⁸⁰ 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.’

^a 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.

^a The preceding letter.

^a 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.

^a 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; 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,⁶⁸⁷ it is a pity he has not a better bottom.’⁶⁸⁸ 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.

^a It so happened. The letter was forwarded to my house at Edinburgh.

^a 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 inclosed 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.’

^b His Speech at the Old Bailey, when found guilty.

^a 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 post-chaise and go and see him?’ It was the shrewdness of the insinuation which made the story be circulated.

^a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. 3rd edit. p. 240 {22 Sept.}.

^b 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.

^a 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 tete-ä-tete 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,

seer, The hoary 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.’

^a 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.⁶⁹⁶

^a 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.

^a 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.

^b Young.

^a 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.’

^a 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.

^b See p. 980.

^c ‘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 frigid philosophy, as may conduct us, indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. The 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.’

^a 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 Britannica are those of John Aber-nethy, 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 Croxhall. – “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.

^a Observations on Insanity, by Thomas Arnold, M.D., London, 1782.

^b We read in the Gospels,⁷⁰⁸ 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.’

^a 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.

^a 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.

^a 2nd edit. p. 53.

^b Page 89.

^c See Plott’s History of Staffordshire, p. 88, and the authorities referred to by him.

^a I am told that Horace, Earl of Orford, has a collection of Bon-Mots by persons who never said but one.

^b I am informed by Mr. Langton, that a great many years ago he was present when this question was agitated between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke; and, to use Johnson’s phrase, they ‘talked their best;’ Johnson for Homer, Burke for Virgil. It may well be supposed to have been one of the ablest and most brilliant contests that ever was exhibited. How much must we regret that it has not been preserved.

^a Pope mentions,

‘Stretch’d on the rack of a too easy chair.’⁷³²

But I recollect a couplet quite apposite to my subject in Virtue, an Ethick Epistle, a beautiful and instructive poem, by an anonymous writer, in 1758; who, treating of pleasure in excess, says: –

‘Till languor, suffering on the rack of bliss,

Confess that man was never made for this.’⁷³³

^a See ante, p. 560.

^a Gray’s Elegy, 68.

^a A daughter born to him.

^b Mrs. Aston.

^a See State Trials, vol. xi, p. 339, and Mr. Hargrave’s argument.

^b The motto to it was happily chosen: –

‘Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses.’⁷⁴¹

I cannot avoid mentioning a circumstance no less strange than true, that a brother Advocate in considerable practice, but of whom it certainly cannot be said, Ingenuas didicit fideliter artes,⁷⁴² asked Mr. Maclaurin, with a face of flippant assurance, ‘Are these words your own?’

^a The friendship between Mr. Welch and him was unbroken. Mr. Welch died not many months before him, and bequeathed him five guineas for a ring, which Johnson received with tenderness, as a kind memorial. His regard was constant for his friend Mr. Welch’s daughters; of whom, Jane is married to Mr. Nollekens the statuary, whose merit is too well known to require any praise from me.

^b Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, humorously observed, that Levett used to breakfast on the crust of a roll, which Johnson, after tearing out the crumb for himself, threw to his humble friend. [Perhaps the word threw is here too strong. Dr. Johnson never treated Levett with contempt.]

^a See this subject discussed in a subsequent page, under May 3, 1779 {p. 735}.

^b Alluding to a line in his Vanity of Human Wishes, describing Cardinal Wolsey in his state of elevation: –

‘Through him the rays of regal bounty shine.’

^a Daughter of Dr. Swinfen, Johnson’s godfather, and widow of Mr. Desmoulins, a writing-master.

^a [The first edition was in 1492. Between that period and 1792, according to this account, there were 3600 editions. But this is very improbable.]

^b See ante, p. 533.

^c [Since this was written the attainder has been reversed; and Nicholas Barnewall is now a peer of Ireland with this title. The person mentioned in the text had studied physick, and prescribed gratis to the poor. Hence arose the subsequent conversation.]

^a Literary Magazine, 1756, p. 37.

^b The following plausible but overprudent counsel on this subject is given by an Italian writer, quoted by ‘Rbedi de generatione insectarum,’ with the epithet of ‘divini poette:’⁷⁵⁶

‘Sempre a quel ver ch’ha faccia di menzogna

De’ l’uom chiuder le labbra fin ch’el pote,

Verb ehe senza colpa fa vergogna.’⁷⁵⁷

^a Lord Bolingbroke, who, however detestable as a metaphysician, must be allowed to have had admirable talents as a political writer, thus describes the House of Commons, in his ‘Letter to Sir William Wyndham:’ – ‘You know the nature of that assembly; they grow, like hounds, fond of the man who shews them game, and by whose halloo they are used to be encouraged.’

^a Pope thus introduces this story:

‘Faith in such case if you should prosecute,

I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit,

Who sent the thief who stole the cash away,

And punish’d him that put it in his way.’ Imitations of Horace, book II. epist. ii.

^a The reverse of the story of Combabus, on which Mr. David Hume told Lord Macartney, that a friend of his had written a tragedy. It is, however, possible that I may have been inaccurate in my perception of what Dr. Johnson related, and that he may have been talking of the same ludicrous tragical subject that Mr. Hume had mentioned. [The story of Combabus, which was originally told by Lucian, may be found in Bayle’s Dictionary.]

^b The late Duke of Montrose was generally said to have been uneasy on that account; but I can contradict the report from his Grace’s own authority. As he used to admit me to very easy conversation with him, I took the liberty to introduce the subject. His Grace told me, that when riding one night near London, he was attacked by two highwaymen on horseback, and that he instantly shot one of them, upon which the other galloped off; that his servant, who was very well mounted, proposed to pursue him and take him, but that his Grace said, ‘No, we have had blood enough: I hope the man may live to repent.’ His Grace, upon my presuming to put the question, assured me, that his mind was not at all clouded by what he had thus done in self-defence.

^a When I told this to Miss Seward, she smiled, and repeated, with admirable readiness, from Acis and Galatea,

‘Bring me a hundred reeds of ample growth,

To make a pipe for my capacious mouth.’⁷⁶⁵

^a Lord Macartney observes upon this passage, ‘I have heard him tell many things, which, though embellished by their mode of narrative, had their foundation in truth; but I never remember any thing approaching to this. If he had written it, I should have supposed some wag had put the figure of one before the three.’ – I am, however, absolutely certain that Dr. Campbell told me it, and I gave particular attention to it, being myself a lover of wine, and therefore curious to hear whatever is remarkable concerning drinking. There can be no doubt that some men can drink, without suffering any injury, such a quantity as to others appears incredible. It is but fair to add, that Dr. Campbell told me, he took a very long time to this great potation; and I have heard Dr. Johnson say, ‘Sir, if a man drinks very slowly, and lets one glass evaporate before he takes another, I know not how long he may drink.’ Dr. Campbell mentioned a Colonel of Militia who sat with him all the time, and drank equally.

^a What my friend meant by these words concerning the amiable philosopher of Salisbury, I am at a loss to understand. A friend suggests, that Johnson thought his manner as a writer affected, while at the same time the matter did not compensate for that fault. In short, that he meant to make a remark quite different from that which a celebrated gentleman⁷⁶⁹ made on a very eminent physician:⁷⁷⁰ ‘He is a coxcomb, but a satisfactory coxcomb.’

^a See p. 260.

^a It was called The Siege of Aleppo. Mr. Hawkins, the authour of it, was formerly Professor of Poetry at Oxford. It is printed in his Miscellanies, 3 vols. octavo.

^a When Johnson told this little anecdote to Sir Joshua Reynolds, he mentioned a circumstance which he omitted to-day: – ‘Why, (said Garrick,) it is as red as blood.’

^a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit., p. 221 {17 Sept.}.

^a See this accurately stated, and the descent of his family from the Earls of Northumberland clearly deduced in the Reverend Dr. Nash’s excellent History of Worcestershire, vol. ii. p. 318. The Doctor has subjoined a note, in which he says, ‘The Editor hath seen and carefully examined the proofs of all the particulars above-mentioned, now in the possession of the Reverend Thomas Percy.’ The same proofs I have also myself carefully examined, and have seen some additional proofs which have occurred since the Doctor’s book was published; and both as a Lawyer accustomed to the consideration of evidence, and as a Genealogist versed in the study of pedigrees, I am fully satisfied. I cannot help observing, as a circumstance of no small moment, that in tracing the Bishop of Dromore’s genealogy, essential aid was given by the late Elizabeth Duchess of Northumberland, Heiress of that illustrious House; a lady not only of high dignity of spirit, such as became her noble blood, but of excellent understanding and lively talents. With a fair pride I can boast of the honour of her Grace’s correspondence, specimens of which adorn my archives.

^a The title of a book translated by Dr. Percy.

^b This is the common cant against faithful Biography. Does the worthy gentleman mean that I, who was taught discrimination of character by Johnson, should have omitted his frailties, and, in short, have bedawbed him as the worthy gentleman has bedawbed Scotland?

^a Sunday, April 12, 1778.

^a Though the Bishop of Dromore kindly answered the letters which I wrote to him, relative to Dr. Johnson’s early history; yet, in justice to him, I think it proper to add, that the account of the foregoing conversation and the subsequent transaction, as well as some other conversations in which he is mentioned, has been given to the publick without previous communication with his Lordship.

^a See note, ante, p. 576.

^a Dr. Johnson, describing her needle-work in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, i, p. 326, uses the learned word sutile; which Mrs. Thrale has mistaken, and made the phrase injurious by writing ‘futile pictures.’

^a As Physicians are called the Faculty, and Counsellors at Law the Profession; the Booksellers of London are denominated the Trade. Johnson disapproved of these denominations.

^a If any of my readers are disturbed by this thorny question, I beg leave to recommend to them Letter 69 of Montesquieu’s Lettres Persanes; and the late Mr. John Palmer of Islington’s Answer to Dr. Priestley’s mechanical arguments for what he absurdly calls ‘Philosophical Necessity.’

^a Mrs. Knowles, not satisfied with the fame of her needlework, the ‘sutile pictures’ mentioned by Johnson, in which she has indeed displayed much dexterity, nay, with the fame of reasoning better than women generally do, as I have fairly shewn her to have done, communicated to me a Dialogue of considerable length, which after many years had elapsed, she wrote down as having passed between Dr. Johnson and herself at this interview. As I had not the least recollection of it, and did not find the smallest trace of it in my Record taken at the time, I could not in consistency with my firm regard to authenticity, insert it in my work. It has, however, been published in The Gent. Mag. for June 1791. It chiefly relates to the principles of the sect called Quakers; and no doubt the Lady appears to have greatly the advantage of Dr. Johnson in argument as well as expression. From what I have now stated, and from the internal evidence of the paper itself, any one who may have the curiosity to peruse it, will judge whether it was wrong in me to reject it, however willing to gratify Mrs. Knowles.

^a I believe, however, I shall follow my own opinion; for the world has shewn a very flattering partiality to my writings, on many occasions.

^a Pr. and Med. p. 164.

^a Johnson said to me afterwards, ‘Sir, they respected me for my literature; and yet it was not great but by comparison. Sir, it is amazing how little literature there is in the world.’

^a [This line has frequently been attributed to Dryden, when a King’s Scholar at Westminster. But neither Eton nor Westminster have in truth any claim to it, the line being borrowed, with a slight change, from an Epigram by Crashaw: –

‘JOANN. 2,

‘AquiS in vinum versee.

‘Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis?

Quae rosa mirantes tarn nova mutat aquas?

Numen, convive, pr&sens agnoscite numen,

Nympba pudica DEUM vidit, et erubuit.’]⁸¹⁸

^a I am not absolutely sure but this was my own suggestion, though it is truly in the character of Edwards.

^a In summer 1792, additional and more expensive decorations having been introduced, the price of admission was raised to two shillings. I cannot approve of this. The company may be more select; but a number of the honest commonalty are, I fear, excluded from sharing in elegant and innocent entertainment. An attempt to abolish the one-shilling gallery at the playhouse has been very properly counteracted.

^a I am not entirely without suspicion that Johnson may have felt a little momentary envy; for no man loved the good things of this life better than he did; and he could not but be conscious that he deserved a much larger share of them, than he ever had. I attempted in a newspaper to comment on the above passage, in the manner of Warburton, who must be allowed to have shewn uncommon ingenuity, in giving to any authour’s text whatever meaning he chose it should carry. As this imitation may amuse my readers, I shall here introduce it: –

‘No saying of Dr. Johnson’s has been more misunderstood than his applying to Mr. Burke when he first saw him at his fine place at Beaconsfield, Non equidem invideo; miror magis. These two celebrated men had been friends for many years before Mr. Burke entered on his parliamentary career. They were both writers, both members of The Literary Club; when, therefore, Dr. Johnson saw Mr. Burke in a situation so much more splendid than that to which he himself had attained, he did not mean to express that he thought it a disproportionate prosperity; but while he, as a philosopher, asserted an exemption from envy, non equidem invideo, he went on in the words of the poet miror magis; thereby signifying, either that he was occupied in admiring what he was glad to see; or, perhaps, that considering the general lot of men of superiour abilities, he wondered that Fortune, who is represented as blind, should, in this instance, have been so just.’

^a [William Duncombe, Esq. He married the sister of John Hughes the poet; was the authour of two tragedies and other ingenious productions; and died 26th Feb. 1769, aged 79.]

^a By Richard Tickell.

^b [Dr. Johnson is supported by the usage of preceding writers. So in Musarum Delicite,⁸³² 8vo. 1656 (the writer is speaking of Suckling’s play entitled Aglaura, printed in folio): –

‘This great voluminous pamphlet may be said

To be like one that hath more hair than head.’]

^a See this question fully investigated in the Notes upon my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 21, et seq. {15 Aug.}. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim Suum cuique tribuito,⁸³⁹ I cannot forbear to mention, that the additional Note beginning with ‘I find since the former edition,’ is not mine, but was obligingly furnished by Mr. Malone, who was so kind as to superintend the press while I was in Scotland, and the first part of the second edition was printing. He would not allow me to ascribe it to its proper authour; but, as it is exquisitely acute and elegant, I take this opportunity, without his knowledge, to do him justice.

^a Here he either was mistaken, or had a different notion of an extensive sale from what is generally entertained: for the fact is, that four thousand copies of that excellent work were sold very quickly. A new edition has been printed since his death, besides that in the collection of his works.

^b In the phraseology of Scotland, I should have said, ‘Mr. John Spottiswoode the younger, of that ilk.’ Johnson knew that sense of the word very well, and has thus explained it in his Dictionary, voce Ilk: – ‘It also signifies “the same;” as, Mackintosh ofthat ilk, denotes a gentleman whose surname and the title of his estate are the same.’

^a It is observed in Waller’s Life, in the Biographia Britannica, that he drank only water; and that while he sat in a company who were drinking wine, ‘he had the dexterity to accommodate his discourse to the pitch of theirs as it sunk.’ If excess in drinking be meant, the remark is acutely just. But surely, a moderate use of wine gives a gaiety of spirits which water-drinkers know not.

^a This experiment which Madame Dacier made in vain, has since been tried in our own language, by the editor of Ossian, and we must either think very meanly of his abilities, or allow that Dr. Johnson was in the right. And Mr. Cowper, a man of real genius, has miserably failed in his blank verse translation.

^a Mrs. Piozzi confidently mentions this as having passed in Scotland. Anecdotes, p. 62.

^a Johnson had an extraordinary admiration of this lady, notwithstanding she was a violent Whig. In answer to her high-flown speeches for Liberty, he addressed to her the following Epigram, of which I presume to offer a translation: –

‘Liber ut esse velim suasisti pulchra Maria,

Ut maneam liber pulchra Maria vale.’

Adieu, Maria! since you’d have me free;

For, who beholds thy charms a slave must be.

A correspondent of The Gentleman’s Magazine, who subscribes himself Sciolus, to whom I am indebted for several excellent remarks, observes, ‘The turn of Dr. Johnson’s lines to Miss Aston, whose Whig principles he had been combating, appears to me to be taken from an ingenious epigram in the lAenagiana on a young lady who appeared at a masquerade, habillee en jesuite,⁸⁵⁸ during the fierce contentions of the followers of Molinos and Jansenius concerning free-will: –

“On s’etonne ici que Caliste

Ait pris l’habit de Moliniste.

Puisque cette jeune beaute

Ote à chacun sa liberte,

N’est-ce pas une Janseniste?” ‘⁸⁵⁹

^a In Mr. Horne Tooke’s enlargement of that Letter, which he has since published with the title of 7Epea pseqoe´msa;⁸⁷⁵ or, the Diversions of Purley; he mentions this compliment, as if Dr. Johnson instead of several of his etymologies had said all. His recollection having thus magnified it, shews how ambitious he was of the approbation of so great a man.

^a The slip of paper on which he made the correction is deposited by me in the noble library to which it relates, and to which I have presented other pieces of his handwriting.⁸⁸⁰

^a dr. johnson was by no means attentive to minute accuracy in his lives of the poets; for notwithstanding my having detected this mistake, he has continued it.

^a Third edition, p. 111 {28 Aug.}.

^b When I one day at Court expressed to General Hall my sense of the honour he had done my friend, he politely answered, ‘Sir, I did myself honour.’

^a [Perhaps affecting.]

^a Dr. Johnson here addresses his worthy friend, Bennet Langton, Esq., by his title as Captain of the Lincolnshire militia, in which he has since been most deservedly raised to the rank of Major.

^a Vol. ii, p. 38.

^b Miss Carmichael.

^a Life of Watts.

^a He sent a set elegantly bound and gilt, which was received as a very handsome present.

^a p. 173.

^a See ante, pp. 116, 680.

^a See ante, pp. 709–10.

^a ‘I do not (says Mr. Malone,) see any difficulty in this passage, and wonder that Dr. Johnson should have acknowledged it to be inaccurate. The Hermit, it should be observed, had no actual experience of the world whatsoever: all his knowledge concerning it had been obtained in two ways; from books, and from the relations of those country swains, who had seen a little of it. The plain meaning, therefore, is, “To clear his doubts concerning Providence, and to obtain some knowledge of the world by actual experience; to see whether the accounts furnished by books, or by the oral communications of swains, were just representations of it; [I say, swains,] for his oral or viva voce information had been obtained from that part of mankind alone, &c.” The word alone here does not relate to the whole of the preceeding line, as has been supposed, but, by a common licence, to the words, –of all mankind, which are understood, and of which it is restrictive.’

Mr. Malone, it must be owned, has shewn much critical ingenuity in the explanation of this passage. His interpretation, however, seems to me much too recondite. The meaning of the passage may be certain enough; but surely the expression is confused, and one part of it contradictory to the other.

^a Which I communicated to him from his Lordship, but it has not yet been published. I have a copy of it. [The few notices concerning Dryden, which Lord Hailes had collected, the author afterwards gave to Mr. Malone.]

^b In one of his manuscript Diaries, there is the following entry, which marks his curious minute attention: ‘July 26, 1768. I shaved my nail by accident in whetting the knife, about an eighth of an inch from the bottom, and about a fourth from the top. This I measure that I may know the growth of nails; the whole is about five eighths of an inch.’

Another of the same kind appears, ‘Aug. 7, 1779, Partem brachii dextri carpo proximam et cutem pectoris circa mamillam dextram rasi, ut notum fieret quanto temporis pili renovarentur.’⁹¹³

And, ‘Aug. 15, 1773. I cut from the vine 41 leaves, which weighed five oz. and a half, and eight scruples: – I lay them upon my book-case, to see what weight they will lose by drying.’

^a The Rev. Dr. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, in the Preface to his valuable edition of Archbishop King’s Essay on the Origin of Evil, mentions that the principles maintained in it had been adopted by Pope in his Essay on Man; and adds, The fact, notwithstanding such denial (Bishop Warburton’s), might have been strictly verified by an unexceptionable testimony, viz. that of the late Lord Bathurst, who saw the very same system of the $$⁹¹⁴ (taken from the Archbishop) in Lord Bolingbroke’s own hand, lying before Mr. Pope, while he was composing his Essay.’ This is respectable evidence; but that of Dr. Blair is more direct from the fountain-head, as well as more full. Let me add to it that of Dr. Joseph Warton; The late Lord Bathurst repeatedly assured me that he had read the whole scheme of The Essay on Man, in the hand-writing of Bolingbroke, and drawn up in a series of propositions, which Pope was to versify and illustrate.’ Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope, vol. ii. p. 62.

^a The Spleen, a Poem.⁹¹⁷

^b 1. Exeter-street, off Catherine-street, Strand. 2. Greenwich. 3. Woodstock-street, near Hanover-square.4. Castle-street, Cavendish-square, No.6. 5. Strand.6. Boswell-court. 7. Strand, again. 8. Bow-street. 9. Holborn. 10. Fetter-lane. 11. Holborn, again. 12. Gough-square. 13. Staple Inn. 14. Gray’s Inn. 15. Inner Temple-lane, No. 1. 16. Johnson’s-court, No. 7. 17. Bolt-court, No. 8.

^a Now the Lady of Sir Henry Dashwood, Bart.

^b The False Alarm.

^a Miss Letitia Barnston.

^a I have a valuable collection made by my Father, which, with some additions and illustrations of my own, I intend to publish. I have some hereditary claim to be an Antiquary; not only from my Father, but as being descended, by the mother’s side, from the able and learned Sir John Skene, whose merit bids defiance to all the attempts which have been made to lessen his fame.

^a Thomas Percy.

^b His regiment was afterwards ordered to Jamaica, where he accompanied it, and almost lost his life by the climate. This impartial order I should think a sufficient refutation of the idle rumour that ‘there was still something behind the throne greater than the throne itself.’

^a Requesting me to inquire concerning the family of a gentleman⁹²⁷ who was then paying his addresses to Miss Doxy.

^b See ante, p. 722.

^a [Mr. Beauclerk’s library was sold by publick auction in April and May 1781, for £5011.]

^b By a fire in Northumberland-house, where he had an apartment, in which I have passed many an agreeable hour.

^a Dr. John Hinchliffe.

^b A kind of nick-name given to Mrs. Thrale’s eldest daughter, whose name being Esther, she might be assimilated to a Queen.

^c Mr. Thrale.

^d In Johnson’s Dictionary is neither dawling nor dawdling. He uses dawdle, post, p. 833.

^e I have taken the liberty to leave out a few lines.

^a Spectator, 470.

^a Vol. ii, p. 143, et seq. I have selected passages from several letters, without mentioning dates.

^b June 2.

^a [Lord George Gordon and his followers, during these outrages, wore blue ribbands in their hats.]

^a Vol. ii, p. 163. Mrs. Piozzi has omitted the name, she best knows why.

^a Now settled in London.

^b Meaning his entertaining Memoirs of David Garrick, Esq., of which Johnson (as Davies informed me) wrote the first sentence; thus giving, as it were, the key-note to the performance. It is, indeed, very characteristical of its authour, beginning with a maxim, and proceeding to illustrate. – ‘All excellence has a right to be recorded. I shall, therefore, think it superfluous to apologise for writing the life of a man, who by an uncommon assemblage of private virtues, adorned the highest eminence in a publick profession.’

^c I wish he had omitted the suspicion expressed here, though I believe he meant nothing but jocularity; for though he and I differed sometimes in opinion, he well knew how much I loved and revered him. Beattie.

^a It will, no doubt, be remarked how he avoids the rebellious land of America. This puts me in mind of an anecdote, for which I am obliged to my worthy social friend, Governour Richard Penn: ‘At one of Miss E. Hervey’s assemblies, Dr. Johnson was following her up and down the room; upon which Lord Abingdon observed to her, “Your great friend is very fond of you; you can go no where without him.” – “Ay, (said she,) he would follow me to any part of the world.” – “Then (said the Earl,) ask him to go with you to America”’

^b Essays on the History of Mankind.

^a Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore.

^a I had not then seen his letters to Mrs. Thrale.

^a Pr. and Med. p. 185.

^a Secretary to the British Herring Fishery, remarkable for an extraordinary number of occasional verses, not of eminent merit.

^b Luke vii. 50.

^a [In a letter written by Johnson to a friend in 1742-3, he says: – ‘I never see Garrick.’]

^a Here Lord Macartney remarks, ‘A Bramin or any cast of the Hindoos will neither admit you to be of their religion, nor be converted to yours; – a thing which struck the Portuguese with the greatest astonishment, when they discovered the East Indies.’

^a The correspondent of The Gentleman’s Magazine who subscribes himself Sciolus furnishes the following supplement: –

‘A lady of my acquaintance remembers to have heard her uncle⁹⁵⁴ sing those homely stanzas more than 45 years ago. He repeated the second thus;

“She shall breed young lords and ladies fair,

And ride abroad in a coach and three pair,

And the best, &c.

And have a house, &c.”

And remembered a third which seems to have been the introductory one, and is believed to have been the only remaining one: –

“When the Duke of Leeds shall have made his choice

Of a charming young lady that’s beautiful and wise,

She’ll be the happiest young gentlewoman under the skies,

As long as the sun and moon shall rise,

And how happy shall, &c.”’⁹⁵⁵

It is with pleasure I add that this stanza could never be more truly applied than at this present time.

^a [It should be remembered, that this was said twenty-five or thirty years ago, when lace was very generally worn.]

^a Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Cowley, says, that these are ‘the only English verses which Bentley is known to have written.’ I shall here insert them, and hope my readers will apply them.

‘Who strives to mount Parnassus’ hill,⁹⁶⁶

And thence poetick laurels bring,

Must first acquire due force and skill,

Must fly with swan’s or eagle’s wing.

Who Nature’s treasures would explore,

Her mysteries and arcana know;

Must high as lofty Newton soar,

Must stoop as delving Woodward low.

Who studies ancient laws and rites,

Tongues, arts, and arms, and history;

Must drudge, like Selden, days and nights,

And in the endless labour die.

Who travels in religious jars,

(Truth mixt with errour, shades with rays;)

Like Whiston, wanting pyx or stars,

In ocean wide or sinks or strays.

But grant our hero’s hope, long toil

And comprehensive genius crown,

All sciences, all arts his spoil,

Yet what reward, or what renown?

Envy, innate in vulgar souls,

Envy steps in and stops his rise,

Envy with poison’d tarnish fouls

His lustre, and his worth decries.

He lives inglorious or in want,

To college and old books confin’d;

Instead of learn’d he’s call’d pedant,

Dunces advanc’d, he’s left behind:

Yet left content a genuine Stoick he,

Great without patron, rich without South Sea.⁹⁶⁷

^b The difference between Johnson and Smith is apparent even in this slight instance. Smith was a man of extraordinary application, and had his mind crowded with all manner of subjects; but the force, acuteness, and vivacity of Johnson were not to be found there. He had book-making so much in his thoughts, and was so chary of what might be turned to account in that way, that he once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he made it a rule, when in company, never to talk of what he understood. Beauclerk had for a short time a pretty high opinion of Smith’s conversation. Garrick, after listening to him for a while, as to one of whom his expectations had been raised, turned slyly to a friend,⁹⁶⁸ and whispered him, ‘What say you to this? – eh? flabby, I think.’

^a I am sorry to see in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. ii, An Essay on the Character of Hamlet, written, I should suppose, by a very young man,⁹⁷⁰ though called ‘Reverend’; who speaks with presumptuous petulance of the first literary character of his age. Amidst a cloudy confusion of words, (which hath of late too often passed in Scotland for Metaphysicks,) he thus ventures to criticise one of the noblest lines in our language: – ‘Dr. Johnson has remarked, that “time toil’d after him in vain.” But I should apprehend, that this is entirely to mistake the character. Time toils after every great man, as well as after Shakspeare. The workings of an ordinary mind keep pace, indeed, with time; they move no faster; they have their beginning, their middle, and their end; but superiour natures can reduce these into a point. They do not, indeed, suppress them; but they suspend, or they lock them up in the breast.’ The learned Society, under whose sanction such gabble is ushered into the world, would do well to offer a premium to any one who will discover its meaning.

^a A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristick anecdote of Richardson. One day at his country-house at Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very flattering circumstance, – that he had seen his Clarissa lying on the King’s brother’s table. Richardson observing that part of the company were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to it. But by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the gentleman, ‘I think, Sir, you were saying something about, – ‘ pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman, provoked at his inordinate vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference answered, ‘A mere trifle, Sir, not worth repeating.’ The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much.

^a His profound admiration of the Great First Cause was such as to set him above that ‘Philosophy and vain deceit’⁹⁷⁶ with which men of narrower conceptions have been infected. I have heard him strongly maintain that ‘what is right is not so from any natural fitness, but because God wills it to be right;’ and it is certainly so, because He has predisposed the relations of things so as that which He wills must be right.

^b I hope the authority of the great Master of our language will stop that curtailing innovation, by which we see critic, public, &c, frequently written instead of critick, publick, &c.

^a sterne is of a direct contrary opinion. see his sentimental journey, article, ‘the mystery.’

^a Pr. and Med. p. 190.

^b Ib. p. 174.

^c His design is thus announced in his Advertisement: ‘The Booksellers having determined to publish a body of English Poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a Preface to the works of each authour; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult.

‘My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an Advertisement, like that which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention, I hope by the honest desire of giving useful pleasure.’

^a Thus: – ‘In the Life of Waller, Mr. Nichols will find a reference to the Parliamentary History from which a long quotation is to be inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find the book, Mr. Johnson will send it from Streatham.’

‘Clarendon is here returned.’

‘By some accident, I laid your note upon Duke up so safely, that I cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use to me. I must beg it again; with another list of our authours, for I have laid that with the other. I have sent Stepney’s Epitaph. Let me have the revises as soon as can be. Dec. 1778.’

‘I have sent Phillips, with his Epitaphs, to be inserted. The fragment of a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we may seem to do something. It may be added to the Life of Philips. The Latin page is to be added to the Life of Smith. I shall be at home to revise the two sheets of Milton. March 1, 1779.’

‘Please to get me the last edition of Hughes’s Letters; and try to get Dennis upon Blackmore, and upon Cato, and any thing of the same writer against Pope. Our materials are defective.’

‘As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it may please them. But it is not necessary.’

‘ “An account of the Lives and works of some of the most eminent English Poets. By,” &c. – “The English Poets, biographically and critically considered, by Sam. JOHNSON.” – Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make another to his mind. May, 1781.’

‘You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was not inclosed. Of Gay’s Letters I see not that any use can be made, for they give no information of any thing. That he was a member of the Philosophical Society is something; but surely he could be but a corresponding member. However, not having his life here, I know not how to put it in, and it is of little importance.’

See several more in The Gent. Mag., 1785. The Editor of that Miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems justly to think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy of being preserved.

^a Life of Sheffield.⁹⁸³

^b [See, however, p. 768 of this volume, where the same remark is made and Johnson is there speaking of prose.]

^c The original reading is enclosed in crotchets, and the present one is printed in Italicks.

^a See An Essay on the Life, Character, and Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson, London, 1787; which is very well written, making a proper allowance for the democratical bigotry of its authour; whom I cannot however but admire for his liberality in speaking thus of my illustrious friend: –

‘He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which were much cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and reflection. His memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, and his judgement keen and penetrating. He had a strong sense of the importance of religion; his piety was sincere, and sometimes ardent; and his zeal for the interests of virtue was often manifested in his conversation and in his writings. The same energy which was displayed in his literary productions was exhibited also in his conversation, which was various, striking, and instructive; and perhaps no man ever equalled him for nervous and pointed repartees.

‘His Dictionary, his moral Essays, and his productions in polite literature, will convey useful instruction, and elegant entertainment, as long as the language in which they are written shall be understood.’

^a Mr. Malone thinks it is rather a proof that he felt nothing of those cheerful sensations which he has described: that on these topicks it is the poet, and not the man, that writes.

^b One of the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse occurred to the late Earl of Hopeton. His Lordship observed one of his shepherds poring in the fields upon Milton’s Paradise Lost; and having asked him what book it was, the man answered, ‘An’t please your Lordship, this is a very odd sort of an authour: he would fain rhyme, but cannot get at it.’

^c See p. 556.

^a Of Johnson’s conduct towards Warburton, a very honourable notice is taken by the editor⁹⁹⁰ of Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the Collection of their respective Works. After an able and ‘fond, though not undistinguishing,’ consideration of Warburton’s character, he says, ‘In two immortal works, Johnson has stood forth in the foremost rank of his admirers. By the testimony of such a man, impertinence must be abashed, and malignity itself must be softened. Of literary merit, Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious but a most severe judge. Such was his discernment, that he pierced into the most secret springs of human actions; and such was his integrity, that he always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in the “balance of the sanctuary.”⁹⁹¹ He was too courageous to propitiate a rival, and too proud to truckle to a superiour. Warburton he knew, as I know him, and as every man of sense and virtue would wish to be known, – I mean, both from his own writings, and from the writings of those who dissented from his principles, or who envied his reputation. But, as to favours, he had never received or asked any from the Bishop of Gloucester; and, if my memory fails me not, he had seen him only once, when they met almost without design, conversed without much effort, and parted without any lasting impressions of hatred or affection. Yet, with all the ardour of sympathetick genius, Johnson has done that spontaneously and ably, which, by some writers, had been before attempted injudiciously, and which, by others, from whom more successful attempts might have been expected, has not hitherto been done at all. He spoke well of Warburton, without insulting those whom Warburton despised. He suppressed not the imperfections of this extraordinary man, while he endeavoured to do justice to his numerous and transcendental excellencies. He defended him when living, amidst the clamours of his enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the silence of his friends.’

Having availed myself of this editor’s eulogy on my departed friend, for which I warmly thank him, let me not suffer the lustre of his reputation, honestly acquired by profound learning and vigorous eloquence, to be tarnished by a charge of illiberality. He has been accused of invidiously dragging again into light certain writings of a person⁹⁹² respectable by his talents, his learning, his station and his age, which were published a great many years ago, and have since, it is said, been silently given up by their authour. But when it is considered that these writings were not sins of youth, but deliberate works of one well-advanced in life, overflowing at once with flattery to a great man of great interest in the Church, and with unjust and acrimonious abuse of two men of eminent merit; and that, though it would have been unreasonable to expect an humiliating recantation, no apology whatever has been made in the cool of the evening, for the oppressive fervour of the heat of the day; no slight relenting indication has appeared in any note, or any corner of later publications; is it not fair to understand him as superciliously persevering? When he allows the shafts to remain in the wounds, and will not stretch forth a lenient hand, is it wrong, is it not generous to become an indignant avenger?

^a Let me here express my grateful remembrance of Lord Somerville’s kindness to me, at a very early period. He was the first person of high rank that took particular notice of me in the way most flattering to a young man, fondly ambitious of being distinguished for his literary talents; and by the honour of his encouragement made me think well of myself, and aspire to deserve it better. He had a happy art of communicating his varied knowledge of the world, in short remarks and anecdotes, with a quiet pleasant gravity, that was exceedingly engaging. Never shall I forget the hours which I enjoyed with him at his apartments in the Royal Palace of Holy-Rood House, and at his seat near Edinburgh, which he himself had formed with an elegant taste.

^b [This neglect did not arise from any ill-will towards Lord Marchmont, but from inattention; just as he neglected to correct his statement concerning the family of Thomson the poet, after it had been shewn to be erroneous (ante, p. 718).]

^a I should have thought that Johnson, who had felt the severe affliction from which Parnell never recovered, would have preserved this passage.

^a Let not my readers smile to think of Johnson’s being a candidate for female favour; Mr. Peter Garrick assured me, that he was told by a lady, that in her opinion Johnson was ‘a very seducing man.’ Disadvantages of person and manner may be forgotten, where intellectual pleasure is communicated to a susceptible mind; and that Johnson was capable of feeling the most delicate and disinterested attachment, appears from the following letter, which is published by Mrs. Thrale,⁹⁹⁷ with some others to the same person, of which the excellence is not so apparent: –

‘TO MISS BOOTHBY.

‘DEAREST MADAM, ‘January {1} 1755.

‘Though I am afraid your illness leaves you little leisure for the reception of airy civilities, yet I cannot forbear to pay you my congratulations on the new year; and to declare my wishes that your years to come may be many and happy. In this wish, indeed, I include myself, who have none but you on whom my heart reposes; yet surely I wish your good, even though your situation were such as should permit you to communicate no gratifications to, dearest, dearest Madam, your, &c.

‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

^b Gent. Mag. vol. lv. p. 10.

^a The late Mr. James Ralph told Lord Macartney, that he passed an evening with Dr. Young at Lord Melcombe’s (then Mr. Dodington) at Hammersmith. The Doctor happening to go out into the garden, Mr. Dodington observed to him, on his return, that it was a dreadful night, as in truth it was, there being a violent storm of rain and wind. ‘No, Sir, (replied the Doctor,) it is a very fine night. The Lord is abroad.’

^a See p. 77.

^a From this disreputable class, I except an ingenious though not satisfactory defence of HAMMOND, which I did not see till lately, by the favour of its authour, my amiable friend, the Reverend Mr. Bevill, who published it without his name. It is a juvenile performance, but elegantly written, with classical enthusiasm of sentiment, and yet with a becoming modesty, and great respect for Dr. Johnson.

^b January 1791.

^a Afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of his Majesty’s Judges in India.

^a Jones’s Persian Grammar.

^a Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.

^a Published by Kearsley, with this well-chosen motto: –

‘From his cradle

He was a Scholar, and a ripe and good one:

And to add greater honours to his age

Than man could give him, he died fearing Heaven.’¹⁰⁰⁶

SHAKSPEARE.

^a Shakspeare makes Hamlet thus describe his father: –

‘See what a grace was seated on this brow:

Hyperion’s curls, the front of Jove himself,

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;

A station like the herald, Mercury,

New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;

A combination, and a form, indeed,

Where every god did seem to set his seal,

To give the world assurance of a man.’¹⁰⁰⁷

Milton thus pourtrays our first parent, Adam: –

‘His fair large front and eye sublime declar’d

Absolute rule; and hyacinthin locks

Round from his parted forelock manly hung

Clust’ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.’¹⁰⁰⁸

^a See p. 201.

^a London Chronicle, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is there mentioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at Cofflect {Coffleet}, the seat of Thomas Veale, Esq. in his way to London.

^a William, the first Viscount Grimston.

^a See p. 415.

^b Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words Long and short. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long’s reserve in his presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguished amongst his acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French expression, ‘Il pétille d’esprit,’¹⁰¹⁵ is particularly suited. He has gratified me by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, ‘Sir, if I were to lose Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.’

^c William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court of Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement. But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend of the late Sir James Macdonald, the Marcellus¹⁰¹⁶ of Scotland, whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever be remembered with admiration and regret.

^a Pr. and Med. p. 191.

^a [Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and first equerry to his present Majesty.]

^a See this explained, ante, p. 791.

^a [As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such discussions, as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, that the authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, and what he has frequently denominated the mysterious; and therefore took every opportunity of leading Johnson to converse on such subjects.]

^a St. Matthew, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53.

^b See ante, p. 702.

^a See ante, p. 807.

^a Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive, remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which have been communicated to me by a young lady¹⁰³⁴ of his acquaintance: –

‘When first I drew my vital breath,

A little minikin I came upon earth:

And then I came from a dark abode,

Into this gay and gaudy world.’

^a Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow’s first volume, and fourteenth sermon, ‘Against foolish Talking and Jesting.’ My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule, calls it ‘a profuse description of Wit;’ but I do not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out some good circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known, and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shall here subjoin it:–

‘But first (says the learned preacher) it may be demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness (or wit as he calls it before) doth import? To which questions I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, “ ’Tis that which we all see and know.” Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus,¹⁰³⁸ or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humourous expression: sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable, and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy, and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as reason teacheth and proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprizing uncouthness in conceit or expression, doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar; it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dextrously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed e]pidénioi, dextrous men, and et7rsqouoi, men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness, as semblance of difficulty: (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure:) by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.’

^a When I mentioned this to the Bishop of Killaloe, ‘With the goat,’ said his Lordship. Such, however, is the engaging politeness and pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes, and such the social good humour of the Bishop, that when they dined together at Mr. Dilly’s, where I also was, they were mutually agreeable.

^a Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, authour of tracts relating to natural history, &c.

^b Next day I endeavoured to give what had happened the most ingenious turn I could, by the following verses: –

TO THE HONOURABLE MISS MONCKTON.

‘Not that with th’ excellent Montrose

I had the happiness to dine;

Not that I late from table rose,

From Graham’s wit, from generous wine.

It was not these alone which led

On sacred manners to encroach:

And made me feel what most I dread,

JOHNSON’S just frown, and self-reproach.

But when I enter’d, not abash’d,

From your bright eyes were shot such rays,

At once intoxication flash’d,

And all my frame was in a blaze.

But not a brilliant blaze I own,

Of the dull smoke I’m yet asham’d;

I was a dreary ruin grown,

And not enlighten’d though inflam’d.

Victim at once to wine and love,

I hope, MARIA, you’ll forgive;

While I invoke the powers above,

That henceforth I may wiser live.’

The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging answer, and I thus obtained an Act of Oblivion, and took care never to offend again.

^a I recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King had pensioned both a He-bear and a She-bear.

^a Men of rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as writers, before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his preface to All for Love, thus expresses himself: –

‘Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and endued with a trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by a smattering of Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of gentlemen, by their poetry:

“Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in illa

Fortuna.” —— ¹⁰⁴⁶

And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to publick view? Not considering that they are not to expect the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their flatterers after the third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents, yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where he said, “That no man is satisfied with his own condition.”¹⁰⁴⁷ A Poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not admit them of their number.’

^b This gave me very great pleasure, for there had been once a pretty smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question, whether a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; when Johnson in a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not quite civil. Dr. Barnard made it the subject of a copy of pleasant verses, in which he supposed himself to learn different perfections from different men. They concluded with delicate irony: –

‘Johnson shall teach me how to place

In fairest light each borrow’d grace;

From him I’ll learn to write;

Copy his clear familiar style,

And by the roughness of his file

Grow, like himself, polite.’

I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had occasion to find that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard increased.

^a Mr. Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the celebrated apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as much of the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with primitive simplicity.

^b Now Bishop of Llandaff, one of the poorest Bishopricks in this kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the propriety of equalizing the revenues of Bishops. He has informed us that he has burnt all his chemical papers. The friends of our excellent constitution, now assailed on every side by innovators and levellers, would have less regretted the suppression of some of his Lordship’s other writings.

^a [This assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first four satires of Young were published in 1725; the South Seascheme (which appears to be meant,) was in 1720.]

^a Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon On the Articles of the Christian Faith, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, which we find in this life: ‘It would be severe in GOD, you think, to degrade us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents: but you can allow him to place us in it without any inducement. Are our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less reason to look for its amendment.’

^a This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer, afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister to a congregation of the sect who called themselves Unitarians, from a notion that they distinctively worship ONE GOD, because they deny the mysterious doctrine of the TRINITY. They do not advert that the great body of the Christian Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also the Unity of the G-HEAD; the ‘TRINITY in UNITY! – three persons and one GOD.’ The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in the holy Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent Constitution, as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by a Jury, the Court of Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to transportation for fourteen years.¹⁰⁵⁶ A loud clamour against this sentence was made by some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the settlement for convicts in New South Wales.

^b Taken from Herodotus.

^a Mr. Robertson altered this word to jocandi, he having found in Blackstone that to irritate is actionable.

^a The will of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the original Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the expence of the University of Oxford.

^a Pr. and Med. p. 201.

^a The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. [Mrs. Boswell died June 4, 1789.]

^a See an account of him in the Gent. Mag. Feb. 1785.

^b In both editions of Sir John Hawkins’s Life of Dr. Johnson, ‘letter’d ignorance” is printed.

^c Johnson repeated this line to me thus: –

‘And Labour steals an hour to die.’

But he afterwards altered it to the present reading.

^a Pr. and Med. p.

^a [This Note was in answer to one which accompanied one of the earliest pamphlets on the subject of Chatterton’s forgery, entitled Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, &c. Mr. Thomas Warton’s very able Inquiry appeared about three months afterwards; and Mr. Tyrwhitt’s admirable Vindication of his Appendix in the summer of the same year, left the believers in this daring imposture nothing but ‘the resolution to say again what had been said before.’]

^a Pr. and Med. p. 207.

^a Mr. Holder, in the Strand, Dr. Johnson’s apothecary.

^b Soon after the above letter, Dr. Lawrence left London, but not before the palsy had made so great a progress as to render him unable to write for himself. The following are extracts from letters addressed by Dr. Johnson to one of his daughters: –

‘You will easily believe with what gladness I read that you had heard once again that voice to which we have all so often delighted to attend. May you often hear it. If we had his mind, and his tongue, we could spare the rest.

‘I am not vigorous, but much better than when dear Dr. Lawrence held my pulse the last time. Be so kind as to let me know, from one little interval to another, the state of his body. I am pleased that he remembers me, and hope that it never can be possible for me to forget him. July 22, 1782.’

‘I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr. Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but his mind, and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much lament the rest. I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied.

‘Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. 26, 1782.’

‘Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it; for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me know, from time to time, all that you observe.

‘Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance. Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.’

^c Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is addressed by his military title.

^a A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and beginnings of lines.

^b See p. 510.

^a What follows appeared in the Morning Chronicle of May 29, 1782: – ‘A correspondent having mentioned, in the Morning Chronicle of December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend suicide but exercise.

‘Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute diseases are from Heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the dart of death, indeed, falls from Heaven, but we poison it by our own misconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.’¹⁰⁷²

^b The Correspondence may be seen at length in the Gent. Mag. Feb. 1786.

^a Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh, founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious memory.

^b The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall.

^a Pr. and Med. p. 214.

^a Were I to insert all the stories which have been told of contests boldly maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his antagonist had the better of him in argument, my volumes would swell to an immoderate size. One instance, I find, has circulated both in conversation and in print; that when he would not allow the Scotch writers to have merit, the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, asserted, that he could name one Scotch writer, whom Dr. Johnson himself would allow to have written better than any man of the age; and upon Johnson’s asking who it was, answered, ‘Lord Bute, when he signed the warrant for your pension.’ Upon which Johnson, struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this was true. When I mentioned it to Johnson, ‘Sir, (said he,) if Rose said this, I never heard it.’

^a This reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was not conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings which were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, and which he perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often remembered with resentment.

^a Elphinstone’s Martial.

^b I have, in my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was necessary, but not a subject for glory; because it for a long time blasted the generous feelings of Loyalty. And now, when by the benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our affections, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had not required.

^a Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish the number of the Lords of Session, 1785.

^a I shall give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and Johnson’s substitution in Italick characters:-

‘In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring,

Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing:

But charmed by him, or smitten with his views,

Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse?

From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,

Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?’

‘On Mincio’s banks, in Ccesar’s bounteous reign,

If Tityrus found the golden age again,

Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong,

Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song?

From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,

Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?’

Here we find Johnson’s poetical and critical powers undiminished. I must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to The Traveller and Deserted Village of Goldsmith, were so small as by no means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour.

^a Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his aim.

^a It has since appeared.

^a I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking particularities pointed out: – Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary motions, said to him, ‘Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange gestures?’ ‘From bad habit,’ (he replied). ‘Do you, my dear, take care to guard against bad habits.’ This I was told by the young lady’s brother at Margate.

^a The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot: – A country parson, who was remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor: ‘He is a very good preacher,’ (was his answer,) ‘but no latiner.’

^a The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears testimony to this gentleman’s merit as a writer: – ‘Mr. Chambers’s Treatise on Civil Architecture, is the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.’ – Preface to Anecdotes of Painting in England.

^a The introductory lines are these: – ‘It is difficult to avoid praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the assistance of example.’

^a Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, ‘Why, Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good character.’

^a What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen.

^a Bar.

^b Nard.

^c Barnard.

^a [Written by John, Earl of Egmont.]

^b [The real authour… was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in 1693. John Dunton in his Life says, that Mr. William Bradshaw received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing part of the Turkish Spy; but I do not find that he any where mentions Sault as engaged in that work.]

^a We accordingly carried our scheme into execution, in October, 1792; but whether from that uniformity which has in modern times, in a great degree, spread through every part of the Metropolis, or from our want of sufficient exertion, we were disappointed.

^a It is suggested to me by an anonymous Annotator on my Work, that the reason why Dr. Johnson collected the peels of squeezed oranges may be found in the 558th {358th} Letter in Mrs. Piozzi’s Collection, where it appears that he recommended ‘dried orange-peel, finely powdered,’ as a medicine.

^a I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 386 {p. 366, 24 Oct.}, it appears that he made this frank confession: – ‘Nobody at times, talks more laxly than I do;’ and, ib., p. 231 {19 Sept.}, ‘He fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling.’ We may, therefore, infer, that he could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time it must be confessed, that from the prevalent notions of honour, a gentleman who receives a challenge is reduced to a dreadful alternative. A remarkable instance of this is furnished by a clause in the will of the late Colonel Thomas, of the Guards, written the night before he fell in a duel, Sept. 3,1783: – ‘In the firstplace, I commit my soul to Almighty God, in hopes of his mercy and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the necessity of taking.’

^b Upon this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-nose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following satisfactory observation: – ‘The passage in the Burial-service does not mean the resurrection of the person interred, but the general resurrection; it is in sure and certain hope of the resurrection; not his resurrection. Where the deceased is really spoken of, the expression is very different, “as our hope is this our brother doth” {rest in Christ}; a mode of speech consistent with every thing but absolute certainty that the person departed doth not rest in Christ, which no one can be assured of, without immediate revelation from Heaven. In the first of these places also, “eternal life” does not necessarily mean eternity of bliss, but merely the eternity of the state, whether in happiness or in misery, to ensue upon the resurrection; which is probably the sense of “the life everlasting,” in the Apostles’ Creed. See Wheatly and Bennet on the Common Prayer.’

^a [Malloch continued to write his name thus, after he came to London. His verses prefixed to the second edition of Thomson’s Winter are so subscribed.]

^a Let it be remembered by those who accuse Dr. Johnson of illiberality that both were Scotchmen.

^a In Mr. Barry’s printed analysis, or description of these pictures, he speaks of Johnson’s character in the highest terms.

^a Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch.

^b Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

^c Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson.

^a Vol. ii. p. 268, of Mrs. Thrale’s Collection.

^a Poor Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me to Dr. Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to Davies, the immediate introductor.

^a His Lordship was soon after chosen, and is now a member of the Club.

^a Pr. and Med. p. 226.

^a Mr. Malone observes, ‘This, however, was certainly a mistake, as appears from the Memoirs published by Mr. Noble. Had Johnson been furnished with the materials which the industry of that gentleman has procured, and with others which, it is believed, are yet preserved in manuscript, he would, without doubt, have produced a most valuable and curious history of Cromwell’s life.’

^a I do not wonder at Johnson’s displeasure when the name of Dr. Priestley was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered to publish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. First, Materialism; by which mind is denied to human nature; which, if believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, Necessity; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think that the future world, (which, as he is pleased to inform us, will be adapted to our merely improved nature,) will be materially different from this; which, if believed, would sink wretched mortals into despair, as they could no longer hope for the ‘rest that remaineth for the people of GOD’,¹¹⁴¹ or for that happiness which is revealed to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but would feel themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under which they now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance with which he dares to insult the venerable establishments of his country.

As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following passage, which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have been retorted upon him by the men who were prosecuted for burning his house. ‘I cannot, (says he,) as a necessarian, [meaning necessitarian,] hate any man; because I consider him as being, in all respects, just what God has made him to be; and also as doing with respect to me, nothing but what he was expressly designed and appointed to do; God being the only cause, and men nothing more than the instruments in his hands to execute all his pleasure.’ – Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity, p. in.

The Reverend Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose that Dr. Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an interview with Dr. Priestley. Injustice to Dr. Johnson, I declare my firm belief that he never did. My illustrious friend was particularly resolute in not giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to society. I was present at Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had rendered himself so generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French Revolution, came into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left the room. Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley.

Whoever wishes to see a perfect delineation of this Literary Jack of all Trades, may find it in an ingenious tract, entitled, ‘A SMALL WHOLE-LENGTH OF DR. PRIESTLEY,’ printed for Rivingtons, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard.

^a Mrs. Anna Williams.

^a My worthy friend, Mr. John Nichols, was present when Mr. Henderson, the actor, paid a visit to Dr. Johnson; and was received in a very courteous manner. See Gent. Mag. June, 1791.

I found among Dr. Johnson’s papers, the following letter to him, from the celebrated Mrs. Bellamy: –

‘To DR. JOHNSON.

‘SIR, – The flattering remembrance of the partiality you honoured me with, some years ago, as well as the humanity you are known to possess, has encouraged me to solicit your patronage at my Benefit.

‘By a long Chancery suit, and a complicated train of unfortunate events, I am reduced to the greatest distress; which obliges me, once more, to request the indulgence of the publick.

‘Give me leave to solicit the honour of your company, and to assure you, if you grant my request, the gratification I shall feel, from being patronized by Dr. Johnson, will be infinitely superiour to any advantage that may arise from the Benefit; as I am, with the profoundest respect, Sir, your most obedient, humble servant,

‘No. 10 Duke-street, St. James’s, May 11, 1783.’ ‘G. A. Bellamy.’

I am happy in recording these particulars, which prove that my illustrious friend lived to think much more favourably of Players than he appears to have done in the early part of his life.

^b Piozzi Letters, vol. ii. p. 328.

^c Ib., p. 342.

^a A few copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to the authour’s friends.

^b Dr. Johnson having been very ill when the tragedy was first sent to him, had declined the consideration of it.

^a ‘I could have borne my woes; that stranger Joy

Wounds while it smiles: – The long imprison’d wretch,

Emerging from the night of his damp cell,

Shrinks from the sun’s bright beams; and that which flings

Gladness o’er all, to him is agony.’

^a I was in Scotland when this Club was founded, during all the winter. Johnson, however, declared I should be a member, and invented a word upon the occasion: ‘Boswell (said he) is a very clubable man.’ When I came to town I was proposed by Mr. Barrington, and chosen. I believe there are few societies where there is better conversation or more decorum. Several of us resolved to continue it after our great founder was removed by death. Other members were added; and now, above eight years since that loss, we go on happily.

RULES.

‘To-day deep thoughts with me resolve to drench

In mirth, which after no repenting draws.’ – Milton.¹¹⁴⁷

‘The club shall consist of four-and-twenty.

‘The meetings shall be on the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday of every week; but in the week before Easter there shall be no meeting.

‘Every member is at liberty to introduce a friend once a week, but not oftener.

‘Two members shall oblige themselves to attend in their turn every night from eight to ten, or to procure two to attend in their room.

‘Every member present at the Club shall spend at least sixpence; and every member who stays away shall forfeit three-pence.

‘The master of the house shall keep an account of the absent members; and deliver to the President of the night a list of the forfeits incurred.

‘When any member returns after absence, he shall immediately lay down his forfeits; which if he omits to do, the President shall require.

‘There shall be no general reckoning, but every man shall adjust his own expences.

‘The night of indispensable attendance will come to every member once a month. Whoever shall for three months together omit to attend himself, or by substitution, nor shall make any apology in the fourth month, shall be considered as having abdicated the Club.

‘When a vacancy is to be filled, the name of the candidate, and of the member recommending him, shall stand in the Club-room three nights. On the fourth he may be chosen by ballot; six members at least being present, and two-thirds of the ballot being in his favour; or the majority, should the numbers not be divisible by three.

‘The master of the house shall give notice, six days before, to each of those members whose turn of necessary attendance is come.

‘The notice may be in these words: – “Sir, On – the – of – will be your turn of presiding at the Essex-Head. Your company is therefore earnestly requested.”

‘One penny shall be left by each member for the waiter.’

Johnson’s definition of a Club in this sense, in his Dictionary, is, ‘An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.’

^a I sent it to Mr. Pitt, with a letter, in which I thus expressed myself: ‘My principles may appear to you too monarchical: but I know and am persuaded, they are not inconsistent with the true principles of liberty. Be this as it may, you, Sir, are now the Prime Minister, called by the Sovereign to maintain the rights of the Crown, as well as those of the people, against a violent faction. As such, you are entitled to the warmest support of every good subject in every department.’ He answered: – ‘I am extremely obliged to you for the sentiments you do me the honour to express, and have observed with great pleasure the zealous and able support given to the Cause of the Publick in the work you were so good to transmit to me.’

^b From his garden at Prestonfield, where he cultivated that plant with such success, that he was presented with a gold medal by the Society of London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce.

^a Who had written him a very kind letter.

^a To which Johnson returned this answer: –

‘To THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF PORTMORE.

‘DR. JOHNSON acknowledges with great respect the honour of Lord Portmore’s

notice. He is better than he was; and will, as his Lordship directs, write to Mr. Langton.

‘Bolt-court, Fleet-street, April 13, 1784.’

^a The eminent painter, representative of the ancient family of Homfrey (now Humphry) in the west of England; who, as appears from their arms which they have invariably used, have been, (as I have seen authenticated by the best authority,) one of those among the Knights and Esquires of honour who are represented by Holinshed as having issued from the Tower of London on coursers apparelled for the justes, accompanied by ladies of honour, leading every one a Knight, with a chain of gold, passing through the streets of London into Smithfield, on Sunday, at three o’clock in the afternoon, being the first Sunday after Michaelmas, in the fourteenth year of King Richard the Second. This family once enjoyed large possessions, but, like others, have lost them in the progress of ages. Their blood, however, remains to them well ascertained; and they may hope, in the revolution of events, to recover that rank in society for which, in modern times, fortune seems to be an indispensable requisite.

^b Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson.

^a Upon this subject there is a very fair and judicious remark in the life of Dr. Abernethy, in the first edition of the Biographia Britannica, which I should have been glad to see in his Life which has been written for the second edition of that valuable work. ‘To deny the exercise of a particular providence in the Deity’s government of the world is certainly impious: yet nothing serves the cause of the scorner more than an incautious forward zeal in determining the particular instances of it.’

In confirmation of my sentiments, I am also happy to quote that sensible and elegant writer Mr. Melmoth, in Letter VIII {XLVIII} of his collection, published under the name Fitzosborne. ‘We may safely assert, that the belief of a particular Providence is founded upon such probable reasons as may well justify our assent. It would scarce, therefore, be wise to renounce an opinion which affords so firm a support to the soul, in those seasons wherein she stands in most need of assistance, merely because it is not possible, in questions of this kind, to solve every difficulty which attends them.’

^b I was sorry to observe Lord Monboddo avoid any communication with Dr. Johnson. I flattered myself that I had made them very good friends (see Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit., p. 67), but unhappily his Lordship had resumed and cherished a violent prejudice against my illustrious friend, to whom I must do the justice to say, there was on his part not the least anger, but a good-humoured sportiveness. Nay, though he knew of his Lordship’s indisposition towards him, he was even kindly; as appeared from his inquiring of me after him, by an abbreviation of his name, ‘Well, how does Monny?’

^a Verses on the death of Mr. Levett.

^a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit., p. 20 {15 Aug.}.

^b I have since heard that the report was not well-founded; but the elation discovered by Johnson in the belief that it was true, shewed a noble ardour for literary fame.

^a After all, I cannot but be of opinion, that as Mr. Langton was seriously requested by Dr. Johnson to mention what appeared to him erroneous in the character of his friend, he was bound, as an honest man, to intimate what he really thought, which he certainly did in the most delicate manner; so that Johnson himself, when in a quiet frame of mind, was pleased with it. The texts suggested are now before me, and I shall quote a few of them. ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ Matt. v. 5. – ‘I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called; with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.’ Ephes. v. {iv.} 1, 2. – ‘And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.’ Col. iii. 14. – ‘Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; doth not behave itself unseemly, is not easily provoked.’ 1 Cor. xiii. 4, 5.

^a The Peace made by that very able statesman, the Earl of Shelburne, now Marquis of Lansdown, which may fairly be considered as the foundation of all the prosperity of Great Britain since that time.

^b In the first edition of my Work, the epithet amiable was given. I was sorry to be obliged to strike it out; but I could not in justice suffer it to remain, after this young lady had not only written in favour of the savage Anarchy with which France has been visited, but had (as I have been informed by good authority), walked, without horrour, over the ground at the Thuillieries, when it was strewed with the naked bodies of the faithful Swiss Guards, who were barbarously massacred for having bravely defended, against a crew of ruffians, the Monarch whom they had taken an oath to defend. From Dr. Johnson she could now expect not endearment but repulsion.

^a Dr. Newton in his Account of his own Life, after animadverting upon Mr. Gibbon’s History, says, ‘Dr. Johnson’s Lives of the Poets afforded more amusement; but candour was much hurt and offended at the malevolence that predominates in every part. Some passages, it must be allowed, are judicious and well written, but make not sufficient compensation for so much spleen and ill humour. Never was any biographer more sparing of his praise, or more abundant in his censures. He seemingly delights more in exposing blemishes, than in recommending beauties; slightly passes over excellencies, enlarges upon imperfections, and not content with his own severe reflections, revives old scandal, and produces large quotations from the forgotten works of former criticks. His reputation was so high in the republick of letters, that it wanted not to be raised upon the ruins of others. But these Essays, instead of raising a higher idea than was before entertained of his understanding, have certainly given the world a worse opinion of his temper. – The Bishop was therefore the more surprized and concerned for his townsman, for he respected him not only for his genius and learning, but valued him much more for the more amiable part of his character, his humanity and charity, his morality and religion.’ The last sentence we may consider as the general and permanent opinion of Bishop Newton; the remarks which precede it must, by all who have read Johnson’s admirable work, be imputed to the disgust and peevishness of old age. I wish they had not appeared, and that Dr. Johnson had not been provoked by them to express himself, not in respectful terms, of a Prelate, whose labours were certainly of considerable advantage both to literature and religion.

^a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 371 {25 Oct.}.

^b The Rev. Mr. Agutter has favoured me with a note of a dialogue between Mr. John Henderson and Dr. Johnson on this topick, as related by Mr. Henderson, and it is evidently so authentick that I shall here insert it: – Henderson. ‘What do you think, Sir, of William Law?’ JOHNSON. ‘William Law, Sir, wrote the best piece of Parenetick Divinity;¹¹⁶¹ but William Law was no reasoner.’ Henderson. ‘Jeremy Collier, Sir?’ JOHNSON. ‘Jeremy Collier fought without a rival, and therefore could not claim the victory.’ Mr. Henderson mentioned Kenn and Kettlewell; but some objections were made; at last he said, ‘But, Sir, what do you think of Lesley?’ JOHNSON. ‘Charles Lesley I had forgotten. Lesley was a reasoner, and a reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.’

^a I have inserted the stanza as Johnson repeated it from memory; but I have since found the poem itself, in The Foundling Hospital for Wit, printed at London, 1749. It is as follows: –

‘Epigram, occasioned by a religious dispute at Bath.

On Reason, Faith, and Mystery high,

Two wits harangue the table;

B–y believes he knows not why.

N– swears ’tis all a fable.

Peace, coxcombs, peace, and both agree,

N–, kiss thy empty brother;

Religion laughs at foes like thee,

And dreads a friend like t’other.’¹¹⁶⁴

^a Waller, in his Divine Poesie, Canto first, has the same thought finely expressed: –

‘The Church triumphant, and the Church below,

In songs of praise their present union show;

Their joys are full; our expectation long,

In life we differ, but we join in song;

Angels and we assisted by this art,

May sing together, though we dwell apart.’

^b The Sermon thus opens: – ‘That there are angels and spirits good and bad; that at the head of these last there is one more considerable and malignant than the rest, who, in the form, or under the name of a serpent, was deeply concerned in the fall of man, and whose head, as the prophetick language is, the son of man was one day to bruise; that this evil spirit, though that prophecy be in part completed, has not yet received his death’s wound, but is still permitted, for ends unsearchable to us, and in ways which we cannot particularly explain, to have a certain degree of power in this world hostile to its virtue and happiness, and sometimes exerted with too much success; all this is so clear from Scripture, that no believer, unless he be first of all spoiled by philosophy and vain deceit,¹¹⁶⁵ can possibly entertain a doubt of it.’

Having treated of possessions, his Lordship says, ‘As I have no authority to affirm that there are now any such, so neither may I presume to say with confidence, that there are not any.’

‘But then with regard to the influence of evil spirits at this day upon the souls of men, I shall take leave to be a great deal more peremptory. – (Then, having stated the various proofs, he adds,) All this, I say, is so manifest to every one who reads the Scriptures, that if we respect their authority, the question concerning the reality of the demonick influence upon the minds of men is clearly determined.’

Let it be remembered, that these are not the words of an antiquated or obscure enthusiast, but of a learned and polite Prelate now alive; and were spoken, not to a vulgar congregation, but to the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s-Inn. His Lordship in this sermon explains the words, ‘deliver us from evil,’ in the Lord’s Prayer, as signifying a request to be protected from ‘the evil one,’ that is the Devil. This is well illustrated in a short but excellent Commentary by my late worthy friend, the Reverend Dr. Lort, of whom it may truly be said, Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit.¹¹⁶⁶ It is remarkable that Waller, in his Reflections on the several Petitions, in that sacred form of devotion, has understood this in the same sense: – ‘Guard us from all temptations of the FOE.’

^a See an account of him, in a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Agutter.

^a The Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-Nose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following remarks on my Work, which he is pleased to say, ‘I have hitherto extolled, and cordially approve.’

‘The chief part of what I have to observe is contained in the following transcript from a letter to a friend, which, with his concurrence, I copied for this purpose; and, whatever may be the merit or justness of the remarks, you may be sure that being written to a most intimate friend, without any intention that they ever should go further, they are the genuine and undisguised sentiments of the writer: –

“Jan. 6, 1792.

“Last week, I was reading the second volume of Boswell’s Johnson, with increasing esteem for the worthy authour, and increasing veneration of the wonderful and excellent man who is the subject of it. The writer throws in, now and then, very properly some serious religious reflections; but there is one remark, in my mind an obvious and just one, which I think he has not made, that Johnson’s ‘morbid melancholy,’ and constitutional infirmities, were intended by Providence, like St. Paul’s thorn in the flesh,¹¹⁷³ to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; which the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to the voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very culpable degree. Another observation strikes me, that in consequence of the same natural indisposition, and habitual sickliness, (for he says he scarcely passed one day without pain after his twentieth year,) he considered and represented human life, as a scene of much greater misery than is generally experienced. There may be persons bowed down with affliction all their days; and there are those, no doubt, whose iniquities rob them of rest; but neither calamities nor crimes, I hope and believe, do so much and so generally abound, as to justify the dark picture of life which Johnson’s imagination designed, and his strong pencil delineated. This I am sure, the colouring is far too gloomy for what I have experienced, though as far as I can remember, I have had more sickness (I do not say more severe, but only more in quantity,) than falls to the lot of most people. But then daily debility and occasional sickness were far overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps, weeks, void of pain, and overflowing with comfort. So that in short, to return to the subject, human life, as far as I can perceive from experience or observation, is not that state of constant wretchedness which Johnson always insisted it was; which misrepresentation, (for such it surely is,) his Biographer has not corrected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he has himself a large portion of melancholy in his constitution, and fancied the portrait a faithful copy of life.”’

The learned writer then proceeds thus in his letter to me: –

‘I have conversed with some sensible men on this subject; who all seem to entertain the same sentiments respecting life with those which are expressed or implied in the foregoing paragraph. It might be added that as the representation here spoken of, appears not consistent with fact and experience, so neither does it seem to be countenanced by Scripture. There is, perhaps, no part of the sacred volume which at first sight promises so much to lend its sanction to these dark and desponding notions as the book of Ecclesiastes, which so often, and so emphatically, proclaims the vanity of things sublunary. But the design of this whole book, (as it has been justly observed,) is not to put us out of conceit with life, but to cure our vain expectations of a compleat and perfect happiness in this world; to convince us, that there is no such thing to be found in mere external enjoyments; – and to teach us to seek for happiness in the practice of virtue, in the knowledge and love of God, and in the hopes of a better life. For this is the application of all; Let us hear, &c. xii. 13. Not only his duty, but his happiness too; For GOD, &c. ver. 14. – See Sherlock on Providence, p. 299.

‘The New Testament tells us, indeed, and most truly, that “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;”¹¹⁷⁴ and, therefore, wisely forbids us to increase our burden by forebodings of sorrows; but I think it no where says that even our ordinary afflictions are not consistent with a very considerable degree of positive comfort and satisfaction. And, accordingly, one whose sufferings as well as merits were conspicuous, assures us, that in proportion “as the sufferings of Christ abounded in them, so their consolation also abounded by Christ.” 2 Cor. i. 5. It is needless to cite, as indeed it would be endless even to refer to, the multitude of passages in both Testaments holding out, in the strongest language, promises of blessings, even in this world, to the faithful servants of God. I will only refer to St. Luke, xviii. 29, 30, and 1 Tim. iv. 8.

‘Upon the whole, setting aside instances of great and lasting bodily pain, of minds peculiarly oppressed by melancholy, and of severe temporal calamities, from which extraordinary cases we surely should not form our estimate of the general tenour and complexion of life; excluding these from the account, I am convinced that as well the gracious constitution of things which Providence has ordained, as the declarations of Scripture and the actual experience of individuals, authorize the sincere Christian to hope that his humble and constant endeavours to perform his duty, checquered as the best life is with many failings, will be crowned with a greater degree of present peace, serenity, and comfort, than he could reasonably permit himself to expect, if he measured his views and judged of life from the opinion of Dr. Johnson, often and energetically expressed in the Memoirs of him, without any animadversion or censure by his ingenious Biographer. If He himself, upon reviewing the subject, shall see the matter in this light, he will, in an octavo edition, which is eagerly expected, make such additional remarks or correction as he shall judge fit; lest the impressions which these discouraging passages may leave on the reader’s mind, should in any degree hinder what otherwise the whole spirit and energy of the work tends, and, I hope, successfully, to promote, – pure morality and true religion.’

Though I have, in some degree, obviated any reflections against my illustrious friend’s dark views of life, when considering, in the course of this Work, his Rambler and his Rasselas,¹¹⁷⁵ I am obliged to Mr. Churton for complying with my request of his permission to insert his Remarks, being conscious of the weight of what he judiciously suggests as to the melancholy in my own constitution. His more pleasing views of life, I hope, are just. Valeant quantum valere possunt.¹¹⁷⁶

Mr. Churton concludes his letter to me in these words: – ‘Once, and only once, I had the satisfaction of seeing your illustrious friend; and as I feel a particular regard for all whom he distinguished with his esteem and friendship, so I derive much pleasure from reflecting that I once beheld, though but transiently near our College gate, one whose works will for ever delight and improve the world, who was a sincere and zealous son of the Church of England, an honour to his country, and an ornament to human nature.’

His letter was accompanied with a present from himself of his Sermons at the Bampton Lecture, and from his friend, Dr. Townson, the venerable Rector of Malpas, in Cheshire, of his Discourses on the Gospels, together with the following extract of a letter from that excellent person, who is now gone to receive the reward of his labours: – ‘Mr. Boswell is not only very entertaining in his works, but they are so replete with moral and religious sentiments, without an instance, as far as I know, of a contrary tendency, that I cannot help having a great esteem for him; and if you think such a trifle as a copy of the Discourses, ex dono authoris,¹¹⁷⁷ would be acceptable to him, I should be happy to give him this small testimony of my regard.’

Such spontaneous testimonies of approbation from such men, without any personal acquaintance with me, are truly valuable and encouraging.

^a Aurungzebe.¹¹⁷⁹

^b Yet there is no doubt that a man may appear very gay in company who is sad at heart. His merriment is like the sound of drums and trumpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wounded and dying.

^c Page 139.

^a The annotator calls them ‘amiable verses.’

^a [Lewis’s Verses addressed to Pope were first published in a Collection of Pieces on occasion of The Dunciad, 8vo., 1732. They do not appear in Lewis’s own Miscellany, printed in 1726. –Grongar Hill was first printed in Savage’s Miscellanies as an Ode, and was reprinted in the same year in Lewis’s Miscellany, in the form it now bears.

In his Miscellanies, 1726, the beautiful poem, – ‘Away, let nought to love displeasing,’ – reprinted in Percy’s Reliques, vol. i. book iii. No. 13, first appeared.]

^a Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 372.

^a Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 284.

^b See p. 327.

^a Anecdotes, p. 43.

^a Compositor in the Printing-house means, the person who adjusts the types in the order in which they are to stand for printing; and arranges what is called the form, from which an impression is taken.

^b This circumstance therefore alluded to in Mr. Courtenay’s Poetical Character of him is strictly true. My informer was Mrs. Desmoulins, who lived many years in Dr. Johnson’s house.

^a This has been printed in other publications, ‘fall to the ground.’ But Johnson himself gave me the true expression which he had used as above; meaning that the recommendation left as little choice in the one case as the other.

^a Edward Lord Thurlow.

^b It is strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so easily have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir Joshua. Sir John’s carelessness to ascertain facts is very remarkable.

^a A friend of mine happened to be passing by a field congregation in the environs of London, when a Methodist preacher quoted this passage with triumph.

^b I trust that THE CITY OF LONDON, now happily in unison with THE COURT, will have the justice and generosity to obtain preferment for this Reverend Gentleman, now a worthy old servant of that magnificent Corporation.

^a Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 375.

^b Dr. Johnson’s letter to Sir John Hawkins, Life, p. 570.

^a Anec. p. 293.

^b Who has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks.

^c Anec. p. 183.

^d Anec. p. 202.

^a Anec. p. 44.

^b Ib. p. 23.

^c Ib. p. 51.

^a Anec. p. 193{51}.

^b Ib. p. 258.

^c George James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl of Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners.

^a Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 12.

^b Anec. p. 23.

^c Ib. p. 302.

^d Anec. p. 63.

^a Upon mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following sentimental anecdote. He was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris, to sup with him and a lady, who had been for some time his mistress, but with whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt very much for her, she was in such distress; and that he meant to make her a present of two hundred louis-d’ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the behaviour of Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed every pathetick air of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons, which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr. Wilkes whispered the gentleman, ‘We often say in England, Excessive sorrow is exceeding dry, but I never heard Excessive sorrow is exceeding hungry. Perhaps one hundred will do.’ The gentleman took the hint.

^a Sir Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which he shewed to some of his friends; one of whom,¹²¹⁶ who admired it, being allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, and found its way into the newspapers and magazines. It was transcribed with some inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson’s own hand-writing.

^a See p. 399.

^b A mistake for 1752.

^c Printed in his Works {i.150}.

^a Johnson wrote removes.

^a At the Essex Head, Essex-street.

^b Mr. Allen, the printer.

^a It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson should have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written stellas instead of ignes.

^a His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in 1791, there is the following sentence: – ‘To one that has passed so many years in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can give much delight.’

Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in The Spectator,

‘Born in New-England, did in London die;’¹²³⁰

he laughed and said, ‘I do not wonder at this. It would have been strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.’

^a The celebrated Miss Fanny Burney.

^a Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq., his Britannick Majesty’s Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country. He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of almost all nations.

^b Bookseller to his Majesty.

^a Allan Ramsay, Esq., painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784, in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends.

^a Against inquisitive and perplexing thoughts. ‘O Lord, my Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the Practice of those duties which Thou hastrequired. WhenIbeholdthe worksofthy hands, and consider the course of thy providence, give me grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me inthis world, where much is to be done, and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit, to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous inquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted, let me serve Thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest Shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grantthis, O Lord, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.’

^b P. 279.

^c I shall add one instance only to those which I have thought it incumbent on me to point out. Talking of Mr. Garrick’s having signified his willingness to let Johnson have the loan of any of his books to assist him in his edition of Shakspeare;¹²³⁸ Sir John says (p. 444), ‘Mr. Garrick knew not what risque he ran by this offer. Johnson had so strange a forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that few who lent him books ever saw them again.’ This surely conveys a most unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John mentions the single case of a curious edition of Politian,¹²³⁹ which he tells us, ‘appeared to belong to Pembroke College, and which, probably, had been considered by Johnson as his own, for upwards of fifty years.’ Would it not be fairer to consider this as an inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he has marked in two columns, books borrowed, and books lent.

In Sir John Hawkins’s compilation, there are, however, some passages concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One of them I shall transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have had too much occasion to censure, and to shew my fairness as the biographer of my illustrious friend: ‘There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour, that dignity which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and by an irresistible power commands esteem. He could not be said to be a stayed man, nor so to have adjusted in his mind the balance of reason and passion, as to give occasion to say what may be observed of some men, that all they do is just, fit, and right.’¹²⁴⁰ Yet a judicious friend¹²⁴¹ well suggests, ‘It might, however, have been added, that such men are often merely just, and rigidly correct, while their hearts are cold and unfeeling; and that Johnson’s virtues were of a much higher tone than those of the stayed, orderly man, here described.’

^a The following circumstance, mutually to the honour of Johnson, and the corporation of his native city, has been communicated to me by the Reverend Dr. Vyse, from the Town-Clerk: – ‘Mr. Simpson has now before him, a record of the respect and veneration which the Corporation of Lichfield, in the year 1767, had for the merits and learning of Dr. Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street,¹²⁴² stood upon waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years’ lease, which was then expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five shillings. Of which, as Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died possessed of this property.’

^b See p. 25.

^a Mr. Burke suggested to me as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, in his Cato Major, says of Appius: ‘Intentum enim animum tanquam arcum habebat, nec languescens succumbebat senectuti’;¹²⁴⁵ repeating at the same time, the following noble words in the same passage: ‘Ita enim senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si nemini emancipata est, si usque ad extremum vitæ spiritum vindicet jus suum’.¹²⁴⁶

^a It is a most agreeable circumstance attending the publication of this Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow so many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has gratified me with the following acknowledgement: ‘I thank you, most sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued entertainment your Life of Dr. Johnson has afforded me, and others, of my particular friends.’ Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a sprig of Myrtle (see p. 55 note), has favoured me with two English odes, written by Dr. Johnson, at an early period of his life, which will appear in my edition of his Poems.

^a The Rev. Dr. Taylor.

^a It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of Johnson’s literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded and embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr. Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty:

‘Divinity.

‘A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint taken from the directions in Morton’s exercise.

‘PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, and LITERATURE in general.

‘History of Criticism, as it relates to judging of authours, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of that art; of the different opinions of authours, ancient and modern.

‘Translation of the History of Herodian.

‘New edition of Fairfax’s Translation of Tasso, with notes, glossary, &c.

‘Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present: with notes explanatory of customs, &c, and references to Boccace, and other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an exact etymological glossary.

Aristotle’s Rbetorick, a translation of it into English.

A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some account of the several authours.

‘Oldham’s Poems, with notes, historical and critical.

‘Roscommon’s Poems, with notes.

‘Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner as may divert as well as instruct.

‘History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the fables, both allegorical and historical; with references to the poets.

‘History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner.

Aristotle’s Etbicks, an English translation of them, with notes.

‘Geographical Dictionary, from the French.

‘Hierocles upon Pythagoras, translated into English, perhaps with notes. This is done by Norris.

A book of Letters, upon all kinds of subjects.

‘Claudian, a new edition of his works, cum notis variorum,¹²⁵⁰ in the manner of Burman.

‘Tully’s Tusculan Questions, a translation of them.

‘Tully’s De Natura Deorum,¹²⁵¹ a translation of those books.

‘Benzo’s New History of the New World, to be translated.

‘Machiavel’s History of Florence, to be translated.

‘History of the Revival of Learning in Europe, containing an account of whatever contributed to the restoration of literature; such as controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek empire, the encouragement of great men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons and most eminent early professors of all kinds of learning in different countries.

‘A Body of Chronology, in verse, with historical notes.

‘A Table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, distinguished by figures into six degrees of value, with notes, giving the reasons of preference or degradation.

‘A Collection of Letters from English authours, with a preface giving some account of the writers; with reasons for selection, and criticism upon styles; remarks on each letter, if needful.

‘A Collection of Proverbs from various languages. Jan. 6, –53.

‘A Dictionary to the Common Prayer, in imitation of Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible. March, –52.

‘A Collection of Stories and Examples, like those of Valerius Maximus. Jan. 10, –53.

‘From/Elian, a volume of select Stories, perhaps from others. Jan. 28, –53.

‘Collection of Travels, Voyages, Adventures, and Descriptions of Countries.

‘Dictionary of Ancient History and Mythology.

‘Treatise on the Study of Polite Literature, containing the history of learning, directions for editions, commentaries, &c.

‘Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of Bruyere, collected out of ancient authours, particularly the Greek, with Apophthegms.

‘Classical Miscellanies, Select Translations from ancient Greek and Latin authours.

‘Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the learned, in imitation of Plutarch.

‘Judgement of the learned upon English authours.

‘Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue.

‘Considerations upon the present state of London.

‘Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observations.

‘Observations on the English language, relating to words, phrases, and modes of Speech.

‘Minutiae Literariae,¹²⁵² Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms, emendations, notes.

‘History of the Constitution.

‘Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by sentences collected from the moralists and fathers.

‘Plutarch’s Lives, in English, with notes.

‘POETRY and works of IMAGINATION.

‘Hymn to Ignorance.

‘The Palace of Sloth, – a vision.

‘Coluthus, to be translated.

‘Prejudice, – a poetical essay.

‘The Palace of Nonsense, – a vision.’

Johnson’s extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook off his constitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to write, is admirably described by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical Review, which I have several times quoted:

‘While through life’s maze he sent a piercing view,

His mind expansive to the object grew.

With various stores of erudition fraught,

The lively image, the deep-searching thought,

Slept in repose; – but when the moment press’d,

The bright ideas stood at once confess’d;

Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays,

And o’er the letter’d world diffus’d a blaze;

As womb’d with fire the cloud electrick flies,

And calmly o’er th’ horizon seems to rise;

Touch’d by the pointed steel, the lightning flows,

And all th’ expanse with rich effulgence glows.’¹²⁵³

We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every production of Johnson’s pen. He owned to me, that he had written about forty sermons; but as I understood that he had given or sold them to different persons, who were to preach them as their own, he did not consider himself at liberty to acknowledge them. Would those who were thus aided by him, who are still alive, and the friends of those who are dead, fairly inform the world, it would be obligingly gratifying a reasonable curiosity, to which there should, I think, now be no objection. Two volumes of them, published since his death, are sufficiently ascertained; see p. 621. I have before me, in his hand-writing, a fragment of twenty quarto leaves, of a translation into English of Sallust, De Bello Catilinario.¹²⁵⁴ When it was done I have no notion; but it seems to have no very superior merit to mark it as his. Beside the publications heretofore mentioned, I am satisfied, from internal evidence, to admit also as genuine the following, which, notwithstanding all my chronological care, escaped me in the course of this work:

‘Considerations on the Case of Dr. Trapp’s Sermons,’† published in 1739, in the Gentleman’s Magazine. It is a very ingenious defence of the right of abridging an authour’s work, without being held as infringing his property. This is one of the nicest questions in the Law of Literature; and I cannot help thinking, that the indulgence of abridging is often exceedingly injurious to authours and booksellers, and should in very few cases be permitted. At any rate, to prevent difficult and uncertain discussion, and give an absolute security to authours in the property of their labours, no abridgement whatever should be permitted, till after the expiration of such a number of years as the Legislature may be pleased to fix.

But, though it has been confidently ascribed to him, I cannot allow that he wrote a Dedication to both Houses of Parliament of a book entitled The Evangelical History Harmonized. He was no croaker; no declaimer against the times. He would not have written, ‘That we are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barely universal, is universally confessed.’ Nor ‘Rapine preys on the publick without opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry.’ Nor would he, to excite a speedy reformation, have conjured up such phantoms of terrour as these: ‘A few years longer, and perhaps all endeavours will be in vain. We may be swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered to our enemies.’ This is not Johnsonian.

There are, indeed, in this Dedication, several sentences constructed upon the model of those of Johnson. But the imitation of the form, without the spirit of his style, has been so general, that this of itself is not sufficient evidence. Even our newspaper writers aspire to it. In an account of the funeral of Edwin, the comedian, in The Diary of Nov. 9, 1790, that son of drollery is thus described: ‘A man who had so often cheered the sullenness of vacancy, and suspended the approaches of sorrow.’ And in The Dublin

Evening Post, August 16, 1791, there is the following paragraph: ‘It is a singular circumstance, that, in a city like this, containing 200,000 people, there are three months in the year during which no place of publick amusement is open. Long vacation is here a vacation from pleasure, as well as business; nor is there any mode of passing the listless evenings of declining summer, but in the riots of a tavern, or the stupidity of a coffee-house.’

I have not thought it necessary to specify every copy of verses written by Johnson, it being my intention to publish an authentick edition of all his Poetry, with notes.

^aMr. Cumberland assures me, that he was always treated with great courtesy by Dr. Johnson, who, in his Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 68, thus speaks of that learned, ingenious, and accomplished gentleman: ‘The want of company is an inconvenience: but Mr. Cumberland is a million.’

^a We must smile at a little inaccuracy of metaphor in the Preface to the Transactions, which is written by Mr. Burrowes. The critick of the style of Johnson having, with a just zeal for literature, observed, that the whole nation are called on to exert themselves, afterwards says: ‘They are called on by every tye which can have a laudable influence on the heart of man.’

^a History of America, vol. i. quarto, p. 332.

^b Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. chap. iv.

^c Cecilia, Book vii. chap. i {v}.

^d The passage which I quote is taken from that gentleman’s Elements of Orthoepy; containing a distinct View of the whole Analogy of the English Language, so far as relates to Pronunciation, Accent, and Quantity, London, 1784. I beg leave to offer my particular acknowledgements to the authour of a work of uncommon merit and great utility. I know no book which contains, in the same compass, more learning, polite literature, sound sense, accuracy of arrangement, and perspicuity of expression.

^a That collection was presented to Dr. Johnson, I believe by its authours; and I heard him speak very well of it.

^b It were to be wished, that he had imitated that great man in every respect, and had not followed the example of Dr. Adam Smith in ungraciously attacking his venerable Alma Mater¹²⁶⁰ Oxford. It must, however, be observed, that he is much less to blame than Smith: he only objects to certain particulars; Smith to the whole institution; though indebted for much of his learning to an exhibition which he enjoyed for many years at Balliol College. Neither of them, however, will do any hurt to the noblest university in the world. While I animadvert on what appears to me exceptionable in some of the works of Dr. Knox, I cannot refuse due praise to others of his productions; particularly his sermons, and to the spirit with which he maintains, against presumptuous hereticks, the consolatory doctrines peculiar to the Christian Revelation. This he has done in a manner equally strenuous and conciliating. Neither ought I to omit mentioning a remarkable instance of his candour. Notwithstanding the wide difference of our opinions, upon the important subject of University education, in a letter to me concerning this Work, he thus expresses himself: ‘I thank you for the very great entertainment your Life of Johnson gives me. It is a most valuable work. Yours is a new species of biography. Happy for Johnson, that he had so able a recorder of his wit and wisdom.’

^a Dr. Knox, in his Moral and Literary abstraction, may be excused for not knowing the political regulations of his country. No senator can be in the hands of a bailiff.

^a A Club in London, founded by the learned and ingenious physician, Dr. Ash, in honour of whose name it was called Eumelian,¹²⁶³ from the Greek Et]le´kiaz; though it was warmly contended, and even put to a vote, that it should have the more obvious appellation of Fraxinean,¹²⁶⁴ from the Latin.

^b Mrs. Thrale’s Collection, March 10, 1784. Vol. ii. p. 350.

^c See what he said to Mr. Malone, p. 792 of this volume.

^a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 209 {14 Sept.}. On the same subject, in his Letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Nov. 29, 1783, he makes the following just observation: – ‘Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past. The mind is enlarged and elevated by mere purposes, though they end as they began, by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, though we do not practise.’

^b Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, p. 374 {25 Oct.}.

^a Pr. and Med. p. 47.

^b Ib. p. 68.

^c Ib. p. 84.

^d Ib. p. 120.

^e Ib. p. 130.

^f Dr. Johnson related, with very earnest approbation, a story of a gentleman, who, in an impulse of passion, overcame the virtue of a young woman. When she said to him, ‘I am afraid we have done wrong!’ he answered, ‘Yes, we have done wrong; – for I would not debauch her mind.’

^g Pr. and Med., p. 192.

^a This bold experiment, Sir John Hawkins has related in such a manner as to suggest a charge against Johnson of intentionally hastening his end; a charge so very inconsistent with his character in every respect, that it is injurious even to refute it, as Sir John has thought it necessary to do. It is evident, that what Johnson did in hopes of relief, indicated an extraordinary eagerness to retard his dissolution.

^a ‘IN tHE NAME OF GOD. AMEN. I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, being in full possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my life, do ordain this my last Will and Testament. I bequeath to God, a soul polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by Jesus Christ. I leave seven hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Bennet Langton, Esq.: three hundred pounds in the hands of Mr. Barclay and Mr. Perkins, brewers; one hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore; one thousand pounds, three per cent. annuities, in the publick funds; and one hundred pounds now lying by me in ready money; all these before-mentioned sums and property I leave, I say, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, of Doctors Commons, in trust, for the following uses: – That is to say, to pay to the representatives of the late William Innys, bookseller, in St. Paul’s Church-yard, the sum of two hundred pounds; to Mrs. White, my female servant, one hundred pounds stock in the three per cent. annuities aforesaid. The rest of the aforesaid sums of money and property, together with my books, plate, and household furniture, I leave to the before-mentioned Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, also in trust, to be applied, after paying my debts, to the use of Francis Barber, my man-servant, a negro, in such a manner as they shall judge most fit and available to his benefit. And I appoint the aforesaid Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, sole executors of this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills and testaments whatever. In witness whereof I hereunto subscribe my name, and affix my seal, this eighth day of December, 1784.

‘SAM. JOHNSON, (L.S.)

‘Signed, sealed, published, declared, and delivered, by the said testator as his last will and testament, in the presence of us, the word two being first inserted in the opposite page.

‘GEORGE STRAHAN.

‘JOHN DESMOULINS.’

‘By way of Codicil to my last Will and Testament, I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, give, devise, and bequeath, my messuage or tenement situate at Lichfield, in the county of Stafford, with the appurtenances, in the tenure or occupation of Mrs. Bond, of Lichfield aforesaid, or of Mr. Hinchman, her under-tenant, to my executors, in trust, to sell and dispose of the same; and the money arising from such sale I give and bequeath as follows, viz. to Thomas and Benjamin, the sons of Fisher Johnson, late of Leicester, and – Whiting, daughter of Thomas Johnson, late of Coventry, and the grand-daughter of the said Thomas Johnson, one full and equal fourth part each; but in case there shall be more grand-daughters than one of the said Thomas Johnson, living at the time of my decease, I give and bequeath the part or share of that one to and equally between such grand-daughters. I give and bequeath to the Rev. Mr. Rogers, of Berkley, near Froom, in the county of Somerset, the sum of one hundred pounds, requesting him to apply the same towards the maintenance of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick. I also give and bequeath to my god-children, the son and daughter of Mauritius Lowe, painter, each of them, one hundred pounds of my stock in the three per. cent. consolidated annuities, to be applied and disposed of by and at the discretion of my Executors, in the education or settlement in the world of them my said legatees. Also I give and bequeath to Sir John Hawkins, one of my Executors, the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baron-ius, and Holinshed’s and Stowe’s Chronicles, and also an octavo Common Prayer-Book. To Bennet Langton, Esq. I give and bequeath my Polyglot Bible. To Sir Joshua Reynolds, my great French Dictionary, by Martiniere, and my own copy of my folio English Dictionary, of the last revision. To Dr. William Scott, one of my Executors, the Dictionnaire de Commerce, and Lectius’s edition of the Greek poets. To Mr. Windham, Poetae Graeci Heroici per Henricum Stephanum. To the Rev. Mr. Strahan, vicar of Islington, in Middlesex, Mill’s Greek Testament, Beza’s Greek Testament, by Stephens, all my Latin Bibles, and my Greek Bible, by Wechelius. To Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Butter, and Mr. Cruikshank, the surgeon who attended me, Mr. Holder, my apothecary, Gerard Hamilton, Esq., Mrs. Gardiner, of Snow-hill, Mrs. Frances Reynolds, Mr. Hoole, and the Reverend Mr. Hoole, his son, each a book at their election, to keep as a token of remembrance. I also give and bequeath to Mr. John Desmoulins, two hundred pounds consolidated three per cent. annuities: and to Mr. Sastres, the Italian master, the sum of five pounds, to be laid out in books of piety for his own use. And whereas the said Bennet Langton hath agreed, in consideration of the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, mentioned in my Will to be in his hands, to grant and secure an annuity of seventy pounds payable during the life of me and my servant, Francis Barber, and the life of the survivor of us, to Mr. George Stubbs, in trust for us; my mind and will is, that in case of my decease before the said agreement shall be perfected, the said sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, and the bond for securing the said sum, shall go to the said Francis Barber; and I hereby give and bequeath to him the same, in lieu of the bequest in his favour, contained in my said Will. And I hereby empower my Executors to deduct and retain all expences that shall or may be incurred in the execution of my said Will, or of this Codicil thereto, out of such estate and effects as I shall die possessed of. All the rest, residue, and remainder, of my estate and effects, I give and bequeath to my said Executors, in trust for the said Francis Barber, his Executors and Administrators. Witness my hand and seal, this ninth day of December, 1784.

‘SAM. JOHNSON, (L.S.)

‘Signed, sealed, published, declared, and delivered, by the said Samuel Johnson, as, and for a Codicil to his last Will and Testament, in the presence of us, who, in his presence, and at his request, and also in the presence of each other, have hereto subscribed our names as witnesses.

‘JOHN COPLEY.

‘WILLIAM GIBSON.

‘HENRY COLE.’

Upon these testamentary deeds it is proper to make a few observations.

His express declaration with his dying breath of his faith as a Christian, as it had been often practised in such solemn writings, was of real consequence from this great man; for the conviction of a mind equally acute and strong, might well overbalance the doubts of others, who were his contemporaries. The expression polluted, may, to some, convey an impression of more than ordinary contamination; but that is not warranted by its genuine meaning, as appears from The Rambler, No. 42. The same word is used in the will of Dr. Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln, who was piety itself.

His legacy of two hundred pounds to the representatives of Mr. Innys, bookseller, in St. Paul’s Church-yard, proceeded from a very worthy motive. He told Sir John Hawkins, that his father having become a bankrupt, Mr. Innys had assisted him with money or credit to continue his business. ‘This, (said he,) I consider as an obligation on me to be grateful to his descendants.’

The amount of his property proved to be considerably more than he had supposed it to be. Sir John Hawkins estimates the bequest to Francis Barber at a sum little short of fifteen hundred pounds, including an annuity of seventy pounds to be paid to him by Mr. Langton, in consideration of seven hundred and fifty pounds, which Johnson had lent to that gentleman. Sir John seems not a little angry at this bequest, and mutters ‘a caveat against ostentatious bounty and favour to negroes.’ But surely when a man has money entirely of his own acquisition, especially when he has no near relations, he may, without blame, dispose of it as he pleases, and with great propriety to a faithful servant. Mr. Barber, by the recommendation of his master, retired to Lichfield, where he might pass the rest of his days in comfort.

It has been objected that Johnson has omitted many of his best friends, when leaving bookstoseveralastokensofhis last remembrance. The namesofDr. Adams, Dr. Taylor, Dr. Burney, Mr. Hector, Mr. Murphy, the Authour of this Work, and others who were intimate with him, are nottobefoundinhis Will. This maybeaccounted For by considering, that as he was very near his dissolution at the time, he probably mentioned such as happened tooccur to him; and thathe may have recollected, that he had formerly shewn others such proofs of his regard, that it was not necessary to crowd his Will with their names. Mrs. Lucy Porter was much displeased that nothing was left to her; but besides what I have now stated, she should have considered, that she had left nothing to Johnson by her Will, which was made during his life-time, as appeared at her decease.

His enumerating several persons in one group, and leaving them ‘each a book at their election,’ might possibly have given occasion to a curious question as to the order of choice, had they not luckily fixed on different books. His library, though by no means handsome in its appearance, was sold by Mr. Christie, for two hundred and forty-seven pounds, nine shillings; many people being desirous to have a book which had belonged to Dr. Johnson. In many of them he had written little notes: sometimes tender memorials of his departed wife; as, ‘This was dear Tetty’s book;’ sometimes occasional remarks of different sorts. Mr. Lysons, of Clifford’s Inn, has favoured me with the two following:

In Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion, byBryan Duppa, Lord Bishop of Winton, ‘Preces quidam (? quidem)videtur diligenter tractasse; spero non inauditus(? inauditas).’¹²⁷⁵

In The Rosicrucian infallible Axiomata, by John Heydon, Gent., prefixed to which are some verses addressed to the authour, signed Ambr. Waters, A. M. Coll. Ex. Oxon. ‘These Latin verses were written to Hobbes by Bathurst, upon his Treatise on Human Nature, and have no relation to the book. –An odd fraud.’

^a One of these volumes, Sir John Hawkins informs us, he put into his pocket; for which the excuse he states is, that he meant to preserve it from falling into the hands of a person¹²⁷⁶ whom he describes so as to make it sufficiently clear who is meant; ‘having strong reasons (said he,) to suspect that this man might find and make an ill use of the book.’ Why Sir John should suppose that the gentleman alluded to would act in this manner, he has not thought fit to explain. But what he did was not approved of by Johnson; who, upon being acquainted of it without delay by a friend, expressed great indignation, and warmly insisted on the book being delivered up; and, afterwards, in the supposition of his missing it, without knowing by whom it had been taken, he said, ‘Sir, I should have gone out of the world distrusting half mankind.’ Sir John next day wrote a letter to Johnson, assigning reasons for his conduct; upon which Johnson observed to Mr. Langton, ‘Bishop Sanderson could not have dictated a better letter. I could almost say, Melius est sic penituisse quam non erfasse.’¹²⁷⁷ The agitation into which Johnson was thrown by this incident, probably made him hastily burn those precious records which must ever be regretted.

^a On the same undoubted authority, I give a few articles, which should have been inserted in chronological order; but which, now that they are before me, I should be sorry to omit: –

‘In 1736, Dr. Johnson had a particular inclination to have been engaged as an assistant to the Reverend Mr. Budworth, then head master of the Grammar-school, at Brewood, in Staffordshire, “an excellent person, who possessed every talent of a perfect instructor of youth, in a degree which, (to use the words of one of the brightest ornaments of literature, the Reverend Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester,) has been rarely found in any of that profession since the days of Quintilian.” Mr. Budworth, “who was less known in his life-time, from that obscure situation to which the caprice of fortune oft condemns the most accomplished characters, than his highest merit deserved,” had been bred under Mr. Blackwell,¹²⁷⁹ at Market Bosworth, where Johnson was some time an usher; which might naturally lead to the application. Mr. Budworth was certainly no stranger to the learning or abilities of Johnson; as he more than once lamented his having been under the necessity of declining the engagement, from an apprehension that the paralytick affection, under which our great Philologist laboured through life, might become the object of imitation or of ridicule, among his pupils.’ Captain Budworth, his grandson, has confirmed to me this anecdote.

‘Among the early associates of Johnson, at St. John’s Gate, was Samuel Boyse, well known by his ingenious productions; and not less noted for his imprudence. It was not unusual for Boyse to be a customer to the pawnbroker. On one of these occasions, Dr. Johnson collected a sum of money to redeem his friend’s clothes, which in two days after were pawned again. “The sum, (said Johnson,) was collected by sixpences, at a time when to me sixpence was a serious consideration.”

‘Speaking one day of a person for whom he had a real friendship, but in whom vanity was somewhat too predominant, he observed, that “Kelly was so fond of displaying on his sideboard the plate which he possessed, that he added to it his spurs. For my part, (said he,) I never was master of a pair of spurs, but once; and they are now at the bottom of the ocean. By the carelessness of Boswell’s servant, they were dropped from the end of the boat, on our return from the Isle of Sky.”’

The late Reverend Mr. Samuel Badcock, having been introduced to Dr. Johnson, by Mr. Nichols, some years before his death, thus expressed himself in a letter to that gentleman: –

‘How much I am obliged to you for the favour you did me in introducing me to Dr. Johnson! Tantüm vidi Virgilium.¹²⁸⁰ But to have seen him, and to have received a testimony of respect from him, was enough. I recollect all the conversation, and shall never forget one of his expressions. Speaking of Dr. P∗∗∗∗∗∗∗¹²⁸¹ (whose writings, I saw, he estimated at a low rate,) he said, “You have proved him as deficient in probity as he is in learning.” I called him an “Index-scholar;” but he was not willing to allow him a claim even to that merit. He said, that “he borrowed from those who had been borrowers themselves, and did not know that the mistakes he adopted had been answered by others.” I often think of our short, but precious, visit to this great man. I shall consider it as a kind of an (Bra in my life.’

^a The change of his sentiments with regard to Dr. Clarke, is thus mentioned to me in a letter from the late Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford: – ‘The Doctor’s prejudices were the strongest, and certainly in another sense the weakest, that ever possessed a sensible man. You know his extreme zeal for orthodoxy. But did you ever hear what he told me himself? That he had made it a rule not to admit Dr. Clarke’s name in his Dictionary. This, however, wore off. At some distance of time he advised with me what books he should read in defence of the Christian Religion. I recommended Clarke’s Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, as the best of the kind; and I find in what is called his Prayers and Meditations, that he was frequently employed in the latter part of his time in reading Clarke’s Sermons.’

^a The Reverend Mr. Strahan took care to have it preserved, and has inserted it in Prayers and Meditations, p. 216.

^a Servant to the Right Honourable William Windham.

^a On the subject of Johnson I may adopt the words of Sir John Harrington, concerning his venerable Tutor and Diocesan, Dr. John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells; ‘who hath given me some helps, more hopes, all encouragements in my best studies: to whom I never came but I grew more religious; from whom I never went, but I parted better instructed. Of him therefore, my acquaintance, my friend, my instructor, if I speak much, it were not to be marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be blamed; and though I speak partially, it were to be pardoned.’ Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. i. p. 136. There is one circumstance in Sir John’s character of Bishop Still, which is peculiarly applicable to Johnson: ‘He became so famous a disputer, that the learnedest were even afraid to dispute with him; and he finding his own strength, could not stick to warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in which button he will give the venew,¹²⁸⁸ or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint aforehand with which pawn and in what place he will give the mate.’

^b [The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton.]

^c Beside the Dedications to him by Dr. Goldsmith, the Reverend Dr. Franklin, and the Reverend Mr. Wilson, which I have mentioned according to their dates, there was one by a lady,¹²⁹⁰ of a versification of Aningait and Ajut, and one by the ingenious Mr. Walker of his Rhetorical Grammar. I have introduced into this work several compliments paid to him in the writings of his contemporaries; but the number of them is so great, that we may fairly say that there was almost a general tribute.

Let me not be forgetful of the honour done to him by Colonel Myddleton, of Gwaynynog, near Denbigh; who, on the banks of a rivulet in his park, where Johnson delighted to stand and repeat verses, erected an urn with the following inscription:

‘This spot was often dignified by the presence of

SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

Whose moral writings, exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity, Give ardour to Virtue and confidence to Truth.’

As no inconsiderable circumstance of his fame, we must reckon the extraordinary zeal of the artists to extend and perpetuate his image. I can enumerate a bust by Mr. Nollekens, and the many casts which are made from it; several pictures by Sir Joshua Reynolds, from one of which, in the possession of the Duke of Dorset, Mr. Humphry executed a beautiful miniature in enamel; one by Mrs. Frances Reynolds, Sir Joshua’s sister; one by Mr. Zoffani; and one by Mr. Opie; and the following engravings of his portrait: 1. One by Cooke, from Sir Joshua, for the Proprietors’ edition of his folio Dictionary. – 2. One from ditto, by ditto, for their quarto edition. – 3. One from Opie, by Heath, for Harrison’s edition of his Dictionary. – 4. One from Nollekens’ bust of him, by Bartolozzi, for Fielding’s quarto edition of his Dictionary. – 5. One small, from Harding, by Trotter, for his Beauties. – 6. One small, from Sir Joshua, by Trotter, for his Lives of the Poets. – 7. One small, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for The Rambler. – 8. One small, from an original drawing, in the possession of Mr. John Simco, etched by Trotter, for another edition of his Lives of the Poets. – 9. One small, no painter’s name, etched by Taylor, for his Johnsoniana. – 10. One folio whole-length, with his oak-stick, as described in Boswell’s Tour, drawn and etched by Trotter. – 11. One large mezzotinto, from Sir Joshua, by Doughty. – 12. One large Roman head, from Sir Joshua, by Marchi. – 13. One octavo, holding a book to his eye, from Sir Joshua, by Hall, for his Works. – 14. One small, from a drawing from the life, and engraved by Trotter, for his Life published by Kearsley. – 15. One large, from Opie, by Mr. Townley, (brother of Mr. Townley, of the Commons,) an ingenious artist, who resided some time at Berlin, and has the honour of being engraver to his Majesty the King of Prussia. This is one of the finest mezzotintos that ever was executed; and what renders it of extraordinary value, the plate was destroyed after four or five impressions only were taken off. One of them is in the possession of Sir William Scott. Mr. Townley has lately been prevailed with to execute and publish another of the same, that it may be more generally circulated among the admirers of Dr. Johnson. – 16. One large, from Sir Joshua’s first picture of him, by Heath, for this work, in quarto. – 17. One octavo, by Baker, for the octavo edition. – 18. And one for Lavater’s Essay on Physiognomy, in which Johnson’s countenance is analysed upon the principles of that fanciful writer. – There are also several seals with his head cut on them, particularly a very fine one by that eminent artist, Edward Burch, Esq. R.A., in the possession of the younger Dr. Charles Burney.

Let me add, as a proof of the popularity of his character, that there are copper pieces struck at Birmingham, with his head impressed on them, which pass current as half-pence there, and in the neighbouring parts of the country.

^a It is not yet published. – In a letter to me, Mr. Agutter says, ‘My sermon before the University was more engaged with Dr. Johnson’s moral than his intellectual character. It particularly examined his fear of death, and suggested several reasons for the apprehension of the good, and the indifference of the infidel in their last hours; this was illustrated by contrasting the death of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Hume: the text was Job xxi. 22–26.’

^a The Reverend Dr. Parr, on being requested to undertake it, thus expressed himself in a letter to William Seward, Esq.:

‘I leave this mighty task to some hardier and some abler writer. The variety and splendour of Johnson’s attainments, the peculiarities of his character, his private virtues, and his literary publications, fill me with confusion and dismay, when I reflect upon the confined and difficult species of composition, in which alone they can be expressed, with propriety, upon his monument.’

But I understand that this great scholar, and warm admirer of Johnson, has yielded to repeated solicitations, and executed the very difficult undertaking. [Dr. Johnson’s Monument, consisting of a colossal figure leaning against a column, has since the death of our authour been placed in St. Paul’s Cathedral. The Epitaph was written by the Rev. Dr. Parr, and is as follows:

A

SAMVELI · JOHNSON

GRAMMATICO · ET · CRITICO

SCRIPTORVM · ANGLICORVM · LITTERATE · PERITO

POETAE · LVMINIBVS · SENTENTIARVM

ET · PONDERIBVS · VERBORVM · ADMIRABILI

MAGISTRO · VIRTVTIS · GRAVISSIMO

HOMINI · OPTIMO · ET · SINGVLARIS · EXEMPLI

QVI · VIXIT · ANN · lxxv · MENS · iI. · DIEB · xiiiI

DECESSIT · IDIB · DECEMBR · ANN · CHRIST · cI· · Icc · lxxxiiiI

SEPVLT · IN · AED · SANCT · PETR · WEST MONASTERIENS ·

xiiI · KAL · IANVAR · ANN · CHRIST · cI· · bcc · lxxxv

AMICI · ET · SODALES · LITTERARII

PECVNIA · CONLATA

H · M · FACIVND · CVRAVER.¹²⁹¹

On a scroll in his hand are the following words:

EMLAJAQERRIPOMXMAMSANIOREIGALOIBG.¹²⁹²

On one side of the Monument – FACIEBAT JOHANNES BACON SCVLPTOR ANN. CHRIST. M.DCC.LXXXXV.¹²⁹³

The Subscription for this monument, which cost eleven hundred guineas, was begun by the Literary Club and completed by the aid of Dr. Johnson’s other friends and admirers.]

^b To prevent any misconception on this subject, Mr. Malone, by whom these lines were obligingly communicated, requests me to add the following remark: –

‘In justice to the late Mr. Flood, now himself wanting, and highly meriting, an epitaph from his country, to which his transcendent talents did the highest honour, as well as the most important service; it should be observed that these lines were by no means intended as a regular monumental inscription for Dr. Johnson. Had he undertaken to write an appropriated and discriminative epitaph for that excellent and extraordinary man, those who knew Mr. Flood’s vigour of mind, will have no doubt that he would have produced one worthy of his illustrious subject. But the fact was merely this: In Dec. 1789, after a large subscription had been made for Dr. Johnson’s monument, to which Mr. Flood liberally contributed, Mr. Malone happened to call on him at his house, in Berners-street, and the conversation turning on the proposed monument, Mr. Malone maintained that the epitaph, by whomsoever it should be written, ought to be in Latin. Mr. Flood thought differently. The next morning, in the postscript to a note on another subject, he mentioned that he continued of the same opinion as on the preceding day, and subjoined the lines above given.’

^a As I do not see any reason to give a different character of my illustrious friend now, from what I formerly gave, the greatest part of the sketch of him in my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, is here adopted.

^a In the Olla Podrida,¹²⁹⁶ a collection of Essays published at Oxford, there is an admirable paper upon the character of Johnson, written by the Reverend Dr. Horne, the late excellent Bishop of Norwich. The following passage is eminently happy: ‘To reject wisdom, because the person of him who communicates it is uncouth, and his manners are inelegant; – what is it, but to throw away a pine-apple, and assign for a reason the roughness of its coat?’

^a Though a perfect resemblance of Johnson is not to be found in any age, parts of his character are admirably expressed by Clarendon in drawing that of Lord Falkland, whom the noble and masterly historian describes at his seat near Oxford: – ‘Such an immenseness of wit, such a solidity of judgement, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination. – His acquaintance was cultivated by the most polite and accurate men, so that his house was an University in less volume, whither they came, not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent made current in conversation.’

Bayle’s account of Menage may also be quoted as exceedingly applicable to the great subject of this work: – ‘His illustrious friends erected a very glorious monument to him in the collection entitled Menagiana. Those who judge of things aright, will confess that this collection is very proper to shew the extent of genius and learning which was the character of Menage. And I may be bold to say, that the excellent works he published will not distinguish him from other learned men so advantageously as this. To publish books of great learning, to make Greek and Latin verses exceedingly well turned, is not a common talent, I own; neither is it extremely rare. It is incomparably more difficult to find men who can furnish discourse about an infinite number of things, and who can diversify them an hundred ways. How many authours are there, who are admired for their works, on account of the vast learning that is displayed in them, who are not able to sustain a conversation. Those who know Menage only by his books, might think he resembled those learned men: but if you shew the Menagiana, you distinguish him from them, and make him known by a talent which is given to very few learned men. There it appears that he was a man who spoke off-hand a thousand good things. His memory extended to what was ancient and modern; to the court and to the city; to the dead and to the living languages; to things serious and things jocose; in a word, to a thousand sorts of subjects. That which appeared a trifle to some readers of the Menagiana, who did not consider circumstances, caused admiration in other readers, who minded the difference between what a man speaks without preparation, and that which he prepares for the press. And, therefore, we cannot sufficiently commend the care which his illustrious friends took to erect a monument so capable of giving him immortal glory. They were not obliged to rectify what they had heard him say; for, in so doing, they had not been faithful historians of his conversations.’