Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  ‘I shall have more cancels. That nervous mortal W. G. H. is not satisfied with my report of some particulars which I wrote down from his own mouth, and is so much agitated that Courtenay has persuaded me to allow a new edition of them by H. himself to be made at H.’s expense.’

  (Croker’s Boswell, p. 829). This would seem to show that there was something that Hamilton wished to conceal. Horace Walpole (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iii. 402) does not give him a character for truthfulness. He writes on one occasion:— ‘Hamilton denied it, but his truth was not renowned.’ Miss Burney, who met Hamilton fourteen years after this, thus describes him:— ‘This Mr. Hamilton is extremely tall and handsome; has an air of haughty and fashionable superiority; is intelligent, dry, sarcastic, and clever. I should have received much pleasure from his conversational powers, had I not previously been prejudiced against him, by hearing that he is infinitely artful, double, and crafty.’ (Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary, i. 293).

  * * * * *

  APPENDIX F.

  JOHNSON’S FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE THRALES AND HIS SERIOUS ILLNESS.

  (Page 490.)

  Johnson (Pr. and Med. p. 191) writes:— ‘My first knowledge of Thrale was in 1765.’ In a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he says:— ‘You were but five-and-twenty when I knew you first.’ (Piozzi Letters, i. 284). As she was born on Jan. 16/27, 1741, this would place their introduction in 1766. In another letter, written on July 8, 1784, he talks of her ‘kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.’ (Ib. ii. 376). Perhaps, however, he here spoke in round numbers. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 125) says they first met in 1764. Mr. Thrale, she writes, sought an excuse for inviting him. ‘The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse (post, ii. 127), a shoemaker, whose verses were at that time the subject of common discourse, soon afforded a ‘pretence.’ There is a notice of Woodhouse in the Gent. Mag. for June, 1764 (p. 289). Johnson, she says, dined with them every Thursday through the winter of 1764-5, and in the autumn of 1765 followed them to Brighton. In the Piozzi Letters (i. 1) there is a letter of his, dated Aug. 13, 1765, in which he speaks of his intention to join them there.

  ‘From that time,’ she writes, ‘his visits grew more frequent till, in the year 1766, his health, which he had always complained of, grew so exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of his room in the court he inhabited for many weeks together, I think months. Mr. Thrale’s attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him, that he often lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which, he said, was nearly distracted: and though he charged us to make him odd solemn promises of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when we waited on him one morning, and heard him, in the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers of Dr. Delap [the Rector of Lewes] who had left him as we came in, I felt excessively affected with grief, and well remember my husband involuntarily lifted up one hand to shut his mouth, from provocation at hearing a man so widely proclaim what he could at last persuade no one to believe; and what, if true, would have been so unfit to reveal. Mr. Thrale went away soon after, leaving me with him, and bidding me prevail on him to quit his close habitation in the court, and come with us to Streatham, where I undertook the care of his health, and had the honour and happiness of contributing to its restoration.’

  It is not possible to reconcile the contradiction in dates between Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi, nor is it easy to fix the time of this illness. That before February, 1766, he had had an illness so serious as to lead him altogether to abstain from wine is beyond a doubt. Boswell, on his return to England in that month, heard it from his own lips (post, ii. 8). That this illness must have attacked him after March 1, 1765, when he visited Cambridge, is also clear; for at that time he was still drinking wine (ante, Appendix C). That he was unusually depressed in the spring of this year is shewn by his entry at Easter (ante, p. 487). From his visit to Dr. Percy in the summer of 1764 (ante, p. 486) to the autumn of 1765, we have very little information about him. For more than two years he did not write to Boswell (post, ii. 1). Dr. Adams (ante, p. 483) describes the same kind of attack as Mrs. Piozzi. Its date is not given. Boswell, after quoting an entry made on Johnson’s birthday, Sept. 18, 1764, says ‘about this time he was afflicted’ with the illness Dr. Adams describes. From Mrs. Piozzi, from Johnson’s account to Boswell, and from Dr. Adams we learn of a serious illness. Was there more than one? If there was only one, then Boswell is wrong in placing it before March 1, 1765, when Johnson was still a wine-drinker, and Mrs. Piozzi is wrong in placing it after February, 1766, when he had become an abstainer. Johnson certainly stayed at Streatham from before Midsummer to October in 1766 (post, ii. 25, and Pr. and Med. p. 71), and this fact lends support to Mrs. Piozzi’s statement. But, on the other hand, his meetings with Boswell in February of that year, and his letters to Langton of March 9 and May 10 (post, ii. 16, 17), shew a not unhappy frame of mind. Boswell, in his Hebrides (Oct. 16, 1773), speaks of Johnson’s illness in 1766. If it was in 1766 that he was ill, it must have been after May 10 and before Midsummer-day, and this period is almost too brief for Mrs. Piozzi’s account. It is a curious coincidence that Cowper was introduced to the Unwins in the same year in which Johnson, according to his own account, had his first knowledge of the Thrales. (Southey’s Cowper, i, 171.)

  Volume II. 1765-1776

  THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.

  In 1764 and 1765 it should seem that Dr. Johnson was so busily employed with his edition of Shakspeare, as to have had little leisure for any other literary exertion, or, indeed, even for private correspondence. He did not favour me with a single letter for more than two years, for which it will appear that he afterwards apologised.

  He was, however, at all times ready to give assistance to his friends, and others, in revising their works, and in writing for them, or greatly improving their Dedications. In that courtly species of composition no man excelled Dr. Johnson. Though the loftiness of his mind prevented him from ever dedicating in his own person, he wrote a very great number of Dedications for others. Some of these, the persons who were favoured with them are unwilling should be mentioned, from a too anxious apprehension, as I think, that they might be suspected of having received larger assistance; and some, after all the diligence I have bestowed, have escaped my enquiries. He told me, a great many years ago, ‘he believed he had dedicated to all the Royal Family round;’ and it was indifferent to him what was the subject of the work dedicated, provided it were innocent. He once dedicated some Musick for the German Flute to Edward, Duke of York. In writing Dedications for others, he considered himself as by no means speaking his own sentiments.

  Notwithstanding his long silence, I never omitted to write to him when I had any thing worthy of communicating. I generally kept copies of my letters to him, that I might have a full view of our correspondence, and never be at a loss to understand any reference in his letters. He kept the greater part of mine very carefully; and a short time before his death was attentive enough to seal them up in bundles, and order them to be delivered to me, which was accordingly done. Amongst them I found one, of which I had not made a copy, and which I own I read with pleasure at the distance of almost twenty years. It is dated November, 1765, at the palace of Pascal Paoli, in Corte, the capital of Corsica, and is full of generous enthusiasm. After giving a sketch of what I had seen and heard in that island, it proceeded thus: ‘I dare to call this a spirited tour. I dare, to challenge your approbation.’

  This letter produced the following answer, which I found on my arrival at Paris.

  A Mr. Mr. BOSWELL, chez Mr. WATERS, Banquier, à Paris.

  ‘DEAR SIR,

  ‘Apologies are seldom of any use. We will delay till your arrival the reasons, good or bad, which have made me such a sparing and ungrateful correspondent. Be assured, for the present, that nothing has lessened either the esteem or love with which I dismissed you at Harwich. Both have been increased by all that I have been told of you by yourself or others; and when you return, you will return to an unaltered, and, I hope
, unalterable friend.

  ‘All that you have to fear from me is the vexation of disappointing me. No man loves to frustrate expectations which have been formed in his favour; and the pleasure which I promise myself from your journals and remarks is so great, that perhaps no degree of attention or discernment will be sufficient to afford it.

  ‘Come home, however, and take your chance. I long to see you, and to hear you; and hope that we shall not be so long separated again. Come home, and expect such a welcome as is due to him whom a wise and noble curiosity has led, where perhaps no native of this country ever was before.

  ‘I have no news to tell you that can deserve your notice; nor would I willingly lessen the pleasure that any novelty may give you at your return. I am afraid we shall find it difficult to keep among us a mind which has been so long feasted with variety. But let us try what esteem and kindness can effect.

  ‘As your father’s liberality has indulged you with so long a ramble, I doubt not but you will think his sickness, or even his desire to see you, a sufficient reason for hastening your return. The longer we live, and the more we think, the higher value we learn to put on the friendship and tenderness of parents and of friends. Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much, who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends. Upon some motive, I hope, that you will be here soon; and am willing to think that it will be an inducement to your return, that it is sincerely desired by, dear Sir,

  ‘Your affectionate humble servant,

  ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’

  ‘Johnson’s Court, Fleet-street,

  January 14, 1766.’

  I returned to London in February, and found Dr. Johnson in a good house in Johnson’s Court, Fleet-street, in which he had accommodated Miss Williams with an apartment on the ground floor, while Mr. Levett occupied his post in the garret: his faithful Francis was still attending upon him. He received me with much kindness. The fragments of our first conversation, which I have preserved, are these: I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had distinguished Pope and Dryden thus:— ‘Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of neat trim nags; Dryden a coach, and six stately horses.’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but Dryden’s horses are either galloping or stumbling: Pope’s go at a steady even trot.’ He said of Goldsmith’s Traveller, which had been published in my absence, ‘There has not been so fine a poem since Pope’s time.’

  And here it is proper to settle, with authentick precision, what has long floated in publick report, as to Johnson’s being himself the authour of a considerable part of that poem. Much, no doubt, both of the sentiments and expression, were derived from conversation with him; and it was certainly submitted to his friendly revision: but in the year 1783, he, at my request, marked with a pencil the lines which he had furnished, which are only line 420th,

  ‘To stop too fearful, and too faint to go;’

  and the concluding ten lines, except the last couplet but one, which I distinguish by the Italick character:

  ‘How small of all that human hearts endure,

  That part which kings or laws can cause or cure.

  Still to ourselves in every place consign’d,

  Our own felicity we make or find;

  With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,

  Glides the smooth current of domestick joy:

  The lifted axe, the agonizing wheel,

  Luke’s iron crown, and Damien’s bed of steel,

  To men remote from power, but rarely known,

  Leave reason, faith, and conscience, all our own.’

  He added, ‘These are all of which I can be sure.’ They bear a small proportion to the whole, which consists of four hundred and thirty-eight verses. Goldsmith, in the couplet which he inserted, mentions Luke as a person well known, and superficial readers have passed it over quite smoothly; while those of more attention have been as much perplexed by Luke, as by Lydiat, in The Vanity of Human Wishes. The truth is, that Goldsmith himself was in a mistake. In the Respublica Hungarian, there is an account of a desperate rebellion in the year 1514, headed by two brothers, of the name of Zeck, George and Luke. When it was quelled, George, not Luke, was punished by his head being encircled with a red-hot iron crown: ‘coronâ candescente ferreâ coronatur.’ The same severity of torture was exercised on the Earl of Athol, one of the murderers of King James I. of Scotland.

  Dr. Johnson at the same time favoured me by marking the lines which he furnished to Goldsmith’s Deserted Village, which are only the last four:

  ‘That trade’s proud empire hastes to swift decay,

  As ocean sweeps the labour’d mole away:

  While self-dependent power can time defy,

  As rocks resist the billows and the sky.’

  Talking of education, ‘People have now a days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures. — You might teach making of shoes by lectures!’

  At night I supped with him at the Mitre tavern, that we might renew our social intimacy at the original place of meeting. But there was now a considerable difference in his way of living. Having had an illness, in which he was advised to leave off wine, he had, from that period, continued to abstain from it, and drank only water, or lemonade.

  I told him that a foreign friend of his, whom I had met with abroad, was so wretchedly perverted to infidelity, that he treated the hopes of immortality with brutal levity; and said, ‘As man dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog.’ JOHNSON. ‘If he dies like a dog, let him lie like a dog.’ I added, that this man said to me, ‘I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, he must be very singular in his opinion, if he thinks himself one of the best of men; for none of his friends think him so.’ — He said, ‘no honest man could be a Deist; for no man could be so after a fair examination of the proofs of Christianity.’ I named Hume. JOHNSON. ‘No, Sir; Hume owned to a clergyman in the bishoprick of Durham, that he had never read the New Testament with attention.’ I mentioned Hume’s notion, that all who are happy are equally happy; a little miss with a new gown at a dancing school ball, a general at the head of a victorious army, and an orator, after having made an eloquent speech in a great assembly. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.’ I remember this very question very happily illustrated in opposition to Hume, by the Reverend Mr. Robert Brown, at Utrecht. ‘A small drinking-glass and a large one, (said he,) may be equally full; but the large one holds more than the small.’

  Dr. Johnson was very kind this evening, and said to me, ‘You have now lived five-and-twenty years, and you have employed them well.’ ‘Alas, Sir, (said I,) I fear not. Do I know history? Do I know mathematicks? Do I know law?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, though you may know no science so well as to be able to teach it, and no profession so well as to be able to follow it, your general mass of knowledge of books and men renders you very capable to make yourself master of any science, or fit yourself for any profession.’ I mentioned that a gay friend had advised me against being a lawyer, because I should be excelled by plodding block-heads. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, in the formulary and statutory part of law, a plodding block-head may excel; but in the ingenious and rational part of it a plodding block-head can never excel.’

  I talked of the mode adopted by some to rise in the world, by courting great men, and asked him whether he had ever submitted to it. JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, I never was near enough to great men, to court them. You may be prudently attached to great men and yet independent.
You are not to do what you think wrong; and, Sir, you are to calculate, and not pay too dear for what you get. You must not give a shilling’s worth of court for six-pence worth of good. But if you can get a shilling’s worth of good for six-pence worth of court, you are a fool if you do not pay court.’

  He said, ‘If convents should be allowed at all, they should only be retreats for persons unable to serve the publick, or who have served it. It is our first duty to serve society, and, after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls. A youthful passion for abstracted devotion should not be encouraged.’

  I introduced the subject of second sight, and other mysterious manifestations; the fulfilment of which, I suggested, might happen by chance. JOHNSON. ‘Yes, Sir; but they have happened so often, that mankind have agreed to think them not fortuitous.’

  I talked to him a great deal of what I had seen in Corsica, and of my intention to publish an account of it. He encouraged me by saying, ‘You cannot go to the bottom of the subject; but all that you tell us will be new to us. Give us as many anecdotes as you can.’

  Our next meeting at the Mitre was on Saturday the 15th of February, when I presented to him my old and most intimate friend, the Reverend Mr. Temple, then of Cambridge. I having mentioned that I had passed some time with Rousseau in his wild retreat, and having quoted some remark made by Mr. Wilkes, with whom I had spent many pleasant hours in Italy, Johnson said (sarcastically,) ‘It seems, Sir, you have kept very good company abroad, Rousseau and Wilkes!’ Thinking it enough to defend one at a time, I said nothing as to my gay friend, but answered with a smile, ‘My dear Sir, you don’t call Rousseau bad company. Do you really think him a bad man?’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don’t talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him; and it is a shame that he is protected in this country.’ BOSWELL. ‘I don’t deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad.’ JOHNSON. ‘Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man’s intention to be bad. You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged. An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.’ BOSWELL. ‘Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?’ JOHNSON. ‘Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.’