Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  Of how far earth may rival heaven.’

  Parleyings with certain People of Importance in their Day (pp. 80-82), London, 1887.

  Johnsons discussion on baptism — with Mr. Lloyd, the Birmingham Quaker.

  (Vol. ii, p. 458.)

  In Farm and its Inhabitants (ante, p. xlii), a further account is given of the controversy between Johnson and Mr. Lloyd the Quaker, on the subject of Barclay’s Apology.

  ‘Tradition states that, losing his temper, Dr. Johnson threw the volume

  on the floor, and put his foot on it, in denunciation of its statements.

  The identical volume is now in the possession of G. B. Lloyd, of Edgbaston

  Grove.

  ‘At the dinner table he continued the debate in such angry tones, and struck the table so violently that the children were frightened, and desired to escape.

  ‘The next morning Dr. Johnson went to the bank [Mr. Lloyd was a banker] and by way of apology called out in his stentorian voice, “I say, Lloyd, I’m the best theologian, but you are the best Christian.’” p. 41. It could not have been ‘the next morning’ that Johnson went to the bank, for he left for Lichfield on the evening of the day of the controversy (ante, ii. 461). He must have gone in the afternoon, while Boswell was away seeing Mr. Boulton’s great works at Soho (ib. p. 459).

  Mr. G. B. Lloyd, the great-grandson of Johnson’s host, in a letter written this summer (1886), says: ‘Having spent much of my boyhood with my grandfather in the old house, I have heard him tell the story of the stamping on the broad volume.’

  Boswell mentions (ib. p. 457) that ‘Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd, like their Majesties, had been blessed with a numerous family of fine children, their numbers being exactly the same.’ The author of Farm and its Inhabitants says (p. 46): ‘There is a tradition that when Sampson Lloyd’s wife used to feel depressed by the care of such a large family (they had sixteen children) he would say to her, “Never mind, the twentieth will be the most welcome.”’ His fifteenth child Catharine married Dr. George Birkbeck, the founder of the Mechanics’ Institutes (ib. p. 48).

  A story told (p. 50) of one of Mr. Lloyd’s sons-in-law, Joseph Biddle, is an instance of that excess of forgetfulness which Johnson called ‘morbid oblivion’ (ante, v. 68). ‘He went to pay a call in Leamington. The servant asked him for his name, he could not remember it; in perplexity he went away, when a friend in the street met him and accosted him, “How do you do, Mr. Biddle?” “Oh, Biddle, Biddle, Biddle, that’s the name,” cried he, and rushed off to pay his call.’

  The editor is in error in stating (p. 45, n. 1) that a very poor poem entitled A bone for Friend Mary to pick, is by Johnson. It may be found in the Gent. Mag. for 1791, p. 948.

  Lichfield in 1783.

  (Vol. ii, p. 461.)

  C. P. Moritz, a young Prussian clergyman who published an account of a pedestrian tour that he made in England in the year 1782, thus describes Lichfield as he saw it on a day in June: —

  ‘At noon I got to Lichfield, an old-fashioned town with narrow dirty streets, where for the first time I saw round panes of glass in the windows. The place to me wore an unfriendly appearance; I therefore made no use of my recommendation, but went straight through and only bought some bread at a baker’s, which I took along with me.’ — Travels in England in 1782, p. 140, by C. P. Moritz. Cassell’s National Library, 1886.

  The ‘recommendation’ was an introduction to an inn given him by the daughter of his landlord at Sutton, who told him ‘that the people in Lichfield were, in general, very proud.’ Travelling as he did, on foot and without luggage, he was looked upon with suspicion at the inns, and often rudely refused lodging.

  Richard Baxter’s doubt.

  (Vol. ii, p. 477.)

  The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies [See ante, p. xlix. 1] informs me that there can be no doubt that Johnson referred to the following passage in Reliquiae Baxterianae, folio edition of 1696, p. 127: —

  ‘This is another thing which I am changed in; that whereas in my younger days I was never tempted to doubt of the Truth of Scripture or Christianity, but all my Doubts and Fears were exercised at home, about my own Sincerity and Interest in Christ — since then my sorest assaults have been on the other side, and such they were, that had I been void of internal Experience, and the adhesion of Love, and the special help of God, and had not discerned more Reason for my Religion than I did when I was younger, I had certainly apostatized to Infidelity,’ &c.

  Johnson, the day after he recorded his ‘doubt,’ wrote that he was ‘troubled with Baxter’s scruple’ (ante, ii. 477). The ‘scruple’ was, perhaps, the same as the ‘doubt.’ In his Dictionary he defines scruple as doubt; difficulty of determination; perplexity; generally about minute things.

  Oxford in 1782.

  (Vol. iii, p. 13, n. 3.)

  The Rev. C. P. Moritz (ante, p. liv) gives a curious account of his visit to Oxford. On his way from Dorchester on the evening of a Sunday in June, he had been overtaken by the Rev. Mr. Maud, who seems to have been a Fellow and Tutor of Corpus College, and who was returning from doing duty in his curacy. It was late when they arrived in the town. Moritz, who, as I have said, more than once had found great difficulty in getting a bed, had made up his mind to pass the summer night on a stonebench in the High Street. His comrade would not hear of this, but said that he would take him to an ale-house where ‘it is possible they mayn’t be gone to bed, and we may yet find company.’ This ale-house was the Mitre.

  ‘We went on a few houses further, and then knocked at a door. It was then nearly twelve. They readily let us in; but how great was my astonishment when, on being shown into a room on the left, I saw a great number of clergymen, all with their gowns and bands on, sitting round a large table, each with his pot of beer before him. My travelling companion introduced me to them as a German clergyman, whom he could not sufficiently praise for my correct pronunciation of the Latin, my orthodoxy, and my good walking.

  ‘I now saw myself in a moment, as it were, all at once transported into the midst of a company, all apparently very respectable men, but all strangers to me. And it appeared to me extraordinary that I should thus at midnight be in Oxford, in a large company of Oxonian clergy, without well knowing how I had got there. Meanwhile, however, I took all the pains in my power to recommend myself to my company, and in the course of conversation I gave them as good an account as I could of our German universities, neither denying nor concealing that now and then we had riots and disturbances. “Oh, we are very unruly here, too,” said one of the clergymen, as he took a hearty draught out of his pot of beer, and knocked on the table with his hand. The conversation now became louder, more general, and a little confused. … At last, when morning drew near, Mr. Maud suddenly exclaimed, “D-n me, I must read prayers this morning at All Souls!” “D-n me” is an abbreviation of “G-d d-n me,” which in England does not seem to mean more mischief or harm than any of our or their common expletives in conversation, such as “O gemini!” or “The deuce take me!” … I am almost ashamed to own, that next morning, when I awoke, I had got so dreadful a headache from the copious and numerous toasts of my jolly and reverend friends that I could not possibly get up. — Travels in England in 1782, by C. P. Moritz, p. 123.

  Dr. Lettsom.

  (Vol. in, p. 68.)

  Boswell in an Ode to Mr. Charles Dilly, published in the Gent. Mag. for 1791, p. 367, says that Dr. Lettsom ‘Refutes pert Priestley’s nonsense.’

  William Vachell.

  (Vol. iii, p. 83, n. 3.)

  Mr. George Parker of the Bodleian Library informs me that William Vachell had been tutor to Prince Esterhazy, and that for many years he held the appointment of ‘Pumper,’ or Lessee of the baths at Bath. In 1776 and 1777 he paid as rental for them to the Corporation £525. He died on November 26, 1789. According to Mr. Ivor Vachell (Notes and Queries, 6th S. vii. 327), it was his eldest son who signed the Round Robin.

  Johnson and Baretti.

  (Vol. iii, p. 96, n. 1.)
<
br />   Baretti in his Tolondron, p. 145, gives an account of a difference between himself and Johnson. Johnson sent to ask him to call on him, but Baretti was leaving town. When he returned the time for a reconciliation had passed, for Johnson was dead.

  English pulpit eloquence.

  (Vol. iii, p. 248.)

  ‘Upon the whole, which is preferable, the philosophic method of the English, or the rhetoric of the French preachers? The first (though less glorious) is certainly safer for the preacher. It is difficult for a man to make himself ridiculous, who proposes only to deliver plain sense on a subject he has thoroughly studied. But the instant he discovers the least pretensions towards the sublime or the pathetic, there is no medium; we must either admire or laugh; and there are so many various talents requisite to form the character of an orator that it is more than probable we shall laugh.’ — Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, ed. 1827, i. 118.

  Bishop Percy’s communications to Boswell relative to Johnson.

  (Vol. iii, p. 278, n. 1.)

  ‘JAMES BOSWELL TO BISHOP PERCY.

  “9 April, 1790.

  “As to suppressing your Lordship’s name when relating the very few anecdotes of Johnson with which you have favoured me, I will do anything to oblige your Lordship but that very thing. I owe to the authenticity of my work, to its respectability, and to the credit of my illustrious friends [? friend] to introduce as many names of eminent persons as I can… Believe me, my Lord, you are not the only bishop in the number of great men with which my pages are graced. I am quite resolute as to this matter.” ‘ — Nichols’s Literary History, vii. 313.

  Sir Thomas Brown’s remark ‘Do the devils lie? No; for then Hell could not subsist.’

  (Vol. iii, p. 293.)

  This remark, whether it is Brown’s or not, may have been suggested by Milton’s lines in Paradise Lost, ii. 496-9, or might have suggested them: —

  ’O shame to men! devil with devil damn’d

  Firm concord holds, men only disagree

  Of creatures rational.’

  Johnson on the advantages of having a profession or business.

  (Vol. iii, p. 309, n. 1.)

  ‘Dr. Johnson was of opinion that the happiest as well as the most virtuous persons were to be found amongst those who united with a business or profession a love of literature.’ — Seward’s Biographiana, p. 599.

  Johnson’s trips to the country.

  (Vol. iii, p. 453.)

  I have omitted to mention Johnson’s visit to ‘Squire Dilly’s mansion at Southill in June, 1781 (ante, iv. 118-132).

  Citations of living authors in Johnson’s Dictionary.

  (Vol. iv, p. 4, n. 3.)

  Johnson cites Irene under impostures, and Lord Lyttelton under twist.

  Dr. Parrs evening with Dr. Johnson. (Vol. iv, p. 15.)

  The Rev. John Rigaud, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, has kindly sent me the following anecdote of the meeting of Johnson and Parr: —

  ‘I remember Dr. Routh, the old President of Magdalen, telling me of an interview and conversation between Dr. Johnson and Dr. Parr, in the course of which the former made use of some expression respecting the latter, which considerably wounded and offended him. “Sir,” he said to Dr. Johnson, “you know that what you have just said will be known in four-and-twenty hours over this vast metropolis.” Upon which Dr. Johnson’s manner altered, his eye became calm, and he put out his hand, and said, “Forgive me, Parr, I didn’t quite mean it.” “But,” said the President, with an amused and amusing look, “I never could get him to tell me what it was Dr. Johnson had said!” He spoke of seeing Dr. Johnson going up the steps into University College, dressed, I think, in a snuff-coloured coat.’

  Dr. Martin Joseph Routh, who was President of Magdalen College for sixty-four years, was born in 1755 and died on December 22, 1854.

  ‘Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.’

  (Vol. iv, p. 181, n. 3.)

  Malone’s note on The Rape of Lucrece must have been, not as I conjectured on line 1111, but on lines 1581-2: —

  ’It easeth some, though none it ever cured,

  To think their dolour others have endured.’

  With these lines may be compared Satan’s speech in Paradise Regained,

  Book i, lines 399-402: —

  ’Long since with woe

  Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof,

  That fellowship in pain divides not smart,

  Nor lightens aught each man’s peculiar load.’

  Richard Baxter’s rule of preaching.

  (Vol. iv, p. 185.)

  The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies [See ante, p. xlix.] has furnished me with the following extract from Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. 1696, p. 93, in illustration of Johnson’s statement: —

  ‘And yet I did usually put in something in my Sermon which was above their own discovery, and which they had not known before; and this I did, that they might be kept humble, and still perceive their ignorance, and be willing to keep in a learning state. (For when Preachers tell their People of no more than they know, and do not shew that they excel them in knowledge, and easily overtop them in Abilities, the People will be tempted to turn Preachers themselves, and think that they have learnt all that the Ministers can teach them, and are as wise as they —— — ). And this I did also to increase their knowledge; and also to make Religion pleasant to them, by a daily addition to their former Sight, and to draw them on with desire and Delight.’

  Opposition to Sir Joshua Reynolds in the Royal Academy.

  (Vol. iv, p. 219, n. 4.)

  ‘JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ., TO BISHOP PERCY. ‘12 March, 1790.

  ‘Sir Joshua has been shamefully used by a junto of the Academicians.

  I live a great deal with him, and he is much better than you would

  suppose.’

  — Nichols’s Literary History, vii. 313.

  Richard Baxter on the possible salvation of a Suicide. (Vol. iv, p. 225.)

  The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies writes to me that ‘Dr. Johnson’s quotation about suicide must surely be wrong. I have no recollection in any of Baxter’s Works of such a statement, and it is in direct contradiction to all that is known of his sentiments. ‘Mr. Davies sends me the following passage, which possibly Johnson might have very imperfectly remembered: —

  ‘The commonest cause [of suicide] is melancholy, &c. Though there be much more hope of the salvation of such as want the use of their understandings, because so far it may be called involuntary, yet it is a very dreadful case, especially so far as reason remaineth in any power.’ — Baxter’s Christian Directory, edited by Orme, part iv, p. 138.

  Haslitt’s report of Baxter’s Sermon.

  (Vol. iv, p. 226, n. 2.)

  The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies tells me that he ‘entirely disbelieves that Baxter said, “Hell was paved with infants’ skulls.” The same thing, or something very like it, has been said of Calvin, but I could never,’ Mr. Davies continues, ‘find it in his Works.’ He kindly sends me the following extract from Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. 1696, p. 24: —

  ‘Once all the ignorant Rout were raging mad against me for preaching the Doctrine of Original Sin to them, and telling them that Infants before Regeneration had so much Guilt and Corruption, as made them loathsome in the Eyes of God: whereupon they vented it abroad in the Country, That I preached that God hated, or loathed Infants; so that they railed at me as I passed through the streets. The next Lord’s Day, I cleared and confirmed it, and shewed them that if this were not true, their Infants had no need of Christ, of Baptism, or of Renewing by the Holy Ghost. And I asked them whether they durst say that their Children were saved without a Saviour, and were no Christians, and why they baptized them, with much more to that purpose, and afterwards they were ashamed and as mute as fishes.’

  Johnson on an actor’s transformation.

  (Vol. iv, p. 244.)

  Boswell in his Remarks on the Profession of a Player (Essay ii), first printed in the London Magazine for 1770, s
ays: —

  ‘I remember to have heard the most illustrious authour of this age say: “If, Sir, Garrick believes himself to be every character that he represents he is a madman, and ought to be confined. Nay, Sir, he is a villain, and ought to be hanged. If, for instance, he believes himself to be Macbeth he has committed murder, he is a vile assassin who, in violation of the laws of hospitality as well as of other principles, has imbrued his hands in the blood of his King while he was sleeping under his roof. If, Sir, he has really been that person in his own mind, he has in his own mind been as guilty as Macbeth.” ‘ — Nichols’s Literary History, ed. 1848, vii. 373.

  Sir John Flayer ‘On the Asthma.’

  (Vol. iv, p. 353.)

  Johnson, writing from Ashbourne to Dr. Brocklesby on July 20, 1784, says: ‘I am now looking into Floyer who lived with his asthma to almost his ninetieth year.’ Mr. Samuel Timmins, the author of Dr. Johnson in Birmingham, informs me that he and two friends of his lately found in Lichfield a Lending Book of the Cathedral Library. Among the entries for 1784 was: ‘Sir John Floyer on the Asthma, lent to Dr. Johnson.’ Johnson, no doubt, had taken the book with him to Ashbourne.

  Mr. Timmins says that the entries in this Lending Book unfortunately do not begin till about 1760 (or later). ‘If,’ he adds, ‘the earlier Lending Book could be found, it would form a valuable clue to books which Johnson may have borrowed in his youth and early manhood.’

  Boswell’s expectations from Burke.

  (Vol. iv, p. 223, n. 2; and p. 258, n. 2.)

  Boswell, in May 1783, mentioned to Johnson his ‘expectations from the interest of an eminent person then in power.’ The two following extracts from letters written by him show what some of these expectations had been.

  ‘JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. TO JAMES ABERCROMBIE, ESQ., of Philadelphia.

  ‘July 28,1793.

  ‘I have a great wish to see America; and I once flattered myself that

  I should be sent thither in a station of some importance.’

  Nichols’s Literary History, vii. 317.

  Boswell had written to Burke on March 3, 1778: ‘Most heartily do I rejoice that our present ministers have at last yielded to conciliation (ante, iii. 221). For amidst all the sanguinary zeal of my countrymen, I have professed myself a friend to our fellow-subjects in America, so far as they claim an exemption from being taxed by the representatives of the King’s British subjects. I do not perfectly agree with you; for I deny the declaratory act, and I am a warm Tory in its true constitutional sense. I wish I were a commissioner, or one of the secretaries of the commission for the grand treaty. I am to be in London this spring, and if his Majesty should ask me what I would choose, my answer will be to assist at the compact between Britain and America.’ — Burke’s Correspondence, ii. 209.