The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  a [In the Gent. Mag. for February, 1794 (p. 100) was printed a letter pretending to be that written by Johnson on the death of his wife. But it is merely a transcript of the 41st number of The Idler. A fictitious date (March 17, 1751, O.S.) was added by some person previous to this paper being sent to the publisher of that miscellany, to give a colour to this deception.]

  b Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and was brought to England in 1750 by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson’s very intimate friend, Dr. Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jackson’s school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him his freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into Johnson’s service, in which he continued from 1752 till Johnson’s death, with the exception of two intervals; in one of which, upon some difference with his master, he went and served an apothecary in Cheapside, but still visited Dr. Johnson occasionally; in another, he took a fancy to go to sea. Part of the time, indeed, he was, by the kindness of his master, at a school in North amptonshire, that he might have the advantage of some learning. So early and so lasting a connection was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend.

  a Pr. and Med. p. 19.

  b Hawkins’s Life of Johnson, p. 316.

  c Pr. and Med. p. 20.

  a Dr. Bathurst, though a Physician of no inconsiderable merit, had not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was, therefore, willing to accept of employment abroad, and, to the regret of all who knew him, fell a sacrifice to the destructive climate, in the expedition against the Havannah.98 Mr. Langton recollects the following passage in a letter from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Beauclerk: ‘The Havannah is taken; – a conquest too dearly obtained; for, Bathurst died before it. “Vix Priamus tanti totaque Troja fuit.” ‘99

  a Mr. Langton has recollected, or Dr. Johnson repeated, the passage wrong. The lines are in Lord Lansdowne’s Drinking Song to Sleep, and run thus: –

  ‘Short, very short be then thy reign,

  For I’m in haste to laugh and drink again.’

  a Dr. Johnson appeared to have had a remarkable delicacy with respect to the circulation of this letter; for Dr. Douglas, Bishop of Salisbury, informs me that, having many years ago pressed him to be allowed to read it to the second Lord Hardwicke, who was very desirous to hear it (promising at the same time, that no copy of it should be taken), Johnson seemed much pleased that it had attracted the attention of a nobleman of such a respectable character; but after pausing some time, declined to comply with the request, saying, with a smile, ‘No, Sir; I have hurt the dog too much already;’ or words to that purpose.

  a The following note is subjoined by Mr. Langton: – ‘Dr. Johnson, when he gave me this copy of his letter, desired that I would annex to it his information to me, that whereas it is said in the letter that “no assistance has been received,” he did once receive from Lord Chesterfield the sum of ten pounds; but as that was so inconsiderable a sum, he thought the mention of it could not properly find place in a letter of the kind that this was.’

  b In this passage Dr. Johnson evidently alludes to the loss of his wife. We find the same tender recollection recurring to his mind upon innumerable occasions; and, perhaps no man ever more forcibly felt the truth of the sentiment so elegantly expressed by my friend Mr. Malone, in his Prologue to Mr. Jephson’s tragedy of Julia: – ‘Vain – wealth, and fame, and fortune’s fostering care, / If no fond breast the splendid blessings share; / And, each day’s bustling pageantry once past, / There, only there, our bliss is found at last.’

  a Upon comparing this copy with that which Dr. Johnson dictated to me from recollection, the variations are found to be so slight, that this must be added to the many other proofs which he gave of the wonderful extent and accuracy of his memory. To gratify the curious in composition, I have deposited both the copies in the British Museum.

  b Soon after Edwards’s Canons of Criticism came out, Johnson was dining at Tonson the Bookseller’s, with Hayman the Painter and some more company. Hayman related to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that the conversation having turned upon Edwards’s book, the gentlemen praised it much, and Johnson allowed its merit. But when they went farther, and appeared to put that authour upon a level with Warburton, ‘Nay, (said Johnson,) he has given him some smart hits to be sure; but there is no proportion between the two men; they must not be named together. A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.’

  a That collection of letters cannot be vindicated from the serious charge of encouraging, in some passages, one of the vices most destructive to the good order and comfort of society,109 which his Lordship represents as mere fashionable gallantry; and, in others, of inculcating the base practice of dissimulation, and recommending, with dispro portionate anxiety, a perpetual attention to external elegance of manners. But it must, at the same time, be allowed, that they contain many good precepts of conduct, and much genuine information upon life and manners, very happily expressed; and that there was considerable merit in paying so much attention to the improvement of one who was dependent upon his Lordship’s protection; it has probably been exceeded in no instance by the most exemplary parent; and though I can by no means approve of confounding the distinction between lawful and illicit offspring, which is, in effect, insulting the civil establishment of our country, to look no higher; I cannot help thinking it laudable to be kindly attentive to those, of whose existence we have, in any way, been the cause. Mr. Stanhope’s character has been unjustly represented as diametrically opposite to what Lord Chesterfield wished him to be. He has been called dull, gross, and aukward; but I knew him at Dresden, when he was envoy to that court; and though he could not boast of the graces, he was, in truth, a sensible, civil, well-behaved man.

  a Now one of his Majesty’s principal Secretaries of State.

  a Communicated by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton, who had the original.

  a ‘I presume she was a relation of Mr. Zachariah Williams, who died in his eighty-third year, July 12, 1755. When Dr. Johnson was with me at Oxford, in 1775, he gave to the Bodleian Library a thin quarto of twenty-one pages, a work in Italian, with an English translation on the opposite page. The English title-page is this: “An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact Variation of the Magnetical Needle, &c. By Zachariah Williams. London, printed for Dodsley, 1755.” The English translation, from the strongest internal marks, is unquestionably the work of Johnson. In a blank leaf, Johnson has written the age, and time of death, of the authour Z. Williams, as I have said above. On another blank leaf, is pasted a paragraph from a newspaper, of the death and character of Williams, which is plainly written by Johnson. He was very anxious about placing this book in the Bodleian: and, for fear of any omission or mistake, he entered, in the great Catalogue, the title-page of it with his own hand.’ Warton. [In this statement there is a slight mistake. The English account, which was written by Johnson, was the original; the Italian was a translation, done by Baretti. See post, end of 1755.]

  b ‘In procuring him the degree of Master of Arts by diploma at Oxford.’ Warton.

  a ‘Lately fellow of Trinity College, and at this time Radclivian librarian, at Oxford. He was a man of very considerable learning, and eminently skilled in Roman and Anglo-Saxon antiquities. He died in 1767.’ Warton.

  b ‘Collins (the poet) was at this time at Oxford, on a visit to Mr. Warton; but labouring under the most deplorable languor of body, and dejection of mind.’ Warton.

  c ‘Of publishing a volume of observations on the rest of Spenser’s works. It was hindered by my taking pupils in this College.’ Warton.

  d ‘Young students of the lowest rank at Oxford are so called.’ Warton.

  e ‘His Dictionary.’Warton.

  f ‘Of the degree at Oxford.’Warton.

  a ‘His degree had now past, according to the usual form, the suffrages of the heads of Colleges; but was not yet finally granted by the Univers
ity. It was carried without a single dissentient voice.’ Warton.

  b ‘On Spenser.’ Warton.

  a ‘Of the degree.’ Warton.

  b ‘Principal of St. Mary Hall at Oxford. He brought with him the diploma from Oxford.’ WARTON.

  c ‘I suppose Johnson means that my kind intention of being the first to give him the good news of the degree being granted was frustrated, because Dr. King brought it before my intelligence arrived.’ WARTON.

  d ‘Dr. Huddesford, President of Trinity College.’ WARTON.

  e Extracted from the Convocation-Register, Oxford.

  a We may conceive what a high gratification it must have been to Johnson to receive his diploma from the hands of the great Dr. King, whose principles were so congenial with his own.

  b The original is in my possession.

  c ‘The words in Italicks are allusions to passages in Mr. Warton’s poem, called The Progress of Discontent, now lately published.’ Warton.

  a Sir John Hawkins, p. 341, inserts two notes as having passed formally between Andrew Millar and Johnson, to the above effect. I am assured this was not the case. In the way of incidental remark it was a pleasant play of raillery. To have deliberately written notes in such terms would have been morose.

  b His Dictionary.

  a ‘A translation of Apollonius Rhodius was now intended by Mr. Warton.’ Warton.

  b [Kettel Hall is an ancient tenement built about the year 1615 by Dr. Ralph Kettel, President of Trinity College, for the accommodation of commoners of that Society. It adjoins the College; and was a few years ago converted into a private house.]

  c ‘At Ellsfield, a village three miles from Oxford.’ Warton.

  d ‘Booksellers concerned in his Dictionary.’ Warton.

  a He thus defines Excise: ‘A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom Excise is paid.’ The Commissioners of Excise being offended by this severe reflection, consulted Mr. Murray, then Attorney General, to know whether redress could be legally obtained. I wished to have procured for my readers a copy of the opinion which he gave, and which may now be justly considered as history; but the mysterious secrecy of office, it seems, would not permit it. I am, however, informed, by very good authority, that its import was, that the passage might be considered as actionable; but that it would be more prudent in the board not to prosecute. Johnson never made the smallest alteration in this passage. We find he still retained his early prejudice against Excise; for in The Idler, No. 65, there is the following very extraordinary paragraph: ‘The authenticity of Clarendon’s history, though printed with the sanction of one of the first Universities of the world, had not an unexpected manuscript been happily discovered, would, with the help of factious credulity, have been brought into question by the two lowest of all human beings, a Scribbler for a party, and a Commissioner of Excise.’ – The persons to whom he alludes were Mr. John Oldmixon, and George Ducket, Esq.

  a In the third {fourth} edition, published in 1773, he left out the words perhaps never, and added the following paragraph: –

  ‘It sometimes begins middle or final syllables in words compounded, as block-head, or derived from the Latin, as compre-hended.’

  b The number of the French Academy employed in settling their language.

  a See note by Mr. Warton, ante, p. 149.

  b ‘On Saturday the 12th, about twelve at night, died Mr. Zachariah Williams, in his eighty-third year, after an illness of eight months, in full possession of his mental faculties. He has been long known to philosophers and seamen for his skill in magnetism, and his proposal to ascertain the longitude by a peculiar system of the variation of the compass. He was a man of industry indefatigable, of conversation inoffensive, patient of adversity and disease, eminently sober, temperate, and pious; and worthy to have ended life with better fortune.’

  a Prayers and Meditations p. 40 {p. 25}.

  b Ib., p. 27.

  a Some time after Dr. Johnson’s death there appeared in the newspapers and magazines an illiberal and petulant attack upon him, in the form of an Epitaph, under the name of Mr. Soame Jenyns, very unworthy of that gentleman, who had quietly submitted to the critical lash while Johnson lived. It assumed, as characteristicks of him, all the vulgar circumstances of abuse which had circulated amongst the ignorant. It was an unbecoming indulgence of puny resentment, at a time when he himself was at a very advanced age, and had a near prospect of descending to the grave. I was truly sorry for it; for he was then become an avowed, and (as my Lord Bishop of London, who had a serious conversation with him on the subject, assures me) a sincere Christian. He could not expect that Johnson’s numerous friends would patiently bear to have the memory of their master stigmatized by no mean pen, but that, at least, one would be found to retort. Accordingly, this unjust and sarcastick Epitaph was met in the same publick field by an answer, in terms by no means soft, and such as wanton provocation only could justify:

  ‘epitaph,

  ‘Prepared for a creature not quite dead yet.

  ‘Here lies a little ugly nauseous elf,

  Who judging only from its wretched self,

  Feebly attempted, petulant and vain,

  The “Origin of Evil” to explain.

  A mighty Genius at this elf displeas’d,

  With a strong critick grasp the urchin squeez’d.

  For thirty years its coward spleen it kept,

  Till in the dust the mighty Genius slept;

  Then stunk and fretted in expiring snuff,

  And blink’d at Johnson with its last poor puff.’

  a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 48 {19 Aug.}.

  a They have been reprinted by Mr. Malone, in the Preface to his edition of Shakspeare.

  a The celebrated oratour, Mr. Flood, has shown himself to be of Dr. Johnson’s opinion; having by his will bequeathed his estate, after the death of his wife Lady Frances, to the University of Dublin; ‘desiring that immediately after the said estate shall come into their possession, they shall appoint two professors, one for the study of the native Erse or Irish language, and the other for the study of Irish antiquities and Irish history, and for the study of any other European language illustrative of, or auxiliary to, the study of Irish antiquities or Irish history; and that they shall give yearly two liberal premiums for two compositions, one in verse, and the other in prose, in the Irish language.’

  b ‘Now, or late, Vice-Chancellor.’ Warton.

  c ‘Mr. Warton was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in the preceding year.’ Warton.

  d ‘Miss Jones lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She was a very ingenious poetess, and published a volume of poems; and, on the whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman. She was a sister to the Reverend River Jones, Chanter of Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the Chantress. I have heard him often address her in this passage from Il Penseroso:

  “Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among

  I woo,” etc.140

  She died unmarried.’ Warton.

  a Tom. iii, p. 482.

  b Of Shakspeare.

  a Mr. Garrick.

  b Mr. Dodsley, the Authour of Cleone.

  c Mr. Samuel Richardson, authour of Clarissa.

  a This letter was an answer to one in which was enclosed a draft for the payment of some subscriptions to his Shakspeare.

  a Prayers and Meditations, p. 30 {p. 36}.

  a This paper may be found in Stockdale’s supplemental volume of Johnson’s Miscellaneous Pieces.

  b ‘Receipts for Shakspeare.’ Warton.

  c ‘Then of Lincoln College. Now Sir Robert Chambers, one of the Judges in India.’ Warton.

  a ‘Mr. Langton.’ Warton.

  b ‘Part of the impression of the Shakespeare, which Dr. Johnson conducted alone, and published by subscription. This edition came out in 1765.’ Warton.

  a Major-General Alexander Dur
y, of the first regiment of foot-guards, who fell in the gallant discharge of his duty, near St. Cas, in the well-known unfortunate expedition against France, in 1758. His lady and Mr. Langton’s mother were sisters. He left an only son, Lieutenant-Colonel Dury, who has a company in the same regiment.

  b Hawkins’s Life of Johnson, p. 395.

  a [See post, June 2, 1781. Finding it then accidentally in a chaise with Mr. Boswell, he read it eagerly. This was doubtless long after his declaration to Sir Joshua Reynolds.]

  b Ecclesiastes, i. 14.

  a Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson, 1786.

  b This paper was in such high estimation before it was collected into volumes, that it was seized on with avidity by various publishers of news-papers and magazines, to enrich their publications. Johnson, to put a stop to this unfair proceeding, wrote for the Universal Chronicle the following advertisement; in which there is, perhaps, more pomp of words than the occasion demanded:

  ‘London, January 5, 1759. Advertisement. The proprietors of the paper intitled The Idler, having found that those essays are inserted in the news-papers and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, that the Universal Chronicle, in which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to the publishers of those collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, transferred, with the most shameless rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shewn. The past is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much better of money got by punishment than by crimes. We shall, therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to the Magdalens; for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet appears neither penitence nor shame.’