Life of Johnson Volume III Part 70

[929] See Appendix A.

[930] No doubt Parson Home, better known as Home Tooke, who was at this time in prison. He had signed an advertis.e.m.e.nt issued by the Const.i.tutional Society asking for a subscription for 'the relief of the widows, etc., of our beloved American fellow-subjects, who had been inhumanly murdered by the King's troops at Lexington and Concord.' For this 'very gross libel' he had in the previous November been sentenced to a fine of 200 and a year's imprisonment. Ann. Reg. xx. 234-245. See _post_, May 13, 1778.

[931] Mr. Croker's conjecture that Dr. Shebbeare was the gentleman is supported by the favourable way in which Boswell (_post_, May 1781) speaks of Shebbeare as 'that gentleman,' and calls him 'a respectable name in literature.' Shebbeare, on Nov. 28, 1758, was sentenced by Lord Mansfield to stand in the pillory, to be confined for three years, and to give security for his good behaviour for seven years, for a libellous pamphlet int.i.tled _A Sixth Letter to the People of England_. _Gent.

Mag_. xxviii. 555. (See _ante_, p. 15, note 3.) On Feb. 7, 1759, the under-sheriff of Middles.e.x was found guilty of a contempt of Court, in having suffered Shebbeare to stand _upon_ the pillory only, and not _in_ it. _Ib_. xxix. 91. Before the seven years had run out, Shebbeare was pensioned. Smollett, in the preface to _Humphry Clinker_, represents the publisher of that novel as writing to the imaginary author:--'If you should be sentenced to the pillory your fortune is made. As times go, that's a sure step to honour and preferment. I shall think myself happy if I can lend you a lift.' See also in the same book Mr. Bramble's Letter of June 2.

[932] See p. 275 of this volume. BOSWELL. Why Boswell mentions this gentleman at all, seeing that nothing that he says is reported, is not clear. Perhaps he gave occasion to Johnson's attack on the Americans. It is curious also why both here and in the account given of Dr. Percy's dinner his name is not mentioned. In the presence of this unknown gentleman Johnson violently attacked first Percy, and next Boswell.

[933] Mr. Langton no doubt. See _ante_, iii. 48. He had paid Johnson a visit that morning. _Pr. and Med_. p. 165.

[934] See _ante_, p. 216.

[935] See _ante_, i. 494, where Johnson says that 'her learning is that of a schoolboy in one of the lower forms.'

[936] On this day Johnson recorded in his review of the past year:-- 'My nights have been commonly, not only restless, but painful and fatiguing.' He adds, 'I have written a little of the _Lives of the Poets_, I think with all my usual vigour.... This year the 28th of March pa.s.sed away without memorial. Poor Tetty, whatever were our faults and failings, we loved each other. I did not forget thee yesterday. Couldest thou have lived!' _Pr. and Med_. pp. 169, 170.

[937] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, iii. 48.

[938] Malone was told by Baretti that 'Dr. James picked up on a stall a book of Greek hymns. He brought it to Johnson, who ran his eyes over the pages and returned it. A year or two afterwards he dined at Sir Joshua Reynolds's with Dr. Musgrave, the editor of _Euripides_. Musgrave made a great parade of his Greek learning, and among other less known writers mentioned these hymns, which he thought none of the company were acquainted with, and extolled them highly. Johnson said the first of them was indeed very fine, and immediately repeated it. It consisted of ten or twelve lines.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 160.

[939] By Richard Tickell, the grandson of Addison's friend. Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 54

[940] She was a younger sister of Peg Woffington (_ante_, p. 264).

Johnson described her as 'a very airy lady.' (Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 23, 1773.) Murphy (_Life_, p. 137) says that 'Johnson, sitting at table with her, took hold of her hand in the middle of dinner, and held it close to his eye, wondering at the delicacy and the whiteness, till with a smile she asked:--"Will he give it to me again when he has done with it?"' He told Miss Burney that 'Mrs. Cholmondeley was the first person who publicly praised and recommended _Evelina_ among the wits.'

Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 180. Miss Burney wrote in 1778:--'Mrs.

Cholmondeley has been praising _Evelina_; my father said that I could not have had a greater compliment than making two such women my friends as Mrs. Thrale and Mrs. Cholmondeley, for they were severe and knowing, and afraid of praising _a tort et a travers_, as their opinions are liable to be quoted.' _Ib_. i. 47. To Mrs. Cholmondeley Goldsmith, just before his death, shewed a copy in ma.n.u.script of his _Retaliation_. No one else, it should seem, but Burke had seen it. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 412.

[941] Dr. Johnson is supported by the usage of preceding writers.

So in _Musarum Deliciae_, 8vo. 1656 (the writer is speaking of Suckling's play ent.i.tled _Aglaura_, printed in folio):--

'This great voluminous _pamphlet_ may be said To be like one that hath more hair than head.'

MALONE.

Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 529 says that 'the most minute pocket-author hath beneath him the writers of all pamphlets, or works that are only st.i.tched. As for a pamphleteer he takes place of none but of the authors of single sheets.' The inferiority of a pamphlet is shewn in Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 216:--'Johnson would not allow the word _derange_ to be an English word. "Sir," said a gentleman who had some pretensions to literature, "I have seen it in a book." "Not in a _bound_ book," said Johnson; "_disarrange_ is the word we ought to use instead of it."' In his _Dictionary_ he gives neither _derange_ nor _disarrange_. Dr. Franklin, who had been a printer and was likely to use the term correctly, writing in 1785, mentions 'the artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a pamphlet.' _Memoirs_, iii. 178.

[942] See _post_, March 16, 1779, for 'the exquisite address' with which Johnson evaded a question of this kind.

[943] Garrick insisted on great alterations being made in _The Good Natured Man_. When Goldsmith resisted this, 'he proposed a sort of arbitration,' and named as his arbitrator Whitehead the laureate.

Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 41. It was of Whitehead's poetry that Johnson said 'grand nonsense is insupportable.' _Ante_, i. 402. _The Good Natured Man_ was brought out by Colman, as well as _She Stoops to Conquer_.

[944] See _ante_, ii. 208, note 5.

[945] See _ante_, i. 416.

[946] 'This play, written in ridicule of the musical Italian drama, was first offered to Cibber and his brethren at Drury Lane, and rejected; it being then carried to Rich had the effect, as was ludicrously said, of _making_ Gay _rich_ and Rich _gay_.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 66.

See _ante_, ii. 368.

[947] See _ante_, i. 112.

[948] In opposition to this Mr. Croker quotes Horace:---

'Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.'

'I'm hissed in public; but in secret blest, I count my money and enjoy my chest.' Horace, _Sat_. i. I. 66.

See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 26.

[949] The anecdote is told in _Menagiana_, iii. 104, but not of a '_maid_ of honour,' nor as an instance of '_exquisite flattery_.' 'M.

d'Uzes etait chevalier d'honneur de la reine. Cette princesse lui demanda un jour quelle heure il etait; il repondit, "Madame, l'heure qu'il plaira a votre majeste."' Menage tells it as _a pleasantry_ of M.

d'Uzes; but M. de la Monnoye says, that this duke was remarkable for _navetes_ and blunders, and was a kind of _b.u.t.t_, to whom the wits of the court used to attribute all manner of absurdities. CROKER.

[950] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 2. II. The common reading is _solutis_.

Boswell (_Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773) says:--'Mr. Wilkes told me this himself with cla.s.sical admiration.'

[951] See this question fully investigated in the Notes upon my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, edit. 3, p. 21, _et seq_. [Aug.

15]. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim _Suum cuique tribuito_, 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. BOSWELL. See also _ante_, i.

453, and _post_, May 15, 1784.

[952] Horace, _Sat_. i. I. 106. Malone points out that this is the motto to _An Enquiry into Customary Estates and Tenants' Rights, &c., with some considerations for restraining excessive fines_. By Everard Fleetwood, 8vo, 1737.

[953] A _modus_ is _something paid as a compensation for t.i.thes on the supposition of being a moderate equivalent_. Johnson's _Dictionary_. It was more desirable for the landlord than the Parson.

Thus T. Warton, in his _Progress of Discontent_, represents the Parson who had taken a college living regretting his old condition,

'When calm around the common-room I puffed my daily pipe's perfume; ...

And every night I went to bed, Without a _modus_ in my head.'

T. Warton's _Poems_, ii. 197.

[954] Fines are payments due to the lord of a manor on every admission of a new tenant. In some manors these payments are fixed by custom; they are then _fines certain_; in others they are not fixed, but depend on the reasonableness of the lord and the paying capacity of the tenant; they are _fines uncertain_. The advantage of _fines certain_, like that of a _modus_ in t.i.thes, is that a man knows what he shall get.

[955] _Ante_, iii. 35.

[956] Mr. P. Cunningham has, I think, enabled us to clear up Boswell's mystery, by finding in the _Garrick Corres_, ii. 305, May 1778, that Johnson's poor friend, Mauritius Lowe, the painter, lived at No. 3, Hedge Lane, in a state of extreme distress. CROKER. See _post_, April 3, 1779, and April 12, 1783.

[957] 'In all his intercourse with mankind, Pope had great delight in artifice, and endeavoured to attain all his purposes by indirect and unsuspected methods. "He hardly drank tea without a stratagem." ["Nor take her tea without a stratagem." Young's _Universal Pa.s.sion, Sat_. vi.]

He practised his arts on such small occasions that Lady Bolingbroke used to say, in a French phrase, that "he played the politician about cabbages and turnips."' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 311.

[958] Johnson, _post_, under March 30, 1783, speaks of 'the vain ostentatious importance of many persons in quoting the authority of dukes and lords.' In his going to the other extreme, as he said he did, may be found the explanation of Boswell's 'mystery.' For of mystery--'the wisdom of blockheads,' as Horace Walpole calls it (_Letters_, iii. 371)--Johnson was likely to have as little as any man.

As for Grosvenor-square, the Thrales lived there for a short time, and Johnson had a room in the house (_post_, March 20, 1781).

[959] Tacitus, _Agricola_, ch. x.x.x. 'The unknown always pa.s.ses for something peculiarly grand.'

[960] Johnson defines _toy-shop_ as 'a shop where playthings and little nice manufactures are sold.'

[961] See _ante_, ii. 241.

[962] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 237) says that 'the fore-top of all his wigs were (sic) burned by the candle down to the very net-work. Mr.

Thrale's valet, for that reason, kept one always in his own hands, with which he met him at the parlour door when the bell had called him down to dinner.' c.u.mberland (_Memoirs_, i. 357) says that he wore 'a brown coat with metal b.u.t.tons, black waistcoat and worsted stockings, with a flowing bob-wig; they were in perfectly good trim, and with the ladies he had nothing of the slovenly philosopher about him.'