Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 41

[8] 'There is no kind of impertinence more justly censurable than his who is always labouring to level thoughts to intellects higher than his own; who apologises for every word which his own narrowness of converse inclines him to think unusual; keeps the exuberance of his faculties under visible restraint; is solicitous to antic.i.p.ate inquiries by needless explanations; and endeavours to shade his own abilities lest weak eyes should be dazzled with their l.u.s.tre.' _The Rambler_, No. 173.

[9] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, defines _Anfractuousness_ as _Fulness of windings and turnings_. _Anfractuosity_ is not given. Lord Macaulay, in the last sentence in his _Biography of Johnson_, alludes to this pa.s.sage.

[10] See _ante_, iii. 149, note 2.

[11] 'My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I might not be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries might have reason to complain; nor have I departed from this resolution, but when some performance of uncommon excellence excited my veneration, when my memory supplied me from late books with an example that was wanting, or when my heart, in the tenderness of friends.h.i.+p, solicited admission for a favourite name.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 39. He cites himself under _important_, Mrs. Lennox under _talent_, Garrick under _giggler_; from Richardson's _Clarissa_, he makes frequent quotations.

In the fourth edition, published in 1773 (_ante_, ii. 203), he often quotes Reynolds; for instance, under _vulgarism_, which word is not in the previous editions. Beattie he quotes under _weak_, and Gray under _bosom_. He introduces also many quotations from Law, and Young. In the earlier editions, in his quotations from _Clarissa_, he very rarely gives the author's name; in the fourth edition I have found it rarely omitted.

[12] In one of his _Hypochondriacks_ (_London Mag._ 1782, p. 233) Boswell writes:--'I have heard it remarked by one, of whom more remarks deserve to be remembered than of any person I ever knew, that a man is often as narrow as he is prodigal for want of counting.'

[13] 'Sept. 1778. We began talking of _Irene_, and Mrs. Thrale made Dr.

Johnson read some pa.s.sages which I had been remarking as uncommonly applicable to the present time. He read several speeches, and told us he had not ever read so much of it before since it was first printed.' Mme.

D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 96. 'I was told,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'that a gentleman called Pot, or some such name, was introduced to him as a particular admirer of his. The Doctor growled and took no further notice. "He admires in especial your _Irene_ as the finest tragedy modern times;" to which the Doctor replied, "If Pot says so, Pot lies!"

and relapsed into his reverie.' _Croker Corres._ ii. 32.

[14] _Scrupulosity_ was a word that Boswell had caught up from Johnson.

Sir W. Jones (_Life_, i. 177) wrote in 1776:--'You will be able to examine with the minutest _scrupulosity_, as Johnson would call it.'

Johnson describes Addison's prose as 'pure without scrupulosity.'

_Works_, vii. 472. 'Swift,' he says, 'washed himself with oriental scrupulosity.' _Ib._ viii. 222. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Aug. 15) writes of 'scrupulosity of conscience.'

[15]

'When thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known.'

_The Tempest_, act i. sc. 2.

[16] Secretary to the British Herring Fishery, remarkable for an extraordinary number of occasional verses, not of eminent merit.

BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 115, note i. Lockman was known in France as the translator of Voltaire's _La Henriade_. See Marmontel's Preface.

Voltaire's _Works_, ed. 1819, viii. 18.

[17] _Luke_ vii. 50. BOSWELL.

[18] Miss Burney, describing him in 1783, says:--'He looks unformed in his manners and awkward in his gestures. He joined not one word in the general talk.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 237. See _ante_, ii.

41, note 1.

[19] By Garrick.

[20] See _ante_, i. 201.

[21] See _post_, under Sept. 30, 1783.

[22] The actor. Churchill introduces him in _The Rosciad_ (_Poems_, i.

16):--'Next Holland came. With truly tragic stalk, He creeps, he flies.

A Hero should not walk.'

[23] In a letter written by Johnson to a friend in 1742-43, he says: 'I never see Garrick.' MALONE.

[24] See _ante_, ii. 227.

[25] _The Wonder! A Woman keeps a Secret_, by Mrs. Centlivre. Acted at Drury Lane in 1714. Revived by Garrick in 1757. Reed's _Biog.

Dram_. iii. 420.

[26] In _Macbeth_.

[27] Mr. Longley was Recorder of Rochester, and father of Archbishop Longley. To the kindness of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Newton Smart, I owe the following extract from his ma.n.u.script _Autobiography_:--'Dr. Johnson and General Paoli came down to visit Mr. Langton, and I was asked to meet them, when the conversation took place mentioned by Boswell, in which Johnson gave me more credit for knowledge of the Greek metres than I deserved. There was some question about anapaestics, concerning which I happened to remember what Foster used to tell us at Eton, that the whole line to the _Basis Anapaestica_ was considered but as one verse, however divided in the printing, and consequently the syllables at the end of each line were not common, as in other metres. This observation was new to Johnson, and struck him. Had he examined me farther, I fear he would have found me ignorant. Langton was a very good Greek scholar, much superior to Johnson, to whom nevertheless he paid profound deference, sometimes indeed I thought more than he deserved. The next day I dined at Langton's with Johnson, I remember Lady Rothes [Langton's wife] spoke of the advantage children now derived from the little books published purposely for their instruction. Johnson controverted it, a.s.serting that at an early age it was better to gratify curiosity with wonders than to attempt planting truth, before the mind was prepared to receive it, and that therefore, _Jack the Giant-Killer, Parisenus and Parismenus_, and _The Seven Champions of Christendom_ were fitter for them than Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer.' Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 16) says:--'Dr. Johnson used to condemn me for putting Newbery's books into children's hands. "Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds." When I would urge the numerous editions of _Tommy Prudent_ or _Goody Two Shoes_; "Remember always," said he, "that the parents buy the books, and that the children never read them.'" For Johnson's visit to Rochester, see _post_, July, 1783.

[28] See _post_, beginning of 1781, after _The Life of Swift_, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15.

[29] See _ante_, under Sept. 9, 1779.

[30] Johnson wrote of this grotto (_Works_, viii. 270):--'It may be frequently remarked of the studious and speculative that they are proud of trifles, and that their amus.e.m.e.nts seem frivolous and childish.'

[31] See _ante_, i. 332.

[32] _Epilogue to the Satires_, i. 131. Dr. James Foster, the Nonconformist preacher. Johnson mentions 'the reputation which he had gained by his proper delivery.' _Works_, viii. 384. In _The Conversations of Northcote_, p. 88, it is stated that 'Foster first became popular from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping in the porch of his chapel in the Old Jewry out of a shower of rain: and thinking he might as well hear what was going on he went in, and was so well pleased that he sent all the great folks to hear him, and he was run after as much as Irving has been in our time.' Dr. T. Campbell (_Diary_, p. 34) recorded in 1775, that 'when Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster's _Sermons_, Johnson flew in a pa.s.sion, and said that Foster was a man of mean ability, and of no original thinking.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, v.

300) wrote of Foster:--'Wonderful! a divine preferring reason to faith, and more afraid of vice than of heresy.'

[33] It is believed to have been her play of _The Sister_, brought out in 1769. 'The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much appearance of prejudice that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time.' _Gent. Mag._ x.x.xix. 199. It is strange, however, if Goldsmith was asked to hiss a play for which he wrote the epilogue.

Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, ii. 80. Johnson wrote on Oct. 28, 1779 (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 72):--'C---- L---- accuses ---- of making a party against her play. I always hissed away the charge, supposing him a man of honour; but I shall now defend him with less confidence.' Baretti, in a marginal note, says that C---- L---- is 'Charlotte Lennox.' Perhaps ---- stands for c.u.mberland. Miss Burney said that 'Mr. c.u.mberland is notorious for hating and envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic line.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 272.

[34] See _ante_, i. 255.

[35] In _The Rambler_, No. 195, Johnson describes rascals such as this man. 'They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and a performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon by scribblers. In the pit they exerted themselves with great spirit and vivacity; called out for the tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at intervals of Shakespeare and Jonson,' &c.

[36] See _ante_, ii. 469.

[37] Dr. Percy told Malone 'that they all at the Club had such a high opinion of Mr. Dyer's knowledge and respect for his judgment as to appeal to him constantly, and that his sentence was final.' Malone adds that 'he was so modest and reserved, that he frequently sat silent in company for an hour, and seldom spoke unless appealed to. Goldsmith, who used to rattle away upon _all_ subjects, had been talking somewhat loosely relative to music. Some one wished for Mr. Dyer's opinion, which he gave with his usual strength and accuracy. "Why," said Goldsmith, turning round to Dyer, whom he had scarcely noticed before, "you seem to know a good deal of this matter." "If I had not," replied Dyer, "I should not, in this company, have said a word upon the subject."' Burke described him as 'a man of profound and general erudition; his sagacity and judgment were fully equal to the extent of his learning.' Prior's _Malone_, pp. 419, 424. Malone in his _Life of Dryden_, p. 181, says that Dyer was _Junius_. Johnson speaks of him as 'the late learned Mr.

Dyer.' _Works_, viii. 385. Had he been alive he was to have been the professor of mathematics in the imaginary college at St. Andrews.

Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25. Many years after his death, Johnson bought his portrait to hang in 'a little room that he was fitting up with prints.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 639.

[38] _Memoirs of Agriculture and other Oeconomical Arts_, 3 vols., by Robert Dossie, London, 1768-82.

[39] See _ante_, ii. 14.

[40] 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 first discovered the East Indies.' BOSWELL.

[41] See _ante_, ii. 250.

[42] See _ante_, Aug. 30, 1780.

[43] John, Lord Carteret, and Earl Granville, who died Jan. 2, 1763. It is strange that he wrote so ill; for Lord Chesterfield says (_Misc.

Works_, iv. _Appendix_, p. 42) that 'he had brought away with him from Oxford, a great stock of Greek and Latin, and had made himself master of all the modern languages. He was one of the best speakers in the House of Lords, both in the declamatory and argumentative way.'

[44] Walpole describes the partiality of the members of the court-martial that sat on Admiral Keppel in Jan. 1779. One of them 'declared frankly that he should not attend to forms of law, but to justice.' So friendly were the judges to the prisoner that 'it required the almost unanimous voice of the witnesses in favour of his conduct, and the vile arts practised against him, to convince all mankind how falsely and basely he had been accused.' Walpole, referring to the members, speaks of 'the feelings of seamen unused to reason.' Some of the leading politicians established themselves at Portsmouth during the trial. _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 329

[45] See _ante_, ii. 240.

[46] In all Gray's _Odes_, there is a kind of c.u.mbrous splendour which we wish away.... The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. "Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and nature.'

Johnson's _Works_, viii. 484-87. See _ante_, i. 402, and ii. 327, 335.