Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 57

[572] See _ante_, i. 368.

[573] See _ante_, i. 396.

[574] I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking particularities pointed out:--Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary motions, said to him, 'Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange gestures?' 'From bad habit,' he replied. 'Do you, my dear, take care to guard against bad habits.' This I was told by the young lady's brother at Margate. BOSWELL. Boswell had himself told Johnson of some of them, at least in writing. Johnson read in ma.n.u.script his _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. Boswell says in a note on Oct. 12:--'It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I hoped he would have done.'

[575] See _ante_, ii. 42, note 2, and iii. 324.

[576] Johnson, after stating that some of Milton's ma.n.u.scripts prove that 'in the early part of his life he wrote with much care,'

continues:--'Such reliques show how excellence is acquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.'

_Works_, vii. 119. Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, iii. 146) had made the same rule as Johnson:--'I was,' he writes, 'early convinced of the importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I applied myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word even in common conversation that should not be the most expressive and the most elegant that the language could supply me with for that purpose; by which means I have acquired such a certain degree of habitual eloquence, that I must now really take some pains if I would express myself very inelegantly.'

[577] 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Malone in 1783, 'is as correct and elegant in his common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study either for thoughts or words. When first introduced I was very young; yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had been talking to the first scholar in England.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. See _post_, under Aug. 29, 1783.

[578] See _ante_, iii. 216.

[579] See _ante_, ii. 323.

[580] The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot:--A country parson, who was remarkable for quoting sc.r.a.ps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one of his paris.h.i.+oners was asked how he liked his successor. 'He is a very good preacher,' was his answer, 'but no _latiner_.' BOSWELL. For the original of Lord Eliot's story see Twells's _Life of Dr. E. Poc.o.c.k_, ed.

1816, p. 94. Reynolds said that 'Johnson always practised on every occasion the rule of speaking his best, whether the person to whom he addressed himself was or was not capable of comprehending him. "If,"

says he, "I am understood, my labour is not lost. If it is above their comprehension, there is some gratification, though it is the admiration of ignorance;" and he said those were the most sincere admirers; and quoted Baxter, who made a rule never to preach a sermon without saying something which he knew was beyond the comprehension of his audience, in order to inspire their admiration.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 456.

Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 221, tells of a preacher in a country town who outshone a more ignorant rival, by quoting every now and then a Latin sentence from one of the Fathers. 'The other finding his congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what was the occasion of it, resolved to give his parish a little Latin in his turn; but being unacquainted with any of the Fathers, he digested into his sermons the whole book of _Quae Genus_, adding, however, such explications to it as he thought might be for the benefit of his people.

He afterwards entered upon _As in praesenti_, which he converted in the same manner to the use of his paris.h.i.+oners. This in a very little time thickened his audience, filled his church, and routed his antagonist.'

[581] See _ante_, ii. 96

[582] '"Well," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir; you tossed and gored several persons."' _Ante,_ ii. 66.

[583] Dr. J. H. Burton says of Hume (_Life, ii. 31_):--'No Scotsman could write a book of respectable talent without calling forth his loud and warm eulogiums. Wilkie was to be the Homer, Blacklock the Pindar, and Home the Shakespeare or something still greater of his country.' See _ante_, ii. 121, 296, 306.

[584] _The Present State of Music in France and Italy,_ I vol. 1771, and _The Present State of Music in Germany, &c.,_ 2 vols. 1773. Johnson must have skipped widely in reading these volumes, for though Dr. Burney describes his travels, yet he writes chiefly of music.

[585] Boswell's son James says that he heard from his father, that the pa.s.sage which excited this strong emotion was the following:--

'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more: I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew; Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save: But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?

O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?'

[586] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 338) mentions this book at some length. On March 13, 1780, he wrote:--'Yesterday was published an octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray that he murdered.' See _ante_, iii. 383.

[587] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 547), recording how Johnson used to meet Psalmanazar at an ale-house, says that Johnson one day 'remarked on the human mind, that it had a necessary tendency to improvement, and that it would frequently antic.i.p.ate instruction. "Sir," said a stranger that overheard him, "that I deny; I am a tailor, and have had many apprentices, but never one that could make a coat till I had taken great pains in teaching him."' See _ante_, iii. 443. Robert Hall was influenced in his studies by 'his intimate a.s.sociation in mere childhood with a tailor, one of his father's congregation, who was an acute metaphysician.' Hall's _Works_, vi. 5.

[588] Johnson had never been in Grub-street. _Ante_, i. 296, note 2.

[589] The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears testimony to this gentleman's merit as a writer:--'Mr. Chambers's _Treatise on Civil Architecture_ is the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.'--Preface to _Anecdotes of Painting in England_. BOSWELL. Chambers was the architect of Somerset House. See _ante_, p. 60, note 7.

[590] The introductory lines are these:--'It is difficult to avoid praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to place them in compet.i.tion either with the antients or with the moderns of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the a.s.sistance of example.' BOSWELL.

[591] The last execution at Tyburn was on Nov. 7, 1783, when one man was hanged. The first at Newgate was on the following Dec. 9, when ten were hanged. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, pp. 974, 1060.

[592] We may compare with this 'loose talk' Johnson's real opinion, as set forth in _The Rambler_, No. 114, ent.i.tled:--_The necessity of proportioning punishments to crimes_. He writes:--'The learned, the judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates that he never saw a criminal dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows whether this man is not less culpable than me?" On the days when the prisons of this city are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of this dreadful procession put the same question to his own heart. Few among those that crowd in thousands to the legal ma.s.sacre, and look with carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human misery, would then be able to return without horror and dejection.' He continues:--'It may be observed that all but murderers have, at their last hour, the common sensations of mankind pleading in their favour.... They who would rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of destroying him. His crime shrinks to nothing compared with his misery, and severity defeats itself by exciting pity.'

[593] Richardson, in his _Familiar Letters_, No. 160, makes a country gentleman in town describe the procession of five criminals to Tyburn, and their execution. He should have heard, he said, 'the exhortation spoken by the bell-man from the wall of St. Sepulchre's church-yard; but the noise of the officers and the mob was so great, and the silly curiosity of people climbing into the cart to take leave of the criminals made such a confused noise that I could not hear them. They are as follow: "All good people pray heartily to G.o.d for these poor sinners, who now are going to their deaths; for whom this great bell doth toll. You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears.... Lord have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!" which last words the bell-man repeats three times. All the way up Holborn the crowd was so great, as at every twenty or thirty yards to obstruct the pa.s.sage; and wine, notwithstanding a late good order against that practice, was brought the malefactors, who drank greedily of it. After this the three thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough concerned, grew most shamefully daring and wanton. They swore, laughed, and talked obscenely. At the place of execution the scene grew still more shocking; and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of ridicule than of their serious attention. The psalm was sung amidst the curses and quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate of mankind. As soon as the poor creatures were half-dead, I was much surprised to see the populace fall to haling and pulling the carcases with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm rencounters and broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends of the persons executed, or such as for the sake of tumult chose to appear so; and some persons sent by private surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection.' The psalm is mentioned in a note on the line in _The Dunciad_, i. 4l, 'Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines:'--'It is an ancient English custom,'

says Pope, 'for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn.'

[594] The rest of these miscellaneous sayings were first given in the _Additions to Dr. Johnson's Life_ at the beginning of vol. I of the second edition.

[595] Hume (_Auto_. p. 6) speaks of Hurd as attacking him 'with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility which distinguish the Warburtonian school.' 'Hurd,' writes Walpole, 'had acquired a great name by several works of slender merit, was a gentle, plausible man, affecting a singular decorum that endeared him highly to devout old ladies.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 50. He is best known to the present generation by his impertinent notes on Addison's _Works_.

By reprinting them, Mr. Bohn did much to spoil what was otherwise an excellent edition of that author. See _ante_, p. 47, note 2.

[596] The Rev. T. Twining, one of Dr. Burney's friends, wrote in 1779:--'You use a form of reference that I abominate, i.e. the latter, the former. "As long as you have the use of your tongue and your pen,"

said Dr. Johnson to Dr. Burney, "never, Sir, be reduced to that s.h.i.+ft."'

_Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIIIth Century_, p. 72.

[597] 'A s.h.i.+lling was now wanted for some purpose or other, and none of them happened to have one; I begged that I might lend one. "Ay, do,"

said the Doctor, "I will borrow of you; authors are like privateers, always fair game for one another."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 212.

[598] See _ante_, i. 129, note 3.

[599] See _post_, June 3, 1784, where he uses almost the same words.

[600] What this period was Boswell seems to leave intentionally vague.

Johnson knew Lord Shelburne at least as early as 1778 (_ante_, iii.

265). He wrote to Dr. Taylor on July 22, 1782:--'Shelburne speaks of Burke in private with great malignity.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.

462. The company commonly gathered at his house would have been displeasing to Johnson. Priestley, who lived with Shelburne seven years, says (_Auto_. p. 55) that a great part of the company he saw there was like the French philosophers, unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed atheists: men 'who had given no proper attention to Christianity, and did not really know what it was.' Johnson was intimate with Lord Shelburne's brother. _Ante_, ii. 282, note 3.

[601] Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, 'Why, Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good character.' BOSWELL.

[602] A writer in the _European Magazine_, x.x.x. 160, says that Johnson visited Lord Shelburne at Bowood. At dinner he repeated part of his letter to Lord Chesterfield (_ante_, i. 261). A gentleman arrived late.

Shelburne, telling him what he had missed, went on:-'I dare say the Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us again.' 'Indeed, my Lord, I will not. I told the circ.u.mstance first for my own amus.e.m.e.nt, but I will not be dragged in as story-teller to a company.' In an argument he used some strong expressions, of which his opponent took no notice, Next morning 'he went up to the gentleman with great good-nature, and said, "Sir, I have found out upon reflection that I was both warm and wrong in my argument with you last night; for the first of which I beg your pardon, and for the second, I thank you for setting me right."' It is clear that the second of these anecdotes is the same as that told by Mr.

Morgann of Johnson and himself, and that the scene has been wrongly transferred from Wickham to Bowood. The same writer says that it was between Derrick and Boyce--not Derrick and Smart--that Johnson, in the story that follows, could not settle the precedency.

[603] See ante, i. 124, 394.

[604] See ante, i. 397.

[605] What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen. BOSWELL.

[606]

'Hic ma.n.u.s ob patriam pugnando vulnera pa.s.si, Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.'

_Aeneid_, vi. 660.

'Lo, they who in their country's fight sword-wounded bodies bore; Lo, priests of holy life and chaste, while they in life had part; Lo, G.o.d-loved poets, men who spake things worthy Phoebus' heart, And they who bettered life on earth by new-found mastery.'

MORRIS. Virgil, _Aeneids_, vi. 660. The great Twalmley might have justified himself by _The Rambler_, No. 9:--'Every man, from the highest to the lowest station, ought to warm his heart and animate his endeavours with the hopes of being useful to the world, by advancing the art which it is his lot to exercise; and for that end he must necessarily consider the whole extent of its application, and the whole weight of its importance.... Every man ought to endeavour at eminence, not by pulling others down, but by raising himself, and enjoy the pleasure of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real, without interrupting others in the same felicity.' All this is what Twalmley did. He adorned an art, he endeavoured at eminence, and he inoffensively enjoyed the pleasure of his own superiority. He could also have defended himself by the example of Aeneas, who, introducing himself, said:--

'Sum pius Aeneas .....

... fama super aethera notus.'