Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 67

[905] 1 _Timothy_, i. 15.

[906] See _post_, v. 68, note 4.

[907] 'Be careful thou dost not speak a lie in thy prayers, which though not observed is frequently practised by careless persons, especially in the forms of confession, affirming things which they have not thought, professing sorrow which is not, making a vow they mean not.' Taylor's _Works_, ed. 1865, vii. 622.

[908] Reynolds wrote:--'As in Johnson's writings not a line can be found which a saint would wish to blot, so in his life he would never suffer the least immorality or indecency of conversation, [or anything]

contrary to virtue or piety to proceed without a severe check, which no elevation of rank exempted them from.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 458. See _ante_, iii. 41.

[909] No doubt Mr. Langton.

[910] Dr. Sheridan tells how Swift overheard a Captain Hamilton say to a gentleman at whose house he had arrived 'that he was very sorry he had chosen that time for his visit. "Why so?" "Because I hear Dean Swift is with you. He is a great scholar, a wit; a plain country squire will have but a bad time of it in his company, and I don't like to be laughed at."

Swift then stepped up and said, "Pray, Captain Hamilton, do you know how to say _yes_ or _no_ properly?" "Yes, I think I have understanding enough for that." "Then give me your hand--depend upon it, you and I will agree very well."' 'The Captain told me,' continues Sheridan, 'that he never pa.s.sed two months so pleasantly in his life.' Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, ii. 104.

[911] Gibbon wrote on Feb. 21, 1772 (_Misc. Works_, ii. 78):--'To day the House of Commons was employed in a very odd way. Tommy Townshend moved that the sermon of Dr. Nowell, who preached before the House on the 30th of January (_id est_, before the Speaker and four members), should be burnt by the common hangman, as containing arbitrary, Tory, high-flown doctrines. The House was nearly agreeing to the motion, till they recollected that they had already thanked the preacher for his excellent discourse, and ordered it to be printed.'

[912]

'Although it be not _s.h.i.+ned_ upon.'

_Hudibras_, iii. 2, 175.

[913] According to Mr. Croker, this was the Rev. Henry Bate, of the _Morning Post_, who in 1784 took the name of Dudley, was created a baronet in 1815, and died in 1824. Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 13, 1776 (_Letters_, vi. 39l):--'Yesterday I heard drums and trumpets in Piccadilly: I looked out of the window and saw a procession with streamers flying. At first I thought it a press-gang, but seeing the corps so well-drest, like Hussars, in yellow with blue waistcoats and breeches, and high caps, I concluded it was some new body of our allies, or a regiment newly raised, and with new regimentals for distinction. I was not totally mistaken, for the Colonel is _a new ally_. In short, this was a procession set forth by Mr. Bate, Lord Lyttelton's chaplain, and author of the old _Morning Post_, and meant as an appeal to the town against his antagonist, the new one.' In June, 1781, Bate was sentenced to a year's imprisonment 'for an atrocious libel on the Duke of Richmond. He was the worst of all the scandalous libellers that had appeared both on private persons as well as public. His life was dissolute, and he had fought more than one duel. Yet Lord Sandwich had procured for him a good Crown living, and he was believed to be pensioned by the Court.' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 464.

[914] See _ante_, ii. 339, and iii. 265.

[915] Three days earlier, in the debate on the Westminster Scrutiny, Fox accused 'a person of great rank in this House'--Pitt I believe--'of adding pertness and personal contumely to every species of rash and inconsiderate violence.' _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 924. Pitt, in reply, cla.s.sed Fox among 'political apostates,' _ib_. p. 929. Burke, the same evening, 'sat down saying, "he little minded the ill-treatment of a parcel of boys."' When he was called to order, he said:--'When he used the term "a parcel of boys," he meant to apply it to the ministry, who, he conceived, were insulting him with their triumph; a triumph which grey hairs ought to be allowed the privilege of expressing displeasure at, when it was founded on the rash exultation of mere boys.' _Ib_. p.

939. Pitt, Prime-Minister though he was, in the spring of the same year, was called to order by the Speaker, for charging a member with using 'language the most false, the most malicious, and the most slanderous.'

_Ib_. p. 763.

[916] _Epistles to Mr. Pope_, ii. 165.

[917] See an account of him, in a sermon by the Reverend Mr. Agutter.

BOSWELL. This sermon was published in 1788. In Hannah More's _Memoirs_ (i. 217), Henderson is described as 'a mixture of great sense, which discovered uncommon parts and learning, with a tincture of nonsense of the most extravagant kind. He believes in witches and apparitions, as well as in judicial astronomy.' Mrs. Kennicott writes (_ib_. p.

220):--'I think if Dr. Johnson had the shaking him about, he would shake out his nonsense, and set his sense a-working. 'He never got out into the world, says Dr. Hall, the Master of Pembroke College, having died in College in 1788.

[918] This was the second Lord Lyttelton, commonly known as 'the wicked Lord Lyttelton.' Fox described him to Rogers as 'a very bad man--downright wicked.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 95. He died Nov. 27, 1779. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 292) wrote to Mason on Dec. 11 of that year:--'If you can send us any stories of ghosts out of the North, they will be very welcome. Lord Lyttelton's vision has revived the taste; though it seems a little odd that an apparition should despair of being able to get access to his Lords.h.i.+p's bed in the shape of a young woman, without being forced to use the disguise of a robin-red-breast.' In the _Gent. Mag._ 1815, i. 597, and 1816, ii. 421, accounts are given of this vision. In the latter account it is said that 'he saw a bird fluttering, and afterwards a woman appeared in white apparel, and said, "Prepare to die; you will not exist three days."'

Mrs. Piozzi also wrote a full account of it. Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 332.

[919] See _ante_, ii. 150, and iii. 298, note 1.

[920] See _ante_, p. 278.

[921] 'If he who considers himself as suspended over the abyss of eternal perdition only by the thread of life, which must soon part by its own weakness, and which the wing of every minute may divide, can cast his eyes round him without shuddering with horror, or panting for security; what can he judge of himself, but that he is not yet awakened to sufficient conviction? &c.' _The Rambler_, No. 110. In a blank leaf in the book in which Johnson kept his diary of his journey in Wales is written in his own hand, 'Faith in some proportion to Fear.' Duppa's Johnson's _Diary of a Journey &c_., p. 157. See _ante_, iii. 199.

[922] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 20:--'Write to me no more about _dying with a grace_; when you feel what I have felt in approaching eternity--in fear of soon hearing the sentence of which there is no revocation, you will know the folly.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 354. Of him it might have been said in Cowper's words:--

'Scripture is still a trumpet to his fears.'

_The Task: The Winter Morning Walk_, 1. 611. See _ante_, iii. 294.

[923] The Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-Nose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following remarks on my Work, which he is pleased to say, 'I have hitherto extolled, and cordially approve.'

'The chief part of what I have to observe is contained in the following transcript from a letter to a friend, which, with his concurrence, I copied for this purpose; and, whatever may be the merit or justness of the remarks, you may be sure that being written to a most intimate friend, without any intention that they ever should go further, they are the genuine and undisguised sentiments of the writer:--

'Jan. 6, 1792.

'Last week, I was reading the second volume of Boswell's _Johnson_, with increasing esteem for the worthy authour, and increasing veneration of the wonderful and excellent man who is the subject of it. The writer throws in, now and then, very properly some serious religious reflections; but there is one remark, in my mind an obvious and just one, which I think he has not made, that Johnson's "morbid melancholy,"

and const.i.tutional infirmities, were intended by Providence, like St.

Paul's thorn in the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; which the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to the voice of praise, might otherwise have generated in a very culpable degree. Another observation strikes me, that in consequence of the same natural indisposition, and habitual sickliness, (for he says he scarcely pa.s.sed one day without pain after his twentieth year,) he considered and represented human life, as a scene of much greater misery than is generally experienced. There may be persons bowed down with affliction all their days; and there are those, no doubt, whose iniquities rob them of rest; but neither calamities nor crimes, I hope and believe, do so much and so generally abound, as to justify the dark picture of life which Johnson's imagination designed, and his strong pencil delineated.

This I am sure, the colouring is far too gloomy for what I have experienced, though as far as I can remember, I have had more sickness (I do not say more severe, but only more in quant.i.ty,) than falls to the lot of most people. But then daily debility and occasional sickness were far overbalanced by intervenient days, and, perhaps, weeks void of pain, and overflowing with comfort. So that in short, to return to the subject, human life, as far as I can perceive from experience or observation, is not that state of constant wretchedness which Johnson always insisted it was; which misrepresentation, (for such it surely is,) his Biographer has not corrected, I suppose, because, unhappily, he has himself a large portion of melancholy in his const.i.tution, and fancied the portrait a faithful copy of life.'

The learned writer then proceeds thus in his letter to me:--

'I have conversed with some sensible men on this subject, who all seem to entertain the same sentiments respecting life with those which are expressed or implied in the foregoing paragraph. It might be added that as the representation here spoken of, appears not consistent with fact and experience, so neither does it seem to be countenanced by Scripture.

There is, perhaps, no part of the sacred volume which at first sight promises so much to lend its sanction to these dark and desponding notions as the book of _Ecclesiastes_, which so often, and so emphatically, proclaims the vanity of things sublunary. But the design of this whole book, (as it has been justly observed,) is not to put us out of conceit with life, but to cure our vain expectations of a compleat and perfect happiness in this world; to convince us, that there is no such thing to be found in mere external enjoyments;--and to teach us to seek for happiness in the practice of virtue, in the knowledge and love of G.o.d, and in the hopes of a better life. For this is the application of all; _Let us hear_, &c. xii. 13. Not only his duty, but his happiness too; _For_ G.o.d, &c. ver. 14.--See _Sherlock on Providence_, p. 299.

'The New Testament tells us, indeed, and most truly, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and, therefore, wisely forbids us to increase our burden by forebodings of sorrows; but I think it no where says that even our ordinary afflictions are not consistent with a very considerable degree of positive comfort and satisfaction. And, accordingly, one whose sufferings as well as merits were conspicuous, a.s.sures us, that in proportion "as the sufferings of Christ abounded in them, so their consolation also abounded by Christ." 2 _Cor_. i. 5. It is needless to cite, as indeed it would be endless even to refer to, the mult.i.tude of pa.s.sages in both Testaments holding out, in the strongest language, promises of blessings, even in this world, to the faithful servants of G.o.d. I will only refer to _St. Luke_, xviii. 29, 30, and 1 _Tim_. iv. 8.

'Upon the whole, setting aside instances of great and lasting bodily pain, of minds peculiarly oppressed by melancholy, and of severe temporal calamities, from which extraordinary cases we surely should not form our estimate of the general tenour and complexion of life; excluding these from the account, I am convinced that as well the gracious const.i.tution of things which Providence has ordained, as the declarations of Scripture and the actual experience of individuals, authorize the sincere Christian to hope that his humble and constant endeavours to perform his duty, checquered as the best life is with many failings, will be crowned with a greater degree of present peace, serenity, and comfort, than he could reasonably permit himself to expect, if he measured his views and judged of life from the opinion of Dr. Johnson, often and energetically expressed in the Memoirs of him, without any animadversion or censure by his ingenious Biographer. If he himself, upon reviewing the subject, shall see the matter in this light, he will, in an octavo edition, which is eagerly expected, make such additional remarks or correction as he shall judge fit; lest the impressions which these discouraging pa.s.sages may leave on the reader's mind, should in any degree hinder what otherwise the whole spirit and energy of the work tends, and, I hope, successfully, to promote,--pure morality and true religion.'

Though I have, in some degree, obviated any reflections against my ill.u.s.trious friend's dark views of life, when considering, in the course of this Work, his _Rambler_ [_ante_, i. 213] and his _Ra.s.selas_ [_ante_, i. 343], I am obliged to Mr. Churton for complying with my request of his permission to insert his Remarks, being conscious of the weight of what he judiciously suggests as to the melancholy in my own const.i.tution. His more pleasing views of life, I hope, are just.

_Valeant quantum valere possunt_.

Mr. Churton concludes his letter to me in these words:--'Once, and only once, I had the satisfaction of seeing your ill.u.s.trious friend; and as I feel a particular regard for all whom he distinguished with his esteem and friends.h.i.+p, so I derive much pleasure from reflecting that I once beheld, though but transiently near our College gate, one whose works will for ever delight and improve the world, who was a sincere and zealous son of the Church of England, an honour to his country, and an ornament to human nature.'

His letter was accompanied with a present from himself of his _Sermons at the Bampton Lecture_, and from his friend, Dr. Townson, the venerable Rector of Malpas, in Ches.h.i.+re, of his _Discourses on the Gospels_, together with the following extract of a letter from that excellent person, who is now gone to receive the reward of his labours:--'Mr.

Boswell is not only very entertaining in his works, but they are so replete with moral and religious sentiments, without an instance, as far as I know, of a contrary tendency, that I cannot help having a great esteem for him; and if you think such a trifle as a copy of the _Discourses, ex dono authoris_, would be acceptable to him, I should be happy to give him this small testimony of my regard.'

Such spontaneous testimonies of approbation from such men, without any personal acquaintance with me, are truly valuable and encouraging.

BOSWELL.

[924]

'Tout se plaint, tout gemit en cherchant le bien-etre; Nul ne voudrait mourir, nul ne voudrait renaitre.'

Voltaire, _Le desastre de Lisbonne. Works_, ed. 1819, x. 124. 'Johnson said that, for his part, he never pa.s.sed that week in his life which he would wish to repeat, were an angel to make the proposal to him.'

_Ante_, ii. 125. Yet Dr. Franklin, whose life overlapped Johnson's at both ends, said:-'I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors have of correcting in a second edition the faults of its first. So would I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more favourable Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I should still accept the offer of re-commencing the same life.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 2.

[925] Mackintosh thus sums up this question:--'The truth is, that endless fallacies must arise from the attempt to appreciate by retrospect human life, of which the enjoyments depend on hope.' _Life of Mackintosh_, ii. 160. See _ante_, ii. 350.

[926] In the lines on Levett. _Ante_, p. 137.

[927] AURENGZEBE, act iv. sc. 1. BOSWELL. According to Dr. Maxwell (_ante_, ii. 124), Johnson frequently quoted the fourth couplet of these lines. Boswell does not give the last--

'I'm tired with waiting for this chemic gold Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.'

[928] Johnson, speaking of the companions of his college days, said:-- 'It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick.' _Ante_, i. 73.

[929]