Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 71

Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4 of that year (_ib_. p. 235):--'Well!

adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself more. From the moment he came into possession, he has undermined every act of my father that was within his reach, but, having none of that great man's sense or virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and houses; and since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a straw what he does with the stone or the acres.'

[1037] This museum at Alkerington near Manchester is described in the _Gent. Mag_. 1773, p.219. A proposal was made in Parliament to buy it for the British Museum. _Ib_. 1783, p. 919. On July 8, 1784, a bill enabling Lever to dispose of it by lottery pa.s.sed the House of Commons.

_Ib_. 1784, p.705.

[1038] Johnson defines _intuition_ as _sight of anything; immediate knowledge_; and _sagacity_ as _quickness of scent; acuteness of discovery_.

[1039] In the first edition it stands '_A gentleman_' and below instead of Mr. ----, Mr. ----. In the second edition Mr. ---- becomes Mr. ----.

In the third edition _young_ is added. Young Mr. Burke is probably meant. As it stood in the second edition it might have been thought that Edmund Burke was the gentleman; the more so as Johnson often denied his want of wit.

[1040] _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2.

[1041] See _ante_, i. 372, note 1.

[1042] Windham says (_Diary_, p. 34) that when Dr. Brocklesby made this offer 'Johnson pressed his hands and said, "G.o.d bless you through Jesus Christ, but I will take no money but from my sovereign." This, if I mistake not, was told the King through West.' Dr. Brocklesby wrote to Burke, on July 2, 1788, to make him 'an instant present of 1000, which,' he continues, 'for years past, by will, I had destined as a testimony of my regard on my decease.' Burke, accepting the present, said:--'I shall never be ashamed to have it known, that I am obliged to one who never can be capable of converting his kindness into a burthen.'

Burke's _Corres._ iii.78. See _ante_, p. 263, for the just praise bestowed by Johnson on physicians in his _Life of Garth_.

[1043] See _ante_, ii. 194.

[1044] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii. p 375. BOSWELL.

[1045] Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 45) describes him as 'a very handsome, gentlemanly, and amiable person. Mme. D'Arblay tells how one evening at Dr. Burney's home, when Signor Piozzi was playing on the piano, 'Mrs.

Thrale stealing on tip-toe behind him, ludicrously began imitating him.

Dr. Burney whispered to her, "Because, Madam, you have no ear yourself for music, will you destroy the attention of all who in that one point are otherwise gifted?"' Mrs. Thrale took this rebuke very well. This was her first meeting with Piozzi. It was in Mr. Thrale's life-time.

_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 110.

[1046] Dr. Johnson's letter to Sir John Hawkins, _Life_, p. 570.

BOSWELL. The last time Miss Burney saw Johnson, not three weeks before his death, he told her that the day before he had seen Miss Thrale. 'I then said:--"Do you ever, Sir, hear from mother?" "No," cried he, "nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If I meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly. I have burnt all I can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to hear of her more. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 328.

[1047] See _ante_, i. 493.

[1048] _Anec_. p. 293. BOSWELL.

[1049] 'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, "that he who wants least is most like the G.o.ds who want nothing," was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who on his own part required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p.275. Miss Burney's account of the life at Streatham is generally very cheerful. I suspect that the irksome confinement described by Mrs. Piozzi was not felt by her till she became attached to Mr. Piozzi. This caused a great change in her behaviour and much unhappiness. (_Ante_, p. 138, note 4.) He at times treated her harshly. (_Ante_, p. 160, note.) Two pa.s.sages in her letters to Miss Burney shew a want of feeling in her for a man who for nearly twenty years had been to her almost as a father. On Feb. 18, 1784, she writes:--'Johnson is in a sad way doubtless; yet he may still with care last another twelve-month, and every week's existence is gain to him, who, like good Hezekiah, wearies Heaven with entreaties for life. I wrote him a very serious letter the other day.' On March 23 she writes:--' My going to London would be a dreadful expense, and bring on a thousand inquiries and inconveniences--visits to Johnson and from Cator.' It is likely that in other letters there were like pa.s.sages, but these letters Miss Burney 'for cogent reasons destroyed.' Mme.

D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 305, 7, 8.

[1050]

'Bless'd paper credit! last and best supply!

That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!'

Pope, _Moral Essays_, iii. 39.

[1051] Who has been pleased to furnish me with his remarks. BOSWELL. No doubt Malone, who says, however: 'On the whole the publick is indebted to her for her lively, though very inaccurate and artful, account of Dr.

Johnson.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 364.

[1052] See _ante_, iii. 81.

[1053] _Anec._ p. 183. BOSWELL.

[1054] Hannah More. She, with her sisters, had kept a boarding-school at Bristol.

[1055] She first saw Johnson in June, 1774. According to her _Memoirs_ (i. 48) he met her 'with good humour in his countenance, and continued in the same pleasant humour the whole of the evening.' She called on him in Bolt Court. One of her sisters writes:--'Miss Reynolds told the doctor of all our rapturous exclamations [about him] on the road. He shook his scientific head at Hannah, and said, "She was a silly thing."'

_Ib_. p. 49. 'He afterwards mentioned to Miss Reynolds how much he had been touched with the enthusiasm of the young auth.o.r.ess, which was evidently genuine and unaffected.' _Ib_. p. 50. She met him again in the spring of 1775. Her sister writes:--'The old genius was extremely jocular, and the young one very pleasant. They indeed tried which could "pepper the highest" [Goldsmith's _Retaliation_], and it is not clear to me that he was really the highest seasoner.' _Ib_. p. 54. From the Mores we know nothing of his reproof. He had himself said of 'a literary lady'--no doubt Hannah More--'I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds to let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much.' _Ante_, iii.293. Miss Burney records a story she had from Mrs. Thrale, 'which,'

she continues, 'exceeds, I think, in its severity all the severe things I have yet heard of Dr. Johnson's saying. When Miss More was introduced to him, she began singing his praise in the warmest manner. For some time he heard her with that quietness which a long use of praise has given him: she then redoubled her strokes, till at length he turned suddenly to her, with a stern and angry countenance, and said, "Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.103. Shortly afterwards Miss Burney records (_ib_. p. 121) that Mrs. Thrale said to him:--'We have told her what you said to Miss More, and I believe that makes her afraid.' He replied:--'Well, and if she was to serve me as Miss More did, I should say the same thing to her.' We have therefore three reports of what he said--one from Mrs.

Thrale indirectly, one from her directly, and the third from Malone.

However severe the reproof was, the Mores do not seem to have been much touched by it. At all events they enjoyed the meeting with Johnson, and Hannah More needed a second reproof that was conveyed to her through Miss Reynolds.

[1056] _Anec._ p. 202. BOSWELL.

[1057] See _ante_, i. 40, 68, 92, 415, 481; ii. 188, 194; iii. 229; and _post_, v. 245, note 2.

[1058] _Anec._ p. 44. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 318, _note_ 1, where I quote the pa.s.sage.

[1059] _Ib_. p. 23. BOSWELL.

[1060] _Ib_. p. 45. Mr. Hayward says:--'She kept a copious diary and notebook called _Thraliana_ from 1776 to 1809. It is now,' [1861] he continues, 'in the possession of Mr. Salusbury, who deems it of too private and delicate a character to be submitted to strangers, but has kindly supplied me with some curious pa.s.sages from it.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 6.

[1061] _Ib_. p. 51 [192]. BOSWELL.

[1062] _Anec._ p. 193 [51]. BOSWELL.

[1063] Johnson, says Murphy, (_Life_, p. 96) 'felt not only kindness, but zeal and ardour for his friends.' 'Who,' he asks (_ib_. p. 144), 'was more sincere and steady in his friends.h.i.+ps?' 'Numbers,' he says (_ib_. p. 146), 'still remember with grat.i.tude the friends.h.i.+p which he shewed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years.'

[1064] See _ante_, ii. 285, and iii. 440.

[1065] Johnson's _Works_, i. 152, 3.

[1066] In vol. ii. of the _Piozzi Letters_ some of these letters are given.

[1067] He gave Miss Thrale lessons in Latin. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i.

243 and 427.

[1068] _Anec._ p. 258. BOSWELL.

[1069] George James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl of Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners. BOSWELL. When I spoke to him a few years before his death upon this point, I found him very sore at being made the topic of such a debate, and very unwilling to remember any thing about either the offence or the apology. CROKER.

[1070] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale,_ vol. ii. p. 12. BOSWELL.

[1071] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in some distant province, either Shrops.h.i.+re or Derbys.h.i.+re, I believe.'

Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 (_ante_, ii. 285). If the pa.s.sage in the letter refers to the same anecdote--and Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I know, deny it--more than three years pa.s.sed before Johnson was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; yet if Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same explanation of the pa.s.sage, his soreness is easily accounted for.

[1072] _Anec_. p. 23. BOSWELL.

[1073] _Ib_. p. 302. BOSWELL.

[1074] _Ra.s.selas_, chap, xvii

[1075] _Paradise Lost_, iv. 639.