Life of Johnson Volume V Part 44

[279] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254, 265.

[280] Spedding's _Bacon_, vii. 271. The poem is also given in _The Golden Treasury_, p. 37; where, however, 'limns _the_ water' is changed into 'limns _on_ water.'

[281] 'Addison now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literary occupations for his future life. He purposed a tragedy on the death of Socrates... He engaged in a n.o.bler work, a defence of the Christian religion, of which part was published after his death.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 441, and Addison's _Works_, ed. 1856, v. 103.

[282] Dr. Beattie was so kindly entertained in England, that he had not yet returned home. BOSWELL. Beattie was staying in London till his pension got settled. Early in July he had been told that he was to have a pension of 200 a year (_ante_, ii. 264, note 2). It was not till Aug.

20 that it was conferred. On July 9, he, in company with Sir Joshua Reynolds, received the degree of D.C.L. at Oxford. On Aug. 24, he had a long interview with the King; 'who asked,' Beattie records, 'whether we had any good preachers at Aberdeen. I said "Yes," and named Campbell and Gerard, with whose names, however, I did not find that he was acquainted.' It was this same summer that Reynolds painted him in 'the allegorical picture representing the triumph of truth over scepticism and infidelity' (_post_, Oct. 1, note). Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824, pp. 151-6, 167.

[283] Dr. Johnson's burgess-ticket was in these words:--'Aberdoniae, vigesimo tertio die mensis Augusti, anno Domini millesimo septingentesimo septuagesimo tertio, in presentia honorabilium virorum, Jacobi Jopp, armigeri, praepositi, Adami Duff, Gulielmi Young, Georgii Marr, et Gulielmi Forbes, Balivorum, Gulielmi Rainie Decani guildae, et Joannis Nicoll Thesaurarii dicti burgi. 'Quo die vir generosus et doctrina clarus, Samuel Johnson, LL.D. receptus et admissus fuit in municipes et fratres guildae: praefati burgi de Aberdeen. In deditissimi amoris et affectus ac eximiae observantiae tesseram, quibus dicti Magistratus eum amplectuntur. Extractum per me, ALEX. CARNEGIE.'

BOSWELL. 'I was presented with the freedom of the city, not in a gold box, but in good Latin. Let me pay Scotland one just praise; there was no officer gaping for a fee; this could have been said of no city on the English side of the Tweed.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 117. Baretti, in a MS.

note on this pa.s.sage, says:--'Throughout England nothing is done for nothing. Stop a moment to look at the rusticks mowing a field, and they will presently quit their work to come to you, and ask something to drink.' Aberdeen conferred its freedom so liberally about this time that it is surprising that Boswell was pa.s.sed over. George Colman the younger, when a youth of eighteen, was sent to King's College. He says in his worthless _Random Records_, ii. 99:--'I had scarcely been a week in Old Aberdeen, when the Lord Provost of the New Town invited me to drink wine with him one evening in the Town Hall; there I found a numerous company a.s.sembled. The object of this meeting was soon declared to me by the Lord Provost, who drank my health, and presented me with the freedom of the City.' Two of his English fellow-students, of a little older standing, had, he said, received the same honour. His statement seemed to me incredible; but by the politeness of the Town-clerk, W. Gordon, Esq., I have found out that in the main it is correct. Colman, with one of the two, was admitted as an Honorary Burgess on Oct. 8, 1781, being described as _vir generosus_; the other had been admitted earlier. The population of Aberdeen and its suburbs in 1769 was, according to Pennant, 16,000. Pennant's _Tour_, p. 117.

[284] 'King's College in Aberdeen was an exact model of the University of Paris. Its founder, Bishop [not Archbishop] Elphinstone, had been a Professor at Paris and at Orleans.' Burton's _Scotland_, ed. 1873, iii.

404. On p. 20, Dr. Burton describes him as 'the rich accomplished scholar and French courtier Elphinstone, munificently endowing a University after the model of the University of Paris.'

[285] Boswell projected the following works:--1. An edition of _Johnson's Poems. Ante_, i. 16. 2. A work in which the merit of Addison's poetry shall be maintained, _ib_. p. 225. 3. A _History of Sweden_, ii. 156. 4. A_ Life of Thomas Ruddiman, ib._ p. 216. 5. An edition of Walton's_ Lives_ iii. 107. 6. A _History of the Civil War in_ _Great Britain in_ 1745 and 1746, _ib._, p. 162.

7. A _Life of Sir Robert Sibbald, ib._ p. 227. 8 An account of his own Travels, _ib_. p. 300. 9. A Collection, with notes, of old tenures and charters of Scotland, _ib_. p. 414, note 3. 10. A _History of James IV._ 11. 'A quarto volume to be embellished with fine plates, on the subject of the controversy (_ante_, ii. 367) occasioned by the _Beggar's Opera._' Murray's _Johnsoniana_, ed. 1836, p. 502.

Thomas Boswell received from James IV. the estate of Auchinleck. _Ante_, ii. 413. See _post_, Nov. 4.

[286] Mackintosh says, in his _Life_, i. 9:--'In October, 1780, I was admitted into the Greek cla.s.s, then taught by Mr. Leslie, who did not aspire beyond teaching us the first rudiments of the language; more would, I believe, have been useless to his scholars.'

[287] 'Boswell was very angry that the Aberdeen professors would not talk.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 118. Dr. Robertson and Dr. Blair, whom Boswell, five years earlier, invited to meet Johnson at supper, 'with an excess of prudence hardly opened their lips' (_ante_, ii. 63). At Glasgow the professors did not dare to talk much (_post_, Oct. 29). On another occasion when Johnson came in, the company 'were all as quiet as a school upon the entrance of the headmaster.' _Ante_, iii. 332.

[288] Dr. Beattie says that this printer was Strahan. He had seen the letter mentioned by Gerard, and many other letters too from the Bishop to Strahan. 'They were,' he continues, 'very particularly acquainted.'

He adds that 'Strahan was eminently skilled in composition, and had corrected (as he told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr. Hume and Dr. Robertson.' Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824, p. 341.

[289] An instance of this is given in Johnson's _Works_, viii.

288:--'Warburton had in the early part of his life pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with the enemies of Pope.

A letter was produced, when he had perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, "Dryden, I observe, borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius; Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty."'

[290] 'Goldsmith a.s.serted that Warburton was a weak writer. "Warburton,"

said Johnson, "may be absurd, but he will never be weak; he flounders well."' Stockdale's _Memoirs_, ii. 64. See Appendix A.

[291] _The Doctrine of Grace; or the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit vindicated from the Insults of Infidelity and the Abuses of Fanaticism_, 1762.

[292] _A Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, occasioned by his Tract on the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit_, by John Wesley, 1762.

[293] Malone records:--'I could not find from Mr. Walpole that his father [Sir Robert] read any other book but Sydenham in his retirement.'

To his admiration of Sydenham his death was attributed; for it led him to treat himself wrongly when he was suffering from the stone. Prior's _Malone_, p. 387. Johnson wrote a _Life of Sydenham_. In it he ridicules the notion that 'a man eminent for integrity _practised Medicine by chance, and grew wise only by murder_.' _Works_, vi. 409.

[294] All this, as Dr. Johnson suspected at the time, was the immediate invention of his own lively imagination; for there is not one word of it in Mr. Locke's complimentary performance. My readers will, I have no doubt, like to be satisfied, by comparing them; and, at any rate, it may entertain them to read verses composed by our great metaphysician, when a Bachelor in Physick.

AUCTORI, IN TRACTATUM EJUS DE FEBRIBUS.

Febriles aestus, victumque ardoribus...o...b..m Flevit, non tantis par Medicina malis.

Nam post mille artes, medicae tentamina curae, Ardet adhuc Febris; nec velit arte regi.

Praeda sumus flammis; solum hoc speramus ab igne, Ut restet paucus, quem capit urna, cinis.

Dum quaerit medicus febris caussamque, modumque, Flammarum & tenebras, & sine luce faces; Quas tractat pat.i.tur flammas, & febre calescens, Corruit ipse suis victima rapta focis.

Qui tardos potuit morbos, artusque trementes, Sistere, febrili se videt igne rapi.

Sic faber exesos fulsit tibicine muros; Dum trahit antiquas lenta ruina domos.

Sed si flamma vorax miseras incenderit aedes, Unica flagrantes tunc sepelire salus.

Fit fuga, tectonicas nemo tunc invocat artes; c.u.m perit artificis non minus usta domus.

Se tandem _Sydenham_ febrisque Scholaeque furori Opponens, morbi quaerit, & artis opem.

Non temere incusat tectae putedinis [putredinis] ignes; Nec fictus, febres qui fovet, humor erit.

Non bilem ille movet, nulla hic pituita; Salutis Quae spes, si fallax ardeat intus aqua?

Nec doctas magno rixas ostentat hiatu, Quis ipsis major febribus ardor inest.

Innocuas placide corpus jubet urere flammas, Et justo rapidos temperat igne focos.

Quid febrim exstinguat, varius quid postulet usus, Solari aegrotos, qua potes arte, docet, Hactenus ipsa suum timuit Natura calorem, Dum saepe incerto, quo calet, igne perit: Dum reparat tacitos male provida sanguinis ignes, Praslusit busto, fit calor iste rogus.

Jam secura suas foveant praecordia flammas, Quem Natura negat, dat Medicina modum.

Nec solum faciles compescit sanguinis aestus, Dum dubia est inter spemque metumque salus; Sed fatale malum domuit, quodque astra malignum Credimus, iratam vel genuisse _Stygem_.

Extorsit _Lachesi_ cultros, Pestique venenum Abstulit, & tantos non sinit esse metus.

Quis tandem arte nova domitam mitescere Pestem Credat, & antiquas ponere posse minas?

Post tot mille neces, c.u.mulataque funera busto, Victa jacet parvo vulnere dira Lues.

Aetheriae quanquam spargunt contagia flammae, Quicquid inest istis ignibus, ignis erit.

Delapsae coelo flammae licet acrius urant Has gelida exstingui non nisi morte putas?

Tu meliora paras victrix Medicina; tuusque, Pestis quae superat cuncta, triumphus eris [erit].

Vive liber, victis febrilibus ignibus; unus Te simul & mundum qui manet, ignis erit.

J. LOCK, A.M. Ex. Aede Christi, Oxon. BOSWELL.

[295] See _ante_, ii. 126, 298.

[296] 'One of its ornaments [i.e. of Marischal College] is the picture of Arthur Johnston, who was princ.i.p.al of the college, and who holds among the Latin Poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan.'

Johnson's _Works_, ix. 12. Pope attacking Benson, who endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments to Milton, and printing editions of Johnson's version of the _Psalms_, introduces the Scotch Poet in the _Dunciad_:-- On two unequal crutches propped he came, Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name.'

_Dunciad_, bk. iv. l. III.

Johnson wrote to Boswell for a copy of Johnston's _Poems_ (_ante_, iii. 104) and for his likeness (_ante_, March 18, 1784).

[297] 'Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrews, only the session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April' [five months, instead of seven]. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 116. In his _Works_ (ix.

14) Johnson by mistake gives eight months to the St. Andrews session. On p. 5 he gives it rightly as seven.

[298] Beattie, as an Aberdeen professor, was grieved at this saying when he read the book. 'Why is it recorded?' he asked. 'For no reason that I can imagine, unless it be in order to return evil for good.' Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824. p. 337.

[299] See _ante_, ii. 336, and iii. 209.

[300] See _ante_, iii. 65, and _post_, Nov. 2.

[301] See _ante_, i. 411. Johnson, no doubt, was reminded of this story by his desire to get this book. Later on (_ante_, iii. 104) he asked Boswell 'to be vigilant and get him Graham's _Telemachus_.'

[302] I am sure I have related this story exactly as Dr. Johnson told it to me; but a friend who has often heard him tell it, informs me that he usually introduced a circ.u.mstance which ought not to be omitted. 'At last, Sir, Graham, having now got to about the pitch of looking at one man, and talking to another, said _Doctor_, &c.' 'What effect (Dr.

Johnson used to add) this had on Goldsmith, who was as irascible as a hornet, may be easily conceived.' BOSWELL.

[303] Graham was of Eton College.

[304] It was to Johnson that the invitation was due. 'What I was at the English Church at Aberdeen I happened to be espied by Lady Dr.

Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had seen to Mr. Boyd, Lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to Lord Errol's house.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 118. Boswell, perhaps, was not unwilling that the reader should think that it was to him that the compliment was paid.