Life of Johnson Volume V Part 56

[715] See _ante_, iv. 176.

[716]

'If ev'ry wheel of that unwearied mill That turned ten thousand verses now stands still.'

_Imitations of Horace, 2 Epis._ ii. 78.

[717] _Ante_, p. 206.

[718]

'Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captos Ducit.'--Ovid, _Ex Pont_. i. 3. 35.

[719] Lift up your hearts.

[720] Mr. Croker prints the following letter written to Macleod the day before:--

'Ostig, 28th Sept. 1773.

'DEAR SIR,--We are now on the margin of the sea, waiting for a boat and a wind. Boswell grows impatient; but the kind treatment which I find wherever I go, makes me leave, with some heaviness of heart, an island which I am not very likely to see again. Having now gone as far as horses can carry us, we thankfully return them. My steed will, I hope, be received with kindness;--he has borne me, heavy as I am, over ground both rough and steep, with great fidelity; and for the use of him, as for your other favours, I hope you will believe me thankful, and willing, at whatever distance we may be placed, to shew my sense of your kindness, by any offices of friends.h.i.+p that may fall within my power.

'Lady Macleod and the young ladies have, by their hospitality and politeness, made an impression on my mind, which will not easily be effaced. Be pleased to tell them, that I remember them with great tenderness, and great respect.--I am, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'P.S.--We pa.s.sed two days at Talisker very happily, both by the pleasantness of the place and elegance of our reception.'

[721] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 409), after describing how Shenstone laid out the Leasowes, continues:--'Whether to plant a walk in undulating curves, and to place a bench at every turn where there is an object to catch the view; to make water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen; to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be hidden, demands any great powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a surly and sullen speculator may think such performances rather the sport than the business of human reason.'

[722] Johnson quotes this and the two preceding stanzas as 'a pa.s.sage, to which if any mind denies its sympathy, it has no acquaintance with love or nature.' _Ib_. p. 413.

[723] 'His mind was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity active; he had no value for those parts of knowledge which he had not himself cultivated.' _Ib._ p. 411.

[724] In the preface to vol. iii. of Shenstone's _Works_, ed. 1773, a quotation is given (p. vi) from one of the poet's letters in which he complains of this burning. He writes:--'I look upon my Letters as some of my _chef-d'auvres_.' On p. 301, after mentioning _Ra.s.selas_, he continues:--'Did I tell you I had a letter from Johnson, inclosing Vernon's _Parish-clerk_?'

[725] 'The truth is these elegies have neither pa.s.sion, nature, nor manners. Where there is fiction, there is no pa.s.sion: he that describes himself as a shepherd, and his Neaera or Delia as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no pa.s.sion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deserves to lose her; for she may with good reason suspect his sincerity.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 91. See _ante_, iv. 17.

[726] His lines on Pulteney, Earl of Bath, still deserve some fame:--

'Leave a blank here and there in each page To enrol the fair deeds of his youth!

When you mention the acts of his age, Leave a blank for his honour and truth.'

From _The Statesman_, H. C. Williams's _Odes_, p. 47.

[727] Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2.

[728] He did not mention the name of any particular person; but those who are conversant with the political world will probably recollect more persons than one to whom this observation may be applied. BOSWELL. Mr.

Croker thinks that Lord North was meant. For his ministry Johnson certainly came to have a great contempt (_ante_, iv. 139). If Johnson was thinking of him, he differed widely in opinion from Gibbon, who describes North as 'a consummate master of debate, who could wield with equal dexterity the arms of reason and of ridicule.' Gibbon's _Misc.

Works_, i. 221. On May 2, 1775, he wrote:--' If they turned out Lord North to-morrow, they would still leave him one of the best companions in the kingdom.' _Ib._ ii. 135.

[729] Horace Walpole is speaking of this work, when he wrote on May 16, 1759 (_Letters_, iii. 227):--'Dr. Young has published a new book, on purpose, he says himself, to have an opportunity of telling a story that he has known these forty years. Mr. Addison sent for the young Lord Warwick, as he was dying, to shew him in what peace a Christian could die--unluckily he died of brandy--nothing makes a Christian die in peace like being maudlin! but don't say this in Gath, where you are.'

[730] 'His [Young's] plan seems to have started in his mind at the present moment; and his thoughts appear the effect of chance, sometimes adverse, and sometimes lucky, with very little operation of judgment....

His verses are formed by no certain model; he is no more like himself in his different productions than he is like others. He seems never to have studied prosody, nor to have had any direction but from his own ear. But with all his defects, he was a man of genius and a poet.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 458, 462. Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 371) tells why 'Dr. Johnson despised Young's quant.i.ty of common knowledge as comparatively small. 'Twas only because, speaking once upon the subject of metrical composition, he seemed totally ignorant of what are called rhopalick verses, from the Greek word, a club--verses in which each word must be a syllable longer than that which goes before, such as:

Spes deus aeternae stationis conciliator.'

[731] He had said this before. _Ante_, ii. 96.

[732]

'Brunetta's wise in actions great and rare, But scorns on trifles to bestow her care.

Thus ev'ry hour Brunetta is to blame, Because th' occasion is beneath her aim.

Think nought a trifle, though it small appear; Small sands the mountains, moments make the year, And trifles life. Your care to trifles give, Or you may die before you truly live.'

_Love of Fame_, Satire vi. Johnson often taught that life is made up of trifles. See _ante_, i. 433.

[733]

"But hold," she cries, "lampooner, have a care; Must I want common sense, because I'm fair?"

O no: see Stella; her eyes s.h.i.+ne as bright, As if her tongue was never in the right; And yet what real learning, judgment, fire!

She seems inspir'd, and can herself inspire: How then (if malice rul'd not all the fair) Could Daphne publish, and could she forbear?

We grant that beauty is no bar to sense, Nor is't a sanction for impertinence.

_Love of Fame_, Satire v.

[734] Johnson called on Young's son at Welwyn in June, 1781. _Ante_, iv.

119. Croft, in his _Life of Young_ (Johnson's _Works_, viii. 453), says that 'Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed with more ill-nature than wit in a kind of novel published by Kidgell in 1755, called _The Card_, under the name of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fusby.'

[735] _Memoirs of Philip Doddridge_, ed. 1766, p. 171.

[736] So late as 1783 he said 'this Hanoverian family is isolee here.'

_Ante_, iv. 165.

[737] See _ante_, ii. 81, where he hoped that 'this gloom of infidelity was only a transient cloud.'

[738] Boswell has recorded this saying, _ante_, iv. 194.

[739] In 1755 an English version of this work had been published. _Gent.

Mag_. 1755, p. 574. In the Chronological Catalogue on p. 343 in vol. 66 of Voltaire's _Works_, ed. 1819, it is entered as _'Histoire de la Guerre de_ 1741, fondue en partie dans le _Precis du siecle de Louis XV_.'

[740] Boswell is here merely repeating Johnson's words, who on April 11 of this year, advising him to keep a journal, had said, 'The great thing to be recorded is the state of your own mind.' _Ante_, ii. 217.

[741] This word is not in his _Dictionary_.

[742] See _ante_, i. 498.