Life of Johnson Volume VI Part 15

_Johnson on the advantages of having a profession or business_.

(Vol. iii, p. 309, n. 1.)

'Dr. Johnson was of opinion that the happiest as well as the most virtuous persons were to be found amongst those who united with a business or profession a love of literature.'

--Seward's _Biographiana_, p. 599.

_Johnson's trips to the country_.

(Vol. iii, p. 453.)

I have omitted to mention Johnson's visit to 'Squire Dilly's mansion at Southill in June, 1781 (_ante_, iv. 118-132).

_Citations of living authors in Johnson's Dictionary_.

(Vol. iv, p. 4, n. 3.)

Johnson cites _Irene_ under _impostures_, and Lord Lyttelton under _twist_.

_Dr. Parrs evening with Dr. Johnson_.

(Vol. iv, p. 15.)

The Rev. John Rigaud, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, has kindly sent me the following anecdote of the meeting of Johnson and Parr:--

'I remember Dr. Routh, the old President of Magdalen, telling me of an interview and conversation between Dr. Johnson and Dr. Parr, in the course of which the former made use of some expression respecting the latter, which considerably wounded and offended him. "Sir," he said to Dr. Johnson, "you know that what you have just said will be known in four-and-twenty hours over this vast metropolis." Upon which Dr.

Johnson's manner altered, his eye became calm, and he put out his hand, and said, "Forgive me, Parr, I didn't quite mean it." "But," said the President, with an amused and amusing look, "_I never could get him to tell me what it was Dr. Johnson had said!_" He spoke of seeing Dr.

Johnson going up the steps into University College, dressed, I think, in a snuff-coloured coat.'

Dr. Martin Joseph Routh, who was President of Magdalen College for sixty-four years, was born in 1755 and died on December 22, 1854.

'_Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris_.'

(Vol. iv, p. 181, n. 3.)

Malone's note on _The Rape of Lucrece_ must have been, not as I conjectured on line 1111, but on lines 1581-2:--

'It easeth some, though none it ever cured, To think their dolour others have endured.'

With these lines may be compared Satan's speech in _Paradise Regained_, Book i, lines 399-402:--

'Long since with woe Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof, That fellows.h.i.+p in pain divides not smart, Nor lightens aught each man's peculiar load.'

_Richard Baxter's rule of preaching_.

(Vol. iv, p. 185.)

The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies [See _ante_, p. xlix.] has furnished me with the following extract from _Reliquiae Baxterianae_, ed. 1696, p. 93, in ill.u.s.tration of Johnson's statement:--

'And yet I did usually put in something in my Sermon which was above their own discovery, and which they had not known before; and this I did, that they might be kept humble, and still perceive their ignorance, and be willing to keep in a learning state. (For when Preachers tell their People of no more than they know, and do not shew that they excel them in knowledge, and easily overtop them in Abilities, the People will be tempted to turn Preachers themselves, and think that they have learnt all that the Ministers can teach them, and are as wise as they------). And this I did also to increase their knowledge; and also to make Religion pleasant to them, by a daily addition to their former Sight, and to draw them on with desire and Delight.'

_Opposition to Sir Joshua Reynolds in the Royal Academy_.

(Vol. iv, p. 219, n. 4.)

'JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ., TO BISHOP PERCY.

'12 March, 1790.

'Sir Joshua has been shamefully used by a junto of the Academicians.

I live a great deal with him, and he is much better than you would suppose.'

--Nichols's _Literary History_, vii. 313.

_Richard Baxter on the possible salvation of a Suicide_.

(Vol. iv, p. 225.)

The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies writes to me that 'Dr. Johnson's quotation about suicide must surely be wrong. I have no recollection in any of Baxter's _Works_ of such a statement, and it is in direct contradiction to all that is known of his sentiments. 'Mr. Davies sends me the following pa.s.sage, which possibly Johnson might have very imperfectly remembered:--

'The commonest cause [of suicide] is melancholy, &c. Though there be much more hope of the salvation of such as want the use of their understandings, because so far it may be called involuntary, yet it is a very dreadful case, especially so far as reason remaineth in any power.'

--Baxter's _Christian Directory, edited by Orme, part iv, p. 138.

_Haslitt's report of Baxter's Sermon_.

(Vol. iv, p. 226, n. 2.)

The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies tells me that he 'entirely disbelieves that Baxter said, "h.e.l.l was paved with infants' skulls." The same thing, or something very like it, has been said of Calvin, but I could never,'

Mr. Davies continues, 'find it in his Works.' He kindly sends me the following extract from _Reliquiae Baxterianae_, ed. 1696, p. 24:--

'Once all the ignorant Rout were raging mad against me for preaching the Doctrine of Original Sin to them, and telling them that Infants before Regeneration had so much Guilt and Corruption, as made them loathsome in the Eyes of G.o.d: whereupon they vented it abroad in the Country, That I preached that G.o.d hated, or loathed Infants; so that they railed at me as I pa.s.sed through the streets. The next Lord's Day, I cleared and confirmed it, and shewed them that if this were not true, their Infants had no need of Christ, of Baptism, or of Renewing by the Holy Ghost. And I asked them whether they durst say that their Children were saved without a Saviour, and were no Christians, and why they baptized them, with much more to that purpose, and afterwards they were ashamed and as mute as fishes.'

_Johnson on an actor's transformation_.

(Vol. iv, p. 244.)