Life of Johnson Volume I Part 54

Gibbon in his _Autobiography_ says:--'The domestic discipline of our ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness of the age: and if my father remembered that he had trembled before a stern parent, it was only to adopt with his son an opposite mode of behaviour.'

Gibbon's _Works_, i. 112. Lord Chesterfield writing to a friend on Oct.

18, 1752, says:--'Pray let my G.o.dson never know what a blow or a whipping is, unless for those things for which, were he a man, he would deserve them; such as lying, cheating, making mischief, and meditated malice.' Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 130.

[150] Johnson, however, hated anything that came near to tyranny in the management of children. Writing to Mrs. Thrale, who had told him that she had on one occasion gone against the wish of her nurses, he said:--'That the nurses fretted will supply me during life with an additional motive to keep every child, as far as is possible, out of a nurse's power. A nurse made of common mould will have a pride in overcoming a child's reluctance. There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful; power is nothing but as it is felt, and the delight of superiority is proportionate to the resistance overcome.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 67.

[151] 'Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed.' 2 Henry VI, act iv.

sc. 10. John Wesley's mother, writing of the way she had brought up her children, boys and girls alike, says:--'When turned a year old (and some before) they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly; by which means they escaped abundance of correction they might otherwise have had.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 370.

[152] 'There dwelt at Lichfield a gentleman of the name of b.u.t.t, to whose house on holidays he was ever welcome. The children in the family, perhaps offended with the rudeness of his behaviour, would frequently call him the great boy, which the father once overhearing said:--'You call him the great boy, but take my word for it, he will one day prove a great man.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 6.

[153] See _post_, March 22, 1776 and Johnson's visit to Birmingham in Nov. 1784.

[154] 'You should never suffer your son to be idle one minute. I do not call play, of which he ought to have a good share, idleness; but I mean sitting still in a chair in total inaction; it makes boys lazy and indolent.' Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 248.

[155] The author of the _Reliques_.

[156] The summer of 1764.

[157] Johnson, writing of _Paradise Lost_, book ii. l. 879, says:--'In the history of _Don Bellianis_, when one of the knights approaches, as I remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open, _grating harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges_.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 76. See _post_, March 27, 1776, where 'he had with him upon a jaunt Il Palmerino d'Inghilterra.' Prior says of Burke that 'a very favourite study, as he once confessed in the House of Commons, was the old romances, _Palmerin of England_ and _Don Belianis of Greece_, upon which he had wasted much valuable time.' Prior's _Burke_, p. 9.

[158] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 2) says that the uncle was Dr. Joseph Ford 'a physician of great eminence.' The son, Parson Ford, was Cornelius. In Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15, 1773, Johnson mentions an uncle who very likely was Dr. Ford. In _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. v. 13, it is shown that by the will of the widow of Dr. Ford the Johnsons received 200 in 1722. On the same page the Ford pedigree is given, where it is seen that Johnson had an uncle Cornelius. It has been stated that 'Johnson was brought up by his uncle till his fifteenth year.' I understand Boswell to say that Johnson, after leaving Lichfield School, resided for some time with his uncle before going to Stourbridge.

[159] He is said to be the original of the parson in Hogarth's _Modern Midnight Conversation_. BOSWELL.

In the _Life of Fenton_ Johnson describes Ford as 'a clergyman at that time too well known, whose abilities, instead of furnis.h.i.+ng convivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 57.

Writing to Mrs. Thrale on July 8, 1771, he says, 'I would have been glad to go to Hagley [close to Stourbridge] for I should have had the opportunity of recollecting past times, and wandering _per montes notos et flumina nota_, of recalling the images of sixteen, and reviewing my conversations with poor Ford.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 42. See also _post_, May 12, 1778.

[160] See _post_, April 20, 1781.

[161] As was likewise the Bishop of Dromore many years afterwards.

BOSWELL.

[162] Mr. Hector informs me, that this was made almost _impromptu_, in his presence. BOSWELL.

[163] This he inserted, with many alterations, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1743 [p. 378]. BOSWELL. The alterations are not always for the better. Thus he alters

'And the long honours of a lasting name'

into

'And fir'd with pleasing hope of endless fame.'

[164] Settle was the last of the city-poets; _post_, May 15, 1776.

[165] 'Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great.' Dunciad, i. 141.

[166] Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act _The Distressed Mother_, Johnson wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to convey it privately to them. BOSWELL. See _post_, 1747, for _The Distressed Mother_.

[167] Yet he said to Boswell:--'Sir, in my early years I read very hard.

It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now' (_post_, July 21, 1763). He told Mr. Langton, that 'his great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of eighteen' (Ib. note). He told the King that his reading had later on been hindered by ill-health (_post_, Feb. 1767).

[168] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 9) says that his father took him home, probably with a view to bring him up to his own trade; for I have heard Johnson say that he himself was able to bind a book. 'It were better bind books again,' wrote Mrs. Thrale to him on Sept. 18, 1777, 'as you did one year in our thatched summer-house.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 375. It was most likely at this time that he refused to attend his father to Uttoxeter market, for which fault he made atonement in his old age (_post_, November, 1784).

[169] Perhaps Johnson had his own early reading in mind when he thus describes Pope's reading at about the same age. 'During this period of his life he was indefatigably diligent and insatiably curious; wanting health for violent, and money for expensive pleasures, and having excited in himself very strong desires of intellectual eminence, he spent much of his time over his books; but he read only to store his mind with facts and images, seizing all that his authors presented with undistinguis.h.i.+ng voracity, and with an appet.i.te for knowledge too eager to be nice.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 239.

[170] Andrew Corbet, according to Hawkins. Corbet had entered Pembroke College in 1727. Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's G.o.d-father, was a member of the College. I find the name of a Swinfen on the books in 1728.

[171] In the Caution Book of Pembroke College are found the two following entries:--

'Oct. 31, 1728. Recd. then of Mr. Samuel Johnson Commr. of Pem. Coll. ye summ of seven Pounds for his Caution, which is to remain in ye Hands of ye Bursars till ye said Mr. Johnson shall depart ye said College leaving ye same fully discharg'd.

Recd. by me, John Ratcliff, Bursar.'

'March 26, 1740. At a convention of the Master and Fellows to settle the accounts of the Caution it appear'd that the Persons Accounts underwritten stood thus at their leaving the College:

Caution not Repay'd Mr. Johnson 7 0 0 Battells not discharg'd Mr. Johnson 7 0 0

Mr. Carlyle is in error in describing Johnson as a servitor. He was a commoner as the above entry shows. Though he entered on Oct. 31, he did not matriculate till Dec. 16. It was on Palm Sunday of this same year that Rousseau left Geneva, and so entered upon his eventful career.

Goldsmith was born eleven days after Johnson entered (Nov. 10, 1728).

Reynolds was five years old. Burke was born before Johnson left Oxford.

[172] He was in his twentieth year. He was born on Sept. 18, 1709, and was therefore nineteen. He was somewhat late in entering. In his _Life of Ascham_ he says, 'Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, in the eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common now to enter the universities than to take degrees.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 505. It was just after Johnson's entrance that the two Wesleys began to hold small devotional meetings at Oxford.

[173] Builders were at work in the college during all his residence.

'July 16, 1728. About a quarter of a year since they began to build a new chapel for Pembroke Coll. next to Slaughter Lane.' Hearne's _Remains_, iii. 9.

[174] _Athen. Oxon_. edit. 1721, i. 627. BOSWELL.

[175] Johnson would oftener risk the payment of a small fine than attend his lectures.... Upon occasion of one such imposition he said to Jorden:--"Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non-attendance at a lecture not worth a penny." Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 9. A pa.s.sage in Whitefield's _Diary_ shows that the sconce was often greater. He once neglected to give in the weekly theme which every Sat.u.r.day had to be given to the tutor in the Hall 'when the bell rang.' He was fined half-a-crown. Tyerman's _Whitefield_, i. 22. In my time (1855-8) at Pembroke College every Sat.u.r.day when the bell rang we gave in our piece of Latin prose--themes were things of the past.

[176] This was on Nov. 6, O.S., or Nov. 17, N.S.--a very early time for ice to bear. The first mention of frost that I find in the newspapers of that winter is in the _Weekly Journal_ for Nov. 30, O.S.; where it is stated that 'the pa.s.sage by land and water [i.e. the Thames] is now become very dangerous by the snow, frost, and ice.' The record of meteorological observations began a few years later.

[177] Oxford, 20th March, 1776. BOSWELL.

[178] Mr. Croker discovers a great difference between this account and that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton (_post_, under July 16, 1754).

There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, 'to an ear spoiled by flattery.' A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts refer to different hours of the same day. Johnson's 'stark insensibility'

belonged to the morning, and his 'beating heart' to the afternoon. He had been impertinent before dinner, and when he was sent for after dinner 'he expected a sharp rebuke.'

[179] It ought to be remembered that Dr. Johnson was apt, in his literary as well as moral exercises, to overcharge his defects. Dr.

Adams informed me, that he attended his tutors lectures, and also the lectures in the College Hall, very regularly. BOSWELL.

[180] Early in every November was kept 'a great gaudy [feast] in the college, when the Master dined in publick, and the juniors (by an ancient custom they were obliged to comply with) went round the fire in the hall.' Philipps's _Diary, Notes and Queries_, 2nd S., x. 443. We can picture to ourselves among the juniors in November 1728, Samuel Johnson, going round the fire with the others. Here he heard day after day the Latin grace which Camden had composed for the society. 'I believe I can repeat it,' Johnson said at St. Andrew's, 'which he did.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19, 1773.

[181] Seven years before Johnson's time, on Nov. 5, 'Mr. Peyne, Bachelor of Arts, made an oration in the hall suitable to the day.'

Philipps's _Diary_.

[182] Boswell forgot Johnson's criticism on Milton's exercises on this day. 'Some of the exercises on Gunpowder Treason might have been spared.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 119.

[183] It has not been preserved. There are in the college library four of his compositions, two of verse and two of prose. One of the copies of verse I give _post_, under July 16, 1754. Both have been often printed.