Life of Johnson Volume I Part 78

267), dated Feb. 3, 1753:--'I visited one in the Marshalsea prison, a nursery of all manner of wickedness. O shame to man, that there should be such a place, such a picture of h.e.l.l upon earth!' A few days later he writes:--'I visited as many more as I could. I found some in their cells under ground; others in their garrets, half starved both with cold and hunger, added to weakness and pain.'

[889] In a Debate on the Copyright Bill on May 16, 1774, Governor Johnstone said:--'It had been urged that Dr. Johnson had received an after gratification from the booksellers who employed him to compile his _Dictionary_. He had in his hand a letter from Dr. Johnson, which he read, in which the doctor denied the a.s.sertion, but declared that his employers fulfilled their bargain with him, and that he was satisfied.'

_Parl. Hist_. xvii. 1105.

[890] He more than once attacked them. Thus in _An Appeal to the Public_, which he wrote for the _Gent. Mag_. in 1739 (_Works_, v. 348), he said:--'Nothing is more criminal in the opinion of many of them, than for an author to enjoy more advantage from his own works than they are disposed to allow him. This is a principle so well established among them, that we can produce some who threatened printers with their highest displeasure, for having dared to print books for those that wrote them.' In the _Life of Savage_ (_ib_. viii. 132), written in 1744, he writes of the 'avarice, by which the booksellers are frequently incited to oppress that genius by which they are supported.' In the _Life of Dryden_ (_ib_. vii. 299), written in 1779, he speaks of an improvement. 'The general conduct of traders was much less liberal in those times than in our own; their views were narrower, and their manners grosser. To the mercantile ruggedness of that race the delicacy of the poet was sometimes exposed.'

[891] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 40 [25]. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote to Miss Boothby on Dec. 30, 1755:--'If I turn my thoughts upon myself, what do I perceive but a poor helpless being, reduced by a blast of wind to weakness and misery?... Mr. Fitzherbert sent to-day to offer me some wine; the people about me say I ought to accept it. I shall therefore be obliged to him if he will send me a bottle.' _Pioszi Letters_, ii. 393.

[892] _Prayers and Meditations_, p. 27. BOSWELL

[893] See _post_, April 6, 1775. Kit Smart, once a Fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, ended his life in the King's Bench Prison; 'where he had owed to a small subscription, of which Dr. Burney was at the head, a miserable pittance beyond the prison allowance. In his latest letter to Dr. Burney, he pa.s.sionately pleaded for a fellow-sufferer, "whom I myself," he impressively adds, "have already a.s.sisted according to my willing poverty." In another letter to the same friend he said:--"I bless G.o.d for your good nature, which please to take for a receipt."'

_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 205, 280.

[894] In this Essay Johnson writes (_Works_, v. 315):--'I think there is room to question whether a great part of mankind has yet been informed that life is sustained by the fruits of the earth. I was once, indeed, provoked to ask a lady of great eminence for genius, "Whether she knew of what bread is made."'

[895] In _The Universal Visiter_ this Essay is ent.i.tled, 'Reflections on the Present State of Literature;' and in Johnson's _Works_, v. 355, 'A Project for the Employment of Authors.' The whole world, he says, is turning author. Their number is so large that employment must be found for them. 'There are some reasons for which they may seem particularly qualified for a military life. They are used to suffer want of every kind; they are accustomed to obey the word of command from their patrons and their booksellers; they have always pa.s.sed a life of hazard and adventure, uncertain what may be their state on the next day.... There are some whom long depression under supercilious patrons has so humbled and crushed, that they will never have steadiness to keep their ranks.

But for these men there may be found fifes and drums, and they will be well enough pleased to inflame others to battle, if they are not obliged to fight themselves.'

[896] He added it also to his _Life of Pope_.

[897] 'This employment,' wrote Murphy (_Life_, p. 88), 'engrossed but little of Johnson's time. He resigned himself to indolence, took no exercise, rose about two, and then received the visits of his friends.

Authors long since forgotten waited on him as their oracle, and he gave responses in the chair of criticism. He listened to the complaints, the schemes, and the hopes and fears of a crowd of inferior writers, "who,"

he said, in the words of Roger Ascham, "lived, men knew not how, and died obscure, men marked not when." He believed, that he could give a better history of Grub Street than any man living. His house was filled with a succession of visitors till four or five in the evening. During the whole time he presided at his tea-table.' In _The Rambler_, No. 145, Johnson takes the part of these inferior writers:--'a race of beings equally obscure and equally indigent, who, because their usefulness is less obvious to vulgar apprehensions, live unrewarded and die unpitied, and who have been long exposed to insult without a defender, and to censure without an apologist.'

[898] In this essay (_Works_, vi. 129) Johnson describes Canada as a 'region of desolate sterility,' 'a cold, uncomfortable, uninviting region, from which nothing but furs and fish were to be had.'

[899] The bill of 1756 that he considers pa.s.sed through the Commons but was rejected by the Lords. It is curious as showing the comparative population of the different counties, Devons.h.i.+re was to furnish 3200 men--twice as many as Lancas.h.i.+re. Ess.e.x, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk were each to furnish 1920 men; Lancas.h.i.+re, Surrey, Suss.e.x, and Wilts.h.i.+re 1600: Durham and Bedfords.h.i.+re 800. From the three Ridings of Yorks.h.i.+re 4800 were to be raised. The men were to be exercised every Sunday before and after service. _The Literary Magazine_, p. 58.

[900] In this paper are found the forcible words, 'The desperate remedy of desperate distress,' which have been used since by orators. _Ib_.

p. 121.

[901] Johnson considers here the war in America between the English and French, and shows a strong feeling for the natives who had been wronged by both nations. 'Such is the contest that no honest man can heartily wish success to either party.... The American dispute between the French and us is only the quarrel of two robbers for the spoils of a pa.s.senger.' The French had this in their favour, that they had treated the natives better than we. 'The favour of the Indians which they enjoy with very few exceptions among all the nations of the northern continent we ought to consider with other thoughts; this favour we might have enjoyed, if we had been careful to deserve it.' _Works_, vi. 114, 122.

[902] These Memoirs end with the year 1745. Johnson had intended to continue them, for he writes:--'We shall here suspend our narrative.'

_Ib_. vi. 474.

[903] See _ante_, p. 221.

[904] The sentence continues:--'and produce heirs to the father's habiliments.' _Ib_. vi. 436. Another instance may be adduced of his _Brownism_ in the following line:--'The war continued in an equilibration by alternate losses and advantages.' _Ib_ 473.

[905] In a letter from the Secretary of the Tall Club in _The Guardian_, No. 108. 'If the fair s.e.x look upon us with an eye of favour, we shall make some attempts to lengthen out the human figure, and restore it to its ancient procerity.'

[906] See _post_, March 23, 1783.

[907] 'As power is the constant and unavoidable consequence of learning, there is no reason to doubt that the time is approaching when the Americans shall in their turn have some influence on the affairs of mankind, for literature apparently gains ground among them. A library is established in Carolina and some great electrical discoveries were made at Philadelphia...The fear that the American colonies will break off their dependence on England I have always thought chimerical and vain ... They must be dependent, and if they forsake us, or be forsaken by us, must fall into the hands of France.' _Literary Magazine_, pp.

293, 299.

[908] Johnson, I have no doubt, wrote the _Review of A True Account of Lisbon since the Earthquake_, in which it is stated that the destruction was grossly exaggerated. After quoting the writer at length, he concludes:--'Such then is the actual, real situation of _that place which once was_ Lisbon, and has been since gazetically and pamphletically quite destroyed, consumed, annihilated! Now, upon comparing this simple narration of things and facts with the false and absurd accounts which have rather insulted and imposed upon us than informed us, who but must see the enormous disproportion?...

Exaggeration and the absurdities ever faithfully attached to it are inseparable att.i.tudes of the ignorant, the empty, and the affected.

Hence those eloquent tropes so familiar in every conversation, _monstrously pretty, vastly little_; ... hence your _eminent shoe-maker, farriers, and undertakers_.... It is to the same muddy source we owe the many falsehoods and absurdities we have been pestered with concerning Lisbon. Thence your extravagantly sublime figures: _Lisbon is no more; can be seen no more_, etc., ... with all the other prodigal effusions of bombast beyond that stretch of time or temper to enumerate. _Ib_. p. 22.

See _post_, under March 30, 1778.

[909] In the original _undigested_.

[910] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 113.

[911] In the spring of 1784, after the king had taken advantage of Fox's India Bill to dismiss the Coalition Ministry. See _post_, March 28, 1784.

[912] In Ireland there was no act to limit the duration of parliament.

One parliament sat through the whole reign of George II--thirty-three years. Dr. Lucas, a Dublin physician, in attacking other grievances, attacked also this. In 1749 he would have been elected member for Dublin, had he not, on a charge of seditious writings, been committed by the House of Commons to prison. He was to be confined, he was told, 'in the common hall of the prison among the felons.' He fled to England, which was all that the government wanted, and he practised as a physician in London. In 1761 he was restored to the liberties of the City of Dublin and was also elected one of its members. Hardy's _Lord Charlemont_, i. 249, 299; and _Gent. Mag_., xx. 58 and x.x.xi. 236.

[913] Boswell himself falls into this 'cant.' See _post_, Sept. 23, 1777.

[914] Johnson's _Works_, vi. II.

[915] _Ib_. p. 13. He vigorously attacks the style in which these 'Memoirs' are written. 'Sometimes,' he writes, 'the reader is suddenly ravished with a sonorous sentence, of which, when the noise is past, the meaning does not long remain.' _Ib_. p. 15.

[916] The author of _Friends.h.i.+p in Death_.

[917] In the _Lives of the Poets (Works, viii. 383) Johnson writes:--'Dr Watts was one of the first authors that taught the Dissenters to court attention by the graces of language. Whatever they had among them before, whether of learning or acuteness, was commonly obscured and blunted by coa.r.s.eness and inelegance of style. He showed them that zeal and purity might be expressed and enforced by polished diction.'

[918] 'Such he [Dr. Watts] was as every Christian Church would rejoice to have adopted.' _Ib_. p. 380. See also _post_, July 7, 1777, and May 19, 1778.

[919] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 79.

[920] Mr. Hanway would have had the support of Johnson's father, who, as his son writes, 'considered tea as very expensive, and discouraged my mother from keeping company with the neighbours, and from paying visits or receiving them. She lived to say, many years after, that if the time were to pa.s.s again, she would not comply with such unsocial injunctions.' _Account of Johnson's Early Life_, p. 18. The Methodists, ten years earlier than Hanway, had declared war on tea. 'After talking largely with both the men and women Leaders,' writes Wesley, 'we agreed it would prevent great expense, as well of health as of time and of money, if the poorer people of our society could be persuaded to leave off drinking of tea.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 526. Pepys, writing in 1660, says: 'I did send for a cup of tee, (a China drink) of which I never had drank before.' Pepys' _Diary_, i. 137. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, i. 224) writing in 1743 says:--'They have talked of a new duty on tea, to be paid by every housekeeper for all the persons in their families; but it will scarce be proposed. Tea is so universal, that it would make a greater clamour than a duty on wine.' In October 1734 tea was sold in London at the following prices:--Ordinary Bohca 9s.

per lb. Fine Bohca 10s. to 12s. per lb. Pekoe 15s. per lb. Hyson 20s. to 25s. per lb. _Gent. Mag_. iv. 575.

[921] Yet in his reply to Mr. Hanway he said (_Works_, vi. 33):--'I allowed tea to be a barren superfluity, neither medicinal nor nutritious, that neither supplied strength nor cheerfulness, neither relieved weariness, nor exhilarated sorrow.' c.u.mberland writes (_Memoirs_, i. 357):--'I remember when Sir Joshua Reynolds at my house reminded Dr. Johnson that he had drank eleven cups, he replied: "Sir, I did not count your gla.s.ses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?" And then laughing in perfect good humour he added:--"Sir, I should have released the lady from any further trouble, if it had not been for your remark; but you have reminded me that I want one of the dozen, and I must request Mrs. c.u.mberland to round up my number."'

[922] In this Review Johnson describes himself as 'a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 21.

That 'he never felt the least inconvenience from it' may well be doubted. His nights were almost always bad. In 1774 he recorded:--'I could not drink this day either coffee or tea after dinner. I know not when I missed before.' The next day he recorded:--'Last night my sleep was remarkably quiet. I know not whether by fatigue in walking, or by forbearance of tea.' _Diary of a Journey into North Wales_, Aug. 4.

[923] See _post_, May, 1768.

[924]

'Losing, he wins, because his name will be Enn.o.bled by defeat who durst contend with me.'

DRYDEN, Ovid, _Meta_., xiii. 19.

[925] In Hanway's _Essay_ Johnson found much to praise. Hanway often went to the root when he dealt with the evils of life. Thus he writes:--'The introducing new habits of life is the most substantial charity.' But he thus mingles sense and nonsense:--'Though tea and gin have spread their baneful influence over this island and his Majesty's other dominions, yet you may be well a.s.sured that the Governors of the Foundling Hospital will exert their utmost skill and vigilance to prevent the children under their care from being poisoned, or enervated, by one or the other.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 26, 28.

[926] 'Et pourquoi tuer cet amiral? C'est, lui dit-on, parce qu'il n'a pas fait tuer a.s.sez de monde; il a livre un combat a un amiral francais, et on a trouve qu'il n'etait pas a.s.sez pres de lui. Mais, dit Candide, l'amiral francais etait aussi loin de l'amiral anglais que celui-ci l'etait de l'autre. Cela est incontestable, lui repliquat-on; mais dans ce pays-ci il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un amiral pour encourager les autres.' _Candide_, ch. xxiii.

[927] See _post_, June 3, 1781, when Boswell went to this church.

[928] Johnson reprinted this Review in a small volume by itself. See Johnson's _Works_, vi. 47, note.