Life of Johnson Volume I Part 92

[1344] He published a biographical work, containing an account of eminent writers, in three vols. 8vo. BOSWELL.

[1345]

'Thus the soft gifts of sleep conclude the day, And stretched on bulks, as usual, poets lay.'

_The Dunciad_, ii. 420.

In _Humphry Clinker_, in the Letter of June 10, in which is described the dinner given by S---- to the poor authors, of one of them it is said:--'The only secret which he ever kept was the place of his lodgings; but it was believed that during the heats of summer he commonly took his repose upon a bulk.' Johnson defines _bulk_ as _a part of a building jutting out_.

[1346] 'Knowledge is certainly one of the means of pleasure, as is confessed by the natural desire which every mind feels of increasing its ideas ... without knowing why we always rejoice when we learn, and grieve when we forget.' _Ra.s.selas_, ch. xi.

[1347] In the days of Old London Bridge, as Mr. Croker points out, even when the tide would have allowed pa.s.sengers to shoot it, those who were prudent landed above the bridge, and walked to some wharf below it.

[1348] All who are acquainted with the history of religion, (the most important, surely, that concerns the human mind,) know that the appellation of Methodists was first given to a society of students in the University of Oxford, who about the year 1730 were distinguished by an earnest and _methodical_ attention to devout exercises. This disposition of mind is not a novelty, or peculiar to any sect, but has been, and still may be found, in many christians of every denomination.

Johnson himself was, in a dignified manner, a Methodist. In his _Rambler_, No. 110, he mentions with respect 'the whole discipline of regulated piety;' and in his _Prayers and Meditations_, many instances occur of his anxious examination into his spiritual state. That this religious earnestness, and in particular an observation of the influence of the Holy Spirit, has sometimes degenerated into folly, and sometimes been counterfeited for base purposes, cannot be denied. But it is not, therefore, fair to decry it when genuine. The princ.i.p.al argument in reason and good sense against methodism is, that it tends to debase human nature, and prevent the generous exertions of goodness, by an unworthy supposition that G.o.d will pay no regard to them; although it is positively said in the scriptures that He 'will reward every man according to his works.' [St. Matthew xvi. 27.] But I am happy to have it [in] my power to do justice to those whom it is the fas.h.i.+on to ridicule, without any knowledge of their tenets; and this I can do by quoting a pa.s.sage from one of their best apologists, Mr. Milner, who thus expresses their doctrine upon this subject. 'Justified by faith, renewed in his faculties, and constrained by the love of Christ, their believer moves in the sphere of love and grat.i.tude, and all his _duties_ flow more or less from this principle. And though _they are acc.u.mulating for him in heaven a treasure of bliss proportioned to his faithfulness and activity, and it is by no means inconsistent with his principles to feel the force of this consideration_, yet love itself sweetens every duty to his mind; and he thinks there is no absurdity in his feeling the love of G.o.d as the grand commanding principle of his life.' _Essays on several religious Subjects, &c., by Joseph Milner, A.M., Master of the Grammar School of Kingston upon-Hull, 1789, p_. 11. BOSWELL. Southey (_Life of Wesley_, i. 41), mentioning the names given at Oxford to Wesley and his followers, continues:--'One person with less irreverence and more learning observed, in reference to their methodical manner of life, that a new sect of Methodists was sprung up, alluding to the ancient school of physicians known by that name.' Wesley, in 1744, wrote _The Humble Address to the King of the Societies in derision called Methodists. Journal_, i. 437. He often speaks of 'the people called Methodists,' but sometimes he uses the term without any qualification.

Mrs. Thrale, in 1780, wrote to Johnson:--'Methodist is considered always a term of reproach, I trust, because I never yet did hear that any one person called himself a Methodist.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 119.

[1349] Wesley said:--'We should constantly use the most common, little, easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords.

When first I talked at Oxford to plain people in the Castle [the prison]

or the town, I observed they gaped and stared. This quickly obliged me to alter my style, and adopt the language of those I spoke to; and yet there is a dignity in their simplicity, which is not disagreeable to those of the highest rank.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 431. See _post_, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_, Oct. 12, 1779, Aug. 30, 1780, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10, 1773.

[1350] In the original, _struck_.

[1351] _Epigram_, Lib. ii. 'In Elizabeth. Angliae Reg.' MALONE.

[1352] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23.

[1353] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 5. Johnson, when a boy, turned the line thus:--'And the wood rings with Amarillis' name.' _Ante_, p. 51.

[1354] Boswell said of Paoli's talk about great men:--'I regret that the fire with which he spoke upon such occasions so dazzled me, that I could not recollect his sayings, so as to write them down when I retired from his presence.' _Corsica_, p. 197.

[1355] More pa.s.sages than one in Boswell's _Letters to Temple_ shew this absence of relish. Thus in 1775 he writes:--'I perceive some dawnings of taste for the country' (p. 216); and again:--'I will force a taste for natural beauties' (p. 219).

[1356] Milton's _L'Allegro_, 1. 118.

[1357] See _post_, April 2, 1775, and April 17, 1778.

[1358] My friend Sir Michael Le Fleming. This gentleman, with all his experience of sprightly and elegant life, inherits, with the beautiful family Domain, no inconsiderable share of that love of literature, which distinguished his venerable grandfather, the Bishop of Carlisle. He one day observed to me, of Dr. Johnson, in a felicity of phrase, 'There is a blunt dignity about him on every occasion.' BOSWELL.

[1359] Wordsworth's lines to the Baronet's daughter, Lady Fleming, might be applied to the father:--

'Lives there a man whose sole delights Are trivial pomp and city noise, Hardening a heart that loathes or slights What every natural heart enjoys?'

Wordsworth's _Poems_, iv. 338.

[1360] Afterwards Lord Stowell. He was a member of Doctors' Commons, the college of Civilians in London, who practised in the Ecclesiastical Courts and the Court of the Admiralty. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 14, 1773.

[1361] He repeated this advice on the death of Boswell's father, _post_, Sept. 7, 1782.

[1362] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 159) describes 'the sullen dignity of the old castle.' See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4. 1773.

[1363] Probably Burke's _Vindication of Natural Society_, published in 1756 when Burke was twenty-six.

[1364] See _ante_, p. 421.

[1365] Boswell wrote to Temple on July 28, 1763:--'My departure fills me with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could almost weep to think of leaving dear London, and the calm retirement of the Inner Temple. This is very effeminate and very young, but I cannot help it.'

_Letters of Boswell_, p. 46.

[1366] Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 297) that 'Johnson's eyes were so wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.'

[1367] Johnson was, in fact, the editor of this work, as appears from a letter of Mr. T. Davies to the Rev. Edm. Bettesworth:--'Reverend Sir,--I take the liberty to send you Roger Ascham's works in English. Though Mr.

Bennet's name is in the t.i.tle, the editor was in reality Mr. Johnson, the author of the _Rambler_, who wrote the life of the author, and added several notes. Mr. Johnson gave it to Mr. Bennet, for his advantage,'

&c.--CROKER. Very likely Davies exaggerated Johnson's share in the book.

Bennet's edition was published, not in 1763, but in 1761.

[1368] 'Lord Sheffield describes the change in Gibbon's opinions caused by the reign of terror:--'He became a warm and zealous advocate for every sort of old establishment. I recollect in a circle where French affairs were the topic and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with seriousness, argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, and said he would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment.'

_Gibbons's Misc. Works_, i. 328. One of Gibbon's correspondents told him in 1792, that the _Wealth of Nations_ had been condemned by the Inquisition on account of 'the lowness of its style and the looseness of the morals which it inculcates.' _Ib_. ii. 479. See also _post_, May 7, 1773.

[1369] Johnson wrote on Aug. 17, 1773:--'This morning I saw at breakfast Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light, and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence.'

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 110. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.

Spence published an _Account of Blacklock_, in which he meanly omitted any mention of Hume's great generosity to the blind poet. J. H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether he connected colour and sound. 'He answered, that as he met so often with the terms expressing colours, he had formed some false a.s.sociations, but that they were of the intellectual kind. The illumination of the sun, for instance, he supposed to resemble the presence of a friend.' _Ib_. p. 389.

[1370] They left London early and yet they travelled only 51 miles that day. The whole distance to Harwich is 71 miles. Paterson's _Itinerary_, i. 323.

[1371] Mackintosh (_Life_, ii. 162) writing of the time of William III, says that 'torture was legal in Scotland, and familiar in every country of Europe but England. Was there a single writer at that time who had objected to torture? I think not.' In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1742 (p. 660) it is stated that 'the King of Prussia has forbid the use of torture in his dominions.' In 1747 (p. 298) we read that Dr. Blackwell, an English physician, had been put to the torture in Sweden. Montesquieu in the _Esprit des Lois_, vi. 17, published in 1748, writing of 'la question ou torture centre les criminels,' says:--'Nous voyons aujourd'hui une nation tres-bien policee [la nation anglaise] la rejeter sans inconvenient. Elle n'est donc pas necessaire par sa nature.' Boswell in 1765 found that Paoli tortured a criminal with fire. _Corsica_, p. 158.

Voltaire, in 1777, after telling how innocent men had been put to death with torture in the reign of Lewis XIV, continues--'Mais un roi a-t-il le temps de songer a ces menus details d'horreurs au milieu de ses fetes, de ses conquetes, et de ses mattresses? Daignez vous en occuper, o Louis XVI, vous qui n'avez aucune de ces distractions!' Voltaire's _Works_, xxvi. 332. Johnson, two years before Voltaire thus wrote, had been shown _la chambre de question_--the torture-chamber-_in Paris_.

_Post_, Oct. 17, 1775. It was not till the Revolution that torture was abolished in France. One of the Scotch judges in 1793, at the trial of Messrs. Palmer and Muir for sedition (_post_, June 3, 1781, note), 'a.s.serted that now the torture was banished, there was no adequate punishment for sedition.' _Parl. Hist_. x.x.x. 1569.

[1372] 'A cheerful and good heart will have a care of his meat and drink.' _Ecclesiasticus_, x.x.x. 25.

'Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet, Nam ibi de divinis atque humanis cernitur.'

_Trinummus_, act 2, sc. 4.

Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 149) records that 'Johnson often said, "that wherever the dinner is ill got, there is poverty, or there is avarice, or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong; for," continued he, "a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things."' Yet he 'used to say that a man who rode out for an appet.i.te consulted but little the dignity of human nature.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 204.

[1373] This essay is more against the practices of the parasite than gulosity. It is ent.i.tled _The art of living at the cost of others_.

Johnson wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's children:--'Gluttony is, I think, less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more sparingly, and are less curious in the choice of meat; but if once you find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her mind is enslaved to the lowest and grossest temptation.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 298.

[1374] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 355) mentions 'the greediness with which he ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his profound silence at the moment of refection.'

[1375] c.u.mberland (_Memoirs_, i. 357) says:--'He fed heartily, but not voraciously, and was extremely courteous in his commendations of any dish that pleased his palate.'

[1376] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 10, 1780:--'Last week I saw flesh but twice and I think fish once; the rest was pease. You are afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to violence; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every man has his _genius_, and that the great rule by which all excellence is attained and all success procured, is to follow _genius_; and have you not observed in all our conversations that my _genius_ is always in extremes; that I am very noisy or very silent; very gloomy or very merry; very sour or very kind? And would you have me cross my _genius_ when it leads me sometimes to voracity and sometimes to abstinence?'

_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 166.

[1377] 'This,' he told Boswell, 'was no intentional fasting, but happened just in the course of a literary life.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 4, 1773. See _post_, April 17, 1778.

[1378] In the last year of his life, when he knew that his appet.i.te was diseased, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have now an inclination to luxury which even your table did not excite; _for till now my talk was more about the dishes than my thoughts_. I remember you commended me for seeming pleased with my dinners when you had reduced your table; I am able to tell you with great veracity, that I never knew when the reduction began, nor should have known what it was made, had not you told me. _I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow.

This disease will, I hope, be cured_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362.