Life of Johnson Volume II Part 45

[22] 'The inference upon the whole is, that it is not from the value or worth of the object which any person pursues that we can determine his enjoyment; but merely from the pa.s.sion with which he pursues it, and the success which he meets with in his pursuit. Objects have absolutely no worth or value in themselves. They derive their worth merely from the pa.s.sion. If that be strong and steady and successful, the person is happy. It cannot reasonably be doubted but a little miss, dressed in a new gown for a dancing-school ball, receives as complete enjoyment as the greatest orator, who triumphs in the splendour of his eloquence, while he governs the pa.s.sions and resolutions of a numerous a.s.sembly.'

Hume's _Essays_, i. 17 (_The Sceptic_). Pope had written in the _Essay on Man_ (iv. 57):

'Condition, circ.u.mstance, is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in King.'

See also _post_, April 15, 1778.

[23] In _Boswelliana_, p. 220, a brief account is given of his life, which was not altogether uneventful.

[24] We may compare with this what he says in _The Rambler_, No. 21, about the 'cowardice which always encroaches fast upon such as spend their time in the company of persons higher than themselves.' In No. 104 he writes:--'It is dangerous for mean minds to venture themselves within the sphere of greatness.' In the court that Boswell many years later paid to Lord Lonsdale, he suffered all the humiliations that the brutality of this petty greatness can inflict. _Letters of Boswell_, p.

324. See also _post_, Sept. 22, 1777.

[25] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19, 1773.

[26] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 107) thus sums up his examination of second-sight:--'There is against it, the seeming a.n.a.logy of things confusedly seen, and little understood; and for it, the indistinct cry of natural persuasion, which may be, perhaps, resolved at last into prejudice and tradition. I never could advance my curiosity to conviction; but came away at last only willing to believe.' See also _post_, March 24, 1775. Hume said of the evidence in favour of second-sight--:'As finite added to finite never approaches a hair's breadth nearer to infinite, so a fact incredible in itself acquires not the smallest accession of probability by the acc.u.mulation of testimony.'

J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 480.

[27] 'I love anecdotes,' said Johnson. Boswell's _Hebridge_, Aug. 16, 1773. Boswell said that 'Johnson always condemned the word _anecdotes_, as used in the sense that the French, and we from them, use it, as signifying particulars.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 311. In his _Dictionary_, he defined '_Anecdotes_ Something yet unpublished; secret history.' In the fourth edition he added: 'It is now used, after the French, for a biographical incident; a minute pa.s.sage of private life.'

[28] See _ante_, July 19, 1763.

[29] Boswell, writing to Wilkes in 1776, said:--'Though we differ widely in religion and politics, _il y a des points ou nos ames sont animes_, as Rouseau said to me in his wild retreat.' Almon's _Wilkes_, iv. 319.

[30] Rousseau fled from France in 1762. A few days later his arrest was ordered at Geneva. He fled from Neufchatel in 1763, and soon afterwards he was banished from Berne. _Nonev. Biog. Gen., Xlii. 750_. He had come to England with David Hume a few weeks before this conversation was held, and was at this time in Chiswick. Hume's _Private Corres_., pp. 125, 145.

[31] Rousseau had by this time published his _Nouvelle h.e.l.loise_ and _Emile_.

[32] Less than three months after the date of this conversation Rousseau wrote to General Conway, one of the Secretaries of State, thanking him for the pension which George III proposed secretly to confer on him.

Hume's _Private Corres_., p. 165. Miss Burney, in her preface to _Evelina_, a novel which was her introduction to Johnson's strong affection, mentioning Rousseau and Johnson, adds in a footnote:-- 'However superior the capacities in which these great writers deserve to be considered, they must pardon me that, for the dignity of my subject, I here rank the authors of _Ra.s.selas_ and _Elose_ as novelists.'

[33] Rousseau thus wrote of himself:

'Dieu est juste; il veut que je souffre; et il sait que je suis innocent. Voila le motif de ma confiance, mon coeur et ma raison me crient qu'elle ne me trompera pas. Laissons donc faire les hommes et la destinee; apprenons a souffrir sans murmure; tout doit a la fin rentrer dans Fordre, et mon tour viendra tot ou tard.' Rousseau's _Works_, xx. 223.

[34] 'He entertained me very courteously,' wrote Boswell in his _Corsica_, p. 140.

[35] In this preference Boswell pretended at times to share. See _post_, Sept. 30, 1769.

[36] Johnson seems once to have held this view to some extent; for, writing of Savage's poem _On Public Spirit_, he says (_Works_, viii.

156):--'He has a.s.serted the natural equality of mankind, and endeavoured to suppress that pride which inclines men to imagine that right is the consequence of power.' See also _post_, Sept. 23, 1777, where he a.s.serts:--'It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal.' For the opposite opinion, see _ante_, June 25, 1763.

[37] 'Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.' 'Manners and towns of various nations viewed.' FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 1. 142.

[38] By the time Boswell was twenty-six years old he could boast that he had made the acquaintance of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paoli among foreigners; and of Adam Smith, Robertson, Hume, Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick, Horace Walpole, Wilkes, and perhaps Reynolds, among Englishmen.

He had twice at least received a letter from the Earl of Chatham.

[39] In such pa.s.sages as this we may generally a.s.sume that the gentleman, whose name is not given, is Boswell himself. See _ante_, i.

4, and _post_, Oct. 16, 1769.

[40] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' where this a.s.sertion is called 'his usual remark.'

[41] See _post_, April 15, 1778.

[42] These two words may be observed as marks of Mr. Boswell's accuracy.

It is a jocular Irish phrase, which, of all Johnson's acquaintances, no one probably, but Goldsmith, would have used.--CROKER.

[43] See _ante_, May 24, 1763.

[44] Johnson's best justification for the apparent indolences of the latter part of his life may be found in his own words: 'Every man of genius has some arts of fixing the attention peculiar to himself, by which, honestly exerted, he may benefit mankind.... To the position of Tully, that if virtue could be seen she must be loved, may be added, that if truth could be heard she must be obeyed.' _The Rambler_, No. 87.

He fixed the attention best by his talk. For 'the position of Tully,'

see _post_, March 19, 1776.

[45] See _ante_, i. 192, and _post_, May 1, 1783. Goldsmith wrote _The Traveller and Deserted Village_ on a very different plan. 'To save himself the trouble of transcription, he wrote the lines in his first copy very wide, and would so fill up the intermediate s.p.a.ce with reiterated corrections, that scarcely a word of his first effusions was left unaltered.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 113.

[46] Mrs. Thrale in a letter to Dr. Johnson, said:--'Don't sit making verses that never will be written.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 183. Baretti noted opposite this in the margin of his copy: 'Johnson was always making Latin or English verses in his mind, but never would write them down.'

[47] Burke entered Parliament as member for Wendover borough on Jan.

14th, 1766. William Burke, writing to Barry the artist on the following March 23, says:--'Ned's success has exceeded our most sanguine hopes; all at once he has darted into fame. He is full of real business, intent upon doing real good to his country, as much as if he was to receive twenty per cent. from the commerce of the whole empire, which he labours to improve and extend.' Barry's _Works_, i. 42.

[48] It was of these speeches that Macaulay wrote:--'The House of Commons heard Pitt for the last time and Burke for the first time, and was in doubt to which of them the palm of eloquence should be a.s.signed.

It was indeed a splendid sunset and a splendid dawn.' Macaulay's _Essays_ (edition 1874), iv. 330.

[49] See _post_, March 20, 1776.

[50] Boswell has already stated (_ante_, Oct. 1765) that Johnson's _Shakespeare_ was 'virulently attacked' by Kenrick. No doubt there were other attacks and rejoinders too.

[51] Two days earlier he had drawn up a prayer on entering _Novum Museum_. _Pr. and Med_., p. 69.

[52] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.

[53] _Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum_. London, 1772. Lye died in 1767. O. Manning completed the work.

[54] See Appendix A.

[55] Mr. Langton's uncle. BOSWELL.

[56] The place of residence of Mr. Peregrine Langton. BOSWELL.

[57] Mr. Langton did not disregard this counsel, but wrote the following account, which he has been pleased to communicate to me:

'The circ.u.mstances of Mr. Peregrine Langton were these. He had an annuity for life of two hundred pounds _per annum_. He resided in a village in Lincolnshire; the rent of his house, with two or three small fields, was twenty-eight pounds; the county he lived in was not more than moderately cheap; his family consisted of a sister, who paid him eighteen pounds annually for her board, and a niece. The servants were two maids, and two men in livery. His common way of living, at his table, was three or four dishes; the appurtenances to his table were neat and handsome; he frequently entertained company at dinner, and then his table was well served with as many dishes as were usual at the tables of the other gentlemen in the neighbourhood. His own appearance, as to clothes, was genteelly neat and plain. He had always a post-chaise, and kept three horses.

'Such, with the resources I have mentioned, was his way of living, which he did not suffer to employ his whole income: for he had always a sum of money lying by him for any extraordinary expences that might arise. Some money he put into the stocks; at his death, the sum he had there amounted to one hundred and fifty pounds. He purchased out of his income his household-furniture and linen, of which latter he had a very ample store; and, as I am a.s.sured by those that had very good means of knowing, not less than the tenth part of his income was set apart for charity: at the time of his death, the sum of twenty-five pounds was found, with a direction to be employed in such uses.

'He had laid down a plan of living proportioned to his income, and did not practise any extraordinary degree of parsimony, but endeavoured that in his family there should be plenty without waste; as an instance that this was his endeavour, it may be worth while to mention a method he took in regulating a proper allowance of malt liquor to be drunk in his family, that there might not be a deficiency, or any intemperate profusion: On a complaint made that his allowance of a hogshead in a month, was not enough for his own family, he ordered the quant.i.ty of a hogshead to be put into bottles, had it locked up from the servants, and distributed out, every day, eight quarts, which is the quant.i.ty each day at one hogshead in a month; and told his servants, that if that did not suffice, he would allow them more; but, by this method, it appeared at once that the allowance was much more than sufficient for his small family; and this proved a clear conviction, that could not be answered, and saved all future dispute. He was, in general, very diligently and punctually attended and obeyed by his servants; he was very considerate as to the injunctions he gave, and explained them distinctly; and, at their first coming to his service, steadily exacted a close compliance with them, without any remission; and the servants finding this to be the case, soon grew habitually accustomed to the practice of their business, and then very little further attention was necessary. On extraordinary instances of good behaviour, or diligent service, he was not wanting in particular encouragements and presents above their wages; it is remarkable that he would permit their relations to visit them, and stay at his house two or three days at a time.

[58] Of his being in the chair of THE LITERARY CLUB, which at this time met once a week in the evening. BOSWELL. See _ante_, Feb. 1764, note.

[59] See _post_, Feb. 1767, where he told the King that 'he must now read to acquire more knowledge.'