Life of Johnson Volume II Part 46

[60] The pa.s.sage omitted alluded to a private transaction. BOSWELL.

[61] The censure of my Latin relates to the Dedication, which was as follows:

VIRO n.o.bILISSIMO, ORNATISSIMO, JOANNI, VICECOMITI MOUNTSTUART, ATAVIS EDITO REGIBUS EXCELSAE FAMILLAE DE BUTE SPEI ALTERAE; LABENTE SECULO, QUUM HOMINES NULLIUS ORIGINIS GENUS AEQUARE OPIBUS AGGREDIUNTUR, SANGUINIS ANTIQUI ET ILl.u.s.tRIS SEMPER MEMORI, NATALIUM SPLENDOREM VIRTUTIBUS AUGENTI:

AD PUBLICA POPULI COMITIA JAM LEGATO;

IN OPTIMATIUM VERO MAGNae BRITANNIae SENATU, JURE HaeREDITARIO, OLIM CONSESSURO:

VIM INSITAM VARIA DOCTRINA PROMOVENTE, NEC TAMEN SE VENDITANTE, PRaeDITO:

PRISCA FIDE, ANIMO LIBERRIMO, ET MORUM ELEGANTIA INSIGNI:

IN ITALIae VISITANDae ITINERE, SOCIO SUO HONORATISSIMO, HASCE JURISPRUDENTae PRIMITIAS DEVINCTISSIMae AMICITIae ET OBSERVANTIae MONUMENTUM, D. D. C Q.

JACOBUS BOSWELL. BOSWELL.

[62] See _ante_, i. 211.

[63] See _post_, May 19, 1778.

[64] This alludes to the first sentence of the _Proaemium_ of my Thesis.

'JURISPRUDENTae studio nullum uberius, nullum generosius: in legibus enim agitandis, populorum mores, variasque fortunae vices ex quibus leges oriuntur, contemplari simul solemus_' BOSWELL.

[65] 'Mr. Boswell,' says Malone, 'professed the Scotch and the English law; but had never taken very great pains on the subject. His father, Lord Auchinleck, told him one day, that it would cost him more trouble to hide his ignorance in these professions than to show his knowledge.

This Boswell owned he had found to be true.' _European Magazine_, 1798, p. 376. Boswell wrote to Temple in 1775:--'You are very kind in saying that I may overtake you in learning. Believe me though that I have a kind of impotency of study.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 181.

[66] This is a truth that Johnson often enforced. 'Very few,' said the poet; 'live by choice: every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate.' _Ra.s.selas_, chap. 16. 'To him that lives well,' answered the hermit, 'every form of life is good; nor can I give any other rule for choice than to remove from all apparent evil.' _Ib_, chap. 21. 'Young man,' said Omar, 'it is of little use to form plans of life.' _The Idler_, No. 101.

[67] 'Hace sunt quae nostra _liceat_ te voce moneri.' _Aeneid_, iii.

461.

[68] The pa.s.sage omitted explained the transaction to which the preceding letter had alluded. BOSWELL.

[69] See _ante_, June 10, 1761.

[70] Mr. Croker says:--'It was by visiting Chambers, when a fellow of University College, that Johnson became acquainted with Lord Stowell [at that time William Scott]; and when Chambers went to India, Lord Stowell, as he expressed it to me, seemed to succeed to his place in Johnson's friendship.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 90, note. John Scott (Earl of Eldon), Sir William Jones and Mr. Windham, were also members of University College. The hall is adorned with the portraits of these five men. An engraving of Johnson is in the Common Room.

[71] It is not easy to discover anything n.o.ble or even felicitous in this Dedication. _Works_, v. 444.

[72] See _ante_, i. 148.

[73] See _ante_, i. 177, note 2.

[74] See _ante_, i. 158.

[75] See _ante_, i. 178, note 2.

[76] This poem is scarcely Johnson's, though all the lines but the third in the following couplets may be his.

Whose life not sunk in sloth is free from care, Nor tost by change, nor stagnant in despair; Who with wise authors pa.s.s the instructive day And wonder how the moments stole away; Who not retired beyond the sight of life Behold its weary cares, its noisy strife.'

[77] Johnson's additions to these three poems are not at all evident.

[78] In a note to the poem it is stated that Miss Williams, when, before her blindness, she was a.s.sisting Mr. Grey in his experiments, was the first that observed the emission of the electrical spark from a human body. The best lines are the following:--

Now, h.o.a.ry Sage, purse thy happy flight, With swifter motion haste to purer light, Where Bacon waits with Newton and with Boyle To hail thy genius, and applaud thy toil; Where intuition breaks through time and s.p.a.ce, And mocks experiment's successive race; Sees tardy Science toil at Nature's laws, And wonders how th' effect obscures the cause.

Yet not to deep research or happy guess Is owed the life of hope, the death of peace.'

[79] A gentleman, writing from Virginia to John Wesley, in 1735, about the need of educating the negro slaves in religion, says:--'Their masters generally neglect them, as though immortality was not the privilege of their souls in common with their own.' Wesley's _Journal_, II. 288. But much nearer home Johnson might have found this criminal enforcement of ignorance. Burke, writing in 1779, about the Irish, accuses the legislature of 'condemning a million and a half of people to ignorance, according to act of parliament.' Burke's _Corres_. ii. 294.

[80] See _post_, March 21, 1775, and Appendix.

[81] Johnson said very finely:--'Languages are the pedigree of nations.'

Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 18, 1773.

[82] The Rev. Mr. John Campbell, Minister of the Parish of Kippen, near Stirling, who has lately favoured me with a long, intelligent, and very obliging letter upon this work, makes the following remark:--'Dr.

Johnson has alluded to the worthy man employed in the translation of the New Testament. Might not this have afforded you an opportunity of paying a proper tribute of respect to the memory of the Rev. Mr. James Stuart, late Minister of Killin, distinguished by his eminent Piety, Learning and Taste? The amiable simplicity of his life, his warm benevolence, his indefatigable and successful exertions for civilizing and improving the Parish of which he was Minister for upwards of fifty years, ent.i.tle him to the grat.i.tude of his country, and the veneration of all good men. It certainly would be a pity, if such a character should be permitted to sink into oblivion.' BOSWELL.

[83] Seven years later Johnson received from the Society some religious works in Erse. See post, June 24, 1774. Yet in his journey to the Hebrides, in 1773 (Works, ix. 101), he had to record of the parochial schools in those islands that 'by the rule of their inst.i.tution they teach _only_ English, so that the natives read a language which they may never use or understand,'

[84] This paragraph shews Johnson's real estimation of the character and abilities of the celebrated Scottish Historian, however lightly, in a moment of caprice, he may have spoken of his works. BOSWELL.

[85] See _ante_, i. 210.

[86] This is the person concerning whom Sir John Hawkins has thrown out very unwarrantable reflections both against Dr. Johnson and Mr. Francis Barber. BOSWELL. See _post_, under Oct. 20, 1784. In 1775, Heely, it appears, applied through Johnson for the post that was soon to be vacant of 'master of the tap' at Ranelagh House. 'He seems,' wrote Johnson, in forwarding his letter of application, 'to have a genius for an alehouse.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 210. See also _post_, Aug. 12, 1784.

[87] See an account of him in the _European Magazine_, Jan. 1786.

BOSWELL. There we learn that he was in his time a grammar-school usher, actor, poet, the puffing partner in a quack medicine, and tutor to a youthful Earl. He was suspected of levying blackmail by threats of satiric publications, and he suffered from a disease which rendered him an object almost offensive to sight. He was born in 1738 or 1739, and died in 1771.

[88] It was republished in _The Repository_, ii. 227, edition of 1790.

[89] The Hon. Thomas Hervey, whose _Letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer_ in 1742 was much read at that time. He was the second son of John, first Earl of Bristol, and one of the brothers of Johnson's early friend Henry Hervey.

He died Jan. 20, 1775. MALONE. See _post_, April 6, 1775.

[90] See _post_, under Sept. 22, 1777, for another story told by Beauclerk against Johnson of a Mr. Hervey.

[91] Essays published in the _Daily Gazetteer_ and afterwards collected into two vols. _Gent. Mag_. for 1748, P. 48.

[92] Mr. Croker regrets that Johnson employed his pen for hire in Hervey's 'disgusting squabbles,' and in a long note describes Hervey's letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer with whose wife he had eloped. But the attack to which Johnson was hired to reply was not made by Hanmer, but, as was supposed, by Sir C. H. Williams. Because a man has wronged another, he is not therefore to submit to the attacks of a third.

Williams, moreover, it must be remembered, was himself a man of licentious character.

[93] Buckingham House, bought in 1761, by George III, and settled on Queen Charlotte. The present Buckingham Palace occupies the site. P.

CUNNINGHAM. Here, according to Hawkins (_Life_, p. 470), Johnson met the Prince of Wales (George IV.) when a child, 'and enquired as to his knowledge of the Scriptures; the prince in his answers gave him great satisfaction.' Horace Walpole, writing of the Prince at the age of nineteen, says (_Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii.

503):--'Nothing was coa.r.s.er than his conversation and phrases; and it made men smile to find that in the palace of piety and pride his Royal Highness had learnt nothing but the dialect of footmen and grooms.'

[94] Dr. Johnson had the honour of contributing his a.s.sistance towards the formation of this library; for I have read a long letter from him to Mr. Barnard, giving the most masterly instructions on the subject. I wished much to have gratified my readers with the perusal of this letter, and have reason to think that his Majesty would have been graciously pleased to permit its publication; but Mr. Barnard, to whom I applied, declined it 'on his own account.' BOSWELL. It is given in Mr.

Croker's edition, p. 196.