Life of Johnson Volume II Part 69

[891] See _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd ed. p. 520 [p. 431].

BOSWELL.

[892] For the letter, see the end of Boswell's _Hebrides_.

[893] _Fossilist_ is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[894] 'Rasay has little that can detain a traveller, except the laird and his family; but their power wants no auxiliaries. Such a seat of hospitality amidst the winds and waters fills the imagination with a delightful contrariety of images.' _Works_, ix. 62.

[895] Page 103. BOSWELL.

[896] From Skye he wrote:--'The hospitality of this remote region is like that of the golden age. We have found ourselves treated at every house as if we came to confer a benefit.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 155.

[897] See _ante_, i. 443, note 2.

[898] I observed with much regret, while the first edition of this work was pa.s.sing through the press (Aug. 1790), that this ingenious gentleman was dead. BOSWELL.

[899] See _ante_, p. 242.

[900] See _ante_, i. 187.

[901] See _ante_, ii. 121, 296, and _post_, under March 30, 1783.

[902] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 158) says that 'the mediocrity of knowledge'

obtained in the Scotch universities, 'countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way, to employment, riches, and distinction.'

[903] Macpherson had great influence with the newspapers. Horace Walpole wrote in February, 1776:--'Macpherson, the Ossianite, had a pension of 600 a year from the Court, to supervise the newspapers.' In Dec. 1781, Walpole mentions the difficulty of getting 'a vindicatory paragraph'

inserted in the papers, 'This was one of the great grievances of the time. Macpherson had a pension of 800 a year from Court for inspecting newspapers, and inserted what lies he pleased, and prevented whatever he disapproved of being printed.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 17, 483.

[904] This book was published in 1779 under the t.i.tle of '_Remarks on Dr. Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides_, by the Rev. Donald M'Nicol, A.M., Minister of Lismore, Argyleshire.' In 1817 it was reprinted at Glasgow together with Johnson's _Journey_, in one volume.

The _Remarks_ are a few pages shorter than the _Journey_. By 'another Scotchman,' Boswell certainly meant Macpherson.

[905] From a list in his hand-writing. BOSWELL.

[906] 'Such is the laxity of Highland conversation that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation, knows less as he hears more.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 47.

'The Highlanders are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; so that, if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false.' _Ib_ 114.

[907] Of his _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_. BOSWELL. It was sold at five shillings a copy. It did not reach a second edition till 1785, when perhaps a fresh demand for it was caused by the publication of Boswell's _Hebrides_. Boswell, in a note, _post_, April 28, 1778, says that 4000 copies were sold very quickly. Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 39) says that Cadell told her that he had sold 4000 copies the first week. This, I think, must be an exaggeration. A German translation was brought out this same year.

[908] Boswell, on the way to London, wrote to Temple:--'I have continual schemes of publication, but cannot fix. I am still very unhappy with my father. We are so totally different that a good understanding is scarcely possible. He looks on my going to London just now as an _expedition_, as idle and extravagant, when in reality it is highly improving to me, considering the company which I enjoy.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 182.

[909] See _post_, under March 22, 1776.

[910] See _ante_, p. 292.

[911] 'A Scotchman must be a very st.u.r.dy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 116.

[912] At Slanes Castle in Aberdeenshire he wrote:--'I had now travelled two hundred miles in Scotland, and seen only one tree not younger than myself.' _Works_, ix. 17. Goldsmith wrote from Edinburgh on Sept. 26, 1753:--'Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove, nor brook lend their music to cheer the stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty.' Forsters _Goldsmith_, i. 433.

[913] This, like his pamphlet on _Falkland's Islands_, was published without his name.

[914] See Appendix.

[915] Convicts were sent to nine of the American settlements. According to one estimate about 2,000 had been for many years sent annually. 'Dr.

Lang, after comparing different estimates, concludes that the number sent might be about 50,000 altogether.' _Penny Cyclo_. xxv. 138. X.

[916] This 'clear and settled opinion' must have been formed in three days, and between Grantham and London. For from that Lincolnshire town he had written to Temple on March 18:--'As to American affairs, I have really not studied the subject; it is too much for me perhaps, or I am too indolent or frivolous. From the smattering which newspapers have given me, I have been of different minds several times. That I am a Tory, a lover of power in monarchy, and a discourager of much liberty in the people, I avow; but it is not clear to me that our colonies are completely our subjects.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 180. Four years later he wrote to Temple:--'I must candidly tell you that I think you should not puzzle yourself with political speculations more than I do; neither of us is fit for that sort of mental labour.' _Ib_ 243. See _post_, Sept. 23, 1777, for a contest between Johnson and Boswell on this subject.

[917] See _ante_, ii. 134.

[918] Johnson's _Works_, vi. 261.

[919] Four years earlier he had also attacked him. _Ante_, ii. 134, note 4.

[920] Lord Camden, formerly Chief Justice Pratt. See _ante_, ii. 72, note 3; and _post_, April 14, 1775.

[921] 'Our people,' wrote Franklin in 1751 (_Memoirs_, vi. 3, 10), 'must at least be doubled every twenty years.' The population he reckoned at upwards of one million. Johnson referred to this rule also in the following pa.s.sage:--'We are told that the continent of North America contains three millions, not of men merely, but of whigs, of whigs fierce for liberty and disdainful of dominion; that they multiply with the fecundity of their own rattlesnakes, so that every quarter of a century doubles their number.' _Works_, vi. 227. Burke, in his _Speech of Concilitation with America_, a fortnight after Johnson's pamphlet appeared, said, 'your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.' Payne's _Burke_, i. 169.

[922] Dr. T. Campbell records on April 20, 1775 (_Diary_, p. 74), that 'Johnson said the first thing he would do would be to quarter the army on the cities, and if any refused free quarters, he would pull down that person's house, if it was joined to other houses; but would burn it if it stood alone. This and other schemes he proposed in the ma.n.u.script of _Taxation no Tyranny_, but these, he said, the Ministry expunged. See _post_, April 15, 1778, where, talking of the Americans, Johnson exclaimed, 'he'd burn and destroy them.' On June 11, 1781, Campbell records (_ib_. p. 88) that Johnson said to him:--'Had we treated the Americans as we ought, and as they deserved, we should have at once razed all their towns and let them enjoy their forests.' Campbell justly describes this talk as 'wild rant.'

[923]

'He errs who deems obedience to a prince Slav'ry--a happier freedom never reigns Than with a pious monarch.'

_St.i.t_. iii. 113. CROKER.

This volume was published in 1776. The copy in the library of Pembroke College, Oxford, bears the inscription in Johnson's hand: 'To Sir Joshua Reynolds from the Authour.' On the t.i.tle-page Sir Joshua has written his own name.

[924] R. B. Sheridan thought of joining in these attacks. In his _Life_ by Moore (i. 151) fragments of his projected answer are given. He intended to attack Johnson on the side of his pension. One thought he varies three times. 'Such pamphlets,' he writes, 'will be as trifling and insincere as the venal quit-rent of a birth-day ode.' This again appears as 'The easy quit-rent of refined panegyric,' and yet again as 'The miserable quit-rent of an annual pamphlet.'

[925] See _post_, beginning of 1781.

[926] Boswell wrote to Temple on June 19, 1775:--'Yesterday I met Mr.

Hume at Lord Kame's. They joined in attacking Dr. Johnson to an absurd pitch. Mr. Hume said he would give me half-a-crown for every page of his _Dictionary_ in which he could not find an absurdity, if I would give him half-a-crown for every page in which he did not find one: he talked so insolently really, that I calmly determined to be at him; so I repeated, by way of telling that Dr. Johnson _could_ be touched, the admirable pa.s.sage in your letter, how the Ministry had set him to write in a way that they "could not ask even their infidel pensioner Hume to write." When Hume asked if it was from an American, I said No, it was from an English gentleman. "Would a _gentleman_ write so?" said he. In short, Davy was finely punished for his treatment of my revered friend; and he deserved it richly, both for his petulance to so great a character and for his talking so before me.' _Letters of Boswell_, p.

204. Hume's pension was 400. He obtained it through Lord Hertford, the English amba.s.sador in Paris, under whom he had served as secretary to the emba.s.sy. J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 289.

[927] See _post_, Aug. 24 1782.

[928] Dr. T. Campbell records on March 16 of this year (_Diary_, p.

36):--'Thrale asked Dr. Johnson what Sir Joshua Reynolds said of _Taxation no Tyranny_. "Sir Joshua," quoth the Doctor, "has not read it." "I suppose," quoth Thrale, "he has been very busy of late." "No,"

says the Doctor, "but I never look at his pictures, so he won't read my writings." He asked Johnson if he had got Miss Reynold's opinion, for she, it seems, is a politician. "As to that," quoth the Doctor, "it is no great matter, for she could not tell after she had read it on which said of the question Mr. Burke's speech was."'

[929] W.G. Hamilton.

[930] See _post_, Nov. 19, 1783.

[931] Sixteen days after this pamphlet was published, Lord North, as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, proposed that the degree of Doctor in Civil Law should be conferred on Johnson (_post_, p. 331).

Perhaps the Chancellor in this was cheaply rewarding the service that had been done to the Minister. See _ante_, ii. 373.

[932] Johnson's _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_, ed. 1785, p. 256. [Johnson's _Works_, ix. 108.] BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 10, note 3.