Life of Johnson Volume II Part 80

[1305] See _ante_, pp. 279, 283.

[1306] 'I have seen,' said Mr. Donne to Sir R. Drewry, 'a dreadful vision since I saw you. I have seen my dear wife pa.s.s twice by me, through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms.' He learnt that on the same day, and about the very hour, after a long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered of a dead child. Walton's _Life of Dr. Donne_, ed. 1838, p. 25.

[1307] 'Biographers so little regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral.'

_The Rambler_, No. 60. See _post_, iii. 71.

[1308] See _post_, iii. 112.

[1309] It has been mentioned to me by an accurate English friend, that Dr. Johnson could never have used the phrase _almost nothing_, as not being English; and therefore I have put another in its place. At the same time, I am not quite convinced it is not good English. For the best writers use the phrase '_Little or nothing_;' i.e. almost so little as to be nothing. BOSWELL. Boswell might have left _almost nothing_ in his text. Johnson used it in his writings, certainly twice. 'It will add _almost nothing_ to the expense.' Works, v. 307. 'I have read little, _almost nothing_.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 176. Moreover, in a letter to Mrs.

Aston, written on Nov. 5, 1779 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 640), he says:--'Nothing almost is purchased.' In _King Lear_, act ii. sc. 2, we have:--

'Nothing almost sees miracles But misery.'

[1310] 'Pope's fortune did not suffer his charity to be splendid and conspicuous; but he a.s.sisted Dodsley with a hundred pounds, that he might open a shop.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 318.

[1311] _A Muse in Livery: or the Footman's Miscellany_. 1732. A rhyme in the motto on the t.i.tle-page shows what a c.o.c.kney muse Dodsley's was.

He writes:--

'But when I mount behind the coach, And bear aloft a flaming torch.'

The Preface is written with much good feeling.

[1312] James Dodsley, many years a bookseller in Pall Mall. He died Feb.

19, 1797. P. CUNNINGHAM. He was living, therefore, when this anecdote was published.

[1313] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, iii. 135) says:--'You know how decent, humble, inoffensive a creature Dodsley is; how little apt to forget or disguise his having been a footman.' Johnson seems to refer to Dodsley in the following pa.s.sage, written in 1756 (_Works_, v. 358):--'The last century imagined that a man composing in his chariot was a new object of curiosity; but how much would the wonder have been increased by a footman studying behind it.'

[1314] See _ante_, i. 417.

[1315] Yet surely it is a very useful work, and of wonderful research and labour for one man to have executed. BOSWELL. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 17, 1773.

[1316] Two days earlier, Hume congratulated Gibbon on the first volume of his _Decline and Fall_:--'I own that if I had not previously had the happiness of your personal acquaintance, such a performance from an Englishman in our age would have given me some surprise. You may smile at this sentiment, but as it seems to me that your countrymen, for almost a whole generation, have given themselves up to barbarous and absurd faction, and have totally neglected all polite letters, I no longer expected any valuable production ever to come from them.' J. H.

Burton's _Hume_, ii. 484.

[1317] Five weeks later Boswell used a different metaphor. 'I think it is right that as fast as infidel wasps or venomous insects, whether creeping or flying, are hatched, they should be crushed.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 232. If the infidels were wasps to the orthodox, the orthodox were hornets to the infidels. Gibbon wrote (_Misc. Works_, i.

273):--'The freedom of my writings has indeed provoked an implacable tribe; but as I was safe from the stings, I was soon accustomed to the buzzing of the hornets.'

[1318] Macaulay thus examines this report (_Essays_, i. 360):--'To what then, it has been asked, could Johnson allude? Possibly to some anecdote or some conversation of which all trace is lost. One conjecture may be offered, though with diffidence. Gibbon tells us in his memoirs [_Misc.

Works_, i. 56] that at Oxford he took a fancy for studying Arabic, and was prevented from doing so by the remonstrances of his tutor. Soon after this, the young man fell in with Bossuet's controversial writings, and was speedily converted by them to the Roman Catholic faith. The apostasy of a gentleman-commoner would of course be for a time the chief subject of conversation in the common room of Magdalene. His whim about Arabic learning would naturally be mentioned, and would give occasion to some jokes about the probability of his turning Mussulman. If such jokes were made, Johnson, who frequently visited Oxford, was very likely to hear of them.' Though Gibbon's _Autobiography_ ends with the year 1788, yet he wrote portions of it, I believe, after the publication of the _Life of Johnson_. (See _ante_, ii. 8, note 1.) I have little doubt that in the following lines he refers to the attack thus made on him by Boswell and Johnson. 'Many years afterwards, when the name of Gibbon was become as notorious as that of Middleton, it was industriously whispered at Oxford that the historian had formerly "turned Papist;" my character stood exposed to the reproach of inconstancy.' Gibbon's _Misc.

Works_, i. 65.

[1319] Steele, in his _Apology for Himself and his Writings_ (ed. 1714, p. 80), says of himself:--'He first became an author when an ensign of the Guards, a way of life exposed to much irregularity, and being thoroughly convinced of many things of which he often repented, and which he more often repeated, he writ, for his own private use, a little book called the _Christian Hero_, with a design princ.i.p.ally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasures. This secret admonition was too weak; he therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world, that is to say of his acquaintance, upon him in a new light, might curb his desires, and make him ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so quite contrary a life.'

[1320] 'A man,' no doubt, is Boswell himself.

[1321] '"I was sure when I read it that the preface to Baretti's _Dialogues_ was Dr. Johnson's; and that I made him confess." "Baretti's _Dialogues_! What are they about?" "A thimble, and a spoon, and a knife, and a fork! They are the most absurd, and yet the most laughable things you ever saw. They were written for Miss Thrale, and all the dialogues are between her and him, except now and then a shovel and a poker, or a goose and a chair happen to step in."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 263.

[1322] 'April 4, 1760. At present nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance; it is a kind of novel called _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy_; the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards.' Walpole's _Letters_, iii. 298. 'March 7, 1761. The second and third volumes of _Tristram Shandy_, the dregs of nonsense, have universally met the contempt they deserve.' _Ib_ 382. '"My good friend,"

said Dr. Farmer (_ante_, i. 368), one day in the parlour at Emanuel College, "you young men seem very fond of this _Tristram Shandy_; but mark my words, however much it may be talked about at present, yet, depend upon it, in the course of twenty years, should any one wish to refer to it, he will be obliged to go to an antiquary to inquire for it."' Croker's _Boswell_, ed. 1844, ii. 339. See _ante_, ii. 173, note 2, and 222.

[1323] Mrs. Rudd. She and the two brothers Perreau were charged with forgery. She was tried first and acquitted, the verdict of the jury being 'not guilty, according to the evidence before us.' The _Ann. Reg_.

xviii. 231, adds:--'There were the loudest applauses on this acquittal almost ever known in a court of justice.' 'The issue of Mrs. Rudd's trial was thought to involve the fate of the Perreaus; and the popular fancy had taken the part of the woman as against the men.' They were convicted and hanged, protesting their innocence. _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 223-230. Boswell wrote to Temple on April 28:--'You know my curiosity and love of adventure; I have got acquainted with the celebrated Mrs. Rudd.' _Ib_ P. 233--Three days later, he wrote:-- 'Perhaps the adventure with Mrs. Rudd is very foolish, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's approbation.' _Ib_ p. 235. See _post_, iii. 79, and April 28, 1778.

[1324] See _post_, May 15, 1784, where Johnson says that Mrs. Montagu has 'a constant _stream_ of conversation,' and a second time allows that 'Burke is an extraordinary man.' Johnson writes of 'a _stream_ of melody.' Works, viii. 92. For Burke's conversation see _post_, April 7, 1778, 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_, March 21, 1783, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15.

[1325] See _ante_, ii. 16.

[1326] According to Boswell's record in _Boswelliana_, p. 273, two sayings are here united. He there writes, on the authority of Mr.

Langton:--'Dr. Johnson had a very high opinion of Edmund Burke. He said, "That fellow calls forth all my powers"; and once when he was out of spirits and rather dejected he said, "Were I to see Burke now 'twould kill me."'

[1327] See _ante_, ii. 100, iii. 24, and under May 8, 1781.

[1328] In a note on the _Dunciad_, ii. 50, the author of this epigram is said to be Dr. Evans.

[1329] Capability Brown, as he was called. See _post_, Oct. 30, 1779.

[1330] Such an 'impudent dog' had Boswell himself been in Corsica.

'Before I was accustomed to the Corsican hospitality,' he wrote. 'I sometimes forgot myself, and imagining I was in a publick house, called for what I wanted, with the tone which one uses in calling to the waiters at a tavern. I did so at Pino, asking for a variety of things at once, when Signora Tomasi perceiving my mistake, looked in my face and smiled, saying with much calmness and good nature, "una cosa dopo un altra, Signore. One thing after another, Sir."' Boswell's _Corsica_, ed.

1879, p. 151. A Corsican gentleman, who knows the Tomasi family, told me that this reply is preserved among them by tradition.

[1331] Sir John Hawkins has preserved very few _Memorabilia_ of Johnson.

There is, however, to be found, in his bulky tome [p. 87], a very excellent one upon this subject:--'In contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children, prefer domestick enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him a.s.sert, _that a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity_.--"As soon," said he, "as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude: when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I find delight."' BOSWELL.

[1332] We happened to lie this night at the inn at Henley, where Shenstone wrote these lines. BOSWELL. I give them as they are found in the corrected edition of his Works, published after his death. In Dodsley's collection the stanza ran thus:--

'Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Whate'er his _various tour has_ been, May sigh to think _how oft_ he found His warmest welcome at an Inn.' BOSWELL.

[1333] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 29.

[1334] See Shenstone's _Works_, iii. 311. Rev. Richard Graves, author of _The Spiritual Quixote_. He and Shenstone were fellow-students at Pembroke College, Oxford.

[1335] 'He too often makes use of the _abstract_ for the _concrete_.'

SHENSTONE. BOSWELL.

[1336] 'I asked him why he doated on a coach so, and received for answer, that in the first place the company was shut in with him _there_, and could not escape as out of a room; in the next place he heard all that was said in a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf.'

Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 276. See _post_, iii, 5, 162. Gibbon, at the end of a journey in a post-chaise, wrote (_Misc. Works_, i. 408):--'I am always so much delighted and improved with this union of easeand motion, that, were not the expense enormous, I would travel every year some hundred miles, more especially in England.'

[1337] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 406) tells the following 'ludicrous story' of _The Fleece_. 'Dodsley the bookseller was one day mentioning it to a critical visitor with more expectation of success than the other could easily admit. In the conversation the author's age was asked; and, being represented as advanced in life, "He will," said the critic, "be buried in woollen."' To encourage the trade in wool, an Act was pa.s.sed requiring the dead to be buried in woollen, Burke refers to this when he says of Lord Chatham, who was swathed in flannel owing to the gout:-- 'Like a true obeyer of the laws, he will be buried in woollen.' Burke's _Corres_, ii. 201. Hawkins (_Life_, p. 231) says:--'A portrait of Samuel Dyer [see _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_] was painted by Sir Joshua, and from it a mezzotinto was sc.r.a.ped; the print whereof, as he was little known, sold only to his friends. A singular use was made of it; Bell, the publisher of _The English Poets_, caused an engraving to be made from it, and prefixed it to the poems of Mr. John Dyer.'

[1338] Such is this little laughable incident, which has been often related. Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, who was an intimate friend of Dr. Grainger, and has a particular regard for his memory, has communicated to me the following explanation:--

'The pa.s.sage in question was originally not liable to such a perversion; for the authour having occasion in that part of his work to mention the havock made by rats and mice, had introduced the subject in a kind of mock heroick, and a parody of Homer's battle of the frogs and mice, invoking the Muse of the old Grecian bard in an elegant and well-turned manner. In that state I had seen it; but afterwards, unknown to me and other friends, he had been persuaded, contrary to his own better judgement, to alter it, so as to produce the unlucky effect above-mentioned.'

The above was written by the Bishop when he had not the Poem itself to recur to; and though the account given was true of it at one period, yet as Dr. Grainger afterwards altered the pa.s.sage in question, the remarks in the text do not now apply to the printed poem.

The Bishop gives this character of Dr. Grainger:--'He was not only a man of genius and learning, but had many excellent virtues; being one of the most generous, friendly, and benevolent men I ever knew.' BOSWELL.

[1339] Dr. Johnson said to me, 'Percy, Sir, was angry with me for laughing at _The Sugar-cane_: for he had a mind to make a great thing of Grainger's rats.' BOSWELL. Johnson helped Percy in writing a review of this poem in 1764 (_ante_, i. 481).