Life of Johnson Volume II Part 81

[1340] In _Poems_ by Christopher Smart, ed. 1752, p. 100. One line may serve as a sample of the whole poem, Writing of 'Bacchus, G.o.d of hops,'

the poet says:--

''Tis he shall gen'rate the buxom beer.'

[1341] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 22.

[1342] Henley in Arden, thirteen miles from Birmingham.

[1343] Mr. Hector's house was in the Square--now known as the Old Square. It afterwards formed a part of the Stork Hotel, but it was pulled down when Corporation Street was made. A marble tablet had been placed on the house at the suggestion of the late Mr. George Dawson, marking the spot where 'Edmund Hector was the host, Samuel Johnson the guest.' This tablet, together with the wainscoting, the door, and the mantelpiece of one of the rooms, was set up in Aston Hall, at the Johnson Centenary, in a room that is to be known as Dr. Johnson's Room.

[1344] My worthy friend Mr. Langton, to whom I am under innumerable obligations in the course of my Johnsonian History, has furnished me with a droll ill.u.s.tration about this question. An honest carpenter, after giving some anecdote in his presence of the ill-treatment which he had received from a clergyman's wife, who was a noted termagant, and whom he accused of unjust dealing in some transaction with him, added, 'I took care to let her know what I thought of her.' And being asked, 'What did you say?' answered, 'I told her she was a _scoundrel_.'

BOSWELL.

[1345] 'As to the baptism of infants, it is a mere human tradition, for which neither precept nor practice is to be found in all the Scripture.'

Barclay's _Apology_, Proposition xii, ed. 1703, p. 409.

[1346] _John_ iii. 30. BOSWELL.

[1347] Mr. Seward (_Anec_. ii. 223) says that 'Dr. Johnson always supposed that Mr. Richardson had Mr. Nelson in his thoughts when he delineated the character of Sir Charles Grandison.' Robert Nelson was born in 1656, and died in 1715.

[1348] 'Mr. Arkwright p.r.o.nounced Johnson to be the only person who on a first view understood both the principle and powers of machinery.'

Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 215. Arthur Young, who visited Birmingham in 1768, writes:--'I was nowhere more disappointed than at Birmingham, where I could not gain any intelligence even of the most common nature, through the excessive jealousy of the manufacturers. It seems the French have carried off several of their fabricks, and thereby injured the town not a little. This makes them so cautious that they will show strangers scarce anything.' _Tour through the North of England_, iii. 279.

[1349] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale (year not given):--'I have pa.s.sed one day at Birmingham with my old friend Hector--there's a name--and his sister, an old love. My mistress is grown much older than my friend,

---"O quid habes illius, illius Quae spirabat amores Quae me surpuerat mihi."'

'Of her, of her what now remains, Who breathed the loves, who charmed the swains, And s.n.a.t.c.hed me from my heart?'

FRANCIS, Horace, _Odes_, iv. 13. 18. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 290.

[1350] Some years later he wrote:--'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me when I had tea enough.' _Ib_. ii. 205.

[1351] See _ante_, ii. 362, note 3.

[1352] Johnson, in a letter to Hector, on March 7 of this year, described Congreve as 'very dull, very valetudinary, and very recluse, willing, I am afraid, to forget the world, and content to be forgotten by it, to repose in that sullen sensuality into which men naturally sink who think disease a justification of indulgence, and converse only with those who hope to prosper by indulging them ... Infirmity will come, but let us not invite it; indulgence will allure us, but let us turn resolutely away. Time cannot always be defeated, but let us not yield till we are conquered.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., iii. 401.

[1353] In the same letter he said:--'I hope dear Mrs. Careless is well, and now and then does not disdain to mention my name. It is happy when a brother and sister live to pa.s.s their time at our age together. I have n.o.body to whom I can talk of my first years--when I do to Lichfield, I see the old places but find n.o.body that enjoyed them with me.'

[1354] I went through the house where my ill.u.s.trious friend was born, with a reverence with which it doubtless will long be visited. An engraved view of it, with the adjacent buildings, is in _The Gent. Mag_.

for Feb. 1875. BOSWELL.

[1355] The scene of Farquhar's _Beaux Stratagem_ is laid in Lichfield.

The pa.s.sage in which the ale is praised begins as follows:--

'_Aimwell_. I have heard your town of Lichfield much famed for ale; I think I'll taste that.

'_Boniface_, Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; 'tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen year old the fifth day of next March, old style.' Act i. sc. i. See _post_, April 20, 1781.

[1356] Though his letters to her are very affectionate, yet what he wrote of her to Mrs. Thrale shews that her love for him was not strong.

Thus he writes:--'July 20, 1767. Miss Lucy is more kind and civil than I expected.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 4. 'July 17, 1771. Lucy is a philosopher, and considers me as one of the external and accidental things that are to be taken and left without emotion. If I could learn of Lucy, would it be better? Will you teach me?' _Ib_ p. 46. 'Aug. 1, 1775. This was to have been my last letter from this place, but Lucy says I must not go this week. Fits of tenderness with Mrs. Lucy are not common, but she seems now to have a little paroxysm, and I was not willing to counteract it.' _Ib_ p. 293. 'Oct. 27, 1781. Poor Lucy's illness has left her very deaf, and I think, very inarticulate ... But she seems to like me better than she did.' _Ib_ ii. 208. 'Oct. 31, 1781.

Poor Lucy's health is very much broken ... Her mental powers are not impaired, and her social virtues seem to increase. She never was so civil to me before.' _Ib_ p. 211. On his mother's death he had written to her:--'Every heart must lean to somebody, and I have n.o.body but you.'

_Ante_ i. 515.

[1357] See _ante_, p. 311.

[1358] See _post_, iii. 131.

[1359] Boswell varies Johnson's definition, which was 'a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' _ante_, i. 294, note 8.

[1360] '"I remember," said Dr. Johnson, "when all the _decent_ people in Lichfield got drunk every night."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19. See _post_, iii. 77.

[1361] He had to allow that in literature they were behind the age.

Nearly four years after the publication of _Evelina_, he wrote:--'Whatever Burney [by Burney he meant Miss Burney] may think of the celerity of fame, the name of _Evelina_ had never been heard at Lichfield till I brought it. I am afraid my dear townsmen will be mentioned in future days as the last part of this nation that was civilised. But the days of darkness are soon to be at an end; the reading society ordered it to be procured this week.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 221.

[1362] See _ante_, ii. 159.

[1363] Garrick himself, like the Lichfieldians, always said--_shupreme, shuperior_. BURNEY.

[1364] Johnson did not always speak so disrespectfully of Birmingham. In his _Taxation no Tyranny_ (_Works_, vi. 228), he wrote:--'The traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of narrow selfishness by a manly recommendation to Parliament of the rights and dignity of their native country.' The _b.o.o.bies_ in this case were sound Tories.

[1365] This play was Gibber's _Hob; or The Country Wake_, with additions, which in its turn was Dogget's _Country Wake_ reduced. Reed's _Biog. Dram_. ii. 307.

[1366] Boswell says, _post_, under Sept. 30, 1783, that 'Johnson had thought more upon the subject of acting than might be generally supposed.'

[1367] A nice observer of the female form. CROKER. Terence, _Eun_. iii.

5.

[1368] In Farquhar's Comedy of _Sir Harry Wildair_.

[1369] Gilbert Walmesley, _ante_, i. 81

[1370] See _ante_, i. 83.

[1371] Cradock (_Memoirs_ i. 74) says that in the Cathedral porch, a gentleman, 'who might, perhaps, be too ambitious to be thought an acquaintance of the great Literary Oracle, ventured to say, "Dr.

Johnson, we have had a most excellent discourse to day," to which he replied, "That may be, Sir, but it is impossible for you to know it."'

[1372] _The Tempest_, act iv., sc. 1.

[1373] See _post_, iii. 151.

[1374] Johnson, in 1763, advising Miss Porter to rent a house, said:--'You might have the Palace for twenty pounds.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 145.

[1375] Boswell, after his book was published, quarrelled with Miss Seward. He said that he was forced to examine these communications 'with much caution. They were tinctured with a strong prejudice against Johnson.' His book, he continued, was meant to be 'a _real history_ and not a _novel_,' so that he had 'to suppress all erroneous particulars, however entertaining.' He accused her of attacking Johnson with malevolence. _Gent. Mag_. 1793, p. 1009. For Boswell's second meeting with her, see _post_, iii. 284.

[1376] A Signor Recupero had noticed on Etna, the thickness of each stratum of earth between the several strata of lava. 'He tells me,'

wrote Brydone, 'he is exceedingly embarra.s.sed by these discoveries in writing the history of the mountain. That Moses hangs like a dead weight upon him, and blunts all his zeal for inquiry; for that really he has not the conscience to make his mountain so young as that prophet makes the world. The bishop, who is strenuously orthodox--for it is an excellent see--has already warned him to be upon his guard, and not to pretend to be a better natural historian than Moses.' Brydone's _Tour_, i. 141.