Life of Johnson Volume III Part 39

While he was living the life of a lying scoundrel, he was, he says (p.

192), 'happily restrained by Divine Grace,' so that 'all sense of remorse was not extinguished,' and there was no fall into 'downright infidelity.' At length he picked up Law's _Serious Call_, which moved him, as later on it moved better men (_ante_, i. 68). Step by step he got into a way of steady work, and lived henceforth a laborious and honest life. It was in the year 1728, thirty-five years before his death, that he began, he says, to write the narrative of his imposture (p. 59). A dangerous illness and the dread of death had deeply moved him, and filled him with the desire of leaving behind 'a faithful narrative' which would 'undeceive the world.' Nineteen years later, though he did not publish his narrative, he made a public confession of his guilt. In the unsigned article on Formosa, which he wrote in 1747 for Bowen's _Complete System of Geography_ (ii. 251), he says, 'Psalmanaazaar [so he had at one time written his name] hath long since ingenuously owned the contrary [of the truthfulness of his narrative]

though not in so public a manner, as he might perhaps have done, had not such an avowment been likely to have affected some few persons who for private ends took advantage of his youthful vanity to encourage him in an imposture, which he might otherwise never had the thought, much less the confidence, to have carried on. These persons being now dead, and out of all danger of being hurt by it, he now gives us leave to a.s.sure the world that the greatest part of that account was fabulous ... and that he designs to leave behind him a faithful account of that unhappy step, and other particulars of his life leading to it, to be published after his death.'

In his _Memoirs_ he will not, he writes (p. 59), give any account 'of his real country or family.' Yet it is quite clear from his own narrative that he was born in the south of France. 'His p.r.o.nunciation of French had,' it was said, 'a spice of the Gascoin accent, and in that provincial dialect he was so masterly that none but those born in the country could excel him' (Preface, p. 1). If a town can be found that answers to all that he tells of his birth-place, his whole account may be true; but the circ.u.mstances that he mentions seem inconsistent. The city in which he was born was twenty-four miles from an archiepiscopal city in which there was a college of Jesuits (p. 67), and about sixty miles from 'a n.o.ble great city full of gentry and n.o.bility, of coaches, and all kinds of grandeur,' the seat of a great university (pp. 76, 83).

When he left the great city for Avignon he speaks of himself as 'going _down_ to Avignon' (p. 87). Thence he started on a pilgrimage to Rome, and in order to avoid his native place, after he had gone no great way, 'he wheeled about to the left, to leave the place at some twenty or thirty miles distance' (p. 101). He changed his mind, however, and returned home. Thence he set off to join his father, who was 'near 500 miles off' in Germany (p. 60). 'The direct route was through the great university city' and Lyons (p. 104). His birth-place then, if his account is true, was on the road from Avignon to Rome, sixty miles from a great university city and southwards of it, for through this university city pa.s.sed the direct road from his home to Lyons. It was, moreover, sixty miles from an archiepiscopal city. I do not think that such a place can be found. He says (p. 59) that he thought himself 'obliged out of respect to his country and family to conceal both, it being but too common, though unjust, to censure them for the crimes of private persons.' The excuse seems unsatisfactory, for he tells enough to shew that he came from the South of France, while for his family there was no need of care. It was, he writes, 'ancient but decayed,' and he was the only surviving child. Of his father and mother he had heard nothing since he started on the career of a pious rogue. They must have been dead very many years by the time his _Memoirs_ were given to the world. His story shews that at all events for the first part of his life he had been one of the vainest of men, and vanity is commonly found joined with a love of mystery. He is not consistent, moreover, in his dates. On April 23, 1752, he was in the 73rd year of his age (p. 7); so that he was born in either 1679 or 1680. When he joined his father he was 'hardly full sixteen years old' (p. 112); yet it was a few years after the Peace of Ryswick, which was signed on September 22, 1697. He was, he says, 'but near twenty' when he wrote his _History of Formosa_ (p. 184). This was in the year 1704.

With his father he stayed but a short time, and then set out rambling northwards. At Avignon, by shameless lying, he had obtained a pa.s.s 'as a young student in theology, of Irish extract [_sic_] who had left his country for the sake of religion' (p. 98). It was wonderful that his fraud had escaped detection there, for he had kept his own name, 'because it had something of quality in it' (p. 99). He now resolved on a more impudent pretence; for 'pa.s.sing as an Irishman and a sufferer for religion, did not only,' he writes, 'expose me to the danger of being discovered, but came short of the merit and admiration I had expected from it' (p. 112). He thereupon gave himself out as a j.a.panese convert, and forged a fresh pa.s.s, 'clapping to it the old seal' (p. 116). He went through different adventures, and at last enlisted in the army of the Elector of Cologne--an 'unhappy herd, dest.i.tute of all sense of religion and shamefacedness.' He got his discharge, but enlisted a second time, 'pa.s.sing himself off for a j.a.panese and a heathen, under the name of Salmanazar' (pp. 133-141). Later on he altered it, he says, 'by the addition of a letter or two to make it somewhat different from that mentioned in the _Book of Kings_' (Shalmaneser, II _Kings_, xvii. 3). In his _Description of Formosa_ he wrote it Psalmanaazaar, and in later life Psalmanazar. In his vanity he invented 'an awkward show of worship, turning his face to the rising or setting sun, and pleased to be taken notice of for so doing' (p. 144). He had moreover 'the ambition of pa.s.sing for a moral heathen' (p. 147). By way of singularity he next took to living altogether upon raw flesh, roots, and herbs (p. 163).

It was when he was on garrison duty at Sluys that he became acquainted with Innes, who was chaplain to a Scotch regiment that was in the pay of the Dutch (p. 148). This man found in him a tool ready made to his hand.

He had at once seen through his roguery, but he used his knowledge only to plunge him deeper in his guilt. By working on his fears and his vanity and by small bribes he induced him to profess himself a convert to the Church of England and to submit to baptism (p. 158). He brought him over to London, and introduced him to the Bishop of London, and to Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury (pp. 164, 179). Psalmanazar spoke Latin fluently, but 'his Grace had either forgotten his, or being unused to the foreign p.r.o.nunciation was forced to have it interpreted to him by Dr. Innes in English' (p. 178). The young impostor everywhere gave himself out as a Formosan who had been entrapped by a Jesuit priest, and brought to Avignon. 'There I could expect,' he wrote, 'no mercy from the Inquisitors, if I had not in hypocrisy professed their religion'

(_History of Formosa_, p. 25). He was kept, he says, in a kind of custody, 'but I trusted under G.o.d to my heels' (p. 24). It was Innes who made him write this _History_.

In the confession of his fraud Psalmanazar seems to keep back nothing.

His repentance appears to be sincere, and his later life, there can be little question, was regular. Yet, as I have said, even his confessions apparently are not free from the old leaven of hypocrisy. It is indeed very hard, if not altogether impossible, for a man who has pa.s.sed forty years and more as a lying hypocrite altogether to 'clear his mind of cant.' In writing of the time when he was still living the life of a lying scoundrel, he says:--'I have great reason to acknowledge it the greatest mercy that could befall me, that I was so well grounded in the principles and evidence of the Christian religion, that neither the conversation of the then freethinkers, as they loved to stile themselves, and by many of whom I was severely attacked, nor the writings of Hobbes, Spinosa, &c. against the truth of Divine revelation could appear to me in any other light than as the vain efforts of a dangerous set of men to overturn a religion, the best founded and most judiciously calculated to promote the peace and happiness of mankind, both temporal and eternal' (_Memoirs_, p. 192). Two pages further on he writes, a little boastfully it seems, of having had 'some sort of gallantry with the fair s.e.x; with many of whom, even persons of fortune and character, of sense, wit, and learning, I was become,' he continues, 'a great favourite, and might, if I could have overcome my natural sheepishness and fear of a repulse, have been more successful either by way of matrimony or intrigue.' He goes on:--'I may truly say, that hardly any man who might have enjoyed so great a variety ever indulged himself in so few instances of the unlawful kind as I have done.' He concludes this pa.s.sage in his writings by 'thankfully acknowledging that there must have been some secret providence that kept me from giving such way to unlawful amours as I might otherwise have done, to the ruin of my health, circ.u.mstances,' &c.

When he came to wish for an honest way of life he was beset with difficulties. 'What a deadly wound,' he writes, 'must such an unexpected confession have given to my natural vanity, and what a mortification would it have been to such sincere honest people [as my friends] to hear it from my mouth!' (p. 213.) This was natural enough. That he long hesitated, like a coward, on the brink is not to be cast in his teeth, seeing that at last he took the plunge. But then in speaking of the time when he weakly repeated, and to use his own words, 'as it were confirmed anew,' his old falsehoods, he should not have written that 'as the a.s.surance of G.o.d's mercy gave me good grounds to hope, so that hope inspired me with a design to use all proper means to obtain it, and leave the issue of it to his Divine Providence' (p. 214). The only proper means to obtain G.o.d's mercy was at once to own to all the world that he had lied. It is only the Tartuffes and the Holy w.i.l.l.i.e.s who, whilst they persist in their guilt, talk of leaving the issue to the Divine Providence of G.o.d.

Since this Appendix was in type I have learnt, through the kindness of Mr. C.E. Doble, the editor of Hearne's _Remarks and Collections_, ed.

1885, that a pa.s.sage in that book (i. 271), confirms my conjecture that Psalmanazar was lodged in Christ Church when at Oxford. Hearne says (July 9, 1706):--'Mr. Topping of Christ Church ... also tells me that Salmanezzer, the famous Formosan, when he left Christ Church (where he resided while in Oxon) left behind him a Book in MSt., wherein a distinct acct was given of the Consular and Imperial coyns by himself.'

Mr. Doble has also pointed out to me in the first edition of the _Spectator_ the following pa.s.sage at the end of No. 14:--

'ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.

'On the first of April will be performed at the Play-house in the Hay-market an opera call'd _The Cruelty of Atreus_. N.B. The Scene wherein Thyestes eats his own children is to be performed by the famous Mr. Psalmanazar lately arrived from Formosa: The whole Supper being set to Kettle-drums.'

APPENDIX B.

JOHNSON'S TRAVELS AND LOVE OF TRAVELLING.

(_Page 352_).

On the pa.s.sage in the text Macaulay in his Review of Croker's Edition of _Boswell's Life of Johnson_ partly founds the following criticism:--

'Johnson's visit to the Hebrides introduced him to a state of society completely new to him; and a salutary suspicion of his own deficiencies seems on that occasion to have crossed his mind for the first time. He confessed, in the last paragraph of his _Journey_, that his thoughts on national manners were the thoughts of one who had seen but little, of one who had pa.s.sed his time almost wholly in cities. This feeling, however, soon pa.s.sed away. It is remarkable that to the last he entertained a fixed contempt for all those modes of life and those studies which tend to emanc.i.p.ate the mind from the prejudices of a particular age or a particular nation. Of foreign travel and of history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. "What does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the better for travelling?

What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?"' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i. 403.

In another pa.s.sage (p. 400) Macaulay says:--

'Johnson was no master of the great science of human nature. He had studied, not the genus man, but the species Londoner. n.o.body was ever so thoroughly conversant with all the forms of life and all the shades of moral and intellectual character which were to be seen from Islington to the Thames, and from Hyde-Park corner to Mile-end green. But his philosophy stopped at the first turnpike-gate. Of the rural life of England he knew nothing, and he took it for granted that everybody who lived in the country was either stupid or miserable.'

Of the two a.s.sertions that Macaulay makes in these two pa.s.sages, while one is for the most part true, the other is utterly and grossly false.

Johnson had no contempt for foreign travel. That curiosity which animated his eager mind in so many parts of learning did not fail him, when his thoughts turned to the great world outside our narrow seas. It was his poverty that confined him so long to the neighbourhood of Temple Bar. He must in these early days have sometimes felt with Arviragus when he says:--

'What should we speak of When we are old as you? when we shall hear The rain and wind beat dark December, how In this our pinching cave, shall we discourse The freezing hours away? We have seen nothing.'

With his pension his wanderings at once began. His friendship with the Thrales gave them a still wider range. His curiosity, which in itself was always eager, was checked in his more prosperous circ.u.mstances by his years, his natural unwillingness at any one moment to make an effort, and by the want of travelling companions who were animated by a spirit of inquiry and of enterprise equal to his own. He did indeed travel much more than is commonly thought, and was far less frequently to be seen rolling along Fleet-street or stemming the full tide of human existence at Charing Cross than his biographers would have us believe.

The following table, imperfect though it must necessarily be, shows how large a part of his life he pa.s.sed outside 'the first turnpike-gate,'

and beyond the smoke of London:--

1709-1736. The first twenty-seven years of his life he spent in small country towns or villages--Lichfield, Stourbridge, Oxford, Market-Bosworth, Birmingham. So late as 1781 Lichfield did not contain 4,000 inhabitants (Harwood's _History of Lichfield_, p. 380); eight years later it was reckoned that a little over 8,000 people dwelt in Oxford (Parker's _Early History of Oxford_, ed. 1885, p. 229). In 1732 or 1733 Birmingham, when Johnson first went to live there, had not, I suppose, a population of 10,000. Its growth was wonderfully rapid.

Between 1770 and 1797 its inhabitants increased from 30,000 to nearly 80,000 (_Birmingham Directory for_ 1780, p. xx, and _A Brief History of Birmingham_, p. 8).

1736-7. The first eighteen months of his married life he lived quite in the country at Edial, two miles from Lichfield. _Ante_, i. 97.

1737. He was twenty-eight years old when he removed to London. _Ante_, i. 110.

1739. He paid a visit to Appleby in Leicestershire and to Ashbourn.

_Ante_, i. 82, 133 note 1.

1754. Oxford. July and August, about five weeks. _Ante_, i. 270, note 5.

1759. Oxford. July, length of visit not mentioned. _Ante_, i. 347.

1761-2. Lichfield. Winter, a visit of five days. _Ante_, i. 370.

1762. In the summer of this year his pension was granted, and he henceforth had the means of travelling. _Ante_, i. 372.

A trip to Devonshire, from Aug. 16 to Sept. 26; six weeks. _Ante_, i.

377.

Oxford. December. 'I am going for a few days or weeks to Oxford.' Letter of Dec. 21, 1762. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 129.

1763. Harwich. August, a few days. _Ante_, i. 464.

Oxford. October, length of visit not mentioned. A letter dated Oxford, Oct. 27 [1763]. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 161.

1764. Langton in Lincolnshire, part of January and February. _Ante_, i.

476.

Easton Maudit in Northamptonshire, part of June, July, and August.

Croker's _Boswell_, p. 166, note, and _ante_, i. 486.

Oxford, October. Letter to Mr. Strahan dated Oxford, Oct. 24, 1764.

_Post, Addenda_ to vol. v.

Either this year or the next Johnson made the acquaintance of the Thrales. For the next seventeen years he had 'an apartment appropriated to him in the Thrales' villa at Streatham' (_ante_, i. 493), a handsome house that stood in a small park. Streatham was a quiet country-village, separated by wide commons from London, on one of which a highwayman had been hanged who had there robbed Mr. Thrale (_ante_, iii. 239, note 2).

According to Mrs. Piozzi Johnson commonly spent the middle of the week at their house, coming on the Monday night and returning to his own home on the Sat.u.r.day (_post_, iv. 169, note 3). Miss Burney, in 1778, describes him 'as living almost wholly at Streatham' (_ante_, i. 493, note 3). No doubt she was speaking chiefly of the summer half of the year, for in the winter time the Thrales would be often in their town house, where he also had his apartment. Mr. Strahan complained of his being at Streatham 'in a great measure absorbed from the society of his old friends' (_ante_, iii. 225). He used to call it 'my _home_' (_ante_, i. 493, note 3).

1765. Cambridge, early in the year; a short visit. _Ante_, i. 487.