Life of Johnson Volume III Part 44

[8] See _post_, April, 28, 1783.

[9] See _post_, March 22, 1783.

[10] See _post_, March 18, 1784.

[11] Newbery, the publisher, was the vendor of Dr. James's famous powder. It was known that on the doctor's death a chemist whom he had employed meant to try to steal the business, under the pretence that he alone knew the secret of the preparation. A supply of powders enough to last for many years was laid in by Newbery in antic.i.p.ation, while James left an affidavit that the chemist was never employed in the manufacture. He, however, a.s.serted that James was deprived of his mental faculties when the affidavit was made. Evidence against this was collected and published; the conclusion to the Preface being written by Johnson. _A Bookseller of the Last Century_, p. 138. See _ante_, i.

159.

[12] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on the birth of a second son who died early:--'I congratulate you upon your boy; but you must not think that I shall love him all at once as well as I love Harry, for Harry you know is so rational. I shall love him by degrees.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 206.

A week after Harry's death he wrote:--'I loved him as I never expect to love any other little boy; but I could not love him as a parent.' _Ib_.

p. 310.

[13] Johnson had known this anxiety. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Ashbourne on July 7, 1775:--'I cannot think why I hear nothing from you.

I hope and fear about my dear friends at Streatham. But I may have a letter this afternoon--Sure it will bring me no bad news.' _Ib_. i. 263.

See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 21, 1773.

[14] See _ante_, ii. 75.

[15] _ante_, April 10, 1775.

[16] See _ante_, March 21, 1776, and _post_, Sept. 19, 1777.

[17] The phrase 'vexing thoughts,' is I think, very expressive. It has been familiar to me from my childhood; for it is to be found in the _Psalms in Metre_, used in the churches (I believe I should say _kirks_) of Scotland, _Psal_. xliii. v. 5;

'Why art thou then cast down, my soul?

What should discourage thee?

And why with _vexing thoughts art_ thou Disquieted in me?'

Some allowance must no doubt be made for early prepossession. But at a maturer period of life, after looking at various metrical versions of the _Psalms_, I am well satisfied that the version used in Scotland is, upon the whole, the best; and that it has in general a simplicity and _unction_ of sacred Poesy; and in many parts its transfusion is admirable. BOSWELL.

[18] 'Burke and Reynolds are the same one day as another,' Johnson said, _post_, under Sept. 22, 1777. Boswell celebrates Reynolds's 'equal and placid temper,' _ante_, i. I. On Aug. 12, 1775, he wrote to Temple:--'It is absurd to hope for continual happiness in this life; few men, if any, enjoy it. I have a kind of belief that Edmund Burke does; he has so much knowledge, so much animation, and the consciousness of so much fame.'

_Letters of Boswell_, p. 212.

[19] _ante_, i. 446.

[20] Baretti says, that 'Mrs. Thrale abruptly proposed to start for Bath, as wishing to avoid the sight of the funeral. She had no man-friend to go with her,' and so he offered his services. Johnson at that moment arrived. 'I expected that he would spare me the jaunt, and go himself to Bath with her; but he made no motion to that effect.' _European Mag_.

xiii. 315. It was on the evening of the 29th that Boswell found Johnson, as he thought, not in very good humour. Yet on the 30th he wrote to Mrs.

Thrale, and called on Mr. Thrale. On April 1 and April 4 he again wrote to Mrs. Thrale. He would have gone a second time, he says, to see Mr.

Thrale, had he not been made to understand that when he was wanted he would be sent for. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 309-314.

[21] Pope, _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. Boswell twice more applies the same line to Johnson, post, June 3, 1781, and under Dec. 13, 1784.

[22] Imlac consoles the Princess for the loss of Pekuah. 'When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they will be dispelled; yet a new day succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease. But they who restrain themselves from receiving comfort do as the savages would have done, had they put out their eyes when it was dark.' _Ra.s.selas_, ch. 35.

'Keep yourself busy,' wrote Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 'and you will in time grow cheerful. New prospects may open, and new enjoyments may come within your reach.' _Piozzi Letters_.

[23] See _ante_, i. 86. It was reprinted in 1789.

[24] See Boswell's _Hebrides_ under Nov. 11, 1773.

[25] See _post_, under April 29, 1776.

[26] In like manner he writes, 'I catched for the moment an enthusiasm with respect to visiting the Wall of China.' _post_ April 10, 1778.

Johnson had had some desire to go upon Cook's expedition in 1772.

_ante_, March 21, 1772.

[27] Mme. D'Arblay (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 284) describes 'the perfect case with which Omai managed a sword which he had received from the King, and which he had that day put on for the first time in order to go to the House of Lords.' He is the 'gentle savage' in Cowpers _Task_, i. 632.

[28] See ante, ii. 50.

[29] Voltaire (_Siecle de Louis XV_, ch. xv.), in his account of the battle of Fontenoy, thus mentions him:--'On etait a cinquante pas de distance.... Les officiers anglais saluerent les Francais en otant leurs chapeaux.... Les officiers des gardes francaises leur rendirent le salut, Mylord Charles Hay, capitaine aux gardes anglaises, cria:--_Messieurs des gardes francaises, tirez_. Le comte d'Auteroche leur dit a voix haute:--_Messieurs, nous ne tirons jamais les premiers; tirez vous-memes_.'

[30] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. Hay was third in command in the expedition to North America in 1757. It was reported that he said that 'the nation's wealth was expended in making sham-fights and planting cabbages.' He was put under arrest and sent home to be tried.

_Gent. Mag_. 1758, p. 170. Mr. Croker says that 'the real state of the case was that he had gone mad, and was in that state sent home.' He died before the sentence of the court-martial was promulgated. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 497.

[31] In _Thoughts on the Coronation of George III_ (_Works_, v. 458) he expressed himself differently, if indeed the pa.s.sage is of his writing (see _ante_, i. 361). He says: 'It cannot but offend every Englishman to see troops of soldiers placed between him and his sovereign, as if they were the most honourable of the people, or the King required guards to secure his person from his subjects. As their station makes them think themselves important, their insolence is always such as may be expected from servile authority.' In his _Journey to the Hebrides_ (_ib_. ix. 30) he speaks of 'that courtesy which is so closely connected with the military character.' See _post_, April 10, 1778.

[32] 'It is not in the power even of G.o.d to make a polite soldier.' Meander; quoted by Hume, _Essays_, Part i. 20, note.

[33] In Johnson's Debates for 1741 (_Works_, x. 387) is on the quartering of soldiers. By the Mutiny Act the innkeeper was required to find each foot-soldier lodging, diet, and small beer for fourpence a day. By the Act as amended that year if he furnished salt, vinegar, small-beer, candles, fire, and utensils to dress their victuals, without payment, he had not to supply diet except on a march. _Ib_. pp. 416, 420. The allowance of small-beer was fixed at five pints a day, though it was maintained that it should be six. Lord Baltimore, according to Johnson, said that 'as every gentleman's servants each consumed daily six pints, it surely is not to be required that a soldier should live in a perpetual state of warfare with his const.i.tution.' _Ib_. p. 418.

Burke, writing in 1794, says:--'In quarters the innkeepers are obliged to find for the soldiers lodging, fire, candle-light, small-beer, salt and vinegar gratis.' Burke's _Corres_. iv. 258. Johnson wrote in 1758 (_Works_, vi. 150):--'The manner in which the soldiers are dispersed in quarters over the country during times of peace naturally produces laxity of discipline; they are very little in sight of their officers; and when they are not engaged in the slight duty of the guard are suffered to live every man his own way.' Fielding, in _Tom Jones_, bk.

ix. ch. 6, humourously describes an innkeeper's grievances.

[34] This alludes to the pleadings of a Stoic and an Epicurean for and against the existence of the Divinity in Lucian's _Jupiter the Tragic_.

CROKER.

[35] 'There is a time when every man is weary of raising difficulties only to ask himself with the solution and desires to enjoy truth without the labour or hazard of contest.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 497. See _ante_ May 7, 1773, and _post_, April 3, 1779, where he says, 'Sir, you are to a certain degree hurt by knowing that even one man does not believe.'

Hume, in his Essay _Of Parties in General_, had written:--'Such is the nature of the human mind, that it always takes hold of every mind that approaches it; and as it is wonderfully fortified and corroborated by an unanimity of sentiments, so is it, shocked and disturbed by any contrariety.' 'Carlyle was fond of quoting a sentence of Novalis:--"My conviction gains infinitely the moment another soul will believe in it."' _Sat.u.r.day Review_, No. 1538, p. 521. 'The introducing of new doctrines,' said Bacon, 'is an affectation of tyranny over the understandings and beliefs of men.' Bacon's _Nat. Hist_., Experiment 1000.

[36] 'We must own,' said Johnson, 'that neither a dull boy, nor an idle boy, will do so well at a great school as at a private one.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 22, 1773. See _ante_, under Dec. 5, 1775. On June 16, 1784, he said of a very timid boy:--'Placing him at a public school is forcing an owl upon day.' Lord Shelburne says that the first Pitt told him 'that his reason for preferring private to public education was, that he scarce observed a boy who was not cowed for life at Eton; that a public school might suit a boy of a turbulent forward disposition, but would not do where there was any gentleness.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 72.

[37] 'There are,' wrote Hume in 1767, 'several advantages of a Scots education; but the question is, whether that of the language does not counterbalance them, and determine the preference to the English.' He decides it does. He continues:--'The only inconvenience is, that few Scotsmen that have had an English education have ever settled cordially in their own country; and they have been commonly lost ever after to their friends.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 403.

[38] He wrote to Temple on Nov. 28, 1789:--'My eldest son has been at Eton since the 15th of October. You cannot imagine how miserable he has been; he wrote to me for some time as if from the galleys, and intreated me to come to him.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 314. On July 21, 1790, he wrote of his second son who was at home ill:--'I am in great concern what should be done with him, for he is so oppressed at Westminster School by the big boys that I am almost afraid to send him thither.' _Ib_. p. 327. On April 6, 1791, he wrote:--'Your little friend James is quite reconciled to Westminster.' _Ib_. p. 337. Southey, who was at Westminster with young Boswell, describes 'the capricious and dangerous tyranny' under which he himself had suffered. Southey's _Life_, i. 138.

[39] Horace, Satires, i. 6. 65-88.

[40] Dr. Adam Smith, who was for some time a Professor in the University of Glasgow, has uttered, in his _Wealth of Nations_ [v. I, iii. 2], some reflections upon this subject which are certainly not well founded, and seem to be invidious. BOSWELL.

[41] See _ante,_ ii. 98.

[42] Gibbon denied this. 'The diligence of the tutors is voluntary, and will consequently be languid, while the pupils themselves, or their parents, are not indulged in the liberty of choice or change,' _Misc.

Works_, i. 54. Of one of his tutors he wrote:--'He well remembered that he had a salary to receive, and only forgot that he had a duty to perform.' _Ib_. p. 58. Boswell, _post_, end of Nov. 1784, blames Dr.

Knox for 'ungraciously attacking his venerable _Alma Mater_.' Knox, who was a Fellow of St. John's, left Oxford in 1778. In his _Liberal Education_, published in 1781, he wrote:--'I saw immorality, habitual drunkenness, idleness and ignorance, boastingly obtruding themselves on public view.' Knox's _Works_, iv. 138. 'The general tendency of the universities is favourable to the diffusion of ignorance, idleness, vice, and infidelity among young men.' _Ib_. p. 147. 'In no part of the kingdom will you meet with more licentious practices and sentiments, and with less learning than in some colleges.' _Ib_. p. 179. 'The tutors give what are called lectures. The boys construe a cla.s.sic, the jolly young tutor lolls in his elbow-chair, and seldom gives himself the trouble of interrupting the greatest dunce.' _Ib_. p. 199. 'Some societies would have been glad to shut themselves up by themselves, and enjoy the good things of the cook and manciple, without the intrusion of commoners who come for education.' _Ib_. p. 200. 'The princ.i.p.al thing required is external respect from the juniors. However ignorant or unworthy a senior fellow may be, yet the slightest disrespect is treated as the greatest crime of which an academic can be guilty.' _Ib_. p. 201.

The Proctors gave far 'more frequent reprimands to the want of a band, or to the hair tied in queue, than to important irregularities. A man might be a drunkard, a debauchee, and yet long escape the Proctor's animadversion; but no virtue could protect you if you walked on Christ-church meadow or the High Street with a band tied too low, or with no band at all; with a pig-tail, or with a green or scarlet coat.'

_Ib_. p. 159. Only thirteen weeks' residence a year was required. _Ib_.

p. 172. The degree was conferred without examination. _Ib_. p. 189.

After taking it 'a man offers himself as a candidate for orders. He is examined by the Bishop's chaplain. He construes a few verses in the Greek testament, and translates one of the articles from Latin into English. His testimonial being received he comes from his jolly companions to the care of a large parish.' _Ib_. p. 197. Bishop Law gave in 1781 a different account of Cambridge. There, he complains, such was the devotion to mathematics, that 'young men often sacrifice their whole stock of strength and spirits, and so entirely devote most of their first few years to what is called _taking a good degree_, as to be hardly good for anything else.' Preface to Archbishop King's _Essay on the Origin of Evil_, p. xx.