Life of Johnson Volume III Part 52

Pope's _Essay on Man_, i. 99.

[289] '"I inherited," said Johnson, "a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 16, 1773. See _ante_, i. 65, and _post_, Sept. 20, 1777.

[290] _Pr. and Med_. p. 155. BOSWELL.

[291] _Pr. and Med_. p. 158. BOSWELL.

[292] He continues:--'I pa.s.sed the afternoon with such calm gladness of mind as it is very long since I felt before. I pa.s.sed the night in such sweet uninterrupted sleep as I have not known since I slept at Fort Augustus.' See _post_, Nov. 21, 1778, where in a letter to Boswell he says:--'The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort Augustus.' In 1767 he mentions (_Pr. and Med_. p. 73) 'a sudden relief he once had by a good night's rest in Fetter Lane,' where he had lived many years before. His good nights must have been rare indeed.

[293] Bishop Percy says that he handed over to Johnson various memoranda which he had received from 'Goldsmith's brother and others of his family, to afford materials for a _Life of Goldsmith_, which Johnson was to write and publish for their benefit. But he utterly forgot them and the subject.' Prior successfully defends Johnson against the charge that he did not include Goldsmith's _Life_ among the _Lives of the Poets_. 'The copy-right of _She Stoops to Conquer_ was the property of Carnan the bookseller (surviving partner of F. Newbery); and Carnan being "a most impracticable man and at variance with all his brethren," in the words of Malone to the Bishop, he refused his a.s.sent, and the project for the time fell to the ground.' But Percy clearly implies that it was a separate work and not one of the _Lives_ that Johnson had undertaken.

See Prior's _Goldsmith_, Preface, p. x. Malone, in a note on Boswell's letter of July 9, 1777, says:--'I collected some materials for a _Life of Goldsmith_, by Johnson's desire.' He goes on to mention the quarrel with Carnan. It should seem then that Johnson was gathering materials for Goldsmith's _Life_ before the _Lives of the Poets_ were projected; that later on he intended to include it in that series, but being thwarted by Carnan that he did nothing.

[294] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[295] 'I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.' _Ib_. Oct. 14.

[296] 'The Duke of Argyle was obliging enough to mount Dr. Johnson on a stately steed from his grace's stable. My friend was highly pleased, and Joseph [Boswell's Bohemian servant] said, "He now looks like a bishop."'

Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 26.

[297] See _ante_, ii. 196.

[298] Even Burke falls into the vulgarism of 'mutual friend.' See his _Correspondence_, i. 196, ii. 251. Goldsmith also writes of 'mutual acquaintance.' Cunningham's _Goldsmith's Works_, iv. 48.

[299] He means to imply, I suppose, that Johnson was the father of plantations. See _ante_, under Feb. 7, 1775. note.

[300] For a character of this very amiable man, see _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 36. [Aug. 17.] BOSWELL.

[301] By the then course of the post, my long letter of the 14th had not yet reached him. BOSWELL.

[302] _History of Philip the Second_. BOSWELL.

[303] See _ante_, Jan. 21, 1775.

[304] See _ante_, iii. 48.

[305] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Jan. 15, 1777, that he had had about twelve ounces of blood taken, and then about ten more, and that another bleeding was to follow. 'Yet I do not make it a matter of much form. I was to-day at Mrs. Gardiner's. When I have bled to-morrow, I will not give up Langton nor Paradise. But I beg that you will fetch me away on Friday. I do not know but clearer air may do me good; but whether the air be clear or dark, let me come to you.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 344. See _post_, Sept. 16, 1777, note.

[306] See _ante_, i. 411, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[307] Johnson tried in vain to buy this book at Aberdeen. _Ib_. Aug. 23.

[308] See _ante_, May 12, 1775.

[309] No doubt her _Miscellanies_. _Ante_, ii. 25.

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

[311] John_son_ is the most common English formation of the Sirname from _John_; John_ston_ the Scotch. My ill.u.s.trious friend observed that many North Britons p.r.o.nounced his name in their own way. BOSWELL. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Oct. 21, 1773) tells of one Lochbuy who, 'being told that Dr. Johnson did not hear well, bawled out to him, "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro, or of Ardnamurchan?"'

[312] See _post_, under Dec. 24, 1783.

[313] Johnson's old amanuensis. _Ante_, i. 187. Johnson described him as 'a man of great learning.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 654.

[314] On account of their differing from him as to religion and politicks. BOSWELL. See _post_, April 13, 1778. Mr. Croker says that 'the Club had, as its records show, for many of his latter years very little of his company.'

[315] See _ante_, i. 225 note 2, July 4, 1774, and March 20, 1776.

[316] Boswell was no reader. 'I don't believe,' Johnson once said to him, 'you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more.' _Ante_, April 16, 1775. Boswell wrote to Temple on March 18, 1775:--'I have a kind of impotency of study.' Two months later he wrote:--'I have promised to Dr. Johnson to read when I get to Scotland, and to keep an account of what I read. I shall let you know how I go on. My mind must be nourished.' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 181, 195.

[317] Chesterfield's _Letters to his Son_ were published in 1774, and his _Miscellaneous Works_, together with _Memoirs and Letters to his Friends_, early in 1777.

[318] 'Whatso it is, the Danaan folk, yea gift-bearing I fear.' Morris, aeneids, ii. 49.

[319] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 19, 1777:--'You are all young, and gay, and easy; but I have miserable nights, and know not how to make them better; but I shift pretty well a-days, and so have at you all at Dr. Burney's to-morrow.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 345.

[320] A twelfth was born next year. See _post_, July 3, 1778.

[321] It was March 29.

[322] _Pr. and Med_. p. 155. BOSWELL

[323] See _ante_, i. 341, note 3.

[324] See _ante_, i. 439.

[325] Johnson's moderation in demanding so small a sum is extraordinary.

Had he asked one thousand, or even fifteen hundred guineas, the booksellers, who knew the value of his name, would doubtless have readily given it. They have probably got five thousand guineas by this work in the course of twenty-five years. MALONE.

[326] See _post_, beginning of 1781.

[327] See _ante_, ii. 272, note 2.

[328] Mr. Joseph Cooper Walker, of the Treasury, Dublin, who obligingly communicated to me this and a former letter from Dr. Johnson to the same gentleman (for which see vol. i. p. 321), writes to me as follows: --'Perhaps it would gratify you to have some account of Mr. O'Connor. He is an amiable, learned, venerable old gentleman, of an independent fortune, who lives at Belanagar, in the county of Roscommon; he is an admired writer, and Member of the Irish Academy.--The above Letter is alluded to in the Preface to the 2nd edit, of his _Dissert_, p. 3.'--Mr.

O'Connor afterwards died at the age of eighty-two. See a well-drawn character of him in the _Gent. Mag_. for August 1791. BOSWELL.

[329] Mr. Croker shows good reason for believing that in the original letter this parenthesis stood:--'_if such there were_.'

[330] See _ante_, i. 292.

[331] 'Johnson had not heard of Pearce's _Sermons_, which I wondered at, considering that he wrote all the _Life_ published by the Chaplain Derby, except what his Lordship wrote himself.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 242. See ante, March 20, 1776.

[332] Boswell, it seems, is here quoting himself. See his _Hebrides_, 3rd edit. p. 201 (Sept. 13, 1773), where, however, he lays the emphasis differently, writing '_fervour_ of loyalty.'

[333] 'An old acquaintance' of the Bishop says that 'he struggled hard ten years ago to resign his Bishopric and the Deanery of Westminster, in which our gracious King was willing to gratify him; but upon a consultation of the Bishops they thought it could not be done with propriety; yet he was permitted to resign the Deanery.' _Gent. Mag_.

1775, p. 421.

[334] 'This person, it is said, was a stay-maker, but being a man of wit and parts he betook himself to study, and at a time when the discipline of the inns of court was scandalously lax, got himself called to the Bar, and practised at the quarter-sessions under me, but with little success. He became the conductor of a paper called _The Public Ledger_ and a writer for the stage, in which he met with some encouragement, till it was insinuated that he was a pensioner of the minister, and therefore a fit object of patriotic vengeance.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 518. See _ante_, ii. 48 note, and _post_, 1784, in Mr. Nichols's account of Johnson's last days.

[335] 'This address had the desired effect. The play was well received.'