Life of Johnson Volume III Part 54

'Most faithfully yours,

'JAMES BOSWELL.'

[371] William Seward, Esq., F.R.S., editor of _Anecdotes of some distinguished persons_, etc., in four volumes, 8vo., well known to a numerous and valuable acquaintance for his literature, love of the fine arts, and social virtues. I am indebted to him for several communications concerning Johnson. BOSWELL. Miss Burney frequently mentions him as visiting the Thrales. 'Few people do him justice,' said Mrs. Thrale to her, 'because as Dr. Johnson calls him, he is an abrupt young man; but he has excellent qualities, and an excellent understanding.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 141. Miss Burney, in one of her letters, says:--'Mr. Seward, who seems to be quite at home among them, appears to be a penetrating, polite, and agreeable young man. Mrs.

Thrale says of him, that he does good to everybody, but speaks well of n.o.body.' _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 89. He must not be confounded with the Rev. Mr. Seward of Lichfield.

[372] See _post_, under date of June 18, 1778.

[373] In the list of deaths in the _Gent. Mag_. for 1779, p. 103, we find, 'Feb. 8. Isaac de Groot, great-grandson to the learned Grotius.

He had long been supported by private donations, and at length was provided for in the Charterhouse, where he died.'

[374] The preceding letter. BOSWELL.

[375] This letter was addressed not to a Mr. Dilly, but to Mr. W. Sharp, Junior. See _Gent. Mag_. 1787, p. 99. CROKER.

[376] See _ante_, i. 312.

[377] See _ante_, p. 101.

[378] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 16.

[379] See ante, p. 86, and _post_, under Nov. 29, 1777.

[380] Johnson gives both _epocha_ and _epoch_ in his _Dictionary_.

[381] Langton. See _ante_, p. 48, and _post_, Sept. 22, 1777.

[382] This very just remark I hope will be constantly held in remembrance by parents, who are in general too apt to indulge their own fond feelings for their children at the expence of their friends. The common custom of introducing them after dinner is highly injudicious. It is agreeable enough that they should appear at any other time; but they should not be suffered to poison the moments of festivity by attracting the attention of the company, and in a manner compelling them from politeness to say what they do not think. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 28.

[383] Gibbon wrote to Garrick from Paris on Aug. 14:--'At this time of year the society of the Turk's-head can no longer be addressed as a corporate body, and most of the individual members are probably dispersed: Adam Smith in Scotland; Burke in the shades of Beaconsfield; Fox, the Lord or the devil knows where, etc. Be so good as to salute in my name those friends who may fall in your way. a.s.sure Sir Joshua, in particular, that I have not lost my relish for _manly_ conversation and the society of the brown table.' _Garrick Corres_. ii. 256. I believe that in Gibbon's published letters no mention is found of Johnson.

[384] See _ante_, ii. 159, and _post_, April 4, 1778. Of his greatness at the Bar Lord Eldon has left the following anecdote;--'Mr. Dunning, being in very great business, was asked how he contrived to get through it all. He said, "I do one third of it, another third does itself, and the remaining third continues undone."' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 327.

[385] It is not easy to detect Johnson in anything that comes even near an inaccuracy. Let me quote, therefore, a pa.s.sage from one of his letters which shews that when he wrote to Mrs. Boswell he had not, as he seems to imply, eaten any of the marmalade:--'Aug. 4, 1777. I believe it was after I left your house that I received a pot of orange marmalade from Mrs. Boswell. We have now, I hope, made it up. I have not opened my pot.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 350.

[386] See _ante_, March 19, 1776.

[387] What it was that had occured is shewn by Johnson's letter to Mrs.

Thrale on Aug. 4:--'Boswell's project is disconcerted by a visit from a relation of Yorkshire, whom he mentions as the head of his clan [see _ante_, ii. 169, note 2]. Boszy, you know, make a huge bustle about all his own motions and all mine. I have inclosed a letter to pacify him, and reconcile him to the uncertainties of human life.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 350.

[388] When she was about four months old, Boswell declared that she should have five hundred pounds of additional fortune, on account of her fondness for Dr. Johnson. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773.

She died, says Malone, of a consumption, four months after her father.

[389] See _ante_, March 23, 1776.

[390] By an odd mistake, in the first three editions we find a reading in this line to which Dr. Johnson would by no means have subscribed, _wine_ having been subst.i.tuted for _time_. That error probably was a mistake in the transcript of Johnson's original letter. The other deviation in the beginning of the line (_virtue_ instead of nature) must be attributed to his memory having deceived him. The verse quoted is the concluding line of a sonnet of Sidney's:--

'Who doth desire that chast his wife should bee, First be he true, for truth doth truth deserve; Then be he such, as she his worth may see, And, alwaies one, credit with her preserve: Not toying kynd nor causelessly unkynd, Nor stirring thoughts, nor yet denying right, Nor spying faults, nor in plaine errors blind, Never hard hand, nor ever rayns (reins) too light; As far from want, as far from vaine expence, Th' one doth enforce, the t'other doth entice: Allow good companie, but drive from thence All filthie mouths that glorie in their vice: This done, thou hast no more but leave the rest To _nature_, fortune, _time_, and woman's breast.'

MALONE.

[391] 2 Corinthians, iv. 17.

[392] Boswell says (ante, i. 342):--'I am not satisfied if a year pa.s.ses without my having read _Ra.s.selas_ through.'

[393] It appears that Johnson, now in his sixty-eighth year, was seriously inclined to realise the project of our going up the Baltick, which I had started when we were in the Isle of Sky [Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 16]; for he thus writes to Mrs. Thrale; _Letters_, vol. i. p. 366:--

'Ashbourne, Sept. 13, 1777.

'BOSWELL, I believe, is coming. He talks of being here to day: I shall be glad to see him: but he shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power: what we shall subst.i.tute I know not. He wants to see Wales; but, except the woods of _Bachycraigh_, what is there in Wales, that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity? We may, perhaps, form some scheme or other; but, in the phrase of _Hockley in the Hole_, it is a pity he has not a _better bottom_.'

Such an ardour of mind, and vigour of enterprise, is admirable at any age: but more particularly so at the advanced period at which Johnson was then arrived. I am sorry now that I did not insist on our executing that scheme. Besides the other objects of curiosity and observation, to have seen my ill.u.s.trious friend received, as he probably would have been, by a Prince so eminently distinguished for his variety of talents and acquisitions as the late King of Sweden; and by the Empress of Russia, whose extraordinary abilities, information, and magnanimity, astonish the world, would have afforded a n.o.ble subject for contemplation and record. This reflection may possibly be thought too visionary by the more sedate and cold-blooded part of my readers; yet I own, I frequently indulge it with an earnest, unavailing regret.

BOSWELL. In _The Spectator_, No. 436, Hockley in the Hole is described as 'a place of no small renown for the gallantry of the lower order of Britons.' Fielding mentions it in _Jonathan Wild_, bk. i. ch. 2:-- 'Jonathan married Elizabeth, daughter of Scragg Hollow, of Hockley in the Hole, Esq., and by her had Jonathan, who is the ill.u.s.trious subject of these memoirs.' In _The Beggar's Opera_, act i. Mrs. Peachum says to Filch: 'You should go to Hockley in the Hole, and to Marylebone, child, to learn valour. These are the schools that have bred so many brave men.' Hockley in the Hole was in Clerkenwell. That Johnson had this valour was shewn two years earlier, when he wrote to Mrs. Thrale about a sum of 14,000 that the Thrales had received: 'If I had money enough, what would I do? Perhaps, if you and master did not hold me, I might go to Cairo, and down the Red Sea to Bengal, and take a ramble in India. Would this be better than building and planting? It would surely give more variety to the eye, and more amplitude to the mind. Half fourteen thousand would send me out to see other forms of existence, and bring me back to describe them.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 266. To the 'King of Sweden' _late_ was added in the second edition; Gustavus III having been a.s.sa.s.sinated in March 1792. The story is somewhere told that George III, on hearing the news, cried out, 'What, what, what! Shot, shot, shot!' The Empress of Russia was Catherine II.

[394] It so happened. The letter was forwarded to my house at Edinburgh.

BOSWELL. Arthur Young (_Tour through the North of England_, iv. 431-5) describes, in 1768, some of the roads along which Boswell was to travel nine years later. 'I would advise all travellers to consider the country between Newcastle-under-Line and Preston as sea, and as soon think of driving into the ocean as venturing into such detestable roads. I am told the Derby way to Manchester is good, but further is not penetrable.' The road from Wigan to Preston he calls 'infernal,' and 'cautions all travellers, who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer; what therefore must it be after a winter?'

[395] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 15, 1777:--'Last night came Boswell. I am glad that he is come. He seems to be very brisk and lively, and laughs a little at ---- [no doubt Taylor].' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 368. On the 18th he wrote:--'Boswell is with us in good humour, and plays his part with his usual vivacity.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:--'That is, he makes more noise than anybody in company, talking and laughing loud.' On p. 216 in vol. i. he noted:--'Boswell is not quite right-headed in my humble opinion.'

[396] In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1777, p. 458, it is described as a 'violent shock.'

[397] 'Grief has its time' he once said (_post_, June 2, 1781). 'Grief is a species of idleness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 77). He constantly taught that it is a duty not to allow the mind to prey on itself. 'Gaiety is a duty when health requires it' (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 529). 'Encourage yourself in bustle, and variety, and cheerfulness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale ten weeks after the death of her only surviving son (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 341). 'Even to think in the most reasonable manner,' he said at another time, 'is for the present not useful as not to think.' _Ib_ i. 202. When Mr. Thrale died, he wrote to his widow:--'I think business the best remedy for grief, as soon as it can be admitted.' _Ib_. ii 197. To Dr. Taylor Johnson wrote:--'Sadness only multiplies self.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S., v. 461.

[398] 'There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved, nor will by me at least be thought worthy of esteem.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 198. Against this Baretti has written in the margin:-- 'Johnson never grieved much for anything. His trade was wisdom.' See _ante_, ii. 94.

[399] See _ante_, iii 19. Mr. Croker gives a reference to p. 136 of his edition. Turning to it we find an account of Johnson, who rode upon three horses. It would seem from this that, because John=Jack, therefore Johnson=Jackson.

[400] Mr. Croker remarks on this:--'Johnson evidently thought, either that Ireland is generally mountainous, or that Mr. Burke came from a part which was: but he was mistaken.' The allusion may well be, not to Burke as a native of Ireland, but to him as a student of national politics and economy, to whom any general reflections on the character of mountaineers would be welcome. In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 201, it is stated that 'it was the philosophy of the book that Burke thought well of.'

[401] Mr. Langley, I have little doubt, is the Mr. L---- of the following pa.s.sage in Johnson's letter, written from Ashbourne on July 12, 1775:--'Mr. L---- and the Doctor still continue at variance; and the Doctor is afraid and Mr. L---- not desirous of a reconciliation. I therefore step over at by-times, and of by-times I have enough.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 267.

[402] See _ante_, ii. 52.

[403] George Garrick. See Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 141.

[404] See _ante_, March 26, 1776, and _post_, Sept. 21, 1777.

[405] 'While Lord Bathurst held the Great Seal, an attempt was in vain made to corrupt him by a secret offer to Lady Bathurst of three thousand guineas for the living of St. George's, Hanover Square. The offer was traced to the famous Dr. Dodd, then a King's Chaplain, and he was immediately dismissed.' Campbell's _Chancellors_, v. 464. See Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 298.

[406] Horace Walpole, who accompanied Prince Edward to a service at the Magdalen House in 1760, thus describes the service (_Letters_, iii. 282): --'As soon as we entered the chapel the organ played, and the Magdalens sung a hymn in parts. You cannot imagine how well. The chapel was dressed with orange and myrtle, and there wanted nothing but a little incense to drive away the devil,--or to invite him. Prayers then began, psalms and a sermon; the latter by a young clergyman, one Dodd, who contributed to the Popish idea one had imbibed, by haranguing entirely in the French style, and very eloquently and touchingly. He apostrophised the lost sheep, who sobbed and cried from their souls: so did my Lady Hertford and f.a.n.n.y Pelham, till, I believe, the city dames took them both for Jane Sh.o.r.es. The confessor then turned to the audience, and addressed himself to his Royal Highness, whom he called most ill.u.s.trious prince, beseeching his protection. In short, it was a very pleasing performance, and I got _the most ill.u.s.trious_ to desire it might be printed.' Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 503) heard Dodd preach in 1769. 'We had,' he says, 'difficulty to get tolerable seats, the crowd of genteel people was so great. The unfortunate young women were in a latticed gallery, where you could only see those who chose to be seen.

The preacher's text was, "If a man look on a woman to l.u.s.t after her,"

&c. The text itself was shocking, and the sermon was composed with the least possible delicacy, and was a shocking insult on a sincere penitent, and fuel for the warm pa.s.sions of the hypocrites. The fellow was handsome, and delivered his discourse remarkably well for a reader.

When he had finished, there were unceasing whispers of applause, which I could not help contradicting aloud, and condemning the whole inst.i.tution, as well as the exhibition of the preacher, as _contra bonos mores_, and a disgrace to a Christian city.' Goldsmith in 1774 exposed Dodd as a 'quacking divine' in his _Retaliation_. He describes Dr.

Douglas as a 'The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks,' and he continues,--

'But now he is gone, and we want a detector, Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture.'

See _post_, April 7, 1778.