Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 40

Ex gehenna debitoria, Vulgo, domo spongiatoria.'

He adds that he hopes to have his _Ode on the British Nation_ done that day. This _Ode_, which is given in the _Gent. Mag._ 1742, p. 383, contains the following verse, which contrasts sadly with the poor poet's case:--

'Thou, sacred isle, amidst thy ambient main, _Enjoyst the sweets of freedom_ all thy own.'

[G-2] It is not likely that Johnson called a sixpence 'a serious consideration.' He who in his youth would not let his comrades say _prodigious_ (_ante/_, in. 303) was not likely in his old age so to misuse a word.

[G-3] Hugh Kelly is mentioned _ante_, ii. 48, note 2, and iii. 113.

[G-4] It was not on the return from Sky, but on the voyage from Sky to Rasay, that the spurs were lost. _Post_, v. 163.

[G-5] Dr. White's _Bampton Lectures_ of 1784 'became part of the triumphant literature of the University of Oxford,' and got the preacher a Christ Church Canonry. Of these _Lectures_ Dr. Parr had written about one-fifth part. White, writing to Parr about a pa.s.sage in the ma.n.u.script of the last Lecture, said:--'I fear I did not clearly explain myself; I humbly beg the favour of you to make my meaning more intelligible.' On the death of Mr. Badc.o.c.k in 1788, a note for 500 from White was found in his pocket-book. White pretended that this was remuneration for some other work; but it was believed on good grounds that Badc.o.c.k had begun what Parr had completed, and that these famous _Lectures_ were mainly their work. Badc.o.c.k was one of the writers in the _Monthly Review_.

Johnstone's _Life of Dr. Parr_, i. 218-278. For Badc.o.c.k's correspondence with the editor of the _Monthly Review_, see _Bodleian_ MS. _Add._ C. 90.

[G-6] 'Virgilium vidi tantum.' Ovid, _Tristia_, iv. 10. 51.

[G-7] Mackintosh says of Priestley:--'Frankness and disinterestedness in the avowal of his opinion were his point of honour.' He goes on to point out that there was 'great mental power in him wasted and scattered.'

_Life of Mackintosh_, i. 349. See _ante_, ii. 124, and iv. 238 for Johnson's opinion of Priestley.

[G-8] Badc.o.c.k, in using the term 'index-scholar,' was referring no doubt to Pope's lines:--

'How Index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.'

_Dunciad_, i. 279.

APPENDIX H.

(_Notes on Boswell's note on pages 421-422_.)

[H-1] The last lines of the inscription on this urn are borrowed, with a slight change, from the last paragraph of the last _Rambler/_.

(Johnson's _Works_, iii. 465, and _ante_, i. 226.) Johnson visited Colonel Myddelton on August 29, 1774, in his Tour to Wales. See _post_, v. 453.

[H-2] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on Sept. 3, 1783, said:--'I sat to Opey (sic) as long as he desired, and I think the head is finished, but it is not much admired.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 481. Hawkins (_Life of Johnson_, p. 569) says that in 1784 'Johnson resumed sitting to Opie, but,' he adds, 'I believe the picture was never finished.'

[H-3] Of this picture, which was the one painted for Beauclerk (_ante_, p. 180), it is stated in Johnson's _Work_, ed. 1787, xi. 204, that 'there is in it that appearance of a labouring working mind, of an indolent reposing body, which he had to a very great degree.'

[H-4] It seems almost certain that the portrait of Johnson in the Common Room of University College, Oxford, is this very mezzotinto. It was given to the College by Sir William Scott, and it is a mezzotinto from Opie's portrait. It has been reproduced for this work, and will be found facing page 244 of volume iii. Scott's inscription on the back of the frame is given on page 245, note 3, of the same volume.

APPENDIX I.

(_Page_ 424.)

Boswell most likely never knew that in the year 1790 Mr. Seward, in the name of Cadell the publisher, had asked Parr to write a _Life of Johnson_. (Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 678.) Parr, in his amusing vanity, was as proud of this _Life_ as if he had written it. '"It would have been," he said, "the third most learned work that has ever yet appeared. The most learned work ever published I consider Bentley _On the Epistles of Phalaris_; the next Salmasius _On the h.e.l.lenistic Language_." Alluding to Boswell's Life he continued, "Mine should have been, not the droppings of his lips, but the history of his mind."'

Field's _Life of Parr_, i. 164.

In the epitaph that he first sent in were found the words 'Probabili Poetae.'

'In arms,' wrote Parr, 'were all the Johnsonians: Malone, Steevens, Sir W. Scott, Windham, and even Fox, all in arms. The epithet was cold. They do not understand it, and I am a Scholar, not a Belles-Lettres man.'

Parr had wished to pa.s.s over all notice of Johnson's poetical character.

To this, Malone said, none of his friends of the Literary Club would agree. He pointed out also that Parr had not noticed 'that part of Johnson's genius, which placed him on higher ground than perhaps any other quality that can be named--the universality of his knowledge, the promptness of his mind in producing it on all occasions in conversation, and the vivid eloquence with which he clothed his thoughts, however suddenly called upon.' Parr, regardless of Johnson's rule that 'in lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath' (_ante_, ii. 407), replied, that if he mentioned his conversation he should have to mention also his roughness in contradiction, &c. As for the epithet _probabili_, he 'never reflected upon it without almost a triumphant feeling in its felicity.' Nevertheless he would change it into 'poetae sententiarum et verborum ponderibus admirabili.' Yet these words, 'energetic and sonorous' though they were, 'fill one with a secret and invincible loathing, because they tend to introduce into the epitaph a character of magnificence.' With every fresh objection he rose in importance. He wrote for the approbation of real scholars of generations yet unborn.

'That the epitaph was written by such or such a man will, from the publicity of the situation, and the popularity of the subject, be long remembered.' Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 694-712. No objection seems to have been raised to the five pompous lines of perplexing dates and numerals in which no room is found even for Johnson's birth and birth-place.

'After I had written the epitaph,' wrote Parr to a friend, 'Sir Joshua Reynolds told me there was a scroll. I was in a rage. A scroll! Why, Ned, this is vile modern contrivance. I wanted one train of ideas. What could I do with the scroll? Johnson held it, and Johnson must speak in it. I thought of this, his favourite maxim, in the Life of Milton, [Johnson's _Works_, vii. 77],

"[Greek: Otti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetuktai.]."

In Homer [_Odyssey_, iv. 392] you know--and shewing the excellence of Moral Philosophy. There Johnson and Socrates agree. Mr. Seward, hearing of my difficulty, and no scholar, suggested the closing line in the _Rambler_ [_ante_, i. 226, note 1]; had I looked there I should have antic.i.p.ated the suggestion. It is the closing line in Dionysius's _Periegesis_,

"[Greek: Anton ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.]."

I adopted it, and gave Seward the praise. "Oh," quoth Sir William Scott, "_[Greek: makaron]_ is Heathenish, and the Dean and Chapter will hesitate." "The more fools they," said I. But to prevent disputes I have altered it.

"[Greek: En makaressi ponon antaxios ein amoibae]."

Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, iv. 713.

Though the inscription on the scroll is not strictly speaking part of the epitaph, yet this mixture of Greek and Latin is open to the censure Johnson pa.s.sed on Pope's Epitaph on Craggs.

'It may be proper to remark,' he said, 'the absurdity of joining in the same inscription Latin and English, or verse and prose. If either language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue and part in another on a tomb more than in any other place, or on any other occasion.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 353.

Bacon the sculptor was anxious, wrote Malone, 'that posterity should know that he was ent.i.tled to annex R.A. to his name.' Parr was ready to give his name, lest if it were omitted 'Bacon should slily put the figure of a hog on Johnson's monument'; just as 'Saurus and Batrachus, when Octavia would not give them leave to set their names on the Temples they had built in Rome, scattered one of them [Greek: saurai] [lizards], and the other [Greek: batrachoi] [frogs] on the bases and capitals of the columns.' But as for the R.A., the sculptor 'very reluctantly had to agree to its omission.' Johnstone's _Parr_, iv. 705 and 710.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nothing can compensate for this want this year of all years.

Johnson's health was better than it had been for long, and his mind happier perhaps than it had ever been. The knowledge that in his _Lives of the Poets_, he had done, and was doing good work, no doubt was very cheering to him. At no time had he gone more into society, and at no time does he seem to have enjoyed it with greater relish. 'How do you think I live?' he wrote on April 25. 'On Thursday, I dined with Hamilton, and went thence to Mrs. Ord. On Friday, with much company at Reynolds's. On Sat.u.r.day, at Dr. Bell's. On Sunday, at Dr. Burney's; at night, came Mrs. Ord, Mr. Greville, &c. On Monday with Reynolds, at night with Lady Lucan; to-day with Mr. Langton; to-morrow with the Bishop of St. Asaph; on Thursday with Mr. Bowles; Friday ----; Sat.u.r.day, at the Academy; Sunday with Mr. Ramsay.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 107. On May 1, he wrote:--'At Mrs. Ord's, I met one Mrs. B---- [Buller], a travelled lady, of great spirit, and some consciousness of her own abilities. We had a contest of gallantry an hour long, so much to the diversion of the company that at Ramsay's last night, in a crowded room, they would have pitted us again. There were Smelt, [one of the King's favourites] and the Bishop of St. Asaph, who comes to every place; and Lord Monboddo, and Sir Joshua, and ladies out of tale.' _Ib_. p. 111.

The account that Langton gives of the famous evening at Mrs. Vesey's, 'when the company began to collect round Johnson till they became not less than four, if not five deep (_ante_, May 2, 1780), is lively enough; but 'the particulars of the conversation' which he neglects, Boswell would have given us in full.

[2] In 1792, Miss Burney, after recording that Boswell told some of his Johnsonian stories, continues:--'Mr. Langton told some stories in imitation of Dr. Johnson; but they became him less than Mr. Boswell, and only reminded me of what Dr. Johnson himself once said to me--"Every man has some time in his life an ambition to be a wag."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, v. 307.

[3] _Stephanorum Historia, vitas ipsorum ac libros complectens_. London, 1709.

[4] _Senilia_ was published in 1742. The line to which Johnson refers is, 'Mel, nervos, fulgur, Carteret, unus, habes,' p. 101. In another line, the poet celebrates Colley Cibber's Muse--the _Musa Cibberi_: 'Multa Cibberum levat aura.' p. 50. See Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, i. 367.

[5] _Graecae Linguae Dialecti in Scholae Westmonast. usum_, 1738.

[6] Giannone, an Italian historian, born 1676, died 1748. When he published his _History of the Kingdom of Naples_, a friend congratulating him on its success, said:--'Mon ami, vous vous etes mis une couronne sur la tete, mais une couronne d'epines.' His attacks on the Church led to persecution, in the end he made a retractation, but nevertheless he died in prison. _Nouv. Biog. Gen._ xx. 422.

[7] See _ante_, ii. 119.