Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 59

[647] This duel was fought on April 21, between Mr. Riddell of the Horse-Grenadiers, and Mr. Cunningham of the Scots Greys. Riddell had the first fire, and shot Cunningham through the breast. After a pause of two minutes Cunningham returned the fire, and gave Riddell a wound of which he died next day. _Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 362. Boswell's grandfather's grandmother was a Miss Cunningham. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 4. I do not know that there was any nearer connection. In Scotland, I suppose, so much kindred as this makes two men 'near relations.'

[648] 'Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other.' _St. Luke_, vi. 29. Had Miss Burney thought of this text, she might have quoted it with effect against Johnson, who, criticising her _Evelina_, said:--'You write Scotch, you say "the one,"--my dear, that's not English. Never use that phrase again.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 84.

[649] 'Turn not thou away.' _St. Matthew_, v. 42.

[650] I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, 3 ed. p. 386 [p. 366, Oct. 24], it appears that he made this frank confession:--'n.o.body at times, talks more laxly than I do;' and, _ib_. p. 231 [Sept. 19, 1773], 'He fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling.' We may, therefore, infer, that he could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time it must be confessed, that from the prevalent notions of honour, a gentleman who receives a challenge is reduced to a dreadful alternative. A remarkable instance of this is furnished by a clause in the will of the late Colonel Thomas, of the Guards, written the night before he fell in a duel, Sept. 3, 1783:--'In the first place, I commit my soul to Almighty G.o.d, in hopes of his mercy and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the necessity of taking.' BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 179.

[651] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24 and Sept. 20. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 177) says that when the a.s.sembly at Philadelphia, the majority of which were Quakers, was asked by New England to supply powder for some garrison, 'they would not grant money to buy powder, because that was an ingredient of war; but they voted an aid of 3000 to be appropriated for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or _other grain_.' The Governor interpreted _other grain_ as gunpowder, without any objection ever being raised.

[652] 'A gentleman falling off his horse brake his neck, which sudden hap gave occasion of much speech of his former life, and some in this judging world judged the worst. In which respect a good friend made this good epitaph, remembering that of Saint Augustine, _Misericordia Domini inter pontem et fontem_.

"My friend judge not me, Thou seest I judge not thee; Betwixt the stirrop and the ground, Mercy I askt, mercy I found."'

_Camden's Remains_, ed. 1870, p. 420.

[653] 'In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.'

_Prayer-book._

[654] Upon this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazennose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following satisfactory observation:--'The pa.s.sage in the Burial-service does not mean the resurrection of the person interred, but the general resurrection; it is in sure and certain hope of _the_ resurrection; not _his_ resurrection. Where the deceased is really spoken of, the expression is very different, "as our hope is this our brother doth"

[rest in Christ]; a mode of speech consistent with every thing but absolute certainty that the person departed doth _not_ rest in Christ, which no one can be a.s.sured of, without immediate revelation from Heaven. In the first of these places also, "eternal life" does not necessarily mean eternity of bliss, but merely the eternity of the state, whether in happiness or in misery, to ensue upon the resurrection; which is probably the sense of "the life everlasting," in the Apostles' Creed. See _Wheatly and Bennet on the Common Prayer_.' BOSWELL.

[655] Six days earlier the Lord-Advocate Dundas had brought in a bill for the Regulation of the Government of India. Hastings, he said, should be recalled. His place should be filled by 'a person of independent fortune, who had not for object the repairing of his estate in India, that had long been the nursery of ruined and decayed fortunes.' _Parl.

Hist_. xxiii. 757. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Nov. 22 of this year:--'I believe corruption and oppression are in India at an enormous height, but it has never appeared that they were promoted by the Directors, who, I believe, see themselves defrauded, while the country is plundered; but the distance puts their officers out of reach.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 482. See _ante_, p. 66.

[656] See _ante_, p. 113.

[657] Stockdale (_Memoirs_, ii. 57) says that, in 1770, the payment to writers in the _Critical Review_ was two guineas a sheet, but that some of the writers in _The Monthly Review_ received four guineas a sheet. As these Reviews were octavos, each sheet contained sixteen pages. Lord Jeffrey says that the writers in the _Edinburgh Review_ were at first paid ten guineas a sheet. 'Not long after the _minimum_ was raised to sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign, though two-thirds of the articles were paid much higher--averaging, I should think, from twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number.' c.o.c.kburn's _Jeffrey_, i. 136.

[658] See ante, ii. 344.

[659] See _ante_, iii.32.

[660] See _ante_, p. 206.

[661] _Monday_ is no doubt put by mistake for _Tuesday_, which was the 29th. Boswell had spent a considerable part of Monday the 28th with Johnson (_ante_, p. 211).

[662]

'A fugitive from Heaven and prayer, I mocked at all religious fear.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i.34. 1.

[663] He told Boswell (_ante_, i. 68) that he had been a sort of lax talker against religion for some years before he went to Oxford, but that there he took up Law's _Serious Call_ and found it quite an overmatch for him. 'This,' he said, 'was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational enquiry.' During the vacation of 1729 he had a serious illness (_ante_, i. 63), which most likely was 'the sickness that brought religion back.'

[664] See _ante_, i. 93, 164, and _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784.

[665] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254.

[666] See _ante_, ii. 249.

[667] Malloch continued to write his name thus, _after he came to London_. His verses prefixed to the second edition of Thomson's _Winter_ are so subscribed. MALONE. 'Alias. A Latin word signifying otherwise; as, Mallet, _alias_ Malloch; that is _otherwise_ Malloch.' The mention of Mallet first comes in Johnson's own abridgment of his _Dictionary_.

In the earlier unabridged editions the definition concludes, 'often used in the trials of criminals, whose danger has obliged them to change their names; as Simpson _alias_ Smith, _alias_ Baker, &c.' For Mallet, see _ante_, i. 268, and ii. 159.

[668] Perhaps Scott had this saying of Johnson's in mind when he made Earl Douglas exclaim:--

'At first in heart it liked me ill, When the King praised his clerkly skill.

Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine, Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line.'

_Marmion_, canto vi. 15.

[669] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 10.

[670] Johnson often maintained this diffusion of learning. Thus he wrote:--'The call for books was not in Milton's age what it is in the present. To read was not then a general amus.e.m.e.nt; neither traders, nor often gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance. The women had not then aspired to literature nor was every house supplied with a closet of knowledge.' _Works_, vii. 107. He goes on to mention 'that general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks.'

_Works_, p. 108. 'That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk was in Addison's time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured.' _Ib_.

p.470. 'Of the _Essay on Criticism_, Pope declared that he did not expect the sale to be quick, because "not one gentleman in sixty, even of liberal education, could understand it." The gentlemen, and the education of that time, seem to have been of a lower character than they are of this.' _Ib_. viii. 243. See _ante_, iii. 3, 254. Yet he maintained that 'learning has decreased in England, because learning will not do so much for a man as formerly.' Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 80.

[671] Malone describes a call on Johnson in the winter of this year:--'I found him in his arm-chair by the fire-side, before which a few apples were laid. He was reading. I asked him what book he had got. He said the _History of Birmingham_. Local histories, I observed, were generally dull. "It is true, Sir; but this has a peculiar merit with me; for I pa.s.sed some of my early years, and married my wife there." [See _ante_, i. 96.] I supposed the apples were preparing as medicine. "Why, no, Sir; I believe they are only there because I want something to do. These are some of the solitary expedients to which we are driven by sickness. I have been confined this week past; and here you find me roasting apples, and reading the _History of Birmingham_."' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92.

[672] On April 19, he wrote:--'I can apply better to books than I could in some more vigorous parts of my life--at least than I _did_; and I have one more reason for reading--that time has, by taking away my companions, left me less opportunity of conversation.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 727.

[673] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read the _Odyssey_ through in the original. Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. 'Fox,' said Rogers (_Table Talk_, p. 92), 'used to read Homer through once every year. On my asking him, "Which poem had you rather have written, the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_?" he answered, "I know which I had rather read" (meaning the _Odyssey_).'

[674] 'Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amus.e.m.e.nts.' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 145. Of Pope Johnson wrote (_ib_. viii. 321):--'To make verses was his first labour, and to mend them was his last. ... He was one of those few whose labour is their pleasure.' Thomas Carlyle, in 1824, speaking of writing, says:--'I always recoil from again engaging with it.' Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 213.

Five years later he wrote:--'Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so dreadful as _idleness_.' _Ib_. ii. 75. See _ante_, iii. 19.

[675] See _ante_, ii. 15.

[676] Miss Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1780:--'I met at Sir Joshua's young Burke, who is made much ado about, but I saw not enough of him to know why.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 416. Mrs. Thrale replied:--'I congratulate myself on being quite of your opinion concerning Burke the minor, whom I once met and could make nothing of.' _Ib_. p. 418. Miss Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 304) reports, on Langton's authority, that Burke said:--'How extraordinary it is that I, and Lord Chatham, and Lord Holland, should each have a son so superior to ourselves.'

[677] Cruikshank, not Cruikshanks (see _post_, under Sept. 18, 1783, and Sept. 4 1784). He had been Dr. Hunter's partner; he was not elected (_Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 626). Northcote, in quoting this letter, says that 'Sir Joshua's influence in the Academy was not always answerable to his desire. "Those who are of some importance everywhere else," he said, "find themselves n.o.body when they come to the Academy."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 145.

[678] William Hunter, scarcely less famous as a physician than his youngest brother, John Hunter, as a surgeon.

[679] Let it be remembered by those who accuse Dr. Johnson of illiberality that both were _Scotchmen_. BOSWELL.

[680] The following day he dined at Mrs. Garrick's. 'Poor Johnson,'

wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 280), 'exerted himself exceedingly, but he was very ill and looked so dreadfully, that it quite grieved me. He is more mild and complacent than he used to be. His sickness seems to have softened his mind, without having at all weakened it. I was struck with the mild radiance of this setting sun.'

[681] In the winter of 1788-9 Boswell began a canva.s.s of his own county, He also courted Lord Lonsdale, in the hope of getting one of the seats in his gift, who first fooled him and then treated him with great brutality, _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 270, 294, 324.

[682] On April 6, 1780--'a day,' wrote Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii.

345), 'that ought for ever to be a red-lettered day'--Mr. Dunning made this motion. It was carried by 233 to 215. _Parl. Hist._ xxi. 340-367.

[683] See _ante_, i. 355, and ii. 94 for Johnson's appeal to meals as a measure of vexation.

[684] Johnson defines _cant_ as '1. A corrupt dialect used by beggars and vagabonds. 2. A particular form of speaking peculiar to some certain cla.s.s or body of men. 3. A whining pretension to goodness in formal and affected terms. 4. Barbarous jargon. 5. Auction.' I have noted the following instances of his use of the word:--'I betook myself to a coffee-house frequented by wits, among whom I learned in a short time the _cant_ of criticism.' _The Rambler_, No.123. 'Every cla.s.s of society has its _cant_ of lamentation.' _Ib_. No.128. 'Milton's invention required no a.s.sistance from the common _cant_ of poetry.' _Ib_. No.140.

'We shall secure our language from being overrun with _cant_, from being crowded with low terms, the sp.a.w.n of folly or affectation.' _Works_, v.

II. 'This fugitive _cant_, which is always in a state of increase or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language.' _Ib_. p.45. In a note on I _Henry VI_, act iii. sc.1, he says: 'To _roam_ is supposed to be derived from the _cant_ of vagabonds, who often pretended a pilgrimage to Rome.' See _ante_, iii. 197, for 'modern _cant_.'

[685] 'Custom,' wrote Sir Joshua, 'or politeness, or courtly manners has authorised such an eastern hyperbolical style of compliment, that part of Dr. Johnson's character for rudeness of manners must be put to the account of scrupulous adherence to truth. His obstinate silence, whilst all the company were in raptures, vying with each other who should pepper highest, was considered as rudeness or ill-nature.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 458.