Life of Johnson Volume V Part 54

[646] 'Wheel carriages they have none, but make a frame of timber, which is drawn by one horse, with the two points behind pressing on the ground. On this they sometimes drag home their sheaves, but often convey them home in a kind of open pannier, or frame of sticks, upon the horse's back.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 76. 'The young Laird of Col has attempted what no islander perhaps ever thought on. He has begun a road capable of a wheel-carriage. He has carried it about a mile.' _Ib_.

p. 128.

[647] Captain Phipps had sailed in May of this year, and in the neighbourhood of Spitzbergen had reached the lat.i.tude of more than 80.

He returned to England in the end of September. _Gent. Mag_. 1774, p. 420.

[648] _Aeneid_, vi. II.

[649] 'In the afternoon, an interval of calm sunshine courted us out to see a cave on the sh.o.r.e, famous for its echo. When we went into the boat, one of our companions was asked in Erse by the boatmen, who they were that came with him. He gave us characters, I suppose to our advantage, and was asked, in the spirit of the Highlands, whether I could recite a long series of ancestors. The boatmen said, as I perceived afterwards, that they heard the cry of an English ghost. This, Boswell says, disturbed him.... There was no echo; such is the fidelity of report.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 156.

[650] '_Law_ or _low_ signifies a hill: _ex. gr._ Wardlaw, guard hill, Houndslow, the dog's hill.' Blackie's _Etymological Geography_, p. 103.

[651] Pepys often mentions them. At first he praises them highly, but of one of the later ones--_Tryphon_--he writes:--'The play, though admirable, yet no pleasure almost in it, because just the very same design, and words, and sense, and plot, as every one of his plays have, any one of which would be held admirable, whereas so many of the same design and fancy do but dull one another.' Pepys's _Diary_, ed. 1851, v. 63.

[652] The second and third earls are pa.s.sed over by Johnson. It was the fourth earl who, as Charles Boyle, had been Bentley's antagonist. Of this controversy a full account is given in Lord Macaulay's _Life of Atterbury_.

[653] The fifth earl, John. See _ante_, i. 185, and iii. 249.

[654] See _ante_, i. 9, and iii. 154.

[655] See _ante_, ii. 129, and iii. 183.

[656] The young lord was married on the 8th of May, 1728, and the father's will is dated the 6th of Nov. following. 'Having,' says the testator, 'never observed that my son hath showed much taste or inclination, either for the entertainment or knowledge which study and learning afford, I give and bequeath all my books and mathematical instruments [with certain exceptions] to Christchurch College, in Oxford.' CROKER.

[657] His _Life of Swift_ is written in the form of _Letters to his Son, the Hon. Hamilton Boyle._ The fifteenth Letter, in which he finishes his criticism of _Gulliver's Travels_, affords a good instance of this 'studied variety of phrase.' 'I may finish my letter,' he writes, 'especially as the conclusion of it naturally turns my thoughts from Yahoos to one of the dearest pledges I have upon earth, yourself, to whom I am a most

Affectionate Father,

'ORRERY.'

See _ante_, i. 275-284, for Johnson's letters to Thomas Warton, many of which end 'in studied varieties of phrase.'

[658] _The Conquest of Granada_ was dedicated to the Duke of York. The conclusion is as follows:--'If at any time Almanzor fulfils the parts of personal valour and of conduct, of a soldier and of a general; or, if I could yet give him a character more advantageous that what he has, of the most unshaken friend, the greatest of subjects, and the best of masters; I should then draw all the world a true resemblance of your worth and virtues; at least as far as they are capable of being copied by the mean abilities of,

'Sir,

'Your Royal Highness's

'Most humble, and most

'Obedient servant,

'J. DRYDEN.'

[659] On the day of his coronation he was asked to pardon four young men who had broken the law against carrying arms. 'So long as I live,' he replied, 'every criminal must die.' 'He was inexorable in individual cases; he adhered to his laws with a rigour that amounted to cruelty, while in the framing of general rules we find him mild, yielding, and placable.' Ranke's _Popes_, ed. 1866, i. 307, 311.

[660] See _ante_, iii. 239, where he discusses the question of shooting a highwayman.

[661] In _The Rambler_, No. 78, he says:--'I believe men may be generally observed to grow less tender as they advance in age.'

[662] He pa.s.sed over his own _Life of Savage_.

[663] 'When I was a young fellow, I wanted to write the _Life of Dryden'

Ante_, iii. 71.

[664] See _ante_, p. 117.

[665] 'I asked a very learned minister in Sky, who had used all arts to make me believe the genuineness of the book, whether at last he believed it himself; but he would not answer. He wished me to be deceived for the honour of his country; but would not directly and formally deceive me.

Yet has this man's testimony been publickly produced, as of one that held _Fingal_ to be the work of Ossian.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 115.

[666] A young lady had sung to him an Erse song. He asked her, 'What is that about? I question if she conceived that I did not understand it.

For the entertainment of the company, said she. But, Madam, what is the meaning of it? It is a love song. This was all the intelligence that I could obtain; nor have I been able to procure the translation of a single line of Erse.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 146. See _post_, Oct. 16

[667] This droll quotation, I have since found, was from a song in honour of the Earl of Ess.e.x, called _Queen Elisabeth's Champion_, which is preserved in a collection of Old Ballads, in three volumes, published in London in different years, between 1720 and 1730. The full verse is as follows:--

'Oh! then bespoke the prentices all, Living in London, both proper and tall, In a kind letter sent straight to the Queen, For Ess.e.x's sake they would fight all.

Raderer too, tandaro te, Raderer, tandorer, tan do re.'

BOSWELL.

[668] La Condamine describes a tribe called the Tameos, on the north side of the river Tiger in South America, who have a word for _three_.

He continues:--'Happily for those who have transactions with them, their arithmetic goes no farther. The Brazilian tongue, a language spoken by people less savage, is equally barren; the people who speak it, where more than three is to be expressed, are obliged to use the Portuguese.' Pinkerton's _Voyages_, xiv. 225.

[669] 'It was Addison's practice, when he found any man invincibly wrong, to flatter his opinions by acquiescence, and sink him yet deeper in absurdity. This artifice of mischief was admired by Stella; and Swift seems to approve her admiration.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 450. Swift, in his _Character of Mrs. Johnson _ (Stella), says:--'Whether this proceeded from her easiness in general, or from her indifference to persons, or from her despair of mending them, or from the same practice which she much liked in Mr. Addison, I cannot determine; but when she saw any of the company very warm in a wrong opinion, she was more inclined to confirm them in it than oppose them. The excuse she commonly gave, when her friends asked the reason, was, "That it prevented noise and saved time." Swift's _Works_, xiv. 254.

[670] In the Appendix to Blair's _Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian_ Macqueen is mentioned as one of his authorities for his statements.

[671] See _ante_, iv. 262, note.

[672] I think it but justice to say, that I believe Dr. Johnson meant to ascribe Mr. M'Queen's conduct to inaccuracy and enthusiasm, and did not mean any severe imputation against him. BOSWELL.

[673] In Baretti's trial (_ante_, ii. 97, note I) he seems to have given his evidence clearly. What he had to say, however, was not much.

[674] Boswell had spoken before to Johnson about this omission. _Ante_, ii. 92.

[675] It has been triumphantly asked, 'Had not the plays of Shakspeare lain dormant for many years before the appearance of Mr. Garrick? Did he not exhibit the most excellent of them frequently for thirty years together, and render them extremely popular by his own inimitable performance?' He undoubtedly did. But Dr. Johnson's a.s.sertion has been misunderstood. Knowing as well as the objectors what has been just stated, he must necessarily have meant, that 'Mr. Garrick did not as _a critick_ make Shakspeare better known; he did not _ill.u.s.trate_ any one _pa.s.sage_ in any of his plays by acuteness of disquisition, or sagacity of conjecture: and what had been done with any degree of excellence in _that_ way was the proper and immediate subject of his preface. I may add in support of this explanation the following anecdote, related to me by one of the ablest commentators on Shakspeare, who knew much of Dr.

Johnson: 'Now I have quitted the theatre, cries Garrick, I will sit down and read Shakspeare.' ''Tis time you should, exclaimed Johnson, for I much doubt if you ever examined one of his plays from the first scene to the last.' BOSWELL. According to Davies (_Life of Garrick_, i. 120) during the twenty years' management of Drury Lane by Booth, Wilks and Cibber (about 1712-1732) not more than eight or nine of Shakspeare's plays were acted, whereas Garrick annually gave the public seventeen or eighteen. _Romeo and Juliet_ had lain neglected near 80 years, when in 1748-9 Garrick brought it out, or rather a hash of it. 'Otway had made some alteration in the catastrophe, which Mr. Garrick greatly improved by the addition of a scene, which was written with a spirit not unworthy of Shakespeare himself.' _Ib_. p. 125. Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p.

100), writing of this alteration, says:--'The catastrophe, as it now stands, is the most affecting in the whole compa.s.s of the drama.' Davies says (p. 20) that shortly before Garrick's time 'a taste for Shakespeare had been revived. The ladies had formed themselves into a society under the t.i.tle of The Shakespeare Club. They bespoke every week some favourite play of his.' This revival was shown in the increasing number of readers of Shakespeare. It was in 1741 that Garrick began to act. In the previous sixteen years there had been published four editions of Pope's _Shakespeare_ and two of Theobald's. In the next ten years were published five editions of Hanmer's _Shakespeare_, and two of Warburton's, besides Johnson's _Observations on Macbeth. _Lowndes's _Bibl. Man._ ed. 1871, p. 2270.

[676] In her foolish _Essay on Shakespeare_, p. 15. See _ante_, ii. 88.

[677] No man has less inclination to controversy than I have, particularly with a lady. But as I have claimed, and am conscious of being ent.i.tled to credit for the strictest fidelity, my respect for the publick obliges me to take notice of an insinuation which tends to impeach it.

Mrs. Piozzi (late Mrs. Thrale), to her _Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson_, added the following postscript:--

'_Naples, Feb._ 10, 1786.

'Since the foregoing went to the press, having seen a pa.s.sage from Mr.

Boswell's _Tour to the Hebrides,_ in which it is said, that _I could not get through Mrs. Montague's "Essay on Shakspeare,"_ I do not delay a moment to declare, that, on the contrary, I have always commended it myself, and heard it commended by every one else; and few things would give me more concern than to be thought incapable of tasting, or unwilling to testify my opinion of its excellence.'