Life of Johnson Volume I Part 55

As his prose compositions have never been published I will give one:--

'Mea nec Falernae Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles.'

'Quaedam minus attente spectata absurda videntur, quae tamen penitus perspecta rationi sunt consentanea. Non enim semper facta per se, verum ratio occasioque faciendi sunt cogitanda. Deteriora ei offerre cui meliorum ingens copia est, cui non ridiculum videtur? Quis sa.n.u.s hirtam agrestemque vestem Lucullo obtulisset, cujus omnia fere Serum opificia, omnia Parmae vellera, omnes Tyri colores latuerunt? Hoc tamen fecisse Horatium non puduit, quo nullus urbanior, nullus procerum convictui magis a.s.suetus. Maecenatem scilicet norat non quaesiturum an meliora vina domi posset bibere, verum an inter domesticos quenquam propensiori in se animo posset invenire. Amorem, non lucrum, optavit patronus ille munifentissimus (_sic_). Pocula licet vino minus puro implerentur, satis habuit, si hospitis vultus laet.i.tia perfusus sinceram puramque amicitiam testaretur. Ut ubi poetam carmine celebramus, non fastidit, quod ipse melius posset scribere, verum poema licet non magni facit (_sic_), amorem scriptoris libenter amplect.i.tur, sic amici munuscula animum gratum testantia licet parvi sint, non nisi a superbo et moroso contemnentur. Deos thuris fumis indigere nemo certe unquam credidit, quos tamen iis gratos putarunt, quia homines se non beneficiorum immemores his testimoniis ostenderunt.'

JOHNSON.

[184] 'The accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained Addison the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards Provost of Queen's College, by whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy' [a scholar]. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 420. Johnson's verses gained him nothing but 'estimation.'

[185] He is reported to have said:--'The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original.'

Hawkins, p. 13.

[186] 'A Miscellany of Poems by several hands. Published by J. Husbands, A.M., Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxon., Oxford. Printed by Leon.

Lichfield, near the East-Gate, In the year MDCCx.x.xI.' Among the subscribers I notice the name of Richard Savage, Esq., for twenty copies. It is very doubtful whether he paid for one. Pope did not subscribe. Johnson's poem is thus mentioned in the preface:--'The translation of Mr. Pope's Messiah was deliver'd to his Tutor as a College Exercise by Mr. Johnson, a commoner of Pembroke College in Oxford, and 'tis hoped will be no discredit to the excellent original.'

[187] See _post_, under July 16, 1754.

[188] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 6, 1773.

[189] _Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr.

Johnson,_ by John Courtenay, Esq., M.P. BOSWELL.

[190] Hector, in his account of Johnson's early life, says:--'After a long absence from Lichfield, when he returned, I was apprehensive of something wrong in his const.i.tution which might either impair his intellect or endanger his life; but, thanks to Almighty G.o.d, my fears have proved false.' Hawkins, p. 8. The college books show that Johnson was absent but one week in the Long Vacation of 1729. It is by no means unlikely that he went to Lichfield in that week to consult Dr. Swinfen about his health. In that case his first attack, when he tried to overcome the malady by frequently walking to Birmingham, must have been at an earlier date. In his time students often pa.s.sed the vacation at the University. The following table shows the number of graduates and undergraduates in residence in Pembroke College at the end of each fourth week, from June to December 1729:--

Members in residence.

June 20, 1729 . . . 54 July 18, " . . . 34 Aug. 15, " . . . 25 Sept. 12, " . . . 16 Oct. 10, " . . . 30 Nov. 7, " . . . 52 Dec. 5, " . . . 49

At Christmas there were still sixteen men left in the college. That under a zealous tutor the vacation was by no means a time of idleness is shown by a pa.s.sage in Wesley's _Journal_, in which he compares the Scotch Universities with the English. 'In Scotland,' he writes, 'the students all come to their several colleges in November, and return home in May. So they _may_ study five months in the year, and lounge all the rest! O where was the common sense of those who inst.i.tuted such colleges? In the English colleges everyone _may_ reside all the year, as all my pupils did; and I should have thought myself little better than a highwayman if I had not lectured them every day in the year but Sundays.' Wesley's _Journal_, iv. 75. Johnson lived to see Oxford empty in the Long Vacation. Writing on Aug. 1, 1775, he said:--'The place is now a sullen solitude.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 294.

[191] Johnson, perhaps, was thinking of himself when he thus criticised the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. 'The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 431.

[192] Writing in his old age to Hector, he said,--'My health has been from my twentieth year such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease' (_post_, under March 21, 1782). Hawkins writes, that he once told him 'that he knew not what it was to be totally free from pain.'

Hawkins, p. 396.

[193] See _post_, Oct. 27, 1784, note.

[194] In the _Rambler_, No. 85, he pointed out 'how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.' See _post_, July 21, 1763, for his remedies against melancholy.

[195] Thirty-two miles in all. Southey mentions that in 1728, the Wesleys, to save the more money for the poor, began to perform their journeys on foot. He adds,--'It was so little the custom in that age for men in their rank of life to walk any distance, as to make them think it a discovery that four or five-and-twenty miles are an easy and safe day's journey.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 52.

[196] Boswell himself suffered from hypochondria. He seems at times to boast of it, as Dogberry boasted of his losses; so that Johnson had some reason for writing to him with seventy, as if he were 'affecting it from a desire of distinction.' _Post_, July 2, 1776.

[197] Johnson on April 7, 1776, recommended Boswell to read this book, and again on July 2 of the same year.

[198] On Dec. 24, 1754, writing of the poet Collins, who was either mad or close upon it, he said,--'Poor dear Collins! I have often been near his state.' Wooll's _Warton_, p. 229. 'I inherited,' Johnson said, 'a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 16, 1773. 'When I survey my past life,' he wrote in 1777, 'I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with some disorders of body and disturbances of the mind very near to madness.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 155. Reynolds recorded that 'what Dr. Johnson said a few days before his death of his disposition to insanity was no new discovery to those who were intimate with him.'

Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 455. See also _post_ Sept. 20, 1777.

[199] Ch. 44.

[200] 'Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.' _Ra.s.selas_, ch. 43.

[201] Boswell refers to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_., pp. 77, 127), and Hawkins (_Life_, pp. 287-8).

[202] 'Quick in these seeds is might of fire and birth of heavenly place.' Morris, _Aeneids_, vi. 730.

[203] On Easter Sunday 1716 during service some pieces of stone from the spire of St. Mary's fell on the roof of the church. The congregation, thinking that the steeple was coming down, in their alarm broke through the windows. Johnson, we may well believe, witnessed the scene. The church was pulled down, and the new one was opened in Dec. 1721.

Harwood's _Lichfield_, p. 460.

[204] 'Sept. 23, 1771. I have gone voluntarily to church on the week day but few times in my life. I think to mend. April 9, 1773. I hope in time to take pleasure in public worship. April 6, 1777. I have this year omitted church on most Sundays, intending to supply the deficience in the week. So that I owe twelve attendances on worship. I will make no more such superst.i.tious stipulations, which entangle the mind with unbidden obligations.' _Pr. and Med_. pp. 108, 121, 161. In the following pa.s.sage in the _Life of Milton_, Johnson, no doubt, is thinking of himself:--'In the distribution of his hours there was no hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household; omitting public prayers he omitted all.... That he lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which he condemned himself, and which he intended to correct, but that death as too often happens, intercepted his reformation.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 115. See _post_, Oct. 10, 1779.

[205] We may compare with this a pa.s.sage in Verecundulus's letter in _The Rambler_, No. 157:--'Though many among my fellow students [at the university] took the opportunity of a more remiss discipline to gratify their pa.s.sions, yet virtue preserved her natural superiority, and those who ventured to neglect were not suffered to insult her.' Oxford at this date was somewhat wayward in her love for religion. Whitefield records:--'I had no sooner received the sacrament publicly on a week-day at St. Mary's, but I was set up as a mark for all the polite students that knew me to shoot at. By this they knew that I was commenced Methodist, for though there is a sacrament at the beginning of every term, at which all, especially the seniors, are by statute obliged to be present, yet so dreadfully has that once faithful city played the harlot, that very few masters, and no undergraduates but the Methodists attended upon it. I daily underwent some contempt at college. Some have thrown dirt at me; others by degrees took away their pay from me.'

Tyerman's _Whitefield_, i. 19. Story, the Quaker, visiting Oxford in 1731, says, 'Of all places wherever I have been the scholars of Oxford were the rudest, most giddy, and unruly rabble, and most mischievous.'

Story's _Journal_, p. 675.

[206] John Wesley, who was also at Oxford, writing of about this same year, says:--'Meeting now with Mr. Law's _Christian Perfection_ and _Serious Call_ the light flowed in so mightily upon my soul that everything appeared in a new view.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 94.

Whitefield writes:--'Before I went to the University, I met with Mr.

Law's _Serious Call_, but had not then money to purchase it. Soon after my coming up to the University, seeing a small edition of it in a friend's hand I soon procured it. G.o.d worked powerfully upon my soul by that and his other excellent treatise upon Christian perfection.'

Tyerman's _Whitefield_, i. 16. Johnson called the _Serious Call_ 'the finest piece of hortatory theology in any language;' _post_, 1770. A few months before his death he said:--'William Law wrote the best piece of parenetic divinity; but William Law was no reasoner;' _post_, June 9, 1784. Law was the tutor of Gibbon's father, and he died in the house of the historian's aunt. In describing the _Serious Call_ Gibbon says:--'His precepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel; his satire is sharp, but it is drawn from the knowledge of human life; and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind he will soon kindle it to a flame.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 21.

[207] Mrs. Piozzi has given a strange fantastical account of the original of Dr. Johnson's belief in our most holy religion. 'At the age of ten years his mind was disturbed by scruples of infidelity, which preyed upon his spirits, and made him very uneasy, the more so, as he revealed his uneasiness to none, being naturally (as he said) of a sullen temper, and reserved disposition. He searched, however, diligently, but fruitlessly, for evidences of the truth of revelation; and, at length, _recollecting_ a book he had once seen [_I suppose at five years old_] in his father's shop, int.i.tled _De veritate Religionis_, etc., he began to think himself _highly culpable_ for neglecting such a means of information, and took himself severely to task for this sin, adding many acts of voluntary, and, to others, unknown _penance_. The first opportunity which offered, of course, he seized the book with avidity; but, on examination, _not finding himself scholar enough to peruse its contents_, set his heart at rest; and not thinking to enquire whether there were any English books written on the subject, followed his usual amus.e.m.e.nts and _considered his conscience as lightened of a crime_. He redoubled his diligence to learn the language that contained the information he most wished for; but from the pain which _guilt [namely having omitted to read what he did not understand_,] had given him, he now began to deduce the soul's immortality [_a sensation of pain in this world being an unquestionable proof of existence in another_], which was the point that belief first stopped at; _and from that moment resolving to be a Christian_, became one of the most zealous and pious ones our nation ever produced.'

_Anecdotes_, p. 17.

This is one of the numerous misrepresentations of this lively lady, which it is worth while to correct; for if credit should be given to such a childish, irrational, and ridiculous statement of the foundation of Dr. Johnson's faith in Christianity, how little credit would be due to it. Mrs. Piozzi seems to wish, that the world should think Dr.

Johnson also under the influence of that easy logick, _Stet pro ratione voluntas_. BOSWELL. On April 28, 1783, Johnson said:--'Religion had dropped out of my mind. It was at an early part of my life. Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never lost it since.' Most likely it was the sickness in the long vacation of 1729 mentioned _ante_, p. 63.

[208] In his _Life of Milton_, writing of _Paradise Lost_, he says:--'But these truths are too important to be new; they have been taught to our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary thoughts and familiar conversations, and are habitually interwoven with the whole texture of life.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 134.

[209] Acts xvi. 30.

[210] Sept. 7, Old Style, or Sept. 18, New Style.

[211] 'He that peruses Shakespeare looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 71. 'I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor.' Ib. p. 175.

[212] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey completely. Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. At college, he said, he had been 'very idle and neglectful of his studies.' Ib.

[213] 'It may be questioned whether, except his Bible, he ever read a book entirely through. Late in life, if any man praised a book in his presence, he was sure to ask, 'Did you read it through?' If the answer was in the affirmative, he did not seem willing to believe it.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 12. It would be easy to show that Johnson read many books right through, though, according to Mrs. Piozzi, he asked, 'was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?' Piozzi's Anec., p. 281. Nevertheless in Murphy's statement there is some truth. See what has been just stated by Boswell, that 'he hardly ever read any poem to an end,' and _post_, April 19, 1773 and June 15, 1784. To him might be applied his own description of Barretier:--'He had a quickness of apprehension and firmness of memory which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and at the same time to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his purpose.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 390.

[214] See _post_, June 15, 1784. Mr. Windham (_Diary_, p. 17) records the following 'anecdote of Johnson's first declamation at college; having neglected to write it till the morning of his being (sic) to repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart while he was walking into the hall, and the rest he supplied as well as he could extempore.' Mrs. Piozzi, recording the same ancedote, says that 'having given the copy into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he pa.s.sed, he was obliged to begin by chance, and continue on how he could.... "A prodigious risk, however," said some one. "Not at all,"

exclaims Johnson, "no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who does not know how to swim."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 30.

[215] He told Dr. Burney that he never wrote any of his works that were printed, twice over. Dr. Burney's wonder at seeing several pages of his _Lives of the Poets_, in Ma.n.u.script, with scarce a blot or erasure, drew this observation from him. MALONE. 'He wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the _Life of Savage_ at a sitting' (_post_, Feb. 1744), and a hundred lines of the _Vanity of Human Wishes_ in a day (_post_, under Feb. 15, 1766). The _Ramblers_ were written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed (_post_, beginning of 1750). In the second edition, however, he made corrections. 'He composed _Ra.s.selas_ in the evenings of one week'

(_post_, under January, 1759). '_The False Alarm_ was written between eight o'clock on Wednesday night and twelve o'clock on Thursday night.'

Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 41. '_The Patriot_' he says, 'was called for on Friday, was written on Sat.u.r.day' (_post_, Nov. 26, 1774).

[216] 'When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic.'

Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 77. 'Ethics, or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of talk he most delighted in;' ib. p. 80. See _post_, Sept. 24, 1777.

[217] 'Sept. 18, 1764, I resolve to study the Scriptures; I hope in the original languages. 640 verses every Sunday will nearly comprise the Scriptures in a year.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 58. '1770, 1st Sunday after Easter. The plan which I formed for reading the Scriptures was to read 600 verses in the Old Testament, and 200 in the New, every week;' ib.

p. 100.