Life of Johnson Volume I Part 60

[333] He had read Petrarch 'when but a boy;' _ante_, p. 57.

[334] Horace Walpole, writing of the year 1770, about libels, says: 'Their excess was shocking, and in nothing more condemnable than in the dangers they brought on the liberty of the press.' This evil was chiefly due to 'the spirit of the Court, which aimed at despotism, and the daring attempts of Lord Mansfield to stifle the liberty of the press.

His innovations had given such an alarm that scarce a jury would find the rankest satire libellous.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iv.

167. Smollett in _Humphrey Clinker_ (published in 1771) makes Mr.

Bramble write, in his letter of June 2: 'The public papers are become the infamous vehicles of the most cruel and perfidious defamation; every rancorous knave--every desperate incendiary, that can afford to spend half-a-crown or three shillings, may skulk behind the press of a newsmonger, and have a stab at the first character in the kingdom, without running the least hazard of detection or punishment.' The scribblers who had of late shewn their petulance were not always obscure. Such scurrilous but humorous pieces as _Probationary Odes for the Laureateship_, _The Rolliad_, and _Royal Recollections_, which were all published while Boswell was writing _The Life of Johnson_, were written, there can be little doubt, by men of position. In the first of the three (p. 27) Boswell is ridiculed. He is made to say:--'I know Mulgrave is a bit of a poet as well as myself; for I dined in company once where he dined that very day twelve-month.' This evil of libelling had extended to America. Benjamin Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 148), writing in 1784, says that 'libelling and personal abuse have of late years become so disgraceful to our country. Many of our printers make no scruple of gratifying the malice of individuals by false accusations of the fairest characters.'

[335] Boswell perhaps refers to a book published in 1758, called _The Case of Authors by Profession. Gent. Mag_. xxviii. 130. Guthrie applies the term to himself in the letter below.

[336] How much poetry he wrote, I know not: but he informed me, that he was the authour of the beautiful little piece, _The Eagle and Robin Redbreast_, in the collection of poems ent.i.tled _The Union_, though it is there said to be written by Archibald Scott, before the year 1600.

BOSWELL. Mr. P. Cunningham has seen a letter of Jos. Warton's which states that this poem was written by his brother Tom, who edited the volume. CROKER.

[337] Dr. A. Carlyle in his _Autobiography_ (p. 191) describes a curious scene that he witnessed in the British Coffee-house. A Captain Cheap 'was employed by Lord Anson to look out for a proper person to write his voyage. Cheap had a predilection for his countrymen, and having heard of Guthrie, he had come down to the coffee-house to inquire about him. Not long after Cheap had sat down, Guthrie arrived, dressed in laced clothes, and talking loud to everybody, and soon fell awrangling with a gentleman about tragedy and comedy and the unities, &c., and laid down the law of the drama in a peremptory manner, supporting his arguments with cursing and swearing. I saw Cheap was astonished, when, going to the bar, he asked who this was, and finding it was Guthrie he paid his coffee and slunk off in silence.' Guthrie's meanness is shown by the following letter in D'Israeli's _Calamities of Authors_, i. 5:--

'June 3, 1762.

'My Lord,

'In the year 1745-6 Mr. Pelham, then First Lord of the Treasury, acquainted me that it was his Majesty's pleasure I should receive till better provided for, which never has happened, 200. a year, to be paid by him and his successors in the Treasury. I was satisfied with the august name made use of, and the appointment has been regularly and quarterly paid me ever since. I have been equally punctual in doing the Government all the services that fell within my abilities or sphere of life, especially in those critical situations that call for unanimity in the service of the Crown.

'Your Lordship may possibly now suspect that I am an Author by profession; you are not deceived; and will be less so, if you believe that I am disposed to serve his Majesty under your Lordship's future patronage and protection with greater zeal, if possible, than ever.

'I have the honour to be

'My Lord &c.

'WILLIAM GUTHRIE.'

The lord's name is not given. See _post_, spring of 1768, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_ for further mention of Guthrie.

[338] Perhaps there were Scotticisms for Johnson to correct; for Churchill in _The Author_, writing of Guthrie, asks:--

'With rude unnatural jargon to support Half _Scotch_, half _English_, a declining Court

Is there not Guthrie?'

_Churchill's Poems_, ii. 39.

[339] See Appendix A.

[340] Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, ii. l. 71.

[341] 'To give the world a.s.surance of a man.' _Hamlet_, Act iii. sc. 4.

[342] In his _Life of Pope_ Johnson says: 'This mode of imitation ...

was first practised in the reign of Charles II. by Oldham and Rochester; at least I remember no instances more ancient. It is a kind of middle composition between translation and original design, which pleases when the thoughts are unexpectedly applicable and the parallels lucky. It seems to have been Pope's favourite amus.e.m.e.nt, for he has carried it farther than any former poet.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 295.

[343] I own it pleased me to find amongst them one trait of the manners of the age in London, in the last century, to shield from the sneer of English ridicule, which was some time ago too common a practice in my native city of Edinburgh:--

'If what I've said can't from the town affright, Consider other _dangers of the night_; When brickbats are from upper stories thrown, And _emptied chamberpots come pouring down From garret windows_.'

BOSWELL.

See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 14, 1773, where Johnson, on taking his first walk in Edinburgh, 'grumbled in Boswell's ear, "I smell you in the dark."' I once spent a night in a town of Corsica, on the great road between Ajaccio and Bastia, where, I was told, this Edinburgh practice was universal. It certainly was the practice of the hotel.

[344] His Ode _Ad Urbanum_ probably. NICHOLS. BOSWELL.

[345] Johnson, on his death-bed, had to own that 'Cave was a penurious paymaster; he would contract for lines by the hundred, and expect the long hundred.' See _post_, Dec. 1784.

[346] Cave sent the present by Johnson to the unknown author.

[347] See _post_, p. 151, note 5.

[348] The original letter has the following additional paragraph:--'I beg that you will not delay your answer.'

[349] In later life Johnson strongly insisted on the importance of fully dating all letters. After giving the date in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he would add,--'Now there is a date, look at it' (_Piozzi Letters_, ii.

109); or, 'Mark that--you did not put the year to your last' (_Ib_. p.

112); or, 'Look at this and learn' (_Ib_. p. 138). She never did learn.

The arrangement of the letters in the _Piozzi Letters_ is often very faulty. For an omission of the date by Johnson in late life see _post_, under March 5, 1774.

[350] A poem, published in 1737, of which see an account under April 30, 1773--BOSWELL.

[351] The learned Mrs. Elizabeth Carter. BOSWELL. She was born Dec.

1717, and died Feb. 19, 1806. She never married. Her father gave her a learned education. Dr. Johnson, speaking of some celebrated scholar [perhaps Langton], said, 'that he understood Greek better than any one whom he he had ever known, except Elizabeth Carter.' Pennington's _Carter_, i. 13. Writing to her in 1756 he said, 'Poor dear Cave! I owed him much; for to him I owe that I have known you' (_Ib_. p. 40). Her father wrote to her on June 25, 1738:--'You mention Johnson; but that is a name with which I am utterly unacquainted, Neither his scholastic, critical, or poetical character ever reached my ears. I a little suspect his judgement, if he is very fond of Martial' (_Ib_. p. 39). Since 1734 she had written verses for the _Gent. Mag_. under the name of Eliza (_Ib_. p. 37)! They are very poor. Her _Ode to Melancholy_ her biographer calls her best. How bad it is three lines will show:--

'Here, cold to pleasure's airy forms, Consociate with my sister worms, And mingle with the dead.'

_Gent. Mag_. ix. 599.

Hawkins records that Johnson, upon hearing a lady commended for her learning, said:--'A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table than when his wife talks Greek. My old friend, Mrs. Carter, could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus.'

Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 205. Johnson, joining her with Hannah More and f.a.n.n.y Burney, said:--'Three such women are not to be found.' _Post_, May 15, 1784.

[352] See Voltaire's _Siecle de Louis XIV_, ch. xxv..

[353] At the end of his letter to Cave, quoted _post_, 1742, he says:--'The boy found me writing this almost in the dark, when I could not quite easily read yours.' A man who at times was forced to walk the streets, for want of money to pay for a lodging, was likely also at times to be condemned to idleness for want of a light.

[354] At the back of this letter is written: 'Sir, Please to publish the enclosed in your paper of first, and place to acc't of Mr. Edward Cave.

For whom I am, Sir, your hum. ser't J. Bland. St. John's Gate, April 6, 1738.' _London_ therefore was written before April 6.

[355] Boswell misread the letter. Johnson does not offer to allow the printer to make alterations. He says:--'I will take the trouble of altering any stroke of satire which you may dislike.' The law against libel was as unjust as it was severe, and printers ran a great risk.

[356] Derrick was not merely a poet, but also Master of the Ceremonies at Bath; _post_, May 16, 1763. For Johnson's opinion of _his_ 'Muse' see _post_ under March 30, 1783. _Fortune, a Rhapsody_, was published in Nov. 1751. _Gent. Mag_. xxi. 527. He is described in _Humphrey Clinker_ in the letters of April 6 and May 6.

[357] See _post_, March 20, 1776.

[358] Six years later Johnson thus wrote of Savage's _Wanderer_:--'From a poem so diligently laboured, and so successfully finished, it might be reasonably expected that he should have gained considerable advantage; nor can it without some degree of indignation and concern be told, that he sold the copy for ten guineas.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 131. Mrs.

Piozzi sold in 1788 the copyright of her collection of Johnson's Letters for 500; _post_, Feb. 1767.