The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  “My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent,” &c.’38

  He died Aug. 3, 1751, and a monument to his memory has been erected in the Cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr. Seward, one of the Prebendaries.

  a The words of Sir John Hawkins, p. 316.

  b Sir Thomas Aston, Bart., who died in January, 1724–5, left one son, named Thomas also, and eight daughters. Of the daughters, Catherine married Johnson’s friend, the Hon. Henry Hervey; Margaret, Gilbert Walmsley. Another of these ladies married the Rev. Mr. Gastrell; Mary, or Molly Aston, as she was usually called, became the wife of Captain Brodie of the navy.

  a [Bishop Hurd does not praise Blackwall, but the Rev. Mr. Budworth, headmaster of the grammar school at Brewood, who had himself been bred under Blackwall.]

  b See Gent. Mag. Dec. 1784, p. 957.

  c [It appears from a letter of Johnson’s to a friend, dated Lichfield, July 27, 1732, that he had left Sir Wolstan Dixie’s house recently, before that letter was written.]

  a See Rambler, No. 103.

  b May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and Johnson? Huetius, speaking of Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius, says,’… in quo Natura, ut olim in Angelo Politiano, deformitatem oris excellentis ingenii praestantia compensavit.’42 Comment. de reb. ad eum pertin. Edit. Amstel. 1718, p. 200.

  c ‘The Latin Poems of Angelus Politianus, edited by Samuel Johnson with notes, a history of Latin poetry from Petrarch to Politian, and a fuller life of Politian than has hitherto been written.’ The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, the price to be two shillings and sixpence at the time of subscribing, and two shillings and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires.

  d Miss Cave, the grand-niece of Mr. Edward Cave, has obligingly shewn me the originals of this and the other letters of Dr. Johnson, to him, which were first published in the Gent. Mag.,43 with notes by Mr. John Nichols, the worthy and indefatigable editor of that valuable miscellany, signed N.; some of which I shall occasionally transcribe in the course of this work.

  a Sir John Floyer’s Treatise on Cold Baths. Gent. Mag. 1734, p. 197.

  b A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on ‘Life, Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell.’ See Gent. Mag. vol. iv. p. 560. N.

  a Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this little composition from Dr. Johnson’s own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it was rightly attributed to him: – ‘I think it is now just forty years ago, that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her in return. I promised, but forgot; and when he called for his lines at the time agreed on – Sit still a moment, (says I) dear Mund, and I’ll fetch them thee – So stepped aside for five minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about.’ Anec. p. 34.

  In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me from Miss Seward, of Lichfield: – ‘ I know those verses were addressed to Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, two or three years before he had seen her mother, his future wife. He wrote them at my grandfather’s, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my mother, to whom he showed them on the instant. She used to repeat them to me, when I asked her for the Verses Dr. Johnson gave her on a Sprig of Myrtle, which he had stolen or begged from her bosom. We all know honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable of the mean vanity of applying to herself a compliment not intended for her.’ Such was this lady’s statement, which I make no doubt she supposed to be correct; but it shows how dangerous it is to trust too implicitly to traditional testimony and ingenious inference; for Mr. Hector has lately assured me that Mrs. Piozzi’s account is in this instance accurate, and that he was the person for whom Johnson wrote those verses, which have been erroneously ascribed to Mr. Hammond.

  I am obliged in so many instances to notice Mrs. Piozzi’s incorrectness of relation, that I gladly seize this opportunity of acknowledging, that however often, she is not always inaccurate.

  The author having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna Seward, in consequence of the preceding statement, (which may be found in the Gent. Mag. vol. liii. and liv.) received the following letter from Mr. Edmund Hector, on the subject: –

  ‘DEAR SIR, – I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a Lady, who seems unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would be more ingenuous to acknowledge, than to persevere.

  ‘Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the original manuscript of the Myrtle, with the date on it, 1731, which I have inclosed.

  ‘The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows: Mr. Morgan Graves, the elder brother of a worthy Clergyman near Bath, with whom I was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, who at parting presented him the branch. He shewed it me, and wished much to return the compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend.

  ‘I most solemnly declare, at that time Johnson was an entire stranger to the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my cloaths of.

  ‘If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, and to exhibit to the publick the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use you please of this statement.

  ‘I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing you multos et felices annos,44I shall subscribe myself, ‘Your obliged humble servant,

  ‘E. Hector.’

  ‘Birmingham, Jan. 9th, 1794.’

  a [Mrs. Johnson was born on Feb. 4, 1688–9.]

  a Both of them used to talk pleasantly of this their first journey to London. Garrick, evidently meaning to embellish a little, said one day in my hearing, ‘we rode and tied.’ And the Bishop of Killaloe informed me, that at another time, when Johnson and Garrick were dining together in a pretty large company, Johnson humorously ascertaining the chronology of something, expressed himself thus: ‘that was the year when I came to London with two-pence half-penny in my pocket.’ Garrick over-hearing him, exclaimed, ‘Eh? what do you say? with two-pence half-penny in your pocket?’ – Johnson, ‘Why yes; when I came with two-pence half-penny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with three half-pence in thine.’

  a [Mr. Colson was First Master of the Free School at Rochester. In 1739 he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge.]

  b One curious anecdote was communicated by himself to Mr. John Nichols. Mr. Wilcox, the bookseller, on being informed by him that his intention was to get his livelihood as an authour, eyed his robust frame attentively, and with a significant look, said, ‘You had better buy a porter’s knot.’49 He however added, ‘Wilcox was one of my best friends.’

  a The honourable Henry Hervey, third son of the first Earl of Bristol, quitted the army and took orders. He married a sister of Sir Thomas Aston, by whom he got the Aston Estate, and assumed the name and arms of that family. Vide Collins’s Peerage.

  a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 232 {20 Sept.}.

  a While in the course of my narrative I enumerate his writings, I shall take care that my readers shall not be left to waver in doubt, between certainty and conjecture, with regard to their authenticity; and, for that purpose, shall mark with an asterisk (∗) those which he acknowledged to his friends, and with a dagger (†) those which are ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces are ascribed to him, I shall give my reasons.

  a A translation of this Ode, by an unknown correspondent, appeared in the Magazine for the month of May following:

  ‘Hail, Urban! indefatigable man,

  Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil!

  Whom num’rous slanderers assault in vain;

  Whom no base calumny can put to foil.

  But still the laurel on thy learned brow

  Flourish
es fair, and shall for ever grow.

  What mean the servile imitating crew,

  What their vain blust’ring, and their empty noise,

  Ne’er seek; but still thy noble ends pursue,

  Unconquer’d by the rabble’s venal voice.

  Still to the Muse thy studious mind apply,

  Happy in temper as in industry.

  The senseless sneerings of an haughty tongue,

  Unworthy thy attention to engage,

  Unheeded pass: and tho’ they mean thee wrong,

  By manly silence disappoint their rage.

  Assiduous diligence confounds its foes,

  Resistless, tho’ malicious crouds oppose.

  Exert thy powers, nor slacken in the course,

  Thy spotless fame shall quash all false reports:

  Exert thy powers, nor fear a rival’s force,

  But thou shalt smile at all his vain efforts:

  Thy labours shall be crown’d with large success;

  The Muse’s aid thy Magazine shall bless.

  No page more grateful to th’ harmonious nine

  Than that wherein thy labours we survey;

  Where solemn themes in fuller splendour shine,

  (Delightful mixture,) blended with the gay,

  Where in improving, various joys we find,

  A welcome respite to the wearied mind.

  Thus when the nymphs in some fair verdant mead,

  Of various flow’rs a beauteous wreath compose,

  The lovely violet’s azure-painted head

  Adds lustre to the crimson-blushing rose.

  Thus splendid Iris,53 with her varied dye,

  Shines in the æther, and adorns the sky. BRITON.’

  a 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 entitled The Union, though it is there said to be written by Archibald Scott, before the year 1600.

  a 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.”

  a His Ode Ad Urbanum probably. Nichols.

  a A poem, published in 1737, of which see an account under April 30, 1773.

  b The learned Mrs. Elizabeth Carter.

  a Sir John Hawkins, p. 86, tells us ‘The event is antedated, in the poem of London; but in every particular, except the difference of a year, what is there said of the departure of Thales, must be understood of Savage, and looked upon as true history.’ This conjecture is, I believe, entirely groundless. I have been assured, that Johnson said he was not so much as acquainted with Savage when he wrote his London. If the departure mentioned in it was the departure of Savage, the event was not antedated but foreseen; for London was published in May, 1738, and Savage did not set out for Wales till July, 1739. However well Johnson could defend the credibility of second sight, he did not pretend that he himself was possessed of that faculty.

  b P. 269.

  a Sir Joshua Reynolds, from the information of the younger Richardson.

  b It is, however, remarkable, that he uses the epithet, which undoubtedly, since the union between England and Scotland, ought to denominate the natives of both parts of our island: –

  a In a billet written by Mr. Pope in the following year, this school is said to have been in Shropshire; but as it appears from a letter from Earl Gower, that the trustees of it were ‘some worthy gentlemen in Johnson’s neighbourhood,’ I in my first edition suggested that Pope must have, by mistake, written Shropshire, instead of Staffordshire. But I have since been obliged to Mr. Spearing, attorney-at-law, for the following information: – ‘William Adams, formerly citizen and haberdasher of London, founded a school at Newport, in the county of Salop, by deed dated 27th November, 1656, by which he granted “the yearly sum of sixty pounds to such able and learned schoolmaster, from time to time, being of godly life and conversation, who should have been educated at one of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge, and had taken the degree of Master of Arts, and was well read in the Greek and Latin tongues, as should be nominated from time to time by the said William Adams, during his life, and after the decease of the said William Adams, by the Governours (namely, the Master and Wardens of the Haberdashers’ Company of the City of London) and their successors.” The manour and lands out of which the revenues for the maintenance of the school were to issue are situate at Knighton and Adbaston in the county of Stafford.’ From the foregoing account of this foundation, particularly the circumstances of the salary being sixty pounds, and the degree of Master of Arts being a requisite qualification in the teacher, it seemed probable that this was the school in contemplation; and that Lord Gower erroneously supposed that the gentlemen who possessed the lands, out of which the revenues issued, were trustees of the charity.

  a In the Weekly Miscellany, October 21, 1738, there appeared the following advertisement: – ‘Just published, Proposals for printing the History of the Council of Trent, translated from the Italian of Father Paul Sarpi; with the Authour’s Life, and Notes theological, historical, and critical, from the French edition of Dr. Le Courayer. To which are added, Observations on the History, and Notes and Illustrations from various Authours, both printed and manuscript. By S. Johnson. 1. The work will consist of two hundred sheets, and be two volumes in quarto, printed on good paper and letter. 2. The price will be 18s. each volume, to be paid, half-a-guinea at the time of subscribing, half-a-guinea at the delivery of the first volume, and the rest at the delivery of the second volume in sheets. 3. Two-pence to be abated for every sheet less than two hundred. It may be had on a large paper, in three volumes, at the price of three guineas; one to be paid at the time of subscribing, another at the delivery of the first, and the rest at the delivery of the other volumes. The work is now in the press, and will be diligently prosecuted. Subscriptions are taken in by Mr. Dodsley in Pall-Mall, Mr. Rivington in St. Paul’s Church-yard, by E. Cave at St. John’s Gate, and the Translator, at No. 6, in Castle-street, by Cavendish-square.’

  a They afterwards appeared in the Gent. Mag. 1738 {viii. 486} with this title –Verses to Lady Firebrace, at Bury Assizes.

  b Du Halde’s Description of China was then publishing by Mr. Cave in weekly numbers, whence Johnson was to select pieces for the embellishment of the Magazine. NICHOLS.

  a The premium of forty pounds proposed for the best poem on the Divine Attributes is here alluded to. NICHOLS.

  b The Compositors in Mr. Cave’s printing-office, who appear by this letter to have then waited for copy. NICHOLS.

  a Birch MSS. Brit. Mus. 4323.

  b This book was published.

  a The Inscription and the Translation of it are preserved in the London Magazine for the year 1739, p. 244.

  a See note, p. 76.

  a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 8 {introduction}.

  a Impartial posterity may, perhaps, be as little inclined as Dr. Johnson was to justify the uncommon rigour exercised in the case of Dr. Archibald Cameron. He was an amiable and truly honest man; and his offence was owing to a generous, though mistaken principle of duty. Being obliged, after 1746, to give up his profession as a physician, and to go into foreign parts, he was honoured with the rank of Colonel, both in the French and Spanish service. He was a son of the ancient and respectable family of Cameron, of Lochiel; and his brother, who was the Chief of that brave clan, distinguished himself by moderation and humanity, while the Highland army marched victorious through Scotland. It is remarkable of this Chief, that though he had earnestly remonstrated against the attempt as hopeless, he was of t
oo heroick a spirit not to venture his life and fortune in the cause, when personally asked by him whom he thought his Prince.

  a I suppose in another compilation of the same kind.

  b Doubtless, Lord Hardwick.

  c Birch’s MSS. in the British Museum, 4302.

  d I am assured that the editor is Mr. George Chalmers, whose commercial works are well known and esteemed.

  a Hawkins’s Life of Johnson, p. 100.

  b A bookseller of London.

  c Not the Royal Society; but the Society for the encouragement of learning, of which Dr. Birch was a leading member. Their object was to assist authors in printing expensive works. It existed from about 1735 to 1746, when having incurred a considerable debt, it was dissolved.

  d There is no erasure here, but a mere blank; to fill up which may be an exercise for ingenious conjecture.

  e Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 167 {10 Sept.}.

  a The Plain Dealer was published in 1724, and contained some account of Savage.

  b I have not discovered what this was.

  a Angliacas inter pulcherrima Laura puellas, / Mox uteri pondus depositura grave, / Adsit, Laura, tibi facilis Lucina dolenti, / Neve tibi noceat praznituisse De&.66

  Mr. Hector was present when this Epigram was made impromptu. The first line was proposed by Dr. James, and Johnson was called upon by the company to finish it, which he instantly did.

  a