‘Johnson shall teach me how to place
In fairest light each borrow’d grace;
From him I’ll learn to write;
Copy his clear familiar style,
And by the roughness of his file
Grow, like himself, polite.’
I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had occasion to find that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard increased.
a Mr. Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the celebrated apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as much of the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with primitive simplicity.
b Now Bishop of Llandaff, one of the poorest Bishopricks in this kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the propriety of equalizing the revenues of Bishops. He has informed us that he has burnt all his chemical papers. The friends of our excellent constitution, now assailed on every side by innovators and levellers, would have less regretted the suppression of some of his Lordship’s other writings.
a [This assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first four satires of Young were published in 1725; the South Seascheme (which appears to be meant,) was in 1720.]
a Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon On the Articles of the Christian Faith, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, which we find in this life: ‘It would be severe in GOD, you think, to degrade us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents: but you can allow him to place us in it without any inducement. Are our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less reason to look for its amendment.’
a This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer, afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister to a congregation of the sect who called themselves Unitarians, from a notion that they distinctively worship ONE GOD, because they deny the mysterious doctrine of the TRINITY. They do not advert that the great body of the Christian Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also the Unity of the G-HEAD; the ‘TRINITY in UNITY! – three persons and one GOD.’ The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in the holy Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent Constitution, as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by a Jury, the Court of Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to transportation for fourteen years.1056 A loud clamour against this sentence was made by some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the settlement for convicts in New South Wales.
b Taken from Herodotus.
a Mr. Robertson altered this word to jocandi, he having found in Blackstone that to irritate is actionable.
a The will of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the original Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the expence of the University of Oxford.
a Pr. and Med. p. 201.
a The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. [Mrs. Boswell died June 4, 1789.]
a See an account of him in the Gent. Mag. Feb. 1785.
b In both editions of Sir John Hawkins’s Life of Dr. Johnson, ‘letter’d ignorance” is printed.
c Johnson repeated this line to me thus: –
‘And Labour steals an hour to die.’
But he afterwards altered it to the present reading.
a Pr. and Med. p.
a [This Note was in answer to one which accompanied one of the earliest pamphlets on the subject of Chatterton’s forgery, entitled Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, &c. Mr. Thomas Warton’s very able Inquiry appeared about three months afterwards; and Mr. Tyrwhitt’s admirable Vindication of his Appendix in the summer of the same year, left the believers in this daring imposture nothing but ‘the resolution to say again what had been said before.’]
a Pr. and Med. p. 207.
a Mr. Holder, in the Strand, Dr. Johnson’s apothecary.
b Soon after the above letter, Dr. Lawrence left London, but not before the palsy had made so great a progress as to render him unable to write for himself. The following are extracts from letters addressed by Dr. Johnson to one of his daughters: –
‘You will easily believe with what gladness I read that you had heard once again that voice to which we have all so often delighted to attend. May you often hear it. If we had his mind, and his tongue, we could spare the rest.
‘I am not vigorous, but much better than when dear Dr. Lawrence held my pulse the last time. Be so kind as to let me know, from one little interval to another, the state of his body. I am pleased that he remembers me, and hope that it never can be possible for me to forget him. July 22, 1782.’
‘I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr. Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but his mind, and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much lament the rest. I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied.
‘Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. 26, 1782.’
‘Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it; for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me know, from time to time, all that you observe.
‘Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance. Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.’
c Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is addressed by his military title.
a A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and beginnings of lines.
b See p. 510.
a What follows appeared in the Morning Chronicle of May 29, 1782: – ‘A correspondent having mentioned, in the Morning Chronicle of December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend suicide but exercise.
‘Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute diseases are from Heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the dart of death, indeed, falls from Heaven, but we poison it by our own misconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.’1072
b The Correspondence may be seen at length in the Gent. Mag. Feb. 1786.
a Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh, founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious memory.
b The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall.
a Pr. and Med. p. 214.
a Were I to insert all the stories which have been told of contests boldly maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his antagonist had the better of him in argument, my volumes would swell to an immoderate size. One instance, I find, has circulated both in conversation and in print; that when he would not allow the Scotch writers to have merit, the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, asserted
, that he could name one Scotch writer, whom Dr. Johnson himself would allow to have written better than any man of the age; and upon Johnson’s asking who it was, answered, ‘Lord Bute, when he signed the warrant for your pension.’ Upon which Johnson, struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this was true. When I mentioned it to Johnson, ‘Sir, (said he,) if Rose said this, I never heard it.’
a This reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was not conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings which were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, and which he perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often remembered with resentment.
a Elphinstone’s Martial.
b I have, in my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was necessary, but not a subject for glory; because it for a long time blasted the generous feelings of Loyalty. And now, when by the benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our affections, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had not required.
a Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish the number of the Lords of Session, 1785.
a I shall give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and Johnson’s substitution in Italick characters:-
‘In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring,
Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing:
But charmed by him, or smitten with his views,
Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse?
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,
Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?’
‘On Mincio’s banks, in Ccesar’s bounteous reign,
If Tityrus found the golden age again,
Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong,
Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song?
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,
Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?’
Here we find Johnson’s poetical and critical powers undiminished. I must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to The Traveller and Deserted Village of Goldsmith, were so small as by no means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour.
a Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his aim.
a It has since appeared.
a I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking particularities pointed out: – Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary motions, said to him, ‘Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange gestures?’ ‘From bad habit,’ (he replied). ‘Do you, my dear, take care to guard against bad habits.’ This I was told by the young lady’s brother at Margate.
a The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot: – A country parson, who was remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor: ‘He is a very good preacher,’ (was his answer,) ‘but no latiner.’
a The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears testimony to this gentleman’s merit as a writer: – ‘Mr. Chambers’s Treatise on Civil Architecture, is the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.’ – Preface to Anecdotes of Painting in England.
a The introductory lines are these: – ‘It is difficult to avoid praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the assistance of example.’
a Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, ‘Why, Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good character.’
a What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen.
a Bar.
b Nard.
c Barnard.
a [Written by John, Earl of Egmont.]
b [The real authour… was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in 1693. John Dunton in his Life says, that Mr. William Bradshaw received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing part of the Turkish Spy; but I do not find that he any where mentions Sault as engaged in that work.]
a We accordingly carried our scheme into execution, in October, 1792; but whether from that uniformity which has in modern times, in a great degree, spread through every part of the Metropolis, or from our want of sufficient exertion, we were disappointed.
a It is suggested to me by an anonymous Annotator on my Work, that the reason why Dr. Johnson collected the peels of squeezed oranges may be found in the 558th {358th} Letter in Mrs. Piozzi’s Collection, where it appears that he recommended ‘dried orange-peel, finely powdered,’ as a medicine.
a 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, 3rd edit. p. 386 {p. 366, 24 Oct.}, it appears that he made this frank confession: – ‘Nobody at times, talks more laxly than I do;’ and, ib., p. 231 {19 Sept.}, ‘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 firstplace, I commit my soul to Almighty God, 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.’
b Upon this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazen-nose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following satisfactory observation: – ‘The passage 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 assured 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.’
a [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.]
a Let it be remembered by those who accuse Dr. Johnson of illiberality that both were Scotchmen.
a In Mr. Barry’s printed analysis, or description of these pictures, he speaks of Johnson’s character in the highest terms.
a Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch.
b Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
c Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson.
a Vol. ii. p. 268, of Mrs. Thrale’s Collection.
a Poor Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me to Dr. Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to Davies, the immediate introductor.
a His Lordship was soon after chosen, and is now a member of the Club.
a Pr. and Med. p. 226.
a Mr. Malone observes, ‘This, however, was certainly a mistake, as appears from the Memoirs published by Mr. Noble. Had Johnson been furnished with the materials which the industry of that gentleman has procured, and with others which, it is believed, are yet preserved in manuscript, he would, without doubt, have produced a most valuable and curious history of Cromwell’s life.’
a I do not wonder at Johnson’s displeasure when the name of Dr. Priestley was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered to publish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. First, Materialism; by which mind is denied to human nature; which, if believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, Necessity; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think that the future world, (which, as he is pleased to inform us, will be adapted to our merely improved nature,) will be materially different from this; which, if believed, would sink wretched mortals into despair, as they could no longer hope for the ‘rest that remaineth for the people of GOD’,1141 or for that happiness which is revealed to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but would feel themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under which they now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance with which he dares to insult the venerable establishments of his country.
The Life of Samuel Johnson Page 193
