The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  a It is a most agreeable circumstance attending the publication of this Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his illustrious schoolfellow so many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has gratified me with the following acknowledgement: ‘I thank you, most sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued entertainment your Life of Dr. Johnson has afforded me, and others, of my particular friends.’ Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a sprig of Myrtle (see p. 55 note), has favoured me with two English odes, written by Dr. Johnson, at an early period of his life, which will appear in my edition of his Poems.

  a The Rev. Dr. Taylor.

  a It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of Johnson’s literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded and embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr. Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty:

  ‘Divinity.

  ‘A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint taken from the directions in Morton’s exercise.

  ‘PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, and LITERATURE in general.

  ‘History of Criticism, as it relates to judging of authours, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of that art; of the different opinions of authours, ancient and modern.

  ‘Translation of the History of Herodian.

  ‘New edition of Fairfax’s Translation of Tasso, with notes, glossary, &c.

  ‘Chaucer, a new edition of him, from manuscripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present: with notes explanatory of customs, &c, and references to Boccace, and other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an exact etymological glossary.

  Aristotle’s Rbetorick, a translation of it into English.

  A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some account of the several authours.

  ‘Oldham’s Poems, with notes, historical and critical.

  ‘Roscommon’s Poems, with notes.

  ‘Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner as may divert as well as instruct.

  ‘History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the fables, both allegorical and historical; with references to the poets.

  ‘History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner.

  Aristotle’s Etbicks, an English translation of them, with notes.

  ‘Geographical Dictionary, from the French.

  ‘Hierocles upon Pythagoras, translated into English, perhaps with notes. This is done by Norris.

  A book of Letters, upon all kinds of subjects.

  ‘Claudian, a new edition of his works, cum notis variorum,1250 in the manner of Burman.

  ‘Tully’s Tusculan Questions, a translation of them.

  ‘Tully’s De Natura Deorum,1251 a translation of those books.

  ‘Benzo’s New History of the New World, to be translated.

  ‘Machiavel’s History of Florence, to be translated.

  ‘History of the Revival of Learning in Europe, containing an account of whatever contributed to the restoration of literature; such as controversies, printing, the destruction of the Greek empire, the encouragement of great men, with the lives of the most eminent patrons and most eminent early professors of all kinds of learning in different countries.

  ‘A Body of Chronology, in verse, with historical notes.

  ‘A Table of the Spectators, Tatlers, and Guardians, distinguished by figures into six degrees of value, with notes, giving the reasons of preference or degradation.

  ‘A Collection of Letters from English authours, with a preface giving some account of the writers; with reasons for selection, and criticism upon styles; remarks on each letter, if needful.

  ‘A Collection of Proverbs from various languages. Jan. 6, –53.

  ‘A Dictionary to the Common Prayer, in imitation of Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible. March, –52.

  ‘A Collection of Stories and Examples, like those of Valerius Maximus. Jan. 10, –53.

  ‘From/Elian, a volume of select Stories, perhaps from others. Jan. 28, –53.

  ‘Collection of Travels, Voyages, Adventures, and Descriptions of Countries.

  ‘Dictionary of Ancient History and Mythology.

  ‘Treatise on the Study of Polite Literature, containing the history of learning, directions for editions, commentaries, &c.

  ‘Maxims, Characters, and Sentiments, after the manner of Bruyere, collected out of ancient authours, particularly the Greek, with Apophthegms.

  ‘Classical Miscellanies, Select Translations from ancient Greek and Latin authours.

  ‘Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the learned, in imitation of Plutarch.

  ‘Judgement of the learned upon English authours.

  ‘Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue.

  ‘Considerations upon the present state of London.

  ‘Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observations.

  ‘Observations on the English language, relating to words, phrases, and modes of Speech.

  ‘Minutiae Literariae,1252 Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms, emendations, notes.

  ‘History of the Constitution.

  ‘Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by sentences collected from the moralists and fathers.

  ‘Plutarch’s Lives, in English, with notes.

  ‘POETRY and works of IMAGINATION.

  ‘Hymn to Ignorance.

  ‘The Palace of Sloth, – a vision.

  ‘Coluthus, to be translated.

  ‘Prejudice, – a poetical essay.

  ‘The Palace of Nonsense, – a vision.’

  Johnson’s extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook off his constitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to write, is admirably described by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical Review, which I have several times quoted:

  ‘While through life’s maze he sent a piercing view,

  His mind expansive to the object grew.

  With various stores of erudition fraught,

  The lively image, the deep-searching thought,

  Slept in repose; – but when the moment press’d,

  The bright ideas stood at once confess’d;

  Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays,

  And o’er the letter’d world diffus’d a blaze;

  As womb’d with fire the cloud electrick flies,

  And calmly o’er th’ horizon seems to rise;

  Touch’d by the pointed steel, the lightning flows,

  And all th’ expanse with rich effulgence glows.’1253

  We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every production of Johnson’s pen. He owned to me, that he had written about forty sermons; but as I understood that he had given or sold them to different persons, who were to preach them as their own, he did not consider himself at liberty to acknowledge them. Would those who were thus aided by him, who are still alive, and the friends of those who are dead, fairly inform the world, it would be obligingly gratifying a reasonable curiosity, to which there should, I think, now be no objection. Two volumes of them, published since his death, are sufficiently ascertained; see p. 621. I have before me, in his hand-writing, a fragment of twenty quarto leaves, of a translation into English of Sallust, De Bello Catilinario.1254 When it was done I have no notion; but it seems to have no very superior merit to mark it as his. Beside the publications heretofore mentioned, I am satisfied, from internal evidence, to admit also as genuine the following, which, notwithstanding all my chronological care, escaped me in the course of this work:

  ‘Considerations on the Case of Dr. Trapp’s Sermons,’† published in 1739, i
n the Gentleman’s Magazine. It is a very ingenious defence of the right of abridging an authour’s work, without being held as infringing his property. This is one of the nicest questions in the Law of Literature; and I cannot help thinking, that the indulgence of abridging is often exceedingly injurious to authours and booksellers, and should in very few cases be permitted. At any rate, to prevent difficult and uncertain discussion, and give an absolute security to authours in the property of their labours, no abridgement whatever should be permitted, till after the expiration of such a number of years as the Legislature may be pleased to fix.

  But, though it has been confidently ascribed to him, I cannot allow that he wrote a Dedication to both Houses of Parliament of a book entitled The Evangelical History Harmonized. He was no croaker; no declaimer against the times. He would not have written, ‘That we are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barely universal, is universally confessed.’ Nor ‘Rapine preys on the publick without opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry.’ Nor would he, to excite a speedy reformation, have conjured up such phantoms of terrour as these: ‘A few years longer, and perhaps all endeavours will be in vain. We may be swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered to our enemies.’ This is not Johnsonian.

  There are, indeed, in this Dedication, several sentences constructed upon the model of those of Johnson. But the imitation of the form, without the spirit of his style, has been so general, that this of itself is not sufficient evidence. Even our newspaper writers aspire to it. In an account of the funeral of Edwin, the comedian, in The Diary of Nov. 9, 1790, that son of drollery is thus described: ‘A man who had so often cheered the sullenness of vacancy, and suspended the approaches of sorrow.’ And in The Dublin

  Evening Post, August 16, 1791, there is the following paragraph: ‘It is a singular circumstance, that, in a city like this, containing 200,000 people, there are three months in the year during which no place of publick amusement is open. Long vacation is here a vacation from pleasure, as well as business; nor is there any mode of passing the listless evenings of declining summer, but in the riots of a tavern, or the stupidity of a coffee-house.’

  I have not thought it necessary to specify every copy of verses written by Johnson, it being my intention to publish an authentick edition of all his Poetry, with notes.

  aMr. Cumberland assures me, that he was always treated with great courtesy by Dr. Johnson, who, in his Letters to Mrs. Thrale, vol. ii. p. 68, thus speaks of that learned, ingenious, and accomplished gentleman: ‘The want of company is an inconvenience: but Mr. Cumberland is a million.’

  a We must smile at a little inaccuracy of metaphor in the Preface to the Transactions, which is written by Mr. Burrowes. The critick of the style of Johnson having, with a just zeal for literature, observed, that the whole nation are called on to exert themselves, afterwards says: ‘They are called on by every tye which can have a laudable influence on the heart of man.’

  a History of America, vol. i. quarto, p. 332.

  b Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. chap. iv.

  c Cecilia, Book vii. chap. i {v}.

  d The passage which I quote is taken from that gentleman’s Elements of Orthoepy; containing a distinct View of the whole Analogy of the English Language, so far as relates to Pronunciation, Accent, and Quantity, London, 1784. I beg leave to offer my particular acknowledgements to the authour of a work of uncommon merit and great utility. I know no book which contains, in the same compass, more learning, polite literature, sound sense, accuracy of arrangement, and perspicuity of expression.

  a That collection was presented to Dr. Johnson, I believe by its authours; and I heard him speak very well of it.

  b It were to be wished, that he had imitated that great man in every respect, and had not followed the example of Dr. Adam Smith in ungraciously attacking his venerable Alma Mater1260 Oxford. It must, however, be observed, that he is much less to blame than Smith: he only objects to certain particulars; Smith to the whole institution; though indebted for much of his learning to an exhibition which he enjoyed for many years at Balliol College. Neither of them, however, will do any hurt to the noblest university in the world. While I animadvert on what appears to me exceptionable in some of the works of Dr. Knox, I cannot refuse due praise to others of his productions; particularly his sermons, and to the spirit with which he maintains, against presumptuous hereticks, the consolatory doctrines peculiar to the Christian Revelation. This he has done in a manner equally strenuous and conciliating. Neither ought I to omit mentioning a remarkable instance of his candour. Notwithstanding the wide difference of our opinions, upon the important subject of University education, in a letter to me concerning this Work, he thus expresses himself: ‘I thank you for the very great entertainment your Life of Johnson gives me. It is a most valuable work. Yours is a new species of biography. Happy for Johnson, that he had so able a recorder of his wit and wisdom.’

  a Dr. Knox, in his Moral and Literary abstraction, may be excused for not knowing the political regulations of his country. No senator can be in the hands of a bailiff.

  a A Club in London, founded by the learned and ingenious physician, Dr. Ash, in honour of whose name it was called Eumelian,1263 from the Greek Et]le´kiaz; though it was warmly contended, and even put to a vote, that it should have the more obvious appellation of Fraxinean,1264 from the Latin.

  b Mrs. Thrale’s Collection, March 10, 1784. Vol. ii. p. 350.

  c See what he said to Mr. Malone, p. 792 of this volume.

  a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 209 {14 Sept.}. On the same subject, in his Letter to Mrs. Thrale, dated Nov. 29, 1783, he makes the following just observation: – ‘Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past. The mind is enlarged and elevated by mere purposes, though they end as they began, by airy contemplation. We compare and judge, though we do not practise.’

  b Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, p. 374 {25 Oct.}.

  a Pr. and Med. p. 47.

  b Ib. p. 68.

  c Ib. p. 84.

  d Ib. p. 120.

  e Ib. p. 130.

  f Dr. Johnson related, with very earnest approbation, a story of a gentleman, who, in an impulse of passion, overcame the virtue of a young woman. When she said to him, ‘I am afraid we have done wrong!’ he answered, ‘Yes, we have done wrong; – for I would not debauch her mind.’

  g Pr. and Med., p. 192.

  a This bold experiment, Sir John Hawkins has related in such a manner as to suggest a charge against Johnson of intentionally hastening his end; a charge so very inconsistent with his character in every respect, that it is injurious even to refute it, as Sir John has thought it necessary to do. It is evident, that what Johnson did in hopes of relief, indicated an extraordinary eagerness to retard his dissolution.

  a ‘IN tHE NAME OF GOD. AMEN. I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, being in full possession of my faculties, but fearing this night may put an end to my life, do ordain this my last Will and Testament. I bequeath to God, a soul polluted with many sins, but I hope purified by Jesus Christ. I leave seven hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Bennet Langton, Esq.: three hundred pounds in the hands of Mr. Barclay and Mr. Perkins, brewers; one hundred and fifty pounds in the hands of Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore; one thousand pounds, three per cent. annuities, in the publick funds; and one hundred pounds now lying by me in ready money; all these before-mentioned sums and property I leave, I say, to Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, of Doctors Commons, in trust, for the following uses: – That is to say, to pay to the representatives of the late William Innys, bookseller, in St. Paul’s Church-yard, the sum of two hundred pounds; to Mrs. White, my female servant, one hundred pounds stock in the three per cent. annuities aforesaid. The rest of the aforesaid sums of money and property, together with my books, plate, and household furniture, I leave to the before-mentioned Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr
. William Scott, also in trust, to be applied, after paying my debts, to the use of Francis Barber, my man-servant, a negro, in such a manner as they shall judge most fit and available to his benefit. And I appoint the aforesaid Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Hawkins, and Dr. William Scott, sole executors of this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all former wills and testaments whatever. In witness whereof I hereunto subscribe my name, and affix my seal, this eighth day of December, 1784.

  ‘SAM. JOHNSON, (L.S.)

  ‘Signed, sealed, published, declared, and delivered, by the said testator as his last will and testament, in the presence of us, the word two being first inserted in the opposite page.

  ‘GEORGE STRAHAN.

  ‘JOHN DESMOULINS.’

  ‘By way of Codicil to my last Will and Testament, I, SAMUEL JOHNSON, give, devise, and bequeath, my messuage or tenement situate at Lichfield, in the county of Stafford, with the appurtenances, in the tenure or occupation of Mrs. Bond, of Lichfield aforesaid, or of Mr. Hinchman, her under-tenant, to my executors, in trust, to sell and dispose of the same; and the money arising from such sale I give and bequeath as follows, viz. to Thomas and Benjamin, the sons of Fisher Johnson, late of Leicester, and – Whiting, daughter of Thomas Johnson, late of Coventry, and the grand-daughter of the said Thomas Johnson, one full and equal fourth part each; but in case there shall be more grand-daughters than one of the said Thomas Johnson, living at the time of my decease, I give and bequeath the part or share of that one to and equally between such grand-daughters. I give and bequeath to the Rev. Mr. Rogers, of Berkley, near Froom, in the county of Somerset, the sum of one hundred pounds, requesting him to apply the same towards the maintenance of Elizabeth Herne, a lunatick. I also give and bequeath to my god-children, the son and daughter of Mauritius Lowe, painter, each of them, one hundred pounds of my stock in the three per. cent. consolidated annuities, to be applied and disposed of by and at the discretion of my Executors, in the education or settlement in the world of them my said legatees. Also I give and bequeath to Sir John Hawkins, one of my Executors, the Annales Ecclesiastici of Baron-ius, and Holinshed’s and Stowe’s Chronicles, and also an octavo Common Prayer-Book. To Bennet Langton, Esq. I give and bequeath my Polyglot Bible. To Sir Joshua Reynolds, my great French Dictionary, by Martiniere, and my own copy of my folio English Dictionary, of the last revision. To Dr. William Scott, one of my Executors, the Dictionnaire de Commerce, and Lectius’s edition of the Greek poets. To Mr. Windham, Poetae Graeci Heroici per Henricum Stephanum. To the Rev. Mr. Strahan, vicar of Islington, in Middlesex, Mill’s Greek Testament, Beza’s Greek Testament, by Stephens, all my Latin Bibles, and my Greek Bible, by Wechelius. To Dr. Heberden, Dr. Brocklesby, Dr. Butter, and Mr. Cruikshank, the surgeon who attended me, Mr. Holder, my apothecary, Gerard Hamilton, Esq., Mrs. Gardiner, of Snow-hill, Mrs. Frances Reynolds, Mr. Hoole, and the Reverend Mr. Hoole, his son, each a book at their election, to keep as a token of remembrance. I also give and bequeath to Mr. John Desmoulins, two hundred pounds consolidated three per cent. annuities: and to Mr. Sastres, the Italian master, the sum of five pounds, to be laid out in books of piety for his own use. And whereas the said Bennet Langton hath agreed, in consideration of the sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, mentioned in my Will to be in his hands, to grant and secure an annuity of seventy pounds payable during the life of me and my servant, Francis Barber, and the life of the survivor of us, to Mr. George Stubbs, in trust for us; my mind and will is, that in case of my decease before the said agreement shall be perfected, the said sum of seven hundred and fifty pounds, and the bond for securing the said sum, shall go to the said Francis Barber; and I hereby give and bequeath to him the same, in lieu of the bequest in his favour, contained in my said Will. And I hereby empower my Executors to deduct and retain all expences that shall or may be incurred in the execution of my said Will, or of this Codicil thereto, out of such estate and effects as I shall die possessed of. All the rest, residue, and remainder, of my estate and effects, I give and bequeath to my said Executors, in trust for the said Francis Barber, his Executors and Administrators. Witness my hand and seal, this ninth day of December, 1784.