Читать книгу The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - James Boswell - Страница 134

Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occasions has acted, as a private gentleman, with most polite liberality, applied to his friend Sir George Hay, then one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; and Francis Barber was discharged, as he has told me, without any wish of his own. He found his old master in Chambers in the Inner Temple[1047], and returned to his service.

[Page 350: Life in Inner Temple-lane. A.D. 1759.]

What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view this year, I have not discovered; but that he meditated one of some sort, is clear from his private devotions, in which we find[1048], ‘the change of outward things which I am now to make;’ and, ‘Grant me the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that the course which I am now beginning may proceed according to thy laws, and end in the enjoyment of thy favour.’ But he did not, in fact, make any external or visible change[1049].

[Page 351: Blackfriars-bridge. Ætat 50.]

At this time, there being a competition among the architects of London to be employed in the building of Blackfriars-bridge, a question was very warmly agitated whether semicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the design offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. Johnson’s regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne[1050]; and after being at considerable pains to study the subject, he wrote three several letters in the Gazetteer, in opposition to his plan.

If it should be remarked that this was a controversy which lay quite out of Johnson’s way, let it be remembered, that after all, his employing his powers of reasoning and eloquence upon a subject which he had studied on the moment, is not more strange than what we often observe in lawyers, who, as Quicquid agunt homines[1051] is the matter of law-suits, are sometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or science, of which they understood nothing till their brief was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it. In like manner, members of the legislature frequently introduce and expatiate upon subjects of which they have informed themselves for the occasion.

[Page 353: Relief of the French Prisoners. Ætat 51.]

1760: ÆTAT. 51].—In 1760 he wrote An Address of the Painters to George III. on his Accession to the Throne of these Kingdoms,[dagger] which no monarch ever ascended with more sincere congratulations from his people. Two generations of foreign princes had prepared their minds to rejoice in having again a King, who gloried in being ‘born a Briton[1052].’ He also wrote for Mr. Baretti, the dedication[dagger] of his Italian and English Dictionary to the Marquis of Abreu, then Envoy-Extraordinary from Spain at the Court of Great Britain.

[Page 354: Mary Queen of Scots. A.D. 1760.]

Johnson was now neither very idle, nor very busy with his Shakspeare; for I can find no other public composition by him except an introduction to the proceedings of the Committee for cloathing the French Prisoners[1053];[*] one of the many proofs that he was ever awake to the calls of humanity; and an account which he gave in the Gentlemen’s Magazine of Mr. Tytler’s acute and able vindication of Mary Queen of Scots.[*] The generosity of Johnson’s feelings shines forth in the following sentence:—

“It has now been fashionable, for near half a century, to defame and vilify the house of Stuart and, to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? Yet there remains still among us, not wholly extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right in opposition to fashion[1054]”.

In this year I have not discovered a single private letter, written by him to any of his friends. It should seem, however, that he had at this period a floating intention of writing a history of the recent and wonderful successes of the British arms in all quarters of the globe; for among his resolutions or memorandums, September 18, ‘send for books for Hist. of War[1055].’ How much is it to be regretted that this intention was not fulfilled. His majestick expression would have carried down to the latest posterity the glorious achievements of his country with the same fervent glow which they produced on the mind of the time. He would have been under no temptation to deviate in any degree from truth, which he held very sacred, or to take a licence, which a learned divine told me he once seemed, in a conversation, jocularly to allow to historians.

[Page 355: Consecrated lies. Ætat 51.]

‘There are (said he) inexcusable lies, and consecrated lies. For instance, we are told that on the arrival of the news of the unfortunate battle of Fontenoy, every heart beat, and every eye was in tears. Now we know, that no man eat his dinner the worse[1056], but there should have been all this concern; and to say there was, (smiling) may be reckoned a consecrated lie.’

This year Mr. Murphy, having thought himself ill-treated by the Reverend Dr. Francklin, who was one of the writers of The Critical Review, published an indignant vindication in A Poetical Epistle to Samuel Johnson, A.M., in which he compliments Johnson in a just and elegant manner:

Transcendant Genius! whose prolific vein

Ne’er knew the frigid poet’s toil and pain;

To whom APOLLO opens all his store,

And every Muse presents her sacred lore;

Say, pow’rful JOHNSON, whence thy verse is fraught

With so much grace and such energy of thought;

Whether thy JUVENAL instructs the age

In chaster numbers, and new-points his rage;

Or fair IRENE sees, alas! too late.

Her innocence exchang’d for guilty state;

Whatever you write, in every golden line

Sublimity and elegance combine;

Thy nervous phrase impresses every soul,

While harmony gives rapture to the whole.’

[Page 356: Arthur Murphy. A.D. 1760.]

Again, towards the conclusion:

‘Thou then, my friend, who seest the dang’rous strife

In which some demon bids me plunge my life,

To the Aonian fount direct my feet,

Say where the Nine thy lonely musings meet?

Where warbles to thy ear the sacred throng,

Thy moral sense, thy dignity of song?

Tell, for you can, by what unerring art

You wake to finer feelings every heart;

In each bright page some truth important give,

And bid to future times thy RAMBLER live[1057]?

I take this opportunity to relate the manner in which an acquaintance first commenced between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Murphy. During the publication of The Grays-Inn Journal, a periodical paper which was successfully carried on by Mr. Murphy alone, when a very young man, he happened to be in the country with Mr. Foote; and having mentioned that he was obliged to go to London in order to get ready for the press in one of the numbers of that Journal, Foote said to him, ‘You need not to go on that account. Here is a French magazine, in which you will find a very pretty oriental tale; translate that, and send it to your printer.’ Mr. Murphy having read the tale, was highly pleased with it, and followed Foote’s advice. When he returned to town, this tale was pointed out to him in The Rambler, from whence it had been translated into the French magazine. Mr. Murphy then waited upon Johnson, to explain this curious incident. His talents, literature, and gentleman-like manners, were soon perceived by Johnson, and a friendship was formed which was never broken[1058].

[Page 357: Letter to Mr. Langston. Ætat 51.]

‘To BENNET LANGTON, ESQ., AT LANGTON, NEAR SPILSBY, LINCOLNSHIRE.