Читать книгу The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - James Boswell - Страница 179

[184] ‘The accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained Addison the patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards Provost of Queen’s College, by whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy’ [a scholar]. Johnson’s Works, vii. 420. Johnson’s verses gained him nothing but ‘estimation.’

[185] He is reported to have said:—‘The writer of this poem will leave it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original.’ Hawkins, p. 13.

[186] ‘A Miscellany of Poems by several hands. Published by J. Husbands, A.M., Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxon., Oxford. Printed by Leon. Lichfield, near the East-Gate, In the year MDCCXXXI.’ Among the subscribers I notice the name of Richard Savage, Esq., for twenty copies. It is very doubtful whether he paid for one. Pope did not subscribe. Johnson’s poem is thus mentioned in the preface:—‘The translation of Mr. Pope’s Messiah was deliver’d to his Tutor as a College Exercise by Mr. Johnson, a commoner of Pembroke College in Oxford, and ‘tis hoped will be no discredit to the excellent original.’

[187] See post, under July 16, 1754.

[188] See Boswell’s Hebrides, Sept. 6, 1773.

[189] Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson, by John Courtenay, Esq., M.P. BOSWELL.

[190] Hector, in his account of Johnson’s early life, says:—‘After a long absence from Lichfield, when he returned, I was apprehensive of something wrong in his constitution which might either impair his intellect or endanger his life; but, thanks to Almighty God, my fears have proved false.’ Hawkins, p. 8. The college books show that Johnson was absent but one week in the Long Vacation of 1729. It is by no means unlikely that he went to Lichfield in that week to consult Dr. Swinfen about his health. In that case his first attack, when he tried to overcome the malady by frequently walking to Birmingham, must have been at an earlier date. In his time students often passed the vacation at the University. The following table shows the number of graduates and undergraduates in residence in Pembroke College at the end of each fourth week, from June to December 1729:—

Members in residence.

June 20, 1729 … 54

July 18, ” … 34

Aug. 15, ” … 25

Sept. 12, ” … 16

Oct. 10, ” … 30

Nov. 7, ” … 52

Dec. 5, ” … 49

At Christmas there were still sixteen men left in the college. That under a zealous tutor the vacation was by no means a time of idleness is shown by a passage in Wesley’s Journal, in which he compares the Scotch Universities with the English. ‘In Scotland,’ he writes, ‘the students all come to their several colleges in November, and return home in May. So they may study five months in the year, and lounge all the rest! O where was the common sense of those who instituted such colleges? In the English colleges everyone may reside all the year, as all my pupils did; and I should have thought myself little better than a highwayman if I had not lectured them every day in the year but Sundays.’ Wesley’s Journal, iv. 75. Johnson lived to see Oxford empty in the Long Vacation. Writing on Aug. 1, 1775, he said:—‘The place is now a sullen solitude.’ Piozzi Letters, i. 294.

[191] Johnson, perhaps, was thinking of himself when he thus criticised the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. ‘The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design.’ Johnson’s Works, vii. 431.

[192] Writing in his old age to Hector, he said,—‘My health has been from my twentieth year such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease’ (post, under March 21, 1782). Hawkins writes, that he once told him ‘that he knew not what it was to be totally free from pain.’ Hawkins, p. 396.

[193] See post, Oct. 27, 1784, note.

[194] In the Rambler, No. 85, he pointed out ‘how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.’ See post, July 21, 1763, for his remedies against melancholy.

[195] Thirty-two miles in all. Southey mentions that in 1728, the Wesleys, to save the more money for the poor, began to perform their journeys on foot. He adds,—‘It was so little the custom in that age for men in their rank of life to walk any distance, as to make them think it a discovery that four or five-and-twenty miles are an easy and safe day’s journey.’ Southey’s Wesley, i. 52.

[196] Boswell himself suffered from hypochondria. He seems at times to boast of it, as Dogberry boasted of his losses; so that Johnson had some reason for writing to him with seventy, as if he were ‘affecting it from a desire of distinction.’ Post, July 2, 1776.

[197] Johnson on April 7, 1776, recommended Boswell to read this book, and again on July 2 of the same year.

[198] On Dec. 24, 1754, writing of the poet Collins, who was either mad or close upon it, he said,—‘Poor dear Collins! I have often been near his state.’ Wooll’s Warton, p. 229. ‘I inherited,’ Johnson said, ‘a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.’ Boswell’s Hebrides, Sept. 16, 1773. ‘When I survey my past life,’ he wrote in 1777, ‘I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with some disorders of body and disturbances of the mind very near to madness.’ Pr. and Med. p. 155. Reynolds recorded that ‘what Dr. Johnson said a few days before his death of his disposition to insanity was no new discovery to those who were intimate with him.’ Taylor’s Reynolds, ii. 455. See also post Sept. 20, 1777.

[199] Ch. 44.

[200] ‘Of the uncertainties of our present state, the most dreadful and alarming is the uncertain continuance of reason.’ Rasselas, ch. 43.

[201] Boswell refers to Mrs. Piozzi (Anec., pp. 77, 127), and Hawkins (Life, pp. 287-8).

[202] ‘Quick in these seeds is might of fire and birth of heavenly place.’ Morris, Aeneids, vi. 730.

[203] On Easter Sunday 1716 during service some pieces of stone from the spire of St. Mary’s fell on the roof of the church. The congregation, thinking that the steeple was coming down, in their alarm broke through the windows. Johnson, we may well believe, witnessed the scene. The church was pulled down, and the new one was opened in Dec. 1721. Harwood’s Lichfield, p. 460.

[204] ‘Sept. 23, 1771. I have gone voluntarily to church on the week day but few times in my life. I think to mend. April 9, 1773. I hope in time to take pleasure in public worship. April 6, 1777. I have this year omitted church on most Sundays, intending to supply the deficience in the week. So that I owe twelve attendances on worship. I will make no more such superstitious stipulations, which entangle the mind with unbidden obligations.’ Pr. and Med. pp. 108, 121, 161. In the following passage in the Life of Milton, Johnson, no doubt, is thinking of himself:—‘In the distribution of his hours there was no hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household; omitting public prayers he omitted all…. That he lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which he condemned himself, and which he intended to correct, but that death as too often happens, intercepted his reformation.’ Johnson’s Works, vii. 115. See post, Oct. 10, 1779.

[205] We may compare with this a passage in Verecundulus’s letter in The Rambler, No. 157:—‘Though many among my fellow students [at the university] took the opportunity of a more remiss discipline to gratify their passions, yet virtue preserved her natural superiority, and those who ventured to neglect were not suffered to insult her.’ Oxford at this date was somewhat wayward in her love for religion. Whitefield records:—‘I had no sooner received the sacrament publicly on a week-day at St. Mary’s, but I was set up as a mark for all the polite students that knew me to shoot at. By this they knew that I was commenced Methodist, for though there is a sacrament at the beginning of every term, at which all, especially the seniors, are by statute obliged to be present, yet so dreadfully has that once faithful city played the harlot, that very few masters, and no undergraduates but the Methodists attended upon it. I daily underwent some contempt at college. Some have thrown dirt at me; others by degrees took away their pay from me.’ Tyerman’s Whitefield, i. 19. Story, the Quaker, visiting Oxford in 1731, says, ‘Of all places wherever I have been the scholars of Oxford were the rudest, most giddy, and unruly rabble, and most mischievous.’ Story’s Journal, p. 675.

[206] John Wesley, who was also at Oxford, writing of about this same year, says:—‘Meeting now with Mr. Law’s Christian Perfection and Serious Call the light flowed in so mightily upon my soul that everything appeared in a new view.’ Wesley’s Journal, i. 94. Whitefield writes:—‘Before I went to the University, I met with Mr. Law’s Serious Call, but had not then money to purchase it. Soon after my coming up to the University, seeing a small edition of it in a friend’s hand I soon procured it. God worked powerfully upon my soul by that and his other excellent treatise upon Christian perfection.’ Tyerman’s Whitefield, i. 16. Johnson called the Serious Call ‘the finest piece of hortatory theology in any language;’ post, 1770. A few months before his death he said:—‘William Law wrote the best piece of parenetic divinity; but William Law was no reasoner;’ post, June 9, 1784. Law was the tutor of Gibbon’s father, and he died in the house of the historian’s aunt. In describing the Serious Call Gibbon says:—‘His precepts are rigid, but they are founded on the gospel; his satire is sharp, but it is drawn from the knowledge of human life; and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyère. If he finds a spark of piety in his reader’s mind he will soon kindle it to a flame.’ Gibbon’s Misc. Works, i. 21.

[207] Mrs. Piozzi has given a strange fantastical account of the original of Dr. Johnson’s belief in our most holy religion. ‘At the age of ten years his mind was disturbed by scruples of infidelity, which preyed upon his spirits, and made him very uneasy, the more so, as he revealed his uneasiness to none, being naturally (as he said) of a sullen temper, and reserved disposition. He searched, however, diligently, but fruitlessly, for evidences of the truth of revelation; and, at length, recollecting a book he had once seen [I suppose at five years old] in his father’s shop, intitled De veritate Religionis, etc., he began to think himself highly culpable for neglecting such a means of information, and took himself severely to task for this sin, adding many acts of voluntary, and, to others, unknown penance. The first opportunity which offered, of course, he seized the book with avidity; but, on examination, not finding himself scholar enough to peruse its contents, set his heart at rest; and not thinking to enquire whether there were any English books written on the subject, followed his usual amusements and considered his conscience as lightened of a crime. He redoubled his diligence to learn the language that contained the information he most wished for; but from the pain which guilt [namely having omitted to read what he did not understand,] had given him, he now began to deduce the soul’s immortality [a sensation of pain in this world being an unquestionable proof of existence in another], which was the point that belief first stopped at; and from that moment resolving to be a Christian, became one of the most zealous and pious ones our nation ever produced.’ Anecdotes, p. 17.

This is one of the numerous misrepresentations of this lively lady, which it is worth while to correct; for if credit should be given to such a childish, irrational, and ridiculous statement of the foundation of Dr. Johnson’s faith in Christianity, how little credit would be due to it. Mrs. Piozzi seems to wish, that the world should think Dr. Johnson also under the influence of that easy logick, Stet pro ratione voluntas. BOSWELL. On April 28, 1783, Johnson said:—‘Religion had dropped out of my mind. It was at an early part of my life. Sickness brought it back, and I hope I have never lost it since.’ Most likely it was the sickness in the long vacation of 1729 mentioned ante, p. 63.

[208] In his Life of Milton, writing of Paradise Lost, he says:—‘But these truths are too important to be new; they have been taught to our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary thoughts and familiar conversations, and are habitually interwoven with the whole texture of life.’ Johnson’s Works, vii. 134.

[209] Acts xvi. 30.

[210] Sept. 7, Old Style, or Sept. 18, New Style.

[211] ‘He that peruses Shakespeare looks round alarmed, and starts to find himself alone.’ Johnson’s Works, v. 71. ‘I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia’s death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor.’ Ib. p. 175.

[212] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey completely. Windham’s Diary, p. 17. At college, he said, he had been ‘very idle and neglectful of his studies.’ Ib.

[213] ‘It may be questioned whether, except his Bible, he ever read a book entirely through. Late in life, if any man praised a book in his presence, he was sure to ask, ‘Did you read it through?’ If the answer was in the affirmative, he did not seem willing to believe it.’ Murphy’s Johnson, p. 12. It would be easy to show that Johnson read many books right through, though, according to Mrs. Piozzi, he asked, ‘was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim’s Progress?’ Piozzi’s Anec., p. 281. Nevertheless in Murphy’s statement there is some truth. See what has been just stated by Boswell, that ‘he hardly ever read any poem to an end,’ and post, April 19, 1773 and June 15, 1784. To him might be applied his own description of Barretier:—‘He had a quickness of apprehension and firmness of memory which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and at the same time to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his purpose.’ Johnson’s Works, vi. 390.

[214] See post, June 15, 1784. Mr. Windham (Diary, p. 17) records the following ‘anecdote of Johnson’s first declamation at college; having neglected to write it till the morning of his being (sic) to repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart while he was walking into the hall, and the rest he supplied as well as he could extempore.’ Mrs. Piozzi, recording the same ancedote, says that ‘having given the copy into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he passed, he was obliged to begin by chance, and continue on how he could…. “A prodigious risk, however,” said some one. “Not at all,” exclaims Johnson, “no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who does not know how to swim.”’ Piozzi’s Anec. p. 30.

[215] He told Dr. Burney that he never wrote any of his works that were printed, twice over. Dr. Burney’s wonder at seeing several pages of his Lives of the Poets, in Manuscript, with scarce a blot or erasure, drew this observation from him. MALONE. ‘He wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting’ (post, Feb. 1744), and a hundred lines of the Vanity of Human Wishes in a day (post, under Feb. 15, 1766). The Ramblers were written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed (post, beginning of 1750). In the second edition, however, he made corrections. ‘He composed Rasselas in the evenings of one week’ (post, under January, 1759). ‘The False Alarm was written between eight o’clock on Wednesday night and twelve o’clock on Thursday night.’ Piozzi’s Anec., p. 41. ‘The Patriot‘ he says, ‘was called for on Friday, was written on Saturday’ (post, Nov. 26, 1774).

[216] ‘When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic.’ Piozzi’s Anec. p. 77. ‘Ethics, or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of talk he most delighted in;’ ib. p. 80. See post, Sept. 24, 1777.

[217] ‘Sept. 18, 1764, I resolve to study the Scriptures; I hope in the original languages. 640 verses every Sunday will nearly comprise the Scriptures in a year.’ Pr. and Med. p. 58. ‘1770, 1st Sunday after Easter. The plan which I formed for reading the Scriptures was to read 600 verses in the Old Testament, and 200 in the New, every week;’ ib. p. 100.

[218] ‘August 1, 1715. This being the day on which the late Queen Anne died, and on which George, Duke and Elector of Brunswick, usurped the English throne, there was very little rejoicing in Oxford…. There was a sermon at St. Marie’s by Dr. Panting, Master of Pembroke…. He is an honest gent. His sermon took no notice, at most very little, of the Duke of Brunswick.’ Hearne’s Remains, ii. 6.

[219] The outside wall of the gateway-tower forms an angle with the wall of the Master’s house, so that any one sitting by the open window and speaking in a strong emphatic voice might have easily been overheard.

[220] Goldsmith did go to Padua, and stayed there some months. Forster’s Goldsmith, i. 71.

[221] I had this anecdote from Dr. Adams, and Dr. Johnson confirmed it. Bramston, in his Man of Taste, has the same thought: ‘Sure, of all blockheads, scholars are the worst.’ BOSWELL. Johnson’s meaning, however, is, that a scholar who is a blockhead must be the worst of all blockheads, because he is without excuse. But Bramston, in the assumed character of an ignorant coxcomb, maintains that all scholars are blockheads on account of their scholarship. J. BOSWELL, JUN. There is, I believe, a Spanish proverb to the effect that, ‘to be an utter fool a man must know Latin.’ A writer in Notes and Queries (5th S. xii. 285) suggests that Johnson had in mind Acts xvii. 21.

[222] It was the practice in his time for a servitor, by order of the Master, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and knocking at the door to enquire if they were within; and if no answer was returned to report them absent. Johnson could not endure this intrusion, and would frequently be silent, when the utterance of a word would have ensured him from censure, and would join with others of the young men in the college in hunting, as they called it, the servitor who was thus diligent in his duty, and this they did with the noise of pots and candlesticks, singing to the tune of Chevy Chase the words in the old ballad,—

‘To drive the deer with hound and horn!’ Hawkins, p. 12. Whitefield, writing of a few years later, says:—‘At this time Satan used to terrify me much, and threatened to punish me if I discovered his wiles. It being my duty, as servitor, in my turn to knock at the gentlemen’s rooms by ten at night, to see who were in their rooms, I thought the devil would appear to me every stair I went up.’ Tyerman’s Whitefield, i. 20.

[223] See post, June 12, 1784.

[224] Perhaps his disregard of all authority was in part due to his genius, still in its youth. In his Life of Lyttelton he says:—‘The letters [Lyttelton’s Persian Letters] have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of genius always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 488.

[225] Dr. Hall [formerly Master of the College] says, ‘Certainly not all.’ CROKER.

[226] ‘I would leave the interest of the fortune I bequeathed to a college to my relations or my friends for their lives. It is the same thing to a college, which is a permanent society, whether it gets the money now or twenty years hence; and I would wish to make my relations or friends feel the benefit of it;’ post, April 17, 1778. Hawkins (Life, p. 582,) says that ‘he meditated a devise of his house to the corporation of that city for a charitable use, but, it being freehold he said, “I cannot live a twelvemonth, and the last statute of Mortmain stands in my way.”’ The same statute, no doubt, would have hindered the bequest to the College.

[227] Garrick refused to act one of Hawkins’s plays. The poet towards the end of a long letter which he signed,—‘Your much dissatisfied humble servant,’ said:—‘After all, Sir, I do not desire to come to an open rupture with you. I wish not to exasperate, but to convince; and I tender you once more my friendship and my play.’ Garrick Corres. ii. 8. See post, April 9, 1778.

[228] See Nash’s History of Worcestershire, vol. i. p. 529. BOSWELL. To the list should be added, Francis Beaumont, the dramatic writer; Sir Thomas Browne, whose life Johnson wrote; Sir James Dyer, Chief Justice of the King’s Bench, Lord Chancellor Harcourt, John Pym, Francis Rous, the Speaker of Cromwell’s parliament, and Bishop Bonner. WRIGHT. Some of these men belonged to the ancient foundation of Broadgates Hall, which in 1624 was converted into Pembroke College. It is strange that Boswell should have passed over Sir Thomas Browne’s name. Johnson in his life of Browne says that he was ‘the first man of eminence graduated from the new college, to which the zeal or gratitude of those that love it most can wish little better than that it may long proceed as it began.’ Johnson’s Works, vi. 476. To this list Nash adds the name of the Revd. Richard Graves, author of The Spiritual Quixote, who took his degree of B.A. on the same day as Whitefield, whom he ridiculed in that romance.

[229] See post, Oct. 6, 1769, and Boswell’s Hebrides, Aug. 15, 1773.

[230] In his Life of Shenstone he writes:—‘From school Shenstone was sent to Pembroke College in Oxford, a society which for half a century has been eminent for English poetry and elegant literature. Here it appears that he found delight and advantage; for he continued his name in the book ten years, though he took no degree.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 408. Johnson’s name would seem to have been in like manner continued for more than eleven years, and perhaps for the same reasons. (Ante, p. 58 note.) Hannah More was at Oxford in June 1782, during one of Johnson’s visits to Dr. Adams. ‘You cannot imagine,’ she writes, ‘with what delight Dr. Johnson showed me every part of his own college…. After dinner he begged to conduct me to see the college; he would let no one show it me but himself. “This was my room; this Shenstone’s.” Then, after pointing out all the rooms of the poets who had been of his college, “In short,” said he, “we were a nest of singing-birds. Here we walked, there we played at cricket.” [It may be doubted whether he ever played.] He ran over with pleasure the history of the juvenile days he passed there. When we came into the Common Room, we spied a fine large print of Johnson, framed and hung up that very morning, with this motto: “And is not Johnson ours, himself a host;” under which stared you in the face, “From Miss More’s Sensibility”’ Hannah More’s Memoirs, i. 261. At the end of ‘the ludicrous analysis of Pocockius’ quoted by Johnson in the Life of Edmund Smith are the following lines:—‘Subito ad Batavos proficiscor, lauro ab illis donandus. Prius vero Pembrochienses voco ad certamen poeticum.’ Smith was at Christ Church. He seems to be mocking the neighbouring ‘nest of singing-birds.’ Johnson’s Works, vii. 381.

[231] Taylor matriculated on Feb. 24, 1729. Mr. Croker in his note has confounded him with another John Taylor who matriculated more than a year later. Richard West, writing of Christ Church in 1735, says:—‘Consider me very seriously here in a strange country, inhabited by things that call themselves Doctors and Masters of Arts; a country flowing with syllogisms and ale, where Horace and Virgil are equally unknown.’ Gray’s Letters, ii. I.

[232]

‘Si toga sordidula est et rupta

calceus alter

Pelle patet.’

‘Or if the shoe be ript, or patches put.’

Dryden, Juvenal, iii. 149.

Johnson in his London, in describing ‘the blockhead’s insults,’ while he mentions ‘the tattered cloak,’ passes over the ript shoe. Perhaps the wound had gone too deep to his generous heart for him to bear even to think on it.

[233] ‘Yet some have refused my bounties, more offended with my quickness to detect their wants than pleased with my readiness to succour them.’ Rasselas, ch. 25. ‘His [Savage’s] distresses, however afflictive, never dejected him; in his lowest state he wanted not spirit to assert the natural dignity of wit, and was always ready to repress that insolence which the superiority of fortune incited; … he never admitted any gross familiarities, or submitted to be treated otherwise than as an equal…. His clothes were worn out; and he received notice that at a coffee-house some clothes and linen were left for him…. But though the offer was so far generous, it was made with some neglect of ceremonies, which Mr. Savage so much resented that he refused the present, and declined to enter the house till the clothes that had been designed for him were taken away.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 161 and 169.

[234]

‘Haud facile emergunt quorum virtutibus obstat Res angusta domi.’

Juvenal, Sat. iii. 164.

Paraphrased by Johnson in his London, ‘Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.’

[235] Cambridge thirty-six years later neglected Parr as Oxford neglected Johnson. Both these men had to leave the University through poverty. There were no open scholarships in those days.

[236] Yet his college bills came to only some eight shillings a week. As this was about the average amount of an undergraduate’s bill it is clear that, so far as food went, he lived, in spite of Mr. Carlyle’s assertion, as well as his fellow-students.

[237] Mr. Croker states that ‘an examination of the college books proves that Johnson, who entered on the 31st October, 1728, remained there, even during the vacations, to the 12th December, 1729, when he personally left the college, and never returned—though his name remained on the books till 8th October, 1731.’ I have gone into this question at great length in my Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His Critics, p. 329. I am of opinion that Mr. Croker’s general conclusion is right. The proof of residence is established, and alone established, by the entries in the buttery books. Now these entries show that Johnson, with the exception of the week in October 1729 ending on the 24th, was in residence till December 12, 1729. He seems to have returned for a week in March 1730, and again for a week in the following September. On three other weeks there is a charge against him of fivepence in the books. Mr. Croker has made that darker which was already dark enough by confounding, as I have shewn, two John Taylors who both matriculated at Christ Church. Boswell’s statement no doubt is precise, but in this he followed perhaps the account given by Hawkins. He would have been less likely to discover Hawkins’s error from the fact that, as Johnson’s name was for about three years on the College books, he was so long, in name at least, a member of the College. Had Boswell seen Johnson’s letter to Mr. Hickman, quoted by Mr. Croker (Croker’s Boswell, p. 20), he would at once have seen that Johnson could not have remained at college for a little more than three years. For within three years all but a day of his entrance at Pembroke, he writes to Mr. Hickman from Lichfield, ‘As I am yet unemployed, I hope you will, if anything should offer, remember and recommend, Sir, your humble servant, Sam. Johnson.’

In Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (Aug. 15, 1773) there is a very perplexing passage bearing on Johnson’s residence at College. ‘We talked of Whitefield. He said he was at the same college with him, and knew him before he began to be better than other people.’ Now Johnson, as Boswell tells us, read this journal in manuscript. The statement therefore seems to be well-established indeed. Yet Whitefield did not matriculate till Nov. 7, 1732, a full year after Johnson, according to Boswell, had left Oxford. We are told that, when Johnson was living at Birmingham, he borrowed Lobo’s Abyssinia from the library of Pembroke College. It is probable enough that a man who frequently walked from Lichfield to Birmingham and back would have trudged all the way to Oxford to fetch the book. In that case he might have seen Whitefield. But Thomas Warton says that ‘the first time of his being at Oxford after quitting the University was in 1754’ (post, under July 16, 1754).

[238] ‘March 16, 1728-9. Yesterday in a Convocation Mr. Wm. Jorden of Pembroke Coll. was elected the Univ. of Oxford rector of Astocke in com. Wilts (which belongs to a Roman Catholic family).’ Hearne’s Remains, iii. 17. His fellowship was filled up on Dec. 23, 1730. Boswell’s statement therefore is inaccurate. If Johnson remained at college till Nov. 1731, he would have really been for at least ten months Adams’s pupil. We may assume that as his name remained on the books after Jorden left so he was nominally transferred to Adams. It is worthy of notice that Thomas Warton, in the account that he gives of Johnson’s visit to Oxford in 1754, says:—‘He much regretted that his first tutor was dead.’

[239] According to Hawkins (Life, pp. 17, 582 and post, Dec. 9, 1784) Johnson’s father was at one time a bankrupt. Johnson, in the epitaph that he wrote for him (post, Dec. 2, 1784) describes him as ‘bibliopola admodum peritus,’ but ‘rebus adversis diu conflictatus.’ He certainly did not die a bankrupt, as is shown by his leaving property to his widow and son, and also by the following MS. letter, that is preserved with two others of the same kind in Pembroke College.

Ashby, April 19, 1736.

Good Sr.,

I must truble you again, my sister who desiurs her survis to you, & begs you will be so good if you can to pravale with Mr. Wumsley to paye you the little money due to her you may have an opertunity to speak to him & it will be a great truble for me to have a jerney for it when if he pleasd he might paye it you, it is a poore case she had but little left by Mr. Johnson but his books (not but he left her all he had) & those sold at a poore reat, and be kept out of so small a sume by a gentleman so well able to paye, if you will doe yr best for the widow will be varey good in you, which will oblige yr reall freund JAMES BATE.

To Mr. John Newton

a Sider Seller at Litchfield.

Pd. £5 to Mr. Newton.

In another hand is written,

To Gilbert Walmesley Esq.

at Lichfield.

And in a third hand,

Pd. £5 to Mr. Newton.

The exact amount claimed, as is Shewn by the letter, dated Jan. 31, 1735, was £5 6s. 4d. There is a yet earlier letter demanding payment of £5 6s. 4d. as ‘due to me’ for books, signed D. Johnson, dated Swarkstone, Aug. 21, 1733. It must be the same account. Perhaps D. Johnson was the executor. He writes from Ashby, where Michael Johnson had a branch business. But I know of no other mention of him or of James Bate. John Newton was the father of the Bishop of Bristol. Post, June 3,1784, and Bishop Newton’s Works, i. I.

[240] Johnson, in a letter to Dr. Taylor, dated Aug. 18, 1763, advised him, in some trouble that he had with his wife, ‘to consult our old friend Mr. Howard. His profession has acquainted him with matrimonial law, and he is in himself a cool and wise man.’ Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 342. See post, March 20, 1778, for mention of his son.

[241] See post, Dec. 1, 1743, note. Robert Levett, made famous by Johnson’s lines (post, Jan. 20, 1782), was not of this family.

[242] Mr. Warton informs me, ‘that this early friend of Johnson was entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged seventeen, in 1698; and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in the Gent. Mag. (vol. xv. 102). One of them is a translation of:

‘My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent.’ &c.

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. BOSWELL.

[243] Johnson’s Works, vii. 380.

[244] See post, 1780, note at end of Mr. Langton’s ‘Collection.’

[245] See post, 1743.

[246] See post April 24, 1779.

[247] Hawkins (Life, p. 61) says that in August, 1738 (? 1739), Johnson went to Appleby, in Leicestershire, to apply for the mastership of Appleby School. This was after he and his wife had removed to London. It is likely that he visited Ashbourne.

[248] ‘Old Meynell’ is mentioned, post, 1780, in Mr. Langton’s ‘Collection,’ as the author of ‘the observation, “For anything I see, foreigners are fools;”’ and ‘Mr. Meynell,’ post, April 1, 1779, as saying that ‘The chief advantage of London is, that a man is always so near his burrow.’

[249] See post, under March 16, 1759, note, and April 21, 1773. Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert was created Lord St. Helens.

[250] See post, 1780, end of Mr. Langton’s ‘Collection.’

[251] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on July 31, 1756, said, ‘I find myself very unwilling to take up a pen, only to tell my friends that I am well, and indeed I never did exchange letters regularly but with dear Miss Boothby.’ Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 304. At the end of the Piozzi Letters are given some of his letters to her. They were republished together with her letters to him in An Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson, 1805.

[252] The words of Sir John Hawkins, P. 316. BOSWELL. ‘When Mr. Thrale once asked Johnson which had been the happiest period of his past life, he replied, “it was that year in which he spent one whole evening with Molly Aston. That, indeed,” said he, “was not happiness, it was rapture; but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole year.” I must add that the evening alluded to was not passed tête-à-tête, but in a select company of which the present Lord Kilmorey was one. “Molly,” says Dr. Johnson, “was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty; and so I made this epigram upon her—She was the loveliest creature I ever saw—

‘Liber ut esse velim suasisti

pulchra Maria;

Ut maneam liber—pulchra Maria

vale.’

‘Will it do this way in English, Sir,’ said I:—

‘Persuasions to freedom fall oddly

from you;

If freedom we seek—fair Maria,

adieu!’

‘It will do well enough,’ replied he; ‘but it is translated by a lady, and the ladies never loved Molly Aston.’” Piozzi’s Anec., p. 157. See post, May 8, 1778.

[253] 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 [_post, 1737]; Margaret, Gilbert Walmsley. Another of these ladies married the Rev. Mr. Gastrell [the man who cut down Shakspeare’s mulberry tree, post, March 25, 1776]; Mary, or Molly Aston, as she was usually called, became the wife of Captain Brodie of the navy. MALONE.

[254] Luke vi. 35.

[255] If this was in 1732 it was on the morrow of the day on which he received his share of his father’s property, ante, p. 80. A letter published in Notes and Queries, 6th S. x. 421, shews that for a short time he was tutor to the son of Mr. Whitby of Heywood.

[256] 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. MALONE. Mr. Nichols relates (post, Dec. 1784) that Johnson applied for the post of assistant to Mr. Budworth.

[257] See Gent. Mag. Dec. 1784, p. 957. BOSWELL.

[258] See ante, p. 78.

[259] The patron’s manners were those of the neighbourhood. Hutton, writing of this town in 1770, says,—‘The inhabitants set their dogs at me merely because I was a stranger. Surrounded with impassable roads, no intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce to smooth their rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature.’ Life, of W. Hutton, p. 45.

[260] 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. MALONE.

[261] ‘The despicable wretchedness of teaching,’ wrote Carlyle, in his twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, ‘can be known only to those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all. One meets with few spectacles more afflicting than that of a young man with a free spirit, with impetuous though honourable feelings, condemned to waste the flower of his life in such a calling; to fade in it by slow and sure corrosion of discontent; and at last obscurely and unprofitably to leave, with an indignant joy, the miseries of a world which his talents might have illustrated and his virtues adorned. Such things have been and will be. But surely in that better life which good men dream of, the spirit of a Kepler or a Milton will find a more propitious destiny.’ Conway’s Carlyle, p. 176.

[262] This newspaper was the Birmingham Journal. In the office of the Birmingham Daily Post is preserved the number (No. 28) for May 21, 1733. It is believed to be the only copy in existence. Warren is described by W. Hutton (Life, p. 77) as one of the ‘three eminent booksellers’ in Birmingham in 1750. ‘His house was “over against the Swan Tavern,” in High Street; doubtless in one of the old half-timbered houses pulled down in 1838 [1850].’ Timmins’s Dr. Johnson in Birmingham, p. 4.

[263] ‘In the month of June 1733, I find him resident in the house of a person named Jarvis, at Birmingham.’ Hawkins, p. 21. His wife’s maiden name was Jarvis or Jervis.

[264] In 1741, Hutton, a runaway apprentice, arrived at Birmingham. He says,—‘I had never seen more than five towns, Nottingham, Derby, Burton, Lichfield and Walsall. The outskirts of these were composed of wretched dwellings, visibly stamped with dirt and poverty. But the buildings in the exterior of Birmingham rose in a style of elegance. Thatch, so plentiful in other places, was not to be met with in this. The people possessed a vivacity I had never beheld. I had been among dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step along the street showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know what he was about. The faces of other men seemed tinctured with an idle gloom; but here with a pleasing alertness. Their appearance was strongly marked with the modes of civil life.’ Life of W. Hutton, p. 41.

[265] Hutton, in his account of the Birmingham riots of 1791, describing the destruction of a Mr. Taylor’s house, says,—‘The sons of plunder forgot that the prosperity of Birmingham was owing to a Dissenter, father to the man whose property they were destroying;’ ib. p. 181.

[266] Johnson, it should seem, did not think himself illused by Warren; for writing to Hector on April 15, 1755, he says,—‘What news of poor Warren? I have not lost all my kindness for him.’ Notes and Queries, 6th S. iii. 301.

[267] That it is by no means an exact translation Johnson’s Preface shows. He says that in the dissertations alone an exact translation has been attempted. The rest of the work he describes as an epitome.

[268] In the original, Segued.

[269] In the original, Zeila.

[270] Lobo, in describing a waterfall on the Nile, had said:—‘The fall of this mighty stream from so great a height makes a noise that may be heard to a considerable distance; but I could not observe that the neighbouring inhabitants were at all deaf. I conversed with several, and was as easily heard by them as I heard them,’ p. 101.

[271] In the original, without religion, polity, or articulate language.

[272] See Rambler, No. 103. BOSWELL. Johnson in other passages insisted on the high value of curiosity. In this same Rambler he says:—‘Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.’ In the allegory in Rambler, No. 105, he calls curiosity his ‘long-loved protectress,’ who is known by truth ‘among the most faithful of her followers.’ In No. 150 he writes:—‘Curiosity is in great and generous minds the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties.’ In No. 5 he assert that ‘he that enlarges his curiosity after the works of nature demonstrably multiplies the inlets to happiness.’

[273] Rasselas, post, 1759.

[274] Hawkins (p. 163) gives the following extract from Johnson’s Annales:—‘Friday, August 27 (1734), 10 at night. This day I have trifled away, except that I have attended the school in the morning, I read to-night in Roger’s sermoms. To-night I began the breakfast law (sic) anew.’

[275] 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, deformitarem oris excellentis ingenii præstantia compensavit.’ Comment, de reb. ad eum pertin. Edit. Amstel. 1718, p. 200. BOSWELL. In Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius we have difficulty in detecting Mme. de Sévigné‘s friend, Pelisson, of whom M. de Guilleragues used the phrase, ‘qu’il abusait de la permission qu’ont les hommes d’être laids.’ See Mme. de Sévigné‘s Letter, 5 Jan., 1674. CROKER.

[276] 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. BOSWELL. ‘Among the books in his library, at the time of his decease, I found a very old and curious edition of the works of Politian, which appeared to belong to Pembroke College, Oxford.’ HAWKINS, p. 445. See post, Nov., 1784. In his last work he shews his fondness for modern Latin poetry. He says:—‘Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known to have been explored by many other of the English writers; he had consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a class of authors whom Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too generally neglected.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 299.

[277] A writer in Notes and Queries, 1st S. xii. 266, says ‘that he has a letter written by Nathanael, in which he makes mention of his brother “scarcely using him with common civility,” and says, “I believe I shall go to Georgia in about a fortnight!”’ Nathanael died in Lichfield in 1737; see post, Dec. 2, 1784, for his epitaph. Among the MSS. in Pembroke College Library are bills for books receipted by Nath. Johnson and by Sarah Johnson (his mother). She writes like a person of little education.

[278] 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. [lv. 3], 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. BOSWELL. I was able to examine some of these letters while they were still in the possession of one of Cave’s collateral descendants, and I have in one or two places corrected errors of transcription.

[279] Sir John Floyer’s Treatise on Cold Baths. Gent. Mag. 1734, p. 197. BOSWELL. This letter shews how uncommon a thing a cold bath was. Floyer, after recommending ‘a general method of bleeding and purging’ before the patient uses cold bathing, continues, ‘I have commonly cured the rickets by dipping children of a year old in the bath every morning; and this wonderful effect has encouraged me to dip four boys at Lichfield in the font at their baptism, and none have suffered any inconvenience by it.’ (For mention of Floyer, see ante, p. 42, and post, March 27 and July 20, 1784.) Locke, in his Treatise on Education, had recommended cold bathing for children. Johnson, in his review of Lucas’s Essay on Waters (post, 1756), thus attacks cold bathing:—‘It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence. “The old gentleman,” says Dr. Lucas, “that uses the cold bath, enjoys in return an uninterrupted state of health.” This instance does not prove that the cold bath produces health, but only that it will not always destroy it. He is well with the bath, he would have been well without it.’ Literary Magazine, p. 229.

[280] A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on ‘Life, Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell.’ See Gent. Mag. vol. iv. p. 560. N. BOSWELL. ‘Cave sometimes offered subjects for poems, and proposed prizes for the best performers. The first prize was fifty pounds, for which, being but newly acquainted with wealth, and thinking the influence of fifty pounds extremely great, he expected the first authors of the kingdom to appear as competitors; and offered the allotment of the prize to the universities. But when the time came, no name was seen among the writers that had ever been seen before; the universities and several private men rejected the province of assigning the prize.’ Johnson’s Works, vi. 432.

[281] I suspect that Johnson wrote ‘the Castle Inn, Birmingham.’

[282] 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’ [see post, May 7, 1773, for Johnson’s ‘way of contracting the names of his friends’], ‘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 shews 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: