[681] Not the very tavern, which was burned down in the great fire. P.
CUNNINGHAM.
[682] I do not see why I might not have been of this club without
lessening my character. But Dr. Johnson's caution against supposing
one's self concealed in London, may be very useful to prevent some
people from doing many things, not only foolish, but criminal. BOSWELL.
[683] See _ante_, iii. 318.
[684] Johnson defines _airy_ as _gay, sprightly, full of mirth_, &c.
[685] 'A man would be drowned by claret before it made him drunk.'
_Ante_, iii. 381.
[686] _Ante_, p. 137.
[687] See _ante_ ii. 261.
[688] Lord Chesterfield wrote in 1747 (_Misc. Works_, iv. 231):--
Drinking is a most beastly vice in every country, but it is really a
ruinous one to Ireland; nine gentlemen in ten in Ireland are
impoverished by the great quantity of claret, which from mistaken
notions of hospitality and dignity, they think it necessary should be
drunk in their houses. This expense leaves them no room to improve their
estates by proper indulgence upon proper conditions to their tenants,
who must pay them to the full, and upon the very day, that they may pay
their wine-merchants.' In 1754 he wrote (_ib._p.359):--If it would but
please God by his lightning to blast all the vines in the world, and by
his thunder to turn all the wines now in Ireland sour, as I most
sincerely wish he would, Ireland would enjoy a degree of quiet and
plenty that it has never yet known.'
[689] See _ante_, p. 95.
[690] 'The sea being broken by the multitude of islands does not roar
with so much noise, nor beat the storm with such foamy violence as I
have remarked on the coast of Sussex. Though, while I was in the
Hebrides, the wind was extremely turbulent, I never saw very high
billows.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 65.
[691] Johnson this day thus wrote of Mr. M'Queen to Mrs. Thrale:--'You
find that all the islanders even in these recesses of life are not
barbarous. One of the ministers who has adhered to us almost all the
time is an excellent scholar.' _Piozzi Letters,_ i. 157.
[692] See _post_, Nov. 6.
[693] This was a dexterous mode of description, for the purpose of his
argument; for what he alluded to was, a Sermon published by the learned
Dr. William Wishart, formerly principal of the college at Edinburgh, to
warn men _against_ confiding in a death-bed _repentance_ of the
inefficacy of which he entertained notions very different from those of
Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.
[694] The Rev. Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 441) thus writes of the
English clergy whom he met at Harrogate in 1763:--'I had never seen so
many of them together before, and between this and the following year I
was able to form a true judgment of them. They are, in general--I mean
the lower order--divided into bucks and prigs; of which the first,
though inconceivably ignorant, and sometimes indecent in their morals,
yet I held them to be most tolerable, because they were unassuming, and
had no other affectation but that of behaving themselves like gentlemen.
The other division of them, the prigs, are truly not to be endured, for
they are but half learned, are ignorant of the world, narrow-minded,
pedantic, and overbearing. And now and then you meet with a _rara avis_
who is accomplished and agreeable, a man of the world without
licentiousness, of learning without pedantry, and pious without
sanctimony; but this _is_ a _rara avis_'.
[695] See _ante_, i. 446, note 1.
[696] Johnson defines _manage_ in this sense _to train a horse to
graceful action_, and quotes Young:--
'They vault from hunters to the managed steed.'
[697] Of Sir William Forbes of a later generation, Lockhart (_Life of
Scott_, ix. 179) writes as follows:--'Sir William Forbes, whose
banking-house was one of Messrs. Ballantyne's chief creditors, crowned
his generous efforts for Scott's relief by privately paying the whole of
Abud's demand (nearly L2000) out of his own pocket.'
[698] This scarcity of cash still exists on the islands, in several of
which five shilling notes are necessarily issued to have some
circulating medium. If you insist on having change, you must purchase
something at a shop. WALTER SCOTT.
[699] 'The payment of rent in kind has been so long disused in England
that it is totally forgotten. It was practised very lately in the
Hebrides, and probably still continues, not only in St. Kilda, where
money is not yet known, but in others of the smaller and remoter
islands.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 110.
[700] 'A place where the imagination is more amused cannot easily be
found. The mountains about it are of great height, with waterfalls
succeeding one another so fast, that as one ceases to be heard another
begins.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 157.
[701] See _ante_, i. 159.
[702] Johnson seems to be speaking of Hailes's _Memorials and Letters
relating to the History of Britain in the reign of James I and of
Charles I_.
[703] See _ante_, ii. 341.
[704] See _ante_, iii. 91.
[705] 'In all ages of the world priests have been enemies to liberty,
and it is certain that this steady conduct of theirs must have been
founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking
and of expressing our thoughts is always fatal to priestly power, and to
those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded.... Hence it must
happen in such a government as that of Britain, that the established
clergy, while things are in their natural situation, will always be of
the _Court_-party; as, on the contrary, dissenters of all kinds will be
of the _Country_-party.' Hume's _Essays_, Part 1, No. viii.
[706] In the original _Every island's but a prison._ The song is by a
Mr. Coffey, and is given in Ritson's _English Songs_ (1813), ii. 122.
It begins:--
'Welcome, welcome, brother debtor,
To this poor but merry place,
Where no bailiff, dun, nor setter,
Dares to show his frightful face.'
See _ante_, iii. 269.
[707] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale the day before (perhaps it was this day,
and the copyist blundered):--' I am still in Sky. Do you remember
the song--
We have at one time no boat, and at another may have too much wind; but
of our reception here we have no reason to complain.' _Piozzi
Letters_, i. 143.
[708] My ingenuously relating this occasional instance of intemperance
has I find been made the subject both of serious criticism and ludicrous
banter. With the banterers I shall not trouble myself, but I wonder that
those who pretend to the appellation of serious criticks should not have
had sagacity enough to perceive that here, as in every other part of the
present work, my principal object was to delineate Dr. Johnson's manners
and character. In justice to him I would not omit an anecdote, which,
though in some degree to my own disadvantage, exhibits in so strong a
light the indulgence and good humour with which he could treat those
excesses in his friends, of which he highly disapproved.
In some other instances, the criticks have been equally wrong as to the
true motive of my recording particulars, the objections to which I saw
as clearly as they. But it would be an endless task for an authour to
point out upon every occasion the precise object he has in view,
Contenting himself with the approbation of readers of discernment and
taste, he ought not to complain that some are found who cannot or will
not understand him. BOSWELL.
[709] In the original, 'wherein is excess.'
[710] See Chappell's _Popular Music of the Olden Time_, i. 231.
[711] See _ante_, iii. 383.
[712] see _ante_, p. 184.
[713] See _ante_, ii. 120, where he took upon his knee a young woman who
came to consult him on the subject of Methodism.
[714] See _ante_, pp. 215, 246.
[715] See _ante_, iv. 176.
[716]
'If ev'ry wheel of that unwearied mill
That turned ten thousand verses now stands still.'
_Imitations of Horace, 2 Epis._ ii. 78.
[717] _Ante_, p. 206.
[718]
'Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captos
Ducit.'--Ovid, _Ex Pont_. i. 3. 35.
[719] Lift up your hearts.
[720] Mr. Croker prints the following letter written to Macleod the day
before:--
'Ostig, 28th Sept. 1773.
'DEAR SIR,--We are now on the margin of the sea, waiting for a boat and
a wind. Boswell grows impatient; but the kind treatment which I find
wherever I go, makes me leave, with some heaviness of heart, an island
which I am not very likely to see again. Having now gone as far as
horses can carry us, we thankfully return them. My steed will, I hope,
be received with kindness;--he has borne me, heavy as I am, over ground
both rough and steep, with great fidelity; and for the use of him, as
for your other favours, I hope you will believe me thankful, and
willing, at whatever distance we may be placed, to shew my sense of your
kindness, by any offices of friendship that may fall within my power.
'Lady Macleod and the young ladies have, by their hospitality and
politeness, made an impression on my mind, which will not easily be
effaced. Be pleased to tell them, that I remember them with great
tenderness, and great respect.--I am, Sir, your most obliged and most
humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'P.S.--We passed two days at Talisker very happily, both by the
pleasantness of the place and elegance of our reception.'
[721] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 409), after describing how Shenstone laid
out the Leasowes, continues:--'Whether to plant a walk in undulating
curves, and to place a bench at every turn where there is an object to
catch the view; to make water run where it will be heard, and to
stagnate where it will be seen; to leave intervals where the eye will be
pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be
hidden, demands any great powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a
surly and sullen speculator may think such performances rather the sport
than the business of human reason.'
[722] Johnson quotes this and the two preceding stanzas as 'a passage,
to which if any mind denies its sympathy, it has no acquaintance with
love or nature.' _Ib_. p. 413.
[723] 'His mind was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity active; he
had no value for those parts of knowledge which he had not himself
cultivated.' _Ib._ p. 411.
[724] In the preface to vol. iii. of Shenstone's _Works_, ed. 1773, a
quotation is given (p. vi) from one of the poet's letters in which he
complains of this burning. He writes:--'I look upon my Letters as some of
my _chef-d'auvres_.' On p. 301, after mentioning _Rasselas_, he
continues:--'Did I tell you I had a letter from Johnson, inclosing
Vernon's _Parish-clerk_?'
[725] 'The truth is these elegies have neither passion, nature, nor
manners. Where there is fiction, there is no passion: he that describes
himself as a shepherd, and his Neaera or Delia as a shepherdess, and
talks of goats and lambs, feels no passion. He that courts his mistress
with Roman imagery deserves to lose her; for she may with good reason
suspect his sincerity.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 91. See _ante_, iv. 17.
[726] His lines on Pulteney, Earl of Bath, still deserve some fame:--
'Leave a blank here and there in each page
To enrol the fair deeds of his youth!
When you mention the acts of his age,
Leave a blank for his honour and truth.'
From _The Statesman_, H. C. Williams's _Odes_, p. 47.
[727] Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2.
[728] He did not mention the name of any particular person; but those
who are conversant with the political world will probably recollect more
persons than one to whom this observation may be applied. BOSWELL. Mr.
Croker thinks that Lord North was meant. For his ministry Johnson
certainly came to have a great contempt (_ante_, iv. 139). If Johnson
was thinking of him, he differed widely in opinion from Gibbon, who
describes North as 'a consummate master of debate, who could wield with
equal dexterity the arms of reason and of ridicule.' Gibbon's _Misc.
Works_, i. 221. On May 2, 1775, he wrote:--' If they turned out Lord
North to-morrow, they would still leave him one of the best companions
in the kingdom.' _Ib._ ii. 135.
[729] Horace Walpole is speaking of this work, when he wrote on May 16,
1759 (_Letters_, iii. 227):--'Dr. Young has published a new book, on
purpose, he says himself, to have an opportunity of telling a story that
he has known these forty years. Mr. Addison sent for the young Lord
Warwick, as he was dying, to shew him in what peace a Christian could
die--unluckily he died of brandy--nothing makes a Christian die in
peace like being maudlin! but don't say this in Gath, where you are.'
[730] 'His [Young's] plan seems to have started in his mind at the
present moment; and his thoughts appear the effect of chance, sometimes
adverse, and sometimes lucky, with very little operation of judgment....
His verses are formed by no certain model; he is no more like himself in
his different productions than he is like others. He seems never to have
studied prosody, nor to have had any direction but from his own ear. But
with all his defects, he was a man of genius and a poet.' Johnson's
_Works_, viii. 458, 462. Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 371) tells why
'Dr. Johnson despised Young's quantity of common knowledge as
comparatively small. 'Twas only because, speaking once upon the subject
of metrical composition, he seemed totally ignorant of what are called
rhopalick verses, from the Greek word, a club--verses in which each word
must be a syllable longer than that which goes before, such as:
Spes deus aeternae stationis conciliator.'
[731] He had said this before. _Ante_, ii. 96.
[732]
'Brunetta's wise in actions great and rare,
But scorns on trifles to bestow her care.
Thus ev'ry hour Brunetta is to blame,
Because th' occasion is beneath her aim.
Think nought a trifle, though it small appear;
Small sands the mountains, moments make the year,
And trifles life. Your care to trifles give,
Or you may die before you truly live.'
_Love of Fame_, Satire vi. Johnson often taught that life is made up of
trifles. See _ante_, i. 433.
[733]
"But hold," she cries, "lampooner, have a care;
Must I want common sense, because I'm fair?"
O no: see Stella; her eyes shine as bright,
As if her tongue was never in the right;
And yet what real learning, judgment, fire!
She seems inspir'd, and can herself inspire:
How then (if malice rul'd not all the fair)
Could Daphne publish, and could she forbear?
We grant that beauty is no bar to sense,
Nor is't a sanction for impertinence.
_Love of Fame_, Satire v.
[734] Johnson called on Young's son at Welwyn in June, 1781. _Ante_, iv.
119. Croft, in his _Life of Young_ (Johnson's _Works_, viii. 453), says
that 'Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed with more ill-nature than
wit in a kind of novel published by Kidgell in 1755, called _The Card_,
under the name of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fusby.'
[735] _Memoirs of Philip Doddridge_, ed. 1766, p. 171.
[736] So late as 1783 he said 'this Hanoverian family is isolee here.'
_Ante_, iv. 165.
[737] See _ante_, ii. 81, where he hoped that 'this gloom of infidelity
was only a transient cloud.'
[738] Boswell has recorded this saying, _ante_, iv. 194.
[739] In 1755 an English version of this work had been published. _Gent.
Mag_. 1755, p. 574. In the Chronological Catalogue on p. 343 in vol. 66
of Voltaire's _Works_, ed. 1819, it is entered as _'Histoire de la
Guerre de_ 1741, fondue en partie dans le _Precis du siecle de
Louis XV_.'
[740] Boswell is here merely repeating Johnson's words, who on April 11
of this year, advising him to keep a journal, had said, 'The great thing
to be recorded is the state of your own mind.' _Ante_, ii. 217.
[741] This word is not in his _Dictionary_.
[742] See _ante_, i. 498.
[743] See _ante_, ii. 61, 335; iii. 375, and _post_, under Nov. 11.
[744] Beattie had attacked Hume in his _Essay on Truth_ (_ante_, ii. 201
and v. 29). Reynolds this autumn had painted Beattie in his gown of an
Oxford Doctor of Civil Law, with his _Essay_ under his arm. 'The angel
of Truth is going before him, and beating down the Vices, Envy,
Falsehood, &c., which are represented by a group of figures falling at
his approach, and the principal head in this group is made an exact
likeness of Voltaire. When Dr. Goldsmith saw this picture, he was very
indignant at it, and said:--"It very ill becomes a man of your eminence
and character, Sir Joshua, to condescend to be a mean flatterer, or to
wish to degrade so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as
Dr. Beattie; for Dr. Beattie and his book together will, in the space of
ten years, not be known ever to have been in existence, but your
allegorical picture and the fame of Voltaire will live for ever to your
disgrace as a flatterer."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 300. Another of
the figures was commonly said to be a portrait of Hume; but Forbes
(_Life of Beattie_, ed. 1824, p. 158) says he had reason to believe that
Sir Joshua had no thought either of Hume or Voltaire. Beattie's _Essay_
is so much a thing of the past that Dr. J. H. Burton does not, I
believe, take the trouble ever to mention it in his _Life of Hume_.
Burns did not hold with Goldsmith, for he took Beattie's side:--
'Hence sweet harmonious Beattie sung
His _Minstrel_ lays;
Or tore, with noble ardour stung,
The _Sceptic's_ bays.'
(_The Vision_, part ii.)
[745] See _ante_, ii. 441.
[746] William Tytler published in 1759 an _Examination of the Histories
of Dr. Robertson and Mr. Hume with respect to Mary Queen of Scots_. It
was reviewed by Johnson. _Ante_, i. 354.
[747] Johnson's _Rasselas_ was published in either March or April, and
Goldsmith's _Polite Learning_ in April of 1759.I do not find that they
published any other works at the same time. If these are the works
meant, we have a proof that the two writers knew each other earlier than
