common-room, we spied a fine large print of Johnson, 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_."
This little incident amused us; but, alas! Johnson looks very ill
indeed--spiritless and wan. However, he made an effort to be cheerful.'
Miss Adams wrote on June 14, 1782:--'On Wednesday we had here a
delightful blue-stocking party. Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott and Miss More,
Dr. Johnson, Mr. Henderson, &c., dined here. Poor Dr. Johnson is in very
bad health, but he exerted himself as much as he could, and being very
fond of Miss More, he talked a good deal, and every word he says is
worth recording. He took great delight in showing Miss More every part
of Pembroke College, and his own rooms, &c., and told us many things
about himself when here. .. June 19, 1782. We dined yesterday for the
last time in the company with Dr. Johnson; he went away to-day. A warm
dispute arose; it was about cider or wine freezing, and all the spirit
retreating to the center.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._
[476] 'I never retired to rest without feeling the justness of the
Spanish proverb, "Let him who sleeps too much borrow the pillow of a
debtor."' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 14.
[477] See _ante_, i. 441.
[478] Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh,
founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious
memory. BOSWELL.
[479] See _ante_, p. 80.
[480] The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall. BOSWELL.
See _ante_, i. 436, and ii. 316.
[481] 'He had settled on his eldest son,' says Dr. Rogers
(_Boswelliana_, p. 129), 'the ancestral estate, with an unencumbered
rental of Ll,600 a year.' That the rental, whatever it was, was not
unencumbered is shewn by the passage from Johnson's letter, _post_, p.
155, note 4. Boswell wrote to Malone in 1791 (Croker's _Boswell_, p.
828):--'The clear money on which I can reckon out of my estate is
scarcely L900 a year.'
[482] Cowley's _Ode to Liberty_, Stanza vi.
[483] 'I do beseech all the succeeding heirs of entail,' wrote Boswell
in his will, 'to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old
possessors to get a little more rent.' Rogers's _Boswelliana, p. 186.
[484] Macleod, the Laird of Rasay. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 8.
[485] A farm in the Isle of Skye, where Johnson wrote his Latin Ode to
Mrs. Thrale. _Ib._ Sept. 6.
[486] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 4:--'Boswel's (sic) father is
dead, and Boswel wrote me word that he would come to London for my
advice. [The] advice which I sent him is to stay at home, and [busy]
himself with his own affairs. He has a good es[tate], considerably
burthened by settlements, and he is himself in debt. But if his wife
lives, I think he will be prudent.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S.
v. 462.
[487] Miss Burney wrote in the first week in December:--'Dr. Johnson was
in most excellent good humour and spirits.' She describes later on a
brilliant party which he attended at Miss Monckton's on the 8th, where
the people were 'superbly dressed,' and where he was 'environed with
listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 186, and 190. See _ante_, p.
108, note 4.
[488] See _ante,_, iii. 337, where Johnson got 'heated' when Boswell
maintained this.
[489] See _ante_, in. 395.
[490] The greatest part of the copy, or manuscript of _The Lives of the
Poets_ had been given by Johnson to Boswell (_ante_, iv. 36).
[491] Of her twelve children but these three were living. She was
forty-one years old.
[492] 'The family,' writes Dr. Burney, 'lived in the library, which used
to be the parlour. There they breakfasted. Over the bookcases were hung
Sir Joshua's portraits of Mr. Thrale's friends--Baretti, Burke, Burney,
Chambers, Garrick, Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys,
Lord Westcote, and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest
daughter.' Mr. Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 80, and Prior's _Malone_, p. 259.
[493] _Pr. and Med._ p. 214. BOSWELL.
[494] Boswell omits a line that follows this prayer:--'O Lord, so far
as, &c.,--Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might be lawful,
I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson entered:--'I was called
early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer with my
morning devotions, somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the
family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the _Acts_ [xx. 17-end], and then
read fortuitously in the gospels, which was my parting use of
the library.'
[495] Johnson, no doubt, was leaving Streatham because Mrs. Thrale was
leaving it. 'Streatham,' wrote Miss Burney, on Aug. 12 of this year, 'my
other home, and the place where I have long thought my residence
dependent only on my own pleasure, is already let for three years to
Lord Shelburne.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.151. Johnson was not yet
leaving the Thrale family, for he joined them at Brighton, and he was
living with them the following spring in Argyll-street. Nevertheless,
if, as all Mrs. Thrale's friends strongly held, her second marriage was
blameworthy, Boswell's remark admits of defence. Miss Burney in her
diary and letters keeps the secret which Mrs. Thrale had confided to her
of her attachment to Mr. Piozzi; but in the _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_,
which, as Mme. D'Arblay, she wrote long afterwards, she leaves little
doubt that Streatham was given up as a step towards the second marriage.
In 1782, on a visit there, she found that her father 'and all
others--Dr. Johnson not excepted--were cast into the same gulf of
general neglect. As Mrs. Thrale became more and more dissatisfied with
her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she slighted Johnson's
counsel, and avoided his society.' Mme. D'Arblay describes a striking
scene in which her father, utterly puzzled by 'sad and altered
Streatham,' left it one day with tears in his eyes. Another day, Johnson
accompanied her to London. 'His look was stern, though dejected, but
when his eye, which, however shortsighted, was quick to mental
perception, saw how ill at ease she appeared, all sternness subsided
into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a
shaking hand and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion
from which they were driving; and when they faced it from the
coach-window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously
exclaimed, "That house ...is lost to _me_... for ever."' Johnson's
letter to Langton of March 20, 1782 (_ante_, p. 145), in which he says
that he was 'musing in his chamber at Mrs. Thrale's,' shews that so
early as that date he foresaw that a change was coming. Boswell's
statement that 'Mrs. Thrale became less assiduous to please Johnson,'
might have been far more strongly worded. See Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 243-253. Lord Shelburne, who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace
with the United States, France, and Spain, hired Mrs. Thrale's house 'in
order to be constantly near London.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_,
iii. 242.
[496] Mr. Croker quotes the following from the _Rose MSS_.:--'Oct. 6,
Die Dominica, 1782. Pransus sum Streathamiae agninum crus coctum cum
herbis (spinach) comminutis, farcimen farinaceum cum uvis passis, lumbos
bovillos, et pullum gallinae: Turcicae; et post carnes missas, ficus,
uvas, non admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies, cum malis
Persicis, iis tamen duris. Non laetus accubui, cibum modice sumpsi, ne
intemperantia ad extremum peccaretur. Si recte memini, in mentem
venerunt epulae in exequiis Hadoni celebratae. Streathamiam
quando revisam?'
[497] 'Mr. Metcalfe is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an
unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks.... He is
a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
ii. 172, 174. He, Burke, and Malone were Sir Joshua's executors.
Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 293.
[498] Boswell should have shown, for he must have known it, that Johnson
was Mrs. Thrale's guest at Brighton. Miss Burney was also of the party.
Her account of him is a melancholy one:--'Oct. 28. Dr. Johnson
accompanied us to a ball, to the universal amazement of all who saw him
there; but he said he had found it so dull being quite alone the
preceding evening, that he determined upon going with us; "for," said
he, "it cannot be worse than being alone."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.
161. 'Oct. 29. Mr. Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into
an argument, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely
ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise,
and, in the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and,
wishing Mrs. Thrale goodnight, very abruptly withdrew. Dr. Johnson was
certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason; but his
opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I
was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how
greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred.' _Ib_. p.
163. 'Oct. 30. In the evening we all went to Mrs. Hatsel's. Dr. Johnson
was not invited.' _Ib_. p. 165. 'Oct. 31. A note came to invite us all,
except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes's.' _Ib_. p. 168. 'Nov. 2. We went to
Lady Shelley's. Dr. Johnson again excepted in the invitation. He is
almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much
fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone.' _Ib_. p. 160. 'Nov.
7. Mr. Metcalfe called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr.
Hamilton is gone, and Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this
house that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a
terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the
people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now
kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' _Ib_. p. 177.
[499] '"Dr. Johnson has asked me," said Mr. Metcalfe, "to go with him to
Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would certainly go if
he pleased; but why I cannot imagine, for how shall a blind man see a
cathedral?" "I believe," quoth I [i.e. Miss Burney] "his blindness is as
much the effect of absence as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at
times."' _Ib_. p. 174. For Johnson's eyesight, see _ante_, i. 41.
[500] The second letter is dated the 28th. Johnson says:--'I have looked
_often_,' &c.; but he does not say 'he has been _much_ informed,' but
only 'informed.' Both letters are in the _Gent. Mag._ 1784, p. 893.
[501] The reference is to Rawlinson's MS. collections for a continuation
of Wood's _Athenae_ (Macray's _Annals of the Bodleian_, p. 181).
[502] Jortin's sermons are described by Johnson as 'very elegant.'
_Ante_, in. 248. He and Thirlby are mentioned by him in the _Life of
Pope. Works_, viii. 254.
[503] Markland was born 1693, died 1776. His notes on some of Euripides'
_Plays_ were published at the expense of Dr. Heberden. Markland had
previously destroyed a great many other notes; writing in 1764 he
said:--'Probably it will be a long time (if ever) before this sort of
learning will revive in England; in which it is easy to foresee that
there must be a disturbance in a few years, and all public disorders are
enemies to this sort of literature.' _Gent. Mag._ 1778, P. 3l0. 'I
remember,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 252), 'when lamentation was
made of the neglect shown to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as
some one ventured to call him: "He is a scholar undoubtedly, Sir,"
replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from the world, and
that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow
whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and [who]
does nothing when he is there but sit and _growl_; let him come out as I
do, and _bark_"' A brief account of him is given in the _Ann. Reg._
xix. 45.
[504] Nichols published in 1784 a brief account of Thirlby, nearly half
of it being written by Johnson. Thirlby was born in 1692 and died in
1753. 'His versatility led him to try the round of what are called the
learned professions.' His life was marred by drink and insolence.' His
mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, and he was glad to
catch any employment that might produce attention without anxiety; such
employment, as Dr. Battie has observed, is necessary for madmen.' _Gent.
Mag._ 1784, pp. 260, 893.
[505] He was attacked, says Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 131), 'by
a slight paralytic affection, after an almost uninterrupted course of
good health for many years.' Miss Burney wrote on Dec. 28 to one of her
sisters:--'How can you wish any wishes [matrimonial wishes] about Sir
Joshua and me? A man who has had two shakes of the palsy!' Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 218.
[506] Dr. Patten in Sept. 1781 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 699) informed
Johnson of Wilson's intended dedication. Johnson, in his reply,
said:--'What will the world do but look on and laugh when one scholar
dedicates to another?'
[507] On the same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'This, my dear Sir, is the
last day of a very sickly and melancholy year. Join your prayers with
mine, that the next may be more happy to us both. I hope the happiness
which I have not found in this world will by infinite mercy be granted
in another.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 462.
[508] 'Jan. 4, 1783. Dr. Johnson came so very late that we had all given
him up; he was very ill, and only from an extreme of kindness did he
come at all. When I went up to him to tell how sorry I was to find him
so unwell, "Ah," he cried, taking my hand and kissing it, "who shall ail
anything when Cecilia is so near? Yet you do not think how poorly I am."
All dinner time he hardly opened his mouth but to repeat to me:--"Ah!
you little know how ill I am." He was excessively kind to me in spite of
all his pain.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 228. _Cecilia_ was the name
of her second novel (_post_, May 26, 1783). On Jan. 10 he thus ended a
letter to Mr. Nichols:--'Now I will put you in a way of shewing me more
kindness. I have been confined by ilness (sic) a long time, and sickness
and solitude make tedious evenings. Come sometimes and see, Sir,
'Your humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
_MS_. in the British Museum.
[509] 'Dr. Johnson found here [at Auchinleck] Baxter's Anacreon, which
he told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect there
was no such book.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.2. See _post_, under
Sept. 29, 1783.
[510] 'The delight which men have in popularity, fame, honour,
submission, and subjection of other men's minds, wills, or affections,
although these things may be desired for other ends, seemeth to be a
thing in itself, without contemplation of consequence, grateful and
agreeable to the nature of man.' Bacon's _Nat. Hist._ Exper. No. 1000.
See _ante_, ii. 178.
[511] In a letter to Dr. Taylor on Jan. 21 of this year, he attacked the
scheme of equal representation.' Pitt, on May 7, 1782, made his first
reform motion. Johnson thus ended his letter:--'If the scheme were more
reasonable, this is not a time for innovation. I am afraid of a civil
war. The business of every wise man seems to be now to keep his ground.'
_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 481.
[512] See _ante_, i. 429, _post_, 170, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept.
30.
[513] The year after this conversation the General Election of 1784 was
held, which followed on the overthrow of the Coalition Ministry and the
formation of the Pitt Ministry in December, 1783. The 'King's friends'
were in a minority of one in the last great division in the old
Parliament; in the motion on the Address in the new Parliament they had
a majority of 168. _Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 744, 843. Miss Burney, writing in
Nov. 1788, when the King was mad, says that one of his physicians 'moved
me even to tears by telling me that none of their own lives would be
safe if the King did not recover, so prodigiously high ran the tide of
affection and loyalty. All the physicians received threatening letters
daily, to answer for the safety of their monarch with their lives! Sir
G. Baker had already been stopped in his carriage by the mob, to give an
account of the King; and when he said it was a bad one, they had
furiously exclaimed, "The more shame for you."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
iv. 336. Describing in 1789 a Royal tour in the West of England, she
writes of 'the crowds, the rejoicings, the hallooing and singing, and
garlanding and decorating of all the inhabitants of this old city
[Exeter], and of all the country through which we passed.' _Ib._ v. 48.
[514] Miss Palmer, Sir Joshua's niece, 'heard Dr. Johnson repeat these
verses with the tears falling over his cheek.' Taylor's _Reynolds_,
ii. 417.
[515] Gibbon remarked that 'Mr. Fox was certainly very shy of saying
anything in Johnson's presence.' _Ante_, iii. 267. See _post_, under
June 9, 1784, where Johnson said 'Fox is my friend.'
[516] Mr. Greville (_Journal_, ed. 1874, ii. 316) records the following
on the authority of Lord Holland:--'Johnson liked Fox because he
defended his pension, and said it was only to blame in not being large
enough. "Fox," he said, is a liberal man; he would always be _aut Caesar
aut nullus_; whenever I have seen him he has been _nullus_. Lord Holland
said Fox made it a rule never to talk in Johnson's presence, because he
knew all his conversations were recorded for publication, and he did not
choose to figure in them.' Fox could not have known what was not the
fact. When Boswell was by, he had reason for his silence; but otherwise
he might have spoken out. 'Mr. Fox,' writes Mackintosh (_Life_, i. 322)
'united, in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters
of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life
he was so averse from parade and dogmatism as to be somewhat inactive in
conversation.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 283) tells how Fox spent a day
with him at Lausanne:--'Perhaps it never can happen again, that I should
enjoy him as I did that day, alone from ten in the morning till ten at
night. Our conversation never flagged a moment.' 'In London mixed
society,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 74), 'Fox conversed little; but
at his own house in the country, with his intimate friends, he would
talk on for ever, with all the openness and simplicity of a child.'
[517] Sec _ante_, ii. 450.
[518] Most likely 'Old Mr. Sheridan.'
[519] See _ante_, ii. 166.
[520] Were I to insert all the stories which have been told of contests
boldly maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of
reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his antagonist had
the better of him in argument, my volumes would swell to an immoderate
size. One instance, I find, has circulated both in conversation and in
print; that when he would not allow the Scotch writers to have merit,
the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, asserted, that he could name one Scotch
writer, whom Dr. Johnson himself would allow to have written better than
any man of the age; and upon Johnson's asking who it was, answered,
'Lord Bute, when he signed the warrant for your pension.' Upon which
Johnson, struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this _was_ true.
When I mentioned it to Johnson, 'Sir, (said he,) if Rose said this, I
never heard it.' BOSWELL.
[521] This reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was
not conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings which
were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, which he
perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often remembered with
resentment. BOSWELL. When, three months later on, he was struck with
palsy, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have in this still scene of life
great comfort in reflecting that I have given very few reason to hate
me. I hope scarcely any man has known me closely but for his benefit, or
cursorily but to his innocent entertainment. Tell me, you that know me
best, whether this be true, that according to your answer I may continue
my practice, or try to mend it.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 287. See _post_,
May 19, 1784. Passages such as the two following might have shewn him
why he had enemies. 'For roughness, it is a needless cause of
discontent; severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate.'
Bacon's _Essays_, No. xi. ''Tis possible that men may be as oppressive
by their parts as their power.' _The Government of the Tongue_, sect.
vii. See _ante_, i. 388, note 2.
[522] 'A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in
Scotland supports the people.' _Ante_, i. 294. Stockdale records
(_Memoirs_, ii. 191) that he heard a Scotch lady, after quoting this
definition, say to Johnson, 'I can assure you that in Scotland we give
oats to our horses as well as you do to yours in England.' He
replied:--'I am very glad, Madam, to find that you treat your horses as
well as you treat yourselves.'
[523] Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote:--'The prejudices he had to countries
did not extend to individuals. The chief prejudice in which he indulged
himself was against Scotland, though he had the most cordial friendship
with individuals. This he used to vindicate as a duty. ... Against the
Irish he entertained no prejudice; he thought they united themselves
very well with us; but the Scotch, when in England, united and made a
party by employing only Scotch servants and Scotch tradesmen. He held it
right for Englishmen to oppose a party against them.' Taylor's
_Reynolds_, ii. 460. See _ante_, ii. 242, 306, and Boswell's _Hebrides,
post_, v. 20.
[524] _Ante_, ii. 300.
[525] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 85) says that 'Dr. Johnson, commonly
spending the middle of the week at our house, kept his numerous family
in Fleet-street upon a settled allowance; but returned to them every
Saturday to give them three good dinners and his company, before he came
back to us on the Monday night.'
[526] Lord North's Ministry lasted from 1770, to March, 1782. It was
followed by the Rockingham Ministry, and the Shelburne Ministry, which
in its turn was at this very time giving way to the Coalition Ministry,
to be followed very soon by the Pitt Ministry.
