means of fictitious qualifications, ought not to be resisted;--the
other, What, in propriety and humanity, should be done with old horses
unable to labour. I gave him some account of my life at Auchinleck: and
expressed my satisfaction that the gentlemen of the county had, at two
publick meetings, elected me their _Praeses_ or Chairman[776].
'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,
'Like all other men who have great friends, you begin to feel the pangs
of neglected merit; and all the comfort that I can give you is, by
telling you that you have probably more pangs to feel, and more neglect
to suffer. You have, indeed, begun to complain too soon; and I hope I
am the only confidant of your discontent. Your friends have not yet had
leisure to gratify personal kindness; they have hitherto been busy in
strengthening their ministerial interest[777]. If a vacancy happens in
Scotland, give them early intelligence; and as you can serve Government
as powerfully as any of your probable competitors, you may make in some
sort a warrantable claim.
'Of the exaltations and depressions of your mind you delight to talk,
and I hate to hear. Drive all such fancies from you.
'On the day when I received your letter, I think, the foregoing page was
written; to which, one disease or another has hindered me from making
any additions. I am now a little better. But sickness and solitude press
me very heavily. I could bear sickness better, if I were relieved from
solitude[778].
'The present dreadful confusion of the publick[779] ought to make you
wrap yourself up in your hereditary possessions, which, though less than
you may wish, are more than you can want; and in an hour of religious
retirement return thanks to GOD, who has exempted you from any strong
temptation to faction, treachery, plunder[780], and disloyalty.
'As your neighbours distinguish you by such honours as they can bestow,
content yourself with your station, without neglecting your profession.
Your estate and the Courts will find you full employment; and your mind,
well occupied, will be quiet.
'The usurpation of the nobility, for they apparently usurp all the
influence they gain by fraud and misrepresentation, I think it certainly
lawful, perhaps your duty, to resist. What is not their own they have
only by robbery.
'Your question about the horses gives me more perplexity. I know not
well what advice to give you. I can only recommend a rule which you do
not want;--give as little pain as you can. I suppose that we have a
right to their service while their strength lasts; what we can do with
them afterwards I cannot so easily determine. But let us consider.
Nobody denies that man has a right first to milk the cow, and to sheer
the sheep, and then to kill them for his table. May he not, by parity of
reason, first work a horse, and then kill him the easiest way, that he
may have the means of another horse, or food for cows and sheep? Man is
influenced in both cases by different motives of self-interest. He that
rejects the one must reject the other.
'I am, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'London, Dec. 24, 1783.'
'A happy and pious Christmas; and many happy years to you, your lady,
and children.'
The late ingenious Mr. Mickle[781], some time before his death, wrote me
a letter concerning Dr. Johnson, in which he mentions,--
'I was upwards of twelve years acquainted with him, was frequently in
his company, always talked with ease to him, and can truly say, that I
never received from him one rough word.'
In this letter he relates his having, while engaged in translating the
_Lusiad_, had a dispute of considerable length with Johnson, who, as
usual, declaimed upon the misery and corruption of a sea life, and used
this expression:--'It had been happy for the world, Sir, if your hero
Gama, Prince Henry of Portugal, and Columbus, had never been born, or
that their schemes had never gone farther than their own imaginations.'
'This sentiment, (says Mr. Mickle,) which is to be found in his
_Introduction to the World displayed_[782], I, in my Dissertation
prefixed to the _Lusiad_, have controverted; and though authours are
said to be bad judges of their own works[783], I am not ashamed to own
to a friend, that that dissertation is my favourite above all that I
ever attempted in prose. Next year, when the Lusiad was published, I
waited on Dr. Johnson, who addressed me with one of his good-humoured
smiles:--"Well, you have remembered our dispute about Prince Henry, and
have cited me too. You have done your part very well indeed: you have
made the best of your argument; but I am not convinced yet."
'Before publishing the _Lusiad_, I sent Mr. Hoole a proof of that part
of the introduction, in which I make mention of Dr. Johnson, yourself,
and other well-wishers to the work, begging it might be shewn to Dr.
Johnson. This was accordingly done; and in place of the simple mention
of him which I had made, he dictated to Mr. Hoole the sentence as it now
stands[784].
'Dr. Johnson told me in 1772, that, about twenty years before that time,
he himself had a design to translate the _Lusiad_, of the merit of which
he spoke highly, but had been prevented by a number of other
engagements.'
Mr. Mickle reminds me in this letter of a conversation, at dinner one
day at Mr. Hoole's with Dr. Johnson, when Mr. Nicol the King's
bookseller and I attempted to controvert the maxim, 'better that ten
guilty should escape, than one innocent person suffer;' and were
answered by Dr. Johnson with great power of reasoning and eloquence. I
am very sorry that I have no record of that day[785]: but I well
recollect my illustrious friend's having ably shewn, that unless civil
institutions insure protection to the innocent, all the confidence which
mankind should have in them would be lost.
I shall here mention what, in strict chronological arrangement, should
have appeared in my account of last year; but may more properly be
introduced here, the controversy having not been closed till this. The
Reverend Mr. Shaw[786], a native of one of the Hebrides, having
entertained doubts of the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian,
divested himself of national bigotry; and having travelled in the
Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and also in Ireland, in order to
furnish himself with materials for a _Gaelick Dictionary_, which he
afterwards compiled[787], was so fully satisfied that Dr. Johnson was in
the right upon the question, that he candidly published a pamphlet,
stating his conviction and the proofs and reasons on which it was
founded. A person at Edinburgh, of the name of Clark, answered this
pamphlet with much zeal, and much abuse of its authour. Johnson took Mr.
Shaw under his protection, and gave him his assistance in writing a
reply, which has been admired by the best judges, and by many been
considered as conclusive. A few paragraphs, which sufficiently mark
their great Authour, shall be selected:--
'My assertions are, for the most part, purely negative: I deny the
existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious peregrination through
the Gaelick regions I have never been able to find it. What I could not
see myself I suspect to be equally invisible to others; and I suspect
with the more reason, as among all those who have seen it no man
can shew it.
'Mr. Clark compares the obstinacy of those who disbelieve the
genuineness of Ossian to a blind man, who should dispute the reality of
colours, and deny that the British troops are cloathed in red. The blind
man's doubt would be rational, if he did not know by experience that
others have a power which he himself wants: but what perspicacity has
Mr. Clark which Nature has withheld from me or the rest of mankind?
'The true state of the parallel must be this. Suppose a man, with eyes
like his neighbours, was told by a boasting corporal, that the troops,
indeed, wore red clothes for their ordinary dress, but that every
soldier had likewise a suit of black velvet, which he put on when the
King reviews them. This he thinks strange, and desires to see the fine
clothes, but finds nobody in forty thousand men that can produce either
coat or waistcoat. One, indeed, has left them in his chest at Port
Mahon; another has always heard that he ought to have velvet clothes
somewhere; and a third has heard somebody say, that soldiers ought to
wear velvet. Can the enquirer be blamed if he goes away believing that a
soldier's red coat is all that he has?
'But the most obdurate incredulity may be shamed or silenced by acts. To
overpower contradictions, let the soldier shew his velvet-coat, and the
Fingalist the original of Ossian[788].
'The difference between us and the blind man is this:--the blind man is
unconvinced, because he cannot see; and we, because though we can see,
we find that nothing can be shown.'
Notwithstanding the complication of disorders under which Johnson now
laboured, he did not resign himself to despondency and discontent, but
with wisdom and spirit endeavoured to console and amuse his mind with as
many innocent enjoyments as he could procure. Sir John Hawkins has
mentioned the cordiality with which he insisted that such of the members
of the old club in Ivy-lane[789] as survived, should meet again and dine
together, which they did, twice at a tavern and once at his house[790]:
and in order to insure himself society in the evening for three days in
the week[791], he instituted a club at the Essex Head, in Essex-street,
then kept by Samuel Greaves, an old servant of Mr. Thrale's.
'To SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.
'DEAR SIR,
'It is inconvenient to me to come out, I should else have waited on you
with an account of a little evening Club which we are establishing in
Essex-street, in the Strand, and of which you are desired to be one. It
will be held at the Essex Head, now kept by an old servant of Thrale's.
The company is numerous, and, as you will see by the list,
miscellaneous. The terms are lax, and the expences light. Mr. Barry was
adopted by Dr. Brocklesby, who joined with me in forming the plan. We
meet thrice a week, and he who misses forfeits two-pence[792].
'If you are willing to become a member, draw a line under your name.
Return the list. We meet for the first time on Monday at eight.'
'I am, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Dec. 4, 1783.'
It did not suit Sir Joshua to be one of this Club. But when I mention
only Mr. Daines Barrington, Dr. Brocklesby, Mr. Murphy, Mr. John
Nichols, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Joddrel, Mr. Paradise, Dr. Horsley, Mr.
Windham[793], I shall sufficiently obviate the misrepresentation of it
by Sir John Hawkins, as if it had been a low ale-house association, by
which Johnson was degraded[794]. Johnson himself, like his namesake Old
Ben[795], composed the Rules of his Club[796].
In the end of this year he was seized with a spasmodick asthma of such
violence, that he was confined to the house in great pain, being
sometimes obliged to sit all night in his chair, a recumbent posture
being so hurtful to his respiration, that he could not endure lying in
bed; and there came upon him at the same time that oppressive and fatal
disease, a dropsy. It was a very severe winter, which probably
aggravated his complaints; and the solitude in which Mr. Levett and Mrs.
Williams had left him, rendered his life very gloomy. Mrs.
Desmoulins[797], who still lived, was herself so very ill, that she
could contribute very little to his relief[798]. He, however, had none
of that unsocial shyness which we commonly see in people afflicted with
sickness. He did not hide his head from the world, in solitary
abstraction; he did not deny himself to the visits of his friends and
acquaintances; but at all times, when he was not overcome by sleep, was
ready for conversation as in his best days[799].
'To MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.
'DEAR MADAM,
'You may perhaps think me negligent that I have not written to you
again[800] upon the loss of your brother; but condolences and
consolations are such common and such useless things, that the omission
of them is no great crime: and my own diseases occupy my mind, and
engage my care. My nights are miserably restless, and my days,
therefore, are heavy. I try, however, to hold up my head as high as
I can[801].
'I am sorry that your health is impaired; perhaps the spring and the
summer may, in some degree, restore it: but if not, we must submit to
the inconveniences of time, as to the other dispensations of Eternal
Goodness. Pray for me, and write to me, or let Mr. Pearson write
for you.
'I am, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'London, Nov. 29, 1783.'
1784: Aetat. 75.--And now I am arrived at the last year of the life of
SAMUEL JOHNSON, a year in which, although passed in severe
indisposition, he nevertheless gave many evidences of the continuance of
those wondrous powers of mind, which raised him so high in the
intellectual world. His conversation and his letters of this year were
in no respect inferiour to those of former years.
The following is a remarkable proof of his being alive to the most
minute curiosities of literature.
'To MR. DILLY, BOOKSELLER, IN THE POULTRY.
'SIR,
'There is in the world a set of books which used to be sold by the
booksellers on the bridge[802], and which I must entreat you to procure
me. They are called _Burton's Books_[803]; the title of one is
_Admirable Curiosities, Rarities, and Wonders in England_. I believe
there are about five or six of them; they seem very proper to allure
backward readers; be so kind as to get them for me, and send me them
with the best printed edition of _Baxter's Call to the Unconverted_.
'I am, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Jan. 6, 1784.'
'To MR. PERKINS.
'DEAR SIR,
'I was very sorry not to see you when you were so kind as to call on me;
but to disappoint friends, and if they are not very good natured, to
disoblige them, is one of the evils of sickness. If you will please to
let me know which of the afternoons in this week I shall be favoured
with another visit by you and Mrs. Perkins, and the young people, I will
take all the measures that I can to be pretty well at that time[804].
'I am, dear Sir,
'Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Jan. 21, 1784.'
His attention to the Essex-Head Club appears from the following letter
to Mr. Alderman Clark, a gentleman for whom he deservedly entertained a
great regard.
'To RICHARD CLARK, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,
'You will receive a requisition, according to the rules of the Club, to
be at the house as President of the night. This turn comes once a month,
and the member is obliged to attend, or send another in his place. You
were enrolled in the Club by my invitation, and I ought to introduce
you; but as I am hindered by sickness, Mr. Hoole will very properly
supply my place as introductor, or yours as President. I hope in milder
weather to be a very constant attendant.
'I am, Sir, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Jan. 27, 1784.'
'You ought to be informed that the forfeits began with the year, and
that every night of non-attendance incurs the mulct of three-pence, that
is, nine pence a week.'
On the 8th of January I wrote to him, anxiously inquiring as to his
health, and enclosing my _Letter to the People of Scotland, on the
present state of the nation_[805].
'I trust, (said I,) that you will be liberal enough to make allowance
for my differing from you on two points, (the Middlesex Election, and
the American War[806]) when my general principles of government are
according to your own heart, and when, at a crisis of doubtful event, I
stand forth with honest zeal as an ancient and faithful Briton. My
reason for introducing those two points was, that as my opinions with
regard to them had been declared at the periods when they were least
favourable, I might have the credit of a man who is not a worshipper of
ministerial power.'
'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,
'I hear of many enquiries which your kindness has disposed you to make
after me[807]. I have long intended you a long letter, which perhaps the
imagination of its length hindered me from beginning. I will, therefore,
content myself with a shorter.
'Having promoted the institution of a new Club in the neighbourhood, at
the house of an old servant of Thrale's, I went thither to meet the
company, and was seized with a spasmodick asthma so violent, that with
difficulty I got to my own house, in which I have been confined eight or
nine weeks, and from which I know not when I shall be able to go even to
church. The asthma, however, is not the worst. A dropsy gains ground
upon me; my legs and thighs are very much swollen with water, which I
should be content if I could keep there, but I am afraid that it will
soon be higher. My nights are very sleepless and very tedious. And yet I
am extremely afraid of dying.
'My physicians try to make me hope, that much of my malady is the effect
of cold, and that some degree at least of recovery is to be expected
from vernal breezes and summer suns[808]. If my life is prolonged to
autumn, I should be glad to try a warmer climate; though how to travel
with a diseased body, without a companion to conduct me, and with very
little money, I do not well see. Ramsay has recovered his limbs in
Italy[809]; and Fielding was sent to Lisbon, where, indeed, he died; but
he was, I believe, past hope when he went. Think for me what I can do.
'I received your pamphlet, and when I write again may perhaps tell you
some opinion about it; but you will forgive a man struggling with
disease his neglect of disputes, politicks, and pamphlets[810]. Let me
have your prayers. My compliments to your lady, and young ones. Ask
your physicians about my case: and desire Sir Alexander Dick[811] to
write me his opinion.
'I am, dear Sir, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Feb. 11, 1784.'
'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.
'MY DEAREST LOVE,
'I have been extremely ill of an asthma and dropsy, but received, by the
mercy of GOD, sudden and unexpected relief last Thursday, by the
discharge of twenty pints of water[812]. Whether I shall continue free,
or shall fill again, cannot be told. Pray for me.
'Death, my dear, is very dreadful; let us think nothing worth our care
but how to prepare for it: what we know amiss in ourselves let us make
haste to amend, and put our trust in the mercy of GOD, and the
intercession of our Saviour. I am, dear Madam,
'Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Feb. 23, 1784.'
TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,
'I have just advanced so far towards recovery as to read a pamphlet; and
