With you I'll live and learn; and then
Instead of books I shall read men,
_So_ lend me your assistance. To
Dear Knight of Plympton[1301], teach me how
unclouded To suffer with _unruffled_ brow,
as And smile serene _like_ thine,
and The jest uncouth _or_ truth severe,
Like thee to turn _To such apply_ my deafest ear, To such
And calmly drink my wine. I'll turn
Thou say'st, not only skill is gain'd,
attained But genius too may be _obtain'd_, attained
invitation By studious _imitation_;
Thy temper mild, thy genius fine,
study I'll _copy_ till I make _them_ mine, thee
meditation By constant _application_.
Thy art of pleasing teach me, Garrick,
reverest (_sic_) Thou who _reversest_ odes Pindarick[1302],
A second time read o'er;
Oh! could we read thee backwards too,
Past _Last_ thirty years thou shouldst review,
And charm us thirty more.
If I have thoughts and can't express 'em,
Gibbon shall teach me how to dress 'em
In terms select and terse;
Jones teach me modesty--and Greek;
Smith how to think; _Burke_ how to speak, Burk
And Beauclerk to converse.
Let Johnson teach me how to place
In fairest light each borrowed grace,
From him I'll learn to write;
free and easy Copy his _clear and easy_ style, clear
And from the roughness of his file, familiar
like Grow _as_ himself--polite.' like
Horace Walpole, on Dec. 27, 1775, speaks of these verses as if they were
fresh. 'They are an answer,' he writes, 'to a gross brutality of Dr.
Johnson, to which a properer answer would have been to fling a glass of
wine in his face. I have no patience with an unfortunate monster
trusting to his helpless deformity for indemnity for any impertinence
that his arrogance suggests, and who thinks that what he has read is an
excuse for everything he says.' Horace Walpole's _Letters,_ vi. 302. It
is strange that Walpole should be so utterly ignorant of Johnson's
courage and bodily strength. The date of Walpole's letter makes me
suspect that Richard Burke dated his Jan. 6, 1775 (he should have
written 1776), and that the blunder of a copyist has changed 1775
into 1773.
APPENDIX B.
(_Page_ 238.)
Had Boswell continued the quotation from Priestley's _Illustrations of
Philosophical Necessity_ he would have shown that though Priestley could
not _hate_ the rioters, he could very easily _prosecute_ them.
He says:--
'If as a Necessarian I cease to _blame_ men for their vices in the
ultimate sense of the word, though, in the common and proper sense of
it, I continue to do as much as other persons (for how necessarily
soever they act, they are influenced by a base and mischievous
disposition of mind, against which I must guard myself and others in
proportion as I love myself and others),' &c. Priestley's
_Works_, iii. 508.
Of his interview with Johnson, Priestley, in his _Appeal to the Public_,
part ii, published in 1792 (_Works_, xix. 502), thus writes, answering
'the impudent falsehood that when I was at Oxford Dr. Johnson left a
company on my being introduced to it':--
'In fact we never were at Oxford at the same time, and the only
interview I ever had with him was at Mr. Paradise's, where we dined
together at his own request. He was particularly civil to me, and
promised to call upon me the next time he should go through Birmingham.
He behaved with the same civility to Dr. Price, when they supped
together at Dr. Adams's at Oxford. Several circumstances show that Dr.
Johnson had not so much of bigotry at the decline of life as had
distinguished him before, on which account it is well known to all our
common acquaintance, that I declined all their pressing solicitations to
be introduced to him.'
Priestley expresses himself ill, but his meaning can be made out. Parr
answered Boswell in the March number of the _Gent. Mag._ for 1795, p.
179. But the evidence that he brings is rendered needless by Priestley's
positive statement. May peace henceforth fall on 'Priestley's injured
name.' (Mrs. Barbauld's _Poems_, ii. 243.)
When Boswell asserts that Johnson 'was particularly resolute in not
giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to
society,' he forgets that that very summer of 1783 he had been willing
to dine at Wilkes's house (_ante_, p. 224, note 2).
Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, ed. 1833, iii. 157) wrote to Dr. Price in
1784:--'It is said that scarce anybody but yourself and Dr. Priestley
possesses the art of knowing how to differ decently.' Gibbon (_Misc.
Works_, i. 304), describing in 1789 the honestest members of the French
Assembly, calls them 'a set of wild visionaries, like our Dr. Price, who
gravely debate, and dream about the establishment of a pure and perfect
democracy of five and twenty millions, the virtues of the golden age,
and the primitive rights and equality of mankind.' Admiration of Price
made Samuel Rogers, when a boy, wish to be a preacher. 'I thought there
was nothing on earth so _grand_ as to figure in a pulpit. Dr. Price
lived much in the society of Lord Lansdowne [Earl of Shelburne] and
other people of rank; and his manners were extremely polished. In the
pulpit he was great indeed.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 3.
The full title of the tract mentioned by Boswell is, _A small
Whole-Length of Dr. Priestley from his Printed Works_. It was published
in 1792, and is a very poor piece of writing.
Johnson had refused to meet the Abbe Raynal, the author of the _Histoire
Philosophique et Politique du Commerce des Deux Indes_, when he was
over in England in 1777. Mrs. Chapone, writing to Mrs. Carter on June 15
of that year, says:--
'I suppose you have heard a great deal of the Abbe Raynal, who is in
London. I fancy you would have served him as Dr. Johnson did, to whom
when Mrs. Vesey introduced him, he turned from him, and said he had read
his book, and would have nothing to say to him.' Mrs. Chapone's
_Posthumous Works_, i. 172.
See Walpole's _Letters_, v. 421, and vi. 444. His book was burnt by the
common hangman in Paris. Carlyle's _French Revolution_, ed. 1857, i. 45.
APPENDIX C.
(_Page 253_.)
Hawkins gives the two following notes:--
'DEAR SIR,
'As Mr. Ryland was talking with me of old friends and past times, we
warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of the club should
meet and dine at the house which once was Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I
have undertaken to solicit you, and therefore desire you to tell on what
day next week you can conveniently meet your old friends.
'I am, Sir,
'Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Bolt-court, Nov. 22, 1783.'
'DEAR SIR,
'In perambulating Ivy-lane, Mr. Ryland found neither our landlord
Horseman, nor his successor. The old house is shut up, and he liked not
the appearance of any near it; he therefore bespoke our dinner at the
Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Church-yard, where, at half an hour after
three, your company will be desired to-day by those who remain of our
former society.
'Your humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Dec. 3.'
Four met--Johnson, Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne (_ante_, i. 243).
'We dined,' Hawkins continues, 'and in the evening regaled with coffee.
At ten we broke up, much to the regret of Johnson, who proposed
staying; but finding us inclined to separate, he left us with a sigh
that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting that he was retiring to
solitude and cheerless meditation.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 562.
Hawkins is mistaken in saying that they had a second meeting at a tavern
at the end of a month; for Johnson, on March 10, 1784, wrote:--
'I have been confined from the fourteenth of December, and know not when
I shall get out.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 351.
He thus describes these meetings:--
'Dec. 13. I dined about a fortnight ago with three old friends; we had
not met together for thirty years, and one of us thought the other grown
very old. In the thirty years two of our set have died; our meeting may
be supposed to be somewhat tender.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 339.
'Jan. 12, 1784. I had the same old friends to dine with me on Wednesday,
and may say that since I lost sight of you I have had one pleasant day.'
Ib. p. 346.
'April 15, 1784. Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving another dinner
to the remainder of the old club. We used to meet weekly, about the year
fifty, and we were as cheerful as in former times; only I could not make
quite so much noise, for since the paralytick affliction my voice is
sometimes weak.' Ib. p. 361.
'April 19, 1784. The people whom I mentioned in my letter are the
remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy-lane about three and
thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer; the
rest are yet on this side the grave. Our meetings now are serious, and I
think on all parts tender.' Ib. 363.
See _ante_, i. 191, note 5.
APPENDIX D.
(_Page 254_.)
It is likely that Sir Joshua Reynolds refused to join the Essex Head
Club because he did not wish to meet Barry. Not long before this time he
had censured Barry's delay in entering upon his duties as Professor
of painting.
'Barry answered:--"If I had no more to do in the composition of my
lectures than to produce such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses, I
should soon have done my work, and be prepared to read." It is said this
speech was delivered with his fist clenched, in a menacing posture.'
(Northcote's _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 146.)
The Hon. Daines Barrington was the author of an _Essay on the Migration
of Birds_ (_ante_, ii. 248) and of _Observations on the Statutes_
(_ante_, iii. 314). Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 24, 1780 (_Letters_,
vii. 464):--
'I am sorry for the Dean of Exeter; if he dies I conclude the leaden
mace of the Antiquarian Society will be given to Judge Barrington.' (He
was 'second Justice of Chester.')
For Dr. Brocklesby see _ante_, pp. 176, 230, 338, 400.
Of Mr. John Nichols, Murphy says that 'his attachment to Dr. Johnson was
unwearied.' _Life of Johnson_, p. 66. He was the printer of _The Lives
of the Poets_ (_ante_, p. 36), and the author of _Biographical and
Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer_, 'the last of the learned
printers,' whose apprentice he had been (_ante_, p. 369). Horace Walpole
(_Letters_, viii. 259) says:--
'I scarce ever saw a book so correct as Mr. Nichols's _Life of Mr.
Bowyer_. I wish it deserved the pains he has bestowed on it every way,
and that he would not dub so many men _great_. I have known several of
his _heroes_, who were very _little_ men.'
The _Life of Bowyer_ being recast and enlarged was republished under the
title of _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_. From 1778 till
his death in 1826 the _Gentleman's Magazine_ was in great measure in his
hands. Southey, writing in 1804, says:--
'I have begun to take in here at Keswick the _Gentleman's Magazine_,
_alias_ the _Oldwomania_, to enlighten a Portuguese student among the
mountains; it does amuse me by its exquisite inanity, and the glorious
and intense stupidity of its correspondents; it is, in truth, a disgrace
to the age and the country.' Southey's _Life and Correspondence_,
ii. 281.
Mr. William Cooke, 'commonly called Conversation Cooke,' wrote _Lives of
Macklin and Foote_. Forster's _Essays_, ii. 312, and _Gent. Mag._ 1824,
p. 374. Mr. Richard Paul Joddrel, or Jodrell, was the author of _The
Persian Heroine, a Tragedy_, which, in Baker's _Biog. Dram._ i. 400, is
wrongly assigned to Sir R.P. Jodrell, M.D. Nichols's _Lit. Anec._ ix. 2.
For Mr. Paradise see _ante_, p. 364, note 2.
Dr. Horsley was the controversialist, later on Bishop of St. David's and
next of Rochester. Gibbon makes splendid mention of him (_Misc. Works_,
i. 232) when he tells how 'Dr. Priestley's Socinian shield has
repeatedly been pierced by the mighty spear of Horsley.' Windham,
however, in his _Diary_ in one place (p. 125) speaks of him as having
his thoughts 'intent wholly on prospects of Church preferment;' and in
another place (p. 275) says that 'he often lays down with great
confidence what turns out afterwards to be wrong.' In the House of
Lords he once said that 'he did not know what the mass of the people in
any country had to do with the laws but to obey them.' _Parl. Hist_.
xxxii. 258. Thurlow rewarded him for his _Letters to Priestley_ by a
stall at Gloucester, 'saying that "those who supported the Church should
be supported by it."' Campbell's _Chancellors_, ed. 1846, v. 635.
For Mr. Windham, see _ante_, p. 200.
Hawkins (_Life of Johnson_, p. 567) thus writes of the formation of the
Club:--
'I was not made privy to this his intention, but all circumstances
considered, it was no matter of surprise to me when I heard that the
great Dr. Johnson had, in the month of December 1783, formed a sixpenny
club at an ale-house in Essex-street, and that though some of the
persons thereof were persons of note, strangers, under restrictions, for
three pence each night might three nights in a week hear him talk and
partake of his conversation.'
Miss Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 103) says:--
'Boswell was well justified in his resentment of my father's designation
of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an ale-house. ... Honestly
speaking, I dare say my father did not like being passed over.'
Sir Joshua Reynolds, writing of the club, says:--
'Any company was better than none; by which Johnson connected himself
with many mean persons whose presence he could command. For this purpose
he established a club at a little ale-house in Essex-street, composed of
a strange mixture of very learned and very ingenious odd people. Of the
former were Dr. Heberden, Mr. Windham, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Steevens, Mr.
Paradise. Those of the latter I do not think proper to enumerate.'
Taylor's _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 455.
It is possible that Reynolds had never seen the Essex Head, and that the
term 'little ale-house' he had borrowed from Hawkins's account. Possibly
too his disgust at Barry here found vent. Murphy (_Life of Johnson_, p.
124) says:--
'The members of the club were respectable for their rank, their talents,
and their literature.'
The 'little ale-house' club saw one of its members, Alderman Clarke
(_ante_, p. 258), Lord Mayor within a year; another, Horsley, a Bishop
within five years; and a third, Windham, Secretary at War within ten
years. Nichols (_Literary Anecdotes_, ii. 553) gives a list of the
'constant members' at the time of Johnson's death.
APPENDIX E.
(Page 399.)
Miss Burney's account of Johnson's last days is interesting, but her
dates are confused more even than is common with her. I have corrected
them as well as I can.
'Dec. 9. He will not, it seems, be talked to--at least very rarely. At
times indeed he re-animates; but it is soon over and he says of
himself:--"I am now like Macbeth--question enrages me."'
'Dec. 10. At night my father brought us the most dismal tidings of dear
Dr. Johnson. He had thanked and taken leave of all his physicians. Alas!
I shall lose him, and he will take no leave of me. My father was deeply
depressed. I hear from everyone he is now perfectly resigned to his
approaching fate, and no longer in terror of death.'
'Dec. 11. My father in the morning saw this first of men. He was up and
very composed. He took his hand very kindly, asked after all his family,
and then in particular how Fanny did. "I hope," he said, "Fanny did not
take it amiss that I did not see her. I was very bad. Tell Fanny to pray
for me." After which, still grasping his hand, he made a prayer for
himself, the most fervent, pious, humble, eloquent, and touching, my
father says, that ever was composed. Oh! would I had heard it! He ended
it with Amen! in which my father joined, and was echoed by all present;
and again, when my father was leaving him, he brightened up, something
of his arch look returned, and he said: "I think I shall throw the ball
at Fanny yet."'
'Dec. 12. [Miss Burney called at Bolt-court.] All the rest went away but
a Mrs. Davis, a good sort of woman, whom this truly charitable soul had
sent for to take a dinner at his house. [See _ante_, p. 239, note 2.]
Mr. Langton then came. He could not look at me, and I turned away from
him. Mrs. Davis asked how the Doctor was. "Going on to death very fast,"
was his mournful answer. "Has he taken," said she, "anything?" "Nothing
at all. We carried him some bread and milk--he refused it, and
said:--'The less the better.'"'
'Dec. 20. This day was the ever-honoured, ever-lamented Dr. Johnson
committed to the earth. Oh, how sad a day to me! My father attended. I
could not keep my eyes dry all day; nor can I now in the recollecting
it; but let me pass over what to mourn is now so vain.' Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, ii. 333-339.
APPENDIX F.
(_Notes on Boswell's note on pages 403-405_.)
[F-1] In a letter quoted in Mr. Croker's Boswell, p. 427, Dr. Johnson
calls Thomas Johnson 'cousin,' and says that in the last sixteen months
he had given him L40. He mentions his death in 1779. _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 45.
[F-2] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 603) says that Elizabeth Herne was Johnson's
first-cousin, and that he had constantly--how long he does not
say--contributed L15 towards her maintenance.
[F-3] For Mauritius Lowe, see _ante_, iii. 324, and iv. 201.
[F-4] To Mr. Windham, two days earlier, he had given a copy of the _New
Testament_, saying:--'Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto.' Windham's
_Diary_, p. 28.
[F-5] For Mrs. Gardiner see _ante_, i. 242.
