[1063] Johnson, says Murphy, (_Life_, p. 96) 'felt not only kindness,
but zeal and ardour for his friends.' 'Who,' he asks (_ib_. p. 144),
'was more sincere and steady in his friendships?' 'Numbers,' he says
(_ib_. p. 146), 'still remember with gratitude the friendship which he
shewed to them with unaltered affection for a number of years.'
[1064] See _ante_, ii. 285, and iii. 440.
[1065] Johnson's _Works_, i. 152, 3.
[1066] In vol. ii. of the _Piozzi Letters_ some of these letters are
given.
[1067] He gave Miss Thrale lessons in Latin. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i.
243 and 427.
[1068] _Anec._ p. 258. BOSWELL.
[1069] George James Cholmondeley, Esq., grandson of George, third Earl
of Cholmondeley, and one of the Commissioners of Excise; a gentleman
respected for his abilities, and elegance of manners. BOSWELL. When I
spoke to him a few years before his death upon this point, I found him
very sore at being made the topic of such a debate, and very unwilling
to remember any thing about either the offence or the apology. CROKER.
[1070] _Letters to Mrs. Thrale,_ vol. ii. p. 12. BOSWELL.
[1071] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._p. 258) lays the scene of this anecdote 'in
some distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire, I believe.'
Johnson drove through these counties with the Thrales in 1774 (_ante_,
ii. 285). If the passage in the letter refers to the same anecdote--and
Mrs. Piozzi does not, so far as I know, deny it--more than three years
passed before Johnson was told of his rudeness. Baretti, in a MS. note
on _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 12, says that the story was 'Mr. Cholmondeley's
running away from his creditors.' In this he is certainly wrong; yet if
Mr. Cholmondeley had run away, and others gave the same explanation of
the passage, his soreness is easily accounted for.
[1072] _Anec_. p. 23. BOSWELL.
[1073] _Ib_. p. 302. BOSWELL.
[1074] _Rasselas_, chap, xvii
[1075] _Paradise Lost_, iv. 639.
[1076] _Anec_. p. 63. BOSWELL.
[1077] 'Johnson one day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the
fire-side at Streatham, said, "Presto, you are, if possible, a more lazy
dog that I am."' Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 203.
[1078] Upon mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual
readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following _sentimental
anecdote_. He was invited by a young man of fashion at Paris, to sup
with him and a lady, who had been for some time his mistress, but with
whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt
very much for her, she was in such distress; and that he meant to make
her a present of two hundred louis-d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the
behaviour of Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and assumed
every pathetick air of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons,
which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr.
Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England, _Excessive
sorrow is exceeding dry_, but I never heard _Excessive sorrow is
exceeding hungry_. Perhaps _one_ hundred will do.' The gentleman took
the hint. BOSWELL.
[1079] See _post_, p. 367, for the passage omitted.
[1080] Sir Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the
sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which he
shewed to some of his friends; one of whom, who admired it, being
allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, and found its
way into the newspapers and magazines. It was transcribed with some
inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson's own
hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 574):--'Johnson, upon
being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am
betrayed," but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or
supposed injuries, the error that made the publication possible.'
[1081] Cowper wrote of Thurlow:--'I know well the Chancellor's
benevolence of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world.
When he was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to
himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do them too
in the most secret manner.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 128. Yet Thurlow
did not keep his promise made to Cowper when they were fellow-clerks in
an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall be always nobody,
and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are.' He
smiled, and replied, 'I surely will.' _Ib._ i. 41. When Cowper sent him
the first volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the
poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least notice of my
present.' _Ib._ xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters
to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard
last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15,
1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can
assure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that
although he hates _our_ species in general, yet his particular hatred is
directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the
friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's _Corres._ ii. 488,
and iii. 10.
[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an
aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his
writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities
and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the
winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more
easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained;
and before Christmas the author of the _English Dictionary_ and of the
_Lives of the Poets_ had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke
of Fleet-street.' _Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,_ ed. 1871, p. 413.
Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon,
'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on
the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been
'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88),
shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving
each L1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each,
L500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made
a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that
Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker
quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:--'It was
impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I
presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt
cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this
letter. The Chancellor had written:--'It would have suited the purpose
better, if nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J.
Boswell.' _Boswell_ has been erased--'artfully' too, says--Mr. Croker-so
that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."'
Mr. Croker, with his usual suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.'
But it is very likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration,
regardless of grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have
been better still had Boswell not been in the secret.
[1083] See _ante_, iii. 176.
[1084] On June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (_ante_, p. 293).
The date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is
dated July 12.
[1085] 'Even in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace,
i. _Epistles_, I. 41.
[1086] See vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL.
[1087] Mrs. Johnson died in 1752. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2.
[1088] See Appendix.
[1089] Printed in his _Works_ [i. 150]. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 241,
note 2.
[1090] He wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:--'Be pleased to let the
whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the
papers.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381.
[1091] Boileau, _Art Poetique_, chant iv.
[1092] This is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press.
_Removes_ seems to be the word intended. MALONE.
[1093] See _ante_, i. 332, and _post_ p. 360.
[1094] See _ante_, p. 267.
[1095] I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much
as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's
_Anec_. p. 103.
[1096] At the Essex Head, Essex-street. BOSWELL.
[1097] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 8:--
'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.'
_Vanity of Human Wishes_, l. 15.
[1098] Mr. Allen, the printer. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 141, 269.
[1099] It was on this day that he wrote the prayer given below (p. 370)
in which is found that striking line--'this world where much is to be
done and little to be known.'
[1100] His letter to Dr. Heberden (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 789) shews
that he had gone with Dr. Brocklesby to the last Academy dinner, when,
as he boasted, 'he went up all the stairs to the pictures without
stopping to rest or to breathe.' _Ante_, p. 270, note 2.
[1101]
Quid te exempta _levat_ spinis de pluribus una?
'Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain,
What boots it while so many more remain?'
FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Epistles_, ii. 212.
[1102] See _ante_, iii. 4, note 2.
[1103] Sir Joshua's physician. He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his
verses to the Miss Hornecks. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 149.
[1104] How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by
such entries as the following in Windham's _Diary_:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did
not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more
than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July 20. The
greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in foolish
reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on Sept. 30
(_Letters_, viii. 505):--'I cannot fill my paper, as the newspapers do,
with air-balloons; which though ranked with the invention of navigation,
appear to me as childish as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not
write about the balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (_post_, p. 368),
'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of the
year he had written:--'It is very seriously true that a subscription of
L800 has been raised for the wire and workmanship of iron wings.'
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 345.
[1105] It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should
have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written
_stellas_ instead of _ignes_. BOSWELL.
[1106]
'Micat inter omnes
Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.'
'And like the Moon, the feebler fires among,
Conspicuous shines the Julian star.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i. 12. 46.
[1107] See _ante_, iii. 209.
[1108]
'The little blood that creeps within his veins
Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.'
DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 217.
[1109] Lunardi had made, on Sept. 15, the first balloon ascent in
England. _Gent. Mag_. 1784, p. 711. Johnson wrote to Mr. Ryland on Sept.
18:--'I had this day in three letters three histories of the Flying Man
in the great Balloon.' He adds:--'I live in dismal solitude.' _Notes and
Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381.
[1110] 'Sept. 27, 1784. Went to see Blanchard's balloon. Met Burke and
D. Burke; walked with them to Pantheon to see Lunardi's. Sept. 29. About
nine came to Brookes's, where I heard that the balloon had been burnt
about four o'clock.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 24.
[1111] His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to
Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a
well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in 1791,
there is the following sentence:-'To one that has passed so many years
in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can
give much delight.'
Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in _The
Spectator;_
'Born in New-England, did in London die;'
he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have been
strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.' BOSWELL. Mrs.
Smart was in Dublin when Johnson wrote to her. After the passage quoted
by Boswell he continued:--'I think, Madam, you may look upon your
expedition as a proper preparative to the voyage which we have often
talked of. Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not so bad
as Iceland.' Smart's _Poems_, i. xxi. For Iceland see _ante_, i. 242.
The epitaph, quoted in _The Spectator_, No. 518, begins--
Here Thomas Sapper lies interred. Ah why!
Born in New-England, did in London die.'
[1112] _St. Mark_, v. 34.
[1113] There is no record of this in the _Gent. Mag_. Among the 149
persons who that summer had been sentenced to death (_ante_, p. 328) who
would notice these two?
[1114] See _ante_, p. 356, note 1
[1115] Johnson wrote for him a Dedication of his _Tasso_ in 1763.
_Ante_, i. 383.
[1116] There was no information for which Dr. Johnson was less grateful
that than for that which concerned the weather. It was in allusion to
his impatience with those who were reduced to keep conversation alive by
observations on the weather, that he applied the old proverb to himself.
If any one of his intimate acquaintance told him it was hot or cold, wet
or dry, windy or calm, he would stop them, by saying, 'Poh! poh! you are
telling us that of which none but men in a mine or a dungeon can be
ignorant. Let us bear with patience, or enjoy in quiet, elementary
changes, whether for the better or the worse, as they are never
secrets.' BURNEY. In _The Idler_, No. II, Johnson shews that 'an
Englishman's notice of the weather is the natural consequence of
changeable skies and uncertain seasons... In our island every man goes
to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright
or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or
broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as
at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of
bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped.' See _ante_, i.
332, and iv. 353.
[1117] His _Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of
Handel_. See _ante_, p. 283.
[1118] The celebrated Miss Fanny Burney. BOSWELL.
[1119] Dr. Burney's letter must have been franked; otherwise there would
have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a
separate letter.
[1120] He does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance
were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as members
of either House of Parliament.
[1121] _Consolation_ is clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecture
_mortification_ seems absurd.
[1122] See _ante_, iii. 48, and iv. 177.
[1123] Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the
former of these letters was written. See _ante_, p. 356.
[1124] This may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer,
mentioned _ante_, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, was not
likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous November.
[1125] Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:--
'Seen him I have but in his _happier hour_
Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.'
_Satires. Epilogue_, i. 29.
[1126] Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's
Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country.
He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the
degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and
talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a
very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of
almost all nations. BOSWELL.
[1127] Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL.
[1128] Mr. Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. _Ante_,
p. 239.
[1129]Allan Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784,
in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. See
_ante_, p. 260.
[1130] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most
probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I know,'
he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment would be offered
to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with
regard to soliciting for it; but he was informed that it was a necessary
point of etiquette, with which at last he complied.' His 'furious
purposes' should seem to have been his intention to resign the
Presidency of the Academy, on finding that the place was not at once
given him, and in the knowledge that in the Academy there was a party
against him. Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 448.
[1131] See _ante_, p. 348.
[1132] The Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See
_ante_, p. 350, note.
[1133] The Duke of Devonshire has kindly given me the following
explanation of this term:--'It was formerly the custom at some (I
believe several) of the large country-houses to have dinners at which
any of the neighbouring gentry and clergy might present themselves as
guests without invitation. The custom had been discontinued at
Chatsworth before my recollection, and so far as I am aware is now only
kept-up at Wentworth, Lord Fitzwilliam's house in Yorkshire, where a few
public dinners are still given annually. I believe, however, that all
persons intending to be present on such occasions are now expected to
give notice some days previously. Public dinners were also given
formerly by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and if I am not mistaken also
by the Archbishop of York. I have myself been present at a public dinner
at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and I have
been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since receiving this
explanation I have read the following in the second part of the
_Greville Memoirs_, i. 99:--'June 1, 1838. I dined yesterday at
Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public dinner, the handsomest entertainment
I ever saw. There were nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed
or in uniform. Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole
arrangement.'
[1134] Six weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long
as he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have
something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, and may
make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and
sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some
miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 412.
[1135] See _ante_, p. 349, note.
[1136] 'He alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since
Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced from
