_Works_, vii. 441, and Addison's _Works_, ed. 1856, v. 103.
[282] Dr. Beattie was so kindly entertained in England, that he had not
yet returned home. BOSWELL. Beattie was staying in London till his
pension got settled. Early in July he had been told that he was to have
a pension of L200 a year (_ante_, ii. 264, note 2). It was not till Aug.
20 that it was conferred. On July 9, he, in company with Sir Joshua
Reynolds, received the degree of D.C.L. at Oxford. On Aug. 24, he had a
long interview with the King; 'who asked,' Beattie records, 'whether we
had any good preachers at Aberdeen. I said "Yes," and named Campbell and
Gerard, with whose names, however, I did not find that he was
acquainted.' It was this same summer that Reynolds painted him in 'the
allegorical picture representing the triumph of truth over scepticism
and infidelity' (_post_, Oct. 1, note). Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824,
pp. 151-6, 167.
[283] Dr. Johnson's burgess-ticket was in these words:--'Aberdoniae,
vigesimo tertio die mensis Augusti, anno Domini millesimo
septingentesimo septuagesimo tertio, in presentia honorabilium virorum,
Jacobi Jopp, armigeri, praepositi, Adami Duff, Gulielmi Young, Georgii
Marr, et Gulielmi Forbes, Balivorum, Gulielmi Rainie Decani guildae, et
Joannis Nicoll Thesaurarii dicti burgi. 'Quo die vir generosus et
doctrina clarus, Samuel Johnson, LL.D. receptus et admissus fuit in
municipes et fratres guildae: praefati burgi de Aberdeen. In deditissimi
amoris et affectus ac eximiae observantiae tesseram, quibus dicti
Magistratus eum amplectuntur. Extractum per me, ALEX. CARNEGIE.'
BOSWELL. 'I was presented with the freedom of the city, not in a gold
box, but in good Latin. Let me pay Scotland one just praise; there was
no officer gaping for a fee; this could have been said of no city on the
English side of the Tweed.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 117. Baretti, in a MS.
note on this passage, says:--'Throughout England nothing is done for
nothing. Stop a moment to look at the rusticks mowing a field, and they
will presently quit their work to come to you, and ask something to
drink.' Aberdeen conferred its freedom so liberally about this time that
it is surprising that Boswell was passed over. George Colman the
younger, when a youth of eighteen, was sent to King's College. He says
in his worthless _Random Records_, ii. 99:--'I had scarcely been a week
in Old Aberdeen, when the Lord Provost of the New Town invited me to
drink wine with him one evening in the Town Hall; there I found a
numerous company assembled. The object of this meeting was soon declared
to me by the Lord Provost, who drank my health, and presented me with
the freedom of the City.' Two of his English fellow-students, of a
little older standing, had, he said, received the same honour. His
statement seemed to me incredible; but by the politeness of the
Town-clerk, W. Gordon, Esq., I have found out that in the main it is
correct. Colman, with one of the two, was admitted as an Honorary
Burgess on Oct. 8, 1781, being described as _vir generosus_; the other
had been admitted earlier. The population of Aberdeen and its suburbs in
1769 was, according to Pennant, 16,000. Pennant's _Tour_, p. 117.
[284] 'King's College in Aberdeen was an exact model of the University
of Paris. Its founder, Bishop [not Archbishop] Elphinstone, had been a
Professor at Paris and at Orleans.' Burton's _Scotland_, ed. 1873, iii.
404. On p. 20, Dr. Burton describes him as 'the rich accomplished
scholar and French courtier Elphinstone, munificently endowing a
University after the model of the University of Paris.'
[285] Boswell projected the following works:--1. An edition of
_Johnson's Poems. Ante_, i. 16. 2. A work in which the merit of
Addison's poetry shall be maintained, _ib_. p. 225. 3. A _History of
Sweden_, ii. 156. 4. A_ Life of Thomas Ruddiman, ib._ p. 216. 5. An
edition of Walton's_ Lives_ iii. 107. 6. A _History of the Civil War in_
_Great Britain in_ 1745 and 1746, _ib._, p. 162.
7. A _Life of Sir Robert Sibbald, ib._ p. 227. 8 An account of his own
Travels, _ib_. p. 300. 9. A Collection, with notes, of old tenures and
charters of Scotland, _ib_. p. 414, note 3. 10. A _History of James IV._
11. 'A quarto volume to be embellished with fine plates, on the subject
of the controversy (_ante_, ii. 367) occasioned by the _Beggar's
Opera._' Murray's _Johnsoniana_, ed. 1836, p. 502.
Thomas Boswell received from James IV. the estate of Auchinleck. _Ante_,
ii. 413. See _post_, Nov. 4.
[286] Mackintosh says, in his _Life_, i. 9:--'In October, 1780, I was
admitted into the Greek class, then taught by Mr. Leslie, who did not
aspire beyond teaching us the first rudiments of the language; more
would, I believe, have been useless to his scholars.'
[287] 'Boswell was very angry that the Aberdeen professors would not
talk.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 118. Dr. Robertson and Dr. Blair, whom
Boswell, five years earlier, invited to meet Johnson at supper, 'with an
excess of prudence hardly opened their lips' (_ante_, ii. 63). At
Glasgow the professors did not dare to talk much (_post_, Oct. 29). On
another occasion when Johnson came in, the company 'were all as quiet as
a school upon the entrance of the headmaster.' _Ante_, iii. 332.
[288] Dr. Beattie says that this printer was Strahan. He had seen the
letter mentioned by Gerard, and many other letters too from the Bishop
to Strahan. 'They were,' he continues, 'very particularly acquainted.'
He adds that 'Strahan was eminently skilled in composition, and had
corrected (as he told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr. Hume and
Dr. Robertson.' Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824, p. 341.
[289] An instance of this is given in Johnson's _Works_, viii.
288:--'Warburton had in the early part of his life pleased himself with
the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with the enemies of Pope.
A letter was produced, when he had perhaps himself forgotten it, in
which he tells Concanen, "Dryden, I observe, borrows for want of
leisure, and Pope for want of genius; Milton out of pride, and Addison
out of modesty."'
[290] 'Goldsmith asserted that Warburton was a weak writer. "Warburton,"
said Johnson, "may be absurd, but he will never be weak; he flounders
well."' Stockdale's _Memoirs_, ii. 64. See Appendix A.
[291] _The Doctrine of Grace; or the Office and Operations of the Holy
Spirit vindicated from the Insults of Infidelity and the Abuses of
Fanaticism_, 1762.
[292] _A Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, occasioned by his Tract on
the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit_, by John Wesley, 1762.
[293] Malone records:--'I could not find from Mr. Walpole that his
father [Sir Robert] read any other book but Sydenham in his retirement.'
To his admiration of Sydenham his death was attributed; for it led him
to treat himself wrongly when he was suffering from the stone. Prior's
_Malone_, p. 387. Johnson wrote a _Life of Sydenham_. In it he ridicules
the notion that 'a man eminent for integrity _practised Medicine by
chance, and grew wise only by murder_.' _Works_, vi. 409.
[294] All this, as Dr. Johnson suspected at the time, was the immediate
invention of his own lively imagination; for there is not one word of it
in Mr. Locke's complimentary performance. My readers will, I have no
doubt, like to be satisfied, by comparing them; and, at any rate, it may
entertain them to read verses composed by our great metaphysician, when
a Bachelor in Physick.
AUCTORI, IN TRACTATUM EJUS DE FEBRIBUS.
Febriles aestus, victumque ardoribus orbem
Flevit, non tantis par Medicina malis.
Nam post mille artes, medicae tentamina curae,
Ardet adhuc Febris; nec velit arte regi.
Praeda sumus flammis; solum hoc speramus ab igne,
Ut restet paucus, quem capit urna, cinis.
Dum quaerit medicus febris caussamque, modumque,
Flammarum & tenebras, & sine luce faces;
Quas tractat patitur flammas, & febre calescens,
Corruit ipse suis victima rapta focis.
Qui tardos potuit morbos, artusque trementes,
Sistere, febrili se videt igne rapi.
Sic faber exesos fulsit tibicine muros;
Dum trahit antiquas lenta ruina domos.
Sed si flamma vorax miseras incenderit aedes,
Unica flagrantes tunc sepelire salus.
Fit fuga, tectonicas nemo tunc invocat artes;
Cum perit artificis non minus usta domus.
Se tandem _Sydenham_ febrisque Scholaeque furori
Opponens, morbi quaerit, & artis opem.
Non temere incusat tectae putedinis [putredinis] ignes;
Nec fictus, febres qui fovet, humor erit.
Non bilem ille movet, nulla hic pituita; Salutis
Quae spes, si fallax ardeat intus aqua?
Nec doctas magno rixas ostentat hiatu,
Quis ipsis major febribus ardor inest.
Innocuas placide corpus jubet urere flammas,
Et justo rapidos temperat igne focos.
Quid febrim exstinguat, varius quid postulet usus,
Solari aegrotos, qua potes arte, docet,
Hactenus ipsa suum timuit Natura calorem,
Dum saepe incerto, quo calet, igne perit:
Dum reparat tacitos male provida sanguinis ignes,
Praslusit busto, fit calor iste rogus.
Jam secura suas foveant praecordia flammas,
Quem Natura negat, dat Medicina modum.
Nec solum faciles compescit sanguinis aestus,
Dum dubia est inter spemque metumque salus;
Sed fatale malum domuit, quodque astra malignum
Credimus, iratam vel genuisse _Stygem_.
Extorsit _Lachesi_ cultros, Pestique venenum
Abstulit, & tantos non sinit esse metus.
Quis tandem arte nova domitam mitescere Pestem
Credat, & antiquas ponere posse minas?
Post tot mille neces, cumulataque funera busto,
Victa jacet parvo vulnere dira Lues.
Aetheriae quanquam spargunt contagia flammae,
Quicquid inest istis ignibus, ignis erit.
Delapsae coelo flammae licet acrius urant
Has gelida exstingui non nisi morte putas?
Tu meliora paras victrix Medicina; tuusque,
Pestis quae superat cuncta, triumphus eris [erit].
Vive liber, victis febrilibus ignibus; unus
Te simul & mundum qui manet, ignis erit.
J. LOCK, A.M. Ex. Aede Christi, Oxon. BOSWELL.
[295] See _ante_, ii. 126, 298.
[296] 'One of its ornaments [i.e. of
Marischal College] is the picture of
Arthur Johnston, who was principal
of the college, and who holds among
the Latin Poets of Scotland the next
place to the elegant Buchanan.'
Johnson's _Works_, ix. 12. Pope
attacking Benson, who endeavoured
to raise himself to fame by erecting
monuments to Milton, and printing
editions of Johnson's version of
the _Psalms_, introduces the Scotch
Poet in the _Dunciad_:--
On two unequal crutches propped
he came,
Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's
name.'
_Dunciad_, bk. iv. l. III.
Johnson wrote to Boswell for a copy
of Johnston's _Poems_ (_ante_, iii. 104)
and for his likeness (_ante_, March 18,
1784).
[297] 'Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrews, only the
session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April' [five
months, instead of seven]. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 116. In his _Works_ (ix.
14) Johnson by mistake gives eight months to the St. Andrews session. On
p. 5 he gives it rightly as seven.
[298] Beattie, as an Aberdeen professor, was grieved at this saying when
he read the book. 'Why is it recorded?' he asked. 'For no reason that I
can imagine, unless it be in order to return evil for good.' Forbes's
_Beattie_, ed. 1824. p. 337.
[299] See _ante_, ii. 336, and iii. 209.
[300] See _ante_, iii. 65, and _post_, Nov. 2.
[301] See _ante_, i. 411. Johnson, no doubt, was reminded of this story
by his desire to get this book. Later on (_ante_, iii. 104) he asked
Boswell 'to be vigilant and get him Graham's _Telemachus_.'
[302] I am sure I have related this story exactly as Dr. Johnson told it
to me; but a friend who has often heard him tell it, informs me that he
usually introduced a circumstance which ought not to be omitted. 'At
last, Sir, Graham, having now got to about the pitch of looking at one
man, and talking to another, said _Doctor_, &c.' 'What effect (Dr.
Johnson used to add) this had on Goldsmith, who was as irascible as a
hornet, may be easily conceived.' BOSWELL.
[303] Graham was of Eton College.
[304] It was to Johnson that the invitation was due. 'What I was at the
English Church at Aberdeen I happened to be espied by Lady Dr.
Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had
seen to Mr. Boyd, Lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to
Lord Errol's house.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 118. Boswell, perhaps, was not
unwilling that the reader should think that it was to him that the
compliment was paid.
[305] 'In 1745 my friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker, said he would not
fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart.' _Ante_, April 28, 1783.
Smollett (_History of England_, iv. 293) describes how, in 1758, the
conquest of Senegal was due to this 'sensible Quaker,' 'this honest
Quaker,' as he calls him, who not only conceived the project, but 'was
concerned as a principal director and promoter of the expedition. If it
was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be remembered it was
also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first
that ever was carried on according to the pacifick system of the
Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side.' If there
was no bloodshed, it was by good luck, for 'a regular engagement was
warmly maintained on both sides.' It was a Quaker, then, who led the van
in the long line of conquests which have made Chatham's name so famous.
Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 185) says:--'Dr. Johnson told me that Cummyns
(sic) the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly, fell a
sacrifice to the insults of the newspapers; having declared to him on
his death-bed, that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of
the common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into
the slow fever of which he died.' Mr. Seward records (_Anec_. ii.
395):--'Mr. Cummins, the celebrated American Quaker, said of Mr. Pitt
(Lord Chatham):--"The first time I come to Mr. Pitt upon any business I
find him extremely ignorant; the second time I come to him, I find him
completely informed upon it."'
[306] See _ante_, i. 232.
[307] See _ante_, i. 46.
[308] 'From the windows the eye wanders over the sea that separates
Scotland from Norway, and when the winds beat with violence, must enjoy
all the terrifick grandeur of the tempestuous ocean. I would not for any
amusement wish for a storm; but as storms, whether wished or not, will
sometimes happen, I may say, without violation of humanity, that I
should willingly look out upon them from Slanes Castle.' Johnson's
_Works_, ix. 15.
[309] See _ante_, p. 68.
[310] Horace. _Odes_, i. 2.
[311] See _ante_, ii. 428.
[312] Perhaps the poverty of their host led to this talk. Sir Walter
Scott wrote in 1814:--'Imprudence, or ill-fortune as fatal as the sands
of Belhelvie [shifting sands that had swallowed up a whole parish], has
swallowed up the estate of Errol, excepting this dreary mansion-house
and a farm or two adjoining.' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iv. 187.
[313] See _ante_, ii. 421, note 1.
[314] Since the accession of George I. only one parliament had had so
few as five sessions, and it was dissolved before its time by his death.
One had six sessions, six seven sessions, (including the one that was
now sitting,) and one eight. There was therefore so little dread of a
sudden dissolution that for five years of each parliament the members
durst contradict the populace.
[315] To Miss Burney Johnson once said:--'Sir Joshua Reynolds possesses
the largest share of inoffensiveness of any man that I know.' _Memoirs
of Dr. Burney_, i. 343. 'Once at Mr. Thrale's, when Reynolds left the
room, Johnson observed:--"There goes a man not to be spoiled by
prosperity."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 82. Burke wrote of him:--'He
had a strong turn for humour, and well saw the weak sides of things. He
enjoyed every circumstance of his good fortune, and had no affectation
on that subject. And I do not know a fault or weakness of his that he
did not convert into something that bordered on a virtue, instead of
pushing it to the confines of a vice.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 638.
[316] He visited Devonshire in 1762. _Ante_, i. 377.
[317] Horace Walpole, describing the coronation of George III, writes:--
'One there was ... the noblest figure I ever saw, the high-constable of
Scotland, Lord Errol; as one saw him in a space capable of containing
him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like
one of the Giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his
person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that
very Hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock,
condemned to the block.' _Letters_, iii. 438. Sir William Forbes
says:--'He often put me in mind of an ancient Hero, and I remember Dr.
Johnson was positive that he resembled Homer's character of Sarpedon.'
_Life of Beattie_, ed. 1824, Appendix D. Mrs. Piozzi says:--'The Earl
dressed in his robes at the coronation and Mrs. Siddons in the character
of Murphy's Euphrasia were the noblest specimens of the human race I
ever saw.' _Synonymy_, i.43. He sprang from a race of rebels. 'He united
in his person,' says Forbes, 'the four earldoms of Errol, Kilmarnock,
Linlithgow, and Callander.' The last two were attainted in 1715, and
Kilmarnock in 1745. _Life of Beattie_, Appendix D.
[318] Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son [iii. 130], complains
of one who argued in an indiscriminate manner with men of all ranks,
Probably the noble lord had felt with some uneasiness what it was to
encounter stronger abilities than his own. If a peer will engage at
foils with his inferior in station, he must expect that his inferior in
station will avail himself of every advantage; otherwise it is not a
fair trial of strength and skill. The same will hold in a contest of
reason, or of wit.--A certain king entered the lists of genius with
Voltaire. The consequence was, that, though the king had great and
brilliant talents, Voltaire had such a superiority that his majesty
could not bear it; and the poet was dismissed, or escaped, from that
court.--In the reign of James I. of England, Crichton, Lord Sanquhar, a
peer of Scotland, from a vain ambition to excel a fencing-master in his
own art, played at rapier and dagger with him. The fencing-master, whose
fame and bread were at stake, put out one of his lordship's eyes.
Exasperated at this, Lord Sanquhar hired ruffians, and had the
fencing-master assassinated; for which his lordship was capitally tried,
condemned, and hanged. Not being a peer of England, he was tried by the
name of Robert Crichton, Esq.; but he was admitted to be a baron of
three hundred years' standing.--See the _State Trials_; and the _History
of England_ by Hume, who applauds the impartial justice executed upon a
man of high rank. BOSWELL. The 'stronger abilities' that Chesterfield
encountered were Johnson's. Boswell thought wrongly that it was of
Johnson that his Lordship complained in his letters to his son. _Ante_,
i. 267, note 2. 'A certain King' was Frederick the Great. _Ante_, i.
434. The fencing-master was murdered in his own house in London, five
years after Sanquhar (or Sanquire) had lost his eye. Bacon, who was
Solicitor-General, said:--'Certainly the circumstance of time is heavy
unto you; it is now five years since this unfortunate man, Turner, be it
upon accident or despight, gave the provocation which was the seed of
your malice.' _State Trials_, ii. 743, and Hume's _History_, ed.
1802, vi. 61.
[319] _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2.
[320] Perhaps Lord Errol was the Scotch Lord mentioned _ante_, iii. 170,
and the nobleman mentioned _ib_. p. 329.
[321] 'Pitied by gentle minds Kilmarnock died.' _Ante_. i. 180.
[322] Sir Walter Scott describes the talk that he had in 1814 near
Slains Castle with an old fisherman. 'The old man says Slains is now
inhabited by a Mr. Bowles, who comes so far from the southward that
naebody kens whare he comes frae. "Was he frae the Indies?" "Na; he did
not think he came that road. He was far frae the Southland. Naebody ever
heard the name of the place; but he had brought more guid out o'
Peterhead than a' the Lords he had seen in Slains, and he had seen
three."' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iv. 188. The first of the three
was Johnson's host.
[323] See _ante_, ii. 153, and iii. 1, note 2.
[324] Smollett, in _Humphry Clinker_ (Letter of Sept. 6), writing of the
Highlanders and their chiefs, says:--'The original attachment is
founded on something prior to the _feudal system_, about which the
writers of this age have made such a pother, as if it was a new
discovery, like the _Copernican system_ ... For my part I expect to see
the use of trunk-hose and buttered ale ascribed to the influence of the
_feudal system_.' See _ante_, ii. 177.
[325] Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:--'Vous conviendrez
que les nobles sont peu menages par vos auteurs; le sot, le fat, ou le
malhonnete homme mele dans l'intrigue est presque toujours un lord.'
