Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 by Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

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'I beg you, my dear, to write often to me, and tell me how you like my
little book.

'I am, dear love, your affectionate humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'May 10, 1759.'

JOHNSON AT CAMBRIDGE.

(Page 487.)

The following is the full extract of Dr. Sharp's letter giving an
account of Johnson's visit to Cambridge in 1765:--

'Camb. Mar. 1, 1765.

'As to Johnson, you will be surprised to hear that I have had him in the
chair in which I am now writing. He has ascended my aerial citadel. He
came down on a Saturday evening, with a Mr. Beauclerk, who has a friend
at Trinity. Caliban, you may be sure, was not roused from his lair
before next day noon, and his breakfast probably kept him till night. I
saw nothing of him, nor was he heard of by any one, till Monday
afternoon, when I was sent for home to two gentlemen unknown. In
conversation I made a strange _faux pas_ about Burnaby Greene's poem, in
which Johnson is drawn at full length[1474]. He drank his large potations
of tea with me, interrupted by many an indignant contradiction, and many
a noble sentiment. He had on a better wig than usual, but, one whose
curls were not, like Sir Cloudesly's[1475], formed for 'eternal buckle.'
[1476] Our conversation was chiefly on books, you may be sure. He was
much pleased with a small _Milton_ of mine, published in the author's
lifetime, and with the Greek epigram on his own effigy, of its being the
picture, not of him, but of a bad painter[1477]. There are many manuscript
stanzas, for aught I know, in Milton's own handwriting, and several
interlined hints and fragments. We were puzzled about one of the
sonnets, which we thought was not to be found in Newton's edition[1478],
and differed from all the printed ones. But Johnson cried, "No, no!"
repeated the whole sonnet instantly, _memoriter_, and shewed it us in
Newton's book. After which he learnedly harangued on sonnet-writing, and
its different numbers. He tells me he will come hither again quickly,
and is promised "an habitation in Emanuel College[1479]." He went back to
town next morning; but as it began to be known that he was in the
university, several persons got into his company the last evening at
Trinity, where, about twelve, he began to be very great; stripped poor
Mrs. Macaulay to the very skin, then gave her for his toast, and drank
her in two bumpers.' (_Gent. Mag_. for 1785, p. 173.)

* * * * *

APPENDIX D.

JOHNSON'S LETTER TO DR. LELAND.

(Page 489.)

'TO THE REV. DR. LELAND.

'SIR,

'Among the names subscribed to the degree which I have had the honour of
receiving from the university of Dublin, I find none of which I have any
personal knowledge but those of Dr. Andrews and yourself.

'Men can be estimated by those who know them not, only as they are
represented by those who know them; and therefore I flatter myself that
I owe much of the pleasure which this distinction gives me to your
concurrence with Dr. Andrews in recommending me to the learned society.

'Having desired the Provost to return my general thanks to the
University, I beg that you, sir, will accept my particular and immediate
acknowledgements.

'I am, Sir,

'Your most obedient and most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Johnson's-court, Fleet-street,

London, Oct. 17, 1765.'

* * * * *

APPENDIX E.

JOHNSON'S 'ENGAGING IN POLITICKS WITH H----N.

(Page 490.)

In a little volume entitled _Parliamentary Logick_, by the Right Hon.
W.G. Hamilton, published in 1808, twelve years after the author's death,
is included _Considerations on Corn_, by Dr. Johnson (_Works_, v. 321).
It was written, says Hamilton's editor, in November 1766. A dearth had
caused riots. 'Those who want the supports of life,' Johnson wrote,
'will seize them wherever they can be found.' (_Ib_. p. 322.) He
supported in this tract the bounty for exporting corn. If more than a
year after he had engaged in politics with Mr. Hamilton nothing had been
produced but this short tract, the engagement was not of much
importance. But there was, I suspect, much more in it. Indeed, the
editor says (_Preface_, p. ix.) that 'Johnson had entered into some
engagement with Mr. Hamilton, occasionally to furnish him with his
sentiments on the great political topicks that should be considered in
Parliament.' Mr. Croker draws attention to a passage in Johnson's letter
to Miss Porter of Jan. 14, 1766 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 173) in which he
says: 'I cannot well come [to Lichfield] during the session of
parliament.' In the spring of this same year Burke had broken with
Hamilton, in whose service he had been. 'The occasion of our
difference,' he wrote, 'was not any act whatsoever on my part; it was
entirely upon his, by a voluntary but most insolent and intolerable
demand, amounting to no less than a claim of servitude during the whole
course of my life, without leaving to me at any time a power either of
getting forward with honour, or of retiring with tranquillity' (Burke's
_Corres_. i. 77). It seems to me highly probable that Hamilton, in
consequence of his having just lost, as I have shewn, Burke's services,
sought Johnson's aid. He had taken Burke 'as a companion in his
studies.' (_Ib_. p. 48.) 'Six of the best years of my life,' wrote
Burke, 'he took me from every pursuit of literary reputation or of
improvement of my fortune. In that time he made his own fortune (a very
great one).' (_Ib_. p. 67.) Burke had been recommended to Hamilton by
Dr. Warton. On losing him Hamilton, on Feb. 12, 1765, wrote to Warton,
giving a false account of his separation with Burke, and asking him to
recommend some one to fill his place--some one 'who, in addition to a
taste and an understanding of ancient authors, and what generally passes
under the name of scholarship, has likewise a share of modern knowledge,
and has applied himself in some degree to the study of the law.' By way
of payment he offers at once 'an income, which would neither be
insufficient for him as a man of letters, or disreputable to him as a
gentleman,' and hereafter 'a situation'--a post, that is to say, under
government. (Wooll's _Warton_, i. 299.) Warton recommended Chambers.
Chambers does not seem to have accepted the post, for we find him
staying on at Oxford (_post_, ii. 25, 46). Johnson had all the knowledge
that Hamilton required, except that of law. It is this very study that
we find him at this very time entering upon. All this shows that for
some time and to some extent an engagement was formed between him and
Hamilton. Boswell, writing to Malone on Feb. 25, 1791, while _The Life
of Johnson_ was going through the press, says:--

'I shall have more cancels. That _nervous_ mortal W. G. H. is not
satisfied with my report of some particulars _which I wrote down from
his own mouth_, and is so much agitated that Courtenay has persuaded me
to allow a _new edition_ of them by H. himself to be made at H.'s
expense.'

(Croker's _Boswell_, p. 829). This would seem to show that there was
something that Hamilton wished to conceal. Horace Walpole (_Memoirs of
the Reign of George III_, iii. 402) does not give him a character for
truthfulness. He writes on one occasion:--'Hamilton denied it, but his
truth was not renowned.' Miss Burney, who met Hamilton fourteen years
after this, thus describes him:--'This Mr. Hamilton is extremely tall
and handsome; has an air of haughty and fashionable superiority; is
intelligent, dry, sarcastic, and clever. I should have received much
pleasure from his conversational powers, had I not previously been
prejudiced against him, by hearing that he is infinitely artful, double,
and crafty.' (Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 293).

* * * * *

APPENDIX F.

JOHNSON'S FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE THRALES AND HIS SERIOUS ILLNESS.

(_Page_ 490.)

Johnson (_Pr. and Med_. p. 191) writes:--'My first knowledge of Thrale
was in 1765.' In a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he says:--'You were but
five-and-twenty when I knew you first.' (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 284). As
she was born on Jan. 16/27, 1741, this would place their introduction in
1766. In another letter, written on July 8, 1784, he talks of her
'kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.'
(_Ib_. ii. 376). Perhaps, however, he here spoke in round numbers. Mrs.
Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 125) says they first met in 1764. Mr. Thrale, she
writes, sought an excuse for inviting him. 'The celebrity of Mr.
Woodhouse (_post_, ii. 127), a shoemaker, whose verses were at that time
the subject of common discourse, soon afforded a 'pretence.' There is a
notice of Woodhouse in the _Gent. Mag_. for June, 1764 (p. 289).
Johnson, she says, dined with them every Thursday through the winter of
1764-5, and in the autumn of 1765 followed them to Brighton. In the
_Piozzi Letters_ (i. 1) there is a letter of his, dated Aug. 13, 1765,
in which he speaks of his intention to join them there.

'From that time,' she writes, 'his visits grew more frequent till, in
the year 1766, his health, which he had always complained of, grew so
exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of his room in the court he
inhabited for many _weeks_ together, I think _months_. Mr. Thrale's
attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him, that he often
lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which, he said, was
nearly distracted: and though he charged _us_ to make him odd solemn
promises of secrecy on so strange a subject, yet when we waited on him
one morning, and heard him, in the most pathetic terms, beg the prayers
of Dr. Delap [the Rector of Lewes] who had left him as we came in, I
felt excessively affected with grief, and well remember my husband
involuntarily lifted up one hand to shut his mouth, from provocation at
hearing a man so widely proclaim what he could at last persuade no one
to believe; and what, if true, would have been so unfit to reveal. Mr.
Thrale went away soon after, leaving me with him, and bidding me prevail
on him to quit his close habitation in the court, and come with us to
Streatham, where I undertook the care of his health, and had the honour
and happiness of contributing to its restoration.'

It is not possible to reconcile the contradiction in dates between
Johnson and Mrs. Piozzi, nor is it easy to fix the time of this illness.
That before February, 1766, he had had an illness so serious as to lead
him altogether to abstain from wine is beyond a doubt. Boswell, on his
return to England in that month, heard it from his own lips (_post_, ii.
8). That this illness must have attacked him after March 1, 1765, when
he visited Cambridge, is also clear; for at that time he was still
drinking wine (_ante_, Appendix C). That he was unusually depressed in
the spring of this year is shewn by his entry at Easter (_ante_, p.
487). From his visit to Dr. Percy in the summer of 1764 (_ante_, p. 486)
to the autumn of 1765, we have very little information about him. For
more than two years he did not write to Boswell (_post_, ii. 1). Dr.
Adams (_ante_, p. 483) describes the same kind of attack as Mrs. Piozzi.
Its date is not given. Boswell, after quoting an entry made on Johnson's
birthday, Sept. 18, 1764, says 'about this time he was afflicted' with
the illness Dr. Adams describes. From Mrs. Piozzi, from Johnson's
account to Boswell, and from Dr. Adams we learn of a serious illness.
Was there more than one? If there was only one, then Boswell is wrong in
placing it before March 1, 1765, when Johnson was still a wine-drinker,
and Mrs. Piozzi is wrong in placing it after February, 1766, when he had
become an abstainer. Johnson certainly stayed at Streatham from before
Midsummer to October in 1766 (_post_, ii. 25, and _Pr. and Med_. p. 71),
and this fact lends support to Mrs. Piozzi's statement. But, on the
other hand, his meetings with Boswell in February of that year, and his
letters to Langton of March 9 and May 10 (_post_, ii. 16, 17), shew a
not unhappy frame of mind. Boswell, in his _Hebrides_ (Oct. 16, 1773),
speaks of Johnson's illness in 1766. If it was in 1766 that he was ill,
it must have been after May 10 and before Midsummer-day, and this period
is almost too brief for Mrs. Piozzi's account. It is a curious
coincidence that Cowper was introduced to the Unwins in the same year in
which Johnson, according to his own account, had his first knowledge of
the Thrales. (Southey's _Cowper_, i, 171.)

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Post_, iv. 172.

[2] _Post_, iii. 312.

[3] _Post_, i. 324.

[4] _History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, ed. 1807,
vol. i. p. xi.

[5] _Post_, iii. 230.

[6] _Post_, i. 7.

[7] _Post_, ii. 212.

[8] _Post_, i. 7.

[9] _Post_, iv. 444.

[10] _Post_, ii. 100.

[11] _Post_, iv. 429; v. 17.

[12] _Post_, v. 117.

[13] _Post_, i. 472, n. 4; iv. 260, n. 2; v. 405, n. 1, 454, n. 2; vi.
i-xxxvii.

[14] _Post_, i. 60, n. 7.

[15] _Post_, ii. 476.

[16] _Post_, vi. xxxiv.

[17] _Post_, iii. 462.

[18] _Post_, vi. xxii.

[19] _Post_, iv. 8, n. 3.

[20] _Post_, i. 489, 518.

[21] _Post_, iv. 223, n. 3.

[22] _Post_, i. 39, n. 1.

[23] _Post_, iii. 340, n. 2.

[24] _Post_, i. 103, n. 3.

[25] _Post_, i. 501.

[26] _Post_, iii. 443.

[27] _Post_, iii. 314.

[28] _Post_, iii. 449.

[29] _Post_, iii. 478.

[30] _Post_, iii. 459.

[31] _Post_, i. 189. n. 2.

[32] i. 296, n. 3.

[33] _Post_, vi. 289.

[34] _Post_, ii. 350.

[35] _Post_, iii. 137, n. 1; 389.

[36] _Post_, i. 14

[37] _Post_, i. 7-8

[38] _Post_, i. 14-15.

[39] _Post_, iv. 31, n. 3

[40] ii. 173-4.

[41] vol. ii. p. 47.

[42] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 152.

[43] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. v. p. 152.

[44] See _Post_, ii. 35, 424-6, 441.

[45] See _Post_, iv. 422.

[46] _Correspondence of Edmund Burke_, ii. 425.

[47] To this interesting and accurate publication I am indebted for many
valuable notes.

[48] _Post_, iii. 51, n. 3.

[49] Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1825, vol. iv. p. 446.

[50] _Post_, i. 331, _n_. 7.

[51] Johnson said of him:--'Sir Joshua Reynolds is the same all the year
round;' _post_, March 28, 1776. Boswell elsewhere describes him as 'he
who used to be looked upon as perhaps the most happy man in the world.'
_Letters of Boswell_, p. 344.

[52] 'O noctes coenaeque Deum!' 'O joyous nights! delicious feasts! At
which the gods might be my guests. _Francis_. Horace, _Sat_, ii. 6. 65.

[53] Six years before this Dedication Sir Joshua had conferred on him
another favour. 'I have a proposal to make to you,' Boswell had written
to him, 'I am for certain to be called to the English bar next February.
Will you now do my picture? and the price shall be paid out of the first
fees which I receive as a barrister in Westminster Hall. Or if that fund
should fail, it shall be paid at any rate five years hence by myself or
my representatives.' Boswell told him at the same time that the debts
which he had contracted in his father's lifetime would not be cleared
off for some years. The letter was endorsed by Sir Joshua:--'I agree to
the above conditions;' and the portrait was painted. Taylor's
_Reynolds_, ii. 477.

[54] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[55] 'I surely have the art of writing agreeably. The Lord Chancellor
[Thurlow] told me he had read every word of my _Hebridian Journal_;' he
could not help it; adding, 'could you give a rule how to write a book
that a man _must_ read? I believe Longinus could not.' _Letters of
Boswell_, p. 322.

[56] Boswell perhaps quotes from memory the following passage in
Goldsmith's _Life of Nash_:--'The doctor was one day conversing with
Locke and two or three more of his learned and intimate companions, with
that freedom, gaiety, and cheerfulness, which is ever the result of
innocence. In the midst of their mirth and laughter, the doctor, looking
from the window, saw Nash's chariot stop at the door. "Boys, boys,"
cried the philosopher, "let us now be wise, for here is a fool coming."'
Cunningham's Goldsmith's _Works_, iv. 96. Dr. Warton in his criticism on
Pope's line

'Unthought of frailties cheat us
in the wise,'

(_Moral Essays_, i. 69) says:--'For who could imagine that Dr. Clarke
valued himself for his agility, and frequently amused himself in a
private room of his house in leaping over the tables and chairs.'
Warton's _Essay on Pope_, ii. 125. 'It is a good remark of Montaigne's,'
wrote Goldsmith, 'that the wisest men often have friends with whom they
do not care how much they play the fool.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 166.
Mr. Seward says in his _Anecdotes_, ii. 320, that 'in the opinion of Dr.
Johnson' Dr. Clarke was the most complete literary character that
England ever produced.' For Dr. Clarke's sermons see _post_, April
7, 1778.

[57] See _post_, Oct. 16, 1769, note.

[58] How much delighted would Boswell have been, had he been shewn the
following passage, recorded by Miss Burney, in an account she gives of a
conversation with the Queen:--

THE QUEEN:--'Miss Burney, have you heard that Boswell is going to
publish a life of your friend Dr. Johnson?' 'No, ma'am!' 'I tell you as
I heard, I don't know for the truth of it, and I can't tell what he will
do. He is so extraordinary a man that perhaps he will devise something
extraordinary.' _Mme. D'Artlay's Diary_, ii. 400. 'Dr. Johnson's
history,' wrote Horace Walpole, on June 20, 1785, 'though he is going to
have as many lives as a cat, might be reduced to four lines; but I shall
wait to extract the quintessence till Sir John Hawkins, Madame Piozzi,
and Mr. Boswell have produced their quartos.' Horace Walpole's
_Letters_, viii. 557.

[59] The delay was in part due to Boswell's dissipation and
place-hunting, as is shewn by the following passages in his _Letters_ to
Temple:--'Feb. 24, 1788, I have been wretchedly dissipated, so that I
have not written a line for a fortnight.' p. 266. 'Nov. 28, 1789,
Malone's hospitality, and my other invitations, and particularly my
attendance at Lord Lonsdale's, have lost us many evenings.' _Ib_. p.
311. 'June 21, 1790, How unfortunate to be obliged to interrupt my work!
Never was a poor ambitious projector more mortified. I am suffering
without any prospect of reward, and only from my own folly.' _Ib_.
p. 326.

[60] 'You cannot imagine what labour, what perplexity, what vexation I
have endured in arranging a prodigious multiplicity of materials, in
supplying omissions, in searching for papers, buried in different
masses, and all this besides the exertion of composing and polishing;
many a time have I thought of giving it up.' _Letters of Boswell_,
p. 311.

[61] Boswell writing to Temple in 1775, says:--'I try to keep a journal,
and shall shew you that I have done tolerably; but it is hardly credible
what ground I go over, and what a variety of men and manners I
contemplate in a day; and all the time I myself am _pars magna_, for my
exuberant spirits will not let me listen enough.' _Ib_. p. 188. Mr.
Barclay said that 'he had seen Boswell lay down his knife and fork, and
take out his tablets, in order to register a good anecdote.' Croker's
_Boswell_, p. 837. The account given by Paoli to Miss Burney, shows that
very early in life Boswell took out his tablets:--'He came to my
country, and he fetched me some letter of recommending him; but I was of
the belief he might be an impostor, and I supposed in my minde he was an
espy; for I look away from him, and in a moment I look to him again, and
I behold his tablets. Oh! he was to the work of writing down all I say.
Indeed I was angry. But soon I discover he was no impostor and no espy;
and I only find I was myself the monster he had come to discern. Oh! he
is a very good man; I love him indeed; so cheerful, so gay, so pleasant!
but at the first, oh! I was indeed angry.' _Mme. D'Arblay's Diary_, ii.
155. Boswell not only recorded the conversations, he often stimulated
them. On one occasion 'he assumed,' he said, 'an air of ignorance to
incite Dr. Johnson to talk, for which it was often necessary to employ
some address.' See _post_, April 12, 1776. 'Tom Tyers,' said Johnson,
'described me the best. He once said to me, "Sir, you are like a ghost:
you never speak till you are spoken to."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20,
1773. Boswell writing of this Tour said:--'I also may be allowed to
claim some merit in leading the conversation; I do not mean leading, as
in an orchestra, by playing the first fiddle; but leading as one does in
examining a witness--starting topics, and making him pursue them.' _Ib_.
Sept. 28. One day he recorded:--'I did not exert myself to get Dr.
Johnson to talk, that I might not have the labour of writing down his
conversation.' _Ib_. Sept. 7. His industry grew much less towards the
close of Johnson's life. Under May 8, 1781, he records:--'Of his
conversation on that and other occasions during this period, I neglected
to keep any regular record.' On May 15, 1783:--'I have no minute of any
interview with Johnson [from May 1] till May 15. 'May 15, 1784:--'Of
these days and others on which I saw him I have no memorials.'

[62] It is an interesting question how far Boswell derived his love of
truth from himself, and how far from Johnson's training. He was one of
Johnson's _school_. He himself quotes Reynolds's observation, 'that all
who were of his _school_ are distinguished for a love of truth and
accuracy, which they would not have possessed in the same degree if they
had not been acquainted with Johnson' (_post_, under March 30, 1778).
Writing to Temple in 1789, he said:--'Johnson taught me to
cross-question in common life.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 280. His
quotations, nevertheless, are not unfrequently inaccurate. Yet to him
might fairly be applied the words that Gibbon used of Tillemont:--'His
inimitable accuracy almost assumes the character of genius.' Gibbon's
_Misc. Words_, i. 213.

[63] 'The revision of my _Life of Johnson_, by so acute and knowing a
critic as Mr. Malone, is of most essential consequence, especially as he
is _Johnsonianissimum_.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 310. A few weeks
earlier he had written:--'Yesterday afternoon Malone and I made ready
for the press thirty pages of Johnson's _Life_; he is much pleased with
it; but I feel a sad indifference [he had lately lost his wife], and he
says, "I have not the use of my faculties."' _Ib_. p. 308.

[64] Horace, _Odes_, i. 3. 1.

[65] He had published an answer to Hume's _Essay on Miracles_. See
_post_, March 20, 1776.

[66] Macleod asked if it was not wrong in Orrery to expose the defects
of a man [Swift] with whom he lived in intimacy, Johnson, 'Why no, Sir,
after the man is dead; for then it is done historically.' Boswell's
_Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773. See also _post_, Sept 17, 1777.

[67] See Mr. Malone's Preface to his edition of Shakspeare. BOSWELL.

[68] 'April 6, 1791.

'My _Life of Johnson_ is at last drawing to a closc.... I really hope to
publish it on the 25th current.... I am at present in such bad spirits
that I have every fear concerning it--that I may get no profit, nay, may
lose--that the Public may be disappointed, and think that I have done it
poorly--that I may make many enemies, and even have quarrels. Yet
perhaps the very reverse of all this may happen.' _Letters of
Boswell_, p. 335.

'August 22, 1791.

'My _magnum opus_ sells wonderfully; twelve hundred are now gone, and we
hope the whole seventeen hundred may be gone before Christmas.' _Ib_.
p. 342.

Malone in his Preface to the fourth edition, dated June 20, 1804, says
that 'near four thousand copies have been dispersed.' The first edition
was in 2 vols., quarto; the second (1793) in 3 vols., octavo; the third
(1799), the fourth (1804), the fifth (1807), and the sixth (1811), were
each in 4 vols., octavo. The last four were edited by Malone, Boswell
having died while he was preparing notes for the third edition.

[69] 'Burke affirmed that Boswell's _Life_ was a greater monument to
Johnson's fame than all his writings put together.' _Life of
Mackintosh_, i. 92.

[70] It is a pamphlet of forty-two pages, under the title of _The
Principal Corrections and Additions to the First Edition of Mr.
Boswell's Life Of Johnson_. Price two shillings and sixpence.

[71] Reynolds died on Feb. 23, 1792.

[72] Sir Joshua in his will left L200 to Mr. Boswell 'to be expended, if
he thought proper, in the purchase of a picture at the sale of his
paintings, to be kept for his sake.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 636.

[73] Of the seventy-five years that Johnson lived, he and Boswell did
not spend two years and two months in the same neighbourhood. Excluding
the time they were together on their tour to the Hebrides, they were
dwelling within reach of each other a few weeks less than two years.
Moreover, when they were apart, there were great gaps in their
correspondence. Between Dec. 8, 1763, and Jan. 14, 1766, and again
between Nov. 10, 1769 and June 20, 1771, during which periods they did
not meet, Boswell did not receive a single letter from Johnson. The
following table shows the times they were in the same neighbourhood.