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

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[133] 'No accidental position of a riband,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, 'escaped
him, so nice was his observation, and so rigorous his demands of
propriety.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 287. Miss Burney says:--
'Notwithstanding Johnson is sometimes so absent and always so
near-sighted, he scrutinizes into every part of almost everybody's
appearance [at Streatham].' And again she writes:--'his blindness is as
much the effect of absence [of mind] as of infirmity, for he sees
wonderfully at times. He can see the colour of a lady's top-knot, for he
very often finds fault with it.' Mme. D'Arblays _Diary_, i. 85, ii. 174.
'He could, when well, distinguish the hour on Lichfield town-clock.'
_Post_, p. 64.

[134] See _post_, Sept. 22, 1777.

[135] This was Dr. Swinfen's opinion, who seems also to have attributed
Johnson's short-sightedness to the same cause. 'My mother,' he says,
'thought my diseases derived from her family.' _Annals_, p. 12. When he
was put out at nurse, 'She visited me,' he says, 'every day, and used to
go different ways, that her assiduity might not expose her to ridicule.'

[136] In 1738 Carte published a masterly 'Account of Materials, etc.,
for a History of England with the method of his undertaking.' (_Gent.
Mag_. viii. 227.) He proposed to do much of what has been since done
under the direction of the Master of the Rolls. He asked for
subscriptions to carry on his great undertaking, for in its researches
it was to be very great. In 1744 the City of London resolved to
subscribe L50 for seven years (ib. xiv: 393). In vol. i. of his history,
which only came down to the reign of John (published in 1748), he went
out of his way to assert that the cure by the king's touch was not due
to the 'regal _unction_'; for he had known a man cured who had gone over
to France, and had been there 'touched by the eldest lineal descendant
of a race of kings who had not at that time been crowned or _anointed_.'
(ib. xviii. 13.) Thereupon the Court of Common Council by a unanimous
vote withdrew its subscription, (ib. 185.) The old Jacobites maintained
that the power did not descend to Mary, William, or Anne. It was for
this reason that Boswell said that Johnson should have been taken to
Rome; though indeed it was not till some years after he was 'touched' by
Queen Anne that the Pretender dwelt there. The Hanoverian kings never
'touched.' The service for the ceremony was printed in the _Book of
Common Prayer_ as late as 1719. (_Penny Cyclo_. xxi. 113.) 'It appears
by the newspapers of the time,' says Mr. Wright, quoted by Croker, 'that
on March 30, 1712, two hundred persons were touched by Queen Anne.'
Macaulay says that 'Charles the Second, in the course of his reign,
touched near a hundred thousand persons.... The expense of the ceremony
was little less than ten thousand pounds a year.' Macaulay's
_England_, ch. xiv.

[137] See _post_, p. 91, note.

[138] _Anecdotes_, p. 10. BOSWELL.

[139] Johnson, writing of Addison's schoolmasters, says:--'Not to name
the school or the masters of men illustrious for literature is a kind of
historical fraud, by which honest fame is injuriously diminished. I
would therefore trace him through the whole process of his education.'
Johnson's _Works_, vii. 418.

[140] Neither the British Museum nor the Bodleian Library has a copy.

[141] 'When we learned _Propria qua maribus_, we were examined in the
Accidence; particularly we formed verbs, that is, went through the same
person in all the moods and tenses. This was very difficult to me, and I
was once very anxious about the next day, when this exercise was to be
performed in which I had failed till I was discouraged. My mother
encouraged me, and I proceeded better. When I told her of my good
escape, "We often," said she, dear mother! "come off best when we are
most afraid." She told me that, once when she asked me about forming
verbs I said, "I did not form them in an ugly shape." "You could not,"
said she "speak plain; and I was proud that I had a boy who was forming
verbs" These little memorials soothe my mind.' _Annals_, p. 22.

[142] 'This was the course of the school which I remember with pleasure;
for I was indulged and caressed by my master; and, I think, really
excelled the rest.' _Annals_, p. 23.

[143] Johnson said of Hunter:--'Abating his brutality, he was a very
good master;' _post_. March 21, 1772. Steele in the _Spectator_, No.
157, two years after Johnson's birth, describes these savage tyrants of
the grammar-schools. 'The boasted liberty we talk of,' he writes, 'is
but a mean reward for the long servitude, the many heartaches and
terrors to which our childhood is exposed in going through a grammar
school.... No one who has gone through what they call a great school but
must remember to have seen children of excellent and ingenuous natures
(as has afterwards appeared in their manhood); I say no man has passed
through this way of education but must have seen an ingenuous creature
expiring with shame, with pale looks, beseeching sorrow and silent
tears, throw up its honest eyes and kneel or its tender kneeds to an
inexorable blockhead to be forgiven the false quantity of a word in
making a Latin verse.' Likely enough Johnson's roughness was in part due
to this brutal treatment; for Steele goes on to say:--'It is wholly to
this dreadful practise that we may attribute a certain hardiness and
ferocity which some men, though liberally educated, carry about them in
all their behaviour. To be bred like a gentleman, and punished like a
malefactor, must, as we see it does, produce that illiberal sauciness
which we see sometimes in men of letters.'

[144] Johnson described him as 'a peevish and ill-tempered man,' and not
so good a scholar or teacher as Taylor made out. Once the boys perceived
that he did not understand a part of the Latin lesson; another time,
when sent up to the upper-master to be punished, they had to complain
that when they 'could not get the passage,' the assistant would not help
them. _Annals_, pp. 26, 32.

[145] One of the contributors to the _Athenian Letters_. See _Gent.
Mag_. liv. 276.

[146] Johnson, _post_, March 22, 1776, describes him as one 'who does
not get drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.'

[147] A tradition had reached Johnson through his school-fellow Andrew
Corbet that Addison had been at the school and had been the leader in a
barring out. (Johnson's _Works_, vii. 419.) Garrick entered the school
about two years after Johnson left. According to Garrick's biographer,
Tom Davies (p. 3), 'Hunter was an odd mixture of the pedant and the
sportsman. Happy was the boy who could slily inform his offended master
where a covey of partridges was to be found; this notice was a certain
pledge of his pardon.' Lord Campbell in his _Lives of the Chief
Justices_, ii. 279, says:--'Hunter is celebrated for having flogged
seven boys who afterwards sat as judges in the superior courts at
Westminster at the same time. Among these were Chief Justice Wilmot,
Lord Chancellor Northington, Sir T. Clarke, Master of the Rolls, Chief
Justice Willes, and Chief Baron Parker. It is remarkable that, although
Johnson and Wilmot were several years class-fellows at Lichfield, there
never seems to have been the slightest intercourse between them in after
life; but the Chief Justice used frequently to mention the Lexicographer
as "a long, lank, lounging boy, whom he distinctly remembered to have
been punished by Hunter for idleness." Lord Campbell blunders here.
Northington and Clarke were from Westminster School (Campbell's
_Chancellors_, v. 176). The schoolhouse, famous though it was, was
allowed to fall into decay. A writer in the _Gent. Mag_. in 1794 (p.
413) says that 'it is now in a state of dilapidation, and unfit for the
use of either the master or boys.'

[148] Johnson's observation to Dr. Rose, on this subject, deserves to be
recorded. Rose was praising the mild treatment of children at school, at
a time when flogging began to be less practised than formerly: 'But
then, (said Johnson,) they get nothing else: and what they gain at one
end, they lose at the other.' BURNEY. See _post_, under Dec. 17, 1775.

[149] This passage is quoted from Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.
Mr. Boyd had told Johnson that Lady Errol did not use force or fear in
educating her children; whereupon he replied, 'Sir, she is wrong,' and
continued in the words of the text.

Gibbon in his _Autobiography_ says:--'The domestic discipline of our
ancestors has been relaxed by the philosophy and softness of the age:
and if my father remembered that he had trembled before a stern parent,
it was only to adopt with his son an opposite mode of behaviour.'
Gibbon's _Works_, i. 112. Lord Chesterfield writing to a friend on Oct.
18, 1752, says:--'Pray let my godson never know what a blow or a
whipping is, unless for those things for which, were he a man, he would
deserve them; such as lying, cheating, making mischief, and meditated
malice.' Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 130.

[150] Johnson, however, hated anything that came near to tyranny in the
management of children. Writing to Mrs. Thrale, who had told him that
she had on one occasion gone against the wish of her nurses, he
said:--'That the nurses fretted will supply me during life with an
additional motive to keep every child, as far as is possible, out of a
nurse's power. A nurse made of common mould will have a pride in
overcoming a child's reluctance. There are few minds to which tyranny is
not delightful; power is nothing but as it is felt, and the delight of
superiority is proportionate to the resistance overcome.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 67.

[151] 'Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed.' 2 Henry VI, act iv.
sc. 10. John Wesley's mother, writing of the way she had brought up her
children, boys and girls alike, says:--'When turned a year old (and some
before) they were taught to fear the rod, and to cry softly; by which
means they escaped abundance of correction they might otherwise have
had.' Wesley's _Journal_, i. 370.

[152] 'There dwelt at Lichfield a gentleman of the name of Butt, to
whose house on holidays he was ever welcome. The children in the family,
perhaps offended with the rudeness of his behaviour, would frequently
call him the great boy, which the father once overhearing said:--'You
call him the great boy, but take my word for it, he will one day prove a
great man.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 6.

[153] See _post_, March 22, 1776 and Johnson's visit to Birmingham in
Nov. 1784.

[154] 'You should never suffer your son to be idle one minute. I do not
call play, of which he ought to have a good share, idleness; but I mean
sitting still in a chair in total inaction; it makes boys lazy and
indolent.' Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 248.

[155] The author of the _Reliques_.

[156] The summer of 1764.

[157] Johnson, writing of _Paradise Lost_, book ii. l. 879, says:--'In
the history of _Don Bellianis_, when one of the knights approaches, as I
remember, the castle of Brandezar, the gates are said to open, _grating
harsh thunder upon their brazen hinges_.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 76. See
_post_, March 27, 1776, where 'he had with him upon a jaunt Il Palmerino
d'Inghilterra.' Prior says of Burke that 'a very favourite study, as he
once confessed in the House of Commons, was the old romances, _Palmerin
of England_ and _Don Belianis of Greece_, upon which he had wasted much
valuable time.' Prior's _Burke_, p. 9.

[158] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 2) says that the uncle was Dr. Joseph Ford 'a
physician of great eminence.' The son, Parson Ford, was Cornelius. In
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15, 1773, Johnson mentions an uncle who very
likely was Dr. Ford. In _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. v. 13, it is shown
that by the will of the widow of Dr. Ford the Johnsons received L200 in
1722. On the same page the Ford pedigree is given, where it is seen that
Johnson had an uncle Cornelius. It has been stated that 'Johnson was
brought up by his uncle till his fifteenth year.' I understand Boswell
to say that Johnson, after leaving Lichfield School, resided for some
time with his uncle before going to Stourbridge.

[159] He is said to be the original of the parson in Hogarth's _Modern
Midnight Conversation_. BOSWELL.

In the _Life of Fenton_ Johnson describes Ford as 'a clergyman at that
time too well known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing convivial
merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to
excel among the virtuous and the wisc.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 57.
Writing to Mrs. Thrale on July 8, 1771, he says, 'I would have been glad
to go to Hagley [close to Stourbridge] for I should have had the
opportunity of recollecting past times, and wandering _per montes notos
et flumina nota_, of recalling the images of sixteen, and reviewing my
conversations with poor Ford.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 42. See also _post_,
May 12, 1778.

[160] See _post_, April 20, 1781.

[161] As was likewise the Bishop of Dromore many years afterwards.
BOSWELL.

[162] Mr. Hector informs me, that this was made almost _impromptu_, in
his presence. BOSWELL.

[163] This he inserted, with many alterations, in the _Gentleman's
Magazine_, 1743 [p. 378]. BOSWELL. The alterations are not always for
the better. Thus he alters

'And the long honours of a lasting name'

into

'And fir'd with pleasing hope of endless fame.'

[164] Settle was the last of the city-poets; _post_, May 15, 1776.

[165] 'Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great.' Dunciad, i. 141.

[166] Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act _The
Distressed Mother_, Johnson wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to
convey it privately to them. BOSWELL. See _post_, 1747, for _The
Distressed Mother_.

[167] Yet he said to Boswell:--'Sir, in my early years I read very hard.
It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at
eighteen as I do now' (_post_, July 21, 1763). He told Mr. Langton, that
'his great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of
eighteen' (Ib. note). He told the King that his reading had later on
been hindered by ill-health (_post_, Feb. 1767).

[168] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 9) says that his father took him home,
probably with a view to bring him up to his own trade; for I have heard
Johnson say that he himself was able to bind a book. 'It were better
bind books again,' wrote Mrs. Thrale to him on Sept. 18, 1777, 'as you
did one year in our thatched summer-house.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 375. It
was most likely at this time that he refused to attend his father to
Uttoxeter market, for which fault he made atonement in his old age
(_post_, November, 1784).

[169] Perhaps Johnson had his own early reading in mind when he thus
describes Pope's reading at about the same age. 'During this period of
his life he was indefatigably diligent and insatiably curious; wanting
health for violent, and money for expensive pleasures, and having
excited in himself very strong desires of intellectual eminence, he
spent much of his time over his books; but he read only to store his
mind with facts and images, seizing all that his authors presented with
undistinguishing voracity, and with an appetite for knowledge too eager
to be nice.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 239.

[170] Andrew Corbet, according to Hawkins. Corbet had entered Pembroke
College in 1727. Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's god-father, was a member of the
College. I find the name of a Swinfen on the books in 1728.

[171] In the Caution Book of Pembroke College are found the two
following entries:--

'Oct. 31, 1728. Recd. then of Mr. Samuel Johnson Commr. of Pem. Coll. ye
summ of seven Pounds for his Caution, which is to remain in ye Hands of
ye Bursars till ye said Mr. Johnson shall depart ye said College leaving
ye same fully discharg'd.

Recd. by me, John Ratcliff, Bursar.'

'March 26, 1740. At a convention of the Master and Fellows to settle the
accounts of the Caution it appear'd that the Persons Accounts
underwritten stood thus at their leaving the College:

Caution not Repay'd
Mr. Johnson L7 0 0
Battells not discharg'd
Mr. Johnson L7 0 0

Mr. Carlyle is in error in describing Johnson as a servitor. He was a
commoner as the above entry shows. Though he entered on Oct. 31, he did
not matriculate till Dec. 16. It was on Palm Sunday of this same year
that Rousseau left Geneva, and so entered upon his eventful career.
Goldsmith was born eleven days after Johnson entered (Nov. 10, 1728).
Reynolds was five years old. Burke was born before Johnson left Oxford.

[172] He was in his twentieth year. He was born on Sept. 18, 1709, and
was therefore nineteen. He was somewhat late in entering. In his _Life
of Ascham_ he says, 'Ascham took his bachelor's degree in 1534, in the
eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common
now to enter the universities than to take degrees.' Johnson's _Works_,
vi. 505. It was just after Johnson's entrance that the two Wesleys began
to hold small devotional meetings at Oxford.

[173] Builders were at work in the college during all his residence.
'July 16, 1728. About a quarter of a year since they began to build a
new chapel for Pembroke Coll. next to Slaughter Lane.' Hearne's
_Remains_, iii. 9.

[174] _Athen. Oxon_. edit. 1721, i. 627. BOSWELL.

[175] Johnson would oftener risk the payment of a small fine than attend
his lectures.... Upon occasion of one such imposition he said to
Jorden:--"Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non-attendance
at a lecture not worth a penny." Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 9. A passage in
Whitefield's _Diary_ shows that the sconce was often greater. He once
neglected to give in the weekly theme which every Saturday had to be
given to the tutor in the Hall 'when the bell rang.' He was fined
half-a-crown. Tyerman's _Whitefield_, i. 22. In my time (1855-8) at
Pembroke College every Saturday when the bell rang we gave in our piece
of Latin prose--themes were things of the past.

[176] This was on Nov. 6, O.S., or Nov. 17, N.S.--a very early time for
ice to bear. The first mention of frost that I find in the newspapers of
that winter is in the _Weekly Journal_ for Nov. 30, O.S.; where it is
stated that 'the passage by land and water [i.e. the Thames] is now
become very dangerous by the snow, frost, and ice.' The record of
meteorological observations began a few years later.

[177] Oxford, 20th March, 1776. BOSWELL.

[178] Mr. Croker discovers a great difference between this account and
that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton (_post_, under July 16, 1754).
There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, 'to an ear spoiled
by flattery.' A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts refer
to different hours of the same day. Johnson's 'stark insensibility'
belonged to the morning, and his 'beating heart' to the afternoon. He
had been impertinent before dinner, and when he was sent for after
dinner 'he expected a sharp rebuke.'

[179] It ought to be remembered that Dr. Johnson was apt, in his
literary as well as moral exercises, to overcharge his defects. Dr.
Adams informed me, that he attended his tutors lectures, and also the
lectures in the College Hall, very regularly. BOSWELL.

[180] Early in every November was kept 'a great gaudy [feast] in the
college, when the Master dined in publick, and the juniors (by an
ancient custom they were obliged to comply with) went round the fire in
the hall.' Philipps's _Diary, Notes and Queries_, 2nd S., x. 443. We can
picture to ourselves among the juniors in November 1728, Samuel Johnson,
going round the fire with the others. Here he heard day after day the
Latin grace which Camden had composed for the society. 'I believe I can
repeat it,' Johnson said at St. Andrew's, 'which he did.' Boswell's
_Hebrides_, Aug. 19, 1773.

[181] Seven years before Johnson's time, on Nov. 5, 'Mr. Peyne, Bachelor
of Arts, made an oration in the hall suitable to the day.'
Philipps's _Diary_.

[182] Boswell forgot Johnson's criticism on Milton's exercises on this
day. 'Some of the exercises on Gunpowder Treason might have been
spared.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 119.

[183] It has not been preserved. There are in the college library four
of his compositions, two of verse and two of prosc. One of the copies of
verse I give _post_, under July 16, 1754. Both have been often printed.
As his prose compositions have never been published I will give one:--

'Mea nec Falernae
Temperant Vites, neque Formiani Pocula Colles.'

'Quaedam minus attente spectata absurda videntur, quae tamen penitus
perspecta rationi sunt consentanea. Non enim semper facta per se, verum
ratio occasioque faciendi sunt cogitanda. Deteriora ei offerre cui
meliorum ingens copia est, cui non ridiculum videtur? Quis sanus hirtam
agrestemque vestem Lucullo obtulisset, cujus omnia fere Serum opificia,
omnia Parmae vellera, omnes Tyri colores latuerunt? Hoc tamen fecisse
Horatium non puduit, quo nullus urbanior, nullus procerum convictui
magis assuetus. Maecenatem scilicet norat non quaesiturum an meliora
vina domi posset bibere, verum an inter domesticos quenquam propensiori
in se animo posset invenire. Amorem, non lucrum, optavit patronus ille
munifentissimus (_sic_). Pocula licet vino minus puro implerentur, satis
habuit, si hospitis vultus laetitia perfusus sinceram puramque amicitiam
testaretur. Ut ubi poetam carmine celebramus, non fastidit, quod ipse
melius posset scribere, verum poema licet non magni facit (_sic_),
amorem scriptoris libenter amplectitur, sic amici munuscula animum
gratum testantia licet parvi sint, non nisi a superbo et moroso
contemnentur. Deos thuris fumis indigere nemo certe unquam credidit,
quos tamen iis gratos putarunt, quia homines se non beneficiorum
immemores his testimoniis ostenderunt.'

JOHNSON.

[184] 'The accidental perusal of some Latin verses gained Addison the
patronage of Dr. Lancaster, afterwards Provost of Queen's College, by
whose recommendation he was elected into Magdalen College as a Demy' [a
scholar]. Johnson's _Works_, vii. 420. Johnson's verses gained him
nothing but 'estimation.'

[185] He is reported to have said:--'The writer of this poem will leave
it a question for posterity, whether his or mine be the original.'
Hawkins, p. 13.

[186] 'A Miscellany of Poems by several hands. Published by J. Husbands,
A.M., Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxon., Oxford. Printed by Leon.
Lichfield, near the East-Gate, In the year MDCCXXXI.' Among the
subscribers I notice the name of Richard Savage, Esq., for twenty
copies. It is very doubtful whether he paid for one. Pope did not
subscribe. Johnson's poem is thus mentioned in the preface:--'The
translation of Mr. Pope's Messiah was deliver'd to his Tutor as a
College Exercise by Mr. Johnson, a commoner of Pembroke College in
Oxford, and 'tis hoped will be no discredit to the excellent original.'

[187] See _post_, under July 16, 1754.

[188] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 6, 1773.

[189] _Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr.
Johnson,_ by John Courtenay, Esq., M.P. BOSWELL.

[190] Hector, in his account of Johnson's early life, says:--'After a
long absence from Lichfield, when he returned, I was apprehensive of
something wrong in his constitution which might either impair his
intellect or endanger his life; but, thanks to Almighty God, my fears
have proved falsc.' Hawkins, p. 8. The college books show that Johnson
was absent but one week in the Long Vacation of 1729. It is by no means
unlikely that he went to Lichfield in that week to consult Dr. Swinfen
about his health. In that case his first attack, when he tried to
overcome the malady by frequently walking to Birmingham, must have been
at an earlier date. In his time students often passed the vacation at
the University. The following table shows the number of graduates and
undergraduates in residence in Pembroke College at the end of each
fourth week, from June to December 1729:--

Members in residence.
June 20, 1729 . . . 54
July 18, " . . . 34
Aug. 15, " . . . 25
Sept. 12, " . . . 16
Oct. 10, " . . . 30
Nov. 7, " . . . 52
Dec. 5, " . . . 49

At Christmas there were still sixteen men left in the college. That
under a zealous tutor the vacation was by no means a time of idleness is
shown by a passage in Wesley's _Journal_, in which he compares the
Scotch Universities with the English. 'In Scotland,' he writes, 'the
students all come to their several colleges in November, and return home
in May. So they _may_ study five months in the year, and lounge all the
rest! O where was the common sense of those who instituted such
colleges? In the English colleges everyone _may_ reside all the year, as
all my pupils did; and I should have thought myself little better than a
highwayman if I had not lectured them every day in the year but
Sundays.' Wesley's _Journal_, iv. 75. Johnson lived to see Oxford empty
in the Long Vacation. Writing on Aug. 1, 1775, he said:--'The place is
now a sullen solitude.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 294.