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

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Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion
which he has given[85], that every man's life may be best written by
himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that
clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed
so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most
perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited. But although he at
different times, in a desultory manner, committed to writing many
particulars of the progress of his mind and fortunes, he never had
persevering diligence enough to form them into a regular composition[86].
Of these memorials a few have been preserved; but the greater part was
consigned by him to the flames, a few days before his death.

[Page 26: The Author's qualifications.]

As I had the honour and happiness of enjoying his friendship for upwards
of twenty years; as I had the scheme of writing his life constantly in
view; as he was well apprised of this circumstance[87], and from time to
time obligingly satisfied my inquiries, by communicating to me the
incidents of his early years; as I acquired a facility in recollecting,
and was very assiduous in recording, his conversation, of which the
extraordinary vigour and vivacity constituted one of the first features
of his character; and as I have spared no pains in obtaining materials
concerning him, from every quarter where I could discover that they were
to be found, and have been favoured with the most liberal communications
by his friends; I flatter myself that few biographers have entered upon
such a work as this, with more advantages; independent of literary
abilities, in which I am not vain enough to compare myself with some
great names who have gone before me in this kind of writing.

[Page 27: The Life by Sir J. Hawkins.]

Since my work was announced, several Lives and Memoirs of Dr. Johnson
have been published[88], the most voluminous of which is one compiled for
the booksellers of London, by Sir John Hawkins, Knight[89], a man, whom,
during my long intimacy with Dr. Johnson, I never saw in his company, I
think but once, and I am sure not above twice. Johnson might have
esteemed him for his decent, religious demeanour, and his knowledge of
books and literary history; but from the rigid formality of his manners,
it is evident that they never could have lived together with
companionable ease and familiarity[90]; nor had Sir John Hawkins that
nice perception which was necessary to mark the finer and less obvious
parts of Johnson's character. His being appointed one of his executors,
gave him an opportunity of taking possession of such fragments of a
diary and other papers as were left; of which, before delivering them up
to the residuary legatee, whose property they were, he endeavoured to
extract the substance. In this he has not been very successful, as I
have found upon a perusal of those papers, which have been since
transferred to me. Sir John Hawkins's ponderous labours, I must
acknowledge, exhibit a _farrago_, of which a considerable portion is not
devoid of entertainment to the lovers of literary gossiping; but besides
its being swelled out with long unnecessary extracts from various works
(even one of several leaves from Osborne's Harleian Catalogue, and those
not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys), a very small part of it relates
to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is
such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an authour
is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very
unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole
of it a dark uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable
construction is put upon almost every circumstance in the character and
conduct of my illustrious friend[91]; who, I trust, will, by a true and
fair delineation, be vindicated both from the injurious
misrepresentations of this authour, and from the slighter aspersions of
a lady who once lived in great intimacy with him[92].

[Page 28: Warburton's view of biography.]

[Page 29: The author's mode of procedure.]

There is, in the British Museum, a letter from Bishop Warburton to Dr.
Birch, on the subject of biography; which, though I am aware it may
expose me to a charge of artfully raising the value of my own work, by
contrasting it with that of which I have spoken, is so well conceived
and expressed, that I cannot refrain from here inserting it:--

'I shall endeavor, (says Dr. Warburton,) to give you what satisfaction I
can in any thing you want to be satisfied in any subject of Milton, and
am extremely glad you intend to write his life. Almost all the
life-writers we have had before Toland and Desmaiseaux[93], are indeed
strange insipid creatures; and yet I had rather read the worst of them,
than be obliged to go through with this of Milton's, or the other's life
of Boileau, where there is such a dull, heavy succession of long
quotations of disinteresting passages, that it makes their method quite
nauseous. But the verbose, tasteless Frenchman seems to lay it down as a
principle, that every life must be a book, and what's worse, it proves a
book without a life; for what do we know of Boileau, after all his
tedious stuff? You are the only one, (and I speak it without a
compliment) that by the vigour of your stile and sentiments, and the
real importance of your materials, have the art, (which one would
imagine no one could have missed,) of adding agreements to the most
agreeable subject in the world, which is literary history[94].'

'Nov. 24, 1737.'

[Page 30: Not a panegyrick, but a Life.]

Instead of melting down my materials into one mass, and constantly
speaking in my own person, by which I might have appeared to have more
merit in the execution of the work, I have resolved to adopt and enlarge
upon the excellent plan of Mr. Mason, in his Memoirs of Gray[95].
Wherever narrative is necessary to explain, connect, and supply, I
furnish it to the best of my abilities; but in the chronological series
of Johnson's life, which I trace as distinctly as I can, year by year, I
produce, wherever it is in my power, his own minutes, letters, or
conversation, being convinced that this mode is more lively, and will
make my readers better acquainted with him, than even most of those were
who actually knew him, but could know him only partially; whereas there
is here an accumulation of intelligence from various points, by which
his character is more fully understood and illustrated[96].

Indeed I cannot conceive a more perfect mode of writing any man's life,
than not only relating all the most important events of it in their
order, but interweaving what he privately wrote, and said, and thought;
by which mankind are enabled as it were to see him live, and to 'live
o'er each scene[97]' with him, as he actually advanced through the
several stages of his life. Had his other friends been as diligent and
ardent as I was, he might have been almost entirely preserved. As it is,
I will venture to say that he will be seen in this work more completely
than any man who has ever yet lived[98].

And he will be seen as he really was; for I profess to write, not his
panegyrick, which must be all praise, but his Life; which, great and
good as he was, must not be supposed to be entirely perfect. To be as he
was, is indeed subject of panegyrick enough to any man in this state of
being; but in every picture there should be shade as well as light, and
when I delineate him without reserve, I do what he himself recommended,
both by his precept and his example[99].

[Page 31: Conversation best displays character.]

'If the biographer writes from personal knowledge, and makes haste to
gratify the publick curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his
fear, his gratitude, or his tenderness overpower his fidelity, and tempt
him to conceal, if not to invent. There are many who think it an act of
piety to hide the faults or failings of their friends, even when they
can no longer suffer by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of
characters adorned with uniform panegyrick, and not to be known from one
another but by extrinsick and casual circumstances. "Let me remember,
(says Hale,) when I find myself inclined to pity a criminal, that there
is likewise a pity due to the country." If we owe regard to the memory
of the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to
virtue and to truth[100].'

What I consider as the peculiar value of the following work, is, the
quantity it contains of Johnson's conversation; which is universally
acknowledged to have been eminently instructive and entertaining; and of
which the specimens that I have given upon a former occasion[101], have
been received with so much approbation, that I have good grounds for
supposing that the world will not be indifferent to more ample
communications of a similar nature.

That the conversation of a celebrated man, if his talents have been
exerted in conversation, will best display his character, is, I trust,
too well established in the judgment of mankind, to be at all shaken by
a sneering observation of Mr. Mason, in his _Memoirs of Mr. William
Whitehead_, in which there is literally no _Life_, but a mere dry
narrative of facts[102]. I do not think it was quite necessary to attempt
a depreciation of what is universally esteemed, because it was not to be
found in the immediate object of the ingenious writer's pen; for in
truth, from a man so still and so tame, as to be contented to pass many
years as the domestick companion of a superannuated lord and lady[103],
conversation could no more be expected, than from a Chinese mandarin on
a chimney-piece, or the fantastick figures on a gilt leather skreen.

[Page 32: Dr. Johnson on biography.]

If authority be required, let us appeal to Plutarch, the prince of
ancient biographers. [Greek: Oute tais epiphanestatais praxesi pantos
enesti daelosis aretaes ae kakias, alla pragma brachu pollakis, kai
raema, kai paidia tis emphasin aethous epoiaesen mallon ae machai
murionekroi, kai parataxeis ai megistai, kai poliorkiai poleon.] Nor is
it always in the most distinguished atchievements that men's virtues or
vices may be best discerned; but very often an action of small note, a
short saying, or a jest, shall distinguish a person's real character
more than the greatest sieges, or the most important battles[104].'

To this may be added the sentiments of the very man whose life I am
about to exhibit.

'The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those
performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the
thoughts into domestick privacies, and display the minute details of
daily life, where exteriour appendages are cast aside, and men excel
each other only by prudence and by virtue. The account of Thuanus is
with great propriety said by its authour to have been written, that it
might lay open to posterity the private and familiar character of that
man, _cujus ingenium et candorem ex ipsius scriptis sunt olim semper
miraturi_, whose candour and genius will to the end of time be by his
writings preserved in admiration.

'There are many invisible circumstances, which whether we read as
enquirers after natural or moral knowledge, whether we intend to enlarge
our science, or increase our virtue, are more important than publick
occurrences. Thus Sallust, the great master of nature, has not forgot in
his account of Catiline to remark, that his walk was now quick, and
again slow, as an indication of a mind revolving[105] with violent
commotion. Thus the story of Melanchthon affords a striking lecture on
the value of time, by informing us, that when he had made an
appointment, he expected not only the hour, but the minute to be fixed,
that the day might not run out in the idleness of suspence; and all the
plans and enterprises of De Witt are now of less importance to the world
than that part of his personal character, which represents him as
careful of his health, and negligent of his life.

'But biography has often been allotted to writers, who seem very little
acquainted with the nature of their task, or very negligent about the
performance. They rarely afford any other account than might be
collected from publick papers, but imagine themselves writing a life,
when they exhibit a chronological series of actions or preferments;[106]
and have so little regard to the manners[106] or behaviour of their
heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character, by
a short conversation with one of his servants, than from a formal and
studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral.

[Page 33: Reply to possible objections.]

'There are indeed, some natural reasons why these narratives are often
written by such as were not likely to give much instruction or delight,
and why most accounts of particular persons are barren and useless. If a
life be delayed till interest and envy are at an end, we may hope for
impartiality, but must expect little intelligence; for the incidents
which give excellence to biography are of a volatile and evanescent
kind, such as soon escape the memory, and are transmitted[107] by
tradition. We know how few can pourtray a living acquaintance, except by
his most prominent and observable particularities, and the grosser
features of his mind; and it may be easily imagined how much of this
little knowledge may be lost in imparting it, and how soon a succession
of copies will lose all resemblance of the original[108].'

I am fully aware of the objections which may be made to the minuteness
on some occasions of my detail of Johnson's conversation, and how
happily it is adapted for the petty exercise of ridicule, by men of
superficial understanding and ludicrous fancy; but I remain firm and
confident in my opinion, that minute particulars are frequently
characteristick, and always amusing, when they relate to a distinguished
man. I am therefore exceedingly unwilling that any thing, however
slight, which my illustrious friend thought it worth his while to
express, with any degree of point, should perish. For this almost
superstitious reverence, I have found very old and venerable authority,
quoted by our great modern prelate, Secker, in whose tenth sermon there
is the following passage:

'_Rabbi David Kimchi_, a noted Jewish Commentator, who lived about five
hundred years ago, explains that passage in the first Psalm, _His leaf
also shall not wither_, from Rabbins yet older than himself, thus: That
_even the idle talk_, so he expresses it, _of a good man ought to be
regarded_; the most superfluous things he saith are always of some
value. And other ancient authours have the same phrase, nearly in the
same sensc.'

[Page 34: Johnson's birth and baptism. A.D. 1709.]

Of one thing I am certain, that considering how highly the small portion
which we have of the table-talk and other anecdotes of our celebrated
writers is valued, and how earnestly it is regretted that we have not
more, I am justified in preserving rather too many of Johnson's sayings,
than too few; especially as from the diversity of dispositions it cannot
be known with certainty beforehand, whether what may seem trifling to
some and perhaps to the collector himself, may not be most agreeable to
many; and the greater number that an authour can please in any degree,
the more pleasure does there arise to a benevolent mind.

To those who are weak enough to think this a degrading task, and the
time and labour which have been devoted to it misemployed, I shall
content myself with opposing the authority of the greatest man of any
age, JULIUS CAESAR, of whom Bacon observes, that 'in his book of
Apothegms which he collected, we see that he esteemed it more honour to
make himself but a pair of tables, to take the wise and pithy words of
others, than to have every word of his own to be made an apothegm or an
oracle[109].'

Having said thus much by way of introduction, I commit the following
pages to the candour of the Publick.

* * * * *

SAMUEL[110] JOHNSON was born at Lichfield, in Staffordshire, on the 18th
of September, N.S., 1709; and his initiation into the Christian Church
was not delayed; for his baptism is recorded, in the register of St.
Mary's parish in that city, to have been performed on the day of his
birth. His father is there stiled _Gentleman_, a circumstance of which
an ignorant panegyrist has praised him for not being proud; when the
truth is, that the appellation of Gentleman, though now lost in the
indiscriminate assumption of _Esquire_[111], was commonly taken by those
who could not boast of gentility. His father was Michael Johnson, a
native of Derbyshire, of obscure extraction[112], who settled in Lichfield
as a bookseller and stationer[113].

[Page 35: His parentage. A.D. 1709]

His mother was Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient race of substantial
yeomanry in Warwickshire[114]. They were well advanced in years when they
married, and never had more than two children, both sons; Samuel, their
first born, who lived to be the illustrious character whose various
excellence I am to endeavour to record, and Nathanael, who died in his
twenty-fifth year.

[Page 36: Character of Michael Johnson. A.D. 1709]

Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of a large and robust body, and of a
strong and active mind; yet, as in the most solid rocks veins of unsound
substance are often discovered, there was in him a mixture of that
disease, the nature of which eludes the most minute enquiry, though the
effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about
those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general
sensation of gloomy wretchedness[115]. From him then his son inherited,
with some other qualities, 'a vile melancholy,' which in his too strong
expression of any disturbance of the mind, 'made him mad all his life,
at least not sober[116].' Michael was, however, forced by the narrowness
of his circumstances to be very diligent in business, not only in his
shop[117], but by occasionally resorting to several towns in the
neighbourhood[118], some of which were at a considerable distance from
Lichfield[119]. At that time booksellers' shops in the provincial towns of
England were very rare, so that there was not one even in Birmingham, in
which town old Mr. Johnson used to open a shop every market-day. He was
a pretty good Latin scholar, and a citizen so creditable as to be made
one of the magistrates of Lichfield[120]; and, being a man of good sense,
and skill in his trade, he acquired a reasonable share of wealth, of
which however he afterwards lost the greatest part, by engaging
unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment[121]. He was a zealous
high-church man and royalist, and retained his attachment to the
unfortunate house of Stuart, though he reconciled himself, by
casuistical arguments of expediency and necessity, to take the oaths
imposed by the prevailing power[122].

[Page 37: An incident in his life. A.D. 1709]

There is a circumstance in his life somewhat romantick, but so well
authenticated, that I shall not omit it. A young woman of Leek, in
Staffordshire, while he served his apprenticeship there, conceived a
violent passion for him; and though it met with no favourable return,
followed him to Lichfield, where she took lodgings opposite to the house
in which he lived, and indulged her hopeless flame. When he was informed
that it so preyed upon her mind that her life was in danger, he with a
generous humanity went to her and offered to marry her, but it was then
too late: her vital power was exhausted; and she actually exhibited one
of the very rare instances of dying for love. She was buried in the
cathedral of Lichfield; and he, with a tender regard, placed a stone
over her grave with this inscription:

Here lies the body of

Mrs. ELIZABETH BLANEY, a stranger.

She departed this life

20 of September, 1694.

[Page 38: Sarah Johnson. A.D. 1712.]

Johnson's mother was a woman of distinguished understanding. I asked his
old school-fellow, Mr. Hector, surgeon of Birmingham, if she was not
vain of her son. He said, 'she had too much good sense to be vain, but
she knew her son's value.' Her piety was not inferiour to her
understanding; and to her must be ascribed those early impressions of
religion upon the mind of her son, from which the world afterwards
derived so much benefit. He told me, that he remembered distinctly
having had the first notice of Heaven, 'a place to which good people
went,' and hell, 'a place to which bad people went,' communicated to him
by her, when a little child in bed with her[123]; and that it might be the
better fixed in his memory, she sent him to repeat it to Thomas Jackson,
their man-servant; he not being in the way, this was not done; but there
was no occasion for any artificial aid for its preservation.

In following so very eminent a man from his cradle to his grave, every
minute particular, which can throw light on the progress of his mind, is
interesting. That he was remarkable, even in his earliest years, may
easily be supposed; for to use his own words in his Life of Sydenham,

'That the strength of his understanding, the accuracy of his
discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from
his infancy, by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt. For,
there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely
related, that did not in every part of life discover the same proportion
of intellectual vigour[124].'

In all such investigations it is certainly unwise to pay too much
attention to incidents which the credulous relate with eager
satisfaction, and the more scrupulous or witty enquirer considers only
as topicks of ridicule: Yet there is a traditional story of the infant
Hercules of toryism, so curiously characteristick, that I shall not
withhold it. It was communicated to me in a letter from Miss Mary Adye,
of Lichfield:

[Page 39: Anecdotes of Johnson's childhood.]

'When Dr. Sacheverel was at Lichfield, Johnson was not quite three years
old. My grandfather Hammond observed him at the cathedral perched upon
his father's shoulders, listening and gaping at the much celebrated
preacher. Mr. Hammond asked Mr. Johnson how he could possibly think of
bringing such an infant to church, and in the midst of so great a croud.
He answered, because it was impossible to keep him at home; for, young
as he was, he believed he had caught the publick spirit and zeal for
Sacheverel, and would have staid for ever in the church, satisfied with
beholding him[125].'

Nor can I omit a little instance of that jealous independence of spirit,
and impetuosity of temper, which never forsook him. The fact was
acknowledged to me by himself, upon the authority of his mother. One
day, when the servant who used to be sent to school to conduct him home,
had not come in time, he set out by himself, though he was then so
near-sighted, that he was obliged to stoop down on his hands and knees
to take a view of the kennel before he ventured to step over it. His
school-mistress, afraid that he might miss his way, or fall into the
kennel, or be run over by a cart, followed him at some distance. He
happened to turn about and perceive her. Feeling her careful attention
as an insult to his manliness, he ran back to her in a rage, and beat
her, as well as his strength would permit.

Of the power of his memory, for which he was all his life eminent to a
degree almost incredible[126], the following early instance was told me in
his presence at Lichfield, in 1776, by his step-daughter, Mrs. Lucy
Porter, as related to her by his mother.

[Page 40: Johnson's infant precocity. A.D. 1712.]

When he was a child in petticoats, and had learnt to read, Mrs. Johnson
one morning put the common prayer-book into his hands, pointed to the
collect for the day, and said, 'Sam, you must get this by heart.' She
went up stairs, leaving him to study it: But by the time she had reached
the second floor, she heard him following her. 'What's the matter?' said
she. 'I can say it,' he replied; and repeated it distinctly, though he
could not have read it more than twice.

But there has been another story of his infant precocity generally
circulated, and generally believed, the truth of which I am to refute
upon his own authority. It is told[127], that, when a child of three years
old, he chanced to tread upon a duckling, the eleventh of a brood, and
killed it; upon which, it is said, he dictated to his mother the
following epitaph:

'Here lies good master duck,
Whom Samuel Johnson trod on;
If it had liv'd, it had been _good luck_,
For then we'd had an _odd one_.'

There is surely internal evidence that this little composition combines
in it, what no child of three years old could produce, without an
extension of its faculties by immediate inspiration; yet Mrs. Lucy
Porter, Dr. Johnson's step-daughter, positively maintained to me, in his
presence, that there could be no doubt of the truth of this anecdote,
for she had heard it from his mother. So difficult is it to obtain an
authentick relation of facts, and such authority may there be for
errour; for he assured me, that his father made the verses, and wished
to pass them for his child's. He added, 'my father was a foolish old
man[128]; that is to say, foolish in talking of his children[129].'