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

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[962] 'Miss Jones lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She was
a very ingenious poetess, and published a volume of poems; and, on the
whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman. She was a
sister to the Reverend River Jones, Chanter of Christ Church Cathedral
at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the _Chantress_. I have heard
him often address her in this passage from _Il Penseroso_:

"Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among I woo," etc.

She died unmarried.' WHARTON

[963] Tom. iii. p. 482. BOSWELL.

[964] Of _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL.

[965] This letter is misdated. It was written in Jan. 1759, and not in
1758. Johnson says that he is forty-nine. In Jan. 1758 he was
forty-eight. He mentions the performance of _Cleane_, which was at the
end of 1758; and he says that 'Murphy is to have his _Orphan of China_
acted next month.' It was acted in the spring of 1759.

[966] _Juvenal_, Sat. iii. 1.

'Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel,
When injured Thales bids the town farewell,
Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend,
I praise the hermit, but regret the friend;
Resolved at length from vice and London far
To breathe in distant fields a purer air,
And fixed on Cambria's solitary shore
Give to St. David one true Briton more.'

Johnson's _London_, l. 1.

[967] Mr. Garrick. BOSWELL.

[968] Mr. Dodsley, the Authour of _Cleone_. BOSWELL. Garrick, according
to Davies, had rejected Dodsley's _Cleone_, 'and had termed it a cruel,
bloody, and unnatural play.' Davies's _Garrick_, i. 223. Johnson himself
said of it:--'I am afraid there is more blood than brains.' _Post_,
1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_. The night it was brought out at
Covent Garden, Garrick appeared for the first time as Marplot in the
_Busy Body_ at Drury Lane. The next morning he wrote to congratulate
Dodsley on his success, and asked him at the same time to let him know
how he could support his interest without absolutely giving up his own.
To this Dodsley returned a cold reply. Garrick wrote back as follows:--

'Master Robert Dodsley,

When I first read your peevish answer to my well-meant proposal to you,
I was much disturbed at it--but when I considered, that some minds
cannot bear the smallest portion of success, I most sincerely pitied
you; and when I found in the same letter, that you were graciously
pleased to dismiss me from your acquaintance, I could not but confess so
apparent an obligation, and am with due acknowledgements,

Master Robert Dodsley,

Your most obliged

David Garrick.'

Garrick _Corres_., i. 80 (where the letters that passed are wrongly
dated 1757). Mrs. Bellamy in her _Life_ (iii. 109) says that on the
evening of the performance she was provoked by something that Dodsley
said, 'which,' she continues, 'made me answer that good man with a
petulance which afterwards gave me uneasiness. I told him that I had a
reputation to lose as an actress; but, as for his piece, Mr. Garrick had
anticipated the damnation of it publicly, the preceding evening, at the
Bedford Coffee-house, where he had declared that it could not pass
muster, as it was the very worst piece ever exhibited.' Shenstone
(_Works_, iii. 288) writing five weeks after the play was brought out,
says:--'Dodsley is now going to print his fourth edition. He sold 2000
of his first edition the very first day he published it.' The price was
eighteen-pence.

[969] Mrs. Bellamy (_Life_, iii. 108) says that Johnson was present at
the last rehearsal. 'When I came to repeat, "Thou shalt not murder," Dr.
Johnson caught me by the arm, and that somewhat too briskly, saying, at
the same time, "It is a commandment, and must be spoken, Thou shalt
_not_ murder." As I had not then the honour of knowing personally that
great genius, I was not a little displeased at his inforcing his
instructions with so much vehemence.' The next night she heard, she
says, amidst the general applause, 'the same voice which had instructed
me in the commandment, exclaim aloud from the pit, "I will write a copy
of verses upon her myself." I knew that my success was insured.' See
_post_, May 11, 1783.

[970] Dodsley had published his _London_ and his _Vanity of Human
Wishes_ (_ante_, pp. 124, 193), and had had a large share in the
_Dictionary_, (_ante_, p. 183).

[971] It is to this that Churchill refers in the following lines:--

'Let them [the Muses] with Glover o'er Medea doze;
Let them with Dodsley wail Cleone's woes,
Whilst he, fine feeling creature, all in tears,
Melts as they melt, and weeps with weeping Peers.'

_The Journey_. _Poems_, ii. 328.

[972] See _post_ p. 350, note.

[973] Mr. Samuel Richardson, authour of _Clarissa_. BOSWELL.

[974] In 1753 when in Devonshire he charged five guineas a head
(Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 89); shortly afterwards, when he removed to
London, twelve guineas (_ib_. p. 101); in 1764, thirty guineas; for a
whole length 150 guineas (_ib_. p. 224). Northcote writes that 'he
sometimes has lamented the being interrupted in his work by idle
visitors, saying, "those persons do not consider that my time is worth
to me five guineas an hour."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 83.

[975] 'Miss Reynolds at first amused herself by painting miniature
portraits, and in that part of the art was particularly successful. In
her attempts at oil-painting, however, she did not succeed, which made
Reynolds say jestingly, that her pictures in that way made other people
laugh and him cry; and as he did not approve of her painting in oil, she
generally did it by stealth.' _Ib_. ii. 160.

[976] Murphy was far from happy. The play was not produced till April;
by the date of Johnson's letter, he had not by any means reached the end
of what he calls 'the first, and indeed, the last, disagreeable
controversy that he ever had with Mr. Garrick.' Murphy's _Garrick_,
p. 213.

[977] This letter was an answer to one in which was enclosed a draft for
the payment of some subscriptions to his _Shakspeare_. BOSWELL.

[978] In the Preface he says:--(_Works_, v. 52) 'I have not passed over
with affected superiority what is equally difficult to the reader and to
myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my ignorance.'

[979] Northcote gives the following account of this same garret in
describing how Reynolds introduced Roubiliac to Johnson. 'Johnson
received him with much civility, and took them up into a garret, which
he considered as his library; where, besides his books, all covered with
dust, there was an old crazy deal table, and a still worse and older
elbow chair, having only three legs. In this chair Johnson seated
himself, after having, with considerable dexterity and evident practice,
first drawn it up against the wall, which served to support it on that
side on which the leg was deficient.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 75.
Miss Reynolds improves on the account. She says that 'before Johnson had
the pension he literally dressed like a beggar; and, from what I have
been told, he as literally lived as such; at least as to common
conveniences in his apartments, wanting even a chair to sit on,
particularly in his study, where a gentleman who frequently visited him,
whilst writing his _Idlers_, constantly found him at his desk, sitting
on one with three legs; and on rising from it, he remarked that Dr.
Johnson never forgot its defect, but would either hold it in his hand,
or place it with great composure against some support, taking no notice
of its imperfection to his visitor. It was remarkable in Johnson, that
no external circumstances ever prompted him to make any apology, or to
seem even sensible of their existence.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 832.
There can be little question that she is describing the same room--a
room in a house in which Miss Williams was lodged, and most likely Mr.
Levet, and in which Mr. Burney dined; and in which certainly there must
have been chairs. Yet Mr. Carlyle, misled by her account, says:--'In his
apartments, at one time, there were unfortunately no chairs.' Carlyle's
_Miscellanies_, ed. 1872, iv. 127.

[980] In his _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, viii. 272) Johnson calls Theobald
'a man of heavy diligence, with very slender powers.' In the Preface to
Shakspeare he admits that 'what little he did was commonly right.' _Ib_.
v. 137. The Editors of the _Cambridge Shakespeare_ on the other hand
say:--'Theobald, as an Editor, is incomparably superior to his
predecessors, and to his immediate successor Warburton, although the
latter had the advantage of working on his materials. Many most
brilliant emendations are due to him.' On Johnson's statement that
'Warburton would make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices,' they
write:--'From this judgment, whether they be compared as critics or
editors, we emphatically dissent.' _Cambridge Shakespeare_, i., xxxi.,
xxxiv., note. Among Theobald's 'brilliant emendations' are 'a'babbled of
green fields' (_Henry V_, ii. 3), and 'lackeying the varying tide.'
(_Antony and Cleopatra_, i.4).

[981] '_A familiar epistle_ [by Lord Bolingbroke] _to the most impudent
man living_, 1749.' _Brit. Mus. Catal_.

[982] 'Mallet, by address or accident, perhaps by his dependence on the
prince [of Wales], found his way to Bolingbroke, a man whose pride and
petulance made his kindness difficult to gain or keep, and whom Mallet
was content to court by an act, which, I hope, was unwillingly
performed. When it was found that Pope had clandestinely printed an
unauthorised number of the pamphlet called _The Patriot King_,
Bolingbroke, in a fit of useless fury, resolved to blast his memory, and
employed Mallet (1749) as the executioner of his vengeance. Mallet had
not virtue, or had not spirit, to refuse the office; and was rewarded
not long after with the legacy of Lord Bolingbroke's works.' Johnson's
_Works_, viii. 467. See _ante_, p. 268, and Walpole's _Letters_,
ii. 159.

[983] _A View of Lord Bolingbroke's Philosophy in Four Letters to a
Friend_, 1754-5.

[984] A paper under this name had been started seven years earlier. See
_Carter and Talbot Corres_., ii. 33.

[985] In the two years in which Johnson wrote for this paper it saw many
changes. The first _Idler_ appeared in No. 2 of the _Universal Chronicle
or Weekly Gazette_, which was published not by Newbery, but by J. Payne.
On April 29, this paper took the title of _Payne's Universal Chronicle_,
etc. On Jan. 6, 1759, it resumed the old title and was published by R.
Stevens. On Jan. 5, 1760, the title was changed to _The Universal
Chronicle and Westminster Journal_, and it was published by W. Faden and
R. Stevens. On March 15, 1760, it was published by R. Stevens alone. The
paper consisted of eight pages. _The Idler_, which varied in length,
came first, and was printed in larger characters, much like a leading
article. The changes in title and ownership seem to show that in spite
of Johnson's contributions it was not a successful publication.

[986] 'Those papers may be considered as a kind of syllabus of all
Reynolds's future discourses, and certainly occasioned him some thinking
in their composition. I have heard him say, that Johnson required them
from him on a sudden emergency, and on that account, he sat up the whole
night to complete them in time; and by it he was so much disordered,
that it produced a vertigo in his head.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 89,
Reynolds must have spoken of only one paper; as the three, appearing as
they did on Sept. 29, Oct. 20, and Nov. 10, could not have been required
at one time.

[987] 'To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and
therefore every man endeavours with his utmost care to hide his poverty
from others, and his idleness from himself.' _The Idler_, No. 17.

[988] Prayers and Meditations, p. 30 [36], BOSWELL.

[989] In July, 1759.

[990] This number was published a few days after his mother's death. It
is in the form of a letter, which is thus introduced:-'The following
letter relates to an affliction perhaps not necessary to be imparted to
the publick; but I could not persuade myself to suppress it, because I
think I know the sentiments to be sincere, and I feel no disposition to
provide for this day any other entertainment.'

[991] In the table of contents the title of No. 58 is, 'Expectations of
pleasure frustrated.' In the original edition of _The Idler_ no titles
are given. In this paper he shews that 'nothing is more hopeless than a
scheme of merriment.'

[992] In this paper he begins by considering, 'why the only thinking
being of this globe is doomed to think merely to be wretched, and to
pass his time from youth to age in fearing or in suffering calamities.'
He ends by asserting that 'of what virtue there is, misery produces far
the greater part.'

[993] 'There are few things,' he writes, 'not purely evil, of which we
can say, without some emotion of uneasiness, _this is the last_.... The
secret horrour of the last is inseparable from a thinking being, whose
life is limited, and to whom death is dreadful.'

[994] 'I asked him one day, why the _Idlers_ were published without
mottoes. He replied, that it was forborne the better to conceal himself,
and escape discovery. "But let us think of some now," said he, "for the
next edition. We can fit the two volumnes in two hours, can't we?"
Accordingly he recollected, and I wrote down these following (nine
mottoes) till come friend coming in, in about five minutes, put an end
to our further progress on the subject.' _Piossi Letters_, ii. 388.

[995] See _post_, July 14 and 26, 1763, April 14, 1775, and Aug. 2,
1784, note for instances in which Johnson ridicules the notion that
weather and seasons have any necessary effect on man; also April 17,
1778. In the _Life of Milton_ (_Works_. vii. 102), he writes:--'this
dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and periodical
ebbs and flows of intellect, may, I suppose, justly be derided as the
fumes of vain imagination. _Sapiens dominabitur astro_. The author that
thinks himself weather-bound will find, with a little help from
hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. But while this notion has
possession of the head, it produces the inability with it supposes. Our
powers owe much of their energy to our hopes; _possunt quin posse
vidertur_.' Boswell records, in his _Hebrides_ (Aug. 16, 1773), that
when 'somebody talked of happy moments for composition,' Johnson
said:--'Nay, a man may write at any time, if he will set himself
_doggedly_ to it.' Reynolds, who Alas! avowed how much he had learnt
from Johnson (_ante_, p. 245), says much the same in his _Seventh
Discourse_: 'But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of courting the
Muse in shady bowers; waiting the call and inspiration of Genius ... of
attending to times and seasons when the imagination shoots with the
greatest vigour, whether at the summer solstice or the vernal equinox
... when we talk such language or entertain such sentiments as these, we
generally rest contented with mere words, or at best entertain notions
not only groundless but pernicious.' Reynolds's _Works_, i. 150. On the
other hand, in 1773 Johnson recorded:--'Between Easter and Whitsuntide,
having always considered that time as propitious to study, I attempted
to learn the Low-Dutch language.' _Post_, under May 9, 1773. In _The
Rambler_, No. 80, he says:--'To the men of study and imagination the
winter is generally the chief time of labour. Gloom and silence produce
composure of mind and concentration of ideas.' In a letter to Mrs.
Thrale, written in 1775, he says:--'Most men have their bright and their
Cloudy days, at least they have days when they put their powers into
act, and days when they suffer them to repose.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.
265. In 1781 he wrote:--'I thought myself above assistance or
obstruction from the seasons; but find the autumnal blast sharp and
nipping, and the fading world an uncomfortable prospect.' _Ib_. ii. 220.
Again, in the last year of his life he wrote:--'The: weather, you know,
has not been balmy. I am now reduced to think, and am at least content
to talk, of the weather. Pride must have a fall.' _Post_, Aug. 2, 1784.

[996] Addison's _Cato_, act i. sc. 4.

[997] Johnson, reviewing the Duchess of Marlborough's attack on Queen
Mary, says (_Works_, vi. 8):--'This is a character so different from all
those that have been hitherto given of this celebrated princess, that
the reader stands in suspense, till he considers that ... it has
hitherto had this great advantage, that it has only been compared with
those of kings.'

[998] Johnson had explained how it comes to pass that Englishmen talk so
commonly of the weather. He continues:--'Such is the reason of our
practice; and who shall treat it with contempt? Surely not the attendant
on a court, whose business is to watch the looks of a being weak and
foolish as himself, and whose vanity is to recount the names of men, who
might drop into nothing, and leave no vacuity.... The weather is a
nobler and more interesting subject; it is the present state of the
skies and of the earth, on which plenty and famine are suspended, on
which millions depend for the necessaries of life.' 'Garrick complained
that when he went to read before the court, not a look or a murmur
testified approbation; there was a profound stillness--every one only
watched to see what the king thought.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of
Northcote_, p. 262.

[999] _The Idler_, No. 90. See _post_, April 3, 1773, where he declaims
against action in public speaking.

[1000] He now and then repeats himself. Thus, in _The Idler_, No. 37, he
moralises on the story, how Socrates, passing through the fair at
Athens, cried out:--'How many things are here which I do not need!'
though he had already moralised on it in _the Adventurer_, Nos. 67, 119.

[1001] No. 34.

[1002] _Poems on Several Occasions_, by Thomas Blacklock, p. 179. See
_post_, Aug. 5, 1763, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.

[1003] 'Among the papers of Newbery, in the possession of Mr. Murray, is
the account rendered on the collection of _The Idler_ into two small
volumes, when the arrangement seems to have been that Johnson should
receive two-thirds of the profits.

_The Idler_.

'DR. L. s. d.
Paid for Advertising.. 20 0 6
Printing two vols., 1,500 41 13 0
Paper. . . . . . . 52 3 0
* * * * *
L113 16 6
Profit on the edition . 126 3 6
* * * * *
L240 0 0
* * * * *
'CR. L. s. d.
1,500 Sets at 16L per 100 240 0 0
* * * * *
Dr. Johnson two-thirds 84 2 4
Mr. Newbery one-third. 42 1 2
* * * * *
L126 3 6
* * * * *

Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 204.

If this account is correctly printed, the sale must have been slow. The
first edition (2 vols. 5s.) was published in Oct. 1761, (_Gent. Mag_.
xxxi. 479). Johnson is called Dr. in the account; but he was not made an
LL.D. till July 1765. Prior, in his _Life of Goldsmith_ (i. 459),
publishes an account between Goldsmith and Newbery in which the first
entry is:--

'1761. Oct. 14, 1 set of
_The Idler_. . . . . L0 50 0.'

Johnson, as Newbery's papers show, a year later bought a copy of
Goldsmith's _Life of Nash_; _ib_. p. 405.

[1004] See _ante_, p. 306.

[1005] This paper may be found in Stockdale's supplemental volume of
Johnson's _Miscellaneous Pieces_. BOSWELL. Stockdale's supplemental
volumes--for there are two--are vols. xii. and xiii. of what is known as
'Hawkins's edition.' In this paper (_Works_, iv. 450) he represents in a
fable two vultures speculating on that mischievous being, man, 'who is
the only beast who kills that which he does not devour,' who at times is
seen to move in herds, while 'there is in every herd one that gives
directions to the rest, and seems to be more eminently delighted with a
wide carnage.'

[1006] 'Receipts for _Shakespeare_.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[1007] 'Then of Lincoln College. Now Sir Robert Chambers, one of the
Judges in India.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[1008] Old Mr. Langton's niece. See _post,_ July 14, 1763.

[1009] 'Mr. Langton.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[1010] Boswell records:--'Lady Di Beauclerk told me that Langton had
never been to see her since she came to Richmond, his head was so full
of the militia and Greek. "Why," said I, "Madam, he is of such a length
he is awkward and not easily moved." "But," said she, "if he had lain
himself at his length, his feet had been in London, and his head might
have been here _eodem die_."' _Boswelliana_, p. 297.

[1011] 'Part of the impression of the _Shakespeare_, which Dr. Johnson
conducted alone, and published by subscription. This edition came out in
1765.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.

[1012] Stockdale records (_Memoirs_, ii. 191), that after he had entered
on his charge as domestic tutor to Lord Craven's son, he called on
Johnson, who asked him how he liked his place. On his hesitating to
answer, he said: 'You must expect insolence.' He added that in his youth
he had entertained great expectations from a powerful family. "At
length," he said, "I found that their promises, and consequently my
expectations, vanished into air.... But, Sir, they would have treated me
much worse, if they had known that motives from which I paid my court to
them were purely selfish, and what opinion I had formed of them." He
added, that since he knew mankind, he had not, on any occasion, been the
sport of such delusion and that he had never been disappointed by anyone
but himself.'

[1013] This, and some of the other letters to Langton, were not received
by Boswell till the first volume of the second edition had been carried
through the press. He gave them as a supplement to the second volume.
The date of this letter was there wrongly given as June 27, 1758. In the
third edition it was corrected. Nevertheless the letter was misplaced as
if the wrong date were the right one. Langton, as I have shewn (_ante_,
p. 247), subscribed the articles at Oxford on July 7, 1757. He must have
come into residence, as Johnson did (_ante_, p. 58), some little while
before this subscription.

[1014] Major-General Alexander Dury, of the first regiment of
foot-guards, who fell in the gallant discharge of his duty, near St.
Cas, in the well-known unfortunate expedition against France, in 1758.
His lady and Mr. Langton's mother was sisters. He left an only son,
Lieutenant-Colonel Dury, who has a company in the same regiment.
BOSWELL. The expedition had been sent against St. Malo early in
September. Failing in the attempt, the land forces retreated to St. Cas,
where, while embarking, they were attacked by the French. About 400 of
our soldiers were made prisoners, and 600 killed and wounded. _Ann.
Reg_.i.68.

[1015] See _post_, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_.

[1016] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 365. BOSWELL. 'In the beginning
of the year 1759 an event happened for which it might be imagined he was
well prepared, the death of his mother, who had attained the age of
ninety; but he, whose mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation
of mortality, was as little able to sustain the shock, as he would have
been had this loss befallen him in his nonage.'

[1017] We may apply to Johnson in his behaviour to his mother what he
said of Pope in his behaviour to his parents:--'Whatever was his pride,
to them he was obedient; and whatever was his irritability, to them he
was gentle. Life has among its soothing and quiet comforts few things
better to give than such a son.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 281. In _The
Idler_ of January 27, 1759 (No. 41), Johnson shews his grief for his
loss. 'The last year, the last day must come. It has come, and is past.
The life which made my own life pleasant is at an end, and the gates of
death are shut upon my prospects.... Such is the condition of our
present existence that life must one time lose its associations, and
every inhabitant of the earth must walk downward to the grave alone and
unregarded, without any partner of his joy or grief, without any
interested witness of his misfortunes or success. Misfortune, indeed, he
may yet feel; for where is the bottom of the misery of man? But what is
success to him that has none to enjoy it? Happiness is not found in
self-contemplation; it is perceived only when it is reflected from
another.' In _Rasselas_ (ch. xlv.) he makes a sage say with a
sigh:--'Praise is to have an old man an empty sound. I have neither
mother to be delighted with the reputation of her son, nor wife to
partake the honours of her husband.' He here says once more what he had
already said in his _Letter to Lord Chesterfield_ (_ante_, p. 261), and
in the _Preface to the Dictionary_ (_ante_, p. 297).

[1018] Writing to his Birmingham friend, Mr. Hector, on Oct. 7, 1756, he
said:--'I have been thinking every month of coming down into the
country, but every month has brought its hinderances. From that kind of
melancholy indisposition which I had when we lived together at
Birmingham I have never been free, but have always had it operating
against my health and my life with more or less violence. I hope however
to see all my friends, all that are remaining, in no very long time.'
_Notes and Queries_, 6th S. iii. 301. No doubt his constant poverty and
the need that he was under of making 'provision for the day that was
passing over him' had had much to do in keeping him from a journey to
Lichfield. A passage in one of his letters shews that fourteen years
later the stage-coach took twenty-six hours in going from London to
Lichfield. (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 55.) The return journey was very
uncertain; for 'our carriages,' he wrote, 'are only such as pass through
the place sometimes full and sometimes vacant.' A traveller had to watch
for a place (_ib_. p. 51). As measured by time London was, in 1772, one
hour farther from Lichfield than it now is from Marseilles. It is
strange, when we consider the long separation between Johnson and his
mother, that in _Rasselas_, written just after her death, he makes Imlac
say:-'There is such communication [in Europe] between distant places,
that one friend can hardly be said to be absent from another.'
_Rasselas_, chap, xi. His step-daughter, Miss Porter, though for many
years she was well off, had never been to London. _Post_, March 23,
1776. Nay, according to Horace Walpole (_Memoirs of the Reign of George
III_, iv. 327), 'George III. had never seen the sea, nor ever been
thirty miles from London at the age of thirty-four.'