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

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[1349] Wesley said:--'We should constantly use the most common, little,
easy words (so they are pure and proper) which our language affords.
When first I talked at Oxford to plain people in the Castle [the prison]
or the town, I observed they gaped and stared. This quickly obliged me
to alter my style, and adopt the language of those I spoke to; and yet
there is a dignity in their simplicity, which is not disagreeable to
those of the highest rank.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 431. See _post_,
1770, in Dr. Maxwell's _Collectanea_, Oct. 12, 1779, Aug. 30, 1780, and
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10, 1773.

[1350] In the original, _struck_.

[1351] _Epigram_, Lib. ii. 'In Elizabeth. Angliae Reg.' MALONE.

[1352] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 23.

[1353] Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. 5. Johnson, when a boy, turned the line
thus:--'And the wood rings with Amarillis' name.' _Ante_, p. 51.

[1354] Boswell said of Paoli's talk about great men:--'I regret that the
fire with which he spoke upon such occasions so dazzled me, that I could
not recollect his sayings, so as to write them down when I retired from
his presence.' _Corsica_, p. 197.

[1355] More passages than one in Boswell's _Letters to Temple_ shew this
absence of relish. Thus in 1775 he writes:--'I perceive some dawnings of
taste for the country' (p. 216); and again:--'I will force a taste for
natural beauties' (p. 219).

[1356] Milton's _L'Allegro_, 1. 118.

[1357] See _post_, April 2, 1775, and April 17, 1778.

[1358] My friend Sir Michael Le Fleming. This gentleman, with all his
experience of sprightly and elegant life, inherits, with the beautiful
family Domain, no inconsiderable share of that love of literature, which
distinguished his venerable grandfather, the Bishop of Carlisle. He one
day observed to me, of Dr. Johnson, in a felicity of phrase, 'There is a
blunt dignity about him on every occasion.' BOSWELL.

[1359] Wordsworth's lines to the Baronet's daughter, Lady Fleming, might
be applied to the father:--

'Lives there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise,
Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?'

Wordsworth's _Poems_, iv. 338.

[1360] Afterwards Lord Stowell. He was a member of Doctors' Commons, the
college of Civilians in London, who practised in the Ecclesiastical
Courts and the Court of the Admiralty. See Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Aug. 14, 1773.

[1361] He repeated this advice on the death of Boswell's father, _post_,
Sept. 7, 1782.

[1362] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 159) describes 'the sullen dignity of the
old castle.' See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4. 1773.

[1363] Probably Burke's _Vindication of Natural Society_, published in
1756 when Burke was twenty-six.

[1364] See _ante_, p. 421.

[1365] Boswell wrote to Temple on July 28, 1763:--'My departure fills me
with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could almost weep
to think of leaving dear London, and the calm retirement of the Inner
Temple. This is very effeminate and very young, but I cannot help it.'
_Letters of Boswell_, p. 46.

[1366] Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 297) that 'Johnson's eyes were so
wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the
first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.'

[1367] Johnson was, in fact, the editor of this work, as appears from a
letter of Mr. T. Davies to the Rev. Edm. Bettesworth:--'Reverend Sir,--I
take the liberty to send you Roger Ascham's works in English. Though Mr.
Bennet's name is in the title, the editor was in reality Mr. Johnson,
the author of the _Rambler_, who wrote the life of the author, and added
several notes. Mr. Johnson gave it to Mr. Bennet, for his advantage,'
&c.--CROKER. Very likely Davies exaggerated Johnson's share in the book.
Bennet's edition was published, not in 1763, but in 1761.

[1368] 'Lord Sheffield describes the change in Gibbon's opinions caused
by the reign of terror:--'He became a warm and zealous advocate for
every sort of old establishment. I recollect in a circle where French
affairs were the topic and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with
seriousness, argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, and said he
would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment.'
_Gibbons's Misc. Works_, i. 328. One of Gibbon's correspondents told him
in 1792, that the _Wealth of Nations_ had been condemned by the
Inquisition on account of 'the lowness of its style and the looseness of
the morals which it inculcates.' _Ib_. ii. 479. See also _post_, May
7, 1773.

[1369] Johnson wrote on Aug. 17, 1773:--'This morning I saw at breakfast
Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light,
and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was
originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence.'
_Piozzi Letters_, i. 110. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.
Spence published an _Account of Blacklock_, in which he meanly omitted
any mention of Hume's great generosity to the blind poet. J. H. Burton's
_Hume_, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether he connected colour and
sound. 'He answered, that as he met so often with the terms expressing
colours, he had formed some false associations, but that they were of
the intellectual kind. The illumination of the sun, for instance, he
supposed to resemble the presence of a friend.' _Ib_. p. 389.

[1370] They left London early and yet they travelled only 51 miles that
day. The whole distance to Harwich is 71 miles. Paterson's
_Itinerary_, i. 323.

[1371] Mackintosh (_Life_, ii. 162) writing of the time of William III,
says that 'torture was legal in Scotland, and familiar in every country
of Europe but England. Was there a single writer at that time who had
objected to torture? I think not.' In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1742 (p. 660)
it is stated that 'the King of Prussia has forbid the use of torture in
his dominions.' In 1747 (p. 298) we read that Dr. Blackwell, an English
physician, had been put to the torture in Sweden. Montesquieu in the
_Esprit des Lois_, vi. 17, published in 1748, writing of 'la question ou
torture centre les criminels,' says:--'Nous voyons aujourd'hui une
nation tres-bien policee [la nation anglaise] la rejeter sans
inconvenient. Elle n'est donc pas necessaire par sa nature.' Boswell in
1765 found that Paoli tortured a criminal with fire. _Corsica_, p. 158.
Voltaire, in 1777, after telling how innocent men had been put to death
with torture in the reign of Lewis XIV, continues--'Mais un roi a-t-il
le temps de songer a ces menus details d'horreurs au milieu de ses
fetes, de ses conquetes, et de ses mattresses? Daignez vous en occuper,
o Louis XVI, vous qui n'avez aucune de ces distractions!' Voltaire's
_Works_, xxvi. 332. Johnson, two years before Voltaire thus wrote, had
been shown _la chambre de question_--the torture-chamber-_in Paris_.
_Post_, Oct. 17, 1775. It was not till the Revolution that torture was
abolished in France. One of the Scotch judges in 1793, at the trial of
Messrs. Palmer and Muir for sedition (_post_, June 3, 1781, note),
'asserted that now the torture was banished, there was no adequate
punishment for sedition.' _Parl. Hist_. xxx. 1569.

[1372] 'A cheerful and good heart will have a care of his meat and
drink.' _Ecclesiasticus_, xxx. 25.

'Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet,
Nam ibi de divinis atque humanis cernitur.'
_Trinummus_, act 2, sc. 4.

Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 149) records that 'Johnson often said, "that
wherever the dinner is ill got, there is poverty, or there is avarice,
or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong;
for," continued he, "a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of
anything than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well
dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things."' Yet he
'used to say that a man who rode out for an appetite consulted but
little the dignity of human nature.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 204.

[1373] This essay is more against the practices of the parasite than
gulosity. It is entitled _The art of living at the cost of others_.
Johnson wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's children:--'Gluttony is, I think,
less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more
sparingly, and are less curious in the choice of meat; but if once you
find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her mind is
enslaved to the lowest and grossest temptation.' _Piozzi Letters_,
ii. 298.

[1374] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 355) mentions 'the greediness with which he
ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his
profound silence at the moment of refection.'

[1375] Cumberland (_Memoirs_, i. 357) says:--'He fed heartily, but not
voraciously, and was extremely courteous in his commendations of any
dish that pleased his palate.'

[1376] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 10, 1780:--'Last week I saw
flesh but twice and I think fish once; the rest was pease. You are
afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to
violence; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every man
has his _genius_, and that the great rule by which all excellence is
attained and all success procured, is to follow _genius_; and have you
not observed in all our conversations that my _genius_ is always in
extremes; that I am very noisy or very silent; very gloomy or very
merry; very sour or very kind? And would you have me cross my _genius_
when it leads me sometimes to voracity and sometimes to abstinence?'
_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 166.

[1377] 'This,' he told Boswell, 'was no intentional fasting, but
happened just in the course of a literary life.' Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Oct. 4, 1773. See _post_, April 17, 1778.

[1378] In the last year of his life, when he knew that his appetite was
diseased, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I have now an inclination to luxury
which even your table did not excite; _for till now my talk was more
about the dishes than my thoughts_. I remember you commended me for
seeming pleased with my dinners when you had reduced your table; I am
able to tell you with great veracity, that I never knew when the
reduction began, nor should have known what it was made, had not you
told me. _I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow.
This disease will, I hope, be cured_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 362.

[1379] Johnson's visit to Gordon and Maclaurin are just mentioned in
Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11, 1772.

[1380] The only nobleman with whom he dined 'about the same time' was
Lord Elibank. After dining with him, 'he supped,' says Boswell, 'with my
wife and myself.' _Ib_.

[1381] See _post_, April 15, 1778.

[1382] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 102) says, 'Johnson's own notions about
eating were nothing less than delicate; a leg of pork boiled till it
dropped from the bone, a veal-pie with plums and sugar, or the outside
cut of a salt buttock of beef were his favourite dainties.' Cradock saw
Burke at a tavern dinner send Johnson a very small piece of a pie, the
crust of which was made with bad butter. 'Johnson soon returned his
plate for more. Burke exclaimed:--"I am glad that you are able so well
to relish this pie." Johnson, not at all pleased that what he ate should
ever be noticed, retorted:--"There is a time of life, Sir, when a man
requires the repairs of a table."' Cradock's _Memoirs_, i. 229. A
passage in Baretti's _Italy_, ii. 316, seems to show that English eating
in general was not delicate. 'I once heard a Frenchman swear,' he
writes, 'that he hated the English, "parce qu'ils versent du beurre
fondu sur leur veau rod."'

[1383] 'He had an abhorrence of affectation,' said Mr. Langton. _Post_,
1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_.

[1384] At college he would not let his companions say _prodigious_.
_Post_, April 17, 1778.

[1385] See _post_, Sept. 19, 1777, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's
_Collection_. Dugald Stewart quotes a saying of Turgot:--'He who had
never doubted of the existence of matter might be assured he had no turn
for metaphysical disquisitions.' _Life of Reid_, p. 416.

[1386] Claude Buffier, born 1661, died 1737. Author of _Traite
despremieres verites et de la source de nos jugements_.

[1387]

'Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride
Turns you from sound philosophy aside.'

Pope's _Satires_, ii. 5.

[1388] Mackintosh (_Life_, i. 71) said that 'Burke's treatise on the
_Sublime and Beautiful_ is rather a proof that his mind was not formed
for pure philosophy; and if we may believe Boswell that it was once the
intention of Mr. Burke to have written against Berkeley, we may be
assured that he would not have been successful in answering that great
speculator; or, to speak more correctly, that he could not have
discovered the true nature of the questions in dispute, and thus have
afforded the only answer consistent with the limits of the human
faculties.'

[1389] Goldsmith's _Retaliation_.

[1390] I have the following autograph letter written by Johnson to Dr.
Taylor three weeks after Boswell's departure.

'DEAR SIR,

'Having with some impatience reckoned upon hearing from you these two
last posts, and been disappointed, I can form to myself no reason for
the omission but your perturbation of mind, or disorder of body arising
from it, and therefore I once more advise removal from Ashbourne as the
proper remedy both for the cause and the effect.

'You perhaps ask, whither should I go? any whither where your case is
not known, and where your presence will cause neither looks nor
whispers. Where you are the necessary subject of common talk, you will
not safely be at rest.

'If you cannot conveniently write to me yourself let somebody write for
you to

'Dear Sir,

'Your most affectionate,

'SAM. JOHNSON.

'August 25, 1763.

'To the Reverend Dr. Taylor
in Ashbourne,
Derbyshire.'

Five other letters on the same subject are given in _Notes and Queries_,
6th S. v. pp. 324, 342, 382. Taylor and his wife 'never lived very well
together' (p. 325), and at last she left him. On May 22nd of the next
year Johnson congratulated Taylor 'upon the happy end of so vexatious an
affair, the happyest [sic] that could be next to reformation and
reconcilement' (p. 382). Taylor did not follow the advice to leave
Ashbourne; for on Sept. 3 Johnson wrote to him:--'You seem to be so well
pleased to be where you are, that I shall not now press your removal;
but do not believe that every one who rails at your wife wishes well to
you. A small country town is not the place in which one would chuse to
quarrel with a wife; every human being in such places is a spy.'
_Ib_. p. 343.

[1391] According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 210) he was accompanied by
his black servant Frank. 'I must have you know, ladies,' said he, 'that
Frank has carried the empire of Cupid further than most men. When I was
in Lincolnshire so many years ago he attended me thither; and when we
returned home together, I found that a female haymaker had followed him
to London for love.' If this story is generally true, it bears the mark
of Mrs. Piozzi's usual inaccuracy. The visit was paid early in the year,
and was over in February; what haymakers were there at that season?

[1392] Boswell by his quotation marks refers, I think, to his
_Hebrides_, Oct. 24, 1773, where Johnson says:--'Nobody, at times, talks
more laxly than I do.' See also _post_, ii. 73.

[1393] See _post_, April 26, 1776, for old Mr. Langton's slowness of
understanding.

[1394] See _ante_, i. 320.

[1395] Mr. Best (_Memorials_, p. 65) thus writes of a visit to
Langton:--'We walked to the top of a very steep hill behind the house.
Langton said, "Poor dear Dr. Johnson, when he came to this spot, turned
back to look down the hill, and said he was determined to take a roll
down. When we understood what he meant to do, we endeavoured to dissuade
him; but he was resolute, saying, he had not had a roll for a long time;
and taking out of his lesser pockets whatever might be in them, and
laying himself parallel with the edge of the hill, he actually
descended, turning himself over and over till he came to the bottom."
This story was told with such gravity, and with an air of such
affectionate remembrance of a departed friend, that it was impossible to
suppose this extraordinary freak an invention of Mr. Langton.' It must
have been in the winter that he had this roll.

[1396] Boswell himself so calls it in a Mr. letter to Temple written
three or four months after Garrick's death, _Letters of Boswell_, p.
242. See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773.

[1397] Malone says:--'Reynolds was the original founder of our Literary
Club about the year 1762, the first thought of which he started to Dr.
Johnson at his own fireside.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 434. Mrs. Piozzi
(_Anec_. p. 122) says:--'Johnson called Reynolds their Romulus, or said
somebody else of the company called him so, which was more likely.'
According to Hawkins (_Life_, p. 425) the Club was founded in the winter
of 1763, i.e. 1763-4.

[1398] Dr. Nugent, a physician, was Burke's father-in-law. Macaulay
(_Essays_, i. 407) says:--'As we close Boswell's book, the club-room is
before us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the
lemons for Johnson.' It was from Mrs. Piozzi that Macaulay learnt of the
omelet. Nugent was a Roman Catholic, and it was on Friday that the Club
before long came to meet. We may assume that he would not on that day
eat meat. 'I fancy,' Mrs. Piozzi writes (_Anec_. p. 122), 'Dr. Nugent
ordered an omelet sometimes on a Friday or Saturday night; for I
remember Mr. Johnson felt very painful sensations at the sight of that
dish soon after his death, and cried:--"Ah my poor dear friend! I shall
never eat omelet with _thee_ again!" quite in an agony.' Dr. Nugent, in
the imaginary college at St. Andrews, was to be the professor of physic.
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 25, 1773.

[1399] Mr. Andrew Chamier was of Huguenot descent, and had been a
stock-broker. He was a man of liberal education. 'He acquired such a
fortune as enabled him, though young, to quit business, and become, what
indeed he seemed by nature intended for, a gentleman.' Hawkins's
_Johnson_, p. 422. In 1764 he was Secretary in the War Office. In 1775
he was appointed Under Secretary of State. Forster's _Goldsmith_, i.
310. He was to be the professor of commercial politics in the imaginary
college. Johnson passed one of his birth-days at his house; _post_,
under Sept. 9, 1779, note.

[1400] 'It was Johnson's intention,' writes Hawkins (_Life_, p. 423),
'that their number should not exceed nine.' Nine was the number of the
Ivy Lane Club (_ante_, p. 190). Johnson, I suppose, looked upon nine as
the most _clubable_ number. 'It was intended,' says Dr. Percy, 'that if
only two of these chanced to meet for the evening, they should be able
to entertain each other.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 70. Hawkins adds
that 'Mr. Dyer (_post_, 1780 in Mr. Langton's _Collection_), a member of
the Ivy Lane Club, who for some years had been abroad, made his
appearance among us, and was cordially received.' According to Dr.
Percy, by 1768 not only had Hawkins formally withdrawn, but Beauclerk
had forsaken the club for more fashionable ones. 'Upon this the Club
agreed to increase their number to twelve; every new member was to be
elected by ballot, and one black ball was sufficient for exclusion. Mr.
Beauclerk then desired to be restored to the Society, and the following
new members were introduced on Monday, Feb. 15, 1768; Sir R. Chambers,
Dr. Percy and Mr. Colman.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 72. In the list
in Croker's _Boswell_, ed. 1844, ii. 326, the election of Percy and
Chambers is placed in 1765.

[1401] Boswell wrote on April 4, 1775:--'I dine, Friday, at the Turk's
Head, Gerrard-street, with our Club, Sir Joshua Reynolds, etc., who now
dine once a month, and sup every Friday.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 186.
In 1766, Monday was the night of meeting. _Post_, May 10, 1766. In Dec.
1772 the night was changed to Friday. Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 72.
Hawkins says (_Life_, pp. 424, 5):--'We seldom got together till nine;
preparing supper took up till ten; and by the time that the table was
cleared, it was near eleven. Our evening toast was the motto of Padre
Paolo, _Esto perpetua! Esto perpetua_ was being soon not Padre Paolo's
motto, but his dying prayer. 'As his end evidently approached, the
brethren of the convent came to pronounce the last prayers, with which
he could only join in his thoughts, being able to pronounce no more than
these words, "_Esto perpetua_" mayst thou last for ever; which was
understood to be a prayer for the prosperity of his country.' Johnson's
_Works_, vi. 269.

[1402] See _post_, March 14, 1777.

[1403] 'After 1783 it removed to Prince's in Sackville-street, and on
his house being soon afterwards shut up, it removed to Baxter's, which
subsequently became Thomas's, in Dover-street. In January 1792 it
removed to Parsloe's, in St. James's-street; and on February 26, 1799,
to the Thatched-house in the same street.' Forster's _Goldsmith_ i. 311.

[1404] The second edition is here spoken of. MALONE.

[1405] _Life of Johnson_, p. 425. BOSWELL.

[1406] From Sir Joshua Reynolds. BOSWELL. The Knight having refused to
pay his portion of the reckoning for supper, because he usually eat no
supper at home, Johnson observed, 'Sir John, Sir, is a very _unclubable_
man.' BURNEY. Hawkins (_Life_, p. 231) says that 'Mr. Dyer had
contracted a fatal intimacy with some persons of desperate fortunes, who
were dealers in India stock, at a time when the affairs of the company
were in a state of fluctuation.' Malone, commenting on this passage,
says that 'under these words Mr. Burke is darkly alluded to, together
with his cousin.' He adds that the character given of Dyer by Hawkins
'is discoloured by the malignant prejudices of that shallow writer, who,
having quarrelled with Mr. Burke, carried his enmity even to Mr. Burke's
friends.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 419. See also _ante_, p. 27. Hawkins
(_Life_, p. 420) said of Goldsmith:--'As he wrote for the booksellers,
we at the Club looked on him as a mere literary drudge, equal to the
task of compiling and translating, but little capable of original, and
still less of poetical composition.'

[1407] _Life of Johnson_, p. 425. BOSWELL. Hawkins is 'equally
inaccurate' in saying' that Johnson was so constant at our meetings as
never to absent himself.' (_Ib_. p. 424.) See _post_, Johnson's letter
to Langton of March 9, 1766, where he says:--'Dyer is constant at the
Club; Hawkins is remiss; I am not over diligent.'

[1408] Letters to and from Dr. Johnson. Vol. ii. p. 278 [387]. BOSWELL.
The passage is as follows:--'"If he _does_ apply," says our Doctor to
Mr. Thrale, "I'll black-ball him." "Who, Sir? Mr. Garrick, your friend,
your companion,--black-ball him!" "Why, Sir, I love my little David
dearly, better than all or any of his flatterers do, but surely one
ought, &c."'

[1409] Pope's _Moral Essays_, iii. 242.

[1410] Malone says that it was from him that Boswell had his account of
Garrick's election, and that he had it from Reynolds. He adds that
'Johnson warmly supported Garrick, being in reality a very tender
affectionate man. He was merely offended at the actors conceit.' He
continues:--'On the former part of this story it probably was that
Hawkins grounded his account that Garrick never was of the Club, and
that Johnson said he never ought to be of it. And thus it is that this
stupid biographer, and the more flippant and malicious Mrs. Piozzi have
miscoloured and misrepresented almost every anecdote that they have
pretented to tell of Dr. Johnson.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 392. Whatever
was the slight cast upon Garrick, he was nevertheless the sixth new
member elected. Four, as I have shown, were added by 1768. The next
elections were in 1773 (Croker's _Boswell_, ed. 1844. ii. 326), when
five were added, of whom Garrick was the second, and Boswell the fifth.
In 1774 five more were elected, among whom were Fox and Gibbon. Hannah
More (_Memoirs_, i. 249) says that 'upon Garrick's death, when
numberless applications were made to succeed him [in the Club], Johnson
was deaf to them all. He said, "No, there never could be found any
successor worthy of such a man;" and he insisted upon it there should be
a year's widowhood in the club, before they thought of a new election.'

[1411] Grainger wrote to Percy on April 6, 1764:--'Sam. Johnson says he
will review it in _The Critical_' In August, 1765, he wrote:--'I am
perfectly satisfied with the reception the _Sugar Cane_ has met with,
and am greatly obliged to you and Mr. Johnson for the generous care you
took of it in my absence.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 238. He was absent in
the West Indies. He died on Dec. 16, 1766. _Ib_. p. 241. The review of
the _Sugar Cane_ in the _Critical Review_ (p. 270) is certainly by
Johnson. The following passage is curious:--'The last book begins with a
striking invocation to the genius of Africa, and goes on to give proper
instructions for the buying and choice of negroes.... The poet talks of
this ungenerous commerce without the least appearance of detestation;
but proceeds to direct these purchasers of their fellow-creatures with
the same indifference that a groom would give instructions for
choosing a horse.