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

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The _res angusta domi_[234] prevented him from having the advantage of a
complete academical education[235]. The friend to whom he had trusted for
support had deceived him. His debts in College, though not great, were
increasing[236]; and his scanty remittances from Lichfield, which had all
along been made with great difficulty, could be supplied no longer, his
father having fallen into a state of insolvency. Compelled, therefore,
by irresistible necessity, he left the College in autumn, 1731, without
a degree, having been a member of it little more than three years[237].

[Page 79: His destitute state. AEtat 22.]

Dr. Adams, the worthy and respectable master of Pembroke College, has
generally had the reputation of being Johnson's tutor. The fact,
however, is, that in 1731 Mr. Jorden quitted the College, and his pupils
were transferred to Dr. Adams; so that had Johnson returned, Dr. Adams
_would have been his tutor_. It is to be wished, that this connection
had taken place. His equal temper, mild disposition, and politeness of
manners, might have insensibly softened the harshness of Johnson, and
infused into him those more delicate charities, those _petites morales_,
in which, it must be confessed, our great moralist was more deficient
than his best friends could fully justify. Dr. Adams paid Johnson this
high compliment. He said to me at Oxford, in 1776, 'I was his nominal
tutor[238]; but he was above my mark.' When I repeated it to Johnson, his
eyes flashed with grateful satisfaction, and he exclaimed, 'That was
liberal and noble.'

[Page 80: Michael Johnson's death. A.D. 1731.]

And now (I had almost said _poor_) Samuel Johnson returned to his native
city, destitute, and not knowing how he should gain even a decent
livelihood. His father's misfortunes in trade rendered him unable to
support his son[239]; and for some time there appeared no means by which
he could maintain himself. In the December of this year his father died.

The state of poverty in which he died, appears from a note in one of
Johnson's little diaries of the following year, which strongly displays
his spirit and virtuous dignity of mind.

'1732, _Julii_ 15. _Undecim aureos deposui, quo die quicquid ante matris
funus (quod serum sit precor) de paternis bonis sperari licet, viginti
scilicet libras, accepi. Usque adeo mihi fortuna fingenda est. Interea,
ne paupertate vires animi languescant, nee in flagilia egestas abigat,
cavendum_.--I layed by eleven guineas on this day, when I received
twenty pounds, being all that I have reason to hope for out of my
father's effects, previous to the death of my mother; an event which I
pray GOD may be very remote. I now therefore see that I must make my own
fortune. Meanwhile, let me take care that the powers of my mind may not
be debilitated by poverty, and that indigence do not force me into any
criminal act.'

Johnson was so far fortunate, that the respectable character of his
parents, and his own merit, had, from his earliest years, secured him a
kind reception in the best families at Lichfield. Among these I can
mention Mr. Howard[240], Dr. Swinfen, Mr. Simpson, Mr. Levett[241], Captain
Garrick, father of the great ornament of the British stage; but above
all, Mr. Gilbert Walmsley[242], Register of the Prerogative Court of
Lichfield, whose character, long after his decease, Dr. Johnson has, in
his Life of Edmund Smith[243], thus drawn in the glowing colours of
gratitude:

[Page 81: Gilbert Walmsley. AEtat 22.]

'Of Gilbert Walmsley[244], thus presented to my mind, let me indulge
myself in the remembrance. I knew him very early; he was one of the
first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that, at least, my
gratitude made me worthy of his notice.

'He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy, yet he never
received my notions with contempt. He was a whig, with all the virulence
and malevolence of his party; yet difference of opinion did not keep us
apart. I honoured him and he endured me.

'He had mingled with the gay world without exemption from its vices or
its follies; but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind. His
belief of revelation was unshaken; his learning preserved his
principles; he grew first regular, and then pious.

'His studies had been so various, that I am not able to name a man of
equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great, and what he did
not immediately know, he could, at least, tell where to find. Such was
his amplitude of learning, and such his copiousness of communication,
that it may be doubted whether a day now passes, in which I have not
some advantage from his friendship.

'At this man's table I enjoyed many cheerful and instructive hours, with
companions, such as are not often found--with one who has lengthened,
and one who has gladdened life; with Dr. James[245], whose skill in
physick will be long remembered; and with David Garrick, whom I hoped to
have gratified with this character of our common friend. But what are
the hopes of man! I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has
eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the publick stock of
harmless pleasure[246].'

[Page 82: Lichfield society. A.D. 1732.]

In these families he passed much time in his early years. In most of
them, he was in the company of ladies, particularly at Mr. Walmsley's,
whose wife and sisters-in-law, of the name of Aston, and daughters of a
Baronet, were remarkable for good breeding; so that the notion which has
been industriously circulated and believed, that he never was in good
company till late in life, and, consequently had been confirmed in
coarse and ferocious manners by long habits, is wholly without
foundation. Some of the ladies have assured me, they recollected him
well when a young man, as distinguished for his complaisance.

And that this politeness was not merely occasional and temporary, or
confined to the circles of Lichfield, is ascertained by the testimony of
a lady, who, in a paper with which I have been favoured by a daughter of
his intimate friend and physician, Dr. Lawrence, thus describes Dr.
Johnson some years afterwards:

'As the particulars of the former part of Dr. Johnson's life do not seem
to be very accurately known, a lady hopes that the following information
may not be unacceptable.

[Page 83: Molly Aston. AEtat 23.]

'She remembers Dr. Johnson on a visit to Dr. Taylor, at Ashbourn, some
time between the end of the year 37, and the middle of the year 40; she
rather thinks it to have been after he and his wife were removed to
London[247]. During his stay at Ashbourn, he made frequent visits to Mr.
Meynell[248], at Bradley, where his company was much desired by the ladies
of the family, who were, perhaps, in point of elegance and
accomplishments, inferiour to few of those with whom he was afterwards
acquainted. Mr. Meynell's eldest daughter was afterwards married to Mr.
Fitzherbert[249], father to Mr. Alleyne Fitzherbert, lately minister to
the court of Russia. Of her, Dr. Johnson said, in Dr. Lawrence's study,
that she had the best understanding he ever met with in any human
being[250]. At Mr. Meynell's he also commenced that friendship with Mrs.
Hill Boothby[251], sister to the present Sir Brook Boothby, which
continued till her death. _The young woman whom he used to call Molly
Aston_[252], was sister to Sir Thomas Aston, and daughter to a Baronet;
she was also sister to the wife of his friend Mr. Gilbert Walmsley[253].
Besides his intimacy with the above-mentioned persons, who were surely
people of rank and education, while he was yet at Lichfield he used to
be frequently at the house of Dr. Swinfen, a gentleman of a very ancient
family in Staffordshire, from which, after the death of his elder
brother, he inherited a good estate. He was, besides, a physician of
very extensive practice; but for want of due attention to the management
of his domestick concerns, left a very large family in indigence. One of
his daughters, Mrs. Desmoulins, afterwards found an asylum in the house
of her old friend, whose doors were always open to the unfortunate, and
who well observed the precept of the Gospel, for he "was kind to the
unthankful and to the evil[254]."'

[Page 84: Johnson an usher. A.D. 1732.]

In the forlorn state of his circumstances, he accepted of an offer to be
employed as usher in the school of Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire,
to which it appears, from one of his little fragments of a diary, that
he went on foot, on the 16th of July.--'_Julii 16. Bosvortiam pedes
petii_[255].' But it is not true, as has been erroneously related, that he
was assistant to the famous Anthony Blackwall, whose merit has been
honoured by the testimony of Bishop Hurd[256], who was his scholar; for
Mr. Blackwall died on the 8th of April, 1730[257], more than a year before
Johnson left the University[258].

This employment was very irksome to him in every respect, and he
complained grievously of it in his letters to his friend Mr. Hector, who
was now settled as a surgeon at Birmingham. The letters are lost; but
Mr. Hector recollects his writing 'that the poet had described the dull
sameness of his existence in these words, "_Vitam continet una dies_"
(one day contains the whole of my life); that it was unvaried as the
note of the cuckow; and that he did not know whether it was more
disagreeable for him to teach, or the boys to learn, the grammar rules.'
His general aversion to this painful drudgery was greatly enhanced by a
disagreement between him and Sir Wolstan Dixey, the patron of the
school, in whose house, I have been told, he officiated as a kind of
domestick chaplain, so far, at least, as to say grace at table, but was
treated with what he represented as intolerable harshness[259]; and, after
suffering for a few months such complicated misery[260], he relinquished a
situation which all his life afterwards he recollected with the
strongest aversion, and even a degree of horrour[261]. But it is probable
that at this period, whatever uneasiness he may have endured, he laid
the foundation of much future eminence by application to his studies.

[Page 85: His life in Birmingham. AEtat 23.]

Being now again totally unoccupied, he was invited by Mr. Hector to pass
some time with him at Birmingham, as his guest, at the house of Mr.
Warren, with whom Mr. Hector lodged and boarded. Mr. Warren was the
first established bookseller in Birmingham, and was very attentive to
Johnson, who he soon found could be of much service to him in his trade,
by his knowledge of literature; and he even obtained the assistance of
his pen in furnishing some numbers of a periodical Essay printed in the
news-paper, of which Warren was proprietor[262]. After very diligent
inquiry, I have not been able to recover those early specimens of that
particular mode of writing by which Johnson afterwards so greatly
distinguished himself.

[Page 86: Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia. A.D. 1733.]

He continued to live as Mr. Hector's guest for about six months, and
then hired lodgings in another part of the town[263], finding himself as
well situated at Birmingham[264] as he supposed he could be any where,
while he had no settled plan of life, and very scanty means of
subsistence. He made some valuable acquaintances there, amongst whom
were Mr. Porter, a mercer, whose widow he afterwards married, and Mr.
Taylor[265], who by his ingenuity in mechanical inventions, and his
success in trade, acquired an immense fortune. But the comfort of being
near Mr. Hector, his old school-fellow and intimate friend, was
Johnson's chief inducement to continue here.

In what manner he employed his pen at this period, or whether he derived
from it any pecuniary advantage, I have not been able to ascertain. He
probably got a little money from Mr. Warren; and we are certain, that he
executed here one piece of literary labour, of which Mr. Hector has
favoured me with a minute account. Having mentioned that he had read at
Pembroke College a Voyage to Abyssinia, by Lobo, a Portuguese Jesuit,
and that he thought an abridgment and translation of it from the French
into English might be an useful and profitable publication, Mr. Warren
and Mr. Hector joined in urging him to undertake it. He accordingly
agreed; and the book not being to be found in Birmingham, he borrowed it
of Pembroke College. A part of the work being very soon done, one
Osborn, who was Mr. Warren's printer, was set to work with what was
ready, and Johnson engaged to supply the press with copy as it should be
wanted; but his constitutional indolence soon prevailed, and the work
was at a stand. Mr. Hector, who knew that a motive of humanity would be
the most prevailing argument with his friend, went to Johnson, and
represented to him, that the printer could have no other employment till
this undertaking was finished, and that the poor man and his family were
suffering. Johnson upon this exerted the powers of his mind, though his
body was relaxed. He lay in bed with the book, which was a quarto,
before him, and dictated while Hector wrote. Mr. Hector carried the
sheets to the press, and corrected almost all the proof sheets, very few
of which were even seen by Johnson. In this manner, with the aid of Mr.
Hector's active friendship, the book was completed, and was published in
1735, with LONDON upon the title-page, though it was in reality printed
at Birmingham, a device too common with provincial publishers. For this
work he had from Mr. Warren only the sum of five guineas[266].

This being the first prose work of Johnson, it is a curious object of
inquiry how much may be traced in it of that style which marks his
subsequent writings with such peculiar excellence; with so happy an
union of force, vivacity, and perspicuity. I have perused the book with
this view, and have found that here, as I believe in every other
translation, there is in the work itself no vestige of the translator's
own style; for the language of translation being adapted to the thoughts
of another person, insensibly follows their cast, and, as it were, runs
into a mould that is ready prepared[267].

Thus, for instance, taking the first sentence that occurs at the opening
of the book, p. 4.

'I lived here above a year, and completed my studies in divinity; in
which time some letters were received from the fathers of Ethiopia, with
an account that Sultan Segned[268], Emperour of Abyssinia, was converted
to the church of Rome; that many of his subjects had followed his
example, and that there was a great want of missionaries to improve
these prosperous beginnings. Every body was very desirous of seconding
the zeal of our fathers, and of sending them the assistance they
requested; to which we were the more encouraged, because the Emperour's
letter informed our Provincial, that we might easily enter his dominions
by the way of Dancala; but, unhappily, the secretary wrote Geila[269] for
Dancala, which cost two of our fathers their lives.'

Every one acquainted with Johnson's manner will be sensible that there
is nothing of it here; but that this sentence might have been composed
by any other man.

But, in the Preface, the Johnsonian style begins to appear; and though
use had not yet taught his wing a permanent and equable flight, there
are parts of it which exhibit his best manner in full vigour. I had once
the pleasure of examining it with Mr. Edmund Burke, who confirmed me in
this opinion, by his superiour critical sagacity, and was, I remember,
much delighted with the following specimen:

'The Portuguese traveller, contrary to the general vein of his
countrymen, has amused his reader with no romantick absurdity, or
incredible fictions; whatever he relates, whether true or not, is at
least probable; and he who tells nothing exceeding the bounds of
probability, has a right to demand that they should believe him who
cannot contradict him.

'He appears, by his modest and unaffected narration, to have described
things as he saw them, to have copied nature from the life, and to have
consulted his senses, not his imagination. He meets with no basilisks
that destroy with their eyes, his crocodiles devour their prey without
tears, and his cataracts fall from the rocks without deafening the
neighbouring inhabitants[270].

'The reader will here find no regions cursed with irremediable
barrenness, or blessed with spontaneous fecundity; no perpetual gloom,
or unceasing sunshine; nor are the nations here described either devoid
of all sense of humanity, or consummate in all private or social
virtues. Here are no Hottentots without religious polity or articulate
language[271]; no Chinese perfectly polite, and completely skilled in all
sciences; he will discover, what will always be discovered by a diligent
and impartial enquirer, that wherever human nature is to be found, there
is a mixture of vice and virtue, a contest of passion and reason; and
that the Creator doth not appear partial in his distributions, but has
balanced, in most countries, their particular inconveniencies by
particular favours.'

Here we have an early example of that brilliant and energetick
expression, which, upon innumerable occasions in his subsequent life,
justly impressed the world with the highest admiration.

Nor can any one, conversant with the writings of Johnson, fail to
discern his hand in this passage of the Dedication to John Warren, Esq.
of Pembrokeshire, though it is ascribed to Warren the bookseller:

'A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly
than an eminent degree of curiosity[272]; nor is that curiosity ever more
agreeably or usefully employed, than in examining the laws and customs
of foreign nations. I hope, therefore, the present I now presume to
make, will not be thought improper; which, however, it is not my
business as a dedicator to commend, nor as a bookseller to depreciate.'

It is reasonable to suppose, that his having been thus accidentally led
to a particular study of the history and manners of Abyssinia, was the
remote occasion of his writing, many years afterwards, his admirable
philosophical tale[273], the principal scene of which is laid in that
country.

[Page 90: Proposals to print Politian. A.D. 1734.]

Johnson returned to Lichfield early in 1734, and in August[274] that year
he made an attempt to procure some little subsistence by his pen; for he
published proposals for printing by subscription the Latin Poems of
Politian[275]: '_Angeli Politiani Poemata Latina, quibus, Notas cum
historia Latinae poeseos, a Petrarchae aevo ad Politiani tempora deducta,
et vita Politiani fusius quam antehac enarrata, addidit_ SAM.
JOHNSON[276].'

It appears that his brother Nathanael[277] had taken up his father's
trade; for it is mentioned that 'subscriptions are taken in by the
Editor, or N. Johnson, bookseller, of Lichfield.' Notwithstanding the
merit of Johnson, and the cheap price at which this book was offered,
there were not subscribers enough to insure a sufficient sale; so the
work never appeared, and probably, never was executed.

[Page 91: First letter to Edward Cave. AEtat 25.]

We find him again this year at Birmingham, and there is preserved the
following letter from him to Mr. Edward Cave[278], the original compiler
and editor of the _Gentleman's Magazine_:

TO MR. CAVE.

_Nov_. 25, 1734.

'Sir,

'As you appear no less sensible than your readers of the defects of your
poetical article, you will not be displeased, if, in order to the
improvement of it, I communicate to you the sentiments of a person, who
will undertake, on reasonable terms, sometimes to fill a column.

'His opinion is, that the publick would not give you a bad reception,
if, beside the current wit of the month, which a critical examination
would generally reduce to a narrow compass, you admitted not only poems,
inscriptions, &c. never printed before, which he will sometimes supply
you with; but likewise short literary dissertations in Latin or English,
critical remarks on authours ancient or modern, forgotten poems that
deserve revival, or loose pieces, like Floyer's[279], worth preserving. By
this method, your literary article, for so it might be called, will, he
thinks, be better recommended to the publick than by low jests, awkward
buffoonery, or the dull scurrilities of either party.

'If such a correspondence will be agreeable to you, be pleased to inform
me in two posts, what the conditions are on which you shall expect it.
Your late offer[280] gives me no reason to distrust your generosity. If
you engage in any literary projects besides this paper, I have other
designs to impart, if I could be secure from having others reap the
advantage of what I should hint.

[Page 92: Verses on a sprig of myrtle. A.D. 1734.]

'Your letter by being directed to _S. Smith_, to be left at the Castle
in[281] Birmingham, Warwickshire, will reach

'Your humble servant.'

Mr. Cave has put a note on this letter, 'Answered Dec. 2.' But whether
any thing was done in consequence of it we are not informed.

Johnson had, from his early youth, been sensible to the influence of
female charms. When at Stourbridge school, he was much enamoured of
Olivia Lloyd, a young quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses, which I
have not been able to recover; but with what facility and elegance he
could warble the amorous lay, will appear from the following lines which
he wrote for his friend Mr. Edmund Hector.

[Page 93: Boswell's controversy with Miss Seward. AEtat 25.]

VERSES _to a_ LADY, _on receiving from her a_ SPRIG of MYRTLE.

'What hopes, what terrours does thy gift create,
Ambiguous emblem of uncertain fate:
The myrtle, ensign of supreme command,
Consign'd by Venus to Melissa's hand;
Not less capricious than a reigning fair,
Now grants, and now rejects a lover's prayer.
In myrtle shades oft sings the happy swain,
In myrtle shades despairing ghosts complain;
The myrtle crowns the happy lovers' heads,
The unhappy lovers' grave the myrtle spreads:
O then the meaning of thy gift impart,
And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart!
Soon must this bough, as you shall fix his doom,
Adorn Philander's head, or grace his tomb[282].'

[Page 94: Johnson's personal appearance. A.D. 1734.]

His juvenile attachments to the fair sex were, however, very transient;
and it is certain that he formed no criminal connection whatsoever. Mr.
Hector, who lived with him in his younger days in the utmost intimacy
and social freedom, has assured me, that even at that ardent season his
conduct was strictly virtuous in that respect[283]; and that though he
loved to exhilarate himself with wine, he never knew him intoxicated but
once[284].

[Page 95: Mrs. Porter. AEtat 25.]

In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious
indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is
exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by dissipation, and totally
concentrated in one object. This was experienced by Johnson, when he
became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter, after her first husband's
death[285]. Miss Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her
mother, his appearance was very forbidding: he was then lean and lank,
so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the
eye, and the scars of the scrophula were deeply visible[286]. He also wore
his hair[287], which was straight and stiff, and separated behind: and he
often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which
tended to excite at once surprize and ridicule[288]. Mrs. Porter was so
much engaged by his conversation that she overlooked all these external
disadvantages, and said to her daughter, 'this is the most sensible man
that I ever saw in my life.'

Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of Johnson[289], and her person and
manner, as described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by no means
pleasing to others, she must have had a superiority of understanding and
talents, as she certainly inspired him with a more than ordinary
passion; and she having signified her willingness to accept of his hand,
he went to Lichfield to ask his mother's consent to the marriage, which
he could not but be conscious was a very imprudent scheme, both on
account of their disparity of years, and her want of fortune[290]. But
Mrs. Johnson knew too well the ardour of her son's temper, and was too
tender a parent to oppose his inclinations.

[Page 96: Johnson's marriage. A.D. 1736.]

I know not for what reason the marriage ceremony was not performed at
Birmingham; but a resolution was taken that it should be at Derby, for
which place the bride and bridegroom set out on horseback, I suppose in
very good humour. But though Mr. Topham Beauclerk used archly to mention
Johnson's having told him, with much gravity, 'Sir, it was a love
marriage on both sides,' I have had from my illustrious friend the
following curious account of their journey to church upon the nuptial
morn:

9th July:--'Sir, she had read the old romances, and had got into her
head the fantastical notion that a woman of spirit should use her lover
like a dog. So, Sir, at first she told me that I rode too fast, and she
could not keep up with me; and, when I rode a little slower, she passed
me, and complained that I lagged behind. I was not to be made the slave
of caprice; and I resolved to begin as I meant to end. I therefore
pushed on briskly, till I was fairly out of her sight. The road lay
between two hedges, so I was sure she could not miss it; and I contrived
that she should soon come up with me. When she did, I observed her to be
in tears.'