A letter about a cancel in Johnson's 'Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland', dated Nov. 30, 1774.[In the possession of Messrs. Pearson and Co., 46, Pall Mall.]
'SIR,
'I waited on you this morning having forgotten your new engagement; for this you must not reproach me, for if I had looked upon your present station with malignity I could not have forgotten it. I came to consult you upon a little matter that gives me some uneasiness. In one of the pages there is a severe censure of the clergy of an English Cathedral which I am afraid is just, but I have since recollected that from me it may be thought improper, for the Dean did me a kindness about forty years ago. He is now very old, and I am not young. Reproach can do him no good, and in myself I know not whether it is zeal or wantonness. Can a leaf be cancelled without too much trouble? tell me what I shall do. I have no settled choice, but I would not wish to allow the charge. To cancel it seems the surer side. Determine for me.
'I am, Sir, Your most humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Nov. 30, 1774.
'Tell me your mind: if you will cancel it I will write something to fill up the vacuum. Please to direct to the borough.'
Mr. Strahan's 'new engagement' was in the House of Commons at Westminster,
to which he had been elected for the first time as member for Malmesbury.
The new Parliament had met on Nov. 29, the day before the date of
Johnson's letter (Parl. Hist, xviii. 23).
The leaf that Johnson cancelled contained pages 47, 48 in the first edition of his Journey to the Western Islands. It corresponds with pages 19-30 in vol. ix. of Johnson's Works (ed. 1825), beginning with the words 'could not enter,' and ending 'imperfect constitution.' The excision is marked by a ridge of paper, which was left that the revised leaf might be attached to it. Johnson describes how the lead which covered the Cathedrals of Elgin and Aberdeen had been stripped off by the order of the Scottish Council, and shipped to be sold in Holland. He continues:—'Let us not however make too much haste to despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence, and we are in danger of doing that deliberately, which the Scots did not do but in the unsettled state of an imperfect constitution.'
In the copy of the first edition in the Bodleian Library, which had belonged to Gough the antiquary, there is written in his hand, as a foot-note to 'neighbours': 'There is now, as I have heard, a body of men not less decent or virtuous than the Scottish Council, longing to melt the lead of an English Cathedral. What they shall melt, it were just that they should swallow.' It can scarcely be doubted that this is the suppressed passage. The English Cathedral to which Johnson refers was, I believe, Lichfield. 'The roof,' says Harwood (History of Lichfield, p. 75), 'was formerly covered with lead, but now with slate.' Addenbroke, who had been Dean since 1745, was, we may assume, very old at the time when Johnson wrote. I had at first thought it not unlikely that it was Dr. Thomas Newton, Dean of St. Paul's and Bishop of Bristol, who was censured. He was a Lichfield man, and was known to Johnson (see ante, iv. 285, n. 3). He was, however, only seventy years old. I am informed moreover by the Rev. W. Sparrow Simpson, the learned editor of Documents illustrating the History of St. Paul's, that it is very improbable that at this time the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's entertained such a thought.
My friend Mr. C. E. Doble has kindly furnished me with the following curious parallel to Johnson's suppressed wish about the molten lead.
'The chappell of our Lady [at Wells], late repayred by Stillington, a place of great reverence and antiquitie, was likewise defaced, and such was their thirst after lead (I would they had drunke it scalding) that they tooke the dead bodies of bishops out of their leaden coffins, and cast abroad the carkases skarce throughly putrified.'—Harington's Nuga Antiquae, ii. 147 (ed. 1804).
In the postscript Johnson says 'Please to direct to the borough.' He was staying in Mr. Thrale's town-house in the Borough of Southwark. (See ante, i, 493.)
IX.
A letter about apprenticing a lad to Mr. Strahan, and about a presentation to the Blue Coat School, dated December 22, 1774. [In the possession of Messrs. Robson and Kerslake, 25, Coventry Street Haymarket.]
'Sir,
'When we meet we talk, and I know not whether I always recollect what
I thought I had to say.
'You will please to remember that I once asked you to receive an apprentice, who is a scholar, and has always lived in a clergyman's house, but who is mishapen, though I think not so as to hinder him at the case. It will be expected that I should answer his Friend who has hitherto maintained him, whether I can help him to a place. He can give no money, but will be kept in cloaths.
'I have another request which it is perhaps not immediately in your power to gratify. I have a presentation to beg for the blue coat hospital. The boy is a non-freeman, and has both his parents living. We have a presentation for a freeman which we can give in exchange. If in your extensive acquaintance you can procure such an exchange, it will be an act of great kindness. Do not let the matter slip out of your mind, for though I try others I know not any body of so much power to do it.
'I am, Sir, Your most humble Servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Dec. 22, 1774.'
The apprentice was young William Davenport, the orphan son of a clergyman.
His friend was the Rev. W. Langley, the master of Ashbourne School.
Strahan received him as an apprentice (ante, ii. 334, n. i). See also
Nichols' Literary Anecdotes, vol. iii. p. 287.
The 'case' is the frame containing boxes for holding type.
X.
A letter about suppressions in 'Taxation no Tyranny! dated March 1, 1775.[In the possession of Mr. Frank T. Sabin, 10 & 12, Garrick Street Covent Garden.]
'SIR,
'I am sorry to see that all the alterations proposed are evidences of timidity. You may be sure that I do [? not] wish to publish, what those for whom I write do not like to have published. But print me half a dozen copies in the original state, and lay them up for me. It concludes well enough as it is.
'When you print it, if you print it, please to frank one to me here, and frank another to Mrs. Aston at Stow Hill, Lichfield.
'The changes are not for the better, except where facts were mistaken. The last paragraph was indeed rather contemptuous, there was once more of it which I put out myself.
'I am Sir, Your humble Servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'March 1, 1775.'
This letter refers to Taxation no Tyranny, which was published before March 31, 1775, the date of Boswell's arrival in London (ante, ii. 311). Boswell says that he had in his possession 'a few proof leaves of it marked with corrections in Johnson's own hand-writing' (ib. p. 313). Johnson, he says,' owned to me that it had been revised and curtailed by some of those who were then in power.' When Johnson writes 'when you print it, if you print it,' he uses, doubtless, print in the sense of striking off copies. The pamphlet was, we may assume, in type before it was revised by 'those in power.' The corrections had been made in the proof-sheets. Johnson asks to have six copies laid by for him in the state in which he had wished to publish it. It seems that the last paragraph had been struck out by the reviser, for Johnson says 'it was rather contemptuous.' He does not think it needful to supply anything in its place, for he says 'it concludes well enough as it is.'
Mr. Strahan had the right, as a member of Parliament, to frank all letters and packets. That is to say, by merely writing his signature on the cover he could pass them through the post free of charge. Johnson, when he wrote to Scotland, used to employ him to frank his letters, 'that he might have the consequence of appearing a parliament-man among his countrymen' (ante, iii. 364). It was to Oxford that a copy of the pamphlet was to be franked to Johnson. That he was there at the time is shown by a letter from him in Mrs. Piozzi's Collection (vol. i. p. 212), dated 'University College, Oxford, March 3, 1775.' Writing to her, evidently from Bolt Court, on February 3, he had said: 'My pamphlet has not gone on at all' (ib. i. 211). Mrs. Aston (or rather Miss Aston) is mentioned ante, ii. 466.
XI
A letter about 'copy' and a book by Professor Watson, dated Oct. 14, 1776'.[In the possession of Mr. H. Fawcett, of 14, King Street, Covent Garden.]
'SIR,
'I wrote to you about ten days ago, and sent you some copy. You have not written again, that is a sorry trick.
'I am told that you are printing a Book for Mr. Professor Watson of Saint Andrews, if upon any occasion, I can give any help, or be of any use, as formerly in Dr. Robertson's publication, I hope you will make no scruple to call upon me, for I shall be glad of an opportunity to show that my reception at Saint Andrews has not been forgotten.
'I am Sir, Your humble Servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
'Oct. 14, 1776.'
The' copy' or MS. that Johnson sent is, I conjecture, Proposals for the Rev. Mr. Shaw's Analysis of the Scotch Celtick Language (ante, iii. 107). This is the only acknowledged piece of writing of his during 1776. The book printing for Professor Watson was History of the Reign of Philip II, which was published by Strahan and Cadell in 1777. This letter is of unusual interest, as showing that Johnson had been of some service as regards one of Robertson's books. It is possible that he read some of the proof-sheets, and helped to get rid of the Scotticisms. 'Strahan,' according to Beattie, 'had corrected (as he told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr. Hume and Dr. Robertson' (ante, v. 92, n. 3). He is not unlikely, in Robertson's case, to have sought and obtained Johnson's help.
XII.
The following letter is published in Mr. Alfred Morrison's 'Collection of Autographs', vol. ii. p. 343.
'To Dr. TAYLOR. Dated London, April 20, 1778.'
'The quantity of blood taken from you appears to me not sufficient. Thrale was almost lost by the scrupulosity of his physicians, who never bled him copiously till they bled him in despair; he then bled till he fainted, and the stricture or obstruction immediately gave way and from that instant he grew better.
'I can now give you no advice but to keep yourself totally quiet and amused with some gentle exercise of the mind. If a suspected letter comes, throw it aside till your health is reestablished; keep easy and cheerful company about you, and never try to think but at those stated and solemn times when the thoughts are summoned to the cares of futurity, the only cares of a rational being.
'As to my own health I think it rather grows better; the convulsions which left me last year at Ashbourne have never returned, and I have by the mercy of God very comfortable nights. Let me know very often how you are till you are quite well.'
This letter, though it is dated 1778, must have been written in 1780. Thrale's first attack was in June, 1779, when he was in 'extreme danger' (ante, iii. 397, n. 2, 420). Johnson had the remission of the convulsions on June 18, 1779. He recorded on June 18, 1780:—
'In the morning of this day last year I perceived the remission of those convulsions in my breast which had distressed me for more than twenty years. I returned thanks at church for the mercy granted me, which has now continued a year.'—Prayers and Meditations, p. 183.
Three days later he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—
'It was a twelvemonth last Sunday since the convulsions in my breast left me. I hope I was thankful when I recollected it; by removing that disorder a great improvement was made in the enjoyment of life.' —Piozzi Letters, ii. 163. (See ante, iii. 397, n. 1.)
He was at Ashbourne on June 18, 1779 (ante, iii. 453).
On April 20, 1778, the very day of which this letter bears the date, he recorded:—
'After a good night, as I am forced to reckon, I rose seasonably…. In reviewing my time from Easter, 1777, I found a very melancholy and shameful blank. So little has been done that days and months are without any trace. My health has, indeed, been very much interrupted. My nights have been commonly not only restless, but painful and fatiguing. ….Some relaxation of my breast has been procured, I think, by opium, which, though it never gives me sleep, frees my breast from spasms.' —Prayers and Meditations, p. 169. See ante, iii. 317, n. 1.
For Johnson's advice about bleeding, see ante, iii. 152; and for possible occasions for 'suspected letters,' ante, i. 472, n. 4; and ii. 202, n. 2.
Mr. Mason's 'sneering observation in his "Memoirs of Mr. William Whitehead"'
(Vol. i, p. 31.)
I had long failed to find a copy of these Memoirs, though I had searched in the Bodleian, the British Museum, and the London Library, and had applied to the University Library at Cambridge, and the Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. By the kindness of Mr. R. H. Soden Smith and Mr. R. F. Sketchley, I have obtained the following extract from a copy in the Dyce and Forster Libraries, in the South Kensington Museum:—
'Conscious, notwithstanding, that to avoid writing what is unnecessary is, in these days, no just plea for silence in a biographer, I have some apology to make for having strewed these pages so thinly with the tittle-tattle of anecdote. I am, however, too proud to make this apology to any person but my bookseller, who will be the only real loser by the 'Those readers, who believe that I do not write immediately under his pay, and who may have gathered from what they have already read, that I am not so passionately enamoured of Dr. Johnson's biographical manner, as to take that for my model, have only to throw these pages aside, and wait till they are new-written by some one of his numerous disciples, who may follow his master's example; and should more anecdote than I furnish him with be wanting (as was the Doctor's case in his life of Mr. Gray), may make amends for it by those acid eructations of vituperative criticism, which are generated by unconcocted taste and intellectual indigestion.'—Poems by William Whitehead, York, 1788 (vol. iii, p. 128).
With this 'sneering observation,' which Boswell might surely have passed over in silence, the Memoirs close.
Michael Johnson as a bookseller.
(Vol. i, p. 36, n. 3.)
Mr. R. F. Sketchley kindly informs me that in the Dyce and Forster Libraries at the South Kensington Museum there is a book with the following title:—
S. Shaw's 'Grammatica Anglo—Romana', London, printed for Michael Johnson, bookseller: and are to be sold at his shops in Litchfield and Uttoxiter in Stafford-shire; and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, 1687.
Mr. C. E. Doble tells me that in the proposals issued in 1690 by Thomas Bennet, St. Paul's Churchyard, for printing Anthony a Wood's Athenae Oxonienses and Fasti Oxonienses, among 'the booksellers who take subscriptions, give receipts, and deliver books according to the proposals' is 'Mr. Johnson in Litchfield.'
The City and County of Lichfield.
(Vol. i, p. 36, n. 4.)
'The City of Litchfield is a County of itself, with a jurisdiction extending 10 or 12 miles round, which circuit the Sheriff rides every year on Sept. 8.'—A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, ed. 1769, ii. 419.
Balliol College has a copy of this work containing David Garrick's book-plate, with Shakespeare's head at the top of it, and the following quotation from Menagiana at the foot:—
'La première chose qu'on doit faire quand on a emprunté un livre, c'est de le lire, afin de pouvoir le rendre plutôt' (sic).
Felixmarte of Hircania.
(Vol. i, p. 49.)
'"He that follows is Florismarte of Hyrcania" said the barber. "What! is Signor Florismarte there?" replied the priest; "in good faith he shall share the same fate, notwithstanding his strange birth and chimerical adventures; for his harsh and dry style will admit of no excuse. To the yard with him, therefore." "With all my heart, dear Sir," answered the housekeeper; "and with joyful alacrity she executed the command.'" —Don Quixote, ed. 1820, i. 48.
Boswell speaks of Felixmarte as the old Spanish romance. In the Bibliografia dei Romanzi e Poeini Cavallereschi Italiani (2nd ed., Milan, 1838), p. 351, it is stated that in the Spanish edition it is called a translation from the Italian, and in the Italian edition a translation from the Spanish. The Italian title is Historia di Don Florismante d'Ircania, tradotta dallo Spagnuolo. Cervantes, in an edition of Don Quixote, published in 1605, which I have looked at, calls the book Florismarte de Hircania (not Florismante). It should seem that he made his hero read the Italian version.
Palmerin of England and Don Belianis.
(Vol. i, p. 49, n. 2; and vol. iii, p. 2.)
'"Let Palmerin of England be preserved," said the licentiate, "and kept as a jewel; and let such another casket be made for it as that which Alexander found among the spoils of Darius appropriated to preserve the works of the poet Homer….Therefore, master Nicholas, saving your better judgment let this and Amadis de Gaul be exempted from the flames, and let all the rest perish without any farther inquiry." "Not so neighbour," replied the barber, "for behold here the renowned Don Belianis." The priest replied, "This with the second, third, and fourth parts, wants a little rhubarb to purge away its excessive choler; there should be removed too all that relates to the castle of Fame, and other impertinencies of still greater consequence; let them have the benefit, therefore, of transportation, and as they show signs of amendment they shall hereafter be treated with mercy or justice; in the meantime, friend, give them room in your house; but let nobody read them."' —Don Quixote, ed. 1820, i. 50.
Mr. Taylor, a Birmingham manufacturer.
(Vol. i, p. 86.)
'John Taylor, Esq. may justly be deemed the Shakspear or Newton of Birmingham. He rose from minute beginnings to shine in the commercial hemisphere, as they in the poetical or philosophical. To this uncommon genius we owe the gilt button, the japanned and gilt snuff-box, with the numerous race of enamels; also the painted snuff-box. … He died in 1775 at the age of 64, after acquiring a fortune of £200,000. His son was a considerable sufferer at the time of the riots in 1791.' —A Brief History of Birmingham, 1797, p. 9.
Olivia Lloyd.
(Vol. i, p. 92.)
I am, no doubt, right in identifying Olivia Lloyd, the young quaker, with whom Johnson was much enamoured when at Stourbridge School, with Olive Lloyd, the daughter of the first Sampson Lloyd, of Birmingham, and aunt of the Sampson Lloyd with whom he had an altercation (ante, ii. 458 and post, p. liii). 'A fine likeness of her is preserved by Thomas Lloyd, The Priory, Warwick,' as I learn from an interesting little work called Farm and its Inhabitants, with some Account of the Lloyds of Dolobran, by Rachel J. Lowe. Privately printed, 1883, p. 24. Her elder brother married a Miss Careless; ib. p. 23. Johnson's 'first love,' Hector's sister, married a Mr. Careless (ante, ii. 459).
Henry Porter, of Edgbaston.
(Vol. i, p. 94, n. 3.)
In St. Mary's Church, Warwick, is a monument to—
'Anna Norton, Henrici Porter
Filia
Nuper de Edgberston in Com. Warw. Generosi;
Vidua Thomae Norton….
Haec annis et pietate matura vitam deposuit.
Maii 14, 1698.'
A Brief Description of the Collegiate Church of St. Mary in Warwick, published by Grafton and Reddell, Birmingham; no date.
Mrs. Williams's account of Mrs. Johnson and her sons by her former marriage. (Vol. i, p. 95.)
The following note by Malone I failed to quote in the right place. It is copied from a paper, written by Lady Knight.
'Mrs. Williams's account of Mrs. Johnson was, that she had a good understanding and great sensibility, but inclined to be satirical. Her first husband died insolvent [this is a mistake, see ante, i. 95, n. 3]; her sons were much disgusted with her for her second marriage; … however, she always retained her affection for them. While they [Mr. and Mrs. Johnson] resided in Gough Square, her son, the officer, knocked at the door, and asked the maid if her mistress was at home. She answered, "Yes, Sir, but she is sick in bed." "Oh," says he, "if it's so, tell her that her son Jervis called to know how she did;" and was going away. The maid begged she might run up to tell her mistress, and, without attending his answer, left him. Mrs. Johnson, enraptured to hear her son was below, desired the maid to tell him she longed to embrace him. When the maid descended the gentleman was gone, and poor Mrs. Johnson was much agitated by the adventure; it was the only time he ever made an effort to see her. Dr. [Mr.] Johnson did all he could to console his wife, but told Mrs. Williams: "Her son is uniformly undutiful; so I conclude, like many other sober men, he might once in his life be drunk, and in that fit nature got the better of his pride."'
Johnson's application for the mastership of the Grammar School at Solihull in Warwickshire.
(Vol. i, p. 96.)
Johnson, a few weeks after his marriage, applied for the mastership of
Solihull Grammar School, as is shown by the following letter, preserved
in the Pembroke College MSS., addressed to Mr. Walmsley, and quoted by
Mr. Croker. I failed to insert it in my notes.
'Solihull, the 30 August 1735.
'SIR,
'I was favoured with yours of the 13th inst. in due time, but deferred answering it til now, it takeing up some time to informe the Foeofees of the contents thereof; and before they would return an Answer, desired some time to make enquiry of the caracter of Mr. Johnson, who all agree that he is an excellent scholar, and upon that account deserves much better than to be schoolmaster of Solihull. But then he has the caracter of being a very haughty, ill-natured gent., and that he has such a way of distorting his Face (which though he can't help) the gent, think it may affect some young ladds; for these two reasons he is not approved on, the late master Mr. Crompton's huffing the Foeofees being stil in their memory. However, we are all exstreamly obliged to you for thinking of us, and for proposeing so good a schollar, but more especially is, dear sir,
'Your very humble servant,
'HENRY GRESWOLD.'
Johnson's knowledge of Italian.
(Vol. i, p. 115.)
Boswell says that he does not know 'at what time, or by what means Johnson had acquired a competent knowledge of Italian.' In my note on this I say 'he had read Petrarch "when but a boy."' As Petrarch wrote chiefly in Latin, it is quite possible that Johnson did not acquire his knowledge of Italian so early as I had thought.
Johnson's deference for the general opinion.
(Vol. i, p. 200.)
Miss Burney records an interesting piece of criticism by Johnson. 'There are,' he said, 'three distinct kinds of judges upon all new authors or productions; the first are those who know no rules, but pronounce entirely from their natural taste and feelings; the second are those who know and judge by rules; and the third are those who know, but are above the rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy. Next to them rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that are formed by the rules.'—Mine. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 180. Later on she writes: —'The natural feelings of untaught hearers ought never to be slighted; and Dr. Johnson has told me the same a thousand times;' ib. ii. 128.
Johnson in the Green Room.
(Vol. i, p. 201.)
Mr. Richard Herne Shepherd, in Watford's Antiquarian for January, 1887, p. 34, asserts that the actual words which Johnson used when he told Garrick that he would no longer frequent his Green Room were indecent; so indecent that Mr. Shepherd can only venture to satisfy those whom he calls students by informing them of them privately. For proof of this charge against the man whose boast it was that 'obscenity had always been repressed in his company' (ante, iv. 295) he brings forward John Wilkes. The story, indeed, as it is told by Boswell, is not too trustworthy, for he had it through Hume from Garrick. As it reaches Mr. Shepherd it comes from Garrick through Wilkes. Garrick, no doubt, as Johnson says (ante, v. 391), was, as a companion, 'restrained by some principle,' and had 'some delicacy of feeling.' Nevertheless, in his stories, he was, we may be sure, no more on oath than a man is in lapidary inscriptions (ante, ii. 407). It is possible that he reported Johnson's very words to Hume, and that Hume did not change them in reporting them to Boswell. Whatever they were, they were spoken in 1749 and published in 1791, when Johnson had been dead six years, Garrick twelve years, and Hume fourteen years. It is idle to dream that they can now be conjecturally emended. But it is worse than idle to bring in as evidence John Wilkes. What entered his ear as purity itself might issue from his mouth as the grossest obscenity. He had no delicacy of feeling. No principle restrained him. When he comes to bear testimony, and aims a shaft at any man's character, the bow that he draws is drawn with the weakness of the hand of a worn-out and shameless profligate.
Mr. Shepherd quotes an unpublished letter of Boswell to Wilkes, dated Rome, April 22, 1765, to show 'that the two men had become familiars, not only long before Wilkes's famous meeting with Dr. Johnson was brought about, but before even the friendship of Boswell himself with Johnson had been consolidated.' It needs no unpublished letters to show that. It must be known to every attentive reader of Boswell. See ante, i. 395, and ii. 11.
Frederick III, King of Prussia.
(Vol. i, p. 308.)
Boswell should have written Frederick II.
Boswell's visit to Rousseau and Voltaire.
(Vol. i, p. 434; and vol. ii, p. 11.)
Boswell to Andrew Mitchell, Esq., His Britannic Majesty's Minister at Berlin.
'Berlin, 28 August, 1764.
… 'I have had another letter from my father, in which he continues of opinion that travelling is of very little use, and may do a great deal of harm. … I esteem and love my father, and I am determined to do what is in my power to make him easy and happy. But you will allow that I may endeavour to make him happy, and at the same time not to be too hard upon myself. I must use you so much with the freedom of a friend as to tell you that with the vivacity which you allowed me I have a melancholy disposition. I have made excursions into the fields of amusement, perhaps of folly. I have found that amusement and folly are beneath me, and that without some laudable pursuit my life must be insipid and wearisome….. My father seems much against my going to Italy, but gives me leave to go from this, and pass some months in Paris. I own that the words of the Apostle Paul, "I must see Rome," are strongly borne in upon my mind. It would give me infinite pleasure. It would give taste for a life-time, and I should go home to Auchinleck with serene contentment.'
After stating that he is going to Geneva, he continues:—
'I shall see Voltaire; I shall also see Switzerland and Rousseau. These two men are to me greater objects than most statues or pictures.' —Nichols's Literary History, vii. 318.
Superficiality of the French writers.
(Vol. i, p. 454.)
Gibbon, writing of the year 1759, says:—
'In France, to which my ideas [in the Essay on the Study of Literature] were confined, the learning and language of Greece and Rome were neglected by a philosophic age. The guardian of those studies, the Academy of Inscriptions, was degraded to the lowest rank among the three royal societies of Paris; the new appellation of Erudits was contemptuously applied to the successors of Lipsius and Casaubon; and I was provoked to hear (see M. d'Alembert, Discours préliminaire à l'Encyclopedie) that the exercise of the memory, their sole merit, had been superseded by the nobler faculties of the imagination and the judgment.' —Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, ed. 1827, i. 104.
A Synod of Cooks.
(Vol. i, p. 470.)
When Johnson spoke of 'a Synod of Cooks' he was, I conjecture, thinking of Milton's 'Synod of Gods,' in Beelzebub's speech in Paradise Lost, book ii. line 391.
Johnson and Bishop Percy.
(Vol. i, p. 486.)
Bishop Percy in a letter to Boswell says: 'When in 1756 or 1757 I became acquainted with Johnson, he told me he had lived twenty years in London, but not very happily.' —Nichols's Literary History, vii. 307.
Barclay's Answer to Kenrick's Review of Johnson's 'Shakespeare.'
(Vol. i, p. 498.)
Neither in the British Museum nor in the Bodleian have I been able to find a copy of this book. A Defence of Mr. Kenricks Review, 1766, does not seem to contain any reply to such a work as Barclay's.
Mrs. Piozzi's 'Collection of Johnson s Letters.'
(Vol. ii, p. 43, n. 2.)
MR. BOSWELL TO BISHOP PERCY.
'Feb. 9, 1788.
'I am ashamed that I have yet seven years to write of his life. … Mrs. (Thrale) Piozzi's Collection of his letters will be out soon. … I saw a sheet at the printing-house yesterday… It is wonderful what avidity there still is for everything relative to Johnson. I dined at Mr. Malone's on Wednesday with Mr. W. G. Hamilton, Mr. Flood, Mr. Windham, Mr. Courtenay, &c.; and Mr. Hamilton observed very well what a proof it was of Johnson's merit that we had been talking of him all the afternoon.' —Nichols's Literary History, vii. 309.
Johnson on romantic virtue.
(Vol. ii, P. 76.)
'Dr. Johnson used to advise his friends to be upon their guard against romantic virtue, as being founded upon no settled principle. "A plank," said he, "that is tilted up at one end must of course fall down on the other." '—William Seward, Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, ii. 461.'
'Old' Baxter on toleration.
(Vol. ii, p. 253.)
The Rev. John Hamilton Davies, B.A., F.R.H.S., Rector of St. Nicholas's, Worcester, and author of The Life of Richard Baxter of Kidderminster, Preacher and Prisoner (London, Kent & Co., 1887), kindly informs me, in answer to my inquiries, that he believes that Johnson may allude to the following passage in the fourth chapter of Baxter's Reformed Pastor:—
'I think the Magistrate should be the hedge of the Church. I am against the two extremes of universal license and persecuting tyranny. The Magistrate must be allowed the use of his reason, to know the cause, and follow his own judgment, not punish men against it. I am the less sorry that the Magistrate doth so little interpose.'
England barren in good historians.
(Vol. ii, p. 236, n. 2.)
Gibbon, writing of the year 1759, says:
'The old reproach that no British altars had been raised to the muse of history was recently disproved by the first performances of Robertson and Hume, the histories of Scotland and of the Stuarts.' —Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, ed. 1827, i. 103.
An instance of Scotch nationality.
(Vol. ii, p. 307.)
Lord Camden, when pressed by Dr. Berkeley (the Bishop's son) to appoint a Scotchman to some office, replied: 'I have many years ago sworn that I never will introduce a Scotchman into any office; for if you introduce one he will contrive some way or other to introduce forty more cousins or friends.' —G. M. Berkeley's Poems, p. ccclxxi.
Mortality in the Foundling Hospital of London.
(Vol. ii, p. 398.)
'From March 25, 1741, to December 31, 1759, the number of children received into the Foundling Hospital is 14,994, of which have died to December 31, 1759, 8,465.'—A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, ed. 1769, vol. ii, p. 121. A great many of these died, no doubt, after they had left the Hospital.
Mr. Planta.
(Vol. ii, p. 399, n. 2.)
The reference is no doubt to Mr. Joseph Planta, Assistant-Librarian of the British Museum 1773, Principal Librarian 1799-1827. See Edwards' Lives of the Founders of the British Museum, pp. 517 sqq.; and Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, vol. vii, pp. 677-8.
'Unitarian'.
(Vol. ii, p. 408, n. 1.)
John Locke in his Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity quotes from Mr. Edwards whom he answers:—'This gentleman and his fellows are resolved to be Unitarians; they are for one article of faith as well as One person in the Godhead.' —Locke's Works, ed. 1824, vi, 200.
The proposed Riding School for Oxford.
(Vol. ii, p. 424.)
My friend, Mr. C. E. Doble, has pointed out to me the following passage in Collectanea, First Series, edited by Mr. C. R. L. Fletcher, Fellow of All Souls College, and printed for the Oxford Historical Society, Oxford, 1885.
'The Advertisement to Religion and Policy, by Edward Earl of Clarendon, runs as follows:—
"Henry Viscount Cornbury, who was called up to the House of Peers by the title of Lord Hyde, in the lifetime of his father, Henry Earl of Rochester, by a codicil to his will, dated Aug. 10, 1751, left divers MSS. of his great grandfather, Edward Earl of Clarendon, to Trustees, with a direction that the money to arise from the sale or publication thereof, should be employed as a beginning of a fund for supporting a Manage or Academy for riding and other useful exercises in Oxford; a plan of this sort having been also recommended by Lord Clarendon in his Dialogue on Education. Lord Cornbury dying before his father, this bequest did not take effect. But Catharine, one of the daughters of Henry Earl of Rochester, and late Duchess Dowager of Queensbury, whose property these MSS. became, afterwards by deed gave them, together with all the monies which had arisen or might arise from the sale or publication of them, to [three Trustees] upon trust for the like purposes as those expressed by Lord Hyde in his codicil."
'The preface to the Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, written by himself., has words to the same effect. (See also Notes and Queries, Ser. I. x. 185, and xi. 32.)
'From a letter in Notes and Queries, Ser. II. x. p. 74, it appears that in 1860 the available sum, in the hands of the Trustees of the Clarendon Bequest, amounted to £10,000. The University no longer needed a riding-school, and the claims of Physical Science were urgent; and in 1872 the announcement was made, that by the liberality of the Clarendon Trustees an additional wing had been added to the University Museum, containing the lecture-rooms and laboratories of the department of Experimental Philosophy.' Vol. i. p. 305.
Boswell and Mrs. Rudd.
(Vol. ii, p. 450, n. 1.)
In Mr. Alfred Morrison's Collection of Autographs, vol. i. p. 103, mention is made among Boswell's autographs of verses entitled Lurgan Clanbrassil, a supposed Irish song.'
I have learnt, through Mr. Morrison's kindness, that 'on the document itself there is the following memorandum, signed, so far as can be made out, H. W. R.:—
"The enclosed song was written and composed by James Boswell, the biographer of Johnson, in commemoration of a tour he made with Mrs. Rudd whilst she was under his protection, for living with whom he displeased his father so much that he threatened to disinherit him.
"Mrs. Rudd had lived with one of the Perreaus, who were tried and executed for forgery. She was tried at the same time and acquitted.
"My father having heard that Boswell used to sing this song at the Home
Circuit, requested it of him, and he wrote it and gave it him. H.W. R."'
"Feb. 1828."
Christopher Smart.
(Vol. ii, p. 454, n. 3.)
Mr. Robert Browning, in his Parleyings with Christopher Smart, under the similitude of 'some huge house,' thus describes the general run of that unfortunate poet's verse:—
'All showed the Golden Mean without a hint
Of brave extravagance that breaks the rule.
The master of the mansion was no fool
Assuredly, no genius just as sure!
Safe mediocrity had scorned the lure
Of now too much and now too little cost,
And satisfied me sight was never lost
Of moderate design's accomplishment
In calm completeness.'
Mr. Browning goes on to liken one solitary poem to a Chapel in the house, in which is found—
'from floor to roof one evidence
Of how far earth may rival heaven.'
Parleyings with certain People of Importance in their Day (pp. 80-82), London, 1887.
Johnsons discussion on baptism—with Mr. Lloyd, the Birmingham Quaker.
(Vol. ii, p. 458.)
In Farm and its Inhabitants (ante, p. xlii), a further account is given of the controversy between Johnson and Mr. Lloyd the Quaker, on the subject of Barclay's Apology.
'Tradition states that, losing his temper, Dr. Johnson threw the volume
on the floor, and put his foot on it, in denunciation of its statements.
The identical volume is now in the possession of G. B. Lloyd, of Edgbaston
Grove.
'At the dinner table he continued the debate in such angry tones, and struck the table so violently that the children were frightened, and desired to escape.
'The next morning Dr. Johnson went to the bank [Mr. Lloyd was a banker] and by way of apology called out in his stentorian voice, "I say, Lloyd, I'm the best theologian, but you are the best Christian.'" p. 41. It could not have been 'the next morning' that Johnson went to the bank, for he left for Lichfield on the evening of the day of the controversy (ante, ii. 461). He must have gone in the afternoon, while Boswell was away seeing Mr. Boulton's great works at Soho (ib. p. 459).
Mr. G. B. Lloyd, the great-grandson of Johnson's host, in a letter written this summer (1886), says: 'Having spent much of my boyhood with my grandfather in the old house, I have heard him tell the story of the stamping on the broad volume.'
Boswell mentions (ib. p. 457) that 'Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd, like their Majesties, had been blessed with a numerous family of fine children, their numbers being exactly the same.' The author of Farm and its Inhabitants says (p. 46): 'There is a tradition that when Sampson Lloyd's wife used to feel depressed by the care of such a large family (they had sixteen children) he would say to her, "Never mind, the twentieth will be the most welcome."' His fifteenth child Catharine married Dr. George Birkbeck, the founder of the Mechanics' Institutes (ib. p. 48).
A story told (p. 50) of one of Mr. Lloyd's sons-in-law, Joseph Biddle, is an instance of that excess of forgetfulness which Johnson called 'morbid oblivion' (ante, v. 68). 'He went to pay a call in Leamington. The servant asked him for his name, he could not remember it; in perplexity he went away, when a friend in the street met him and accosted him, "How do you do, Mr. Biddle?" "Oh, Biddle, Biddle, Biddle, that's the name," cried he, and rushed off to pay his call.'
The editor is in error in stating (p. 45, n. 1) that a very poor poem entitled A bone for Friend Mary to pick, is by Johnson. It may be found in the Gent. Mag. for 1791, p. 948.
Lichfield in 1783.
(Vol. ii, p. 461.)
C. P. Moritz, a young Prussian clergyman who published an account of a pedestrian tour that he made in England in the year 1782, thus describes Lichfield as he saw it on a day in June:—
'At noon I got to Lichfield, an old-fashioned town with narrow dirty streets, where for the first time I saw round panes of glass in the windows. The place to me wore an unfriendly appearance; I therefore made no use of my recommendation, but went straight through and only bought some bread at a baker's, which I took along with me.'—Travels in England in 1782, p. 140, by C. P. Moritz. Cassell's National Library, 1886.
The 'recommendation' was an introduction to an inn given him by the daughter of his landlord at Sutton, who told him 'that the people in Lichfield were, in general, very proud.' Travelling as he did, on foot and without luggage, he was looked upon with suspicion at the inns, and often rudely refused lodging.
Richard Baxter's doubt.
(Vol. ii, p. 477.)
The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies [See ante, p. xlix. 1] informs me that there can be no doubt that Johnson referred to the following passage in Reliquiae Baxterianae, folio edition of 1696, p. 127:—
'This is another thing which I am changed in; that whereas in my younger days I was never tempted to doubt of the Truth of Scripture or Christianity, but all my Doubts and Fears were exercised at home, about my own Sincerity and Interest in Christ—since then my sorest assaults have been on the other side, and such they were, that had I been void of internal Experience, and the adhesion of Love, and the special help of God, and had not discerned more Reason for my Religion than I did when I was younger, I had certainly apostatized to Infidelity,' &c.
Johnson, the day after he recorded his 'doubt,' wrote that he was 'troubled with Baxter's scruple' (ante, ii. 477). The 'scruple' was, perhaps, the same as the 'doubt.' In his Dictionary he defines scruple as doubt; difficulty of determination; perplexity; generally about minute things.
Oxford in 1782.
(Vol. iii, p. 13, n. 3.)
The Rev. C. P. Moritz (ante, p. liv) gives a curious account of his visit to Oxford. On his way from Dorchester on the evening of a Sunday in June, he had been overtaken by the Rev. Mr. Maud, who seems to have been a Fellow and Tutor of Corpus College[3], and who was returning from doing duty in his curacy. It was late when they arrived in the town. Moritz, who, as I have said, more than once had found great difficulty in getting a bed, had made up his mind to pass the summer night on a stonebench in the High Street. His comrade would not hear of this, but said that he would take him to an ale-house where 'it is possible they mayn't be gone to bed, and we may yet find company.' This ale-house was the Mitre.
'We went on a few houses further, and then knocked at a door. It was then nearly twelve. They readily let us in; but how great was my astonishment when, on being shown into a room on the left, I saw a great number of clergymen, all with their gowns and bands on, sitting round a large table, each with his pot of beer before him. My travelling companion introduced me to them as a German clergyman, whom he could not sufficiently praise for my correct pronunciation of the Latin, my orthodoxy, and my good walking.
'I now saw myself in a moment, as it were, all at once transported into the midst of a company, all apparently very respectable men, but all strangers to me. And it appeared to me extraordinary that I should thus at midnight be in Oxford, in a large company of Oxonian clergy, without well knowing how I had got there. Meanwhile, however, I took all the pains in my power to recommend myself to my company, and in the course of conversation I gave them as good an account as I could of our German universities, neither denying nor concealing that now and then we had riots and disturbances. "Oh, we are very unruly here, too," said one of the clergymen, as he took a hearty draught out of his pot of beer, and knocked on the table with his hand. The conversation now became louder, more general, and a little confused. … At last, when morning drew near, Mr. Maud suddenly exclaimed, "D-n me, I must read prayers this morning at All Souls!" "D-n me" is an abbreviation of "G-d d-n me," which in England does not seem to mean more mischief or harm than any of our or their common expletives in conversation, such as "O gemini!" or "The deuce take me!" … I am almost ashamed to own, that next morning, when I awoke, I had got so dreadful a headache from the copious and numerous toasts of my jolly and reverend friends that I could not possibly get up. —Travels in England in 1782, by C. P. Moritz, p. 123.
[Footnote 3: No such person appears in the Catalogue of Graduates.]
Dr. Lettsom.
(Vol. in, p. 68.)
Boswell in an Ode to Mr. Charles Dilly, published in the Gent. Mag. for 1791, p. 367, says that Dr. Lettsom 'Refutes pert Priestley's nonsense.'
William Vachell.
(Vol. iii, p. 83, n. 3.)
Mr. George Parker of the Bodleian Library informs me that William Vachell had been tutor to Prince Esterhazy, and that for many years he held the appointment of 'Pumper,' or Lessee of the baths at Bath. In 1776 and 1777 he paid as rental for them to the Corporation £525. He died on November 26, 1789. According to Mr. Ivor Vachell (Notes and Queries, 6th S. vii. 327), it was his eldest son who signed the Round Robin.
Johnson and Baretti.
(Vol. iii, p. 96, n. 1.)
Baretti in his Tolondron, p. 145, gives an account of a difference between himself and Johnson. Johnson sent to ask him to call on him, but Baretti was leaving town. When he returned the time for a reconciliation had passed, for Johnson was dead.
English pulpit eloquence.
(Vol. iii, p. 248.)
'Upon the whole, which is preferable, the philosophic method of the English, or the rhetoric of the French preachers? The first (though less glorious) is certainly safer for the preacher. It is difficult for a man to make himself ridiculous, who proposes only to deliver plain sense on a subject he has thoroughly studied. But the instant he discovers the least pretensions towards the sublime or the pathetic, there is no medium; we must either admire or laugh; and there are so many various talents requisite to form the character of an orator that it is more than probable we shall laugh.' —Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, ed. 1827, i. 118.
Bishop Percy's communications to Boswell relative to Johnson.
(Vol. iii, p. 278, n. 1.)
'JAMES BOSWELL TO BISHOP PERCY.
"9 April, 1790.
"As to suppressing your Lordship's name when relating the very few anecdotes of Johnson with which you have favoured me, I will do anything to oblige your Lordship but that very thing. I owe to the authenticity of my work, to its respectability, and to the credit of my illustrious friends [? friend] to introduce as many names of eminent persons as I can… Believe me, my Lord, you are not the only bishop in the number of great men with which my pages are graced. I am quite resolute as to this matter." '—Nichols's Literary History, vii. 313.
Sir Thomas Brown's remark 'Do the devils lie? No; for then Hell could not subsist.'
(Vol. iii, p. 293.)
This remark, whether it is Brown's or not, may have been suggested by Milton's lines in Paradise Lost, ii. 496-9, or might have suggested them:—
'O shame to men! devil with devil damn'd
Firm concord holds, men only disagree
Of creatures rational.'
Johnson on the advantages of having a profession or business.
(Vol. iii, p. 309, n. 1.)
'Dr. Johnson was of opinion that the happiest as well as the most virtuous persons were to be found amongst those who united with a business or profession a love of literature.' —Seward's Biographiana, p. 599.
Johnson's trips to the country.
(Vol. iii, p. 453.)
I have omitted to mention Johnson's visit to 'Squire Dilly's mansion at Southill in June, 1781 (ante, iv. 118-132).
Citations of living authors in Johnson's Dictionary.
(Vol. iv, p. 4, n. 3.)
Johnson cites Irene under impostures, and Lord Lyttelton under twist.
Dr. Parrs evening with Dr. Johnson. (Vol. iv, p. 15.)
The Rev. John Rigaud, B.D., Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, has kindly sent me the following anecdote of the meeting of Johnson and Parr:—
'I remember Dr. Routh, the old President of Magdalen, telling me of an interview and conversation between Dr. Johnson and Dr. Parr, in the course of which the former made use of some expression respecting the latter, which considerably wounded and offended him. "Sir," he said to Dr. Johnson, "you know that what you have just said will be known in four-and-twenty hours over this vast metropolis." Upon which Dr. Johnson's manner altered, his eye became calm, and he put out his hand, and said, "Forgive me, Parr, I didn't quite mean it." "But," said the President, with an amused and amusing look, "I never could get him to tell me what it was Dr. Johnson had said!" He spoke of seeing Dr. Johnson going up the steps into University College, dressed, I think, in a snuff-coloured coat.'
Dr. Martin Joseph Routh, who was President of Magdalen College for sixty-four years, was born in 1755 and died on December 22, 1854.
'Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.'
(Vol. iv, p. 181, n. 3.)
Malone's note on The Rape of Lucrece must have been, not as I conjectured on line 1111, but on lines 1581-2:—
'It easeth some, though none it ever cured,
To think their dolour others have endured.'
With these lines may be compared Satan's speech in Paradise Regained,
Book i, lines 399-402:—
'Long since with woe
Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof,
That fellowship in pain divides not smart,
Nor lightens aught each man's peculiar load.'
Richard Baxter's rule of preaching.
(Vol. iv, p. 185.)
The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies [See ante, p. xlix.] has furnished me with the following extract from Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. 1696, p. 93, in illustration of Johnson's statement:—
'And yet I did usually put in something in my Sermon which was above their own discovery, and which they had not known before; and this I did, that they might be kept humble, and still perceive their ignorance, and be willing to keep in a learning state. (For when Preachers tell their People of no more than they know, and do not shew that they excel them in knowledge, and easily overtop them in Abilities, the People will be tempted to turn Preachers themselves, and think that they have learnt all that the Ministers can teach them, and are as wise as they———). And this I did also to increase their knowledge; and also to make Religion pleasant to them, by a daily addition to their former Sight, and to draw them on with desire and Delight.'
Opposition to Sir Joshua Reynolds in the Royal Academy.
(Vol. iv, p. 219, n. 4.)
'JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ., TO BISHOP PERCY. '12 March, 1790.
'Sir Joshua has been shamefully used by a junto of the Academicians.
I live a great deal with him, and he is much better than you would
suppose.'
—Nichols's Literary History, vii. 313.
Richard Baxter on the possible salvation of a Suicide. (Vol. iv, p. 225.)
The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies writes to me that 'Dr. Johnson's quotation about suicide must surely be wrong. I have no recollection in any of Baxter's Works of such a statement, and it is in direct contradiction to all that is known of his sentiments. 'Mr. Davies sends me the following passage, which possibly Johnson might have very imperfectly remembered:—
'The commonest cause [of suicide] is melancholy, &c. Though there be much more hope of the salvation of such as want the use of their understandings, because so far it may be called involuntary, yet it is a very dreadful case, especially so far as reason remaineth in any power.' —Baxter's _Christian Directory, edited by Orme, part iv, p. 138.
Haslitt's report of Baxter's Sermon.
(Vol. iv, p. 226, n. 2.)
The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies tells me that he 'entirely disbelieves that Baxter said, "Hell was paved with infants' skulls." The same thing, or something very like it, has been said of Calvin, but I could never,' Mr. Davies continues, 'find it in his Works.' He kindly sends me the following extract from Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. 1696, p. 24:—
'Once all the ignorant Rout were raging mad against me for preaching the Doctrine of Original Sin to them, and telling them that Infants before Regeneration had so much Guilt and Corruption, as made them loathsome in the Eyes of God: whereupon they vented it abroad in the Country, That I preached that God hated, or loathed Infants; so that they railed at me as I passed through the streets. The next Lord's Day, I cleared and confirmed it, and shewed them that if this were not true, their Infants had no need of Christ, of Baptism, or of Renewing by the Holy Ghost. And I asked them whether they durst say that their Children were saved without a Saviour, and were no Christians, and why they baptized them, with much more to that purpose, and afterwards they were ashamed and as mute as fishes.'
Johnson on an actor's transformation.
(Vol. iv, p. 244.)
Boswell in his Remarks on the Profession of a Player (Essay ii), first printed in the London Magazine for 1770, says:—
'I remember to have heard the most illustrious authour of this age say: "If, Sir, Garrick believes himself to be every character that he represents he is a madman, and ought to be confined. Nay, Sir, he is a villain, and ought to be hanged. If, for instance, he believes himself to be Macbeth he has committed murder, he is a vile assassin who, in violation of the laws of hospitality as well as of other principles, has imbrued his hands in the blood of his King while he was sleeping under his roof. If, Sir, he has really been that person in his own mind, he has in his own mind been as guilty as Macbeth." '—Nichols's Literary History, ed. 1848, vii. 373.
Sir John Flayer 'On the Asthma.'
(Vol. iv, p. 353.)
Johnson, writing from Ashbourne to Dr. Brocklesby on July 20, 1784, says: 'I am now looking into Floyer who lived with his asthma to almost his ninetieth year.' Mr. Samuel Timmins, the author of Dr. Johnson in Birmingham, informs me that he and two friends of his lately found in Lichfield a Lending Book of the Cathedral Library. Among the entries for 1784 was: 'Sir John Floyer on the Asthma, lent to Dr. Johnson.' Johnson, no doubt, had taken the book with him to Ashbourne.
Mr. Timmins says that the entries in this Lending Book unfortunately do not begin till about 1760 (or later). 'If,' he adds, 'the earlier Lending Book could be found, it would form a valuable clue to books which Johnson may have borrowed in his youth and early manhood.'
Boswell's expectations from Burke.
(Vol. iv, p. 223, n. 2; and p. 258, n. 2.)
Boswell, in May 1783, mentioned to Johnson his 'expectations from the interest of an eminent person then in power.' The two following extracts from letters written by him show what some of these expectations had been.
'JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. TO JAMES ABERCROMBIE, ESQ., of Philadelphia.
'July 28,1793.
'I have a great wish to see America; and I once flattered myself that
I should be sent thither in a station of some importance.'
Nichols's Literary History, vii. 317.
Boswell had written to Burke on March 3, 1778: 'Most heartily do I rejoice that our present ministers have at last yielded to conciliation (ante, iii. 221). For amidst all the sanguinary zeal of my countrymen, I have professed myself a friend to our fellow-subjects in America, so far as they claim an exemption from being taxed by the representatives of the King's British subjects. I do not perfectly agree with you; for I deny the declaratory act, and I am a warm Tory in its true constitutional sense. I wish I were a commissioner, or one of the secretaries of the commission for the grand treaty. I am to be in London this spring, and if his Majesty should ask me what I would choose, my answer will be to assist at the compact between Britain and America.' —Burke's Correspondence, ii. 209.
Boswelf's intention to attend on Johnson in his illness, and to publish 'Praises' of him.
(Vol. iv, p. 265.)
'JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ., TO BISHOP PERCY.
'Edinburgh, 8 March, 1784.
"…I intend to be in London about the end of this month, chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful affection. He has for some time been very ill…I wish to publish as a regale [ante, iii. 308, n. 2; v. 347, n. 1] to him a neat little volume, The Praises of Dr. Johnson, by contemporary Writers. …Will your Lordship take the trouble to send me a note of the writers you recollect having praised our much respected friend?…An edition of my pamphlet [ante, iv. 258] has been published in London."' —Nichols's Literary History, vii. 302.
The reported Russian version of the 'Rambler'.
(Vol. iv, p. 277, n. 1.)
I am informed by my friend, Mr. W. R. Morfill, M.A., of Oriel College, Oxford, who has, I suppose, no rival in this country in his knowledge of the Slavonic tongues, that no Russian translation of the Rambler has been published. He has given me the following title of the Russian version of Rasselas, which he has obtained for me through the kindness of Professor Grote, of the University of Warsaw:—
'Rasselas, printz Abissinskii, Vostochnaya Poviest Sochinenie Doktora
Dzhonsona Perevod s'angliiskago. 3 chasti, Moskva. 1795.
'Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, An Eastern Tale, by Doctor Johnson.
Translated from the English. 2 parts, Moscow, 1795.'
'It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.'
(Vol. iv, p. 320.)
'Heylyn, in the Epistle to his Letter-Combate, addressing Baxter, and speaking of such "unsavoury pieces of wit and mischief" as "the Church-historian" asks, "Would you not have me rub them with a little salt to keep them sweet?" This passage was surely present in the mind of Dr. Johnson when he said concerning The Rehearsal that "it had not wit enough to keep it sweet."' —J. E. Bailey's Life of Thomas Fuller, p. 640.
Pictures of Johnson.
(Vol. iv, p. 421, n. 2.)
In the Common Room of Trinity College, Oxford, there is an interesting portrait of Johnson, said to be by Romney. I cannot, however, find any mention of it in the Life of that artist. It was presented to the College by Canon Duckworth.
The Gregory Family.
(Vol. v, p. 48, n. 3.)
Mr. P. J. Anderson (in Notes and Queries, 7th S. iii. 147) casts some doubt on Chalmers' statement. He gives a genealogical table of the Gregory family, which includes thirteen professors; but two of these cannot, from their dates, be reckoned among Chalmers' sixteen.
The University of St. Andrews in 1778.
(Vol. v, p. 63, n. 2.)
In the preface to Poems by George Monck Berkeley, it is recorded (p. cccxlviii) that when 'Mr. Berkeley entered at the University of St. Andrews [about 1778], one of the college officers called upon him to deposit a crown to pay for the windows he might break. Mr. Berkeley said, that as he should reside in his father's house, it was little likely he should break any windows, having never, that he remembered, broke one in his life. He was assured that he would do it at St. Andrews. On the rising of the session several of the students said, "Now for the windows. Come, it is time to set off, let us sally forth!" Mr. Berkeley, being called upon, enquired what was to be done? They replied, "Why, to break every window in college." "For what reason?" "Oh! no reason; but that it has always been done from time immemorial."' The Editor goes on to say that Mr. Berkeley prevailed on them to give up the practice. How poor some of the students were is shown by the following anecdote, told by the College Porter, who had to collect the crowns. 'I am just come,' he said, 'from a poor student indeed. I went for the window croon; he cried, begged, and prayed not to pay it, saying, "he brought but a croon to keep him all the session, and he had spent sixpence of it; so I have got only four and sixpence."' His father, a labourer, who owned three cows, 'had sold one to dress his son for the University, and put the lamented croon in his pocket to purchase coals. All the lower students study by fire-light. He had brought with him a large tub of oatmeal and a pot of salted butter, on which he was to subsist from Oct. 20 until May 20.' Berkeley raised 'a very noble subscription' for the poor fellow.
In another passage (p. cxcviii) it is recorded that Berkeley 'boasted to his father, "Well, Sir, idle as you may think me, I never have once bowed at any Professor's Lecture." An explanation being requested of the word bowing, it was thus given: "Why, if any poor fellow has been a little idle, and is not prepared to speak when called upon by the Professor, he gets up and makes a respectful-bow, and sits down again."' Berkeley was a grandson of Bishop Berkeley.
Johnson's unpublished sermons.
(Vol. v, p. 67, n. i.)
'JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ., TO JAMES ABERCROMBIE, ESQ., of Philadelphia.
'June 11, 1792.
"I have not yet been able to discover any more of Johnson's sermons besides those left for publication by Dr. Taylor. I am informed by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury, that he gave an excellent one to a clergyman, who preached and published it in his own name on some public occasion. But the Bishop has not as yet told me the name, and seems unwilling to do it. Yet I flatter myself I shall get at it."' —Nichols's Literary History, vii. 315.
Tillotson's argument against the doctrine of transubstantiation.
(Vol. v, p. 71.)
Gibbon, writing of his reconversion from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism in the year 1754, after allowing something to the conversation of his Swiss tutor, says:—
'I must observe that it was principally effected by my private reflections; and I still remember my solitary transport at the discovery of a philosophical argument against the doctrine of transubstantiation— that the text of scripture which seems to inculcate the real presence is attested only by a single sense— our sight; while the real presence itself is disproved by three of our senses—the sight, the touch, and the taste.' —Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, ed. 1827, i. 67.