Life of Johnson

[540] Birch, _MSS. Brit. Mus_. 4303. BOSWELL.

[541] "When I survey the _Plan_ which I have laid before you, I cannot, my Lord, but confess that I am frighted at its extent, and, like the soldiers of Caesar, look on Britain as a new world, which it is almost madness to invade." Johnson"s _Works_, v. 21.

[542] There might be applied to him what he said of Pope:--"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

He, indeed, who forms his opinion of himself in solitude without knowing the powers of other men, is very liable to error; but it was the felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value." Johnson"s _Works_, viii, 237.

[543] "For the Teutonick etymologies I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner.... Junius appears to have excelled in extent of learning and Skinner in rect.i.tude of understanding.... Skinner is often ignorant, but never ridiculous: Junius is always full of knowledge, but his variety distracts his judgment, and his learning is very frequently disgraced by his absurdities." _Ib_. v. 29. Francis Junius the younger was born at Heidelberg in 1589, and died at Windsor, at the house of his nephew Isaac Vossius, in 1678. His _Etymologic.u.m Anglicanum_ was not published till 1743. Stephen Skinner, M.D., was born in 1623, and died in 1667. His _Etymologicon Linguae Anglicanae_ was published in 1671.

Knight"s _Eng. Cycle_.

[544] Thomas Richards published in 1753 _Antiquae Linguae Britannicae Thesaurus_, to which is prefixed a _Welsh Grammar_ and a collection of British proverbs.

[545] See Sir John Hawkins"s _Life of Johnson_ [p. 171], BOSWELL.

[546] "The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist." Macaulay"s _Misc. Writings_, p. 382. See _post_, May 13, 1778, for mention of Horne Tooke"s criticism of Johnson"s etymologies.

[547] "The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the volumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered ... But to COLLECT the WORDS of our language was a task of greater difficulty: the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of a living speech."

Johnson"s _Works_, v. 31.

[548] See _post_, under April 10, 1776. BOSWELL.

[549] "Mr. Macbean," said Johnson in 1778, "is a man of great learning, and for his learning I respect him, and I wish to serve him. He knows many languages, and knows them well; but he knows nothing of life. I advised him to write a geographical dictionary; but I have lost all hopes of his ever doing anything properly, since I found he gave as much labour to Capua as to Rome." Mme. D"Arblay"s _Diary_, i, 114. See _post_ beginning of 1773, and Oct 24, 1780.

[550] Boswell is speaking of the book published under the name of _Cibber_ mentioned above, but "entirely compiled," according to Johnson, by Shiels. See _post_, April 10, 1776.

[551] See _Piozzi Letters_, i. 312, and _post_, May 21, 1775, note.

[552] "We ourselves, not without labour and risk, lately discovered Gough Square.... and on the second day of search the very House there, wherein the _English Dictionary_ was composed. It is the first or corner house on the right hand, as you enter through the arched way from the North-west ... It is a stout, old-fashioned, oak-bal.u.s.traded house: "I have spent many a pound and penny on it since then," said the worthy Landlord: "here, you see, this bedroom was the Doctor"s study; that was the garden" (a plot of delved ground somewhat larger than a bed-quilt) "where he walked for exercise; these three garret bedrooms" (where his three [six] copyists sat and wrote) "were the place he kept his--_pupils_ in": _Tempus edax rerum!_ Yet _ferax_ also: for our friend now added, with a wistful look, which strove to seem merely historical: "I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or the month; it"s all one to me."--"To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as we went pensively our ways." Carlyle"s _Miscellanies_, edit, of 1872, iv. 112.

[553] Boswell"s account of the manner in which Johnson compiled his _Dictionary_ is confused and erroneous. He began his task (as he himself expressly described to me), by devoting his first care to a diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in their language, and under every sentence which he meant to quote he drew a line, and noted in the margin the first letter of the word under which it was to occur. He then delivered these books to his clerks, who transcribed each sentence on a separate slip of paper, and arranged the same under the word referred to. By these means he collected the several words and their different significations; and when the whole arrangement was alphabetically formed, he gave the definitions of their meanings, and collected their etymologies from Skinner, Junius, and other writers on the subject. PERCY.

[554] "The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he could borrow; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning, and yet some of his friends were glad to receive and entertain them as curiosities."

Hawkins, p. 175.

[555] In the copy that he thus marked of Sir Matthew Hale"s _Primitive Origination of Mankind_, opposite the pa.s.sage where it is stated, that "Averroes says that if the world were not eternal ... it could never have been at all, because an eternal duration must necessarily have anteceded the first production of the world," he has written:--"This argument will hold good equally against the writing that I now write."

[556] Boswell must mean "whose writings _taken as a whole_ had a tendency," &c. Johnson quotes Dryden, and of Dryden he says:--"Of the mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute itself with ideal wickedness for the sake of spreading the contagion in society, I wish not to conceal or excuse the depravity. Such degradation of the dignity of genius, such abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. What consolation can be had Dryden has afforded by living to repent, and to testify his repentance."

Johnson"s _Works_, vii. 293. He quotes Congreve, and of Congreve he says: "It is acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal of his works will make no man better; and that their ultimate effect is to represent pleasure in alliance with vice, and to relax those obligations by which life ought to be regulated." _Ib_. viii. 28. He would not quote Dr. Clarke, much as he admired him, because he was not sound upon the doctrine of the Trinity. _Post_, Dec., 1784, note.

[557] In the _Plan to the Dictionary_, written in 1747, he describes his task as one that "may be successfully performed without any higher quality than that of bearing burdens with dull patience, and beating the track of the alphabet with sluggish resolution." _Works_, v. 1. In 1751, in the _Rambler_, No. 141, he thus pleasantly touches on his work: "The task of every other slave [except the "wit"] has an end. The rower in time reaches the port; the lexicographer at last finds the conclusion of his alphabet." On April 15, 1755, he writes to his friend Hector:--"I wish, come of wishes what will, that my work may please you, as much as it now and then pleased me, for I did not find dictionary making so very unpleasant as it may be thought." _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. 111, 301.

He told Dr. Blacklock that "it was easier to him to write poetry than to compose his _Dictionary_. His mind was less on the stretch in doing the one than the other." Boswell"s _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.

[558] The well-known picture of the company at Tunbridge Wells in Aug.

1748, with the references in Richardson"s own writing, is given as a frontispiece to vol. iii. of Richardson"s _Correspondence_. There can be no doubt that the figure marked by Richardson as Dr. Johnson is not Samuel Johnson, who did not receive a doctor"s degree till more than four years after Richardson"s death.

[559] "Johnson hardly ever spoke of Bathurst without tears in his eyes."

Murphy"s _Johnson_, p. 56. Mrs. Piozzi, after recording an anecdote that he had related to her of his childhood, continues:--""I cannot imagine,"

said he, "what makes me talk of myself to you so, for I really never mentioned this foolish story to anybody except Dr. Taylor, not even to my dear, dear Bathurst, whom I loved better than ever I loved any human creature; but poor Bathurst is dead!" Here a long pause and a few tears ensued." Piozzi"s _Anec_., p. 18. Another day he said to her:--"Dear Bathurst was a man to my very heart"s content: he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig; he was a very good hater." _Ib_. p.

83. In his _Meditations on Easter-Day_, 1764, he records:--"After sermon I recommended Tetty in a prayer by herself; and my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst in another." _Pr. and Med_., p. 54. See also _post_, under March 18, 1752, and 1780 in Mr. Langton"s _Collection_.

[560] Of Hawkesworth Johnson thus wrote: "An account of Dr. Swift has been already collected, with great diligence and acuteness, by Dr.

Hawkesworth, according to a scheme which I laid before him in the intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be expected to say much of a life concerning which I had long since communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations with so much elegance of language and force of sentiment." Johnson"s _Works_, viii. 192.

Hawkesworth was an imitator of Johnson"s style; _post_, under Jan.

1, 1753.

[561] He was afterwards for several years Chairman of the Middles.e.x justices, and upon occasion of presenting an address to the King, accepted the usual offer of Knighthood. He is authour of "A History of Musick," in five volumes in quarto. By a.s.siduous attendance upon Johnson in his last illness, he obtained the office of one of his executors; in consequence of which, the booksellers of London employed him to publish an edition of Dr. Johnson"s works, and to write his Life. BOSWELL. This description of Hawkins, as "Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney," is a reply to his description of Boswell as "Mr. James Boswell, a native of Scotland." Hawkins"s _Johnson_, p. 472. According to Miss Hawkins, "Boswell complained to her father of the manner in which he was described. Where was the offence? It was one of those which a complainant hardly dares to embody in words; he would only repeat, "Well, but _Mr. James Boswell_, surely, surely, _Mr. James Boswell_""

Miss Hawkins"s _Memoirs_, i. 235. Boswell in thus styling Hawkins remembered no doubt Johnson"s sarcasm against attorneys. See _post_, 1770, in Dr. Maxwell"s _Collectanea_. Hawkins"s edition of _Johnson"s Works_ was published in 1787-9, in 13 vols., 8vo., the last two vols.

being edited by Stockdale. In vol. xi. is a collection of Johnson"s sayings, under the name of _Apothegms_, many of which I quote in my notes.

[562] Boswell, it is clear, has taken his account of the club from Hawkins, who writes:--"Johnson had, in the winter of 1749, formed a club that met weekly at the King"s Head, a famous beef-steak house in Ivy Lane, near St. Paul"s, every Tuesday evening. Thither he constantly resorted with a disposition to please and be pleased. Our conversations seldom began till after a supper so very solid and substantial as led us to think that with him it was a dinner.

"By the help of this refection, and no other incentive to hilarity than lemonade, Johnson was in a short time after our a.s.sembling transformed into a new creature; his habitual melancholy and la.s.situde of spirit gave way; his countenance brightened." Hawkins"s _Johnson_, pp. 219, 250. Other parts of Hawkins"s account do not agree with pa.s.sages in Johnson"s letters to Mrs. Thrale written in 1783-4. "I dined about a fortnight ago with three old friends [Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne]; we had not met together for thirty years. In the thirty years two of our set have died." _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 339. "We used to meet weekly about the year fifty." _Ib_. p. 361. "The people whom I mentioned in my letter are the remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy Lane about three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer, the rest are yet on this side the grave." _Ib_. p. 363. Hawkins says the club broke up about 1756 (_Life_, p. 361). Johnson in the first of the pa.s.sages says they had not met at all for thirty years--that is to say, not since 1753; while in the last two pa.s.sages he implies that their weekly meetings came to an end about 1751. I cannot understand moreover how, if Bathurst, "his beloved friend," belonged to the club, Johnson should have forgotten it. Bathurst died in the expedition to the Havannah about 1762. Two others of those given in Hawkins"s list were certainly dead by 1783. M"Ghie, who died while the club existed (_Ib_.

p. 361), and Dr. Salter. A writer in the _Builder_ (Dec. 1884) says, "The King"s Head was burnt down twenty-five years ago, but the cellarage remains beneath No. 4, Alldis"s dining-rooms, on the eastern side."

[563] Tom Tyers said that Johnson "in one night composed, after finishing an evening in Holborn, his _Hermit of Teneriffe_." _Gent.

Mag_. for 1784, p. 901. The high value that he set on this piece may be accounted for in his own words. "Many causes may vitiate a writer"s judgment of his own works.... What has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention." Johnson"s _Works_, vii. 110. He had said much the same thirty years earlier in _The Rambler_ (No. 21).

[564] "On January 9 was published, long wished, another satire from Juvenal, by the author of _London." Gent. Mag_. xviii. 598, 9.

[565] Sir John Hawkins, with solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem as a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the fact is, that the poem was published on the 9th of January, and the tragedy was not acted till the 6th of the February following. BOSWELL. Hawkins perhaps implies what Boswell says that he represents; but if so, he implies it by denying it. Hawkins"s _Johnson_, p. 201.

[566] "I wrote," he said, "the first seventy lines in _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ in the course of one morning in that small house beyond the church at Hampstead." _Works_ (1787), xi. 212.

[567] See _post_ under Feb. 15, 1766. That Johnson did not think that in hasty composition there is any great merit, is shewn by _The Rambler_, No. 169, ent.i.tled _Labour necessary to excellence_. There he describes "pride and indigence as the two great hasteners of modern poems." He continues:--"that no other method of attaining lasting praise [than _multa dies et multa litura_] has been yet discovered may be conjectured from the blotted ma.n.u.scripts of Milton now remaining, and from the tardy emission of Pope"s compositions." He made many corrections for the later editions of his poem.

[568] "Nov. 25, 1748. I received of Mr. Dodsley fifteen guineas, for which a.s.sign to him the right of copy of an imitation of the _Tenth Satire of Juvenal_, written by me; reserving to myself the right of printing one edition. SAM. JOHNSON."

"London, 29 June, 1786. A true copy, from the original in Dr. Johnson"s handwriting. JAS. DODSLEY. BOSWELL.

_London_ was sold at a shilling a copy. Johnson was paid at the rate of about 9-1/2_d_. a line for this poem; for _The Vanity of Human Wishes_ at the rate of about 10_d_. a line. Dryden by his engagement with Jacob Tonson (see Johnson"s _Works_, vii. 298) undertook to furnish 10,000 verses at a little over 6_d_. a verse. Goldsmith was paid for _The Traveller_ 21, or about 11-1/2_d_. a line.

[569] He never published it. See _post_ under Dec. 9, 1784.

[570] "Jan. 9, 1821. Read Johnson"s _Vanity of Human Wishes_,--all the examples and mode of giving them sublime, as well as the latter part, with the exception of an occasional couplet. I do not so much admire the opening. The first line, "Let observation," etc., is certainly heavy and useless. But "tis a grand poem--and so _true_!--true as the Tenth of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages changes all things--time--language-- the earth--the bounds of the sea--the stars of the sky, and everything "about, around, and underneath" man, _except man himself_. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment." _Byron_, vol. v. p. 66. WRIGHT. Sir Walter Scott said "that he had more pleasure in reading _London_, and _The Vanity of Human Wishes _than any other poetical composition he could mention."

Lockhart"s _Scott_, iii. 269. Mr. Lockhart adds that "the last line of MS. that Scott sent to the press was a quotation from _The Vanity of Human Wishes_." Of the first lines

"Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind from China to Peru,"

De Quincey quotes the criticism of some writer, who "contends with some reason that this is saying in effect:--"Let observation with extensive observation observe mankind extensively."" De Quincey"s _Works_, x. 72.

[571] From Mr. Langton. BOSWELL.

[572] In this poem one of the instances mentioned of unfortunate learned men is _Lydiat_:

"Hear Lydiat"s life, and Galileo"s end."

The history of Lydiat being little known, the following account of him may be acceptable to many of my readers. It appeared as a note in the Supplement to the _Gent. Mag_. for 1748, in which some pa.s.sages extracted from Johnson"s poem were inserted, and it should have been added in the subsequent editions.--A very learned divine and mathematician, fellow of New College, Oxon, and Rector of Okerton, near Banbury. He wrote, among many others, a Latin treatise _De Natura call_, etc., in which he attacked the sentiments of Scaliger and Aristotle, not bearing to hear it urged, _that some things are true in philosophy and false in divinity_. He made above 600 Sermons on the harmony of the Evangelists. Being unsuccessful in publishing his works, he lay in the prison of Bocardo at Oxford, and in the King"s Bench, till Bishop Usher, Dr. Laud, Sir William Boswell, and Dr. Pink, released him by paying his debts. He pet.i.tioned King Charles I. to be sent into Ethiopia, etc., to procure MSS. Having spoken in favour of Monarchy and bishops, he was plundered by the parliament forces, and twice carried away prisoner from his rectory; and afterwards had not a shirt to shift him in three months, without he borrowed it, and died very poor in 1646. BOSWELL.

[573] Psalm xc. 12.