Life of Johnson
Chapter 400 : [918] A horrible place it was. Johnson describes it (_Works_, ix. 152) as 'a deep

[918] A horrible place it was. Johnson describes it (_Works_, ix. 152) as 'a deep subterraneous cavity, walled on the sides, and arched on the top, into which the descent is through a narrow door, by a ladder or a rope.'

[919] See _ante_, p. 177.

[920] Sir Allan M'Lean, like many Highland chiefs, was embarra.s.sed in his private affairs, and exposed to unpleasant solicitations from attorneys, called, in Scotland, _writers_ (which indeed was the chief motive of his retiring to Inchkenneth). Upon one occasion he made a visit to a friend, then residing at Carron lodge, on the banks of the Carron, where the banks of that river are studded with pretty villas: Sir Allan, admiring the landscape, asked his friend, whom that handsome seat belonged to. 'M---, the writer to the signet,' was the reply.

'Umph!' said Sir Allan, but not with an accent of a.s.sent, 'I mean that other house.' 'Oh ! that belongs to a very honest fellow Jamie---, also a writer to the signet.' 'Umph!' said the Highland chief of M'Lean with more emphasis than before, 'And yon smaller house?' 'That belongs to a Stirling man; I forget his name, but I am sure he is a writer too; for---.' Sir Allan who had recoiled a quarter of a circle backward at every response, now wheeled the circle entire and turned his back on the landscape, saying, 'My good friend, I must own you have a pretty situation here; but d--n your neighbourhood.' WALTER SCOTT.

[921] Loch Awe.

[922] 'Pope's talent lay remarkably in what one may naturally enough term the condensation of thoughts. I think no other English poet ever brought so much sense into the same number of lines with equal smoothness, ease, and poetical beauty. Let him who doubts of this peruse his _Essay on Man_ with attention.' Shenstone's _Essays on Men and Manners. [Works_, 4th edit. ii. 159.] 'He [Gray] approved an observation of Shenstone, that "Pope had the art of condensing a thought."'

Nicholls' _Reminiscences of Gray_, p. 37. And Swift [in his _Lines on the death of Dr. Swift_], himself a great condenser, says--

'In Pope I cannot read a line But with a sigh I wish it mine; When he can in one couplet fix More sense than I can do in six.'

P. CUNNINGHAM.

[923] He is described by Walpole in his _Letters_, viii. 5.

[924] 'The night came on while we had yet a great part of the way to go, though not so dark but that we could discern the cataracts which poured down the hills on one side, and fell into one general channel, that ran with great violence on the other. The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a n.o.bler chorus of the rough musick of nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before.'

Johnson's _Works_, ix. 155. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'All the rougher powers of nature except thunder were in motion, but there was no danger.

I should have been sorry to have missed any of the inconveniencies, to have had more light or less rain, for their co-operation crowded the scene and filled the mind.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 177.

[925] I never tasted whiskey except once for experiment at the inn in Inverary, when I thought it preferable to any English malt brandy. It was strong, but not pungent, and was free from the empyreumatick taste or smell. What was the process I had no opportunity of inquiring, nor do I wish to improve the art of making poison pleasant.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 52. Smollett, medical man though he was, looked upon whisky as anything but poison. 'I am told that it is given with great success to infants, as a cordial in the confluent small-pox.' _Humphry Clinker_.

Letter of Sept. 3.

[926] _Regale_ in this sense is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_. It was, however, a favourite word at this time. Thus, Mrs. Piozzi, in her _Journey through France_, ii. 297, says:--'A large dish of hot chocolate thickened with bread and cream is a common afternoon's regale here.'

Miss Burney often uses the word.

[927] Boswell, in answering Garrick's letter seven months later, improved on this comparison. 'It was,' he writes, 'a pine-apple of the finest flavour, which had a high zest indeed among the heath-covered mountains of Scotia.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 621.

[928] See _ante_, p. 115.

[929] See _ante_, i. 97.

[930] 'Though Birnam wood be come to Dunsinane.' _Macbeth_, act v. sc.

8.

[931]

'From his first entrance to the closing scene Let him one equal character maintain.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet._ l. 126.

[932] I took the liberty of giving this familiar appellation to my celebrated friend, to bring in a more lively manner to his remembrance the period when he was Dr. Johnson's pupil. BOSWELL.

[933] See _ante_, p. 129.

[934] Boswell is here quoting the Preface to the third edition of his _Corsica_:--'Whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.'

[935] See _ante_, i. 148, and _post_, Nov. 21.

[936] I have suppressed my friend's name from an apprehension of wounding his sensibility; but I would not withhold from my readers a pa.s.sage which shews Mr. Garrick's mode of writing as the Manager of a Theatre, and contains a pleasing trait of his domestick life. His judgment of dramatick pieces, so far as concerns their exhibition on the stage, must be allowed to have considerable weight. But from the effect which a perusal of the tragedy here condemned had upon myself, and from the opinions of some eminent criticks, I venture to p.r.o.nounce that it has much poetical merit; and its authour has distinguished himself by several performances which shew that the epithet _poetaster_ was, in the present instance, much misapplied. BOSWELL. Johnson mentioned this quarrel between Garrick and the poet on March 25, 1773 (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 80). 'M---- is preparing a whole pamphlet against G----, and G---- is, I suppose, collecting materials to confute M----.' M---- was Mickle, the translator of the _Lusiad_ and author of the _Ballad of c.u.mnor Hall_ (_ante_, ii. 182). Had it not been for this 'poetaster,'

_Kenilworth_ might never have been written. Scott, in the preface, tells how 'the first stanza of _Cunmor Hall_ had a peculiar species of enchantment for his youthful ear, the force of which is not even now entirely spent.' The play that was refused was the _Siege of Ma.r.s.eilles_. Ever since the success of Hughes's _Siege of Damascus_ 'a siege had become a popular t.i.tle' (_ante_, iii. 259, note 1).

[937] She could only have been away for the day; for in 1776 Garrick wrote:--'As I have not left Mrs. Garrick one day since we were married, near twenty-eight years, I cannot now leave her.' _Garrick Corres_.

ii. 150.

[938] Dr. Morell once entered the school-room at Winchester College, 'in which some junior boys were writing their exercises, one of whom, struck no less with his air and manner than with the questions he put to them, whispered to his school-fellows, "Is he not a fine old Grecian?" The Doctor, overhearing this, turned hastily round and exclaimed, "I am indeed an old Grecian, my little man. Did you never see my head before my Thesaurus?"' The Praepostors, learning the dignity of their visitor, in a most respectful manner showed him the College. Wooll's _Life of Dr.

Warton_, p. 329. Mason writing to Horace Walpole about some odes, says:--'They are so lopped and mangled, that they are worse now than the productions of Handel's poet, Dr. Morell.' Walpole's _Letters_, v. 420.

Morell compiled the words for Handel's _Oratorios_.

[939] _Ante_, i. 148.

[940] I doubt whether any other instance can be found of _love_ being sent to Johnson.

[941] The pa.s.sage begins:--'A _servant_ or two from a revering distance cast many a wishful look, and condole their honoured master in the language of sighs.' Hervey's _Meditations_, ed. 1748, i. 40.

[942] _Ib_. ii. 84.

[943] The _Meditation_ was perhaps partly suggested by Swift's _Meditation upon a Broomstick_. Swift's _Works_ (1803), iii. 275.

[944] Thomas Burnet of the Charterhouse, in his _Sacred Theory of the Earth_, ed. 1722, i. 85.

[945] See _ante_, i. 476, and ii. 73.

[946] Elizabeth Gunning, celebrated (like her sister, Lady Coventry) for her personal charms, had been previously d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton, and was mother of Douglas, Duke of Hamilton, the compet.i.tor for the Douglas property with the late Lord Douglas: she was, of course, prejudiced against Boswell, who had shewn all the bustling importance of his character in the Douglas cause, and it was said, I know not on what authority, that he headed the mob which broke the windows of some of the judges, and of Lord Auchinleck, his father, in particular. WALTER SCOTT.

See _ante_, ii. 50.

[947] See _ante_, i. 408, and ii. 329.

[948] She married the Earl of Derby, and was the great-grandmother of the present Earl. Burke's _Peerage_.

[949] See _ante_, iv. 248.

[950] Lord Macaulay's grandfather, Trevelyan's _Macaulay_, i. 6.

[951] See _ante_, p. 118.

[952] On reflection, at the distance of several years, I wonder that my venerable fellow-traveller should have read this pa.s.sage without censuring my levity. BOSWELL.

[953] _Ante_, p. 151.

[954] See _ante_, i. 240.

[955] As this book is now become very scarce, I shall subjoin the t.i.tle, which is curious:--The Doctrines of a Middle State between Death and the Resurrection: Of Prayers for the Dead: And the Necessity of Purification; plainly proved from the holy Scriptures, and the Writings of the Fathers of the Primitive Church: and acknowledged by several learned Fathers and Great Divines of the Church of England and others since the Reformation. To which is added, an Appendix concerning the Descent of the Soul of Christ into h.e.l.l, while his Body lay in the Grave. Together with the Judgment of the Reverend Dr. Hickes concerning this Book, so far as relates to a Middle State, particular Judgment, and Prayers for the Dead as it appeared in the first Edition. 'And a Ma.n.u.script of the Right Reverend Bishop Overall upon the Subject of a Middle State, and never before printed. Also, a Preservative against several of the Errors of the Roman Church, in six small Treatises. By the Honourable Archibald Campbell. Folio, 1721. BOSWELL.

[956] The release gained for him by Lord Townshend must have been from his last imprisonment after the accession of George I; for, as Mr.

Croker points out, Townshend was not Secretary of State till 1714.

[957] See _ante_, iv. 286.