Life of Johnson
Chapter 399 : [884] Boswell tells this story again, _ante_, ii. 299. Mrs. Piozzi's account (_An

[884] Boswell tells this story again, _ante_, ii. 299. Mrs. Piozzi's account (_Anec_. p. 114) is evidently so inaccurate that it does not deserve attention; she herself admits that Beauclerk was truthful. In a marginal note on Wraxall's _Memoirs_, she says:--'Topham Beauclerk (wicked and profligate as he wished to be accounted), was yet a man of very strict veracity. Oh Lord! how I did hate that horrid Beauclerk!'

Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 348. Johnson testified to 'the correctness of Beauclerk's memory and the fidelity of his narrative.' _Ante_, ii. 405.

[885] 'Mr. Maclean of Col, having a very numerous family, has for some time past resided at Aberdeen, that he may superintend their education, and leaves the young gentleman, our friend, to govern his dominions with the full power of a Highland chief.' _Johnson's Works_, ix. 117.

[886] This is not spoken of hare-coursing, where the game is taken or lost before the dog gets out of wind; but in chasing deer with the great Highland greyhound, Col's exploit is feasible enough. WALTER SCOTT.

[887] See _ante_, pp. 45, III, for Monboddo's notion.

[888] Mme. Riccoboni in 1767 wrote to Garrick of the French:--'Un mensonge grossier les revolte. Si on voulait leur persuader que les Anglais vivent de grenouilles, meurent de faim, que leurs femmes sont barbouillees, et jurent par toutes les lettres de l'alphabet, ils leveraient les epaules, et s'ecriraient, _quel sot ose ecrire ces miseres-la?_ mais a Londres, diantre cela prend!' _Garrick Corres_.

ii. 524.

[889] Just opposite to M'Quarrie's house the boat was swamped by the intoxication of the sailors, who had partaken too largely of M'Quarrie's wonted hospitality. WALTER SCOTT. Johnson wrote from Lichfield on June 13, 1775;--'There is great lamentation here for the death of Col. Lucy [Miss Porter] is of opinion that he was wonderfully handsome.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 235. See ante, ii. 287.

[890] Iona.

[891] See _ante_, p. 237.

[892] See _ante_, 111. 229.

[893] Sir James Mackintosh says (_Life_, ii. 257):--'Dr. Johnson visited Iona without looking at Staffa, which lay in sight, with that indifference to natural objects, either of taste or scientific curiosity, which characterised him.' This is a fair enough sample of much of the criticism under which Johnson's reputation has suffered.

[894] Smollett in _Humphry Clinker_ (Letter of Sept. 3) describes a Highland funeral. 'Our entertainer seemed to think it a disparagement to his family that not above a hundred gallons of whisky had been drunk upon such a solemn occasion.

[895] 'We then entered the boat again; the night came upon us; the wind rose; the sea swelled; and Boswell desired to be set on dry ground: we, however, pursued our navigation, and pa.s.sed by several little islands in the silent solemnity of faint moon-s.h.i.+ne, seeing little, and hearing only the wind and water.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 176.

[896] Cicero _De Finibus_, ii. 32.

[897] I have lately observed that this thought has been elegantly expressed by Cowley:--

'Things which offend when present, and affright, In memory, well painted, move delight.'

BOSWELL.

The lines are found in the _Ode upon His Majesty's Restoration and Return_, stanza 12. They may have been suggested by Virgil's lines--

'Revocate animos, maestumque timorem Mitt.i.te; forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.'

Aeneid, i. 202.

[898] Had our Tour produced nothing else but this sublime pa.s.sage, the world must have acknowledged that it was not made in vain. The present respectable President of the Royal Society was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an att.i.tude of silent admiration, BOSWELL. Boswell again quotes this pa.s.sage (which is found in Johnson's _Works_, ix. 145), _ante_, iii.

173. The President was Sir Joseph Banks, Johnson says in _Ra.s.selas_, ch.

xi:--'That the supreme being may be more easily propitiated in one place than in another is the dream of idle superst.i.tion; but that some places may operate upon our own minds in an uncommon manner is an opinion which hourly experience will justify. He who supposes that his vices may be more successfully combated in Palestine will, perhaps, find himself mistaken, yet he may go thither without folly; he who thinks they will be more freely pardoned dishonours at once his reason and religion.'

[899] 'Sir Allan went to the headman of the island, whom fame, but fame delights in amplifying, represents as worth no less than fifty pounds.

He was, perhaps, proud enough of his guests, but ill prepared for our entertainment; however he soon produced more provision than men not luxurious require.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 146.

[900] _An Account of the Isle of Man. With a voyage to I-Columb-Kill_.

By W. Sacheverell, Esq., late Governour of Man. 1702.

[901] 'He that surveys it [the church-yard] attended by an insular antiquary may be told where the kings of many nations are buried, and if he loves to soothe his imagination with the thoughts that naturally rise in places where the great and the powerful lie mingled with the dust, let him listen in submissive silence; for if he asks any questions his delight is at an end.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 148.

[902] On quitting the island Johnson wrote: 'We now left those ill.u.s.trious ruins, by which Mr. Boswell was much affected, nor would I willingly be thought to have looked upon them without some emotion.'

_Ib_. p. 150.

[903] Psalm xc. 4.

[904] Boswell wrote on Nov. 9, 1767:--'I am always for fixing some period for my perfection as far as possible. Let it be when my account of Corsica is published; I shall then have a character which I must support.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 122. Five weeks later he wrote:--'I have been as wild as ever;' and then comes a pa.s.sage which the Editor has thought it needful to suppress. _Ib_.p.128.

[905] Boswell here speaks as an Englishman. He should have written '_a_ M'Ginnis.' See _ante_, p. 135, note 3.

[906] 'The fruitfulness of Iona is now its whole prosperity. The inhabitants are remarkably gross, and remarkably neglected; I know not if they are visited by any minister. The island, which was once the metropolis of learning and piety, has now no school for education, nor temple for wors.h.i.+p, only two inhabitants that can speak English, and not one that can write or read.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 149. Scott, who visited it in 1810, writes:--'There are many monuments of singular curiosity, forming a strange contrast to the squalid and dejected poverty of the present inhabitants.' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iii.

285. In 1814, on a second visit, he writes:--'Iona, the last time I saw it, seemed to me to contain the most wretched people I had anywhere seen. But either they have got better since I was here, or my eyes, familiarized with the wretchedness of Zetland and the Harris, are less shocked with that of Iona.' He found a schoolmaster there. _Ib_.

iv. 324.

[907] Johnson's Jacobite friend, Dr. King (_ante_, i. 279), says of Pulteney, on his being made Earl of Bath:--'He deserted the cause of his country; he betrayed his friends and adherents; he ruined his character, and from a most glorious eminence sunk down to a degree of contempt. The first time Sir Robert (who was now Earl of Orford) met him in the House of Lords, he threw out this reproach:--"My Lord Bath, you and I are now two as insignificant men as any in England." In which he spoke the truth of my Lord Bath, but not of himself. For my Lord Orford was consulted by the ministers to the last day of his life.' King's _Anec_. p. 43.

[908] See _ante_, i. 431, and iii. 326.

[909] 'Sir Robert Walpole detested war. This made Dr. Johnson say of him, "He was the best minister this country ever had, as, if _we_ would have let him (he speaks of his own violent faction), he would have kept the country in perpetual peace."' Seward's _Biographiana_, p. 554. See _ante_, i. 131.

[910] See _ante_, iii. Appendix C.

[911] I think it inc.u.mbent on me to make some observation on this strong satirical sally on my cla.s.sical companion, Mr. Wilkes. Reporting it lately from memory, in his presence, I expressed it thus:--'They knew he would rob their shops, _if he durst;_ they knew he would debauch their daughters, _if he could;_' which, according to the French phrase, may be said _rencherir_ on Dr. Johnson; but on looking into my Journal, I found it as above, and would by no means make any addition. Mr. Wilkes received both readings with a good humour that I cannot enough admire.

Indeed both he and I (as, with respect to myself, the reader has more than once had occasion to observe in the course of this Journal,) are too fond of a _bon mot_, not to relish it, though we should be ourselves the object of it.

Let me add, in justice to the gentleman here mentioned, that at a subsequent period, he _was_ elected chief magistrate of London [in 1774], and discharged the duties of that high office with great honour to himself, and advantage to the city. Some years before Dr. Johnson died, I was fortunate enough to bring him and Mr. Wilkes together; the consequence of which was, that they were ever afterwards on easy and not unfriendly terms. The particulars I shall have great pleasure in relating at large in my _Life of Dr. Johnson_. BOSWELL. In the copy of Boswell's _Letter to the People of Scotland_ in the British Museum is entered in Boswell's own hand--

'Comes jucundus in via pro vehiculo est.

To John Wilkes, Esq.: as pleasant a companion as ever lived. From the Author.

--will my Wilkes retreat, And see, once seen before, that ancient seat, etc.'

See _ante_, iii. 64, 183; iv. 101, 224, note 2.

[912] See _ante_, iv. 199.

[913] Our afternoon journey was through a country of such gloomy desolation that Mr. Boswell thought no part of the Highlands equally terrifick.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 150.

[914] Johnson describes Lochbuy as 'a true Highland laird, rough and haughty, and tenacious of his dignity: who, hearing my name, inquired whether I was of the Johnstons of Glencoe (_sic_) or of Ardnamurchan.'

_Ib_.

[915] Boswell totally misapprehended _Lochbuy's_ meaning. There are two septs of the powerful clan of M'Donaid, who are called Mac-Ian, that is _John's-son_; and as Highlanders often translate their names when they go to the Lowlands,--as Gregor-son for Mac-Gregor, Farquhar-son for Mac-Farquhar,--_Lochbuy_ supposed that Dr. Johnson might be one of the Mac-Ians of Ardnamurchan, or of Glencro. Boswell's explanation was nothing to the purpose. The _Johnstons_ are a clan distinguished in Scottish _border_ history, and as brave as any _Highland_ clan that ever wore brogues; but they lay entirely out of _Lochbuy's_ knowledge--nor was he thinking of _them_. WALTER SCOTT.

[916] This maxim, however, has been controverted. See Blackstone's _Commentaries_, vol. ii. p. 291; and the authorities there quoted.

BOSWELL. 'Blackstone says:--From these loose authorities, which Fitzherbert does not hesitate to reject as being contrary to reason, the maxim that a man shall not stultify himself hath been handed down as settled law; though later opinions, feeling the inconvenience of the rule, have in many points endeavoured to restrain it.' _Ib_. p. 292.

[917] Begging pardon of the Doctor and his conductor, I have often seen and partaken of cold sheep's head at as good breakfast-tables as ever they sat at. This protest is something in the manner of the late Culrossie, who fought a duel for the honour of Aberdeen b.u.t.ter. I have pa.s.sed over all the Doctor's other reproaches upon Scotland, but the sheep's head I will defend _totis viribus_. Dr. Johnson himself must have forgiven my zeal on this occasion; for if, as he says, _dinner_ be the thing of which a man thinks _oftenest during the day, breakfast_ must be that of which he thinks _first in the morning_. WALTER SCOTT. I do not know where Johnson says this. Perhaps Scott was thinking of a pa.s.sage in Mrs. Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 149, where she writes that he said: 'A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of any thing than he does of his dinner.'