Life of Johnson
Chapter 332 : Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two fronts of whic

Johnson. His father built the corner-house in the Market-place, the two fronts of which, towards Market and Broad-market-street, stood upon waste land of the Corporation, under a forty years' lease, which was then expired. On the 15th of August, 1767, at a common-hall of the bailiffs and citizens, it was ordered (and that without any solicitation,) that a lease should be granted to Samuel Johnson, Doctor of Laws, of the encroachments at his house, for the term of ninety-nine years, at the old rent, which was five s.h.i.+llings. Of which, as Town-Clerk, Mr. Simpson had the honour and pleasure of informing him, and that he was desired to accept it, without paying any fine on the occasion, which lease was afterwards granted, and the Doctor died possessed of this property.' BOSWELL.

[1149] See vol. i. p. 37. BOSWELL.

[1150] According to Miss Seward, who was Mr. White's cousin, 'Johnson once called him "the rising strength of Lichfield."' Seward's _Letters_, i. 335.

[1151] The Rev. R. Warner, who visited Lichfield in 1801, gives in his _Tour through the Northern Counties_, i. 105, a fuller account. He is clearly wrong in the date of its occurrence, and in one other matter, yet his story may in the main be true. He says that Johnson's friends at Lichfield missed him one morning; the servants said that he had set off at a very early hour, whither they knew not. Just before supper he returned. He informed his hostess of his breach of filial duty, which had happened just fifty years before on that very day. 'To do away the sin of this disobedience, I this day went,' he said, 'in a chaise to--, and going into the market at the time of high business uncovered my head, and stood with it bare an hour, before the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by, and the inclemency of the weather.' This penance may recall Dante's lines,--

'Quando vivea piu glorioso, disse, Liberamente nel campo di Siena, Ogni vergogna deposta, s'affisse.'

'"When at his glory's topmost height," said he, "Respect of dignity all cast aside, Freely he fix'd him on Sienna's plain."'

CARY. Dante, _Purgatory_. Cant. xi. l. 133.

[1152]

'How instinct varies in the grovelling swine, Compared, half-reasoning elephant, with thine.'

Pope, _Essay on Man_, i. 221.

[1153] See _ante_, iii. 153, 296.

[1154] Mr. Burke suggested to me as applicable to Johnson, what Cicero, in his CATO MAJOR, says of _Appius:--'Intentum enim animum tanquam arc.u.m habebat, nec languescens succ.u.mbebat senectuti_;' repeating, at the same time, the following n.o.ble words in the same pa.s.sage:--_'Ita enim senectus honesta est, si se ipsa defendit, si jus suum retinet, si nemini emanc.i.p.ata est, si usque ad extremum vitae spiritum vindicet jus suum_.' BOSWELL. The last line runs in the original:-'si usque ad ultimum spiritum dominatur in suos.' _Cato Major_, xi. 38.

[1155]

'_atrocem_ animum Catonis.'

'Cato-- Of spirit unsubdued.'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Odes_, i. 24.

[1156] Yet Baretti, who knew Johnson well, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i.315, says:--'If ever Johnson took any delight in anything it was to converse with some old acquaintance. New people he never loved to be in company with, except ladies, when disposed to caress and flatter him.'

[1157] Johnson, thirty-four years earlier, wrote:--'I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned that the one can bear all that can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be separated sooner than subdued.' _The Rambler_, No. 32. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'But what if I am seventy-two; I remember Sulpitius says of Saint Martin (now that's above your reading), _Est animus victor annorum, et senectuti cedere nescius_. Match me that among your young folks.'

_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177. On Sept. 2, 1784, he wrote to Mr. Sastres the Italian master:--'I have hope of standing the English winter, and of seeing you, and reading _Petrarch_ at Bolt-court.' _Ib_. p. 407.

[1158] _Life of Johnson_, p. 7.

[1159] It is a most agreeable circ.u.mstance attending the publication of this Work, that Mr. Hector has survived his ill.u.s.trious schoolfellow so many years; that he still retains his health and spirits; and has gratified me with the following acknowledgement: 'I thank you, most sincerely thank you, for the great and long continued entertainment your _Life of Dr. Johnson_ has afforded me, and others, of my particular friends.' Mr. Hector, besides setting me right as to the verses on a sprig of Myrtle, (see vol. i. p. 92, note,) has favoured me with two English odes, written by Dr. Johnson, at an early period of his life, which will appear in my edition of his poems. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.

16, note 1.

[1160] The editor of the _Biographia Britannica. Ante_, iii. 174.

[1161] On Dec. 23, Miss Adams wrote to a friend:--'We are all under the sincerest grief for the loss of poor Dr. Johnson. He spent three or four days with my father at Oxford, and promised to come again; as he was, he said, nowhere so happy.' _Pemb. Coll. MSS._

[1162] See _ante_, p. 293.

[1163] Mr. Strahan says (Preface, p. iv.) that Johnson, being hindered by illness from revising these prayers, 'determined to give the MSS., without revision, in charge to me. Accordingly one morning, on my visiting him by desire at an early hour, he put these papers into my hands, with instructions for committing them to the press, and with a promise to prepare a sketch of his own life to accompany them.' Whatever Johnson wished about the prayers, it pa.s.ses belief that he ever meant for the eye of the world these minute accounts of his health and his feelings. Some parts indeed Mr. Strahan himself suppressed, as the Pemb.

Coll. MSS. shew (_ante_, p. 84, note 4). It is curious that one portion at least fell into other hands (_ante_, ii. 476). There are other apparent gaps in the diary which raise the suspicion that it was only fragments that Mr. Strahan obtained. On the other hand Mr. Strahan had nothing to gain by the publication beyond notoriety (see his Preface, p.

vi.). Dr. Adams, whose name is mentioned in the preface, expressed in a letter to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 755, his disapproval of the publication. Mr. Courtenay (_Poetical Review_, ed. 1786, p. 7), thus attacked Mr. Strahan:--

'Let priestly S--h--n in a G.o.dly fit The tale relate, in aid of Holy Writ; Though candid Adams, by whom David fell [A], Who ancient miracles sustained so well, To recent wonders may deny his aid, Nor own a pious brother of the trade.'

[A] The Rev. Dr. Adams of Oxford, distinguished for his answer to David Hume's _Essay on Miracles_.

[1164] Johnson once said to Miss Burney of her brother Charles:--'I should be glad to see him if he were not your brother; but were he a dog, a cat, a rat, a frog, and belonged to you, I must needs be glad to see him.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 233. On Nov. 25 she called on him. 'He let me in, though very ill. He told me he was going to try what sleeping out of town might do for him. "I remember," said he, "that my wife, when she was near her end, poor woman, was also advised to sleep out of town; and when she was carried to the lodgings that had been prepared for her, she complained that the staircase was in very bad condition, for the plaster was beaten off the walls in many places."

"Oh!" said the man of the house, "that's nothing but by the knocks against it of the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the lodgings." He laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in telling me this.' Miss Burney continues:--'How delightfully bright are his faculties, though the poor and infirm machine that contains them seems alarmingly giving way. Yet, all brilliant as he was, I saw him growing worse, and offered to go, which, for the first time I ever remember, he did not oppose; but most kindly pressing both my hands, "Be not," he said, in a voice of even tenderness, "be not longer in coming again for my letting you go now." I a.s.sured him I would be the sooner, and was running off, but he called me back in a solemn voice, and in a manner the most energetic, said:--"Remember me in your prayers."' Mme.

D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 327. See _ante_, iii. 367, note 4.

[1165] Mr. Hector's sister and Johnson's first love. _Ante_, ii. 459.

[1166] The Rev. Dr. Taylor. BOSWELL.

[1167] See _ante_, ii. 474, and iii. 180.

[1168] 'Reliquum est, _[Greek: Sphartan elaches, tahutan khusmei].'_ Cicero, _Epistolae ad Attic.u.m_, iv. 6. 'Spartam nactus es, hanc orna.'

Erasmus, _Adagiorum Chiliades_, ed. 1559, p. 485.

[1169] Temple says of the spleen that it is a disease too refined for this country and people, who are well when they are not ill, and pleased when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of it, and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves with the more speculative contrivances of pa.s.sion, or refinements of pleasure.'

Temple's _Works_, ed. 1757, i. 170.

[1170] It is truly wonderful to consider the extent and constancy of Johnson's literary ardour, notwithstanding the melancholy which clouded and embittered his existence. Besides the numerous and various works which he executed, he had, at different times, formed schemes of a great many more, of which the following catalogue was given by him to Mr.

Langton, and by that gentleman presented to his Majesty:

'DIVINITY.

'A small book of precepts and directions for piety; the hint taken from the directions in Morton's exercise.

'PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, and LITERATURE in general.

'_History of Criticism_, as it relates to judging of authours, from Aristotle to the present age. An account of the rise and improvements of that art; of the different opinions of authours, ancient and modern.

'Translation of the _History of Herodian_.

'New edition of Fairfax's Translation of _Ta.s.so_, with notes, glossary, &c.

'Chaucer, a new edition of him, from ma.n.u.scripts and old editions, with various readings, conjectures, remarks on his language, and the changes it had undergone from the earliest times to his age, and from his to the present: with notes explanatory of customs, &c., and references to Boccace, and other authours from whom he has borrowed, with an account of the liberties he has taken in telling the stories; his life, and an exact etymological glossary.

'Aristotle's _Rhetorick_, a translation of it into English.

'A Collection of Letters, translated from the modern writers, with some account of the several authours.

'Oldham's Poems, with notes, historical and critical.

'Roscommon's Poems, with notes.

'Lives of the Philosophers, written with a polite air, in such a manner as may divert as well as instruct.

'History of the Heathen Mythology, with an explication of the fables, both allegorical and historical; with references to the poets.

'History of the State of Venice, in a compendious manner.