Life of Johnson
Chapter 319 : [720] 'July 23. I have been thirteen days at Rochester, and am just now returned.

[720] 'July 23. I have been thirteen days at Rochester, and am just now returned. I came back by water in a common boat twenty miles for a s.h.i.+lling, and when I landed at Billingsgate, I carried my budget myself to Cornhill before I could get a coach, and was not much incommoded'

_Ib_. ii.294. See _ante_, iv.8, 22, for mention of Rochester.

[721] Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that Johnson visited Oxford this summer. Perhaps he was misled by a pa.s.sage in the _Piozzi Letters_ (ii.

302) where Johnson is made to write:--'At Oxford I have just left Wheeler.' For _left_ no doubt should be read _lost_. Wheeler died on July 22 of this year. _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p. 629.

[722] This house would be interesting to Johnson, as in it Charles II, 'for whom he had an extraordinary partiality' (_ante_, ii. 341), lay hid for some days after the battle of Worcester. Clarendon (vi. 540) describes it 'as a house that stood alone from neighbours and from any highway.' Charles was lodged 'in a little room, which had been made since the beginning of the troubles for the concealment of delinquents.'

[723] 'I told Dr. Johnson I had heard that Mr. Bowles was very much delighted with the expectation of seeing him, and he answered me:--"He is so delighted that it is shocking. It is really shocking to see how high are his expectations." I asked him why, and he said:--"Why, if any man is expected to take a leap of twenty yards, and does actually take one of ten, everybody will be disappointed, though ten yards may be more than any other man ever leaped."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.260. On Oct. 9, he wrote:--'Two nights ago Mr. Burke sat with me a long time.

We had both seen Stonehenge this summer for the first time.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.315.

[724] Salisbury is eighty-two miles from Cornhill by the old coach-road.

Johnson seems to have been nearly fifteen hours on the journey.

[725] 'Aug. 13, 1783. I am now broken with disease, without the alleviation of familiar friends.h.i.+p or domestic society. I have no middle state between clamour and silence, between general conversation and self-tormenting solitude. Levett is dead, and poor Williams is making haste to die.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.301. 'Aug. 20. This has been a day of great emotion; the office of the Communion of the Sick has been performed in poor Mrs. Williams's chamber.' _Ib_. 'Sept. 22. Poor Williams has, I hope, seen the end of her afflictions. She acted with prudence and she bore with fort.i.tude. She has left me.

"Thou thy weary [worldly] task hast done, Home art gone and ta'en thy wages."

[_Cymbeline_, act iv. sc. 2.]

Had she had good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosity and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all that knew her.' _Ib_. p. 311.

[726] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 354) described in 1756 such a companion as he found in Mrs. Williams. He quotes Pope's _Epitaph on Mrs. Corbet_, and continues:--'I have always considered this as the most valuable of all Pope's epitaphs; the subject of it is a character not discriminated by any s.h.i.+ning or eminent peculiarities; yet that which really makes, though not the splendour, the felicity of life, and that which every wise man will choose for his final and lasting companion in the languor of age, in the quiet of privacy, when he departs, weary and disgusted, from the ostentatious, the volatile and the vain. Of such a character which the dull overlook, and the gay despise, it was fit that the value should be made known, and the dignity established.' See _ante_, i.232.

[727] _Pr. and Med_. p. 226. BOSWELL.

[728] I conjecture that Mr. Bowles is the friend. The account follows close on the visit to his house, and contains a mention of Johnson's attendance at a lecture at Salisbury.

[729] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. xii. 149, says:--'Mr.

Bowles had married a descendant of Oliver Cromwell, viz. Dinah, the fourth daughter of Sir Thomas Frankland, and highly valued himself upon this connection with the Protector.' He adds that Mr. Bowles was an active Whig.

[730] Mr. Malone observes, 'This, however, was certainly a mistake, as appears from the _Memoirs_ published by Mr. n.o.ble. Had Johnson been furnished with the materials which the industry of that gentleman has procured, and with others which, it it is believed, are yet preserved in ma.n.u.script, he would, without doubt, have produced a most valuable and curious history of Cromwell's life.' BOSWELL.

[731] See _ante_, ii.358, note 3.

[732] _Short Notes for Civil Conversation_. Spedding's _Bacon_, vii.109.

[733] 'When I took up his _Life of Cowley_, he made me put it away to talk. I could not help remarking how very like he is to his writing, and how much the same thing it was to hear or to read him; but that n.o.body could tell that without coming to Streatham, for his language was generally imagined to be laboured and studied, instead of the mere common flow of his thoughts. "Very true," said Mrs. Thrale, "he writes and talks with the same ease, and in the same manner."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 120. What a different account is this from that given by Macaulay:--'When he talked he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible and natural expressions. As soon as he took his pen in his hand to write for the public, his style became systematically vicious.' Macaulay's _Essays_, edit. 1843, i.404. See _ante_, ii.96, note; iv.183; and _post_, the end of the vol.

[734] See _ante_, ii.125, iii.254, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14.

[735] Hume said:--'The French have more real politeness, and the English the better method of expressing it. By real politeness I mean softness of temper, and a sincere inclination to oblige and be serviceable, which is very conspicuous in this nation, not only among the high, but low; in so much that the porters and coachmen here are civil, and that, not only to gentlemen, but likewise among themselves.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 53.

[736] This is the third time that Johnson's disgust at this practice is recorded. See _ante_, ii.403, and iii.352.

[737] See _ante_, iii.398, note 3.

[738] 'Sept. 22, 1783. The chymical philosophers have discovered a body (which I have forgotten, but will enquire) which, dissolved by an acid, emits a vapour lighter than the atmospherical air. This vapour is caught, among other means, by tying a bladder compressed upon the body in which the dissolution is performed; the vapour rising swells the bladder and fills it. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.310. The 'body' was iron-filings, the acid sulphuric acid, and the vapour nitrogen. The other 'new kinds of air' were the gases discovered by Priestley.

[739] I do not wonder at Johnson's displeasure when the name of Dr.

Priestley was mentioned; for I know no writer who has been suffered to publish more pernicious doctrines. I shall instance only three. First, _Materialism_; by which _mind_ is denied to human nature; which, if believed, must deprive us of every elevated principle. Secondly, _Necessity_; or the doctrine that every action, whether good or bad, is included in an unchangeable and unavoidable system; a notion utterly subversive of moral government. Thirdly, that we have no reason to think that the _future_ world, (which, as he is pleased to _inform_ us, will be adapted to our _merely improved_ nature,) will be materially different from _this_; which, if believed, would sink wretched mortals into despair, as they could no longer hope for the 'rest that remaineth for the people of G.o.d' [_Hebrews_, iv.9], or for that happiness which is revealed to us as something beyond our present conceptions; but would feel themselves doomed to a continuation of the uneasy state under which they now groan. I say nothing of the petulant intemperance with which he dares to insult the venerable establishments of his country.

As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following pa.s.sage, which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have been retorted upon him by the men who were prosecuted for burning his house. 'I cannot, (says he,) as a _necessarian_, [meaning _necessitarian_] hate _any man_; because I consider him as _being_, in all respects, just what G.o.d has _made him to be_; and also as _doing with respect to me_, nothing but what he was _expressly designed_ and _appointed_ to do; G.o.d being the _only cause_, and men nothing more than the _instruments_ in his hands to _execute all his pleasure_.'-- _Ill.u.s.trations of Philosophical Necessity_, p. 111.

The Reverend Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose that _'Dr.

Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an interview with Dr.

Priestley_. In justice to Dr. Johnson, I declare my firm belief that he never did. My ill.u.s.trious friend was particularly resolute in not giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to society. I was present at Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had rendered himself so generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French Revolution, came into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left the room. Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley. Whoever wishes to see a perfect delineation of this _Literary Jack of all Trades_, may find it in an ingenious tract, ent.i.tled, 'A SMALL WHOLE-LENGTH OF DR. PRIESTLEY,' printed for Rivingtons, in St. Paul's Church-Yard. BOSWELL. See Appendix B.

[740] Burke said, 'I have learnt to think _better_ of mankind.' _Ante_, iii.236.

[741] He wrote to his servant Frank from Heale on Sept. l6:--'As Thursday [the 18th] is my birthday I would have a little dinner got, and would have you invite Mrs. Desmoulins, Mrs. Davis that was about Mrs.

Williams, and Mr. Allen, and Mrs. Gardiner.' Croker's _Boswell_, p.739.

See _ante_, iii.157, note 3.

[742] Dr. Burney had just lost Mr. Bewley, 'the Broom Gentleman'

(_ante_, p. 134), and Mr. Crisp. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii.323, 352.

For Mr. Crisp, see Macaulay's _Review_ of Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary.

Essays_, ed. 1874, iv.104.

[743] He wrote of her to Mrs. Montagu:--'Her curiosity was universal, her knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of misery with steady fort.i.tude. Thirty years and more she had been my companion, and her death has left me very desolate.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 739. This letter brought to a close his quarrel with Mrs. Montagu (_ante_, p. 64).

[744] On Sept. 22 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'If excision should be delayed, there is danger of a gangrene. You would not have me for fear of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in eternal mercy, lay hold of the possibility of life which yet remains.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.312.

[745] Rather more than seven years ago. _Ante_, ii.82, note 2.

[746] Mrs. Anna Williams. BOSWELL.

[747] See _ante_, p. 163, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov 2.

[748] Dated Oct. 27. _Piozzi Letters_, ii.321.

[749] According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Letters_, ii.387), he said to Mrs.

Siddons:--'You see, Madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be got.' Sir Joshua also paid her a fine compliment. 'He never marked his own name [on a picture],' says Northcote, 'except in the instance of Mrs. Siddons's portrait as the Tragic Muse, when he wrote his name upon the hem of her garment. "I could not lose," he said, "the honour this opportunity offered to me for my name going down to posterity on the hem of your garment."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 246. In Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 207, we read that 'he said of Mrs. Siddons that she appeared to him to be one of the few persons that the two great corrupters of mankind, money and reputation, had not spoiled.'

[750] 'Indeed, Dr. Johnson,' said Miss Monckton, 'you _must_ see Mrs.

Siddons.' 'Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 198.

[751] 'Mrs. Porter, the tragedian, was so much the favourite of her time, that she was welcomed on the stage when she trod it by the help of a stick.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 319.

[752] He said:--'Mrs. Clive was the best player I ever saw.' Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 126. See _ante_, p. 7. She was for many years the neighbour and friend of Horace Walpole.

[753] She acted the heroine in _Irene. Ante_, i. 197. 'It is wonderful how little mind she had,' he once said. _Ante_, ii. 348. See Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 126.

[754] See _ante_, iii. 183.

[755] See ante, iii. 184.

[756] 'Garrick's great distinction is his universality,' Johnson said.

'He can represent all modes of life, but that of an easy, fine-bred gentleman.' Boswell's _Hebrides, post_, v. 126. See _ante_, iii. 35.