Life of Johnson
Chapter 158 : _Ib_ i, 459.[668]'Then I alone the conquest prize, When I insult a rival's e

_Ib_ i, 459.

[668]

'Then I alone the conquest prize, When I insult a rival's eyes: If there's, &c.'

Act iii, sc. 12.

[669]

'But how did he return, this haughty brave, Who whipt the winds, and made the sea his slave?

(Though Neptune took unkindly to be bound And Eurus never such hard usage found In his aeolian prison under ground).'

Dryden, _Juvenal_, x. 180.

[670] Most likely Mr. Pepys, a Master in Chancery, whom Johnson more than once roughly attacked at Streatham. See _post_, April 1, 1781, and Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 46.

[671] See _ante_, ii. 73.

[672] 'Jan. 5, 1772. Poor Mr. Fitzherbert hanged himself on Wednesday.

He went to see the convicts executed that morning; and from thence in his boots to his son, having sent his groom out of the way. At three his son said, Sir, you are to dine at Mr. Buller's; it is time for you to go home and dress. He went to his own stable and hanged himself with a bridle. They say his circ.u.mstances were in great disorder.' Horace Walpole's _Letters_, v. 362. See _ante_, i. 82, and _post_, Sept.

15, 1777.

[673] Boswell, in his _Hebrides_ (Aug. 18, 1773) says that, 'Budgel was accused of forging a will [Dr. Tindal's] and sunk himself in the Thames, before the trial of its authenticity came on.' Pope, speaking of himself, says that he--

'Let Budgel charge low Grub-street on his quill, And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his will.'

_Prologue to the Satires_, 1, 378.

Budgel drowned himself on May 4, 1737, more than two years after the publication of this Prologue. _Gent. Mag_. vii. 315. Perhaps the verse is an interpolation in a later edition. See _post_, April 26, 1776.

[674] See _post_, March 15, 1776.

[675] On the Douglas Cause. See _ante_, ii. 50, and _post_, March 26, 1776.

[676] I regretted that Dr. Johnson never took the trouble to study a question which interested nations. He would not even read a pamphlet which I wrote upon it, ent.i.tled _The Essence of the Douglas Cause_; which, I have reason to flatter myself, had considerable effect in favour of Mr. Douglas; of whose legitimate filiation I was then, and am still, firmly convinced. Let me add, that no fact can be more respectably ascertained than by the judgement of the most august tribunal in the world; a judgement, in which Lord Mansfield and Lord Camden united in 1769, and from which only five of a numerous body entered a protest. BOSWELL. Boswell, in his Hebrides, records on Oct.

26, 1773:--'Dr. Johnson roused my zeal so much that I took the liberty to tell him that he knew nothing of the [Douglas] Cause.' Lord Shelburne says: 'I conceived such a prejudice upon the sight of the present Lord Douglas's face and figure, that I could not allow myself to vote in this cause. If ever I saw a Frenchman, he is one.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 10. Hume 'was struck,' he writes, 'with a very sensible indignation at the decision. The Cause, though not in the least intricate, is so complicated that it never will be reviewed by the public, who are besides perfectly pleased with the sentence; being swayed by compa.s.sion and a few popular topics. To one who understands the Cause as I do, nothing could appear more scandalous than the pleadings of the two law lords.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 423. In Campbell's _Chancellors_, v.

494, an account is given of a duel between Stuart and Thurlow that arose out of this suit.

[677] The Fountains. _Works_, ix. 176.

[678] See _ante_, ii. 25.

[679] It has already been observed (_ante_, ii. 55), that one of his first Essays was a Latin Poem on a glow-worm; but whether it be any where extant, has not been ascertained. MALONE.

[680] 'Mallet's works are such as a writer, bustling in the world, shewing himself in publick, and emerging occasionally from time to time into notice, might keep alive by his personal influence; but which, conveying little information and giving no great pleasure, must soon give way, as the succession of things produces new topicks of conversation and other modes of amus.e.m.e.nt.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 468.

[681] Johnson made less money, because he never 'traded' on his reputation. When he had made his name, he almost ceased to write.

[682] 'May 27, 1773. Dr. Goldsmith has written a comedy--no, it is the lowest of all farces. It is not the subject I condemn, though very vulgar, but the execution. The drift tends to no moral, no edification of any kind. The situations, however, are well imagined, and make one laugh, in spite of the grossness of the dialogue, the forced witticisms, and total improbability of the whole plan and conduct. But what disgusts me most is, that though the characters are very low, and aim at low humour, not one of them says a sentence that is natural or marks any character at all. It is set up in opposition to sentimental comedy, and is as bad as the worst of them.' Horace Walpole's _Letters_, v. 467.

Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, i. 286) says that Goldsmith gave him an order to see this comedy. 'The next time I saw him, he inquired of me what my opinion was of it. I told him that I would not presume to be a judge of its merits. He asked, "Did it make you laugh?" I answered, "Exceedingly." "Then," said the Doctor, "that is all I require."'

[683] Garrick brought out his revised version of this play by Beaumont and Fletcher in 1754-5. Murphy's _Garrick_, p. 170. The compliment is in a speech by Don Juan, act v. sc. 2: 'Ay, but when things are at the worst, they'll mend; example does everything, and the fair s.e.x will certainly grow better, whenever the greatest is the best woman in the kingdom.'

[684] _Formular_ is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[685]

'On earth, a present G.o.d, shall Caesar reign.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, iii. 5.2.

[686] See _ante_, i. 167.

[687] Johnson refers, I believe, to Temple's Essay _Of Heroic Virtue_, where he says that 'the excellency of genius' must not only 'be cultivated by education and instruction,' but also 'must be a.s.sisted by fortune to preserve it to maturity; because the n.o.blest spirit or genius in the world, if it falls, though never so bravely, in its first enterprises, cannot deserve enough of mankind to pretend to so great a reward as the esteem of heroic virtue.' Temple's _Works_, iii. 306.

[688] See _post_, Sept. 17, 1777.

[689] In an epitaph that Burke wrote for Garrick, he says: 'He raised the character of his profession to the rank of a liberal art.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 361.

[690] 'The allusion,' as Mr. Lockhart pointed out, 'is not to the _Tale of a Tub_, but to the _History of John Bull_' (part ii. ch 12 and 13).

Jack, who hangs himself, is however the youngest of the three brothers of _The Tale of a Tub_, 'that have made such a clutter in the work'

(_ib_. chap ii). Jack was unwillingly convinced by Habbakkuk's argument that to save his life he must hang himself. Sir Roger, he was promised, before the rope was well about his neck, would break in and cut him down.

[691] He wrote the following letter to Goldsmith, who filled the chair that evening. 'It is,' Mr. Forster says (_Life of Goldsmith_, ii. 367), 'the only fragment of correspondence between Johnson and Goldsmith that has been preserved.'

'April 23, 1773.

'SIR,--I beg that you will excuse my absence to the Club; I am going this evening to Oxford.

'I have another favour to beg. It is that I may be considered as proposing Mr. Boswell for a candidate of our society, and that he may be considered as regularly nominated.

'I am, sir,

'Your most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

If Johnson went to Oxford his stay there was brief, as on April 27 Boswell found him at home.

[692] 'There are,' says Johnson, speaking of Dryden (_Works_, vii. 292), 'men whose powers operate only at leisure and in retirement, and whose intellectual vigour deserts them in conversation.' See also _ante_, i.

413. 'No man,' he said of Goldsmith, 'was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had;' _post_, 1780, in Mr.

Langton's _Collection_. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 560), who 'knew Hume personally and well,' said, 'Mr. Hume's writings were so superior to his conversation, that I frequently said he understood nothing till he had written upon it.'

[693] The age of great English historians had not long begun. The first volume of _The Decline and Fall_ was published three years later.

Addison had written in 1716 (_Freeholder_, No. 35), 'Our country, which has produced writers of the first figure in every other kind of work, has been very barren in good historians.' Johnson, in 1751, repeated this observation in _The Rambler_, No. 122. Lord Bolingbroke wrote in 1735 (_Works_, iii. 454), 'Our nation has furnished as ample and as important matter, good and bad, for history, as any nation under the sun; and yet we must yield the palm in writing history most certainly to the Italians and to the French, and I fear even to the Germans.'

[694] Gibbon, informing Robertson on March 26, 1788, of the completion of _The Decline and Fall_, said:--'The praise which has ever been the most flattering to my ear, is to find my name a.s.sociated with the names of Robertson and Hume; and provided I can maintain my place in the triumvirate, I am indifferent at what distance I am ranked below my companions and masters.' Dugald Stewart's _Robertson_, p. 367.

[695] 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'if Robertson's style be faulty, he owes it me; that is, having too many words, and those too big ones.' _Post_, Sept. 19, 1777. Johnson was not singular among the men of his time in condemning Robertson's _verbiage_. Wesley (_Journal_, iii. 447) wrote of vol. i. of _Charles the Fifth_:--'Here is a quarto volume of eight or ten s.h.i.+llings' price, containing dry, verbose dissertations on feudal government, the substance of all which might be comprised in half a sheet of paper!' Johnson again uses _verbiage_ (a word not given in his _Dictionary_), _post_, April 9, 1778.