Life of Johnson
Chapter 146 : [237] Mr. Stewart, who in 1768 was sent on a secret mission to Paoli, in his interesti

[237] Mr. Stewart, who in 1768 was sent on a secret mission to Paoli, in his interesting report says:--'Religion seems to sit easy upon Paoli, and notwithstanding what his historian Boswell relates, I take him to be very free in his notions that way. This I suspect both from the strain of his conversation, and from what I have learnt of his conduct towards the clergy and monks.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, ii. 158. See _post_, April 14, 1775, where Johnson said:--'Sir, there is a great cry about infidelity; but there are in reality very few infidels.' Yet not long before he had complained of an 'inundation of impiety.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30, 1773.

[238] I suppose Johnson said atmosphere. CROKER. In _Humphry Clinker_, in the Letter of June 2, there is, however, a somewhat similar use of the word. Lord Bute is described as 'the Caledonian luminary, that lately blazed so bright in our hemisphere; methinks, at present, it glimmers through a fog.' A star, however, unlike a cloud, may pa.s.s from one hemisphere to the other.

[239] See _post_, under Nov. 5, 1775. Hannah More, writing in 1782 (_Memoirs_, i. 242), says:--'Paoli will not talk in English, and his French is mixed with Italian. He speaks no language with purity.'

[240] Horace Walpole writes:--'Paoli had as much ease as suited a prudence that seemed the utmost effort of a wary understanding, and was so void of anything remarkable in his aspect, that being asked if I knew who it was, I judged him a Scottish officer (for he was sandy-complexioned and in regimentals), who was cautiously awaiting the moment of promotion.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iii. 387

[241] Boswell introduced this subject often. See _post_, Oct. 26, 1769, April 15, 1778, March 14, 1781, and June 23, 1784. Like Milton's fallen angels, he 'found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.' _Paradise Lost_, ii. 561.

[242] 'To this wretched being, himself by his own misconduct lashed out of human society, the stage was indebted for several very pure and pleasing entertainments; among them, _Love in a Village_, _The Maid of the Mill_.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 136. 'When,' says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 168), 'Mr. Bickerstaff's flight confirmed the report of his guilt, and my husband said in answer to Johnson's astonishment, that he had long been a suspected man: "By those who look close to the ground dirt will be seen, Sir, (was his lofty reply); I hope I see things from a greater distance."' In the _Garrick Corres_ (i. 473) is a piteous letter in bad French, written from St. Malo, by Bickerstaff to Garrick, endorsed by Garrick, 'From that poor wretch Bickerstaff: I could not answer it.'

[243] Boswell, only a couple of years before he published _The Life of Johnson_, in fact while he was writing it, had written to Temple:--'I was the _great man_ (as we used to say) at the late Drawing-room, in a suit of imperial blue, lined with rose-coloured silk, and ornamented with rich gold-wrought b.u.t.tons.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 289.

[244] Miss Reynolds, in her _Recollections_ (Croker's _Boswell_, p.

831), says, 'One day at Sir Joshua Reynolds's Goldsmith was relating with great indignation an insult he had just received from some gentleman he had accidentally met. "The fellow," he said, "took me for a tailor!" on which all the company either laughed aloud or showed they suppressed a laugh.'

[245] In Prior's _Goldsmith_, ii. 232, is given Filby's Bill for a suit of clothes sent to Goldsmith this very day:--

Oct. 16.-- s. d.

To making a half-dress suit of ratteen, lined with satin 12 12 0 To a pair of silk stocking breeches 2 5 0 To a pair of _bloom-coloured ditto 1 4 6

Nothing is said in this bill of the colour of the coat; it is the breeches that are bloom-coloured. The tailor's name was William, not John, Filby; _Ib_ i. 378, Goldsmith in his _Life of Nash_ had said:--'Dress has a mechanical influence upon the mind, and we naturally are awed into respect and esteem at the elegance of those whom even our reason would teach us to contemn. He seemed early sensible of human weakness in this respect; he brought a person genteelly dressed to every a.s.sembly.' Cunningham's _Goldsmith's Works_, iv. 46.

[246] 'The _Characters of Men and Women_ are the product of diligent speculation upon human life; much labour has been bestowed upon them, and Pope very seldom laboured in vain.... The _Characters of Men_, however, are written with more, if not with deeper thought, and exhibit many pa.s.sages exquisitely beautiful.... In the women's part are some defects.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 341.

[247] Mr. Langton informed me that he once related to Johnson (on the authority of Spence), that Pope himself admired those lines so much that when he repeated them his voice faltered: 'and well it might, Sir,' said Johnson, 'for they are n.o.ble lines.' J. BOSWELL, JUN.

[248] We have here an instance of that reserve which Boswell, in his Dedication to Sir Joshua Reynolds (_ante_, i. 4), says that he has practised. In one particular he had 'found the world to be a great fool,' and, 'I have therefore,' as he writes, 'in this work been more reserved;' yet the reserve is slight enough. Everyone guesses that 'one of the company' was Boswell.

[249] Yet Johnson, in his _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, viii. 276), seems to be much of Boswell's opinion; for in writing of _The Dunciad_, he says:--'The subject itself had nothing generally interesting, for whom did it concern to know that one or another scribbler was a dunce?'

[250] The opposite of this Johnson maintained on April 29, 1778.

[251] 'It is surely sufficient for an author of sixteen ... to have obtained sufficient power of language and skill in metre, to exhibit a series of versification which had in English poetry no precedent, nor has since had an imitation.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 326.

[252] See _ante_, i. 129.

[253] 'If the flights of Dryden are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing ... Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 325.

[254] Probably, says Mr. Croker, those quoted by Johnson in _The Life of Dryden_. _Ib_ vii. 339.

[255] The Duke of Buckingham in Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_.

[256] _Prologue to the Satires_, I. 193.

[257]

Almeria.--'It was a fancy'd noise; for all is hush'd.

Leonora.--It bore the accent of a human voice.

Almeria.--It was thy fear, or else some transient wind Whistling thro' hollows of this vaulted aisle; We'll listen--

Leonora.--Hark!

Almeria.--No, all is hush'd and still as death,--'Tis dreadful!

How reverend is the face of this tall pile, Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads, To bear aloft its arch'd and ponderous roof, By its own weight made stedfast and immoveable, Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe And terror on my aching sight; the tombs And monumental caves of death look cold, And shoot a chillness to my trembling heart.

Give me thy hand, and let me hear thy voice; Nay, quickly speak to me, and let me hear Thy voice--my own affrights me with its echoes.

Act ii. sc. 1.

[258]

'Swear by thy gracious self, Which is the G.o.d of my idolatry.'

_Romeo and Juliet_, act ii. sc. 2. He was a G.o.d with whom he ventured to take great liberties. Thus on Jan. 10, 1776, he wrote:--'I have ventured to produce _Hamlet_ with alterations. It was the most imprudent thing I ever did in all my life; but I had sworn I would not leave the stage till I had rescued that n.o.ble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act. I have brought it forth without the grave-digger's trick and the fencing match. The alterations were received with general approbation beyond my most warm expectations.' _Garrick Corres_., ii. 126. See _ante_, ii. 78, note 4.

[259] This comparison between Shakespeare and Congreve is mentioned perhaps oftener than any pa.s.sage in Boswell. Almost as often as it is mentioned, it may be seen that Johnson's real opinion is misrepresented or misunderstood. A few pa.s.sages from his writings will shew how he regarded the two men. In the _Life of Congreve_ (_Works_, viii. 31) he repeats what he says here:--'If I were required to select from the whole ma.s.s of English poetry the most poetical paragraph, I know not what I could prefer to an exclamation in _The Mourning Bride_.' Yet in writing of the same play, he says:--'In this play there is more bustle than sentiment; the plot is busy and intricate, and the events take hold on the attention; but, except a very few pa.s.sages, we are rather amused with noise and perplexed with stratagem, than entertained with any true delineation of natural characters.' _Ib_, p. 26. In the preface to his _Shakespeare_, published four years before this conversation, he almost answered Garrick by antic.i.p.ation. 'It was said of Euripides that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence. Yet his real power is not shown in the splendour of particular pa.s.sages, but by the progress of his fable, and the tenour of his dialogue, and he that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in _Hierocles_, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.' _Ib_, v. 106. Ignorant, indeed, is he who thinks that Johnson was insensible to Shakespeare's 'transcendent and unbounded genius,' to use the words that he himself applied to him.

_The Rambler_, No. 156. 'It may be doubtful,' he writes, 'whether from all his successors more maxims of theoretical knowledge, or more rules of practical prudence, can be collected than he alone has given to his country.' _Works_, v. 131. 'He that has read Shakespeare with attention will, perhaps, find little new in the crowded world.' _Ib_, p. 434. 'Let him that is yet unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play, from the first scene to the last, with utter negligence of all his commentators. When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or explanation.' _Ib_, p. 152. And lastly he quotes Dryden's words [from Dryden's _Essay of Dramatick Poesie_, edit. of 1701, i. 19]

'that Shakespeare was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.' _Ib_, p. 153. Mrs.

Piozzi records (_Anec_., p. 58), that she 'forced Johnson one day in a similar humour [to that in which he had praised Congreve] to prefer Young's description of night to those of Shakespeare and Dryden.' He ended however by saying:--'Young froths and foams and bubbles sometimes very vigorously; but we must not compare the noise made by your tea-kettle here with the roaring of the ocean.' See also _post_, p. 96.

[260] _Henry V_, act iv., Prologue.

[261] _Romeo and Juliet_, act iv., sc. 3.

[262] _King Lear_, act iv., sc. 6.

[263] See _ante_, July 26, 1763.

[264] See _ante_, i. 388.

[265] In spite of the gross nonsense that Voltaire has written about Shakespeare, yet it was with justice that in a letter to Horace Walpole (dated July 15, 1768,) he said:--'Je suis le premier qui ait fait connaitre Shakespeare aux Francais.... Je peux vous a.s.surer qu'avant moi personne en France ne connaissait la poesie anglaise.' Voltaire's _Works_, liv. 513.

[266] 'Of whom I acknowledge myself to be one, considering it as a piece of the secondary or comparative species of criticism; and not of that profound species which alone Dr. Johnson would allow to be "real criticism." It is, besides, clearly and elegantly expressed, and has done effectually what it professed to do, namely, vindicated Shakespeare from the misrepresentations of Voltaire; and considering how many young people were misled by his witty, though false observations, Mrs.

Montagu's Essay was of service to Shakspeare with a certain cla.s.s of readers, and is, therefore, ent.i.tled to praise. Johnson, I am a.s.sured, allowed the merit which I have stated, saying, (with reference to Voltaire,) "it is conclusive _ad hominem_."' BOSWELL. That this dull essay, which would not do credit to a clever school-girl of seventeen, should have had a fame, of which the echoes have not yet quite died out, can only be fully explained by Mrs. Montagu's great wealth and position in society. Contemptible as was her essay, yet a saying of hers about Voltaire was clever. 'He sent to the Academy an invective [against Shakespeare] that bears all the marks of pa.s.sionate dotage. Mrs. Montagu happened to be present when it was read. Suard, one of their writers, said to her, "Je crois, Madame, que vous etes un peu fache (sic) de ce que vous venez d'entendre." She replied, "Moi, Monsieur! point du tout!

Je ne suis pas amie de M. Voltaire."' Walpole's _Letters_, vi. 394. Her own _Letters_ are very pompous and very poor, and her wit would not seem to have flashed often; for Miss Burney wrote of her:--'She reasons well, and harangues well, but wit she has none.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.

335. Yet in this same _Diary_ (i. 112) we find evidence of the absurdly high estimate that was commonly formed of her. 'Mrs. Thrale asked me if I did not want to see Mrs. Montagu. I truly said, I should be the most insensible of all animals not to like to see our s.e.x's glory.' That she was a very extraordinary woman we have Johnson's word for it. (See _post_, May 15, 1784.) It is impossible, however, to discover anything that rises above commonplace in anything that she wrote, and, so far as I know, that she said, with the exception of her one saying about Voltaire. Johnson himself, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, has a laugh at her. He had mentioned Shakespeare, nature and friends.h.i.+p, and continues:--'Now, of whom shall I proceed to speak? Of whom but Mrs.

Montagu? Having mentioned Shakespeare and Nature, does not the name of Montagu force itself upon me? Such were the transitions of the ancients, which now seem abrupt, because the intermediate idea is lost to modern understandings. I wish her name had connected itself with friends.h.i.+p; but, ah Colin, thy hopes are in vain.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 101. See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[267] 'Reynolds is fond of her book, and I wonder at it; for neither I, nor Beauclerk, nor Mrs. Thrale, could get through it.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 23, 1773.

[268] Lord Kames is 'the Scotchman.' See _ante_, i. 393.

[269] 'When Charles Townshend read some of Lord Kames's _Elements of Criticism_, he said:--"This is the work of a dull man grown whimsical"--a most characteristical account of Lord Kames as a writer.'

_Boswelliana_, p. 278. Hume wrote of it:--'Some parts of the work are ingenious and curious; but it is too abstruse and crabbed ever to take with the public.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 131. 'Kames,' he says, 'had much provoked Voltaire, who never forgives, and never thinks any enemy below his notice.' _Ib_, p. 195. Voltaire (_Works_, xliii. 302) thus ridicules his book:--'Il nous prouve d'abord que nous avons cinq sens, et que nous sentons moins l'impression douce faite sur nos yeux et sur nos oreilles par les couleurs et par les sons que nous ne sentons un grand coup sur la jambe ou sur la tete.'

[270] L'Abbe Dubos, 1670-1742. 'Tous les artistes lisent avec fruit ses _Reflexions sur la poesie, la peinture, et la musique_. C'est le livre le plus utile qu'on ait jamais ecrit sur ces matieres chez aucune des nations de l'Europe.' Voltaire's _Siecle de Louis XIV_, i. 81.