Life of Johnson
Chapter 85 : 'SAM. JOHNSON.'[1113] They left London on Aug. 16 and returned to it on Sept.

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

[1113] They left London on Aug. 16 and returned to it on Sept. 26.

Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 214. Northcote records of this visit:--'I remember when Mr. Reynolds was pointed out to me at a public meeting, where a great crowd was a.s.sembled, I got as near to him as I could from the pressure of the people to touch the skirt of his coat, which I did with great satisfaction to my mind.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 116. In like manner Reynolds, when a youth, had in a great crowd touched the hand of Pope. _Ib_, p. 19. Pope, when a boy of eleven, 'persuaded some friends to take him to the coffee-house which Dryden frequented.'

Johnson's _Works_, viii. 236. Who touched old Northcote's hand? Has the apostolic succession been continued?--Since writing these lines I have read with pleasure the following pa.s.sage in Mr. Ruskin's _Praeterita_, chapter i. p. 16:--'When at three-and-a-half I was taken to have my portrait painted by Mr. Northcote, I had not been ten minutes alone with him before I asked him why there were holes in his carpet.' Dryden, Pope, Reynolds, Northcote, Ruskin, so runs the chain of genius, with only one weak link in it.

[1114] At one of these seats Dr. Amyat, Physician in London, told me he happened to meet him. In order to amuse him till dinner should be ready, he was taken out to walk in the garden. The master of the house, thinking it proper to introduce something scientifick into the conversation, addressed him thus: 'Are you a botanist, Dr. Johnson:'

'No, Sir, (answered Johnson,) I am not a botanist; and, (alluding no doubt, to his near sightedness) should I wish to become a botanist, I must first turn myself into a reptile.' BOSWELL.

[1115] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. 285) says:--'The roughness of the language used on board a man of war, where he pa.s.sed a week on a visit to Captain Knight, disgusted him terribly. He asked an officer what some place was called, and received for answer that it was where the loplolly man kept his loplolly; a reply he considered as disrespectful, gross and ignorant.' Mr. Croker says that Captain Knight of the _Belleisle_ lay for a couple of months in 1762 in Plymouth Sound. Croker's _Boswell_, p.

480. It seems unlikely that Johnson pa.s.sed a whole week on s.h.i.+p-board.

_Loplolly_, or _Loblolly_, is explained in _Roderick Random_, chap.

xxvii. Roderick, when acting as the surgeon's a.s.sistant on a man of war, 'suffered,' he says, 'from the rude insults of the sailors and petty officers, among whom I was known by the name of _Lobolly Boy_.'

[1116] He was the father of Colonel William Mudge, distinguished by his trigonometrical survey of England and Wales. WRIGHT.

[1117] 'I have myself heard Reynolds declare, that the elder Mr. Mudge was, in his opinion, the wisest man he had ever met with in his life. He has always told me that he owed his first disposition to generalise, and to view things in the abstract, to him.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i.

112, 115.

[1118] See _post_, under March 20, 1781.

[1119] See _ante_, p. 293. BOSWELL.

[1120] The present Devonport.

[1121] A friend of mine once heard him, during this visit, exclaim with the utmost vehemence 'I _hate_ a Docker.' BLAKEWAY. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 118) says that Reynolds took Johnson to dine at a house where 'he devoured so large a quant.i.ty of new honey and of clouted cream, besides drinking large potations of new cyder, that the entertainer found himself much embarra.s.sed between his anxious regard for the Doctor's health and his fear of breaking through the rules of politeness, by giving him a hint on the subject. The strength of Johnson's const.i.tution, however, saved him from any unpleasant consequences.' 'Sir Joshua informed a friend that he had never seen Dr.

Johnson intoxicated by hard drinking but once, and that happened at the time that they were together in Devons.h.i.+re, when one night after supper Johnson drank three bottles of wine, which affected his speech so much that he was unable to articulate a hard word, which occurred in the course of his conversation. He attempted it three times but failed; yet at last accomplished it, and then said, "Well, Sir Joshua, I think it is now time to go to bed."' _Ib_. ii. 161. One part of this story however is wanting in accuracy, and therefore all may be untrue. Reynolds at this time was not knighted. Johnson said (_post_, April 7, 1778): 'I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this.' See however _post_, April 24, 1779, where he said:--'I used to slink home when I had drunk too much;' also _ante_, p. 103, and _post_, April 28, 1783.

[1122] George Selwyn wrote:--'Topham Beauclerk is arrived. I hear he lost 10,000 to a thief at Venice, which thief, in the course of the year, will be at Cas.h.i.+obury.' (The reference to this quotation I have mislaid.)

[1123] Two years later he repeated this thought in the lines that he added to Goldsmith's _Traveller_. _Post_, under Feb. 1766.

[1124] We may compare with this what 'old Bentley' said:--'Depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 1, 1773.

[1125] The preliminaries of peace between England and France had been signed on Nov. 3 of this year. _Ann Reg_. v. 246.

[1126] Of Baretti's _Travels through Spain, &c_., Johnson wrote to Mrs.

Thrale:--'That Baretti's book would please you all I made no doubt. I know not whether the world has ever seen such _Travels_ before. Those whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to write very seldom ramble.' _Piozzi_ Letters, i. 32.

[1127] See _ante_, p. 370.

[1128] See _ante_, p. 242, note 1.

[1129] Huggins had quarrelled with Johnson and Baretti (Croker's _Boswell_, 129, note). See also _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's _Collection_.

[1130] See _ante_, p. 370.

[1131] Cowper, writing in 1784 about Collins, says:--'Of whom I did not know that he existed till I found him there'--in the _Lives of the Poets_, that is to say. Southey's _Cowper_, v. II.

[1132] To this pa.s.sage Johnson, nearly twenty years later, added the following (_Works_, viii. 403):--'Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness.'

[1133] 'MADAM. To approach the high and the ill.u.s.trious has been in all ages the privilege of Poets; and though translators cannot justly claim the same honour, yet they naturally follow their authours as attendants; and I hope that in return for having enabled Ta.s.sO to diffuse his fame through the British dominions, I may be introduced by him to the presence of YOUR MAJESTY.

Ta.s.sO has a peculiar claim to YOUR MAJESTY'S favour, as follower and panegyrist of the House of _Este_, which has one common ancestor with the House of HANOVER; and in reviewing his life it is not easy to forbear a wish that he had lived in a happier time, when he might, among the descendants of that ill.u.s.trious family, have found a more liberal and potent patronage.

I cannot but observe, MADAM, how unequally reward is proportioned to merit, when I reflect that the happiness which was withheld from Ta.s.sO is reserved for me; and that the poem which once hardly procured to its authour the countenance of the Princess of Ferrara, has attracted to its translator the favourable notice of a BRITISH QUEEN.

Had this been the fate of Ta.s.sO, he would have been able to have celebrated the condescension of YOUR MAJESTY in n.o.bler language, but could not have felt it with more ardent grat.i.tude, than MADAM, Your MAJESTY'S Most faithful and devoted servant.'--BOSWELL.

[1134] Young though Boswell was, he had already tried his hand at more than one kind of writing. In 1761 he had published anonymously an _Elegy on the Death of an Amiable Young Lady_, with an _Epistle from Menalcas to Lycidas_. (Edinburgh, Donaldson.) The Elegy is full of such errors as 'Thou liv'd,' 'Thou led,' but is recommended by a puffing preface and three letters--one of which is signed J--B. About the same time he brought out a piece that was even more impudent. It was _An Ode to Tragedy_. By a gentleman of Scotland. (Edinburgh, Donaldson, 1761. Price sixpence.) In the 'Dedication to James Boswell, Esq.,' he says:--'I have no intention to pay you compliments--To entertain agreeable notions of one's own character is a great incentive to act with propriety and spirit. But I should be sorry to contribute in any degree to your acquiring an excess of self-sufficiency ... I own indeed that when ...

to display my extensive erudition, I have quoted Greek, Latin and French sentences one after another with astonis.h.i.+ng celerity; or have got into my _Old-hock humour_ and fallen a-raving about princes and lords, knights and geniuses, ladies of quality and harpsichords; you, with a peculiar comic smile, have gently reminded me of the _importance of a man to himself_, and slily left the room with the witty Dean lying open at--P.P. _clerk of this parish_. [Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xxiii.

142.] I, Sir, who enjoy the pleasure of your intimate acquaintance, know that many of your hours of retirement are devoted to thought.' The _Ode_ is serious. He describes himself as having

'A soul by nature formed to feel Grief sharper than the tyrant's steel, And bosom big with swelling thought From ancient lore's remembrance brought.'

In the winter of 1761-2 he had helped as a contributor and part-editor in bringing out a _Collection of Original Poems_. (_Boswell and Erskine's Letters_, p. 27.) His next publication, also anonymous, was _The Club at Newmarket_, written, as the Preface says, 'in the Newmarket Coffee Room, in which the author, being elected a member of the Jockey Club, had the happiness of pa.s.sing several sprightly good-humoured evenings.' It is very poor stuff. In the winter of 1762-3 he joined in writing the _Critical Strictures_, mentioned _post_, June 25, 1763. Just about the time that he first met Johnson he and his friend the Hon.

Andrew Erskine had published in their own names a very impudent little volume of the correspondence that had pa.s.sed between them. Of this I published an edition with notes in 1879, together with Boswell's _Journal of a Tour to Corsica_. (Messrs. Thos. De La Rue & Co.).

[1135] Boswell, in 1768, in the preface to the third edition of his _Corsica_ described 'the warmth of affection and the dignity of veneration' with which he never ceased to think of Mr. Johnson.

[1136] In the _Garrick Carres_, (ii. 83) there is a confused letter from this unfortunate man, asking Garrick for the loan of five guineas. He had a scheme for delivering dramatic lectures at Eton and Oxford; 'but,'

he added, 'my externals have so unfavourable an appearance that I cannot produce myself with any comfort or hope of success.' Garrick sent him five guineas. He had been a Major in the army, an actor, and dramatic author. 'For the last seven years of his life he struggled under sickness and want to a degree of uncommon misery.' _Gent. Mag_. for 1784, p. 959.

[1137] As great men of antiquity such as Scipio _Africa.n.u.s_ had an epithet added to their names, in consequence of some celebrated action, so my ill.u.s.trious friend was often called _DICTIONARY JOHNSON_, from that wonderful atchievement of genius and labour, his _Dictionary of the English Language_; the merit of which I contemplate with more and more admiration. BOSWELL. In like manner we have 'Hermes Harris,' 'Pliny Melmoth,' 'Demosthenes Taylor,' 'Persian Jones,' 'Abyssinian Bruce,'

'Microscope Baker,' 'Leonidas Glover,' 'Hesiod Cooke,' and 'Corsica Boswell.'

[1138] See _ante_, p. 124. He introduced Boswell to Davies, who was 'the immediate introducer.' _Post_, under June 18, 1783, note.

[1139] On March 2, 1754 (not 1753), the audience called for a repet.i.tion of some lines which they applied against the government. 'Diggs, the actor, refused by order of Sheridan, the manager, to repeat them; Sheridan would not even appear on the stage to justify the prohibition.

In an instant the audience demolished the inside of the house, and reduced it to a sh.e.l.l.' Walpole's _Reign of George II_, i. 389, and _Gent. Mag_. xxiv. 141. Sheridan's friend, Mr. S. Whyte, says (_Miscellanea Nova, p. 16):--'In the year 1762 Sheridan's scheme for an _English Dictionary_ was published. That memorable year he was nominated for a pension.' He quotes (p. 111) a letter from Mrs. Sheridan, dated Nov. 29, 1762, in which she says:--'I suppose you must have heard that the King has granted him a pension of 200. a year, merely as an encouragement to his undertaking.'

[1140] See _post_, March 28, 1776.

[1141] Horace Walpole describes Lord Bute as 'a man that had pa.s.sed his life in solitude, and was too haughty to admit to his familiarity but half a dozen silly authors and flatterers. Sir Henry Erskine, a military poet, Home, a tragedy-writing parson,' &c. _Mem. of the Reign of George III_, i. 37.

[1142] See _post_, March 28, 1776.

[1143] 'Native wood-_notes_ wild.' Milton's _L'Allegro_, l. 134

[1144]

'In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas Corpora. Di coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas) Adspirate meis.'

'Of bodies changed to various forms I sing:-- Ye G.o.ds from whence these miracles did spring Inspired, &c.'--DRYDEN, Ov. _Met_. i.i.

See _post_ under March 30, 1783, for Lord Loughborough.

[1145] See _post_, May 17, 1783, and June 24, 1784. Sheridan was not of a forgiving nature. For some years he would not speak to his famous son: yet he went with his daughters to the theatre to see one of his pieces performed. 'The son took up his station by one of the side scenes, opposite to the box where they sat, and there continued, un.o.bserved, to look at them during the greater part of the night. On his return home he burst into tears, and owned how deeply it had gone to his heart, "to think that _there_ sat his father and his sisters before him, and yet that he alone was not permitted to go near them."' Moore's _Sheridan_, i. 167.

[1146] As Johnson himself said:--'Men hate more steadily than they love; and if I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.' _Post_, Sept.

15, 1777.