Life of Johnson
Chapter 65 : 19, 1773]. BOSWELL.[482] 'mint _of_ ecstasy:' Savage's _Works_ (1777), i

19, 1773]. BOSWELL.

[482] 'mint _of_ ecstasy:' Savage's _Works_ (1777), ii. 91.

[483] 'He lives to build, not boast a generous race: No tenth transmitter of a foolish face.' _Ib_.

[484] '_The b.a.s.t.a.r.d_: A poem, inscribed with all due reverence to Mrs.

Bret, once Countess of Macclesfield. By Richard Savage, son of the late Earl Rivers. London, printed for T. Worrall, 1728.' Fol. first edition.

P. CUNNINGHAM. Between Savage's character, as drawn by Johnson, and Johnson himself there are many points of likeness. Each 'always preserved a steady confidence in his own capacity,' and of each it might be said:--'Whatever faults may be imputed to him, the virtue of suffering well cannot be denied him.' Each 'excelled in the arts of conversation and therefore willingly practised them.' In Savage's refusal to enter a house till some clothes had been taken away that had been left for him 'with some neglect of ceremonies,' we have the counterpart of Johnson's throwing away the new pair of shoes that had been set at his door. Of Johnson the following lines are as true as of Savage:--'His distresses, however afflictive, never dejected him; in his lowest state he wanted not spirit to a.s.sert the natural dignity of wit, and was always ready to repress that insolence which the superiority of fortune incited; ... he never admitted any gross familiarities, or submitted to be treated otherwise than as an equal.' Of both men it might be said that 'it was in no time of his life any part of his character to be the first of the company that desired to separate.' Each 'would prolong his conversation till midnight, without considering that business might require his friend's application in the morning;' and each could plead the same excuse that, 'when he left his company, he was abandoned to gloomy reflections.' Each had the same 'accurate judgment,'

the same 'quick apprehension,' the same 'tenacious memory.' In reading such lines as the following who does not think, not of the man whose biography was written, but of the biographer himself?--'He had the peculiar felicity that his attention never deserted him; he was present to every object, and regardful of the most trifling occurrences ... To this quality is to be imputed the extent of his knowledge, compared with the small time which he spent in visible endeavours to acquire it. He mingled in cursory conversation with the same steadiness of attention as others apply to a lecture.... His judgment was eminently exact both with regard to writings and to men. The knowledge of life was indeed his chief attainment.' Of Johnson's _London_, as of Savage's _The Wanderer_, it might equally well be said:--'Nor can it without some degree of indignation and concern be told that he sold the copy for ten guineas.'

[485] 'Savage was now again abandoned to fortune without any other friend than Mr. Wilks; a man who, whatever were his abilities or skill as an actor, deserves at least to be remembered for his virtues, which are not often to be found in the world, and perhaps less often in his profession than in others. To be humane, generous, and candid is a very high degree of merit in any case, but those qualities deserve still greater praise when they are found in that condition which makes almost every other man, for whatever reason, contemptuous, insolent, petulant, selfish, and brutal.' _Johnson's Works_, viii. 107.

[486] In his old age he wrote as he had written in the vigour of his manhood:--'To the censure of Collier ... he [Dryden] makes little reply; being at the age of sixty-eight attentive to better things than the claps of a play-house.' Johnson's _Works_ vii. 295. See _post_, April 29, 1773, and Sept. 21, 1777.

[487] Johnson, writing of the latter half of the seventeenth century, says:--'The playhouse was abhorred by the Puritans, and avoided by those who desired the character of seriousness or decency. A grave lawyer would have debased his dignity, and a young trader would have impaired his credit, by appearing in those mansions of dissolute licentiousness.'

Johnson's _Works_, vii. 270. The following lines in Churchill's _Apology_ (_Poems_, i. 65), published in 1761, shew how strong, even at that time, was the feeling against strolling players:--

'The strolling tribe, a despicable race, Like wand'ring Arabs s.h.i.+ft from place to place.

Vagrants by law, to Justice open laid, They tremble, of the beadle's lash afraid, And fawning cringe, for wretched means of life, To Madam May'ress, or his Wors.h.i.+p's Wife.'

[488] Johnson himself recognises the change in the public estimation:--'In Dryden's time,' he writes, 'the drama was very far from that universal approbation which it has now obtained.' _Works_, vii. 270.

[489] Giffard was the manager of the theatre in Goodman's Fields, where Garrick, on Oct. 19, 1741, made his first appearance before a London audience. Murphy's _Garrick_, pp. 13, 16.

[490] 'Colonel Pennington said, Garrick sometimes failed in emphasis; as, for instance, in Hamlet,

"I will speak _daggers_ to her; but use _none_;"

instead of

"I will _speak_ daggers to her; but _use_ none."'

Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773.

[491] I suspect Dr. Taylor was inaccurate in this statement. The emphasis should be equally upon _shalt_ and _not_, as both concur to form the negative injunction; and _false witness_, like the other acts prohibited in the Decalogue, should not be marked by any peculiar emphasis, but only be distinctly enunciated. BOSWELL.

[492] This character of the _Life of Savage_ was not written by Fielding as has been supposed, but most probably by Ralph, who, as appears from the minutes of the partners of _The Champion_, in the possession of Mr.

Reed of Staple Inn, succeeded Fielding in his share of the paper, before the date of that eulogium. BOSWELL. Ralph is mentioned in _The Dunciad_, iii. 165. A curious account of him is given in Benjamin Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 54-87 and 245.

[493] The late Francis c.o.c.kayne Cust, Esq., one of his Majesty's Counsel. BOSWELL.

[494] Savage's veracity was questioned, but with little reason; his accounts, though not indeed always the same, were generally consistent.

'When he loved any man, he suppressed all his faults: and, when he had been offended by him, concealed all his virtues: but his characters were generally true so far as he proceeded; though it cannot be denied that his partiality might have sometimes the effect of falsehood.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 190.

[495] 1697. BOSWELL.

[496] Johnson's _Works_, viii. 98.

[497] The story on which Mr. Cust so much relies, that Savage was a supposit.i.tious child, not the son of Lord Rivers and Lady Macclesfield, but the offspring of a shoemaker, introduced in consequence of her real son's death, was, without doubt, grounded on the circ.u.mstance of Lady Macclesfield having, in 1696, previously to the birth of Savage, had a daughter by the Earl Rivers, who died in her infancy; a fact which was proved in the course of the proceedings on Lord Macclesfield's Bill of Divorce. Most fictions of this kind have some admixture of truth in them. MALONE. From _The Earl of Macclesfield's Case_, it appears that 'Anne, Countess of Macclesfield, under the name of Madam Smith, in Fox Court, near Brook Street, Holborn, was delivered of a male child on the 16th of January, 1696-7, who was baptized on the Monday following, the 18th, and registered by the name of Richard, the son of John Smith, by Mr. Burbridge; and, from the privacy, was supposed by Mr. Burbridge to be "a by-blow or b.a.s.t.a.r.d."' It also appears, that during her delivery, the lady wore a mask; and that Mary Pegler, on the next day after the baptism, took a male child, whose mother was called Madam Smith, from the house of Mrs. Pheasant, in Fox Court [running from Brook Street in Gray's Inn Lane], who went by the name of Mrs. Lee.

Conformable to this statement is the entry in the register of St.

Andrew's, Holborn, which is as follows, and which unquestionably records the baptism of Richard Savage, to whom Lord Rivers gave his own Christian name, prefixed to the a.s.sumed surname of his mother:--'Jan.

1696-7. Richard, son of John Smith and Mary, in Fox Court, in Gray's Inn Lane, baptized the 18th.' BINDLEY. According to Johnson's account Savage did not learn who his parents were till the death of his nurse, who had always treated him as her son. Among her papers he found some letters written by Lady Macclesfield's mother proving his origin. Johnson's _Works_, viii. 102. Why these letters were not laid before the public is not stated. Johnson was one of the least credulous of men, and he was convinced by Savage's story. Horace Walpole, too, does not seem to have doubted it. Walpole's _Letters_, i. cv.

[498] Johnson's _Works_, viii. 97.

[499] _Ib_. p. 142.

[500] Johnson's _Works_, p. 101.

[501] According to Johnson's account (Johnson's _Works_, viii. 102), the shoemaker under whom Savage was placed on trial as an apprentice was not the husband of his nurse.

[502] He was in his tenth year when she died. 'He had none to prosecute his claim, to shelter him from oppression, or call in law to the a.s.sistance of justice.' _Ib_. p. 99.

[503] Johnson's companion appears to have persuaded that lofty-minded man, that he resembled him in having a n.o.ble pride; for Johnson, after painting in strong colours the quarrel between Lord Tyrconnel and Savage, a.s.serts that 'the spirit of Mr. Savage, indeed, never suffered him to solicit a reconciliation: he returned reproach for reproach, and insult for insult.' [_Ib_. p. 141.] But the respectable gentleman to whom I have alluded, has in his possession a letter, from Savage, after Lord Tyrconnel had discarded him, addressed to the Reverend Mr. Gilbert, his Lords.h.i.+p's Chaplain, in which he requests him, in the humblest manner, to represent his case to the Viscount. BOSWELL.

[504] 'How loved, how honoured once avails thee not, To whom related, or by whom begot.'

POPE'S _Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady_.

[505] Trusting to Savage's information, Johnson represents this unhappy man's being received as a companion by Lord Tyrconnel, and pensioned by his Lords.h.i.+p, as if posteriour to Savage's conviction and pardon. But I am a.s.sured, that Savage had received the voluntary bounty of Lord Tyrconnel, and had been dismissed by him, long before the murder was committed, and that his Lords.h.i.+p was very instrumental in procuring Savage's pardon, by his intercession with the Queen, through Lady Hertford. If, therefore, he had been desirous of preventing the publication by Savage, he would have left him to his fate. Indeed I must observe, that although Johnson mentions that Lord Tyrconnel's patronage of Savage was 'upon his promise to lay aside his design of exposing the cruelty of his mother,' [Johnson's _Works_, viii. 124], the great biographer has forgotten that he himself has mentioned, that Savage's story had been told several years before in _The Plain Dealer_; from which he quotes this strong saying of the generous Sir Richard Steele, that 'the inhumanity of his mother had given him a right to find every good man his father.' [_Ib_. p. 104.] At the same time it must be acknowledged, that Lady Macclesfield and her relations might still wish that her story should not be brought into more conspicuous notice by the satirical pen of Savage. BOSWELL.

[506] According to Johnson, she was at Bath when Savage's poem of _The b.a.s.t.a.r.d_ was published. 'She could not,' he wrote, 'enter the a.s.sembly-rooms or cross the walks without being saluted with some lines from _The b.a.s.t.a.r.d_. This was perhaps the first time that she ever discovered a sense of shame, and on this occasion the power of wit was very conspicuous; the wretch who had without scruple proclaimed herself an adulteress, and who had first endeavoured to starve her son, then to transport him, and afterwards to hang him, was not able to bear the representation of her own conduct; but fled from reproach, though she felt no pain from guilt, and left Bath with the utmost haste to shelter herself among the crowds of London.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 141.

[507] Miss Mason, after having forfeited the t.i.tle of Lady Macclesfield by divorce, was married to Colonel Brett, and, it is said, was well known in all the polite circles. Colley Cibber, I am informed, had so high an opinion of her taste and judgement as to genteel life, and manners, that he submitted every scene of his _Careless Husband_ to Mrs.

Brett's revisal and correction. Colonel Brett was reported to be too free in his gallantry with his Lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came into a room one day in her own house, and found the Colonel and her maid both fast asleep in two chairs. She tied a white handkerchief round her husband's neck, which was a sufficient proof that she had discovered his intrigue; but she never at any time took notice of it to him. This incident, as I am told, gave occasion to the well-wrought scene of Sir Charles and Lady Easy and Edging. BOSWELL. Lady Macclesfield died 1753, aged above 80.

Her eldest daughter, by Col. Brett, was, for the few last months of his life, the mistress of George I, (Walpole's _Reminiscences_, cv.) Her marriage ten years after her royal lover's death is thus announced in the _Gent. Mag_., 1737:--'Sept. 17. Sir W. Leman, of Northall, Bart., to Miss Brett [Britt] of Bond Street, an heiress;' and again next month--'Oct. 8. Sir William Leman, of Northall, Baronet, to Miss Brett, half sister to Mr. Savage, son to the late Earl Rivers;' for the difference of date I know not how to account; but the second insertion was, no doubt, made by Savage to countenance his own pretensions. CROKER.

[508] 'Among the names of subscribers to the _Harleian Miscellany_ there occurs that of "Sarah Johnson, bookseller in Lichfield."'

_Johnsoniana_, p. 466.

[509] A brief account of Oldys is given in the _Gent. Mag_. liv. 161, 260. Like so many of his fellows he was thrown into the Fleet. 'After poor Oldys's release, such was his affection for the place that he constantly spent his evenings there.'

[510] In the Feb. number of the _Gent. Mag_. for this year (p. 112) is the following advertis.e.m.e.nt:--'Speedily will be published (price 1s.) _Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth_, with remarks on Sir T.H.'s edition of _Shakespear_; to which is affix'd proposals for a new edition of _Shakespear_, with a specimen. Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick Lane.' In the March number (p. 114), under the date of March 31, it is announced that it will be published on April 6. In spite of the two advertis.e.m.e.nts, and the t.i.tle-page which agrees with the advertis.e.m.e.nts, I believe that the Proposals were not published till eleven years later (see _post_, end of 1756). I cannot hear of any copy of the _Miscellaneous Observations_ which contains them. The advertis.e.m.e.nt is a third time repeated in the April number of the _Gent.

Mag_. for 1745 (p. 224), but the Proposals are not this time mentioned.

Tom Davies the bookseller gives 1756 as the date of their publication (_Misc. and Fugitive Pieces_, ii. 87). Perhaps Johnson or the booksellers were discouraged by Hanmer's _Shakespeare_ as well as by Warburton's. Johnson at the end of the _Miscellaneous Observations_ says:--'After the foregoing pages were printed, the late edition of _Shakespeare_ ascribed to Sir T. H. fell into my hands.'

[511] 'The excellence of the edition proved to be by no means proportionate to the arrogance of the editor.' _Cambridge Shakespeare_, i. x.x.xiv.

[512] 'When you see Mr. Johnson pray [give] my compliments, and tell him I esteem him as a great genius--quite lost both to himself and the world.' _Gilbert Walmesley to Garrick_, Nov. 3, 1746. _Garrick Correspondence_, i. 45. Mr. Walmesley's letter does not shew that Johnson was idle. The old man had expected great things from him. 'I have great hopes,' he had written in 1737 (see _ante_, p. 102), 'that he will turn out a fine tragedy writer.' In the nine years in which Johnson had been in town he had done, no doubt, much admirable work; but by his poem of _London_ only was he known to the public. His _Life of Savage_ did not bear his name. His _Observations on Macbeth_ were published in April, 1745; his _Plan of the Dictionary_ in 1747 [Transcriber's note: Originally 1774, corrected in Errata.]. What was Johnson doing meanwhile? Boswell conjectures that he was engaged on his _Shakespeare_ and his _Dictionary_. That he went on working at his _Shakespeare_ when the prospect of publis.h.i.+ng was so remote that he could not issue his proposals is very unlikely. That he had been for some time engaged on his _Dictionary_ before he addressed Lord Chesterfield is shewn by the opening sentences of the _Plan_. Mr. Croker's conjecture that he was absent or concealed on account of some difficulties which had arisen through the rebellion of 1745 is absurd. At no time of his life had he been an ardent Jacobite. 'I have heard him declare,' writes Boswell, 'that if holding up his right hand would have secured victory at Culloden to Prince Charles's army, he was not sure he would have held it up;' _post_, July 14, 1763. 'He had never in his life been in a nonjuring meeting-house;' _post_, June 9, 1784.

For the fact that he wrote very little, if indeed anything, in the _Gent. Mag_. during these years more than one reason may be given. In the first place, public affairs take up an unusual amount of room in its columns. Thus in the number for Dec. 1745 we read:--'Our readers being too much alarmed by the present rebellion to relish with their usual delight the _Debates in the Senate of Lilliput_ we shall postpone them for a season, that we may be able to furnish out a fuller entertainment of what we find to be more suitable to their present taste.' In the Preface it is stated:--'We have sold more of our books than we desire for several months past, and are heartily sorry for the occasion of it, the present troubles.' During these years then much less s.p.a.ce was given to literature. But besides this, Johnson likely enough refused to write for the _Magazine_ when it shewed itself strongly Hanoverian. He would highly disapprove of _A New Protestant Litany_, which was written after the following fas.h.i.+on:--

'May Spaniards, or French, all who join with a Highland, In disturbing the peace of this our bless'd island, Meet tempests on sea and halters on dry land.

We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.'

_Gent. Mag_. xv. 551.

He would be disgusted the following year at seeing the Duke of c.u.mberland praised as 'the greatest man alive' (_Gent. Mag_. xvi. 235), and sung in verse that would have almost disgraced Cibber (p. 36). It is remarkable that there is no mention of Johnson's _Plan of a Dictionary_ in the _Magazine_. Perhaps some coolness had risen between him and Cave.