Life of Johnson
Chapter 57 : [241] See _post_, Dec. 1, 1743, note. Robert Levett, made famous by Johnson's line

[241] See _post_, Dec. 1, 1743, note. Robert Levett, made famous by Johnson's lines (_post_, Jan. 20, 1782), was not of this family.

[242] Mr. Warton informs me, 'that this early friend of Johnson was entered a Commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, aged seventeen, in 1698; and is the authour of many Latin verse translations in the _Gent. Mag_.

(vol. xv. 102). One of them is a translation of:

'My time, O ye Muses, was happily spent.' &c.

He died Aug, 3, 1751, and a monument to his memory has been erected in the Cathedral of Lichfield, with an inscription written by Mr. Seward, one of the Prebendaries. BOSWELL.

[243] Johnson's _Works_, vii. 380.

[244] See _post_, 1780, note at end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.'

[245] See _post_, 1743.

[246] See _post_ April 24, 1779.

[247] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 61) says that in August, 1738 (? 1739), Johnson went to Appleby, in Leicesters.h.i.+re, to apply for the masters.h.i.+p of Appleby School. This was after he and his wife had removed to London.

It is likely that he visited Ashbourne.

[248] 'Old Meynell' is mentioned, _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' as the author of 'the observation, "For anything I see, foreigners are fools;"' and 'Mr. Meynell,' _post_, April 1, 1779, as saying that 'The chief advantage of London is, that a man is always _so near his burrow_.'

[249] See _post_, under March 16, 1759, note, and April 21, 1773. Mr.

Alleyne Fitzherbert was created Lord St. Helens.

[250] See _post_, 1780, end of Mr. Langton's 'Collection.'

[251] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on July 31, 1756, said, 'I find myself very unwilling to take up a pen, only to tell my friends that I am well, and indeed I never did exchange letters regularly but with dear Miss Boothby.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 304. At the end of the _Piozzi Letters_ are given some of his letters to her. They were republished together with her letters to him in _An Account of the Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson_, 1805.

[252] The words of Sir John Hawkins, P. 316. BOSWELL. 'When Mr. Thrale once asked Johnson which had been the happiest period of his past life, he replied, "it was that year in which he spent one whole evening with Molly Aston. That, indeed," said he, "was not happiness, it was rapture; but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole year." I must add that the evening alluded to was not pa.s.sed tete-a-tete, but in a select company of which the present Lord Kilmorey was one. "Molly," says Dr. Johnson, "was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty; and so I made this epigram upon her--She was the loveliest creature I ever saw--

'Liber ut esse velim suasisti pulchra Maria; Ut maneam liber--pulchra Maria vale.'

'Will it do this way in English, Sir,' said I:--

'Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you; If freedom we seek--fair Maria, adieu!'

'It will do well enough,' replied he; 'but it is translated by a lady, and the ladies never loved Molly Aston.'" Piozzi's _Anec_., p. 157. See _post_, May 8, 1778.

[253] Sir Thomas Aston, Bart., who died in January, 1724-5, left one son, named Thomas also, and eight daughters. Of the daughters, Catherine married Johnson's friend, the Hon. Henry Hervey [_post, 1737]; Margaret, Gilbert Walmsley. Another of these ladies married the Rev. Mr. Gastrell [the man who cut down Shakspeare's mulberry tree, _post_, March 25, 1776]; Mary, or _Molly_ Aston, as she was usually called, became the wife of Captain Brodie of the navy. MALONE.

[254] Luke vi. 35.

[255] If this was in 1732 it was on the morrow of the day on which he received his share of his father's property, _ante_, p. 80. A letter published in _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. x. 421, shews that for a short time he was tutor to the son of Mr. Whitby of Heywood.

[256] Bishop Hurd does not praise Blackwall, but the Rev. Mr. Budworth, headmaster of the grammar school at Brewood, who had himself been bred under Blackwall. MALONE. Mr. Nichols relates (_post_, Dec. 1784) that Johnson applied for the post of a.s.sistant to Mr. Budworth.

[257] See _Gent. Mag_. Dec. 1784, p. 957. BOSWELL.

[258] See _ante_, p. 78.

[259] The patron's manners were those of the neighbourhood. Hutton, writing of this town in 1770, says,--'The inhabitants set their dogs at me merely because I was a stranger. Surrounded with impa.s.sable roads, no intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce to smooth their rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature.' _Life, of W.

Hutton_, p. 45.

[260] It appears from a letter of Johnson's to a friend, dated Lichfield, July 27, 1732, that he had left Sir Wolstan Dixie's house recently, before that letter was written. MALONE.

[261] 'The despicable wretchedness of teaching,' wrote Carlyle, in his twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, 'can be known only to those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all.

One meets with few spectacles more afflicting than that of a young man with a free spirit, with impetuous though honourable feelings, condemned to waste the flower of his life in such a calling; to fade in it by slow and sure corrosion of discontent; and at last obscurely and unprofitably to leave, with an indignant joy, the miseries of a world which his talents might have ill.u.s.trated and his virtues adorned. Such things have been and will be. But surely in that better life which good men dream of, the spirit of a Kepler or a Milton will find a more propitious destiny.' Conway's _Carlyle_, p. 176.

[262] This newspaper was the _Birmingham Journal_. In the office of the _Birmingham Daily Post_ is preserved the number (No. 28) for May 21, 1733. It is believed to be the only copy in existence. Warren is described by W. Hutton (_Life_, p. 77) as one of the 'three eminent booksellers' in Birmingham in 1750. 'His house was "over against the Swan Tavern," in High Street; doubtless in one of the old half-timbered houses pulled down in 1838 [1850].' Timmins's _Dr. Johnson in Birmingham_, p. 4.

[263] 'In the month of June 1733, I find him resident in the house of a person named Jarvis, at Birmingham.' Hawkins, p. 21. His wife's maiden name was Jarvis or Jervis.

[264] In 1741, Hutton, a runaway apprentice, arrived at Birmingham. He says,--'I had never seen more than five towns, Nottingham, Derby, Burton, Lichfield and Walsall. The outskirts of these were composed of wretched dwellings, visibly stamped with dirt and poverty. But the buildings in the exterior of Birmingham rose in a style of elegance.

Thatch, so plentiful in other places, was not to be met with in this.

The people possessed a vivacity I had never beheld. I had been among dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step along the street showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know what he was about. The faces of other men seemed tinctured with an idle gloom; but here with a pleasing alertness. Their appearance was strongly marked with the modes of civil life.' _Life of W. Hutton_, p. 41.

[265] Hutton, in his account of the Birmingham riots of 1791, describing the destruction of a Mr. Taylor's house, says,--'The sons of plunder forgot that the prosperity of Birmingham was owing to a Dissenter, father to the man whose property they were destroying;' ib. p. 181.

[266] Johnson, it should seem, did not think himself ill-used by Warren; for writing to Hector on April 15, 1755, he says,--'What news of poor Warren? I have not lost all my kindness for him.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. iii. 301.

[267] That it is by no means an exact translation Johnson's _Preface_ shows. He says that in the dissertations alone an exact translation has been attempted. The rest of the work he describes as an epitome.

[268] In the original, _Segued_.

[269] In the original, _Zeila_.

[270] Lobo, in describing a waterfall on the Nile, had said:--'The fall of this mighty stream from so great a height makes a noise that may be heard to a considerable distance; but I could not observe that the neighbouring inhabitants were at all deaf. I conversed with several, and was as easily heard by them as I heard them,' p. 101.

[271] In the original, _without religion, polity, or articulate language_.

[272] See _Rambler_, No. 103. BOSWELL. Johnson in other pa.s.sages insisted on the high value of curiosity. In this same _Rambler_ he says:--'Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.' In the allegory in _Rambler_, No. 105, he calls curiosity his 'long-loved protectress,' who is known by truth 'among the most faithful of her followers.' In No. 150 he writes:--'Curiosity is in great and generous minds the first pa.s.sion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties.' In No. 5 he a.s.sert that 'he that enlarges his curiosity after the works of nature demonstrably multiplies the inlets to happiness.'

[273] Ra.s.selas, _post_, 1759.

[274] Hawkins (p. 163) gives the following extract from Johnson's _Annales_:--'Friday, August 27 (1734), 10 at night. This day I have trifled away, except that I have attended the school in the morning, I read to-night in Roger's sermoms. To-night I began the breakfast law (sic) anew.'

[275] May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and Johnson? Huetius, speaking of Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius, says, '...

in quo Natura, ut olim in Angelo Politiano, deformitarem oris excellentis ingenii praestantia compensavit.' _Comment, de reb. ad eum pertin_. Edit. Amstel. 1718, p. 200. BOSWELL. In Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius we have difficulty in detecting Mme. de Sevigne's friend, Pelisson, of whom M. de Guilleragues used the phrase, 'qu'il abusait de la permission qu'ont les hommes d'etre laids.' See _Mme. de Sevigne's Letter_, 5 Jan., 1674. CROKER.

[276] The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, the price to be two s.h.i.+llings and sixpence at the time of subscribing, and two s.h.i.+llings and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires. BOSWELL.

'Among the books in his library, at the time of his decease, I found a very old and curious edition of the works of Politian, which appeared to belong to Pembroke College, Oxford.' HAWKINS, p. 445. See _post_, Nov., 1784. In his last work he shews his fondness for modern Latin poetry. He says:--'Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known to have been explored by many other of the English writers; he had consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a cla.s.s of authors whom Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too generally neglected.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 299.

[277] A writer in _Notes and Queries_, 1st S. xii. 266, says 'that he has a letter written by Nathanael, in which he makes mention of his brother "scarcely using him with common civility," and says, "I believe I shall go to Georgia in about a fortnight!"' Nathanael died in Lichfield in 1737; see _post_, Dec. 2, 1784, for his epitaph. Among the MSS. in Pembroke College Library are bills for books receipted by Nath.

Johnson and by Sarah Johnson (his mother). She writes like a person of little education.

[278] Miss Cave, the grand-niece of Mr. Edward Cave, has obligingly shewn me the originals of this and the other letters of Dr. Johnson, to him, which were first published in the _Gent. Mag_. [lv. 3], with notes by Mr. John Nichols, the worthy and indefatigable editor of that valuable miscellany, signed N.; some of which I shall occasionally transcribe in the course of this work. BOSWELL. I was able to examine some of these letters while they were still in the possession of one of Cave's collateral descendants, and I have in one or two places corrected errors of transcription.

[279] Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths. _Gent. Mag_. 1734, p.