Life of Johnson Volume III Part 45

[43] According to Adam Smith this is true only of the Protestant countries. In Roman Catholic countries and England where benefices are rich, the church is continually draining the universities of all their ablest members. In Scotland and Protestant countries abroad, where a chair in a university is generally a better establishment than a benefice, by far the greater part of the most eminent men of letters have been professors. _Wealth of Nations_, v. i. iii. 3.

[44] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.

[45] Dr. Goldsmith was dead before Mr. Maclaurin discovered the ludicrous errour. But Mr. Nourse, the bookseller, who was the proprietor of the work, upon being applied to by Sir John Pringle, agreed very handsomely to have the leaf on which it was contained cancelled, and re-printed without it, at his own expence. BOSWELL. In the second edition, published five years after Goldsmith's death, the story remains. In a foot-note the editor says, that 'he has been credibly informed that the professor had not the defect here mentioned.' The story is not quite as Boswell tells it. 'Maclaurin,' writes Goldsmith (ii. 91), 'was very subject to have his jaw dislocated; so that when he opened his mouth wider than ordinary, or when he yawned, he could not shut it again. In the midst of his harangues, therefore, if any of his pupils began to be tired of his lecture, he had only to gape or yawn, and the professor instantly caught the sympathetic affection; so that he thus continued to stand speechless, with his mouth wide open, till his servant, from the next room, was called in to set his jaw again.'

[46] Dr. Shebbeare (_post_, April 18, 1778) was tried for writing a libellous pamphlet. Horace Walpole says:--'The bitterest parts of the work were a satire on William III and George I. The most remarkable part of this trial was the Chief Justice Mansfield laying down for law that satires even on dead Kings were punishable. Adieu! veracity and history, if the King's bench is to appreciate your expressions!' _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_, iii. 153.

[47] What Dr. Johnson has here said, is undoubtedly good sense; yet I am afraid that law, though defined by _Lord c.o.ke_ 'the perfection of reason,' is not altogether _with him_; for it is held in the books, that an attack on the reputation even of a dead man, may be punished as a libel, because tending to a breach of the peace. There is, however, I believe, no modern decided case to that effect. In the King's Bench, Trinity Term, 1790, the question occurred on occasion of an indictment, _The King_ v. _Topham_, who, as a _proprietor_ of a news-paper ent.i.tled _The World_, was found guilty of a libel against Earl Cowper, deceased, because certain injurious charges against his Lords.h.i.+p were published in that paper. An arrest of Judgment having been moved for, the case was afterwards solemnly argued. My friend Mr. Const, whom I delight in having an opportunity to praise, not only for his abilities but his manners; a gentleman whose ancient German blood has been mellowed in England, and who may be truely said to unite the _Baron_ and the _Barrister_, was one of the Counsel for Mr. Topham. He displayed much learning and ingenuity upon the general question; which, however, was not decided, as the Court granted an arrest chiefly on the informality of the indictment. No man has a higher reverence for the law of England than I have; but, with all deference I cannot help thinking, that prosecution by indictment, if a defendant is never to be allowed to justify, must often be very oppressive, unless Juries, whom I am more and more confirmed in holding to be judges of law as well as of fact, resolutely interpose. Of late an act of Parliament has pa.s.sed declaratory of their full right to one as well as the other, in matter of libel; and the bill having been brought in by a popular gentleman, many of his party have in most extravagant terms declaimed on the wonderful acquisition to the liberty of the press. For my own part I ever was clearly of opinion that this right was inherent in the very const.i.tution of a Jury, and indeed in sense and reason inseparable from their important function. To establish it, therefore, by Statute, is, I think, narrowing its foundation, which is the broad and deep basis of Common Law. Would it not rather weaken the right of primo-geniture, or any other old and universally-acknowledged right, should the legislature pa.s.s an act in favour of it? In my _Letter to the People of Scotland, against diminis.h.i.+ng the number of the Lords of Session_, published in 1785, there is the following pa.s.sage, which, as a concise, and I hope a fair and rational state of the matter, I presume to quote: 'The Juries of England are Judges of _law_ as well as of fact, in _many civil_, and in all _criminals_ trials. That my principles of _resistance_ may not be misapprehended and more than my principles of _submission_, I protest that I should be the last man in the world to encourage Juries to contradict rashly, wantonly, or perversely, the opinion of the Judges.

On the contrary, I would have them listen respectfully to the advise they receive from the Bench, by which they may be often well directed in forming _their own opinion_; which, "and not anothers," is the opinion they are to return _upon their oaths_. But where, after due attention to all that the judge has said, they are decidedly of a different opinion from him, they have not only a _power and a right_, but they are _bound in conscience_ to bring in a verdict accordingly.' BOWELL. _The World_ is described by Gifford in his _Baviad and Marviad_, as a paper set up by 'a knot of fantastic c.o.xcombs to direct the taste of the town.'

Lowndes (_Bibl. Man_. ed. 1871, p. 2994) confounds it with _The World_ mentioned _ante_, i. 257. The 'popular gentleman' was Fox, whose Libel Bill pa.s.sed the House of Lords in June 1792. _Parl. Hist_. xxix. 1537.

[48] n.o.body, that is to say, but Johnson. _Post_, p. 24, note 2.

[49] Of this service Johnson recorded:--'In the morning I had at church some radiations of comfort.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 146.

[50] Baretti, in a marginal note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 311, says:-- 'Mr. Thrale, who was a worldly man, and followed the direction of his own feelings with no philosophical or Christian distinctions, having now lost the strong hope of being one day succeeded in the profitable Brewery by the only son he had left, gave himself silently up to his grief, and fell in a few years a victim to it.' In a second note (ii.

22) he says:--'The poor man could never subdue his grief on account of his son's death.'

[51] A gentleman, who from his extraordinary stores of knowledge, has been stiled _omniscient_. Johnson, I think very properly, altered it to all-knowing, as it is a _verb.u.m solenne_, appropriated to the Supreme Being. BOSWELL.

[52] Mrs. Thrale wrote to him on May 3:--'Should you write about Streatham and Croydon, the book would be as good to me as a journey to Rome, exactly; for 'tis Johnson, not _Falkland's Islands_ that interest us, and your style is invariably the same. The sight of Rome might have excited more reflections indeed than the sight of the Hebrides, and so the book might be bigger, but it would not be better a jot.' _Piozzi Letters_, i 318.

[53] Hawkins says (_Life_, p. 84) that 'Johnson was never greedy of money, but without money could not be stimulated to write. I have been told by a clergyman with whom he had been long acquainted, that, being (sic) to preach on a particular occasion, he applied to him for help. "I will write a sermon for thee," said Johnson, "but thou must pay me for it."' See _post_, May 1, 1783. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 150) records an anecdote that he had from Hawkins:--'When Dr. Johnson was at his work on his _Shakespeare_, Sir John said to him, "Well! Doctor, now you have finished your _Dictionary_, I suppose you will labour your present work _con amore_ for your reputation." "No Sir," said Johnson, "nothing excites a man to write but necessity."' Walpole then relates the anecdote of the clergyman, and speaks of Johnson as 'the mercenary.'

Walpole's sinecure offices thirty-nine years before this time brought him in 'near, 2000 a year.' In 1782 he wrote that his office of Usher of the Exchequer was worth 1800 a year. _Letters_, i. lxxix, lx.x.xii.

[54] Swift wrote in 1735, when he was sixty-seven:--'I never got a farthing by anything I writ, except one about eight years ago, and that was by Mr. Pope's prudent management for me.' _Works_, xix. 171. It was, I conjecture, _Gulliver's Travels_. Hume, in 1757, wrote:--'I am writing the _History of England_ from the accession of Henry VII. I undertook this work because I was tired of idleness, and found reading alone, after I had often perused all good books (which I think is soon done), somewhat a languid occupation.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 33.

[55] This Mr. Ellis was, I believe, the last of that profession called _Scriveners_, which is one of the London companies, but of which the business is no longer carried on separately, but is transacted by attornies and others. He was a man of literature and talents. He was the authour of a Hudibrastick version of Maphaesus's _Canto_, in addition to the _aeneid_; of some poems in Dodsley's _Collections_; and various other small pieces; but being a very modest man, never put his name to anything. He shewed me a translation which he had made of Ovid's _Epistles_, very prettily done. There is a good engraved portrait of him by Pether, from a picture by Fry, which hangs in the hall of the Scriveners' company. I visited him October 4, 1790, in his ninety-third year, and found his judgment distinct and clear, and his memory, though faded so as to fail him occasionally, yet, as he a.s.sured me, and I indeed perceived, able to serve him very well, after a little recollection. It was agreeable to observe, that he was free from the discontent and fretfulness which too often molest old age. He in the summer of that year walked to Rotherhithe, where he dined, and walked home in the evening. He died on the 31st of December, 1791. BOSWELL. The version of Maphaesus's 'bombastic' additional _Canto_ is advertised in the _Gent. Mag_. 1758, p. 233. The engraver of Mr. Ellis's portrait in the first two editions is called Peffer.

[56] 'Admiral Walsingham boasted that he had entertained more miscellaneous parties than any other man in London. At one time he had received the Duke of c.u.mberland, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Nairne the optician, and Leoni the singer. It was at his table that Dr. Johnson made that excellent reply to a pert c.o.xcomb who baited him during dinner. "Pray now," said he to the Doctor, "what would you give, old gentleman, to be as young and sprightly as I am?" "Why, Sir, I think," replied Johnson, "I would almost be content to be as foolish."' Cradock's _Memoirs_, i.

172.

[57] 'Dr. Johnson almost always prefers the company of an intelligent man of the world to that of a scholar.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 241.

[58] See J.H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 174, for an account of him.

[59] Lord Macartney, who with his other distinguished qualities, is remarkable also for an elegant pleasantry, told me, that he met Johnson at Lady Craven's, and that he seemed jealous of any interference: 'So, (said his Lords.h.i.+p, smiling,) _I kept back_.' BOSWELL.

[60] See _ante_, i. 242.

[61] There is an account of him in Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson.

BOSWELL. Hawkins (Life, p. 246) records the following sarcasm of Ballow.

In a coffee-house he attacked the profession of physic, which Akenside, who was a physician as well as poet, defended. 'Doctor,' said Ballow, 'after all you have said, my opinion of the profession of physic is this. The ancients endeavoured to make it a science, and failed; and the moderns to make it a trade, and have succeeded.'

[62] See _ante_, i. 274.

[63] I have in vain endeavoured to find out what parts Johnson wrote for Dr. James. Perhaps medical men may. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 159.

Johnson, needing medicine at Montrose, 'wrote the prescription in technical characters.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, 1773.

[64] Horace Walpole, writing of May in this year, says that General Smith, an adventurer from the East Indies, who was taken off by Foote in _The Nabob_, 'being excluded from the fas.h.i.+onable club of young men of quality at Almack's, had, with a set of sharpers, formed a plan for a new club, which, by the excess of play, should draw all the young extravagants thither. They built a magnificent house in St.

James's-street, and furnished it gorgeously.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 39.

[65] He said the same when in Scotland. Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov.

22, 1773. On the other hand, in _The Rambler_, No. 80, he wrote:--'It is scarcely possible to pa.s.s an hour in honest conversation, without being able, when we rise from it, to please ourselves with having given or received some advantages; but a man may shuffle cards, or rattle dice, from noon to midnight, without tracing any new idea in his mind, or being able to recollect the day by any other token than his gain or loss, and a confused remembrance of agitated pa.s.sions, and clamorous altercations.'

[66] 'Few reflect,' says Warburton, 'on what a great wit has so ingenuously owned. That wit is generally false reasoning.' The wit was Wycherley. See his letter xvi. to Pope in Pope's _Works_. Warburton's _Divine Legation_, i. xii.

[67] 'Perhaps no man was ever more happy than Dr. Johnson in the extempore and masterly defence of any cause which, at the given moment, he chose to defend.' Stockdale's _Memoirs_, i. 261.

[68] Burke, in a letter that he wrote in 1771 (_Corres_. i. 330), must have had in mind his talks with Johnson. 'Nay,' he said, 'it is not uncommon, when men are got into debates, to take now one side, now another, of a question, as the momentary humour of the man and the occasion called for, with all the lat.i.tude that the antiquated freedom and ease of English conversation among friends did, in former days, encourage and excuse.' H.C. Robinson (_Diary_, iii. 485) says that Dr.

Burney 'spoke with great warmth of affection of Dr. Johnson, and said he was the kindest creature in the world when he thought he was loved and respected by others. He would play the fool among friends, but he required deference. It was necessary to ask questions and make no a.s.sertion. If you said two and two make four, he would say, 'How will you prove that, Sir?' Dr. Burney seemed amiably sensitive to every unfavourable remark on his old friend.

[69] Patrick Lord Elibank, who died in 1778. BOSWELL. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 12, 1773.

[70] Yet he said of him:--'Sir, there is nothing conclusive in his talk.'

See _post_, p. 57.

[71] Johnson records of this Good Friday:--'My design was to pa.s.s part of the day in exercises of piety, but Mr. Boswell interrupted me; of him, however, I could have rid myself; but poor Thrale, _orbus et exspes_, came for comfort, and sat till seven, when we all went to church.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 146.

[72] Johnson's entries at Easter shew this year, and some of the following years, more peace of mind than hitherto. Thus this Easter he records, 'I had at church some radiations of comfort.... When I received, some tender images struck me. I was so mollified by the concluding address to our Saviour that I could not utter it.' _Pr. and Med_. pp. 146, 149. 'Easter-day, 1777, I was for some time much distressed, but at last obtained, I hope from the G.o.d of peace, more quiet than I have enjoyed for a long time. I had made no resolution, but as my heart grew lighter, my hopes revived, and my courage increased.'

_Ib_. p. 158. 'Good Friday, 1778. I went with some confidence and calmness through the prayers.' _Ib_. p. 164.

[73] '_Nunquam enim nisi navi plena tollo vectorem_.' Lib. ii. c. vi.

BOSWELL.

[74] See _ante_, i. 187.

[75] See _ante_, i. 232.

[76] See _ante_, ii, 219.

[77] Cheyne's _English Malady, or a Treatise of Nervous Diseases of All Kinds_, 1733. He recommended a milk, seed, and vegetable diet; by seed he apparently meant any kind of grain. He did not take meat. He drank green tea. At one time he weighed thirty-two stones. His work shews the great change in the use of fermented liquors since his time. Thus he says:--'For nearly twenty years I continued sober, moderate, and plain in my diet, and in my greatest health drank not above a quart, or three pints at most of wine any day' (p. 235). 'For near one-half of the time from thirty to sixty I scarce drank any strong liquor at all. It will be found that upon the whole I drank very little above a pint of wine, or at most not a quart one day with another, since I was near thirty'

(p. 243). Johnson a second time recommended Boswell to read this book, _post_, July 2, 1776. See _ante_, i. 65. Boswell was not the man to follow Cheyne's advice. Of one of his works Wesley says:--'It is one of the most ingenious books which I ever saw. But what epicure will ever regard it? for "the man talks against good eating and drinking."'

Wesley's _Journal_, i. 347. Young, in his _Epistles to Pope_, No. ii.

says:--

'--three ells round huge Cheyne rails at meat.'

Dr. J. H. Burton (_Life of Hume_, i. 45) shews reason for believing that a very curious letter by Hume was written to Cheyne.

[78] '"Solitude," he said one day, "is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue; pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appet.i.te; for the solicitations of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy and seducing relief. Remember (continued he) that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superst.i.tious, and possibly mad."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 106.

[79] The day before he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Mr. Thrale's alteration of purpose is not weakness of resolution; it is a wise man's compliance with the change of things, and with the new duties which the change produces. Whoever expects me to be angry will be disappointed. I do not even grieve at the effect, I grieve only at the cause.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 314. Mrs. Thrale on May 3 wrote:--'Baretti said you would be very angry, because this dreadful event made us put off our Italian journey, but I knew you better. Who knows even now that 'tis deferred for ever? Mr. Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am sure he will go no-where that he can help without you.' _Ib_.

p. 317.

[80] See _ante_, i. 346.

[81] See _post_, July 22, 1777, note, where Boswell complains of children being 'suffered to poison the moments of festivity.'