Life of Johnson Volume III Part 80

[1297] In 1768, on his birthday, Johnson recorded, 'This day it came into my mind to write the history of my melancholy.' _Ante_, ii. 45, note 1.

[1298] Johnson had dated his letter, 'London, April 25, 1780,' and added, 'now there is a date; look at it.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 109. In his reply he wrote:--'London, May 1, 1780. Mark that--you did not put the year to your last.' _Ib_. p. 112.

[1299] _An Address to the Electors of Southwark. Ib_. p. 106. See _post_, p. 440.

[1300] The author of the _Fitzosborne Letters (post_, May 5, 1784, note).

Miss Burney thus describes this evening:--'We were appointed to meet the Bishop of Chester at Mrs. Montagu's. This proved a very gloomy kind of grandeur; the Bishop waited for Mrs. Thrale to speak, Mrs. Thrale for the Bishop; so neither of them spoke at all. Mrs. Montagu cared not a fig, as long as she spoke herself, and so she harangued away. Meanwhile Mr. Melmoth, the Pliny Melmoth, as he is called, was of the party, and seemed to think n.o.body half so great as himself. He seems intolerably self-sufficient--appears to look upon himself as the first man in Bath, and has a proud conceit in look and manner, mighty forbidding.' Mme.

D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 348.

[1301] Dr. John Hinchliffe. BOSWELL.

[1302] A kind of nick-name given to Mrs. Thrale's eldest daughter, whose name being _Esther_, she might be a.s.similated to a _Queen_. BOSWELL.

[1303] Mr. Thrale. BOSWELL.

[1304] In Johnson's _Dictionary_ is neither _dawling_ nor _dawdling_. He uses _dawdle, post_, June 3, 1781.

[1305] Miss Burney shews how luxurious a table Mr. Thrale kept. 'We had,' she records, in May 1779, 'a very grand dinner to-day, _though nothing to a Streatham dinner_, at the s.h.i.+p Tavern [Brighton], where the officers mess, to which we were invited by the major and the captain.'

As the major was a man of at least 8,000 a-year, and the captain of 4,000 or 5,000, the dinner was likely to be grand enough. Mme.

D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 211. Yet when Mr. Thrale had his first stroke in 1779, Johnson wrote:--'I am the more alarmed by this violent seizure, as I can impute it to no wrong practices, or intemperance of any kind....

What can he reform? or what can he add to his regularity and temperance?

He can only sleep less.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 49, 51. Baretti, in a MS.

note on p. 51, says:--'Dr. Johnson knew that Thrale would eat like four, let physicians preach.... May be he did not know it, so little did he mind what people were doing. Though he sat by Thrale at dinner, he never noticed whether he eat much or little. A strange man!' Yet in a note on p. 49, Baretti had said that Thrale's seizure was caused by 'the mere grief he could not overcome of his only son's loss. Johnson knew it, but would not tell it.' See _post_, iv. 84, note 4.

[1306] Miss Burney.

[1307] I have taken the liberty to leave out a few lines. BOSWELL. Lines about diet and physic.

[1308] See _ante_, ii. 61, note 4.

[1309] The author of _Fables for the Female s.e.x_, and of the tragedy of _The Gamester_, and editor of _The World_. Goldsmith, in his _Present State of Polite Learning_ (ch. x.), after describing the sufferings of authors, continues:--'Let us not then aggravate those natural inconveniences by neglect; we have had sufficient instances of this kind already. Sale and Moore will suffice for one age at least. But they are dead and their sorrows are over.' Mr. Foster (_Life of Goldsmith_, ed.

1871, ii, 484) strangely confounds Edward Moore the fabulist, with Dr.

John More the author of _Zeluco_.

[1310] Line of a song in _The Spectator_, No. 470. CROKER.

[1311] Hannah More, in 1783 (_Memoirs_, i. 286), describes 'Mrs. Vesey's pleasant parties. It is a select society which meets at her house every other Tuesday, on the day on which the Turk's Head Club dine together.

In the evening they all meet at Mrs. Vesey's, with the addition of such other company as it is difficult to find elsewhere.'

[1312] Second Earl Spencer; the First Lord of the Admiralty under Pitt, and father of Lord Althorp who was leader of the House of Commons under Earl Grey.

[1313] see _ante_ p. 390.

[1314] Her childhood was celebrated by Prior in the lines beginning:-- 'My n.o.ble, lovely little Peggy.' CROKER.

[1315] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 510) wrote on Feb. 5, 1781:--'I saw Dr. Johnson last night at Lady Lucan's, who had a.s.sembled a _blue stocking_ meeting in imitation of Mrs. Vesey's Babels. It was so blue, it was quite Mazarine-blue. Mrs. Montagu kept aloof from Johnson, like the west from the east.' In his letter of Jan. 14 (_ib_. p. 497), the allusion to Mrs. Vesey's Babels is explained: 'Mrs. Montagu is one of my princ.i.p.al entertainments at Mrs. Vesey's, who collects all the graduates and candidates for fame, where they vie with one another, till they are as unintelligible as the good folks at Babel.' 'Lady Spencer,' said Samuel Rogers, 'recollected Johnson well, as she used to see him often in her girlhood. Her mother, Lady Lucan, would say, "n.o.body dines with us to-day; therefore, child, we'll go and get Dr. Johnson." So they would drive to Bolt Court and bring the doctor home with them.'

_Rogers's Table Talk_, p. 10. 'I told Lady Lucan,' wrote Johnson on April 25, 1780, 'how long it was since she sent to me; but she said I must consider how the world rolls about her. She seemed pleased that we met again.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 107.

[1316] 'I have seen,' wrote Wraxall, 'the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, then in the first bloom of youth, hanging on the sentences that fell from Johnson's lips, and contending for the nearest place to his chair.

All the cynic moroseness of the philosopher and the moralist seemed to dissolve under so flattering an approach.' Wraxall's _Memoirs_, ed.

1815, i. 158.

[1317] In Nichols's _Lit. Anec_. viii. 548, 9, Dr. Barnard is thus described:--'In powers of conversation I never yet knew his equal. He saw infinite variety of characters, and like Shakespeare adopted them all by turns for comic effect. He carried me to London in a hired chaise; we rose from our seat, and put our heads out of the windows, while the postboy removed something under us. He supposed himself in the pillory, and addressed the populace against the government with all the cant of _No. 45 and Co_. He once told me a little anecdote of the original Parson Adams, whom he knew. "Oh, Sir!" said he to Barnard, almost in a whisper, and with a look of horror, "would you believe it, Sir, he was wicked from a boy;" then going up close to him, "You will be shocked--you will not believe it,--he wrote G.o.d with a little g, when he was ten years old!"'

[1318] In Mr. Croker's editions, 'had taken a chair' is changed into 'had taken the chair,' and additional emphasis is given by printing these four words in italics.

[1319] The hostess must have suffered, for, according to Miss Burney, 'Lord Harcourt said, "Mrs. Vesey's fear of ceremony is really troublesome; for her eagerness to break a circle is such that she insists upon everybody's sitting with their backs one to another; that is, the chairs are drawn into little parties of three together, in a confused manner all over the room."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 184.

Miss Burney thus describes her:--'She has the most wrinkled, sallow, time-beaten face I ever saw. She is an exceeding well-bred woman, and of agreeable manners; but all her name in the world must, I think, have been acquired by her dexterity and skill in selecting parties, and by her address in rendering them easy with one another.' _Ib_. p. 244. She heard her say of a gentleman who had lately died:--'It's a very disagreeable thing, I think, when one has just made acquaintance with anybody and likes them, to have them die.' _Ib_. ii. 290.

[1320] Johnson pa.s.sed over this scene very lightly. 'On Sunday evening I was at Mrs. Vesey's, and there was inquiry about my master, but I told them all good. There was Dr. Barnard of Eton, and we made a noise all the evening; and there was Pepys, and Wraxall till I drove him away.'

_Piozzi Letters,_ ii. 98. Wraxall was perhaps thinking of this evening when he wrote (_Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i. 147):--'Those whom he could not always vanquish by the force of his intellect, by the depth and range of his arguments, and by the compa.s.s of his gigantic faculties, he silenced by rudeness; and I have myself more than once stood in the predicament which I here describe. Yet no sooner was he withdrawn, and with him had disappeared these personal imperfections, than the sublime attainments of his mind left their full effect on the audience: such the whole a.s.sembly might be in some measure esteemed while he was present.'

[1321] Among the provisions thus relaxed was one that subjected Popish priests, or Papists keeping school, to perpetual imprisonment. Those only enjoyed the benefit of the act who took a very strict test, in which, among other things, they denied the Pope's temporal and civil jurisdiction within this realm. This bill pa.s.sed both Houses without a single negative. It applied only to England. Scotland was alarmed by the report that the Scotch Catholics were in like manner to be relieved. In Edinburgh and Glasgow the Papists suffered from outrageous acts of violence and cruelty, and government did not think it advisable to repress this persecution by force. The success of these Scotch bigots seems to have given the first rise to the Protestant a.s.sociation in England. _Ann. Reg_. xxiii. 254-6. How slight 'the relaxation' was in England is shewn by Lord Mansfield's charge on Lord George Gordon's trial, where we learn that the Catholics were still subject to all the penalties created in the reigns of Elizabeth, James I, Charles II, and of the first ten years of William III. _Ib_. xxiv. 237. Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 326), four years after the riots, wrote:--'I have had a great many prints, pamphlets, &c., sent me from Rouen; but, unluckily for me, the sender happened to have put a popish prayer-book among my things, which were therefore, by being caught in bad company, all found guilty of popery at Brighthelmstone, and condemned to be burnt to my great regret.' They were burnt in accordance with sect. 25 of 3 Jac. I.

c. 4. This act was only repealed in to 1846 (9 and 10. Rep. c. 59. s. i).

[1322] Vol. ii. p. 143, _et seq_. I have selected pa.s.sages from several letters, without mentioning dates. BOSWELL.

[1323] June 2. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on June 9.

[1324] See _post_, p. 435.

[1325] On this day (June 6) Johnson, writing to Mrs. Thrale at Bath, did not mention the riots. He gives the date very fully--'London, No. 8, Bolt-court, Fleet-street, June 6, 1780,' and adds:--'Mind this, and tell Queency [Miss Thrale].' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 141. Miss Burney, who was with the Thrales, writes:--'Dr. Johnson has written to Mrs. Thrale, without even mentioning the existence of this mob; perhaps, at this very moment, he thinks it "a humbug upon the nation," as George Bodens called the Parliament.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 401. When Johnson wrote, the mob had not risen to its height of violence. Mrs. Thrale in her answer, giving the date, 'Bath, 3 o'clock on Sat.u.r.day morning, June 10, 1780,' asks, 'Oh! my dear Sir, was I ever particular in dating a letter before? and is this a time to begin to be particular when I have been up all night in trembling agitation? Miss Burney is frighted, but she says better times will come; she made me date my letter so, and persists in hoping that ten years hence we shall all three read it over together and be merry. But, perhaps, you will ask, "who is _consternated_,"? as you did about the French invasion.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 146.

[1326] 'Lord Mansfield's house,' wrote Dr. Franklin from Paris (_Memoirs_, iii. 62), 'is burnt with all his furniture, pictures, books, and papers. Thus he who approved the burning American houses has had fire brought home to him.'

[1327] Baretti in a marginal note on _ma.s.s-house_, says, 'So illiberal was Johnson made by religion that he calls here the chapel a ma.s.s-house.... Yet he hated the Presbyterians. That was a nasty blot in his character.'

[1328] Horace Walpole this night (June 7) wrote:--'Yet I a.s.sure your Ladys.h.i.+p there is no panic. Lady Aylesbury has been at the play in the Haymarket, and the Duke and my four nieces at Ranelagh this evening.'

_Letters_, vii. 388. The following Monday he wrote:--'Mercy on us! we seem to be plunging into the horrors of France, in the reigns of Charles VI. and VII.!--yet, as extremes meet, there is at this moment amazing insensibility. Within these four days I have received five applications for tickets to see my house!' _Ib_. p. 395.

[1329] Written on June 10.

[1330] In the original, 'was this day _with a party of soldiers_.'

[1331] In the original, 'We are all _again_.'

[1332] Written on June 12.

[1333] George III told Lord Eldon that at a levee 'he asked Wilkes after his friend Serjeant Glynne. "_My_ friend, Sir!" says Wilkes to the King; "he is no friend of mine." "Why," said the King, "he _was_ your friend and your counsel in all your trials." "Sir," rejoined Wilkes, "he _was_ my _counsel_--one _must_ have a counsel; but he was no _friend_; he loves sedition and licentiousness which I never delighted in. In fact, Sir, he was a Wilkite, which I never was." The King said the confidence and humour of the man made him forget at the moment his impudence.'

Twiss's _Eldon_, ii. 356.

[1334] Lord George Gordon and his followers, during these outrages, wore blue ribbands in their hats. MALONE.

[1335] Johnson added:--'All danger here is apparently over; but a little agitation still continues. We frighten one another with a seventy-thousand Scots to come hither with the Dukes of Gordon and Argyle, and eat us, and hang us, or drown us.' Two days later Horace Walpole, after mentioning that Lord George Gordon was in the Tower, continued:--'What a nation is Scotland; in every reign engendering traitors to the State, and false and pernicious to the Kings that favour it the most. National prejudices, I know, are very vulgar; but if there are national characteristics, can one but dislike the soils and climates that concur to produce them?' _Letters_, vii. 400.

[1336] He died Nov. 19, 1792, and left 'about, 20,000 acc.u.mulated not parsimoniously, but during a very long possession of a profitable office.' His father, who was keeper before him, began as a turnkey.

_Gent. Mag_. 1792, p. 1062. Wesley wrote on Jan. 2, 1761:--'Of all the seats of woe on this side h.e.l.l, few, I suppose, exceed or even equal Newgate. If any region of horror could exceed it a few years ago, Newgate in Bristol did; so great was the filth, the stench, the misery, and wickedness which shocked all who had a spark of humanity left.' He described a great change for the better which had lately been made in the London Newgate. Perhaps it was due to Akerman. Wesley's _Journal_, iii. 32.

[1337] There were two city prisons so called.