Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 60

[686] 'The shame is to impose words for ideas upon ourselves or others.'

Johnson's _Works_, vi. 64. See _ante_, p.122, where he says: 'There is a middle state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy.' Bacon, in his _Essay of Truth_, says: 'It is not the lie that pa.s.seth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.'

[687] See _ante_, p. 204.

[688] 'I dined and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with that old-fas.h.i.+oned breeding which is at once so honourable and so troublesome.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 144. Mr. Pleydell, in _Guy Mannering_, ed. 1860, iv. 96, says: 'You'll excuse my old-fas.h.i.+oned importunity. I was born in a time when a Scotchman was thought inhospitable if he left a guest alone a moment, except when he slept.'

[689] See _ante_, ii. 167.

[690] See _ante_, i. 387.

[691] In Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 197, it is recorded that Johnson said, 'Sheridan's writings on elocution were a continual renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments.'

According to the _Gent. Mag._ 1785, p. 288, he continued:--'If we should have a bad harvest this year, Mr. Sheridan would say:--"It was owing to the neglect of oratory."' See _ante_, p. 206.

[692] Burke, no doubt, was this 'bottomless Whig.' When Johnson said 'so they _all_ are now,' he was perhaps thinking of the Coalition Ministry in which Lord North and his friends had places.

[693] No doubt Burke, who was Paymaster of the Forces. He is Boswell's 'eminent friend.' See _ante_ ii.222, and _post_, Dec. 24, 1783, and Jan.8, 1784. In these two consecutive paragraphs, though two people seem to be spoken of, yet only one is in reality.

[694] I believe that Burke himself was present part of the time, and that he was the gentleman who 'talked of _retiring_. On May 19 and 21 he had in Parliament defended his action in restoring to office two clerks, Powell and Bembridge, who had been dismissed by his predecessor, and he had justified his reforms in the Paymaster's office. 'He awaited,' he said, the 'judgement of the House. ...If they so far differed in sentiment, he had only to say, _Nunc dimittis servum tuum.' Parl. Hist._ xxiii.919.

[695] A copy of _Evelina_ had been placed in the Bodleian. 'Johnson says,' wrote Miss Burney, 'that when he goes to Oxford he will write my name in the books, and my age when I writ them, and then,' he says, 'the world may know that we _So mix our studies, and so joined our fame._ For we shall go down hand in hand to posterity.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.429. The oldest copy of _Evelina_ now in the Bodleian is of an edition published after Johnson's death. Miss Burney, in 1793, married General D'Arblay, a French refugee.

[696] Macaulay maintained that Johnson had a hand in the composition of _Cecilia_. He quotes a pa.s.sage from it, and says:--'We say with confidence, either Sam. Johnson or the Devil.' (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv.

157.) That he is mistaken is shown by Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ (ii. 172).

'Ay,' cried Dr. Johnson, 'some people want to make out some credit to me from the little rogue's book. I was told by a gentleman this morning that it was a very fine book, if it was all her own.' "It is all her own," said I, "for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it before it was printed."' On p. 196 she records the following:--'SIR JOSHUA.

"Gibbon says he read the whole five volumes in a day." "'Tis impossible," cried Mr. Burke, "it cost me three days; and you know I never parted with it from the day I first opened it."' See _post_, among the imitators of Johnson's style, under Dec. 6, 1784.

[697] In Mr. Barry's printed a.n.a.lysis, or description of these pictures, he speaks of Johnson's character in the highest terms. BOSWELL. Barry, in one of his pictures, placed Johnson between the two beautiful d.u.c.h.esses of Rutland and Devons.h.i.+re, pointing to their Graces Mrs.

Montagu as an example. He expresses his 'reverence for his consistent, manly, and well-spent life.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 339. Johnson, in his turn, praises 'the comprehension of Barry's design.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 256. He was more likely to understand it, as the pictures formed a series, meant 'to ill.u.s.trate one great maxim of moral truth, viz. that the obtaining of happiness depends upon cultivating the human faculties.

We begin with man in a savage state full of inconvenience, imperfection, and misery, and we follow him through several gradations of culture and happiness, which, after our probationary state here, are finally attended with beat.i.tude or misery.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 323. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 366) describes Barry's book as one 'which does not want sense, though full of pa.s.sion and self, and vulgarisms and vanity.'

[698] Boswell had tried to bring about a third meeting between Johnson and Wilkes. On May 21 he wrote:--'Mr. Boswell's compliments to Mr.

Wilkes. He finds that it would not be unpleasant to Dr. Johnson to dine at Mr. Wilkes's. The thing would be so curiously benignant, it were a pity it should not take place. n.o.body but Mr. Boswell should be asked to meet the doctor.' An invitation was sent, but the following answer was returned:--'May 24, 1783. Mr. Johnson returns thanks to Mr. and Miss Wilkes for their kind invitation; but he is engaged for Tuesday to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and for Wednesday to Mr. Paradise.' Owing to Boswell's return to Scotland, another day could not be fixed. Almon's _Wilkes_, iv. 314, 321.

[699] 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' _Ecclesiastes_, xi. 3.

[700] 'When a tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivial jerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it should lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend, by a little interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person's everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenance their presumption.' Shenstone's _Works_, ed. 1773, ii. 255.

[701] Hazlitt says that 'when old Baxter first went to Kidderminster to preach, he was almost pelted by the women for maintaining from the pulpit the then fas.h.i.+onable and orthodox doctrine, that "h.e.l.l was paved with infants' skulls.'" _Conversations of Northcote_, p. 80.

[702] _Acts_, xvii. 24.

[703] Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch. BOSWELL.

[704] Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p.200.

[705] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii.90, and _post_, April 5, 1784.

[706] The late Keeper of the Royal Academy. He died on Jan. 23 of this year. Reynolds wrote of him:--'He may truly be said in every sense, to have been the father of the present race of artists.' Northcote's _Reynolds_ ii.137.

[707] Mr. Allen was his landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court.

_Ante_, iii. 141.

[708] Cowper mentions him in _Retirement_:--

'Virtuous and faithful Heberden! whose skill Attempts no task it cannot well fulfill, Gives melancholy up to nature's care, And sends the patient into purer air.'

Cowper's _Poems_, ed. 1786, i. 272.

He is mentioned also by Priestley (_Auto._ ed. 1810, p.66) as one of his chief benefactors. Lord Eldon, when almost a briefless barrister, consulted him. 'I put my hand into my pocket, meaning to give him his fee; but he stopped me, saying, "Are you the young gentleman who gained the prize for the essay at Oxford?" I said I was. "I will take no fee from you." I often consulted him; but he would never take a fee.'

Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 104.

[709] How much he had physicked himself is shewn by a letter of May 8.

'I took on Thursday,' he writes, 'two brisk catharticks and a dose of calomel. Little things do me no good. At night I was much better. Next day cathartick again, and the third day opium for my cough. I lived without flesh all the three days.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.257. He had been bled at least four times that year and had lost about fifty ounces of blood. _Ante_, pp.142, 146. On Aug. 3, 1779, he wrote:--'Of the last fifty days I have taken mercurial physick, I believe, forty.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.461.

[710] An exact reprint of this letter is given by Professor Mayor in _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v.481. The omissions and the repet.i.tions 'betray,' he says, 'the writer's agitation.' The postscript Boswell had omitted. It is as follows:--'Dr. Brocklesby will be with me to meet Dr.

Heberden, and I shall have previously make (sic) master of the case as well as I can.'

[711] Vol. ii. p.268, of Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_. BOSWELL. The beginning of the letter is very touching:--'I am sitting down in no cheerful solitude to write a narrative which would once have affected you with tenderness and sorrow, but which you will perhaps pa.s.s over now with the careless glance of frigid indifference. For this diminution of regard, however, I know not whether I ought to blame you, who may have reasons which I cannot know, and I do not blame myself, who have for a great part of human life done you what good I could, and have never done you evil.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 268. 'I have loved you,' he continued, 'with virtuous affection; I have honoured you with sincere esteem. Let not all our endearments be forgotten, but let me have in this great distress your pity and your prayers. You see I yet turn to you with my complaints as a settled and unalienable friend; do not, do not drive me from you, for I have not deserved either neglect or hatred.'

_Ib._ p.271.

[712] On Aug. 20 he wrote:--'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for my picture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with the patience of _mortal born to bear_; at last she declared it quite finished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was _Johnson's grimly ghost_. It is to be engraved, and I think _in glided_, &c., will be a good inscription.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 302. Johnson is quoting from Mallet's ballad of _Margaret's Ghost_:--

'Twas at the silent solemn hour, When night and morning meet; In glided Margaret's grimly ghost, And stood at William's feet.'

_Percy Ballads_, in. 3, 16.

According to Northcote, Reynolds said of his sister's oil-paintings, 'they made other people laugh and him cry.' 'She generally,' Northcote adds, 'did them by stealth.' _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 160.

[713] 'Nocte, inter 16 et 17 Junii, 1783.

Summe pater, quodcunque tuum de corpore Numen Hoc statuat, precibus Christus adesse velit: Ingenio parcas, nee sit mihi culpa roga.s.se, Qua solum potero parte placere tibi.'

_Works_, i.159.

[714] According to the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p.542, Dr. Lawrence died at Canterbury on June 13 of this year, his second son died on the 15th.

But, if we may trust Munk's _Roll of the College of Physicians_, ii.153, on the father's tomb-stone, June 6 is given as the day of his death. Mr.

Croker gives June 17 as the date, and June 19 as the day of the son's death, and is puzzled accordingly.

[715] Poor Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me to Dr. Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to Davies, the immediate introductor. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.385, 391.

[716] Miss Burney, calling on him the next morning, offered to make his tea. He had given her his own large arm-chair which was too heavy for her to move to the table. '"Sir," quoth she, "I am in the wrong chair."

"It is so difficult," cried he with quickness, "for anything to be wrong that belongs to you, that it can only be I that am in the wrong chair to keep you from the right one."' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii. 345.

[717] His Lords.h.i.+p was soon after chosen, and is now a member of THE CLUB. BOSWELL. He was father of the future prime-minister, who was born in the following year.

[718] He wrote on June 23:--'What man can do for man has been done for me.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.278. Murphy (_Life_, p. 121) says that, visiting him during illness, he found him reading Dr. Watson's _Chymistry_ (_ante_, p. 118). 'Articulating with difficulty he said:--"From this book he who knows nothing may learn a great deal, and he who knows will be pleased to find his knowledge recalled to his mind in a manner highly pleasing."'

[719] 'I have, by the migration of one of my ladies, more peace at home; but I remember an old savage chief that says of the Romans with great indignation-_ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant_ [_Tacitus, Agricola_, c. x.x.x]. _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 259.