约翰逊4-6-53

Latin authours.'Lives of Illustrious Persons, as well of the active as the learned, inimitation of Plutarch.'Judgement of the learned upon English authours.'Poetical Dictionary of the English tongue.'Considerations upon the present state of London.'Collection of Epigrams, with notes and observations.'Observations on the English language, relating to words, phrases, andmodes of Speech.'Minutiae Literariae, Miscellaneous reflections, criticisms,emendations, notes.'History of the Constitution.'Comparison of Philosophical and Christian Morality, by sentencescollected from the moralists and fathers.'Plutarch's Lives, in English, with notes.'POETRY and works of IMAGINATION.'Hymn to Ignorance.'The Palace of Sloth,--a vision.'Coluthus, to be translated.'Prejudice,--a poetical essay.'The Palace of Nonsense,--a vision.'Johnson's extraordinary facility of composition, when he shook off hisconstitutional indolence, and resolutely sat down to write, is admirablydescribed by Mr. Courtenay, in his Poetical Review, which I have severaltimes quoted:'While through life's maze he sent a piercing view,His mind expansive to the object grew.With various stores of erudition fraught,The lively image, the deep-searching thought,Slept in repose;--but when the moment press'd,The bright ideas stood at once confess'd;Instant his genius sped its vigorous rays,And o'er the letter'd world diffus'd a blaze:As womb'd with fire the cloud electrick flies,And calmly o'er th' horizon seems to rise;Touch'd by the pointed steel, the lightning flows,And all th' expanse with rich effulgence glows.'We shall in vain endeavour to know with exact precision every productionof Johnson's pen. He owned to me, that he had written about fortysermons; but as I understood that he had given or sold them to differentpersons, who were to preach them as their own, he did not considerhimself at liberty to acknowledge them. Would those who were thus aidedby him, who are still alive, and the friends of those who are dead,fairly inform the world, it would be obligingly gratifying a reasonablecuriosity, to which there should, I think, now be no objection. Twovolumes of them, published since his death, are sufficientlyascertained; see vol. iii. p. 181. I have before me, in hishand-writing, a fragment of twenty quarto leaves, of a translation intoEnglish of Sallust, _De Bella Catilinario_. When it was done I have nonotion; but it seems to have no very superior merit to mark it as his.Beside the publications heretofore mentioned, I am satisfied, frominternal evidence, to admit also as genuine the following, which,notwithstanding all my chronological care, escaped me in the course ofthis work:'Considerations on the Case of Dr. Trapp's Sermons,' + published in1739, in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. [These Considerations werepublished, not in 1739, but in 1787. _Ante_, i. 140, note 5.] It is avery ingenious defence of the right of _abridging_ an authour's work,without being held as infringing his property. This is one of the nicestquestions in the _Law of Literature_; and I cannot help thinking, thatthe indulgence of abridging is often exceedingly injurious to authoursand booksellers, and should in very few cases be permitted. At any rate,to prevent difficult and uncertain discussion, and give an absolutesecurity to authours in the property of their labours, no abridgementwhatever should be permitted, till after the expiration of such a numberof years as the Legislature may be pleased to fix.But, though it has been confidently ascribed to him, I cannot allow thathe wrote a Dedication to both Houses of Parliament of a book entitled_The Evangelical History Harmonized_. He was no _croaker_; no declaimeragainst _the times_. [See _ante_, ii. 357.] He would not have written,'That we are fallen upon an age in which corruption is not barelyuniversal, is universally confessed.' Nor 'Rapine preys on the publickwithout opposition, and perjury betrays it without inquiry.' Nor wouldhe, to excite a speedy reformation, have conjured up such phantoms ofterrour as these: 'A few years longer, and perhaps all endeavours willbe in vain. We may be swallowed by an earthquake: we may be delivered toour enemies.' This is not Johnsonian.There are, indeed, in this Dedication, several sentences constructedupon the model of those of Johnson. But the imitation of the form,without the spirit of his style, has been so general, that this ofitself is not sufficient evidence. Even our newspaper writers aspire toit. In an account of the funeral of Edwin, the comedian, in _The Diary_of Nov. 9, 1790, that son of drollery is thus described: 'A man who hadso often cheered the sullenness of vacancy, and suspended the approachesof sorrow.' And in _The Dublin Evening Post_, August 16, 1791, there isthe following paragraph: 'It is a singular circumstance, that, in a citylike this, containing 200,000 people, there are three months in the yearduring which no place of publick amusement is open. Long vacation ishere a vacation from pleasure, as well as business; nor is there anymode of passing the listless evenings of declining summer, but in theriots of a tavern, or the stupidity of a coffee-house.'I have not thought it necessary to specify every copy of verses writtenby Johnson, it being my intention to, publish an authentick edition ofall his Poetry, with notes. BOSWELL. This _Catalogue_, as Mr. Boswellcalls it, is by Dr. Johnson intitled _Designs_. It seems from the handthat it was written early in life: from the marginal dates it appearsthat some portions were added in 1752 and 1753. CROKER.[1171] On April 19 of this year he wrote: 'When I lay sleepless, I usedto drive the night along by turning Greek epigrams into Latin. I knownot if I have not turned a hundred.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 364.Forty-five years earlier he described how Boerhaave, 'when he lay wholedays and nights without sleep, found no method of diverting his thoughtsso effectual as meditation upon his studies, and often relieved andmitigated the sense of his torments by the recollection of what he hadread, and by reviewing those stores of knowledge which he had repositedin his memory.' _Works_, vi. 284.[1172] Mr. Cumberland assures me, that he was always treated with greatcourtesy by Dr. Johnson, who, in his _Letters to Mrs. Thrale_, vol. ii.p. 68 thus speaks of that learned, ingenious, and accomplishedgentleman: 'The want of company is an inconvenience: but Mr. Cumberlandis a million.' BOSWELL. Northcote, according to Hazlitt (_Conversationsof Northcote_, p. 275), said that Johnson and his friends 'neveradmitted C----[Cumberland] as one of the set; Sir Joshua did not invitehim to dinner. If he had been in the room, Goldsmith would have flownout of it as if a dragon had been there. I remember Garrick once saying,"D--n his _dish-clout_ face; his plays would never do, if it were notfor my patching them up and acting in them."'[1173] See _ante_, p. 64, note 2.[1174] Dr. Parr said, "There are three great Grecians in England: Porsonis the first; Burney is the third; and who is the second I need nottell"' Field's _Parr_, ii. 215.[1175] 'Dr. Johnson,' said Parr, 'was an admirable scholar.... Theclassical scholar was forgotten in the great original contributor to theliterature of his country.' _Ib._ i. 164. 'Upon his correct and profoundknowledge of the Latin language,' he wrote, 'I have always spoken withunusual zeal and unusual confidence.' Johnson's _Parr_, iv. 679. Mrs.Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 54) recounts a 'triumph' gained by Johnson in a talkon Greek literature.[1176] _Ante_, iii. 172.[1177] We must smile at a little inaccuracy of metaphor in the Prefaceto the _Transactions_, which is written by Mr. Burrowes. The _critick ofthe style of_ JOHNSON having, with a just zeal for literature, observed,that the whole nation are called on to exert themselves, afterwardssays: 'They are _called on_ by every _tye_ which can have a laudableinfluence on the heart of man.' BOSWELL.[1178] Johnson's wishing to unite himself with this rich widow, was muchtalked of, but I believe without foundation. The report, however, gaveoccasion to a poem, not without characteristical merit, entitled, 'Odeto Mrs. Thrale, by Samuel Johnson, LL.D. on their supposed approachingNuptials; printed for Mr. Faulder in Bond-street.' I shall quote as aspecimen the first three stanzas:--'If e'er my fingers touch'd the lyre,In satire fierce, in pleasure gay;Shall not my THRALIA'S smiles inspire?Shall Sam refuse the sportive lay?My dearest Lady! view your slave,Behold him as your very _Scrub_;Eager to write, as authour grave,Or govern well, the brewing-tub.To rich felicity thus raised,My bosom glows with amorous fire;Porter no longer shall be praised,'Tis I MYSELF am _Thrale's Entire_'[1179] See _ante_, ii. 44.[1180] '_Higledy piggledy_,--Conglomeration and confusion.'_Hodge-podge_,--A culinary mixture of heterogeneous ingredients:applied metaphorically to all discordant combinations.'_Tit for Tat_,--Adequate retaliation.'_Shilly Shally_,--Hesitation and irresolution.'_Fee! fau! fum!--Gigantic intonations._Rigmarole_,-Discourse, incoherent and rhapsodical.'_Crincum-crancum_,--Lines of irregularity and involution.'_Dingdong_--Tintinabulary chimes, used metaphorically to signifydispatch and vehemence.' BOSWELL. In all the editions that I haveexamined the sentence in the text beginning with 'annexed,' and endingwith 'concatenation,' is printed as if it were Boswell's. It is aquotation from vol. ii. p. 93 of Colman's book. For _Scrub_, see _ante_,iii. 70, note 2.[1181] See _ante_, iii. 173.[1182] _History of America_, vol. i. quarto, p. 332. BOSWELL.[1183] Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 219) thus writes of his ownstyle:--'The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but thechoice and command of language is the fruit of exercise. Manyexperiments were made before I could hit the middle tone between a dullchronicle and a rhetorical declamation; three times did I compose thefirst chapter, and twice the second and third, before I was tolerablysatisfied with their effect.' See _ante_, p. 36, note 1.[1184] _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. i. chap. iv.BOSWELL.[1185] Macaulay (_Essays_, ed. 1874, iv. 157) gives a yet better exampleof her Johnsonian style, though, as I have shewn (_ante_, p. 223, note5), he is wrong in saying that Johnson's hand can be seen.[1186] _Cecilia_, Book. vii. chap. i. [v.] BOSWELL.[1187] The passage which I quote is taken from that gentleman's_Elements of Orthoepy_; containing a distinct View of the whole Analogyof the ENGLISH LANGUAGE, so far as relates to _Pronunciation, Accent,and Quantity_, London, 1784. I beg leave to offer my particularacknowledgements to the authour of a work of uncommon merit and greatutility. I know no book which contains, in the same compass, morelearning, polite literature, sound sense, accuracy of arrangement, andperspicuity of expression. BOSWELL.[1188] That collection was presented to Dr. Johnson, I believe by itsauthours; and I heard him speak very well of it. BOSWELL. _The Mirror_was published in 1779-80; by 1793 it reached its ninth edition. For anaccount of it see Appendix DD. to Forbes's _Beattie_. Henry Mackenzie,the author of _The Man of Feeling_, was the chief contributor as well asthe conductor of the paper. He is given as the author of No. 16 inLynam's edition, p. 1.[1189] The name of Vicesimus Knox is now scarcely known. Yet so late as1824 his collected _Works_ were published in seven octavo volumes. Theeditor says of his _Essays_ (i. iii):--'In no department of the _BellesLettres_ has any publication, excepting the _Spectator_, been soextensively circulated. It has been translated into most of the Europeanlanguages.' See _ante_, i. 222, note 1; iii. 13, note 3; and iv. 330.[1190] _Lucretius_, iii. 6.[1191] It were to be wished, that he had imitated that great man inevery respect, and had not followed the example of Dr. Adam Smith[_ante_, iii. 13, note 1] in ungraciously attacking his venerable _AlmaMater_ Oxford. It must, however, be observed, that he is much less toblame than Smith: he only objects to certain particulars; Smith to thewhole institution; though indebted for much of his learning to anexhibition which he enjoyed for many years at Baliol College. Neither ofthem, however, will do any hurt to the noblest university in the world.While I animadvert on what appears to me exceptionable in some of theworks of Dr. Knox, I cannot refuse due praise to others of hisproductions; particularly his sermons, and to the spirit with which hemaintains, against presumptuous hereticks, the consolatory doctrinespeculiar to the Christian Revelation. This he has done in a mannerequally strenuous and conciliating. Neither ought I to omit mentioning aremarkable instance of his candour: Notwithstanding the wide differenceof our opinions, upon the important subject of University education, ina letter to me concerning this Work, he thus expresses himself: 'I thankyou for the very great entertainment your _Life of Johnson_ gives me. Itis a most valuable work. Yours is a new species of biography. Happy forJohnson, that he had so able a recorder of his wit and wisdom.' BOSWELL.[1192] Dr. Knox, in his _Moral and Literary_ abstraction, may be excusedfor not knowing the political regulations of his country. No senator canbe in the hands of a bailiff. BOSWELL.[1193] It is entitled _A Continuation of Dr. J--n's Criticism on thePoems of Gray_. The following is perhaps the best passage:--'On somefine evening Gray had seen the moon shining on a tower such as is heredescribed. An owl might be peeping out from the ivy with which it wasclad. Of the observer the station might be such that the owl, nowemerged from the mantling, presented itself to his eye in profile,skirting with the Moon's limb. All this is well. The perspective isstriking; and the picture well defined. But the poet was not contented.He felt a desire to enlarge it; and in executing his purpose gave itaccumulation without improvement. The idea of the Owl's _complaining_ isan artificial one; and the views on which it proceeds absurd. Grayshould have seen, that it but ill befitted the _Bird of Wisdom_ tocomplain to the Moon of an intrusion which the Moon could no more helpthan herself.' p. 17. Johnson wrote of this book:--'I know little ofit, for though it was sent me I never cut the leaves open. I had aletter with it representing it to me as my own work; in such an accountto the publick there may be humour, but to myself it was neither seriousnor comical. I suspect the writer to be wrong-headed.' _Piozzi Letters_,ii. 289. 'I was told,' wrote Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 376), 'it woulddivert me, that it seems to criticise Gray, but really laughs atJohnson. I sent for it and skimmed it over, but am not at all clear whatit means--no recommendation of anything. I rather think the authorwishes to be taken by Gray's admirers for a ridiculer of Johnson, and bythe tatter's for a censurer of Gray.' '"The cleverest parody of theDoctor's style of criticism," wrote Sir Walter Scott, "is by John Youngof Glasgow, and is very capital."' _Croker Corres_, ii. 34.[1194] See _ante_, iv. 59, for Burke's description of Croft's imitation.[1195] See _ante_, ii. 465.[1196] H.S.E.MICHAEL JOHNSON,Vir impavidus, constans, animosus, periculorum immemor, laborumpatientissimus; fiducia christiana fortis, fervidusque; paterfamiliasapprime strenuus; bibliopola admodum peritus; mente et libris etnegotiis exculta; animo ita firmo, ut, rebus adversis diu conflictatus,nec sibi nec suis defuerit; lingua sic temperata, ut ei nihil quod auresvel pias, vel castas laesisset, aut dolor, vel voluptas unquamexpresserit.Natus Cubleiae, in agro Derbiensi,Anno MDCLVI.Obiit MDCCXXXI.Apposita est SARA, conjux,Antiqua FORDORUM gente oriunda; quam domi sedulam, foris paucis notam;nulli molestam, mentis acumine et judicii subtilitate praecellentem;aliis multum, sibi parum indulgentem: aeternitati semper attentam, omnefere virtutis nomen commendavit.Nata Nortoniae Regis, in agro Varvicensi, Anno MDCLXIX;Obiit MDCCLIX.Cum NATHANAELE, illorum filio, qui natus MDCCXII, cum vires et animi etcorporis multa pollicerentur, anno MDCCXXXVII, vitam brevem pia mortefinivit. Johnson's _Works_, i. 150.[1197] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 590) says that he asked that the stone overhis own grave 'might be so placed as to protect his body from injury.'Harwood (_History of Lichfield_, p. 520) says that the stone in St.Michael's was removed in 1796, when the church was paved. A fresh onewith the old inscriptions was placed in the church on the hundredthanniversary of Johnson's death by Robert Thorp, Esq., of Buxton RoadHouse, Macclesfield. The Rev. James Serjeantson, Rector of St.Michael's, suggests to me that the first stone was never set up. It is,he says, unlikely that such a memorial within a dozen years was treatedso unworthily. Moreover in 1841 and again in 1883, during reparations ofthe church, a very careful search was made for it, but without result.There may have been, he thinks, some difficulty in finding the exactplace of interment. The matter may have stood over till it wasforgotten, and the mason, whose receipted bill shews that he was paidfor the stone, may have used it for some other purpose.[1198] See _ante_, i. 241, and iv. 351.[1199] 'He would also,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 579), 'have written inLatin verse an epitaph for Mr. Garrick, but found himself unequal to thetask of original poetic composition in that language.'[1200] In his _Life of Browne_, Johnson wrote:--'The time will come toevery human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die; andit has appeared that our author's fortitude did not desert him in thegreat hour of trial.' _Works_, vi. 499.[1201] A Club in London, founded by the learned and ingenious physician,Dr. Ash, in honour of whose name it was called Eumelian, from the Greek[Greek: Eumelias]; though it was warmly contended, and even put to avote, that it should have the more obvious appellation of _Fraxinean_,from the Latin. BOSWELL. This club, founded in 1788, met at the BlenheimTavern, Bond-street. Reynolds, Boswell, Burney, and Windham weremembers. Rose's _Biog. Dict._ ii. 240. [Greek: Eummeliaes] means _armedwith good ashen spear_.[1202] Mrs. Thrale's _Collection_, March 10,1784. Vol. ii. p. 350.BOSWELL.[1203] Hawkins's _Life of Johnson_, p. 583.[1204] See what he said to Mr. Malone, p. 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.[1205] See _ante_, i. 223, note 2.[1206] _Epistle to the Romans_, vii. 23.[1207] 'Johnson's passions,' wrote Reynolds, 'were like those of othermen, the difference only lay in his keeping a stricter watch overhimself. In petty circumstances this [? his] wayward dispositionappeared, but in greater things he thought it worth while to summon hisrecollection and be always on his guard.... [To them that loved him not]as rough as winter; to those who sought his love as mild as summer--manyinstances will readily occur to those who knew him intimately of the