约翰逊4-6-93

[154] Johnson's _Works_, ix. i. See _ante_, ii. 278, where he wrote toBoswell:--'I have endeavoured to do you some justice in the firstparagraph [of the _Journey_].' The day before he started for Scotland hewrote to Dr. Taylor:--'Mr. Boswell, an active lively fellow, is toconduct me round the country.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 422. 'Hisinquisitiveness,' he said, 'is seconded by great activity.' _Works_, ix.8. On Oct. 7 he wrote from Skye:--'Boswell will praise my resolution andperseverance; and I shall in return celebrate his good humour andperpetual cheerfulness.... It is very convenient to travel with him, forthere is no house where he is not received with kindness and respect.'_Piozzi Letters_, i. 198. He told Mrs. Knowles that 'Boswell was thebest travelling companion in the world.' _Ante_, iii. 294. Mr. Crokersays (_Croker's Boswell_, p. 280):--'I asked Lord Stowell in whatestimation he found Boswell amongst his countrymen. "Generally liked asa good-natured jolly fellow," replied his lordship. "But was herespected?" "Well, I think he had about the proportion of respect thatyou might guess would be shown to a jolly fellow." His lordship thoughtthere was more regard than respect.' _Hebrides,_ p. 40.[155] See _ante_, ii. 103, 411.[156] There were two quarto volumes of this Diary; perhaps one of themJohnson took with him. Boswell had 'accidently seen them and had read agreat deal in them,' as he owned to Johnson (_ante_, under Dec. 9,1784), and moreover had, it should seem, copied from them (_ante_, i.251). The 'few fragments' he had received from Francis Barber(_ante_, i. 27).[157] In the original 'how much we lost _at separation_' Johnson's_Works_, ix. I. Mr. William Nairne was afterwards a Judge of the Courtof Sessions by the title of Lord Dunsinnan. Sir Walter Scott wrote ofhim:--'He was a man of scrupulous integrity. When sheriff depute ofPerthshire, he found upon reflection, that he had decided a poor man'scase erroneously; and as the only remedy, supplied the litigantprivately with money to carry the suit to the supreme court, where hisjudgment was reversed.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 280.[158]'Non illic urbes, non tu mirabere silvas:Una est injusti caerula forma maris._Ovid. Amor._ L. II. El. xi.Nor groves nor towns the ruthless ocean shows;Unvaried still its azure surface flows.BOSWELL.[159] See _ante_. ii. 229.[160] My friend, General Campbell, Governour of Madras, tells me, thatthey made _speldings_ in the East-Indies, particularly at Bombay, wherethey call them _Bambaloes_. BOSWELL. Johnson had told Boswell that hewas 'the most _unscottified_ of his countrymen.'_Ante_, ii. 242.[161] 'A small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited,though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicited theirnotice.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 1.[162] 'The remains of the fort have been removed to assist inconstructing a very useful lighthouse upon the island. WALTER SCOTT.[163]'Unhappy queen!Unwilling I forsook your friendly state.'Dryden. [_Aeneid_, vi. 460.] BOSWELL.[164] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 331) says of his journey to London in1758:--'It is to be noted that we could get no four-wheeled chaisetill we came to Durham, those conveyances being then only in theirinfancy. Turnpike roads were only in their commencement in the north.''It affords a southern stranger,' wrote Johnson (_Works_ ix. 2), 'a newkind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption oftoll-gates.'[165] See _ante_, iii. 265, for Lord Shelburne's statement on thissubject.[166] See _ante_, ii. 339, and iii. 205, note 4.[167] See _ante_, iii. 46.[168] The passage quoted by Dr. Johnson is in the _Character of theAssembly-man_; Butler's _Remains_, p. 232, edit. 1754:--'He preaches,indeed, both in season and out of season; for he rails at Popery, whenthe land is almost lost in Presbytery; and would cry Fire! Fire! inNoah's flood.'There is reason to believe that this piece was not written by Butler,but by Sir John Birkenhead; for Wood, in his _Athenae Oxonienses_, vol.ii. p. 640, enumerates it among that gentleman's works, and gives thefollowing account of it:_'The Assembly-man_ (or the character of an assembly-man) written 1647,_Lond._ 1662-3, in three sheets in qu. The copy of it was taken from theauthor by those who said they could not rob, because all was theirs; soexcised what they liked not; and so mangled and reformed it, that it wasno character of an Assembly, but of themselves. At length, after it hadslept several years, the author published it to avoid false copies. Itis also reprinted in a book entit. _Wit and Loyalty revived_, in acollection of some smart satyrs in verse and prose on the late times._Lond._ 1682, qu. said to be written by Abr. Cowley, Sir JohnBirkenhead, and Hudibras, alias Sam. Butler.'--For this information I amindebted to Mr. Reed, of Staple Inn. BOSWELL. This tract is in the_Harleian Misc_., ed. 1810, vi. 57. Mr. Reed's quotation differssomewhat from it.[169] 'When a Scotchman was talking against Warburton, Johnson said hehad more literature than had been imported from Scotland since the daysof Buchanan. Upon the other's mentioning other eminent writers of theScotch; "These will not do," said Johnson, "Let us have some more ofyour northern lights; these are mere farthing candles."' Johnson's_Works_ (1787), xi. 208. Dr. T. Campbell records (_Diary_, p. 61) thatat the dinner at Mr. Dilly's, described _ante_, ii. 338, 'Dr. Johnsoncompared England and Scotland to two lions, the one saturated with hisbelly full, and the other prowling for prey. He defied any one toproduce a classical book written in Scotland since Buchanan. Robertson,he said, used pretty words, but he liked Hume better; and neither ofthem would he allow to be more to Clarendon than a rat to a cat. "AScotch surgeon may have more learning than an English one, and allScotland could not muster learning enough for Lowth's _Prelections_."'See _ante_, ii. 363, and March 30, 1783.[170] The poem is entitled _Gualterus Danistonus ad Amicos_. Itbegins:--'Dum studeo fungi fallentis munere vitae'Which Prior imitates:--'Studious the busy moments to deceive.'Sir Walter Scott thought that the poem praised by Johnson was 'morelikely the fine epitaph on John, Viscount of Dundee, translated byDryden, and beginning _Ultime Scotoruml_' Archibald Pitcairne, M.D., wasborn in 1652, and died in 1713.[171] My Journal, from this day inclusive, was read by Dr. Johnson.BOSWELL. It was read by Johnson up to the second paragraph of Oct. 26.Boswell, it should seem, once at least shewed Johnson a part of theJournal from which he formed his _Life_. See _ante_, iii. 260, where hesays:--'It delighted him on a review to find that his conversationteemed with point and imagery.'[172] See _ante_, ii. 20, note 4.[173] Goldsmith, in his _Present State of Polite Learning_, published in1759, says, (ch. x):--'When the great Somers was at the helm, patronagewas fashionable among our nobility ... Since the days of a certain primeminister of inglorious memory [Sir Robert Walpole] the learned have beenkept pretty much at a distance. ... The author, when unpatronised by theGreat, has naturally recourse to the bookseller. There cannot be perhapsimagined a combination more prejudicial to taste than this. It is theinterest of the one to allow as little for writing, and of the other towrite as much as possible; accordingly tedious compilations andperiodical magazines are the result of their joint endeavours.'[174] In the first number of _The Rambler_, Johnson shews how attractiveto an author is the form of publication which he was himself thenadopting:--'It heightens his alacrity to think in how many places heshall have what he is now writing read with ecstacies to-morrow.'[175] Yet he said 'the inhabitants of Lichfield were the most sober,decent people in England.' _Ante_, ii. 463.[176] At the beginning of the eighteenth century, says Goldsmith,'smoking in the rooms [at Bath] was permitted.' When Nash became King ofBath he put it down. Goldsmith's _Works_, ed. 1854, iv. 51. 'Johnson,'says Boswell (_ante_, i. 317), 'had a high opinion of the sedativeinfluence of smoking.'[177] Dr. Johnson used to practise this himself very much. BOSWELL.[178] In _The Tatler_, for May 24, 1709, we are told that 'ruralesquires wear shirts half a week, and are drunk twice a day.' In theyear 1720, Fenton urged Gay 'to sell as much South Sea stock as wouldpurchase a hundred a year for life, "which will make you sure of a cleanshirt and a shoulder of mutton every day."' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 65.In _Tristram Shandy_, ii. ch. 4, published in 1759, we read:--'It was inthis year [about 1700] that my uncle began to break in upon the dailyregularity of a clean shirt.' In _the Spiritual Quixote_, published in1773 (i. 51), Tugwell says to his master:--'Your Worship belike has beenused to shift you twice a week.' Mrs. Piozzi (_Journey_, i. 105, date of1789) says that she heard in Milan 'a travelled gentleman telling hisauditors how all the men in London, _that were noble_, put on a cleanshirt every day.' Johnson himself owned that he had 'no passion forclean linen.' _Ante_, i. 397.[179] Scott, in _Old Mortality_, ed. 1860, ix. 352, says:--'It was auniversal custom in Scotland, that, when the family was at dinner, theouter-gate of the court-yard, if there was one, and if not, the door ofthe house itself, was always shut and locked.' In a note on this hesays:--'The custom of keeping the door of a house or chateau lockedduring the time of dinner probably arose from the family being ancientlyassembled in the hall at that meal, and liable to surprise.'[180] Johnson, writing of 'the chapel of the alienated college,'says:--'I was always by some civil excuse hindered from entering it.'_Works_, ix. 4.[181] George Marline's _Reliquiae divi Andreae_ was published in 1797.[182] See _ante_, ii. 171, and iv. 75.[183] Mr. Chambers says that Knox was buried in a place which soon afterbecame, and ever since has been, a high-way; namely, the old church-yardof St. Giles in Edinburgh. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 283.[184] In _The Rambler_, No. 82, Johnson makes a virtuoso write:--'Ioften lamented that I was not one of that happy generation whodemolished the convents and monasteries, and broke windows by law.' Hehad in 1754 'viewed with indignation the ruins of the Abbeys of Oseneyand Rewley near Oxford.' Ante, i. 273. Smollett, in _Humphry Clinker_(Letrer of Aug. 8), describes St. Andrews as 'the skeleton of avenerable city.'[185] 'Some talked of the right of society to the labour of individuals,and considered retirement as a desertion of duty. Others readily allowedthat there was a time when the claims of the publick were satisfied, andwhen a man might properly sequester himself to review his life andpurify his heart.' _Rasselas_, ch. 22.[186] See _ante_, ii. 423.[187] See _ante_, iv. 5, note 2, and v. 27.[188] 'He that lives well in the world is better than he that lives wellin a monastery. But, perhaps, every one is not able to stem thetemptations of publick life, and, if he cannot conquer, he may properlyretreat.' _Rasselas_, ch. 47. See _ante_, ii. 435.[189] 'A youthful passion for abstracted devotion should not beencouraged.' _Ante_, ii. 10. The hermit in _Rasselas_ (ch. 21)says:--'The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but notcertainly devout.' In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 203, we read that'Johnson thought worse of the vices of retirement than of those ofsociety.' Southey (_Life of Wesley_, i. 39) writes:--'Some time beforeJohn Wesley's return to the University, he had travelled many miles tosee what is called "a serious man." This person said to him, "Sir, youwish to serve God and go to heaven. Remember, you cannot serve Himalone; you must therefore find companions or make them; the Bible knowsnothing of solitary religion." Wesley never forgot these words.'[190] [Erga neon, boulai de meson euchai de gerunton. _HesiodiFragmenta_, Lipsiae 1840, p. 371]Let youth in deeds, in counsel man engage;Prayer is the proper duty of old age.BOSWELL.[191] One 'sorrowful scene' Johnson was perhaps too late in the year tosee. Wesley, who visited St. Andrews on May 27, 1776, during thevacation, writes (_Journal_, iv. 75):--'What is left of St. Leonard'sCollege is only a heap of ruins. Two colleges remain. One of them has atolerable square; but all the windows are broke, like those of abrothel. We were informed the students do this before they leavethe college.'[192] 'He was murdered by the ruffians of reformation, in the manner ofwhich Knox has given what he himself calls a merry narrative.' Johnson's_Works_, ix. 3. In May 1546 the Cardinal had Wishart the Reformerkilled, and at the end of the same month he got killed himself.[193] Johnson says (_Works_, ix. 5):--'The doctor, by whom it wasshown, hoped to irritate or subdue my English vanity by telling me thatwe had no such repository of books in England.' He wrote to Mrs. Thrale(_Piozzi Letters_, i. 113):--'For luminousness and elegance it may vieat least with the new edifice at Streatham.' 'The new edifice' was, nodoubt, the library of which he took the touching farewell. _Ante_,iv. 158.[194] 'Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desiresare fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future, anincessant wish that something were otherwise than it has been, atormenting and harassing want of some enjoyment or possession which wehave lost, and which no endeavours can possibly regain.' _The Rambler_,No. 47. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on the death of her son:--'Do notindulge your sorrow; try to drive it away by either pleasure or pain;for, opposed to what you are feeling, many pains will become pleasures.'_Piozzi Letters_, i. 310.[195] See ante, ii. 151.[196] The Pembroke College grace was written by Camden. It was asfollows:--'Gratias tibi agimus, Deus misericors, pro acceptis a tuabonitate alimentis; enixe comprecantes ut serenissimum nostrum RegemGeorgium, totam regiam familiam, populumque tuum universum tuta in pacesemper custodies.'[197] Sharp was murdered on May 3, 1679, in a moor near St. Andrews.Burnet's _History of his Own time_, ed. 1818, ii. 82, and Scott's _OldMortality_, ed, 1860, ix. 297, and x. 203.[198] 'One of its streets is now lost; and in those that remain there isthe silence and solitude of inactive indigence and gloomydepopulation.... St. Andrews seems to be a place eminently adapted tostudy and education.... The students, however, are represented as, atthis time, not exceeding a hundred. I saw no reason for imputing theirpaucity to the present professors.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 4. A student,he adds, of lower rank could get his board, lodging, and instruction forless than ten pounds for the seven months of residence. Stockdale says(_Memoirs_, i. 238) that 'in St. Andrews, in 1756, for a good bedroom,coals, and the attendance of a servant I paid one shilling a week.'[199] _The Compleat Fencing-Master_, by Sir William Hope. London, 1691.[200] 'In the whole time of our stay we were gratified by every mode ofkindness, and entertained with all the elegance of lettered hospitality'Johnson's _Works_, ix. 3.[201] Dugald Stewart (_Life of Adam Smith_, p. 107) writes:--'Mr. Smithobserved to me not long before his death, that after all his practice inwriting he composed as slowly, and with as great difficulty as at first.He added at the same time that Mr. Hume had acquired so great a facilityin this respect, that the last volumes of his _History_ were printedfrom his original copy, with a few marginal corrections.' See _ante_,iii. 437 and iv. 12.[202] Of these only twenty-five have been published: Johnson's _Works_,ix. 289-525. See _ante_, iii. 19, note 3, and 181. Johnson wrote onApril 20, 1778:--'I have made sermons, perhaps as readily as formerly.'_Pr. and Med._ p. 170. 'I should think,' said Lord Eldon, 'that noclergyman ever wrote as many sermons as Lord Stowell. I advised him toburn all his manuscripts of that kind. It is not fair to the clergymento have it known he wrote them.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 286. Johnson, wemay be sure, had no copy of any of his sermons. That none of them shouldbe known but those he wrote for Taylor is strange.[203] He made the same statement on June 3, 1781 (_ante_, iv. 127),adding, 'I should be glad to see it [the translation] now.' This showsthat he was not speaking of his translation of _Lobo_, as Mr. Crokermaintains in a note on this passage. I believe he was speaking of histranslation of Courayer's _Life of Paul Sarpi. Ante_, i. 135.[204] 'As far as I am acquainted with modern architecture, I am aware ofno streets which, in simplicity and manliness of style, or generalbreadth and brightness of effect, equal those of the New Town ofEdinburgh. But, etc.' Ruskin's _Lectures on Architecture andPainting_, p. 2.[205] Horace, _Odes_, ii. 14. 1.[206] John Abernethy, a Presbyterian divine. His works in 7 vols. 8vo.were published in 1740-51.[207] Leechman was principal of Glasgow University (_post_, Oct. 29). Onhis appointment to the Chair of Theology he had been prosecuted forheresy for having, in his _Sermon on Prayer_, omitted to state theobligation to pray in the name of Christ. Dr. A. Carlyle's _Auto_. p.69. One of his sermons was placed in Hume's hands, apparently that theauthor might have his suggestions in preparing a second edition. Humesays:--'First the addressing of our virtuous withes and desires to theDeity, since the address has no influence on him, is only a kind ofrhetorical figure, in order to render these wishes more ardent andpassionate. This is Mr. Leechman's doctrine. Now the use of any figureof speech can never be a duty. Secondly, this figure, like most figuresof rhetoric, has an evident impropriety in it, for we can make use of noexpression, or even thought, in prayers and entreaties, which does notimply that these prayers have an influence. Thirdly, this figure is verydangerous, and leads directly, and even unavoidably, to impiety andblasphemy,' etc. J.H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 161.[208] Nichols (_Lit. Anec._ ii. 555) records:--'During the whole of myintimacy with Dr. Johnson he rarely permitted me to depart without somesententious advice.... His words at parting were, "Take care of youreternal salvation. Remember to observe the Sabbath. Let it never be aday of business, nor wholly a day of dissipation." He concluded hissolemn farewell with, "Let my words have their due weight. They are thewords of a dying man." I never saw him more.'[209] See _ante_, ii. 72.[210] 'From the bank of the Tweed to St. Andrews I had never seen asingle tree which I did not believe to have grown up far within thepresent century.... The variety of sun and shade is here utterlyunknown.... A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice.At St. Andrews Mr. Boswell found only one, and recommended it to mynotice: I told him that it was rough and low, or looked as if I thoughtso. "This," said he, "is nothing to another a few miles off." I was stillless delighted to hear that another tree was not to be seen nearer."Nay," said a gentleman that stood by, "I know but of this and that treein the county."' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 7 'In all this journey [so faras Slains Castle] I have not travelled an hundred yards between hedges,or seen five trees fit for the carpenter.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.120. See_ante_, ii. 301.[211] One of the Boswells of this branch was, in 1798, raised to thebench under the title of Lord Balmuto. It was his sister who wasBoswell's step-mother. Rogers's _Boswelliana,_ pp. 4, 82.[212] 'The colony of Leuchars is a vain imagination concerning a certainfleet of Danes wrecked on Sheughy Dikes.' WALTER SCOTT. 'The fishingpeople on that coast have, however, all the appearance of being adifferent race from the inland population, and their dialect has manypeculiarities.' LOCKHART. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 286.