约翰逊4-6-96

_Garrick Corres_, ii. 561. Dr. Moore (_View of Society in France_, i.29) writing in 1779 says:--'I am convinced there is no country in Europewhere royal favour, high birth, and the military profession could beallowed such privileges as they have in France, and where there would beso few instances of their producing rough and brutal behaviour toinferiors.' Mrs. Piozzi, writing in 1784, though she did not publish herbook till 1789, said:--'The French are really a contented race ofmortals;--precluded almost from possibility of adventure, the lowParisian leads gentle, humble life, nor envies that greatness he nevercan obtain.' _Journey through France_, i. 13.[326] He is the worthy son of a worthy father, the late Lord Strichen,one of our judges, to whose kind notice I was much obliged. LordStrichen was a man not only honest, but highly generous; for after hissuccession to the family estate, he paid a large sum of debts contractedby his predecessor, which he was not under any obligation to pay. Let mehere, for the credit of Ayrshire, my own county, record a noble instanceof liberal honesty in William Hutchison, drover, in Lanehead, Kyle, whoformerly obtained a full discharge from his creditors upon a compositionof his debts; but upon being restored to good circumstances, invited hiscreditors last winter to a dinner, without telling the reason, and paidthem their full sums, principal and interest. They presented him with apiece of plate, with an inscription to commemorate this extraordinaryinstance of true worth; which should make some people in Scotland blush,while, though mean themselves, they strut about under the protection ofgreat alliance, conscious of the wretchedness of numbers who have lostby them, to whom they never think of making reparation, but indulgethemselves and their families in most unsuitable expence. BOSWELL.[327] See _ante_, ii. 194; iii. 353; and iv. June 30, 1784.[328] Malone says that 'Lord Auchinleck told his son one day that itwould cost him more trouble to hide his ignorance in the Scotch andEnglish law than to show his knowledge. This Mr. Boswell owned he hadfound to be true.' _European Magazine_, 1798, p. 376.[329] See _ante_, iv. 8, note 3, and iv. 20.[330] Colman had translated _Terence. Ante_, iv. 18.[331] Dr. Nugent was Burke's father-in-law. _Ante_, i. 477.[332] Lord Charlemont left behind him a _History of Italian Poetry_.Hardy's _Charlemont_, i. 306, ii. 437.[333] See _ante_, i. 250, and ii. 378, note 1.[334] Since the first edition, it has been suggested by one of the club,who knew Mr. Vesey better than Dr. Johnson and I, that we did not assignhim a proper place; for he was quite unskilled in Irish antiquities andCeltick learning, but might with propriety have been made professor ofarchitecture, which he understood well, and has left a very goodspecimen of his knowledge and taste in that art, by an elegant housebuilt on a plan of his own formation, at Lucan, a few miles from Dublin.BOSWELL. See _ante_, iv. 28.[335] Sir William Jones, who died at the age of forty-seven, had'studied eight languages critically, eight less perfectly, but allintelligible with a dictionary, and twelve least perfectly, but allattainable.' Teignmouth's _Life of Sir W. Jones_, ed. 1815, p. 465. See_ante_, iv. 69.[336] See _ante_, i. 478.[337] See _ante_, p. 16.[338] Mackintosh in his _Life_, ii. 171, says:--'From the refinements ofabstruse speculation Johnson was withheld, partly perhaps by thatrepugnance to such subtleties which much experience often inspires, andpartly also by a secret dread that they might disturb those prejudicesin which his mind had found repose from the agitations of doubt.'[339] See _ante_, iv. 11, note 1.[340] Our Club, originally at the Turk's Head, Gerrard-street, then atPrince's, Sackville-street, now at Baxter's, Dover-street, which at Mr.Garrick's funeral acquired a _name_ for the first time, and was calledTHE LITERARY CLUB, was instituted in 1764, and now consists ofthirty-five members. It has, since 1773, been greatly augmented; andthough Dr. Johnson with justice observed, that, by losing Goldsmith,Garrick, Nugent, Chamier, Beauclerk, we had lost what would make aneminent club, yet when I mentioned, as an accession, Mr. Fox, Dr. GeorgeFordyce, Sir Charles Bunbury, Lord Ossory, Mr. Gibbon, Dr. Adam Smith,Mr. R.B. Sheridan, the Bishops of Kilaloe and St. Asaph, Dean Marley,Mr. Steevens, Mr. Dunning, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Scott of the Commons,Earl Spencer, Mr. Windham of Norfolk, Lord Elliott, Mr. Malone, Dr.Joseph Warton, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Lord Lucan, Mr. Burke junior,Lord Palmerston, Dr. Burney, Sir William Hamilton, and Dr. Warren, itwill be acknowledged that we might establish a second university of highreputation. BOSWELL. Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote in 1780(_Life_, p. 241):--'Of our club I will only say that there is no branchof human knowledge on which some of our members are not capable ofgiving information.'[341] Here, unluckily, the windows had no pullies; and Dr. Johnson, whowas constantly eager for fresh air, had much struggling to get one ofthem kept open. Thus he had a notion impressed upon him, that thiswretched defect was general in Scotland; in consequence of which he haserroneously enlarged upon it in his _Journey_. I regretted that he didnot allow me to read over his book before it was printed. I should havechanged very little; but I should have suggested an alteration in a fewplaces where he has laid himself open to be attacked. I hope I shouldhave prevailed with him to omit or soften his assertion, that 'aScotsman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland totruth,' for I really think it is not founded; and it is harshly said.BOSWELL. Johnson, after a half-apology for 'these diminutiveobservations' on Scotch windows and fresh air, continues:--'The truestate of every nation is the state of common life.' _Works_, ix. 18.Boswell a second time (_ante_, ii. 311) returns to Johnson's assertionthat 'a Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not loveScotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry.'_Works_, ix. 116.[342] See _ante_, p. 40.[343] A protest may be entered on the part of most Scotsmen against theDoctor's taste in this particular. A Finnon haddock dried over the smokeof the sea-weed, and sprinkled with salt water during the process,acquires a relish of a very peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable onany other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburghphilosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a partyat a dinner, where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competitionwith the genuine Finnon-fish. These were served round withoutdistinction whence they came; but only one gentleman, out of twelvepresent, espoused the cause of philosophy. WALTER SCOTT.[344] It is the custom in Scotland for the judges of the Court ofSession to have the title of _lords_, from their estates; thus Mr.Burnett is Lord _Monboddo_, as Mr. Home was Lord _Kames_. There issomething a little awkward in this; for they are denominated in deeds bytheir _names_, with the addition of 'one of the Senators of the Collegeof Justice;' and subscribe their Christian and surnames, as _JamesBurnett_, _Henry Home_, even in judicial acts. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p.77, note 4.[345] See _ante_, ii. 344, where Johnson says:--'A judge may be afarmer, but he is not to geld his own pigs.'[346]'Not to admire is all the art I knowTo make men happy and to keep them so.'Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Epistles, i. vi. 1.[347] See _ante_, i. 461.[348] See _ante_, iv. 152.[349] See _ante_, iii. 322.[350] In the _Gent. Mag._ for 1755, p. 42, among the deaths is entered'Sir James Lowther, Bart., reckoned the richest commoner in GreatBritain, and worth above a million.' According to Lord Shelburne, LordSunderland, who had been advised 'to nominate Lowther one of hisTreasury on account of his great property,' appointed him to call onhim. After waiting for some time he rang to ask whether he had come,'The servants answered that nobody had called; upon his repeating theinquiry they said that there was an old man, somewhat wet, sitting bythe fireside in the hall, who they supposed had some petition to deliverto his lordship. When he went out it proved to be Sir James Lowther.Lord Sunderland desired him to be sent about his business, saying thatno such mean fellow should sit at his Treasury.' Fitzmaurice's_Shelburne_, i. 34.[351] I do not know what was at this time the state of the parliamentaryinterest of the ancient family of Lowther; a family before the Conquest;but all the nation knows it to be very extensive at present. A duemixture of severity and kindness, oeconomy and munificence,characterises its present Representative. BOSWELL. Boswell, mostunhappily not clearly seeing where his own genius lay, too often soughtto obtain fame and position by the favour of some great man. For someyears he courted in a very gross manner 'the present Representative,'the first Earl of Lonsdale, who treated him with great brutality._Letters of Boswell_, pp. 271, 294, 324, and _ante_, iv. May 15, 1783.In the _Ann. Reg._ 1771, p. 56, it is shewn how by this bad man 'thewhole county of Cumberland was thrown into a state of the greatestterror and confusion; four hundred ejectments were served in one day.'Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto._ p. 418) says that 'he was more detested than anyman alive, as a shameless political sharper, a domestic bashaw, and anintolerable tyrant over his tenants and dependants.' Lord Albemarle(_Memoirs of Rockingham,_ ii. 70) describes the 'bad Lord Lonsdale. Heexacted a serf-like submission from his poor and abject dependants. Heprofessed a thorough contempt for modern refinements. Grass grew in theneglected approaches to his mansion.... Awe and silence pervaded theinhabitants [of Penrith] when the gloomy despot traversed their streets.He might have been taken for a Judge Jefferies about to open a royalcommission to try them as state criminals... In some years of his lifehe resisted the payment of all bills.' Among his creditors wasWordsworth's father, 'who died leaving the poet and four other helplesschildren. The executors of the will, foreseeing the result of a legalcontest with _a millionaire,_ withdrew opposition, trusting to LordLonsdale's sense of justice for payment. They leaned on a broken reed,the wealthy debtor "Died and made no sign."' [2 _Henry VI,_ act iii. sc.3.] See De Quincey's _Works,_ iii. 151.[352] 'Let us not,' he says, 'make too much haste to despise ourneighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregardeddilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of thetime to despise monuments of sacred magnificence.' _Works_, ix. 20.[353] Note by Lord _Hailes_. 'The cathedral of Elgin was burnt by theLord of Badenoch, because the Bishop of Moray had pronounced an awardnot to his liking. The indemnification that the see obtained was, thatthe Lord of Badenoch stood for three days bare-footed at the great gateof the cathedral. The story is in the Chartulary of Elgin.' BOSWELL. Thecathedral was rebuilt in 1407-20, but the lead was stripped from theroof by the Regent Murray, and the building went to ruin. Murray's_Handbook_, ed. 1867, p. 303. 'There is,' writes Johnson (_Works_, ix.20), 'still extant in the books of the council an order ... directingthat the lead, which covers the two cathedrals of Elgin and Aberdeen,shall be taken away, and converted into money for the support of thearmy.... The two churches were stripped, and the lead was shipped to besold in Holland. I hope every reader will rejoice that this cargo ofsacrilege was lost at sea.' On this Horace Walpole remarks (_Letters_,vii. 484):--'I confess I have not quite so heinous an idea of sacrilegeas Dr. Johnson. Of all kinds of robbery, that appears to me the lightestspecies which injures nobody. Dr. Johnson is so pious that in hisjourney to your country he flatters himself that all his readers willjoin him in enjoying the destruction of two Dutch crews, who wereswallowed up by the ocean after they had robbed a church.'[354] I am not sure whether the Duke was at home. But, not having thehonour of being much known to his grace, I could not have presumed toenter his castle, though to introduce even so celebrated a stranger. Wewere at any rate in a hurry to get forward to the wildness which we cameto see. Perhaps, if this noble family had still preserved thatsequestered magnificence which they maintained when catholicks,corresponding with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, we might have been inducedto have procured proper letters of introduction, and devoted some timeto the contemplation of venerable superstitious state. BOSWELL. Burnet(_History of his own Times_, ii. 443, and iii. 23) mentions the Duke ofGordon, a papist, as holding Edinburgh Castle for James II. in 1689.[355] 'In the way, we saw for the first time some houses withfruit-trees about them. The improvements of the Scotch are for immediateprofit; they do not yet think it quite worth their while to plant whatwill not produce something to be eaten or sold in a very little time.'_Piozzi Letters_, i. 121.[356] 'This was the first time, and except one the last, that I foundany reason to complain of a Scottish table.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 19.[357] The following year Johnson told Hannah More that 'when he andBoswell stopt a night at the spot (as they imagined) where the WeirdSisters appeared to Macbeth, the idea so worked upon their enthusiasm,that it quite deprived them of rest. However they learnt the nextmorning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and werequite in another part of the country' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 50.[358] See _ante_, p. 76.[359] Murphy (_Life_, p. 145) says that 'his manner of reciting verseswas wonderfully impressive.' According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 302),'whoever once heard him repeat an ode of Horace would be long beforethey could endure to hear it repeated by another.'[360] Then pronounced _Affleck_, though now often pronounced as it iswritten. Ante, ii. 413.[361] At this stage of his journey Johnson recorded:--'There are morebeggars than I have ever seen in England; they beg, if not silently, yetvery modestly.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 122. See ante, p. 75, note 1.[362] Duncan's monument; a huge column on the roadside near Fores, morethan twenty feet high, erected in commemoration of the final retreat ofthe Danes from Scotland, and properly called Swene's Stone.WALTER SCOTT.[363] Swift wrote to Pope on May 31, 1737:--'Pray who is that Mr.Glover, who writ the epick poem called _Leonidas_, which is reprintinghere, and has great vogue?' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xx. 121. 'It passedthrough four editions in the first year of its publication (1737-8).'Lowndes's _Bibl. Man_. p. 902. Horace Walpole, in 1742, mentions_Leonidas_ Glover (_Letters_, i. 117); and in 1785 Hannah More writes(_Memoirs_, i. 405):--'I was much amused with hearing old LeonidasGlover sing his own fine ballad of _Hosier's Ghost_, which was veryaffecting. He is past eighty [he was seventy-three]. Mr. Walpole comingin just afterwards, I told him how highly I had been pleased. He beggedme to entreat for a repetition of it. It was the satire conveyed in thislittle ballad upon the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole's ministry which isthought to have been a remote cause of his resignation. It was a verycurious circumstance to see his son listening to the recital of it withso much complacency.'[364] See ante, i. 125.[365] See _ante_, i. 456, and _post_, Sept. 22.[366] See _ante_, ii. 82, and _post_, Oct. 27.[367] 'Nairne is the boundary in this direction between the highlandsand lowlands; and until within a few years both English and Gaelic werespoken here. One of James VI.'s witticisms was to boast that in Scotlandhe had a town "sae lang that the folk at the tae end couldna understandthe tongue spoken at the tother."' Murray's _Handbook for Scotland_, ed.1867, p. 308. 'Here,' writes Johnson (_Works_, ix. 21), 'I first sawpeat fires, and first heard the Erse language.' As he heard the girlsinging Erse, so Wordsworth thirty years later heard TheSolitary Reaper:--'Yon solitary Highland LassReaping and singing by herself.'[368]'Verse softens toil, however rude the sound;She feels no biting pang the while she sings;Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,Revolves the sad vicissitude of things.'_Contemplation._ London: Printed for R. Dodsley in Pall-mall, and soldby M. Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster-Row, 1753.The author's name is not on the title-page. In the _Brit. Mus. Cata._the poem is entered under its title. Mr. Nichols (_Lit. Illus._ v. 183)says that the author was the Rev. Richard Gifford [not Giffard] ofBalliol College, Oxford. He adds that 'Mr. Gifford mentioned to him withmuch satisfaction the fact that Johnson quoted the poem in his_Dictionary_.' It was there very likely that Boswell had seen the lines.They are quoted under _wheel_ (with changes made perhaps intentionallyby Johnson), as follows:'Verse sweetens care however rude the sound;All at her work the village maiden sings;Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.'_Contemplation_, which was published two years after Gray's _Elegy_, wassuggested by it. The rising, not the parting day, is described. Thefollowing verse precedes the one quoted by Johnson:--'Ev'n from the straw-roofed cot the note of joyFlows full and frequent, as the village-fair,Whose little wants the busy hour employ,Chanting some rural ditty soothes her care.'Bacon, in his _Essay Of Vicissitude of Things_ (No. 58), says:--'It isnot good to look too long upon these turning _wheels of vicissitude_lest we become _giddy_' This may have suggested Gifford's last twolines. _Reflections on a Grave, &c._ (_ante_, ii. 26), published in1766, and perhaps written in part by Johnson, has a line borrowed fromthis poem:--'These all the hapless state of mortals showThe sad vicissitude of things below.'Cowper, _Table-Talk_, ed. 1786, i. 165, writes of'The sweet vicissitudes of day and night.'The following elegant version of these lines by Mr. A. T. Barton, Fellowand Tutor of Johnson's own College, will please the classical reader:--Musa levat duros, quamvis rudis ore, labores;Inter opus cantat rustica Pyrrha suum;Nec meminit, secura rotam dum versat euntem,Non aliter nostris sortibus ire vices.[369] He was the brother of the Rev. John M'Aulay (_post_, Oct. 25), thegrandfather of Lord Macaulay.[370] See _ante_, ii. 51.[371] In Scotland, there is a great deal of preparation beforeadministering the sacrament. The minister of the parish examines thepeople as to their fitness, and to those of whom he approves giveslittle pieces of tin, stamped with the name of the parish as _tokens_,which they must produce before receiving it. This is a species ofpriestly power, and sometimes may be abused. I remember a lawsuitbrought by a person against his parish minister, for refusing himadmission to that sacred ordinance. BOSWELL.[372] See _ post_, Sept. 13 and 28.[373] Mr. Trevelyan (_Life of Macaulay_, ed.1877, i. 6) says: 'Johnsonpronounced that Mr. Macaulay was not competent to have written the bookthat went by his name; a decision which, to those who happen to haveread the work, will give a very poor notion my ancestor's abilities.'[374]'The thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman.'_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 3.[375] According to Murray's _Handbook,_ ed. 1867, p. 308, no part of thecastle is older than the fifteenth century.[376] See _post_, Nov. 5.[377] The historian. _Ante_, p. 41.[378] See _ante_, iii. 336, and _post_, Nov. 7.[379] See _post_, Oct. 27.[380] Baretti was the Italian. Boswell disliked him (_ante_, ii. 98note), and perhaps therefore described him merely as 'a man of _some_