约翰逊4-6-103

was otherwise known.[748] 'A learned prelate accidentally met Bentley in the days of_Phalaris_; and after having complimented him on that noble piece ofcriticism (the _Answer_ to the Oxford Writers) he bad him not bediscouraged at this run upon him, for tho' they had got the laughers ontheir side, yet mere wit and raillery could not long hold out against awork of so much merit. To which the other replied, "Indeed Dr. S.[Sprat], I am in no pain about the matter. For I hold it as certain,that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself."'_Warburton on Pope_, iv. 159, quoted in Person's _Tracts_, p. 345.'Against personal abuse,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 348), 'Johnson wasever armed by a reflection that I have heard him utter:--"Alas!reputation would be of little worth, were it in the power of everyconcealed enemy to deprive us of it."' He wrote to Baretti:--'A man ofgenius has been seldom ruined but by himself.' _Ante_, i. 381. Voltairein his _Essay Sur les inconveniens attaches a la Litterature_ (_Works_,ed. 1819, xliii. 173), after describing all that an author does to winthe favour of the critics, continues:--'Tous vos soins n'empechent pasque quelque journaliste ne vous dechire. Vous lui repondez; il replique;vous avez un proces par ecrit devant le public, qui condamne les deuxparties au ridicule.' See _ante_, ii. 61, note 4.[749] However advantageous attacks may be, the feelings with which theyare regarded by authors are better described by Fielding when hesays:--'Nor shall we conclude the injury done this way to be veryslight, when we consider a book as the author's offspring, and indeed asthe child of his brain. The reader who hath suffered his muse tocontinue hitherto in a virgin state can have but a very inadequate ideaof this kind of paternal fondness. To such we may parody the tenderexclamation of Macduff, "Alas! thou hast written no book."' _Tom Jones_,bk. xi. ch. 1.[750] It is strange that Johnson should not have known that the_Adventures of a Guinea_ was written by a namesake of his own, CharlesJohnson. Being disqualified for the bar, which was his profession, by asupervening deafness, he went to India, and made some fortune, and diedthere about 1800. WALTER SCOTT.[751] Salusbury, not Salisbury.[752] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, .ii 57) mentions in 1746 his cousin SirJohn Philipps, of Picton Castle; 'a noted Jacobite.'... He thus mentionsLady Philipps in 1788 when she was 'very aged.' 'They have a favouriteblack, who has lived with them a great many years, and is remarkablysensible. To amuse Lady Philipps under a long illness, they had read toher the account of the Pelew Islands. Somebody happened to say we weresending a ship thither; the black, who was in the room, exclaimed, "Thenthere is an end of their happiness." What a satire on Europe!' _Ib_.ix. 157.Lady Philips was known to Johnson through Miss Williams, to whom, as anote in Croker's _Boswell_ (p. 74) shews, she made a small yearlyallowance.[753] 'To teach the minuter decencies and inferiour duties, to regulatethe practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities whichare rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances which,if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation, wasfirst attempted by Casa in his book of _Manners_, and Castiglione in his_Courtier_; two books yet celebrated in Italy for purity and elegance.'Johnson's _Works_, vii. 428. _The Courtier_ was translated into Englishso early as 1561. Lowndes's _Bibl. Man_. ed. 1871, p. 386.[754] Burnet (_History of His Own Time_, ii. 296) mentions Whitby amongthe persons who both managed and directed the controversial war' againstPopery towards the end of Charles II's reign. 'Popery,' he says, 'wasnever so well understood by the nation as it came to be upon thisoccasion.' Whitby's Commentary _on the New Testament_ was publishedin 1703-9.[755] By Henry Mackenzie, the author of _The Man of Feeling. Ante_, i.360. It had been published anonymously this spring. The play of the samename is by Macklin. It was brought out in 1781.[756] No doubt Sir A. Macdonald. _Ante_, p. 148. This 'penuriousgentleman' is mentioned again, p. 315.[757] Moliere's play of _L'Avare_.[758]'...facit indignatio versum.'Juvenal, _Sat_. i. 79.[759] See _ante_, iii. 252.[760] He was sixty-four.[761] Still, perhaps, in the _Western Isles_, 'It may be we shall touchthe Happy Isles.' Tennyson's _Ulysses._[762] See _ante_, ii, 51.[763] See _ante_, ii. 150.[764] Sir Alexander Macdonald.[765] 'To be or not to be: that is the question.' _Hamlet_, act iii. sc.1.[766] Virgil, _Eclogues_, iii. III.[767] 'The stormy Hebrides.' Milton's _Lycidas_, 1. 156.[768] Boswell was thinking of the passage (p. xxi.) in which Hawkesworthtells how one of Captain Cook's ships was saved by the wind falling.'If,' he writes, 'it was a natural event, providence is out of thequestion; at least we can with no more propriety say that providentiallythe wind ceased, than that providentially the sun rose in the morning.If it was not,' &c. According to Malone the attacks made on Hawkesworthin the newspapers for this passage 'affected him so much that from lowspirits he was seized with a nervous fever, which on account of the highliving he had indulged in had the more power on him; and he is supposedto have put an end to his life by intentionally taking an immoderatedose of opium.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 441. Mme. D'Arblay says that theseattacks shortened his life. _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 278. He died onNov. 17 of this year. See _ante_, i. 252, and ii. 247.[769] 'After having been detained by storms many days at Sky we left it,as we thought, with a fair wind; but a violent gust, which Bos had agreat mind to call a tempest, forced us into Col.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.167. 'The wind blew against us in a short time with such violence, thatwe, being no seasoned sailors, were willing to call it a tempest... Themaster knew not well whither to go; and our difficulties might, perhaps,have filled a very pathetick page, had not Mr. Maclean of Col... pilotedus safe into his own harbour.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 117. Sir WalterScott says, 'Their risque, in a sea full of islands, was veryconsiderable. Indeed, the whole expedition was highly perilous,considering the season of the year, the precarious chance of gettingsea-worthy boats, and the ignorance of the Hebrideans, who,notwithstanding the opportunities, I may say the _necessities_, of theirsituation, are very careless and unskilful sailors.' Croker's_Boswell_, p. 362.[770] For as the tempest drives, I shape my way. FRANCIS. [Horace,_Epistles_, i. 1. 15.] BOSWELL.[771]'Imberbus juvenis, tandem custode remoto,Gaudet equis canibusque, et aprici gramine campi.''The youth, whose will no froward tutor bounds,Joys in the sunny field, his horse and hounds.'FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. 1. 161.[772] _Henry VI_, act i. sc. 2.[773] See _ante_, i. 468, and iii. 306.[774] Johnson describes him as 'a gentleman who has lived some time inthe East Indies, but, having dethroned no nabob, is not too rich tosettle in his own country.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 117.[775] This curious exhibition may perhaps remind some of my readers ofthe ludicrous lines, made, during Sir Robert Walpole's administration,on Mr. George (afterwards Lord) Lyttelton, though the figures of the twopersonages must be allowed to be very different:--'But who is this astride the pony;So long, so lean, so lank, so bony?Dat be de great orator, Littletony.'BOSWELL.These lines were beneath a caricature called _The Motion_, described byHorace Walpole in his letter of March 25, 1741, and said by Mr.Cunningham to be 'the earliest good political caricature that wepossess.' Walpole's _Letters_, i. 66. Mr. Croker says that 'the exactwords are:--bony? O he be de great orator Little-Tony.'[776] See _ante_, ii. 213.[777] In 1673 Burnet, who was then Professor of Theology in Glasgow,dedicated to Lauderdale _A Vindication of the Authority, &c., of theChurch and State of Scotland_. In it he writes of the Duke's 'noblecharacter, and more lasting and inward characters of his princely mind.'[778] See _ante_, i. 450.[779] See _ante_, p. 250.[780] 'Others have considered infinite space as the receptacle, orrather the habitation of the Almighty; but the noblest and most exaltedway of considering this infinite space, is that of Sir Isaac Newton, whocalls it the _sensorium_ of the Godhead. Brutes and men have their_sensoriola_, or little _sensoriums_, by which they apprehend thepresence, and perceive the actions, of a few objects that lie contiguousto them. Their knowledge and observation turn within a very narrowcircle. But as God Almighty cannot but perceive and know everything inwhich he resides, infinite space gives room to infinite knowledge, andis, as it were, an organ to Omniscience.' Addison, _The Spectator_,No. 565.[781] 'Le celebre philosophe Leibnitz ... attaqua ces expressions duphilosophe anglais, dans une lettre qu'il ecrivit en 1715 a la feuereine d'Angleterre, epouse de George II. Cette princesse, digne d'etreen commerce avec Leibnitz et Newton, engagea une dispute reglee parlettres entre les deux parties. Mais Newton, ennemi de toute dispute etavare de son temps, laissa le docteur Clarke, son disciple en physique,et pour le moins son egal en metaphysique, entrer pour lui dans la lice.La dispute roula sur presque toutes les idees metaphysiques de Newton,et c'est peut-etre le plus beau monument que nous ayons des combatslitteraires.' Voltaire's _Works_, ed. 1819, xxviii. 44.[782] See _ante_, iii. 248.[783] See _ante_, iv. 295, where Boswell asked Johnson 'if he would nothave done more good if he had been more gentle.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; Ihave done more good as I am. Obscenity and impiety have always beenrepressed in my company.'[784] 'Mr. Maclean has the reputation of great learning: he isseventy-seven years old, but not infirm, with a look of venerabledignity, excelling what I remember in any other man. His conversationwas not unsuitable to his appearance. I lost some of his good will bytreating a heretical writer with more regard than in his opinion aheretick could deserve. I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not muchcensure his asperity. A man who has settled his opinions does not loveto have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and atseventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 118.[785] 'Mr. Maclean has no publick edifice for the exercise of hisministry, and can officiate to no greater number than a room cancontain; and the room of a hut is not very large... The want of churchesis not the only impediment to piety; there is likewise a want ofministers. A parish often contains more islands than one... All theprovision made by the present ecclesiastical constitution for theinhabitants of about a hundred square miles is a prayer and sermon in alittle room once in three weeks.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 118.[786]'Our Polly is a sad slut, nor heedswhat we have taught her.I wonder any man alive willever rear a daughter.For she must have both hoodsand gowns, and hoops toswell her pride,With scarfs and stays, andgloves and lace; and shewill have men beside;And when she's drest with careand cost, all-tempting, fine and gay,As men should serve a cucumber,she flings herself away.'Air vii.[787] See _ante_, p. 162.[788] In 1715.[789]'When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,The line too labours, and the words move slow.'Pope, _Essay on Criticism_, l. 370.[790] Johnson's remark on these stones is curious as shewing that he hadnot even a glimpse of the discoveries to be made by geology. Aftersaying that 'no account can be given' of the position of one of thestones, he continues:--'There are so many important things of whichhuman knowledge can give no account, that it may be forgiven us if wespeculate no longer on two stones in Col.' _Works_, ix. 122. See _ante_,ii. 468, for his censure of Brydone's 'anti-mosaical remark.'[791]'Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella.''My Phillis me with pelted apples plies.'DRYDEN. Virgil, _Eclogues_, iii. 64.[792]'The helpless traveller, with wild surprise,Sees the dry desert all around him rise,And smother'd in the dusty whirlwind dies.'_Cato_ act ii. sc. 6.[793] Johnson seems unwilling to believe this. 'I am not of opinion thatby any surveys or land-marks its [the sand's] limits have been everfixed, or its progression ascertained. If one man has confidence enoughto say that it advances, nobody can bring any proof to support him indenying it.' _Works_, ix. 122. He had seen land in like manner laidwaste north of Aberdeen; where 'the owner, when he was required to paythe usual tax, desired rather to resign the ground.' _Ib_. p. 15.[794] _Box_, in this sense, is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_.[795] See _ante_, ii. 100, and iv. 274.[796] In the original, _Rich windows. A Long Story_, l. 7.[797] 'And this according to the philosophers is happiness.' Boswellsays of Crabbe's poem _The Village_, that 'its sentiments as to thefalse notions of rustick happiness and rustick virtue were quitecongenial with Johnson's own.' _Ante_, iv. 175.[798] 'This innovation was considered by Mr. Macsweyn as the idleproject of a young head, heated with English fancies; but he has nowfound that turnips will really grow, and that hungry sheep and cows willreally eat them.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 121. 'The young laird is heir,perhaps, to 300 square miles of land, which, at ten shillings an acre,would bring him L96,000 a year. He is desirous of improving theagriculture of his country; and, in imitation of the Czar, travelled forimprovement, and worked with his own hands upon a farm inHertfordshire.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 168.[799] 'In more fruitful countries the removal of one only makes room forthe succession of another; but in the Hebrides the loss of an inhabitantleaves a lasting vacuity; for nobody born in any other parts of theworld will choose this country for his residence.' Johnson's_Works_, ix. 93.[800] 'In 1628 Daille wrote his celebrated book, _De l'usage des Peres_,or _Of the Use of the Fathers_. Dr. Fleetwood, Bishop of Ely, said of itthat he thought the author had pretty sufficiently proved they were of_no use_ at all.' Chalmers's _Biog. Dict_. xi. 209.[801] _Enquiry after Happiness_, by Richard Lucas, D.D., 1685.[802] _Divine Dialogues_, by Henry More, D.D. See _ante_, ii. 162, noteI.[803] By David Gregory, the second of the sixteen professors which thefamily of Gregory gave to the Universities. _Ante_, p. 48.[804] 'Johnson's landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court.' _Ante_,iii. 141.[805] 'Cuper's Gardens, near the south bank of the Thames, opposite toSomerset House. The gardens were illuminated, and the companyentertained by a band of music and fireworks; but this, with otherplaces of the same kind, has been lately discontinued by an act that hasreduced the number of these seats of luxury and dissipation.' Dodsley's_London and its Environs_, ed. 1761, ii. 209. The Act was the 25thGeorge II, for 'preventing robberies and regulating places of publicentertainment.' _Parl. Hist_. xiv. 1234.[806] 'Mr. Johnson,' according to Mr. Langton, 'used to laugh at apassage in Carte's _Life of the Duke of Ormond,_ where he gravelyobserves "that he was always in full dress when he went to court; toomany being in the practice of going thither with double lapells."'_Boswelliana_, p. 274. The following is the passage:--'No severity ofweather or condition of health served him for a reason of not observingthat decorum of dress which he thought a point of respect to persons andplaces. In winter time people were allowed to come to court withdouble-breasted coats, a sort of undress. The duke would never takeadvantage of that indulgence; but let it be never so cold, he alwayscame in his proper habit, and indeed the king himself always did thesame, though too many neglected his example to make use of the libertyhe was pleased to allow.' Carte's _Life of Ormond_, iv. 693. See _ante_,i. 42. It was originally published in _three_ volumes folio in 1735-6.[807] Seneca's two epigrams on Corsica are quoted in Boswell's_Corsica_, first edition, p. 13. Boswell, in one of his _Hypochondriacks(London Mag._ 1778, p. 173), says:--'For Seneca I have a doublereverence, both for his own worth, and because he was the heathen sagewhom my grandfather constantly studied.'[808] 'Very near the house of Maclean stands the castle of Col, whichwas the mansion of the Laird till the house was built.... On the wallwas, not long ago, a stone with an inscription, importing, that if anyman of the clan of Maclonich shall appear before this castle, though hecome at midnight, with a man's head in his hand, he shall there findsafety and protection against all but the king. This is an old Highlandtreaty made upon a very memorable occasion. Maclean, the son of JohnGerves, who recovered Col, and conquered Barra, had obtained, it issaid, from James the Second, a grant of the lands of Lochiel, forfeited,I suppose, by some offence against the state. Forfeited estates were notin those days quietly resigned; Maclean, therefore, went with an armedforce to seize his new possessions, and, I know not for what reason,took his wife with him. The Camerons rose in defence of their chief, anda battle was fought at Loch Ness, near the place where Fort Augustus nowstands, in which Lochiel obtained the victory, and Maclean, with hisfollowers, was defeated and destroyed. The lady fell into the hands ofthe conquerors, and, being found pregnant, was placed in the custody ofMaclonich, one of a tribe or family branched from Cameron, with orders,if she brought a boy, to destroy him, if a girl, to spare her.Maclonich's wife, who was with child likewise, had a girl about the sametime at which Lady Maclean brought a boy; and Maclonich, with moregenerosity to his captive than fidelity to his trust, contrived that thechildren should be changed. Maclean, being thus preserved from death, intime recovered his original patrimony; and, in gratitude to his friend,made his castle a place of refuge to any of the clan that should thinkhimself in danger; and, as a proof of reciprocal confidence, Macleantook upon himself and his posterity the care of educating the heir ofMaclonich.' Johnson's _Works,_ ix. 130.[809] 'Mr. Croker tells us that the great Marquis of Montrose wasbeheaded at Edinburgh in 1650. There is not a forward boy at any school