Etat. 67]

At dinner, Mr. Murphy entertained us with the history of Mr. Joseph Simpson, a schoolfellow of Dr. Johnson's, a barrister-at-law, of good parts, but who fell into a dissipated course of life, incompatible with that success in his profession which he once had, and would otherwise have deservedly maintained; yet he still preserved a dignity in his deportment. He wrote a tragedy on the story of Leonidas, entitled, "The Patriot." He read it

a company of lawyers, who found so many faults that he wrote it over again so then there were two tragedies on the same subject and with the same title. Dr. Johnson told us that one of them was still in his possession. This very piece was, after his death, published by person who

some

ARTHUR MURPHY (b. 1727, d. 1805) Johnson's Irish friend and biographer, who was also the author of several plays.

had been about him, and, for the sake of a little hasty profit, was fallaciously advertised, so as to make it be believed to have been written by Johnson himself.

I said I disliked the custom which some people had of bringing their children into company, because it in a manner forced us to pay foolish compliments to please their parents. JOHNSON: "You are right, Sir. We may be excused for not caring much about other people's children, for there are many who care very little about their own children. It may be observed that men, who from being engaged in business, or from their course of life in whatever way, seldom see their children, do not care much about them. I myself should not have had much fondness for a child of my own." MRS. THRALE: Nay, Sir, how can you talk so?" JOHNSON: "At least, I never wished to have a child."

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Mr. Murphy mentioned Dr. Johnson's having a design to publish an edition of Cowley. Johnson said he did not know but he should; and he expressed his disapprobation of Dr. Hurd, for having published a mutilated edition under the title of Select Works of Abraham Cowley." Mr. Murphy thought it a bad precedent; observing that any author might be used in the same manner; and that it was pleasing to see the variety of an author's compositions at different periods. We talked of Flatman's Poems; and Mrs. Thrale observed that Pope had partly borrowed from him "The Dying Christian to his Soul." Johnson repeated Rochester's verses upon Flatman, which, I think, by much too severe :

"Nor that slow drudge in swift Pindaric strains,
Flatman, who Cowley imitates with pains,

And ride a jaded Muse, whipt with loose reins."

I like to recollect all the passages that I heard Johnson repeat: it stamps a value on them.

He told us that the book entitled "The Lives of the Poets, by Mr. Cibber," was entirely supplied by Mr. Shiels,* a Scotchman, one of his amanuenses. “The booksellers (said he) gave Theophilus Cibber, who was then in prison, ten guineas to allow Mr. Cibber to be put upon the title-page, as the author; by this, a double imposition was intended in the first place, that it was the work of a Cibber at all; and, in the second place, that it was the work of old Cibber."

Mr. Murphy said that "The Memoirs of Gray's Life' set him much higher in his estimation than his poems did; for you there saw a man constantly at work in literature." Johnson acquiesced in this; but depreciated the book, I thought, very unreasonably. For he said, "I forced myself to read it, only because it was a common topic of conversation. I found it mighty dull; and, as to the style, it is fit for the second table." Why he thought so I was at a loss to conceive. He now gave it as his opinion that "Akenside was a superior poet both to Gray and Mason."

Talking of the Reviews, Johnson said, “I think them very impartial: I do not know an instance of partiality." He mentioned what had passed upon the subject of the Monthly and Critical Reviews, in the conversation with which his Majesty had honoured him. He expatiated a little more on them this evening. "The Monthly Reviewers (said he) are not Deists; but they are Christians with as little Christianity as may be; and are for pulling down all establishments. The Critical Reviewers

*In the Monthly Review for May, 1792, there is such a correction of the above passage as I should think myself very culpable not to subjoin. "This account is very inaccurate. The following statement of facts we know to be true, in every material circumstance :-Shiels was the principal collector and digester of the materials for the work but as he was very raw in authorship, an indifferent writer in prose, and his language full of Scotticisms, Cibber, who was a clever, lively fellow, and then soliciting employment among the booksellers, was engaged to correct the style and diction of the whole work, then intended to make only four volumes, with power to alter, expunge, or add, as he liked. He was also to supply notes, occasionally, especially concerning those dramatic poets with whom he had been chiefly conversant. He also engaged to write several of the Lives; which (as we are told) he, accordingly, performed. He was farther useful in striking out the Jacobitical and Tory sentiments, which Shiels had industriously interspersed wherever he could bring them in-and as the success of the work appeared, after all, very doubtful, he was content with £21 for his labour, besides a few sets of the books, to disperse among his friends. Shiels had nearly £70, besides the advantage of many of the best Lives in the work being communicated by friends to the undertaking; and for which Mr. Shiels had the same consideration as for the rest, being paid by the sheet, for the whole. He was, however, so angry with his Whiggish superviser (THE., like his father. being a violent stickler for the political principles which prevailed in the reign of George the Second), for so unmercifully mutilating his copy, and scouting his politics, that he wrote Cibber a challenge: but was prevented from sending it by the publisher, who fairly laughed him out of his fury. The proprietors, too, were discontented, in the end, on account of Mr. Cibber's unexpected industry; for his corrections and alterations in the proof-sheets were so numerous and considerable, that the printer

Etat. 67]

LORD LYTTELTON'S HISTORY

621 are for supporting the Constitution both in Church and State.* The Critical Reviewers, I believe, often review without reading the books through; but lay hold of a topic, and write chiefly from their own minds. The Monthly Reviewers are duller men, and are glad to read the books through.

He talked of Lord Lyttelton's extreme anxiety as an author; observing that "he was thirty years in preparing his "History," and that he employed a man to point it for him; as if (laughing) another man could point his sense better than himself." Mr. Murphy said he understood his "History" was kept back several years for fear of Smollett.† JOHNSON: "This seems strange to Murphy and me, who never felt that anxiety, but sent what we wrote to the press, and let it take its chance." MRS. THRALE: "The time has been, Sir, when you felt it." JOHNSON: "Why, really, Madam, I do not recollect a time when that was the case."

made for them a grievous addition to his bill; and, in fine, all parties were dissatisfied. On the whole, the work was productive of no profit to the undertakers, who had agreed, in case of success, to make Cibber a present of some addition to the twenty guineas which he had received, and for which his receipt is now in the booksellers' hands. We are farther assured that he actually obtained an additional sum; when he, soon after (in the year 1758), unfortunately embarked for Dublin on an engagement for one of the theatres there: but the ship was cast away, and every person on board perished. There were about sixty passengers, among whom was the Earl of Drogheda, with many other persons of consequence and property.

"As to the alleged design of making the compilement pass for the work of old Mr. Cibber, the charges seem to have been founded on a somewhat uncharitable construction. We are assured that

the thought was not harboured by some of the proprietors, who are still living; and we hope that it did not occur to the first designer of the work, who was also the printer of it, and who bore a respectable character.

"We have been induced to enter thus circumstantially into the foregoing detail of facts relating to the Lives of the Poets,' compiled by Messrs. Cibber and Shiels, from a sincere regard to that sacred principle of Truth, to which Dr. Johnson so rigidly adhered, according to the best of his knowledge; and which, we believe, no consideration would have prevailed on him to violate. In regard to the matter, which we now dismiss, he had, no doubt, been misled by partial and Wrong information: Shiels was the Doctor's amanuensis; he had quarrelled with Cibber; it is natural to suppose that he told his story in his own way; and it is certain that he was not 'a very sturdy moralist."" This explanation appears to me very satisfactory. It is, however, to be observed that the story told by Johnson does not rest solely upon my record of his conversation; for he himself has published it in his life of Hammond, where he says, "The manuscript of Shiels is now in my possession." Very probably he had trusted to Shiels's word, and never looked at it so as to compare it with "The Lives of the Poets," as published under Mr. Cibber's name. What became of that manuscript I know not. I should have liked much to examine it. suppose it was thrown into the fire in that impetuous combustion of papers which Johnson I think rashly executed when moribundus.

I

[Johnson's opinions concerning the Monthly and Critical Reviews would not be accurate now [1803.] B.]

† [Smollett, the founder, and for many years the Editor of the Critical Review.Croker.]

Talking of the Spectator, he said, "It is wonderful that there is such a proportion of bad papers in the half of the work which was not written by Addison; for there was all the world to write that half, yet not a half of that half is good. One of the

finest pieces in the English language is the paper on Novelty, yet we do not hear it talked of. It was written by Grove, a dissenting teacher." He would not, I perceived, call him a clergyman, though he was candid enough to allow very great merit to his composition. Mr. Murphy said he remembered when there were several people alive in London who enjoyed. a considerable reputation merely from having written a paper in the Spectator. He mentioned particularly Mr. Ince. who used to frequent Tom's coffeehouse. "But (said Johnson) you must consider how highly Steele speaks of Mr. Ince." He would not allow that the paper on carrying a boy to travel, signed Philip Homebred, which was reported to be written by the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, had merit. He said, It was quite vulgar, and had nothing luminous." Johnson mentioned Dr. Barry's "System of Physic." "He was a man (said he) who had acquired a high reputation in Dublin, came over to England, and brought his reputation with him, but had not great success. His notion was that pulsation occasions death by attrition; and that.. therefore, the way to preserve life is to retard pulsation. But we know that pulsation is strongest in infants, and that we increase in growth while it operates in its regular course; so it cannot be the cause of destruction." Soon after this. he said something very flattering to Mrs. Thrale, which I do not recollect; but it concluded with wishing her long life. "Sir (said I), if Dr. Barry's system be true, you have now shortened Mrs. Thrale's life, perhaps, some minutes by accelerating her pulsation."

From an engraving by R. While after a painting by Hayes

THOMAS FLATMAN (b. 1637, d. 1688) poet and miniature painter. Granger said He really excelled as an artist: a man must want ears for harmony that can admire his poetry, and even want eyes that can cease to admire his painting. One of his heads is worth a ream of his Pindarics."

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*

CHAPTER XXXIII-1776

A VISIT TO BATH

Dinner at General Paoli's-Garrick's Humour-Johnson on Italian Travel-Translations-The Art of Printing-Goldsmith's Vanity-At John Hoole's-Mickle-Thomson's Poetry-Dodsley and Goldsmith-Gray-Joseph Cradock-Othello-At the Crown and Anchor-Wine-drinking-On Reading Cumberland's Odes-The Reviews-At Bath with Boswell-Burke-Mrs. MacaulayBlair's "Grave "-Mrs. Montagu-Hannah More-Mrs. Thrale-New Zealand-At BristolChatterton-Chesterfield's Letters-Luxuries-Hailes's "Annals of Scotland"-Johnson on Colonel Campbell's Case.

Ox Thursday, April 11, I dined with him at General Paoli's, in whose house I now resided, and where I had ever afterwards the honour of being entertained with. the kindest attention as his constant guest, while I was in London, till I had a house of my own there. I mentioned my having that morning introduced to Mr. Garrick Count Neni, a Flemish Nobleman of great rank and fortune, to whom Garrick talked. of Abel Drugger as a small part; and related, with pleasant vanity, that a Frenchman. who had seen him in one of his low

characters, exclaimed, "Comment! je ne le crois pas. Ce n'est pas Monsieur Garrick, ce grand homme!" Garrick added, with an appearance of grave recollection," If I were to begin life again, I think I should not play these low characters." Upon which I observed, "Sir, you would be in the Wrong; for your great excellence is your variety of playing, your representing, so well, characters so very different." JOHNSON: "Garrick, Sir, was not in earnest in what he said; for, to be sure, his peculiar excellence is his variety; and, perhaps there is not any one character which has not been as well acted by somebody else, as he could do it." BOSWELL: "Why, then, Sir, did he talk so?" JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, to make you answer as you did." BoSWELL: "I don't know, Sir; he seemed to dip deep into his mind for the reflection." JOHNSON: "He had not far to dip, Sir: he had said the same thing, probably, twenty times before."

From an engraving