1

Priestley?" He was very properly answered, "Sir, because we are indebted to him for these important discoveries." On this Dr. Johnson appeared well content, and replied, "Well, well, I believe we are; and let every man have the honour he has merited."'

'A friend was one day, about two years before his death, struck with some instance of Dr. Johnson's great candour. "Well, sir," said he, "I will always say that you are a very candid man.”—“Will you?" replied the Doctor; "I doubt, then, you will be very singular. But indeed, sir," continued he, "I look upon myself to be a man very much misunderstood. I am not an uncandid, nor am I a severe man. I sometimes say more than I mean, in jest; and people are apt to believe me serious: however, I am more candid than I was when I was younger. As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly."" On his return from Heale he wrote to Dr. Burney:

I came home on the 18th of September, at noon, to a very disconsolate house. You and I have lost our friends; but you have more friends at home. My domestic companion is taken from me. She is much missed, for her acquisitions were many, and her curiosity universal; so that she partook of every conversation. I am not well enough to go much out; and to sit, and eat, or fast alone, is very wearisome. I always mean to send my compliments to all the ladies.'

His fortitude and patience met with severe trials during this year. The stroke of the palsy has been related circumstantially; but he was also afflicted with the gout, and was, besides, troubled with a complaint which not only was attended with immediate inconvenience, but threatened him with a chirurgical operation, from which most men would shrink. The complaint was a sarcocele, which Johnson bore with uncommon firmness, and was not at all frightened while he looked forward to amputation. He was attended by Mr. Pott and Mr. Cruikshank. I have before me a letter of the 30th of July this year, to Mr. Cruikshank, in which he says, 'I am going to put myself into your hands;' and another accompanying a set of his Lives of the Poets, in which he says, 'I beg

The Rev. Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose that Dr. Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an interview with Dr. Priestley. In justice to Dr. Johnson, I declare my firm belief that he never did. My illustrious friend was particularly resolute in not giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to society. I was present at Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had rendered himself so generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French Revolution, came into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left the room. Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley.-BOSWELL.

your acceptance of these volumes as an acknowledgment of the great favours which you have bestowed on, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant.' I have in my possession several more letters from him to Mr. Cruikshank, and also to Dr. Mudge, at Plymouth, which it would be improper to insert, as they are filled with unpleasing technical details. I shall, however, extract from his letters to Dr. Mudge such passages as show either a felicity of expression or the undaunted state of his mind:'My conviction of your skill, and my belief of your friendship, determine me to entreat your opinion and advice.'

'In this state I with great earnestness desire you to tell me what is to be done. Excision is doubtless necessary to the cure, and I know not any means of palliation. The operation is doubtless painful; but is it dangerous? The pain I hope to endure with decency; but I am loath to put life into much hazard.'

'By representing the gout as an antagonist to the palsy, you have said enough to make it welcome. This is not strictly the first fit; but I hope it is as good as the first; for it is the second that ever confined me; and the first was ten years ago, much less fierce and fiery than this.'

'Write, dear sir, what you can to inform or encourage me. The operation is not delayed by any fears or objections of mine.'

'TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ.

'LONDON, Sept. 29, 1783. 'DEAR SIR,-You may very reasonably charge me with insensibility of your kindness and that of Lady Rothes, since I have suffered so much time to pass without paying any acknowledgment. I now, at last, return my thanks; and why I did it not sooner I ought to tell you. I went into Wiltshire as soon as I well could, and was there much employed in palliating my own malady. Disease produces much selfishness. A man in pain is looking after ease, and lets most other things go as chance shall dispose of them. In the meantime I have lost a companion, to whom I have had recourse for domestic amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted; and

now return to a habitation vacant and desolate.

I carry about a very troublesome and dangerous complaint, which admits no cure but by the chirurgical knife. Let me have your prayers.— I am, etc., 'SAM. JOHNSON.'

Happily the complaint abated without his being put to the torture of amputation. But we must surely admire the manly resolution which he discovered while it hung over him.

In a letter to the same gentleman he writes, 'The gout has, within these four days, come upon me with a violence which I never expe rienced before. It made me helpless as an

infant.' And in another, having mentioned Mrs. Williams, he says-Whose death following that of Levett, has now made my house a solitude. She left her little substance to a charity school. She is, I hope, where there is neither darkness, nor want, nor sorrow.'

I wrote to him, begging to know the state of his health, and mentioned that 'Baxter's Anacreon, which is in the library at Auchinleck, was, I find, collated by my father in 1727 with the MS. belonging to the University of Leyden, and he has made a number of notes upon it. Would you advise me to publish a new edition of it?'

His answer was dated September 30: 'You should not make your letters such rarities, when you know, or might know, the uniform state of my health. It is very long since I heard from you; and that I have not answered is a very insufficient reason for the silence of a friend. Your Anacreon is a very uncommon book; neither London nor Cambridge can supply a copy of that edition. Whether it should be reprinted, you cannot do better than consult Lord Hailes. Besides my constant and radical disease, I have been for these ten days much harassed with the gout; but that has now remitted. I hope God will yet grant me a little longer life, and make me less unfit to appear before Him.'

He this autumn received a visit from the celebrated Mrs. Siddons. He gives this account of it in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, October 27:

'Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised. | Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seem to have depraved her. I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked of plays; and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the characters of Constance, Catherine, and Isabella, in Shakspeare.'

Mr. Kemble has favoured me with the following minute of what passed at this visit :

'When Mrs. Siddons came into the room, there happened to be no chair ready for her, which he observing, said with a smile, "Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats to other people, will the more easily excuse the want of one yourself."

"Having placed himself by her, he with great good humour entered upon a consideration of the English drama; and, among other inquiries, particularly asked her which of Shakspeare's characters she was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character of Queen Catherine in Henry the Eighth the most natural-"I think so too, madam," said he; "and whenever you perform it, I will once more ble out to the theatre myself." Mrs. Siddons

ed she would do herself the honour of his favourite part for him; but many

circumstances happened to prevent the representation of King Henry the Eighth during the Doctor's life.

'In the course of the evening he thus gave his opinion upon the merits of some of the principal performers whom he remembered to have seen upon the stage: "Mrs. Porter in the vehemence of rage, and Mrs. Clive in the sprightliness of humour, I have never seen equalled. What Clive did best, she did better than Garrick; but could not do half so many things well; she was a better romp than any I ever saw in nature.-Pritchard, in common life, was a vulgar idiot; she would talk of her gownd; but, when she appeared upon the stage, seemed to be inspired by gentility and understanding.-I once talked with Colley Cibber, and thought him ignorant of the principles of his art.-Garrick, madam, was no declaimer; there was not one of his own scene-shifters who could not have spoken To be, or not to be, better than he did; yet he was the only actor I ever saw, whom I could call a master both in tragedy and comedy, though I liked him best in comedy. A true conception of character, and natural expression of it, were his distinguished excellences." Having expatiated, with his usual force and eloquence, on Mr. Garrick's extraordinary eminence as an actor, he concluded with this compliment to his social talents: "And after all, madam, I thought him less to be envied on the stage than at the head of a table.""

Johnson, indeed, had thought more upon the subject of acting than might be generally supposed. Talking of it one day to Mr. Kemble, he said, 'Are you, sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself transformed into the very character you represent?' Upon Mr. Kemble's answering that he had never felt so strong a persuasion himself: To be sure not, sir,' said Johnson, the thing is impossible. And if Garrick really believed himself to be that monster Richard the Third, he deserved to be hanged every time he performed it.'1

1 My worthy friend, Mr. John Nichols, was present Johnson, and was received in a very courteous manner. when Mr. Henderson, the actor, paid a visit to Dr. ---See the Gentleman's Magazine, June 1791.

I found, among Dr. Johnson's papers, the following letter to him, from the celebrated Mrs. Bellamy :'TO DR. JOHNSON.

'No. 10, DUKE STREET, ST. JAMES'S, May 11, 1783.

'SIR,-The flattering remembrance of the partiality you honoured me with some years ago, as well as the humanity you are known to possess, has encouraged me to solicit your patronage at my benefit.

'By a long Chancery suit, and a complicated train of unfortunate events, I am reduced to the greatest distress, which obliges me once more to request the indulgence of the public.

'Give me leave to solicit the honour of your company, and to assure you, if you grant my request, the gratification I shall feel, from being patronized by Dr.

'TO MRS. LUCY PORTER, IN LICHFIELD.

'BOLT COURT, FLEET STREET,

Nov. 10, 1783.

ter, of which your maid has sent an account, must have very much surprised you. The death of a friend is almost always unexpected: we do not love to think of it, and therefore are not prepared for its coming. He was, I think, a religious man, and therefore that his end was happy.

'Death has likewise visited my mournful

habitation. Last month died Mrs. Williams, who had been to me for thirty years in the place of a sister her knowledge was great, and her

:

conversation pleasing. I now live in cheerless

solitude.

'My two last years have passed under the pressure of successive diseases. I have lately had the gout with some severity. But I wonderfully escaped the operation which I mentioned, and am upon the whole restored to health beyond my own expectation.

'As we daily see our friends die around us, we that are left must cling closer, and, if we can do nothing more, at least pray for one another; and remember, that as others die we must die too, and prepare ourselves diligently for the last great trial.-I am, madam, yours affectionately,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

A pleasing instance of the generous attention of one of his friends has been discovered by the publication of Mrs. Thrale's collection of Letters. In a letter to one of the Miss Thrales, he writes, 'A friend, whose name I will tell, when your mamma has tried to guess it, sent to my physician to inquire whether this long train of illness had brought me into difficulties for want of money, with an invitation to send to him for what occasion required. I shall write this night to thank him, having no need to borrow.' And afterwards, in a letter to Mrs. Thrale, 'Since you cannot guess, I will tell you that the generous man was Gerard Hamilton. I returned him a very thankful and respectful letter.'

I applied to Mr. Hamilton by a common friend, and he has been so obliging as to let me have Johnson's letter to him upon this occasion, to adorn my collection:

'TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM GERARD HAMILTON.

'November 19, 1783. 'DEAR SIR,-Your kind inquiries after my

Johnson, will be infinitely superior to any advantage that may arise from the benefit; as I am, with the profoundest respect, sir, your most obedient humble servant, 'G. A. BELLAMY.'

I am happy in recording these particulars, which prove that my illustrious friend lived to think much

your friendship; and entreat that my refusal may not be imputed to sullenness or pride. I am, indeed, in no want. Sickness is, by the generosity of my physicians, of little expense to me. But if any unexpected exigence should press me, you shall see, dear sir, how cheerfully I can be obliged to so much liberality.-I am, sir, your most obedient and most humble ser

vant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

I find in this, as in former years, notices of

his kind attention to Mrs. Gardiner, who,

though in the humble station of a tallow-chand

ler upon Snow Hill, was a woman of excellent she had been introduced to him by Mrs. Masters, good sense, pious and charitable. She told me the poetess, whose volumes he revised, and it is said, illuminated here and there with a ray of his own genius. Mrs. Gardiner was very zealous for the support of the Ladies' Charity School in the parish of St. Sepulchre. It is confined to females; and, I am told, it afforded a hint for the story of Betty Broom, in the Idler. Johnson this year, I find, obtained for it a sermon from the late Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Shipley, whom he, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, characterizes as 'knowing and conversable;' and whom all who knew his Lordship, even those who differed from him in politics, remember with much respect.

The Earl of Carlisle having written a tragedy, entitled 'THE FATHER'S REVENGE,' some of his Lordship's friends applied to Mrs. Chapone, to prevail on Dr. Johnson to read and give his opinion of it, which he accordingly did, in a letter to that lady. Sir Joshua Reynolds having informed me that this letter was in Lord Carlisle's possession, though I was not fortunate enough to have the honour of being known to his Lordship, trusting to the general courtesy of literature, I wrote to him, requesting the favour of a copy of it, and to be permitted to insert it in my Life of Dr, Johnson. His Lordship was so good as to comply with my request, and has thus enabled me to enrich my work with a very fine piece of writing, which displays both the critical skill and politeness of my illustrious friend; and perhaps the curiosity which it will excite may induce the noble and elegant author to gratify the world by the publication of a performance, of which Dr. Johnson has spoken in such terms:

2

more favourably of players than he appears to have done in the early part of his life.—BOSWELL.

1 In his will, Dr. Johnson left her a book 'at her election, to keep as a token of remembrance.'-MALONE. 2 A few copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to the author's friends.-BOSWELL.

'Nov. 28, 1783. 'MADAM,-By sending the tragedy to me a second time,' I think that a very honourable distinction has been shown me, and I did not delay the perusal, of which I am now to tell the effect.

"The construction of the play is not completely regular; the stage is too often vacant, and the scenes are not sufficiently connected. This, however, would be called by Dryden only a mechanical defect; which takes away little from the power of the poem, and which is seen rather than felt.

'A rigid examiner of the diction might perhaps wish some words changed, and some lines more vigorously terminated. But from such petty imperfections what writer was ever free? "The general form and force of the dialogue is of more importance. It seems to want that quickness of reciprocation which characterizes

the English drama, and is not always sufficiently

fervid or animated.

'Of the sentiments, I remember not one that I wish omitted. In the imagery I cannot forbear to distinguish the comparison of joy succeeding grief to light rushing on the eye accustomed to darkness. It seems to have all that can be desired to make it please. It is new, just, and delightful.2

tional influence exercised by the Peers of Scotland in the election of the representatives of the Commons, by means of fictitious qualifications, ought not to be resisted; the other, What, in propriety and humanity, should be done with old horses unable to labour. I gave him some account of my life at Auchinleck; and expressed my satisfaction that the gentlemen of the county had, at two public meetings, elected me their Præses, or Chairman.

'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'LONDON, Dec. 24, 1783. 'DEAR SIR,-Like all other men who have

great friends, you begin to feel the pangs of neglected merit; and all the comfort that I can give you is, by telling you that you have probably more pangs to feel, and more neglect to suffer. You have, indeed, begun to complain too soon; and I hope I am the only confidant of your discontent. Your friends have not yet had leisure to gratify personal kindness; they have hitherto

been busy in strengthening their ministerial interest. If a vacancy happens in Scotland, give them early intelligence; and as you can serve Government as powerfully as any of your probable competitors, you may make in some sort a warrantable claim.

'Of the exaltations and depressions of your mind you delight to talk, and I hate to hear. Drive all such fancies from you.

'On the day when I received your letter, I think, the foregoing page was written, to which

one disease or another has hindered me from

'The catastrophe is affecting. The father and daughter, both culpable, both wretched, and

both penitent, divide between them our pity and

"The present dreadful confusion of the public ought to make you wrap yourself up in your hereditary possessions, which though less than you may wish, are more than you can want; and to GOD, who has exempted you from any strong in an hour of religious retirement, return thanks temptation to faction, treachery, plunder, and disloyalty.

'As your neighbours distinguish you by such honours as they can bestow, content yourself with your station, without neglecting your profession. Your estate and the courts will find you full employment, and your mind well occupied will be quiet.

"The usurpation of the nobility-for they apparently usurp all the influence they gain by fraud and misrepresentation-I think it certainly lawful, perhaps your duty, to resist. What is not their own, they have only by robbery.

'Your question about the horses gives me more perplexity. I know not well what advice to give you. I can only recommend a rule which you do not want-Give as little pain as you can. I suppose that we have a right to their service while their strength lasts; what we can do with

than one innocent person suffer;' and were answered by Dr. Johnson with great power of reasoning and eloquence. I am very sorry that I have no record of that day; but I well recollect my illustrious friend's having ably shown that, unless civil institutions ensure protection to the innocent, all the confidence which mankind should have in them would be lost. I shall here mention what, in strict chrono

'A happy and pious Christmas; and many happy years to you, your lady, and children.'

The late ingenious Mr. Mickle, some time before his death, wrote me a letter concerning Dr. Johnson, in which he mentions, 'I was upwards of twelve years acquainted with him, was frequently in his company, always talked with ease to him, and can truly say, that I never received from him one rough word.'

In this letter he relates his having, while engaged in translating the Lusiad, had a dispute of considerable length with Johnson, who, as usual, declaimed upon the misery and corruption of a sea life, and used this expression: 'It had been happy for the world, sir, if your hero Gama, Prince Henry of Portugal, and Columbus, had never been born, or that their schemes had never gone further than their own imaginations.''This sentiment,' says Mr. Mickle, 'which is to be found in his Introduction to the World Displayed, I, in my Dissertation prefixed to the Lusiad, have controverted; and though authors are said to be bad judges of their own works, I am not ashamed to own to a friend, that that Dissertation is my favourite above all that I ever attempted in prose. Next year, when the Lusiad was published, I waited on Dr. Johnson, who addressed me with one of his good-humoured smiles: "Well, you have remembered our dispute about Prince Henry, and have cited me too. You have done your part very well indeed: you have made the best of your argument; but I am not convinced yet."

'Before publishing the Lusiad, I sent Mr. Hoole a proof of that part of the introduction in which I make mention of Dr. Johnson, yourself, and other well-wishers to the work, begging it might be shown to Dr. Johnson. This was accordingly done; and in place of the simple mention of him which I had made, he dictated to Mr. Hoole the sentence as it now stands.

'Dr. Johnson told me, in 1772, that, about twenty years before that time, he himself had a design to translate the Lusiad, of the merit of which he spoke highly, but had been prevented by a number of other engagements.'

Mr. Mickle reminds me, in this letter, of a conversation at dinner one day at Mr. Hoole's with Dr. Johnson, when Mr. Nicol, the King's bookseller, and I, attempted to controvert the maxim, 'Better that ten guilty should escape,

my account of last year; but may more properly be introduced here, the controversy having not been closed till this. The Rev. Mr. Shaw, a native of one of the Hebrides, having entertained doubts of the authenticity of the poems ascribed to Ossian, divested himself of national bigotry; and having travelled in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and also in Ireland, in order to furnish himself with materials for a Gaelic Dictionary, which he afterwards compiled, was so fully satisfied that Dr. Johnson was in the right upon the question, that he candidly published a pamphlet, stating his conviction, and the proofs and reasons on which it was founded. A person at Edinburgh, of the name of Clark, answered this pamphlet with much zeal, and much abuse of its author. Johnson took Mr. Shaw under his protection, and gave him his assistance in writing a reply, which has been admired by the best judges, and by many been considered as conclusive. A few paragraphs, which sufficiently mark their great author, shall be selected :-

'My assertions are, for the most part, purely negative: I deny the existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious peregrination through the Gaelic regions I have never been able to find it. What I could not see myself, I suspect to be equally invisible to others; and I suspect 'with the more reason, as among all those who have seen it no man can show it.

'Mr. Clark compares the obstinacy of those who disbelieve the genuineness of Ossian to a blind man, who should dispute the reality of colours, and deny that the British troops are clothed in red. The blind man's doubt would be rational, if he did not know by experience that others have a power which he himself wants; but what perspicacity has Mr. Clark which Nature has withheld from me or the rest of mankind?

'The true state of the parallel must be this. Suppose a man, with eyes like his neighbours, was told by a boasting corporal, that the troops, indeed, wore red clothes for their ordinary dress, but that every soldier had likewise a suit of black velvet, which he puts on when the King reviews them. This he thinks strange, and desires to see the fine clothes, but finds nobody in forty thousand men that can produce either coat or waistcoat. One, indeed, has left them in his chest at Port Mahon; another has always heard that he ought to have velvet clothes somewhere; and a