CROKER'S EDITION OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1831.] THIS work has greatly disappointed us. Whatever faults we may have been prepared to find in it, we fully expected that it would be a valuable addition to English literature, that it would contain many curious facts and many judicious remarks; that the style of the notes would be neat, clear, and precise; and that the typographical execution would be, as in new editions of classical works it ought to be, almost faultless. We are sorry to be obliged to say, that the merits of Mr. Croker's performance are on a par with those of a certain leg of mutton on which Dr. Johnson dined, while travelling from London to Oxford, and which he, with characteristic energy, pronounced to be, "as bad as bad could be; ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-dressed." That part of the volumes before us, for which the editor is responsible, is ill-compiled, ill-arranged, ill-expressed, and ill-printed. Nothing in the work had astonished us so much as the ignorance or carelessness of Mr. Croker with respect to facts and dates. Many of his blunders are such as we should be surprised to hear any well-educated gentleman commit, even in conversation. The notes absolutely swarm with misstatements, into which the editor never would have fallen, if he had taken the slightest pains to investigate the truth of his assertions, or if he had even been well acquainted with the very book on which he undertook to comment. We will give a few instances. Beattie, died in 1816. A Sir William Forbes "Scarce had lamented Forbes paid In one place, we are told, that Allan Ramsay Mr. In one place, Mr. Croker says, that at the commencement of the intimacy between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, in 1765, the lady was twenty-five years old. In other places he says, that Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's seventieth. Johnson was born in 1709. If, therefore, Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's se ventieth, she could have been only twenty-one years old in 1765. This is not all. Croker, in another place, assigns the year Mr. Croker tells us, in a note, that Derrick, 1777 as the date of the complimentary lines who was master of the ceremonies at Bath, which Johnson made on Mrs. Thrale's thirtydied very poor, in 1760. We read on; and, a fifth birthday. If this date be correct, Mrs. few pages later, we find Dr. Johnson and Bos-Thrale must have been born in 1742, and could well talking of the same Derrick as still living and reigning, as having retrieved his character, as possessing so much power over his subjects at Bath, that his opposition might be fatal to Sheridan's lectures on oratory. And all this in 1763. The fact is, that Derrick died in 1769. In one note we read, that Sir Herbert Croft, the author of that pompous and foolish account of Young, which appears among the Lives of the Poets, died in 1805. Another note in the same volume states, that this same Sir Herbert Croft died at Paris, after residing abroad for fifteen years, on the 27th of April, 1816.1 Mr. Croker informs us, that Sir William Forbes of Pitsligo, the author of the life of have been only twenty-three when her ac quaintance with Johnson commenced. Two of Mr. Croker's three statements must be false. We will not decide between them; we wil only say, that the reasons which he gives for thinking that Mrs. Thrale was exactly thirtyfive years old when Johnson was seventy, appear to us utterly frivolous. Again, Mr. Croker informs his readers that Lord Mansfield survived Johnson full ten years.' Lord Mansfield sarvived Dr. John son just eight years and a quarter. Johnson found in the library of a French Paris, some works which he regarded with lady, whom he visited during his short visit to great disdain. "I looked," says he, "into the books in the lady's closet, and, in contempt, showed them to Mr. Thrale-Prince Titi; Biblothèque des Fées, and other books."tt "The execution is one of the finest passages in Lord Clarendon's History. We can scarcely sup pose that Mr. Croker has never read that pas sage; and yet we can scarcely suppose that any person who has ever perused so noble and pathetic a story can have utterly forgotten all its most striking circumstances. history of Prince Titi,” observes Mr. Croker, was said to be the autobiography of Frederic Prince of Wales, but was probably written by Ralph, his secretary." A more absurd note never was penned. The history of Prince Titi, to which Mr. Croker refers, whether written by Prince Frederic or by Ralph, was certainly never published. If Mr. Croker had "Lord Townshend," says Mr. Croker, "was taken the trouble to read with attention the not secretary of state till 1720."* Can Mr. very passage in Park's Royal and Noble Au- Croker possibly be ignorant that Lord Townthors, which he cites as his authority, he shend was made secretary of state at the acwould have seen that the manuscript was cession of George the First, in 1714, that he given up to the government. Even if this continued to be secretary of state till he was memoir had been printed, it was not very likely displaced by the intrigues of Sunderland and to find its way into a French lady's bookcase. Stanhope at the close of 1716, and that he reAnd would any man in his senses speak con- turned to the office of secretary of state, not in temptuously of a French lady, for having in 1720, but in 1721? Mr. Croker, indeed, is geher possession an English work so curious nerally unfortunate in his statements respectand interesting as a Life of Prince Frederic, ing the Townshend family. He tells us tha whether written by himself or by a confidential | Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the ex secretary, must have been? The history at which Johnson laughed was a very proper companion to the Bibliothèque des Fées-a fairy tale about good Prince Titi and naughty Prince Violent. Mr. Croker may find it in the Magasin des Enfans, the first French book which the little girls of England read to their governesses. chequer, was "nephew of the prime minister, and son of a peer who was secretary of state, and leader of the House of Lords." Charles Townshend was not nephew, but grand-nephew of the Duke of Newcastle-not son, but grandson of the Lord Townshend who was secretary of state and leader of the House of Lords. "General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga," says Mr. Croker, “in March, 1778.”‡ General Burgoyne surrendered on the 17th of October, 1777. Mr. Croker states, that Mr. Henry Bate, who afterwards assumed the name of Dudley, was proprietor of the Morning Herald, and fought a duel with George Robinson Stoney, in consequence of some attacks on Lady Strathmore, "Nothing," says Mr. Croker, "can be more which appeared in that paper." Now Mr. unfounded than the assertion that Byng fell a Bate was connected, not with the Morning He- martyr to political party. By a strange coincirald, but with the Morning Post, and the dis-dence of circumstances, it happened that there pute took place before the Morning Herald was a total change of administration between was in existence. The duel was fought in his condemnation and his death; so that one January, 1777. The Chronicle of the Annual party presided at his trial and another at his Register for that year contains an account of execution; there can be no stronger proof that the transaction, and distinctly states that Mr. he was not a political martyr."'s Now, what Bate was editor of the Morning Post. The will our readers think of this writer when we Morning Herald, as any person may see by assure them that this statement, so confidently looking at any number of it, was not establish- made respecting events so notorious, is absoed till some years after this affair. For this lutely untrue? One and the same administrablunder there is, we must acknowledge, some tion was in office when the court-martial on excuse for it certainly seems almost incredi- Byng commenced its sittings, through the whole ble to a person living in our time, that any trial, at the condemnation, and at the execuhuman being should ever have stooped to tion. In the month of November, 1756, the fight with a writer in the Morning Post. Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke re"James de Duglas," says Mr. Croker, "was signed; the Duke of Devonshire became first requested by King Robert Bruce, in his last lord of the treasury, and Mr. Pitt secretary of hours, to repair with his heart to Jerusalem, state. This administration lasted till the month and humbly to deposit it at the sepulchre of of April, 1757. Byng's court-martial began to our Lord, which he did in 1329."+Now it is sit on the 28th of December, 1756. He was well known that he did no such thing, and for shot on the 14th of March, 1757. There is a very sufficient reason-because he was killed something at once diverting and provoking in by the way. Nor was it in 1329 that he set the cool and authoritative manner in which out. Robert Bruce died in 1329, and the ex- Mr. Croker makes these random assertions. pedition of Douglas took place in the follow- We do not suspect him of intentionally falsifying year,—“ quand le printems vint et la saison," | ing history. But of this high literary misdesays Froissart, in June, 1330, says Lord meanor we do without hesitation accuse him Hailes, whom Mr. Croker cites as the author--that he has no adequate sense of the obliga ity for his statement. tion which a writer, who professes to relate facts, owes to the public. We accuse him of a negligence and an ignorance analogous to that crassa negligentia and that crassa ignorantia on which the law animadverts in magistrates and surgeots even when maiice and corrup + IV. 222. Mr. Croker tells us that the great Marquis of Montrose was beheaded in Edinburgh in 1650.# There is not a forward boy at any school in England who does not know that the marquis was hanged. The account of the . V. 196. + IV. 29. II. 526. * 111. 52. + III. 368. 1.298. tion are not imputed. We accuse him of hav- | Macpherson's Ossian. "Many men," he said, ing undertaken a work which, if not performed "many women, and many children might have with strict accuracy, must be very much worse written Douglas." Mr. Croker conceives that than useless, and of having performed it as he has detected an inaccuracy, and glories if the difference between an accurate and an over poor Sir Joseph in a most characteristic inaccurate statement was not worth the trouble manner. "I have quoted this anecdote solely of looking into the most common book of re- with the view of showing to how little credit ference. hearsay anecdotes are in general entitled. Here is a story published by Sir Joseph Maw bey, a member of the House of Commons, and a person every way worthy of credit, who says he had it from Garrick. Now mark:-John son's visit to Oxford, about the time of his doc But we must proceed. These volumes contain mistakes more gross, if possible, than any that we have yet mentioned. Boswell has recorded some observations made by Johnson on the changes which took place in Gibbon's religious opinions. "It is said," cried the doctor's degree, was in 1754, the first time he had tor, laughing, "that he has been a Mahomelan." "This sarcasm," says the editor, "probably alludes to the tenderness with which Gibbon's malevolence to Christianity induced him to treat Mahometanism in his history." Now the sarcasm was uttered in 1776, and that part of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which relates to Mahometanism was not published till 1788, twelve years after the date of this conversation, and nearly four years after the death of Johnson. In been there since he left the university. But "It was in the year 1761," says Mr. Croker, "that Goldsmith published his Vicar of Wakefield. This leads the editor to observe a more serious inaccuracy of Mrs. Piozzi than Mr. Boswell notices, when he says Johnson left her table to go and sell the Vicar of Wakefield for Goldsmith. Now Dr. Johnson was not acquainted with the Thraies till 1765, four years after the book had been published." Mr. Croker, in reprehending the fancied inaccuracy of Mrs. Thrale, has himself shown a degree of inaccuracy, or, to speak more properly, a degree of ignorance, hardly credible. The We will not multiply instances of this scan Traveller was not published till 1765; and it |dalous inaccuracy. It is clear that a writer is a fact as notorious as any in literary his- who, even when warned by the text on which tory that the Vicar of Wakefield, though writ- he is commenting, falls into such mistakes as ten before the Traveller, was published after these, is entitled to no confidence whatever. it. It is a fact which Mr. Croker may find in Mr. Croker has committed an error of four any common life of Goldsmith; in that written years with respect to the publication of Goldby Mr. Chalmers, for example. It is a fact smith's novel; an error of twelve years with which, as Boswell tells us, was distinctly respect to the publication of Gibbon's history; stated by Johnson in a conversation with Sir an error of twenty-one years with respect to Joshua Reynolds. It is therefore quite possi- one of the most remarkable events of John. ble and probable that the celebrated scene of son's life. Two of these three errors he has the landlady, the sheriff's officer, and the bottle committed while ostentatiously displaying his of Madeira, may have taken place in 1765. own accuracy, and correcting what he repreNow Mrs. Thrale expressly says that it was sents as the loose assertions of others. How can near the beginning of her acquaintance with his readers take on trust his statements concernJohnson, in 1765, or at all events not later than ing the births, marriages, divorces, and deaths 1766, that he left her table to succour his friend. of a crowd of people whose names are scarce Her accuracy is therefore completely vindi-ly known to this generation? It is not likely cated. that a person who is ignorant of what almost The very page which contains this mon- everybody knows can know that of which alstrous blunder contains another blunder, if most everybody is ignorant. We did not open possible, more monstrous still. Sir Joseph this book with any wish to find blemishes in Mawbey, a foolish member of Parliament, at it. We have made no curious researches. whose speeches and whose pig-styes the wits The work itself, and a very common knowof Brookes's were fifty years ago in the habit ledge of literary and political history, have en of laughing most unmercifully, stated, on the abled us to detect the mistakes which we have authority of Garrick, that Johnson, while sit- pointed out, and many other mistakes of the ting in a coffee-house at Oxford about the time same kind. We must say, and we say it with of his doctor's degree, used some contemptu-regret, that we do not consider the authority cas expressims respecting Home's play and of Mr. Croker, unsupported by other evidence, * V. 409. † 1. 262. IT 406 III. 336 + V. 409. + IV. 180. III. 205. III. 326. The as sufficient to justify any writer who may fol- | happy term to express the paternal and kindly Low him, in relating a single anecdote, or in assigning a date to a single event. authority of the head of the clan ?" composition of this eminent Latinist, short as it is, contains several words that are just as much Coptic as Latin, to say nothing of the incorrect structure of the sentence. The word Philarchus, even if it were a happy term expressing a paternal and kindly authority, would prove nothing for the minister's Latin, whatever it might prove for his Greek. But it is clear that the word Philarchus means, not a man who rules by love, but a man who loves rule. The Attic writers of the best age use the it. Wouid Mr. Croker translate poscpcs, a man who acquires wisdom by means of love; or cages, a man who makes money by means of love? In fact it requires no Bentley or Ca saubon to perceive that Philarchus is merely a false spelling for Phylarchus, the chief of a tribe. Mr. Croker shows almost as much ignorance and heedlessness in his criticisms as in his statements concerning facts. Dr. Johnson said, very reasonably as it appears to us, that some of the satires of Juvenal are too gross for imitation. Mr. Croker, who, by the way, is angry with Johnson for defending Prior's tales against the charge of indecency, resents this aspersion on Juvenal, and indeed refuses to believe that the doctor can have said any thing so absurd. He probably said-some passages of them-word omgxos in the sense which we assign to for there are none of Juvenal's satires to which the same objection may be made as to one of Horace's, that it is altogether gross and licentious." Surely Mr. Croker can never have read the second and ninth satires of Juvenal. Indeed, the decisions of this editor on points of classical learning, though pronounced in a very authoritative tone, are generally such, that Mr. Croker has favoured us with some if a schoolboy under our care were to utter Greek of his own. "At the altar," says Dr. them, our soul assuredly should not spare for Johnson, “I recommend my S. ø." These let his crying. It is no disgrace to a gentleman, ters," says the editor, “(which Dr. Strahan who has been engaged during nearly thirty seems not to have understood,) probably mean years in political life, that he has forgotten [Smra noi, departed friends."† Johnson was not his Greek and Latin. But he becomes justly a first-rate Greek scholar; but he knew more ridiculous, if, when no longer able to construe Greek than most boys when they leave school; a plain sentence, he affects to sit in judgment and no schoolboy could venture to use the on the most delicate questions of style and word Sara in the sense which Mr. Crcker metre. From one blunder, a blunder which ascribes to it without imminent danger of a no good scholar would have made, Mr. Croker flogging. was saved, as he informs us, by Sir Robert Peel, who quoted a passage exactly in point from Horace. We heartily wish that Sir Robert, whose classical attainments are well known, had been more frequently consulted. Unhappily he was not always at his friend's elbow, and we have therefore a rich abundance of the strangest errors. Boswell has preserved a poor epigram by Johnson, inscribed "Ad Lauram parituram." Mr. Croker censures the poet for applying the word puella to a lady in Laura's situation, and for talking of the beauty of Lucina. "Lucina," he says, "was never famed for her beauty." If Sir Robert Peel had seen this note, he probably would have again refuted Mr. Croker's criticisms by an appeal to Horace. In the secular ode, Lucina is used as one of the names of Diana, and the beauty of Diana is extolled by all the most orthodox doctors of the ancient mythology, from Homer, in his Odyssey, to Claudian, in his Rape of Proserpine. In another ode, Horace describes Diana as the goddess who assists the "laborar.es utero puellas." But we are ashamed to detain our readers with this fourth-form learning. Boswell found, in his tour to the Hebrides, an inscription written by a Scotch minister. It runs tnus: "Joannes Macleod, &c., gentis suæ Philarchus, &c., Flora Macdonald matrimoniali vinculo conjugatus turrem hanc Beganodunensem promvorum habitaculum longe vetustissimum, diu penitus labefactatam, anno æræ vulgaris MDCLXXXVI., instauravit.". "The minister," says Mr. Croker, “seems to have been no contemptible Latinist. Is not Philarchus a very Mr. Croker has also given us a specimen of his skill in translating Latin. Johnson wrote a note in which he consulted his friend, Dr. Lawrence, on the propriety of losing some blood. The note contains these words :-" Si per te licet, imperatur nuncio Holderum ad me deducere." Johnson should rather have writ ten "imperatum est." But the meaning of the words is perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the messenger has orders to bring Holder to me.” Mr. Croker translates the words as follows: "If you consent, pray tell the messenger to bring Holder to me." If Mr. Croker is re solved to write on points of classical learning, we would advise him to begin by giving an hour every morning to our old friend Corde rius. "The Indeed, we cannot open any volume of this work in any place, and turn it over for two minutes in any direction, without lighting on a blunder. Johnson, in his Life of Tickell, stated that the poem entitled "The Royal Pro gress," which appears in the last volume of the Spectator, was written on the accession of George I. The word "arrival" was afterwards substituted for "accession." reader will observe," says Mr. Croker, "that the Whig term accession, which might imply legality, was altered into a statement of the simple fact of King George's arrival."§ Now Johnson, though a bigoted Tory, was not quite such a fool as Mr. Croker here represents him to be. In the Life of Granville, Lord Lansdowne, which stands next to the Life of Tickell, mention is made of the accession of Anne, and of the accession of George I. The |