My purpose was to have made haste to you and Streatham; and who would have expected that I should have been stopped by Lucy? Hearing me give Francis orders to take in places, she told me that I should not go till after next week. I thought it proper to comply; for I was pleased to find that I could please, and proud of showing you that I do not come an universal outcast. Lucy is likewise a very peremptory maiden; and if I had gone without permission, I am not very sure that I might have been welcome at another time."] TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. AT LANGTON. "29th August, 1771. "DEAR SIR,-I am lately returned from Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The last letter mentions two others which you have written to me since you received my pamphlet. Of these two I never had but one, in which you mentioned a design of visiting Scotland, and, by consequence, put my journey to Langton out of my thoughts. My summer wanderings are now over, and I am engaging in a very great work, the revision of my Dictionary; from which I know not, at present, how to get loose. "If you have observed, or been told, any errours or omissions, you will do me a great favour by letting me know them. "Lady Rothes, I find, has disappointed you and herself. Ladies will have these tricks. The queen and Mrs. Thrale, both ladies of experience, yet both missed their reckoning this summer. I hope, a few months will recompense your uneasiness. "Please to tell Lady Rothes how highly I value the honour of her invitation, which it is my purpose to obey as soon as I have disengaged myself. In the mean time I shall hope to hear often of her ladyship, and every day better news and better, till I hear that you have both the happiness, which to both is very sincerely wished by, sir, your most affectionate and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." lose his wife, and wished Johnson, from the outlines of her character, which he should give him, and his own knowledge of her worth, to compose a monumental inscription for her: he returned the husband thanks for the confidence he placed in him, and acquitted himself of the task in a fine eulogium, now to be seen in the parish church of Watford in Hertfordshire.] In his religious record of this year we observe that he was better than usual, both in body and mind, and better satisfied with the regularity of his conduct. But he is still "trying his ways" too rigorously. He charges himself with not rising early enough; yet he mentions what was surely a sufficient excuse for this, supposing it to be a duty seriously required, as he all his life appears to have thought it. "One great hinderance is want of rest; my nocturnal complaints grow less troublesome towards morning; and I am tempted to repair the deficiencies of the night." Alas! how hard would it be, if this indulgence were to be imputed to a sick man as a crime. In his retrospect on the following Easter-eve, he says: When I review the last year, I am able to recollect so little done, that shame and sorrow, though perhaps too weakly, come upon me." Had he been judging of any one else in the same circumstances, how clear would he have been on the favourable side. How very difficult, and in my opinion almost constitutionally impossible it was for him to be raised early, even by the strongest resolutions, appears from a note in one of his little paper books (containing words arranged for his Dictionary), written, I suppose, about 1753: "I do not remember that, since I left Oxford, I ever rose early by mere choice, but once or twice at Edial, and two or three times for the Rambler'." I think he had fair ground enough to have quieted his mind on the subject, by concluding that he was physically incapable of what is at best but a commodious regulation. In 1772 he was altogether quiescent as an authour; but it will be found, from the various evidences which I shall bring together, that his mind was acute, lively, and vigorous. "I am coming to London soon, and am to appear in an appeal from the court of session in the house of lords. A schoolmaster in Scotland was, by a court of inferior jurisdiction, deprived of his office, for being somewhat severe in the chastisement of his scholars. The court of session considering it to be dangerous to the interest of learning and education, to lessen the dignity of teachers, and make them afraid of too indulgent parents, instigated by the complaints of their children, restored him. His enemies have appealed to the house of lords, though the salary is only twenty pounds a year. I was counsel for him here. I hope there will be little fear of a reversal; but I must beg to have your aid in my plan of supporting the decree. It is a general question, and not a point of particular law. "I am, &c. "JAMES BOSWELL." DR. JOHNSON TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "15th March, 1772. "DEAR SIR,-That you are coming so soon to town I am very glad; and still more glad that you are coming as an advocate. I think nothing more likely to make your life pass happily away, than that consciousness of your own value, which eminence in your profession will certainly confer. If I can give you any collateral help, I hope you do not suspect that it will be wanting. My kindness for you has neither the merit of singular virtue, nor the reproach of singular prejudice. Whether to love you be right or wrong, I have many on my side: Mrs. Thrale loves you, and Mrs. Williams loves you, and what would have inclined me to love you, if I had been neutral before, you are a great favourite of Dr. Beattie. "Of Dr. Beattie I should have thought much, but that his lady puts him out of my head; she is a very lovely woman. "The ejection which you come hither to oppose, appears very cruel, unreasonable, and oppressive. I should think there could not be much doubt of your success. am, "My health grows better, yet I not fully recovered. I believe it is held that men do not recover very fast after three-score. I hope yet to see Beattie's college: and have not given up the western voyage. But however all this may be or not, let us try to make each other happy when we meet, and not refer our pleasure to distant times or distant places. "How comes it that you tell me nothing of your lady? I hope to see her some time, and till then shall be glad to hear of her. I am, dear sir, &c. "DR. JOHNSON TO "SAM. JOHNSON." BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. AT LANGTON. "14th March, 1772. "DEAR SIR,-I congratulate you and Lady Rothes on your little man, and hope you will all be many years happy together. "Poor Miss Langton can have little part in the joy of her family. She this day called her aunt Langton to receive the sacrament with her; and made me talk yesterday on such subjects as suit her condition. It will probably be her viaticum. I surely need not mention again that she wishes to see her mother. I am, sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." On the 21st of March, I was happy to find myself again in my friend's study, and was glad to see my old acquaintance, Mr. Francis Barber, who has now returned 1 Thus translated by a friend:"In fame scarce second to the nurse of Jove, This goat, who twice the world had traversed round, home. Dr. Johnson received me with a Deserving both her master's care and love, Ease and perpetual pasture now has found." [Neither the original nor the translation will add much to the poetical fame of Mr. Boswell's friends. The Latin seems particularly stiff and poor-ED.] hearty welcome; saying, "I am glad you are come, and glad you are come upon such an errand:" (alluding to the cause of the schoolmaster.) BoSWELL. "I hope, sir, he will be in no danger. It is a very deli cate matter to interfere between a master | Banks and Dr. Solander, Dr. Johnson askand his scholars: nor do I see how you can fix the degree of severity that a master may use." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, till you can fix the degree of obstinacy and negligence of the scholars, you cannot fix the degree of severity of the master. Severity must be continued until obstinacy be subdued, and negligence be cured." He mentioned the severity of Hunter, his own master. "Sir (said I), Hunter is a Scotch name: so it should seem this schoolmaster who beat you so severely was a Scotchman. I can now account for your prejudice against the Scotch." JOHNSON. Sir, he was not Scotch; and, abating his brutality, he was a very good master." ed what were the names of the ships destined for the expedition 3. The gentleman answered, they were once to be called the Drake and the Ralegh, but now they were to to be called the Resolution and the Adventure. JOHNSON. "Much better; for had the Ralegh returned without going round the world, it would have been ridicu lous. To give them the names of the Drake and the Ralegh was laying a trap for satire." BosWELL. "Had you not some desire to go upon this expedition, sir?" JOHNSON. " Why, yes, but I soon laid it aside. Sir, there is very little of intellectual, in the course. Besides, I see but at a small distance. So it was not worth my while to go to see birds fly, which I should not have seen fly; and fishes swim, which I should not have seen swim." We talked of his two political pamphlets, "The False Alarm," and "Thoughts concerning Falkland's Islands." JOHNSON. "Well, sir, which of them did you think The gentleman being gone, and Dr. the best?" BOSWELL. "I liked the sec-Johnson having left the room for some time, ond best." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, I a debate arose between the Reverend Mr. liked the first best; and Beattie liked the Stockdale and Mrs. Desmoulins, whether first best. Sir, there is a subtlety of disqui- | Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander were entitled sition in the first, that is worth all the fire to any share of glory from their expedition. of the second." BOSWELL. "Pray, sir, When Dr. Johnson returned to us, I told is it true that Lord North paid you a visit, him the subject of their dispute. JOHNSON. and that you got two hundred a year in "Why, sir, it was probably for botany that addition to your pension?" JOHNSON. they went out: I believe they thought only "No, sir. Except what I had from the of culling of simples." bookseller, I did not get a farthing by them. And between you and me, I believe Lord North is no friend to me." BOSWELL. "How so, sir?" JOHNSON. "Why, sir, you cannot account for the fancies of men. Well, how does Lord Elibank? and how does Lord Monboddo?” BOSWELL. "Very well, sir. Lord Monboddo? still maintains the superiority of the savage life." JOHNSON. "What strange narrowness of mind now is that, to think the things we have not known are better than the things which we have known." BOSWELL. 66 Why, sir, that is a common prejudice." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, but a common prejudice should not be found in one whose trade it is to rectify errour." A gentleman having come in who was to go as a mate in the ship along with Mr. 1 [See ante, p. 275.—ED.] 2 [James Burnet, born in 1714, called to the Scottish bar in 1738, and advanced to be a lord of session, by the title of Lord Monboddo, in 1767, was, in private life, as well as in his literary career, a humorist; the learning and acute ness of his various works are obscured by his love of singularity and paradox. He died in 1799.-ED. He was a devout believer in the virtues of the heroic ages and the deterioration of civilized mankind; a great contemner of luxuries, insomuch that he never used a wheel-carriage. It should be added that he was a gentleman of the most amiable disposition, and the strictest honour and integrity.-WALTER SCOTT.] I thanked him for showing civilities to Beattie. "Sir (said he), I should thank you. We all love Beattie. Mrs. Thrale says, if ever she has another husband, she'll have Beattie. He sunk upon us that 3 [There was no person in the capacity of mate in either of these ships. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander did not go with this expedition. The reason which they alleged for abandoning the intention will be found in the Annual Register for 1772, p. 108.-ED.] 4 "TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "Edinburgh, 3d May, 1792. "MY DEAR SIR,-As I suppose your great work will soon be reprinted, I beg leave to trouble you with a remark on a passage of it, in which I am a little misrepresented. Be not alarmed; the misrepresentation is not imputable to you. Not having the book at hand, I cannot specify the page, but I suppose you will easily find it. Dr. Johnson says, speaking of Mrs. Thrale's family, Dr. Beattie sunk upon us that he was married, or words to that purpose.' I am not sure that I understand sunk upon us, which is a very uncommon phrase: but it seems to me to imply (and others, I find, have understood it in the same sense), studiously concealed from us his being married. Now, sir, this was by no means the case. I could have no motive to conceal a circumstance of which I never was nor can be ashamed; and of which Dr. Johnson seemed to think, when he afterwards became acquainted. with Mrs. Beattie, that I had, as was true, reason to be proud. So far was I from con he was married; else we should have shown | contending parties, and other disadvantahis lady more civilities. She is a very fine ges. It is enough to allow the people to rewoman. But how can you show civilities monstrate against the nomination of a minto a nonentity? I did not think he had ister for solid reasons." (I suppose he been married. Nay, I did not think about meant heresy or immorality.) it one way or other; but he did not tell us of his lady till late." He then spoke of St. Kilda, the most remote of the Hebrides. I told him, I thought of buying it. JOHNSON. "Pray do, sir. We will go and pass a winter amid the blasts there. We shall have fine fish, and we will take some dried tongues with us, and some books. We will have a strong built vessel, and some Orkney men to navigate her. We must build a tolerable house: but we may carry with us a wooden house ready made, and requiring nothing but to be put up. Consider, sir, by buying St. Kilda, you may keep the people from falling into worse hands. We must give them a clergyman, and he shall be one of Beattie's choosing. He shall be educated at Marischal College. I'll be your lord chancellor, or what you please." BOSWELL. "Are you serious, sir, in advising me to buy St. Kilda? for if you should advise me to go to Japan, I believe I should do it." JOHNSON. 'Why, yes, sir, I am serious." BOSWELL. "Why then I'll see what can be done." I gave him an account of the two parties in the church of Scotland, those for supporting the rights of patrons, independent of the people, and those against it. JOHNSON. "It should be settled one way or other. I cannot wish well to a popular election of the clergy, when I consider that it occasions such animosities, such unworthy courting of the people, such slanders between the cealing her, that my wife had at that time almost as numerous an acquaintance in London as I had myself; and was, not very long after, kindly invited and elegantly entertained at Streatham by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale. "My request, therefore, is, that you would rectify this matter in your new edition. You are at liberty to make what use you please of this letter. My best wishes ever attend you and your family. Believe me to be, with the utmost regard and esteem, dear sir, your obliged and affectionate humble servant, "J. BEATTIE." I have, from my respect for my friend Dr. Beattie, and regard to his extreme sensibility, inserted the foregoing letter, though I cannot but wonder at his considering as any imputation a phrase commonly used among the best friends. -BOSWELL. [Dr. Beattie was, perhaps, the more sensitive on this point as he must have been, at the time he wrote, conscious that there was something that might give a colour to such an imputation. It became known, shortly after the date of this letter, that the mind of poor Mrs. Beattie had become deranged, and she passed the last years of her life in confinement.-See Life of Beattie, by Sir W. Forbes.-ED.] 36 VOL. I. He was engaged to dine abroad, and asked me to return to him in the evening, at nine, which I accordingly did. We drank tea with Mrs. Williams, who told us a story of second sight, which happened in Wales, where she was born. He listened to it very attentively, and said he should be glad to have some instances of that faculty well authenticated. His elevated wish for more and more evidence for spirit, in opposition to the grovelling belief of materialism, led him to a love of such mysterious disquisitions. He again justly observed, that we could have no certainty of the truth of supernatural appearances, unless something was told us which we could not know by ordinary means, or something done which could not be done but by supernatural power1: that Pharaoh in reason and justice required such evidence from Moses; nay, that our Saviour said, "If I had not done among them the works which none Other man did, they had not had sin." He had said in the morning, that " Macaulay's History of St. Kilda " was very well written, except some foppery about liberty and slavery. I mentioned to him that Macaulay told me, he was advised to leave out of his book the wonderful story that upon the approach of a stranger all the inhabitants catch cold 2; but that it had been so well authenticated, he determined to retain it. JOHNSON. "Sir, to leave things out of a book, merely because people tell you they will not be believed, is meanness. Macaulay acted with more magnanimity." We talked of the Roman Catholick reli [This is the true distinction; and if Johnson had on all occasions abided by this text, he would have escaped the ridicule and regret which he often occasioned by the appearance, if not the reality, of superstitious credulity. When he said, "that all ages and all nations believe" in these supernatural manifestations (ante, p. 149); and again," that they are so frequent, that they cannot be called fortuitous" (ante, p. 228), he should have given us the instances in which any thing was clearly and undoubtedly done, which could only have been done by supernatural power. Appearances, without supernatural facts, are nothing: they may be dreams, or disease. Every one sees visions in his sleep, and every body knows that the sick see them in their paroxysms; and there are some cases (such as that of Nicolai, the Berlin bookseller), in which persons, awake and not otherwise disordered in mind, have "thick-coming fancies," and see what, if real, would be supernatural; but where, we must again ask, is there in the profane history of the world, one well attested supernatural fact?-ED.] 2 [See ante, p. 246.—ED.] I mentioned the motion which had been made in the house of commons, to abolish the fast of the 30th of January 2. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, I could have wished that it had been a temporary act, perhaps to have expired with the century. I am against abolishing it; because that would be declaring it wrong to establish it; but I should have no objection to make an act, continuing it for another century, and then letting it expire." gion, and how little difference there was in | scribe the Bible; for the Mahometans ac essential matters between ours and it. knowledge Jesus Christ, as well as Moses, JOHNSON. "True, sir; all denominations but maintain that God sent Mahomet as a of christians have really little difference in still greater prophet than either." point of doctrine, though they may differ widely in external forms. There is a prodigious difference between the external form of one of your presbyterian churches of Scotland, and the church in Italy; yet the doctrine taught is essentially the same." I mentioned the petition to parliament for removing the subscription to the thirtynine articles 1. JOHNSON. "It was soon thrown out. Sir, they talk of not making boys at the university subscribe to what they do not understand; but they ought to consider, that our universities were founded to bring up members for the church of England, and we must not supply our enemies with arms for our arsenal. No, sir, the meaning of subscribing is, not that they fully understand all the articles, but that they will adhere to the church of England. Now take it in this way, and suppose that they should only subscribe their adherence to the church of England, there would be still the same difficulty; for still the young men would be subscribing to what they do not understand. For if you should ask them, what do you mean by the church of England? Do you know in what it differs from the presbyterian church? from the Romish church? from the Greek church? from the Coptick church? they could not tell you. So, sir, it comes to the same thing." BOSWELL. "But, would it not be sufficient to subscribe the Bible?" JOHNSON. "Why, no, sir; for all sects will subscribe the Bible; nay, the Mahometans will sub [This was a petition drawn up by Mr. Francis Blackburn, who, though an archdeacon of the church of England, had published several works against her discipline and peculiar doctrines; the petition was presented on the 6th of February; and after an animated debate, rejected (not being even allowed to lie on the table) by 217 voices against 71. Mr. Gibbon thus notices this debate, in a letter to Lord Sheffield: "I congratulate you on the late victory of our dear mamma, the church of England. She had, last Thursday (6th February), seventy-one rebellious sons, who pretended to set aside her wall, on account of insanity, but two hundred and seventeen worthy champions, headed by Lord North, Burke, Hans Stanley, Charles Fox, Godfrey Clarke, &c. supported the validity of it with infinite humour. By the by, Charles Fox prepared himself for that holy war, by passing twenty-two hours in the pious exercise of hazard; his devotion only cost him 500l. per hour, in all 11,000l." Misc. Works, vol. ii. p. 74. The argument which seemed to make most effect in the house, was against requiring subscription from every youth entering the university, of whatever age, or intended for whatever profession. To this point Johnson's observation particularly alludes.-ED.] He disapproved of the royal marriage bill; "Because," said he, "I would not have the people think that the validity of marriage depends on the will of man, or that the right of a king depends on the will of man. I should not have been against making the marriage of any of the royal family, without the approbation of king and parliament, highly criminal 3." In the morning we had talked of old families, and the respect due to them. JOHNSON. "Sir, you have a right to that kind of respect, and are arguing for yourself. I am for supporting the principle, and am disinterested in doing it, as I have no such right." BOSWELL. 'Why, sir, it is one more incitement to a man to do well." JOHNSON. "Yes, sir, and it is a matter of opinion very necessary to keep society together. What is it but opinion, by which we have a respect for authority, that prevents us, who are the rabble, from rising up and pulling down you who are gentlemen from your places, and saying, 'We will be gentlemen in our turn? Now, sir, that respect for authority is much more easily granted to a man whose father has had it, than to an upstart, and so society is more 2 [Doctor Nowell had preached, as usual, before the house on the 30th of Jan. and had been thanked for his sermon. Some days afterwards, Mr. Thos. Townshend complained of certain unconstitutional passages in the sermon; and on the 21st Feb. after a debate, the thanks were ordered to be expunged from the journals; and on the 2d March, Mr. Fred. Montague moved for leave to bring in a bill to repeal the observance of that day altogether. This motion was rejected by 125 to 97.-ED.] 3 [It is not very easy to understand Dr. Johnson's objection as above stated. Does not the validity of all marriages depend on the will of man," that is, are there not in all civilized nations certain legal formulæ and conditions requisite to constitute a marriage? If all human institutions are to be disregarded, what is marriage? And as to the indefeasible rights of kings, see Johnson's opinions, ante, pp. 192, 195; and finally, if it be competent to the legislature to make an act highly criminal, does not that imply a competency to forbid it altogether ?—-ED.] |