[On the other side.] 'Jan. 20, 1759. 'DEAR HONOURED MOTHER,'-Neither your condition nor your character make it fit for me to say much. You have been the best mother, and I believe the best woman, in the world. I thank you for your indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have done ill, and all that I have omitted to do well. God grant you his Holy Spirit, and receive you to everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Lord Jesus receive your spirit. Amen.-I am, dear, dear mother, your dutiful son, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' TO MISS PORTER, IN LICHField. 'Jan. 23, 1759.3 'You will conceive my sorrow for the loss of my mother, of the best mother. If she were to live again, surely I should behave better to her. But she is happy, and what is past is nothin to her; and for me, since I cannot repair my faults to her, I hope repentance will efface them. I return you and all those that have been good to her my sincerest thanks, and pray God to repay you all with infinite advantage. Write to me, and comfort me, dear child. I shall be glad likewise, if Kitty will write to I shall send a bill of twenty pounds in a few days, which I thought to have brought to my mother; but God suffered it not. I have not power or composure to say much more. God bless you, and bless us all.—I am, dear Miss, your affectionate humble servant, me. 'SAM. JOHNSON.' Soon after this event he wrote his Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia [*]; concerning the publication of which Sir John Hawkins guesses vaguely and idly, instead of having taken the trouble to inform himself with authentic precision. Not to trouble my readers with a repetition of the Knight's reveries, I have to mention that the late Mr Strahan, the printer, told me that Johnson wrote it, that with the profits he might defray the expense of his mother's funeral, and pay some little debts which she had left. He told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he composed it in the evenings of This letter was written on the second leaf of the preceding, addressed to Miss Porter.-MALONE. 2 So, in the prayer which he composed on this occasion: Almighty God, merciful Father, in whose hands are life and death, sanctify unto me the sorrow which I now feel. Forgive me whatever I have done unkindly to my mother, and whatever I have omitted to do kindly. Make me to remember her good precepts and good example, and to reform my life according to thy holy word,' etc.-Prayers and Meditations, p. 31.-MALONE. 3 Mrs. Johnson probably died on the 20th or 21st of January, and was buried on the day this letter was written.-MALONE. one week, sent it to the press in portions as it was written, and had never since read it over.2 Mr. Strahan, Mr. Johnston, and Mr. Dodsley purchased it for a hundred pounds, but afterwards paid him twenty-five pounds more when it came to a second edition. Considering the large sums which have been received for compilations, and works requiring not much more genius than compilations, we cannot but wonder at the very low price which he was content to receive for this admirable performance; which, though he had written nothing else, would have rendered his name immortal in the world of literature. None of his writings have been so extensively diffused over Europe; for it has been translated into most, if not all, of the modern languages. This tale, with all the charms of oriental imagery, and all the force and beauty of which the English language is capable, leads us through the most important scenes of human life, and shows us that this stage of our being is full of vanity and vexation of spirit.' To those who look no further than the present life, or who maintain that human nature has not fallen from the state in which it was created, the instruction of this sublime story will be of no avail. But they who think justly, and feel with strong sensibility, will listen with eagerness and admiration to its truth and wisdom. Voltaire's Candide, written to refute the system of Optimism, which it has accomplished with brilliant success, is wonderfully similar in its plan and conduct to Johnson's Rasselas; insomuch that I have heard Johnson say, that if they had not been published so closely one after the other that there was not time for imitation, it would have been in vain to deny that the scheme of that which came latest was taken from the other. Though the proposition illustrated by both these works was the same,-namely, that in our present state there is more evil than good,-the intention of the writers was very different. Voltaire, I am afraid, meant only by wanton profaneness to obtain a sportive victory over religion, and to discredit the belief of a superintending Providence. Johnson meant, by showing the unsatisfactory nature of things temporal, to direct the hopes of man to things eternal. Rasselas, as was observed to me by a very accomplished lady, may be considered as a more enlarged and more deeply philosophical discourse in prose, upon the interesting truth, which in his Vanity of Human Wishes he had so successfully enforced in verse. The fund of thinking which this work contains is such, that almost every sentence of it 1 Rasselas was published in March or April 1759. -BOSWELL. 2 See under June 2, 1781. Finding it then accidentally in a chaise with Mr. Boswell, he read it eagerly. This was doubtless long after his declaration to Sir Joshua Reynolds.-MALONE. may furnish a subject of long meditation. I am not satisfied if a year passes without my having read it through; and at every perusal, my admiration of the mind which produced it is so highly raised, that I can scarcely believe that I had the honour of enjoying the intimacy of such a man. I restrain myself from quoting passages from this excellent work, or even referring to them, because I should not know what to select, or rather what to omit. I shall, however, transcribe one, as it shows how well he could state the arguments of those who believe in the appearance of departed spirits: a doctrine which it is a mistake to suppose that he himself ever positively held : : 'If all your fear be of apparitions,' said the Prince, I will promise you safety: there is no danger from the dead; he that is once buried will be seen no more." But if we walk with hope in the mid-day sun' is in many respects more than poetically just. The effect of Rasselas, and of Johnson's other moral tales, is thus beautifully illustrated by Mr. Courtenay : 'That the dead are seen no more,' said Imlac,Impressive truth, in splendid fiction drest, Checks the vain wish, and calms the troubled breast: It will be recollected that during all this year he carried on his Idler, and no doubt Notwithstanding my high admiration of Rasselas, I will not maintain that the 'morbid melancholy' in Johnson's constitution may not, perhaps, have made life appear to him more insipid and unhappy than it generally is; for I am sure that he had less enjoyment from it than I have. Yet, whatever additional shade his own particular sensations may have thrown on his representation of life, attentive observation and close inquiry have convinced me that there is too much reality in the gloomy picture. The truth, however, is, that we judge of the happiness and misery of life differently at different times, according to the state of our changeable frame. I always remember a remark made to me by a Turkish lady, educated in France; Ma foi, Monsieur, notre bonheur dépend de la façon que notre sang circule. This have I learnt from a pretty hard course of experience, and would, from sincere benevolence, impress upon all who honour this book with a perusal, that until a steady conviction is obtained that the present life is an imperfect state, and only a passage to a better, if we comply with the divine scheme of progressive improvement; and also that it is a part of the mysterious plan of Providence, that intellectual beings must be made perfect through suffering;' there will be a continual recurrence of disappointment and uneasiness. 1 Literary and Moral Character of Johnson.--Bos WELL. 2 This paper was in such high estimation before it was collected into volumes, that it was seized on with avidity by various publishers of newspapers and magazines to enrich their publications. Johnson, to put a stop to this unfair proceeding, wrote for the Universal Chronicle the following advertisement; in which there is, perhaps, more pomp of words than the occasion demanded: 'London, Jan. 5, 1759. ADVERTISEMENT. The pro prictors of the paper entitled the Idler, having found that those essays are inserted in the newspapers and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, that the Universal Chronicle, in which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to the publishers of those collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure, them no longer. They have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, transferred with the most shameless rapacity into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shown. The past is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are henceforward to take notice that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble G was proceeding, though slowly, in his edition of Shakspeare. He, however, from that liberality which never failed, when called upon to assist other labourers in literature, found time to translate for Mrs. Lenox's English version of Brumoy, 'A Dissertation on the Greek Comedy' [+], and 'The General Conclusion of the Book' [+]. An inquiry into the state of foreign countries was an object that seems at all times to have interested Johnson. Hence Mr. Newbery found no great difficulty in persuading him to write the Introduction [*] to a collection of voyages and travels published by him under the title of The World Displayed, the first volume of which appeared this year, and the remaining volumes in subsequent years. I would ascribe to this year the following letter to a son of one of his early friends at Lichfield, Mr. Joseph Simpson, barrister, and author of a tract entitled Reflections on the Study of the Law: 'TO JOSEPH SIMPSON, ESQ. "DEAR SIR,-Your father's inexorability not only grieves but amazes me : he is your father; he was always accounted a wise man ; nor do I remember anything to the disadvantage of his good nature; but in his refusal to assist you there is neither good nature, fatherhood, nor wisdom. It is the practice of good nature to overlook faults which have already, by the consequences, punished the delinquent. It is natural for a father to think more favourably than others of his children; and it is always wise to give assistance, while a little help will prevent the necessity of greater. 'If you married imprudently, you miscarried at your own hazard, at an age when you had a right of choice. It would be hard if the man might not choose his own wife, who has a right to plead before the judges of his country. 'If your imprudence has ended in difficulties and inconveniences, you are yourself to support them; and, with the help of a little better health, you would support them and conquer them. Surely, that want which accident and sickness produces is to be supported in every region of humanity, though there were neither friends nor fathers in the world. You have certainly from your father the highest claim of charity, though none of right; and therefore I would counsel you to omit no decent nor manly degree of importunity. Your debts in the whole are not large, and of the whole but a small part is troublesome. Small debts are like small shot; price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much better of money got by punishment than by crimes. We shall therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to the Magdalens; for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet appears neither penitence nor shame.'-Boswell. they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger. You must therefore be enabled to discharge petty debts, that you may have leisure with security to struggle with the rest. Neither the great nor little debts disgrace you. I am sure you have my esteem for the courage with which you contracted them, and the spirit with which you endure them. I wish my esteem could be of more use. I have been invited, or have invited myself, to several parts of the kingdom; and will not incommode my dear Lucy by coming to Lichfield, while her present lodging is of any use to her. I hope, in a few days, to be at leisure and to make visits. Whither I shall fly is matter of no importance. A man unconnected is at home everywhere, unless he may be said to be at home nowhere. I am sorry, dear sir, that where you have parents, a man of your merits should not have a home. I wish I could give it you. I am, my dear sir, affectionately yours, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' He now refreshed himself by an excursion to Oxford, of which the following short characteristical notice, in his own words, is preserved :— - is now making tea for me. I have been in my gown ever since I came here. It was at my first coming quite new and handsome. I have swum thrice, which I had disused for many years. I have proposed to Vansittart1 climbing over the wall, but he has refused me. And I have clapped my hands till they are sore at Dr. King's speech.'2 His negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been some time at sea, not pressed, as has been supposed, but with his own consent, it appears, from a letter to John Wilkes, Esq., rested himself in procuring his release from a from Dr. Smollett, that his master kindly intestate of life of which Johnson always expressed be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get the utmost abhorrence. He said, 'No man will himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.'* And at another time, 'A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better comThe letter was as follows:pany.' Johnson. His black servant, whose name is Francis Barber, has been pressed on board the Stag frigate, Captain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great distress. He says the boy is a sickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly subject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his Majesty's service. You know what matter of animosity the said Johnson has against you; and I dare say you desire no other opportunity of resenting it, than that of laying him under an obligation. He was humble enough to desire my assistance on this occasion, though he and I were never catercousins; and I gave him to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes, who, perhaps, by his interest with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be superfluous to say more on the subject, which I leave to your own consideration; but I cannot let slip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, dear sir, your affectionate, obliged humble servant, 'T. SMOLLETT.' Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occasions has acted as a private gentleman with most polite liberality, applied to his friend Sir George Hay, then one of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty; and Francis Barber was discharged, as he has told me, without any wish of his own. He found his old master in chambers in the Inner Temple, and returned to his service, What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view this year, I have not discovered; but that he meditated one of some sort, is clear from his private devotions, in which we find [Pr. and Med. pp. 30 and 40], 'the change of outward things which I am now to make;' and, 'Grant me the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that the course which I am now beginning may proceed according to thy laws, and end in the enjoyment of thy favour.' But he did not, in fact, make any external or visible change.1 let me propitiate the manes of that ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUM was certainly a mistaken reading for CHAM, the title of the sovereign of Tartary, which is well applied to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature, and was an epithet familiar to Smollett. See Roderick Random, c. 56. For this correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquirements accord well with his respectable pedigree of Temple.-BOSWELL, After the publication of the second edition of this work, the author was furnished by Mr. Abercrombie of Philadelphia with a copy of a letter written by Dr. John Armstrong, the poet, to Dr. Smollett, at Leghorn, containing the following paragraph : 'As to the King's Bench patriot, it is hard to say from what motive he published a letter of yours asking some trifling favour of him in behalf of somebody for whom the great CHAM of literature, Mr. Johnson, had interested himself.'-MALONE. 1 It would appear, from a note of his to Miss Porter, that Johnson, on the 23d of March of this year (1759), At this time, there being a competition among the architects of London to be employed in the building of Blackfriars Bridge, a question was very warmly agitated, whether semicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the design offered by Mr. Mylne the elliptical form was adopted, and therefore it was the great object of his rivals to attack it. Johnson's regard for his friend Mr. Gwyn induced him to engage in this controversy against Mr. Mylne; and after left his house in Gough Square, and went to reside in Staple Inn. Miss Williams took separate lodgings. It will appear from the list of Johnson's residences, subsequently given, that he removed from Staple Inn to Gray's Inn. 1 Sir John Hawkins has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and adjusted by nature-masculine and feminine-in a man sesqui Το octave of the head, and in a woman sesquinonal;' nor has he failed to introduce a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to correspond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. follow the knight through all this would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, only make a few remarks upon his statement. He seems to exult in having detected Johnson in procuring from a person eminently skilled in mathematics and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches.' Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have acted more wisely. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the semicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little versed in mixed and practical mechanics. Mr. Muller of Woolwich Academy, the scholastic father of all the great engineers which this country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly in favour of the elliptical arch. It is ungraciously suggested that Johnson's motive for opposing Mr. Mylne's scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North Britain; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend who was one of the candidates; and so far was he from having any illiberal antipathy. to Mr. Mylne, that he afterwards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars Bridge, calling it 'an edifice in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated their own disgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners.' Whoever has contemplated, placido lumine, this stately, elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an effect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, must wonder at such unjust and ill-tempered censure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good taste, whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of London. As to the stability of the fabric, it is certain that the City of London took every precaution to have the best Portland stone for it; but as this is to be found in the being at considerable pains to study the subject, he wrote three several letters in the Gazetteer in opposition to his plan. If it should be remarked that this was a controversy which lay quite out of Johnson's way, let it be remembered that, after all, his employing his powers of reasoning and eloquence upon a subject which he had studied on the moment, is not more strange than what we often observe in lawyers, who, as Quicquid agunt homines is the matter of lawsuits, are sometimes obliged to pick up a temporary knowledge of an art or science of which they understood nothing till their brief was delivered, and appear to be much masters of it. In like manner, members of the Legislature frequently introduce and expatiate upon subjects of which they have informed themselves for the occasion. CHAPTER XIII. 1760-1763. In 1760 Johnson wrote An Address of the Painters to George III. on his Accession to the Throne of these Kingdoms [+], which no monarch ever ascended with more sincere congratulations from his people. Two generations of foreign princes had prepared their minds to rejoice in having again a king who gloried in being born a Briton.' He also wrote, for Mr. Baretti, the Dedication [+] of his Italian and English Dic tionary, to the Marquis of Abreu, then EnvoyExtraordinary from Spain at the Court of Great Britain. It has now been fashionable for near half a century to defame and vilify the house of Stuart, and to exalt and magnify the reign of Elizabeth. The Stuarts have found few apologists, for the dead cannot pay for praise; and who will, without reward, oppose the tide of popularity? quarries belonging to the public, under the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, it so happened that parliamentary interest, which is often the bane of fair pursuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, it is well known that not only has Blackfriars Bridge never sunk either in its foundation or in its arches, which were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of severe frosts have been already, in some measure, repaired with sounder stone, and every necessary renewal can be completed at a moderate expense.-BOSWELL Yet there remains still among us, not wholly extinguished, a zeal for truth, a desire of establishing right in opposition to fashion.' In this year I have not discovered a single private letter written by him to any of his friends. It should seem, however, that he had at this period a floating intention of writing a history of the recent and wonderful successes of the British arms in all quarters of the globe; for among his resolutions or memorandums, September 18, there is, 'Send for books for Hist. of War.' How much is it to be regretted that this intention was not fulfilled! His majestic expression would have carried down to the latest posterity the glorious achievements of his country, with the same fervent glow which they produced on the mind at the time. He would have been under no temptation to deviate in any degree from truth, which he held very sacred, or to take a licence, which a learned divine told me he once seemed, in a conversation, jocularly to allow to historians. 'There are,' said he, 'inexcusable lies and consecrated lies. For instance, we are told that on the arrival of the news of the unfortunate battle of Fontenoy, every heart beat, and every eye was in tears. Now we know that no man ate his dinner the worse, but there should have been all this concern; and to say there was (smiling), may be reckoned a consecrated lie." This year Mr. Murphy, having thought himself ill-treated by the Rev. Dr. Franklin, who was one of the writers of the Critical Review, published an indignant vindication in A Poeti cal Epistle to Samuel Johnson, A.M., in which he compliments Johnson in a just and elegant manner : "Transcendent Genius! whose prolific vein Say, powerful JOHNSON, whence thy verse is fraught Thou, then, my friend, who see'st the dangerous strife In each bright page some truth important give, 1 Prayers and Meditations, p. 42.-BOSWELL 2 He translated Sophocles and Lucian. |