to any help that I can give, on condition that you make my compliments to Mrs. Garrick. I am, dear Sir, your most, &c.,

MS.

"SAM. JOHNSON."

"MADAM,

JOHNSON TO MISS LANGTON.

"London, April 17, 1771 [2].

"If I could have flattered myself that my letters could have given pleasure, or have alleviated pain, I should not have omitted to write to a lady to whom I do sincerely wish every increase of pleasure, and every mitigation of uneasiness.

"I knew, dear Madam, that a very heavy affliction had fallen upon you; but it was one of those which the established course of nature makes necessary, and to which kind words give no relief. Success is, on these occasions, to be expected only from time.

"Your censure of me, as deficient in friendship, is therefore too severe. I have neither been unfriendly, nor intentionally uncivil. The notice with which you have honoured me, I have neither forgotten, nor remembered without pleasure. The calamity of ill health, your brother will tell you that I have had, since I saw you, sufficient reason to know and to pity. But this is another evil against which we can receive little help from one another. I can only advise you, and I advise you with great earnestness, to do nothing that may hurt you, and to reject nothing that may do you good. To preserve health is a moral and religious duty for health is the basis of all social virtues; we can be useful no longer than while we are well.

'If the family knows that you receive this letter, you will be pleased to make my compliments. I flatter myself with the hopes of seeing Langton after Lady Rothes's recovery; and then I hope that you and I shall renew our conferences, and that I shall find you willing as formerly to talk and to hear; and shall be again admitted to the honour of being, Madam, your most obedient and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON."

Gent. Mag. vol. lxx. p. 915.

JOHNSON'S RESIDENCE AT OXFORD.

"COMPELLED, therefore, by irresistible necessity, he left the College in Autumn 1731, without a degree, having been a member of it little more than three years." (Vol. i. p. 46.)

There is no question that one part of this statement is correct; Johnson left Oxford without a degree. But in the first and subsequent editions of his Boswell, Mr. Croker, on the authority of Dr. Hall, Master of Pembroke (1809-1843), impugned the accuracy of Boswell's information as to the length of Johnson's residence at Pembroke. Instead of having resided there rather more than three years, Croker, supported by Dr. Hall's investigations in the battel books of the College, reduced the length of his residence to the shorter period of fourteen months; from his matriculation, October 31st, 1728, till his departure in Christmas vacation, 1729. This difference has led to a controversy, in which much labour has been expended, and considerable ingenuity displayed, greater, indeed, than the intrinsic importance of the question would seem to warrant.

The general accuracy and precision of Boswell's statements cannot be questioned. In his two books, the Life and the Tour, abounding with facts minutely recorded, it may well excite both our admiration. and wonder that so few of them have been questioned, and fewer still proved to be inaccurate. He seems to have taken particular pains to acquaint himself with the earlier portion of the life of Johnson. With this end in view, he conversed and corresponded with Edmund Hector, the oldest, perhaps, of all Johnson's friends. Thus, in their jaunt, March, 1776, when they paid a visit to Birmingham, Boswell tells us that "from Mr. Hector I now learnt many particulars of Johnson's early life, which with others that he gave me at different times since, have contributed to the formation of this work." (Vol. ii. p. 275.) Is it to be imagined that Boswell forgot his cunning and failed to interrogate Hector on the important point of Johnson's residence at Oxford?

But Taylor could tell him even more: Taylor had been Johnson's schoolfellow at Hunter's; by the advice and recommendation of

Johnson Taylor entered at Christ Church: he matriculated there,' February 24th, 1729: was made a prebendary of Westminster, became rector of Bosworth, and inherited a good estate at Ashbourne in Derbyshire, where, for at least a part of the year, he resided, living as a very prosperous gentleman; there he was frequently visited by Johnson, and on two occasions he entertained Johnson in company with Boswell. There were opportunities then and afterwards for the eager inquiries of Boswell.

But there was another source of information open to Boswell. "The history of my Oxford exploits," Mrs. Piozzi reports him to have said, "lies all between Taylor and Adams.”2

William Adams was born at Shrewsbury, 1707. M.A. and Junior Fellow of the College in 1727, Master of the College 1775. Adams · was present in Jorden's rooms when Johnson, accompanied by his father, made his first appearance at Oxford, and he continued through life a true and affectionate friend of Johnson.

Johnson, accompanied by Boswell, visited Oxford March, 1776, and they together wait on Dr. Adams in the lodge of Pembroke. "Before his advancement to the headship of his College, I had intended to go and visit him at Shrewsbury, where he was rector of St. Chad's, in order to get from him what particulars he could recollect of Johnson's academical life. He now obligingly gave me part of that authentic information which, with what I afterwards owed to his kindness, will be found incorporated in its proper place in this work." (Vol. ii. p. 260.) So that the information, which we find in Boswell's Life, would seem to be imparted by Adams himself.

But not content with prosecuting his inquiries with the friends of Johnson, he carried them on with Johnson himself. Thus, after meeting him at dinner at General Paoli's, Tuesday, March 31st, 1772, Boswell goes on to tell us that, as they drank tea together in his lodgings in Conduit Street, previous to their going to the Pantheon, they talked among other things of Goldsmith's Life of Parnell, which Johnson said was poor, "not that it is poorly written, but that he had poor materials; for nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk with him." Whereupon Boswell, always on the watch to gather materials, said: "If it was not troublesome and presuming too much, I would request him to tell me all the little

1

See Birkbeck Hill's Johnson, his Friends and Critics, Appendix, p. 343. 3 Life, vol. ii. p. 20.

2

Johnsoniana, p. 15.

circumstances of his life; what schools he attended, when he came to Oxford, when he came to London, &c. &c. He did not disapprove my curiosity as to these particulars, but said, 'They'll come out by degrees, as we talk together."" (Vol. ii. p. 20-21.) And as they talked together on Easter Sunday, April 11th, 1773, when Boswell enjoyed the rare honour of dining with him in "the dusky recess of a court in Fleet Street," "I again solicited him to communicate to me the particulars of his early life." He said, "You shall have them all for two pence. . . . He mentioned to me this day many circumstances, which I wrote down when I went home and have interwoven in the former part of this narrative." Now, though Johnson might have resented too close a questioning on the subject of his academical life, for as he himself said, "it is particularly wrong to question a man concerning himself-there may be parts of his former life he may not wish to be made known to other persons, or even brought to his own recollection," yet Boswell would encounter no reticence of this nature in Hector, or Taylor, or Adams. It is possible, indeed, that from his ignorance of English academical life, Boswell may have mistaken what they said; but his statement that Johnson left Pembroke in the Autumn of 1731, would seem built on information which almost amounts to positive evidence, and which remained unchallenged from the publication of the first edition in 1791 down to the time of Mr. Croker's editorship. In his first, and all subsequent editions, Mr. Croker, on the authority of the buttery books of the College, which had been carefully examined by Dr. Hall, the Master, questioned the rather more than three years' residence, and reduced it to fourteen months. It would be idle to dispute the authoritative character of these buttery books. By their evidence, and theirs alone, the College authorities, both then and now, would determine the question of residence, which is the necessary preliminary to proceeding to the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Mr. Fitzgerald, though he carefully examined them, remained constant to Boswell's representation, not considering, as I think, the distinction between a name being borne on the books of the College, and battels being charged consecutively to that name, which alone would prove residence. He has shown that weekly battels were charged to Johnson with regularity from November 1st, 1728, to December 12th, 1729. His name, indeed, remains on the books, and sums of small amount are charged occasionally, at long intervals,

1

Life, vol. ii. p. 64.

2

Life, vol. ii. p. 286.

against him; probably College charges of some kind, but not battels. In October, 1731, the name finally disappears from the books. The Editor cordially sympathizes with Mr. Fitzgerald's loyal belief in the accuracy of Boswell. He has made an excellent fight for it, but those terrible buttery books present evidence which cannot be confuted, and which bears down all opposing statements. Like Mr. Fitzgerald, the Editor had the help of Professor Chandler and Mr. Mowat, the Bursar of the College, in examining their records. He owes much to the kindness of these gentlemen, who, all their courtesy notwithstanding, may well entertain a very pardonable dread of anxious and inquiring editors. Reluctantly, I am obliged to confess, that Boswell was mistaken and Mr. Croker right in his correction of the mistake. The whole question, not very important after all, has been well sifted and clearly stated by Dr. Birkbeck Hill in his excellent volume on "Dr. Johnson, his Friends and his Critics: " London, 1878.

JOHNSON'S PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.

"HE this year and the two following (ie., 1741-2-3) wrote the Parliamentary Debates. He told me himself, that he was the sole composer of them for those three years only. He was not, however, precisely exact in his statement, which he mentioned from hasty recollection; for it is sufficiently evident that his composition of them began Nov. 19, 1740, and ended Feb. 23, 1743."

The sufficient evidence on which Boswell founds his very definite statement was, it may be presumed, the same as that which enabled the editor and publisher of the Debates to specify the first as occurring on the 19th Nov., 1740, and the last on the 23rd Feb., 1743. These are the limits assigned in the first edition, published under the editorship of George Chalmers in the year 1787: a period of two years and three months; and these have been accepted by the different editors of Boswell's "Life," and were first questioned by Mr. Croker. It will be respectful to reproduce here the note which he appended in all his editions to the above statement of Boswell :-" Boswell must mean that the sole and exclusive composition by Johnson

1 Life, vol. i. p. 112.