'TO MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON. [No date.] 'DEAR SIR,-I cannot but confess the failures of my correspondence, but hope the same regard which you express for me on every other occasion will incline you to forgive me. I am often, very often, ill; and when I am well, am obliged to work: and, indeed, have never much used myself to punctuality. You are, however, not to make unkind inferences, when I forbear to reply to your kindness; for be assured, I never receive a letter from you without great pleasure, and a very warm sense of your generosity and friendship, which I heartily blame myself for not cultivating with more care. In this, as in many other cases, I go wrong, in opposition to conviction; for I think scarce any temporal good equally to be desired with the regard and familiarity of worthy men. I hope we shall be some time nearer to each other, and have a more ready way of pouring out our hearts. must soon lose, unless it please God that she should rather mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs. Strahan, and think I do myself honour, when I tell you that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to you nor to me of any further use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard, and excite, and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life and of her death: a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a death resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention that neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope that you may increase her happiness by obeying her precepts; and that she may, in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her instructions or example have contributed. Whether this be more than a pleasing dream or a just opinion of separate spirits, is indeed of no great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the eye of God; yet surely there is something those whom we love is merely corporeal; and it may be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made probable that that union that has received the divine approbation shall continue to eternity. 'I am glad that you still find encouragement to proceed in your publication, and shall beg the favour of six more volumes to add to my former six, when you can, with any convenience, send them me. Please to present a set, in my name, to Mr. Ruddiman,' of whom I hear that his learning is not his highest excel-pleasing in the belief that our separation from lence. I have transcribed the mottoes and returned them, I hope not too late, of which I think many very happily performed. Mr. Cave has put the last in the Magazine,2 in which I think he did well. I beg of you to write soon, and to write often, and to write long letters, which I hope in time to repay you: but you must be a patient creditor. I have, however, this of gratitude, that I think of you with regard when I do not perhaps give the proofs, which I ought, of being, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' This year he wrote to the same gentleman another letter upon a mournful occasion : 'TO MR. JAMES ELPHINSTON. 'September 25, 1750. DEAR SIR,-You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age, whom therefore I 1 Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland, well known for his various excellent works, and for his accurate editions of several authors. He was also a man of a most worthy private character. His zeal for the royal house of Stuart did not render him less estimable in Dr. Johnson's eye.-BOSWELL. If the Magazine here referred to be that for October 1752 (see Gent. Mag. vol. xxii. p. 68), then this letter belongs to a later period. If it relates to the Magazine for Sept. 1750 (see Gent. Mag. vol. xx. p. 406), then it may be ascribed to the month of October in that year, and should have followed the subsequent letter.-MALONE "There is one expedient by which you may in some degree continue her presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from your earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet further from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort and all satisfaction is sincerely wished you by, dear sir, your most obliged, most obedient, and most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' The Rambler has increased in fame as in age. Soon after its first folio edition was concluded, it was published in six duodecimo volumes;1 This is not quite accurate. In the Gentleman's Magazine for November 1751, while the work was yet proceeding, is an advertisement, announcing that four volumes of the Rambler would speedily be published; and it is believed that they were published in the next month. The fifth and sixth volumes, with tables of contents and translations of the mottoes, were pub lished in July 1752, by Payne (the original publisher), three months after the close of the work. When the Rambler was collected into volumes, and its author lived to see ten numerous editions of it in London, beside those of Ireland and Scotland. I profess myself to have ever entertained a profound veneration for the astonishing force and vivacity of mind which the Rambler exhibits. That Johnson had penetration enough to see, and seeing would not disguise, the general misery of man in this state of being, may have given rise to the superficial notion of his being too stern a philosopher. But men of reflection will be sensible that he has given a true representation of human existence, and that he has at the same time, with a generous benevolence, displayed every consolation which our state affords us; not only those arising from the hopes of futurity, but such as may be attained in the immediate progress through life. He has not depressed the soul to despondency and indifference. He has everywhere inculcated study, labour, and exertion. Nay, he has shown, in a very odious light, a man whose practice is to go about darkening the views of others, by perpetual complaints of evil, and awakening those considerations of danger and distress which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his character of 'Suspirius' [No. 55], from which Goldsmith took that of Croaker' in his comedy of The Good-natured Man, as Johnson told me he acknowledged to him, and which is indeed very obvious. To point out the numerous subjects which the Rambler treats, with a dignity and perspicuity which are there united in a manner which we shall in vain look for anywhere else, would take up too large a portion of my book, and would, I trust, be superfluous, considering how universally those volumes are now disseminated. Even the most condensed and brilliant sentences which they contain, and which have very properly been selected under the name of 'Beauties," are of considerable bulk. But I may shortly observe, that the Rambler furnishes such an assemblage of discourses on practical religion and moral duty, of critical investigations, and allegorical and oriental tales, that no mind can be thought very deficient that has, by constant study and meditation, assimilated to Johnson revised and corrected it throughout. Mr. Boswell was not aware of this circumstance, which has lately been discovered and accurately stated by Mr. Alexander Chalmers in a new edition of these and various other periodical essays, under the title of The British Essayists.-MALONE. 1 Dr. Johnson was gratified by seeing this selection, and wrote to Mr. Kearsley, bookseller in Fleet Street, the following note: 'Mr. Johnson sends compliments to Mr. Kearsley, and begs the favour of seeing him as soon as he can. Mr. Kearsley is desired to bring with him the last edition of what he has honoured with the name of "Beauties." May 20, 1782.'-BOSWELL. itself all that may be found there. No. 7, written in Passion-week on abstraction and selfexamination, and No. 110, on penitence and the placability of the Divine Nature, cannot be too often read. No. 54, on the effect which the death of a friend should have upon us, though rather too dispiriting, may be occasionally very medicinal to the mind. Every one must suppose the writer to have been deeply impressed by a real scene; but he told me that was not the case, which shows how well his fancy could conduct him to the 'house of mourning.' Some of these more solemn papers, I doubt not, particularly attracted the notice of Dr. Young, the author of the Night Thoughts, of whom my estimation is such as to reckon his applause an honour even to Johnson. I have seen volumes of Dr. Young's copy of the Rambler, in which he has marked the passages which he thought particularly excellent, by folding down a corner of the page; and such as he rated in a supereminent degree are marked by double folds. I am sorry that some of the volumes are lost. Johnson was pleased when told of the minute attention with which Young had signified his approbation of his Essays. I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression; more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment. No. 32, on patience, even under extreme misery, is wonderfully lofty, and as much above the rant of stoicism as the Sun of Revelation is brighter than the twilight of Pagan philosophy. I never read the following sentence without feeling my frame thrill: 'I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned, that the one can bear all which can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be sooner separated than subdued.' Though instruction be the predominant purpose of the Rambler, yet it is enlivened with a considerable portion of amusement. Nothing can be more erroneous than the notion which some persons have entertained, that Johnson was then a retired author, ignorant of the world; and, of consequence, that he wrote only from his imagination when he described characters and manners. He said to me, that before he wrote that work he had been running about the world,' as he expressed it, more than almost anybody; and I have heard him relate, with much satisfaction, that several of the characters in the Rambler were drawn so naturally, that when it first circulated in numbers, a club in one of the towns in Essex imagined themselves to be severally exhibited in it, and were much incensed against a person who, they suspected, had thus made them objects of public notice; nor were they quieted till authentic assurance was given them that the Rambler was written by a person who had never heard of any one of them. Some of the characters are believed to have been actually drawn from the life, particularly that of 'Prospero' from Garrick,' who never entirely forgave its pointed satire. For instances of fertility of fancy, and accurate description of real life, I appeal to No. 19, a man who wanders from one profession to another, with most plausible reasons for every change; No. 34, female fastidiousness and timorous refinement; No. 82, a Virtuoso who has collected curiosities; No. 88, petty modes of entertaining a company, and conciliating kind-ized are actually to be found in it; I am sure, ness; No. 182, fortune-hunting; No. 194, 195, not the proportion of one to each paper. This a tutor's account of the follies of his pupil; idle charge has been echoed from one babbler No. 197, 198, legacy-hunting. He has given a to another, who have confounded Johnson's specimen of his nice observation of the mere Essays with Johnson's Dictionary; and because external appearances of life, in the following he thought it right in a lexicon of our language passage in No. 179, against affectation, that to collect many words which had fallen into frequent and most disgusting quality:-'He disuse, but were supported by great authorities, that stands to contemplate the crowds that fill it has been imagined that all of these have been the streets of a populous city, will see many interwoven into his own compositions. That passengers whose air and motions it will be diffisome of them have been adopted by him uncult to behold without contempt and laughter; necessarily, may perhaps be allowed; but, in but if he examine what are the appearances general, they are evidently an advantage, for that thus powerfully excite his risibility, he without them his stately ideas would be conwill find among them neither poverty nor dis- fined and cramped. He that thinks with more ease, nor any involuntary or painful defect. extent than another, will want words of larger The disposition to derision and insult is awak-meaning.' He once told me that he had formed ened by the softness of foppery, the swell of his style upon that of Sir William Temple, and insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solem-upon Chambers's Proposal for his Dictionary." nity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mien; by gestures intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as evidences of importance.' to express familiar thoughts in philosophical language; being in this the reverse of Socrates, who, it is said, reduced philosophy to the simplicity of common life. But let us attend to | what he himself says in his concluding paper : -'When common wo ds were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarized the terms of philosophy, by applying them to popular ideas.' And as to the second part of this objection, upon a late careful revision of the work, I can with confidence say, that it is amazing how few of those words for which it has been unjustly character Every page of the Rambler shows a mind teeming with classical allusion and poetical imagery; illustrations from other writers are, upon all occasions, so ready, and mingle so easily in his periods, that the whole appears of one uniform vivid texture. The style of this work has been censured by some shallow critics as involved and turgid, and abounding with antiquated and hard words. So ill-founded is the first part of this objection, that I will challenge all who may honour this book with a perusal, to point out any English writer whose language conveys his meaning with equal force and perspicuity. It must, indeed, be allowed that the structure of his sentences is expanded, and often has somewhat of the inversion of Latin; and that he delighted 1 That of Gelidus,' in No. 24, from Professor Colson, and that of Euphues' in the same paper, which, with many others, was doubtless drawn from the life. Euphnes, I once thought, might have been intended to represent either Lord Chesterfield or Soame Jenyns; but Mr. Bindley, with more probability, thinks that George Bubb Doddington, who was remarkable for the homeliness of his person and the finery of his dress, was the person meant under that character.-MALONE, He certainly was mistaken; or if he imagined at first that he was imitating Temple, he was very unsuccessful, for nothing can be more unlike than the simplicity of Temple and the richness of Johnson. Their styles differ as plain cloth and brocade. Temple, indeed, seems equally erroneous in supposing that he himself had formed his style upon Sandys's 1 Yet his style did not escape the harmless shafts of pleasant humour, for the ingenious Bonnel Thornton published a mock Rambler in the Drury Lane Journal.-Boswell. 2 Idler, No. 70.-BOSWELL. 3 The paper here alluded to was, I believe, Chambers's Proposal for a second and improved edition of his Dictionary, which, I think, appeared in 1738. This Proposal was probably in circulation in 1737, when Johnson first came to London. -MALONE. The author appears to me to have misunderstood Johnson in this instance. He did not, I conceive, mean to say, that when he first began to write, he made Sir William Temple his model, with a view to form a style that should resemble his in all its parts; but that he formed his style on that of Temple and others, by taking from each those characteristic excellences which were most worthy of imitation. This matter was further explained April 9, 1778, where, in a conversation at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, Johnson himself mentions the particular improvements which Temple made in the English style. These, doubtless, were the objects of his imitation, so far as that writer was his model.-MALONE. View of the State of Religion in the Western have been easier. His sentences have a digniParts of the World. The style of Johnson was undoubtedly much formed upon that of the great writers in the last century-Hooker, Bacon, Sanderson, Hakewell, and others; those 'Giants,' as they were well characterized by A GREAT PERSONAGE,' whose authority, were I to name him, would stamp a reverence on the opinion. We may, with the utmost propriety, apply to his learned style that passage of Horace, a part of which he has taken as the motto to his Dictionary : 'Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti ; To so great a master of thinking, to one of such vast and various knowledge as Johnson, might have been allowed a liberal indulgence of that licence which Horace claims in another place: Si fortè necesse est Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum, Yet Johnson assured me that he had not taken upon him to add more than four or five words to the English language, of his own formation; and he was very much offended at the general licence by no means 'modestly taken' in his time, not only to coin new words, but to use many words in senses quite different from their established meaning, and those frequently very fantastical. Sir Thomas Brown, whose life Johnson wrote, was remarkably fond of Anglo-Latin diction; and to his example we are to ascribe Johnson's sometimes indulging himself in this kind of phraseology. Johnson's comprehension of mind was the mould for his language. Had his conceptions been narrower, his expression would 1 Supposed by some to be George 111. 2 The observation of his having imitated Sir Thomas Brown has been made by many people; and lately it has been insisted on, and illustrated by a variety of quotations from Brown, in one of the popular Essays written by the Reverend Mr. Knox, master of Tunbridge School, whom I have set down in my list of those who have sometimes not unsuccessfully imitated Dr. Johnson's style.-BOSWELL. fied march; and it is certain that his example has given a general elevation to the language of his country, for many of our best writers have approached very near to him; and from the influence which he has had upon our composition, scarcely anything is written now that is not better expressed than was usual before he appeared to lead the national taste. This circumstance, the truth of which must strike every critical reader, has been so happily enforced by Mr. Courtenay, in his Moral and Literary Character of Dr. Johnson, that I cannot prevail on myself to withhold it, notwithstanding his, perhaps, too great partiality for one of his friends: By nature's gifts ordain'd mankind to rule, To friends around his philosophic throne; 1 The following observation in Mr. Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides may sufficiently account for that gentleman's being 'now scarcely esteemed a Scot' by many of his countrymen :- If he [Dr. Johnson] was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he could not but see in them that nationality which, I believe, no liberalminded Scotchman will deny. Mr. Boswell, indeed, is so free from national prejudices, that he might with equal propriety have been described as " Scarce by South Britons now esteem'd a Scot." -COURTENAY, Johnson's language, however, must be allowed to be too masculine for the delicate gentleness of female writing. His ladies, therefore, seem strangely formal, even to ridicule, and are well denominated by the names which he has given them, as Misella, Zozima, Properantia, Rhodoclia. It has of late been the fashion to compare the style of Addison and Johnson, and to depreciate, I think, very unjustly, the style of Addison as nerveless and feeble, because it has not the strength and energy of that of Johnson. Their prose may be balanced like the poetry of Dryden and Pope. Both are excellent, though in different ways. Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so that he insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but by degrees is highly relished; and such is the melody of his periods, so much do they captivate the ear and seize upon the attention, that there is scarcely any writer, however inconsiderable, who does not aim in some degree at the same species of excellence. But let us not ungratefully undervalue that beautiful style, which has pleasingly conveyed to us much instruction and entertainment. Though comparatively weak, opposed to Johnson's Herculean vigour, let us not call it positively feeble. Let us remember the character of his style, as given by Johnson himself: What he attempted, he performed; he is necer feeble, and he did not wish to be energetic; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude nor affected brevity; his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy.' Who 1 When Johnson showed me a proof-sheet of the character of Addison, in which he so highly extols his style, I could not help observing, that it had not been his own model, as no two styles could differ more from each other. Sir, Addison had his style, and I have maine.' When I ventured to ask him whether the difference did not consist in this, that Addison's style was full of idioms, colloquial phrases, and proverbs, and his own more strictly grammatical, and free from such phraseology and modes of speech as can never be Ferally translated or understood by foreigners, he allowed the discrimination to be just. Let any one who doubts it, try to translate one of Addison's Spectaters into Latin, French, or Italian; and though so easy, familiar, and elegant, to an Englishman, as to give the intellect no trouble, yet he would find the transfusion into another language extremely difficult, if not impossible. But a Rambler, Adventurer, or Idler of Johnson would fall into any classical or European language as ever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.'1 Though the Rambler was not concluded till the year 1752, I shall, under this year, say all that I have to observe upon it. Some of the translations of the mottoes, by himself, are admirably done. He acknowledges to have received 'elegant translations' of many of them from Mr. James Elphinston; and some are very happily translated by a Mr. F. Lewis, of whom I never heard more, except that Johnson thus described him to Mr. Malone: 'Sir, he lived in London, and hung loose upon society."2 The concluding paper of his Rambler is at once dignified and pathetic. I cannot, however, but wish that he had not ended it with an unnecessary Greek verse, translated3 also into an English couplet. It is too much like the conceit of those dramatic poets, who used to conclude each act with a rhyme; and the expression in the first line of his couplet, Celestial powers,' though proper in Pagan poetry, is ill suited to Christianity, with 'a conformity' to which he consoles himself. How much better would it have been to have ended with the prose sentence, 'I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue and confidence to truth.' His friend Dr. Birch, being now engaged in preparing an edition of Ralegh's smaller pieces, Dr. Johnson wrote the following letter to that gentleman : 'TO DR. BIRCHI. 'GOUGH SQUARE, May 12, 1750. 'SIR,-Knowing that you are now preparing to favour the public with a new edition of Ralegh's miscellaneous pieces, I have taken the liberty to send you a manuscript which fell by chance within my notice. I perceive no proofs easily as if it had been originally conceived in it.BURNEY. I shall probably, in another work, maintain the merit of Addison's poetry, which has been very unjustly depreciated.-BOSWELL. 2 In the Gentleman's Magazine for October 1752, p. 468, he is styled the Rev. Francis Lewis, of Chiswick.' The late Lord Macartney, while he resided at Chiswick, at my request, made some inquiry concerning him at that place, but no intelligence was obtained. The translations of the mottoes supplied by Mr. Elphinston appeared first in the Edinburgh edition of the Rambler, and in some instances were revised and improved, probably by Johnson, before they were inserted in the London octavo edition. The translations of the mottoes affixed to the first thirty numbers of the Rambler were published from the Edinburgh edition, in the Gentleman's Magazine for September 1750, before the work was collected into volumes.MALONE. Not in the original edition, in folio.-MALONE. |