"I have sent you a bundle of proposals, which I think, do not profess more than I have hitherto performed. I have printed many of the plays, and have hitherto left very few passages unexplained: where I am quite at loss, I confess my ignorance, which is seldom done by commentators. "I have likewise enclosed twelve receipts; not that I mean to impose upon you the trouble of pushing them with more importunity than may seem proper, but that you may rather have more than fewer than you will want. The proposals you will disseminate as there shall be an opportunity. I once printed them at length in the Chronicle, and some of my friends (I believe Mr. Murphy, who formerly wrote the Gray'sInn Journal) introduced them with a splendid encomium. "Since the life of Browne, I have been a little engaged, from time to time, in the Literary Magazine, but not very lately. I have not the collection by me, and therefore cannot draw out a catalogue of my own parts, but will do it, and send it. Do not buy them, for I will gather all those that have any thing of mine in them, and send them to Mrs. Burney, as a small token of gratitude for the regard which she is pleased to bestow upon me. I am, sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." 1 [Here, in his later editions, Mr. Boswell had erroneously inserted a letter to Mr. Langton, which will be found in its real place at the beginning of the next year.-ED.] This letter was an answer to one, in which was enclosed a draft for the payment of some subscriptions to his Shakspeare.-BOSWELL. Dr. Burney has kindly favoured me with the following memorandum, which I take the liberty to insert in his own genuine easy style. I love to exhibit sketches of my illustrious friend by various eminent hands. "Soon after this, Mr. Burney, during a visit to the capital, had an interview with him in Gough-square3, where he dined and drank tea with him, and was introduced to the acquaintance of Mrs. Williams. After dinner, Mr. Johnson proposed to Mr. Burney to go up with him into his garret, which being accepted, he there found about five or six Greek folios, a deal writing-desk, and a chair and a half. Johnson giving to his guest the entire seat, tottered himself on one with only three legs and one arm. Here he gave Mr. Burney Mrs. Williams's history, and showed him some volumes of his Shakspeare already printed, to prove that he was in earnest. Upon Mr. Burney's opening the first volume, at the Merchant of Venice, he observed to him, that he seemed to be more severe on Warburton than Theobald. O poor Tib. ! (said Johnson) he was ready knocked down to my hands; Warburton stands between me and him.'-' But sir (said Mr. Burney), you'll have Warburton upon your bones, won't you?'-' No, sir; he'll not come out: he'll only growl in his den.'— 'But you think, sir, that Warburton is a superiour critick to Theobald?’—‘O, sir, he'd make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices! The worst of Warburton is, that he has a rage for saying something, when there's nothing to be said.'-Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had seen the letter which Warburton had written in answer to a pamphlet addressed To the most impudent Man alive.' He answered in the negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. The controversy now raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke; and Warburton and Mallet were the leaders of the several parties. Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's Philosophy? 'No, sir; I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not interested about its confutation 4." On the fifteenth of April he began a new periodical paper, entitled " THE IDLER *," which came out every Saturday in a weekly Newspaper, called. "The Universal 3 If the error in the date of the letter to Mr. Langton, of January, 1759, had not been discovered, we might have doubted the accuracy of Dr. Burney as to his having been entertained by Johnson, in Gough-square, so late in the spring of 1758: but it is now plain that it was not till the spring of 1759 that he broke up his establishment there.-ED.] 4 [See ante, p. 115.-ED.] Chronicle, or Weekly Gazette," published by Newbery 1. These essays were continued till April 5, 1760. Of one hundred and three, their total number, twelve were contributed by his friends; of which, Numbers 33, 93, and 96, were written by Mr. Thomas Warton; No. 67, by Mr. Langton; and No. 76, 79, and 82, by Sir Joshua Reynolds; the concluding words of No. 82, "and pollute his canvas with deformity," being added by Johnson; as Sir Joshua informed me. in so eminent a degree. In No. 11, he treats with the utmost contempt the opinion that our mental faculties depend, in some degree, upon the weather; an opinion, which they who have never experienced its truth are not to be envied, and of which he himself could not but be sensible, as the effects of weather upon him were very visible. Yet thus he declaims: "Surely nothing is more reproachful to a being endowed with reason, than to resign its powers to the influence of the air, and live in dependence on the weather and the wind for the only blessings which nature has put into our power, tranquillity and benevolence.— This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance, every day is bright; and every hour is propitious to diligence. He that shall resolutely excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will soon make himself superiour to the seasons; and may set at defiance the morning mist and the evening damp, the blasts of the east, and the clouds of the south." The IDLER is evidently the work of the same mind which produced the RAMBLER, but has less body and more spirit. It has more variety of real life, and greater facility of language. He describes the miseries of idleness, with the lively sensations of one who has felt them; and in his private memorandums while engaged in it, we find "This year I hope to learn diligence." Many of these excellent essays were written as hastily as an ordinary letter. Mr. Langton remembers Johnson, when on a visit at Oxford, asking him one evening how long it was till the post went out; and Alas! it is too certain, that where the on being told about half an hour, he ex- frame has delicate fibres, and there is a fine claimed, then we shall do very well." sensibility, such influences of the air are irHe upon this instantly sat down and finish-resistible. He might as well have bid defied an Idler, which it was necessary should be in London the next day. Mr. Langton having signified a wish to read it, "Sir, (said he) you shall not do more than I have done myself." He then folded it up, and sent it off. 66 ance to the ague, the palsy, and all other bodily disorders. Such boasting of the mind is false elevation: "I think the Romans call it Stoicism." But in this number of his Idler his spirits seem to run riot2; for in the wantonness of his disquisition he forgets, for a moment, even the reverence for that which he held in high respect; and describes "the attendant on a court 3," as one "whose business is to watch the looks of a being, weak and fool 66 Yet there are in the Idler several papers which show as much profundity of thought, and labour of language, as any of this great man's writings. No. 14, Robbery of Time;" No. 24, Thinking" No. 41, "Death of a Friend;" No. 43, " Flight of Time;" No. 51, "Domestic greatness un-ish as himself." attainable;" No. 52, "Self-denial;" No. 58,"Actual, how short of fancied, excellence;" No. 89," Physical evil moral good;" and his concluding paper on "The horrour of the last," will prove this asser-ed. tion. I know not why a motto, the usual trapping of periodical papers, is prefixed to very few of the Idlers, as I have heard Johnson commend the custom; and he never could be at a loss for one, his memory being stored with innumerable passages of the classicks. In this series of essays he exhibits admirable instances of grave humour, of which he had an uncommon share. Nor on some occasions has he repressed that power of sophistry which he possessed This is a slight mistake. The first number of "The Idler" appeared on the 15th of April, 1758, in No. 2 of the Universal Chronicle, &c., which was published by J. Payne, for whom also the Rambler had been printed. On the 29th of April this newspaper assumed the title of Payne's Universal Chronicle, &c.-MALONE. His unqualified ridicule of rhetorical gesture or action is not, surely, a test of truth; yet we cannot help admiring how well it is adapted to produce the effect which he wishNeither the judges of our laws, nor the representatives of our people, would be much affected by laboured gesticulations, or believe any man the more because he rolled his eyes, or puffed his cheeks, or spread abroad his armis, or stamped the ground, or thumped his breast; turned his eyes sometimes to the ceiling and sometimes to the floor." 2 [This doctrine of the little influence of the weather, however, seems to have been his fixed opinion he often repeated it in conversation. See post, 9th July, 1763.—ED.] 3 [See ante, p. 132. Mr. Boswell seems resolved to forget that Johnson's reverence for the court had not yet commenced. George II. was still alive, whom Johnson always abused, and sometimes very indecently. See ante, p. 57, and post, 6th April, 1775.-ED.] A casual coincidence with other writers, or an adoption of a sentiment or image which has been found in the writings of another, and afterwards appears in the mind as one's own, is not unfrequent. The richness of Johnson's fancy, which could supply his page abundantly on all occasions, and the strength of his memory, which at once detected the real owner of any thought, made him less liable to the imputation of plagiarism than, perhaps, any of our writers. In the Idler, however, there is a paper, in which conversation is assimilated to a bowl | of punch, where there is the same train of comparison as in a poem by Blacklock, in his collection published in 1756; in which a parallel is ingeniously drawn between human life and that liquor. It ends, "Say, then, physicians of each kind, To the Idler, when collected in volumes, he added, beside the Essay on Epitaphs, and the dissertation on those of Pope, an Essay on the Bravery of the English common Soldiers. He, however, omitted one of the original papers, which in the folio copy is No. 22 1 p. 364. "DR. JOHNSON TO MR. WARTON. "(London), 14th April, 1758. "DEAR SIR,-Your notes upon my poet were very acceptable. I beg that you will be so kind as to continue your searches. It will be reputable to my work, and suitable to your professorship, to have something of yours in the notes. As you have given no directions about your name, I shall therefore put it. I wish your brother would take the same trouble. A commentary must arise from the fortuitous discoveries of niany men in devious walks of literature. Some of your remarks are on plays already printed: but I purpose to add an Appendix of Notes, so that nothing comes too late. "You give yourself too much uneasiness, dear sir, about the loss of the papers 2. The loss is nothing, if nobody has found them; nor even then, perhaps, if the numbers be known. You are not the only friend that has had the same mischance. You may repair your want out of a stock, which is deposited with Mr. Allen of Magdalen Hall; or out of a parcel which I have just sent to Mr. Chambers 3 for the use of any body that will be so kind as to want them. Mr. Langtons are well; and Miss Roberts1, whom I have at last brought to speak, upon the information which you gave me, that she had something to say. I am, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON." "TO MR. WARTON. [The profits accruing from the Hawk. sale of this paper, and the subscriptions which, from the year 1756, he was receiving for the edition of Shakspeare by him proposed, were the only known means "(London,) 1st June, 1758. of his subsistence for a period of near "DEAR SIR, You will receive this by four years, and we may suppose them hard- Mr. Baretti, a gentleman particularly enly adequate to his wants, for, upon finding titled to the notice and kindness of the prothe balance of the account for the Dictiona- fessor of poesy. He has time but for a ry against him, he [found it neces-short stay, and will be glad to have it filled Murphy, p. 90, 91. sary to retrench his expenses. He up with as much as he can hear and see. gave up his house in Gough-square. "In_recommending another to your faMrs. Williams went into lodgings. He re-vour, I ought not to omit thanks for the tired to Gray's-Inn, and soon removed to kindness which you have shown to myself. chambers in the Inner Temple-lane, where Have you any more notes on Shakspeare? he lived in poverty, total idleness, and the I shall be glad of them. pride of literature. Magni stat nominis umbra. Mr. Fitzherbert (the father of Lord St. Helen's), a man distinguished through life for his benevolence and other amiable qualities, used to say, that he paid a morning visit to Johnson, intending from his chambers to send a letter into the city; but; to his great surprise, he found an authour by profession without pen, ink, or paper. The present Bishop of Salisbury was also among those who endeavoured, by constant attention, to soothe the cares of a mind which he knew to be afflicted with gloomy apprehensions.] This paper may be found in Stockdale's supplemental volume, of Johnson's Miscellaneous Pieces.-BoSWELL. "I see your pupil sometimes5; his mind is as exalted as his stature. I am half afraid of him; but he is no less amiable than formidable. He will, if the forwarduess of his spring be not blasted, be a credit to you, and to the university. He brings some of my plays with him, which he has my per 2 Receipts for Shakspeare.-WARTON. 3 Then of Lincoln College.-WARTON. 4 [Miss Roberts was a near relation of Mr. Langton; the subject on which she was to afford information does not appear.-ED.] He was very Mr. Langton.-WARTON. tall.-ED. Part of the impression of the Shakspeare, which Dr. Johnson conducted alone, and published by subscription. This edition came out in 1765.-WARTON mission to show you, on condition you will hide them from every body else. I am, dear sir, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON." TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. AT LANGTON. "21st Sept. 1758. "DEAR SIR,—I should be sorry to think that what engrosses the attention of my friend should have no part of mine. Your mind is now full of the fate of Drury1; but his fate is past, and nothing remains but to try what reflection will suggest to mitigate the terrours of a violent death, which is more formidable at the first glance, than on a nearer and more steady view. A violent death is never very painful: the only danger is, lest it should be unprovided. But if a man can be supposed to make no provision for death in war, what can be the state that would have awakened him to the care of futurity? When would that man have prepared himself to die, who went to seek death without preparation? What then can be the reason why we lament more him that dies of a wound, than him that dies of a fever? A man that languishes with disease, ends his life with more pain, but with less virtue: he leaves no example to his friends, nor bequeaths any honor to his descendants. The only reason why we lament a soldier's death, is, that we think he might have lived longer; yet this cause of grief is common to many other kinds of death, which are not so passionately bewailed. The truth is, that every death is violent which is the effect of accident; every death, which is not gradually brought on by the miseries of age, or when life is extinguished for any other reason than that it is burnt out. He that dies before sixty, of a cold or consumption, dies, in reality, by a violent death; yet his death is borne with patience, only because the cause of his untimely end is silent and invisible. Let us endeavour to see things as they are, and then inquire whether we ought to complain. Whether to see life as it is, will give us much consolation. I know not; but the consolation who is drawn from truth, if any there be, is solid and durable: that which may be derived from errour, must be, like its original, fallacious and fugitive. I am, dear, dear sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." 1 Major General Alexander Dury, of the first regiment of foot-guards, who fell in the gallant discharge of his duty, near St. Cas, in the wellknown unfortunate expedition against France, in 1758. His lady and Mr. Langton's mother were sisters. He left an only son, Lieutenant Colonel Dury, who has a company in the same regiment. -BOSWELL. "TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. AT LANGTON”. "9th Jan. 1758. [1759. "DEAREST SIR,-I must have indeed slept very fast, not to have been awakened by your letter. None of your suspicions are true; I am not much richer than when you left me; and what is worse, my omission of an answer to your first letter will prove that I am not much wiser. But I go on as I formerly did, designing to be some time or other both rich and wise; and yet cultivate neither mind nor fortune. Do you take notice of my example, and learn the danger of delay. When I was as you are now, towering in [the] confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be, at forty-nine, what I now am3. "But you do not seem to need my admonition. You are busy in acquiring and in communicating knowledge, and while you are studying, enjoy the end of study, by making others wiser and happier. I was much pleased with the tale that you told me of being tutour to your sisters. I, who have no sisters nor brothers, look with some degree of innocent envy on those who may be said to be born to friends4; and cannot 2 This letter was by Mr. Boswell misplaced under the year 1758, of which it bears the date. Johnson frequently, at the beginning of a new year, continued inadvertently the date of the old acted in the autumn of 1758, shows this letter to one. But the reference to Cleone, which was have been written in January, 1759, about the time when pecuniary distress obliged him to break up his establishment in Gough-square, and retire to chambers, first in Staple-inn, and afterwards in the Inner Temple; which he alludes to in this letter by saying that he has "given up housekeeping." In the list of Johnson's residences (ante, p. 42), the editor, misled by the date of this letter, the error of which he had not then discovered, placed the time of Johnson's residence at Staple-inn a year too soon. A subsequent letter to Miss Porter ascertains the point. -ED.] 3 [If the reader will look back to Johnson's deplorable situation when he was about the age of twenty-one, he will be inclined to think that he might rather have prided himself at having attained to the station which he now held in society. -ED.] 4 [See, however (ante, p. 10), Johnson's observation to Mrs. Piozzi, from which, as well as from other circumstances, it may be inferred that he did not, while he possessed it, sufficiently ap preciate the happiness of fraternal intercourse. Mr. Gibbon, in his memoirs, alludes to this subject with good taste and feeling: "From my childhood to the present hour, I have deeply and sincerely regretted my sister, whose life was somewhat prolonged, and whom I remember to have seen an amiable infant. The relation of a brother and a sister, particularly if they do not marry, appears to me of a very singular nature. see, without wonder, how rarely that native union is afterwards regarded. It sometimes, indeed, happens, that some supervenient cause of discord may overpower this original amity; but it seems to me more frequently thrown away with levity, or lost by negligence, than destroyed by injury or violence. We tell the ladies that good wives make good husbands; I believe it is a more certain position that good brothers make good sisters. "I am satisfied with your stay at home, as Juvenal with his friend's retirement to Cumæ: I know that your absence is best, though it be not best for me. 'Quamvis disgressu veteris confusus amici, Laudo tamen vacuis quod sedem figere Cumis Destinet, atque unum civem donare Sibyllæ." "Langton is a good Cuma, but who must be Sibylla? Mrs. Langton is as wise as Sibyl, and as good; and will live, if my wishes can prolong life, till she shall in time be as old. But she differs in this, that she has not scattered her precepts in the wind, at least not those which she bestowed upon you "Mr. Reynolds has within these few days raised his price to twenty guineas a head3, and Miss is much employed in miniatures. I know not any body (else) whose prosperity has increased since you left them. "Murphy is to have his 'Orphan of China' acted next month; and is therefore, I suppose, happy. I wish I could tell you of any great good to which I was approaching, but at present my prospects do not much delight me; however, I am always pleased when I find that you, dear sir, remember your affectionate, humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." Hawk. p. 895. In 1759, in the month of January, his mother died at the great age of ninety, an event which deeply affected him; not that "his mind had acquired no firmness by the contemplation of mortality 5;" but that his reverential affection for her was not abated by years, as indeed he retained all his tender feelings even to the latest period of his life. I have been told, that he regretted much his not having gone to visit his mother for several years previous to her death. But he was constantly engaged in literary labours which confined him to London; and though he had not the comfort of seeing his aged parent, he contributed liberally to her support. "The two Wartons just looked into the town, and were taken to see Cleone, where, David [Garrick] says, they were starved for want of company to keep them warm. David and Doddy have had a new quarrel, and, I think, cannot conveniently quarrel any more. 'Cleone' was well acted by all the characters, but Bellamy 2 left nothing 4 [Sir Joshua afterwards greatly advanced his to be desired. I went the first night, and price. I have been informed by Sir Thomas supported it as well as I might; for Doddy, Lawrence, his admirer and rival, that in 1787 his you know, is my patron, and I would not prices were two hundred guineas for the whole desert him. The play was very well receiv-length, one hundred for the half-length, seventy ed. Doddy, after the danger was over, went every night to the stage-side, and cried at the distress of poor Cleone. "I have left off housekeeping, and therefore made presents of the game which you were pleased to send me. The pheasant I gave to Mr. Richardson3, the bustard to Dr. Lawrence, and the pot I placed with Miss Williams, to be eaten by myself. She desires that her compliments and good wishes may be accepted by the family; and I make the same request for myself. for the kit-cat, and fifty for (what is called) the three-quarters. But even on these prices some increase must have been made, as Horace Walavaricious. He had one thousand guineas for my pole said, "Sir Joshua, in his old age, becomes picture of the three ladies Waldegrave."- Walpoliana. This picture are half-lengths of the three ladies on one canvas.— -ED.] 5 ED.] [Miss Reynolds, the sister of Sir Joshua. 6 [Mr. Boswell contradicts Hawkins, for the mere pleasure, as it would seem, of doing so. The reader must observe that Mr. Boswell's work is full of anecdotes of Johnson's want of firmness in contemplating mortality and though Johnson may have been in theory an affectionate son, there is reason to fear that he had never visited, and, consequently, not seen his mother since 1737. Mr. Boswell alleges as an excuse, that he was engaged in literary labours, which confined him to London. Such an excuse for an absence of twenty years is idle; besides, it is stated that Johnson visited Ashbourn about 1740 (ante, p, 29), Tunbridge Wells in 1748 (ante, p. 76), Oxford in 1754 (ante, p. 116). We shall see presently, that Johnson felt remorse för this neglect of his parent.-ED.] |