"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. 1759. Etat. 50 "If your imprudence has ended in difficulties and inconveniencies, you are yourself to fupport them; and, with the help of a little better health, you would support them and conquer them. Surely, that want which accident and fickness produces, is to be fupported 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 fmall fhot; they are rattling on every fide, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger. You muft, therefore, be enabled to difcharge petty debts, that you may have leifure, with fecurity, to struggle with the reft. Neither the great nor little debts difgrace you. I am fure 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 prefent lodging is of any use to her. I hope, in a few days, to be at leifure, and to make vifits. Whither I fhall fly is matter of no importance. portance. A man unconnected is at home every "ŞAM. JOHNSON." He now refreshed himself by an excurfion to Oxford, of which the following fhort characteristical notice, in his own words, is preserved: «*** is now making tea for me. I have been in my gown ever fince I came here. It was, at my first coming, quite new and handfome. I have fwum thrice, which I had difufed for many years. I have propofed to Vanfittart climbing over the wall, but he has refufed me. And I have clapped my hands till they are fore, at Dr. King's fpeech"." 6 His negro fervant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been fome time at fea, not preffed as has been fuppofed, but with his own consent, it appears from a letter to John Wilkes, Efq. from Dr. Smollet, that his mafter kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnfon always expreffed the utmost abhorrence. He faid, "No man will be a failor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a fhip 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 com • Dr. Robert Vanfittart, of the ancient and refpe&table family of that name in Berkshire. He was eminent for learning and worth, and much esteemed by Dr. Johnson. Gentleman's Magazine, April 1785. Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 126. monly monly better company"." The letter was as follows: "DEAR SIR, Chelfea, March 16, 1759. "I AM again your petitioner, in behalf of that great CHAM' of literature, Samuel Johnfon. His black fervant, whofe name is Francis Barber, has been pressed on board the Stag Frigate, Captain Angel, and our lexicographer is in great diftrefs. He fays the boy is a fickly lad, of a delicate frame, and particularly fubject to a malady in his throat, which renders him very unfit for his Majefty's fervice. You know what matter of animofity the said Johnson has against you; and I dare fay you defire no other opportunity of refenting it than that of laying him under an obligation. He was humble enough to defire my affiftance on this occafion, though he and I were never catercoufins; and I gave him to understand that I would make application to my friend Mr. Wilkes; who, perhaps, by his intereft with Dr. Hay and Mr. Elliot, might be able to procure the discharge of his lacquey. It would be fuperfluous to say more on the subject, which I leave to your own confideration; but I cannot let flip this opportunity of declaring that I am, with the most inviolable esteem and attachment, dear Sir, "Your affectionate obliged humble fervant, • Ibid. p. 251. In my first edition this word was printed Chum, as it appears in one of Mr. Wilkes's Mifcellanies, and I animadverted on Dr. Smollet's ignorance; for which let me propitiate the manes of that ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUM was certainly a miftaken 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 Smollet. See " Roderick Random," chap. 56. For 1759. Atat. 50 $759. Etat. 50. Mr. Wilkes, who upon all occafions has acted, as a private gentleman, with most polite liberality, applied to his friend Sir George Hay, then one of the Lords Commiffioners 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 fervice. What particular new scheme of life Johnson had in view this year, I have not discovered; but that he meditated one of fome fort, is clear from his private devotions, in which we find', "the change of outward things which I am now to make;" and, "Grant me the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that the courfe 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. 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 femicircular or elliptical arches were preferable. In the defign 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. Mylne2; and after being at confiderable pains For this correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquirements accord well with his refpectable pedigree of TEMPLE. Prayers and Meditations, pp. 30 and 40. Sir John Hawkins has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but fignificantly, called rigmarole; in which, pains to ftudy the fubject, he wrote three feveral letters in the Gazetteer, in oppofition to his plan. If 1759. Etat. 50. amidst an oftentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of "proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and adjusted by Nature-mafculine and feminine-in a man, fefquiolave of the head, and in a woman fefquinonal;" nor has he failed to introduce a jargon of musical terms, which do not feem much to correfpond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mafs. To follow the Knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not a little difgufting to my readers. I fhall, therefore, only make a few remarks upon his ftatement.- He feems to exult in having detected Johnson in procuring " from a perfon eminently skilled in mathematicks and the principles of architecture, answers to a ftring of queftions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative ftrength of femicircular and elliptical arches." Now I cannot conceive how Johnfon could have acted more wifely. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpfon, did not preponderate in favour of the femicircular arch. But he fhould have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpfon was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little verfed in mixed and practical mechanicks. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholaftick 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 oppofing Mr. Mylne's fcheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North-Britain; when, im truth, as has been ftated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and fo 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 houfe. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full went to his own prejudice in abufing Blackfriars bridge, calling ic" 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." |