482

THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.

[A.D. 1763.

Madeira and a glass before him'. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it, and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return, and having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill3.'

My next meeting with Johnson was on Friday the 1st of July, when he and I and Dr. Goldsmith supped together at the Mitre. I was before this time pretty well acquainted with Goldsmith, who was one of the brightest ornaments of

'In his imprudence he was like Savage, of whom Johnson says (Works, viii. 161):-'To supply him with money was a hopeless attempt; for no sooner did he see himself master of a sum sufficient to set him free from care for a day, than he became profuse and luxurious.' When Savage was 'lodging in the liberties of the Fleet, his friends sent him every Monday a guinea, which he commonly spent before the next morning, and trusted, after his usual manner, the remaining part of the week to the bounty of fortune.' Ib. p. 170.

'It may not be improper to annex here Mrs. Piozzi's account of this transaction, in her own words, as a specimen of the extreme inaccuracy with which all her anecdotes of Dr. Johnson are related, or rather discoloured and distorted:-'I have forgotten the year, but it could scarcely, I think, be later than 1765 or 1766 that he was called abruptly from our house after dinner, and returning in about three hours, said he had been with an enraged authour, whose landlady pressed him for payment within doors, while the bailiffs beset him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Madeira, to drown care, and fretting over a novel, which, when finished, was to be his whole fortune, but he could not get it done for distraction, nor could he step out of doors to offer it for sale. Mr. Johnson, therefore, sent away the bottle, and went to the bookseller, recommending the performance, and desiring some immediate relief; which when he brought back to the writer, he called the woman of the house directly to partake of punch, and pass their time in merriment. Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, p. 119. BOSWELL. The whole transaction took place in 1762, as is shown, ante, p. 480, note 4; Johnson did not know the Thrales till 1764.

the

Aetat. 54.]

Dr. John Campbell.

483

the Johnsonian school'. Goldsmith's respectful attachment to Johnson was then at its height; for his own literary reputation had not yet distinguished him so much as to excite a vain desire of competition with his great Master. He had increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson's heart, by incidental remarks in the course of conversation, such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levet, whom he entertained under his roof, 'He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson;' and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I had heard a very bad character, 'He is now become miserable, and that insures the protection of Johnson.'

Goldsmith attempted this evening to maintain, I suppose from an affectation of paradox, 'that knowledge was not desirable on its own account, for it often was a source of unhappiness.' JOHNSON. Why, Sir, that knowledge may in some cases produce unhappiness, I allow. But, upon the whole, knowledge, per se, is certainly an object which every man would wish to attain, although, perhaps, he may not take the trouble necessary for attaining it.'

Dr. John Campbell', the celebrated political and biographical writer, being mentioned, Johnson said, 'Campbell is a man of much knowledge, and has a good share of imagination. His Hermippus Redivivus is very entertaining, as an account of the Hermetick philosophy, and as furnishing a curious history of the extravagancies of the human mind. If it were merely imaginary it would be nothing at all. Campbell is not always rigidly careful of truth in his conversation; but I do not believe there is any thing of this

'Through Goldsmith Boswell became acquainted with Reynolds. In his Letter to the People of Scotland (p. 99), he says:-'I exhort you, my friends and countrymen, in the words of my departed Goldsmith, who gave me many noctes Atticae, and gave me a jewel of the finest water-the acquaintance of Sir Joshua Reynolds.'

* See post, July 30, 1763.

'See post, March 20, 1776, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 17, 1773. • See post, March 15, 1776.

carelessness

484

Dr. John Campbell.

[A.D. 1763.

carelessness in his books'. Campbell is a good man, a pious man. I am afraid he has not been in the inside of a church for many years'; but he never passes a church without pulling off his hat'. This shews that he has good principles. I used to go pretty often to Campbell's on a Sunday evening till I began to consider that the shoals of

''Dr. Campbell was an entertaining story-teller, which [sic] sometimes he rather embellished; so that the writer of this once heard Dr. Johnson say:-"Campbell will lie, but he never lies on paper."' Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 969.

' I am inclined to think that he was misinformed as to this circumstance. I own I am jealous for my worthy friend Dr. John Campbell. For though Milton could without remorse absent himself from publick worship [Johnson's Works, vii. 115] I cannot. On the contrary, I have the same habitual impressions upon my mind, with those of a truely venerable Judge, who said to Mr. Langton, Friend Langton, If I have not been at church on Sunday, I do not feel myself easy.' Dr. Campbell was a sincerely religious man. Lord Macartney, who is eminent for his variety of knowledge, and attention to men of talents, and knew him well, told me, that when he called on him in a morning, he found him reading a chapter in the Greek New Testament, which he informed his Lordship was his constant practice. The quantity of Dr. Campbell's composition is almost incredible, and his labours brought him large profits. Dr. Joseph Warton told me that Johnson said of him, 'He is the richest authour that ever grazed the common of literature.' BOSWELL.

4

'See post, April 7, 1778. Campbell complied with one of the Monita Pædagogica of Erasmus. Si quem præteribis natu grandem, magistratum, sacerdotem, doctorem... memento aperire caput.... Itidem facito quum præteribis ædem sacram.' Erasmus's Colloquies, ed. 1867, i. 36. Reynolds said of Johnson:- He was not easily imposed upon by professions to honesty and candour; but he appeared to have little suspicion of hypocrisy in religion.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 459. Boswell, in one of his penitent letters, wrote to Temple on July 21, 1790: — I am even almost inclined to think with you, that my great oracle Johnson did allow too much credit to good principles, without good practice.' Letters of Boswell, p. 327.

Campbell lived in 'the large new-built house at the north-westcorner of Queen Square, Bloomsbury, whither, particularly on a Sunday evening, great numbers of persons of the first eminence for science and literature resorted for the enjoyment of conversation.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 210.

Scotchmen

Aetat. 54.]

Churchill's attack on Johnson.

485

Scotchmen who flocked about him might probably say, when anything of mine was well done, " Ay, ay, he has learnt this of CAWMELL!"'

·

He talked very contemptuously of Churchill's poetry, observing, that it had a temporary currency, only from its audacity of abuse, and being filled with living names, and that it would sink into oblivion.' I ventured to hint that he was not quite a fair judge, as Churchill had attacked him violently. JOHNSON. Nay, Sir, I am a very fair judge. He did not attack me violently till he found I did not like his poetry'; and his attack on me shall not prevent me from continuing to say what I think of him, from an apprehension that it may be ascribed to resentment. No, Sir, I called the fellow a blockhead' at first, and I will call him a blockhead still. However, I will acknowledge that I have a better opinion of him now, than I once had; for he has shewn more fertility than I expected'. To be sure, he is a tree that cannot produce good fruit: he only bears crabs. But, Sir, a tree that produces a great many crabs is better than a tree which produces only a few.'

' Churchill, in his first poem, The Rosciad (Poems, i. 4), mentions Johnson without any disrespect among those who were thought of as judge.

'For Johnson some, but Johnson, it was feared,

Would be too grave; and Sterne too gay appeared.' In The Author (ib. ii. 36), if I mistake not, he grossly alludes to the convulsive disorder to which Johnson was subject. Attacking the pensioners he says-the italics are his own :

'Others, half-palsied only, mutes become,

And what makes Smollett write makes Johnson dumb.'

* See post, April 6, 1772, where Johnson called Fielding a blockhead. ' Churchill published his first poem, The Rosciad, in March or April 1761 (Gent. Mag. xxxi. 190); The Apology in May or June (ib. p. 286); Night in Jan. 1762 (ib. xxxii. 47); The First and Second Parts of The Ghost in March (¿b. p. 147); The Third Part in the autumn (¿b. p. 449) ; The Prophecy of Famine in Jan. 1763 (ib. xxxiii. 47), and The Epistle to Hogarth in this month of July (ib. p. 363). He wrote the fourth part of The Ghost, and nine more poems, and died on Nov. 4, 1764, aged thirty-two or thirty-three.

486

Churchill's poetry.

[A.D. 1763.

In this depreciation of Churchill's poetry I could not agree with him'. It is very true that the greatest part of it is upon the topicks of the day, on which account, as it brought him great fame and profit at the time', it must proportionally slide out of the publick attention as other occasional objects succeed. But Churchill had extraordinary vigour both of thought and expression. His portraits of the players will ever be valuable to the true lovers of the drama; and his strong caricatures of several eminent men of his age, will not be forgotten by the curious. Let me add, that there are in his works many passages which are of a general nature'; and his Prophecy of Famine is a poem of no ordinary merit. It is, indeed, falsely injurious to Scotland, but therefore may be allowed a greater share of invention.

Bonnell Thornton had just published a burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's day, adapted to the ancient British musick, viz. the salt-box, the jew's-harp, the marrow-bones and cleaver, the

16 'Cowper had a higher opinion of Churchill than of any other contemporary writer. "It is a great thing," he said, "to be indeed a poet, and does not happen to more than one man in a century; but Churchill, the great Churchill, deserved that name." He made him, more than any other writer, his model.' Southey's Cowper, i. 87. 8.

'Mr. Forster says that 'Churchill asked five guineas for the manuscript of The Rosciad (according to Southey, but Mr. Tooke says he asked twenty pounds).' Finding no purchaser he brought the poem out at his own risk. Mr. Forster continues:—' The pulpit had starved him on forty pounds a year; the public had given him a thousand pounds in two months.' Forster's Essays, ii. 226, 240. As The Rosciad was sold at one shilling a copy, it seems incredible that such a gain could have been made, even with the profits of The Apology included. Blotting and correcting was so much Churchill's abhorrence that I have heard from his publisher he once energetically expressed himself, that it was like cutting away one's own flesh.' D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, iii. 129. D'Israeli had heard that after a successful work he usually precipitated the publication of another, relying on its crudeness being passed over by the public curiosity excited by its better brother. He called this getting double pay, for thus he secured the sale of a hurried work.'

In the opening lines of Gotham, Bk. iii, there is a passage of great beauty and tenderness.

humstrum