ed by all ranks; but one may easily distin- | guish the born gentlewoman.' "He said, the poor in England were better provided for, than in any other country of the same extent: he did not mean little cantons, or petty republicks. Where a great proportion of the people,' said he, ' are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed, and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization. Gentlemen of education,' he observed, were pretty much the same in all countries; the condition of the lower orders, the poor especially, was the true mark of national discrimination.' zling and tempting object; but when they came to possess the wives and their fortunes together, they began to suspect they had not made quite so good a bargain. "Speaking of the late Duke of Northumberland living very magnificently when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, somebody remarked, it would be difficult to find a suitable successor to him: then,' cxclaimed Johnson, he is only fit to succeed himself.' "He advised me, if possible, to have a good orchard. He knew, he said, a clergyman of small income, who brought up a family very reputably, which he chiefly fed with apple dumplings 5. "He said he had known several good scholars among the Irish gentlemen; but scarcely any of them correct in quantity. He extended the same observation to Scotland. "When the corn laws were in agitation in Ireland, by which that country has been enabled not only to feed itself, but to export corn to a large amount; Sir Thomas Robinson observed, that those laws might be prejudicial to the corn-trade of England. "Speaking of a certain prelate 6, who exSir Thomas,' said he, 'you talk the lan-erted himself very laudably in building guage of a a savage: what, sir, would you pre-churches and parsonage-houses; however,' vent any people from feeding themselves, said he, I do not find that he is esteemed if by any honest means they can do it?' a man of much professional learning, or a "It being mentioned, that Garrick assist- liberal patron of it;—yet, it is well where a ed Dr. Browne2, the authour of the Esti- man possesses any strong positive excelmate,' in some dramatick composition, 'No, lence.-Few have all kinds of merit belongsir,' said Johnson; he would no more suf-ing to their character. We must not exfer Garrick to write a line in his play, than he would suffer him to mount his pulpit.' "Speaking of Burke 3, he said, 'It was commonly observed he spoke too often in parliament; but nobody could say he did not speak well, though too frequently and too familiarly.' Speaking of economy, he remarked, it was hardly worth while to save anxiously twenty pounds a year. If a man could save to that degree, so as to enable him to assume a different rank in society, then, indeed, it might answer some purpose. "He observed, a principal source of erroneous judgment was viewing things partially and only on one side; as for instance, fortunehunters, when they contemplated the fortunes singly and separately, it was a daz 1 [The elder brother of the first Lord Rokeby, called Long Sir Thomas Robinson, on account of his height, and to distinguish him from Sir Thomas Robinson, first Lord Grantham. See post, p. 196.-ED.] [Dr. John Browne, born in 1715; A. B. of St. John's, Cambridge, in 1735, and D. D. in 1755; besides his celebrated" Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times,"-a work which, in one year, ran throngh seven editions, ana is now forgotten, and several religious and miscellaneous works, he was the authour of two tragedies, Barbarossa and Athelstan. He was a man of considerable but irregular genius; and he died insane, by his own hand, in 1766.-ED.] [Mr. Burke came into parliament in 1765.ED.] amine matters too deeply.-No, sir, a fallible being will fail somewhere.' "Talking of the Irish clergy, he said, Swift was a man of great parts, and the instrument of much good to his country.— Berkeley was a profound scholar, as well as a man of fine imagination; but Usher 7,' he 4 [Sir Hugh Smithson, who, by his marriage with the daughter of Algernon, Duke of Somerset, became second Earl of Northumberland of the new creation, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1763 to 1765; he was created a duke in 1766.-ED.] [This seems a strange resource. Perhaps Dr. Maxwell, at the interval of so many years, did not perfectly recollect Dr. Johnson's statement.-ED.] [Probably Dr. Richard Robinson, Bishop of Killaloe in 1751, of Ferns in 1759, of Kildare in 1761; Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland from 1765 to 1795. He was created Lord Rokeby in 1777, with remainder to the issue of his cousin, Matthew Robinson, of West Layton, two of whose sons have successively succeeded to that title. He built what is called Canterbury-gate, and the adjacent quadrangle, in Christ-Church, Oxford.-ED.] 7 [The Irish church has too long neglected to pay its debt of gratitude to Usher; but the University of Dublin has at length determined to print at its press the works of her " great luminary." The edition and the care of prefixing a life of the prelate, is confided to the able hands of Dr. Charles Elrington, regius professor of divinity in that university.-ED.] said, was the great luminary of the Irish church; and a greater,' he added, no church could boast of; at least in modern times.' "He then took a most affecting leaveof me; said, he knew it was a point of duty that called me away. We shall all be sorry to lose you,' said he; laudo tamen."-MAXWELL. "We dined tête-à-tête at the Mitre, as I was preparing to return to Ireland, after an absence of many years. I regretted much This is to me a memorable year; for in it leaving London, where I had formed many I had the happiness to obtain the acquaintagreeable connexions: Sir,' said he, Iance of that extraordinary man whose medon't wonder at it: no man, fond of letters, moirs I am now writing; an acquaintance leaves London without regret. But re- which I shall ever esteem as one of the member, sir, you have seen and enjoyed most fortunate circumstances in my life. a great deal you have seen life in its Though then but two-and-twenty, I had highest decorations, and the world has nothing new to exhibit.-No man is so slaved by avarice, ambition, or pleasure, has yet well qualified to leave publick life as he made himself a slave to love, he thus proceeds: who has long tried it and known it well. 'If this dire passion never will be done, We are always hankering after untried situations, and imagining greater felicity from them than they can afford. No, sir, knowledge and virtue may be acquired in all countries, and your local consequence will make you some amends for the intellectual gratifications you relinquish.' Then he quoted the following lines with great pathos: He who has early known the pomps of state, 1 Being desirous to trace these verses to the If beauty always must my heart enthral, One who has early known the pomp of state, In her blest arms contented could I live, With hopes of joys impossible to find." " Another instance of Johnson's retaining in his memory verses by obscure authours is given [post, 27th August, 1773], where, in consequence of hearing a girl spinning in a chamber over that in which he was sitting, he repeated these lines, which he said were written by one Giffard, a clergyman; but the poem in which they are introduced has hitherto been undiscovered: "Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound: In the autumn of 1782, when he was at Brighthelmstone, he frequently accompanied Mr. Philip Metcalfe in his chaise, to take the air; and the conversation in one of their excursions happening to turn on a celebrated historian, since deceased, he repeated, with great precision, some verses, as very characteristick of that gentleman. These furnish another proof of what has been above observed; for they are found in a very obscure quarter, among some anonymous poems appended to the second volume of a collection frequently printed by Lintot, under the title of Pope's MISCELLANIES: "See how the wand'ring Danube flows, A friend to all true christian foes, In reciting these verses, I have no doubt that Johnson substituted some word for infidel, in the second stanza, to avoid the disagreeable repetition of the same expression.-MALONE. for several years read his works with delight and instruction, and had the highest reverence for their authour, which had grown up in my fancy into a kind of mysterious veneration, by figuring to myself a state of solemn elevated abstraction, in which I supposed him to live in the immense metropolis of London. Mr. Gentleman 1, a native of Ireland, who passed some years in Scotland as a player, and as an instructor in the English language, a man whose talents and worth were depressed by misfortunes, had given me a representation of the figure and manner of DICTIONARY JOHNSON! as he was then generally called?; and during my first visit to London, which was for three months in 1760, Mr. Derrick the poet 3, who was Gentleman's friend and countryman, flattered me with hopes that he would introduce me to Johnson, an honour of which I was very ambitious. But he never found an opportunity; which made me doubt that he had promised to do what was not in his power; till Johnson some years afterwards told me, "Derrick, sir, might very well have introduced you. I had a kindness for Derrick, and am sorry he is dead." In the summer of 1761, Mr. Thomas Sheridan was at Edinburgh, and delivered lectures upon the English Language and Publick Speaking to large and respectable audiences. I was often in his company, and 1 [Francis Gentleman was born in 1728, and educated in Dublin. His father was an officer in the army, and he, at the age of fifteen, obtained a commission in the same regiment; on the reduction, at the peace of 1748, he lost this profession, and adopted that of the stage, both as an author and an actor; in neither of which did he attain any eminence. He died in December, 1784; having, in the later course of his life, experienced "all the hardships of a wandering actor, and all the disappointments of a friendless author."-ED.] As great men of antiquity, such as Scipio Africanus, had an epithet added to their names, in consequence of some celebrated action, so my illustrious friend was often called DICTIONARY JOHNSON, from that wonderful achievement of genius and labour, his "Dictionary of the English Language; the merit of which I contemplate with more and more admiration.-BosWELL. [Boswell himself was at one time anxious to be called Corsica Boswell. See post, September, 1769.-ED.] 3 [Samuel Derrick was an Irishman, born about 1724; he was apprenticed to a linendraper, but abandoned trade for the stage and literature; he made, at least, one attempt as actor, but failed; as an authour he was more successful, but is now almost equally forgotten. He succeeded Nash as master of the ceremonies at Bath; but his extravagance and irregularities always kept hin poor, and he died in 1760 in very necessitous circumstances.-ED.] heard him frequently expatiate upon Johnson's extraordinary knowledge, talents, and virtues, repeat his pointed sayings, describe his particularities, and boast of his being his guest sometimes till two or three in the morning. At his house I hoped to have many opportunities of seeing the sage, as Mr. Sheridan obligingly assured me I should not be disappointed. When I returned to London in the end of 1762, to my surprise and regret I found an irreconcileable difference had taken place between Johnson and Sheridan. A penSion of two hundred pounds a year had been given to Sheridan. Johnson, who, as has been already mentioned, thought slightingly of Sheridan's art, upon hearing that he was also pensioned, exclaimed, “What! have they given him a pension? Then it is time for me to give up mine." Whether this proceeded from a momentary indignation, as if it were an affront to his exalted merit that a player should be rewarded in the same manner with him, or was the sudden effect of a fit of peevishness, it was unluckily 4 said, and, indeed, cannot be justified. Mr. Sheridan's pension was granted to him not as a player, but as a sufferer 5 4 [Unluckily is too mild a term; it was ungrateful as well as arrogant, for we have seen that Sheridan had no small share in obtaining Johnson his pension-he rang the bell, as Lord Loughborough admitted. Nor was Johnson's, as Mr. Boswell represents it, a sudden fit of peevishness : too many instances will occur in the following pages of the continued and studied contumely with which Johnson pursued Sheridan.-ED.] [Mr. Boswell, in his tenderness to the amour propre of Doctor Johnson, cannot bear to admit that Sheridan's literary character had any thing to do with the pension, and no doubt he endeavoured to soften Johnson's resentment by giving, as he does in the above passage, this favour a political colour; but there seems no reason to believe that Sheridan's pension was given to him as a sufferer by a play-house riot. It was probably granted (et hinc illæ lacryma) on the same motive as Johnson's own, namely, the desire of the king and Lord Bute to distinguish the commencement of the new reign by a patronage of literature. Indeed this is rendered almost certain by the following passages of the letters of Mrs. Sheridan to Mr. White: Dissertation is, you see, addressed to Lord Bute. London, Feb. 25th, 1762.-"Mr. Sheridan's It has been as well received by him as we could possibly wish, and even beyond the expectation He expressed himself highly word that it should receive all countenance and pleased with the design, and sent Mr. Sheridan encouragement." of our friends. London, March 30, 1762.—“I believe I told you in my last that Lord Bute had received the Dissertation and Address very well, and promised the plan all countenance and encouragement." in the cause of government when he was manager of the Theatre Royal in Ireland, when parties ran high in 1753. And it must also be allowed that he was a man of literature, and had considerably improved the arts of reading and speaking with distinctness and propriety. in much higher spheres. When I look back on this noble person at Edinburgh, in situations so unworthy of his brilliant powers, and behold LORD LOUGHBOROUGH at London, the change seems almost like one of the metamorphoses in Ovid, and as his two preceptors, by refining his utterance, gave currency to his talents, we may say in the words of that poet, "Nam vos mutastis." I have dwelt the longer upon this remarkable instance of successful parts and assiduity; because it affords animating encouragement to other gentlemen of North Britain to try their fortunes in the southern part of the island, where they may hope to gratify their utmost ambition; and now that we are one people by the Union, it would surely be illiberal to maintain, that they have not an equal title with the natives of any other part of his majesty's dominions. Johnson complained that a man who dis Besides, Johnson should have recollected that Mr. Sheridan taught pronunciation to Mr. Alexander Wedderburne, whose sister was married to Sir Harry Erskine, an intimate friend of Lord Bute, who was the favourite of the king; and surely the most outrageous whig will not maintain, that whatever ought to be the principle in the disposal of offices, a pension ought never to be granted from any bias of court connexion. Mr. Macklin, indeed, shared with Mr. Sheridan the honour of instructing Mr. Wedderburne "; and though it was too late in life for a Caledonian to acquire the genuine English cadence, yet so successful were Mr. Wedderburne's instruct-liked him repeated his sarcasm to Mr. Sherors, and his own unabating endeavours, that he got rid of the coarse part of his Scotch accent, retaining only as much of the "native wood- note wild," as to mark his country; which, if any Scotchman should affect to forget, I should heartily despise him. Notwithstanding the difficulties which are to be encountered by those who have not had the advantage of an English education, he by degrees formed a mode of speaking, to which Englishmen do not deny the praise of elegance. Hence his distinguished oratory, which he exerted in his own country as an advocate in the court of session, and a ruling elder of the kirk, has had its fame and ample reward, idan, without telling him what followed, which was, that after a pause he added, "However, I am glad that Mr. Sheridan has a pension, for he is a very good man." Sheridan could never forgive his hasty contemptuous expression. It rankled in his mind; and though I informed him of all that Johnson said, and that he would be very glad to meet him amicably, he positively declined repeated offers which I made, and once went off abruptly from a house where he and I were engaged to dine, because he was told that Johnson was to be there. I have no sympathetick feeling with such persevering resentment 3. It is painful when there is a breach between those who have lived together socialLondon, 29, 1792.—" Mr. Sheridan is now, as ly and cordially; and I wonder that there 1 mentioned to you formerly, busied in the Eng- is not, in all such cases, a mutual wish that lish Dictionary, which he is encouraged to pur- it should be healed. I could perceive that sue with the more alacrity as his majesty has Mr. Sheridan was by no means satisfied 4 vouchsafed him such a mark of royal favour. I suppose you have heard that he has granted him with Johnson's acknowledging him to be a a pension of 2007. a year, merely as an encourage- good man. That could not soothe huis inment to his undertaking, and this without solicita-jured vanity. I could not but smile, at the tion, which makes it the more valuable.”same time that I was offended, to observe White's Misc. Nova, p. 104. 107. 111.-ED.] Sheridan in the Life of Swift, which he af1 [In all this pretended defence of Sheridan's terwards published, attempting, in the wripension, it is easy to see that Boswell is infected things of his resentment, to depreciate with Johnson's spirit, and does all he can to de- Johnson, by characterising him as " A wripreciate the motives of the grant. He seems al-ter of gigantick fame, in these days of little so inclined to sneer a little at his own countryman, Lord Loughborough, forgetting that, even if he had committed the offence (which is not proved) of suggesting Sheridan's pension, he had actually procured Johnson's.- ED.] [This is an odd coincidence. A Scotchman who wishes to learn a pure English pronunciation employs one preceptor who happens to be an Irishman, and afterwards another, likewise an Irishman, and this Irish-taught Scot becomes and mainly by his oratory-one of the chief ornaments of the English senate, and the first subject in the British empire.-ED.] men:" that very Johnson whom he once so highly admired and venerated 5. 3 [But Johnson seems to have kept it alive by persevering sarcasms.-ED.] 4 [Why should he have been? His goodness had nothing to say to the question. Sheridan's pension was granted to him for his literary character, and Johnson's following up his insolent attack on his talents by a supercilious acknowledgment that he was nevertheless a very good man, was an additional insult.-ED.] 3 [This would have been very slight retalia who goes to her grave unrelieved, but resigned, and full of hope of "heaven's mercy." Johnson paid her this high compliment upon it: "I know not, madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much." This rupture with Sheridan deprived | what it teaches is impressed upon the mind Johnson of one of his most agreeable re- by a series of as deep distress as can affect sources for amusement in his lonely even-humanity, in the amiable and pious heroine ings; for Sheridan's well-informed, animated, and bustling mind never suffered conversation to stagnate; and Mrs. Sheridan was a most agreeable companion to an intellectual man. She was sensible, ingenious, unassuming, yet communicative. I recollect, with satisfaction, many pleasing Mr. Thomas Davies the actor, who then hours which I passed with her under the kept a bookseller's shop in Russell-street, hospitable roof of her husband, who was to Covent-garden 2, told me that Johnson was me a very kind friend. Her novel, entitled very much his friend, and came frequently "Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph," to his house, where he more than once incontains an excellent moral, while it incul-vited me to meet him: but by some uncates a future state of retribution ; and tion; but, in truth, Mr. Boswell is not quite fair in representing it as an attempt at retaliation on Sheridan's own account. Dr. Johnson had depreciated the talents and character of Dr. Swift, not merely in conversation, but in his Lives of the Poets. Sheridan, in his Life of Swift, ad vocated the cause of the dean, for whom he had a natural and hereditary veneration; and though he observed on Johnson's criticisms and censures with a severity sharpened probably by his personal feelings, he treated him on all other points with moderation and respect.-ED.] lucky accident or other he was prevented from coming to us. Mr. Thomas Davies was a man of good understanding and talents, with the advantage of a liberal education. Though somewhat pompous, he was an entertaining companion; and his literary performances have no inconsiderable share of merit. He Both he and his wife (who has been celewas a friendly and very hospitable man. brated 3 for her beauty), though upon the stage for many years, maintained an uniform decency of character; and Johnson 1 My position has been very well illustrated by esteemed them, and lived in as easy an intiMr. Belsham of Bedford, in his Essay on Dra-macy with them as with any family which matick Poetry. "The fashionable doctrines (says he) both of moralists and criticks in these times is, that virtue and happiness are constant concomitants; and it is regarded as a kind of dramatick impiety to maintain that virtue should not be rewarded, nor vice punished in the last scene of the last act of every tragedy. This conduct in our modern poets is, however, in my opinion, extremely injudicious; for it labours in vain to inculcate a doctrine in theory, which every one knows to be false in fact, viz. that virtue in real life is always productive of happiness, and vice of misery. Thus Congreve concludes the tragedy of The Mourning Bride' with the following foolish couplet : For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, And, though a late, a sure reward succeeds.' "When a man eminently virtuous, a Brutus, a Cato, or a Socrates, finally sinks under the pressure of accumulated misfortune, we are not only led to entertain a more indignant hatred of vice than if he rose from his distress, but we are inevitably induced to cherish the sublime idea that a day of future retribution will arrive when he shall receive not merely poetical, but real and substantial justice." Essays Philosophical, Historical, and Literary, London, 1791, Vol. II. 8vo. p. 317. This is well reasoned and well expressed. I wish, indeed, that the ingenious authour had not thought it necessary to introduce any instance of "a man eminently virtuous;' as he would then have avoided mentioning such a ruffian as Brutus under that description. Mr. Belsham discovers in his " Essays so much reading and thinking, and good composition, that I regret his he used to visit. Mr. Davies recollected several of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was one of the best of the many imitators of his voice and manner, while relating them. He increased my impatience more and more to see the extraordinary man whose works I highly valued, and whose conversation was reported to be so peculiarly excellent. At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's back not having been fortunate enough to be educated a member of our excellent national establishment. Had he not been nursed in nonconformity, he probably would not have been tainted with those heresies (as I sincerely, and on no slight investigation, think them) both in religion and politicks, which, while I read, I am sure, with candour, I cannot read without offence.-BosWELL. 2 No. 8.-The very place where I was fortunate enough to be introduced to the illustrious subject of this work deserves to be particularly marked. I never pass by it without feeling reverence and regret.-BOSWELL. 3. [By Churchill, in the Rosciad, where, rather in contempt of Davies than out of compliment to his wife, he exclaims, -on my life, That Davies has a very pretty wife." Davies's pompous manner of reciting his part the satirist describes with more force than delicacy: "He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone." This sarcasm drove, it is said, (post, 7th April, 1778), poor Davies from the stage.-ED.] |