pleasure which this distinction gives me to your concurrence with Dr. Andrews in recommending me to the learned society. "Having desired the provost to return my general thanks to the university, I beg that you, sir, will accept my particular and immediate acknowledgments. I am, sir, your most obedient and most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON.""] Hawk. p. 446. [His great affection for our own universities, and particularly his attachment to Oxford, prevented Johnson from receiving this honour2 as it was intended, and he never assumed the title which it conferred. He was as little pleased to be called Doctor in consequence of it, as he was with the title of domine, which a friend of his once incautiously addressed him by. He thought it alluded to his having been a schoolmaster; and though he has ably vindicated Milton from the reproach that Salmasius meant to fix on him, by saying that he was of that profession, he wished to have it forgot, that himself had ever been driven to it as the means of subsistence, and had failed in the attempt.] He appears this year to have been seized with a temporary fit of ambition, for he had thoughts both of studying law, and of engaging in politicks. His "Prayer before the Study of Law" is truly admirable: "26 Sept. 1765. "Almighty God, the giver of wisdom, without whose help resolutions are vain, without whose blessing study is ineffectual; enable me, if it be thy will, to attain such knowledge as may qualify me to direct the doubtful, and instruct the ignorant; to prevent wrongs and terminate contentions; and grant that I may use that knowledge which I shall attain, to thy glory and my own salvation, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen." His prayer in the view of becoming a politician is entitled " Engaging in POLITICKS with H-n," no doubt, his friend, the Right Honourable William Gerard Hamilton, for whom, during a long ac I have not been able to recover the letter which Johnson wrote to Dr. Andrews on this occasion.-MALONE. 2 [This is a mistake of Hawkins, which Murphy also adopts. Mr. Boswell states, (post, 7th April, 1775, n.) that Johnson, himself, never used the title of Doctor before his name, even after his Oxford degree.-ED.] 3 [Mr. Hamilton had been secretary to Lord Halifax as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and remained a short time with his successor, Lord Northumberland, but he resigned in 1764. Though he never spoke in parliament after this, his biographer informs us (perhaps on the authority of this passage), that he meditated taking an active part in political life; he, however, did not, and his al quaintance, he had a great esteem, and to whose conversation he once paid this high compliment: "I am very unwilling to be left alone, sir, and therefore I go with my company down the first pair of stairs, in some hopes that they may, perhaps, return again; I go with you, sir, as far as the streetdoor." In what particular department he intended to engage 4 does not appear, nor can Mr. Hamilton explain. His prayer is in general terms. "Enlighten my understanding with knowledge of right, and govern my will by thy laws, that no deceit may mislead me, nor temptation corrupt me; that I may always endeavour to do good, and hinder evil.” There is nothing upon the subject in his diary. This year was distinguished by his being introduced into the family of Mr. Thrale, one of the most eminent brewers in England, and member of parliament for the borough of Southwark. Foreigners are not a little amazed, when they hear of brewers, distillers, and men in similar departments of trade, held forth as persons of considerable consequence. In this great commercial country it is natural that a situation which liance with Johnson, whatever it was intended to be, seems to have produced little or nothing, at least that we know of. Mr. Hamilton died in 1796, æt. 68.-ED.] In the preface to a late collection of Mr. Hamilton's Pieces, it has been observed, that our authour was, by the generality of Johnson's words, " led to suppose that he was seized with a temporary fit of ambition, and that hence he was induced to apply his thoughts to law and politicks. But Mr. Boswell was certainly mistaken in this respect: and these words merely allude to Johnson's having at that time entered into some engagement with Mr. Hamilton occasionally to furnish him with his sentiments on the great political topicks which should be considered in parliament." In consequence of this engagement, Johnson, in November, 1766, wrote a very valuable tract, entitled "Considerations on Corn," which is printed as an appendix to the works of Mr. Hamilton, published by T. Payne in 1808.— MALONE. [It seems very improbable that so solemn a "prayer, on engaging in politics," should have had no meaning. It were perhaps vain now to inquire after what Mr. Hamilton professed not to be able to explain; but we may be sure that it was, in Johnson's opinion, no such trivial and casual assistance as is suggested in Mr. Malone's note. From a letter to Miss Porter, (post, 14th January, 1766), it may be guessed, that this engagement was in some way connected with the parliamentary session, and it may have been an alliance to write pamphlets or paragraphs in favour of a particular line of politicks. Whatever it was, it may be inferred, from the obscurity in which they have left it, that it was something which neither Hamilton nor Johnson chose to talk about.-ED.] produces much wealth should be consider- | used to say, 'If this young dog does not find so much after I am gone as he expects, let him remember that he has had a great deal in my own time."" The son, though in affluent circumstances, had good sense enough to carry on his his father's trade, which was of such extent, that I remember he once told me, he would not quit it for an annuity of ten thousand a year; "For (said he) that I get ten thousand a year by it, but it is an estate to a family." Having left daughters only, the property was sold for the immense sum of one hundred and thirty-five thousand pounds; a magnificent proof of what may be done by fair trade in a long period of time. ed as very respectable; and, no doubt, honest industry is entitled to esteem. But, perhaps, the too rapid advances of men of low extraction tends to lessen the value of that distinction by birth and gentility, which has ever been found beneficial to the grand scheme of subordination. Johnson used to give this account of the rise of Mr. Thrale's father: "He worked at six shillings a week for twenty years in the great brewery, which afterwards was his own. The proprietor of it had an only daughter, who was married to a nobleman. It was not fit that a peer should continue the business. On the old man's death, therefore, the brewery was to be sold. To find a pur- There may be some who think that a new chaser for so large a property was a difficult system of gentility3 might be established, matter; and, after some time, it was sug- upon principles totally different from what gested, that it would be advisable to treat have hitherto prevailed. Our present herwith Thrale, a sensible, active, honest man, aldy, it may be said, is suited to the barbawho had been employed in the house, and torous times in which it had its origin. It is transfer the whole to him for thirty thousand chiefly founded upon ferocious merit, upon pounds, security being taken upon the pro- military excellence. Why, in civilized perty. This was accordingly settled. In times, we may be asked, should there not eleven years Thrale paid the purchase-mo-be rank and honours, upon principles, which, ney. He acquired a large fortune, and liv- independent of long custom, are certainly ed to be [high-sheriff of Surrey in 1733, not less worthy, and which, when once aland] member of parliament for Southwark lowed to be connected with elevation and [in 1740.] But what was most remarkable precedency, would obtain the same dignity was the liberality with which be used his in our imagination? Why should not the riches. He gave his son and daughters the knowledge, the skill, the expertness, the asbest education. The esteem which his good siduity, and the spirited hazards of trade and conduct procured him from the nobleman commerce, when crowned with success, be who had married his master's daughter made entitled to give those flattering distinctions him be treated with much attention; and his by which mankind are so universally captison,both at school and at the university of vated? Oxford, associated with young men of the first rank. His allowance from his father, after he left college, was splendid; not less than a thousand a year. This, in a man who had risen as old Thrale did, was a very extraordinary instance of generosity. He The predecessor of old Thrale was Edmund Halsey, esq.; the nobleman who married his daughter was Lord Cobham, great uncle of the Marquis of Buckingham. But, I believe, Dr. Johnson was mistaken in assigning so very low an origin to Mr. Thrale. The clerk of St. Alban's, a very aged man, told me, that he (the elder Thrale) married a sister of Mr. Halsey. It is at least certain that the family of Thrale was of some consideration in that town: in the abbey church is a handsome monument to the memory of Mr. John Thrale, late of London, merchant, who died in 1704, aged 54; Margaret, his wife, and three of their children who died young, between the years 1676 and 1690. The arms upon this monument are, paly of eight, gules and or, impaling, ermine, on a chief indented vert, three wolves' (or gryphons') heads, or, couped at the neck:-Crest on a ducal coronet, a tree, vert.BLAKEWAY. 2 [He died in Ap. 1758, and his wife in 1760. -Gent. Mag.-ED.] Such are the specious, but false arguments for a proposition which always will find nu merous advocates in a nation where men are every day starting up from obscurity to wealth. To refute them is needless. The general sense of mankind cries out with ir 3 Mrs. Burney informs me that she heard Dr. Johnson say, "An English merchant is a new species of gentleman." He, perhaps, had in his mind the following ingenious passage in "The Conscious Lovers," Act iv. Scene ii. where Mr. Sealand thus addresses Sir John Bevil: "Give me leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that have grown into the world this last century, and are as honourable, and almost as useful as you landed-folks, that have always thought yourselves so much above us; for your trading forsooth is extended no farther than a load of hay, or a fat ox. You are pleasant people indeed! because you are generally bred up to be lazy; therefore, I warrant you, industry is dishonourable,"-BOSWELL. [If indeed Johnson called merchants a new species of gentlemen, he must have forgotten not only the merchants of Tyre who were "princes," and the Medici of Florence, but the Greshams, Cranfields, Osbornes, Duncombes, and so many others of England. ED.] 220 resistible force," Un gentilhomme est tou- | of this couple?. Mr. Thrale was tall, well jours gentilhomme 1." Mr. Thrale had married Miss Hesther Lynch Salusbury, of good Welsh extraction, a lady of lively talents, improved by education. That Johnson's introduction into Mr. Thrale's family, which contributed so much to the happiness of his life, was owing to her desire for his conversation, is a very probable and the general supposition: but it is not the truth. Mr. Murphy, who was intimate with Mr. Thrale, having spoken very highly of Dr. Johnson, he was requested to make them acquainted. This being mentioned to Johnson, he accepted of an invitation to dinner at Thrale's, and was so much pleased with his reception, both by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, and they so much pleased with him, that his invitations to their house were more and more frequent, till at last he became one of the family, and an apartment was appropriated to him, both in their house at Southwark, and in their villa at Streatham. Piozzi, p. 99. Johnson had a very sincere esteem for Mr. Thrale, as a man of excellent principles, a good scholar, well skilled in trade, of a sound understanding, and of manners such as presented the character of a plain independent English 'squire. And when, as Mrs. Piozzi tells us, with an amiable glow of gratitude, any perplexity happened to disturb Mr. Thrale's quiet, dear Dr. Johnson left him scarce a moment, and tried every artifice to amuse, as well as every argument to console him: nor is it more possible to describe than to forget his prudent, his pious attentions towards the man who had some years before certainly saved his valuable life, perhaps his reason.] As this family will frequently be mentioned in the course of the following pages, and as a false notion has prevailed that Mr. Thrale was inferior, and in some degree insignificant, compared with Mrs. Thrale, it may be proper to give a true state of the case from the authority of Johnson himself in his own words. "I know no man (said he), who is more master of his wife and family than Thrale. If he but holds up a finger, he is obeyed. It is a great mistake to suppose that she is above him in literary attainments. She is more flippant; but he has ten times her learning; he is a regular scholar; but her learning is that of a schoolboy in one of the lower forms." My readers may naturally wish for some representation of the figures [This dictum is, whatever be its value, not applicable to this case, where the question is not whether a gentleman can ever cease to be one, but whether a plebeian can ever become a gentleman.-ED.] Piozzi, p. 279. proportioned, and stately. As for madam or my mistress, by which epithets Johnson used to mention Mrs. Thrale, she was short, plump, and brisk 3. She has herself given us a lively view of the idea which Johnson had of her person, on her appearing before him in a darkcoloured gown: "You little creatures should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are unsuitable in every way. What! have not all insects gay colours?" Mr. Thrale gave his wife a liberal indulgence, both in the choice of their company, and in the mode of entertaining them. He understood and valued Johnson, without remission, from their first acquaintance to the day of his death. Mrs. Thrale was enchanted with Johnson's conversation for its own sake, and had also a very allowable vanity in appearing to be honoured with the attention of so celebrated a man. Nothing could be more fortunate for Johnson than this connexion. He had at Mr. Thrale's all the comforts and even luxuries of life: his melancholy was diverted, and his irregular habits lessened by association with an agreeable and well-ordered family. He was treated with the utmost respect and even affection. The vivacity of Mrs. Thrale's literary talk roused him to cheerfulness and exertion, even when they were alone. But this was not often the case; for he found here a constant succession of what gave him the highest enjoyment, the society of the learned, the witty, and the eminent in every way, who were assembled in numerous, companies; called forth his wonderful powers, and gratified him with admiration, to which no man could be insensible. Tyers, p. 8. [Johnson formed, says Mr. Tyers, at Streatham a room for a library, and increased by his recommendation the number of books. Here he was to be found (himself a library) when a friend called upon him; and by him the friend was sure to be introduced to the dinner-table, which Mrs. Thrale knew how to spread with the utmost plenty and elegance, and which was often adorned with such guests, that to dine there was epulis accumbere divum. Of Mrs. Thrale, if mentioned at all, less cannot be said, than that in one of the latest opinions of Johnson, "If she was not the wisest woman in the world, she was undoubtedly one of the wittiest." Besides a natural vivacity in conversation, she had reading enough, and Hawk. p. 458. land."] Ed Piozzi p. 95 the "gods had made her poetical." Her"Why, Johnson rides as well, for aught I poem of "The Three Warnings" (the see, as the most illiterate fellow in Eng. subject she owned not to be original) is highly interesting and serious, and literally [Mrs. Piozzi's account of the comes home to every body's business and commencement and progress of bosom. She took, or caused such care to this acquaintance deserves to be be taken of Johnson, during an illness of preserved in her own words: ["The first continuance, that Goldsmith told her, "he time I ever saw this extraordinary man owed his recovery to her attention." She was in the year 1764, when Mr. moreover taught him to lay up something Murphy, who had long been the of his income every year.] friend and confidential intimate of [Johnson had also at Streatham oppor- Mr. Thrale, persuaded him to wish for tunities of exercise, and the plea- Johnson's conversation, extolling it in terms sure of airings and excursions. In which that of no other person could have the exercise of a coach he had deserved, till we were only in doubt how great delight; it afforded him the indul- to obtain his company, and find an excuse gence of indolent postures, and, as it seems, for the invitation. The celebrity of Mr. the noise of it assisted his hearing.] [When Woodhouse, a shoemaker, whose verses Mrs. Piozzi asked him why he do- were at that time the subject of common ted on a coach so, he answered, discourse, soon afforded å pretence, and that, "in the first place, the com- Mr. Murphy brought Johnson to meet him, pany were shut in with him there, and giving me a general caution not to be surcould not escape as out of a room; and, in prised at his figure, dress, or behaviour. the next place, he heard all that was said in What I recollect best of the day's talk was a carriage.] [He was prevailed his earnestly recommending Addison's Hawk. on by Mr. Thrale to join in the works to Mr. Woodhouse as a model for pleasures of the chase, in which he imitation. 'Give nights and days, sir,' showed himself a bold rider, for he either said he, to the study of Addison, if you leaped, or broke through, the hedges that mean either to be a good writer, or, what obstructed him. This he did, not because is more worth, an honest man.' When I he was eager in the pursuit, but, as he saw something like the same expression in said, to save the trouble of alighting and his criticism on that authour, lately pubremounting. He did not derive the plea-lished, [in the Lives of the Poets] I put sure or benefit from riding that many do: it had no tendency to raise his spirits; and he once said that, in a journey on horseback, he fell asleep.] Piozzi. p. 213. p. 457. Piozzi, p. 159. him in mind of his past injunctions to the young poet, to which he replied, That he wished the shoemaker might have remembered them as well.' Mr. Johnson liked [He certainly rode on Mr. his new acquaintance so much, however, Thrale's old hunter with a good that from that time he dined with us every firmness, and though he would fol- Thursday through the winter, and in the low the hounds fifty miles an end some- autumn of the next year he followed us to times, would never own himself either Brighthelmstone, whence we were gone betired or amused. "I have now learned," fore his arrival; so he was disappointed said he, "by hunting, to perceive that it is and enraged, and wrote us a letter expresno diversion at all, nor ever takes a man sive of anger, which we were desirous to out of himself for a moment: the dogs pacify, and to obtain his company again if have less sagacity than I could have pre- possible. Mr. Murphy brought him back vailed on myself to suppose; and the gen- to us again very kindly, and from that time tlemen often called to me not to ride over his visits grew more frequent, till in the them. It is very strange and very melan-year 1766 his health, which he had always choly, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them." He was however proud to be amongst the sportsmen; and Mrs. Piozzi thought no praise ever went so close to his heart, as when Mr. Hamilton called out one day upon Brighthelmstone Downs, 1 [Mr. Boswell says, in another place, that Johnson once hunted; this seems more probable than Mrs. Piozzi's and Hawkins's statements, from which it would be inferred, that he hunted habitually. It seems hard to figure to one's self Dr. Johnson fairly joining in this violent and, to him, one would suppose, extravagant and dangerous amusement.-ED.] complained of, grew so exceedingly bad, that he could not stir out of his room in the court he inhabited for many weeks together-I think months. "Mr. Thrale's attentions and my own now became so acceptable to him, that he often lamented to us the horrible condition of his mind, which he said was nearly distracted; and though he charged us to make him odd solemn promises of secrecy on so strange? a subject, yet when we wait 2 [In the second month of his acquaintance with Mr. Boswell, we have seen that Johnson communicated to him his tendency to this infirmity, yet, though he could himself be so unnecessa ed on him one morning, and heard him, in the most pathetick terms, beg the prayers of Dr. Delap1, who had left him as we came in, I felt excessively affected with grief, and well remember that my husband involuntarily lifted up one hand to shut his mouth, from provocation at hearing a man so wildly proclaim what he could at last persuade no one to believe, and what, if true, would have been so very unfit to reveal. "Mr. Thrale went away soon after, leaving me with him, and bidding me prevail on him to quit his close habitation in the court and come with us to Streatham, where I undertook the care of his health, and had the honour and happiness of contributing to its restoration."] p. 440. In the October of this year he Hawk. at length gave to the world his edition of Shakspeare. [He was insensible to Churchill's abuse; but the poem before mentioned had brought to remembrance, that his edition of Shakspeare had long been due. His friends took the alarm, and, by all the arts of reasoning and persuasion, laboured to convince him that having taken subscriptions for a work in which he had made no progress, his credit was at stake. He confessed he was culpable, and promised from time to time to begin a course of such reading as was necessary to qualify him for the work: this was no more than he had formerly done in an engagement with Coxeter?, to whom he had bound himself to write the life of Shakspeare, but he never could be prevailed on to begin it, so that even now it was questioned whether his promises were to be relied on. For this reason Sir Joshua Reynolds, and some other of his friends, who were more concerned for his reputation than himself seemed to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other pecuniary engagement, to perform his task by a certain time.] This edition, if it had no other merit but that of producing his preface, in which the excellencies and de rily candid, we shall see with what frequency and severity he used to blame Boswell when he presumed to mention his own mental distresses. -ED.] [Rector of Lewes in Sussex.-ED.] Thomas Coxeter, Esq. who had also made a large collection of plays, and from whose manuscript notes the Lives of the English Poets, by Shiels and Cibber, were principally compiled. Mr. Coxeter was bred at Trinity College, Oxford, and died in London, April 17th, 1747, in his fiftyninth year. A particular account of him may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1781, p. 173.-MALONE. [With regard to Cibber's or Shiels's Lives of the Poets, see ante, p. 75; and post, 10th April, 1776, where the subject is resumed.-ED.] fects of that immortal bard are displayed with a masterly hand, the nation would have had no reason to complain. A blind indiscriminate admiration of Shakspeare had exposed the British nation to the ridicule of foreigners. Johnson, by candidly admitting the faults of his poet, had the more credit in bestowing on him deserved and indisputable praise; and doubtless none of all his panegyrists have done him half so much honour. Their praise was like that of a counsel, upon his own side of the cause; Johnson's was like the grave, well considered, and impartial opinion of the judge, which falls from his lips with weight, and is received with reverence. What he did as a commentator has no small share of merit, though his researches were not so ample, and his investigations so acute, as they might have been; which we now certainly know from the labours of other able and ingenious criticks who have followed him. He has enriched his edition with a concise account of each play, and of its characteristick excellence. Many of his notes have illustrated obscurities in the text, and placed passages eminent for beauty in a more conspicuous light; and he has, in general, exhibited such a mode of annotation, as may be beneficial to all subsequent editors. Piozzi, 153. [Though he would sometimes divert himself by teazing Garrick P. 44, 15, by commendations on the tomb scene in the Mourning Bride, protesting that Shakspeare had in the same line of excellence nothing as good: "All which is strictly true," he would add, "but that is no reason for supposing that Congreve is to stand in competition with Shakspeare: these fellows know not how to blame, or how to commend." Somebody was praising Corneille one day in opposition to Shakspeare: "Corneille is to Shakspeare," replied Johnson, "as a clipped hedge is to a forest." When he talked of authours, his praise would fall spontaneously on such passages as are sure, in his own phrase, to leave something behind them useful on common occasions, or connected with common manners. It was not Lear cursing his daughters, or deprecating the storm, that he would quote with commendation, but Iago's ingenious malice and subtle revenge; or Prince Henry's gay compliances with the vices of Falstaff, whom he all the while despised. Those plays had indeed no ri"No man," he vals in Johnson's favour. said, "but Shakspeare could have drawn Sir John."] His Shakspeare was virulently attacked by Mr. William Kenrick, who obtained the degree of LL. D. from a Scotch university, and wrote for the booksellers in a great variety of branches. Though he |