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Gent. Mag. vol. 58. p. 479.

["TO MR. RICHARDSON.

our, and a great deal of profit, and I doubt not but your abilities will obtain both.

"For my part, I have not lately done much. I have been ill in the winter, and my eye has been inflamed; but I please myself with the hopes of doing many things with which I have long pleased and deceiv

"Gough Square, 16th March, 1756. 66 SIR, I am obliged to entreat your assistance; I am now under an arrest for five pounds eighteen shillings. Mr. Strahan, from whom I should have received the necessary help in this case, is not at home, and I am afraided myself. of not finding Mr. Millar. If you will be so good as to send me this sum, I will very gratefully repay you, and add it to all former obligations. I am, sir, your most obedient and most humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."

"Sent six guineas 1. "Witness WILLIAM RICHARDSON."]

["DR. JOHNSON TO DR. WARTON."

Mem.

p. 238.

"15th April, 1756.

"DEAR SIR,—Though, when of Dr. you and your brother were in town, Warton, you did not think my humble habitation worth a visit, yet I will not so far give way to sullenness as not to tell you that I have lately seen an octavo book 2 which I suspect to be yours, though I have not yet read above ten pages. That way of publishing, without acquainting your friends, is a wicked trick. However, I will not so far depend upon a mere conjecture as to charge you with a fraud which I cannot prove you to have committed.

"I should be glad to hear that you are pleased with your new situation. You have now a kind of royalty, and are to be answerable for your conduct to posterity. I suppose you care not now to answer a letter, except there be a lucky concurrence of a postday with a holiday. These restraints are troublesome for a time, but custom makes them easy with the help of some hon

[Upon this Mr. Murphy regrets," for the honour of an admired writer, not to find a more liberal entry-to his friend in distress he sent eight shillings more than was wanted! Had an incident of this kind occurred in one of his romances, Richardson would have known how to grace his hero; but in fictitious scenes generosity costs the writer nothing."-Life, p. 87. This is very unjust. We have seen that Mr. Richardson had, just the month before, been called upon to do Johnson a similar service; and it has been stated that about this period Richardson was his constant resource in difficulties of this kind. Richardson moreover had numerous calls of the same nature from other quarters, which he answered with a ready and well-regulated charity. Instead, therefore, of censuring him for not giving more, Mr. Murphy might have praised him for having done all that was required on the particu

lar occasion.-Ed.]

[His essay on the writings and genius of Pope.-ED.]

[His appointment of head-master of Winchester school.-Ed.

"What becomes of poor dear Collins 5? I wrote him a letter which he never answered. I suppose writing is very troublesome to him. That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire.

"Let me not be long without a letter, and I will forgive you the omission of the visit; and if you can tell me that you are now more happy than before, you will give great pleasure to, dear sir, your most affectionate and most humble servant,

"SAM. JOHNSON."]

His works this year were, an abstract or epitome, in octavo, of his folio Dictionary, and a few essays in a monthly publication, entitled "THE UNIVERSAL VISITER." Christopher Smart, with whose unhappy vacillation of mind he sincerely sympathised, was one of the stated undertakers of this miscellany; and it was to assist him that Johnson sometimes employed his pen. All the essays marked with two asterisks have been ascribed to him; but I am confident, from internal evidence, that of these, neither "The Life of Chaucer," "Reflections on the State of Portugal," nor an "Essay on Architecture," were written by him. I am equally confident, upon the same evidence, that he wrote "Further Thoughts on Agriculture †;" being the sequel of a very infe rior essay on the same subject, and which, though carried on as if by the same hand, is both in thinking and expression so far above it, and so strikingly peculiar, as to leave no doubt of its true parent; and that he also wrote " A Dissertation on the State of Literature and Authorst," and "A Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by Pope*." The last of these, indeed, he afterwards added to his " Idler." Why the essays truly written by him are marked in the same manner with some which he did not write, I cannot explain; but with deference to those who have ascribed to him the three essays which I have rejected, they want all the characteristical marks of Johnsonian composition.

He engaged also to superintend and con

4 [Collins died in this year.-ED.]

tribute largely to another monthly publication, entitled" THE LITERARY MAGAZINE, OR UNIVERSAL REVIEW* 1; " the first number of which came out in May this year. What were his emoluments from this undertaking, and what other writers were employed in it, I have not discovered. He continued to write in it, with intermissions, till the fifteenth number; and I think that he never gave better proofs of the force, acuteness, and vivacity of his mind, than in this miscellany, whether we consider his original essays, or his reviews of the works of others. The "Preliminary Address" to the publick is a proof how this great man 'could embellish, with the graces of superiour composition, even so trite a thing as the plan of a magazine.

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" Borlase's History of the Isles of Scillyf; "Holme's Experiments on Bleachingt;" "Browne's Christian Moralst;"" Hales on distilling Sea-Water, Ventilators in Ships, and curing an ill Taste in Milkf;" "Lucas's Essay on Waterst;" "Keith's Catalogue of the Scottish Bishopst; "Browne's His tory of Jamaicat;""Philosophical Transactions, vol. XLIX.t;" "Mrs. Lenox's. Translation of Sully's Memoirs*;" " Miscellanies by Elizabeth Harrisonf;" "Ev ans's Map and Account of the Middle Col onies in Americat;""Letter on the Case of Admiral Byng *;" "Appeal to the Peo ple concerning Admiral Byng*;" way's Eight Days' Journey, and Essay on Tea*;" The Cadet, a Military Treatiset;' "Some further Particulars in RelaHis original essays are, " An introduction tion to the Case of admiral Byng, by a to the Political State of Great Britiant;' "Gentleman of Oxford*""The Conduct "Remarks on the Militia Bill †; "Obser- of the Ministry relating to the present War vations on his Britannick Majesty's Trea- impartially examined;" "A Free Inquiry ties with the Empress of Russia and the into the Nature and Origin of Evil*." ~ All Landgrave of Hesse Cassel †;" "Observa- these, from internal evidence, were written tions on the present State of Affairst; " and by Johnson: some of them I know he "Memoirs of Frederick III. King of Prus- avowed, and have marked them with an assiat." In all these he displays extensive terisk accordingly. Mr. Thomas Davies, political knowledge and sagacity, expressed indeed, ascribed to him the Review of Mr. with uncommon energy and perspicuity, Burke's "Inquiry into the Origin of our without any of those words which he some- Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful;" and times took a pleasure in adopting, in imita- Sir John Hawkins, with equal discernment, tion of Sir Thomas Browne; of whose has inserted it in his collection of Johnson's "Christian Morals" he this year gave an works: whereas it has no resemblance to edition, with his "Life" prefixed to it, Johnson's composition, and is well known which is one of Johnson's best biographical to have been written by Mr. Murphy, who performances. In one instance only in these has acknowledged it to me and many essays has he indulged his Brownism. Dr. others. Robertson, the historian, mentioned it to me, as having at once convinced him that Johnson was the authour of the "Memoirs of the King of Prussia." Speaking of the pride which the old king, the father of his hero, took in being master of the tallest regiment in Europe, he says, "To review this towering regiment was his daily pleasure; and to perpetuate it was so much his care, that when he met a tall woman he immediately commanded one of his Titanian retinue to marry her, that they might propagate procerity." For this Anglo-Latian word procerity, Johnson had, however, the authority of Addison.

66

It is worthy of remark, in justice to Johnson's political character, which has been misrepresented 2 as abjectly submissive to power, that his "Observation on the present State of Affairs" glow with as animated a spirit of constitutional liberty as can be found any where. Thus he begins:

"The time is now come, in which every Englishman expects to be informed of the national affairs; and in which he has a right to have that expectation gratified. For, whatever may be urged by ministers, or

2 [Dr. Johnson's political bias is nowhere, that the editor knows, represented as having His reviews are of the following books: been, at this date, “abjectly submissive to pow"Birch's History of the Royal Society;" er On the contrary, he was supposed, and Murphy's Gray's-Inn Journalt;" War-with some justice, to be adverse to the reigning ton's Essay on the Writings and Genius of house and its successive ministers. The charge Pope, vol. I.t;" "Hampton's Translation (which Mr. Boswell thus ingeniously answers by of Polybiust;" "Blackwell's Memoirs of shifting it) was, that after the grant of his the Court of Augustust;" "Russel's Natu- but the truth is, that in spite of his party bias, pension he became too "submissive to power;" ral History of Aleppof;" "Sir Isaac New-Johnson was always a friend to discipline in the ton's Arguments in Proof of a Deityf;"

[Probably this was the execution of the design which he mentioned to Dr. Adams. See ante, p. 122.-Ed.]

political, as in the social world; and although he joined in the clamour against Walpole, and hated George the Second, his general disposition was always to support the monarchical part of the constitution.-ED.]

"I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the commonwealth of Rome which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another." Again,

those whom vanity or interest make the | are very short accounts of the pieces nofollowers of ministers, concerning the ne- ticed, and I mention them only that Dr. cessity of confidence in our governours, and Johnson's opinion of the works may be the presumption of prying with profane known; but many of them are examples of eyes into the recesses of policy, it is evident elaborate criticism, in the most masterly that this reverence can be claimed only by style. In his review of the "Memoirs of counsels yet unexecuted, and projects sus- the Court of Augustus," he has the resolupended in deliberation. But when a de- tion to think and speak from his own mind, sign has ended in miscarriage or success, regardless of the cant transmitted from age when every eye and every ear is witness to to age, in praise of the ancient Romans. general discontent, or general satisfaction, Thus: it is then a proper time to disentangle confusion and illustrate obscurity; to show by what causes every event was produced, and in what effects it was likely to terminate; to lay down with distinct particularity what rumour always huddles in general exclamation, or perplexes by indigested narratives; to show whence happiness or calamity is derived, and whence it may be expected; and honestly to lay before the people what inquiry can gather of the past, and conjecture can estimate of the future." Here we have it assumed as an incontrovertible principle, that in this country the people are the superintendents of the conduct and measures of those by whom government is administered; of the beneficial effect of which the present reign afforded an illustrious example, when addresses from all parts of the kingdom controlled an audacious attempt to introduce a new power subversive of the crown1.

A still stronger proof of his patriotick spirit appears in his review of an "Essay on Waters, by Dr. Lucas 2," of whom, after describing him as a man well known to the world for his daring defiance to power, when he thought it exerted on the side of wrong, he thus speaks:

"The Irish ministers drove him from his native country by a proclamation, in which they charge him with crimes of which they never intended to be called to the proof, and oppressed him by methods equally irresistible by guilt and innocence.

"Let the man thus driven into exile, for having been the friend of his country, be received in every other place as a confessor of liberty; and let the tools of power be taught in time, that they may rob, but cannot impoverish."

Some of his reviews in this magazine

"A people, who while they were poor robbed mankind; and as soon as they became rich robbed one another."

In his review of the Miscellanies in prose and verse, published by Elizabeth Harrison, but written by many hands, he gives an eminent proof at once of his orthodoxy and candour."

"The authours of the essays in prose seem generally to have imitated, or tried to imitate, the copiousness and luxuriance of Mrs. Rowe. This, however, is not all their praise; they have laboured to add to her brightness of imagery, her purity of sentiments. The poets have had Dr. Watts before their eyes; a writer who, if he stood not in the first class of genius, compensated that defect by a ready application of his powers to the promotion of piety. The attempt to employ the ornaments of romance in the decoration of religion was, I think, first made by Mr. Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora; but Boyle's philosophical studies did not allow him time for the cultivation of style: and the completion of the great design was reserved for Mrs. Rowe. Dr. Watts was one of the first who taught the dissenters to write and speak like other men, by showing them that elegance might consist with piety. They would have both done honour to a better society, for they had that charity which might well make their failings forgotten, and with which the whole Christian world might wish for com

1 [Mr. Boswell means Mr. Fox's celebrated India Bill, as an adversary of which he distin-munion. They were pure from all the guished himself as much as a man in a private

station could do.-ED.]

* [Dr. Lucas was an apothecary in Dublin, who brought himself into public notice and a high degree of popularity by his writings and speeches against the government. He was elected representative of the city of Dublin in 1761; and a marble statue to his honor is erected in the Royal Exchange of that city. He died in Nov. 1771. -ED.]

heresies of an age, to which every opinion is become a favourite that the universal church has hitherto detested!"

"This praise the general interest of mankind requires to be given to writers who please and do not corrupt, who instruct and do not weary. But to them all human eulogies are vain, whom I believe applauded by angels, and numbered with the just."

His defence of tea against Mr. Jonas

Hanway's violent attack upon that elegant | epitaph upon his monument, which I have and popular beverage, shows how very well transcribed:

a man of genius can write upon the slightest subject, when he writes, as the Italians say, con amore: I suppose no person ever enjoyed with more relish the infusion of that fragrant leaf than Johnson. The quantities which he drank of it at all hours were so great, that his nerves must have been uncommonly strong, not to have been extremely relaxed by such an intemperate use of it. He assured me that he never felt the least inconvenience from it; which is a proof that the fault of his constitution was rather a too great tension of fibres, than the contrary. Mr. Hanway wrote an angry answer to Johnson's review of his Essay on Tea, and Johnson, after a full and deliberate pause, made a reply to it; the only instance, I believe, in the whole course of his life, when he condescended to oppose any thing that was written against him. I suppose when he thought of any of his little antagonists, he was ever justly aware of the high sentiment of Ajax in Ovid:

"Iste tulit pretium jam nunc certaminis hujus, Qui, cùm victus erit, mecum certasse feretur." But, indeed, the good Mr. Hanway laid himself so open to ridicule, that Johnson's animadversions upon his attack were chiefly to make sport.

The generosity with which he pleads the cause of Admiral Byng is highly to the honour of his heart and spirit. Though Voltaire affects to be witty upon the fate of that unfortunate officer, observing that he was shot "pour encourager les autres," the nation has long been satisfied that his life was sacrificed to the political fervour of the times 2. In the vault belonging to the Torrington family, in the church of Southhill, in Bedfordshire, there is the following 1 [Sir John Hawkins calls his addiction to it unmanly, and almost gives it the colour of a crime. The Rev. Mr. Parker, of Henley, is in possession of a teapot which belonged to Dr. Johnson, and which contains above two quarts. -ED.]

2

[Nothing can be more unfounded than the assertion that Byng fell a martyr to political party. It is impossible to read the trial without being convinced that he had misconducted himself; and the extraordinary proceedings in both houses of parliament subsequent to his trial prove at once the zeal of his friends to invalidate the finding of the Court-Martial, and the absence of all reason for doing so. By a strange coincidence of circumstances, it happened that there was a total change of ministry between his condemnation and his death; so that one party presided at his trial and another at his execution:-there can be no stronger proof that he was not a political martyr. See this subject treated at large in the Quarterly Review, for March, 1822, article Lord Oxford's Memoirs.-ED.]

"TO THE PERPETUAL DISGRACE

OF PUBLIC JUSTICE,

THE HONOURABLE JOHN BYNG, ESQ.
ADMIRAL OF THE BLUE,
FELL A MARTYR TO POLITICAL

PERSECUTION,

MARCH 14, IN THE YEAR 1757;
WHEN BRAVERY AND LOYALTY
WERE INSUFFICIENT SECURITIES
FOR THE LIFE AND HONOUR OF
A NAVAL OFFICER."

Johnson's most exquisite critical essay in the Literary Magazine, and indeed any where, is his review of Soame Jenyns's "Inquiry into the Origin of Evil." Jenyns was possessed of lively talents, and a style eminently pure and easy, and, could very happily play with a light subject, either in prose or verse; but when he speculated on that most difficult and excruciating question, the Origin of Evil, he "ventured far beyond his depth," and accordingly, was exposed by Johnson, both with acute argument and brilliant wit. I remember when the late Mr. Bicknell's humourous performance, entitled "The Musical Travels of Joel Collyer," in which a slight attempt is made to ridicule Johnson, was ascribed to Soame Jenyns, "Ha! (said Johnson) I thought I had given him enough of it.""

His triumph over Jenyns is thus describ ed by my friend Mr. Courtenay in his "Poetical Review of the literary and moral Character of Dr. Johnson; " a performance of such merit, that had I not been honoured with a very kind and partial notice in it, I should echo the sentiments of men of the first taste loudly in its praise: The source of evil hidden still from man ; "When specious sophists with presumption scan Revive Arabian tales, and vainly hope To rival St. John, and his scholar Pope : Though metaphysicks spread the gloom of night, By reason's star he guides our aching sight; The bounds of knowledge marks, and points the

way

To pathless wastes, where wilder'd sages stray;
Where, like a farthing link-boy, Jenyns stands,
And the dim torch drops from his feeble hands."

3 Some time after Dr. Johnson's death, there appeared in the newspapers and magazines [the following] illiberal and petulant attack upon him, in the form of an Epitaph, under the name of Mr. Soame Jenyns, very unworthy of that gentleman, who had quietly submitted to the critical lash while Johnson lived. It assumed, as characteristicks of him, all the vulgar circumstances of abuse which had circulated amongst the ignorant.

[EPITAPH. By Soame Jenyns, Esq. "Here lies poor JOHNSON. Render, have a care, Tread lightly, lest you rouse a sleeping bear;

Iyers, Biogr. sketch, p. 11.

[It was about this time that Mr. [ pun upon his favourite liquor he heard with Tyers, by the introduction of Chris- a smile. Though his time seemed to be topher Smart, formed that acquaint- bespoke, and quite engrossed, his house was ance with Johnson which lasted to always open to all his acquaintance, new the doctor's death, with, it is believed, un- and old. His amanuensis has given up his abated cordiality. pen, the printer's devil has waited on the stairs for a proof sheet, and the press has often stood still, while his visitors were delighted and instructed. No subject ever came amiss to him. He could transfer his thoughts from one thing to another with the most accommodating facility. He had the art, for which Locke was famous, of leading people to talk on their favourite subjects, and on what they knew best. By this he acquired a great deal of information. What he once heard he rarely forgot. They gave him their best conversation, and he generally made them pleased with themselves, for endeavouring to please him. Poet Smart used to relate, "that his first conversation with Johnson was of such variCome when you would, early or late (for ety and length, that it began with poetry and Johnson desired to be called from bed when ended at fluxions." He always talked as if a visitor was at the door) the tea-table was he was talking upon oath. He was the sure to be spread, TE veniente die, TE de- wisest person, and had the most knowledge cedente.-With TEA he cheered the morn-in ready cash, that Tyers ever knew. John

Johnson, whose hearing was not always good, understood Smart called him by the name of Thyer, that eminent scholar, librarian of Manchester, and a nonjuror. This mistake was rather beneficial than otherwise to Mr. Tyers. Johnson had been much indisposed all that day, and repeated a psalm he had just translated, during his affliction, into Latin verse, and did not commit to paper. For so retentive was his memory, that he could always recover whatever he lent to that faculty. Smart in return recited some of his own Latin compositions. He had translated with success, and to Mr. Pope's satisfaction, his St. Cecilian Ode.

ing; with TEA he solaced the evening. This

Religious, moral, generous, and humane
He was-but seif-sufficient, rude, and vain:
Ull-bred and over-bearing in dispute,
A scholar and a Christian-yet a brute.
Would you know all his wisdom and his folly,
His actions, sayings, mirth and melancholy,
Boswell and Thrale, retailers of his wit,
Will tell you how he wrote, and talked, and cough'd,
and spit."

Gent. Mag. 178€, p. 428.] This was an unbecoming indulgence of puny resentment, at a time when he himself was at a very advanced age, and had a near prospect of descending to the grave. I was truly sorry for it; for he was then become an avowed and (as my Lord Bishop of London, who had a serious conversation with him on the subject, assures me) a sincere Christian. He could not expect that Johnson's numerous friends would patiently bear to have the memory of their master stigmatized by no mean pen, but that, at least, one would be found to retort. Accordingly, this unjust and sarcastick Epitaph, was met in the same publick field by an answer, in terms by no means soft, and such as wanton provocation only could justify:

EPITAPH,

Prepared for a creature not quite dead yet.
"Here lies a little ugly nauseous elf,

Who judging only from his wretched self,
Feebly attempted, petulant and vain,
The Origin of Evil' to explain.

A mighty genius at this elf displeas'd,

With a strong critick grasp the urchin squeez'd. For thirty years its coward spleen it kept, Till in the dust the mighty Genius slept: Then stunk and fretted in expiring snuff, And blink'd at Joнason with its last poor puff." [The answer was no doubt by Mr. Boswell himself, and does more credit to his zeal than his poetical talents.—ED.]

son's advice was consulted on all occasions. He was known to be a good casuist, and therefore had many cases submitted for his judgment. His conversation, in the judgment of several, was thought to be equal to his correct writings. Perhaps the tongue will throw out more animated expressions than the pen. He said the most common things in the newest manner. He always commanded attention and regard. His person, though unadorned with dress, and even deformed by neglect, made you expect something, and you was hardly ever disappointed. His manner was interesting: the tone of his voice, and the sincerity of his expressions, even when they did not captivate your affections, or carry conviction, prevented contempt. If the line, by Pope, on his father, can be applied to Johnson, it is characteristick of him, who never swore, nor told a lie. If the first part is not confined to the oath of allegiance1, it will be useful to insert it.

"Nor dared an oath, nor hazarded a lie."

It must be owned, his countenance, on some occasions, resembled too much the medallic likeness of Magliabechi2, as exhibited before the printed account of him by Mr. Spence. No man dared to take liberties

[Mr. Tyers seems to mean that the oath of allegiance is the only justifiable oath; and in allusion, perhaps, to Johnson's political principles, he insinuates, that even that oath he would not have willingly taken.-ED.]

[Librarian to the Grand Dukes of Florence, and celebrated for vast erudition and extreme slovenliness. He died in 1714, aged 80.-ED.]

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