# Boswell's Life of Johnson (1904)/Volume 1/1750—1751

​1750: ÆTAT. 41.]—In 1750 he came forth in the character for which he was eminently qualified, a majestick teacher of moral and religious wisdom. The vehicle which he chose was that of a periodical paper, which he knew had been, upon former occasions, employed with great success. Tatler, Spectator, and Guardian, were the last of the kind published in England, which had stood the test of a long trial; and such an interval had now elapsed since their publication, as made him justly think that, to many of his readers, this form
​of instruction would, in some degree, have the advantage of novelty. A few days before the first of his Essays came out, there started another competitor for fame in the same form, under the title of The Tatler Revived, which I believe was 'born but to die.' Johnson was, I think, not very happy in the choice of his title, The Rambler, which certainly is not suited to a series of grave and moral discourses; which the Italians have literally, but ludicrously translated by Il Vagabondo and which has been lately assumed as the denomination of a vehicle of licentious tales, The Rambler's Magazine. He gave Sir Joshua Reynolds the following account of its getting this name: 'What must be done, Sir, will be done. When I was to begin publishing that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title. The Rambler seemed the best that occurred, and I took it.'
With what devout and conscientious sentiments this paper was undertaken, is evidenced by the following prayer, which he composed and offered up on the occasion: 'Almighty God, the giver of all good things, without whose help all labor is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is ​folly; grant, I beseech Thee, that in this undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be with-held from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others: grant this, O Lord, for the sake of thy son Jesus Christ. Amen.'
The first paper of The Rambler was published on Tuesday the 20th of March, 1750; and its authour was enabled to continue it, without interruption, every Tuesday and Friday, till Saturday the 17th of March, 1752, on which day it closed. This is a strong confirmation of the truth of a remark of his, which I have had occasion to quote elsewhere, that 'a man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it;' for, notwithstanding his constitutional indolence, his depression of spirits, and his labour in carrying on his Dictionary, he answered the stated calls of the press twice a week from the stores of his mind, during all that time; having received no assistance, except four billets in No. 10, by Miss Mulso, now Mrs. Chapone; No. 30, by Mrs. Catharine Talbot; No. 97, by Mr. Samuel Richardson, whom he describes in an introductory note as 'An author who has enlarged the knowledge of human nature, and taught the passions to move at ​the command of virtue;' and Nos. 44 and 100 by Mrs. Elizabeth Carter.
Posterity will be astonished when they are told, upon the authority of Johnson himself, that many of these discourses, which we should suppose had been laboured with all the slow attention of literary leisure, were written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed. It can be accounted for only in this way; that by reading and meditation, and a very close inspection of life, he had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous knowledge, which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at his call, and which he had constantly accustomed himself to clothe in the most apt and energetick expression. Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him by what ​means he had attained his extraordinary accuracy and flow of language. He told him, that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company; to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in; and that by constant practice, and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the clearest manner, it became habitual to him.
Yet he was not altogether unprepared as a periodical writer; for I have in my possession a small duodecimo volume, in which he has written, in the form of Mr. Locke's Common-Place Book, a variety of hints for essays on different subjects. He has marked upon the first blank leaf of it, 'To the 128th page, collections for the Rambler;' and in another place, 'In fifty-two there were seventeen provided; in 97—21; in 190—25.' At a subsequent period (probably after the work was finished) he added, 'In all, taken of provided materials, 30.'
Sir John Hawkins, who is unlucky upon all occasions, tells us, that 'this method of accumulating intelligence had been practised by Mr. Addison, and is humourously described in one of the Spectators, wherein he feigns to have dropped his paper of notanda, consisting of a diverting medley of broken sentences and loose hints, which he tells us he had collected, and meant to make use of. Much of the same kind is Johnson's Adversaria .' But the truth is, that there is no resemblance at all between them. Addison's note was a fiction, in which unconnected fragments of his lucubrations were purposely jumbled together, in as odd a manner as he could, in order to produce a laughable effect. Whereas Johnson's ​abbreviations are all distinct, and applicable to each subject of which the head is mentioned.
For instance, there is the following specimen:
Youth's Entry, &c.
'Baxter's account of things in which he had changed his mind as he grew up. Voluminous.—No wonder.—If every man was to tell, or mark, on how many subjects he has changed, it would make vols. but the changes not always observed by man's self.—From pleasure to bus. [business] to quiet; from thoughtfulness to reflect, to piety; from dissipation to domestic, by impercept. gradat. but the change is certain. Dial non progredi, progress, esse conspicimus. Look back, consider what was thought at some dist. period.
'Hope predom. in youth. Mind not willingly indulges unpleasing thoughts. The world lies all enameled before him, as a distant prospect sun-gilt; inequalities only found by coming to it. Love is to be all joy—children excellent—Fame to be constant—caresses of the great—applauses of the learned—smiles of Beauty.
'Fear of disgrace—bashfulness—Finds things of less importance. Miscarriages forgot like excellencies;—if remembered, of no import. Danger of sinking into negligence of reputation. Lest the fear of disgrace destroy activity.
'Confidence in himself. Long tract of life before him.—No thought of sickness.—Embarrassment of affairs.—Distraction of family. Publick calamities.—No sense of the prevalence of bad habits.—Negligent of time—ready to undertake—careless to pursue—all changed by time.
'Confident of others—unsuspecting as unexperienced—imagining himself secure against neglect, never imagines they will venture to treat him ill. Ready to trust; expecting to ​be trusted. Convinced by time of the selfishness, the meanness, the cowardice, the treachery of men.
'Youth ambitious, as thinking honours easy to be had.
'Different kinds of praise pursued at different periods. Of the gay in youth, dang, hurt, &c. despised.
'Of the fancy in manhood. Ambit.—stocks—bargains.—Of the wise and sober in old age—seriousness—formality—maxims, but general—only of the rich, otherwise age is happy—but at last every thing referred to riches—no having fame, honour, influence, without subjection to caprice.
'Horace.
'Hard it would be if men entered life with the same views with which they leave it, or left as they enter it.—No hope—no undertaking—no regard to benevolence—no fear of disgrace, &c.
'Youth to be taught the piety of age—age to retain the honour of youth.'
This, it will be observed, is the sketch of Number 196 of The Rambler. I shall gratify my readers with another specimen:
'Confederacies difficult; why.
'Seldom in war a match for single persons—nor in peace, therefore kings make themselves absolute. Confederacies in learning—every great work the work of one. Bruy. Scholar's friendship like ladies. Scribebamus, &c. Mart. the apple of discord — the laurel of discord—the poverty of criticism. Swift's opinion of the power of six geniuses united. That union scarce possible. His remarks just; ​man a social, not steady nature. Drawn to man by words, repelled by passions. Orb drawn by attraction rep. [repelled] by centrifugal.
'Common danger unites by crushing other passions—but they return. Equality hinders compliance. Superiority produces insolence and envy. Too much regard in each to private interest—too little.
'The mischiefs of private and exclusive societies—the fitness of social attraction diffused through the whole. The mischiefs of too partial love of our country. Contraction of moral duties—ὄι φιλοι ου φιλος.
'Every man moves upon his own center, and therefore repels others from too near a contact, though he may comply with some general laws.
'Of confederacy with superiours, every one knows the inconvenience. With equals, no authority;—ever man his own opinion—his own interest.
'Man and wife hardly united;—scarce ever without children. Computation, if two to one against two, how many against five? If confederacies were easy—useless;—many oppresses many.—If possible only to some, dangerous. Principum amicitias.'
Here we see the embryo of Number 45 of The Adventurer; and it is a confirmation of what I shall presently have occasion to mention, that the papers in that collection marked T. were written by Johnson.
​ This scanty preparation of materials will not, however, much diminish our wonder at the extraordinary fertility of his mind; for the proportion which they bear to the number of essays which he wrote, is very small; and it is remarkable, that those for which he had made no preparation, are as rich and as highly finished as those for which the hints were lying by him. It is also to be observed, that the papers formed from his hints are worked up with such strength and elegance, that we almost lose sight of the hints, which become like 'drops in the bucket.' Indeed, in several instances, he has made a very slender use of them, so that many of them remain still unapplied.
As The Rambler was entirely the work of one man, there was, of course, such a uniformity in its texture, as very much to exclude the charm of variety; and the grave and often solemn cast of thinking, which distinguished it from other periodical papers, made it, for some time, not generally liked. So slowly did this excellent work, of which twelve editions ​have now issued from the press, gain upon the world at large, that even in the closing number the authour says, 'I have never been much a favourite of the publick.'
Yet, very soon after its commencement, there were who felt and acknowledged its uncommon excellence. Verses in its praise appeared in the newspapers; and the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine mentions, in October, his having received several letters to the same purpose from the learned. ​The Student, or Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany, in which Mr. Bonnell Thornton and Mr. Colman were the principal writers, describes it as 'a work that exceeds anything of the kind ever published in this kingdom, some of the Spectators excepted—if indeed they may be excepted.' And afterwards, 'May the publick favours crown his merits, and may not the English, under the auspicious reign of George the Second, neglect a man, who, had he lived in the first century, would have been one of the greatest favourites of Augustus.' This flattery of the monarch had no effect. It is too well known, that the second George never was an Augustus to learning or genius.
Johnson told me, with an amiable fondness, a little pleasing circumstance relative to this work. Mrs. Johnson, in whose judgement and taste he had great confidence, said to him, after a few numbers of The Rambler had come out, 'I thought very well of you before; but I did not imagine you could have written anything equal to this.' Distant praise, from whatever quarter, is not so delightful as that of a wife whom a man loves and esteems. Her approbation may be said to 'come home to his bosom;' and being so near, its effect is most sensible and permanent.
Mr. James Elphinston, who has since published various
​works, and who was ever esteemed by Johnson as a worthyman, happened to be in Scotland while The Rambler was coming out in single papers at London. With a laudable zeal at once for the improvement of his countrymen, and the reputation of his friend, he suggested and took the charge of an edition of those Essays at Edinburgh, which followed progressively the London publication.
The following letter written at this time, though not dated, will show how much pleased Johnson was with this publication, and what kindness and regard he had for Mr. Elphinston.
'To Mr. James Elphinston.
[No date.]
'Dear Sir,
'I cannot but confess the failures of my correspondence, but hope the same regard which you express for me on every other occasion, will incline you to forgive me. I am often, very often, ill; and, when I am well, am obliged to work: and, indeed, have never much used myself to punctuality. You are, however, not to make unkind inferences, when I forbear to reply to your kindness; for be assured, I never receive a letter from you without great pleasure, and a very warm sense of your generosity and friendship, which I heartily blame myself for not cultivating with more care. In this, as in many other cases, I go wrong, in opposition to conviction; for I think scarce any temporal good equally to be desired with the regard and familiarity of worthy men. I hope we shall be some time nearer to each other, and have a more ready way of pouring out our hearts.
'I am glad that you still find encouragement to proceed in your publication, and shall beg the favour of six more volumes to add to my former six, when you can, with any convenience, send them me. Please to present a set, in my name, to Mr. Ruddiman, of ​whom, I hear, that his learning is not his highest excellence. I have transcribed the mottos, and returned them, I hope not too late, of which I think many very happily performed. Mr. Cave has put the last in the magazine, in which I think he did well. I beg of you to write soon, and to write often, and to write long letters, which I hope in time to repay you ; but you must be a patient creditor. I have, however, this of gratitude, that I think of you with regard, when I do not, perhaps, give the proofs which I ought, of being, Sir,
'Your most obliged and
'Most humble servant,
''Sam. Johnson.'
This year he wrote to the same gentleman another letter, upon a mournful occasion.
'To Mr. James Elphinston.
'September 25. 1750.
'Dear Sir,
'You have, as I find by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of partaking of your grief. I have a mother, now eighty-two years of age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose unless it please God that she rather should mourn for me. I read the letters in which you relate your mother's death to Mrs. Strahan, and think I do myself honour, when I tell you that I read them with tears; but tears are neither to you nor to me of any further use, when once the tribute of nature has been paid. The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation. The greatest benefit
​which one friend can confer upon another, is to guard, and excite, and elevate his virtues. This your mother will still perform, if you diligently preserve the memory of her life, and of her death: a life, so far as I can learn, useful, wise, and innocent; and a death resigned, peaceful, and holy. I cannot forbear to mention, that neither reason nor revelation denies you to hope, that you may increase her happiness by obeying her precepts; and that she may, in her present state, look with pleasure upon every act of virtue to which her instructions or example have contributed. Whether this be more than a pleasing dream, or a just opinion of separate spirits, is, indeed, of no great importance to us, when we consider ourselves as acting under the eye of God: yet, surely, there is something pleasing in the belief, that our separation from those whom we love is merely corporeal; and it may be a great incitement to virtuous friendship, if it can be made probable, that that union that has received the divine approbation shall continue to eternity.
'There is one expedient by which you may, in some degree, continue her presence. If you write down minutely what you remember of her from your earliest years, you will read it with great pleasure, and receive from it many hints of soothing recollection, when time shall remove her yet farther from you, and your grief shall be matured to veneration. To this, however painful for the present, I cannot but advise you, as to a source of comfort and satisfaction in the time to come; for all comfort and all satisfaction is sincerely wished you by, dear Sir,
'Your most obliged, most obedient,
'And most humble servant,
'Sam. Johnson.'
The Rambler has increased in fame as in age. Soon after its first folio edition was concluded, it was published in six duodecimo volumes; and its authour lived to see ten numerous editions of it in London, beside those of Ireland and Scotland.
I profess myself to have ever entertained a profound veneration for the astonishing force and vivacity of mind which The Rambler exhibits. That Johnson had penetration enough to see, and seeing would not disguise the general misery of man in this state of being, may have given rise to the superficial notion of his being too stern a philosopher. But men of reflection will be sensible that he has given a true representation of human existence, and that he has, at the same time, with a generous benevolence displayed every consolation which our state affords us; not only those arising from the hopes of futurity, but such as may be attained in the immediate progress through life. He has not depressed the soul to despondency and indifference. He has everywhere inculcated study, labor, and exertion. Nay, he has shewn, in a very odious light, a man whose practice is to go about darkening the views of others by perpetual complaints of evil, and awakening those considerations of danger and distress, which are, for the most part, lulled into a quiet oblivion. This he has done very strongly in his character of Suspirius, from which Goldsmith took that of Croaker, in his comedy of The Good-Natured Man, as Johnson told me he acknowledged to him, and which is, indeed, very obvious. ​
To point out the numerous subjects which The Rambler treats, with a dignity and perspicuity which are there united in a manner which we shall in vain look for any where else, would take up too large a portion of my book, and would, I trust, be superfluous, considering how universally those volumes are now disseminated. Even the most condensed and brilliant sentences which they contain, and which have very properly been selected under the name of Beauties, are of considerable bulk. But I may shortly observe, that The Rambler furnishes such an assemblage of discourses on practical religion and moral duty, of critical investigations, and allegorical and oriental tales, that no mind can be thought very deficient that has, by constant study and meditation, assimilated to itself all that may be found there. No. 7, written in Passion-week on abstraction and self-examination and No. 110, on penitence and the placability of the Divine Nature, cannot be too often read. No. 54, on the effect which the death of a friend should have upon us, though rather too dispiriting, may be occasionally very medicinal to the mind. Every one must suppose the writer to have been deeply impressed by a real scene; but he told me that was not the case; which shews how well his fancy could conduct him
​to the 'house of mourning.' Some of these more solemn papers, I doubt not, particularly attracted the notice of Dr. Young, the authour of The Night Thoughts, of whom my estimation is such, as to reckon his applause an honour even to Johnson. I have seen some volumes of Dr. Young's copy of The Rambler, in which he has marked the passages which he thought particularly excellent by folding down a corner of the page; and such as he rated in a super-eminent degree, are marked by double folds. I am sorry that some of the volumes are lost. Johnson was pleased when told of the minute attention with which Young had signified his approbation of his Essays.
I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression; more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment. No. 32 on patience, even under extreme misery, is wonderfully lofty, and as much above the rant of stoicism, as the Sun of Revelation is brighter than the twilight of Pagan philosophy. I never read the following sentence without feeling my frame thrill: 'I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned, that the one can bear all which can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled, will not be sooner separated than subdued.'
Though instruction be the predominant purpose of The Rambler, yet it is enlivened with a considerable portion of amusement. Nothing can be more erroneous than the notion which some persons have entertained, that Johnson was then a retired authour, ignorant of the world; and, of consequence, that he wrote only from his imagination when he described characters and manners. He said to me, that ​before he wrote that work, he had been 'running about the world,' as he expressed it, more than almost any body; and I have heard him relate, with much satisfaction, that several of the characters in The Rambler were drawn so naturally, that when it first circulated in numbers, a club in one of the towns in Essex imagined themselves to be severally exhibited in it, and were much incensed against a person who, they suspected, had thus made them objects of publick notice; nor were they quieted till authentick assurance was given them, that The Rambler was written by a person who had never heard of any one of them. Some of the characters are believed to have been actually drawn from the life, particularly that of Prospero from Garrick, who never entirely ​forgave its pointed satire. For instances of fertility of fancy, and accurate description of real life, I appeal to No. 19, a man who wanders from one profession to another, with most plausible reasons for every change. No. 34, female fastidiousness and timorous refinement. No. 82, a Virtuoso who has collected curiosities. No. 88, petty modes of entertaining a company, and conciliating kindness. No. 182, fortune-hunting. No. 194-195, a tutor's account of the follies of his pupil. No. 197-198, legacy-hunting. He has given a specimen of his nice observation of the mere external appearances of life, in the following passage in No. 179, against affectation, that frequent and most disgusting quality: 'He that stands to contemplate the crouds that fill the streets of a populous city, will see many passengers whose air and motion it will be difficult to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he examine what are the appearances that thus powerfully excite his risibility, he will find among them neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or painful defect. The disposition to derision and insult, is awakened by the softness of foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or ​the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mien; by gestures intended to catch the eye, and by looks elaborately formed as evidences of importance.'
Every page of The Rambler shews a mind teeming with classical allusion and poetical imagery: illustrations from other writers are, upon all occasions, so ready, and mingle so easily in his periods, that the whole appears of one uniform vivid texture.
The style of this work has been censured by some shallow criticks as involved and turgid, and abounding with antiquated and hard words. So ill-founded is the first part of this objection, that I will challenge all who may honour this book with a perusal, to point out any English writer whose language conveys his meaning with equal force and perspicuity. It must, indeed, be allowed, that the structure of his sentences is expanded, and often has somewhat of the inversion of Latin; and that he delighted to express familiar thoughts in philosophical language; being in this the reverse of Socrates, who, it was said, reduced philosophy to the simplicity of common life. But let us attend to what he himself says in his concluding paper: 'When common words were less pleasing to the ear, or less distinct in their signification, I have familiarised the terms of philosophy, by applying them to popular ideas.' And, as to the second part of this objection, upon a late careful revision of the work, I can with confidence say, that it is amazing how few of those words, for which it has been unjustly characterised, are actually to be found in it; I am sure, not the proportion of one to each paper. This idle charge has been echoed from one babbler to another, who have confounded Johnson's Essays with ​Johnson's Dictionary; and because he thought it right in a Lexicon of our language to collect many words which had fallen into disuse, but were supported by great authorities, it has been imagined that all of these have been interwoven into his own compositions. That some of them have been adopted by him unnecessarily, may, perhaps, be allowed; but, in general they are evidently an advantage, for without them his stately ideas would be confined and cramped. 'He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of larger meaning.' He once told me, that he had formed his style upon that of Sir William Temple and upon Chambers's Proposal for his Dictionary. He certainly was ​mistaken; or if he imagined at first that he was imitating Temple he was very unsuccessful; for nothing can be more unlike than the simplicity of Temple, and the richness of Johnson. Their styles differ as plain cloth and brocade. Temple, indeed, seems equally erroneous in supposing that he himself had formed his style upon Sandys's View of the State of Religion in the Western parts of the World.
The style of Johnson was, undoubtedly, much formed upon that of the great writers in the last century, Hooker, Bacon, Sanderson, Hakewell, and others; those 'Giants,' as they were well characterised by A Great Personage., whose
​authority, were I to name him, would stamp a reverence on the opinion.
We may, with the utmost propriety, apply to his learned style that passage of Horace, a part of which he has taken as the motto to his Dictionary:
To so great a master of thinking, to one of such vast and various knowledge as Johnson, might have been allowed a ​liberal indulgence of that licence which Horace claims in another place:
'——————————Si fortè necesse est
Indiciis monstrare recentibus abdita rerum,
Fingere cinctutis non exaudita Cethegis
Continget, dabiturque licentia sumpta pudenter:
Et nova fictaque nuper habebunt verba fidem si
Græco fonte cadant, parce detorta. Quid autem
Cæcilio Plaittoque dabit Romanus, ademptum
Virgilio Varioque? Ego cur, acquirere pauca
Si possum, invideor; cum lingua Catonis et Enni
Sermonem patrium ditaverit, et nova rerum
Nomina protulerit? Licuit semperque licebit
Signatum præsente notâ producere nomen.'
Yet Johnson assured me, that he had not taken upon him to add more than four or five words to the English language, of his own formation; and he was very much offended at the general licence, by no means 'modestly taken' in his time, not only to coin new words, but to use many words in senses quite different from their established meaning, and those frequently very fantastical.
Sir Thomas Brown, whose life Johnson wrote, was ​remarkably fond of Anglo-Latian diction; and to his example we are to ascribe Johnson's sometimes indulging himself in this kind of phraseology. Johnson's comprehension of mind was the mould for his language. Had his conceptions been narrower, his expression would have been easier. His sentences have a dignified march; and, it is certain, that his example has given a general elevation to the language of his country, for many of our best writers have approached very near to him; and, from the influence which he has had upon our composition, scarcely any thing is written now that is not better expressed than was usual before he appeared to lead the national taste.
This circumstance, the truth of which must strike every critical reader, has been so happily enforced by Mr. Courtenay, in his Moral and Literary Character of Dr. Johnson, that I cannot prevail on myself to withhold it, notwithstanding his, perhaps, too great partiality for one of his friends:
​{{block center|<poem> 'By nature's gifts ordain'd mankind to rule, He, like a Titian, form'd his brilliant school; And taught congenial spirits to excel. While from his lips impressive wisdom fell. Our boasted Goldsmith felt the sovereign sway; From him deriv'd the sweet, yet nervous lay. To Fame's proud cliff he bade our Raphael rise; Hence Reynolds' pen with Reynolds' pencil vies. With Johnson's flame melodious Burney glows, While the grand strain in smoother cadence flows. And you, Malone, to critick learning dear, Correct and elegant, refin'd though clear. By studying him, acquir'd that classick taste. Which high in Shakspeare's fane thy statue plac'd. Near Johnson Steevens stands, on scenick ground, Acute, laborious, fertile, and profound. Ingenious Hawkesworth to this school we owe, And scarce the pupil from the tutor know. Here early parts accomplish'd Jones sublimes, And science blends with Asia's lofty rhymes: Harmonious Jones! who in his splendid strains Sings Camdeo's sports, on Agra's flowery plains: In Hindu fictions while we fondly trace Love and the Muses, deck'd with Attick grace. Amid these names can Boswell be forgot. Scarce by North Britons now esteem'd a Scot? Who to the sage devoted from his youth, Imbib'd from him the sacred love of truth; ​The keen research, the exercise of mind, And that best art, the art to know mankind. — Nor was his energy confin'd alone To friends around his philosophick throne; Its influence wide improved our letter'd isle, And lucid vigour marked the general style: As Nile's proud waves, swoln from their oozy bed, First o'er the neighbouring meads majestick spread; Till gathering force, they more and more expand, And with new virtue fertilise the land.' </poem>}}
Johnson's language, however, must be allowed to be too masculine for the delicate gentleness of female writing. His ladies, therefore, seem strangely formal, even to ridicule; and are well denominated by the names which he has given them, as Misella, Zozima, Properantia, Rhodoclia.
It has of late been the fashion to compare the style of Addison and Johnson, and to depreciate, I think very unjustly, the style of Addison as nerveless and feeble, because it has not the strength and energy of that of Johnson. Their prose may be balanced like the poetry of Dryden and Pope. ​Both are excellent, though in different ways. Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so that he insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but, by degrees, is highly relished; and such is the melody of his periods, so much do they captivate the ear, and seize upon the attention, that there is scarcely any writer, however inconsiderable, who does not aim, in some degree, at the same species of excellence. But let us not ungratefully undervalue that beautiful style, which has pleasingly conveyed to us much instruction and entertainment. Though comparatively weak, opposed to Johnson's Herculean vigour, let us not call it positively feeble. Let us remember the character of his style, as given by Johnson himself: 'What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetick; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither studied amplitude, nor affected brevity: his periods, though not diligently rounded, are voluble and easy. ​Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.'
Though The Rambler was not concluded till the year 1752, I shall, under this year, say all that I have to observe upon it. Some of the translations of the mottos by himself are admirably done. He acknowledges to have received 'elegant translations' of many of them from Mr. James Elphinston; and some are very happily translated by a Mr. F. Lewis, of whom I never heard more, except that
​Johnson thus described him to Mr. Malone: 'Sir, he lived in London, and hung loose upon society.' The concluding paper of his Rambler is at once dignified and pathetick. I cannot, however, but wish that he had not ended it with an unnecessary Greek verse, translated also into an English couplet. It is too much like the conceit of those dramatick poets, who used to conclude each act with a rhyme; and the expression in the first line of his couplet, 'Celestial powers,' though proper in Pagan poetry, is ill suited to Christianity, with 'a conformity' to which he consoles himself. How much better would it have been, to have ended with the prose sentence 'I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth.'
His friend, Dr. Birch, being now engaged in preparing an edition of Ralegh's smaller pieces, Dr. Johnson wrote the following letter to that gentleman:
'To Dr. Birch.
'Gough-square, May 12. 1750.
'Sir
'Knowing that you are now preparing to favour the publick
​with a new edition of Ralegh's miscellaneous pieces, I have taken the liberty to send you a Manuscript, which fell by chance within my notice. I perceive no proofs of forgery in my examination of it; and the owner tells me, that he has heard, the handwriting is Sir Walter's. If you should find reason to conclude it genuine, it will be a kindness to the owner, a blind person to recommend it to the booksellers. I am, Sir,
'Your most humble servant,
'Sam. Johnson.'
His just abhorrence of Milton's political notions was ever strong. But this did not prevent his warm admiration of Milton's great poetical merit, to which he has done illustrious justice, beyond all who have written upon the subject. And this year he not only wrote a Prologue, which was spoken by Mr. Garrick before the acting of Comus at Drury-lane theatre, for the benefit of Milton's grand-daughter, but took a very zealous interest in the success of the charity. On the day preceding the performance, he published the following letter in the General Advertiser, addressed to the printer of that paper :
'Sir,
'That a certain degree of reputation is acquired merely by approving the works of genius, and testifying a regard to the ​This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no sudden effort. He had brooded over it for many years: and to this hour it is uncertain what his principal motive was, unless it were a vain notion of his superiority, in being able, by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To effect this, he produced certain passages from Grotius, Masenius, and others, which had a faint resemblance to some parts of the Paradise Lost. In these he interpolated some fragments of Hog's Latin translation of that poem, alledging that the mass thus fabricated was the archetype from which Milton copied. These fabrications he published from time to time in the Gentleman's Magazine; and, exulting in his fancied success, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet, entitled An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost. To this pamphlet Johnson wrote a Preface, in full persuasion of Lauder's honesty, and
​a Postscript recommending, in the most persuasive terms, a subscription for the relief of a grand-daughter of Milton, of whom he thus speaks:
' It is yet in the power of a great people to reward the poet whose name they boast, and from their alliance to whose genius, they claim some kind of superiority to every other nation of the earth; that poet, whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated; to reward him, not with pictures or with medals, which, if he sees, he sees with contempt, but with tokens of gratitude, which he, perhaps, may even now consider as not unworthy the regard of an immortal spirit.'
Surely this is inconsistent with 'enmity towards Milton,' which Sir John Hawkins imputes to Johnson upon this occasion, adding,
'I could all along observe that Johnson seemed to approve not only of the design, but of the argument; and seemed to exult in a persuasion, that the reputation of Milton was likely to suffer by this discovery. That he was not privy to the imposture, I am well persuaded; but that he wished well to the argument, may be inferred from the Preface, which indubitably was written by Johnson.'
Is it possible for any man of clear judgement to suppose that Johnson, who so nobly praised the poetical excellence of Milton in a Postscript to this very 'discovery,' as he then supposed it, could, at the same time, exult in a persuasion that the great poet's reputation was likely to suffer by it? ​This is an inconsistency of which Johnson was incapable; nor can any thing more be fairly inferred from the Preface, than that Johnson, who was alike distinguished for ardent curiosity and love of truth, was pleased with an investigation by which both were gratified. That he was actuated by these motives, and certainly by no unworthy desire to depreciate our great epick poet, is evident from his own words; for, after mentioning the general zeal of men of genius and literature 'to advance the honour, and distinguish the beauties of Paradise Lost,' he says,
'Among the inquiries to which this ardour of criticism has naturally given occasion, none is more obscure in itself, or more worthy of rational curiosity, than a retrospect of the progress of this mighty genius in the construction of his work; a view of the fabrick gradually rising, perhaps, from small beginnings, till its foundation rests in the centre, and its turrets sparkle in the skies; to trace back the structure through all its varieties, to the simplicity of its first plan; to find what was first projected, whence the scheme was taken, how it was improved, by what assistance it was executed, and from what stores the materials were collected; whether its founder dug them from the quarries of Nature, or demolished other buildings to embellish his own.'
Is this the language of one who wished to blast the laurels of Milton?
Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more ​than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs, Johnson lived; and after her death, having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house. ​
* ↑ The Tatler came to an end on Jan. 2, 1710-1; the first series of The spectator on Dec. 6, 1712; The Guardian on Oct. 1, 1713; and the second series of The Spectator on Dec. 20, 17 14.
* ↑ 'Two new designs have appeared about the middle of this month [March 1750], one entitled, The Tatler Revived; or The Christian Philosopher and Politician, half a sheet, price 2d. (stamped); the other, The Rambler, three half sheets (unstamped) ; price 2d.' Gent. Mag. XX. 126.
* ↑ Pope's Essay on Man, ii. 10.
* ↑  See Post, under Oct. 12, 1779.
* ↑ I have heard Dr. Warton mention, that he was at Mr. Robert Dodsley's with the late Mr. Moore, and several of his friends, considering what should be the name of the periodical paper which Moore had undertaken. Garrick proposed The Sallad, which, by a curious coincidence, was afterwards applied to himself by Goldsmith: ' Our Garrick's a sallad, for in him we see Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!' [Retaliation, line 11.]  At last, the company having separated, without any thing of which they approved having been offered, Dodsley himself thought of The World. Boswell.
* ↑ In the original MS. 'in this my undertaking,' and below, 'the salvation both of myself and others.'
* ↑ Prayers and Meditations, p. 9. Boswell.
* ↑ In the original folio edition of The Rambler the concluding paper is dated Saturday, March 17. But Saturday was in fact March 14. This circumstance is worth notice, for Mrs. Johnson died on the 17th. Malone.
* ↑ Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 28. [Aug. 16, 1773]. Boswell.
* ↑ Gray had a notion not very peculiar, that he could not write but at certain times, or at happy moments; a fantastic foppery, to which my kindness for a man of learning and virtue wishes him to have been superior.' Johnson's Works, viii. 482. See Post, under April 15, 1758.
* ↑ Her correspondence with Richardson and Mrs. Carter was published in 1807.
* ↑ The correspondence between her and Mrs. Carter was published in 1808.
* ↑  Dr. Birch says:—'The proprietor of the Rambler, Cave, told me that copy was seldom sent to the press till late in the night before the day of publication.' Croker's Boswell, p. 121, note. See Post, April 12, 1776, and beginning of 1781. Johnson carefully revised the Ramblers for the collected edition. The editor of the Oxford edition of Johnson's Works states (ii. x), that ' the alterations exceeded six thousand.' The following passage from the last number affords a good instance of this revision. First edition. 'I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor furnished my readers with abilities to discuss the topic of the day; I have seldom exemplified my assertions by living characters; from my papers therefore no man could hope either censures of his enemies or praises of himself, and they only could be expected to peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for the contemplation of abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by her native dignity without the assistance of modish ornaments.' Gent. Mag. xxii. 117. Revised Edition. 'I have never complied with temporary curiosity, nor enabled my readers to discuss the topic of the day ; I have rarely exemplified my assertions by living characters ; in my papers no man could look for censures of his enemies, or praises of himself; and they only were expected to peruse them, whose passions left them leisure for abstracted truth, and whom virtue could please by its naked dignity.' Johnson's Works, iii. 462.
* ↑ 'Such relicks [Milton's early manuscripts] shew how excellence is acquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.' Johnson's Works, vii. 119.
* ↑ Of the first 52 Ramblers 49 were wholly by Johnson; of the last 156, 154. He seems to say that in the first 49, 17 were written from notes, and in the last 154 only 13.
* ↑ No. 46.
* ↑ Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 268 [p. 265]. Boswell.
* ↑ 'The sly shadow steals away upon the dial, and the quickest eye can distinguish no more than that it is gone.' Glanville, quoted in Johnson's Dictionary.
* ↑ This most beautiful image of the enchanting delusion of youthful prospect has not been used in any of Johnson's essays. Boswell.
* ↑  From Horace (Ars Poet. I. 175) he takes his motto for the number:— Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, Malta recedentes adimunt.' 'The blessings flowing in with life's full tide Down with our ebb of life decreasing glide.' Francis.
* ↑ Lib. xii. 96 [95]. 'In Tuccam æmulum omnium suorum studiorum.' Malone.
* ↑ 'There never appear,' says Swift, 'more than five or six men of genius in an age; but if they were united, the world could not stand before them.' Johnson's Works, iv. 18.
* ↑ In the first edition this is printed ᾠ φιλοι ου φιλος; in the second, ᾠ φιλοι ου φιλος; in the 'Corrections' to the second, we find 'for ᾠ read οἴ;' in the third it is printed as above. In three editions we have therefore five readings of the first word. See Post, April 15, 1778, where Johnson says: 'An old Greek said, "He that has friends has no friend,"' and April 24, 1779, where he says: 'Garrick had friends but no friend.'
* ↑ 'gravesque Principum amicitias.' 'And fatal friendships of the guilty great.' Francis, Horace, Odes, ii. 1. 4.
* ↑ Post, under Jan. 1, 1753.
* ↑ Sir John Hawkins has selected from this little collection of materials, what he calls the 'Rudiments of two of the papers of the Rambler.' But he has not been able to read the manuscript distinctly. Thus he writes, p. 266, 'Sailor's fate any mansion;' whereas the original is 'Sailor's life my aversion.' He has also transcribed the unappropriated hints on Writers for bread, in which he decyphers these notable passages, one in Latin, fatui non famœ, instead of fami non fameœ; Johnson having in his mind what Thuanus says of the learned German antiquary and linguist, Xylander, who, he tells us, lived in such poverty, that he was supposed fami non fameœ scribere; and another in French, Degente de fate [fatu] et affamé d'argent, instead of Degente de fate, (an old word for renommé) et affamé d'argent. The manuscript being written in an exceedingly small hand, is indeed very hard to read; but it would have been better to have left blanks than to write nonsense. Boswell.
* ↑ When we know that of the 208 Ramblers all but five were written by Johnson, it is amusing to read a passage in one of Miss Talbot's letters to Mrs. Carter, dated Oct. 20, 1750:—'Mr. Johnson would, I fear, be mortified to hear that people know a paper of his own by the sure mark of somewhat a little excessive, a little exaggerated in the expression.' Carter Corres. i. 357.
* ↑ The Ramblers certainly were little noticed at first. Smart, the poet, first mentioned them to me as excellent papers, before I had heard any one else speak of them. When I went into Norfolk, in the autumn of 1751, I found but one person, (the Rev. Mr. Squires, a man of learning, and a general purchaser of new books,) who knew anything of them. Before I left Norfolk in the year 1760, the Ramblers were in high favour among persons of learnmg and good taste. Others there were, devoid of both, who said that the hard words in the Rambler were used by the authour to render his Dictionary indispensably necessary. Burney. We have notices of The Rambler in the Carter Corres.:—May 28, 1750. The author ought to be cautioned not to use over many hard words. In yesterday's paper (a very pretty one indeed) we had equiponderant, and another so hard I cannot remember it [adscititious], both in one sentence.' 'Dec. 17, 1750:—Mr. Cave complains of him for not admitting correspondents; this does mischief. In the main I think he is to be applauded for it. But why then does he not write now and then on the living manners of the times?' In writing on April 22, 1752, just after The Rambler had come to an end, Miss Talbot says:—'Indeed 'tis a sad thing that such a paper should have met with discouragement from wise and learned and good people too. Many are the disputes it has cost me, and not once did I come off triumphant.' Mrs. Carter replied:—'Many a battle have I too fought for him in the country, but with little success.' Murphy says:—'Of this excellent production the number sold on each day did not amount to five hundred; of course the bookseller, who paid the author four guineas a week, did not carry on a successful trade.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 59.
* ↑ Richardson wrote to Cave on Aug. 9, 1750, after forty-one numbers had appeared:—'I hope the world tastes them; for its own sake I hope the world tastes them. The author I can only guess at. There is but one man, I think, that could write them.' Rich. Corres. i. 165, Cave replied:—'Mr. Johnson is the Great Rambler, being, as you observe, the only man who can furnish two such papers in a week, besides his other great business.' He mentioned the recommendation it received from high quarters, and continued:—'Notwithstanding, whether the price of two-pence, or the unfavourable season of their first publication hinders the demand, no boast can be made of it.' Johnson had not wished his name to be known. Cave says that 'Mr. Garrick and others, who knew the author's powers and style from the first, unadvisedly asserting their suspicions, overturned the scheme of secrecy.' Ib. pp. 168-170.
* ↑ Horace Walpole, while justifying George II. against 'bookish men who have censured his neglect of literature,' says:—'In truth, I believe King George would have preferred a guinea to a composition as perfect as Alexander's Feast.' Reign of George III, iii. 304.
* ↑ 'Dr. Johnson said to an acquaintance of mine, "My other works are wine and water; but my Rambler is pure wine." Rogers's Table Talk, p. 10.
* ↑ See Post, April 5, 1772 ; April 19, 1773; and April 9, 1778.
* ↑ It was executed in the printing-office of Sands, Murray, and Cochran, with uncommon elegance, upon writing-paper, of a duodecimo size, and with the greatest correctness; and Mr. Elphinston enriched it with translations of the mottos. When completed, it made eight handsome volumes. It is, unquestionably, the most accurate and beautiful edition of this work; and there being but a small impression, it is now become scarce, and sells at a very high price. Boswell.
* ↑ Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, the learned grammarian of Scotland, well known for his various excellent works, and for his accurate editions of several authours. He was also a man of a most worthy private character. His zeal for the Royal House of Stuart did not render him less estimable in Dr. Johnson's eye. Boswell.
* ↑ In the Gent. Mag. for Sept. 1750, and for Oct. 1752, translations of many of the mottoes were given; but in each number there are several of Elphinston's. Johnson seems to speak of only one.
* ↑ Writing to Miss Porter on July 12, 1749, he said:—'I was afraid your letter had brought me ill news of my mother, whose death is one of the few calamities on which I think with terror.' Croker's Boswell, p. 62.
* ↑ Mr. Strahan was Elphinston's brother-in-law. Post, April 9, 1778.
* ↑ In the Gent. Mag. for January 1752, in the list of books published is:—'A correct and beautiful edition of the Rambler in 4 volumes, in 12mo. Price 12s.' The Rambler was not concluded till the following March. The remaining two volumes were published in July. Gent. Mag. xxii. 338.
* ↑ According to Hawkins (Life, p. 269) each edition consisted of 1250 copies.
* ↑ See Post, July 20, 1763.
* ↑ No. 55 [59]. Boswell.
* ↑ Miss Burney records in her Diary that one day at Streatham, while she and Mrs. Thrale "were reading this Rambler, Dr. Johnson came in. We told him what we were about. "Ah, madam!" cried he, "Goldsmith was not scrupulous; but he would have been a great man had he known the real value of his own internal resources."' Mme. D'Arblays Diary, i. 83. See Post, beginning of 1768.
* ↑ It is possible that Mrs. Hardcastle's drive in She Stoops to Conquer was suggested by The Rambler, No. 34. In it a young gentleman describes a lady's terror on a coach journey. 'Our whole conversation passed in dangers, and cares, and fears, and consolations, and stories of ladies dragged in the mire, forced to spend all the night on a heath, drowned in rivers, or burnt with lightning . . . We had now a new scene of terror, every man we saw was a robber, and we were ordered sometimes to drive hard, lest a traveller whom we saw behind should overtake us; and sometimes to stop, lest we should come up to him who was passing before us. She alarmed many an honest man by-begging him to spare her life as he passed by the coach.'
* ↑ Dr. Johnson was gratified by seeing this selection, and wrote to Mr. Kearsley, bookseller in Fleet-Street, the following note:— 'Mr. Johnson sends compliments to Mr. Kearsley, and begs the favour of seeing him as soon as he can. Mr. Kearsley is desired to bring with him the last edition of what he has honoured with the name of Beauties. May 20, 1782.' Boswell. The correspondence, post. May 15, 1782, shews that Johnson sent for this book, not because he was gratified, but because he was accused, on the strength of one of the Beauties, of recommending suicide. On that day, being in the country, he wrote: 'I never saw the book but by casual inspection, and considered myself as utterly disengaged from its consequences.' He adds:—'I hope some time in the next week to have all rectified.' The letter of May 20 shews that on his return to town he lost little time, if any, in sending for Kearsley.
* ↑ See Post, April 12, 1781.
* ↑ Ecclesiastes vii. 4.
* ↑ In the original 'separated sooner than subdued.' Johnson acted up to what he said. When he was close on his end, 'all who saw him beheld and acknowledged the invictum animum Catonis . . . Talking of his illness he said:—"I will be conquered; I will not capitulate."' See Post, Oct. 1784.
* ↑ In the Spectator, No. 568, Addison tells of a village in which 'there arose a current report that somebody had written a book against the 'squire and the whole parish.' The book was The Whole Duty of Man.
* ↑ 'The character of Prospero was, beyond all question, occasioned by Garrick's ostentatious display of furniture and Dresden china.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 144. If Garrick was aimed at, it is surprising that the severity of the satire did not bring to an end, not only all friendship, but even any acquaintance between the two men. The writer describes how he and Prospero had set out in the world together, and how for a long time they had assisted each other, till his friend had been lately raised to wealth by a lucky project. 'I felt at his sudden shoot of success an honest and disinterested joy.' Prospero reproached him with his neglect to visit him at his new house. When however he went to see him, he found that his friend's impatience 'arose not from any desire to communicate his happiness, but to enjoy his superiority.' He was kept waiting at the door, and when at length he was shewn up stairs, he found the staircase carefully secured by mats from the pollution of his feet. Prospero led him into a back room, where he told him he always breakfasted when he had not great company. After the visitor had endured one act of insolence after another, he says:—'I left him without any intention of seeing him again, unless some misfortune should restore his understanding.' Rambler, No. 200. See Post, May 15, 1776, where Johnson, speaking of the charge of meanness brought against Garrick, said, 'he might have been much better attacked for living with more splendour than is suitable to a player.'
* ↑ In C. C. Greville's Journal (ii. 316) we have an instance how stories about Johnson grew. He writes:—'Lord Holland told some stories of Johnson and Garrick which he had heard from Kemble {{..}} When Garrick was in the zenith of his popularity, and grown rich, and lived with the great, and while Johnson was yet obscure, the Doctor used to drink tea with him, and he would say, "Davy, I do not envy you your money nor your fine acquaintance, but I envy you your power of drinking such tea as this." "Yes," said Garrick, "it is very good tea, but it is not my best, nor that which I give to my Lord this and Sir somebody t'other."' There can be little doubt that the whole story is founded on the following passage in the character of Prospero: 'Breakfast was at last set, and, as I was not willing to indulge the peevishness that began to seize me, I commended the tea. Prospero then told me that another time I should taste his finest sort, but that he had only a very small quantity remaining, and reserved it for those whom he thought himself obliged to treat with particular respect.' See Post, April 10, 1778, where Johnson maintained that Garrick bore his good-fortune with modesty.
* ↑ No. 98.
* ↑ Yet his style did not escape the harmless shafts of pleasant humour; for the ingenious Bonnell Thornton published a mock Rambler in the Drury-lane Journal. Boswell. Murphy (Life,-p. 157), criticising the above quotation from Johnson, says:—'He forgot the observation of Dryden: "If too many foreign words are poured in upon us, it looks as if they were designed, not to assist the natives, but to conquer them."'
* ↑ Idler, No. 70. Boswell. In the same number Johnson writes:—'Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers than the use of hard words . . . But words are hard only to those who do not understand them; and the critic ought always to inquire, whether he is incommoded by the fault of the writer or by his own. Every author does not write for every reader.' See Post, Sept. 19, 1777, where Johnson says:—'If Robertson's style be faulty he owes it to me; that is, having too many words, and those too big ones.'
* ↑ The following passages in Temple's writings shew that a likeness may be discovered between his style and Johnson's:—'There may be firmness and constancy of courage from tradition as well as of belief: nor, methinks, should any man know how to be a coward, that is brought up with the opinion, that all of his nation or city have ever been valiant.' Temple's Works, i. 167. 'This is a disease too refined for this country and people, who are well, when they are not ill, and pleased, when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of it; and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of life, or the increase of riches ; not amusing themselves with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of pleasure.' Ib. p. 170. 'They send abroad the best of their own butter into all parts, and buy the cheapest out of Ireland, or the north of England, for their own use. In short they furnish infinite luxury which they never practise, and traffic in pleasures which they never taste.' Ib. p. 195. See Post, April 9, 1778, where Johnson says:— 'Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prose.'
* ↑ [[Author:Arthur Penrhyn Stanley|Dean Stanley calls Ephraim Chambers 'the Father of Cyclopaedias.' Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 299, note. The epitaph which Chambers wrote for himself the Dean gives as:—'Multis per- vulgatus, paucis notus, qui vitam inter lucem et umbram, nee eruditus nee idioticis Uteris deditus, transegit.' In the Gent. Mag. for 1740, p. 262, the last line is given, no doubt correctly, as:—'Nee eruditus nee idiota, literis deditus.' The second edition of Chambers's Cyclopædia was published in 1738. There is no copy of his Proposal in the British Museum or Bodleian. The resemblance between his style and Johnson's is not great. The following passage is the most Johnsonian that I could find:—'None of my predecessors can blame me for the use I have made of them; since it is their own avowed practice. It is a kind of privilege attached to the office of lexicographer; if not by any formal grant, yet by connivance at least. I have already assumed the bee for my device, and who ever brought an action of trover or trespass against that avowed free-booter? 'Tis vain to pretend anything of property in things of this nature. To offer our thoughts to the public, and yet pretend a right reserved therein to oneself, if it be not absurd, yet it is sordid. The words we speak, nay the breath we emit, is not more vague and common than our thoughts, when divulged in print.' Chambers's Preface, p. xxiii.
* ↑ 'There were giants in the earth in those days.' Gen. vi. 4.
* ↑ A Great Personage first appears in the second edition. In the first edition we merely find 'by one whose authority,' &c. {Boswell in his Hebrides, Aug. 28. 1773, speaks of George III. as 'a Great Personage.' In his Letter to the People of Scotland (p. 90) he thus introduces an anecdote about the King and Paoli:—'I have one other circumstance to communicate; but it is of the highest value. I communicate it with a mixture of awe and fondness.—That Great Personage, who is allowed by all to have the best memory of any man born a Briton,' &c. In the Probationary Odes for the Laureateship, published a few months after Boswell's Letter, a 'Great Personage ' is ludicrously introduced; pp. xxx. 63.
* ↑ The first nine lines form the motto.
* ↑ Horat. Epist. Lib. ii. Epist. ii. [I. 110]. Boswell. 'But how severely with themselves proceed The men, who write such verse as we can read! Their own strict judges, not a word they spare That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care, Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place, Nay, though at court, perhaps, it may find grace: Such they'll degrade ; and sometimes, in its stead. In downright charity revive the dead; Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears. Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years; Command old words that long have slept to wake. Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake; Or bid the new be English, ages hence, (For use will father what's begot by sense;) Pour the full tide of eloquence along, Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong. Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue.' Pope. Imitation of Horace, ii. 2. 157.
* ↑ Horat. De Arte Poettca. [I. 48.] Boswell.
* ↑ See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 29, 1773, where Boswell says that up to that date he had twice heard Johnson coin words, per [[wikt:Peregrinity|]] and depeditation.
* ↑ 'The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own, by vanity or wantonness, by compliance with fashion or lust of innovation, I have registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalizing useless foreigners to the injury of the natives. . . . Our language for almost a century has, by the concurrence of many causes, been gradually departing from its original Teutonick character, and deviating towards a Gallick structure and phraseology, from which it ought to be our endeavour to recall it, by making our ancient volumes the groundwork of style. . . . From the authors which rose in the time of Elizabeth a speech might be formed adequate to all the purposes of use and elegance.' Johnson's Works, V. pp. 31, 39. See. Post. May 12, 1778.
* ↑ If Johnson sometimes indulged his Brownism (see Post, beginning of 1756), yet he saw much to censure in Browne's style. 'His style is, indeed, a tissue of many languages; a mixture of heterogeneous words, brought together from distant regions, with terms originally appropriated to one art, and drawn by violence into the service of another. He must however be confessed to have augmented our philosophical diction. . . . His innovations are sometimes pleasing, and his temerities happy.' Johnson's Works, vi. 500. 'It is remarkable that the pomp of diction, which has been objected to Johnson, was first assumed in the Rambler. His Dictionary was going on at the same time, and in the course of that work, as he grew familiar with technical and scholastic words, he thought that the bulk of his readers were equally learned; or at least would admire the splendour and dignity of the style.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 156.
* ↑ The observation of his having imitated Sir Thomas Brown has been made by many people; and lately it has been insisted on, and illustrated by a variety of quotations from Brown, in one of the popular Essays written by the Reverend Mr. Knox [the Essay is No. xxii. of Winter Evenings, Knox's Works, ii. 397], master of Tunbridge school, whom I have set down in my list [Post, under Dec. 6, 1784] of those who have sometimes not unsuccessfully imitated Dr. Johnson's style. Boswell.
* ↑ The following observation in Mr. Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides [p. 9] may sufficiently account for that Gentleman's being 'now scarcely esteem'd a Scot' by many of his countrymen:—'If he [Dr. Johnson] was particularly prejudiced against the Scots, it was because they were more in his way; because he thought their success in England rather exceeded the due proportion of their real merit; and because he could not but see in them that nationality which, I believe, no liberal-minded Scotchman will deny.' Mr. Boswell, indeed, is so free from national prejudices, that he might with equal propriety have been described as— 'Scarce by South Britons now esteem'd a Scot.' Courtenay. Boswell.
* ↑ Malone says that 'Baretti used sometimes to walk with Johnson through the streets at night, and occasionally entered into conversation with the unfortunate women who frequent them, for the sake of hearing their stories. It was from a history of one of these, which a girl told under a tree in the King's Bench Walk in the Temple to Baretti and Johnson, that he formed the story of Misella in the Rambler [Nos. 170 and 171].' Prior's Malone, p. 161. 'Of one [of these women] who was very handsome he asked, for what she thought God had given her so much beauty. She answered:—"To please gentlemen."' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 321. See also Post under Dec. 2, 1784.
* ↑ Hawkins (Life, p. 270) had said that 'the characteristics of Addison's style are feebleness and inanity.' He was thus happily ridiculed by Porson:—'Soon after the publication of Sir John's book, a parcel of Eton boys, not having the fear of God before their eyes, etc., instead of playing truant, robbing orchards, annoying poultry, or performing any other part of their school exercise, fell foul in print (see the Microcosm, No. 36) upon his Worship's censure of Addison's middling style. . . . But what can you expect, as Lord Karnes justly observes, from a school where boys are taught to rob on the highway?' Porson, Tracts, p. 339.
* ↑ Works, vii. 473.
* ↑ When Johnson shewed me a proof-sheet of the character of Addison, in which he so highly extols his style. I could not help observing, that it had not been his own model, as no two styles could differ more from each other.—'Sir, Addison had his style, and I have mine.'—When I ventured to ask him, whether the difference did not consist in this, that Addison's style was full of idioms, colloquial phrases, and proverbs; and his own more strictly grammatical, and free from such phraseology and modes of speech as can never be literally translated or understood by foreigners; he allowed the discrimination to be just.—Let any one who doubts it. try to translate one of Addison's Spectators into Latin. French, or Italian ; and though so easy, familiar, and elegant, to an Englishman, as to give the intellect no trouble; yet he would find the transfusion into another language extremely difficult, if not impossible. But a Rambler, Adventurer, or Idler, of Johnson, would fall into any classical or European language, as easily as if it had been originally conceived in it. Burney. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 125) recounts how Johnson recommended Addison's works as a model for imitation to Mr. Woodhouse, a poetical shoemaker. '"Give nights and days, Sir, (said he) to the study of Addison, if you mean either to be a good writer, or, what is more worth, an honest man." When I saw something like the same expression in his criticism on that author, I put 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."' Yet he says in his Life of Pope (Works, viii. 284), 'He that has once studiously formed a style rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.'
* ↑ I shall probably, in another work, maintain the merit of Addison's poetry, which has been very unjustly depreciated. Boswell. He proposed also to publish an edition of Johnson's poems (ante, p. 19), an account of his own travels (Post, April 17, 1778), a collection, with notes, of old tenures and charters of Scotland (Post, Oct. 27, 1779), and a History of James IV. of Scotland, 'the patron,' as he said, 'of my family' (Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 23, 1773).
* ↑ Lewis thus happily translates the lines in Martial,— 'Diligat illa senem quondam: sed et ipsa marito. Tunc quoque cum fuerit, non videatur, anus. 'Wrinkled with age, may mutual love and truth To their dim eyes recall the bloom of youth.' Rambler, No. 167. Some of Johnson's own translations are happy, as:— 'Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem — Aut, gelidas hibernus aquas quum fuderit auster, Securum somnos, imbre juvante, sequi! 'How sweet in sleep to pass the careless hours, Lull'd by the beating winds and dashing show'rs.' Ib. No. 117.
* ↑ Αὐτῶν ἐκ μακάρον ἀντάξιος εἵη ἀμοιβή. 'Celestial powers! that piety regard, From you my labours wait their last reward.' A modification of the Greek line is engraved on the scroll in Johnson's monument in St. Paul's (Post, Dec. 1784).
* ↑ 'The essays professedly serious, if I have been able to execute my own intentions, will be found exactly conformable to the precepts of Christianity. . . . I therefore look back on this part of my work with pleasure, which no blame or praise of man shall diminish or augment.' Rambler, No. 208.
* ↑ I have little doubt that this attack on the concluding verse is an indirect blow at Hawkins, who had quoted the whole passage, and had clearly thought it the more 'awful' on account of the couplet. See Hawkins's Johnson, p. 291.
* ↑ 'In the original Raleigh's.
* ↑ The italics are Boswell's.
* ↑ Mrs. Williams is probably the person meant. Boswell.
* ↑ 'In 1750, April 5, Comus was played for her benefit. She had so little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know what was intended when a benefit was offered her. The profits of the night were only £130, though Dr. Newton brought a large contribution; and £10 were given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named. . . . This was the greatest benefaction that Paradise Lost ever procured the author's descendants; and to this he who has now attempted to relate his life had the honour of contributing a Prologue.' Johnson's Works, vii. 118. In the Gent. Mag. (XX. 152) we read that, as on 'April 4, the night first appointed, many inconvenient circumstances happened to disappoint the hopes of success, the managers generously quitted the profits of another night, in which the theatre was expected to be fuller. Mr. Samuel Johnson's prologue was afterwards printed for Mrs, Foster's benefit.'
* ↑ Scott writing to Southey in 1810 said:—'A witty rogue the other day, who sent me a letter signed Detector, proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of.' The passage alleged to be stolen ends with,— 'When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou !' which in Vida ad Eranen. El. ii. v. 21, ran,— 'Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor, Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.' 'It is almost needless to add,' says Mr. Lockhart, 'there are no such lines.' Life of Scott, iii. 294.
* ↑ The greater part of this Preface was given in the Gent. Mag. for August 1747 (xvii.404).
* ↑ 'Persuasive' is scarcely a fit description for this noble outburst of indignation on the part of one who knew all the miseries of poverty. After quoting Dr. Newton's account of the distress to which Milton's grand-daughter had been reduced, he says:—'That this relation is true cannot be questioned: but surely the honour of letters, the dignity of sacred poetry, the spirit of the English nation, and the glory of human nature require—that it should be true no longer. . . . In an age, which amidst all its vices and all its follies has not become infamous for want of charity, it may be surely allowed to hope, that the living remains of Milton will be no longer suffered to languish in distress.' Johnson's Works, v. 270.
* ↑ Hawkins's Johnson, p. 275.
* ↑ In the original retrospection. Johnson's Works, v. 268.
* ↑ In this same year Johnson thus ends a severe criticism on Samson Agonistes: — 'The everlasting verdure of Milton's laurels has nothing to fear from the blasts of malignity; nor can my attempt produce any other effect than to strengthen their shoots by lopping their luxuriance.' The Rambler, No. 140. ' Mr. Nichols shewed Johnson in 1780 a book called Remarks on Johnson's Life of Milton, in which the affair of Lauder was renewed with virulence. He read the libellous passage with attention, and instantly wrote on the margin:—" In the business of Lauder I was deceived; partly by thinking the man too frantic to be fraudulent."' Murphy's Johnson, p. 66.
* ↑ 'Johnson turned his house,' writes Lord Macaulay, 'into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his benevolence.' (Essays, i. 390). In his Biography of Johnson (p. 388) he says that Mrs. Williams's 'chief recommendations were her blindness and her poverty.' No doubt in Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale are found amusing accounts of the discord of the inmates of his house. But it is abundantly clear that in Mrs. Williams's company he had for years found pleasure. A few months after her death he wrote to Mrs. Thrale: 'You have more than once wondered at my complaint of solitude, when you hear that I am crowded with visits. Inopem me copia fecit. Visitors are no proper companions in the chamber of sickness. . . . The amusements and consolations of languor and depression are conferred by familiar and domestic companions. . . . Such society I had with Levett and Williams' (Piozzi Letters, ii. 341). To Mrs. Montagu he wrote:—'Thirty years and more she had been my companion, and her death has left me very desolate' (Croker's Boswell, p. 739). Boswell says that 'her departure left a blank in his house' (Post, Aug. 1783). 'By her death,' writes Murphy, 'he was left in a state of destitution, with nobody but his black servant to soothe his anxious moments' (Murphy's Johnson, p. 122). Hawkins (Life, p. 558) says that 'she had not only cheered him in his solitude, and helped him to pass with comfort those hours which otherwise would have been irksome to him, but had relieved him from domestic cares, regulated and watched over the expenses of his house, etc' 'She had,' as Boswell says (Post, Aug. 1783), 'valuable qualities.' 'Had she had,' wrote Johnson, 'good humour and prompt elocution, her universal curiosity and comprehensive knowledge would have made her the delight of all that knew her ' (Piozzi Letters, ii. 31 1). To Langton he wrote:—'I have lost a companion to whom I have had recourse for domestic amusement for thirty years, and whose variety of knowledge never was exhausted' (Post, Sept. 29, 1783). 'Her acquisitions,' he wrote to Dr. Burney, 'were many and her curiosity universal; so that she partook of everyconversation' (Post, Sept. 1783). Murphy (Life, p. 72) says:—'She possessed uncommon talents, and, though blind, had an alacrity of mind that made her conversation agreeable, and even desirable.' According to Hawkins (Life, 322-4) ' she had acquired a knowledge of French and Italian, and had made great improvements in literature. She was a woman of an enlightened understanding. Johnson in many exigencies found her an able counsellor, and seldom shewed his wisdom more than when he hearkened to her advice.' Perhaps Johnson had her in his thoughts when, writing of Pope's last years and Martha Blount, he said:—'Their acquaintance began early; the life of each was pictured on the other's mind; their conversation therefore was endearing, for when they met there was an immediate coalition of congenial notions.' (Johnson's Works, viii. 304). Miss Mulso (Mrs. Chapone) writing to Mrs. Carter in 1753, says:—'I was charmed with Mr. Johnson's behaviour to Mrs. Williams, which was like that of a fond father to his daughter. She shewed very good sense, with a great deal of modesty and humility; and so much patience and cheerfulness under her misfortune that it doubled my concern for her' (Mrs. Chapone's Life, p. 73). Miss Talbot wrote to Mrs. Carter in 1756:—'My mother the other day fell in love with your friend, Mrs. Williams, whom we met at Mr. Richardson's [where Miss Mulso also had met her], and is particularly charmed with the sweetness of her voice' (Talbot and Carter, Corresp. ii. 221). Miss Talbot was a niece of Lord Chancellor Talbot. Hannah More wrote in 1774:—'Mrs. Williams is engaging in her manners; her conversation lively and entertaining' (More's Memoirs, i. 49). Boswell, however, more than once complains that she was 'peevish' (Post, Oct. 26, 1769 and April 7, 1776). At a time when she was very ill, and had gone into the country to try if she could improve her health, Johnson wrote:—'Age, and sickness, and pride have made her so peevish, that I was forced to bribe the maid to stay with her by a secret stipulation of half-a-crown a week over her wages' (Post, July 22, 1777). Malone, in a note on August 2, 1763, says that he thinks she had of her own 'about £35 or £40 a year.' This was in her latter days; Johnson had prevailed on Garrick to give her a benefit and Mrs. Montagu to give her a pension. She used, he adds, to help in the house-work.