# Boswell's Life of Johnson (1904)/Volume 1/1747—1748

​1747: ÆTAT. 38.]—In 1747 it is supposed that the Gentleman's Magazine for May was enriched by him with five short poetical pieces, distinguished by three asterisks. The first is a translation, or rather a paraphrase, of a Latin Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer. Whether the Latin was his, or not, I have never heard, though I should think it probably was, if it be certain that he wrote the English; as to which my only cause of doubt is, that his slighting character of Hanmer as an editor, in his Observations on Macbeth, is very different from that in the 'Epitaph.' It may be said, that there is the same contrariety between the character in the Observations, and that in his own Preface to Shakspeare; but a considerable time elapsed between the ​one publication and the other, whereas the Observations and the 'Epitaph' came close together. The others are 'To Miss ———, on her giving the Authour a gold and silk network Purse of her own weaving;' 'Stella in Mourning;' 'The Winter's Walk;' 'An Ode;' and, 'To Lyce, an elderly-Lady.' I am not positive that all these were his productions; but as 'The Winter's Walk' has never been controverted to be his, and all of them have the same mark, it is reasonable to conclude that they are all written by the same hand. Yet to the Ode, in which we find a passage very characteristick of him, being a learned description of the gout,
'Unhappy, whom to beds of pain Arthritick tyranny consigns;'
​there is the following note: 'The authour being ill of the gout:' but Johnson was not attacked with that distemper till at a very late period of his life. May not this, however, be a poetical fiction? Why may not a poet suppose himself to have the gout, as well as suppose himself to be in love, of which we have innumerable instances, and which has been admirably ridiculed by Johnson in his Life of Cowley? I have also some difficulty to believe that he could produce such a group of conceits as appear in the verses to Lyce, in which he claims for this ancient personage as good a right to be assimilated to heaven, as nymphs whom other poets have flattered; he therefore ironically ascribes to her the attributes of the sky, in such stanzas as this:
'Her teeth the night with darkness dies,
She's starr'd with pimples o'er;
Her tongue like nimble lightning plies,
And can with thunder roar.'
But as at a very advanced age he could condescend to trifle in namby-pamby rhymes, to please Mrs. Thrale and her daughter, he may have, in his earlier years, composed such a piece as this.
It is remarkable, that in this first edition of The Winter's Walk, the concluding line is much more Johnsonian than it was afterwards printed; for in subsequent editions, after praying Stella to 'snatch him to her arms,' he says,
'And shield me from the ills of life.'
Whereas in the first edition it is
'And hide me from the sight of life.'
I have heard him repeat with great energy the following verses, which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine for April this year; but I have no authority to say they were his own. Indeed one of the best criticks of our age suggests to me, that 'the word indifferently being used in the sense of without concern,' and being also very unpoetical, renders it improbable that they should have been his composition.
'On Lord Lovat's Execution.
The brave, Balmerino, were on thy side; Radcliffe, unhappy in his crimes of youth, Steady in what he still mistook for truth, Beheld his death so decently unmov'd. The soft lamented, and the brave approv'd.
​But Lovat's fate indifferently we view, True to no King, to no religion true: No fair forgets the ruin he has done; No child laments the tyrant of his son; No tory pities, thinking what he was; No whig compassions, for he left the cause; The brave regret not, for he was not brave;
This year his old pupil and friend, David Garrick, having become joint patentee and manager of Drury-lane theatre, Johnson honoured his opening of it with a Prologue,* which for just and manly dramatick criticism, on the whole range of the English stage, as well as for poetical excellence, ​is unrivalled. Like the celebrated Epilogue to the Distressed Mother it was, during the season, often called for by the audience. The most striking and brilliant passages of it have been so often repeated, and are so well recollected by all the lovers of the drama and of poetry, that it would be superfluous to point them out. In the Gentleman's Magazine for December this year, he inserted an 'Ode on Winter,' which is, I think, an admirable specimen of his genius for lyrick poetry. But the year 1747 is distinguished as the epoch, when Johnson's arduous and important work, his Dictionary of the English Language, was announced to the world, by the publication of its Plan or Prospectus.
How long this immense undertaking had been the object of his contemplation, I do not know. I once asked him by what means he had attained to that astonishing knowledge of our language, by which he was enabled to realise a design of such extent, and accumulated difficulty. He told me, that 'it was not the effect of particular study; but that it had grown up in his mind insensibly.' I have been informed by Mr. James Dodsley, that several years before this period, ​when Johnson was one day sitting in his brother Robert's shop, he heard his brother suggest to him, that a Dictionary of the English Language would be a work that would be well received by the publick; that Johnson seemed at first to catch at the proposition, but, after a pause, said, in his abrupt decisive manner, 'I believe I shall not undertake it.' That he, however, had bestowed much thought upon the subject, before he published his Plan, is evident from the enlarged, clear, and accurate views which it exhibits; and we find him mentioning in that tract, that many of the writers whose testimonies were to be produced as authorities, were selected by Pope; which proves that he had been furnished, probably by Mr. Robert Dodsley, with whatever hints that eminent poet had contributed towards a great literary project, that had been the subject of important consideration in a former reign.
​ The Plan was addressed to Philip Dormer, Earl of Chesterfield, then one of his Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State; a nobleman who was very ambitious of literary distinction, and who, upon being informed of the design, had expressed himself in terms very favourable to its success. There is, perhaps in every thing of any consequence, a secret history which it would be amusing to know, could we have it authentically communicated. Johnson told me, 'Sir, the way in which the Plan of my Dictionary came to be inscribed to Lord Chesterfield, was this: I had neglected to write it by the time appointed. Dodsley suggested a desire to have it addressed to Lord Chesterfield. I laid hold of this as a pretext for delay, that it might be better done, and let Dodsley have his desire. I said to my friend, Dr. Bathurst, "Now if any good comes of my addressing to Lord Chesterfield, it will be ascribed to deep policy, when, in fact, it was only a casual excuse for laziness."'
It is worthy of observation, that the Plan has not only the substantial merit of comprehension, perspicuity, and precision, but that the language of it is unexceptionably excellent; it being altogether free from that inflation of style, and those uncommon but apt and energetick words, which in some of his writings have been censured, with more petulance than justice; and never was there a more dignified ​strain of compliment than that in which he courts the attention of one who, he had been persuaded to believe, would be a respectable patron.
'With regard to questions of purity or propriety, (says he) I was once in doubt whether I should not attribute to myself too much in attempting to decide them, and whether my province was to extend beyond the proposition of the question, and the display of the suffrages on each side; but I have been since determined by your Lordship's opinion, to interpose my own judgement, and shall therefore endeavour to support what appears to me most consonant to grammar and reason. Ausonius thought that modesty forbade him to plead inability for a task to which Caesar had judged him equal:
Cur me posse negem posse quod ille putat?
And I may hope, my Lord, that since you, whose authority in our language is so generally acknowledged, have commissioned me to declare my own opinion, I shall be considered as exercising a kind of vicarious jurisdiction; and that the power which might have been denied to my own claim, will be readily allowed me as the delegate of your Lordship.'
This passage proves, that Johnson's addressing his Plan to Lord Chesterfield was not merely in consequence of the result of a report by means of Dodsley, that the Earl favoured the design; but that there had been a particular communication with his Lordship concerning it. Dr. Taylor told me, that Johnson sent his Plan to him in manuscript, for his perusal; and that when it was lying upon his table, Mr. William Whitehead happened to pay him a visit, and being shewn it, was highly pleased with such parts of it as he had time to read, and begged to take it home with him, which he was allowed to do; that from him ​it got into the hands of a noble Lord, who carried it to Lord Chesterfield. When Taylor observed this might be an advantage, Johnson replied, 'No, Sir; it would have come out with more bloom, if it had not been seen before by any body.'
The opinion conceived of it by another noble authour, appears from the following extract of a letter from the Earl of Orrery to Dr. Birch:
'Caledon. Dec. 30. 1747.
'I have just now seen the specimen of Mr. Johnson's Dictionary, addressed to Lord Chesterfield. I am much pleased with the plan, and I think the specimen is one of the best that I have ever read. Most specimens disgust, rather than prejudice us in favour of the work to follow; but the language of Mr. Johnson's is good, and the arguments are properly and modestly expressed. However, some expressions may be cavilled at, but they are trifles. I'll mention one. The barren Laurel. The laurel is not barren, in any sense whatever; it bears fruits and flowers. Sed hœ sunt nugœ, and I have great expectation from the performance.'
That he was fully aware of the arduous nature of the undertaking, he acknowledges; and shews himself perfectly sensible of it in the conclusion of his Plan; but he had a ​noble consciousness of his own abilities, which enabled him to go on with undaunted spirit.
Dr. Adams found him one day busy at his Dictionary, when the following dialogue ensued. 'Adams. This is a great work, Sir. How are you to get all the etymologies? Johnson. Why, Sir, here is a shelf with Junius, and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welch gentleman who has published a collection of Welch proverbs, who will help me with the Welch. Adams. But, Sir, how can you do this in three years? Johnson. Sir, I have no doubt that I can do it in three years. Adams. But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their Dictionary. Johnson. Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.' With so much ease and pleasantry could he talk of that prodigious labour which he had undertaken to execute.
The publick has had, from another pen, a long detail of ​what had been done in this country by prior Lexicographers; and no doubt Johnson was wise to avail himself of them, so far as they went: but the learned, yet judicious research of etymology, the various, yet accurate display of definition, and the rich collection of authorities, were reserved for the superior mind of our great philologist For the mechanical part he employed, as he told me, six amanuenses; and let it be remembered by the natives of North-Britain, to whom he is supposed to have been so hostile, that five of them were of that country. There were two Messieurs Macbean; Mr. Shiels, who we shall hereafter see partly wrote the Lives of the Poets to which the name of Gibber is affixed; Mr. Stewart, son of Mr. George Stewart, bookseller at Edinburgh; and a Mr. Maitland. The sixth of these humble assistants was Mr, Peyton, who, I believe, taught French, and published some elementary tracts.
To all these painful labourers, Johnson shewed a never-ceasing kindness, so far as they stood in need of it. The elder Mr. Macbean had afterwards the honour of being Librarian to Archibald, Duke of Argyle, for many years, but was left without a shilling, Johnson wrote for him a Preface to A System of Ancient Geography; and, by the favour of Lord Thurlow, got him admitted a poor brother of the Charterhouse. For Shiels, who died of a consumption, he ​had much tenderness; and it has been thought that some choice sentences in the Lives of the Poets were supplied by him. Peyton, when reduced to penury, had frequent aid from the bounty of Johnson, who at last was at the expense of burying both him and his wife.
While the Dictionary was going forward, Johnson lived part of the time in Holborn, part in Gough-square, Fleet-street; and he had an upper room fitted up like a counting-house for the purpose, in which he gave to the copyists their several tasks The words, partly taken from other dictionaries, and partly supplied by himself, having been first written down with spaces left between them, he delivered in writing their etymologies, definitions, and
​various significations. The authorities were copied from the books themselves, in which he had marked the passages with a black-lead pencil, the traces of which could easily be effaced. I have seen several of them, in which that trouble had not been taken; so that they were just as when used by the copyists. It is remarkable, that he was so attentive in the choice of the passages in which words were authorised, that one may read page after page of his Dictionary with improvement and pleasure; and it should not pass unobserved, that he has quoted no authour whose writings had a tendency to hurt sound religion and morality.
​The necessary expense of preparing a work of such magnitude for the press, must have been a considerable deduction from the price stipulated to be paid for the copy-right. I understand that nothing was allowed by the booksellers on that account; and I remember his telling me, that a large portion of it having by mistake been written upon both sides of the paper, so as to be inconvenient for the compositor, it cost him twenty pounds to have it transcribed upon one side only.
He is now to be considered as 'tugging at his oar,' as engaged in a steady continued course of occupation, sufficient to employ all his time for some years; and which was the
​best preventive of that constitutional melancholy which was ever lurking about him, ready to trouble his quiet. But his enlarged and lively mind could not be satisfied without more diversity of employment, and the pleasure of animated relaxation. He therefore not only exerted his talents in occasional composition very different from Lexicography, but formed a club in Ivy-lane, Paternoster-row, with a view to enjoy literary discussion, and amuse his evening hours. The members associated with him in this little society were his beloved friend Dr. Richard Bathurst, Mr. Hawkesworth, afterwards well known by his writings, Mr. John ​Hawkins, an attorney, and a few others of different professions.
​In the Gentleman's Magazine for May of this year he wrote a 'Life of Roscommon,'* with Notes, which he afterwards much improved, indented the notes into text, and inserted it amongst his Lives of the English Poets.
Mr. Dodsley this year brought out his Preceptor, one of the most valuable books for the improvement of young minds that has appeared in any language; and to this meritorious work Johnson furnished 'The Preface,'* containing a general sketch of the book, with a short and perspicuous recommendation of each article; as also, 'The Vision of Theodore the Hermit, found in his Cell,'* a most beautiful allegory of human life, under the figure of ascending the mountain of Existence. The Bishop of Dromore heard Dr. Johnson say, that he thought this was the best thing he ever wrote.
* ↑ Boswell proceeds to mention six.
* ↑  In Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies, in which this paraphrase is inserted, it is stated that the Latin epitaph was written by Dr. Freind. I do not think that the English version is by Johnson. I should be sorry to ascribe to him such lines as:— 'Illustrious age! how bright thy glories shone, When Hanmer filled the chair—and Anne the throne.'
* ↑  In the Observations, Johnson, writing of Hanmer, says:—'Surely the weapons of criticism ought not to be blunted against an editor who can imagine that he is restoring poetry while he is amusing himself with alterations like these:— For,—This is the sergeant  Who like a good and hardy soldier fough;  —This is the sergeant who  Like a right good and hardy soldier fought. Such harmless industry may surely be forgiven, if it cannot be praised; may he therefore never want a monosyllable who can use it with such wonderful dexterity.' Johnson's Works, v. 93. In his Preface to Shakespeare published eighteen years later, he describes Hanmer as 'A man, in my opinion, eminently qualified by nature for such studies.' Ib. p. 139. The editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare (i. xxxii) thus write of Hanmer;—'A country gentleman of great ingenuity and lively fancy, but with no knowledge of older literature, no taste for research, and no ear for the rhythm of earlier English verse, amused his leisure hours by scribbling down his own and his friend's guesses in Pope's Shakespeare.'
* ↑  In the Universal Visiter, to which Johnson contributed, the mark which is affixed to some pieces unquestionably his, is also found subjoined to others, of which he certainly was not the author. The mark therefore will not ascertain the poems in question to have been written by him. They were probably the productions of Hawkesworth, who, it is believed, was afflicted with the gout. Malone. It is most unlikely that Johnson wrote such poor poems as these. I shall not easily be persuaded that the following lines are his:— 'Love warbles in the vocal groves,  And vegetation paints the plain.' 'And love and hate alike implore  The skies—"That Stella mourn no more."' 'The Winter's Walk' has two good lines, but these may have been supplied by Johnson. The lines to 'Lyce, an elderly Lady,' would, if written by him, have been taken as a satire on his wife.
* ↑ See Post under Sept. 18, 1783.
* ↑ See Johnson's Works, vii. 4, 34.
* ↑ Boswell italicises conceits to shew that he is using it in the sense in which Johnson uses it in his criticism of Cowley:—'These conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which consists of thoughts true in one sense of the expression and false in the other.' Ib. vii. 35.
* ↑ Namby Pamby was the name given to Ambrose Philips by Pope. Ib. viii. 395.
* ↑  Malone most likely is meant. Mr. Croker says:—'Johnson has "indifferently" in the sense of "without concern" in his Dictionary, with this example from Shakespeare, 'And I will look on death indifferently."' Johnson however here defines indifferently as in a neutral state; without wish or aversion; which is not the same as without concern. The passage, which is from Julius Cæsar, i. 2, is not correctly given. It is— 'Set honour in one eye and death i' the other And I will look on both indifferently.' We may compare Johnson's use of indifferent in his Letter to Chesterfield, Post, Feb. 7, 1755:—'The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours . . . has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it.'
* ↑ 'Radcliffe. when quite a boy, had been engaged in the rebellion of 1715, and being attainted had escaped from Newgate. . . . During the insurrection [of 1745], having been captured on board a French vessel bound for Scotland, he was arraigned on his original sentence which had slumbered so long. The only trial now conceded to him was confined to his identity. For such a course there was no precedent, except in the case of Sir Walter Raleigh, which had brought shame upon the reign of James I.' Campbell's Chancellors (edit. 1846), V. 108. Campbell adds, 'his execution, I think, reflects great disgrace upon Lord Hardwicke [the Lord Chancellor].'
* ↑ In the original end.
* ↑  These verses are somewhat too severe on the extraordinary person who is the chief figure in them, for he was undoubtedly brave. His pleasantry during his solemn trial (in which, by the way, I have heard Mr. David Hume observe, that we have one of the very few speeches of Mr. Murray, now Earl of Mansfield, authentically given) was very remarkable. When asked if he had any questions to put to Sir Everard Fawkener, who was one of the strongest witnesses against him, he answered, ' I only wish him joy of his young wife.' And after sentence of death, in the horrible terms in cases of treason, was pronounced upon him, and he was retiring from the bar, he said, 'Fare you well, my Lords, we shall not all meet again in one place.' He behaved with perfect composure at his execution, and called out 'Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori.' ['What joys, what glories round him wait, Who bravely for his country dies!' Francis. Horace, Odes-, iii. 2. 13.] Boswell. 'Old Lovat was beheaded yesterday,' wrote Horace Walpole on April 10, 1747, 'and died extremely well: without passion, affectation, buffoonery, or timidity; his behaviour was natural and intrepid.' Letters, ii. 77.
* ↑ See Post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.
* ↑  My friend, Mr. Courtenay, whose eulogy on Johnson's Latin Poetry has been inserted in this Work [ante, p. 72], is no less happy in praising his English poetry. But hark, he sings ! the strain ev'n Pope admires; Indignant virtue her own bard inspires. Sublime as Juvenal he pours his lays, And with the Roman shares congenial praise;— In glowing numbers now he fires the age, And Shakspeare's sun relumes the clouded stage. Boswell.
* ↑ The play is by Ambrose Philips. 'It was concluded with the most successful Epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the English theatre. The three first nights it was recited twice; and not only continued to be demanded through the run, as it is termed, of the play; but, whenever it is recalled to the stage, where by peculiar fortune, though a copy from the French, it yet keeps its place, the Epilogue is still expected, and is still spoken.' Johnson's Works, viii. 389. See Post, April 21, 1773, note on Eustace Budgel. The Epilogue is given in vol. v. p. 228 of Bohn's Addison, and the great success that it met with is described in The Spectator, No. 341.
* ↑  Such poor stuff as the following is certainly not by Johnson:— 'Let musick sound the voice of joy!  Or mirth repeat the jocund tale; Let Love his wanton wiles employ.  And o'er the season wine prevail.'
* ↑ 'Dodsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English Dictionary; but I had long thought of it.' Post, Oct. 10, 1779.
* ↑ It would seem from the passage to which Boswell refers that Pope had wished that Johnson should undertake the Dictionary. Johnson, in mentioning Pope, says:—'Of whom I may be justified in affirming that were he still alive, solicitous as he was for the success of this work, he would not be displeased that I have undertaken it.' Works, V. 20. As Pope died on May 30, 1744, this renders it likely that the work was begun earlier than Boswell thought.
* ↑ In the title-page of the first edition after the name of Hitch comes that of L. Hawes.
* ↑ 'During the progress of the work he had received at different times the amount of his contract; and when his receipts were produced to him at a tavern-dinner given by the booksellers, it appeared that he had been paid a hundred pounds and upwards more than his due.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 78. See Post, beginning of 1756.
* ↑ 'The truth is, that the several situations which I have been in having made me long plastron [butt] of dedications, I am become as callous to flattery as some people are to abuse.' Lord Chesterfield, date of Dec. 15, 1755; Chesterfield's Misc. Works, iv. 266.
* ↑ September 22, 1777, going from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, to see Islam. Boswell.
* ↑ Boswell here says too much, as the following passages in the Plan prove:—'Who upon this survey can forbear to wish that these fundamental atoms of our speech might obtain the firmness and immutability of the primogenial and constituent particles of matter?' 'Those translators who, for want of understanding the characteristical difference of tongues, have formed a chaotick dialect of heterogeneous phrases;' 'In one part refinement will be subtilised beyond exactness, and evidence dilated in another beyond perspicuity.' Johnson's Works, V. 12, 21. 22.
* ↑ Ausonius, Epigram i. 12.
* ↑ Whitehead in 1757 succeeded Colley Cibber as poet-laureate, and dying in 1785 was followed by Thomas Warton. From Warton the line of succession is Pye, Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson. See Post, under June 13, 1763.
* ↑ Hawkins (Life, p. 176) likewise says that the manuscript passed through Whitehead and 'other hands' before it reached Chesterfield. Mr. Croker had seen 'a draft of the prospectus carefully written by an amanuensis, but signed in great form by Johnson's own hand. It was evidently that which was laid before Lord Chesterfield. Some useful remarks are made in his lordship's hand, and some in another. Johnson adopted all these suggestions.'
* ↑ This poor piece of criticism confirms what Johnson said of Lord Orrery:—'He grasped at more than his abilities could reach; tried to pass for a better talker, a better writer, and a better thinker than he was.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22, 1773. See Post, under April 7, 1778.
* ↑ Birch, MSS. Brit. Mus. 4303. Boswell.
* ↑ 'When I survey the Plan which I have laid before you, I cannot, my Lord, but confess that I am frighted at its extent, and, like the soldiers of Cæsar, look on Britain as a new world, which it is almost madness to invade.' Johnson's Works, v. 21.
* ↑ There might be applied to him what he said of Pope:—'Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. He, indeed, who forms his opinion of himself in solitude without knowing the powers of other men, is very liable to error; but it was the felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value.' Johnson's Works, viii. 237.
* ↑ 'For the Teutonick etymologies I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner . . . Junius appears to have excelled in extent of learning and Skinner in rectitude of understanding . . . Skinner is often ignorant, but never ridiculous: Junius is always full of knowledge, but his variety distracts his judgment, and his learning is very frequently disgraced by his absurdities.' Ib. v. 29. Francis Junius the younger was born at Heidelberg in 1589, and died at Windsor, at the house of his nephew Isaac Vossius, in 1678. His Etymolgicum Anglicanum was not published till 1743. Stephen Skinner, M.D., was born in 1623, and died in 1667. His Etymologicon Linguœ Anglicanœ was published in 1671. Knight's Eng. Cyclo.
* ↑ Thomas Richards published in 1753 Antiquœ Linguœ Britannicœ Thesaurus, to which is prefixed a Welsh Grammar and a collection of British proverbs.
* ↑ See Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson [p. 171]. Boswell.
* ↑ 'The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist.' Macaulay's Misc. Writings, p. 382. See Post. May 13, 1778, for mention of Home Tooke's criticism of Johnson's etymologies.
* ↑ 'The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the volumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered . . . But to collect the words of our language was a task of greater difficulty: the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of a living speech.' Johnson's Works, v. 31.
* ↑ See Post., under April 10, 1776. Boswell.
* ↑ 'Mr. Macbean,' said Johnson in 1778, 'is a man of great learning, and for his learning I respect him, and I wish to serve him. He knows many languages, and knows them well; but he knows nothing of life. I advised him to write a geographical dictionary; but I have lost all hopes of his ever doing anything properly, since I found he gave as much labour to Capua as to Rome.' Mme. D'Arblays Diary, i. 114. See Post, beginning of 1773. and Oct. 24, 1780.
* ↑ Boswell is speaking of the book published under the name of Cibber mentioned above, but 'entirely compiled,' according to Johnson, by Shiels. See. post, April 10, 1776.
* ↑ See Piozzi Letters, i. 312, and Post, May 21, 1775, note.
* ↑ 'We ourselves, not without labour and risk, lately discovered Gough Square . . . and on the second day of search the very House there, wherein the English Dictionary was composed. It is the first or corner house on the right hand, as you enter through the arched way from the North-west . . . It is a stout, old-fashioned, oak-balustraded house: "I have spent many a pound and penny on it since then," said the worthy Landlord; "here, you see, this bedroom was the Doctor's study; that was the garden" (a plot of delved ground somewhat larger than a bed-quilt) "where he walked for exercise; these three garret bedrooms" (where his three [six] copyists sat and wrote) "were the place he kept his—pupils in"! Tempus edax rerum! Yet ferax also: for our friend now added, with a wistful look, which strove to seem merely historical: "I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or the month; it's all one to me."—"To me also," whispered the ghost of Samuel, as we went pensively our ways.' Carlyle's Miscellanies, edit, of 1872, iv. 112.
* ↑ Boswell's account of the manner in which Johnson compiled his Dictionary is confused and erroneous. He began his task (as he himself expressly described to me), by devoting his first care to a diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in their language, and under every sentence which he meant to quote he drew a line, and noted in the margin the first letter of the word under which it was to occur. He then delivered these books to his clerks, who transcribed each sentence on a separate slip of paper, and arranged the same under the word referred to. By these means he collected the several words and their different significations; and when the whole arrangement was alphabetically formed, he gave the definitions of their meanings, and collected their etymologies from Skinner, Junius, and other writers on the subject. Percy.
* ↑ 'The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he could borrow; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning, and yet some of his friends were glad to receive and entertain them as curiosities.' Hawkins, p. 175.
* ↑ In the copy that he thus marked of Sir Matthew Hale's Primitive Origination of Mankind, opposite the passage where it is stated, that 'Averroes says that if the world were not eternal . . . it could never have been at all, because an eternal duration must necessarily have anteceded the first production of the world,' he has written:—'This argument will hold good equally against the writing that I now write.'
* ↑ Boswell must mean 'whose writings taken as a whole had a tendency,' &c, Johnson quotes Dryden, and of Dryden he says:—'Of the mind that can trade in corruption, and can deliberately pollute itself with ideal wickedness for the sake of spreading the contagion in society, I wish not to conceal or excuse the depravity. Such degradation of the dignity of genius, such abuse of superlative abilities, cannot be contemplated but with grief and indignation. What consolation can be had Dryden has afforded by living to repent, and to testify his repentance.' Johnson's Works, vii. 293. He quotes Congreve, and of Congreve he says:'It is acknowledged, with universal conviction, that the perusal of his works will make no man better; and that their ultimate effect is to represent pleasure in alliance with vice, and to relax those obligations by which life ought to be regulated.' Ib. viii. 28. He would not quote Dr. Clarke, much as he admired him, because he was not sound upon the doctrine of the Trinity. Post, Dec. 1784, note.
* ↑ In the Plan to the Dictionary, written in 1747, he describes his task as one that 'may be successfully performed without any higher quality than that of bearing burdens with dull patience, and beating the track of the alphabet with sluggish resolution.' Works, V. i. In 1751, in the Rambler, No. 141, he thus pleasantly touches on his work: 'The task of every other slave [except the "wit"] has an end. The rower in time reaches the port; the lexicographer at last finds the conclusion of his alphabet.' On April 15, 1755, he writes to his friend Hector:—'I wish, come of wishes what will, that my work may please you, as much as it now and then pleased me, for I did not find dictionary making so very unpleasant as it may be thought.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., III, 301. He told Dr. Blacklock that 'it was easier to him to write poetry than to compose his Dictionary. His mind was less on the stretch in doing the one than the other.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 17, 1773.
* ↑ The well-known picture of the company at Tunbridge Wells in Aug. 1748, with the references in Richardson's own writing, is given as a frontispiece to vol. iii. of Richardson's Correspondence. There can be no doubt that the figure marked by Richardson as Dr. Johnson is not Samuel Johnson, who did not receive a doctor's degree till more than four years after Richardson's death.
* ↑ 'Johnson hardly ever spoke of Bathurst without tears in his eyes.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 56. Mrs. Piozzi, after recording an anecdote that he had related to her of his childhood, continues:—'"I cannot imagine," said he, "what makes me talk of myself to you so, for I really never mentioned this foolish story to anybody except Dr. Taylor, not even to my dear, dear Bathurst, whom I loved better than ever I loved any human creature; but poor Bathurst is dead!" Here a long pause and a few tears ensued.' Piozzi's Ante. p. 18. Another day he said to her:—'Dear Bathurst was a man to my very hearts content: he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a Whig; he was a very good hater.' Ib. p. 83. In his Meditations on Easter-Day, 1764, he records:—'After sermon I recommended Tetty in a prayer by herself;' and my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst in another.' Pr. and Med. p. 54. See also Post, under March 18, 1752, and 1780 in Mr. Langton's Collection.
* ↑ Of Hawkesworth Johnson thus wrote; 'An account of Dr. Swift has been already collected, with great diligence and acuteness, by Dr. Hawkesworth, according to a scheme which I laid before him in the intimacy of our friendship. I cannot therefore be expected to say much of a life concerning which I had long since communicated my thoughts to a man capable of dignifying his narrations with so much elegance of language and force of sentiment.' Johnson's Works, viii. 192. Hawkesworth was an imitator of Johnson's style; Post, under Jan. I, 1753.
* ↑ He was afterwards for several years Chairman of the Middlesex Justices, and upon occasion of presenting an address to the King, accepted the usual offer of Knighthood. He is authour of 'A History of Musick.' in five volumes in quarto. By assiduous attendance upon Johnson in his last illness, he obtained the office of one of his executors; in consequence of which, the booksellers of London employed him to publish an edition of Dr. Johnson's works, and to write his Life. Boswell. This description of Hawkins, as 'Mr. John Hawkins, an attorney,' is a reply to his description of Boswell as 'Mr. James Boswell, a native of Scotland.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 472. According to Miss Hawkins, 'Boswell complained to her father of the manner in which he was described. Where was the offence? It was one of those which a complainant hardly dares to embody in words; he would only repeat, "Well, but Mr. James Boswell, surely, surely, Mr. James Boswell."' Miss Hawkins's Memoirs, i. 235. Boswell in thus styling Hawkins remembered no doubt Johnson's sarcasm against attorneys. See Post, 1770. in Dr. Maxwell's Collectanea. Hawkins's edition of Johnsons Works was published in 1787-9, in 13 vols., 8vo., the last two vols, being edited by Stockdale. In vol. xi. is a collection of Johnson's sayings, under the name of Apothegms, many of which I quote in my notes.
* ↑ Boswell, it is clear, has taken his account of the club from Hawkins, who writes:—'Johnson had, in the winter of 1749, formed a club that met weekly at the King's Head, a famous beef-steak house in Ivy Lane, near St. Paul's, every Tuesday evening. Thither he constantly resorted with a disposition to please and be pleased. Our conversations seldom began till after a supper so very solid and substantial as led us to think that with him it was a dinner. By the help of this refection, and no other incentive to hilarity than lemonade, Johnson was in a short time after our assembling transformed into a new creature; his habitual melancholy and lassitude of spirit gave way; his countenance brightened.' Hawkins's Johnson, pp. 219, 250. Other parts of Hawkins's account do not agree with passages in Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale written in 1783-4. 'I dined about a fortnight ago with three old friends [Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne]; we had not met together for thirty years. In the thirty years two of our set have died.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 339. 'We used to meet weekly about the year fifty.' Ib. p. 361. 'The people whom I mentioned in my letter are the remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy Lane about three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer, the rest are yet on this side the grave.' Ib. p. 363.
* ↑ Tom Tyers said that Johnson 'in one night composed, after finishing an evening in Holborn, his Hermit of Teneriffe.' Gent. Mag. for 1784, p. 901. The high value that he set on this piece may be accounted for in his own words, 'Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgment of his own works. . . . What has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention.' Johnson's Works, vii. 110. He had said much the same thirty years earlier in The Rambler (No. 21).