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3 1924 013 187 053
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http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013187053
A CRITICAL
EXAMINATION
" He added that Dr Hill luas, iiof-ioithstunding^ a twj curious observer ; and if he
■luoiild have been contented to tell the world tto more than he knciu, he might
have been a very considerable ?na/i, and needed not to have recourse to such
expedients to enhance his reputation." — JOHNSON ON Dr HlLL.
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
OF
DK G. BIRKBECK HILL'S
"JOHNSONIAN" EDITIONS
ISSUED BY THE CLARENDON PRESS, OXFORD
By PERCY FITZGERALD, M.A., F.S.A.
AUTHOR OF "life OF JAMES BOSWELL " ; EDITOR " BOSWELL's JOHNSON."
LONDON
BLISS, SANDS & CO.
12 BURLEIGH STREET, STRAND, W.C.
MDCCCXCVIII
lATW^
/}, ^r^f^r'
PREFACE
Naturally I feel some hesitation in putting forward these strictures on Dr Birkbeck
Hill's Editions : for has not Mr LesHe Stephen written of "The Life" that "The edition
by Dr G. B. Hill is by far the best; the notes throughout are of the highest utiUty?"
("Diet. Nat. Biog.," vol. xxx. p. 46). And Mr Andrew Lang, has he not declared
that, to the same editor we owe " The best edition of Bozzy — the most delightful of
books — the best 'Collections of Johnsoniana?'" {Longman's Magazine, February 1898,
p. 374). Yet how reconcile this eulogium with the incredible catalogue of mistakes, mis-
apprehensions, wild flounderings, and speculations, which are here set forth ? With such
things present there cannot be " by far the best edition," or even a fairly good one.
I do not profess to explain the discrepancy, but leave it to the reader to judge for
himself.
pebruary 1898,
CONTENTS
The Preface and Dedication
Arrangement and Laying Out of the Work
The Editor's "Editing". ...
Dr B. Hill's "Discoveries"
Examination of the Editor's Notes, Comments, Speculations, etc.
Johnson's Stay at Oxford . . . .
Johnson's Letters and Dr Birkbeck Hill's Notes
The Editor and Mrs Piozzi
Johnsonian Miscellanies .
I
2
6
9
12
38
43
66
68
EDITING A LA MODE
OR AN EXAMINATION
OF
(C
DR GEORGE BIRKBECK HILL'S
JOHNSONIAN" EDITIONS
THE PREFACE AND DEDICATION.
Some ten or eleven years ago, the Clarendon
Press took up the project of an issue of Boswell's
" Life of Johnson," to be edited by Dr G. Birk-
beck Hill, of Pembroke College. No expense
or trouble was spared. The work was fifteen
months in passing through the Press ; carte
blanche was given to the editor for illustrations,
facsimiles, etc. ; and the six handsome volumes
at last emerged from the Press, finely printed,
on fine paper, in " roxburghe binding." Here
was the long-expected final edition of "Boswell,"
and the critics expatiated on the research, the
labours, and the ingenious "discoveries'' of the
laborious editor. "A literai-y monument," said
one, " which will stand for ages." " The classical
edition, the scholar's Boswell," said another.
This, however, was transcended by the burst in
the Daily News. " Six volumes of solid happi-
ness J " None of these, perhaps, knew exactly
what was classical, or what would " stand for
ages." Stranger was it that not a single blemish
pr error was pointed out ! Even that accom-
plished and careful critic, Mr Leslie Stephen,
was beguiled into giving the high testimonial
that he thought it the best edition he knew of.
In the face of these lavish praises, I propose
in this book to challenge seriously the editor's
claims ; to prove that his system is radically
wrong, and that his work teems with mistakes,
misconceptions, delusions, and with "discoveries"
that are purely imaginary. This is a grave indict-
ment, but I think it will be supported. These
defects may be owing to a too ardent enthusiasm,
inordinate hurry, or, it may be, to an exaggerated
confidence in his own powers or knowledge of
the subject.
Dr B. Hill, while he professes to execrate the
memory of " the inventor of the preface " (who-
ever he was), himself rather comically furnishes
a preface of monumental cast — a perfect unique
— the longest perhaps on record, stretching to
nearly twenty closely-printed pages. It is mainly
about the editor himself: his early life and
education, his joys, sorrows, and illnesses, with
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
very little about Boswell. At the end he is so
carried away that he almost comes to think of
it as his own work. " My book has been my
companion,'' etc. " My proof sheets," etc. Even
the dedication is a curious thing. It is addressed
to the late Master of Ealliol, Dr Jowett, and
is arranged thus oddly ;
" WHO IS NOT ONLY
" AN ACUTE AND KNOWING CRITIC,
" BUT ALSO
" JOHNSONIANISSIMUS,"
Which suggests one of young John Chivery's
epitaphs on himself. "The Master" must
have smiled at the impressive " But also," and
at his being dubbed " a knowing critic." Nor
was he likely to have accepted "Johnsonian-
issimus," which seems a wrong form, being an
EngUsh adjective, and not, as it should be, an
English proper name, Latinised. The positive
should be "Johnsonus," and the superlative
" Johnsonissimus," not " Johnsonianissimus."
Dr. B. Hill actually extracted a promise that
he would read all "my proofs"— but here "the
Master" showed himself a very "knowing critic,"
and, as our editor \ery frankly tells us, "after
he had seen a few of the sheets, he confessed he
loas satisfied^
ARRANGEMENT AND LAYING OUT OF THE WORK.
Boswell's original title-page, professed to be
reproduced here, is misleading, and a misde-
scription : "Boswell's Life of Johnson, including
Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides,
and Johnson's Diary of a Journey into North
Wales." Boswell's " Life of Johnson" does not
include either of these things. His "Journal" was
a separate work, and with the " Diary " he had
nothing to do. A most serious blemish is the
arrangement of the notes. When a work of
this kind is illustrated with additions and
comments by another "hand," such matter
should, of course, be marked with the writer's
name, so as to distinguish them from the
author's. Here, strange to say, Dr B. Hill's
numerous notes are unsigned, and, at first sight,
appear to be the legitimate notes of the text :
while we find e\ery one of Boswell's notes
marked " Boswell," as though he were some
intruder or outsider. A man in his own house
has no need to label his property with his name ;
if anything be labelled, it should be the effects of
strangers. Malone, \\hen preparing the third
edition, was careful to mark every additional
note by brackets and initials. Mr Croker marked
all his own very voluminous notes, " Croker."
But Dr B. Hill even thrusts passages of his own
composition into Boswell's notes, and thus spoils
their symmetry. Boswell, for instance, furnished
a business-like list of Johnson's residences :
" I, Bolt Court ; 2, Gough Square ; 3, Johnson's
Court," etc. This becomes, under our editor's
treatment : " 17 Bolt Court, No 8 (he was here
on .March 15, 1776, ante II. 427). From about
1765 {ante I. 493) to Oct. 7, 1782 {post) he had,
moreover, an apartment at Streatham." But
Boswell was speaking of London residences.
We must doubt, too, the propriety of introducing-
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
a headline over every page of the editor's com-
position, which affects to describe the subject-
matter of each page. This was not, at all events,
Boswell's idea. Another adornment which shows
a lack of delicate instinct, is the supplying an
elaborate modern engraved map for the " Tour.''
Now, Boswell gave a very clear outline map,
without any shading of mountains, etc. — a plan
or diagram of the " Tour," as it were, which has a
quaint, antique look. This should surely have
been reproduced. Again, Boswell, in all the
titles of his " Tour,'' seemed to pride himself on
a piquant little device, which he had specially
engraved, his crest, a hawk, and motto, " Vraye
foy." This is missing in Dr B. Hill's edition.
Boswell also gsMefac-simi/es of Johnson's writing
at different periods of his hfe, which he placed
on a single page for convenience of comparison.
But Dr B. Hill supplies various hn^t facsimile
letters at full length, which have to be folded
and refolded and unfolded, often double pages,
and give a clumsiness to the volume. It is
the same with the subjects of the many fine prints
which are introduced, but after a capricious
principle.
Then the appendices offer a strange "re-
novation of hope" with perpetual disappoint-
ment. A whole " section " is thus introduced
as promising something highly important, with
this title :
'■^ BoswelFs intention to attend on Johnson in
his illness, and to publish '■Praises of
him.' "
Now, this seemed to hold out something novel.
But we only find this extract : " I intend to be
in London in March, chiefly to attend on Dr
Johnson with respectful attention. I intend to
publish," etc. Such is the entire section.
Another long appendix is devoted to an
account of George Psalmanazar and his char-
acter. Other remarkable, curious, and eccentric
personages alluded to in the text might have
equal claim to this separate form of treatment.
But will any one guess what was our editor's
reason for selecting Psalmanazar? Not the
importance of the adventurer ; not the editor's
own judgment, but this : " I have complied with
the request of an unknown correspondent
( ' query, anonymous ' ), who was naturally in-
terested in the history of that strange man."
The mysteriousness is extraordinary. Granting
that the unknown one was "naturally interested,"
was his " request" therefore to be attended to ?
The last of the six great volumes is almost
entirely devoted to indexes and abstracts. It is,
indeed, a perfect "curio" in its line. Thus, we
unfold what looks like a weather map, a strange
mystery or diagram, \\ith crossed lines, and
figures, and colours, and columns, which is
described as, " A chart of Dr Johnson's Con-
temporaries, drawn up by Margaret and Lucy
Hill, on the model of a chart in Mr Ruskin's
'Ariadne Florentina.'" Diable ! Recovering
from this we pass on to : "Titles of many of
the Works quoted in the Notes," filling twelve
closely-printed pages. Of "many," but why
not all? If they are "quoted in the notes,"
they are only at the particular place.
Why have them over again here? Next we
come upon what is called "Addenda," scraps
from a number of Johnson's letters — which, it
seems, were sold at Sotheby's some years ago,
all more or less trivial — such as an account of
"Young Strahan at College," having no rele-
vancy to Boswell's "Life of Johnson," where Dr
B. Hill wanders off on his own account with
" My friend, Mr C. J. Faulkener, Fellow and
Master of University College, has given me the
following extracts" — which are concerned with
the election of the young George Strahan to the
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
Bennett Scholarship ! This leads on to a dis-
quisition on the value of the Bennett Scholar-
ship in 1764 — how much was the emolument,
etc. Next we com.e to an index of these
" Addenda " ; and then to the gigantic general
index, which consists of no less than 288 pages,
or nearly 600 columns ! It has indexes within
indexes — indexes to Johnson's and Bosvvell's
lives, to Scotland, Ireland, etc. Vet another
index follows, oddly denominated " Dicta Philo-
sophi," or a concordance of Johnson's sayings ;
with a third. We may contrast with this bulk
^Ir Croker's simple, admirable index, which fills
not quite thirty pages.
Surely a writer so enthusiastic, so familiar
with his subject, ought to know the exact name
of the first published production of James Bos-
well. His index proves that he has ne\ er seen
it — certainly never read it. In it we find a
reference in italics to " 77^1? Club at Newmarket.''
Turning back to the text it is there again, "The
Club" etc. Now, Boswell had indeed written a
piece "The Cub at Newmarket," and it will be
urged that this was a mere slip, or printer's
error, " Cub " and " Club " being so like. But it
goes deeper than this. "The Cub" was a piece of
doggerel in which Boswell foolishly applied the
term "Cub" to himself, so the title exactly
described his own "antics." It was no mis-
print. This production is never alluded to in
Boswell's own work, and indeed is little known,
but it is found in the letters to Temple, where
it is also misprinted "Club," and that misprint
it was that misled the editor.
After all this labour, the editor tells us he
" will be greatly disappointed if actual errors
are discovered" in his index. But we have
found some of i-eference, paging, etc., and he
himself confesses that though, under the head-
ings of America, Oxford, London, Ireland, etc.,
he sets out all that falls under such heads,
somehow "the provincial towns of France, by
some mistake, I did not include in the general
article." The following is grotesque enough.
Under " Port," we have, "it is rowing without a
port, i.e. without an object;" on which the editor
refers us, see " Claret."
We turn to " Bute," and find :— " BUTE, third
Earl of, Adams, the architect, patronises, II,
325." This seems an odd sort of "Pigeon"
English. Adam, by the way, and not Adams,
is the architect's name. Some of the Johnsonian
chcta are not Johnsonian at all, and would ap-
pear to have slipped into the list from the
general index. Thus we have Gibber's old jest
about the pistol missing fire ; and under "quare"
" A writ of qiiare adhasit paviniento ( Wags of
the Northern Circuit)^ III. 261," which refers to
the well-known hoax upon Boswell. We have
also Mrs Salisbury's sayings, with the one
about " No tenth transmitter of a foolish face,"
etc. ; and finally the quotation — " Live pleasant,
Bin-kc;" with Quin's and Lord Auchinleck's
speeches about kings, and " Boswell's descrip-
tion of himself as ' Baro,'" all which are classed
as "sayings of Johnson."
I suppose, if we were to search all the known
indexes, we should never find one in which the
pronoun " I " is entered and referred to with
chapter and verse. Our editor has actually
done this feat. Here it is, with chapter and
verse. In the index to the " Dicta Philosophi"
wc find the letter " I " set down by itself; then
follows this reference : "/ put my hat upon my
head, II. 136, n. 4"! We rub our eyes, but
there it is ! And this doggerel, moreover, is one
of the "Dicta Philosophi" — one of "Johnson's
strong and pointed utterances " which the editor
has collected for the " literary man " ! Another
of these " strong and pointed utterances " we find
under the word " Hog"— "Yes, sir, for a hog."
The strangest of DrB. Hill's delusions is that
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
5
he "fondly thinks" that Dr Johnson "would
have been proud could he have foreseen this
edition.'' What ! an edition in which he is
attacked, accused of inconsistencies in every
page — even of corrupt practices — and in which
he is now rebuked, now patronised by Dr B. Hill !
So far from feeling pride, he is more likely
to have dealt with the editor as he once dealt
with Osborne, the bookseller. Surely all who
read these notes will be struck by the deter-
mined way in which the editor criticises or
confutes opinions of Johnson by introducing
passages fi"om his wi'itings which are opposed
to these opinions Yet at the end he has the
strange confidence to declare that he has never
"thought it his duty to refute or criticise Johnsori s
arguments" When the sage says anything, there
is sure to be a perpetually recurring " yet " • Yet
he did, or said, or wrote so and so, and was there-
fore inconsistent. Nay, Dr B. Hill fantastically
bids any one who would be rash, enough to
think of doing such a thing "to place Johnson's
portrait after Reynolds'" (but which portrait after
Reynolds?) "before him, and reflect that if the
sage could rise up and meet him face to face he
would be sure, on whatever side the right might
be, if the pistol missed fire, to knock him down
with the butt-end of it." In such case it would
go hard with our editor.
Finally, he assures us that "When Edmund
Burke witnessed the long and solemn proces-
sion entering the Cathedral of St Paul's, as it
followed Sir Joshua Reynolds to his grave,"
he was certain that it would have gratified the
deceased painter, for he was not indifferent
to such "observances." This is the editor's
method of proving, by a figure, that Johnson
and Boswell would both have been delighted
with this edition, and the printing of the work
by the Clarendon Press. Indeed, our editor is
so eager to secure approbation for his work
that he insists on interpreting the feelings and
sentiments of the illustrious dead. He tells us,
with much complacency, that as Johnson was
" so deeply attached to his own college, he
would not have been displeased to learn that
his editor had been in that once famous nest of
' singing birds.' " Dr B. Hill is not his editor, on
this occasion at least. It seems a rhetorical
flourish. Stranger still, the editor fondly thinks,
"that of Boswell's pleasure I cannot doubt,"
i.e. a pleasure at having his work pulled to
pieces, overburdened to extinction almost with
notes and comments, every second statement
challenged, flouted, contradicted, laughed at —
his whole book re-arranged ! It was enough to
make him shed tears.
But then the work was done by an Oxford
man, was printed in Oxford, and all that came
from Oxford, or was of Oxford, would have a
special charm for " Bozzy " ! An amazing delusion
this — for Boswell was not an Oxford man at all,
and only visiting it occasionally. " How much
he valued any tribute from Oxford is shown by
the absurd importance he gave to a sermon
preached by Mr Agutter," the performance
being so contemptible that it could only have
been admiration for Oxford that permitted
him to admit it. But what is the fact ?
Boswell was enumerating minutely what he
calls the "accumulation of literary honours,"
which were heaped on his friend after his death,
among which was the high compliment of a
sermon in memory of Johnson, preached before
the University. Could he with propriety have
omitted such an honour? The mention of it,
and the quotation from it, is simply historical,
and had nothing to do with any personal liking
for Oxford.
The argument, such as it is, completely fails,
and to it the editor has given "an absurd
importance."
./ CKtTIC.lL EXAMINATIOM
THE EDITOR'S "EDITING."
Till'', ili.imi of a well edited book is always
niiMc felt than dosi ribed. The scrupulous editor
- who is judicious and restrained by his rever-
oni c for his author — seems to glide about noise-
lessly : where there is obscurity or diflficulty,
he wliispers an explanation in a little unobtru-
si\c note. He hides himself as much as he can ;
like tlic prompter on the stage he is never seen,
but "i^ixes the word" when wanted. With this
wc may contrast Dr B. Hill's method, which we
find to be neither more nor less than a yigantic
s\steiii of notc-takiit}; and extracting from
multifarious common-place books — the hunting
up of "parallel passages" from other books.
Johnson utters an opinion, and somethini; he
said elsewhere to the same, or to the contraiy
effect— or something that some one else has
said — is noted, and all these thin-s are "shot"
in heaps, and " shovelled " upon the unlucky
author, who is himself elbowed quite out of
tlie way.
I'.u; the most amaziiiy and d ~tracting of all
the editor's inventions is assuredly his sysuii
of "parallel passa^ies.'
It is difficult to give an idea of the wearisome
eOect left by these quot.itions encountered a;
even- page with .i monotonous f; i\;uency. There
is surely a sort of scientific s ale in supplvTny
notes. The reader comes on something,' obscure
in the text, .md casts his c\ es doun to the
liotioin of the jvige Uw help, which a mere '
glance ought to find for him. It is .iliogether
iliireieni if lie has to encounter a long passage
horn the i\.ii::\\-r or S/,\-/,i/i>/; and which j
amounts to no more than this, that Johnson had
more verbosely expressed the same idea in
another place. More tedious still are the labori-
ous references to other portions of the work —
the eternal '" See an/e," and " See />os/." The
injury thus done to Boswell's sprightly, pleasant
chronicle — a light, flowing narrative— were it
only in form, is extraordinary. Boswell's own
notes are always judicious and artistic— httle
asides, as it were ; an anecdote ; a short cor-
rective remark, or gay comment ; a short,
sufificient sketch of a person alluded to ; there
are onh about half a dozen that seem intruders
and too "heavy for their place. The whole,
text and notes, is homogeneous.
After "Walpole's Letters," in nine volumes,
his journals, histories, etc., our editor's mainstay
for quotation purposes is the Rambler, and
others of Johnson's works. For every senti-
ment of Johnson's there is furnished something
analogous from his Rainl'lti; Idler, etc. For
this course he gi\es a singular reason. Johnson,
it seems, always talked for argument, so that
his conversations could not represent his true
opinions. These must be supplied from more
orthodox sources. "Editing Boswell," there-
fore, is t" consist in neutralising, correcting,
and in part abolishing all these pleasant talks.
Cannot our editor understand that the charm of
conversation, as of all comedw is to be found
in its spontaneousness and absence of responsi-
bilit)-, and that the speakers are not presumed
to "talk upon affidavit," as it were? Their
attraction is their being first impressions, and
'A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
not official utterances, and discursive " laxity
of talk" is not to be tested by rule and square.
That this is no exaggerated description of his
system is shown by the editor's own testimony.
When lying ill in a foreign country, " in the
sleepless hours of many a night," he tells us, " I
almost forgot my miseries in the delightful pages
of Walpole, and, with pencil in hand, managed
to get a few notes takeii!' We may pity as
well as admire this honest ardour : but the
" getting a few notes taken " from " old Wal-
pole " in the belief that you are " editing " your
" Boswell " is but a sad delusion. Again he tells
us, " everything in my reading that bore on my
favourite author was carefully noted," and then —
supreme delusion of all ! — he fancied that, having
gathered a mass of materials " from all sides,"
they were sufficient to " shield me from a charge
of rashness if I began to raise the building " — the
" building," by the way, commonly supposed
to be Boswell's.
The editor describes how he " discovered
Boswell." When he first went to college, " by a
happy chance he turned to the study of the li tera-
ture of the eighteenth century," owing to a sort
of theme, set regularly every week, and which
consisted in turning into Latin a passage from
The Spectator. From Addison, in the course of
time, he " passed on to the other great writers
of his and the succeeding age" ; in fact, pur-
sued the ordinary college education. But a
solemn moment was at hand. '" A happy day
came just eighteen years ago, when in an old
shop, under the shadow of a great cathedral,"
our doctor was enabled to secure that uncom-
mon stall-book, " a second-hand copy of a some-
what early edition of the ' Life ' in five well-
bound volumes." The discovery of this rarity
produced quite a i-evolution. As he made his
way through it, astonished and pleased, he began
alnjost unconsciously, as it appeared to him, to
edit. And how? "Before long I began to note
the parallel passages and allusions, not only in
their pages, but in the various authors whom I
studied. Yet," adds the future editor, naively
enough, " in these early days I never dreamed
of preparing a new edition." And on what
trifling things do events turn ! Why, who
knows that but for that happy day, just eighteen
years ago — and that second-hand copy — we
might, at this hour, be wandering about without
our editor !
The true system of dealing with Boswell's
great book goes much deeper than the mere
illustrating it with extracts. In one sense it
is a great psychological book — a book full of
all the various "anfractuosities" of character.
It helps us to read off "Jamie's" own nature
in a most curious and even piquant fashion.
To give one instance. A popular idea is that
he was merely the "ambulatory reporter" of
the sage's sayings and doings, the exact
i-ecorder of his wisdom. But the truth is, that
this great " Life" was intended, in a secondary
way, as a regular Apologia for " Bozzy's '' own
private failings and weakness, which, as I
fancy, he thought he could in some way shelter
under the moralities of his great friend. With
these he was constantly identifying himself, for
he felt the application which his friends would
naturally make of Johnson's opinions to his own
conduct. The inconsistency of his life and
habits with the society and teaching of a great
moralist, his constant discussions on religious
and moral topics he felt would excite the ridicule
of his friends, and this he ingeniously met by
the implied confession that he was often but "a
weak vessel," but with good purposes and good
instincts. He put Johnson forward as making
allowance for such faihngs. This is indeed the
general effect left upon the reader, and the result
is that Boswell's character comes before ys as 3,
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
very natural and human one. Such an interest-
ing lineof enquiry as thiswould add indeed a fresh
piquancy to the study of Boswell, and had been
barely hinted at by Mr Croker. Boswell's real
purpose was to allot himself a share at least of
his great friend's celebrity, and in this he cer-
tainly succeeded.
The prosecution of other enquiries of this kind,
such as the question of his religion and his
religious feeling, and the meaning of his final
revolt from Johnson when the l.uier was on his
death-bed, are subjects that take long to investi-
gate, and are not to be despatched as you '" go
along,'' or by note-taking.
Next, as to the edition selected by our editor.
There are three editions in which Uoswcll had
his share of the preparation from which the
editor could make his selection — the first, the
second, and the third. The " corrections and
additions" made to the second were printed
separately in quarto form. Boswell died in 1795,
when he was meditatin- a third edition, and it
was not until 1799 that this appeared under the
supervision of Edmund Malone ; and it is signi-
ficant of the editorial modest)- and reserve in
that day, that though he must have c\])ended
much labour on his t.isk, his name actually
does not appear on the title-p.iye. O si si\-
oDiiiis : Inhis ad\ertisenicnt hee\|ilains in the
clearest \\.\\ what his share in the work w.is.
Tlie corrections gueii in the second edition had
arrived loo late to be arranged by the author
"in that chronological order Hhi(h he had
endeaxoiiicd uniformly to ol>ser\e," so Boswell
had to dispose them "by way of .iddenda as
commodiously as he could." .M.ilonc sa>s
general!) " in the present edition these addi-
tions have been tlistribiited in their proper
places," i.e. by himself, though in re\ising the
volumes the author had pointed out where
" gome of these materials " should be placed.
Malone then explains that "all the fresh notes
that the author had written in the margin of
the copy, which he had in part revised., are here
faithfully preserved," This makes the whole of
Boswell's contribution to the new edition. But
it would almost seem that he had really only just
begun his task, and the reserved phrase, "in
part revised," and the notes written on the
margin, can hardly be interpreted as meaning
more than a few memoranda which Malone
naturally made as much of as he could. "A
few new notes " were added, principally by
friends of the author, and for those without
signature "Mr Malone is answerable "—a
curious form, considering that the announce-
ment is written by Malone himself.
All these new notes were "enclosed in
brackets " to show that they were not written by
the author— a piece of respect that might be
more imitated. It is evident, indeed, that there
was no particular desire that the book should
appear to have been edited by anybody.
Malone does not claim any share in editing, he
merely writes the "advertisement." He even
formally disclaims being accountable for typo-
graphical enors, as the proofs had not passed
through his hands— an unusual thing— the
meaning of this being that the family wished that
the author should have the full credit of having
prepared his own \vork.
In this state of things it was scarcely
worth while for Dr I!. Hill to treat it as the
tliird and formal work of the author's. The
second was reall)' Boswell's final and most
ccmiplete effort. But Dr B. Hill tries to justify
his preference of ihis edition b)- some pleas which
seem fallacious enough. He seems to rest his
ease on these notes which Boswell "wrote in the
margin," and which, as I have said, must have
been of the fewest and slightest sort. These
are not impossible to discover by comparing the
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
two editions. Dr B. Hill, indeed, tells us that
he had the whole of the second edition read
out to him. " I felt it my duty," he then tells us
with solemnity, " to have the whole second
edition read aloud to me for comparison with
the third," which still would not help him to
discriminate between Boswell's and Malone's
work ; " but, as I read on, / was convinced
that about all the verbal alterations were
Boswell's own." This " being convinced "
is not much aid. I myself have compared
the editions, and can say that there are not
half-a-dozen new and additional notes in the
whole.
It would be unfair not to allow credit to Dr
B. Hill for his unwearied pains and labour, his
diligent reading, and the occasionally sagacious
"lights" which have cleared away a goodly
number of chfficulties. I must confess also to feel-
ing some scruple in drawing up this heavy indict-
ment, on account of the genuine enthusiasm and
unsparing toil which the editor has brought to
his work. But as an unsparing Johnsonian
critic himself, he will not be too "thin-skinned."
He must recollect, too, the exalted claims that
he and his friends have put forward as to the
merits of the book, and that there are " Bos-
wellians " as ardent in their faith as he himself,
to whom his general treatment of their common
idol cannot be acceptable.
DR B. HILL'S "DISCOVERIES."
Naturally, having made his first " discovery "
of a Boswell in the old shop " under the shadow
of a great cathedral," our editor began to find
some other wonderful things. Most of these
turn out to be either no discoveries at all, or
to be all wrong, or made by somebody else.
This is generally the case with persons who
largely take up a subject of study which delights
them ; they forget that others have been at work
before them, and are too eager and enthusiastic
to investigate what these have done.
Lest these "discoveries" of his should be
overlooked, the editor makes special mention of
them in his preface. We will begin with one
notable specimen. Johnson had praised some
pretty lines on a girl singing at her wheel, and
repeated them: "Verse sweetens toil," etc.
,'\5ked where they were to be found, he said he
did not recall the name of the poem, but it was by
"one Giffard, a parson." The editor went hard
to work, and at last discovered the poem. With
pardonable pride he claims his meed of praise :
" That I have lighted upon the beautiful lines
which Johnson quoted, and have found out who
' one Giffard, a parson,' was, is to me a source of
just triumph. I have not known many happier
hours than the one in which, in the library of
the British Museum, my patient investigation
was re-ivardcd, and I perused 'Contemplation.'"
Observe what is claimed — patience, long in-
vestigation, diligent search, final success and
triumph. Willing to sympathise, and wishing to
follow in our editor's track, I, at a venture, took
down the index to the Gentleman's Magazine,
Dr B. Hill's old friend, which he has consulted in
every difficulty, and was referred to vol. 77, p. i,
page 477, where, to my amazement, I found an
account of this " Giffard, a parson," with the
passage : — " One small poem of his, entitled
'Contemplation,' was printed in 1752, which
lO
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
attracted the notice of Dr Johnson, who has
quoted it in his Dictionary.'' Bewildered, I
next opened another famihar Encyclopasdia —
NichoU's " Literary Anecdotes " — and there
again was I informed that " Contemplation "
was the name of the poem ! Ne\t I opened
Johnson's great Dictionary. There again it
was, under the word " Wheel." The whole pro-
cess took about five minutes ! ^Vhat did it
mean? Where were Dr B, Hill's "patient in-
\ estigations,'' " happy hours," and moment of
triumph in the Museum ? We must not sup-
pose that he would resort to deliberate artifice
to enhance his labours ; but the incident, at
least, calls for some explanation, which Dr U.
Hill should consider it due to himself to gi\x'.
'■ I would particularly refer," he says, " tu the
li.L;lii I lia\e tlirnwn upon Johnson engaging
in politics with Hamilton, and upon Burke's
talk of retiring.'' It is well known that Johnson
had fniriiLil this connection with Hamilton, and
wrote for him > work on "Corn." "But," says
the editor, " I suspect there \vas more than this,''
as now we shall hear. In the spring of the > e.u
1766, " Burke separated from Hamilton," and it
seems to Dr B. Hill "highly probable ' that
Hamikon then sought Johnson's assistance. In
almost the nest bentence \ve aie told that
ll.imilton, " on losing Burke, wrote on February
12, 1765," ell ., thoug-h \\c h.ne just been in-
foiniMl th.it he did not lose lUuke until a \ear
Liter. riien "Chatiil)ers was looked for to
supply l)inlr," which was regularly
discussed by Johnson. He declared that those
whowerescrupuIous"may retire." "I have talked
of rclirim;, but I find my vocation is an active
life." This is conclusive. So much then for the
"light thrown" upon Burke's talk of retiring-
when it turns out ( 1 ) that it was not Burke at
all ; (21 that he was not " retiring " ; and (3) that
" retiring " means quite another thing.
There was a p.ige or two which Boswell
cancelled in " The Tour," it is supposed under
pressure from Sir .-\. Macdonald, whom he had
assailed. The editor assures us that he "dis-
covered, though too late, that in the first edition
the le.if containing pp. 167-68 was really can-
celled. In my own copy, between pages 168
and iTio, there is a narrow projecting ridge of
paper," etc.
It ma> be said that there is no "ridge"
between pages 168 and 169 ; the editor means
between jj.iges i66and 169, but this is a trifle.
Ho^^e^•el■ this may be, Mr Croker, some
sixty years ago, made "the discovery" of the
cancel, pasting, ridge, and all! What sort of
delusion is this .? There is yet another mistake
connected with this matter. He tells us that
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
I I
"Rowlandson, in one of his caricatures, /tr/V/A'
Boswell as begging for mercy," etc. Now it was
not Rowlandson that painted or etched Boswell
in such an attitude. The caricature in question
belongs to a series of about a score, exhibiting
all the most ludicrous incidents of the "Tour,"
which were the work, as Angelo tells us, not of
Rowlandson, but of another artist — one Collins.
Again, he is afraid that ardent advocates of
total abstinence will not be pleased at finding
that " I have been obliged to show that Johnson
thought that his gout was due to his temperance."
To this special attention is called in the preface.
To our astonishment, when we come to the body
of the work, we find that it was a correspondent
of "Notes and Queries," not Dr B. Hill, who
found out this opinion of Johnson's !
Yet another of our editor's unlucky guesses
is connected with the degree given to Johnson
by Oxford. In his Latin reply acknowledging
the diploma, he said it had been conferred on
him at a time when crafty men were "attempt-
ing in every way to impair the fame and influence
of the University, attempts which he always had
opposed and would oppose." " Here," says the
editor, " I believe he alludes to the charge of
disloyalty brought against the University." He
had in his mind a libellous or disloyal placard
which had been posted up in the market-place
of the town, and it was reported that this had
been done by the students. It was this, accord-
ing to Dr B. Hill, that was in Johnson's mind.
But it will be seen that he talks of " crafty ;«<:;/,"
of attacks which he describes as "storms"
{procellas). This might dispose of the whole
point, but, unfortunately for the editor, Johnson's
letter was written in February 1755, and the
incident of the placard was in July, five or six
months later ! So the whole speculation topples
over.
This delusion as to sham "discoveries" pur-
sues Dr B. Hill through the whole of his various
collections. In the "Letters" there is one for
which he is bold enough to claim credit, and
which seems really trop fort. He must think
his readers rather simple folk. On one of his
visits to Oxford Johnson had for his host Dr
Edwardes, but in his Letters he does not say of
what college, or where his rooms were. Now
comes forward Dr B. Hill. " In fact, I believe
it is a discovery of mine that he resided at fesus
College." Wonderful discovery that ^^'e can make
at once ourselves by turning to any college list !
But even granting to him this meagre amount
of research, what will be said when we find in
one of Hannah More's letters that she was
"engaged to dine with Dr Edwardes of Jesus
College., to meet Dr Johnson"? But let us
go on.
The most surprising of Dr B. Hill's "dis-
coveries" I have reserved for the last, and it
really takes one's breath away. Goldsmith's
age is generally known, or can be known ;
but our editor has found out that " Goldy "
has himself revealed it, or rather hidden it
— Donnelly fashion — in a sort of mysterious
cryptogram. This is found in his edition of
the "Letters" : "There is a passage," says the
editor, " in Tlic Bee., No. 2, which leads me to
think that he himself held November twelfth as
his birthda)'. He there says : ' I shall be sixty-
two on the twelfth of next November.' Now,
as The Bee was published in October 1757, he
would not be sixty-two, but just half that num-
ber, thirty-one, on his next birthday." This is
amazing, and beats the world. A man says
he is sixty-two, but means that he is just half
that age ! But on turning to this Bee account,
we find not Goldsmith at all, but an account of
an elderly gentleman, one "Cousin Jeffrey," in
attendance on an old maid, " Cousin Hannah,"
so that the age of sixty-two was appropriate
12
enough. It is a little tale. And we are called
_ - '' ■.-■'" c,,p to find Gold-
buiitii s ! rt.ll which seems queer indeed.
/ CRITICAL EX.iMIXATION
So much for the " discoveries," every one of
which, it will be noted is a mere dream and
delusion.
EXAMINATION OF THE EDITOR'S NOTES, COMMENTS, SPECULATIONS, ETC.
This much for the form, arrangement, and
discoveries of Dr B. Hill's edition ! \\c shall
turn to his profuse notes, which literally whelm
and submerge poor Boswell. They are on
e\eiy conceivable subject, lack relevancy, of
course, and in many instances are founded upon
a complete misconception of the text. The
examination of Dr B. Hill's series of commen-
taries will, of course, be a long one, but it is
well worth making as a " record."
I.
Here is a typical instance : Johnson once
suggested to Cave various subjects for essays,
such as " Forgotten Poems,'-" or " Loose Pieces
like Floyer's,'' a mere illustration of his sugges-
tion. Boswell does quite enough in supplying
this note : — " Sir John Floyer's treatise on the
Cold Bath, Gcntkmaii's Magazine, 1734, p. 197,'
his purpose being to mark the subject of one of
Johnson's contributions. " But," says the editor,
" his letter shows how uncommon a thing a cold
bath wasi" Floyer, who, we are assured, re-
commended "general method of bleeding and
purging before the patient uses the cold bath,"
continues : " I have commonly cured the rickets
by dipping children, etc., etc. (For mention of
Floyer, see ante, etc., ^nApost, etc.)." This topic
of bathing being started, we go back to Locke,
"who in his 'Treatise on Education' recom-
mended cold bathing for children. Johnson, in
hi-, rc\ iew of Lucas's ' Essay on Waters {post,
1756', thus attacks cold bathing,'' etc. (passage
cjuoted). Then wc have Dr Lucas himself:
" The old gentleman," he says, "that uses the
cold bath," etc. — Litem) v Mins .Kne,is'' etc.
I\lr Carlyle, the editor tells us, is in error in
describing Johnson as a servitor (on which, it
may be said, that " Boswell's Johnson " has no
concern with Mr Carlyle's or any one else's
misconceptions). " He was a commoner, as the
above entry shows " — and Dr B. Hill refers to
his own note. One would fancy that it had
been uncertain whether Johnson had been a
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
15
commoner or a servitor, and that Dr B. Hill
had " discovered " the fact. But we turn to
Boswell's text, and there read, " he was entered
as a commoner " !
When M'Leod declared that he would rather
drink punch with his tenants than claret in his
own house at their expense, he was illustrating
the good feeling of Scotch landlords for their
dependants. Dr B. Hill gives two passages to
prove excessive drinking by Irish gentlemen.
There is no point or parallel in this. '' Lacera-
tion of }?iind" Boswell has printed in italics.
" Laceration^' says the editor, " was properly a
term of surgery ; hence the italics!' But was
not " of mind" also in italics? and are those
words "terms of surgery" also? This is surely
uncritical.
It is often amusing to see how shocked is our
editor at certain expressions of his author. As
when Gibbon and Langton were elected Pro-
fessors at the Academy, Boswell said that it re-
minded him of Swift's " wicked Will Whiston,
and good Mr Ditton." There was some plea-
santry in this. " But," says our editor gravely,
" this poem goes on so grossly and so offensively
as regards one and the other, that Boswell's
comparison was a gross i7isult to Langton as
well as to Gibbon." Boswell was, of course,
merely amused at the notion of the oddity of
the good man and the heterodox man being-
chosen together. There are things as offensive
in Gulliver, but to compare some one to Gulliver
is not an insult. Again : " It is strange " — Dr
Hill is always discovering something strange —
" that Boswell nowhere quotes the lines in the
' Good-natured Man,' in which Paoli is men-
tioned." This, as it is so "strange,'' must have
been some compliment, or trait of character, or
illustration, but the " lines " in question are
simply, " thafs (a letter) from Paoli of Corsica."
Boswell, with his usual acumen, saw that to
quote this barren speech contributed nothing to
the fame of his hero.
Boswell and his friend were invited to Slains
Castle by the Errol family ; and the editor shows
that it was to Johnson that the invitation was
owing, he having been oljserved in the church
by a lady who knew him. On which \\c have
this gloss : " Boswell,/fr/;fir/j-, was not unwilling
that the reader should think that it was to him
that the compliment was paid." Why " per-
haps " ? No reason is given for this insinuation.
But for it there is not a particle of foundation.
For he distinctly disclaims all share in the busi-
ness : "/ had never seen any of the family, but
there had been a card of invitation written by
Mr Boyd."
Defending himself from a charge of being a
reporter of private conversations, Boswell in a
graceful passage asks, " How could any one be
annoyed at his not gathering what grew on
every hedge ? " when " he had collected such
fruits as the Nonpareil and the Boti Chretien."
There is a quaint touch here ; and by- the use of
the capitals he seemed to refer to the character
of his great friend. But how does it strike our
too literal editor ? " Both Nonpareil and Bon
Chretien are in Johnson's Dictionary. Non-
pareil is defined as a kind of apple, Bon
Chretien a species of pear." This is literal
indeed ! Again : in his "Diary" Johnson writes
that two sheets of his "Tour" came to him for
correction, viz. " F and G." This is plain
enough, but our editor must make it plainer
still : " F and G are the printer's signatures, by
which it appears that at this time sheets B, C,
D, E, had already been printed"
" I have retained Boswell's spelling" (such as
"aweful," etc.), the editor tells us, "for the
reason that Boswell, in another work, had said
that in case of a reprint he hoped that care
would be taken of hi? orthography." On turn-
i6
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
ing to the work, published twenty-three years
before, we find that Boswell was speaking of
only /viw forms of spelling, the addition of "k"
to "public,'' and of "u'' to such words as
" humour," and he trusted that these forms
would be adhered to. Dr IS. Hill is scarcely
justified in forcing or enlaryiny the meaning in
this way.
Dr B. Hill is fond of making out " lists," to
wit, " totting up " how many times Johnson wab
bled, or Boswell wab drunk, or how many days
the pair were together. It was natural, there-
fore, when he came to Boswell's proposal to edit
Addison's Poems, that it should occur to him to
make out a list of all Boswell's projected works.
Accordingly, we are told that " he proposed also
to publish Johnson's Poems, an account of his
own travels, a collection of old Scottish tenures,
etc., and a 'History of James I\'."' These items
professed to exhaust the matter. But later he
begins to mend his hand : " In my list of Bub-
well's projected works {ante, i. 225) I ha\ e
omitted this, a ' History of Sweden,'" so it now
seemed complete. Later again, ho\\e\er, in a
note, we are astonished to find the editor taking
the subject up once more, and giving us quite a
new list. It had now grown to ten items ; it
looked as though our editor was picking up his
information as he went along. However, here
at last was a complete final list marked with
numerals. But no— turning to the end of the
book we find one more new and additional item.
And where? Actually put into the inde.x of
Boswell's works; "to which must be added
'An Account of a Projected Tour in the Isle of
Man'" (wlicre it may be doubted if IJiiswill
could \\^\c yi\cn an account of a tour that was
merely " |jr(jjec(ecl," and had not been rarneii
out). Still, we must take our information as we
get it, in these "dribs and draljs," as it is called,
and rejoice that we have it :tt last in a complete
shape. But what will be said if I can supple-
ment it with some half-a-dozen fresh items which
have wholly escaped the editor, and which he
is welcome to add to his list in his next edition ?
Mistakes of dales occur through the work,
such as the statement that Johnson's "Plan of
the Dictionary" was published in 1774 (vol. i.
p. 176), and that Johnson had been sixteen years
in London before he met Hogarth. As their
meeting was in 1745-6, and Johnson only came
to London in 1737, this cannot be accurate;
while the Plan was published over twenty years
before the date mentioned.
II.
The note on Johnson's " sliding" is a strange
one. Johnson mentions, when he came to col-
lege, that on one occasion he was " sliding" on
the ice. " Sliding" is an important matter, and
needs exhaustive treatment. " This," says our
editor, with due gravity, " was on November
6, O.S., or November 17, N.S., a very early
time for ice to bear:" Still there must be doeti-
inentary e\idence. " The first mention of frost
thai I find in the nexcspapers of tliat winter '\, you arc impertinent^' In the
first case no apology was needed — in the other
it was given. Johnson furnished Goldsmith
with a few lines for " The Traveller " ; on which
the editor: "For each line of ' The Traveller'
Goldsmith was paid iijd. Johnson's present,
therefore, of nine lines was, if reckoiied in money,
worth 8s. 5jd." Is there not something rather
jnesgtiin in this sort of criticism ? Neither was
Goldsmith paid by the line, but received a sum
for the whole. Had Johnson not contributed, he
would have received the same sum. In the same
spirit we are told that when " Johnson this year
accepted a guinea from Robert Dodsley, for
writing an introduction, he was paid at the rate
of little over twopence a line."
When Foote supplied beer to a house the
servants refused to drink it ; but a black who
heard his jests at dinner, was so delighted that
he declared in the kitchen he would drink his
beer. Somebody then remarked that Garrick
would not have produced this effect, and Wilkes
said "that he would have made the beer still
smaller. He will play ' Scrub ' all his life." Dr
B. Hill here strangely fancies that there is an
allusion to a speech of Scrub's : " On Saturday
I draw warrants and on Sunday I draw beer."
Wilkes meant that Garrick was like Scrub in
his mean ways.
"A fig for my father (Boswell's) and his new
wife.'' Thus Johnson. " It is odd," the editor
thinks, "that, as Lord Auchinleck had been
married more than six years, his wife should be
called new." There is nothing odd ; for later,
Johnson talks of Boswell's " new mother." She
was new compared with the old wife of thirty
years' standing.
One of the signers of the famous " Round
Robin " was a certain " Thos. Franklin " (without
the "c"), about whom the editor can discover
nothing. He is certain, however, that it was
not a well-known Professor Dr Thos. Franck-
lin, (with a "c"). The reader shall judge.
This gentleman was a dramatist, the intimate
friend of Garrick, Johnson, and Goldsmith. The
" Round Robin " was signed at a dinner at
Reynolds' house. Francklin was his intimate
friend also, and, moreover. Professor at the
academy whereof Reynolds was President. Can
there be a doubt as to the man ? As to the " c,"
says the editor, "The Rev. Dr Luard has kindly
compared six signatures of Francklin, ranging
from 1739 to 1770, which all have the ' c.'" But
this "Round Robin" dinner was in 1776, six
years later. In one of his notes on the careless
spelling of names at this era, the editor admits
that "Johnson spelt Boswell with one '1,'" etc.
Johnson had said, " Nobody attempts to dis-
pute that two and two makes four." " Nobody,
that is to say, but Johnson,'' adds the editor.
For proof of this charge we are referred to Dr
Burney : " If you said two and two make four,
he would say, 'How do you prove that?'" But
Dr Burney was speaking of Johnson's not
allowing people to make idle " assertions,'' on
which he would call for proof. Further, it was
not Johnson who disputed that two and two
made four, but Burney, who supposed the case
of his doing so I And, even under the supposi-
tion itself, he never disputed the fact. But what
settles the matter is, that Johnson in one place
says, "You may have a reason why two and two
make five, but they will still make but four."
"A gentleman" attacked Garrick for being
vain. " Very likely Boswell," explains the editor,
bidding us "See post" in proof, where we find
that Boswell "slyly introduced Mr Garrick's
name, and his assuming the airs of a great man,"
28
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
But why would Boswell conceal his own name
in the one passage, and reveal it in the other ?
Further, to " attack" Garrick was not Boswell's
way. And still further, in this second passage,
he actually joins in Garrick's praises. It is
obvious that " the gentleman " was not Boswell.
Here is a curious instance of a misunder-
standing of a passage. Johnson wrote to
Lord Elibank that he never met him without
going away a wiser man. " Yet" objects the
editor, "he said of him there is nothing con-
clusive in his talk." But the two things are
compatible. Johnson, on this last occasion,
was praising Oglethorpe's "variety of know-
ledge," though he owned he was desultory and
"never completed what he had to say." On
which Boswell, " He, on tJie same aecount, made
a similar remark on Lord Elibank. ' Sir, there
is nothing conclusive^" etc. ; i.e. he does not
complete, etc. But his talk was wise. Nothing
could be clearer.
Boswell was speaking of Goldsmith's " envy"
of people who were "distinguished," and which
he exhibited to a ridiculous extent. The editor
quotes a person to whom the poet said that "he
himself envied Shakespeare." This is not the
sort of envy Boswell means. Johnson declared
that inoculation had destroyed more lives than
war. The editor, wishing to prove this whole-
sale statement, Cjuotes a longish account of Dr
Warton, whose daughter was inoculated, and
died!
Johnson, when on his deathbed, directed a
stone to be placed o\er the grave of his father
and mother in a Lichfield church. It has, how-
ever, disappeared. It is obvious that the point
of the incident is Johnson's filial aflection ; but
it leads the editor into the most rambling
speculations about the " stone.'' Why was it
not there ? What became of it ? Was it e\ er
there ? In his distress he calls for the aid of
the Rev. James Serjeatson, the rector, who,
from his office, is assumed to have special
knowledge, though he can have known little
of the matter ; but the rev. gentleman is even
more wild in his speculations. " He suggests
to me that the stone was never set up " {query,
set down ?) for the reason that " it was unlikely
that within a dozen years such a memorial was
treated so unworthily.'' In vain the worthy
historian of the town, Dr Harwood, who must
have seen " the stone,'' distinctly records that
it was taken away in 1796, when the church was
paved— a common incident. But this will not
do. The "stone" was never placed there; for
" there may have been some difificulty in finding
the exact place of the interment." All which is
a gratuitous fancy ; for Johnson particularly
directed that the spot was to be found, before
ordering the stone ; and « e are told that the
mason's receipt " shows that he was paid for the
stone." Then we have this odd theory : "The
matter may have stood over till it was for-
gotten ;" and, last and wildest hypothesis of
all, "the mason may have used it for some other
purpose." This in the face of the facts that the
stone was ordered, laid, and removed!
Johnson once ^\■ished "he had learned to play
at cards." " On the other hand," begins Dr Hill,
" he saj'S in his Rambler that a man may shuffle
cards, or play at dice from noon till midnight,
and get no new idea." Cannot Dr B. Hill see
that he is here speaking of gambling, as his
allusion in the same paper to "agitated passions
and clamorous altercations '' clearly shows ? —
another thing altogether from learning to play
whist.
Johnson spoke of the respect shown to officers,
and how they were everywhere well received.
But, says Dr B. Hill, " in his thoughts on the
coronation he expressed himself differently ;"
and adds, " if, indeed, the passage is of hi§
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
29
writing." But there all he says is that " it
offends us to see soldiers placed be/ween a man
and his sovereign " — that is, he objected to the
system of body-guards ! So he did not "express
himself differently." Johnson having added that
when a common soldier was civil in his billet or
" quarters," he was treated with respect, we are
given a long note on the Mutiny Act, the
amount of food to be furnished, what the inn-
keepers had to supply — lodging, fire, candle-
light, five pints of beer per diem, etc. All this
on the mention of the single word " quarters."
Sheridan's wife, we are told, had £2,000
settled on her, '' with delicate generosity," by
a person to whom she had been engaged, and
for which Dr B. Hill quotes Moore. He appar-
ently does not know that this sum was forced
from the gentleman as damages for a breach of
contract. He really behaved atrociously to the
lady, and was gibbeted by Foote in " The Maid
of Bath" ; so he displayed no "delicate gener-
osity " at all.
Johnson protested that he would not keep
company with a fellow " whom you must make
drunk before you can get the truth from him."
Dr B. Hill supplies a note from Addison which
has no bearing on the matter : "Our bottle con-
versation is infected with lying." One would
think that this is general, and shows that wine
breeds untruthfulness ; but on turning to the
passage we find .Addison deploring the general
reign of lying — in society and everywhere ;
" even our bottle conversation," he adds, " is
infected," etc. And, observe, Johnson was
thinking of drunkenness, and Addison of drink-
ing merely — different things.
A remark was made that in the northern
parts of Scotland there was very little light in
winter. " Then," writes Boswell, " we talked of
Tacitus." Here Dr B. Hill speculates, and
ventures to fill up " out of his own head " all
that occurred between the two subjects.
" Tacitus, ' Agricola,' chapter xii., was, no doubt,
quoted in reference to the shortness of the
northern winter's day," But in such a case
Boswell would have been only too glad to add
something dramatic to his narrative by giving
the steps of the transition. " My revered friend
then said, ' It is extraordinary. Sir, how the
ancients anticipated these things. Tacitus, in
his "Agricola,"' " etc. But Boswell, as he does
in so many places, passed to, or " introduced "
a new subject, perhaps a little abruptly.
Boswell speaks of " Mr Orme, the able his-
torian " of India. As an illustration, the editor
tells of Colonel Newcome, whose "favourite
book was a History of India — the history of
Orme." What is the value of that ? On
this principle, if Gibbon be named, we ought
to introduce Dickens's Silas Wegg, whose
"favourite book" was " The Decline and Fall
Off" of the Roman Empire. The opinions
of characters in fiction are of no value in a
critical work.
" Boswell's intemperance ... at last carried
him off." This is not known — or at least can-
not be known. He died of an intermitting
fever. Johnson said of " hospitals and other
public institutions," that all the good is
done by one man, who drives on the others.
To illustrate this, Dr B. Hill quotes Fielding,
on the " difficulty of getting admission " into
hospitals.
Johnson, we are assured, made less money
because " he never traded on his reputation.
When he had made his name, he almost ceased
to write." Let us see. Johnson, it will be con-
ceded, " made his name '' by his Dictionary,
published in 1755 ; but since then what a
number of works he issued — the Idler,
" Rasselas," editions of Shakespeare, " The
Lives of the Poets," besides innumerable
3o
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION'
pamphlets, essays, reviews, dedications, etc.
His pen was never idle a moment. We even
find him eager to edit a huge Cyclopedia — a
regular trade job.
Johnson said that " Hell is paved with good
intentions," on which the editor quotes from
Malone a passage of Herbert's, " Hell is full of
good meanings." He might have gone further
back, and told us that the original saying was
St Bernard's.
Johnson told Hawkins that he never could see
the least resemblance between a picture and its
subject. "This, however,'' insists the editor,
" must have been an exaggeration," for these
reasons : Firstly, because he exhorted Sir
Joshua to paint, not on " perishable canvas,"
but on copper ! Secondly, that if a room were
hung round with paintings, their faces to the
wall, he would not turn them to look at them.
Still nothing to do with seeing a likeness.
Further, did he not buy prints, portraits of
his friends, and hany them up? How does
this prove that he could not see a resemblance ?
And the pictures he would not "turn" were de-
scribed as paintings in general, not portraits ;
and the prints he bought \vcrc reminders of his
friends, which he would like to lia\e, even
though he could not see the likeness.
On the familiar Scriptural passage, "he that
smiteth thee on the one check," etc., the editor
says, "Had MibS Burney thought of this text,
she might have quoted it with effect a.nainst
Johnson when he told her that ' the one ' was
Scotch, not English." Now, this is not in
Boswell's work at all ; and so far from its
"being quoted with effect" against Johnson,
he would have replied, "And what then,
ma'am ? The translators had used a Scotch
expression.'' As it happens, Boswell used the
words "one cheek," not "the one cheek," so the
anecdote has no application at al].
VII.
Johnson spoke to Mrs Piozzi of his man
Frank, and described how " a female haymaker
had followed him to London for love." " Here,"
says the editor, " Mrs Piozzi shows her usual
inaccuracy. The visit was paid early in the
year, and was over in February. Uyiat hay-
making," asks Dr B. Hill impressively, '^^uas
there in thai season ? " No haymaking, of
course ; but Johnson was describing the
ordinary profession of the woman, as though
he might say "a hop-picker," or "a harvest-
man," without regard to the time. Moreover,
in his eagerness to correct, the editor overlooks
Johnson's phrase, "followed him to London,"
which might have been after a long or short
interval, and in the haymaking season. These
are trivialities, and it is a trivial thing setting
trivial things right ; but why introduce them ?
When at Monboddo's, Johnson took up his
large oaken stick, and said, "My lord, that's
Homeric" thus pleasantly alluding to his lord-
ship's favourite writer. The editor has this odd
fancy : " Perhaps he was referring to Poly-
phemus's club," which is then described as being
as large as a mast; or to "Agamemnon's
sceptre." This is being altogether too literal.
Johnson surely had no special passage in his
mind ; he was taking a liberal, general view.
He said that his stick was Homeric, as he
would say a feast was Homeric, or a contest
was Homeric. Every one understands this.
When Johnson went to see the English chapel
at Montrose, he gave "a shilling extraordinary"
to the clerk. The reason of this largesse, the
editor opines, was that he found the church so
much cleaner than others. But Johnson, as he
gave the coin, gave also the reason : " He be-
longs to an honest church "—that is, to his own
church. Clear enough.
The verses "Every island is a prison," th?
J CRiTICAL EXAMINATION
3t
editor tells us, are by " a Mr Coffey." Can he
be unaware that " a Mr Coffey " was a well-
known, popular dramatist, author of many
pieces, notably of " The Devil to Pay," one of
Mrs Clive's most popular pieces ?
Speaking of Boswell's portrait, the editor says
" it was given to him by Sir J. Reynolds." No ;
it was commissioned by Boswell, who contracted
to pay for it after a fixed time. We are rather
astonished to learn that the Greek compound
word £v/icAnjs means " armed with good ashen
spear.'' There is no suggestion of " spear " or
"armed." It appears to mean "of good ash"
simply. Boswell speaks of Adam Smith's de-
fence of Hume as being still prefixed to his
"History of England," " like a list of quack medi-
cines sold by the same bookseller." The editor
says that the bookseller was Francis Newbery ;
but the publisher of the " History" was Millar,
not Newbery, as Boswell elsewhere states.
Johnson wrote to his printer on October 14,
1776, saying, " I sent you some copy.'' "The
copy, or MS.," the editor explains, " I conjec-
ture," was certain " proposals " for a work on
" Erse " that Mr Shaw was publishing. When
an author writes to a printer, " I sent you some
copy," he generally means a portion of copy, or
some of the MS. ; but this is only a complete
scrap of some twenty-five lines. As he had dis-
charged his duty in writing, and supplied the
"proposals," he would not write to complain, "I
have sent you some copy, but you have not
noticed it." But the whole discussion arises
out of " a letter about copy," which is not in
Boswell's book at all.
We learn with some astonishment that "John-
son did not generally print his name "on his
works, for he published anonymously " Lobo's
Abyssinia," " London," " The Life of Savage,"
the Rambler and Idler, " Rasselas," and four
pampWets. To other works he did put his
name. Let us take this Hst and see. " Lobo ''
was a translation, and a piece of " hack work "
which he was ashamed of The Rambler and
Idler were periodicals, to which it was not usual
to attach the authors' names. Moreover, he was
assisted by friends. The pamphlets were politi-
cal, and pamphlets were nearly always issued
anonymously ; but when they were collected in
a volume, Dr B. Hill admits that he did put his
name. In the case of "The Life of Savage"
there were obvious reasons for concealing the
author's name, as it involved a piece of delicate
family history. There remain only " Rasselas "
and the " London." In the case of the latter,
he concealed the author's name even from the
pubUsher; and he was, moreover, at the time an
obscure drudge whose name was of no account.
As to " Rasselas," I confess I can find no reason
for concealment. But I ask, is Dr B. Hill justi-
fied in saying that " Johnson did not generally
put his name to his books," especially as he did
put his name to his most notable books — the
Dictionary, " Lives of the Poets," etc. ?
Some of the editor's explanations of the most
simple matters are truly extraordinary, and pre-
sume an almost childish innocence in his readers.
When Boswell tells us that the Ministers sup-
pressed certain passages in the proof sheets of
Johnson's pamphlet, the editor furnishes a letter
of Johnson's, in which he writes to the printer,
" Print me half a dozen copies in the original
state.'' But the too conscientious editor must
explain : " When Johnson writes, ' When you
print it, print me,' etc., he uses, doubtless, 'print '
in the sense of striking off copies. The pamphlet
was, we may assume, in type before it was re-
vised. The corrections had been made in the
proof sheets. Johnson asks to have six copies."
Surely every one knows the distinction between
composing, or "setting up," and "printing."
And all this needless comment on a letter not
J CRITICAL EXAMINATION
in Boswell's book at all ! In the same spirit a
trivial direction of Johnson's — also not in Bos-
well — is dealt with. He asked that " a copy be
franked to me." " Mr Strahan had a right, as
a Member of Parliament, to frank all letters
and packets. That is to say, by merely
loriting his signature in the corner, he could
pass them through the post free of charge.'' But
should an editor supply such comments as
these ?
Boswell wrote to the Royal Academy that he
was proud to be a member of an institution to
which, as it had "the peculiar felicity of not bcmg
dependent on a Minister, but was under the im-
mediate patronage of the Sovereign," he would
do his best to be of service. Here Dr B. Hill
morbidly fancies that Boswell is aiming a stroke
at Pitt! "See post for liosucH's grievances
against I'itt.'' Nothing could be more far-
fetched. Boswell WHS simply referring to the
unusual constitution of the .Vcademy, which was
d Royal institution, and emphasising his own
loyalty. He was speaking geneiall)-. The idea
that he would sneer at the king's favourite
minister, when addressing the king's institution,
is absurd.
The editor often seems to claim a prior dis-
co\ery, on the ground that what he writes " was
in type" before some piece of information was
imparted to him. We, of course, may accept
his statement ; but, technically speaking, once
a statement is printed, no such claim can avail.
Thus, speaking of George IS.ilmanazar beiny
at 0.\ford, he had "conjectured" that he had
stayed at Christ Church, but "since this .\ppcn-
dix was in type I have learned, through the
kindness of Mr Doble, what confirms my con-
jecture " ; and the Doble authority is then
■ quoted. But Dr B. Hill knew it before.
The editor assures us that "ion-mots that are
miscarried, of all kinds of good things, suffer
the most." Miscarried, in this sense, "is
not in Johnson's Dictionary,'' and is a verb
neuter. A bon-mot may miscarry, but is not
wz/jcarried.
One of Dr B. Hill's proofs of Johnson's love
of travelling is that "he was pleased with
Martin's account of the Hebrides." While
discussing this matter, the editor strangely
pauses to give an account of the populations
of particular towns. "So late as 1781, Lich-
field had not 4000 inhabitants. Birmingham,
I suppose, had not so many. Its growth was
wonderfully rapid. Between 1770 and 1797,"
and so on. In this connection, too, he insists
a good deal on Johnson's living with the
Thrales, and seems to reckon his repeated visits
to Streatham as " travels.'' Then he calculates
that Johnson "must have seen all the cathedrals
of England " ; but he e.\cepts one, for some
mysterious reason. " Hereford, I think, he
could not have visited." And why not.' It
was not very far from Lichfield, and on his
road to Wales he was likely enough to have
passed it. Then we are told that Lichfield is
described as ''the city and county of Lichfield"
in a certain " Tour of Great Britain." Boswell
does not mention this important fact, nor care
about it ; but the editor, having mentioned this
" Tour," informs us that " Balliol College has a
copy of the work'' ; further, that the copy dis-
plays " Garrick's book-plate"; further again,
the book-plale exhibits "Shakespeare's head at
the top of it," and some lines from "Menagiana,"
which are duly quoted !
Boswell alludes to the " Memoir of Whitehead,"
of which the editor tells us that he "had long
failed to find a copy," though he searched the
Bodleian, the British Museum, the London, Cam-
bridge, and Advocates' Libraries. "Searched"
— that is, consulted the catalogues. But the
book is not what is called "rare," and a real
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
33
search among the second-hand booksellers would
to a certainty have procured it. As it turned
out, there was a copy in Mr Forster's library at
South Kensington, which leads to compliments,
well deserved no doubt, to the obliging gentle-
man who had charge of it. But these thanks
and explanations about finding or not finding
old books are a waste of words and space, and
have nothing to do with the editing of Boswell,
who himself dismissed the topic as " a sneering
observation," which was quite enough.
In a copy of the " Life," which belonged to
Wilkes, and which I have had in my hands, is
a curious marginal note on the passage where
Johnson is described as withdrawing from " be-
hind the scenes," and as giving a very broadly
expressed reason for his withdrawal. This little
anecdote was told to Boswell by Hume, who
had it from Garrick. In Wilkes's note a much
coarser phrase is given, which the discoverer
could not bring himself to print. The editor
eagerly defends Johnson. Had he not declared
"that obscenity was always repressed in his
presence"? Garrick, no doubt, "was restrained
by some principle, some delicacy of feeling."
(Poor Garrick!) " It.is possible that he reported
the very words to Hume, and that Hume did
not change them. It is idle to dream that they
can now be conjecturally amended." Now, on
this I will remark that the editor here confounds
— as he does in other places — " obscenity " with
coarseness. The speech, even as recorded by
Boswell, is surely coarse enough, and I hesitate
even to copy it here. What is there so improb-
able in its having been still coarser? And I
think that any one nicely critical will see that
Boswell has attempted to soften the phrase by
some sort of periphrasis which is not Johnsonian.
Again, Wilkes wrote his pencilled note, not for
publication, but for his own private use, and to
correct a mistake ; and it is exactly the sort of
story that would have attraction for him, and
which he would recollect.
Speaking of the old woman in the Hebrides,
Boswell tells us that Johnson would insist on
seeing her bed-chamber, "like Archer in 'The
Beaux's Stratagem.' " Now this is a very gay
and happy illustration, when we think of the
old crone and her hovel. The editor says
gravely, " Boswell refers, I think, to a pas-
sage in act iv. so. i : ' I can't at this distance
distinguish the figures of the embroidery.'"
He may well say, " I think," for no one
else could see any connection between the
passages. Boswell had said nothing about
" the embroidery.'' He " refers," of course, to
what comes before : " I suppose 'tis your lady-
ship's bed-chamber." The editor then, en pas-
sant, offers the odd hypothesis that Goldsmith
had plagiarised the passage ! " This is copied
in ' She Stoops to Conquer ' — ' So, then, you
must show me your embroidery.'" Astonish-
ing ! Marlow asks simply, " Do you work,
child?" then asks to see her embroidery. Not
a word about the chamber. And so Boswell
having spoken of an old woman and her hut,
we find ourselves straying off to "embroidery"
and Goldsmith.
Dr B. Hill tells us that " in twenty years the
number of children received into the Foundling
Hospital amounted to about 15,000, of which
over 8000 had died." He adds, "a great many
of them died, no doubt, after they had left the
Hospital." Why "no doubt"? It is clear the
return refers, in both instances, to the time of
residence. Returns of such a character have
no meaning or value outside the institution with
which they are concerned. It is a truism to
assume that many die after leaving a school or
an institution.
Johnson wrote the rather imaginative parlia-
mentary reports for the Gentkmajz's Magazine
34
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
for a certain time ; and when he found they
were taken to be genuine, gave up the task.
Dr B. Hill fills an Appendix of twelve closely
printed pages with his researches on the point.
Wishing to show the risks Johnson ran in pub-
lishing such reports, the editor introduces one
Cooley, who printed a pamphlet against "The
Embargo," in which he charged the Members
of the House with jobbery, and which he gave
away at the door to every Member. The House
voted this paper a scandalous and malicious
libel, and sent printer and author to jail. The
editor would have us beheve that Johnson and
Cave, in issuing their fanciful sketches of the
debates, were incurring the same dangers !
There was no likeness in the cases. But
Cooley's brochure furnishes the editor with this
digression : — '' Adam Smith had just gone up,
a young man, to Oxford ; and there are con-
siderations in this paper" (of Cooley's) "which
the great authority of the author of ' The
Wealth of Nations' had not yet made pass
current as truth." That is, and in less stately
language, there is an anticipation of some of
Smith's doctrines. " He " (Cooley) " was in
knowledge a hundred years before his time,
and was made to suffer." And for what ? For
grossly insulting the members of the House of
Commons, and distributing his libel at the
door ! We further learn, to our astonishment,
that these sham debates of Johnson's "are
a monument to the greatness of Walpole
and the genius of Johnson. Had he;2o/been
overthrown, the people iL'ould have called for
these reports, even though Johnson had irfiised
to lurite them.'' Thus Dr B. Hill settles e\ery-
thing in his own way — how il ought to have
happened, and must have happened. Who
can tell what " the people " would have done ?
Dr B. Hill is fond of minutely explaining
technical terms connected with printing, etc.
Thus he tells us that " copy is manuscript for
printing." So it is, no doubt ; but this is not
an exact definition, for any paper that is given
to the printer to "set up" is "copy." It may
be printed, or type-written. The great bulk of
Dr B. Hill's own six volumes — or rather, Bos-
well's— was " set," not from " manuscript for
printing," but from " copy," that is, from the
printed third edition.
There is something very droll in the follow-
ing: — "The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies tells me
that he entirely disbelieves that Baxter said that
Hell was paved with infant skulls." Of what
value to any one is it to be told that a Rev.
J. Hamilton Davies "tells" some one that he
disbelieves so and so ?
" Depend upon it," said Johnson, " no woman
is the worse for sense or knowledge." The
editor must show that here the sage contradicts
himself — for " z^&post, where he says, 'Suppos-
ing a wife to be of a studious or argumentative
turn, it would be very troublesome.' " Any one
can see that there is no inconsistency. In
the first case Johnson spoke of "sense" and
"knowledge "; in the last of her pursuing study
to the neglect of duty, or disputing with her
husband, which are wholly different.
Here are some of those imaginary coinci-
dences in which the editor delights : — " August
1 5— Mr Scott came to breakfast." "5z> Walter
Scott was tioo years old this day'' Why select
" this day " ? Is it because Mr Scott's, the
lawyer's, name was mentioned ? The follow-
ing year Sir Walter would have been three
years old " that day," and so on. Further,
when Johnson and Boswell returned to Edin-
burgh, ^Jeffrey ivas living, a baby then seventeen
days old." And at Lochness, we are told, " the
travellers must have passed close to the cottage
where Sir J. Mackintosh was living, a child
of seven." When Johnson matriculated in
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
35
December, 1728, we are told that "Rousseau left
Geneva, and so entered upon his eventful career.
Goldsmith was bom eleven days after Johnson
entered. Reynolds was five years old. Burke
was born before Johnson left Oxford," etc. This
list, it is obvious, could be extended to an in-
ordinate length by including every one of
Johnson's generation. There is no relevancy
or coincidence in such things.
The editor tells us of Malone's "Life of
Boswell." What is Malone's " Life of Boswell".?
In Mrs Gamp's phrase, "there is no sich a
book," though there is a magazine sketch by
Malone.
Boswell relates that they " saw Roslin Castle
and the beautiful Gothic chapel." Now, had
the editor gone off to the Topographical Dic-
tionaries, and given long extracts as to the
antiquatics, etc., we should have felt no surprise,
for 'tis his way. But he prefers to speculate on
his own account. " Perhaps the smne woman
showed the chapel twenty-nine years later, when
Scott visited it." No one can care, nor does it
in the least matter. But as we are speculating,
these points must be considered : (i) Johnson's
guide may not have been a woman ; (2) there
may have been no guide at all ; (3) after some
thirty years it is unlikely that the same guide
was there ; (4) Boswell, who would certainly
have recorded Johnson's talk with the guide,
does not mention one.
After the '45, one Malcolm, we are told,
thought himself in such danger of conviction
that "he would have gladly compounded for
banishment." Could anything be clearer ?
Government often made such terms with rebels.
But says the editor, " By banishment he means,
I conjecture, transportation as a convict slave to
the American plantations.''
Johnson wrote, " I am sorry you was not
gratified," etc. The word is found in all the
editions. It was, as the editor assures us, a
common form with authors of the time ; yet he
says, " I doubt greatly if Johnson ever so ex-
pressed himself." Johnson, however, uses it on
several other occasions in his " talk." Why not
accept it ? " It is strange," says the editor, in
his favourite phrase, "that Boswell does not
mention that on this day they met the Duke
and Duchess of Argyle in the street. Perhaps
the Duchess showed him the same coldness,"
etc. That this at least could not be the reason is
clear ; for they also met Mr and Mrs Langton,
and Boswell does not mention them. Boswell's
task was to record his friend's conversations,
etc., and Johnson mentions other particulars
which are not alluded to by Boswell.
Boswell found Johnson "in no very good
humour," after Mrs Thrale had gone to Bath on
the death of her child ; " yet," says the editor in
wonder, " he wrote to Mrs Thrale next day, and
called on Thrale," and wrote yet again to Mrs
Thrale. Johnson was indeed for the moment a
little "put out," because he had had his journey
for nothing ; but the editor must fancy that he
was seriously offended, would not write, etc. ;
and it is taking but a petty view of Johnson's
character. " No very good - humour " is a
different thing from taking offence.
Johnson once said, speaking of some mediaeval
period, " A Peer would have been angry to have
it thought that he could not write his name."
" Perhaps," says the editor, " Scott had this
saying of Johnson in his mind when he made
Earl Douglas exclaim,'' etc. The idea that
Scott, who had at his fingers' ends all the lore
of the times, should be indebted to " a saying
of Johnson's " for so trite a fact, is out of the
question.
There is an unfinishedletterofLangton's, written
on the night of Johnson's death ; and Langton,
it is assumed, was so filled with horror that he
36
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
could not finish it. This is all melodramatic,
and has no foundation. Johnson died about
seven o'clock in the evening. All we know is
that Langton wrote his letter in the room, and
that at eleven he called upon Hawkins to tell
him this story. He might have come from his
own house.
Again, we find the editor actually discussing
a very trivial point that arose between Mr
Croker and the Genthtnan's Magazine. The
Gcntlcinan^s Magazine had said that none but a
convict could have written Dodd's sermon to
the convicts, and Mr Croker fancied that this
was meant offensively to Johnson. Dr B. Hill
then gravely vindicates this writer in the Gcntle-
ma?i's Magazine : — " //e knew that it " (the
sermon) " was delivered in the chapel by a
prisoner under sentence. If instead of ' written'
he had said 'delivered,' Ais incanitig would have
been quite clear." Who cares for this writer in
the Gentleman's Magazine, or whether his mean-
ing might have been made " quite clear " or the
reverse ? But this suggested change would
actually destroy the point of the remark, such
as it is ; for its effect was from its being supposed
to be the composition of the convict.
Johnson, speaking of Dodd, said " ,is soon as
the King signed his sentence," etc. But the editor
tells us th.a "the King signs no sentence or
death-warrant"; a report is brought to him,
and he assents or dissents. But this amounts
to signing a sentence. That Johnson was using
a figure is c\ident from ilie word "sentence,"
which is the Judge's province.
Boswcll bays that the delay in issuing his
great work was caused by his friends not send-
ing in their contributions ; but the editor tells
us it was "in part due to Boswell's dissipation
and place-hunting." The instances given amount
to no more than a few evenings lost by dinner
parties, which put off the revision for those
evenings ; and the "place-hunting " was an in-
terruption of three weeks caused by his attend-
ing Lord Lonsdale to the North. And this is
all, out of the five years and more during which
Boswell was engaged on the work ! Thus the
editor magnifies things.
The editor has an idde fixe that if there be a
slight misdescription of a personage in a story,
the whole must collapse. Thus Northcote told
how he had heard that Johnson was once in-
toxicated, when he said, " Sir Joshua, it is time
to go to bed." The editor finds that Sir Joshua
was not knighted at the time : " One part of this
story is wanting in accuracy, and therefore all
may be iinti-iic." This is surely an uncritical
canon. Again, when Hawkins was still a
member, Johnson said of him, "Sir John, sir, is
a very unclubable man." The editor thinks that,
as Hawkins was not knighted at the time, " the
anecdote, being proved to be inaccurate on one
point, may be inaccurate on another, and may
therefore belong to a later time." Wrong in
a trifle, you must be wrong in an important
matter.
" A celebrated infidel wit" was mentioned, of
whom it was said, " // jia esprit que centre
Dicii." The editor thinks that this was the
comparatively obscure Fitzpatrick ! Observe,
he is " celebrated " and " infidel," and celebrated
from exercising his wit on the subject of the
Almighty. Is all this known of Fitzpatrick.'
Then we are told, " there are lines in the
' Rolliad ' bordering on profanity." But though
Fitzpatrick wrote in the " Rolliad," are these by
him ? and is borderi?ig on profanity the same as
" Pesprit conire Dieu " .?
Boswell had written enthusiastically his da-
ily ht that Auchinleck was near an English
Cathedral ; and Johnson sensibly bade him re-
member that it was some hundred and fifty
miles away. The editor says, " It was not half
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
37
that distance away." Any one can see by the
map that Auchinleck is over a hundred and fifty
miles from Chester. But Boswell was writing
both of Chester and Carlisle Cathedrals, and
Johnson thought he had referred to Chester
Cathedral.
Here is an instance of singular perversion of
meaning. Gibbon's hostile feeling towards Bos-
well was, it seems, so marked that, though he
names eighteen members of the Literary Club
as " a constellation of British stars," he leaves
Boswell out. Now (i) these eighteen selected
names were the very foremost in letters and art
— Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, etc. ; (2) Boswell
had then written only the " Hebrides," and in
no case could he be included in " a large and
luminous constellation of British stars " ; and (3)
in the very line before, Gibbon actually refers to
Boswell's " Tour," p. 97, for a suitable descrip-
tion of this very Literary Club ! Speaking of
women's learning, Johnson said that " if a wife
were of a studious or argumentative turn, it
would be very troublesome." " Yet" says the
editor, '■^ he gave lessons in Latin to Miss Bur-
ney and Miss Thrale." There is no point in
this odd " yet." Johnson was speaking of the
perversion of such learning.
Even in the editor's acknowledgments of
assistance there is a " high-falutin " tone that is
out of place. When the courteous Mr Fortescue,
of the British Museum, is introduced, why should
we hear of " the spacious roovi over which he so
worthily presides"? The librarian of his own
college had the "kindness" to allow him, it
seems, "to make a careful examination of John-
son's MSS." —a favour extended as of course to
any literary man. It appears, however, that he
never took his eyes off the editor when at his
work ; and this " vigilance," he is certain, will
ensure that the college will never have to
" mourn the loss of a single leaf." This surely
was not worth mentioning.
The first edition of " Cocker," the editor tells
us, "was published about 1660." Now, this is a
trivial matter, and has nothing to do with Bos-
well or Johnson ; but it may be as well stated
correctly. Cocker's first work on the subject
was published in 1669 — that is, his " Decimal
Arithmetic" ; but the book Johnson gave to the
maid-servant was the " Arithmetic : a Plain and
Familiar Method," which was published in 1678.
Brunet and Lowndes agree in this date. The
editor adds : " Though he " (Johnson) " says
that a book of science is inexhaustible, j/^^ in
the Rajnbler he asserts that the principles of
arithmetic and geometry may be understood in
a few days." Surely to understand the prin-
ciples of a science in a few days is a different
thing from " exhausting" that science !
The editor tells us that Boswell welcomed
Paoli on his arrival in London, in September
1769. This must be all wrong, he thinks ; for
Wesley, being at Portsmouth on October 13,
missed seeing the General, who had "just landed
in the docks." I suspect the editor thinks that
" landed " meant " landed in England " from
Corsica.
At Lord Errol's house Johnson spoke " in
favour of entails," so that noble families should
not " fall into indigence." " Perhaps," the editor
speculates, " [he poverty of their hosts led to this
talk" ; and he quotes Sir Walter Scott, who said
that " improvidence had swallowed up the estate
of Errol." Now, first, the Earl's brother was
present, and " the poverty of their hosts " would
not be likely to lead to so awkward a subject in
his presence (for Boswell distinctly states that
Mr Boyd was absent only when Johnson recited
the ode "Jam satis") ; secondly, Scott was
speaking of 1814, close onforty years later.
38
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
JOHNSON'S STAY AT OXFORD.
Here is a very interesting, much-debated
question : How long was Johnson at the Uni-
versity ? The popular notion, always accepted
after the account given by his friends and con-
temporaries, is that he really completed his term,
but left without taking a degree. Mr Croker,
however, on inspecting the books, was the
first to broach a theory that he had been only
fourteen months at Oxford. After an inter-
val of nearly sixty years, Dr B. Hill is found to
adopt the theory ; so does the Rev. Mr Napier,
so does Air Birrell, and so does the editor of the
Globe edition. All these editors seems to think
that there can be no dispute about the point.
But on the other side, who have we ? Boswell
himself, the friend and biographer ; Hawkins,
friend, biographer, and executor ; Murphy,
another friend and biographer ; contemporary
accounts and memoirs ; Imayaddmyselfandmy
edition, because I was the first since Mr Croker
to investigate the matter afresh at the fountain-
head. Finally, Mr Leslie Stephen, a sound
Johnsonian, inclines to the three years' theory.
Boswell announces in the most positive way
that Johnson "left the college in autumn, 1731,
without a degree, having been a member of it
little more than three years.'' Now, that pains-
taking writer has told us " that I have sometimes
been obliged to run half over London in order
to fix a date correctly ; which, when I had
accomplished, I well knew would obtain me no
praise, though a failure would have been to my
discredit." Here is a date, year, and month,
and a period given, for which he had no need to
" run half over London " to ascertain, for he had
simply to consult his great friend, or his great
friend's tutor, Dr Adams. And he actually tells
us that on several occasions he obtained from
Johnson all the particulars of his early life and
education. Further, once at Oxford, Boswell
extracted from Dr Adams everything about
Johnson's residence at Oxford. Would not his
first question have been : " And how many years,
sir, did he remain there ?" It is quite impossible
to put aside the force of this argument.
Again, we should consider the number of de-
tails and events that have come down to us of
Johnson's college life, his acquaintances, poverty,
studies, and change of tutors, etc., all of which
suggest a regular University course, quite in-
compatible with a stay of a few months. All
through his life he looked on himself and
spoke of himself as a " University man,'' who
belonged to the place, which he certainly
would not have done had he been there only
fourteen months. Would he have been con-
stantly returning and stopping there, and call-
ing up old memories of places and friends?
Any reader would have an uneasy feeling that
Johnson, after so short a residence, and being
obliged to quit the place under the stigma
of not being able to pay his way, was making
but a pretence of being an Oxonian. He would
be really httle more than a " freshman." Nay,
those fourteen months would have been but too
painful an episode for Johnson himself to recall,
and he would certainly have shunned all allusion
to his Alma Mater. Further, would the Uni-
versity have given him two degrees on so slender
a connection ?
v4 CRITICAL EXAMINATION
39
Next for Hawkins, the much maligned. He
was an old friend of Johnson's ; he attended him
on his death-bed, he prepared his will, acted as
his executor, wrote his life, and edited his works.
He, therefore, ought to have known something
about Johnson. Not only does he know some-
thing, but he furnishes minute and particular
details about his Oxford life. He tells that as
it would have been impossible for the humble
bookseller to support his son at Oxford, it was
arranged that he should go as a sort of assistant
in his studies to a Mr Andrew Corbet, the son
of a Shropshire gentleman, and one of his
schoolfellows. He was to be with him "in the
character of a companion," and his college
charges were to be defrayed by him. Boswell
heard this story also, but he says it was too
delicate a matter to question his friend upon.
Dr Taylor, however, told him that Johnson
"never received any assistance whatever" from
the Corbets. This, however, would seem to be
owing to the abrupt termination of the arrange-
rnent, for after nearly two years' stay, or it may
be fourteen months, young Corbet quitted the
college. Hawkins adds that all he could obtain
was that the father of the young man should
continue to pay for his commons. Then the
knight makes this distinct and positive state-
ment : " The time of his continuance at Oxford
is divisible into two periods, the former whereof
commenced on the 31st day of October, 1728,
and determined in December, 1729, when, as
appears by a note in his ' Diary' in these words :
' 1629, Dec. S. J. Oxonio rediit,' he left this
place, the reason whereof was a failure of
pecuniary supplies from his father; but meeting
with another source, the bounty, it is supposed,
of some one or more of the members of the
cathedral, he returned and made up the whole
of his residence— about three years." Hawkins,
who was not so delicate as Boswell, had evi-
dently talked the subject over with Johnson, for
the latter explained to him that his father had
become a bankrupt about this time. The
cathedral friend was likely enough to have been
the Dean, for long after Johnson " cancelled "
some passages in his "Journey,'' which had
been printed off, for fear of giving him pain,
saying that he had once done him an important
service. I have thought, too, that Johnson's care
of Mrs Desmoulins might have been owing to
some assistance of this kind received from her
father, Dr Swinfen. So everything, it will be
seen, points in this direction.
But now for the argument from the " Battels,"
or, I suppose. Buttery Books, which are the
entries of commons supplied to the students
there. These reports I may take credit for
being the first to publish, the late Professor
Chandler having had them copied for me.
From the time of Johnson's entrance in October,
1728, to December, 1729, the entries in these
books are continued regularly week by week,
and small charges are placed opposite his name.
After that date there sets in a state of great
capriciousness and irregularity, to be explained
by the capricious irregularity of Johnson's own
situation. True, in December, 1729, Johnson
makes that entry of his return home from
Oxford, to which appeal is made as showing
that his career was closed, and that it agrees
exactly with the cessation of the charges for
meals. But this is almost at once demolished
by our finding that on January 30, 1730, there
is a charge of 5d. ; so that, though we are told
that he had left Oxford for good, and closed his
course, we find him back again ! Now this 5d.
is rather significant. We are assured that
" Battels " is evidence of residence, and that
every one who resides must have the meals of
which the "Battel Books" are records. But
here we have Johnson at the college, yet having
40
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
only 5d. worth of food or drink. His meals or
meal must, therefore, have been charged to
some one else. Further, his name now figures
regularly in the books, week after week, though
there are no charges. Then comes another
surprise. On March the 13th we find him
paying for a week's meals, 4s. yd., and on March
27th, 5d.; so this represents a fortnight's stay at
least. I believe the explanation is that he was
absent at Lichfield for the first two months of
the year trying to make some arrangement, and
that on his return he paid for a week's commons
or so. At all events, here he is shown to be
still at Oxford, three months after he is supposed
to have finally left. This accounts for some
eighteen months. His name is now entered
regularly week after week, still without charges,
down to November 27, 1730, when it is removed
altogether for nearly two months, to reappear
once on January 29, 1731, but without charges.
This removal might show that he had gone
away finally, and had lost hope of returning.
But the name again reappears on March 12,
1 73 1, and is continued steadily, without charges,
down to October i, when it finally vanished, the
three years claimed being all but completed.
What explanation can be given of these fitful
disappearances and replacings, except that the
unhappy youth was now remaining struggling
desperately to retain his footing, now hurrying
away to obtain aid, now succeeding or failing ;
that he was at the college, but that his
meals were charged to some one else? No
other rational reason can be given of Johnson's
name being withdrawn from the books alto-
gether, and then restored, save that the few
charges set down were of his own payment, and
that the blanks meant that the charge was
defrayed in some other way. Had he gone
away altogether, his name would have been
summarily removed. This absence of charges
for meals when he was in residence points to
surely some eleemosynary system of assistance,
to some charging to another person's account.
Mr Elvvin thinks that the college supplied him
gratis, and held over the charges till better
times. Dr B. Hill thinks this impossible — that
the charges for meals must be the only evidence
of residence ; but this, as I have shown, is
disposed of by those entries where only 5d. is
charged, from which it is evident he was in
residence, and yet is not charged with his meals.
Dr B. Hill thinks, too,- that when the name is
given week after week, it was merely kept on
the books in the hope of his return ; but on this
theory how is it to be explained that the name-
is given in the very first entry after he had
arrived at the University, and this without any
charges opposite to it ? I think, therefore, that
this argument from the " Battels," fails.
There is an entry in the books that Johnson's
"caution money," £7, was forfeited to satisfy a
claim of the college for monies owing to the
college for that amount. As Mr Macleane, the
recent historian of Pembroke College, points
out, it is improbable that the debt and caution
money could exactly balance each other, so
that Johnson may have owed much more.
Now, this seems to support the argument, and
proves, at the least, that the college was giving
him credit for his " Battels "; and that principle
once established, it is not difficult to go further.
Dr Adams, as we know, was Johnson's tutor.
On his entrance, one Mr Jordan was his tutor,
but about the middle of 1730 this gentleman
left the college, and Dr Adams succeeded him.
He was given a living early that year, and it
seems almost certain that Dr Adams would
have taken over his pupils after the long vaca-
tion of 1730.
Giving Boswell information about Johnson's
college life, Dr Adams said to him that he was
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
41
his nominal tutor, which Boswell, in a contra-
dictory passage, interprets to mean that he
would have been his tutor had Johnson re-
turned to the college. This, ho^^'ever, it is
clear, was not Adams' meaning, for he added,
*' I was his nominal tutor, but he was above my
mark ;" and Johnson, when the remark was re-
peated to him, accepted this meaning, saying it
was a noble and generous speech.
It has been said, however, that this de-
molishes the argument for Johnson's longer
stay, for, if he remained till 1731, Adams would
have been more than his nominal tutor. He
would have been his tutor for two years. The
answer to which is that Boswell made a mis-
take as to the year of Adams' taking over
Jordan's pupils, which, as Dr B. Hill shows,
was at the end of 1730 and not in 1731. This,
it seems to me, completely disposes of the argu-
ment as to the '■' would have been his tutor had
Johnson returned " ; for even on the supposition
that Johnson only remained fourteen months,
Adams would have been his actual and not
nominal tutor for several months of that
period.
This rather damaging fact the editor seems
to pass by. Observe his argument was that
Johnson was never under Adams at all. But
" this,'' says the editor, " is no contradiction of
the statement that Adams was only Johnson's
nominal tutor. The exercises were often per-
formed in the hall, no doubt, before the Masters
and Fellows." " Why, sir, what sophistry is
this ? " as the sage would say. " Before the
Masters and Fellows," says the editor. No
doubt this was so ; but Johnson says that he
"performed" before them ''under" Adams, that
is, prepared and directed by him. It is astonish-
ing that such a plea should be made.
Then there is Dr Taylor's part of the case.
Dr Taylor, as we know, was one of Johnson's
oldest friends — also his life-long friend. John-
son told Mrs Piozzi that the history of all his
Oxford exploits lay between Taylor and Adams
—a large phrase, by the way, that seems to
speak of a long period in which these exploits
were performed. Taylor told Boswell the inci-
dent of Johnson's ceasing to visit him at Christ
Church College, from shame at his own poverty-
stricken appearance. That they were at Oxford
there can be no doubt. Yet Taylor entered in
June, 1730, some months after Johnson, accord-
ing to the short-staytheoristSjhadquittedit, which
would prove convincingly — there is no getting
over it — that Johnson was there after June, 1730.
All Dr B. Hill can do is to say that "this seems
at first sight to follow, but we must remember
that Taylor might have had his name entered
some months before he came, and that after his
name was entered Johnson might have left."
What this means it is impossible to guess ; it
does not alter the fact that Johnson and Taylor
were there together, and the former in the habit
of visiting him at Christ Church. He has at
last to throw up his case, "nevertheless, the
whole story is very strong evidence that Johnson
was in residence in the latter half of the year
1730." Dr B. Hill, however, discovered another
Dr J. Taylor, who entered about the same time
as Johnson, and he contends that he was
Johnson's friend.
The most perplexing element in the contro-
versy is the case of Whitfield. Boswell calls
him Johnson's "fellow collegian," and he reports
Johnson as saying that he was at the same
college with him and knew him before he became
better than other people. Now, Whitefield only
entered in 1732, when it is admitted, even by
advocates of the long stay, that Johnson had left.
It will be seen it is a orux for both sides. I do
not profess to be able to solve the question, but
these points are worthy of consideration. First,
42
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
as to the meaning of "fellow collegian." " His
fellow collegian," used by Boswell, may cer-
tainly imply, without much forcing of the
meaning, " belonging to the same college,'' with-
out any regard to the time of residence. If
Johnson said "Whitfield was at my college,''
Boswell may have thought he meant at the same
time. Later, Boswell reports the phrase about
Whitfield being at the same college with him,
to which he (Boswell) may have given the
same meaning, of belonging to the same college.
But then Johnson adds that he knew him
before he became better than other people.
And it was at college — say about 1733— that
he became "better than other people." But
this Dr B. Hill and his supporters have not
noticed. How came it to pass that the clerks
of the Buttery Books would continue for two
years entering the name of a non-resident in
this pertinacious and regular way, as though
he were a member of " the mess," as it were,
but never attended ? Would they not have
suspended their entries as time rolled on?
What, it might be asked, had they to do with
the list of persons on the college books ? All
they were concerned with were the persons
who were supplied with college victuals. As
it happens, they rfz^ leave off entering his name,
for short periods, so we are asked to believe
that these clerks would go periodically to the
authorities to remove, or put on again, according
to the entries of the college books, the name of
a person to whom they supplied nothing in their
department. It would be now " Johnson is off
the books," and now " Johnson is on." '' But he
is never here — has never been here for two
years — and gets nothing from us." Then, with
all the personal investigations of these ledgers
by Dr Chandler and Dr B. Hill, they have never
discovered another case of the kind, that is,
where -a student remains away from the college.
but has his name on the Buttery list with
blanks opposite to it.
Another strong proof of the longer stay is
Dr Adams' declaration that he was "his nominal
tutor''— /.I?, that after the three years, in 1731,
he had succeeded Jordan, and would have
been Johnson's tutor had the latter returned.
This surely is an indication that, up to that
period, Johnson was in the college. Had he
left, as is contended, some two years before,
Adams would not have talked of being his
tutor at all, "nominal" or otherwise. Johnson's
career had been long since closed ; but Adams
speaks clearly as though he had been at the
college all the time, and thus seems to have
said to Boswell that had he returned {?SXax \he.
vacation), and gone on with his studies, he
would have found a new tutor.
I now resume the task and duty of pointing
out Dr B. Hill's mistakes.
Johnson heartily praised Murphy's plays,
giving him a high place as a dramatist. " Yet"
says the editor, on the watch to catch him, "he
said there was too much Tig and Tirry in
one piece." Thus there was one play with which
he found fault. But on turning to the passage,
^^•e find Johnson was speaking, not of the play
itself, but of the names of the characters, which
were Tz^anes, TzWdates, etc. It was a pleasant
jest. " Yet he said," etc. A trivial matter of
this kind shows how unsafe a guide is Dr B.
Hill.
We have, indeed, the sage's opinion of
Dr Hill : " He was an ingenious man,'' he
said, " but had no veracity. He was, however,
a very curious observer ; and if he would have
been contented to tell the world no more than
he knew, he might have been a very consider-
able man, and needed not to have recourse to
such expedients to raise his reputation." This
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
43
was spoken, not of our Johnsonian Dr B. Hill,
but of another Dr Hill, who lived in Johnson
days, and who was really as copious and verbose
as the modern. He also might have been "a
considerable man, had he been content to tell
the world no more than he knew."
JOHNSON'S LETTERS AND DR BIRKBECK HILL'S NOTES.
Dr B. Hill has also issued two large volumes
of Johnson's letters, which, according to the
advertisement, " include all the letters known to
be in existence, with the exception " — and here
the editor is very precise — " of a few of which it
has not been possible to obtain transcripts, and
of those printed in my own edition of the ' Life,' "
to which exact references are given. But on
surveying " my collection " what do we find ?
First, reference only to over three hundred of
the letters furnished by Boswell ; second, a
large number of scraps of letters, and epitomes
of letters, often no more than a line in length,
extracted by auctioneers for their catalogues,
and which are counted as letters ; thirdly, Mrs
Piozzi's two volumes of letters, already " col-
lected " by her ; and fourthly, various printed,
scattered letters, with a number that have never
been in print. The "few of which it has not
been possible to obtain transcripts'' no doubt
refer to the Perkins and Taylor letters. While,
however, he claims to have furnished an almost
complete collection of all the letters "then in
existence," strange to say, he begins at once to
have qualms, and to our astonishment we read :
" It will be shown, I fear, that letters which are
in print have been left unnoticed, and that others
which I enter as new have been already noticed."
There are, it seems, garners still unswept, and
Dr B. Hill has uneasy suspicions, if not a
certainty, that there are stores of Johnsonian
Jetters which were refused to him, or which he
knows not of, and which it is now too late to
secure.
So the book should properly be described as
" A Collection of Johnson's Letters, published
and unpublished, with the Dates and Places of
some Letters, Extracts and Epitomes of others,
taken from Auctioneers' Catalogues " ; or it
might be called " Letters, with Lists of Letters,
Extracts and Abstracts of Letters, etc."
It is a fantastic notion, truly, that of count-
ing as " letters " — numbering each gravely — the
scraps from auctioneers' catalogues, the meagre
extract or abstract furnished by Puttick or
Sotheby, to pique the bidder's appetite. He
tells of the weary, toilsome hours he spent in
the Bodleian Library, plodding through these
records to light on some such scrap as this :
" 1043 (the number of the letter in the series).
In Messrs Sotheby & Co.'s catalogue, Aug.
21, 1872, Lot 113, is a letter of Johnson's to Mrs
Strahan, postponing an invitation : ' I had for-
gotten that I myself had invited a friend to dine
with me.'" In a sort of flutter of excitement at
this new department of " research by catalogue^'
the editor feels it his duty to give severe rebuke
or warning to the authorities concerned. " This
labour had been greatly lightened had those
catalogues which contain descriptions of auto-
graphs been bound up separately. As it was, I
found them scattered among long lists, not only
of books, but also of musical instruments, bins
of wine, and cigars." How dreadful this ! He
44
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
hopes, however, that the practice will be sup-
pressed in the near future, and he directs his
admonition to other institutions as well as. to
the Bodleian ; " If librarians would keep these
catalogues apart, the students of literature and
history would have at their command _a_great_.
amount of curious material." So see to it,
messieurs, the Librarians !
Johnson, he assures us, " was a great letter
writer." " Johnson wrote unwillingly." Now,
this would not occur to any one who considers
the spontaneous style and vast number of the
letters ; Johnson was always writing letters.
We might suspect that the editor had mistaken
the sense of his authority. And so it proves.
Johnson merely says that he found himself very
" unwilling to take up a pen only to tell my
friend that I am well." He admitted that he
wrote, not "with difficulty" — but rather "with
more difficulty than those persons who write
nothing but letters." It was " not without a
considerable effort of resolution that he sat
down to write." The editor has completely
mistaken the meaning.
But commend us to the following grotesque
notion. Johnson's letters in the " Life," he says,
are spoiled by their position. They lose all
value and attraction owing to the superior charm
of the " talk." " We hurry through them {or
eve.n skip over them) to arrive at the passages
where the larger type and the inverted commas
give signs that we shall have good talk." This
is simple nonsense— the editor must pardon the
word. Who experiences this feeling? We
always read Johnson's letters with pleasure.
They belong to the narrative ; they are often
answers to Boswell's letters. If the editor really
does wish to "skip"' them, that is his own
personal affair; but he should not include
every one in his " we."
Few writers of our time, indeed, can furnish
such genuine entertainment as Dr B. Hill,
Common editors, poor souls ! in their dull, prac-
tical way_ present their work in business-like
fashion ; they are thinking of their author and
of his matter. But Dr B. Hill seems possessed
_with a perfect furia; he leaps and bounds ; he
expends himself in the wildest, most delusive
theories ; he raves against dead writers, as
though they were now in the flesh ; as a matter
of course, he assails his own idol even.
We shall begin with a rare bonne bouche. The
editor gives a letter of Johnson's " Tetty,'' which
he styles " the gem of my collection." Every one
knows of Johnson's curious infatuation about
this woman, who seemed to him a perfect
goddess. But no one will be prepared for the
extraordinary company into which the editor
introduces the poor lady by way of justification
against Lord Macaulay's attack. " Neverthe-
less, at the time of her marriage, she was just
the same age as " — who u'ill it be supposed ? —
" Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, when our great
historian describes her as no longer young, but
still retaining traces of that superb and volupt-
uous loveliness ivliicli'' etc. Poor Tetty and a
Hampton Court beauty ! were there ever such a
strange concatenation ? But listen to this. '''' For
all we Icnoiu, it was Mrs foh?tson's superb and
voluptuous loveliness \\-hich overcame the heart
of the lamented Mr Porter " (who lamented him)
" and it was the traics of it which overcame the
young Samuel." For all we know, indeed !
Garrick and Boswell, for all we do know, and
others, have described her as a coarse, repulsive,
ludicrous person. Suddenly the editor is seized
with grotesque /«;■/(?, turns on the historian^ and
overwhelms him with scorn, and scoffs : " She
was only a decent married wo7nan. Had she
been a royal harlot, Macaulay, instead of mock-
ing her bloom, might have laid on the colours
with an art and a skill scarcely surpassed by Sir
ji CRITICAL EXAMINATION
45
Peter _Lely." This is incoherence, and it is.
difficult to_ deal with it seriously. The reader
Oeeds not to be assured that Macaulay had no
penchant for " royal harlots," nor was he their
retained advocate; nor did he prefer them to
''' only decent married women."
Another truly rich "morsel" is connected
with the death of Johnson. .How is the scene
to be made impressive, or, as Boswell has it,
" aweful " ? Why, by introducing a stage coach!
This literally is the fact. "William Hutton,
who," we are told, " left London on the night of
Deceipber 12th," describes how he "went silently
on over a hundred and twenty miles of snow."
On which the editor adds impressively: ^'' As the
coach went silently 071 through the wintry world,
Johnson's spirit passed away." This is all
solemn enough. Still, the editor ought to be
accurate in his solemnity. Hutton left in his
mysterious coach on the Sunday night, the 12th,
and the good Johnson did not yield up his
honest soul until seven o'clock on the Monday
night, by which time Hutton was actually safe
at home ! So the whole point of the thing, such
as it is, vanishes.
But we are not ye.t done with Hutton and his
coaching.
Johnson was once returning to London
through Birmingham and Oxford, when it
strikes the editor as a strange coincidence that
" W. Hutton took the same road not three
weeks later." There is something comic in the
mania Dr B. Hill has for connecting Johnson
and Hutton, and always in this matter of a
coach. Without any apropos whatever, he pro-
ceeds to tell us all about Hutton's_ journey ;
how thirty-six horses were used ; calculating
" there must have been nine changes of horses
in the 120 miles." We next learn how the guard
sat inside with Hutton, and told him how he
Ijad defended the coach against highwaymen —
sometimes had killed them, etc. W6' wonder
what had all this to do with Johnson. But the
editor thus ingeniously connects these particulars
with him : " If J ohnson went by the same coach,
all this talk must have, been poured into the ears
of Black Francis as he sat- outside " ! '''
J3ut " must it," after all ? To be secure of
even this, we must assume, first, that it was the
same coach ; second, the same guard ; third,
that the guard did tell his stories over again ;
and fourth, and above all, that he was. sitting
beside " Black Francis."
Still that does not exhaust these curious
Hutton coach incidents. Johnson could not
get a place in a Birmingham coach. What will
be said when we find " that nine years later W.'
Hutton, returning from London, found all the
places taken" etc. And still more strange, " he
left in the evening of a December day"
There is nothing, however, in the. volumes
more truly comic than the following, Johnson
made this simple statement :
" I propose to come home to-morrow"
There are no bounds to the ingenuity ofthe
editor ; the gravest questions are here iuvolved.
How did Johnson travel ? How might he have
travelled.' Above all, had he luggage"? If he
had, how did he send it .' Was it heavy or
light ? What did he pay ?.
The editor gravely discusses all these matters.
" He might have returned either by the Oxford
coach, which left at 8 a.m. — fare i5J.y" and,
mark this : " There were no outside passengers."
Here we touch firm ground, for, of course, John^
son must have travelled inside — that is, if he
did travel by this vehicle. Or did he take
" ' The Machine,' which left the Bear Inn every
Monday, Wednesday, etc., at 6 A.M."? "The
Machine " or Oxford coach ? Who can tell ?
The editor adds resignedly ; " What time these
coaches neared London we are not told," John-
46
J CRITICAL EXAMINATION
son would prefer knowing what time they reached
London.
But there is a further important point, viz.
that " ' The Machine ' was not licensed by the
Vice-Chancellor." Then more details about
"The Machine": It carried six inside passen-
gers. And the serious point of luggage: "Each
inside passenger was allowed six pounds of
luggage ; beyond that weight a penny a pound
was charged." Bradshaw is not " in it " with
all this. Still the point is left unsettled : Had
Johnson luggage? and how much? In de-
fault of evidence, the editor does the next best
thing — he speculates. " Had Johnson sent
heavy luggage " — and how likely that was ! —
"he might have sent it by the university old
stage waggon, which left" — and so on. And
thus, bewildered by "The Machine," the "Oxford
coach," the "heavy waggon," etc., we are left
no wiser. I repeat, it seems incredible that
any one could bring himself to write such things.
Johnson wrote from Oxford : " To-morrow, if
I can, I shall go forward." The editor speculates
on — no, announces positively ! — the meaning of
this " if I can." Johnson, he says, meant that
it depended on the chance of his getting a place
in any of the passing coaches. Yet only in the
line before is written : " But I have not been
very well. I hope I am not ill by sympathy
with you." This was surely what he meant by
" if I can."
But let us come to one of our editor's nimblest
gambados, and which surpasses all the rest.
Johnson wrote from Ashbourne to Mrs Thrale
of a letter which he had received from " Miss
" complaining of the " frigidity with which
he had answered her." She neither hoped nor
desired " to excite greater warmth!' His salu-
tation to her, " madam," was like a glass of cold
water. " I dare neither write with frigidity nor
with fire}' " There was formerly in France a
cour de famour, but I fancy no one was ever
summoned before it after threescore"; yet he
would certainly be non-suited in it. " I am not
very sorry that she is far off. There can be no
great danger in -writing to her.'' This badinage
refers to some spinster who was " making up "
to the Doctor. It seems almost incredible, but
the editor arrives at this amazing, bewildering
solution : " Miss Porter, I think, is meant}'
That is, Lucy Porter, his step-daughter ! She
was bringing him into the " Court of Love."
" No great danger of his being caught in writ-
ing " to his step-daughter, to whom he was
always writing. These things take one's breath
away. Only three days before he had written
of this very step-daughter : " Lucy is a philo-
sopher, and considers me to be one of the
external and accidental things that," etc.
Having laid down his theory, he proceeds to
support it. " See post," he says, "where Johnson
expressed his surprise that she detained him at
Lichfield " — we must suppose to prosecute her
plans for bringing him into the " Court of Love."
Here he completely misreads the passage. On
the contrary, Johnson was delighted at being
pressed to stay by his Lucy. " I was pleased to
find that I could please. Lucy is a very per-
emptory maiden." In the other "see post"
there is the same kind of mistake: " Miss Porter
will be satisfied with a very little of my com-
pany,'' the editor fancying here that this was a
tart speech ; but Johnson meant that his step-
daughter would let him off after a short stay.
What can be over Dr B. Hill when he writes
such things ?
Johnson wrote to say he had " met Mrs
Langton and Juliet" at Ashbourne. Nothing
could be clearer — persons, place, and incident.
But the editor sees a mystery and a whole train
of difficulties. " If these ladies were Bennet
Langton's mother and sister, they were not on
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
47
Ihe direct road to London from the family seat in
Lincolnshire." I meet my friend Smith who
lives near Exeter, at Rugby : " No,'' our editor
will say, " it could not have been Smith, because
he was not on the direct road to London from
his family seat." The Duke and Duchess of
Argyle had been also met at the same place ; so
they, being out of the proper road " from the
family seat," forfeit their identity ! Presently
we are treated to a singular speculation. As
they were not Johnson's Langtons— an unusual
name— Dr B. Hill suddenly discovers that "a
passage in the next letter seems to show that
some actress and her daughter, or companion, is
described " ! The surprises our doctor has in
store for us grow and grow, and are perfectly
startling. He thus proves his new point. John-
son wrote; " Mrs grows old, and has lost
much of the undulations, etc. . . . She can act
upon the stage now only for her own benefit.
But Juliet is very cheerful, only lamenting the
inconstancy of men." Now " Mrs ," with
the repetition of the name " Juliet," show that
it refers to the same ladies. There was no
actl-ess called Langton, and Johnson was speak-
ing with pleasant figure of " Mrs 's" decay
when he said "she could appear only for her
own benefit," while the " but " that follows, with
a description of Juliet, shows that the reference
to the benefit is metaphorical. Apart from this,
Dr B. Hill should have noted that Johnson
speaks of them as ladies of his own station.
He says, " they sent for me," and " I went to
them," and then he sent for Boswell to introduce
him, as he had never met them. They were
also known to the Thrales. In short, there can
be no question they were Bennet Langton's
relatives.
The editor at times indulges in a famili-
arity that seems rather undignified. Johnson
mentioned Sir J. Mawbey, one of the House
of Commons bores, on which the editor quotes
the familiar lines on the Speaker :
" ' There Cornwall sits, and oh, unhappy fale !
Must sit for ever, though in long debate ;
Painful pre-eminence ! he hears, 'tis true.
Fox, North, and Burke, but hears Sir Joseph, too.'
" / thought, when I saw my friend, Mr Leonard
H. Courtney, sitting as chairman of committee,
that to him, as member for a division of Corn-
wall, these lines might happily apply ! " Observe,
all arises out of the mere mention of Sir J.
Mawbey's name. The verses might pass ; but
"my friend Courtney" sits for Liskeard, and
therefore Cornwall is appropriate ! And is it
of moment to anybody what thoughts occurred
to Dr B. Hill when he surveyed "my friend
sitting as chairman"? Is this notion— is this
friendship — is even Mr Courtney himself^of the
slightest value in connection with the purpose
in hand, which is the editing of Johnson's letters?
Here is a good specimen of the confusion
into which Dr B. Hill's discoveries lead him.
Johnson wrote to Mrs Thrale : " Invite Mr
Levett to dinner" (on which, by the way, the
editor remarks : " 1 should not have expected
that Levett was admitted to Mrs Thrale's
table," but really Johnson must have known
better than Dr B. Hill). He then added :
" Make enquiry what family he has, and how
they proceed." Dr B. Hill refers us "for the
enquiry about him," to Mrs Thrale's answer
to it — and there we find her writing :
" My husband bids me tell you that he has ex-
amined the register ; that Levett is only seventy-
two!^ It will be seen that it is an odd answer,
or no answer at all, to an enquiry " what family
he has," to say "he is only seventy-two." But
the editor is all astray. Johnson wished to know
what "family" Levett has ; that is, what persons
of his own (Johnson's) household were there.
This is shown by what follows, "and how they
48
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
proceed^' ue. were they quarrelling, etc., as. usual.
Further, Johnson's letter of enquiry was dated
April 1 8, and was from Ashbourne, and Mrs
Thrale's is dated on the same day.
Thrale, wrote Johnson, to distract his grief
for his son's death, said that " he would go to
the house. I hope he has found something that
laid hold of his attention.'' " The House of
Cormnons, I conjecture'' says our editor. Amaz-
ing ! He, of course, meant the house at
Southwark ; the house of business, where he
would find something to lay hold of his atten-
tion. But on his conjecture the editor conjec-
tures afresh. "On April i, if he had attended,
he heard a debate on Mr Hartley's motion on
the expenses of the American War;'' and so, off
we now go on a new tack. The amount of
these expenses of the war Lord North could not
divine. Nor could he have fancied — conjecture
again— that the National Debt would have been
raised from, etc., to, etc. ; neither would Gibbon
have ever, etc. That is, if Thrale had been
there. " For the increase of the National Debt,
see ' Penny Cyclopaedia.'" And we get all this
from Thrale's saying "he would go to the
house." We do not know whether he ever
went at all ; but we get Lord North, Hartley,
Gibbon, National Debt, "Penny Cyclopaedia."
Dr B. Hill has a fashion of imputing degrad-
ing niotives to his two heroes, when he wants
to support one of his imaginary "discoveries."
SastrQS, "the Italian master," who was with
Johnson at his, death, is mentioned by Boswell,
in illustration of the contrasted classes of per-
sons with whom Johnson associated. One day
h& was with Colonel Fox, of the Guards, or the
unhappy Levett ; with Lady Crewe or Mrs
Gardiner, the worthy tallow-chandler ; with the
Chancellor or " Sastres, the Italian master."
Here Dr B. Hill morbidly sees a deliberate in-
tention to degrade Sastres ! And why? "Per-
haps to punish him.'' And for what? "For not
letting him (Boswell) publish Johnson's letters."
All these assumptions are unfounded. Johnson
himself in his will describes Sastres as "the
Italian master"; any.appreciator of Boswell's
methods will feel that he introduces the name
as an effective contrast ; there is no proof that
letters were asked for or were refused — in fact,
they had been published by Mrs Piozzi — and we
are asked to believe that Boswell, rich in his 300
and more letters, was infuriated because he did
not obtain these five ! The whole is perfect
"moonshine," and, in truth, Dr B. Hill seems
to decree a particular state of facts to suit his
purpose, just as the Convention " decreed vic-
tory." So with Ryland, another correspondent
of Johnson's. " Perhaps Boswell passed him
over in silence in return for his keeping from
him the lettei^s he received from Johnson." As
usual, there is no evidence that he refused Bos-
well any letters ; he may have had none to re-
fuse; as it is, only two are known. As to
"passing him over in silence," what will be
said when we find that Boswell, after mention-
ing him respectfully as one of his (Johnson's)
friends, tells- us that he was really unable to
trace anything about him and other friends of
Johnson at the time ! But no. The editor will
have it that Boswell was full of spite ; was not
Hawkesworth, Ryland's brother-in-law, a person
disliked by Boswell? So, naturally, he must dis-
like Ryland. All which is amazing.
The occult reason for these charges is that
the editor is himself very angry when any one re-
fuses him the use of letters. It would seem that
he could, not obtain from the great brewery firm
the Perkins letters — though, indeed, business
houses, it is known, dislike furnishing their
papers. He is scornfully indignant. "When
^^- secret letters and papers of kings have been
given to the world, it might have been thought
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
49
that the private correspondence of a great scholar
with a superintendent of a brewery" etc. 1 1 may
be said there is no rule or law in these matters.
People may have often good reasons for not al-
lowing their papers to be used, even by a Dr B.
Hill ; and the publishing of the royal papers he
speaks of are not so common as he thinks. In
his anger at this disappointment he falls on the
heralds, or (possibly) on the late obliging Sir B.
Burke, Ulster: "I hoped to ascertain from 'The
Landed Gentry ' which of the descendants of the
author of (Barclay's) 'Apology' purchased the
great brewery, but apparently it was thought too
trifling a matter in the history of the family to
require any record." Purchasing a business is
not of the importance that Dr B. Hill thinks.
"The Landed Gentry" and such works give
only historic details. It was, moreover, the city
branch of the family that bought the brewery :
they are named incidentally ; but the head of
the house who had the landed property is the
subject of the " Landed Gentry." But to fancy
poor Johnson encrusted with all this rambling
comment, and, such as it is, inaccurate ! It is
enough to make him turn in his grave !
Indeed, there is something almost morbid in
the fashion in which our editor broods over these
ravished Perkins letters. They are magnified
into tremendous importance. There was, he con-
ceives, some " aweful" mystery about the "secret
transactions" that passed when the brewery was
sold. " Perhaps a second himdred years must
pass away before it shall be ascertained what
part Johnson took in founding the new firm."
As Johnson took no part in " founding the new
firm," but merely sold the business to them, this
is likely to be unfruitful. "Still," wails the
editor, "these would have thrown light on a
side (?/■ Johnson's character that is little known."
"Something, however, can even now be dis-
covered." Providentially, as it seems, one of
these "Perkins letters" got separated from the
rest, and reveals part of the mystery. We now
turn to it with interest, for it is always desirable
to have "light thrown" on obscure questions,
but are rather taken aback at finding that it is
doubtful after all if it be a Perkins at all ! It
is only the editor's guess. And, further, it
merely touches on the "iron resolution" of these
executors ; " Barclay's interest requires your
convenience," etc. Here is not much "light."
But in another place we have Dr B. Hill mak-
ing this really portentous announcement, which
does not throw much light on "the side of
Johnson's character :" "A passage in one of
Johnson's letters to Mrs Thrale throws further
light on the secret transactions, by which, in the
year of grace 175 1, Mr Perkins the man was
changed into Mr Perkins the master!' Now we
shall touch firm ground. So with much curi-
osity we turned to the "secret transactions."
Here they are : " Mr came to talk about
the partnership, and was very copious." (!)
Such is the whole revelation.
But it seems there are other churls who
possess autograph letters which they will
not allow Dr B. Hill to inspect or use. Think
of " the petty selfishness which makes a man
hug some famous autograph letter as a man
hugs his gold, rejoicing in it the more as he
keeps it entirely to himself" ! This is surely
unreasonable. A gentleman may have paid a
large price for his letter, may wish to make use
of it himself, and may therefore prefer not to
entrust it to Dr B. Hill.
In another work he lashes such culprits
through the world. " A man who burns an
autograph shows such an insensibility of nature,
such a want of imagination, that it is likely in a
more cruel age he would have burnt heretics."
Dickens, who had some " sensibility of nature,"
and whose " imagination " no one could deny.
so
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
once made a vast holocaust of almost every
letter he possessed, and for excellent reasons.
Other eminent men have done the same thing.
We all know that the Boswell family have
never felt any pride in their famous James, and
seemed to wince at the recollection of his antics.
Since writing — I should say noting — " The
Life,'' Dr B. Hill determined to give these
people one more chance — and approach an
incorrigible old lady, Mrs Vassall, Boswell's
grand-niece, who, with Caledonian bluntness,
treated our doctor much as the old Lord Auchin-
leck treated his son. " I once tried," says our
editor, " to penetrate into Avchinleck," a mys-
terious phrase, which only means that he wanted
access to the library, " where I had hoped
to find many curious memorials.'' But the
owner was inexorable. As the doctor tells us,
sternly and solemnly, " Permission was refused."
" My attempt," he adds, " had excited sus-
picion," — not unnaturally ; for the old lady had
heard of a forthcoming edition, and that "he
had some papers from Ayrshire," and " in a
lady's letter begged him to be so good as to
inform her from whom he had received them,
and oblige yours, etc." The insinuation was so
obvious that the editor proceeded to make an
example of the poor woman, who by this time
was in her grave, holding up her methods of
writing, spelling, and what not. It seems she
spelt Johnson "Johnston," which is, or used
to be, the correct Scotch fashion, and, what was
worse, she actually directed her letter to
" G. Bsrbick Hill, Esq."
Not to know that the great— the one Edition —
had been out actually two years was bad
enough ; but to call him, the editor—" Rer-
bick" — was too bad. He angrily stigmatised
it as " contemptuous ignorance," nay, " it came
to her from her father." And the woman's
spelling— why, had she not written of an " Addi-
tion of Boswell'' ?
All which makes one think that Dr B. Hill's
behaviour was not exactly chivalrous. Every
touch he furnishes, I confess, only raises one's
opinion of this worthy Scotch lady, who was
merely exhibiting an interesting native pride of
family and a natural sensitiveness.
Dr B. Hill, who is a very " nice " man, is often
much shocked by Mrs Thrale's " indelicacy."
When Thrale was ill Johnson was assiduous in
sending excellent medical advice, of which he
had a good store, and among others counselled
" frequent evacuation." Allusions of this kind
were customary in those days ; we have since
invented more delicate forms. What a woman
to pubhsh these and such-like passages ! Still,
" it is strange " and scarcely consistent to find
the editor in one of his notes carefully in-
forming us that Johnson, when he "took
physic," meant thereby that he had " taken a
purge." Fie, Dr B. Hill !
There is an extraordinary supplement labelled
" Appendix B" at the end of vol. i., and which
has a reference to page 14. There is, it says,
among the " Hume Papers " a letter on the
experiences of living at Oxford, and written by
one of the Macdonald family. We are given all
the dates of the writer's career, his matricula-
tion, call to the Bar, etc. The letter is of great
length, filling over two closely-printed pages.
We wonder what its bearing is or what it has to
do with Johnson's letters, who was at college in
1 73 1, this being dated nigh thirty years
later. We turn back, as we are invited to do,
to page 14. Still no sign of relevancy — not an
allusion to Oxford, or to Hume, or to Mac-
donald. What it means it is impossible to
guess. The editor adds : " Hume had also
consulted Sir Gilbert Elliot." On what ? " His
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
5'
answers were not satisfactory." Why? Most
bewildering !
Johnson wrote to Mr Thrale : " I repeat my
challenge to alternate diet," which the editor
strangely supposes to mean fasting on alternate
days. It surely signifies alternating one kind
of food with another. Dr B. Hill adds posi-
tively : " The challenge had not been given in
any preceding letter." But, as, of course, he is
wrong, both in his facts and in his theory, I
turn, only three or four letters back, to that of
April 6, and lo ! we read : " Does Mr Thrale
regulate himself as to regimen ? Nothing can
keep him so safe as the method so often men-
tioned. If health and reason can be preserved
by changing three or four meals a week; if such
a change," etc. There is the challenge to an
"alternate diet" which our too confident editor
declares does not exist ; for changing three or
four meals a week is not fasting on alternate
days.
But here is a fresh marvel ! Not satisfied with
his speculations and comments, our editor must
devise an imaginary text of his own — and
speculate on that. Here are two specimens —
Johnson, the editor finds, wrote : " Of flowers, if
Chloris herself were here, I would present her
only with the bloom of health." This mystifies
Dr B. Hill, as well it may. He opines that if
Chloris had the bloom of health, she would
want nothing else. He is inclined "to con-
jecture" that Johnson had written "heath."
Turning to the text, we find to our amazement
that it is actually printed " heath " !
Johnson, in his lively vein, wrote to Mrs
Thrale something about "the ladies of her
rout." The editor declares that he cannot find
in the great Dictionary any definition of the
sense in which Johnson uses the word here.
This is most extraordinary. For there Johnson
explains it as " clamorous multitude,'' " a
rabble " ; that is, a noisy crowd. Could any-
thing be clearer ? Johnson was speaking of
Mrs Thrale's train of gossiping, noisy females.
On two or three occasions Johnson wrote that
he was getting, or had not yet got, " curiosities
for Queenie's cabinet." These were httle matters
bought for the child when he was on his travels.
The editor ponders over this ; then speculates
sadly : " What has become of the curiosities
which Johnson collected for Mrs Thrale's
little girl?" What, indeed? — and at this time of
day !— considering it is one hundred and twenty
years ago.
Johnson once addressed a letter to a " Mr
Tomkeson." The editor is much gravelled.
"The name Tomkeson," he assures us, is not
in Boswell ? is not found in the parish hsts ?
Nothing of the kind. " It is not in the indexes
of the Gentleman's Magazine." That settles it.
"There is no sich a person which his name is
Tomkeson," as Mrs Gamp would say. As we
know, a word not to be " found in Johnson's
Dictionary" or in "the Gentleman's Magazine^'
fatally compromises it. "Perhaps the copyist
has been at fault." Why not Johnson himself,
who so often spelt phonetically? Tomkeson,
Tompkinson, or Tomkinson are the same name,
and the editor will find them in abundance in
his Gentleman's Magazine.
Johnson finishes a letter with " To sleep, or
not to sleep." Our careful editor, to make all
clear, adds this explanation : " He is parodying
' Hamlet,' act iii., scene i, line 56, ' To be, or not
to be.' " On this one hardly knows what to say.
Johnson alluded to a '^ parterre." Every one
surely knows what it means. We are told that
"Johnson defines 'parterre' as a level of ground
that faces the front of a house, and is generally
finished with greens and flowers." The word
"greens" then catching his eye, he must caution
us. " Greens," he says gravely, " Johnson does
52
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
not define in its modern sense, of a vegetable
food," etc.
Dr B. Hill, who as we see is himself perpetu-
ally falling into mistakes, has, of course, an
almost reverential tolerance for the most obvious
misprints. Having to quote from Nichol's
" Illustration," a passage in which it is said that
" Shakespeare {sic) adopted all turns, etc," he is
too scrupulous to make the change of a letter.
And in one of his letters to Mrs Thrale, we
find Johnson describing a visit to Ham, not the
London suburb, but a well-known county seat
in Derbyshire. We find that he took Boswell
with him to Ham, . . . they went to Ham,
etc. This, of course, was Mrs Piozzi's mis-
reading for Islam, belonging to the Port family.
The editor actually maintains the misprint, and
the reader finds himself, in the text, taken to
Ham, and to Ham again !
When one of her friends was sick, Johnson
wrote to Mrs Thrale that " Physicians, be their
powers less or more, are the only refuge we
have." On which our ever-literal editor con-
ceives that Johnson has now lost his faith.
"Johnson's piety here seems to slumber'' He
was, of course, only thinking of the comparative
value of various earthly aids. As if the pious
Johnson would, to restore Thrale to health,
announce that there was no use in prayers.
Johnson described the arrival of Fathers
Wilks and Brewer, English Benedictines from
Paris, and the attentions he paid them. Says
the editor : " Had they officiated as priests in
England, if they were foreigners, the act was a
felony ; if natives, high treason." Dr B. Hill
surely does not mean to convey that in 1776
the practice of the Catholic Faith was interdicted
in England ! Did not Mrs Thrale write to
Johnson of the burning of chapels at Bath and
Bristol, to say nothing of the London chapels,
in which, of course, rites were celebrated?
When the editor comes to speak of the
attempt that was made to obtain an increase
of Johnson's pension, and which failed, in a
sort of paroxysm of indignation he turns to an
old Debrett's "Royal Kalendar for 1795," and
there discovers that there were " twelve Lords
of the Bedchamber," each receiving ^^1200 a
year, and fourteen grooms of the Chamber, etc."
No one can divine what is to come of this.
The pensioned Johnson ought to have had one
of these posts ! "As Burns was made a gauger,
so Johnson might have been made a Lord, or at
least a groom, of the Bedchamber!' The notion
of the poor old dying Johnson going about at
court as " Lord Johnson " — or, better still, as
" a groom of the Bedchamber " — is exquisitely
funny. And as Burns was to be gratified with
the humble office of a gauger, so Johnson
was to be raised to the Peerage !
Johnson wrote that he had the honour of "salut-
ing Flora Macdonald." The editor must explain.
" By saluting, Johnson, I believe meant kissing!'
I believe ! Has he read old novels and old
plays, or heard of "a chaste salute"? Nay,
he even goes to look for it in the great Diction-
ary, where he assures us that Johnson actually
gives it " as one of the meanings of the word."
In the month of November Johnson wrote to
Mrs Thrale this simple observation, "You have
at last begun to bathe." The subject of bathing,
or the '■^ cold bath," has always for the editor a
fascination ; and in other cases he has expended
many laborious notes and quotations on the
origin, etc., of bathing. Here he assures us
gravely " that the month of November is late in
the year for bathing!' Johnson was not think-
ing whether it was late or early, neither was
Mrs Thrale ; nor did it matter. She had
bathed ; that was certain. One may even
traverse the editor's statement, and say that
November is 7iot late for bathing ; it depends
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
53
on the mildness of the season. But we are not
yet done with this bathing matter. The editor
is determined to aprofondir the whole. John-
son spoke of the "unaccountable terror a child
has for some things''; particularly of "putting
into the water a child who is well." I really
don't know how to approach these things with
due gravity, but here we have our commentator
earnestly assuring us that by " putting into the
water" was meant "putting into the sea— /or
they were at Brighton."
Among numerous other startling things, we
are told that Johnson did not know how to spell,
that in our day spelling is a "mean" thing ; that
too much is thought of it. " It will bring com-
fort, methinks, to those who are ignorant to
know that Johnson was as ignorant." I say
nothing of these persons; but as to Johnson, he
is altogether astray. Johnson spelt correctly,
according to the standard of his day, but there
were many words whose spelling was not fixed.
" Gaiety " was sometimes " gayety." " Boswell"
Johnson always spelt with one /, "harass" with
two r's, and k was often added to "public " and
such words. Who would think of calling such
variations bad spelling ?
Johnson, as we have seen, spelt " Boswell "
with one /, and " Scott " with one t. This was
almost a habit with him. On this spelling of
"Scott" Dr B. Hill is perfectly astounding:
"He was perhaps paying to the future Lord
Stowella delicate coinpliinent !' An odd fashion
of complimenting, this, by docking one letter I
But it was in this way : Lord Eldon, it seems,
once sat next a gentleman who told him that he
spelt his name " Scot," as being more distin-
guished. And therefore Johnson, perhaps,
"intended a delicate compliment." And observe.
Lord Eldon records it as an oddity, not as a
compliment. Johnson, of course, "intended"
nothing at all — spelling the word by a sort of
instinct. It may be, however, that Dr B. Hill
intends something facetious.
Johnson wrote proposing to go to Birming-
ham and Oxford. " And there (at Oxford) we
will have a row, and a dinner, and a dish of
tea." This seems plain. " But," says the editor,
"/ do not understand what this means'' What
does a row signify ? Flying to the great Dic-
tionary, he finds " row " explained as — what
think you ? — "A file, a rank, a number of things
ranged in line." Johnson does not recognise
the sense of " an excursion in a rowing boat."
But he has the verb " to row," to take excursions
in a rowing boat ; and there are many illustra-
tions given. Yet "I do not understand what
this means." Neither "is it likely that in his
weak health he would go on the river so late."
Very probable ; but Johnson was merely talking
and planning, and possibly did not go on the
river.
Johnson wrote to Garrick, in reference to
their deceased friend, Dr Hawkesworth, that he
had no letters of the latter. The editor tells us
that there is a letter to Garrick from one Wray,
who says he will leave to Goldsmith's friends
the task of honouring his memory. From these
two scraps the editor gravely concludes : "// is
possible that Garrick planned memoirs of Gold-
smith and Hawkesworth"! The idea of Garrick
as a memoir-writer is rather novel. Further
on, he tells us that the edition of Hawkesworth's
life and writings was being actually prepared by
Ryland. Garrick had merely asked Johnson for
letters. As to the Goldsmith theory, the editor
demolishes it for us himself, for he says timor-
ously: "Perhaps Wray refers only to Goldsmith's
monument in Westminster Abbey"! So he
does.
There is a " Caled" Harding mentioned : "A
misprint, I conjecture, for Caleb.'' But why not
apply to his faithful and oft-consulted Gentle-
54
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
man's Magazine ? There I found it, " Caleb
Harding, Mansfield, Notts, Physician" — and
without any conjecturing.
But here is a strange surmise. When Mrs
Thrale was christening one of her daughters,
Johnson wrote : " You must let us have a Bessy
another time.'' " No doubt Johnson had asked
that one of Thralls daughters should bear the
name of his wife " ! As if he would speak in
this jocular way of his loved " Tetty," or thrust
her name on a family who knew nothing of her!
He surely meant that it was a good old English
name, or a family name.
In some trifling points Dr B. Hill's blindness
is perfectly confounding. Johnson wrote to Mrs
Thrale from the country of the high price of
malt, that little profit was made : " But there is
often a rise upon stock. Some in the town have
made ^^50 by the rise upon stock" i.e. the funds.
But hearken to our editor : " Johnson refers, /
suppose., to the rise in the value of the stock
of malt" {\) With due caution he adds : "He
may be speaking of the funds." " May " ! And
then, to demolish his own theory, he quotes the
prices of the year, showing a rise of ten pounds
in the funds !
Once Johnson, returning to town, took boat
at Gravesend, and landed at Billingsgate,
whence he had to walk some distance before
he found a coach. The editor is much dis-
satisfied at this arrangement. He finds out
that a bell was rung at Gravesend at high tide
by night and day. " Surely the bell was rung
at low tide," Dr B. Hill says piteously, "so that
the boat might be carried up by the flow." We
cannot tell anything about this bell. The rule
applied to, we are assured, " tilt boats '' also —
that is, boats with sails as well as to wherries —
and the bell rang at Billingsgate also, where the
high tide would suit the voyage to Gravesend.
In any case, the ringing of the bell or the tide
had nothing to do with Johnson. Then, John-
son, in his honest way, says, when he landed, he
had to carry his budget to Cornhill before he
got a coach. But the editor, not quite satisfied
with this, could have told him what to do :
"From Billingsgate the most convenient way for
Johnson would have been to take a sadling-boat
to Temple Stairs." Still, he can make allowance
for Johnson's behaviour on this occasion. He
knew what was in his mind. "Doubtless the
state of the tide made it dangerous to pass under
Lofidon Bridge.'' There is no evidence of this.
The truth was. Billingsgate was the end of the
journey. Johnson, " I conjecture," had had
enough of the water, and a coach would cost
him but little more. Well, he carried his
"budget" part of the way. Budget? thinks
our editor, what is this? "Johnson defines it
as a bag easily carried." And then, to prevent
mistakes of careless people \\ho might fancy
Johnson was helping the Exchequer in some
way by " carrying his Budget" we are assured
" that the sense in which it is commonly used,
of the yearly financial statement of the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer, is not given in the
Dictionary"
"Of this parcel," wrote Johnson of some MS.
submitted to him, " I have rejected no poetry."
Is it not plain, and Johnsonian, too ? But the
editor must oddly amend, and puts "ejected":
" Of this parcel I have ejected no poetry.'' To
see Johnson ejecting poetry from parcels must
have been a rare sight.
But here is a very elaborate blunder. John-
son wrote jocosely of a day "that you never saw
before, as Doodle says," etc. Now, who was
Doodle? The editor makes diligent research,
and finds out that Doodle was a character in
one of Ravenscroft's plays, called "The London
Cuckolds," and in which Doodle figured as an
alderman. This is very precise. We have then
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
SS
some interesting details as to this play— how it
was always performed at a particular season,
and how, later, Garrick, in the interests of de-
cency and morals, had abolished the perform-
ance, and substituted " George Barnwell " for
the old piece. This was all so particular that,
though having my own view on the matter, I
was staggered, and took down the play to look
out the words which Johnson had quoted, and
"Alderman Doodle" was presumed to have
uttered. To my surprise they were not there.
Most people know that they belong to a much
better known play — "Tom Thumb" — where are
the two burlesque lords, " Noodle and Doodle,"
who open the piece with a song, in which are
the words quoted by Johnson. It is clear that
the editor could not have taken the trouble to
look for the lines.
Next for a strange "jumble." Johnson spoke
of some friends, whose names are suppressed by
Mrs Thrale, and represented by the initials C,
B, and D. These admittedly refer to Fanny
Burney, Cumberland, and Dr Delap. Presently
we find Johnson alluding to a friend as one
* * * who had lost .^20,000 in a speculation,
adding, " Neither D nor B has given occasion
to his loss." This loser is later spoken of as C.
The editor at once leaps to the conclusion that
C must be Cumberland, especially as D and B
— that is, Fanny Burney and her friend Delap
— "fit in," as he calls it. Let us see how they
"fit in." Johnson tells us: "Of B (Fanny), I
suppose the fact is true that he is gone ; but, for
his loss, who can tell who has been the winner?"
His loss, mark ! So our editor asks us to believe
that the struggling Cumberland had lost ;i;r20,ooo;
that "Fanny" had been "plunging," and had fled
the country ! All which is ludicrous.
It might be, indeed, that there is hardly a
single "discovery," "conjecture," or "theory," of
the editor's that does not break down in some
way. Thus, we have a letter of Johnson's to
Lowe, the painter, which the editor arbitrarily
dates May 15th, 1778. Johnson writes to him
that he had mentioned his case to Reynolds and
Garrick, but that both were "cold." Garrick,
however, seemed to relent : " I think you have
reason to expect something from him. But he
must be tenderly "handled. I have just, how-
ever, received what will please and gratify you.
I have sent it just as it came." This, the editor
fancies, refers to a letter from Garrick, in which
Lowe gratefully acknowledges a gift of ten
pounds from the actor, sent on May 15th, 1778.
" // was very likely that su7n which Johnson sent
on just as it came." 1 1 will be seen in a moment,
as the editor ought to have seen, that this will
not hold, for had not Johnson told Lowe
plainly that Garrick was "cold" ; that he must
be handled tenderly ; that nothing at the moment
was to be got from him ? " However" he adds,
" 1 send you something that will please you,'' etc.
Not surely from Garrick, for Johnson would have
said, " but he has just sent me ten pounds for
you" — but some encouraging letter or promise
from some one else. This is the meaning of this
"However"— that is, "though we have failed
with Garrick for the present, I send you some-
thing else that will console you."
" Save one's hay," getting one's hay " saved,"
are familiar phrases enough even to non-farmers.
Johnson had written that if the weather continued
fine, "it will certainly save hay. But that would
not make up foi the scanty harvest." Nothing
could be clearer or more commonplace ; but, to
our utter bewilderment, we are gravely assured
that the fine weather would save the hay, " by
making the grass grow, so that there would be
food for the cattle:'' A fresh crop was miracu-
lously to come up under a spell of fine weather,
and thus the farmer would be saved using his
hay ! What are we to think ?
56
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
Describing a wager between Macbean and
one Hamilton, as to the date when the Dic-
tionary would be completed, the editor strangely
announces that this Hamilton "had some share
in the printing of the Dictionary," though he con-
cedes that " a great deal of it was done by Strahan.''
Anything more unwarranted or far-fetched could
not be conceived. Every Johnsonian knows that
Strahan was the printer of the Dictionary, and a
printer of importance, who had no need of any
extra aid. Such a thing was unheard of And
on the title we read ; " Printed by W. Strahan."
The book took some years going through the
press, and each sheet was worked off as it was
ready, and the type distributed, so there was no
strain on the establishment. And after all, the
editor is not sure that this Hamilton was Hamil-
ton the printer. " Hamilton was likely Archibald
Hamilton, the printer."
A touch will cause the editor's most ingenious
speculations to topple over in the most curious
way. Thus, when on the eve of his quarrel
with Mr Thrale, Johnson complained that
" Susy had not written, and Miss Thrale had
sent him only one letter," the editor detects
here an early symptom of coldness. Miss
Thrale, mark ! "He does not call her Queeney."
Still he called the other girl "Susy," and turning
over a few pages we find him calling her
" Queeney," or " Queenie," just as usual !
Here is one of the editor's odd speculations —
too unsound, of course. Johnson, when at
Oxford, went with his host, Dr Edwards, to
see his living, which was only five miles off.
" No doubt," the editor says gravely, " they
returned the same day'' We neither doubt nor
assent ; we cannot tell ; nor does it matter.
In default of all knowledge of details of the
visit, the editor sets his imagination to work,
and taking down his Lewis's "Topographical
Dictionary," finds out that "the old Manor
House, which had belonged to Speaker Lenthal,
was still standing." Something could be got
out of this. We are asked to picture Johnson
going over the rooms. "A'o doubt" —yti^hxA
there is doubt — " he was gravely told a story
about Cromwell's visit, and how he concealed
himself, and was let down in a chair,"etc. Gravely
told ! The editor almost fancies that he was by.
Johnson wrote that, as he lived among the
various orders of mankind, he was familiar with
" the exploits, sometimes of the philosophers,
sometimes of the pickpockets." This is plain
enough ; but the editor illustrates it by this
mysterious, oracular utterance, " The tivo orders
sometimes met." This has no bearing on
Johnson's remark. Of course, all classes of
society may, and do "meet" — in the streets,
at pubUc places, etc. But it turns out that the
editor intends to be jocose, for it seems that
when a balloon was going up some noblemen
and gentlemen lost their watches and purses,
and in this way " the two orders sometimes met!'
But even this is inaccurate. For here the two
orders did not meet ; Johnson was speaking of
the "philosophers and pickpockets"; these
were " noblemen and gentlemen."
Whenever lecathcr of any kind is mentioned —
be it fine or bad, '■ rain or shine" — our editor is
certain to start off on a course of minute
meteorological investigations, tracing out not
only what was the weather of the moment, but
what was it before, and what was it after. It
is hard to deal with these things in sober
seriousness ; so genuine, indeed, is Dr B. Hill
in his enthusiasm that he is quite unconscious
of the absurdity. Thus, at the end of August,
'777i Johnson wrote this casual remark from
the country : " The weather was h merveille.''
Then Dr B. Hill starts off on his eccentric
enquiries, and discovers that " the earlier part
of the summer had been very wet" which did
.4 CRITICAL EXAMINATION
57
not matter, as Johnson was dealing with the
latter portion. Our old friend Walpole is then
introduced to confirm this general " wetness,"
though it has to be admitted that by the end
of September, more than a month after Johnson
wrote, "all was lustre and brilliancy.'' This is
likely enough ; for we may conclude, cheerfully,
that at one time it may have been fine and at
another wet. Still he is troubled by the thought
that Johnson had stated that about the middle
of September '' we have at last fine weather — in
Derbyshire " ; but we are reassured by the
news that "the weather in Staffordshire had
been extraordinarily fine nearly three weeks
earlier." This is an odd mania, and we really
do not know what to make of it. It suggests
a comic character in " Money," who is always
remarking that it is "seasonable weather" !
Writing to India, Johnson said piously, and
picturesquely, too : " Prayers can pass the line
and tropics." The editor cannot resist having
his " little joke " here : " Prayers would, appar-
ently, take the longer course round the Cape
of Good Hope." This alone would show little
feeling by Dr B. Hill for the duty he has
undertaken.
Walpole described Dr Birch as " running
about in quest of anything new or old." On
which the editor ; "j% ran about i?i more senses
than one, for he walked round London." How
could he run about if he "walked"? The truth
was, Dr Birch made an interesting peregrination
round London, and this was not "running about
in more senses than one," or in any sense.
Walpole's meaning was figurative. Dr Birch
was ar, ardent antiquary, who, like Boswell,
hunted for information everywhere ; but he did
not actually " run '' as he enquired.
The editor has an odd phobia as to apply-
ing the term "girl" to any one over twenty,
He will not have it. Johnson wrote affection-
ately to his "Tetty": "Now, my dear girl."
The editor objects that " she was past forty or
fifty." On another occasion Johnson called
Hannah More "a saucy girl." Again the
editor interposes ; " She was between thirty
and forty." Surely he must have heard of " an
old girl." But this is sheer trifling. As we
saw, he will not have " boy " either.
And again : " Did you stay all night at Sir
J. Reynolds's," wrote Johnson to Mrs Thrale,
"and keep Miss up again?" Anyone would
understand this. But the editor supplies this
comment : " Miss, who was kept up again, was
Miss Thrale:' And if we are to be so minute,
why alter the sense? Miss was not kept up ;
Johnson merely enquired if she had been.
Once on the tour Johnson described how
there were no seats for the ladies in the boat,
or, as he put it, "accommodations." This
the editor explains in a rather amusing way.
" Johnson commonly says accommodations
where we should say 'conveniences.'" Where
has Dr B. Hill been living all this time ? Should
we, or do we, say this ? On a boating party at
Oxford, for instance, would one of the young
oarsmen announce that there were no " con-
veniences for the ladies.'' For this word "accom-
modation," the editor seems to have an odd
fancy. In another place, we find him lingering
fondly over it, and quoting "who do not obstruct
accommodation," etc., which he explains as
"provision of consideration," with much more.
He sometimes makes wild conjectures —
apparently for the reason that he thinks the
thing ought to be so. Thus we are told : " It
is probable that Mrs Cobb and Mrs Adey, with
their brother, were joint owners of Edial Hall
when Johnson took it for an academy." There
is not the faintest ground for this assertion.
Dr B. Hill must know that it is no more
"probable" that it belonged to these people
5^
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
than that it belonged to the Garricks or to
Walmesley, or to any one else in Lichfield.
Surely every one knows that the " gear" of a
horse means a part, of his harness. But the
editor gravely assures us that " in Johnson's
Dictionary gears signifies 'the traces by which
horses or oxen draw,' " etc.
When Johnson speaks of consulting the
'■Edinburgh Dispensatory," the editor tells us
that "in the Gcntkiiiaifs Magaziiie of 1747 is
advertised the ' Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia,'
edited by \V. Lewis," assuming that this was
the work Johnson consulted. Nothing of the
kind. It was, as Johnson knew, and accin-ately
stated, the " Edinburgh Dispensatory," a well-
known medical work published in 1733, and of
which there are several editions.
It is often almost incomprehensible how Dr
B. Hill can so mistake the meaning of his text.
Johns >n wrote "of the petticoat government he
h d (.ever heard," and of some Shakespeare
discovery, that '"no one had seen the wonders."
To explain the first of these recondite allusions,
the editor refers us to other passages . " I am
iniserable under petticoat government," and,
" See how I li\e when I am not under petticoat
government." But is it not plain that he was
alluding to some story about a friend supposed
to be suffering from female tyranny ? The editor
adds a more amazmg hypothesis : " It is possible
that some political pamphlet ha.A been brouglit
out under that title in imitation of one by
Dunton in 1702." As if people could recall a
pamphlet nearly eighty years old.
And what was the Dramatic Discovery?
According to our editor, these "wonders,"of which
Johnson knew nothing, this dramatic curiosity
of which he was only " told," was neither more
nor less than a ncui book written by Johnson
himself ! — a supplement to his Shakespeare in
two volumes — his own book : a discovery of
which the author was once told by Miss
Lawrence. But it would be foolish to go
further with the matter. Johnson was clearly
speaking of some.portrait, or play, or fabrication
that had just come to light.
Johnson wrote to his dying mother that he
did not think her " unfit to face death," which
leads the editor into this rhapsody : " How
Johnson's truthfulness stands forth here ! Not
flattering at that dread hour ... it is all that
he dared say even to his mother." Considering
that the poor old lady was niiie/v years old, any-
thing in the way of " flattering " her, i.e. holding
out delusive hopes of living, was not likely to
occur to her son or to herself. But, as it was,
Johnson, in the tenderest way, did encourage
her to live : " Endeavour to do all you can for
yourself. Eat as muck as you can'' etc. Even
the grand " truthfulness " which stood forth at
" that dread hour '' did not amount to saying,
"You cannot live," but that he thought she was
well prepared if she should die. What Dr B,
Hill means, after so extolling Johnson for his
blunt truthfulness, by saying " it is all he dared
to say even to his mother," I cannot divine. The
editor then announces, en passant, " Travelling
was then very slow." In proof of which we are
told of a certain nobleman who, travelling in his
coach and six, took two whole days to go ninety
miles. Who was this nobleman? He is not
found in the " Peerage" ; he and his coach and
six exist only in " Tom Jones " ! And good
going it was, considering; for, having six horses,
it was probably a heavy Berline. But Johnson
could have taken the ordinary night coach.
Here is another strange misconception. John-
son wrote to Mrs Thrale : " To-day I went to
look into my places in the Borough." Johnson,
as we know, often associated himself with the
brewery, speaking of it as "ours" — " lue shall
brew," etc. Looking into " my places " surely
.4 CRITICAL EXAMINATION
59
meant something of this kind. The editor tells
us it was " his room,'' or, rather, the " receptacles
in it in the Thrales' -house in the Borough.''
But "places'' is never used in this sense, as
cabinets or drawers, etc. We never heard that
Johnson lived with the Thrales at the Borough,
or that he had a room there, or kept his things
there, though he had a room at Streatham.
The common-sense meaning surely is that he
went round to look at " my places in the
Borough'' — the brewhouse, etc., to see and
report how things were going on. Further,
once writing from Oxford he tells how he
showed some one "the places." He adds, as if
to explain, " I called on Mr Perkins in the
counting-house," another of his " places."
Johnson wrote to one Hollyer, who, according
to Mr Croker, was his cousin. The editor
doubts this. " The tone of his letter is not that
of one who is writing to his first cousin." Now,
here Johnson speaks of his relation Thomas
Johnson, whom he calls " oicr cousin,'' that is,
cousin to both Hollyer and Johnson ; and he
describes him as a " man almost equally related
to both of us." Could anything be clearer?
Dr Burney, it seems, went to Oxford to study
in the libraries, on which important point our
editor, like his hero Jamie, " gangs clean daft."
First, he notes the strange circumstance that it
was the only week in the year in which the library
was shut up. This " shutting up " becomes a very
serious matter, though it does not affect Johnson
or Boswell in any way. At this time "the
inspection was held once a year" ; but we must
note that " a custom had apparently arisen of
closing the library a week beforehand for the
sake of getting ready," etc. Even this informa-
tion is rather speculative, for we are told that
the custom had only apparently arisen. Still,
we must get on as well as we can. It is much
to know that this custom of ''^ dosing for clean-
ing" was actually sanctioned by the statutes of
1813. With such praiseworthy thoroughness
does our editor trace all about this " closing for
cleaning" that he discovers that it is now closed
during the first week of October. And then,
what fee did Dr Burney /aj.? Here, again, the
editor gets no further than an " apparently."
" Apparently the fees were the same at the time
of Dr Burney's visit." And next, who was
librarian at the time of Dr Burney's visit ?
Why, the Rev. J, Price. Then we ramble off
to Dr Beddoes, the reader in chemistry, who
was accused of having lent a copy of Cook's
" Voyages." And all this hotchpot about Dr
Burney having gone to the Bodleian !
Johnson wrote to Taylor these simple words :
" I am moved ; I fancy I shall move again."
The editor is much struck with the word
" moved," and begs our attention to this strange
peculiarity : " Johnson, writing the word at the
end of one line and at the beginning of the next,
divides it ' mo-ved.' " Cest iiiuncnsc !
If there is any one whom Dr B. Hill strives
to lessen, or even to degrade, it is, perhaps,
Johnson himself He is constantly trying to
show that he is inconsistent, unfeeling, etc. In
this connection it is astonishing to find him
charging Johnson with sanctioning bribery and
corruption at elections ! When Thrale lost his
seat Johnson tried to find another for him.
" As seats," he wrote, " are to be had uiithoid
naliiral interest^' he fancied persons might be
found "who transact such affairs." This is
twisted into corruptly purchasing a seat ! And
Johnson, moreover, was falsifying his principles,
for he had written elsewhere : " The statutes
against bribery were intended to prevent up-
starts with money from getting into Parliament."
I should be ashamed to defend Johnson against
such accusations. The meaning of his words
was that there were seats open to persons
6o
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
" without natural interest " ; that is, who were
unconnected with the place. These were
patronage boroughs, and boroughs which might
be glad to have a wealthy citizen like Thrale.
He, moreover, was not an " upstart " with money
to whom the statutes would apply. He had
been in Parliament, and was well known. The
whole is absurd.
On the death of Mrs Thrale's son Johnson
wrote a letter of condolence. ■' Poor Ralph is
gone." She had done her best to save him.
The boy had not suffered much. " Think on
those who are left to you." He then passes on
to other topics. Surely this seems feeling
enough, and sympathetic too. But not enough
for our editor. It is "a strange letter." He
attacks his hero for being so heartless. " The
childless Johnson was ignorant of the feelings
of a parent." But I refer the editor to Johnson's
truly affectionate and condoling letters on the
deaths of the other children (March 25 and 30,
1776), and let him say if Johnson was ignorant
of the feelings of a parent.
Johnson also wrote to her to say that he had
declined a ball and supper. His editor "has
him " here, and wishes to prove him insincere.
" He /i(ui, JioiL'c-i'c-r, attended the Lichfield
Theatre on the day on which the news arrived
of the boy's death." This criticism, again,
shows how little the editor understands human
nature and the course of human actions. To go
to a local theatre in a country town, and where
his relations to the Thrales, and the death itself,
were almost unknown, was a different thing from
going to a ball and supper in London, where it
would seem unbecoming. This is too ele-
mentary for discussion.
" I wish Ralph better," wrote Johnson on
another occasion to Mrs Thrale of her son, and
my master (Mr Thrale) and his boys well."
Could any statement be put in plainer language?
— Ralph was one boy, Harry the other. He
wished Ralph better, and Mr Thrale and his
sons happiness. Yetthus the editor : ^^ Who he
meant by his boys I do not know''
The editor again, eager to catch Johnson
tripping, points out that he had spelt a Mr
Kindersley's name wrongly as " Kinsderley."
It is amusing to find the corrector himself fall-
ing into a blunder of the same kind in the very
act of correction, for he points out that it should
be " Kinsdersley." The bewildered reader is
thus told that Johnson is wrong, and is asked to
substitute what is also wrong. Not content with
this, he tries to set Johnson right on another
point, and with equal success. Johnson spoke
of a book, written by this Mr Kindersley, and the
editor announces that it was by .\/rs Kinders-
ley. But on reading the passage carefully and
quietly, as Dr B. Hill should have done, we find
Johnson saying, '' Mr Kindersley and another
lady" — which clearly shows that he had written
-Airs Kindersley, and that the printer or ■\Irs
Thrale had misread him.
Johnson wrote: " .'\t Lichfield, my native
place, I hope to show a good example by
frequent attendance at church." Most natural,
and most plain too. He lays out his plan, and
gives his reason for it, viz. "to show a good
example." But the editor sees something be-
low. Recalling how Johnson once stood in the
market-place, to e.xpiate his unfilial conduct, he
gravely tells us that he here wished to do an act
of " penance" ! This is incredible, but so it is.
It seems that over sixty years before, when
Johnson was a boy, " he had plavcd truant from
ihunii" and by going to church now, he would
make atonement before his fellow-citizens 1 k%
if the act would have this effect on the Lichfield
folk ! -A.S if they could remember that a little
boy "had played truant from church"! and
above all, as if Johnson would think his regular
^ CRITICAL EXAMINATION
6i
duty of going to church was an act of
penance !
Johnson's house in Lichfield was close to
Sadler Street, and he once alluded pleasantly
to what he calls "the revolutions of Sadler
Street." We cannot tell what these were, but
the editor knows. They were certainly changes
in the local force of watchmen. Cue for the
orchestra ! Did not these watchmen carry
" Bills " ? and did not the editor during '" my
visit to Lichfield" see these actual " Bills.''
Then we have Shakespeare's Dogberry intro-
duced ; and it was curious that Dogberry's men
also had " Bills." They were also carried in
" the Court of Array," which leads on to " the
Statutes of Array." We are then taken — by
heaven knows what concatenation ! — to the city
gaol, which was in a bad state ; and then, as
might be expected, to John Howard. But the
editor cannot shake himself clear of the Watch,
and so we return to them. It seems they
used to be called " dozeners." That word sends
us off to the Isle of Man, where it seems there
are " vintiners.'' Each " vintiner '' had a vin-
iaine, etc. Poor Johnson !
Johnson spoke of a gentleman who had
erected a commemoratory urn to him, and
which he said was like burying him in his life-
time. Dr B. Hill says that Boswell mentions a
Colonel Myddleton, of Wales, who had done
this, but adds that he could not be the person
Johnson spoke of, as the inscription showed
that it was put up after Johnson's death. This
is quite wrong. Boswell is speaking of " the
abundant homage paid to Johnson during his
life," and gives this Myddleton urn as an
instance, with its inscription: "This spot was
often dignified by the presence of, etc., whose
moral writings, etc., give ardour to virtue," etc.
That this was the gentleman referred to by
Johnson, seems all but certain, as it is unlikely
that there would be (wo persons who erected
urns. Further, Johnson heard it through Mrs
Thrale, who was a Welsh woman, and Colonel
-Myddleton was Welsh also, and actually writes
that it was being done, and that it was like
burying him alive.
Johnson wrote of his old friend Mrs Aston,
"as being, I fancy, about sixty-eight. Is it
likely that she will ever be better?" Here the
editor, seeing into Johnson's mind, assures us
that "he was thinkiirg of himself , for sixty-eight
was his own age." How unsophisticated is Dr
B. Hill, and how little does he know of old
people in general, and of Johnson in particular !
As if the latter would fancy that Mrs .-Vston's
case could apply to Iiim. He was always think-
ing, on the contrary, that he would get better,
and he would shut out the notion of their both
being of the same age ; or, if he did think it,
he would, perhaps, lay the flattering unction to
himself that he was the same age, but in vigour
much younger.
Mrs Thrale mentions a visit from a" Mr R "
who, she thought, " would drive her wild." The
editor opines that "he was some schemer or
projector, with designs on Mrs Thrale's purse."
There is nothing to show that the man was a
schemer, or projector, or wanted to get at Mrs
Thrale's purse. So blinded is the editor by his
delusions, that he cannot see that only a few
lines above Johnson tells all about him. Mr
R simply wanted a place ! He had skill
in keeping accounts, and he wished to have
Perkins' office. Johnson thought it was better
to keep Perkins. And out of this the editor
engenders the theory that he wanted to rob or
swindle Mrs Thrale !
The editor notes how in his money difiiculties
Johnson "never turned to Garrick." He adds
in a bewildering way : " Reynolds, moreover,
was in great prosperity, /or he had in 1758 150
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
letters." What is the connection, particularly in
that "moreover" ? So with the odd proof of great
prosperity — ''^ for he had 150 letters." Ecjually
mysterious is how it all proves that Johnson
" never turned to Garrick in his distresses."
Johnson, speaking of a chapel in which were
some gravestones, said : "Without some of the
ancient families . . still continued their
sepulture." Who could fail to understand this ?
Some people buried in the chapel, but the more
ancient families preferred the churchyard. But
no : "What Johnson means by 'without' in this
passage at first sight is not clear}'
He himself will strive to make clearer the
clearest statements. Thus Johnson wrote :
" Boswell wishes to draw me to Lichfield, and,
as I love to travel \\ ith him, I ha\e a mind to
be drawn." But this must be obscure to
readers, the editor thinks, so it is explained to
us : " Boswell, who was returning to Scotland,
)io doubt, wished Johnson to accompany him as
far as Lichfield." No doubt he did. Again,
when Johnson says, as plainly as he can, that
some one " had offered Perkins money, but that
it was not wanted," the editor obligingly tells us
that the person in question "had offered, no
doubt, to advance money to Perkins, if an)' were
needed." These are wonderful " no doubts."
\Vhere ".Air C." is mentioned, the editor,
speculating whether it be Mr Crutchley or Mr
Cator that is intended, always contrives to
mistake. Johnson states that a "Mr C." had
offered Perkins money, but that it was not
wanted. The editor assures us that Cator, who
was one of the executors, "had offered, no
doubt, to advance money to Perkins, but it was
not wanted." Why repeat this bit of informa-
tion which we had already? But it was burely
7iot Cator, as the editor ought to know, for he
presently quotes Miss Bumc;-, \\\iQ says that
Mr Crutchley offered to lend Perkins ^1000.
As the editor takes Cator for Crutchley where
Crutchley was meant, so he takes Crutchley for
Cator where Cator was intended.
Johnson had said : " If he goes to , he
will be overpowered with words as good as his
own." This talker, the editor announces, was
Mr Crutchley, who was one of the trustees. But
Johnson had just complained of another of the
trustees, Mr Cator, who, he said, "speaks with
great exuberance." This was surely the person
Johnson referred to. He sees this Cator every-
where. Thus, when some successful and retired
tradesman complained that he had no power
of talk — " I go to conversations, but I have no
conversation " — this was, of course, Cator, ac-
cording to the editor. But, as we have just
seen, Cator " speaks with great exuberance."
He was a great talker; as Miss Burney says,
'• gives his opinion upon everything." The truth
was, Cator was a man of weight, culture, an
M.P., a person of large fortune, a squire, and,
certainly not "a retired tradesman."
As to Dr Collier's epitaph, Johnson writes :
" Vou may set S S ■ at defiance." " The
S S ," thus the editor objects, "she (Airs
Piozzi 1 says means ' Streatfield,' forgetful of the
final ' s,' " a trivial point at most. But the lady
was perfectly right. "S S " were the
initials of the "nick-name" of the well-known
"Sophy Streatfield," for whom Dr Collier has
such an attachment, and who figures in Miss
Burney's Diary. It was two names, not one.
Dr I!. Hill aflfects a sort of sagacity in "dis-
covering" that a certain letter, without any ad-
dress, was written to Lord Shelburne ; but the
letter itself reveals the name as plainly as if it
were written on it. Johnson distinguishes be-
tween mother and wife— "with Lady Shelburne
I once had the honour," etc. ; " to vour lady I
am a stranger," etc. Plain as a pikestaff.
The strange confusion into which his ^^ild
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
63
guesses lead the editor is well shown by the
following : " Mr was not calamity," wrote
Johnson in June 1783, "it was his sister. I am
afraid the term is now strictly applicable, for
she seems to have fallen some way into obscurity,
I am afraid, by a palsy," etc. To e.xplain which,
the editor refers us, " see post^'' to a letter of
about a fortnight later, in which Johnson wrote:
" Your Bath news shows me new calamities. I
am told Mrs L is left Avith a numerous
family, very slenderly supplied." This, accord-
ing to Dr B. Hill, was the "calamity" referred
to before. But Johnson says ^'■new calamities,"
i.e. one in addition to the other which was an
old one. This Mrs L was Mrs Lewis, the
wife of the Dean of Ossory. Her "calamity"
was being left in poverty ; in the first case, the
calamity was a palsy. They were distinct per-
sons. But, beguiled by his theory, the editor goes
on to entangle himself still more. Johnson later
had recurred to the first case ; he was glad she
was not left in poverty ; her disease was suffi-
cient misery. Again the editor notes, "pro-
bably Mrs L (the Dean's wife) mentioned
ante." Johnson, a year later, speaks of this
palsied lady as not being well. Only at this
stage the editor thought of looking up the date
of the Dean's death, which he found took place
before June 8 ; that is, before the allusion to the
first calamity. So the whole fabric tumbles
down. In this awkward position he tries to
rescue himself by having recourse to his usual
device — the letters were wrongly placed ! .'Vnd
he tries to supply a new and proper date by a
fresh theory equally unfounded. Johnson on
June 5 spoke of Mrs Thrale's pity for "a thief
that had made the gallows idle." He was sorry
for his suicide, but " I suppose he would have
gone to the gallows,' etc. This surely refers to
some common malefactor. But no ; he means
an eminent contractor, one Powell, who had
made free with the public monies and com-
mitted suicide. But we need not consider the
matter further, for the editor himself tells us
that his solution "was possible, though not pro-
bable,'' and finally adds, "it does not seem likely
ilial lie luoiild have been tried on the capilcd
charge."
Johnson wrote that their daily fare at Ash-
bourne was " Toitjours strawberries and cream."
The editor assures us that Johnson was quoting
or adapting the French proverb, " Toiijoiirs pcr-
drix." That proverb is alwa)S quoted to illus-
tnite some monotonous repetitions of the same
person, story, song, or fare ; but Johnson was
merely stating' the literal fact that there was
" always strawberries and cream." More amaz-
ing is the further illustration of this trivial point
by a quotation from Swift on a poet, who, he
says, may ring changes in rhymes and words,
"i^K/ tJie reader i^enerally finds it all pork."
Johnson has strawberries and cream every day,
and so resembles a poet whose rhymes suggest
pork, etc. What does it mean ?
Johnson disapproved of the Royal Marriage
Act because "he would not have the people
think that its validity depended on the will of a
man." This passage, we are told, "puzzled i\Ir
Croker and Mr Lockhart"; why, it would be
hard to say, for nothing could be more intel-
ligible. He consulted his Gentleman'' s Maga-
zine, the following extract from which "throws
light on Johnson's meaning." The Bill would
help the King to change the order of succes-
sion, for, by putting his veto on the proposed
marriage of his eldest son, he could thus "bring
in the yoimger soti." All which is sheer delu-
sion, and a mare's nest, and poor Johnson is
made to talk utter nonsense. He was, of course,
not thinking of such things, but of the religious
question. Marriage was the function of the
Church, and indissoluble, and not to depend on
64
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
the will of a man. When Johnson said "no
man can run away from himself," he was think-
ing, we are told, of the familiar quotation,
" caelum non ani?num" etc. Every scholar
will supply the true line, which is even more
hackneyed, "Patrice quis exul se quoque fugit."
When Johnson writes to Mrs Thrale of the
polling at Oxford, the editor supplies us with a
long analysis of the voters, and finally tells us
that " only fourteen had two Christian names ;
not quite one in thirty-five." Is childish too
strong a word for this sort of " information " ?
There is a delightful "charactcristical" note
on " Mussels and Whilks." Johnson on one
occasion writes that " I saw mussels and
whilks." Most people would know what these
words meant. But we must go far deeper.
"Johnson only gives this word (whilk) inci-
dental/y in his Dictionary." Wise Johnson !
The next best thing is to look out the word
welk, under " to welk." Our editor tells us
" Whilk is used for a small shell-fish." Further,
whelk Johnson defines as (i), an inequality, a
protuberance ; (2\ a pustule, and so on.
The editor has, as he fancies, discovered two
blunders of the late Mr John Forster's, in his
popular " Life of Goldsmith." Knowing how
this admirable critic and correct writer was dis-
tinguished for accuracy and knowledge of his
subject, I was certain — before examination even
— that these charges would pro\e unfounded.
And so it turned out. There was one Cooke, a
friend of Goldsmith's, whom Mr Forster de-
scribed as a young Irish law student, living
near Goldsmith in the Temple. Now, as Gold-
smith, the editor tells us, did not reside in the
Temple till 1763, and as Cooke was old enough
to have published his " Hesiod" in 1728, and to
have found a place in the " Dunciad," poor foolish
Mr Forster must have been quite astray in his
facts. But the editor has confounded an English
Thomas Cooke, who lived near the beginning of
the century, with a William Cooke of Cork, who
was alive in 1820 — a personage that Dr B. Hill
ought to have heard of. This is a serious blunder.
He then deals with Mr Forster's other mistake,
of confusing "Moore the Fabulist," better known
as the writer of "The Gamester," with Dr Moore,
the author of "Zeluco." Well, we turn to the
text of " The Life," and find, to our astonish-
ment, that Mr Forster was speaking oi Edward
Moore (who was the "fabulist"), and not of Dr
John Moore of "Zeluco" fame. So there could
be no possible foundation for this rather wanton
charge ; but I at last discovered that in the
Index Moore was described as the author of
"Zeluco." Mr Forster, as I learned from him-
self, did not prepare his own indexes, and I
recollect his telling me he was not satisfied with
the index to "The Life." The author is fairly
only accountable for his text. Of course, had
he, like Dr B. Hill, prepared his own monu-
mental index, a volume strong, he would be
chargeable.
When the Hebridean Tourists were proceed-
ingfrom Montrose to Laurencekirk, they crossed
a certain bridge. They little dreamed what a
mysterious incident was occurring close by.
The editor's note is so astonishing that I must
give it in full. He begins: "James Mill was
born on April the 6th, 1773, at Northwater
Bridge, Parish of Logie, Pert, Forfar. The
bridge was on the great central line of com-
munication from the North of Scotland. The
hamlet is right and left of the road. Bain's
' Life of iMill,' p. i. Boswell and Johnson, on
the road to Laurencekirk, must have passed by
close to the cottage in ivliicti he was lying., a
baby 7iot five months old.'' Observe, not even
John Stuart Mill, but the more obscure Jaraes.
Nor is there even a certainty that he was "lying
there a baby." And what had it all to do with
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
Johnson or Roswell, who in their lives must
have passed numbers of places where more or
less obscure people were " lying as babies ?"
Surveying- the ruins at St Andrews, Johnson
pronounced that it was "a sorrowful scene,"
and very naturally, for these were devastated
churches. The editor tells us; "One sorrowful
scene Johnson 'xa.% pe?-haps too late in the year to
see." And what was this ? — a death ? — illness?
Why, nothing but some broken windows in one
of the colleges !
There is a critical instinct that comes of
familiarity with turns of thought and charac-
ter, and which almost infallibly guides us to the
meaning. '• Davies,'' Johnson wrote, "has had
great success as an author, generated by the
corruption of a bookseller,'' a pleasant sarcasm,
which is surely intelligible. He means that
the success of the authorship was owing to the
knowledge of the " tricks of the trade," or that the
authorship was of the inferior sort that might be
expected from a crafty bookseller. The editor
can see nothing of this. Johnson intended to
point at Davies having been a bankrupt! There
was "the corruption of the bookseller." With
this interpretation Johnson's saying becomes un-
meaning, for there is no corruption in bank-
ruptcy as regards authorship. Moreover,
Davies's bankruptcy had occurred some years
before.
Johnson wrote to his friend Taylor that a Dr
Wilson " can have no money," etc. Here is a
specimen of the fashion in which Dr B. Hill
will mistake the plain meaning of a passage.
"Taylor," he says, "might have had some dis-
pute" with Wilson. But the passage is clear —
Wilson had a dispute, not with Taylor, but with
a "Mr B." Johnson writes that the case is clear on
Mr B.'s side, and Taylor intervening had merely
drawn up some paper to help his friend, which
Johnson praised. The editor tells us also, in refer-
ence to Taylor's cparrel with his wife : "Boswell
seems to have known nothing of this matter."
What ! Boswell, who went on visits to Taylor
with Johnson, who talked over his affairs with
Johnson, and who was inquisiti\c enough —
would he not have asked about Taylor's wife ?
.-\s Taylor was alive, and helped him in his
work, he was naturally silent on this delicate
point.
When comforting Mrs Thrale on the loss of
her husband, Johnson wrote : " Whom I have
lost let me not now remember." Who could mis-
take the meaning? "You have lost your hus-
band, but see all / ha.ve lost — losses I dare not
think of" That is to say, his own wife, his
mother, etc. Then he added that others had
suffered also — "Lucy Porter has just lost her
brother." But no ; he was thinking of Thrale,
whom he wished not even to "now remember,"
though he was at the moment remembering
him, and dwelling on his merits.
Some of the editoi''s facetious comments are
not very intelligible. Mrs Thrale wrote of her
husband that "he had not much heart, and his
fair daughters none at all." This, the editor
good-naturedly says, " she recorded, or prc-
tendeei Xo record, in her journal." The eldest of
his five daughters, he adds, was sixteen, and the
youngest only two years old. Every one knows
that there are affectionate children, even at these
ages, as well as heartless ones, or there are in-
dications of these qualities. We have then this
mysterious utterance concerning the youngest :
" She died two years later — not five years old —
and ivithout a heart" ! I cannot guess what this
means.
Dr B. Hill is a rather indifferent hand at
translation. Witness his dealing with the
familiar ^^ otnne ignotuni pro magnifico,'' which
means that " everything unknown is taken to
be splendid." But the editor has it, " the un-
66
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
known always passes for something peculiarly
grand." Macaulay's "form boy" would surely
do better than this.
Johnson once visited a toyshop. We are
actually furnished in a note with his definition of
a toyshop, taken from the Dictionary, '' a shop
where playthings and little nice manufactures
are sold."
THE EDITOR AND MRS PIOZZI.
Dr B. Hill's animosity to Mrs Piozzi, and
indeed to most of the ladies who figure in his
chronicle, is extraordinary. She was a forger,
a fabricator of letters, and a clumsy fabricator
too. For his chavyes there is hardly any
foundation, save in his own morbid imaginings.
There seems a lack of literary propriety in thus
assailing a pleasant, volatile woman, whose little
failings were more or less privileged, and were
treated indulgently by one greater than the
editor. What will be said of this ? When her
husband was ill she used to write his " franks "
for him. In this, the editor actually assures us
solemnly, she was guilty of felony, " and had
incurred the penalty of seven years' transporta-
tion (vide Gentleman's Magazine, 1764)," for
in 1783, a young gentleman was sentenced for
this very ofifence. The reader need not be
reminded that the cases were utterly different,
the felony of the latter being the imitating a
member's name with some criminal intent,
either to defraud the revenue or the member
in question. Mrs Piozzi did it, of course, with
her husband's sanction, as an amanuensis. But
it is childish discussing such a point.
On another occasion, in January 1783, she
had written from Bath a distracted letter as to
her children — " Harriet is dead, Cicely is dying,"
— on which the editor with much scorn : " Why
she had left her dying child, and the other who
was thought to be dying, to strangers to nurse
she forgot to say." I can inform Dr B. Hill.
One of her children was not dying, but had died
some time before ; for Johnson says, " I am glad
you went to Streatham, though you could not
save her," — so she had not left her to strangers.
The other child was at school at Kensington,
and the reason the mother was not with her
was that she herself was most seriously ill, as
on getting into the chaise she was obliged to
give up her journey to go back to her room.
In his ardour to prove the lady a " fabricator"
of her own letters, the editor gets into strange
confusion. Johnson had written a letter to Airs
Thrale, dated September 13, 1777, as to which
the editor pronounces authoritatively, "This
must be an answer to one of hers, dated five
days later," that is, of September 18. So she
had either misplaced the letter or altered or
mistaken the date. He proves it in this way.
In his letter of the 13th Johnson spoke of
Queenie, and that she had no consumptive
symptoms ; Mrs Thrale was not to be alarmed,
etc. He adds, " You must not let foohsh fancies
take hold on your imagination." In this, Dr B.
Hill contends, Johnson refers to her letter of
the 1 8th, where she had spoken of their alarm on
finding they had " sat down thirteen to table."
He also mentioned a lady's son who was
in danger, a real evil, not an imaginary one.
A CRITICAL nXAMINATION
67
as was Queenie's case Having in a pre-
ceding letter, dated the 8th, written of this lady
and her son, he now conies back to the subject
and moralises, adding, " Now I write again,
having just received your letter dated the loth."
Thus here are three letters in regular order —
the 8th, loth, and 13th, all dealing with the
same topic. It is clear, therefore, so far that
the letter of the 13th is in its right place.
Now for Mrs Thrale's answer of the i8th, which
it is said should have come before Johnson's of
the 13th. She writes that on the 17th they had
sat down to table thirteen — a bad omen for
Queenie — and Murphy had noted her hectic
complexion. Hence the argument is that
Johnson had answered that it was a "foolish
fancy,'' that there was no danger of consump-
tion, etc. But this is clearly an answer to Mrs
Thrale's of the loth (not gnven), in which, as we
have seen, she had shown alarm.
But let us read the two letters, Johnson's
and Mrs Thrale's, which follow each other, but
are said to be misplaced. What will be said to
this ? At the end of Mrs Thrale's letter of the
i8th, she writes, " Mr Thrale is cured of his
passion for Lady R.," and Johnson answers
her on the 20th, " Master is vei'y inconstant to
Lady R." In the same letter he writes, "Pretty
dear Queenie, I hope you will never lose her,
though I should go to Lichfield and she should
sit thirteenth in many a company.'' Mrs Thrale
had written on the i8th that something always
happened when he went to Lichfield, and
Johnson replies that she would still live though
he did go to Lichfield, and she did sit thirteenth
at many a table. Then Mrs Thrale writes,
" How could I write so much, and from Streat-
ham ? " and Johnson answers, " You have no-
thing to say because you live at Streatham, and
expect me to say much, etc." Thus here are
four topics mentioned by Mrs Thrale, with four
replies by Johnson. Surely his letter of the 20th
is an answer to hers, and should not be placed
before hers, as Dr B. Hill contends. The editor's
speculation is therefore all wrong.
Dr B. Hill sometimes does not seem to under-
stand or recognise the sage's turn of thought.
Johnson wrote to Mrs Thrale that he had been
much entertained by Bozzy's "Journal" : " One
would think the man had been hired to be a spy
upon me.'' Surely this is " a pointed " utterance,
forcible, Johnsonian, and quite in character,
Wonderful to say, Dr B. Hill will not have it.
But how did it get into one of Johnson's letters ?
Why, the woman forged it ! Such is the critical
faculty of our editor.
In one of Johnson's printed letters are found
the words "futile pictures,'' A^hich refer to Miss
Knowles's embroideries. It was contended that
what he really wrote was "sutile pictures." "This
initial s, being always formed like any^ was here
absurdly taken for one." Thus the editor.
The point is a little perplexing, and it will
be seen, quite escapes Dr B. Hill, who rather
clouds the matter by the misstatement that
Johnson always used this particular s at the
beginning of a word. " Sutile " is certainly what
one might expect Johnson to say ; but here is
the difficulty. The long s, which resembles an
f is used by Johnson only in the middle of a
word, and indeed is almost always used by other
writers with the double j. In the facsimile letter
supplied by Dr B. Hill we have the small s used
four or five times by Johnson at the beginning
of a word, as in " safely," " succeed," " separate,"
" so," and the long s used in the middle, as in
" youi'self." This seems almost conclusive, and
at least disposes of the editor's statement that
Johnson's " initial s was always formed like an
/." There was no absurdity therefore in the case.
One writer says that he had seen the original,
and this "dark line had been put across the
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
letter perhaps by the printer or corrector." But
this again is doubtful enough. Printers or cor-
rectors do not thus alter original MS. Again, if
"sutile" is Johnsonian, so is "futile." For to
him these pictures thus worked or embroidered
would seem a "futile" occupation enough.
Johnson appealed to friends to support " a
benefit for a gentlewoman of " — the name of
the place being illegible. The editor thinks that
the word "is something like Lournitz," which,
he speculates, "is perhaps the nameof the place
in South Wales whence Miss Williams came."
Thus it may be Lournitz ; and Lournitz may be
the place from which Miss Williams came. But
apart from these two wonderful "may he's," a
"gentlewoman of Lournitz" would be no claimfor
relief The word was clearly descriptive. "A
gentlewoman of position " or of good birth, for
the next words are " distressed by blindness."
JOHNSONIAN MISCELLANIES.
Dr B. Hill, having disposed of Boswell's
"Life" and Johnson's "Letters," was engaged
on what was to be " the work of my life," an
edition of Johnson's masterpiece, the " Lives of
the Poets," when Mr Leslie Stephen interposed,
and somewhat adroitly suggested that he should
turn aside and take up the noting of something
less pretentious. Was there not Murphy,
Hoole, Tom Tyers, Piozzi & Co., and such
small fry? Why not note tlicm ? The editor
eagerly accepted the suggestion. Hence these
miscellanies. It seems these were ready three
years ago. An impatient public was clamour-
ing all the time for the work ; and though we
are told of "the necessity of passing all my
winters abroad, on the banks of the Lake of
Geneva, or on the shores of the Mediterranean,"
he felt it a duty to satisfy these desires. For an
editor, " hoiULVer he may be supported by tlic
climate" has in such a situation to struggle
with difficulties. This support of the climate is,
after all, but a negative one when you are writing
or noting a book, and no amount of climatic
aid will supply other deficiencies. There was
no need, however, for such pressing haste, for
this collection has virtually been before the
public for some forty years, and in another
shape for some ten years, Mr Croker having
supplied us with his well-know-n and now scarce
" Johnsoniana," which Mr Napier reprinted.
Dr B. Hill, as usual, enlarges, with great
minuteness, and in rather pathetic fashion, on
"the difficulties'' above alluded to, notably about
the history of a certain " box of books," Dr B.
Hill's own working tools, \\ithout which he is
stranded. The box contained, we may imagine,
Walpole — himself a boxful — the Rambler, and
the other necessary things. It was "despatched
from London to Alassio on the Ri-\'iera," where
they were anxiously awaited. " It was not till full
five weeks after my arrival that they reached
me. Fifty-nine days had they spent" on the
road. This was \ery bad, and it tells the tale of
railway neglect sufficiently. But in the bitter-
ness of his soul our editor makes some further
dismal calculations. "They had advanced at
the rate of about three-quarters of a mile an
hour. They were taken to Clarens, on the
>; CRITICAL EXAMINATION
69
Lake of Geneva," and so on. True, there were
other boxes of books which ''used to creep at a
somewhat faster pace"; and the whole culmin-
ates in the assurance that " the Kentish carrier,
who, leaving Rochester betimes, delivered that
same day a gammon of bacon and two razes of
ginger as far as Charing Cross, was making
more expedition." With all this, of course,
Johnsonian readers have no concern. 'Tis a
matter of " reclamation" to the railway autho-
rities, but, as we know by this time, it is the
editoi-'s way. It is his way also not to see that
the case of the Shakespeare carriers does not
illustrate his case, for to carry goods from
Rochester to Charing Cross some forty miles,
and in the one day, was "good going."
Gibbon, we are assured, when he brought
over his great library to Lausanne, hardly suf-
fered more than our editor did with his box of
books.
The editor has an uneasy feeling that there
are cavilling fault-finders, who, in their scurvy
way, are ready to detect flaws : so he promptly
" takes the bull by the horns " in a new and
highly ingenious fashion. Mistakes, of course,
there are ; but it is all owing to the pernicious
system of printing books that now obtains.
"The imperfections of a work such as this is,
are often more clearly seen by tlie editor than by
the most sharp-^\'^\.tA. critic." An ingenious
turn, as who should say, " I knew it all the
time, and much better than you^ " Mistakes are
discovered too late for correction, but not for
criticism." There, we see, is the grievance,
which can only be remedied in this way : "Were
the whole book in type, and cost of no moment,
what improvements could be made." In fact,
our editor would like to begin the whole work
of rewriting when the proofs were in his hands.
Give him but a free hand then, and all will be
well. As he tells us, " I have never yet finished
an index without wishing that, by the help of it,
I could edit and re-edit m)' work."
]5ut by a hard fate, these things arc not
permissible. Cost is of moment ; and the
directors of the Clarendon Press would decidedly
object to what the editor so gently terms, "im-
provements being made." The odd part of all
this is, that three-fourths of the volumes are all
secure from correction, having been written by
other people, and possibly three-fourths of the
notes are quotations ; so what the "pother" is
about it is hard to say. True, old-fashioned,
behind-date writers contrive to do with a system
of writing the book before it goes to the printer ;
they alter, write, and rewrite, have it copied
and typed, with the result that tliey do not
want to alter anything when the print is before
them.
Notwithstanding "the support of the climate,"
the editor has committed many mistakes, which
I shall now proceed to point out, for the book
teems with the old faults of misapprehension,
delusion, and hurried and imperfect reference,
and for which the difficulties of the situation
are hardly accountable. To begin, there is a
quotation from Gibbon, the point of which is
mistaken; "Tillemont's accuracy," says the
editor in his preface, " may, as Gibbon says, be
inimitalile; but none the less, inspired by the
praise which our great historian bestows on
mere accuracy, a scholar should never lose the
hope of imitation." It may be presumed that
the editor refers to the note in chapter xlvii., when
Gibbon writes, " And here I must take leave
for ever of the incomparable guide, whose
bigotry is over-balanced by the merits of
erudition, diligence, veracity, and scrupulous
minuteness." Now here "our great historian"
wrote that Tillemont was " incomparable," not
" inimitable," a different thing, and he gave him
70
A CRITICAL ilXAMINATiON
praise, not for his mere " accuracy," but for other
admirable gifts. The editor's point was that he
might "imitate" ; that word changed, his point
is gone.
The editor tells us how "Joseph Andrews"
had been translated into Russian, which leads
on to this truly mysterious announcement.
"Strangely enough" — we should here naturally
expect something about English books in Russia
— " strangely enough, a railway station is called
in Russian I'aiix/ia//, after the famous Gardens
in ," — ^vhcre shall we suppose? — "/«
Chelsea " / Joseph Andrews, railway station,
and the \'auxhall Gardens in Chelsea !
But here is an astonishing misapprehension.
Johnson said, when on his deathbed, " I should
have roared for my book as Othello did for his
handkerchief" E\cry one at all familiar with
the play will know this passage, \iz. that in
scene h-., act iii., where Othello answers Desde-
mona again and again with, "The handker-
chief! The handkerchief!" This was the
"roaring for" — that is, demanding incessantly
the article. But no, the editor thinks only of
the word "roar," not of the thing, and seriously
assures us that " Johnson refers to act v.,
scene ii., where Emilia says to Othello, ' Now lay
thee down and roar,' " that is, invites him to roar,
which he does not do. In this state of things
some sort of misgiving occurs to the editor that
he is not going right, so he insinuates that it was
Johnson who was wrong ; for "it ^^•as not for the
handkerchief that Othello roared, as he did not
as yet know the trick that had been played
him" ! But Johnson was referring to the passage
where he did roar.
Among Johnson's visitors when he was dying
was a IVIrs Davies, whose name is mentioned
several times by Hoole, and spelt in that wa\'.
No one could doubt that the wife of Tom Davies,
the bookseller, was meant. But the editor
opines : " Most probably she was the Mrs
Davzj- that \\'as 'about Mrs Williams.'" But
i\lrs Williams had now been dead nearly two
years, so this person was not likely to be there.
Further, Mrs Davies dined with Johnson and
his friends, and seemed to be treated as a lady.
Tom Davies also, her husband, was writing to
the dying sage at the time, sent him pork, etc.,
and naturally sent his «ife to see him. I am
not surprised that the editor at last falteringly
adds : " Perhaps, howe\ er, she was the wife of
Tom Davies.''
With the plain meaning of a passage "leap-
ing to his very eyes," the editor will rather per-
versely seize on some erratic meaning. " I
wrote," said Johnson to G. Steevens, "the first
line " (of a poem) " in that small house beyond
the church [at Hampstead]." " By enclosing
Hampstead in brackets," explains the editor,
" he apparently wishes to show that it was there
that Johnson told him the fact." This is surely
not the meaning ; it was to show where the
"small house" and church were, and not the
place ^^■here Johnson was speaking in. He might
have used the phrase " in that small house," in
London itbclf.
Here is an excursus on Johnson's putting a
lump of sugar in his glass of port wine. Did
he do this or did he not ? " It is not to be
supposed that when he drank his three bottles
of port at University College, he put a lump of
sugar into every one of his thirtv-six glasses''
Granted ; but the reason is the odd one,
not that there are not anything like thirty-six
glasses in three bottles, or that he only took this
sugar "sometimes," but "no O.xford common-
room would have stood it'' Further, and what
is a more serious thing, " Boswell makes no
mention of this sugar."
Johnson, as we know, was displeased with
Garrickfornot helping him in his "Shakespeare,"
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
71
by lending him early editions, and made no
mention of him in the preface. "He did worse,''
says the editor— always ready to have a fling- at
the sage— "than not mention him. He reflected
on him, though not by name, 'as a not very
communicative collector of rare copies.'" This
is rather a perversion of the text ; for Johnson
had spoken generally. " I have not found the
collectors of such rarities very communicative."
There is a class of persons named, and there is
not the invidiousness that Dr B. Hill would
make out. Further, the point whether the books
were refused to Johnson was disputed by the
owner.
Hannah More reported a good story of
Johnson's and Boswell's enthusiasm on passing
by Macbeth's "blasted heath,'' and finding next
morning that it was a mistake, and not the
actual scene. He himself told this to her.
"There seems to be some mistake in her
narrative,'' says the editor, who then quotes
passages from the "Journey" and "Tour," to
prove how the travellers had actually driven over
the very heath, and got to Forres, etc. Surely
this does not affect the story. They had mistaken
the locality first, and later came to the true
place. On such occasions Dr B. Hill seems to
get befogged.
Here is a mysterious gloss. Johnson w rites
that, " I then went to Streatham and had many
stops,'' z>. either interruptions or baitings by the
way. The editor, however, sees deeper. " 1
conjecture that he means obstructions or impedi-
ments in the mind, part of what he calls ' my old
disease of mind.' " Curious " stops " these I
In a letter of Johnson's, the editor tells us, " 1
suspected the words, ' most sincerely yours,'
for I had never known it thus used by Johnson."
.A. very fair criticism. Scrutinising the original
MS., he found that the words were " not clear,
but I belieye that it is ' zealously yours.' "
Who will conceive of the sage signing himself
"zealously yours"? And surely the editor
ought to "suspect" these words also— for his
own reason, that he had never known them
used by Johnson, or by any one else in the
world.
The editor, making one of his "discoveries,"
calls attention to three letters of Johnson's, which
he got from Mr Pearson, the autograph dealer,
and elaborately proves that they were written to
Richardson, the novelist. But a single glance
will show it. " I wish," No. 2 runs, "Sir Charles
(Grandison) had not compromised it in the
matter of religion.'' It also asks for an
account of "the translations of 'Clarissa' which
you hai'L\" and speaks of new volumes coming
out, " Grandison " being published in instal-
ments.
A Hibernian gentleman was once extolling
his countryman Burke, and e.xpatiated on his
going down into the bowels of the earth in a
bag, and how he took care of his clothes, for he
" went down in a bag." In short, it was "Burke
in a bag," as Johnson ludicrously put it. All
which is absurd enough ; but the editor must
caution us. " The bag, apparently, was not the
vehicle in which he went down, but a covering
for his clothes.'' Only " apparently " ? There
is no doubt of it. The editor is fearful lest there
be persons who imagine that the great orator
was let down in "a vehicle" formed of a bag,
much as coals or flour would be sent down. So
anxious is he to prevent mistake, that he looks
out in his Dictionary the word "sack," which
has not been introduced at all, and tells us that
" sack was used for a woman's loose robe." Still
bag is not sack, and a woman's loose robe is not
a bag ; and this was a bag pure and simple.
The editor is puzzled by a phrase of Johnson's,
" by a catch." " I do not know," he says, " in
what sense he uses this word. Perhaps he
72
.4 CRITICAL EXA.1f/NAT/0N
means by a sudden impulse, by something that
caught hold of him." It is curious that so
thorough a Johnsonian should not recall
another occasion when the same word was
used : " God Almighty will not take a catch of
him " — that is, will not take him by surprise ;
take an unfair advantage of him.
A poor woman is described in the text as
" sitting shivering in a niche" of the old West-
minster Bridge. This is surely inteUigible —
these niches with seats are still to be seen on
Vauxhall and other bridges. But this is not
enough. To prevent all mistake, the editor
begins with a definition of " niche," taken from
the Dictionary. "Johnson defines 'niche' as a
hollow in which a statue may be placed"!
Though in the case of the bridge there were
seats, for the woman \^•as sitting there. The
editor, who seems to think that the poor woman
had no business to be there at all, in a place
which Dr Johnson had proved was intended for a
statue, now introduces from Dodsley's "Account
of London "a passaiie about these very recesses,
which, he says, states that they were " intended
to be filled with groups of statuary." The woman
must now really move on. But having Dodsley's
work on my own shelves — an entertaining book
— I took it down, and read, to my astonishment,
not that these recesses were intended for statues,
but that ^^ bct-wccn the recesses zxe pedestals"
on which groups of statuary w ere to be placed.
So the whole niche speculation utterly fails.
Another odd mistake. In 1765 Johnson
wrote down, " I read my resolutions." The
editor fancies that he was thinking of some old
resolutions made thirteen years before, "perhaps
the resolutions made when his wife lay dead
before him." Nothing of the kind. Turning
back to only Xki^ preceding page, we find them :
" ]\Ty resolutions, which God perfect," i.e. " to
avoid loose thoughts and rise at light."
At Pembroke College Johnson, showing his
old haimts and going o\er the place, pointed
out the old scenes : " Here we played cricket,"
etc. This is not by the card. "Johnson must
have pointed to a field outside the college ^xt-
cmCiS, for wit ki?t tlicre ivas 710 room for cricket!''
A needless caution. It would have occurred to
no one that cricket was played " within the
precincts," i.e. in a courtyard.
Every one knows the story of how Johnson
knocked down his bookseller, Osborne, with
a folio. The scene took place in Johnson's
own room. It is not of much importance what
the volume was, but Nichols identified it
as a copy of the Septuagint. But the editor
has a fancy which must be introduced. It
seems that Osborne had made Johnson a
present of a " Second Folio Shakespeare" : and
the editor has the fantastic notion that either by
design or chance, Johnson had used this tome
to terniser his visitor ! True, he hesitates
somewhat, for " it is scarcely likely that Osborne
w ould have brought it to Johnson, as schoolboys
used to provide birch rods, with which they
were beaten." But this "conceit," such as it is,
seemed m> takint; and pleasant, that we find
him in another work stating more positively,
"in the yood old days in the grammar schools
the unhappy culprit was often required to
provide a birch rod, etc. Might not Osborne
in like manner have provided a folio with which
he was to be knocked down?" Now we have
heard in schools of boys ha\ing to ask for punish-
ment, and it may be to fetch the birch rod, but
it may be doubted if there \^■as ever a custom
of the boys being sent out to purchase a birch
rod 1 But this by the way. Then as to Nichols,
who was so positive? All a mistake, for the
editor has seen the sale catalogue of Johnson's
books, and there was no Septuagint among them ;
so he still clings to his " Second Folio Shake-
.-/ CRITICAL EXAMINATION
73
speare." This interesting relic has come into
the fitting- hands of Sir Henry Irving, who is
an accomplished virtuoso, and he has written
to the editor on the subject ; so " niay it not be
that Sir Henry Irving's treasure is tlie great
/tistorie folio .^" It certainly may not by any
manner of means be. For, after all his doubts
and speculations, the editor knows perfectly
where the book is to be found. " A Greek
Bible, I must admit, was left b)' him to a friend,"
surely a sufficient reason for his not finding it
in the sale catalogue. It is described in the
will as " Michelius' Greek Testament" (the
name should be fFichelius), and this was be-
queathed to his friend Strahan. Nichols also
names a Greek Testament, so the proof is
strong and complete. Dr B. Hill murrain's
something about its being unlikely that so
correct a man " would have made so profane a
use" of the sacred volume — another "conceit."
We sometimes "startle" (" Bozzy's" good word)
at a phrase of our editor, as when speaking of
Dr Hawesworth, who had committed suicide on
the ill success of his book, he says ; " .A. man
who had received ^6000 for a mere compilation
was scarcely justified in putting an end to his
life." Scarcely justified ! Not orthodo.x this. But
we are relieved on finding that it was a sort of
mild joke. "He should have left suicide to his
publishers, who were great losers." This jesting
is out of place.
Here is a sort of discovery — or "no discover)"
rather, for the editor's elucidation of a knotty
point is, as usual, all wrong. .A. young lady
of much personal charm, it was stated, had
perpetrated a solecism, " for all her father
is now become a nobleman, and excessively
rich.'' Who was the young lady, and who
the nobleman ? " Perhaps Lord Sandys," the
editor tells us, " who became a nobleman
the year after his marriage." Now at once we
can see that he is astray in this speculation.
For the young lady was described as grown up
when her father became a nobleman ; whereas,
if it be Lord Sandys, she could only have been
just born when he liccame a nobleman. We
need not, therefore, go any further, Icaxing
Dr li. Hill thus to dispose of his own theory.
Who was the dying Jenny ? Johnson in
one of his note-books mentions this person,
for whom he paid 5s. 3d. to a clergyman
to attend on her last sickness. " Was she
some poor outcast like the one he had carried
home," etc. She A\as probably some retainer
or maid-servant, which is all that any one would
wish to know — if so much. But the editor, in
his preface, bewails his fate in not being able to
" throw light," as he puts it, on the great matter.
"Who was dying Jenny?" It does not matter.
Even did we know, we should not gain much.
The editor generally contrives, where he has
a choice, to select the wrong thing. Johnson
had said that "Greek was like lace ; every one
gets as much of it as he can." A capital illustra-
tion and intelligible too. Most ladies are proud
of their bit of old lace, "point," or Brussels ; it
is cherished, and seems to give a sort of distinc-
tion. People of c\en moderate taste will be
glad "to get as much of it as they can," and it
will fetch a fancy price. But our editor assures
us gra\ ely that the lace Johnson was speaking
of was the common cheap gold lace or braid
found on gentlemen's coat-cuffs and collars !
Amazing ! A thing that is of no value at all I
Imagine people "getting as much" of this stuff
as they can ! Then he must furnish cjuotations
from " Irene," Ruddiman, Lord Chesterfield,
Joseph Andrews, and Jeremy Bentham to pro\e
— what ? That gold lace was worn in those days !
"Nor were our conversations," says Hawkins,
"like that of the Rota Club, restrained to," etc.
On which the editor : " Hawkins, / suppose,
74
.-; CRITICAL EXAjVINATION
refers to the Rota Club, in which," etc. Of
course he does, for he says he does.
The editor is always rather weak when he
would be sarcastic. Mr Cradock mentions a
dinner at which were the Duke of Cumberland
and Johnson, which Mr Croker is inclined to
doubt. " It is hardly possible that Dr Johnson
should have met the Duke of Cumberland with-
out Boswell having mentioned it." This was
reasonable criticism enough. But hearken
further. Dr B. Hill : " Mr Croker forgets that
there are men who can dine with a Duke, and not
boast of it^' Whodenidges of it ? No one could
suppose that Johnson would boast of meeting
great folk, and Mr Croker did not suppose it. But
how natural that Johnson would tell '' Bozzy"what
he thought of so remarkable a personage as the
Duke of Cumberland. His account would have
been a most interesting one, and to none more
so than to Dr B. Hill.
There is one word that the editor has \ainly
looked for in the great Dictionary, viz.
" Spavined." Most readers know what a
spavined animal is, and most readers would
be content to know that it meant a disease in a
horse's leg. True, the editor admits plaintiA-ely,
" He only gives 'spavin.'" That surely will do
us very well, and help us on to " spa\ ined."
The editor is inclined to depreciate Reynolds,
who, as the world knows, w-a% the most amiable,
engaging, and popular of men. He was an
admirable family man, affectionate, kind, chari-
table. But to our astonishinent, the editor
announces that " he seems to have had but
little sympathy with his sisters." By way of
establishing this, he quotes an abusi\e letter
from one, a Mrs Johnson, who cast him off
because he would not be " converted," and re-
pent of his sins. It is also stated that this lady
refused his offer to take her son and teach him
his own art — an odd way of his showing "little
sympathy." " Renny," the other sister, lived
with him for many years, until her " tiresome
fidgetiness," Miss Burney tells us, and general
nagging, made them part company. She then
proposed that he shoukl give up his house at
Richmond to her, to be her property, though
she would allow him to use it — a proposal he
rejected, from his " little sympathy." Again,
Reynolds had invited Boswell to dine with him
at Painters' Stainers' Hall, " as you love," he
said, " to see life in all its modes. I will (call
for you) about two ; the blackguards dine at half
an hour after." From which the editor extracts
the theory that Reynolds, who dined always at
five, was exasperated at having to go and dine
at two ! that he used " strong language " in con-
sequence, " perhaps owing to his vexation at
losing two or three hours of his working day."
And further, " none of his hours were spent in
idleness, or lost in dissipation." All which is a
dream, and disposed of by the fact that Reynolds
could have dechned the invitation if he chose ;
that he was so willing to go that he brought a
friend with him ; that he used no " strong "
lanyuaye, for b\' " blackguards" he humorously
alluded to the fraternity to which he himself
belonged, or to the inferior branch of the pro-
fession. .'\.s to none of his hours " being spent
in idleness, or lost in dissipation," if this refers
to a dinner, it is notorious that he dined out,
and spent much time at the club, at Garrick's,
and -was, in fact, rccliercltc everywhere.
Johnson's happy jest on the conge d'cUrc leads
the editor to a general examination of this thorny
subject. He must first, of course, hurry to his
"Johnson's Dictionary," and after a due defini-
tion of the words, takes us next to- but no one
will guess whither— to the Dr Hampden of
modern times — the well-known Bishop of Here-
ford ! \\'e ha\e his case and his conge ifc'lire,
Lord John Russell's letter, and details of the
A CRITICAL EXAMINATIOM
75
case generally. Not content with this, he
follows the heretical bishop to Bow Church,
describes the scene there, the '"citation," the
"objectors," etc. All very interesting, no doubt,
and one of those "fascinating anecdotes" that
so delight Mr Leslie Stephen, but still out of
place here.
In the editor's ardour to point out blunders —
and he does so with great severity — he often
stumbles into mistakes himself. Thus, when
Mr Cradock describes his meeting Johnson
at an undated dinner at the Literary Club,
and says that he thought it suggested the
"Retaliation" to Goldsmith, Dr B. Hill ex-
claims : "Such a blunder as this shows that not
much trust can be placed in his account," his
point being, that Cradock'syi'rj/ time of meeting-
Johnson was in 1776, while Goldsmith had died
in 1774. On turning to this gentleman's ac-
count, we find that all he says is that it was the
first time he " dined in company " with Johnson,
not the first time he had met him ; and
this first meeting might have been before
Goldsmith's death. It is the same with his
remarks on the Cheshire Cheese, where some
old gentlemen habitues were mentioned by Mr
Jay as having remembered Johnson. Mr Jay,
who wrote in the 'fifties, spoke of this, describing
Johnson, when in Gough Square and Bolt Court,
as frequenting the Cheese, and when at the
Temple, the Mitre, because he did not like to
cross the street. Dr B. Hill is scornful on this
"loose talk." How could they remember John-
son in Gough Square, when he left it nearly a
hundred years before? The editor has mis-
apprehended the context. Some antediluvians
remembered Johnson himself, but the rest of the
story was merely the tradition picked up in the
Tavern. The '' old gentlemen " did not say that
they remembered the Doctor at Gough Square.
Prepared as we are for Dr B. Hill's strange
capriccios, we scarcely expected that he would
gravely set himself to making a regular exegesis
of a dinner menu. He actually proceeds to edit
for us a bill of fare ! Johnson had set down in
Latin the items of his last dinner at Streatham,
in translating which Dr B. Hill falls into what
seem surprising mistakes. There \\as, it seems,
for dinner a roast leg of lamb and spinach,
" O'us coctuin LUin kerbis," etc. We have also
a turkey, and a " farcinien farinaccuin cum
uvis passis," which the editor interprets as ''the
stuffing" of the lamb, I suppose, made of flour
and raisins. A strange dish certainly, which
must have made the Doctor uncomfortable. No
wonder that our commentator says almost
pathetically, " I have looked in vain in an old
cookery book for a receipt for '' farcimen farina-
ceum cum ui/is,'" though had he looked at all
he might have consulted other cookery books.
He adds : " Perhaps Mrs Thrale had ordered
Iter favourite sauce.'' Whether she did so or not
the whole that remains is dark. A fresh wonder :
" // seems odd that the lamb and turkey were not
folloivcd by a pudding or sweets " f Odd or not,
the editor is rather abroad here. The "farcimen
farinaceuin " was surely not stuffing for the
lamb or turkey (I feel the absurdity of discussing
such trivialities), but, it is distinctly stated, was
another dish altogether — possibly that very
pudding, the absence of which the editor so
much laments. A glance at the Latin will show
this. A\'e construe it : " A flour dumpling with
raisins." He assuredly mistranslates. Then
Miss Austen is introduced with a dissertation
on " Courses," with quotations from her novels,
and so on in the usual way.
I shall li\e mihi carior, wrote Johnson.
" Perhaps," the editor says, " he had on his mind
Juvenal's line, ' Carior est illis homo qicam
sibi.' " Certainly not ; for here the meaning is
the direct opposite ; the man is dearer to others
76
A CKlflCAL EXAMINATION
than 10 himself. This would loe sufificient. Dut
no. What Johnson " had in his mind "--indeed
what every fourth or fifth form boy would
have in his mind — is the passage in Ovid :
" O me ! mihi carior."
It is truly strange that the editor would not
know so familiar a thing.
The sort of cloud or fog in which the editor
fashions his notes is sho«n by the following : —
As is well known, Johnson put a definition in his
Dictionary of " Renegado —"one who deserts"
—"a re\olter'' — "sometimes wc say a '(Jcriv;-/ "
meaning to point at the peer of that name,
who had deserted the Jacobites. " TJiis is iikkIi'
c/i'cnr/\" sri)-s the editor, "by the following
passage from the 'Lives of the Norths'; — ' Many
of the Turks think that the Gowers (Giaours),
or unbelievers, are unworthy,'" etc. This is
ludicrous. Johnson was not thinking of the
Eastern word, " Giaour," nor was North thinking
of "Gnwcr," the peer. Nothing is "made
clearer," sa\e that the two passages have no
connection.
Mrs Montagu showed Johnson some plates
that had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth.
He paid her a compliment, saying they had no
reason to be ashamed of their present possessor.
The editor seems to trace some more occult
influence in the names, for his remark is, " i\Irs
Montagu's name \vas Elizabeth."
Mention is made of two boxing men, Mendoza
and "Big Ben." This was not long after
Johnson's death. The editor conceixes that it
was probably after him that Dr Benjamin
Symonds, who was warden of W'adham in Di-
B. Hill's undergraduate days, was called "Big
Ben." That is to say, about the 'forties some
one was going about bearing a nickname
acquired about 1790. Surely the editor ought
to know that "Big Ben" is a common soubriquet.
" Big Ben" of Westminster was so called after
Sir Benjamin Hall. An)- extra stout person, of
the name of Benjamin, is likely enough to be
called " Big Ben," without going back to a boxer
of the eighteenth century.
Murphy, in his perfunctory narrative, says that
Johnson never talked of Garrick" without a tear
in his eyes " — either a misprint for " eyes " or for
" tears." The editor thinks it a matter important
enough to stop and have his little joke — "allow-
ing that one tear can be in both eyes."
There are three words for which the editor
has a sort of penchant, and is passionately eager
to prove that in the last century they were used
in the sense they are now. First, we had "re-
spectable " as a term of praise, and a long list of
instances was furnished in " The Life.'' He
comes back to it in another of his books, still
eager to show that it was a term of praise, that
is, a person deserving of respect, and quotes
yet more authorities. " Eminent," too, we all
know. Eminent statesmen, eminent writers, or
preachers, etc. But the editor thinks we are in
the dark, and gives us a sheaf of quotations.
" The following instances show its use," and it is
proved to us beyond cavil, that people then
spoke of "an eminent personage," "eminent
merchant," "eminent man," etc.
Of the use of " polluted " in the sense of
"stained," "soiled," etc., the editor also gives a
collection of illustrations. So fascinated is he
with the word, that he returns to it again. "To
the instances given of the use of ' polluted ' I
would add," etc., and he quotes, " Dryden polluted
his page," " Pope polluted his wit," and so on.
Mrs Thrale mentions an appeal to Johnson,
as to pronunciation, whether it should be "ir-
reparable" or "irrep(7/>able." Johnson decided
that it was long. Is it not clear that Mrs Thrale
was merely spelling the word phonetically ? But
the editor insists that Mrs Thrale seems to have
thought that the syllable " pa," in " paro," was
-/ CRITICAL EXAMINATTOl^
77
long. The poor lady ga\e no opinion at all, she
merely reported Johnson's.
The editor has an odd notion of what "borrow-
ing" is. Johnson's phrase, "the wits of Charles"
(;'.(■. of Charles II.'s time) he traced to Addison.
It was "borrowed" from the Spectator, where
we find "the wits of King Charles's time.''
Surely this is mere statement, and could not be
set down in another way. We might as well
say "Mr Gladstone at Hawarden"was borrowed
from " Mr Gladstone at Hawarden Castle."
Johnson said that, when he was writing his
Dictionary, no less than l6o quires of the MS.
had been written by mistake on both sides of
the paper. It cost him ^20, he said, to have it
copied afresh on one side. " This must be a
mistake," the editor says, " as were it only a
shilling a quire, it would not nearly come to the
sum," i.e. £?i. It is the editor, however, who has
fallen into the mistake, having counted only 160
quires. It should be double that number, as
double the amount of paper was used, i.e. 320
quires, which would make ^16, and allowing
something for wider writing, this would nearly
come up to Johnson's figure.
"The little girl poked her head." Imagine a
grave commentator, "a scholar" too, stopping
here to discuss this important "poking"' of the
little girl's head ! The only definition given by
Johnson oi poke, is "to feel in the dark — to
search." What are we to do ? How get on with
only this one definition ? We must only leave
the little girl to poke her head as best she
can.
Lady Di Middleton, who espied Johnson in
church on their Scotch tour, and who had known
him in town, the editor tells us, "was perhaps of
the family of the Earl of Middleton, who, in
i6()3, f/ire-w in /tis lot with Ja.mes II." No. She
was sister to Lord Stamford, and married an
Edinburgh banister, Mr Middleton, who later
succeeded to the Middleton estates,
The editor sometimes disposes of his own
argument or illustration, by setting down some-
thing that he never intended. Thus he relates
how Mrs Gastrell got Johnson to read aloud the
passage, " We have heard with our ears," to find
out whether he would pronounce it "heerd" or
"herd." He shows that Johnson voiced it
"heerd," who said that to pronounce it "herd"
"was nonsense.'' He likewise told Boswell that
it should be " heerd," because " herd " would be
the single exception to the general sounding of
the syllable "ear." He also told Mrs Gastrell
that there was but one \\'ord of that sound in
the language, viz. "herd" (of cattle). Which is
all plain enough. But the editor gets into sad
confusion over it. He tells us that the speech to
Mrs Gastrell (as to there being iDut one word
" herd," etc.) " seems a contradiction of what he
told Boswell." How ? He was talking to him
about "heered" not " herd." Then, though he
shows plainly that Johnson rejected "herd,"
he makes him say that to call it " heerd " was
nonsense I The editor meant to write " heerd."
Johnson's well-known description of an actor's
conversation, as "a renovation of hope," etc.,
\\ as assumed by Jlr Croker to refer to .Sheridan ;
by John Taylor to JMacklin ; Macklin was also
named, I think, by Malone. The editor discards
these authorities, and prefers a newspaper !
" According to the Edinburgh Courant of June
16, 1792, this was Macklin."
The editor has an ingenious fashion of mini-
mising his mistakes. In a previous edition we
have Johnson saying, when some one asked his
opinion of a play called " Dido," " I never did
the man an injury, yet he would read his tragedy
to me." The editor speculated that this was one
Lucas, who " had just been with me ; he has
compelled me to read his tragedy." These, it is
78
.-; CRITICAL EXAM IN A TION
clear, were different persons, for in the one case
Johnson had to liste7i to the play ; in the other
he read it himself. In his note the editor
saj'S that Lucas was the author of " Dido,'' and
that both instances referred to the same person.
Now, however, he finds — no doubt from the
" Biographia Dramatica," which he might have
consulted at first — that Reed was the author of
"Dido." "In a note I suggested that he "(Lucas)
" may have been the author mentioned above ;
but in this I was mistaken, for it was Isaac
Reed." It is something to have the editor crying
peccavi in this way ; but why such capricious-
ness in the selection ? Why ignore the
hundreds of mistakes that have been pointed
out in his editions?
We are told that Burke was so vehement in
arguing some patriotic questions, that "he would
turn away so as to throw the end of his own tail
into the face of his neighbour." The editor
seems to caution us not to take this for a real
" caudal appendage," for he tell us : " Burke,
no doubt, wore his Iiair tied up in a pigtail."
Not a doubt of it. What else could he mean ?
There are some strange mistakes about Beck-
ford. Of a Jamaica gentleman then lately
dead, Johnson said, " He will, whither he is now
gone, not find much difference as to climate
or to company." And again, on learning the
death of a celebrated West Indian planter, " He
is gone where he will not find the country
warmer and the men much blacker fhan that
he has left'' In both places the editor explains ;
" Perhaps (or probably) Alderman Beckford."
Not at all. The man of whom Johnson was
speaking had died out at Jamaica, "the coun-
try he had left." Beckford died in England, to
which he had come in his boyhood. He was
not "a celebrated West India planter," but a
celebrated London politician, who had been
Lord Mayor.
".-V valuable edition of Bailey's Dictionary''
is mentioned, which prompts the editor to make
this observation . " It is not easy to see how
any edition of Bailey could be valuable." First,
is not that a dictionary of some value which
Johnson used as the basis of his own ? Second,
it was issued as a small volume ; then in two
huge ones. The allusion was not to the merits
of the book, but to its shape, format, binding,
it might be.
The editor often takes a narrow view of
people's motives and acts. Johnson sent a
guinea to one Faden, son of a printer, whom
he had known thirty years before, and who had
lent him a guinea, " Faden," the editor tells
us, "for a few weeks had a share in the Univer-
sal Clironiclc, in which Tlie Idler was pub-
lished, so that he could ha7'c stopped the guinea
out of the money due to fohnson " ! As is said
in one of Ibsen's pieces, " People don't do such
things."
The editor misapprehends the plainest pas-
sage. Boswcll, when about to pubhsh the
" Life," hesitated as to the terms. Would he
sell the book " out and out," or " I should
incline to game, as Sir Joshua says' — i.e.
speculate on the profits. But the editor has
this odd theory. Boswell was thinking of Sir
Joshua's use of the word " game " ! " Perhaps
gamble . . . was in constant use, and Reynolds
•was singular in sticking to an old-fashioned
"-word." As to "gamble" being in constant use,
the editor disposes of that by assuring us that
it is 7iot found in the Dictionary. So that
"game" was the only word he could have used.
It is impossible to deal seriously with these
delusions.
Johnson was sometimes reminded by his
friends that he was too dictatorial in his talk,
a reproof which he took kindly, and would, in
answer to what " they called the pride of learn-
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
79
ing, say that it was of a defensive kind." The
editor must assure us that "they borrowed this
('the defensive pride') from Johnson," and
quotes another passage, ''mine was of the
defensive kind." Now their speech had no-
thing to do with "defensive pride"; f/iat was
Johnson's answer, so they " borrowed " nothing
from him. It is clear the editor thought that
" say " referred to them.
" I never but once,'' said Johnson, ^^ balked 3.n
invitation to dinner." Surely intelligible ; he
never " balked " the hospitable intention of the
inviter. The editor goes to the ihird mean-
ing of the word in the Dictionary, " to omit, or
refuse anything.'' But he passes by the first
and strict meaning, "to frustrate or disappoint,"
which is the fitting one here.
Dr Percy seems to be one of the circle to
whom the editor has a strong dislike. The
Bishop tells how Johnson had some disputes
in eai'ly life N\'ith Lord Lyttelton, " which so
improperly influenced him in his life of that
worthy nobleman " — a temperate criticism. But,
as usual, the editor dips deep to find lower
motives for Percy's "prejudice." Was he not
chaplain to the King ? Was he not devoted to
the Duke of Northumberland? His wife had
been nurse to one of the princes, etc. So he
was " naturally shocked at Johnson's ridicule of
a worthy nobleman.'' It is well known that i
Johnson's treatment of Lyttelton was not con-
sidered handsome by his contemporaries. Percy,
moreover, was not "shocked" at all— he depre-
cated Johnson's "prejudice" — nor was he shocked
at Johnson's " ridicule," for in Johnson's article
there is no ridicule of Lyttelton.
Again, Percy tells us that when Johnson was
casting about for a title, he suddenly thought of
" The Rambler." " It would be difficult," says
Percy, "to find any other that so exactly coin-
cided with the motto he had adopted on the
title-page," Most strangely, the editor says :
" Percy seems to think that Johnson chose his
motto first, and then cast about for a title to suit
it." Percy uses the phrases, "He has adopted,"
and " It would be difficult to find." It is clear
that it was he himself that was passing judgment
on the transaction as a whole, and not Johnson.
Johnson chose a motto, and Percy notes that
the title suited the motto.
Hannah More writes that " Mr Boswell was
here last night ; he perfectly adores Johnson."
On which the editor : " Boswell, who keeps his
narrative so closely to what concerns Johnson,
does not mention this." Exactly. In any
case, how was Boswell to " mention " " I
adored Johnson," etc. ? The editor fancied
that Johnson was there with Boswell, but
is mistaken ; he was not. On his own show-
ing, Boswell was therefore justified in saying
nothiny of the occasion.
Johnson very complacently dwelt on the
poets, other literary lights, who had belonged
to his coUeye. " Sir, we are a nest of singing-
birds." .Among these was Shenstone. Dr B.
Hill gi\LS his meed of praise also: "Among
inv contemporaries were Dr Edwin Hutch, Dr
Moore, and Canon Dixon, author of finer poems
than were sung by most of the last century
singing birds." " Sung by most." These Dixon
poems are hardly so well known as they should
be. .And Hutch and Moore ?
"It was in 1739 that Swift was asked to get
Johnson the degree of M.A. of Dublin." There
is no certainty that Swift was asked. Pope
asked Lord Gower, who asked a friend to ask
Swift.
Hawkins mentions a gentleman who, laying
out his grounds picturesquely, was obliged to
apply to a neighbour (for lea\e to plant, etc.)
with whom he was not upon cordial terms.
The editor imagines that this was the case of
8o
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
Shenstone and Lord Lyttelton, who were not
on cordial terms. This seems far-fetched.
" In the words of a great scholar of the
North, who did not like him, he (Johnson)
spoke in the Lincolnshire dialect." " The
great scholar," says the editor, "was perhaps
Lord Monboddo." This judge, however, was
no "great scholar," but a philosopher. Nor
could he know anything about "the Lincoln-
shire dialect." "The North" is not the way of
describing Scotland, but referred to the North
of England.
Our editor, as the reader by this time knows,
has ways of his own, and generally contrives
for us a surprise or, two. How characteristic
that, when collecting all the contemporaneous
accounts of Johnson — from Piozzi to "Tom
Tyers " — he should designedly omit the most
sprightly and artistic record of them all, viz.
Miss Burney's ! Her sketches are almost as
dramatic as Boswell's, and quite as amusing
and important too. It is leaving out the part of
Hamlet. The editor's reason is extrawdinary :
" Reflection soon convinced me that it was too
good a work to be hacked in pieces," which we
must suppose is the proper description of the
process that has been applied to the other works.
This, however, with all respect, does not seem
to be the real motive that «as working in the
editor's mind. To have merely selected the
episodes that referred to Johnson would not
have been an injury to the work. " It is a
great pity that the Diary has never had a com-
petent editor ; it is not altogether as she wrote it.
Surely the orJLjinal entries might be restored?"
And as surely might not the cuttings and
extracts from Ramblers, \Valpole's, etc., be
supplied by the same competent editor, to the
utter extinction of poor Fanny. At all cx'cnts,
we have here an editor that has omitted from
a collection one of its most important and
necessary components, in order that it maybe
later on printed in complete form. M'liat do
his publishers say to this ?
The editor has a system of making his notes
go as far as possible. In the "Letters" there
are pi-ofuse references to "The Life," and in
the " Aliscellanies" references as profuse to
both preceding works. This may be justified,
but not so the system of making a note and
text do alternate duty. Thus, in " The Life " we
ha\-e a passage quoted from the "Letters" as
an illustration. When we come to the " Letters,"
the passage in " The Life " does duty as a note.
In the " JMiscellanies " \\& find him actually
repeating some of the notes in "The Life":
witness that on the " Epilogue to Johnson's
Play,'' where we are told twice over, "the
wonder is that Johnson accepted this Epilogue,
which is a little coarse and a little profane.''
The fashion, indeed, in which the editor tries
to "belittle" the sage wherever he can is
scarcely decorous. During the Holy Week
Johnson wrote in his "Diary"' that he had an
awe upon him, "not thinking of the Passion till
I looked in the Almanac." This natural un-
affected confession the editor thus twists :
" .Apparently lie had omitted Church of late.''
How ? When ? Observe, he had remembered
and kept the solemnity, for he states that
he fasted from meat and wine. The Almanac
had reminded him, and he kept the feasts
duh-.
Here is another trivial ca\'il. Johnson peni-
tentially reminds himself that he had spent
lifty-fi\e years making resolutions and failing to
keep them. The editor notes that he was then
fifty-five years old, " so he must have begun
making resolutions at the time he was born."
This is indeed being literal. But Johnson, to
show that he was speaking gcnuralh-, adds that
he had been making resolutions "from the
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
earliest time almost that I can remember," and
might fairly count it the whole of his life.
It is impossible not to smile over the editor's
comical complaint of Mrs Piozzi's behaviour to
him. It is quite a penal matter. "The frequent
errors of Mrs Piozzi" did not so much affect Bos-
well or Johnson or herself— no, but " caused me
a orcaf deal of trouble." Very improper of the
lady, no doubt. " Some of them were clearly
intentional: not a few letters were carelessly
inserted in the wrong places, but of her own
some are fabrications " /
But it is really amazing how the editor's pre-
judice against Mrs Thrale makes him uncon-
sciously distort. She has always met with harsh
treatment in the matter of her second marriage,
which was certainly an indiscretion. Of the
four or five letters that passed between her and
Johnson on the occasion, she thought it advisable
to publish only two. The second and third
were of too painful and resentful a character to
print. The editor charges her with wishing to
make Johnson suppose that she was already
married, so that his objection would come too
late. Nothing can be more unfounded. For
she speaks of it as "a connection which he must
have heard of from many," that is, an attach-
ment, for the '' many " could not have heard of
the marriage, and she only concealed it from
him, she says, to avoid the pain of rejecting his
advice. She tells it to him because " // is all
irrevocably settled" and out of his power to
prevent. Is not this an exact description of an
engagement and not of a marriage ? But what
is conclusive on the point is that with her letter
she sends Johnson her circular to the executors,
and which bears the same date as her letter,
viz. June 30. In it she says in plain terms that
her daughters, " having heard that Mr Piozzi is
coming back from Italy, judging that his return
would be succeeded by our marriage" etc. She
even concludes her first letter with " I feel as if
acting without a parent's consent till you write
kindly," etc. — that is, ''as if acting," not "as if
I had acted," which she would have written had
the business been done. And yet the editor
contends that she wished to persuade Johnson
that she was already married ! It is inconceiv-
able how he can fall into such mistakes. It is
also urged that she calls Piozzi her husband ;
and she adds that " the birth of my second
husband is not meaner," etc. But there is
nothing in the point, as it is plain she means
her future husband.
Here is an interesting matter which has
escaped the editor. In November 1779, when
the Thrales were at Bath, " Queenie " wrote
the sage a letter, and Fanny Burney, who was
not without her affectations, thought it would
be effective to add a little deferential postscript
to the child's letter. The doctor was in an ill-
humour, and fancied they were beginning to
neglect him. " Queenie," he wrote, " sent me a
pretty letter, to which . . . added a silly
short note in such a silly white hand that I was
glad it was no longer." This was certainly
rough and unmannerly to his favourite, and as
she is at once to be recognised from allusions in
the " Letters,'' it seemed strange that Mrs Piozzi
should have allowed it to stand. But the fact
was that when these " Letters " were published,
she was in a bitter mood against Fanny, who had
opposed her marriage, and she, no doubt, felt a
little malicious satisfaction in letting this thrust
stand.
As Mrs Thrale was " a forger and fabricator,''
so another of the coterie is described as a thief.
Mr Seward published a collection in four
volumes, called " Anecdotes of Distinguished
Persons,'' a rather entertaining miscellany, con-
taining some 2000 pages, of which three are
given to Dr Johnson. In these three pages are
82
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
found some of Mrs Thrale's anecdotes, and
these are "thefts." The editor seems angry
because " some of these thefts I only discovered
in correcting the proof sheets " — a personal
incident that does not concern us. But it
touches the editor nearly. " It might be thought
that plagiarism such as this would be easily
detected by one who was so familiar with the
subject." But it was this familiarity which made
detection difificult. " Every anecdote 1 had long
known so well I could not be sure,'' and so on.
But the reader has no concern with these
thoughts and feelings of Dr B. Hill, whether he
saw a thing in the proof or otherwise.
There is a French " Dictionaire Portatif " of
one L'Avocat mentioned, of which the editor
seriously announces : " This work is not in the
British Museum." If this be a reason for its
non-existence it will not hold, for there are a
east number of books not in the British Museum
which do exist. But there is there a late edition
of the " Dictionaire Portatif," edited by some
one else, which is probably the same.
The editor's fashion of assuming as truth
whatever his enthusiasm makes him wish to be
true is shown by the following : — " My kins-
man, Mr Horatio Beaumont," possesses a copy
of Boswell's " Life," in which are some marginal
notes by a nameless writer. The editor, how-
ever, believes that they were written by one Mr
Hussey, who was a friend of Johnson's. This
was fair subject for conjecture. But the editor
having decided beyond appeal that they were
Hussey's, all through his work always speaks
of them as Hussey's marginal notes, and \\(t
have, " Mr Hussey says," and " JNIr Hussey
thinks," although there is not a particle of
evidence for giving him the authorship.
Dr B. Hill seems to hold an arbitrary theory
that any spinster of the time, when touching on
fifty or thereabouts, was summarily compelled
to become "Mrs" So-and-so, and to drop her
" Miss." There is no foundation for this, save
that we find them when grown elderly sometimes
addressed as " Mrs."
We are thus assured that Miss Reynolds, Sir
Joshua's sister, who was fifty-four years old, "in
accordance with the common custom, was now
dignified as Mrs Reynolds.'' Miss Porter, he
decides, became of a sudden Mrs Porter.
Yet on another occasion, we are told that
" though Miss Mulso was but twenty-eight . . .
she was complimented with the title of Mrs
Mulso." At twenty-eight ! Where, then, is the
editor's "common custom"? And Mrs Carter,
who never mari'ied, was always known as Mrs
Carter. And what of Mrs Hannah More?
Here is a rather startling assertion : — "John-
son, if I am not mistaken, in the frequency with
which he is quoted, comes next to the Bible and
Shakespeare." Even as it stands, this too
sweeping statement fails, for the thousands who
readily quote their Shakespeare and Bible never
quote anything from Johnson. He is not in
popular circulation, as it were. But the writer
who is next in demand to the two named is
surely Dickens, who has furnished scores of
stock phrases, which are in constant use. Not
a day passes that we do not see in the papers
something of Sam Weller's, or the circum-
locution office, the Pickwickian sense, etc.
On the strength of his collection of extracts
and snippets, Dr B. Hill proudly claims the title
of "scholar," and appeals to fellow -scholars
in England and America. These books are
far more journalistic than scholar-like, since
we have such notes as this mixed up with
others on the Johnsonian coterie — "When I had
the honour of meeting Mr Gladstone at Oxford
on February 6, 1890," etc. ; or "When, a few
years ago, the Prince of Wales asked General
Gordon," etc.
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
83
Turning back for a moment to the " Letters,"
we find Dr B. Hill making a "discovery" or
two, on which he claims credit. There is the
cancel of a passage in Johnson's "Journey," one
which is so creditable to him. He had originally
set down a " censure of the clergy of an English
Cathedral," accusing them of longing to melt
" the lead on the roof, and that it was only
just they should swallow what they melted."
Our editor found Cough's copy in the Bodleian
in which the suppressed passage was written,
which he was thus enabled to supply. Alas for
the doctor's " discoveries.'' I have a little book
called a " Bibliographical Tour," or some such
title, in which the passage is printed, which no
doubt Gough copied. The Cathedral was
certainly Lichfield, where the roof was actually
stripped thirteen years after Johnson wrote.
The editor, who is fond of relating the processes
of his mind before he arrives at a conclusion, at
one time strangely fancied it might have been
St Paul's, as though the Dean and Canons would
have been permitted to strip off and sell the
lead. This notion, however, he dismissed, not
because of its ludicrousness, but because he
was assured by a certain " Rev W. Sparrow
Simpson," " that it was very improbable that the
Dean and Chapter entertained such an idea," a
Bunsby-like verdict, which quite satisfied our
editor. First he thought the Dean was Newton,
then he was Addenbroke, and so on.
Once writing from Lichfield, in June 21, 1775,
a gossiping letter to amuse Mrs Thrale, Johnson
said : "They give me good words, and cherries
and strawberries. Mrs Cobb is come to Mrs
Porter's this afternoon. Miss A comes little
near me, and everybody talks of you." In these
simple sentences the editor discovers " There is
an omission here, as is shown by the structure
of the sentence." I am certain no one else could
discover this from "the structure of the sentence,"
which is artistic enough of its kind. But what
was this omission ? A special compliment paid to
Mrs Thrale, for she refers to it in her reply. All
wrong. We turn to her reply of June 24, and
there read : " 'Tis very flattering to me when
people make my talents the subject of their
praises, in order to obtain your favour.'' Here
she refers to Johnson's compliment " every one
talks of you." The truth is, the editor is always
in a hurry, and, not pausing to consider, was
misled by the preceding sentence.
Every one knows Johnson's pleasant "hit" at
the attorneys : " He did not care to speak ill of
any man behind his back, but he believed the
gentleman was an attorney." Mrs Piozzi
repeats the same speech, which moves the
editor to this indignant burst : "When we see how
this sarcasm has bee}i spoilt by Mrs Piozzi, we
may quote," etc. : that is, Fitzherbert's remark
that few persons are capable of " carrying a bo7i
mot." Here is the lady's version : " I would be
loathe to speak ill of any person who I do not
know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an
attorney." The only difference is "would be
loathe," instead of " did not care," and " I am
afraid" instead of " I believe."
Mrs Thrale, on her mother's death, spoke of
the touching " spectacle of beauty subdued by
disease." " It must have been," says the editor,
" a good deal subdued by age, for she was sixty-
six." He will not have such things as handsome
old or elderly ladies. Yet some of us have seen
good-looking old ladies. We may wonder
where Dr B. Hill has been living.
One of the most extraordinary questions in
the relation of Boswell and Johnson, which was
so intimate and lasted so long, the editor has
not investigated, or scarcely touched. " Why
was not Boswell at Johnson's death-bed?"
And, " Why was he not mentioned in Johnson's
will ? " Both questions are, of course, connected.
84
A CRITICAL EXAM/NATION
It throws further light on Boswell's strangely
morbid character, and also upon one of the odd
" anfractuosities " of human nature. After ex-
pending so much time and labour in waiting on
his great friend, it is strange to find him at the
very close and crisis foolishly throwing all his
exertions to waste, owing to some humour or
caprice which he found it impossible to control.
In a certain class of character this is not un-
common. Boswell, who was always seeking
excuses for coming up to town, ought certainly
to have found his way thither after Johnson, in
June 1783,. had suffered from a paralytic stroke.
He allowed nearly a whole year to pass without
a visit. Then came the application for the
increase of pension to enable Johnson to go
abroad. This business was set on foot by
Boswell, who applied to the Chancellor about
June 20th, but without informing Johnson.
Now this was a delicate and rather awkward
business, being a plea in forma pauperis, and
should not have been attempted without
judicious approaches and an almost certainty
of success. What was so compromising in the
matter was that Johnson was not in want of
money at all. He had some two thousand
pounds put by, and a couple of hundred pounds
would have been sufficient for the journey.
When he was told of the application, he must
have had an uneasy consciousness of all this ;
the only thing that could salve his scruples was
that he had taken no part in the business. But
to have it supposed that he had tried to get
public money that he was not in want of, and
then to fail, was truly mortifying. He must,
not unreasonably, have laid it all to " Bozzy's "
account, who, moreover, did not bestir himself
sufficiently. Instead of waiting in town to look
after the matter, Boswell left on the 30tli.
Johnson seems to have expected him to stay,
for he wrote to him, " I wish your affairs could
have permitted a longer and continued exertion
of your zeal and kindness."
His health now grew worse and worse ; but
Boswell in his letters, kept "bothering" for his
advice about settling in London, etc., always
writing, as he says, in bad spirits, with dejection
and fretfulness, and at the same time " ex-
pressing anxious apprehensions concerning him
on account of a drcatn." This, to a man suffering
as Johnson was, must have been painful. He
wrote back impatiently, chiefly in terms of
reproach, " on a supposed charge of affecting
discontent and indulging the vanity of com-
plaint." Who could take offence at this, for the
sage was miserably ill — dying, in fact. But, he
added, " Write to me often, and write like a
man. I consider your fidelity and tenderness
as a great part of the comforts which are yet
left to me." And then he says, " I sincerely
wish we could be nearer to each other." There
are blanks m.arked by stars both in this and in
the preceding letter, w hich show that the rebukes
were so severe that Boswell would not venture
to print them. But the sick or dying sage,
feeling that he had been a little rouyh, two days
later hastened to make a sort oi amende, hoping
that he would not take it amiss, for it contained
only truth, and that kindly intended. It
evidently rankled, for Boswell, knowing that the
reader is wondering that he did not hurry to his
friend, makes this halting explanation : " I
unfortunately was so much indisposed during a
considerable part of the year, that it was not,
or at least, / thoiiglit it was not, in my power "
— not to take a journey or leave home— but "/'o
write to my illustrious friend as formerly, or
ivitlioiit expressing such complai7tts as offended
him." .\ most extraordinary " compulsion to
silence" this! But his next proceeding was
more singular still. Conjuring him " not to do
mc the injustice of charging mc with affectation^'
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
thus anticipating further quarrel, he came to the
formal resolution of taking no further notice of
his dying friend. " I was with much regret long
silent," and for three months not a line came
from him. Johnson, who was within six weeks
of his death, in vain wrote to him kindly and
tenderly, describing his own wretched state, and
saying that Boswell's letters were a comfort.
"Are you sick, or are you sullen?" he asked.
The morbid Boswell, however, could nurse his
grievances : " It was painful to me to find that
he still persevered in arraigning me as before,
which was strange in him who had so much
experience of what I had suffered." This shows
clearly that he was trying to throw the blame
on Johnson, and thus show that it was the ill-
humour of the testator that caused his exclusion
from the will. At last, with a great effort,
Boswell forced himself to write, " two as kind
letters as I could," one of which was dated in
the first week of November, the second about
six weeks later. This arrived, however, when
Johnson was actually dying, and could not be
read by him. Can we wonder, therefore, that
Johnson was deeply offended by such neglect, and
that he left the name of Boswell out of his will.
The latter must have been deeply mortified,
as he knew what malicious remarks would be
made on the omission. There were memorials
left to all the intimate friends, Hawkins, Langton,
Reynolds, Dr Scott, Windham, Strahan, the
four doctors, Gerard Hamilton, Miss Reynolds,
the two Hooles, Desmoulins, Sastres, and Mrs
Gardiner, the tallow chandler ! But not even
a book to Boswell. Nothing could be more
deliberate or more pointed. Boswell very
feebly urges, and he had better have passed
over the matter, that Johnson had also omitted
many of his friends, such as Murphy, Adams,
Taylor, Dr Burney, Hector, and " the author
of this work." But none of these except Taylor
85
and Boswell could be placed in the same cate-
gory with those named in the will.
On the whole of this curious episode, Dr B.
Hill has nothing to contribute save a far-fetched
theory, that Johnson only named such friends as
he saw, and whose presence therefore was a
reminder. Yet he saw his old favourite"Queenie"
Thrale, and made no mention of her. Gerard
Hamilton was not with him, yet he mentioned
him. Burke was sitting with him, and attend-
ing him, yet he was not mentioned. Like
the editor's other theories this one will not
hold.*
There are some oddities in the arrangement
of the volumes. It seems " a freak," for instance,
the placing the index not at the end, but before
a portion of the text. Having done with the
index, we begin again with what is oddly called—
by another freak—" A Concordance of Johnson's
Sayings." Now, as Dr B. Hill might learn from
the Oxford Dictionary, a concordance means
" a citation of parallel passages in a book," or
as in the case of the Gospels, " a book which
shows in how many texts of Scripture any word
occurs," a definition which is in Johnson's Dic-
tionary. The editor's description is, therefore,
meaningless. To our surprise, however, we
find at the beginning of the volumes another
batch of Johnson's sayings, entitled " Johnson's
apothegms, opinions, etc." Surely these ought
to be in the misnamed " Concordance." This
specimen, however, is a fair illustration of the
methods of our mercurial editor.
And now, having made these serious
charges, and having given good evidences for
them, I think it is incumbent on Dr B. Hill to
come out " into the open," and defend his edi-
* Since ihe former portions of this Examination were printed,
I have been informed, on good authority, that the lady who
refused the editor admission to Auchinleck is not dead, as I
stated she was.
86
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION
tions. It will not exactly do, ostrich-like, to hide
his head in the sands of the Clarendon Press. I
think he is required to stand forth and vindicate
himself, or confess his errors. It will not do, as
he has done in these "miscellanies," to print
declarations of Dr Johnson — obviously to my
address — that attacks need not be noticed,
etc. When Bosuell pleaded to his father that
Homer nodded, the old judge said — " But you're
not Homer," and Dr B. Hill is not exactly Dr
Johnson.
I must now conclude this " Critical Examina-
tion," adding that I have refrained from inserting
many more passages to which exception might
justly be taken, but which are not of so " telling "
a class as those selected. Apart from the
innumerable mistakes pointed out, it has been
shown that these abundantly noted books are
not editions of Boswell, Johnson, or the other
folk — but simply " encyclopedias of anecdotes,"
copied with much diligence from all quarters —
and so far are entertaining.
Nor are the syndics of the Clarendon Press
without their share of responsibility. They
have professed to furnish purchasers with
'' editions" of the works in question, and, instead,
have supplied a heterogeneous mass of details
about everybody and everything. Nearly a'
century ago, they sent forth a fine edition of
Boswell's work, in four volumes, beautifully
printed, a fine specimen of reserve in the
matter of editing ; what will they do now.?
It will be noted that no references to the
passages quoted are furnished in this " Critical
Examination," for, with the aid of the editor's
copious indexes, they can be found at once.
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