CLECTIC PR ^^^^^^^^^^ .M3 1; ■• • THE LIFE OF SA^.'LbL lOHNSON BY LORD iMACAULAY ^J>^ New'^rk; Cincinnati • Chic^^o- American-Book- Company- £SsS LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ECLECTIC ENGLISH CLASSICS THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON BY LORD MACAULAY (^Ou NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI ■:• CHICAGO AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 1895 Copyright, 1895, by American Book Company. LIFE OF JOHNSON. M. 1. INTRODUCTION. Thomas Babington Macaulay, the most popular essayist of his time, was born at Leicestershire, Eng., in 1800. His father, Zachary Macaulay, a friend and coworker of Wilberforce, was a man of austere character, who was gi^eatly shocked at his son's fondness for worldly hterature. Macaulay's mother, however, encouraged his reading, and did much to foster his literary tastes. " From the time that he was three," says Trev^elyan in his stand- ard biography, " Macaulay read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the ground and a piece of bread and butter in his hand." He early showed marks of uncommon genius. When he was only seven, he took it into his head to write a " Compendium of Universal History." He could remember almost the exact phraseology of the books he read, and had Scott's " Marmion " almost entirely by heart. His omnivorous reading and extraordinary memory bore ample fruit in the richness of allusion and briUiancy of illustration that marked the literary style of his mature years. He could have written " Sir Charles Grandison " from memory, and in 1849 he could repeat more than half of " Paradise Lost." In 1 818 Macaulay entered Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he won prizes in classics and English ; but he had an invincible distaste for mathematics. 5 6 INTRODUCTION. His " Essay on Milton," published in the " Edinburgh Review " in 1825, made him famous; and his subsequent contributions to that magazine, written in all the vigor of his early years, were eagerly and widely read. Among the best of his essays are those on " Clive," " Warren Hastings," " Frederick the Great," " Addi- son," " Bunyan," and " Comic Dramatists of the Restoration." Macaulay possessed great versatility, and made a reputation not only as an essayist, but also as a statesman, orator, poet, and historian. Known as a stanch Whig, he entered Parliament in 1830, where his speeches on the Reform Bill placed him among the foremost orators of the day. He had, hoAvever, none of the outward graces of the orator. He spoke rapidly, and with but little emphasis. Yet Gladstone, who sat in Parliament with him, says, " Whenever he rose to speak, it was a summons like a trum- pet call to fill the benches." Many high political honors signalized Macaulay's prosperity. As member of the Supreme Council of India (1834-38), he did yeoman service for the cause of education and judicial reform. After his return from India, he became once more a member of Parliament, and held the office of secretary of war in the Mel- bourne ministry. Throughout his public career, he maintained his reputation as a true, courageous, and upright man. I )evoted as he was to literary studies, he never for a moment allowetl them to interfere with his official obligations, or, in fact, with any of the practical duties of life. Macaulay's " colloquial talents," to quote his language con- cerning Johnson, "were of the highest order." He was a fluent and fascinating talker, but generally assumed the lion's share of conversation. One of the most winning things about Macaulay was his love of introduction: 7 children, with whom he had the utmost sympathy. The follow- ing is an extract from his diary, relating to a gorgeous valentine he had sent to his little niece Alice: "Alice was in perfect rap- tures over her valentine. She begged quite pathetically to be told the truth about it. When we were alone together, she said, ' I am going to be very serious.' Down she fell before me on her knees and lifted up her hands. ' Dear uncle, do tell the truth to your little girl. Did you send the valentine? ' I did not choose to tell a real lie to a child even about such a trifle, and so I owned it." In 1857 Macaulay was raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay of Rothley, but lived to enjoy the honor a short time only. He died suddenly and peacefully on the 28th of December, 1859. Macaulay's fame as a poet rests on those specimens of stirring verse, " Ivry " and " Lays of Ancient Rome," which " every school- boy knows." His prose masterpiece, however, is the " History of England from the Accession of James II.," the first two vol- umes of which appeared in 1848. It was a labor of love, written in his more comfortable years, [after the competency derived from his Indian office had made possible for him a purely liter- ary life. ^It is original in treatment, and has all the charm of a fascinating novel. Macaulay's " style " was unquestionably " the man." He had strong likes and dislikes, and positive convictions. Like Dr. John- son, he never halted at halfway judgments, nor wore his opinions " on both sides, like a leather jerkin." Naturally, therefore, his language, impetuous and sanguine, is instinct with force and energy. Of a practical turn of mind, he saw clearly, and wrote clearly. Among the features of his celebrated style are the fre- quent use of antithesis and epigram to make one idea set off another, his fondness for the short sentence, his overflowing his- 8 /.y /RODCCTIOX. torical and literary allusions, his mastery of paragraph stmcture, and his rapid and picturesque grouping of details. His jiictorial method popularized literary criticism, and kindled a great and permanent interest in English history and English literature. His essay on " Bunyan " set thousands re-reading "Pilgrim's Progress." Whatever his faults may be, though he sometimes exaggerates or overstates his case, nevertheless, in the stimulat- ing earnestness of his style, in his narrative power as an historian, in his originality and brilliancy as an historical essayist, he ranks with the masters of English prose. Macaulay contributed his " Life of Samuel Johnson " to the "Encyclopedia Britannica " in 1856. Twenty-five years earlier he had published in the " Edinburgh Review" a critical essay on Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson. No extended contrast or parallel between these two articles of Macaulay need here be drawn. However, the harsher judgments contained in the essay are toned down in the " Life ;" and generally, in the treatment of Johnson, the "Life" breathes a more tolerant and sympathetic spirit than does the article of 1831, which was, in fact, largely inspired by Macaulay's burning desire to expose the editorial blunders of his personal foe, Cnjkcr. The present " Life," more- over, — written at the culmination of Macaulay's powers and in the maturity of his style, — shows the brilliant essayist at his best. He has been taxed, however, with party bias and with inappreciation of the deeper elements of Johnson's character. Matthew Arnold, on the other hand, maintains that Macaulay, strong ^^'h^g though he was, had preeminent qualification, not t)nly by virtue of his literary equipment, but also by many points of sympathetic re- semblance to the Tory subject of his narrative, to deal with the theme of the great literary dictator of the eighteenth century. /.VTRODUCriOX. 9 In the " Life," as in the essay, Macaulay holds up to ridicule and scorn the character of Boswell, whose faults, like those of Cassius, seem to have been set in a notebook, conned, and learned by rote. His review of Boswell, however, is critical rather than biographical ; and as the name and fame of " the painter " have become so closely linked with those of " the subject of the por- trait," some brief summary of Boswell's life is appropriate here. James Boswell (1740-95), born at Edinburgh, was the eldest son of Lord Auchinleck, a Scottish judge. He studied at Glas- gow and Utrecht, and traveled e.xtensively on the Continent. In Corsica he made the acquaintance of Pasquale Paoli, the leader of the revolt against Genoa, and, returning to P^ngland (1766), he posed as the champion of Corsican independence. Two years later he pubhshed his " Account of Corsica." He was admitted to the Scottish bar (1766), but never applied himself earnestly to the practice of his profession. He married his cousin, Margaret Montgomerie, in 1769. Boswell's personality has made him one of the most amusing figures in English literary history. In his article of 183 1, Macau- lay says, " Boswell was one of the smallest men that ever lived. . . . He was the laughingstock of the whole of that brilliant soci- ety which has owed to him the greater part of its fame. He was always laying himself at the feet of some eminent man, and beg- ging to be spit tipon and trampled upon. . . . He exhibited him- self at the Shakespeare Jubilee (1769) to all the crowd which filled Stratford-on-Avon, with a placard round his hat bearing the in- scription of ' Corsica Boswell.' . . . Servile and impertinent, shal- low and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated with family pride, and eternally bltistering about the dignity of a born gentleman, lo IXTRODUCTJOX. yet stooping to be a talebearer, an eavesdropper, a common butt in the taverns of London, so curious to know everybody who was talked about, that, Tory and High-churchman as he was, he maneuvered . . . for an introduction to Tom Paine — so vain of the most childish distinctions, that, when he had been to court, he drove to the office where his book was printing, without chan- ging his clothes, and summoned all the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and sword." Carlyle, in his essay on Johnson (1832), defended Boswell from the strictures of Macaulay. Indeed, what Macaulay stigmatizes as sycophancy, Carlyle deems a natural and honorable "hero worship " of Johnson. It was in 1763, in the back parlor of Tom Davies, a London bookseller, that Boswell first met his hero. Johnson unexpectedly came into the shop. Davies, seeing him through the glass door, announced his approach to Boswell nearly in the words of Hora- tio to Hamlet: " Look, my lord! it comes;" and then and there the agitated Boswell was introduced to the "monarch of litera- ture." " Recollecting Johnson's prejudice against the Scotch," writes Boswell, " I said to Davies, ' Don't tell win re I come from ! ' — ' From Scotland,' cried Davies roguishly. ' ]\lr. Johnson,' said 1, 'I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.' He retorted, ' That, sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.' The stroke stuimed me a good deal." In this wav did Brobdingnag and Lilliput meet; and how this casual ac(iuaintance ripened into the closest intimacy is known to all. Boswell "is only a bur," said Goldsmith, "flung at Johnson in sport, and he has the faculty of sticking." Boswell's microscopic observation of his hero has been vividly described by Leslie Stephen: "When Johnson sj)oke, Boswell's INTK OD L'C 7 70iV. 1 1 eyes goggled with eagerness ; he leant his ear almost on the doctor's shoulders ; his mouth dropped open to catch ever)' syl- lable ; and he seemed to listen even to Johnson's breathings, as though they had some mystical significance." In the painting of details, Boswell's prying curiosity stood him in good stead. Sir Isaac Newton, probably, was not more pro- foundly absorbed in his theory of gravitation than was " Bozzy," for the time being, in trying to ascertain (alas! in vain) the mys- terious reasons that prompted Dr. Johnson to treasure up the orange peel, and refuse to wear a nightcap. Vain and inquisitive as Boswell was, his perfect frankness and imperturbable good nature won him a welcome. Johnson called him " the best traveling companion in the world ; " and the sage had an opportunity to test the amiable qualities of his faithful Achates during their famous tour of Scotland and the Hebrides (1773). Boswell published an account of this journey in 1785. Boswell's masterpiece, "The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.U.," appeared in 1791. Regarding the literary and artistic merits of this famous work, the weight of modern opinion is, that the biog- rapher did not stumble upon his success by accident, but reaped it as the just reward of his systematic methods and unflagging zeal. He was uncrushable. " Sir," said Johnson to him on one occasion, "you have but two subjects, yourself and me. I am .sick of both." Boswell, pocketing the rebuke, hid his dimini.shed head, but continued none the less to gather his material for the biography, in which he has painted so vividly, not only the life of Johnson, but the life and manners of Johnson's time. The main incidents of Johnson's career, grouped as they are by the masterly hand of Macaulay, need no further portrayal. The ^2 INTRODUCTION. characteristics of Johnson, however, his place in Hterature, and his relation to his age, are here reviewed. 'I'he thought and action of any period of history are necessa- rily closely allied ; and only by the light of the times in which the famous dictionary maker lived can his prejudices and opinions be read aright. Accordingly one must place himself as far as possible amid Johnson's surroundings, with a sympathetic sen.se, moreover, of the literary and social conditions of the eighteenth century, of which, in many ways, the sage of Bolt Court was a vigorous embodiment. In its social aspects Johnson's age was rough and unrefined. The prevaihng coarseness of fashionable life is mirrored in the novels of Fielding and Smollett. The works of the shameless Aphra Behn were found on the toilet tables of the Belindas and Flirtillas of the day. Under the first two Georges, the passion for gambling reached its climax, fashionable ladies often playing for the highest .stakes. "Beau Na.sh," the "King of Bath," where he presided in the famous pump room, was a professional gambler. " Even wise old Johnson regretted that he had never learned to play cards." The immorality of the court (up to the reign of George III.) was notorious; while the amusements of the poi)ulace were brutal in the extreme. The newspapers of 1730 contain an advertisement of "a mad bull, dre.ssed up with fireworks, to be baited." It was a time when men lived hard, and fought hard. In the field of debate and discu.ssion, no quarter was given nor taken. The buriy assertiveness and dogged courage that made Walpole premier were the prime requisites of the day. Of such a time, therefore, an aggre.ssive and rugged character like Johnson is in no small measure typical. The age might trample upon the lATRODUCTIOK. 1 3 fastidious and delicate Gray ; but it could not trample upon the rough-and-ready dictionary maker, who was famed as a hard hit- ter in debate, and who on one memorable occasion had knocked down a bookseller, one of the ogres of London, for his intoler- able insolence. Few men, indeed, had the temerity to contend with Johnson. "There is no arguing with him," said Goldsmith; " for, if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt of it." The coarseness of the age, however, but brings into stronger relief the high moral tone of Johnson's character; nor did the prevalent skepticism of the early eighteenth century shake his firm and abiding religious faith. Under the first two Georges, literature had a cheerless pros- pect. Walpole, famed as the Sir Visto of Pope and the Flimnap of Swift, despised reading ; while George II., invoked as " Augus- tus " by poetical flattery, grew furious at the sight of a printed volume, and wasted little love on what he called " boetry " and " bainting." Patronage there was, to be sure, for political scrib- blers like Arnall, of whom the author of the " Dunciad " wrote : — " Spirit of Arnall, aid me whilst I lie." But the royal favor did little to foster a genuine love of letters. Yet the years of Johnson's life (especially the first sixty years) belong to an era highly creative in English prose. In those memorable years appeared " Gulliver's Travels " (1729), with its pointed satire on the times of George I. ; " Pamela " (1741), the first English domestic novel in the modern sense ; Fielding's "Tom Jones" (1749); Smollett's delineations of the British tar, like Commodore Trunnion and Tom Bowling ; Sterne's delightful creations of Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim in "Tristram Shandy " 1 4. INTK OD UC TIOK. (1760); Goldsmith's immortal " Vicar of Wakefield;" the histo- ries of Hume and Robertson, and a portion of Gibbon's " Roman Empire;" the "Wealth of Nations" (1776), that ranks "among the greatest of books ;" and the magnificent speeches of Edmund Burke. Johnson's connection with the production of Goldsmith's classic is a memorable incident in English literary history. One day (1764) "Goldy," as Johnson loved to call him, was arrested by his landlady for debt. Johnson, learning of his friend's sorry pre- dicament, sent him a guinea, and then hastily proceeded to Gold- smith's lodgings. There he found that the guinea had been spent for a bottle of Madeira, in which his prodigal friend was drown- ing his sorrows. Without a word, Johnson solemnly corked the bottle, and locked it up. Then Goldsmith pulled from a drawer the manuscript of the " Vicar of Wakefield," which Johnson, after examination, took to a bookseller's (with whom he was influen- tial), and sold for sixty pounds; and in this way was "Goldy" kept from the terrors of "the sponging house," and the story of Dr. Primrose launched on its long career of popularity. Some influences of Johnson's age are plainly discernible in his literary style. The pompous Anglo- Latin diction of the " Ram- bler " expresses the renewed fondness for classical learning in his time, and the reaction in English prose against the simplicity of Addison. The faults of Johnson's early style (Johnsonese) are attributable in general to " a use of too big words, and too many of them," and in particular to an extravagant use of Latin de- rivatives and abstract terms ; he employs antitheses even " when there is no opposition in the ideas expressed." The style of the " Rambler," however, differs much from that of his later years. The language of the " Lives of the Poets " (1777-81) iscompara- /.VTRODUCTJOA\ 15 lively simple, and his conversation was racy with the plainest Anglo-Saxon. If, however, Johnson's age was rich in prose, it was poor in poetry. The " monarch of literature " lived between the Augus- tan age and the Victorian era. In his day the influences of the classical or Queen Anne school of poets were still predominant. There was no Wordsworth (i 770-1850) to interpret Nature in her every word, or to sing "the still, sad music of humanity;" and so, as a rule, the early Georgian poetry is satirical or didactic. Johnson's "Vanity of Human Wishes" (1749) is written in the style of Pope ; and he, moreover, only expressed the Augustan taste of the time in his bluntly avowed preference for Charing Cross and Fleet Street to all the beauties of nature. Conservative as he was, then, Johnson had no appreciative sense of the coming revolution in English poetry, — the revolution that found an early expression in the poems of some of his con- temporaries, "The Seasons" of Thomson, descriptive of natural scenery, and in the odes of Collins and Gray. Consequently, many of Johnson's literary judgments have been reversed in the present century. Among the conspicuous examples of his mistaken criticism are the condemnatory opinions of Milton and Gray. The diction of Milton's " Lycidas " he deemed harsh, and the numbers un- pleasing, while he styled Gray "a barren rascal." Yet in general Johnson bestowed high praise on the Puritan poet, and he did full justice to the best stanzas of Gray's " Elegy." Johnson's place in literature is unique. He is best remembered by the story of his life and conversation. His wit and wisdom, preserved not only by Boswell, but also in the " Johnsoniana " of Mrs. Thrale (Piozzi), Tyers, Cradock, Madame d'Arblay, Hannah 1 6 IXTRODUCTIOX. More, and others, fill many entertaining and instructive pages. Ben Jonson, in his day and generation, had been a literary power ; Dryden had had his throne, and Addison (" Atticus"), his "sen- ate ; " but no other man ever reigned supreme in the world of letters as did Dr. Johnson in the fullness of his fame. Long will the sage Hnger in our memories as the central figure in the intel- lectual combats and passages at arms associated with the names of the Literary Club and the Mitre Tavern. Courage has been called the key to Johnson's character. His characteristic letter to the mighty Chesterfield is often quoted. Chesterfield, after long withholding his patronage from the strug- ghng lexicographer, angled for the " Dedication " when the dic- tionary was coming out, and tried to smooth over Johnson's long-cherished resentment by graceful compliments. " I have been lately informed by the proprietor of the ' World,' " writes Johnson, " that two papers in which my dictionary is recom- mended to the public were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honor which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge. " When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the en- chantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself le vai?fq}/riir dii zfainqueu?- tie la tcrrc,^ that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending ; but I found my attendance so httle encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your lordship in public, I had exhausted all the arts of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. 1 1 The conqueror of the conqueror of the earth. INTRODUCTION. i? r * had done all that I could ; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. " Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I Avaited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door ; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before. "The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks. " Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help ? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it ; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself." This famous letter dealt "patronage" a fatal blow. Johnson's prejudices are far-famed. Yet "that Jacobitism, Church of Englandism, hatred of the Scotch, belief in witches, and such like, — what were they but the ordinary beliefs of well- doing, well-meaning provincial Englishmen in his day ? " He was called a "good hater;" but he hved in an era of "good haters." In the earher years of his life, to be sure, a spirit of apathy or cold indifference, akin to the studied avoidance of the emotional in Augustan literature, had characterized pohtical and 2 IS INTRODUCTION. * religious thought ; but there succeeded a period of intense ear- nestness in national life, — the days of Pitt and Clive, Wesley and Whitefield. " Never before," writes Green, in commenting upon the year 1759, "had England played so great a part in the his- tory of mankind." Peace, moreover, as well as war, had its famous victories; and the Methodist revival "changed after a while the whole tone of English society." Johnson, then, represents the conservative side of his century. The political corruption under the Whigs, and the parliamentary bribery rampant during the leadership of Walpole, naturally tended to confirm Johnson's inherited Tory principles ; nor is it surpris- ing that he could not adjust the opinions and sympathies of his old age to more liberal tendencies or progressive movements. Of Whitefield's stirring eloquence he said, " His popularity is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner. He would be fol- lowed by crowds, were he to wear a nightcap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree." Johnson, however, outlived many of his prejudices. His hatred of the Scotch became a mere joke ; and some of his closest intimates were "Whig dogs." The stout old Tory even conde- .scended once to dine with Jack Wilkes, that notorious profligate, demagogue, and infidel. Johnson was a " clubable " man ; and his characterization of a tavern chair as the throne of human felicity signified his enjoy- ment of intellectual companionship, with " its feast of reason and flow of soul." As Garrick put it, Johnson " fairly shook laugh- ter out of you." He enjoyed romping games ; and it must have been rare sport to see the big-bodied philosopher, in his moments of recreation, playing hop, step, and jump, in which game he was reputed to be expert. INTRO D UC TION. 1 9 In figure Johnson was tall and well-formed. He possessed great physical strength ; and many instances of his fearlessness are re- corded. Thackeray pictures h-im as "that great, awkward, pock- marked, snuff-colored man, swaying to and fro as he walks." He generally wore a suit of plain brown clothes, with twisted hair buttons of the same color, a large, bushy, grayish wig, and black worsted stockings. Upon his tour in Scotland he wore a wide greatcoat, with pockets in it almost big enough to hold the two volumes of his folio dictionary. In his time, men of rank and fashion displayed the most gorgeous attire. " Goldy's " absorb- ing passion for brilliant waistcoats is well known. Wilkes gener- ally arrayed himself in a scarlet or green suit edged with gold. Johnson himself, in his later years, became more careful in his dress, and, yielding to the persuasive influences of Mrs. Thrale, adorned his coat with metal buttons, and his shoes with silver buckles. The life of Samuel Johnson was " the victorious battle of a free, true man." His name is likely to be remembered "as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe." SAMUEL JOHNSON. SAMUEL JOHNSON, one of the most eminent English writ- ers of the eighteenth century, was the son of Michael John- son, who was, at the beginning of that century, a magistrate of Lichfield, and a bookseller of great note in the midland counties. Michael's abilities and attainments seem to have been consid- erable. He was so well acquainted with the contents of the volumes which he exposed to sale, that the country rectors of Staffordshire and Worcestershire thougiit him an oracle on points of learning. Between him and the clergy, indeed, there was a strong religious and political sympathy. He was a zealous churchman, and, though he had qualified himself for municipal office by taking the oaths to the sovereigns in possession, was to the last a Jacobite ^ in heart. At his house, a house which is still pointed out to every traveler who visits Lichfield, Samuel was born on the i8th of September, 1709. In the child, the physical, intellectual, and moral peculiarities which afterwards distinguished the man were plainly discernible, — great muscular strength accompanied by much awkwardness and many infirmi- ties ; great quickness of parts, with a morbid propensity to sloth and procrastination; a kind and generous heart, with a gloomy and irritable temper. He had inherited from his ancestors a scrofulous taint, which it was beyond the power of medicine to remove. His parents were weak enough to believe that the royal 1 An adherent of James II., or of his descendants ; from the Latin Jacohtis (James). 21 2 2 MACAULAV. touch was a specific for this malady.^ In his third year he was taken up to London, inspected by the court surgeon, prayed over by the court chaplains, and stroked and presented with a piece of gold by Queen Anne. One of his earhest recollections was that of a stately lady in a diamond stomacher and a long black hood. Her hand was applied in vain. The boy's features, which were originally noble and not irregular, were distorted by his malady. His cheeks were deeply scarred. He lost for a time the sight of one eye, and he saw but very imperfectly with the other. IJBut the force of his mind overcame every impedimentT Indolent as he was, he acquired knowledge with such ease and rapidity, that at every school to which he was sent he was soon the best scholar. From sixteen to eighteen he resided at home, and was left to his own devices. He learned much at this time, though his studies were without guidance and without plan. He ransacked his father's shelves, dipped into a multitude of books, read what was interesting, and passed over what was dull. An ordinary lad would have acquired little or no useful knowledge in such a way ; but much that was duU to ordinary lads was inter- esting to Samuel. He read little Greek; for his proficiency in that language was not such that he could take much pleasure in the masters of Attic ^ poetry and eloquence. But he had left school a good Latinist, and he soon acquired, in the large and miscellaneous library of which he now had the command, an ex- tensive knowledge of Latin literature. That Augustan ^ dehcacy of taste which is the boast of the great public schools of England, he never possessed. But he was early familiar with some classi- cal writers who were quite unknown to the best scholars in the 1 Tliis superstition was widespread in Queen Anne's reign (1702-14). The newspapers of the time record that in one day — March 30, 1712 — two hundred persons were touched by the Queen. 2 Athenian, the most highly cultivated dialect of the Greek tongue. ^ Under Emperor Augustus (died, A.D. 14), Roman literature reached its highest point. The period of Queen Anne has been styled " the Augustan age " of English literature. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. 23 sixth form at Eton.^ He was peculiarly attracted by the works of the great restorers of learning.- Once, while searching for some apples, he found a huge folio volume of Petrarch's ^ works. The name excited his curiosity, and he eagerly devoured hun- dreds of pages, t Indeed, the diction and versification of his own Latin compositions show that he had paid at least as much attention to modern copies from the antique as to the original models.3 *^ While he was thus irregularly educating himself, his family was sinking into hopeless poverty. Old Michael Johnson was much better quahfied to pore upon books, and to talk about them, than to trade in them. His business dechned : his debts increased ; it was with difficulty that the daily expenses of his household were defrayed. It was out of his power to support his son at either university ;* but a wealthy neighbor offered assistance, and, in re- liance on promises which proved to be of very little value, Sam- uel was entered at Pembroke College, Oxford. When the young scholar presented himself to the rulers of that society, they were amazed not more by his ungainly figure and eccentric manners than by the quantity of extensive and curious information which he had picked up during many months of desultory, but not un- profitable study. On the first day of his residence, he surprised his teachers by quoting Macrobius ;^ and one of the most learned 1 One of the famous schools of England. Walpole, Gray, Shelley, Fox, Canning, and the Duke of Wellington were educated at Eton. 2 A revival of learning and classical study marked the great intellectual movement of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The text alludes to famous scholars of the Renaissance, like Petrarch, PoHtian, Eras- mus, and Sir Thomas More. 3 A celebrated Italian poet (1304-74). < Oxford or Cambridge, the two great English universities. Christ Church, one of the greatest and most fashionable colleges of Oxford, was established by Henry VIII. Pembroke College was founded in 1624; its library contains many memorials of Johnson. 5 Roman grammarian (beginning of fifth century), and author of a series of essays. 24 AfACAULAY. among them declared that he had never known a freshman of equal attainments. '^ At Oxford, Johnson resided during about three years. He was poor, even to raggedness ; and his appearance excited a mirth and a pity which were equally intolerable to his haughty spirit. He was driven from the quadrangle of Christ Church by the sneer- ing looks which the members of that aristocratical society cast at the holes in his shoes. Some charitable person placed a new pair at his door ; but he spurned them away in a fury. Distress made him, not servile, but reckless and ungovernable. No opulent gentleman commoner,^ panting for one and twenty, could have treated the academical authorities with more gross disrespect. The needy scholar was generally to be seen under the gate of Pembroke, a gate now adorned with his efifigy, haranguing a circle of lads, over whom, in spite of his tattered gown and dirty linen, his wit and audacity gave him an undisputed ascendency. In every mutiny against the discipline of the college, he was the ringleader. Much was pardoned, however, to a youth so highly distinguished by abilities and acquirements. He had early made himself known by turning Pope's " Messiah " 2 into Latin verse. The style and rhythm, indeed, were not exactly VirgiHan;^ but the translation found many admirers, and was read with pleasure by Pope himself. The time drew near at which Johnson would, in the ordinary 1 A student in some English colleges (Oxford and \\ inchester), who jiays for his commons, and who is not, like a fellow, dependent on the foundation for support. There grew up at Oxford, students of many ranks, — noblemen, gentlemen commoners, fellow commoners, servitors ; but these grades are now practically obsolete, students being distinguished as " commoners" or " scholars " (students " on the foundation "). 2 A sacred eclogue by Alexander Pope (1688-1744), in imitation of \'irgil's Pollio, first published in the Spectator. It is \\ritten in rhyming coujilets. " In reading several passages of the prophet Isaiah which foretell the coming of Christ," said Pope, " I could not but observe a remarkable parity between many of the thoughts and those in the Pollio of Virgil." 3 Virgil (70-19 B.C.) was a celebrated Roman poet of the Augustan age; author of Eclogues, Georgics, and the ^"lineid. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSOX. 25 course of things, have become a bachelor of arts ; but he was at the end of his resources. Those promises of support on which he had reh'ed had not been kept. His- family could do nothing for him. His debts to Oxford tradesmen were small indeed, yet larger than he could pay. In the autumn of 1731 he was under the necessity of quitting the university without a degree. In the following winter his father died. The old man left but a pit- tance ; and of that pittance almost the whole was appropriated to the support of his widow. The property to whicli Samuel succeeded amounted to no more than twenty pounds. f His life, during the thirty years which followed, was one hard struggle with poverty. The misery of that struggle needed no aggravation, but was aggravated by the sufferings of an unsound body and an unsound mind. Before the young man left the university, his hereditary malady had broken forth in a singularly cruel form. He had become an incurable hypochondriac. He said long after, that he had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane ; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought grounds sufficient for absolving felons and for setting aside wills. His grimaces, his gestures,^ his mut- terings, sometimes diverted and sometimes terrified people who did not know him. At a dinner table he would, in a fit of ab- sence, stoop down and twitch off a lady's shoe. He w^ould amaze a drawing-room by suddenly ejaculating a clause of the Lord's Prayer. He would conceive an unintelligible aversion to a particular alley, and perform a great circuit ratlier than see the hateful place. He would set his heart on touching every post in the streets through which he walked. If by any chance he missed a post, he would go back a hundred yards, and repair the omission. Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one 1 Of these motions or tricks of Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds said, " He could sit motionless, when he was told to do so, as well as any other man. My opinion is, that it proceeded from a habit, which he had indulged himself in, of accompanying his thoughts with certain untoward actions." 26 MACAULAV. time he would stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst. A deep melancholy took possession of him, and gave a dark tinge to all his views of human nature and of human destiny. Such wretchedness as he endured has dri\en many men to shoot themselves or drown themselves. But he was under no temptation to commit suicide. He was sick of life, but he was afraid of death ; and he shuddered at every sight or sound which reminded him of the inevitable hour. In religion he found but little comfort during his long and frequent fits of dejection ; for his rehgipn partook of his own character. The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a direct line, or with its own pure splendor. The rays had to struggle through a disturbing medium : they reached him refracted, dulled, and discolored by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul ; and, though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too dim to cheer him. With such infirmities of body and of mind, this celebrated man was left, at two and twenty, to fight his way through the world. He remained during about five years in the midland counties. At Lichfield, his birthplace and his early home, he had inherited some friends, and acquired others. He was kindly noticed by Henry Hervey,i a gay officer of noble family, who happened to be quartered there. Gilbert Walmesley,^ registrar of the ecclesiastical court ^ of the diocese, — a man of distinguished parts, learning, and knowledge of the world, — did himself honor by patronizing the young adventurer, whose repulsive person, unpolished manners, and squalid garb, moved many of the petty aristocracy of the neighborhood to laughter or to disgust. At 1 The Hon. Henry Hervey, third son of the first Earl of Bristol : his eldest brother was Pope's Lord Fanny (see Note 4, p. 27). 2 Author (died, 1751) of many Latin verses, translated in the Gentleman's Magazine. 3 The Prerogative Court. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. 27 Lichfield, however, Johnson could find no Avay of earning a livelihood. He became usher of a grammar school in Leices- tershire ; he resided as a humble companion in the house of a country gentleman ; but a life of dependence was insupportable to his haughty spirit. He repaired to Birmingham, and there earned a few guineas by literary drudgery. In that town he printed a translation, httle noticed at the time, and long for- gotten, of a Latin book about Abyssinia.^ He then put forth proposals for publishing by subscription the poems of Politian,'-^ with notes containing a history of modern Latin verse ; but sub- scriptions did not come in, and the volume never appeared. While leading this vagrant and miserable life, Johnson fell in love. The object of his passion was Mrs. Ehzabeth Porter, a widow who had children as old as himself. To ordinary specta- tors, the lady appeared to be a short, fat, coarse woman, painted half an inch thick, dressed in gaudy colors, and fond of exhibit- ing provincial airs and graces which were not exactly those of the Queensberrys ^ and Lepels.* To Johnson, however, whose passions were strong, whose eyesight was too weak to distinguish ceruse from natural bloom, and who had seldom or never been in the same room with a woman of real fashion, his Titty, as he called her, was the most beautiful, graceful, and accomplished of her sex. That his admiration was unfeigned cannot be doubted, for she was as poor as himself. She accepted, with a readiness which did her little honor, the addresses of a suitor who might have been her son. The marriage, however, in spite of occasional wranglings, proved happier than might have been expected. The 1 Translation and abridgment of a Voyage to Abyssinia, by Father Lobo, a Portuguese priest (i 593-1 678). 2 A Florentine poet and scholar (1454-94) ; author of poems in Latin and Italian. 3 Catherine Hyde (died, 1777), Duchess of Queensberry, a celebrated beauty, was the eccentric friend of Gay. See Letters of Horace Walpole (to Conway, June 8, 1747). * A friend of Pope. She married Lord John Hervey (1696-1743), who wrote Memoirs of the Reign of George IL (see Thackeray's George IL). 28 MACAULAV. lover continued to be under the illusions of the wedding day till the lady died, in her sixty-fourth year. On her monument he placed an inscription extolling the charms of her person and of her manners ; and when, long after her decease, he had occasion to mention her, he exclaimed, with a tenderness half ludicrous, half pathetic, " Pretty creature ! " His marriage made it necessary for him to exert himself more strenuously than he had hitherto done. He took a house in the neighborhood of his native town, and advertised for pupils. But eighteen months passed away ; and only three pupils came to his academy. Indeed, his appearance was so strange, and his tem- per so violent, that his schoolroom must have resembled an ogre's den. Nor was the tawdiy painted grandmother whom he called his Titty, well qualified to make provision for the comfort of young gentlemen. David Garrick,i who was one of the pupils, used many years later to throw the best company of London into convulsions of laughter by mimicking the endearments of this extraordinary pair, , At length Johnson, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, deter- mined to seek his fortune in the capital as a literary adventurer. He set out with a few guineas, three acts of the tragedy of " Irene "^ in manuscript, and two or three letters of introduction from his friend Walmesley. Never since literature became a calling in England had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. In the preceding generation, a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the government. The least that he could expect was a pension or a sinecure place ; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, he 1 The celebrated actor (1716-79). He was before all a Shakespearean actor, and (according to Lecky) did more than any other man to extend the popularity of Shakespeare. In 1741 he made his appearance in the ch.aracter of Richard III. Gray, in a letter (1741), says, " Did I tell you about Mr. Garrick that the town are horn-mad after ? There are a dozen dukes of a night at Goodman's Fields [Theater] sometimes." 2 .See p. 40. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. 29 might hope to be a member of Parhament, a lord of the treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. 1 It would be easy, on the other hand, to name several writers ^ of the nineteenth century, of whom the least successful has received forty thousand pounds from the booksellers. But Johnson entered on his vocation in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which separated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish under the patronage of the great, and had not begun to flourish under the pati^onage of the pubhc. One man of letters, indeed. Pope, had acquired by his pen what was then considered as a handsome fortune,^ and lived on a footing of equality with nobles and min- isters of state. But this was a soHtary exception. Even an author whose reputation was established and whose works were popular — such an author as Thomson,^ whose "Seasons" were in every library; such an author as Fielding,^ whose " Pasquin " had had a greater run than any drama since the " Beggar's Opera"*' — was sometimes glad to obtain, by pawning his best coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cookshop underground, where he could wipe his hands, after his greasy meal, on the back of a Newfoundland dog. It is easy, therefore, to imagine what humiliations and privations must have awaited the novice who had still to earn a name. One of the publishers to whom Johnson applied for employment measured with a scornful eye 1 In the executive department of the English Government, the Treasury Board consists of four lords of the treasury and a chancellor of the exchequer. To the first lord of the treasury are usually assigried the duties of the prime minister. There are five secretaries of state ; namely, for the home, foreign, colonial, war, and Indian departments. 2 Scott and Byron. 3 Pope's translation of Homer brought him about nine thousand pounds. 4 James Thomson (1700-48). See Introduction. 5 Henry Fielding (1707-54), one of the greatest of English novelists; author of Tom Jones. Pasquin (1736) is a dramatic satire. 6 An English ballad opera (1728) by John Gay (1688-1732). It was written to ridicule the Italian operatic style ; and its chief characters, high- waymen and pickpockets, are a satire on the corrupt statesmen of the day. 30 MACAi'LAY. that athletic though uncouth frame, and exclaimed, " You had better get a porter's knot,i and carry trunks." Nor was the advice bad ; for a porter was likely to be as plentifully fed and as comfortably lodged as a poet. Some time appears to have elapsed before Johnson was able to form any literary connection from which he could expect more than bread for the day which was passing over him. He never forgot the generosity with which Hervey, who was now residing in London, reheved his wants during this time of trial. " Harry Hervey," said the old philosopher many years later, " was a vicious man ; but he was very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey, I shall love him." At Hervey's table, Johnson sometimes enjoyed feasts which were made more agreeable by contrast. But in general he dined, and thought that he dined well, on sixpennyworth of meat and a pennyworth of bread at an alehouse near Drury Lane.^ The effect of the privations and sufferings which he endured 'at this time was discernible to the last in his temper and his deportment. His manners had never been courtly. They now became almost savage. Being frequently under the necessity of wearing shabby coats and dirty shirts, he became a confirmed sloven. Being often very hungry when he sat down to his meals, he contracted a habit of eating with ravenous greediness. Even to the end of his life, and even at the tables of the great, the sight of food affected him as it affects wild beasts and birds of prey. His taste in cookery, formed in subterranean ordinaries '^ and aldfnoiie beefshops, was far from delicate. Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence, that his veins swelled and the moisture broke out 1 " A pad for supporting burdens on the head." 2 A London street communicating with the Strand ; near it, on Russell Street, is the celebrated Drury Lane Theater, first opened in 1663. ' " Ordinary," i.e., " a place of eating cstalilished at a certain price." — Johnson : Dictionary. THE LIFE OE SAMUEL JOHXSOX. 31 on his forehead. The aflFronts which his poverty emboldened stupid and low-minded men to offer to him, would have broken a mean spirit into s ycophancy , but made him rude even to ferocity. Unhappily, the insolence, which, while it was defensive, was par- donable and in some sense respectable, accompanied him into societies where he was treated with courtesy and kindness. He was repeatedly provoked into striking those who had taken liber- ties with him. All the sufferers, however, were wise enough to abstain from talking about their beatings, except Osborne, the most rapacious and brutal of booksellers, who proclaimed every- where that he had been knocked down by the huge fellow whom he had hired to puff the Harleian Library. 1 1 _ About a year after Johnson had begun to reside in London, he was fortunate enough to obtain regular employment from Cave,- an enterprising and intelligent bookseller, who was proprietor and editor of the " Gentleman's Magazine." That journal, just enter- ing on the ninth year of its long existence, was the only periodical work in the kingdom which then had what would now be called a large circulation. It was, indeed, the chief source of parlia- mentary intelligence. It was not then safe, even during a recess, to pubhsh an account of the proceedings of either House without some disguise. Cave, however, ventured to entertain his readers with what he called " Reports of the Debates of the Senate of Lilliput."^ France was Blefuscu ; London was Mildendo ; pounds were sprugs ; the Duke of Newcastle ^ was the Nardac secretary of state ; Lord Hardwicke ^ was the Hugo Hickrad ; and WiUiam T- PulteneyS was Wingul Pulnub. To write the speeches was, dur- 1 The celebrated collection of books made by the Earl of Oxford (Henry Harley), purchased by Osborne for thirteen thousand pounds (see Note 2, p. 59)- 2 Edward Cave (1691-1754). 3 The name is taken from Swift's Gulliver's Travels. * A famous Whig statesman (1693-1768), secretary of state and premier : he formed a coalition with Pitt (1757). See Macaulay's Chatham. 5 Whigstatesman (1690-1764) : aslordchancellor he won a high reputation. 6 Famous Whig leader (1684-1764), at first a friend of Walpole, but after- ward the head of the faction called " the. Patriots ; " created Earl of Bath. 32 A/ACAi'LAY. ing several years, the business of Johnson. He was generally furnished with notes — meager indeed, and inaccurate — of what had been said ; but sometimes he had to find arguments and eloquence, both for the ministry and for the opposition. He was himself a Tory,^ not from rational conviction, — for his serious opinion was, that one form of government was just as good or as bad as another, — but from mere passion, such as inflamed the Capulets against the Montagues,- or the Blues of the Roman circus against the Greens.^ In his infancy he had heard so much talk about the villainies of the Whigs* and the dangers of the Church, that he had become a furious partisan when he could scarcely speak. Before he was three, he had insisted on being taken to hear Sacheverell •'"' preach at Lichfield Cathedral, and had listened to the sermon with as much respect, and probably with as much intelligence, as any Staffordshire squire in the congre- gation. The work which had been begun in the nursery had been completed by the university. Oxford, when Johnson resided there, was the most Jacobitical place in England ; and Pembroke was one of the most Jacobitical colleges in Oxford. The prejudices which he brought up to London were scarcely less absurd than those of his own Tom Tempest. •* Charles II. and James II.'' were two of the best kings that ever reigned. 1 The Tories were tlie pe.ice jiarty in Queen Anne's reign, and had a strong ally in the Church. During Johnson's earlier years (1712-42) the Whigs ruled England. '^ In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the families of the two lovers, the Montagues and the Capulets, cherish an hereditary feud. •^ For an account of the circus factions at Constantinople, see Gibbon's Roman Empire, chap. xli. * Of the two great political parties, the Whigs were the more liberal. They defended the revolution of 1688, and favored the Hanoverian suc- cession. s Dr. Henry Sacheverell (1672-1724) a High-church divine who preached in severe terms against the Whig administration. He was impeached (1710), and suspended from office for three years. 6 A bigoted and noisy partisan. For the character, see Idler No. 10. 7 Charles II. reigned 1660-85; and James II., 1685-88. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOILXSON. 33 Laud,i a poor creature who never did, said, or wrote anything indi- cating more than the ordinary capacity of an old woman, was a prodigy of parts and learning, over whose tomb Art and Genius - still continued to weep. Hampden-^ deserved no more honorable name than that of " the zealot of rebellion." Even the ship money,'* condemned not less decidedly by Falkland ^ and Clarendon ^ than by the bitterest Roundiieads,'^ Johnson would not pronounce to have been an unconstitutional impost. Under a government the mildest that had ever been known in the world, under a govern- ment which allowed to the people an unprecedented liberty of speech and action, he fancied that he was a slave ; he assailed the ministry with obloquy which refuted itself, and regretted the lost freedom and happiness of those golden days in which a writer who had taken but one-tenth part of the license allowed to him would have been pilloried, mangled with the shears, whipped at the cart's tail, and flung into a noisome dungeon to die. He hated dissenters and stockjobbers, the excise and the army, septennial parliaments and continental connections. He long had an aversion to the Scotch, an aversion of which he could not remember the commencement, but which, he owned, had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation during the Great RebeUion.^ It is easy to guess in what manner debates on great party questions were likely to be re- 1 Archbishop Laud (1573-1645), the persecutor of the Puritans. He was impeached and executed. 2 "Around his tomb let Art and Genius weep." — Vanity 0/ Human IVishes, line 173. 3 John Hampden (1594-1643), celebrated leader of the patriotic party against Charles I. ■t An arbitrary tax imposed by Charles I., first introduced in 1634. The tax was levied on the whole kingdom, and the money raised was expended on the navy. 5 A Royalist leader (1610-43) in the civil war. ^, A Royalist statesman (1608-74), author of a history of the civil war. "^ A name given in derision by the Royalists to the Puritans and Independ- ents. ^ The civil war against Charles I., begun in 1642. 3 34 jMACALLAY. ported by a man whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A show of fairness was, indeed, necessary to tlie prosperity of the magazine. But Jolmson long afterwards owned, that, thougli he had saved apjicarances, he had taken care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it ; and, in fact, every passage which has lived, every passage .which bears the marks of his higher faculties, is put into the mouth of some member of the opposition. '-- A few weeks after Johnson had entered on these obscure labors, he published a work which at once placed him high among the writers of his age. It is j'robable that what he had suffered during his first year in London had often reminded him of some parts of that noble poem in which Juvenal ' had described the misery and degradation of a needy man of letters, lodged among the pigeons' nests in the tottering garrets which overhung the streets of Rome. Pope's admirable imitations of Horace's "-^ "Satires" and " Epistles" had recently appeared, were in every hand, and were by many readers thought superior to the originals. What Pope had done for Horace, Johnson aspired to do for Juvenal. The enterprise was bold, and yet judicious. For be- tween Johnson and Juvenal there was much in common, — much more, certainly, than between Pope and Horace. i^r Johnson's " London " appeared without his name in May, i 738. He received only ten guineas for this stately and vigorous poem ; but the sale was rapid, and the success complete. A second edition was required within a week. Those small critics who are always desirous to lower established reputations, ran about proclaiming that the anonymous satirist was superior to Pope in Pope's own peculiar department of literature. It ought to be remembered, to the honor of Pope, that he joined heartily in the applause with which the appearance of a rival genius was 1 A famous Roman satirist (about A.D. 60-140). The allusion is to liis Third Satire. 2 A famous poet (65-8 B.C.), whose ocles, epistles, and satires show the Latin tongue in its perfection. Pope's Moral Essays and Satires are Horatian. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHXSOX. 35 welcomed. He made inquiries about the author of " London." Such a man, he said, could not long be concealed. The narae was soon discovered ; and Pope, with great kindness, exerted him- self to obtain an academical degree, and the mastership of a grammar school, for the poor young poet. The attempt failed, and Johnson remained a bookseller's hack. ' ' It does not appear that these two men — the most eminent writer of the generation which was going out, and the most eminent writer of the generation which was coming in — ever saw each other. They lived in very different circles, one surrounded by dukes and earls, the other by starving pamphleteers and index makers. Among Johnson's associates at this time may be men- tioned Boyse,^ who, when his shirts were pledged, scrawled Latin ver.ses, sitting up in bed with his arms through two holes in his blankets, who composed very respectable sacred poetry when he was sober, and who was at last run over by a hackney coach when he was drunk; Hoole,- surnamed the metaphysical tailor, who, instead of attending to his measures, used to trace geomet- rical diagrams on the board where he sat cross-legged ; and the penitent impostor, George Psalmanazar,^ who, after poring all day, in a humble lodging, on the folios of Jewish rabbis and Christian fathers, indulged himself at night with literary and theological conversation at an alehouse in the city. But the most remarkable of the persons with whom at this time Johnson consorted, was Richard Savage,'^ an earl's son, a shoemaker's 1 Samuel Boyse (1708-49), a forgotten literary drudge. 2 John Hoole (i 727-1803), the translator of Tasso and Ariosto, received part of his education in Grub Street, being taught Ijy liis uncle, " Hoole the tailor," who is here alluded to. 3 The assumed name of a literary impostor (about 1679-1763), who pre- tended to be a native of Formosa, and wrote a fictitious account of that island (1704), and afterwards applied himself to the study of theology. He is mentioned in Humphry Clinker. * Author of the Wanderer (born, 1698 ; died, 1743) : his poetical works are now forgotten. He was reputed to be the illegitimate son of the Countess of Macclesfield. 36 .U.ICArL.-iy. apprentice, who liad seen life in all its forms, who had feasted among blue ribbands in St. James's Square, i and had lain with fifty pounds' weight of irons on his legs in the condemned ward of Newgate.^ This man had, after many vicissitudes of fortune, sunk at last into abject and liopeless poverty. His pen had failed him. His jjatrons had been taken away by death, or estranged by the riotous profusion witli which he squandered their bounty, and the ungrateful insolence with which he rejected their advice. He now lived by begging. He dined on venison and champagne whenever he had l)een so fortunate as to borrow a guinea. If his questing had been unsuccessful, he appeased the rage of hunger with some scraps of broken meat, and lay down to rest under the piazza of Covent Garden •* in warm weather, and in cold weather as near as he could get to the furnace of a glasshouse. Yet, in his misery, he was still an agreeable companion. He had an inexhaustible store of anec- dotes about that gay and brilliant world from which he was now an outcast. He had observed the great men of both parties in hours of careless relaxation, had seen the leaders of opposition without the mask of patriotism, and had heard the prime minis- ter roar with laughter, and tell stories not overdecent. During some months, Savage lived in the closest familiarity with John- son ; and then the friends parted, not without tears. Johnson remained in London to drudge for Cave. Savage went to the west of England, lived there as he had lived everywhere, and in 1743 died, penniless and heartbroken, in Bristol jail. / T Soon after his death, while the public curiosity was strongly excited about his extraordinary character and his not less extraor- dinary adventures, a life of him appeared, widely different from 1 Not far from St. James's Palace, tor many years the most fashionable square in I^ondon. " Blue ribbaiuls " stands by metonymy for members of the Order of the Garter. 2 A prison for felons ; destroyed and rebuilt several times. 3 In Bow Street, Covent Garden, a square and marketplace in London, stands the theater of the same name. THE LIFE OE SAMUEL JOILXSOX. 37 the catchpenny hves of eminent men which were then a staple article of manufacture in Grub Street. ^ The style was, indeed, deficient in ease and variety ; and the writer was evidently too partial to the Latin element of our language. But the little work, with all its faults, was a masterpiece. No finer specimen of literary biography existed in any language, living or dead ; and a discerning critic might have confidently predicted that the author was destined to be the founder of a new school of Enghsh eloquence. /]jThe " Life of Savage " was anonymous ; but it was well known in hterary circles that Johnson was the writer. Diu'ing the three years which followed, he produced no important work ; but he was not, and indeed could not be, idle. The fame of his abiU- ties and learning continued to grow. Warburton - pronotmced him a man of parts and genius ; and the praise of Warburton was then no light thing. Such was Johnson's reputation, that in 1747 several eminent booksellers combined to employ him in the arduous work of preparing a "Dictionary of the English Language," in two folio volumes. The sum which they agreed to pay him was only fifteen hundred guineas ; and out of this sum he had to pay several poor men of letters who assisted him in the humbler parts of his task. The Prospectus of the Dictionary he addressed to the Earl of Chesterfield.^ Chesterfield had long been celebrated for the politeness of his manners, the brilliancy of his wit, and the delicacy of his taste. He was acknowledged to be the finest speaker in the House of Lords. He had recently governed Ire- land, at a momentous conjuncture, with eminent firmness, wisdom, 1 " Originally the name of a .street in Moorfields in London, much inhab- ited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems ; whence any mean production is called gnibstreet." — Johnson : Dictiouaiy. Grub- street authors were satirized by Pope in the Dunciad. 2 William Warburton (1698-1779), Bishop of Gloucester; a learned critic. ^ Politician, orator, and man of fashion (1694-1773). He was renowned as a model of politeness, and his Letters to his son were accepted in his time as a manual of conduct. iS MACAfLAV. and humanity ; ami lie had since become secretary of state. He received Johnson's homage with the most winning affability, and requited it with a few guineas, bestowed, doubtless, in a very graceful manner, but ^-was by no means desirous to see all his carpets blackened witli the London mud, and his soups and wines thrown to right and left over the gowns of fine ladies and the waistcoats of fine gentlemen, by an absent, awkward scholar, who gave strange starts, and uttered strange growls, who dressed like a scarecrow, and ate like a cormorant. During some time, John- son continued to call on his patron, but, after being repeatedly told by the porter that his lordship was not at home, took the hint, and ceased to present himself at the inhospitable door. Johnson had flattered himself that he should have completed his Dictionary by the end of 1750; but it was not till 1755 that he at length gave his huge volumes to the world. During the seven years which he passed in the drudgery of penning defini- tions, and marking quotations for transcription, he sought for re- laxation in literary labor of a more agreeable kind. In 1749 he published the " Vanity of Human Wishes," an excellent imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. It is in truth not easy to say whether the palm belongs to the ancient or to the modern poet. The couplets 1 in which the fall of Wolsey - is described, though lofty and sonorous, are feeble when compared with the wonderful lines ^ which bring before us all Rome in tumult on the day of 1 Lines 99-128. 2 Thomas Wolsey (1471-1530), cardinal and jirinie minister of Henry VIII. 3 Lines 56-80 (Gifford's translation) : — " The statues, tumbled down, Are dragged by hooting thousands through the town ; The brazen cars, torn rudely from the yoke, And with the blameless steeds to shivers broke. — Then roar the fires! the sooty artist blows, And all Sejanus in the furnace glows. " Crown all your doors with bay, triumphant bay ! Sacred to Jove, the milk-white victim slay ; For lo ! where great Sejanus by the throng — A joyful spectacle ! — is dragged along." THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. 39 the fall of Sejanus/ the laurels on the doorposts, the white bull stalking towards the Capitol, the statues roiling down from their pedestals, the flatterers of the disgraced minister running to see him dragged with a hook through the streets, and to have a kick at his carcass before it is hurled into the Tiber. It must be owned, too, that in the concluding passage the Christian morahst has not made the most of his advantages, and has fallen decid- edly short of the sublimity of his Pagan model. On the other hand, Juvenal's Hannibal ^ must yield to Johnson's Charles ; ^ and Johnson's vigorous and pathetic enumeration ' of the miseries of a literary hfe must be allowed to be superior to Juvenal's lamentation over the fate of Demosthenes '' and Cicero.** For the copyright of the " Vanity of Human Wishes," Johnson received only fifteen guineas. A few days after the publication of this poem, his tragedy, begun many years before, was brought on the stage. His pupil, David Garrick, had in 1741 made his appearance on a humble stage in Goodman's Fields, had at once risen to the first place among actors, and was now, after several years of almost uninter- rupted success, manager of Drury Lane Theater. The relation between him and his old preceptor was of a very singular kind. They repelled each other strongly, and yet attracted each other strongly. Nature had made them of very different clay; and ^ Commander of the pretorian guard under the Roman Emperor Tiberius. He was put to death (A.D. 31) for his infamous crimes. '^ The famous Carthaginian general (247-183 B.C.) who crossed the Alps, and invaded Italy. 3 Charles XII. of Sweden (1697-1718), famous for his military genius. Johnson portrays Charles's ambition in lines 191—222 of the poem, ending: — " He left the name, at which the world grew pale. To point a moral, or adorn a tale." * " There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, — Toil, envy, want, the garret [Patron], and the jail." Vanity of Human Wishes, lines 159, 160. 5 Greatest of Greek orators (died, 322 B.C.). ^ Greatest of Roman orators (106-43 B.C.) tr y 40 MACAU LA v. -rcircumstances had fully brought out the natural peculiarities of both. Sudden prosperity had turned Garrick's head. Continued adversity had soured Johnson's temper. Johnson saw, with more envy than became so great a man, the villa, the plate, the china, tlie Brussels carjiet, which the little mimic had got by repeating, with grimaces and gesticulations, what wiser men liad written ; and the exquisitely sensitive vanity of Garrick was galled by the thought, that, while all the rest of the world was applauding him, he could obtain from one morose cynic,^ whose opinion it was impossible to despise, scarcely any comphment not acidulated with scorn. Yet the two Lichfield men had so many early rec- ollections in common, and sympathized with each other on so many points on which they sympathized with nobody else in the vast population of the capital, that though the master was often provoked by the monkeylike impertinence of the pupil, and the pupil by the bearish rudeness of the master, they remained friends till they were parted by death. Garrick now l>rought "Irene" out, with alterations sufficient to disj>lease the author, vet not sufficient to make the piece pleasing to the audience. The pub- lic, however, listened, with little emotion, but with much civility, to five acts of monotonous declamation. After nine rej^resenta- lions, the play was withdra^vn. It is, indeed, altogether unsuited to the stage, and, even when perused in the closet, will be found hardly worthy of the author. He had not the slightest notion of Avhat blank verse should be. A change in the last syllable of every other line would make the versification of the " Vanity of Human Wishes" closely resemble the versification of "Irene." The poet, however, cleared, by his benefit nights 2 and by the sale of the copyright of his tragedy, about three hundred pounds, then a great .sum in his estimation. 1 This name, now applied to a snapjiisli or sneering faultfinder, was origi- nally given to a Greek sect of philosophers noted for their coarse manners and surly disposition. '* The profits of every third performance of a play fell to the author as his benefit. THE LIFE OF SAMVFI. JOILYSO.V. 41 COl 7f ' ^ About a year after the representation of " Irene," he began to publish a series of short essays on morals, manners, and literature. This species of composition had been brought into fashion by the success of the " Tatler" and by the still more brilliant success of the " Spectator." ^ A crowd of small writers had vainly attempted to rival Addison.2 The "Lay Monastery," the "Censor," the " Freethinker," the "Plain Dealer," the " Champion," and other works of the same kind, had had their short day. None of them had obtained a permanent place in our literature ; and they are now to be found only in the libraries of the curious. At length Johnson undertook the adventure in which so many aspirants "had failed. In the thirty-sixth year after the appearance of the last number of the " Spectator," appeared the first number of the "Rambler." From March, 1750, to March, 1752, this paper continued to come out every Tuesday and Saturday. ^^From the first, the " Rambler " was enthusiastically admired by a few eminent men. Richardson,^ when only five numbers had appeared, pronounced it equal, if not superior, to the " Spectator." Young 4 and Hardey^ expressed their approbation not less warmly. Bubb Dodington,« among whose many faults indifference to the claims of genius and learning cannot be reckoned, solicited the acquaintance of the writer. In consequence, probably, of the good offices of Dodington, who was then the confidential adviser 1 The Tatler (1709) and the Spectator (1711) were projected by Richard Steele (i 671-1729). They mark the beginning of the periodical essay. 2 Joseph Addison (1672-1719). essayist, famous for the ease, grace, and delicate humor of his style. Associated with Steele, he made the fame of the Spectator. In his day he also made a figure as a poet (Blenheim) and as a dramatist (Cato). 3 Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), author of Pamela, Clarissa Harlowe, and Sir Charles Grandison. 4 Dr. Edward Young (1681-1765), author of Night Thoughts. 5 David Hartley (1705-57). philosopher; author of Observations on Man. • . , Ti 1 6 Lord Melcombe (1691-1762), courtier and politician; satirized as bubo by Pope. His Diary gives an insight into the Whig intrigues of the Ume. 42 MACAULAY. of Prince Frederick, two of his Royal Highness's gentlemen car- ried a gracious message lo the printing office, and ordered seven copies for Leicester House.' But these overtures seem to liave been very coldly received. Johnson had had enough of the patronage of the great to last him all his life, and was not dis- posed to haunt any other door as he had haunted the door of Chesterfield. y By the public the " Rambler " was at first very coldly received. Though the price of a number was only twopence, the sale tlid not amount to five hundred. The profits were therefore very small. But as soon as the flying leaves were collected and re- printed, they became popular. The author hved to see thirteen thousand copies spread over England alone. Separate editions were published for the Scotch and Irish markets. A large party pronounced the st\'le perfect, so absolutely perfect, that in some essays it would be impossible for the writer himself to alter a single word for the better. Another party, not less numerous, vehemently accused him of having corrupted the purity of the English tongue. The be.st critics admitted that his diction was too monotonous, too obviously artificial, and now and then turgid even to absurdity. But they did justice to the acuteness of his observations on morals and manners, lo the constant preci.sion and frecjuent brilliancy of liis language, to the weighty and mag- nificent eloquence of many serious passages, and to the solemn yet pleasing humor of some of the lighter papers. On the ques- tion of precedence between Addison and Johnson, — a question which, seventy years ago, was much disputed, — posterity has pro- nounced a decision from which there is no appeal. Sir Roger, his chaplain and his butler, Will Wimble and Will Honeycomb, the " Vision of Mirza," the " Journal of the Retired Citizen," the " Everlasting Club," the " Dunmow Flitch," the " Loves of Hilpah and Shalum," the " Visit to the Exchange," and the " Visit to the 1 Frederick, Prince of Wales (1707-51 ), son of George II., resided at Leicester House from 1737 until his death. He quarreled with his father, and became a member " of the opposition," against Walpole and tiie King. THE LIFE OF SAMi'EL JOIIXSOX. 43 Abbey," are known to everybody. ^ But many men and women, even of highly ^cultivated minds, are unacquainted with Squire Bluster and Mrs. Busy, Quisquilius and Venustulus, the " Allegory of Wit and Learning," the " Chronicle of the Revolutions of a Garret," and the sad fate of Aningait and Ajut.'-^ ^ The last "Rambler" was written in a sad and gloomy hour. Mrs. Johnson had been given over by the physicians. Three days later she died. She left her husband almost broken-hearted. Many people had been surprised to see a man of his genius and learning stooping to every drudgery, and denying himself almost every comfort, for the purpose of supplying a silly, affected old woman with superfluities, which she accepted with but little grati- tude. But all his affection had been concentrated on her. He had neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter. To him she was beautiful as the Gunnings,:^ and witty as Lady IVLary.^ Her opinion of his writings was more important to him than the voice of the pit of Drury Lane Theater,-^ or the judgment of the " Monthly Review." The chief support which had sustained him through the most arduous labor of his life was the hope that she would enjoy the fame and the profit which he anticipated from his Dictionary. She was gone ; and in that vast labyrinth of streets, peopled by eight hundred thousand human beings, he was alone. Yet it was necessary for him to set himself, as he expressed it, doggedly to work. After three more laborious years, the Dictionary was at length complete. 1 See Spectator: No. 159 (Mirza) ; No. 317 (Journal) ; No. 72 (Everlast- ing Club); Nos. 584, 585 (Hilpa); No. 69 (Royal Exchange). Sir Roger and the other familiar characters and chapters of the De Coverley Papers need no special reference. 2 See Rambler, Nos. 142, 138, 82, 22, 161, and 186 respectively. a The two Gunning sisters, — the Duchess of Hamilton and the Countess of Coventry, — famous beauties in the middle of the eighteenth century (see Dictionary of National Biography). 4 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1 762), distinguished for her literary attainments and her Letters to Pope, Addison, and other eminent men. 5 See Note 2, p. 30. 44 MAC ALLAY. ' ^ I It had been generally supposed that this great work would be dedicated to the eloquent and accomplished nobleman to whom the Prospectus liad been addressed. He well knew the value of such a compliment ; and therefore, when the day of publication drew near, he exerted himself to soothe, by a show of zealous and at the same time of delicate and judicious kindness, the pride which he had so cruelly wounded. Since the " Ram])lers " had ceased to appear, the town had been entertained by a journal called the "World," to which many men of high rank and fash- ion contributed.^ In two successive numbers of the "World" the Dictionary was, to use the modern phrase, puffed with Avon- derful skill. The writings of Johnson were warmly praised. It was proposed that he should be invested with the authority of a dictator, nay, of a pope, over our language, and that his deci- sions about the meaning and the spelling of words should be received as final. His two folios, it was said, would of course be bought l:)y everybody who could afford to buy them. It was soon known that these papers were written by Chesterfield. But the just resentment of Johnson was not to be so appeased. In a letter^ written with singular energv and dignity of thought and language, he repelled the tardv advances of his patron. The Dictionary came forth without a dedication. In the Preface the author truly declared that he owed nothing to the great, and described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically, that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Home Tooke,^ never could read that passage without tears. ' 'i The public, on this occasion, did Johnson full justice, and something more than justice. The best lexicograj)her may well 1 Among the contributors were Chesterfield and Horace ("Horry") Walpole (1717-97). The editor was Edward Moore. 2 See Introduction. 3 The assumed name of Jolin Home (1736-1812), politician and philolo- gist; author of Diversions of Purley. He was tried for high treason, but acquitted (1794). He criticised Johnson's etymologies. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHKSOX. 45 V)e content if his productions are received by the world with cold esteem. But Johnson's Dictionary was hailed with an enthusiasm such as no similar work has ever excited. It was, indeed, the first dictionary which could be read with pleasure. Tlie defini- tions ^ show so much acuteness of thought and command of language, and the passages quoted from poets, divines, and phi- losophers, are so skillfully selected, that .a leisure hour may always be very agreeably spent in turning over the pages. The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist. He knew little or nothing of any Teutonic language exxept English, which, indeed, as he viTote it, was scarcely a Teutonic language ; and thus he was absolutely at the mercy of Junius- and Skinner.^ sCj The Dictionary, though it raised Johnson's fame, added nothing . to his pecuniary means. The fifteen hundred guineas which the booksellers had agreed to pay him had been advanced and spent before the last sheets issued from the press. It is painful to re- late, that, twice in the course of the year which followed the pub- lication of this great work, he w-as arrested and carried to spong- inghouses,^ and that he was twice indebted for his liberty to his excellent friend Richardson.^ It was still necessary for the man who had been formally saluted by the highest authority as dicta- tor of the English language, to supply his wants by constant toil. He abridged his Dictionary. He proposed to bring out an edi- tion of Shakespeare by subscription ; and many subscribers sent in their names, and laid down their money ; but he soon found the ^ Many of the definitions \\-ere inserted in a spirit of humor and mischief. " Lexicographer " he defined as " a harmless drudge ; " and " oats " as " a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland sup- ports the people." 2 Francis Junius (i 589-1677), student of the Teutonic languages. 3 Dr. Stephen Skinner (1623-67), lexicographer. * " A house to which debtors are taken before commitment to prison, where the bailiffs sponge upon them, or riot at their cost." — Johnson: Dictionary. 5 See Note 3, p. 41. ^1 46 MACAULAV. task so little to his taste that he turned to more attractive employ ments. He contributed many papers to a new monthly journal, which was called the " Literary Magazine." Few of these papers have much interest ; but among them was the very best thing that he ever wrote, a masterpiece both of reasoning and of satirical pleasantry, the review of Jenyns's^ " Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil." ^^ In the spring of i 758 Johnson put forth the first of a series of essays entitled the " I/llei-." During two years these essays con- tinued to appear weekly. They were eagerly read, widely circu- lated, and, indeed, impudently pirated while they were still in the original form, and had a large sale when collected into volumes. The " Idler" may be described as a second part of the " Ram- bler," somewhat livelier and somewhat weaker than the first part. While Johnson was busied with his "Idlers," his mother, who had accomplished her ninetieth year, died at Lichfield. It was long since he had seen her ; but he had not failed to contribute largely, out of his small means, to her comfort. In order to defray the charges of her funeral, and to pay some debts which she had left, he wrote a little book in a single week, and sent off the sheets to the press without reading them over. A hundred pounds were paid him for the copyright ; and the purchasers had great cause to be i)leased with their bargain, for the book was " Rasselas." - ^^2^'he success of "Rasselas" was great, though such ladies as Miss Lydia Languish-^ must have been grievously disappointed when they found that the new volume from the circulating library was little more than a dissertation on the author's favorite theme, the vanity of human wishes; that the Prince of Abyssinia was without a mistress, and the princess without a lover ; and that the story set the hero and the heroine down exactly where it had taken 1 Soame Jenyns (1704-87), miscellaneous writer. - Rasselas; or, the Prince of Abyssinia, appeared in 1759- •^ A sentimental character in Sheridan's Rivals. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOLLNSON. 47 them up. The style was the subject of much eager controversy. Tlie " Monthly Review " and the " Critical Review " took dif- ferent sides. Many readers pronounced the writer a pompous pedant, who would never use a word of two syllables where it was possible to use a word of six, and who could not make a waiting woman relate her adventures without balancing every noun with another noun, and every epithet with another epithet. Another party, not less zealous, cited with delight numerous pas- sages in which weighty meaning was expressed with accuracy, and illustrated with splendor. And both the censure and the praise were merited. ''-'About the plan of " Rassekis " little was said by the critics ; and yet the faults of the plan might seem to invite severe criticism. Johnson has frequently blamed Shakespeare for neglecting the proprieties of time and place, and for ascribing to one age or nation the manners and opinions of another. Yet Shakespeare has not sinned in this way more grievously than Johnson. Rasselas and Imlac, Nekayah and Pekuah,^ are evidently meant to be Abyssinians of the eighteenth century ; for the Europe which Imlac describes is the Europe of the eighteenth century; and the inmates of the Happy Valley talk familiarly of that law of gravitation which Newton ^ discovered, and w-hich was not fully received, even at Cambridge,^ till the eighteenth century. What a real company of Abyssinians would have been may be learned from Bruce's"* "Travels." But Johnson, not content with turn- ing filthy savages ignorant of their letters, and gorged with raw steaks cut from living cows, into philosophers as eloquent and en- lightened as himself or his friend Burke,^ and into ladies as highly 1 Imlac the poet, Nekayah the princess, and Pekuah the favorite com- panion of the princess, are all characters in Rasselas. 2 Sir Isaac Newton (i 642-1 727), greatest of English mathematicians and astronomers. 3 See Note 4, p. 23. * James Bruce (1730-94), celebrated African traveler, 5 Edmund Burke (1729-97), orator and statesman; friend of America. 48 M.ICALLAV. accomplished as Mrs. Lennox ^ or Mrs. Sheridan,'- transferred the whole domestic system of England to Egypt. Into a land of harems, a land of polygamy, a land where women are married without ever being seen, he introduced the flirtations and jealousies of our ballrooms. In a land where there is boundless liberty of divorce, wedlock is described as the indissoluble compact. " A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home and dream of eac^i other. Such," says Rasselas, " is the common process of marriage." Such it may have been, and may still be, in London, but assuredly not at Cairo. A writer who was guilty of such improprieties had Httle right to blame the poet who made Hector quote Aristotle,^ and represented Julio Romano^ as flour- ishing in the days of the oracle of Delphi, v^^f By such exertions as have been described, Johnson supported h;m.self till the year 1762. In that year a great change in his circumstances took place. He had from a child been an enemy of the reigning dynasty. His Jacobite prejudices had been ex- hibited with little disguise both in his works and in his conversa- tion. Even in his massy and elaborate Dictionary, he had, with a strange want of taste and judgment, inserted bitter and con- tumelious reflections on the Whig party. The excise, which was a favorite resource of Whig financiers, he had designated as a hateful tax. He had railed against the commissioners of excise in language so coarse that they had seriously thought of prosecut- ing him. He had with difficulty been prevented from holding 1 Mrs. Charlotte Ramsay Lennox (i 720-1804), author of Female Quixote, and Life of Harriet Stuart. 2 Mrs. Frances Sheridan (1724-66), motlier of tlie dramatist; author of Memoirs of Miss Sidney Biddulpli. ^ .Shalicspcare (see Troilus and Cressida, act ii. sc. 2). Hector was tlie Trojan hero in the traditional siege of Troy; and Aristotle (dicil, .^22 B.C.), the most famous of the Greek pliilosoi^hers. * See Winter's Tale, act v. sc. 2. Giulio Romano (1492-1546) was a celebrated Italian painter. The oracle of Apollo at Delphi (Phocis, Greece) was famous in antiquity. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. 4(> up the lord privy seal ^ by name as an example of the meaning of the word " renegade." A pension he had defined as pay given to a state hireh'ng to betray his country ; a pensioner, as a slave of state hired by a stipend to obey a master. It seemed unlikely that the author of these definitions would himself be pensioned. But that was a time "o^wonders. George III. had ascended the throne,'^ and had, in tly; course of a few months, disgusted many of Tfhe o ld friends , and conciliated many of t hgt^ enemies, of his hou^e. xT he city was becoming mutinousll Q^xford was becom- ing loyal. Cavendishes and Bentincks were murmuring. Somer- sets and Wyndhams'^ Xrafe hastening to kiss hands. The head of the treasury was now^Lord Bute,* who was a Tory, and could have no objection to Johnson's Toryism. Bute wished to be thought a patron of men of letters ; and Johnson was one of the most eminent and one of the most needy men of letters in Europe. A pension of three hundred a year was graciously offered, and with, verj'^ little hesitation accepted. "This event produced a change in Johnson's whole way of life.^ ' *^ For the first time since his boyhood, he no longer felt the daily goad urging him to the daily toil. He was at liberty, after thirty years of anxiety and drudgerj'^, to indulge his constitutional indo- lence, to lie in bed till two in the afternoon, and to sit up talking^ till four \n the morning, without fearing either the printer's devinp /\^^ or the sherifFs ofhcer. , * \L One laborious task, indeed, he had bound himself to perform. 1 The custodian of the privy seal, which is affixed to minor documents, and which is also used \\\ connection with the great seal of the government (the chief emblem of sovereignty). Johnson added to the definition of * ' renegade " the words, " Sometimes we say a Govirer;" but they were struck out by the printer. 2 1760. 3 The Cavendishes and Bentincks" were representative Whig, and the Somersets and Wyndhams representative Tory families. On the death of Queen Anne (1714), Sir William VVyndham built up a Jacobite party. ■*. Earl of Bute (1713-92), a court favorite, and puppet of George III. Fie became premier in 1762. \ so ' MACAULAY. He had received large subscriptions for his promised edition of Shakespeare ; he had hved on those subscriptions during some years; and he could not, without disgrace, omit to perform his part of the contract. His friends repeatedly exhorted him to make an effort ; and he repeatedly resolved to do so. But, not- withstanding their exhortations and his resolutions, month fol- lowed month, year followed year, and nothing was done. He prayed fervently against his idleness ; he determined, as often as he received the sacrament, that he would no longer doze away and trifle away his time; but the spell under which he lay re- sisted prayer and sacrament. His private notes at this time are made up of self-reproaches. " My indolence," he wrote on Easter Eve in 1764, "has sunk into grosser sluggishness. A kind of strange oblivion has overspread me, so that 1 know not what has become of the last year." Easter, 1765, came, and found him still in the .same state. " My time," he wrote, "has been unprofit- ably spent, and seems as a dream that has left nothing behind. My memory grows confused, and I know not hoAv the days pass over me." Happily for his honor, the charm which held him captive was at length broken by no gentle or friendly hand. He had been weak enough to pay serious attention to a story about a ghost which haunted a house in Cock Lane,i and had actually gone himself, with some of his friends, at one in the morning, to St. John's Church, Clerkenwell,- in the hope of receiving a com- munication from the perturbed spirit. But the spirit, though ad- jured with all solemnity, remained obstinately silent ; and it soon appeared that a naughty girl of eleven had been amusing herself by making fools of so many philosophers. Churchill,^ who, con- 1 Tliis story was \roven abont the adventures of a young girl in Cock Lane, London (1762), who pretended to be in communication with the world of spirits. As a matter of fact, Johnson assisted in detecting the im- posture. 2 A northern district of London. ' Charles Churchill (1731-64), poet and wit. He has all the bitterness of Pope. THE LIFE OF 8AM UEL JOHNSON. 51 fident in his powers, drunk with popularity, and burning with party spirit, was looking for some man of established fame and Tory pohtics to insult, celebrated the Cock Lane ghost in three cantos, nicknamed Johnson Pomposo, asked where the book was which had been so long promised and so liberaUy paid for, and directly accused the great moralist of cheating. This terrible word proved effectual; and in October, 1765, appeared, after a delay of nine years, the new edition of Shakespeare. /*7 This publication saved Johnson's character for honesty, but added nothing to the fame of his abilities and learning. The preface, though it contains some good passages, is not in his best manner. The most valuable notes are those in which he had an opportunity of showing how attentively he had, during many years, observed human life and human nature. The best speci- men is the note on the character of Polonius.' Nothing so good is to be found even in Wilhelm Meister's- admirable examination of Hamlet. But here praise must end. It would be difficult to name a more slovenly, a more worthless, edition of any great classic. The reader may turn over play after play without find- ing one happy conjectural emendation, or one ingenious and satisfactory explanation of a passage which had baffled preceding commentators. Johnson had, in his Prospectus, told the world that he was peculiarly fitted for the task which he had undertaken, because he had, as a lexicographer, been under the necessity of taking a wider view of the English language than any of his pred- ecessors. That his knowledge of our literature was extensive, is indisputable. But, unfortunatelv, he had altogether neglected that very part of our literature with which it is especially desir- able that an editor of Shakespeare should be conversant. It is dangerous to assert a negative. Yet litde will be risked by the assertion, that in the two folio volumes of the " English Diction- ary " there is not a single passage quoted from any dramatist of ^^ The royal chamberlain in Hamlet ; the father of Ophelia. 2 Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749- 1832), whose name is the greatest in German literature (see Bk. IV. xiii.). 52 MAC A CLAY. the Elizabethan age,^ except Shakespeare and Ben.- Even from Ben the quotations are few. Johnson might easily, in a few months, have made himself well accjuainted with every old play that was extant. But it never seems to have occurred to him that this was a necessary preparation for the work which he had undertaken. He would doubtless ha\ e admitted that it would be the height of absurdity in a man who was not familiar with the works of ^^schylus and Euripides to publish an edition of Sophocles.^ Yet he ventured to publish an edition of Shake- speare without having ever in his life, as far as can be discovered, read a single scene of Massinger,-* Ford, Dekker, Webster, Mar- lowe, Beaumont, or Fletcher. His detractors were noisy and scurrilous. Those who most loved and honored him had little to say in praise of the manner in which he had discharged the duty of a commentator. He had, however, acquitted himself of a debt which had long lain heavy on his conscience, and he sank back into the repose from which the sting of satire had roused him. He long continued to live upon the fame which he had already won. He was honored by the University of Oxford with a doc- 1 This great age of English poetry ended, strictly speaking, with the death of Queen Elizabeth, in 1603; but tlie name is extended to cover the period up to tlie Restoration (1660). 2 " Rare Ben Jonson " (i573-l637). tlie most famous of the dramatists contemporary with Shakespeare. 3 .-Eschylus (died, 456 B.C.), Sophocles (died, 406 B.C.), and Euripides (died, 406 B.C.) were the three great tragic poets of Greece. < Here follows a list of the most famous Elizabethan and Stuart dramatists : Philip iMassinger (1584-1640), author of A New Way to Pay Old Debts; John Eord (1586 to about 1639), authrovoked into fits of passion, in which he said things which the small man, during a few hours, seriously resented. Every quarrel, however, was soon made up. During twenty years, the disciple continued to worship the master : the master continued to scold the discijile, to sneer at him, and to love him. The two friends ordinarily resided at a great distance from each other. Boswell practiced in the Parliament House of P2dinburgh, and could pay only occasional visits to London. During those visits, his chief business was to watch Johnson, to discover all Johnson's habits, to turn the conversation to subjects about which Johnson was likely to say somethings'remarkable, and to fill quarto notebooks with minutes of what Johnson had said. 1 n this way were gathered the materials out of which Avas afterwards constructed the most interesting biographical work^ in the world. Soon after the club began to exist, Johnson formed a connec- r|D 1 George Whitefield ( 1 714-70), the great preacher of the Methodist revival. Wesley, the head of the Methodists, broke with Whitelield, who had " plunged into an extravagant Calvinism," and who became the founder of the sect called " Calvinistic Methodists." Whitefield, as a follower of John Calvin (1500-6.1.). accepted the doctrine of predestination. 2 Sec Dr. llirkbeck Hill's edition (1887. 6 vols.). THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSOX. 5 7 tion less important, indeed, to his fame, but much more impor- tant to his happiness, than his connection with Boswell. Henry Thrale, one of the most opulent brewers in the kingdom, a man of sound and cultivated understanding, rigid principles, and liberal spirit, was married to one of those clever, kind-hearted, engaging, vain, pert young women who are perpetually doing or saying what is not exactly right, but who, do or say what they may, are always agreeable.^ In 1765 the Thrales became acquainted with John- son, and the acquaintance ripened fast into friendship. They were astonished and delighted by the brilliancy of his conversa- tion. They were flattered by finding that a man so widely cele- brated preferred their house to any other in London. Even the peculiarities wliich seemed to uniit him for civilized societv — his gesticulations, his rollings, his puilings, his mutterings, the strange way in which he put on his clothes, the ravenous eagerness with which he devoured his dinner, his fits of melancholy, his fits of anger, his frequent rudeness, his occasional ferocity — increased the interest which his new associates took in him. For these things were the cruel marks left behind by a life which had been one long conflict with disease and with adversity. In a vulgar hack writer, such oddities would have excited only disgust ; but in a man of genius, learning, and virtue, their effect was to add pity to admiration and esteem. Johnson soon had an apartment at the brewery in Southwark, and a still more pleasant apart- ment at the villa of his friends on Streatham Common. A large part of every year he passed in those abodes, — abodes which must have seemed magnificent and luxurious indeed, when compared with the dens in which he had generally been lodged. But his chief pleasures were derived from what the astronomer of his Abyssinian tale called " the endearing elegance of female friend- ship." Mrs. Thrale rallied him, soothed him, coaxed him, and, 1 In 1763, Hester Lynch Salisbury (1741-1821) married Henry Thrale, member of Parliament for Southwark. After Thrale's death (1781), she married Gabriel Piozzi, an Italian music teacher. Her Anecdotes of Johnson appeared in 1786. 58 MALA CLAY. if she sometimes provoked him by her flippancy, made ample amends by h'stening to his reproofs with angehc sweetness of temper. When he was diseased in body and in mind, she was the most tender of nurses. No comfort that wealth could pur- chase, no contrivance that womanly ingenuity, set to work by womanly compassion, could devise, was wanting to his sick room. He requited her kindness by an affection pure as the affection of a father, yet delicately tinged with a gallantry which, though awkward, must have been more flattering than the attentions of a crowd of the fools who gloried in the names, now obsolete, of buck and maccaroni.^ It should seem that a full half of John- son's life, during about sixteen years, was passed under the roof of the Thrales. He accompanied the family sometimes to Bath,^ and sometimes to Brighton,^ once to Wales, and once to Paris.* But he had at the same time a house in one of the narrow and gloomy courts^ on the north of Fleet Street. In the garrets was his library, a large and miscellaneous collection of books, falling to pieces, and begrimed with dust. On a lower floor he some- times, but very rarely, regaled a friend with a plain dinner, — a veal pie, or a leg of lamb and spinach, and a rice pudding. Nor was the dwelling uninhabited during his long absences. It was the home of the most extraordinary assemblage of inmates that ever was brought together. At the head of the establishment, John.son had placed an old lady named Williams, whose chief recommendations were her bhndness and her poverty. But, in spite of her murmurs and reproaches, he gave an asylum to an- other lady who was as poor as herself, Mrs. Desmoulins, whose family he had known many years before in Staffordshire. Room 1 Fop or dandy (see Century Dictionary). 2 One of the leading watering places of England ; especially noted in the eighteenth century, when Beau Nasli was master of ceremonies, or " King of Bath " (see Goldsmith's Life of Richard Nash). 3 On the English Channel ; now the leading seaside resort in Great Britain. * In 1775. 5 Bolt Court, where Johnson lived from 1776 up to the time of his death. THE LIFE OF SAM i EL JOJEVSOX. 59 was found for the daughter of Mrs. DesmouUns, and for another destitute damsel, who was generally addressed as Miss Carmichael, but whom her generous host called Polly. An old quack doctor named Levett, who bled and dosed coal heavers and hackney coachmen, and received for fees crusts of bread, bits of bacon, glasses of gin, and sometimes a little copper, completed this strange menagerie. All these poor creatures were at constant war with each other and with Johnson's negro servant Frank. Sometimes, indeed, they transferred their hostilities from the serv- ant to the master, complained that a better table was not kept for them, and railed or maundered till their benefactor was glad to make his escape to Streatham, or to the Mitre Tavern. i And yet he, who was generally the haughtiest and most irritable of mankind, who was but too prompt to resent anything which looked hke a slight on the part of a purse-proud bookseller, or of a noble and powerful patron, bore patiently from mendicants, who but for his bounty must have gone to the workhouse, in- sults more provoking than those for which he had knocked down Osborne,^ and bidden defiance to Chesterfield. Year after year Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Desmoulins, Polly and Levett, continued to torment him and to live upon him. ^ U The course of life which has been described was interrupted in Johnson's sixty-fourth year by an important event. He had early read an account of the Hebrides, and had been much in- terested by learning that there was so near him a land peopled by a race which was still as rude and simple as in the middle ages.^ A wish to become intimately acquainted with a state of 1 The celebrated tavern in Fleet Street, London, where Boswell and Johnson frequently met, and where they planned the famous tour to the Hebrides. 2 Thomas Osborne, a bookseller in Gray's Inn, satirized in the Dunciad (Rook II. 167). " He was impertinent to me," said Johnson, " and I beat him. But it was not in his shop; it was in my own chamber." 3 The middle ages include the interval from the close of the fourth century to the middle of the fifteenth century, when the modern era began. "^60 A/ACACLAV. V ^ society so utterly unlike all that he had ever seen, frequently X-r^ crossed his mind. But it is not probable that his curiosity would \^ have overcome his habitual sluggishness and his love of the smoke, the mud, and the cries of London, liad not Boswell im- jiortuned him to attempt the adventure, and offered to be his scpiire.' At length, in August, 1773, Johnson crossed the High- land line, and plunged courageously into what was then consid- ered, by most Englishmen, as a dreary and perilous wilderness. After wandering about two months through the Celtic ^ region, sometimes in rude boats which did not protect him from the rain, and sometimes on small shaggy ponies which could hardly bear his weight, he returned to his old haunts with a mind full of new images and new theories. During the following vear he employed himself in recording his adventures. About the beginning of 1775, his "Journey to the Hebrides" was published, and was, during some weeks, the chief subject of conversation in all circles in which any attention was paid to literature. The book is still read with pleasure. The narrative is entertaining ; the specula- tions, whether sound or unsound, are always ingenious ; and the style, though too stiff and pompous, is somewhat easier and more graceful than that of his early writings. His prejudice against the Scotch had at length become little more than matter of jest ; and whatever remained of the old feeling hatl been effectually removed by the kind and respectful hospitality with which he had been received in every part of Scotland. It was, of course, not to be expected that an Oxoruan Tory should praise the Presby- terian polity and ritual, or that an eye accustomed to the hedge- rows and parks of England should not be struck by the bareness of Berwickshire and P^ast Lothian.'' But even in censure John- son's tone is not unfriendly. The most enlightened Scotchmen, 1 A term of chivalry for an attendant on a kniy;lu ; used liere in tlie gen- eral sense of " escort." 2 Tlie Higlilanders of Scotland are called " Celtic" from the kinship of their language to that of the Irish, the Welsh, and the Britons. 2 Counties in southeastern Scotland, THE LIFE OF SAMLFiL JOUXSOX. 6i witli Lord Mansfield ^ at their head, were well pleased. But some foolish and ignorant Scotchmen wei'e moved to anger by a little unpalatable truth which was mingled with much eulogy, and as- sailed him whom they chose to consider as the enemy of their country with libels much more dishonorable to their country than anything that he had ever said or written. They published para- graphs in the newspapers, articles in the magazines, sixpenny pamphlets, five-shilling books. One scribbler abused Johnson for being blear-eyed ; another for being a pensioner ; a third informed the world that one of the doctor's uncles had been convicted of felony in Scotland, and had found that there was in that country one tree capable of supporting the weight of an Englishman. Macpherson,- whose " Fingal " had been proved in the "Journey" to be an impudent forgery, threatened to take vengeance with a cane. The only eflfect of this threat was that Johnson reiterated the charge of forgery in the most contemptuous terms, and walked about, during some time, with a cudgel, which, if the impostor had not been too wise to encounter it, would assuredly have descended upon him, to borrow the sublime language of his own epic poem, "like a hammer on the red son of the furnace." Of other assailants, Johnson took no notice whatever. He had early resolved never to be drawn into controversy ; and he adhered to his resolution with a steadfastness which is the more extraordinary because he was, both intellectually and morally, of the stufif of which controversialists are made. In conversation, he was a singularly eager, acute, and pertinacious disputant. When at a loss for good reasons, he had recourse to sophistry ; and when heated by altercation, he made unsparing use of sarcasm 1 A celebrated jurist and statesman {1705-93). 2 James Macpherson (1736-96) published some poems, including the epic Fingal, which professed to be translations of the works of Ossian, a Gaelic bard of the third century. The modern opinion is, that these " relics of ancient Celtic literature " were largely original with Macpherson. (See " Macpherson," in Dictionary of National Biography.) 62 MACAULAY. and invective. But when he took his pen in his hand, his whole character seemed to be changed. A hundred bad writers misrep- resented him and reviled him ; but not one of the hundred could boast of having been thought by him worthy of a refutation, or even oi a retort. The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hen- dersons did their best to annoy him, in the hope that he would give them importance by answering them. But the reader will in vain search his works for any allusion to Kenrick ^ or Camp- bell,2 to MacNicoP or Henderson.'^ One Scotchman, bent on vindicating the fame of Scotch learning, defied him to the com- bat in a detestable Latin hexameter — " Maxime, si tu vis, cupio contendere tecum." ^ But Johnson took no notice of the challenge. He had learned, both from his own observation and from literary history, in which he was deeply read, that the place of books in the public esti- mation is fixed, not by what is Avritten about tliem, but by what is written in them ; and that an author whose works are likely to live is very unwise if he stoops to wrangle with detractors whose works are certain to die. He always maintained that fame was a shuttlecock, which could be kept up only by being beaten back, as well as beaten forward, and which would soon fall if there were only one battledoor. No saying was oftener in his mouth than that fine apothegm of Bentley,^ that no man was e\er written down but by himself. Unhappily, a few months after the appearance of the " Journey to the Hebrides," Johnson did what none of his envious assailants 1 Dr. William Kenrick (died, 1779), a vulgar s.atirist, who savagely attacked Johnson's Shakespeare. 2 Archibald Campbell, a Scotch purser in the navy, who satirized John- son's style under the title of Lexiphanes. 3 Rev. Donald MacNicoI, who published a scurrilous volume on Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides. * Dr. Andrew Henderson, who likewise criticised Johnson's Journey. 5 " I desire especially, if you wish, to contend with you." 6 Richard Bentley (i 662-1 742), famuus classical scholar. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON. 63 could have done, and to a certain extent succeeded in writing himself down. The disputes between England and her American Colonies had reached a point at which no amicable adjustment was possible. Civil war was evidently impending ; and the min- isters seem to have thought that the eloquence of Johnson might with advantage be employed to inflame the nation against the opposition here, and against the rebels beyond the Atlantic. He had already written two or three tracts in defense of the foreign and domestic policy of the government ; and those tracts, thougli hardly worthy of him, were much superior to the crowd of pamphlets which lay on the counters of Almon ^ and Stockdale. But his " Taxation no Tyranny " 2 was a pitiable failure. The very title was a silly phrase, which can have been recommended to his choice by nothing but a jingling alliteration which he ought to have despised. The arguments were such as boys use in debating societies. The pleasantry was as awlcAvard as the gam- bols of a hippopotamus. Even Boswell was forced to own that in this imfortunate piece he could detect no trace of his master's powers. The general opinion was, that the strong faculties which had produced the Dictionary and the " Rambler " were begin- ning to feel the effect of time and of disease, and that the old man would best consult his credit by writing no more. But this was a great mistake. Johnson had failed, not because his mind was less vigorous than when he wrote " Rasselas " in the evenings of a week, but because he had foolishly chosen, or suffered others to choose for liim, a subject such as he would at no time have been competent to treat. He was in no sense a statesman. He never willingly read, or thought, or talked about, affairs of state. He loved biography, literary history, the history of manners ; but political history was positively distasteful to him. The question at issue between the Colonies and the mother country was a question about which he had really nothing to say. 1 John Almon {1737-1805), bookseller and journalist; friend of John Wilkes. 2 Published in 1775. ri 64 MACAL-LAY. He failed, therefore, as the greatest men must fail when they attempt to do that for which they are unfit ; as Burke would have failed if Burke had tried to write comedies like those of Sheri- dan ; 1 as Reynolds would have failed if Re}'TioIds had tried to paint landscapes like those of Wilson. "-^ Happily, Johnson soon had an opportunity of proving most signally that his failure was not to be ascribed to intellectual decay. ]-' On Easter Eve, 1777, some persons, deputed by a meeting w^hich consisted of forty of the first booksellers in London, called upon him. Though he had some scruples about doing business at that season, he received his visitors with much civility. They came to inform him that a new edition of the English poets, from Cowley downwards, was in contemplation, and to ask him to furnish short biographical prefaces. He readily undertook the task, a task for which he was preeminently qualified. His knowl- edge of the literary history of England since the Restoration was imrivaled. That knowledge he had derived partly from books, and partly from sources which had long been closed : from old Grub Street traditions ; from the talk of forgotten poetasters and pamphleteers who had long been lying in parish vaults ; from the recollections of such men as Gilbert Walmesley, who had con- versed with the wits of Button ; ^ Gibber,"* who had mutilated the plays of two generations of dramatists ; Orrery,^ who had been admitted to the society of Swift ; " and Savage,'^ who had ren- dered services of no very honorable kind to Pope. The biog- 1 Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan (1751-1816), noted dr.imatist and Whig politician ; author of School for Scandal. 2 Richard Wilson (1714-82), one of the original members of the Rt)yal Academy. 3 A famous coffeehouse in Queen Anne's time, frequented hy Addison nn.M>P 1-75 Compendium of American Literature. 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