iNro./io6. KjPR 3533 B7 M3 Copy 1 English • Classic • Series L _i_ i - i - i -i-i-i-i-i- i - i - i - i - i ^^ZtVim.TORy.^^^^ BOSWEll'S JOHNSON P AN ESSAY. ^ BY ^ ,ORD MaCAULAY I -i-i-i-i _.-._i-i-i-i-i-i--i-H i m NEW YORK: Effingham Maynard & Co., publishers, 771 Broadway and 67 & 69 Ninth St. J^^^^^y gy^^-^»-=f the jests of Hierocles, with an introduction, was one of Dr. Johnson's earliest works 17. Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. This paradox has been admirably refuted by Carlyle in his review of Boswell's Life of Johnson in Preiser's Magazine, May, 1832 : '* Nay, sometimes a strange enough hypothesis has l^een started of him; as if it were in virtue even of these same bad qualities that he did his good work, as if it wei-e the very fact of his being among tlie worst men in the world tliat had enabled him to write one of the best books therein ! Falser hypothesis, we may venture to say, never rose in human soul. Bad is by its nature negative, and can do nothing; whatsoever enables us to do anything is by its nature good." \^ LIFE OF JOHNSON. 13 and the torment of those among whom he lived, without the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the effrontery, the toad- eating, the insensibility to all reproof, he never could have produced so excellent a book. He was a slave proud of his servitude ; a Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and s garrulity were virtues ; an unsafe companion who never scrupled to repay the most liberal hospitality by the basest violation of confidence ; a man without delicacy, without shame, without sense enough to know when he was hurting the feelings of others, or when he was exposing himself toio derision ; and because he was all this, he has, in an import- ant department of literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol, John- son. Of the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence as is writers, Boswell had absolutely none. There is not in all his books a single remark of his own on literature, politics, relig- ion, or society, which is not either commonplace or absurd. His dissertations on hereditary gentility, on the slave-trade, and on the entailing of landed estates, may serve as examples. 20 To say that these passages are sophistical would be to pay them an extravagant compliment. They have no pretense to argument, or even to meaning. He has reported innumerable observations made by himself in the course of conversation. Of those observations we do not remember one which is above 25 2. Toad-eatins:. A toad-eater was originally the assistant to a mounte- bank; hence by contraction toady. 5. Paul Pry. Tlie chief character in the comedy of the same name by John Poole. He is one of those idle, meddling fellows who, having no em- ployment themselves, are perpetually interfering in other people'.s affairs. !2. luimeasurably surpassed sucli authors as Tacitus, etc. An ob- vious exaggeration. The four named, though all in a sense biographers, differ so entirely in their style and scope that there can be no just compari- son between them and Boswell Boswell's Life would be more fitly com- pared with such works as St. Simon's Memoires, Eckermann's Gesprdche mit Goethe, Pepys' Diary. Tacitus wrote the ii/e o/ ^gir/co/a ; Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion is rather in the form of memoirs than regular history; Alfieri wi'ote a history of his own life; Johnson, Lives of the Poets, Life of Savage, Sir T. Broiime, and many others. 13. Tacitus. The great Roman historian, in his " Life of Agricola." 13. JKdward Hyde, Earl of Clareiidr. Cains. The French physician in the same play. 16. Fluellen. The Welsh captain in Henry V. 18. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). A celebrated Swiss philosopher and writer. His early career presents a series of bizarre adventures, absurd vagaries, and suiprising vicissitudes, of which he has given an extremely candid and unreserved narrative in his Confessions. 18. Lord Byron. In his correspondence and diaries, which he left to be published by Thomas Moore. 25. Csesar Borgia. The natural son of Roderic Borgia Cafterwards Pope, under the title of Alexander VI.). represented by ^lachiavelli as the model of a tyrant, notorious for the cruelty and perfidy he employed in subduing the independent towns of the Rom;igna, noless thati forhis domestic crimes and debaucheries. He is said to have assassinated his elder brother, and lived in incest with his sister, the infamous Lucretia Borgia. 25. Danton. The foremost man during the first half of the French Rev- olution. He helped to establish the Revoiutionarv Tribunal. 10th March, 1793, and the Committee of Public Safety. 6th April. 1793. Remember his famous " Jetons-leur en d6fi une tetede roi," and " De I'audace, de I'audace, toujours de I'audace." He was guillotined by Robespierre, April 5th, 1794. Jl i LIFE OF JOHNSON. 15 day-dream like those of Alnaschar and Malvolio. Those weaknesses which most men keep covered up in the most secret places of the mind, not to be disclosed to the eye of friendship or of love, were precisely the .weaknesses which Boswell paraded before all the world. (He was perfectly s frank, because the weakness of his understanding and the tumult of his spirits prevented him from knowing when he made himself ridiculous. His book resembles nothing so much as the conversation of the inmates of the Palace of Truth. ' pis fame is great; and it will, we have no doubt, be lasting; lo but it is fame of a peculiar kind, and indeed marvelously resembles infamy. We remember no other case in which the world has made so great a distinction between a book and its author. In general the book and the author are considered as one. To admire the book is to admire the author. The 15 case of Boswell is an exception, we think the only exception, to this rule. His work is universally allowed to be interesting, instructive, eminently original : yet it has brought him noth- ing but contempt. All the world reads it: all the world delights in it : yet we do not remember ever to have read or 20 ever to have heard any expression of respect and admiration for the man to whom we owe so much instruction and amuse- ment. \ While edition after edition of his book was coming forth, his son, as Mr. Croker tells us, was ashamed of it, and hated to hear it mentioned. This feeling was natural and 25 reasonable. Sir Alexander saw that in proportion to the celebrity of the work was the degradation of the author. The very editors of this unfortunate gentleman's books have for- gotten their allegiance, and, like those Puritan casuists who 1. Alnaschar. See The Arabian Nights " History of the Barber's Fifth Brother," and Addison's Spectator, No. 535. 1. Malvolio. Olivia's amorous stewa 1(1 in Shakespeare's Ttvelfth NigJit. 9. The Palace of Truth. A tale of Madame de Genlis, which has been often dramatized, and within the last few years by Gilbert. It is a charmed palace, where every one is compelled against his will to speak the truth. 24. Croker. Publisher of the " Life of Johnson." 29. Like those Puritan ca8uist.s. '" Tliey not only declared that they fought for the king, but that the raising and maintaining soldiers for their own army would be an acceptable service for the king, parliament, and kingdom."— Clarendon. " For as we make war for the king against him- self," etc.— Hudibras. 16 LIFE OF JOHNSON. took arms by the authority of the king against his person, have attacked the writer while doing homage to the writings. Mr. Croker, for example, has published two thousand five hundred notes on the life of Johnson, and yet scarcely ever 5 mentions the biographer whose performance he has taken such pains to illustrate without some expression of contempt. An ill-natured man Boswell certainly was not. Yet the malignity of the most malignant satirist could scarcely cut deeper than his thoughtless loquacity. Having himself no lo sensibility to derision and contempt, he took it for granted that all others were equally callous. ^Ue was not ashamed to exhibit himself to the whole world as a common spy, a com- mon tattler, a humble companion without the excuse of poverty, and to tell a hundred stories of his own pertness and 15 folly, and of the insults which his pertness and folly brought upon him^It was natural that he should show little discre- tion in cases in which the feelings or the honor of others might be concerned. No man, surely, ever published such stories respecting persons whom he professed to love and 20 revere. He would infallibly have made his hero as contemp- tible as he has made himself, had not his hero really possessed some moral and intellectual qualities of a very high order. The best proof that Johnson was really an extraordinary man is that his character, instead of being degraded, has, on the 35 whole, been decidedly raised by a work in which all his vices and weaknesses are exposed more unsparingly than they ever were exposed by Churchill or by Kenrick. ^^ Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fullness of his fame and ^^' in the enjoyment of a competent fortune, is better known to 30 us than any other man in history. Everything about him, his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's 27. Churcliill. Born 1731, died 1764. His fame as a poet rests chiefly on the Rosciad, a bitter contemporary satire, in wliich Dr. Johnson figures. "He talked very contemptuously of Cliniciiiirs poetry, observing that ' it had a temporary currency only from its audacity of abuse, and being flllf-d with living names, and that it would sink into oblivion.' 27. Kenrick. " His (Johnson's) Shdlcespeare was virulently attacked by Mr. William Kenrick, who obtained the degree of LL.D. from a Scotch Uni- versity, and wrote for the booksellers in a great variety of branches." LIFE OF JOHNSON. 17 (lance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly marked his approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and veal-pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps s of orange-peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight disputa- tions, his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings, his vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence, his sarcas- tic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates, old Mr. Levett and blind Mrs. lo Williams, the cat Hodge and the negro Frank, all are as familiar to us as the objects by which we have been sur- rounded from childhood. But we have no minute information respecting those years of Johnson's life during which his character and his manners became immutably fixed. We is know him, not as he was known to the men of his own gener- ation, but as he was known to men whose father he might have been. That celebrated club of which he was the most distinguished member contained few persons who could re- member a time when his fame was not fully established and 20 his habits completely formed. He had made himself a name 10. Old Mr. liCvett. " An obscure practiser in physic among the lower people." " Ever since I was acquainted with Dr. Johnson, and many years before, as I have been assured by those who knew him earlier, Mr. Levett had an apartment in his house or his chambers, and waited upon him every morning through the whole course of his late and tedious breakfast."— Madame Piozzi, vol. i. p. 193. 11. Mrs. William.s. " Mrs. Anna W., daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived."— Boswell's Life. (1751.) His cat Hodge. " I shall never forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat ; for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor crea- ture."— i5/d. (17S3 ) The negro Frank. Francis Barber, his faithful servant, to whom he left an annuity of £70. He was born in Jamaica, and brought to England in 1750. He entered Dr. Johnson's service in 1752, and with the exception of two short intervals, continued in it till his master's death. 18. That celehrated club. The club, at first without a name, which after Garrick's death was called The Literary Club. Sir Joshua Reynolds was the first promoter, in 1764, and the original members were Sir J. Reyn- olds, Dr. Johnson, Edmund Burke, Goldsmith, Nugent, Beauclerk, Laneton, Chamier, and Sir John Hawkins. They met at the Turk's Head, Gerard Street, Soho. 18 LIFE OF JOHNSON. in literature while Reynolds and the Wartons were still boys. He was about twenty years older than Burke, Goldsmith, and Gerard Hamilton, about thirty years older than Gibbon, Beau- clerk, and Laiigton, and about forty years older than Lord 5 Stowell, Sir William Jones, and Windham. Boswell and Mrs. Thrale, the two writers from whom we derive most of our knowledge respecting him, never saw him till long after he was fifty years old, till most of his great works had become classical, and till the pension bestowed on him by the Crown lo had placed him above poverty. Of those eminent men who were his most intimate associates towards the close of his life, the only one, as far as we remember, who knew him during the first ten or twelve years of his residence in the capital, w^as David Garrick ; and it does not appear that during those 15 years David Garrick saw much of his fellow-townsman. 1. Sir Joshua Reynolds a7::3-1792). The most celebrated portrait- painter that England has produced. He founded in 1764 with Dr. Johnson, nis intimate friend, the Literary Club. " Sir Joshua Reynolds is the most invulnerable man I know,'" said Johnson; "the man with whom if you should quarrel you will find the most difficulty how to abuse." The Wartons. Joseph, born 17'^, head master of Winchester Col- legre. Thomas, bum I7;!i8, author of History of Eitylish Poetry, and editor of Milton. 2. Burke. See note 2, p. 28. 3. Gerard Haniilton. Born 1728-9. Commonly known by the name of Single-speech Hamilton. In 1754 he was elected M.P. for Petersfield. and on November 13, 1755, in a debate on an address of thanks, be made his famous 6T!)eech Gibbon. Bom 1737. died 1794. The History nf the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire was p\iblished 177C-88. Johnson occasionally met Gibbon, but, as might be expected, they had little in common. 4. Beauclerk, A contemporary of Langton at Trinity College, Oxford. Note 2, p. 10. Langton. BennetL.. of Langton, in Lincolnshire. "Langton, Sir, has a grant of free warren from Henry the Second, and Cardinal Stephen Langton. in King Johns reign, was of his family." 5. Lord Stowell. Sir W Scott, elder brother of Lord Chancellor Eldon, one of the greatest of English lawyers. Born 1745. Sir William Jone.s. See note 4, p. 28. AVindham. W^illiam W., the great parliamentary orator, the friend of Burke. Born 1750. BosAvell and Mrs. Thra-le, etc. Boswell was first introduced to him when he was in his fifty-fifth year. To Mrs. Thrale he was first introduced in his fifty-seventh year. She i^ublished Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson, and letters to and from Dr. Jobnson by Hester Lynch Piozzi. (After Mr. Thrale's death she married Signor Piozzi.) "Mrs. Thrale, a bright papilionaceous creature, whom the elephant loved to play with, and wave to and fro with his trunk."— Cablyle. 9. The pension. When he was fifty three a pension of £300 a year was conferred on bim by George HI., through the Earl of Bute, then Prime Minister. 14. David Garrick. In 1737 he travelled to London in company with LIFE OF JOHNSOK. 19 Johnson came up to London precisely at the time when the condition of a man of letters was most miserable and degraded. It was a dark night between two sunny days. The age of the Maecenases had passed away. The age of general curiosity and intelligence had not arrived. The number of readers is s at present so great that a popular author may subsist in com- fort and opulence on the profits of his works. In the reigns of William III., of Anne, and of George I., even such men as Congreve and Addison would scarcely have been able to live like gentlemen by the mere sale of their writings. But the lo deficiency of the natural demand for literature was, at the close of the seventeenth and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, more than made up by artificial encouragement, by a vast system of bounties and premiums. There was, perhaps, never a time at w^hich the rewards of literary merit were so 15 splendid, at which men who could write well found such easy admittance into the most distinguished society, and to the highest honors of the state. The chiefs of both the great parties into which the kingdom was divided patronized liter- ature with emulous munificence. Congreve, when he had 20 scarcely attained his majority, was rewarded for his first comedy with places which made him independent for life. Smith, though his Hippolytus and Plicedra failed, would have Garrick, his fellow-townsman, and one of his pupils at Edial. Whilst he was himself earning: a bare subsistence as a literary hack, be naturally felt some jealousy at the brilliant and rapid success of hLs pupil. 4. 31iecenas. A celebrated patron of literature at Rome, born about 70 B.C. 9. Congreve brought out his first comedy. The Old Bachelor, in 169.3. when he was in his twenty-fourth year, and made at once his fame and tor- tune. Pope dedicated to him his Iluid. and Dryden spoke of him as his suc- cessor and the guardian of his reputation. " In him all beauties of this agre we see, Etheredge his courtship, Southern's purity, The satire, wit, and strength of VVycherley." Dr. Johnson preferred a passage in Congreve's Mourning Bride to any in Shakespeare. Joseph Addison (1672-1719). His literary fame rests chiefly on his contributions to the periodical publications 'Ffie Tcitler, The Spectdtor. and The Gnardiiin. Dr. Johnson has said of him : " Whoever wishes to attain an Elnghsh style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nighte to the volumes of Addison." 23. Edmund Smith. One of Johnson's fifty poets, a Westminster scholar, and a man of some learning, though an indifferent poet. Phoedra and Hippolytus was brought out in 1707. Addison wrote the prologue, and 20 LIFE OF JOHNSON. been consoled with three hundred a year but for his own folly. Kowe was not only poet-laureate, Jjut also land-surveyor of the Customs in the port of London, clerk of the council to the Prince of Wales, and secretary of the Presentations to the 5 Lord Chancellor. Hughes was secretary to the Commissions of the Peace. Ambrose Philips was judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals and of the Board of Trade. Newton was Master of the Mint. Stepney and Prior were employed in embassies of high dignity lo and importance. Gay, who commenced life as apprentice to a silk mercer, became a secretary of Legation at five-and- Betterton and Booth both acted in it, but it fell flat. Lord Halifax accepted the dedication of the tra^edj'. and was prepared to reward the author with a place of £300 a year, but Smith lost it through his indolence in attending his patron. 2. Nicholas Kowe. Born IGTS, died 1718. Of his tragedies, the best known are Jane Shore and Tlie Fair Penitent. He was acarefnl student of the Elizabethan dramatists, whom he often recalls by his tenderness and pathos. One character in Tlie Fair Penitent, ''the gaj^ Lothario," has passed into a common name. 5. John Hughes. One of Johnson's fifty poets. Born at Marlborough, 1677. Dr. Johnson mentions as a report that it was he who persuaded Ad- dison to finish his Cato. Chancellor Cowper made him secretary to the commission of the peace. His principal work was a tragedy, The Siege of Dainascus. 6. Ambrose Philips. Born 167.5, died 1749. The author of Paatorals, ridiculed hy Pope, who nicknamed him Xamb;/ Fambi/; and of three trage- dies, the best known of which, the Distressed M:)ther, is borrowed from Racine's Andromaque. 7. John Locke. Born 1632, died 1704. After sharing the fortunes and the fall of his patron, Shafteslmry Locke returned to England in 1688, in the same fleet which conveyed Queen Mary. He was appointed a member of the Council of Trade, in which post he mateiially aided Somers in the con- version of the currency.— See MAcaulay's History, vol. iv. p. 630. 8. Newton. " The important office of Warder of the Mint, worth between six and seven hundred pounds a yeai*. had become a mere sinecure, and had been filled by a succession of fine gentlemen, who were well known at the hazard table of Whitehall, but who never condescended to come near the Tower. This office had just become vacant [March. 109.5-6], and Montague had obtained it for Newton. The ability, the industr3\ and the strict up- rightness of the great philosopher speedily produced a complete revolution throughout the department which was under his direction."— Macaulay's History, vol. iv. p. 703. 9. George Stepney. Born 1663. died 1707. "It is reported that the juvenile compositions* of Stepney made gray authors blush. I know not whether his*poems will appear such wonders to the present age. "—Johnson's Lives nf the Poets. Matthew Prior. Born 1064. died 1721; educated at Westminster, and St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was maintained by the gener- osity of Lord Dorset. His first work was the City and Country Mouse, a parody on Drvden's Hind and Panther, which he composed with Montague. 10. John Gay. Born 1688. died iTSi. The nrst woik which brought him into notice was the Shepherd's Week, a set of seven pastorals written as a parody of Ambrose Philips. LIFE OF JOHNSON. 21 twenty. It was to a poem on the Death of Charles IL, and to the City and Country Mouse, that Montague owed his in- troduction into public life, his earldom, his garter, and his auditorship of the Exchequer. Swift, but for the unconquer- able prejudice of the queen, would have been a bishop. 5 Oxford, with his white staff: in his hand, passed through the crowd of his suitors to welcome Parnell, when that ingenious •writer deserted the Whigs. Steele was a commissioner of stamps and a member of Parliament. Arthur Mainwaring was a commissioner of the Customs and auditor of the im- lo prest. Tickell was secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland. Addison was secretary of state. This liberal patronage was brought into fashion, as it seems, by the magnificent Dorset, who alone of all the noble versi- fiers in the court of Charles II. possessed talents for composi- 15 tion which would have made him eminent without the aid of 2. Charles Montague, Earl of Halifax. A friend and fellow-student of Prior, was originally educated for the church, but obtained, by the in- fluence of Dorset, a seat in the House of Commons. 4. Swift. Thougli caressed and flattered by the Tory party, to whom he had deserted, Swift never succeeded in obtaining any other preferment than the deanery of St Patrick; and his failure in obtaining an Enghsh bishopric, on whici he had set his heart, embittered the last half of his life. 7. Thomas Parnell. Born 1679, died 1717. An Irish clergyman, prin- cipally remembered by his poem the Hermit. His flr.st connections were with the Whigs, and he numbered Addison, Congreve, and Steele among his friends 8. Sir Richard Steele. Born 1671. died 1729. The originator of. and, next to Addison, the principal contributor to the Spectdtor. " He outlived his places, his schemes, his wife, his income, his health, and almost every- thing but his kind heart "—Thackeray, Eiu/lish Humorists. 9. Artliiir Mainwaring. Born 1668, died 1712. A powerful political writer and satirist. 10. The imprest. Money advanced out of the Treasury for public works, etc. In law Latin "' de prse->tito." 11. Thomas Tickell. Born 1686, died 1740. A friend of Addison, whose collected works he published, and a contributor to the Spectator. He was taken to Ireland by Addison, when the latter went over as secretary to Lord Sunderland. 12. Addison. In April, 1717, Sunderland became Secretary of State, and made Addison his colleague His declining health obliged him to resign the post which he had held for less than a year. 14. The magnificent Dorset. Charles Sackville. Earl of Dorset. "Such a patron of letters England had never seen. His bounty was bestowed with equal judgment and liberality, and was couflned to no sect or faction. Men of genius, estranged fj-om each other by literary jealousy or by difference of political opinion, joined in acknowledging his impartial kindness. The munificent Earl might, if such had been his wish, have been the rival of those of whom he was content to be the benefactor." — Macaxjlay's History^ vol. ii. p 321. 22 LIFE OF JOHNSON. a coronet. Montague owed his elevation to the favor of Dorset, and imitated through the whole course of his life the liberality to which he was himself so greatly indebted. The Tory leaders, Harley and Bolingbroke in particular, vied with 5 the chiefs of the Whig party in zeal for the encouragement of letters. But soon after the accession of the house of Hanover a change took place. The supreme power passed to a man who cared little for poetry or eloquence. The importance of the House of Commons was constantly on the increase. The lo Government was under the necessity of bartering for Parlia- mentary support much of that patronage which had been employed in fostering literary merit ; and Walpole was by no means inclined to divert any part of the fund of corruption to purposes which he considered as idle. He had eminent talents 15 for Government and for debate. But he had paid little atten- tion to books, and felt little respect for authors. One of the coarse jokes of his friend Sir Charles Hanbury Williams was far more pleasing to him than Thomson^s Seasons or Richard- son's Pamela. He had observed that some of the distin- 20 guished writers whom the favor of Halifax had turned into statesmen had been mere encumbrances to their party, dawd- 4. Harley and Bolingbroke. Robert Harley, created Earl of Oxford, and Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingrbroke, both began life as Whigs, and both deserted to the Tories. When Marlborough fell from power, Harley was made a Commissioner of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. IJnder their ministry the peace of Utrecht was concluded. Soon after they quarreled, and Swift in vain tried to patch up the difference. Bolingbroke's influence prevailed, but his triumph was short lived. The death of Queen Anne restored the Whigs to power. Both statesmen were impeached. Bol- ingbroke fled, and Harley was committed to the Tower. To St. John Pope addressed his Essay on Man; and his Epistle, sent to the Earl of Oxford with ParneU's poems, is hardly less famous than the essay. 12 Walpole. On the accession of George I. a new ministry was formed under Lord Townsend, with Sir Robert Walpole as Chancellor of the Ex- chequer. 17. Sir Charles Hanbiiry TVilliams. A poet and wit, one of the famous coterie to which Horace Walpole, Henry Fox, Lord Hervey, and Sir Robert Walpole belonged. 18. Thomson's Seasons. The first part. T17j(fe?", was published in 1726, the complete work in 1730. Thomson dedicate.1 an early poem to Sir Robert, with a highly adulatory preface. Finding that no pension or sinecure fol- lowed, he withdrew the preface in later editions, and threw himself into the party of opposition. 19. Richardson's Pamela. Richardson's first novel, published in 1741. Its popularity was such that five editions were exhausted in one year. 20. Halifax. An English statesman, born 1G30, died 1695. LIFE OF JOHNSON. 23 lers in office and mutes in Parliament. During the whole course of his administration, therefore, he scarcely befriended a single man of genius. The best writers of the age gave all their support to the opposition, and contributed to excite that discontent which, after plunging the nation into a foolish and s unjust war, overthrew the minister to make room for men less able and equally unscrupulous. The opposition could reward its eulogists with little more than promises and caresses. St. James's would give nothing ; Leicester House had nothing to give. lo Thus at the time when Johnson commenced his literary ca- reer, a writer had little to hope from the patronage of power- ful individuals. The patronage of the public did not yet furnish the means of comfortable subsistence. The prices paid by booksellers to authors were so low, that a man of con- 15 siderable talents and unremitting industry could do little more than provide for the day which was passing over him. The lean kine had eaten up the fat kine. The thin and withered ears had devoured the good ears. The season of rich harvests was over, and the period of famine had begun. 20 All that is squalid and miserable might now be summed up in the word Poet. That word denoted a creature dressed like a scarecrow, familiar with compters and sponging-houses, and perfectly qualified to decide on the comparative merits of 3 The best writers of the age, etc. In 1717 Lord Townsend was dismissed, and Lord Stanhope became First Minister. 9. St. James's. The usual designation of the British court. So called from the old palace of St. James. Leicester House. In 1717 occurred the final breach between George I. and the Prince of Wales. The Prince was ordered to quit St. James's, and afterward resided at Leicester House. 21 AH that is squalid aud miserable. " But the sufferings of the poet in other countries is nothing when compared to his distresses here ; the names of Spenser and Otway, Butler and Dryden. are every day mentioned as a national reproach : some of them lived in a state of precarious indigence, and others literally died of hunger."— Goldsmith's Citizen 0/ the World. 23. Compters. Debtors' prisons. The Giltspur Street Compter existed within the memory of the present generation. Sponging-houses. '" Sponging-house, a house to which debtors are taken before commitment to prison, where the bailiffs sponge upon them, or riot at their cost."— Johnson's Dictionary. Compare also Goldsmith's famous description of the poet Scroggen : " There in a lonelv room, from bailiffs snug, The muse found Scroggen stretched beneath a rug." 24 LIFE OF JOHNSON". the Common Side in the King's Bench prison and of Mount Scoundrel in the Fleet. Even the poorest pitied him; and they well might pity him. For if their condition was equally abject, their aspirings were not equally high, nor their sense 5 of insult equally acute. /'To lodge in a garret up four pair of stairs, to dine in a cellar among footmen out of place, to translate ten hours a day for the wages of a ditcher, to be hunted by bailiffs from one haunt of beggary and pestilence to another, from Grub Street to St. George's Fields, and lofrom St. George's Fields to the alleys behind St. Martin's Church; to sleep on a bulk in June and amidst the ashes of a glass-house in December; to die in a hospital, and to be buried in a parish vault, was the fate of more than one writer who, if he had lived thirty years earlier, would have been 15 admitted to the sittings of the Kilcat or the Scriblerus Club, would have sat in Parliament, and would have been en- trusted with embassies to the High Allies; who, if he had lived in our time, would have received from the booksellers several hundred pounds a year. 20 As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk of life has its peculiar temptations. The literary character, as- 1. Tlie Common Side, Mount Scoundrel. Parts of the Fleet Prison. Mount Scoundrel was tbe name given to Pome wretched g:arrets on the common feide. The Fleet Prison was abohshed in 1844, having existed more than two centuries. 9. Grub .Street. " Originally the name of a street near Moorfields in London, much inhabited by the writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary pcems : whence any mean production is called yrubstieet.'''— Johnson's Dictionary. The street is now called Milton Street. Most of the touches in this picture are taken from Johnson's Life of S"v- aqe. " On a bulk in a cellar, or in a glass house among thieves and beggars, was to be found the author of the WiDnlcrer. the man of exalted senti- ments, extensive views, and curious observation." 15. The Kiteat Club met at a mutton pie house in Shire Lane, near Temple Bar, kept by a Christopher Cat. Here Jacob Tonson, the bookseller, used once a week to entertain his clien's and friends. About the year 17i this gathering of wits produced a club partly literary and partly political, in which the great Whi? chiefs were associated with the principal Whig writers. Tonson built a room for the club at Barn Elms, which was furnished with the portraits of all the members, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, himself a member. The pictures were on a new-sized canvas adajjted to the height of the walls, whence the name kiteat came to be applied to a three-quarter length portrait. See Sjjectfitor, 2so. 9, with note by H. Morley. The Scriblerus Club. Founded by Swift, together with Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot. The famous MiacfUanies were the joint production of tfie club, as were also the prolegomena and variorum notes to the Dnnciad. For a curious story of Swift's relation to the club see Goldsmith's Life of Parnell. T.IFE OF JOHNSON. ^^ suredly, has always had its share of faults, vanity, jealousy morbid sensibility. To these faults were now supemdded all the faults which are commonly found in men whose ivelihood is precarious, and whose principles are exposed to the trial of severe distress. All the vices of the gambler and of thes beggar were blended with those of the author. The prizes m the wretched lottery of book-making were scarcely less ruinous than the blanks. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused. After months of starvation and despair, a full third night or a wel - .o received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas. He hastened to enjoy those luxuries with the images of which his mind had been haunted while he was sleeping amidst the cinders, and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A week of taverns soon xs qualified him for another year of night-cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of others. Some- times bhizing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats; sometimes Iving in bed because their coats had gone to pieces, or wear- ing paper cravats because their linen was in pawn; sometimes .o drinking champagne and tokay with Betty Careless; some- times standing at the window of an eating-house m Porndge Island, to snutf up the scent of what they could not affoid to taste; they knew luxury; they knew ^^f .^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ never knew comfort. These men were irreclaimable. The> ^s looked on a regular and frugal life with the same aversion which an old gypsy or a Mohawk hunter feels for a sta ion- arv abode, and for the restraint and securities of civilized communities. They were as untamable, as much wedded to their desolate freedom, as the wild ass. They could no morose 17. savage. ^ An ^-ff^Voet Se^^^.^E^.^oF Johnson at St. John's Gato Boyse. " Among t^^^^^^f^^^^ffjf ngen")us productions, and not le.s was Samuel Boyse, well ^^^^^wn by bis ingeni i i ^^ ^^ ^ customer to noted for his in.prudence. J^T^^l^^^^^^^SonsDr Johnson collected a sum of the pawnbroker. On f'^.e ^f ^^^ese occa^i^^^^ u ^^^^^^ ^^^v.e& money to redeem b an irritable temper. The manner in which the earlier yearsji of his manhood had been passed had given to his demeanor, \ and even to his moral character, some peculiarities appalling | to the civilized beings who were the companions of his oldio \^ age. The perverse irregularity of his hours, the slovenliness f^ot his person, his fits of strenuous exertion, interrupted by ] long intervals of sluggishness, his strange abstinence, and his "' equally strange voracity, his active benevolence, contrasted with the constant rudeness and the occasional ferocity of his zi manners in society, made him, in the opinion of those with ( whom he lived during the last twenty years of his life, a com- j plete original. An original he was, undoubtedly, in some re- ' spects. But if we possessed full information concerning those who shared his early hardships, we should probably 20 find that what we call his singularities of manner were for the . most part failings, which he had in common with the class to which he belonged. He ate at Streatham Park as he had been used to eat behind the screen at St. John's Gate, when he was ashamed to show his. ragged clothes. He ate as it was natural 25 that a man should eat, who, during a great part of his life, had passed the morning in doubt whether he should have food for the afternoon. The habits of his early life had accus- tomed him to bear privation with fortitude, but not to taste pleasure with moderation. He could fast ; but when he did not 30 fast, he tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with the veins day in his shop with one cf his own foHos. See Johnson's emended version of the story, in BoswELL. (1742.) 5. Tlie satirical genius of Pope. Poverty, in Pope's eyes, is the most unpardonable of sins, and in the Dnuciad no charge is so frequently brought against authors as poverty. 23. Streatham Park. The country residence of the Thrales. 24. St. Joliii's Gate. The ofifice of the Gentlemcm''s Magazine. During the first years of his life in London Johnson was a regular contributor, and in its pages appeared his I'eports of speeches in Parliament. 30 LIFE OF JOHNSON". swelling on his forehead, and the perspiration running down his cheeks. He scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it, he drank it greedily and in large tumblers. There were, in fact, mitigated symptoms of that same moral disease which 5 raged with such deadly malignity in his friends Savage and Boyse. The roughness and violence which he showed in so- ciety were to be expected from a man whose temper, not nat- urally gentle, had been long tried by the bitterest calamities, by the want of meat, of tire, and of clothes, by the importu- To nity of creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by the deris- ion of fools, by the insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the bitterest of all food, by those stairs which are the most toilsome of all paths, by that deferred hope which makes the heart sick. Through all these things the ill-dressed, 15 coarse, ungainly pedant had struggled manfully up to emi- nence and command. It was natural that, in the exercise of his power, he should be " eo immitior, quia toler aver at ^''^ that, though his heart was undoubtedly generous and hu- mane, his demeanor in society should be harsh and des- 2opotic. For severe distress he had sympathy, and not only sympathy, but munificent relief. But for the suffering which a harsh word inflicts upon a delicate mind he had no pity ; for it was a kind of suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry home on his shoulders a sick and starving 75 girl from the streets. He turned his house into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find J no other asylum ; nor could all their peevishness and ingrati- tude weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridiculous ; and he scarcely felt suffi- 12. By that bread -nliicli is the bitterest of all footl, by those stairs, etc. From Dante"s Paradisu, canto xvii 56: " Yea. thou sbalt learn how salt his food who fares Upon another's bread,— how steep his path Who treadeth up and down another's stairs."'— Rossetti. Cacciaguida is foretelling to Dante his future fortunes, his exile, his perse- cution and his hfe of dependence at the court of the Scaligeri. 13. That deferred hope.— Prorerb.s xiii. 12. 17. Eo imniitior. From Tacituss ,4?«7ta/.s i. 20. Said of Ruf us, who had risen from the ranks to be first a centurion, then prsefect of the camp. On the same principle it is often said that the greatest bully is the boy who has heen bullied himself. LIFE OP JOHNSON. 31 cient compassion even for the p.ings of wounded nffection. He had seen and felt so much of sharp misery that he was not affected by paltry vexations ; and he seemed to think that everybody ought to be as much hardened to those vexations as himself. He was angry with Boswell for complaining of 5 a headache, with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the dust on the road, or the smell of the kitchen. These were, in his phrase, "foppish lamentations," which people ought to be ashamed to utter in a world so full of misery. Goldsmith crying because the Good-natured Man had failed, inspired lo^ him with no pity. Though his own health was not good, he detested and despised valetudinarians. Even great pecuniary losses, unless they reduced the loser absolutely to beggary, moved him very little. People whose hearts had been soft- ened by prosperity might cry, he said, for such events ; but 15 all that could be expected of a plain man- was not to laugh. A person who troubled himself so little about small or sen- timental grievances of human life was not likely to be very attentive to the feelings of others in the ordinary intercourse of society. He could not understand how a sarcasm or a rep- 20 rimand could make any man really unhappy. ' ' My dear doctor," said he to Goldsmith, " what harm does it do a man to call him Holofernes?" "Pooh, ma'am," he exclaimed 5. He Avas angry with Boswell. See Boswell. i 394. (I7G3.) 10. Goldsmith cryinff, etc The Good-nut urcd Man was first per- formed at Covent Garden Theater on the *J9th of January, 1768. " It failed upon the stapre in some measure from its very merits, some of its comic scenes shocking: the perverted taste of an audience which admired the whin- ing, preaching, sentimental pieces which were then in fashion."— Shaw. •' Returning home one day from dining at the chaplain's table, Mr. Johnson told me that Dr. Goldsmith had given a very comical and unnecessarily exact recital there of his own feelings when his play was hissed; telling the company how he went to the Literary Club at night "and chatted gayly among his friends as if nothing had happened amiss; that to impress them still more forcibly with an idea of his magnanimity, he even sung his favorite song about ' an oZd woman fossed in a hlituket sevditcev tinit^sas high as the moon.'' ' But all this whde I was suffering horrible tortures,' said he, 'and verily believe that if I had put a 1 it in my mouth it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively ill. But I made more noise than usual to cover all that, and so they never perceived my not eating, nor I believe at all imagined to tliemselves tiie anguish of my heai't; but when all -were gone ex- cept Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again.' ' All which, doctor,' said Johnson, amazed at his odd frankness, ' I thought had been a secret between you and me; and I am sure I would not have said anything about it for the world.' "—Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 245. 21. " My dear doctor," said he to Goldsiuith, etc. Many such mor- 32^ LIFE OF JOHXSON. to Mrs. Carter, " who is the worse for being talked of tinchari« tably r Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson wai? impolite, not because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller to him 5 than to people who had never known what it was to live for fouri>ence-halfpenny a day. The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of great powers with low prejudices. If we judged of him by the best parts of his mind, we should place him almost as high lo as he was placed by the idolatry of Boswell ; if by the worst parts of his mind, we should place him even below Boswell himself. Where he was not under the influence of some strange scruple, or some domineering passion, which pre- vented him from lx)ldly and fairly investigating a subject, he 15 was a wary and acute reasoner, a little too much inclined to scepticism, and a little too fond of paradox. Xo man was less likely to be imposed uix)n by fallacies in argument or by exaggerated statements of fact. But if, while he was beating down sophisms and exposing false testimony, some childish 23 prejudices, such as would excite laughter in a well-managed nursery, came across him, he was smitten as if by enchant- ment. Hls mind dwindled away under the spell from gigan- tic elevation to dwarfish littleness. Those who had lately been admiring its amplitude and its force were now as much 25 astonished at its strange narrowness and feebleness as the fisherman in the Arabian tale, when he saw the Genie, whose stature had overshadowed the whole sea-coast, and whose might seemed equal to a contest with armies, contract tifications arose in the course of their intituacy. to be sure, but few more laughable than when the newspapers bad tackt^l them [Goldsmith and John- son 1 together as the i)edant and hi« flatterer in Lc>r>r's Latxir Lest. Dr. Goldsmith came to hit; friend, fretting and foaming, and vowing Tengeance atrainst the printer, etc.. till Mr John.>-on. tired of tte bustle, and desirous to tiink of something else cried out at Uist. ■"Wliy. what wouldst thou have, dear doctor ? WTio the plague is hurt with all this nonsense* and how is a man the worse, I wonder, in his health, purse, or charact-f'r, for being called H"l- y"^? i" Homer's. I know 'if no authority ^?J..i-V ^/'*'[*^™^"t. in hih Life of Fope Johnson says: " Had he eiven the world only his version, the name of poet must have been alowedWm Tf the writer of the Iliad were to class his successors, hrwoudasttn^verv D. Attei Hoole s translation etc. Edward Fairfax Duhlkhpd in ifim a translation of Tasso's J«r„»,i„„ Delivered, under the fllVe of GodfrUS? S'S;;r^r,{,efeaStr.i;e ^uif.^ '■-""^'-^ "^ ^'^ - "^ teirfa'^fu^r'tTrnkSS-: '"""^"'^ ^"""^ "^ the'^i.^S^S " I put my hat upon my head, And walked into the Strand; And there I met another man, Whose hat was in his hand.'" But it is only fair to quote at the same time the letter to Boswell in which he Sie.^^^;^^^'''''' *^ ^'^''-^ ^- ^'-^ ^-ce and splenSo^-^f h'is ■ ul^-,^^ 9**?^^^ see little or no merit in Tom Joiies, bv Fieldin?. Fielding being mentioned, Johnson exclaimed, • He was a hlockhead ' and upon my expressing my astonisJiment at so strange an asserdon he safd \\ hat I mean by his bemg a blockhead is that he was a barren rascal ' Boswell: * Will you not allow, sir, that he draws very natural net me'loV human life ? ' Johnson: ' Why, sir. it is of verv lowM fe Rir-hLf-rW i to say that had he not known I'ho i^iekiing ^S ^rshouid favelel evedle ^as an ostler Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one leUer of Richardson s than in all Tom Jones. ' ' -Boswell. On anothe? occasion he cSS ISrSl^^"^ '^' ''''^' ^^^ ^^"-^ ^' ^^f^' whillF^^rwal new and strange that it filled the reader with a minjded enfo (^,0^^^^^ ment and amazement. It was received witli such afidityTharthe PHce of the first edition was raised before the second could be made- it was -ead bv the high and the ow. the learned and the illiterate. Criticism was for a ^J^i^^;^:^;^:::;^^:^j^;^r^ -- -pp^^e^^ toTK.ori^£[e„^ Sterne's Tristram Shandy "Johnson: 'Nothing odd will do long. LIFE OP JOHNSON. 41 Castle of Indolence he vouchsafed only a line of cold com- mendation, of commendation much colder than what he has bestowed on the creation of that portentous bore, Sir Richard Blackmore. Gray was, in his dialect, a barren rascal. Churchill was a blockhead. The contempt which he felt for s the trash of Macpherson was, indeed, just ; but it was, we suspect, just by chance. He despised the Fingal for the very reason which led many men of genius to admire it. He despised it, not because it was essentially commonplace, but because it had a superficial air of originality. lo He was undoubtedly an excellent judge of compositions fashioned on his own principles. But when a deeper phi- losophy was required, when he undertook to pronounce judg- ment on the works of those great minds which " yield homage only to eternal laws," his failure was ignominious. He 15 criticised Pope's epitaphs excellently. But his observations on Shakespeare's plays and Milton's poems seem to us for the most part as wretched as if they had been written by Rymer Sterne's Tristram Shandy did not last/ "— Boswell, ii. 448. (1776.) Elsewhere he talks of the author as " the man Sterne." 1. Thomson's Castle of Indolence. All Johnson says of it in his Life 0/ r/io»7tson is as follows: "The last piece that he lived to publish was the Castle of Indolence, which was many years under his hand, but was at last finished with great accuracy. The first canto opens a scene of lazy luxury that fills the imagination:" 4. Sir Kicliard Blackmore. Born 1658. died 1729. He received the honor of knighthood from King William, not for his verses, but his physic. Johnson says of his poem, The Creation: "This poem, if he had written nothing else, would have transmitted him to posterity among the first favorites of the Enjjlish nmse. " Gray. " He attacked Gray, calling him ' a dull fellow.' Bosweli,: ' I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company; but surely he was not dull in poetry.' Johnson: ' Sir. he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great. He was a mechanical poet." No, sir, there are but two good stanzas in Gray's poetry, which are in his Elegy in a Country Churchyard.' He then repeated the stanza— ' For who to dumb forgetfulness a prey,' " etc. — BoswELL, ii. 329. (1775.) So too in his Life of Gray, the Elegy is the only one of Gray's poems which he commends. 5. Churchill. See above, p. 28. 16. Pope's Epitaphs. In an appendix to his Life of Pope. 17. Shakespeare's plays. In his introduction to Shakespeare. Milton's poems. Johnson's judgment on L^/c/r/a.s—" The diction is harsh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleasing "—has passed into a proverb as an example of mistaken criticism. De Quincey. in his Miscel- lanies, has an eloquent vindication of Milton against Johnson's strictures. 18. Thomas Rymer (1640-1714). Historiographer-royal in 1692. He 42 LIFE OF JOHNSON. himself, whom we take to have been the worst critic that ever lived. Some of Johnson's whims on literary subjects can be com- pared only to that strange nervous feeling which made him 5 uneasy if he had not touched every post between the Mitre tavern and his own lodgings. His preference of Latin epitaphs to English epitaphs is an instance. An Englisii epitaph, he said, would disgrace Smollett. He declared that he would not pollute the walls of Westminster Abbey with an lo English epitaph on Goldsmith. What reason there can be for celebrating a British writer in Latin, which there was not for covering the Roman arches of triumph with Greek inscrip- tions, or for commemorating the deeds of the heroes of Ther mopylae in Egyptian hieroglyphics, we are utterly unable to* 15 imagine. On men and manners, at least on the men and manners of a particular place and a particular age, Johnson had certainly looked with a most observant and discriminating eye. His remarks on the education of children, on marriage, on the 20 economy of families, on the rules of society, are always strik- ing, and generally sound. In his writings, indeed, the knowl- edge of life which he possessed in an eminent degree is very imperfectly exhibited. Like those unfortunate chiefs of the middle ages who were suffocated by their own chain-mail and 25 cloth of gold, his maxims perish under that load of words which was designed for their ornament and their defense. But it is clear from the remains of his conversations, that he was a poor critic, but an industrious compiler. Pope, unlike Macaulay, re- garded him as •* on the whole one of the best critics we have ever had." 8. Smollett. Born 1721, died 1771. The great naval novelist, the author of Roderick Random, Pcteorine Pickle, and Humphrey Clinker. Like Field- ing:, he died and was buried in a foreigrn land. 10. An Kngflisli epitaph on (ioldsniith. See the story of the round- robin asking Johnson to re-write the epitaph in English, of which Sir Jushua Reynolds was the bearer. '• He desired Sir Joshua to tell the gentlemen that he would alter the epitaph in any manner they pleased as to the sense of it; but he wonid never consent to dis(ji(ic-^ thf avails of iVestniinster Abbey mitii an English inscription.'' — Boswell. Non obstante Lord Macaulay, something may be said in favor of Latin epitaphs. For instance, is it pos- sible m English to reproduce the brevity and pointedness of this sentence from Goldsmith's epitaph: " Nullum fere scribendi genus non tetiglt, nullum quod tetigit non ornavit "? A LIFE OF JOHNSON. 43 had more of that homely wisdom which nothing but experi- ence and observation can give than any writer since the time of Swift. If he had been content to write as lie talked, he might have left books on the practical art of living superior to the Directions to Servants. 3 Yet even his remarks on society, like his remarks on litera- ture, indicate a mind at least as remarkable for narrowness as for strength. He was no master of the great science of human nature. He had studied, not the genus man, but the species Londoner. Nobody was ever so thoroughly conversant 10 with all the forms of life and all the shades of moral and intel- lectual character which were to be seen from Islington to the Thames, and from Hyde Park corner to Mile-end green. But his philosophy stopped at the first turnpike- gate. Of the rural life of England he knew nothing ; and he took it for granted 15 that everybody who lived in the country was either stupid or miserable. "/Country gentlemen," said he, "must be unhappy ; for they have not enough to keep their lives in motion ;" as if all those peculiar habits and associations which made Fleet Street and Charing Cross the finest views 20 in the world to himself had been essential parts of human nature. Of remote countries and past times he talked with wild and ignorant presumption. "The Athenians of the age of Demosthenes," he said to Mrs. Thrale, " were a people of brutes, a barbarous people." In conversation with Sir Adam 25 Ferguson he used similar language. " The boasted Athenians," he said, "were barbarians. The mass of every people must be barbarous where there is no printing." The fact was this : he saw that a Londoner who could not read, was a very stupid and brutal fellow : he saw that great refinement of taste and 30 activity of intellect were rarely found in a Londoner who had not read much ; and, because it was by means of books that people acquired almost all their knowledge in the society with which he was acquainted, he concluded, in defiance of 5. Directions to servants. A set of ironical rules by which the faults, tricks, blunders, and various knaveries of domestic servants are pointed out. Eg., " Wear your lady's smock when she has thrown it off. It will do you credit, save your own linen, and be not a pin the worse." 44 LIFE OP JOHNSON. the strongest and clearest evidence, that the human mind can be cultivated by means of books alone. An Athenian citizen might possess very few volumes ; and the largest library to which he had access might be much less valuable than John- 5 son's book-case in Bolt Court. But the Athenian might pass every morning in conversation with Socrates, and might hear Pericles speak four or five times every month. He saw the plays of Sophocles and Aristophanes : he walked amidst the friezes of Phidias and the paintings of Zeuxis : he knew by lo heart the choruses of ^Eschylus : he heard the rhapsodist at the comer of the street reciting the Shield of Achilles or the Death of Argus : he was a legislator conversant with high questions of alliance, revenue, and war: he was a soldier trained under a liberal and generous discipline : he was a 15 judge, compelled every day to weigh the effect of opposite arguments. These things were in themselves an education, an education eminently fitted, not, indeed, to form exact or profound thinkers, but to give quickness to the perceptions, delicacy to the taste, fluency to the expression, and politeness 20 to the manners. All this was overlooked, (in Athenian who did not improve his mind by reading was, in Johnson's opin- ion, much such a person as a Cockney who made his mark, much such a person as black Frank before he went to school, and far inferior to a parish clerk or a printer's devil. 5. Bolt Court. Between Fleet Street and Holborn. 7. Pericles. The greatest of Athenian statesmen; d 4'29. 8. Sophocles. A Greek tragic poet; b. 495 b c. ; d. 405 b.c. Aristophanes. The most celebrated comic poet of Greece. Born 441 B c. ; died about 380 b.c. 9. The friezes of Phidias (one of the greatest sculptors of the world. Born about 485 B.C., died about 432 b.c ). In particular those of the Parthe- non, which may be still seen in the British Museum. The paintiiijjs of Zeuxis (a celebrated Greek painter. Born 450 B.C.). Every one knows the story of the grapes. Besides this picture, his most famous were the "Infant Hercules Strangling the Serpent" and the "Female Hippocentaur." 10. ./Eschylus. The first of the tragic poets of Greece : b. 525 b.c , d. 456 e.g. The rhapsodist. From pdnTixj and oJSr}, properly one who stitched songs together, especially of those who sang the lays of Homer In the later times of Greek history they were a low and ignorant class of ballad-mon- gers, only acceptable to the common people. Hence the English use of the word. 11. The shield of Achilles. From Homer's Iliad. 12. The death of Argus. From Homer's Orii/asei/. 22. Cockney. A term of contempt among Londoners. ^. Black Frank, hefore he went to school. See above, p. 17. John- LIFE OF JOHNSON. 49 our readers, and have been so often burlesqued, that it is almost superfluous to point them out. It is well known that he made less use than any other eminent writer of those strong, plain words, Anglo-Saxon or Norman-French, of which the roots lie in the inmost depths of our language : and that he ^ felt a vicious partiality for terms which, long after our own speech had been fixed, were borrowed from the Greek and Latin, and which, therefore, even when lawfully naturalized, must be considered as born aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's English. ,His constant practice of padding out a ^° sentence with useless epithets, till it became as stiff as the bust of an exquisite, his antithetical forms of expression, con- stantly employed even where there is no opposition in the ideas expressed, his big words wasted on little things, his harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful and easy ^s inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to the expression of our great old writers, all these peculiarities have been imitated by his admirers, and parodied by his assailants, till the public has become sick of the subject.") (Goldsmith said to him, very wittily and very justly, "If 20 you were to write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you would make the little fishes talk like whales?^ No man surely ever tains have ere now produced muscipular abortions, and he who compares incipient grandeur with final decay is reminded of the hawker who perambu- lates the streets of Constantinople, exclaiming, ' In the name of the Prophet Figs.' " On the other hand, we may remark that many of Johnson's words which were ridiculed as newfangled and " long-tailed " have since passed into e very-day language. For instance. Dr. Barrowes, in his Essay on the Style of Johnson (1787), abuses him for using "resuscitation," "fatuity," "asinine." "narcotic," "sensory," " panoply," "cremation," " horticulture." 4. Anglo-Saxon or Norman-French. Anglo Saxon, or, as it ought perhaps more correctly to be called. Early English, forms the whole scaf- folding of the language. From it we derive our grammar, inflections, and terminations, the pronouns and prepositions, and most of the names for common objects. By Norman-French words are meant the words adopted into English from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. The Normans, by origin a Scandinavian race, adopted the French language after their settle- ment in Neustria. If we count the words in Dr. Johnson's Preface to Dictionary, we shall find that 72 per cent are Anglo-Saxon, and 28 Latin or Greek; from which fact we may infer that, " even in those authors whose total vocabulary embraces the greatest number of Latin and other foreign vocables, the Anglo-Saxon still largely predominates."— Marsh, Lectures on the English Language. 20. Goldsmitli said to liim. See Boswell, ii. p. 233. (1773.) 50 LIFE OF JOHNSON. had so little talent for personation as Johnsofi. Whether he wrote in the character of a disappointed legacy-hunter or an empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or a flippant coquette, he wrote in the same pompous and unbending style. His 5 speech, like Sir Piercy Shafton's euphuistie eloquence, be- trayed him under every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclea talk as finely as Imlac the poet, or Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia. The gay Cornelia describes her reception at the country-house of her relations in such terms as these: "I was surprised, lo after the civilities of my first reception, to find, instead of the leisure and tranquillity which a rural life always promises, and, if well-conducted, might always afford, a confused wild- ness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded, and every motion agitated." The ^5 gentle Tranquilla informs us that she "had not passed the earlier part of life without tlie flattery of courtship, and the joys of triumph ; but had danced the round of gayety amidst the murmurs of envy and the gratulations of applause, had been attended from pleasure to pleasure by the great, the 2o sprightly, and the vain, and had seen her regard solicited by the obsequiousness of gallantry, the gayety of wit, and the timidity of love." Surely Sir John Falstaflf himself did not 5. Sir Piercy Shafton. From Sir W. Scott's Monastery. Eupliuistic eloquence. Euphuism took its name from the Euphues of John Leyly, which appeared in 1578. It is an affected jargon, like that of the Hotel Rambouillet, which Moliere derided in his Frecieuses Ridicules. The schoolmaster Holofernes in Love's Labor's Lost is a Euphuist. Euphelia writes to the Rambler on the mischief of faction (No. 46), and on the misery of a modish lady in solitude. (No. 42.) 6. lllioUocleia describes a young lady's impatience to see London. {Rambler, 62 ) 7. Imlac, the poet. From Rasselas. Seged, Emperor of £thioi>ia. From Rambler. No. 204, 205. The history of ten day.s of Seged, etc. A Rasselas in miniature, the moral of the story being the vanity of the pursuit of pleasure. 8. Cornelia. From Rambler, 51. 15. Tranquilla. From Rambler, 119. 22. Surely, Sir John Falstaft", etc. In The Merry Wives of Wiyidsor. Lord Macaulay himself in a note calls attention to the resemblance between this sentence and one in the Rambler ('No. 20), which we may here quote: " It is almost a general ambition of those who favor me with their advice for the regulation of my conduct, or their contribution for the assistance of ray understanding, to affect the style and names of ladies. And I cannot always LIFE OF JOHNSON. 51 wear his petticoats with a worse grace. The rea(l(>r m.-iy well cry out, with honest Sir Hugh Evans, "I like not when a 'omau has a great peard ; I spy a great peard under her muffler." We had something more to say. But our article is already 5 too long ; and we must close it. We would fain part in good humor from the hero, from the biograplier, and even from the editor, who, ill as he has performed his task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, that he has induced us to read Bos- well's book again. As we close it, the chib-room is before us, 10 and the table on which stand the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live forever on the canvas of Reynolds. There are the spec- tacles of Burke and the tall, thin form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon 15 tapping his snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the foreground is tliat strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we hava| been brought up, the gigantic body, the huge, massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black 20 worsted stockings, the gray wig with the scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches ; we see the heavy form rolling ; we hear it puffing ; and then comes the " Why sir !" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, 25 sir !" and the " You don't see your way through the question, sir !" What a singular destiny has been that of tliis remarkable man ! To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion ! To receive from his contemporaries that 30 full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity ! — To be more intimately known to pos- terity than other men are known to their contemporaries ! withhold some expression of anger, like Sir Hujjh in the comedy, when I happen to find that a woman has a beard. I must therefore warn the gentle Phyllis that she send me no more letters from the Horse Guards." 52 LIFE OF JOHNSON. That kind of fame which is commonly the most transient is, in his case, the most durable. The reputation of those writ- ings, which he probably expected to be immortal, is every day fading ; while those peculiarities of manner and that careless stable-talk, the memory of which he probably thonglit would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe. 1 WORD LESSONS : A Complete Speller, Adapted for use in tlie Higher Primary, Intermediate, and tiram- mar Grades. Designed to teach the correct Spelling, Pronunciation, and Use of such words only as are most common in current literature, and as are most likely to be Misspelled, Mispronounced or Misused, and to awaken new interest in the study of Synonyms and of Word- Analysis. By Alonzo Reed, A.M., joint author of "Graded Lessons in English," and "Higher Lessons in English." 188 pages, 12mo. The book is a complete speller, and was made to supplement the reading lesson and other language work. 1st. — By grouping those diflBculties which it would be impossible to overcome if met only occasionally and incidentally in the reader. 2d. — By presenting devices to stimulate the pupil, not only to observe the exact form of words, but to note carefully their use and different shades of meaning. 3d. — By affording a systematic course of training in pronunciation. Word Lessons recognizes work already done in the reader, and does not attempt its repetition as do the old spellers, and other new ones now demanding attention. The author has spared no trouble in his search among the works of the best writers for their best thoughts, with which to illustrate the use of words. Great care has been taken in grading the work to the growing vocabulary of the learner. Edward S. Joynes, Professor of Belles Lettres and English Literature, S. C. College, Columbia, S. C.says: "I beg leave to express my most cordial com- mendation of the book. It meets, more perfectly than any other I have ever seen, the wants of our schools. Wherever I have opportunity, officially or otherwise, I shall take pleasure in recommending its introduction." Truman J. Backus, Pres. Packer Col- legiate Institute, Brooklyn, N.Y., says: "The book has more than met expecta- tions." C. P. Colgrove, A.B., Prin. Normal School of Upper Iowa University, Fayette, Iowa, says : " I am glad to see it. It is a move in the right direction. I have been teaching spelling from the read- ing let^son, but cannot say that I consider the method a success. Nine-tenths of our students fail in orthography." W. H. Foute, Supt.of Public Instruc- tion, Houston, Tex., says: "A thorough and careful examination of the matter of your book has made me a perfect convert to your plan." EFriNGHAM MAYNARD $t CO., Publishers, New rork. AText-Book on English Literature, With copious extracts from tlie leading authors, English and Ameri- can. With full Instructions as to the Method in which these are to be studied. Adapted for use in Colleges, High Schools, Academies, etc. By BRAiNsrvD Kellogg, A.M., Professor of the English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, Author of a *' Text-Book on Rhet- oric,'* and one of the Authors of Heed & Kellogg's "Graded Lessons in English," and "Higher Lessons in English." Handsomely printed. 12mo, 478 pp. The Book is divided into the following Periods : Period I. — Before the Norman Conquest, 670-1066. Period II. — From the Conquest to Chaucer's death, 1066-1400. Period III. — From Chaucer's death to Elizabeth, 1400-1558. Period IV.— Eliza- beth's reign, 1558-1603. Period V.— From Elizabeth's death to the Restoration, 1603-:! 660. Period VI.— From the Restoration to Swift's death, 1660-1745. Period VII. -From Swift's death to the French Revolution, 1745-1789. Period VIII.— From the French Revolution, 1789, onwards. Each Period is preceded by a Lesson containing a brief resum^ of the great historical events that have had somewhat to do in shaping or m color- ing the literature of that period. The author aims in this book to furnish the pupil that which he cannot help himself to. It groups the authors so that their places in the line and their relations to each other can be seen by the pupil; it throws light upon the authors' times and surroundings, and notes the great influences at work, helping to make their writmgs what they are ; it points out such of these as should be studied. Extracts, as many and as ample as the limits of a text-book would allow, have been made from the principal writers of each Period. Such are selected as contain the characteristic traits of their authors, both in thought and expression, and but tew of these extracts have ever seen the light in books of selections— none of them have been worn threadbare by use, or have lost their freshness by the pupil's familiarity with them in the pchool readers. It teaches the pupil how the selections are to be studied, soliciting and exacting his judgment at every step of the way which leads from the author's diction up through his styl« and thought to the author himself, and in many other ways it places the pupil on the best possible footing with the authors whose acquaintance it is his business, as well as his pleasure, to make. Short estimates of the leading authors, made by the best English and American critics, have been inserted, most of them contemporary with us. The author has endeavored to make a practical, common-sense text- book : one that would so educate the student that he would know and enjoy good literature. •' I find the book in its treatment of English literature pnperior to any other I have examined. Its main feature, which should be the leading one of all similar books, is thai it is a means to au end, simply a guide-book to the study of EnyUsh literature. Too many students in the past "have studied, not the literature of the Eni^lish language, but some author's opinion of that literature. I know from ex- perience that your method of treatment will prove an eminently succeBsful one.*'— James H. S/iults, Frin. qf the West High School, Cleveland, 0. EFFINGHAM MAYNARD & CO., Publishers, New York A Text-Book on Rhetoric; supplementrng the development op the science with Exhaustive Practice in Composition. A Course of Practical Lessons Adapted for use in High Schools and Academies, and in the Lower Classes of Colleges. BY BRAINERD KELLOGG, A.M., Professor of tTie English Language and Literature in the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, and one of the authors of Beed & KeUogg's " Graded Lessons in English" and " Sigher Lessons in English." In preparing this work upon Rhetoric, the author's aim has been to write a practical text-book for High Schools, Academies, and the lower classes of Coll.^ges, based upon the science rather tkan an exhaustive treatise upon the science itself. This work has grown up out of the belief that the rhetoric which the pupil needs is not that which lodges finally in the memory, but that wrhich has worked its way down into his tongue and fingers, enabling him to speak and write the better for having studied it. The author believes that the aim of the study should be to put the pupil in posses- sion of an art, and that this can be done not by forcing the science into him through eye and ear, but by drawing it out of him, in products, through tongue and pen. Hence all explanations of principles are fol- lowed by exhaustive practice in Composition — to this everything is mad tributary. *' Kellogg's Rhetokic is evidently the fruit of scholarship and large experience. The author has collected his own mate- rials, and disposed of them with the skill of a master ; his statements are precise, lucid, and sufficiently copious. Nothing is sacrificed to show ; the book is intended for use, and the abundance of examples will constitute one of its chief merits in the eyes of the thorough teacher."— Pro/". A. S. Cook, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. "This is just the work to take the place of the much-stilted 'Sentential Analysis ' that is being waded through to little purpose by the Grammar and High School pupils of our country. This work not only teaches ihe discipline of analyz- ing thought, but leads the student to feel that it is his thought that is being dealt with, dissected, and unfolded, to efficient expression."— /VoA G. S. A1h^(>. Prest. of State Normal School, Oshkosh. Wis. 276 pages, 12mo, attractively bound in cloth. EFFINGHAM MAYNAKD & CO., Publishers, New Yorfe, ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, FOR Classes in English Literature, Reading, Grammar, etc. EDITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS, Each Volume contains a Sketch of the Author''s Life, Prefatory and Explanatory Notes, etc., etc. 17 Byron's Prophecy of Dante. (Cantos I. and II.) Milton's Li'AUegro, and II Pen- seroso. Liord Bacon's Essays, Civil and Moral. (Selected.) Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. Moore's Fire Worshippers. (Lalla Kookh. Selected.) Goldsmith's Deserted Village. Scott's Marinion, (Selections from Canto VI.) Scott's Liay of the ILast Minstrel. (Introduction and Canto I.) Burns'sCotter'sSaturday Night, and other Poems. Crabbe's The Villag-^. Campbell's Pleasures of Hope. (Abridgment of Part I.) Macaulay's Essay on Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress. Macaulay's Armada, and other Poems. Shakespeare's Merchant of Ve- nice. 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