Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 795
‘Hic requiescit THOMAS PARNELL, S.T.P.
Qui sacerdos pariter et poeta,
Utrasque partes ita implevit,
Ut neque sacerdoti suavitas poetae,
Neo poetae sacerdotis sanctitas189, deesset.’
Various Readings in the Life of PARNELL.
‘About three years [after] afterwards.
[Did not much want] was in no great need of improvement.
But his prosperity did not last long [was clouded by that which took away all his powers of enjoying either profit or pleasure, the death of his wife, whom he is said to have lamented with such sorrow, as hastened his end.] His end, whatever was the cause, was now approaching.
In the Hermit, the [composition] narrative, as it is less airy, is less pleasing.’
In the Life of BLACKMORE, we find that writer’s reputation generously cleared by Johnson from the cloud of prejudice which the malignity of contemporary wits had raised around it. In this spirited exertion of justice, he has been imitated by Sir Joshua Reynolds, in his praise of the architecture of Vanburgh.
We trace Johnson’s own character in his observations on Blackmore’s ‘magnanimity as an authour.’ ‘The incessant attacks of his enemies, whether serious or merry, are never discovered to have disturbed his quiet, or to have lessened his confidence in himself.’ Johnson, I recollect, once told me, laughing heartily, that he understood it had been said of him, ‘He appears not to feel; but when he is alone, depend upon it, he suffers sadly.’ I am as certain as I can be of any man’s real sentiments, that he enjoyed the perpetual shower of little hostile arrows as evidences of his fame.
Various Readings in the Life of BLACKMORE.
To [set] engage poetry [on the side] in the cause of virtue.
He likewise [established] enforced the truth of Revelation.
[Kindness] benevolence was ashamed to favour.
His practice, which was once [very extensive] invidiously great. There is scarcely any distemper of dreadful name [of] which he has not [shewn] taught his reader how [it is to be opposed] to oppose.
Of this [contemptuous] indecent arrogance.
[He wrote] but produced likewise a work of a different kind.
At least [written] compiled with integrity.
Faults which many tongues [were desirous] would have made haste to publish.
But though he [had not] could not boast of much critical knowledge.
He [used] waited for no felicities of fancy.
Or had ever elevated his [mind] views to that ideal perfection which every [mind] genius born to excel is condemned always to pursue and never overtake.
The [first great] fundamental principle of wisdom and of virtue.’
Various Readings in the Life of PHILIPS.
‘His dreaded [rival] antagonist Pope.
They [have not often much] are not loaded with thought.
In his translations from Pindar, he [will not be denied to have reached] found the art of reaching all the obscurity of the Theban bard.’
Various Readings in the Life of CONGREVE.
‘Congreve’s conversation must surely have been at least equally pleasing with his writings.
It apparently [requires] pre-supposes a familiar knowledge of many characters.
Reciprocation of [similes] conceits.
The dialogue is quick and [various] sparkling.
Love for Love; a comedy [more drawn from life] of nearer alliance to life.
The general character of his miscellanies is, that they shew little wit and [no] little virtue.
[Perhaps] certainly he had not the fire requisite for the higher species of lyrick poetry.’
Various Readings in the Life of TICKELL.
‘[Longed] long wished to peruse it.
At the [accession] arrival of King George.
Fiction [unnaturally] unskilfully compounded of Grecian deities and Gothick fairies.’
Various Readings in the Life of AKENSIDE.
‘For [another] a different purpose.
[A furious] an unnecessary and outrageous zeal.
[Something which] what he called and thought liberty.
A [favourer of innovation] lover of contradiction.
Warburton’s [censure] objections.
His rage [for liberty] of patriotism.
Mr. Dyson with [a zeal] an ardour of friendship.’
In the Life of LYTTELTON, Johnson seems to have been not favourably disposed towards that nobleman. Mrs. Thrale suggests that he was offended by Molly Aston’s preference of his Lordship to him. I can by no means join in the censure bestowed by Johnson on his Lordship, whom he calls ‘poor Lyttelton,’ for returning thanks to the Critical Reviewers for having ‘kindly commended’ his Dialogues of the Dead. Such ‘acknowledgements (says my friend) never can be proper, since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.’ In my opinion, the most upright man, who has been tried on a false accusation, may, when he is acquitted, make a bow to his jury. And when those who are so much the arbiters of literary merit, as in a considerable degree to influence the publick opinion, review an authour’s work, placido lumine, when I am afraid mankind in general are better pleased with severity, he may surely express a grateful sense of their civility.
Various Readings in the Life of LYTTELTON.
‘He solaced [himself] his grief by writing a long poem to her memory.
The production rather [of a mind that means well than thinks vigorously] as it seems of leisure than of study, rather effusions than compositions.
His last literary [work] production.
[Found the way] undertook to persuade.’
As the introduction to his critical examination of the genius and writings of YOUNG, he did Mr. Herbert Croft, then a Barrister of Lincoln’s-inn, now a clergyman, the honour to adopt a Life of Young written by that gentleman, who was the friend of Dr. Young’s son, and wished to vindicate him from some very erroneous remarks to his prejudice. Mr. Croft’s performance was subjected to the revision of Dr. Johnson, as appears from the following note to Mr. John Nichols: —
‘This Life of Dr. Young was written by a friend of his son. What is crossed with black is expunged by the authour, what is crossed with red is expunged by me. If you find any thing more that can be well omitted, I shall not be sorry to see it yet shorter’
It has always appeared to me to have a considerable share of merit, and to display a pretty successful imitation of Johnson’s style. When I mentioned this to a very eminent literary character, he opposed me vehemently, exclaiming, ‘No, no, it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak without its strength.’ This was an image so happy, that one might have thought he would have been satisfied with it; but he was not. And setting his mind again to work, he added, with exquisite felicity, ‘It has all the contortions of the Sybil, without the inspiration.’
Mr. Croft very properly guards us against supposing that Young was a gloomy man; and mentions, that ‘his parish was indebted to the good-humour of the authour of the Night Thoughts for an Assembly and a Bowling-Green.’ A letter from a noble foreigner is quoted, in which he is said to have been ‘very pleasant in conversation.’
Mr. Langton, who frequently visited him, informs me, that there was an air of benevolence in his manner, but that he could obtain from him less information than he had hoped to receive from one who had lived so much in intercourse with the brightest men of what has been called the Augustan age of England; and that he shewed a degree of eager curiosity concerning the common occurrences that were then passing, which appeared somewhat remarkable in a man of such intellectual stores, of such an advanced age, and who had retired from life with declared disappointment in his expectations.
An instance at once of his pensive turn of mind, and his cheerfulness of temper, appeared in a little story which he himself told to Mr. Langton, when they were walking in his garden: ‘Here (said he) I had put a handsome sun-dial, with this inscription, Eheu fugaces! which (speaking with a smile) was sadly verified, for by the next morning my dial had been carried off.’
‘It gives me much pleasure to observe, that however Johnson may have casually talked, yet when he sits, as “an ardent judge zealous to his trust, giving sentence” upon the excellent works of Young, he allows them the high praise to which they are justly entitled. “The Universal Passion (says he) is indeed a very great performance, — his distichs have the weight of solid sentiment, and his points the sharpness of resistless truth.”’
But I was most anxious concerning Johnson’s decision upon Night Thoughts, which I esteem as a mass of the grandest and richest poetry that human genius has ever produced; and was delighted to find this character of that work: ‘In his Night Thoughts, he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhime but with disadvantage.’ And afterwards, ‘Particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantation, the magnificence of vast extent and endless diversity.’
But there is in this Poem not only all that Johnson so well brings in view, but a power of the Pathetick beyond almost any example that I have seen. He who does not feel his nerves shaken, and his heart pierced by many passages in this extraordinary work, particularly by that most affecting one, which describes the gradual torment suffered by the contemplation of an object of affectionate attachment, visibly and certainly decaying into dissolution, must be of a hard and obstinate frame.
To all the other excellencies of Night Thoughts let me add the great and peculiar one, that they contain not only the noblest sentiments of virtue, and contemplations on immortality, but the Christian Sacrifice, the Divine Propitiation, with all its interesting circumstances, and consolations to ‘a wounded spirit,’ solemnly and poetically displayed in such imagery and language, as cannot fail to exalt, animate, and soothe the truly pious. No book whatever can be recommended to young persons, with better hopes of seasoning their minds with vital religion, than YOUNG’S Night Thoughts.
In the Life of SWIFT, it appears to me that Johnson had a certain degree of prejudice against that extraordinary man, of which I have elsewhere had occasion to speak. Mr. Thomas Sheridan imputed it to a supposed apprehension in Johnson, that Swift had not been sufficiently active in obtaining for him an Irish degree when it was solicited, but of this there was not sufficient evidence; and let me not presume to charge Johnson with injustice, because he did not think so highly of the writings of this authour, as I have done from my youth upwards. Yet that he had an unfavourable bias is evident, were it only from that passage in which he speaks of Swift’s practice of saving, as, ‘first ridiculous and at last detestable;’ and yet after some examination of circumstances, finds himself obliged to own, that ‘it will perhaps appear that he only liked one mode of expence better than another, and saved merely that he might have something to give.’
One observation which Johnson makes in Swift’s life should be often inculcated: —
‘It may be justly supposed, that there was in his conversation what appears so frequently in his letters, an affectation of familiarity with the great, an ambition of momentary equality, sought and enjoyed by the neglect of those ceremonies which custom has established as the barriers between one order of society and another. This transgression of regularity was by himself and his admirers termed greatness of soul; but a great mind disdains to hold any thing by courtesy, and therefore never usurps what a lawful claimant may take away. He that encroaches on another’s dignity puts himself in his power; he is either repelled with helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and condescension.’
Various Readings in the Life of Swift.
‘Charity may be persuaded to think that it might be written by a man of a peculiar [opinions] character, without ill intention.
He did not [disown] deny it.
‘[To] by whose kindness it is not unlikely that he was [indebted for] advanced to his benefices.
[With] for this purpose he had recourse to Mr. Harley.
Sharpe, whom he [represents] describes as “the harmless tool of others’ hate.”
Harley was slow because he was [irresolute] doubtful.
When [readers were not many] we were not yet a nation of readers.
[Every man who] he that could say he knew him.
Every man of known influence has so many [more] petitions [than] which he [can] cannot grant, that he must necessarily offend more than he [can gratify] gratifies.
Ecclesiastical [preferments] benefices.
‘Swift [procured] contrived an interview.
[As a writer] In his works he has given very different specimens.
On all common occasions he habitually [assumes] affects a style of [superiority] arrogance.
By the [omission] neglect of those ceremonies.
That their merits filled the world [and] or that there was no [room for] hope of more.’
I have not confined myself to the order of the Lives, in making my few remarks. Indeed a different order is observed in the original publication, and in the collection of Johnson’s Works. And should it be objected, that many of my various readings are inconsiderable, those who make the objection will be pleased to consider, that such small particulars are intended for those who are nicely critical in composition, to whom they will be an acceptable selection.
Spence’s Anecdotes, which are frequently quoted and referred to in Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, are in a manuscript collection, made by the Reverend Mr. Joseph Spence, containing a number of particulars concerning eminent men. To each anecdote is marked the name of the person on whose authority it is mentioned. This valuable collection is the property of the Duke of Newcastle, who upon the application of Sir Lucas Pepys, was pleased to permit it to be put into the hands of Dr. Johnson, who I am sorry to think made but an aukward return. ‘Great assistance (says he) has been given me by Mr. Spence’s Collection, of which I consider the communication as a favour worthy of publick acknowledgement;’ but he has not owned to whom he was obliged; so that the acknowledgement is unappropriated to his Grace.
While the world in general was filled with admiration of Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, there were narrow circles in which prejudice and resentment were fostered, and from which attacks of different sorts issued against him. By some violent Whigs he was arraigned of injustice to Milton; by some Cambridge men of depreciating Gray; and his expressing with a dignified freedom what he really thought of George, Lord Lyttelton, gave offence to some of the friends of that nobleman, and particularly produced a declaration of war against him from Mrs. Montagu, the ingenious Essayist on Shakspeare, between whom and his Lordship a commerce of reciprocal compliments had long been carried on. In this war the smaller powers in alliance with him were of course led to engage, at least on the defensive, and thus I for one was excluded from the enjoyment of ‘A Feast of Reason,’ such as Mr. Cumberland has described, with a keen, yet just and delicate pen, in his Observer. These minute inconveniencies gave not the least disturbance to Johnson. He nobly said, when I talked to him of the feeble, though shrill outcry which had been raised, ‘Sir, I considered myself as entrusted with a certain portion of truth. I have given my opinion sincerely; let them shew where they think me wrong.’
While my friend is thus contemplated in the splendour derived from his last and perhaps most admirable work, I introduce him with peculiar propriety as the correspondent of WARREN HASTINGS! a man whose regard reflects dignity even upon JOHNSON; a man, the extent of whose abilities was equal to that of his power; and who, by those who are fortunate enough to know him in private life, is admired for his literature and taste, and beloved for the candour, moderation, and mildness of his character. Were I capable of paying a suitable tribute of admiration to him, I should certainly not withhold it at a moment when it is not possible that I should be suspected of being an interested flatterer. But how weak would be my voice after that of the millions whom he governed. His condescending and obliging compliance with my solicitation, I with humble gratitude acknowledge; and while by publishing his letter to me, accompanying the valuable communication, I do eminent honour to my great friend, I shall entirely disregard any invidious suggestions, that as I in some degree participate in the honour, I have, at the same time, the gratification of my own vanity in view.
‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. Park Lane, Dec. 2, 1790.
SIR,
I have been fortunately spared the troublesome suspense of a long search, to which, in performance of my promise, I had devoted this morning, by lighting upon the objects of it among the first papers that I laid my hands on: my veneration for your great and good friend, Dr. Johnson, and the pride, or I hope something of a better sentiment, which I indulged in possessing such memorials of his good will towards me, having induced me to bind them in a parcel containing other select papers, and labelled with the titles appertaining to them. They consist but of three letters, which I believe were all that I ever received from Dr. Johnson. Of these, one, which was written in quadruplicate, under the different dates of its respective dispatches, has already been made publick, but not from any communication of mine. This, however, I have joined to the rest; and have now the pleasure of sending them to you for the use to which you informed me it was your desire to destine them.
‘My promise was pledged with the condition, that if the letters were found to contain any thing which should render them improper for the publick eye, you would dispense with the performance of it. You will have the goodness, I am sure, to pardon my recalling this stipulation to your recollection, as I should be both to appear negligent of that obligation which is always implied in an epistolary confidence. In the reservation of that right I have read them over with the most scrupulous attention, but have not seen in them the slightest cause on that ground to withhold them from you. But, though not on that, yet on another ground I own I feel a little, yet but a little, reluctance to part with them: I mean on that of my own credit, which I fear will suffer by the information conveyed by them, that I was early in the possession of such valuable instructions for the beneficial employment of the influence of my late station, and (as it may seem) have so little availed myself of them. Whether I could, if it were necessary, defend myself against such an imputation, it little concerns the world to know. I look only to the effect which these relicks may produce, considered as evidences of the virtues of their authour: and believing that they will be found to display an uncommon warmth of private friendship, and a mind ever attentive to the improvement and extension of useful knowledge, and solicitous for the interests of mankind, I can cheerfully submit to the little sacrifice of my own fame, to contribute to the illustration of so great and venerable a character. They cannot be better applied, for that end, than by being entrusted to your hands. Allow me, with this offering, to infer from it a proof of the very great esteem with which I have the honour to profess myself, Sir,
