Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 859
‘Dear Sir,
‘Your most obedient,
‘And affectionate humble servant,
‘WILLIAM FORBES.’
When I consider how many of the persons mentioned in this Tour are now gone to ‘that undiscovered country, from whose bourne no traveller returns,’ I feel an impression at once awful and tender. — Requiescant in pace!
It may be objected by some persons, as it has been by one of my friends, that he who has the power of thus exhibiting an exact transcript of conversations is not a desirable member of society. I repeat the answer which I made to that friend:— ‘Few, very few, need be afraid that their sayings will be recorded. Can it be imagined that I would take the trouble to gather what grows on every hedge, because I have collected such fruits as the Nonpareil and the BON CHRETIEN?’
On the other hand, how useful is such a faculty, if well exercised! To it we owe all those interesting apophthegms and memorabilia of the ancients, which Plutarch, Xenophon, and Valerius Maximus, have transmitted to us. To it we owe all those instructive and entertaining collections which the French have made under the title of Ana, affixed to some celebrated name. To it we owe the Table-Talk of Selden, the Conversation between Ben Jonson and Drummond of Hawthornden, Spence’s Anecdotes of Pope, and other valuable remains in our own language. How delighted should we have been, if thus introduced into the company of Shakspeare and of Dryden, of whom we know scarcely any thing but their admirable writings! What pleasure would it have given us, to have known their petty habits, their characteristick manners, their modes of composition, and their genuine opinion of preceding writers and of their contemporaries! All these are now irrecoverably lost. Considering how many of the strongest and most brilliant effusions of exalted intellect must have perished, how much is it to be regretted that all men of distinguished wisdom and wit have not been attended by friends, of taste enough to relish, and abilities enough to register their conversation;
‘Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi, sed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longa
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.’
They whose inferiour exertions are recorded, as serving to explain or illustrate the sayings of such men, may be proud of being thus associated, and of their names being transmitted to posterity, by being appended to an illustrious character.
Before I conclude, I think it proper to say, that I have suppressed every thing which I thought could really hurt any one now living. Vanity and self-conceit indeed may sometimes suffer. With respect to what is related, I considered it my duty to ‘extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice;’ and with those lighter strokes of Dr. Johnson’s satire, proceeding from a warmth and quickness of imagination, not from any malevolence of heart, and which, on account of their excellence, could not be omitted, I trust that they who are the subject of them have good sense and good temper enough not to be displeased.
I have only to add, that I shall ever reflect with great pleasure on a Tour, which has been the means of preserving so much of the enlightened and instructive conversation of one whose virtues will, I hope, ever be an object of imitation, and whose powers of mind were so extraordinary, that ages may revolve before such a man shall again appear.
APPENDIX.
No. I.
In justice to the ingenious DR. BLACKLOCK, I publish the following letter from him, relative to a passage in p. 47.
‘TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
‘DEAR SIR,
‘Having lately had the pleasure of reading your account of the journey which you took with Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Western Isles, I take the liberty of transmitting my ideas of the conversation which happened between the doctor and myself concerning Lexicography and Poetry, which, as it is a little different from the delineation exhibited in the former edition of your Journal, cannot, I hope, be unacceptable; particularly since I have been informed that a second edition of that work is now in contemplation, if not in execution: and I am still more strongly tempted to encourage that hope, from considering that, if every one concerned in the conversations related, were to send you what they can recollect of these colloquial entertainments, many curious and interesting particulars might be recovered, which the most assiduous attention could not observe, nor the most tenacious memory retain. A little reflection, Sir, will convince you, that there is not an axiom in Euclid more intuitive nor more evident than the doctor’s assertion that poetry was of much easier execution than lexicography. Any mind therefore endowed with common sense, must have been extremely absent from itself, if it discovered the least astonishment from hearing that a poem might be written with much more facility than the same quantity of a dictionary.
‘The real cause of my surprise was what appeared to me much more paradoxical, that he could write a sheet of dictionary with as much pleasure as a sheet of poetry. He acknowledged, indeed, that the latter was much easier than the former. For in the one case, books and a desk were requisite; in the other, you might compose when lying in bed, or walking in the fields, &c. He did not, however, descend to explain, nor to this moment can I comprehend, how the labours of a mere Philologist, in the most refined sense of that term, could give equal pleasure with the exercise of a mind replete with elevated conceptions and pathetic ideas, while taste, fancy, and intellect were deeply enamoured of nature, and in full exertion. You may likewise, perhaps, remember, that when I complained of the ground which Scepticism in religion and morals was continually gaining, it did not appear to be on my own account, as my private opinions upon these important subjects had long been inflexibly determined. What I then deplored, and still deplore, was the unhappy influence which that gloomy hesitation had, not only upon particular characters, but even upon life in general; as being equally the bane of action in our present state, and of such consolations as we might derive from the hopes of a future.
‘I have the pleasure of remaining with sincere esteem and respect,
‘Dear Sir,
‘Your most obedient humble servant,
‘THOMAS BLACKLOCK.’
‘Edinburgh, Nov. 12, 1785.’
I am very happy to find that Dr. Blacklock’s apparent uneasiness on the subject of Scepticism was not on his own account, (as I supposed) but from a benevolent concern for the happiness of mankind. With respect, however, to the question concerning poetry, and composing a dictionary, I am confident that my state of Dr. Johnson’s position is accurate. One may misconceive the motive by which a person is induced to discuss a particular topick (as in the case of Dr. Blacklock’s speaking of Scepticism); but an assertion, like that made by Dr. Johnson, cannot be easily mistaken. And indeed it seems not very probable, that he who so pathetically laments the drudgery to which the unhappy lexicographer is doomed, and is known to have written his splendid imitation of Juvenal with astonishing rapidity, should have had ‘as much pleasure in writing a sheet of a dictionary as a sheet of poetry.’ Nor can I concur with the ingenious writer of the foregoing letter, in thinking it an axiom as evident as any in Euclid, that ‘poetry is of easier execution than lexicography.’ I have no doubt that Bailey, and the ‘mighty blunderbuss of law,’ Jacob, wrote ten pages of their respective Dictionaries with more ease than they could have written five pages of poetry.
If this book should again be reprinted, I shall with the utmost readiness correct any errours I may have committed, in stating conversations, provided it can be clearly shewn to me that I have been inaccurate. But I am slow to believe, (as I have elsewhere observed) that any man’s memory, at the distance of several years, can preserve facts or sayings with such fidelity as may be done by writing them down when they are recent: and I beg it may be remembered, that it is not upon memory, but upon what was written at the time, that the authenticity of my Journal rests.
No. II.
Verses written by Sir Alexander (now Lord) Macdonald; addressed and presented to Dr. Johnson, at Armidale in the Isle of Sky.
Viator, o qui nostra per aequora
Visurus agros Skiaticos venis,
En te salutantes tributim
Undique conglomerantur oris.
Donaldiani, — quotquot in insulis
Compescit arctis limitibus mare;
Alitque jamdudum, ac alendos
Piscibus indigenas fovebit.
Ciere fluctus siste, Procelliger,
Nec tu laborans perge, precor, ratis,
Ne conjugem plangat marita,
Ne doleat soboles parentem.
Nec te vicissim poeniteat virum
Luxisse; — vestro scimus ut aestuant
In corde luctantes dolores,
Cum feriant inopina corpus.
Quidni! peremptum clade tuentibus
Plus semper illo qui moritur pati
Datur, doloris dum profundos
Pervia mens aperit recessus.
Valete luctus; — hinc lacrymabiles
Arcete visus: — ibimus, ibimus
Superbienti qua theatro
Fingaliae memorantur aulae.
Illustris hospes! mox spatiabere
Qua mens ruinae ducta meatibus
Gaudebit explorare coetus,
Buccina qua cecinit triumphos;
Audin? resurgens spirat anhelitu
Dux usitato, suscitat efficax
Poeta manes, ingruitque
Vi solitâ redivivus horror.
Ahaena quassans tela gravi manu
Sic ibat atrox Ossiani pater:
Quiescat urnâ, stet fidelis
Phersonius vigil ad favillam.
Preparing for the Press, in one Volume Quarto,
THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
BY JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
Mr. Boswell has been collecting materials for this work for more than twenty years, during which he was honoured with the intimate friendship of Dr. Johnson; to whose memory he is ambitious to erect a literary monument, worthy of so great an authour, and so excellent a man. Dr. Johnson was well informed of his design, and obligingly communicated to him several curious particulars. With these will be interwoven the most authentick accounts that can be obtained from those who knew him best; many sketches of his conversation on a multiplicity of subjects, with various persons, some of them the most eminent of the age; a great number of letters from him at different periods, and several original pieces dictated by him to Mr. Boswell, distinguished by that peculiar energy, which marked every emanation of his mind.
Mr. Boswell takes this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging the many valuable communications which he has received to enable him to render his Life of Dr. Johnson more complete. His thanks are particularly due to the Rev. Dr. Adams, the Rev. Dr. Taylor, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Langton, Dr. Brocklesby, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Mr. Hector of Birmingham, Mrs. Porter, and Miss Seward.
He has already obtained a large collection of Dr. Johnson’s letters to his friends, and shall be much obliged for such others as yet remain in private hands; which he is the more desirous of collecting, as all the letters of that great man, which he has yet seen, are written with peculiar precision and elegance; and he is confident that the publication of the whole of Dr. Johnson’s epistolary correspondence will do him the highest honour.
APPENDIX A.
(Page 80.)
As no one reads Warburton now — I bought the five volumes of his Divine Legation in excellent condition, bound in calf, for ten pence — one or two extracts from his writing may be of interest. His Dedication of that work to the Free-Thinkers is as vigorous as it is abusive. It has such passages as the following:— ‘Low and mean as your buffoonery is, it is yet to the level of the people:’ p. xi. ‘I have now done with your buffoonery, which, like chewed bullets, is against the law of arms; and come next to your scurrilities, those stink-pots of your offensive war.’ Ib. p. xxii. On page xl. he returns again to their ‘cold buffoonery.’ In the Appendix to vol. v, p. 414, he thus wittily replies to Lowth, who had maintained that ‘idolatry was punished under the DOMINION of Melchisedec’(p. 409):— ‘Melchisedec’s story is a short one; he is just brought into the scene to bless Abraham in his return from conquest. This promises but ill. Had this King and Priest of Salem been brought in cursing, it had had a better appearance: for, I think, punishment for opinions which generally ends in a fagot always begins with a curse. But we may be misled perhaps by a wrong translation. The Hebrew word to bless signifies likewise to curse, and under the management of an intolerant priest good things easily run into their contraries. What follows is his taking tythes from Abraham. Nor will this serve our purpose, unless we interpret these tythes into fines for non-conformity; and then by the blessing we can easily understand absolution. We have seen much stranger things done with the Hebrew verity. If this be not allowed, I do not see how we can elicit fire and fagot from this adventure; for I think there is no inseparable connexion between tythes and persecution but in the ideas of a Quaker. — And so much for King Melchisedec. But the learned Professor, who has been hardily brought up in the keen atmosphere of WHOLESOME SEVERITIES and early taught to distinguish between de facto and de jure, thought it ‘needless to enquire into facts, when he was secure of the right’.
This ‘keen atmosphere of wholesome severities’ reappears by the way in Mason’s continuation of Gray’s Ode to Vicissitude: —
‘That breathes the keen yet wholesome air
Of rugged penury.’
And later in the first book of Wordsworth’s Excursion (ed. 1857, vi. 29): —
‘The keen, the wholesome air of poverty.’
Johnson said of Warburton: ‘His abilities gave him an haughty confidence, which he disdained to conceal or mollify; and his impatience of opposition disposed him to treat his adversaries with such contemptuous superiority as made his readers commonly his enemies, and excited against the advocate the wishes of some who favoured the cause. He seems to have adopted the Roman Emperour’s determination, oderint dum metuant; he used no allurements of gentle language, but wished to compel rather than persuade.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 288. See ante, ii. 36, and iv. 46.
APPENDIX B.
(Page 158.)
Johnson’s Ode written in Sky was thus translated by Lord Houghton: —
‘Where constant mist enshrouds the rocks,
Shattered in earth’s primeval shocks,
And niggard Nature ever mocks
The labourer’s toil,
I roam through clans of savage men,
Untamed by arts, untaught by pen;
Or cower within some squalid den
O’er reeking soil.
Through paths that halt from stone to stone,
Amid the din of tongues unknown,
One image haunts my soul alone,
Thine, gentle Thrale!
Soothes she, I ask, her spouse’s care?
Does mother-love its charge prepare?
Stores she her mind with knowledge rare,
Or lively tale?
Forget me not! thy faith I claim,
Holding a faith that cannot die,
That fills with thy benignant name
These shores of Sky.’
Hayward’s Piozzi, i. 29.
APPENDIX C.
(Page 307.)
Johnson’s use of the word big, where he says ‘I wish thy books were twice as big,’ enables me to explain a passage in The Life of Johnson (ante, iii. 348) which had long puzzled me. Boswell there represents him as saying:— ‘A man who loses at play, or who runs out his fortune at court, makes his estate less, in hopes of making it bigger.’ Boswell adds in a parenthesis:— ‘I am sure of this word, which was often used by him.’ He had been criticised by a writer in the Gent. Mag. 1785, p. 968, who quoting from the text the words ‘a big book,’ says:— ‘Mr. Boswell has made his friend (as in a few other passages) guilty of a Scotticism. An Englishman reads and writes a large book, and wears a great (not a big or bag) coat.’ When Boswell came to publish The Life of Johnson, he took the opportunity to justify himself, though he did not care to refer directly to his anonymous critic. This explanation I discovered too late to insert in the text.
A JOURNEY INTO NORTH WALES, IN THE YEAR 1774.
TUESDAY, JULY 5.
We left Streatham 11 a.m. Price of four horses 2s. a mile.
JULY 6.
Barnet 1.40 p.m. On the road I read Tully’s Epistles. At night at Dunstable. To Lichfield, 83 miles. To the Swan.
JULY 7.
To Mrs. Porter’s. To the Cathedral. To Mrs. Aston’s. To Mr. Green’s. Mr. Green’s Museum was much admired, and Mr. Newton’s china.
JULY 8.
To Mr. Newton’s. To Mrs. Cobb’s. Dr. Darwin’s. I went again to Mrs. Aston’s. She was sorry to part.
JULY 9.
Breakfasted at Mr. Garrick’s. Visited Miss Vyse. Miss Seward. Went to Dr. Taylor’s. I read a little on the road in Tully’s Epistles and Martial. Mart. 8th, 44, ‘lino pro limo.’
JULY 10.
Morning, at church. Company at dinner.
JULY 11.
At Ham. At Oakover. I was less pleased with Ham than when I saw it first, but my friends were much delighted.
JULY 12.
At Chatsworth. The Water willow. The cascade shot out from many spouts. The fountains. The water tree. The smooth floors in the highest rooms. Atlas, fifteen hands inch and half.
River running through the park. The porticoes on the sides support two galleries for the first floor.
My friends were not struck with the house. It fell below my ideas of the furniture. The staircase is in the corner of the house. The hall in the corner the grandest room, though only a room of passage.
On the ground-floor, only the chapel and breakfast-room, and a small library; the rest, servants’ rooms and offices.
A bad inn.
JULY 13.
At Matlock.
JULY 14.
At dinner at Oakover; too deaf to hear, or much converse. Mrs. Gell.
