his thoughts with certain untoward actions, and those actions always appeared to me as if they were meant to reprobate some part of his past conduct. Whenever he was not engaged in conversation, such thoughts were sure to rush into his mind; and, for this reason, any company, any employment whatever, he preferred to being alone. The great business of his life (he said) was to escape from himself. This disposition he considered as the disease of his mind, which nothing cured but company. written on a slip no larger than a common | had indulged himself in, of accompanying message-card, and was sent to Mr Richardson, along with the imitation of Juvenal. "This is imitated by one Johnson who put in for a Publick-school in Shropshire 1, but was disappointed. He has an infirmity of the convulsive kind, that attacks him sometimes, so as to make Him a sad Spectacle 2. Mr. P. from the Merit of This Work which was all the knowledge he had of Him 3 endeavoured to serve Him without his own application; & wrote to my Ld. gore, but he did not succeed. Mr. Johnson published afterwds, another Poem in Latin with Notes the whole very Humerous call'd the Norfolk Prophecy. "P." Johnson had been told of this note; and Sir Joshua Reynolds informed him of the compliment which it contained, but, from delicacy, avoided showing him the paper itself. When Sir Joshua observed to Johnson that he seemed very desirous to see Pope's note, he answered, "Who would not be proud to have such a man as Pope so solicitous in inquiring about him?” Aug. 1773. The infirmity to which Mr. Pope alludes, appeared to me also, as will be hereafter observed, to be of the convulsive kind, and of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitus's dance; and in this opinion I am confirmed by the description which Sydenham gives of that disease. "This disorder is a kind of convulsion. It manifests itself by halting or unsteadiness of one of the legs, which the patient draws after him like an idiot. If the hand of the same side be applied to the breast, or any other part of the body, he cannot keep it a moment in the same posture, but it will be drawn into a different one by a convulsion, notwithstanding all his efforts to the contrary." Sir Joshua Reynolds, however, was of a different opinion, and favoured me with the following paper: "Those motions or tricks of Dr. Johnson are improperly called convulsions. He could sit motionless when he was told so to do, as well as any other man. My opinion is, that it proceeded from a habit 4 which he 1 [This has been supposed to be an error, as Appleby is in Leicester: but see ante, p. 50, where it is suggested that Johnson may have "put in" for a school in Shropshire, as well as for the school in Leicestershire.-ED.] 2 [It is clear that, as Johnson advanced in life, these convulsive infirmities, though never entirely absent, were so far subdued that he could not be called a sad spectacle. We have seen that he was rejected from two schools on account of these distortions, which in his latter years were certainly not violent enough to excite disgust.-ED.] 3 [This seems hardly consistent with the story (told ante, p, 21.) of Pope's approbation of Johnson's translation of his Messiah.-ED.] Sir Joshua Reynold's notion on this subject "One instance of his absence of mind and particularity, as it is characteristick of the man, may be worth relating. When he and I took a journey together into the west, we visited the late Mr. Bankes, of Dorsetshire; the conversation turning upon pictures, which Johnson could not well see, he retired to a corner of the room, stretching out his right leg as far as he could reach before him, then bringing up his left leg, and stretching his right still further on. old gentleman observing him, went up to him, and in a very courteous manner assured him, though it was not a new house, the flooring was perfectly safe. The Doc tor started from his reverie, like a person waked out of his sleep, but spoke not a word." The While we are on this subject, my readers may not be displeased with another anecdote, communicated to me by the same friend, from the relation of Mr. Hogarth. Johnson used to be a pretty frequent visitor at the house of Mr. Richardson 5, author of Clarissa, and other novels of extensive reputation. Mr. Hogarth came one day to see Richardson, soon after the execution of Dr. Cameron, for having taken arms for the house of Stuart in 1745-6; and being a warm partisan of George the Second, he observed to Richardson, that certainly there must have been some very unfavourable circumstances lately discovered in this particular case, which had induced the king to approve of an execution for rebellion so long after the time when it was committed, as this had the appearance of putting a man to death in cold blood, and is confirmed by what Johnson himself said to a young lady, the niece of his friend Christopher Smart. See a note by Mr. Boswell on some particulars communicated by Reynolds, under March 30, 1783.—MALONE. [See ante, p. 49.-ED.] Impartial posterity may, perhaps, be as little inclined as Dr. Johnson was to justify the uncommon rigour exercised in the case of Dr. Archibald Cameron. He was an amiable and truly honest man; and his offence was owing to a generous, though mistaken principle of duty. Being obliged, after 1746, to give up his profession as a was very unlike his majesty's usual clemen- | of Dr. Johnson, whose conversation was cy. While he was talking, he perceived a (he said) to the talk of other men, like Tiperson standing at a window in the room, tian's painting compared to Hudson's. Of shaking his head, and rolling himself about Dr. Johnson, when that lady's father and in a strange ridiculous manner. He con- Hogarth were talking together about him cluded that he was an idiot, whom his re- one day, the latter said, "That man is not lations had put under the care of Mr. Rich- contented with believing the Bible, but he ardson, as a very good man. To his great fairly resolves, I think, to believe nothing surprise, however, this figure stalked for- but the Bible." Johnson (added he), though wards to where he and Mr. Richardson were so wise a fellow, is more like king David sitting, and all at once took up the ar- than king Solomon; for he says, in his haste, gument, and burst out into an invective that all men are liars.] against George the Second, as one who, upon all occasions, was unrelenting and barbarous; mentioning many instances, particularly, that when an officer of high rank had been acquitted by a court-martial, George the Second had with his own hand struck his name off the list 1. In short, he displayed such a power of eloquence, that Hogarth looked at him with astonishment, and actually imagined that this idiot had been at the moment inspired. Neither Hogarth nor Johnson were made known to each other at this interview. [They afterwards, as we learn from Mrs. Piozzi, became better acquainted. "Johnson," she adds, "made four lines on the death of poor Hogarth, which were equally true and pleasing: I know not why Garrick's were preferred to them. The hand of him here torpid lies, That drew the essential form of grace; Here clos'd in death the attentive eyes, That saw the manners in the face." " Mr. Hogarth, among a variety of kindnesses shown to Mrs. Piozzi, was used to be very earnest that she should obtain the acquaintance, and if possible, the friendship, physician, and to go into foreign parts, he was honoured with the rank of colonel, both in the Freach and Spanish service. He was a son of the ancient and respectable family of Cameron, of Lochiel; and his brother, who was the chief of that brave clan, distinguished himself by moderatwo and humanity, while the Highland army marched victorious through Scotland. It is remarkable of this chief, that though he had carnestly remonstrated against the attempt as hopeless, he was of too heroic a spirit not to venture his life and fortune in the cause, when personally asked by him whom he thought his prince.-BOSWELL. [Dr. Cameron was executed on the 7th June, 17 No instance can be traced in the War or Admiralty Offices of any officer of high rank bestruck out of the list about that period, after aqustal by a court-martial. It may be surmised that dr. Hogarth's statement, or Sir Joshua's repofu, was not quite accurate in details, and Johnson alluded to the case of his friend eral Oglethorpe, who, after acquittal by a tout-martial, was (to use a vulgar but expresme phrase) put upon the shelf-See ante, p. e-Es.] 66 In 1740 he wrote for the Gentleman's Magazine" the Preface †2;" "the Life of Admiral Blake*" (p. 301); and the first parts of those of "Sir Francis Drake* (p. 389), and Philip Barretier*" 3 (p. 612); both which he finished the following year. He also wrote an Essay on Epitaphs*" (p. 593); and an Epitaph on Philips, a musician" (p. 464); which was afterwards published; with some other pieces of his, in Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies. This epitaph is so exquisitely beautiful, that I remember even Lord Kames 4, strangely prejudiced as he was against Dr. Johnson, was compelled to allow it very high praise. It has been ascribed to Mr. Garrick, from its appearing at first with the signature G; but I have heard Mr. Garrick declare, that it was written by Dr. Johnson, and give the following account of the manner in which it was composed. Johnson and he were sitting_together; when, amongst other things, Garrick repeated an epitaph upon this Philips by a Dr. Wilkes, in these words: 2 [This Preface is, in fact, a learned essay "on the Acta Diurna" of the old Romans, and has little of Johnson's manner.- ED.] 3 [His attention was probably drawn to Barretier, by his friend Miss Carter, with whom that ingenious young man corresponded.-He died in 1740; and Johnson begins the life in the magazine of that year by stating that " he had few materials for his work but the letters of Barretier's father," which, probably, were communicated by Miss Carter. In 1742, however, Mr. Barretier, senior, transmitted to that lady a life of his son, printed, as it seems, by his friends; and, in 1742, we find Dr. Johns on re-writing his life, with large additions. Not having seen the foreign life, the Editor cannot say how far Dr. Johnson may have borrowed from it; but if we were to form an opinion of the extent of Barretier's learning, the force of his mind, or the goodness of his taste, from what has been preserved of his correspondence in the life of Miss Carter (p. 70-94), the praises lavished on him by his biographer would appear very extravagant, and the extraordinary accounts given of him seem rather those of parental partiality than of credible history.-ED.] [Henry Home, one of the Lords of Session in Scotland, author of the Elements of Criticism, Sketches of the History of Man, and several other less celebrated but valuable works.—ED.] "Exalted soul! whose harmony could please liamentary Debates. He told me himself, "Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove It appears from some of Cave's letters to Dr. Birch, that Cave had better assistance for that branch of his Magazine than has been generally supposed; and that he was indefatigable in getting it made as perfect as he could. Thus 21st July, 1735, And 15th July, 1737, "I trouble you with the enclosed, because you said you could easily correct what is here given for Lord C-ld's speech. I beg you will do so as soon as you can for At the same time that Mr. Garrick favour-me, because the month is far advanced." ed me with this anecdote, he repeated a very pointed epigram by Johnson, on George the Second and Colley Cibber, which has never yet appeared, and of which I know not the exact date. Dr. Johnson afterwards gave it to me himself: "Augustus still survives in Maro's strain, "As you remember the debates so far as to perceive the speeches already printed are not exact, I beg the favour that you will peruse the enclosed, and, in the best manner your memory will serve, correct the mistaken passages, or add any thing that is omitted. I should be very glad to have something of the Duke of N- -le's speech, which would be particularly of service. And July 3, 1744, And Spenser's verse prolongs Eliza's reign; Great George's acts let tuneful Cibber sing; For Nature form'd the Poet for the King." In 1741 he wrote for the Gentleman's Magazine "the Preface†;" ;" "Conclusion of his Lives of Drake* (p. 38) and Barretier*" "You will see what stupid, low, abomi(p. 87); "a free Translation of the Jests nable stuff is put upon your noble and of Hierocles, with an Introduction" (p. learned friend's character, such as I should 477); and, I think, the following pieces: quite reject, and endeavour to do something "Debate on the Proposal of Parliament to better towards doing justice to the characCromwell, to assume the Title of King, ter. But as I cannot expect to attain my abridged, modified, and digested 2f" (p. 94); desire in that respect, it would be a great "Translation of Abbé Guyon's Disserta- satisfaction, as well as an honour to our tion on the Amazonst" (p. 202); "Trans- work, to have the favour of the genuine lation of Fontenelle's Panegyrick on Dr. speech. It is a method that several have Morint" (p. 375). Two notes upon this been pleased to take, as I could show, but I appear to me undoubtedly his. He this think myself under a restraint. I shall say year, and the two following, wrote the Par- so far, that I have had some by a third hand, which I understood well enough to come from the first; others by penny-post, and others by the speakers themselves, who and show particular marks of their being have been pleased to visit St. John's-gate, pleased." " The epitaph of Philips is in the porch of Wolverhampton church. Mr. Garrick appears not to have recited the verses correctly; and one of the various readings is remarkable, as it is the germ of Johnson's concluding line, "And meet thy Saviour's consort in the skies."BOSWELL. There is no reason, I believe, to doubt the [By consort, I suppose concert is meant; but able that none of these letters are in the veracity of Cave. It is, however, remark— still I do not see the germ of Johnson's thought. That music may be among the joys of heaven years during which Johnson alone furnishhas been sometimes suggested; but that the deaded the Debates, and one of them is in the were to be "awakened by harmonious notes," very year after he ceased from that labour seems quite new, and not quite orthodox.-ED.] [That Johnson was the authour of the 2 [This is only a reprint, better arranged, of a debate, published in 1660, with a few introductory sentences (which may be by Johnson), stating that the editor had reduced the confusion and intricacies of the original report into a more intelligible order. -ED.] 3 I suppose in another compilation of the same kind.-BOSWELL. 4 Doubtless, Lord Hardwick.-BOSWELL. 5 Birch's MSS. in the British Museum, 4302. -BOSWELL. 1 that the WHIG DOGS should not have the best of it."] Hawk. p. 122-129. The [In the perusal of these debates, we cannot but wonder at the powers that produced them. authour had never passed those gradations that lead to the knowledge of men and business: born to a narrow fortune, of no profession, conversant chiefly with books, unacquainted with the style of any other than academical disputation, and so great a stranger to senatorial manners, that he never was within the walls of either house of parliament. That a man, under these disadvantages, should be able to frame a system of debate, to compose speeches of such excellence, both in matter and form, as scarcely to be equalled by those of the most able and experienced statesmen, is, I say, matter of astonishment, and a proof of talents that qualified him for a speaker in the most august assembly on earth. My debates during that period was not P 45-5 generally known; but the secret transpired several years afterwards, and was avowed by himself on the following occasion. Mr. Wedderburne (afterwards Lord Loughborough and Earl of Rosslyn), Dr. Johnson, Dr. Francis (the translator of Horace), Mr. Murphy, who relates the anecdote, and others, dined with the late Mr. Foote An important debate towards the end of Sir Robert Walpole's administration being mentioned, Dr. Francis observed, that Mr. Pitt's speech on that occasion was the best he had ever read." He added, that he had employed eight years of his life in the study of Demosthenes, and finished a translation of that celebrated orator, with all the decorations of style and language within the reach of his capacity; but he had met with nothing equal to the speech above-mentioned." Many of the company remembered the debate; and some passages were cited, with the approbation Cave, who had no idea of the powers of and applause of all present. During the ar- eloquence over the human mind, became dour of conversation, Johnson remained si- sensible of its effects in the profits it brought lent. As soon as the warmth of praise sub- him: he had long thought that the success aided, he opened with these words: "That of his Magazine proceeded from those parts speech I wrote in a garret in Exeter-street." of it that were conducted by himself, which The company was struck with astonishment. were the abridgement of weekly papers writAfter staring at each other in silent amaze, ten against the ministry, such as the CraftsDr. Francis asked "how that speech could man, Fog's Journal, Common Sense, the be written by him?" "Sir," said Johnson, Weekly Miscellany, the Westminster Jour"I wrote it in Exeter-street 2. I never had nal, and others, and also marshalling the been in the gallery of the House of Com- pastorals, the elegies, and the songs, the mons but once. Cave had interest with the epigrams, and the rebuses that were sent door-keepers. He, and the persons employ- him by various correspondents, and was ei under him, gained admittance: they scarcely able to see the causes that at this brought away the subject of discussion, the time increased the sale of his pamphlet from names of the speakers, the sides they took, ten to fifteen thousand copies a month. But and the order in which they rose, together if he saw not, he felt them, and manifested with notes of the arguments advanced in the his good fortune by buying an old coach rse of the debate. The whole was after- and a pair of older horses; and, that he wards communicated to me, and I composed might avoid the suspicion of pride in setting the speeches in the form which they now up an equipage, he displayed to the world have in the parliamentary debates." To this the source of his affluence, by a representadiscovery Dr. Francis made answer: "Then, tion of St. John's Gate, instead of his arms, sr. you have exceeded Demosthenes him- on the door-panel. This he himself told ef for to say that you have exceeded Sir J. Hawkins was the reason of distinFrancis's Demosthenes, would be saying no-guishing his carriage from others, by what thing." The rest of the company bestow- some might think a whimsical device, and ed lavish encomiums on Johnson: one, in also for causing it to be engraven on all his particular, praised his impartiality; observ- plate. Eg that he dealt out reason and eloquence with an equal hand to both parties. "That is not quite true," said Johnson; "I saved appearances tolerably well, but I took care [No doubt that celebrated reply to old Hore Walpole, which begins "The atrocious crime of being a young man," 10th March, 1741.Es} * [There is here some inaccuracy; the debate question was written in 1741. In Mr. Boswalls list of Johnson's residences, he appears not le have resided in Exeter-street after his return to London, in 1737.—ED.] Johnson had his reward, over and above the pecuniary recompense vouchsafed him by Cave, in the general applause of his labours, which the increased demand for the Magazine implied 4; but this, as his perform3 With the matter he was supplied, though probably imperfectly.-ED.] 4 [Sir J. Hawkins seems (as well as the other biographers) to have overrated the value, to Cave and the public, of Johnson's Parliamentary Debates. It is shown in the preface to the Parliamentary History for 1738 (ed. 1812), that one of Cave's rivals, the London Magazine, often pen's blunt and dogmatical; Sir John Barnard's clear, especially on commercial subjects; Lyttelton's stiff and imitative of the Roman oratory; and Pitt's void of argument, but rhapsodically and diffusively eloquent. ances fell short of his powers, gratified him | vous, methodical, and weighty; Mr. Shipbut little; on the contrary, he disapproved the deceit he was compelled to practice; his notions of morality were so strict, that he would scarcely allow the violation of truth in the most trivial instances, and saw, in falsehood of all kinds, a turpitude that he could never be thoroughly reconciled to; and though the fraud was perhaps not greater than the fictitious relations in Sir Thomas More's Utopia, Lord Bacon's Nova Atlantis, and Bishop Hall's Mundus alter et idem, Johnson was not easy till he had disclosed the deception. In the mean time it was curious to observe how the deceit operated. It has above been remarked, that Johnson had the art to give different colours to the several speeches, so that some appear to be declamatory and energetic, resembling the orations of Demosthenes; others like those of Cicero, calm, persuasive; others, more particularly those attributed to such country gentlemen, merchants, and seamen as had seats in parliament, bear the characteristic of plainness, bluntness, and unaffected honesty as opposed to the plausibility of such as were understood or suspected to be courtiers: the artifice had its effect; Voltaire was betrayed by it into a declaration, that the eloquence of ancient Greece and Rome was revived in the British senate, and a speech of the late Earl of Chatham when Mr. Pitt, in opposition to one of Mr. Horatio Walpole, received the highest applause, and was by all that read it taken for genuine. It must be owned, that with respect to the general principles avowed in the speeches, and the sentiments therein contained, they agree with the characters of the persons to whom they are ascribed. Thus, to instance in those of the upper house, the speeches of the Duke of Newcastle, the Lords Carteret and Ilay, are calm, temperate, and persuasive; those of the Duke of Argyle and Lord Talbot furious and declamatory, and Lord Chesterfield's and Lord Hervey's florid but flimsy. In the other house the speeches may be thus characterised: the minister's mild and conciliatory: Mr. Pulteney's nerexcelled the Gentleman's Magazine, in the priority and accuracy of its parliamentary reports, which were contributed by Gordon, the translator of Tacitus.-ED.] [It is very remarkable that Dr. Maty, who wrote the life and edited the works of Lord Chesterfield, with the use of his lordship's papers, under the eye of his surviving friends, and in the lifetime of Johnson, should have published, as "specimens of his lordship's eloquence, in the strong nervous style of Demosthenes, as well as in the witty ironical manner of Tully," three speeches, which are certainly the composition of Dr. Johnson. See Chesterfield's Works, vol. ji. p. 319. ED.] The confession of Johnson above-mentioned was the first that revealed the secret that the debates inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine were fictitious, and composed by himself. After that, he was free, and indeed industrious, in the communication of it, for being informed that Dr. Smollet was writing a history of England, and had brought it down to the last reign, he cautioned him not to rely on the debates as given in the Magazine, for that they were not authentic, but, excepting as to their general import, the work of his own imagination.] Johnson told me that as soon as he found that the speeches were thought genuine, he determined that he would write no more of them; "for he would not be accessary to the propagation of falsehood." And such was the tenderness of his conscience, that a short time before his death he expressed his regret for his having been the authour of fictions, which had passed for realities, He nevertheless agreed with me in thinking, that the debates which he had framed were to be valued as orations upon questions of publick importance. They have accordingly been collected in volumes, properly arranged, and recommended to the notice of parliamentary speakers by a preface, written by no inferior hand 2. I must, however, observe, that although there is in those debates a wonderful store of political information, and very powerful eloquence, I cannot agree that they exhibit the manner of each particular speaker, as Sir John Hawkins seems to think. But, indeed, what opinion can we have of his judgment, and taste in public speaking, who presumes to give, as the characteristicks of two celebrated orators, "the deep-mouthed rancour of Pulteney, and the yelp- Hawk. ing pertinacity of Pitt?" p. 100. This year I find that his tragedy of Irene had been for some time ready for the stage, and that his necessities made him desirous of getting as much as he could for it with ? I am assured that the editor is Mr. George Chalmers, whose commercial works are well known and esteemed.-BoSWELL. [This collec tion is stated in the preface to the Parliamentary History, vol. ii. to be very incomplete-of thirtytwo debates, twelve are given under wrong dates, and several of Johnson's best compositions are wholly omitted; amongst others, the important debate of the 13th February, 1741, on Mr. Sandys'a motion for the removal of Sir Robert Walpole other omissions, equally striking, are complained of.-ED.] |