behind, or which makes me less desirous of reposing at that place which your kindness and Mr. Thrale's allows me to call my home. "Miss Lucy is more kind and civil than I expected, and has raised my esteem by many excellencies very noble and resplendent, though a little discoloured by hoary virginity. Everything else recalls to my remembrance year in which I proposed what, I am afraid I have not done, and promised pleasure which I have not found." We have the following notice in his devotional record : "August 2, 1767. I have been disturbed and unsettled for a long time, and have been without resolution to apply to study or to business, being hindered by sudden snatches. "I have for some days forborne wine and suppers. Abstinence is not easily practised in another's house; but I think it fit to try. "I was extremely perturbed in the night, but have had this day more ease than I expected. D[eo] gr[atia]. Perhaps this may be such a sudden relief as I once had by a good night's rest in Fetter Lane. "From that time, by abstinence, I have had more ease. I have read five books of Homer, and hope to end the sixth to-night. I have given Mrs. a guinea. แ By abstinence from wine and suppers, I obtained sudden and great relief, and had freedom of mind restored to me; which I have wanted for all this year, without being able to find my means of obtaining it." He, however, furnished Mr. Adams with a Dedication* to the King of that ingenious gentleman's "Treatise on the Globes," conceived and expressed in such a manner as could not fail to be very grateful to a monarch, distinguished for his love of the sciences. This year was published a ridicule of his style, under the title of Lexiphanes." Sir John Hawkins ascribes it to Dr. Kenrick; but its author was one Campbell, a Scotch purser in the navy. The ridicule consisted in applying Johnson's "words of large meaning," to insignificant matters, as if one should put the armour of Goliath upon a dwarf. The contrast might be laughable; but the dignity of the armour must remain the same in all considerate minds. This malicious drollery,' therefore, it may easily be supposed, could do no harm to its illustrious object. 1 This effusion of sportive malignity was the production of Archibald Campbell, the son of Professor Archibald Campbell, of St. Andrew's. He was also author of "The Sale of Authors; Dialogue, in imitation of Lucian."--ANDERSON, 122 L-FTTER 106 LIFE OF JOHNSON TO BENNET LANGTON, ESQ. At Mr. Rothwell's, Perfumer, in New Bond Street. "Lichfield, Oct. 10, 1767. DEAR SIR,―That you have been all summer in London is one more reason for which I regret my long stay in the country. I hope that you will not leave the town before my return. We have here only the chance of vacancies in the passing carriages, and I have bespoken one that may, if it happeurs, bring me to town on the fourteenth of this month; but this is not certain. It will be a favour if you communicate this to Mrs. Williams: I long to see all my friends. I am, dear Sir, your most humble servant, LETTER 107. TO MRS. ASTON. "SAM. JOHNSON." "Nov. 17, 1767. "MADAM,—If you impute it to disrespect or inattention, that I took no leave when I left Lichfield, you will do me great injustice. I know you too well not to value your friendship. "When I came to Oxford I inquired after the product of our walnut-tree, but it had, like other trees this year, but very few nuts, and for those few I came too late. The tree, as I told you, madam, we cannot find to be more than thirty years old, and upon measuring it, I found it, at about one foot from the ground, seven feet in circumference, and at the height of about seven feet the circumference is five feet and a half; it would have been, I believe, still bigger, but that it has been lopped. The nuts are small, such as they call single nuts; whether this nut is of quicker growth than better I have not yet inquired; such as they are, I hope to send them next year. "You know, dear madam, the liberty I took of hinting, that I did not think your present mode of life very pregnant with happiness. Reflection has not yet changed my opinion. Solitude excludes pleasure, and does not always secure peace Some communication of sentiments is commonly necessary to give vent to the imagination, and discharge the mind of its own flatulencies. Some lady surely might be found, in whose conversation you might delight, and in whose fidelity you might repose. The world, says Locke, has people of all sorts. You will forgive me this obtrusion of my opinion; I am sure I wish you well. "Poor Kitty has done what we have all to do, and Lucy has the world to pegin anew I hope she will find some way to more content than I left her possessing. "Be pleased to make my compliments to Mrs. Hinckley and Miss Turton. I am, Madam, your most obliged and most humble servant, "SAM JOHNSON." CHAPTER XXII. 1768. Atate of Johnson's Mind-Visit to Town-malling-Prologue to Go dsmith's "Good-natured Man "-Boswell publishes his "Account of Corsica "-Practice of the Law-Novels anú Comedies-The Douglas Cause-Reading MSS.-St. Kilda-Oxford-Guthrie-HumeRobertson-Future Life of Brutes-Scorpions-Maupertuis-Woodcocks-Swallows-Bell's Travels-Chastity-Choice of a Wife-Baretti's Italy-Liberty-Kenrick-ThomsonMonsey-Swift-Lord Eglingtoune-Letter on the Formation of a Library-Boswell at the Stratford Jubilee-Johnson's Opinion of the "Account of Corsica." Ir appears from his notes of the state of his mind, that he suffered great perturbation and distraction in 1768. "Town-malling, in Kent, 18th Sept., 1768, at night.-I have now begun the sixtieth year of my life. How the last year has past, I am unwilling to terrify myself with thinking. This day has been past in great perturbation: I was distracted at church in an uncommon degree, and my distress has had very little intermission. I have found myself somewhat relieved by reading, which I therefore intend to practise when I am able. This day it canie into my mind to write the history of my melancholy. On this I purpose to deliberate; I know not whether it may not too much disturb me." Nothing of his writings was given to the public this year, except the Prologue to his friend Goldsmith's comedy of "The Good natured Man." The first lines of this Prologue are strongly charac teristical of the dismal gloom of his mind; which in his case, as in the case of all who are distressed with the same malady of imagination, transfers to others its own feelings. Who could suppose it was to introduce a comedy, when Mr. Bensley solemnly began, "Press'd with the load of life, the weary mind But this dark ground might make Goldsmith's humour shine the In this prologue, after the line-" And social sorrow loses half its pain," the following couplet was inserted : VOL. I. 19 488 In the spring of this year, having published my "Account of Corsica, with the Journal of a Tour to that Island," I returned to London, very desirous to see Dr. Johnson, and hear him upon the subject I found he was at Oxford, with his frie Mr. Chambers, who was now Vinerian Professor, and lived in New-Inn Hall. Having had no letter from him since that in which he criticised the Latinity of my Thesis, and having been told by somebody that he was offended at my having put into my book an extract of his letter to me at Paris, I was impatient to be with him, and therefore followed him to Oxford, where I was entertained by Mr. Chambers, with a civility which I shall ever gratefully remember. I found that Dr. Johnson had sent a letter to me to Scotland, and that I had nothing to complain of but his being more indifferent to my anxiety than I wished him to be. Instead of giving, with the circumstances of time and place, such fragments of his conversation as I preserved during this visit to Oxford, I shall throw them together in continuation. I asked him whether, as a moralist, he did not think that the practice of the law, in some degree, hurt the nice feeling of honesty JOHNSON." Why no, Sir, if you act properly. You are not to deceive your clients with false representations of your opinions: you are not to tell lies to a Judge." BOSWELL. "But what do you think of supporting a cause which you know to be bad?" JOHNSON. "Sir, you do not know it to be good or bad till the Judge determines it. I have said that you are to state facts fairly; so that your think ing, or what you call knowing, a cause to be bad, must be from reasoning, must be from your supposing your arguments to be weak and inconclusive. But, Sir, that is not enough. An argument which does not convince yourself, may convince the Judge to whom you urge it; and if it does convince him, why, then, Sir, you are wrong, and he is right. It is his business to judge; and you are not to be confident in your own opinion that a cause is bad, but to say "Amidst the toils of this returning year, So the prologue appeared in the Public Advertiser. Goldsmith probably thought that the anes printed in Italic characters might give offence, and therefore prevailed on Johnson to owit them. The epithet little, which perhaps the author thought might diminish his dignity, was also changed to anxious.-M. all you can for your client, and then hear the Judge's opinion." BOSWELL. 66 'But, Sir, does not affecting a warmth when you have no warmth, and appearing to be clearly of one opinion when you are in reality of another opinion, does not such dissimulation impair one's honesty? Is there not some danger that a lawyer may put on the same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his friends ?" JOHNSON. "Why no, Sir. Everybody knows you are paid for affecting warmth for your client; and it is, therefore, properly no dissimulation the moment you come from the bar you resume your usual behaviour Sir, a man will no more carry the artifice of the bar into the common intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling upon his hands will continue to tumble upon his hands when he should walk on his feet.' Talking of some of the modern plays, he said, “False Delicacy," was totally void of character. He praised Goldsmith's "Goodnatured Man" said it was the best comedy that had appeared since "The Provoked Husband," and that there had not been of late any such character exhibited on the stage as that of Croaker. I observed it was the Suspirius of his Rambler [No. 59]. He said, Goldsmith had owned he had borrowed it from thence. "Sir," continued he, "there is all the difference in the world between characters of nature and characters of manners; and there is the difference between the characters of Fielding and those of Richardson. Characters of manners are very entertaining; but they are to be understood by a more superficial observer than characters of nature, where a man must dive into the recesses of the human heart." It always appeared to me, that he estimated the compositions of Richardson too highly, and that he had an unreasonable prejudice against Fielding. In comparing those two writers, he used this expression; "that there was as great a difference between them, as between a man who knew how a watch was made, and a man who 1 See post, Aug. 15, 1778, where Johnson has supported the same argument.-J. BosWELL, jun. "By Hugh Kelly. He died, an. ætat. 38, Feb. 3, 1777. 9 How charming, how wholesome, Fielding is! To take him up after Richardson, Is like emerging from a sick-room heated by stoves, into an open lawn, on a breezy day in May.COLERIDGE, Table Talk. |