James Boswell - THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON - All 6 Volumes in One Edition

[159] He is said to be the original of the parson in Hogarth’s Modern Midnight Conversation . BOSWELL.

In the Life of Fenton Johnson describes Ford as ‘a clergyman at that time too well known, whose abilities, instead of furnishing convivial merriment to the voluptuous and dissolute, might have enabled him to excel among the virtuous and the wise.’ Johnson’s Works , viii. 57. Writing to Mrs. Thrale on July 8, 1771, he says, ‘I would have been glad to go to Hagley [close to Stourbridge] for I should have had the opportunity of recollecting past times, and wandering per montes notos et flumina nota , of recalling the images of sixteen, and reviewing my conversations with poor Ford.’ Piozzi Letters , i. 42. See also post , May 12, 1778.

[160] See post , April 20, 1781.

[161] As was likewise the Bishop of Dromore many years afterwards. BOSWELL.

[162] Mr. Hector informs me, that this was made almost impromptu , in his presence. BOSWELL.

[163] This he inserted, with many alterations, in the Gentleman’s Magazine , 1743 [p. 378]. BOSWELL. The alterations are not always for the better. Thus he alters

‘And the long honours of a lasting name’

into

‘And fir’d with pleasing hope of endless fame.’

[164] Settle was the last of the city-poets; post , May 15, 1776.

[165] ‘Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great.’ Dunciad, i. 141.

[166] Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act The Distressed Mother , Johnson wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to convey it privately to them. BOSWELL. See post , 1747, for The Distressed Mother .

[167] Yet he said to Boswell:—‘Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now’ ( post , July 21, 1763). He told Mr. Langton, that ‘his great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of eighteen’ (Ib. note). He told the King that his reading had later on been hindered by ill-health ( post , Feb. 1767).

[168] Hawkins ( Life , p. 9) says that his father took him home, probably with a view to bring him up to his own trade; for I have heard Johnson say that he himself was able to bind a book. ‘It were better bind books again,’ wrote Mrs. Thrale to him on Sept. 18, 1777, ‘as you did one year in our thatched summer-house.’ Piozzi Letters , i. 375. It was most likely at this time that he refused to attend his father to Uttoxeter market, for which fault he made atonement in his old age ( post , November, 1784).

[169] Perhaps Johnson had his own early reading in mind when he thus describes Pope’s reading at about the same age. ‘During this period of his life he was indefatigably diligent and insatiably curious; wanting health for violent, and money for expensive pleasures, and having excited in himself very strong desires of intellectual eminence, he spent much of his time over his books; but he read only to store his mind with facts and images, seizing all that his authors presented with undistinguishing voracity, and with an appetite for knowledge too eager to be nice.’ Johnson’s Works , viii. 239.

[170] Andrew Corbet, according to Hawkins. Corbet had entered Pembroke College in 1727. Dr. Swinfen, Johnson’s godfather, was a member of the College. I find the name of a Swinfen on the books in 1728.

[171] In the Caution Book of Pembroke College are found the two following entries:—

‘Oct. 31, 1728. Recd. then of Mr. Samuel Johnson Commr. of Pem. Coll. ye summ of seven Pounds for his Caution, which is to remain in ye Hands of ye Bursars till ye said Mr. Johnson shall depart ye said College leaving ye same fully discharg’d.

Recd. by me, John Ratcliff, Bursar.’

‘March 26, 1740. At a convention of the Master and Fellows to settle the accounts of the Caution it appear’d that the Persons Accounts underwritten stood thus at their leaving the College:

Caution not Repay’d

Mr. Johnson £7 0 0

Battells not discharg’d

Mr. Johnson £7 0 0

Mr. Carlyle is in error in describing Johnson as a servitor. He was a commoner as the above entry shows. Though he entered on Oct. 31, he did not matriculate till Dec. 16. It was on Palm Sunday of this same year that Rousseau left Geneva, and so entered upon his eventful career. Goldsmith was born eleven days after Johnson entered (Nov. 10, 1728). Reynolds was five years old. Burke was born before Johnson left Oxford.

[172] He was in his twentieth year. He was born on Sept. 18, 1709, and was therefore nineteen. He was somewhat late in entering. In his Life of Ascham he says, ‘Ascham took his bachelor’s degree in 1534, in the eighteenth year of his age; a time of life at which it is more common now to enter the universities than to take degrees.’ Johnson’s Works , vi. 505. It was just after Johnson’s entrance that the two Wesleys began to hold small devotional meetings at Oxford.

[173] Builders were at work in the college during all his residence. ‘July 16, 1728. About a quarter of a year since they began to build a new chapel for Pembroke Coll. next to Slaughter Lane.’ Hearne’s Remains , iii. 9.

[174] Athen. Oxon . edit. 1721, i. 627. BOSWELL.

[175] Johnson would oftener risk the payment of a small fine than attend his lectures…. Upon occasion of one such imposition he said to Jorden:—“Sir, you have sconced [fined] me two pence for non-attendance at a lecture not worth a penny.” Hawkins’s Johnson , p. 9. A passage in Whitefield’s Diary shows that the sconce was often greater. He once neglected to give in the weekly theme which every Saturday had to be given to the tutor in the Hall ‘when the bell rang.’ He was fined half-a-crown. Tyerman’s Whitefield , i. 22. In my time (1855-8) at Pembroke College every Saturday when the bell rang we gave in our piece of Latin prose—themes were things of the past.

[176] This was on Nov. 6, O.S., or Nov. 17, N.S.—a very early time for ice to bear. The first mention of frost that I find in the newspapers of that winter is in the Weekly Journal for Nov. 30, O.S.; where it is stated that ‘the passage by land and water [i.e. the Thames] is now become very dangerous by the snow, frost, and ice.’ The record of meteorological observations began a few years later.

[177] Oxford, 20th March, 1776. BOSWELL.

[178] Mr. Croker discovers a great difference between this account and that which Johnson gave to Mr. Warton ( post , under July 16, 1754). There is no need to have recourse, with Mr. Croker, ‘to an ear spoiled by flattery.’ A very simple explanation may be found. The accounts refer to different hours of the same day. Johnson’s ‘stark insensibility’ belonged to the morning, and his ‘beating heart’ to the afternoon. He had been impertinent before dinner, and when he was sent for after dinner ‘he expected a sharp rebuke.’

[179] It ought to be remembered that Dr. Johnson was apt, in his literary as well as moral exercises, to overcharge his defects. Dr. Adams informed me, that he attended his tutors lectures, and also the lectures in the College Hall, very regularly. BOSWELL.

[180] Early in every November was kept ‘a great gaudy [feast] in the college, when the Master dined in publick, and the juniors (by an ancient custom they were obliged to comply with) went round the fire in the hall.’ Philipps’s Diary, Notes and Queries , 2nd S., x. 443. We can picture to ourselves among the juniors in November 1728, Samuel Johnson, going round the fire with the others. Here he heard day after day the Latin grace which Camden had composed for the society. ‘I believe I can repeat it,’ Johnson said at St. Andrew’s, ‘which he did.’ Boswell’s Hebrides , Aug. 19, 1773.