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

[212] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey completely. Windham’s Diary , p. 17. At college, he said, he had been ‘very idle and neglectful of his studies.’ Ib.

[213] ‘It may be questioned whether, except his Bible, he ever read a book entirely through. Late in life, if any man praised a book in his presence, he was sure to ask, ‘Did you read it through?’ If the answer was in the affirmative, he did not seem willing to believe it.’ Murphy’s Johnson , p. 12. It would be easy to show that Johnson read many books right through, though, according to Mrs. Piozzi, he asked, ‘was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim’s Progress?’ Piozzi’s Anec., p. 281. Nevertheless in Murphy’s statement there is some truth. See what has been just stated by Boswell, that ‘he hardly ever read any poem to an end,’ and post , April 19, 1773 and June 15, 1784. To him might be applied his own description of Barretier:—‘He had a quickness of apprehension and firmness of memory which enabled him to read with incredible rapidity, and at the same time to retain what he read, so as to be able to recollect and apply it. He turned over volumes in an instant, and selected what was useful for his purpose.’ Johnson’s Works , vi. 390.

[214] See post , June 15, 1784. Mr. Windham ( Diary , p. 17) records the following ‘anecdote of Johnson’s first declamation at college; having neglected to write it till the morning of his being (sic) to repeat it, and having only one copy, he got part of it by heart while he was walking into the hall, and the rest he supplied as well as he could extempore.’ Mrs. Piozzi, recording the same ancedote, says that ‘having given the copy into the hand of the tutor who stood to receive it as he passed, he was obliged to begin by chance, and continue on how he could…. “A prodigious risk, however,” said some one. “Not at all,” exclaims Johnson, “no man, I suppose, leaps at once into deep water who does not know how to swim.”’ Piozzi’s Anec . p. 30.

[215] He told Dr. Burney that he never wrote any of his works that were printed, twice over. Dr. Burney’s wonder at seeing several pages of his Lives of the Poets , in Manuscript, with scarce a blot or erasure, drew this observation from him. MALONE. ‘He wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting’ ( post , Feb. 1744), and a hundred lines of the Vanity of Human Wishes in a day ( post , under Feb. 15, 1766). The Ramblers were written in haste as the moment pressed, without even being read over by him before they were printed ( post , beginning of 1750). In the second edition, however, he made corrections. ‘He composed Rasselas in the evenings of one week’ ( post , under January, 1759). ‘ The False Alarm was written between eight o’clock on Wednesday night and twelve o’clock on Thursday night.’ Piozzi’s Anec ., p. 41. ‘ The Patriot ‘ he says, ‘was called for on Friday, was written on Saturday’ ( post , Nov. 26, 1774).

[216] ‘When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic.’ Piozzi’s Anec . p. 77. ‘Ethics, or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of talk he most delighted in;’ ib. p. 80. See post , Sept. 24, 1777.

[217] ‘Sept. 18, 1764, I resolve to study the Scriptures; I hope in the original languages. 640 verses every Sunday will nearly comprise the Scriptures in a year.’ Pr. and Med . p. 58. ‘1770, 1st Sunday after Easter. The plan which I formed for reading the Scriptures was to read 600 verses in the Old Testament, and 200 in the New, every week;’ ib. p. 100.

[218] ‘August 1, 1715. This being the day on which the late Queen Anne died, and on which George, Duke and Elector of Brunswick, usurped the English throne, there was very little rejoicing in Oxford…. There was a sermon at St. Marie’s by Dr. Panting, Master of Pembroke…. He is an honest gent. His sermon took no notice, at most very little, of the Duke of Brunswick.’ Hearne’s Remains , ii. 6.

[219] The outside wall of the gateway-tower forms an angle with the wall of the Master’s house, so that any one sitting by the open window and speaking in a strong emphatic voice might have easily been overheard.

[220] Goldsmith did go to Padua, and stayed there some months. Forster’s Goldsmith , i. 71.

[221] I had this anecdote from Dr. Adams, and Dr. Johnson confirmed it. Bramston, in his Man of Taste , has the same thought: ‘Sure, of all blockheads, scholars are the worst.’ BOSWELL. Johnson’s meaning, however, is, that a scholar who is a blockhead must be the worst of all blockheads, because he is without excuse. But Bramston, in the assumed character of an ignorant coxcomb, maintains that all scholars are blockheads on account of their scholarship. J. BOSWELL, JUN. There is, I believe, a Spanish proverb to the effect that, ‘to be an utter fool a man must know Latin.’ A writer in Notes and Queries (5th S. xii. 285) suggests that Johnson had in mind Acts xvii. 21.

[222] It was the practice in his time for a servitor, by order of the Master, to go round to the rooms of the young men, and knocking at the door to enquire if they were within; and if no answer was returned to report them absent. Johnson could not endure this intrusion, and would frequently be silent, when the utterance of a word would have ensured him from censure, and would join with others of the young men in the college in hunting, as they called it, the servitor who was thus diligent in his duty, and this they did with the noise of pots and candlesticks, singing to the tune of Chevy Chase the words in the old ballad,—

‘To drive the deer with hound and horn!’ Hawkins , p. 12. Whitefield, writing of a few years later, says:—‘At this time Satan used to terrify me much, and threatened to punish me if I discovered his wiles. It being my duty, as servitor, in my turn to knock at the gentlemen’s rooms by ten at night, to see who were in their rooms, I thought the devil would appear to me every stair I went up.’ Tyerman’s Whitefield , i. 20.

[223] See post , June 12, 1784.

[224] Perhaps his disregard of all authority was in part due to his genius, still in its youth. In his Life of Lyttelton he says:—‘The letters [Lyttelton’s Persian Letters ] have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of genius always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.’ Johnson’s Works , viii. 488.

[225] Dr. Hall [formerly Master of the College] says, ‘Certainly not all.’ CROKER.

[226] ‘I would leave the interest of the fortune I bequeathed to a college to my relations or my friends for their lives. It is the same thing to a college, which is a permanent society, whether it gets the money now or twenty years hence; and I would wish to make my relations or friends feel the benefit of it;’ post , April 17, 1778. Hawkins ( Life , p. 582,) says that ‘he meditated a devise of his house to the corporation of that city for a charitable use, but, it being freehold he said, “I cannot live a twelvemonth, and the last statute of Mortmain stands in my way.”’ The same statute, no doubt, would have hindered the bequest to the College.

[227] Garrick refused to act one of Hawkins’s plays. The poet towards the end of a long letter which he signed,—‘Your much dissatisfied humble servant,’ said:—‘After all, Sir, I do not desire to come to an open rupture with you. I wish not to exasperate, but to convince; and I tender you once more my friendship and my play.’ Garrick Corres . ii. 8. See post , April 9, 1778.