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

[308] Ofellus, or rather Ofella, is the ‘rusticus, abnormis sapiens, crassaque Minerva’ of Horace’s Satire , ii. 2. 3. What he teaches is briefly expressed in Pope’s Imitation, ii. 2. 1:

‘What, and how great, the virtue and the art

To live on little with a cheerful heart

(A doctrine sage, but truly none of mine);

Let’s talk, my friends, but talk before we dine.’

In 1769 was published a worthless poem called The Art of Living in London ; in which ‘instructions were given to persons who live in a garret, and spend their evenings in an alehouse.’ Gent. Mag . xxxix. 45. To this Boswell refers.

[309] ‘Johnson this day, when we were by ourselves, observed how common it was for people to talk from books; to retail the sentiments of others, and not their own; in short, to converse without any originality of thinking. He was pleased to say, “You and I do not talk from books.”’ Boswell’s Hebrides , Nov. 3, 1773.

[310] The passage to Ireland was commonly made from Chester.

[311] The honourable Henry Hervey, third son of the first Earl of Bristol, quitted the army and took orders. He married a sister of Sir Thomas Aston, by whom he got the Aston Estate, and assumed the name and arms of that family. Vide Collins’s Peerage . BOSWELL.

[312] The following brief mention of Greenwich Park in 1750 is found in one of Miss Talbot’s Letters. ‘Then when I come to talk of Greenwich—Did you ever see it? It was quite a new world to me, and a very charming one. Only on the top of a most inaccessible hill in the park, just as we were arrived at a view that we had long been aiming at, a violent clap of thunder burst over our heads.’— Carter and Talbot Corres , i. 345.

[313] At the Oxford Commemoration of 1733 Courayer returned thanks in his robes to the University for the honour it had done him two years before in presenting him with his degree. Dr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics , p. 94.

[314] This library was given by George IV to the British Museum. CROKER.

[315] Ovid, Meta. iii. 724.

[316] Act iii. sc. 8.

[317] Act i. sc. 1.

[318] Act ii. sc. 7.

[319] Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides , 3rd edit. p. 232 [Sept. 20, 1773]. BOSWELL.

[320] Johnson’s letter to her of Feb. 6, 1759, shows that she was, at that time, living in his house at Lichfield. Miss Seward ( Letters , i. 116) says that ‘she boarded in Lichfield with his mother.’ Some passages in other of his letters (Croker’s Boswell , pp. 144, 145, 173) lead me to think that she stayed on in this house till 1766, when she had built herself a house with money left her by her brother.

[321] See post , Oct. 10, 1779.

[322] He could scarcely have solicited a worse manager. Horace Walpole writing in 1744 ( Letters , i. 332) says: ‘The town has been trying all this winter to beat pantomimes off the stage very boisterously. Fleetwood, the master of Drury-Lane, has omitted nothing to support them as they supported his house. About ten days ago, he let into the pit great numbers of Bear-garden bruisers (that is the term) to knock down everybody that hissed. The pit rallied their forces and drove them out.’

[323] It was not till volume v. that Cave’s name was given on the title-page. In volumes viii. and ix., and volumes xii. to xvii. the name is Edward Cave, Jun. Cave in his examination before the House of Lords on April 30, 1747, said:—‘That he was concerned in the Gentleman’s Magazine at first with his nephew; and since the death of his nephew he has done it entirely himself.’ Parl. Hist . xiv. 59.

[324] Its sale, according to Johnson, was ten thousand copies. Post , April 25, 1778. So popular was it that before it had completed its ninth year the fifth edition of some of the earliest numbers was printed. Johnson’s Works , v. 349. In the Life of Cave Johnson describes it as ‘a periodical pamphlet, of which the scheme is known wherever the English language is spoken.’ Ib . vi. 431.

[325] Yet the early numbers contained verses as grossly indecent as they were dull. Cave moreover advertised indecent books for sale at St. John’s Gate, and in one instance, at least, the advertisement was in very gross language.

[326] See post , April 25, 1778.

[327] While in the course of my narrative I enumerate his writings, I shall take care that my readers shall not be left to waver in doubt, between certainty and conjecture, with regard to their authenticity; and, for that purpose, shall mark with an asterisk (*) those which he acknowledged to his friends, and with a dagger (dagger) those which are ascertained to be his by internal evidence. When any other pieces are ascribed to him, I shall give my reasons. BOSWELL.

[328] Hawkins says that ‘Cave had few of those qualities that constitute the character of urbanity. Upon the first approach of a stranger his practice was to continue sitting, and for a few minutes to continue silent. If at any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, it was generally by putting a leaf of the Magazine then in the press into the hand of his visitor and asking his opinion of it. He was so incompetent a judge of Johnson’s abilities that, meaning at one time to dazzle him with the splendour of some of those luminaries in literature who favoured him with their correspondence, he told him that, if he would in the evening be at a certain alehouse in the neighbourhood of Clerkenwell, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. Browne and another or two of the persons mentioned in the preceding note. [The note contained the names of some of Cave’s regular writers.] Johnson accepted the invitation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed in a loose horseman’s coat, and such a great bushy uncombed wig as he constantly wore, to the sight of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting at the upper end of a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified.’ [Mr. Carlyle writes of ‘bushy-wigged Cave;’ but it was Johnson whose wig is described, and not Cave’s. On p. 327 Hawkins again mentions his ‘great bushy wig,’ and says that ‘it was ever nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge.’] Hawkins’s Johnson , pp. 45-50. Johnson, after mentioning Cave’s slowness, says: ‘The same chillness of mind was observable in his conversation; he was watching the minutest accent of those whom he disgusted by seeming inattention; and his visitant was surprised, when he came a second time, by preparations to execute the scheme which he supposed never to have been heard.’ Johnson’s Works , vi. 434.

[329] ‘The first lines put one in mind of Casimir’s Ode to Pope Urban:—

“Urbane, regum maxime, maxime

Urbane vatum.”

The Polish poet was probably at that time in the hands of a man who had meditated the history of the Latin poets.’ Murphy’s Johnson , p. 42.

[330] Cave had been grossly attacked by rival booksellers; see Gent. Mag ., viii. 156. Hawkins says ( Life , p. 92), ‘With that sagacity which we frequently observe, but wonder at, in men of slow parts, he seemed to anticipate the advice contained in Johnson’s ode, and forbore a reply, though not his revenge.’ This he gratified by reprinting in his own Magazine one of the most scurrilous and foolish attacks.

[331] A translation of this Ode, by an unknown correspondent, appeared in the Magazine for the month of May following:

‘Hail, URBAN! indefatigable man,

Unwearied yet by all thy useful toil!

Whom num’rous slanderers assault in vain;

Whom no base calumny can put to foil.

But still the laurel on thy learned brow