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

[427] Mr. Carlyle, by the use of the term ‘Imaginary Editors’ ( Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches , iii. 229), seems to imply that he does not hold with Boswell in assigning this piece to Johnson. I am inclined to think, nevertheless, that Boswell is right. If it is Johnson’s it is doubly interesting as showing the method which he often followed in writing the Parliamentary Debates. When notes were given him, while for the most part he kept to the speaker’s train of thoughts, he dealt with the language much as it pleased him. In the Gent. Mag . Cromwell speaks as if he were wearing a flowing wig and were addressing a Parliament of the days of George II. He is thus made to conclude Speech xi:—‘For my part, could I multiply my person or dilate my power, I should dedicate myself wholly to this great end, in the prosecution of which I shall implore the blessing of God upon your counsels and endeavours.’ Gent. Mag . xi. 100. The following are the words which correspond to this in the original:—‘If I could help you to many, and multiply myself into many, that would be to serve you in regard to settlement…. But I shall pray to God Almighty that He would direct you to do what is according to His will. And this is that poor account I am able to give of myself in this thing.’ Carlyle’s Cromwell , iii. 255.

[428] See Appendix A.

[429] Lord Chesterfield.

[430] Duke of Newcastle.

[431] I suppose in another compilation of the same kind. BOSWELL.

[432] Doubtless, Lord Hardwick. BOSWELL.

[433] The delivery of letters by the penny-post ‘was originally confined to the cities of London and Westminster, the borough of Southwark and the respective suburbs thereof.’ In 1801 the postage was raised to twopence. The term ‘suburbs’ must have had a very limited signification, for it was not till 1831 that the limits of this delivery were extended to all places within three miles of the General Post Office. Ninth Report of the Commissioners of the Post Office , 1837, p. 4.

[434] Birch’s MSS. in the British Museum , 4302. BOSWELL.

[435] See post , Dec. 1784, in Nichols’s Anecdotes . If we may trust Hawkins, it is likely that Johnson’s ‘tenderness of conscience’ cost Cave a good deal; for he writes that, while Johnson composed the Debates , the sale of the Magazine increased from ten to fifteen thousand copies a month. ‘Cave manifested his good fortune by buying an old coach and a pair of older horses.’ Hawkins’s Johnson , P. 123.

[436] I am assured that the editor is Mr. George Chalmers, whose commercial works are well known and esteemed. BOSWELL.

[437] The characteristic of Pulteney’s oratory is thus given in Hazlitts Northcole’s Conversations (p. 288):—‘Old Mr. Tolcher used to say of the famous Pulteney—“My Lord Bath always speaks in blank verse.”’

[438] Hawkins’s Life of Johnson , p. 100. BOSWELL.

[439] A bookseller of London. BOSWELL

[440] Not the Royal Society; but the Society for the encouragement of learning, of which Dr. Birch was a leading member. Their object was to assist authors in printing expensive works. It existed from about 1735 to 1746, when having incurred a considerable debt, it was dissolved. BOSWELL.

[441] There is no erasure here, but a mere blank; to fill up which may be an exercise for ingenious conjecture. BOSWELL.

[442] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on June 10, 1742, says:—‘I propose to get Charles of Sweden ready for this winter, and shall therefore, as I imagine, be much engaged for some months with the dramatic writers into whom I have scarcely looked for many years. Keep Irene close, you may send it back at your leisure.’ Notes and Queries , 6th S., v. 303. Charles of Sweden must have been a play which he projected.

[443] The profligate sentiment was, that ‘to tell a secret to a friend is no breach of fidelity, because the number of persons trusted is not multiplied, a man and his friend being virtually the same.’ Rambler , No. 13.

[444] Journal of a tour to the Hebrides , 3rd edit. p. 167. [Sept. 10, 1773.] BOSWELL.

[445] This piece contains a passage in honour of some great critic. ‘May the shade, at least, of one great English critick rest without disturbance; and may no man presume to insult his memory, who wants his learning, his reason, or his wit.’ Johnson’s Works , v. 182. Bentley had died on July 14 of this year, and there can be little question that Bentley is meant.

[446] See post , end of 1744.

[447] ‘There is nothing to tell, dearest lady, but that he was insolent and I beat him, and that he was a blockhead and told of it, which I should never have done…. I have beat many a fellow, but the rest had the wit to hold their tongues.’ Piozzi’s Anec . p. 233. In the Life of Pope Johnson thus mentions Osborne:—‘Pope was ignorant enough of his own interest to make another change, and introduced Osborne contending for the prize among the booksellers [ Dunciad , ii. 167]. Osborne was a man entirely destitute of shame, without sense of any disgrace but that of poverty…. The shafts of satire were directed equally in vain against Cibber and Osborne; being repelled by the impenetrable impudence of one, and deadened by the impassive dulness of the other.’ Johnson’s Works , viii. 302.

[448] In the original contentions .

[449] ‘Dec. 21, 1775. In the Paper Office there is a wight, called Thomas Astle, who lives like moths on old parchments.’ Walpole’s Letters , vi. 299.

[450] Savage died on Aug. 1, 1743, so that this letter is misplaced.

[451] The Plain Dealer was published in 1724, and contained some account of Savage. BOSWELL.

[452] In the Gent. Mag . for Sept. 1743 (p. 490) there is an epitaph on R——d S——e, Esq., which may perhaps be this inscription. ‘His life was want,’ this epitaph declares. It is certainly not the Runick Inscription in the number for March 1742, as Malone suggests; for the earliest possible date of this letter is seventeen months later.

[453] I have not discovered what this was. BOSWELL.

[454] The Mag.-Extraordinary is perhaps the Supplement to the December number of each year.

[455] This essay contains one sentiment eminently Johnsonian. The writer had shown how patiently Confucius endured extreme indigence. He adds:—‘This constancy cannot raise our admiration after his former conquest of himself; for how easily may he support pain who has been able to resist pleasure.’ Gent. Mag . xii. 355.

[456] In this Preface there is a complaint that has been often repeated—‘All kinds of learning have given way to politicks.’

[457] In the Life of Pope (Johnson’s Works , viii. 287) Johnson says that Crousaz, ‘however little known or regarded here, was no mean antagonist’

[458] It is not easy to believe that Boswell had read this essay, for there is nothing metaphysical in what Johnson wrote. Two-thirds of the paper are a translation from Crousaz. Boswell does not seem to have distinguished between Crousaz’s writings and Johnson’s. We have here a striking instance of the way in which Cave sometimes treated his readers. One-third of this essay is given in the number for March, the rest in the number for November.

[459]

Angliacas inter pulcherrima Laura puellas,

Mox uteri pondus depositura grave,

Adsit, Laura, tibi facilis Lucina dolenti,

Neve tibi noceat praenituisse Deae.

Mr. Hector was present when this Epigram was made impromptu . The first line was proposed by Dr. James, and Johnson was called upon by the company to finish it, which he instantly did. BOSWELL. Macaulay ( Essays , i. 364) criticises Mr. Croker’s criticism of this epigram.