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

[460] The lines with which this poem is introduced seem to show that it cannot be Johnson’s. He was not the man to allow that haste of performance was any plea for indulgence. They are as follows:—‘Though several translations of Mr. Pope’s verses on his Grotto have already appeared, we hope that the following attempt, which, we are assured, was the casual amusement of half an hour during several solicitations to proceed, will neither be unacceptable to our readers, nor (these circumstances considered) dishonour the persons concerned by a hasty publication.’ Gent. Mag . xiii. 550.

[461] See Gent. Mag . xiii. 560. I doubt whether this advertisement be from Johnson’s hand. It is very unlikely that he should make the advertiser in one and the same paragraph when speaking of himself use us and mine . Boswell does not mention the Preface to vol. iii. of the Harkian Catalogue . It is included in Johnson’s Works (v. 198). Its author, be he who he may, in speaking of literature, says:—‘I have idly hoped to revive a taste well-nigh extinguished.’

[462] Johnson did not speak equally well of Dr. James’s morals. ‘He will not,’ he wrote, ‘pay for three box tickets which he took. It is a strange fellow.’ The tickets were no doubt for Miss Williams’s benefit (Croker’s Boswell , 8vo. p. 101). See ante , p. 81, and post , March 28, 1776, end of 1780, note.

[463] See post , April 5, 1776.

‘That the Medicinal Dictionary is dedicated to you, is to be imputed only to your reputation for superior skill in those sciences which I have endeavoured to explain and facilitate: and you are, therefore, to consider this address, if it be agreeable to you, as one of the rewards of merit; and if, otherwise, as one of the inconveniences of eminence.

‘However you shall receive it, my design cannot be disappointed; because this publick appeal to your judgement will shew that I do not found my hopes of approbation upon the ignorance of my readers, and that I fear his censure least, whose knowledge is most extensive.

‘I am, Sir,

‘Your most obedient

‘humble servant,

BOSWELL. See post , May 16, 1778, where Johnson said, ‘Dr. Mead lived more in the broad sunshine of life than almost any man.’

[465] Johnson was used to speak of him in this manner:—‘Tom is a lively rogue; he remembers a great deal, and can tell many pleasant stories; but a pen is to Tom a torpedo, the touch of it benumbs his hand and his brain.’ Hawkins’s Johnson , p. 209. Goldsmith in his Life of Nash (Cunningham’s Goldsmith’s Works , iv. 54) says:—‘Nash was not born a writer, for whatever humour he might have in conversation, he used to call a pen his torpedo; whenever he grasped it, it benumbed all his faculties.’ It is very likely that Nash borrowed this saying from Johnson. In Boswell’s Hebrides , Sept. 24, 1773, we read:—Dr. Birch being mentioned, Dr. Johnson said he had more anecdotes than any man. I said, Percy had a great many; that he flowed with them like one of the brooks here. JOHNSON. “If Percy is like one of the brooks here, Birch was like the River Thames. Birch excelled Percy in that as much as Percy excels Goldsmith.” Disraeli ( Curiosities of Literature , iii, 425) describes Dr. Birch as ‘one to whom British history stands more indebted than to any superior author. He has enriched the British Museum by thousands of the most authentic documents of genuine secret history.’

[466] Ante , p. 140.

[467] In 1761 Mr. John Levett was returned for Lichfield, but on petition was declared to be not duly elected ( Parl. Hist . xv. 1088). Perhaps he was already aiming at public life.

[468] One explanation may be found of Johnson’s intimacy with Savage and with other men of loose character. ‘He was,’ writes Hawkins, ‘one of the most quick-sighted men I ever knew in discovering the good and amiable qualities of others’ (Hawkins’s Johnson , p. 50). ‘He was,’ says Boswell ( post , April 13, 1778), ‘willing to take men as they are, imperfect, and with a mixture of good and bad qualities.’ How intimate the two men were is shown by the following passage in Johnson’s Life of Savage :—‘Savage left London in July, 1739, having taken leave with great tenderness of his friends, and parted from the author of this narrative with tears in his eyes.’ Johnson’s Works , viii. 173.

[469] As a specimen of his temper, I insert the following letter from him to a noble Lord, to whom he was under great obligations, but who, on account of his bad conduct, was obliged to discard him. The original was in the hands of the late Francis Cockayne Cust, Esq., one of His Majesty’s Counsel learned in the law:

‘ Right Honourable BRUTE, and BOOBY,

‘I find you want (as Mr. —— is pleased to hint,) to swear away my life, that is, the life of your creditor, because he asks you for a debt.—The publick shall soon be acquainted with this, to judge whether you are not fitter to be an Irish Evidence, than to be an Irish Peer.—I defy and despise you.

‘I am,

‘Your determined adversary,

BOSWELL. The noble Lord was no doubt Lord Tyrconnel. See Johnson’s Works , viii. 140. Mr. Cust is mentioned post , p. 170.

[470] ‘Savage took all opportunities of conversing familiarly with those who were most conspicuous at that time for their power or their influence; he watched their looser moments, and examined their domestic behaviour with that acuteness which nature had given him, and which the uncommon variety of his life had contributed to increase, and that inquisitiveness which must always be produced in a vigorous mind by an absolute freedom from all pressing or domestic engagements.’ Johnson’s Works , viii. 135.

[471] ‘Thus he spent his time in mean expedients and tormenting suspense, living for the greatest part in the fear of prosecutions from his creditors, and consequently skulking in obscure parts of the town, of which he was no stranger to the remotest corners.’ Ib . p. 165.

[472] Sir John Hawkins gives the world to understand, that Johnson, ‘being an admirer of genteel manners, was captivated by the address and demeanour of Savage, who, as to his exterior, was, to a remarkable degree, accomplished.’ Hawkins’s Life , p. 52. But Sir John’s notions of gentility must appear somewhat ludicrous, from his stating the following circumstance as presumptive evidence that Savage was a good swordsman: ‘That he understood the exercise of a gentleman’s weapon, may be inferred from the use made of it in that rash encounter which is related in his life.’ The dexterity here alluded to was, that Savage, in a nocturnal fit of drunkenness, stabbed a man at a coffee-house, and killed him; for which he was tried at the Old-Bailey, and found guilty of murder.

Johnson, indeed, describes him as having ‘a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien; but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners.’ [Johnson’s Works , viii. 187.] How highly Johnson admired him for that knowledge which he himself so much cultivated, and what kindness he entertained for him, appears from the following lines in the Gentleman’s Magazine for April, 1738, which I am assured were written by Johnson:

‘Ad RICARDUM SAVAGE.

‘Humani studium generis cui pectore

fervet

O colat humanum te foveatque

genus.’