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

[688] ‘I have often been inclined to think that, if this fondness of Johnson for his wife was not dissembled, it was a lesson that he had learned by rote, and that, when he practised it, he knew not where to stop till he became ridiculous.’ Hawkins’s Johnson , p. 313

[689] The son of William Strahan, M.P., ‘Johnson’s old and constant friend, Printer to His Majesty’ ( post , under April 20, 1781). He attended Johnson on his death-bed, and published the volume called Prayers and Meditations .

[690] Southey in his Life of Wesley , i. 359, writes:—‘The universal attention which has been paid to dreams in all ages proves that the superstition is natural; and I have heard too many well-attested facts (facts to which belief could not be refused upon any known laws of evidence) not to believe that impressions are sometimes made in this manner, and forewarnings communicated, which cannot be explained by material philosophy or mere metaphysics.’

[691] Warburton in his Divine Legation , i. 284, quotes the ‘famous sepulchral inscription of the Roman widow.’ ‘Ita peto vos Manes sanctissimi commendatum habeatis meum conjugem et velitis huic indulgentissimi esse horis nocturnis ut eum videam,’ etc.

[692] Mrs. Boswell died in June 1789. Johnson’s prayer with Boswell’s comments on it was first inserted in the Additions to the second edition.

[693] Mrs. Johnson died on March 17, O. S., or March 28, N. S. The change of style was made in September, 1752. He might have kept either the 17th, or the 28th as the anniversary. In like manner, though he was born on Sept. 7, after the change he kept the 18th as his birth-day. See post , beginning of 1753, where he writes, ‘Jan. 1, N. S., which I shall use for the future.’

[694] In Prayers and Meditations , p. 22, he recorded: ‘The melancholy of this day hung long upon me.’ P. 53: ‘April 22, 1764, Thought on Tetty, dear, poor Tetty, with my eyes full.’ P. 91: ‘March 28, 1770. This is the day on which, in 1752, I was deprived of poor, dear Tetty…. When I recollect the time in which we lived together, my grief for her departure is not abated; and I have less pleasure in any good that befalls me because she does not partake it.’ P. 170: ‘April 20, 1778. Poor Tetty, whatever were our faults and failings, we loved each other. I did not forget thee yesterday [Easter Sunday]. Couldest thou have lived!’ P. 210: ‘March 28, 1782. This is the day on which, in 1752, dear Tetty died. I have now uttered a prayer of repentance and contrition; perhaps Tetty knows that I prayed for her. Perhaps Tetty is now praying for me. God help me.’ In a letter to Mrs. Thrale on the occasion of the death of her son (dated March 30, 1776) he thus refers to the loss of his wife:—‘I know that a whole system of hopes, and designs, and expectations is swept away at once, and nothing left but bottomless vacuity. What you feel I have felt, and hope that your disquiet will be shorter than mine.’ Piozzi Letters , i. 310. In a letter to Mr. Elphinston, who had just lost his wife, written on July 27, 1778, he repeats the same thought:—‘A loss such as yours lacerates the mind, and breaks the whole system of purposes and hopes. It leaves a dismal vacuity in life, which affords nothing on which the affections can fix, or to which endeavour may be directed. All this I have known.’ Croker’s Boswell , p. 66, note. See also post , his letter to Mr. Warton of Dec. 21, 1754, and to Dr. Lawrence of Jan. 20, 1780.

[695] In the usual monthly list of deaths in the Gent. Mag . her name is not given. Johnson did not, I suppose, rank among ‘eminent persons.’

[696] Irene, Act i. sc. 1.

[697] See post , Nov. 16, 1784, note.

[698] The Anderdon MSS. contain an importunate letter, dated July 3, 1751, from one Mitchell, a tradesman in Chandos-street, pressing Johnson to pay £2, due by his wife ever since August, 1749, and threatening legal proceedings to enforce payment. This letter Mr. Boswell had endorsed, ‘Proof of Dr. Johnson’s wretched circumstances in 1751.’ CROKER.

[699] In the Gent. Mag . for February, 1794, (p. 100,) was printed a letter pretending to be that written by Johnson on the death of his wife. But it is merely a transcript of the 41st number of The Idler . A fictitious date (March 17, 1751, O. S.) was added by some person previous to this paper being sent to the publisher of that miscellany, to give a colour to this deception. MALONE.

[700] Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and was brought to England in 1750 by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson’s very intimate friend, Dr. Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jackson’s school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him his freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into Johnson’s service, in which he continued from 1752 till Johnson’s death, with the exception of two intervals; in one of which, upon some difference with his master, he went and served an apothecary in Cheapside, but still visited Dr. Johnson occasionally; in another, he took a fancy to go to sea. Part of the time, indeed, he was, by the kindness of his master, at a school in Northamptonshire, that he might have the advantage of some learning. So early and so lasting a connection was there between Dr. Johnson and this humble friend. BOSWELL. ‘I believe that Francis was scarcely as much the object of Mr. Johnson’s personal kindness as the representative of Dr. Bathurst, for whose sake he would have loved anybody or anything.’ Piozzi’s Anec . p. 212.

[701] ‘I asked him,’ writes Mrs. Piozzi ( Anec . pp. 146-150), ‘if he ever disputed with his wife. “Perpetually,” said he; “my wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber. A clean floor is so comfortable, she would say sometimes by way of twitting; till at last I told her that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling.” I asked him if he ever huffed his wife about his dinner. “So often,” replied he, “that at last she called to me and said, Nay, hold, Mr. Johnson, and do not make a farce of thanking God for a dinner which in a few minutes you will protest not eatable.”’

[702] ‘When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliations of every fault; we recollect a thousand endearments, which before glided off our minds without impression, a thousand favours unrepaid, a thousand duties unperformed; and wish, vainly wish, for his return, not so much that we may receive, as that we may bestow happiness, and recompense that kindness which before we never understood.’ Rambler , No. 54.

[703] Pr. and Med . p. 19. BOSWELL.

[704] Hawkins’s Life of Johnson , p. 316. BOSWELL.

[705] See post , Oct. 26, 1769, where the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory or ‘a middle state,’ as Johnson calls it is discussed, and Boswell’s Hebrides , Oct. 25, 1773.

[706] In the original, ‘lawful for me.’ Much the same prayer Johnson made for his mother. Pr. and Med . p. 38. On Easter Day, 1764, he records:—‘After sermon I recommended Tetty in a prayer by herself; and my father, mother, brother, and Bathurst in another. I did it only once, so far as it might be lawful for me.’ Ib . p. 54. On the death of Mr. Thrale he wrote, ‘May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on thee.’ Ib . p. 191; and later on, ‘for Henry Thrale, so far as is lawful, I humbly implore thy mercy in his present state.’ Ib . p. 197.