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

‘Master Robert Dodsley,

When I first read your peevish answer to my well-meant proposal to you, I was much disturbed at it—but when I considered, that some minds cannot bear the smallest portion of success, I most sincerely pitied you; and when I found in the same letter, that you were graciously pleased to dismiss me from your acquaintance, I could not but confess so apparent an obligation, and am with due acknowledgements,

Master Robert Dodsley,

Your most obliged

David Garrick.’

Garrick Corres ., i. 80 (where the letters that passed are wrongly dated 1757). Mrs. Bellamy in her Life (iii. 109) says that on the evening of the performance she was provoked by something that Dodsley said, ‘which,’ she continues, ‘made me answer that good man with a petulance which afterwards gave me uneasiness. I told him that I had a reputation to lose as an actress; but, as for his piece, Mr. Garrick had anticipated the damnation of it publicly, the preceding evening, at the Bedford Coffee-house, where he had declared that it could not pass muster, as it was the very worst piece ever exhibited.’ Shenstone ( Works , iii. 288) writing five weeks after the play was brought out, says:—‘Dodsley is now going to print his fourth edition. He sold 2000 of his first edition the very first day he published it.’ The price was eighteen-pence.

[969] Mrs. Bellamy ( Life , iii. 108) says that Johnson was present at the last rehearsal. ‘When I came to repeat, “Thou shalt not murder,” Dr. Johnson caught me by the arm, and that somewhat too briskly, saying, at the same time, “It is a commandment, and must be spoken, Thou shalt not murder.” As I had not then the honour of knowing personally that great genius, I was not a little displeased at his inforcing his instructions with so much vehemence.’ The next night she heard, she says, amidst the general applause, ‘the same voice which had instructed me in the commandment, exclaim aloud from the pit, “I will write a copy of verses upon her myself.” I knew that my success was insured.’ See post , May 11, 1783.

[970] Dodsley had published his London and his Vanity of Human Wishes ( ante , pp. 124, 193), and had had a large share in the Dictionary , ( ante , p. 183).

[971] It is to this that Churchill refers in the following lines:—

‘Let them [the Muses] with Glover o’er Medea doze;

Let them with Dodsley wail Cleone’s woes,

Whilst he, fine feeling creature, all in tears,

Melts as they melt, and weeps with weeping Peers.’

The Journey . Poems , ii. 328.

[972] See post p. 350, note.

[973] Mr. Samuel Richardson, authour of Clarissa . BOSWELL.

[974] In 1753 when in Devonshire he charged five guineas a head (Taylor’s Reynolds , i. 89); shortly afterwards, when he removed to London, twelve guineas ( ib . p. 101); in 1764, thirty guineas; for a whole length 150 guineas ( ib . p. 224). Northcote writes that ‘he sometimes has lamented the being interrupted in his work by idle visitors, saying, “those persons do not consider that my time is worth to me five guineas an hour.”’ Northcote’s Reynolds , i. 83.

[975] ‘Miss Reynolds at first amused herself by painting miniature portraits, and in that part of the art was particularly successful. In her attempts at oil-painting, however, she did not succeed, which made Reynolds say jestingly, that her pictures in that way made other people laugh and him cry; and as he did not approve of her painting in oil, she generally did it by stealth.’ Ib . ii. 160.

[976] Murphy was far from happy. The play was not produced till April; by the date of Johnson’s letter, he had not by any means reached the end of what he calls ‘the first, and indeed, the last, disagreeable controversy that he ever had with Mr. Garrick.’ Murphy’s Garrick , p. 213.

[977] This letter was an answer to one in which was enclosed a draft for the payment of some subscriptions to his Shakspeare . BOSWELL.

[978] In the Preface he says:—( Works , v. 52) ‘I have not passed over with affected superiority what is equally difficult to the reader and to myself, but where I could not instruct him, have owned my ignorance.’

[979] Northcote gives the following account of this same garret in describing how Reynolds introduced Roubiliac to Johnson. ‘Johnson received him with much civility, and took them up into a garret, which he considered as his library; where, besides his books, all covered with dust, there was an old crazy deal table, and a still worse and older elbow chair, having only three legs. In this chair Johnson seated himself, after having, with considerable dexterity and evident practice, first drawn it up against the wall, which served to support it on that side on which the leg was deficient.’ Northcote’s Reynolds , i. 75. Miss Reynolds improves on the account. She says that ‘before Johnson had the pension he literally dressed like a beggar; and, from what I have been told, he as literally lived as such; at least as to common conveniences in his apartments, wanting even a chair to sit on, particularly in his study, where a gentleman who frequently visited him, whilst writing his Idlers , constantly found him at his desk, sitting on one with three legs; and on rising from it, he remarked that Dr. Johnson never forgot its defect, but would either hold it in his hand, or place it with great composure against some support, taking no notice of its imperfection to his visitor. It was remarkable in Johnson, that no external circumstances ever prompted him to make any apology, or to seem even sensible of their existence.’ Croker’s Boswell , p. 832. There can be little question that she is describing the same room—a room in a house in which Miss Williams was lodged, and most likely Mr. Levet, and in which Mr. Burney dined; and in which certainly there must have been chairs. Yet Mr. Carlyle, misled by her account, says:—‘In his apartments, at one time, there were unfortunately no chairs.’ Carlyle’s Miscellanies , ed. 1872, iv. 127.

[980] In his Life of Pope ( Works , viii. 272) Johnson calls Theobald ‘a man of heavy diligence, with very slender powers.’ In the Preface to Shakspeare he admits that ‘what little he did was commonly right.’ Ib . v. 137. The Editors of the Cambridge Shakespeare on the other hand say:—‘Theobald, as an Editor, is incomparably superior to his predecessors, and to his immediate successor Warburton, although the latter had the advantage of working on his materials. Many most brilliant emendations are due to him.’ On Johnson’s statement that ‘Warburton would make two-and-fifty Theobalds, cut into slices,’ they write:—‘From this judgment, whether they be compared as critics or editors, we emphatically dissent.’ Cambridge Shakespeare , i., xxxi., xxxiv., note. Among Theobald’s ‘brilliant emendations’ are ‘a’babbled of green fields’ ( Henry V , ii. 3), and ‘lackeying the varying tide.’ ( Antony and Cleopatra , i.4).

[981] ‘ A familiar epistle [by Lord Bolingbroke] to the most impudent man living , 1749.’ Brit. Mus. Catal .

[982] ‘Mallet, by address or accident, perhaps by his dependence on the prince [of Wales], found his way to Bolingbroke, a man whose pride and petulance made his kindness difficult to gain or keep, and whom Mallet was content to court by an act, which, I hope, was unwillingly performed. When it was found that Pope had clandestinely printed an unauthorised number of the pamphlet called The Patriot King , Bolingbroke, in a fit of useless fury, resolved to blast his memory, and employed Mallet (1749) as the executioner of his vengeance. Mallet had not virtue, or had not spirit, to refuse the office; and was rewarded not long after with the legacy of Lord Bolingbroke’s works.’ Johnson’s Works , viii. 467. See ante , p. 268, and Walpole’s Letters , ii. 159.