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

[1050] Sir John Hawkins (Life, p. 373) has given a long detail of it, in that manner vulgarly, but significantly, called rigmarole; in which, amidst an ostentatious exhibition of arts and artists, he talks of ‘proportions of a column being taken from that of the human figure, and adjusted by Nature —masculine and feminine—in a man, sesquioctave of the head, and in a woman sesquinonal ;’ nor has he failed to introduce a jargon of musical terms, which do not seem much to correspond with the subject, but serve to make up the heterogeneous mass. To follow the Knight through all this, would be an useless fatigue to myself, and not a little disgusting to my readers. I shall, therefore, only make a few remarks upon his statement.—He seems to exult in having detected Johnson in procuring ‘from a person eminently skilled in Mathematicks and the principles of architecture, answers to a string of questions drawn up by himself, touching the comparative strength of semicircular and elliptical arches.’ Now I cannot conceive how Johnson could have acted more wisely. Sir John complains that the opinion of that excellent mathematician, Mr. Thomas Simpson, did not preponderate in favour of the semicircular arch. But he should have known, that however eminent Mr. Simpson was in the higher parts of abstract mathematical science, he was little versed in mixed and practical mechanicks. Mr. Muller, of Woolwich Academy, the scholastick father of all the great engineers which this country has employed for forty years, decided the question by declaring clearly in favour of the elliptical arch.

It is ungraciously suggested, that Johnson’s motive for opposing Mr. Mylne’s scheme may have been his prejudice against him as a native of North Britain; when, in truth, as has been stated, he gave the aid of his able pen to a friend, who was one of the candidates; and so far was he from having any illiberal antipathy to Mr. Mylne, that he afterwards lived with that gentleman upon very agreeable terms of acquaintance, and dined with him at his house. Sir John Hawkins, indeed, gives full vent to his own prejudice in abusing Blackfriars bridge, calling it ‘an edifice, in which beauty and symmetry are in vain sought for; by which the citizens of London have perpetuated study their own disgrace, and subjected a whole nation to the reproach of foreigners.’ Whoever has contemplated, placido lumine [Horace, Odes , iv. 3, 2], this stately, elegant, and airy structure, which has so fine an effect, especially on approaching the capital on that quarter, must wonder at such unjust and ill-tempered censure; and I appeal to all foreigners of good taste, whether this bridge be not one of the most distinguished ornaments of London. As to the stability of the fabrick, it is certain that the City of London took every precaution to have the best Portland stone for it; but as this is to be found in the quarries belonging to the publick, under the direction of the Lords of the Treasury, it so happened that parliamentary interest, which is often the bane of fair pursuits, thwarted their endeavours. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, it is well known that not only has Blackfriars-bridge never sunk either in its foundation or in its arches, which were so much the subject of contest, but any injuries which it has suffered from the effects of severe frosts have been already, in some measure, repaired with sounder stone, and every necessary renewal can be completed at a moderate expence. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole mentions an ineffectual application made by the City to Parliament in 1764 ‘for more money for their new bridge at Blackfriars,’ when Dr. Hay, one of the Lords of the Admiralty, ‘abused the Common Council, whose late behaviour, he said, entitled them to no favour.’ Walpole’s Memoirs of the Reign of George III , i. 390. The late behaviour was the part taken by the City in Wilkes’s case. It was the same love of liberty no doubt that lost the City the Portland stone. Smollett goes out of the way to praise his brother-Scot, Mr. Mylne, in Humphry Clinker —‘a party novel written,’ says Horace Walpole, ‘to vindicate the Scots’ ( Reign of George III , iv. 328). In the letter dated May 29, he makes Mr. Bramble say:—‘The Bridge at Blackfriars is a noble monument of taste and public spirit—I wonder how they stumbled upon a work of such magnificence and utility.’

[1051] Juvenal, Sat . i. 85.

[1052] ‘Born and educated in this country, I glory in the name of Briton.’—George III’s first speech to his parliament. It appears from the Hardwicke Papers , writes the editor of the _Parl. Hist. (xv. 982), that after the draft of the speech had been settled by the cabinet, these words and those that came next were added by the King’s own hand. Wilkes in his Dedication of Mortimer (see post , May 15, 1776) asserted that ‘these endearing words, “Born,&c.,” were permitted to be seen in the royal orthography of Britain for Briton,’ Almon’s Works , i. 84.

[1053] In this Introduction ( Works , vi. 148) Johnson answers objections that had been raised against the relief. ‘We know that for the prisoners of war there is no legal provision; we see their distress and are certain of its cause; we know that they are poor and naked, and poor and naked without a crime…. The opponents of this charity must allow it to be good, and will not easily prove it not to be the best. That charity is best of which the consequences are most extensive; the relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection.’ The Committee for which Johnson’s paper was written began its work in Dec. 1759. In the previous month of October Wesley records in his _Journal (ii. 461):—‘I walked up to Knowle, a mile from Bristol, to see the French prisoners. Above eleven hundred of them, we were informed, were confined in that little place, without anything to lie on but a little dirty straw, or anything to cover them but a few foul thin rags, either by day or by night, so that they died like rotten sheep. I was much affected, and preached in the evening on Exodus xxiii. 9.’ Money was at once contributed, and clothing bought. ‘It was not long before contributions were set on foot in various parts of the Kingdom.’ On Oct. 24 of the following year, he records:—‘I visited the French prisoners at Knowle, and found many of them almost naked again.’ Ib . iii. 23. ‘The prisoners,’ wrote Hume ( Private Corres . p. 55), ‘received food from the public, but it was thought that their own friends would supply them with clothes, which, however, was found after some time to be neglected.’ The cry arose that the brave and gallant men, though enemies, were perishing with cold in prison; a subscription was set on foot; great sums were given by all ranks of people; and, notwithstanding the national foolish prejudices against the French, a remarkable zeal everywhere appeared for this charity. I am afraid that M. Rousseau could not have produced many parallel instances among his heroes, the Greeks; and still fewer among the Romans. Baretti, in his Journey from London to Genoa (i. 62, 66), after telling how on all foreigners, even on a Turk wearing a turban, ‘the pretty appellation of French dog was liberally bestowed by the London rabble,’ continues:—‘I have seen the populace of England contribute as many shillings as they could spare towards the maintenance of the French prisoners; and I have heard a universal shout of joy when their parliament voted £100,000 to the Portuguese on hearing of the tremendous earthquake.’

[1054] Johnson’s Works , vi. 81. See Boswell’s Hebrides , Aug. 16, 1773, where Johnson describes Mary as ‘such a Queen as every man of any gallantry of spirit would have sacrificed his life for.’ ‘There are,’ wrote Hume, ‘three events in our history which may be regarded as touchstones of party-men. An English Whig who asserts the reality of the popish plot, an Irish Catholic who denies the massacre in 1641, and a Scotch Jacobite who maintains the innocence of Queen Mary, must be considered as men beyond the reach of argument or reason, and must be left to their prejudices.’ History of England , ed. 1802, v. 504.