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

[1424] See Appendix C.

[1425] Pr. and Med . p. 61. BOSWELL.

[1426] See ante , p. 346.

[1427] His quarter’s pension. See ante , P. 376.

[1428] Mr. Croker, misunderstanding a passage in Hawkins, writes:—‘Hawkins says that he disliked to be called Doctor, as reminding him that he had been a schoolmaster.’ What Hawkins really says ( Life , p. 446) is this:—‘His attachment to Oxford prevented Johnson from receiving this honour as it was intended, and he never assumed the title which it conferred. He was as little pleased to be called Doctor in consequence of it, as he was with the title of Domine , which a friend of his once incautiously addressed him by. He thought it alluded to his having been a schoolmaster.’ It is clear that ‘it’ in the last line refers only to the title of Domine . Murphy ( Life , p. 98) says that Johnson never assumed the title of Doctor, till Oxford conferred on him the degree. Boswell states ( post , March 31, 1775, note):—‘It is remarkable that he never, so far as I know, assumed his title of Doctor , but called himself Mr . Johnson.’ In this, as I show there, Boswell seems to be not perfectly accurate. I do not believe Hawkins’s assertion that Johnson ‘was little pleased to be called Doctor in consequence of his Dublin degree.’ In Boswell’s Hebrides, most of which was read by him before he received his Oxford degree, he is commonly styled Doctor. Boswell says in a note on Aug. 15, 1773:—‘It was some time before I could bring myself to call him Doctor.’ Had Johnson disliked the title it would have been known to Boswell. Mrs. Thrale, it is true, in her letters’ to him, after he had received both his degrees, commonly speaks of him as Mr. Johnson. We may assume that he valued his Oxford degree of M.A. more highly than the Dublin degree of LL.D.; for in the third edition of the Abridgment of his Dictionary , published in 1766, he is styled Samuel Johnson, A.M. In his Lives of the Poets he calls himself simply Samuel Johnson. He had by that time risen above degrees. In his Journey to the Hebrides ( Works , ix. 14), after stating that ‘An English or Irish doctorate cannot be obtained by a very young man,’ he continues:—‘It is reasonable to suppose … that he who is by age qualified to be a doctor, has in so much time gained learning sufficient not to disgrace the title, or wit sufficient not to desire it.’

[1429] Trinity College made him, it should seem, Armiger at the same time that it made him Doctor of Laws.

[1430] See Appendix D for this letter.

[1431] Pr. and Med . p. 66. BOSWELL.

[1432] Single-speech Hamilton, as he was commonly called, though in the House of Commons he had spoken more than once. For above thirty sessions together, however, he held his tongue. Prior’s Burke , p. 67.

[1433] See Appendix E for an explanation.

[1434] Pr. and Med . p. 67 BOSWELL.

[1435] See Appendix F.

[1436] Mr. Blakeway, in a note on this passage, says:—‘The predecessor of old Thrale was Edmund Halsey, Esq.; the nobleman who married his daughter was Lord Cobham. The family of Thrale was of some consideration in St. Albans; in the Abbey-church is a handsome monument to the memory of Mr. John Thrale, late of London, merchant, who died in 1704.’ He describes the arms on the monument. Mr. Hayward, in Mrs. Piozzis Autobiography , i. 9, quotes her marginal note on this page in Boswell. She says that Edmund Halsey, son of a miller at St. Albans, married the only daughter of his master, old Child, of the Anchor Brewhouse, Southwark, and succeeded to the business upon Child’s death. ‘He sent for one of his sister’s sons to London (my Mr. Thrale’s father); said he would make a man of him, and did so; but made him work very hard, and treated him very roughly.’ He left him nothing at his death, and Thrale bought the brewery of Lord and Lady Cobham.

[1437] See post , under April 4, 1781, and June 16, 1781.

[1438] Mrs. Burney informs me that she heard Dr. Johnson say, ‘An English Merchant is a new species of Gentleman.’ He, perhaps, had in his mind the following ingenious passage in The Conscious Lovers , act iv. scene ii, where Mr. Sealand thus addresses Sir John Bevil: ‘Give me leave to say, that we merchants are a species of gentry that have grown into the world this last century, and are as honourable, and almost as useful as you landed-folks, that have always thought yourselves so much above us; for your trading forsooth is extended no farther than a load of hay, or a fat ox.—You are pleasant people indeed! because you are generally bred up to be lazy, therefore, I warrant your industry is dishonourable.’ BOSWELL.

The Conscious Lovers is by Steele. ‘I never heard of any plays fit for a Christian to read,’ said Parson Adams, ‘but Cato and The Conscious Lovers ; and I must own, in the latter there are some things almost solemn enough for a sermon.’ Joseph Andrews , Book III, chap. xi.

[1439] In the first number of The Hypochondriack Boswell writes:—‘It is a saying in feudal treatises, “Semel Baro semper Baro_,” “Once a baron always a baron.”’ London Mag . 1777, p. 493. He seems of Mr. Thrale’s inferiority by speaking of him as Thrale and his house as Thrale’s. See post , April 5 and 12, 1776, April 7, 1778, and under March 30, 1783. He never, I believe, is thus familiar in the case of Beauclerk, Burke, Langton, and Reynolds.

[1440] For her extraction see Hayward’s Mrs. Piozzi , i. 238.

[1441] Miss Burney records in May 1779, how one day at Streatham ‘Mr. Murphy met with a very joyful reception; and Mr. Thrale, for the first time in his life, said he was “a good fellow;” for he makes it a sort of rule to salute him with the title of “scoundrel,” or “rascal.” They are very old friends; and I question if Mr. Thrale loves any man so well.’ Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary , i. 210.

[1442] From the Garrick Corres , i. 116, it seems that Murphy introduced Garrick to the Thrales. He wrote to him on May 13, 1760:—‘You stand engaged to Mr. Thrale for Wednesday night. You need not apprehend drinking; it is a very easy house.’

[1443] Murphy ( Life , p. 98) says that Johnson’s introduction to the Thrales ‘contributed more than anything else to exempt him from the solicitudes of life.’ He continues that ‘he looks back to the share he had in that business with self congratulation, since he knows the tenderness which from that time soothed Johnson’s cares at Streatham, and prolonged a valuable life.’ Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield on July 20, 1767:—‘I have found nothing that withdraws my affections from the friends whom I left behind, or which makes me less desirous of reposing at that place which your kindness and Mr. Thrale’s allows me to call my home .’ Piozzi Letters , i. 4. From Mull, on Oct. 15, 1773, he wrote:—‘Having for many weeks had no letter, my longings are very great to be informed how all things are at home, as you and mistress allow me to call it.’ Ib . p. 166. Miss Burney in 1778 wrote that ‘though Dr. Johnson lives almost wholly at Streatham, he always keeps his apartments in town.’ Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary , i. 58. Johnson ( Works , viii. 381) tells how, in the house of Sir Thomas Abney, ‘Dr. Watts, with a constancy of friendship and uniformity of conduct not often to be found, was treated for thirty-six years with all the kindness that friendship could prompt, and all the attention that respect could dictate.’ He continues:—‘A coalition like this, a state in which the notions of patronage and dependence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal benefits, deserves a particular memorial.’ It was such a coalition which he formed with the Thrales—a coalition in which, though the benefits which he received were great, yet those which he conferred were still greater.