James Callender - Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from His Works

Of the present trifle the Author has very little to say. The reception which it at first met with has induced him to risk a second edition. He has perused it with honest attention, from the first line to the last, that he might endeavour to supply its deficiencies, and to correct its errors. In the execution of this task, he has frequently had occasion to remark, that it is more easy to demolish a palace than to erect a cottage.

Edinburgh, }

Nov. 21, 1782.

When a boy peruses a book with pleasure, his admiration riseth immediately from the work to its author. His fancy fondly ranks his favourite with the wise, and the virtuous. He glows with a lover's impatience, to reach the presence of this superior being , to drink of science at the fountain-head, to complete his ideas at once, and riot in all the luxuries of learning.

The novice unhappily presumes, that men who command the passions of others cannot be slaves to their own: That a historian must feel the worth of justice and tenderness, while he tells us, how kings and conquerors are commonly the burden and the curse of society: That an assertor of public freedom will never become the dupe of flattery, and the pimp of oppression: That the founder of a system cannot want words to explain it: That the compiler of a dictionary has at least a common degree of knowledge: That an inventor of new terms can tell what they mean: That he, who refines and fixes the language of empires, is able to converse, without the pertness of a pedant, or the vulgarity of a porter: That a preacher of morality will blush to persist in vindictive, deliberate, and detected falsehoods: That he who totters on the brink of eternity will speak with caution and humanity of the dead: And that a traveller, who pretends to veracity, dares not avow contradictions.

But in learning, as in life, much of our happiness flows from deception. Ignorance, the parent of wonder, is often the parent of esteem and love. While devouring Horace we venerate the Deserter of Brutus, and the Slave of Cæsar. Transported by his sublime eloquence, the reader of Cicero forgets that Cicero himself was a plagiarist and a coward: That Rome was but a den of robbers: That Cataline resembled the rest; and that this rebel was only revenging the blood of butchered nations, of Samnium, of Epirus, of Carthage, and of – Hannibal.

'The laurels which human praise confers are withered and blasted by the unworthiness of those who wear them.' There is often a curious contrast between an author and his books. The mildest, the politest, the wisest, and the most worthy man alive, pens five hundred pages to display the pleasures of friendship and the beauties of benevolence; but alas! he is a theorist only, for his sympathy never cost him a shilling. A party-tool talks of public spirit. A pedant commands our tears. A pensioner inveighs against pensions; and a bankrupt preaches public œconomy. The philosopher quotes Horace, while he defrauds his valet. A mimick of Richardson, is a domestic tyrant: A Sydenham, the rendezvous of diseases: A declaimer against envy, of all men the most invidious. The satirist has not a reformer's virtues. The poet of love and friendship is without a mistress, or a friend; while a time-server celebrates the valour of heroes, and exults in the freedom of England. Like Penelope, most writers employ part of their time to undo the labours of the rest. Judging by their lives one would think it were their chief study to render learning ridiculous. We lose all respect for teachers, who, when the lesson is ended, are 'no wiser or better than common men.' To be convinced that books are trifles, let us only remark how little good they do, and how little those, who love them, love each other. The monopolists of literary fame, for the most part, regard a rival as an enemy. Their mutual hostilities, like those of aquatick animals, are unavoidable and constant; and their voracity differs from that of the shark, but as a half-devoured carcase, from a murdered reputation. The existence of many books depends on the ruin of some of the rest; yet, with our English Dictionary , a few immortal compositions are to live unwounded by the shafts of envy, and to descend in a torrent of applause from one century to another. A thousand of their critics will exist and be forgotten; a thousand of their imitators will sink into contempt; but THEY shall defy the force of time; continue to flourish thro' every fashion of philosophy, and, like Egyptian pyramids, perish but in the ruins of the globe.

In the number of men who dishonour their own genius, ought to be ranked Dr Samuel Johnson; for his abilities and learning are not accompanied by candour and generosity. His life of Pomfret concludes with this maxim, that 'he who pleases many, must have merit;' yet, in defiance of his own rule, the Doctor has, a thousand times, attempted to prove, that they who please many, have no merit. His invidious and revengeful remark on Chesterfield, would have disgraced any other man. He said, and nobody but himself would have said it, that Churchill was a shallow fellow. And he once told some of his admirers, that Swift was a shallow , a very shallow fellow: reminding us of the Lilliputian who drew his bow to Gulliver 23 23 Swift had the splendid misfortune to be a man of genius. By a very singular felicity, he excelled both in verse and prose. He boasted, that no new word was to be found in his volumes; though, in glory above all writers of his time, he did not fancy that entitled him to ingross or insult conversation. He was no less remarkably clean, than some are remarkably dirty. His love of fame never led him into the lowest of all vices; and a sense of his own dignity made him respect the importance and the feelings of others. He often went many miles on foot, that he might be able to bestow on the poor, what a coach would have cost him. He raised some hundreds of families from beggary, by lending them five pounds a-piece only. He inspired his footmen with Celtic attachment. Whatever was his pride, he shewed none of it in 'the venerable presence of misery.' Though a poet he was free from vanity; though an author and a divine, his example did not fall behind his precepts; though a courtier, he disdained to fawn on his superiors; though a patriot, he never, like our successive generations of blasted orators, sacrificed his principles to his passions. 'His meanest talent was his wit.' His learning had no pedantry, his piety no superstition; his benevolence almost no parallel. His intrepid eloquence first pointed out to his oppressed countrymen, that path to Independence, to happiness, and to glory, which their posterity, at this moment, so nobly pursue. His treatise on the conduct of their foreign allies, first taught the English nation the dangers of a continental war, dispelled their delusive dreams of conquest, and stopt them in the full career to ruin. . For the memory of this man, who may be classed with Cato and Phocion, the Doctor feels no tenderness or respect. And for that 24 24 See parallel between Diogenes and Dr Johnson in Town and Country Magazine. In his life of Swift, the Doctor tells us, that 'he relieved without pity, and assisted without kindness.' , and other critical blasphemies, he has undergone innumerable floggings. No writer of this nation has made more noise. None has discovered more contempt for other men's reputations, or more confidence in his own. I would humbly submit a few hints for his improvement, if he be not 'too old to learn.' And, whatever freedoms I take, the Doctor himself may be quoted as a precedent for insolent invective, and brutal reproach. He has told us 25 25 Idler, No. 70. , that 'the two lowest of all human beings are, a scribbler for a party, and a commissioner of excise.' This very man was himself the hired scribbler of a party; and why should a commissioner of excise be one of the meanest of mankind? In the preface to his octavo Dictionary, the Doctor affirms, that, 'by the labours of all his predecessors, not even the lowest expectation can be gratified.' The author of a revisal of Shakespeare 26 26 Preface to Shakespeare. attacks (he says) with ' gloomy malignity , as if he were dragging to justice an assassin or incendiary. He bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him.' For this shocking language, which could have been answered by nothing but a blow, the primum mobile , perhaps, was, that the critic had dedicated his book to Lord Kaims, (a Scotsman, and another very shallow fellow) 'as the truest judge, and most intelligent admirer of Shakespeare.'