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Johnson Club Papers

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PREFACE

r

This Club was formed on the 13th day of December,
1884, at the " Cock Tavern," Fleet Street, London.
The day was exactly one hundred years from Dr.
Johnson's death, and the place was often visited by
him.

Since 1884 the Club has met four times yearly,
at first usually in a tavern, but of late years in Johnson's
house in Gough Square, saved from destruction by
the liberality of Cecil Harmsworth, a brother of the
Johnson Club.

In the year 1899, the Club published a volume of
Papers read at its quarterly suppers. Of the eleven
contributors to that volume five have been gathered
to their fathers and to Johnson. The editors are
among the survivors, and now it has fallen to them
to collect a second series of papers for the press. The
war has delayed publication, and the Club now mourns
the loss of three of the present contributors. Adapting

5

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

a phrase of the Master's, we say " Sint animae eorum

cum Johnsono."

Some of these papers have already appeared in

print, Sir Chartres Biron's in the National Review,

Mr. Walkley's and Mr. Clodd's in the Fortnightly

Review^ and Mr. Haynes's in the New Witness.

We desire to thank the editors of these Reviews

for their courtesy.

G. W.
J. S.
London, September 1 920.

CONTENTS

PAOK

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Dotld. By Sit Chartres

Biron . . . . -13

Dr. Johnson and Lord Monboddo. By Edward

Clodd . . . . -31

Dr. Johnson on Liberty. By E. S. P. Haynes SI

Dr. Johnson's Expletives. By the late Spencer

Leigh Hughes, M.P. . . -67

Dr. Johnson and Ireland. By John O'Connor,

K.C.,M.P 87

Johnson's Dictionary. By the late Sir George

Radford, M.P. . . . .103

Dr. Johnson and the Law. By E. S. Roscoe . 125

Dr. Johnson and the Catholic Church. By

the Hon Sir Charles Russell, Bart. . 139

Johnson's Character as shown in his Writings.

By Harold Spencer Scott . . • 1 59

Sir Joshua Reynolds. By L. C. Thomas . 181

Johnson and the Theatre. By A. B. Walkley 199

Johnson's Monument and Parr's Epitaph on
Johnson. By the late Henry B. JVheatky,
D.C.L., F.S.J. . . . .221

7

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[Founded Dec. 13, 1884)

€^fnfcrcf for 1020
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Prior — William A. McArthur.
Sub-Prior — E. S. Roscoe.
Bursar — T. Fisher Unwin.
Scribe — J. Fredk. Green, M.P.

lixsit of Sl^cmbcrcf

Arthur J. Ashton, K.C. (Recorder of Manchester.)
Sir Chartres Biron.
Rt. Hon. Augustine Birrell, K.C.
Sir W. Ryland D. Adkins, K.C, M.P
Edward Clodd.
Arundell Esdaile.
J. Fredk. Green, M.P.
Cecil Harmsworth, M.P.
Francis R. Harris.
E. 8. P. Haynes.
John Henderson.

Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon Hewart, M.P. (Attorney-
General).
Sir Robert A. Hudson, G.B.E.
Roger Ingpen.
Sir Sidney Lee.

9

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Frank D. MacKinnon, K.C.

John O'Connor, K.C.

Edward S. Roscoe.

Hon. Sir Charles Russell, Bart.

Geoffrey William Russell.

John Sargeaunt.

Harold S. Scott.

Thomas Seccombe.

Clement Shorter.

Arthur H. Spokes (Recorder of Reading).

L. C. Thomas.

James Tregaskis.

T. Fisher Unwin.

Arthur B. Walkley.

George Whale.

George H. Wheatley.

Oscar Browning.

Rt. Hon. Sir Mortimer Durand, G.C.M.G

J. Gennadius.

Sir Francis C. Gould.

William A. McArthur.

Joseph Pennell.

lO

DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD

Paper Read to the Johnson Club

BY

SIR CHARTRES BIRON.

r

Dr. Johnson and Dr. Dodd

The description of Dr. Dodd in the Dictionary
of National Biography as " Dodd, William, 1729—
77, forger," is the very nakedness of truth. To
such a crude departure from the lapidary convention
one would almost prefer oblivion. Accurate though
it unfortunately is, one cannot help feeling a certain
sympathy for the unhappy subject. If his offence
was serious, the punishment was terrible, and the
forgery was undoubtedly rather the act of a weak,
unprincipled man impelled by the pressure of events
than that of a deliberate criminal. It certainly so
appeared to Dr. Johnson. When all efforts to save
Dodd had failed, Johnson wrote to him in prison :
" Be comforted, your crime, morally or religiously
considered, has no very deep dye of turpitude. It
corrupted no man's principles : it attacked no man's
life. It involved only a temporary and reparable
injury." Dr. Dodd's faults of character were just
those that with an adequate income become almost
virtues. Like Becky Sharp, he would have found

13

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

it comparatively easy to be good on ;^5)000 a year.
His talents were considerable, his social gifts undeni-
able— a kindly, hospitable man ; but hospitability
on an inadequate income is a dangerous virtue.
Dr. Johnson describes him well as a man whom we
have seen exulting in popularity and sunk in shame.
For his reputation, which no man can give to him-
self, those who conferred it are to answer — of his
public Ministry the means of judging were sufficiently
attainable. He must be allowed to preach well,
whose sermons strike his audience with forcible
conviction. Of his life those who thought it consis-
tent with his doctrine did not originally form false
notions. He was at first what he endeavoured to
make others, but the world broke down his resolution,
and he in time ceased to exemplify his own instruc-
tions.

The son of the Vicar of Bourne, in Lincolnshire,
Dodd went to Cambridge at sixteen, where he entered
as a sizar at Clare College, and graduated as fifteenth
wrangler. After Cambridge he sought his fortunes
in London. In 1751 he married Mary Perkins, the
daughter of a verger, in Durham Cathedral. Un-
fortunately the marriage was hardly so idyllic as it
sounds. The lady was not above reproach, even if
she were not, as Horace Walpole asserted. Lord
Sandwich's mistress, and there can be little doubt
her influence and extravagance contributed in no
small degree to her husband's downfall. After
being suspected of a novel, facetious in the sense

H

DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD

that the word bears in the booksellers' catalogues,
he turned his attention to the Church.

Dodd was ordained a deacon in 1751, and started
his ecclesiastical career as a curate at West Ham.
His success was immediate. Dodd was one of the
rare examples of an eloquent mathematician. In
the pulpit his natural gifts found congenial expression,
and almost at once he became a popular preacher.

In 1758 a charitable institution was opened for
the purpose of assisting unfortunate women, under
the name of Magdalen House. Dodd was appointed
chaplain, and a regular salary of ;^ 100 a year was
voted him. Besides his clerical duties. Dr. Dodd
found time for literature. His Beauties of Shakespeare
had a great vogue and showed a real feeling for litera-
ture. Altogether he wrote some fifty-five volumes,
ranging from a commentary on the Bible, published
shortly after his appointment to the Royal Chap-
laincy, to Diggon Daviess Resolution on the Death
of his Last Cow, and including, with a horrible irony,
a dissertation on Frequency of Capital Punishments,
inconsistent with Justice, Sound Policy, and Religion.

The new charity appealed to the public. It
became a hobby of the fashionable world, largely
owing to Dr. Dodd's eloquence. Horace Walpole
describes a visit in a letter to George Montagu :
" We met at Northumberland House at 5, and set out
in four coaches. Prince Edward, Colonel Brudenel,
his groom. Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary
Coke, Lady Carlisle, Miss Pelham, Lady Hertford,

15

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Lord Bcauchanip, Lord Huntingdon, old Bowman,
and L" Such was the party. The chapel is described
as small and low but neat, hung with Gothic paper.
The service consisted of prayers, psalms, and a sermon,
" the latter by a young clergyman, one Dodd, who
contributed [it appears Horace Walpole's Protes-
tantism had been a little scandalized by the Catholic
atmosphere of the place] to the Popish idea one had
imbibed by haranguing entirely in the French style,
and very eloquently and touchingly he apostrophysed
the lost sheep, who sobbed and cried from their souls "
— and must have done it very well, for " so did my
Lady Hertford and Fanny Pelham till I believe the
city dames took them both for Jane Shores," and we
learn that the preacher concluded by " addressing
himself to his Royal Highness, whom he called most
illustrious Prince, beseeching his protection " so
successfully that Horace Walpole declared the sermon
" a very pleasing performance " and got " the most
illustrious," who sat before the altar in an armchair
with a blue damask cushion, a prie-dieu, and a foot-
stool of black cloth with gold nails, " to desire it
might be printed," and Dr. Dodd, whether to remove
any misapprehension or not, composed a poem on
the Countess's tears. Mrs. Papendiek, Assistant-
Keeper of the Wardrobe and Robes to Queen
Charlotte, writes, " Dr. Dodd was handsome in
the extreme, and possessed every personal attraction
which would add to the beauty of the service —
an harmonious voice, a heart of passion, and

i6

DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD

the power of showing he felt his subject
deeply."

His fame as a preacher spread. If money were
wanted for a charity, a sermon from Dr. Dodd was
the way to get it. In 1767 he received the dis-
tinguished honour of being appointed chaplain to
George III, and at the same time chaplain to the
Bishop of St. Davids, who also made him Prebendary
of Brecon. In the same year he became tutor to
Philip Stanhope, afterwards Lord Chesterfield. If
misfortunes are often blessings in disguise the
converse is sometimes true, and it was a bad
day for Dodd when he was introduced to Chester-
field.

However, for the moment his star was in the as-
cendant. Fortune smiled even on the verger's
daughter. She receives a legacy of ;^ 1,500 from a
ource as to which history is discreetly silent, and wins
/^i,ooo in a lottery. This was her husband's oppor-
tunity. Most prudently he invested the money in
a chapel in Pimlico, called Charlotte Chapel after
the queen. No money was ever better laid out.
The fashionable world flocked to Pimlico. He
became an eighteenth-century Charles Honeyman.
The Charlotte Chapel was as thronged as Lady
Whittlesea's, and, as in the latter place of worship,
" all the nobs came to hear him." Success was assured.
It is true a censorious world gossiped. His atten-
tions to the female portion of his congregation were
a little marked. Ribald people called him " the

17 B

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Macaroni parson," and alleged an over-fondness
for the good things of this world.

Still his congregation remained staunch and all
went well till in an unfortunate moment for Dodd,
Dr. Moss was made Bishop of Bath and Wells.
This left vacant the fashionable living of St. George's,
Hanover Square, said to be worth ;^ 1,500 a year.
Dodd was undoubtedly in pecuniary difficulties.
An anonymous letter was written to Lady Apsley,
wife of the Lord Chancellor of the time, offering her
;^3,ooo and an annuity of ;/^500 a year for the vacant
preferment.

The letter was traced to Dodd.

The poor Simonist adopted the usual formula of
his kind. He wrote a dignified letter to the papers,
saying that at the proper time, in spite of deceptive
appearances, all would be cleared up. But it would
not do. The facts were too blatant, and he was
struck off the list of Royal Chaplains.

It was the beginning of the end. The scandal
was public property. Foote put him in a farce under
the name of Mrs. Simony, and Dodd found the
moment opportune for foreign travel. At Geneva
Dodd visited his former pupil, now Lord Chesterfield.
Despite all he was well received — it may be the full
details of the scandal had not reached that peaceful
spot — and he was presented by his noble patron to
a living in Buckinghamshire. Encouraged by this
perferment, he returned to England, and found, at
any rate, the Magdalen House faithful to its chaplain,

18

DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD

for his portrait was soon after painted and hung in
the board-room.

All might yet have been well had it not been for
his fatal debts. Whether they were due to his gambling
and riotous living or his wife's extravagance matters
little. Their total remained the same, and the
creditors were equally importunate. Something had
to be done, and in his case there was no Colonel
Newcome to appeal to — Charlotte Chapel is sold.

Poor Dodd, in the language of a contemporary,
even " descended so low as to become the editor of
a newspaper."

All to no avail ; and then the fatal step was taken.

In 1777 Dodd offered a bond for ^^4,200 in the
name of Lord Chesterfield to a stockbroker named
Robertson. For this amount Dodd undertook to
pay ^'JOO a year — Robertson finds a lender on these
terms. The bond is lodged with the solicitor to
the confiding lender, who, with a professional lack
of charity, formed certain suspicions and went to
see Lord Chesterfield, and all was over. As to
the forgery there could be no doubt, but Dodd was
certainly unfortunate. Warrants were issued against
him and Robertson, They were arrested and brought
before the Lord Mayor. If the solicitor had not
been in such a hurry the situation might have been
saved.

Dodd returned ^^3,000 and offered security for
the balance. It may fairly be assumed, with regard
to the solicitor and his client, the money was what

19

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

they wanted. The prosecution was satisfied ; but
it was too late : the criminal law had been set in
motion, and the Lord Mayor of the day could only
be obdurate. The result of the investigation at the
Mansion House was to clear Robertson, who seems
to have been an innocent dupe, and to send Dr. Dodd
to the Old Bailey.

In this matter Lord Chesterfield has been some-
what unfairly attacked. For years he was regarded
as one who had acted with unnecessary harshness
to his old tutor and friend. Long afterwards, when
rallying a brother peer, who had shot a highwayman
in self-defence, with the question, " When did you
kill a highwayman last ? " he was met with
the retort, " When did you last hang a parson ? "
Yet it is difficult to see how Lord Chesterfield
could have acted otherwise. He did not set
the law in motion — nor was he the prosecutor.
He gave evidence, it is true, but that he couldn't
avoid. If he might have done more to save Dodd
from execution, it must be remembered in fair
ness he had helped him at the time of his disgrace,
and was rewarded almost immediately by the forgery
of his name by the man he had befriended.

The trial at the Old Bailey could only have one
result and one sentence. The bare question left
was — could Dodd's life be saved ? Great efforts
were made. It says much for the man's character
that he should have endeared himself to so many.
About his social qualities there can be no doubt.

20

DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD

Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who knew him well and
dined at his house, describes him " as a plausible,
agreeable man, lively, entertaining, well informed,
and communicative in conversation." But there
must have been more in the Doctor to have made so
many do so much for him.

It was no less a person than Caroline, daughter
of the Duke of Grafton and wife of the Earl of Harring-
ton, who enlisted Dr. Johnson on behalf of the
prisoner. Johnson's acquaintance with him was
of the slightest. He had met him once, years before ;
nor could they have had much in common. We
know how " mighty offensive " Dr. Johnson found
the public " levity of parsons," and he would prob-
ably have thought taverns as unsuitable for preben-
daries as he did for bishops. The Doctor, too,
had a magnificent philosophy concerning friendship.
As to feeling the distresses of others, " there was
much noise made about it, but it was much exag-
gerated." In fact, "no one ate a slice of plum
pudding the less because a friend was hanged," and
so forth.

But the Doctor as a philosopher always reminds
one of his friend Mr. Edwards, who " set out to be
a philosopher, but cheerfulness kept breaking in."
So with Johnson ; admirable though his theories,
when it came to action his humanity broke in with
results equally fatal. He was one of the few philo-
sophers who kept his rules of conduct for home
consumption and shrank from applying them to the

21

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

outside world. Dodd had one claim the magnanimous
Johnson never could resist. He was in sore distress.
Here was a poor weak, erring mortal, and a chance
of saving him. To the stout old Doctor there was
only one thing to be done, and with all the latent
energy of an indolent man he threw himself into
the struggle.

Allen the printer, who was Johnson's landlord in
Bolt Court, and also a great friend of the convicted
man, carried the Countess's letter to Johnson. We
are told Johnson read it, was very much agitated,
and said, " I will do what I can," and he certainly
did. Sentence had been postponed in order to argue
a point of law taken in Dodd's favour. Dr. Johnson
wrote the speech Dodd delivered before sentence of
death was passed, and also wrote the sermon delivered
in Newgate Chapel by Dodd to his fellow convicts.

Dodd writes to him : " I am so penetrated, my
ever dear Sir, with a sense of your extreme benevo-
lence towards me that I cannot find words equal to
the sentiments of my heart. You are too conversant
in the world to need the slightest hint from me of
what infinite utility the speech on the awful day has
been to me."

The sermon was afterwards published under the
style. The Convict's address to his unhappy brethren.
As to which a nice point of casuistry arose later on.
Johnson complains to Boswell that Dr. Dodd should
have left the world persuaded that the address was
his own composition. Boswell reminds Johnson

2?

DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD

that he, at any rate, contributed to the deception,
" for when Mr. Seward expressed a doubt to you that
it was not Dodd's own because it liad a great deal
more force of mind in it than anything known to
be his you answered, ' Why should you think so ?
Depend upon it. Sir, when a man knows he is to be
hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind won-
derfully.' "

Johnson, however, is not to be cornered.

" Sir, as Dodd got it from me to pass as his own,
while that could do him any good, that was an implied
promise that I should not own it. To own it, there-
fore, would have been telling a lie with the addition
of breach of promise, which was more than simply
telling a lie to make it be believed it was Dodd's.
Besides, Sir, I did not directly tell a lie, I left the
manner uncertain. Perhaps I thought that Seward
would not believe it the less to be mine, for when I
said that I would not put it in his power to say I had
owned it."

The final thing Johnson wrote was Dr. Dodd's
last solemn declaration, which was left with the sheriff
at the place of execution. In this composition the
passage occurs : " My life for some few unhappy
years has been dreadfully hypocritical." This Dodd
changed to " erroneous," with a note to the effect
that " with hypocrisy he could not charge himself" ;
and perhaps was justified.

" Did not Dr. Johnson himself say on another
occasion, " Sir, are you so grossly ignorant ot human

23

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

nature as not to know that a man may be very sincere
in good principles without having good practice."

Poor Dodd was at any rate frank enough when
his pious friends tried to console him by saying he
was leaving "a wretched world." "No, no," he
said, " it has been a very agreeable world to me."
Johnson quaintly comments on this : " I respect
Dodd for thus speaking the truth, for to be sure he
had for several years enjoyed a life of great volup-
tuousness."

In addition to these efforts Johnson had written
to the Lord Chancellor Bathurst, and Lord Mans-
field, also a petition for mercy, signed by twenty
thousand people, forwarded by the City of London ;
but much to his annoyance " They mended it."

Later on Dodd writes again, asking Johnson to
compose for him a letter to be sent to the king.
Johnson wrote the letter, writing at the same time
to Dodd :

Sir,

I most seriously enjoin you not to let it be at all
known that I have written this letter and to return the copy
to Mr. Allen in a cover to me. I hope I need not tell you
I wish it success, but do not indulge hope — tell nobody^

The letters were taken to Dodd in prison by Mr.
Allen, who was a great friend of Akerman, the
Governor of Newgate. Johnson had not the heart
to see Dodd himself, as he said : "It would have
done me more harm than it would have done him
good."

24

DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD

According to Boswcll, Johnson also wrote a
petition from Mrs. Dodd to the queen, and observa-
tions in favour of a petition presented by Lord Percy
printed in the newspapers. He certainly wrote to
Charles Jenkinson, afterwards Lord Liverpool. But
all in vain. The king refused to interfere. Poor
Dodd, who had had great hopes — " They never
will hang me," he said to his jailor — faced the
position with a fortitude with which many would
not have credited him.

To Johnson he writes before the end a letter of
thanks. " Accept, thou great and good heart, my
earnest and fervent thanks and prayers for all thy
benevolent and kind efforts on my behalf." And
the kind Doctor writes in reply the letter from which
an extract has been given earlier, concluding with
the touching request : " In requital of those well-
intended offices which you arc pleased so emphati-
cally to acknowledge, let me beg that you make in
' your devotions ' one petition for my eternal welfare."

Johnson thought he might have been pardoned.
He writes to Boswell : " Poor Dodd was put to death
yesterday in opposition to the recommendation of
the Jury, the petition of the City of London, and a
subsequent petition signed by three and twenty
thousand hands. Surely the voice of the public when
it calls so loudly and only for mercy ought to be
heard." But it was not a merciful age. This
extract from Mr. Lccky's history of the eighteenth
century reveals the temper of the time :

25

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

" Dr. Dodd, the unhappy clergyman who was
executed for forgery, was exhibited for two hours
in the press-room at one shilHng a head before he was
led to the gallows."

Wraxall asserts that Lord Mansfield, who had a
good deal of the austerity of a Scotchman with a
career, prevented the king exercising the prerogative
of mercy. The women were on Dodd's side. Queen
Charlotte was anxious to save him. The faithful
Mrs. Papendick visits Newgate some time after the
execution, and writes : " There was his little inkstand
upon a small table at which he constantly wrote, his
chair, the table where he ate. I kissed them all —
nothing had been used since he was called to leave all
earthly scenes. His memory I must ever revere,
for early did he lead me to like religion from the
impressive manner in which he delivered his discourses
and read the liturgy of our church." Still, judged by
the standard of the time, it would have been an unusual
extension of clemency. Dodd's friends did not
confine their efforts to petitions. According to
Johnson, Dodd's City friends found a thousand
pounds to be given the jailor if he would let him escape,
and an image was made in wax, which was actually
carried into the prison to be substituted for the fugitive
forger. Johnson says he knew a man who walked
about outside Newgate with ;^500 ready to be paid
to any turnkey who could get him out ; but it was
too late — the prisoner was closely watched.
Their exertions did not rest even at this.
26

DR. JOHNSON AND DR. DODD

According to Miss Reynolds, sister of Sir Joshua
Dodd had hopes up to the last.

Some medical friends had told him that his life
might be saved if the knot were tied in a particular
manner behind his ear. This would prevent the
extinction of life if he were cut down at once. Then
he was to be carried by his friends to a convenient
place, where they would use their utmost efforts to
restore vitality.

The hangman fixed the rope as desired and whispered
to Dodd, " You must not move an inch," but he
struggled, with a fatal result.

Wraxall tells much the same story. According
to him Dodd and the executioner were observed
whispering. Wraxall attributes the failure of the
plot to the enormous crowd which attended the
execution and prevented the body being removed with
sufficient despatch. He declares : " His body was
conveyed to a house in the City of London, where it
underwent every scientific professional operation
which it was hoped might restore circulation. Percival
Pott, who was one of the most eminent of the surgeons
of the day, was present to direct them." But it was
not to be, and Dr. Dodd died on the scaffold.

When all was over there was a reaction in Dodd's
favour, and in certain and feminine quarters a tendency
to place the poor man on a pedestal he little deserved,
but Doctor Johnson, who had worked so loyally to
save him, showed his usual sound sense. " A friend
of mine," he says, " came to me and told me that a

27

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

lady wished to have Dr. Dodd's picture in a bracelet
and asked me for a motto. I said I could think of
no better than currat lex. I was very willing to
have him pardoned, that is to have the sentence
changed to transportation, but when he was once
hanged I did not wish he should be made a saint."
That poor Dodd undoubtedly was not, but we may
at any rate say this in his favour : many a worse
man has had more leniency shown him.

28

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD
MONBODDO

Paper Read to the Johnson Club

BY

EDWARD CLODD

r

Dr. Johnson and Lord Monboddo

r

One of Johnson's friends (conjectured by Dr.
Birkbcck Hill to be a Mr. Bowles) says in a letter
given in Boswcll ^ that " Chymistry was always
an interesting pursuit with Dr. Johnson. Whilst
he was in Wiltshire he attended some experiments
that were made by a physician at Salisbury on the
new kinds of air. In the course of the experiments,
frequent mention being made of Dr. Priestley, Dr.
Johnson knit his brows, and in a stern manner in-
quired, ' Why do we hear so much of Dr. Priestley ? '
He was very properly answered, ' Sir, because we
are indebted to him for these important discoveries.'
On this Dr. Johnson appeared well content, and
replied, ' Well, well, I believe we are ; and let every
man have the honour he has merited.' "

Boswell makes this the occasion of a splenetic
attack on Priestley's " pernicious doctrines," adding,
he says, in justice to Johnson, that " the Rev. Dr.

' Vol. iv. p. 237. (The references throughout to BosweU's Life of
jfohmon are from Dr. Birkbeck Hill's edition.)

31

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Parr has no grounds for the statement that ' Johnson
not only endured, but almost solicited an interview
with Dr. Priestley.' " Priestley's reputation can take
care of itself. To quote Mr. Frederic Harrison :
" His versatility, eagerness, activity, and humanity ; the
immense range of his curiosity in all things physical,
moral, or social ; his place in science, in theology,
in philosophy, and in politics ; his peculiar relation
to the Revolution, and the pathetic story of his un-
merited sufferings, may make him the hero of the
eighteenth century." ^

In vol. ii. p. 55, Boswell says that Johnson " seemed

pleased to talk of Natural Philosophy. [As the

quotation shows, this term, which we now restrict

to physics, included natural history.] He told us

that one of his first essays was a Latin poem upon

the glowworm. I am sorry I did not ask where it

was to be found." Johnson's shrewdness comes

out in the following record, wherein Boswell shows

himself a believer in the old superstition that when

a scorpion is surrounded by a ring of fire it recognizes

its fate and deliberately commits suicide by darting

its sting into its head. Boswell says that when in

Italy he had several times proved this by experiment

"Johnson would not admit the fact. He said,

' Maupertius 2 was of opinion that it does not kill

itself, but dies of the heat ; that it gets to the centre

' The C/ioicc of Books, p. 370.

» "A philosopher," says Hoswcll, "whom the Great Frederick of
Prussia loveJ and honoured." (B. 1678, d. 1759.)

32

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

of the circle as the coolest place ; that its turning its
tail in upon its head is only a convulsion, and that it
does not sting itself. He said he would be satisfied
if the great anatomist Morgagni,^ after dissecting a
scorpion on which the experiment had been tried,
should certify that its sting had penetrated its head.'" 2

Johnson seems to have had some hand in the
arrangement of the Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society, but Dr. Birkbeck Hill is unable, after
examination of that publication, to throw any light
upon Johnson's share in the work. More germane
to what has been said above is the tribute paid by Sir
William Jones, noted for the impulse which he gave
to the study of Sanscrit. In a discourse before the
Asiatic Society, Calcutta, 24th February 1785, he
writes as follows : " One of the most sagacious men
in this age, who continues, I hope, to improve and
adorn it, Samuel Johnson [he had been dead ten weeks],
remarked in my hearing that if Newton had flourished
in ancient Greece he would have been worshipped
as a divinity."

A curt reference to Buffon, whom Boswell pats
on the back in a footnote as " highly instructive and
entertaining," 3 and the story of the famous kick
against a large stone by which Johnson thought he
had completely refuted Berkeley's theory of matter,
complete the references in Boswell, so far as I have

' Founder of pathological anatomy, professor in the University of
Padua. (B. 1682, d. 1771.)
" Vol. ii. p. 54.
' Vol. V. p. 229.

33 c

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

been able to trace them, to Johnson's comments
other than those which are the subject of this paper
on the science of his day.^ But the inclusion of the
men already named only emphasizes the omission
of reference, e.g. to Cavendish, who weighed the
earth and discovered the constitution of water and of
atmospheric air ; to Halley, famous in cometary
astronomy ; to Herschel, discoverer of Uranus
and of the true nature of the nebulas ; to Brindley,
constructor of the great canals ; to Arkwright, inventor
of the spinning mill ; to Black, whose discoveries gave
the first impulse to Watt's improvements in the steam-
engine ; and last, but not least, to Hartley, pioneer in
anthropology, to whom reference will be made later.

Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of the famous author
of the Origin of Species, and still remembered as the
author of the Botanic Garden, with its Loves of the
Plants, burlesqued in the Loves of the Triangles in
the Antijacohin, is named only in Johnson's diary of
a 'Journey into North Wales under date of 8th July
1774. The Loves of the Plants was not published
till 1789, five years after Johnson's death.

James Burnet, afterwards Lord Monboddo, was
born in 17 14 in the "wretched place, wild and naked,
with a poor old house," so Boswell describes it, whence
he afterwards took his title. First educated at the
parish school of Laurencekirk, he was sent to Aberdeen
University, where a pedantic professor taught him

' The limits of this paper exclude Johnson's talks about Ailani Smith
and David Hume.

34

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

that all speculation not based on Aristotle or Plato
was utter foolishness. That unfortunate, cramping
lesson he never unlearned. Destined for the Bar,
he went to Groningen to study Roman law, and in
his twenty-second year settled in Edinburgh as an
advocate. Twenty-five years passed before his
elevation to the Bench under the title of Lord Mon-
boddo — a promotion largely due to his skilful and
successful advocacy of the claims of Alexander Douglas
to the estates of that name, famous in legal annals
as the " Douglas Case." Six years afterwards, in
1773, he published the first volume of the Origin and
Progress of Language, a work which was not completed
till 1792; "the world had forgotten the previous
tomes before the next was issued." His second work,
^Indent Metaphysics, appeared volume by volume
between 1779 and 1799. They were a curious
farrago, dealing with the origin of ideas as established
to the author's satisfaction, by Plato and Aristotle ;
with the invention of language and with the primitive
state of man, whose original endowments of language,
reason, and religion, Monboddo argued, had been
forfeited by the Fall. The original part of his work
was his anticipation of the now established theory
of man's fundamental relationship with the higher
apes. How he reconciled this with his theory of
degeneracy is not explained. Originally, man, so
he asserts, possessed a tail, which he ultimately lost
by the constant posture of sitting. In a letter to
Sir John Pringle, a physician of some note in his day,

35

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Monboddo writes under date i6th June 1773 :
" As to the humanity of the Ourang-Outang, and
the story of the men with tails, I think neither the
one nor the other is necessarily connected with my
system, and if I am in error, I have only followed
Linnaeus, and I think I have given a better reason
than he has done for the Ourang-Outang belonging
to us ; I mean, his use of a stick. From which,
and many other circumstances, it appears to me evident
that he is much above the Simian race, to which I
think you very rightly disclaim the relation of brother,
though I think that race is of kin to us, though not
so nearly related. For the large monkeys, or baboons,
appear to me to stand in the same relation to us that
the ass does to the horse, or our goldfinch to the canary-
bird." ^ He then quotes a yarn from Roeping, a
Swedish traveller, of an animal produced by copula-
tion between a baboon and a woman. Directly it
was born it took to climbing on chairs and tables, at
last reaching the top of the house, whence it fell and
broke its neck. He tells of an ourang-outang which
he had himself seen at Versailles — a specimen pre-
served in spirits, which, when alive, had shown all
the intelligence of a man, and, quite like a rational
being, had died of drink ! Monboddo may have
found warrant in the saying of his contemporary
Beaumarchais that " what distinguishes man from the
brute is drinking without being thirsty and making

' Lord Monboddo and Some of liis Contemporaries^ by I'rof. Knight.
Pp. 84-85.

36

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

love all the year round " ; although, be it said concern-
ing the last-named matter, some anthropologists
find evidence of a human pairing season in primitive
times. He upholds his pet theory that men possessed
tails on the ground that, a hundred and thirty years
before, a Swedish skipper was reported to have seen
a tribe of human creatures with caudal appendages
in the Bay of Bengal.

Monboddo's contemporaries cared little for his

dissertations on ancient philosophy and his attempts

to prove the doctrine of the Trinity by the help of

Plato and Aristotle. The sting of Monboddo's

book was in its tail. He was laughed at by the wits,

mourned over by the pious, and sneered at by his

brother Judges. The story goes that one of these,

Lord Karnes, asked Monboddo to go before him into

a room, saying, "Just to see your tail, my Lord."

In the sketch of Monboddo given by the late H. G.

Graham in his brilliant Scottish Men of Letters hi the

Eighteenth Century he portrays an attractive picture

of the old Judge, who, as Farmer Burnett, proved

himself " the kindliest and absurdest of landlords,

never removing a tenant or raising a rent when rents

everywhere were rising." ^ He tells how the best

and brightest of Edinburgh society, men of letters,

women of fashion, gather at Monboddo's fortnightly

suppers, the table decorated " after the manner of

the ancients ; the claret flagons garlanded with roses,

which also bestrewed the table a la Horace, and the

' Pp. 194-

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

diet of strange fare with Spartan broth and mulsum." ^
Among them was Lady Anne Lindsay, singing " Auld
Robin Gray " as she knew best how to sing it, and
she alone knew who wrote it, while the light of the
company was Monboddo's beautiful and fragile younger
daughter, whose death at the age of twenty-five
darkened the remaining years of her father. It was
of her that Burns said, when asked if he admired her :
" I admire God Almighty more than ever. Miss
Burnett is the most heavenly of all His works " ;
and of her he wrote thus in his Address to Edinburgh :

Thy daughters bright thy walk adorn,
Gay as the gilded summer sky,
Sweet as the dewy, milk-white thorn,
Dear as the raptured thrill of joy !
Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye ;
Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine
I see the Sire of Love on high.
And own His work indeed divine !

Devoted to old friends, and fond of London, Monboddo
started on horseback — he would never enter a stage-
coach— in 1799 to make his annual visit there, and
died upon the journey.

In a letter to Lady Ossory dated 3rd November
1782, Horace Walpole says : " Does your Ladyship
know that Lord Monboddo has twice proposed to
Mrs. Garrick ? She refused him ; I don't know
whether because he says in his book that men were
born with tails or because they have lost them." 2

' Sweetened wine. * Vol. xii. p. 360, Toynbcc's edition.

38

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

(Monboddo's wife had died on the birth of her beauti-
ful daughter.)

Concerning him, Scott wrote as follows in a note
on Giiy Mannering : " The conversation of the excel-
lent old man, his high, gentleman-like, chivalrous
spirit, the learning and wit with which he defended
his fanciful paradoxes, the kind and liberal spirit of
his hospitality, must render the nodes ccenaque dear
to all wlio, like the author (though then young),
had the honour of sitting at his board." ^

I will now set down in chronological order the
references to Monboddo in Boswell's Life of 'Johnson.
The first is on 30th September 1769, when Boswell
and Johnson dined together at the " Mitre."

I attempted to argue for the superior happiness of the
savage life, upon the usual fanciful topicks.

Johnson. Sir, there can be nothing more false. The
savages have no bodily advantages beyond those of civilized
men. They have not better health, and as to care or mental
uneasiness, they arc not above it, but below it, like bears.
No, Sir, you are not to talk such paradox ; let me have
no more on't. It cannot entertain, far less can it instruct.
Lord Monboddo, one of your Scotch Judges, talked a great
deal of such nonsense. I suffered him, but I will not suffer
•jou.

Boswell. But, Sir, does not Rousseau talk such non-
sense ?

Johnson. True, Sir, but Rousseau knows he is talking
nonsense, and laughs at the world for staring at him.^

' The passage to which this is a footnote runs thus : " I am of
counsel with my old friend Burnet. I love the ccena, the supper of
the Ancients, the pleasant meal and social glass that wash out
of one's mind the cobwebs that business or gloom have been spinning
in our brains all day."

- Vol. ii. pp. 73-4.

39

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

This conversation took place four years before
Monboddo published the first volume of his Origin,
and that he and Johnson had met during one of Mon-
boddo's yearly visits to London, probably at Mrs.
Montagu's, where he was a frequent guest, is evident
from the remark made by Johnson on his visit to
Monboddo in 1773, "I little thought when I had
the honour to meet your Lordship in London that
I should see you at Monboddo." ^ On 1 3th April
'773? dining with Johnson at General Oglethorpe's,
Boswell records :

I told him that Mrs. Macaulay said she wondered how
he could reconcile his political principles with his moral ;
his notions of inequality and subordination with wishing well
to the happiness of all mankind, who might live so agree-
ably, had they all their portions of land, and none to
domineer over another.

Johnson. Why, Sir, I reconcile my principles very
well, because mankind are happier in a state of inequality
and subordination. Were they to be in this pretty state
of equality, they would soon degenerate into brutes ; —
they would become Monboddo's nation — their tails would
grow. Sir, all would be losers were all to work for all —
they would have no intellectual improvement.*

In the following May, dining at Bennet Langton's,
" he attacked Lord Monboddo's strange speculation
on the primitive state of human nature, observing,
* Sir, it is all conjecture about a thing useless, even
were it known to be true. Knowledge of all kinds
is good. Conjecture as to things useful is good, but
conjecture as to what it would be useful to know,

' Vol. V. p. 82. => Vol. ii. p. 219.

40

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

such as whether men went upon all fours, is very
idle.' " I

Turning to Bos well's ^Journal of a Tour to the
Hebrides %vith Johnson in 1773, which Dr. Birkbeck
Hill has reprinted in the fifth volume of his edition of
the Life, Boswell, as host on the occasion at his house in
Edinburgh, says that one of the company. Sir Adolphus
Oughton, " who had a very sweet temper, changed
the discourse [which threatened to become hot on
the authenticity of Ossian's poetry], grew playful,
laughed at Lord A4onboddo's notion of men having
tails, and called him a Judge a posteriori^ which amused
Dr. Johnson, and thus hostilities were prevented." 2
We talked of the Ourang-Outang, and of Lord
Monboddo's thinking that he might be taught to
speak. Dr. Johnson treated this with ridicule. Mr.
Crosbie said that Lord Monboddo believed the existence
of everything possible ; in short, that all which is
in posse might be found in esse.

Johnson. But, Sir, it is as possible that the Ourang-
Outang does not speak, as that he speaks. However, I
shall not contest the point. I should have thought it not
possible to find a Monboddo, yet he exists. 3

Under date 2 1st August, five days after the fore-
going, Boswell says : " I doubted much which road
to take, whether to go by the coast, or by Laurencekirk
and Monboddo. I knew Lord Monboddo and Dr.
Johnson did not love each other, yet I was unwilling
not to visit his Lordship, and was also curious to see

' Vol. ii. p. 259. - Vol. V. p. 45. ^ Ibid, p. 46.

41

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

them together." ^ So he sent his servant with the
following letter :

Montrose, Aug. 21.
My Dear Lord,

Thus far I am come with Mr. Samuel Johnson.
We must be at Aberdeen to-night. I know you do not
admire him so much as I do ; but I cannot be in this country
without making you a bow at your old place, as I do not
know if I may again have an opportunity of seeing Mon-
boddo. Besides, Mr. Johnson says, he would go ten miles
out of his way to see Monboddo. I have sent forward
my servant, that we may know if your Lordship be at home.
I am ever, my dear Lord,

Most sincerely yours,

James Boswell.^

Monboddo, who disengaged himself on purpose
to meet Johnson, was graciousness itself in his reception,
telling them that they " now saw him as Farmer
Burnet ; that they would have a farmer's dinner,
adding, ' I should not have forgiven Mr. Boswell
had he not brought you here. Dr. Johnson.' " The
conversation that followed need not here be quoted
in full. Nothing was said about ourang-outangs
or tailed men ; the talk was of Homer, general
history, the decrease of learning, of emigration, and
so forth, at the end of it Monboddo pressing his guests
to stay the night. " When I said wc must be at
Aberdeen, Monboddo replied, ' Well, I am like the
Romans : I shall say to you, " Happy to come —
happy to depart." ' " 3 Gory, Monboddo's black
servant, was sent by him to put them on the right

' Vol. V. p. 74. '^ Ihid. p. ^94. 3 ll,iJ_ p. 82.

42

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

road on leaving. On parting from them " Dr.
Johnson called to him : ' Mr. Gory, give me leave
to ask you a question. Are you baptized .? ' Gory
told him he was, and confirmed by the Bishop of
Durham. He then gave him a shilling." Whether
in the event of the answer having been " in the
negative " the tip would have been reduced or
altogether withheld, Boswell does not say.

Under date of 26th August Boswell writes as
follows : " I called on Mr. Robertson, who was
formerly Lord Monboddo's clerk, was three times in
France with him, and translated Condamine's Account
of the Savage Gir/,^ to which his Lordship wrote a
preface, containing several remarks of his own.
Robertson said he did not believe so much as his
Lordship did ; that it was plain to him that the girl
confounded what she imagined with what she remem-
bered ; that besides, she perceived Condamine and
Lord Monboddo forming theories and she adapted
her story to them. Dr. Johnson said, ' It is a pity
to see Lord Monboddo publish such notions as he
has done ; a man of sense and of so much elegant
learning. There would be little in a fool doing it :
we should only laugh, but when a wise man does it,
we are sorry. Other people have strange notions,
but they conceal them. If they have tails, they
hide them ; but Monboddo is as jealous of his tail
as a squirrel.' I shall here [adds Boswell] put down

' Charles M. lii- la Condamine (1701-74) was a notcil traveller, a
pioneer explorer of the Amazons.

43

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

some more remarks of Dr. Johnson's on Lord Mon-
boddo, which were not made exactly at this time,
but come in well from connection. He said he did
not approve of a judge's calling himself Farmer
Burnett and going about with a little round hat. He
laughed heartily at his lordship's saying he was an
enthusiastical farmer : ' for (said he) what can he do
in farming by his enthusiasm ? ' Here, however,
I think Dr. Johnson mistaken." Boswell's enlarge-
ment on this can here be omitted. ^

M. de la Condamine has further reference as re-
porting on a South American tribe who had no word
for three. " ' This,' said Johnson, ' should be told
to Monboddo ; it would help him. There is as
much charity in helping a man downhill as in helping
him uphill :

BoswELL. I don't think there is as much charity.

Johnson. Yes, Sir, if his tendency be downwards, till
he is at the bottom he flounders ; get him once there,
and he is quiet.' " 2

Writing to Boswell on 27th August 1775, he
says : " That Lord Monboddo and Mr. Macqueen
should controvert a position contrary to the imaginary
interest of literary or national prejudice, might be
easily imagined ; but of a standing fact there ought
to be no controversy. If there are men with tails,
catch an homo caudatus ; if there was writing of
old in the Highlands or Hebrides, in the Erse language,
produce the manuscripts." 3

' Vol. V. pp. 1 10-11. ^ Ibtd. pp. 242-43. i Vol. ii. p. 383.

44

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

Monboddo, logical in his plea for " return to
Antiquity," after his morning bath, " anointed himself
with oil, in imitation of the ancients, his lotion being
composed of rose-water, olive oil, saline, aromatic
spirit, and Venetian soap " ^ and then went to bed
again. On Boswell mentioning this, Johnson re-
marked, " I suppose. Sir, there is no more in it than
this, he awakes at four and cannot sleep till he chills
himself, and makes the warmth of the bed a grateful
sensation." - The morning " tub " (like the early
cup of tea, an import from the East) had not come
into fashion in his day, and, if it had, I suspect that
his plunges would have been fitful. Kit Smart " ' did
not love clean linen, and,' added Johnson, ' I have
no passion for it.' " 3 The same can be said of many
a saint of old.

Writing to him on 14th February 1777, Boswell
says that Monboddo had asked for a copy of Johnson's
"Journey to the Western Islands ^^ and in the following
September he has this reference to the book : " I
read him a letter which Lord Monboddo had written
to me, containing some critical remarks upon the style
of his Journey. His lordship praised the very fine
passage upon landing at Icolmkill, but his own style
being exceedingly dry and hard, he disapproved of
the richness of Johnson's language and of his frequent
use of metaphorical expressions.

"Johnson : 'Why, Sir, this criticism would be

■ Knight, p. 12. ^ Vol. iii. p. i68.

3 Vol. i. p. 397. * Vol. iii. p. 102.

45

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

just, if in my style, superfluous words, or words too
big for the thoughts, could be pointed out, but this
I do not believe can be done,' " and so on, no resent-
ment being shown towards a critic between whom
and Johnson there were no cordial relations.

Upon these there is here no occasion to dwell,
the " quarrels of authors " is a monotonous and pro-
fitless story. Temperamentally the two men were
unlike, and their differences of opinion could not
be reconciled by their agreement on one matter ;
namely, as to the History of Tacitus being rather notes
for a history than an historical work. Monboddo
was all for return to the ancients ; Johnson was all
for adapting their philosophy to the ideals of his time.
He had said that " the magnetism of Lord A^Ionboddo's
conversation easily drew us out of our way," ^ but
he would have been more or less than human if he
had condoned Monboddo's censorious charge in the
Origin of Language that " Dr. Johnson was the most
invidious and malignant man I have ever known." *
Johnson probably never saw Hume's letter to Adam
Smith of 24th February 1773, in which he thus
comments on Monboddo's book : " It contains all
the absurdity and malignity which I suspected ;
but is writ with more ingenuity and in a better style
than I looked for." 3

When all the limitations and absurdities of the shrewd,

' Vol. V. p. 74, etc.

^ Ibid. p. 271.

3 Burton's Life of Hume, vol. ii. p. 467.

46

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

learned judge arc admitted and set aside, there remains
the fact that this remarkable man was far ahead of
his time ; that some of his speculations were antici-
pations of discoveries which have revolutionized thought
and opinion in all directions ; that his was the creeping
of the dawn when old things were passing away and
all things were to become new. His theory of the
development of man from the great apes was unsound,
since each is the lateral descendant of a common an-
cestor, but it was no mean advance, with a mixture
of daring at that time, especially in Scotland, to broach
a theory which implicitly denied the special creation
of man. Had he lived in our day, when comparative
embryology is an established branch of biology, he
would have learned that, although any outward and
visible sign of the human tail has disappeared, the
human embryo supplies proofs that man's remote
ancestors possessed one. The remnants of this,
a few small vertebras beneath the skin, are among
the seventy and odd vestigial structures ; " a large
museum of relics which he carries about with him,
enigmatical except in the light of the past." ^ Scarcely
less significant were Monboddo's speculations on the
origin of civilization. It lies to his credit that in
1766 he could express the conviction that "there is
a progression of our species from a state little better
than mere brutality to that most perfect state you
[this to a correspondent, James Harris] describe in
ancient Greece." 2 He would have read with pleasure

The Bible of Nature, by J. A, Thomson, p. 190. ' Knight, p. 50.

47

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

the confirming words of Sir Henry Maine that
" nothing moves in the modern world which is not
Greek in origin."

If Monboddo was ahead of his time, Johnson
remained barely abreast of it ; and small blame to
him. Boswell says : " We talked of antiquarian
researches. Johnson : ' All that is really known
of the ancient state of Britain is contained in a few
pages. We can know no more than what the old
writers have told us ; yet what large books have we
upon it,' " ^ the whole of which, excepting such parts
as are taken from those old writers, is all a dream —
such as Whitaker's Manchester, of which book Horace
Walpole said that it " seemed rather an account of
Babel than Manchester, I mean in point of antiquity."'
And what applied to Britain applied a fortiori to the
world at large. Holy writ, it was believed, contained
all that could suffice man to know about his origin
and history. On that and on much else, the canon
was closed. Archbishop Ussher, who " flourished "
in the seventeenth century, had computed — and his
computation remained unchallenged down to the
latter half of the nineteenth century — that the world
was created 4004 B.C. Dr Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor
of Cambridge University, went one better in his
computation that man was created by the Trinity
on 23rd October 4004 B.C., at 9 a.m.3 But

' Vol. iii. p. 333.

' Vol, ix. p. 189, Toynbee's edition.

He was not the first computer. Our late brother, Sir George H.
Radford, sends nie the following quotation from Elucidorius Theologie^

48

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

he must yield the palm to one Fisher, a " Marrow-
man," who in his Marrow of Divinity proved to his
own satisfaction " that Adam, after he had slain
animals for clothing, offered them in sacrifice as a
type of Christ, and was saved because he believed in
Christ at exactly three p.m." ^

One of the most remarkable men of Johnson's
time was David Hartley, who was born in 1705 and
died in 1757. As said at the outset, his name does
not occur in Boswell's Life^ and in a letter to Richard
Price, Monboddo writes ; " The only man from whom
he [Dr. Priestley] professes to have learnt his Meta-
physics is one Dr. Hartley, of whom I never heard
so much as the name till I was last in London." 2
A succinct outline of Hartley's philosophical work
is given in Sir Leslie Stephen's English Thought in
the Eighteenth Century 3 ; here it must suffice to say
that his fame, or what little is left of it, rests on his
Observations on Man, published in 1749. Reference
is made to it here only as evidencing how a foremost
man of science of the mid-eighteenth century was
bound by tradition and what was believed to be
Revelation. His acceptance of the current chronology
satisfied him that the shortness of the time which has

impressum Landcsutcnser, 1514, p. 6: '■^ Discipuhn. Quam diu fuit
|Ailani] in Paradiso? Magister. Septem horas. Dis. Cur non
diutius ? Afjf. i^uia mox ut mulicr fuit creata confcstim ctiani
pra;varicata est."

' CJraham, Social Life in Scotlaiul in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii.
p. 88.

^ Knight, p. 126.

i Vol. ii. pp. 63-68.

49 »

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

clasped since the Flood convinced him that both
language and writing were due to direct miraculous
agency. Talking of the origin of language, Johnson
said that " it must have come by inspiration." ^
Neither he nor Hartley, nor the rest of them, Monboddo
included, could detect in the love-calls and danger-
cries of animals, and in the sounds of Nature, the raw
material of articulate speech, the location of whose
motor-centre in the human brain is one among the
many discoveries of modern physiology. Neither
did they know that there had been lying in the Sloane
Collection, since the end of the seventeenth century,
a rudely chipped, spear-shaped flint which had been
unearthed in association with an elephant's tooth
from the soil " opposite to black Mary's, near Grayes
inn lane." That flint weapon epitomized the story
of Man of the Ancient Stone Age, when he and a
group of strange, and now long extinct, animals
inhabited the valley of the Thames in a dim and
dateless past.

The last subject of man's curiosity and inquiry
is man himself. In his Lectures on the Natural
History of Man, published in 1819, a work whose
author was refused an injunction to protect his rights
by Lord Eldon on the ground that it contradicted
the Scriptures, Sir William Lawrence commented
on Monboddo's theory " that man and the ourang-
outang are proved to be of the same species, being
no otherwise distinguished from each other than by

• Vol. iv. p. 207.
50

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

circumstances which can be accounted for by the
different physical and moral agencies to which they
have been exposed." He says : " A poor compli-
ment to our species, as any one will think, who may
take the trouble of paying a morning visit to the ourang-
outang at Exeter Change," ^ In his Memories of
My Life the late Sir Francis Galton says that " the
subject of preiiistoric civilization was novel even as
late as the early fifties (i.e. of the nineteenth century)
. • . the horizon of the antiquarians was so narrow
at the date of my Cambridge days that the whole
history of the early world was literally believed, by
many of the best-informed men, to be contained '\n
the Pentateuch. It was also practically supposed
that nothing more of importance could be learnt of
the origins of civilization during classical times than
was to be found definitely stated in classical authors." 2
Twenty years passed before anthropologists would
accept, as artificially shaped, a number of chipped
flints which had been found by a French savant,
M. Boucher de Perthes, in 1H39, in hitherto undis-
turbed river deposits which were being worked for
sand and gravel in the valley of the Somme — destined
to become the scene of one of the fiercest struggles
that history can record. That acceptance dates from
the year of the publication of Darwin's Origin of
Species^ on the last page of which he ventured only
to hint that the theory of natural selection would
" throw light on the origin of man and his history."

' I*, iio, edition 182S. - 1'. 66.

5'

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

in his Descent of Man, published in 1871, he explained
that his reticence in 1859 was due to a desire " not to
add to the prejudice against his views." It is true
that Huxley, in his Evidence as to Man's Place in
Nature, published in 1863, had pushed the theory of
organic evolution to its logical issue in including man,
psychically as well as physically, in its processes. But,
as showing how high feeling ran, Huxley told me that
that book was one " that a very shrewd friend of
his implored him not to publish, as it would certainly
ruin all his prospects." i The friend was Sir William
Lawrence, to whom reference was made above.

Thus, by slow degrees, has there been acceptance
of the method applied to the study of origins
generally to the study of the origin and history
of man. No longer does he remain outside the
organic kingdom ; he is a part of the unbroken
whole of the universal order. It may be asked.
What has this recital of the history of the aban-
donment of the anthropocentric attitude, to which
many still cling, to do with Johnson and Monboddo ?
Well, it is submitted as a justification of Johnson's
attitude towards a theory which was opposed to the
then current traditions — a theory, in fact, controvert-
ing the fundamental tenets of Christianity. He
could only say of this what he said of the happiness
of the savage life : " Sir, let me have no more on't."
But that attitude should convey the lesson to keep
an open mind towards all matters, especially those

' See Huxley, Life and Letters, vol. ii. p. 344.
52

DR. JOHNSON AND LORD MONBODDO

that collide with our prejudices and contradict our
" certainties," A wise Frenchman said, " Because
science is sure of nothing, it is always advancing."

Published fifty-five years ago in an anonymous
volume entitled Songs and Ferses, Social and Scientific^
known afterwards to have been from the witty pen
of Lord Neaves, there may for some readers be novel
amusement in this tail-piece to a paper which has
dealt with caudal appendages.

THE MEMORY OF MONBODDO

'Tis strange how men and things revive.

Though laid beneath the sod, O !
I sometimes think I see alive

Our good old friend Monboddo !
His views when forth at first they came.

Appeared a htde odd, O !
But now we've notions much the same ;

We're back to old Monboddo.

The rise of Man he loved to trace

Up to the very pod, O !
And in Baboons our parent race

Was found by old Monboddo.
Their A B C he made them speak.

And learn their Qui, qu:e, quod, O I
Till Hebrew, Latin, Welsh, and Greek

They knew as well 's Monboddo.

The thought that men had once had tails

Caused many a grin full broad, O I
And why in us that feature fails.

Was asked of old Monboddo.
He showed that sitting on the rump.

While at our work we plod, O I
Would wear th' appendage to the stump

As close as in Monboddo.

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Alas ! the good lord little knew.

As this strange ground he trod, O !
That others would his path pursue.

And never name Monboddo !
Such folks should have their tails restored.

And thereon feel the rod, O !
For having thus the fame ignored

That's due to old Monboddo.

Though Darwin now proclaims the law,

And spread it far abroad, O !
The man that first the secret saw

Was honest old Monboddo.
The Architect precedence takes

Of him that bears the hod, O !
So up and at them, Land of Cakes,

We'll vindicate Monboddo.

The Scotchman who would grudge his praise,

Must be a senseless clod, O !
A Monument then let us raise,

To honour old Monboddo.
Let some great artist sketch the plan,

While Rogers ' gives the nod, O !
A Monkey changing to a man !

In memory of Monboddo.

' The Rev. promoter of the Wallace Monument, September 1861.

54

DR. JOHNSON ON LIBERTT

Paper Read to the Johnson Club,
3RD July 1918,

BY

E. S. P. HAYNES

r

Dr. Johnson on Liberty

r

I INTEND to exclude from this little paper any allu-
sion to the subject of freewill and to confine the
discussion to Dr. Johnson's views on political and
individual Liberty. Liberty has always been (like
most British ideals) a negative ideal ; but it does
stand for a certain belief in allowing every commu-
nity or individual to follow a certain sense of function
or vocation, for a belief in the virtues of spontaneity
as opposed to external control, and in the adaptability
of public and private virtues to public and private
emergencies. And this is a characteristically British
ideal on which reposes the solid fabric of the British
Empire. Its complement is the characteristically
British distaste for flatulent verbiage and catchwords.
When we profess a respect for " Liberty of Thought,"
what we really respect is thought itself, the freedom of
expressing which is entirely dependent on protection
from the freedom of a mob to suppress it.

In the recent pamphlet on Religion and Civil
Liberty Mr. Belloc maintains that there " is an

S7

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

implied injunction upon the authorities which govern
the community that they should preserve not only
its material structure but its character or soul. In
proportion as this end is perfectly attained we speak
of the community as politically free, although the re-
straints to which the members of it are put by the
common authority may be very severe," as, for in-
stance, in time of war. He argues that in normal
times individual Liberty should not be restricted
beyond the limit which is necessary to the " material
structure or character of the State."

Mr. Belloc's pamphlet is intended to show that the
recent extension of facilities for endowing anti-
Christian Societies points not so much to a zeal for
Liberty itself as to a change of religion in England.
This change also seems to involve greater restriction
by the State of liberty to publish a novel like Tom
"Jones or to drink beer. I have mentioned his defini-
tion in order to show how difficult it is to define
Liberty and the different types of enthusiasm which
the word creates in different persons.

Of course Dr. Johnson lived in an age when
the Liberty cry was associated with mob violence.
Men like Mr. Bernard Shaw attribute the loss of
Liberty in the nineteenth century to the creation by
Sir Robert Peel of an efficient police force. But
our ancestors of the eighteenth century did not at
all relish the unmitigated violence of the unrestrained
mob either under John Wilkes or Lord George Gordon.
A mob which did not like a new play would think

58

DR. JOHNSON ON LIBERTY

nothinj^ of wrcckiiijj; the theatre without any respect
for the Comfort or security of the more orderly play-
goers. A cursory acquaintance with Wilkes's bio-
graphy will make the modern reader understand the
terror of mobs which only vanished after the failure
of the Chartist riots in 1848.

Dr. Johnson fully shared this aversion from mob
violence except perhaps at a safe distance. Boswell's
account of his sympathetic attitude to negro insur-
rections is worth quoting on this point : — " After
supper I accompanied him to his apartment and at
my request he dictated to me an argument in favour
of the negro who was then claiming his liberty, in an
action in the court of Session in Scotland.

" He had always been very zealous against slavery
in every form, in which I with all deference thought
he discovered a ' zeal without knowledge.'

" Upon one occasion when in company with some
very grave men at Oxford his toast was, ' Here's
to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West
Indies.' His violent prejudice against our West
Indian and American settlers appeared whenever
there was an opportunity. Towards the conclusion
of his Taxation no Tyranny he says, ' How is it we
hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers
of negroes ? ' and in his conversation with Mr. Wilkes
he asked, ' Where did Beckford and Trecothick
learn English .? ' "

Dr. Johnson considered that all free discussion
tended to promote a breach of the peace. All strong

59

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

emotion on a subject was likely to produce incivility
and as he said to Mr. Fitzherbert : — " Sir, a man
has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to
act one ; no more right to say a rude thing to an-
other than to knock him down." In fact physical
force becomes the measure of Liberty. " In short.
Sir, I have got no further than this ; every man has
a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other
man has the right to knock him down for it. Martyr-
dom is the test."

It is impossible, as he says to Murray, to dispute
serious matters with good humour. Dr. Johnson
says to him, " Sir, they disputed with good humour
because they were not in earnest about religion.
Had the ancients been serious in their beliefs we
should not have had their gods exhibited in the manner
we find them represented in the poets. The people
would not have suffered it. They disputed with
good humour upon their fanciful theories, because
they were not interested in the truth of them : when
a man has nothing to lose he may be in a good humour
with his opponent. Accordingly you see, in Lucian,
the Epicurean who argues only negatively, keeps his
temper ; the Stoic who has something positive to
preserve, grows angry. Being angry with one who
controverts an opinion which you value is a necessary
consequence of the uneasiness you feel. Every
man who attacks my belief diminishes in some degree
my confidence in it. I am angry with him who
makes me uneasy. Those only who believed in reve-
60

DR. JOHNSON ON LIBERTY

lation have been angry at having their faith called
in question ; because they only had something upon
which they could rest as matter of fact. "

On the other hand Johnson disliked restraints
on biographers as in the following remark : " Sir,
it is of so much more consequence that truth should
be told than that individuals should be made uneasy,
that it is much better that the law does not restrain
writing freely concerning the characters of the dead."
The doctor apparently makes no allowance for the
feelings of a father when the disgrace of a dead son
is unnecessarily emphasized at the table or proclaimed
to men who might otherwise never have been aware
of the fact.

Generally speaking, however, his attitude is
accurately defined by Boswell in the following pas-
sage : " ' Political liberty is good only in so far as it
produces private liberty. Now, Sir, there is liberty
of the Press, which you know is a constant topic.
Suppose you and I and 200 more were restrained
from printing our thoughts : what then ? What
proportion would that restraint upon us bear to the
private happiness of the nation ? ' "

He develops this theme a little further in his talk
with Sir Adam Ferguson, whom he calls a " vile Whig
for suggesting that the Crown should have less power
and the people more. He professes indifference to
any form of Government. " In no government
can power be abused for long. Mankind will not
bear it. If a Sovereign oppresses his people to a great

61

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

degree they will rise to cut off his head. There is
a remedy in human nature against tyranny that will
keep us safe under every form of government. Had
not the people of France thought themselves honoured
in sharing in the brilliant actions of Louis XIV
they would not have endured him, and we may say
the same of the King of Prussia's people." The
last sentence shows how astonishingly Dr. Johnson's
opinion has been disproved by the enormously central-
ized power of the modern State in our day.

But Johnson was strongly opposed to any unreason-
able destruction of Liberty as in the case of the small
landholders who (he thought) " should not be deprived
of the privilege of assessing themselves for making
and repairing the high roads." These reservations
not unnaturally seemed absurd to Wilkes, who used
to remark : " What does he talk of Liberty ?
Liberty is as ridiculous in his mouth as Religion in
mine."

There is, of course, one respect in which Dr. Johnson
was violently opposed to modern ideas of Liberty.
He might have shaken hands as a patriarch with J. S.
Mill about negroes but never about women or their
social rights. His remarks on the subject are too
hackneyed to quote ; but his references to performing
animals and his explosive but pithy comment on Lady
Diana Spencer's escape from an unhappy marriage
are characteristic of his views. He was not (it is
true) opposed to divorce as such — ^at any rate of a
wife by a husband. He publicly censured an injured
62

DR. JOHNSON ON LIBERTY

husband who, he said, was " too sluggish to go to
Parhamcnt and get through " a divorce " which he
could presumably afford. But he thought that no
woman should have any existence apart from her
husband ; she was to ignore her husband's infidelities,
and if she emulated them, even without bringing
strange progeny into the family, then she was " very
fit for a brothel." Fornication, he thought, could
be suppressed like theft. He said that he " would
punish any sexual intercourse outside marriage much
more severely and so restrain it." This was part
of the Christian morality which nevertheless did
not restrain his admiration of parliamentary divorce,
and it was not on his part illogical ; for he would
certainly have condemned any sexual intercourse
which was designed to take place without the possi-
bility of conception ; and this is, of course, the test
of Christian teaching on this subject.

Such were the limitations of Dr. Johnson's views
on Liberty. They were characteristic because they
were sincere and practical and (for his time) humane.
He is as quick to see that Liberty of thought when
not expressed can never be restrained as that Liberty
of discussion must be restrained when it will seriously
disturb the King's peace. Many Englishmen are
to-day severely disquieted in regard to Liberty, how-
ever indifferent they were to the suppression of Liberty
before the war. And Dr. Johnson's views of Liberty
are to some extent consoling. They go to the bedrock
of the subject, and we may hope that he was right in

63

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

thinking that " there is a remedy in human nature
against tyranny," and that this may even yet prove
true of " the King of Prussia's people."

[Note. — This paper was read four months before " the King of
Prussia's people found a remedy against human tyranny." "Liberty"
is much on the lips of mankind throughout the world, and the word
is as freely abused as ever, especially across the Atlantic. It is impos-
sible to guess what the end of it all will be. Liberty is "the delicate
fruit of a mature civilization," and civilization is disappearing from
many parts of Europe. The Communist is certainly the hardest task-
master of all.

In France and Great Britain alone there remains to-day something
like a mature civilization which has survived the earthquakes of our
time ; but the world is so much knit together in these days that local
conditions are far less secure than they were even fifty years ago. The
centralized machinery of the modern State makes for order ; but under
new conditions it seems to be making for servitude. It is a pity that
Dr. Johnson cannot come back to earth and give us some of his
apophthegms on the notions of Liberty which are current to-day.]

64

DR. JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

Paper Read to the Johnson Club,
17TH October 19 17,

BV

SPENCER LEIGH HUGHES, M.P.

Dr. Johnson's Expletives

r

Samukl Johnson wrote and talked on many subjects,
and it is chiefly though not entirely with his talk
that I shall deal in this paper. By no means the
least interesting of his talk was that about himself,
as for instance when he claimed to be a good-humoured
fellow, a very polite man, and " well-bred to a degree
of needless scrupulosity." As a proof of that he
declared that he was cautious not to interrupt another,
and also that he was attentive when others spoke.
These will be recognized as valuable qualities by those
who try to take part in conversation in a group of
men, when there is nearly always one who will in-
terrupt, or if he holds his peace while you are talking
you will see at a glance that the fellow is not listening,
but is muttering to himself his next remark so as
not to forget it, and when it comes it has no reference
to anything you have said. I am not sure that
Johnson never interrupted, as when he roared down
others — even ladies — but he generally listejied, as
was shown by his apt retorts. Indeed some people

67

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

may have found that he Hstencd too keenly. But
perhaps the best revelation of his own methods is
to be found in his allusion to Jeremiah Markland,
whom he allowed to be a scholar and then added,
" but remember that he would run from the world,
and that it is not the world's business to run after
him. I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or
laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing
when he is there but sit and growl j let him come out
as I do, and bark."

Johnson did some growling, though he did more
barking, but it was not always or indeed generally
savage or defiant barking. It was often the joyous
uproar of an honest dog delighted to find himself
in the company of other dogs, and eager to join in
the give and take of the occasion. He never ran from
the world either to induce the world to run after him,
or for any other reason. What he said to James
Macpherson may be regarded as his rule of life, " I
hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what
I think a cheat by the menaces of a ruffian." It
has been said that Boswell always reported faith-
fully the Doctor's onslaughts even when they were
at Boswell's own expense. I am not sure of this.
For instance, when Boswell persisted in talking about
the fear of death, he records the fact that Johnson
" was so provoked that he said, ' Give us no more of
this,' and was thrown into such a state of agitation
that he expressed himself in a way that alarmed and
distressed me ; showed an impatience that I should

68

DR. JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

leave him, and when I was going away called to
me sternly, ' Don't let us meet to-morrow.' "

It is true that Johnson made it up the next day,
but I should really like to know just what he said
when he alarmed and distressed Boswell. That
was one occasion on which the Doctor came out
and barked with effect, for it looks as though the
language had been for once " too hot," to use a phrase,
for even Boswell to record. There may be many a
remarkably strong phrase concealed beneath those words
" showed an impatience that I should leave him."

It may be that in choosing the word "expletives "
I have misled some and caused them to suppose I
was going to say something about Johnson as a swearer.
But Johnson was not a swearer. Is it not on record
that he " was vehement against old Dr. Mounsey
of Chelsea College as a fellow who swore and talked
bawdy." Nor was this merely because Dr. Mounsey
should have known better, for when a gentleman
farmer used the phrase "damned fool" in his presence,
Johnson in his retort introduced the word " damned "
three times, with awful emphasis and frowning
looks as a reproof And when Boswell composed
some little verse on marriage containing so harmless
a phrase as " upon my soul," Johnson while praising
the lines added, " But you should not swear." Yet
it would be easy to maintain that Johnson used ex-
pletives in the original and perhaps the correct mean-
ing of that word. Expletives arc words (or may be
syllables) used rather to fill out than add to the sense.

69

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

As that eminent man Dr. Isaac Barrow says in
Sermon XV :

" The swearer will be forced to confess that his
oaths are no more than waste and insignificant words,
and that he useth them as expletive phrases to plump
his speech and fill up sentences."

Now the great man whose fame is dear to this
Club did sometimes use words in order to plump
his speech and fill up sentences, and such words are
expletives whether they are profane or not. But I
will confess that when I first selected this word I had
in mind what Hannah More called " the asperities of
our most revered and departed friend." She wanted
Boswell to " mitigate some o' them," and Boswcll
declined to clip his claws or to make a tiger a cat to
please anybody. I suppose there is no book in the
world more secure in its pride of place than Boswell's
Life of Johnson^ but as is the case with some people
who grow up to enjoy long and vigorous life, it had
serious risks in infancy. If Boswell's son could
have suppressed it he would have done so, and Hannah
More was not the only person anxious to mitigate
this, to tone down that, and to leave out something
else. What a hash they would have made of it !
Boswell was fortunate in not being compelled to
submit his work to any editor to be changed at will.
Editors should have, and I am pleased to think will
have, a hot time hereafter. You remember Charles
Lamb's outcry when Gifford of the Quarterly had
hacked and altered Lamb's essay on Wordsworth ;

70

DR. JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

" The language has been altered throughout.
Whatever inadequateness it had to its subject, it was
in point of composition the prettiest piece of prose
I ever writ. . . , Every warm expression is changed
for a nasty cold one. . . . But that would have been
little, putting his damned shoemaker phraseology
(for he was a shoemaker) instead of mine, which
has been tinctured with better authors than his ignor-
ance can comprehend — for I reckon myself a dab at
prose."

John A^orley, himself an editor of eminence, having
quoted Jeffrey of the Edinburgh as saying that he
freely struck out and occasionally wrote in when
dealing with Carlyle adds, " The notion of Jeffrey
occasionally writing elegantly into Carlyle's proof-
sheets is rather striking." Boswell was spared all
this. No doubt he consulted friends and sometimes
took their advice, but he had no autocratic ruffian
over him to maul and mutilate the book at will. So
the " asperities," as they were called, survive.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that Johnson when
talking was nearly always in an overbearing mood.
Again and again, Boswell records the fact that Johnson
was in a placid or complacent mood and that they
had much talk of an affectionate and even tender nature,
but the talk is seldom reported. The fact is such
talk is not remembered so certainly as the other sort.
If we spend some hours in listening to talk when
many benevolent things are said, and some half a
score of triumphant retorts, keen criticisms, or truly

71

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

humorous remarks are heard, we are not likely to
remember the benevolent things. Moreover in the
case of Johnson I hold that many of the things which
some people regard as asperities are nothing of the
sort. Take, for example, his condensed yet compen-
dious character sketch of Bet Flint " generally slut
and drunkard, occasionally whore and thief." If
you put the question baldly, "Is it not rather a pointed
remark to say of a woman that she is a slut, a drunkard,
a whore, and a thief ? " I suppose something may be
said for the contention. But I maintain there was
no asperity involved. It was rather of the nature of
a genial reminiscence, and the real text to apply is
this — does the little snapshot of the lady cause us to
dislike her ? Each man must answer for himself,
but so far as I am concerned I would rather have met
Bet Flint than Hannah More.

As we all know, Johnson was very quick in retort,
or as Boswell puts it, " punishment followed quick
after sentence," and in this way he floored many a
victim. But there may be less real asperity in these
sudden flows than in biding one's time, and Johnson
could do that occasionally. Thus when some
" speculatist " bored Johnson by arguing in favour
of the future life of dogs and other brutes, it is on
record that Johnson, " being offended at its continua-
tion, watched an opportunity to give the gentleman a
blow of reprehension " — and I need hardly say that
the gentleman got it before long, so that Johnson
strode to the fire and stood for some time laughing

72

DR. JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

and exulting. I like that picture of the great man,
watching an opportunity to give the gentleman a
blow of reprehension. There is something at once
grim and fascinating about it — the speculatist
prattling on about the hereafter of dogs, and the Doctor
breathing hard and preparing to pounce.

At one time I thought of drawing up a list of the
names or epithets most commonly used by Johnson
in oral controversy, and tabulating them so as to find
out which was his favourite phrase. I have not
carried this plan through, but had I done so I think
" scoundrel " would have headed the list. And in
addition to scoundrel he freely employed dog, rascal,
blockhead, liar, idiot, fool, and dunce, and no doubt
often employed them with good reason. But every
one who knows anything of Johnson knows that
while he sometimes used one or other of these words
in grim earnest, he would at other times use the same
word more or less playfully, or as Boswell records
"smiling." For instance, when at the "sorry inn"
at Montrose the waiter put a lump of sugar with his
fingers into Johnson's lemonade, the Doctor exclaimed
" Rascal," but the word as then used does not mean
so much as when " he was so much displeased with
the performances of a nobleman's French cook that
he exclaimed with vehemence, ' I'd throw such a
rascal into the river.' "

Here he was in no playful mood, and it is significant
that on the same page on which this honest out-
burst is recorded we have also his manly avowal,

n

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

" For my part I mind my belly very studiously and
very carefully." And no one can doubt that vi^hen
Johnson declared that Bolingbroke was " a scoundrel
and a cow^ard," he meant v^^hat he said. We all
remember that eventually he came to know Wilkes
and to enjoy Jack's conversation, but before that he
said of Wilkes : " I think he is safe from the law,
but he is an abusive scoundrel ; and instead of applying
to my Lord Chief Justice to punish him, I would
send half a dozen footmen and have him well ducked.'*
Here again we have the ring of honest sincerity.
So, too, when it was mentioned that Nabobs, or men
who had made money in India, came home and bought
seats in Parliament, Johnson was altogether for the
man of family against such candidates, adding, "There
is generally a scoundrelism about a low man." As for
the words " lie " and " liar," he used them with great
freedom as most of us do, but he would say that a
man lied when he was honestly mistaken, reserving
for some other offender the deeper condemnation " he
lies and he knows he lies." I like the ease with which
Johnson dismissed Hume's contention that a man
need not be more uneasy at thinking that he should
" not be " after this life than that he " had not been "
before he began to exist — " Sir," said Johnson, " if
he really thinks so he is mad ; if he does not think
so he lies." This is the old and convenient method,
not unknown in the House of Commons, of holding
that a man with whom you do not agree is either a
fool or a liar, and may conceivably be both.

74

DR. JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

One of the most curious instances of Johnson's
use of the word liar was when he said of some one
unnamed by Boswell, but supposed to be the elder
Sheridan :

" He is a good man, Sir, but he is a vain man and
a liar. He, however, only tells lies of vanity ; of
victories, for instance, in conversation which never
happened."

Here we have a recognition from the great moralist
that one may be a good man and a liar at the same
time — a recognition which some may find consolatory.
One is reminded of the tribute paid to a Welsh preacher
by his flock, " He has a great gift in prayer — but
is a terrible liar." And I may add that if all lies of
vanity, especially lies about victories in conversation
which never happened, are to be wiped off the account,
the labours of the recording angel in book-keeping
will be much reduced.

On another occasion when Goldsmith said that
some one had advised him to go and hiss a play by
Mrs. Lennox because she had attacked Shakespeare,
the following conversation took place :

Johnson. And did you not tell him he was a rascal .''
Goldsmith. No, Sir, I did not. Perhaps he might
not mean what he said.

Johnson. Nay, Sir, if he lied it is a different thing.

Colman slily said (but it is believed Dr. Johnson
did not hear him), "Then the proper expression
should have been ' Sir, if you don't lie, you're a
rascal.' "

75

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

That was neat enough, but perhaps it was weii
for Colman if Johnson did not hear it.

I have never supposed when the Doctor was told
that some one whom Sir Walter Scott supposes to
have been named Pot, an ardent admirer, said that
Irene was the finest tragedy of modern times, and
Johnson replied, "If Pot says so, Pot lies," that the
Doctor used the word in a savage sense at all. He
had a way of putting an end to all dispute, as was
shown when Boswell with much plausibility tried
to defend some lady who had, after brutal ill-treat-
ment, left her husband and attached herself to some one
else, and Johnson summed up thus :

" My dear Sir, never accustom your mind to
mingle virtue and vice. Xhe woman's a whore, and
there's an end on't."

There is an air of finality about that which defies
argument. We know, too, how Foote conquered
Johnson by mimicry, fun, and buffoonery, and so I
have never seen severe condemnation in the Doctor's
remark " Foote is quite impartial, for he tells lies
of everybody."

And when told that Foote made fools of people
at his dinner table — his own guests — ^Johnson remarked
pleasantly : " Sir, he docs not make fools of his com-
pany ; they whom he exposes are fools already ;
he only brings them into action."

I suppose that Johnson used the word " dog " as
an epithet with a greater range of meaning than any
other word. There were times when he used it,

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DR JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

especially in conjunction witii that other term of
reproach " Whig," with as grim earnestness as that
of the Psalmist himself. But there was no unkindness
in his tone when he addressed Boswell as a lazy dog,
or even as a drunken dog — and who can ever for-
get his cheery salutation to Beauclerk and Langton,
when they knocked him up at three in the morning
— " What is it you, you dogs ! I'll have a frisk
with you." To have been called a dog by Johnson
might have been a terrible experience, and it might
have been an indication of intimate friendship.

There arc some folk who know not Johnson who
will tell you that his style was verbose and involved,
but he was a great master of condensed criticism.
Take for instance his description of Chesterfield's
letters," They teach the morals of a whore and the
manners of a dancing master." Again there is the
tone of a brief summing up about his reply to some
worthy man who said Pope's Dunciad was too fine a
poem for its subject, and asked incautiously, " a
poem on what ? "

Johnson {zvit/i a disdainful look). Why, on dunces.
It was worth while being a dunce then. Ah, Sir, hadst
thou lived in those days !

There is nothing involved or obscure about that.
Quite apart from the disdainful look the meaning
must have been clear to the victim, dunce though
he may have been. I have sometimes wondered
whether this gentleman was the same as one, also
unnamed, who a little later is mentioned as arguing

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

in favour of a quack doctor's medicated baths at
Chelsea. He urged that when warm water is " im-
pregnated with salutiferous substances it may produce
great effect." Now a man who talks about water
being impregnated with salutiferous substances should
have no mercy, and Johnson seemed to recognize this,
for turning to the gentleman he said, " Well, Sir,
go and get thyself fumigated, but be sure that the
steam be directed to thy head, for that is the peccant
part."

I doubt if ever before or since it was more plainly
intimated to a man that he was a fool. I have al-
ready said that Johnson often used phrases that may
appear strong and unfriendly, and yet as used by him
they were nothing of the sort. To call a young poet
a " whelp " may seem unfriendly, but when Johnson
said of Chatterton, " It is wonderful how the whelp
has written such things," it was just after he had
declared that the young poet was " the most extra-
ordinary young man that has encountered my know-
ledge," a tribute that might well have soothed

. . . the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride,

in his pauper's grave. And so when Johnson,
visiting Plymouth, took the side of Plymouth against
the Dockyard or New Town in a water-supply
dispute and said of the inhabitants of the latter,
" Rogues, let them die of thirst — they shall not
have a drop," it was only his fun. Indeed it is on

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DR JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

record that he was "half laughing at himself for his
pretended zeal."

But even if we were to attach real and serious
meaning to everything said by Johnson which some
may regard as expletives or asperities, how mild his
controversial style appears when compared with that
of John Milton, sometimes described as " the lady
of Christ's College, Cambridge." When some one
produced an answer to Milton's views on Divorce,
Milton, having first of all described the answer as
" a jolly slander," used these phrases about the author
in his answer : " A beast, a cockbrained solicitor, a
low puddercr, a mere and arrant pettifogger, a pork
who never read any philosophy, an unbuttoned fellow,
a boar in a vineyard, a snout in pickle, an odious fool
who leaves the noisome stench of his rude slot behind,
a barbarian, the shame of all honest attorneys, an
unswilled hogshead, a tradesman of the law whose
best ware is only gibberish, a serving man and solicitor
compounded into one mongrel, a superlative fool,
an apostate scarecrow, a vagabond and ignoramus,
a beetle, a daw, a horse-fly, a nuisance, and a brazen
ass." And the list might be lengthened, for these
are only some of the phrases used by Milton, not
thrown off in the heat of talk, but published in a
pamphlet which may be found to-day in the library
of the House of Commons, and may possibly be of
service to young and aspiring orators there. Johnson
even when most aroused, when he was, as we are
told, " puffing hard with passion struggling for a vent,"

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

and when he said " we have done with civility —
we are to be as rude as we please," never rose, or sank,
to Milton's level.

No one could show calm contempt as distin-
guished from vigorous attack more effectively than
Johnson. A man might well prefer to be savagely
denounced by Johnson rather than be dismissed as
was Mr. Dudley Long : " He fills a chair. He is
a man of genteel appearance, and that is all." Prob-
ably we all know some of those genteel chair-fillers,
and his remark about an unnamed member of
Parliament might be applied to many. The member
had served on an election committee, and instead of
listening to the facts had either read the paper or
slept, excusing himself by saying that he had made
up his mind on the case.

Johnson {with indignant contempt^. If he was such a
rogue as to make up his mind on a case without hearing
it, he should not have been such a fool as to tell it.

It is to be feared that the practice of members

making up their minds on cases in advance is not

quite extinct. There is many a telling phrase to be

found in Johnson's writings as well as in his talk.

I have been reading again some of his tracts dealing

with fireworks, with epitaphs, with the bravery of

the English common soldier, with George Ill's

coronation procession, and his spirited advocacy of

semicircular arches as opposed to elliptical arches in

Blackfriars Bridge, in which he must have confounded

his opponent by beginning a reply in this way :

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DR JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

" It is the common fate of erroneous positions that
they are betrayed by defence and obscured by ex-
planation, that their authors deviate from the main
question into incidental disquisitions and raise a mist
where they should let in light." That trick of deviat-
ing from the main question into incidental disquisi-
tions and obscuring by explanation is not unknown at
present. Much is said to-day about the state of things
likely to prevail after the war. Journalists who write
on this theme will do well to ponder over this extract
from the Idler :

" Among the calamities of war may be justly num-
bered the diminution of the love of truth, by the
falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity
encourages. A peace will equally leave the warrior
and relator of wars destitute of employment ; and
I know not whether more is to he dreaded from
streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder
or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed
to lie."

I have often thought that an essay could be written
about unnamed people to whom an accidental al-
lusion in a famous book brings what I may call
anonymous immortality. Thus when Johnson was
asked if any one could equal Garrick in declaiming
the " To be, or not to be " soliloquy, he exclaimed :
" Anybody may. Jemmy there (a boy about eight
years old, who was in the room) will do it as well in
a week." Who was Jemmy ? And was he listening,
or Could he imagine that people would be reading

8i F

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

about him a hundred and fifty years later. Then,
who can forget this passage :

" A gentlewoman [he said] begged I would give her
my arm to assist her in crossing the street, which I
accordingly did ; upon which she offered me a shilling,
supposing me to be the watchman. I perceived
that she was somewhat in liquor." Who was this
somewhat tipsy gentlewoman who thus strangely
crosses the scene, and incidentally crosses the street
leaning on the arm of him who was so often de-
scribed by Boswell as " the great lexicographer,
the stately moralist, the masterly critic ? " And
now for the third unknown, who is really more
closely connected with my theme. It is on record
that when Johnson was ill in what proved to be his
deathbed, a man whom he had never met before
was employed to sit up with him. When asked
how he liked his attendant, Johnson said, " Not at all.
Sir, the fellow's an idcot ; he is as aukward as a
turnspit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy
as a dormouse."

We know nothing of this man other than this
description, except that he was paid half a crown a
night. He has, however, a strange interest for me as
showing that the brave old Doctor could speak out
right up to the end. This poor half-crown attendant
was probably the last of a long succession of men who
had been dismissed as fellows and idiots by Samuel
Johnson. And yet the last words of this rugged
old warrior of literature were a benediction. There

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DR JOHNSON'S EXPLETIVES

is nothing more striking and touching, nothing finer,
in h'terary history than the simple record of Johnson's
end. He had fought a good fight, batth'ng a long
time with deep poverty and neglect, with disease and
almost constant pain, with mental gloom and a dread
of death amounting at times to horror. But when
the end approached he faced it with calm courage,
nay with serenity. And when in the hour, almost
in the article, of death. Miss Morris, his particular
friend's daughter, came to his room craving his
blessing, we read " The Doctor turned himself in
the bed and said, ' God bless you, my dear' " — and
as Boswell adds, "These were the last words he
spoke."

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DR. JOHNSON AND IRELAND

Paper Read to the Johnson Club

BY

JOHN O'CONNOR, K.C., M.P.

Dr. Johnson and Ireland

Notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's well-known
partiality for Irishmen, and his playful preference
of the Irish Nation over the Scottish Nation, he
never visited Ireland. He journeyed to the Hebrides,
to France, and even to little Wales, but he could
not be induced by Boswell to undertake a visit to
Ireland. "It is the last place I should wish to
travel," said he. " Should you not like to see Dublin,
Sir .? " asked Boswell. " No, Sir," he replied, " Dub-
lin is only a worse capital." Boswell again asked,
" Is not the Giant's Causeway worth seeing ? "
Johnson answered, "Worth seeing, yes, but not
worth going to see."

His partiality for Irishmen may have begun with
the man of that nation whom he early met at Birming-
ham, and who taught him how to live on yd. per day,
including a penny to the waitress — a little matter
about which the Master was very particular — but,
however that may be, his association with Irishmen
was close at all times, often affectionate, always trusting
and confidential, and it may, I think, be justly

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

claimed that in return he was well loved by Irishmen
during his life, and his memory was well served by
them after his death.

By way of example I shall first mention Arthur
Murphy, of the Co. Roscommon, himself a prolific
writer of plays — original and adapted — the editor
of Fielding's Works, author of a Life of Garrick,
an actor, a barrister-at-law, and a favourite of Society.
It is evident that there was a strong mutual attach-
ment between him and Dr. Johnson, for in Murphy's
essay on the life and genius of Dr. Johnson, he tells
us " he enjoyed the conversation and friendship of
that excellent man more than thirty years. He
thought it an honour to be so connected, and reflected
on his loss with regret," and it would appear that the
sentiment was returned by the Doctor, for the Rev.
Dr. Maxwell, of Falkland, Ireland, whose collectanea
is incorporated into the Life by Boswell, says : "Speak-
ing of Arthur Murphy whom he (Dr. Johnson)
very much loved [said he] I don't know that Arthur
can be classed with the very first dramatic writers ;
yet at present I doubt much whether we have any-
thing superior to Arthur " ; and Mrs. Piozzi relates
how the Doctor took a tragedy of Murphy's and laid
it about the rooms, because he loved the author.
This affectionate relationship did not end with the
Master's death, but as the brethren know, was per-
petuated in twelve volumes of his works, edited by
Murphy and prefaced by the admirable essay to
which I have referred.

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DR. JOHNSON AND IRELAND

Edmund Malonc, who was a Co. Westnieath
man (although born in Dublin), was one of Dr.
Johnson's intimate friends. Himself a man of
respectable talents, devoted to literary pursuits, with
means and leisure to indulge his tastes, he soon found
an introduction to Dr. Johnson. Malonc rapidly
gained admission to literary and political society.
He gave and received hospitality. Visited Burke
at Bcaconsfield and Johnson at Bolt Court, and of
course joined the Literary Club. Boswell, with
whom he became cordially intimate, dedicated to
Malonc his " Tour to the Hebrides^ to let the world
know that I enjoy and honour the happiness of
your friendship." During Dr. Johnson's life (1780)
Malone published two substantial volumes supple-
mentary to the Doctor's edition of Shakespeare.
But close as the connection between the two men
was during their lives, it was after the death of Dr.
Johnson that Malone did his name and fame the
greatest service. He helped Boswell with his first
edition of the Life^ and revised it with such skill
that Boswell wrote : " I cannot sufficiently acknow-
ledge my obligations to my friend, Mr. Malone, who
was so good as to allow me to read to h^m almost the
whole of my manuscript, and made such remarks as
were greatly to the advantage of the work." He also
edited, with notes, the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th editions
of this, the greatest biography that was ever written.
Malone brought not only literary accomplishments
of a high order to the task, but an intimate knowledge

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

and a complete appreciation of the subject. In
transmitting Henry Flood's sepulchral lines on
Dr. Johnson, he wrote to Boswell : " Had he [Flood]
undertaken to write an appropriate and discrimina-
tive epitaph for that excellent and extraordinary man . . .
he would have produced one worthy of his illus-
trious subject." The lines being by a most dis-
tinguished Irish Statesman, patriot and orator, it
will be appropriate to quote them : —

No need of Latin or of Greek to grace

Our Johnson's memory or inscribe his grave ;

His native language claims this mournful space.
To pay the immortality he gave.

" His benevolence was unquestionable, and his
countenance bore every trace of it. He was a very
plain man, but had he been much more so, it was
impossible not to love his goodness of heart, which
broke out on every occasion. Nobody who knew
him intimately could avoid admiring and loving
his good qualities."

So wrote the " Jessamy Bride " of Oliver Gold-
smith, and if his qualities were so apparent, it is not
likely they would escape the observation of Dr.
Johnson. There is no need in this company to
dwell upon his affection for Goldsmith, nor upon
the pathetic sale of the Traveller and the ykar of
Wakefield^ which latter transaction not only freed
the author from debt, but saved him from the alterna-
tive of marrying his far from alluring creditor. Dr.
Johnson expressed himself in regard to Goldsmith's

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DR. JOHNSON AND IRELAND

shortcomings with freedom and said : " He talked
always at random. It seemed to be his intention to
blurt out whatever was in his mind, and see what
would become of it. He was angry, too, when catched
in an absurdity, but it did not prevent him from falling
into another the next minute. They had at least
one quarrel. ' Sir,' said Goldsmith, ' the gentleman
has heard you patiently for an hour, pray allow us
now to hear him.' Johnson (sternly). ' Sir, I
was not interrupting the gentleman, I was only
giving him a signal of my attention. Sir, you are
impertinent.' " But it was a lovers' quarrel soon to
be made up. That very evening at " The Club,"
in presence of Burke, Garrick, and others, " I'll
make Goldsmith forgive me," said Johnson, and
in a loud voice called out, " Dr. Goldsmith, some-
thing passed to-day where you and I dined, I ask
your pardon." Goldsmith answered, "It must be
much from you. Sir, that I take ill," and the little
breeze blew over, and Boswell assures us they were
on as easy terms as ever, and Goldsmith rattled away
as usual. This little incident will best serve to show
the terms of affection on which these two typical
men of their respective nationalities stood. Johnson
was full and complete in his appreciation of Gold-
smith's abilities. He denied him the possession of
much knowledge, but recognized his genius. Of
the Traveller he wrote in the Critical Review, that
" Since the death of Pope it will not be easy to find
anything equal." Of the Ficar of Wakefield he

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

had not much hope, but defended She Stoops to
Conquer against Horace Walpole's attacks, saying
" he knew of no comedy for many years that has so
much exhilarated an audience, that has answered so
much the great end of comedy, making an audience
merry," and so on to the end the strong EngHshman
was the staunch friend of the awkward little Irish
doctor, whose faults he condoned during Hfe and
whose virtues he celebrated at death by the death-
less epitaph in Westminster Abbey of the one

who left scarcely any kind of writing untouched
and nothing that he touched did he not adorn.

Different indeed was Johnson's association with
Burke. Here the great talker met his match, and
for once came into friendly intercourse with one
who was his rival, and perhaps his victor, in ency-
clopaedic knowledge and power of expression. Like
many intimacies of those days, that of Burke with
the Master began at dinner. On Christmas Day,
1758, they met for the first time at Garrick's table,
and Arthur Murphy, who was present, was surprised
to find the lexicographer submit to contradiction from
Burke, a man twenty years younger than himself,
which Mruphy says, " he was not in the habit of
tolerating from others, no matter how distinguished."
The fact is, Burke, by sheer force of character, and
by the possession of that quality which the Master
recognized as most commanding — namely knowledge
— compelled Johnson to admit his transcendent

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DR. JOHNSON AND IRELAND

abilities, his full information on almost all subjects,
and his wonderful power of enforcing his views.
The Master denied the possession of much informa-
tion to Swift ; for Goldsmith's he had contempt,
but he stood in awe before Burke's well-stored intel-
lect, and consequently suffered himself to be contra-
dicted by his newly found young acquaintance.
He could live with Burke ; he said, "I love his know-
ledge." Talking about Burke with some friends
in the Hebrides, he said as to Burke's particular
excellence as regarded his eloquence that, " He had
copiousness and fertility of allusion, a power of
diversifying his matter by placing it in various relations.
Burke has great information, and great command
of language, though, in my opinion, it has not in
every respect the highest elegance." " He has great
knowledge, great fluency of words, and great prompt-
ness of ideas, so that he can speak with great illustration
on any subject that comes before him." A frequent
question to Arthur Murphy was, " Are you not
proud of your fellow-countryman ? Cum talis
sit utinam noster esset." A superb talker himself,
he observed with admiration what he styled " Burke's
affluence of conversation." Again, " Burke is an
extraordinary man — his stream of mind is perpetual,"
and once when he was ill : " That fellow calls forth
all my powers. Were I to see Burke now it would
kill me." Such was his notion of him as an opponent
in conversation. In return I am pleased to say that
Burke held Johnson in the highest esteem, and when

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

the pension to the Doctor was opposed by the party
to which Burke belonged, on the ground of Johnson's
poHtical principles, Burke warmly defended his
friend, claiming that the pension had been granted
on account of his eminent literary merit.

For some Irishmen Johnson had not the same kindly
feelings. With Dictionary Sheridan he quarrelled,
and for Swift he entertained a hatred. It may be he
was influenced by the failure on the part of Earl
Gower to move Swift through a friend to procure
for Johnson an M.A. degree from the University
of Dublin, when Johnson was a young man and
looking for a mastership to secure which that degree
was necessary. If it were so. Swift was wronged
by Johnson. The former had no influence with the
authorities of Trinity College. He was then and
at all times on the very worst terms possible with them.
The Irish Parliament was an adjunct of the College,
and of them as the " Legion Club " he wrote : —

Half a bow-shot from the College,

Half the globe from sense and knowledge.

The effort failed. There is no evidence that the
University of Dublin was ever asked, or that Swift
was ever approached on the matter, and no blame can
be attributed to the University or to Swift on that
account.

And this brings me to an event which gives pleasure
to all good Johnsonians and pride to every Irish
scholar, and that is the conferring on the learned and

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DR. JOHNSON AND IRELAND

distinguished author the degree of LL.D, Twenty-
six years after Dublin had been requested for a humbler
degree, and ten years before Oxford followed its
example, Trinity College, Dublin, did itself the high
honour of recognizing the abilities and the work of
Dr. Johnson by spontaneously bestowing upon him
its greatest academical gift of Doctor of Laws. There
has been some controversy as to his appreciation of
the honour, but it is well known that he wrote a
grateful letter of thanks on the occasion ; that Boswell
says before he received the Oxford degree he had some
difficulty in bringing himself to call him Doctor, and
in Boswell's Hebrides he is commonly styled Doctor.
We may well believe, therefore, that the Master was
too just a man not to duly appreciate an honour
from a college and University in the diploma of
which the sacred words Regina Elizabeths were
mentioned.

In Irish learning Johnson took a deep interest,
and once when Dr. T. Campbell (who came from
Ireland specially to see him) ventured to say that
the first Professors of Oxford, Paris, etc., were Irish,
" Sir," said he in reply, " I believe there is something
in what you say, and I am content with it since they
are not Scotch." It is most interesting now to
recall Dr. Johnson's view of Irish literature and
language at a time of revival of both. Up to very
recently a gradual decay of Irish learning and language
had been going on for a considerable time. In 1757
the Master wrote to one Charles O'Connor, author

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

of a dissertation on the history of Ireland, soliciting
him to prosecute his design, and stating that Sir
William Temple complained that the ancient state of
Ireland was less known than that of any other country,
and added : " I have long wished that the Irish
literature were cultivated. Ireland is known by
tradition to have been once the seat of piety and
learning, and surely it would be very acceptable to
all those who are curious on the origin of nations
or the affinities of languages to be further informed
of the revolution of a people so ancient and once so
illustrious. I hope that you will continue to cultivate
this kind of learning, which has too long been neg-
lected and which, if it be suffered to remain in oblivion
for another century, may perhaps never be retrieved."
Well, the century and another half one had passed
away by 1907, when the prediction had almost come
true, the Irish literature had gone, and the Irish
language was fast fading away. It lingered in the hills
and by the sea coast. There its euphonious allitera-
tive sound still mingled with mountain airs and sad
sea breezes, but it seemed doomed. Still men (and
women too) were thinking in Ireland as Dr. Johnson
thought, and they determined that the language and
literature and all other essential characteristics of the
Gael should not die, but should be retrieved, and
they have been successful to a considerable extent.
I once endeavoured to express in the House of Commons
the condition to which the language had been reduced.
I hope the brethren will pardon my quoting from a
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DR. JOHNSON AND IRELAND

speech of my own : — " He had seen the language
extinguished in two generations. He had known
the older people to hold their conversation in it,
to pray and to sing in it. He had seen their children,
who understood but little of it and who never used
it, and he had known the grandchildren whose ears
were familiar with the soft sounds of the mother
tongue, but whose minds were ignorant of the meaning
of its words. In that way he had seen it recede
from the centre to tiie sea, until one got possessed
of the sad feeling that the day was not far distant
when the last sound of the Irish language would be
lost in the moan of the melancholy ocean."

But relief was at hand. My words were addressed
to a sympathetic soul, and before the day was out an
aimouncement was made by the Chief Secretary to
the Lord Lieutenant — our brother Birrell — that he
had secured from the Treasury ^^40,000 a year for
three years for the building and repairing of schools,
and ;^i 3,000 per year for all time for the teaching
of Irish in the schools and elsewhere. The ancient
tongue, already arrested in its decay, was sent forward
with a bound, and it is once again the vehicle of the
thoughts of those whom the A-Iaster described as
" a people so ancient and once so illustrious." Our
brother Birrell has more than once since held up
the " Treasury " and has compelled them with his
strong hand and iron will to disgorge out of its rapacious
maw large sums for education in Ireland, until every
Institute of learning from top to bottom — from the

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National University of his own creation to the hum-
blest village school — feels the impulse of his generous
and sympathetic devotion.

That Johnson should, as a " clubable " man, have
shown a partiality for Irishmen, could be understood,
as he believed they mixed with the English better
than the Scotch do, their language being nearer to
the English. That he should, as a philologist, yearn
for the preservation of an ancient learning could be
well appreciated, but that he should denounce the
government of Ireland as wicked and indefensible is,
at first sight, not so easily grasped. To those who
try to understand Dr. Johnson's mind it is clear that
he was a just man, believing in just administration
rather than in perfect legislation, and they will not
wonder at his celebrated declaration : —

" Sir, the Irish are a most unnatural State, for
we see there the minority prevailing over the majority.
There is no instance even in the ten persecutions
as that which the Protestants of Ireland have exercised
against the Catholics. Did we tell them we had
conquered them it would be above board to punish
them by confiscation and other penalties as rebels
was monstrous injustice." The Rev. Dr. Maxwell
relates that, to a gentleman who hinted such mea-
sures as the penal laws might be necessary to support
English Government, he said : " Let the authority
of the English Government perish rather than be
maintained by iniquity." His often quoted state-
ment to another Irish gentleman, when a Union was

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DR. JOHNSON AND IRELAND

talked of : " Do not unite with us. Wc should
unite with you only to rob you. Wc should have
robbed the Scotch if they had had anything of which
wc could have robbed them," shows his prescience
and soundness as a political thinker, and his wisdom
was thoroughly appreciated by his contemporaries,
far and near. His acquaintance was sought by
persons of the greatest eminence in literature and
politics. It is, therefore, gratifying to find that
one so distinguished gave his ungrudging sympathy
to Ireland in her distress, and kept close to him in
affectionate relationship the talented Irishmen whom
he met. He was an honest and just man who did
not allow petty things to warp his judgment, the
foibles, envies and vanities of the persons he met
did not affect his estimate of their merits. In a
firmament made brilliant by the brightest stars, this
keen observer had his eyes fixed on those of the first
magnitude, and he had a full appreciation of their
glory, and allowed no clouds of jealousy or prejudice
to obscure his vision. For the kind regards lie turned
towards them, the people of old Ireland preserve his
memory in the warmest corner of their hearts.

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JOHNSON'S DICTIONART

Paper Read to the Johnson Club,
13TH December 1913,

BV

GEORGE RADFORD, M.P.

r

Johnson's Dictionary

It is, as the lawyers say, a conclusive and irrefutable
presumption that every member of the Johnson
Club is acquainted with all the Johnsonian works
that have been edited by our Brother and immortal
Prior, Birkbeck Hill. Our late Brother (on whom be
peace !) gleaned so closely in his chosen field that very
little has been left to gather by the writers who have
followed him. That member, therefore, of the
Johnson Club who dares to invite his Brethren to
listen to a dissertation on a familiar subject cannot
hope to allure them with the glitter of novelty. Nor
can he, perhaps, who chooses Johnson's Dictionary
as his theme expect to bestow on his pages that adorn-
ment which arises from dignity of subject or beauty
of diction. All that is left to him is to marshal scat-
tered facts and incidents, it may be imperfectly
remembered, in such a way as to give them a sem-
blance of novelty from their orderly presentment
and a momentary interest from their historical con-
catenation. These preliminary observations are

103

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

designed to mitigate the disappointment of partial
friendship and to blunt the barbs of critical malignity.

It was in the year 1747 that the Plan for a Dictionary
of the English language was issued by the booksellers
addressed to Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chester-
field. Johnson was thirty-eight years of age, and had
been ten years in London, and sitting in his lodgings
in Holborn he did not flatter himself that he had tra-
velled far on the road to fame or fortune. He had
published his translation of Father Lobo's Jbyssinia,
written various articles for the Gentleman's Magazine^
and composed for the same receptacle the Debates
of the Senate of Lilliput. He had also published
sketchy lives of Sir Francis Drake and several others,
and a much more ample life of Richard Savage. In
verse he had written London^ for which he received
;^io I OS. and the praises of Alexander Pope, and also
written Irene^ but had not found a lessee with the
courage to produce it on the stage.

Johnson's friends were few, and most of them were
the booksellers from whom he earned his daily bread.
I am not surprised that those who knew him best
had most confidence in him, though it is perhaps
remarkable that five substantial firms, Robert Dodslcy,
Charles Hitch, Andrew Millar, Longmans, and
Knaptons should have been ready to risk their
money in pubHshing a great English Dictionary
dependent for its success on the capacity, learning,
and industry of the tlicn unaccredited hero, Samuel
104

JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

Johnson, The Plan indicated the magnitude of the
work proposed. Johnson was not only to marshal
the whole language and to reject all words that were
for any reason unworthy, but he was to supply all
that a reasonable reader might require for the words
admitted. The orthography, pronunciation, and
accent were to be settled by Johnson's authority.
He was also to give the true etymologies and the
interpretations. Finally he was to quote passages
from the best authors, showing the sense in which
words were used by them.

The contract was dated (according to Sir John
Hawkins)! the i8th June 1746, and the sum involved
was considerable. Johnson was to receive /^i,575,
William Strahan's bill for printing is extant and amounts
to ;{^i,239 lis. 6d. The binding of those two great
folio volumes in calf cost something, and there were
doubtless other expenses. The time to be occupied
in the work was to be three years', and though the
time actually occupied was seven years, these provident
booksellers were necessarily paying out money con-
tinually without return until the date of publication.
Johnson was not unprepared for such a work, and
had long had it in contemplation. His reading
of English literature had begun in his fiither's book-
shop at Lichfield, and had been miscellaneous and
incessant. Years before 1747, Robert Dodsley
had unsuccessfully proposed to him the compiling
oi a dictionary, and he had thought of it long before

' T»e Sroiy of a Priming floiisc. 2111I <• litiDii, 1912.
105

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

that. Indeed it would seem that he had discussed
the project with Pope, who died in 1744, for the
Plan states that Pope had approved the list of authori-
ties to be quoted, and was not unwilling that the
work should be undertaken by Johnson. Ways and
means having been provided, Johnson set vigorously
to work, and employed a team of six amanuenses,
one of whom, Peyton, was an Englishman and the
remaining five were Scotsmen, the two Macbeans,
Shiels, Stewart, and Maitland.

We do not know exactly when Johnson moved
from Holborn to 17 Gough Square, Fleet Street,
now happily owned by our Brother Cecil Harms-
worth, but it was in this house that most, if not all,
the work was done. A dated letter proves that
Johnson was there on the 12th July 1749, and he
remained there during the whole period of the pro-
duction of the Dictionary.

William Strahan's dwelling-house and printing
press were close by at 10 Little New Street, and thither
the copy went daily, or with as much regularity as
Johnson could command.

We learn something from Johnson's contempo-
raries as to the manner in which the work was done.
Johnson selected the words, and used to fortify his
memory the dictionaries of Bailey, Ainsworth, and
Phillips, read a vast number of approved works,
pencil in hand, and underlined the passages he meant
to quote in the dictionary and marked in the margin
the initial letter of the word to be illustrated by the
106

JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

quotation. The books used in this manner were
Johnson's own books (a large, but according to Sir
John Hawkins, a ragged collection) and any others
that he could borrow. The books so marked were
handed to the six amanuenses, who sat in the large
upper room at 1 7 Gough Square, fitted up as a count-
ing house, and copied the word and the marked passages
on to separate slips. Later Johnson dictated to the
scribes the etymology of the word (mostly in case of
what he calls the " Teutonick " roots from Junius
or Skinner) and the definitions or interpretations,
which were then written on to the slips between the
words and the quotations, and the slips were then
arranged in lexicographical order. This is the
mechanism of dictionary making as practised by
Johnson, and so the work went on week after week
and month after month.

Went on, but not without cares and sorrows and
not perhaps without inevitable interruptions. Pecuni-
ary anxiety was not absent when it became apparent
that the stipulated period of three years would be
largely exceeded, and Johnson had occasion to practise
that computation which he so strongly recommended
to others. You are to consider that ;^ 1,57 5, though
a considerable sum, appears to dwindle when seven
persons, the lexicographer and six amanuenses, have
to live on it. When £ijS75 ^^ ^^500 guineas
is divided by seven the quotient is ;^225, and when
the ;^225 be spread over seven years (as in fact it had
to be) you find that the seven workers had on an
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

average rather less than ;^33 per head per annum.
Johnson deserved, and no doubt had, the Hon's share
of the booksellers' bounty, but wages cannot fall
below the point of subsistence, and even the lion in
partnership must keep his partners alive. In such
circumstance even the lion's share must be a slender
one. Johnson wrote to Strahan : " I pay three and
twenty shillings a week to my assistants," and urging
him for more money, saying, " The point is to get two
guineas." It would seem that at the date of this
letter Johnson was contented to get nineteen shillings
a week for himself. The money was necessarily
advanced from time to time to keep Johnson and his
team alive during the period of production, and
William Strahan the printer was the booksellers'
paymaster. There was the usual quarrel between
Johnson and the printer caused by delay in delivery
of copy, and relations were severely strained. It
appears from a letter from Johnson to Strahan dated
1st November 1751, that the booksellers, "the
Gentlemen Partners " as Johnson calls them, threatened
to stop supplies, and that Johnson, unmoved by the
threat of a blockade, threatened retaliation.

He uses the language of a sovereign potentate
contemplating warfare : " Be pleased to lay this my
determination before them (i.e. the gentlemen partners)
this morning, for I shall think of taking my measures
accordingly to-morrow evening, only this that I mean
no harm, but that my citadel shall not be taken by
storm while I can defend it, and that if a blockade
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JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

is intended the country is under the command of my
batteries, I shall think of laying it under contribution
to-morrow evening."

It is difficult to infer from this figurative language
what precise measures Johnson contemplated, but
he was clearly in a strong position. The first volume
was hardly completed, and the gentlemen partners
would have been landed in perhaps inextricable
difficulty by the strike of their only employe. In
these circumstances the dispute was somehow settled,
probably on Johnson's terms, and Strahan appears
to have behaved with good temper as well as prudence.
A modus Vivendi was arrived at for the future,
pursuant to which the author was to receive a guinea
for every sheet of MS. delivered. I need not remind
the Brethren that each sheet comprised four pages of
the great folio.

Johnson wrote to Strahan that if he would promise
to print a sheet a day he, Johnson, would promise to
endeavour that Strahan should have every day a sheet
to print. This was probably more than could be
performed on Johnson's, or perhaps on either side.
But Johnson did not complain of the gentlemen
partners. When Boswell once said to him, " I am
sorry, Sir, that you did not get more for your Dic-
tionary," his answer was : " I am sorry too. But
it was very well. The booksellers were generous,
liberal-minded men."

The Dictionary was not Johnson's only work during
these years. He published the f^anity of Human
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

IVishes in 1749, and got Irene acted by Garrick
in the same year. In 1750—51 and 52 he was
pubh'shing the Rambler and writing nearly all of it.
In 1753 he wrote for the Adventurer and in
1754 published the Life of Cave in the Gentleman'' s
Magazine.

The Preface, the History of the English Language,
and the Grammar were not written till after the
main work was finished, and then it became
necessary to consider what was at that date a more
important matter than it now is, viz. the Dedication.
When the Plan was issued it was intended to dedicate
the work to Lord Chesterfield, and the booksellers
would have been glad if the original intention had
been carried out. They would have approved a
dedication to his Lordship or any other great man
whose approbation might have favourably affected the
sale. The booksellers had to acquiesce in Johnson's
decision not to dedicate the Dictionary to Lord
Chesterfield, and to dispense with a dedication alto-
gether. It was in these circumstances that Johnson
wrote the letter to Lord Chesterfield that soon
became the talk of the town, though it was not
published till thirty-five years afterwards, when
Boswell published it with notes, in anticipation of
his Life.

I will not here discuss the question of the rights
and duties of author and patron, but content myself
with reading the letter, like the Bible in certain Board-
Schools, without note or comment :
no

JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

To the Right Honourable the Earl of Chesterfield. '

February 7, 1755.
My Lord,

I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of
the World, that two papers in which my Dictionary is
recommended to the publick were written by your Lord-
ship. To be so distinguished, is an honour, which, being
little accustomed to favours from the great, I know not
well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited
your Lordship, I was overpow^ered, like the rest of mankind,
by the enchantment of your address ; and could not forbear
to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur
de la terre ; that I might obtain that regard for which I
saw the world contending, but I found my attendance so
little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would
suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your
Lordship in publick, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing
which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had
done all that I could ; and no man is well pleased to have
his all neglected, be it ever so little.

Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in
your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door ;
during which time I have been pushing on my work through
difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have
brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without
one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one
smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for
I never had a patron before.

The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with
Love, and found him a native of the rocks. Is not a patron,
my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling
for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground,
encumbers him with help ^ The notice which you have
been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had
been kind ; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent,
and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary and cannot impart

' Published by Boswell in 1799, with Notes, 4to, 10s. 6il.
Ill

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

it ; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no
very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no
benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Pub-
lick should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which
Providence has enabled me to do for myself. Having
carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any
favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I
should conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have
been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I
once boasted myself with so much exultation,

My Lord,

Your Lordship's most humble.

Most obedient servant,

Sam. Johnson.

The long-delayed work was published on the 15th
April 1755, in two volumes folio, and the full title
was : " A Dictionary of the English Language in
which the words are deduced from their originals
and illustrated in their different significations by
examples from the best writers. To which are
prefixed a history of the language and an English
Grammar. By Samuel Johnson." The price was
^4 I OS., and if a purchaser complained, the honest
bookseller could truthfully answer : " Sir, those
fine volumes stand 17 inches high, and weigh not
less than 27 lbs."

The edition was of 2,000 copies, and the sale was
satisfactory. To Johnson this was of no pecuniary
importance as he had been paid his agreed price (and
according to Hawkins ;^I00 more) before publication.
It was gratifying to the gentlemen partners who had
' eked Johnson and waited more or less patiently for
112

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JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

the return of their outlay. They had reason to be
glad. There was a second edition in the same year,
and a third in 1765, a forth revised by Johnson in
1773,1 all in folio, and a fifth before his death. What
was perhaps equally lucrative to them was the Abridge-
ment in two volumes 8vo, of which Strahan had
printed an edition of 5,000 in December 1755 and
which was advertised in the Gentleman's Maga-ztne
for January 1756. There were certainly six,
perhaps seven, editions of the Abridgement in Johnson's
lifetime. This was the book which Johnson found
in Lord Scarsdale's dressing-room at Keddlestone
in 1777, when he said to Boswell : " Quae regio in
terris nostri non plena laboris ? " Let me say (paren-
thetically) that I treasure a pirated American edition
of Obiter Dicta^ 1 885, which contains the same
quotation from Virgil in the hand-writing of our
Brother Birrell.

Long after (in 1779) when Boswell once said to
Johnson in reference to the Dictionary, " You did
not know what you were undertaking," Johnson
replied : " Yes, Sir, I knew very well what I was
undertaking — and very well how to do it — and have
done it very well."

This appreciation by Johnson of his own work
is just as well as generous. It was generally shared
by his contemporaries including George III, and has
been accepted by posterity. Of course there have
been critics and fault-finders, Macaulay says that

■ B.M. Catalogue of Printed Books.

113 H

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Johnson was " a wretched etymologist." This
statement, like some others of the same author, would
be more true, though perhaps less effective, if it were
qualified. With regard to the words derived directly
or indirectly from the classical languages (and they
are by far the larger number) he was not a wretched
etymologist. On the contrary, he was, to put his
claims modestly, competent, and few men of his
day were better. With regard to what he called the
Teutonick words he made no pretensions to knowledge
or originality, but accepted the precept Experto crede,
and relied on the authority of Skinner or Junius.
He says very frankly in his preface : " The etymology
which I adopt is uncertain, and perhaps frequently
erroneous." It is, by the way, a saddening reflection
on the vanity of human industry that we find again
and again in the New English Dictionary after Sir
James Murray's forty years of labour, at the head
of countless philologists and searchers after truth, the
dismal words "etymology uncertain" and "deriva-
tion unknown."

The principal merit of the work perhaps lies in
the definitions. " Words," says Johnson, " are the
signs of ideas," and he pondered over the ideas in
order to define the words. We may, I think, adopt
Boswell's opinion : " The definitions have always
appeared to me such astonishing proofs of acuteness
of intellect and precision of language as to indicate
a genius of the highest order."

To define an ordinary word of abstract significance
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JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

requires thought, and brings into play the memory,
as well as the faculty which bodies forth the forms of
things, and that other faculty which detects similarities
and resemblances. The same word has many senses
which have to be distinguished as well as defined.
In the slow routine of the alphabet you encounter
words which are identical, or similar, or otherwise
related to words already defined. You are thus
necessarily brought to reconsider your first definition,
and very likely to correct and recast it. Who knows
how much of the £iT,2 lis. paid by the booksellei^^
to Strahan for " alterations and additions " was due
to this recasting by Johnson of his first definitions
in the light of later ones. It is true that he sometimes
failed to carry out this process. The definition of
cockloft as the room over the garret " remains appa-
rently inconsistent with the later definition of garret
as 'a room on the highest floor.'" But I believe
there are very few of such cases to be alleged,
and Boswell's admiration for the definition is well-
found. But like Macaulay's observation it requires
to be qualified. His definitions are sometimes
inadequate, as, e.g. when he defines groundsel as
" a plant." But let us remember that when he
was asked in a garden in Devonshire whether he
was a botanist, he replied : " No, Sir, I am not a
botanist ; and " (alluding no doubt to his near-
sightedness) "should I wish to become a botanist,
I must first turn myself into a reptile."

If Johnson did not make much money out of the

115

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Dictionary, and was a poor man after it was published,
he certainly increased his reputation and consequently
his personal influence and his earning power. When
in 1762 he received his pension from the Crown of
;^300 a year on the recommendation of Lord Bute
it was as a reward for literary merit, and not for
services rendered to the Government. It may well
be questioned whether but for the Dictionary his
literary merit would have been so well known as to
be thus rewarded. The Dictionary probably brought
to its author, in one way and another, a great deal
more money than the booksellers paid him.

Apart from the pecuniary return the sustained
labours of the lexicographer had profound effects
on his style and on his mind.

The effect on his style was not altogether happy.
He was daily recording, defining, and deducing from
their originals legions of words, necessarily unusual,
for words are many though the vocabulary of the
typical Englishman is extremely small. Since he
was thus flush of energetic and unusual words (as
Boswell calls them) it seemed a pity to waste them,
and he poured them twice a week into the Rambler^
which came out every Tuesday and Saturday for
two whole years of the time during which Johnson
was at work as a practising lexicographer. This
profusion cannot altogether be justified. It is the
business of a lexicographer to know all words ; it is
that of a man of letters to select the best. Archibald
Campbell, who made a voyage to Florida with no
116

JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

literature on board except the Ramblers^ was driven
to fury by Johnson's style, and pubh'shcd a book in
March 1767 under the title of Lexiphanes (an imita-
tion of Lucian), in which he denounces Johnson as
one who spoils the language and corrupts the taste
of a rich and famous people — and so forth — and
charges him with being mighty fond of long-tailed,
wormlike words, which he had imported from the
Greek and Latin, finding an insufficient stock of
them in our own language. There is something
in Campbell's criticism of Johnson's language (as
distinguished from his style, with which I am
not now concerned), and he has attained a sort
of tenuous immortality by his attack on Johnson.
But the attack was exaggerated, and the effect on
Johnson's style was temporary. By the time he wrote
the lives of the poets he had recovered from the
mechanical effects of dictionary making : his vocabulary
was then copious and adequate for any undertaking,
but was not overburdened with classical terminology.
There was another trivial effect which Johnson
himself confesses to Mrs. Thralc, to whom he wrote
impromptu verses on her thirty-fifth birthday (1776)
and afterwards pointed out to her that all the rhymes
were in alphabetical order, beinning with " Oft in
danger yet alive " and ending with " Those who
wisely wish to wive^ Must look at Thrale at thirty-
five." This is a trifle and might be compared with
equally characteristic trifles produced by the routine
of other professions.

117

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

How far did Johnson succeed in his attempt " to
fix the English language " and " to preserve the purity
and ascertain the meaning of our English idiom ? "
With regard to orthography his success was, if not
complete, very considerable, and he may be said to
have been the principal influence in standardizing
spelling.

With regard to pronunciation, his effect has been
much smaller. It was imperfectly understood by
Johnson that the spoken language is the substance
of which the written is only the shadow, and that
the living spoken language cannot and ought not to
be fixed, but changes according to laws which were
unknown to him. Phonetic debilitation is in constant
progress, and it will be a short time (geologically
speaking) before the spoken word and the written
word will be so dissimilar as only to be connected by
the research of diligent students.

The stress-accent on words changes by the same natural
laws, and the endeavour to fix them was futile. Balcony
has become balcony, melancholy has become melancholy,
revenue has become revenue, decorous has become decorous,
and illustrate has become illustrate, notwithstanding John-
son's decree to accentuate the penultimate. So commend-
able has become c6mmendable, contemplate has become
contemplate, chastisement has become chastisement, and
the stress-accent on other words is always receding.

But Johnson was attempting to fix not only the

spelling, pronunciation, and stress-accent of words.

He actually intended to fix also the meaning. This

was perhaps the most futile of his efforts. It is the

u8

JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

world, all complaints of which Johnson says are
unjust, that determines and from time to time alters
the signification of the language it uses, and meaning
changes as well as sound. A striking example of
such change, and of Johnson's failure to arrest it, is
found in the word ascertain in the passage already
quoted. Johnson defines ascertain, as to make certain;
to fix ; to establish ; to make confident ; to take
away any doubt. And when he spoke in his preface
of ascertaining the meaning of our English idiom as
his chief intent, he certainly meant to establish, and
then to fix the meaning. It was in this sense that
the word was used by Dean Swift in 17 12 in his
proposal for correcting, improving, and ascertaining
the English Tongue ; but, we do not now use the
word, and have not for half a century used it, in this
sense. The New Oxford Dictionary, after defining
several senses in which the word has been used, gives
this definition : " To find out for a certainty by ex-
periment, examination, or investigation"; and adds
that this is the only current use of the word ascertain.

Returning to Johnson, the Dictionary compelled
him (indolent as he said he was) to go through a very
large and varied course of careful reading. If any
Brother doubts this let him read the authorities on
a single page of the folio taken anywhere at random.
Johnson confesses that he first read Bacon for the
purpose of the Dictionary.

Accepting Johnson's definition that a lexicographer
is a harmless drudge who busies himself in tracing
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

the original and detailing the significance of words,
a mind admittedly vigorous, trained for seven years
in this process of research and ratiocination, emerged
well stored with all the knowledge extant in our
language, and ready in all forms and arts of expression.

The man who met Johnson in conversation or
controversy found an intellect here not idle or out
of condition, but trained by the process of meditating
over the meaning of words and giving to it accurate
and unambiguous expression.

This it was that made Johnson supreme in con-
versation and invincible in argument. There were
men in the eighteeneth century who excelled Johnson
in mental vigour or in scholarship; there were, perhaps,
men equal to him in general knowledge, perhaps in
verbal memory, it may be in imagination or in humour;
but there was no man possessing one or combining
several of these gifts who had given several years of
his life to meditating the meaning of all the words in
the language and defining it in clear and intelligible
terms.

It has been said that Johnson owes his reputation
not to his works, but to his conversation. It may
perhaps be asserted with equal truth that but for the
learning acquired and the mental training endured in
producing the Dictionary, he would not have been
the conversationalist he was. He would never
have been the Dictator of the Republic of Letters,
he would not have attracted to him all the best spirits
of the age, he would not have attracted Boswcll,
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JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY

and would thus have lost the best biographer these
realms have produced. Indeed, if he had not inspired
the confidence of Dodsley and his fellows, if he had
not made his great voyage of the English Language,
if he had not manfully laboured through it, often in
sorrow and sickness, and come into port triumphant,
it is doubtful whether he would ever have attained
the secure place he holds among the Immortals.

121

DR. JOHNSON AND THE LAW

Paper Read to the Johnson Club

BY

E. S. ROSCOE

r

Dr. Johnson and the Law

It is surprising that the importance of the law as an
element in Dr. Johnson's life has not hitherto been
carefully estimated. The following pages attempt
the necessary appreciation.

In popular parlance, when people speak of the
law they mean not only jurisprudence and legal pro-
cedure, but the personal machinery of justice as well
as the body of legal practitioners. It is this popular
phraseology which is used in reference to Dr. Johnson
and the law.

First of all it is desirable to state Dr. Johnson's
own point of view in relation to himself and the law.
" Sir," he once said, " it would have been better
that I had been of a profession. I ought to have
been a lawyer," Here is a clear indication of Johnson's
own opinion. To what extent was this view supported
by others ? A well-qualified observer, himself an
eminent judge — Lord Stowell — said to Dr. Johnson,
" What a pity it is. Sir, that you did not follow the
profession of the law. You might have been Lord
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Chancellor." These latter words contain a safe
piece of flattery, but the statement apart from them,
is full of interest, for Stowell was too true a friend of
Johnson, too shrewd an observer, to make a heedless
remark on this subject. Johnson then, according to
his own opinion, should have been a lawyer, which
suggests that he had an accurate knowledge of his
own abilities, as well as, on the other hand, a clear
perception of the necessary attributes of an advocate.
The statement of Lord Stowell in corroboration
of Johnson's own view has been referred to. Boswell
himself, and Dr. Adams, the head of Pembroke
College, Oxford, might also be cited as men who held
the same opinion as Lord Stowell,

How far then were these opinions well founded ?
In the first place Johnson pre-eminently possessed
qualties required in a successful legal adviser and
advocate, especially a robust and logical intellect,
averse to subtlety. The late Lord Esher, at one time
Master of the Rolls, used sometimes to say to a speci-
ally ingenious counsel, " Come, come, that is too
fine." This judicial criticism would certainly never
have been applied to any argument of Johnson's.
Especially remarkable also was his gift of inherent
perception of the crucial fact in a set of circumstances,
a quality which may be enlarged by practice, but
which appears to be absent from the minds of many
laymen as well as lawyers. And also he was endowed
with a power of clear exprese^ion and a copious and
resonant vocabulary united with a capacity of statement
126

DR. JOHNSON AND THE LAW

in popular and forcible language. Perhaps an equally
valuable quality was a power of a quickly kindled
argumentative warmth, which, had he been an
advocate, would have enabled him to envelop the
case of his clients with an atmosphere of fervid —
if temporary — indignation. Again the attractive
common sense of his words was so willingly received
he convinces me, but he never fails to show me that
by a hearer that the argument was apprehended without
effort. Lord Elibank, who was a man of the world
and a man of ability, once said to Boswell, " What-
ever opinion Johnson maintains I will not say that
he convinces me, but he never fails to show me that
he has good reason for it." If we take Lord Elibank
to represent an intelligent juryman, or even an
attentive judge, obviously Johnson as an advocate
had gone a long way to win his case, and if we imagine
the Doctor pitted against some one inferior to himself
in the qualities already stated, in imagination one sees
him in full career as a successful barrister. The
qualities of inherent perception and clear statement
have been the basic causes of success of every first-
rate advocate. They have been in many cases the
main cause, and the reason why the success of this or
that counsel, who superficially seems to be without
striking attributes, has appeared strange to those
who have not been careful observers, is simply that
they have never appreciated this fact. On the other
hand, eloquent advocates would never have attained
their remarkable positions if they had had eloquence
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

alone. They have all possessed an eye to main facts,
varying no doubt in acuteness.

Again, Johnson's habit of argument was largely
the spontaneous application of these special talents
to intercourse in daily society. Why did he like
Thurlow and call him a " fine fellow " ? Because
" he fairly puts his mind to yours." Because, in
fact, he was a close and forcible arguer. Arc we too
imaginative if we surmise that the arguments between
the man of letters and the lawyer were often on legal
subjects ? If they were we have a glimpse of these
verbal combats from what Cradock in his Memoirs
says of the two disputants : " I was always more
afraid of Johnson than of Thurlow ; for though the
latter was sometimes very rough and coarse, yet
the decisive stroke of the former left a mortal wound
behind it." In this passage the writer does not seem
to describe an argument between the Doctor and the
Judge, but rather one with himself, but the descrip-
tion fits an encounter when the two remarkable minds
were, in Johnson's phrase, " put " to each other.

If Johnson had gone to the Bar and had spent his
days in writing opinions and in arguing cases in Court,
or later in deciding them on the Bench, it is possible
that, having exhausted his powers in professional
work, he would never have used them to delight or
confound his friends, or at least not to anything
like the extent he did. It was, however, primarily
the possession of these qualities which caused Johnson
to direct his mind to and enjoy the discussion of legal
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DR. JOHNSON AND THE LAW

questions and to appreciate the society of lawyers.
In support of this point is the fact tliat at least on
four occasions Jolinson wrote a legal argument. The
first was on a question of Scots law as to the right
of a person to intermeddle without legal authority
with the effects of a deceased person. The legal
point does not matter. Boswell says that he had
exhausted all his own powers of reasoning in vain,
and then come these significant words: " In order
to assist me in my application to the Court for a revi-
sion and alteration of the judgment, he dictated to
me the following argument." I won't inflict it on
those listening to me. But I may also remind you
that at a later date when Boswell was Counsel in an
election petition he stated different points to Johnson,
who, he says, " never failed to see them clearly and
to give me some good hints." The arguments
which Johnson wrote have been called by an unfriendly
critic — a. barrister — " very admirable and masterly
and worthy the attention of the student." The
expression is valuable from this writer, because not
only is it about the only good thing that the author
can say for Johnson, but it is the evidence of a person
learned in the law who seems to have carefully studied
from the point of view of a lawyer what Johnson said
and the nature of his character, and actually recom-
mends to the law student the perusal of the legal
arguments of the man of letters. These examples
and others wiiich may be found in Boswell's book,
prove, I think, incontestably the legal character of
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Johnson's mind as well as a natural inclination to apply
it to practical points of law. Indeed, is there a layman
in existence who would or could sit down to dictate
to a lawyer a legal argument of point and substance,
unless he had a mind singularly adapted to this purpose
and had studied and reflected on principles of law
and on legal decisions ?

There can be little doubt that the law was in
Johnson's mind for the best part of his life. In 1776,
when he was sixty-seven, he said to Boswell, " I
learnt what I know of law chiefly from Mr. Ballow,
a very able man. I learnt some too from Chambers,
but was not so teachable then."

The first mention of Chambers, who succeeded
Blackstone as Vinerian Professor at Oxford in 1762,
is on 2 1 St November 1754, when Johnson wrote to
him at Oxford. In the summer of the same year
he had visited Oxford, says Boswell, " for the first
time after quitting the University." On this visit
Johnson must have met Chambers. Johnson was
then forty-five. As to the time that Johnson
was intimate with Ballow we know nothing. Johnson
went to London in 1736 : about 1739 he asked Dr.
Adams to consult on his behalf Dr. Smallbrooke,
an advocate of Doctors' Commons, as to whether he
could practise there without a Doctor's degree. It
may have been at this time, when he found that
he was ineligible as an advocate, that his thoughts
turned to other branches of the law. Whether he
endeavoured to study law seriously with Ballow, who
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DR. JOHNSON AND THE LAW

was a barrister of Lincoln's Inn and the author of
a work on Equity, which at one time seems to have
had great vogue in the Chambers of Chancery barris-
ters, we do not know. But it is quite clear that
Johnson continued to discuss legal principles with
his legal friends long after his first attempt to enter
the legal profession, for his intimacy with Chambers
began fifteen years after the application to Dr. Small-
brooke, at a time when, as Johnson says, he was not
so teachable, though evidently not too old to learn
and take an incessant interest in the law. Then
again, when he had reached the comparatively mature
age of fifty-six, there occurs a curious incident — the
writing (1765) of a Prayer before the study of the
Law. I cannot say whether this prayer is more
than one which, in a few minutes of thought, he
had written as suitable for any young man about to
begin a career as a lawyer. For my present purpose
it does not much matter whether it was intended for
himself or as suitable for others. It indicates the
serious attention which he gave to the law — an atten-
tion which primarily arose from particular mental
attributes and which seems to have been fixed in his
mind throughout his life. The same point is again
exemplified by his admirable and thoughtful state-
ment of the moral and professional position of a
lawyer as an advocate, which is as appropriate
now as when it was uttered — for the rationale
of advocacy has never been better expressed. It
is rather long for quotation, but it cannot be

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

curtailed if we are to grasp Johnson's complete
opinion.

" Sir, " he said, " a lawyer has no business with
justice or injustice of the cause he undertakes, unless
his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound
to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the
course is to be decided by the judge. Consider,
Sir, what is the purpose of courts of justice ?
It is that every man may have his cause fairly
tried by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer
is not to tell what he knows to be a lie, he is not to
produce what he knows to be a false deed ; but he is
not to usurp the province of the jury and of the judge,
and determine what shall be the effect of evidence —
what shall be the result of legal argument. As
it rarely happens that a man is fit to plead his own
cause, lawyers arc a class of the community who,
by study and experience, have acquired the art and
power of arranging evidence, and of applying to the
points at issue what the law has settled. A lawyer
is to do for his client all that his client might fairly
do for himself, if he could. If, by a superiority of
attention, of knowledge, of skill, and a better method
of communication, he has the advantage of his adver-
sary, it is an advantage to wiiich he is entitled. There
must always be some advantage on one side or the
other ; and it is better that advantage should be
had by talents than by chance. If lawyers were
to undertake no causes till they were sure they were
just, a man might be precluded altogether from a
132

DR. JOHNSON AND THE LAW

trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined,
it might be found a very just claim."

Is it not right then to assert not only that Johnson's
mind was that of a lawyer in the best sense, but that
no man of letters ever gave as much attention to the
subject of the law or more regarded it ? English
law, with its steady growth, its common sense, and its
close connection with the life and temperament of
the English people, was peculiarly attractive to him.
Xhis tendency would naturally cause Johnson to
appreciate the society of lawyers, because he was not,
as are most people — unless they happen to be litigants
— averse to discuss with them the subject on which
most of their lives was spent ; on the other hand,
the society of the lawyers with whom he foregathered
must have increased his appreciation of law as well
as of lawyers.

Johnson's character and mind have in the previous
pages been regarded in relation to law and advocacy.
Another and somewhat different point of view must
now be made. Successful solicitors have been those
in whom sagacity is the most prominent quality.
By sagacity is meant the inherent perception of right
action in practical affairs. This is by no means a
common gift, for it is a union of many qualities, but
it springs in the main from a peculiar instinctive
perception. To advise successfully not only on
technical grounds but on conduct, whether in business
or general affairs, requires a pre-eminent amount
of what I have termed sagacity. Johnson possessed

^33

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

this quality. One has only to be familiar with his
Essays in the Rambler to perceive how bountifully
he was endowed with it. Taine, and others, have
found these Essays dull, but though they contain
commonplace statements, as does nearly every work,
generally speaking they are filled with an immense
quantity of wisdom applied to ordinary human affairs.
Here again, therefore, one may claim for Johnson
that he possessed a legal mind ; one, which, had his
life been that, as he would have said, of an attorney,
would have made him a first-rate adviser, equally at
home in technical and general matters, and as a conse-
quence he would have been a most successful member
of this branch of his profession.

Proximity has much to do with friendship. " The
tide of life," the Doctor once rather pathetically re-
marked, referring to his first law teacher Ballow,
" has driven us different ways." If two men belong
to the same profession it is a truism to say that they
are more likely to be friends than if they were not.
But if, as I have endeavoured to show. Dr. Johnson
had a legal mind, clearly if he lived within reach
of the Inns of Court and of Doctors' Commons he
would incline by reason of it to the society of lawyers,
who were his neighbours.

For Johnson the members of the College of Advo-
cates would have a peculiar attraction. They were
a singular body, half academic and half legal, so that
with them Johnson would have each side of their
lives in conunoii. It is not perhaps generally known

DR. JOHNSON AND THE LAW

that Sir James Marriott, who preceded Lord Stowell
as Judge of the Admiralty and Prize Court, was at
the same time Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.
Whether he treated those who came before him,
lawyers or laymen, as if they were undergraduates
one cannot say. If he did he would not differ from
some judges who, while not occupying this dual
position, have been known to act as if those who
were in their Court were in statu pupillari. But
the holding by Marriott simultaneously of an academic
and of a legal post shows very well the kind of accep-
table society which Johnson would find when he
visited a friend in what was then colloquially known
as The Commons.

Johnson has been often called a representative
Englishman. A sound critic has described him as
" the embodiment of the essential features of the
English character." The efficient application of
justice in a practical way to affairs is a national and
immemorial characteristic of the English people,
and the English Common Law which is so entwined
with English habits and with political evolution of
the nation is typical of the English mind. Johnson
thoroughly appreciated it, for he had no liking for
abstract theories, he was anxious that right should
prevail, and at the same time he valued precedent.
So when we realize the legal qualities of Johnson's
intellect we understand better why he was so re-
presentative of the British people and why he was a
student and lover of the law. Indeed, tMic may

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

assert that until this side of Johnson's character
has been apprehended, one has not fully comprehended
either his intellect or his life. It is little more than
surmise, but if we examine this aspect carefully yet
sympathetically do we not discern a note which
indicates a regret on Johnson's part that circumstances
debarred him from becoming of the profession of the
law ? It is all very well for us now, when personal
values of the eighteenth century have been definitely
fixed, to be sure that Johnson's fame is world wide
and continuous. But he could not see into the future,
and in his lifetime Thurlow and Stowell, for example,
were, even allowing for Johnson's literary reputa-
tion, men of greater eminence and of ampler fortune.
Popular success and plenty were alike secured by the
steady use of their intellect. Johnson knew his
own capacity and could measure it with that of his
contemporaries, and he might well feel that fortune
had been unkind and unfair to him and regret that
his special qualities never had scope in the career for
which they certainly fitted him.

At the beginning of this essay a remark of Lord
Stowell to Johnson was- quoted that if the Doctor
had become a lawyer he might have been Lord
Chancellor. This was Johnson's reply. He became,
says Boswell, agitated and angry, and exclaimed,
" Why will you vex me by suggesting this when it
is too late ? " " Too late ! " Can we doubt
that a lifelong regret is expressed in these poignant
words ?

136

DR. JOHNSON AND THE
CATHOLIC CHURCH

Paper Read to the Johnson Club

BY

THE HON. SIR CHARLES RUSSELL, BART

r

Dr. Johnson and the Catholic
Church

As a prelude to this paper it is necessary briefly to
recall Johnson's religious history. He was, of course,
a Christian ardent and convinced, and, moreover,
a staunch upholder of the Protestant faith. He
was a High Churchman of the old school ; but,
however strict and earnest, he was large and generous
in his comprehension. His attitude towards the
Godhead was, it seems to me, one rather of fear than
of love. He records that his first religious impression
was given to him when a tiny child in bed with his
mother. His mother told him that the good went
to heaven and tiie bad were sent down to hell, and
he was sent by her to convey this newly acquired
information to Thomas, one of the servants.

This crude lesson in religion made a great mark
upon Johnson's singularly retentive memory and
coloured, I believe, his whole religious life. So,
in his prayers and other expressions of his belief, we

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

find not so much the love of God as a vivid appre-
ciation of the exacting justice of the Creator and a
fear of death. He had an abnormal fear of death.
He said to Boswell on the i6th September 1777 :
" I never had a moment in which death was not
terrible to me" ; and in February 1784 he wrote
to his stepdaughter, Lucy Porter, just ten months
before he died : " Death, my dear, is very dreadful."

Johnson defines " Religion " in his Dictionary as
" Virtue, founded upon reverence of God and
expectation of future rewards and punishments."

Precocious child that he was, at an age when most
of us only begin to conceive some glimmering of
religious truths, Johnson had already reached a much
later phase of development. " In my tenth year,"
he said, " I fell into an indifference about religion."
This continued until his fourteenth year, when he
says that he " became a loose talker against religion " ;
but in his nineteenth year, on going to Pembroke
College, Oxford, he happened to pick up a book
which had just been published in that year, 1728,
entitled halo's Serious Call to a Holy and Devout
Life. " Hoping," he states, " to find in it something
to laugh at, I found Law an overmatch for me."
Henceforth religion was the predominating object
of his thoughts.

It is easy to understand Law's Call impressing

any man and leading him onward towards a spiritual

life. In character it greatly resembles many of

the writings of the more ardent of the Catholic Saints,

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JOHNSON AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

but it is never gloomy ; eternal punishment or the fear
of hell is seldom alluded to from the beginning to
the end of the book. It teaches that a cheerful
and devout life is the happiest life, and it is full of
the cheerful confidence towards God which is a great
characteristic of Catholic books of devotion. I
am surprised, therefore, that more of this spirit does
not appear in Johnson's religious life, which continued
gloomy and fearful almost to the end. I say almost
to the end ; for, " when the shadow was finally upon
him, he was able to recognize that what was coming
was divine, an angel, though formidable and obscure,
and so he passed with serene composure beyond
mankind." ^

The above is an epitome of Johnson's religious
life. It is obvious that he preferred the " Miserere "
to the " Te Deum." His thoughts dwelt too long
upon the forty days in the desert and he forgot the
feast at Cana in Galilee.

It is curious to note how continually throughout
his life we find Johnson in touch with Catholics
and Catholic books. Wherever we find accurate
records of his doings we find friendly intercourse with
Catholics and their writings. His first literary
effort, published in 1735, was a translation of a book
written by a Jesuit Father, The Travels of Father
Lobo, S.y. Later on, when he came to London,
in 1738, he published two works : first, his poem,
London^ which immediately received its hail-mark

' Loni Roscbcry's Lichticld Address on Johnson.
141

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

from a Catholic, the InfaHiblc Pope — Alexander
then in undisputed possession of the poetic throne
in England. I In the same year he wrote his Life
of Father Sarpi^ an Italian Catholic ecclesiastic
famous for his writings on the Council of Trent.
When Boswell appeared on the scene and met
Johnson in Davis's shop in May of 1763, he found
the Philosopher, then fifty-four years of age, with
quite a long list of Catholic acquaintances. There
was Thomas Hussey, the Catholic Bishop of Water-
ford, first President of Maynooth and one of the few
Catholic Fellows of the Royal Society. When Johnson
met him he was Chaplain to the Spanish Chapel.
There was Mrs. Strickland, the lady from Cumberland
whom Johnson described as " a very high lady " ;
there was Dr. Nugent, father-in-law of Edmund
Burke ; Mrs. Edmund Burke, General Paoli, Joseph
Baretti, whose life he helped to save by giving evidence
as to his character when he was tried at the Old
Bailey. Arthur Murphy, too, who introduced
Johnson to the Thrales in 1764, was a Catholic,
educated at St. Omer's. Then, later, we find a
warm friendship established with Father Cowley, the
Benedictine ; with Father Wilkes of the Sorbonne,
and Father Brewer. Finally, in his last illness,
Johnson was cared for with marked devotion by

' In the next year, 1739, AIcxan<ler Pope, though I cannot find that
he ever met Johnson, tried to persuade Dean Swift to obtain for him
a Degree from Dublin University, which he thought would help John-
son in his career. However, later, it was from Dublin Johnson received
the right to call himself " Doctor."

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JOHNSON AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

another Catholic, Mr. Sastrcs, a friend of many
years' standing, to whom he administered a very
solemn warning on no account to change his religion
unless he was absolutely convinced that he was in
error. To this gentleman, it will be remembered,
he left a legacy in his will.

It may fairly be surmised that he had made many
other Catholic friends, for this reason : in the very
centre of the district covered by Johnson's many
residences there were several Catholic chapels, rare
objects in those days. The one in Golden Square
still exists (the entrance being in Warwick Street,
Regent Street), and the other was in Sardinia Street,
Lincoln's Inn (lately moved into Kingsway),

The rarity at this date of Catholic chapels in London
was due to the fact that the only exception to the
laws prohibiting Catholic worship was that ambassadors
were allowed to have Catholic chapels in connection
with their embassies, and to these chapels the English
Catholics flocked. Hence, to this very day Catholics
in London worship in churches still bearing the names
" of the Bavarian Chapel," " the Sardinian Chapel,"
" the Spanish Chapel," " and " the French Chapel,"
although the Bavarians, the Sardinians, the Spanish,
and the French have little to do with them.

As Boswell says, Johnson " had an eager and
unceasing curiosity to know human life in all its
variety," and in passing and repassing these institutions,
as Johnson must have done many thousands of times,
this curiosity would never have remained satisfied

143

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

until he had made the acquaintance of their interiors
and discussed matters with their priests, who were
gentlemen of education and learning, and generally
Englishmen. I

We know that Johnson stated that all prison chap-
lains ought to be Catholic priests or Wesleyan ministers.
" Sir," he said, " one of our regular clergy will probably
not impress their mind sufficiently ; they should be
attended by a Methodist preacher or a Popish priest."
It is unlikely that he would make such a statement
unless he had heard them preach.

Another reason for believing that Johnson heard
them preach is that in those days, although the am-
bassadors were allowed to have chapels, they were
not allowed to have sermons in their chapels, and the
various congregations of the faithful had to resort
to the expedient of adjourning to the upper chamber
of some adjoiiu'ng tavern, and there, with the aid of
pots of beer and long clay pipes, to hear the sermons
of their pastors. The congregation of the Sardinian
Chapel used to assemble in a public-house, which
still exists, called the " Ship," situated in the Turnstile,
Lincoln's Inn Fields,^ and I like to fancy, as I go
through that passage, that Johnson probably found
his way to the upper chamber and partook of the

' Johnson liad no prejudice against entering Catholic churches. He
attenilcd Mass several times when he visited Paris witii tiic Thrales in
1775. When he visited Scotland with Boswell in 1773 he firmly
refused to enter a church.

- The celebrated preacher, Father James Archer (1740-1823), who
was converted by Bishop Challoner's preaching and took Holy Orders,
was originally a "pot boy" at tlie "Ship."

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JOHNSON AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

beer, even if he did not smoke the clay pipe, with the
Cathoh'c congregation there assembled. He certainly
must have been aware of this Catholic practice, for
nobody knew the tavern life of London better than he.

Johnson was a great habitud, too, of the Temple.
It is true that no Catholic was admitted to the English
Bar until 1791,^ and the first Catholic K.C. was
made only in 1831. Nevertheless, there existed a
branch of the law (now extinct), members of which
were known as " Special Pleaders " ; they were
gentlemen who drew the written pleadings but never
appeared in Court. Catholics, shut out from the
Bar, in considerable numbers became Special Pleaders.
In Lincoln's Inn, too, Catholics became Convey-
ancers, although not members of the Bar ; and it
is more than likely that in this way Johnson made
other Catholic friends.

We know also, from his own statements to Boswcll,
that Johnson visited at least one Catholic convent
of English nuns, because he refers to his discussion
with the Lady Abbess : " I said to the Lady Abbess
of a convent, ' Madam, you are here, not for the
love of virtue, but for the fear of vice.' She said
she should remember this as long as she lived. I
thought it hard to give her this view of her situation,
when she could not help it."

■ Charles Butler, nephew of Alban Butler, was the first Catholic
barrister (1791), and he was also the first Catholic K.C. (1S31). The
first Catholic judge was Sir William Slice, in 1863. The first Catholic
Attorney-General was Sir Charles Russell, in 18S7. He was also the
first Catholic Lord Chief Justice of England (1894).

145 K

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Boswell adds : " I wondered at the whole of what
he now said, because both in his Rambler and Idler
he treats reh'gious austerities with much solemnity
of respect."

On the occasion of his visiting Paris with the
Thrales in 1775, we know that Johnson visited several
monasteries, and actually resided for a brief time in
a monk's cell in a Benedictine monastery, which
he left with some emotion, for he records : " I
parted very tenderly from the Prior and Father
Wilkes " ; and he received from the Prior, to whom
he had endeared himself, the promise that his cell would
always be ready for him.

Finally, to complete a list of Johnson's Catholic (or
ex-Catholic} friends, we must mention that fraudulent
old rascal Psalmanaszer, who was originally a Catholic,
and whom Johnson regarded almost as a saint.

I have dwelt at some length upon these various
friendships and acquaintances because they account
for one outstanding fact about Johnson's attitude
towards the Catholic Church which differentiates
Johnson from too many of her critics, ancient or
modern, namely, that he took the trouble thoroughly
to understand what he was talking about. He may
have differed from Catholics, but he, at any rate,
understood in what he differed. He honestly tried
to understand the Catholic point of view, and he
never attempted to misrepresent Catholic teaching.
His many Catholic friends gave him the opportunity
of acquiring accurate information.
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JOHNSON AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

But what were Johnson's views on the Cathohc
Articles of Faith and Catholic practices ? He appears,
at different times, to have discussed all the most im-
portant points of Cathohc doctrine with Boswell :
the Real Presence, the Doctrine of Purgatory, Prayers
for the Dead, Invocation of the Saints, Confession
and Absolution. On each point he shows accurate
knowledge, and he invariably admits the reasonableness
of the Catholic point of view, even if he is not pre-
pared to agree with it.

It may perhaps be worth while following the dates
and order in which these matters arise in Boswell's
Life.

Sorrow and loss drove Johnson, like many others,
to consider the lawfulness of prayers for the dead and
the doctrine of purgatory. He was only forty-two
years of age when he lost his wife in 1751, his beloved
" Tettie," and for the remaining thirty-three years
of his life he never ceased to pray for the repose of
her soul and that she might be finally received into
eternal happiness, at first prefacing his prayers with
the proviso, " so far as it may be lawful in me." In
course of time mention of this proviso disappears.
He prayed in like manner for his father, continuing
such prayers for some fifty years after his father's
death.

Boswell met Johnson only in May 1763, and by
August of the same year their friendship had ripened
so quickly that Johnson journeyed with Boswell
down to Harwich to see Boswell start upon his famous

H7

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Continental tour. On the stage coach Johnson
astonished the passengers by his views on the Spanish
Inquisition. Boswell records the event thus :

*' In the afternoon the gentlewoman talked violently
against the Roman Catholics and of the horrors of
the Inquisition. To the utter astonishment of all
the passengers but myself, who knew that he could
talk upon any side of a question, he defended the
Inquisition, and maintained that ' false doctrine
should be checked on its first appearance ; that the
civil power should unite with the Church in punishing
those who dare to attack the established religion, and
that such only were punished by the Inquisition.' "

Boswell assumed that Johnson was doing so be-
cause he could talk upon any side. I think Boswell
was wrong, I believe it is clear, from Johnson's
discussions on the subject of " Liberty," that the
old philosopher would have been a stern persecutor
of error and a firm disciple of Torquemada had he
had the chance. He more than once declared,
" The State has the right to regulate the religion of
the people " ; and I regret to say I believe he would
have boiled the oil and polished up the thumbscrew
and applied his test of martyrdom with regret but
determination.

Boswell received his next shock in 1772, when
he and Johnson determined to make the tour of the
Hebrides. In the course of their preparations he
asked Johnson whether there was any objection to
his taking a Catholic servant with him on the pro-
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JOHNSON AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

jected tour, and was curtly told by Johnson : " Sir,
if he has no objection, you can have none,"

Soon after there was a general questioning by
Boswell as to Johnson's views on Catholicity. His
cross-examination of Johnson was complete and
persevering :

Boswell. What, Sir, do you think of Purgatory ?

Johnson. I consider it is a very harmless doctrine.
They are of opinion that the generality of mankind arc
neither so obstinately wicked as to deserve everlasting punish-
ment, nor so good as to merit being admitted into the society
of blessed spirits, and, therefore, that God is graciously
pleased to allow a middle state. Sir, there is nothing un-
reasonable in this.

Boswell. But they, Sir, offer Masses for the dead.

Johnson. Sir, if it be once established that there are
souls in Purgatory, it is as proper to pray for them as for
our brethren of mankind who are yet in this life.

Johnson might also have referred Boswell to certain
passages in Scripture in which we are told it is " a
holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead
that they may be loosed from sin."

Boswell, with his usual perseverance, was not
going to let matters rest, for he pushed on : " The
idolatry of the Mass, sir ? "

Whereupon Johnson thundered at him : " There
is no idolatry in the Mass. They believe God to
be there and they adore Him."

" The worship of the Saints," cried Boswell,

Johnson. They do not worship the Saints ; they in-
voke the Saints ; they ask their prayers,
149

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Boswell had one more shot left, and he fired it,
uttering the single word, " Confession ! "

Johnson. I do not know but that it is a good thing ;

and he further pointed out that Absolution was entirely
conditional on repentance and penance.

Throughout the trip there were many discussions
on religious matters, and sometimes on Catholic
Doctrine. On the 20th August 1773, whilst in
the post-chaise on the road from Dundee, even the
subject of Transubstantiation was discussed. " On
that awful subject," as Boswell calls it, he records
Johnson's opinion that the Catholics were in error
in their construction of the Scriptures. But Johnson
added, " Had God never spoken figuratively, we
might hold that He spoke literally."

Johnson's attitude towards converts is interesting.
He held the theory that every man was justified in
adhering strictly to the religion in which he was
born, or, as he put it, " the religion in which Provi-
dence had placed him." If he did so he was " safe,"
and a man was not justified in abandoning such religion
unless he was overwhelmed with the conviction that
he was in error. He doubted the sincerity of con-
versions which entailed the giving up of belief, but
he believed apparently in the sincerity of conversions
in which belief was increased. Boswell records
his words on the matter as follows :

" A man who is converted from Protestantism to
Popery may be sincere : he parts with nothing :

JOHNSON AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

he is only superadding to what he already had.
But a convert from Popery to Protestantism gives
up so much of vi^hat he has held sacred as anything
that he retains : there is so much laceration of mind
in such a conversion, that it can hardly be sincere
r.nd lasting."

Holding these views, wc find him in his Life
of Dryden treating the poet's somewhat timely
if not suspect conversion to Catholicism on the
occasion of the accession of James II with marked
toleration :

" Soon after the accession of King James and the
design of reconciling the nation to the Church of
Rome became apparent, and the religion of the Court
gave the only efficacious title to its favours, Dryden
declared himself a convert to Popery. This at any
other time might have passed with little censure. . . .
That conversion will always be suspected that ap-
parently concurs with interest. He that never finds
his error till it hinders his progress towards wealth
or honour will not be thought to love truth only for
herself Yet it may easily happen that information
may come at a commodious time, and as truth and
interest are not by any fatal necessity at variance,
that one may by accident introduce the other. When
opinions are struggling into popularity, the arguments
by which they are opposed or defended become more
known. ... It is natural to suppose that a com-
prehensive is likewise an elevated soul, and that who-
ever is wise is also honest . . . but enquiries into

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

the heart are not for man, who must now leave
Dryden to his Judge,"

Boswell records that in 1784 he was present when
Mrs. Kennicot informed him of the conversion of
the Rev. Mr. Chamberlayne, and his forfeiting his
living to join the Church of Rome, upon which Johnson
fervently exclaimed, " God bless him ! " On the
other hand, when Hannah More informed him
that his young friend Miss Jane Harry had become
a Quakeress, he denounced the lady :

" Madam, she is an odious wench. She could not
have had any proper conviction that it was her duty
to change her religion, which is the most important
of all subjects, and should be studied with all care
and with all the helps we can get. She knew no
more of the Church which she left, and that which
she embraced, than she did of the difference between
the Copernican and Ptolemaick systems."

Mrs. Knowles. She had the New Testament before
her.

Johnson. Madam, she could not understand the New
Testament, the most difficult book in the world, for which
the study of a life is required.

Mrs. Knowles. It is clear as to essentials.

Johnson. But not as to controversial points. The
heathens are easily converted, because they had nothing to
give up ; but we ought not, without very strong conviction
indeed, to desert the religion in which we have been edu-
cated. That is the religion given you, the religion in which
it may be said Providence has placed you. If you live
conscientiously in that religion, you may be safe. But
error is dangerous indeed if you err when you choose a
religion for yourself.

JOHNSON AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Mrs. Knowles. Must we then go by implicit faith ?

Johnson. Why, madam, the greatest part of our know-
ledge is implicit faith ; and as to religion, have wc heard
all that a disciple of Confucius, all that a Mahometan, can
say for himself?

He then rose into passion, and attacked the young
proselyte in the severest terms of reproach, so that
both ladies seemed to be much shocked.

Mrs. Knowles wrote years after a very different
account ' of this conversation (too long to quote)
which gives to herself a suspiciously large share of the
honours of war.

In the same spirit was Johnson's advice to Francisco
Sastres, to whom he wrote as follows :

" There is no one who has shown me more atten-
tion than you have done. It is now right you should
claim some from me. . . . Let me exhort you
always to think of my situation, which must one day
be yours. Always remember life is short and that
eternity never ends. I say nothing of your religion,
for if you conscientiously keep to it I have little
doubt that you may be safe. If you read the contro-
versy, I think we have right on our side ; but if
you do not read it, be not persuaded from any worldly
consideration to alter the religion in which you
are educated. Change not but from conviction of
reason."

It is somewhat difficult to reconcile with all this

' See the Gentleman s Aiiii^<i%iric of June 1791, where her "mild
fortitude" is contrasted with Jolinson's "boisterous violence of bigoted
sophistry."

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

his welcoming Father Compton, the Catholic priest
who joined the Church of England, Johnson
charitably gave him shelter and money, and found
him employment under the Bishop of London. Is
it possible that the sturdy Johnson was disarmed by
Father Compton's assurance that he owed his con-
version to the Church of England to reading Johnson's
Paper 1 1 oof the Rambler on the subject of Repentance.
I have read the paper in question, and I must say I
cannot see anything in it which need disturb any-
body's convictions, Catholic or Protestant.

I think there can be no doubt Dr. Johnson was
at some time in his life very nearly becoming a con-
vert himself and joining the Catholic Church.

" I would be a papist if I could ; I have fear enough
but an obstinate rationality prevents me. I shall
never be a papist except at the near approach of
death."

Indeed his sympathy with the doctrines and teaching
of the Catholic Church were such that Bennett
Langton's father died under the impression that he
was in fact a member of the Catholic Church.

On some questions connected with Catholic practice
there is no doubt that Dr. Johnson at different times
held different opinions. At one time he is strongly
in favour of monasteries, and at another he condemns
them. They always appear, however, to have an
attraction for him. When Baretti pressed him to
visit Italy he replied that " the monasteries would
interest him more than the palaces."

154

JOHNSON AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Boswell puts forward the contention that, because
Johnson sometimes appeared to support the Cathoh'c
Church and at other times to oppose it, it was clear
he was only " talking for victory " and not expressing
his convictions ; but it is to be remarked that as a
rule when Johnson spoke in its favour he always
backed up his assertions with cogent argument,
but when he spoke against the Catholic Church his
language was generally mere denunciation. Thus
he said :

In everthing they differ from us they are wrong.
Purgatory is made a lucrative imposition.
Giving the Sacrament in one kind is criminal.
Invocation of the Saints is will worship and presumption.

On other occasions Johnson expressed the view
that there was no important difference between the
teachings of various Christian bodies.

In matters of morality Johnson was a stern upholder
of virtue. No lines in his writings call for expurga-
tion, and in his conversation he was equally un-
compromising. Boswell records a conversation at
Oxford in June of 1784, when he had the resolution
to ask Johnson whether he thought the roughness
of his manner had been an advantage or not, and if
he would not have done more good if he had been
more gentle.

Johnson. No, Sir, I have done more good as I am.
Obscenity and impiety have always been repressed in my
.company.

155

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

To this Boswell quaintly replies : " Sir, that
is more than can be said of every bishop."

Men h'ke Johnson are the champions of faith and
of morality in their time, and whatever particular
name may be assigned to Samuel Johnson's beliefs,
he was a glorious exponent of religion, as defined by
the Apostle St. James :

" Religion clean and undefiled before God and
the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows
in their tribulation and to keep oneself unspotted from
the world."

Johnson welcomed and sheltered the blind and sick,
he provided for the orphan, he lifted the fallen, he
held out his strong hand even to the criminal and the
imprisoned. His home was a veritable house of
charity ; and after a long life of seventy-three years'
hard battling with the world his huge heart remained
as unsullied as a child's.

156

JOHNSON'S CHARACTER
AS SHOWN IN HIS WRITINGS

Paper Read to the Johnson Club,
14TH December 19 14,

BY

HAROLD SPENCER SCOTT

r

Johnson's Character as shown
in his Writings

" Dr. Johnson told me," says Mrs. Piozzi, " that
the character of Sober in the Idler was by himself —
intended as his own portrait." This Idler appeared
on 1 8th November 1758, when Johnson was still
living in Gough Square. He was then forty-nine,
his wife had been dead some six years, and the
Dictionary had been published three years. Another
three years were to pass by before he entered on
his pensioned ease. Boswell and the Thrales were
unknown to him and the Club unfounded.

In 1756 Johnson had agreed with those "liberal-
minded men the booksellers " ^ to edit Shakespeare :
yet after two years' inactivity, his friends found him
roused to action and engaged not in the prosecution of
the Shakespeare, which he had promised to have ready
by Christmas 1757, but in furnishing a series of
periodical essays entitled The Idler. When Hawkins

' BoiivcUy i. 304.

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

congratulated him on being engaged on Shakespeare,
a work that suited his genius and would be executed
con amorey Johnson's answer was : " It is all work,
and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame,
but the want of money, which is the only motive to
writing that I know of,"i and Johnson was thinking
of himself when he wrote of Dryden : "If the
excellence of his works was lessened by his indigence,
their number was increased : I know not how it
will be proved that he would have undergone the
toil of an author, ' if he had not been solicited by
something more pressing than the love of praise.* " *
The opening sentence in the Idler paper, however,
shows that there was at least one other incentive to
writing, weariness of himself, and wc may perhaps
recall also a Rambler paper, where Johnson says
that " praise is so pleasing to the mind of man that
it is the original motive of almost all our actions, . . .
None, however mean, ever sinks below the hope of
being distinguished by his fellow-beings, and very
few have by magnanimity or piety been so raised
above it, as to act wholly without regard to censure
or opinion." 3 At any rate Johnson, in spite of his
pension, finished his Shakespeare and wrote the
Journey to the Western Islands and the Lives of
the Poets.

But to get to the character of Johnson in the
Idler : " Sober is a man of strong desires and quick

» Hawkins's Life of Jolinson, p. 363. = Li-vcs of the Poets, i. 423.

3 Rambler, No. 193.

160

CHARACTER IN HIS WRTriNGS

imagination bo exactly halanctd by the love of case
that they seldom stimulate him to any difHeult
undertakinjj; ; they have, however, so much power
that they will not suffer him to lie quite at rest ;
and thouj^h they do not make him sufficiently useful
to others, they make him at least weary of himself.

" Mr. Sober's chief pleasure is conversation ; there
is no end of his talk or his attention ; to speak or to
hear is equally pleasing : for he still fancies that he
is teaching or learning something and is free for the
time from his reproaches. But there is one time
at night when he must go home that his friends may
sleep ; and another time in the morning when all
the world agrees to shut out interruptions. These
are the moments of which poor Sober trembles at
the thought." Sober, the paper continues, has
many means of alleviating the misery of these tiresome
intervals : he supplied himself with a carpenter's
tools and " mended his coal-box very successfully,"
and he attempted the crafts of the shoemaker, tin-
man, plumber, and potter.

" In all tiiese he has failed, and resolves to qualify
himself for them by better information. But his
daily amusement is chemistry. He has a small
furnace which he employs in distillation and which
has long been the solace of his life. He draws oils
and waters and essences and spirits which he knows
to be of no use ; sits and counts tlie drops as they
come from his retort, and forgets that whilst a drop
is falling a moment flies away. Poor Sober, I have
i6i L

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

often teased him with reproof, and he has often pro-
mised reformation ; for no man is so much open
to conviction as the Idler^ but there is none on whom
it operates so httle.

" What will be the effect of this paper, I know
not j perhaps he will read it and laugh and light the
fire in his furnace : but my hope is that he will quit
his trifles and betake himself to rational and useful
diligence."

Now this, I think, brings before us a Johnson
whom we know from reading our Boswells^ and the
traits noted in Sober have been described as charac-
teristics of Johnson both by his friends and by himself.
" He resigned himself to indolence," writes Murphy,
" took no exercise, rose about two, and then received
the visits of his friends. Authors long forgotten
waited on him as their oracle, and he listened to the
complaints, the schemes, the hopes and fears of a
crowd of inferior beings who ' lived men knew
not how and died obscure men knew not when.' " ^
There is no doubt that Johnson's mind at this
time was still, as Murphy says, " strained and over
laboured by constant exertion and called for an in-
terval of repose and indolence." 2 But Johnson
always exaggerated his own idleness: and we rejoice
that he gave up to talk time which might have been
spent in writing. Still he was never quite at ease
on this point ; and he was, I think, answering his

' An Essay on the Life and Genius of Dr, jfohnson, p. 88.
' Ibid, p. 79.

162

CHARACTER IN HIS WRITINGS

own conscicMCf when he rcphcd to Boswcll's impor-
tunity : " Sir, the good I can do by my conversation
bears the same proportion to the good I can do by
my writings that the practice of a physician, retired
to a small town, does to his practice in a great city."'

His best justification, perhaps, may be found in
his own words in a Rambler : " Every man of genius
has some arts of fixing the attention peculiar to him-
self by which honestly exerted he may benefit man-
kind." 2

To procrastination and idleness Johnson was very
gentle when he came to write the lives of those poets
who had known the " poverty which is want of com-
petence of all that can soften the miseries of life,
of all that can diversify attention or delight imagina-
tion." 3 He remembers his own past when he too
suffered that " degree of want by which the freedom
of agency is almost destroyed." 4 " Collins," writes
Johnson, " came to London a literary adventurer,
with many projects in his head and very little money
in his pocket. He designed many works, but his
great fault was irresolution, or the frequent calls of
immediate necessity broke his schemes and suffered
him to pursue no settled purpose. A man doubtful
of his dinner or trembling at a creditor is not much
disposed to abstracted meditation or remote enquiries.

■ Bosivell, ii. 15.
=> Rambler, No. 87.

3 Review of Soamc Jcnyns's Free Inquiry into the Nature and Origin
of E-vil, Works, vi. 54.

Li-vci of the PoctSy iii. 338.

163

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

He published proposals for a History of the Revival
of Learning. [Johnson projected a work under
the same title.] But probably not a page of the History
was ever written. He planned several tragedies,
but he only planned them. He wrote now and then
odes and other poems and did something, however
little." I

" Thompson," writes Johnson, " had often felt
the inconvenience of idleness, but he never cured it :
and was so conscious of his own character that he
talked of writing an Eastern tale of the man who loved
to be in distress." ^

When Johnson tells how Savage " would prolong
his conversation till midnight without considering
that business might require his friends' application
in the morning," 3 he remembered his own dread of
the hour when he must go home that his friends may
sleep. Like Savage, Johnson was " censured for not
knowing when to retire," and he is pleading his
own excuses when he says that this " was not the
defect of Savage's judgment, but of his fortune." 4
Johnson, like Savage, when he left his company,
was " abandoned to gloomy reflections, whicii it
is not strange that he delayed as long as he could ;
and sometimes forgot that he gave others pain to
avoid it himself." 5

As to Sober's practice of the manual arts, I do
not know whether we can quite fancy Johnson

' Lives of the Poets, iii. 335. - Ihid. iii. 297. 3 IhiJ. ii. 400.

< Ibid. ii. 430. 5 llfid. ii, 431.

164

CHARACTER IN HIS WRITINGS

successfully mending his coal-box. He was probably
more successful in watering and pruning his vine,
which was another of his occupations. But all
his life Johnson was very fond of chemistry. Hawkins
describes Johnson's laboratory in the garret over his
Inner Temple chambers, and mentions " the strong
but very nauseous spirit drawn by him from the dregs
of strong beer, which all might smell but few chose
to taste " ^ : and Mrs. Piozzi relates how a sort of
laboratory was set up at Streatham ; adding,
however, that " the danger Mr. Thrale found his
friend in one day when he had got the children and
servants round him to see some experiments per-
formed put an end to all our entertainment." 2 Yet
in his jesting over Sober's furnace and retort, Johnson
might have remembered one of his own Ramblers,
with its defence of curiosity as " one of the permanent
and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect,"
" the first passion and the last in great and generous
minds." 3

In Sober's promised reformation to quit his trifles
and betake himself to rational and useful diligence,
we may recall many an entry in Johnson's journal.
" I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving,
having from the earliest time almost that I can re-
member been forming schemes of a better life,"4 and
as Professor Raleigh has pointed out, there is more of
Johnson than of Milton in his excuse for the poet's

' Life of yo/inson, p. 413. ' yincctiotcs, p. 236.

3 Rambler, No. 103, No. 150. * Pinytrs an I Miditntions, p. 5s;.

165

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

omission of a set hour for prayer i : " the neglect of
it in his family was probably a fault for which he
condemned himself and which he intended to correct,
but that death, as too often happens, intercepted his
reformation," 2 and he can sympathize with Gray,
who " accepted the Professorship of History at Cam-
bridge and retained it to his death ; always design-
ing lectures but never reading them ; uneasy at his
neglect of duty and appeasing his uneasiness with
designs of reformation and with a resolution which
he believed himself to have made of resigning the
office if he found himself unable to discharge it." 3
We remember also how the Prince in Rasselas
passes " four months in resolving to lose no more
time in idle resolves." 4

So much for Sober, which after all shows only a
small side of Johnson : and a sad one. There is
nothing of the Johnson who drank three bottles of
port without being the worse for it — University
College has witnessed this 5 — or of the Johnson who,
as Garrick said, " gives you a forcible hug and shakes
laughter out of you whether you will or no." ^
" Have you not observed in all our conversations,"
Johnson asks Mrs. Piozzi, " that my genius is always
in extremes, that I am very noisy or very silent,
very gloomy or very merry, very sour or very kind ? " 7
Unless there was some one to draw him out, Johnson

• Six Essays on Johnson, p. 134. "^ Li-ves nf the Pacts, i. 156.

3 Ihid iii. 428. ■» Rassi-las, ch. iv.

5 Bosivcll, iii. 245. ' Il^'d. ii. 231.
^ Letters of Samuel Johnson, W. 1S4.

166

CHARACTER IN HIS WRITINGS

Would often sit quite silent, and " no one was less
willing," says Mrs, Piozzi, " to begin any discourse
than himself." ^ " Tom Tyers described me the
best," said Johnson : " you arc like a ghost. You
never speak till you are spoken to," 2 That Johnson
was ever teased with reproof into reformation is
unlikely. If his own conscience failed to rouse him
to a successful effort, it would have been vain for a
friend to give him counsel. On one occasion Benett
Langton, whom Johnson had charged to tell him sin-
cerely in what he thought his life was faulty, brought
a sheet of paper on which was written several texts
of scripture, recommending Christian charity, " And
when I questioned him," Johnson indignantly told
Boswell, " all that he could say amounted to this —
that I sometimes contradicted people in conversa-
tion." 3 But then Johnson looked upon himself as
a very polite man, though he admitted that Dr,
Barnard, the Provost of Eton, was the only man that
did justice to his good breeding 4 ; and according to
Mrs, Piozzi he told Mr, Thrale that he had never
sought to please till past thirty years, considering the
matter as hopeless, though he had been always studious
not to make enemies by apparent preference of himself 5
To Boswell's suggestion that Langton meant the
manner in which he contradicted people — roughly
and harshly — all that Johnson would say was : " And
who is the worse for that ? "

' Anccdotci, p. 208, - Boiwcll, iii. 307. 3 Ih'ul. iv. 280.

* Fiox,%i Anecdotes, p. 36. s //,/,/, p. 258.

167

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

On the other hand we have Sir John Hawkins'
testimony to the patience with which Johnson bore
reprehension : and in proof of this Hawkins says
that " he found preserved among Johnson's papers,
and placed in an obvious situation in his bureau,
an anonymous letter full of home truths concerning
Johnson's propensity to contradiction, his want of
deference to the opinions of others, his contention
for victory, his local prejudices and aversions, and
other evil habits in conversation which made his
acquaintance shunned by many who highly esteemed
him." I Johnson's own view of his politeness we
know : " No man is so cautious not to interrupt
another ; no man thinks it so necessary to appear
attentive when others are speaking : no man so steadily
refuses preference to himself or so willingly bestows
it on another as I do, no man holds so strongly as
I do the necessity of ceremony and the ill effects
which follow the breach of it : yet people think me
rude." 2

I think, however, that Johnson had himself in mind
in the following passage in one of his Adventurers :
" Men are frequently betrayed to the use of such
arguments as are not in themselves strictly defensible.
A man heated in talk and eager of victory takes
advantage of the mistakes or ignorance of his adver-
sary, lays hold of concessions to which he knows
he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on

' Life of jfolnnon, p. 60 1.
^ Piozzi y^riixi/otis, y. 36.

168

CHARACTER IN HIS WRITINGS

his opponent, though he knows himself they have
no force." ^

" I look upon myself to be a man very much mis-
understood," said Johnson two years before his death:
" I am not an uncandid nor am I a severe man. I
sometimes say more than I mean in jest, and people
are apt to believe me serious." '

Much of what Johnson says of Savage is his own
story. Johnson, who was to be made happy, by
hearing this very life of Savage praised by a guest
at Cave's table, while he himself sat behind a screen
with a plate of victuals, sent to him there because he
was dressed so shabbily 3 that he did not choose to
appear, was not only pleading Savage's cause when
he wrote : " The insolence and resentment of
which Savage is accused were not easily to be avoided
by a great mind, irritated by perpetual hardship and
constrained hourly to return the spurns of contempt
and repress the insolence of prosperity." 4 And
Johnson is pleading his own case when many years
later he wrote in reference to Gray's quarrel with
Horace Walpole : " Men whose consciousness of
their own merit sets them above the compliance of
servility are apt enough in their associations with
superiors to watch their own dignity with troublesome
and punctilious jealousy and in the fervour of inde-
pendence to exact that attention which they refuse
to pay." 5

' Ad'vcnturcr, No. 8^, ' Bonvell, iv. 2-^q, "t Ihid. i. 163 n.

^ Lives oft/if Poffs, ii. 43-5. i //.;■,/. ii. 422.

169

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

The generous praise bestowed by Johnson on Savage
is praise for virtues which Johnson greatly valued and
which he must have known were his own. " Com-
passion was indeed the distinguishing quality of Savage;
he never appeared inclined to take advantage of weak-
ness, to attack the defenceless, or to press upon the
falling : whoever was distressed was certain at least
of his good wishes ; and when he could give no
assistance to extricate them from misfortunes, he
endeavoured to sooth them by sympathy and
tenderness." ^

We recall Goldsmith's reply to Boswell, who
wondered at Johnson's tenderness to a man of bad
character : " He is now become miserable and that
insures the protection of Johnson." 2

Savage had befriended Johnson when he came
up to town, a literary adventurer, and Johnson never
forgot kindness. In the Life of Walsh he credits
Pope with like gratitude : " The kindnesses which are
first experienced are seldom forgotten." Pope always
retained a grateful memory of Walsh's notice, and
mentioned him in one of his later pieces among those
who had encouraged his juvenile studies :

. . . Granville the polite
And knowing Walsh would tell me I could write.3

We think of Johnson himself when we read that Savage
"always preserved a steady confidence in his own

■ Li-va of the Poctt, ii. ;^55. " Bosivell, i. 417.

3 Li-vei of the Poets, i. 329.

170

CHARACTER IN HIS WRITINGS

capacity " and " whatever faults may be imputed to
him the virtue of suffering well cannot be denied
him." I

Like Savage, Johnson's distresses, however afflictive,
never dejected him ; in his lowest state he wanted
not spirit to assert the natural dignity of wit, and was
always ready to repress that insolence which the
superiority of wealth incited : "... he never
admitted any gross familiarities or submitted to be
treated otherwise than as an equal." 2

And as Dr. Birkbeck Hill says : " Who does not
think not of the man whose biography was written,
but of the biographer himself, when he reads : " Savage
had the peculiar felicity that his attention never de-
serted him ; he was present to every object and regardful
of the most trifling occurrences. . . . To this
quality is to be imputed the extent of his knowledge,
compared with the small time which he spent in visible
endeavours to acquire it. He mingled in cursory
conversation with the same steadiness of attention as
others apply to a lecture. . . . His judgment was
eminently exact both with regard to writings and to
men. The knowledge of life was indeed his chief
attainment." 3

In the Life of Collins it is not only Collins that
Johnson defends : " His morals were pure and his
opinions pious. In a long continuance of poverty
and long habits of dissipation [Johnst)n here means

' Li-vei of I lie Ports, ii. 40^, 423. - //>/</. i. 401.

3 IhiJ. ii. 430 ; Bunvil/, i. 167, n 4.

171

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

scattered attention] it cannot be expected that any
character should be exactly uniform. There is a
degree of want by which the freedom of agency is
almost destroyed and long association with fortuitous
companions will at last relax the strictness of truth
and abate the fervour of sincerity. It may be said
that at least he preserved the source of action unpol-
luted, that his principles were never shaken, that his
distinctions of right and wrong were never con-
founded, and that his faults had nothing of malignity or
design, but proceeded from some unexpected pressure
or casual temptation." i There is much in this to
remind us of Johnson. A penitent, Boswell was
almost inclined to believe that his great oracle Johnson
did allow too much credit to "good principles without
good practice." 2 Prior was a worse man than Collins,
and his life seemed to Johnson " irregular, negligent,
and sensual," yet Johnson adds that Prior's " opinion
seem to have been right " 3 : and to Savage, whose
character was marked by profligacy, insolence, and
ingratitude, Johnson pays the tribute that " he always
preserved a strong sense of the dignity, the beauty, and
the necessity of virtue." 4 So Johnson, in spite of
his own inflexible integrity and his wide charity,
finds consolation in the hope that he too has *•' pre-
served the source of action unpolluted." 5

' Lilies of the Poett, iii. 3;58.

' Letters of Ro<:ivell, eil. Thomas Seccombc, it)oS, p. 272.

3 Li-ues of tlic Poets, ii. 200.

I hid. ii. 380.

Ibid iii. 338.

172

CHARACTER IN FIIS WRITINGS

"I hope," he wrote on Easter Eve 1781, "that
I have advanced by pious reflections in my submission
to God and my benevolence to man ; but I have
corrected no external habits nor have kept any of
the resolutions made in the beginning of the year." '
When wc turn to these resolutions wc find that they
are against neglect of bible reading and public worship
and against indolence. And this is the case, in the
main, all through Johnson's Prayers and Meditations.
When he confesses himself a great sinner he is accusing
himself, I think, of negligence of religion and failure
through indolence to make the best use of his life, and
not, as Boswell suggests, of any sins of deed which
he may have committed. ^

If Johnson's defence of Savage often touches a
personal note m Rasse/as, we see in the character of
the scholar Imlac, as Sir Joshua Reynolds says, a
comment on Dr. Johnson's own practice. 3 If the
choice of life had ever been his, Johnson, like Imlac,
would have wandered over many countries, drinking
at the fountain of knowledge to quench the thirst
of curiosity. Johnson had not lived in courts ; but
he was exercised in business and stored with observa-
tion ; he had " found the delight of knowledge and
felt the pleasure of intelligence and the pride of
invention." He had studied man and nature and all
the modes of life. He had longed to be a poet, and
even after twenty years of wandering still felt at times

' Prayers and Mcditatiom, i. 192. ' Boswell, \\. 397.

3 J ohnsonian Miscellanies, ii. 220.

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

the enthusiastic fit. He is free from all envy, malignity,
or cynicism. He takes pleasure in the company of
the young. " His trade was wisdom," and he
moralizes on everything that he meets — on life in
all its forms, on the nature of the soul, on death
and immortality." ^

" Sir," said Imlac, " my history will not be long :
the life that is devoted to knowledge passes silently
away and is very little diversified by events. To
talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear,
to inquire and answer enquiries, is the business of a
scholar. He wanders kbout the world without pomp
or terror, and is neither known or valued but by men
like himself." 2 But in the Prince also we hear Johnson,
and the Princess too is often an "undisguised Johnson."
Johnson was thinking of his own youth — and of every
one's youth — when he describes how the chief amuse-
ment of the Prince in the Happy Valley " was to
picture to himself that world which he had never
seen : to place himself in various conditions, to be
entangled in imaginary difficulties and to be engaged
in wild adventures : but his benevolence always
terminated his projects in the relief of distress, the
detection of fraud, the defeat of oppression, and the
diffusion of happiness " 3 : or when Imlac relates
how he amused himself during a voyage by learning
from the sailors the art of navigation which he had
never practised, and sometimes by fixing schemes

' Rassclas, cd. Birk.bi;ck. Hill, Intro., p. 30.
» JbU. ch. viii. 3 l/^iJ, ch. iv.

CHARACTER IN HIS WRITINGS

for his conduct in different situations in not one
of which he has been ever placed.^

" It was the fehcity of Pope," writes Johnson,
"to rate himself at his real value " 2 ; and Milton
seems to him " to have been well acquainted with
his own genius and to know what it was that nature
had bestowed upon him more bountifully than upon
others." 3 Johnson,too,had that self-confidence which,
as he says, " is the first requisite to great undertakings." 4
" I knew very well what I was undertaking," said
Johnson of his Dictionary ; " and very well how
to do it, and have done it very well " 5 : and he knew,
too, that his strength lay in biography.^ Nor were
his failings hid from him. Having read one of his
Ramblers and being asked how he liked it, Johnson
shook his head and answered, " Too wordy." 7 And
when some one began reading aloud Irene, he left
the room, replying, when he was asked the reason of
this, " Sir, I thought it had been better." 8

It cannot be but that his own character was in
his thoughts when he wrote : " A mind like Dryden's
always curious, always active, to whom every under-
standing was proud to be associated and of which
every one solicited the regard by an ambitious display
of himself, had a more pleasant, perhaps a nearer way
to knowledge than by the silent progress of solitary
reading. I do not suppose that he despised books

' Rassclas, ch. ix. ' Lives of the Poets, iii, 89.

3 Ibid. i. 177. < Ibiii. iii. 89.

5 Bosivtll, iii. 405. * Ibid. iv. 34 n.

^ Ibid. iv. 5. " Ibid. iv. 5.

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

or intentionally neglected them ; but that he was
carried out by the impetuosity of his genius to more
vivid and speedy instructors, and that his studies were
rather desultory and fortuitous than constant and
systematical." ^

Like Dryden, Johnson " gleans his knowledge from
accidental intelligence and various conversation, by
a quick apprehension, a judicious selection and a happy
memory, a keen appetite of knowledge and a powerful
digestion." 2

Johnson also rises before us in the following passage
in the Life of Pope : " When Pope entered into the
living world it seems to have happened to him as
to many others that he was less attentive to dead
masters : he studied in the academy of Paracelsus
and made the universe his favourite volume. He
gathered his notions fresh from reality, not from the
copies of authors but the originals of nature. His
frequent references to history, his allusions to various
kinds of knowledge, and his images selected from art
and nature, with his observations on the operations of
the mind and the modes of life show an intelligence
perpetually on the wing, excursive, vigorous and diligent,
eager to pursue knowledge and attentive to retain
it. From his curiosity arose the desire of travelling,
which though he never found an opportunity to
gratify, it did not leave him till his life declined." 3

To Johnson also may be applied his own description
of Barretier : " He had a quickness of apprehension

' Lives of the Poets, i. 417. " Ibid. 3 IhiJ, \\], ^17.

176

CHARACTER IN HIS WRITINGS

and firmness of memory which enabled him to read
with incredible rapacity, and at the same time to retain
what he read so as to be able to recollect and apply
it. He turned over volumes in an instant and selected
what was useful for his purpose." * " Did you read
it through ? " Johnson was sure to ask if a book was
praised to him. 2 " He gets at the substance of a
book directly ; he tears out the heart of it," said a
friend. 3

Light also is thrown on Johnson's own character
in his praise of Milton's independence of spirit and
lofty demeanour in adversity : " He was naturally
a thinker for himself, confident of his own abilities,
and disdainful of help or hindrance : he did not refuse
admission to the thoughts or images of his predecessors,
but he did not seek them. From his contemporaries
he neither courted nor received support : There is
in his writings nothing by which the pride of other
authors might be gratified or favour gained, no ex-
change of praise or sollicitation of support." 4

In his adverse criticism also Johnson shows a very
natural tendency to interpret the characters of other
poets by their unlikeness to his own. His Life of
Swift ^ I think, shows this.

In his last Rambler Johnson wrote : " I have never
enabled my readers to discuss the topic of the day."
It is not known, I think, when it was that Johnson
was drawn to serve in the militia : though we know

D

' JVoth, vi. 390. ^ Bosivcl/, iii. 226.

3 Ibiii. iii. 285. * Li-va of ihc Poets, i. 194.

177 M

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

that Boswell saw hanging in a closet the musket and the
sword with which he had provided himself. ^ Perhaps
it was at this time that he wrote his paper on the
Bravery of the English Common Soldier.'^ If Johnson
were living now he would be meeting his friends
at supper, we do not doubt. I have wondered though
these last few days if he might not have found it less
easy to keep to his Rambler rule.

Boswell, iv. 319. " fVorks, vi. 149.

178

SIR JOSHUA RETNOLDS

Paper Read to the Johnson Club,
I2TH December 1919,

BY

L. C. THOMAS

Sir Joshua Reynolds

r

I ALWAYS think, myself, tliat Johnson's most striking
characteristic was that he attracted to liimself, and
exacted the homage of, the most eminent men in an
age of eminent men ; and in a different way and
for different reasons the same may be said of Sir Joshua
Reynolds. Three of Johnson's most fervent admirers
were, by universal admission, men of genius — Gold-
smith, Reynolds, and Burke, and of these I regard
Reynolds as Johnson's St. John.

There is nothing essentially attractive about the
name " Joshua." I doubt if the favourite or other
sons of any of the Brethren bear that name, but it
has been borne by two of the most attractive char-
acters in the history of the world. The original
Joshua (the son of Nun) was likewise a man of genius
and lovable parts, and during the course of the war
I am sure we all had constantly in mind the great
Israelitish general who, with unshakable faith and
breadth of vision, led the armies of the Lord of Hosts
to triumphant issues. But even he was unable to
i8i

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

invest that name with the charm it derived from
its association with his eighteenth-century namesake.
Prefixed to " Reynolds " it sounds h'ke a benediction.
We feel that no other name would have answered the
purpose, and so there stands out prominently in the
Johnsonian gallery that personage we all think of
as " Sir Joshua."

It is no part of my present purpose to discourse
of Reynolds as a painter except incidentally. His
position in that respect seems unassailable. All
who are qualified to judge are agreed that he was
one of the greatest painters of all time. A gentleman
of my acquaintance, who is a great authority on arts
in general and on Reynolds in particular, once observed
to me that the best room in the National Gallery
should be cleared and filled with Reynolds's pictures.
I suppose that among the great British artists he is
an easy first in spite of recent auction sales.

Mr. Austin Dobson in his " Gentlemen of the
Old School " conjures up a typical Reynolds portrait :

Reynolds has painted him — a face
Filled with a fine, old-fashioned grace,
Fresh-coloured, frank, with ne'er a trace

Of trouble shaded ;
The eyes are blue, the hair is drest
In plainest way — one hand is prest
Deep in a flapped canary vest,

With buds brocaded.
He wears a brown old Brunswick coat.
With silver buttons — round his throat,
A soft cravet ; in all you note

An elder fashion.

182

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

Wc, however, arc chiefly indebted to him for his
portrait of Johnson, a reph'ca of which hangs in this
room ; and I suppose none of us think of the great
man without having this picture in his mind's eye.

I maintain that Sir Joshua is even more attractive
and interesting as a man than as a painter. Johnson
described him as " the most invulnerable man I
know : the man with whom if you should quarrel,
you would find the most difficulty how to abuse,"
and in 1764, when Reynolds suffered a short but
dangerous illness, Johnson wrote the following
letter :

Dear Sir,

I did not hear of your sickness till I heard likewise
of your recovery, and therefore escaped that part of your
pain which every man must feel to whom you are known
as you are known to me. Having had no particular account
of your disorder, I know not in what state it has left you.
If the amusement of my company can exhilarate the languor
of a slow recovery, I will not delay a day to come to you ;
for I know not how I can so effectually promote my own
pleasure as by pleasing you ; in whom, if I should lose you,
I should lose almost the only man whom I call a friend.

There is also Goldsmith's tribute in his Dedication
of The Deserted Village to Reynolds, where
he says : " The only dedication I ever made was
to my brother, because I loved him better than most
other men. He is since dead. Permit me to inscribe
this poem to you."

It is of interest to recall the circumstances and
associations of Sir Joshua's earlier years. He was

183

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

born, as every one knows, at Plympton in Devonshire,
a small market tovv^n for ever famous because of its
association with this illustrious man. There were
two factors in his early history which must have had
a profound influence on his career : one was the
great natural beauty of the district, and the other
the assistance and support afforded him by the neigh-
bouring gentry, an interesting fact when it is remem-
bered that these were country squires of the Fielding
period. Any young professional man is all the better
for the assistance and encouragement of powerful
friends, and these Reynolds had in full measure from
the Edgcumbes, Eliots, Parkers, and others who
represented the leading country families in his district.
I have often gazed with a feeling of veneration amount-
ing almost to affection at portly figures ensconced
in comfortable chairs in the Club at Exeter, who
bore the same names as those who assisted the young
Reynolds at a time when his genius was flowering.
It is gratifying to think that had they any desire for
fame Reynolds repaid their kindness with compound
interest, as iheir portraits appear at every loan
exhibition and their names in every contemporary
history.

Sir Joshua's sweetness of disposition seems to have
been a distinct heritage from his father, and there
are two interesting records which demonstrate this
characteristic of Reynolds and its distinct origin.
In Leslie's Life I find the following : " Mr. William
Russell possesses a small pen sketch by Reynolds,
184

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

washed with Indian ink, of a child leaning on the slab
of a tomb, and pointing down to a scroll which lies
at his feet, on which is written ' Humphrey, Samuel,
Martin — all, all, arc gone ' ; this in reference to the
death of his brothers." The death of a child is
periiaps the most pathetic subject that the human
mind can dwell upon. One remembers King David :
" I shall go to him but he will not return to me."
The elder Reynolds, on the death of his son Martin,
wrote to a friend who was also suffering a domestic
bereavement a letter which, to my mind, forms a
most touching and charming epitaph on the death
of a child. He says : " I shall offer no arguments
of consolation to you, who wanted them so much
myself, and should still want them, if I did not con-
sider that it is too apparent that all grief in these cases
is of no purpose. But one thing I comfort myself
with, which is perhaps an argument that you have
omitted — that I have enjoyed them for some time,
which, notwithstanding the grief of parting from them,
is much better than not to have enjoyed them at all ;
and I think with pleasure upon some of their actions,
which our Saviour points out in children, and which
'tis always good to have before our eyes. They are
little preachers of righteousness which grown persons
may listen to with pleasure. Actions are more
powerful than words ; and I cannot but thank God
sometimes for the benefit of their example."

By means of support of one kind and another,
Reynolds was enabled to travel extensively on the
185

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

continent of Europe and to prosecute his artistic
studies in Italy.

At the age of thirty he estabh'shed himself in London
on the urgent representations of his friend and patron
Lord Edgcumbe, where he was joined by his youngest
sister Frances. This sister seems to have been a
tiresome woman apart from what Madam D'Arblay
described as her " worth and understanding," and
after residing with her brother for some years he
was obh'ged to part company with her, ahhough he
otherwise invariably treated her with great kindness,
and made an adequate provision for her in his will.
With Johnson she was a prime favourite. " My
dearest Rennie " he calls her, and she seems to have
been one of the few women who were able to satisfy
his lust for tea. He considered her as a being " very
near to purity itself." She also possessed artistic
talent of sorts, which she exercised by painting minia-
tures and copying her illustrious brother's pictures,
of which he remarked : " They make other people
laugh and me cry." It will be remembered that
Reynolds, having purchased a large gingerbread
coach, as was unkindly said for the sake of advertise-
ment, prevailed upon his sister to drive about in it,
although he does not seem to have been sufficiently
courageous to do so himself.

Reynolds first became acquainted with Johnson

when the latter was residing at Gough Square, but

they met for the first time at the house of two ladies

who were neighbours of Reynolds in Newport Street.

1 86

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

At the very first meeting Reynolds delivered himself
of an observation which won Johnson's admiration,
and which indeed would have appealed to a person
of less discernment than Johnson. The ladies
mentioned the death of a friend to whom they were
under considerable obligations, chiefly, I believe,
financial. Reynolds observed : " You have, however,
the comfort of being relieved from the burden of
gratitude."

The friendship thus commenced continued until
it was interrupted by Johnson's death, although at
times the courtly Sir Joshua must have found Johnson
rather trying. On one occasion Reynolds took the
eminent sculptor Roubiliac to Gough Square, in
order that the latter might ask Johnson to compose
an epitaph for a monument in Westminster Abbey.
The meeting seems to have taken place in this very
room, and the introduction having been made, Roubiliac
revealed the purpose of his visit in flowery language,
which was interrupted by Johnson saying : " Come,
come. Sir, let us have no more of this bombastic,
ridiculous rodomontade, but let me know in simple
language the name, character, and quality of the
person whose epitaph you intend to have me write."

Differences arose from time to time between Johnson
and Reynolds on the subject of alcoholic refreshment,
the attitude of Johnson towards it being what would
now be described as of a " pussyfoot " character.
Reynolds said : " I am in very good spirits when I
get up in the morning. By dinner-time I am exhausted,
187

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Wine puts me in the same state as when I got up."
On one occasion Johnson wrote to Boswell, " Reynolds
has taken too much strong liquor, and seems to delight
in his new character." The subject often recurred
between them, and on one of these occasions Reynolds
inflicted on Johnson a snub, which I believe is the
only recorded instance of a snub which was answered
by an apology. Reynolds, arguing in favour of
wine-drinking, remarked that : " To please one's
company was a strong motive," whereupon Johnson
replied : " I don't agree with you, Sir ; you are too
far gone," to which Sir Joshua replied : " I should
have thought so indeed. Sir, had I made such a speech
as you have done." Johnson (as Boswell records
" drawing himself in," and I really believe flushing) :
" Nay, don't be angry, I did not mean to oflrend you."
In the year 1762 Sir Joshua achieved an ambition,
which, like Boswell, he had entertained, by taking
Johnson on a tour in his native county, to be shown
off to his host's friends. While visiting the Mudges
at Exeter there occurred an incident which seems to
have impressed itself on Johnson's memory. On passing
his cup to Mrs. Mudge for the eighteenth time,
that lady remarked, " What another, Dr. Johnson ? "
" Madam, you are rude," replied Johnson, and went
steadily on till he had finished his twenty-fifth cup.
Johnson referred to this upon an occasion when he
and Reynolds were at Mrs. Cumberland's. Sir
Joshua gently called his attention to the fact that he
had had eleven cups of tea, to which Johnson replied :
188

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

" Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why
should you number up my cups of tea ? " He then
told his visitors of the incident at Mrs. Mudge's,
who, he complained, desired " to make a zany " of
him. The genial Cumberland said, " My wife would
have nruide tea for him as long as the New River
could have supplied her with water."

It appears that during this excursion Johnson
alarmed those who were entertaining him by his
excesses in honey, cider, and clotted cream, but seems
to have been none the worse for them. He is reputed
to have raced " a young lady on the lawn at one
of the Devonshire houses, kicking off his tight slippers
high into the air as he ran, and when he had won,
leading the lady back in triumphant delight." While
at Plymouth, fmding that a rivalry existed between
that town and the neighbouring town of Devonport,
he immediately developed a violent partisan attitude,
contemptuously referring to the inhabitants of Devon-
port as " The Dockers," and when the " Dockers "
petitioned that a portion of Plymouth's plentiful
supply of water should be diverted to them for their
urgent needs, Johnson exclaimed : " No, no ! I
am a Plymouth man. Rogues ! Let them die ot
thirst. They shall not have a drop I "

Sir Joshua saw every turn of the brilliant social
kaleidoscope of his period. Day after day the most
distinguished men and the most celebrated and beautiful
women were to be found in his studio. On one
occasion when a friend expressed to him his wonder

189

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

that he could resist the alluring beauty of some of
his sitters he replied that his heart, like the grave-
digger's hand in Hamlet^ had grown callous by con-
tact with beauty. I have not attempted to pry into
Reynolds's relations with his fair sitters, but he seems
to have had a certain aloofness which may have pro-
tected him like armour. Miss Thrale could never
really understand him, as is indicated by the following
vivacious lines composed by her :

Of Reynolds all good should be said and no harm.
Though the heart is too frigid, the pencil too warm ;
Yet each fault from his converse we still must disclaim.
As his temper 'tis peaceful and pure as his fame ;
Nothing in it o'erflows, nothing ever is wanting.
It nor chills like his kindness, nor glows like his painting.
When Johnson by strength overpowers our mind.
When Montague dazzles, and Burke strikes us blind.
To Reynolds well pleased for relief we must run.
Rejoice in his shadow and shrink from the sun.

He was equally at home in the glare and glitter
of the Pantheon as in the murk of Gough Square,
and he studied at first hand that social life, the con-
stituent parts of which he portrayed on his canvas.
He was present at the opening of the Pantheon,
an institution which the proprietors intended to
conduct with perfect propriety, even requiring, if
necessary, the production of marriage certificates
from the ladies who attended.

Johnson himself attended the Pantheon, the fee
for admission to which was half a guinea. On
this Boswell remarked that there was not half-a-
190

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

guinea's worth of pleasure in seeing the place. " But,
Sir," said Johnson, " there's half-a-guinea's worth
of inferiority to other people in not having seen it."

During the course of his career Sir Joshua seems
to have painted almost everybody of any importance.
The beautiful Miss Gunnings, soldiers, sailors, bucks,
macaronis, ladies frail and fair. A favourite sitter
was Kitty Fisher, who was painted by him no less
than seven times. This was an interesting lady
who eventually died of " cosmetics." She was
said to have been kept by subscription of the whole
club at Arthur's, but apart from her beauty she has
been described as " a very agreeable, genteel person,
the essence of small talk and the magazine of con-
temporary anecdote." Lord Lingonier described her
in conjunction with a friend as two ladies of genuine
pleasure, with whom he acknowledges to have passed
some of the merriest hours of his life. She is reported
to have got through ;^i 2,000 in nine months, which
period one thinks might have been employed much
more profitably.

Goldsmith, in his dedication of The Deserted Village^
has referred to Sir Joshua's literary discernment.
As exemplifying this, I cannot resist the temptation
of quoting from The Dialogues composed by Reynolds
of a conversation between himself and Johnson. These
dialogues were written, I believe, with no view to
publication. Of them, Hannah More, who knew
the parties well, said, " Dear Sir Joshua, even with
his inimitable pencil, never drew more interesting,
191

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

more resembling portraits. ... I hear the deep-
toned and indignant accents of our friend Johnson
. . . the natural, the easy, the friendly, the elegant
language, the polished sarcasm, softened with sweet
temper, of Sir Joshua."

Reynolds. Let me alone, I'll bring him out. {Aside!)
I have been thinking, Dr. Johnson, this morning, on a matter
that has puzzled me very much ; it is a subject that I dare
say has often passed in your thoughts, and though / cannot,
I dare say you have made up your mind upon it.

Johnson. Tilly fally I What is all this preparation ?
What is all this mighty matter ?

Reynolds. Why, it is a very weighty matter. The
subject I have been thinking upon is Predestination and
Free-will, two things I cannot reconcile together for the
life of me ; in my opinion. Dr. Johnson, free-will and fore-
knowledge cannot be reconciled.

Johnson. Sir, it is not of very great importance what
your opinion is upon such a question.

Reynolds. But I meant only, Dr. Johnson, to know
your opinion.

Johnson. No, Sir, you meant no such thing ; you meant
only to show these gentlemen that you are not the man
they took you to be, but that you think of high matters
sometimes, and that you may have the credit of having it
said that you held an argument with Sam Johnson on pre-
destination and free-will — a subject of that magnitude as
to have engaged the attention of the world, to have perplexed
the wisdom of man for these two thousand years ; a subject
on which the fallen angels, who had yet not lost all their
original brightness, find themselves in wandering mazes lost.
That such a subject could be discussed in the levity of
convivial conversation, is a degree of absurdity beyond
what is easily conceivable.

Reynolds. It is so, as you say, to be sure ; I talked
once to our friend Garrick upon this subject, but I re-
member we could make nothing of it.
192

SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

Johnson. O noble pair !

Reynolds. Garrick was a clever fellow, Dr. Johnson ;
Garrick, take him altogether, was certainly a very great
man.

Johnson. Garrick, Sir, may be a great man in your
opinion, as far as I know, but he was not so in mine ; little
things are great to little men.

Reynolds. I have heard you say, Dr. Johnson

Johnson. Sir, you have never heard me say that David
Garrick was a great man ; you may have heard me say
that Garrick was a good repeater — of other men's words —
words put into his mouth by other men ; this makes but
a faint approach towards being a great man.

Reynolds. But take Garrick upon the whole, now, in
regard to conversation

Johnson. Well, Sir, in regard to conversation : I never
discovered in the conversation of David Garrick any in-
tellectual energy, any wide grasp of thought, any extensive
comprehension of mind, or that he possessed any of these
powers to which great could with any degree of propriety
be applied

Reynolds. But still

Johnson. Hold, Sir, I have not done. There are, to
be sure, in the laxity of colloquial speech, various kinds
of greatness ; a man may be a great tobacconist, a man
may be a great painter, he may be likewise a great mimic ;
now you may be the one and Garrick the other, and yet
neither of you be great men.

Reynolds. But, Dr. Johnson

Johnson. Hold, Sir, I have often lamented how dan-
gerous it is to investigate and discriminate character, to
men who have no discriminative powers.

Reynolds. But Garrick, as a companion, I heard you
say — no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mrs. Thrale's
table

Johnson. You tease me, Sir. Whatever you may have

heard me say, no longer ago than last Wednesday, at

Mrs. Thrale's table, I tell you I do not say so now ;

besides, as I said before, you may not have understood

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me, you misapprehended me, you may not have heard
me.

Reynolds. But I am very sure I heard you.

Johnson. Besides, besides, Sir, besides — do you not
know — are you so ignorant as not to know — that it is
the highest degree of rudeness to quote a man against
himself ?

Reynolds. But if you differ from yourself, and give
one opinion to-day

Johnson. Have done. Sir; the company you see are
tired, as well as myself.

Volumes might be written about the details of
Sir Joshua's career, which was one of considerable
prosperity, but towards its end he must have felt
acutely the loss of many of his great friends. Having
always suffered from deafness, when he reached the
age of sixty-six he was further handicapped by an
impairment of vision which made him afraid to paint,
read, or write, and he amused himself by cleaning and
mending pictures and playing cards ; while the tediums
of inaction was to some extent relieved by Ozias
Humphrey reading to him from the newspapers
accounts of the French Revolution. As the child
is the father of the man, one can imagine him in this
twilight mourning, as at an earlier period he had
lamented the death of his little brothers, the loss of
his friends : "Johnson, Goldsmith, Garrick — all,
all are gone."

He had none of Johnson's morbid dread of death.

On 26th January 1792 Burke writes to his son

Richard : " Our poor friend Sir Joshua declines daily.

For some time past he has kept his bed . . . nothing

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SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS

can equal the tranquillity with which he views his
end. He congratulates himself on it as a happy con-
clusion of a happy life." He died with little pain on
Thursday evening, 23rd February.

When I contemplate Reynolds's character, I am
reminded of an excogitation of the Pope in " 'I he
Ring and the Book " :

I see in the world the intellect of man everywhere—

That sword, the energy, his subtle spear,

The knowledge which defends him like a shield —

Everywhere ; but they make not up, I think,

The marvel of a soul like thine. . . .

Never was a man so kind and liberal to his friends
as Reynolds, his benevolence towards whom was
exercised with a thoughtful particularity. He founded
the Club to give Johnson undisturbed opportunities
of talking. On the formation of the Royal Academy,
he suggested to the King the appointment of a few
honorary members, and it is not surprising to find
among these the following appointments :

Professor of Ancient Literature : Dr. Johnson.
Professor of Ancient History : Dr. Goldsmith,

of which appointment poor Goldy remarked that
honours to a man like himself " were like ruffles
to a man who had no shirt." He gave Goldsmith
financial assistance in his darkest days, and even
after his death assisted his proteges. He lent Burke
;^2,ooo, from which obligation he released him in
his will, as well as bequeathing an extra ;^2,ooo;
and he also, as is well known, lent money to Johnson.

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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

None of these ever seem to have repaid him. Johnson
asked to be released from a small debt, as he desired
to divert the money into what he considered a neces-
sitous quarter, as excellent an example of the definition
of chanty I can remember having heard : " A strong
desire on the part of A to benefit B at the expense
of C."

The world owes a great debt of gratitude to Sir
Joshua for having befriended these great men He
relieved the lofty mind of Burke from the cloud of
financial embarrassment ; he was instrumental in
procuring Johnson's pension ; and he was like a
fairy godmother to Goldsmith. His remains were
deposited with pomp and circumstance in St. Paul's
Cathedral.

Had there been observed at the side of his tomb
something approaching the conventional valedictory
salutation pronounced by Garter King-of-Arms at
the burial of a knight of that Order, it might well
have been said : " Thus it hath pleased Almighty
God to take from this transitory world into his mercy
that great painter and great and good man Sir Joshua
Reynolds."

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JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

Paper Read to the Johnson Cr.uR,
17TH January 1919,

nv

A. B. WAI.KI.EY

Johnson and the Theatre

Boswell's chronicle of Johnson as a playgoer is
fragmentary. The direct evidence has often to be
supplemented by inference and not seldom by con-
jecture ; with some further help from that precious
privilege which Renan claimed for every historian,
the privilege de solliciter doucement lei textes, of gently
coaxing the text. It is sufficiently clear, however,
that Johnson must have been a playgoer, off and on,
for over two score years. " Forty years ago, Sir,"
he said to Boswell when revisiting Lichfield in 1776,
" I was in love with an actress here, Mrs, Emmet,
who acted Flora in Hob in the Well" " What
merit," says Boswell, " this lady had as an actress,
or what was her figure or her manner, I have not
been informed, but, if we may believe Mr. Garrick,
his old master's taste in theatrical merit was by no
means refined ; he was not an elegam formarum
spectator. Garrick used to tell that Johnson said of
an actor, who played Sir Harry Wildair at Lichfield,
' There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow,' when,
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

in fact, according to Garrick's account, ' he was the
most vulgar ruffian that ever went upon boards.' "
"Forty years ago" in 1776 — it must have been a
little more than that, for by 1735 Johnson was a
married man. In this early version of Pendennis
and the Fotheringay the dates are significant. Then,
as now, travelling companies — almost of necessity —
followed the London lead. Now Hob had been
revived at Covent Garden on 22nd March, and
it is virtually certain that the Lichfield performance
was after that date. Johnson married Mrs. Porter
on 9th July. Quick work ! Two successive passions
— if they did not overlap — in about as many months !
As to Sir Harry Wilda'tr^ there was an isolated revival
in London, after many years, on ist February 1737.
It must have been in the course of the following
summer, when Johnson temporarily returned to
Lichfield after his first visit to London, that he saw
this play. And it must have been some time earlier
that he tossed the Lichfield man, who had taken
his playhouse chair, into the pit, chair and all.

For the next ten years there is a gap in the record
of Johnson's playgoing. They were years of dire
poverty, and the price of a seat in the pit, three shil-
lings, must have been a serious matter for him. But
for the first half of this period he was intimate with
Savage, whom he describes in the Life as " an assid-
uous frequenter of the theatres." In the Life he speaks
of the players, and what he says cannot have been
said from hearsay. In 1741 his friend Garrick leapt
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JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

into fame, and, of course, had " paper " to bestow.
And Johnson had come up from Lichfield with a
manuscript tragedy, Mahomet and Irene. Period :
shortly after the capture of Constantinople in 1453
by Mahomet II. To write it Johnson borrowed
from Peter Garrick Knolles's History of the Tiirks ;
but for the modern inquirer Gibbon is a more accessible
authority, and Gibbon's reference to the matter is,
if brief, characteristic : " I will not transcribe, nor
do I firmly believe, the story of the beauteous slave,
whose head Mahomet severed from her body to
convince the janizaries that their master was not
the votary of love." Mahomet's action would
hardly convince any one to-day, when a severed head,
far from damming the course of true love, has proved
on the stage the most potent of aphrodisiacs. However,
when the beauteous slave became Johnson's Irene,
strangling was substituted for decapitation, and —
it is said at Garrick's suggestion — in view of the
audience. But you never can tell how audiences
will take a bowstring. One remembers that when
Sarah Bernhardt bared her neck to it in the last act
of Theodora the curtain was dropped with nervous
precipitation. The audience at Drury Lane in 1749
made a joke of it. " When A4rs, Pritchard was to
be strangled upon the stage, and was to speak two
lines with the bowstring round her neck, the audience
cried out ' Murder I Murder ! ' She several times
attempted to speak, but in vain. At last she was
obliged to go off the stage alive." On subsequent
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

nights — there were nine in all — she was strangled
"off." She was strangled, not because Mahomet
wished to convince any one that he was not the votary
of love, but because he beh'eved her, erroneously,
to be involved in a palace conspiracy led by his Grand
Vizier. Indeed, he had been on the point of marrying
her, after persuading her to change her religion. Only
a few intrepid explorers now read Irene through.
Other people may plead what Johnson said about
Mrs. Montague's Essay on Shakespeare. "... I
have, indeed, not read it all. But when I take up
the end of a web, and find it pack-thread, I do not
expect, by looking further, to find embroidery."
Boswell gives some extracts, Birkbeck Hill some
more, and there are several speeches in the Johnsoniana
appended to the charming revised and illustrated
Croker of 1835 — all good, stout pack-thread. Evi-
dently the narrator of The Rose and the Ring, who
made the famous observation that blank verse is not
argument, had never read Irene. At the best it is
an intellectual effort, the vigorous expression of con-
cepts ; whereas a work of art — be it tragedy or
comedy, epic or lyric, picture or symphony — must, of
course, be primarily the expression, not of concepts,
but of intuitions. When Garrick told Boswell that
Johnson lacked "sensibility," he signified the same
thing in the language of his time. Boswell, who,
we all know, is sometimes capable of a surprisingly
acute piece of criticism, draws attention to the likeness
between Johnson's mental character and that which
202

JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

he assigns to Dryden : " The power," says Johnson,
" that predominated in (Dryden's) intellectual opera-
tions was rather strong reason than quick sensibility.
Upon all occasions that were presented, he studied
rather than felt ; and produced sentiments, not such
as nature enforces, but meditation supplies." There
is the explanation of Irene in a nutshell.

Its form is strictly on the classical model ; given
its date, what else could it be ? The great French
tragedians of an earlier generation had firmly estab-
lished that. Racine's Bajazet is very similar in
theme to Irene : or Oriental palace conspiracy (with
the dagger — used " off " — characteristically sub-
stituted for the bowstring). Both rely exclusively
upon dialogue, forensic or descriptive, and " local
colour " is non-existent. What Corneille is reported
to have said of Bajaxet — that its people were not
Turks, but the author's countrymen — is equally
true of Irene. Indeed, one of its most telling speeches
was a eulogy by the Vizier (in 1453) of the British
Constitution. This reminds one of Mr. Bernard
Shaw's Man of Destiny^ wherein Bonaparte, at a
Lombard inn, after the battle of Lodi, lectures a
French spy on the adulteration of Manchester goods
and the iniquity of child labour under the English
factory system. Of course, Johnson went to the
East because the tragedians of that age turned to the
East as persistently as many of the novelists of our
own turn to the East End. If the story of Irene
were treated by a modern dramatist — and it is not a
203

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

bad story — it would be handled romantically. Sardou
or D'Annunzio would certainly have restored the de-
capitation and " revelled in gore." Imagine Rostand's
riot of " local colour " in prodigies of rhyme — the
yhatagans and yashmaks and narghilies and minarets
and muezzins and Allah ! Allahs ! It would
make a capital Russian ballet : a pendant, say, to
Schehera'zade.

But why did Johnson choose tragedy ?

Because it was in the air ; everybody was doing
it. Tragedy had fallen into the imitative stage.
It had perfected the most elaborate machinery ; but
the boiler was out. Addison's Cato set everybody
ransacking their Roman History or their Knolles
— peers, clergymen, schoolmasters, bluestockings.
Garrick was plagued to death with them. To Mon-
crief, author of an Apphis and Virginia, Garrick
said Virginia was killed too early, and the fifth act
only consisted in talking this catastrophe over.
" Well," replied the author, " and if such a thing
had happened at Charing Cross, don't you think that
all the coffee-houses in London would have been
full of it } " Johnson himself was a victim. A Mrs.
B., according to Hannah More, asked Johnson " to
look over her Siege of Sinopey He recommended
her to look over it herself " But, Sir," said she,
" I have no time. I have already so many irons in
the fire." "Why, then, Madam," said he, "the
best thing I can advise you to do is to put your tragedy
along with your irons." Talking to Henderson,
204

JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

the actor, he said of a certain dramatic writer : " I
never did the man an injury, but he would persist
in reading his tragedy to me." Evidently no one
stopped to consider if he had any natural vocation for
tragic drama. Johnson himself certainly did not.
Indeed, he expressly denied that there was any such
thing as natural vocation. In Boswell's Tour to the
Hebrides^ there is a conversation at Edinburgh between
Johnson and Robertson. Johnson said he could
not understand how a man could apply to one thing
and not to another. Robertson said one man had
more judgment, another more imagination.

Johnson. No, Sir ; it is only, one man has more mind
than another. He may direct it difFercnlly ; he may by
accident see the success of one kind of study and take a
desire to excel in it. I am persuaded that, had Sir Isaac
Newton applied to poetry, he would have made a very
fine epic poem. I could as easily apply to law as to tragic
poetry.

BoswELL. Yet, Sir, you did apply to tragic poetry,
not to law.

Johnson. Because, Sir, I had not money to study law.

Not that everyone who had money to study law could
be kept off tragedy. There was Boswell himself.
True, though probably by a mere fluke, we have no
tragedy from his pen, but we have Jin Ode to Tragedy.
It was published anonymously " By a Gentleman of
Scotland," with a dedication to James Boswell, Esq.,
which winds up with : " I, Sir, who enjoy the pleasure
of your intimate acquaintance, know that many of
your hours of retirement are devoted to thought."
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

Bos well's choice of subject testifies to the over-
whelming vogue of tragedy.

In 1 742, some seven years before Garrick brought
out Irene, Johnson appears to have been meditating
another play, Charles of Sweden^ but it came to naught.
After his failure he said he felt like the monument,
but the subsequent records do not show him as con-
spicuously monumental. Langton mentions that,
years later, when his Irene was being read to a company
at a house in the country, he left the room ; and,
somebody having asked him the reason of this, he
replied : " Sir, I thought it had been better." Scott's
story of one Pot's eulogy of Irene^ with Johnson's
comment, " If Pot says so. Pot lies," lacks authenti-
cation. But at Mrs. Thrale's in 1778 Johnson, by
request, read several speeches, and said he had never
read so much of it before since it was first printed.
And yet from the same authority we have it that
" Irene was a violent favourite with him ; and much
was he offended when, having asked me once, ' What
single scene aff^orded me most pleasure of all in our
tragic drama ? ' I, little thinking of his play's exist-
ence, named the dialogue between Syphax and Juba
in Addison's Cato. ' Nay, nay,' replied he, ' if you
are for declamation, I hope my two ladies (i.e. Irene
and her confidant) have the better of them all.' "

To return to the playgoer. Bos well tells us how

on his own first night, Johnson appeared behind the

scenes, and even in one of the side boxes, in a scarlet

waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and a gold-laced hat ;

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JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

Ikjw his attendance at rehearsals brought him better
acquainted with the players ; how he kept up his
acquaintance with some of them all his life and was
ever ready to show them acts of kindness ; how for
a considerable time he used to frequent the Green
Room, and seemed to take a delight in dissipating his
gloom by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the
motley circle then to be found there ; how, according
to Garrick, as reported by Hume, Johnson " at last
denied himself this amusement from considerations
of rigid virtue, saying : ' I'll come no more behind
your scenes, David, for the silk stockings and white
bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propen-
sities.' " It has been said that there is another
version of Garrick's Green Room story, reported
this time by Wilkes, which makes Johnson's language
so indecent as to be unfit for publication. Dr. Hill
thinks the indecency was probably Wilkes' own, and
reminds us of Johnson's proud claim that " obscenity
had always been repressed in his company," A
devil's advocate might retort that Swift — of all men
— made the same claim. As to the " considerable
time " for which Johnson frequented the Green
Room, we are carried on at least to 1756 — the year
of Garrick's first appearance in The Wonder — by
Johnson's anecdote, told to Langton, about his meeting
Garrick coming off the stage in that play ; and to
1758 by a letter of Johnson's to Langton mentioning
that he was at the first night of Dodsley's Cleone.
That Johnson was still going behind the scenes is
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

shown by a story of Mrs. Bellamy about the last
rehearsal of this play. " 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." ' " Further,
there is the anecdote about Mrs. Clive. Johnson
said to Langton : " Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit
by ; she always understands what you say." And
she said of him : " I love to sit by Dr. Johnson ;
he always entertains me." This is coupled, in
Langton's memoranda, with Johnson's commendation
of Farquhar " one night when The Recruiting Officer
was acted." Now Farquhar's play had been revived
just before the production of Cleone.

There must just now have been some slackening
in Johnson's playgoing (and perhaps it was at this
time that the " white bosoms " drove him away) —
although he was certainly at High Life Below Stairs
(in 1759)5 as he compares its reading with its acting
qualities — for in 1761 you have him writing to Baretti :
" The only change in my way of life is that I have
frequented the theatre more than in former seasons.
But I have gone thither only to escape from myself.
We have had many new farces, and the comedy
called The Jealous Wife." This had been produced
some four months before the date of Johnson's letter.

But he was now over fifty ; in the next year he
got his pension ; in 1 763 he met Boswell ; the Literary
Club was founded that winter; and in 1764 or 1765
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JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

(Boswell and Mrs. Piozzi differ about the date) he
became intimate with the Thrales. These are all
good reasons — as pointing to other avenues of escape
from himself — for expecting Johnson to relinquish,
not merely Green Room haunting, but regular play-
going, and early in 1766 the expectation is confirmed
by a conversation between Johnson and Goldsmith.

Goldsmith. I think, Mr. Johnson, you don't go near
the theatres now. You give yourself no more concern
about a new play than if you had never had anything to
do with the stage.

Johnson. Why, Sir, our tastes greatly alter. The lad
does not care for the child's rattle, and the old man does
not care for the young man's whore.

Goldsmith. Nay, Sir, but your muse was not a whore.

Johnson. Sir, I do not think she was. But as we
advance in the journey of life, we drop some of the things
which have pleased us ; whether it be that we are fatigued
and don't choose to carry so many things any farther, or that
we find other things which we like better.

Henceforward, only the strongest claims of friend-
ship could drag Johnson to the theatre, and his visits
became rare. A couple of years after the conversa-
tion just quoted he wrote the prologue for Goldsmith's
Good Natured Man, saw the play, and praised it
warmly. He was at the first night of She Stoops
to Conquer (which he also praised enthusiastically)
in 1773. It "was to be represented during some
Court mourning, and Mr. Steevens appointed to call
on Dr. Johnson and carry him to the tavern where
he was to dine with others of the poet's friends. The
Doctor was ready dressed, but in coloured clothes ;
209 O

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

yet being told that he would find every one else in
black, received the intelligence with a profusion of
thanks, and hastened to change his attire, all the
while repeating his gratitude for the information that
had saved him from an appearance so improper in
the front row of a front box. ' I would not,' added
he, ' for ten pounds have seemed so retrograde to any
general observance.' " Another two years pass and
he is at Mrs. Abingdon's benefit. She had pressed
him to come. She had also pressed Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds to bring a body of wits, and this distinguished
claque occupied forty seats in the front boxes. " John-
son," says Boswell, " sat on the seat directly behind
me ; and as he could neither see nor hear at such a
distance from the stage, he was wrapped up in grave
abstraction, and seemed quite a cloud amidst all the
sunshine of glitter and gaiety." Boswell afterwards
" rallied " him. " Why, Sir, did you go to Mrs.
Abingdon's benefit ? Did you see ? "

Johnson. No, Sir.

Boswell. Did you hear ?

Johnson. No, Sir.

Boswell. Why, then, Sir, did you go ?

Johnson. Because, Sir, she is a favourite of the public,
and when the public cares the thousandth part for you
that it does for her, I will go to your benefit too.

When proposing Sheridan for the Literary Club

in March 1777, Johnson said he had written the two

best comedies of his age. These, as Dr. Hill points

out, must have been The Rivals and — not The School

210

JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

for Scandal, but — The Duenna. The last certain
record of Johnson at the play is dated 25th March
1776, when he and Boswell wefe visiting Lichfield.
The manager of a travelling company had called and
solicited his patronage. " In the evening we went to
the Town Hall, which was converted into a tempo-
rary theatre, and saw Theodosius., with the Stratford
Jubilee. I was happy to see Dr. Johnson sitting in
a conspicuous part of the pit and receiving affectionate
homage from all his acquaintances. We were quite
gay and merry." In October 1783 you have the
famous visit of Mrs. Siddons, and Johnson's saying
with a smile, as there happened to be no chair ready :
" Madam, you who so often occasion a want of seats
to other people, will the more easily excuse the want
of one yourself" Mrs. Siddons thought Queen
Katharine in Henry f^III the most natural of Shake-
speare's characters. " I think so too. Madam, and
whenever you perform it I will once more hobble
out to the theatre myself" She promised to play
it for him, but the project fell through ; and by the
end of the next year Johnson was dead.

Mrs. Siddons's visit had prompted Johnson to
reminiscences of famous players he had seen. They
may be supplemented by those he gave the company
at Fort St. George on his Highland tour ten years
earlier, but even so are rather meagre, and compare
ill, for instance, with Horace Walpole's. There was
Mrs. Porter, unequalled in the vehemence of rage ;
and Kitty Clive, in sprightliness of humour. Clive,
211

JOHKSON CLUB PAPERS

indeed, was the best player he ever saw. There WaS
Mrs. Pritchard, whom, as his Irene, he had had peculiar
opportunities for studying. It was wonderful what
little mind she had ; she had never read any more
of Macbeth than her own part ; in common life she
was a vulgar idiot, who talked of her " gownd,"
yet on the stage seemed inspired by gentility and
understanding, though somewhat affected in her
manner. CoUey Gibber he found in conversation
ignorant of the principles of his art. (Yet Gibber's
Apology abounds in sound histrionic principles, and
his reminiscences of actors are far more illuminat-
ing than Johnson's.) Garrick was no declaimer ;
yet the only actor he ever saw to be called a master
in both tragedy and comedy, though he liked him
best in comedy. A true conception of character and
natural expression of it were his distinguishing ex-
cellences. And he could represent all modes of
life except a fine gentleman — a reservation in which
Horace Walpole, a higher authority on the point,
agreed with Johnson, Yet about that naturalness of
Garrick it is permissible to doubt whether Johnson
grasped the distinction between the natural in art
and the natural in life. As Boswell points out, he
was of a directly contrary opinion to that of Fielding,
where Partridge was absolutely deceived by the
naturalness of Garrick's Hamlet. Boswell asking :
" Would you not. Sir, start as Mr. Garrick does if
you saw a ghost ? " he answered : " I hope not ;
if I did, I should frighten the ghost."
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JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

This was to ignore the " optics of the theatre."
Johnson, indeed, always tended (the criticism on
Lycidas is the notorious instance) to confuse judgment
of reality with the aesthetic judgment. Was it not,
perhaps, this tendency that distorted his views of the
actor's art, which he dismissed in terms of ludicrously
exaggerated contempt ? The player was " a fellow
who exhibits himself for a shilling," " a fellow who
claps a hump on his back and a hump on his leg
and cries, ' I am Richard the Third ' " ; a ballad-
singer was a higher man, for he repeats and he sings,
whereas a player only recites ; players were " no
better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools
to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing
dogs."

Boswell attributes this prejudice to three causes :
" First, the imperfection of his organs, which were
so defective that he was not susceptible of the fine
impressions which theatrical excellence produces
upon the generality of mankind ; secondly, the cold
rejection of his tragedy ; and, lastly, the brilliant
success of Garrick, who had been his pupil, who had
come to London at the same time with him, not in a
much more prosperous state than himself, and whose
talents he undoubtedly rated low, compared with
his own." This would be a damaging explanation
were it not incredible. Johnson's infirmity of sight
and hearing is obviously irrelevant. It might affect
his appreciation of the fine shades of acting. But he
raised the previous question : what acting essentially
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JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

is. He recorded his opinion of actors years before
the rejection of Irene. That he was moved by
jealous envy of Garrick's success is utterly out of
keeping with his character and with the generous
praise he bestowed on Garrick, not only as an actor,
but as a man. He felt Garrick to be over-praised,
and he was over-praised. Johnson, like every other
sensible man, protested against the absurd follies of
the stage-struck.

But we in our turn shall be absurd if we think of
prejudice against players as being peculiarly John-
sonian. It is as old as Imperial Rome, as far-flung
as the Catholic Church. Crudely put, it is that to
make a public show of yourself for money, to be always
expressing ideas not your own, and emotions that
you do not spontaneously feci, to pretend, in short,
to be what you are not — " to clap a hump on your
back and call yourself Richard III " — is not with-
out its risks for your dignity as a citizen and a free
man. ^11 imitative artists, it may be said, arc speak-
ing in the persons of others, so that the dramatist,
the novelist, the painter, are all tarred with the same
brush as the player. Many people in the world's
history have thought that, from Plato, with his objec-
tion to " Mimesis " in general, down to our own
Puritans and Methodists. But there is this impor-
tant difference — that the player is his own artistic
medium, his own materials, his own paint and canvas,
his own ink and paper. It might be argued that
this gives a certain psychological warrant for a
214

JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

prejudice at first sight merely philistine. Darwin
says ' that the simulation of an emotion tends to arouse
it in our minds. It is indeed a matter of common
observation. Johnson's great friend, Burke, notes
in his essay on " The Sublime and Beautiful " :
" I have often observed that on mimicking the looks
and gestures of angry or placid or frightened or daring
men, I have involuntarily found my mind turned to
that passion whose appearance I endeavoured to imi-
tate." Edgar Poe makes a detective divine the
thoughts of suspects in the same way. The theory,
presumably, would be that, the player living in a
state of artificially excited emotion, his capacity for
genuine feeling off the stage tends to be affected —
much as the character is said to be affected in
hypnotic patients who exhibit emotions under ex-
ternal suggestion. The actor's emotional system,
like his face — and Johnson made this remark about
Garrick's face — suffers from exceptional wear and
tear.

The prejudice, then, assumes the view that the
player's art, however slightly, tends to warp the
temperament. Certainly, we must all of us have
at least heard or read of that particular foible
which the French call cabotinage — the importa-
tion into real life of the airs and postures
of the stage. It was one of the " diseases of
occupations," like clergyman's sore throat or house-
maid's knee, which attacked the weaker brethren,

' The Expreiiion of the Emotions, 1872, p. 366.
215

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

though even of Garrick you have Goldsmith's
line :

'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.

Novi^ Johnson hated, not merely posing, but ordinary
emphatic gesture. " Don't attitudinize," he roared
at somebody.

Those who cling to the prejudice against players
ought to remember this : that plays are made to be
played. If you are to admit drama at all among
the arts, you must accept its artists. Indeed, it might
be urged that they alone not only devote to their art
their intelligence and their imagination, as writers
do, but immolate their very persons. They are
entitled, these martyrs, to all our indulgence. The
true lover of human nature, able to find amusement
in its little weaknesses and humbly aware that he
himself is bound, consciously or not, to be a con-
tributor to that " public stock of harmless pleasure,"
can never have willingly missed the foibles of the
actor. It must have been mainly because Boswell
enjoyed them a little too demonstratively — indeed,
shared them (one remembers the histrionic zany
he made of himself at the Stratford Jubilee) — that
Johnson was provoked to come down so heavily on
the other side.

The actual foibles of the actor seem at first sight

the very reverse of what they were in Johnson's day.

Cahotinage has given place to camouflage. If our

modern actors have a weakness, it is for sedulously

216

JOHNSON AND THE THEATRE

obliterating all their professional marks. They
generally contrive to behave just like other people,
only, perhaps, with a little more reserve. Indeed,
the player often assumes the high seriousness (and
sometimes, it is understood, actually fills the respect-
able office) of a churchwarden. Seldom does he show
the stigmata of his profession as plainly as the soldier,
the barrister, the stockbroker, or the physician.
But, as Johnson said of a certain prelate, a fallible
being will fail somewhere. Ask an actor to repeat
a conversation and he will dramatize it ; to describe
an acquaintance and he will mimic him. And so
the lover of human nature once more comes by his
own.

217

JOHNSON'S MONUMENT AND
PARR'S EPITAPH ON JOHNSON

Paper Read to the Johnson Club,
I 6th March 1916,

BY

HENRY B. WHEATLEY, D.C.L., F.S.A.

Johnson's Monument and Parr's
Epitaph on Johnson

r

Boswell's account of the arrangement for the
Memorial statue in St. Paul's, and his remarks re-
specting Samuel Parr's Epitaph are incomplete, for
the very good reason that the monument was not
set up until after his death. He did not survive the
publication of his great work more than five years,
and during the larger portion of that short period he
was in failing health. Dr. Birkbeck Hill added further
particulars, but he did not enter very fully into the
matter, and we cannot expect him to have done so.
At the same time a full statement of what occurred
is instructive, and of interest as involving the action
of many celebrated men.

The business of collecting subscriptions was badly
arranged, and the delay in carrying out the object of
the Committee amounted almost to a scandal. Differ-
ence of opinion was rampant, and there were many
dissensions before the proceedings were concluded.
221

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

I am able to bring before you some fresh informa-
tion respecting both the subjects named in the title
of my paper, but I propose to keep the two distinct,
as we shall thus get a clearer idea of the somewhat
irritating action of Dr. Samuel Parr, in respect to
his two proposals, viz. the writing of a Life of Johnson
and the composition of a Latin inscription for Bacon's
statue.

Parr seems, early in his intercourse with Johnson,
to have meditated the writing of a Life of him on a
large scale. He wrote :

For many years I spent a month's holiday in London, and
never failed to call upon Johnson. I was not only admitted,
but welcomed. I conversed with him upon numberless
subjects of learning, politics, and common life. I traversed
the whole compass of his understanding ; and by the ac-
knowledgment of Burke and Reynolds, I distinctly under-
stood the peculiar and transcendent properties of his mighty
and virtuous mind. I intended to write his life ; I laid by
sixty or seventy books for the purpose of writing it in such
a manner as would do no discredit to myself. I intended
to spread my thoughts over two volumes quarto, and if I
had filled three pages, the rest would have followed. Often
have I lamented my ill fortune in not building this monu-
ment to the fame of Johnson, and let me not be accused of
arrogance when I add my own !

In the Catalogue of his Library [Bibliotheca
Parriana) there is this further note : " He will ever
have to lament that amidst his cares, his sorrows,
and his anxiety, he did not write the life of his learned
and revered friend" (p. 716).

We see from these words that not a page of Parr's
222

HIS MONUMENT AND EPITAPH

Life of Johnson, which had been arranged in his
head so far that he could estimate its size (by the way,
just the same as Boswell's Life)^ was ever written.
Parr lamented the omission; may we not rejoice
that he abandoned his intention of writing what
would have been a thoroughly wrong-headed work,
if we may judge from his own statement as to
what it would be and as to what it would
not be ?

He said, " It would have contained a view of the
Literature of Europe, and would have been the third
most learned work that has ever yet appeared."
The other two being Bentley on Phalaris and Salmasius
[Saumaise) on the Hellenistic Language [De Lingua
Hellenistica) — what it was not to be he describes
by ridiculing what is acknowledged to be the
chief merit of Boswell's Life — " Mine would have
been, not the drippings of his lips, but the history of
his mind."

William Seward, F.R.S., wrote to Parr on 15th
January 1790 :

Should you like to undertake an edition of Dr. Johnson's
Works, with his Life, and a critique on his writings ? The
first edition of them is nearly sold, and Mr. Cadcll would
be glad to have them edited by a scholar and an admirer
of poor Johnson. Let me know as soon as possible what
you think of my proposal.

I wish, too, you would turn your thoughts upon an
epitaph for Johnson's intended monument.

Yours,

W. Seward.
223

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

I have not come across Parr's answer to this letter,
but it doubtless contained a refusal. His ideas of a
Life of Johnson were so grandiose that he was not
likely to undertake a smaller compilation attached
to an edition of Johnson's complete works. Appa-
rently the booksellers secured the services of Arthur
Murphy, whose life is prefixed to the edition of
Johnson's Works, I2 vols. 8vo, 1792. An edition of
the works in 15 vols, was badly edited by Sir John
Hawkins and published 1787-9.

After these remarks upon Samuel Parr's proposed
Life of Johnson, we come to the consideration of the
monument in St. Paul's.

A small party met at dinner at the house of Sir
Joshua Reynolds on the evening of Johnson's funeral
(20th December 1784). Among the guests were
Burke, Windham, and Philip Metcalfe, M.P. It
was supposed by Mr. W. P. Courtney that at this
dinner some proposal for a monument was discussed.
A committee of six was appointed to collect sub-
scriptions and to make arrangements for the statue.
The idea of a statue by Bacon was Reynolds's.
Boswell writes in the first edition of his Life : '* A
monument for him [Johnson] in Westminster Abbey
was resolved upon soon after his death, and has been
supported by a most respectable contribution."

In a letter to Temple, Boswell writes :

" Several of us subscribed five guineas each. Sir
Joshua and Metcalfe ten guineas each. We expect
that the Bench of Bishops will be liberal, as
224

HIS MONUMENT AND EPITAPH

he [Johnson] was the greatest supporter of the
hierarchy."

Reynolds was very anxious to fill the emptiness
of St. Paul's with fine monuments, and he was the
cause of the change of place for Johnson's statue —
Boswell in his second edition added to his former
statement — " but the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's,
having come to a resolution of admitting monuments
there, upon a liberal and magnificent plan, that
Cathedral was afterwards fixed on as the place in
which a cenotaph should be erected to his memory."
Owing to dissensions and neglect, the scheme was
in abeyance for nearly five years ; in consequence
many of the subscribers were unwilling to pay their
subscriptions they had promised. Among Malone's
correspondence there are complaints of the backward-
ness of the members of the Club to pay the amounts
nominally subscribed by them."

At last a determined attempt was made to obtain
subscriptions and settle up the accounts. Windham
records in his Diary that a meeting of Johnson's
friends was held at Malone's on 29th November 1789
to discuss the proposed monument. Shortly afterwards
a meeting was held at Reynolds's house to " settle
as to effectual measures." Another meeting was
held at Thomas's Hotel, Dover Street, on 5th January
1790, when it was resolved to continue the scheme
for erecting a monument in Westminster Abbey,
and a full committee was formed to collect funds.
The Committee met twice in March 1791, when it
225 p

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

was violently divided on the rival merits of West-
minster Abbey and St. Paul's — Burke, Windham, and
Reynolds were leaders for St. Paul's, Metcalfe and
Sir Joseph Banks for the Abbey. At a meeting in
April the difficulty was overcome by Reynolds, wha
undertook, if sufficient money was not subscribed to
defray the increased expense of erecting a monument
in St. Paul's, to provide the balance, and Bacon was
content to erect it on the faith of this promise. The
total expense was over ;(^ 1,000 (Malone, whose author-
ity is high, says ;^i,ioo}. The cost of a whole-length
statue by Bacon was ;^6oo, but the payment to him
amounted in all to iSi'i'] 13s., and there were other
charges.

Metcalfe's balance sheet seen by Mr. Courtney
begins on i6th April 1790 with "cash received from
sundries ^^569 13s." Reynolds induced the Council
of the Royal Academy to vote a contribution of one
hundred guineas, but subsequently the vote was
disallowed by George III. In 179 1 the subscriptions
included ;^40 through Samuel Whitbread, ^<^ 5s.
from Lord Eliot, ;^I00 from Cadell the publisher,
;^5 5^- from Dr. Barnard, Bishop of Killaloe, and ^i\
through Sir William Scott ; a subscription of £,<>, 5s.
was paid by Sir William Forbes through Boswell in
1792, and £10 I OS. apiece came from Bishop Percy
and George Steevens. In 1796 Whitbread paid in
a further sum of ;^50 and the daughter of Henry
Thrale did the same.

The statue was first opened to public view on the
226

HIS MONUMENT AND EPITAPH

23rd February 1796, but sufficient money had not
then been collected, so Burke's widow gave ;^5 5s.
in 1798, and in 1799 Bacon himself contributed four
subscriptions amounting to £^5 ^S^-

Philip Metcalfe, M.P. {b. 1722, d. 181 8), whose
name I have already mentioned several times, was a
great friend and the executor of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
and also a friend of Johnson, who was pleased with
Metcalfe's " excellent table and animated conversa-
tion." Metcalfe was a rich man with a town house
in Savile Row (subsequently in Hill Street) and a
house in the Old Steyne at Brighton. He was first
connected with Johnson as one who signed the
round robin to him in favour of an English epitaph
for Goldsmith, his name appearing between those of
Sheridan and Gibbon (1776). He was one of the
mourners who attended the funeral in Westminster
Abbey. Mr. Courtney has given an excellent
account of Metcalfe and his valuable help as Treasurer
of the Monument Fund in his work entitled Eight
Friends of the Great (1910). Hawkins, Reynolds, and
Boswell all died before the monument was finished,
and Burke before sufficient contributions were
obtained.

This is rather a sad tale of mismanagement and
neglect, and should be a warning to those concerned
in obtaining funds for a public memorial. The
ardent feelings of the many who regret a great
loss are apt to cool long before twelve years have
expired.

227

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

We can now turn to a relation of the trouble which
Dr. Samuel Parr gave to all who were connected with
the monument by reason of what I venture to call
his ridiculous pedantry and egregious over-estimate of
himself. Parr was a man of great learning, with a
singular lack of judgment. Having little or no sense
of humour, he was continually making himself
ridiculous. At the same time he was a formidable
opponent, ever ready with a literary rapier as well
as a bludgeon. He was often rude, but always
good natured. Much of his writing is portentously
dull, but some of it is interesting, and his eight
thick volumes of Works are a drug in the
market, but yet much curious matter can be
got out of them if you are inclined to seek for
it. He had one unforgivable fault — it is almost
impossible to read his hand-writing. He was once
punished for this fault, for he was going to
stay with a friend after a hard day's work and

asked for two to be ready for him. The

host puzzled over the hieroglyphics for some
time, and at last satisfied himself that the missing
word was eggs^ so eggs were prepared. Parr
was disappointed for he intended to ask for two
lobsters.

I have now to read the copy of an important letter
from Parr to Boswell dated nth December (1791),
lent to me some years ago by Brother Tregaskis. I
do not think this letter has been printed, and I have
Jiot come across an answer by Boswell :
2.18

HIS MONUMENT AND EPITAPH

Dear Sir,

By few works has my attention been seized so
forcibly, detained so agreeably, and rewarded so fully, as
by your late publication. It is copious, without prolixity
and splendid without glare ; it forms a noble piece of Bio-
graphy, which, in my judgement, will never disgrace the
memory of that man who stands on the highest pinacle of
fame for biographical writing.

Amidst such a multiplicity of facts, and such a variety
of subjects, different readers will contend for different
rules of selection. The man of vanity will affect to wish
for the omission of a tale which he already knows, and the
man of curiosity will wish for amplification, because he
desires to know more. The Whig will blame you for
inserting political opinions which he does not like, and
the Tory will blame you for not suppressing those qualifica-
tions, by which the vigour of Johnson's understanding and
the honesty of his heart controuled the wantonness of dog-
matism. But, in my opinion, the best rule is the most
comprehensive. Of such a man as Johnson, it is more
pleasant to scholars, and more advantageous to the world,
for the Biographer to say too much, than too little. Nothing,
indeed, has been said by you which some body or other
will not approve, and nothing could have been omitted,
the absence of which I, for one, should not have regretted.
I v/ill therefore commend and thank you for not " sparing
your paper," for such were the words of Johnson when
he was canvasing in my presence with Dr. Horsley about
the life of Newton ; and depend upon it. Sir, that Mr.
Boswell's memoirs of Dr. Johnson are not among the chartcs
feritinos.

Of objections there is no end, and with such an ample
stock of character you ought to have no fear of objectors —
happy is he who recording so many interesting facts, and
so many brilliant conversations, can produce two quarto
volumes with excellences so numerous and imperfections
so few.

Upon the general merit of your work I have told
you my opinion very sincerely, and perhaps I am not

229

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

very foolish in supposing that you would be glad to
know it.

My particular acknowledgments are due to you, not only
for the honourable mention you have made of my attain-
ments, but for your spirited defence of my motives in a
work, which for obvious reasons, has been abused by those,
who at this moment think what I say, and who after the
death of a certain prelate, will venture to say for them-
selves what I have justified them in thinking of him.

But the chief cause for which I trouble you with this
letter is, that I may tell all I have to say, and ask what you
have to say further, upon a striking passage in the 582nd
page of the second volume. Your words are " to compose
his epitaph has incited the warmest competition of genius,"
and as these words express not an opinion, but a fact, I
must beg your permission to explore the whole extent of
your meaning.

Since the death of Johnson I have, in random conversa-
tion, been now and then asked to write his epitaph, and
I refused to write it, from a consciousness of the difficulty
which must accompany such an attempt. In the course
of this year some applications were made to me in a more
formal manner, and in a long correspondence with our
most respected friend Sir Joshua Reynolds, I stated fully
the reasons which deterred me from promising to do, what,
for the sake of Johnson, I wished to be done consummately
well. My arguments were impartially considered, my
conditions were unequivocally admitted, and at last, my
objections were completely vanquished. But the passage
above mentioned has given me serious alarm. I never
meant to triumph over a competitor, and, before the
perusal of your book, I never understood that any com-
petition at all existed. I entered upon the station which I
now occupy, without a spirit of invasion, I hope to fill it
without dishonour, and I am prepared to retreat from it
without reluctance. You will not wonder then, that,
upon a business of such delicacy, I am solicitous for a little
explanation, and if you know any learned man, who either
has written Dr. Johnson's epitaph or intends writing it,

230

HIS MONUMENT AND EPITAPH

o: has been asked to write it, I beg of you to inform me
unreservedly. My time has not been misspent, either in
composing the inscription, or in reading those works of
antiquity which alone could enable me to compose it properly.
But my sensibility will be very much hurt indeed, if, with-
out consent I am to be staked as a rival, where I intended
only 'o perform the part of a friend.

I beg of you to present my best respects to Sir Joshua
Reynolds, and have the honour to be.
Dear Sir,
Your very faithful and obedient servant,

Samuel Parr.
Hatton,
December wth [1791].

Directed to James Boswell, Esq.,

at Sir Joshua Reynolds's,
Leicester Square,
London.

Inscribed ^^ "Ritv. Dr. Parr, December 11, 1791."

[Carefully written.]

But I understand that this great scholar and warm
admirer of Johnson has yielded to repeated solicitations
and executed the very difficult undertaking.

Seward wrote to Parr on 25th May 1791 :

Dear Parr,

You say nothing about Johnson's epitaph. Sir
Joshua Reynolds desires me to iterate his request to you
to write it. Boswell and myself add our solicitations. Why
will you not do it ? Compliments to Mrs. Parr.

Yours very truly,

W. Seward.

The letter given by Boswell in a note in the
second edition of The Life (1793) is probably Parr's

231

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

answer, viz, : " The Reverend Dr. Parr, on being
requested to undertake it, thus expressed himself
in letter to William Seward, Esq." :

I leave this mighty task to some handier and some
abler writer. The variety and splendour of Johnson's
attainments, the peculiarities of his character, his private
virtues and his literary publications, fill me with confusion
and dismay, when I reflect upon the confined and difficult
species of composition, in which alone they can be expressed,,
with propriety, upon his monument.

Parr would appear to have wavered, as is seen by
a long letter to Reynolds. This letter begins :

Dear Sir,

This is a strictly confidential letter, and I entreat
you to communicate the contents of it to no man living
except Mr. Windham ; in the soundness of whose judgment
and the delicacy of whose honour I can implicitly and
entirely confide, Seward enforcing his own request by
the names of yourself and Mr. Boswell has urged me to
write Johnson's epitaph.

Terence, Cxsar, Livy, Tacitus, and even Cicero, whose
writings are a common storehouse of modem Latinity, are
according to my apprehensions, merely flebs superum upon
such an occasion.

He fully explains his extreme view of the proper
Latin for the epitaph. He adds near the end of the
letter :

If I should, in any moderate degree, satisfy myself I
will send you what occurs to me ; and if otherwise I shall
confess to you the plain truth. In the mean time I desire
you to inform me of the very day upon which Johnson

232

HIS MONUMENT AND EPITAPH

was bom and how old he was when he died. You will
also be so good as to inform me, in a general way, by whom
the money was subscribed for his monument ; because all
these circumstances may influence my mind when I write
his epitaph, and I shall not even begin to write it till I know
them.

On the 31st May 1791 Reynolds answered with a
note at the end of his letter, " Dr, Johnson born
1 8th September 1709, died 13th December 1784,"
and sent a list of subscribers. Parr gives the dates
of death and burial and age at death in the epitaph,
but he does not give date or place of birth. Lichfield
was not known to early Romans and could not there-
fore be mentioned.

Then follow two letters mostly filled with objurga-
tions on the lapidary style. Poor Reynolds must have
dreaded the post which brought him these portentous
and irritating screeds, but the worst trouble came in
his last letter to Parr, written only half a year before
his death.

From Sir Joshua Reynolds.

London,

Juiy II, 1791.
Dear Sir,

You may depend on having all your injunctions
relative to the inscription punctually obeyed. We have
great time before us. The statue is hardly yet begun, so
that the inscription will not be wanted for at least these
twelve months : in the meantime you will probably have
an opportunity of seeing the monument itself, and the place
which it is to occupy in St. Paul's.

There would be, I think, a propriety in having on the
scroll a Greek sentence, as it would imply at first sight

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

that it is the monument of a scholar. Dr. Johnson was
Professor of Ancient Literature to the Royal Academy.
I could wish that this title might be on the monument :
it was on this pretext that I persuaded the Academicians
to subscribe a hundred guineas. But I do not want to
•encroach on your department : you must ultimately determine
its propriety.

But Parr would have none of this ! The Royal
Academy was unknown in Ancient Rome and there-
fore could not possibly be mentioned in a Latin in-
scription written on classical lines, however important
an incident in Johnson's life it might indicate. There
was now an interval, which was broken on 25th
March 1795 by Edmond Malone, who took up
Sir Joshua Reynolds's burden as a correspondent of
Dr. Parr. He wrote on that as follows :

Dear Sir,

I have understood that you, some years ago, were
so good as to promise our late most excellent friend, Sir
Joshua Reynolds, an inscription for Dr. Johnson's monument.
The monument being now nearly finished and ready to be
put up, the gentlemen who have had the conduct of it have
requested me to apply to you for the epitaph, if you should
have written one for this very extraordinary man.

This was much too off-hand a manner in which
to treat this important subject to please Parr, so
Malone had to write another letter, which he did on
3rd April. He wrote :

I am sure it is unnecessary to tell you that it was not
from any want of attention or respect that I did not imme-
diately answer your letter. The truth is, I wished to con-
sult some of the gentlemen to whom the management of

HIS MONUiMENT AND EPITAPH

Dr. Johnson's monument has been assigned, and I had not
an opportunity of doing so till yesterday. The epitaph
which you have written will, I have no doubt, be every-
thing that they could wish, but as they and the surviving
executor (Sir Wm. Scott) cannot properly adopt any in-
scription without seeing and approving it, and as you might
possibly not choose to submit it at all to their inspection,
unless upon a certain assurance of its being adopted, I thought
it right to state this circumstance to you before you trans-
mitted the epitaph. The persons I allude to are Mr.
Burke, Mr. Windham, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Metcalfe,
and Mr. Boswell, who together with myself were nominated
as curators of the monument, and who are all extremely
indebted to you for your exertions on the present occasion.

This elicited another long letter from Parr to the
effect that Malone's surmise was correct. He
says with regard to the distinguished men mentioned
as curators :

I have an equal confidence in their judgement and in their
candour. To that judgement and that candour I should
appeal without hesitation, if in sending the epitaph I were
allowed to consider them as private friends or literary
auxiliaries. But the character with which your letter
invests them is of another sort, and therefore I must suspend
my final answer till I have the pleasure of conversing with
you next week.

Malone then enclosed a letter written to him by
Sir William Scott, to Parr. Scott makes the matter
quite plain, and suggests that Parr should choose any
three of the curators to discuss the epitaph with
him.

But if this or something like it cannot conquer the Doctor's
€cruples, I fear I must decline joining in an application on

235

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

behalf of a public inscription the contents of which have
never been seen, and therefore cannot have been adopted
by any one gentleman who is to make the application.

An arrangement was come to, but when the epitaph
was discussed the Johnsonians were determined to
have some alterations. Parr wished to ignore John-
son's poetry completely, but this was not to be.

Malone protested, but Parr made the matter
worse by joining poeta with probabilis. The
Johnsonians were mad and would not stand this
insult, as they thought. Parr argued for the adjec-
tive, but it was no good, and he had to give in.
He wrote to a friend :

In arms were . . . Malone, Steevens, Sir W. Scott^
Windham and even Fox, all in arms. The epithet was
cold. They do not understand it, and I am a scholar not
a Belles-Lettres man ; an epitaph writer not a panegyrist ;
a critic not a partisan. However, to show that I have
many arrows in my quiver, this I have altered thus — and
it is well done, boy.

" Poetas luminibus sententiarum
et ponderibus verborum admirabili."

You see he was not a poet in the high class of imagination.
Had I praised Johnson as you would praise Pindar, it would
have delighted the Johnsonian school.

He was very anxious about Fox's opinion, and
wrote him a long letter :

I cannot help being anxious about your tried judgment
on the word probabilis, and therefore when you have time
to write half a dozen lines, pray favour me with it. I
have not quite made up my mind about recalling the

236

HIS MONUMENT AND EPITAPH

epitaph. But I am much disposed to recall it, and even
if I should fix upon some other word, my preference will
be to probabilis. What say you to this : —

" PoetsB sententiarum et verborum ponderibus adrairabili."

This, as we have seen, he afterwards altered. Peace
was restored, but Parr still gave trouble. Malone
wrote :

Mr. Bacon wishes not to be shorn of his academical honour
and that posterity should know that he was entitled to
annex R.A. to his name. You will be so good therefore,
as to Latinize this for him and to say how to do it.

Parr would not allow of this, and Malone wrote
to him a few days after :

I have called upon Mr. Bacon, and he very reluctantly
has agreed to omit any notice of his being a Royal Acade-
mician. Parr was very doubtful even of styling Bacon
" sculptor," because he found in Ccelius Rhodiginus that
the art of Statuary is divided into five sorts — that which
relates to marble and stones is called KoXnirriK)) and that
which belongs to metals is styled yAvptK//.

Parr's two classical friends Burney and Routh
agreed with him. Charles Burney wrote : " I am
still as I at first was, an advocate for probabilis.^
nor do I much fancy the luminibus et ponderibus."

The president of Magdalen : " I write to tell you
I do not like the epitaph half so well in it altered as
in its original state." It is rather odd to find Parr
writing of Dr. Routh in 1795 as the "venerable
President " when he was forty years of age, and we
know he lived on to 1854.

JOHNSON CLUB PAPERS

I am afraid you may think that I have gone toa
fully into these squabbles, but they seem to me of
great interest, although of course I am not competent
to express an opinion on the composition itself. If
I have erred I hope you w^ill forgive me.

238

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