CHAPTER XVIII.—1770-1771.

votes.

IN 1770, he published a political pamphlet, entitled The False Alarm," intended to justify the conduct of the ministry and their majority in the House of Commons, for having virtually assumed it as an axiom, that the expulsion of a member of parliament was equivalent to exclusion, and thus having declared Colonel Luttrell to be duly elected for the county of Middlesex, notwithstanding Mr. Wilkes had a great majority of This being justly considered as a gross violation of the right of election, an alarm for the constitution extended itself all over the kingdom. To prove this alarm to be false was the purpose of Johnson's pamphlet ; but even his vast powers are inadequate to cope with constitutional truth and reason, and his argument failed of effect; and the House of Commons have since expunged the offensive resolution from their Journals. That the House of Commons might have expelled Mr. Wilkes repeatedly, and as often as he should be re-chosen, was not denied; but incapacitation cannot be but by an act of the whole legislature. It was wonderful to see how a prejudice in favour of government in general, and an aversion to popular clamour, could blind and contract such an understanding as Johnson's, in this particular case; yet the wit, the sarcasm, the eloquent vivacity which this pamphlet displayed, made it be read with great avidity at the time, and it will ever be read with pleasure, for the sake of its composition. That it endeavoured to infuse a narcotic indifference, as to public concerns, into the minds of the people, and that it broke out sometimes into an extreme coarseness of con

temptuous abuse, is but too evident.

It must not, however, be omitted, that when the storm of his violence subsides, he takes a fair opportunity to pay a grateful compliment to the king, who had rewarded his merit:

"These low-born railers have endeavoured, surely without effect, to alienate the affections of the people from the only king who, for almost a century, has much appeared to desire, or much endeavoured to deserve them." And, Every honest man must lament, that the faction has been regarded with frigid neutrality by the Tories, who, being long accustomed to signalise their principles by opposition to the court, do not yet consider, that they have at last a king who knows not the name of party, and who wishes to be the common father of all his people."

To this pamphlet, which was at once discovered to be Johnson's, several answers came out, in which care was taken to remind the public of his former attacks upon government, and of his now being a pensioner, without allowing for the honourable terms upon which Johnson's pension was granted and accepted, or the change of system which the British court had undergone upon the accession of his present Majesty. He was, however, soothed in the highest strain of panegyric, in a poem called The Remonstrance," by the Reverend Mr. Stockdale, to whom he was, upon many occasions, a kind pro

tector.

The following admirable minute made by him, describes so well his own state and that of numbers to whom self-examination is habitual, that I cannot omit it :

'June 1, 1770. Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by This opinion of our own constancy is so prevalength of time and frequency of experiment. lent, that we always despise him who suffers his general and settled purpose to be overpowered by an occasional desire. They, therefore, whom fre-. quent failures have made desperate, cease to form resolutions; and they who are become make them are very few, but of their effect little cunning, do not tell them. Those who do not is perceived; for scarcely any man persists in a course of life planned by choice, but as he is restrained from deviation by some external power. He who may live as he will, seldom lives long in

the observation of his own rules."*

Of this year I have obtained the following letters :

"TO THE REVEREND DR. FARMER, CAMBRIDGE. "Johnson's-court, Fleet-street, "SIR, March 21, 1770. "As no man ought to keep wholly to himself any possession that may be useful to the public, I hope you will not think me unreasonably intrusive, if I have recourse to you for such information as you are more able to give me than any

other man.

already placed above the need of any more support, Mr. Steevens, a very ingenious gentleman, lately of King's College, has collected an account of all the translations which Shakspeare might have seen and used. He wishes his catalogue to be perfect; and, therefore, entreats that you will favour him by the insertion of such additions as the accuracy of your inquiries has enabled you to make. To this request I take the liberty of adding my own solicitation.

"In support of an opinion which you have

"We have no immediate use for this catalogue; and, therefore, do not desire that it should interrupt or hinder your more important employments. But it will be kind to let us know that you receive it. I am, Sir, &c.,

SAM. JOHNSON."

"TO THE REVEREND MR. THOMAS
WARTON.

"DEAR SIR, London, June 23, 1770. "The readiness with which you were pleased to promise me some notes on Shakspeare, was a new instance of your friendship. I shall not hurry you; but am desired by Mr. Steevens, who helps me in this edition, to let you know that we shall print the tragedies first, and shall, therefore, want first the notes which belong to them. We think not to incommode the readers with a supplement; and, therefore, what we cannot put into its proper place will do us no good. We

"Prayers and Meditations," p. 95.-BOSWELL.

a party; and then, and not till then, would the royal dignity be sincerely respected.

"Johnson seemed to think that a certain degree of crown influence over the Houses of Parliament (not meaning a corrupt and shameful dependence), was very salutary, nay, even necessary, in our mixed government. For,' said he, if the members were under no crown influence, and disqualified from receiving any gratification from court, and resembled, as they possibly might, Pym and Haslerig, and other stubborn and sturdy members of the Long Parliament, the wheels of government would be totally obstructed. Such men would oppose, merely to show their power, from envy, jealousy, and perversity of disposition; and not gaining themselves, would hate and oppose all who did; not loving the person of the prince, and conceiving they owed him little gratitude, from the mere spirit of insolence and contradiction, they would oppose and thwart him upon all occasions.'

"The inseparable imperfection annexed to all human governments, consisted, he said, in not being able to create a sufficient fund of virtue and principle to carry the laws into due and effectual execution. Wisdom might plan, but virtue alone could execute. And where could sufficient virtue be found? A variety of delegated, and often discretionary, powers must be entrusted somewhere: which, if not governed by integrity and conscience, would necessarily be abused, till at last the constable would sell his for a shilling.

"This excellent person was sometimes charged with abetting slavish and arbitrary principles of government. Nothing in my opinion could be a grosser.calumny and misrepresentation; for how can it be rationally.supposed that he should adopt such pernicious and absurd opinions, who supported his philosophical character with so much dignity, was extremely jealous of his personal liberty and independence, and could not brook the smallest appearance of neglect or insult, even from the highest personages?

*

"But let us view him in some instances of more familiar life.

'His general mode of life, during my acquaintance, seemed to be pretty uniform. About twelve o'clock I commonly visited him, and frequently found him in bed, or declaiming over his tea, which he drank very plentifully. He generally had a levee of morning visitors, chiefly men of Letters; Hawkesworth, Goldsmith, Murphy, Langton, Steevens, Beauclerk, &c. &c., and sometimes learned ladies; particularly I remember a French lady of wit and fashion doing him the honour of a visit. He seemed to me to be considered as a kind of public oracle, whom everybody thought they had a right to visit and consult; and, doubtless, they were well rewarded. I never could discover how he found time for his compositions. He declaimed all the morning, then went to dinner at a tavern, where he commonly stayed late, and then drank his tea at some friend's house, over which he loitered a great while, but seldom took supper. I fancy he must

* On the necessity of crown influence; see Boucher's "Sermons on the American Revolution," p. 218; and Paley's "Moral Philosophy," b. vi., c. vii., p. 491, 4to, there quoted.-BLAKEWAY,

have read and wrote chiefly in the night, for I can scarcely recollect that he ever refused going with ine to a tavern, and he often went to Ranelagh,* which he deemed a place of innocent recreation. "He frequently gave all the silver in his pocket to the poor, who watched him, between his house and the tavern where he dined. He walked the streets at all hours, and said he was never robbed, for the rogues knew he had little money, nor had the appearance of having much.

"Though the most accessible and communicative man alive, yet when he suspected he was invited to be exhibited, he constantly spurned the invitation.

"Two young women from Staffordshire visited him when I was present, to consult him on the subject of Methodism, to which they were inclined. 'Come,' said he, 'you pretty fools, dine with Maxwell and me at the Mitre, and we will talk over that subject;' which they did, and after dinner he took one of them upon his knee, and fondled her for half an hour together.

"Upon a visit to me at a country lodging_near Twickenham, he asked what sort of society I had there. I told him but indifferent ; as they chiefly consisted of opulent traders, retired from business. He said he never much liked that class of people; For, Sir,' said he, 'they have lost the civility of tradesmen, without acquiring the manners of gentlemen.

"Johnson was much attached to London; † he observed, that a man stored his mind better there than anywhere else; and that in remote situations a man's body might be feasted, but his mind was starved, and his faculties apt to degenerate, from want of exercise and competition. No place, he said, cured a man's vanity or arrogance so well as London; for as no man was either great or good per se, but as compared with others not so good or great, he was sure to find in the metropolis many his equals, and some his superiors. He observed that a man in London was in less danger of falling in love indiscreetly than anywhere else; for there the difficulty of deciding between the conflicting pretensions of a vast variety of objects, kept him safe. He told me that he had frequently been offered country preferment, if he would consent to take orders; but he could not leave the improved society of the capital, or consent to exchange the exhilarating joys and splendid decorations of public life, for the obscurity, insipidity, and uniformity of remote situations.

"Speaking of Mr. Harte, Canon of Windsor, and writer of 'The History of Gustavus Adol* Ranelagh, a celebrated place of fashionable resort, somewhat similar to Vauxhall-gardens, was situate be tween Pimlico and Chelsea. It was so named from its occupying the site of Viscount Ranelagh's villa. At the present day not a vestige remains of it, although its memory is preserved by naming after it the streets, roads, and places which have been built upon its grounds.ED.

† Montaigne had the same affection for Paris which he in his Essay on Vanity, "jusqu'à ses verrues et à ses Johnson had for London. "Je l'aime tendrement," says tâches. Je ne suis François que par cette grande cité, grande en peuples, grande en félicité de son assiette, mais sur tout grande et incomparable en variété et diver. sité des commoditez: la gloire de la France, et l'un des plus nobles ornemens du monde." Vol. iii., p. 321, edit. Amsterdam, 1781.-BLAKEWAY.

phus,' he much commended him as a scholar, and a man of the most companionable talents he had ever known. He said the defects in his history proceeded not from imbecility, but from foppery.

He loved, he said, the old black-letter books; they were rich in matter, though their style was inelegant; wonderfully so, considering how conversant the writers were with the best models of antiquity.

"Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy,' he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.

"He frequently exhorted me to set about writing a History of Ireland, and archly remarked, there had been some good Irish writers, and that one Irishman might at least aspire to be equal to another. He had great compassion for the miseries and distresses of the Irish nation, particularly the Papists; and severely reprobated the barbarous debilitating policy of the British Government, which, he said, was the most detestable mode of persecution. To a gentleman, who hinted such policy might be necessary to support the authority of the English government, he replied by saying, 'Let the authority of the English government perish, rather than be maintained by iniquity. Better would it be to restrain the turbulence of the natives by the authority of the sword, and to make them amenable to law and justice by an effectual and vigorous police, than to grind them to powder by all manner of disabilities and incapacities. Better,' said he, 'to hang or drown people at once, than, by an unrelenting persecution, to beggar and starve them.' The moderation and humanity of the present times have, in some measure, justified the wisdom of his observations.

"Dr. Johnson was often accused of prejudices, nay, antipathy, with regard to the natives of Scotland. Surely, so illiberal a prejudice never entered his mind and, it is well known, many natives of that respectable country possessed a large share in his esteem; nor were any of them ever excluded from his good offices as far as opportunity! permitted. True it is, he considered the Scotch, nationally, as a crafty, designing people, eagerly attentive to their own interest, and too apt to overlook the claims and pretensions of other people. While they confine their benevo lence, in a manner, exclusively to those of their own country, they expect to share in the good offices of other people. Now,' said Johnson, 'this principle is either right or wrong; if right, we should do well to imitate such conduct; if wrong, we cannot too much detest it.'

Being solicited to compose a funeral sermon for the daughter of a tradesman, he naturally inquired into the character of the deceased; and being told she was remarkable for her humility and condescension to inferiors, he observed that those were very laudable qualities, but it might not be so easy to discover who the lady's inferiors

were.

"Of a certain player he remarked, that his conversation usually threatened and announced more than it performed; that he fed you with a continual renovation of hope, to end in a constant succession of disappointment.

·

"When exasperated by contradiction, he was apt to treat his opponents with too much acrimony: as, Sir, you don't see your way through that question. Sir, you talk the language of ignorance.' On my observing to him that a certain gentleman had remained silent the whole evening, in the midst of a very brilliant and learned society, Sir,' said he, the conversation overflowed and drowned him.'

"His philosophy, though austere and solemn, was by no means morose and cynical, and never blunted the laudable sensibilities of his character, or exempted him from the influence of the tender passions. Want of tenderness, he always alleged, was want of parts, and was no less a proof of stupidity than depravity.

'Speaking of Mr. Hanway,* who published 'An Eight Days' Journey from London to Portsmouth, Jonas,' said he, acquired some reputation by travelling abroad, but lost it all by travelling at home.'

"Of the passion of love he remarked, that its violence and ill effects were much exaggerated; for who knows any real sufferings on that head, more than from the exorbitancy of any other passion?

"He much commended 'Law's Serious Call,' which he said was the finest piece of hortatory theology in any language. Law,' said he, fell latterly into the reveries of Jacob Behmen, t whom Law alleged to have been somewhat in the same state with St. Paul, and to have seen unutterable things. Were it even so,' said Johnson, Jacob would have resembled St. Paul still more, by not attempting to utter them.'

"He observed, that the established clergy in general did not preach plain enough; and that polished periods and glittering sentences flew over the heads of the common people, without any impression upon their hearts. Something might be necessary, he observed, to excite the affections of the common people, who were sunk in languor and lethargy, and therefore he supposed that the new concomitants of methodism might probably produce so desirable an effect. The mind, like the body, he observed, delighted in change and novelty, and even in religion itself, courted new appearances and modifications. Whatever might be thought of some methodist teachers, he said, he could scarcely doubt the sincerity of that man, who travelled nine hundred miles in a month, and preached twelve times a week; for no adequate reward, merely temporal, could be given for such indefatigable labour.

"Of Dr. Priestley's theological works, he remarked, that they tended to unsettle everything, and yet settled nothing.

"He was much affected by the death of his mother, and wrote to me to come and assist him

*Jonas Hanway, wealthy Russian merchant and eminent philanthropist, born at Portsmouth, 1712, was the chief founder of the Marine Society and the Magdalen Hospital. He wrote several religious works, the principal of which is entitled "Domestic Happiness Promoted." He died in 1786, and a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.-ED.

† Jacob Behmen, or Böhmen, a German shoemaker and theological writer. He was the founder of a sect, sometimes called Behmenites, and sometimes Aureacru cians.-ED.

to compose his mind, which indeed I found extremely agitated. He lamented that all serious and religious conversation was banished from the society of men, and yet great advantages might be derived from it. All acknowledged, he said, what hardly any body practised, the obligations we were under of making the concerns of eternity the governing principles of our lives. Every man, he observed, at last wishes for retreat: he sees his expectations frustrated in the world, and begins to wean himself from it, and to prepare for everlasting separation.

"He observed, that the influence of London now extended everywhere, and that from all manner of communication being opened, there shortly would be no remains of the ancient simplicity, or places of cheap retreat to be found.

"He was no admirer of blank verse, and said it always failed, unless sustained by the dignity of the subject. In blank verse, he said, the language suffered more distortion, to keep it out of prose, than any inconvenience or limitation to be apprehended from the shackles and circumspection of rhyme.

"He reproved me once for saying grace without mentioning the name of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, and hoped in future I would be more mindful of the apostolical injunction.

"He refused to go out of a room before me at Mr. Langton's house, saying, he hoped he knew his rank better than to presume to take place of a Doctor in Divinity. I mention such little anecdotes, merely to show the peculiar turn and habit of his mind.

"He used frequently to observe, that there was more to be endured than enjoyed, in the general condition of human life; and frequently quoted those lines of Dryden :

"Strange cozenage! none would live past years again, Yet all hope pleasure from what still remain.” For his part, he said, he never passed that week in his life which he would wish to repeat, were an angel to make the proposal to him.

He was of opinion, that the English nation cultivated both their soil and their reason better than any other people; but admitted that the French, though not the highest, perhaps, in any department of literature, yet in every department were very high. Intellectual pre-eminence, he observed, was the highest superiority; and that every nation derived their highest reputation from the splendour and dignity of their writers. Voltaire, he said, was a good narrator, and that his principal merit consisted in a happy selection and arrangement of circumstances.

"Speaking of the French novels, compared with Richardson's, he said, they might be pretty baubles, but a wren was not an eagle.

"In a Latin conversation with the Père Boscovitch, at the house of Mrs. Cholmondeley, I heard him maintain the superiority of Sir Isaac Newton over all foreign philosophers, t with a dignity and eloquence that surprised that learned foreigner. It being observed to him, that a rage

Roger Joseph Boscovitch, a professor of mathematics in the Jesuits' College at Rome, was author of a Latin poem on Eclipses, &c. He died in 1787.-ED.

In a Discourse by Sir William Jones, addressed to

for everything English prevailed much in France after Lord Chatham's glorious war, he said, he did not wonder at it, for that we had drubbed those fellows into a proper reverence for us, and that their national petulance required periodical chastisement.

"Lord Lyttelton's Dialogues, he deemed a nugatory performance. 'That man,' said he, sat down to write a book, to tell the world what the world had all his life been telling him.'

"Somebody observing that the Scotch Highlanders, in the year 1745, had made surprising efforts, considering their numerous wants and disadvantages: 'Yes, Sir,' said he, 'their wants were numerous; but you have not mentioned the greatest of them all-the want of law.'

"Speaking of the inward light, to which some methodists pretended, he said, it was a principle utterly incompatible with social or civil security. "If a man,' said he, pretends to a principle of action of which I can know nothing, nay, not so much as that he has it, but only that he pretends to it; how can I tell what that person may be prompted to do? When a person professes to be governed by a written ascertained law, I can then know where to find him.'

"The poem of Fingal, he said, was a mere unconnected rhapsody, a tiresome repetition of the same images. 'In vain shall we look for the lucidus ordo, where there is neither end nor object, design or moral, nec certa recurrit imago.'

"Being asked by a young nobleman, what was become of the gallantry and military spirit of the old English nobility, he replied, "Why, my lord, I'll tell you what is become of it: it is gone into the city to look for a fortune.'

"Speaking of a dull, tiresome fellow, whom he chanced to meet, he said, 'That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong

one.

"Much inquiry having been made concerning Johnson was, and no information being obtained, a gentleman, who had quitted a company where to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he at last Johnson observed, that he did not care believed the gentleman was an attorney."

taken of Woodhouse, the poetical shoemaker. He "He spoke with much contempt of the notice said, it was all vanity and childishness: and that mere mirrors of their own superiority. They had such objects were, to those who patronised them, better,' said he, 'furnish the man with good implements for his trade, than raise subscriptions for maker, but can never make a good poet. A his poems. He may make an excellent shoeschoolboy; but it is no treat for a man.' schoolboy's exercise may be a pretty thing for a

"Speaking of Boetius, who was the favourite surprising that, upon such a subject, and in such writer of the middle ages, he said, it was very a situation, he should be magis philosophus quam

Christianus.