‘I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr. Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but his mind, and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much lament the rest. I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied.
‘Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. 26, 1782.’
‘Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it; for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me know, from time to time, all that you observe.
‘Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance. Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.’
c Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is addressed by his military title.
a A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and beginnings of lines.
b See p. 510.
a What follows appeared in the Morning Chronicle of May 29, 1782: – ‘A correspondent having mentioned, in the Morning Chronicle of December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend suicide but exercise.
‘Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute diseases are from Heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the dart of death, indeed, falls from Heaven, but we poison it by our own misconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.’1072
b The Correspondence may be seen at length in the Gent. Mag. Feb. 1786.
a Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh, founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious memory.
b The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall.
a Pr. and Med. p. 214.
a Were I to insert all the stories which have been told of contests boldly maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his antagonist had the better of him in argument, my volumes would swell to an immoderate size. One instance, I find, has circulated both in conversation and in print; that when he would not allow the Scotch writers to have merit, the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, asserted, that he could name one Scotch writer, whom Dr. Johnson himself would allow to have written better than any man of the age; and upon Johnson’s asking who it was, answered, ‘Lord Bute, when he signed the warrant for your pension.’ Upon which Johnson, struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this was true. When I mentioned it to Johnson, ‘Sir, (said he,) if Rose said this, I never heard it.’
a This reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was not conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings which were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, and which he perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often remembered with resentment.
a Elphinstone’s Martial.
b I have, in my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was necessary, but not a subject for glory; because it for a long time blasted the generous feelings of Loyalty. And now, when by the benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our affections, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had not required.
a Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish the number of the Lords of Session, 1785.
a I shall give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and Johnson’s substitution in Italick characters:-
‘In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring,
Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing:
But charmed by him, or smitten with his views,
Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse?
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,
Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?’
‘On Mincio’s banks, in Ccesar’s bounteous reign,
If Tityrus found the golden age again,
Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong,
Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song?
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,
Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?’
Here we find Johnson’s poetical and critical powers undiminished. I must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to The Traveller and Deserted Village of Goldsmith, were so small as by no means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour.
a Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his aim.
a It has since appeared.
a I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking particularities pointed out: – Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary motions, said to him, ‘Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange gestures?’ ‘From bad habit,’ (he replied). ‘Do you, my dear, take care to guard against bad habits.’ This I was told by the young lady’s brother at Margate.
a The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot: – A country parson, who was remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor: ‘He is a very good preacher,’ (was his answer,) ‘but no latiner.’
a The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears testimony to this gentleman’s merit as a writer: – ‘Mr. Chambers’s Treatise on Civil Architecture, is the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.’ – Preface to Anecdotes of Painting in England.
a The introductory lines are these: – ‘It is difficult to avoid praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the assistance of example.’