In Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion, byBryan Duppa, Lord Bishop of Winton, ‘Preces quidam (? quidem)videtur diligenter tractasse; spero non inauditus(? inauditas).’1275
In The Rosicrucian infallible Axiomata, by John Heydon, Gent., prefixed to which are some verses addressed to the authour, signed Ambr. Waters, A. M. Coll. Ex. Oxon. ‘These Latin verses were written to Hobbes by Bathurst, upon his Treatise on Human Nature, and have no relation to the book. –An odd fraud.’
a One of these volumes, Sir John Hawkins informs us, he put into his pocket; for which the excuse he states is, that he meant to preserve it from falling into the hands of a person1276 whom he describes so as to make it sufficiently clear who is meant; ‘having strong reasons (said he,) to suspect that this man might find and make an ill use of the book.’ Why Sir John should suppose that the gentleman alluded to would act in this manner, he has not thought fit to explain. But what he did was not approved of by Johnson; who, upon being acquainted of it without delay by a friend, expressed great indignation, and warmly insisted on the book being delivered up; and, afterwards, in the supposition of his missing it, without knowing by whom it had been taken, he said, ‘Sir, I should have gone out of the world distrusting half mankind.’ Sir John next day wrote a letter to Johnson, assigning reasons for his conduct; upon which Johnson observed to Mr. Langton, ‘Bishop Sanderson could not have dictated a better letter. I could almost say, Melius est sic penituisse quam non erfasse.’1277 The agitation into which Johnson was thrown by this incident, probably made him hastily burn those precious records which must ever be regretted.
a On the same undoubted authority, I give a few articles, which should have been inserted in chronological order; but which, now that they are before me, I should be sorry to omit: –
‘In 1736, Dr. Johnson had a particular inclination to have been engaged as an assistant to the Reverend Mr. Budworth, then head master of the Grammar-school, at Brewood, in Staffordshire, “an excellent person, who possessed every talent of a perfect instructor of youth, in a degree which, (to use the words of one of the brightest ornaments of literature, the Reverend Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester,) has been rarely found in any of that profession since the days of Quintilian.” Mr. Budworth, “who was less known in his life-time, from that obscure situation to which the caprice of fortune oft condemns the most accomplished characters, than his highest merit deserved,” had been bred under Mr. Blackwell,1279 at Market Bosworth, where Johnson was some time an usher; which might naturally lead to the application. Mr. Budworth was certainly no stranger to the learning or abilities of Johnson; as he more than once lamented his having been under the necessity of declining the engagement, from an apprehension that the paralytick affection, under which our great Philologist laboured through life, might become the object of imitation or of ridicule, among his pupils.’ Captain Budworth, his grandson, has confirmed to me this anecdote.
‘Among the early associates of Johnson, at St. John’s Gate, was Samuel Boyse, well known by his ingenious productions; and not less noted for his imprudence. It was not unusual for Boyse to be a customer to the pawnbroker. On one of these occasions, Dr. Johnson collected a sum of money to redeem his friend’s clothes, which in two days after were pawned again. “The sum, (said Johnson,) was collected by sixpences, at a time when to me sixpence was a serious consideration.”
‘Speaking one day of a person for whom he had a real friendship, but in whom vanity was somewhat too predominant, he observed, that “Kelly was so fond of displaying on his sideboard the plate which he possessed, that he added to it his spurs. For my part, (said he,) I never was master of a pair of spurs, but once; and they are now at the bottom of the ocean. By the carelessness of Boswell’s servant, they were dropped from the end of the boat, on our return from the Isle of Sky.”’
The late Reverend Mr. Samuel Badcock, having been introduced to Dr. Johnson, by Mr. Nichols, some years before his death, thus expressed himself in a letter to that gentleman: –
‘How much I am obliged to you for the favour you did me in introducing me to Dr. Johnson! Tantüm vidi Virgilium.1280 But to have seen him, and to have received a testimony of respect from him, was enough. I recollect all the conversation, and shall never forget one of his expressions. Speaking of Dr. P∗∗∗∗∗∗∗1281 (whose writings, I saw, he estimated at a low rate,) he said, “You have proved him as deficient in probity as he is in learning.” I called him an “Index-scholar;” but he was not willing to allow him a claim even to that merit. He said, that “he borrowed from those who had been borrowers themselves, and did not know that the mistakes he adopted had been answered by others.” I often think of our short, but precious, visit to this great man. I shall consider it as a kind of an (Bra in my life.’
a The change of his sentiments with regard to Dr. Clarke, is thus mentioned to me in a letter from the late Dr. Adams, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford: – ‘The Doctor’s prejudices were the strongest, and certainly in another sense the weakest, that ever possessed a sensible man. You know his extreme zeal for orthodoxy. But did you ever hear what he told me himself? That he had made it a rule not to admit Dr. Clarke’s name in his Dictionary. This, however, wore off. At some distance of time he advised with me what books he should read in defence of the Christian Religion. I recommended Clarke’s Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion, as the best of the kind; and I find in what is called his Prayers and Meditations, that he was frequently employed in the latter part of his time in reading Clarke’s Sermons.’
a The Reverend Mr. Strahan took care to have it preserved, and has inserted it in Prayers and Meditations, p. 216.
a Servant to the Right Honourable William Windham.
a On the subject of Johnson I may adopt the words of Sir John Harrington, concerning his venerable Tutor and Diocesan, Dr. John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells; ‘who hath given me some helps, more hopes, all encouragements in my best studies: to whom I never came but I grew more religious; from whom I never went, but I parted better instructed. Of him therefore, my acquaintance, my friend, my instructor, if I speak much, it were not to be marvelled; if I speak frankly, it is not to be blamed; and though I speak partially, it were to be pardoned.’ Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. i. p. 136. There is one circumstance in Sir John’s character of Bishop Still, which is peculiarly applicable to Johnson: ‘He became so famous a disputer, that the learnedest were even afraid to dispute with him; and he finding his own strength, could not stick to warn them in their arguments to take heed to their answers, like a perfect fencer that will tell aforehand in which button he will give the venew,1288 or like a cunning chess-player that will appoint aforehand with which pawn and in what place he will give the mate.’
b [The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton.]
c Beside the Dedications to him by Dr. Goldsmith, the Reverend Dr. Franklin, and the Reverend Mr. Wilson, which I have mentioned according to their dates, there was one by a lady,1290 of a versification of Aningait and Ajut, and one by the ingenious Mr. Walker of his Rhetorical Grammar. I have introduced into this work several compliments paid to him in the writings of his contemporaries; but the number of them is so great, that we may fairly say that there was almost a general tribute.