Boswell and Johnson: Their Companions and Contemporaries 9781472553997, 9781472514509

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PREFACE. No apology is needed for this little work. N otwithstanding all that has been written on the subject, there is surely room for a book such as this aims to be-an abridgment of what is in Boswell-and, in addition, somewhat that is not to be found there, in relation to the literature of Johnson's day. Boswell and J olmson are two names that may well be placed together: a great artist and his great subject. Indeed the name of the one ever recalls that of the other, as Guido ever reminds us of the Magdalene, and Murillo of the Madonna. If Boswell owes all the permanency of his fame to Johnson, Johnson owes not a little of his to Boswell. The finest and the wisest table-talk that English literature possesses has been preserved by the faithfullest and ablest of chroniclers. This volume attempts no new life of either; for such there is neither room nor need. But the exhaustive affluence of the details in Bos'w-ell's great biography, presenting a picture that spreads over a canvas too large for the camal examiner to take in without spending more time than may be at his disposal, has suggested that something may be done to meet the wants of such a one-and very many

BOSWELL AND JOHNSON: Tlteir Companions and Contemporaries.

OHAPTER I. THE CLUB.

A Walk with Johnson-Members of the Club-Burke, Goldsmith, Garrick, Reynolds, &c.-A Battle of Words-Club Life in Old London-The Mermaid.

WE are in London in the year 1773. It is a Friday evening in the early part of May, between six and seven o'clock. We stand near Temple Bar-now only a memory, whose site is marked by the central refuge, erected midway in the thoroughfare between Ohild's Bank, with its fine Grecian fac;ade, and the graceful arches of the new Palace of J ustice--but then, looming in all its obstructive ugliness, grimed and calcined by the mud and soot and smoke of a century; the old black gateway, "separating the Strand from Fleet Street, the Oity from the Shire," the jealous guardian of the Oity's rights against the intrusion of more modern Westminster; whose iron-studded gates of oak were closed on occasions, even against Sovereigns, till due leave for entry was conceded. In Fleet Street the wooden balconies of the timber-framed and many-gabled houses projected B

THEIR COMPANIONS AND CONTE~IPORARIES.

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CHAPTER II. BOSWELL.

Macaulay's Criticism-Opinions of Contemporaries-The John· soniad-Boswell's Life-His Introduction to Johnson-He ·Writes the Biography-Opinions of Croker and Brougham.

"\V E approach the consideration of the biographer of Dr. J olmson not without considerable diffidence. The brilliant and vigorous, yet, we cannot but feel, somewhat prejudiced criticism of Lord Macaulay, while praising his work, has covered the man with an amount of ridicule and contempt that has been adopted \vi,.r; too much credence by the world, and has been followed by others to a greater or less extent j so that it seems somewhat of a bold undertaking to attempt, at this time of day, to do the man justice. That he was "a coxcomb and a bore, weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous," is not to be denied; but so have been other men who yet have not been without ability and learning. "Sel'vile and impertinent " he no doubt was to some extent, though the evidence to cOllvict him of these faults is neither much 1101' weighty. His" peck1ntry" is more that of the style of writing in hili) day than his own conceit; his" bigotry" is only that of a man having strong opinions. He had a good deal of "family pride," but it i5 not just to say he was "bloated"

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CHAPTER III. JOHNSON.

Jolmson's Youth-His Malady-His Marriage-He goes to London -The Gentleman's lIJallazine-History of Reporting Debates -Johnson's London-Savage--The Rambler--The Dictionary. "GREAT men," says a great man who has just passed from amongst us-Thomas Carlyle-" like the old Egyptian kings, must all be tried after death, before they can be embalmed; and what in truth are those 'sketches,' 'anas,' 'conversations,' 'voices,' and the like, but the votes and pleadings of so many illinformed advocates, jurors, and jndges, from whose conflict, however, we shall in the end have a true verdict 1 . Accordingly, no sooner does a great man depart, and leave his character as public property, than a crowd of little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavouring by all arts to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of himself." And so was it when that greatest man of his day died. He had his postmortem trial-his advocates, his jurors; and the crowd of men and women, little and great, whose name is legion, commenced that process so humorously described by Carlyle, and "the sketches and anas"

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CHAPTER IV. LANDED AT LAST.

A Visit to Johnson-His Manner of Life-His Depenuants-The Tour in the Hebrides-The Lives of the Poets-Mrs. ThraleJohnson's Last Visit to Lichfield-His Death.

THE accession of George III. was a "white day" for Johnson. The king desired to be a patron of literary men, and Bute, the Tory Minister, equally desired to be thought his Mmcenas. Both Johnson's politics and his p~e-eminence in literature marked him out as a recipient of royal favour, and the definer of that odious word "pensi.on" accepted one from the Crown of £300 a year. But let us not judge him hardly for this. The bounty was bestowed and accepted on the express statement that it was given as a reward for the services he had already rendered to literature, unshackled with any condition for the future, and so it did not come within his own definition, for it was not" without an equivalent." .And now he is safe on land, and may look back on the mighty sea, from which he has just emerged, lashed by the disturbing winds, with somewhat of the feelings described by Lucretius, of one that is secure from the trials with which others were struggling. Henceforth he is never to know the struggle for daily bread, the tlrudgery in sickness and sorrow, the misery of the

TllLIlt CO~Il'ANIONS AND CON Tl,;){l'OHAHI£S.

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OHAPTER V. JOHNi:iON'S PLACE IN LITERATUItE.

His Fear of Death-Johnson in Society-Mrs. Montagu's Parties -The State of Literature-Johnson's Services to it-His Style-His Knowledge of Mankind-His Undying Fame.

TIlE body of Samuel Johnson was borne to Westminster Abbey, attended by men illustrious both in rank and talent, true mourners, for they felt that a great and a good man had been taken from themnay, more, a man in some respects the greatest man of his time in England. They laid him amid a noble company of literary worthies j and the pilgrim or the loiterer who to-day wanders through the aisles of our great Minster-Abbey stops to look at his monument, and to read the record of his worth. If he be a foreigner and a scholar let him read it thoughtfully. It is a tribute of one of the greatest scholars that survived Johnson, one who k~ew him well, and could measure the greatness of his intellect, the extent of his acquirements, and the moral excellence of his nature, better than, perhaps, any other man-.Dr. Parr. "The variety and splendour of Johnson's attainments," said he, "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 lJ

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OHAPTER VI. JOHNSON'S CONTEliPORAItIES AND COMPANIONS.

l'rogress of Literature cluring his Life-The Poets of the AgeChurchill's Sacl Career - Chatterton's Forgeries - The Life ancl Character of Cowper-The Novel of Manners-Horace Walpole-Dr. Parr-The Historians-Members of the Club.

ORAm, in his "Literature and Learning in England," noticing the death of J ohnson, says: "It was not only the end of a reign, but the end of kingship altogether in our literary system. For king Samuel has had no successor: nobody since his day, and that of his contemporary Voltaire, has sat on a throne of literature either in Engbnd or in France." Though receiving much light a,nd knowledge from the ages that preceded, and transmitting not a little to those that followed, he may be said to stand in isolation from each, and so be considered as "the faithful mirror of the literature of his own age." "In social intercourse with him," observes Oharles Knight, "we see a large number of the most distinguished of his brethren. In his estimates of their value, and of others of his contemporaries-estimates often prejudiced to the extent of absurdity, but even in their prejudices reflecting the opinions of his day-we obtain a broader general view of the literature of a very remarkable period of transition than from any other source." It was from a similar consideration