Passages suppressed. 415 Anecdotes of Pope', and other valuable remains in our own language. How delighted should we have been, if thus introduced into the company of Shakspeare and of Dryden, of whom we know scarcely any thing but their admirable writings! What pleasure would it have given us, to have known their petty habits, their characteristick manners, their modes of composition, and their genuine opinion of preceding writers and of their contemporaries! All these are now irrecoverably lost. Considering how many of the strongest and most brilliant effusions of exalted intellect must have perished, how much is it to be regretted that all men of distinguished wisdom and wit have not been attended by friends, of taste enough to relish, and abilities enough to register their conversation; 'Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi, sed omnes illacrymabiles Nocte, carent quia vate sacro3.' They whose inferiour exertions are recorded, as serving to explain or illustrate the sayings of such men, may be proud of being thus associated, and of their names being transmitted to posterity, by being appended to an illustrious character. Before I conclude, I think it proper to say, that I have suppressed every thing which I thought could really hurt any one * Having found, on a revision of the first edition of this work, that, notwithstanding my best care, a few observations had escaped me, which arose from the instant impression, the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum, I immediately ordered that they should be omitted in the subsequent editions. I was pleased to find that they did not amount in the whole to a page. If any of the same kind are yet left, it is owing to inadvertence alone, no man being more unwilling to give pain to others than I am. A contemptible scribbler, of whom I have learned no more than that, after having disgraced and deserted the clerical character, he picks up in London a scanty livelihood by now now living. Vanity and self-conceit indeed may sometimes suffer. With respect to what is related, I considered it my duty to 'extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice';' and with those lighter strokes of Dr. Johnson's satire, proceeding from a warmth and quickness of imagination, not from any malevolence of heart, and which, on account of their excellence, could not be omitted, I trust that they who are the subject of them have good sense and good temper enough not to be displeased. I have only to add, that I shall ever reflect with great pleasure on a Tour, which has been the means of preserving so much of the enlightened and instructive conversation of one whose virtues will, I hope, ever be an object of imitation, and whose powers of mind were so extraordinary, that ages may revolve before such a man shall again appear. scurrilous lampoons under a feigned name, has impudently and falsely asserted that the passages omitted were defamatory, and that the omission was not voluntary, but compulsory. The last insinuation I took the trouble publickly to disprove; yet, like one of Pope's dunces, he persevered in 'the lie o'erthrown.' [Prologue to the Satires, 1. 350.] As to the charge of defamation, there is an obvious and certain mode of refuting it. Any person who thinks it worth while to compare one edition with the other, will find that the passages omitted were not in the least degree of that nature, but exactly such as I have represented them in the former part of this note, the hasty effusion of momentary feelings, which the delicacy of politeness should have suppressed. BOSWELL. In the second edition this note ended at the first paragraph, the latter part being added in the third. For the 'few observations omitted' see ante, pp. 148, 381, 388. The 'contemptible scribbler' was, I believe, John Wolcot, better known by his assumed name of Peter Pindar. He had been a clergyman. In his Epistle to Boswell (Works, i. 219), he says in reference to the passages about Sir A. Macdonald (afterwards Lord Macdonald) :-'A letter of severe remonstrance was sent to Mr. It was B., who, in consequence, omitted in APPENDIX. No. I. In justice to the ingenious DR. BLACKLOCK, I publish the following letter from him, relative to a passage in p. 47. 'DEAR SIR, 'TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. 'Having lately had the pleasure of reading your account of the journey which you took with Dr. Samuel Johnson to the Western Isles, I take the liberty of transmitting my ideas of the conversation which happened between the doctor and myself concerning Lexicography and Poetry, which, as it is a little different from the delineation exhibited in the former edition of your Journal, cannot, I hope, be unacceptable; particularly since I have been informed that a second edition of that work is now in contemplation, if not in execution: and I am still more strongly tempted to encourage that hope, from considering that, if every one concerned in the conversations related, were to send you what they can recollect of these colloquial entertainments, many curious and interesting particulars might be recovered, which the most assiduous attention could not observe, nor the most tenacious memory retain. A little reflection, Sir, will convince you, that there is not an axiom in Euclid more intuitive nor more evident than the doctor's assertion that poetry was of much easier execution than lexicography. Any mind therefore endowed with common sense, must have been extremely absent from itself, if it discovered the least astonishment from hearing that a poem might be written with much more facility than the same quantity of a dictionary. 'The real cause of my surprise was what appeared to me much more paradoxical, that he could write a sheet of dictionary with as much pleasure as a sheet of poetry. He acknowledged, indeed, that the latter was much easier than the former. For in the one case, books and a desk were requisite; in the other, you might compose when lying in bed, or walking in the fields, &c. He did not, however, descend to explain, nor to this moment can I comprehend, how the labours of a VOL. V. E e mere mere Philologist, in the most refined sense of that term, could give equal pleasure with the exercise of a mind replete with elevated conceptions and pathetic ideas, while taste, fancy, and intellect were deeply enamoured of nature, and in full exertion. You may likewise, perhaps, remember, that when I complained of the ground which Scepticism in religion and morals was continually gaining, it did not appear to be on my own account, as my private opinions upon these important subjects had long been inflexibly determined. What I then deplored, and still deplore, was the unhappy influence which that gloomy hesitation had, not only upon particular characters, but even upon life in general; as being equally the bane of action in our present state, and of such consolations as we might derive from the hopes of a future. 'I have the pleasure of remaining with sincere esteem and respect, 'Dear Sir, 'Your most obedient humble servant, 'Edinburgh, Nov. 12, 1785.' I am very happy to find that Dr. Blacklock's apparent uneasiness on the subject of Scepticism was not on his own account, (as I supposed) but from a benevolent concern for the happiness of mankind. With respect, however, to the question concerning poetry, and composing a dictionary, I am confident that my state of Dr. Johnson's position is accurate. One may misconceive the motive by which a person is induced to discuss a particular topick (as in the case of Dr. Blacklock's speaking of Scepticism); but an assertion, like that made by Dr. Johnson, cannot be easily mistaken. And indeed it seems not very probable, that he who so pathetically laments the drudgery' to which the unhappy lexicographer is doomed, and is known to have written his splendid imitation of Juvenal with astonishing rapidity, should have had ‘as much pleasure in writing a sheet of a dictionary as a sheet of poetry3. Nor can I concur with 1 See ante, i. 189, note 2, 296, 297; and Johnson's Works, v. 23. 2 Of his two imitations Boswell means The Vanity of Human Wishes, of which one hundred lines were written in a day. Ante, i. 192, and ii. 15. 3 Johnson, it should seem, did not allow that there was any pleasure in writing poetry. It has been said there is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may have pleasure from writing after it is over, if you have written well; but you don't go willingly to it again.' Ante, iv. 219. What Johnson always sought was to sufficiently occupy the mind. So long the the ingenious writer of the foregoing letter, in thinking it an axiom as evident as any in Euclid, that 'poetry is of easier execution than lexicography.' I have no doubt that Bailey', and the mighty blunderbuss of law,' Jacob, wrote ten pages of their respective Dictionaries with more ease than they could have written five pages of poetry. If this book should again be reprinted, I shall with the utmost readiness correct any errours I may have committed, in stating conversations, provided it can be clearly shewn to me that I have been inaccurate. But I am slow to believe, (as I have elsewhere observed3) that any man's memory, at the distance of several years, can preserve facts or sayings with such fidelity as may be done by writing them down when they are recent and I beg it may be remembered, that it is not upon memory, but upon what was written at the time, that the authenticity of my Journal rests. No. II. Verses written by Sir Alexander (now Lord) Macdonald; addressed and presented to Dr. Johnson, at Armidale in the Isle of Sky*. |