Slike strani
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

Warton, Mr. Malone, Lord Ossory, Lord Spencer, Lord Lucan, Lord Palmerston, Lord Eliot, Lord Macartney, Mr. Richard Burke junior, Sir William Hamilton, Dr. Warren, Mr. Courtenay, Dr. Hinchliffe Bishop of Peterborough, the Duke of Leeds, Dr. Douglas Bishop of Salisbury, and the writer of this account.

Sir John Hawkins1 represents himself as a 'seceder' from this society, and assigns as the reason of his 'withdrawing' himself from it, that its late hours were inconsistent with his domestic arrangements. In this he is not accurate; for the fact was that he one evening attacked Mr. Burke in so rude a manner that all the company testified their displeasure; and at their next meeting his reception was such that he never came again.2

He is equally inaccurate with respect to Mr. Garrick, of whom he says, 'he trusted that the least intimation of a desire to come among us would procure him a ready admission, but, in this he was mistaken. Johnson consulted me upon it; and when I could find no objection to receiving him, exclaimed, "He will disturb us by his buffoonery "; and afterwards so managed matters that he was never formally proposed, and, by consequence, never admitted.' 3

In justice both to Mr. Garrick and Dr. Johnson, I think it necessary to rectify this mis-statement. The truth is, that not very long after the institution of our club, Sir Joshua Reynolds was speaking of it to

1 Life of Johnson, p. 425.

2 From Sir Joshua Reynolds. [The Knight having refused to pay his portion of the reckoning for the supper, because he usually ate no supper at home, Johnson observed, 'Sir John, sir, is a very unclubable man.'-BURNEY.] 3 Life of Johnson, p. 425.

Garrick. 'I like it much (said he), I think I shall be of you.' When Sir Joshua mentioned this to Dr. Johnson he was much displeased with the actor's conceit. 'He'll be of us (said Johnson), how does he know we will permit him? The first duke in England has no right to hold such language.' However, when Garrick was regularly proposed some time afterwards, Johnson, though he had taken a momentary offence at his arrogance, warmly and kindly supported him, and he was accordingly elected,1 was a most agreeable member, and continued to attend our meetings to the time of his death.

Mrs. Piozzi 2 has also given a similar misrepresentation of Johnson's treatment of Garrick in this particular, as if he had used these contemptuous expressions: 'If Garrick does apply, I'll blackball him. Surely, one ought to sit in a society like ours,

"Unelbow'd by a gamester, pimp, or player."

I am happy to be enabled by such unquestionable authority as that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as well as from my own knowledge, to vindicate at once the heart of Johnson and the social merit of Garrick.

In this year, except what he may have done in revising Shakespeare, we do not find that he laboured much in literature. He wrote a review of Grainger's 'Sugar Cane,' a poem, in the London Chronicle. He told me that Dr. Percy wrote the greatest part of this review; but I imagine he did not recollect it distinctly, for it appears to be mostly, if not altogether,

1 [Mr. Garrick was elected in March 1773.-M.]
2 Letters to and from Dr. Johnson, vol. ii. p. 278.

his own. He also wrote in the Critical Review an account of Goldsmith's excellent poem, "The Traveller.'

And

The ease and independence to which he had at last attained by royal munificence increased his natural indolence. In his Meditations he thus accuses himself: 'Good Friday, April 20, 1764.—I have made no reformation; I have lived totally useless, more sensual in thought, and more addicted to wine and meat.' next morning he thus feelingly complains: My indolence, since my last reception of the sacrament, has sunk into grosser sluggishness, and my dissipation spread into wilder negligence. My thoughts have been clouded with sensuality; and, except that from the beginning of this year I have, in some measure, forborne excess of strong drink, my appetites have predominated over my reason. A kind of strange oblivion has overspread me, so that I know not what has become of the last year; and perceive that incidents and intelligence pass over me without leaving any impression.' He then solemnly says, "This is not the life to which heaven is promised,' and he earnestly resolves an amendment.

It was his custom to observe certain days with a pious abstraction, viz., New Year's Day, the day of his wife's death, Good Friday, Easter Day, and his own birthday. He this year says: "I have now spent fiftyfive years in resolving, having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I have done nothing. The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of doing is short. O God, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my 2 Ibid. p. 51.

1 Prayers and Meditations, p. 53.

Such a

resolutions, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.'1 tenderness of conscience, such a fervent desire of improvement, will rarely be found. It is surely not decent in those who are hardened in indifference to spiritual improvement, to treat this pious anxiety of Johnson with contempt.

About this time he was afflicted with a very severe return of the hypochondriac disorder which was ever lurking about him. He was so ill as, notwithstanding his remarkable love of company, to be entirely averse to society-the most fatal symptom of that malady. Dr. Adams told me that, as an old friend, he was admitted to visit him, and that he found him in a deplorable state, sighing, groaning, talking to himself, and restlessly walking from room to room. He then used this emphatical expression of the misery which he felt I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits.'

Talking to himself was, indeed, one of his singularities ever since I knew him. I was certain that he was frequently uttering pious ejaculations; for fragments of the Lord's Prayer have been distinctly overheard.2 His friend, Mr. Thomas Davies-of whom Churchill says,

"That Davies hath a very pretty wife':

1 Prayers and Meditations, p. 584.

2 [It used to be imagined at Mr. Thrale's, when Johnson retired to a window or corner of the room, by perceiving his lips in motion, and hearing a murmur without audible articulation, that he was praying: but this was not always the case, for I was once, perhaps unperceived by him, writing at a table, so near the place of his retreat that I heard him repeat some lines in an ode of Horace, over and over again, as if by iteration, to exercise the organs of speech, and fix the ode in his memory:

Audiet cives acuisse ferrum,

Quo graves Persa melius perirent;
Audiet pugnas...

It was during the American war.-BURNEY.]

Carm. L. 1. Od. ii. 21.

« PrejšnjaNaprej »