174 Lady Macclesfield's latter career. [A.D. 1744. different accounts of the Life of Richard Savage, one published in The Plain Dealer, in 1724, another in 1727, and another by the powerful pen of Johnson, in 1744, and all of them while Lady Macclesfield was alive, should, notwithstanding the severe attacks upon her, have been suffered to pass without any publick and effectual contradiction. I have thus endeavoured to sum up the evidence upon the case, as fairly as I can; and the result seems to be, that the world must vibrate in a state of uncertainty as to what was the truth. This digression, I trust, will not be censured, as it relates to a matter exceedingly curious, and very intimately connected with Johnson, both as a man and an authour2. 1 According to Johnson, she was at Bath when Savage's poem of The Bastard was published. 'She could not,' he wrote, 'enter the assemblyrooms or cross the walks without being saluted with some lines from The Bastard. This was perhaps the first time that she ever discovered a sense of shame, and on this occasion the power of wit was very conspicuous; the wretch who had without scruple proclaimed herself an adulteress, and who had first endeavoured to starve her son, then to transport him, and afterwards to hang him, was not able to bear the representation of her own conduct; but fled from reproach, though she felt no pain from guilt, and left Bath with the utmost haste to shelter herself among the crowds of London.' Johnson's Works, viii. 141. 2 Miss Mason, after having forfeited the title of Lady Macclesfield by divorce, was married to Colonel Brett, and, it is said, was well known in all the polite circles. Colley Cibber, I am informed, had so high an opinion of her taste and judgement as to genteel life, and manners, that he submitted every scene of his Careless Husband to Mrs. Brett's revisal and correction. Colonel Brett was reported to be too free in his gallantry with his Lady's maid. Mrs. Brett came into a room one day in her own house, and found the Colonel and her maid both fast asleep in two chairs. She tied a white handkerchief round her husband's neck, which was a sufficient proof that she had discovered his intrigue; but she never at any time took notice of it to him. This incident, as I am told, gave occasion to the well-wrought scene of Sir Charles and Lady Easy and Edging. BOSWELL. Lady Macclesfield died 1753, aged above 80. Her eldest daughter, by Col. Brett, was, for the few last months of his life, the mistress of George I. (Walpole's Reminiscences, i. cv.) Her mar riage ten years after her royal lover's death is thus announced in the Gent. Mag., 1737 - Sept. 17. Sir W. Leman, of Northall, Bart., to Miss Brett [Britt] of Bond Street, an heiress;' and again next month -Oct. 8. Sir William Leman, of Northall, Baronet, to Miss Brett, half sister to Mr. Savage, son to the late Earl Rivers;' for the difference of date I know not how to account; but the second insertion was, no doubt, made by Savage to countenance his own pretensions. CROker. He Aetat. 36.] OBSERVATIONS ON SHAKESpeare. 175 He this year wrote the Preface to the Harleian Miscellany* The selection of the pamphlets of which it was composed was made by Mr. Oldys, a man of eager curiosity and indefatigable diligence, who first exerted that spirit of inquiry into the literature of the old English writers, by which the works of our great dramatick poet have of late been so signally illustrated. In 1745 he published a pamphlet entitled Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks on Sir T. H.'s (Sir Thomas Hanmer's) Edition of Shakspeare.* To which he affixed, proposals for a new edition of that poet3. As we do not trace any thing else published by him during the course of this year, we may conjecture that he was occupied entirely with that work. But the little encouragement which was given by the publick to his anonymous proposals for the execution of a task which Warburton was known to have undertaken, probably damped his ardour. His pamphlet, however, was highly esteemed, and was fortunate enough to obtain the approbation even of the supercilious Warburton himself, who, in the Preface to his Shakspeare published two years afterwards, thus mentioned it: 'As to all those things which have been * A brief account of Oldys is given in the Gent. Mag. liv. 161, 260. Like so many of his fellows he was thrown into the Fleet. After poor Oldys's release, such was his affection for the place that he constantly spent his evenings there.' ' In the Feb. number of the Gent. Mag. for this year (p. 112) is the following advertisement :- Speedily will be published (price 1s.) Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks on Sir T. H.'s edition of Shakespear; to which is affix'd proposals for a new edition of Shakespear, with a specimen. Printed for J. Roberts in Warwick Lane.' In the March number (p. 114), under the date of March 31, it is announced that it will be published on April 6. In spite of the two advertisements, and the title-page which agrees with the advertisements, I believe that the Proposals were not published till eleven years later (see post, end of 1756). I cannot hear of any copy of the Miscellaneous Observations which contains them. The advertisement is a third time repeated in the April number of the Gent. Mag. for 1745 (p. 224), but the Proposals are not this time mentioned. Tom Davies the bookseller gives 1756 as the date of their publication (Misc. and Fugitive Pieces, ii. 87). Perhaps Johnson or the booksellers were discouraged by Hanmer's Shakespeare as well as by Warburton's. Johnson at the end of the Miscellaneous Observations says:-'After the foregoing pages were printed, the late edition of Shakespeare ascribed to Sir T. H. fell into my hands.' published 176 The Rebellion of 1745. [A.D. 1746. published under the titles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, &c. on Shakspeare, if you except some critical notes on Macbeth, given as a specimen of a projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man of parts and genius, the rest are absolutely below a serious notice.' Of this flattering distinction shewn to him by Warburton, a very grateful remembrance was ever entertained by Johnson, who said, 'He praised me at a time when praise was of value to me.' 1746: ÆTAT. 37.]-IN 1746 it is probable that he was still employed upon his Shakspeare, which perhaps he laid aside for a time, upon account of the high expectations which were formed of Warburton's edition of that great poet'. It is somewhat curious, that his literary career appears to have been almost totally suspended in the years 1745 and 1746, those years which were marked by a civil war in Great-Britain, when a rash attempt was made to restore the House of Stuart to the throne. That he had a tenderness for that unfortunate House, is well known; and some may fancifully imagine, that a sympathetick anxiety impeded the exertion of his intellectual powers: but I am inclined to think, that he was, during this time, sketching the outlines of his great philological work". public. His Life of Savage did not bear his name. His Observations on Macbeth were published in April, 1745; his Plan of the Dictionary in 174. What was Johnson doing meanwhile? Boswell conjectures that he was engaged on his Shakespeare and his Dictionary. That he went on working at his Shakespeare when the prospect of publishing was so remote that he could not issue his proposals is very unlikely. That he had been for some time engaged on his Dictionary before he addressed Lord Chesterfield is shewn by the opening sentences of the Plan. Mr. Croker's conjecture that he was absent or concealed on account of some difficulties which had arisen through the rebellion of 1745 is absurd. At no None Aetat. 38.] Johnson not an ardent Jacobite. 177 None of his letters during those years are extant, so far as I can discover. This is much to be regretted. It might afford some entertainment to see how he then expressed himself to his private friends, concerning State affairs. Dr. Adams informs me, that at this time a favourite object which he had in contemplation was The Life of Alfred; in which, from the warmth with which he spoke about it, he would, I believe, had he been master of his own will, have engaged himself, rather than on any other subject.' 1747 ÆTAT. 38.]-IN 1747 it is supposed that the Gentleman's Magazine for May was enriched by him with five1 short poetical pieces, distinguished by three asterisks. The first is a translation, or rather a paraphrase, of a Latin Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer. Whether the Latin was his, or not, I have never heard, though I should think it probably was, if it be certain that he wrote the English; as to which my only cause of doubt time of his life had he been an ardent Jacobite. I have heard him declare,' writes Boswell, 'that if holding up his right hand would have secured victory at Culloden to Prince Charles's army, he was not sure he would have held it up;' post, July 14, 1763. He had never in his life been in a nonjuring meeting-house ;' post, June 9, 1784. For the fact that he wrote very little, if indeed anything, in the Gent. Mag. during these years more than one reason may be given. In the first place, public affairs take up an unusual amount of room in its columns. Thus in the number for Dec. 1745 we read :-'Our readers being too much alarmed by the present rebellion to relish with their usual delight the Debates in the Senate of Lilliput we shall postpone them for a season, that we may be able to furnish out a fuller entertainment of what we find to be more suitable to their present taste.' In the Preface it is stated :-'We have sold more of our books than we desire for several months past, and are heartily sorry for the occasion of it, VOL. I. N the present troubles.' During these years then much less space was given to literature. But besides this, Johnson likely enough refused to write for the Magazine when it shewed itself strongly Hanoverian. He would highly disapprove of A New Protestant Litany, which was written after the following fashion :'May Spaniards, or French, all who join with a Highland, In disturbing the peace of this our bless'd island, Meet tempests on sea and halters on dry land. We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord.' Gent. Mag. xv. 551. He would be disgusted the following year at seeing the Duke of Cumberland praised as 'the greatest man alive' (Gent. Mag. xvi. 235), and sung in verse that would have almost disgraced Cibber (p. 36). It is remarkable that there is no mention of Johnson's Plan of a Dictionary in the Magazine. Perhaps some coolness had risen between him and Cave. 1 Boswell proceeds to mention six. 2 In Mrs. Williams's Miscellanies, is, 178 Poems wrongly assigned to Johnson. [A.D. 1747. is, that his slighting character of Hanmer as an editor, in his Observations on Macbeth, is very different from that in the 'Epitaph.' It may be said, that there is the same contrariety between the character in the Observations, and that in his own Preface to Shakspeare'; but a but a considerable time elapsed between the one publication and the other, whereas the Observations and the 'Epitaph' came close together. The others are To Miss -, on her giving the Authour a gold and silk net-work Purse of her own weaving;' 'Stella in Mourning;' The Winter's Walk;' 'An Ode ;' and, 'To Lyce, an elderly Lady.' I am not positive that all these were his productions; but as 'The Winter's Walk' has never been in which this paraphrase is inserted, it is stated that the Latin epitaph was written by Dr. Freind. I do not think that the English version is by Johnson. I should be sorry to ascribe to him such lines as : 'A country gentleman of great ingenuity and lively fancy, but with no knowledge of older literature, no taste for research, and no ear for the rhythm of earlier English verse, amused his leisure hours by scrib Illustrious age! how bright thy bling down his own and his friend's glories shone, When Hanmer filled the chairand Anne the throne,' In the Observations, Johnson, Who like a good and hardy soldier fought. guesses in Pope's Shakespeare! 2 In the Universal Visiter, to which Johnson contributed, the mark which is affixed to some pieces unquestionably his, is also found subjoined to others, of which he certainly was not the author. The mark therefore will not ascertain the poems in question to have been written by him. They were probably the productions of Hawkesworth, who, it is believed, was afflicted with the gout. MALONE. It is most unlikely that Johnson wrote such poor poems as these. I shall not easily be persuaded that the following lines are his : 'Love warbles in the vocal groves, And vegetation paints the plain.' 'And love and hate alike implore The skies-"That Stella mourn no more."' "The Winter's Walk' has two good lines, but these may have been supplied by Johnson. The lines to 'Lyce, an elderly Lady,' would, if written by him, have been taken as a satire on his wife. controverted |