Slike strani
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

'I thought your last letter long in coming; and did not require or expect such an inventory of little things as you have sent me. I could have taken your word for a matter of much greater value. I am glad that Kitty is better; let her be paid first, as my dear, dear mother ordered, and then let me know at once the sum necessary to discharge her other debts, and I will find it you very soon.

'I beg, my dear, that you would act for me without the least scruple, for I can repose myself very confidently upon your prudence, and hope we shall never have reason to love each other less. I shall take it very kindly if you make it a rule to write to me once at least every week, for I am now very desolate, and am loth to be universally forgotten.

[blocks in formation]

'I beg your pardon for having so long omitted to write. One thing or other has put me off. I have this day moved my things and you are now to direct to me at Staple Inn, London. I hope, my dear, you are well, and Kitty mends. I wish her success in her trade. I am going to publish a little story book [Rasselas], which I will send you when it is out. Write to me, my dearest girl, for I am always glad to hear from you.

'I am, my dear, your humble servant,
'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'March 23, 1759.'

'DEAR MADAM,

'To MISS PORTER.

'I am almost ashamed to tell you that all your letters came safe, and that I have been always very well, but hindered, I hardly know how, from writing. I sent, last week, some of my works, one for you, one for your aunt Hunter, who was with my poor dear mother when she died, one for Mr. Howard, and one for Kitty.

'I beg you, my dear, to write often to me, and tell me how you like my little book.

'I am, dear love, your affectionate humble servant,

'May 10, 1759.'

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

APPENDIX

Appendix C.

517

APPENDIX C.

JOHNSON AT CAMBRIDGE.

(Page 487.)

The following is the full extract of Dr. Sharp's letter giving an account of Johnson's visit to Cambridge in 1765:

"Camb. Mar. 1, 1765.

'As to Johnson, you will be surprised to hear that I have had him in the chair in which I am now writing. He has ascended my aërial citadel. He came down on a Saturday evening, with a Mr. Beauclerk, who has a friend at Trinity. Caliban, you may be sure, was not roused from his lair before next day noon, and his breakfast probably kept him till night. I saw nothing of him, nor was he heard of by any one, till Monday afternoon, when I was sent for home to two gentlemen unknown. In conversation I made a strange faux pas about Burnaby Greene's poem, in which Johnson is drawn at full length. He drank his large potations of tea with me, interrupted by many an indignant contradiction, and many a noble sentiment. He had on a better wig than usual, but, one whose curls were not, like Sir Cloudesly's 2, formed for 'eternal buckle. Our conversation was chiefly on books, you may be sure. He was much pleased with a small Milton of mine, published in the author's lifetime, and with the Greek epigram on his own effigy, of its being the picture, not of him, but of a bad painter. There are many manuscript stanzas, for aught I know, in Milton's own handwriting, and several interlined hints and fragments. We were puzzled about one of the sonnets, which we thought was not to be found in Newton's edition, and differed from all the printed ones. But Johnson cried, "No, no!" repeated the whole sonnet instantly, memoriter, and shewed it us in Newton's book. After which he learnedly harangued on sonnet-writing, and its different numbers. He tells me he will come hither again quickly, and is promised "an habitation in Emanuel College"." He

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

went back to town next morning; but as it began to be known that he was in the university, several persons got into his company the last evening at Trinity, where, about twelve, he began to be very great; stripped poor Mrs. Macaulay to the very skin, then gave her for his toast, and drank her in two bumpers.' (Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 173.)

'SIR,

[ocr errors]

APPENDIX D.

JOHNSON'S Letter to Dr. Leland.

(Page 489.)

'TO THE REV. DR. LELAND.

Among the names subscribed to the degree which I have had the honour of receiving from the university of Dublin, I find none of which I have any personal knowledge but those of Dr. Andrews and yourself.

'Men can be estimated by those who know them not, only as they are represented by those who know them; and therefore I flatter myself that I owe much of the pleasure which this distinction gives me to your concurrence with Dr. Andrews in recommending me to the learned society.

'Having desired the Provost to return my general thanks to the University, I beg that you, sir, will accept my particular and immediate acknowledge

[blocks in formation]

In a little volume entitled Parliamentary Logick, by the Right Hon. W. G. Hamilton, published in 1808, twelve years after the author's death, is included Considerations on Corn, by Dr. Johnson (Works, V. 321). It was written, says Hamilton's editor, in November 1766.

A dearth

[blocks in formation]

A dearth had caused riots.

'Those who want the supports of life,' Johnson wrote, 'will seize them wherever they can be found.' (Ib. p. 322.) He supported in this tract the bounty for exporting corn. If more than a year after he had engaged in politics with Mr. Hamilton nothing had been produced but this short tract, the engagement was not of much importance. But there was, I suspect, much more in it. Indeed, the editor says (Preface, p. ix.) that 'Johnson had entered into some engagement with Mr. Hamilton, occasionally to furnish him with his sentiments on the great political topicks that should be considered in Parliament.' Mr. Croker draws attention to a passage in Johnson's letter to Miss Porter of Jan. 14, 1766 (Croker's Boswell, p. 173), in which he says: 'I cannot well come [to Lichfield] during the session of parliament.' In the spring of this same year Burke had broken with Hamilton, in whose service he had been. 'The occasion of our difference,' he wrote, 'was not any act whatsoever on my part; it was entirely upon his, by a voluntary but most insolent and intolerable demand, amounting to no less than a claim of servitude during the whole course of my life, without leaving to me at any time a power either of getting forward with honour, or of retiring with tranquillity' (Burke's Corres. i. 77). It seems to me highly probable that Hamilton, in consequence of his having just lost, as I have shewn, Burke's services, sought Johnson's aid. He had taken Burke as a companion in his studies.' (Ib. p. 48.) 'Six of the best years of my life,' wrote Burke, he took me from every pursuit of literary reputation or of improvement of my fortune. In that time he made his own fortune (a very great one).' (Ib. p. 67.) Burke had been recommended to Hamilton by Dr. Warton. On losing him Hamilton, on Feb. 12, 1765, wrote to Warton, giving a false account of his separation with Burke, and asking him to recommend some one to fill his place-some one 'who, in addition to a taste and an understanding of ancient authors, and what generally passes under the name of scholarship, has likewise a share of modern knowledge, and has applied himself in some degree to the study of the law.' By way of payment he offers at once an income, which would neither be insufficient for him as a man of letters, or disreputable to him as a gentleman,' and hereafter 'a situation'-a post, that is to say, under government. (Wooll's Warton, i. 299.) Warton recommended Chambers. Chambers does not seem to have accepted the post, for we find him staying on at Oxford (post, ii. 25, 46). Johnson had all the knowledge that Hamilton required, except that of law. It is this very study that we find him at this very time entering upon. and to some extent an engagement

All this shows that for some time was formed between him and Hamilton.

[blocks in formation]

Hamilton. Boswell, writing to Malone on Feb. 25, 1791, while The Life of Johnson was going through the press, says :

'I shall have more cancels. That nervous mortal W. G. H. is not satisfied with my report of some particulars which I wrote down from his own mouth, and is so much agitated that Courtenay has persuaded me to allow a new edition of them by H. himself to be made at H.'s expense.' (Croker's Boswell, p. 829). This would seem to show that there was something that Hamilton wished to conceal. Horace Walpole (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iii. 402) does not give him a character for truthfulness. He writes on one occasion :-' Hamilton denied it, but his truth was not renowned.' Miss Burney, who met Hamilton fourteen years after this, thus describes him:- This Mr. Hamilton is extremely tall and handsome; has an air of haughty and fashionable superiority; is intelligent, dry, sarcastic, and clever. I should have received much pleasure from his conversational powers, had I not previously been prejudiced against him, by hearing that he is infinitely artful, double, and crafty.' (Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 293).

APPENDIX F.

JOHNSON'S FIRST ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE THRALES AND HIS SERIOUS ILLNESS.

(Page 490.)

Johnson (Pr. and Med. p. 191) writes:-'My first knowledge of Thrale was in 1765.' In a letter to Mrs. Thrale, he says:- -'You were but five-and-twenty when I knew you first.' (Piozzi Letters, i. 284). As she was born on Jan. 1, 1741, this would place their introduction in 1766. In another letter, written on July 8, 1784, he talks of her 'kindness which soothed twenty years of a life radically wretched.' (Ib. ii. 376). Perhaps, however, he here spoke in round numbers. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 125) says they first met in 1764. Mr. Thrale, she writes, sought an excuse for inviting him. The celebrity of Mr. Woodhouse (post, ii. 127), a shoemaker, whose verses were at that time the subject of common discourse, soon afforded a 'pretence.' There is a notice of Woodhouse in the Gent. Mag. for June, 1764 (p. 289). Johnson, she says, dined with them every Thursday through the winter of 1764-5, and in the autumn of 1765 followed them to Brighton. In the

« PrejšnjaNaprej »