556 Garrick and the Literary Club. [A.D. 1764. 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 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, was a most agreeable member, and continued to attend our meetings to the time of his death. Mrs. Piozzi' 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 black-ball 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 Garrick3. rate' in saying 'that Johnson was so constant at our meetings as never to absent himself.' (Ib. p. 424.) See post, Johnson's letter to Langton of March 9, 1766, where he says:- Dyer is constant at the Club; Hawkins is remiss; I am not over diligent.' 'Letters to and from Dr. Johnson. Vol. ii. p. 278 [387]. BOSWELL. The passage is as follows:- If he does apply," says our Doctor to Mr. Thrale, "I'll black-ball him." 'Who, Sir? Mr. Garrick, your friend, your companion,- black-ball him!" "Why, Sir, I love my little David dearly, better than all or any of his flatterers do, but surely one ought, &c." • Pope's Moral Essays, iii. 242. 'Malone says that it was from him that Boswell had his account of Garrick's election, and that he had it from Reynolds. He adds that 'Johnson warmly supported Garrick, being in reality a very Aetat. 55.] Grainger's SUGar Cane. 557 In this year, except what he may have done in revising Shakspeare, 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, his own'. He also wrote in The tender affectionate man. He was merely offended at the actor's conceit.' He continues:-' On the former part of this story it probably was that Hawkins grounded his account that Garrick never was of the Club, and that Johnson said he never ought to be of it. And thus it is that this stupid biographer, and the more flippant and malicious Mrs. Piozzi have miscoloured and misrepresented almost every anecdote that they have pretended to tell of Dr. Johnson.' Prior's Malone, p. 392. Whatever was the slight cast upon Garrick, he was nevertheless the sixth new member elected. Four, as I have shown, were added by 1768. The next elections were in 1773 (Croker's Boswell, ed. 1844, ii. 326), when five were added, of whom Garrick was the second, and Boswell the fifth. In 1774 five more were elected, among whom were Fox and Gibbon. Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 249) says that upon Garrick's death, when numberless applications were made to succeed him [in the Club], Johnson was deaf to them all. He said, "No, there never could be found any successor worthy of such a man;" and he insisted upon it there should be a year's widowhood in the club, before they thought of a new election.' Grainger wrote to Percy on April 6, 1764:—‘Sam. Johnson says he will review it in The Critical. In August 1765, he wrote:-‘I am perfectly satisfied with the reception the Sugar Cane has met with, and am greatly obliged to you and Mr. Johnson for the generous care you took of it in my absence.' Prior's Goldsmith, i. 238. He was absent in the West Indies. He died on Dec. 16, 1766. Ib. p. 241. The review of the Sugar Cane in the Critical Review (p. 270) is certainly by Johnson. The following passage is curious:-'The last book begins with a striking invocation to the genius of Africa, and goes on to give proper instructions for the buying and choice of negroes. ... The poet talks of this ungenerous commerce without the least appearance of detestation; but proceeds to direct these purchasers of their fellow-creatures with the same indifference that a groom would give instructions for choosing a horse. 'Clear roll their ample eye; their tongue be red; Critical 558 Johnson's self-accusations. [A.D. 1764. Critical Review, an account of Goldsmith's excellent poem, The Traveller'. 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".' And 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 birth-day. He this year says*:-'I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving; Not prominent their belly; clean and strong See also post, March 21, 1776. ' Johnson thus ends his brief review:-'Such is the poem on which we now congratulate the public as on a production to which, since the death of Pope, it will not be easy to find anything equal.' Critical Review, p. 462. 1 Pr. and Med. p. 50. BOSWELL. He adds :— 'I hope To put my rooms in order. Disorder I have found one great cause of idleness.' 1 Ib. p. 51. Boswell. It was on his birth-day that he said this. He wrote on the same having, Aetat. 55.] A severe attack of hypochondria. 559 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 resolutions, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen'.' Such a 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 hypochondriack 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'. His friend Mr. Thomas Davies, of whom Churchill says, day: 'I have outlived many friends. I have felt many sorrows. I have made few improvements.' 1 Prayers and Meditations, p. 58. BOSWELL. In his Vision of Theodore (Works, ix. 174) he describes the state of mind which he has recorded in his Meditations:-'There were others whose crime it was rather to neglect Reason than to disobey her; and who retreated from the heat and tumult of the way, not to the bowers of Intemperance, but to the maze of Indolence. They had this peculiarity in their condition, that they were always in sight of the road of Reason, always wishing for her presence, and always resolving to return to-morrow.' * See Appendix F. ' It used to be imagined at Mr. Thrale's, when Johnson retired to a 'That 560 Johnson's particularities. 'That Davies hath a very pretty wife',' [A.D. 1764. when Dr. Johnson muttered 'lead us not into temptation,' used with waggish and gallant humour to whisper Mrs. Davies, 'You, my dear, are the cause of this.' He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured to ask an explanation'. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and 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 repeating 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 Persæ melius perirent, Odes, i. 2. 21. ['Our sons shall hear, shall hear to latest times, Francis.] It was during the American War. BURNEY. Boswell in his Hebrides (Oct. 12, 1773) records, Dr. Johnson is often uttering pious ejaculations, when he appears to be talking to himself; for sometimes his voice grows stronger, and parts of the Lord's Prayer are heard.' In the same passage he describes other 'particularities,' and adds in a note :- It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I hoped he would have done.' See post, Dec. 1784, note. 1 Churchill's Poems, i. 16. See ante, p. 452. 2 It is in vain to try to find a meaning in every one of his particularities, which, I suppose, are mere habits contracted by chance; of which every man has some that are more or less remarkable.' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 12, 1773. 'The love of symmetry and order, which is natural to the mind of man, betrays him sometimes into very whimsical fancies. "This noble principle," says a French author, “loves to amuse itself on the most trifling occasions. You may see a profound philosopher," says he, "walk for an hour together in his chamber, and industriously treading at every step upon every other board in the flooring." The Spectator, No. 632. from |
