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The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 08
It may be alleged, that the same man may change his principles; and that he, who was once deservedly commended, may be afterwards satirized with equal justice; or that the poet was dazzled with the appearance of virtue, and found the man whom he had celebrated, when he had an opportunity of examining him more narrowly, unworthy of the panegyrick which he had too hastily bestowed; and that as a false satire ought to be recanted, for the sake of him whose reputation may be injured, false praise ought likewise to be obviated, lest the distinction between vice and virtue should be lost, lest a bad man should be trusted upon the credit of his encomiast, or lest others should endeavour to obtain the like praises by the same means.
But though these excuses may be often plausible, and sometimes just, they are very seldom satisfactory to mankind; and the writer, who is not constant to his subject, quickly sinks into contempt, his satire loses its force, and his panegyrick its value; and he is only considered at one time as a flatterer, and as a calumniator at another.
To avoid these imputations, it is only necessary to follow the rules of virtue, and to preserve an unvaried regard to truth. For though it is undoubtedly possible that a man, however cautious, may be sometimes deceived by an artful appearance of virtue, or by false evidences of guilt, such errours will not be frequent; and it will be allowed, that the name of an author would never have been made contemptible, had no man ever said what he did not think, or misled others but when he was himself deceived. The Author to be let was first published in a single pamphlet, and afterwards inserted in a collection of pieces relating to the Dunciad, which were addressed by Mr. Savage to the earl of Middlesex, in a dedication76 which he was prevailed upon to sign, though he did not write it, and in which there are some positions, that the true author would, perhaps, not have published under his own name, and on which Mr. Savage afterwards reflected with no great satisfaction; the enumeration of the bad effects of the uncontrouled freedom of the press, and the assertion that the “liberties taken by the writers of journals with their superiours were exorbitant and unjustifiable,” very ill became men, who have themselves not always shown the exactest regard to the laws of subordination in their writings, and who have often satirized those that at least thought themselves their superiours, as they were eminent for their hereditary rank, and employed in the highest offices of the kingdom. But this is only an instance of that partiality which almost every man indulges with regard to himself: the liberty of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants; as the power of the crown is always thought too great by those who suffer by its influence, and too little by those in whose favour it is exerted; and a standing army is generally accounted necessary by those who command, and dangerous and oppressive by those who support it.
Mr. Savage was, likewise, very far from believing, that the letters annexed to each species of bad poets in the Bathos were, as he was directed to assert, “set down at random;” for when he was charged by one of his friends with putting his name to such an improbability, he had no other answer to make than that “he did not think of it;” and his friend had too much tenderness to reply, that next to the crime of writing contrary to what he thought, was that of writing without thinking.
After having remarked what is false in this dedication, it is proper that I observe the impartiality which I recommend, by declaring what Savage asserted; that the account of the circumstances which attended the publication of the Dunciad, however strange and improbable, was exactly true.
The publication of this piece, at this time, raised Mr. Savage a great number of enemies among those that were attacked by Mr. Pope, with whom he was considered as a kind of confederate, and whom he was suspected of supplying with private intelligence and secret incidents: so that the ignominy of an informer was added to the terrour of a satirist.
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1
The difficulty of settling Prior’s birthplace is great. In the register of his college he is called, at his admission by the president, Matthew Prior, of Winburn, in Middlesex; by himself, next day, Matthew Prior, of Dorsetshire, in which county, not in Middlesex, Winborn, or Winborne, as it stands in the Villare, is found. When he stood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlesex. The last record ought to be preferred, because it was made upon oath. It is observable, that, as a native of Winborne, he is styled filius Georgii Prior, generosi; not consistently with the common account of the meanness of his birth. Dr. J.
2
Samuel Prior kept the Rummer tavern near Charing-cross, in 1685. The annual feast of the nobility and gentry living in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields was held at his house, Oct. 14, that year. N.
3
He was admitted to his bachelor’s degree in 1686; and to his master’s, by mandate, in 1700. N.
4
Spence.
5
He received, in September, 1697, a present of two hundred guineas from the lords justices, for his trouble in bringing over the treaty of peace. N.
6
It should be the earl of Dorset.
7
Swift obtained many subscriptions for him in Ireland. II.
8
Spence.
9
Spence.
10
Spence; and see Gent. Mag. vol l vii. p. 1039.
11
Richardsoniana.
12
It is to be found in Poggii Facetiæ. J.B.
13
The same thought is found in one of Owen’s epigrams, lib. i. epig. 123. and in Poggii Facetiæ. J.B.
14
Prior was not the first inventor of this stanza; for excepting the alexandrine close, it is to be found in Churchyard’s Worthies of Wales. See his introduction for Brecknockshire. J.B.
15
Mr. Malone has ascertained both the place and time of his birth by the register of Bardsey, which is as follows: “William, the sonne of Mr. William Congreve of Bardsey Grange, was baptised Febru. 10th, 1669.” See Malone’s Dryden, vol. i. p. 225. J.B.
16
Dec. 17, 1714, and May 3, 1718, he received a patent for the same place for life.
17
The Historical Register says Jan. 19. æt. 57.
18
“Except!” Dr. Warton exclaims, “Is not this a high sort of poetry?” He mentions, likewise, that Congreve’s opera, or oratorio, of Semele, was set to musick by Handel; I believe, in 1743.
19
At Saddlers’ hall.
20
The book he alludes to was Nova Hypothesis ad explicanda febrium intermittentium symptomata, &c. Authore Gulielmo Cole, M.D. 1693.
21
“The Kit-cat Club,” says Horace Walpole, “though generally mentioned as a set of wits, were, in fact, the patriots who saved Britain.” See, for the history of its origin and name, Addisoniana, i. 120; Ward’s complete and humorous account of the remarkable Clubs and Societies. Ed.
22
He was born at Shelton, near Newcastle, May 20, 1683; and was the youngest of eleven children of John Fenton, an attorney-at-law, and one of the coroners of the county of Stafford. His father died in 1694; and his grave, in the church-yard of Stoke upon Trent, is distinguished by the following elegant Latin inscription from the pen of his son:
H.S.EJOHANNES FENTON,de Sheltonantiqua stirpe generosus:juxta reliquias conjugisCATHERINÆforma, moribus, pietate,optimo viro dignissimæ:Quiintemerata in ecclesiam fide,et virtutibus intaminatis enituit;necnon ingenii leporebonis artibus expoliti,ac animo erga omnes benevolo,sibi suisque jucundus vixitDecem annos uxori dilectee superstesmagnum sui desiderium bonisomnibus reliquit,anno{salutis humanai 1694,{ætatis suffi 56See Gent. Mag. 1791, vol. lxi. p. 703. N23
He was entered of Jesus college, and took a bachelor’s degree in 1704: but it appears, by the list of Cambridge graduates, that he removed, in 1726, to Trinity hall. N.
24
1717. M.
25
Ford was Johnson’s relation, his mother’s nephew, and is said to have been the original of the parson in Hogarth’s Modern Midnight Conversation. See Boswell, i. and iii. Ed.
26
July 16.
27
Spence.
28
Shiels, Dr. Johnson’s amanuensis, who says, in Cibber’s Lives of the Poets, that he received this anecdote from a gentleman resident in Staffordshire. M.
29
Goldworthy does not appear in the Villare. Dr. J.—Holdsworthy is probably meant.
30
Spence.
31
This mishap of Gay’s is said to have suggested the story of the scholar’s bashfulness in the 157th Rambler; and to similar stories in the Adventurer and Repton’s Variety. Ed.
32
It was acted seven nights. The author’s third night was by command of their royal highnesses. R.
33
Spence.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
36
Ibid.
37
To Trinity college. By the university register it appears, that he was admitted to his master’s degree in 1679; we must, therefore, set the year of his birth some years back. H.
38
We need not remark to any of our readers, but to those who are not Oxford men, that Pullen’s name is now remembered in the university, not as a tutor, but by the venerable elm tree which was the term of his morning walks. “I have the honour to be well known to Mr. Josiah Pullen, of our hall above-mentioned, (Magdalen hall,) and attribute the florid old age I now enjoy to my constant morning walks up Headington lull, in his cheerful company.” Guardian, No. 2. Ed.
39
The vicarage of Willoughby, which he resigned in 1708. N.
40
This preferment was given him by the duke of Beaufort. N.
41
Not long after.
42
Dr. Atterbury retained the office of preacher at Bridewell till his promotion to the bishoprick of Rochester. Dr. Yalden succeeded him as preacher, in June, 1713. N.
43
This account is still erroneous. James Hammond, our author, was of a different family, the second son of Anthony Hammond, of Somersham-place, in the county of Huntingdon, esq. See Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. p. 780. R.
44
Mr. Cole gives him to Cambridge. MSS. Athenæ Cantab, in Mus. Brit.
45
William.
46
An allusion of approbation is made to the above in Nichol’s Literary Anecdotes of the eighteenth century, ii. 58. Ed.
47
The first edition of this interesting narrative, according to Mr. Boswell, was published in 1744, by Roberts. The second, now before me, bears date 1748, and was published by Cave. Very few alterations were made by the author, when he added it to the present collection. The year before publication, 1743, Dr. Johnson inserted the following notice of his intention in the Gentleman’s Magazine.
“MR. URBAN
“As your collections show how often you have owed the ornaments of your poetical pages to the correspondence of the unfortunate and ingenious Mr. Savage, I doubt not but you have so much regard to his memory, as to encourage any design that may have a tendency to the preservation of it from insults or calumnies; and, therefore, with some degree of assurance, intreat you to inform the publick, that his life will speedily be published by a person who was favoured with his confidence, and received from himself an account of most of the transactions which he proposes to mention, to the time of his retirement to Swansea, in Wales.
“From that period to his death in the prison of Bristol, the account will be continued from materials still less liable to objection; his own letters and those of his friends; some of which will be inserted in the work, and abstracts of others subjoined in the margin.
“It may be reasonably, imagined that others may have the same design, but as it is not credible that they can obtain the same materials, it must be expected that they will supply from invention the want of intelligence, and that under the title of the Life of Savage, they will publish only a novel, filled with romantick adventures and imaginary amours. You may, therefore, perhaps, gratify the lovers of truth and wit, by giving me leave to inform them, in your magazine, that my account will be published, in octavo, by Mr. Roberts, in Warwick-lane.”
48
This year was made remarkable by the dissolution of a marriage solemnized in the face of the church. Salmon’s Review.
The following protest is registered in the books of the house of lords:
Dissentient: Because we conceive that this is the first bill of that nature that hath passed, where there was not a divorce first obtained in the spiritual court; which we look upon as an ill precedent, and may be of dangerous consequence in the future. HALIFAX. ROCHESTER.
49
See Mr. Boswell’s doubts on this head; and the point, fully discussed by Malone, and Bindley in the notes to Boswell. Edit. 1816. i. 150, 151. Ed.
50
On this circumstance, Boswell founds one of his strongest arguments against Savage’s being the son of lady Macclesfield. “If there was such a legacy left,” says Boswell, “his not being able to obtain payment of it, must be imputed to his consciousness that he was not the real person. The just inference should be, that, by the death of lady Macclesfield’s child before its godmother, the legacy became lapsed; and, therefore, that Johnson’s Savage was an impostor. If he had a title to the legacy, he could not have found any difficulty in recovering it; for had the executors resisted his claim, the whole costs, as well as the legacy, must have been paid by them, if he had been the child to whom it was given.” With respect for the legal memory of Boswell, we would venture to urge, that the forma pauperis is not the most available mode of addressing an English court; and, therefore, Johnson is not clearly proved wrong by the above argument brought against him. Ed.
51
He died August 18th, 1712 R.
52
Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.
53
Savage’s preface to his Miscellany.
54
See the Plain Dealer.
55
The title of this poem was the Convocation, or a Battle of Pamphlets, 1717. J. B.
56
Jacob’s Lives of the Dramatick Poets. Dr. J.
57
This play was printed first in 8vo.; and afterwards in 12mo. the fifth edition. Dr. J.
58
Plain Dealer, Dr. J.
59
As it is a loss to mankind when any good action is forgotten, I shall insert another instance of Mr. Wilks’s generosity, very little known. Mr. Smith, a gentleman educated at Dublin, being hindered by an impediment in his pronunciation from engaging in orders, for which his friends designed him, left his own country, and came to London in quest of employment, but found his solicitations fruitless, and his necessities every day more pressing. In this distress he wrote a tragedy, and offered it to the players, by whom it was rejected. Thus were his last hopes defeated, and he had no other prospect than of the most deplorable poverty. But Mr. Wilks thought his performance, though not perfect, at least worthy of some reward, and, therefore, offered him a benefit. This favour he improved with so much diligence, that the house afforded him a considerable sum, with which he went to Leyden, applied himself to the study of physick, and prosecuted his design with so much diligence and success, that, when Dr. Boerhaave was desired by the czarina to recommend proper persons to introduce into Russia the practice and study of physick, Dr. Smith was one of those whom he selected. He had a considerable pension settled on him at his arrival, and was one of the chief physicians at the Russian court. Dr. J.
A letter from Dr. Smith, in Russia, to Mr. Wilks, is printed in Chetwood’s History of the Stage. R.
60
“This,” says Dr. Johnson, “I write upon the credit of the author of his life, which was published in 1727;” and was a small pamphlet, intended to plead his cause with the publick while under sentence of death “for the murder of Mr. James Sinclair, at Robinson’s coffee-house, at Charing-cross, price 6d. Roberts.” Savage sent a copy of it to Mrs. Carter, with some corrections and remarks. See his letter to that lady in Mrs. Carter’s life by Mr. Pennington, vol. i. p. 58.
61
Chetwood, however, has printed a poem on her death, which he ascribes to Mr. Savage. See History of the Stage, p. 206
62
In 1724.
63
Printed in the late collection of his poems.
64
It was acted only three nights, the first on June 12,1723. When the house opened for the winter season it was once more performed for the author’s benefit, Oct. 2. R.
65
To Herbert Tryst, esq. of Herefoulshire. Dr. J.
66
The Plain Dealer was a periodical paper, written by Mr. Hill and Mr. Bond, whom Savage called the two contending powers of light and darkness. They wrote, by turns, each six essays; and the character of the work was observed regularly to rise in Mr. Hill’s weeks, and fall in Mr. Bond’s. Dr. J.
67
The names of those who so generously contributed to his relief having been mentioned in a former account, ought not to be omitted here. They were the dutchess of Cleveland, lady Cheyney, lady Castlemain, lady Gower, lady Lechmere, the dutchess dowager and dutchess of Rutland, lady Strafford, the countess dowager of Warwick, Mrs. Mary Floyer, Mrs. Sofuel Noel, duke of Rutland, lord Gainsborough, lord Milsington, Mr. John Savage. Dr. J.
68
This the following extract from it will prove:—“Since our country has been honoured with the glory of your wit, as elevated and immortal as your soul, it no longer remains a doubt whether your sex have strength of mind in proportion to their sweetness. There is something in your verses as distinguished as your air. They are as strong as truth, as deep as reason, as clear as innocence, and as smooth as beauty. They contain a nameless and peculiar mixture of force and grace, which is at once so movingly serene, and so majestically lovely, that it is too amiable to appear any where but in your eyes and in your writings.”
“As fortune is not more my enemy than I am the enemy of flattery, I know not how I can forbear this application to your ladyship, because there is scarce a possibility that I should say more than I believe, when I am speaking of your excellence.” Dr. J.
69
Mr. Savage’s life.
70
She died October 11, 1753, at her house in Old Bond street, aged above fourscore. R.
71
It appears that during his confinement he wrote a letter to his mother, which he sent to Theophilus Cibber, that it might be transmitted to her through the means of Mr. Wilks. In his letter to Cibber he says: “As to death, I am easy, and dare meet it like a man—all that touches me is the concern of my friends, and a reconcilement with my mother. I cannot express the agony I felt when I wrote the letter to her: if you can find any decent excuse for showing it to Mrs. Oldfield, do; for I would have all my friends (and that admirable lady in particular) be satisfied I have done my duty towards it. Dr. Young to-day sent me a letter most passionately kind.” R.
72
Written by Mr. Beckingham and another gentleman. Dr. J.
73
Printed in the late collection.
74
In one of his letters he styles it “a fatal quarrel, but too well known.” Dr. J.
75
Printed in his works, vol. ii. p. 231.
76
See his works, vol. ii. p. 233.
