The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes, Volume 08

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.

77

This epigram was, I believe, never published:

“Should Dennis publish you had stabb’d your brother,Lampoon’d your monarch, or debauch’d your mother;Say, what revenge on Dennis can be had,Too dull for laughter, for reply too mad?On one so poor you cannot take the law,On one so old your sword you scorn to draw,Uncag’d then, let the harmless monster rage,Secure in dullness, madness, want, and age.”

Dr. J.

78

1729.

79

His expression, in one of his letters, was, “that lord Tyrconnel had involved his estate, and, therefore, poorly sought an occasion to quarrel with him,”    Dr. J.

80

This poem is inserted in the late collection.

81

Printed in the late collection.

82

A short satire was, likewise, published in the same paper, in which were the following lines:

For cruel murder doom’d to hempen death,Savage, by royal grace, prolong’d his breath.Well might you think he spent his future yearsIn pray’r, and fasting, and repentant tears.—But, O vain hope!—the truly Savage cries,“Priests, and their slavish doctrines, I despise.Shall I–Who, by free-thinking to free action fir’d.In midnight brawls a deathless name acquir’d,Now stoop to learn of ecclesiastic men?No, arm’d with rhyme, at priests I’ll take my aim.Though prudence bids me murder but their fame.”Weekly Miscellany.

An answer was published in the Gentleman’s Magazine, written by an unknown hand, from which the following lines are selected:

Transform’d by thoughtless rage, and midnight wine,From malice free, and push’d without design;In equal brawl if Savage lung’d a thrust,And brought the youth a victim to the dust;So strong the hand of accident appears,The royal hand from guilt and vengeance clears.Instead of wasting “all thy future years,Savage, in pray’r and vain repentant tears,”Exert thy pen to mend a vitious age,To curb the priest, and sink his high-church rage;To show what frauds the holy vestments hide,The nests of av’rice, lust, and pedant pride:Then change the scene, let merit brightly shine,And round the patriot twist the wreath divine;The heav’nly guide deliver down to fame;In well-tun’d lays transmit a Foster’s name;Touch ev’ry passion with harmonious art,Exalt the genius, and correct the heart.Thus future times shall royal grace extol;Thus polish’d lines thy present fame enrol.——But grant–——Maliciously that Savage plung’d the steel,And made the youth its shining vengeance feel;My soul abhors the act, the man detests,But more the bigotry in priestly breasts.Gentleman’s Magazine, May, 1735.

Dr. J.

83

By Mr. Pope.    Dr. J.

84

Reprinted in the late collection.

85

In a letter after his confinement.    Dr. J.

86

Letter, Jan. 15.

87

See this confirmed, Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. 1140. N.

88

The author preferred this title to that of London and Bristol compared; which, when he began the piece, he intended to prefix to it.    Dr. J.

89

This friend was Mr. Cave, the printer. N.

90

Mr. Strong, of the post-office. N.

91

See Gent. Mag. vol. lvii. 1040. N.

92

Mr. Pope. See some extracts of letters from that gentleman to and concerning Mr. Savage, in Ruffhead’s Life of Pope, p. 502. R.

93

Mr. Sheridan, in his Life of Swift, observes, that this account was really written by the dean, and now exists in his own handwriting in the library of Dublin college. R.

94

Spence’s Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 273.

95

The words speciali gratia, or per specialem gratium, were used in the record of his degree in the college of Dublin; but were never entered in any testimonium, which merely states the fact of a degree having been taken, and, therefore, the account that they were omitted as a favour to Swift is incorrect.

96

The affecting and amiable circumstances attending this resignation are not mentioned by Johnson, but may be seen in Sheridan’s Life of Swift, p. 21, 22.

97

The publisher of this collection was John Dunton. R.

98

How does it appear that Stella’s father was steward to sir William Temple? In his will he does not say one word of her father’s services, and did not leave Esther Johnson a thousand pounds, but a lease. His bequest runs thus: “I leave the lease of some lands I have in Morris-town, in the county of Wicklow, in Ireland, to Esther Johnson, servant to my sister Gifford.” M.

99

See Sheridan’s Life, edit. 1784, p. 525; where are some remarks on this passage. R.

100

The whole story of this bishoprick is a very blind one. That it was ever intended for Swift, or that Sharpe and the dutchess of Somerset ever dissuaded queen Anne from promoting him, is not ascertained by any satisfactory evidence. M.

101

Mr. Sheridan, however, says, that Addison’s last Whig Examiner was published October 12, 1711; and Swift’s first Examiner, on the 10th of the following November. R.

102

This emphatic word has not escaped the watchful eye of Dr. Warton, who has placed a nota bene at it.

103

See this affair very differently represented in Swift’s Panegyrist, Sheridan, p. 530.

104

An account somewhat different from this is given by Mr. Sheridan, in his Life of Swift, p. 511. R.

105

It is but justice to the dean’s memory, to refer to Mr. Sheridan’s defence of him from this charge. See the Life of Swift, p. 458. R.

106

This account is contradicted by Mr. Sheridan, who, with great warmth, asserts, from his own knowledge, that there was not one syllable of truth in this whole account from the beginning to the end. See Life of Swift, edit. 1784, p. 532. R.

107

Spence.

108

Henley’s joke was borrowed. In a copy of verses, entitled the Time Poets, preserved in a miscellany called Choice Drollery, 1656, are these lines:

Sent by Ben Jonson, as some authors say,Broom went before, and kindly swept the way.

J. B.

109

This weakness was so great that he constantly wore stays, as I have been assured by a waterman at Twickenham, who, in lifting him into his boat, had often felt them. His method of taking the air on the water was to have a sedan chair in the boat, in which he sat with the glasses down. H.

110

This opinion is warmly controverted by Roscoe, in his Life of Pope; and, perhaps, with justice; for, to adopt the words of D’Israeli, “Pope’s literary warfare was really the wars of his poetical ambition more, perhaps, than of the petulance and strong irritability of his temper.” See also sir Walter Scott’s Swift, i. 316. Ed.

111

This is incorrect; his ordinary hand was certainly neat and elegant. I have some of it now before me. M.

112

Pope’s first instructor is repeatedly mentioned by Spence under the name of Banister, and described as the family priest. Spence’s Anecd. 259. 283. Singer’s edit. Roscoe’s Pope, i. 11. Ed.

113

Dryden died May 1, 1700, a year earlier than Johnson supposed. M.

114

No. 253. But, according to Dr. Warton, Pope was displeased at one passage, in which Addison censures the admission of “some strokes of ill-nature.”

115

See Gent. Mag. vol. li. p. 314. N. See the subject very fully discussed in Roscoe’s Life of Pope, i. 86, and following pages.

116

What eye of taste ever beheld the dancing fawn or the immortal Canova’s dancing girl, and doubted of this power? Pindar long ago assigned this to sculpture, and was never censured for his poetic boldness:

Ἑργα δἑ ζωοἱσιν ερπὁν-τεσσἱ θ' ομοἱα κἑλευθοιΦἑρον.

Olym. vii. 95. Ed.

117

Pope never felt with Eloisa, and, therefore, slighted his own affected effusions. He had little intense feeling himself, and all the passionate parts of the epistle are manifestly borrowed from Eloisa’s own Latin letters. Ed.

118

It is still at Caen Wood. N.

119

Spence.

120

Earlier than this, viz. in 1688, Milton’s Paradise Lost had been published with great success by subscription, in folio, under the patronage of Mr. (afterwards lord) Somers. R.

121

This may very well be doubted. The interference of the Dutch booksellers stimulated Lintot to publish cheap editions, the greater sale of which among the people probably produced his large profits. Ed.

122

Spence.

123

Spence.

124

As this story was related by Pope himself, it was most probably true. Had it rested on any other authority, I should have suspected it to have been, borrowed from one of Poggio’s Tales. De Jannoto Vicecomite. J.B.

125

On this point, see notes on Halifax’s life in this edition.

126

Spence.

127

See, however, the Life of Addison in the Biographia Britannica, last edition. R.

128

See the letter containing Pope’s answer to the bishop’s arguments in Roscoe’s life, i. 212.

129

The late Mr. Graves, of Claverton, informs us, that this bible was afterwards used in the chapel of Prior-park. Dr. Warburton probably presented it to Mr. Allen.

130

See note to Adventurer, No. 138.

131

Mr. D’Israeli has discussed the whole of this affair in his Quarrels of Authors, i. 176. Mr. Roscoe likewise, in his Life of Pope, examines very fully all the evidence to be gathered on the point, and comes to a conclusion much less reputable to Curll, than that to be inferred from Dr. Johnson’s arguments. Ed.

132

These letters were evidently prepared for the press by Pope himself. Some of the originals, lately discovered, will prove this beyond all dispute; in the edition of Pope’s works, lately published by Mr. Bowles.

133

Ayre, in his Life of Pope, ii. 215, relates an amusing anecdote on this occasion. “Soon after the appearance of the first epistle,” he observes, “a gentleman who had attempted some things in the poetical way, called on Pope, who inquired from him, what news there was in the learned world, and what new pieces were brought to light? The visiter replied, that there was little or nothing worthy notice; that there was, indeed, a thing called an Essay on Man, shocking poetry, insufferable philosophy, no coherence, no connexion. Pope could not repress his indignation, and instantly avowed himself the author. This was like a clap of thunder to the mistaken bard, who took up his hat and never ventured to show his unlucky face there again.” It is generally supposed that Mallet was this luckless person. Ed.

134

This letter is in Mr. Malone’s Supplement to Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 223.

135

Spence.

136

It has been admitted by divines, even that some sins do more especially beset particular individuals. Mr. Roscoe enters into a long vindication of Pope’s doctrine against the imputations of Dr. Johnson; the most satisfactory parts of which are the refutations drawn from Pope’s own essay.

The business of reason is shown to be,to rectify, not overthrow,And treat this passion more as friend than foe.Essay on Man, ep. ii. 164.Th’ eternal art, educing good from ill,Grafts on this passion our best principle;’Tis thus the mercury of man is fix’d:Strong grows the virtue with his nature mix’d.Ib. ii. 175.As fruits, ungrateful to the planter’s care,On savage stocks inserted learn to bear,The surest virtues thus from passions shoot,Wild nature’s vigour working at the root,What crops of wit and honesty appearFrom spleen, from obstinacy, hate, or fear, &c.Ib. ii. 181.

“And thus,” concludes Mr. Roscoe, “the injurious consequences which Johnson supposes to be derived from Pope’s idea of the ruling passion, are not only obviated, but that passion itself is shown to be conducive to our highest moral improvement.” Ed.

137

Entitled, Sedition and Defamation displayed. 8vo. 1733. R.

138

Among many manuscripts, letters, &c. relating to Pope, which I have lately seen, is a lampoon in the bible style, of much humour, but irreverent, in which Pope is ridiculed as the son of a hatter.

139

On a hint from Warburton. There is, however, reason to think, from the appearance of the house in which Allen was born at Saint Blaise, that he was not of a low, but of a decayed family.

140

Since discovered to have been Atterbury, afterwards bishop of Rochester. See the collection of that prelate’s Epistolary Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 6. N.

This I believe to be an error. Mr. Nichols has ascribed this preface to Atterbury on the authority of Dr. Walter Harte, who, in a manuscript note on a copy of Pope’s edition, expresses his surprise that Pope should there have described the former editor as anonymous, as he himself had told Harte fourteen years before his own publication, that this preface was by Atterbury. The explication is probably this; that during that period he had discovered that he had been in a mistake. By a manuscript note in a copy presented by Crynes to the Bodleian library, we are informed that the former editor was Thomas Power, of Trinity college, Cambridge. Power was bred at Westminster, under Busby, and was elected off to Cambridge in the year 1678. He was author of a translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost; of which only the first book was published, in 1691. J.B.