Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson, with a Selection from his Essay on Johnson

29 29. Whitfield. Macaulay's short sentence implies, does it not, that Whitfield (or Whitefield) was a noisy, open-air preacher among the Calvinistic Methodists? In testing the accuracy of this inference in The Encyclopædia Britannica or in Franklin's Autobiography, note in what countries Whitefield preached, and where he died. Boswell quotes Johnson's opinion of Whitefield in two places.

29 30. In a happy hour. May 16, 1763. By all means read Boswell's account of the rough reception he received and the persistence necessary to secure the fastening.

31 14. pity … esteem. The Thrales were not alone in overlooking these oddities. "His tricks and contortions, a subject for pity not ridicule," says Mr. Hoste, "were ignored by the celebrated wits and beauties who visited him in his gloomy 'den,' and by the duchesses and other distinguished ladies who gathered 'four and five deep' around him at fashionable assemblies, hanging on his sentences, and contended for the nearest places to his chair."

31 15. Southwark. South of the commercial center of London and across the Thames.

31 16. Streatham. About five miles southwest of London City. The Southwark apartment was in a commercial district; the Streatham apartment in a thinly settled residential suburb.

31 34. Maccaroni. See The Century Dictionary or Brewer's Handbook of Phrase and Fable.

32 21. Levett. Of Levett, Goldsmith said to Boswell, "He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson."

32 30. the Mitre Tavern. "The Mitre Tavern still stands in Fleet Street: but where now is its Scot-and-lot paying, beef-and-ale loving, cock-hatted, potbellied Landlord; its rosy-faced, assiduous Landlady, with all her shining brass-pans, waxed tables, well-filled larder-shelves; her cooks, and bootjacks, and errand-boys, and watery-mouthed hangers-on? Gone! Gone! The becking waiter, that with wreathed smiles was wont to spread for Samuel and Bozzy their 'supper of the gods,' has long since pocketed his last sixpence; and vanished, six-pences and all, like a ghost at cockcrowing." Yet, Carlyle goes on to say, thanks to this book of Boswell's, "they who are gone are still here; though hidden they are revealed, though dead they yet speak."

33 27. Hebrides. Locate these picturesque islands on the map.

34 10. Lord Mansfield. William Murray, chief justice of the King's Bench from 1756 to 1788, has been called "the founder of English commercial law."

34 23. Macpherson. In 1760 James Macpherson published what purported to be fragments of Gaelic verse with translations. These were so interesting that he was sent to the Highlands to hunt for more, and within three years he published the Poems of Ossian, consisting of two epics, "Fingal" and "Temora." Their genuineness has been discussed ever since. Evidently Johnson settled the matter to his own satisfaction and to Macaulay's, and you may be interested in what Boswell has to say. At the same time it seems clear that Johnson went too far in his charge of forgery. Macpherson probably did not find a complete epic, yet he undoubtedly found some Gaelic poetry.

34 27. contemptuous terms. Boswell gives the following letter:

Mr. James Macpherson,

I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall not be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the publick, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals, inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will.

Sam. Johnson.

35 11–12. The Kenricks, Campbells, MacNicols, and Hendersons. If Johnson and Macaulay do not tell enough about these men, Boswell does.

35 30. Bentley. Richard Bentley (1662–1742), a well-known English classical scholar and critic.

36 13. Taxation no Tyranny. The rest of the title is An Answer to the Resolutions and Address of the American Congress.

37 6. Wilson. Richard Wilson was one of the greatest English landscape painters, says The Dictionary of National Biography.

37 14. Cowley. The man who wrote

God the first garden made, and the first city Cain.

37 18. Restoration. The International Dictionary offers a brief explanation in case you are not absolutely certain of the exact meaning.

37 23. Walmesley. See note to 5 32.—Button's. Button's coffeehouse flourished earlier in the century. Do you remember any other reference to it? to Will's? to Child's?—Cibber. Colley Cibber, actor and dramatist, altered and adapted some of Shakspere's plays. Both Johnson and Boswell express their opinions of him frankly enough. He was appointed poet laureate in 1730.

37 25. Orrery. Orrery did more than enjoy this privilege,—he wrote a book entitled Remarks on the Life and Writings of Jonathan Swift. Boswell records Johnson's opinion of it. What other great literary men enjoyed the society of Swift? The Century Dictionary gives a column to Swift, and Johnson has a sketch in his Lives of the Poets.

37 26. services of no very honourable kind. By supplying Pope with private intelligence for his Dunciad he "gained the esteem of Pope and the enmity of his victims."

38 32. Malone. Edmund Malone was a friend of Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds. He wrote a supplement to Johnson's edition of Shakspere, published an edition of Reynolds's works, and after bringing out his own edition of Shakspere, left material for another edition, which was published by James Boswell the younger in 1821. Boswell's Malone, the "third variorum" edition, is generally considered the best. To Boswell the elder, an intimate friend, he was of much assistance in preparing the Life of Johnson, and he edited with valuable notes the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth reissues of the work.

40 21–22. In a solemn and tender prayer.

Almighty God, Father of all mercy, help me by thy grace, that I may, with humble and sincere thankfulness, remember the comforts and conveniences which I have enjoyed at this place; and that I may resign them with holy submission, equally trusting in thy protection when thou givest, and when thou takest away. Have mercy upon me, O Lord, have mercy upon me.

To thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I commend this family. Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may so pass through this world, as finally to enjoy in thy presence everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ's sake, Amen.—Boswell's Johnson.

41 1. Italian fiddler. A violinist of much talent. Piozzi was the music master from Brescia who, a little over three years after Mr. Thrale's death, married the widow. After learning what you can from Boswell, you will enjoy some such account as the Encyclopædia Britannica offers. While doing your reading it may be well to keep in mind what two or three critics have said. Mr. Mowbray Morris writes: "After all the abuse showered on the unfortunate woman it is pleasant to know that the marriage proved a happy one in every respect. Piozzi, who was really a well-mannered, amiable man, took every care of his wife's fortune, and on their return to England her family and friends were soon reconciled to him." Mr. Leslie Stephen says: "Her love of Piozzi, which was both warm and permanent, is the most amiable feature of her character." Mr. Herbert Paul, after praising Macaulay's Life of Johnson, adds, "Yet, if I may say so, I can never forgive Macaulay for his cruel and unaccountable injustice to Mrs. Thrale."

41 3. the Ephesian matron. She cared so much for her husband that she went into the vault to die with him, and there, in the midst of her violent grief, fell in love with a soldier who was guarding some dead bodies near by. For the story (told by a Latin writer, Petronius), see Jeremy Taylor's The Rule and Exercises of Holy Dying, Chapter V, section 8.—the two pictures. In Act III.

42 2. Burke parted from him. After twenty-seven years of uninterrupted friendship with Johnson, says Robina Napier.—Windham. The Right Hon. William Windham, a member of the Club, a friend of Malone, Burke, Fox, and Pitt; in 1794 Secretary at War (Pitt's ministry), in 1806 War and Colonial Secretary (Lord Grenville's ministry); in the words of Macaulay, "the first gentleman of his age, the ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham." Johnson wrote him appreciative letters in August and October, 1784. See Boswell.

42 4. Frances Burney. In Macaulay's essay on Madame d'Arblay, he says: "Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history. Evelina was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a picture of life and manners, that lived or deserved to live." Read this account of the "timid and obscure girl" who suddenly "found herself on the highest pinnacle of fame," eulogized by such men as Burke, Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, and Sheridan.

42 6. Langton. See page 30.

42 10–11. his temper. In connection with this closing sentence let us remember a paragraph from Boswell (1776):

"That he was occasionally remarkable for violence of temper may be granted: but let us ascertain the degree, and not let it be supposed that he was in a perpetual rage, and never without a club in his hand to knock down every one who approached him. On the contrary, the truth is, that by much the greatest part of his time he was civil, obliging, nay, polite in the true sense of the word; so much so, that many gentlemen who were long acquainted with him never received, or even heard a strong expression from him."

1

Trevelyan, Life and Letters, I, 41.

2

Trevelyan, I, 47.

3

The entire letter is interesting. See Trevelyan, I, 56. The letters of this period are particularly attractive.

4

Ibid. I, 91.

5

Trevelyan, I, 102. The letters from college are well worth reading.

6

Trevelyan, I, 136.

7

Ibid., 179.

8

Trevelyan, I, 249–253.

9

Trevelyan, I, 368.

10

Ibid., II, 68.

11

Trevelyan, II, 89.

12

Carlyle's Essay on Burns, p. 5, Ginn's edition.

13

Trevelyan, II. 96.

14

For Trevelyan's evidence, see II, 191.

15

Trevelyan, II, 244.

16

Ibid., 321.

17

Trevelyan, II, 15.

18

The Quarterly Review, July, 1876.

19

It is proper to observe that this passage bears a very close resemblance to a passage in the Rambler (No. 20). The resemblance may possibly be the effect of unconscious plagiarism.—Macaulay.