I cannot, however, but wish, that he had not ended it with an unnecessary Greek verse, translated also into an English couplet. It is too much like the conceit of those iramatic poets, who used to conclude each ict with a rhyme; and the expression in the first line of his couplet," Celestial Powers," though proper in Pagan poetry, is ill suited to Christianity, with a conformity" to which he consoles himself. How much better would it have been, to have ended with the prose sentence," I shall never envy the honours which wit and learning obtain in any other cause, if I can be numbered among the writers who have given ardour to virtue, and confidence to truth." His friend, Dr. Birch, being now engaged in preparing an edition of Ralegh's smaller pieces, Dr. Johnson wrote the following letter to that gentleman : "SIR, "TO DR. BIRCH. Gough-square, May 12, 1750. "KNOWING that you are now preparing to favour the public with a new edition of Ralegh's miscellaneous pieces, I have taken the liberty to send you a Manuscript, which fell by chance within my notice. I perceive no proofs of forgery in my examination of it; and the owner tells me that, as he has heard, the hand-writing is Sir Walter's. If you should find reason to conclude it genuine, it will be a kindness to the owner, a blind person,† to recommend it to the booksellers. "I am, Sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." His just abhorrence of Milton's political notions was ever strong. But this did not prevent his warm admiration of Milton's great poetical merit, to which he has done illustrious justice, beyond all who have written upon the subject. And this year he not only wrote a Prologue, which was spoken by Mr. Garrick before the acting of Comus at Drury-lane theatre, for the benefit of Milton's grand-daughter, but took a very zealous interest in the success of the charity. On the day preceding the performance, he published the following letter in the "General Advertiser," addressed to the printer of that paper: “SIR, "THAT a certain degree of reputation is acquired merely by approving the works of genius, and testifying a regard to the memory of authors, is a truth too evident to be denied; and therefore to ensure a participation of fame with a celebrated poet, many, who would, perhaps, have contributed to starve him when alive, have heaped expensive pageants on his grave.‡ "It must, indeed, be confessed, that this [Not in the original edition, in folio. M.] + Mrs. Williams is probably the person meant. Alluding probably to Mr. Auditor Benson. See the Dunciad, b. iv. M.] | method of becoming known to posterity with honour, is peculiar to the great, or at least to the wealthy; but an opportunity now offers for almost every individual to secure the praise of paying a just regard to the illus trious dead, united with the pleasure of doing good to the living. To assist industrious indigence, struggling with distress and debilitated by age, is a display of virtue, and an acquisition of happiness and honour. "Whoever, then, would be thought capable of pleasure in reading the works of our incomparable Milton, and not so destitute of gratitude as to refuse to lay out a trifle in rational and elegant entertainment, for the benefit of his living remains, for the exercise of their own virtue, the increase of their reputation, and the pleasing consciousness of doing good, should appear at Drury-lane theatre to-morrow, April 5, when Čomus will be performed for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, grand-daughter to the author,§ and the orly surviving branch of the family. "N.B. There will be a new prologue on the occasion, written by the author of Irene, and spoken by Mr. Garrick; and, by parti cular desire, there will be added to the Masque, a dramatic satire, called Lethe, in which Mr. Garrick will perform." In 1751, we are to consider him as carry ing on both his Dictionary and Rambler. But he also wrote "The life of Cheynel,"[*] and the Reverend Dr. Douglas having with in the miscellany called "The Student;" uncommon acuteness clearly detected a gross forgery and imposition upon the public by William Lauder, a Scotch schoolmaster, who had, with equal impudence and ingenuity, represented Milton as a plagiary from certain modern Latin poets, Johnson, who had been so far imposed upon furnish a Preface and Postscript to his work, now dictated a letter for Lauder, addressed to Dr. Douglas, acknowledging his fraud in terms of suitable contrition.|| as to This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no sudden effort. He had brooded over it for many years; and to this hour it is uncertain what his principal motive was, unless it were a vain notion of his superiority, in being able, by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To effect this, he produced certain passages from Grotius, Masenius, and [Mrs. Elizabeth Foster died May 9, 1754. A. C.] riod, absurd enough to suspect that Johnson was a parLest there should be any person, at any future petaker in Lauder's fraud, or had any knowledge of it, when he assisted him with his masterly pen, it is proper here to quote the words of Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Salisbury, at the time when he detected the imposition. "It is to be hoped, nay it is expected, that the elegant and nervous writer, whose judicious sentiments and inimitable style point out the author of Lauder's Preface and Postscript, will no longer allow one to plume himself with his feathers, who appeareth so little to deserve assistance: an assistance which I am persuaded would ne ver have been communicated, had there been the least suspicion of those facts which I have been the instrument 66 others, which had a faint resemblance to some parts of the "Paradise Lost." In these he interpolated some fragments of Hog's Latin translation of that poem, alleging that the mass thus fabricated was the archetype from which Milton copied. These fabrications he published from time to time in the Gentleman's Magazine; and, exulting in his fancied success, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet, entitled, "An Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Lost." To this Pamphlet Johnson wrote a Preface, in full persuasion of Lauder's honesty, and a Postscript recommending, in the most persuasive terms, a subscription for the relief of a grand-daughter of Milton, of whom he thus speaks: It is yet in the power of a great people to reward the poet whose name they boast, and from their alliance to whose genius they claim some kind of superiority to every other nation of the earth; that poet, whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated; to reward him, not with pictures or with medals, which, if he sees, he sees with contempt, but with tokens of gratitude, which he, perhaps, may even now consider as not unworthy the regard of an immortal spirit." Surely this Is inconsistent with "enmity towards Milton," which Sir John Hawkins imputes to Johnson upon this occasion, adding, "I could all along observe that Johnson seemed to approve not only of the design, but of the argument; and seemed to exult in a persuasion, that the reputation of Milton was likely to suffer by this discovery. That he was not privy to the imposture, I am well persuaded; that he wished well to the argument, may be inferred from the Preface, which indubitably was written by Johnson." Is it possible for any man of clear judgement to suppose that Johnson, who so nobly praised the poetical excellence of Milton in a postscript to this very "discovery," as he then supposed it, could, at the same time, exult in a persuasion that the great poet's reputation was likely to suffer by it? This is an inconsistency of which Johnson incapable; nor can any thing more be fairly inferred from the Preface, than that Johnson, who was alike distinguished for ardent curiosity and love of truth, was pleased with an investigation by which both were was Milton no And his Lordship has been of conveying to the world in these sheets." Plagiary, 2d edit. p. 78. pleased now to authorise me to say, in the strongest manner, that there is no ground whatever for any unfavourable reflection against Dr. Johnson, who expressed the strongest indignation against Lauder. [Lauder renewed his attempts on Milton's character in 1754, in a pamphet entitled, "The Grand Impostor detected, or Milton convicted of forgery against King Charles I." which was reviewed, probably by Johnson, in the Gent. Mag. 1754, p. 97. A. C.) [Lauder afterwards went to Barbadoes, where he died very miserably, about the year 1771. M.] gratified. That he was actuated by these motives, and certainly by no unworthy desire to depreciate our great epic poet, is evident from his own words; for, after mentioning the general zeal of men of genius and literature," to advance the honour, and distinguish the beauties, of Paradise Lost," he says, "Among the inquiries to which this ardour of criticism has naturally given occasion, none is more obscure in itself, or more worthy of rational curiosity, than a retrospect of the progress of this mighty genius in the construction of his work; a view of the fabric gradually rising, perhaps, from small beginnings, till its foundation rests in the centre, and its turrets sparkle in the skies; to trace back the structure through all its varieties, to the simplicity of its first plan; to find what was first projected, whence the scheme was taken, how it was improved, by what assistance it was execu ted, and from what stores the materials were collected; whether its founder dug them from the quarries of Nature, or demolished other buildings to embellish his own."* -Is this the language of one who wished to blast the laurels of Milton? Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time far from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physi cian, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived; and after her death, having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, she had an apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a house. In 1752, he was almost entirely occupied with his Dictionary. The last paper of his Rambler was published March 2nd,+ this year; after which, there was a cessation for some time of any exertion of his talents as an essayist. But, in the same year, Dr. Hawkesworth, who was his warm admirer, and a studious imitator of his style, and then ["Proposals (written evidently by Johnson) for printing the ADAMUS EXUL of Grotius, with a Translation and Notes by Wm. Lauder, A.M." Gent. Mag. 1747, vol. 17, p. 404 M.] [Here the author's memory failed him, for, according to the account given in a former page (see p. 31), we should here read March 17; but in truth, as has been already observed, the Rambler closed on Saturday, the fourteenth of March; at which time Mrs. Johnson was near her end, for she died on the following Tuesday, March 17. Had the concluding paper of that work been written on the day of her death, it would have been still more extraordinary than it is, considering the extrane grief into which the author was plunged by that event. The melancholy cast of that concluding essay is su ciently accounted for by the situation of Mrs. Johnson at the time it was written; and her death three days afterwards put an end to the Paper. M.] influences of thy holy Spirit, through JesusChrist our Lord. Amen." What actually followed upon this most interesting piece of devotion by Johnson, we are not informed; but I, whom it has pleased GOD to afflict in a similar manner to that which occasioned it, have certain experience of benignant communication by dreams. That his love for his wife was of the most ardent kind, and, during the long period of fifty years, was unimpaired by the lapse of time, is evident from various passages in the series of his Prayers and Meditations, published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, as well as from other memorials, two of which I select, as strongly marking the tenderness and sensibility of his mind." "March 28, 1753. I kept this day as the anniversary of my Tetty's death, with prayer and tears in the morning. In the evening I prayed for her conditionally, if it were lawful." lived in great intimacy with him, began a | periodical paper, entitled, "THE ADVENTURER," in connexion with other gentlemen, one of whom was Johnson's much-loved friend, Dr. Bathurst; and, without doubt, they received many valuable hints from his conversation, most of his friends having been so assisted in the course of their works. That there should be a suspension of his literary labours during a part of the year 1752, will not seem strange, when it is considered that, soon after closing his Rambler, he suffered a loss which, there can be no doubt, affected him with the deepest distress: for, on the 17th of March, O. S. his wife died. Why Sir John Hawkins should unwarrantably take upon him even to suppose that Johnson's fondness for her was dissembled (meaning simulated or assumed), and to assert, that if it was not the case, "it was a lesson he had learned by rote," I cannot conceive; unless it proceeded from a want of similar feelings in his own breast. To argue, from her being much older than Johnson, or any other circumstances, that he could not really love her, is absurd; for love is not a subject of reasoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can persuade another concerning it. Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the person he admires, the impressions on which are too minute and delicate to be substantiated in language. The following very solemn and affecting prayer was found, after Dr. Johnson's decease, by his servant, Mr. Francis Barber, who delivered it to my worthy friend the Reverend Mr. Strahan, Vicar of Islington, who at my earnest request has obligingly favoured me with a copy of it, which he and I compared with the original. I present it to the world as an undoubted proof of a circumstance in the character of my illustrious friend, which, though some, whose hard fered this memorial of tenderness to Mrs. minds I never shall envy, may attack as superstitious, will I am sure endear him more Lucy Porter, Mrs. Johnson's daughter; but to numbers of good men. I have an addi- enamelled as a mourning-ring for his old she having declined to accept of it, he had it tional, and that a personal, motive for pre-master, and presented it to his wife, Mrs. senting it, because it sanctions what I my- Barber, who now has it. self have always maintained and am fond to indulge: " April 26, 1752, being after 12 at night of the 25th. "O Lord! Governor of heaven and earth, in whose hands are embodied and departed Spirits, if thou hast ordained the Souls of the Dead to minister to the Living, and appointed my departed Wife to have care of me, grant that I may enjoy the good effects of her attention and ministration, whether exercised by appearance, impulses, dreams, or in any other manner agreeable to thy Government. Forgive my presumption, enlighten my ignorance, and however meaner agents are employed, grant me the blessed "April 23, 1753. I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the mean time I am incited by it to picty. I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion." Her wedding-ring, when she became his wife, was, after her death, preserved by him, as long as he lived, with an affectionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the inside of which he pasted a slip of paper, thus inscribed by him in fair characters, as follows? "Eheu! faithful servant, and residuary legatee, of After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his The state of mind in which a man must be, upon the death of a woman whom he sincerely loves, had been in his contemplation many years before. In his IRENE, we find the following tender and fervent speech of Demetrius, addressed to his Aspasia : "From those bright regions of eternal day, while her husband was drudging in the smoke | about a fortnight after the dismal event. of London, and that she by no means treated These sufferings were aggravated by the him with that complacency which is the melancholy inherent in his constitution; most engaging quality in a wife. But all and although he probably was not oftener in this is perfectly compatible with his fondness the wrong than she was, in the little dis for her, especially when it is remembered greements which sometimes troubled his that he had a high opinion of her under- married state, during which, he owned to standing, and that the impressions which me, that the gloomy irritability of his exis her beauty, real or imaginary, had origin- tence was more painful to him than ever, he ally made upon his fancy, being continued might very naturally, after her death, be by habit, had not been effaced, though she tenderly disposed to charge himself with herself was doubtless much altered for the slight omissions and offences, the sense of worse. The dreadful shock of separation which would give him much uneasiness took place in the night; and he immedi- Accordingly we find, about a year after ber ately despatched a letter to his friend, the decease, that he thus addressed the Supreme Reverend Dr. Taylor, which, as Taylor told Being: “O LORD, who givest the grace of me, expressed grief in the strongest manner repentance, and hearest the prayer of the he had ever read; so that it is much to be penitent, grant that by true contrition I regretted it has not been preserved. The may obtain forgiveness of all the sins comletter was brought to Dr. Taylor, at his mitted, and of all duties neglected, in my house in the Cloysters, Westminster, about union with the wife whom thou hast taken three in the morning; and as it signified an from me; for the neglect of joint devotion, earnest desire to see him, he got up, and patient exhortation, and mild instruction."§ went to Johnson as soon as ne was dressed, The kindness of his heart, notwithstanding and found him in tears and in extreme agi- the impetuosity of his temper, is well known tation. After being a little while together, to his friends; and I cannot trace the smallJohnson requested him to join with him in est foundation for the following dark and prayer. He then prayed extempore, as did uncharitable assertion by Sir John Hawkins: Dr. Taylor; and thus, by means of that "The apparition of his departed wife was piety which was ever his primary object, his altogether of the terrific kind, and hardly troubled mind was, in some degree, soothed afforded him a hope that she was in a state and composed. of happiness." That he, in conformity with the opinion of many of the most able, learned, and pious Christians in all ages, supposed that there was a middle state after death, previous to the time at which departed souls are finally received to eternal felicity, appears, I think, unquestionably from his devotions:"And, Ô LORD, So far as it may be lawful in me, I commend to thy fatherly goodness the soul of my departed wife; be seeching thee to grant her whatever is best in her present state, and finally to receive her to eternal happiness."** But this state has not been looked upon with horror, but only as less gracious. The next day he wrote as follows: "TO THE REVEREND DR. TAYLOR. "DEAR SIR, "Let me have your company and instruction. Do not live away from me. My distress is great. "Pray desire Mrs. Taylor to inform me what mourning I should buy for my mother and Miss Porter, and bring a note in writing with you. "Remember me in your prayers, for vain is the help of man. I am, dear Sir, &c. "SAM. JOHNSON." "March 18, 1752. That his sufferings upon the death of his wife were severe, beyond what are commonly endured, I have no doubt, from the information of many who were then about him, to none of whom I give more credit, than to Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful negro servant,+ who came into his family [In the Gentleman's Magazine for February, 1794, (p. 100,) was printed a letter pretending to be that written by Johnson on the death of his wife. But it is merely a transcript of the 41st number of "The Idler." A fictitious date, March 17, 1751, O. S. was added by some person, previously to this paper's being sent to this publisher of that miscellany, to give a colour to this deception. M.] was + Francis Barber was born in Jamaica, and brought to England in 1750 by Colonel Bathurst, father of Johnson's very intimate friend, Dr Bathurst. He was sent, for some time, to the Reverend Mr. Jackson's school, at Barton, in Yorkshire. The Colonel by his will left him his freedom, and Dr. Bathurst was willing that he should enter into Johnson's service, in which he He deposited the remains of Mrs. Johnson in the church of Bromley in Kent,++ to Part continued from 1752 till Johnson's death, with the ex- [See his beautiful and affecting Rambler, No. 54. M.] [It does not appear that Johnson was fully persua ded that there was a middle state; his prayers being only conditional, i. e. if such a state existed. M.] ** Prayers and Meditations, p. 20. Antiqua Jarvisiorum gente Etat. 43.] THE LIFE OF DR. JOHNSON. which he was probably led by the residence of his friend Hawkesworth at that place. The funeral sermon which he composed for her, which was never preached, but having been given to Dr. Taylor, has been published since his death, is a performance of uncommon excellence, and full of rational and pious comfort to such as are depressed by that severe affliction which Johnson felt when he wrote it. When it is considered that it was written in such an agitation of mind, and in the short interval between her death and burial, it cannot be read without wonder. From Mr. Francis Barber I have had the following authentic and artless account of the situation in which he found him recently after his wife's death: "He was in great affliction. Mrs. Williams was then living in his house, which was in Gough-square. He was busy with the Dictionary. Mr. Shiels, and some others of the gentlemen who had formerly written for him, used to come about him. He had then little for himself, but frequently sent money to Mr. Shiels when in distress. The friends who visited him at that time, were chiefly Dr. Bathurst, and Mr, Diamond, an apothecary in Cork-street, Burlington-gardens, with whom he and Mrs. Williams generally dined every Sunday. There was a talk of his going to Iceland with him, which would probably have happened, had he lived. There were also Mr. Cave, Dr. Hawkesworth, Mr. Ryland, merchant on Towerhill, Mrs. Masters, the poetess, who lived with Mr. Cave, Mrs. Carter, and sometimes Mrs. Macaulay; also, Mrs. Gardiner, wife of a tallow-chandler on Snow-hill, not in the learned way, but a worthy good woman; Mr. (now Sir Joshua) Reynolds; Mr. Miller, Mr. Dodsley, Mr. Bouquet, Mr. Payne, of Paternoster-row, booksellers; Mr. Strahan, the printer; the Earl of Orrery, Lord Southwell, Mr. Garrick.” Many are, no doubt, omitted in this catalogue of his friends, and, in particular, his humble friend Mr. Robert Levet, an obscure practiser in physic amongst the lower people, his fees being sometimes very small sums, sometimes whatever provisions his patients could afford him; but of such extensive practice in that way, that Mrs. Formosa, culta, ingeniosa, piæ; Uxoris, primis nuptiis, HENRICI PORTER, Oblit Londini, Mense Mart. A. D. MDCCLII. M.] Dr. Bathurst, though a physician of no inconsider able merit, had not the good fortune to get much practice in London. He was, therefore, willing to accept of employment abroad, and, to the regret of all who knew him, fell a sacrifice to the destructive climate, in the expedition against the Havannah. Mr. Langton recollects the following passage in a letter from Dr. Johnson to Mr. Beauclerk: "The Havannah is taken:-a conquest too dearly obtained; for, Bathurst died before it. "Vix Priamus tanti totaque Troja fuit." Williams has told me, his walk was from The circle of his friends, indeed, at this t [A more particular account of this person may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine for February 1785. It originally appeared in the St. James's Chronicle, and, I believe, was written by the late George Steevens, Esq. M.] |