637 



JOHNSON, SAMUEL. 



JOHNSON, SAMUEL. 



ess 



the ' Gentleman's Magazine.' For many years his bread continued to 

 be earned by literary slavery; by slow degrees only did his great 

 talents become known, and the trust reposed in him by publishers 

 increase. 



In 1740, and for more than two years afterwards, Johnson wrote 

 the parliamentary speeches in the ' Gentleman's Magazine." In 1744 

 he published his 'Life of Savage;' in the following year some 

 observations on Shakspere, whose plays he proposed to edit ; and in 

 1747 he commenced his 'English Dictionary/ which he engaged to 

 complete in three years for 1575J., a small sum if we consider that the 

 author agreed to bear the heavy expenses necessary for preparing a 

 work of such magnitude and importance. In 1749 appeared ' The 

 Vanity of Human Wishes,' an imitation of the tenth satire of Juvenal; 

 and in the following year was printed the first paper of the 'Rambler.' 

 These are some of his most remarkable publications, for a complete 

 list of which, and the dates at which they were published, we must 

 refer to Boswell's 'Life.' For 'The Vanity of Human Wishes' 15 

 guineas only were received from Mr. Dodsley. We mention this 

 because the frame and condition of Johnson's mind and temper, his 

 views of things and persons, were probably influenced in no small 

 degree by the deficiency of his means. He was now engaged in a 

 steady course of occupation sufficient to employ his time for several 

 years ; and so assiduous were his labours that, whilst preparing his 

 ' Dictionary,' he had an upper room at his residence in Gough Square 

 fitted up like a counting-house, in which several copyists sat, whom he 

 supplied with continual employment. 



The efforts of his mind were the utmost it could bear ; and when it 

 was subdued by grief at the death of his wife (1752), he relinquished 

 the ' Rambler.' Bad as his circumstances were, still they were some- 

 what more easy than they had been ; the number of his acquaintances 

 had increased; the 'Dictionary,' which occupied eight instead of the 

 promised three years, was nearly complete ; and he found leisure (in 

 1754) to make an excursion to Oxford for the purpose of consulting 

 its libraries. This was bis first emancipation from necessary labour. 

 He soon returned to London to increase the number of reviews and 

 essays which flowed continually from his pen. Thus occupied, an 

 offer of a living was made to him if he would take orders ; but though 

 he was a firm believer in revelation, and a somewhat rigid moralist, he 

 could not overcome his scruples respecting the fitness of his temper 

 and habits for the duties that would be required of him, and the offer 

 was rejected. He continued therefore to write for his bread ; and it 

 was not until he was fifty-three years old, and had for thirty years 

 been toiling with his pen, that any certain source of income was opened 

 to him. In May 1762 George III., through bis minister Lord Bute, 

 granted Johnson a pension of 3002. a year, and the days of his penury 

 were at an end. Happy, in a state of independence, he enjoyed the 

 society of a weekly club, of which Burke, Goldsmith, and Sir Joshua 

 Reynolds were also member". He was introduced in the following 

 year to bis biographer Boswell, and we have from this date (1763) as 

 full and minute account of him as has ever been written of any 

 individual. From this time we are made as familiar as it is in the 

 power of writing to make us with the character, the habits, and the 

 appearance of Johnson, and the persons and things with which he was 

 connected. " Everything about him," says Macaulay, " his coat, his 

 wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling 

 walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly marked the 

 approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and 

 veal-pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of 

 touching the poets as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring 

 up scraps of orange-peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight dispu- 

 tations, his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings ; his 

 vigorous, acute, and ready eloquence ; his sarcastic wit, hu vehemence, 

 his insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates old Mr. 

 Levett and blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge and the negro Frank 

 all are as familiar to us as the objects by which we have been surrounded 

 from childhood." 



In 1765 the university of Dublin sent over a diploma creating him 

 a doctor of laws, but he did not assume the title of doctor until eight 

 or ten years afterwards, when the university of Oxford conferred the 

 same honour upon him. 



In 1766 his constitution seemed to be rapidly giving way, and he 

 was depressed with a melancholy. In this condition his friend 

 Mr. Tbrale received him into his house at Streatham ; an apartment 

 was fitted up for him, companions were invited from London, and he 

 became a constant resident in the family. His celebrity attracted the 

 notice of the king, to whom he was introduced by the librarian of 

 Buckingham House. We are not told that politics had in any way 

 led to this introduction, but it is not impossible that the opinions that 

 Johnson entertained upon the principal questions of the day might 

 have reached the king's ears. For several years he occasionally pub- 

 lished political pamphlets. In the autumn of 1773 be made a tour, 

 in company with Mr. Boswell, to the Western Islands of Scotland, of 

 which he published an account. Two years afterwards he made a 

 short excursion to Paris. The last of his literary labours was ' The 

 Live* of the Poets,' which were completed in 1781. We now take 

 leave of him as an author, and have only to record the few domestic 

 occurrences which took place before the close of his long life. These 

 are for the most part melancholy. His friends Mr. Thrale and Mrs. 



Williams preceded him to the grave. In June 1783 he had a para- 

 lytic stroke, and in the following November was greatly swollen with 

 the dropsy. During a journey to Derbyshire ;he .felt a temporary 

 relief; but in 1784 he suffered both from dropsy and from asthma. 

 His diseases were evidently irremediable ; and the thought of death 

 increased his constitutional melancholy. On Monday the 13th of 

 December 1784 he expired in his house in Bolt Court; on the 20th 

 of the month his remains with due solemnity and a numerous attend- 

 ance of his friends were buried in Westminster Abbey, near the foot 

 of Shakspere's monument, and close to the grave of Garrick. 



Whether in the deepest poverty or in comparative affluence, 

 Johnson displayed great independence of character ; and his Tory 

 opinions are to be attributed to disinterested conviction, aud were in 

 harmony with his general spirit. He was steady and inflexible iu 

 maintaining the obligations of religion, a sincere and zealous Christian, 

 and, as such, benevolent. But besides these great qualities he pos- 

 sessed others of marked littleness. In many respects he seemed a 

 different person at different times. He was intolerant of particular 

 principles ; superstitious ; and his mind was at an early period 

 narrowed upon many questions religious and political. He was open 

 to flattery, hard to please, enay to offend, impetuous and irritable. 

 These were the principal blots upon his character, but his great 

 qualities predominated, and he has left far more to admire and revere 

 than to censure and condemn. 



His reasoning was sound, dexterous, and acute; he was seldom 

 imposed upon either by fallacies or exaggerated statements; his per- 

 ception was quick; his thoughts wera striking and original, aud his 

 imagination vivid. In conversation his style was keen and pointed, and 

 his language appropriate ; he had also a remarkable facility of illus- 

 tration from familiar objects. His wit may be described as logical, 

 and chiefly consisted in dexterously convicting his opponent of 

 absurdity. Conscious of his power, he was fond of dispute, and used 

 to argue for victory. Scarcely any of his contemporaries except 

 Burke was a match for him in such discussions. His written style 

 was eminently periodic; and in order to construct every sentence 

 into a balanced period be frequently introduced superfluous and high- 

 sounding expressions ; hence his general style was pompous, heavy, 

 and diffuse ; but in his later works, as the ' Lives of the Poets," these 

 faults become much less visible, and particular passages might be 

 selected of almost unmatched excellence. He was also fond of words 

 of Latin derivation, to the exclusion of words of more familiar Saxon 

 origin. His style has often been imitated, and sometimes burlesqued ; 

 but both imitations and burlesques are almost invariably ludicrous 

 failures : as an example of what puerile absurdity even clever writers 

 can bring themselves to believe is an allowable burlesque on Johnson's 

 style we may refer to that in the ' Rejected Addresses." 



Johnson's strong and penetrating intellect did not fit him for 

 poetry, except of the satirical order. His ' Irene ' is deservedly 

 forgotten ; but his ' London : an imitation of the Third Satire of 

 Juvenal," contains nervous thoughts expressed in harmonious verse ; 

 and his ' Vanity of Human Wishes, being the Tenth Satire of Juvenal 

 Imitated,' is a fine poetical declamation, though deformed by 

 occasional tautology : it has had the rare fortune of receiving tha 

 highest eulogies from two great recent poets of a school wholly 

 different to that of Johnson Byron and Scott ; the latter of whom 

 says of it, " The deep and pathetic morality of ' The Vanity of Human 

 Wishes ' has often extracted tears from those whose eyes wander dry 

 over pages professedly sentimental:" while Byron wrote, "Tis a 

 grand poem ... all the examples and mode of giving them 

 sublime." Among his smaller pieces the two most remarkable are hi? 

 verses on the opening of Drury Lane Theatre in 1747, and the stauzas 

 on the death of Mr. Levett. His tale of 'Kasselas' holds au inter- 

 mediate place between his poetry and his prose. It is characterised 

 by a tone of pleasing melancholy, and the style, though somewhat 

 artificial, is elegant and harmonious. 



Johnson's prose works consist of short pieces, his Dictionary 

 excepted. His ' English Dictionary ' was a work of great labour, and 

 the quotations are chosen with so much ingenuity, that, though 

 necessarily mere fragments, they are amusing to read. Dr. Robertson, 

 the historian, said that he had read Johnson's Dictionary from 

 beginning to end ; and it is probable that very few ever open it for refer- 

 ence without reading much more than the pa-sage they looked for. It 

 is however in some respects a very defective work. Johnson had 

 scarcely any knowledge of the Anglo-Saxon, and no knowledge of any 

 of the cognate Teutonic dialects ; accordingly, the etymological part is 

 not of much value ; the etymologies being copied chiefly from Skinner 

 and Junius. His definitions arc constructed without sufficient con- 

 sideration, and without any systematic plan. He also frequently 

 errs in tracing the successive significations of a word. Between 1750 

 and 1760 he published the 'Rambler' and the 'Idler,' periodical 

 essays in the style of the ' Spectator,' works generally read and of 

 very extensive influence in their day, but which now probably are 

 comparatively seldom disturbed. His edition of Shakspere was pub- 

 lished in 1765; the preface is one of his ablest productions, particularly 

 that part which relates to the unities and dramatic illusion. He 

 had riot sufficient antiquarian knowledge or poetical feeling for com- 

 menting on Shakspere ; his notes are not numerous, and though 

 marked with his strong sense are only occasionally valuable. In 



