I perceived that he had so warmly cherished the hope of enjoying classical scenes, that he could not easily part with the scheme; for he said, "I shall probably contrive to get to Italy some other way1. But I won't mention it to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, as it might vex them." I suggested that going to Italy might have done Mr. and Mrs. Thrale good. JOHNSON. "I rather believe not, sir. While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it." At dinner, Mr. Murphy entertained us with the history of Mr. Joseph Simpson, a schoolfellow of Dr. Johnson's, a barrister at law, of good parts, but who fell into a dissipated course of life, incompatible with that success in his profession which he once had, and would otherwise have deservedly maintained; yet he still preserved a dignity in his deportment. He wrote a tragedy on the story of Leonidas, entitled "The Patriot." He read it to a company of lawyers, who found so many faults that he wrote it over again: so then there were two tragedies on the same subject and with the same title. Dr. Johnson told us, that one of them was still in his possession. This very piece was, after his death, published by some person who had been about him, and, for the sake of a little hasty profit, was fallaciously advertised so as to make it be believed to have been written by Johnson himself. -I said, I disliked the custom which some people had of bringing their children into company, because it in a manner forced us to pay foolish compliments to please their parents. JOHNSON. "You are right, 1 [He probably may have had some idea of accompanying his friend Mr. Saunders Welsh, who, in fact, went to Italy about the 14th May of this year. See post, Feb. 1778.-ED.] 2 [See ante, v. i. p. 336, his letter to this gentleman.-ED.] p. 211. sir'. We may be excused for not caring much about other people's children, for there are many who care very little about their own children. It may be observed, that men who, from being engaged in business, or from their course of life in whatever way, soldom see their children, do not care much about them. I myself should not have had much fondness for a child of my own." MRS. THRALE. "Nay, sir, how can you talk so?" JOHNSON. "At least, I Piozzi, never wished to have a child." [On another occasion, when Mrs. Thrale was relating to him that Dr. Collier (of the commons) had observed, that the love one bore to children was from the anticipation one's mind made while one contemplated them: "We hope," says he, "that they will some time make wise men, or amiable women; and we suffer them to take up our affection beforehand. One cannot love lumps of flesh, and little infants are nothing more." "On the contrary," said Johnson, "one one can scarcely help wishing, while one fondles a baby, that it may never live to become a man; for it is so probable that when he becomes a man, he should be sure to end in a scoundrel." Girls were less displeasing to him; "for as their temptations were fewer," he said, "their virtue in this life, and happiness in the next, were less improbable; and he loved," he said, "to see a knot of little misses dearly."] Mr. Murphy mentioned Dr. Johnson's having a design to publish an edition of Cowley. Johnson said, he did not know but he should; and he ex [Yet he was always kind to children, even when he blamed the parents for obtruding them. Miss Hawkins tells us that "Johnson was kind, in his way, to children: my father seldom observed me with him without recollecting the lion dandling the kid."-Mem. 1-23. See also post, circa 9th April, 1783.-ED.] 2 [It seems not easy to account for Mrs. Thrale's presence in London on the 10th April. She appears by the correspondence with Johnson to have been at Bath, to which place Johnson addressed a letter to her on the 9th. See ante, p. 392. ED.] pressed his disapprobation of Dr. Hurd, for having published a mutilated edition under the title of "Select Works of Abraham Cowley." Mr. Murphy thought it a bad precedent; observing, that any authour might be used in the same manner: and that it was pleasing to see the variety of an authour's compositions at different periods. We talked of Flatman's Poems; and Mrs. Thrale observed, that Pope had partly borrowed from him "The Dying Christian to his Soul." Johnson repeated Rochester's verses upon Flatman, which I think by much too severe : "Nor that slow drudge in swift Pindarick strains, And rides a jaded muse, whipt with loose reins." I like to recollect all the passages that I heard Johnson repeat it stamps a value on them. He told us that the book entitled "The Lives of the Poets," by Mr. Cibber, was entirely compiled by Mr. Shiels', a Scotchman, one of his amanuenses. [Here followed, in the former editions, a note containing a long extract from the Monthly Review for 1792, controverting the above assertion, which, on account of its length, the Editor has thrown into the Appendix; but he must observe, with more immediate reference to the statement in the text, that notwithstanding the weight which must be given to Dr. Johnson's repeated assertions on a subject in which he alleged that he had indisputable evidence in his own possession, yet there are some circumstances which seem at variance with his statements. It is true that the title-page of the first volume says, "compiled by Mr. Cibber," but all the other volumes have "compiled by Mr. Cibber and other hands;" so that Johnson was certainly mistaken in representing that Cibber was held out as the sole author. In the third vol., p. 156, the life of Betterton, the actor, is announced as "written by R. S." no doubt Robert Shiels, and to it is appended the following note, "As Mr. Theophilus Cibber is publishing (in another work) the Lives and Character of eminent Actors,' he leaves to other gentlemen concerned in this work the account of some players, who could not be omitted herein as poets." A similar notice accompanies the Life of Booth, v. iv. p. 178; and again, in a note on the "Life of Thomson," vol. v. p. 211, Theophilus Cibber, in his own name, states, that he read the tragedy of Agamemnon to the theatrical synod with so much applause, that he was selected to play the part of Melisander. These circumstances prove that "a Cibber" had some share in the work,-that there was no intention to conceal that it was Theophilus, and that Robert Shiels and others were avowed assistants. Mr. Boswell, in a former passage, (see ante, vol. i. p. 161.) intimated, that "some choice passages of these lives were written by Johnson himself." That opinion the Editor thought that Johnson's own assertion sufficiently negatived; but he must admit, on reconsideration, that there is some "The booksellers," said he, "gave Theophilus Cibber, who was then in prison, ten guineas, to allow Mr. Cibber to be put upon the title-page, as the authour; by this, a double imposition was intended; in the first place, that it was the work of a Cibber at all; and, in the second place, that it was the work of old Cibber." Mr. Murphy said, that "The Memoirs of Gray's Life set him much higher in his estimation than his poems did: for you there saw a man constantly at work in literature." Johnson acquiesced in this; but depreciated the book, I thought, very unreasonably. For he said, "I forced myself to read it, only because it was a common topic of conversation. I found it mighty dull; and, as to the style, it is fit for the second table." Why he thought so I was at a loss to conceive. He now gave it as his opinion, that "Akenside was a superiour poet both to Gray and Mason." Talking of the Reviews, Johnson said, "I think them very impartial: I do not know an instance of partiality." He mentioned what had passed upon the subject of the Monthly and Critical Reviews, in the conversation with which his majesty had honoured him. He expatiated a little more on them this evening. "The Monthly Reviewers," said he, "are not Deists; but they are Christians with as little Christianity as may be; and are for pulling down all establishments. The Critical Reviewers are for supporting the constitution both in church and state. colour for Mr. Boswell's suspicion; for it appears that Johnson was at one time employed to contribute to that work the lives of, at least, Shakspeare and Dryden (see ante, v. i. p. 514, and post, 15th May, 1776), and though he certainly did not write those lives, yet several passages throughout the work are much in his style. That, however, might arise from the imitation of Shiels; but what is most important is, that the plan in which these lives are written is substantially the same as that which Johnson adopted in his own beautiful 'work.-ED.] The Critical Reviewers, I believe, often review without reading the books through; but lay hold of a topick, and write chiefly from their own minds. The Monthly Reviewers are duller men, and are glad to read the books through." 66 He talked of Lord Lyttelton's extreme anxiety as an authour; observing, that " he was thirty years in preparing his history, and that he employed a man to point it for him; as if (laughing) another man could point his sense better than himself." Mr. Murphy said, he understood his history was kept back several years for fear of Smollett. JOHNSON. "This seems strange to Murphy and me, who never felt that anxiety, but sent what he wrote to the press, and let it take its chance." MRS. THRALE. "The time has been, sir, when you felt it." JOHNSON. Why really, madam, I do not recollect a time when that was the case." 66 Talking of "The Spectator," he said, “It is wonderful that there is such a proportion of bad papers, in the half of the work which was not written by Addison; for there was all the world to write that half, yet not a half of that half is good. One of the finest pieces in the English language is the paper on Novelty, yet we do not hear it talked of. It was written by Grove, a dissenting teacher." He would not, I perceived, call him a clergyman, though he was candid enough to allow very great merit to his composition. Mr. Murphy said, he remembered when there were several people alive in London, who enjoyed a considerable reputation merely from having [It may be doubted whether Johnson's dislike of Lord Lyttelton did not here lead him into an error. Persons not so habituated with the details of printing as he was may have been less expert at the use of these conventional signs. Lord Byron wrote to Mr. Murray: "Do you know any one who can stop ?—I mean point, commas, and so forth, for I am, I fear, a sad hand at your punctuation."-Moore's Life of Byron, vol. i. p. 417.-ED.] 2 [Spectator, No. 629.-ED.] |