No More Learning



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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8291
When statutes glean the refuse of the sword,
How much more safe the vassal than the lord !
Low skulks the hind beneath the rage of power,
And leaves the wealthy traitor in the tower;
Untouched his cottage, and his slumbers sound,
Though confiscation's vultures hover round.
On what foundation stands the warrior's pride,
How just his hopes, let Swedish Charles decide:
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,
No dangers fright him, and no labors tire;
O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain,
Unconquered lord of pleasure and of pain.
No joys to him pacific sceptres yield, -
War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field;
Behold surrounding kings their powers combine,
And one capitulate, and one resign;
Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain:
« Think nothing gained,” he cries, «till naught remain,
On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly,
And all be mine beneath the polar sky. ”
The march begins in military state,
And nations on his eye suspended wait ;
Stern famine guards the solitary coast,
And winter barricades the realms of frost.
He comes,
nor want nor cold his course delay:
Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day!
The vanquished hero leaves his broken bands,
And shows his miseries in distant lands;
Condemned a needy supplicant to wait,
While ladies interpose, and slaves debate.
But did not chance at length her error mend ?
Did no subverted empire mark his end ?
Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound,
Or hostile millions press him to the ground ?
His fall was destined to a barren strand,
A petty fortress, and a dubious hand;
He left the name at which the world grew pale
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,
No cries invoke the mercies of the skies?
Inquirer, cease: petitions yet remain,
Which Heaven may hear; nor deem religion vain.


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8292
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.
Safe in His power, whose eyes discern afar
The secret ambush of a specious prayer,
Implore his aid, in his decisions rest,
Secure, whate'er he gives, he gives the best.
Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires,
And strong devotion to the skies aspires,
Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resigned:
For love, which scarce collective man can fill;
For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill;
For faith, that, panting for a happier seat,
Counts death kind nature's signal of retreat:
These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain,
These goods He grants who grants the power to gain;
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.
LETTER TO LORD CHESTERFIELD AS TO THE DICTIONARY)
I
FEBRUARY 7th, 1755.
My Lord:
HAVE been lately informed by the proprietor of the World
that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended
to the public, were written by your Lordship. To be so
distinguished is an honor, which, being very little accustomed
to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in
what terms to acknowledge.
When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your
Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the
enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that
I might boast myself le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre,
that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world con-
tending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that
neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When
I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted
all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can
possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased
to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
Seven years, my lord, have now passed since I waited in your
outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8293
time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties of
which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to
the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word
of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did
not expect, for I never had a patron before.
The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and
found him a native of the rocks.
Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a
man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached
ground, incumbers him with help? The notice which you have
been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early had been
kind: but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot
enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am
known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asper-
ity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received,
or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing
that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for
myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation
to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I
should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been
long wakened from that dream of hope in which I once boasted
myself with so much exultation, my lord,
Your Lordship's most humble, most obedient servant,
SAM. JOHNSON
DR. JOHNSON'S LAST LETTER TO HIS AGED MOTHER
NET
Dear Honored Mother:
EITHER your condition nor your character make it fit for me
to say much. You have been the best mother, and I be-
lieve the best woman, in the world. I thank
you
for
your
indulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have done
ill, and all that I have omitted to do well. God grant you his
Holy Spirit, and receive you to everlasting happiness, for Jesus
Christ's sake. Amen. . Lord Jesus receive your spirit. Amen.
I am, dear, dear Mother,
Your dutiful Son,
JAN. 20, 1759.
SAM. JOHNSON.


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8294
SAMUEL JOHNSON
FROM A LETTER TO HIS FRIEND MR. JOSEPH BARETTI, AT
MILAN
I
sons.
Know my Baretti will not be satisfied with a letter in which I
give him no account of myself; yet what account shall I give
him? I have not, since the day of our separation, suffered or
done anything considerable. The only change in my way of life
is, that I have frequented the theatre more than in former sea-
But I have gone thither only to escape from myself. We
have had many new farces, and the comedy called “The Jealous
Wife,' — which, though not written with much genius, was yet
so well adapted to the stage, and so well exhibited by the actors,
that it was crowded for near twenty nights. I am digressing
from myself to the play-house; but a barren plan must be filled
with episodes. Of myself I have nothing to say, but that I have
hitherto lived without the concurrence of my own judgment; yet
I continue to flatter myself that when you return, you will find
me mended. I do not wonder that where the monastic life is per-
mitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabit-
ants. Men will submit to any rule by which they may be exempt
from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to
supply by external authority their own want of constancy and
resolution, and court the government of others when long experi-
ence has convinced them of their own inability to govern them-
selves. If I were to visit Italy, my curiosity would be more
attracted by convents than by palaces; though I am afraid I
should find expectation in both places equally disappointed, and
life in both places supported with impatience and quitted with
reluctance. That it must be so soon quitted is a powerful rem-
edy against impatience; but what shall free us from reluctance ?
Those who have endeavored to teach us to die well, have taught
few to die willingly; yet I cannot but hope that a good life might
end at last in a contented death,
DR. JOHNSON'S FAREWELL TO HIS MOTHER'S AGED SERVANT
UNDAY, Oct. 18, 1767. -Yesterday, Oct. 17, at about ten in the
morning, I took my leave forever of my dear old friend
Catherine Chambers, who came to live with my mother
about 1724, and has been but little parted from us since. She


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8295
buried my father, my brother, and my mother. She is now
fifty-eight years old.
I desired all to withdraw, then told her that we were to part
forever; that as Christians, we should part with prayer, and that
I would, if she was willing, say a short prayer beside her. She
expressed great desire to hear me; and held up her poor hands,
as she lay in bed, with great fervor while I prayed, kneeling by
her, nearly in the following words:
"Almighty and most merciful Father, whose loving kindness
is over all thy works, behold, visit, and relieve this thy serv-
ant, who is grieved with sickness. Grant that the sense of her
weakness may add strength to her faith, and seriousness to her
repentance. And grant that by the help of thy Holy Spirit, after
the pains and labors of this short life, we may all obtain ever-
lasting happiness through Jesus Christ our Lord; for whose sake
hear our prayers.
Amen. Our Father,” etc.
.
"
I then kissed her. She told me that to part was the greatest
pain that she had ever felt, and that she hoped we should meet
again in a better place. I expressed, with swelled eyes and great
emotion of tenderness, the same hopes. We kissed and parted,
I humbly hope to meet again and to part no more.
West
TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
Dear Sir:
HAT can possibly have happened that keeps us two such
strangers to each other? I expected to have heard from
you when you came home; I expected afterwards. I
went into the country and returned; and yet there is no letter
from Mr. Boswell. No ill I hope has happened; and if ill should
happen, why should it be concealed from him who loves you? Is
it a fit of humor, that has disposed you to try who can hold out
longest without writing ? If it be, you have the victory. But
I am afraid of something bad; set me free from my suspicions.
My thoughts are at present employed in guessing the reason
of your silence: you must not expect that I should tell you any-
thing, if I had anything to tell. Write, pray write to me, and
let me know what is, or what has been, the cause of this long
interruption. I am, dear Sir,
Your most affectionate humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON
JULY 13, 1779.


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8296
SAMUEL JOHNSON
A
TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
My Dear Sir
RE you playing the same trick again, and trying who can
keep silence longest ? Remember that all tricks are either
knavish or childish; and that it is as foolish to make ex-
periments upon the constancy of a friend as upon the chastity of
a wife.
What can be the cause of this second fit of silence I cannot
conjecture; but after one trick, I will not be cheated by another,
nor will I harass my thoughts with conjectures about the motives
of a man who probably acts only by caprice. I therefore suppose
you are well, and that Mrs. Boswell is well too; and that the fine
summer has restored Lord Auchinleck. I am much better, better
than you left me; I think I am better than when I was in Scot-
land.
I forgot whether I informed you that poor Thrale has been
in great danger. Mrs. Thrale likewise has
been much
indisposed. Everybody else is well; Langton is in camp.
intend to put Lord Hailes's description of Dryden into another
edition; and as I know his accuracy, wish he would consider the
dates, which I could not always settle to my own mind.
Mr. Thrale goes to Brighthelmstone about Michaelmas, to
be jolly and ride a-hunting. I shall go to town, or perhaps to
Oxford. Exercise and gayety, or rather carelessness, will I hope
dissipate all remains of his malady; and I likewise hope, by the
change of place, to find some opportunities of growing yet better
myself. I am, dear Sir, your humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.
STREATHAM, Sept. 9, 1779.
WY
TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
Dear Sir:
Hy should you importune me so earnestly to write? Of
what importance can it be to hear of distant friends to a
man who finds himself welcome wherever he goes, and
makes new friends faster than he can want them? If to the
delight of such universal kindness of reception, anything can be
added by knowing that you retain my good-will, you may indulge
yourself in the full enjoyment of that small addition.
I am glad that you made the round of Lichfield with so much
success: the oftener
ou are seen, the inore you will be liked.


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8297
It was pleasing to me to read that Mrs. Aston was so well, and
that Lucy Porter was so glad to see you.
In the place where you now are, there is much to be ob-
served; and you will easily procure yourself skillful directors.
But what will you do to keep away the black dog that worries
you at home ?
If you would, in compliance with your father's
advice, inquire into the old tenures and old charters of Scotland,
you would certainly open to yourself many striking scenes of the
manners of the Middle Ages. The feudal system, in a country
half barbarous, is naturally productive of great anomalies in civil
life. The knowledge of past times is naturally growing less in
all cases not of public record; and the past time of Scotland is
so unlike the present, that it is already difficult for a Scotchman
to image the economy of his grandfather. Do not be tardy nor
negligent; but gather up eagerly what can yet be found.
We have, I think, once talked of another project,-a history
of the late insurrection in Scotland, with all its incidents. Many
falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history. Voltaire, who
loved a striking story, has told what he could not find to be
true.
You may make collections for either of these projects, or for
both, as opportunities occur, and digest your materials at leisure.
The great direction which Burton has left to men disordered like
you, is this: Be not solitary; be not idle - which I would thus
modify: If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be
not idle.
There is a letter for you, from
Your humble servant,
SAM. JOHNSON
LONDON, October 27, 1779.
TO MRS. LUCY PORTER IN LICHFIELD
L'
Dear Madam :
IFE is full of troubles. I have just lost my dear friend Thrale.
I hope he is happy; but I have had a great loss. I am
otherwise pretty well. I require some care of myself, but
that care is not ineffectual; and when I am out of order I think
it often my own fault.
The spring is now making quick advances. As it is the sea-
son in which the whole world is enlivened and invigorated, I


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8298
SAMUEL JOHNSON
hope that both you and I shall partake of its benefits. My de-
sire is to Lichfield; but being left executor to my friend, I
know not whether I can be spared; but I will try, for it is now
long since we saw one another; and how little we can promise
ourselves many more interviews, we are taught by hourly exam-
ples of mortality. Let us try to live so as that mortality may
not be an evil. Write to me soon, my dearest; your letters will
give me great pleasure.
I am sorry that Mr. Porter has not had his box; but by
sending it to Mr. Mathias, who very readily undertook its convey-
ance, I did the best I could, and perhaps before now he has it.
Be so kind as to make my compliments to my friends: I have
a great value for their kindness, and hope to enjoy it before
summer is past. Do write to me.
I am, dearest love,
Your most humble servant,
LONDON, April 12, 1781.
SAM. JOHNSON.
I
I.
2.
TO MR. PERKINS
Dear Sir:
AM much pleased that you are going a very long journey,
which may, by proper conduct, restore your health and pro-
long your life.
Observe these rules:-
Turn all care out of your head as soon as you mount the
chaise.
Do not think about frugality: your health is worth more
than it can cost.
3.
Do not continue any day's journey to fatigue.
Take now and then a day's rest.
5.
Get a smart sea-sickness if you can.
6. Cast away all anxiety, and keep your mind easy.
This last direction is the principal; with an unquiet mind
neither exercise, nor diet, nor physic can be of much use.
I wish you, dear Sir, a prosperous journey, and a happy re-
covery.
I am, dear Sir,
Your most affectionate humble servant,
July 28, 1782.
Sam. JOHNSON.
4.


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8299
L
FROM A LETTER TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.
IFE, as Cowley seems to say, ought to resemble a well-ordered
poem; of which one rule generally received is, that the ex-
ordium should be simple, and should promise little. Begin
your new course of life with the least show and the least expense
possible: you may at pleasure increase both, but you cannot easily
diminish them. Do not think your estate your own while any
man can call upon you for money which you cannot pay; there-
fore begin with timorous parsimony. Let it be your first care
not to be in any man's debt.
When the thoughts are extended to a future state, the present
life seems hardly worthy of all those principles of conduct and
maxims of prudence which one generation of men has transmit-
ted to another; but upon a closer view, when it is perceived how
much evil is produced and how much good is impeded by embar-
rassment and distress, and how little room the expedients of pov-
erty leave for the exercise of virtue, it grows manifest that the
boundless importance of the next life enforces some attention to
the interests of this.
Be kind to the old servants, and secure the kindness of the
agents and factors; do not disgust them by asperity, or unwel-
come gayety, or apparent suspicion. From them you must learn
the real state of your affairs, the characters of your tenants, and
the value of your lands.
Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell: I think her expecta-
tions from air and exercise are the best that she can form. I
hope she will live long and happily.
TO MRS. THRALE
O"
N MONDAY the 16th I sat for my picture, and walked a con-
siderable way with little inconvenience. In the afternoon
and evening I felt myself light and easy, and began to
plan schemes of life. Thus I went to bed, and in a short time
waked and sat up, as has been long my custom; when I felt a
confusion and indistinctness in my head, which lasted I suppose
about half a minute. I was alarmed, and prayed God that how-
a
ever he might afflict my body, he would spare my understanding.
This prayer, that I might try the integrity of my faculties, I
made in Latin verse. The lines were not very good, but I knew


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8300
SAMUEL JOHNSON
them not to be very good; I made them easily, and concluded
myself to be unimpaired in my faculties.
Soon after, I perceived that I had suffered a paralytic stroke,
and that my speech was taken from me. I had no pain, and
so little dejection in this dreadful state, that I wondered at
my own apathy; and considered that perhaps death itself, when
it should come, would excite less horror than seems now to
attend it.
In order to rouse the vocal organs, I took two drams. Wine
has been celebrated for the production of eloquence. I put
myself into violent motion, and I think repeated it; but all was
vain. I then went to bed, and strange as it may seem, I think
slept. When I saw light, it was time to contrive what I should
do.
Though God stopped my speech, he left me my hand; I
enjoyed a mercy which was not granted to my dear friend Law-
rence, who now perhaps overlooks me as I am writing, and re-
joices that I have what he wanted. My first note was necessarily
to my servant, who came in talking, and could not immediately
comprehend why he should read what I put into his hands.
I then wrote a card to Mr. Allen, that I might have a dis-
creet friend at hand, to act as occasion should require. In pen-
ning this note I had some difficulty: my hand, I knew not how
nor why, made wrong letters. I then wrote to Dr. Taylor to
come to me, and bring Dr. Heberden; and I sent to Dr. Brock-
lesby, who is my neighbor. My physicians are very friendly,
and give me great hopes; but you may imagine my situation. I
have so far recovered my vocal powers as to repeat the Lord's
Prayer with no imperfect articulation. My memory, I hope, yet
remains as it was; but such an attack produces solicitude for the
safety of every faculty.
A PRIVATE PRAYER BY DR. JOHNSON
O
God, giver and preserver of all life, by whose power I was
created, and by whose providence I am sustained, look
down upon me with tenderness and mercy; grant that I
may not have been created to be finally destroyed; that I may
not be preserved to add wickedness to wickedness.
O Lord, let me not sink into total depravity: look down upon
me, and rescue me at last from the captivity of sin.


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8301
Almighty and most merciful Father, who has continued my
life from year to year, grant that by longer life I may become
less desirous of sinful pleasures, and more careful of eternal hap-
piness.
Let not my years be multiplied to increase my guilt; but as
my age advances, let me become more pure in my thoughts,
more regular in my desires, and more obedient to thy laws.
Forgive, o merciful Lord, whatever I have done contrary to
thy laws.
Give me such a sense of my wickedness as may
produce true contrition and effectual repentance: so that when I
shall be called into another state, I may be received among the
sinners to whom sorrow and reformation have obtained pardon,
for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.
WEALTH
From the Rambler, No. 58, October 6th, 1750
A
S THE love of money has been, in all ages, one of the passions
that have given great disturbance to the tranquillity of the
world, there is no topic more copiously treated by the an-
cient moralists than the folly of devoting the heart to the accu-
mulation of riches. They who are acquainted with these authors
need not be told how riches excite pity, contempt, or reproach
whenever they are mentioned; with what numbers of examples
the danger of large possessions is illustrated; and how all the
powers of reason and eloquence have been exhausted in endeavors
to eradicate a desire which seems to have intrenched itself too
strongly in the mind to be driven out, and which perhaps had
not lost its power even over those who declaimed against it, but
would have broken out in the poet or the sage, if it had been
excited by opportunity, and invigorated by the approximation of
its proper object.
Their arguments have been indeed so unsuccessful, that I
know not whether it can be shown that by all the wit and
reason which this favorite cause has called forth, a single convert
was ever made; that even one man has refused to be rich, when
to be rich was in his power, from the conviction of the greater
happiness of a narrow fortune; or disburthened himself of wealth
when he had tried its inquietudes, merely to enjoy the peace and
leisure and security of a mean and unenvied state.


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8302
SAMUEL JOHNSON
It is true, indeed, that many have neglected opportunities of
raising themselves to honors and to wealth, and rejected he
kindest offers of fortune: but however their moderation may be
boasted by themselves, or admired by such as only view them
at a distance, it will be perhaps seldom found that they value
riches less, but that they dread labor or danger more than others;
they are unable to rouse themselves to action, to strain in the
race of competition, or to stand the shock of contest: but though
they therefore decline the toil of climbing, they nevertheless wish
themselves aloft, and would willingly enjoy what they dare not
seize.
Others have retired from high stations, and voluntarily con-
demned themselves to privacy and obscurity. But even these
will not afford many occasions of triumph to the philosopher: for
they have commonly either quitted that only which they thought
themselves unable to hold, and prevented disgrace by resigna-
tion; or they have been induced to try new measures by general
inconstancy, which always dreams of happiness in novelty, or by
a gloomy disposition, which is disgusted in the same degree with
every state, and wishes every scene of life to change as soon as
it is beheld. Such men found high and low stations equally un-
able to satisfy the wishes of a distempered mind, and were unable
to shelter themselves in the closest retreat from disappointment,
solitude, and misery.
Yet though these admonitions have been thus neglected by
those who either enjoyed riches or were able to procure them,
is not rashly to be determined that they are altogether without
use; for since far the greatest part of mankind must be confined
to conditions comparatively mean, and placed in situations from
which they naturally look up with envy to the eminences placed
before them, those writers cannot be thought ill employed that
have administered remedies to discontent almost universal, by
shewing that what we cannot reach may very well be forborne,
that the inequality of distribution at which we murmur is for the
most part less than it seems, and that the greatness which we
admire at a distance has much fewer advantages and much less
splendor when we are suffered to approach it.
It is the business of moralists to detect the frauds of fortune,
and to shew that she imposes upon the careless eye by a quick
succession of shadows, which will shrink to nothing in the gripe;
that she disguises life in extrinsic ornaments, which serve only
!


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8303
for show, and are laid aside in the hours of solitude and of
pleasure; and that when greatness aspires either to felicity or
wisdom, it shakes off those distinctions which dazzle the gazer
and awe the supplicant.
It may be remarked that they whose condition has not afforded
them the light of moral or religious instruction, and who collect
all their ideas by their own eyes and digest them by their own
understandings, seem to consider those who are placed in ranks of
remote superiority as almost another and higher species of beings.
As themselves have known little other misery than the conse-
quences of want, they are with difficulty persuaded that where
there is wealth there can be sorrow, or that those who glitter in
dignity and glide along in affluence can be acquainted with pains
and cares like those which lie heavy upon the rest of mankind.
This prejudice is indeed confined to the lowest meanness and
the darkest ignorance; but it is so confined only because others
have been shown its folly and its falsehood, because it has been
opposed in its progress by history and philosophy, and hindered
from spreading its infection by powerful preservatives.
The doctrine of the contempt of wealth, though it has not
been able to extinguish avarice or ambition, or suppress that
reluctance with which a man passes his days in a state of inferi-
ority, must at least have made the lower conditions less grating
and wearisome, and has consequently contributed to the general
security of life, by hindering that fraud and violence, rapine and
circumvention which must have been produced by an unbounded
eagerness of wealth, arising from an unshaken conviction that to
be rich is to be happy.
Whoever finds himself incited, by some violent impulse of pas-
sion, to pursue riches as the chief end of being, must surely be
so much alarmed by the successive admonitions of those whose
experience and sagacity have recommended them as the guides
of mankind, as to stop and consider whether he is about to
engage in an undertaking that will reward his toil, and to exam-
ine before he rushes to wealth, through right and wrong, what it
will confer when he has acquired it; and this examination will
seldom fail to repress his ardor and retard his violence.
Wealth is nothing in itself; it is not useful but when it
departs from us; its value is found only in that which it can
purchase, - which if we suppose it put to its best use by those
that possess it, seems not much to deserve the desire or envy of


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8304
SAMUEL JOHNSON
a wise man. It is certain that with regard to corporal enjoy-
ment, money can neither open new avenues to pleasure nor
block up the passages of anguish. Disease and infirmity still
continue to torture and enfeeble, perhaps exasperated by luxury
or promoted by softness. With respect to the mind, it has rarely
been observed that wealth contributes much to quicken the dis-
cernment, enlarge the capacity, or elevate the imagination; but
may, by hiring flattery or laying diligence asleep, confirm error
and harden stupidity.
Wealth cannot confer greatness; for nothing can make that
great which the decree of nature has ordained to be little. The
bramble may be placed in a hot-bed, but can never become an
oak. Even royalty itself is not able to give that dignity which
it happens not to find, but oppresses feeble minds, though it may
elevate the strong. The world has been governed in the name
of kings whose existence has scarcely been perceived by any real
effects beyond their own palaces.
When therefore the desire of wealth is taking hold of the
heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon those
whose industry or fortune has obtained it. When we find them
oppressed with their own abundance, luxurious without pleasure,
idle without ease, impatient and querulous in themselves, and
despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon be
convinced that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied,
there remains little to be sought with solicitude or desired with
eagerness.
OLD AGE AND DEATH
From the Rambler, No. 69, November 13th, 1750
N
A
OLD Greek epigrammatist, intending to shew the miseries
that attend the last stage of man, imprecates upon those
who are so foolish as to wish for long life, the calamity
of continuing to grow old from century to century. He thought
that no adventitious or foreign pain was requisite; that decrepi-
tude itself was an epitome of whatever is dreadful; and nothing
could be added to the curse of age, but that it should be ex-
tended beyond its natural limits.
The most indifferent or negligent spectator can indeed scarcely
retire without heaviness of heart from a view of the last scenes
of the tragedy of life, in which he finds those who in the former


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8305
parts of the drama were distinguished by opposition of conduct,
contrariety of designs, and dissimilitude of personal qualities, all
involved in one common distress, and all struggling with afflic-
tion which they cannot hope to overcome.
The other miseries which waylay our passage through the
world, wisdom may escape and fortitude may conquer: by cau-
tion and circumspection we may steal along with very little to
obstruct or incommode us; by spirit and vigor we may force a
way, and reward the vexation of contest by the pleasures of vic-
tory. But a time must come when our policy and bravery shall
be equally useless; when we shall all sink into helplessness and
sadness, without any power of receiving solace from the pleasures
that have formerly delighted us, or any prospect of emerging into
a second possession of the blessings that we have lost.
The industry of man has indeed not been wanting in endeav-
ors to procure comforts for these hours of dejection and melan-
choly, and to gild the dreadful gloom with artificial light. The
most usual support of old age is wealth. He whose possessions
are large and whose chests are full imagines himself always for-
tified against invasions on his authority. If he has lost all other
means of government, if his strength and his reason fail him,
he can at last alter his will; and therefore all that have hopes
must likewise have fears, and he may still continue to give laws
to such as have not ceased to regard their own interest.
This is indeed too frequently the citadel of the dotard; the
last fortress to which age retires, and in which he makes the
stand against the upstart race that seizes his domains, disputes
his commands, and cancels his prescriptions. But here, though
there may be safety, there is no pleasure; and what remains is
but a proof that more was once possessed.
Nothing seems to have been more universally dreaded by the
ancients than orbity, or want of children; and indeed to a man
who has survived all the companions of his youth,— all who
have participated his pleasures and his cares, have been engaged
in the same events and filled their minds with the same concep-
tions, - this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude. He stands
forlorn and silent, neglected or insulted, in the midst of multi-
tudes animated with hopes which he cannot share and employed
in business which he is no longer able to forward or retard; nor
can he find any to whom his life or his death are of importance,
unless he has secured some domestic gratifications, some tender
XIV-520


## p. 8306 (#510) ###########################################

8306
SAMUEL JOHNSON
employments, and endeared himself to some whose interest and
gratitude may unite them to him.
So different are the colors of life as we look forward to the
future or backward to the past, and so different the opinions
and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally
produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends gen-
erally with contempt or pity on either side. To a young man
entering the world with fullness of hope and ardor of pursuit,
nothing is so unpleasing as the cold caution, the faint expecta-
tions, the scrupulous diffidence, which experience and disappoint-
ments certainly infuse: and the old man wonders in his turn
that the world never can grow wiser; that neither precepts nor
testimonies can cure boys of their credulity and sufficiency; and
that no one can be convinced that snares are laid for him, till
he finds himself entangled.
Thus one generation is always the scorn and wonder of the
other; and the notions of the old and young are like liquors of
different gravity and texture, which never can unite. The spir-
its of youth, sublimed by health and volatilized by passion, soon
leave behind them the phlegmatic sediment of weariness and
deliberation, and burst out in temerity and enterprise. The
tenderness therefore which nature infuses, and which long habits
of beneficence confirm, is necessary to reconcile such opposition;
and an old man must be a father, to bear with patience those
follies and absurdities which he will perpetually imagine himself
to find in the schemes and expectations, the pleasures and the
sorrows, of those who have not yet been hardened by time and
chilled by frustration.
Yet it may be doubted whether the pleasure of seeing child-
ren ripening into strength be not overbalanced by the pain of
seeing some fall in the blossom, and others blasted in their
growth; some shaken down with storms, some tainted with can-
kers, and some shriveled in the shade: and whether he that
extends his care beyond himself does not multiply his anxieties
more than his pleasures, and weary himself to no purpose by
superintending what he cannot regulate.
But though age be to every order of human beings suffi-
ciently terrible, it is particularly to be dreaded by fine ladies,
who have no other end or ambition than to fill up the day and
the night with dress, diversions, and flattery; and who, having
made no acquaintance with knowledge or with business, have


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8307
constantly caught all their ideas from the current prattle of the
hour, and been indebted for all their happiness to compliments
and treats. With these ladies age begins early, and very often
lasts long: it begins when their beauty fades, when their mirth
loses its sprightliness and their motion its ease. From that time
all which gave them joy vanishes from about them. They hear
the praises bestowed on others, which used to swell their bosoms
with exultation. They visit the seats of felicity, and endeavor
.
to continue the habit of being delighted. But pleasure is only
received when we believe that we give it in return. Neglect and
petulance inform them that their power and their value are
past; and what then remains but a tedious and comfortless uni-
formity of time, without any motion of the heart or exercise of
the reason ?
Yet however age may discourage us by its appearance from
considering it in prospect, we shall all by degrees certainly be
old; and therefore we ought to inquire what provision can be
made against that time of distress? what happiness can be stored
up against the winter of life? and how we may pass our latter
years with serenity and cheerfulness?
It has been found by the experience of mankind that not
even the best seasons of life are able to supply sufficient gratifi-
cations, without anticipating uncertain felicities; it cannot surely
be supposed that old age, worn with labors, harassed with anxie-
ties, and tortured with diseases, should have any gladness of its
own, or feel any satisfaction from the contemplation of the pres-
ent. All the comfort that can now be expected must be recalled
from the past, or borrowed from the future: the past is very
soon exhausted, all the events or actions of which the memory
can afford pleasure are quickly recollected; and the future lies
beyond the grave, where it can be reached only by virtue and
devotion.
Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man.
He that grows old without religious hopes, as he declines into
imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding
upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every
reflection must plunge him deeper, and where he finds only new
gradations of anguish and precipices of horror.


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8308
SAMUEL JOHNSON
A STUDY OF MILTON'S PARADISE LOST)
From Milton,' in the Lives of the Poets )
M" ety; a greater work calls for greater care.
ilton's little pieces may be dispatched without much anxi-
I am now to
examine Paradise Lost'; a poem which considered with
respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to
performance the second, among the productions of the human
mind.
By the general consent of critics the first praise of genius is
due to the writer of an epic poem, as it requires an assemblage
of all the powers which are singly sufficient for other composi-
tions. Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by call-
ing imagination to the help of reason. Epic poetry undertakes to
teach the most important truths by the most pleasing precepts,
and therefore relates some great event in the most affecting
manner. History must supply the writer with the rudiments of
narration, which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art,
must animate by dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection
and anticipation; morality must teach him the exact bounds and
different shades of vice and virtue; from policy and the practice
of life he has to learn the discriminations of character and the
tendency of the passions, either single or combined; and physi-
ology must supply him with illustrations and images. To put these
materials to poetical use, is required an imagination capable of
painting nature and realizing fiction. Nor is he yet a poet till he
has attained the whole extension of his language, distinguished
all the delicacies of phrase and all the colors of words, and
learned to adjust their different sounds to all the varieties of
metrical modulation.
Bossu is of opinion that the poet's first work is to find a
moral, which his fable is afterwards to illustrate and establish.
This seems to have been the process only of Milton: the moral
of other poems is incidental and consequent; in Milton's only
it is essential and intrinsic. His purpose was the most useful
and the most arduous: “to vindicate the ways of God to man;"
to show the reasonableness of religion, and the necessity of obe-
dience to the Divine Law.
To convey this moral there must be a fable; a narration art-
fully constructed, so as to excite curiosity and surprise expecta-
tion. In this part of his work Milton must be confessed to have


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8309
equaled every other poet. He has involved in his account of
the Fall of Man the events which preceded and those that were
to follow it; he has interwoven the whole system of theology
with such propriety that every part appears to be necessary; and
scarcely any recital is wished shorter for the sake of quickening
the progress of the main action.
The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great
importance. That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the
conduct of a colony, or the foundation of an empire. His sub-
ject is the fate of worlds, the revolutions of heaven and of earth;
rebellion against the Supreme King, raised by the highest order
of created beings; the overthrow of their host, and the punish-
ment of their crime; the creation of a new race of reasonable
creatures; their original happiness and innocence, their forfeiture
of immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace.
Of the probable and the marvelous, two parts of a vulgar epic
poem which immerge the critic in deep consideration, the Para-
dise Lost' requires little to be said. It contains the history of
a miracle,- of creation and redemption; it displays the power
and the mercy of the Supreme Being: the probable therefore is
marvelous, and the marvelous is probable. The substance of
the narrative is truth; and as truth allows no choice, it is, like
necessity, superior to rule. To the accidental or adventitious
parts, as to everything human, some slight exceptions may be
made; but the main fabric is immovably supported.
To the completeness or integrity of the design nothing can be
objected: it has distinctly and clearly what Aristotle requires-a
beginning, a middle, and an end. There is perhaps no poem of
the same length from which so little can be taken without ap-
parent mutilation. Here are no funeral games, nor is there any
long description of a shield. The short digressions at the begin-
ning of the third, seventh, and ninth books might doubtless be
spared; but superfluities so beautiful who would take away? or
who does not wish that the author of the Iliad had gratified
succeeding ages with a little knowledge of himself? Perhaps
no passages are more attentively read than those extrinsic para-
graphs; and since the end of poetry is pleasure, that cannot be
unpoetical with which all are pleased.
The questions whether the action of the poem be strictly
one, whether the poem can be properly termed heroic, and who
is the hero, are raised by such readers as draw their principles


## p. 8310 (#514) ###########################################

8310
SAMUEL JOHNSON
>>
of judgment rather from books than from reason. Milton, though
he entitled Paradise Lost' only a poem,” yet calls it himself
"heroic song. " Dryden petulantiy and indecently denies the
heroism of Adam, because he was overcome; but there is no
reason why the hero should not be unfortunate, except established
practice, since success and virtue do not go necessarily together.
Cato is the hero of Lucan; but Lucan's authority will not be
suffered by Quintilian to decide. However, if success be neces-
sary, Adam's deceiver was at last crushed; Adam was restored
to his Maker's favor, and therefore may securely resume his
human rank.
After the scheme and fabric of the poem, must be considered
its component parts, the sentiments and the diction.
The sentiments, as expressive of manners or appropriated to
characters, are for the greater part unexceptionably just. Splen-
did passages containing lessons of morality or precepts of pru-
dence occur seldom. Such is the original formation of this
poem, that as it admits no human manners till the Fall, it can
give little assistance to human conduct. Its end is to raise the
thoughts above sublunary cares or pleasures. Yet the praise of
that fortitude with which Abdiel maintained his singularity of
virtue against the scorn of multitudes may be accommodated
to all times; and Raphael's reproof of Adam's curiosity after
the planetary motions, with the answer returned by Adam, may
be confidently opposed to any rule of life which any poet has
delivered.
The thoughts which are occasionally called forth in the pro-
gress are such as could only be produced by an imagination in
the highest degree fervid and active, to which materials were
supplied by incessant study and unlimited curiosity. The heat of
Milton's mind may be said to sublimate his learning, to throw off
into his work the spirit of science, unmingled with its grosser
parts.
He had considered creation in its whole extent, and his de-
scriptions are therefore learned. He had accustomed his imagi-
nation to unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore
were extensive. The characteristic quality of his poem is sublim-
ity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is
the great.
He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but
his natural port is gigantic loftiness. He can please when pleas-
ure is required; but it is his peculiar power to astonish.


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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8311
He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius,
and to know what it was that nature had bestowed upon him
more bountifully than upon others,— the power of displaying the
vast, illuminating the splendid, enforcing the awful, darkening the
gloomy, and aggravating the dreadful: he therefore chose a sub-
ject on which too much could not be said, on which he might
tire his fancy without the censure of extravagance.
The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not
satiate his appetite of greatness. To paint things as they are,
requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than
the fancy. Milton's delight was to sport in the wide regions of
possibility; reality was a scene too narrow for his mind. He sent
his faculties out upon discovery, into worlds where only imagina-
tion can travel, and delighted to form new modes of existence,
and furnish sentiment and action to superior beings; to trace the
counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven.
But he could not be always in other worlds; he must some-
times revisit earth, and tell of things visible and known. When
he cannot raise wonder by the sublimity of his mind, he gives
delight by its fertility.
The ancient epic poets, wanting the light of Revelation, were
very unskillful teachers of virtue; their principal characters may
be great, but they are not amiable. The reader may rise from
their works with a greater degree of active or passive fortitude,
and sometimes of prudence; but he will be able to carry away
few precepts of justice, and none of mercy. From the Italian
writers it appears that the advantages of even Christian knowl-
edge may be possessed in vain. Ariosto's pravity is generally
known; and though the “Deliverance of Jerusalem' may be
considered as a sacred subject, the poet has been very sparing
of moral instruction. In Milton every line breathes sanctity of
thought and purity of manners, except when the train of the
narration requires the introduction of the rebellious spirits; and
even they are compelled to acknowledge their subjection to God,
in such a manner as excites reverence and confirms piety.
Of human beings there are but two; but those two are the
parents of mankind, venerable before their fall for dignity and
innocence, and amiable after it for repentance and submission.
In the first state their affection is tender without weakness, and
their piety sublime without presumption. When they have sinned,
they show how discord begins in mutual frailty, and how it


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8312
SAMUEL JOHNSON
ought to cease in mutual forbearance; how confidence of the
Divine favor is forfeited by sin, and how hope of pardon may
be obtained by penitence and prayer. A state of innocence we
can only conceive, if indeed in our present misery it be possible
to conceive it; but the sentiments and worship proper to a fallen
and offending being we have all to learn, as we have all to
practice.
The poet, whatever be done, is always great. Our progeni-
tors in their first state conversed with angels; even when folly
and sin had degraded them, they had not in their humiliation
«the port of mean suitors”; and they rise again to reverential
regard when we find that their prayers were heard.
As human passions did not enter the world before the Fall,
there is in the Paradise Lost' little opportunity for the pathetic;
but what little there is, has not been lost. That passion which
is peculiar to rational nature, the anguish arising from the con-
sciousness of transgression, and the horrors attending the sense
of the Divine displeasure, are very justly described and forcibly
impressed. But the passions are moved only on one occasion:
sublimity is the general and prevailing quality in this poem;
sublimity variously modified, — sometimes descriptive, sometimes
argumentative.
The defects and faults of Paradise Lost'— for faults and
defects every work of man must have — it is the business of
impartial criticism to discover. As in displaying the excellence
of Milton I have not made long quotations, because of selecting
beauties there had been no end, I shall in the same general
manner mention that which seems to deserve censure; for what
Englishman can take delight in transcribing passages which, if
they lessen the reputation of Milton, diminish in some degree the
honor of our country ?
The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent
notice of verbal inaccuracies: which Bentley, perhaps better
skilled in grammar than poetry, has often found, - though he
sometimes made them,- and which he imputed to the obtrus-
ions of a reviser whom the author's blindness obliged him to
employ; a supposition rash and groundless if he thought it true,
and vile and pernicious if — as is said — he in private allowed
–
it to be false.
The plan of Paradise Lost' has this inconvenience, that it
comprises neither human actions nor human manners. The man


## p. 8313 (#517) ###########################################

SAMUEL JOHNSON
8313
or
and woman who act and suffer are in a state which no other man
woman can ever know. The reader finds no transaction in
which he can be engaged, beholds no condition in which he
can by any effort of imagination place himself; he has therefore
little natural curiosity or sympathy.
We all indeed feel the effects of Adam's disobedience; we
all sin like Adam, and like him must all bewail our offenses; we
have restless and insidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in
the blessed spirits we have guardians and friends; in the redemp-
tion of mankind we hope to be included; in the description of
heaven and hell we are surely interested, as we are all to reside
hereafter either in the regions of horror or bliss.
But these truths are too important to be new: they have
been taught to our infancy; they have mingled with our solitary
thoughts and familiar conversations, and are habitually interwoven
with the whole texture of life. Being therefore not new, they
raise no unaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we knew
before, we cannot learn; what is not unexpected, cannot surprise.
Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from some we
recede with reverence, except when stated hours require their
association; and from others we shrink with horror, or admit
them only as salutary inflictions, as counterpoises to our interests
and passions. Such images rather obstruct the career of fancy
than incite it.
Pleasure and terror are indeed the genuine sources of poetry;
but poetical pleasure must be such as human imagination can at
least conceive, and poetical terrors such as human strength and
fortitude may combat. The good and evil of eternity are too
ponderous for the wings of wit; the mind sinks under them in
passive helplessness, content with calm belief and humble adora-
tion.
Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and
be conveyed to the mind by a new train of intermediate images.
This Milton has undertaken and performed with pregnancy and
vigor of mind peculiar to himself. Whoever considers the few
radical positions which the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder
by what energetic operation he expanded them to such extent,
and ramified them to so much variety, restrained as he was by
religious reverence from licentiousness of fiction.
Here is a full display of the united force of study and gen-
ius,- of a great accumulation of materials, with judgment to
-


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8314
SAMUEL JOHNSON
(
digest and fancy to combine them: Milton was able to select
from nature or from story, from an ancient fable or from modern
science, whatever could illustrate or adorn his thoughts. An accu- .
mulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study
and exalted by imagination.
It has been therefore said, without an indecent hyperbole, by
one of his encomiasts, that in reading Paradise Lost' we read a
book of universal knowledge.
But original deficiency cannot be supplied. The want of
human interest is always felt. Paradise Lost' is one of the
books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to
take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its
perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure. We read Milton for
.
instruction, retire harassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere
for recreation; we desert our master, and seek for companions.
Another inconvenience of Milton's design is, that it requires
the description of what cannot be described, the agency of spirits.
He saw that immateriality supplied no images, and that he could
not show angels acting but by instruments of action; he there-
fore invested them with form and matter. This being necessary,
was therefore defensible; and he should have secured the con-
sistency of his system by keeping immateriality out of sight, and
enticing his reader to drop it from his thoughts. But he has
unhappily perplexed his poetry with his philosophy. His infernal
and celestial powers are sometimes pure spirit, and sometimes
animated body. When Satan walks with his lance upon the
“burning marl,” he has a body; when, in his passage between
hell and the new world, he is in danger of sinking in the vacu-
ity, and is supported by a gust of rising vapors, he has a body;
when he animates the toad, he seems to be mere spirit, that can
penetrate matter at pleasure; when he starts up in his own
shape,” he has at least a determined form; and when he is
brought before Gabriel, he has a spear and a shield,” which he
had the power of hiding in the toad, though the arms of the
contending angels are evidently material.
The vulgar inhabitants of Pandæmonium, being incorporeal
spirits,” are "at large, though without number,” in a limited
space; yet in the battle when they were overwhelmed by mount-
ains, their armor hurt them, "crushed in upon their substance,
now grown gross by sinning. ” This likewise happened to the
uncorrupted angels, who were overthrown the sooner for their
((


## p. 8315 (#519) ###########################################

SAMUEL JOHNSON
8315
(
.
arms, for unarmed they might easily as spirits have evaded by
contraction or remove. ” Even as spirits they are hardly spiritual:
for “contraction” and “remove ” are images of matter; but if
they could have escaped without their armor, they might have
escaped from it and left only the empty cover to be battered.
Uriel when he rides on a sunbeam is material; Satan is material
when he is afraid of the prowess of Adam.