I
expected
to have heard from
you when you came home; I expected afterwards.
you when you came home; I expected afterwards.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v14 - Ibn to Juv
” The great master still finds many apt
scholars.
“He spoke as he wrote,” his hearers comme
monly asserted. This
was not altogether true. It might indeed be the case that every-
thing he said was as correct as a second edition”; nevertheless his
talk was never so labored as the more ornate parts of his writings.
Even in his lifetime his style was censured as “involved and turgid,
and abounding with antiquated and hard words. ” Macaulay went
so far as to pronounce it “systematically vicious. ” Johnson seems to
have been aware of some of his failings. "If Robertson's style be
faulty,” he said, “he owes it to me; that is, having too many words,
and those too big ones. ” As Goldsmith said of him, “If he were to
inake little fishes talk (in a fable), they would talk like whales. " In
the structure of his sentences he is as often at fault as in the use
of big words. He praised Temple for giving a cadence to English
prose, and he blamed Warburton for having his sentences unmeas-
ured. ” His own prose is too measured and has too much cadence.
It is in his Ramblers that he is seen at his worst, and in his Lives
of the Poets) at his best. In his Ramblers he was under the temp-
tation to expand his words beyond the thoughts they had to convey,
which besets every writer who has on stated days to fill up a certain
number of columns. In the Lives, out of the fullness of his mind
he gave far more than he had undertaken in his agreement with the
booksellers. With all its faults, his style has left a permanent and a
beneficial mark on the English language. It was not without reason
that speaking of what he had done, he said: “Something perhaps I
“
»
## p. 8287 (#491) ###########################################
SAMUEL JOHNSON
8287
>
»
have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the
harmony of its cadence. ” If he was too fond of words of foreign
origin, he resisted the inroad of foreign idioms. No one could say
of him what he said of Hume: “The structure of his sentences is
French. ” He sturdily withstood “the license of translators who were
reducing to babble a dialect of France. ” Lord Monboddo complained
of his frequent use of metaphors. In this he was unlike Swift, in
whose writings, it was asserted, not a single one can be found. If
however he used them profusely, he used them as accurately as
Burke; of whom, as he was speaking one day in Parliament, a by-
stander said, “How closely that fellow reasons in metaphors! ” John-
son's writings are always clear. To him might be applied the words
he used of Swift: “He always understands himself, and his readers
always understand him. ” “He never hovers on the brink of mean-
ing. ” If he falls short of Swift in simplicity, he rises far above him
in eloquence. He cares for something more than “the easy and safe
conveyance of meaning. ” His task it was not only to instruct, but to
persuade; not only to impart truth, but to awaken “that inattention
by which known truths are suffered to be neglected. ” He was “the
great moralist. ” He was no unimpassioned teacher, as correct as he
is cold. His mind was ever swayed to the mood of what it liked
or loathed, and as it was swayed, so it gave harmonious utterance.
Who would look to find tenderness in the preface to a dictionary?
Nevertheless Horne Tooke, "the ablest and most malevolent of all
the enemies of his fame,” could never read Johnson's preface without
shedding a tear. He often rose to noble heights of eloquence; while
in the power of his honest scorn he has scarcely a rival. His letters
to Lord Chesterfield and James Macpherson are not surpassed by any
in our language. In his criticisms he is admirably clear. Whether
we agree with him or not, we know at once what he means; while
his meaning is so strongly supported by argument that we
neither neglect it nor despise it. Не may put his reader into a
rage, but he sets him thinking.
Of his original works, Irene) was the first written, though not the
first published. It is a declamatory tragedy. He had little dramatic
power, and he followed a bad model, for he took Addison as his mas-
ter. The criticism which in his old age he passed on that writer's
(Cato' equally well fits his own Irene. “It is rather a poem in
dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in ele-
gant language than a representation of natural affections, or of any
state probable or possible in human life. It was in his two imita-
tions of Juvenal's Satires, London and the Vanity of Human
Wishes,' that he first showed his great powers. Pope quickly dis-
covered the genius of the unknown author. In their kind they are
can
(C
## p. 8288 (#492) ###########################################
8288
SAMUEL JOHNSON
masterpieces. Sir Walter Scott (had more pleasure in reading them
than any other poetical composition he could mention. ” The last
line of manuscript he sent to press was a quotation from the Van-
ity of Human Wishes. ' « 'Tis a grand poem,” said Byron, “and so
true! - true as the truth of Juvenal himself. ” Johnson had planned
further imitations of the Roman satirist, but he never executed them.
What he has done in these two longer poems and in many of his
minor pieces is so good that we may well grieve that he left so
little in verse. Like his three contemporaries Collins, Gray, and
Goldsmith, as a poet he died in debt to the world.
In the 'Rambler he teaches the same great lesson of life as in his
serious poems. He gave variety, however, by lighter papers modeled
on the Spectator, and by critical pieces. Admirable as was his humor
in his talk,-“in the talent of humor,” said Hawkins, there hardly
ever was his equal,” — yet in his writings he fell unmeasurably short
of Addison. His criticisms are acute; but it is when he reasons of
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come that he is seen at
his strongest.
(Rasselas,' struck off at a heat when his mother lay dying, tells
in prose what the Vanity of Human Wishes, tells in verse. It is
little known to the modern reader, who is not easily reconciled to its
style. At no time could it have been a favorite with the young and
thoughtless. Nevertheless, as years steal over us, we own, as we lay
it down with a sigh, that it gives a view of life as profound and true
as it is sad.
His Dictionary, faulty as it is in its etymologies, is a very great
performance. Its definitions are admirable; while the quotations are
so happily selected that they would afford the most pleasant reading
were it possible to read a heavy folio with pleasure. That it should
be the work of one man is a marvel. He had hoped to finish it in
three years; it took him more than seven. To quote his own words,
“He that runs against time has an antagonist not subject to casual-
ties. ” He was hindered by ill health, by his wife's long and fatal
illness, and by the need that he was under of making provision for
the day that was passing over him. ” During two years of the seven
years he was writing three Ramblers a week.
Of his Shakespeare, Macaulay said: “It would be difficult to name
a more slovenly, a more worthless edition of any great classic. I
doubt whether when he passed this sweeping judgment, he had read
much more than those brief passages in which Johnson sums up the
merits of each play. The preface, Adam Smith, no friend of John-
son's fame, described as “the most manly piece of criticism that was
ever published in any country. ” In the notes the editor anticipated
modern critics in giving great weight to early readings. Warburton,
## p. 8289 (#493) ###########################################
SAMUEL JOHNSON
8289
in the audacity of his conjectural emendations, almost rivaled Bentley
in his dealings with Milton. He floundered, but this time he did
not flounder well. Johnson was unwilling to meddle with the text so
long as it gave a meaning. Many of his corrections are ingenious,
but in this respect he came far behind Theobald. His notes on
character are distinguished by that knowledge of mankind in which
he excelled. The best are those on Falstaff and Polonius. The
booksellers who had employed him did their part but ill. There
are numerous errors which the corrector of the press should have
detected, while the work is ill printed and on bad paper.
His four political tracts were written at the request of govern-
ment. In one of them, in a fine passage, he shows the misery and
suffering which are veiled from men's sight by the dazzle of the glory
of war.
In the struggle between England and her colonies he with
Gibbon stood by George III. , while Burke, Hume, and Adam Smith
were on the side of liberty.
In his Journey to the Western Islands) he describes the tour
which he made with Boswell in 1773. In this work he took the part
of the oppressed tenants against their chiefs, who were, he wrote,
«gradually degenerating from patriarchal rulers to rapacious land-
lords. » His narrative is interesting; while the facts which he gathered
about a rapidly changing society are curious. « Burke thought well
of the philosophy of the book. ”
His last work was the Lives of the English Poets. '
It was
undertaken at the request of the chief London booksellers,
had determined to publish a body of English poetry,” for which he
was to furnish brief prefaces. These prefaces swelled into Lives.
"I have,” he wrote, “been led beyond my intention, I hope by the
honest desire of giving useful pleasure. ” For payment he had re-
quired only two hundred guineas. “Had he asked one thousand, or
even fifteen hundred,” said Malone, the booksellers would doubtless
readily have given it. ” In this great work he traveled over the
whole field of English poetry, from Milton who was born in 1608
to Lyttleton who died in 1773. To such a task no man ever came
better equipped. He brought to it wide reading, a strong memory,
traditional knowledge gathered from the companions of his early
manhood, his own long acquaintance with the literary world of Lon-
don, and the fruits of years of reflection and discussion. He had
studied criticism deeply, and he dared to think for himself. No
man was ever more fearless in his judgments. He was overpowered
by no man's reputation. His criticisms of Milton's Lycidas) and of
Gray show him at his worst. Nevertheless they are not wholly with-
out foundation. 'Lycidas,' great as it is, belongs to an unnatural
school of poetry. It is a lament that never moved a single reader to
XIV-519
(( who
## p. 8290 (#494) ###########################################
8290
SAMUEL JOHNSON
tears. No one mourns over young Lycidas. Blind as Johnson was
to the greatness of the poem, he has surpassed all other critics in
the splendor of the praise he bestowed on the poet. To the exquisite
beauties of Gray, unhappily, he was insensible. His faults he makes
us see only too clearly. We have to admit, however unwillingly,
that at times Gray is “tall by standing on tiptoe,” and does indulge in
commonplaces to which criticism disdains to chase him. ” Scarcely
less valuable than Johnson's critical remarks are the anecdotes which
he collected and the reflections which he made. In these Lives, and
in his own Life as told by Boswell, we have given us an admirable
view of literature and literary men, from the end of the age of
Elizabeth to close upon the dawn of the splendor which ushered in
the nineteenth century.
G Barkhurst Hill
FROM "THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES)
L
ET observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind, from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;
Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,
O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate,
Where wavering man, betrayed by venturous pride
To tread the dreary paths without a guide,
As treacherous phantoms in the mist delude,
Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good;
How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice,
Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice;
How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed,
When vengeance listens to the fool's request.
Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart,
Each gift of nature, and each grace of art;
With fatal heat impetuous courage glows,
With fatal sweetness elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the speaker's powerful breath,
And restless fire precipitates on death.
Let history tell where rival kings command,
And dubious title shakes the maddened land.
## p. 8291 (#495) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8292 (#496) ###########################################
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
## p. 8293 (#497) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8294 (#498) ###########################################
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
## p. 8295 (#499) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8296 (#500) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8297 (#501) ###########################################
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
## p. 8298 (#502) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8299 (#503) ###########################################
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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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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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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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
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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?
scholars.
“He spoke as he wrote,” his hearers comme
monly asserted. This
was not altogether true. It might indeed be the case that every-
thing he said was as correct as a second edition”; nevertheless his
talk was never so labored as the more ornate parts of his writings.
Even in his lifetime his style was censured as “involved and turgid,
and abounding with antiquated and hard words. ” Macaulay went
so far as to pronounce it “systematically vicious. ” Johnson seems to
have been aware of some of his failings. "If Robertson's style be
faulty,” he said, “he owes it to me; that is, having too many words,
and those too big ones. ” As Goldsmith said of him, “If he were to
inake little fishes talk (in a fable), they would talk like whales. " In
the structure of his sentences he is as often at fault as in the use
of big words. He praised Temple for giving a cadence to English
prose, and he blamed Warburton for having his sentences unmeas-
ured. ” His own prose is too measured and has too much cadence.
It is in his Ramblers that he is seen at his worst, and in his Lives
of the Poets) at his best. In his Ramblers he was under the temp-
tation to expand his words beyond the thoughts they had to convey,
which besets every writer who has on stated days to fill up a certain
number of columns. In the Lives, out of the fullness of his mind
he gave far more than he had undertaken in his agreement with the
booksellers. With all its faults, his style has left a permanent and a
beneficial mark on the English language. It was not without reason
that speaking of what he had done, he said: “Something perhaps I
“
»
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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8287
>
»
have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the
harmony of its cadence. ” If he was too fond of words of foreign
origin, he resisted the inroad of foreign idioms. No one could say
of him what he said of Hume: “The structure of his sentences is
French. ” He sturdily withstood “the license of translators who were
reducing to babble a dialect of France. ” Lord Monboddo complained
of his frequent use of metaphors. In this he was unlike Swift, in
whose writings, it was asserted, not a single one can be found. If
however he used them profusely, he used them as accurately as
Burke; of whom, as he was speaking one day in Parliament, a by-
stander said, “How closely that fellow reasons in metaphors! ” John-
son's writings are always clear. To him might be applied the words
he used of Swift: “He always understands himself, and his readers
always understand him. ” “He never hovers on the brink of mean-
ing. ” If he falls short of Swift in simplicity, he rises far above him
in eloquence. He cares for something more than “the easy and safe
conveyance of meaning. ” His task it was not only to instruct, but to
persuade; not only to impart truth, but to awaken “that inattention
by which known truths are suffered to be neglected. ” He was “the
great moralist. ” He was no unimpassioned teacher, as correct as he
is cold. His mind was ever swayed to the mood of what it liked
or loathed, and as it was swayed, so it gave harmonious utterance.
Who would look to find tenderness in the preface to a dictionary?
Nevertheless Horne Tooke, "the ablest and most malevolent of all
the enemies of his fame,” could never read Johnson's preface without
shedding a tear. He often rose to noble heights of eloquence; while
in the power of his honest scorn he has scarcely a rival. His letters
to Lord Chesterfield and James Macpherson are not surpassed by any
in our language. In his criticisms he is admirably clear. Whether
we agree with him or not, we know at once what he means; while
his meaning is so strongly supported by argument that we
neither neglect it nor despise it. Не may put his reader into a
rage, but he sets him thinking.
Of his original works, Irene) was the first written, though not the
first published. It is a declamatory tragedy. He had little dramatic
power, and he followed a bad model, for he took Addison as his mas-
ter. The criticism which in his old age he passed on that writer's
(Cato' equally well fits his own Irene. “It is rather a poem in
dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in ele-
gant language than a representation of natural affections, or of any
state probable or possible in human life. It was in his two imita-
tions of Juvenal's Satires, London and the Vanity of Human
Wishes,' that he first showed his great powers. Pope quickly dis-
covered the genius of the unknown author. In their kind they are
can
(C
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SAMUEL JOHNSON
masterpieces. Sir Walter Scott (had more pleasure in reading them
than any other poetical composition he could mention. ” The last
line of manuscript he sent to press was a quotation from the Van-
ity of Human Wishes. ' « 'Tis a grand poem,” said Byron, “and so
true! - true as the truth of Juvenal himself. ” Johnson had planned
further imitations of the Roman satirist, but he never executed them.
What he has done in these two longer poems and in many of his
minor pieces is so good that we may well grieve that he left so
little in verse. Like his three contemporaries Collins, Gray, and
Goldsmith, as a poet he died in debt to the world.
In the 'Rambler he teaches the same great lesson of life as in his
serious poems. He gave variety, however, by lighter papers modeled
on the Spectator, and by critical pieces. Admirable as was his humor
in his talk,-“in the talent of humor,” said Hawkins, there hardly
ever was his equal,” — yet in his writings he fell unmeasurably short
of Addison. His criticisms are acute; but it is when he reasons of
righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come that he is seen at
his strongest.
(Rasselas,' struck off at a heat when his mother lay dying, tells
in prose what the Vanity of Human Wishes, tells in verse. It is
little known to the modern reader, who is not easily reconciled to its
style. At no time could it have been a favorite with the young and
thoughtless. Nevertheless, as years steal over us, we own, as we lay
it down with a sigh, that it gives a view of life as profound and true
as it is sad.
His Dictionary, faulty as it is in its etymologies, is a very great
performance. Its definitions are admirable; while the quotations are
so happily selected that they would afford the most pleasant reading
were it possible to read a heavy folio with pleasure. That it should
be the work of one man is a marvel. He had hoped to finish it in
three years; it took him more than seven. To quote his own words,
“He that runs against time has an antagonist not subject to casual-
ties. ” He was hindered by ill health, by his wife's long and fatal
illness, and by the need that he was under of making provision for
the day that was passing over him. ” During two years of the seven
years he was writing three Ramblers a week.
Of his Shakespeare, Macaulay said: “It would be difficult to name
a more slovenly, a more worthless edition of any great classic. I
doubt whether when he passed this sweeping judgment, he had read
much more than those brief passages in which Johnson sums up the
merits of each play. The preface, Adam Smith, no friend of John-
son's fame, described as “the most manly piece of criticism that was
ever published in any country. ” In the notes the editor anticipated
modern critics in giving great weight to early readings. Warburton,
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SAMUEL JOHNSON
8289
in the audacity of his conjectural emendations, almost rivaled Bentley
in his dealings with Milton. He floundered, but this time he did
not flounder well. Johnson was unwilling to meddle with the text so
long as it gave a meaning. Many of his corrections are ingenious,
but in this respect he came far behind Theobald. His notes on
character are distinguished by that knowledge of mankind in which
he excelled. The best are those on Falstaff and Polonius. The
booksellers who had employed him did their part but ill. There
are numerous errors which the corrector of the press should have
detected, while the work is ill printed and on bad paper.
His four political tracts were written at the request of govern-
ment. In one of them, in a fine passage, he shows the misery and
suffering which are veiled from men's sight by the dazzle of the glory
of war.
In the struggle between England and her colonies he with
Gibbon stood by George III. , while Burke, Hume, and Adam Smith
were on the side of liberty.
In his Journey to the Western Islands) he describes the tour
which he made with Boswell in 1773. In this work he took the part
of the oppressed tenants against their chiefs, who were, he wrote,
«gradually degenerating from patriarchal rulers to rapacious land-
lords. » His narrative is interesting; while the facts which he gathered
about a rapidly changing society are curious. « Burke thought well
of the philosophy of the book. ”
His last work was the Lives of the English Poets. '
It was
undertaken at the request of the chief London booksellers,
had determined to publish a body of English poetry,” for which he
was to furnish brief prefaces. These prefaces swelled into Lives.
"I have,” he wrote, “been led beyond my intention, I hope by the
honest desire of giving useful pleasure. ” For payment he had re-
quired only two hundred guineas. “Had he asked one thousand, or
even fifteen hundred,” said Malone, the booksellers would doubtless
readily have given it. ” In this great work he traveled over the
whole field of English poetry, from Milton who was born in 1608
to Lyttleton who died in 1773. To such a task no man ever came
better equipped. He brought to it wide reading, a strong memory,
traditional knowledge gathered from the companions of his early
manhood, his own long acquaintance with the literary world of Lon-
don, and the fruits of years of reflection and discussion. He had
studied criticism deeply, and he dared to think for himself. No
man was ever more fearless in his judgments. He was overpowered
by no man's reputation. His criticisms of Milton's Lycidas) and of
Gray show him at his worst. Nevertheless they are not wholly with-
out foundation. 'Lycidas,' great as it is, belongs to an unnatural
school of poetry. It is a lament that never moved a single reader to
XIV-519
(( who
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SAMUEL JOHNSON
tears. No one mourns over young Lycidas. Blind as Johnson was
to the greatness of the poem, he has surpassed all other critics in
the splendor of the praise he bestowed on the poet. To the exquisite
beauties of Gray, unhappily, he was insensible. His faults he makes
us see only too clearly. We have to admit, however unwillingly,
that at times Gray is “tall by standing on tiptoe,” and does indulge in
commonplaces to which criticism disdains to chase him. ” Scarcely
less valuable than Johnson's critical remarks are the anecdotes which
he collected and the reflections which he made. In these Lives, and
in his own Life as told by Boswell, we have given us an admirable
view of literature and literary men, from the end of the age of
Elizabeth to close upon the dawn of the splendor which ushered in
the nineteenth century.
G Barkhurst Hill
FROM "THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES)
L
ET observation, with extensive view,
Survey mankind, from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;
Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,
O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate,
Where wavering man, betrayed by venturous pride
To tread the dreary paths without a guide,
As treacherous phantoms in the mist delude,
Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good;
How rarely reason guides the stubborn choice,
Rules the bold hand, or prompts the suppliant voice;
How nations sink, by darling schemes oppressed,
When vengeance listens to the fool's request.
Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart,
Each gift of nature, and each grace of art;
With fatal heat impetuous courage glows,
With fatal sweetness elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the speaker's powerful breath,
And restless fire precipitates on death.
Let history tell where rival kings command,
And dubious title shakes the maddened land.
## p. 8291 (#495) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8292 (#496) ###########################################
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
## p. 8293 (#497) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8294 (#498) ###########################################
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
## p. 8295 (#499) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8296 (#500) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8297 (#501) ###########################################
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
## p. 8298 (#502) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8299 (#503) ###########################################
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
## p. 8300 (#504) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8301 (#505) ###########################################
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.
## p. 8302 (#506) ###########################################
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
!
## p. 8303 (#507) ###########################################
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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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
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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
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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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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?
