If freedom we seek—fair Maria,
adieu!’
‘It will do well enough,’ replied he; ‘but it is translated by a lady, and the ladies never loved Molly Aston.’” Piozzi’s Anec., p. 157. See post, May 8, 1778.
[253] Sir Thomas Aston, Bart., who died in January, 1724-5, left one son, named Thomas also, and eight daughters. Of the daughters, Catherine married Johnson’s friend, the Hon. Henry Hervey [_post, 1737]; Margaret, Gilbert Walmsley. Another of these ladies married the Rev. Mr. Gastrell [the man who cut down Shakspeare’s mulberry tree, post, March 25, 1776]; Mary, or Molly Aston, as she was usually called, became the wife of Captain Brodie of the navy. MALONE.
[254] Luke vi. 35.
[255] If this was in 1732 it was on the morrow of the day on which he received his share of his father’s property, ante, p. 80. A letter published in Notes and Queries, 6th S. x. 421, shews that for a short time he was tutor to the son of Mr. Whitby of Heywood.
[256] Bishop Hurd does not praise Blackwall, but the Rev. Mr. Budworth, headmaster of the grammar school at Brewood, who had himself been bred under Blackwall. MALONE. Mr. Nichols relates (post, Dec. 1784) that Johnson applied for the post of assistant to Mr. Budworth.
[257] See Gent. Mag. Dec. 1784, p. 957. BOSWELL.
[258] See ante, p. 78.
[259] The patron’s manners were those of the neighbourhood. Hutton, writing of this town in 1770, says,—‘The inhabitants set their dogs at me merely because I was a stranger. Surrounded with impassable roads, no intercourse with man to humanize the mind, no commerce to smooth their rugged manners, they continue the boors of nature.’ Life, of W. Hutton, p. 45.
[260] It appears from a letter of Johnson’s to a friend, dated Lichfield, July 27, 1732, that he had left Sir Wolstan Dixie’s house recently, before that letter was written. MALONE.
[261] ‘The despicable wretchedness of teaching,’ wrote Carlyle, in his twenty-fourth year, when he was himself a teacher, ‘can be known only to those who have tried it, and to Him who made the heart and knows it all. One meets with few spectacles more afflicting than that of a young man with a free spirit, with impetuous though honourable feelings, condemned to waste the flower of his life in such a calling; to fade in it by slow and sure corrosion of discontent; and at last obscurely and unprofitably to leave, with an indignant joy, the miseries of a world which his talents might have illustrated and his virtues adorned. Such things have been and will be. But surely in that better life which good men dream of, the spirit of a Kepler or a Milton will find a more propitious destiny.’ Conway’s Carlyle, p. 176.
[262] This newspaper was the Birmingham Journal. In the office of the Birmingham Daily Post is preserved the number (No. 28) for May 21, 1733. It is believed to be the only copy in existence. Warren is described by W. Hutton (Life, p. 77) as one of the ‘three eminent booksellers’ in Birmingham in 1750. ‘His house was “over against the Swan Tavern,” in High Street; doubtless in one of the old half-timbered houses pulled down in 1838 [1850].’ Timmins’s Dr. Johnson in Birmingham, p. 4.
[263] ‘In the month of June 1733, I find him resident in the house of a person named Jarvis, at Birmingham.’ Hawkins, p. 21. His wife’s maiden name was Jarvis or Jervis.
[264] In 1741, Hutton, a runaway apprentice, arrived at Birmingham. He says,—‘I had never seen more than five towns, Nottingham, Derby, Burton, Lichfield and Walsall. The outskirts of these were composed of wretched dwellings, visibly stamped with dirt and poverty. But the buildings in the exterior of Birmingham rose in a style of elegance. Thatch, so plentiful in other places, was not to be met with in this. The people possessed a vivacity I had never beheld. I had been among dreamers, but now I saw men awake. Their very step along the street showed alacrity. Every man seemed to know what he was about. The faces of other men seemed tinctured with an idle gloom; but here with a pleasing alertness. Their appearance was strongly marked with the modes of civil life.’ Life of W. Hutton, p. 41.
[265] Hutton, in his account of the Birmingham riots of 1791, describing the destruction of a Mr. Taylor’s house, says,—‘The sons of plunder forgot that the prosperity of Birmingham was owing to a Dissenter, father to the man whose property they were destroying;’ ib. p. 181.
[266] Johnson, it should seem, did not think himself illused by Warren; for writing to Hector on April 15, 1755, he says,—‘What news of poor Warren? I have not lost all my kindness for him.’ Notes and Queries, 6th S. iii. 301.
[267] That it is by no means an exact translation Johnson’s Preface shows. He says that in the dissertations alone an exact translation has been attempted. The rest of the work he describes as an epitome.
[268] In the original, Segued.
[269] In the original, Zeila.
[270] Lobo, in describing a waterfall on the Nile, had said:—‘The fall of this mighty stream from so great a height makes a noise that may be heard to a considerable distance; but I could not observe that the neighbouring inhabitants were at all deaf. I conversed with several, and was as easily heard by them as I heard them,’ p. 101.
[271] In the original, without religion, polity, or articulate language.
[272] See Rambler, No. 103. BOSWELL. Johnson in other passages insisted on the high value of curiosity. In this same Rambler he says:—‘Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.’ In the allegory in Rambler, No. 105, he calls curiosity his ‘long-loved protectress,’ who is known by truth ‘among the most faithful of her followers.’ In No. 150 he writes:—‘Curiosity is in great and generous minds the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties.’ In No. 5 he assert that ‘he that enlarges his curiosity after the works of nature demonstrably multiplies the inlets to happiness.’
[273] Rasselas, post, 1759.
[274] Hawkins (p. 163) gives the following extract from Johnson’s Annales:—‘Friday, August 27 (1734), 10 at night. This day I have trifled away, except that I have attended the school in the morning, I read to-night in Roger’s sermoms. To-night I began the breakfast law (sic) anew.’
[275] May we not trace a fanciful similarity between Politian and Johnson? Huetius, speaking of Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius, says, ‘… in quo Natura, ut olim in Angelo Politiano, deformitarem oris excellentis ingenii præstantia compensavit.’ Comment, de reb. ad eum pertin. Edit. Amstel. 1718, p. 200. BOSWELL. In Paulus Pelissonius Fontanerius we have difficulty in detecting Mme. de Sévigné‘s friend, Pelisson, of whom M. de Guilleragues used the phrase, ‘qu’il abusait de la permission qu’ont les hommes d’être laids.’ See Mme. de Sévigné‘s Letter, 5 Jan., 1674. CROKER.
[276] The book was to contain more than thirty sheets, the price to be two shillings and sixpence at the time of subscribing, and two shillings and sixpence at the delivery of a perfect book in quires. BOSWELL. ‘Among the books in his library, at the time of his decease, I found a very old and curious edition of the works of Politian, which appeared to belong to Pembroke College, Oxford.’ HAWKINS, p. 445. See post, Nov., 1784. In his last work he shews his fondness for modern Latin poetry. He says:—‘Pope had sought for images and sentiments in a region not known to have been explored by many other of the English writers; he had consulted the modern writers of Latin poetry, a class of authors whom Boileau endeavoured to bring into contempt, and who are too generally neglected.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 299.
[277] A writer in Notes and Queries, 1st S. xii. 266, says ‘that he has a letter written by Nathanael, in which he makes mention of his brother “scarcely using him with common civility,” and says, “I believe I shall go to Georgia in about a fortnight!”’ Nathanael died in Lichfield in 1737; see post, Dec. 2, 1784, for his epitaph. Among the MSS. in Pembroke College Library are bills