[563] Tom Tyers said that Johnson ‘in one night composed, after finishing an evening in Holborn, his Hermit of Teneriffe.’ Gent. Mag. for 1784, p. 901. The high value that he set on this piece may be accounted for in his own words. ‘Many causes may vitiate a writer’s judgment of his own works…. What has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight, as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention.’ Johnson’s Works, vii. 110. He had said much the same thirty years earlier in The Rambler (No. 21).
[564] ‘On January 9 was published, long wished, another satire from Juvenal, by the author of London.’ Gent. Mag. xviii. 598, 9.
[565] Sir John Hawkins, with solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem as a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the fact is, that the poem was published on the 9th of January, and the tragedy was not acted till the 6th of the February following. BOSWELL. Hawkins perhaps implies what Boswell says that he represents; but if so, he implies it by denying it. Hawkins’s Johnson, p. 201.
[566] ‘I wrote,’ he said, ‘the first seventy lines in The Vanity of Human Wishes in the course of one morning in that small house beyond the church at Hampstead.’ Works (1787), xi. 212.
[567] See post under Feb. 15, 1766. That Johnson did not think that in hasty composition there is any great merit, is shewn by The Rambler, No. 169, entitled Labour necessary to excellence. There he describes ‘pride and indigence as the two great hasteners of modern poems.’ He continues:—‘that no other method of attaining lasting praise [than multa dies et multa litura] has been yet discovered may be conjectured from the blotted manuscripts of Milton now remaining, and from the tardy emission of Pope’s compositions.’ He made many corrections for the later editions of his poem.
[568] ‘Nov. 25, 1748. I received of Mr. Dodsley fifteen guineas, for which assign to him the right of copy of an imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, written by me; reserving to myself the right of printing one edition. SAM. JOHNSON.’
‘London, 29 June, 1786. A true copy, from the original in Dr. Johnson’s handwriting. JAS. DODSLEY. BOSWELL.
London was sold at a shilling a copy. Johnson was paid at the rate of about 9-1/2_d_. a line for this poem; for The Vanity of Human Wishes at the rate of about 10_d_. a line. Dryden by his engagement with Jacob Tonson (see Johnson’s Works, vii. 298) undertook to furnish 10,000 verses at a little over 6_d_. a verse. Goldsmith was paid for The Traveller £21, or about 11-1/2_d_. a line.
[569] He never published it. See post under Dec. 9, 1784.
[570] ‘Jan. 9, 1821. Read Johnson’s Vanity of Human Wishes,—all the examples and mode of giving them sublime, as well as the latter part, with the exception of an occasional couplet. I do not so much admire the opening. The first line, ‘Let observation,’ etc., is certainly heavy and useless. But ‘tis a grand poem—and so true!—true as the Tenth of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages changes all things—time—language— the earth—the bounds of the sea—the stars of the sky, and everything “about, around, and underneath” man, except man himself. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment.’ Byron, vol. v. p. 66. WRIGHT. Sir Walter Scott said ‘that he had more pleasure in reading London, and The Vanity of Human Wishes than any other poetical composition he could mention.’ Lockhart’s Scott, iii. 269. Mr. Lockhart adds that ‘the last line of MS. that Scott sent to the press was a quotation from The Vanity of Human Wishes.’ Of the first lines
‘Let observation with extensive view
Survey mankind from China to Peru,’
De Quincey quotes the criticism of some writer, who ‘contends with some reason that this is saying in effect:—“Let observation with extensive observation observe mankind extensively.”’ De Quincey’s Works, x. 72.
[571] From Mr. Langton. BOSWELL.
[572] In this poem one of the instances mentioned of unfortunate learned men is Lydiat:
‘Hear Lydiat’s life, and Galileo’s end.’
The history of Lydiat being little known, the following account of him may be acceptable to many of my readers. It appeared as a note in the Supplement to the Gent. Mag. for 1748, in which some passages extracted from Johnson’s poem were inserted, and it should have been added in the subsequent editions.—A very learned divine and mathematician, fellow of New College, Oxon, and Rector of Okerton, near Banbury. He wrote, among many others, a Latin treatise De Natura call, etc., in which he attacked the sentiments of Scaliger and Aristotle, not bearing to hear it urged, that some things are true in philosophy and false in divinity. He made above 600 Sermons on the harmony of the Evangelists. Being unsuccessful in publishing his works, he lay in the prison of Bocardo at Oxford, and in the King’s Bench, till Bishop Usher, Dr. Laud, Sir William Boswell, and Dr. Pink, released him by paying his debts. He petitioned King Charles I. to be sent into Ethiopia, etc., to procure MSS. Having spoken in favour of Monarchy and bishops, he was plundered by the parliament forces, and twice carried away prisoner from his rectory; and afterwards had not a shirt to shift him in three months, without he borrowed it, and died very poor in 1646. BOSWELL.
[573] Psalm xc. 12.
[574] In the original Inquirer.
[575] ‘… nonumque prematur in annum.’ Horace, Ars Poet. l. 388.
[576] ‘Of all authors,’ wrote Johnson, ‘those are the most wretched who exhibit their productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate first the manager and then the public. Many an humble visitant have I followed to the doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch the knocker with a shaking hand, and after long deliberation adventure to solicit entrance by a single knock.’ Works, v. 360.
[577] Mahomet was, in fact, played by Mr. Barry, and Demetrius by Mr. Garrick: but probably at this time the parts were not yet cast. BOSWELL.
[578] The expression used by Dr. Adams was ‘soothed.’ I should rather think the audience was awed by the extraordinary spirit and dignity of the following lines:
‘Be this at least his praise, be this his pride,
To force applause no modern arts are tried:
Should partial catcalls all his hopes confound,
He bids no trumpet quell the fatal sound;
Should welcome sleep relieve the weary wit,
He rolls no thunders o’er the drowsy pit;
No snares to captivate the judgement spreads,
Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads.
Unmov’d, though witlings sneer and rivals rail,
Studious to please, yet not asham’d to fail,
He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain,
With merit needless, and without it vain;
In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust;
Ye fops be silent, and ye wits be just!’
BOSWELL.
[579] Johnson said of Mrs. Pritchard’s playing in general that ‘it was quite mechanical;’ post, April 7, 1775. See also post under Sept. 30, 1783.
[580] ‘The strangling of Irene in the view of the audience was suggested by Mr. Garrick.’ Davies’s Garrick, i. 128. Dryden in his Essay of Dramatick Poesie (edit. 1701, i. 13), says:—‘I have observed that in all our tragedies the audience cannot forbear laughing when the actors are to die; ‘tis the most comick part of the whole play.’ ‘Suppose your Piece admitted, acted; one single ill-natured jest from the pit is sufficient to cancel all your labours.’ Goldsmith’s Present