chap, xi. His step-daughter, Miss Porter, though for many years she was well off, had never been to London. Post, March 23, 1776. Nay, according to Horace Walpole (Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 327), ‘George III. had never seen the sea, nor ever been thirty miles from London at the age of thirty-four.’
[1019] For the letters written at this time by Johnson to his mother and Miss Porter, see Appendix B.
[1020] Rasselas was published in two volumes, duodecimo, and was sold for five shillings. It was reviewed in the Gent. Mag. for April, and was no doubt published in that month. In a letter to Miss Porter dated March 23, 1759 (See Appendix), Johnson says:—‘I am going to publish a little story-book, which I will send you when it is out.’ I may here remark that the Gent. Mag. was published at the end of the month, or even later. Thus the number for April, 1759, contains news as late as April 30. The name Rasselas Johnson got from Lobo’s Voyage to Abyssinia. On p. 102 of that book he mentions ‘Rassela Christos, Lieutenant-General to _Abysinia; Sultan Segued.’ On p. 262 he explains the meaning of the first part of the word:—‘There is now a Generalissimo established under the title of Ras, or Chief.’ The title still exists. Colonel Gordon mentions Ras Arya and Ras Aloula. The Rev. W. West, in his Introduction to Rasselas, p. xxxi (Sampson Low and Co.), says:—‘The word Ras, which is common to the Amharic, Arabic, and Hebrew tongues, signifies a head, and hence a prince, chief, or captain…. Sela Christos means either “Picture of Christ,” or “For the sake of Christ.”’
[1021] Hawkins’s Johnson, p. 367.
[1022] See post, June 2, 1781. Finding it then accidentally in a chaise with Mr. Boswell, he read it eagerly. This was doubtless long after his declaration to Sir Joshua Reynolds. MALONE.
[1023] Baretti told Malone that ‘Johnson insisted on part of the money being paid immediately, and accordingly received £70. Any other person with the degree of reputation he then possessed would have got £400 for that work, but he never understood the art of making the most of his productions.’ Prior’s Malone, p. 160. Some of the other circumstances there related by Baretti are not correct.
[1024] Hawkesworth received £6000 for his revision of Cook’s Voyages; post, May 7, 1773.
[1025] See post, March 4, 1773.
[1026] Ecclesiastes, i. 14.
[1027] See post, May 16, 1778. It should seem that Candide was published in the latter half of February 1759. Grimm in his letter of March 1, speaks of its having just appeared. ‘M. de Voltaire vient de nous égayer par un petit roman.’ He does not mention it in his previous letter of Feb. 15. Grimm, Carres. Lit. (edit. 1829), ii. 296. Johnson’s letter to Miss Porter, quoted in the Appendix, shows that Rasselas was written before March 23; how much earlier cannot be known. Candide is in the May list of books in the Gent. Mag. (pp. 233-5), price 2_s_. 6_d_., and with it two translations, each price 1_s_. 6_d_.
[1028] See post, June 13, 1763.
[1029] In the original,—‘which, perhaps, prevails.’ Rasselas, ch. xxxi.
[1030] This is the second time that Boswell puts ‘morbid melancholy’ in quotation marks (ante, p. 63). Perhaps he refers to a passage in Hawkins’s Johnson (p. 287), where the author speaks of Johnson’s melancholy as ‘this morbid affection, as he was used to call it.’
[1031] ‘Perfect through sufferings.’ Hebrews, ii. 10.
[1032] Perhaps the reference is to the conclusion of Le Monde comme il va:—‘Il résolut … de laisser aller le monde comme il va; car, dit il, si tout riest pas bien, tout est passable.’
[1033] Gray, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College.
[1034] Johnson writing to Mrs. Thrale said:—’Vivite lacti is one of the great rules of health.’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 55. ‘It was the motto of a bishop very eminent for his piety and good works in King Charles the Second’s reign, Inservi Deo et laetare—“Serve God and be cheerful.”’ Addison’s Freeholder, No. 45.
[1035] Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.
[1036] This paper was in such high estimation before it was collected into volumes, that it was seized on with avidity by various publishers of newspapers and magazines, to enrich their publications. Johnson, to put a stop to this unfair proceeding, wrote for the Universal Chronicle the following advertisement; in which there is, perhaps, more pomp of words than the occasion demanded:
‘London, January 5, 1759. ADVERTISEMENT. The proprietors of the paper intitled The Idler, having found that those essays are inserted in the newspapers and magazines with so little regard to justice or decency, that the Universal Chronicle, in which they first appear, is not always mentioned, think it necessary to declare to the publishers of those collections, that however patiently they have hitherto endured these injuries, made yet more injurious by contempt, they have now determined to endure them no longer. They have already seen essays, for which a very large price is paid, transferred, with the most shameless rapacity, into the weekly or monthly compilations, and their right, at least for the present, alienated from them, before they could themselves be said to enjoy it. But they would not willingly be thought to want tenderness, even for men by whom no tenderness hath been shewn. The past is without remedy, and shall be without resentment. But those who have been thus busy with their sickles in the fields of their neighbours, are henceforward to take notice, that the time of impunity is at an end. Whoever shall, without our leave, lay the hand of rapine upon our papers, is to expect that we shall vindicate our due, by the means which justice prescribes, and which are warranted by the immemorial prescriptions of honourable trade. We shall lay hold, in our turn, on their copies, degrade them from the pomp of wide margin and diffuse typography, contract them into a narrow space, and sell them at an humble price; yet not with a view of growing rich by confiscations, for we think not much better of money got by punishment than by crimes. We shall, therefore, when our losses are repaid, give what profit shall remain to the Magdalens; for we know not who can be more properly taxed for the support of penitent prostitutes, than prostitutes in whom there yet appears neither penitence nor shame.’ BOSWELL.
[1037] I think that this letter belongs to a later date, probably to 1765 or 1766. As we learn, post, April 10, 1776, Simpson was a barrister ‘who fell into a dissipated course of life.’ On July 2, 1765, Johnson records that he repaid him ten guineas which he had borrowed in the lifetime of Mrs. Johnson (his wife). He also lent him ten guineas more. If it was in 1759 that Simpson was troubled by small debts, it is most unlikely that Johnson let six years more pass without repaying him a loan which even then was at least of seven years’ standing. Moreover, in this letter Johnson writes:—‘I have been invited, or have invited myself, to several parts of the kingdom.’ The only visits, it seems, that he paid between 1754-1762 were to Oxford in 1759 and to Lichfield in the winter of 1761-2. After 1762, when his pension gave him means, he travelled frequently. Besides all this, he says of his step-daughter:— ‘I will not incommode my dear Lucy by coming to Lichfield, while her present lodging is of any use to her.’ Miss Porter seems to have lived in his house till she had built one for herself. Though his letter to her of Jan. 10, 1764 (Croker’s Boswell, p. 163), shews that it was then building, yet she had not left his house on Jan. 14, 1766 (ib. p. 173).
‘To JOSEPH SIMPSON, ESQ.
‘DEAR SIR,
‘Your father’s inexorability not only grieves but amazes me[1038]: he is your father; he was always accounted a wise man; nor do I remember any thing to the disadvantage of his good-nature; but in his refusal to assist you there is neither good-nature, fatherhood, nor wisdom. It is the practice of good-nature to overlook faults which have already, by the consequences, punished the delinquent. It is natural for a father to think more favourably than others of his children; and it is always wise to give assistance while a little help will prevent the necessity of greater.