not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious wish that there should be. There might, indeed, There might, indeed, be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of him, 'Sir, man who has a nation to admire him every night, may well be expected to be somewhat elated;' yet he would treat theatrical matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned one evening, 'I met David coming off the stage, dressed in a woman's riding hood, when he acted in The Wonder; I came full upon him, and I believe he was not pleased.'" [1782] The following letters require no extracts from mine to introduce them: "TO JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. "DEAR SIR, "The earnestness and tenderness of your letter is such, that I cannot think myself showing it more respect than it claims, by sitting down to answer it the day on which I received it. "This year has afflicted me with a very irksome and severe disorder. My respiration has been much impeded, and much blood has been taken away. I am now harassed by a catarrhous cough, from which my purpose is to seek relief by change of air; and I am, therefore, preparing to go to Oxford. self to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity. Poverty takes away so many means of doing good, and produces so much inability to resist evil, both natural and moral, that it is by all virtuous means to be avoided. Consider a man whose fortune is very narrow; whatever be his rank by birth, or whatever his reputation by intellectual excellence, what can he do? or what evil can he prevent? That he cannot help the needy is evident; he has nothing to spare. But, perhaps, his advice or admonition may be useful. His poverty will destroy his influence: many more can find that he is poor, than that he is wise; and few will reverence the understanding that is of so little advantage to its owner. I say nothing of the personal wretchedness of the debtor, which, however, has passed into a proverb. Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered. that he who has money to spare, has it always in his power to benefit others; and of such power a good man must always be desirous. "I am pleased with your account of Easter. We shall meet, I hope in Autumn, both well and both cheerful; and part each the better for the other's company. "Make my compliments to Mrs. Boswell, and to the young charmers. "I am, &c. "SAM JOHNSON." Whether I did right in dissuading you from coming to London this spring, I "London, June 3, 1782." will not determine. You have not lost much by missing my company; I have scarcely been well for a single week. I might have received comfort from your kindness; but you would have seen me afflicted, and, perhaps, found me peevish. Whatever might have been your pleasure or mine, I know no how I could have honestly advised you to come hither with borrowed money. Do not accustom your [1784] My readers are now, at last, to behold SAMUEL JOHNSON preparing himself for that doom, from which the most exalted powers afford no exemption to man. Death had always been to him an object of terror; so that though by no means happy, he still clung to life with an eagerness at which many have wondered. At any time when he was ill, he was very pleased to be told that he looked. better. An ingenious member of the Eumelian Club informs me, that upon one occasion, when he said to him that he saw health returning to his cheek, Johnson seized him by the hand and exclaimed, "Sir, you are one of the kindest friends I ever had." The consideration of numerous papers of which he was possessed, seems to have struck Johnson's mind, with a sudden anxiety, and as they were in great confusion, it is much to be lamented that he had not entrusted some faithful and discreet person with the care and selection of them; instead of which, he, in a precipitate manner, burnt large masses of them, with little regard, as I apprehend, to discrimination. Not that I suppose we have thus been deprived of any compositions which he had ever intended for the public eye; but from what escaped the flames, I judge that many curious circumstances relating both to himself and other literary characters, have perished. Two very valuable articles, I am sure we have lost, which were two quarto volumes, containing a full, fair, and most particular account of his own life, from his earliest recollection. I owned to him, that having accidentally seen them, I had read a great deal in them; and apologizing for the liberty I had taken, asked him. if I could help it. He placidly answered, "Why, Sir, I do not think you could have helped it." I said that I had, for once in my life, felt half an inclination to commit theft. It had come into my mind to carry off those two volumes, and never see him more. Upon my enquiring how this would have affected him, "Sir, (said he,) I believe I should have gone mad." Amidst the melancholy clouds which hung over the dying Johnson, his characteristical manner showed itself on different occasions. hoped that he was better; his answer was, "No, Sir; you cannot conceive with what acceleration I advance towards death." A man whom he had never seen before was employed one night to sit up with him. Being asked next morning how he liked his attendant, his answer was, "Not at all, Sir: the fellow's an idiot; he is as awkward as a turn-spit when first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse." Mr. Windham having placed a pillow conveniently to support him, he thanked him for his kindness, and said, "That will do, all that a pillow can do." Johnson, with that native fortitude, which, amidst all his bodily distress, and mental sufferings, never forsook him, asked Dr. Brocklesby, as a man in whom he had confidence, to tell him plainly whether he could recover. "Give me (said he) a direct answer." The Doctor having first asked him if he could bear the whole truth, which way soever it might lead, and being answered that he could, declared that, in his opinion, he could not recover without a miracle. "Then, (said Johnson,) I will take no more physic, not even my opiates: for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded." In this resolution he persevered, and, at the same time, used only the weakest kinds of sustenance. Dr. Brocklesby, who will not be suspected of fanaticism, obliged me with the following accounts: "For some time before his death, all his fears were calmed and absorbed by the prevalence of his faith, and his trust in the merits and propitiation of JESUS CHRIST." Johnson having thus in his mind the true Christian scheme, at once rational and consolatory, uniting justice and mercy in the DIVINITY, with the improvement of human nature, previous to his receiving When Dr. Warren in the usual style, the Holy Sacrament in his apartment, composed and fervently uttered his prayer: 'Almighty and most merciful Father, I am now as to human eyes, it seems, about to commemorate, for the last time, the death of thy Son JESUS CHRIST, our Saviour and Redeemer. Grant, O LORD, that my whole hope and confidence may be in his merits, and thy mercy; enforce and accept my imperfect repentance; make this commemoration available to the confirmation of my faith, the establishment of my hope, and the enlargement of my charity; and make the death of thy Son JESUS CHRIST effectual to my redemption. Have mercy upon me, and pardon the multitude of my offences. Bless my friends; have mercy upon all men. Support me, by thy Holy Spirit, in the days of weakness, and at the hour of death; and receive me, at my death, to everlasting happiness, for the sake of JESUS CHRIST. Amen." Having, as has been already mentioned, made his will on the 8th and 9th of December, and settled all his worldly affairs, he languished till Monday, the 13th of that month, when he expired, about seven o'clock in the evening, with so little apparent pain that his attendants hardly perceived when his dissolution took place. Such was SAMUEL JOHNSON, a man whose talents, acquirements, and virtues were so extraordinary, that the more his character is considered, the more he will be regarded by the present age, and by posterity, with admiration and reverence. COMEDY OF MANNERS: SHERIDAN'S THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL To understand the nature of the drama in the eighteenth century one must bear in mind that it depended for its existence upon the patronage of the beau monde of London. There were but two or three theaters in the city and members of the fashionable set could not only be sure of finding each other at the performance of a popular play but were also expected to be ready to discuss it when they met at dinner or in the drawing room. The dramatist, ambitious for success, was thus under the compulsion of suiting the tastes and prejudices of a social group in an age when strict conformity to the social code was conspicuously an element in good breeding. This code demanded in its plays the suppression of natural emotions, the limitation of dramatic situations to the experiences of the boudoir and drawing room, and the presentation of characters who were not uncouth or socially unacceptable. A pattern, once adopted, would not be changed radically, so that the dramatist tended to exercise his ingenuity in giving novel versions of more or less stereotyped themes and familiar types of characters. For this reason the comedy of manners in the eighteenth century is frequently referred to as artificial comedy. Richard Brinsley Sheridan had already one success behind him, The Rivals (1775), and some less significant plays and adaptations when he produced The School for Scandal in 1777. He had an aptitude for dramatic construction and a wit that was later to distinguish him as an orator during his career in Parliament. These, with ability to use the old forms in a new way, brought him fame as a playwright. The School for Scandal has as its object the ridiculing of a social vice through satire. The important characters are types well known to the theater goer of that day, each representing some weakness or virtue. Sheridan showed skill, however, in making the incidents of his well developed plot come about as the results of the characters' being what they were. They talk with a brilliancy that is more of the theater than of actual life, perhaps, but in the time of Chesterfield clever conversation was a genuine social ideal. The comedy has value now in picturing entertainingly certain phases of the life of a picturesque period and, in its exposure of the vice of scandal-bearing, has also that touch of universality that is independent of time and place. |