456 Sheridan's lectures on Oratory. [A.D. 1763. Speaking of one who with more than ordinary boldness attacked publick measures and the royal family, he said, 'I think he is safe from the law, but he is an abusive scoundrel; and instead of applying to my Lord Chief Justice to punish him, I would send half a dozen footmen and have him well ducked'.' 'The notion of liberty amuses the people of England, and helps to keep off the tædium vitæ. When a butcher tells you that his heart bleeds for his country, he has, in fact, no uneasy feeling.' 'Sheridan will not succeed at Bath with his oratory. Ridicule has gone down before him, and, I doubt, Derrick is his enemy'.' No. 45 of the North Briton had been published on April 23. Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant on April 30. On May 6 he was discharged from custody by the Court of Common Pleas, before which he had been brought by a writ of Habeas Corpus. A few days later he was served with a subpoena upon an information exhibited against him by the Attorney - General in the Court of King's Bench. He did not enter an appearance, holding, as he said, the serving him with the subpoena as a violation of the privilege of parliament. Parl. Hist. xv. 1360. 'Mr. Sheridan was then reading lectures upon Oratory at Bath, where Derrick was Master of the Ceremonies; or, as the phrase is, KING. BOSWELL. Dr. Parr, who knew Sheridan well, describes him 'as a wrong-headed, whimsical man.' 'I remember,' he continues, 'hearing one of his daughters, in the house where I lodged, triumphantly repeat Dryden's Ode upon St. Cecilia's Day, according to the instruction given to her by her father. Take a sample : None but the brave None but the brave None but the brave deserve the fair." Naughty Richard [R. B. Sheridan], like Gallio, seemed to care nought for these things.' Moore's Sheridan, i. 9, 11. Sheridan writing from Dublin on Dec. 7, 1771, says:—'Never was party violence carried to such a height as in this session; the House [the Irish House of Parliament] seldom breaking up till eleven or twelve at night. From these contests the desire of improving in the article of elocution is become very general. There are no less than five persons of rank and fortune now waiting my leisure to become my pupils.' Ib. p. 60. See post, July 28, 1763. 'Derrick Aetat. 54.] Boswell's first call on Johnson. 457 'Derrick may do very well, as long as he can outrun his character; but the moment his character gets up with him, it is all over.' It is, however, but just to record, that some years afterwards, when I reminded him of this sarcasm, he said, 'Well, but Derrick has now got a character that he need not run away from.' I was highly pleased with the extraordinary vigour of his conversation, and regretted that I was drawn away from it by an engagement at another place. I had, for a part of the evening, been left alone with him, and had ventured to make an observation now and then, which he received very civilly; so that I was satisfied that though there was a roughness in his manner, there was no ill-nature in his disposition. Davies followed me to the door, and when I complained to him a little of the hard blows which the great man had given me, he kindly took upon him to console me by saying, 'Don't be uneasy. I can see he likes you very well.' A few days afterwards I called on Davies, and asked him if he thought I might take the liberty of waiting on Mr. Johnson at his Chambers in the Temple. He said I certainly might, and that Mr. Johnson would take it as a compliment. So upon Tuesday the 24th of May, after having been enlivened by the witty sallies of Messieurs Thornton', Wilkes, Churchill and Lloyd', with whom I had passed the morning, ' Bonnell Thornton. See post, July 1, 1763. 2 Lloyd was one of a remarkable group of Westminster boys. He was a school-fellow not only of Churchill, the elder Colman, and Cumberland, but also of Cowper and Warren Hastings. Bonnell Thornton was a few years their senior. Not many weeks after this meeting with Boswell, Lloyd was in the Fleet prison. Churchill in Independence (Poems, ii. 310) thus addresses the Patrons of the age : 'Hence, ye vain boasters, to the Fleet repair Of the four men who thus 'enlivened' Boswell, two were dead before the end of the following year. Churchill went first. When Lloyd heard of his death, "I shall follow poor Charles," was all he said, as he went to the bed from which he never rose again.' Thornton lived I boldly 458 The Giant in his den. [A.D. 1763. I boldly repaired to Johnson. His Chambers were on the first floor of No. 1, Inner-Temple-lane, and I entered them with an impression given me by the Reverend Dr. Blair', of Edinburgh, who had been introduced to him not long before, and described his having found the Giant in his den:' an expression, which, when I came to be pretty well acquainted with Johnson, I repeated to him, and he was diverted at this picturesque account of himself. Dr. Blair had been presented to him by Dr. James Fordyce'. At this time the controversy concerning the pieces published by Mr. James Macpherson, as translations of Ossian', was at its height. Johnson had all along denied their authenticity; and, what was still more provoking to their admirers, maintained that they had no merit. The subject having been introduced by Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Blair, relying on the internal evidence of their antiquity, asked Dr. Johnson whether he thought any man of a modern age could have written such poems? Johnson replied, 'Yes, Sir, many men, many women, and many children Johnson, at this time, did not know that Dr. Blair had just published a Dissertation, not only defending their authenticity, but seriously ranking them with the poems of Homer and Virgil; and when he was afterwards informed of this circumstance, he expressed some displeasure at Dr. Fordyce's having suggested the topick, and said, 'I am not sorry that they got thus much for their pains. Sir, it was like leading one to three or four years longer. Forster's Essays, ii. 217, 270, 289. See also his Life of Goldsmith, i. 264, for an account how 'Lloyd invited Goldsmith to sup with some friends of Grub Street, and left him to pay the reckoning.' Thornton, Lloyd, Colman, Cowper, and Joseph Hill, to whom Cowper's famous Epistle was addressed, had at one time been members of the Nonsense Club. Southey's Cowper, i. 37. 'The author of the well-known sermons, see post, under Dec. 21, 1776. 'See post, under Dec. 9, 1784. See post, Feb. 7, 1775, under Dec. 24, 1783, and Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 10, 1773. 'Sir,' he said to Reynolds, ‘a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it;' post, under March 30, 1783. talk Aetat. 54.] Christopher Smart's madness. 459 talk of a book when the authour is concealed behind the door'.' He received me very courteously; but, it must be confessed, that his apartment, and furniture, and morning dress, were sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of cloaths looked very rusty; he had on a little old shrivelled unpowdered wig, which was too small for his head; his shirt-neck and knees of his breeches were loose; his black worsted stockings ill drawn up; and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. But all these slovenly particularities were forgotten the moment that he began to talk. Some gentlemen, whom I do not recollect, were sitting with him; and when they went away, I also rose; but he said to me, 'Nay, don't go.' 'Sir, (said I,) I am afraid that I intrude upon you. It is benevolent to allow me to sit and hear you.' He seemed pleased with this compliment, which I sincerely paid him, and answered, 'Sir, I am obliged to any man who visits me.' I have preserved the following short minute of what passed this day : 'Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart shewed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question.' Concerning this unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart, who was confined in a mad-house, he had, at another time, the following conversation with Dr. Burney:-BURNEY. 'How does poor Smart do, Sir; is he likely to recover?' JOHNSON. 'It seems as if his mind had ceased to struggle with the disease; for he grows fat upon it.' BURNEY. 'Perhaps, Sir, that may be from want of exercise.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; he has partly as much exercise as he used to have, for he digs in the garden. Indeed, before his confinement, he used for ''Or behind the screen' some one might have added, ante, i. 188. exercise 460 Johnson's Christianity. [A.D. 1763. exercise to walk to the ale-house; but he was carried back again. I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him'; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.'-Johnson continued. Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labour'; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.' The morality of an action depends on the motive from which we act. If I fling half a crown to a beggar with intention to break his head, and he picks it up and buys victuals with it, the physical effect is good; but, with respect to me, the action is very wrong. So, religious exercises, if not performed with an intention to please GOD, avail us nothing. As our Saviour says of those who perform them from other motives, "Verily they have their reward'." The Christian religion has very strong evidences'. It, indeed, appears in some degree strange to reason; but in History we have undoubted facts, against which, reasoning à priori, we have more arguments than we have for them; but then, testimony has great weight, and casts the balance. would recommend to every man whose faith is yet unsettled, Grotius,-Dr. Pearson,-and Dr. Clarke'.' 1 Wesley was told that a whole waggon-load of Methodists had been lately brought before a Justice of the Peace. When he asked what they were charged with, one replied, 'Why they pretended to be better than other people, and besides they prayed from morning to night.' Wesley's Journal, i. 361. See also post, 1780, near the end of Mr. Langton's Collection. The progress which the understanding makes through a book has,' he said, 'more pain than pleasure in it;' post, May 1, 1783. 'Matthew, vi. 16. Boswell, it is clear, in the early days of his acquaintance with Johnson often led the talk to this subject. See post, June 25, July 14, 21, and 28, 1763. 'See post, April 7, 1778. Talking |