is preserved the following letter from him to Mr. Edward Cave, the original compiler and editor of the Gentleman's Magazine. TO MR. CAVE. Nov. 25, 1734. "SIR,-As you appear no less sensible than your readers of the defects of your poetical article, you will not be displeased, if, in order to the improvement of it, I communicate to you the sentiments of a person who will undertake, on reasonable terms, sometimes to fill a column. "His opinion is, that the publick would not give you a bad reception, if, beside the current wit of the month, which a critical examination would generally reduce to a narrow compass, you admitted not only poems, inscriptions, etc. never printed before, which he will sometimes supply you with; but likewise short literary dissertations in Latin or English, critical remarks on authors, ancient or modern, forgotten poems that deserve revival, or loose pieces, like Floyer's, worth preserving. By this method, your literary article, for so it might be called, will, he thinks, be better recommended to the publick than by low jests, awkward buffoonery, or the dull scurrilities of either party. "If such a correspondence will be agreeable to you, be pleased to inform me in two posts, what the conditions are on which you shall expect it. Your late offer gives me no reason to distrust your generosity. If you engage in any literary projects besides this paper, I have other designs to impart, if I could be secure from having others reap the advantage of what I should hint. f Miss Cave, the grandniece of Mr. Edw. Cave, has obligingly shown me the originals of this and the other letters of Dr. Johnson to him, which were first published in the Gentleman's Magazine, with notes by Mr. John Nichols, the worthy and indefatigable editor of that valuable miscellany, signed N.; some of which I shall occasionally transcribe in the course of this work.BOSWELL. Sir John Floyer's Treatise on Cold Baths. GENT. MAG. 1734, p. 197. A prize of fifty pounds for the best poem on Life, Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. See Gentleman's Magazine, vol. iv. p. 560.-NICHOLS. "Your letter, by being directed to S. Smith, to be left at the Castle in Birmingham, Warwickshire, will reach "Your humble servant." Mr. Cave has put a note on this letter, "Answered Dec. 2." But whether any thing was done in consequence of it, we are not informed. Johnson had, from his early youth, been sensible to the influence of female charms. When at Stourbridge school, he was much enamoured of Olivia Lloyd, a young quaker, to whom he wrote a copy of verses, which I have not been able to recoveri; but with what facility and elegance he could warble the amorous lay, will appear from the following lines, which he wrote for his friend Mr. Edmund Hector. Verses to a Lady, on receiving from her a Sprig of Myrtle. What hopes, what terrours does thy gift create, The unhappy lover's grave the myrtle spreads: From some papers of the late Mr. Malone's, which the editor of the present edition purchased at. the Boswell sale in the spring of the year 1825, it appears that Johnson wrote some love verses entitled, "To Miss Hickman playing on the Spinet," before he left Staffordshire, and which seem to have escaped Boswell's researches. Dr. Turton, a physician, the son of Miss Hickman, gave his testimony to their being Dr. Johnson's composition, by a note on the back of the original copy, in the author's own handwriting, in Mr. Malone's possession. As Dr. Turton was born in 1735, the verses in question must have been written before his mother's marriage. They consist of twenty vigorous and spirited lines, and may be found in vol. i. p. 136, of Johnson's Works. -ED. O then the meaning of thy gift impart, And ease the throbbings of an anxious heart! * Mrs. Piozzi gives the following account of this little composition, from Dr. Johnson's own relation to her, on her inquiring whether it was rightly attributed to him." I think it is now just forty years ago, that a young fellow had a sprig of myrtle given him by a girl he courted, and asked me to write him some verses that he might present her in return. I promised, but forgot; and when he called for his lines at the time agreed on-Sit still a moment, says I, dear Mund, and I'll fetch them thee—so stepped aside for five minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such a stir about." Anecdotes, p. 34. In my first edition I was induced to doubt the authenticity of this account, by the following circumstantial statement in a letter to me from Miss Seward, of Lichfield: "I know those verses were addressed to Lucy Porter, when he was enamoured of her in his boyish days, two or three years before he had seen her mother, his future wife. He wrote them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my mother, to whom he showed them on the instant. She used to repeat them to me, when I asked her for the verses Dr. Johnson gave her on a sprig of myrtle, which he had stolen or begged from her bosom. We all know honest Lucy Porter to have been incapable of the mean vanity of applying to herself a compliment not intended for her." Such was this lady's statement, which, I make no doubt, she supposed to be correct: but it shows how dangerous it is to trust too implicitly to traditional testimony and ingenious inference; for Mr. Hector has lately assured me that Mrs. Piozzi's account is in this instance accurate, and that he was the person for whom Johnson wrote those verses, which have been erroneously ascribed to Mr. Hammond. I am obliged in so many instances to notice Mrs. Piozzi's incorrectness of relation, that I gladly seize this opportunity of acknowledging that, however often, she is not always inaccurate. The author having been drawn into a controversy with Miss Anna Seward, in consequence of the preceding statement, (which may be found in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. Ixiii. and Ixiv.) received the following letter from Mr. Edmund Hector, on the subject. “DEAR SIR,—I am sorry to see you are engaged in altercation with a lady, who seems unwilling to be convinced of her errours. Surely it would be more ingenuous to acknowledge than to persevere. Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the original manuscript of the myrtle, with the date on it, 1731, which I have enclosed. "The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows: Mr. Morgan Graves, the elder brother of a worthy clergyman near Bath, with whom I was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, who at parting presented him the branch. He showed it me, and wished much to return the compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend. "I most solemnly declare, at that time Johnson was an entire stranger to His juvenile attachments to the fair sex were, however, very transient: and it is certain, that he formed no criminal connexion whatsoever. Mr. Hector, who lived with him in his younger days in the utmost intimacy and social freedom, has assured me, that even at that ardent season his conduct was strictly virtuous in that respect; and that though he loved to exhilarate himself with wine, he never knew him intoxicated but once. In a man whom religious education has secured from licentious indulgences, the passion of love, when once it has seized him, is exceedingly strong; being unimpaired by dissipation, and totally concentrated in one object. This was experienced by Johnson, when he became the fervent admirer of Mrs. Porter, after her first husband's death'. Miss Porter told me, that when he was first introduced to her mother, his appearance was very forbidding; he was then lean and lank, so that his immense structure of bones was hideously striking to the eye, and the scars of the scrofula were deeply visible. He also wore his hair, which was straight and stiff, and separated behind and he often had, seemingly, convulsive starts and odd gesticulations, which tended to excite at once surprise and ridicule. Mrs. Porter was so much engaged by his conversation, that she overlooked all these external disadvantages, and said to her daughter, "This is the most sensible man that I ever saw in my life." : the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my clothes of. "If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, and to exhibit to the publick the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use you please of this statement. 66 you I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing 'multos et felices annos,' I shall subscribe myself "Your obliged humble servant, "E. HECTOR." BOSWELL. 66 Birmingham, Jan. 9th, 1794." 1 It appears from Mr. Hector's letter, that Johnson became acquainted with her three years before he married her.-MALONE. Though Mrs. Porter was double the age of JohnsonTM, and her person and manner, as described to me by the late Mr. Garrick, were by no means pleasing to others", she must have had a superiority of understanding and talents, as she certainly inspired him with a more than or m Mrs. Johnson's maiden name was Jervis.-Though there was a great disparity of years between her and Dr. Johnson, she was not quite so old as she is here represented, having only completed her forty-eighth year in the month of February preceding her marriage, as appears by the following extract from the parish register of Great Peatling, in Leicestershire, made at Mr. Malone's request, by the hon. and rev. Mr. Ryder, rector of Lutterworth, in that county: "Anno Dom. 1688-[89] Elizabeth, the daughter of William Jervis, esq. and Mrs. Anne his wife, born the fourth day of February and mané, baptized 16th day of the same month by Mr. Smith, curate of Little Peatling. "John Allen, vicar." The family of Jervis, Mr. Ryder informed Malone, once possessed nearly the whole lordship of Great Peatling, about two thousand acres, and there are many monuments of them in the church; but the estate is now much reduced. The present representative of this ancient family is Mr. Charles Jervis, of Hinckley, attorney-at-law.-ED. n Dr. Johnson, however, celebrated the beauty of his wife in her epitaph composed nearly twenty years after this period. Personal beauty is of all subjects the most legitimate one for individual taste; and according to her admiring husband, Mrs. Johnson was formosa, culta, ingeniosa, pia. See her epitaph at length in a subsequent page of these memoirs under the year 1752.—ED. • The following account of Mrs. Johnson and her family, is copied from a paper chiefly relating to Mrs. Anna Williams, written by lady Knight, at Rome, and transmitted by her to the late John Hoole, esq. the translator of Metastasio, etc. by whom it was inserted in the European Magazine for October, 1799. "Mrs. Williams's account of Mrs. Johnson was, that she had a good understanding and great sensibility, but inclined to be satirical. Her first husband died insolvent; her sons were much disgusted with her for her second marriage, perhaps because they, being struggling to get advanced in life, were mortified to think she had allied herself to a man who had not any visible means of being useful to them; however, she always retained her affection for them. While they (Dr. and Mrs. Johnson) resided in Gough-square, her son, the officer, knocked at the door, and asked the maid if her mistress was at home. She answered, 'Yes, sir; but she is sick in bed.' 'O,' says he,' if it's so, tell her that her son Jervis called to know how she did;' and was going away. The maid begged she might run up to tell her mistress; and without attending his answer, left him. Mrs. Johnson, enraptured to hear her son was below, desired the maid to tell him she longed to embrace him. When the maid descended, the gentleman was gone, and poor Mrs. Johnson was much agitated by the adventure: it was the only time he ever made an effort to see her. |