The World's Greatest Books - Volume 9 Part 3

Then I sought a way of obtaining strength, and found it not until I embraced "that Mediator between G.o.d and Man, the Man Christ Jesus."

Eagerly did I seize that venerable writing of Thy Spirit, and chiefly the Apostle Paul. Whereupon those difficulties vanished wherein he formerly seemed to me to contradict himself and the text of his discourse not to agree with the testimonies of the Law and the Prophets.

But now they appeared to me to contain one pure and uniform doctrine; and I learned to "rejoice with trembling."

I had now found the goodly pearl, which, selling all I had, I ought to have bought, and I hesitated. To Simplicia.n.u.s [sent from Rome to be an instructor and director to Ambrose], then I went, the spiritual father of Ambrose and now a bishop, to whom I related the mazes of my wanderings. He testified his joy that I had read certain books of the Platonists and had not fallen on the writings of other deceitful philosophers. And he related to me the story of the conversion of Victoria.n.u.s, the translator of those Platonist books, who was not ashamed to become the humble little child of Thy Christ, after he had for years with thundering eloquence inspired the people with the love of Anubis, the barking deity, and all the monster G.o.ds who fought against Neptune, Venus and Minerva, so that Rome now adored the deities she had formerly conquered. But this proud wors.h.i.+pper of daemons suddenly and unexpectedly said to Simplicia.n.u.s, "Get us to the Church; I wish to be made a Christian." And he was baptised to the wonder of Rome and the joy of the Church. I was fired by this story and longed now to devote myself entirely to G.o.d, but still did my two wills, one new and the other old, one carnal and the other spiritual, struggle within me; and by their discord undid my soul.

And now Thou didst deliver me out of the bonds of desire, wherewith I was bound most straitly to carnal concupiscence, I will now declare and confess. Upon a day there came to see me and Alpius one Pont.i.tia.n.u.s, an African fellow-countryman, in high office at the Emperor's court, who was a Christian and baptised. He told us how one afternoon at Trier, when the Emperor was taken up with the circensian games, he and three companions went to walk in gardens near the city walls and lighten on a certain cottage, inhabited by certain of Thy servants, and there they found a little book containing the life of Antony. This some of them began to read and admire; and he, as he read, began to meditate on taking up such a life. By that book he was changed inwardly, as was one of his companions also. Both had affianced brides, who, when they heard of this change, also dedicated their virginity to G.o.d.

_V.--G.o.d's Command to Augustine and the Death of Monica_

After much soul-sickness and torment of spirit took place an incident by which Thou didst wholly break my chains. I was bewailing and weeping in my heart, when, lo! I heard from a neighbouring house a voice as of a boy or girl, I know not what, chanting, and oft repeating "Tolle, lege; tolle, lege" ["Take up and read; take up and read"]. Instantly I rose up, interpreting it to be no other than the voice of G.o.d, to open the Book and read the first chapter I should find. Eagerly I seized the volume of the apostle and opened and read that section on which my eyes fell first: "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the l.u.s.ts thereof." No further would I read, nor needed I, for a light as it were of serenity diffused in my heart, and all the darkness of doubt vanished away.

When shall I recall all that pa.s.sed in those holy days? The vintage-vacation I gave notice to the Milanese to provide their scholars with another master to sell words to them; for I had made my choice to serve Thee. It pleased Alypius also, when the time was come for my baptism, to be born again with me in Thee. We joined with us the boy Adeodatus, born of me, in my sin. Excellently hadst Thou made him. He was not quite fifteen, and in wit surpa.s.sed many grave and learned men.

We were baptised, and anxiety for our past life vanished from us.

The time was now approaching when Thy handmaid, my mother Monica, was to depart this life. She fell sick of a fever, and on the ninth day of that sickness, and the fifty-sixth year of her age, and the three and thirtieth of mine, was that religious and holy soul set free from the body. Being thus forsaken of so great comfort in her, my soul was wounded. Little by little the wound was healed as I recovered my former thoughts of her holy conversation towards Thee and her holy tenderness and observance towards us. May she rest in peace with her sometime husband Patricius, whom she obeyed, "with patience bringing forth fruit"

unto Thee, that she might win him also unto Thee.

This is the object of my confessions now of what I am, not of what I have been--to confess this not before Thee only, but in the ears also of the believing sons of men. Too late I loved Thee! Thou wast with me, but I was not with Thee. And now my whole hope is in nothing but Thy great mercy. Since Thou gavest me continency I have observed it; but I retain the memory of evil habits, and their images come up oft before me. And Thou hast taught me concerning eating and drinking, that I should set myself to take food as medicine. I strive daily against concupiscence in eating and drinking. Thou hast disentangled me from the delights of the ear and from the l.u.s.ts of the eye. Into many snares of the senses my mind wanders miserably, but Thou pluckest me out mercifully. By pride, vainglory, and love of praise I am tempted, but I seek Thy mercy till what is lacking in me by Thee be renewed and perfected. Thou knowest my unskillfulness; teach me the wondrous things out of Thy law and heal me.

JAMES BOSWELL

The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

James Boswell, born on October 18, 1740, was the son of Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck, better known as Lord Auchinleck, one of the senators of the College of Justice, or Supreme Court, of Scotland. Boswell was educated at Edinburgh and Utrecht universities, and was called both to the Scots and the English Bar. He was early interested in letters, and while still a student, published some poems and magazine articles.

Boswell was introduced to Dr. Johnson on May 16, 1763. The friends.h.i.+p rapidly ripened, and from 1772 to the death of the ill.u.s.trious moralist, was unbroken. As an introduction to "The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D."--perhaps the greatest of all biographies--we can hardly do better than use the words of the biographer himself. "To write the life of him who excelled all mankind in writing the lives of others, and who, whether we consider his extraordinary endowments or his various works, has been equalled by few in any age, is an arduous, and may be reckoned in me a presumptuous, task. But as I had the honour and happiness of enjoying Dr. Johnson's friends.h.i.+p for upwards of twenty years; as I had the scheme of writing his life constantly in view; as he was well apprised of this circ.u.mstance, and from time to time obligingly satisfied my inquiries by communicating to me the incidents of his early years; and as I have spared no pains in obtaining materials concerning him, I flatter myself that few biographers have entered upon such a work as this with more advantages, independent of literary abilities, in which I am not vain enough to compare myself with some great names who have gone before me in this kind of writing." The "Life" was a signal success at the time of its publication, and even yet is unrivalled in the field of biography. Boswell latterly resided permanently in London, and was proprietor of, and princ.i.p.al contributor to, the "London Magazine". He died in his house in Great Portland Street on May 19, 1795.

_I.--Parentage and Education_

Samuel Johnson was born at Lichfield, in Staffords.h.i.+re, on September 18,1709, and was baptised on the day of his birth. His father was Michael Johnson, a native of Derbys.h.i.+re, of obscure extraction, who settled in Lichfield as a bookseller and stationer. His mother was Sarah Ford, descended of an ancient race of substantial yeomanry in Warwicks.h.i.+re. They were well advanced in years when they were married, and never had more than two children, both sons--Samuel, their first born, whose various excellences I am to endeavour to record, and Nathaniel, who died in his twenty-fifth year.

Mr. Michael Johnson was a man of a large and robust body, and of a strong and active mind; yet there was in him a mixture of that disease the nature of which eludes the most minute inquiry, though the effects are well known to be a weariness of life, an unconcern about those things which agitate the greater part of mankind, and a general sensation of gloomy wretchedness. From him, then, his son inherited, with some other qualities, "a vile melancholy," which, in his too strong expression of any disturbance of the mind, "made him mad all his life--at least, not sober." Old Mr. Johnson was a pretty good Latin scholar, and a citizen so creditable as to be made one of the magistrates of Lichfield; and, being a man of good sense and skill in his trade, he acquired a reasonable share of wealth, of which, however, he afterwards lost the greatest part, by engaging unsuccessfully in a manufacture of parchment.

Young Johnson had the misfortune to be much afflicted with the scrofula, or king's evil, which disfigured a countenance naturally well formed, and hurt his visual nerves so much that he did not see at all with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different from that of the other. Yet, when he and I were travelling in the Highlands of Scotland, and I pointed out to him a mountain, which, I observed, resembled a cone, he corrected my inaccuracy by showing me that it was indeed pointed at the top, but that one side of it was larger than the other.

And the ladies with whom he was acquainted agree that no man was more nicely and minutely critical in the elegance of female dress.

He was first taught to read English by Dame Oliver, a widow, who kept a school for young children in Lichfield. He began to learn Latin with Mr.

Hawkins, usher, or under-master, of Lichfield School. Then he rose to be under the care of Mr. Hunter, the head-master, who, according to his account "was very severe, and wrong-headedly severe. He used," said he, "to beat us unmercifully, and he did not distinguish between ignorance and negligence." Yet Johnson was very sensible how much he owed to Mr.

Hunter. Mr. Langton one day asked him how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge of Latin, in which, I believe, he was exceeded by no man of his time. He said, "My master whipped me very well. Without that, sir, I should have done nothing." Indeed, upon all occasions, he expressed his approbation of enforcing instruction by means of the rod. "The rod,"

said he, "produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on't; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief."

From his earliest years Johnson's superiority was perceived and acknowledged. He was from the beginning a king of men. His schoolfellow, Mr. Hector, has a.s.sured me that he never knew him corrected at school but for talking and diverting other boys from their business. He seemed to learn by intuition; for though indolence and procrastination were inherent in his const.i.tution, whenever he made an exertion he did more than anyone else. He was uncommonly inquisitive; and his memory was so tenacious that he never forgot anything that he either heard or read.

Mr. Hector remembers having recited to him eighteen verses, which, after a little pause, he repeated _verbatim_.

He never joined with the other boys in their ordinary diversions, for his defective sight prevented him from enjoying them; and he once pleasantly remarked to me "how wonderfully well he had contrived to be idle without them." Of this inertness of disposition Johnson had all his life too great a share.

After having resided for some time at the house of his uncle, Cornelius Ford, Johnson was, at the age of fifteen, removed to the school of Stourbridge, in Worcesters.h.i.+re, of which Mr. Wentworth was then master.

At this school he did not receive so much benefit as was expected, and remaining there little more than a year, returned home, where he may be said to have loitered for two years. He had no settled plan of life, and though he read a great deal in a desultory manner, he read only as chance and inclination directed him. "What I read," he told me, "were not voyages and travels, but all literature, sir, all ancient writers, all manly; though but little Greek, only some of Anacreon and Hesiod.

But in this irregular manner I had looked into many books which were not known at the universities, where they seldom read any books but what are put into their hands by their tutors; so that when I came to Oxford, Dr.

Adams, now Master of Pembroke College, told me I was the best qualified for the university that he had ever known come there."

_II--Marriage and Settlement in London_

Compelled by his father's straitened circ.u.mstances, Johnson left Pembroke College in the autumn of 1731, without taking a degree, having been a member of it little more than three years. In December of this year his father died.

In this forlorn state of his circ.u.mstances, he accepted an offer to be employed as usher in the school of Market Bosworth, in Leicesters.h.i.+re.

But he was strongly averse to the painful drudgery of teaching, and, having quarrelled with Sir Wolstan Dixie, the patron of the school, he relinquished after a few months a situation which all his life afterwards he recollected with the strongest aversion and even a degree of horror. Among the acquaintances he made at this period was Mr.

Porter, a mercer at Birmingham, whose widow he afterwards married. In what manner he employed his pen in 1733 I have not been able to ascertain. He probably got a little money for occasional work, and it is certain that he was occupied about this time in the translation of Lobo's "Voyage to Abyssinia," which was published in 1735, and brought him five guineas from this same bookseller. It is reasonable to suppose that his rendering of Lobo's work was the remote occasion of his writing, many years after, his admirable philosophical tale, "Ra.s.selas, Prince of Abyssinia."

Miss Porter told me that when Mr. Johnson 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."

Though Mrs. Porter, now a widow, was double the age of Johnson, 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 ordinary pa.s.sion. The marriage took place at Derby, on July 9, 1736.

He now set up a private academy, for which purpose he hired a large house well situated near his native city. In the "Gentleman's Magazine"

for 1736 there is the following advertis.e.m.e.nt:

"At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffords.h.i.+re, young gentlemen are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by SAMUEL JOHNSON."

But the only pupils that were put under his care were the celebrated David Garrick and his brother George, and a Mr. Offely, a young gentleman of fortune, who died early.

Johnson, indeed, was not more satisfied with his situation as the master of an academy than with that of the usher of a school; we need not wonder, therefore, that he did not keep his academy more than a year and a half. From Mr. Garrick's account he did not appear to have been profoundly reverenced by his pupils. His oddities of manner and uncouth gesticulations could not but be the subject of merriment to them; and in particular, the young rogues used to turn into ridicule his awkward fondness for Mrs. Johnson, whom he used to name by the familiar appellation of Tetty or Tetsey, which, like Betty or Betsey, is provincially used as a contraction for Elizabeth, her Christian name, but which to us seems ludicrous when applied to a woman of her age and appearance. Mr. Garrick described her to me as very fat, with swelled cheeks of a florid red produced by thick painting, and increased by the liberal use of cordials; flaring and fantastic in her dress, and affected both in her speech and her general behaviour.

While Johnson kept his academy, I have not discovered that he wrote anything except a great portion of his tragedy of "Irene." When he had finished some part of it, he read what he had done to his friend, Mr.

Gilbert Walmsley, Registrar of the Prerogative Court of Lichfield, who was so well pleased with this proof of Johnson's abilities as a dramatic writer that he advised him to finish the tragedy and produce it on the stage. Accordingly, Johnson and his friend and pupil, David Garrick, went to try their fortunes in London in 1737, the former with the hopes of getting work as a translator and of turning out a fine tragedy-writer, the latter with the intention of completing his education, and of following the profession of the law. How, indeed, Johnson employed himself upon his first coming to London is not particularly known. His tragedy, of which he had entertained such hopes, was submitted to Mr. Fleetwood, the patentee of Drury Lane Theatre, and rejected.

_III.--Poverty Stricken in London_

Johnson's first performance in the "Gentleman's Magazine," which for many years was his princ.i.p.al source of employment and support, was a copy of Latin verses, in March, 1738, addressed to the editor. He was now enlisted by Mr. Cave, as a regular coadjutor in his magazine, by which he probably obtained a tolerable livelihood. What we certainly know to have been done by him in this way were the debates in both Houses of Parliament, under the name of "The Senate of Lilliput."

Thus was Johnson employed during some of the best years of his life, solely to obtain an honest support. But what first displayed his transcendent powers, and "gave the world a.s.surance of the Man," was his "London, a Poem in Imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal," which came out in May this year (1738), and burst forth with a splendour the rays of which will forever encircle his name.

But though thus elevated into fame, Johnson could not expect to produce many such works as his "London," and he felt the hards.h.i.+ps of writing for bread. He was therefore willing to resume the office of a schoolmaster, and, an offer being made to him of the masters.h.i.+p of a school, provided he could obtain the degree of Master of Arts, Dr. Adams was applied to by a common friend to know whether that could be granted to him as a favour from the university of Oxford. But it was then thought too great a favour to be asked.

During the next five years, 1739-1743, Johnson wrote largely for the "Gentleman's Magazine," and supplied the account of the Parliamentary Debates from November 19, 1740, to February 23, 1743, inclusive. It does not appear that he wrote anything of importance for the magazine in 1744. But he produced one work this year, fully sufficient to maintain the high reputation which he had acquired. This was "The Life of Richard Savage," a man of whom it is difficult to speak impartially without wondering that he was for some time the intimate companion of Johnson; for his character was marked by profligacy, insolence, and ingrat.i.tude; yet, as he undoubtedly had a warm and vigorous, though unregulated mind, had seen life in all its varieties, and been much in the company of the statesmen and wits of his time, he could communicate to Johnson an abundant supply of such materials as his philosophical curiosity most eagerly desired; and so his visits to St. John's Gate--the office of the "Gentleman's Magazine"--naturally brought Johnson and him together.