Deformities of Samuel Johnson, Selected from his Works Part 2

When a boy peruses a book with pleasure, his admiration riseth immediately from the work to its author. His fancy fondly ranks his favourite with the wise, and the virtuous. He glows with a lover's impatience, to reach the presence of this _superior being_, to drink of science at the fountain-head, to complete his ideas at once, and riot in all the luxuries of learning.

The novice unhappily presumes, that men who command the pa.s.sions of others cannot be slaves to their own: That a historian must feel the worth of justice and tenderness, while he tells us, how kings and conquerors are commonly the burden and the curse of society: That an a.s.sertor of public freedom will never become the dupe of flattery, and the pimp of oppression: That the founder of a system cannot want words to explain it: _That_ the compiler of a _dictionary_ has at least a common degree of knowledge: _That_ an inventor of _new_ terms can tell what they mean: _That_ he, who refines and fixes the language of empires, is able to converse, without the pertness of a pedant, or the vulgarity of a porter: _That_ a preacher of morality will blush to persist in vindictive, deliberate, and detected falsehoods: _That_ he who totters on the brink of eternity will speak with caution and humanity of the dead: And _that_ a traveller, who pretends to veracity, dares not avow contradictions.

But in learning, as in life, much of our happiness flows from deception.

Ignorance, the parent of wonder, is often the parent of esteem and love.

While devouring Horace we venerate the Deserter of Brutus, and the Slave of Caesar. Transported by his sublime eloquence, the reader of Cicero forgets that Cicero himself was a plagiarist and a coward: That Rome was but a den of robbers: That Cataline resembled the rest; and that this rebel was only revenging the blood of butchered nations, of Samnium, of Epirus, of Carthage, and of--HANNIBAL.

'The laurels which human praise confers are withered and blasted by the unworthiness of those who wear them.' There is often a curious contrast between an author and his books. The mildest, the politest, the wisest, and the most _worthy_ man alive, pens five hundred pages to display the pleasures of friends.h.i.+p and the beauties of benevolence; but alas! he is a theorist only, for his sympathy never cost him a s.h.i.+lling. A party-tool talks of public spirit. A pedant commands our tears. A pensioner inveighs against pensions; and a bankrupt preaches public oeconomy. The philosopher quotes Horace, while he defrauds his valet.

A mimick of Richardson, is a domestic tyrant: A Sydenham, the rendezvous of diseases: A declaimer against envy, of all men the most invidious.

The satirist has not a reformer's virtues. The poet of love and friends.h.i.+p is without a mistress, or a friend; while a time-server celebrates the valour of heroes, and exults in the _freedom_ of England.

Like Penelope, most writers employ part of their time to undo the labours of the rest. Judging by their lives one would think it were their chief study to render learning ridiculous. We lose all respect for teachers, who, when the lesson is ended, are 'no wiser or better than common men.' To be convinced that books are trifles, let us only remark how little good they do, and how little those, who love them, love each other. The monopolists of literary fame, for the most part, regard a rival as an enemy. Their mutual hostilities, like those of aquatick animals, are unavoidable and constant; and their voracity differs from that of the shark, but as a half-devoured carcase, from a murdered reputation. The existence of many books depends on the ruin of some of the rest; yet, with our _English Dictionary_, a few _immortal_ compositions are to live unwounded by the shafts of envy, and to descend in a torrent of applause from one century to another. A thousand of their critics will exist and be forgotten; a thousand of their imitators will sink into contempt; but THEY shall defy the force of time; continue to flourish thro' every _fas.h.i.+on_ of philosophy, and, like Egyptian pyramids, perish but in the ruins of the globe.

DEFORMITIES, &c.

In the number of men who dishonour their own genius, ought to be ranked Dr Samuel Johnson; for his abilities and learning are not accompanied by candour and generosity. His life of Pomfret concludes with this maxim, that 'he who pleases many, must have merit;' yet, in defiance of his own rule, the Doctor has, a thousand times, attempted to prove, that they who please many, have _no_ merit. His invidious and revengeful remark on Chesterfield, would have disgraced any other man. He said, and n.o.body but himself would have said it, that Churchill was a shallow fellow. And he once told some of his admirers, that SWIFT was a _shallow_, a _very shallow_ fellow: reminding us of the Lilliputian who drew _his_ bow to Gulliver[3]. For the memory of this man, who may be cla.s.sed with Cato and Phocion, the Doctor feels no tenderness or respect. And for that[4], and other critical blasphemies, he has undergone innumerable floggings.

No writer of this nation has made more noise. None has discovered more contempt for other men's reputations, or more confidence in his own. I would humbly submit a few hints for his improvement, if he be not 'too old to learn.' And, whatever freedoms I take, the Doctor himself may be quoted as a precedent for insolent invective, and brutal reproach. He has told us[5], that 'the two lowest of all human beings are, a scribbler for a party, and a commissioner of excise.' This very man was himself the hired scribbler of a party; and why should a commissioner of excise be one of the meanest of mankind? In the preface to his octavo Dictionary, the Doctor affirms, that, 'by the labours of all his predecessors, not even the _lowest_ expectation can be gratified.' The author of a revisal of Shakespeare[6] attacks (he says) with '_gloomy malignity_, as if he were dragging to justice an a.s.sa.s.sin or incendiary.

He bites like a viper, and would be glad to leave inflammations and gangrene behind him.' For this shocking language, which could have been answered by nothing but a blow, the _primum mobile_, perhaps, was, that the critic had dedicated his book to Lord Kaims, (a Scotsman, and another very _shallow_ fellow) 'as the truest judge, and most intelligent admirer of Shakespeare.'

His treatment of Colley Cibber is, if possible, worse. That great ornament of the stage was a man of genius, at least equal to Dr Johnson--but they had a quarrel, and though Cibber has been more than twenty years buried, the Doctor, in his life of Pope, studies to revenge it. His expressions are gross. 'In the Dunciad, among other _worthless_ scribblers he (Pope) had mentioned _Cibber_. The dishonour of being shewn as _Cibber's_ antagonist could never be compensated by the victory. _Cibber_ had nothing to lose--The shafts of satire were directed in vain against _Cibber_, being repelled by the impenetrable impudence,' &c.[7] We have been deafened about the Doctor's private virtues; of which these pa.s.sages are a very poor evidence.

It is believed by some, that Dr Johnson's _admirable_ Dictionary is the most capital monument of human genius; that the studies of Archimedes and Newton are but like a feather in the scale with this amazing work; that he has given our language a stability, which, without him, it had never known; that he has performed alone, what, in other nations, whole academies fail to perform; and that as the fruit of _his_ learning and sagacity, our compositions will be cla.s.sical and immortal. This may be true; but the book displays many proofs or his _ill-nature_, and evinces what I want to insist on, viz. that _he who despises politeness cannot deserve it_. For his seditious and impudent definitions[8] he would, in Queen Anne's reign, have had a fair chance of mounting the pillory.

Hume, Smith, and Chesterfield may be quoted to prove, that Walpole and Excise were improper objects of execration; but an _emanation_ of royal munificence has, of late, relaxed the Doctor's _frigorific_ virtue; and, in his _False Alarm_, he affirms, that our government approaches nearer to perfection, _than any other that fiction has feigned, or history recorded_. This is going pretty far; but the peevish, though _incorruptible_ patriot, proceeds a great deal farther. His political pieces have great elegance and wit; yet, if the tenth part of what he advances in them be true, his countrymen are a mob of ignorant, ungrateful, rebellious ruffians. Every member in Opposition is a fool, a firebrand, a monster; worse, if that were possible, than Ravillac, Hambden, or Milton[9]. Here is a short specimen:

'On the original contrivers of mischief let an insulted nation pour out its vengeance. With whatever design they have inflamed this pernicious contest, they are themselves equally detestable. If they wish success to the colonies, they are TRAITORS to this country; if they wish their defeat, they are TRAITORS at once to America and England. To them (Mess. Burke & Co.) and them only, must be imputed the interruption of commerce, and the miseries of war, the sorrow of those who shall be ruined, and the blood of those that shall fall[10].'

From the Doctor's volumes I am to select some pa.s.sages, ill.u.s.trate them with a few observations, and submit them to the reader's opinion. These pages aim at _perspicacity_. They are ambitious to record TRUTH.

'He that writes the life of another, is either his friend or his enemy, and wishes either to exalt his praise, or aggravate his infamy[11].' The Doctor betrays a degree of inconsistency incompatible with his reputed abilities. After such a confession, what have we to hope for in _his_ lives of English poets?

Having thus denied veracity both to Plutarch and _himself_, this Idler, in the very next page, leaps at once from the wildest scepticism to the wildest credulity. The paragraph is too long for insertion; but the tenor of it is, that 'a man's account of himself, left behind him unpublished, may be _depended on_;' because, 'by self-love all have been so often betrayed, _that_ (now for the strangest flight of nonsense) all are on the watch against its artifices.'

In his Dictionary, _temperance_ is defined to be '_moderation opposed to gluttony and drunkenness_.' And he has since defined 'sobriety or temperance' to be '_nothing_ but the forbearance of _pleasure_[12].'

This maxim needs no comment.

'A man will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him every thing but _himself_[13].' Here the Doctor supposes, that a person can leave _himself_ behind _himself_. When the reader examines the pa.s.sage in the original, he will be convinced, that this cannot be an error of the press only. Had the Rambler, when he crossed Tweed, left behind him his pride, his indolence, and his vulgarity, he would have returned a much wiser, better, and happier man than he did.

_Form_, he explains to be, 'the external appearance of any thing, shape;' but, when speaking of hills in the North of Scotland, he says, 'the appearance is that of matter incapable of FORM[14]!' He has seen _matter_, not only dest.i.tute, but incapable of _shape_. He has seen an _appearance_ which is incapable of _external_ appearance. And yet, in the same book, he seems to regret the weakness of his vision.

Beauty is 'that a.s.semblage of graces which pleases the eye.' But, in the Idler[15], he displays his true idea of beauty; and it is a very lame piece of philosophy. Judge from a few samples: 'If a man, born blind, was to recover his sight, and the most beautiful woman was to be brought before him, he could not determine whether she was handsome or not. Nor if the most handsome and most deformed were produced, could he any better determine to which he should give the preference, having seen only these two.' And again, 'as we are then more accustomed to beauty than deformity, we may conclude _that_ to be the reason why we approve and admire it.' Moreover, 'though habit and custom cannot be said to be the cause[16] of beauty, IT is certainly the cause of our liking it[17].

I have no doubt, but that, if we were more used to deformity than beauty, deformity would then lose the idea now annexed to it, and take that of beauty; as if the whole world should agree that _yes_ and _no_ should change their meanings, _yes_ would then deny, and _no_ would affirm.' This is such a perfection of nonsense, that the reader will, perhaps, think it a forgery; but he will find it _verbatim et literatim_, and the whole number is in the same stile.

'Swift in his _petty_ treatise on the English language, allows that new words _must_ sometimes be introduced, but proposes that _none_ should be suffered to become obsolete[18].' The Doctor has not given a fair quotation from Swift. One would imagine that Swift had proposed to retain every word which is to be found in any of our popular authors, but he neither said nor meant any such thing. His words are these: 'They' (the members of the proposed society) 'will find many words _that deserve to be utterly thrown out of our language_!' And the Dean says nothing afterwards which infers a contradiction[19].

In his account of Lyttleton, the Doctor's good nature is evident. He speaks not a word as to the merit of the history of Henry II. but--'It was published with such anxiety as only _vanity_ can dictate.' We are next entertained with a page of dirty anecdotes concerning its publication, which the Doctor seems to have picked up from some printer's journeyman. 'The Persian Letters have something of that indistinct and headstrong ardour for liberty which a man of genius _always_ catches when he enters the world, and _always_ suffers to cool as he pa.s.ses forward.' Of the admired monody to the memory of Lady Lyttleton, we are told only that it is _long_. 'His dialogues of the dead were very eagerly read, tho' the production rather, as it seems of leisure than of study, rather effusions than compositions. The names of his persons too often enable the reader to antic.i.p.ate their conversation; and when they have met, they too often part without a conclusion.' These remarks apply with peculiar justice to Dr Johnson's dictionary, for that work is an _effusion_ rather than a _composition_.

His reader is for the most part able to antic.i.p.ate his definitions, and they generally end without conclusion. Lord Lyttleton's poems 'have _nothing_ to be _despised_ and _little_ to be _admired_.' But here, as usual, the Doctor contradicts himself, and in the very next line 'of his Progress of Love, _it is sufficient blame to say_ that it is pastoral.

His blank verse in Blenheim has neither much force, nor much elegance.

His little performances, whether songs or epigrams, are sometimes spritely, and sometimes _insipid_'--and of course _despicable_. The candid and accurate author of the Rambler has forgot the existence of that beautiful blossom of sensibility, that pure effusion of friends.h.i.+p, the prologue to Coriola.n.u.s.

The life of Dr Young has been written by a lawyer, who conveys the meanest thoughts in the meanest language. His stile is dry, stiff, grovelling, and impure. His anecdotes and ideas, are evidently the cud of Dr Johnson's conversation. He continues in the same fretful tone from the first line to the last. He is at once most contemptuous and contemptible. Whatever he says is insipid or disgusting. He is the bad imitator of a bad original; and an honest man cannot peruse his libel without indignation. He steps out of his way to remind us of Milton's _corporal correction_, a story fabricated, as is well known, by his Employer. His ignorance has already been ill.u.s.trated in a periodical pamphlet. Johnson himself, with all his imperfections, is often as far superior to this unhappy penman, as the author of the Night-Thoughts is superior to Johnson. And yet this critical a.s.sa.s.sin, this literary jackall, is celebrated by the Doctor[20]. _Pares c.u.m paribus facile congregantur._

'Dryden's poem on the death of Mrs Killigrew is undoubtedly the n.o.blest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm. All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal.' He proceeds to compare it with an imperial crown, &c. But, a little after, 'the ode on St Cecilia's day is allowed _to stand without a rival_[21].'

These are his identical words; and his admirers may reconcile them if they can. Indeed, he seems ashamed of his own inconsistency, and is ready to relapse; but thinks, upon the whole, that Alexander's Feast 'may, _perhaps_, be p.r.o.nounced superior to the ode on Killigrew.' Dr Johnson is said to be the greatest critic of his age; yet the verses on Mrs Killigrew are beneath all criticism; and, perhaps, no person ever read them through, except their author, and himself.

Dryden's fable 'of the c.o.c.k and Fox seems hardly worth the labour of _rejuvenescence_[22].' Some _narcotic_ seems to have _refrigerated_ the red liquor which circulates in the Doctor's veins[23], and to have _hebetated_ and _obtunded_ his powers of _excogitation_[24], for elegance and wit never met more happily than here. Peruse only the first page of this poem, and then judge. The nonsense which has been written by critics is, in quant.i.ty and absurdity, beyond all conception. Perhaps his admirers may answer, that my remark is but the _ramification_ of envy, the _intumescence_ of ill-nature, the _exacerbation_ of 'gloomy malignity.' However, it would not be amiss to commit that page of _inanity_ to the power of _cremation_; and let not his fondest idolaters confide in its _indiscerptibility_. In painting the sentiments and the scenes of common life, to write English which Englishmen cannot read, is a degree of insolence hardly known till now, and seems to be nothing but the poor refuge of pedantic dullness.

His Abyssinian tale hath many beauties, yet the characters are insipid, the narrative ridiculous, the moral invisible, and the reader disappointed. '_Intercepting interruptions_ and _volant_ animals' are above common comprehension. The Newtonian system had reached the happy valley; for its inhabitants talk of the earth's _attraction_ and the body's _gravity_[25]. To tell a tale is not the Doctor's most happy talent; he can hardly be proud of his success in _that_ species of fiction.

Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'The variety of sun and shade is here[26]

utterly unknown. There is no tree for either shelter or timber. The oak and the thorn _is_ equally a stranger. They have neither wood for palisades, nor thorns for hedges. A tree may be shown in Scotland as a horse in Venice[27].' An _English_ reader may, perhaps, require to be told, that there are thousands of trees of all ages and dimensions, within a mile of Edinburgh; that there are numerous and thriving plantations in Fife; and that, as some of them overshadow part of the post-road to St Andrew's, the Doctor must have been blinder than darkness, if he did not see them. But why would any man travel at all, who is determined to believe nothing which he _hears_, and who, at the same time, cannot _see_ six inches beyond his nose?

'We are not very sure that the bull is ever _without horns_, though we have been told that such bulls there are[28].' Who are the _we_ he refers to? and who but the Doctor ever started so weak a question? His ignorance is below ridicule. It is true, that, in England, bulls which _want_ horns are less numerous than husbands who _have_ them; yet such bulls are always to be found. For the performance which contains this profound remark, this _agglomerated ramification of torpid imbecility_, be it known, that _we_ have paid six s.h.i.+llings, which verifies the proverb, that _a fool and his money are soon parted_.

'We found a small church, clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland[29]!' Here the fact _may_ be true; but Dr Johnson _must_ be ignorant whether it is or not. It is certain, that some buildings of that kind in Edinburgh, are no high specimens of national taste; but, if the Rambler would insinuate that this want of elegance is general, we must impeach his veracity; we must remind him, that there are gloomy, dirty, and unwholesome cathedrals in _both_ countries; and we must lament, that, when entering Scotland, the Doctor _left every thing behind him but_ HIMSELF.

'Suspicion has been always considered, when it exceeds the common measure, as a token of depravity and corruption; and a Greek writer has laid it down as a standing maxim, that _he who believes not the oath of another, knows himself to be perjured_.--Suspicion is, indeed, a temper so uneasy and restless, that it is very justly appointed the concomitant of guilt. Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness. He that is already corrupt, is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious, will quickly be corrupt[30].' This cannot always be true; but, if it were, the Rambler is by far the greatest miscreant who ever infested society. Speaking of Scotland, he says, 'I know not whether I found man or woman whom I interrogated concerning payments of money, that could surmount the illiberal desire of _deceiving me_, by representing every thing as dearer than it is.--The Scot must be a st.u.r.dy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth[31].' Apply the Doctor's maxims to his own conduct, and then judge of his honesty. He adds a little after: 'The civility and respect which we found at every place, it is _ungrateful_ to omit, and tedious to repeat[32].' He should not have spoke of ingrat.i.tude. The picture grows quite shocking.

'How they lived without kail, it is not easy to guess. They cultivate hardly any other plant for common tables; and, when they had not kail, _they probably had_ NOTHING[33].' As the word _kail_ is not to be found in his Dictionary, an English reader will be at a loss to find out what he means. His conjecture is ridiculous; and here a _new_ contradiction must be swallowed by the Doctor's believers; for, if OATS be 'a grain, which, in England, is generally given to horses, but, in Scotland, _supports_ the people[34],' in that case, it is easy to guess how they lived without _kail_. Any thing else had surely been better than to fill up his heavy folios with such peevish nonsense.

In his life of Butler, the Doctor has confined his remarks to _Hudibras_, though the rest of that author's works, both in prose and verse, merit equal attention. What are we to think of this invidious and culpable omission? Hudibras itself would, perhaps, have been omitted, if the book had not tended to ridicule dissenters; for no man in England seems to hate that sect so heartily. In Watt's life, he takes care to tell us, that the author was to be praised in every thing but his _non-conformity_; and, in his ever memorable Tour, the Rambler says, 'I found several (Highland Ministers), with whom I could not converse, without wis.h.i.+ng, as my respect increased, that they had not been presbyterians[35].' Here a critic has very properly interrogated the Doctor, what he would have said or thought, if the Highland ministers had lamented that _he_ was _not_ a presbyterian? This man has no tincture of the liberal and humane manners of the present age; and yet, with his peculiar consistency, he laughs at the dissenter who refused to eat a Christmas pye[36]. This quondam believer in the c.o.c.klane ghost says, 'though I have, like the rest of mankind, many failings and weaknesses, I have not yet, by either friends or enemies, been charged with _superst.i.tion_[37];' yet, with all the Doctor's 'contempt of old women and their tales[38],' he would, if a Roman consul, have disbanded his army for the scratching of a rat[39].

'We found tea here, as in every other place, but our spoons were of horn[40].' This important fact had been hinted in a former page; and such is the Doctor's politeness!

Some rugged rock's hard entrails gave thee form, And raging seas produc'd thee in a storm. POPE.

'They do what I found it not very easy to endure. They _pollute_ the tea-table by plates piled with large slices of Ches.h.i.+re cheese[41].' The happiness of this remark will be fully felt by those acquainted with the peculiar purity of Pomposo's person.

'M'Leod left them _lying_ dead by families as they _stood_[42].' This is _profound_; for no man can stand and lie at the same time. The line ought to be read thus: 'M'Leod left them lying _dead_ by families as they HAD _stood_.'

Of the Memoirs of Scriblerus, the Doctor says: 'If the whole may be estimated by this specimen, which seems to be the production of Arbuthnot, with a few touches, perhaps, by Pope, the want of more will not be much lamented; for the follies which the writer ridicules, are so little practised, that they are not known; nor can the satire be understood but by the learned: He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away: He cures diseases that were never felt.

'For this reason[43], the joint production of three great writers has never obtained _any_ notice from mankind. It has been little read, or when read, has been forgotten, as no man could be wiser, better, or merrier by remembering it.

'The design cannot boast of much originality; for, besides its general resemblance to _Don Quixote_, there will be found in it particular imitations of the history of Mr Ouffle.

'Swift carried so much of it into Ireland as supplied him with hints for his travels; and with those the world might have been contented, though the rest had been suppressed[44].'

Here we have a copious specimen of the Doctor's _taste_; and all the volumes of English criticism cannot produce a poorer page.

The work thus condemned, displays a very rich vein of wit and learning.

The follies which it exposes, though a little heightened, were, in that age, frequent, and perfectly well known. The writers whom it ridicules, have sunk into _nihility_. The book is always reprinted with the prose works of Pope, and Swift, and Arbuthnot; and what stronger mark of _notice_ can the public bestow? Every man who reads it, must be the wiser and the merrier; and the satire may be understood with very little learning.

Dr Arbuthnot was a Scotsman, and, probably, a Presbyterian. He was an amiable man. He is _dead_. Dr Johnson feels himself to be his inferior; and, therefore, endeavours to murder the reputation of his works. To gain credit with the reader, he artfully draws a very high character of Arbuthnot, a few pages before, and here, in effect, overturns it. He had said that Arbuthnot was 'a scholar, with great brilliancy of wit.' But, if his wit and learning are not displayed in the Memoirs of Scriblerus, we may ask where wit and learning are to be found?

Of this extract, the style is as slovenly as the leading sentiments are false.