Boswell's life of Johnson
Date: 2026-08-21T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Boswell; James; 1740-1795. Life of Samuel Johnson

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Boswell's life of Johnson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Boswell's life of Johnson

Author: Charles Joseph Finger

Editor: E. Haldeman-Julius

Release date: August 21, 2026 [eBook #79416]

Language: English

Original publication: Girard: Haldeman-Julius Company, 1923

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79416

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON ***

TEN CENT POCKET SERIES NO. 394
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius

Boswell’s Life of
Johnson

Charles J. Finger

HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS

Copyright, 1923,
Haldeman-Julius Company.

BOSWELL’S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

I.
BOSWELL AND JOHNSON.

It is quite common for people to say that we owe our knowledge of Doctor Johnson entirely to the fact that James Boswell devoted his life to a close study of his model. The statement is generally made by those who have taken Boswell’s Life of Johnson as read; perhaps, indeed, have gone a step further and placed it on a shelf where it will be read in that indefinite time “some day,” when ephemeral literature shall be no more. The statement sounds well but is quite untrue. To be sure, James Boswell wrote the finest biography that the world has seen thus far, for he had the ambition to produce a book which the world would want. Few biographies reach its excellence and none surpass it. Frank Harris, with his Life of Oscar Wilde, comes nearest. Of other works of a like character, Leigh Hunt achieved immortality with his Autobiography, and, being the intimate associate of Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and Carlyle, produced a picture of contemporary life very valuable indeed. Lockhart’s Memoirs of Sir Walter Scott must also be mentioned. Nor should there be overlooked as worthy of a place on the book shelf with Boswell’s masterpiece, Horace Walpole’s Letters, Pepys’ Diary, Froude’s Carlyle and Isaac Walton’s Lives. But Boswell has a supremacy which none can deny, and, because of that supremacy, there are not wanting those who assert that Boswell made Johnson, rescued Johnson from oblivion, gave Johnson a place to which his literary efforts do not entitle him, and so on, while others have talked about self-abnegation, self-surrender and all that kind of thing, until the conception has arisen among those who talk of Boswell’s Life of Johnson without having read it, and they are as the sands of the seashore in number, that Johnson and Boswell went through life like twin stars bound in the same orbit, while others look upon Johnson as a kind of Sindbad carrying an Old Man of the Sea.

We know Johnson, not alone because Boswell knew him, but because many others knew him, just as many articulate men knew and wrote about Oscar Wilde. In the case of Wilde, besides Frank Harris, there were friends, publishers, enemies, and some who were all three. In the case of Johnson, we have Burke, Langton, Garrick, Levett, Miss Burney, Miss Seward and the inimitable Mrs. Thrale with her chatty “Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL. D., During the Last Twenty Years of His Life.” She was no ordinary woman and the worthy Doctor was in love with her for many years we suppose, for it is a matter of record that he not only quarreled with her, scolded her and constantly visited her, but he also wrote to her more than three hundred letters. As for the common suspicion that Boswell spent his life at Dr. Johnson’s heels, a careful count will show that Boswell met Johnson on two hundred and seventy-six days. Still, in that time, Boswell did excellent work. As a biographer he was free from timidity, painting his model as he actually was. Fear of unfriendly criticism did not daunt him and he was quite unmoral in his methods when it came to gathering data. We sometimes suspect eavesdropping and key-hole activities. At any rate, he was not above appropriating little things associated with the Doctor’s work, and, as we shall see, propriety did not prevent him from leaving his place at a dinner table to hear what the sage was whispering to a young lady. A story that bears the impress of truth is to be found in Holcroft’s Life, edited by Hazlitt. Mary Lamb called it “the Life Everlasting” because Hazlitt was so long seeing it through the press. Here is the story:

Lowe, (mentioned by Boswell in his life of Johnson) once gave me a humorous picture of him. Lowe had requested Johnson to write him a letter, which Johnson did, and Boswell came in while it was writing. His attention was immediately fixed; Lowe took the letter, retired, and was followed by Boswell. “Nothing,” said Lowe, “could surprise me more. Till that moment he had so entirely overlooked me that I did not imagine he knew there was such a creature in existence; and he now accosted me with the most overstrained and insinuating compliments possible. ‘How do you do, Mr. Lowe? I hope you are well Mr. Lowe. Pardon my freedom, Mr. Lowe, but I think I saw my dear friend, Dr. Johnson, writing a letter for you.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘I hope you will not think me rude, but if it would not be too great a favor, you would infinitely oblige me if you would just let me have a sight of it. Everything from that hand, you know, is so inestimable.’ ‘Sir, it is on my own private affairs, but——’ ‘I would not pry into a person’s affairs my dear Mr. Lowe, by any means. I am sure you would not accuse me of such a thing; only, if it were no particular secret——’ ‘Sir, you are welcome to read the letter.’ ‘I thank you, my dear Mr. Lowe; you are very obliging; I take it exceedingly kind.’ (Having read) ‘It is nothing, I believe, Mr. Lowe, that you would be ashamed of?’ ‘Certainly not!’ ‘Why, then, my dear sir, if you would do me another favor, you would make the obligation eternal. If you would but step to Peele’s Coffee House with me and just suffer me to take a copy of it, I would do anything in my power to oblige you.’” “I was overcome,” said Lowe, “by this sudden familiarity and condescension, accompanied with bows and grimaces. I had no power to refuse; we went to the Coffee House, my letter was presently transcribed, and as soon as he had put his document in his pocket Mr. Boswell walked away as erect and proud as he was half an hour before, and I, ever afterwards, was unnoticed. Nay, I am not sure,” he added sarcastically, “whether the Scotchman did not leave me, poor as he knew I was, to pay for my own dish of coffee.”

It was the Boswell method. The good Mr. Lowe was extremely fortunate in that Boswell took with him the copy of the letter and not the original, for, of all men, this biographer seems to illustrate the Nietzschean requirement that he who intends to know, shall be hard, severe, narrow, cruel, inexorable. However, Boswell applied his method on Johnson for just one-hundredth part of Johnson’s life, and, loving both Johnson and himself, and being richly endowed with the rare faculty of observation, made his man live as no character in literature or history has lived.

Macaulay quite unjustly called Boswell “one of the smallest men that ever lived,” and pictures him as a snob and a sycophant, and many have repeated Macaulay’s words. Any one who will take the trouble to read Boswell’s book with attention, will be persuaded that the man himself had great conversational gifts, much good nature and tact, and prodigious powers of memory. As a record of the manners and customs of the period, Boswell’s Life of Johnson is as valuable as Pepys’ Diary.

There is one recorded incident which, more than any other, goes to show that Boswell’s path, even with Johnson himself, was not one of roses. Boswell had been questioning Johnson until the catechism had become a torture, and he turned upon his tormenter. “Sir, I will not be put to the question!” he roared. “Don’t you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I will not be baited with what and why: What is this? What is that? Why is a cow’s tail long? Why is a fox’s tail bushy?” “Why, sir, you are so good that I venture to trouble you,” answered Boswell. “Sir,” replied the irritated doctor, “my being good is no reason why you should be so ill.”

On another occasion he turned angrily upon Boswell with this: “You have but two topics, sir, yourself and me, and I am sick of both.”

II.
THE MAN JOHNSON HIMSELF.

It is both amusing and interesting to look through the index to Boswell’s Life of Johnson and mark the minuteness with which that most extraordinary of Scotsmen studied his master. All was fish that came to his net. No detail was too small to be recorded if it offered the faintest fragment of evidence as to the sage’s private life, and no remark was too light to be missed if it seemed to reveal an intimate thought. James Boswell, like Laurence Sterne, and, in our own day, James Joyce, perceived the infinitely little and described the almost imperceptible. The least of things he brings to the light, just as the microscopist will bring to light the nervous system of a worm or a feather on a butterfly’s wing, and, consequently, the finished book is a most marvelous storehouse of information, not only of the man Johnson, but of all those with whom he came into contact.

Straight to the mark went Boswell. He had but one object in view, and from that nothing would turn him. Doubtless about him there were those who accused him of sycophancy, of toadyism; for that he cared nothing. He had set himself the task of telling posterity about a great man and there was an end to it. “When in that presence,” says Miss Burney, “he was unobservant, if not contemptuous, of everyone else. In truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even answering anything that was said, or attending to anything that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound from that voice, to which he paid such exclusive, though merited, homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the attention which it excited on Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leaned his ear almost on the shoulder of the doctor; and his mouth dropped open to catch every syllable that might be uttered; nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping from it latently, or mystically, some Information.”

Miss Burney spoke from actual observation. Indeed, she was witness of one extraordinary scene when dining at Mr. Thrale’s and seated next to Dr. Johnson. The doctor was saying something to Miss Burney, when, chancing to glance sideways, he saw that Boswell was eavesdropping, having left his own partner at the other end of the table. “What are you doing there, sir?” cried the indignant doctor, angrily slapping his knee. “Go to the table, sir.”

Boswell obeyed, and the doctor resumed his talk. But the restless Boswell was ill at ease. Soon he rose from his seat again, but the doctor detected him. Across the table boomed his heavy bass voice. “What are you thinking of, sir? Why do you get up before the cloth is removed? Back to your place, sir.” Down sat Boswell then, his eyes on his master, to receive a last thunderous blow accompanied by the shaking of an accusing forefinger: “Running about in the middle of meals!”

Obviously, so faithful a follower might well be expected to do extraordinary things, and the result of his fidelity has been a perfect biography. Boswell tells us everything. He tells us about the inscription on Johnson’s watch and the why and the wherefore of it: the manner of his laugh which was “a kind of good humored growl”; that he had the habit of talking to himself; that he did not like clean linen; that he never got entirely rid of his provincial pronunciation; that “while talking, or even musing, as he sat in his chair he commonly held his head to one side towards his right shoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards and forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction with the palm of his hand.”

Boswell, we know, was not unaware of that “sneering jocularity” to be expected from those who had no relish for an exact likeness. Nevertheless, he kept at his task. Patiently he recorded all kinds of things: good and bad: painful and pleasant: incidents that showed pettiness as well as greatness. So well, indeed, was the task performed, that we know Johnson as we know no other man in history. Even those men of our own time who have achieved fame are less familiar to us than is Dr. Johnson. We see him stout, round bodied, almost “unwieldy from corpulency,” thick-lipped, near-sighted and blinking, “countenance disfigured from the king’s evil,” often when in company, “a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation,” and, having said something, “blowing out his breath like a whale.” Seeing the man thus, and adding for good measure, an ill-fitting, ill-kempt wig more often than not burnt in front from his habit of reading with head close to the candle; suit of rusty brown with breeches unlaced at the knees; old and ill-fitting shoes; month old linen—one marvels at the forbearance of the cultured who overlooked appearance.

We get a brief glimpse, by accident as it were, of the regard with which the doctor was held by some who entertained him. There is Mrs. Boswell, for instance, annoyed that her husband should find pleasure in the company of such a fellow. “I have seen,” she tells a friend, “many a bear led by a man, but never before a man led by a bear.” In that you detect a certain asperity. It is her husband who quotes the remark and he explains that some of the habits of the sage were such that “they could not but be disagreeable to a lady.” There is a mild hint that Johnson’s unfortunate habit of turning the candles upside down so that the hot wax running to the wick would make them burn the brighter, made Mrs. Boswell very impatient, for melted wax on a carpet displeased her.

Other things were annoying. For instance, Johnson refused to assume indifference to the pleasures of the table and even boasted of his pleasure in eating. “I mind my belly very studiously,” said he, “for I look upon it that he who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.” So, at the homes of those who lionized him, he took care to let it be known that certain kinds of foods pleased him, and a certain and very liberal allowance was necessary for his comfort. Seven or eight peaches before breakfast; twenty-five cups of tea at a sitting; solid, satisfying dishes of boiled pork and veal pie stuffed with plums and sugar; heavy pastry supported with roast joints of meat—such things he called for. A very Gargantua, he. As for drink, in his younger days he was a very Falstaff. When the mighty feat was mentioned of a Dr. Campbell who could drink thirteen bottles of port at a sitting, the sage spoke, saying: “If a man drinks very slowly and lets one glass evaporate before he takes another, I know not how long he may drink.” And this: “Claret is the drink for boys, and port for men: but he who aspires to be a hero, must drink brandy.”

Obviously, so doughty a table knight would be very apt to cause consternation in a well ordered household. But there were other things to contend with besides his enormous appetite. No sooner was dinner announced than he would find his way to the table, and, sans ceremony, tackle the food. “His looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, except when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others.” So intent did he become upon his meal, that “the veins on his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible.”

All this, his ravenous eating, his grunting, his carelessness and boorishness, people put up with for the sake of the inimitable powers of conversation of the man. Of conversation he was a master and he was the oracle of a literary circle. His naturally retentive memory was stored with a vast variety of facts, odd things, little known things, important trifles encountered while reading and consulting books for the compilation of his dictionary. So, a dinner being finished, the lion roared to the delight of the hearers; the colloquial giant displayed his strength.

“I do not care,” said Orme, the historian of Hindustan, “on what subject Johnson talks: but I love better to hear him talk than anybody. He either gives you new thoughts or a new coloring.”

Said Boswell: “He had all his life habituated himself to consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigor and skill. He had disciplined himself as a talker as well as a writer, making it a rule to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in, so that by constant practice and never suffering any careless expression to escape him, he had attained an extraordinary accuracy and command of language.”

It may well be that Johnson was spoiled by the homage of society. Reading Boswell’s Life of Johnson it becomes clear that there were times when the dictionary maker was overbearing, even if not actually insulting. “Having recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry,” Boswell terms it, and gives an instance, thus: “Once, when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus, ‘My dear Boswell, let’s have no more of this; you’ll make nothing of it. I’d rather hear you whistle a Scotch tune.’” But Goldsmith summed up the Johnson, when cornered, in far happier mode. “There is no arguing with Johnson,” he said, “for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.”

Goldsmith and Johnson were in the same literary circle and reading between lines one is inclined to the conclusion that often Johnson became heavily pontifical. The average man is so constituted that he could not hear thunders from Mount Sinai for long without yawning. Goldsmith and Johnson were at times conversational rivals, Johnson slow and huge like the magnificent ships of the Spanish Armada and Goldsmith swift in attack, getting under the mighty one’s counter to harass him, as it were. There leaps to mind the incident of the talk on fable making, with Goldsmith holding that animals introduced into fables rarely talked in character. “For instance,” said Goldsmith, “the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and, envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill comes in making them talk like little fishes.” That set Dr. Johnson off into one of his fits of laughter, the laughter intended to overawe. Then Goldsmith launched his shaft. “Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.”

It is evident that Johnson resented the Goldsmith method of attack and retreat. “Goldsmith,” said he, “should not be forever attempting to shine in conversation; he has not temper for it, he is so much mortified when he fails. Sir, a game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance; a man may be beat at times by one who has not the tenth part of his wit. Now, Goldsmith, putting himself against another, is like a man laying a hundred to one, who cannot spare the hundred. It is not worth a man’s while. A man should not lay a hundred to one unless he can easily spare it, though he has a hundred chances for him; he can get but a guinea, and he may lose a hundred. Goldsmith is in this state. When he contends, if he gets the better, it is a very little addition to a man of his literary reputation; if he does not get the better, he is miserably vexed.” Again, Johnson, in the character of a Sir Oracle, says: “The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation is this, he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small. As they say of a generous man it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith it is a pity he is not knowing. He would not keep his knowledge to himself.”

Call Johnson a man of orthodox prejudice and we come near the truth. He was conservative of the conservatives, a Tory of Tories. As a straw will show which way the wind blows, so will a reference to his dictionary reveal the unbending rigidity and granite immobility of the man. Turn to his definition of the word Freethinker. You have his answer in four words. A contemner of religion; a libertine. Follow a little deeper and turn to Libertine. You read: One who pays no regard to the precepts of religion, with an explanatory quotation which runs:

“They say this town is full of cozenage,
Disguised cheaters, prating mountebanks,
And many such-like libertines of sin.”

In that you have a key to much. Like Stendhal, or H. L. Mencken of our own day, Johnson had his prejudices and paraded them. He disliked Scotland as the school boy disliked Dr. Fell and his antipathy was sufficient. “Mr. Johnson,” said Boswell apologetically on the occasion of their first meeting, “I do indeed come from Scotland; but I cannot help it.” “That sir, is what a great many of your countrymen cannot help,” was the reply. Again, when a fellow countryman and friend of Boswell’s claimed for Scotland a great many “noble, wild prospects,” the sage made reply: “I believe sir you have a great many. Norway, too, has noble, wild prospects. But sir, let me tell you the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.” His definition of the word Freethinker would be enough to lead to the belief that he had but small love for the historian Hume and all who, like him, did not hold fast to a belief in revealed religion. That Hume had created a new era of thought, that he profoundly influenced European thought, that he introduced a new and higher method of writing history than had previously been practised was as nothing to Johnson. Hume was of the black squad known as Freethinkers and that out-weighed everything else. “Hume,” he said to Boswell, “Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food for their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield such people no milk and so they are gone to milk the bull.”

On one occasion the discussion of Hume led into a talk of death, a subject which always greatly annoyed Johnson. The passage that follows, throws a strong sidelight on Johnson’s character, especially on his testiness when cornered in an argument. I copy from the first volume of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, page 401, J. M. Dent edition, London, MCMI, used in all quotations here:

“When we were alone, I introduced the subject of death, and endeavored to maintain that the fear of it might be got over. I told him that David Hume said to me, he was no more uneasy to think he should not be after his life, than that he had not been before he began to exist.

“JOHNSON. ‘Sir, if he really thinks so, his perceptions are disturbed; he is mad; if he does not think so, he lies. He may tell you, he holds his finger in the flame of a candle, without feeling pain; would you believe him? When he dies, he at least gives up all he has.’

“BOSWELL. ‘Foote, sir, told me, that when he was very ill he was not afraid to die.’

“JOHNSON. ‘It is not true sir. Hold a pistol to Foote’s breast, or to Hume’s breast, and threaten to kill them and see how they behave.’

“BOSWELL. ‘But may we not fortify our minds for the approach of death?’... He answered, in a passion, ‘No, sir, let it alone. It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.’ He added with an earnest look, ‘A man knows it must be so, and submits. It will do him no good to whine.’

“I attempted the conversation. He was so provoked, that he said: ‘Give us no more of this;’ and was thrown into such a state of agitation, that he expressed himself in a way that alarmed and distressed me; shewed an impatience that I should leave him, and when I was going away, called to me sternly, ‘Don’t let us meet tomorrow.’

“I went home exceedingly uneasy. All the harsh observations which I had ever heard made upon his character, crowded into my mind; and I seemed to myself like the man who had put his head into the lion’s mouth a great many times with perfect safety, but at last had it bit off.”

A man of strangely susceptible nerves cowering under a deadly fear was Johnson. Of strong, sturdy good sense, yet he seemed at times to become paralyzed at the thought that all about him were dark demoniac powers. He is disturbed when a question as to the future state of man is pressed and he worries about the different degrees of happiness in heaven. He is positive that the better the life a man leads, the more he must fear death. He worries about predestination and infant salvation, and breaks into a furious tirade against anyone who comes under the ban as a philosophical innovator. Speaking of Rousseau and Voltaire, he says: “It is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.” Again of Rousseau:

“I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been.... I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation, than that of any felon who has gone from the old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations....”

In short according to the Johnson creed, there was no health, no truth, outside of the Established Church.

Naturally, a man thus constituted must break out in an unexpected direction. Other great souls, learned scholars, benevolent hearts have leaped into the gulf of strange superstition. So Johnson, the hard-headed, hearing of a tormented spirit haunting the Church of St. John, Clerkenwell, sets off at one in the morning to see what is to be seen, for the disembodied one had promised to “give a token of her presence there by a knock upon her coffin.” To give the Doctor due credit he was not foolishly credulous, although some writers have made him appear so. In the case of the Cock-Lane Ghost he himself wrote an account for the Gentleman’s Magazine saying that there was not sufficient ground to justify belief in the tale. But again:

“Talking of ghosts, he said, he knew one friend, who was an honest man and a sensible man, who told him he had seen a ghost; old Mr. Edward Cave, the printer at St. John’s Gate. He said, Mr. Cave did not like to talk of it, and seemed to be in great horror whenever it was mentioned.

“BOSWELL. ‘Pray, sir, what did he say was the appearance?’

“JOHNSON. ‘Why, sir, something of a shadowy being.’”

On the subject of the existence of witches he was dogmatic. “You have not only the general report,” said he, “but you have many voluntary confessions.”

Again as to ghosts:

“It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death. All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.”

When Charles Wesley examined a haunted house without what Johnson thought sufficient care, the sage was solemnly vehement and again adduced his 5,000-year-old world argument. He has his own curious experience too, for when a young man at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly call him by name, although she was then miles away at Lichfield. But the man was too sincere, too much given to independent verification to go wholly over to the spiritualists. Yet, it can be clearly seen, the wish to believe was in him. All kinds of wonderful things were possible, he held, so why not the appearance of a departed spirit, and the thought worried him throughout his long life. A man, as he saw it, might even have attained heavenly bliss and yet not be safe. “We do not know that even the angels are quite in a state of security; nay, we know that some of them have fallen.”

Strange indeed it seems that this staunch Tory, this hide bound conservative and supporter of things as they were should have been so sound on the question of slavery and slave holding, in a time when the vast majority of men of his acquaintance were firmly convinced that slave holding was right and proper. The old man, aged 68, at a banquet in Oxford, in which were “some very grave men,” rose up and gave the toast: “Here’s to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.” Then again, on another occasion, referring to the Americans in 1777, “How is it that we hear the greatest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?” There are other gems, too. For instance: “No man is by nature the property of another.” “The laws of Jamaica afford a negro no redress. His color is considered a sufficient testimony against him.” “It is to be lamented that moral right should ever give way to political consideration.” “Inhabitants of this island can neither gain riches nor power by taking away the liberty of any part of the human species.”

There is one incident in Johnson’s life which reveals the doughty old warrior determined to go the way he chooses, though it be a lone way. It is the tale of Johnson’s fight for Dr. William Dodd, a criminal under sentence of death. The man was not so great a criminal as we consider things today, for his offence was only forgery, though it was then considered a bold transgression of the moral law. Dr. Dodd had been one of the most popular preachers of his day, a man of pleasing form, genteel address and lively imagination. Discovering that the life of a fashionable parson was a very expensive one he got into debt, and, pressed by his creditors, forged the name of Lord Chesterfield to a document. The slightest of chances brought the forgery to light and Dr. Dodd was tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. That was in the year 1777 when Johnson was 68 years old, his fame secure and his ability recognized, and when the greatest in the land were thankful enough to be honored among his acquaintances. But wealth, honor, name, counted for little. The heart of the old man beat strong and the spirit of the fellow who had carried unfortunates to his lodging from the streets was unchanged. The dogmatic old bear with the cultured heart and gentlest, most sympathetic manners under all his strange uncouthness, had his own notions of right and of wrong. Learning of the unfortunate Dr. Dodd’s predicament, Johnson fell into an extraordinary state of agitation. He walked up and down the room rumbling and grumbling. “I will do what I can,” he said, over and over again. Then followed days of vast activities. He wrote a petition to the Court of Common Council and another to the Humane Society, an organization Dr. Dodd himself had founded. He urged those in power to consider “whether it would not be more for the interest of religion to bury such an offender in the obscurity of a perpetual exile than to expose him in a cart and on the gallows to all who, for any reason, are enemies to the clergy.” He went further, composing a speech which the prisoner delivered at the Old Bailey when sentence of death was about to be imposed upon him. The stout old Tory seemed bent on playing a part similar to that played a century later by Bakounin and Roekel who put themselves in jeopardy to aid a law breaker. There were no half hearted measures. He composed the sermon which the condemned man preached to his fellow prisoners at Newgate on the Sunday before his execution. That we have on the authority of Boswell who tells us that “Dr. Johnson was so good as to mark for me with his own hand on a copy of this sermon which is now in my possession, such passages as were added by Dr. Dodd,” and a glance will show that it is quite in the Johnsonian style:

“I have fallen from reputation, which ought to have made me cautious; and from a former fortune, which ought to have given me content. I am sunk at once into poverty and scorn; my name and my crime fill the ballads in the streets; the sport of the thoughtless and the triumph of the wicked. It may seem strange that, remembering what I have lately been, I should still wish to continue what I am. But contempt of death, how speciously soever it might mingle with Christian virtues, has nothing in it suitable to Christian penitence. Many motives compel me to beg earnestly for life. I feel the natural horror of a violent death, and the universal dread of untimely dissolution. I am desirous to recompense the injury I have done to the clergy, to the world, and to religion, and to efface the scandal of my crime by the example of my penitence.”

Whether Dr. Johnson was privy to the forlorn hope or not, is not known. Certainly, secrets traveled fast in London in those days. However that may be, it can safely be asserted that no more romantic plan was ever conceived to cheat the gallows. The hangman was bribed to tie the knot in a certain way and it was arranged that after the hanging, the body should be rushed with all possible speed to a nearby house, where the famous Dr. John Hunter, author of a book in which was explained the method of resuscitating the apparently drowned, was to operate on the body of Dodd. All went well, but the unforseen intervened, for the crowd about the gallows was so great that it was two hours before the body reached Dr. Hunter, by which time all hope was gone. Whether Johnson was interested in that or not cannot be definitely asserted, but he certainly knew of other efforts that were being made on behalf of the luckless clergyman. Boswell records a conversation on the subject which runs as follows:

“He (Johnson) told us that Dodd’s city friends stood by him so that a thousand pounds were ready to be given to the gaoler if he would let him escape. He added, that he knew a friend of Dodd’s who walked about Newgate for some time on the evening before the execution with some five hundred pounds in his pockets, ready to be paid to any of the turnkeys who could get him out; but it was too late; for he was watched with much circumspection. He said Dodd’s friends had an image of him made of wax, which was to have been left in his place; and he believed it was carried into the prison.”

Were I asked to sum up Dr. Johnson’s character, avoiding all sentimentality and hero-worship, I should say that he was a man of strong inflexible will, satisfied to be a scholar and a thinker, utterly careless of notoriety, honors and wealth. He was by no means free from the small weaknesses of humanity, but he had the inestimable boon of patience and he was free from cant, pretense and hypocrisy. In spite of all his shortcomings, habits and tricks that would certainly annoy those of more delicate sensibilities, he had the redeeming merit of immense social ardor and the charity that covers a multitude of sins. For him was the deed rather than the word. Sympathy, he thought, was all very well, but “you will find these very feeling people are not very ready to do you good. They pay you by feeling.” Work, he held, was the great anodyne for human ills. Being told that Lady Tavistock’s death had been caused by her grief for her husband’s loss, he retorted that had she had something definite to do, the sting would have been drawn from her bereavement. Sentimentality annoyed him. When his friend, Mrs. Thrale, observed that a certain lady would be grieved because her friend had lost the chance of a fortune, Johnson growled: “She will suffer as much, perhaps, as your horse did when your cow miscarried.” Again, there is much of good in this: “Why whine about metaphysical distresses when there is so much want and hunger in the world.”

Johnson had a morbid fear of death. As shown in the conversation above repeated, he singularly failed to see that Hume might have strongly objected to die a violent death at the hands of another, and yet have no wish to exist after death. That immortality is not universally desired, and that five hundred millions of believers in Buddhism regard the extinction of personal consciousness as a high reward for a life well lived was not within the sphere of his knowledge.

The following quoted viewpoint of Seneca, as set forth in his letter to Marcia, Johnson could not understand. “Think this, that the dead are afflicted with no evils. Those things that make the grave terrible are no fables. We know that the dead are not enfolded in darkness. We believe not those floods flaming with fire, neither the lake of forgetfulness, nor the Judgment Seat. These are poetical, and thus have they tormented us with vain terrors. Death reposeth us in that tranquility wherein we lay before we were born. Death is neither good nor evil. That may be either good or evil which is something; but that which is of itself nothing, and reduceth all things to nothing, betrayeth us to no fortune.” Johnson, at the age of 69 solemnly declares that “I have made no approaches to a state which can look on it (death) as not terrible.” As for the extinction of personal consciousness, in arguing with a Miss Seward who had said that annihilation was “a pleasing sleep without a dream,” the doctor solemnly declared, “It is neither pleasing, nor sleep. It is nothing. Now mere existence is so much better than nothing, that one would rather exist even in pain than not exist.”

III.
HIS EARLY LIFE.

Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield, England, in 1709, and lived in a bookish atmosphere. His father, Michael Johnson, was a bookseller and something of an original character who tended his bookstall on market days in Lichfield as well as in surrounding towns. There is quite a Johnsonian ring about the wording of Michael Johnson’s Catalogue of Choice Books, dated 1717, and addressed to the booklovers of Worcester. The old gentleman takes people into his confidence and explains matters in friendly way, in a day when printed lists of books to be sold were rare. Says he:

“I have had several auctions in your neighborhood—as Gloucester, Tewkesbury, Evesham, etc.—with success, and am now about to address myself, and try my fortune with you. You must not wonder that I begin every day’s sale with small and common books; the reason is, a room is some time a-filling, and persons of address and business seldom coming fast, they are entertained till we are full.... (There follows a summarized account of the books to be offered, and he adds that they are the best of that kind) ... and to please the ladies, I have added store of fine pictures and paper-hangings; and by the way I would desire them to take notice that the pictures shall always be put up by noon of that day they are to be sold, that they may be viewed by daylight. I have no more but to wish you pleased, and myself a good sale, who am,

Your humble servant,

M. JOHNSON.”

Once, the son was asked to take his place at the bookstall, the father being sick. This young Samuel refused to do. Fifty years later the memory of his snobbishness came to Johnson and, being at Lichfield, the town in which he had been unfilial, he left his friend’s house after breakfast and did not return until evening. Then, penance according to his own notion being done, he worried no more. He tells the story thus:

“To do away with this sin of disobedience, I this day went in a post-chaise to Uttoxeter, and going into the market at the time of high business, uncovered my head and stood with it bare an hour before the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to the sneers of the standers-by and the inclemency of the weather; a penance by which I trust I have propitiated Heaven for this only instance, I believe, of contumacy for my father.”

Samuel Johnson inherited hypochondriacal tendencies from his father and, as a child, was taken by his mother to London to be touched by the Queen to be cured of the “king’s evil.” So there was a queer twist in him for which he was in no wise responsible, a certain lack of co-ordination because of which he sometimes did strange things. Sometimes it would seem that the man was fighting against himself, as when he would stop in the middle of a room or in a street, then, presently continue his course correctly. At other times, as if off his guard, the hidden impulse had the better of him and there were strange gesticulations, queer acts. For instance, at dinner, in company, a propos of nothing at all, he dived under the table and twisted off the shoe of the lady who sat next him. Then there was the peculiar affair at Twickenham when he imitated the movements of a jockey riding a race. His disease too had scarred and distorted his face and destroyed the sight of one eye. Altogether, the lad was terribly handicapped. Physically he was a tall, stout fellow. His uncle, who kept a kind of boxing school at Smithfield, had taught him boxing, wrestling and the trick of the quarter staff. At times he was a Berserker. Hawkins has told of the famous quarter staff, six feet in length and tapering from three inches diameter to one, which he had ready for the reception of one McPherson. Again there is the tale of a bookseller Osborne who refused to sell a huge folio to Johnson and who, for his refusal, was knocked down, the doctor using the book clubwise. Another tale tells of a scene in the Lichfield theater. Johnson, finding his favorite seat in the side scenes occupied by a man from Birmingham, pitched both chair and occupant into the pit.

The boy’s education was a patchwork affair. He attended the Lichfield schools, first a dame’s school and then a grammar school, but he was forever reading. It would be quite just to say that he educated himself. By chance he found his direction, for, looking on the book shelves for an apple, he took down a volume of Petrarch, became interested, and from that read outward, as it were, following up this and that and the other. At nineteen he went to Oxford as a servitor, working his way, as we would put it, poor indeed but full of personal independence and self respect, and certainly not the man to be patronized. When some wealthier, well-meaning fellow student put a new pair of shoes at Johnson’s door, the man finding them, pitched them out of the window. The stout hearted Johnson took no man’s pity. There were other times when he seemed to be wild and scornful of authority. In later years that being mentioned, he said: “Ah! sir, I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and authority.” The words imply quite enough. He left the University in 1731 without taking a degree; his father died at the end of the same year, and young Johnson found the family fortunes amounted to no more than twenty pounds all told. So there were dark days with a mother to keep.

For a time he tried school teaching, in one case losing a promising position on the ground that his infirmities would excite the ridicule of the scholars. There was a little literary work on local papers and, in 1735, he received five guineas for a translation of Lobo’s Voyage to Abyssinia, and married Elizabeth, the widow of a mercer who brought him as dowry some seven or eight hundred pounds with which he set up a private academy at Edial, in Staffordshire, with David Garrick as one of his pupils. The wife of his choice was more than twice his age, very fat and red of complexion, gaudy as to dress and affected as to manners. She drank and she painted and was lacking in education, but somehow the pair got on fairly well until she died in 1752. During their married life, Johnson had on hand a flirtation or two, as is the manner of men, but it caused no trouble. She on the other hand, according to Boswell, who quotes Mrs. Desmoulins, “indulged herself in country air and nice living, at an unsuitable expense, while her husband was drudging in the smoke of London, and that she by no means treated him with that complacency which is the most engaging quality in a wife.” So, taking it all in all, honors were even and by dint of the exercise of a mutual forbearance, the pair of them got along very well.

The year 1737 saw the Edial private academy on financial rocks and Johnson and his pupil Garrick setting out together to try their fortunes in London, the pupil with a tragedy in his pocket and Johnson with a letter of introduction from a Gilbert Walmsley which set forth the fact that the bearer was “a very good scholar and poet” and further added that the writer had great hopes that Johnson would “turn out a fine tragedy writer.”

IV.
IN GRUB STREET.

Today we call Grub Street by the name Bohemia. There, as in college, Johnson “fought his way by his literature and his wit.” There were days of destitution and nights when he and his new-found friend Savage walked the streets, too poor to pay for a night’s lodging yet both full of poetry and patriotism. In 1738, Johnson was “enlisted by Mr. Cave (proprietor of the Gentleman’s Magazine) as a regular coadjutor in his magazine,” yet, for a time no problem was solved. Indeed, being invited to dine at Cave’s house one day when there was prosperous company, Johnson was in such woful case as to raiment, that he could not make his appearance at table, so sat in the dining room behind a screen where he had his meal handed to him.

There were other dark days, many of them, and Johnson shared many queer lodgings. His chief companion for some time was the poet Richard Savage, already mentioned, who claimed to be the illegitimate son of the Countess of Macclesfield. To Johnson, Savage was a hero and he shared part at least of his hero’s miseries: “on a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass house, among thieves and beggars.” Savage at last died in a debtor’s prison. In 1744 Johnson published his Life of Savage, not only a labor of love, but a work of intrinsic merit and autobiographical interest.

From November, 1740, to February, 1742, Johnson did much hack work and actually wrote many of the speeches attributed to the statesman Pitt and others. The publisher Cave employed men to attend the debates in the House of Lords and the House of Commons who took notes of the speeches. These notes were then put into shape by Johnson, and the putting into shape was in reality composing them. It was a deception which Johnson regretted to the end of his days, though it would seem that at first he wrote from a mere delight in authorship. As soon as he found that the speeches as printed were taken as genuine, he ceased to write saying that he “would not be accessory to the propagation of falsehood.” At a dinner, years afterwards, Francis, father of Junius, mentioned a speech of Pitt’s, saying that it was the most eloquent he had ever read, and superior to anything in Demosthenes. “I wrote that speech, in a garret in Exeter Street,” said Johnson. Someone in the company then praised Johnson for his impartiality. “That is not true,” said he. “I saved appearances tolerably well, but I took care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.”

Leaping over the years until Johnson began work on his Dictionary, his literary activities may be thus summarized:

1738. London—an imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal.

1741. Composition of the Parliamentary Debates in the Gentleman’s Magazine.

1744. Life of Savage.

1747. Plan for a Dictionary of the English Language, addressed to Lord Chesterfield.

1749. The Vanity of Human Wishes. Irene—a Tragedy.

1750. The periodical, The Rambler, first published.

1752. The Rambler ceased publication.

1753. Contributed to Hawkesworth’s Adventurer.

For London, a poem, he received ten guineas and for the Vanity of Human Wishes fifteen guineas. His tragedy Irene brought him a hundred pounds and when his old pupil, Garrick, who had become manager of the Drury Lane theater, produced it for nine nights, he handed Johnson a hundred and ninety-seven pounds and seventeen shillings as the author’s share of the profits. Johnson, if not entirely free from the fear of poverty, was at least in a way to give his attention to matters close to his heart.

V.
THE DICTIONARY.

This making of the first English dictionary was an incredible feat. There is a story told by Boswell, which shows that the stout hearted Johnson was well aware of the fact that he had undertaken a giant’s task. Dr. Adams entered the room one day and found Johnson hard at work. Said Adams: “This is a great work, sir. How are you to get all the etymologies?”

“Why, sir,” answered Johnson, “there is a shelf with Junius and Skinner, and others; and there is a Welsh gentleman who has published a collection of Welsh proverbs, who will help me with the Welsh.”

“But, sir,” protested Dr. Adams, “how can you do this in three years?”

“I have no doubt I can do it in three years,” asserted the sage.

“But the French Academy, which consists of forty members, took forty years to compile their dictionary.”

“Sir, thus it is,” explained Johnson. “This is the proportion. Let us see: forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three is to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.”

From first to last, Johnson worked for seven years on the dictionary. A few pages back, it was said that the Doctor had dedicated the Plan to Lord Chesterfield, himself a man of great abilities, who had wide social influence and literary ability. Somehow, Chesterfield had behaved in some manner to Johnson as to excite his anger. A story had it that one day Johnson was kept waiting in Lord Chesterfield’s ante-chamber with the footman’s explanation that company was present. Johnson sat in impatience, an impatience which changed to wrath when the door opened and Colley Cibber, a comedy actor, walked out. The sage rose in anger, left the house and never called on Lord Chesterfield again. Johnson denied that there was any truth in the story but told Boswell that “his lordship’s continued neglect was the reason why he resolved to have no connection with him.”

It must be remembered, as Leslie Stephen has pointed out, that the art of life as expounded by Lord Chesterfield in his famous letters differs from that as expounded by Johnson quite as much as “the elegant diplomatist differs from the rough intellectual gladiator of Grub Street.” So there were words. Things were said that stung. Thus:

“Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom: ‘This man (said he) I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!’ And when his Letters to his natural son were published, he observed that ‘they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.’”

Literary people are not free from the vice of backbiting, scandalizing and petty talk any more than fishwives and Billingsgate porters. So we find Lord Chesterfield calling Johnson a “respectable Hottentot” and accusing him of “throwing his meat anywhere but down his throat.” And in another place, the prince of elegant conduct and behavior is quoted as having said of Johnson that he “was not only uncouth in manner and warm in dispute, but behaved exactly in the same way to superiors, equals and inferiors; and therefore, by a necessary consequence, absurdly to two of the three.” So the breach grew.

When, in the course of time, the dictionary neared completion, Lord Chesterfield tried in courtly manner to bridge the gulf of separation. Some have believed that he yearned to see the great work dedicated to him, others hold that he had no ulterior motive, but was frankly sorry for the indifference with which he had treated the learned author. Whatever the cause, there appeared, over his signature, two papers in the World and they contained not only a high recommendation of the work, but some studied compliments.

“I think the public in general,” it read, “and the republic of letters in particular, are greatly obliged to Mr. Johnson for having undertaken and executed so great and desirable a work. Perfection is not to be expected from man; but if we are to judge by the various works of Johnson already published, we have good reason to believe that he will bring this to as near perfection as any man could do....

“It must be owned that our language is, at present, in a state of anarchy, and hitherto, perhaps, it may not have been the worse for it. During our free and open trade, many words and expressions have been imported, adopted and naturalized from other languages which have greatly enriched our own.... Good order and authority are now necessary. But where shall we find them, and, at the same time, the obedience due to them? We must have recourse to the old Roman expedient in times of confusion, and choose a dictator. Upon this principle, I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. And I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a free born British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson during the term of his dictatorship....”

It failed of its intended effect. Johnson declared that the Chesterfield letter did not ring true, was “all false and hollow,” and that he would be no man’s dupe. Straightway he composed a letter which he sent to Lord Chesterfield, and it is due to the nobleman to note that, according to his friend, Mr. Robert Dodsley, the letter “lay upon his table where anybody might see it. He (Lord Chesterfield) read it to me: said, ‘this man has great powers,’ pointed out the severest passages and observed how well they were expressed.” Johnson, having sent the letter, had a remarkable delicacy with respect to its circulation and, being asked for a copy by Lord Hardwicke, refused with a smile, saying: “No, sir; I have hurt the dog too much already.” Obviously, here were a couple of gentlemen, and possibly it would have taken but little for each to have forgiven the other. The Johnson letter follows:

“TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE THE EARL OF CHESTERFIELD.

February 7, 1755.

“My Lord,

“I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of the World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your Lordship. To be so distinguished, is an honor, which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.

“When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainquer du vainquer de la terre; that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could, and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

“Seven years, my Lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before.

“The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

“Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed until I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity, not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

“Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation,

“My Lord,

“Your Lordship’s most humble

“Most obedient servant,

“SAM. JOHNSON.”

Such is the letter that Thomas Carlyle calls, “the far-famed blast of doom proclaiming into the ear of Lord Chesterfield and through him to the listening world, that patronage should be no more.” There was an aftermath of a kind, for we have it on the authority of Hawkins that Chesterfield sent two friends to Johnson with the message that were he rich enough he would settle five hundred pounds a year on Johnson, but he who was now “the great Cham of Literature,” made answer that if the first peer of the realm made such an offer, he would show him the way downstairs. “Dictionary Johnson” had won his kingdom and knew it. One thinks of Nietzsche and his saying: “For him who is born to command, humble self-effacement and self-abnegation are not virtues, but vices.”

The Dictionary concluded, Johnson rested awhile. In recognition of his services, Oxford University gave him his M. A. degree which, in 1738, was refused him. He knew that defeat at the desk which all literary workers know. “A kind of strange oblivion has spread over me,” he said in April, 1764, “so that I know not what has become of the last years, and perceive that incidents and intelligence pass over me without leaving any impression.” He was financially pinched too and in the early part of 1756, Richardson, the novelist, lent him six guineas to release him from arrest for debt. In 1759, his mother died at the age of ninety. That shocked him into activity. He borrowed twelve guineas to meet current expenses and sat down to write. In less than a week he had finished the story Rasselas, sending the sheets to the printer as they were finished, and for it he was paid a hundred pounds. The greater part of the money he spent in the liquidation of debts and for his mother’s funeral. Three years later Samuel Johnson left Grub Street with a pension of three hundred a year settled on him by King George III. “I hope,” said his friend Beauclerk, “you will now purge and live cleanly like a gentleman.”

VI.
FROM GRUB STREET TO EASY STREET.

There followed days of comfort. Best of all comforts that came to be Johnson’s, was his membership in the Literary Club which Sir Joshua Reynolds had formed. Then indeed he could meet and talk with choice spirits, for Burke was a member as also was Oliver Goldsmith. Beauclerk, Sir John Hawkins, Adam Smith, Sheridan and other literary lights were on the roll. One evening every week they met at the sign of the Turk’s Head in Gerrard Street, Soho, and, having supped and wined like gentlemen, discussed things dear to the heart of intelligent men without inhibitions or prohibitions, until early morning. No subject was barred and discussion was free. It was an improvement on a coffee-house gathering, for bores and undesirables were not admitted. From the record kept by Boswell, who first became acquainted with Johnson the year before the Club was founded, (1763), it can be seen that there was real sociability in the little circle. Further, it was a wonderful age and topics came thick and fast. We can well imagine some of them, such as the suicide of the boy poet and literary forger, Chatterton: the account of Johnson’s Tour in the Hebrides with Boswell: the story of Johnson’s meeting with the young king in Buckingham Palace: the discussion of Fielding’s novels: the talk on Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, greatest of quaint books; the reading of Percy’s Reliques of Ancient Poetry: the debate on the novels of the bookseller Richardson; the excitement when Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer was played: the crowding round Johnson when he received the degree of LL. D., in 1765, from Trinity College, Dublin: the heated arguments on the authorship of the Letters of Junius: the doubts and despairs and misgivings when the question of American taxation came up: the joy with which Burke’s Speech on Conciliation with America was read: the talk about Hume and his lack of orthodox religion: the diving into economics and questions relating to political economy when the Wealth of Nations stirred the English speaking world: the greetings when Boswell returned from Corsica and the farewells and God-speeds when Johnson went to Wales with the Thrales in 1774.

Johnson was mighty jealous of the exclusiveness of the club: much opposed to the entrance into the magic circle of any unclubbable man. Once, when Sir Joshua Reynolds was telling Garrick of its excellence, “I’d like it much if I was a member,” said the actor manager. Sir Joshua carried the message to Johnson. “He’ll be of us?” growled the grand Cham. “How does he know we’ll permit him?” Then there was a pause, after which he added: “Why, the first duke in England has no right to use such language.” But Garrick had a friend in Sir John Hawkins, too, and he put in a good word for Garrick. “Sir,” said Johnson, “he will disturb us by his buffoonery.” Mr. Thrale was appealed to and he interceded for Garrick. “If, sir, Garrick should apply for membership, I shall blackball him,” declared the Doctor. “Who, sir?” exclaimed the astonished Thrale. “Mr. Garrick?—your friend, your companion—blackball him?” “Why, sir,” replied Johnson, “I love my little David dearly—better than any or all his flatterers do; but surely one ought to sit in a society like ours. ‘Unelbowed by a gamster, pimp, or player.’”

Garrick failed to understand his exclusion and made many diplomatic inquiries. What had he done? Who disliked him? Had he been the subject of conversation? Then one day Oliver Goldsmith took the matter up. “It would,” he said, “give an agreeable variety to the meetings; for there can be nothing new among us: we have, indeed, traveled over one another’s minds.” That, the grand Cham would not allow, and he was piqued at the suggestion. “Sir,” said he, “you have not traveled over my mind, I assure you.” But Goldsmith’s plea won Sir Joshua, and Garrick became a member. Shortly afterwards, Sir William Jones, the Richard Burton of his day, was also admitted.

Boswell had almost as much difficulty in becoming a member as Garrick. “The honor of being elected into the Club,” said the Bishop of St. Asaph, “is not inferior to that of being representative of Westminster and Surrey.” Boswell could show no credentials. What had he done? What were his merits? For answer there was but one statement. He was the follower of Johnson, and, moreover, according to the Cham, he was clubable. Then there was a dark hint. So long as Boswell remained unadmitted, no other name should become eligible. Boswell has left on record the mental anxiety that was his while waiting to know the result of the ballot, and he was the happiest of men when he learned at last that the ballot was clear.

Like the late William Marion Reedy, Johnson was ever ready to offer aid to literary aspirants. As Reedy brought to light many, Sara Teasdale, Zoe Akins, Harris Merton Lyon, Edgar Lee Masters, Witter Bynner, John L. Hervey, to name a few, so Samuel Johnson with his advice and encouragement, and, often his influence, found an audience for struggling writers and heartened them to renewed efforts. When Goldsmith’s Traveler appeared, the first reception was unpromising. Dr. Johnson gave it a favorable notice in the “Critical Review” and that turned the trick. The public that likes its opinions ready-made took notice. The Great Cham had approved so all must be well. Even the illuminati were astonished that a mere drudge, a hack, a newspaper essayist, should have written such a poem and before a year was ended a fourth edition had gone to press and Goldsmith was acclaimed the best poet of his day. At the club, one evening, a member tackled Goldsmith. “What do you mean,” he asked, “by the last word in the first line of your Traveler, remote, solitary, slow? Do you mean tardiness of locomotion?” “Yes,” answered Goldsmith, flurried and inattentive. But the protecting Johnson had also heard. “No, sir,” he interjected. “You did not mean tardiness of locomotion; you meant that sluggishness of mind which comes upon a man in solitude.” “Ah,” interjected the poet, “that was what I meant.” But that was sufficient to set rumor going. There were additions to the story and, before long, it was whispered that Goldsmith had not written the line in question. Then in the startling manner in which whispering tongues can poison truth, it became an open secret that Johnson had written the finest passages in the poem. Johnson heard, and at once indicated the verses he had contributed, nine in all and by no means the best. Further, he came out with a paper, proclaiming The Traveler the finest poem that had seen the light of print since the days of Pope.

“He (Goldsmith) imitates you, sir,” said Boswell.

“Why, no, sir,” answered Johnson. “Jack Hawksworth is one of my imitators, but not Goldsmith. Goldy, sir, has great merit.”

“But, sir, he is much indebted to you for his getting so high in the public estimation.”

But Johnson would not admit that. “Why, sir, he has, perhaps, got sooner to it by his intimacy with me.”

Johnson, indeed, discovered the native talent in Goldsmith and sympathized with his struggle against poverty. Not only was he generous with his literary criticism and advice but he went a step further, checking him for his occasional extravagance and improvidence. Of one incident in their acquaintance Johnson told the following tale:

“I received, one morning, a message from Goldsmith that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion; I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk with him of the means by which he would be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced for me. I looked into it and saw its merit; told the landlady I would soon return; and, having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill.”

The novel so rescued was the immortal “Vicar of Wakefield” and in spite of Johnson’s recommendation, the short-sighted publisher kept it for nearly two years before giving it to the world.

Again, when Goldsmith’s play “The Good Natured Man,” was accepted, Johnson was to the fore with his protecting kindness, attending rehearsals, furnishing the prologue and counselling. The piece was coldly received, and, in the evening after its first appearance, Goldsmith went to Johnson with his troubles, weeping in an excess of emotion. But that display the old Spartan disapproved. “No man,” said he, “should be expected to sympathize with the sorrows of vanity.”

A little later, at a dinner, Goldsmith told the tale of his appointment, making merry at his own mood and temporary pessimism, for Goldsmith had the young boy’s temperament that kept him forever flitting between the depths of gloom or the heights of good humor, tears or laughter. He wound up his recital by saying: “When all were gone, except Johnson here, I burst out a-crying, and even swore that I would never write again.”

The doctor frowned his disapproval, hearing this. “All this,” he said, “I thought had been a secret between you and me, and I am sure I would not have said anything about it for the world.”

On another occasion Johnson took Goldsmith in hand. It was when the latter had been cast down by a vindictive attack upon him by a self appointed critic of whom the world now knows nothing. “Never mind, sir,” said the Doctor. “A man whose business it is to be talked of is much helped by being attacked. Fame, sir, is a shuttlecock; if it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground; to keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.”

In the case of Goldsmith’s “She Stoops to Conquer,” Johnson used every effort to get it produced. He firmly believed in it, although the manager of Covent Garden theater was dead against it and even the principal players, when, after weeks of uncertainty, it was put in rehearsal, declined their parts. But Johnson was like an everlasting rock, and, by his efforts, it was produced on Monday, March 15, 1778. On the production of it, he wrote to Boswell, saying: “I know of no comedy for many years, that has so much exhilarated an audience; it has answered so much the great end of comedy, making an audience merry,” and time has amply demonstrated the correctness of Johnson’s taste, for the display has lived up to its old reputation as an acting work as distinct from a purely literary one. As I write this, I notice an announcement of the play being given in London, England, to crowded and delighted audiences.

Johnson’s advocacy of Goldsmith is shown again in the incident telling of the discussion anent the Roman History. To Boswell, he said: “Whether we take Goldsmith as a poet, as a comic writer, or as a historian, he stands in the first class.”

“A historian!” cried the astonished Boswell, who knew that Goldsmith had undertaken the writing of the two big volumes as a piece of hack work, to keep the wolf from the door, “My dear sir, you surely will not rank his compilation of the Roman History with the works of other historians of his age.”

“Why, who are before him?” asked Johnson.

“Hume—Robertson—Lord Lyttleton,” answered Boswell, forgetting perhaps for the moment and in the heat of the argument, Johnson’s antipathy to all things Scotch.

“I have not read Hume,” said Johnson, “but doubtless Goldsmith’s History is better than the verbiage of Robertson, or the foppery of Dalrymple.”

“But will you not admit the superiority of Robertson, in whose history we find such penetration, such painting?” queried the Scot.

But Johnson was stubborn. “Sir, you must consider how that penetration and that painting is employed. It is not history, it is imagination. He who describes what he never saw draws from fancy. Robertson paints minds as Sir Joshua paints faces, in a history piece; he imagines a heroic countenance. You must look upon Robertson’s work as a menace, and try it by that standard. History it is not. Besides, sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldsmith has done this in his history. Now Robertson might have put twice as much in his book. Robertson is like a man who has packed wool in gold; the wool takes up more room than the gold. No, sir, I always thought Robertson would be crushed with his own weight—would be buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know; Robertson detains you a great deal too long. No man will read Robertson’s cumbrous detail a second time; but Goldsmith’s plain narrative will please again and again. I would say to Robertson what an old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils, ‘Read over your compositions, and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out!’—Goldsmith’s abridgement is better than that of Lucius Florus or Eutropius; and, I venture to say, that if you compare him with Vertot in the same places of Roman history, you will find that he excels Vertot. Sir, he has the art of compiling, and of saying everything he has to say in a pleasing manner. He is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale.”

Johnson’s prediction as to the Persian tale quality of the Natural History was verified. The charming style of the book makes it as entertaining as Darwin’s Voyage in the Beagle or any of the books of Fabre. While it was in preparation, there were many talks with Johnson on the ways of animals. One is particularly happy, the more especially as it shows Johnson’s sturdy common sense opposed to Goldsmith’s happy credulity. They were talking of the custom of the natives of Otaheite in dog eating and Goldsmith had said that the Chinese also used dogs as food and that a dog butcher in China was as common as any other butcher. “When he walks abroad,” said Goldsmith, “all the dogs fall upon him.”

“That is not owing to his killing dogs,” said Johnson. “I remember a butcher at Lichfield, whom a dog that was in the house where I lived, always attacked. It is the smell of carnage which provokes this, let the animals he has killed be what they may.”

“Yes,” said Goldsmith, “there is a general abhorrence in animals at the signs of massacre. If you put a tub full of blood into a stable, the horses are likely to go mad.”

“I doubt that,” said Johnson.

“Nay, sir, it is a fact well authenticated,” persisted Goldsmith.

“You had better prove it before you put it in your book on Natural History,” suggested Thrale. “You may do it in my stable if you will.”

“Nay, sir,” Johnson said. “I would not have him prove it. If he is content to take his information from others, he may get through his book with little trouble, and without much endangering his reputation. But if he makes experiments for so comprehensive a book as his, there would be no end to them; his erroneous assertions would fall then upon himself; and he might be blamed for not having made experiments as to every particular.”

VII.
SUNSET DAYS.

The high lights in Johnson’s career for the last twenty years in his life are thus summed up:

1765. His edition of Shakespeare published.

1767. He had a conversation with King George III in the library at Buckingham palace.

1770. His Pamphlet, “The False Alarm,” published.

1773. He visited Scotland with Boswell, August 14 to November 22.

1774. He visited Wales with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale.

1775. He received the degree of D.C.L. from Oxford University and spent October and November in France with the Thrales. The same year he published (1) Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, and (2) Taxation no Tyranny.

1779. The first four volumes of his Lives of the Poets published.

1781. He completed his Lives of the Poets.

1782. His health began to fail.

1783. He had a stroke of paralysis in June and, on his recovery, instituted a Club at the Essex Head.

1784. After staying at Lichfield, Ashbourne and Oxford seeking improvement in his health, he died in London at Bolt Court, December 13. He was buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of Goldsmith.

But to list what I have called the high lights, especially in connection with his literary work, conveys no conception at all of the man’s intense application and activity. There were written by him in those twenty years introductions, dedications, pamphlets, articles, essays and sermons, for the man was interested in all kinds of human activities. We find him writing a fairy tale, The Fountains, in 1766, which appeared in Mrs. William’s Miscellanies. Then, in 1771, he is interested in the Falkland Islands and publishes Thoughts on Certain Late Transactions connected with them. There is internal evidence that he wrote a preface for Baretti’s Easy Lessons in Italian and English, and other like trifles. We have seen how whole heartedly he threw himself into the case of Dr. Dodd, and in 1781 we find him equally energetic in penning an argument in favor of Joseph Knight, an African negro, who claimed his liberty in the Court of Common Session in Scotland, and, through Johnson’s influence, obtained it.

Naturally then, such a man would be drawn into politics, especially when such a tremendous event was afoot as the disposition of the American colonies. His stand on the question of separation was, of course, exactly opposite to that of his friend Edmund Burke, but, nevertheless, they were firm and fast friends. Each had the greatest admiration for the other. “Burke,” he said, “is such a man that if you met him for the first time in the street, where you were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take shelter but for five minutes, he’d talk to you in such manner that, when you parted, you would say, That is an extraordinary man. He is never what we call humdrum; never unwilling to begin to talk, nor in haste to leave off.” When Burke became a member of Parliament, Johnson said, “Now we who know Burke, know that he will be one of the first men in the country.” Yet Burke was the intellectual support and standard of the Whigs, and Johnson, the rock-ribbed Tory, declared that the devil was the first Whig. Burke set forth views in his pamphlet on Conciliation directly opposed to those set forth by Johnson in his Taxation no Tyranny. Yet they were inseparables. Bennet Langton, who was present at the death bed interview of Burke with Johnson, four others being in the room, told of the final parting thus: “Mr. Burke said to him (Johnson): ‘I am afraid sir, such a number of us may be oppressive to you.’ ‘No, sir,’ said Johnson, ‘it is not so; and I must be in a wretched state, indeed, when your company is not a delight to me.’ Mr. Burke, in a tremulous voice, expressive of being very tenderly affected, replied, ‘My dear sir, you have always been good to me.’ Immediately afterwards he went away. This was the last circumstance in the acquaintance of these two eminent men.”

Yet Johnson, opposing Burke, had expressed himself regarding America and the Americans in no doubtful way. “They are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging:” “I am willing to love all mankind, except an American:” “Rascals—Robbers—Pirates”: there is much of it. To get the real Johnsonian attitude, we must imagine some one in the Philippine Islands demanding a Congress of Philippine States to frame a bill of rights, or to form an independent state, a Philippine commonwealth. Lurid things would be said by many today, were such an insurrection led by someone who had dabbled in small local politics in Manila, a tax collector who had been found short in his accounts as Hosmer tells us Samuel Adams had been. (Life of Samuel Adams, pp. 37-47, 240). Again, there had filtered to England strange tales of lawless deeds, of mob rules, of mass cruelty. Because Francis Greene had signed a farewell address to Governor Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, the mob had driven him out of Norwich as another mob had driven him out of Windham. Another mob had laid waste the lands of the loyalist, David Ingersoll; the house of Daniel Leonard had been riddled with bullets; Brigadier Ruggles alone had fought off a mob, though the mane and tail of his horse had been cut off, and his other horse poisoned; judges had been stopped in the highway; the house of Sewell, Attorney-General of Massachusetts, had been wrecked; Oliver, president of council, had been beaten by a disorderly crowd; a gang of five thousand armed men at Worcester had compelled the judge, sheriffs and gentlemen of the bar to march up and down thirty times, bare headed. As time went on, things grew worse. In South Carolina there were cases of the tarring and feathering of loyalists and in Baltimore an inoffensive merchant had narrowly escaped with his life after having been ordered to pay five hundred pounds to the revolutionary convention. In other places men were ridden on fence rails; were gagged; were bound for days together; were advertised as public enemies. Turn to the American Archives, 4th series, ii. p. 922, to see an incident, one of many. Indeed, our present word “lynch” comes from those days, from the name of the brother of the man who founded Lynchburgh, Virginia. (Atlantic Monthly, vol. xxxviii, p. 731.) Then, too, the liberty of the press was no more. The transition state indeed, was one of something very like anarchy. That Johnson called the Americans robbers and pirates was not to be wondered at. Even John Adams, as we know by his diary, had his grave doubts as to the wisdom of the move he was engaged in. (Works of John Adams, vol. ii, p. 420.)

Realizing all this, we are not at all disposed to find fault with Johnson for his excoriation of the American rebels. It explains why his eloquent pamphlet, called The Patriot, had so wide a success. It explains why the motto of his pamphlet seemed applicable to the followers of Adams and his friends:

They bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,

Yet still revolt when truth would set them free.

License they mean when they cry liberty.

For who loves that must first be wise and good.

A fine old gentleman, this Doctor Samuel Johnson. For cant, pretense and frothiness he had no place; in schemes of institutional reform he had no faith. In these days, when all seems to be endless unrest, when there are cross purposes, political failures, noisy charlatans and self seekers everywhere, it is good to turn to old Samuel Johnson, to live for a time with a man who saw that the multitudinous family of man constitutes a vital unit. It is good to be with the old Tory who so heartily believed in his religion with its pathetic mystery and its glorious traditions of purity and devotion. Accept what he accepted or not, just as we choose, it does not matter, for the mere being in touch with his sincerity serves to revive and strengthen us.

NOTES.
JOHNSON ON AMERICA.

Johnson’s famous remark on the loudest yelps for liberty being heard from the drivers of negroes was probably made upon seeing a copy of the Boston Gazette of July 22, 1776. It contained the Declaration of Independence in full and also an advertisement of a slave for sale.

That Johnson was bitter against the Whigs can be easily understood, for, in England, it was openly charged that by their expressed sympathy, lawlessness in the colonies was encouraged. Others, in newspapers and pamphlets, openly charged that information was being sent out from England by certain Whigs. In this connection, read Lecky’s England in the Eighteenth Century, ed. 1882, vol. iii, p. 545. In short, it was a time of doubt, suspicion and, to a great extent, of manufactured hate. When London merchants forwarded their famous petition to Parliament, a petition that had the effect of making it seem that there was a growing sentiment in favor of granting the Americans the freedom from taxation that they asked, there was a counter charge that the move was born of greed and fear, the merchants being those who had sent shipments to America and wanted to be sure of their pay. (See Letters of James Murray, Loyalist, p. 172.) To make matters more confusing, it seemed to Johnson and all those who thought as he did on the matter, that the rebellion was the work of a small and active minority which knew what it wanted, and a vast majority either apathetic or cowardly. Certainly, any student who examines original documents today, must be puzzled to account for the weakness of the patriots, as evidenced by the size of Washington’s army. (See Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, 2nd series, vol. ii, p. 204). Out of an entire population of the colonies, some 2,200,000 with drafting, urging, the offering of bounties and the gifts of land resulted in an army that was not more than 25,000, and the Valley Forge incident with Washington’s force of less than nine thousand almost starving in a rich section of country, tells its tale of apathy. In Graydon’s Memoirs, ed. 1846, pp. 34 and 37, we find the direct evidence that he, a patriot recruiting officer, came to the conclusion that love for the cause “was far from prevalent among the lower ranks of the people, at least in Pennsylvania.” There is a pathetic passage too in which he writes of his long journey in Maryland with the gain of one lone recruit. Obviously, there was no widespread enthusiasm for independence and Washington knew and admitted it. “From their form of government and steady attachment heretofore to royalty, my countrymen will come reluctantly into the idea of independence: but time and persecution bring wonderful things to pass.” So said Washington, as quoted by Bancroft in his History of the United States, edition of 1884, vol. iv. page 338.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The books listed below are suggested for those who have a further interest in the subject. All of the books listed are bound in cloth and can be secured from Haldeman-Julius Company, Clothbound Book Department, Girard, Kansas. The prices quoted include carriage charges:

Johnson’s “Letters,” 2 volumes, per set, $8.50.

Johnson’s “Life of Milton,” 75c.

Johnson’s “Life of Dryden and Pope,” $1.25.

Johnson’s “Lives of the English Poets,” 3 volumes, per set, $12.50.

Johnson’s “Rasselas,” $1.10.

Boswell’s “Life of Samuel Johnson,” Everyman Edition, Cloth Binding, 2 volumes, per set, $1.75.

Transcriber’s note

Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON ***

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg electronic works provided that:

- • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”

- • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works.

- • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work.

- • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 41 Watchung Plaza #516, Montclair NJ 07042, USA, +1 (862) 621-9288. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.

Table of Contents

- Boswell’s Life of Johnson

- BOSWELL’S LIFE OF JOHNSON.

- I. BOSWELL AND JOHNSON.

- II. THE MAN JOHNSON HIMSELF.

- III. HIS EARLY LIFE.

- IV. IN GRUB STREET.

- V. THE DICTIONARY.

- VI. FROM GRUB STREET TO EASY STREET.

- VII. SUNSET DAYS.

- NOTES. JOHNSON ON AMERICA.

- BIBLIOGRAPHY.

- Transcriber’s note

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE