OCR Text |
Show ijplCENTENARYOF BK JOHNSON, WITH AMERICA JOINING : I ill S , IN ITS FESTIVALS, RECALLS ONE OF ENGLAND'S GREATEST SONS II jcro is no olhcr of the mniiy names lied by this ve.iv of grace, over-in over-in anniversaries, so certain to bo t upon with real affection us that crnt of British life nnd loiters iu Inst half of the eighteenth century m Smollett railed ; The gro.il Cham literature." Setting aside Lincoln probably, too. Calvin, no other of half score who have- boon, or are e commemorated this twelve-month plaved so truly formative u part is day and generation. King Samuel." moreover, is the instance of all literary history of aoter outlasting performance of unalitv remaining living from its self :is well as from its chronicler, it that chronicler was a James Bos-Scarce Bos-Scarce a library but houses on shelves somo edition, old or new, 'Bozzy's" immortal life of this ivolont, encyclopedic giant, aulay's splendid essay followed. Ilill and Stephen and Birrell and o and a score of others following bse two first and greatest and the iia nud lasting value of all has been, t that they have portrayed the rcpre: iitntivc writer of a period, a massive Tiro ever since guided us so closely !S u' the living, breathing man whose pij.Ktocratic shade wo almost see today. Ting at his beefsteak pudding and 3t the Cheshire Cheese, or dining """wa Thursday at the Streatham Park Kmo of the Thrales. or on his way to Bot Sheridan, carefully touching with .K finger tips the stone posts which J'K'nn guarded the footways from the flflfoct, and going bnck so to touch one tlSSu'ch he had somehow missed. Sam Uftfcnson, lexicographer and poet, moral-Wfc moral-Wfc and humanitarian, philosopher aud Kgavist, is better known to this Ameri-Knvorld Ameri-Knvorld than an- other English writer mlMshis time, and is so well loved as UflBen Goldsmith's gentle self, so that Be United States now joins whole-""Kirtodlv whole-""Kirtodlv with tlie mother country in iRlebratmg the bicentcnuary of the rth of ono of her (greatest sons. 'wWhcn all is said and done ifis the Kni not the author, whom this Sep-Knher Sep-Knher recalls: "The memory of other 'Ktiiors." as 'Macaulay puis it, "is V Bept alive by their works, but the mem-A mem-A Br of Johnson keeps many of his B lorks alive," For a la ay man, who 1 Bathed writing, he did not do badl3 Hester Thralc alono he penned somc-BAing somc-BAing more than three hundred letter's. Be cfsaj-ed overy kind of writing, his Kylcs mirroring "his enormous versatil-Ky, versatil-Ky, and ho was unsuccessful in none. Eut there is no Cowper today to call catlenced prose, full of -big Latin Hrords and balanced clauses, "The Kraccfnl vehicle of virtuous thought." Bfbo now reads "Tho Vanity of Hu-mh Hu-mh "Miches, " with its "mottoes of the Keari" so carcfullv cast in the moulds KMi, Pope? Tliose' highly moral cs-Kys cs-Kys in "The Rambler." or those Hrfcich followed in the lighter and lpss Bempous "Idler" are practicalh- uu-JHqows, uu-JHqows, save in name, to a present rca(I- Br.nf pvnri trifle wander'nies. The fa- Iions dictionary, Avhich prompted that ne letter to 'Chesterfield, putting an nd forever to literary patronage and liting its author down as the first to hn his sole and sufficient paymaster t the public, is so lit-iic to be met with to amount to a enriositj. Today's hakespcareans sneer at the Johnson otes upon the great master's dramas. Iritics may speak of "Rassclns" as a irent of " the modern didactic novel nd rank it as a minor classic, or it :Wekw occasionally be laikod of as writ-jen writ-jen in tho evenings of a single week - 6 defray the little debts and funeral jcpense? of the author's mother, but . i few really read it as believe in its . ;loomv lesson thai man cannot escape LjJ iisery, "The Lives of the Poets," rliich at thru- best probably show their I ?Ii iritic-vfith-limiin tions at his best, ore 7? till reprinted, but one hesitates to .U iiink of them as much consulted. In w4.! iritf, ven among the scholarly, Sam- i , 1 .Johnson's writings sue become but zr memories of undergraduate study; ('ar)vle predated, thrv amount to ,-j icrc notes on the Boswcll life. It is :j fco man who is clearlv remembered, jreH i'.tic w .7, dearly lovoi). Ml r 'l-u h wn mosl- admire in him? (jlJrJ .crtainlv not his devotion to learning, J& r Uis phenomenal memory, or liis as-ifffl as-ifffl "jnishhig aptitude at quotation: it is Sther the playfulness of his humor, fie fnndjiies-: of his difpo?ition, Hie - Hd -0f UJf afreet ions (of his preju-Wes. preju-Wes. ttr !) the pietv of hir naiuic the : J, jc Biilich manli ,if. of hi Ksrt. Few ""Jit ynoinbT so much a? tlie name of ihnt iniiotepous Oroeian drama o" his, "-'1 'jlrci". which his pupil liarrick put ' c. J'oi five nighSK at Drurv I.smh-. hut U vcryonc remembers how. on the death lOtl !? m's "beloved Tettv," he gathered Jpyl Wr his roof 1 hat "strange menagerie It .rtJl)0"'IPis": An invalid surgeon, a rill !l'n poetess and a couple of others .,f Finally unattiactive, yet all to be itat r'fl for lnerelv because their roirkily J' "RP'I triend was ruled bv a benevo-Dfc benevo-Dfc wmc" "ever failed to reach forth Jf ''elping lift ml to the needy. This t.indners extended to his servants, bo- ii . iflim- v.arm love when lit tin childreti cr co'iccmed, and half the world re-J re-J W iM."nce of his fondness for BCSV-iTi :i,'l"l;,,s '"i'"'1 ,pI,i4 i"s Co'mtl r iml in ilie rain to buv ovsters for his K1 '"0(1I-r-" "I'cw inoii." wrote the t 'E1:o f'holsosi-. whose ''m'is fallr so ..-.Knntilv, "iiavc h:id a more merciful. yWcr.dcr. aiVrtit onste unsure tlinn old rr-girinel, - Wiihin that shaggy I ,'Prior of his there beit a heart, as NK'i'i"'- 11 wo,,,:u' '8 R0;,: ns il 't1'0 llVlliw'?0 Cf',s ",oso to lf'hnson in the old HB5,1Vi0' and I'fitheilral town of Litch-fcSK Litch-fcSK i v,''l01"f' he was born to the church; fiat'MbX c" "nil sttiocr Michael, on the "T'tWui of September, just iwo hundred $M'lT A rather sloucliy staluc iidf, before thi house, and a memorial AW, awell is not far off, near the old I '',e "'rowtu, where the two cniee sat B I'higlisliman remini.'-ced; aud 'Jt;W.c ;tl room ik still lit bv candles set I'Tmr hl'!lf;',K- Tho liirth house is LrflB'u i'tKored 1 its original condition iSm ls lo 1)0 a lohnsouiun library and ' K,Ht ,",'0i" lilfhfield he wa.s taken PB-1'0'idon. as a lad of three, to lie B0ac J'ccl ' for the Icing's evil by "a W$ jn diamonds and a long black "vT ;SBt?i'V" ' lno"C1i Queen Anne's hands 'I ' Bl 1 1101 vo,"ovo the scrofula which -B n's strong face through 'JmP v.'hole of his seventy-five i.llf jR?". Later, when the big. clumsy lOl'-Bf' lla(l crown bevond the little Cm0!'1 wtaro he had been the best Tv .?Kflr- 't was from Litchfield that iA'-jg V'0"1 t0 Oxford, matriculating at jiQmhrol.e college when nineteen, iB011!-11 ho speul but little more than ti'Mw-' ,ri'.1ilnr and unsatisfactory years l'.'5Brfl living without a degree (after "!iMit'ln"l 1,11,1 !ost his small means) to iiK'low riftCH worth bv poverty do-AtRKPd." do-AtRKPd." The line from hi "Lon-jJ&Mr1' "Lon-jJ&Mr1' ' v,'no,1 some do;:eu years later, .jf-lM-atiri -ed. in she manner'of .7tiven.il. WjKk w'i he so loved, mihih up the .Bp'3"'1 ' l,L t".o. e e.U CO"llpI'll s.il'l briefly. Poverty and worth both were present, and slow indeed was progress. Ho served as usher in a school, ho tried his hand at literary hack work in Birmingham, Bir-mingham, he married a atout and gaudy widow, airs. Porter, twico his ago and not at all his mental equal, and, helped by her money, he set up a little private academy in tho environs of his native- town.. Still success tarried, tar-ried, so, leaving wife aud stepdaughter helnnd lnm, aud with his quandom pupil -.nrrick as traveling companion, he again sought out the great, grav British capital to make that fortune which had tinis tar shown itself elusive. -The odging3 on Castle street wore obscure, nis meals were precarious, his clothes poor and ill-fitiiug,- his friends, many w.0",1 V:iSabonds of the type of Itschard Savage, that strango adventurer ad-venturer whose life he was to write; hut the tnan's integrity, scorning hypocrisy, hypo-crisy, Ins sturdy independence and persistency, per-sistency, won the battle. It is a well Known story of how he wrote at so much a page for Mr. Cave's hitherto sapless "Gentleman's Magazine "biographies, "bio-graphies, prefaces, essays, miscellanies, indexes, criticisms, parliamentnrv de-Dates, de-Dates, even advertisements and" sermonseating ser-monseating his luncheon behind a fcreon , as too shabby to sit at the board in the St. John's Gate house. "Sir, let us lake a walk down Fleet street," is now declared to be a quite apocryphal invitation, but it is so exactly ex-actly typical of the life which began in those hard days nnd was to last on through prosperity, that it is every whit as good as true. Memories of Dr. Johnson rise everywhere in that corner of London. Tavern site (a prosy bank now covers it), whose orthodox, high-church high-church name f fell as npprom-iato "to ' tno great leviathan" when he sat at its tables as it did to the totallv different differ-ent Mr. -Pe.pys, who drank there vears before. Ju Wine Office court "still stands and serves the Cheshiro Cheese, with its brass plate let into tho wainscoting wains-coting where the Johnsonian wig once kept the wood well oilod. At 17 Goun-h Square (back through JTind Court) "a tablet marks the house where tho "Rambler's" pages were put so paper pa-per and where, in an upper room much like the counting office in furnishings, a great part of the dictionary was waded through. Around in Bolt Court (Xo. S, it is) still hangs the knocker which the boy Samuel Tigers once held in a trembling hand, greatly want in- to submit sub-mit some manuscript" verse to the criticism of "the Great, Cham," vet fearing even more to lake the liberty till valor waned and the almost -culler, fled. In the north gallery of St. Clements Bancs, the traveler limy seek out pew .IS. and dream of the man who-sat and worshiped t here so many years, just where now the cushions are lit; by the sunshine which pours through j the stained glass window hard 113-, where- an angel in placing the crown i of wisdom and ic-tovy upon tlie head i of the dictator of his day, with 7ios- I iiiHBM If iidliyi ft well nnd Garrick aud Goldsmith and li J. jf 8 Burke gathered about. ffl ffl &3W f-'ll " -1 H i Yes. Fleet street was tho great man'? m ffl I fc;- r :iipJ, A ' R'X-'M M m London: the Fleet street which still S3 ffl '-u, WjMSf " - 'IMi'" fl m holds fast to its old curves quit.' as he M $Z mSSmOXSl W M I knew and loved them, and if its ob- i W $SUmRF-t' ' I M bled quir-t has become a-thing of ' now- W &A f tSBBRM t1;'' " -iP-'- ) 5 ml forgotten past, if a bronze of the tity ffl ffl ' fsJ -j Xfk' ETM i ft M arms new rises where Temple b:r tlcn gjj r-M I MS? 4 MSS30-l&'ir . m-- lh Sfcl half blocked the way, yet there, is Hie K fMvAl JfB I 1 gateway to the Middle Temple, there M$ lBO&k'Jpk A Sfe W are many cf the old houses, th-re -i:c 1 .jlW'-m 1 S8 st ii 1 ali jie ancient courjs andalley- 'HM-1 ' .''''M pf oVlrooi's"lii'ting tho eyotothe cross of C lf' 1 centric,bypical John Bull of lis ecu- JftS' I K Johnson was PS when he began work 'f , . -s;Jy . ysf s' on the dictionary. Closing his con- fl j;-.: '.: M ' - iHf iracs with the publishers, under which i v . ' i-" ' ri i-' vSJ'Sa'' I ho was to receive something less, than l -mlWW m$M r" ffiSBffi $S000 for the work, he declared ho S'W'1 '-mfe ' would have it ready in two years, but fl, 'fMMSA k&ipsh "" it was to be four times as long till it . I Wiffi J came finished from the presses. Worse E""""grS-SX..r. than poor in its etymology, humorous- 'M6- s?Af(z. "' o'a t "c ?7 Tr. ly inexact in definition (as when he dc- fJMOVs. " iirJZX.flP.Y ? scribe." a lexicographer as "a harmless ! drudge"), biased in its point of view whenever it. touched upon any of those oats as a grain which in England is f- three generations and still is a mc- many subjects upon which the compiler to horses, "but iu Scotland men eat moiicl to genius and industry, t; led held prejudices (as when he define- it"), tho book was 3'ct a standard for the w.13', moreover, direct.lv and ;,con ic crmfortable competency for its a.11-Lho-. Iwicc n week during its compilation, compila-tion, for the two years following March 20, 1750. "Tho Rambler" had appeared nnd now proved, iu tho fen reprinted L'dilions called for one after the other, 11 second source of considerab'e juconie. Ii 3702 too, George 111 persuifcil 'he man who had just defined "pension'-' as "generally understood to nienn paj" given to a stato hireling for treason to hi country," to ncecpt a pcnsioi of L"'J0 n year. Thus, to IL'. iannff 53, was made possible just such literary leisure as he had dreamed of and looked forward to from youth, but it was to mean little writing. practically- hoth-ing hoth-ing but the "Lives," the Shakespearean commentaries and a few politica, tracts. The doctor was of natural indolence once a pen was between his lingers; he better liked to read and pondernest of all to talk. Fortunately for the world he met his fuss3', devoted satellite, Jairea Boswell of Auchinlcch, that selfsame twelvemonth. twelve-month. The little Scotch iaird and advocate ad-vocate must have been an extraordinary man; his faults seem to have contributed contribut-ed to his success quite as largely as his virtues. Most men of the -lay found him a bore, not a few pronounced him a cad, ou more than one occasion ho tried his patron's patienco to ths breaking point, but. as he said himself, "He ha-I thought more than anybody supposed and had a pretty good "stock of gonuiuc 'learning and knowledge," and he forthwith forth-with bogan to compile matt-rial for a biograph3 which is sui generi-; in the minutiao of its report and Uid complete ncss of its detail. But foe i his book wo must have lost most, if nut ail, of Johnson's pifliv phrases, ever innocent of " perhaps 's" and "I thinks," and those blunt but telling criticisms always worth attention if seldom just. A few months after the first meeting meet-ing of Johnson and Boswcll, tho artist Revnolds proposed the formation of a club of kindred spirits "Tho T.iterary club" as it sprang into life. in 17G4, Gibbon and Goldsmith. Garrick and Burke. Coleman and Sheridan, and somo half dozn: others forming the initial in-itial membership. In less than thirty years fully two score were proudly j claiming their scats each week about Slhat famous table which Macaulay has ibest called back to us: "The club room is beforo us, and tho tablo on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. John-son. Thcic are assembled those heads which lic forovcr on the canvas of "Reynolds. There aro tho spectacles of Burke and the tall, thin form of Laug-ton, Laug-ton, the courtly sneer of Beauclcrk, and the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tapping i'n snuff-box, and Sir Joshua with his tiumpct in his car. In the foreground is that strange tigUTC which i'h as fain. har to us as the figures of those among whom we havo been brought up, tho gigantic rJod3', the huge massy face seamed -with scars of "disease, the brown coat, the black ........ u ... j.u.iwju, M'jiH ami then comes the Whv, sh!' and the at, wljH 'What liit,:i. sir?' and "the 'No, sir!' tii,t:H and tho ''ou don't sec your war Ft! jlH thvough the (liicutioit, sir!' " f iH It was about this timo occurred the j' -Jl' IH least creduaolu happening of "Tnu fjf ''jH Great Cham's" life. For some years M '!'H ho had passed mauy hours a day with si! Iil the Thrales; the husband a prosperous wiM'H Southwark brewer, tho wifo, llestor. , FH "if not Ihe wisest woman in the world ir JivH undoubtedly one of tic wittiest." It would be difficult to give briefly auy L;1 Hl adequate impirssion of how much this iiPH loug-sime ,usicss and patient friend -h 3 ll had done foi her gucsl. but these con- Jj" H tinned kindnesses all seem '.o have been i! ' forgotten when, a few years after j'H Thrall's dentn, tlie widow announced '' l'i H that s.ho was to marry an Italian, 'I'V'I tl Pioszi bj" name. The fact that tho !' rll gentleman was .1 foreigner, musician, l . HH nnd a Roman Catholic, stirred Johnson j1. -JH d-cply. and 1110 sur, burly mass cf '! 1 offended dignit' wrote Mrs! Tliralo a lj. -i!H letter of such stern reproof as to nwak- I, cu disappointed surprise oven as we if rend it after tho lapse of more than Fl!iH a century and a quarter. That tho iady replied with a dignity which completely ' 'i worsted the doctor is the solo redeem- I, j id jH ing feature in the episode. J The last dozen years of Johnson's ' jj life were not happv. Perhaps the loss h of Hester Thralo Piozzi's friendship af- j fected him moro deeply than he would J jj' admit. His retorts in "conversation be- came more unfeeling and severe, his re- ,!!); 1: partco moro remorseless, his whole per- ,' . sonality moro savage. What he calls -:L ,. "that vile melanchoh," which had at- tacked him onco and again through all !uH ' his life, now became more and moro in- ' sisteat, mightily intensifying his life- long fear of death. In ono of his 'i letters he wrote: "What shall exclude 1 the bbick dog from an habitation like ' this; if I were a little richer I would ! , ' IH perhaps cako some cheerful female into the house." Tustead of that, he did a , 'H littlo traveling, as his increasing ill- ,; 1 ' health permitted, and ho formed an- i other literary dining club, which met 1 three evenings in the week at the Essex t , Head Tavcn, then kept by an old .ser- vaut of tho Thrales. No man was ever ';' 1 more truly "clubable" than Sam John- ' The end came a fortnight before Christmas, 17S1. His last words were iH cminom.h characteristic, for ito whose : heart was said to be the tenderest of 7 any man beating, had just whispered a God bless you, m3" dear." to a young girl at his bedside when h'e breathed his last. On the twentieth he was laid at his long rest in Westminster Abbe v. ..' King Samuel had onco rcmarked'that $ ' it ho thought BosweJI intended to write his life, he'd prevent it hy taking Bos- f, well's but the immortal memoir ! ' came in 1791, seven vears after the JH groat man's death. Bobbv was neither wise nor witty, but ho proved himself a p consummate, artist, even as his "sister" f . had offered him the moet superb of op- portunitics, or does he not rather mako his hero paint his own portrait ! There he is, "a jewel rough set. vet shining like a star;" Wo know his foibles and whims, we see his bearish manner, wo hear his arrogant dispntings. Rolling fl about in his chair as he talks, we heark- 'M en, 111 those pages, to criticism which ! may lack information but is the truest intellectual stimulus, nnd under it wo a.-? scarce , conscious of his snortings, irnintiugs. whistlings, as he blows out his breath like some stranded whale. Tf lM we regret he should havo shown him- fl self so insensible to the charms of nu- pic and the beauties of nature, -et we rr-.soice that he, like Luther, was'so un- swervingh- "a son of fact," for Eng- land liadl.v needed just that, in his ilny. H Yes, there is limned perfectly and for n'l time, the outward man "who was "The Great Cham," but there, too, we learn to know the man within, great heart as well as mighty mind, tender as well as grotesquely rude, as goucr- j ous as autocratic, kindly, brave and A recent Johnsonian has said that the j doctor was "a monarch of English eighteenth century letters whose rp- P ally was due solev to his aggressivo personalit3, his capacity for self adver-lisfment adver-lisfment and the existence of a Bos-well," Bos-well," but the jiresent-daj" world loves him in sii tu of statements witli even such disagreeable truths at bottom n are here. Had there been no Boswcll there would still havo been a Johnson. "The names of maii3" great writers are inscribed upon the walls of tho abbey." wrote Leslie Stephen, "but scarcch any lies there whose heart wa.s more " acuteh- responsive to the deejiest and truest" of human emotions. In visiting that strange gathering of departed 1 statesmen and philosophers and poets ll there aro 111.1113- whose words and deeds . have a far grenler influence upon our '.! imaginations, but thore are ver- few whom, when all-has beeu said, we can . , love so heartilv as Dr. Johnson." 1 WARWICK JAMES PRICK. ltj |