To-morrow I dine with Mrs. Southwel; and on Thursday with Lord Lucan. Tonight I go to Miss Monkton's1. Then I scramble, when you do not quite shut me up; but I am miserably under petticoat government, and yet am not very weary, nor much ashamed." "Bolt-court, Fleet-street, 8th May, 1780. "I dine on Thursday at Lord Lucan's, and on Saturday at Lady Craven's; and I dined yesterday with Mrs. South wel. "As to my looks at the Academy, I was not told of them; and as I remember, I was very well, and I am well enough now." "MRS. THRALE TO DR. JOHNSON. "When did I ever plague you about contour, and grace, and expression? I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compeigne, when you teased me so, and Mr. Thrale made what I hoped would have proved a lasting peace; but French ground is unfavourable to fidelity perhaps, and so now you begin again; after having taken five years' breath, you might have done more than this. Say another word, and I will bring up afresh the history of your exploits at St. Denys, and how cross you were for nothing-but somehow or other, our travels never make any part either of our conversation or correspondence. * "Mr. Fitzmaurice is always civiller both to you and me than either of us deserve. I wonder (as the phrase is) what he sees in us? Not much politeness surely. "Shall we have some chat about the Lives now? That of Blackmore will be very entertaining, I dare say, and he will be rescued from the old wits who worried him, much to your disliking: so a little for love of his christianity, a little for love of his physick, a little for love of his courage, and a [The Honourable Mary Monkton, daughter of the first Viscount Galway, married in 1786 to Edmund, 7th Earl of Corke and Orrery. Some peerages state her to have been born in April, 1747, and her ladyship still mixes in society with health and spirits very extraordinary at the age of eighty-three; but Lodge's "Peerage of Ireland" makes her still older, stating her birth to have been in April, 1737. The dates, even in the best peerages, are so liable to errour, that the Editor would not have paid much attention to this but that he has found it corroborated by an announcement in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1737, that Lady Galway was delivered of a daughter, and it does not any where appear that there was any other daughter. If Lady Corke was the only daughter, there can be no doubt on the subject, for the statement in the Magazine, published at the very time, cannot be erroneous in point of date.-ED.] one, little for love of contradiction, you will. save him from his malevolent criticks, and, perhaps, do him the honour to devour him yourself as a lion is said to take a great bull now and then from the wolves which had fallen upon him in the desert, and gravely eat him up for his own dinner.” DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. THRALE. "Bolt-court, Fleet-street, London, 9th May, 1780. My Lives creep on. I have done Addison, Prior, Rowe, Granville, Sheffield, Collins, Pitt, and almost Fenton. I design to take Congreve next into my hand. I hope to have done before you can come home, and then whither shall I go? "Did I tell you that Scot and Jones2 both offer themselves to represent the university in the place of Sir Roger Newdigate? They are struggling hard for what others think neither of them will obtain."] On the 2d of May I wrote to him, and requested that we might have another meeting somewhere in the north of England in the autumn of this year. From Mr. Langton I received soon after this time a letter, of which I extract a passage, relative both to Mr. Beauclerk and Dr. Johnson. Langton. "The melancholy information you have received concerning Mr. Beauclerk's death is true. Had his talents been directed in any sufficient degree as they ought, I have always been strongly of opinion that they were calculated to make an illustrious figure; and that opinion, as it had been in part formed upon Dr. Johnson's judgment, receives more and more confirmation by hearing what, since his death, Dr. Johnson has said concerning them. A few evenings ago he was at Mr. Vesey's, where Lord Althorpe 3, who was. one of a numerous company there, addressed Dr. Johnson on the subject of Mr. Beauclerk's death, saying, Our Club has had a great loss since we met last.' He replied A loss that perhaps the whole nation coula not repair!' The Doctor then went on to speak of his endowments, and particularly extolled the wonderful ease with which he uttered what was highly excellent. said, that no man ever was so free, when he was going to say a good thing, from a look that expressed that it was coming; He 2 [Lord Stowell and Sir William Jones. Lord Stowell was elected for the University of Oxford in 1801, and represented it till his promotion to the peerage in 1821.-ED.] 3 [John-George, second Earl Spencer, who has been so kind as to answer some of the Editor's inquiries relative to the society, of which he and Lord Stowell are now almost the only survivors. -ED.] or, when he had said it, from a look that expressed that it had come.' At Mr. Thrale's, some days before, when we were talking on the same subject, he said, referring to the same idea of his wonderful facility, that Beauclerk's talents were those which he had felt himself more disposed to envy, than those of any whom he had known.' "On the evening I have spoken of above, at Mr. Vesey's, you would have been much gratified, as it exhibited an instance of the high importance in which Dr. Johnson's character is held, I think even beyond any I ever before was witness to. The company consisted chiefly of ladies; among whom were the Duchess Dowager of Portland, the Duchess of Beaufort, whom, I suppose from her rank, I must name before her mother, Mrs. Boscawen 2, and her eldest sister, Mrs. Lewson, who was likewise there; Lady Lucan 3, Lady Clermont 4, and others of note both for their station and understandings. Among other gentlemen were Lord Althorpe, whom I have before named, Lord Macartney, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Lucan, Mr. Wraxal, whose book you have probably seen, The | Tour to the Northern Parts of Europe, a very agreeable, ingenious man, Dr. Warren, Mr. Pepys, the master in chancery, whom, Lbelieve, you know, and Dr. Barnard, the provost of Eton 5. As soon as Dr. Johnson was come in, and had taken [Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, only child of the second Earl of Oxford and Mortimer; married in 1734 to the second Duke of Portland. She was the heiress of three great families: herself of the Harleys; her mother (the Lady Harriet of Prior) was the heiress of John Holles, Duke of Newcastle; and her mother again, the heiress of Henry Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle. The Duchess of Portland inherited," says the peerage, "the spirit of her ancestors in her patronage of literature and the arts.' "" Her birth was congratulated by Swift, and her childhood celebrated by Prior in the well-known nursery lines beginning My noble, lovely, little Peggy." The duchess died in 1785.-ED.] * [See ante, p. 184. Mrs. Boscawen and her daughters, Mrs. Leveson Gower and the Duchess of Beaufort, are celebrated in Miss Hannah More's poem entitled " Sensibility," who, speaking of Mrs. Boscawen, says that she ❝views, enamoured, in her beauteous race, All Leveson's sweetness and all Beaufort's grace."-ED.] 3 [Margaret Smith; married in 1760 the first Lord Lucan.-ED.] [Frances Murray; married in 1752 to the first Lord Clermont.-ED.] 5 [See, ante, p. 229, Johnson's own account of this evening. The gentle and good-natured Langton does not hint at his having driven away "the very agreeable and ingenious Mr. Wraxal." ED.] the chair, the company began to collect round him till they became not less than four, if not five deep; those behind standing, and listening over the heads of those that were sitting near him. The conversation for some time was chiefly between Dr Johnson and the provost of Eton, while the others contributed occasionally their remarks. Without attempting to detail the particulars of the conversation, which, perhaps, if I did, I should spin my account out to a tedious length, I thought, my dear sir, this general account of the respect with which our valued friend was attended to might be acceptable." ED. [The formal style of the following letter 6, compared with that of his former correspondence with Mr. Thomas Warton, plainly proves that a coolness or misunderstanding had taken place between them. The reader will not have forgotten the ridicule with which Johnson had lately treated Warton's poems 7. DR. JOHNSON TO MR. THOMAS WARTON. "Bolt-court, Fleet-street, 9th May, 1780. "SIR, I have your pardon to ask MS. for an involuntary fault. In a parcel sent from Mr. Boswell I found the enclosed letter, which, without looking on the direction, I broke open; but, finding I did not understand it, soon saw it belonged to you. I am sorry for this appearance of a fault, but believe me it is only the appearance. I did not read enough of the letter to know its purport. I am, sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." ED. In Dr. Wooll's Memoirs of Dr. Warton we find the following statement: "The disagreement which took place after a long and warm Wooll's Life friendship between Johnson and of Warton, [Joseph] Warton is much to be p. 98. lamented: it occurred at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as I am told by one of the company, who only overheard the following conclusion of the dispute: JOHNSON. Sir, I am not used to be contradicted.' WARTON.Better for yourself and friends, sir, if you were: our admiration could not be increased, but our love might.' The party interfered, and the conversation was stopped. A coolness, however, from that time took place, and was increased by mathis dispute, would, perhaps, have not been ny trifling circumstances, which, before attended to." The style, however, of the following letter to Dr. Warton, written so late in Dr. Johnson's life, leads ED. 6 [From the MS. which has been communicated to the Editor.-ED.] 7 [Ante, p. 113.-ED.]. 233 us to hope that the difference recorded by | such accounts as I can gather. Be pleased Dr. Wooll was transient. to forgive this trouble from, sir, your most humble servant, "SAM. JOHNSON." MS. 63 DR. JOHNSON TO DR. WARTON. "23d May, 1780. "DEAR SIR,-It is unnecessary to tell you how much I was obliged by your useful memorials. The shares of Fenton and Broome in the Odyssey I had before from Mr. Spence. Dr. Warburton did not know them. I wish to be told, as the question is of great importance in the poetical world, whence you had your intelligence; if from Spence, it shows at least his consistency: if from any other, it confers corroboration. If any thing useful to me should occur, I depend upon your friendship. While Johnson was thus engaged in preparing a delightful literary entertainment for the world, the tranquillity of the metropolis of Great Britain was unexpectedly disturbed by the most horrid series of outrage that ever disgraced a civilized country. A relaxation of some of the severe penal provisions against our fellowsubjects of the Catholick communion had been granted by the legislature, with an opposition so inconsiderable, that the genuine mildness of christianity, united with liberal policy, seemed to have become general in this island. But a dark and malignant spirit of persecution soon showed itself, in an unworthy petition for the repeal of the wise and humane statute That petition was brought forward by a mob, with the evident purpose of intimidation, and was justly rejected. But the at "Be pleased to make my compliments to the ladies of your house, and to the gentleman that honoured me with the Greek Epigrams, when I had, what I hope some time to have again, the pleasure of spending a little time with you at Winchester. I am, dear sir, your most obliged and most hum-tempt was accompanied and followed by ble servant, Letters, vol. ii. p. 127, 137. SAM. JOHNSON."] ❝ 23d May, 1780. ["TO MRS. THRALE. "But [Mrs. Montagu] and you have had, with all your adulation, nothing finer said of you than was said last Saturday night of Burke and me. We were at the Bishop of -'s, (a bishop little better than your bishop), and towards twelve we fell into talk, to which the ladies listened, just as they do to you; and said, as I heard, there is no rising unless somebody will cry Fire! "I was last night at Miss Monkton's; and there were Lady Craven, and Lady Cranburne, and many ladies and few men. Next Saturday I am to be at Mr. Pepys's, and in the intermediate time am to provide for myself as I can." such daring violence as is unexampled in history. Of this extraordinary tumult, Dr. Johnson has given the following concise, lively, and just account in his "Letters to Mrs. Thrale 2: " "9th June, 1780. Letters, vol. ii. pp. 143, 144, 152-8. testants met in Saint George's On of government I cannot give you. On The debtors and the criminals .vere all set at liberty; but of the criminals, as has always happened, many are already retaken; and two pirates have surrendered themselves, and it is expected that they will be pardoned. companions, who had been seized demolish- | the gaols. This was a good abble trick. ing the chapel. The keeper could not release them but by the mayor's permission, which he went to ask: at his return he found all the prisoners released, and Newgate in a blaze. They then went to Bloomsbury, and fastened upon Lord Mansfield's house, which they pulled down; and as for his goods, they totally burnt them. They have since gone to Caen-wood, but a guard was there before them. They plundered some papists, I think, and burnt a mass-house, in Moorfields, the same night. "On Wednesday I walked with Dr. Scot to look at Newgate, and found it in ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, the protestants were plundering the sessions-house at the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, a hundred; but they did their work at leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day. Such is the cowardice of a commercial place. On Wednesday they broke open the Fleet, and the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea, and Wood street Compter, and Clerkenwell Bridewell, and released all the prisoners. "At night they set fire to the Fleet, and to the King's Bench, and I know not how many other places; and one might see the glare of conflagration fill the sky from many parts. The sight was dreadful. Some people were threatened: Mr. Strahan advised me to take care of myself. Such a time of terror you have been happy in not seeing. The king said in council, That the magistrates had not done their duty, but that he would do his own;' and a proclamation was published, directing us to keep our servants within doors, as the peace was now to be preserved by force. The soldiers were sent out to different parts, and the town is now at quiet. "Government now acts again with its proper force; and we are all under the protection of the king and the law. I thought that it would be agreable to you and my master to have my testimony to the public security; and that you would sleep more quietly when I told you that you are safe.” "12th June, 1780. "The public has escaped a very heavy calamity. The rioters attempted the Bank on Wednesday night, but in no great number; and like other thieves, with no great resolution. Jack Wilkes headed the party that drove them away. It is agreed, that if they had seized the Bank on Tuesday, at the height of the panick, when no resistance had been prepared, they might have carried irrecoverably away whatever they had found. Jack, who was always zealous for order and decency 2, declares, that if he be trusted with power, he will not leave a rioter alive. There is, however, now no longer any need of heroism or bloodshed; no blue riband 3 is any longer worn. ["All danger here is apparently over: but a little agitation still continues. We frighten one another with seventy thousand Scots to come hither with the Dukes of Gordon and Argyll, and eat us, and hang us, or drown us; but we are all at quiet."] "14th June, 1780. "There has, indeed, been an universal panick, from which the king was the first that recovered. Without the concurrence of his ministers, or the assistance of the civil magistrates, he put the soldiers in motion, and saved the town from calamities, such as a rabble's government must naturally produce." Such was the end of this miserable sedition, from which London was delivered by the magnanimity of the sovereign himself. Whatever some may maintain, I am satis * [At this ironical allusion to Mr. Wilkes's own proceedings in former times, he would have been the first to smile. To a gentleman who, at a still later period, was alluding to the turbulent days of Wilkes and liberty, and appealed for confirmation of some opinion to Mr. Wilkes, the latter, with a serious pleasantry, replied, "My dear sir, I never was a Wilkite."—ED.] these outrages, wore blue ribands in their hats.— 3 Lord George Gordon and his followers, during MALONE. ⚫ [Mr. Boswell had omitted this passage.-ED.] fied that there was no combination or plan, either domestic or foreign; but that the mischief spread by a gradual contagion of frenzy, augmented by the quantities of fermented liquors of which the deluded populace possessed themselves in the course of their depredations. I should think myself very much to blame, did I here neglect to do justice to my esteemed friend Mr. Akerman, the keeper of Newgate, who long discharged a very important trust with an uniform intrepid firmness, and at the same time a tenderness and a liberal charity which entitle him to be recorded with distinguished honour. Upon this occasion, from the timidity and negligence of magistracy on the one hand, and the almost incredible exertions of the mob on the other, the first prison of this great country was laid open, and the prisoners set free; but that Mr. Akerman, whose house was burnt, would have prevented all this, had proper aid been sent him in due time, there can be no doubt. Many years ago, a fire broke out in the brick part which was built as an addition to the old gaol of Newgate. The prisoners were in consternation and tumult, calling out, "We shall be burnt, we shall be burnt! Down with the gate!-down with the gate!" Mr. Akerman hastened to them, showed himself at the gate, and having, after some confused vociferation of "Hear him! hear him!" obtained a silent attention, he then calmly told them, that the gate must not go down; that they were under his care, and that they should not be permitted to escape; but that he could assure them they need not be afraid of being burnt, for that the fire was not in the prison, properly so called, which was strongly built with stone; and that if they would engage to be quiet, he himself would come in to them, and conduct them to the further end of the building, and would not go out till they gave him leave. To this proposal they agreed; upon which Mr. Akerman, having first made them fall back from the gate, went in, and with a determined resolution ordered the outer turnkey upon no account to open the gate, even though the prisoners (though he trusted they would not) should break their word, and by force bring himself to order it. "Never mind me," said he, "should that happen." The prisoners peaceably followed him, while he conducted them through passages of which he had the keys to the extremity of the gaol, which was most distant from the fire. Having by this very judicious conduct fully satisfied them that there was no immediate risk, if any at all, he then addressed them thus: Gentlemen, you are now convinced that I told you true. I have no doubt that the engines will soon extinguish this fire: if they should not, a sufficient guard will come, and you shall be all taken out and lodged in the compters. I assure you, upon my word and honour, that I have not a farthing insured. I have left my house that I might take care of you. I will keep my promise, and stay with you if you insist upon it; but if you will allow me to go out and look after my family and property, I shall be obliged to you." Struck with his behaviour, they called out, "Master Akerman, you have done bravely; it was very kind in you: by all means go and take care of your own concerns." He did so accordingly, while they remained, and were all preserved. Johnson has been heard to relate the substance of this story with high praise, in which he was joined by Mr. Burke. My illustrious friend, speaking of Mr. Akerman's kindness to his prisoners, pronounced this eulogy upon his character:-" He who has long had constantly in his view the worst of mankind, and is yet eminent for the humanity of his disposition, must have had it originally in a great degree, and continued to cultivate it very carefully." ["DR. JOHNSON TO MRS. THRALE. "London, 15th June, 1780. "I was last week at Renny's 2 con- Letters, versatione, and Renny got her vol. ii. room pretty well filled; and there P. 161, 165. were Mrs. Ord, and Mrs. Horneck, and Mrs. Bunbury 3, and other illustrious names, and much would poor Renny have given to have had Mrs. Thrale too, and Queeny, and Burney 4; but human happiness is never perfect; there is always une vuide affreuse, as Maintenon complained, there is some craving void left aching in the breast. Renny is going to Ramsgate; and thus the world drops away, and I am left in the sultry town, to see the sun in the Crab, and perhaps in the Lion, while you are paddling with the Nereids 5." |