did not invent a falsehood,' when they credulously told he had made them, so that their veracity is not questioned. His mother heard so from his father, and Mrs. Lucy Porter from his mother. The refutation does not rest on Johnson's recollection of his childhood, but on his telling me, in Mrs. Lucy Porter's presence, that his father had owned to him that he had made them, and wished to pass them for his son's. "The verses on a Sprig of Myrtle, though, perhaps, afterwards presented to Mrs. Lucy Porter, were originally written for a friend; because Dr. Johnson himself mentioned the fact, both to Mrs. Thrale and to Mr. Nichols,* printer of the Gentleman's Magazine, both of whom have attested it; and because Mr. Hector, of Birmingham, Dr. Johnson's schoolfellow and intimate friend through life, has attested that he was the person at whose request they were written. That worthy gentleman first spontaneously wrote to me on the subject; and, seeing me unavoidably drawn into this awkward and unpleasant squabble with Miss Anna Seward, has again spontaneously favoured me with a letter, which I shall here insert. "TO JAMES BOSWELL, Esq. "Dear Sir, "I am sorry to see you engaged in altercation with a lady, who seems unwilling to be convinced of her errors. Surely it would be more ingenuous to acknowledge than to persevere. "Lately, in looking over some papers I meant to burn, I found the original manuscript, with the date on it (1731), which I have enclosed. "The true history (which I could swear to) is as follows. Mr. Morgan Graves, the elder brother of a worthy clergyman near Bath, with whom I was acquainted, waited upon a lady in this neighbourhood, who, at parting, presented him the branch. He showed it me, and wished much to return the compliment in verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses which I sent to my friend. "I most solemnly declare at that time Johnson was an entire stranger to the Porter family; and it was almost two years after that I introduced him to the acquaintance of Porter, whom I bought my clothes of. "If you intend to convince this obstinate woman, * See p. 347. and to exhibit to the public the truth of your narrative, you are at liberty to make what use you please of this statement. "I hope you will pardon me for taking up so much of your time. Wishing you multos et felices annos, I shall subscribe myself, your obliged and humble servant, E. HECTOR.' "Birmingham, Jan. 9, 1794. "May I not now flatter myself, Mr. Urban, that I shall not have the trouble of any farther altercation with Miss Seward? Let the Duck be changed into a Swan, and the Myrtle into an Olive. Instead of railing let us have the song. Instead of war let us have peace. I beg that I may not be reckoned in the number of those with whom it has been Miss Seward's lot to contend.' My fair antagonist's fertile fancy has men and things enough to employ itself upon, without vainly aspiring to be the judge of Johnson. She will permit me, in perfect good humour, to call to her recollection a verse in very ancient poesy: 'I do not exercise myself in great matters, which are too high for me.' "Yours, &c. "MR. URBAN, JAMES BOSWELL." Lichfield Close, March 19, 1794. "In answer to Miss Seward's letter in your Magazine for December last, Mr. Boswell the ensuing month inserts one from Mr. Hector, which contains an absolute, though doubtless an involuntary, mis-statement. "Doctor Johnson, who died in 1784, was born Sept. 7, 1709. Mr. Hector states that his first copy of the Myrtle verses, which he believes the original one, is dated 1731, and probably, through forgetfulness, declares that Dr. Johnson had no acquaintance with any of the Porter family till two years afterwards, when introduced by Mr. Hector. This must have been in 1733, and in Dr. Johnson's twenty-third year. "Lucy Porter, sister to Mr. Porter of Birmingham, was the second wife of my grandfather Hunter, Dr. Johnson's schoolmaster. They were married in the year 1726 at Chelsea. This fact, both as to time and place, is attested by my mother, the daughter of that marriage, now resident here, aged sixty-five. "To the house and table of his intelligent and worthy master, young Johnson had ever familiar access, and was, consequently, well known to Mrs. Hunter, a daughter of the Porters, during those seven years which preceded the time from which Mr. Hector dates Dr. Johnson's first knowledge of the Porter family. During those preceding seven years Mrs. Hunter's niece, Lucy Porter, visited her aunt at Lichfield, and became the object of Dr. Johnson's school-boy love; and, according to her own, and the late Mrs. Seward's statement (who was Mr. Hunter's daughter by his first wife), received from Dr. Johnson the elegant verses on the Myrtle, which he afterwards gave to Mr. Hector, without thinking it material to avow their preexistence. This lady was four years younger than Dr. Johnson, who afterwards married her mother, the widow of Mr. Porter, of Birmingham, Mrs. Hunter's brother. "Yours, &c. "MR. URBAN, H. WHITE."* Lichfield Close, Oct. 21, 1794. "Miss Seward requests me to assure your readers that, however friendly to her the paragraph might be in p. 815 of your last Magazine,† it is a mistaken suggestion. "From no individual instance of false representation, from no wound of personal feelings, arose her conviction of Dr. Johnson's propensity to defame; but from a countless number of imputations concerning the characters of others, groundless as that which Mr. Boswell has generously recorded concerning her father, at whose house he had been frequently entertained with the most friendly hospitality. "Every person who knew Mr. Seward, and has seen his distorted portrait by Dr. Johnson, is conscious of its injustice, and remembers that no one had less of the selfish solicitudes of a valetudinarian; that his constitution and frame were robust; that no man was ever more entirely free from grossness or indelicacy in his manners, which were those of a scholar and a gentleman; that, however *The Rev. H. White, sacrist of Lichfield Cathedral, died April 8, 1836, aged 75. He was countenanced by Dr. Johnson, when a young man; and was the intimate friend of Miss Seward. See Gent. Mag. July, 1836, p. 105. He collected and possessed a very curious library, part of which, we believe, is in the possession of his son, and part was disposed of by auction. + This alludes to a letter in Gent. Mag. for Sept. 1794, p. 815, signed E. V. in which Miss Seward's conduct is attributed to the feelings of a dutiful and affectionate daughter, Dr. Johnson having exposed the failings and infirmities of the lady's father. lively, frank, and full of anecdote, he never declaimed; that his benevolence, which was unbounded, inspired the wish to please and amuse, without the least appearance of talking for fame. "When she saw these false traits of Mr. Seward given in the dark shades of Johnsonian malignance, she said, 'My poor father shares the almost general fate of those who were so unlucky as to have any personal acquaintance with Dr. Johnson.' "The letters signed Benvolio, in the Gentleman's Magazine for February, p. 125, and April, 1786, and for August 1787, p. 302, she has acknowledged,* and they were written several years prior to the appearance of this stigma on her father. They evince that her convictions were not the offspring of filial indignation, though she must have been lost to natural affection if it had not arisen over that accumulated proof of the justice of her opinions concerning Dr. Johnson. "Yours, &c. "H. WHITE." Numerous other correspondents to the Gentleman's Magazine joined this controversy, who signed N. Y., M~~s, Aioxvveo σeavtov, Mastigophoros, G. S., Eboracensis, Protoplastides, Cottoniensis, Æ. V., I. W. Rich. Geo. Robinson, and G. See the volumes for 1793, p. 1008, and 1794, pp. 7, 120, 198, 510, 619, 625, 815, 876, 1001. TWO LETTERS From Mr. BosWELL to DAVID GARRICK, Esq. "DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, 18th Sept. 1771. "It gives me concern to find you complaining of sickness, and talking of putting into port. I must be allowed to pay you the compliment that my father did to a valetudinary friend, 'Long may you complain!' You have had more than once the agreeable experience of recovering health; and I hope these last summer months have restored you again to your usual state. You are at least happy enough to enjoy at all times the best of Horace's two requisites; for if the corpus sanum fails, you are never without the mens sana. You are blessed with a * See p. 355. perpetual flow of good spirits and vivacity, which makes the soul live as it were in a southern climate. Hic ver perpetuum, et alienis mensibus æstas.* "I will not allow you to think of your exit, when so much of the play remains, and perhaps some of the best parts of it. I please myself with the prospect of attending you at several more jubilees at Stratford-upon-Avon. It is true, we must all look forward to the last scene; and you, who have so often felt and made others feel its solemnity, must fall, just like others. This puts me in mind of three Essays which I wrote on the profession of a player last year, and which were published in the London Magazine, in which I have some concern. Pray, have you read them? Since I am upon the serious subject of death, I cannot help expressing to one who feels as you do, that I am affected with much melancholy on the death of Mr. Gray. His Elegy on a Country Churchyard has long been a part of myself; and many passages in his other poems glance across my soul with a most enlivening force. I never saw Mr. Gray; but my old and most intimate friend, the Rev. Mr. Temple, rector of Mainhead, in Devonshire, knew him well. He knew his foibles, but admired his genius and esteemed his virtues. I know not if you was acquainted with Mr. Gray. He was so abstracted and singular a man, that I can suppose you and him never having met. "Permit me, now, my dear sir, again to recommend to your patronage Mr. Mickle's tragedy, which I rejoice to hear has now passed through the hands of both the Wartons. By encouraging Mickle, you will cherish a most worthy man, and, I think, a true poetical genius. Let me add, that your goodness to him will be an additional obligation to your humble servant, who will venture to say that you have never had a warmer, a more constant, or a bolder admirer and friend, at all times and in all places, than himself, though you have had multitudes of greater distinction and abilities. All these things considered, I would hope that Mr. Mickle, who has waited long in the antichamber, will soon be introduced, and not be shoved back by others who are more bustling and forward. * The line in Virgil is somewhat different: + See hereafter, p. 368. 2 Georg. v. 149. EDIT. GARRICK COR. See p. 320. |