seems to have retained the boyish spirit that naturally goes with a strong constitution. And then, think of Samuel Johnson at the age of sixty-four enduring the hardships of his extended tour in Scotland and in the Hebrides! Toward the close of his life he showed remarkable recuperative power in fighting off severe attacks of asthma, dropsy, gout, and rheumatism; and contrived to live to the age of seventy-five. Yet throughout his life Johnson was a sufferer. He was continually irritated by a form of scrofula which disfigured his face and nearly ruined his eyesight, and for years he suffered the twitchings and irritations of a kind of St. Vitus's dance, a nervous disorder which led to hypochondria and settled melancholy. "My health,' writes Johnson, 1 "has been, from my twentieth year, such as has seldom afforded me a single day of ease. "As we read this passage we forget the grotesque twitchings and puffings, the convulsive starts, the inarticulate whistlings and mutterings, and all the uncouth mannerisms. which Macaulay dwells upon, and view with admiration the fine courage, the great patience, the innate gentility of this afflicted giant.

Nearly all of Johnson's peculiarities can be attributed to his poor health. Years of poverty and very hard work left their mark upon him. Small wonder that in later life he was at times indolent and careless, and that occasionally he showed some traces of uncouth manner and temperamental blemish. Disgusting he probably was in his table manners gorging ravenously with flushed face and swelling veins; but he could be a stickler for good form. It is related that on one occasion he pitched a glass of lemonade through a window because the waiter had put in the sugar with his fingers. Johnson's manner was not uniformly boorish. "No man," writes Boswell, 2 attentive and nice observer of behaviour. "; and Johnson himself speaks of his being "well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity." None of his friends seem to have regarded Johnson as anything but a gentleman. In his interview with the King, Johnson was very much at ease,

66

was a more

1 Hill's Life, Iv, 170. 2 See p. 146. 8 Hill's Life, III, 62, n. 2.

INTRODUCTION

1

vii

and conducted himself with wonderful dignity. During the last thirty years of his life he was constantly in the company of great men, and generally observed the accepted forms of polite social intercourse among gentlemen and ladies. Always Johnson was careful to use "sir" and "madam" in addressing his equals and even in speaking to his housekeeper. But Johnson could be very brusque and bad-mannered. Much of his bad temper came of his bodily discomfort, but a great deal of his overbearing manner, excepting of course his playful bullying, is to be regarded as a sign of strength and not of weakness. The perpetually good-natured man is usually the man who knows neither hardship nor ideals worth defending. When Johnson thunders about the rascally Americans 2 he is not so much venting his spleen as he is defending vigorously his conviction that slavery and wars of conquest are essentially wrong. "When I am musing alone," writes Johnson,3 "I feel a pang for every moment that any human being has by my peevishness or obstinacy spent in uneasiness." And whenever he offends or hurts, Johnson is the first to seek reconciliation. "Johnson," said Goldsmith, 4" has a roughness in his manner; but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin.”

5

Fine feeling and gentleness are strongly marked in Johnson's character. Those who knew him well soon forgot his uncouthness. "His conversation," says Boswell, "soon charmed [Mrs. Boswell] into a forgetfulness of his personal appearance." In the Memoirs of Dr. Burney (11, 91), Fanny Burney, describing her first sight of Johnson, says: "Upon asking my father why he had not prepared us for such uncouth, untoward strangeness, he laughed heartily, and said he had entirely forgotten that the same impression had been at first made upon himself; but had been lost even on the second interview." 6 If Johnson had been ill-bred he would never have been received into the society of the great ladies of the period. "I have seen the

1 See pp. 113-19.

a Hill's Letters of Samuel Johnson, 1, 72. 5 Ibid., v, 25.

2 See p. 172.

4 Hill's Life, II, 75–76. 6 Ibid., v, 25, n. 3.

1

Duchess of Devonshire, then in the first bloom of youth, hanging on the sentences that fell from Johnson's lips, and contending for the nearest place to his chair." 1 In fact women perceived more readily than men the fine qualities of Johnson's character. Miss Burney's memoirs reveal a longcontinued devotion which is a lasting tribute to Johnson's greatness of heart, and Boswell records the rather amusing details of Johnson's patient endurance of the jealous dislike of Mrs. Boswell, who felt that Johnson had too much influence over her husband, and of his being rewarded in the end by her sending a jar of her own marmalade as a peace-offering. There is much significance in the kind care he showed to his oyster-fed pet cat, and much more in his love for little children and in his considerate courtesy to servants. And in his loving care of the unhappy and illbehaved dependents whom he gave refuge in his own home, we find the truest evidence of Johnson's fine feelings, gentle courtesy, and magnanimity. "Coming home late one night, he found a poor woman lying in the street, so much exhausted that she could not walk; he took her upon his back, and carried her to his house, when he discovered that she was one of those wretched females who had fallen into the lowest state. . . . Instead of harshly upbraiding her, he had her taken care of with all tenderness for a long time, at considerable expense, till she was restored to health, and endeavored to put her into a virtuous way of living." 2. "His generous humanity to the miserable was almost beyond example."

When we read that this strong and great-hearted man feared death and yet found life at times a melancholy burden, we wonder at the serenity of his last hours. The pain of bodily dissolution he did not fear; pain never made him a coward. Toward the end of his life Johnson, when suffering from dropsy, had the courage to operate on himself, and "with his usual resolute defiance of pain, cut deep, when he thought that his surgeon had done it too tenderly." What Johnson feared was annihilation was there to be

1 Wraxall's Historical Memoirs (1836), 1, 162–63.
2 See p. 196.

8 Hill's Life, Iv, 460.

INTRODUCTION

ix

a future life and was he worthy to be saved? His curious interest in clairvoyance and in messages from the spirit world arose from his desire to determine the probability of a future existence. He was glad to find evidence of a spirit world, and felt that although "all argument is against it; . all belief is for it." 1 His desire to test the case of the Cock-Lane ghost arose not from superstitious credulity, but from scientific skepticism. He found this earthly life full of mystery, and was always deeply moved in the contemplation of death; yet there were times when he was coldly skeptical of the spiritual significance of that most fearful mystery. These questions were, however, his only doubts, and are simply transient manifestations of the prevailing skepticism of the times. In his letters to his dying mother and in his constant triumph over his fear of madness and of annihilation we find the strength of Johnson's faith. And although his faith brought him no great happiness during his active years, his example of patient suffering and devout courage is truly inspiring.

“A tavern chair," said Johnson, 2" is the throne of human felicity." Among men Johnson had no trace of "unsocial shyness," and at a tavern he found exhilaration in "free conversation and an interchange of discourse with those I most love." 2 With all his suffering Johnson had his happy hours; and although the stern realities of life were never wholly forgotten, the drudgery of his active life was often relieved by the relaxation of his social life. At the Literary Club, of which he was one of the founders and of which he was the leading spirit, Johnson was at his best. In this genial circle of intimate friends he is to me most fascinating. As we watch him brewing punch or eating none too delicately of Dr. Nugent's omelette, and as we hear him thunder forth a broadside of sense or nonsense, we take keen delight in the good fellowship of his company. He was eminently a "clubbable' man. Being older than most of the men who formed the Club, Johnson naturally assumed the leadership; but to think of him as a moderator at a debating or literary society is to mis1 Hill's Life, III, 261. 2 Ibid., II, 517, n. 2.

take the purpose for which the Club was formed and the character of its leader. The members did discuss books and authors and grave questions of the hour, but they met solely for the pleasure of eating, drinking, and talkingjust as to-day men go to their clubs for the relaxation to be found there in the comradeship of good friends.

At the Club. or anywhere Johnson is a fascinating talker. He had not only the gift of speech, but what is quite as important something worth-while saying. His knowledge was, of course, extraordinary, but it was not drawn entirely from books. Current events, current political controversies, the social problems of the age, and the prevailing modes both of fashion and of thought were quite as well known to him as were the rules of Aristotle and the history of ancient thought. He could be witty or profound at one moment he brings forth a bit of homely wisdom: "Men hate more steadily than they love"; at another he is brilliantly epigrammatic: "Hell is paved with good intentions"; again he is dryly humorous: "Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." Whether he be seriously discussing the future life or playfully snubbing Bozzy, Johnson is always fascinating, and the source of his great charm lies chiefly in our feeling that he is a very good fellow and a very wise man. Samuel Johnson was indeed a man of rare gifts, a man of lovable personality, and a great-hearted gentleman.

It is often said of Johnson that the man is great, but his works are not. To those who are unacquainted with his writings this assertion is likely to be misleading, for although Johnson was not a consummate artist nor in every respect a great critic, he has, nevertheless, found a permanent place in the hearts of many lovers of literature. Yet it must be confessed that the man is more interesting than his works and that the record of his life is far more fascinating than the works of many of his contemporaries. Why this should be true is not difficult to determine. The career of any great man who by his own efforts surmounts great

1 Hill's Life, III, 169; 11, 412; 1, 403.