1750. Etat. 41. " SIR, To Dr. BIRCH. Gough-fquare, May 12, 1750. "KNOWING that you are now preparing to favour the publick with a new edition of Raleigh's miscellaneous pieces, I have taken the liberty to fend you a Manufcript, which fell by chance within my notice. I perceive no proofs of forgery in my examination of it; and the owner tells me, that, as he has heard, the hand-writing is Sir Walter's. If you fhould find reason to conclude it genuine, it will be a kindness to the owner, a blind perfon2, to recommend it to the bookfellers. I am, Sir, "Your most humble fervant, "SAM. JOHNSON." His just abhorrence of Milton's political notions was ever ftrong. But this did not prevent his warm admiration of Milton's great poetical merit, to which he has done illuftrious juftice, beyond all who have written upon the fubject. And this year he not only wrote a Prologue, which was spoken by Mr.. Garrick before the acting of Comus at Drury-lane theatre, for the benefit of Milton's grand-daughter, but took a very zealous intereft in the fuccefs of the charity. On the day preceding the performance, he published the following letter in the " General Advertiser," addreffed to the printer of that paper: " SIR, "THAT a certain degree of reputation is acquired merely by approving the works of genius, and teftifying a regard to the memory of authours, is a truth too evident to be be denied; and therefore to ensure a participation of fame with a celebrated poet, many who would, perhaps, have contributed to ftarve him when alive, have heaped expenfive pageants upon his grave. "It must, indeed, be confeffed, that this method of becoming known to pofterity with honour is peculiar to the great, or at least to the wealthy; but an opportunity now offers for almost every individual to fecure the praise of paying a just regard to the illuftrious dead, united with the pleasure of doing good to the living. To affift illuftrious indigence, ftruggling with diftrefs and debilitated by age, is a display of virtue, and an acquifition of happiness and honour. 2 Mrs. Williams is probably the person meant. << Whoever, 1750. "Whoever, then, would be thought capable of pleasure in reading the works of our incomparable Milton, and not so destitute of gratitude as to tat. 41. refuse to lay out a trifle in rational and elegant entertainment for the benefit of his living remains, for the exercise of their own virtue, the increase of their reputation, and the pleasing consciousness of doing good, should appear at Drury-lane theatre to-morrow, April 5, when Comus will be performed for the benefit of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, grand-daughter to the authour, and the only furviving branch of his family. "N. B. There will be a new prologue on the occafion, written by the authour of Irenè, and spoken by Mr. Garrick; and, by particular defire, there will be added to the Masque a dramatick fatire, called Lethe, in which Mr. Garrick will perform." In 1751 we are to confider him as carrying on both his Dictionary and Rambler. But he alfo wrote "The Life of Cheynel,*" in the miscellany called "The Student;" and the Reverend Dr. Douglas having, with uncommon acuteness, clearly detected a grofs forgery and impofition upon the publick by William Lauder, a Scotch schoolmaster, who had, with equal impudence and ingenuity, reprefented Milton as a plagiary from certain modern Latin poets, Johnson, who had been so far imposed upon as to furnish a Preface and Postscript to his work, now dictated a letter for Lauder, addreffed to Dr. Douglas, acknowledging his fraud in terms of fuitable contrition'. This extraordinary attempt of Lauder was no fudden effort. He had brooded over it for many years; and to this hour it is uncertain what his principal motive was, unless it were a vain notion of his fuperiority, in being able, by whatever means, to deceive mankind. To effect this, he produced certain paffages from Grotius, Mafenius, and others, which had a faint refemblance to fome parts of the " Paradise Loft." In these he interpolated fome 3 Left there should be any person, at any future period, abfurd enough to suspect that Johnson was a partaker in Lauder's fraud, or had any knowledge of it, when he affifted him with his masterly pen, it is proper here to quote the words of Dr. Douglas, now Bishop of Carlisle, at the time when he detected the impofition. "It is to be hoped, nay it is expected, that the elegant and nervous writer, whofe judicious fentiments and inimitable style point out the authour of Lauder's Preface and Postscript, will no longer allow one to plume himself with his feathers, who appeareth fo little to deserve his affiftance: an affistance which I am perfuaded would never have been communicated, had there been the least fufpicion of those facts which I have been the inftrument of conveying to the world in these sheets." Milton no Plagiary, 2d edit. p. 78. And his Lordship has been pleased now to authorise me to fay, in the strongest manner, that there is no ground whatever for any unfavourable reflection against Dr. Johnson, who expreffed the ftrongeft indignation against Lauder, fragments 1751. 1751. Etat. 42. fragments of Hog's Latin tranflation of that poem, alledging that the mafs thus fabricated was the archetype from which Milton copied. Thefe fabrications he published from time to time in the Gentleman's Magazine; and, exulting in his fancied fuccefs, he in 1750 ventured to collect them into a pamphlet, entitled "An Effay on Milton's Ufe and Imitation of the Moderns in his Paradise Loft." To this pamphlet Johnson wrote a Preface, in full perfuafion of Lauder's honesty, and a Poftfcript recommending, in the most perfuafive terms, a fubfcription for the relief of a grand-daughter of Milton, of whom he thus fpeaks: "It is yet in the power of a great people to reward the poet whose name they boaft, and from their alliance to whose genius, they claim fome kind of fuperiority to every other nation of the earth; that poet, whofe works may poffibly be read when every other monument of British greatness fhall be obliterated; to reward him, not with pictures or with medals, which, if he fees, he fees with contempt, but with tokens of gratitude, which he, perhaps, may even now confider as not unworthy the regard of an immortal fpirit." Surely this is inconfiftent with "enmity towards Milton," which Sir John Hawkins imputes to Johnfon upon this occafion, adding, "I could all along obferve that Johnson seemed to approve not only of the defign, but of the argument; and feemed to exult in a perfuafion, that the reputation of Milton was likely to fuffer by this discovery. That he was not privy to the impofture, I am well perfuaded; but that he wished well to the argument, may be inferred from the Preface, which indubitably was written by Johnfon." Is it poffible for any man of clear judgement to fuppofe that Johnson, who so nobly praised the poetical excellence of Milton in a Poftfcript to this very " discovery," as he then fuppofed it, could, at the fame time, exult in a perfuafion that the great poet's reputation was likely to fuffer by it? This is an inconfiftency of which Johnson was incapable; nor can any thing more be fairly inferred from the Preface, than that Johnson, who was alike diftinguished for ardent curiofity and love of truth, was pleased with an investigation by which both were gratified. That he was actuated by these motives, and certainly by no unworthy defire to depreciate our great epick poet, is evident from his own words; for, after mentioning the general zeal of men of genius and literature "to advance the honour, and diftinguifh the beauties of Paradife Loft," he fays, "Among the inquiries to which this ardour of criticifm has naturally given occafion, none is more obfcure in itself, or more worthy of rational curiofity, than a retrospection of the progress of this mighty genius in the conftruction of his work; a view of the fabrick gradually rifing, perhaps, from fmall beginnings, 1751. till its foundation refts in the centre, and its turrets fparkle in the fkies; to trace back the structure through all its varieties, to the fimplicity of its first tat. 42. plan; to find what was firft projected, whence the fcheme was taken, how it was improved, by what affiftance it was executed, and from what stores the materials were collected; whether its founder dug them from the quarries of Nature, or demolished other buildings to embellish his own."-Is this the language of one who wished to blaft the laurels of Milton? Though Johnson's circumftances were at this time far from being eafy, his humane and charitable difpofition was conftantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents and literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a conftant vifitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived; and after her death having come under his roof in order to have an operation upon her eyes performed with more comfort to her than in lodgings, fhe had an apartment from him during the rest of her life, at all times when he had a houfe. In 1752 he was almost entirely occupied with his Dictionary. The last paper of his Rambler was published March 2, this year; after which, there was a ceffation for fome time of any exertion of his talents as an effayift. But, in the fame year, Dr. Hawkefworth, who was his warm admirer, and a studious imitator of his style, and then lived in great intimacy with him, began a periodical paper, entitled "THE ADVENTURER," in connection with other gentlemen, one of whom was Johnfon's much-loved friend, Dr. Bathurft; and, without doubt, they received many valuable hints from his converfation, moft of his friends having been fo affifted in the courfe of their works. That there should be a fufpenfion of his literary labours during a part of the year 1752, will not feem ftrange, when it is confidered that foon after clofing his Rambler, he fuffered a lofs which, there there can be no doubt, affected him with the deepeft diftrefs. For on the 17th of March, O. S. his wife died. Why Sir John Hawkins fhould unwarrantably take upon him even to fuppofe that Johnson's fondness for her was diffembled [meaning fimulated or affumed], and to affert, that if it was not the cafe, "it was a leffon he had learned by rote," I cannot conceive; unless it proceeded from a want of fimilar. feelings in his own breast. To argue from her being much older than Johnson, or any other circumftances, that he could not really love her, is abfurd; for love is not a fubject of reafoning, but of feeling, and therefore there are no common principles upon which one can perfuade another con cerning 1752. cerning it. Every man feels for himself, and knows how he is affected by particular qualities in the perfon he admires, the impreffions of which are too minute and delicate to be fubftantiated in language. That his love for her was of the most ardent kind, and, during the long period of fifty years, was unimpaired by the lapfe of time, is evident from various paffages in the feries of his Prayers and Meditations, published by the Reverend Mr. Strahan, as well as from other memorials, one of which I felect, as strongly marking the tenderness and fenfibility of his mind. April 23, 1753. I know not whether I do not too much indulge the vain longings of affection; but I hope they intenerate my heart, and that when I die like my Tetty, this affection will be acknowledged in a happy interview, and that in the mean time I am incited by it to piety. I will, however, not deviate too much from common and received methods of devotion." Her wedding-ring, when fhe became his wife, was, after her death, preferved by him as long as he lived with an affectionate care, in a little round wooden box, in the infide of which he pafted a flip of paper, thus infcribed by him in fair characters, as follows: << Ebeu! After his death, Mr. Francis Barber, his faithful fervant and refiduary legatee, offered this memorial of tenderness to Mrs. Lucy Porter, Mrs. Johnson's daughter; but fhe having declined to accept of it, he had it enamelled as a mourning-ring for his old mafter, and prefented it to his wife, Mrs. Barber, who now has it. The state of mind in which a man must be upon the death of a woman whom he fincerely loves, had been in his contemplation many years before. In his IRENE, we find the following fervent and tender fpeech of Demetrius, addreffed to his Afpafia: "From those bright regions of eternal day, "Where now thou fhin'ft amongst thy fellow faints, "O! footh my foul, and teach me how to lofe thee." |