Boswell's Life of Johnson (1904)/Volume 1/1749

by James Boswell

1749: ÆTAT. 40.]—In January 1749, he published The Vanity of Human Wishes, being the Tenth Satire of Juvenal imitated^[1]. He, I believe, composed it the preceding year^[2]. Mrs. Johnson, for the sake of country air, had lodgings at Hampstead, to which lie resorted occasionally, and there the greatest part, if not the whole, of this Imitation was written^[3]. The fervid rapidity with which it was produced, is scarcely credible. I have heard him say, that he composed seventy lines of it in one day, without putting one of them upon paper till they were finished^[4]. I remember when I once regretted to him that he had not given us more of Juvenal's Satires, he said he probably should give more, for he had them all in his head; by which I understood that he had the originals and correspondent allusions floating in his mind, which he could, when he pleased, embody and render permanent without much labour. Some of them, however, he observed were too gross for imitation.

The profits of a single poem, however excellent, appear to have been very small in the last reign, compared with what a publication of the same size has since been known to yield. I have mentioned, upon Johnson's own authority, that for his London he had only ten guineas; and now, after his fame was established, he got for his Vanity of Human Wishes but five guineas more, as is proved by an authentick document in my possession^[5].

It will be observed, that he reserves to himself the right of printing one edition of this satire, which was his practice upon occasion of the sale of all his writings; it being his fixed intention to publish at some period, for his own profit, a complete collection of his works^[6].

His Vanity of Human Wishes has less of common life, but more of a philosophick dignity than his London. More readers, therefore, will be delighted with the pointed spirit of London, than with the profound reflection of The Vanity of Human Wishes.^[7] Garrick, for instance, observed in his sprightly manner, with more vivacity than regard to just discrimination, as is usual with wits, 'When Johnson lived much with the Herveys, and saw a good deal of what was passing in life, he wrote his London, which is lively and easy. When he became more retired, he gave us his Vanity of Human Wishes, which is as hard as Greek. Had he gone on to imitate another satire, it would have been as hard as Hebrew^[8].'

But The Vanity of Human Wishes is, in the opinion of the best judges, as high an effort of ethick poetry as any language can shew. The instances of variety of disappointment are chosen so judiciously and painted so strongly, that, the moment they are read, they bring conviction to every thinking mind. That of the scholar must have depressed the too sanguine expectations of many an ambitious student^[9].

That of the warrior, Charles of Sweden, is, I think, as highly finished a picture as can possibly be conceived.

Were all the other excellencies of this poem annihilated, it must ever have our grateful reverence from its noble conclusion; in which we are consoled with the assurance that happiness may be attained, if we 'apply our hearts^[10]' to piety:

'Where then shall hope and fear their objects find?
Shall dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind?
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate.
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
Shall no dislike alarm, no wishes rise,
No cries attempt the mercy of the skies?
Enthusiast^[11], cease; petitions yet remain,
Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain.
Still raise for good the supplicating voice.
But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.
Safe in His hand, whose eye discerns afar
The secret ambush of a specious pray'r;
Implore His aid, in His decisions rest,
Secure whate'er He gives He gives the best.
Yet when the sense of sacred presence fires,
And strong devotion to the skies aspires,
Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind,
Obedient passions, and a will resign'd;
For love, which scarce collective man can fill,
For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill;
For faith, which panting for a happier seat,
Counts death kind Nature's signal for retreat.
These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain,
These goods He grants, who grants the power to gain;
With these celestial wisdom calms the mind.
And makes the happiness she does not find.'

Garrick being now vested with theatrical power by being manager of Drury-lane theatre, he kindly and generously made use of it to bring out Johnson's tragedy, which had been long kept back for want of encouragement. But in this benevolent purpose he met with no small difficulty from the temper of Johnson, which could not brook that a drama which he had formed with much study, and had been obliged to keep more than the nine years of Horace^[12], should be revised and altered at the pleasure of an actor^[13]. Yet Garrick knew well, that without some alterations it would not be fit for the stage. A violent dispute having ensued between them, Garrick applied to the Reverend Dr. Taylor to interpose. Johnson was at first very obstinate. 'Sir, (said he) the fellow wants me to make Mahomet run mad, that he may have an opportunity of tossing his hands and kicking his heels^[14].' He was, however, at last, with difficulty, prevailed on to comply with Garrick's wishes, so as to allow of some changes; but still there were not enough.

Dr. Adams was present the first night of the representation of Irene, and gave me the following account: 'Before the curtain drew up, there were catcalls whistling, which alarmed Johnson's friends. The Prologue, which was written by himself in a manly strain, soothed the audience^[15], and the play went off tolerably, till it came to the conclusion, when Mrs. Pritchard^[16], the heroine of the piece, was to be strangled upon the stage, and was to speak two lines with the bow-string round her neck. The audience cried out "Murder! Murder^[17] !" She several times attempted to speak; but in vain. At last she was obliged to go off the stage alive.' This passage was afterwards struck out, and she was carried off to be put to death behind the scenes, as the play now has it^[18]. The Epilogue, as Johnson informed me, was written by Sir William Yonge^[19]. I know not how his play came to be thus

graced by the pen of a person then so eminent in the political world.

Notwithstanding all the support of such performers as Garrick, Barry, Mrs. Cibber, Mrs. Pritchard, and every advantage of dress and decoration, the tragedy of Irene did not please the publick^[20]. Mr. Garrick's zeal carried it through for nine nights^[21], so that the authour had his three nights' profits; and from a receipt signed by him, now in the hands of Mr. James

Dodsley, it appears that his friend Mr. Robert Dodsley gave him one hundred pounds for the copy, with his usual reservation of the right of one edition^[22].

Irene, considered as a poem, is intitled to the praise of superiour excellence^[23]. Analysed into parts, it will furnish a rich store of noble sentiments, fine imagery, and beautiful language; but it is deficient in pathos, in that delicate power of touching the human feelings, which is the principal end of the drama^[24]. Indeed Garrick has complained to me, that Johnson not only had not the faculty of producing the impressions of tragedy, but that he had not the sensibility to perceive them. His great friend Mr. Walmsley's prediction, that he would 'turn out a fine tragedy-writer^[25],' was, therefore, ill-founded. Johnson was wise enough to be convinced that he had not the talents necessary to write successfully for the stage, and never made another attempt in that species of composition^[26].

When asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, he replied, 'Like the Monument^[27];' meaning that he continued firm and unmoved as that column. And let it be remembered, as an admonition to the genus irritabile^[28] of dramatick writers, that this great man, instead of peevishly complaining of the bad taste of the town, submitted to its decision without a murmur. He had, indeed, upon all

occasions, a great deference for the general opinion^[29]: 'A man (said he) who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct or amuse them, and the publick to whom he appeals, must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions.'

On occasion of his play being brought upon the stage, Johnson had a fancy that as a dramatick authour his dress should be more gay than what he ordinarily wore; he there-fore appeared behind the scenes, and even in one of the side boxes, in a scarlet waistcoat, with rich gold lace, and a gold-laced hat^[30] He humourously observed to Mr. Langton, 'that when in that dress he could not treat people with the same ease as when in his usual plain clothes^[31].' Dress indeed, we must allow, has more effect even upon strong minds than one should suppose, without having had the experience of it. His necessary attendance while his play was in rehearsal, and during its performance, brought him acquainted with many of the performers of both sexes, which produced a more favourable opinion of their profession than he had harshly expressed in his Life of Savage^[32]. With some of them he kept up an acquaintance as long as he and they lived, and was ever ready to shew them acts of kindness. He for a considerable time used to frequent the Green Room, and seemed to take delight in dissipating his gloom, by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there^[33]. Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick, that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement, from considerations of rigid virtue; saying, 'I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.'

1. 'On January 9 was published, long wished, another satire from Juvenal, by the author of London.' Gent. Mag. xviii. 598, 9.
2. Sir John Hawkins, with solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem as a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the fact is, that the poem was published on the 9th of January and the tragedy was not acted till the 6th of the February following. Boswell. Hawkins perhaps implies what Boswell says that he represents; but if so, he implies it by denying it. Hawkins's Johnson, p. 201.
3. 'I wrote,' he said, 'the first seventy lines in The Vanity of Human Wishes in the course of one morning in that small house beyond the church at Hampstead.' Works (1787), xi. 212.
4. See Post under Feb. 15, 1766. That Johnson did not think that in hasty composition there is any great merit, is shewn by The Rambler, No. 169, entitled Labour necessary to excellence. There he describes 'pride and indigence as the two great hasteners of modern poems.' He continues:—'that no other method of attaining lasting praise [than multa dies et multa litura] has been yet discovered may be conjectured from the blotted manuscripts of Milton now remaining, and from the tardy emission of Pope's compositions.' He made many corrections for the later editions of his poem.
5.  'Nov. 25, 1748. I received of Mr. Dodsley fifteen guineas, for which I assign to him the right of copy of an imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, written by me; reserving to myself the right of printing one edition.

   Sam. Johnson.'

   'London, 29 June, 1786. A true copy, from the original in Dr. Johnson's handwriting. Ja'. Dodslev.' Boswell.

   London was sold at a shilling a copy. Johnson was paid at the rate of about 91/2d. a line for this poem; for The Vanity of Human Wishes at the rate of about 10d. a line. Dryden by his engagement with Jacob Tonson (see Johnson's Works, vii. 298) undertook to furnish 10,000 verses at a little over 6d. a verse. Goldsmith was paid for The Traveller £21, or about 111/4d. a line.

6. He never published it. See Post under Dec. 9, 1784.
7. 'Jan. 9, 1821. Read Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes,—all the examples and mode of giving them sublime, as well as the latter part, with the exception of an occasional couplet. I do not so much admire the opening. The first line, "Let observation," etc., is certainly heavy and useless. But 'tis a grand poem—and so true!—true as the Tenth of Juvenal himself. The lapse of ages changes all things—time—language—the earth—the bounds of the sea—the stars of the sky, and everything "about, around, and underneath" man, except man himself. The infinite variety of lives conduct but to death, and the infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment.' Byron, vol. v. p. 66. Wright. Sir Walter Scott said 'that he had more pleasure in reading London, and The Vanity of Human Wishes than any other poetical composition he could mention.' Lockhart's Scott, iii. 269. Mr. Lockhart adds that 'the last line of MS. that Scott sent to the press was a quotation from The Vanity of Human Wishes.' Of the first lines  
   'Let observation with extensive view
   Survey mankind from China to Peru,'
   
   

   De Quincey quotes the criticism of some writer, who 'contends with some reason that this is saying in effect:—"Let observation with extensive observation observe mankind extensively."' De Ouincey's Works, X. 72.

8. From Mr. Langton. Boswell.
9.  In this poem one of the instances mentioned of unfortunate learned men is Lydiat:

   'Hear Lydiat's life, and Galileo's end.'

   The history of Lydiat being little known, the following account of him may be acceptable to many of my readers. It appeared as a note in the Supplement to the Gent. Mag. for 1748, in which some passages extracted from Johnson's poem were inserted, and it should have been added in the subsequent editions.—A very learned divine and mathematician, fellow of New College, Oxon, and Rector of Okerton, near Banbury. He wrote, among many others, a Latin treatise De Natura cœli, etc., in which he attacked the sentiments of Scaliger and Aristotle, not bearing to hear it urged, that some things are true in philosophy and false in divinity. He made above 600 Sermons on the harmony of the Evangelists. Being unsuccessful in publishing his works, he lay in the prison of Bocardo at Oxford, and in the King's Bench, till Bishop Usher, Dr. Laud, Sir William Boswell, and Dr. Pink, released him by paying his debts. He petitioned King Charles I. to be sent into Ethiopia, etc., to procure MSS. Having spoken in favour of Monarchy and bishops, he was plundered by the parliament forces, and twice carried away prisoner from his rectory; and afterwards had not a shirt to shift him in three months, without he borrowed it, and died very poor in 1646. Boswell.

10. Psalm xc. 12.
11. In the original Inquirer.
12. '. . . nonumque prematur in annum.' Horace, Ars Poet. l. 388.
13. 'Of all authors,' wrote Johnson, 'those are the most wretched who exhibit their productions on the theatre, and who are to propitiate first the manager and then the public. Many an humble visitant have I followed to the doors of these lords of the drama, seen him touch the knocker with a shaking hand, and after long deliberation adventure to solicit entrance by a single knock.' Works, v. 360.
14. Mahomet was, in fact, played by Mr. Barry, and Demetrius by Mr. Garrick: but probably at this time the parts were not yet cast. Boswell.
15.  The expression used by Dr. Adams was 'soothed.' I should rather think the audience was awed by the extraordinary spirit and dignity of the following lines:
    'Be this at least his praise, be this his pride.
    To force applause no modern arts are tried:
    

    Should partial catcalls all his hopes confound.
    He bids no trumpet quell the fatal sound;
    Should welcome sleep relieve the weary wit,
    He rolls no thunders o'er the drowsy pit;
    No snares to captivate the judgement spreads,
    Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads.
    Unmov'd, though witlings sneer and rivals rail,
    Studious to please, yet not asham'd to fail,
    He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain,
    With merit needless, and without it vain;
    In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust;
    Boswell.Ye fops be silent, and ye wits be just!'
     
16. Johnson said of Mrs. Pritchard's playing in general that 'it was quite mechanical;' Post, April 7, 1775. See also Post under Sept. 30, 1783.
17. 'The strangling of Irene in the view of the audience was suggested by Mr. Garrick.' Davies's Garrick, i. 128. Dryden in his Essay of Dramatick Poesie (edit. 1701, i. 13), says:—'I have observed that in all our tragedies the audience cannot forbear laughing when the actors are to die; 'tis the most comick part of the whole play.' 'Suppose your piece admitted, acted; one single ill-natured jest from the pit is sufficient to cancel all your labours.' Goldsmith's Present State of Polite Learn'ng, chap. x.
18. In her last speech two of the seven lines are very bad:—
    'Guilt and despair, pale spectres ! grin around me,
    And stun me with the yellings of damnation !' Act. v. sc. 9.
    
    
19. Murphy referring to Boswell's statement says:—'The Epilogue, we are told in a late publication, was written by Sir William Young, This is a new discovery, but by no means probable. When the appendages to a Dramatic Performance are not assigned to a friend, or an unknown hand, or a person of fashion, they are always supposed to be written by the author of the Play.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 154. He overlooks altogether the statement in the Gent. Mag. (xix. 85) that the Epilogue is ' by another hand.' Mr. Croker points out that the words 'as Johnson informed me first appear in the second edition. The wonder is that Johnson accepted this Epilogue, which is a little coarse and a little profane. Yonge was Secretary at War in Walpole's ministry. Walpole said of him 'that nothing but Yonge's character could keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character.' Horace Walpole's Letters, i. 98, note.
20. I know not what Sir John Hawkins means by the cold reception of Irene. (See ante, note, p. 223.) I was at the first representation, and most of the subsequent. It was much applauded the first night, particularly the speech on to-morrow [Act. iii. sc. 2]. It ran nine nights at least. It did not indeed become a stock-play, but there was not the least opposition during the representation, except the first night in the last act, where Irene was to be strangled on the stage, which John could not bear, though a dramatick poet may stab or slay by hundreds. The bow-string was not a Christian nor an ancient Greek or Roman death. But this offence was removed after the first night, and Irene went off the stage to be strangled.—Burney.
21. According to the Gent. Mag. (xix. 76) 'it was acted from Monday, Feb. 6, to Monday, Feb. 20, inclusive.' A letter in the Garrick Corres. (i. 32), dated April 3, 1745, seems to shew that so long a run was uncommon. The writer addressing Garrick says:—'You have now performed it [Tancred] for nine nights; consider the part, and whether nature can well support the frequent repetition of such shocks. Permit me to advise you to resolve not to act upon any account above three times a week.' Yet against this may be set the following passage in The Rambler, No. 123:—'At last a malignant author, whose performance I had persecuted through the nine nights, wrote an epigram upon Tape the critic, which drove me from the pit for ever.' Murphy writing in 1792 said that Irene had not been exhibited on any stage since its first representation. Murphy's Johnson, p. 52.
22. Mr. Croker says that 'it appears by a MS. note in Isaac Reed's copy of Murphy's Life, that the receipts of the third, sixth, and ninth nights, after deducting sixty guineas a night for the expenses of the house, amounted to £195 17s.: Johnson cleared therefore, with the copyright, very nearly £300.' Irene was sold at the price of 1s. 6d. a copy (Gent. Mag. xix. 96); so that Dodsley must have looked for a very large sale.
23. See Post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection for Johnson's estimate of Irene in later life.
24. Aaron Hill (vol. ii. p. 355), in a letter to Mr. Mallett, gives the following account of Irene after having seen it: 'I was at the anomalous Mr. Johnson's benefit, and found the play his proper representative; strong sense ungraced by sweetness or decorum.' Boswell.
25. See ante, p. 118.
26. Murphy (Life, p. 53) says that 'some years afterwards, when he knew Johnson to be in distress, he asked Garrick why he did not produce another tragedy for his Lichfield friend? Garrick's answer was remarkable: "When Johnson writes tragedy, declamation roars, and passion sleeps: when Shakespeare wrote, he dipped his pen in his own heart."' Johnson was perhaps aware of the causes of his failure as a tragedy-writer. In his criticism of Addison's Cato he says:—'Of Cato it has been not unjustly determined, that it is rather a poem in dialogue than a drama, rather a succession of just sentiments in elegant  language than a representation of natural affections, or of any state probable or possible in human life. . . . The events are expected without solicitude, and are remembered without joy or sorrow. . . . Its success has introduced or confirmed among us the use of dialogue too declamatory, of unaffecting elegance and chill philosophy.' Works, vii. 456. 'Johnson thought Cato the best model of tragedy we had; yet he used to say, of all things the most ridiculous would be to see a girl cry at the representation of it.' Johnson's Works (1787) xi. 207. Cato, if neglected, has added at least eight 'habitual quotations' to the language (see Thackeray's English Humourists, p. 98). Irene has perhaps not added a single one. It has nevertheless some quotable lines, such as—

    'Crowds that hide a monarch from himself.'	Act i. sc. 4.
    'To cant . . . of reason to a lover.'	Act iii. sc. 1.
    'When e'en as love was breaking off from wonder, And tender accents quiver'd on my lips.'	Ib.
    'And fate lies crowded in a narrow space.' Act iii. sc. 6.
    'Reflect that life and death, affecting sounds, Are only varied modes of endless being.'	Act iii. sc. 8.
    'Directs the planets with a careless nod.'	Ib.
    'Far as futurity's untravell'd waste.'	Act iv. sc. 1.
    'And wake from ignorance the western world.'	Act iv. sc. 2.
    'Through hissing ages a proverbial coward. The tale of women, and the scorn of fools.'	Act iv. sc. 3.
    'No records but the records of the sky.'	Ib.
    ' . . . thou art sunk beneath reproach.'	Act v. sc. 2.
    'Oh hide me from myself.'	Act v. sc. 3.

27. Johnson wrote of Milton:—'I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.' Johnson's Works, vii. 108.
28. 'Genus irritabile vatum.'
    'The fretful tribe of rival poets.'
    Francis, Horace, Ep. ii. 2. 102. 
    
    
29. This deference he enforces in many passages in his writings; as for instance:—'Dryden might have observed, that what is good only because it pleases, cannot be pronounced good till it has been found to please.' Johnson's Works, vii. 252. 'The authority of Addison is great; yet the voice of the people, when to please the people is the purpose, deserves regard.' Ib. 376. 'About things on which the public thinks long, it commonly attains to think right.' Ib. 456. 'These apologies are always useless: "de gustibus non est disputandum;" men may be convinced, but they cannot be pleased against their will.' Ib. viii. 26. 'Of things that terminate in human life, the world is the proper judge; to despise its sentence, if it were possible, is not just; and if it were just, is not possible.' Ib. viii. 316. Lord Chesterfield in writing to his son about his first appearance in the world said, 'You will be tried and judged there, not as a boy, but as a man ; and from that moment there is no appeal for character.' Lord Chesterfield's Letters, iii. 324. Addison in The Guardian, No. 98, had said that 'men of the best sense are always diffident of their private judgment, till it receives a sanction from the public. Provoco ad populum, I appeal to the people, was the usual saying of a very excellent dramatic poet, when he had any disputes with particular persons about the justness and regularity of his productions.' See post, March 23, 1783.
30. 'Were I,' he said, 'to wear a laced or embroidered waistcoat, it should be very rich. I had once a very rich laced waistcoat, which I wore the first night of my tragedy.' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 27, 1773.
31. 'Topham Beauclerc used to give a pleasant description of this greenroom finery, as related by the author himself: " But," said Johnson, with great gravity, "I soon laid aside my gold-laced hat, lest it should make me proud."' Murphy's Johnson, p. 52. In The Idler (No. 62) we have an account of a man who had longed to 'issue forth in all the splendour of embroider'. When his fine clothes were brought, 'I felt myself obstructed,' he wrote, 'in the common intercourse of civility by an uneasy consciousness of my new appearance; as I thought myself more observed, I was more anxious about my mien and behaviour; and the mien which is formed by care is commonly ridiculous.'
32. See ante, p. 193.
33. See Post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.