Lowly towards God, and docile towards the church; implicit in his belief of the gospel, and ever respectful towards the people appointed to preach it; tender of the unhappy, and affectionate to the poor, let no one hastily condemn as proud, a character which may perhaps somewhat justly be censured as arrogant. It must however be remembered again, that even this arrogance was never shewn without some intention, immediate or remote, of mending some fault or conveying some instruction. Had I meant to make a panegyric on Mr. Johnson's well-known excellencies, I should have told his deeds only, not his words – sincerely protesting, that as I never saw him once do a wrong thing, so we had accustomed ourselves to look upon him almost as an excepted[1] being; and I should as much have expected injustice from Socrates or impiety from Paschal, as the slightest deviation from truth and goodness in any transaction one might be engaged in with Samuel Johnson. His attention to veracity was without equal or example[2]: and when I mentioned Clarissa as a perfect character; 'On the contrary (said he), you may observe there is always something which she prefers to truth. Fielding's Amelia was the most pleasing heroine of all the romances (he said); but that vile broken nose never cured[3], ruined the sale of perhaps the only book, which being printed off betimes one morning, a new edition was called for before night[4].'
- ↑ I do not find any instances of excepted as here used. A writer of the present day would perhaps have said exceptional – a word not in Johnson's Dictionary.
- ↑ Ante, p. 225.
- ↑ 'The injury done to her beauty by the overturning of a chaise, by which, as you may well remember, her lovely nose was beat all to pieces, gave me an assurance that the woman who had been so much adored for the charms of her person deserved a much higher adoration to be paid to her mind.' Amelia, Bk. ii. c. 1.
- ↑ Mrs. Piozzi must mean 'which being published betimes,' &c.
Wraxhall (Memoirs, i. 54), says that Cadell told him that his predecessor Andrew Millar, who gave Fielding £800 for the copyright of Amelia, was advised 'to get rid of it as soon as he could. At the first sale which he made to the Trade he said, "Gentlemen, I have several works to put up for which I shall be glad if you will bid; but as to Amelia every copy is already bespoke." This manœuvre had
truly humble,' adds Nichols, 'were the thoughts which this great and good man entertained of his own approaches to religious perfection.' Life, iv. 410.
