Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol. II (version 2) — Section 4

'May 10, 1766, Johnson's-court, Fleet-street.'

After I had been some time in Scotland, I mentioned to him in a letter that 'On my first return to my native country, after some years of absence, I was told of a vast number of my acquaintance who were all gone to the land of forgetfulness, and I found myself like a man stalking over a field of battle, who every moment perceives some one lying dead.'

I complained of irresolution, and mentioned my having made a vow as a security for good conduct.

I wrote to him again, without being able to move his indolence; nor did I hear from him till he had received a copy of my inaugural Exercise, or Thesis in Civil Law, which I published at my admission as an Advocate, as is the custom in Scotland.

He then wrote to me as follows: 'To JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.

'DEAR SIR, 'The reception of your Thesis put me in mind of my debt to you Why did you ----[60].

I will punish you for it, by telling you that your Latin wants correction[61].

In the beginning, _Spei alterae_, not to urge that it should be _prima_, is not grammatical: _alterae_ should be _alteri_.

In the next line you seem to use _genus_ absolutely, for what we call _family_, that is, for _illustrious extraction_, I doubt without authority.

_Homines nullius originis_, for _Nullis orti majoribus_, or, _Nullo loco nati_, is, I am afraid, barbarous.

--Ruddiman is dead[62].

'I have now vexed you enough, and will try to please you.

Your resolution to obey your father I sincerely approve; but do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows: they will sometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject.

Take this warning, it is of great importance[63].

'The study of the law is what you very justly term it, copious and generous[64]; and in adding your name to its professors, you have done exactly what I always wished, when I wished you best.

I hope that you will continue to pursue it vigorously and constantly[65].

You gain, at least, what is no small advantage, security from those troublesome and wearisome discontents, which are always obtruding themselves upon a mind vacant, unemployed, and undetermined.

'You ought to think it no small inducement to diligence and perseverance, that they will please your father.

We all live upon the hope of pleasing somebody; and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty.

'Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent; deliberation, which those who begin it by prudence, and continue it with subtilty, must, after long expence of thought, conclude by chance[66].

To prefer one future mode of life to another, upon just reasons, requires faculties which it has not pleased our Creator to give us.

'If, therefore, the profession you have chosen has some unexpected inconveniencies, console yourself by reflecting that no profession is without them; and that all the importunities and perplexities of business are softness and luxury, compared with the incessant cravings of vacancy, and the unsatisfactory expedients of idleness.

"_Haec sunt quce nostra polui te voce monere[67];

Vade, age_."

'As to your _History of Corsica_, you have no materials which others have not, or may not have.

You have, somehow, or other, warmed your imagination.

I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.

Mind your own affairs, and leave the Corsicans to theirs.

I am, dear Sir, 'Your most humble servant, 'SAM.

JOHNSON.'

'London, Aug.

21, 1766.' 'To DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.

'Auchinleck, Nov.

6, 1766. 'MUCH ESTEEMED AND DEAR SIR,

'I plead not guilty to[68]---- 'Having thus, I hope, cleared myself of the charge brought against me, I presume you will not be displeased if I escape the punishment which you have decreed for me unheard.

If you have discharged the arrows of criticism against an innocent man, you must rejoice to find they have missed him, or have not been pointed so as to wound him.

'To talk no longer in allegory, I am, with all deference, going to offer a few observations in defence of my Latin, which you have found fault with.

'You think I should have used _spei primA|_, instead of _spei alterA|_.

_Spes_ is, indeed, often used to express something on which we have a future dependence, as in Virg.

Eclog.

i.

l.

14, "....

_modo namque gemellos_ Spem _gregis ah silice in nudAi connixa reliquit_."

and in Georg.

iii.

l.

473, "Spemque _gregemque simul_," for the lambs and the sheep.

Yet it is also used to express any thing on which we have a present dependence, and is well applied to a man of distinguished influence, our support, our refuge, our _prA|sidium_, as Horace calls MA|cenas.

So, Aćneid xii.

l.

57, Queen Amata addresses her son-in-law Turnus:--"Spes _tu nunc una_:" and he was then no future hope, for she adds, "...

_decus imperiumque Latini Te penes_;"

which might have been said of my Lord Bute some years ago.

Now I consider the present Earl of Bute to be '_ExcelsA| familiA| de Bute_ spes prima;' and my Lord Mountstuart, as his eldest son, to be '_spes altera_.'

So in Aćneid xii.

l.

168, after having mentioned Pater Aćneas, who was the _present_ spes, the _reigning_ spes, as my German friends would say, the _spes prima_, the poet adds, "_Et juxta Ascanius, magnae_ spes altera _RomA|_."

'You think _alterA|_ ungrammatical, and you tell me it should have been _alteri_.

You must recollect, that in old times _alter_ was declined regularly; and when the ancient fragments preserved in the _Juris Civilis Fontes_ were written, it was certainly declined in the way that I use it.

This, I should think, may protect a lawyer who writes _alterA|_ in a dissertation upon part of his own science.

But as I could hardly venture to quote fragments of old law to so classical a man as Mr. Johnson, I have not made an accurate search into these remains, to find examples of what I am able to produce in poetical composition.

We find in Plaut.

Rudens, act iii.

scene 4, "_Nam Jiuic alters patria qua: sit profecto nescio_."

Plautus is, to be sure, an old comick writer: but in the days of Scipio and Lelius, we find, Terent.

Heautontim.

act ii.

scene 3, "....

hoc ipsa in itinere alterA| Dum narrat, forte audivi."

'You doubt my having authority for using _genus_ absolutely, for what we call _family_, that is, for _illustrious extraction_.

Now I take _genus_ in Latin, to have much the same signification with _birth_ in English;

both in their primary meaning expressing simply descent, but both made to stand [Greek: kat exochaen] noble descent.

_Genus_ is thus used in Hor.

lib.

ii.

Sat.

v.

1. 8, "_Et genus et virtus, nisi cum re, vilior alga est_."

'And in lib.

i.

Epist.

vi.

1. 37, "_Et genus et forinam Regina pecunia donat_."

'And in the celebrated contest between Ajax and Ulysses, Ovid's Metamorph.

lib.

xiii.

1. 140, "_Nam genus et proavos, et quA|--non fecimus ipsi Vix ea nostra voco_."

'_Homines nullius originis_, for _nullis orti majoribus_, or _nullo loco nati_, is, you are "afraid, barbarous."

'_Origo_ is used to signify extraction, as in Virg.

Aćneid i. 1. 286, "_Nascetur pulchrd Trojanus_ origine _CA|sar_."

And in Aćneid x. 1. 618, "_Ille tamen nostrAc deducit_ origine _nomen_" And as _nullus_ is used for obscure, is it not in the genius of the Latin language to write _nullius originis_, for obscure extraction?

'I have defended myself as well as I could.

'Might I venture to differ from you with regard to the utility of vows?

I am sensible that it would be very dangerous to make vows rashly, and without a due consideration.

But I cannot help thinking that they may often be of great advantage to one of a variable judgement and irregular inclinations.

I always remember a passage in one of your letters to our Italian friend Baretti; where talking of the monastick life, you say you do not wonder that serious men should put themselves under the protection of a religious order, when they have found how unable they are to take care of themselves.

[69] For my own part, without affecting to be a Socrates, I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with _the Evil Principle_; and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.

* * * * * 'I am ever, with the highest veneration, 'Your affectionate humble servant, 'JAMES BOSWELL.'

It appears from Johnson's diary, that he was this year at Mr. Thrale's, from before Midsummer till after Michaelmas, and that he afterwards passed a month at Oxford.

He had then contracted a great intimacy with Mr. Chambers of that University, afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of the Judges in India.

[70] He published nothing this year in his own name; but the noble dedication[71][*] to the King, of Gwyn's _London and Westminster Improved_, was written by him; and he furnished the Preface,[Dagger] and several of the pieces, which compose a volume of _Miscellanies_ by Mrs. Anna Williams, the blind lady who had an asylum in his house.

Of these, there are his 'Epitaph on Philips,'[72][*] 'Translation of a Latin Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer,'[73][Dagger] 'Friendship, an Ode,'[74][*] and, 'The Ant,'[*] a paraphrase from the Proverbs, of which I have a copy in his own hand-writing; and, from internal evidence, I ascribe to him, 'To Miss ----, on her giving the Authour a gold and silk net-work Purse of her own weaving'[75]; [Dagger] and, 'The happy Life.'

[76][Dagger] Most of the pieces in this volume have evidently received additions from his superiour pen, particularly 'Verses to Mr. Richardson, on his Sir Charles Grandison;' 'The Excursion;' 'Reflections on a Grave digging in Westminster Abbey.'

[77] There is in this collection a poem 'On the Death of Stephen Grey, the Electrician;'[*] which, on reading it, appeared to me to be undoubtedly Johnson's. I asked Mrs. Williams whether it was not his.

'Sir, (said she, with some warmth,) I wrote that poem before I had the honour of Dr. Johnson's acquaintance.'

I, however, was so much impressed with my first notion, that I mentioned it to Johnson, repeating, at the same time, what Mrs. Williams had said.

His answer was, 'It is true, Sir, that she wrote it before she was acquainted with me; but she has not told you that I wrote it all over again, except two lines.'

[78] 'The Fountains,'[dagger] a beautiful little Fairy tale in prose, written with exquisite simplicity, is one of Johnson's productions; and I cannot with-hold from Mrs. Thrale the praise of being the authour of that admirable poem, 'The Three Warnings.'