DR. JOHNSON, HIS LITERARY AND RELIGIOUS LIFE. CHAPTER I. How "WE continued our reading of Johnson's Lives of the Poets. often at midnight, as he listened with avidity, he apologised to me for keeping me from my rest! but, still delighted with our reading, he would say, Well, you may go on a little more.'"-TROTTER's Memoirs of Fox. * THE same warm spirit of approval with which Charles James Fox, in his last illness, stamped the literary talent of Johnson, has animated a very recent writer to speak of his kindly affections. "There was in Dr. Johnson," says the Rev. James S. M. Anderson,† "an Though Fox was shy of speaking much in the presence of Johnson, and Johnson avoided converse with him and others, thinking at one time that he almost deserved hanging for his political opinions, yet we find Boswell asking Johnson whether it was true that he had said lately, "I am for the King against Fox: but I am for Fox against Pitt." JOHNSON :-"Yes, Sir: the King is my master: but I do not know Pitt and Fox is my friend." Johnson added, that Fox was a most extraordinary man; while we are told that Fox "plainly showed much partiality for Johnson." Fox was a member of, and sometimes presided at, the Literary Club; but Boswell records little of the conversations that took place. † In an admirable Lecture on Dr. Johnson, in "Addresses on Miscellaneous Subjects," by the Rev. J. S. M. Anderson, Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen, &c. Rivingtons. 1849. B earnest and practical benevolence, which no man has surpassed." It shall be a main purpose of these pages to verify this saying from evidence; for herein we view one of the fairest fruits of religion. Little or no allusion shall be made to his political sympathics or prejudices; for, while Johnson was a Tory, his contemporary Addison was a Whig; and may we not, in great measure, regret that such men should ever become involved in the troubling speculations of politics? Edmund Burke and George Canning! you would have gone down to posterity with fuller and nobler remembrance, had you more loved the leisure for that intellectual toil which leads to profounder and more lasting achievement in the universal fields of literature and science. Croker observes, that the very name of Johnson's biographer is likely to be "as far spread and as lasting as the English language ;" what then must be the knowledge of mankind concerning Johnson himself, who, in that very language which is so probably destined to become one of the most extended on the earth, has written such lessons of wisdom, spoken aphorisms worthy the noblest ages of philosophy, and delivered, in common conversation, moral and religious principles, which can never be out of human remembrance until an absolute empire of anti-Christ overspreads the world? For, although the name of Boswell will be transmitted to all future time, yet, "You have made them all talk Johnson," was the remark made to him; and his own observation was becoming,-" Yes, I may add, I have Johnsonised the land; and I trust they will not only talk, but think Johnson!" Largeness of mind, and liberality of heart, will inevitably be the lot of all those who have power granted them to think as Johnson thought. It was well said by a Scotchman,* "When you see him first, you are struck with awful reverence; then you admire him; and then you love him cordially." It may be doubted whether many have got beyond the bounds of reverence and admiration: it is on closest acquaintance that you learn to love him. "To enjoy Dr. Johnson perfectly," wrote Hannah More, "one must have him to one's self;" and thus, when we can no longer see him bodily present, we must view him, not so much in the enjoyment of his "clubbable" disposition, or in the more magnificent walks of literature, or in the presence of kings, and lords, and hosts of friends; but in the unobtrusive deed of charity, in letters of consolation to the afflicted, in counsel given to the friendless, substantial help to the struggling, hospitality to the obscure, and in his own thoughts when almost alone. Mr. Steevens makes this honourable mention of him, and he knew his private life well:-"Could the many bounties he studiously concealed, the many acts of humanity he performed in private, be displayed with equal circumstantiality, his defects would be so far lost in the blaze of his virtues, that the latter only would be regarded." We must always suppose that a large amount of the beneficence of charitable individuals is hidden from public notice. * Donald Macleod, a Highland chief. |