54 Imbecility of the government. [A.D. 1776. characteristick of our own government at present is imbecility'. The magistrate dare not call the guards for fear of being hanged. The guards will not come, for fear of being given up to the blind rage of popular juries'.' 1 See post, Jan. 20, 1782. * On May 10, 1768, on which day the new parliament met, a great body of people gathered round the King's Bench prison in St. George's Fields in expectation that Wilkes would go thence to the House of Commons. Some kind of a riot arose, a proclamation was made in the terms of the Riot-Act, and the soldiers firing by order of Justice Gillam, killed five or six on the spot. The justice and one of the soldiers were on the coroner's inquest brought in guilty of wilful murder, and two other soldiers of aiding and abetting therein. With great difficulty the prisoners were saved from the rage of the populace. They were all acquitted however. At Gillam's trial the judge ruled in his favour, so that the case did not go to the jury. Of the trial of one of the soldiers 'no account was allowed to be published by authority.' Ann. Reg. 1768, pp. 108–9, 112, 136–8, 233. Professor Dicey (Law of the Constitution, p. 308) points out that 'the position of a soldier may be, both in theory and practice, a difficult one. He may, as it has been well said, be liable to be shot by a court-martial if he disobeys an order, and to be hanged by a judge and jury if he obeys it.' The remembrance of these cases was perhaps the cause of the feebleness shewn in the Gordon Riots in June 1780. Dr. Franklin wrote from London on May 14, 1768 (Memoirs, iii. 315) :—' Even this capital is now a daily scene of lawless riot. Mobs patrolling the streets at noon-day, some knocking all down that will not roar for Wilkes and liberty; courts of justice afraid to give judgment against him; coalheavers and porters pulling down the houses of coal-merchants that refuse to give them more wages; sawyers destroying saw-mills; sailors unrigging all the outward-bound ships, and suffering none to sail till merchants agree to raise their pay; watermen destroying private boats, and threatening bridges; soldiers firing among the mobs and killing men, women, and children.' 'While I am writing,' he adds (ib. p. 316), a great mob of coal-porters fill the street, carrying a wretch of their business upon poles to be ducked for working at the old wages.' See also ib. p. 402. Hume agreed with Johnson about the 'imbecility' of the government; but he drew from it different conclusions. He wrote on Oct. 27, 1775, about the addresses to the King: 'I wish they would advise him first to punish those insolent rascals in London and Middlesex, who daily insult him and the whole legislature, before he thinks of America. Ask him, how he can expect Of Aetat. 67.] Blair's GRAVE. 55 Of the father of one of our friends, he observed, 'He never clarified his notions, by filtrating them through other minds. He had a canal upon his estate, where at one place the bank was too low. I dug the canal deeper,' said he'. He told me that 'so long ago as 1748' he had read "The Grave, a Poem'," but did not like it much.' I differed from him; for though it is not equal throughout, and is seldom elegantly correct, it abounds in solemn thought, and poetical imagery beyond the common reach. The world has differed from him; for the poem has passed through many editions, and is still much read by people of a serious cast of mind. A literary lady of large fortune' was mentioned, as one who did good to many, but by no means 'by stealth,' and instead that a form of government will maintain an authority at 3000 miles' distance, when it cannot make itself be respected, or even be treated with common decency, at home.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 479. On the 30th of this month of April-four days after the conversation in the text-John Home recorded :—' Mr. Hume cannot give any reason for the incapacity and want of genius, civil and military, which marks this period.' Ib. p. 503. 'See Dr. Johnson, His Friends, &c., 'It was published in 1743. p. 252. 'I am sorry that there are no memoirs of the Reverend Robert Blair, the authour of this poem. He was the representative of the ancient family of Blair, of Blair, in Ayrshire, but the estate had descended to a female, and afterwards passed to the son of her husband by another marriage. He was minister of the parish of Athelstanford, where Mr. John Home was his successor; so that it may truely be called classick ground. His son, who is of the same name, and a man eminent for talents and learning, is now, with universal approbation, Solicitor-General of Scotland. BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 94) describes Blair 'as so austere and void of urbanity as to make him quite disagreeable to young people.' 4 In 1775 Mrs. Montagu gave Mrs. Williams a small annuity. Croker's Boswell, pp. 458, 739. Miss Burney wrote of her :—' Allowing a little for parade and ostentation, which her power in wealth and rank in literature offer some excuse for, her conversation is very agreeable.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 325. See post, April 7, 1778, note. of 56 Pure benevolence. [A.D. 1776. of 'blushing to find it fame',' acted evidently from vanity. JOHNSON. I have seen no beings who do as much good from benevolence, as she does, from whatever motive. If there are such under the earth, or in the clouds, I wish they would come up, or come down. What Soame Jenyns says upon this subject is not to be minded; he is a wit. No, Sir; to act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite beings. Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive".' He would not allow me to praise a lady then at Bath; observing, 'She does not gain upon me, Sir; I think her empty-headed.' He was, indeed, a stern critick upon characters and manners. Even Mrs. Thrale did not escape his friendly animadversion at times. When he and I were one day endeavouring to ascertain, article by article, how one of our friends' could possibly spend as much money in his family as he told us he did, she interrupted us by a lively extravagant sally, on the expence of clothing his children, describing it in a very ludicrous and fanciful manner. Johnson looked a little angry, and said, ‘Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.' At another time, when she said, perhaps affectedly, 'I don't like to fly.' JOHNSON. 'With your wings, Madam, you must fly but have a care, there are clippers abroad.' 2 'Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Johnson refers to Jenyns's View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion, published this spring. See post, April 15, 1778. Jenyns had changed his view, for in his Origin of Evil he said, in a passage quoted with applause by Johnson (Works, vi. 69), that it is observable that he who best knows our formation has trusted no one thing of importance to our reason or virtue; he trusts to our vanity or compassion for our bounty to others.' " Mr. Langton is certainly meant. It is strange how often his mode of living was discussed by Johnson and Boswell. See post, Nov. 16, 1776, July 22, and Sept. 22, 1777, March 18, April 17, 18, and 20, May 12, and July 3, 1778. How Aetat. 67.] Mrs. Piozzi and Baretti. 57 How very well was this said, and how fully has experience proved the truth of it! But have they not clipped rather rudely, and gone a great deal closer than was necessary1? A gentleman' expressed a wish to go and live three years at Otaheité, or New-Zealand, in order to obtain a full acquaintance with people, so totally different from all that we have ever known, and be satisfied what pure nature can do for man. JOHNSON. What could you learn, Sir? What can savages tell, but what they themselves have seen? Of the past, or the invisible, they can tell nothing. The inhabitants of Otaheité and New-Zealand are not in a state of pure nature; for it is plain they broke off from some other people. Had they grown out of the ground, you might have judged of a state of pure nature. Fanciful people may talk of a mythology being amongst them; but it must be invention. They have once had religion, which has been gradually debased. And what account of their religion can you suppose to be learnt from savages? Only consider, Sir, our own state: our religion is in a book; we have an order of men whose duty it 'Baretti made a brutal attack on Mrs. Piozzi in the European Mag. for 1788, xiii. 313, 393, and xiv. 89. He calls her 'the frontless female, who goes now by the mean appellation of Piozzi; La Piozzi, as my fiddling countrymen term her; who has dwindled down into the contemptible wife of her daughter's singing-master.' His excuse was the attacks made on him by her in the correspondence just published between herself and Johnson (see Piozzi Letters, i. 277, 319). He suspected her, and perhaps with reason, of altering some of these letters. Other writers besides Baretti attacked her. To use Lord Macaulay's words, grossly exaggerated though they are, 'She fled from the laughter and hisses of her countrymen and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown.' Macaulay's Writings and Speeches, ed. 1871, p. 393. According to Dr. T. Campbell (Diary, p. 33) Baretti flattered Mrs. Thrale to her face. 'Talking as we were at tea of the magnitude of the beer vessels, Baretti said there was one thing in Mr. Thrale's house still more extraordinary; meaning his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily-so much for Baretti.' See post, Dec. 21, 1776. 'Likely enough Boswell himself. On three other occasions he mentions Otaheité; ante, May 7, 1773, post, June 15, 1784, and in his Hebrides, Sept. 23, 1773. He was fond of praising savage life. See ante, ii. 83. 58 Chatterton's fabricated verses. [A.D. 1776. is to teach it; we have one day in the week set apart for it, and this is in general pretty well observed: yet ask the first ten gross men you meet, and hear what they can tell of their religion.' On Monday, April 29, he and I made an excursion to Bristol, where I was entertained with seeing him enquire upon the spot, into the authenticity of 'Rowley's Poetry',' as I had seen him enquire upon the spot into the authenticity of 'Ossian's Poetry'.' George Catcot, the pewterer, who was as zealous for Rowley, as Dr. Hugh Blair' was for Ossian, (I trust my Reverend friend will excuse the comparison,) attended us at our inn, and with a triumphant air of lively simplicity called out, 'I'll make Dr. Johnson a convert.' Dr. Johnson, at his desire, read aloud some of Chatterton's fabricated verses, while Catcot stood at the back of his chair, moving himself like a pendulum, and beating time with his feet, and now and then looking into Dr. Johnson's face, wondering that he was not yet convinced. We called on Mr. Barret, the surgeon, and saw some of the originals as they were called, which were executed very artificially1; but from a careful inspection of them, and a consideration of the circumstances with which they were attended, we were quite satisfied of the imposture, which, indeed, has been clearly demonstrated from internal evidence, by several able criticks". ' Chatterton said that he had found in a chest in St. Mary Redcliffe Church manuscript poems by Canynge, a merchant of Bristol in the fifteenth century, and a friend of his, Thomas Rowley. He gave some of these manuscripts to George Catcot, a pewterer of Bristol, who communicated them to Mr. Barret, who was writing a History of Bristol. Rose's Biog. Dict. vi. 256. 2 See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22. See ante, i. 458. Artificially. Artfully; with skill.' Johnson's Dictionary. 'Mr. Tyrwhitt, Mr. Warton, Mr. Malone. BoSWELL. Johnson wrote on May 16:-'Steevens seems to be connected with Tyrwhitt in publishing Chatterton's poems; he came very anxiously to know the result of our inquiries, and though he says he always thought them Honest |