In 1745 he published a pamphlet entitled Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth, with remarks on Sir T. H.’s (Sir Thomas Hanmer’s) Edition of Shakspeare.∗ To which he affixed, proposals for a new edition of that poet.
As we do not trace any thing else published by him during the course of this year, we may conjecture that he was occupied entirely with that work. But the little encouragement which was given by the publick to his anonymous proposals for the execution of a task which Warburton was known to have undertaken, probably damped his ardour. His pamphlet, however, was highly esteemed, and was fortunate enough to obtain the approbation even of the supercilious Warburton himself, who, in the Preface to his Shakspeare published two years afterwards, thus mentioned it: ‘As to all those things which have been published under the titles of Essays, Remarks, Observations, &c. on Shakspeare, if you except some critical notes on Macbeth, given as a specimen of a projected edition, and written, as appears, by a man of parts and genius, the rest are absolutely below a serious notice.’
Of this flattering distinction shewn to him by Warburton, a very grateful remembrance was ever entertained by Johnson, who said, ‘He praised me at a time when praise was of value to me.’
1746: yETAT. 37.] – In 1746 it is probable that he was still employed upon his Shakspeare, which perhaps he laid aside for a time, upon account of the high expectations which were formed of Warburton’s edition of that great poet. It is somewhat curious, that his literary career appears to have been almost totally suspended in the years 1745 and 1746 those years which were marked by a civil war in Great-Britain, when a rash attempt was made to restore the House of Stuart to the throne. That he had a tenderness for that unfortunate House, is well known; and some may fancifully imagine, that a sympathetick anxiety impeded the exertion of his intellectual powers: but I am inclined to think, that he was, during this time, sketching the outlines of his great philological work.71
None of his letters during those years are extant, so far as I can discover. This is much to be regretted. It might afford some entertainment to see how he then expressed himself to his private friends, concerning State affairs. Dr. Adams informs me, that ‘at this time a favourite object which he had in contemplation was The Life of Alfred; in which, from the warmth with which he spoke about it, he would, I believe, had he been master of his own will, have engaged himself, rather than on any other subject.’
1747: yETAT. 38.] – In 1747 it is supposed that the Gentleman’s Magazine for May was enriched by him with five short poetical pieces, distinguished by three asterisks. The first is a translation, or rather a paraphrase, of a Latin Epitaph on Sir Thomas Hanmer. Whether the Latin was his, or not, I have never heard, though I should think it probably was, if it be certain that he wrote the English; as to which my only cause of doubt is, that his slighting character of Hanmer as an editor, in his Observations on Macbeth, is very different from that in the ‘Epitaph.’ It may be said, that there is the same contrariety between the character in the Observations, and that in his own Preface to Shakspeare; but a considerable time elapsed between the one publication and the other, whereas the Observations and the ‘Epitaph’ came close together. The others are ‘To Miss —, on her giving the Authour a gold and silk net-work Purse of her own weaving;’ ‘Stella in Mourning;’ ‘The Winter’s Walk;’ ‘An Ode;’ and, ‘To Lyce, an elderly Lady.’ I am not positive that all these were his productions;a but as ‘The Winter’s Walk’ has never been controverted to be his, and all of them have the same mark, it is reasonable to conclude that they are all written by the same hand. Yet to the Ode, in which we find a passage very characteristick of him, being a learned description of the gout,
‘Unhappy, whom to beds of pain
Arthritick tyranny consigns;’
there is the following note: ‘The authour being ill of the gout:’ but Johnson was not attacked with that distemper till at a very late period of his life. May not this, however, be a poetical fiction? Why may not a poet suppose himself to have the gout, as well as suppose himself to be in love, of which we have innumerable instances, and which has been admirably ridiculed by Johnson in his Life of Cowley? I have also some difficulty to believe that he could produce such a group of conceits as appear in the verses to Lyce, in which he claims for this ancient personage as good a right to be assimilated to heaven, as nymphs whom other poets have flattered; he therefore ironically ascribes to her the attributes of the sky, in such stanzas as this:
‘Her teeth the night with darkness dies,
She’s starr’d with pimples o’er;
Her tongue like nimble lightning plies,
And can with thunder roar.’
But as at a very advanced age he could condescend to trifle in namby-pamby rhymes, to please Mrs. Thrale and her daughter, he may have, in his earlier years, composed such a piece as this.
It is remarkable, that in this first edition of The Winter’s Walk, the concluding line is much more Johnsonian than it was afterwards printed; for in subsequent editions, after praying Stella to ‘snatch himto her arms,’ he says,
‘And shield me from the ills of life.’
Whereas in the first edition it is
‘And hide me from the sight of life.’
A horrour at life in general is more consonant with Johnson’s habitual gloomy cast of thought.
I have heard him repeat with great energy the following verses, which appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine for April this year; but I have no authority to say they were his own. Indeed one of the best criticks of our age72 suggests to me, that ‘the word indifferently being used in the sense of without concern,’ and being also very unpoetical, renders it improbable that they should have been his composition.
On Lord LOVAT’s Execution.
‘Pity’d by gentle minds Kilmarnock died;
The brave, Balmerino, were on thy side;
Radcliffe, unhappy in his crimes of youth,
Steady in what he still mistook for truth,
Beheld his death so decently unmov’d,
The soft lamented, and the brave approv’d.
But Lovat’s fate indifferently we view,
True to no King, to no religion true:
No fair forgets the ruin he has done;
No child laments the tyrant of his son;
No tory pities, thinking what he was;
No whig compassions, for he left the cause;
The brave regret not, for he was not brave;
The honest mourn not, knowing him a knave!a