The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [127]
On the first day of this year we find from his private devotions, that he had then recovered from sickness;a and in February that his eye was restored to its use.b The pious gratitude with which he acknowledges mercies upon every occasion is very edifying; as is the humble submission which he breathes, when it is the will of his heavenly Father to try him with afflictions. As such dispositions become the state of man here, and are the true effects of religious discipline, we cannot but venerate in Johnson one of the most exercised minds that our holy religion hath ever formed. If there be any thoughtless enough to suppose such exercise the weakness of a great understanding, let them look up to Johnson and be convinced that what he so earnestly practised must have a rational foundation.
His works this year were, an abstract or epitome, in octavo, of his folio Dictionary, and a few essays in a monthly publication, entitled, The Universal Visiter. Christopher Smart, with whose unhappy vacillation of mind he sincerely sympathised, was one of the stated undertakers of this miscellany; and it was to assist him that Johnson sometimes employed his pen. All the essays marked with two asterisks have been ascribed to him; but I am confident, from internal evidence, that of these, neither ‘The Life of Chaucer,’ ‘Reflections on the State of Portugal,’ nor an ‘Essay on Architecture,’ were written by him. I am equally confident, upon the same evidence, that he wrote ‘Further Thoughts on Agriculture;’! being the sequel of a very inferiour essay on the same subject, and which, though carried on as if by the same hand, is both in thinking and expression so far above it, and so strikingly peculiar, as to leave no doubt of its true parent; and that he also wrote A Dissertation on the State of Literature and Authours,’! and A Dissertation on the Epitaphs written by Pope.’f The last of these, indeed, he afterwards added to his Idler. Why the essays truly written by him are marked in the same manner with some which he did not write, I cannot explain: but with deference to those who have ascribed to him the three essays which I have rejected, they want all the characteristical marks of Johnsonian composition.
He engaged also to superintend and contribute largely to another monthly publication, entitled The Literary Magazine, or Universal Review;∗ the first number of which came out in May this year. What were his emoluments from this undertaking, and what other writers were employed in it, I have not discovered. He continued to write in it, with intermissions, till the fifteenth number; and I think that he never gave better proofs of the force, acuteness, and vivacity of his mind, than in this miscellany, whether we consider his original essays, or his reviews of the works of others. The ‘Preliminary Address’ f to the Publick is a proof how this great man could embellish, with the graces of superiour composition, even so trite a thing as the plan of a magazine.
His original essays are, ‘An Introduction to the Political State of Great Britain;’! ‘Remarks on the Militia Bill;’f131 ‘Observations on his Britannick Majesty’s Treaties with the Empress of Russia and the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel;’f132 ‘Observations on the Present State of Affairs;’f and ‘Memoirs of Frederick III, King of Prussia.’f In all these he displays extensive political knowledge and sagacity, expressed with uncommon energy and perspicuity, without any of those words which he sometimes took a pleasure in adopting in imitation of Sir Thomas Browne; of whose Christian Morals he this year gave an edition, with his ‘Life’f prefixed to it, which is one of Johnson’s best biographical performances. In one instance only in these essays has he indulged his Brownism. Dr. Robertson, the historian, mentioned it to me, as having at once convinced him that Johnson was the author of the ‘Memoirs of the King of Prussia.’ Speaking of the pride which the old King, the father of his hero, took in being master of the tallest regiment in Europe, he says, ‘To review this