The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [852]
‘The passage in question was originally not liable to such a perversion; for the authour having occasion in that part of his work to mention the havock made by rats and mice, had introduced the subject in a kind of mock heroick, and a parody of Homer’s battle of the frogs and mice,563 invoking the Muse of the old Grecian bard in an elegant and well-turned manner. In that state I had seen it; but afterwards, unknown to me and other friends, he had been persuaded, contrary to his own better judgement, to alter it, so as to produce the unlucky effect above-mentioned.’
The above was written by the Bishop when he had not the Poem itself to recur to; and though the account given was true of it at one period, yet as Dr. Grainger afterwards altered the passage in question, the remarks in the text do not now apply to the printed poem.
The Bishop gives this character of Dr. Grainger: – ‘He was not only a man of genius and learning, but had many excellent virtues; being one of the most generous, friendly, and benevolent men I ever knew.’
a Dr. Johnson said to me, ‘Percy, Sir, was angry with me for laughing at The Sugar-Cane: for he had a mind to make a great thing of Grainger’s rats.’
a My worthy friend Mr. Langton, to whom I am under innumerable obligations in the course of my Johnsonian History, has furnished me with a droll illustration of this question. An honest carpenter, after giving some anecdote in his presence of the ill-treatment which he had received from a clergyman’s wife, who was a noted termagant, and whom he accused of unjust dealing in some transaction with him, added, ‘I took care to let her know what I thought of her.’ And being asked, ‘What did you say?’ answered, ‘I told her she was a scoundrel.’
a John iii. 30.
a I went through the house where my illustrious friend was born, with a reverence with which it doubtless will long be visited. An engraved view of it, with the adjacent buildings, is in The Gent. Mag. for Feb. 1785.
a See an accurate and animated statement of Mr. Gastrel’s barbarity, by Mr. Malone, in a note on Some account of the Life of William Shakspeare, prefixed to his admirable edition of that poet’s works, vol. i. p. 118.
a [Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and in 1782 created Baron Grantley.]
a Anecdotes of Johnson, p. 176.
a The phrase ‘vexing thoughts,’ is, I think, very expressive. It has been familiar to me from my childhood; for it is to be found in the Psalms in Metre, used in the churches (I believe I should say kirks) of Scotland, Psal. xliii. v. 5;
‘Why art thou then cast down, my soul?
What should discourage thee?
And why with vexing thoughts art thou
Disquieted in me?’
Some allowance must no doubt be made for early prepossession. But at a maturer period of life, after looking at various metrical versions of the Psalms, I am well satisfied that the version used in Scotland is, upon the whole, the best; and that it is vain to think of having a better. It has in general a simplicity and unction of sacred Poesy; and in many parts its transfusion is admirable.
a Dr. Adam Smith, who was for some time a Professor in the University of Glasgow, has uttered, in his Wealth of Nations, some reflections upon this subject which are certainly not well founded, and seem to be invidious.
a Dr. Goldsmith was dead before Mr. Maclaurin discovered the ludicrous errour. But Mr. Nourse, the bookseller, who was the proprietor of the work, upon being applied to by Sir John Pringle, agreed very handsomely to have the leaf on which it was contained cancelled, and re-printed without it, at his own expence.
b What Dr. Johnson has here said, is undoubtedly good sense; yet I am afraid that law, though defined by Lord Coke ‘the perfection of reason,’ is not altogether with him; for it is held in the books, that an attack on the reputation