LETTER XI. MRS KNOWLES*. March 27, 1785. So your fair friend, Mrs Hunter, disavows poetic inspiration. This is being very ungrateful to the god of the silver bow, and the nine nymphs in his train. I give her credit for a very feeling heart; but it might have thrilled, and glowed, and melted long enough before it had produced such verses as I have seen of hers, unless she had obtained those delphic irradiations which she, thankless princess as she is, disclaims. When she assures me that they were produced without any efforts of study, I do not doubt her veracity, but the belief doubles my conviction of her obligations to their high mightinesses on the mountain. When you and she would exalt simplicity, that nymph of the valley, into your patron and inspir * The celebrated quaker lady who worked the King's picture so admirably in worsted. When Molly Morris of Rageby, she was stiled the beauty of Staffordshire. She survived her husband, Dr Knowles, an eminent physician in London, many years, and died February 4, 1807, aged 80. ing goddess, you put me in mind of the children of Israel worshipping the calf in Horeb. That gentle-faced idol was just as capable of protecting them, as she is of producing the wit and oratory of Mrs Knowles, and the poetry of Mrs Hunter. O! to be sure it was simplicity solely who set "Mary Knowles upon one leg in the temple of fame *" Arch and humorous imagination was no agent in producing that odd idea! —but, in truth, all that Simplicity ever did for that gentlewoman was to put on her cap. Mr Boswell has applied to me for Johnsonian records for his life of the despot. If he inserts them unmutilated, as I have arranged them, they will contribute to display Johnson's real character to the public; that strange compound of great talents, weak and absurd prejudices, strong, but unfruitful devotion; intolerant fierceness; compassionate munificence, and corroding envy. I was fearful that Mr Boswell's personal attachment would have scrupled to throw in those dark shades which truth commands should be employ ed in drawing the Johnsonian portrait; but these fears are considerably dissipated by the style of Mr Boswell's acknowledgments for the materials I had sent him, and for the perfect impartiality ་ * Alluding to a humorous description of herself in one of her letters. with which I had spoken of Johnson's virtues and faults. He desires I will send him the minutes I made at the time of that, as he justly calls it, tremendous* conversation at Dilly's, between you and him, on the subject of Miss Harry's commencing quaker. Boswell had so often spoke to me, with regret, over the ferocious, reasonless, and unchristian violence of his idol that night, it looks impartial beyond my hopes, that he requests me to arrange it. I had omitted to send it in the first collection, from my hopelessness that Mr Boswell would insert it in his life of the Colossus. Time may have worn away those deep-indented lines of bigot fierceness from the memory of the biographer, and the hand of affection may not be firm enough to resolve upon engraving them. O! yes, as you observe, dreadful were the horrors which attended poor Johnson's dying state. His religion was certainly not of that nature which sheds comfort on the deathbed-pillow. I believe his faith was sincere, and therefore could not fail to reproach his heart, which had swelled with pride, envy, and hatred, through the whole course of his existence But religious feeling, on * Mr Boswell has strangely mutilated, abridged, and changed the minutes sent him of this conversation. The reader will find them faithfully given in a letter further on, addressed to Mrs Mompesson, and dated December 31, 1785. which you lay so great a stress, was not the desideratum in Johnson's virtue. He was no cold moralist; it was obedience, meekness, and universal benevolence, whose absence from his heart, driven away by the turbulent fierceness and jealousy of his unbridled passions, filled with so much horror the darkness of the grave. Those glowing aspirations in religion, which are termed enthusiasm, cannot be rationally considered as a test of its truth. Every religion has had its martyrs. I verily believe Johnson would have stood that trial for a system to whose precepts he yet disdained to bend his proud and stubborn heart. How dif ferent from his was the death-bed of that sweet Excellence, whom he abused at Dilly's, by the name of the "odious wench!" Those were shocking suicides which you mentioned. Alas! that vice increases. Infidelity, pride, and extravagance are its general sources; but why an atheist, who groans not under the oppression of poverty and pain, should prefer annihilation to existence, it is difficult to guess. Ennui, whatever discontent it may create, would, one should suppose, be inconsistent with that degree of stimulus which subdues the natural love of life, even where it has nothing new or interesting to present. Next to genuine piety, the love of science is the best preservative against human misery. Where it exists, novel and interesting objects can never be wanting to shorten the longest summer day. You and I may experience misery, my friend, but we shall never feel the touch of the mental torpedo. LETTER XII. COURT DEWES, Eso*. March 30, 1785. YES, my dear Sir, our great Laureat is indeed a critic, who, if not unexceptionably judicious, does infinite honour to a profession which so many disgrace. His illustrations and decisions are generally the result of a penetrating judgment and a refined taste, united with a long, industrious, and fortunate study of the poetic art. This admirable work, his edition of Milton's Juvenile Poems, with that great mass of fine criticism contained in the notes, ought to recal the opinions of the public from the anarchy into which *Now deceased. He resided at Welsbourn, near Stratfordupon-Avon ;-a refined gentleman and an excellent scholar. |