Books
The aweful prospects
Paul Johnson
The Letters of Samuel Johnson Edited by R. W. Chapman (Oxford, 3 vols £19.50 each)
The Oxford University Press have marked the 200th anniversary of Dr Johnson's death by reprinting R. W. Chap- man's edition of Johnson's correspond- ence, first published in 1952. No better tribute could be imagined, for these 1500 or so letters give an extraordinary insight into the mind of the great sage and moralist. For those who can afford these volumes, they are a treasure indeed. They are not, I hasten to add, to be compared, say, to Leslie Marchant's mag- nificent edition, in 11 volumes, of Byron's letters and journals. They lack the sparkle and vivacity. Not that Johnson was unable to be highly entertaining when he wished. Those who see him writing only in sonorous periods should read his letters to Mrs Thrale during his tour of the High- lands and Hebrides. But, while Byron had separated himself from his friends by his hatred of England, and so needed to pour his heart out to them, Johnson was not such a fool. He spoke to them across the dinner table, or at his ease in an armchair, and did not need to write. The over- whelming majority of his letters are on business, are brief and to the point, and not without a certain formality.
Then, too, the reader must be prepared for the fact that the great majority of Johnson's surviving letters date from the last decade of his life. In fact, Volume III of the Chapman edition consists just of the last two years, 1783-4. In youth and middle age, long before he was famous, most People did not bother to keep his hasty scribbles on practical matters. In his last Years, when he was a national phe- nomenon, it was a different matter. Again, his two most enthusiastic correspondents, Boswell and Mrs Thrale, only knew him in his last phase; they of course kept all, or almost all, he wrote to them, and the letters to Mrs Thrale in particular form the Choicest budget in the whole collection. But both groups naturally present the familiar Johnson of the dinner table and• the salon. The young Johnson, a divided, bewildered and often savage figure, is largely missing; so, to a great extent, is the Johnson of the Rambler, Rasselas and the Dictionary. Moreover, as Johnson aged, so his con- cern with his health — one might almost say his obsession — increased, and domin- ntes a hugh proportion of his surviving letters. Johnson's fascination with health Was dictated, in the first place, by his fear of death and 'the aweful prospects of futurity'. But he was also passionately interested in his own symptoms, and how they might be treated; and his knowledge of 18th-century physic was considerable — a learned treatise could be written by a medical historian just on the evidence provided by his correspondence. If I wanted to select a letter which character- ised most accurately his style and content, I think I would pick a note he wrote to Thomas Davies on 14 August 1784: The tenderness with which you always treat me, makes me culpable in my own eyes for having omitted to write in so long a separation; I had, indeed, no- thing to say that you could wish to hear. All has been hitherto misery accumu- lated upon misery, disease corroborat- ing disease, till yesterday my asthma was perceptibly and unexpectedly miti- gated. I am much comforted by this short relief, and am willing to flatter myself that it may continue and im- prove. I have at present, such a degree of ease, as not only may admit the comforts, but the duties of life.
There is Johnson: guilty about his dilatori- ness in writing, unwilling to fill a sheet with mere gossip and nothingness, worrying about health, but retaining, as always, a sense of moral purpose. Some of his best letters were written to Mrs Thrale's daughter Hester, to whom he offered sensible advice. Johnson, it seems to me, was unusually happy in combining a profound sense of religious rectitude with a down-to-earth worldly wisdom which was never flip or cynical. On 12 August 1784, he offered her 'these two maximis' which he trusted 'you will never dismiss from your mind': In every purpose, and every action, let it be your first care to please God, that aweful and just God before whom you must at last appear, and by whose sentence all Eternity will be deter- mined. Think frequently on that state which shall never have an end.
In matters of human judgment, and prudential consideration, consider the public voice of general opinion as al- ways worthy of great attention; remem- ber that such practices can very seldom be right, which all the world has con- cluded to be wrong. Obey God. Rever- ence fame [ie reputation]. Thus you will go safely through this life, and pass happily to the next.
It is hard to imagine any of our semi- atheist bishops, or indeed anyone else, other than perhaps an elderly Catholic priest of the old school, giving such instruc- tion today to a young girl. Yet it seems to me to remain excellent advice. Indeed, on the moral plane Johnson scarcely ever put a foot wrong. Most of his injunctions, even when they seem startling at first glance, become comprehensible when carefully examined.
Even his political judgments will usually bear critical examination. He was not an obscurantist. He disliked mercantile power when it expressed itself in terms of col- onialism. He had no time for empires. He upheld the rights of George III in the Americas chiefly because he felt the colon- ists would oppose the negroes more harsh- ly without the restraints of royal justice. He held slavery in peculiar abhorrence. He hated the Whigs because he saw them as rich, cliquish, unscrupulous men who diminished the royal power to increase their own, and who made use of the cant political slogans of the age to acquire for themselves a spurious popularity. His saying 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel' has often been misunderstood. What I think he was doing was drawing a contrast between the ancient notion of kingship, representing the deity, as being the natural 'father' of the people, and the new idea of 'patriotism', in which the country itself, the patria, and in practice the state, usurped this role, without any kind of divine sanction at all. Johnson hated excessive power, as he hated anar- chy. He had been 'touched' for the King's Evil by Queen Anne, the last monarch to do it, being the last one who had some claim to rule by divine right. He thought this system, with all its faults, preferable to the new and strident nationalism, and the overwhelming claims, which he dimly per- ceived coming, of the state. Naturally, unscrupulous politicians would seek to win easy popularity by beating the nationalist drum and blowing the state trumpet. The 20th century is full of them, scoundrels all.
But in the last resort, Johnson was not too concerned with human arrangements, which he saw as transitory and of no great consequence. We who admire his great moral strengths find it difficult to compre- hend his fear of divine justice. Yet, to- wards the end, this fear was to some extent exorcised by resignation and acceptance of death. The most moving letter in the collection is the one he wrote to Edmund Allen on 17 June 1783. The only phrase for it is heroic spirituality, and I quote it in full: Dear Sir, It hath pleased almighty God this morning to deprive me of the powers of speech; and, as I do not know but that it may be his farther good pleasure to deprive me soon of my senses, I request you will, on the receipt of this note, come to me, and act for me, as the exigencies of my case may require. I am, Sincerely Yours, S. Johnson
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