William Johnson, 1st Baron Johnson

“ The next few years are a pitiful struggle to make a living as tutor, apothecary's assistant, comedian, usher in a country school, and finally as a physician in Southwark. Gradually he drifted into literature, and lived from hand to mouth by doing hack work for the London booksellers. Some of his essays and his Citizen of the World (1760-1761) brought him to the attention of Johnson, who looked him up, was attracted first by his poverty and then by his genius, and presently declared him to be "one of the first men we now have as an author." ”

“ He long continued to live upon the fame which he had already won. He was honoured by the University of Oxford with a Doctor's degree, by the Royal Academy with a professorship, and by the King with an interview, in which his Majesty most graciously expressed a hope that so excellent a writer would not cease to write. In the interval, however, between 1765 and 1775 Johnson published only two or three political tracks, the longest of which he could have produced in forty-eight hours, if he had worked as he worked on the life of Savage and on Rasselas. ”

“ We think it fortunate for all students of American history, that a son, bearing his name and inheriting in the fullest measure his capacity for the work, has undertaken its completion, partly from affection and a sense of duty, and partly, it is evident, from a natural aptitude.
In the whole range of American history no other personage appears so remarkable in character and so important in influence, and at the same time so little known to general readers, as Sir William Johnson. ”

“ Expos'd to th' mercy of a barbarous land:
Such was the pious Johnson, till kind Heaven
A blessèd end to all his toils had given:
To show that virtuous men, though they appear
But Fortune's sport, are Providence's care.
On Mr. Johnson's several Shipwrecks.] First in Deus Nobiscum. A Narrative of a Great Deliverance at Sea,... By William Johnson, D.D., late Chaplain and Sub-Almoner to His Sacred Majesty,... The Third Edition, Corrected, London, 1672, small octavo. These are some minor variants.
[pg 321]
An Explanation of an Emblem Engraven by V. H. ”

“ Though a violent whig in his early years, he afterwards, Johnson states, 'kept better company and became a violent tory.' On his return nrom Surinam he showed great zeal for episcopacy and monarchy, and at the Revolution not only adhered to the ejected church, but refused to communicate in the church of England or to be present at any place of worship where King William's name was mentioned. ”

“ Never since literature became a calling in England had it been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took up his residence in London. In the preceding generation a writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded by the Government. ”

“ He portrayed a man just as that man was, recorded the word just as the word was spoken; and facing the man we may see his enraptured audience,—at a distance, indeed, but marvelously clear, as when we look through the larger end of a field glass at a landscape dominated by a mountain. One who reads this matchless biography will know Johnson better than he knows his own neighbor; he will gain, moreover, a better understanding of humanity, to reflect which clearly and truthfully is the prime object of all good literature. ”

“ The wonder flushing in the cheek, The questions many a score, When I grow eloquent, and speak Of England, and of war— Oh, better than the world of dress And pompous dining, out, Better than simpering and finesse Is all this stir and rout. I'll borrow life, and not grow old; And nightingales and trees Shall keep me, though the veins be cold, As young as Sophocles. ”

“ Miserably poor himself, he always had about him people more miserable and more poor, who looked to him for the very bread and water of their affliction, dependents whom he tended not merely generously, but, what was better still, cheerfully. Under conditions of existence that would have seemed crushing to men of letters with a tithe of Johnson's greatness of soul, Johnson fought his way inch by inch in the terrible career of the man who lived by his pen, and by his pen alone. He wrote anything and everything so long as it was honorable to write and promised to make the world better. ”

“ MELLIREN Can you so fair and young forecast The sure, the cruel day of doom; Must I believe that you at last Will fall, fall, fall down to the tomb? Unclouded, fearless, gentle soul, You greet the foe whose threats you hear; Your lifted eyes discern the goal, Your blood declares it is not near. Feel deeply; toil through weal and woe, Love England, love a friend, a bride. Bid wisdom grow, let sorrow flow, Make many weep when you have died. When you shall die—what seasons lie 'Twixt that great Then and this sweet Now! What blooms of courage for that eye, What thorns of honour for that brow! ”

“ I follow the wheels, and he turns with a sob, We fold our mute hands on the death of the hour; For heart-breaking virtues and destinies rob The soul of her nursling, the thorn of her flower. The lad's mind is rooted, his passion red-fruited, The head I caressed is another's delight ”

“ Johnson was a man without originality, compared with the ordinary run of men’s minds, but he was not a man of original thought or genius, in the sense in which Montaigne or Lord Bacon was. He opened no new vein of precious ore, nor did he light upon any single pebbles of uncommon size and unrivalled lustre. We seldom meet with anything to “give us pause;” he does not set us thinking for the first time. ”

“ The best proof that Johnson was really an extraordinary man is that his character, instead of being degraded, has, on the whole, been decidedly raised by a work in which all his vices and weaknesses are exposed more unsparingly than they ever were exposed by Churchill or by Ken-rick.
Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fulness of his fame and in the enjoyment of a competent fortune, is better known to us than any other man in history. ”

“ He was one of those lords who sat every day in council to preserve the publick peace, after the king's departure; and, what is not the most illustrious action of his life, was employed to conduct the princess Anne to Nottingham with a guard, such as might alarm the populace, as they passed, with false apprehensions of her danger. Whatever end may be designed, there is always something despicable in a trick.
He became, as may be easily supposed, a favourite of king William, who, the day after his accession, made him lord chamberlain of the household, and gave him afterwards the garter. ”

“ So might the thought grow stronger That flows from touch of thee. Oh little slumbering maid, If thou wert five years older, Thine head would not be laid So simply on my shoulder! Oh, would that I were younger, Oh, were I more like thee, I should not faintly hunger For love that cannot be. A girl might be caressed, Beside me freely sitting; A child on me might rest, And not like thee, unwitting. Such honour is thy mother's Who smileth on thy sleep, Or for the nurse who smothers Thy cheek in kisses deep. ”

“ I admire Johnson as a man of great erudition and sense, but, when he sets himself up for a judge of writers upon the subject of love, a passion which I suppose he never felt in his life, he might as well think himself qualified to pronounce upon a treatise on horsemanship, or the art of fortification. ”

“ Johnson's mode of dealing with a principle is strikingly individual. He uses it to justify his doing what he desires, while he does not allow it to restrain him from doing what he pleases. The principle which he thus adopted was, that the seceded States had never been out of the Union as States. It would seem to be clear that, constitutionally speaking, a State in the American Union is a vital part of the government, to which, at the same time, it owes allegiance. ”

“ He long had an aversion to the Scotch, an aversion of which he could not remember the commencement, but which, he owned, had probably originated in his abhorrence of the conduct of the nation during the Great Rebellion. It is easy to guess in what manner debates on great party questions were likely to be reported by a man whose judgment was so much disordered by party spirit. A show of fairness was indeed necessary to the prosperity of the Magazine. But Johnson long afterwards owned that, though he had saved appearances, he had taken care that the Whig dogs should not have the best of it ”

“ Woe's me: but let me live meanwhile Amongst the bright and brave; My summers lapse away beneath Their cool Athenian shade: And I a string for myrtle-wreath, A whetstone unto blade; I cheer the games I cannot play; As stands a crippled squire To watch his master through the fray, Uplifted by desire. I roam, where little pleasures fall, As morn to morn succeeds, To melt, or ere the sweetness pall, Like glittering manna-beads. The wishes dawning in the eyes, The softly murmured thanks; The zeal of those that miss the prize On clamorous river-banks ”

“ We keep the day; but who can brood On memories of unkingly John, Or of the leek His Highness chewed, Or of the stone he wrote upon? To Freedom born so long ago, We do devoir in very deed, If heedless as the clouds we row With fruit and wine to Runnymede. ”

“ There are, doubtless, great numbers who will be offended with this delineation of the mind of the immortal William, but they whose honesty or sense enables them to consider impartially the events of his reign, will now be enabled to discover the reason of the frequent oppositions which he encountered, and of the personal affronts which he was, sometimes, forced to endure. They will observe, that it is not always sufficient to do right, and that it is often necessary to add gracefulness to virtue. ”

“ He was wont to say, "A man may write at any time if he will set himself doggedly to it."
Though Johnson's circumstances were at this time--1751--far from being easy, his humane and charitable disposition was constantly exerting itself. Mrs. Anna Williams, daughter of a very ingenious Welsh physician, and a woman of more than ordinary talents in literature, having come to London in hopes of being cured of a cataract in both her eyes, which afterwards ended in total blindness, was kindly received as a constant visitor at his house while Mrs. Johnson lived ”

“ Nor would her wayward zeal let die The music-spirit she restored. The fashion quaint, the time-worn flaws, The narrow range, the doubtful tone, All was excused awhile, because It seemed a creature of her own. Perfection tires; the new in old, The mended wrecks that need her skill, Amuse her. If the truth be told, She loves the triumph of her will. ”

“ We ask; we fear not scoff or smile At meek attire of blue and grey, For the proud wrath that thrills our isle Gives faith and force to this array. So great a charm is England's right, That hearts enlarged together flow, And each man rises up a knight To work the evil-thinkers woe. ”

“ For, if there's aught you lose, It is but drawing off a wrinkled glove To turn the keys of treasuries, free to choose Throughout the hundred-chambered house of love, This pathos draws from you, though true and kind, Only bland pity for the left-behind. ”

“ Johnson was a lazy learned man, who liked to think and talk, better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote. ”

“ George II, quarrel with, iv. 107; Johnson downs Robertson with him, iii. 334-5; opinion of his poetry, i. 434; writes his Memoirs, i. 308; Maupertuis, lines to, ii. 54, n. 3; overawes Hanover, v. 201, n. 4; power as a despotic prince, ii. 158; prose and poetry, i. 434-5; social, i. 442; taken by the nose, risk of being, ii. 229; torture, forbade use of, i. 467, n. 1; Voltaire, contends with, i. 434; v. 103, n. 2. FREDERICK-WILLIAM the First, i. 308. FREE AGENT, iv. 123. FREE WILL, Boswell introduces discussion, ii. 82, 104; iii. 290; consults Johnson by letter, iv. 71 ”

“ And as a prisoner, doomed and bound, upstarts From shattered dreams of wedlock and repose, At sudden rumblings of the market-carts, Which bring to town the strawberry and the rose, And wakes to meet sure death ”

“ Oh lord of high compassion, strong to scorn Ephemeral monsters, who with tragic pain Purgest our trivial humours, once again Through thine own Paris have I roamed, to mourn For freemen plagued with cant, ere we were born, For feasts of death, and hatred's harvest wain Piled high, for princes from proud mothers torn, And soft despairs hushed in the waves of Seine. ”

“ And even on me, thy friend, shall flow Some streamlet from thy river of fame. Thou to the gilded youth be kind; Shed all thy genius-rays on them; An ancient comrade stands behind To touch, unseen, thy mantle's hem. A stranger to thy peers am I, And slighted, like that poor old crone, And yet some clinging memories try To rate thy conquests as mine own. Nay, when at random drops thy praise From lips of happy lookers-on, My tearful eyes I proudly raise, And bid my conscious self be gone. ”

“ Guide me with song, kind Muse, to death's dark shade; Keep me in sweet accord with boy and maid, Still in fresh blooms of art and truth arrayed. Bear with old age, blithe child of memory! Time loves the good; and youth and thou art nigh To Sophocles and Plato, till they die. Playmate of freedom, queen of nightingales, Draw near; thy voice grows faint: my spirit fails Still with thee, whether sleep or death assails. ”

“ Veiled is the world, but all the soul awake, Purged by thine anger, clearer far than eyes. Peep is the darkness; for my bride is hidden, Crown of my glory, guerdon of my song: Preod is the vision; thou art here unbidden, Mute and reproachful, since I did thee wrong. Sweetest of wanderers, grievest thou for friends Tricked by a phantom, cheated to the grave? Woe worth the God, the mocking God, that sends Lies to the pious, furies to the brave. ”