William Johnson

“ His savage hordes the murderous Johnson leads, Files thro the woods and treads the tangled weeds,
Book VI. Line 389.
This was general sir John Johnson, an American royalist in the British service. He was the son of sir William Johnson, who had been a rich proprietor and inhabitant in the Mohawk country, in the colony of New York, and had been employed by the king as superintendant of Indian affairs. Sir William had married a Mohawk savage wife; and it was supposed that the great influence which he had long exercised over that and the neighboring tribes must have descended to his son. ”

“ He received £45,000 from the British government for his losses.
Sir William’s nephew, Guy Johnson (1740–1788) , succeeded his uncle as superintendent of Indian affairs in 1774, and served in the French and Indian War and, on the British side, in the War of Independence.
See W. L. Stone, Life of Sir William Johnson (2 vols., 1865) ; W. E. Griffis, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations (1891) in “Makers of America” series ”

“ Johnson's "braves" advanced to have a parley with the hostile redskins. The latter received them with a war-whoop, and Frenchman and savage made an impetuous onset. Johnson's regulars and provincials stood their ground firmly, while his red warriors fell on the flanks of the enemy. After a sharp conflict, the French were broken, routed, and pursued through the woods, with great carnage. Among the prisoners taken were seventeen officers. The next day Sir William Johnson sent a trumpet, summoning the garrison to surrender, to spare the effusion of blood, and prevent outrages by the Indians. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Johnson’s powers both of thought and expression were better fitted than any other man’s. If he had had the same capacity for following the flights of a truly poetic imagination, or for feeling the finer touches of nature, that he had felicity and force in detecting and exposing the aberrations from the broad and beaten path of propriety and common sense, he would have amply deserved the reputation he has acquired as a philosophical critic. ”

“ Bib.: Campbell, Pioneer Priests of North America; Parkman, Jesuits in North America; Martin, Isaac Jogues; Withrow, Adventures of Isaac Jogues (R. S. C., 1885) .
John and Thomas. F Vice-admiral's ship in Phipps's squadron, 281.
Johnson, Guy (1740-1788) . Deputy to Sir William Johnson, as superin [191] tendent of Indian affairs, and succeeded latter in office after his death. Served under Amherst against the French, in 1759. At the opening of the Revolutionary War, abandoned his home in Amsterdam, New York, and brought his family to Montreal, and later went to England. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet surely this place, if any place on earth, ought to be preserved and protected as a literary shrine. [47] Johnson was not a great creative poet; neither a Shakespeare, a Dryden, a Byron, nor a Tennyson; but he was one of the most massive and majestic characters in English literature. A superb example of self-conquest and moral supremacy, a mine of extensive and diversified learning, an intellect remarkable for deep penetration and broad and generally sure grasp of the greatest subjects, he exerted, as few men have ever exerted, the original, elemental force of genius ”

“ College, in the city of New York. He was from Kingston, Ulster county, and remained its pastor until 1840. During his ministry he united in marriage 1500 couples. The church was without a bell until the confiscated property of Sir John Johnson was sold in the Revolution, when the dinner-bell of his father was purchased and hung in the steeple. The bell weighs a little more than one hundred pounds, and bears the following inscription: ''S. R. William Johnson, baronet, 1774. Made by Miller and Ross, in Eliz. Town."—Simms's Schoharie County, &c. ”

“ Johnson, adverted to in the last letter, created both surprise and disappointment. The great moralist of the age there appears in his real character, distinct from that external splendour with which popular admiration always encircles the brow of genius. ”

“ After the war Sir William retired to his estates, where, on the site of the present Johnstown, he built his residence, Johnson Hall, and lived in all the style of an English baron. He devoted himself to colonizing his extensive lands, and is said to have been the first to introduce sheep and blood horses into the province. ”

“ What would happen to the solitary settlers, to such hamlets as Fonda's Bush, to Johnstown, to Schenectady—nay, to Albany itself?
Sir William was no more. Guy Johnson had become his Majesty's Superintendent for Indian affairs. He was most violently a King's man—a member of the most important family in all the Northland, and master of six separate nations of savages, which formed the Iroquois Confederacy. ”

“ Johnson was asked why he was not invited out to dine as Garrick was, he answered, as if it was a triumph to him, “Because great lords and ladies don’t like to have their mouths stopped!” But who does like to have their mouths stopped? Did he, more than others? People like to be amused in general; but they did not give him the less credit for wisdom and a capacity to instruct them by his writings. In like manner, it has been said, that the King only sought one interview with Dr. Johnson; whereas, if he had been a buffoon or a sycophant, he would have asked for more. ”

“ Johnson’s 102style is, that it reduces all things to the same artificial and unmeaning level. It destroys all shades of difference, the association between words and things. It is a perpetual paradox and innovation. He condescends to the familiar till we are ashamed of our interest in it: he expands the little till it looks big. ‘If he were to write a fable of little fishes,’ as Goldsmith said of him, ‘he would make them speak like great whales.’ We can no more distinguish the most familiar objects in his descriptions of them, than we can a well-known face under a huge painted mask. ”

“ He was a great poet; a man of genius; his faculty of expression was colossal, and his conduct was absolutely genuine. No man in literature ever lived who lived himself more fully. His assumptions of disguise only made him more obvious and transparent. He kept nothing back. His heart was laid absolutely bare. We [125] know even more about him than we know about Dr. Johnson,—and still his personality endures the test of our knowledge and remains unique, romantic, fascinating, prolific of moral admonition, and infinitely pathetic. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Johnson stepped out he whispered, in great agitation, "O William, is it possible we shall have to go back to Slavery, after all we have gone through?" It was very hard to satisfy the station-master. He said if a man carried off a slave that did not belong to him, and the rightful owner could prove that he escaped on that road, they would be obliged to pay for the slave. Mr. Johnson kept up a calm appearance, though his heart was in his throat. "I bought tickets at Charleston to pass us through to Philadelphia," said he ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Will you perish, calmly sinking To a sunless deep sea cave, Folding hands, and kindly thinking Of the friend you tried to save? Will you let your sweet breath pass On the arms of children bending, Gazing on the sea of glass, Where the lovelight has no ending? ”

“ This work was based on a cast taken after death, and this undoubtedly is Johnson's self. The head is massive yet graceful, denoting a compact brain and great natural refinement of intellect. The brow is indicative of uncommon sweetness. The eyes are finely shaped. The nose is prominent, long, and slightly aquiline, with wide and sensitive nostrils. The mouth is large, and the lips are slightly parted, as if in speech. Prodigious perceptive faculties are shown in the sculpture of the forehead,—a feature that is characteristic, in even a greater degree, of the bust of Garrick. ”

“ The Christian believes that he receives grace from the Father and the Son. "When Jesus deals with us and works within us, He does what only God can do. All Christian experience is nothing if it is not this." ”

“ 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. ”

“ The pitiless mountain stands so sure, The human breast so weakly heaves; That brains decay, while rocks endure, At this the insatiate spirit grieves. But hither, oh ideal bride! For whom this heart in silence aches, Love is unwearied as the tide, Love is perennial as the lakes ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every one knows that touching story, and no one who thinks of it when standing here will gaze with any feeling but that of reverence, commingled with the wish to lead a true and simple life, upon the noble, thoughtful face and figure of the great moralist, who now seems to look down with benediction upon the scenes of his innocent and happy youth. The [219] statue, which is in striking contrast with the humble birthplace, points the expressive moral of a splendid career. No tablet has yet been placed on the house in which Johnson was born. ”