[510] His second definition of whoremonger is one who converses with a fornicatress.
[511] It must not be presumed that Dr. Johnson meant to give any countenance to licentiousness, though in the character of an Advocate he made a just and subtle distinction between occasional and habitual transgression. BOSWELL.
[512] Erskine was born in 1750, entered the navy in 1764, the army in 1768, he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1776, was called to the Bar in 1778, was made a King's counsel in 1783, and Lord Chancellor in 1806. He died in 1823. Campbell's Chancellors, vi. 368-674.
[513] Johnson had called Churchill 'a blockhead.' Ante, i. 419. 'I have remarked,' said Miss Reynolds, 'that his dislike of anyone seldom prompted him to say much more than that the fellow is a blockhead.' Croker's Boswell, p. 834. In like manner Goldsmith called Sterne a blockhead; for Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith, i. 260) is, no doubt, right in saying that the author of Tristram Shandy is aimed at in the following passage in The Citizen of the World (Letter, 74):—'In England, if a bawdy blockhead thus breaks in on the community, he sets his whole fraternity in a roar; nor can he escape even though he should fly to nobility for shelter.' That Johnson did not think so lowly of Fielding's powers is shown by a compliment that he paid Miss Burney, on one of the characters in Evelina. '"Oh, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith is the man!" cried he, laughing violently. "Harry Fielding never drew so good a character!"' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 78.
[514] Richardson wrote of Fielding (Corres, vi. 154):—'Poor Fielding! I could not help telling his sister that I was equally surprised at and concerned for his continued lowness. Had your brother, said I, been born in a stable, or been a runner at a sponging-house, we should have thought him a genius, and wished he had had the advantage of a liberal education, and of being admitted into good company.' Other passages show Richardson's dislike or jealousy of Fielding. Thus he wrote:—'You guess that I have not read Amelia. Indeed, I have read but the first volume. I had intended to go through with it; but I found the characters and situations so wretchedly low and dirty that I imagined I could not be interested for any one of them.' Ib iv. 60. 'So long as the world will receive, Mr. Fielding will write,' Ib p. 285.
[515] Hannah More wrote in 1780 (Memoirs, i. 168), 'I never saw Johnson really angry with me but once. I alluded to some witty passage in Tom Jones; he replied, "I am shocked to hear you quote from so vicious a book. I am sorry to hear you have read it: a confession which no modest lady should ever make. I scarcely know a more corrupt work!" He went so far as to refuse to Fielding the great talents which are ascribed to him, and broke out into a noble panegyric on his competitor, Richardson; who, he said, was as superior to him in talents as in virtue; and whom he pronounced to be the greatest genius that had shed its lustre on this path of literature.' Yet Miss Burney in her Preface to Evelina describes herself as 'exhilarated by the wit of Fielding and humour of Smollett.' It is strange that while Johnson thus condemned Fielding, he should 'with an ardent and liberal earnestness' have revised Smollett's epitaph. Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 28, 1773. Macaulay in his Speech on Copyright (Writings and Speeches, p. 615) said of Richardson's novels:—'No writings have done more to raise the fame of English genius in foreign countries. No writings are more deeply pathetic. No writings, those of Shakespeare excepted, show more profound knowledge of the human heart.' Horace. Walpole (Letters, iv. 305), on the other hand, spoke of Richardson as one 'who wrote those deplorably tedious lamentations, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison, which are pictures of high life as conceived by a bookseller, and romances as they would be spiritualised by a methodist teacher.' Lord Chesterfield says of Sir Charles Grandison, that 'it is too long, and there is too much mere talk in it. Whenever he goes ultra crepidam into high life, he grossly mistakes the modes; but to do him justice he never mistakes nature, and he has surely great knowledge and skill both in painting and in interesting the heart.' Ib note. See ante, ii. 48.
[516] Amelia he read through without stopping. Post, April 12, 1776. Shenstone (Works, iii. 70) writes of 'the tedious character of Parson Adams,' and calls the book 'a very mean performance; of which the greater part is unnatural and unhumorous.'
[517] Johnson wrote to Richardson of Clarissa, 'though the story is long, every letter is short.' He begged him to add an index rerum, 'for Clarissa is not a performance to be read with eagerness, and laid aside for ever; but will be occasionally consulted by the busy, the aged, and the studious.' Richardson's Corres, v. 281.
[518] 'Our immortal Fielding was of the younger branch of the Earls of Denbigh, who draw their origin from the Counts of Habsburg, the lineal descendants of Eltrico, in the seventh century Duke of Alsace. Far different have been the fortunes of the English and German divisions of the family of Habsburg: the former, the knights and sheriffs of Leicestershire, have slowly risen to the dignity of a peerage: the latter, the Emperors of Germany and Kings of Spain, have threatened the liberty of the old, and invaded the treasures of the new world. The successors of Charles the Fifth may disdain their brethren of England; but the romance of Tom Jones, that exquisite picture of human manners, will outlive the palace of the Escurial, and the imperial eagle of the house of Austria.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 4. Richardson, five years after Tom Jones was published, wrote (Corres, v. 275):—'Its run is over, even with us. Is it true that France had virtue enough to refuse a license for such a profligate performance?'
[519] Mr. Samuel Paterson, eminent for his knowledge of books. BOSWELL. In the first two editions this note does not appear, but Mr. Paterson is described as 'the auctioneer.' See post, Aug. 3, 1776.