Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/224

 ��Anecdotes and Remarks

��arrangement x. Then his uncommonly retentive memory enabled him to deliver a whole essay, properly finished, whenever it was called for. The writer of this note has often heard him humming and forming periods, in low whispers to himself, when shallow observers thought he was muttering prayers, &c. 2 But Johnson is well known to have represented his own practice, in the following passage, in his Life of Pope 3. ' Of composition there are different methods. Some employ at once memory and invention ; and, with little intermediate use of the pen, form and polish large masses by continued meditation, and write their productions only when, in their own opinion, they have completed them.' (Page 149.)

Johnson's invectives against Scotland, in common conver sation, were more in pleasantry and sport than real and malignant ; for no man was more visited by natives of that country, nor were there any for whom he had a greater esteem 4. It was to Dr. Grainger 5, a Scottish physician, that the writer of this note owed his first acquaintance with Johnson, in 1756. (Page 285.)

��1 'A certain apprehension arising from novelty made him write his first exercise at College twice over; but he never took that trouble with any other composition ; and we shall see that his most excellent works were struck off at a heat, with rapid exertion.' Life, i. 71.

It is clear that he did not always, as Percy says, ' turn and form every period' before he began to write. Much of his poetry was thus written (Ib. \. 192 ; ii. 15), .but not all. Thus he said, ' I allow, you may have pleasure from writing, after it is over, if you have written well ; but you don't go willingly to it again. I know when I have been writing verses, I have run my finger down the margin, to see how many I had made, and how few I had to make.' Ib. iv. 219. This shows that he was composing at the desk. From his

��account of the way his Ramblers were written it is clear that he often com posed as he wrote. Ib. iii. 42, n. 2.

2 Boswell apparently is aimed at as one of ' the shallow observers.' He says : ' Talking to himself was one of his singularities ever since I knew him. I was certain that he was frequently uttering pious ejacu lations, for fragments of the Lord's Prayer have been distinctly over heard.' Ib. i. 483, v. 307. See also post, p. 273. Percy must have been offended by Bos well's publication of the ' friendly scheme ' mentioned in the Life, iii. 276. See ib. iii. 278, n. i.

3 Works, viii. 321.

4 Life, ii. 121, 306; ante, i. 264, n.

5 The author of the Sugar-Cane (Life, ii. 454) practised as a medical man ; perhaps he is meant. He knew Percy. Letters, ii. 70, n. 3.

This

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