Though his letter to her of Jan. 10, 1764 (Croker's Boswell, p. 163), shews that it was then building, yet she had not left his house on Jan. 14, 1766 (ib. p. 173).
'To JOSEPH SIMPSON, ESQ.
'DEAR SIR,
'Your father's inexorability not only grieves but amazes me[1038]: he is your father; he was always accounted a wise man; nor do I remember any thing to the disadvantage of his good-nature; but in his refusal to assist you there is neither good-nature, fatherhood, nor wisdom. It is the practice of good-nature to overlook faults which have already, by the consequences, punished the delinquent. It is natural for a father to think more favourably than others of his children; and it is always wise to give assistance while a little help will prevent the necessity of greater.
[1038] In the Rambler, No. 148, entitled 'The cruelty of parental tyranny,' Johnson, after noticing the oppression inflicted by the perversion of legal authority, says:--'Equally dangerous and equally detestable are the cruelties often exercised in private families, under the venerable sanction of parental authority.' He continues:--'Even though no consideration should be paid to the great law of social beings, by which every individual is commanded to consult the happiness of others, yet the harsh parent is less to be vindicated than any other criminal, because he less provides for the happiness of himself.' See also post, March 29, 1779. A passage in one of Boswell's Letters to Temple (p. 111) may also be quoted here:--'The time was when such a letter from my father as the one I enclose would have depressed; but I am now firm, and, as my revered friend, Mr. Samuel Johnson, used to say, I feel the privileges of an independent human being; however, it is hard that I cannot have the pious satisfaction of being well with my father.'
[1039] Perhaps 'Van,' for Vansittart.
[1040] Lord Stowell informs me that Johnson prided himself in being, during his visits to Oxford, accurately academic in all points: and he wore his gown almost ostentatiously. CROKER.
[1041] Dr. Robert Vansittart, of the ancient and respectable family of that name in Berkshire. He was eminent for learning and worth, and much esteemed by Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL. Johnson perhaps proposed climbing over the wall on the day on which 'University College witnessed him drink three bottles of port without being the worse for it.' Post, April 7, 1778.
[1042] Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1785. BOSWELL. The speech was made on July 7, 1759, the last day of 'the solemnity of the installment' of the Earl of Westmoreland as Chancellor of the University. On the 3rd 'the ceremony began with a grand procession of noblemen, doctors, &c., in their proper habits, which passed through St. Mary's, and was there joined by the Masters of Arts in their proper habits; and from thence proceeded to the great gate of the Sheldonian Theatre, in which the most numerous and brilliant assembly of persons of quality and distinction was seated, that had ever been seen there on any occasion.' Gent. Mag. xxix. 342. Would that we had some description of Johnson, as, in his new and handsome gown, he joined the procession among the Masters! See ante, p. 281.
[1043] Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3d edit. p. 126 [Aug. 31]. BOSWELL. The chance of death from disease would seem also to have been greater on the ship than in a jail. In The Idler (No. 38) Johnson estimates that one in four of the prisoners dies every year. In his Review of Hanway's Essay on Tea (Works, vi. 31) he states that he is told that 'of the five or six hundred seamen sent to China, sometimes half, commonly a third part, perish in the voyage.' See post, April 10, 1778.
[1044] Ibid. p. 251 [Sept. 23]. BOSWELL.
[1045] In my first edition this word was printed Chum, as it appears, in one of Mr. Wilkes's Miscellanies, and I animadverted on Dr. Smollet's ignorance; for which let me propitiate the manes of that ingenious and benevolent gentleman. CHUM was certainly a mistaken reading for Cham, the title of the Sovereign of Tartary, which is well applied to Johnson, the Monarch of Literature; and was an epithet familiar to Smollet. See Roderick Random, chap. 56. For this correction I am indebted to Lord Palmerston, whose talents and literary acquirements accord well with his respectable pedigree of TEMPLE BOSWELL.
After the publication of the second edition of this work, the author was furnished by Mr. Abercrombie, of Philadelphia, with the copy of a letter written by Dr. John Armstrong, the poet, to Dr. Smollet at Leghorne, containing the following paragraph:--'As to the K. Bench patriot, it is hard to say from what motive he published a letter of yours asking some triffling favour of him in behalf of somebody, for whom the great CHAM of literature, Mr. Johnson, had interested himself.' MALONE. In the first edition Boswell had said:--'Had Dr. Smollet been bred at an English University, he would have know that a chum is a student who lives with another in a chamber common to them both.