This might have been the motto of her book. As the Advertisement was not published till 1778 (Barbauld's Works, ii. 19) it is possible that Johnson's criticism had reached her, and that it was meant as an answer. Among her pupils were William Taylor of Norwich, Sir William Gell, and the first Lord Denman (ib. i. xxv-xxx). Mrs. Barbauld bore Johnson no ill-will. In her Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, she describes some future pilgrims 'from the Blue Mountains or Ontario's Lake,' coming to view 'London's faded glories.'
'With throbbing bosoms shall the wanderers tread The hallowed mansions of the silent dead, Shall enter the long aisle and vaulted dome Where genius and where valour find a home; Bend at each antique shrine, and frequent turn To clasp with fond delight some sculptured urn, The ponderous mass of Johnson's form to greet, Or breathe the prayer at Howard's sainted feet.'
Ib i. 242.
[1230] According to Mme. D'Arblay he said:--'Sir, I shall be very glad to have a new sense put into me.' He had been wont to speak slightingly of music and musicians. 'The first symptom that he showed of a tendency to conversion was upon hearing the following read aloud from the preface to Dr. Burney's History of Music while it was yet in manuscript:--"The love of lengthened tones and modulated sounds seems a passion implanted in human nature throughout the globe; as we hear of no people, however wild and savage in other particulars, who have not music of some kind or other, with which they seem greatly delighted." "Sir," cried Dr. Johnson after a little pause, "this assertion I believe may be right." And then, see-sawing a minute or two on his chair, he forcibly added:--"All animated nature loves music--except myself!"' Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii. 77. Hawkins (Life, p. 319) says that Johnson said of music, '"it excites in my mind no ideas, and hinders me from contemplating my own." I have sometimes thought that music was positive pain to him. Upon his hearing a celebrated performer go through a hard composition, and hearing it remarked that it was very difficult, he said, "I would it had been impossible."' Yet he had once bought a flageolet, though he had never made out a tune. 'Had I learnt to fiddle,' he said, 'I should have done nothing else' (post, April 7, 1778, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 15, 1773). Not six months before his death he asked Dr. Burney to teach him the scale of music (ante, p. 263, note 4). That 'he appeared fond of the bagpipe, and used often to stand for some time with his ear close to the great drone' (Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 15), does not tell for much either way. In his Hebrides (Works, ix. 55), he shews his pleasure in singing. 'After supper,' he writes, 'the ladies sung Erse songs, to which I listened, as an English audience to an Italian opera, delighted with the sound of words which I did not understand.' Boswell records (Hebrides, Sept. 28) that another day a lady 'pleased him much, by singing Erse songs, and playing on the guitar.' Johnson himself shews that if his ear was dull to music, it was by no means dead to sound. He thus describes a journey by night in the Highlands (Works, ix. l55):--'The wind was loud, the rain was heavy, and the whistling of the blast, the fall of the shower, the rush of the cataracts, and the roar of the torrent, made a nobler chorus of the rough music of nature than it had ever been my chance to hear before.' In 1783, when he was in his seventy-fourth year, he said, on hearing the music of a funeral procession:--'This is the first time that I have ever been affected by musical sounds.' Post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.
[1231] Miss Burney, in 1778, records that he said:--'David, Madam, looks much older than he is; for his face has had double the business of any other man's; it is never at rest; when he speaks one minute, he has quite a different countenance to what he assumes the next; I don't believe he ever kept the same look for half-an-hour together in the whole course of his life; and such an eternal, restless, fatiguing play of the muscles must certainly wear out a man's face before its real time.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 64. Malone fathers this witticism on Foote. Prior's Malone, p. 369.
[1232] On Nov. 2 of this year, a proposal was made to Garrick by the proprietors of Covent-Garden Theatre, 'that now in the time of dearth and sickness' they should open their theatres only five nights in each week. Garrick Corres, ii. 108.
[1233] 'Mrs. Boswell no doubt had disliked his wish to pass over his daughters in entailing the Auchinleck estate, in favour of heirs-male however remote. Post, p. 414--Johnson, on Feb. 9, 1776, opposing this intention, wrote:--'I hope I shall get some ground now with Mrs. Boswell.'
[1234] Joseph Ritter, a Bohemian, who was in my service many years, and attended Dr. Johnson and me in our Tour to the Hebrides. After having left me for some time, he had now returned to me. BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 103.
[1235] See Boswell's Hebrides near the end.
[1236] See ante, p.