Poem of the Week: On the Death of Dr. Robert Leavitt by Samuel Johnson | Samuel Johnson

On the Death of Dr. Robert Leavitt by Samuel Johnson

Doomed to the mine of illusory hope
As we toil from day to day,
By sudden explosion or slow decline,
Our social comforts are vanishing.

It has been well tested over many different years,
Look Levitt at the grave descending;
formal, innocent, honest,
From every name without a friend, a friend.

And yet he is still filled with affection,
Darkly wise, and gruffly kind;
Nor, it is written arrogance, deny
Your praise is to unrefined merit.

When I fainted nature called for help,
And the flying death prepared the blow,
His powerful treatment was shown
The power of art without the show.

In the darkest cave of misery known,
His beneficial care was ever near,
Where desperate pain poured out its moans,
And the pensioner wants to die alone.

No summons mocks the cold delay,
There are no trivial gains that pride disdains,
Humble wishes for every day
Every day’s toil was saved.

His virtues ran their narrow cycle,
He did not stop, nor did he leave a void.
And he certainly found the eternal master
The only talent used well.

Busy day, quiet night,
Imperceptible, unnumbered, slipped by;
His body was firm, his strength was bright,
Although his eightieth year was close.

Then without a fiery, throbbing pain,
Nor the cold gradation of decay,
Death instantly broke the vital chain,
And free his soul in the shortest way.

This elegy by Samuel Johnson (1709-84) has always been one of my favorite poems in this genre. It constitutes a very small part of Johnson’s remarkable literary achievement, and its scope is unambitious. What it succeeds in doing, as an elegy closer in style and diction to an eighteenth-century “incidental” poem, is a kind of mimesis: it adds to the image of the admirable Dr. Levitt. We are not only told about it, we are given a physical presence in the metaphors and rhythms of poetry.

Hull-born Robert Levett (1705-1782) lived at Johnson House from the late 1740s. He became interested in medicine while working as a waiter in Paris, and would listen, fascinated, to doctors’ conversations over dinner. It appears that he was signed up to receive some training in pharmacy and anatomy. It remained unqualified, and in London, its practice was among the poor. He worked for little or no pay. As Johnson’s personal physician, his master trusted him deeply.

In the elegy, Johnson’s resort to allegorical figures (“the mine of deceitful hope,” “the darkest cave of misery,” “lone want,” and “wrote arrogance,” to name but a few) is relentless; The poem is not broad enough to allow for exploration and most of it may pass through the reader’s mind faster than it deserves. Although they seem obvious, they are often rich with allusions – for example, having been easily abandoned by the friends Wealth is supposed to keep, he is clearly “lonely”. Hope as a ‘trick mine’ is a powerful image to which more space is devoted: the vagaries of risky activity (mining) are viewed in realistic terms, including ‘sudden explosions’ and ‘slow decline’. Metaphorically, it is associated with Johnson’s failure to hope, the sudden or gradual passing away of “social comforts,” so Robert Levitt was placed among the family companions whom Johnson considered essential to his mental and physical well-being.

It is instructive to see, in the torrent of verbal virtuosity amassed on Wikiquote, James Boswell’s account of Johnson’s words on ‘Hope’ as ‘Perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords… But expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment…’. Johnson’s first quatrain here focuses on hope, which depends on his desires rather than their possibilities. It is the forlorn hope that death can be avoided.

Levitt himself has been well experienced over many varying years. The rhetorical imperative “See the grave come down” seems to indicate shock and fulfilled expectations. He also mocks any elevated poetic or biblical connotations about death. A thumbnail sketch of Levitt’s man follows: he identifies him, with a touch of endearing hyperbole, as a (dutiful) “employee,” “innocent, loyal/ Of every name without friend is friend.” The contradictory nature of the man is condensed into the paradoxical phrase “darkly wise, gruffly gentle.” Johnson’s words to Boswell are more directly revealing: Levitt is “a brutal man, but I have a good respect for him, because his brutality lies in his morals, not in his mind.”

In the sixth stanza, Johnson describes Levitt more effectively, by implicitly comparing him to highly trained and ambitious doctors: “No summons mocked by cold delay, / No trifling gain pride disparaged, / Every day’s humble necessities / Every day’s toil supplied.” This is one of the more elegant couplets, depicting perhaps gentle contempt for higher-ranking doctors, but the verses are still held with force and modest cadence. Johnson’s rhyming quatrains in the form of ABAB wander in steady circles throughout the poem, suggesting the regular heavy tread as Levitt makes his rounds, serving his patients with skill and care, but no unnecessary flourishes.

In the final stanza, Levitt’s death is treated without special ceremony. The speed of merciful death, apparently caused by a heart attack, does not arouse feelings of piety in Johnson. His style is as realistic as Levitt’s medical learning. “Death at once broke the vital chain/And freed his soul in the nearest way.” The unchaining of the prisoner is suggested in that rough, unsentimental language and cadence. If the closeness of the soul to the mythical organ of love, the heart, is implied, Johnson does not touch upon this point much.

On the Death of Dr. Robert Levitt combines masterful technique with resistance to the florid elegiac morality of Johnson’s period. He gives his subject the greatest honor, not by characterization alone, but by being made in the image of that character.