III. , sc. 12

III. , sc. 12

[669]

'But how did he return, this haughty brave, Who whipt the winds, and made the sea his slave? (Though Neptune took unkindly to be bound And Eurus never such hard usage found In his Aćolian prison under ground).'

Dryden, Juvenal, x. 180.

[670] Most likely Mr. Pepys, a Master in Chancery, whom Johnson more than once roughly attacked at Streatham. See post, April 1, 1781, and Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 46.

[671] See ante, ii. 73.

[672] 'Jan. 5, 1772. Poor Mr. Fitzherbert hanged himself on Wednesday. He went to see the convicts executed that morning; and from thence in his boots to his son, having sent his groom out of the way. At three his son said, Sir, you are to dine at Mr. Buller's; it is time for you to go home and dress. He went to his own stable and hanged himself with a bridle. They say his circumstances were in great disorder.' Horace Walpole's Letters, v. 362. See ante, i. 82, and post, Sept. 15, 1777.

[673] Boswell, in his Hebrides (Aug. 18, 1773) says that, 'Budgel was accused of forging a will [Dr. Tindal's] and sunk himself in the Thames, before the trial of its authenticity came on.' Pope, speaking of himself, says that he--

'Let Budgel charge low Grub-street on his quill, And write whate'er he pleas'd, except his will.'

Prologue to the Satires, 1, 378.

Budgel drowned himself on May 4, 1737, more than two years after the publication of this Prologue. Gent. Mag. vii. 315. Perhaps the verse is an interpolation in a later edition. See post, April 26, 1776.

[674] See post, March 15, 1776.

[675] On the Douglas Cause. See ante, ii. 50, and post, March 26, 1776.

[676] I regretted that Dr. Johnson never took the trouble to study a question which interested nations. He would not even read a pamphlet which I wrote upon it, entitled The Essence of the Douglas Cause; which, I have reason to flatter myself, had considerable effect in favour of Mr. Douglas; of whose legitimate filiation I was then, and am still, firmly convinced. Let me add, that no fact can be more respectably ascertained than by the judgement of the most august tribunal in the world; a judgement, in which Lord Mansfield and Lord Camden united in 1769, and from which only five of a numerous body entered a protest. BOSWELL. Boswell, in his Hebrides, records on Oct. 26, 1773:--'Dr. Johnson roused my zeal so much that I took the liberty to tell him that he knew nothing of the [Douglas] Cause.' Lord Shelburne says: 'I conceived such a prejudice upon the sight of the present Lord Douglas's face and figure, that I could not allow myself to vote in this cause. If ever I saw a Frenchman, he is one.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 10. Hume 'was struck,' he writes, 'with a very sensible indignation at the decision. The Cause, though not in the least intricate, is so complicated that it never will be reviewed by the public, who are besides perfectly pleased with the sentence; being swayed by compassion and a few popular topics. To one who understands the Cause as I do, nothing could appear more scandalous than the pleadings of the two law lords.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 423. In Campbell's Chancellors, v. 494, an account is given of a duel between Stuart and Thurlow that arose out of this suit.

[677] The Fountains. Works, ix. 176.

[678] See ante, ii. 25.

[679] It has already been observed (ante, ii. 55), that one of his first Essays was a Latin Poem on a glow-worm; but whether it be any where extant, has not been ascertained. MALONE.

[680] 'Mallet's works are such as a writer, bustling in the world, shewing himself in publick, and emerging occasionally from time to time into notice, might keep alive by his personal influence; but which, conveying little information and giving no great pleasure, must soon give way, as the succession of things produces new topicks of conversation and other modes of amusement.' Johnson's Works, viii. 468.

[681] Johnson made less money, because he never 'traded' on his reputation. When he had made his name, he almost ceased to write.

[682] 'May 27, 1773. Dr. Goldsmith has written a comedy--no, it is the lowest of all farces. It is not the subject I condemn, though very vulgar, but the execution. The drift tends to no moral, no edification of any kind. The situations, however, are well imagined, and make one laugh, in spite of the grossness of the dialogue, the forced witticisms, and total improbability of the whole plan and conduct. But what disgusts me most is, that though the characters are very low, and aim at low humour, not one of them says a sentence that is natural or marks any character at all. It is set up in opposition to sentimental comedy, and is as bad as the worst of them.' Horace Walpole's Letters, v. 467. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 286) says that Goldsmith gave him an order to see this comedy. 'The next time I saw him, he inquired of me what my opinion was of it. I told him that I would not presume to be a judge of its merits. He asked, "Did it make you laugh?" I answered, "Exceedingly." "Then," said the Doctor, "that is all I require."'

[683] Garrick brought out his revised version of this play by Beaumont and Fletcher in 1754-5. Murphy's Garrick, p. 170. The compliment is in a speech by Don Juan, act v. sc. 2: 'Ay, but when things are at the worst, they'll mend; example does everything, and the fair sex will certainly grow better, whenever the greatest is the best woman in the kingdom.'

[684] Formular is not in Johnson's Dictionary.

[685]

'On earth, a present god, shall Caesar reign.'

FRANCIS. Horace, Odes, iii. 5.2.

[686] See ante, i. 167.

[687] Johnson refers, I believe, to Temple's Essay Of Heroic Virtue, where he says that 'the excellency of genius' must not only 'be cultivated by education and instruction,' but also 'must be assisted by fortune to preserve it to maturity; because the noblest spirit or genius in the world, if it falls, though never so bravely, in its first enterprises, cannot deserve enough of mankind to pretend to so great a reward as the esteem of heroic virtue.' Temple's Works, iii. 306.

[688] See post, Sept. 17, 1777.

[689] In an epitaph that Burke wrote for Garrick, he says: 'He raised the character of his profession to the rank of a liberal art.' Windham's Diary, p. 361.

[690] 'The allusion,' as Mr. Lockhart pointed out, 'is not to the Tale of a Tub, but to the History of John Bull' (part ii. ch 12 and 13). Jack, who hangs himself, is however the youngest of the three brothers of The Tale of a Tub, 'that have made such a clutter in the work' (ib. chap ii). Jack was unwillingly convinced by Habbakkuk's argument that to save his life he must hang himself. Sir Roger, he was promised, before the rope was well about his neck, would break in and cut him down.

[691] He wrote the following letter to Goldsmith, who filled the chair that evening. 'It is,' Mr. Forster says (Life of Goldsmith, ii. 367), 'the only fragment of correspondence between Johnson and Goldsmith that has been preserved.'

'April 23, 1773.

'SIR,--I beg that you will excuse my absence to the Club; I am going this evening to Oxford.

'I have another favour to beg. It is that I may be considered as proposing Mr. Boswell for a candidate of our society, and that he may be considered as regularly nominated.

'I am, sir,

'Your most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

If Johnson went to Oxford his stay there was brief, as on April 27 Boswell found him at home.

[692] 'There are,' says Johnson, speaking of Dryden (Works, vii. 292), 'men whose powers operate only at leisure and in retirement, and whose intellectual vigour deserts them in conversation.' See also ante, i. 413. 'No man,' he said of Goldsmith, 'was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had;' post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection. Horace Walpole (Letters, viii. 560), who 'knew Hume personally and well,' said, 'Mr. Hume's writings were so superior to his conversation, that I frequently said he understood nothing till he had written upon it.'

[693] The age of great English historians had not long begun. The first volume of The Decline and Fall was published three years later. Addison had written in 1716 (Freeholder, No. 35), 'Our country, which has produced writers of the first figure in every other kind of work, has been very barren in good historians.' Johnson, in 1751, repeated this observation in The Rambler, No. 122. Lord Bolingbroke wrote in 1735 (Works, iii. 454), 'Our nation has furnished as ample and as important matter, good and bad, for history, as any nation under the sun; and yet we must yield the palm in writing history most certainly to the Italians and to the French, and I fear even to the Germans.'

[694] Gibbon, informing Robertson on March 26, 1788, of the completion of The Decline and Fall, said:--'The praise which has ever been the most flattering to my ear, is to find my name associated with the names of Robertson and Hume; and provided I can maintain my place in the triumvirate, I am indifferent at what distance I am ranked below my companions and masters.' Dugald Stewart's Robertson, p. 367.

[695] 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'if Robertson's style be faulty, he owes it me; that is, having too many words, and those too big ones.' Post, Sept. 19, 1777. Johnson was not singular among the men of his time in condemning Robertson's verbiage. Wesley (Journal, iii. 447) wrote of vol. i. of Charles the Fifth:--'Here is a quarto volume of eight or ten shillings' price, containing dry, verbose dissertations on feudal government, the substance of all which might be comprised in half a sheet of paper!' Johnson again uses verbiage (a word not given in his Dictionary), post, April 9, 1778.

[696] See ante, ii. 210.

[697] See post, Oct. 10, 1779.

[698] 'Vertot, nA(C) en Normandie en 1655. Historien agrA(C)able et A(C)lA(C)gant. Mort en 1735.' Voltaire, SiA"cle de Louis XIV.

[699] Even Hume had no higher notion of what was required in a writer of ancient history. He wrote to Robertson, who was, it seems, meditating a History of Greece:--'What can you do in most places with these (the ancient) authors but transcribe and translate them? No letters or state papers from which you could correct their errors, or authenticate their narration, or supply their defects.' J.H. Burton's Hume, ii. 83.

[700] See ante, ii. 53. Southey, asserting that Robertson had never read the Laws of Alonso the Wise, says, that 'it is one of the thousand and one omissions for which he ought to be called rogue as long as his volumes last.' Southey's Life, ii. 318.

[701] Ovid. de Art. Amand. i. iii. v. 13 [339]. BOSWELL. 'It may be that our name too will mingle with those.'

[702] The Gent. Mag. for Jan. 1766 (p. 45) records, that 'a person was observed discharging musket-balls from a steel crossbow at the two remaining heads upon Temple Bar.' They were the heads of Scotch rebels executed in 1746. Samuel Rogers, who died at the end of 1855, said, 'I well remember one of the heads of the rebels upon a pole at Temple Bar.' Rogers's Table-Talk, p. 2.

[703] In allusion to Dr. Johnson's supposed political principles, and perhaps his own. BOSWELL.

[704] 'Dr. Johnson one day took Bishop Percy's little daughter upon his knee, and asked her what she thought of Pilgrim's Progress. The child answered that she had not read it. "No!" replied the Doctor; "then I would not give one farthing for you:" and he set her down and took no further notice of her.' Croker's Boswell, p. 838. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 281) says, that Johnson once asked, 'Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and The Pilgrim's Progress?'

[705] It was Johnson himself who was thus honoured. Post, under Dec. 20, 1784.

[706] Here is another instance of his high admiration of Milton as a Poet, notwithstanding his just abhorrence of that sour Republican's political principles. His candour and discrimination are equally conspicuous. Let us hear no more of his 'injustice to Milton.' BOSWELL.

[707] There was an exception to this. In his criticism of Paradise Lost (Works, vii. 136), he says:--'The confusion of spirit and matter which pervades the whole narration of the war of Heaven fills it with incongruity; and the book in which it is related is, I believe, the favourite of children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased.'

[708] In the Academy, xxii. 348, 364, 382, Mr. C. E. Doble shews strong grounds for the belief that the author was Richard Allestree, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity, Oxford, and Provost of Eton. Cowper spoke of it as 'that repository of self-righteousness and pharisaical lumber;' with which opinion Southey wholly disagreed. Southey's Cowper, i. 116.

[709] Johnson said to Boswell:--'Sir, they knew that if they refused you they'd probably never have got in another. I'd have kept them all out. Beauclerk was very earnest for you.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 21, 1773.

[710] Garrick and Jones had been elected this same spring. See ante, i. 481, note 3.

[711] Mr. Langton, in his Collection (post, 1780), mentions an ode brought by Goldsmith to the Club, which had been recited for money.

[712] Dr. Johnson's memory here was not perfectly accurate: Eugenio does not conclude thus. There are eight more lines after the last of those quoted by him; and the passage which he meant to recite is as follows:--

'Say now ye fluttering, poor assuming elves, Stark full of pride, of folly, of--yourselves; Say where's the wretch of all your impious crew Who dares confront his character to view? Behold Eugenio, view him o'er and o'er, Then sink into yourselves, and be no more.'

Mr. Reed informs me that the Author of Eugenio, a Wine Merchant at Wrexham in Denbighshire, soon after its publication, viz. 17th May, 1737, cut his own throat; and that it appears by Swift's Works that the poem had been shewn to him, and received some of his corrections. Johnson had read Eugenio on his first coming to town, for we see it mentioned in one of his letters to Mr. Cave, which has been inserted in this work; ante, p. 122. BOSWELL. See Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xix. 153, for his letter to this wine merchant, Thomas Beach by name.

[713] These lines are in the Annus Mirabilis (stanza 164) in a digression in praise of the Royal Society; described by Johnson (Works, vii. 320) as 'an example seldom equalled of seasonable excursion and artful return.' Ib p. 341, he says: 'Dryden delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning, where light and darkness begin to mingle.... This inclination sometimes produced nonsense, which he knew; and sometimes it issued in absurdities, of which perhaps he was not conscious.' He then quotes these lines, and continues: 'They have no meaning; but may we not say, in imitation of Cowley on another book--

"'Tis so like sense, 'twill serve the turn as well."'

Cowley's line is from his Pindarique Ode to Mr. Hobs:--

''Tis so like truth, 'twill serve our turn as well.'

[714] In his Dictionary, he defines punster as a low wit, who endeavours at reputation by double meaning. See post, April 28, 1778.

[715] I formerly thought that I had perhaps mistaken the word, and imagined it to be Corps, from its similarity of sound to the real one. For an accurate and shrewd unknown gentleman, to whom I am indebted for some remarks on my work, observes on this passage--'Q. if not on the word Fort? A vociferous French preacher said of Bourdaloue, "Il preche fort bien, et moi bien fort."'--Menagiana. See also Anecdotes Litteraires, Article Bourdaloue. But my ingenious and obliging correspondent, Mr. Abercrombie of Philadelphia, has pointed out to me the following passage in Menagiana; which renders the preceding conjecture unnecessary, and confirms my original statement:

'Madme de Bourdonne, Chanoinesse de Remiremont, venoit d'entendre un discours plein de feu et d'esprit, mais fort peu solide, et tresirregulier. Une de ses amies, qui y prenoit interet pour l'orateur, lui dit en sortant, "Eh bien, Madme que vous semble-t-il de ce que vous venez d'entendre?--Qu'il ya d'esprit?"--"Il y a tant, repondit Madme de Bourdonne, que je n'y ai pas vu de corps"'--Menagiana, tome ii. p. 64. Amsterd. 1713. BOSWELL. Menagiana, ou les bans mots et remarques critiques, historiqites, morales et derudition de M. Menage, recueillies par ses amis, published in 1693. Gilles Menage was born 1613, died 1692.

[716] That Johnson only relished the conversation, and did not join in it, is more unlikely. In his charge to Boswell, he very likely pointed out that what was said within was not to be reported without. Boswell gives only brief reports of the talk at the Club, and these not openly. See post, April 7, 1775, note.

[717] See post, the passage before Feb. 18, 1775.

[718] By the Rev. Henry Wharton, published in 1692.

[719] See ante, ii. 126, for what Johnson said of the inward light.

[720] Lady Diana Beauclerk. In 1768 Beauclerk married the eldest daughter of the second Duke of Marlborough, two days after her divorce from her first husband, Viscount Bolingbroke, the nephew of the famous Lord Bolingbroke. She was living when her story, so slightly veiled as it is, was thus published by Boswell. The marriage was not a happy one. Two years after Beauclerk's death, Mr. Burke, looking at his widow's house, said in Miss Burney's presence:--'I am extremely glad to see her at last so well housed; poor woman! the bowl has long rolled in misery; I rejoice that it has now found its balance. I never myself so much enjoyed the sight of happiness in another, as in that woman when I first saw her after the death of her husband.' He then drew Beauclerk's character 'in strong and marked expressions, describing the misery he gave his wife, his singular ill-treatment of her, and the necessary relief the death of such a man must give.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 147.

[721] Old Mr. Langton. CROKER. See post, April 26, 1776.

[722] See post, Sept. 22, 1777.

[723] See post, May 15, 1776.

[724] The writer of hymns.

[725] Malone says that 'Hawkesworth was introduced by Garrick to Lord Sandwich, who, thinking to put a few hundred pounds into his pocket, appointed him to revise and publish Cook's Voyages. He scarcely did anything to the MSS., yet sold it to Cadell and Strahan for AL6000.' Prior's Malone, p. 441. Thurlow, in his speech on copy-right on March 24, 1774, said 'that Hawkesworth's book, which was a mere composition of trash, sold for three guineas by the booksellers' monopolizing.' Parl. Hist. xvii. 1086. See ante, i. 253, note 1, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 3.

[726] Gilbert White held 'that, though most of the swallow kind may migrate, yet that some do stay behind, and bide with us during the winter.' White's Selborne, Letter xii. See ante, ii. 55.

[727] See ante, ii. 73.

[728] No. 41. 'The sparrow that was hatched last spring makes her first nest the ensuing season of the same materials, and with the same art as in any following year; and the hen conducts and shelters her first brood of chickens with all the prudence that she ever attains.'

[729] See post, April 3, 1776, April 3, 1779, and April 28, 1783.

[730] Rousseau went further than Johnson in this. About eleven years earlier he had, in his Contract Social, iv. 8, laid down certain 'simple dogmas,' such as the belief in a God and a future state, and said:--'Sans pouvoir obliger personne A les croire, il [le Souverain] peut bannir de l'Etat quiconque ne les croit pas: ... Que si quelquiun, aprA"s avoir reconne publiquement ces mA¬mes dogmes, se conduit comme ne les croyant pas, qu'il soit puni de mort; il a commis le plus grand des crimes, il a menti devant les lois.'

[731] See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.

[732] Boswell calls Elwal Johnson's countryman, because they both came from the same county. See ante, ii.

[733] Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i. 219, says:--'Johnson would have made an excellent Spanish inquisitor. To his shame be it said, he always was tooth and nail against toleration.'

[734] Dr. Mayo's calm temper and steady perseverance, rendered him an admirable subject for the exercise of Dr. Johnson's powerful abilities. He never flinched; but, after reiterated blows, remained seemingly unmoved as at the first. The scintillations of Johnson's genius flashed every time he was struck, without his receiving any injury. Hence he obtained the epithet of The Literary Anvil. BOSWELL. See post, April 15, 1778, for an account of another dinner at Mr. Dilly's, where Johnson and Mayo met.

[735] The Young Pretender, Charles Edward.

[736] Mr. Croker, quoting Johnson's letter of May 20, 1775 (Piozzi Letters, i. 219), where he says, 'I dined in a large company at a dissenting bookseller's yesterday, and disputed against toleration with one Doctor Meyer,' continues:--'This must have been the dinner noted in the text; but I cannot reconcile the date, and the mention of the death of the Queen of Denmark, which happened on May 10, 1775, ascertains that the date of the letter is correct. Boswell ... must, I think, have misdated and misplaced his note of the conversation.' That the dinner did not take place in May, 1775, is, however, quite clear. By that date Goldsmith had been dead more than a year, and Goldsmith bore a large part in the talk at the Dilly's table. On the other hand, there can be no question about the correctness of the date of the letter. Wesley, in his Journal for 1757 (ii. 349), mentions 'Mr. Meier, chaplain to one of the Hanoverian regiments.' Perhaps he is the man whom Johnson met in 1775.

[737] See ante, i. 423, note 2.

[738] 'It is very possible he had to call at Covent-garden on his way, and that for this, and not for Boswell's reason, he had taken his hat early. The actor who so assisted him in Young Marlow was taking his benefit this seventh of May; and for an additional attraction Goldsmith had written him an epilogue.' Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 376.

[739] Johnson was not given to interrupting a speaker. Hawkins (Life, p. 164), describing his conversation, says:--'For the pleasure he communicated to his hearers he expected not the tribute of silence; on the contrary, he encouraged others, particularly young men, to speak, and paid a due attention to what they said.' See post, under April 29, 1776, note.

[740] That this was Langton can be seen from Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 22, 1773, and from Johnson's letters of July 5, 1773, July 5, 1774, and Jan. 21, 1775.

[741] See post, April 28, 1783.

[742] Pr. and Med. p. 40. Boswell.

[743] See ante, i. 489.

[744] 'In England,' wrote Burke, 'the Roman Catholics are a sect; in Ireland they are a nation.' Burke's Corres. iv. 89.

[745] 'The celebrated number of ten persecutions has been determined by the ecclesiastical writers of the fifth century, who possessed a more distinct view of the prosperous or adverse fortunes of the church, from the age of Nero to that of Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of the ten plagues of Egypt, and of the ten horns of the Apocalypse, first suggested this calculation to their minds.' Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ch. xvi, ed. 1807, ii. 370.

[746] See ante, ii. 121, 130.

[747] See ante, ii. 105.

[748] Reynolds said:--'Johnson had one virtue which I hold one of the most difficult to practise. After the heat of contest was over, if he had been informed that his antagonist resented his rudeness, he was the first to seek after a reconciliation.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 457. He wrote to Dr. Taylor in 1756:--'When I am musing alone, I feel a pang for every moment that any human being has by my peevishness or obstinacy spent in uneasiness.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 324. More than twenty years later he said in Miss Burney's hearing:--'I am always sorry when I make bitter speeches, and I never do it but when I am insufferably vexed.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 131. 'When the fray was over,' writes Murphy (Life, p. 140), 'he generally softened into repentance, and, by conciliating measures, took care that no animosity should be left rankling in the breast of the antagonist.' See ante, ii. 109.

[749] Johnson had offended Langton as well as Goldsmith this day, yet of Goldsmith only did he ask pardon. Perhaps this fact increased Langton's resentment, which lasted certainly more than a year. See post, July 5, 1774, and Jan. 21, 1775.

[750] 'Addison, speaking of his own deficiency in conversation, used to say of himself, that with respect to intellectual wealth he could draw bills for a thousand pounds, though he had not a guinea in his pocket.' Johnson's Works, vii. 446. Somewhat the same thought may be found in The Tatler, No. 30, where it is said that 'a man endowed with great perfections without good-breeding, is like one who has his pockets full of gold, but always wants change for his ordinary occasions.' I have traced it still earlier, for Burnet in his History of his own Times, i. 210, says, that 'Bishop Wilkins used to say Lloyd had the most learning in ready cash of any he ever knew.' Later authors have used the same image. Lord Chesterfield (Letters, ii. 291) in 1749 wrote of Lord Bolingbroke:--'He has an infinite fund of various and almost universal knowledge, which, from the clearest and quickest conception and happiest memory that ever man was blessed with, he always carries about him. It is his pocket-money, and he never has occasion to draw upon a book for any sum.' Southey wrote in 1816 (Life and Corres. iv. 206):--'I wish to avoid a conference which will only sink me in Lord Liverpool's judgment; what there may be in me is not payable at sight; give me leisure and I feel my strength.' Rousseau was in want of readiness like Addison:--'Je fais d'excellens impromptus A loisir; mais sur le temps je n'ai jamais rien fait ni dit qui vaille. Je ferais une fort jolie conversation par la poste, comme on dit que les Espagnols jouent aux A(C)checs. Quand je lus le trait d'un Duc de Savoye qui se retourna, faisant route, pour crier; A votre gorge, marchand de Paris, je dis, me voilA .' Les Confessions, Livre iii. See also post, May 8, 1778.

[751] 'Among the many inconsistencies which folly produces, or infirmity suffers in the human mind, there has often been observed a manifest and striking contrariety between the life of an author and his writings; and Milton, in a letter to a learned stranger, by whom he had been visited, with great reason congratulates himself upon the consciousness of being found equal to his own character, and having preserved in a private and familiar interview that reputation which his works had procured him.' The Rambler, No. 14.

[752] Prior (Life of Goldsmith, ii. 459) says that it was not a German who interrupted Goldsmith but a Swiss, Mr. Moser, the keeper of the Royal Academy (post, June 2, 1783). He adds that at a Royal Academy dinner Moser interrupted another person in the same way, when Johnson seemed preparing to speak, whereupon Goldsmith said, 'Are you sure that you can comprehend what he says?'

[753] Edmund Burke he called Mund; Dodsley, Doddy; Derrick, Derry; Cumberland, Cumbey; Monboddo, Monny; Stockdale, Stockey. Mrs. Piozzi represents him in his youth as calling Edmund Hector 'dear Mund.' Ante, i. 93, note. Sheridan's father had been known as Sherry among Swift and his friends. Swift's Works, ed. 1803, x. 256.

[754] Mr. Forster (Life of Goldsmith, ii. 103) on this remarks:--'It was a courteous way of saying, "I wish you [Davies] wouldn't call me Goldy, whatever Mr. Johnson does."' That he is wrong in this is shown by Boswell, in his letter to Johnson of Feb. 14, 1777, where he says:--'You remember poor Goldsmith, when he grew important, and wished to appear Doctor Major, could not bear your calling him Goldy.' See also Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 14, 1773.

[755] The Reverend Thomas Bagshaw, M.A., who died on November 20, 1787, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, Chaplain of Bromley College, in Kent, and Rector of Southfleet. He had resigned the cure of Bromley Parish some time before his death. For this, and another letter from Dr. Johnson in 1784, to the same truely respectable man, I am indebted to Dr. John Loveday, of the Commons [ante, i. 462, note 1], a son of the late learned and pious John Loveday, Esq., of Caversham in Berkshire, who obligingly transcribed them for me from the originals in his possession. This worthy gentleman, having retired from business, now lives in Warwickshire. The world has been lately obliged to him as the Editor of the late Rev. Dr. Townson's excellent work, modestly entitled, A Discourse on the Evangelical History, from the Interment to the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; to which is prefixed, a truly interesting and pleasing account of the authour, by the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton. BOSWELL.

[756] Sunday was May 9.

[757] As Langton was found to deeply resent Johnson's hasty expression at the dinner on the 7th, we must assume that he had invited Johnson to dine with him before the offence had been given.

[758] In the Dictionary Johnson, as the second definition of metaphysical, says: 'In Shakespeare it means supernatural or preternatural.' 'Creation' being beyond the nature of man, the right derived from it is preternatural or metaphysical.

[759] See ante, i. 437.

[760] Hume, on Feb. 24 of this year, mentioned to Adam Smith as a late publication Lord Monboddo's Origin and Progress of Language:--'It contains all the absurdity and malignity which I suspected; but is writ with more ingenuity and in a better style than I looked for.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 466. See ante, ii. 74.

[761] Monday was May 10.

[762] See ante, i. 413. Percy wrote of Goldsmith's envy:--'Whatever appeared of this kind was a mere momentary sensation, which he knew not how, like other men, to conceal.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, i. 117.

[763] He might have applied to himself his own version of Ovid's lines, Genus et proavos, &c., the motto to The Rambler, No. 46:--

'Nought from my birth or ancestors I claim; All is my own, my honor and my shame.'

See ante, ii. 153.

[764] That Langton is meant is shewn by Johnson's letter of July 5 (post, p. 265). The man who is there described as leaving the town in deep dudgeon was certainly Langton. 'Where is now my legacy?' writes Johnson. He is referring, I believe, to the last part of his playful and boisterous speech, where he says:--'I hope he has left me a legacy.' Mr. Croker, who is great at suspicions, ridiculously takes the mention of a legacy seriously, and suspects 'some personal disappointment at the bottom of this strange obstreperous and sour merriment.' He might as well accuse Falstaff of sourness in his mirth.

[765] See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 23, 1773, where Boswell makes the same remark.

[766]

'Et quorum pars magna fui.' 'Yea, and was no small part thereof.'

Morris, Aćneids, ii. 6.

[767] Johnson, as drawn by Boswell, is too 'awful, melancholy, and venerable.' Such 'admirable fooling' as he describes here is but rarely shown in his pages. Yet he must often have seen equally 'ludicrous exhibitions.' Hawkins (Life, p. 258) says, that 'in the talent of humour there hardly ever was Johnson's equal, except perhaps among the old comedians.' Murphy writes (Life, p. 139):--'Johnson was surprised to be told, but it is certainly true, that with great powers of mind, wit and humour were his shining talents.' Mrs. Piozzi confirms this. 'Mr. Murphy,' she writes (Anec. p. 205), 'always said he was incomparable at buffoonery.' She adds (p. 298):--'He would laugh at a stroke of genuine humour, or sudden sally of odd absurdity, as heartily and freely as I ever yet saw any man; and though the jest was often such as few felt besides himself, yet his laugh was irresistible, and was observed immediately to produce that of the company, not merely from the notion that it was proper to laugh when he did, but purely out of want of power to forbear it.' Miss Burney records:--'Dr. Johnson has more fun, and comical humour, and love of nonsense about him than almost anybody I ever saw.' Mine. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 204. See Boswell's own account, post, end of vol. iv.

[768] Pr. and Med. p. 129. BOSWELL. See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection for Johnson's study of Low Dutch.

[769] 'Those that laugh at the portentous glare of a comet, and hear a crow with equal tranquillity from the right or left, will yet talk of times and situations proper for intellectual performances,' &c. The Idler, No. xi. See ante, i. 332.

[770] 'He did not see at all with one of his eyes' (ante, i. 41).

[771] Not six months before his death, he wished me to teach him the Scale of Musick:--'Dr. Burney, teach me at least the alphabet of your language.' BURNEY.

[772] Accurata Burdonum [i.e. Scaligerorum] FabulA| Confutatio (auctore I. R). Lugduni Batavorum. Apud Ludovicum Elzevirium MDCXVII. BRIT. MUS. CATALOGUE.

[773] Mrs. Piozzi's Anecdotes of Johnson, p. 131. BOSWELL. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 129) describes her mother and Johnson as 'excellent, far beyond the excellence of any other man and woman I ever yet saw. As her conduct extorted his truest esteem, her cruel illness excited all his tenderness. He acknowledged himself improved by her piety, and over her bed with the affection of a parent, and the reverence of a son.' Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i. 81, says that 'Johnson could not much near Mrs. Salusbury, nor Mrs. Salusbury him, when they first knew each other. But her cancer moved his compassion, and made them friends.' Johnson, recording her death, says:--'Yesterday, as I touched her hand and kissed it, she pressed my hand between her two hands, which she probably intended as the parting caress ... This morning being called about nine to feel her pulse, I said at parting, "God bless you; for Jesus Christ's sake." She smiled as pleased.' Pr. and Med. p. 128.

[774] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor July 22, 1782:--'Sir Robert Chambers slipped this session through the fingers of revocation, but I am in doubt of his continuance. Shelburne seems to be his enemy. Mrs. Thrale says they will do him no harm. She perhaps thinks there is no harm without hanging. The mere act of recall strips him of eight thousand a year.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 462.

[775] Beattie was Professor of Moral Philosophy. For some years his 'English friends had tried to procure for him a permanent provision beyond the very moderate emoluments arising from his office.' Just before Johnson wrote, Beattie had been privately informed that he was to have a pension of AL200 a year. Forbes's Beattie, ed. 1824, pp. 145, 151. When Johnson heard of this 'he clapped his hands, and cried, "O brave we!"' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 26.

[776] Langton. See ante, p. 254, note 2.

[777] Langton--his native village.

[778] See ante, p. 261, note 2.

[779] That he set out on this day is shewn by his letter to Mrs. Thrale. Piozzi Letters, ii. 103. The following anecdote in the Memoir of Goldsmith, prefixed to his Misc. Works (i. 110), is therefore inaccurate:--'I was dining at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, August 7, 1773, where were the Archbishop of Tuam and Mr. (now Lord) Eliot, when the latter making use of some sarcastical reflections on Goldsmith, Johnson broke out warmly in his defence, and in the course of a spirited eulogium said, "Is there a man, Sir, now who can pen an essay with such ease and elegance as Goldsmith?"' Johnson did in August, 1783, dine at Reynolds's, and meet there the Archbishop of Tuam, 'a man coarse of voice and inelegant of language' Piozzi Letters, ii. 300.

[780] It was on Saturday the 14th of August that he arrived.

[781] From Aug. 14 to Nov. 22 is one hundred days.

[782] It is strange that not one of the four conferred on him an honorary degree. This same year Beattie had been thus honoured at Oxford. Gray, who visited Aberdeen eight years before Johnson, was offered the degree of doctor of laws, 'which, having omitted to take it at Cambridge, he thought it decent to refuse.' Johnson's Works, viii. 479.

[783] He was long remembered amongst the lower order of Hebrideans by the title of Sassenach More, the big Englishman. WALTER SCOTT.

[784] The first edition was published in September, 1785. In the following August, in his preface to the third edition, Boswell speaks of the first two editions 'as large impressions.'

[785] The authour was not a small gainer by this extraordinary Journey; for Dr. Johnson thus writes to Mrs. Thrale, Nov. 3, 1773:--'Boswell will praise my resolution and perseverance, and I shall in return celebrate his good humour and perpetual cheerfulness. He has better faculties than I had imagined; more justness of discernment, and more fecundity of images. It is very convenient to travel with him; for there is no house where he is not received with kindness and respect.' Let. 90, to Mrs. Thrale. [Piozzi Letters, i. 198.] MALONE.

[786] 'The celebrated Flora Macdonald. See Boswell's Tour' COURTENAY.

[787] Lord Eldon (at that time Mr. John Scott) has the following reminiscences of this visit:--'I had a walk in New Inn Hall Garden with Dr. Johnson and Sir Robert Chambers [Principal of the Hall]. Sir Robert was gathering snails, and throwing them over the wall into his neighbours garden. The Doctor repreached him very roughly, and stated to him that this was unmannerly and unneighbourly. "Sir," said Sir Robert, "my neighbour is a Dissenter." "Oh!" said the Doctor, "if so, Chambers, toss away, toss away, as hard as you can." He was very absent. I have seen him standing for a very long time, without moving, with a foot on each side the kennel which was then in the middle of the High Street, with his eyes fixed on the water running in it. In the common-room of University College he was dilating upon some subject, and the then head of Lincoln College, Dr. Mortimer, occasionally interrupted him, saying, "I deny that." This was often repeated, and observed upon by Johnson, in terms expressive of increasing displeasure and anger. At length upon the Doctor's repeating the words, "I deny that," "Sir, Sir," said Johnson, "you must have forgot that an author has said: Plus negabit tinus asinus in una hora quam centum philosophi probaverint in centum annis."' [Dr. Fisher, who related this story to Mr. Croker, described Dr. Mortimer as 'a Mr. Mortimer, a shallow under-bred man, who had no sense of Johnson's superiority. He flatly contradicted some assertion which Johnson had pronounced to be as clear as that two and two make four.' Croker's Boswell, p. 483.] 'Mrs. John Scott used to relate that she had herself helped Dr. Johnson one evening to fifteen cups of tea.' Twiss's Eldon, i. 87.

[788] In this he shewed a very acute penetration. My wife paid him the most assiduous and respectful attention, while he was our guest; so that I wonder how he discovered her wishing for his departure. The truth is, that his irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the candles with their heads downwards, when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady. Besides, she had not that high admiration of him which was felt by most of those who knew him; and what was very natural to a female mind, she thought he had too much influence over her husband. She once in a little warmth, made, with more point than justice, this remark upon that subject: 'I have seen many a bear led by a man; but I never before saw a man led by a bear.' BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 66.

[789] Sir Alexander Gordon, one of the Professors at Aberdeen. BOSWELL.

[790] This was a box containing a number of curious things which he had picked up in Scotland, particularly some horn spoons. BOSWELL.

[791] The Rev. Dr. Alexander Webster, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, a man of distinguished abilities, who had promised him information concerning the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. BOSWELL.

[792] The Macdonalds always laid claim to be placed on the right of the whole clans, and those of that tribe assign the breach of this order at Culloden as one cause of the loss of the day. The Macdonalds, placed on the left wing, refused to charge, and positively left the field unassailed and unbroken. Lord George Murray in vain endeavoured to urge them on by saying, that their behaviour would make the left the right, and that he himself would take the name of Macdonald. WALTER SCOTT.

[793] The whole of the first volume is Johnson's and three-quarters of the second. A second edition was published the following year, with a third volume added, which also contained pieces by Johnson, but no apology from Davies.

[794] 'When Davies printed the Fugitive Pieces without his knowledge or consent; "How," said I, "would Pope have raved had he been served so?" "We should never," replied he, "have heard the last on't, to be sure; but then Pope was a narrow man: I will however," added he, "storm and bluster myself a little this time;"--so went to London in all the wrath he could muster up. At his return I asked how the affair ended:

'"Why," said he, "I was a fierce fellow, and pretended to be very angry, and Thomas was a good-natured fellow, and pretended to be very sorry; so there the matter ended: I believe the dog loves me dearly. Mr. Thrale" (turning to my husband), "What shall you and I do that is good for Tom Davies? We will do something for him to be sure."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 55.

[795] Prayers and Meditations, BOSWELL.

[796] The ancient Burgh of Prestick, in Ayrshire. BOSWELL.

[797] Perhaps Johnson imperfectly remembered, 'novae rediere in pristina vires.' AEneid, xii. 424.

[798] See ante, i. 437. The decision was given on Feb. 22 against the perpetual right. 'By the above decision near 200,000AL. worth of what was honestly purchased at public sale, and which was yesterday thought property, is now reduced to nothing.... The English booksellers have now no other security in future for any literary purchase they may make but the statute of the 8th of Queen Anne, which secures to the authors assigns an exclusive property for 14 years, to revert again to the author, and vest in him for 14 years more.' Ann. Reg. 1774, i. 95.

[799] Murphy was a barrister as well as author.

[800] Mr. Croker quotes a note by Malone to show that in the catalogue of Steevens's Library this book is described as a quarto, corio turcico foliis deauratis.

[801] A manuscript account drawn by Dr. Webster of all the parishes in Scotland, ascertaining their length, breadth, number of inhabitants, and distinguishing Protestants and Roman Catholicks. This book had been transmitted to government, and Dr. Johnson saw a copy of it in Dr. Webster's possession. BOSWELL.

[802] Beauclerk, three weeks earlier, had written to Lord Charlemont:--'Our club has dwindled away to nothing. Nobody attends but Mr. Chambers, and he is going to the East Indies. Sir Joshua and Goldsmith have got into such a round of pleasures that they have no time.' Charlemont's Life, i. 350. Johnson, no doubt, had been kept away by illness (ante, p. 272).

[803] Mr. Fox, as Sir James Mackintosh informed me, was brought in by Burke. CROKER.

[804] Sir C. Bunbury was the brother of Mr. H. W. Bunbury, the caricaturist, who married Goldsmith's friend, the elder Miss Horneck--'Little Comedy' as she was called. Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 147.

[805] Rogers (Table-Talk, p. 23) tells how Dr. Fordyce, who sometimes drank a good deal, was summoned to a lady patient when he was conscious that he had had too much wine. 'Feeling her pulse, and finding himself unable to count its beats, he muttered, "Drunk by G--." Next morning a letter from her was put into his hand. "She too well knew," she wrote, "that he had discovered the unfortunate condition in which she had been, and she entreated him to keep the matter secret in consideration of the enclosed (a hundred-pound bank-note)."'

[806] Steevens wrote to Garrick on March 6:--'Mr. C. Fox pays you but a bad compliment; as he appears, like the late Mr. Secretary Morris, to enter the society at a time when he has nothing else to do. If the bon ton should prove a contagious disorder among us, it will be curious to trace its progress. I have already seen it breaking out in Dr. G----[Goldsmith] under the form of many a waistcoat, but I believe Dr. G---- will be the last man in whom the symptoms of it will be detected.' Garrick Corres. i. 613. In less than a month poor Goldsmith was dead. Fox, just before his election to the club, had received through one of the doorkeepers of the House of Commons the following note:--'SIR,--His Majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of the Treasury to be made out, in which I do not perceive your name. NORTH.'

[807] See Boswell's answer, post, May 12.

[808] See post, April 16, 1775.

[809] See ante, i. 122, note 2.

[810] Iona.

[811] 'I was induced,' he says, 'to undertake the journey by finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel in countries less hospitable than we have passed.' Quoted by Boswell in his Hebrides, Aug. 18, 1773.

[812] See post, Nov. 16, 1776.

[813] Boswell wrote to Temple on May 8, 1779:--'I think Dr. Johnson never answered but three of my letters, though I have had numerous returns from him.' Letters of Boswell. See post, Sept. 29, 1777.

[814] Dr. Goldsmith died April 4, this year. BOSWELL. Boswell wrote to Garrick on April 11, 1774:--'Dr. Goldsmith's death would affect all the club much. I have not been so much affected with any event that has happened of a long time. I wish you would give me, who am at a distance, some particulars with regard to his last appearance.' Garrick Corres. i. 622.

[815] See ante, p. 265.

[816] See ante, ii. 27, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 29, 1773.

[817] These books Dr. Johnson presented to the Bodleian Library, BOSWELL.

[818] On the cover enclosing them, Dr. Johnson wrote, 'If my delay has given any reason for supposing that I have not a very deep sense of the honour done me by asking my judgement, I am very sorry.' BOSWELL.

[819] See post, March 20, 1776.

[820] 'Sir Joshua was much affected by the death of Goldsmith, to whom he had been a very sincere friend. He did not touch the pencil for that day, a circumstance most extraordinary for him who passed no day without a line. Northcote's Reynolds, i. 325.

[821] He owed his tailor AL79, though he had paid him AL110 in 1773. In this payment was included AL35 for his nephew's clothes. We find such entries in his own bills as--'To Tyrian bloom satin grain and, garter blue silk beeches 8AL 2s. 7d. To Queen's-blue dress suit 11AL 17s. 0d. To your blue velvet suit 21AL 10s. 9d.' (See ante, ii. 83.) Filby's son said to Mr. Prior:--'My father attributed no blame to Goldsmith; he had been a good customer, and had he lived would have paid every farthing.' Prior's Goldsmith, ii. 232.

[822] 'Soon after Goldsmith's death certain persons dining with Sir Joshua commented rather freely on some part of his works, which, in their opinion, neither discovered talent nor originality. To this Dr. Johnson listened in his usual growling manner; when, at length, his patience being exhausted, he rose with great dignity, looked them full in the face, and exclaimed, "If nobody was suffered to abuse poor Goldy, but those who could write as well, he would have few censors."' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 327. To Goldsmith might be applied the words that Johnson wrote of Savage (Works, viii. 191):--'Vanity may surely be readily pardoned in him to whom life afforded no other comforts than barren praises, and the consciousness of deserving them. Those are no proper judges of his conduct who have slumbered away their time on the down of plenty; nor will any wise man presume to say, "Had I been in Savage's condition, I should have lived or written better than Savage."'

[823] Mrs. Thrale's mother died the summer before (ante, p. 263). Most of her children died early. By 1777 she had lost seven out of eleven. Post, May 3, 1777.

[824] Johnson had not seen Langton since early in the summer of 1773. He was then suffering from a fever and an inflammation in the eye, for which he was twice copiously bled. (Pr. and Med. 130.) The following winter he was distressed by a cough. (Ib p. 135.) Neither of these illnesses was severe enough to be called dreadful. In the spring of 1770 he was very ill. (Ib p. 93.) On Sept. 18, 1771, he records:--'For the last year I have been slowly recovering from the violence of my last illness.' (Ib p. 104.) On April 18, 1772, in reviewing the last year, he writes:--'An unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest; this is the remainder of my last illness.' (Ib p. iii.) In the winter of 1772-3, he suffered from a cough. (Ib p. 121.) I think that he must mean the illness of 1770, though it is to be noticed that he wrote to Boswell on July 5, 1773:--'Except this eye [the inflamed eye] I am very well.' (Ante, p. 264.)

[825] 'Lord have mercy upon us.'

[826] See Johnson's Works, i. 172, for his Latin version. D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, vi. 368) says 'that Oldys [ante, i. 175] always asserted that he was the author of this song, and as he was a rigid lover of truth I doubt not that he wrote it. I have traced it through a dozen of collections since the year 1740, the first in which I find it.'

[827] Mr. Seward (Anec, ii. 466) gives the following version of these lines:

'Whoe'er thou art with reverence tread Where Goldsmith's letter'd dust is laid. If nature and the historic page, If the sweet muse thy care engage. Lament him dead whose powerful mind Their various energies combined.'

[828] See ante, p. 265.

[829] At Lleweney, the house of Mrs. Thrale's cousin, Mr. Cotton, Dr. Johnson stayed nearly three weeks. Johnson's Journey into North Wales, July 28, 1774. Mr. Fitzmaurice, Lord Shelburne's brother, had a house there in 1780; for Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on May 7 of that year:--'He has almost made me promise to pass part of the summer at Llewenny.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 113.

[830] Lord Hailes was Sir David Dalrymple. See ante, i. 267. He is not to be confounded with Sir John Dalrymple, mentioned ante, ii. 210.

[831]

E'en in a bishop I can spy desert; Seeker is decent, Rundel has a heart.'

Pope's Epilogue to the Satires, ii. 70.

[832] In the first two editions forenoon. Boswell, in three other passages, made the same change in the third edition. Forenoon perhaps he considered a Scotticism. The correction above being made in one of his letters, renders it likely that he corrected them before publication.

[833] Horace, Ars Poet. l. 373.

[834] 'Do not you long to hear the roarings of the old lion over the bleak mountains of the North?' wrote Steevens to Garrick. Garrick Corres, ii. 122.

[835] 'Aug. 16. We came to Penmanmaur by daylight, and found a way, lately made, very easy and very safe. It was cut smooth and enclosed between parallel walls; the outer of which secures the passenger from the precipice, which is deep and dreadful.... The sea beats at the bottom of the way. At evening the moon shone eminently bright: and our thoughts of danger being now past, the rest of our journey was very pleasant. At an hour somewhat late we came to Bangor, where we found a very mean inn, and had some difficulty to obtain lodging. I lay in a room where the other bed had two men.' Johnson's Journey into North Wales.

[836] He did not go to the top of Snowdon. He says:--'On the side of Snowdon are the remains of a large fort, to which we climbed with great labour. I was breathless and harassed,' Ib Aug. 26.

[837] I had written to him, to request his interposition in behalf of a convict, who I thought was very unjustly condemned. BOSWELL.

[838] He had kept a journal which was edited by Mr. Duppa in 1816. It will be found post, in vol. v.

[839] 'When the general election broke up the delightful society in which we had spent some time at Beconsfield, Dr. Johnson shook the hospitable master of the house [Burke] kindly by the hand, and said, "Farewell my dear Sir, and remember that I wish you all the success which ought to be wished you, which can possibly be wished you indeed--by an honest man."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 242. The dissolution was on Sept. 30. Johnson, with the Thrales, as his Journal shows, had arrived at Beconsfield on the 24th. See ante, ii. 222, for Johnson's opinion of Burke's honesty.

[840] Mr. Perkins was for a number of years the worthy superintendant of Mr. Thrale's great brewery, and after his death became one of the proprietors of it; and now resides in Mr. Thrale's house in Southwark, which was the scene of so many literary meetings, and in which he continues the liberal hospitality for which it was eminent. Dr. Johnson esteemed him much. He hung up in the counting-house a fine proof of the admirable mizzotinto of Dr. Johnson, by Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him somewhat flippantly, 'Why do you put him up in the counting-house?' he answered, 'Because, Madam, I wish to have one wise man there.' 'Sir,' (said Johnson,) 'I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I believe you speak sincerely.' BOSWELL.

[841] In the news-papers. BOSWELL.

[842] 'Oct. 16, 1774. In Southwark there has been outrageous rioting; but I neither know the candidates, their connections, nor success.' Horace Walpole's Letters, vi. 134. Of one Southwark election Mrs. Piozzi writes (Anec. p. 214):--'A Borough election once showed me Mr. Johnson's toleration of boisterous mirth. A rough fellow, a hatter by trade, seeing his beaver in a state of decay seized it suddenly with one hand, and clapping him on the back with the other. "Ah, Master Johnson," says he, "this is no time to be thinking about hats." "No, no, Sir," replies our doctor in a cheerful tone, "hats are of no use now, as you say, except to throw up in the air and huzza with," accompanying his words with the true election halloo.'

[843] See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 19, 1773. Johnson thus mentions him (Works, ix. 142):--'Here we had the last embrace of this amiable man, who, while these pages were preparing to attest his virtues, perished in the passage between Ulva and Inch Kenneth.'

[844] Alluding to a passage in a letter of mine, where speaking of his Journey to the Hebrides, I say, 'But has not The Patriot been an interruption, by the time taken to write it, and the time luxuriously spent in listening to its applauses?' BOSWELL.

[845] We had projected a voyage together up the Baltic, and talked of visiting some of the more northern regions. BOSWELL. See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 16.

[846] See ante, i. 72.

[847] John Hoole, the son of a London watchmaker, was born in Dec. 1727, and died on Aug. 2, 1803. At the age of seventeen he was placed as a clerk in the East-India House; but, like his successors, James and John Stuart Mill, he was an author as well as a clerk. See ante, i. 383.

[848] Cleonice. BOSWELL. Nichols (Lit. Anec. ii. 407) says that as Cleonice was a failure on the stage 'Mr. Hoole returned a considerable part of the money which he had received for the copy-right, alleging that, as the piece was not successful on the stage, it could not be very profitable to the bookseller, and ought not to be a loss.'

[849] See ante, i. 255.

[850] See post, March 20, 1776.

[851] 'The King,' wrote Horace Walpole on Jan. 21, 1775 (Letters, vi. 179), 'sent for the book in MS., and then wondering said, "I protest, Johnson seems to be a Papist and a Jacobite--so he did not know why he had been made to give him a pension."'

[852] Boswell's little daughter. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug, 15, 1773.

[853] 'Bis dat qui cito dat, minimi gratia tarda pretii est.' Alciat's Emblems, Alciati Opera 1538, p. 821.

[854] It was at the Turk's Head coffee-house in the Strand. See ante, i. 450.

[855] Hamlet, act iii. sc. 2.

[856] 'Exegi monumentum A|re perennius.' Horace, Odes, iii. 30. I.

[857] The second edition was not brought out till the year after Johnson's death. These mistakes remain uncorrected. Johnson's Works, ix. 44. 150.

[858] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 23.

[859] In the Court of Session of Scotland an action is first tried by one of the Judges, who is called the Lord Ordinary; and if either party is dissatisfied, he may appeal to the whole Court, consisting of fifteen, the Lord President and fourteen other Judges, who have both in and out of Court the title of Lords, from the name of their estates; as, Lord Auchinleck, Lord Monboddo, &c. BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 201, note 1.

[860] Johnson had thus written of him (Works, ix. 115):--'I suppose my opinion of the poems of Ossian is already discovered. I believe they never existed in any other form than that which we have seen. The editor, or author, never could show the original; nor can it be shown by any other. To revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt.' See ante, ii. 126.

[861] Taxation no Tyranny. See post, under March 21, 1775.

[862] See ante, p. 265.

[863] In Tickell's Epistle from the Hon. Charles Fox to the Hon. John Townshend (1779) are the following lines (p. 11):--

'Soon as to Brooks's thence thy footsteps bend, What gratulations thy approach attend!

See Beauclerk's cheek a tinge of red surprise, And friendship give what cruel health denies.'

[864] It should be recollected, that this fanciful description of his friend was given by Johnson after he himself had become a water-drinker. BOSWELL. Johnson, post, April 18, 1775, describes one of his friends as muddy. On April 12, 1776, in a discussion about wine, when Reynolds said to him, 'You have sat by, quite sober, and felt an envy of the happiness of those who were drinking,' he replied, 'Perhaps, contempt.' On April 28, 1778, he said to Reynolds: 'I won't argue any more with you, Sir. You are too far gone.' See also ante, i. 313, note 3, where he said to him: 'Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?'

[865] See them in Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 337 [Oct. 17]. BOSWELL.

[866] He now sent me a Latin inscription for my historical picture of Mary Queen of Scots, and afterwards favoured me with an English translation. Mr. Alderman Boydell, that eminent Patron of the Arts, has subjoined them to the engraving from my picture.

'Maria Scotorum Regina Homimun seditiosorum Contumeliis lassata, Minis territa, clamoribus victa Libello, per quem Regno cedit, Lacrimans trepidansque Nomen apponit?'

'Mary Queen of Scots, Harassed, terrified, and overpowered By the insults, menaces, And clamours Of her rebellious subjects, Sets her hand, With tears and confusion, To a resignation of the kingdom.'

BOSWELL.

Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 234) calls Boydell 'the truest and greatest encourager of English art that England ever saw.'

[867] By the Boston Port-Bill, passed in 1774, Boston had been closed as a port for the landing and shipping of goods. Ann. Reg. xvii. 64.

[868] Becket, a bookseller in the Strand, was the publisher of Ossian.

[869] His Lordship, notwithstanding his resolution, did commit his sentiments to paper, and in one of his notes affixed to his Collection of Old Scottish Poetry, he says, that 'to doubt the authenticity of those poems is a refinement in Scepticism indeed.' J. BLAKEWAY.

[870] Mr. Croker writes (Croker's Boswell, p. 378, note):--'The original draft of these verses in Johnson's autograph is now before me. He had first written:--

'Sunt pro legitimis pectora pura sacris;'

he then wrote--

'Legitimas faciunt pura labella preces;'

which more nearly approaches Mr. Boswell's version, and alludes, happily I think, to the prayers having been read by the young lady.... The line as it stands in the Works [Sint pro legitimis pura labella sacris, i. 167], is substituted in Mr. Langton's hand.... As I have reason to believe that Mr. Langton assisted in editing these Latin poemata, I conclude that these alterations were his own.'

[871] The learned and worthy Dr. Lawrence, whom Dr. Johnson respected and loved as his physician and friend. BOSWELL. 'Dr. Lawrence was descended, as Sir Egerton Brydges informs me, from Milton's friend ['Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son.' Milton's Sonnets, xx.]. One of his sons was Sir Soulden Lawrence, one of the Judges of the King's Bench.' Croker's Boswell, p. 734. See post, March 19, 1782.

[872] My friend has, in this letter, relied upon my testimony, with a confidence, of which the ground has escaped my recollection. BOSWELL. Lord Shelburne said: 'Like the generality of Scotch, Lord Mansfield had no regard to truth whatever.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 89.

[873] Dr. Lawrence. See Johnson's letter to Warren Hastings of Dec. 20, 1774. Post, beginning of 1781.

[874] I have deposited it in the British Museum. BOSWELL. Mr. P. Cunningham says:--'Of all the MSS. which Boswell says he had deposited in the British Museum, only the copy of the letter to Lord Chesterfield has been found, and that was not deposited by him, but after his death, "pursuant to the intentions of the late James Boswell, Esq."' Croker's Boswell, p. 430. The original letter to Macpherson was sold in Mr. Pocock's collection in 1875. It fetched AL50, almost five times as much as Johnson was paid for his London. It differs from the copy, if we can trust the auctioneer's catalogue, where the following passage is quoted:--'Mr. James Macpherson, I received your foolish and impudent note. Whatever insult is offered me, I will do my best to repel, and what I cannot do for myself the law shall do for me. I will not desist from detecting what I think a cheat from any fear of the menaces of a Ruffian.'

[875] In the Gent. Mag. for 1773, p. 192, is announced: 'The Iliad of Homer. Translated by James Macpherson, Esq., 2 vols. 4to. AL2 2s. Becket.' Hume writes:--'Finding the style of his Ossian admired by some, he attempts a translation of Homer in the very same style. He begins and finishes in six weeks a work that was for ever to eclipse the translation of Pope, whom he does not even deign to mention in his preface; but this joke was still more unsuccessful [than his History of Britain].' J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 478. Hume says of him, that he had 'scarce ever known a man more perverse and unamiable.' Ib p. 470.

[876] 'Within a few feet of Johnson lies (by one of those singular coincidences in which the Abbey abounds) his deadly enemy, James Macpherson.' Stanley's Westminster Abbey, p. 298.

[877] Hamlet, act iii. sc. I.

[878] 'Fear was indeed a sensation to which Dr. Johnson was an utter stranger, excepting when some sudden apprehensions seized him that he was going to die.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 277. In this respect his character might be likened to that of Fearing, in Pilgrim's Progress (Part ii), as described by Great-Heart:--'When he came to the Hill Difficulty, he made no stick at that, nor did he much fear the Lions; for you must know that his troubles were not about such things as these; his fear was about his acceptance at last.'

[879] See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 18, 1773.

[880] See ante, i. 249, where Garrick humorously foretold the Round-house for Johnson.

[881] See ante, ii. 95.

[882] 'It was,' writes Hawkins (Life, p. 491), 'an oak-plant of a tremendous size; a plant, I say, and not a shoot or branch, for it had had a root which, being trimmed to the size of a large orange, became the head of it. Its height was upwards of six feet, and from about an inch in diameter at the lower end, increased to near three; this he kept in his bed-chamber, so near the chair in which he constantly sat as to be within reach.' Macpherson, like Johnson, was a big man. Dr. A. Carlyle says (Auto. p. 398):--'He was good-looking, of a large size, with very thick legs, to hide which he generally wore boots, though not then the fashion. He appeared to me proud and reserved.'

[883] Boswell wrote to Temple on April 4:--'Mr. Johnson has allowed me to write out a supplement to his Journey.' Letters of Boswell, p. 186. On May 10 he wrote:--'I have not written out another line of my remarks on the Hebrides. I found it impossible to do it in London. Besides, Dr. Johnson does not seem very desirous that I should publish any supplement. Between ourselves, he is not apt to encourage one to share reputation with himself.' Ib p. 192.

[884] Colonel Newcome, when a lad, 'was for ever talking of India, and the famous deeds of Clive and Lawrence. His favourite book was a history of India--the history of Orme.' Thackeray's Newcomes, ch. 76. See post, April 15, 1778.

[885] Richard II, act i. sc. 3. See ante, i. 129.

[886] A passage in the North Briton, No. 34, shews how wide-spread this prejudice was. The writer gives his 'real, fair, and substantial objections to the administration of this Scot [Lord Bute]. The first is, that he is a Scot. I am certain that reason could never believe that a Scot was fit to have the management of English affairs. A Scot hath no more right to preferment in England than a Hanoverian or a Hottentot.' In Humphry Clinker (Letter of July 13) we read:--'From Doncaster northwards all the windows of all the inns are scrawled with doggrel rhymes in abuse of the Scotch nation.' Horace Walpole, writing of the contest between the House of Commons and the city in 1771, says of the Scotch courtiers:--'The Scotch wanted to come to blows, and were at least not sorry to see the House of Commons so contemptible.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iv. 301. 'What a nation is Scotland,' he wrote at the end of the Gordon Riots, 'in every reign engendering traitors to the State, and false and pernicious to the kings that favour it the most.' Letters, vii. 400. See post, March 21, 1783. Lord Shelburne, a man of a liberal mind, wrote:--'I can scarce conceive a Scotchman capable of liberality, and capable of impartiality.' After calling them 'a sad set of innate cold-hearted, impudent rogues,' he continues:--'It's a melancholy thing that there is no finding any other people that will take pains, or be amenable even to the best purposes.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, iii. 441. Hume wrote to his countryman, Gilbert Elliot, in 1764:--'I do not believe there is one Englishman in fifty, who, if he heard I had broke (sic) my neck to-night, would be sorry. Some, because I am not a Whig; some, because I am not a Christian; and all, because I am a Scotsman. Can you seriously talk of my continuing an Englishman? Am I, or are you, an Englishman?' Elliot replies:--'Notwithstanding all you say, we are both Englishmen; that is, true British subjects, entitled to every emolument and advantage that our happy constitution can bestow.' Burton's Hume, ii. 238, 240. Hume, in his prejudice against England, went far beyond Johnson in his prejudice against Scotland. In 1769 he wrote:--'I am delighted to see the daily and hourly progress of madness and folly and wickedness in England. The consummation of these qualities are the true ingredients for making a fine narrative in history, especially if followed by some signal and ruinous convulsion--as I hope will soon be the case with that pernicious people.' Ib p. 431. In 1770 he wrote:--'Our government has become a chimera, and is too perfect, in point of liberty, for so rude a beast as an Englishman; who is a man, a bad animal too, corrupted by above a century of licentiousness.' Ib p. 434.

[887] 'The love of planting,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'which has become almost a passion, is much to be ascribed to Johnson's sarcasms.' Croker Corres. ii. 34. Lord Jeffrey wrote from Watford in 1833:--'What a country this old England is. In a circle of twenty miles from this spot (leaving out London and its suburbs), there is more old timber ... than in all Scotland.' Cockburn's Jeffrey, i. 348. See post, March 21, 1775.

[888] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 20.

[889] Even David Hume subscribed to the fund. He wrote in 1760:--'Certain it is that these poems are in every body's mouth in the Highlands, have been handed down from father to son, and are of an age beyond all memory and tradition. Adam Smith told me that the Piper of the Argyleshire militia repeated to him all those which Mr. Macpherson had translated. We have set about a subscription of a guinea or two guineas apiece, in order to enable Mr. Macpherson to undertake a mission into the Highlands to recover this poem, and other fragments of antiquity.' Mason's Gray, ii. 170. Hume changed his opinion. 'On going to London,' writes Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 276), 'he went over to the other side, and loudly affirmed the poems to be inventions of Macpherson. I happened to say one day, when he was declaiming against Macpherson, that I had met with nobody of his opinion but William Caddel of Cockenzie, and President Dundas, which he took ill, and was some time of forgetting.' Gibbon, in the Decline and Fall (vol. i. ch. 6), quoted Ossian, but added:--'Something of a doubtful mist still hangs over these Highland traditions; nor can it be entirely dispelled by the most ingenious researches of modern criticism.' On this Hume wrote to him on March 18, 1776:--'I see you entertain a great doubt with regard to the authenticity of the poems of Ossian.... Where a supposition is so contrary to common sense, any positive evidence of it ought never to be regarded. Men run with great avidity to give their evidence in favour of what flatters their passions and their national prejudices. You are therefore over and above indulgent to us in speaking of the matter with hesitation.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 225. So early as 1763 Hume had asked Dr. Blair for 'proof that these poems were not forged within these five years by James Macpherson. These proofs must not be arguments, but testimonies!' J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 466. Smollett, it should seem, believed in Ossian to the end. In Humphry Clinker, in the letter dated Sept. 3, he makes one of his characters write:--'The poems of Ossian are in every mouth. A famous antiquarian of this country, the laird of Macfarlane, at whose house we dined, can repeat them all in the original Gaelic.' See Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 10.

[890] I find in his letters only Sir A. Macdonald (ante, ii. 157) of whom this can be said.

[891] See Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd ed. p. 520 [p. 431]. BOSWELL.

[892] For the letter, see the end of Boswell's Hebrides.

[893] Fossilist is not in Johnson's Dictionary.

[894] 'Rasay has little that can detain a traveller, except the laird and his family; but their power wants no auxiliaries. Such a seat of hospitality amidst the winds and waters fills the imagination with a delightful contrariety of images.' Works, ix. 62.

[895] Page 103. BOSWELL.

[896] From Skye he wrote:--'The hospitality of this remote region is like that of the golden age. We have found ourselves treated at every house as if we came to confer a benefit.' Piozzi Letters, i. 155.

[897] See ante, i. 443, note 2.

[898] I observed with much regret, while the first edition of this work was passing through the press (Aug. 1790), that this ingenious gentleman was dead. BOSWELL.

[899] See ante, p. 242.

[900] See ante, i. 187.

[901] See ante, ii. 121, 296, and post, under March 30, 1783.

[902] Johnson (Works, ix. 158) says that 'the mediocrity of knowledge' obtained in the Scotch universities, 'countenanced in general by a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it, and actuated in particulars by a spirit of enterprise so vigorous that their enemies are constrained to praise it, enables them to find, or to make their way, to employment, riches, and distinction.'

[903] Macpherson had great influence with the newspapers. Horace Walpole wrote in February, 1776:--'Macpherson, the Ossianite, had a pension of AL600 a year from the Court, to supervise the newspapers.' In Dec. 1781, Walpole mentions the difficulty of getting 'a vindicatory paragraph' inserted in the papers, 'This was one of the great grievances of the time. Macpherson had a pension of AL800 a year from Court for inspecting newspapers, and inserted what lies he pleased, and prevented whatever he disapproved of being printed.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 17, 483.

[904] This book was published in 1779 under the title of '_Remarks on Dr. Samuel Johnson's Journey to the Hebrides_, by the Rev. Donald M'Nicol, A.M., Minister of Lismore, Argyleshire.' In 1817 it was reprinted at Glasgow together with Johnson's Journey, in one volume. The Remarks are a few pages shorter than the Journey. By 'another Scotchman,' Boswell certainly meant Macpherson.

[905] From a list in his hand-writing. BOSWELL.

[906] 'Such is the laxity of Highland conversation that the inquirer is kept in continual suspense, and by a kind of intellectual retrogradation, knows less as he hears more.' Johnson's Works, ix. 47. 'The Highlanders are not much accustomed to be interrogated by others, and seem never to have thought upon interrogating themselves; so that, if they do not know what they tell to be true, they likewise do not distinctly perceive it to be false.' Ib 114.

[907] Of his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. BOSWELL. It was sold at five shillings a copy. It did not reach a second edition till 1785, when perhaps a fresh demand for it was caused by the publication of Boswell's Hebrides. Boswell, in a note, post, April 28, 1778, says that 4000 copies were sold very quickly. Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 39) says that Cadell told her that he had sold 4000 copies the first week. This, I think, must be an exaggeration. A German translation was brought out this same year.

[908] Boswell, on the way to London, wrote to Temple:--'I have continual schemes of publication, but cannot fix. I am still very unhappy with my father. We are so totally different that a good understanding is scarcely possible. He looks on my going to London just now as an expedition, as idle and extravagant, when in reality it is highly improving to me, considering the company which I enjoy.' Letters of Boswell, p. 182.

[909] See post, under March 22, 1776.

[910] See ante, p. 292.

[911] 'A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it.' Johnson's Works, ix. 116.

[912] At Slanes Castle in Aberdeenshire he wrote:--'I had now travelled two hundred miles in Scotland, and seen only one tree not younger than myself.' Works, ix. 17. Goldsmith wrote from Edinburgh on Sept. 26, 1753:--'Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove, nor brook lend their music to cheer the stranger, or make the inhabitants forget their poverty.' Forsters Goldsmith, i. 433.

[913] This, like his pamphlet on Falkland's Islands, was published without his name.

[914] See Appendix.

[915] Convicts were sent to nine of the American settlements. According to one estimate about 2,000 had been for many years sent annually. 'Dr. Lang, after comparing different estimates, concludes that the number sent might be about 50,000 altogether.' Penny Cyclo. xxv. 138. X.

[916] This 'clear and settled opinion' must have been formed in three days, and between Grantham and London. For from that Lincolnshire town he had written to Temple on March 18:--'As to American affairs, I have really not studied the subject; it is too much for me perhaps, or I am too indolent or frivolous. From the smattering which newspapers have given me, I have been of different minds several times. That I am a Tory, a lover of power in monarchy, and a discourager of much liberty in the people, I avow; but it is not clear to me that our colonies are completely our subjects.' Letters of Boswell, p. 180. Four years later he wrote to Temple:--'I must candidly tell you that I think you should not puzzle yourself with political speculations more than I do; neither of us is fit for that sort of mental labour.' Ib 243. See post, Sept. 23, 1777, for a contest between Johnson and Boswell on this subject.

[917] See ante, ii. 134.

[918] Johnson's Works, vi. 261.

[919] Four years earlier he had also attacked him. Ante, ii. 134, note 4.

[920] Lord Camden, formerly Chief Justice Pratt. See ante, ii. 72, note 3; and post, April 14, 1775.

[921] 'Our people,' wrote Franklin in 1751 (Memoirs, vi. 3, 10), 'must at least be doubled every twenty years.' The population he reckoned at upwards of one million. Johnson referred to this rule also in the following passage:--'We are told that the continent of North America contains three millions, not of men merely, but of whigs, of whigs fierce for liberty and disdainful of dominion; that they multiply with the fecundity of their own rattlesnakes, so that every quarter of a century doubles their number.' Works, vi. 227. Burke, in his Speech of Concilitation with America, a fortnight after Johnson's pamphlet appeared, said, 'your children do not grow faster from infancy to manhood than they spread from families to communities, and from villages to nations.' Payne's Burke, i. 169.

[922] Dr. T. Campbell records on April 20, 1775 (Diary, p. 74), that 'Johnson said the first thing he would do would be to quarter the army on the cities, and if any refused free quarters, he would pull down that person's house, if it was joined to other houses; but would burn it if it stood alone. This and other schemes he proposed in the manuscript of Taxation no Tyranny, but these, he said, the Ministry expunged. See post, April 15, 1778, where, talking of the Americans, Johnson exclaimed, 'he'd burn and destroy them.' On June 11, 1781, Campbell records (ib. p. 88) that Johnson said to him:--'Had we treated the Americans as we ought, and as they deserved, we should have at once razed all their towns and let them enjoy their forests.' Campbell justly describes this talk as 'wild rant.'

[923]

'He errs who deems obedience to a prince Slav'ry--a happier freedom never reigns Than with a pious monarch.' Stit. iii. 113. CROKER.

This volume was published in 1776. The copy in the library of Pembroke College, Oxford, bears the inscription in Johnson's hand: 'To Sir Joshua Reynolds from the Authour.' On the title-page Sir Joshua has written his own name.

[924] R. B. Sheridan thought of joining in these attacks. In his Life by Moore (i. 151) fragments of his projected answer are given. He intended to attack Johnson on the side of his pension. One thought he varies three times. 'Such pamphlets,' he writes, 'will be as trifling and insincere as the venal quit-rent of a birth-day ode.' This again appears as 'The easy quit-rent of refined panegyric,' and yet again as 'The miserable quit-rent of an annual pamphlet.'

[925] See post, beginning of 1781.

[926] Boswell wrote to Temple on June 19, 1775:--'Yesterday I met Mr. Hume at Lord Kame's. They joined in attacking Dr. Johnson to an absurd pitch. Mr. Hume said he would give me half-a-crown for every page of his Dictionary in which he could not find an absurdity, if I would give him half-a-crown for every page in which he did not find one: he talked so insolently really, that I calmly determined to be at him; so I repeated, by way of telling that Dr. Johnson could be touched, the admirable passage in your letter, how the Ministry had set him to write in a way that they "could not ask even their infidel pensioner Hume to write." When Hume asked if it was from an American, I said No, it was from an English gentleman. "Would a gentleman write so?" said he. In short, Davy was finely punished for his treatment of my revered friend; and he deserved it richly, both for his petulance to so great a character and for his talking so before me.' Letters of Boswell, p. 204. Hume's pension was AL400. He obtained it through Lord Hertford, the English ambassador in Paris, under whom he had served as secretary to the embassy. J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 289.

[927] See post, Aug. 24 1782.

[928] Dr. T. Campbell records on March 16 of this year (Diary, p. 36):--'Thrale asked Dr. Johnson what Sir Joshua Reynolds said of Taxation no Tyranny. "Sir Joshua," quoth the Doctor, "has not read it." "I suppose," quoth Thrale, "he has been very busy of late." "No," says the Doctor, "but I never look at his pictures, so he won't read my writings." He asked Johnson if he had got Miss Reynold's opinion, for she, it seems, is a politician. "As to that," quoth the Doctor, "it is no great matter, for she could not tell after she had read it on which said of the question Mr. Burke's speech was."'

[929] W.G. Hamilton.

[930] See post, Nov. 19, 1783.

[931] Sixteen days after this pamphlet was published, Lord North, as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, proposed that the degree of Doctor in Civil Law should be conferred on Johnson (post, p. 331). Perhaps the Chancellor in this was cheaply rewarding the service that had been done to the Minister. See ante, ii. 373.

[932] Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, ed. 1785, p. 256. [Johnson's Works, ix. 108.] BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 10, note 3.

[933] He had written to Temple six days earlier:--'Second sight pleases my superstition which, you know, is not small, and being not of the gloomy but the grand species, is an enjoyment; and I go further than Mr. Johnson, for the facts which I heard convinced me.' Letters of Boswell, p. 179. When ten years later he published his Tour, he said (Nov. 10, 1773) that he had returned from the Hebrides with a considerable degree of faith; 'but,' he added, 'since that time my belief in those stories has been much weakened.'

[934] This doubt has been much agitated on both sides, I think without good reason. See Addison's _Freeholder, May 4, 1714. The Freeholder was published from Dec. 1715 to June 1716. In the number for May 4 there is no mention of The Tale of a Tub; An Apology for the Tale of a Tub (Swift's Works, ed. 1803, iii. 20);--Dr. Hawkesworth's Preface to Swift's Works, and Swift's Letter to Tooke the Printer, and Tooke's Answer, in that collection;--Sheridan's Life of Swift;--Mr. Courtenay's note on p. 3 of his Poetical Review of the Literary and Moral Character of Dr. Johnson; and Mr. Cooksey's Essay on the Life and Character of John Lord Somers, Baron of Evesham.

Dr. Johnson here speaks only to the internal evidence. I take leave to differ from him, having a very high estimation of the powers of Dr. Swift. His Sentiments of a Church-of-England-man, his Sermon on the Trinity, and other serious pieces, prove his learning as well as his acuteness in logick and metaphysicks; and his various compositions of a different cast exhibit not only wit, humour, and ridicule; but a knowledge 'of nature, and art, and life:' a combination therefore of those powers, when (as the Apology says,) 'the authour was young, his invention at the heighth, and his reading fresh in his head,' might surely produce The Tale of a Tub. BOSWELL.

[935] 'His Tale of a Tub has little resemblance to his other pieces. It exhibits a vehemence and rapidity of mind, a copiousness of images and vivacity of diction such as he afterwards never possessed, or never exerted. It is of a mode so distinct and peculiar that it must be considered by itself; what is true of that is not true of anything else which he has written.' Johnson's Works, viii. 220. At the conclusion of the Life of Swift (ib. 228), Johnson allows him one great merit:--'It was said in a preface to one of the Irish editions that Swift had never been known to take a single thought from any writer, ancient or modern. This is not literally true; but perhaps no writer can easily be found that has borrowed so little, or that in all his excellencies and all his defects has so well maintained his claim to be considered as original.' See ante, i. 452.

[936] Johnson in his Dictionary, under the article shave, quotes Swift in one example, and in the next Gulliver's Travels, not admitting, it should seem, that Swift had written that book.

[937] See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 26, 1773. David Hume wrote of Home's Agis:--'I own, though I could perceive fine strokes in that tragedy, I never could in general bring myself to like it: the author, I thought, had corrupted his taste by the imitation of Shakespeare, whom he ought only to have admired.' J.H. Burton's Hume, i. 392. About Douglas he wrote:--'I am persuaded it will be esteemed the best, and by French critics the only tragedy of our language.' Ib ii. 17. Hume perhaps admired it the more as it was written, to use his own words, 'by a namesake of mine.' Ib i. 316. Home is pronounced Hume. He often wrote of his friend as 'Mr. John Hume, alias Home.' A few days before his death he added the following codicil to his will:--'I leave to my friend Mr. John Home, of Kilduff, ten dozen of my old claret at his choice; and one single bottle of that other liquor called port. I also leave to him six dozen of port, provided that he attests, under his hand, signed John Hume, that he has himself alone finished that bottle at two sittings. By this concession he will at once terminate the only two differences that ever arose between us concerning temporal matters.' Ib ii. 506. Sir Walter Scott wrote in his Diary in 1827:--'I finished the review of John Home's works, which, after all, are poorer than I thought them. Good blank verse, and stately sentiment, but something luke-warmish, excepting Douglas, which is certainly a masterpiece. Even that does not stand the closet. Its merits are for the stage; and it is certainly one of the best acting plays going.' Lockhart's Scott, ix. 100.

[938] Sheridan, says Mr. S. Whyte (Miscellanea Nova, p. 45), brought out Douglas at the Dublin Theatre. The first two nights it had great success. The third night was as usual to be the author's. It had meanwhile got abroad that he was a clergyman. This play was considered a profanation, a faction was raised, and the third night did not pay its expenses. It was Whyte who suggested that, by way of consolation, Sheridan should give Home a gold medal. The inscription said that he presented it to him 'for having enriched the stage with a perfect tragedy.' Whyte took the medal to London. When he was close at his journey's end, 'I was,' he writes, 'stopped by highwaymen, and preserved the medal by the sacrifice of my purse at the imminent peril of my life.'

[939]

'No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims, MoliA"re's old stubble in a moment flames.'

The Nonjuror was 'a comedy thrashed out of MoliA"re's Tartuffe.' The Dunciad, i. 253.

[940] See post, June 9, 1784; also Macaulay's England, ch. xiv. (ed. 1874, v. 94), for remarks on what Johnson here says.

[941] See ante, i. 318, where his name is spelt Madden.

[942] This was not merely a cursory remark; for in his Life of Fenton he observes, 'With many other wise and virtuous men, who at that time of discord and debate (about the beginning of this century) consulted conscience [whether] well or ill informed, more than interest, he doubted the legality of the government; and refusing to qualify himself for publick employment, by taking the oaths [by the oaths] required, left the University without a degree.' This conduct Johnson calls 'perverseness of integrity.' [Johnson's Works, viii. 54.

The question concerning the morality of taking oaths, of whatever kind, imposed by the prevailing power at the time, rather than to be excluded from all consequence, or even any considerable usefulness in society, has been agitated with all the acuteness of casuistry. It is related, that he who devised the oath of abjuration, profligately boasted, that he had framed a test which should 'damn one half of the nation, and starve the other.' Upon minds not exalted to inflexible rectitude, or minds in which zeal for a party is predominant to excess, taking that oath against conviction may have been palliated under the plea of necessity, or ventured upon in heat, as upon the whole producing more good than evil.

At a county election in Scotland, many years ago, when there was a warm contest between the friends of the Hanoverian succession, and those against it, the oath of abjuration having been demanded, the freeholders upon one side rose to go away. Upon which a very sanguine gentleman, one of their number, ran to the door to stop them, calling out with much earnestness, 'Stay, stay, my friends, and let us swear the rogues out of it!' BOSWELL. Johnson, writing of the oaths required under the Militia Bill of 1756, says:--'The frequent imposition of oaths has almost ruined the morals of this unhappy nation, and of a nation without morals it is of small importance who shall be king.' Lit. Mag. 1756, i. 59.

[943] Dr. Harwood sent me the following extract from the book containing the proceedings of the corporation of Lichfield: '19th July, 1712. Agreed that Mr. Michael Johnson be, and he is hereby elected a magistrate and brother of their incorporation; a day is given him to Thursday next to take the oath of fidelity and allegiance, and the oath of a magistrate. Signed, &c.'--'25th July, 1712. Mr. Johnson took the oath of allegiance and that he believed there was no transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper before, &c.'--CROKER.

[944] A parody on Macbeth, act ii. sc. 2.

[945] Lord Southampton asked Bishop Watson of Llandaff 'how he was to bring up his son so as to make him get forwards in the world. "I know of but one way," replied the Bishop; "give him parts and poverty." "Well then," replied Lord S., "if God has given him parts, I will manage as to the poverty."' H. C. Robinson's Diary, i. 337. Lord Eldon said that Thurlow promised to give him a post worth about AL160 a year, but he never did. 'In after life,' said Eldon, 'I inquired of him why he had not fulfilled his promise. His answer was curious:--"It would have been your ruin. Young men are very apt to be content when they get something to live upon; so when I saw what you were made of, I determined to break my promise to make you work;" and I dare say he was right, for there is nothing does a young lawyer so much good as to be half starved.' Twiss's Eldon, i. 134.

[946] In New Street, near Gough Square, in Fleet Street, whither in February 1770 the King's printinghouse was removed from what is still called Printing House Square. CROKER. Dr. Spottiswoode, the late President of the Royal Society, was the great-grandson of Mr. Strahan.

[947] See post, under March 30, 1783.

[948] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on April 8 of this year:--'I have placed young Davenport in the greatest printing house in London, and hear no complaint of him but want of size, which will not hinder him much. He may when he is a journeyman always get a guinea a week.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 422. Mr. Jewitt in the Gent. Mag. for Dec. 1878, gives an account of this lad. He was the orphan son of a clergyman, a friend of the Rev. W. Langley, Master of Ashbourne School (see post, Sept. 14, 1777). Mr. Langley asked Johnson's help 'in procuring him a place in some eminent printing office.' Davenport wrote to Mr. Langley nearly eight years later:--'According to your desire, I consulted Dr. Johnson about my future employment in life, and he very laconically told me "to work hard at my trade, as others had done before me." I told him my size and want of strength prevented me from getting so much money as other men. "Then," replied he, "you must get as much as you can."' The boy was nearly sixteen when he was apprenticed, and had learnt enough Latin to quote Virgil, so that there was nothing in Johnson's speech beyond his understanding.

[949] Seven years afterwards, Johnson described this evening. Miss Monckton had told him that he must see Mrs. Siddons. 'Well, Madam,' he answered, 'if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do. The last time I was at a play, I was ordered there by Mrs. Abington, or Mrs. Somebody, I do not well remember who; but I placed myself in the middle of the first row of the front boxes, to show that when I was called I came.' Mme. D' Arblay's Diary, ii. 199. At Fontainebleau he went--to a comedy (post, Oct. 19, 1775), so that it was not 'the last time he was at a play.'

[950] 'One evening in the oratorio season of 1771,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. 72), 'Mr. Johnson went with me to Covent Garden theatre. He sat surprisingly quiet, and I flattered myself that he was listening to the music. When we were got home he repeated these verses, which he said he had made at the oratorio:--

"In Theatre, March 8, 1771. Tertii verso quater orbe lustri, Quid theatrales tibi, Crispe, pompae? Quam decet canos male literates Sera voluptas! Tene mulceri fidibus canoris? Tene cantorum modulis stupere? Tene per pictas, oculo elegante, Currere formas? Inter aequales, sine felle liber, Codices veri studiosus inter Rectius vives. Sua quisque carpal Gaudia gratus. Lusibus gaudet puer otiosis, Luxus oblectat juvenem theatri, At seni fluxo sapienter uti Tempore restat."'

(Works, i. 166.)

[951] Bon Ton, or High Life above Stairs, by Garrick. He made King the comedian a present of this farce, and it was acted for the first time on his benefit-a little earlier in the month. Murphy's Garrick, pp. 330, 332

[952] 'August, 1778. An epilogue of Mr. Garrick's to Bonduca was mentioned, and Dr. Johnson said it was a miserable performance:--"I don't know," he said, "what is the matter with David; I am afraid he is grown superannuated, for his prologues and epilogues used to be incomparable."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 64.

[953] 'Scottish brethren and architects, who had bought Durham Yard, and erected a large pile of buildings under the affected name of the Adelphi. These men, of great taste in their profession, were attached particularly to Lord Bute and Lord Mansfield, and thus by public and private nationality zealous politicians.' Walpole's Memoirs of the Reign of George III. iv. 173. Hume wrote to Adam Smith in June 1772, at a time where there was 'a universal loss of credit':--'Of all the sufferers, I am the most concerned for the Adams. But their undertakings were so vast, that nothing could support them. They must dismiss 3000 workmen, who, comprehending the materials, must have expended above AL100,000 a year. To me the scheme of the Adelphi always appeared so imprudent, that my wonder is how they could have gone on so long.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii, 460. Garrick lived in the Adelphi.

[954] 'Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes, Beholds his own hereditary skies.' DRYDEN, Ovid, Meta. i. 85.

[955] Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 213) says that she was made 'the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Dr. Johnson's manner. I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry.'

[956] 'Gesticular mimicry and buffoonery Johnson hated, and would often huff Garrick for exercising it his presence.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 386.

[957] In the first two editions Johnson is represented as only saying, 'Davy is futile.'

[958] My noble friend Lord Pembroke said once to me at Wilton, with a happy pleasantry and some truth, that 'Dr. Johnson's sayings would not appear so extraordinary, were it not for his bow-wow way.' The sayings themselves are generally of sterling merit; but, doubtless, his manner was an addition to their effect; and therefore should be attended to as much as may be. It is necessary however, to guard those who were not acquainted with him, against overcharged imitations or caricatures of his manner, which are frequently attempted, and many of which are second-hand copies from the late Mr. Henderson the actor, who, though a good mimick of some persons, did not represent Johnson correctly. BOSWELL.

[959] See 'Prosodia Rationalis; or, an Essay towards establishing the Melody and Measure of Speech, to be expressed and perpetuated by peculiar Symbols.' London, 1779. BOSWELL.

[960] I use the phrase in score, as Dr. Johnson has explained it in his Dictionary:--'A song in SCORE, the words with the musical notes of a song annexed.' But I understand that in scientific property it means all the parts of a musical composition noted down in the characters by which it is established to the eye of the skillful. BOSWELL. It was declamation that Steele pretended to reduce to notation by new characters. This he called the melody of speech, not the harmony, which is the term in score implies. BURNEY.

[961] Johnson, in his Life of Gray (Works, viii. 481), spoke better of him. 'What has occurred to me from the slight inspection of his Letters, in which my understanding has engaged me, is, that his mind had a large gap; that his curiosity was unlimited, and his judgment cultivated.' Horace Walpole (Letters, ii 128) allowed that he was bad company. 'Sept. 3, 1748. I agree with you most absolutely in your opinion about Gray; he is the worst company in the world. From a melancholy turn, from living reclusely, and from a little too much dignity, he never converses easily; all his words are measured and chosen, his writings are admirable; he himself is not agreeable.'

[962] In the original, 'Give ample room and verge enough.' In the Life of Gray (Works, vii. 486) Johnson says that the slaughtered bards 'are called upon to "Weave the warp, and weave the woof," perhaps with no great propriety; for it is by crossing the woof with the warp that men weave the web or piece; and the first line was dearly bought by the admission of its wretched correspondent, "Give ample room and verge enough." He has, however, no other line as bad.' See ante, i. 402.

[963] This word, which is in the first edition, is not in the second or third.

[964] 'The Church-yard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo. The four stanzas, beginning "Yet even these bones," are to me original. I have never seen the notions in any other place; yet he that reads them here persuades himself that he has always felt them. Had Gray written often thus, it had been vain to blame, and useless to praise him.' Works, viii. 487. Goldsmith, in his Life of Parnell (Misc. Works, iv. 25), thus seems to sneer at The Elegy:--'The Night Piece on death deserves every praise, and, I should suppose, with very little amendment, might be made to surpass all those night pieces and church-yard scenes that have since appeared.'

[965] Mr. Croker says, 'no doubt Lady Susan Fox who, in 1773, married Mr. William O'Brien, an actor.' It was in 1764 that she was married, so that it is not likely that she was the subject of this talk. See Horace Valpole's Letters, iv. 221.

[966] Mrs. Thrale's marriage with Mr. Piozzi.

[967] See ante, i. 408.

[968] Boswell was of the same way of thinking as Squire Western, who 'did indeed consider a parity of fortune and circumstances to be physically as necessary an ingredient in marriage as difference of sexes, or any other essential; and had no more apprehension of his daughter falling in love with a poor man than with any animal of a different species.' Tom Jones, bk. vi. ch. 9.

[969]

'Temptanda via est, qua me quoque possim Tollere humo victorque virum volitare per ora.' 'New ways I must attempt, my grovelling name To raise aloft, and wing my flight to fame.'

DRYDEN, Virgil, Georg. iii. 9. 'Chesterfield was at once the most distinguished orator in the Upper House, and the undisputed sovereign of wit and fashion. He held this eminence for about forty years. At last it became the regular custom of the higher circles to laugh whenever he opened his mouth, without waiting for his bon mot. He used to sit at White's, with a circle of young men of rank around him, applauding every syllable that he uttered.' Macaulay's Life, i. 325.

[970] With the Literary Club, as is shewn by Boswell's letter of April 4, 1775, in which he says:--'I dine on Friday at the Turk's Head, Gerrard Street, with our Club, who now dine once a month, and sup every Friday.' Letters of Boswell, p. 186. The meeting of Friday, March 24, is described ante, p. 318, and that of April 7, post, p. 345.

[971] Very likely Boswell (ante, ii. 84, note 3).

[972] In the Garrick Corres. (ii. 141) is a letter dated March 4, 1776, from (to use Garrick's own words) 'that worst of bad women, Mrs. Abington, to ask my playing for her benefit.' It is endorsed by Garrick:--'A copy of Mother Abington's Letter about leaving the stage.'

[973] Twenty years earlier he had recommended to Miss Boothby as a remedy for indigestion dried orange-peel finely powdered, taken in a glass of hot red port. 'I would not,' he adds, 'have you offer it to the Doctor as my medicine. Physicians do not love intruders.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 397. See post, April 18, 1783.

[974] The misprint of Chancellor for Gentlemen is found in both the second and third editions. It is not in the first.

[975] Extracted from the Convocation Register, Oxford. BOSWELL.

[976] The original is in my possession. He shewed me the Diploma, and allowed me to read it, but would not consent to my taking a copy of it, fearing perhaps that I should blaze it abroad in his life-time. His objection to this appears from his 99th letter to Mrs. Thrale, whom in that letter he thus scolds for the grossness of her flattery of him:--'The other Oxford news is, that they have sent me a degree of Doctor of Laws, with such praises in the Diploma as perhaps ought to make me ashamed: they are very like your praises. I wonder whether I shall ever shew it [them in the original] to you.'

It is remarkable that he never, so far as I know, assumed his title of Doctor, but called himself Mr. Johnson, as appears from many of his cards or notes to myself; and I have seen many from him to other persons, in which he uniformly takes that designation. I once observed on his table a letter directed to him with the addition of Esquire, and objected to it as being a designation inferiour to that of Doctor; but he checked me, and seemed pleased with it, because, as I conjectured, he liked to be sometimes taken out of the class of literary men, and to be merely genteel,--un gentilhomme comme un autre. Boswell. See post, March 30, 1781, where Johnson applies the title to himself in speaking, and April 13, 1784, where he does in writing, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15, 1773, note.

[977] 'To make a man pleased with himself, let me tell you, is doing a very great thing.' Post, April 28, 1778.

[978] 'The original is in the hands of Dr. Forthergril, then Vice-Chancellor, who made this transcript.' T. WARTON--BOSWELL.

[979] Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller, as is shewn by Piozzi Letters, i. 213.

[980] 'That the design [of the Dunciad] was moral, whatever the author might tell either his readers or himself, I am not convinced. The first motive was the desire of revenging the contempt with which Theobald had treated his Shakespeare and regaining the honour which he had lost, by crushing his opponent.' Johnson's Works, viii. 338.

[981]

'Daughter of Chaos and old Night, Cimmerian Muse, all hail! That wrapt in never-twinkling gloom canst write, And shadowest meaning with thy dusky veil! What Poet sings and strikes the strings? It was the mighty Theban spoke. He from the ever-living lyre With magic hand elicits fire. Heard ye the din of modern rhymers bray? It was cool M-n; or warm G-y, Involv'd in tenfold smoke.'

Colman's Prose on Several Occasions, ii. 273.

[982] 'These Odes,' writes Colman, 'were a piece of boys' play with my schoolfellow Lloyd, with whom they were written in concert.' Ib i. xi. In the Connoisseur (ante, i. 420) they had also written in concert. 'Their humour and their talents were well adapted to what they had undertaken; and Beaumont and Fletcher present what is probably the only parallel instance of literary co-operation so complete, that the portions written by the respective parties are undistinguishable.' Southey's Cowper, i. 47.

[983] Ante, i. 402.

[984] Boswell writing to Temple two days later, recalled the time 'when you and I sat up all night at Cambridge and read Gray with a noble enthusiasm; when we first used to read Mason's Elfrida, and when we talked of that elegant knot of worthies, Gray, Mason, Walpole, &c.' Letters of Boswell, p. 185.

[985] 'I have heard Mr. Johnson relate how he used to sit in some coffee-house at Oxford, and turn M----'s C-r-ct-u-s into ridicule for the diversion of himself and of chance comers-in. "The Elf--da," says he, "was too exquisitely pretty; I could make no fun out of that."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 37. I doubt whether Johnson used the word fun, which he describes in his Dictionary as 'a low cant [slang] word.'

[986] See post, March 26, 1779, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 1, and under Nov. 11, 1773. According to Dr. T. Campbell (Diary, p. 36), Johnson, on March 16, had said that Taxation no Tyranny did not sell.

[987] Six days later he wrote to Dr. Taylor:--'The patriots pelt me with answers. Four pamphlets, I think, already, besides newspapers and reviews, have been discharged against me. I have tried to read two of them, but did not go through them.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 422.

[988] 'Mrs. Macaulay,' says Mr. Croker, who quotes Johnson's Works, vi. 258, where she is described as 'a female patriot bewailing the miseries of her friends and fellow-citizens.' See ante, i. 447.

[989] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773, and post, Sept. 24, 1777, for another landlord's account of Johnson.

[990] From Dryden's lines on Milton.

[991] Horace Walpole wrote, on Jan. 15, 1775 (Letters, vi. 171):--'They [the Millers] hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux of quality at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman Vase, dressed with pink ribands and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival: six judges of these Olympic games retire and select the brightest compositions, which the respective successful acknowledge, kneel to Mrs. Calliope Miller, kiss her fair hand, and are crowned by it with myrtle, with--I don't know what.'

[992] Miss Burney wrote, in 1780:--'Do you know now that, notwithstanding Bath-Easton is so much laughed at in London, nothing here is more tonish than to visit Lady Miller. She is a round, plump, coarse-looking dame of about forty, and while all her aim is to appear an elegant woman of fashion, all her success is to seem an ordinary woman in very common life, with fine clothes on.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 364.

[993] 'Yes, on my faith, there are bouts-rimA(C)s on a buttered muffin, made by her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland.' Walpole's Letters, vi. 171. 'She was,' Walpole writes, 'a jovial heap of contradictions. She was familiar with the mob, while stifled with diamonds; and yet was attentive to the most minute privileges of her rank, while almost shaking hands with a cobbler.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 419. Dr. Percy showed her Goldsmith's ballad of Edwin and Angelina in MS., and she had a few copies privately printed. Forster's Goldsmith, i. 379.

[994] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was something of a literary man, and who visited Bath (post, under March 30, 1783).

[995]

'--rerum Fluctibus in mediis et tempestatibus urbis.'

Horace, Epistles, ii. 2. 84. See ante, i. 461.

[996]

'Qui semel adspexit quantum dimissa petitis PrA|stent, mature redeat repetatque relicta.'

Horace, Epistles, i. 7. 96.

'To his first state let him return with speed, Who sees how far the joys he left exceed His present choice.' FRANCIS.

Malone says that 'Walpole, after he ceased to be minister, endeavoured to amuse his mind with reading. But one day when Mr. Welbore Ellis was in his library, he heard him say, with tears in his eyes, after having taken up several books and at last thrown away a folio just taken down from a shelf, "Alas! it is all in vain; I cannot read."' Prior's Malone, p. 379. Lord Eldon, after his retirement, said to an inn-keeper who was thinking of giving up business:--'Believe me, for I speak from experience, when a man who has been much occupied through life arrives at having nothing to do, he is very apt not to know what to do with himself.' Later on, he said:--'It was advice given by me in the spirit of that Principal of Brasenose, who, when he took leave of young men quitting college, used to say to them, "Let me give you one piece of advice, Cave de resignationibus." And very good advice too.' Twiss's Eldon, iii. 246.

[997] See post, April 10, 1775. He had but lately begun to visit London. 'Such was his constant apprehension of the small-pox, that he lived for twenty years within twenty miles of London, without visiting it more than once.' At the age of thirty-five he was inoculated, and henceforth was oftener in town. Campbell's British Poets, p. 569.

[998] Mr. S. Raymond, Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, published in Sydney in 1854 the Diary of a Visit to England in 1775. by an Irishman (The Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell,) with Notes. The MS., the editor says, was discovered behind an old press in one of the offices of his Court. The name of the writer nowhere appears in the MS. It is clear, however, that if it is not a forgery, the author was Campbell. In the Edinburgh Review for Oct., 1859, its authenticity is examined, and is declared to be beyond a doubt. Lord Macaulay aided the Reviewer in his investigation. Ib p. 323. He could scarcely, however, have come to his task with a mind altogether free from bias, for the editor 'has contrived,' we are told, 'to expose another of Mr. Croker's blunders.' Faith in him cannot be wrong who proves that Croker is not in the right. The value of this Diary is rated too highly by the Reviewer. The Master of Balliol College has pointed out to me that it adds but very little to Johnson's sayings. So far as he is concerned, we are told scarcely anything of mark that we did not know already. This makes the Master doubt its genuineness. I have noticed one suspicious passage. An account is given of a dinner at Mr. Thrale's on April 1, at which Campbell met Murphy, Boswell, and Baretti. 'Johnson's bons mots were retailed in such plenty that they, like a surfeit, could not lie upon my memory.' In one of the stories told by Murphy, Johnson is made to say, 'Damn the rascal.' Murphy would as soon have made the Archbishop of Canterbury swear as Johnson; much sooner the Archbishop of York. It was Murphy 'who paid him the highest compliment that ever was paid to a layman, by asking his pardon for repeating some oaths in the course of telling a story' (post, April 12, 1776). Even supposing that at this time he was ignorant of his character, though the supposition is a wild one, he would at once have been set right by Boswell and the Thrales (post, under March 15, 1776). It is curious, that this anecdote imputing profanity to Johnson is not quoted by the Edinburgh reviewer. On the whole I think that the Diary is genuine, and accordingly I have quoted it more than once.

[999] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 173) says that Johnson spoke of Browne as 'of all conversers the most delightful with whom he ever was in company.' Pope's bathos, in his lines to Murray:--

'Graced as thou art with all the power of words, So known, so honoured, at the House of Lords,'

was happily parodied by Browne:--

'Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er he talks, And he has chambers in the King's Bench Walks.'

Pattison's Satires of Pope, pp. 57, 134. See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 5.

[1000] Horace Walpole says of Beckford's Bribery Bill of 1768:--'Grenville, to flatter the country gentlemen, who can ill afford to combat with great lords, nabobs, commissaries, and West Indians, declaimed in favour of the bill.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iii. 159.

[1001] See ante, ii. 167, where he said much the same. Another day, however, he agreed that a landlord ought to give leases to his tenants, and not 'wish to keep them in a wretched dependance on his will. "It is a man's duty," he said, "to extend comfort and security among as many people as he can. He should not wish to have his tenants mere Ephemerae--mere beings of an hour."' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 10, 1773.

[1002] 'Thomas Hickey is now best remembered by a characteristic portrait of his friend Tom Davies, engraved with Hickey's name to it.' P. CUNNINGHAM.

[1003] See ante, ii. 92. In the Life of Pope (Works, viii. 302), Johnson says that 'the shafts of satire were directed in vain against Cibber, being repelled by his impenetrable impudence.' Pope speaks of Gibber's 'impenetrability.' Elwin's Pope, ix. 231.

[1004] He alludes perhaps to a note on the Dunciad, ii, 140, in which it is stated that 'the author has celebrated even Cibber himself (presuming him to be the author of the Careless Husband).' See post, May 15, 1776, note.

[1005] See ante, ii. 32.

[1006] Burke told Malone that 'Hume, in compiling his History, did not give himself a great deal of trouble in examining records, &c.; and that the part he most laboured at was the reign of King Charles II, for whom he had an unaccountable partiality.' Prior's Malone, p. 368.

[1007] Yet Johnson (Works, vii. 177) wrote of Otway, who was nine years old when Charles II. came to the throne, and who outlived him by only a few weeks:--'He had what was in those times the common reward of loyalty; he lived and died neglected.' Hawkins (Life, p. 51) says that he heard Johnson 'speak of Dr. Hodges who, in the height of the Great Plague of 1665, continued in London, and was almost the only one of his profession that had the courage to oppose his art to the spreading of the contagion. It was his hard fate, a short time after, to die in prison for debt in Ludgate. Johnson related this to us with the tears ready to start from his eyes; and, with great energy, said, "Such a man would not have been suffered to perish in these times."'

[1008] Johnson in 1742 said that William III. 'was arbitrary, insolent, gloomy, rapacious, and brutal; that he was at all times disposed to play the tyrant; that he had, neither in great things nor in small, the manners of a gentleman; that he was capable of gaining money by mean artifices, and that he only regarded his promise when it was his interest to keep it.' Works, vi. 6. Nearly forty years later, in his Life of Rowe (ib. vii. 408), he aimed a fine stroke at that King. 'The fashion of the time,' he wrote, 'was to accumulate upon Lewis all that can raise horrour and detestation; and whatever good was withheld from him, that it might not be thrown away, was bestowed upon King William.' Yet in the Life of Prior (ib. viii. 4) he allowed him great merit. 'His whole life had been action, and none ever denied him the resplendent qualities of steady resolution and personal courage.' See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 24, 1773.

[1009] 'The fact of suppressing the will is indubitably true,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 142). 'When the news arrived of the death of George I, my father carried the account from Lord Townshend to the then Prince of Wales. The Council met as soon as possible. There Archbishop Wake, with whom one copy of the will had been deposited, advanced, and delivered the will to the King, who put it into his pocket, and went out of Council without opening it, the Archbishop not having courage or presence of mind to desire it to be read, as he ought to have done. I was once talking to the late Lady Suffolk, the former mistress, on that extraordinary event. She said, "I cannot justify the deed to the legatees; but towards his father, the late King was justifiable, for George I. had burnt two wills made in favour of George II."'

[1010] 'Charles II. by his affability and politeness made himself the idol of the nation, which he betrayed and sold.' Johnson's Works, vi. 7.

[1011] 'It was maliciously circulated that George was indifferent to his own succession, and scarcely willing to stretch out a hand to grasp the crown within his reach.' Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole, i. 57.

[1012] Plin. Epist. lib. ii. ep. 3. BOSWELL.

[1013] Mr. Davies was here mistaken. Corelli never was in England. BURNEY.

[1014] Mr. Croker is wrong in saying that the Irishman in Mrs. Thrale's letter of May 16, 1776 (Piozzi Letters, i. 329), is Dr. Campbell. The man mentioned there had never met Johnson, though she wrote more than a year after this dinner at Davies's. She certainly quotes one of 'Dr. C-l's phrases,' but she might also have quoted Shakspeare. I have no doubt that Mrs. Thrale's Irishman was a Mr. Musgrave (post, under June 16, 1784, note), who is humorously described in Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 83. Since writing this note I have seen that the Edinburgh reviewer (Oct. 1859, p. 326) had come to the same conclusion.

[1015] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 26, 1773, where Johnson said that 'he did not approve of a Judge's calling himself Farmer Burnett, and going about with a little round hat.'

[1016] 'If all the employments of life were crowded into the time which it [sic] really occupied, perhaps a few weeks, days, or hours would be sufficient for its accomplishment, so far as the mind was engaged in the performance.' The Rambler, No. 8.

[1017] Johnson certainly did, who had a mind stored with knowledge, and teeming with imagery: but the observation is not applicable to writers in general. BOSWELL. See post, April 20, 1783.

[1018] See ante, i. 358.

[1019] See ante, i. 306.

[1020] There has probably been some mistake as to the terms of this supposed extraordinary contract, the recital of which from hearsay afforded Johnson so much play for his sportive acuteness. Or if it was worded as he supposed, it is so strange that I should conclude it was a joke. Mr. Gardner, I am assured, was a worthy and a liberal man. BOSWELL. Thurlow, when Attorney-General, had been counsel for the Donaldsons, in the appeal before the House of Lords on the Right of Literary Property (ante, i. 437, and ii. 272). In his argument 'he observed (exemplifying his observations by several cases) that the booksellers had not till lately ever concerned themselves about authors.' Gent. Mag. for 1774, p. 51.

[1021] 'The booksellers of London are denominated the trade' (post, April 15, 1778, note).

[1022] Bibliopole is not in Johnson's Dictionary.

[1023] The Literary Club. See ante, p. 330, note 1. Mr. Croker says that the records of the Club show that, after the first few years, Johnson very rarely attended, and that he and Boswell never met there above seven or eight times. It may be observed, he adds, how very rarely Boswell records the conversation at the club, Except in one instance (post, April, 3, 1778), he says, Boswell confines his report to what Johnson or himself may have said. That this is not strictly true is shewn by his report of the dinner recorded above, where we find reported remarks of Beauclerk and Gibbon. Seven meetings besides this are mentioned by Boswell. See ante, ii. 240, 255, 318, 330; and post, April 3, 1778, April 16, 1779, and June 22, 1784. Of all but the last there is some report, however brief, of something said. When Johnson was not present, Boswell would have nothing to record in this book.

[1024] Travels through Germany, &c., 1756-7.

[1025] Travels through Holland, &c. Translated from the French, 1743.

[1026] See post, March 24, 1776, and May 17, 1778.

[1027] Description of the East, 1743-5.

[1028] Johnson had made the same remark, and Boswell had mentioned Leandro Alberti, when they were talking in an inn in the Island of Mull. Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 14, 1773.

[1029] Addison does not mention where this epitaph, which has eluded a very diligent inquiry, is found. MALONE. I have found it quoted in old Howell. 'The Italian saying may be well applied to poor England:--"I was well--would be better--took physic--and died."' Lett. Jan. 20, 1647. CROKER. It is quoted by Addison in The Spectator, No. 25:--'This letter puts me in mind of an Italian epitaph written on the monument of a Valetudinarian: Stavo ben, ma per star meglio sto qui, which it is impossible to translate.'

[1030] Lord Chesterfield, as Mr. Croker points out, makes the same observation in one of his Letters to his Son (ii. 351). Boswell, however, does not get it from him, for he had said the same in the Hebrides, six months before the publication of Chesterfield's Letters. Addison, in the preface to his Remarks, says:--'Before I entered on my voyage I took care to refresh my memory among the classic authors, and to make such collections out of them as I might afterwards have occasion for.'

[1031] See ante, ii. 156.

[1032] 'It made an impression on the army that cannot be well imagined by those who saw it not. The whole army, and at last all people both in city and country were singing it perpetually, and perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect.' Bumet's Own Time, ed. 1818, ii. 430. In Tristram Shandy, vol. i. chap. 21, when Mr. Shandy advanced one of his hypotheses:--'My uncle Toby,' we read, 'would never offer to answer this by any other kind of argument than that of whistling half-a-dozen bars of Lilliburlero.'

[1033] See ante, ii. 66.

[1034] 'Of Gibbon, Mackintosh neatly remarked that he might have been cut out of a corner of Burke's mind, without his missing it.' Life of Mackintosh, i. 92. It is worthy of notice that Gibbon scarcely mentions Johnson in his writings. Moreover, in the names that he gives of the members of the Literary Club, 'who form a large and luminous constellation of British stars,' though he mentions eighteen of them, he passes over Boswell. Gibbon's Misc. Works, i.219. See also post, April 18, 1775.

[1035] We may compare with this Dryden's line:--

'Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.'

Absalom and Achitophel, l. 179. Hawkins (Life, p. 506) says that 'to party opposition Johnson ever expressed great aversion, and of the pretences of patriots always spoke with indignation and contempt.' He had, Hawkins adds, 'partaken of the short-lived joy that infatuated the public' when Walpole fell; but a few days convinced him that the patriotism of the opposition had been either hatred or ambition. For patriots, see ante, i. 296, note, and post, April 6, 1781.

[1036] Mr. Burke. See ante, p. 222, note 4.

[1037] Lord North's ministry lasted from 1770 to 1782.

[1038] Perhaps Johnson had this from Davies, who says (Life of Garrick, i. 124):--'Mrs. Pritchard read no more of the play of Macbeth than her own part, as written out and delivered to her by the prompter.' She played the heroine in Irene (ante, i. 197). See post under Sept. 30, 1783, where Johnson says that 'in common life she was a vulgar idiot,' and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773.

[1039] A misprint for April 8.

[1040] Boswell calls him the 'Irish Dr. Campbell,' to distinguish him from the Scotch Dr. Campbell mentioned ante, i. 417.

[1041] See ante, i. 494.

[1042] Baretti, in a MS. note in his copy of Piozzi Letters, i. 374, says:--'Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms, and the silly Madam [Mrs. Thrale] never failed to echo that beastly kind of wit.'

[1043] According to Dr. T. Campbell, who was present at the dinner (Diary, p. 66), Barry and Garrick were the two actors, and Murphy the author. If Murphy said this in the heat of one of his quarrels with Garrick, he made amends in his Life of that actor (p. 362):--'It was with Garrick,' he wrote, 'a fixed principle, that authors were entitled to the emolument of their labours, and by that generous way of thinking he held out an invitation to men of genius.'

[1044] Page 392, vol. i. BOSWELL.

[1045] Let me here be allowed to pay my tribute of most sincere gratitude to the memory of that excellent person, my intimacy with whom was the more valuable to me, because my first acquaintance with him was unexpected and unsolicited. Soon after the publication of my Account of Corsica, he did me the honour to call on me, and, approaching me with a frank courteous air, said, 'My name, Sir, is Oglethorpe, and I wish to be acquainted with you.' I was not a little flattered to be thus addressed by an eminent man, of whom I had read in Pope, from my early years,

'Or, driven by strong benevolence of soul, Will fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole.'

I was fortunate enough to be found worthy of his good opinion, insomuch, that I not only was invited to make one in the many respectable companies whom he entertained at his table, but had a cover at his hospitable board every day when I happened to be disengaged; and in his society I never failed to enjoy learned and animated conversation, seasoned with genuine sentiments of virtue and religion. BOSWELL. See ante, i. 127, and ii. 59, note 1. The couplet from Pope is from Imitations of Horace, Epist. ii. 2. 276.

[1046]

'Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be blest.'

Essay on Man, i. 95.

[1047] 'The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.' The Rambler, No. 2. See post, iii. 53, and June 12, 1784. Swift defined happiness as 'a perpetual possession of being well deceived.' Tale of a Tub, Sect, ix., Swift's Works, ed. 1803, iii. 154.

[1048] See post, March 29, 1776.

[1049] The General seemed unwilling to enter upon it at this time; but upon a subsequent occasion he communicated to me a number of particulars, which I have committed to writing; but I was not sufficiently diligent in obtaining more from him, not apprehending that his friends were so soon to lose him; for, notwithstanding his great age, he was very healthy and vigorous, and was at last carried off by a violent fever, which is often fatal at any period of life. BOSWELL.

[1050] See ante, p. 338.

[1051]

'Mediocribus esse poetis Non homines, non Di, non concessere columnae.' 'But God and man, and letter'd post denies That poets ever are of middling size.'

FRANCIS, Horace, Ars Poet. l. 372.

[1052] Why he failed to keep his journal may be guessed from his letter to Temple:--'I am,' he wrote on April 17, 'indeed enjoying this metropolis to the full, according to my taste, except that I cannot, I see, have a plenary indulgence from you for Asiatic multiplicity. Be not afraid of me, except when I take too much claret; and then indeed there is a furor brevis as dangerous as anger.... I have rather had too much dissipation since I came last to town. I try to keep a journal, and shall show you that I have done tolerably: but it is hardly credible what ground I go over, and what a variety of men and manners I contemplate in a day; and all the time I myself am pars magna, for my exuberant spirits will not let me listen enough.' Letters of Boswell, pp. 187-9.

[1053] Johnson, in The Rambler, No. 110, published on Easter Eve, 1751, thus justifies fasting:--'Austerity is the proper antidote to indulgence; the diseases of mind as well as body are cured by contraries, and to contraries we should readily have recourse if we dreaded guilt as we dread pain.'

[1054] From this too just observation there are some eminent exceptions, BOSWELL. 'Dr. Johnson said:--"Few bishops are now made for their learning. To be a bishop, a man must be learned in a learned age, factious in a factious age, but always of eminence."' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 21, 1773.

[1055] Lord Shelburne wrote of him:--'He panted for the Treasury, having a notion that the King and he understood it from what they had read about revenue and funds while they were at Kew.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 141.

[1056] Chief Justice Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden) became popular by his conduct as a judge in Wilkes's case. In 1764 he received the freedom of the guild of merchants in Dublin in a gold box, and from Exeter the freedom of the city. The city of London gave him its freedom in a gold box, and had his portrait painted by Reynolds. Gent. Mag. 1764, pp. 44, 96, 144. See ante, p. 314.

[1057] The King, on March 3, 1761, recommended this measure to Parliament. Parl. Hist. xv. 1007. 'This,' writes Horace Walpole, 'was one of Lord Bute's strokes of pedantry. The tenure of the judges had formerly been a popular topic; and had been secured, as far as was necessary. He thought this trifling addition would be popular now, when nobody thought or cared about it.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 41.

[1058] The money arising from the property of the prizes taken before the declaration of war, which were given to his Majesty by the peace of Paris, and amounted to upwards of AL700,000, and from the lands in the ceded islands, which were estimated at AL200,000 more. Surely there was a noble munificence in this gift from a Monarch to his people. And let it be remembered, that during the Earl of Bute's administration, the King was graciously pleased to give up the hereditary revenues of the Crown, and to accept, instead of them, of the limited sum of AL800,000 a year; upon which Blackstone observes, that 'The hereditary revenues, being put under the same management as the other branches of the publick patrimony, will produce more, and be better collected than heretofore; and the publick is a gainer of upwards of AL100,000 per annum by this disinterested bounty of his Majesty.' Book I. Chap. viii. p. 330. BOSWELL. Lord Bolingbroke (Works, iii. 286), about the year 1734, pointed out that 'if the funds appropriated produce the double of that immense revenue of AL800,000 a year, which hath been so liberally given the King for life, the whole is his without account; but if they fail in any degree to produce it, the entire national fund is engaged to make up the difference.' Blackstone (edit, of 1778, i. 331) says:--'AL800,000 being found insufficient, was increased in 1777 to, AL900,000.' He adds, 'the public is still a gainer of near AL100,000.'

[1059] See post, iii. 163.

[1060] Lord Eldon says that Dundas, 'in broken phrases,' asked the King to confer a baronetcy on 'an eminent Scotch apothecary who had got from Scotland the degree of M. D. The King said:--"What, what, is that all? It shall be done. I was afraid you meant to ask me to make the Scotch apothecary a physician--that's more difficult."' He added:--'They may make as many Scotch apothecaries Baronets as they please, but I shall die by the College.' Twiss's Eldon, ii. 354. A Dr. Duncan, says Mr. Croker, was appointed physician to the King in 1760. Croker's Boswell, p. 448. A doctor of the same name, and no doubt the same man, was made a baronet in Aug. 1764. Jesse's Selwyn, i. 287.

[1061] Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Chancellor Loughborough, and Earl of Rosslyn. One of his 'errands' had been to bring Johnson bills in payment of his first quarter's pension. Ante, i. 376.

[1062] Home, the author of Douglas. Boswell says that 'Home showed the Lord Chief Baron Orde a pair of pumps he had on, and desired his lordship to observe how well they were made, telling him at the same time that they had been made for Lord Bute, but were rather too little for him, so his lordship had made John a present of them. "I think," said the Lord Chief Baron, "you have taken the measure of Lord Bute's foot."' Boswelliana, p. 252. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 335), writes:--'With Robertson and Home in London I passed the time very agreeably; for though Home was now [1758] entirely at the command of Lord Bute, whose nod made him break every engagement--for it was not given above an hour or two before dinner--yet, as he was sometimes at liberty when the noble lord was to dine abroad, like a horse loosened from his stake, he was more sportful than usual.'

[1063] Lord North was merely the King's agent. The King was really his own minister at this time, though he had no seat in his own cabinet councils.

[1064] Only thirty-four years earlier, on the motion in the Lords for the removal of Walpole, the Duke of Argyle said:--'If my father or brother took upon him the office of a sole minister, I would oppose it as inconsistent with the constitution, as a high crime and misdemeanour. I appeal to your consciences whether he [Walpole] hath not done this... He hath turned out men lately for differing with him.' Lord Chancellor Hardwicke replied:--'A sole minister is so illegal an office that it is none. Yet a noble lord says, Superior respondeat, which is laying down a rule for a prime minister; whereas the noble Duke was against any.' The Secker MS. Parl. Hist. xi. 1056-7. In the Protest against the rejection of the motion it was stated:--'We are persuaded that a sole, or even a first minister, is an officer unknown to the law of Britain,' &c. Ib p. 1215. Johnson reports the Chancellor as saying:--'It has not been yet pretended that he assumes the title of prime minister, or, indeed, that it is applied to him by any but his enemies ... The first minister can, in my opinion, be nothing more than a formidable illusion, which, when one man thinks he has seen it, he shows to another, as easily frighted as himself,' &c. Johnson's Works, x. 214-15. In his Dictionary, premier is only given as an adjective, and prime minister is not given at all. When the Marquis of Rockingham was forming his cabinet in March 1782, Burke wrote to him:--'Stand firm on your ground--but one ministry. I trust and hope that your lordship will not let one, even but one branch of the state ... out of your own hands; or those which you can entirely rely on.' Burke's Corres. ii. 462. See also post, iii. 46, April 1, 1781, Jan. 20, 1782, and April 10, 1783.

[1065] See ante, p. 300.

[1066] 'As he liberally confessed that all his own disappointments proceeded from himself, he hated to hear others complain of general injustice.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 251. See post, end of May, 1781, and March 23, 1783.

[1067] 'Boswell and I went to church, but came very late. We then took tea, by Boswell's desire; and I eat one bun, I think, that I might not seem to fast ostentatiously.' Pr. and Med. p. 138.

[1068] See ante, i. 433.

[1069] See ante, i. 332.

[1070] The following passages shew that the thought, or something like it, was not new to Johnson:--'BruyA"re declares that we are come into the world too late to produce anything new, that nature and life are preoccupied, and that description and sentiment have been long exhausted.' The Rambler, No. 143. 'Some advantage the ancients might gain merely by priority, which put them in possession of the most natural sentiments, and left us nothing but servile repetition or forced conceits.' Ib No. 169. 'My earlier predecessors had the whole field of life before them, untrodden and unsurveyed; characters of every kind shot up in their way, and those of the most luxuriant growth, or most conspicuous colours, were naturally cropt by the first sickle. They that follow are forced to peep into neglected corners.' The Idler, No. 3. 'The first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction.' Rasselas, ch. x. Some years later he wrote:--'Whatever can happen to man has happened so often that little remains for fancy or invention.' Works, vii. 311. See also The Rambler, No. 86. In The Adventurer, No. 95, he wrote:--'The complaint that all topicks are preoccupied is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness.' See post, under Aug. 29, 1783. Dr. Warton (Essay on Pope, i. 88) says that 'St. Jerome relates that Donatus, explaining that passage in Terence, Nihil est dictum quod non sit dictum prius, railed at the ancients for taking from him his best thoughts. Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt.'

[1071] Warburton, in the Dedication of his Divine Legation to the Free-thinkers (vol. I. p. ii), says:--'Nothing, I believe, strikes the serious observer with more surprize, in this age of novelties, than that strange propensity to infidelity, so visible in men of almost every condition: amongst whom the advocates of Deism are received with all the applauses due to the inventers of the arts of life, or the deliverers of oppressed and injured nations.' See ante, ii. 81.

[1072] In The Rambler, No. 89, Johnson writes of 'that interchange of thoughts which is practised in free and easy conversation, where suspicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where every man speaks with no other restraint than unwillingness to offend, and hears with no other disposition than desire to be pleased.' In The Idler, No. 34, he says 'that companion will be oftenest welcome whose talk flows out with inoffensive copiousness and unenvied insipidity.' He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Such tattle as filled your last sweet letter prevents one great inconvenience of absence, that of returning home a stranger and an inquirer. The variations of life consist of little things. Important innovations are soon heard, and easily understood. Men that meet to talk of physicks or metaphysicks, or law or history, may be immediately acquainted. We look at each other in silence, only for want of petty talk upon slight occurrences.' Piozzi Letters, i. 354.

[1073] Pr. and Med. p. 138. BOSWELL.

[1074] This line is not, as appears, a quotation, but an abstract of p. 139 of Pr. and Med.

[1075] This is a proverbial sentence. 'Hell,' says Herbert, 'is full of good meanings and wishings.' Jacula Prudentum, p. 11, edit 1651. MALONE.

[1076] Boswell wrote to Temple:--'I have only to tell you, as my divine, that I yesterday received the holy sacrament in St. Paul's Church, and was exalted in piety.' It was in the same letter that he mentioned 'Asiatic multiplicity' (ante p. 352, note 1). Letters of Boswell, p. 189.

[1077]

'Nil admirari, prope res est una, Numici, Solaque, quae possit facere et servare beatum'

Horace, Epis. i. 6. 1.

'Not to admire is all the art I know, To make men happy and keep them so'

Pope's Imitations, adapted from Creech.

[1078]

'We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love; And even as these are well and wisely fixed, In dignity of being we ascend.'

Wordsworth's Works, ed. 1857, vi. 135.

[1079]

'Amoret's as sweet and good, As the most delicious food; Which but tasted does impart Life and gladness to the heart. Sacharissa's beauty's wine, Which to madness does incline; Such a liquor as no brain That is mortal can sustain.'

Waller's Epistles, xii. BOSWELL.

[1080] Not that he would have wished Boswell 'to talk from books.' 'You and I,' he once said to him, 'do not talk from books.' Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 3, 1773. See post, iii, 108, note 1, for Boswell's want of learning.

[1081] See post, under March 30, 1783.

[1082] Yet he sat to Miss Reynolds, as he tells us, perhaps ten times (post, under June 17, 1783), and 'Miss Reynolds's mind,' he said, 'was very near to purity itself.' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 80. Eight years later Barry, in his Analysis (post, May, 1783, note), said:--'Our females are totally, shamefully, and cruelly neglected in the appropriation of trades and employments.' Barry's Works, ii. 333.

[1083] The four most likely to be mentioned would be, I think, Beauclerk, Garrick, Langton, and Reynolds. On p. 359, Boswell mentions Beauclerk's 'acid manner.'

[1084] In his Dictionary, Johnson defines muddy as cloudy in mind, dull; and quotes The Winter's Tale, act i. sc. 2. Wesley (Journal, ii. 10) writes:--'Honest, muddy M. B. conducted me to his house.' Johnson (post, March 22, 1776), after telling how an acquaintance of his drank, adds, 'not that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.' It seems at first sight unlikely that he called Reynolds muddy; yet three months earlier he had written:--'Reynolds has taken too much to strong liquor.' Ante, p. 292, note 5.

[1085] In The Rambler, No. 72, Johnson defines good-humour as 'a habit of being pleased; a constant and perennial softness of manner, easiness of approach, and suavity of disposition.'

[1086] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 17, 1773.

[1087] 'It is with their learning as with provisions in a besieged town, every one has a mouthful, and no one a bellyful.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 200.

[1088] 'Men bred in the Universities of Scotland cannot be expected to be often decorated with the splendours of ornamental erudition, but they obtain a mediocrity of knowledge between learning and ignorance, not inadequate to the purposes of common life, which is, I believe, very widely diffused among them.' Johnson's Works, ix. 158. Lord Shelburne said that the Earl of Bute had 'a great deal of superficial knowledge, such as is commonly to be met with in France and Scotland, chiefly upon matters of natural philosophy, mines, fossils, a smattering of mechanics, a little metaphysics, and a very false taste in everything.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 139. 'A gentleman who had heard that Bentley was born in the north, said to Porson: "Wasn't he a Scotchman?" "No, Sir," replied Porson, "Bentley was a great Greek scholar."' Rogers's Table Talk, p. 322.

[1089] Walton did not retire from business till 1643. But in 1664, Dr. King, Bishop of Chichester, in a letter prefixed to his Lives, mentions his having been familiarly acquainted with him for forty years; and in 1631 he was so intimate with Dr. Donne that he was one of the friends who attended him on his death-bed. J. BOSWELL, jun. His first wife's uncle was George Cranmer, the grandson of the Archbishop's brother. His second wife was half-sister of Bishop Ken.

[1090] Johnson himself, as Boswell tells us, 'was somewhat susceptible of flattery.' Post, end of 1784.

[1091] The first time he dined with me, he was shewn into my book-room, and instantly poured over the lettering of each volume within his reach. My collection of books is very miscellaneous, and I feared there might be some among them that he would not like. But seeing the number of volumes very considerable, he said, 'You are an honest man, to have formed so great an accumulation of knowledge.' BURNEY. Miss Burney describes this visit (Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii. 93):--'Everybody rose to do him honour; and he returned the attention with the most formal courtesie. My father whispered to him that music was going forward, which he would not, my father thinks, have found out; and, placing him on the best seat vacant, told his daughters to go on with the duet, while Dr. Johnson, intently rolling towards them one eye--for they say he does not see with the other--made a grave nod, and gave a dignified motion with one hand, in silent approvance of the proceeding.' He was next introduced to Miss Burney, but 'his attention was not to be drawn off two minutes longer from the books, to which he now strided his way. He pored over them shelf by shelf, almost brushing them with his eye-lashes from near examination. At last, fixing upon something that happened to hit his fancy, he took it down, and standing aloof from the company, which he seemed clean and clear to forget, he began very composedly to read to himself, and as intently as if he had been alone in his own study. We were all excessively provoked, for we were languishing, fretting, expiring to hear him talk.' Dr. Burney, taking up something that Mrs. Thrale had said, ventured to ask him about Bach's concert. 'The Doctor, comprehending his drift, good-naturedly put away his book, and see-sawing with a very humorous smile, drolly repeated, "Bach, Sir? Bach's concert? And pray, Sir, who is Bach? Is he a piper?"'

[1092] Reynolds, noting down 'such qualities as Johnson's works cannot convey,' says that 'the most distinguished was his possessing a mind which was, as I may say, always ready for use. Most general subjects had undoubtedly been already discussed in the course of a studious thinking life. In this respect few men ever came better prepared into whatever company chance might throw him; and the love which he had to society gave him a facility in the practice of applying his knowledge of the matter in hand, in which I believe he was never exceeded by any man.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 454.

[1093] See ante, p. 225.

[1094] 'Our silly things called Histories,' wrote Burke (Corres, i. 337). 'The Duke of Richmond, Fox, and Burke,' said Rogers (Table-Talk, p. 82), 'were conversing about history, philosophy, and poetry. The Duke said, "I prefer history to philosophy or poetry, because history is truth." Both Fox and Burke disagreed with him: they thought that poetry was truth, being a representation of human nature.' Lord Bolingbroke had said (Works, iii. 322) that the child 'in riper years applies himself to history, or to that which he takes for history, to authorised romance.'

[1095] Mr. Plunket made a great sensation in the House of Commons (Feb. 28, 1825) by saying that history, if not judiciously read, 'was no better than an old almanack'--which Mercier had already said in his Nouveau Tableau de Paris--'Malet du Pan's and such like histories of the revolution are no better than an old almanack.' Boswell, we see, had anticipated both. CROKER.

[1096] It was at Rome on Oct. 15, 1764, says Gibbon in a famous passage, 'that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.' It was not till towards the end of 1772 that he 'undertook the composition of the first volume.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 198, 217-9.

[1097] See p. 348. BOSWELL. Gibbon, when with Johnson, perhaps felt that timidity which kept him silent in Parliament. 'I was not armed by nature and education,' he writes, 'with the intrepid energy of mind and voice Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis. Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the success of my pen discouraged the trial of my voice.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 221. Some years before he entered Parliament, he said that his genius was 'better qualified for the deliberate compositions of the closet, than for the extemporary discourses of the Parliament. An unexpected objection would disconcert me; and as I am incapable of explaining to others what I do not thoroughly understand myself, I should be meditating while I ought to be answering.' Ib ii. 39.

[1098] A very eminent physician, whose discernment is as acute and penetrating in judging of the human character as it is in his own profession, remarked once at a club where I was, that a lively young man, fond of pleasure, and without money, would hardly resist a solicitation from his mistress to go upon the highway, immediately after being present at the representation of The Beggar's Opera. I have been told of an ingenious observation by Mr. Gibbon, that 'The Beggar's Opera may, perhaps, have sometimes increased the number of highwaymen; but that it has had a beneficial effect in refining that class of men, making them less ferocious, more polite, in short, more like gentlemen.' Upon this Mr. Courtenay said, that 'Gay was the Orpheus of highwaymen.' BOSWELL.

[1099] 'The play like many others was plainly written only to divert without any moral purpose, and is therefore not likely to do good; nor can it be conceived without more speculation than life requires or admits to be productive of much evil. Highwaymen and house-breakers seldom frequent the play-house, or mingle in any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage.' Works, viii. 68.

[1100] 'The worthy Queensb'ry yet laments his Gay.'

The Seasons. Summer, l. 1422. Pope (Prologue to the Satires, l. 259) says:--

'Of all thy blameless life the sole return My verse, and Queensb'ry weeping o'er thy urn.'

Johnson (Works, viii. 69) mentions 'the affectionate attention of the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, into whose house he was taken, and with whom he passed the remaining part of his life.' Smollett, in Humphry Clinker, in the letters of Sept. 12 and 13, speaks of the Duke as 'one of the best men that ever breathed,' 'one of those few noblemen whose goodness of heart does honour to human nature.' He died in 1778.

[1101] This song is the twelfth air in act i.

[1102] 'In several parts of tragedy,' writes Tom Davies, 'Walker's look, deportment, and action gave a distinguished glare to tyrannic rage.' Davies's Garrick, i. 24.

[1103] Pope said of himself and Swift:--'Neither of us thought it would succeed. We shewed it to Congreve, who said it would either take greatly or be damned confoundedly. We were all at the first night of it in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle say, "It will do--it must do! I see it in the eyes of them!" This was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon: for that duke has a more particular knack than any one now living in discovering the taste of the publick. He was quite right in this, as usual: the good-nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause.' Spence's Anec. p. 159. See The Dundad, iii. 330, and post, April 25, 1778.

[1104] R. B. Sheridan married Miss Linley in 1773.

[1105] His wife had AL3000, settled on her with delicate generosity by a gentleman to whom she had been engaged. Moore's Sheridan, i. 43.

[1106] 'Those who had felt the mischief of discord and the tyranny of usurpation read Hudibras with rapture, for every line brought back to memory something known, and gratified resentment by the just censure of something hated. But the book, which was once quoted by princes, and which supplied conversation to all the assemblies of the gay and witty, is now seldom mentioned, and even by those that affect to mention it, is seldom read.' The Idler, No. 59.

[1107] In his Life of Addison, Johnson says (Works, vii. 431):--'The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, para mi solo nacio Don Quixote y yo para el [for me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him], made Addison declare, with undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill Sir Roger; being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong.'

[1108] 'It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his original delineation. He describes his knight as having his imagination somewhat warped; but of this perversion he has made very little use.' Johnson's Works, vii. 431.

[1109] 'The papers left in the closet of Pieresc supplied his heirs with a whole winter's fuel.' The Idler, No. 65. 'A chamber in his house was filled with letters from the most eminent scholars of the age. The learned in Europe had addressed Pieresc in their difficulties, who was hence called "the attorney-general of the republic of letters." The niggardly niece, though entreated to permit them to be published, preferred to use these learned epistles occasionally to light her fires.' D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, i. 59.

[1110] Boswell was accompanied by Paoli. To justify his visit to London, he said:--'I think it is also for my interest, as in time I may get something. Lord Pembroke was very obliging to me when he was in Scotland, and has corresponded with me since. I have hopes from him.' Letters of Boswell, pp. 182, 189, and post, iii. 122, note 2. Horace Walpole described Lord Pembroke in 1764 as 'a young profligate.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 415.

[1111] Page 316. BOSWELL.

[1112] Page 291. BOSWELL.

[1113] In justice to Dr. Memis, though I was against him as an Advocate, I must mention, that he objected to the variation very earnestly, before the translation was printed off. BOSWELL.

[1114] Mr. Croker quotes The World of June 7, 1753, where a Londoner, 'to gratify the curiosity of a country friend, accompanied him in Easter week to Bedlam. To my great surprise,' he writes, 'I found a hundred people, at least, who, having paid their twopence apiece, were suffered unattended to run rioting up and down the wards making sport of the miserable inhabitants. I saw them in a loud laugh of triumph at the ravings they had occasioned.' Young (Universal Passion, Sat. v.) describes Britannia's daughters

'As unreserved and beauteous as the sun, Through every sign of vanity they run; Assemblies, parks, coarse feasts in city halls, Lectures and trials, plays, committees, balls; Wells, Bedlams, executions, Smithfield scenes, And fortune-tellers' caves, and lions' dens.'

In 1749, William Hutton walked from Nottingham to London, passed three days there in looking about, and returned on foot. The whole journey cost him ten shillings and eight-pence. He says:--'I wished to see a number of curiosities, but my shallow pocket forbade. One penny to see Bedlam was all I could spare.' Hutton's Life, pp. 71, 74. Richardson (Familiar Letters, No. 153) makes a young lady describe her visit to Bedlam:--'The distempered fancies of the miserable patients most unaccountably provoked mirth and loud laughter; nay, so shamefully inhuman were some, among whom (I am sorry to say it) were several of my own sex, as to endeavour to provoke the patients into rage to make them sport.'

[1115] In the Life of Dryden (Works, vii. 304), Johnson writes:--'Virgil would have been too hasty if he had condemned him [Statius] to straw for one sounding line.' In Humphry Clinker (Letter of June 10), Mr. Bramble says to Clinker:--'The sooner you lose your senses entirely the better for yourself and the community. In that case, some charitable person might provide you with a dark room and clean straw in Bedlam.' Churchill, in Independence (Poems, ii. 307), writes:--

'To Bethlem with him--give him whips and straw, I'm very sensible he's mad in law.'

[1116] My very honourable friend General Sir George Howard, who served in the Duke of Cumberland's army, has assured me that the cruelties were not imputable to his Royal Highness. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole shews the Duke's cruelty to his own soldiers. 'In the late rebellion some recruits had been raised under a positive engagement of dismission at the end of three years. When the term was expired they thought themselves at liberty, and some of them quitted the corps. The Duke ordered them to be tried as deserters, and not having received a legal discharge, they were condemned. Nothing could mollify him; two were executed.' Memoirs of the Reign of George II, ii. 203.

[1117] It has been suggested that this is Dr. Percy (see post, April 23, 1778), but Percy was more than 'an acquaintance of ours,' he was a friend.

[1118] Very likely Mr. Steevens. See post, April 13, 1778, and May 15, 1784.

[1119] On this day Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell has made me promise not to go to Oxford till he leaves London; I had no great reason for haste, and therefore might as well gratify a friend. I am always proud and pleased to have my company desired. Boswell would have thought my absence a loss, and I know not who else would have considered my presence as profit. He has entered himself at the Temple, and I joined in his bond. He is to plead before the Lords, and hopes very nearly to gain the cost of his journey. He lives much with his friend Paoli.' Piozzi Letters, i. 216. Boswell wrote to Temple on June 6:--'For the last fortnight that I was in London I lay at Paoli's house, and had the command of his coach.... I felt more dignity when I had several servants at my devotion, a large apartment, and the convenience and state of a coach. I recollected that this dignity in London was honourably acquired by my travels abroad, and my pen after I came home, so I could enjoy it with my own approbation.' Letters of Boswell, p. 200. A year later he records, that henceforth, while in London, he was Paoli's constant guest till he had a house of his own there (post, iii. 34).

[1120] Lord Stowell told Mr. Croker that, among the Scottish literati, Mr. Crosbie was the only man who was disposed to stand up (as the phrase is) to Johnson. Croker's Boswell, p. 270. It is said that he was the original of Mr. Counsellor Pleydell in Scott's novel of Guy Mannering. Dr. A. Carlyle (Autobiography, p. 420) says of 'the famous club called the Poker,' which was founded in Edinburgh in 1762:--'In a laughing humour, Andrew Crosbie was chosen Assassin, in case any officer of that sort should be needed; but David Hume was added as his Assessor, without whose assent nothing should be done, so that between plus and minus there was likely to be no bloodshed.' See Boswell's Herbrides, Aug. 16, 1773.

[1121] He left on the 22nd. 'Boswell,' wrote Johnson to Mrs. Thrale on May 22, 'went away at two this morning. He got two and forty guineas in fees while he was here. He has, by his wife's persuasion and mine, taken down a present for his mother-in-law.' [? Step-mother, with whom he was always on bad terms; post, iii. 95, note 1.] Piozzi Letters, i. 219. Boswell, the evening of the same day, wrote to Temple from Grantham:--'I have now eat (sic) a Term's Commons in the Inner Temple. You cannot imagine what satisfaction I had in the form and ceremony of the Hall.... After breakfasting with Paoli, and worshipping at St. Paul's, I dined tA¬te-A -tA¬te with my charming Mrs. Stuart. We talked with unreserved freedom, as we had nothing to fear; we were philosophical, upon honour--not deep, but feeling; we were pious; we drank tea, and bid each other adieu as finely as romance paints. She is my wife's dearest friend; so you see how beautiful our intimacy is. I then went to Mr. Johnson's, and he accompanied me to Dilly's, where we supped; and then he went with me to the inn in Holborn, where the Newcastle Fly sets out; we were warmly affectionate. He is to buy for me a chest of books, of his choosing, off stalls, and I am to read more and drink less; that was his counsel.' Letters of Boswell, p. 196.

[1122] Yet Gilbert Walmsley had called him in his youth 'a good scholar.' Garrick Corres. i. 1; and Boswell wrote to him:--'Mr. Johnson is ready to bruise any one who calls in question your classical knowledge, and your happy application of it.' Ib p. 622.

[1123] 'Those whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to write very seldom ramble.' Johnson to Mrs. Thrale. Piozzi Letters, i. 32. See post, April 17, 1778.

[1124] A letter from Boswell to Temple on this day helps to fill up the gap in his journal:--'It gives me acute pain that I have not written more to you since we parted last; but I have been like a skiff in the sea, driven about by a multiplicity of waves. I am now at Mr. Thrale's villa, at Streatham, a delightful spot. Dr. Johnson is here too. I came yesterday to dinner, and this morning Dr. Johnson and I return to London, and I go with Mr. Beauclerk to see his elegant villa and library, worth AL3000, at Muswell Hill, and return and dine with him. I hope Dr. Johnson will dine with us. I am in that dissipated state of mind that I absolutely cannot write; I at least imagine so. But while I glow with gaiety, I feel friendship for you, nay, admiration of some of your qualities, as strong as you could wish. My excellent friend, let us ever cultivate that mutual regard which, as it has lasted till now, will, I trust, never fail. On Saturday last I dined with John Wilkes and his daughter, and nobody else, at the Mansion-House; it was a most pleasant scene. I had that day breakfasted with Dr. Johnson. I drank tea with Lord Bute's daughter-in-law, and I supped with Miss Boswell. What variety! Mr. Johnson went with me to Beauclerk's villa, Beauclerk having been ill; it is delightful, just at Highgate. He has one of the most numerous and splendid private libraries that I ever saw; green-houses, hot-houses, observatory, laboratory for chemical experiments, in short, everything princely. We dined with him at his box at the Adelphi. I have promised to Dr. Johnson to read when I get to Scotland, and to keep an account of what I read; I shall let you know how I go on. My mind must be nourished.' Letters of Boswell, pp. 193-5.

[1125] Swift did not laugh. 'He had a countenance sour and severe, which he seldom softened by any appearance of gaiety. He stubbornly resisted any tendency to laughter.' Johnson's Works, viii. 222. Neither did Pope laugh. 'By no merriment, either of others or his own, was he ever seen excited to laughter.' Ib p. 312. Lord Chesterfield wrote (Letters i. 329):--'How low and unbecoming a thing laughter is. I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason nobody has ever heard me laugh.' Mrs. Piozzi records (Anec. p. 298) that 'Dr. Johnson used to say "that the size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth;" and his own was never contemptible.'

[1126] The day before he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Peyton and Macbean [ante, i 187] are both starving, and I cannot keep them.' Piozzi Letters, i. 218. On April 1, 1776, he wrote:--'Poor Peyton expired this morning. He probably, during many years for which he sat starving by the bed of a wife, not only useless but almost motionless, condemned by poverty to personal attendance chained down to poverty--he probably thought often how lightly he should tread the path of life without his burthen. Of this thought the admission was unavoidable, and the indulgence might be forgiven to frailty and distress. His wife died at last, and before she was buried he was seized by a fever, and is now going to the grave. Such miscarriages when they happen to those on whom many eyes are fixed, fill histories and tragedies; and tears have been shed for the sufferings, and wonder excited by the fortitude of those who neither did nor suffered more than Peyton.' Ib 312. Baretti, in a marginal note on Piozzi Letters, i. 219, writes:--'Peyton was a fool and a drunkard. I never saw so nauseous a fellow.' But Baretti was a harsh judge.

[1127] A learned Greek. BOSWELL. 'He was a nephew of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and had fled from some massacre of the Greeks.' Johnstone's Life of Parr, i. 84.

[1128] See ante, p. 278.

[1129] Wife of the Rev. Mr. Kenneth Macaulay, authour of The History of St. Kilda. BOSWELL. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773.

[1130] 'The Elzevirs of Glasgow,' as Boswell called them. (Hebrides, Oct. 29.)

[1131] See in Boswell's Hebrides, Johnson's letter of May 6, 1775.

[1132] A law-suit carried on by Sir Allan Maclean, Chief of his Clan, to recover certain parts of his family estates from the Duke of Argyle. BOSWELL.

[1133] A very learned minister in the Isle of Sky, whom both Dr. Johnson and I have mentioned with regard. BOSWELL. Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 3, 1773, and Johnson's Works, ix. 54. Johnson in another passage, (ib. p. 115), speaks of him as 'a very learned minister. He wished me to be deceived [as regards Ossian] for the honour of his country; but would not directly and formally deceive me.' Johnson told him this to his face. Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22. His credulity is shewn by the belief he held, that the name of a place called Ainnit in Sky was the same as the Anaitidis delubrum in Lydia. Ib Sept. 17.

[1134] This darkness is seen in his letters. He wrote 'June 3, 1775. It required some philosophy to bear the change from England to Scotland. The unpleasing tone, the rude familiarity, the barren conversation of those whom I found here, in comparison with what I had left, really hurt my feelings ... The General Assembly is sitting, and I practise at its Bar. There is de facto something low and coarse in such employment, though on paper it is a Court of Supreme Judicature; but guineas must be had ... Do you know it requires more than ordinary spirit to do what I am to do this very morning: I am to go to the General Assembly and arraign a judgement pronounced last year by Dr. Robertson, John Home, and a good many more of them, and they are to appear on the other side. To speak well, when I despise both the cause and the Judges, is difficult: but I believe I shall do wonderfully. I look forward with aversion to the little, dull labours of the Court of Sessions. You see, Temple, I have my troubles as well as you have. My promise under the venerable yew has kept me sober.' Letters of Boswell, p. 198. On June 19, he is 'vexed to think myself a coarse labourer in an obscure corner.... Mr. Hume says there will in all probability be a change of the Ministry soon, which he regrets. Oh, Temple, while they change so often, how does one feel an ambition to have a share in the great department! ... My father is most unhappily dissatisfied with me. He harps on my going over Scotland with a brute (think how shockingly erroneous!) and wandering (or some such phrase) to London!' Ib p. 201. 'Aug. 12. I have had a pretty severe return this summer of that melancholy, or hypochondria, which is inherent in my constitution.... While afflicted with melancholy, all the doubts which have ever disturbed thinking men come upon me. I awake in the night dreading annihilation, or being thrown into some horrible state of being.' He recounts a complimentary letter he had received from Lord Mayor Wilkes, and continues:--'Tell me, my dear Temple, if a man who receives so many marks of more than ordinary consideration can be satisfied to drudge in an obscure corner, where the manners of the people are disagreeable to him.' Ib p. 209.

[1135] He was absent from the end of May till some time in August. He wrote from Oxford on June 1:--'Don't suppose that I live here as we live at Streatham. I went this morning to the chapel at six.' Piozzi Letters, i. 223. He was the guest of Mr. Coulson, a Fellow of University College. On June 6, he wrote:--'Such is the uncertainty of all human things that Mr. Coulson has quarrelled with me. He says I raise the laugh upon him, and he is an independent man, and all he has is his own, and he is not used to such things.' Ib p. 226. An eye-witness told Mr. Croker that 'Coulson was going out on a country living, and talking of it with the same pomp as to Lord Stowell.' [He had expressed to him his doubts whether, after living so long in the great world, he might not grow weary of the comparative retirement of a country parish. Croker's Boswell, p. 425.] Johnson chose to imagine his becoming an archdeacon, and made himself merry at Coulson's expense. At last they got to warm words, and Johnson concluded the debate by exclaiming emphatically--'Sir, having meant you no offence, I will make you no apology.' Ib p. 458. The quarrel was made up, for the next day he wrote:--'Coulson and I are pretty well again.' Piozzi Letters, i. 229.

[1136] Boswell wrote to Temple on Sept. 2:--'It is hardly credible how difficult it is for a man of my sensibility to support existence in the family where I now am. My father, whom I really both respect and affectionate (if that is a word, for it is a different feeling from that which is expressed by love, which I can say of you from my soul), is so different from me. We divaricate so much, as Dr. Johnson said, that I am often hurt when, I dare say, he means no harm: and he has a method of treating me which makes me feel myself like a timid boy, which to Boswell (comprehending all that my character does in my own imagination and in that of a wonderful number of mankind) is intolerable. His wife too, whom in my conscience I cannot condemn for any capital bad quality, is so narrow-minded, and, I don't know how, so set upon keeping him under her own management, and so suspicious and so sourishly tempered that it requires the utmost exertion of practical philosophy to keep myself quiet. I however have done so all this week to admiration: nay, I have appeared good-humoured; but it has cost me drinking a considerable quantity of strong beer to dull my faculties.' Letters of Boswell, p. 215.

[1137] Voltaire wrote of HA(C)nault's AbrA(C)gA(C) de l' Histoire de la France:--'Il a A(C)tA(C) dans l'histoire ce que Fontenelle a A(C)tA(C) dans la philosophie. Il l'a rendue familiA"re.' Voltaire's Works, xvii. 99. With a quotation from HA(C)nault, Carlyle begins his French Revolution.

[1138] My Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, which that lady read in the original manuscript. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale, 'May 22, 1775:--I am not sorry that you read Boswell's Journal. Is it not a merry piece? There is much in it about poor me.' Piozzi Letters, i. 220. 'June 11, 1775. You never told me, and I omitted to inquire, how you were entertained by Boswell's Journal. One would think the man had been hired to be a spy upon me. He was very diligent, and caught opportunities of writing from time to time.' Ib p. 233. I suspect that the words I have marked by italics are not Johnson's, but are Mrs. Piozzi's interpolation.

[1139] 'In my heart of heart.' Hamlet, act iii. sc. 2.

[1140] Another parcel of Lord Hailes's Annals of Scotland. BOSWELL.

[1141] Where Sir Joshua Reynolds lived. BOSWELL.

[1142] Johnson's birthday. In Pr. and Med. p. 143, is a prayer which was, he writes, 'composed at Calais in a sleepless night, and used before the morn at NA'tre Dame.'

[1143] See ante, i. 243, note 3.

[1144] 'While Johnson was in France, he was generally very resolute in speaking Latin.' Post, under Nov. 12, 1775.

[1145] Miss Thrale. BOSWELL.

[1146] In his Journal he records 'their meals are gross' (post, Oct. 10). We may doubt therefore Mrs. Piozzi's statement that he said of the French: 'They have few sentiments, but they express them neatly; they have little in meat too, but they dress it well.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 102.

[1147] See ante, i. 362, note 1.

[1148] Boswell wrote to Temple:--'You know, my dearest friend, of what importance this is to me; of what importance it is to the family of Auchinleck, which you may be well convinced is my supreme object in this world.' Letters of Boswell, p. 217. Alexander Boswell was killed in a duel in 1822.

[1149] This alludes to my old feudal principle of preferring male to female succession. BOSWELL. See post, under Jan. 10, 1776.

[1150] He wrote to Dr. Taylor on the same day:--'I came back last Tuesday from France. Is not mine a kind of life turned upside down? Fixed to a spot when I was young, and roving the world when others are contriving to sit still, I am wholly unsettled. I am a kind of ship with a wide sail, and without an anchor.' Notes and Queries. 6th S., v. 422.

[1151] There can be no doubt that many years previous to 1775 he corresponded with this lady, who was his step-daughter, but none of his earlier letters to her have been preserved. BOSWELL. Many of these earlier letters were printed by Malone and Croker in later editions. See i. 512.

[1152] When on their way to Wales, July 7, 1774, post, vol. v.

[1153] Smollett wrote (Travels, i. 88):--'Notwithstanding the gay disposition of the French, their houses are all gloomy. After all it is in England only where we must look for cheerful apartments, gay furniture, neatness, and convenience.'

[1154] Son of Mrs. Johnson, by her first husband. BOSWELL.

[1155] 'A gentleman said, "Surely that Vanessa must be an extraordinary woman, that could inspire the Dean to write so finely upon her." Mrs. Johnson [Stella] smiled, and answered "that she thought that point not quite so clear; for it was well known the Dean could write finely upon a broomstick."' Johnson's Works, viii. 210.

[1156] Horace Walpole wrote from Paris this autumn:--'I have not yet had time to visit the Hotel du Chatelet.' Letters, vi. 260. On July 31st, 1789, writing of the violence of the mob, he says:--'The hotel of the Due de Chatelet, lately built and superb, has been assaulted, and the furniture sold by auction.' Ib ix. 202.

[1157] See post, under Nov. 12, 1775, note, and June 25, 1784.

[1158] The Prior of the Convent of the Benedictines where Johnson had a cell appropriated to him. Post, Oct. 31, and under Nov. 12.

[1159] The rest of this paragraph appears to be a minute of what was told by Captain Irwin. BOSWELL.

[1160] Melchior Canus, a celebrated Spanish Dominican, who died at Toledo, in 1560. He wrote a treatise De Locis Theologicis, in twelve books. BOSWELL.

[1161] D'Argenson's. CROKER.

[1162] See Macaulay's Essays, i. 355, and Mr. Croker's answer in his note on this passage. His notion that 'this book was exhibited purposely on the lady's table, in the expectation that her English visitors would think it a literary curiosity,' seems absurd. He does not choose to remember the 'Bibl. des FA(C)es and other books.' Since I wrote this note Mr. Napier has published an edition of Boswell, in which this question is carefully examined (ii. 550). He sides with Macaulay.

[1163] 'Si quelque invention peut supplA(C)er A la connaissance qui nous est refusA(C)e des longitudes sur la mer, c'est celle du plus habile horloger de France (M. Leroi) qui dispute cette invention A l'Angleterre.' Voltaire, SiA"cle de Louis XV, ch. 43.

[1164] The Palais Marchand was properly only the stalls which were placed along some of the galleries of the Palais. They have been all swept away in Louis Philippe's restoration of the Palais. CROKER.

[1165] 'Petit siA"ge de bois sur lequel on faisait asseoir, pour les interroger, ceux qui A(C)taient accusA(C)s d'un dA(C)lit pouvant faire encourir une peine afflictive.' LITTRA%.

[1166] The Conciergerie, before long to be crowded with the victims of the Revolution.

[1167] This passage, which so many think superstitious, reminds me of Archbishop Laud's Diary. BOSWELL. Laud, for instance, on Oct. 27, 1640, records:--'In my upper study hung my picture taken by the life; and coming in, I found it fallen down upon the face, and lying on the floor, the string being broken by which it was hanged against the wall. I am almost every day threatened with my ruin in Parliament. God grant this be no omen.' Perhaps there was nothing superstitious in Johnson's entry. He may have felt ill in mind or body, and dreaded to become worse.

[1168] For a brief account of FrA(C)ron, father and son, see Carlyle's French Revolution, part ii. bk. 1. ch. 4.

[1169] A round table, the centre of which descended by machinery to a lower floor, so that supper might be served without the presence of servants. It was invented by Lewis XV. during the favour of Madame du Barri. CROKER.

[1170] See ante, i. 363, note 3.

[1171] Before the Revolution the passage from the garden of the Tuileries into the Place Louis XV. was over a pont tournant. CROKER.

[1172] The niece of Arabella Fermor, the Belinda of the Rape of the Lock. Johnson thus mentions this lady (Works, viii. 246):--'At Paris, a few years ago, a niece of Mrs. Fermor, who presided in an English convent, mentioned Pope's works with very little gratitude, rather as an insult than an honour.' She is no doubt the Lady Abbess mentioned post, March 15, 1776. She told Mrs. Piozzi in 1784 'that she believed there was but little comfort to be found in a house that harboured poets; for that she remembered Mr. Pope's praise made her aunt very troublesome and conceited, while his numberless caprices would have employed ten servants to wait on him.' Piozzi's Journey, i. 20.

[1173] Mrs. Thrale wrote, on Sept. 18, 1777:--'When Mr. Thrale dismisses me, I am to take refuge among the Austin Nuns, and study Virgil with dear Miss Canning.' Piozzi Letters, i. 374.

[1174] Pensionnaires, pupils who boarded in the convent.

[1175] He brought back a snuff-box for Miss Porter. Ante, p. 387.

[1176] 63 livres = AL2 12s. 6d.

[1177] Torture-chamber. See ante, i. 467, note 1.

[1178] 'Au parlement de Paris la chambre chargA(C)e des affaires criminelles.' LITTRA%.

[1179] The grandson was the Duke d'Enghien who was put to death by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804.

[1180] His tender affection for his departed wife, of which there are many evidences in his Prayers and Meditations, appears very feelingly in this passage. BOSWELL. 'On many occasions I think what she [his wife] would have said or done. When I saw the sea at Brighthelmstone, I wished for her to have seen it with me.' Pr. and Med. p. 91.

[1181] See post, p. 402.

[1182] See post, iii. 89.

[1183] Dr. Moore (Travels in France, i. 31) says that in Paris, 'those who cannot afford carriages skulk behind pillars, or run into shops, to avoid being crushed by the coaches, which are driven as near the wall as the coachman pleases.' Only on the Pont Neuf, and the Pont Royal, and the quays between them were there, he adds, foot-ways.

[1184] Lewis XVI.

[1185] The King's sister, who was guillotined in the Reign of Terror.

[1186] See p. 391. BOSWELL.

[1187] 'When at Versailles, the people showed us the Theatre. As we stood on the stage looking at some machinery for playhouse purposes; "Now we are here, what shall we act, Mr. Johnson:--_The Englishman in Paris_"? "No, no," replied he, "we will try to act Harry the Fifth."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 101. The Englishman in Paris is a comedy by Foote.

[1188] This epithet should be applied to this animal, with one bunch. BOSWELL.

[1189] He who commanded the troops at the execution of Lewis XVI.

[1190] 1462.

[1191] I cannot learn of any book of this name. Perhaps Johnson saw Durandi Rationale Officiorum Divinorum, which was printed in 1459, one year later than Johnson mentions. A copy of this he had seen at Blenheim in 1774. His Journey into North Wales, Sept. 22.

[1192] He means, I suppose, that he read these different pieces while he remained in the library. BOSWELL.

[1193] Johnson in his Dictionary defines Apartment as A room; a set of rooms.

[1194] Smollett (Travels, i. 85) writes of these temporary servants:--'You cannot conceive with what eagerness and dexterity these rascally valets exert themselves in pillaging strangers. There is always one ready in waiting on your arrival, who begins by assisting your own servant to unload your baggage, and interests himself in your own affairs with such artful officiousness that you will find it difficult to shake him off.'

[1195] Livres--francs we should now say.

[1196] It was here that Rousseau got rid of his children. 'Je savais que l'A(C)ducation pour eux la moins perilleuse A(C)tait celle des enfans trouvA(C)s; et je les y mis.' Les Reveries, ix'me promenade.

[1197] Dr. Franklin, in 1785, wrote:--'I am credibly informed that nine-tenths of them die there pretty soon.' Memoirs, iii. 187. Lord Kames (Sketches of the History of Man, iii. 91) says:--'The Paris almanac for the year 1768 mentions that there were baptised 18,576 infants, of whom the foundling-hospital received 6025.'

[1198] St. Germain des PrA(C)s. Better known as the Prison of the Abbaye.

[1199] I have looked in vain into De Bure, Meerman, Mattaire, and other typographical books, for the two editions of the Catholicon, which Dr. Johnson mentions here, with names which I cannot make out. I read 'one by Latinius, one by Boedinus.' I have deposited the original MS. in the British Museum, where the curious may see it. My grateful acknowledgements are due to Mr. Planta for the trouble he was pleased to take in aiding my researches. BOSWELL. A Mr. Planta is mentioned in Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, v. 39.

[1200] Friar Wilkes visited Johnson in May 1776. Piozzi Letters, i. 336. On Sept. 18, 1777, Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson:--'I have got some news that will please you now. Here is an agreeable friend come from Paris, whom you were very fond of when we were there--the Prior of our English Benedictine Convent, Mr. Cowley ... He inquires much for you; and says Wilkes is very well, No. 45, as they call him in the Convent. A cell is always kept ready for your use he tells me.' Ib p. 373.

[1201] The writing is so bad here, that the names of several of the animals could not be decyphered without much more acquaintance with natural history than I possess.--Dr. Blagden, with his usual politeness, most obligingly examined the MS. To that gentleman, and to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, who also very readily assisted me, I beg leave to express my best thanks. BOSWELL

[1202] It is thus written by Johnson, from the French pronunciation of fossane. It should be observed, that the person who shewed this Menagerie was mistaken in supposing the fossane and the Brasilian weasel to be the same, the fossane being a different animal, and a native of Madagascar. I find them, however, upon one plate in Pennant's Synopsis of Quadrupeds. BOSWELL.

[1203] How little Johnson relished this talk is shewn by his letter to Mrs. Thrale of May 1, 1780, and by her answer. He wrote:--'The Exhibition, how will you do, either to see or not to see? The Exhibition is eminently splendid. There is contour, and keeping, and grace, and expression, and all the varieties of artificial excellence.' Piozzi Letters, ii. III. She answered:--'When did I ever plague about contour, and grace, and expression? I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne when you teased me so.' Ib p. 116

[1204] 'Nef, (old French from nave) the body of a church.' Johnson's Dictionary.

[1205] My worthy and ingenious friend, Mr. Andrew Lumisden, by his accurate acquaintance with France, enabled me to make out many proper names, which Dr. Johnson had written indistinctly, and sometimes spelt erroneously. Boswell. Lumisden is mentioned in Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 13.

[1206] Baretti, in a marginal note on Piozzi Letters, i. 142, says that 'Johnson saw next to nothing of Paris.' On p. 159 he adds:--'He noticed the country so little that he scarcely spoke of it ever after.' He shews, however, his ignorance of Johnson's doings by saying that 'in France he never touched a pen.'

[1207] Hume's reception in 1763 was very different. He wrote to Adam Smith:--'I have been three days at Paris, and two at Fontainebleau, and have everywhere met with the most extraordinary honours which the most exorbitant vanity could wish or desire.' The Dauphin's three children, afterwards Lewis XVI, Lewis XVIII, and Charles X, had each to make a set speech of congratulation. He was the favourite of the most exclusive coteries. J.H. Burton's Hume, ii. 168, 177, 208. But at that date, sceptical philosophy was the rage.

[1208] Horace Walpole wrote from Paris in 1771 (Letters, v. 317-19):--'The distress here is incredible, especially at Court.... The middling and common people are not much richer than Job when he had lost everything but his patience.' Rousseau wrote of the French in 1777:--'Cette nation qui se prA(C)tend si gaie montre peu cette gaitA(C) dans ses jeux. Souvent j'allais jadis aux guinguettes pour y voir danser le menu peuple; mais ses danses A(C)taient si maussades, son maintien si dolent, si gauche, que j'en sortais plutot contristA(C) que rA(C)joui.' Les RA(C)veries, IXme. promenade. Baretti (Journey to Genoa, iv. 146) denies that the French 'are entitled to the appellation of cheerful.' 'Provence,' he says (ib. 148), 'is the only province in which you see with some sort of frequency the rustic assemblies roused up to cheerfulness by the fifre and the tambourin.' Mrs. Piozzi describes the absence of 'the happy middle state' abroad. 'As soon as Dover is left behind, every man seems to belong to some other man, and no man to himself.' Piozzi's Journey, ii. 341. Voltaire, in his review of Julia Mandeville (Works, xliii. 364), says:--'Pour peu qu'un roman, une tragA(C)die, une comA(C)die ait de succA"s a Londres, on en fait trois et quatre A(C)ditions en peu de mois; c'est que l'A(C)tat mitoyen est plus riche et plus instruit en Angleterre qu'en France, &c.' But Barry, the painter (post, May 17, 1783), in 1766, described to Burke, 'the crowds of busy contented people which cover (as one may say) the whole face of the country.' But he was an Irishman comparing France with Ireland. 'They make a strong, but melancholy contrast to a miserable ------ which I cannot help thinking of sometimes. You will not be at any loss to know that I mean Ireland.' Barry's Works, i. 57. 'Hume,' says Dr. J. H. Burton, 'in his Essay on The Parties of Great Britain (published in 1741), alludes to the absence of a middle class in Scotland, where he says, there are only "two ranks of men, gentlemen who have some fortune and education, and the meanest starving poor; without any considerable number of the middling rank of men, which abounds more in England, both in cities and in the country, than in any other quarter of the world."' Life of Hume, i. 198. I do not find this passage in the edition of Hume's Essays of 1770.

[1209] Yet Smollett wrote in 1763:--'All manner of butcher's meat and poultry are extremely good in Paris. The beef is excellent.' He adds, 'I can by no means relish their cookery.' Smollett's Travels, i. 86. Horace Walpole, in 1765, wrote from Amiens on his way to Paris:--'I am almost famished for want of clean victuals, and comfortable tea, and bread and butter.' Letters, iv. 401. Goldsmith, in 1770, wrote from Paris:--'As for the meat of this country I can scarce eat it, and though we pay two good shillings an head for our dinner, I find it all so tough, that I have spent less time with my knife than my pick-tooth.' Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 219.

[1210] Walpole calls Paris 'the ugliest, beastliest town in the universe,' and describes the indelicacy of the talk of women of the first rank. Letters, iv. 435. See post, May 13, 1778, and under Aug. 29, 1783.

[1211] Madame du Boccage, according to Miss Reynolds, whose authority was Baretti. Croker's Boswell, p. 467. See post, June 25, 1784.

[1212] In Edinburgh, Johnson threw a glass of lemonade out of the window because the waiter had put the sugar into it 'with his greasy fingers.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 14.

[1213] Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson in 1782:--'When we were in France we could form little judgement [of the spread of refinement], as our time was passed chiefly among English; yet I recollect that one fine lady, who entertained us very splendidly, put her mouth to the teapot, and blew in the spout when it did not pour freely.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 247.

[1214] That he did not continue exactly as in London is stated by Boswell himself. 'He was furnished with a Paris-made wig of handsome construction,' (Post, April 28, 1778). His Journal shews that he bought articles of dress (ante, p. 398). Hawkins (Life, p. 517) says that 'he yielded to the remonstrances of his friends so far as to dress in a suit of black and a Bourgeois wig, but resisted their importunity to wear ruffles. By a note in his diary it appears that he laid out near thirty pounds in clothes for this journey.' A story told by Foote we may believe as little as we please. 'Foote is quite impartial,' said Johnson, 'for he tells lies of everybody.' Post, under March 15, 1776.

[1215] If Johnson's Latin was understood by foreigners in France, but not in England, the explanation may be found in his Life of Milton (Works, vii. 99), where he says:--'He who travels, if he speaks Latin, may so soon learn the sounds which every native gives it, that he need make no provision before his journey; and if strangers visit us, it is their business to practise such conformity to our modes as they expect from us in their own countries.' Johnson was so sturdy an Englishman that likely enough, as he was in London, he would not alter his pronunciation to suit his Excellency's ear. In Priestley's Works, xxiii. 233, a conversation is reported in which Dr. Johnson argued for the Italian method of pronouncing Latin.

[1216] See ante, ii. 80.

[1217] As Mme. de Boufflers is mentioned in the next paragraph, Boswell no doubt, wishes to shew that the letter was addressed to her. She was the mistress of the Prince of Conti. She understood English, and was the correspondent of Hume. There was also a Marquise de Boufflers, mistress of old King Stanislaus.

[1218] In the Piozzi Letters (i. 34), this letter is dated May 16, 1771; in Boswell's first and second editions, July 16, 1771; in the third edition, July 16, 1775. In May, 1771, Johnson, so far as there is anything to shew, was in London. On July 16, both in 1771 and 1775, he was in Ashbourne. One of Hume's Letters (Private Corres., p. 283), dated April 17, 1775, shews that Mme. de Boufflers was at that time 'speaking of coming to England.'

[1219] Mme. de Boufflers was in England in the summer of 1763. Jesse's Selwyn, i. 235.

[1220] Boscovich, a learned Jesuit, was born at Ragusa in 1711, and died in 1787. He visited London in 1760, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Chalmers's Biog. Dict. See ante, p. 125.

[1221] See ante, p. 288.

[1222] Four years later Johnson thus spoke to Miss Burney of her father:--'"I love Burney; my heart goes out to meet him." "He is not ungrateful, Sir," cried I; "for most heartily does he love you." "Does he, Madam? I am surprised at that." "Why, Sir? Why should you have doubted it?" "Because, Madam, Dr. Burney is a man for all the world to love: it is but natural to love him." I could have almost cried with delight at this cordial, unlaboured A(C)loge.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 196.

[1223] 'Though a sepulchral inscription is professedly a panegyrick, and therefore not confined to historical impartiality, yet it ought always to be written with regard to truth. No man ought to be commended for virtues which he never possessed, but whoever is curious to know his faults must inquire after them in other places.' Johnson's Works, v. 265. See post, April 24, 1779.

[1224] See ante, i. 46.

[1225] See post, iii. 12, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 22.

[1226] Johnson's Dick Wormwood, in The Idler, No. 83, a man 'whose sole delight is to find everything wrong, triumphs when he talks on the present system of education, and tells us with great vehemence that we are learning words when we should learn things.' In the Life of Milton (Works, vii, 75), Johnson writes:--'It is told that in the art of education Milton performed wonders; and a formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read in Aldersgate-street, by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider, that nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of the horse.' He advised Boswell 'not to refine in the education of his children. You must do as other people do.' Post, iii. 169. Yet, in his Life of Barretier (Works, vi. 380), he says:--'The first languages which he learnt were the French, German, and Latin, which he was taught, not in the common way, by a multitude of definitions, rules, and exceptions, which fatigue the attention and burden the memory, without any use proportionate to the time which they require and the disgust which they create. The method by which he was instructed was easy and expeditious, and therefore pleasing. He learnt them all in the same manner, and almost at the same time, by conversing in them indifferently with his father.'

[1227] Miss Aikin, better known as Mrs. Barbauld. Johnson uses Presbyterian where we should use Unitarian. 'The Unitarians of the present day [1843] are the representatives of that branch of the early Nonconformists who received the denomination of Presbyterians; and they are still known by that name.' Penny Cyclo. xxvi. 6.

[1228] Othello, act ii. sc. 1.

[1229] He quotes Barbauld's Lessons for Children (p. 68, ed. of 1878). Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 16), speaking of books for children says:--'Mrs. Barbauld had his best praise; no man was more struck than Mr. Johnson with voluntary descent from possible splendour to painful duty.' Mrs. Piozzi alludes to Johnson's praise of Dr. Watts:--'Every man acquainted with the common principles of human action, will look with veneration on the writer, who is at one time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in their fourth year. A voluntary descent from the dignity of science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach.' Works, viii. 384. He praised Milton also, who, when 'writing Paradise Lost, could condescend from his elevation to rescue children from the perplexity of grammatical confusion, and the trouble of lessons unnecessarily repeated.' Ib vii. 99. Mrs. Barbauld did what Swift said Gay had shown could be done. 'One may write things to a child without being childish.' Swift's Works, xvii. 221. In her Advertisement, she says:--'The task is humble, but not mean; to plant the first idea in a human mind can be no dishonour to any hand.' 'Ethicks, or morality,' wrote Johnson, 'is one of the studies which ought to begin with the first glimpse of reason, and only end with life itself.' Works, v. 243. 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. 155):--'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. 383.

[1237] Mr. Croker says that he was informed by Boswell's grand-daughter, who died in 1836, that it had come to be pronounced Auchinleck. The Rev. James Chrystal, the minister of Auchinleck, in answer to my inquiry, politely informs me that 'the name "Affleck" is still quite common as applied to the parish, and even Auchinleck House is as often called Place Affleck as otherwise.'

[1238] See Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 4.

[1239] Acts of Parliament of Scotland, 1685, cap. 22. BOSWELL. Cockburn (Life of Jeffrey, i. 372) mentions 'the statute (11 and 12 Victoria, chap. 36) which dissolves the iron fetters by which, for about 160 years, nearly three-fourths of the whole land in Scotland was made permanently unsaleable, and unattachable for debt, and every acre in the kingdom might be bound up, throughout all ages, in favour of any heirs, or any conditions, that the caprice of each unfettered owner might be pleased to proscribe.'

[1240] As first, the opinion of some distinguished naturalists, that our species is transmitted through males only, the female being all along no more than a nidus, or nurse, as Mother Earth is to plants of every sort; which notion seems to be confirmed by that text of scripture, 'He was yet in the loins of his FATHER when Melchisedeck met him' (Heb. vii. 10); and consequently, that a man's grandson by a daughter, instead of being his surest descendant as is vulgarly said, has in reality no connection whatever with his blood. And secondly, independent of this theory, (which, if true, should completely exclude heirs general,) that if the preference of a male to a female, without regard to primogeniture, (as a son, though much younger, nay, even a grandson by a son, to a daughter,) be once admitted, as it universally is, it must be equally reasonable and proper in the most remote degree of descent from an original proprietor of an estate, as in the nearest; because,--however distant from the representative at the time,--that remote heir male, upon the failure of those nearer to the original proprietor than he is, becomes in fact the nearest male to him, and is, therefore, preferable as his representative, to a female descendant.--A little extension of mind will enable us easily to perceive that a son's son, in continuation to whatever length of time, is preferable to a son's daughter, in the succession to an ancient inheritance; in which regard should be had to the representation of the original proprietor, and not to that of one of his descendants.

I am aware of Blackstone's admirable demonstration of the reasonableness of the legal succession, upon the principle of there being the greatest probability that the nearest heir of the person who last dies proprietor of an estate, is of the blood of the first purchaser. But supposing a pedigree to be carefully authenticated through all its branches, instead of mere probability there will be a certainty that the nearest heir male, at whatever period, has the same right of blood with the first heir male, namely, the original purchaser's eldest son. Boswell.

[1241] Boswell wrote to Temple on Sept. 2, 1775:--'What a discouraging reflection is it that my father has in his possession a renunciation of my birthright, which I madly granted to him, and which he has not the generosity to restore now that I am doing beyond his utmost hopes, and that he may incommode and disgrace me by some strange settlements, while all this time not a shilling is secured to my wife and children in case of my death!' Letters of Boswell, p. 216.

[1242] The technical term in Roman law for a building in good repair.

[1243] Which term I applied to all the heirs male. Boswell.

[1244] A misprint for 1776.

[1245] I had reminded him of his observation mentioned, ii. 261. BOSWELL.

[1246] The entail framed by my father with various judicious clauses, was settled by him and me, settling the estate upon the heirs male of his grandfather, which I found had been already done by my grandfather, imperfectly, but so as to be defeated only by selling the lands. I was freed by Dr. Johnson from scruples of conscientious obligation, and could, therefore, gratify my father. But my opinion and partiality of male succession, in its full extent, remained unshaken. Yet let me not be thought harsh or unkind to daughters; for my notion is, that they should be treated with great affection and tenderness, and always participate of the prosperity of the family. BOSWELL.

[1247] Temple, in Popular Discontents (Works, iii. 62-64), examines the general dissatisfaction with the judicature of the House of Lords. Till the end of Elizabeth's reign, he states, the peers, who were few in number, were generally possessed of great estates which rendered them less subject to corruption. As one remedy for the evil existing in his time, he suggests that the Crown shall create no Baron, who shall not at the same time entail AL4000 a year upon that honour, whilst it continues in his family; a Viscount, AL5000; an Earl, AL6000; a Marquis, AL7000; and a Duke, AL8000.

[1248] 'A cruel tyranny bathed in the blood of their Emperors upon every succession; a heap of vassals and slaves; no nobles, no gentlemen, no freeman, no inheritance of land, no strip of ancient families, [nullA| stirpes antiquA|].' Spedding Bacon, vii. 22.

[1249] 'Let me warn you very earnestly against scruples,' he wrote on March 5, of this year:--'I am no friend to scruples,' he had said at St. Andrew's. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19. 'On his many, men miserable, but few men good.' Croker's Boswell, p. 844.

[1250] A letter to him on the interesting subject of the family settlement, which I had read. BOSWELL.

[1251] Paoli had given Boswell much the same advice. 'All this,' said Paoli, 'is melancholy. I have also studied metaphysics. I know the arguments for fate and free-will, for the materiality and immateriality of the soul, and even the subtle arguments for and against the existence of matter. Ma lasciamo queste dispute ai oziosi. But let us leave these disputes to the idle. Io tengo sempre fermo un gran pensiero. I hold always firm one great object. I never feel a moment of despondency.' Boswell's Corsica, ed. 1879, p. 193. See post, March 14, 1781.

[1252] Johnson, in his letters to the Thrales during the year 1775, mentions this riding-school eight or nine times. The person recommended was named Carter. Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 72) says 'the profit of the History has been applied to the establishment of a riding-school, that the polite exercises might be taught, I know not with what success, in the University.'

[1253] I suppose the complaint was, that the trustees of the Oxford Press did not allow the London booksellers a sufficient profit upon vending their publications. BOSWELL.

[1254] Cadell published _The False Alarm and The Journey to the Hebrides_. Gibbon described him as 'That honest and liberal bookseller.' Stewart's Life of Robertson, p. 366.

[1255] I am happy in giving this full and clear statement to the publick, to vindicate, by the authority of the greatest authour of his age, that respectable body of men, the Booksellers of London, from vulgar reflections, as if their profits were exorbitant, when, in truth, Dr. Johnson has here allowed them more than they usually demand.

[1256] 'Behind the house was a garden which he took delight in watering; a room on the ground-floor was assigned to Mrs. Williams, and the whole of the two pair of stairs floor was made a repository for his books; one of the rooms thereon being his study. Here, in the intervals of his residence at Streatham, he received the visits of his friends, and to the most intimate of them sometimes gave not inelegant dinners.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 531. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'This is all that I have to tell you, except that I have three bunches of grapes on a vine in my garden: at least this is all that I will now tell of my garden.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 178. This house was burnt down in 1819. Notes and Queries, 1st S., v. 233.

[1257] He said, when in Scotland, that he was Johnson of that Ilk. ROSWELL. See post, April 28, 1778, note.

[1258] See ante, ii. 229.

[1259] See vol. i. p. 375. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to the work of Dr. Cohausen of Coblentz, Hermippus Redivivus. Dr. Campbell translated it (ante, i. 417), under the title of Hermippus Redivivus, or the Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave. Cohausen maintained that life might be prolonged to 115 years by breathing the breath of healthy young women. He founded his theory 'on a Roman inscription--AEsculapio et Sanitati L. Colodius Hermippus qui vixit annos CXV. dies V. puellarum anhelitu.' He maintained that one of the most eligible conditions of life was that of a Confessor of youthful nuns. Lowndes's Bibl. Man. p. 488, and Gent. Mag. xiii. 279. I. D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, ii. 102) describes Campbell's book as a 'curious banter on the hermetic philosophy and the universal medicine; the grave irony is so closely kept up, that it deceived for a length of time the most learned. Campbell assured a friend it was a mere jeu-d'-esprit.' Lord E. Fitzmaurice (Life of Shelburne, iii. 447) says that Ingenhousz, a Dutch physician who lived with Shelburne, combated in one of his works the notion held by certain schoolmasters, that 'it was wholesome to inhale the air which has passed through the lungs of their pupils, closing the windows in order purposely to facilitate that operation.'

[1260] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24.

[1261] The privilege of perpetuating in a family an estate and arms indefeasibly from generation to generation, is enjoyed by none of his Majesty's subjects except in Scotland, where the legal fiction of fine and recovery is unknown. It is a privilege so proud, that I should think it would be proper to have the exercise of it dependent on the royal prerogative. It seems absurd to permit the power of perpetuating their representation, to men, who having had no eminent merit, have truly no name. The King, as the impartial father of his people, would never refuse to grant the privilege to those who deserved it. BOSWELL.

[1262] Boswell wrote to Temple about six weeks later:--'Murphy says he has read thirty pages of Smith's Wealth, but says he shall read no more; Smith, too, is now of our Club. It has lost its select merit.' Letters of Boswell, p. 233. Johnson can scarcely have read Smith; if he did, it made no impression on him. His ignorance on many points as to what constitutes the wealth of a nation remained as deep as ever.

[1263] Mr. Wedderburne. CROKER.

[1264] A similar bill had been thrown out sixteen years earlier by 194 to 84. 'A Bill for a Militia in Scotland was not successful; nor could the disaffected there obtain this mode of having their arms restored. Pitt had acquiesced; but the young Whigs attacked it with all their force.' Walpole's Reign of George II, iii. 280. Lord Mountstuart's bill was thrown out by 112 to 95, the Ministry being in the minority. The arguments for and against it are stated in the Ann. Reg. xix 140. See post, iii. i. Henry Mackenzie (Life of John Home, i. 26) says:--'The Poker Club was instituted at a time when Scotland was refused a militia, and thought herself affronted by the refusal. The name was chosen from a quaint sort of allusion to the principles it was meant to excite, as a club to stir up the fire and spirit of the country.' See ante, p. 376.

[1265] 'Scotland paid only one fortieth to the land-tax, the very specific tax out of which all the expenses of a militia were to be drawn.' Ann. Reg. xix. 141.

[1266] In a new edition of this book, which was published in the following year, the editor states, that either 'through hurry or inattention some obscene jests had unluckily found a place in the first edition.' See post, April 28, 1778.

[1267] See ante, ii. 338, note 2.

[1268] The number of the asterisks, taken with the term worthy friend, renders it almost certain that Langton was meant. The story might, however, have been told of Reynolds, for he wrote of Johnson:--'Truth, whether in great or little matters, he held sacred. From the violation of truth, he said, in great things your character or your interest was affected; in lesser things, your pleasure is equally destroyed. I remember, on his relating some incident, I added something to his relation which I supposed might likewise have happened: "It would have been a better story," says he, "if it had been so; but it was not."' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 457. Mrs. Piozzi records (Anec. p. 116):--'"A story," says Johnson, "is a specimen of human manners, and derives its sole value from its truth, When Foote has told me something, I dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow; when Reynolds tells me something, I consider myself as possessed of an idea the more."'

[1269] Boswell felt this when, more than eight years earlier, he wrote:--'As I have related Paoli's remarkable sayings, I declare upon honour that I have neither added nor diminished; nay, so scrupulous have I been, that I would not make the smallest variation, even when my friends thought it would be an improvement. I know with how much pleasure we read what is perfectly authentick.' Boswell's Corsia, ed. 1879, p. 126. See post, iii. 209.

[1270] In his Life of Browne (Works, vi. 478) he sayd of 'innocent frauds':--'But no fraud is innocent; for the confidence which makes the happiness of society is in some degree diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.' 'Mr. Tyers,' writes Murphy (Life, p. 146), 'observed that Dr. Johnson always talked as if he was talking upon oath.' Compared with Johnson's strictness, Rouseau's laxity is striking. After describing 'ces gens qu'on appelle vrais dans le monde,' he continues;--'L'homme que j'appele vrai fait tout le contraire. En choses parfaitnement indifferentes la vA(C)ritA(C) qu'alors l'autre respecte si fort le touche fort peu, et il ne se fera guA(C)re de scrupule d'amuser une compagnie par des faits controuvA(C), dont il ne rA(C)sulte aucun jugement injuste ni pour ni contre qui que ce soit vivant ou mort.' Les RA(C)veries: IVine Promenade.

[1271] No doubt Mrs. Fermor (ante, p. 392.)

[1272] No. 110.

[1273] No. 52.

[1274] But see ante, ii. 365, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19.

[1275] See ante, ii. 8, and post, April 7, 1778.

[1276] Three weeks later, at his usual fast before Easter, Johnson recorded:--'I felt myself very much disordered by emptiness, and called for tea with peevish and impatient eagerness.' Pr. and Med. p. 147.

[1277] Of the use of spirituous liquors, he wrote (Works, vi. 26):--'The mischiefs arising on every side from this compendious mode of drunkenness are enormous and insupportable, equally to be found among the great and the mean; filling palaces with disquiet and distraction, harder to be borne as it cannot be mentioned, and overwhelming multitudes with incurable diseases and unpitied poverty.' Yet he found an excuse for drunkenness which few men but he could have found. Stockdale (Memoirs, ii. 189) says that he heard Mrs. Williams 'wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves. "I wonder, Madam," replied Johnson, "that you have not penetration enough to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."'

[1278] Very likely Boswell. See post, under May 8, 1781, for a like instance. In 1775, under a yew tree, he promised Temple to be sober. On Aug. 12, 1775, he wrote:--'My promise under the solemn yew I have observed wonderfully, having never infringed it till, the other day, a very jovial company of us dined at a tavern, and I unwarily exceeded my bottle of old Hock; and having once broke over the pale, I run wild, but I did not get drunk. I was, however, intoxicated, and very ill next day.' Letters of Boswell, p. 209. During his present visit to London he wrote:--'My promise under the solemn yew was not religiously kept, because a little wine hurried me on too much. The General [Paoli] has taken my word of honour that I shall not taste fermented liquor for a year, that I may recover sobriety. I have kept this promise now about three weeks. I was really growing a drunkard.' Ib p. 233. In 1778 he was for a short time a water drinker. Post, April 28, 1778. His intemperance grew upon him, and at last carried him off. On Dec. 4, 1790, he wrote to Malone:--'Courtenay took my word and honour that till March 1 my allowance of wine per diem should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a pint after it, and this I have kept, though I have dined with Jack Wilkes, &c. On March 8, 1791, he wrote:--'Your friendly admonition as to excess in wine has been often too applicable. As I am now free from my restriction to Courtenay, I shall be much upon my guard; for, to tell the truth, I did go too deep the day before yesterday.' Croker's Boswell, pp. 828, 829.

[1279] 'Mathematics are perhaps too much studied at our universities. This seems a science to which the meanest intellects are equal. I forget who it is that says, "All men might understand mathematics if they would."' Goldsmith's Present Stale of Polite Learning, ch. 13.

[1280] 'No, Sir,' he once said, 'people are not born with a particular genius for particular employments or studies, for it would be like saying that a man could see a great way east, but could not west. It is good sense applied with diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great application grew to be called by the generality of mankind a particular genius.' Miss Reynolds's Recollections. Croker's Boswell, p. 833:--'Perhaps this is Miss Reynolds's recollection of the following, in Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15, 1773':--JOHNSON. 'I could as easily apply to law as to tragick poetry.' BOSWELL. 'Yet, Sir, you did apply to tragick poetry, not to law.' JOHNSON. 'Because, Sir, I had not money to study law. Sir, the man who has vigour may walk to the east just as well as to the west, if he happens to turn his head that way.' 'The true genius,' he wrote (Works, vii. 1), 'is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.' Reynolds held the same doctrine, having got it no doubt from Johnson. He held 'that the superiority attainable in any pursuit whatever does not originate in an innate propensity of the mind to that pursuit in particular, but depends on the general strength of the intellect, and on the intense and constant application of that strength to a specific purpose. He regarded ambition as the cause of eminence, but accident as pointing out the means.' Northcote's Reynolds, i. II. 'Porson insisted that all men are born with abilities nearly equal. "Any one," he would say, "might become quite as good a critic as I am, if he would only take the trouble to make himself so. I have made myself what I am by intense labour."' Rogers's Table Talk, p. 305. Hume maintained the opposite. 'This forenoon,' wrote Boswell on June 19, 1775, 'Mr. Hume came in. He did not say much. I only remember his remark, that characters depend more on original formation than on the way we are educated; "for," said he, "princes are educated uniformly, and yet how different are they! how different was James the Second from Charles the Second!"' Letters of Boswell, p. 205. Boswell recorded, two years earlier (Hebrides, Sept. 16):--'Dr. Johnson denied that any child was better than another, but by difference of instruction; though, in consequence of greater attention being paid to instruction by one child than another, and of a variety of imperceptible causes, such as instruction being counteracted by servants, a notion was conceived that, of two children equally well educated, one was naturally much worse than another.'

[1281] See ante, i. 348.

[1282] The grossness of naval men is shewn in Captain Mirvan, in Miss Burney's Evelina. In her Diary, i. 358, she records:--'The more I see of sea-captains the less reason I have to be ashamed of Captain Mirvan, for they have all so irresistible a propensity to wanton mischief--to roasting beaus and detesting old women, that I quite rejoice I shewed the book to no one ere printed, lest I should have been prevailed upon to soften his character.'

[1283] Baretti, in a MS. note in Piozzi Letters, i. 349, describes Gwyn as 'the Welsh architect that built the bridge at Oxford.' He built Magdalen Bridge.

[1284] 'Whence,' asks Goldsmith, 'has proceeded the vain magnificence of expensive architecture in our colleges? Is it that men study to more advantage in a palace than in a cell? One single performance of taste or genius confers more real honour on its parent university than all the labours of the chisel.' Present State of Polite Learning, ch. 13. Newton used to say of his friend, the Earl of Pembroke, 'that he was a lover of stone dolls.' Brewster's Newton, ed. 1860, ii. 334.

[1285] Afterwards Lord Stowell. See the beginning of Boswell's Hebrides.

[1286] See ante, i. 446.

[1287] See ante, ii. 121, and post, Oct. 27, 1779.

[1288] See ante, p. 424.

[1289] See post, under April 4, 1781.

[1290] See ante, p. 315.

[1291] See ante, i. 398.

[1292] 'Hume told Cadell, the bookseller, that he had a great desire to be introduced to as many of the persons who had written against him as could be collected. Accordingly, Dr. Douglas, Dr. Adams, &c., were invited by Cadell to dine at his house, in order to meet Hume. They came; and Dr. Price, who was of the party, assured me that they were all delighted with David.' Rogers's Table Talk, p. 106.

[1293] Boswell, in his Corsica, ed. 1879, p. 204, uses a strange argument against infidelity. 'Belief is favourable to the human mind were it for nothing else but to furnish it entertainment. An infidel, I should think, must frequently suffer from ennui.' In his Hebrides, Aug. 15, note, he attacks Adam Smith for being 'so forgetful of human comfort as to give any countenance to that dreary infidelity which would "make us poor indeed."'

[1294] 'JEMMY TWITCHER. Are we more dishonest than the rest of mankind? What we win, gentlemen, is our own, by the law of arms and the right of conquest. CROOK-FINGER'D JACK. Where shall we find such another set of practical philosophers, who to a man are above the fear of death?' The Beggar's Opera, act ii. sc. i.

[1295] Boswell, I think, here aims a blow at Gibbon. He says (post, under March 19, 1781), that 'Johnson had talked with some disgust of Mr. Gibbon's ugliness.' He wrote to Temple on May 8, 1779:--'Gibbon is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our literary club to me.' He had before classed him among 'infidel wasps and venomous insects.' Letters of Boswell, pp. 233, 242. The younger Coleman describes Gibbon as dressed 'in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword.' Random Records, i. 121.

[1296] 'Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tamquam faciem honesti vides, "quae si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores" ut ait Plato, "excitaret sapientiae."' Cicero, De Off. i. 5.

[1297] Of Beattie's attack on Hume, he said:--'Treating your adversary with respect, is striking soft in a battle.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15.

[1298] When Gibbon entered Magdalen College in 1752, the ordinary commoners were already excluded. 'As a gentleman commoner,' he writes, 'I was admitted to the society of the fellows, and fondly expected that some questions of literature would be the amusing and instructive topics of their discourse. Their conversation stagnated in a round of college business, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private scandal; their dull and deep potations excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their constitutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 53. In Jesse's edition of White's Selborne, p. ii, it is stated that 'White, as long as his health allowed him, always attended the annual election of Fellows at Oriel College, where the gentlemen-commoners were allowed the use of the common-room after dinner. This liberty they seldom availed themselves of, except on the occasion of Mr. White's visits; for such was his happy manner of telling a story that the room was always filled when he was there.' He died in 1793.

[1299] 'So different are the colours of life as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past, and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.... One generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other; and the notions of the old and young are like liquors of different gravity and texture which never can unite.' The Rambler, No. 69.

[1300] 'It was said of a dispute between two mathematicians, "malim cum Scaligero errare quam cum Clavio recte sapere" that "it was more eligible to go wrong with one than right with the other." A tendency of the same kind every mind must feel at the perusal of Dryden's prefaces and Rymer's discourses.' Johnson's Works, vii. 303.

[1301] 'There is evidence of Phil. Jones's love of beer; for we find scribbled at the end of the college buttery-books, "O yes, O yes, come forth, Phil. Jones, and answer to your charge for exceeding the batells." His excess, perhaps, was in liquor.' Dr. Johnson: His Friends, &c., p. 23.

[1302] See post, iii. 1.

[1303] Dr. Fisher, who was present, told Mr. Croker that 'he recollected one passage of the conversation. Boswell quoted Quern Deus vult perdere, prius dementat, and asked where it was. A pause. At last Dr. Chandler said, in Horace. Another pause. Then Fisher remarked that he knew of no metre in Horace to which the words could be reduced: and Johnson said dictatorially, "The young man is right."' See post, March 30, 1783. For another of Dr. Fisher's anecdotes, see ante, p. 269. Mark Pattison recorded in his Diary in 1843 (Memoirs, p. 203), on the authority of Mr. (now Cardinal) Newman:--'About 1770, the worst time in the University; a head of Oriel then, who was continually obliged to be assisted to bed by his butler. Gaudies, a scene of wild license. At Christ Church they dined at three, and sat regularly till chapel at nine.' A gaudy is such a festival as the one in the text.

[1304] The author of the Commentary on the Psalms. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15, note.

[1305] See ante, pp. 279, 283.

[1306] 'I have seen,' said Mr. Donne to Sir R. Drewry, 'a dreadful vision since I saw you. I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me, through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms.' He learnt that on the same day, and about the very hour, after a long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered of a dead child. Walton's Life of Dr. Donne, ed. 1838, p. 25.

[1307] 'Biographers so little regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral.' The Rambler, No. 60. See post, iii. 71.

[1308] See post, iii. 112.

[1309] It has been mentioned to me by an accurate English friend, that Dr. Johnson could never have used the phrase almost nothing, as not being English; and therefore I have put another in its place. At the same time, I am not quite convinced it is not good English. For the best writers use the phrase 'Little or nothing;' i.e. almost so little as to be nothing. BOSWELL. Boswell might have left almost nothing in his text. Johnson used it in his writings, certainly twice. 'It will add almost nothing to the expense.' Works, v. 307. 'I have read little, almost nothing.' Pr. and Med. p. 176. Moreover, in a letter to Mrs. Aston, written on Nov. 5, 1779 (Croker's Boswell, p. 640), he says:--'Nothing almost is purchased.' In King Lear, act ii. sc. 2, we have:--

'Nothing almost sees miracles But misery.'

[1310] 'Pope's fortune did not suffer his charity to be splendid and conspicuous; but he assisted Dodsley with a hundred pounds, that he might open a shop.' Johnson's Works, viii. 318.

[1311] A Muse in Livery: or the Footman's Miscellany. 1732. A rhyme in the motto on the title-page shows what a Cockney muse Dodsley's was. He writes:--

'But when I mount behind the coach, And bear aloft a flaming torch.'

The Preface is written with much good feeling.

[1312] James Dodsley, many years a bookseller in Pall Mall. He died Feb. 19, 1797. P. CUNNINGHAM. He was living, therefore, when this anecdote was published.

[1313] Horace Walpole (Letters, iii. 135) says:--'You know how decent, humble, inoffensive a creature Dodsley is; how little apt to forget or disguise his having been a footman.' Johnson seems to refer to Dodsley in the following passage, written in 1756 (Works, v. 358):--'The last century imagined that a man composing in his chariot was a new object of curiosity; but how much would the wonder have been increased by a footman studying behind it.'

[1314] See ante, i. 417.

[1315] Yet surely it is a very useful work, and of wonderful research and labour for one man to have executed. BOSWELL. See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 17, 1773.

[1316] Two days earlier, Hume congratulated Gibbon on the first volume of his Decline and Fall:--'I own that if I had not previously had the happiness of your personal acquaintance, such a performance from an Englishman in our age would have given me some surprise. You may smile at this sentiment, but as it seems to me that your countrymen, for almost a whole generation, have given themselves up to barbarous and absurd faction, and have totally neglected all polite letters, I no longer expected any valuable production ever to come from them.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 484.

[1317] Five weeks later Boswell used a different metaphor. 'I think it is right that as fast as infidel wasps or venomous insects, whether creeping or flying, are hatched, they should be crushed.' Letters of Boswell, p. 232. If the infidels were wasps to the orthodox, the orthodox were hornets to the infidels. Gibbon wrote (Misc. Works, i. 273):--'The freedom of my writings has indeed provoked an implacable tribe; but as I was safe from the stings, I was soon accustomed to the buzzing of the hornets.'

[1318] Macaulay thus examines this report (Essays, i. 360):--'To what then, it has been asked, could Johnson allude? Possibly to some anecdote or some conversation of which all trace is lost. One conjecture may be offered, though with diffidence. Gibbon tells us in his memoirs [Misc. Works, i. 56] that at Oxford he took a fancy for studying Arabic, and was prevented from doing so by the remonstrances of his tutor. Soon after this, the young man fell in with Bossuet's controversial writings, and was speedily converted by them to the Roman Catholic faith. The apostasy of a gentleman-commoner would of course be for a time the chief subject of conversation in the common room of Magdalene. His whim about Arabic learning would naturally be mentioned, and would give occasion to some jokes about the probability of his turning Mussulman. If such jokes were made, Johnson, who frequently visited Oxford, was very likely to hear of them.' Though Gibbon's Autobiography ends with the year 1788, yet he wrote portions of it, I believe, after the publication of the Life of Johnson. (See ante, ii. 8, note 1.) I have little doubt that in the following lines he refers to the attack thus made on him by Boswell and Johnson. 'Many years afterwards, when the name of Gibbon was become as notorious as that of Middleton, it was industriously whispered at Oxford that the historian had formerly "turned Papist;" my character stood exposed to the reproach of inconstancy.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 65.

[1319] Steele, in his Apology for Himself and his Writings (ed. 1714, p. 80), says of himself:--'He first became an author when an ensign of the Guards, a way of life exposed to much irregularity, and being thoroughly convinced of many things of which he often repented, and which he more often repeated, he writ, for his own private use, a little book called the Christian Hero, with a design principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasures. This secret admonition was too weak; he therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world, that is to say of his acquaintance, upon him in a new light, might curb his desires, and make him ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so quite contrary a life.'

[1320] 'A man,' no doubt, is Boswell himself.

[1321] '"I was sure when I read it that the preface to Baretti's Dialogues was Dr. Johnson's; and that I made him confess." "Baretti's Dialogues! What are they about?" "A thimble, and a spoon, and a knife, and a fork! They are the most absurd, and yet the most laughable things you ever saw. They were written for Miss Thrale, and all the dialogues are between her and him, except now and then a shovel and a poker, or a goose and a chair happen to step in."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 263.

[1322] 'April 4, 1760. At present nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance; it is a kind of novel called The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy; the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards.' Walpole's Letters, iii. 298. 'March 7, 1761. The second and third volumes of Tristram Shandy, the dregs of nonsense, have universally met the contempt they deserve.' Ib 382. '"My good friend," said Dr. Farmer (ante, i. 368), one day in the parlour at Emanuel College, "you young men seem very fond of this Tristram Shandy; but mark my words, however much it may be talked about at present, yet, depend upon it, in the course of twenty years, should any one wish to refer to it, he will be obliged to go to an antiquary to inquire for it."' Croker's Boswell, ed. 1844, ii. 339. See ante, ii. 173, note 2, and 222.

[1323] Mrs. Rudd. She and the two brothers Perreau were charged with forgery. She was tried first and acquitted, the verdict of the jury being 'not guilty, according to the evidence before us.' The Ann. Reg. xviii. 231, adds:--'There were the loudest applauses on this acquittal almost ever known in a court of justice.' 'The issue of Mrs. Rudd's trial was thought to involve the fate of the Perreaus; and the popular fancy had taken the part of the woman as against the men.' They were convicted and hanged, protesting their innocence. Letters of Boswell, pp. 223-230. Boswell wrote to Temple on April 28:--'You know my curiosity and love of adventure; I have got acquainted with the celebrated Mrs. Rudd.' Ib P. 233--Three days later, he wrote:-- 'Perhaps the adventure with Mrs. Rudd is very foolish, notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's approbation.' Ib p. 235. See post, iii. 79, and April 28, 1778.

[1324] See post, May 15, 1784, where Johnson says that Mrs. Montagu has 'a constant stream of conversation,' and a second time allows that 'Burke is an extraordinary man.' Johnson writes of 'a stream of melody.' Works, viii. 92. For Burke's conversation see post, April 7, 1778, 1780 in Mr. Langton's Collection, March 21, 1783, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 15.

[1325] See ante, ii. 16.

[1326] According to Boswell's record in Boswelliana, p. 273, two sayings are here united. He there writes, on the authority of Mr. Langton:--'Dr. Johnson had a very high opinion of Edmund Burke. He said, "That fellow calls forth all my powers"; and once when he was out of spirits and rather dejected he said, "Were I to see Burke now 'twould kill me."'

[1327] See ante, ii. 100, iii. 24, and under May 8, 1781.

[1328] In a note on the Dunciad, ii. 50, the author of this epigram is said to be Dr. Evans.

[1329] Capability Brown, as he was called. See post, Oct. 30, 1779.

[1330] Such an 'impudent dog' had Boswell himself been in Corsica. 'Before I was accustomed to the Corsican hospitality,' he wrote. 'I sometimes forgot myself, and imagining I was in a publick house, called for what I wanted, with the tone which one uses in calling to the waiters at a tavern. I did so at Pino, asking for a variety of things at once, when Signora Tomasi perceiving my mistake, looked in my face and smiled, saying with much calmness and good nature, "una cosa dopo un altra, Signore. One thing after another, Sir."' Boswell's Corsica, ed. 1879, p. 151. A Corsican gentleman, who knows the Tomasi family, told me that this reply is preserved among them by tradition.

[1331] Sir John Hawkins has preserved very few Memorabilia of Johnson. There is, however, to be found, in his bulky tome [p. 87], a very excellent one upon this subject:--'In contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children, prefer domestick enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him assert, that a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity.--"As soon," said he, "as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude: when I am seated, I find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I find delight."' BOSWELL.

[1332] We happened to lie this night at the inn at Henley, where Shenstone wrote these lines. BOSWELL. I give them as they are found in the corrected edition of his Works, published after his death. In Dodsley's collection the stanza ran thus:--

'Whoe'er has travell'd life's dull round, Whate'er his various tour has been, May sigh to think how oft he found His warmest welcome at an Inn.' BOSWELL.

[1333] See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 29.

[1334] See Shenstone's Works, iii. 311. Rev. Richard Graves, author of The Spiritual Quixote. He and Shenstone were fellow-students at Pembroke College, Oxford.

[1335] 'He too often makes use of the abstract for the concrete.' SHENSTONE. BOSWELL.

[1336] 'I asked him why he doated on a coach so, and received for answer, that in the first place the company was shut in with him there, and could not escape as out of a room; in the next place he heard all that was said in a carriage, where it was my turn to be deaf.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 276. See post, iii, 5, 162. Gibbon, at the end of a journey in a post-chaise, wrote (Misc. Works, i. 408):--'I am always so much delighted and improved with this union of easeand motion, that, were not the expense enormous, I would travel every year some hundred miles, more especially in England.'

[1337] Johnson (Works, viii. 406) tells the following 'ludicrous story' of The Fleece. 'Dodsley the bookseller was one day mentioning it to a critical visitor with more expectation of success than the other could easily admit. In the conversation the author's age was asked; and, being represented as advanced in life, "He will," said the critic, "be buried in woollen."' To encourage the trade in wool, an Act was passed requiring the dead to be buried in woollen, Burke refers to this when he says of Lord Chatham, who was swathed in flannel owing to the gout:-- 'Like a true obeyer of the laws, he will be buried in woollen.' Burke's Corres, ii. 201. Hawkins (Life, p. 231) says:--'A portrait of Samuel Dyer [see post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection] was painted by Sir Joshua, and from it a mezzotinto was scraped; the print whereof, as he was little known, sold only to his friends. A singular use was made of it; Bell, the publisher of The English Poets, caused an engraving to be made from it, and prefixed it to the poems of Mr. John Dyer.'

[1338] Such is this little laughable incident, which has been often related. Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, who was an intimate friend of Dr. Grainger, and has a particular regard for his memory, has communicated to me the following explanation:--

'The passage in question was originally not liable to such a perversion; for the authour having occasion in that part of his work to mention the havock made by rats and mice, had introduced the subject in a kind of mock heroick, and a parody of Homer's battle of the frogs and mice, invoking the Muse of the old Grecian bard in an elegant and well-turned manner. In that state I had seen it; but afterwards, unknown to me and other friends, he had been persuaded, contrary to his own better judgement, to alter it, so as to produce the unlucky effect above-mentioned.'

The above was written by the Bishop when he had not the Poem itself to recur to; and though the account given was true of it at one period, yet as Dr. Grainger afterwards altered the passage in question, the remarks in the text do not now apply to the printed poem.

The Bishop gives this character of Dr. Grainger:--'He was not only a man of genius and learning, but had many excellent virtues; being one of the most generous, friendly, and benevolent men I ever knew.' BOSWELL.

[1339] Dr. Johnson said to me, 'Percy, Sir, was angry with me for laughing at The Sugar-cane: for he had a mind to make a great thing of Grainger's rats.' BOSWELL. Johnson helped Percy in writing a review of this poem in 1764 (ante, i. 481).

[1340] In Poems by Christopher Smart, ed. 1752, p. 100. One line may serve as a sample of the whole poem, Writing of 'Bacchus, God of hops,' the poet says:--

''Tis he shall gen'rate the buxom beer.'

[1341] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 22.

[1342] Henley in Arden, thirteen miles from Birmingham.

[1343] Mr. Hector's house was in the Square--now known as the Old Square. It afterwards formed a part of the Stork Hotel, but it was pulled down when Corporation Street was made. A marble tablet had been placed on the house at the suggestion of the late Mr. George Dawson, marking the spot where 'Edmund Hector was the host, Samuel Johnson the guest.' This tablet, together with the wainscoting, the door, and the mantelpiece of one of the rooms, was set up in Aston Hall, at the Johnson Centenary, in a room that is to be known as Dr. Johnson's Room.

[1344] My worthy friend Mr. Langton, to whom I am under innumerable obligations in the course of my Johnsonian History, has furnished me with a droll illustration about this question. An honest carpenter, after giving some anecdote in his presence of the ill-treatment which he had received from a clergyman's wife, who was a noted termagant, and whom he accused of unjust dealing in some transaction with him, added, 'I took care to let her know what I thought of her.' And being asked, 'What did you say?' answered, 'I told her she was a scoundrel.' BOSWELL.

[1345] 'As to the baptism of infants, it is a mere human tradition, for which neither precept nor practice is to be found in all the Scripture.' Barclay's Apology, Proposition xii, ed. 1703, p. 409.

[1346] John iii. 30. BOSWELL.

[1347] Mr. Seward (Anec. ii. 223) says that 'Dr. Johnson always supposed that Mr. Richardson had Mr. Nelson in his thoughts when he delineated the character of Sir Charles Grandison.' Robert Nelson was born in 1656, and died in 1715.

[1348] 'Mr. Arkwright pronounced Johnson to be the only person who on a first view understood both the principle and powers of machinery.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 215. Arthur Young, who visited Birmingham in 1768, writes:--'I was nowhere more disappointed than at Birmingham, where I could not gain any intelligence even of the most common nature, through the excessive jealousy of the manufacturers. It seems the French have carried off several of their fabricks, and thereby injured the town not a little. This makes them so cautious that they will show strangers scarce anything.' Tour through the North of England, iii. 279.

[1349] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale (year not given):--'I have passed one day at Birmingham with my old friend Hector--there's a name--and his sister, an old love. My mistress is grown much older than my friend,

---"O quid habes illius, illius Quae spirabat amores Quae me surpuerat mihi."'

'Of her, of her what now remains, Who breathed the loves, who charmed the swains, And snatched me from my heart?'

FRANCIS, Horace, Odes, iv. 13. 18. Piozzi Letters, i. 290.

[1350] Some years later he wrote:--'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me when I had tea enough.' Ib. ii. 205.

[1351] See ante, ii. 362, note 3.

[1352] Johnson, in a letter to Hector, on March 7 of this year, described Congreve as 'very dull, very valetudinary, and very recluse, willing, I am afraid, to forget the world, and content to be forgotten by it, to repose in that sullen sensuality into which men naturally sink who think disease a justification of indulgence, and converse only with those who hope to prosper by indulging them ... Infirmity will come, but let us not invite it; indulgence will allure us, but let us turn resolutely away. Time cannot always be defeated, but let us not yield till we are conquered.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., iii. 401.

[1353] In the same letter he said:--'I hope dear Mrs. Careless is well, and now and then does not disdain to mention my name. It is happy when a brother and sister live to pass their time at our age together. I have nobody to whom I can talk of my first years--when I do to Lichfield, I see the old places but find nobody that enjoyed them with me.'

[1354] I went through the house where my illustrious friend was born, with a reverence with which it doubtless will long be visited. An engraved view of it, with the adjacent buildings, is in The Gent. Mag. for Feb. 1875. BOSWELL.

[1355] The scene of Farquhar's Beaux Stratagem is laid in Lichfield. The passage in which the ale is praised begins as follows:--

'Aimwell. I have heard your town of Lichfield much famed for ale; I think I'll taste that.

'Boniface, Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; 'tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen year old the fifth day of next March, old style.' Act i. sc. i. See post, April 20, 1781.

[1356] Though his letters to her are very affectionate, yet what he wrote of her to Mrs. Thrale shews that her love for him was not strong. Thus he writes:--'July 20, 1767. Miss Lucy is more kind and civil than I expected.' Piozzi Letters, i. 4. 'July 17, 1771. Lucy is a philosopher, and considers me as one of the external and accidental things that are to be taken and left without emotion. If I could learn of Lucy, would it be better? Will you teach me?' Ib p. 46. 'Aug. 1, 1775. This was to have been my last letter from this place, but Lucy says I must not go this week. Fits of tenderness with Mrs. Lucy are not common, but she seems now to have a little paroxysm, and I was not willing to counteract it.' Ib p. 293. 'Oct. 27, 1781. Poor Lucy's illness has left her very deaf, and I think, very inarticulate ... But she seems to like me better than she did.' Ib ii. 208. 'Oct. 31, 1781. Poor Lucy's health is very much broken ... Her mental powers are not impaired, and her social virtues seem to increase. She never was so civil to me before.' Ib p. 211. On his mother's death he had written to her:--'Every heart must lean to somebody, and I have nobody but you.' Ante i. 515.

[1357] See ante, p. 311.

[1358] See post, iii. 131.

[1359] Boswell varies Johnson's definition, which was 'a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' ante, i. 294, note 8.

[1360] '"I remember," said Dr. Johnson, "when all the decent people in Lichfield got drunk every night."' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19. See post, iii. 77.

[1361] He had to allow that in literature they were behind the age. Nearly four years after the publication of Evelina, he wrote:--'Whatever Burney [by Burney he meant Miss Burney] may think of the celerity of fame, the name of Evelina had never been heard at Lichfield till I brought it. I am afraid my dear townsmen will be mentioned in future days as the last part of this nation that was civilised. But the days of darkness are soon to be at an end; the reading society ordered it to be procured this week.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 221.

[1362] See ante, ii. 159.

[1363] Garrick himself, like the Lichfieldians, always said--shupreme, shuperior. BURNEY.

[1364] Johnson did not always speak so disrespectfully of Birmingham. In his Taxation no Tyranny (Works, vi. 228), he wrote:--'The traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of narrow selfishness by a manly recommendation to Parliament of the rights and dignity of their native country.' The boobies in this case were sound Tories.

[1365] This play was Gibber's Hob; or The Country Wake, with additions, which in its turn was Dogget's Country Wake reduced. Reed's Biog. Dram. ii. 307.

[1366] Boswell says, post, under Sept. 30, 1783, that 'Johnson had thought more upon the subject of acting than might be generally supposed.'

[1367] A nice observer of the female form. CROKER. Terence, Eun. iii. 5.

[1368] In Farquhar's Comedy of Sir Harry Wildair.

[1369] Gilbert Walmesley, ante, i. 81

[1370] See ante, i. 83.

[1371] Cradock (Memoirs i. 74) says that in the Cathedral porch, a gentleman, 'who might, perhaps, be too ambitious to be thought an acquaintance of the great Literary Oracle, ventured to say, "Dr. Johnson, we have had a most excellent discourse to day," to which he replied, "That may be, Sir, but it is impossible for you to know it."'

[1372] The Tempest, act iv., sc. 1.

[1373] See post, iii. 151.

[1374] Johnson, in 1763, advising Miss Porter to rent a house, said:--'You might have the Palace for twenty pounds.' Croker's Boswell, p. 145.

[1375] Boswell, after his book was published, quarrelled with Miss Seward. He said that he was forced to examine these communications 'with much caution. They were tinctured with a strong prejudice against Johnson.' His book, he continued, was meant to be 'a real history and not a novel,' so that he had 'to suppress all erroneous particulars, however entertaining.' He accused her of attacking Johnson with malevolence. Gent. Mag. 1793, p. 1009. For Boswell's second meeting with her, see post, iii. 284.

[1376] A Signor Recupero had noticed on Etna, the thickness of each stratum of earth between the several strata of lava. 'He tells me,' wrote Brydone, 'he is exceedingly embarrassed by these discoveries in writing the history of the mountain. That Moses hangs like a dead weight upon him, and blunts all his zeal for inquiry; for that really he has not the conscience to make his mountain so young as that prophet makes the world. The bishop, who is strenuously orthodox--for it is an excellent see--has already warned him to be upon his guard, and not to pretend to be a better natural historian than Moses.' Brydone's Tour, i. 141.

[1377] He wrote:--'Mr. Boswell is with me, but I will take care that he shall hinder no business, nor shall he know more than you would have him.' Mr. Morison's Collection of Autographs, vol. ii.

[1378] 'March 23, 1776. Master Thrale, son of Mr. Thrale, member for the Borough, suddenly before his father's door.' Gent. Mag. 1776, p. 142.

[1379] See post, iii. 95.

[1380] 'Sir,' he said, 'I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk' (post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection). He had written of the boy the previous summer:--'Pray give my service to my dear friend Harry, and tell him that Mr. Murphy does not love him better than I do.' Piozzi Letters, i. 262.

[1381] See an accurate and animated statement of Mr. Gastrel's barbarity, by Mr. Malone, in a note on Some account of the Life of William Shakspeare, prefixed to his admirable edition of that poet's works, vol. i. p. 118. BOSWELL.

[1382] See Prior's Life of Malone, p. 142.

[1383] Piozzi Letters, i. 307.

[1384] See post, iii. 18, note 1.

[1385] Mr. Hoole wrote of Johnson's last days:--'Being asked unnecessary and frivolous questions, he said he often thought of Macbeth [act iii. sc. 4]--"Question enrages him."' Croker's Boswell, p. 843. See post, iii. 57, 268.

[1386] Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and in 1782 created Baron Grantley. MALONE. For Norton's ignorance, see ante, ii. 91. Walpole (Letters, iv. 124) described him as 'a tough enemy; I don't mean in parts or argument, but one that makes an excellent bull-dog.' When in 1770 he was made Speaker, Walpole wrote:--'Nothing can exceed the badness of his character, even in this bad age.' Ib v. 217. In his Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 240, Walpole says:--'It was known that in private causes he took money from both parties.' Horne (afterwards Horne Tooke) charged Norton with this practice; Parl. Hist. xvii. 1010; and so did Junius in his Letter xxxix. Churchill, in The Duellist (Poems, ed. 1766, ii. 87), writing of him, says:--

'How often... Hath he ta'en briefs on false pretence, and undertaken the defence of trusting fools, whom in the end He meant to ruin, not defend.'

Lord Eldon said that 'he was much known by the name of Sir Bull-face Double Fee.' He added that 'he was not a lawyer.' Twiss's Eldon, iii. 98. 'Acting, it was supposed from resentment, having been refused a peerage,' he made on May 7, 1777, a bold speech to the King on presenting the Civil List Bill. 'He told him that his faithful Commons, labouring under burthens almost too heavy to be borne, had granted him a very great additional revenue--great beyond example, great beyond his Majesty's highest wants.' Parl. Hist. xix. 213, and Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 113.

[1387] Burns's Holy Willie, like Boswell, was an Ayrshire man.

[1388] Johnson, on May 16, wrote of him to Mrs. Thrale:--'He has his head as full as yours at an election. Livings and preferments, as if he were in want with twenty children, run in his head. But a man must have his head on something, small or great.' Piozzi Letters, i. 325.

[1389] Johnson wrote on May 25, 1780 (Piozzi Letters, ii. 136):'---- is come to town, brisk and vigorous, fierce and fell, to drive on his lawsuit. Nothing in all life now can be more profligater than what he is; and if, in case, that so be, that they persist for to resist him, he is resolved not to spare no money, nor no time.' Taylor, no doubt, is meant, and Baretti, in a marginal note, says:--'This was the elegant phraseology of that Doctor.' See post, iii. 180.

[1390] See ante, p. 460.

[1391] He did not hold with Steele, who in The Spectator, No. 153, writes:--'It was prettily said, "He that would be long an old man must begin early to be one."' Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 275) says that 'saying of the old philosopher, that he who wants least is most like the gods who want nothing, was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.'

[1392] Dr. Butter, of Derby, is mentioned post, iii. 163, and under May 8, 1781.

[1393] Andrew Stuart's Letters to Lord Mansfield (ante, ii. 229).

[1394] Johnson was thinking of Charles's meeting with the King of Poland. 'Charles XII. A(C)tait en grosses bottes, ayant pour cravate un taffetas noir qui lui serrait le cou; son habit A(C)tait, comme A l'ordinaire, d'un gros drap bleu, avec des boutons de cuivre dorA(C).' Voltaire's Works, ed. 1819, xx. 123.

THE END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us