[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, n en Normandie en 1655. Historien agrable et lgant. Mort en 1735.' Voltaire, Sicle 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 6000.' 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 les croire, il [le Souverain] peut bannir de l'Etat quiconque ne les croit pas: ... Que si quelquiun, aprs avoir reconne publiquement ces mmes 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 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 checs. Quand je lus le trait d'un Duc de Savoye qui se retourna, faisant route, pour crier; votre gorge, marchand de Paris, je dis, me voil.' 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, neids, 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. l39):—'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] Fabul 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 200 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 200,000. 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 79, though he had paid him 110 in 1773. In this payment was included 35 for his nephew's clothes. We find such entries in his own bills as—'To Tyrian bloom satin grain and, garter blue silk beeches 8 2s. 7d. To Queen's-blue dress suit 11 17s. 0d. To your blue velvet suit 21 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 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. ll5):—'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 50, 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. 2 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 600 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 800 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 400. 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.'