[476] 'I never retired to rest without feeling the justness of the Spanish proverb, "Let him who sleeps too much borrow the pillow of a debtor."' Johnson's Works, iv. 14.

[477] See ante, i. 441.

[478] Which I celebrated in the Church of England chapel at Edinburgh, founded by Lord Chief Baron Smith, of respectable and pious memory. BOSWELL.

[479] See ante, p. 80.

[480] The Reverend Mr. Temple, Vicar of St. Gluvias, Cornwall. BOSWELL. See ante, i. 436, and ii. 316.

[481] 'He had settled on his eldest son,' says Dr. Rogers (Boswelliana, p. 129), 'the ancestral estate, with an unencumbered rental of Ll,600 a year.' That the rental, whatever it was, was not unencumbered is shewn by the passage from Johnson's letter, post, p. 155, note 4. Boswell wrote to Malone in 1791 (Croker's Boswell, p. 828):—'The clear money on which I can reckon out of my estate is scarcely L900 a year.'

[482] Cowley's Ode to Liberty, Stanza vi.

[483] 'I do beseech all the succeeding heirs of entail,' wrote Boswell in his will, 'to be kind to the tenants, and not to turn out old possessors to get a little more rent.' Rogers's _Boswelliana, p. 186.

[484] Macleod, the Laird of Rasay. See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 8.

[485] A farm in the Isle of Skye, where Johnson wrote his Latin Ode to Mrs. Thrale. Ib. Sept. 6.

[486] Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 4:—'Boswel's (sic) father is dead, and Boswel wrote me word that he would come to London for my advice. [The] advice which I sent him is to stay at home, and [busy] himself with his own affairs. He has a good es[tate], considerably burthened by settlements, and he is himself in debt. But if his wife lives, I think he will be prudent.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 462.

[487] Miss Burney wrote in the first week in December:—'Dr. Johnson was in most excellent good humour and spirits.' She describes later on a brilliant party which he attended at Miss Monckton's on the 8th, where the people were 'superbly dressed,' and where he was 'environed with listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 186, and 190. See ante, p. 108, note 4.

[488] See ante,, iii. 337, where Johnson got 'heated' when Boswell maintained this.

[489] See ante, in. 395.

[490] The greatest part of the copy, or manuscript of The Lives of the Poets had been given by Johnson to Boswell (ante, iv. 36).

[491] Of her twelve children but these three were living. She was forty-one years old.

[492] 'The family,' writes Dr. Burney, 'lived in the library, which used to be the parlour. There they breakfasted. Over the bookcases were hung Sir Joshua's portraits of Mr. Thrale's friends—Baretti, Burke, Burney, Chambers, Garrick, Goldsmith, Johnson, Murphy, Reynolds, Lord Sandys, Lord Westcote, and in the same picture Mrs. Thrale and her eldest daughter.' Mr. Thrale's portrait was also there. Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii. 80, and Prior's Malone, p. 259.

[493] Pr. and Med. p. 214. BOSWELL.

[494] Boswell omits a line that follows this prayer:—'O Lord, so far as, &c.,—Thrale.' This means, I think, 'so far as it might be lawful, I prayed for Thrale.' The following day Johnson entered:—'I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and used the foregoing prayer with my morning devotions, somewhat, I think, enlarged. Being earlier than the family, I read St. Paul's farewell in the Acts [xx. 17-end], and then read fortuitously in the gospels, which was my parting use of the library.'

[495] Johnson, no doubt, was leaving Streatham because Mrs. Thrale was leaving it. 'Streatham,' wrote Miss Burney, on Aug. 12 of this year, 'my other home, and the place where I have long thought my residence dependent only on my own pleasure, is already let for three years to Lord Shelburne.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii.151. Johnson was not yet leaving the Thrale family, for he joined them at Brighton, and he was living with them the following spring in Argyll-street. Nevertheless, if, as all Mrs. Thrale's friends strongly held, her second marriage was blameworthy, Boswell's remark admits of defence. Miss Burney in her diary and letters keeps the secret which Mrs. Thrale had confided to her of her attachment to Mr. Piozzi; but in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, which, as Mme. D'Arblay, she wrote long afterwards, she leaves little doubt that Streatham was given up as a step towards the second marriage. In 1782, on a visit there, she found that her father 'and all others—Dr. Johnson not excepted—were cast into the same gulf of general neglect. As Mrs. Thrale became more and more dissatisfied with her own situation, and impatient for its relief, she slighted Johnson's counsel, and avoided his society.' Mme. D'Arblay describes a striking scene in which her father, utterly puzzled by 'sad and altered Streatham,' left it one day with tears in his eyes. Another day, Johnson accompanied her to London. 'His look was stern, though dejected, but when his eye, which, however shortsighted, was quick to mental perception, saw how ill at ease she appeared, all sternness subsided into an undisguised expression of the strongest emotion, while, with a shaking hand and pointing finger, he directed her looks to the mansion from which they were driving; and when they faced it from the coach-window, as they turned into Streatham Common, tremulously exclaimed, "That house ...is lost to me... for ever."' Johnson's letter to Langton of March 20, 1782 (ante, p. 145), in which he says that he was 'musing in his chamber at Mrs. Thrale's,' shews that so early as that date he foresaw that a change was coming. Boswell's statement that 'Mrs. Thrale became less assiduous to please Johnson,' might have been far more strongly worded. See Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii. 243-253. Lord Shelburne, who as Prime Minister was negotiating peace with the United States, France, and Spain, hired Mrs. Thrale's house 'in order to be constantly near London.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, iii. 242.

[496] Mr. Croker quotes the following from the Rose MSS.:—'Oct. 6, Die Dominica, 1782. Pransus sum Streathamiae agninum crus coctum cum herbis (spinach) comminutis, farcimen farinaceum cum uvis passis, lumbos bovillos, et pullum gallinae: Turcicae; et post carnes missas, ficus, uvas, non admodum maturas, ita voluit anni intemperies, cum malis Persicis, iis tamen duris. Non laetus accubui, cibum modice sumpsi, ne intemperantia ad extremum peccaretur. Si recte memini, in mentem venerunt epulae in exequiis Hadoni celebratae. Streathamiam quando revisam?'

[497] 'Mr. Metcalfe is much with Dr. Johnson, but seems to have taken an unaccountable dislike to Mrs. Thrale, to whom he never speaks.... He is a shrewd, sensible, keen, and very clever man.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 172, 174. He, Burke, and Malone were Sir Joshua's executors. Northcote's Reynolds, ii. 293.

[498] Boswell should have shown, for he must have known it, that Johnson was Mrs. Thrale's guest at Brighton. Miss Burney was also of the party. Her account of him is a melancholy one:—'Oct. 28. Dr. Johnson accompanied us to a ball, to the universal amazement of all who saw him there; but he said he had found it so dull being quite alone the preceding evening, that he determined upon going with us; "for," said he, "it cannot be worse than being alone."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 161. 'Oct. 29. Mr. Pepys joined Dr. Johnson, with whom he entered into an argument, in which he was so roughly confuted, and so severely ridiculed, that he was hurt and piqued beyond all power of disguise, and, in the midst of the discourse, suddenly turned from him, and, wishing Mrs. Thrale goodnight, very abruptly withdrew. Dr. Johnson was certainly right with respect to the argument and to reason; but his opposition was so warm, and his wit so satirical and exulting, that I was really quite grieved to see how unamiable he appeared, and how greatly he made himself dreaded by all, and by many abhorred.' Ib. p. 163. 'Oct. 30. In the evening we all went to Mrs. Hatsel's. Dr. Johnson was not invited.' Ib. p. 165. 'Oct. 31. A note came to invite us all, except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes's.' Ib. p. 168. 'Nov. 2. We went to Lady Shelley's. Dr. Johnson again excepted in the invitation. He is almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone.' Ib. p. 160. 'Nov. 7. Mr. Metcalfe called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr. Hamilton is gone, and Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this house that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' Ib. p. 177.

[499] '"Dr. Johnson has asked me," said Mr. Metcalfe, "to go with him to Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would certainly go if he pleased; but why I cannot imagine, for how shall a blind man see a cathedral?" "I believe," quoth I [i.e. Miss Burney] "his blindness is as much the effect of absence as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at times."' Ib. p. 174. For Johnson's eyesight, see ante, i. 41.

[500] The second letter is dated the 28th. Johnson says:—'I have looked often,' &c.; but he does not say 'he has been much informed,' but only 'informed.' Both letters are in the Gent. Mag. 1784, p. 893.

[501] The reference is to Rawlinson's MS. collections for a continuation of Wood's Athenae (Macray's Annals of the Bodleian, p. 181).

[502] Jortin's sermons are described by Johnson as 'very elegant.' Ante, in. 248. He and Thirlby are mentioned by him in the Life of Pope. Works, viii. 254.

[503] Markland was born 1693, died 1776. His notes on some of Euripides' Plays were published at the expense of Dr. Heberden. Markland had previously destroyed a great many other notes; writing in 1764 he said:—'Probably it will be a long time (if ever) before this sort of learning will revive in England; in which it is easy to foresee that there must be a disturbance in a few years, and all public disorders are enemies to this sort of literature.' Gent. Mag. 1778, P. 3l0. 'I remember,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 252), 'when lamentation was made of the neglect shown to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as some one ventured to call him: "He is a scholar undoubtedly, Sir," replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from the world, and that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and [who] does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark"' A brief account of him is given in the Ann. Reg. xix. 45.

[504] Nichols published in 1784 a brief account of Thirlby, nearly half of it being written by Johnson. Thirlby was born in 1692 and died in 1753. 'His versatility led him to try the round of what are called the learned professions.' His life was marred by drink and insolence.' His mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, and he was glad to catch any employment that might produce attention without anxiety; such employment, as Dr. Battie has observed, is necessary for madmen.' Gent. Mag. 1784, pp. 260, 893.

[505] He was attacked, says Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 131), 'by a slight paralytic affection, after an almost uninterrupted course of good health for many years.' Miss Burney wrote on Dec. 28 to one of her sisters:—'How can you wish any wishes [matrimonial wishes] about Sir Joshua and me? A man who has had two shakes of the palsy!' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 218.

[506] Dr. Patten in Sept. 1781 (Croker's Boswell, p. 699) informed Johnson of Wilson's intended dedication. Johnson, in his reply, said:—'What will the world do but look on and laugh when one scholar dedicates to another?'

[507] On the same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'This, my dear Sir, is the last day of a very sickly and melancholy year. Join your prayers with mine, that the next may be more happy to us both. I hope the happiness which I have not found in this world will by infinite mercy be granted in another.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 462.

[508] 'Jan. 4, 1783. Dr. Johnson came so very late that we had all given him up; he was very ill, and only from an extreme of kindness did he come at all. When I went up to him to tell how sorry I was to find him so unwell, "Ah," he cried, taking my hand and kissing it, "who shall ail anything when Cecilia is so near? Yet you do not think how poorly I am."

All dinner time he hardly opened his mouth but to repeat to me:—"Ah! you little know how ill I am." He was excessively kind to me in spite of all his pain.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 228. Cecilia was the name of her second novel (post, May 26, 1783). On Jan. 10 he thus ended a letter to Mr. Nichols:—'Now I will put you in a way of shewing me more kindness. I have been confined by ilness (sic) a long time, and sickness and solitude make tedious evenings. Come sometimes and see, Sir,

'Your humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

MS. in the British Museum.

[509] 'Dr. Johnson found here [at Auchinleck] Baxter's Anacreon, which he told me he had long inquired for in vain, and began to suspect there was no such book.' Boswell's Hebrides, Nov.2. See post, under Sept. 29, 1783.

[510] 'The delight which men have in popularity, fame, honour, submission, and subjection of other men's minds, wills, or affections, although these things may be desired for other ends, seemeth to be a thing in itself, without contemplation of consequence, grateful and agreeable to the nature of man.' Bacon's Nat. Hist. Exper. No. 1000. See ante, ii. 178.

[511] In a letter to Dr. Taylor on Jan. 21 of this year, he attacked the scheme of equal representation.' Pitt, on May 7, 1782, made his first reform motion. Johnson thus ended his letter:—'If the scheme were more reasonable, this is not a time for innovation. I am afraid of a civil war. The business of every wise man seems to be now to keep his ground.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 481.

[512] See ante, i. 429, post, 170, and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 30.

[513] The year after this conversation the General Election of 1784 was held, which followed on the overthrow of the Coalition Ministry and the formation of the Pitt Ministry in December, 1783. The 'King's friends' were in a minority of one in the last great division in the old Parliament; in the motion on the Address in the new Parliament they had a majority of 168. Parl. Hist. xxiv. 744, 843. Miss Burney, writing in Nov. 1788, when the King was mad, says that one of his physicians 'moved me even to tears by telling me that none of their own lives would be safe if the King did not recover, so prodigiously high ran the tide of affection and loyalty. All the physicians received threatening letters daily, to answer for the safety of their monarch with their lives! Sir G. Baker had already been stopped in his carriage by the mob, to give an account of the King; and when he said it was a bad one, they had furiously exclaimed, "The more shame for you."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, iv. 336. Describing in 1789 a Royal tour in the West of England, she writes of 'the crowds, the rejoicings, the hallooing and singing, and garlanding and decorating of all the inhabitants of this old city [Exeter], and of all the country through which we passed.' Ib. v. 48.

[514] Miss Palmer, Sir Joshua's niece, 'heard Dr. Johnson repeat these verses with the tears falling over his cheek.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 417.

[515] Gibbon remarked that 'Mr. Fox was certainly very shy of saying anything in Johnson's presence.' Ante, iii. 267. See post, under June 9, 1784, where Johnson said 'Fox is my friend.'

[516] Mr. Greville (Journal, ed. 1874, ii. 316) records the following on the authority of Lord Holland:—'Johnson liked Fox because he defended his pension, and said it was only to blame in not being large enough. "Fox," he said, is a liberal man; he would always be aut Caesar aut nullus; whenever I have seen him he has been nullus. Lord Holland said Fox made it a rule never to talk in Johnson's presence, because he knew all his conversations were recorded for publication, and he did not choose to figure in them.' Fox could not have known what was not the fact. When Boswell was by, he had reason for his silence; but otherwise he might have spoken out. 'Mr. Fox,' writes Mackintosh (Life, i. 322) 'united, in a most remarkable degree, the seemingly repugnant characters of the mildest of men and the most vehement of orators. In private life he was so averse from parade and dogmatism as to be somewhat inactive in conversation.' Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 283) tells how Fox spent a day with him at Lausanne:—'Perhaps it never can happen again, that I should enjoy him as I did that day, alone from ten in the morning till ten at night. Our conversation never flagged a moment.' 'In London mixed society,' said Rogers (Table-Talk, p. 74), 'Fox conversed little; but at his own house in the country, with his intimate friends, he would talk on for ever, with all the openness and simplicity of a child.'

[517] Sec ante, ii. 450.

[518] Most likely 'Old Mr. Sheridan.'

[519] See ante, ii. 166.

[520] Were I to insert all the stories which have been told of contests boldly maintained with him, imaginary victories obtained over him, of reducing him to silence, and of making him own that his antagonist had the better of him in argument, my volumes would swell to an immoderate size. One instance, I find, has circulated both in conversation and in print; that when he would not allow the Scotch writers to have merit, the late Dr. Rose, of Chiswick, asserted, that he could name one Scotch writer, whom Dr. Johnson himself would allow to have written better than any man of the age; and upon Johnson's asking who it was, answered, 'Lord Bute, when he signed the warrant for your pension.' Upon which Johnson, struck with the repartee, acknowledged that this was true. When I mentioned it to Johnson, 'Sir, (said he,) if Rose said this, I never heard it.' BOSWELL.

[521] This reflection was very natural in a man of a good heart, who was not conscious of any ill-will to mankind, though the sharp sayings which were sometimes produced by his discrimination and vivacity, which he perhaps did not recollect, were, I am afraid, too often remembered with resentment. BOSWELL. When, three months later on, he was struck with palsy, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'I have in this still scene of life great comfort in reflecting that I have given very few reason to hate me. I hope scarcely any man has known me closely but for his benefit, or cursorily but to his innocent entertainment. Tell me, you that know me best, whether this be true, that according to your answer I may continue my practice, or try to mend it.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 287. See post, May 19, 1784. Passages such as the two following might have shewn him why he had enemies. 'For roughness, it is a needless cause of discontent; severity breedeth fear, but roughness breedeth hate.' Bacon's Essays, No. xi. ''Tis possible that men may be as oppressive by their parts as their power.' The Government of the Tongue, sect. vii. See ante, i. 388, note 2.

[522] 'A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' Ante, i. 294. Stockdale records (Memoirs, ii. 191) that he heard a Scotch lady, after quoting this definition, say to Johnson, 'I can assure you that in Scotland we give oats to our horses as well as you do to yours in England.' He replied:—'I am very glad, Madam, to find that you treat your horses as well as you treat yourselves.'

[523] Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote:—'The prejudices he had to countries did not extend to individuals. The chief prejudice in which he indulged himself was against Scotland, though he had the most cordial friendship with individuals. This he used to vindicate as a duty. ... Against the Irish he entertained no prejudice; he thought they united themselves very well with us; but the Scotch, when in England, united and made a party by employing only Scotch servants and Scotch tradesmen. He held it right for Englishmen to oppose a party against them.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 460. See ante, ii. 242, 306, and Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 20.

[524] Ante, ii. 300.

[525] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 85) says that 'Dr. Johnson, commonly spending the middle of the week at our house, kept his numerous family in Fleet-street upon a settled allowance; but returned to them every Saturday to give them three good dinners and his company, before he came back to us on the Monday night.'

[526] Lord North's Ministry lasted from 1770, to March, 1782. It was followed by the Rockingham Ministry, and the Shelburne Ministry, which in its turn was at this very time giving way to the Coalition Ministry, to be followed very soon by the Pitt Ministry.

[527] I have, in my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides [p. 200, Sept. 13], fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was necessary, but not a subject for glory; because it for a long time blasted the generous feelings of Loyalty. And now, when by the benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our affections, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had not required. BOSWELL. See ante, iii. 3, and iv. 40, note 4.

[528] Johnson reviewed this book in 1756. Ante, i. 309.

[529] Johnson, four months later, wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's daughters:—'Never think, my sweet, that you have arithmetick enough; when you have exhausted your master, buy books. ... A thousand stories which the ignorant tell and believe die away at once when the computist takes them in his gripe.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 296. See post, April 18, 1783.

[530] See ante, p. 116; also iii. 310, where he bore the same topic impatiently when with Dr. Scott.

[531] See ante, ii. 357.

[532]

'See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, To buried merit raise the tardy bust.' Johnson's Vanity of Human Wishes.

[533] He was perhaps, thinking of Markland. Ante, p. 161, note 3.

[534] 'Dr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'was no complainer of ill-usage. I never heard him even lament the disregard shown to Irene.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 386. See ante, i. 200.

[535] Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish the number of the Lords of Session, 1785. BOSWELL. 'By Mr. Burke's removal from office the King's administration was deprived of the assistance of that affluent mind, which is so universally rich that, as long as British literature and British politicks shall endure, it will be said of Edmund Burke, Regum equabat [sic] opes animis.' p.71.

[536] Georgics, iv. 132.

[537] See ante, iii. 56, note 2.

[538] Very likely Boswell.

[539] See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22.

[540] Johnson had said:—'Lord Chesterfield is the proudest man this day existing.' Ante, i. 265.

[541] Lord Shelburne. At this time he was merely holding office till a new Ministry was formed. On April 5 he was succeeded by the Duke of Portland. His 'coarse manners' were due to a neglected childhood. In the fragment of his Autobiography he describes 'the domestic brutality and ill-usage he experienced at home,' in the South of Ireland. 'It cost me,' he continues, 'more to unlearn the habits, manners, and principles which I then imbibed, than would have served to qualify me for any role whatever through life.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, i. 12, 16.

[542] Bentham, it is reported, said of of him that 'alone of his own time, he was a "Minister who did not fear the people."' Ib. iii. 572.

[543] Malagrida, a Jesuit, was put to death at Lisbon in 1761, nominally on a charge of heresy, but in reality on a suspicion of his having sanctioned, as confessor to one of the conspirators, an attempt to assassinate King Joseph of Portugal. Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XV, ch. xxxviii. 'His name,' writes Wraxall (Memoirs, ed. 1815, i. 67), 'is become proverbial among us to express duplicity.' It was first applied to Lord Shelburne in a squib attributed to Wilkes, which contained a vision of a masquerade. The writer, after describing him as masquerading as 'the heir apparent of Loyola and all the College,' continues:—'A little more of the devil, my Lord, if you please, about the eyebrows; that's enough, a perfect Malagrida, I protest.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, ii. 164. 'George III. habitually spoke of Shelburne as "Malagrida," and the "Jesuit of Berkeley Square."' Ib. iii. 8. The charge of duplicity was first made against Shelburne on the retirement of Fox (the first Lord Holland) in 1763. 'It was the tradition of Holland House that Bute justified the conduct of Shelburne, by telling Fox that it was "a pious fraud." "I can see the fraud plainly enough," is said to have been Fox's retort, "but where is the piety?"' Ib. i. 226. Any one who has examined Reynolds's picture of Shelburne, especially 'about the eyebrows,' at once sees how the name of Jesuit was given.

[544] Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont on Nov. 20, 1773:-'Goldsmith the other day put a paragraph into the newspapers in praise of Lord Mayor Townshend. [Shelburne supported Townshend in opposition to Wilkes in the election of the Lord Mayor. Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, ii. 287.] The same night we happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne at Drury Lane. I mentioned the circumstance of the paragraph to him; he said to Goldsmith that he hoped that he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in it. "Do you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could conceive the reason why they call you Malagrida, for Malagrida was a very good sort of man." You see plainly what he meant to say, but that happy turn of expression is peculiar to himself. Mr. Walpole says that this story is a picture of Goldsmith's whole life.' Life of Charlemont, i. 344.

[545] Most likely Reynolds, who introduced Crabbe to Johnson. Crabbe's Works, ed. 1834, ii. 11.

[546]

'I paint the cot, As truth will paint it, and as Bards will not. Nor you, ye Poor, of lettered scorn complain, To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain; O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time, Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme? Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread, By winding myrtles round your ruined shed? Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower, Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?'

The Village, book i.

See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 6.

[547] I shall give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and Johnson's substitution in Italick characters:—

'In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring, Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing: But charmed by him, or smitten with his views, Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse? From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?' 'On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign, If Tityrus found the golden age again, Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong, Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song? From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray, Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?.

Here we find Johnson's poetical and critical powers undiminished. I must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to The Traveller and Deserted Village of Goldsmith, were so small as by no means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour. BOSWELL.

[548] In the Gent. Mag. 1763, pp. 602, 633, is a review of his Observations on Diseases of the Army. He says that the register of deaths of military men proves that more than eight times as many men fall by what was called the gaol fever as by battle. His suggestions are eminently wise. Lord Seaford, in 1835, told Leslie 'that he remembered dining in company with Dr. Johnson at Dr. Brocklesby's, when he was a boy of twelve or thirteen. He was impressed with the superiority of Johnson, and his knocking everybody down in argument.' C.R. Leslie's Recollections, i. 146.

[549] See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 28.

[550] See ante, i. 433, and ii. 217, 358.

[551] "In his Life of Swift (Works, viii. 205) he thus speaks of this Journal:-'In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however, some odd attraction: the reader, finding frequent mention of names which he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is disappointed, he can hardly complain.'"

[552] On his fifty-fifth birthday he recorded:—'I resolve to keep a journal both of employment and of expenses. To keep accounts.' Pr. and Med. 59. See post, Aug. 25, 1784, where he writes to Langton:—'I am a little angry at you for not keeping minutes of your own acceptum et expensum, and think a little time might be spared from Aristophanes for the res familiares.'

[553] This Mr. Chalmers thought was George Steevens. CROKER. D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, vi. 76) describes Steevens as guilty of 'an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious ingenuity.' He gives curious instances of his literary impostures. See ante, iii. 281, and post, May 15, 1784.

[554] If this be Lord Mansfield, Boswell must use late in the sense of in retirement; for Mansfield was living when the Life of Johnson was published. He retired in 1788. Johnson in 1772, said that he had never been in his company (ante, ii. 158). The fact that Mansfield is mentioned in the previous paragraph adds to the probability that he is meant.

[555] See ante, ii. 318.

[556] In Scotland, Johnson spoke of Mansfield's 'splendid talents.' Boswell's Hebrides, under Nov. 11.

[557] 'I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.' 2 Henry IV, act i. sc. 2.

[558] Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his aim. BOSWELL. Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Loughborough, is mentioned (ante, ii. 374), and again in Murphy's Life of Johnson, p. 43, as being in company with Johnson and Foote. Boswell also has before (ante, i. 387) praised the elegance of his oratory. Henry Mackenzie (Life of John Home, i. 56) says that Wedderburne belonged to a club at the British Coffee-house, of which Garrick, Smollett, and Dr. Douglas were members.

[559] Boswell informed the people of Scotland in the Letter that he addressed to them in 1785 (p. 29), that 'now that Dr. Johnson is gone to a better world, he (Boswell) bowed the intellectual knee to Lord Thurlow.' See post, June 22, 1784.

[560] Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 27.

[561]

'Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat, Unable to support a gem of weight.' DRYDEN. Juvenal, Satires, i. 29.

[562] He had published a series of seventy Essays under the title of The Hypochondriack in the London Magazine from 1777 to 1783.

[563] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 365. The common reading, however, is 'Nullum numen _habes_,' &c. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 218) records this saying, but with a variation. '"For," says Mr. Johnson, "though I do not quite agree with the proverb, that _Nullum numen adest si sit prudentia_, yet we may very well say, that _Nullum numen adest, ni sit prudentia."'

[564] It has since appeared. BOSWELL.

[565] Miss Burney mentions meeting Dr. Harington at Bath in 1780. 'It is his son,' she writes, 'who published those very curious remains of his ancestor [Sir John Harington] under the title Nugae Antiquae which my father and all of us were formerly so fond of.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 341.

[566]

'For though they are but trifles, thou Some value didst to them allow.'

Martin's Catullus, p. 1.

[567]

—Underneath this rude, uncouth disguise, A genius of extensive knowledge lies.'

FRANCIS. Horace, Satires, i. 3. 33.

[568] He would not have been a troublesome patient anywhere, for, according to Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 275),'he required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.'

[569] 'That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe that the mind grows old with the body; and that he whom we are now forced to confess superiour is hastening daily to a level with ourselves.' Johnson's Works, vii. 212.

[570] With the following elucidation of the saying-Quos Deus (it should rather be-Quem Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat-Mr. Boswell was furnished by Mr. Pitts:—'Perhaps no scrap of Latin whatever has been more quoted than this. It occasionally falls even from those who are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not admit a word into their compositions, which has not the sanction of the first age. The word demento is of no authority, either as a verb active or neuter.—After a long search for the purpose of deciding a bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments of Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is given as a translation of a Greek Iambick: [Greek: Ou Theos thelei apolesoi' apophreuai.]

'The above scrap was found in the hand-writing of a suicide of fashion, Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the room where he had destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of classical acquirements: he left no other paper behind him.'

Another of these proverbial sayings,

Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim,

I, in a note on a passage in The Merchant of Venice [act iii. sc. 5], traced to its source. It occurs (with a slight variation) in the Alexandreis of Philip Gualtier (a poet of the thirteenth century), which was printed at Lyons in 1558. Darius is the person addressed:—

—Quo tendis inertem, Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu! perdite, nescis Quern fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem; Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim.

A line not less frequently quoted was suggested for enquiry in a note on _The Rape of Lucrece:—

Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris—_:

But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered. MALONE. The 'Greek lambick' in the above note is not Greek. To a learned friend I owe the following note. 'The Quem Jupiter vult perdere, &c., is said to be a translation of a fragment of Euripides by Joshua Barnes. There is, I believe, no such fragment at all. In Barnes's Euripides, Cantab. 1694, fol. p. 515, is a fragment of Euripides with a note which may explain the muddle of Boswell's correspondent:—

"[Greek: otau de daimonn handri porsunae kaka ton noun heblapse proton,]"

on which Barnes writes:—"Tale quid in Franciados nostrae [probably his uncompleted poem on Edward III.] l. 3. Certe ille deorum Arbiter ultricem cum vult extendere dextram Dementat prius."' See ante, ii. 445, note 1. Sir D. O. is, perhaps, Sir D'Anvers Osborne, whose death is recorded in the Gent. Mag. 1753, p. 591. 'Sir D'Anvers Osborne, Bart., Governor of New York, soon after his arrival there; in his garden.' Solamen miseris, &c., is imitated by Swift in his Verses on Stella's Birthday, 1726-7:—

'The only comfort they propose, To have companions in their woes.'

Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xi. 22. The note on Lucrece was, I conjecture, on line 1111:—

'Grief best is pleased with grief's society.'

[571]

'FAUSTUS— "Tu quoque, ut hic video, non es ignarus amorum." 'FORTUNATUS— "Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes."'

Baptistae Mantuani Carmelitae Adolescentia, seu Bucolica. Ecloga I, published in 1498. 'Scaliger,' says Johnson (Works, viii. 391), 'complained that Mantuan's Bucolicks were received into schools, and taught as classical. ... He was read, at least in some of the inferiour schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the present [eighteenth] century.'

[572] See ante, i. 368.

[573] See ante, i. 396.

[574] I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking particularities pointed out:—Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary motions, said to him, 'Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange gestures?' 'From bad habit,' he replied. 'Do you, my dear, take care to guard against bad habits.' This I was told by the young lady's brother at Margate. BOSWELL. Boswell had himself told Johnson of some of them, at least in writing. Johnson read in manuscript his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Boswell says in a note on Oct. 12:—'It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I hoped he would have done.'

[575] See ante, ii. 42, note 2, and iii. 324.

[576] Johnson, after stating that some of Milton's manuscripts prove that 'in the early part of his life he wrote with much care,' continues:—'Such reliques show how excellence is acquired; what we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.' Works, vii. 119. Lord Chesterfield (Letters, iii. 146) had made the same rule as Johnson:—'I was,' he writes, 'early convinced of the importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I applied myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word even in common conversation that should not be the most expressive and the most elegant that the language could supply me with for that purpose; by which means I have acquired such a certain degree of habitual eloquence, that I must now really take some pains if I would express myself very inelegantly.'

[577] 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Malone in 1783, 'is as correct and elegant in his common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study either for thoughts or words. When first introduced I was very young; yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had been talking to the first scholar in England.' Prior's Malone, p. 92. See post, under Aug. 29, 1783.

[578] See ante, iii. 216.

[579] See ante, ii. 323.

[580] The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot:—A country parson, who was remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor. 'He is a very good preacher,' was his answer, 'but no latiner.' BOSWELL. For the original of Lord Eliot's story see Twells's Life of Dr. E. Pocock, ed. 1816, p. 94. Reynolds said that 'Johnson always practised on every occasion the rule of speaking his best, whether the person to whom he addressed himself was or was not capable of comprehending him. "If," says he, "I am understood, my labour is not lost. If it is above their comprehension, there is some gratification, though it is the admiration of ignorance;" and he said those were the most sincere admirers; and quoted Baxter, who made a rule never to preach a sermon without saying something which he knew was beyond the comprehension of his audience, in order to inspire their admiration.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 456. Addison, in The Spectator, No. 221, tells of a preacher in a country town who outshone a more ignorant rival, by quoting every now and then a Latin sentence from one of the Fathers. 'The other finding his congregation mouldering every Sunday, and hearing at length what was the occasion of it, resolved to give his parish a little Latin in his turn; but being unacquainted with any of the Fathers, he digested into his sermons the whole book of Quae Genus, adding, however, such explications to it as he thought might be for the benefit of his people. He afterwards entered upon As in praesenti, which he converted in the same manner to the use of his parishioners. This in a very little time thickened his audience, filled his church, and routed his antagonist.'

[581] See ante, ii. 96

[582] '"Well," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes, Sir; you tossed and gored several persons."' Ante, ii. 66.

[583] Dr. J. H. Burton says of Hume (Life, ii. 31):—'No Scotsman could write a book of respectable talent without calling forth his loud and warm eulogiums. Wilkie was to be the Homer, Blacklock the Pindar, and Home the Shakespeare or something still greater of his country.' See ante, ii. 121, 296, 306.

[584] The Present State of Music in France and Italy, I vol. 1771, and The Present State of Music in Germany, &c., 2 vols. 1773. Johnson must have skipped widely in reading these volumes, for though Dr. Burney describes his travels, yet he writes chiefly of music.

[585] Boswell's son James says that he heard from his father, that the passage which excited this strong emotion was the following:—

'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more: I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you; For morn is approaching, your charms to restore, Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew; Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save: But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn? O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?'

[586] Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 338) mentions this book at some length. On March 13, 1780, he wrote:—'Yesterday was published an octavo, pretending to contain the correspondence of Hackman and Miss Ray that he murdered.' See ante, iii. 383.

[587] Hawkins (Life, p. 547), recording how Johnson used to meet Psalmanazar at an ale-house, says that Johnson one day 'remarked on the human mind, that it had a necessary tendency to improvement, and that it would frequently anticipate instruction. "Sir," said a stranger that overheard him, "that I deny; I am a tailor, and have had many apprentices, but never one that could make a coat till I had taken great pains in teaching him."' See ante, iii. 443. Robert Hall was influenced in his studies by 'his intimate association in mere childhood with a tailor, one of his father's congregation, who was an acute metaphysician.' Hall's Works, vi. 5.

[588] Johnson had never been in Grub-street. Ante, i. 296, note 2.

[589] The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears testimony to this gentleman's merit as a writer:—'Mr. Chambers's Treatise on Civil Architecture is the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.'—Preface to Anecdotes of Painting in England. BOSWELL. Chambers was the architect of Somerset House. See ante, p. 60, note 7.

[590] The introductory lines are these:—'It is difficult to avoid praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the assistance of example.' BOSWELL.

[591] The last execution at Tyburn was on Nov. 7, 1783, when one man was hanged. The first at Newgate was on the following Dec. 9, when ten were hanged. Gent. Mag. 1783, pp. 974, 1060.

[592] We may compare with this 'loose talk' Johnson's real opinion, as set forth in The Rambler, No. 114, entitled:—The necessity of proportioning punishments to crimes. He writes:—'The learned, the judicious, the pious Boerhaave relates that he never saw a criminal dragged to execution without asking himself, "Who knows whether this man is not less culpable than me?" On the days when the prisons of this city are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of this dreadful procession put the same question to his own heart. Few among those that crowd in thousands to the legal massacre, and look with carelessness, perhaps with triumph, on the utmost exacerbations of human misery, would then be able to return without horror and dejection.' He continues:—'It may be observed that all but murderers have, at their last hour, the common sensations of mankind pleading in their favour.... They who would rejoice at the correction of a thief, are yet shocked at the thought of destroying him. His crime shrinks to nothing compared with his misery, and severity defeats itself by exciting pity.'

[593] Richardson, in his Familiar Letters, No. 160, makes a country gentleman in town describe the procession of five criminals to Tyburn, and their execution. He should have heard, he said, 'the exhortation spoken by the bell-man from the wall of St. Sepulchre's church-yard; but the noise of the officers and the mob was so great, and the silly curiosity of people climbing into the cart to take leave of the criminals made such a confused noise that I could not hear them. They are as follow: "All good people pray heartily to God for these poor sinners, who now are going to their deaths; for whom this great bell doth toll. You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears.... Lord have mercy upon you! Christ have mercy upon you!" which last words the bell-man repeats three times. All the way up Holborn the crowd was so great, as at every twenty or thirty yards to obstruct the passage; and wine, notwithstanding a late good order against that practice, was brought the malefactors, who drank greedily of it. After this the three thoughtless young men, who at first seemed not enough concerned, grew most shamefully daring and wanton. They swore, laughed, and talked obscenely. At the place of execution the scene grew still more shocking; and the clergyman who attended was more the subject of ridicule than of their serious attention. The psalm was sung amidst the curses and quarrelling of hundreds of the most abandoned and profligate of mankind. As soon as the poor creatures were half-dead, I was much surprised to see the populace fall to haling and pulling the carcases with so much earnestness as to occasion several warm rencounters and broken heads. These, I was told, were the friends of the persons executed, or such as for the sake of tumult chose to appear so; and some persons sent by private surgeons to obtain bodies for dissection.' The psalm is mentioned in a note on the line in The Dunciad, i. 4l, 'Hence hymning Tyburn's elegiac lines:'—'It is an ancient English custom,' says Pope, 'for the malefactors to sing a psalm at their execution at Tyburn.'

[594] The rest of these miscellaneous sayings were first given in the Additions to Dr. Johnson's Life at the beginning of vol. I of the second edition.

[595] Hume (Auto. p. 6) speaks of Hurd as attacking him 'with all the illiberal petulance, arrogance, and scurrility which distinguish the Warburtonian school.' 'Hurd,' writes Walpole, 'had acquired a great name by several works of slender merit, was a gentle, plausible man, affecting a singular decorum that endeared him highly to devout old ladies.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 50. He is best known to the present generation by his impertinent notes on Addison's Works. By reprinting them, Mr. Bohn did much to spoil what was otherwise an excellent edition of that author. See ante, p. 47, note 2.

[596] The Rev. T. Twining, one of Dr. Burney's friends, wrote in 1779:—'You use a form of reference that I abominate, i.e. the latter, the former. "As long as you have the use of your tongue and your pen," said Dr. Johnson to Dr. Burney, "never, Sir, be reduced to that shift."' Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the XVIIIth Century, p. 72.

[597] 'A shilling was now wanted for some purpose or other, and none of them happened to have one; I begged that I might lend one. "Ay, do," said the Doctor, "I will borrow of you; authors are like privateers, always fair game for one another."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 212.

[598] See ante, i. 129, note 3.

[599] See post, June 3, 1784, where he uses almost the same words.

[600] What this period was Boswell seems to leave intentionally vague. Johnson knew Lord Shelburne at least as early as 1778 (ante, iii. 265). He wrote to Dr. Taylor on July 22, 1782:—'Shelburne speaks of Burke in private with great malignity.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 462. The company commonly gathered at his house would have been displeasing to Johnson. Priestley, who lived with Shelburne seven years, says (Auto. p. 55) that a great part of the company he saw there was like the French philosophers, unbelievers in Christianity, and even professed atheists: men 'who had given no proper attention to Christianity, and did not really know what it was.' Johnson was intimate with Lord Shelburne's brother. Ante, ii. 282, note 3.

[601] Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, 'Why, Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good character.' BOSWELL.

[602] A writer in the European Magazine, xxx. 160, says that Johnson visited Lord Shelburne at Bowood. At dinner he repeated part of his letter to Lord Chesterfield (ante, i. 261). A gentleman arrived late. Shelburne, telling him what he had missed, went on:-'I dare say the Doctor will be kind enough to give it to us again.' 'Indeed, my Lord, I will not. I told the circumstance first for my own amusement, but I will not be dragged in as story-teller to a company.' In an argument he used some strong expressions, of which his opponent took no notice, Next morning 'he went up to the gentleman with great good-nature, and said, "Sir, I have found out upon reflection that I was both warm and wrong in my argument with you last night; for the first of which I beg your pardon, and for the second, I thank you for setting me right."' It is clear that the second of these anecdotes is the same as that told by Mr. Morgann of Johnson and himself, and that the scene has been wrongly transferred from Wickham to Bowood. The same writer says that it was between Derrick and Boyce—not Derrick and Smart—that Johnson, in the story that follows, could not settle the precedency.

[603] See ante, i. 124, 394.

[604] See ante, i. 397.

[605] What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen. BOSWELL.

[606]

'Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat, Quique pii vates et Phoebo digna locuti, Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes.'

Aeneid, vi. 660.

'Lo, they who in their country's fight sword-wounded bodies bore; Lo, priests of holy life and chaste, while they in life had part; Lo, God-loved poets, men who spake things worthy Phoebus' heart, And they who bettered life on earth by new-found mastery.'

MORRIS. Virgil, Aeneids, vi. 660. The great Twalmley might have justified himself by The Rambler, No. 9:—'Every man, from the highest to the lowest station, ought to warm his heart and animate his endeavours with the hopes of being useful to the world, by advancing the art which it is his lot to exercise; and for that end he must necessarily consider the whole extent of its application, and the whole weight of its importance.... Every man ought to endeavour at eminence, not by pulling others down, but by raising himself, and enjoy the pleasure of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real, without interrupting others in the same felicity.' All this is what Twalmley did. He adorned an art, he endeavoured at eminence, and he inoffensively enjoyed the pleasure of his own superiority. He could also have defended himself by the example of Aeneas, who, introducing himself, said:—

'Sum pius Aeneas ..... ... fama super aethera notus.'

Aeneid, i. 378. I fear that Twalmley met with the neglect that so commonly befalls inventors. In the Gent. Mag. 1783, p. 719, I find in the list of 'B-nk-ts,' Josiah Twamley, the elder, of Warwick, ironmonger.

[607] 'Sir, Hume is a Tory by chance, as being a Scotchman; but not upon a principle of duty, for he has no principle. If he is anything, he is a Hobbist.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 30. Horace Walpole's opinion was very different. 'Are not atheism and bigotry first cousins? Was not Charles II. an atheist and a bigot? and does Mr. Hume pluck a stone from a church but to raise an altar to tyranny?' Letters, v. 444. Hume wrote in 1756:—'My views of things are more conformable to Whig principles; my representations of persons to Tory prejudices.' J.H. Burton's Hume, ii. 11. Hume's Toryism increased with years. He says in his Autobiography/ (p. xi.) that all the alterations which he made in the later editions of his History of the Stuarts, 'he made invariably to the Tory side.' Dr. Burton gives instances of these; Life of Hume, ii. 74. Hume wrote in 1763 that he was 'too much infected with the plaguy prejudices of Whiggism when he began the work.' Ib. p. 144. In 1770 he wrote:—'I either soften or expunge many villainous, seditious Whig strokes which had crept into it.' Ib. p. 434. This growing hatred of Whiggism was, perhaps, due to pique. John Home, in his notes of Hume's talk in the last weeks of his life, says: 'He recurred to a subject not unfrequent with him—that is, the design to ruin him as an author, by the people that were ministers at the first publication of his History, and called themselves Whigs.' Ib. p. 500. As regards America, Hume was with the Whigs, as Johnson had perhaps learnt from their common friend, Mr. Strahan. 'He was,' says Dr. Burton, 'far more tolerant of the sway of individuals over numbers, which he looked upon as the means of preserving order and civilization, than of the predominance of one territory over another, which he looked upon as subjugation.' Ib. p. 477. Quite at the beginning of the struggle he foretold that the Americans would not be subdued, unless they broke in pieces among themselves. Ib. p. 482. He was not frightened by the prospect of the loss of our supremacy. He wrote to Adam Smith:—'My notion is that the matter is not so important as is commonly imagined. Our navigation and general commerce may suffer more than our manufactures.' Ib. p. 484. Johnson's charge against Hume that he had no principle, is, no doubt, a gross one; yet Hume's advice to a sceptical young clergyman, who had good hope of preferment, that he should therefore continue in orders, was unprincipled enough. 'It is,' he wrote, 'putting too great a respect on the vulgar and on their superstitions to pique one's self on sincerity with regard to them. Did ever one make it a point of honour to speak truth to children or madmen? If the thing were worthy being treated gravely, I should tell him that the Pythian oracle, with the approbation of Xenophon, advised every one to worship the gods—[Greek: nomo poleos]. I wish it were still in my power to be a hypocrite in this particular. The common duties of society usually require it; and the ecclesiastical profession only adds a little more to an innocent dissimulation, or rather simulation, without which it is impossible to pass through the world.' Ib/. p. 187.

[608] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 48) says that Johnson told her that in writing the story of Gelaleddin, the poor scholar (Idler, No. 75), who thought to fight his way to fame by his learning and wit, 'he had his own outset into life in his eye.' Gelaleddin describes how 'he was sometimes admitted to the tables of the viziers, where he exerted his wit and diffused his knowledge; but he observed that where, by endeavour or accident he had remarkably excelled, he was seldom invited a second time.' See ante, p. 116.

[609] See ante, p. 115.

[610] Bar. BOSWELL.

[611] Nard. BOSWELL.

[612] Barnard. BOSWELL.

[613] It was reviewed in the Gent. Mag. 1781, p. 282, where it is said to have been written by Don Gabriel, third son of the King of Spain.

[614] Though 'you was' is very common in the authors of the last century when one person was addressed, I doubt greatly whether Johnson ever so expressed himself.

[615] See ante, i. 311.

[616] Horace Walpole (Letters v. 85) says, 'Boswell, like Cambridge, has a rage of knowing anybody that ever was talked of.' Miss Burney records 'an old trick of Mr. Cambridge to his son George, when listening to a dull story, in saying to the relator "Tell the rest of that to George."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 274. See ante, ii. 361.

[617] Virgil, Eclogues, i. 47.

[618] 'Mr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 21), 'was exceedingly disposed to the general indulgence of children, and was even scrupulously and ceremoniously attentive not to offend them. He had strongly persuaded himself of the difficulty people always find to erase early impressions either of kindness or resentment.'

[619] Ante, ii.171, iv.75; also post, May 15, 1784.

[620] Johnson, on May 1, 1780, wrote of the exhibition dinner:—'The apartments were truly very noble. The pictures, for the sake of a sky-light, are at the top of the house; there we dined, and I sat over against the Archbishop of York. See how I live when I am not under petticoat government.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 111. It was Archbishop Markham whom he met; he is mentioned by Boswell in his Hebrides, post, v. 37. In spite of the 'elaboration of homage' Johnson could judge freely of an archbishop. He described the Archbishop of Tuam as 'a man coarse of voice and inelegant of language.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 300.

[621] By Lord Perceval, afterwards Earl of Egmont. He carried, writes Horace Walpole (Letters, ii. 144), 'the Westminster election at the end of my father's ministry, which he amply described in the history of his own family, a genealogical work called the History of the House of Yvery, a work which cost him three thousand pounds; and which was so ridiculous, that he has since tried to suppress all the copies. It concluded with the description of the Westminster election, in these or some such words:—"And here let us leave this young nobleman struggling for the dying liberties of his country."'

[622] Five days earlier Johnson made the following entry in his Diary:—'1783, April 5. I took leave of Mrs. Thrale. I was much moved. I had some expostulations with her. She said that she was likewise affected. I commended the Thrales with great good-will to God; may my petitions have been heard.' Hawkins's Life, p. 553. This was not 'a formal taking of leave,' as Hawkins says. She was going to Bath (Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 264). On May-day he wrote to her on the death of one of her little girls:—'I loved her, for she was Thrale's and yours, and, by her dear father's appointment, in some sort mine: I love you all, and therefore cannot without regret see the phalanx broken, and reflect that you and my other dear girls are deprived of one that was born your friend. To such friends every one that has them has recourse at last, when it is discovered and discovered it seldom fails to be, that the fortuitous friendships of inclination or vanity are at the mercy of a thousand accidents.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 255. He was sadly thinking how her friendship for him was rapidly passing away.

[623] Johnson modestly ended his account of the tour by saying:—'I cannot but be conscious that my thoughts on national manners are the thoughts of one who has seen but little.' Works, ix. 161. See Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 22.

[624] See ib. Oct. 21.

[625] She says that he was 'the genuine author of the first volume. An ingenious physician,' she continues, 'with the assistance of several others, continued the work until the eighth volume.' Mrs. Manley's History of her own Life and Times, p. 15—a gross, worthless book. Swift satirised her in Corinna, a Ballad. Swift's Works (1803), x. 94.

[626] The real authour was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in 1693. John Dunton in his Life says, that Mr. William Bradshaw received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing part of the Turkish Spy; but I do not find that he any where mentions Sault as engaged in that work. MALONE.

[627] See ante, ii. 355, iii. 46, and iv. 139.

[628] This was in June, 1783, and I find in Mr. Windham's private diary (which it seems this conversation induced him to keep) the following memoranda of Dr. Johnson's advice: 'I have no great timidity in my own disposition, and am no encourager of it in others. Never be afraid to think yourself fit for any thing for which your friends think you fit. You will become an able negotiator—a very pretty rascal. No one in Ireland wears even the mask of incorruption; no one professes to do for sixpence what he can get a shilling for doing. Set sail, and see where the winds and the waves will carry you. Every day will improve another. Dies diem docet, by observing at night where you failed in the day, and by resolving to fail so no more.' CROKER. The Whigs thought he made 'a very pretty rascal' in a very different way. On his opposition to Whitbread's bill for establishing parochial schools, Romilly wrote (Life, ii. 2l6), 'that a man so enlightened as Windham should take the same side (which he has done most earnestly) would excite great astonishment, if one did not recollect his eager opposition a few months ago to the abolition of the slave trade.' He was also 'most strenuous in opposition' to Romilly's bill for repealing the act which made it a capital offence to steal to the amount of forty shillings in a dwelling-house, Ib. p. 316.

[629] We accordingly carried our scheme into execution, in October, 1792; but whether from that uniformity which has in modern times, in a great degree, spread through every part of the Metropolis, or from our want of sufficient exertion, we were disappointed. BOSWELL.

[630] Piozzi's Anecdotes, p. 193. See post, under June 30, 1784.

[631] Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 139-143) says that the picture, which was execrable beyond belief, was exhibited in an empty room. Lowe, in 1769 (not in 1771 as Northcote says), gained the gold medal of the Academy for the best historical picture. (Gent. Mag. 1770, p. 587.) Northcote says that the award was not a fair one. He adds that Lowe, being sent to Rome by the patronage of the Academy, was dissatisfied with the sum allowed him. 'When Sir Joshua said that he knew from experience that it was sufficient, Lowe pertly answered "that it was possible for a man to live on guts and garbage."' He died at an obscure lodging in Westminster, in 1793. There is, wrote Miss Burney, 'a certain poor wretch of a villainous painter, one Mr. Lowe, whom Dr. Johnson recommends to all the people he thinks can afford to sit for their picture. Among these he applied to Mr. Crutchley [one of Mr. Thrale's executors]. "But now," said Mr. Crutchley to me, "I have not a notion of sitting for my picture—for who wants it? I may as well give the man the money without; but no, they all said that would not do so well, and Dr. Johnson asked me to give him my picture." "And I assure you, Sir," says he, "I shall put it in very good company, for I have portraits of some very respectable people in my dining-room." After all I could say I was obliged to go to the painter's. And I found him in such a condition! a room all dirt and filth, brats squalling and wrangling... "Oh!" says I, "Mr. Lowe, I beg your pardon for running away, but I have just recollected another engagement; so I poked three guineas in his hand, and told him I would come again another time, and then ran out of the house with all my might."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii.41. A correspondent of the Examiner writing on May 28, 1873, said that he had met one of Lowe's daughters, 'who recollected,' she told him, 'when a child, sitting on Dr. Johnson's knee and his making her repeat the Lord's Prayer.' She was Johnson's god-daughter. By a committee consisting of Milman, Thackeray, Dickens, Carlyle and others, an annuity fund for her and her sister was raised. Lord Palmerston gave a large subscription.

[632] See post, May 15, 1783.

[633] See Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 48.

[634] See ante, p. 171.

[635] Quoted by Boswell, ante, iii. 324.

[636] It is suggested to me by an anonymous Annotator on my Work, that the reason why Dr. Johnson collected the peels of squeezed oranges may be found in the 58th [358th] Letter in Mrs. Piozzi's Collection, where it appears that he recommended 'dried orange-peel, finely powdered,' as a medicine. BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 330.

[637] There are two mistakes in this calculation, both perhaps due to Boswell. Eighty-four should be eighty-eight, and square-yards should be yards square. 'If a wall cost L1000 a mile, L100 would build 176 yards of wall, which would form a square of 44 yards, and enclose an area of 1936 square yards; and L200 would build 352 yards of wall, which would form a square of 88 yards, and inclose an area of 7744 square yards. The cost of the wall in the latter case, as compared with the space inclosed, would therefore be reduced to one half.' Notes and Queries, 1st S. x. 471.

[638] See ante, i. 318.

[639] 'Davies observes, in his account of Ireland, that no Irishman had ever planted an orchard.' Johnson's Works, ix.7. 'At Fochabars [in the Highlands] there is an orchard, which in Scotland I had never seen before.' Ib. p. 21.

[640] Miss Burney this year mentions meeting 'Mr. Walker, the lecturer. Though modest in science, he is vulgar in conversation.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 237. Johnson quotes him, Works, viii. 474.

[641] 'Old Mr. Sheridan' was twelve years younger than Johnson. For his oratory, see ante, i. 453, and post, April 28 and May 17, 1783.

[642] See ante, i. 358, when Johnson said of Sheridan:—'His voice when strained is unpleasing, and when low is not always heard.'

[643] See ante, iii. 139.

[644] 'A more magnificent funeral was never seen in London,' wrote Murphy (Life of Garrick, p. 349). Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 169), wrote on the day of the funeral:—'I do think the pomp of Garrick's funeral perfectly ridiculous. It is confounding the immense space between pleasing talents and national services.' He added, 'at Lord Chatham's interment there were not half the noble coaches that attended Garrick's.' Ib. p. 171. In his Journal of the Reign of George III (ii. 333), he says:—'The Court was delighted to see a more noble and splendid appearance at the interment of a comedian than had waited on the remains of the great Earl of Chatham.' Bishop Horne (Essays and Thoughts, p. 283) has some lines on 'this grand parade of woe,' which begin:—

'Through weeping London's crowded streets, As Garrick's funeral passed, Contending wits and nobles strove, Who should forsake him last. Not so the world behaved to him Who came that world to save, By solitary Joseph borne Unheeded to his grave.'

Johnson wrote on April 30, 1782: 'Poor Garrick's funeral expenses are yet unpaid, though the undertaker is broken.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 239. Garrick was buried on Feb. 1, 1779, and had left his widow a large fortune. Chatham died in May, 1778.

[645] Boswell had heard Johnson maintain this; ante, ii. 101.

[646] See post, p. 238, note 2.

[647] This duel was fought on April 21, between Mr. Riddell of the Horse-Grenadiers, and Mr. Cunningham of the Scots Greys. Riddell had the first fire, and shot Cunningham through the breast. After a pause of two minutes Cunningham returned the fire, and gave Riddell a wound of which he died next day. Gent. Mag. 1783, p. 362. Boswell's grandfather's grandmother was a Miss Cunningham. Rogers's Boswelliana, p. 4. I do not know that there was any nearer connection. In Scotland, I suppose, so much kindred as this makes two men 'near relations.'

[648] 'Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other.' St. Luke, vi. 29. Had Miss Burney thought of this text, she might have quoted it with effect against Johnson, who, criticising her Evelina, said:—'You write Scotch, you say "the one,"—my dear, that's not English. Never use that phrase again.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 84.

[649] 'Turn not thou away.' St. Matthew, v. 42.

[650] I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3 ed. p. 386 [p. 366, Oct. 24], it appears that he made this frank confession:—'Nobody at times, talks more laxly than I do;' and, ib. p. 231 [Sept. 19, 1773], 'He fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling.' We may, therefore, infer, that he could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time it must be confessed, that from the prevalent notions of honour, a gentleman who receives a challenge is reduced to a dreadful alternative. A remarkable instance of this is furnished by a clause in the will of the late Colonel Thomas, of the Guards, written the night before he fell in a duel, Sept. 3, 1783:—'In the first place, I commit my soul to Almighty GOD, in hopes of his mercy and pardon for the irreligious step I now (in compliance with the unwarrantable customs of this wicked world) put myself under the necessity of taking.' BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 179.

[651] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24 and Sept. 20. Dr. Franklin (Memoirs, i. 177) says that when the assembly at Philadelphia, the majority of which were Quakers, was asked by New England to supply powder for some garrison, 'they would not grant money to buy powder, because that was an ingredient of war; but they voted an aid of L3000 to be appropriated for the purchase of bread, flour, wheat, or other grain.' The Governor interpreted other grain as gunpowder, without any objection ever being raised.

[652] 'A gentleman falling off his horse brake his neck, which sudden hap gave occasion of much speech of his former life, and some in this judging world judged the worst. In which respect a good friend made this good epitaph, remembering that of Saint Augustine, Misericordia Domini inter pontem et fontem.

"My friend judge not me, Thou seest I judge not thee; Betwixt the stirrop and the ground, Mercy I askt, mercy I found."'

Camden's Remains, ed. 1870, p. 420.

[653] 'In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.' Prayer-book.

[654] Upon this objection the Reverend Mr. Ralph Churton, Fellow of Brazennose College, Oxford, has favoured me with the following satisfactory observation:—'The passage in the Burial-service does not mean the resurrection of the person interred, but the general resurrection; it is in sure and certain hope of the resurrection; not his resurrection. Where the deceased is really spoken of, the expression is very different, "as our hope is this our brother doth" [rest in Christ]; a mode of speech consistent with every thing but absolute certainty that the person departed doth not rest in Christ, which no one can be assured of, without immediate revelation from Heaven. In the first of these places also, "eternal life" does not necessarily mean eternity of bliss, but merely the eternity of the state, whether in happiness or in misery, to ensue upon the resurrection; which is probably the sense of "the life everlasting," in the Apostles' Creed. See Wheatly and Bennet on the Common Prayer.' BOSWELL.

[655] Six days earlier the Lord-Advocate Dundas had brought in a bill for the Regulation of the Government of India. Hastings, he said, should be recalled. His place should be filled by 'a person of independent fortune, who had not for object the repairing of his estate in India, that had long been the nursery of ruined and decayed fortunes.' Parl. Hist. xxiii. 757. Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor on Nov. 22 of this year:—'I believe corruption and oppression are in India at an enormous height, but it has never appeared that they were promoted by the Directors, who, I believe, see themselves defrauded, while the country is plundered; but the distance puts their officers out of reach.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 482. See ante, p. 66.

[656] See ante, p. 113.

[657] Stockdale (Memoirs, ii. 57) says that, in 1770, the payment to writers in the Critical Review was two guineas a sheet, but that some of the writers in The Monthly Review received four guineas a sheet. As these Reviews were octavos, each sheet contained sixteen pages. Lord Jeffrey says that the writers in the Edinburgh Review were at first paid ten guineas a sheet. 'Not long after the minimum was raised to sixteen guineas, at which it remained during my reign, though two-thirds of the articles were paid much higher—averaging, I should think, from twenty to twenty-five guineas a sheet on the whole number.' Cockburn's Jeffrey, i. 136.

[658] See ante, ii. 344.

[659] See ante, iii.32.

[660] See ante, p. 206.

[661] Monday is no doubt put by mistake for Tuesday, which was the 29th. Boswell had spent a considerable part of Monday the 28th with Johnson (ante, p. 211).

[662]

'A fugitive from Heaven and prayer, I mocked at all religious fear.' FRANCIS. Horace, Odes, i.34. 1.

[663] He told Boswell (ante, i. 68) that he had been a sort of lax talker against religion for some years before he went to Oxford, but that there he took up Law's Serious Call and found it quite an overmatch for him. 'This,' he said, 'was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of rational enquiry.' During the vacation of 1729 he had a serious illness (ante, i. 63), which most likely was 'the sickness that brought religion back.'

[664] See ante, i. 93, 164, and post, under Dec. 2, 1784.

[665] Mr. Langton. See ante, ii. 254.

[666] See ante, ii. 249.

[667] Malloch continued to write his name thus, after he came to London. His verses prefixed to the second edition of Thomson's Winter are so subscribed. MALONE. 'Alias. A Latin word signifying otherwise; as, Mallet, alias Malloch; that is otherwise Malloch.' The mention of Mallet first comes in Johnson's own abridgment of his Dictionary. In the earlier unabridged editions the definition concludes, 'often used in the trials of criminals, whose danger has obliged them to change their names; as Simpson alias Smith, alias Baker, &c.' For Mallet, see ante, i. 268, and ii. 159.

[668] Perhaps Scott had this saying of Johnson's in mind when he made Earl Douglas exclaim:—

'At first in heart it liked me ill, When the King praised his clerkly skill. Thanks to St. Bothan, son of mine, Save Gawain, ne'er could pen a line.' Marmion, canto vi. 15.

[669] See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 10.

[670] Johnson often maintained this diffusion of learning. Thus he wrote:—'The call for books was not in Milton's age what it is in the present. To read was not then a general amusement; neither traders, nor often gentlemen, thought themselves disgraced by ignorance. The women had not then aspired to literature nor was every house supplied with a closet of knowledge.' Works, vii. 107. He goes on to mention 'that general literature which now pervades the nation through all its ranks.' Works, p. 108. 'That general knowledge which now circulates in common talk was in Addison's time rarely to be found. Men not professing learning were not ashamed of ignorance; and, in the female world, any acquaintance with books was distinguished only to be censured.' Ib. p.470. 'Of the Essay on Criticism, Pope declared that he did not expect the sale to be quick, because "not one gentleman in sixty, even of liberal education, could understand it." The gentlemen, and the education of that time, seem to have been of a lower character than they are of this.' Ib. viii. 243. See ante, iii. 3, 254. Yet he maintained that 'learning has decreased in England, because learning will not do so much for a man as formerly.' Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 80.

[671] Malone describes a call on Johnson in the winter of this year:—'I found him in his arm-chair by the fire-side, before which a few apples were laid. He was reading. I asked him what book he had got. He said the History of Birmingham. Local histories, I observed, were generally dull. "It is true, Sir; but this has a peculiar merit with me; for I passed some of my early years, and married my wife there." [See ante, i. 96.] I supposed the apples were preparing as medicine. "Why, no, Sir; I believe they are only there because I want something to do. These are some of the solitary expedients to which we are driven by sickness. I have been confined this week past; and here you find me roasting apples, and reading the History of Birmingham."' Prior's Malone, p. 92.

[672] On April 19, he wrote:—'I can apply better to books than I could in some more vigorous parts of my life—at least than I did; and I have one more reason for reading—that time has, by taking away my companions, left me less opportunity of conversation.' Croker's Boswell, p. 727.

[673] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read the Odyssey through in the original. Windham's Diary, p. 17. 'Fox,' said Rogers (Table Talk, p. 92), 'used to read Homer through once every year. On my asking him, "Which poem had you rather have written, the Iliad or the Odyssey?" he answered, "I know which I had rather read" (meaning the Odyssey).'

[674] 'Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.' Johnson's Works, iv. 145. Of Pope Johnson wrote (ib. viii. 321):—'To make verses was his first labour, and to mend them was his last. ... He was one of those few whose labour is their pleasure.' Thomas Carlyle, in 1824, speaking of writing, says:—'I always recoil from again engaging with it.' Froude's Carlyle, i. 213. Five years later he wrote:—'Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so dreadful as idleness.' Ib. ii. 75. See ante, iii. 19.

[675] See ante, ii. 15.

[676] Miss Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1780:—'I met at Sir Joshua's young Burke, who is made much ado about, but I saw not enough of him to know why.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 416. Mrs. Thrale replied:—'I congratulate myself on being quite of your opinion concerning Burke the minor, whom I once met and could make nothing of.' Ib. p. 418. Miss Hawkins (Memoirs, i. 304) reports, on Langton's authority, that Burke said:—'How extraordinary it is that I, and Lord Chatham, and Lord Holland, should each have a son so superior to ourselves.'

[677] Cruikshank, not Cruikshanks (see post, under Sept. 18, 1783, and Sept. 4 1784). He had been Dr. Hunter's partner; he was not elected (Gent. Mag. 1783, p. 626). Northcote, in quoting this letter, says that 'Sir Joshua's influence in the Academy was not always answerable to his desire. "Those who are of some importance everywhere else," he said, "find themselves nobody when they come to the Academy."' Northcote's Reynolds, ii. 145.

[678] William Hunter, scarcely less famous as a physician than his youngest brother, John Hunter, as a surgeon.

[679] Let it be remembered by those who accuse Dr. Johnson of illiberality that both were Scotchmen. BOSWELL.

[680] The following day he dined at Mrs. Garrick's. 'Poor Johnson,' wrote Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 280), 'exerted himself exceedingly, but he was very ill and looked so dreadfully, that it quite grieved me. He is more mild and complacent than he used to be. His sickness seems to have softened his mind, without having at all weakened it. I was struck with the mild radiance of this setting sun.'

[681] In the winter of 1788-9 Boswell began a canvass of his own county, He also courted Lord Lonsdale, in the hope of getting one of the seats in his gift, who first fooled him and then treated him with great brutality, Letters of Boswell, pp. 270, 294, 324.

[682] On April 6, 1780—'a day,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 345), 'that ought for ever to be a red-lettered day'—Mr. Dunning made this motion. It was carried by 233 to 215. Parl. Hist. xxi. 340-367.

[683] See ante, i. 355, and ii. 94 for Johnson's appeal to meals as a measure of vexation.

[684] Johnson defines cant as '1. A corrupt dialect used by beggars and vagabonds. 2. A particular form of speaking peculiar to some certain class or body of men. 3. A whining pretension to goodness in formal and affected terms. 4. Barbarous jargon. 5. Auction.' I have noted the following instances of his use of the word:—'I betook myself to a coffee-house frequented by wits, among whom I learned in a short time the cant of criticism.' The Rambler, No.123. 'Every class of society has its cant of lamentation.' Ib. No.128. 'Milton's invention required no assistance from the common cant of poetry.' Ib. No.140. 'We shall secure our language from being overrun with cant, from being crowded with low terms, the spawn of folly or affectation.' Works, v. II. 'This fugitive cant, which is always in a state of increase or decay, cannot be regarded as any part of the durable materials of a language.' Ib. p.45. In a note on I Henry VI, act iii. sc.1, he says: 'To roam is supposed to be derived from the cant of vagabonds, who often pretended a pilgrimage to Rome.' See ante, iii. 197, for 'modern cant.'

[685] 'Custom,' wrote Sir Joshua, 'or politeness, or courtly manners has authorised such an eastern hyperbolical style of compliment, that part of Dr. Johnson's character for rudeness of manners must be put to the account of scrupulous adherence to truth. His obstinate silence, whilst all the company were in raptures, vying with each other who should pepper highest, was considered as rudeness or ill-nature.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 458.

[686] 'The shame is to impose words for ideas upon ourselves or others.' Johnson's Works, vi. 64. See ante, p.122, where he says: 'There is a middle state of mind between conviction and hypocrisy.' Bacon, in his Essay of Truth, says: 'It is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it, that doth the hurt.'

[687] See ante, p. 204.

[688] 'I dined and lay at Harrison's, where I was received with that old-fashioned breeding which is at once so honourable and so troublesome.' Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 144. Mr. Pleydell, in Guy Mannering, ed. 1860, iv. 96, says: 'You'll excuse my old-fashioned importunity. I was born in a time when a Scotchman was thought inhospitable if he left a guest alone a moment, except when he slept.'

[689] See ante, ii. 167.

[690] See ante, i. 387.

[691] In Johnson's Works, ed. 1787, xi. 197, it is recorded that Johnson said, 'Sheridan's writings on elocution were a continual renovation of hope, and an unvaried succession of disappointments.' According to the Gent. Mag. 1785, p. 288, he continued:—'If we should have a bad harvest this year, Mr. Sheridan would say:—"It was owing to the neglect of oratory."' See ante, p. 206.

[692] Burke, no doubt, was this 'bottomless Whig.' When Johnson said 'so they all are now,' he was perhaps thinking of the Coalition Ministry in which Lord North and his friends had places.

[693] No doubt Burke, who was Paymaster of the Forces. He is Boswell's 'eminent friend.' See ante ii.222, and post, Dec. 24, 1783, and Jan.8, 1784. In these two consecutive paragraphs, though two people seem to be spoken of, yet only one is in reality.

[694] I believe that Burke himself was present part of the time, and that he was the gentleman who 'talked of retiring. On May 19 and 21 he had in Parliament defended his action in restoring to office two clerks, Powell and Bembridge, who had been dismissed by his predecessor, and he had justified his reforms in the Paymaster's office. 'He awaited,' he said, the 'judgement of the House. ...If they so far differed in sentiment, he had only to say, Nunc dimittis servum tuum.' Parl. Hist. xxiii.919.

[695] A copy of Evelina had been placed in the Bodleian. 'Johnson says,' wrote Miss Burney, 'that when he goes to Oxford he will write my name in the books, and my age when I writ them, and then,' he says, 'the world may know that we So mix our studies, and so joined our fame. For we shall go down hand in hand to posterity.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i.429. The oldest copy of Evelina now in the Bodleian is of an edition published after Johnson's death. Miss Burney, in 1793, married General D'Arblay, a French refugee.

[696] Macaulay maintained that Johnson had a hand in the composition of Cecilia. He quotes a passage from it, and says:—'We say with confidence, either Sam. Johnson or the Devil.' (Essays, ed. 1874, iv. 157.) That he is mistaken is shown by Mme. D'Arblay's Diary (ii. 172). 'Ay,' cried Dr. Johnson, 'some people want to make out some credit to me from the little rogue's book. I was told by a gentleman this morning that it was a very fine book, if it was all her own.' "It is all her own," said I, "for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it before it was printed."' On p. 196 she records the following:—'SIR JOSHUA. "Gibbon says he read the whole five volumes in a day." "'Tis impossible," cried Mr. Burke, "it cost me three days; and you know I never parted with it from the day I first opened it."' See post, among the imitators of Johnson's style, under Dec. 6, 1784.

[697] In Mr. Barry's printed analysis, or description of these pictures, he speaks of Johnson's character in the highest terms. BOSWELL. Barry, in one of his pictures, placed Johnson between the two beautiful duchesses of Rutland and Devonshire, pointing to their Graces Mrs. Montagu as an example. He expresses his 'reverence for his consistent, manly, and well-spent life.' Barry's Works, ii. 339. Johnson, in his turn, praises 'the comprehension of Barry's design.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 256. He was more likely to understand it, as the pictures formed a series, meant 'to illustrate one great maxim of moral truth, viz. that the obtaining of happiness depends upon cultivating the human faculties. We begin with man in a savage state full of inconvenience, imperfection, and misery, and we follow him through several gradations of culture and happiness, which, after our probationary state here, are finally attended with beatitude or misery.' Barry's Works, ii. 323. Horace Walpole (Letters, viii. 366) describes Barry's book as one 'which does not want sense, though full of passion and self, and vulgarisms and vanity.'

[698] Boswell had tried to bring about a third meeting between Johnson and Wilkes. On May 21 he wrote:—'Mr. Boswell's compliments to Mr. Wilkes. He finds that it would not be unpleasant to Dr. Johnson to dine at Mr. Wilkes's. The thing would be so curiously benignant, it were a pity it should not take place. Nobody but Mr. Boswell should be asked to meet the doctor.' An invitation was sent, but the following answer was returned:—'May 24, 1783. Mr. Johnson returns thanks to Mr. and Miss Wilkes for their kind invitation; but he is engaged for Tuesday to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and for Wednesday to Mr. Paradise.' Owing to Boswell's return to Scotland, another day could not be fixed. Almon's Wilkes, iv. 314, 321.

[699] 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' Ecclesiastes, xi. 3.

[700] 'When a tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivial jerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it should lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend, by a little interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person's everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenance their presumption.' Shenstone's Works, ed. 1773, ii. 255.

[701] Hazlitt says that 'when old Baxter first went to Kidderminster to preach, he was almost pelted by the women for maintaining from the pulpit the then fashionable and orthodox doctrine, that "Hell was paved with infants' skulls.'" Conversations of Northcote, p. 80.

[702] Acts, xvii. 24.

[703] Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch. BOSWELL.

[704] Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. BOSWELL. See ante, p.200.

[705] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. See ante, iii.90, and post, April 5, 1784.

[706] The late Keeper of the Royal Academy. He died on Jan. 23 of this year. Reynolds wrote of him:—'He may truly be said in every sense, to have been the father of the present race of artists.' Northcote's Reynolds ii.137.

[707] Mr. Allen was his landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court. Ante, iii. 141.

[708] Cowper mentions him in Retirement:—

'Virtuous and faithful Heberden! whose skill Attempts no task it cannot well fulfill, Gives melancholy up to nature's care, And sends the patient into purer air.'

Cowper's Poems, ed. 1786, i. 272.

He is mentioned also by Priestley (Auto. ed. 1810, p.66) as one of his chief benefactors. Lord Eldon, when almost a briefless barrister, consulted him. 'I put my hand into my pocket, meaning to give him his fee; but he stopped me, saying, "Are you the young gentleman who gained the prize for the essay at Oxford?" I said I was. "I will take no fee from you." I often consulted him; but he would never take a fee.' Twiss's Eldon, i. 104.