Priestley expresses himself ill, but his meaning can be made out. Parr answered Boswell in the March number of the Gent. Mag. for 1795, p. 179. But the evidence that he brings is rendered needless by Priestley's positive statement. May peace henceforth fall on 'Priestley's injured name.' (Mrs. Barbauld's Poems, ii. 243.)

When Boswell asserts that Johnson 'was particularly resolute in not giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to society,' he forgets that that very summer of 1783 he had been willing to dine at Wilkes's house (ante, p. 224, note 2).

Dr. Franklin (Memoirs, ed. 1833, iii. 157) wrote to Dr. Price in 1784:—'It is said that scarce anybody but yourself and Dr. Priestley possesses the art of knowing how to differ decently.' Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 304), describing in 1789 the honestest members of the French Assembly, calls them 'a set of wild visionaries, like our Dr. Price, who gravely debate, and dream about the establishment of a pure and perfect democracy of five and twenty millions, the virtues of the golden age, and the primitive rights and equality of mankind.' Admiration of Price made Samuel Rogers, when a boy, wish to be a preacher. 'I thought there was nothing on earth so grand as to figure in a pulpit. Dr. Price lived much in the society of Lord Lansdowne [Earl of Shelburne] and other people of rank; and his manners were extremely polished. In the pulpit he was great indeed.' Rogers's Table Talk, p. 3.

The full title of the tract mentioned by Boswell is, A small Whole-Length of Dr. Priestley from his Printed Works. It was published in 1792, and is a very poor piece of writing.

Johnson had refused to meet the Abbe Raynal, the author of the Histoire Philosophique et Politique du Commerce des Deux Indes, when he was over in England in 1777. Mrs. Chapone, writing to Mrs. Carter on June 15 of that year, says:—

'I suppose you have heard a great deal of the Abbe Raynal, who is in London. I fancy you would have served him as Dr. Johnson did, to whom when Mrs. Vesey introduced him, he turned from him, and said he had read his book, and would have nothing to say to him.' Mrs. Chapone's Posthumous Works, i. 172.

See Walpole's Letters, v. 421, and vi. 444. His book was burnt by the common hangman in Paris. Carlyle's French Revolution, ed. 1857, i. 45.



APPENDIX C.

(Page 253.)

Hawkins gives the two following notes:—

'DEAR SIR,

'As Mr. Ryland was talking with me of old friends and past times, we warmed ourselves into a wish, that all who remained of the club should meet and dine at the house which once was Horseman's, in Ivy-lane. I have undertaken to solicit you, and therefore desire you to tell on what day next week you can conveniently meet your old friends.

'I am, Sir,

'Your most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Bolt-court, Nov. 22, 1783.'

'DEAR SIR,

'In perambulating Ivy-lane, Mr. Ryland found neither our landlord Horseman, nor his successor. The old house is shut up, and he liked not the appearance of any near it; he therefore bespoke our dinner at the Queen's Arms, in St. Paul's Church-yard, where, at half an hour after three, your company will be desired to-day by those who remain of our former society.

'Your humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Dec. 3.'

Four met—Johnson, Hawkins, Ryland, and Payne (ante, i. 243).

'We dined,' Hawkins continues, 'and in the evening regaled with coffee. At ten we broke up, much to the regret of Johnson, who proposed staying; but finding us inclined to separate, he left us with a sigh that seemed to come from his heart, lamenting that he was retiring to solitude and cheerless meditation.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 562.

Hawkins is mistaken in saying that they had a second meeting at a tavern at the end of a month; for Johnson, on March 10, 1784, wrote:—

'I have been confined from the fourteenth of December, and know not when I shall get out.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 351.

He thus describes these meetings:—

'Dec. 13. I dined about a fortnight ago with three old friends; we had not met together for thirty years, and one of us thought the other grown very old. In the thirty years two of our set have died; our meeting may be supposed to be somewhat tender.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 339.

'Jan. 12, 1784. I had the same old friends to dine with me on Wednesday, and may say that since I lost sight of you I have had one pleasant day.' Ib. p. 346.

'April 15, 1784. Yesterday I had the pleasure of giving another dinner to the remainder of the old club. We used to meet weekly, about the year fifty, and we were as cheerful as in former times; only I could not make quite so much noise, for since the paralytick affliction my voice is sometimes weak.' Ib. p. 361.

'April 19, 1784. The people whom I mentioned in my letter are the remnant of a little club that used to meet in Ivy-lane about three and thirty years ago, out of which we have lost Hawkesworth and Dyer; the rest are yet on this side the grave. Our meetings now are serious, and I think on all parts tender.' Ib. 363.

See ante, i. 191, note 5.



APPENDIX D.

(Page 254.)

It is likely that Sir Joshua Reynolds refused to join the Essex Head Club because he did not wish to meet Barry. Not long before this time he had censured Barry's delay in entering upon his duties as Professor of painting.

'Barry answered:—"If I had no more to do in the composition of my lectures than to produce such poor flimsy stuff as your discourses, I should soon have done my work, and be prepared to read." It is said this speech was delivered with his fist clenched, in a menacing posture.' (Northcote's Life of Reynolds, ii. 146.)

The Hon. Daines Barrington was the author of an Essay on the Migration of Birds (ante, ii. 248) and of Observations on the Statutes (ante, iii. 314). Horace Walpole wrote on Nov. 24, 1780 (Letters, vii. 464):—

'I am sorry for the Dean of Exeter; if he dies I conclude the leaden mace of the Antiquarian Society will be given to Judge Barrington.' (He was 'second Justice of Chester.')

For Dr. Brocklesby see ante, pp. 176, 230, 338, 400.

Of Mr. John Nichols, Murphy says that 'his attachment to Dr. Johnson was unwearied.' Life of Johnson, p. 66. He was the printer of The Lives of the Poets (ante, p. 36), and the author of Biographical and Literary Anecdotes of William Bowyer, Printer, 'the last of the learned printers,' whose apprentice he had been (ante, p. 369). Horace Walpole (Letters, viii. 259) says:—

'I scarce ever saw a book so correct as Mr. Nichols's Life of Mr. Bowyer. I wish it deserved the pains he has bestowed on it every way, and that he would not dub so many men great. I have known several of his heroes, who were very little men.'

The Life of Bowyer being recast and enlarged was republished under the title of Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. From 1778 till his death in 1826 the Gentleman's Magazine was in great measure in his hands. Southey, writing in 1804, says:—

'I have begun to take in here at Keswick the Gentleman's Magazine, alias the Oldwomania, to enlighten a Portuguese student among the mountains; it does amuse me by its exquisite inanity, and the glorious and intense stupidity of its correspondents; it is, in truth, a disgrace to the age and the country.' Southey's Life and Correspondence, ii. 281.

Mr. William Cooke, 'commonly called Conversation Cooke,' wrote Lives of Macklin and Foote. Forster's Essays, ii. 312, and Gent. Mag. 1824, p. 374. Mr. Richard Paul Joddrel, or Jodrell, was the author of The Persian Heroine, a Tragedy, which, in Baker's Biog. Dram. i. 400, is wrongly assigned to Sir R.P. Jodrell, M.D. Nichols's Lit. Anec. ix. 2.

For Mr. Paradise see ante, p. 364, note 2.

Dr. Horsley was the controversialist, later on Bishop of St. David's and next of Rochester. Gibbon makes splendid mention of him (Misc. Works, i. 232) when he tells how 'Dr. Priestley's Socinian shield has repeatedly been pierced by the mighty spear of Horsley.' Windham, however, in his Diary in one place (p. 125) speaks of him as having his thoughts 'intent wholly on prospects of Church preferment;' and in another place (p. 275) says that 'he often lays down with great confidence what turns out afterwards to be wrong.' In the House of Lords he once said that 'he did not know what the mass of the people in any country had to do with the laws but to obey them.' Parl. Hist. xxxii. 258. Thurlow rewarded him for his Letters to Priestley by a stall at Gloucester, 'saying that "those who supported the Church should be supported by it."' Campbell's Chancellors, ed. 1846, v. 635.

For Mr. Windham, see ante, p. 200.

Hawkins (Life of Johnson, p. 567) thus writes of the formation of the Club:—

'I was not made privy to this his intention, but all circumstances considered, it was no matter of surprise to me when I heard that the great Dr. Johnson had, in the month of December 1783, formed a sixpenny club at an ale-house in Essex-street, and that though some of the persons thereof were persons of note, strangers, under restrictions, for three pence each night might three nights in a week hear him talk and partake of his conversation.'

Miss Hawkins (Memoirs, i. 103) says:—

'Boswell was well justified in his resentment of my father's designation of this club as a sixpenny club, meeting at an ale-house. ... Honestly speaking, I dare say my father did not like being passed over.'

Sir Joshua Reynolds, writing of the club, says:—

'Any company was better than none; by which Johnson connected himself with many mean persons whose presence he could command. For this purpose he established a club at a little ale-house in Essex-street, composed of a strange mixture of very learned and very ingenious odd people. Of the former were Dr. Heberden, Mr. Windham, Mr. Boswell, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Paradise. Those of the latter I do not think proper to enumerate.' Taylor's Life of Reynolds, ii. 455.

It is possible that Reynolds had never seen the Essex Head, and that the term 'little ale-house' he had borrowed from Hawkins's account. Possibly too his disgust at Barry here found vent. Murphy (Life of Johnson, p. 124) says:—

'The members of the club were respectable for their rank, their talents, and their literature.'

The 'little ale-house' club saw one of its members, Alderman Clarke (ante, p. 258), Lord Mayor within a year; another, Horsley, a Bishop within five years; and a third, Windham, Secretary at War within ten years. Nichols (Literary Anecdotes, ii. 553) gives a list of the 'constant members' at the time of Johnson's death.



APPENDIX E.

(Page 399.)

Miss Burney's account of Johnson's last days is interesting, but her dates are confused more even than is common with her. I have corrected them as well as I can.

'Dec. 9. He will not, it seems, be talked to—at least very rarely. At times indeed he re-animates; but it is soon over and he says of himself:—"I am now like Macbeth—question enrages me."'

'Dec. 10. At night my father brought us the most dismal tidings of dear Dr. Johnson. He had thanked and taken leave of all his physicians. Alas! I shall lose him, and he will take no leave of me. My father was deeply depressed. I hear from everyone he is now perfectly resigned to his approaching fate, and no longer in terror of death.'

'Dec. 11. My father in the morning saw this first of men. He was up and very composed. He took his hand very kindly, asked after all his family, and then in particular how Fanny did. "I hope," he said, "Fanny did not take it amiss that I did not see her. I was very bad. Tell Fanny to pray for me." After which, still grasping his hand, he made a prayer for himself, the most fervent, pious, humble, eloquent, and touching, my father says, that ever was composed. Oh! would I had heard it! He ended it with Amen! in which my father joined, and was echoed by all present; and again, when my father was leaving him, he brightened up, something of his arch look returned, and he said: "I think I shall throw the ball at Fanny yet."'

'Dec. 12. [Miss Burney called at Bolt-court.] All the rest went away but a Mrs. Davis, a good sort of woman, whom this truly charitable soul had sent for to take a dinner at his house. [See ante, p. 239, note 2.] Mr. Langton then came. He could not look at me, and I turned away from him. Mrs. Davis asked how the Doctor was. "Going on to death very fast," was his mournful answer. "Has he taken," said she, "anything?" "Nothing at all. We carried him some bread and milk—he refused it, and said:—'The less the better.'"'

'Dec. 20. This day was the ever-honoured, ever-lamented Dr. Johnson committed to the earth. Oh, how sad a day to me! My father attended. I could not keep my eyes dry all day; nor can I now in the recollecting it; but let me pass over what to mourn is now so vain.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 333-339.



APPENDIX F.

(Notes on Boswell's note on pages 403-405.)

[F-1] In a letter quoted in Mr. Croker's Boswell, p. 427, Dr. Johnson calls Thomas Johnson 'cousin,' and says that in the last sixteen months he had given him L40. He mentions his death in 1779. Piozzi Letters, ii. 45.

[F-2] Hawkins (Life, p. 603) says that Elizabeth Herne was Johnson's first-cousin, and that he had constantly—how long he does not say—contributed L15 towards her maintenance.

[F-3] For Mauritius Lowe, see ante, iii. 324, and iv. 201.

[F-4] To Mr. Windham, two days earlier, he had given a copy of the New Testament, saying:—'Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto.' Windham's Diary, p. 28.

[F-5] For Mrs. Gardiner see ante, i. 242.

[F-6] Mr. John Desmoulins was the son of Mrs. Desmoulins (ante, iii. 222, 368), and the grandson of Johnson's god-father, Dr. Swinfen (ante, i. 34). Johnson mentions him in a letter to Mrs. Thrale in 1778. 'Young Desmoulins is taken in an under-something of Drury Lane; he knows not, I believe, his own denomination.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 25.

[F-7] The reference is to The Rambler, No. 41 (not 42 as Boswell says), where Johnson mentions 'those vexations and anxieties with which all human enjoyments are polluted.'

[F-8] Bishop Sanderson described his soul as 'infinitely polluted with sin.' Walton's Lives, ed. 1838, p. 396.

[F-9] Hume, writing in 1742 about his Essays Moral and Political, says:—

'Innys, the great bookseller in Paul's Church-yard, wonders there is not a new edition, for that he cannot find copies for his customers.' J.H. Burton's Hume, i. 143.

[F-10] Nichols (Lit. Anec. ii. 554) says that, on Dec. 7,

'Johnson asked him whether any of the family of Faden the printer were living. Being told that the geographer near Charing Cross was Faden's son, he said, after a short pause:—"I borrowed a guinea of his father near thirty years ago; be so good as to take this, and pay it for me."'

[F-11] Nowhere does Hawkins more shew the malignancy of his character than in his attacks on Johnson's black servant, and through him on Johnson. With the passage in which this offensive caveat is found he brings his work to a close. At the first mention of Frank (Life, p. 328) he says:—

'His first master had in great humanity made him a Christian, and his last for no assignable reason, nay rather in despite of nature, and to unfit him for being useful according to his capacity, determined to make him a scholar.'

But Hawkins was a brutal fellow. See ante, i. 27, note 2, and 28, note 1.

[F-12] Johnson had written to Taylor on Oct. 23 of this year:—

'"Coming down from a very restless night I found your letter, which made me a little angry. You tell me that recovery is in my power. This indeed I should be glad to hear if I could once believe it. But you mean to charge me with neglecting or opposing my own health. Tell me, therefore, what I do that hurts me, and what I neglect that would help me." This letter is endorsed by Taylor: "This is the last letter. My answer, which were (sic) the words of advice he gave to Mr. Thrale the day he dyed, he resented extremely from me."' Mr. Alfred Morrison's Collection of Autographs, &c., ii. 343.

'The words of advice' which were given to Mr. Thrale the day before the fatal fit seized him, were that he should abstain from full meals. Ante, iv. 84, note 4. Johnson's resentment of Taylor's advice may account for the absence of his name in his will.

[F-13] They were sold in 650 Lots, in a four days' sale. Besides the books there were 146 portraits, of which 61 were framed and glazed. These prints in their frames were sold in lots of 4, 8, and even 10 together, though certainly some of them—and perhaps many—were engravings from Reynolds. The Catalogue of the sale is in the Bodleian Library.



APPENDIX G.

(Notes on Boswell's note on page 408.)

[G-1] Mrs. Piozzi records (Anecdotes, p. 120) that Johnson told her,—

'When Boyse was almost perishing with hunger, and some money was produced to purchase him a dinner, he got a bit of roast beef, but could not eat it without ketch-up; and laid out the last half-guinea he possessed in truffles and mushrooms, eating them in bed too, for want of clothes, or even a shirt to sit up in.'

Hawkins (Life, p. 159) gives 1740 as the year of Boyse's destitution.

'He was,' he says, 'confined to a bed which had no sheets; here, to procure food, he wrote; his posture sitting up in bed, his only covering a blanket, in which a hole was made to admit of the employment of his arm.'

Two years later Boyse wrote the following verses to Cave from a spunging-house:—

'Hodie, teste coelo summo, Sine pane, sine nummo, Sorte positus infeste, Scribo tibi dolens moeste. Fame, bile tumet jecur: Urbane, mitte opem, precor. Tibi enim cor humanum Non a malis alienum: Mihi mens nee male grato, Pro a te favore dato. Ex gehenna debitoria, Vulgo, domo spongiatoria.'

He adds that he hopes to have his Ode on the British Nation done that day. This Ode, which is given in the Gent. Mag. 1742, p. 383, contains the following verse, which contrasts sadly with the poor poet's case:—

'Thou, sacred isle, amidst thy ambient main, Enjoyst the sweets of freedom all thy own.'

[G-2] It is not likely that Johnson called a sixpence 'a serious consideration.' He who in his youth would not let his comrades say prodigious (ante/, in. 303) was not likely in his old age so to misuse a word.

[G-3] Hugh Kelly is mentioned ante, ii. 48, note 2, and iii. 113.

[G-4] It was not on the return from Sky, but on the voyage from Sky to Rasay, that the spurs were lost. Post, v. 163.

[G-5] Dr. White's Bampton Lectures of 1784 'became part of the triumphant literature of the University of Oxford,' and got the preacher a Christ Church Canonry. Of these Lectures Dr. Parr had written about one-fifth part. White, writing to Parr about a passage in the manuscript of the last Lecture, said:—'I fear I did not clearly explain myself; I humbly beg the favour of you to make my meaning more intelligible.' On the death of Mr. Badcock in 1788, a note for L500 from White was found in his pocket-book. White pretended that this was remuneration for some other work; but it was believed on good grounds that Badcock had begun what Parr had completed, and that these famous Lectures were mainly their work. Badcock was one of the writers in the Monthly Review. Johnstone's Life of Dr. Parr, i. 218-278. For Badcock's correspondence with the editor of the Monthly Review, see Bodleian MS. Add. C. 90.

[G-6] 'Virgilium vidi tantum.' Ovid, Tristia, iv. 10. 51.

[G-7] Mackintosh says of Priestley:—'Frankness and disinterestedness in the avowal of his opinion were his point of honour.' He goes on to point out that there was 'great mental power in him wasted and scattered.' Life of Mackintosh, i. 349. See ante, ii. 124, and iv. 238 for Johnson's opinion of Priestley.

[G-8] Badcock, in using the term 'index-scholar,' was referring no doubt to Pope's lines:—

'How Index-learning turns no student pale, Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.'

Dunciad, i. 279.



APPENDIX H.

(Notes on Boswell's note on pages 421-422.)

[H-1] The last lines of the inscription on this urn are borrowed, with a slight change, from the last paragraph of the last Rambler/. (Johnson's Works, iii. 465, and ante, i. 226.) Johnson visited Colonel Myddelton on August 29, 1774, in his Tour to Wales. See post, v. 453.

[H-2] Johnson, writing to Dr. Taylor on Sept. 3, 1783, said:—'I sat to Opey (sic) as long as he desired, and I think the head is finished, but it is not much admired.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 481. Hawkins (Life of Johnson, p. 569) says that in 1784 'Johnson resumed sitting to Opie, but,' he adds, 'I believe the picture was never finished.'

[H-3] Of this picture, which was the one painted for Beauclerk (ante, p. 180), it is stated in Johnson's Work, ed. 1787, xi. 204, that 'there is in it that appearance of a labouring working mind, of an indolent reposing body, which he had to a very great degree.'

[H-4] It seems almost certain that the portrait of Johnson in the Common Room of University College, Oxford, is this very mezzotinto. It was given to the College by Sir William Scott, and it is a mezzotinto from Opie's portrait. It has been reproduced for this work, and will be found facing page 244 of volume iii. Scott's inscription on the back of the frame is given on page 245, note 3, of the same volume.



APPENDIX I.

(Page 424.)

Boswell most likely never knew that in the year 1790 Mr. Seward, in the name of Cadell the publisher, had asked Parr to write a Life of Johnson. (Johnstone's Life of Parr, iv. 678.) Parr, in his amusing vanity, was as proud of this Life as if he had written it. '"It would have been," he said, "the third most learned work that has ever yet appeared. The most learned work ever published I consider Bentley On the Epistles of Phalaris; the next Salmasius On the Hellenistic Language." Alluding to Boswell's Life he continued, "Mine should have been, not the droppings of his lips, but the history of his mind."' Field's Life of Parr, i. 164.

In the epitaph that he first sent in were found the words 'Probabili Poetae.'

'In arms,' wrote Parr, 'were all the Johnsonians: Malone, Steevens, Sir W. Scott, Windham, and even Fox, all in arms. The epithet was cold. They do not understand it, and I am a Scholar, not a Belles-Lettres man.'

Parr had wished to pass over all notice of Johnson's poetical character. To this, Malone said, none of his friends of the Literary Club would agree. He pointed out also that Parr had not noticed 'that part of Johnson's genius, which placed him on higher ground than perhaps any other quality that can be named—the universality of his knowledge, the promptness of his mind in producing it on all occasions in conversation, and the vivid eloquence with which he clothed his thoughts, however suddenly called upon.' Parr, regardless of Johnson's rule that 'in lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath' (ante, ii. 407), replied, that if he mentioned his conversation he should have to mention also his roughness in contradiction, &c. As for the epithet probabili, he 'never reflected upon it without almost a triumphant feeling in its felicity.' Nevertheless he would change it into 'poetae sententiarum et verborum ponderibus admirabili.' Yet these words, 'energetic and sonorous' though they were, 'fill one with a secret and invincible loathing, because they tend to introduce into the epitaph a character of magnificence.' With every fresh objection he rose in importance. He wrote for the approbation of real scholars of generations yet unborn. 'That the epitaph was written by such or such a man will, from the publicity of the situation, and the popularity of the subject, be long remembered.' Johnstone's Life of Parr, iv. 694-712. No objection seems to have been raised to the five pompous lines of perplexing dates and numerals in which no room is found even for Johnson's birth and birth-place.

'After I had written the epitaph,' wrote Parr to a friend, 'Sir Joshua Reynolds told me there was a scroll. I was in a rage. A scroll! Why, Ned, this is vile modern contrivance. I wanted one train of ideas. What could I do with the scroll? Johnson held it, and Johnson must speak in it. I thought of this, his favourite maxim, in the Life of Milton, [Johnson's Works, vii. 77],

"[Greek: Otti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetuktai.]."

In Homer [Odyssey, iv. 392] you know—and shewing the excellence of Moral Philosophy. There Johnson and Socrates agree. Mr. Seward, hearing of my difficulty, and no scholar, suggested the closing line in the Rambler [ante, i. 226, note 1]; had I looked there I should have anticipated the suggestion. It is the closing line in Dionysius's Periegesis,

"[Greek: Anton ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.]."

I adopted it, and gave Seward the praise. "Oh," quoth Sir William Scott, "[Greek: makaron] is Heathenish, and the Dean and Chapter will hesitate." "The more fools they," said I. But to prevent disputes I have altered it.

"[Greek: En makaressi ponon antaxios ein amoibae]." Johnstone's Life of Parr, iv. 713.

Though the inscription on the scroll is not strictly speaking part of the epitaph, yet this mixture of Greek and Latin is open to the censure Johnson passed on Pope's Epitaph on Craggs.

'It may be proper to remark,' he said, 'the absurdity of joining in the same inscription Latin and English, or verse and prose. If either language be preferable to the other, let that only be used; for no reason can be given why part of the information should be given in one tongue and part in another on a tomb more than in any other place, or on any other occasion.' Johnson's Works, viii. 353.

Bacon the sculptor was anxious, wrote Malone, 'that posterity should know that he was entitled to annex R.A. to his name.' Parr was ready to give his name, lest if it were omitted 'Bacon should slily put the figure of a hog on Johnson's monument'; just as 'Saurus and Batrachus, when Octavia would not give them leave to set their names on the Temples they had built in Rome, scattered one of them [Greek: saurai] [lizards], and the other [Greek: batrachoi] [frogs] on the bases and capitals of the columns.' But as for the R.A., the sculptor 'very reluctantly had to agree to its omission.' Johnstone's Parr, iv. 705 and 710.



FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nothing can compensate for this want this year of all years. Johnson's health was better than it had been for long, and his mind happier perhaps than it had ever been. The knowledge that in his Lives of the Poets, he had done, and was doing good work, no doubt was very cheering to him. At no time had he gone more into society, and at no time does he seem to have enjoyed it with greater relish. 'How do you think I live?' he wrote on April 25. 'On Thursday, I dined with Hamilton, and went thence to Mrs. Ord. On Friday, with much company at Reynolds's. On Saturday, at Dr. Bell's. On Sunday, at Dr. Burney's; at night, came Mrs. Ord, Mr. Greville, &c. On Monday with Reynolds, at night with Lady Lucan; to-day with Mr. Langton; to-morrow with the Bishop of St. Asaph; on Thursday with Mr. Bowles; Friday ——; Saturday, at the Academy; Sunday with Mr. Ramsay.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 107. On May 1, he wrote:—'At Mrs. Ord's, I met one Mrs. B—— [Buller], a travelled lady, of great spirit, and some consciousness of her own abilities. We had a contest of gallantry an hour long, so much to the diversion of the company that at Ramsay's last night, in a crowded room, they would have pitted us again. There were Smelt, [one of the King's favourites] and the Bishop of St. Asaph, who comes to every place; and Lord Monboddo, and Sir Joshua, and ladies out of tale.' Ib. p. 111. The account that Langton gives of the famous evening at Mrs. Vesey's, 'when the company began to collect round Johnson till they became not less than four, if not five deep (ante, May 2, 1780), is lively enough; but 'the particulars of the conversation' which he neglects, Boswell would have given us in full.

[2] In 1792, Miss Burney, after recording that Boswell told some of his Johnsonian stories, continues:—'Mr. Langton told some stories in imitation of Dr. Johnson; but they became him less than Mr. Boswell, and only reminded me of what Dr. Johnson himself once said to me—"Every man has some time in his life an ambition to be a wag."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, v. 307.

[3] Stephanorum Historia, vitas ipsorum ac libros complectens. London, 1709.

[4] Senilia was published in 1742. The line to which Johnson refers is, 'Mel, nervos, fulgur, Carteret, unus, habes,' p. 101. In another line, the poet celebrates Colley Cibber's Muse—the Musa Cibberi: 'Multa Cibberum levat aura.' p. 50. See Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, i. 367.

[5] Graecae Linguae Dialecti in Scholae Westmonast. usum, 1738.

[6] Giannone, an Italian historian, born 1676, died 1748. When he published his History of the Kingdom of Naples, a friend congratulating him on its success, said:—'Mon ami, vous vous etes mis une couronne sur la tete, mais une couronne d'epines.' His attacks on the Church led to persecution, in the end he made a retractation, but nevertheless he died in prison. Nouv. Biog. Gen. xx. 422.

[7] See ante, ii. 119.

[8] 'There is no kind of impertinence more justly censurable than his who is always labouring to level thoughts to intellects higher than his own; who apologises for every word which his own narrowness of converse inclines him to think unusual; keeps the exuberance of his faculties under visible restraint; is solicitous to anticipate inquiries by needless explanations; and endeavours to shade his own abilities lest weak eyes should be dazzled with their lustre.' The Rambler, No. 173.

[9] Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines Anfractuousness as Fulness of windings and turnings. Anfractuosity is not given. Lord Macaulay, in the last sentence in his Biography of Johnson, alludes to this passage.

[10] See ante, iii. 149, note 2.

[11] 'My purpose was to admit no testimony of living authors, that I might not be misled by partiality, and that none of my contemporaries might have reason to complain; nor have I departed from this resolution, but when some performance of uncommon excellence excited my veneration, when my memory supplied me from late books with an example that was wanting, or when my heart, in the tenderness of friendship, solicited admission for a favourite name.' Johnson's Works, v. 39. He cites himself under important, Mrs. Lennox under talent, Garrick under giggler; from Richardson's Clarissa, he makes frequent quotations. In the fourth edition, published in 1773 (ante, ii. 203), he often quotes Reynolds; for instance, under vulgarism, which word is not in the previous editions. Beattie he quotes under weak, and Gray under bosom. He introduces also many quotations from Law, and Young. In the earlier editions, in his quotations from Clarissa, he very rarely gives the author's name; in the fourth edition I have found it rarely omitted.

[12] In one of his Hypochondriacks (London Mag. 1782, p. 233) Boswell writes:—'I have heard it remarked by one, of whom more remarks deserve to be remembered than of any person I ever knew, that a man is often as narrow as he is prodigal for want of counting.'

[13] 'Sept. 1778. We began talking of Irene, and Mrs. Thrale made Dr. Johnson read some passages which I had been remarking as uncommonly applicable to the present time. He read several speeches, and told us he had not ever read so much of it before since it was first printed.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 96. 'I was told,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'that a gentleman called Pot, or some such name, was introduced to him as a particular admirer of his. The Doctor growled and took no further notice. "He admires in especial your Irene as the finest tragedy modern times;" to which the Doctor replied, "If Pot says so, Pot lies!" and relapsed into his reverie.' Croker Corres. ii. 32.

[14] Scrupulosity was a word that Boswell had caught up from Johnson. Sir W. Jones (Life, i. 177) wrote in 1776:—'You will be able to examine with the minutest scrupulosity, as Johnson would call it.' Johnson describes Addison's prose as 'pure without scrupulosity.' Works, vii. 472. 'Swift,' he says, 'washed himself with oriental scrupulosity.' Ib. viii. 222. Boswell (Hebrides, Aug. 15) writes of 'scrupulosity of conscience.'

[15]

'When thou didst not, savage, Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like A thing most brutish, I endow'd thy purposes With words that made them known.' The Tempest, act i. sc. 2.

[16] Secretary to the British Herring Fishery, remarkable for an extraordinary number of occasional verses, not of eminent merit. BOSWELL. See ante, i. 115, note i. Lockman was known in France as the translator of Voltaire's La Henriade. See Marmontel's Preface. Voltaire's Works, ed. 1819, viii. 18.

[17] Luke vii. 50. BOSWELL.

[18] Miss Burney, describing him in 1783, says:—'He looks unformed in his manners and awkward in his gestures. He joined not one word in the general talk.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 237. See ante, ii. 41, note 1.

[19] By Garrick.

[20] See ante, i. 201.

[21] See post, under Sept. 30, 1783.

[22] The actor. Churchill introduces him in The Rosciad (Poems, i. 16):—'Next Holland came. With truly tragic stalk, He creeps, he flies. A Hero should not walk.'

[23] In a letter written by Johnson to a friend in 1742-43, he says: 'I never see Garrick.' MALONE.

[24] See ante, ii. 227.

[25] The Wonder! A Woman keeps a Secret, by Mrs. Centlivre. Acted at Drury Lane in 1714. Revived by Garrick in 1757. Reed's Biog. Dram. iii. 420.

[26] In Macbeth.

[27] Mr. Longley was Recorder of Rochester, and father of Archbishop Longley. To the kindness of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Newton Smart, I owe the following extract from his manuscript Autobiography:—'Dr. Johnson and General Paoli came down to visit Mr. Langton, and I was asked to meet them, when the conversation took place mentioned by Boswell, in which Johnson gave me more credit for knowledge of the Greek metres than I deserved. There was some question about anapaestics, concerning which I happened to remember what Foster used to tell us at Eton, that the whole line to the Basis Anapaestica was considered but as one verse, however divided in the printing, and consequently the syllables at the end of each line were not common, as in other metres. This observation was new to Johnson, and struck him. Had he examined me farther, I fear he would have found me ignorant. Langton was a very good Greek scholar, much superior to Johnson, to whom nevertheless he paid profound deference, sometimes indeed I thought more than he deserved. The next day I dined at Langton's with Johnson, I remember Lady Rothes [Langton's wife] spoke of the advantage children now derived from the little books published purposely for their instruction. Johnson controverted it, asserting that at an early age it was better to gratify curiosity with wonders than to attempt planting truth, before the mind was prepared to receive it, and that therefore, Jack the Giant-Killer, Parisenus and Parismenus, and The Seven Champions of Christendom were fitter for them than Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer.' Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 16) says:—'Dr. Johnson used to condemn me for putting Newbery's books into children's hands. "Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds." When I would urge the numerous editions of Tommy Prudent or Goody Two Shoes; "Remember always," said he, "that the parents buy the books, and that the children never read them.'" For Johnson's visit to Rochester, see post, July, 1783.

[28] See post, beginning of 1781, after The Life of Swift, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 15.

[29] See ante, under Sept. 9, 1779.

[30] Johnson wrote of this grotto (Works, viii. 270):—'It may be frequently remarked of the studious and speculative that they are proud of trifles, and that their amusements seem frivolous and childish.'

[31] See ante, i. 332.

[32] Epilogue to the Satires, i. 131. Dr. James Foster, the Nonconformist preacher. Johnson mentions 'the reputation which he had gained by his proper delivery.' Works, viii. 384. In The Conversations of Northcote, p. 88, it is stated that 'Foster first became popular from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping in the porch of his chapel in the Old Jewry out of a shower of rain: and thinking he might as well hear what was going on he went in, and was so well pleased that he sent all the great folks to hear him, and he was run after as much as Irving has been in our time.' Dr. T. Campbell (Diary, p. 34) recorded in 1775, that 'when Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster's Sermons, Johnson flew in a passion, and said that Foster was a man of mean ability, and of no original thinking.' Gibbon (Misc. Works, v. 300) wrote of Foster:—'Wonderful! a divine preferring reason to faith, and more afraid of vice than of heresy.'

[33] It is believed to have been her play of The Sister, brought out in 1769. 'The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much appearance of prejudice that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time.' Gent. Mag. xxxix. 199. It is strange, however, if Goldsmith was asked to hiss a play for which he wrote the epilogue. Goldsmith's Misc. Works, ii. 80. Johnson wrote on Oct. 28, 1779 (Piozzi Letters, ii. 72):—'C—— L—— accuses —— of making a party against her play. I always hissed away the charge, supposing him a man of honour; but I shall now defend him with less confidence.' Baretti, in a marginal note, says that C—— L—— is 'Charlotte Lennox.' Perhaps —— stands for Cumberland. Miss Burney said that 'Mr. Cumberland is notorious for hating and envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic line.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 272.

[34] See ante, i. 255.

[35] In The Rambler, No. 195, Johnson describes rascals such as this man. 'They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and a performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon by scribblers. In the pit they exerted themselves with great spirit and vivacity; called out for the tunes of obscene songs, talked loudly at intervals of Shakespeare and Jonson,' &c.

[36] See ante, ii. 469.

[37] Dr. Percy told Malone 'that they all at the Club had such a high opinion of Mr. Dyer's knowledge and respect for his judgment as to appeal to him constantly, and that his sentence was final.' Malone adds that 'he was so modest and reserved, that he frequently sat silent in company for an hour, and seldom spoke unless appealed to. Goldsmith, who used to rattle away upon all subjects, had been talking somewhat loosely relative to music. Some one wished for Mr. Dyer's opinion, which he gave with his usual strength and accuracy. "Why," said Goldsmith, turning round to Dyer, whom he had scarcely noticed before, "you seem to know a good deal of this matter." "If I had not," replied Dyer, "I should not, in this company, have said a word upon the subject."' Burke described him as 'a man of profound and general erudition; his sagacity and judgment were fully equal to the extent of his learning.' Prior's Malone, pp. 419, 424. Malone in his Life of Dryden, p. 181, says that Dyer was Junius. Johnson speaks of him as 'the late learned Mr. Dyer.' Works, viii. 385. Had he been alive he was to have been the professor of mathematics in the imaginary college at St. Andrews. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 25. Many years after his death, Johnson bought his portrait to hang in 'a little room that he was fitting up with prints.' Croker's Boswell, p. 639.

[38] Memoirs of Agriculture and other Oeconomical Arts, 3 vols., by Robert Dossie, London, 1768-82.

[39] See ante, ii. 14.

[40] Here Lord Macartney remarks, 'A Bramin or any cast of the Hindoos will neither admit you to be of their religion, nor be converted to yours;—a thing which struck the Portuguese with the greatest astonishment, when they first discovered the East Indies.' BOSWELL.

[41] See ante, ii. 250.

[42] See ante, Aug. 30, 1780.

[43] John, Lord Carteret, and Earl Granville, who died Jan. 2, 1763. It is strange that he wrote so ill; for Lord Chesterfield says (Misc. Works, iv. Appendix, p. 42) that 'he had brought away with him from Oxford, a great stock of Greek and Latin, and had made himself master of all the modern languages. He was one of the best speakers in the House of Lords, both in the declamatory and argumentative way.'

[44] Walpole describes the partiality of the members of the court-martial that sat on Admiral Keppel in Jan. 1779. One of them 'declared frankly that he should not attend to forms of law, but to justice.' So friendly were the judges to the prisoner that 'it required the almost unanimous voice of the witnesses in favour of his conduct, and the vile arts practised against him, to convince all mankind how falsely and basely he had been accused.' Walpole, referring to the members, speaks of 'the feelings of seamen unused to reason.' Some of the leading politicians established themselves at Portsmouth during the trial. Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 329

[45] See ante, ii. 240.

[46] In all Gray's Odes, there is a kind of cumbrous splendour which we wish away.... The mind of the writer seems to work with unnatural violence. "Double, double, toil and trouble." He has a kind of strutting dignity, and is tall by walking on tip-toe. His art and his struggle are too visible, and there is too little appearance of ease and nature.' Johnson's Works, viii. 484-87. See ante, i. 402, and ii. 327, 335.

[47] One evening, in the Haymarket Theatre, 'when Foote lighted the King to his chair, his majesty asked who [sic] the piece was written by? "By one of your Majesty's chaplains," said Foote, unable even then to suppress his wit; "and dull enough to have been written by a bishop."' Forster's Essays, ii. 435. See ante, i. 390, note 3.

[48] Bk. v. ch. 1.

[49] See ante, ii. 133, note 1; Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 27, and Oct. 28.

[50] The correspondent of The Gentleman's Magazine [1792, p. 214] who subscribes himself SCIOLUS furnishes the following supplement:—

'A lady of my acquaintance remembers to have heard her uncle sing those homely stanzas more than forty-five years ago. He repeated the second thus:—

She shall breed young lords and ladies fair, And ride abroad in a coach and three pair, And the best, &c. And have a house, &c.

And remembered a third which seems to have been the introductory one, and is believed to have been the only remaining one:—

When the Duke of Leeds shall have made his choice Of a charming young lady that's beautiful and wise, She'll be the happiest young gentlewoman under the skies, As long as the sun and moon shall rise, And how happy shall, &c.

It is with pleasure I add that this stanza could never be more truly applied than at this present time. BOSWELL. This note was added to the second edition.

[51] See ante, i. 115, note 1.

[52] See ante, i. 82.

[53] Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i. 121, says:—'Johnson was a real true-born Englishman. He hated the Scotch, the French, the Dutch, the Hanoverians, and had the greatest contempt for all other European nations; such were his early prejudices which he never attempted to conquer.' Reynolds wrote of Johnson:—'The prejudices he had to countries did not extend to individuals. In respect to Frenchmen he rather laughed at himself, but it was insurmountable. He considered every foreigner as a fool till they had convinced him of the contrary.' Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 460. Garrick wrote of the French in 1769:—'Their politesse has reduced their character to such a sameness, and their humours and passions are so curbed by habit, that, when you have seen half-a-dozen French men and women, you have seen the whole.' Garrick Corres. i. 358.

[54] 'There is not a man or woman here,' wrote Horace Walpole from Paris (Letters iv. 434), 'that is not a perfect old nurse, and who does not talk gruel and anatomy with equal fluency and ignorance.'

[55] '"I remember that interview well," said Dr. Parr with great vehemence when once reminded of it; "I gave him no quarter." The subject of our dispute was the liberty of the press. Dr. Johnson was very great. Whilst he was arguing, I observed that he stamped. Upon this I stamped. Dr. Johnson said, "Why did you stamp, Dr. Parr?" I replied, "Because you stamped; and I was resolved not to give you the advantage even of a stamp in the argument."' This, Parr said, was by no means his first introduction to Johnson. Field's Parr, i. 161. Parr wrote to Romilly in 1811:—'Pray let me ask whether you have ever read some admirable remarks of Mr. Hutcheson upon the word merit. I remember a controversy I had with Dr. Johnson upon this very term: we began with theology fiercely, I gently carried the conversation onward to philosophy, and after a dispute of more than three hours he lost sight of my heresy, and came over to my opinion upon the metaphysical import of the term.' Life of Romilly, ii. 365. When Parr was a candidate for the mastership of Colchester Grammar School, Johnson wrote for him a letter of recommendation. Johnstone's Parr, i. 94.

[56] 'Somebody was praising Corneille one day in opposition to Shakespeare. "Corneille is to Shakespeare," replied Mr. Johnson, "as a clipped hedge is to a forest."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 59.

[57] Johnson, it is clear, discusses here Mrs. Montagu's Essay on Shakespeare. She compared Shakespeare first with Corneille, and then with Aeschylus. In contrasting the ghost in Hamlet with the shade of Darius in The Persians, she says:—'The phantom, who was to appear ignorant of what was past, that the Athenian ear might be soothed and flattered with the detail of their victory at Salamis, is allowed, for the same reason, such prescience as to foretell their future triumph at Plataea.' p. 161.

[58] Caution is required in everything which is laid before youth, to secure them from unjust prejudices, perverse opinions, and incongruous combinations of images. In the romances formerly written, every transaction and sentiment was so remote from all that passes among men, that the reader was in very little danger of making any applications to himself.' The Rambler, No. 4.

[59] Johnson says of Pope's Ode for St. Cecilia's Day:—'The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology, where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow can be found.' Works, viii. 328. Of Gray's Progress of Poetry, he says:—'The second stanza, exhibiting Mars' car and Jove's eagle, is unworthy of further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a school-boy to his common-places.' Ib. p. 484.

[60] See ante, ii. 178.

[61]

'A Wizard-Dame, the Lover's ancient friend, With magic charm has deaft thy husband's ear, At her command I saw the stars descend, And winged lightnings stop in mid career, &c.'

Hammond. Elegy, v. In Boswell's Hebrides (Sept. 29), he said 'Hammond's Love Elegies were poor things.'

[62] Perhaps Lord Corke and Orrery. Ante, iii. 183. CROKER.

[63] Colman assumed that Johnson had maintained that Shakespeare was totally ignorant of the learned languages. He then quotes a line to prove 'that the author of The Taming of the Shrew had at least read Ovid;' and continues:—'And what does Dr. Johnson say on this occasion? Nothing. And what does Mr. Farmer say on this occasion? Nothing.' Colman's Terence, ii. 390. For Farmer, see ante, iii. 38.

[64] 'It is most likely that Shakespeare had learned Latin sufficiently to make him acquainted with construction, but that he never advanced to an easy perusal of the Roman authors.' Johnson's Works, V. 129. 'The style of Shakespeare was in itself ungrammatical, perplexed, and obscure.' Ib. p. 135.

[65]

'May I govern my passion with an absolute sway, And grow wiser and better, as my strength wears away, Without gout or stone by a gentle decay.'

The Old Man's Wish was sung to Sir Roger de Coverley by 'the fair one,' after the collation in which she ate a couple of chickens, and drank a full bottle of wine. Spectator, No. 410. 'What signifies our wishing?' wrote Dr. Franklin. 'I have sung that wishing song a thousand times when I was young, and now find at fourscore that the three contraries have befallen me, being subject to the gout and the stone, and not being yet master of all my passions.' Franklin's Memoirs, iii. 185.

[66] He uses the same image in The Life of Milton (Works, vii. 104):—'He might still be a giant among the pigmies, the one-eyed monarch of the blind.' Cumberland (Memoirs, i. 39) says that Bentley, hearing it maintained that Barnes spoke Greek almost like his mother tongue, replied:—'Yes, I do believe that Barnes had as much Greek and understood it about as well as an Athenian blacksmith.' See ante, iii 284. A passage in Wooll's Life of Dr. Warton (i. 313) shews that Barnes attempted to prove that Homer and Solomon were one and the same man. But I. D'Israeli says that it was reported that Barnes, not having money enough to publish his edition of Homer, 'wrote a poem, the design of which is to prove that Solomon was the author of the Iliad, to interest his wife, who had some property, to lend her aid towards the publication of so divine a work.' Calamities of Authors, i. 250.

[67] 'The first time Suard saw Burke, who was at Reynolds's, Johnson touched him on the shoulder and said, "Le grand Burke."' Boswelliana, p. 299. See ante, ii. 450.

[68] Miss Hawkins (Memoirs, i. 279, 288) says that Langton told her father that he meant to give his six daughters such a knowledge of Greek, 'that while five of them employed themselves in feminine works, the sixth should read a Greek author for the general amusement.' She describes how 'he would get into the most fluent recitation of half a page of Greek, breaking off for fear of wearying, by saying, "and so it goes on," accompanying his words with a gentle wave of his hand.'

[69] See post, p. 42.

[70] See ante, i. 326.

[71] This assertion concerning Johnson's insensibility to the pathetick powers of Otway, is too round. I once asked him, whether he did not think Otway frequently tender: when he answered, 'Sir, he is all tenderness.' BURNEY. He describes Otway as 'one of the first names in the English drama.' Works, vii. 173.

[72] See ante, April 16, 1779.

[73] Johnson; it seems, took up this study. In July, 1773, he recorded that between Easter and Whitsuntide, he attempted to learn the Low Dutch language. 'My application,' he continues, 'was very slight, and my memory very fallacious, though whether more than in my earlier years, I am not very certain.' Pr. and Med. p. 129, and ante, ii. 263. On his death-bed, he said to Mr. Hoole:—'About two years since I feared that I had neglected God, and that then I had not a mind to give him; on which I set about to read Thomas a Kempis in Low Dutch, which I accomplished, and thence I judged that my mind was not impaired, Low Dutch having no affinity with any of the languages which I knew.' Croker's Boswell, p. 844. See ante, iii. 235.

[74] See post, under July 5, 1783.

[75] See ante, ii. 409, and iii. 197.

[76] One of Goldsmith's friends 'remembered his relating [about the year 1756] a strange Quixotic scheme he had in contemplation of going to decipher the inscriptions on the written mountains, though he was altogether ignorant of Arabic, or the language in which they might be supposed to be written.' Goldsmith's Misc. Works, ed. 1801, i. 40. Percy says that Goldsmith applied to the prime minister, Lord Bute, for a salary to enable him to execute 'the visionary project' mentioned in the text. 'To prepare the way, he drew up that ingenious essay on this subject which was first printed in the Ledger, and afterwards in his Citizen of the World [No. 107].' Ib. p. 65. Percy adds that the Earl of Northumberland, who was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, regretted 'that he had not been made acquainted with his plan; for he would have procured him a sufficient salary on the Irish establishment.' Goldsmith, in his review of Van Egmont's Travels in Asia, says:—'Could we see a man set out upon this journey [to Asia] not with an intent to consider rocks and rivers, but the manners, and the mechanic inventions, and the imperfect learning of the inhabitants; resolved to penetrate into countries as yet little known, and eager to pry into all their secrets, with an heart not terrified at trifling dangers; if there could be found a man who could unite this true courage with sound learning, from such a character we might hope much information.' Goldsmith's Works, ed. 1854, iv. 225. Johnson would have gone to Constantinople, as he himself said, had he received his pension twenty years earlier. Post, p. 27.

[77] It should be remembered, that this was said twenty-five or thirty years ago, [written in 1799,] when lace was very generally worn. MALONE. 'Greek and Latin,' said Porson, 'are only luxuries.' Rogers's Table Talk, p. 325.

[78] See ante, iii. 8.

[79] Dr. Johnson, in his Life of Cowley, says, that these are 'the only English verses which Bentley is known to have written.' I shall here insert them, and hope my readers will apply them.

'Who strives to mount Parnassus' hill, And thence poetick laurels bring, Must first acquire due force and skill, Must fly with swan's or eagle's wing.

Who Nature's treasures would explore, Her mysteries and arcana know; Must high as lofty Newton soar, Must stoop as delving Woodward low.

Who studies ancient laws and rites, Tongues, arts, and arms, and history; Must drudge, like Selden, days and nights, And in the endless labour die.

Who travels in religious jars, (Truth mixt with errour, shades with rays;) Like Whiston, wanting pyx or stars, In ocean wide or sinks or strays.

But grant our hero's hope, long toil And comprehensive genius crown, All sciences, all arts his spoil, Yet what reward, or what renown?

Envy, innate in vulgar souls, Envy steps in and stops his rise, Envy with poison'd tarnish fouls His lustre, and his worth decries.

He lives inglorious or in want, To college and old books confin'd; Instead of learn'd he's call'd pedant, Dunces advanc'd, he's left behind: Yet left content a genuine Stoick he, Great without patron, rich without South Sea.' BOSWELL.

In Mr. Croker's octavo editions, arts in the fifth stanza is changed into hearts. J. Boswell, jun., gives the following reading of the first four lines of the last stanza, not from Dodsley's Collection, but from an earlier one, called The Grove.

'Inglorious or by wants inthralled, To college and old books confined, A pedant from his learning called, Dunces advanced, he's left behind.'

[80] Bentley, in the preface to his edition of Paradise Lost, says:—

'Sunt et mihi carmina; me quoque dicunt Vatem pastores: sed non ego credulus illis.'

[81] The difference between Johnson and Smith is apparent even in this slight instance. Smith was a man of extraordinary application, and had his mind crowded with all manner of subjects; but the force, acuteness, and vivacity of Johnson were not to be found there. He had book-making so much in his thoughts, and was so chary of what might be turned to account in that way, that he once said to Sir Joshua Reynolds, that he made it a rule, when in company, never to talk of what he understood. Beauclerk had for a short time a pretty high opinion of Smith's conversation. Garrick, after listening to him for a while, as to one of whom his expectations had been raised, turned slyly to a friend, and whispered him, 'What say you to this?—eh? flabby, I think.' BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 279), says:—'Smith's voice was harsh and enunciation thick, approaching to stammering. His conversation was not colloquial, but like lecturing. He was the most absent man in company that I ever saw, moving his lips, and talking to himself, and smiling in the midst of large companies. If you awaked him from his reverie and made him attend to the subject of conversation, he immediately began a harangue, and never stopped till he told you all he knew about it, with the utmost philosophical ingenuity.' Dugald Stewart (Life of Adam Smith, p. 117) says that 'his consciousness of his tendency to absence rendered his manner somewhat embarrassed in the company of strangers.' But 'to his intimate friends, his peculiarities added an inexpressible charm to his conversation, while they displayed in the most interesting light the artless simplicity of his heart.' Ib. p. 113. See also Walpole's Letters, vi. 302, and ante, ii. 430, note 1.

[82] Garrick himself was a good deal of an infidel: see ante, ii. 85, note 7.

[83] Ante, i. 181.

[84] The Tempest, act iv. sc. i. In The Rambler, No. 127, Johnson writes of men who have 'borne opposition down before them, and left emulation panting behind.' He quotes (Works, vii. 261) the following couplet by Dryden:—

'Fate after him below with pain did move, And victory could scarce keep pace above.'

Young in The Last Day, book I, had written:—

'Words all in vain pant after the distress.'

[85] I am sorry to see in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. ii, An Essay on the Character of Hamlet, written, I should suppose, by a very young man, though called 'Reverend;' who speaks with presumptuous petulance of the first literary character of his age. Amidst a cloudy confusion of words, (which hath of late too often passed in Scotland for Metaphysicks,) he thus ventures to criticise one of the noblest lines in our language:—'Dr. Johnson has remarked, that "time toil'd after him in vain." But I should apprehend, that this is entirely to mistake the character. Time toils after every great man, as well after Shakspeare. The workings of an ordinary mind keep pace, indeed, with time; they move no faster; they have their beginning, their middle, and their end; but superiour natures can reduce these into a point. They do not, indeed, suppress them; but they suspend, or they lock them up in the breast.' The learned Society, under whose sanction such gabble is ushered into the world, would do well to offer a premium to any one who will discover its meaning. BOSWELL.

[86] 'May 29, 1662. Took boat and to Fox-hall, where I had not been a great while. To the old Spring Garden, and there walked long.' Pepys's Diary, i. 361. The place was afterwards known as Faux-hall and Vauxhall. See ante, iii. 308.

[87] 'One that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar.' King Lear, act ii. sc. 2.

[88] Yet W.G. Hamilton said:—'Burke understands everything but gaming and music. In the House of Commons I sometimes think him only the second man in England; out of it he is always the first.' Prior's Burke, p. 484. See ante, ii. 450. Bismarck once 'rang the bell' to old Prince Metternich. 'I listened quietly,' he said, 'to all his stories, merely jogging the bell every now and then till it rang again. That pleases these talkative old men.' DR. BUSCH, quoted in Lowe's Prince Bismarck, i. 130.

[89] See ante, i. 470, for his disapproval of 'studied behaviour.'

[90] Johnson had perhaps Dr. Warton in mind. Ante, ii. 41, note 1.

[91] See ante, i. 471, and iii. 165.

[92] 'Oblivion is a kind of annihilation.' Sir Thomas Browne's Christian Morals, sect. xxi.

[93] 'Nec te quaesiveris extra.' Persius, Sat. i. 7. We may compare Milton's line,

'In himself was all his state.' Paradise Lost, v. 353.

[94] See ante, iii. 269.

[95] 'A work of this kind must, in a minute examination, discover many imperfections; but West's version, so far as I have considered it, appears to be the product of great labour and great abilities.' Johnson's Works, viii. 398.

[96] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 25, 1773.

[97] See ante, i. 82, and ii. 228.

[98] See ante, i. 242.

[99] See Boswell's Hebrides, under Nov. 11.

[100] A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristick anecdote of Richardson. One day at his country-house at Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very flattering circumstance,—that he had seen his Clarissa lying on the King's brother's table. Richardson observing that part of the company were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to it. But by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the gentleman, 'I think, Sir, you were saying something about,—' pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman provoked at his inordinate vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely sly air of indifference answered, 'A mere trifle Sir, not worth repeating.' The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much. BOSWELL.

[101]

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

Pope, Epil. to Sat. ii. 70. Horace Walpole wrote on Aug. 4,1768 (Letters, v. 115):—'We have lost our Pope. Canterbury [Archbishop Seeker] died yesterday. He had never been a Papist, but almost everything else. Our Churchmen will not be Catholics; that stock seems quite fallen.'

[102] Perhaps the Earl of Corke. Ante, iii. 183.

[103] Garrick perhaps borrowed this saying when, in his epigram on Goldsmith, speaking of the ideas of which his head was full, he said:—

'When his mouth opened all were in a pother, Rushed to the door and tumbled o'er each other, But rallying soon with all their force again, In bright array they issued from his pen.'

Fitzgerald's Garrick, ii. 363. See ante, ii. 231.

[104] See ante, i. 116, and ii. 52.

[105] Horace Walpole (Letters, ix. 318) writes of Boswell's Life of Johnson:—'Dr. Blagden says justly, that it is a new kind of libel, by which you may abuse anybody, by saying some dead person said so and so of somebody alive.'

[106] See ante, ii. III. In the Gent. Mag. 1770, p. 78, is a review of A Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D., 'that is generally imputed to Mr. Wilkes.'

[107] 'Do you conceive the full force of the word CONSTITUENT? It has the same relation to the House of Commons as Creator to creature.' A Letter to Samuel Johnson, LL.D., p. 23.

[108] His profound admiration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to set him above that 'Philosophy and vain deceit' [Colossians, ii. 8] with which men of narrower conceptions have been infected. I have heard him strongly maintain that 'what is right is not so from any natural fitness, but because GOD wills it to be right;' and it is certainly so, because he has predisposed the relations of things so as that which he wills must be right. BOSWELL. Johnson was as much opposed as the Rev. Mr. Thwackum to the philosopher Square, who 'measured all actions by the unalterable rule of right and the eternal fitness of things.' Tom Jones, book iii. ch. 3.

[109] In Rasselas (ch. ii.) we read that the prince's look 'discovered him to receive some solace of the miseries of life, from consciousness of the delicacy with which he felt, and the eloquence with which he bewailed them.' See ante, April 8, 1780.

[110] I hope the authority of the great Master of our language will stop that curtailing innovation, by which we see critic, public, &c., frequently written instead of critick, publick, &c. BOSWELL. Boswell had always been nice in his spelling. In the Preface to his Corsica, published twenty-four years before The Life of Johnson, he defends his peculiarities, and says:—'If this work should at any future period be reprinted, I hope that care will be taken of my orthography.' Mr. Croker says that in a memorandum in Johnson's writing he has found 'cubic feet.'

[111] 'Disorders of intellect,' answered Imlac, 'happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state.' Rasselas, ch. 44.

[112] See ante, i. 397, for Kit Smart's madness in praying.

[113] Yet he gave lessons in Latin to Miss Burney and Miss Thrale. Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 243. In Skye he said, 'Depend upon it, no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 19.

[114] See ante, iii, 240.

[115] Nos. 588, 601, 626 and 635. The first number of the Spectator was written by Addison, the last by Grove. See ante, iii. 33, for Johnson's praise of No. 626.

[116] Sterne is of a direct contrary opinion. See his Sentimental Journey, Article, 'The Mystery.' BOSWELL. Sterne had been of the same opinion as Johnson, for he says that the beggar he saw 'confounded all kind of reasoning upon him.' 'He passed by me,' he continues, 'without asking anything—and yet he did not go five steps farther before he asked charity of a little woman—I was much more likely to have given of the two. He had scarce done with the woman, when he pulled his hat off to another who was coming the same way.—An ancient gentleman came slowly—and, after him, a young smart one—He let them both pass, and asked nothing; I stood observing him half an hour, in which time he had made a dozen turns backwards and forwards, and found that he invariably pursued the same plan.' Sentimental Journey, ed. 1775, ii. 105.

[117] Very likely Dr. Warton. Ante, ii. 41.

[118] I differ from Mr. Croker in the explanation of this ill-turned sentence. The shield that Homer may hold up is the observation made by Mrs. Fitzherbert. It was this observation that Johnson respected as a very fine one. For his high opinion of that lady's understanding, see ante, i. 83.

[119] In Boswelliana (p. 323) are recorded two more of Langton's Anecdotes. 'Mr. Beauclerk told Dr. Johnson that Dr. James said to him he knew more Greek than Mr. Walmesley. "Sir," said he, "Dr. James did not know enough of Greek to be sensible of his ignorance of the language. Walmesley did."' See ante, i. 81. 'A certain young clergyman used to come about Dr. Johnson. The Doctor said it vexed him to be in his company, his ignorance was so hopeless. "Sir," said Mr. Langton, "his coming about you shows he wishes to help his ignorance." "Sir," said the Doctor, "his ignorance is so great, I am afraid to show him the bottom of it."'

[120] Dr. Francklin. See ante, iii. 83, note 3. Churchill attacked him in The Rosciad (Poems, ii. 4). When, he says, it came to the choice of a judge,

'Others for Francklin voted; but 'twas known, He sickened at all triumphs but his own.'

[121] See ante, iii. 241, note 2.

[122] Pr. and Med. p.190. BOSWELL.

[123] Ib. 174. BOSWELL.

[124] 'Mr. Fowke once observed to Dr. Johnson that, in his opinion, the Doctor's literary strength lay in writing biography, in which he infinitely exceeded all his contemporaries. "Sir," said Johnson, "I believe that is true. The dogs don't know how to write trifles with dignity."'—R. Warner's Original Letters, p. 204.

[125] His design is thus announced in his Advertisement: 'The Booksellers having determined to publish a body of English Poetry, I was persuaded to promise them a Preface to the works of each authour; an undertaking, as it was then presented to my mind, not very tedious or difficult.

'My purpose was only to have allotted to every poet an Advertisement, like that [in original those] which we find in the French Miscellanies, containing a few dates, and a general character; but I have been led beyond my intention, I hope by the honest desire of giving useful pleasure.' BOSWELL.

[126] Institutiones, liber i, Prooemium 3.

[127] 'He had bargained for two hundred guineas, and the booksellers spontaneously added a third hundred; on this occasion Dr. Johnson observed to me, "Sir, I always said the booksellers were a generous set of men. Nor, in the present instance, have I reason to complain. The fact is, not that they have paid me too little, but that I have written too much." The Lives were soon published in a separate edition; when, for a very few corrections, he was presented with another hundred guineas.' Nichols's Lit. Anec. viii. 416. See ante, iii. 111. In Mr. Morrison's Collection of Autographs &c., vol. ii, 'is Johnson's receipt for 100l., from the proprietors of The Lives of the Poets for revising the last edition of that work.' It is dated Feb. 19, 1783. 'Underneath, in Johnson's autograph, are these words: "It is great impudence to put Johnson's Poets on the back of books which Johnson neither recommended nor revised. He recommended only Blackmore on the Creation, and Watts. How then are they Johnson's? This is indecent."' The poets whom Johnson recommended were Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden. Ante, under Dec. 29, 1778.

[128] Gibbon says of the last five quartos of the six that formed his History:—'My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press.' Misc. Works, i. 255. In the Memoir of Goldsmith, prefixed to his Misc. Works, i. 113, it is said:—'In whole quires of his Histories, Animated Nature, &c., he had seldom occasion to correct or alter a single word.' See ante, i. 203.

[129] From Waller's Of Loving at First Sight. Waller's Poems, Miscellanies, xxxiv.

[130] He trusted greatly to his memory. If it did not retain anything exactly, he did not think himself bound to look it up. Thus in his criticism on Congreve (Works, viii. 31) he says:—'Of his plays I cannot speak distinctly; for since I inspected them many years have passed.' In a note on his Life of Rowe, Nichols says:—'This Life is a very remarkable instance of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's memory. When I received from him the MS. he complacently observed that the criticism was tolerably well done, considering that he had not read one of Rowe's plays for thirty years.' Ib. vii. 417.

[131] Thus:—'In the Life of Waller, Mr. Nichols will find a reference to the Parliamentary History from which a long quotation is to be inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find the book, Mr. Johnson will send it from Streatham.'

'Clarendon is here returned.'

'By some accident, I laid your note upon Duke up so safely, that I cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use to me. I must beg it again; with another list of our authors, for I have laid that with the other. I have sent Stepney's Epitaph. Let me have the revises as soon as can be. Dec. 1778.'

'I have sent Philips, with his Epitaphs, to be inserted. The fragment of a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we may seem to do something. It may be added to the Life of Philips. The Latin page is to be added to the Life of Smith. I shall be at home to revise the two sheets of Milton. March 1, 1779.'

'Please to get me the last edition of Hughes's Letters; and try to get Dennis upon Blackmore, and upon Calo, and any thing of the same writer against Pope. Our materials are defective.'

'As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it may please them. But it is not necessary.'

'An account of the Lives and works of some of the most eminent English Poets. By, &c.—"The English Poets, biographically and critically considered, by SAM. JOHNSON."—Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make another to his mind. May, 1781.'

'You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was not inclosed. Of Gay's Letters I see not that any use can be made, for they give no information of any thing. That he was a member of the Philosophical Society is something; but surely he could be but a corresponding member. However, not having his life here, I know not how to put it in, and it is of little importance.'

See several more in The Gent. Mag., 1785. The Editor of that Miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems justly to think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy of being preserved. BOSWELL. In the original MS. in the British Museum, Your in the third paragraph of this note is not in italics. Johnson writes his correspondent's name Nichols, Nichol, and Nicol. In the fourth paragraph he writes, first Philips, and next Phillips. His spelling was sometimes careless, ante, i. 260, note 2. In the Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 10, another of these notes is published:—'In reading Rowe in your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If I had known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry. What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says that this piece 'has not only appeared in the Works of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope into the Miscellanies he published in his own name and that of Dean Swift.'

[132] He published, in 1782, a revised edition of Baker's Biographia Dramatica. Baker was a grandson of De Foe. Gent. Mag. 1782, p. 77.

[133] Dryden writing of satiric poetry, says:—'Had I time I could enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this as in heroic poetry itself; of which the satire is undoubtedly a species. With these beautiful turns I confess myself to have been unacquainted, till about twenty years ago, in a conversation which I had with that noble wit of Scotland, Sir George Mackenzie, he asked me why I did not imitate in my verses the turns of Mr. Waller, and Sir John Denham. ... This hint, thus seasonably given me, first made me sensible of my own wants, and brought me afterwards to seek for the supply of them in other English authors. I looked over the darling of my youth, the famous Cowley.' Dryden's Works, ed. 1821, xiii. III.

[134] In one of his letters to Nichols, Johnson says:—'You have now all Cowley. I have been drawn to a great length, but Cowley or Waller never had any critical examination before.' Gent. Mag. 1785, p.9.

[135] Life of Sheffield. BOSWELL. Johnson's Works, vii. 485.

[136] See, however, p.11 of this volume, where the same remark is made and Johnson is there speaking of prose. MALONE.

[137]

'Purpureus, late qui splendeat unus et alter Assuitur pannus.'

'... Shreds of purple with broad lustre shine Sewed on your poem.'

FRANCIS. Horace, Ars Poet. 15.

[138] The original reading is enclosed in crochets, and the present one is printed in Italicks. BOSWELL.

[139] I have noticed a few words which, to our ears, are more uncommon than at least two of the three that Boswell mentions; as, 'Languages divaricate,' Works, vii. 309; 'The mellifluence of Pope's numbers,' ib. 337; 'A subject flux and transitory,' ib. 389; 'His prose is pure without scrupulosity,' ib. 472; 'He received and accommodated the ladies' (said of one serving behind the counter), ib. viii. 62; 'The prevalence of this poem was gradual,' ib. p. 276; 'His style is sometimes concatenated,' ib. p. 458. Boswell, on the next page, supplies one more instance—'Images such as the superficies of nature readily supplies.'

[140] See ante, iii. 249.

[141] Veracious is perhaps one of the 'four or five words' which Johnson added, or thought that he added, to the English language. Ante, i. 221. He gives it in his Dictionary, but without any authority for it. It is however older than his time.

[142] See Johnson's Works, vii. 134, 212, and viii. 386.

[143] Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 452) writes of Johnson's 'Billingsgate on Milton.' A later letter shows that, like so many of Johnson's critics, he had not read the Life. Ib. p. 508.

[144] Works, vii. 108.

[145] Thirty years earlier he had written of Milton as 'that poet whose works may possibly be read when every other monument of British greatness shall be obliterated.' Ante, i. 230. See ante, ii. 239.

[146] Earl Stanhope (Life of Pitt, ii. 65) describes this Society in 1790, 'as a Club, till then of little note, which had a yearly festival in commemoration of the events of 1688. It had been new-modelled, and enlarged with a view to the transactions at Paris, but still retained its former name to imply a close connection between the principles of 1688 in England, and the principles of 1789 in France.' The Earl Stanhope of that day presided at the anniversary meeting on Nov. 4, 1789. Nov. 4 was the day on which William III. landed.

[147] See An Essay on the Life, Character, and writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson, London, 1787; which is very well written, making a proper allowance for the democratical bigotry of its authour; whom I cannot however but admire for his liberality in speaking thus of my illustrious friend:—

'He possessed extraordinary powers of understanding, which were much cultivated by study, and still more by meditation and reflection. His memory was remarkably retentive, his imagination uncommonly vigorous, and his judgement keen and penetrating. He had a strong sense of the importance of religion; his piety was sincere, and sometimes ardent; and his zeal for the interests of virtue was often manifested in his conversation and in his writings. The same energy which was displayed in his literary productions was exhibited also in his conversation, which was various, striking, and instructive; and perhaps no man ever equalled him for nervous and pointed repartees.'

'His Dictionary, his moral Essays, and his productions in polite literature, will convey useful instruction, and elegant entertainment, as long as the language in which they are written shall be understood.' BOSWELL.

[148] Boswell paraphrases the following passage:—'The King, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other example, declined to be the judge or avenger of his own or his father's wrongs; and promised to admit into the Act of Oblivion all, except those whom the Parliament should except; and the Parliament doomed none to capital punishment but the wretches who had immediately co-operated in the murder of the King. Milton was certainly not one of them; he had only justified what they had done.' Johnson's Works, vii. 95.

[149] 'Though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n and evil tongues, In darkness, and with dangers compast round.' Paradise Lost, vii. 26.

[150] Johnson's Works, vii. 105.

[151] 'His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly republican.' Ib. p. 116.

[152] 'What we know of Milton's character in domestick relations is, that he was severe and arbitrary.' Ib. p. 116.

[153] 'His theological opinions are said to have been first, Calvinistical; and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the Presbyterians, to have tended towards Arminianism.... He appears to have been untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion.' Ib. p. 115.

[154] Mr. Malone things it is rather a proof that he felt nothing of those cheerful sensations which he has described: that on these topicks it is the poet, and not the man, that writes. BOSWELL.

[155] See ante, i. 427, ii. 124, and iv. 20, for Johnson's condemnation of blank verse. This condemnations was not universal. Of Dryden, he wrote (Works, vii. 249):—'He made rhyming tragedies, till, by the prevalence of manifest propriety, he seems to have grown ashamed of making them any longer.' His own Irene is in blank verse; though Macaulay justly remarks of it:—'He had not the slightest notion of what blank verse should be.' (Macaulay's Writings and Speeches, ed. 1871, p. 380.) Of Thomson's Seasons, he says (Works, vii. 377):—'His is one of the works in which blank verse seems properly used.' Of Young's Night Thoughts:—'This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme but with disadvantage.' Ib. p. 460. Of Milton himself, he writes:—'Whatever be the advantages of rhyme, I cannot prevail on myself to wish that Milton had been a rhymer; for I cannot wish his work to be other than it is; yet, like other heroes, he is to be admired rather than imitated.' Ib. vii. 142. How much he felt the power of Milton's blank verse is shewn by his Rambler, No. 90, where, after stating that 'the noblest and most majestick pauses which our versification admits are upon the fourth and sixth syllables,' he adds:—' Some passages [in Milton] which conclude at this stop [the sixth syllable] I could never read without some strong emotions of delight or admiration.' 'If,' he continues, 'the poetry of Milton be examined with regard to the pauses and flow of his verses into each other, it will appear that he has performed all that our language would admit.' Cowper was so indignant at Johnson's criticism of Milton's blank verse that he wrote:—'Oh! I could thresh his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in his pocket.' Southey's Cowper, iii. 315.

[156] One of the most natural instances of the effect of blank verse occurred to the late Earl of Hopeton. His Lordship observed one of his shepherds poring in the fields upon Milton's Paradise Lost; and having asked him what book it was, the man answered, 'An't please your Lordship, this is a very odd sort of an authour: he would fain rhyme, but cannot get at it.' BOSWELL. 'The variety of pauses, so much boasted by the lovers of blank verse, changes the measures of an English poet to the periods of a declaimer; and there are only a few skilful and happy readers of Milton, who enable their audience to perceive where the lines end or begin. "Blank verse," said an ingenious critick, "seems to be verse only to the eye."' Johnson's Works, vii. 141. In the Life of Roscommon (ib. p. 171), he says:—'A poem frigidly didactick, without rhyme, is so near to prose, that the reader only scorns it for pretending to be verse.'

[157] Mr. Locke. Often mentioned in Mme. D'Arblay's Diary.

[158] See vol. in. page 71. BOSWELL.

[159] It is scarcely a defence. Whatever it was, he thus ends it:-'It is natural to hope, that a comprehensive is likewise an elevated soul, and that whoever is wise is also honest. I am willing to believe that Dryden, having employed his mind, active as it was, upon different studies, and filled it, capacious as it was, with other materials, came unprovided to the controversy, and wanted rather skill to discover the right than virtue to maintain it. But inquiries into the heart are not for man; we must now leave him to his judge.' Works, vii. 279.

[160] In the original fright. The Hind and the Panther, i. 79.

[161] In this quotation two passages are joined. Works, vii. 339, 340.

[162] 'The deep and pathetic morality of the Vanity of Human Wishes' says Sir Walter Scott, 'has often extracted tears from those whose eyes wander dry over the pages of professed sentimentality.' CROKER. It. drew tears from Johnson himself. 'When,' says Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 50), 'he read his own satire, in which the life of a scholar is painted, he burst into a passion of tears. The family and Mr. Scott only were present, who, in a jocose way, clapped him on the back, and said:—"What's all this, my dear Sir? Why you, and I, and Hercules, you know, were all troubled with melancholy." He was a very large man, and made out the triumvirate with Johnson and Hercules comically enough. The Doctor was so delighted at his odd sally, that he suddenly embraced him, and the subject was immediately changed.'

[163] In Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, iv. 180, is given 'a memorandum of Dr. Johnson's of hints for the Life of Pope.'

[164] Works, viii. 345.

[165] 'Of the last editor [Warburton] it is more difficult to speak. Respect is due to high place, tenderness to living reputation, and veneration to genius and learning; but he cannot be justly offended at that liberty of which he has himself so frequently given an example, nor very solicitous what is thought of notes which he ought never to have considered as part of his serious employments.' Works, v. 140. See post, June 10,1784.

[166] The liberality is certainly measured. With much praise there is much censure. Works, viii. 288. See ante, ii. 36, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 23.

[167] Of Johnson's conduct towards Warburton, a very honourable notice is taken by the editor of Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian, not admitted into the Collection of their respective Works. After an able and 'fond, though not undistinguishing,' consideration of Warburton's character, he says, 'In two immortal works, Johnson has stood forth in the foremost rank of his admirers. By the testimony of such a man, impertinence must be abashed, and malignity itself must be softened. Of literary merit, Johnson, as we all know, was a sagacious but a most severe judge. Such was his discernment, that he pierced into the most secret springs of human actions; and such was his integrity, that he always weighed the moral characters of his fellow-creatures in the "balance of the sanctuary." He was too courageous to propitiate a rival, and too proud to truckle to a superiour. Warburton he knew, as I know him, and as every man of sense and virtue would wish to be known,—I mean, both from his own writings, and from the writings of those who dissented from his principles, or who envied his reputation. But, as to favours, he had never received or asked any from the Bishop of Gloucester; and, if my memory fails me not, he had seen him only once, when they met almost without design, conversed without much effort, and parted without any lasting impressions of hatred or affection. Yet, with all the ardour of sympathetic genius, Johnson has done that spontaneously and ably, which, by some writers, had been before attempted injudiciously, and which, by others, from whom more successful attempts might have been expected, has not hitherto been done at all. He spoke well of Warburton, without insulting those whom Warburton despised. He suppressed not the imperfections of this extraordinary man, while he endeavoured to do justice to his numerous and transcendental excellencies. He defended him when living, amidst the clamours of his enemies; and praised him when dead, amidst the silence of his friends.'

Having availed myself of this editor's eulogy on my departed friend, for which I warmly thank him, let me not suffer the lustre of his reputation, honestly acquired by profound learning and vigorous eloquence, to be tarnished by a charge of illiberality. He has been accused of invidiously dragging again into light certain writings of a person respectable by his talents, his learning, his station and his age, which were published a great many years ago, and have since, it is said, been silently given up by their authour. But when it is considered that these writings were not sins of youth, but deliberate works of one well-advanced in life, overflowing at once with flattery to a great man of great interest in the Church, and with unjust and acrimonious abuse of two men of eminent merit; and that, though it would have been unreasonable to expect an humiliating recantation, no apology whatever has been made in the cool of the evening, for the oppressive fervour of the heat of the day; no slight relenting indication has appeared in any note, or any corner of later publications; is it not fair to understand him as superciliously persevering? When he allows the shafts to remain in the wounds, and will not stretch forth a lenient hand, is it wrong, is it not generous to become an indignant avenger? BOSWELL. Boswell wrote on Feb. 16, 1789:—'There is just come out a publication which makes a considerable noise. The celebrated Dr. Parr, of Norwich, has—wickedly, shall we say?—but surely wantonly—published Warburton's Juvenile Translations and Discourse on Prodigies, and Bishop Kurd's attacks on Jortin and Dr. Thomas Leland, with his Essay on the Delicacy of Friendship.' Letters of Boswell, p. 275. The 'editor,' therefore, is Parr, and the 'Warburtonian' is Hurd. Boswell had written to Parr on Jan. 10, 1791:—'I request to hear by return of post if I may say or guess that Dr. Parr is the editor of these tracts.' Parr's Works, viii. 12. See also ib. iii. 405.

[168] In Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 213, it is said, that this meeting was 'at the Bishop of St. ——'s [Asaph's]. Boswell, by his 'careful enquiry,' no doubt meant to show that this statement was wrong. Johnson is reported to have said:—' Dr. Warburton at first looked surlily at me; but after we had been jostled into conversation he took me to a window, asked me some questions, and before we parted was so well pleased with me that he patted me.'

[169] 'Warburton's style is copious without selection, and forcible without neatness; he took the words that presented themselves; his diction is coarse and impure; and his sentences are unmeasured.' Johnson's Works, viii. 288.

[170] Churchill, in The Duellist (Poems ed. 1766, ii. 85), describes Warburton as having

'A heart, which virtue ne'er disgraced; A head where learning runs to waste.'

[171] Works, viii. 230.

[172] 'I never,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'heard Johnson pronounce the words, "I beg your pardon, Sir," to any human creature but the apparently soft and gentle Dr. Burney.' Burney had asked her whether she had subscribed L100 to building a bridge. '"It is very comical, is it not, Sir?" said I, turning to Dr. Johnson, "that people should tell such unfounded stories." "It is," answered he, "neither comical nor serious, my dear; it is only a wandering lie." This was spoken in his natural voice, without a thought of offence, I am confident; but up bounced Burney in a towering passion, and to my much amaze put on the hero, surprising Dr. Johnson into a sudden request for pardon, and protestation of not having ever intended to accuse his friend of a falsehood.' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 312.

[173] In the original, 'nor.' Works, viii. 311.

[174] In the original, 'either wise or merry.'

[175] In the original, 'stands upon record'.

[176] Works, viii. 316. Surely the words 'had not much to say' imply that Johnson had heard the answer, but thought little of its wit. According to Mr. Croker, the repartee is given in Ruffhead's Life of Pope, and this book Johnson had seen. Ante, ii. 166.

[177] Let me here express my grateful remembrance of Lord Somerville's kindness to me, at a very early period. He was the first person of high rank that took particular notice of me in the way most flattering to a young man, fondly ambitious of being distinguished for his literary talents; and by the honour of his encouragement made me think well of myself, and aspire to deserve it better. He had a happy art of communicating his varied knowledge of the world, in short remarks and anecdotes, with a quiet pleasant gravity, that was exceedingly engaging. Never shall I forget the hours which I enjoyed with him at his apartments in the Royal Palace of Holy-Rood House, and at his seat near Edinburgh, which he himself had formed with an elegant taste. BOSWELL.

[178] Ante, iii. 392.

[179] Boswell, I think, misunderstands Johnson. Johnson said (Works, viii. 313) that 'Pope's admiration of the Great seems to have increased in the advance of life.' His Iliad he had dedicated to Congreve, but 'to his latter works he took care to annex names dignified with titles, but was not very happy in his choice; for, except Lord Bathurst, none of his noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his intimacy with them known to posterity; he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham, Burlington, or Bolingbroke.' Johnson, it seems clear, is speaking, not of the noblemen whom Pope knew in general, but of those to whom he dedicated any of his works. Among them Lord Marchmont is not found, so that on him no slight is cast.

[180] Neither does Johnson actually say that Lord Marchmont had 'any concern,' though perhaps he implies it. He writes:—'Pope left the care of his papers to his executors; first to Lord Bolingbroke; and, if he should not be living, to the Earl of Marchmont: undoubtedly expecting them to be proud of the trust, and eager to extend his fame. But let no man dream of influence beyond his life. After a decent time, Dodsley the bookseller went to solicit preference as the publisher, and was told that the parcel had not been yet inspected; and, whatever was the reason, the world has been disappointed of what was "reserved for the next age."' Ib. p. 306. As Bolingbroke outlived Pope by more than seven years, it is clear, from what Johnson states, that he alone had the care of the papers, and that he gave the answer to Dodsley. Marchmont, however, knew the contents of the papers. Ib. p. 319.

[181] This neglect did not arise from any ill-will towards Lord Marchmont, but from inattention; just as he neglected to correct his statement concerning the family of Thomson the poet, after it had been shewn to be erroneous (ante, in. 359). MALONE.

[182] Works, vii. 420.

[183] Benjamin Victor published in 1722, a Letter to Steele, and in 1776, Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems Brit. Mus. Catalogue.

[184] Mr. Wilks. See ante, i. 167, note 1.

[185] See post, p. 91 and Macaulay's Essay on Addison (ed. 1974, iv. 207).

[186] 'A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine—why we could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as we do.' Thackery's English Humourists, ed. 1858, p. 94.

[187] See ante, i. 30, and iii. 155.

[188] See post, under Dec. 2, 1784.

[189] Parnell 'drank to excess.' Ante, iii. 155.

[190] I should have thought that Johnson, who had felt the severe affliction from which Parnell never recovered, would have preserved this passage. BOSWELL.

[191] Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson in May, 1780:-'Blackmore will be rescued from the old wits who worried him much to your disliking; so, a little for love of his Christianity, a little for love of his physic, a little for love of his courage—and a little for love of contradiction, you will save him from his malevolent critics, and perhaps do him the honour to devour him yourself.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 122. See ante, ii. 107.

[192] 'This is a tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composed like a painter; and was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by the wits of his time, who did not understand the principles of composition in poetry better than he did; and who knew little, or nothing, of what he understood perfectly, the general ruling principles of architecture and painting.' Reynolds's Thirteenth Discourse.

[193] Johnson had not wished to write Lyttelton's Life. He wrote to Lord Westcote, Lyttelton's brother, 'My desire is to avoid offence, and be totally out of danger. I take the liberty of proposing to your lordship, that the historical account should be written under your direction by any friend you may be willing to employ, and I will only take upon myself to examine the poetry.'—Croker's Boswell, p.650.

[194] It was not Molly Aston (ante i. 83) but Miss Hill Boothby (ib.) of whom Mrs. Thrale wrote. She says (Anec. p.160):—'Such was the purity of her mind, Johnson said, and such the graces of her manner, that Lord Lyttelton and he used to strive for her preference with an emulation that occasioned hourly disgust, and ended in lasting animosity.' There is surely much exaggeration in this account.

[195] Let not my readers smile to think of Johnson's being a candidate for female favour; Mr. Peter Garrick assured me, that he was told by a lady, that in her opinion Johnson was 'a very seducing man.' Disadvantages of person and manner may be forgotten, where intellectual pleasure is communicated to a susceptible mind; and that Johnson was capable of feeling the most delicate and disinterested attachment, appears from the following letter, which is published by Mrs. Thrale [Piozzi Letters, ii. 391], with some others to the same person, of which the excellence is not so apparent:—