'TO MISS BOOTHBY. January, 1755.

DEAREST MADAM,

Though I am afraid your illness leaves you little leisure for the reception of airy civilities, yet I cannot forbear to pay you my congratulations on the new year; and to declare my wishes that your years to come may be many and happy. In this wish, indeed, I include myself, who have none but you on whom my heart reposes; yet surely I wish your good, even though your situation were such as should permit you to communicate no gratifications to, dearest, dearest Madam, Your, &c. SAM JOHNSON.' (BOSWELL.)

[196] Horace, Odes, iv. 3.2, quoted also ante, i.352, note.

[197] The passage which Boswell quotes in part is as follows:—'When they were first published they were kindly commended by the Critical Reviewers; [i.e. the writers in the Critical Review. In some of the later editions of Boswell these words have been printed, critical reviewers; so as to include all the reviewers who criticised the work]; and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I have read, acknowledgements which can never be proper, since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.' Works, viii.491. Boswell forgets that what may be proper in one is improper in another. Lyttelton, when he wrote this note, had long been a man of high position. He had 'stood in the first rank of opposition,' he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when he lost his post, he had been 'recompensed with a peerage.' See ante, ii. 126.

[198] See post, June 12 and 15, 1784.

[199] He adopted it from indolence. Writing on Aug. 1, 1780, after mentioning the failure of his application to Lord Westcote, he continues:—'There is an ingenious scheme to save a day's work, or part of a day, utterly defeated. Then what avails it to be wise? The plain and the artful man must both do their own work.—But I think I have got a life of Dr. Young.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 173.

[200] Gent. Mag. vol. lv. p. 10. BOSWELL.

[201] By a letter to Johnson from Croft, published in the later editions of the Lives, it seems that Johnson only expunged one passage. Croft says:—'Though I could not prevail on you to make any alteration, you insisted on striking out one passage, because it said, that, if I did not wish you to live long for your sake, I did for the sake of myself and the world.' Works viii.458.

[202] The Late Mr. Burke. MALONE.

[203] Seepost, June 2, 1781.

[204] Johnson's Works, viii 440.

[205] Ib. p.436

[206] 'Eheu! fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni.' 'How swiftly glide our flying years!' FRANCIS. Horace, Odes, ii.14. i.

[207] The late Mr. James Ralph told Lord Macartney, that he passed an evening with Dr. Young at Lord Melcombe's (then Mr. Dodington) at Hammersmith. The Doctor happening to go out into the garden, Mr. Dodington observed to him, on his return, that it was a dreadful night, as in truth it was, there being a violent storm of rain and wind. 'No, Sir, (replied the Doctor) it is a very fine night. The LORD is abroad.' BOSWELL.

[208] See ante, ii.96, and iii.251; and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 30.

[209] 'An ardent judge, who zealous in his trust, With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just.' Pope's Essay on Criticism, l.677.

[210] Works, viii.459. Though the Life of Young is by Croft, yet the critical remarks are by Johnson.

[211] Ib. p.460.

[212] Johnson refers to Chambers's Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, which was ridiculed in the Heroic Epistle. See post, under May 8, 1781, and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 13.

[213] Boswell refers to the death of Narcissa in the third of the Night Thoughts. While he was writing the Life of Johnson Mrs. Boswell was dying of consumption in (to quote Young's words)

The rigid north, Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew.'

She died nearly two years before The Life was published.

[214] Proverbs, xviii.14.

[215] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 16.

[216] See vol. i. page 133. BOSWELL.

[217] 'In his economy Swift practised a peculiar and offensive parsimony, without disguise or apology. The practice of saving being once necessary, became habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and at last detestable. But his avarice, though it might exclude pleasure, was never suffered to encroach upon his virtue. He was frugal by inclination, but liberal by principle; and if the purpose to which he destined his little accumulations be remembered, with his distribution of occasional charity, it will perhaps appear, that he only liked one mode of expense better than another, and saved merely that he might have something to give.' Works, viii.222.

[218] Ib. p.225.

[219] Mr. Chalmers here records a curious literary anecdote—that when a new and enlarged edition of the Lives of the Poets was published in 1783, Mr. Nichols, in justice to the purchasers of the preceding editions, printed the additions in a separate pamphlet, and advertised that it might be had gratis. Not ten copies were called for. CROKER.

[220] See ante, p.9, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 15.

[221] Works, vii. Preface.

[222] From this disreputable class, I except an ingenious though not satisfactory defence of HAMMOND, which I did not see till lately, by the favour of its authour, my amiable friend, the Reverend Mr. Bevill, who published it without his name. It is a juvenile performance, but elegantly written, with classical enthusiasm of sentiment, and yet with a becoming modesty, and great respect for Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.

[223] Before the Life of Lyttelton was published there was, it seems, some coolness between Mrs. Montagu and Johnson. Miss Burney records the following conversation in September 1778. 'Mark now,' said Dr. Johnson, 'if I contradict Mrs. Montagu to-morrow. I am determined, let her say what she will, that I will not contradict her.' MRS. THRALE. 'Why to be sure, Sir, you did put her a little out of countenance last time she came.'...DR. JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, I won't answer that I shan't contradict her again, if she provokes me as she did then; but a less provocation I will withstand. I believe I am not high in her good graces already; and I begin (added he, laughing heartily) to tremble for my admission into her new house. I doubt I shall never see the inside of it.' Yet when they met a few days later all seemed friendly. 'When Mrs. Montagu's new house was talked of, Dr. Johnson in a jocose manner, desired to know if he should be invited to see it. "Ay, sure," cried Mrs. Montagu, looking well pleased, "or else I shan't like it."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i.118, 126. 'Mrs. Montagu's dinners and assemblies,' writes Wraxall, 'were principally supported by, and they fell with, the giant talents of Johnson, who formed the nucleus round which all the subordinate members revolved.' Wraxall's Memoirs, ed. 1815, i.160.

[224] Described by the author as 'a body of original essays.' 'I consider The Observer,' he arrogantly continues, 'as fairly enrolled amongst the standard classics of our native language.' Cumberland's Memoirs, ii.199. In his account of this Feast of Reason he quite as much satirises Mrs. Montagu as praises her. He introduces Johnson in it, annoyed by an impertinent fellow, and saying to him:—'Have I said anything, good Sir, that you do not comprehend?' 'No, no,' replied he, 'I perfectly well comprehend every word you have been saying.' 'Do you so, Sir?' said the philosopher, 'then I heartily ask pardon of the company for misemploying their time so egregiously.' The Observer, No. 25.

[225] Miss Burney gives an account of an attack made by Johnson, at a dinner at Streatham, in June 1781, on Mr. Pepys (post, p. 82), 'one of Mrs. Montagu's steadiest abettors.' 'Never before,' she writes, 'have I seen Dr. Johnson speak with so much passion. "Mr. Pepys," he cried, in a voice the most enraged, "I understand you are offended by my Life of Lord Lyttelton. What is it you have to say against it? Come forth, man! Here am I, ready to answer any charge you can bring."' After the quarrel had been carried even into the drawing-room, Mrs. Thrale, 'with great spirit and dignity, said that she should be very glad to hear no more of it. Everybody was silenced, and Dr. Johnson, after a pause, said:—"Well, Madam, you shall hear no more of it; yet I will defend myself in every part and in every atom."... Thursday morning, Dr. Johnson went to town for some days, but not before Mrs. Thrale read him a very serious lecture upon giving way to such violence; which he bore with a patience and quietness that even more than made his peace with me.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 45. Two months later the quarrel was made up. 'Mr. Pepys had desired this meeting by way of a reconciliation; and Dr. Johnson now made amends for his former violence, as he advanced to him, as soon as he came in, and holding out his hand to him received him with a cordiality he had never shewn him before. Indeed he told me himself that he thought the better of Mr. Pepys for all that had passed.' Ib. p. 82. Miss Burney, in Dec. 1783, described the quarrel to Mr. Cambridge:—'"I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a passion but then; and dreadful indeed it was to see. I wished myself away a thousand times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale." "It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale certainly to quarrel in her house." "Yes, but he never repeated it; though he wished of all things to have gone through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu; and to refrain was an act of heroic forbearance. She came to Streatham one morning, and I saw he was dying to attack her." "And how did Mrs. Montagu herself behave?" Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very stiffly, and with a most distant air, and without even courtesying to him, and with a firm intention to keep to what she had publicly declared—that she would never speak to him more. However, he went up to her himself, longing to begin, and very roughly said:—"Well, Madam, what's become of your fine new house? I hear no more of it." "But how did she bear this?" "Why, she was obliged to answer him; and she soon grew so frightened—as everybody does—that she was as civil as ever." He laughed heartily at this account. But I told him Dr. Johnson was now much softened. He had acquainted me, when I saw him last, that he had written to her upon the death of Mrs. Williams [see post, Sept. 18, 1783, note], because she had allowed her something yearly, which now ceased. "And I had a very kind answer from her," said he. "Well then, Sir," cried I, "I hope peace now will be again proclaimed." "Why, I am now," said he, "come to that time when I wish all bitterness and animosity to be at an end."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 290.

[226] January, 1791. BOSWELL. Hastings's trial had been dragging on for more than three years when The Life of Johnson was published. It began in 1788, and ended in 1795.

[227] Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 412.

[228] Afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of his Majesty's Judges in India. BOSWELL. See ante, i.274.

[229] 'He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning had never, since the revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the institution which he contemplated.' Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, iii. 338.

[230] Lord North's. Feeble though it was, it lasted eight years longer.

[231] Jones's Persian Grammar. Boswell. It was published in 1771.

[232] Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. BOSWELL.

[233] See ante, ii. 296.

[234] Macaulay wrote of Hastings's answer to this letter:—'It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to Dr. Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar. While the whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror in that deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to write about the Tour to the Hebrides, Jones's Persian Grammar, and the history, traditions, arts, and natural productions of India.' Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, iii.376.

[235] Johnson wrote the Dedication, Ante, i.383.

[236] See ante, ii.82, note 2.

[237] Copy is manuscript for printing.

[238] Published by Kearsley, with this well-chosen motto:—'From his cradle He was a SCHOLAR, and a ripe and good one: And to add greater honours to his age Than man could give him, he died fearing Heaven.' SHAKSPEARE. BOSWELL. This quotation is a patched up one from Henry VIII, act iv. sc.2. The quotation in the text is found on p. 89 of this Life of Johnson.

[239] Mr. Thrale had removed, that is to say, from his winter residence in the Borough. Mrs. Piozzi has written opposite this passage in her copy of Boswell:—'Spiteful again! He went by direction of his physicians where they could easiest attend to him.' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 91. There was, perhaps, a good deal of truth in Boswell's supposition, for in 1779 Johnson had told her that he saw 'with indignation her despicable dread of living in the Borough.' Piozzi Letters, ii.92. Johnson had a room in the new house. 'Think,' wrote Hannah More, 'of Johnson's having apartments in Grosvenor-square! but he says it is not half so convenient as Bolt-court.' H. More's Memoirs, i.2O7.

[240] See ante, iii. 250.

[241] Shakspeare makes Hamlet thus describe his father:—

'See what a grace was seated on this brow: Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald, Mercury, New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination, and a form, indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man.! [Act iii. sc. 4.]

Milton thus pourtrays our first parent, Adam:—

'His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd Absolute rule; and hyacinthin locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clus'tring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.' [P.L. iv. 300.] BOSWELL.

[242] 'Grattan's Uncle, Dean Marlay [afterwards Bishop of Waterford], had a good deal of the humour of Swift. Once, when the footman was out of the way, he ordered the coachman to fetch some water from the well. To this the man objected, that his business was to drive, not to run on errands. "Well, then," said Marlay, "bring out the coach and four, set the pitcher inside, and drive to the well;"—a service which was several times repeated, to the great amusement of the village.' Rogers's Table-Talk, p.176.

[243] See ante, ii. 241, for Johnson's contempt of puns.

[244] 'He left not faction, but of that was left.' Absalom and Achitophel, l. 568.

[245] Boswell wrote of Gibbon in 1779:—'He is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' Letters of Boswell, p.242. See ante, ii.443, note 1.

[246] The schools in this sense means a University.

[247] See ante, ii.224.

[248] Up to the year 1770, controverted elections had been tried before a Committee of the whole House. By the Grenville Act which was passed in that year they were tried by a select committee. Parl. Hist. xvi. 902. Johnson, in The False Alarm (1770), describing the old method of trial, says;—'These decisions have often been apparently partial, and sometimes tyrannically oppressive.' Works, vi. 169. In The Patriot (1774), he says:—'A disputed election is now tried with the same scrupulousness and solemnity as any other title.' Ib. p.223. See Boswell's Hebrides, Nov.10.

[249] Miss Burney describes a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, about this time, at which she met Johnson, Boswell, and Dudley Long. Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 14.

[250] See ante, ii.171, post, two paragraphs before April 10, 1783, and May 15, 1784.

[251] Johnson wrote on May i, 1780:—'There was the Bishop of St. Asaph who comes to every place.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 111. Hannah More, in 1782, describes an assembly at this Bishop's. 'Conceive to yourself 150 or 200 people met together dressed in the extremity of the fashion, painted as red as Bacchanals...ten or a dozen card-tables crammed with dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics and yellow admirals.' Memoirs, i.242. He was elected a member of the Literary Club, 'with the sincere approbation and eagerness of all present,' wrote Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones; elected, too, on the same day on which Lord Chancellor Camden was rejected (ante, iii. 311, note 2). Two or three years later Sir William married the Bishop's daughter. Life of Sir W Jones, pp.240, 279.

[252] 'Trust not to looks, nor credit outward show; The villain lurks beneath the cassocked beau.' Churchill's Poems (ed. 1766), ii.41.

[253] No. 2.

[254] See vol. i p. 378. BOSWELL.

[255] Northcote, according to Hazlitt, said of this character with some truth, that 'it was like one of Kneller's portraits—it would do for anybody.' Northcote's Conversations, p.86.

[256] See post, p.98.

[257] London Chronicle, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is there mentioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at Cofflect, the seat of Thomas Veale, Esq., in his way to London. BOSWELL.

[258] Dr. Harte was the tutor of Mr. Eliot and of young Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield's illegitimate son. 'My morning hopes,' wrote Chesterfield to his son at Rome, 'are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters he will give you; my evening ones in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive to both.' Chesterfield's Letters, ii.263. See ante, i.163, note 1, ii.120, and post, June 27, 1784.

[259] Robertson's Scotland is in the February list of books in the Gent. Mag. for 1759; Harte's Gustavus Adolphus and Hume's England under the House of Tudor in the March list. Perhaps it was from Hume's competition that Harte suffered.

[260] Essays on Husbandry, 1764.

[261] See ante, iii. 381.

[262] 'Christmas Day, 1780. I shall not attempt to see Vestris till the weather is milder, though it is the universal voice that he is the only perfect being that has dropped from the clouds, within the memory of man or woman...When the Parliament meets he is to be thanked by the Speaker.' Walpole's Letters, vii. 480.

[263] Here Johnson uses his title of Doctor (ante, ii.332, note 1), but perhaps he does so as quoting the paragraph in the newspaper.

[264] William, the first Viscount Grimston. BOSWELL. Swift thus introduces him in his lines On Poetry, A Rhapsody:—

'When death had finished Blackmore's reign, The leaden crown devolved to thee, Great poet of the hollow tree.'

Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston 'wrote the play when a boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.' Swift's Works (1803), xi. 297. Two editions were published apparently by Grimston himself, one bearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705 but no name. By 1705 Grimston was 22 years old—no longer a boy. The former edition was published by Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys, Fleet-street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple Gate. The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shewn by the Preface. The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope was published in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass is represented bearing a coronet. Grimston's name is not given here, but there is a dedication 'To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.' Three or four notes are added, one of which is very gross. The election was for St. Alban's, for which borough he was thrice returned.

[265] Dr. T. Campbell records (Diary, p. 69) that 'Boswell asked Johnson if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master. "Aye, and a dancing mistress too," says the Doctor; "but I own to you I never took a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I could never make a proficiency."'

[266] See vol. ii. p.286. BOSWELL.

[267] Miss Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:—'He is a professed minority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition. Men of such different principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot have much cordiality in their political debates; however, the very superior abilities of the former, and the remarkable good breeding of the latter have kept both upon good terms.' She describes a hot argument between them, and continues:—'Dr. Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour and dexterity, and at length, though he could not convince, he so entirely baffled him, that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet—which, with a very good grace, he confessed. Dr. Johnson then recollecting himself, and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute grew too serious, with a skill all his own, suddenly and unexpectedly turned it to burlesque.' D'Arblay's Diary, i. 192.

[268] See post, Jan. 20, 1782.

[269] See ante, ii.355.

[270] Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words Long and short. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's reserve in his presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguised amongst his acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French expression, 'Il petille d'esprit,' is particularly He has gratified me by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if I were to lose Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.' BOSWELL.

[271] William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court of Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement. But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend of the late Sir James Macdonald, the Marcellus of Scotland [ante, i.449], whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever be remembered with admiration and regret. BOSWELL.

[272] See note, ante, p. 65, which describes an attack made by Johnson on Pepys more than two months after this conversation.

[273] Johnson once said to Mrs. Thrale:—'Why, Madam, you often provoke me to say severe things by unreasonable commendation. If you would not call for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it constantly moves my indignation to be applied to, to speak well of a thing which I think contemptible.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i.132. See ante, iii.225.

[274] 'Mrs. Thrale,' wrote Miss Burney in 1780, 'is a most dear creature, but never restrains her tongue in anything, nor, indeed, any of her feelings. She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makes fun—does everything she has an inclination to do, without any study of prudence, or thought of blame; and, pure and artless as is this character, it often draws both herself and others into scrapes, which a little discretion would avoid.' Ib. i.386. Later on she writes:—'Mrs. Thrale, with all her excellence, can give up no occasion of making sport, however unseasonable or even painful... I knew she was not to be safely trusted with anything she could turn into ridicule.' Ib. ii.24 and 29.

[275] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was constantly at the Thrales' (ante, iii. 123).

[276] See ante, iii.228, 404.

[277] It was the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death.

[278] 'Mrs. Garrick and I,' wrote Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 208), 'were invited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to be a fine concert, and all the fine people were to be there. Just as my hair was dressed, came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr. Thrale was dead.'

[279] Pr. and Med. p 191. BOSWELL. The rest of the entry should be given:—'On Wednesday, 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on Wednesday 4; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures. [On Sunday, 1st, the physician warned him against full meals, on Monday I pressed him to observance of his rules, but without effect, and Tuesday I was absent, but his wife pressed forbearance upon him again unsuccessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him senseless in strong convulsions. I staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs. Thrale twice.] About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; I felt, &c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on thee. I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. The decease of him from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge from misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with myself.' The passage enclosed in brackets I have copied from the original MS. Mr. Strahan, the editor, omitted it, no doubt from feelings of delicacy. What a contrast in this to the widow who published a letter in which she had written:—'I wish that you would put in a word of your own to Mr. Thrale about eating less!' Piozzi Letters, ii.130. Baretti, in a note on Piozzi Letters, ii.142, says that 'nobody ever had spirit enough to tell Mr. Thrale that his fits were apoplectic; such is the blessing of being rich that nobody dares to speak out.' In Johnson's Works (1787), xi.203, it is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his last moments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this awful period, and why not his friend?"'

[280] Johnson's letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale's death. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. No death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. My part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another. April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn into solitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what I have lost. I never had such a friend before. April 11. I feel myself like a man beginning a new course of life. I had interwoven myself with my dear friend.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,' wrote Miss Burney, in the following June, 'though I mention them not, long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased master, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 63. On his next birthday, he wrote:—'My first knowledge of Thrale was in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.' Pr. and Med. p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shew her husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she writes:—'Mr. Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am sure he will go nowhere that he can help without you.' Piozzi Letters, i.317. A few days later, she speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot be quiet without you for a week.' Ib. p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaph on Thrale (Works, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself had laid down. In his Essay on Epitaphs (Ib. v 263), he said:—'It is improper to address the epitaph to the passenger [traveller], a custom which an injudicious veneration for antiquity introduced again at the revival of letters.' Yet in the monument in Streatham Church, we find the same Abi viator which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IV of France.

[281] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been well acquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year 1772, Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her almost as if he were a partner in the business. 'The first consequence of our late trouble ought to be an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate...Unless this can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not want help.' Piozzi Letters, i.57. He urges economy in the household, and continues:—'But the fury of housewifery will soon subside; and little effect will be produced, but by methodical attention and even frugality.' Ib. p.64. In another letter he writes:—'This year will undoubtedly be an year of struggle and difficulty; but I doubt not of getting through it; and the difficulty will grow yearly less and less. Supposing that our former mode of life kept us on the level, we shall, by the present contraction of expense, gain upon fortune a thousand a year, even though no improvements can be made in the conduct of the trade.' Piozzi Letters, i. 66. Four years later, he writes:—'To-day I went to look into my places at the Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins in the counting-house. He crows and triumphs, as we go on we shall double our business.' Ib. p. 333. When the executors first met, he wrote:—'We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till I was provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do and suffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not suffer yourself to be terrified.' Ib. ii. 197. Boswell says (ante, ii. 44l):—'I often had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his wisdom actually operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased a farm, 'Johnson,' he writes (ante, iii. 207), 'made several calculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in exercising his mind on the science of numbers.' The letter (ante, ii. 424) about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use Boswell's words, 'his extraordinary precision and acuteness.' Boswell wrote to Temple:—'Dr. Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him in some interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted, and so comes up.' Ante, iii. 51, note 3.

[282] Johnson, as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'You have, L500 for your immediate expenses, and, L2000 a year, with both the houses and all the goods.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 192. Beattie wrote on June 1:—'Everybody says Mr. Thrale should have left Johnson L200 a year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very inconsiderable deduction.' Beattie's Life, ed. 1824, p. 290.

[283] Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:—'Mrs. Thrale went early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker, who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me if all went well she would wave a white handkerchief out of the coach-window. Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs. Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered in eager expectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and a white handkerchief was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 34. The brewery was sold for L135,000. See post, June 16, 1781.

[284] See post, paragraph before June 22, 1784.

[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on Piozzi Letters, i. 369, says that 'the two last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him L30,000 a year neat profit.'

[286] In the fourth edition of his Dictionary, published in 1773, Johnson introduced a second definition of patriot:—'It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.' Gibbon (Misc. Works, ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:—'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and is already attempting to pronounce the words, country, liberty, corruption, &c.; with what success time will discover.' Forty years before Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:—'A patriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty of them within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been afraid of making patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.' Coxe's Walpole, i. 659. See ante, ii. 348, and iii. 66.

[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. Ann. Reg. xxiv. 217.

[288] Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been the dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley of St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests. Why Boswell recorded none of Johnson's conversation may be guessed from what she tells. 'I was heartily disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, who came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.' (See post, p. 109). The following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' she writes, 'with pretended sharpness for reading Les Pensees de Pascal, alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books written by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," said he, with the most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that you read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'"

[289] On Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:—'It has happened this week, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I have never dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor peculiar devotion' Pr. and Med. p. 163.

[290] No. 7.

[291] See ante, iii. 302.

[292] Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and first Equerry to his present Majesty. MALONE. According to Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 156), he was Johnson's 'standard of true elegance.'

[293] See ante, iii. 186.

[294] Johnson (Works, vii. 449) thus describes Addison's 'familiar day,' on the authority of Pope:—'He studied all morning; then dined at a tavern; and went afterwards to Button's [coffee-house]. From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and drank too much wine.' Spence (Anec. p. 286) adds, on the authority of Pope, that 'Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner that Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing; dined en famille; and then went to Wills's; only he came home earlier a'nights'

[295] Mr. Foss says of Blackstone:—'Ere he had been long on the bench he experienced the bad effects of the studious habits in which he had injudiciously indulged in his early life, and of his neglect to take the necessary amount of exercise, to which he was specially averse.' He died at the age of 56. Foss's Judges, viii. 250. He suffered greatly from his corpulence. His portrait in the Bodleian shews that he was a very fat man. Malone says that Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) wrote to Blackstone's family to apologise for Boswell's anecdote. Prior's Malone, p. 415. Scott would not have thought any the worse of Blackstone for his bottle of port; both he and his brother, the Chancellor, took a great deal of it. 'Lord Eldon liked plain port; the stronger the better.' Twiss's Eldon, iii. 486. Some one asked him whether Lord Stowell took much exercise. 'None,' he said, 'but the exercise of eating and drinking.' Ib. p. 302. Yet both men got through a vast deal of hard work, and died, Eldon at the age of 86, and Stowell of 90.

[296] See this explained, pp. 52, 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[297] See ante, ii. 7.

[298] William Scott was a tutor of University College at the age of nineteen. He held the office for ten years—to 1775. He wrote to his father in 1772 about his younger brother John (afterwards Lord Eldon), who had just made a run-away match:—'The business in which I am engaged is so extremely disagreeable in itself, and so destructive to health (if carried on with such success as can render it at all considerable in point of profit) that I do not wonder at his unwillingness to succeed me in it.' Twiss's Eldon, i. 47, 74.

[299] The account of her marriage given By John Wesley in a letter to his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, is curious. He wrote on Dec. 22, 1747:—'More than twelve years ago you told me God had revealed it to you that you should marry my youngest sister ... You asked and gained her consent... In a few days you had a counter-revelation, that you was not to marry her, but her sister. This last error was far worse than the first. But you was not quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor astonished parents, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you shortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.' Wesley's Journal, ii. 39. Mrs. Hall suffered greatly for marrying a wretch who had so cruelly treated her own sister, Southey's Wesley, i. 369.

[300] See ante, iii. 269.

[301] The original 'Robinhood' was a debating society which met near Temple-Bar. Some twenty years before this time Goldsmith belonged to it, and, it was said, Burke. Forster's Goldsmith, i. 287, and Prior's Burke, p. 79. The president was a baker by trade. 'Goldsmith, after hearing him give utterance to a train of strong and ingenious reasoning, exclaimed to Derrick, "That man was meant by nature for a Lord Chancellor." Derrick replied, "No, no, not so high; he is only intended for Master of the Rolls."' Prior's Goldsmith, i. 420. Fielding, in 1752, in The Covent-Garden Journal, Nos. 8 and 9, takes off this Society and the baker. A fragment of a report of their discussions which he pretends to have discovered, begins thus:—'This evenin the questin at the Robinhood was, whether relidgin was of any youse to a sosyaty; baken bifor mee To'mmas Whytebred, baker.' Horace Walpole (Letters, iv. 288), in 1764, wrote of the visit of a French gentleman to England, 'He has seen ... Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, &c.' Romilly (Life, i. 168), in a letter dated May 22, 1781, says that during the past winter several of these Sunday religious debating societies had been established. 'The auditors,' he was assured, 'were mostly weak, well-meaning people, who were inclined to Methodism;' but among the speakers were 'some designing villains, and a few coxcombs, with more wit than understanding.' 'Nothing,' he continues, 'could raise up panegyrists of these societies but what has lately happened, an attempt to suppress them. The Solicitor-General has brought a bill into Parliament for this purpose. The bill is drawn artfully enough; for, as these societies are held on Sundays, and people pay for admittance, he has joined them with a famous tea-drinking house [Carlisle House], involving them both in the same fate, and entitling his bill, A Bill to regulate certain Abuses and Profanations of the Lord's Day.' The Bill was carried; on a division none being found among the Noes but the two tellers. The penalties for holding a meeting were L200 for the master of the house, L100 for the moderator of the meeting, and L50 for each of the servants at the door. Parl. Hist. xxii. 262, 279.

[302] St. Matthew, xxvii. 52.

[303] I Corinthians, xv. 37.

[304] As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such discussions, as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, that the authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, and what he has frequently denominated the mysterious; and therefore took every opportunity of leading Johnson to converse on such subjects. MALONE. See ante, i. 406.

[305] Macbean (Johnson's old amanuensis, ante, i. 187) is not in Boswell's list of guests; but in the Pemb. Coll. MSS., there is the following entry on Monday, April 16:—'Yesterday at dinner were Mrs. Hall, Mr. Levet, Macbean, Boswel (sic), Allen. Time passed in talk after dinner. At seven, I went with Mrs. Hall to Church, and came back to tea.'

[306] Mrs. Piozzi records (Anec. p. 192) that he said 'a long time after my poor mother's death, I heard her voice call Sam.' She is so inaccurate that most likely this is merely her version of the story that Boswell has recorded above. See also ante, i. 405. Lord Macaulay made more of this story of the voice than it could well bear—'Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst.' Macaulay's Writings and Speeches, ed. 1871, p. 374.

[307]

'One wife is too much for most husbands to bear, But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.'

Act iii. sc. 4.

[308] 'I think a person who is terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless.' The Spectator, No. 110.

[309] St. Matthew, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53. BOSWELL.

[310] Garrick died on Jan. 20, 1779.

[311] Garrick called her Nine, (the Nine Muses). 'Nine,' he said, 'you are a Sunday Woman.' H. More's Memoirs, i. 113.

[312] See vol. iii. p. 331. BOSWELL.

[313] See ante, ii. 325, note 3.

[314] Boswell is quoting from Johnson's eulogium on Garrick in his Life of Edmund Smith. Works, vii. 380. See ante, i. 81.

[315] How fond she and her husband had been is shewn in a letter, in which, in answer to an invitation, he says:—'As I have not left Mrs. Garrick one day since we were married, near twenty-eight years, I cannot now leave her.' Garrick Corres. ii. 150. 'Garrick's widow is buried with him. She survived him forty-three years—"a little bowed-down old woman, who went about leaning on a gold-headed cane, dressed in deep widow's mourning, and always talking of her dear Davy." (Pen and Ink Sketches, 1864).' Stanley's Westminster Abbey, ed. 1868, p. 305.

[316] Love's Labour's Lost, act ii. sc. i.

[317] See ante, ii. 461.

[318] Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 346) describes Hollis as 'a most excellent man, a most immaculate Whig, but as simple a poor soul as ever existed, except his editor, who has given extracts from the good creature's diary that are very near as anile as Ashmole's. There are thanks to God for reaching every birthday, ... and thanks to Heaven for her Majesty's being delivered of a third or fourth prince, and God send he may prove a good man.' See also Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 287. Dr. Franklin wrote much more highly of him. Speaking of what he had done, he said:—'It is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a business of it.' Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 135.

[319] See p. 77 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[320] See ante, iii. 97.

[321] On April 6 of the next year this gentleman, when Secretary of the Treasury, destroyed himself, overwhelmed, just as Cowper had been, by the sense of the responsibility of an office which had been thrust upon him. See Hannah More's Memoirs, i. 245, and Walpole's Letters, viii. 206.

[322] 'It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords no matter for a narration; but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier, or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his affairs should not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room or the factions of a camp.' The Idler, No. 102.

[323] Hannah More wrote of this day (Memoirs, i. 212):—'I accused Dr. Johnson of not having done justice to the Allegro and Penseroso. He spoke disparagingly of both. I praised Lycidas, which he absolutely abused, adding, "if Milton had not written the Paradise Lost, he would have only ranked among the minor Poets. He was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry-stones."' See post, June 13, 1784. The Allegro and Penseroso Johnson described as 'two noble efforts of imagination.' Of Lycidas he wrote:—'Surely no man could have fancied that he read it with pleasure, had he not known the author.' Works, vii. 121, 2.

[324] Murphy (Life of Garrick, p. 374) says 'Shortly after Garrick's death Johnson was told in a large company, "You are recent from the Lives of the Poets; why not add your friend Garrick to the number?" Johnson's answer was, "I do not like to be officious; but if Mrs. Garrick will desire me to do it, I shall be very willing to pay that last tribute to the memory of a man I loved." 'Murphy adds that he himself took care that Mrs. Garrick was informed of what Johnson had said, but that no answer was ever received.

[325] Miss Burney wrote in May:—'Dr. Johnson was charming, both in spirits and humour. I really think he grows gayer and gayer daily, and more ductile and pleasant.' In June she wrote:—'I found him in admirable good-humour, and our journey [to Streatham] was extremely pleasant. I thanked him for the last batch of his poets, and we talked them over almost all the way.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 23, 44. Beattie, a week or two later, wrote:—'Johnson grows in grace as he grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher complexion than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), but he has contracted a gentleness of manner which pleases everybody.' Beattie's Life, ed. 1824, p. 289.

[326] See ante, iii. 65. Wilkes was by this time City Chamberlain. 'I think I see him at this moment,' said Rogers (Table-Talk, p. 43), 'walking through the crowded streets of the city, as Chamberlain, on his way to Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military boots, and a bag-wig—the hackney-coachmen in vain calling out to him, "A coach, your honour."'

[327] See ante, ii. 201, for Beattie's Essay on Truth.

[328] Thurot, in the winter of 1759-60, with a small squadron made descents on some of the Hebrides and on the north-eastern coast of Ireland. In a sea fight off Ireland he was killed and his ships were taken. Gent. Mag. xxx. 107. Horace Walpole says that in the alarm raised by him in Ireland, 'the bankers there stopped payment.' Memoirs of the Reign of George II, iii. 224.

[329]

'Some for renown on scraps of learning doat, And think they grow immortal as they quote.'

Young's Love of Fame, sat. i. Cumberland (Memoirs, ii. 226) says that Mr. Dilly, speaking of 'the profusion of quotations which some writers affectedly make use of, observed that he knew a Presbyterian parson who, for eighteenpence, would furnish any pamphleteer with as many scraps of Greek and Latin as would pass him off for an accomplished classic.'

[330] Cowley was quite out of fashion. Richardson (Corres. ii. 229) wrote more than thirty years earlier:—'I wonder Cowley is so absolutely neglected.' Pope, a dozen years or so before Richardson, asked,

'Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet, His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.'

Imitations of Horace, Epis. ii. i. 75.

[331] See ante, ii. 58, and iii. 276.

[332] 'There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall that arrogantly called itself The World. Lord Stanhope (now Lord Chesterfield) was a member. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the glasses by each member after dinner. Once when Dr. Young was invited thither, the doctor would have declined writing because he had no diamond, Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote immediately—

"Accept a miracle," &c.'

Spence's Anecdotes, p. 377. Dr. Maty (Memoirs of Chesterfield, i. 227) assigns the lines to Pope, and lays the scene at Lord Cobham's. Spence, however, gives Young himself as his authority.

[333] 'Aug. 1778. "I wonder," said Mrs. Thrale, "you bear with my nonsense." "No, madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense and more wit than any woman I know." "Oh," cried Mrs. Thrale, blushing, "it is my turn to go under the table this morning, Miss Burney." "And yet," continued the doctor, with the most comical look, "I have known all the wits from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint." "Bet Flint!" cried Mrs. Thrale. "Pray, who is she?" "Oh, a fine character, madam. She was habitually a slut and a drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a harlot.... Mrs. Williams," he added, "did not love Bet Flint, but Bet Flint made herself very easy about that."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 87, 90.

[334] Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive [see ante, i. 39], remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which have been communicated to me by a young lady of his acquaintance:—

'When first I drew my vital breath, A little minikin I came upon earth; And then I came from a dark abode, Into this gay and gaudy world.' BOSWELL.

[335] The Sessional Reports of the Old Bailey Trials for 1758, p. 278, contain a report of the trial. The Chief Justice Willes was in the Commission, but, according to the Report, it was before the Recorder that Bet Flint was tried. It may easily be, however, that either the reporter or the printer has blundered. It is only by the characters * and that the trials before the Chief Justice and the Recorder are distinguished. Bet had stolen not only the counterpane, but five other articles. The prosecutrix could not prove that the articles were hers, and not a captain's, whose servant she said she had been, and who was now abroad. On this ground the prisoner was acquitted. Of Chief Justice Willes, Horace Walpole writes:—'He was not wont to disguise any of his passions. That for gaming was notorious; for women unbounded.' He relates an anecdote of his wit and licentiousness. Walpole's Reign of George II, i. 89. He had been Johnson's schoolfellow (ante, i. 45).

[336] Burke is meant. See ante, ii. 131, where Johnson said that Burke spoke too familiarly; and post, May 15, 1784, where he said that 'when Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the kennel.'

[337] Wilkes imperfectly recalled to mind the following passage in Plutarch:—'[Greek: Euphranor ton Thaesea ton heatou to Parrhasiou parebale, legon tor men ekeinou hroda bebrokenai, tor de eautou krea boeia.]' 'Euphranor, comparing his own Theseus with Parrhasius's, said that Parrhasius's had fed on roses, but his on beef.' Plutarch, ed. 1839, iii. 423.

[338] Portugal, receiving from Brazil more gold than it needed for home uses, shipped a large quantity to England. It was said, though probably with exaggeration, that the weekly packet-boat from Lisbon, brought one week with another, more than L50,000 in gold to England. Smith's Wealth of Nations, book iv. ch. 6. Portugal pieces were current in our colonies, and no doubt were commonly sent to them from London. It was natural therefore that they should be selected for this legal fiction.

[339] See ante, ii. III.

[340] 'Whenever the whole of our foreign trade and consumption exceeds our exportation of commodities, our money must go to pay our debts so contracted, whether melted or not melted down. If the law makes the exportation of our coin penal, it will be melted down; if it leaves the exportation of our coin free, as in Holland, it will be carried out in specie. One way or other, go it must, as we see in Spain.... Laws made against exportation of money or bullion will be all in vain. Restraint or liberty in that matter makes no country rich or poor.' Locke's Works, ed. 1824, iv. 160.

[341] 'Nov. 14, 1779. Mr. Beauclerk has built a library in Great Russellstreet, that reaches half way to Highgate. Everybody goes to see it; it has put the Museum's nose quite out of joint.' Walpole's Letters, vii. 273. It contained upwards of 30,000 volumes, and the sale extended over fifty days. Two days' sale were given to the works on divinity, including, in the words of the catalogue, 'Heterodox! et Increduli. Angl. Freethinkers and their opponents.' Dr. Johnson: His Friends and His Critics, p. 315. It sold for L5,011 (ante, in. 420, note 4). Wilkes's own library—a large one—had been sold in 1764, in a five days' sale, as is shewn by the Auctioneer's Catalogue, which is in the Bodleian.

[342] 'Our own language has from the Reformation to the present time been chiefly dignified and adorned by the works of our divines, who, considered as commentators, controvertists, or preachers, have undoubtedly left all other nations far behind them.' The Idler, No. 91.

[343] Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow's first volume, and fourteenth sermon, 'Against foolish Talking and Jesting.' My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule, calls it 'a profuse description of Wit;' but I do not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out some good circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known, and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shall here subjoin it:—'But first (says the learned preacher) it may be demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness (or wit as he calls it before) doth import? To which questions I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, "'Tis that which we all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression: sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable, and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy, and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as reason teacheth and proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression, doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar; it seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dextrously accommodate them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek: hepidexioi], dextrous men, and [Greek: eustrophoi], men of facile or versatile manners, who can easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.) It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness, as semblance of difficulty: (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure:) by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.' BOSWELL. Morris's Essay was published in 1744. Hume wrote:—'Pray do you not think that a proper dedication may atone for what is objectionable in my Dialogues'! I am become much of my friend Corbyn Morrice's mind, who says that he writes all his books for the sake of the dedications.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 147.

[344] The quarrel arose from the destruction by George II. of George I.'s will (ante, ii. 342). The King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, was George I.'s grandson. 'Vague rumours spoke of a large legacy to the Queen of Prussia [Frederick's mother]. Of that bequest demands were afterwards said to have been frequently and roughly made by her son, the great King of Prussia, between whom and his uncle subsisted much inveteracy.' Walpole's Letters, i. cxx.

[345] When I mentioned this to the Bishop of Killaloe, 'With the goat,' said his Lordship. Such, however, is the engaging politeness and pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes, and such the social good humour of the Bishop, that when they dined together at Mr. Dilly's, where I also was, they were mutually agreeable. BOSWELL. It was not the lion, but the leopard, that shall lie down with the kid. Isaiah, xi. 6.

[346] Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, authour of tracts relating to natural history, &c. BOSWELL.

[347] Mrs. Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet:—'I assure you our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has left off his old friends and his blue stockings, and is at operas and other gay assemblies every night.' Montagu's Letters, iv. 117.

[348] See ante, in. 293, note 5.

[349] Miss Burney thus describes her:—'She is between thirty and forty, very short, very fat, but handsome; splendidly and fantastically dressed, rouged not unbecomingly yet evidently, and palpably desirous of gaining notice and admiration. She has an easy levity in her air, manner, voice, and discourse, that speak (sic) all within to be comfortable.... She is one of those who stand foremost in collecting all extraordinary or curious people to her London conversaziones, which, like those of Mrs. Vesey, mix the rank and the literature, and exclude all beside.... Her parties are the most brilliant in town.' Miss Burney then describes one of these parties, at which were present Johnson, Burke, and Reynolds. 'The company in general were dressed with more brilliancy than at any rout I ever was at, as most of them were going to the Duchess of Cumberland's.' Miss Burney herself was 'surrounded by strangers, all dressed superbly, and all looking saucily.... Dr. Johnson was standing near the fire, and environed with listeners.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 179, 186, 190. Leslie wrote of Lady Corke in 1834 (Autobiographical Recollections, i. 137, 243):—'Notwithstanding her great age, she is very animated. The old lady, who was a lion-hunter in her youth, is as much one now as ever.' She ran after a Boston negro named Prince Saunders, who 'as he put his Christian name "Prince" on his cards without the addition of Mr., was believed to be a native African prince, and soon became a lion of the first magnitude in fashionable circles.' She died in 1840.

[350] 'A lady once ventured to ask Dr. Johnson how he liked Yorick's [Sterne's] Sermons. "I know nothing about them, madam," was his reply. But some time afterwards, forgetting himself, he severely censured them. The lady retorted:—"I understood you to say, Sir, that you had never read them." "No, Madam, I did read them, but it was in a stage-coach; I should not have even deigned to look at them had I been at large." Cradock's Memoirs, p. 208.

[351] See ante, iii. 382, note 1.

[352] Next day I endeavoured to give what had happened the most ingenious turn I could, by the following verses:—

To THE HONOURABLE Miss MONCKTON.

'Not that with th' excellent Montrose I had the happiness to dine; Not that I late from table rose, From Graham's wit, from generous wine.

It was not these alone which led On sacred manners to encroach; And made me feel what most I dread, JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach.

But when I enter'd, not abash'd, From your bright eyes were shot such rays, At once intoxication flash'd, And all my frame was in a blaze.

But not a brilliant blaze I own, Of the dull smoke I'm yet asham'd; I was a dreary ruin grown, And not enlighten'd though inflam'd.

Victim at once to wine and love, I hope, MARIA, you'll forgive; While I invoke the powers above, That henceforth I may wiser live.'

The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging answer, and I thus obtained an Act of Oblivion, and took care never to offend again. BOSWELL.

[353] See ante, ii. 436, and iv. 88, note I.

[354] On May 22 Horace Walpole wrote (Letters, viii. 44):—'Boswell, that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in, which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he vented his errand. "Had I seen Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets?" I said slightly, "No, not yet;" and so overlaid his whole impertinence.'

[355] See ante, iii. 1.

[356] See ante, ii. 47, note 2; 352, note I; and iii. 376, for explanations of like instances of Boswell's neglect.

[357] See ante, i. 298, note 4.

[358] 'He owned he sometimes talked for victory.' Boswell's Hebrides, opening pages.

[359] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE.

[360] Dr. Johnson, being told of a man who was thankful for being introduced to him, 'as he had been convinced in a long dispute that an opinion which he had embraced as a settled truth was no better than a vulgar error, "Nay," said he, "do not let him be thankful, for he was right, and I was wrong." Like his Uncle Andrew in the ring at Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of disputants, was determined neither to be thrown nor conquered.' Murphy's Johnson, p. 139. Johnson, in The Adventurer, No. 85, seems to describe his own talk. He writes:—' While the various opportunities of conversation invite us to try every mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, we are frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in themselves strictly defensible; a man heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage of the mistakes or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of concessions to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on his opponent, though he knows himself that they have no force.' J. S. Mill gives somewhat the same account of his own father. 'I am inclined to think,' he writes, 'that he did injustice to his own opinions by the unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny.' Mill's Autobiography, p. 201. See also ante, ii. 100, 450, in. 23, 277, 331; and post, May 18, 1784, and Steevens's account of Johnson just before June 22, 1784.

[361] Thomas Shaw, D.D., author of Travels to Barbary and the Levant.

[362] See ante, iii. 314.

[363] The friend very likely was Boswell himself. He was one of 'these tanti men.' 'I told Paoli that in the very heat of youth I felt the nom est tanti, the omnia vanitas of one who has exhausted all the sweets of his being, and is weary with dull repetition. I told him that I had almost become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.' Boswell's Corsica, ed. 1879, p. 193.

[364] Letters on the English Nation: By Batista Angeloni, a Jesuit, who resided many years in London. Translated from the original Italian by the Author of the Marriage Act. A Novel. 2 vols. London [no printer's name given], 1755. Shebbeare published besides six Letters to the People of England in the years 1755-7, for the last of which he was sentenced to the pillory. Ante, iii. 315, note I. Horace Walpole (Letters, iii. 74) described him in 1757 as 'a broken Jacobite physician, who has threatened to write himself into a place or the pillory.'

[365] I recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King had pensioned both a He-bear and a She-bear. BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 66, and post, April 28, 1783.

[366]

Witness, ye chosen train Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign; Witness ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares, Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.'

Heroic Epistle. See post, under June 16, 1784.

[367] In this he was unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,' expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 187.

[368] They were published in 1773 in a pamphlet of 16 pages, and, with the good fortune that attends a muse in the peerage, reached a third edition in the year. To this same earl the second edition of Byron's Hours of Idleness was 'dedicated by his obliged ward and affectionate kinsman, the author.' In English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, he is abused in the passage which begins:—

'No muse will cheer with renovating smile, The paralytic puling of Carlisle.'

In a note Byron adds:—'The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his lordship will be permitted to bring forward anything for the stage—except his own tragedies.' In the third canto of Childe Harold Byron makes amends. In writing of the death of Lord Carlisle's youngest son at Waterloo, he says:—

'Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine; Yet one I would select from that proud throng, Partly because they blend me with his line, And partly that I did his Sire some wrong.'

For his lordship's tragedy see post, under Nov. 19, 1783.

[369] Men of rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as writers, before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his preface to All for Love, thus expresses himself:—

'Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and endued with a trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by [with] a smattering of Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of gentlemen, by their poetry:

"Rarus enim ferme sensus communis in ilia Fortuna,"——[Juvenal, viii. 73.]

And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their nakedness to publick view? Not considering that they are not to expect the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their flatterers after the third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate, but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents [talent], yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where he said, "That no man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because he is not rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not admit them of their number.' BOSWELL. Boswell, it should seem, had followed Swift's advice:—

'Read all the prefaces of Dryden, For these our critics much confide in; Though merely writ at first for filling, To raise the volume's price a shilling.'

Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xi. 293.

[370] See ante, i. 402.

[371] Wordsworth, it should seem, held with Johnson in this. When he read the article in the Edinburgh Review on Lord Byron's early poems, he remarked that 'though Byron's verses were probably poor enough, yet such an attack was abominable,—that a young nobleman, who took to poetry, deserved to be encouraged, not ridiculed.' Rogers's Table-Talk, p. 234, note.

[372] Dr. Barnard, formerly Dean of Derry. See ante, iii. 84.

[373] This gave me very great pleasure, for there had been once a pretty smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question, whether a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; when Johnson in a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not quite civil. Dr. Barnard made it the subject of a copy of pleasant verses, in which he supposed himself to learn different perfections from different men. They concluded with delicate irony:—

'Johnson shall teach me how to place In fairest light each borrow'd grace; From him I'll learn to write; Copy his clear familiar style, And by the roughness of his file Grow, like himself, polite.'

I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had occasion to find that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard increased. BOSWELL. See Appendix A.

[374] See ante, ii. 357, iii. 309, and post, March 23, 1783.

[375] 'Sir Joshua once asked Lord B—— to dine with Dr. Johnson and the rest, but though a man of rank and also of good information, he seemed as much alarmed at the idea as if you had tried to force him into one of the cages at Exeter-Change.' Hazlitt's Conversations of Northcote, p. 41.

[376] Yet when he came across them he met with much respect. At Alnwick he was, he writes, 'treated with great civility by the Duke of Northumberland.' Piozzi Letters, i. 108. At Inverary, the Duke and Duchess of Argyle shewed him great attention. Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 25. In fact, all through his Scotch tour he was most politely welcomed by 'the great.' At Chatsworth, he was 'honestly pressed to stay' by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (post, Sept. 9, 1784). See ante, iii. 21. On the other hand, Mrs. Barbauld says:—'I believe it is true that in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than in most other parts of Europe.' She censures 'the contemptuous manner in which Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned Richardson:—"The doors of the Great," she says, "were never opened to him."' Richardson Corres. i. clxxiv.

[377] When Lord Elibank was seventy years old, he wrote:—'I shall be glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 12.

[378] Romans, x. 2.

[379] I Peter, iii. 15.

[380] Horace Walpole wrote three years earlier:—' Whig principles are founded on sense; a Whig may be a fool, a Tory must be so.' Letters, vii. 88.

[381] Mr. Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the celebrated apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as much of the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with primitive simplicity, BOSWELL.

[382] Now Bishop of Llandaff, one of the poorest Bishopricks in this kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the propriety of equalizing the revenues of Bishops. He has informed us that he has burnt all his chemical papers. The friends of our excellent constitution, now assailed on every side by innovators and levellers, would have less regretted the suppression of some of this Lordship's other writings. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to A Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury by Richard, Lord Bishop of Landaff, 1782. If the revenues were made more equal, 'the poorer Bishops,' the Bishop writes, 'would be freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical preferments in commendam with their Bishopricks,' p. 8.

[383] De Quincey says that Sir Humphry Davy told him, 'that he could scarcely imagine a time, or a condition of the science, in which the Bishop's Essays would be superannuated.' De Quincey's Works, ii. 106. De Quincey describes the Bishop as being 'always a discontented man, a railer at the government and the age, which could permit such as his to pine away ingloriously in one of the humblest among the Bishopricks.' Ib. p. 107. He was, he adds, 'a true Whig,' and would have been made Archbishop of York had his party staid in power a little longer in 1807.'

[384] Rasselas, chap. xi.

[385] See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 30.

[386] 'They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.' Genesis, iii. 8.

[387]

... 'Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.'

'And sure the man who has it in his power To practise virtue, and protracts the hour, Waits like the rustic till the river dried; Still glides the river, and will ever glide.'

FRANCIS. Horace, Epist. i. 2. 41.

[388] See ante, p. 59.

[389] See ante, iii. 251.

[390] See ante, iii. 136.

[391] This assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first four satires of Young were published in 1725; The South Sea scheme (which appears to be meant,) was in 1720. MALONE. In Croft's Life of Young, which Johnson adopted, it is stated:—'By the Universal Passion he acquired no vulgar fortune, more than L3000. A considerable sum had already been swallowed up in the South Sea.' Johnson's Works, viii. 430. Some of Young's poems were published before 1720.

[392] Crabbe got Johnson to revise his poem, The Village (post, under March 23, 1783). He states, that 'the Doctor did not readily comply with requests for his opinion; not from any unwillingness to oblige, but from a painful contention in his mind between a desire of giving pleasure and a determination to speak truth.' Crabbe's Works, ii. 12. See ante, ii. 51, 195, and iii. 373.

[393] Pope's Essay on Man, iv. 390. See ante, iii. 6, note 2.

[394] He had within the last seven weeks gone up drunk, at least twice, to a lady's drawing-room. Ante, pp. 88, note 1, and 109.

[395] Mr. Croker, though without any authority, prints unconscious.

[396] I Corinthians, ix. 27. See ante, 295.

[397] 'We walk by faith, not by sight.' 2 Corinthians, v. 7

[398] Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon On the Articles of the Christian Faith, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, which we find in this life: 'It would be severe in GOD, you think, to degrade us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents: but you can allow him to place us in it without any inducement. Are our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less reason to look for its amendment.' BOSWELL.

[399] 'Which taketh away the sin' &c. St. John, i. 29.

[400] See Boswell's Hebrides, August 22.

[401] This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer, afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister to a congregation of the sect who called themselves Unitarians, from a notion that they distinctively worship ONE GOD, because they deny the mysterious doctrine of the TRINITY. They do not advert that the great body of the Christian Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also the Unity of the GODHEAD; the 'TRINITY in UNITY!—three persons and ONE GOD.' The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in the holy Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent Constitution, as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by a Jury, the Court of Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to transportation for fourteen years. A loud clamour against this sentence was made by some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the settlement for convicts in New South Wales. BOSWELL. This note first appears in the third edition. Mr. Palmer was sentenced to seven (not fourteen) years transportation in Aug. 1793. It was his fellow prisoner, Mr. Muir, an advocate, who was sentenced to fourteen years. Ann. Reg. 1793, p. 40. When these sentences were brought before the House of Commons, Mr. Fox said that it was 'the Lord-Advocate's fervent wish that his native principles of justice should be introduced into this country; and that on the ruins of the common law of England should be erected the infamous fabric of Scottish persecution. ... If that day should ever arrive, if the tyrannical laws of Scotland should ever be introduced in opposition to the humane laws of England, it would then be high time for my hon. friends and myself to settle our affairs, and retire to some happier clime, where we might at least enjoy those rights which God has given to man, and which his nature tells him he has a right to demand.' Parl. Hist. xxx. 1563. For Unitarians, see ante, ii. 408, note I.

[402] Taken from Herodotus. [Bk. ii. ch. 104.] BOSWELL.

[403] 'The mummies,' says Blakesley, 'have straight hair, and in the paintings the Egyptians are represented as red, not black.' Ib. note.

[404] See ante, i. 441, and post, March 28, and June 3, 1782.

[405] Mr. Dawkins visited Palmyra in 1751. He had 'an escort of the Aga of Hassia's best Arab horsemen.' Johnson was perhaps astonished at the size of their caravan, 'which was increased to about 200 persons.' The writer treats the whole matter with great brevity. Wood's Ruins of Palmyra, p. 33. On their return the travellers discovered a party of Arab horsemen, who gave them an alarm. Happily these Arabs were still more afraid of them, and were at once plundered by the escort, 'who laughed at our remonstrances against their injustice.' Wood's Ruins of Balbec, p. 2.

[406] He wrote a Life of Watts, which Johnson quoted. Works, viii. 382.

[407] See ante, iii. 422, note 6.

[408] In the first two editions formal.

[409] Johnson maintains this in The Idler, No. 74. 'Few,' he says, 'have reason to complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of memory ... The true art of memory is the art of attention.' See ante, iii. 191.

[410]The first of the definitions given by Johnson of to remember is to bear in mind anything; not to forget. To recollect he defines to recover to memory. We may, perhaps, assume that Boswell said, 'I did not recollect that the chair was broken;' and that Johnson replied, 'you mean, you did not remember. That you did not remember is your own fault. It was in your mind that it was broken, and therefore you ought to have remembered it. It was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that is, recover to memory, what is not in our mind.' In the passage ante, i. 112, which begins, 'I indeed doubt if he could have remembered,' we find in the first two editions not remembered, but recollected. Perhaps this change is due to euphony, as collected comes a few lines before. Horace Walpole, in one of his Letters (i. 15), distinguishes the two words, on his revisiting his old school, Eton:—'By the way, the clock strikes the old cracked sound—I recollect so much, and remember so little.'

[411] He made the same boast at St. Andrews. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19. He was, I believe, speaking of his translation of Courayer's Life of Paul Sarpi and Notes, of which some sheets were printed off. Ante, i. 135.

[412] Horace Walpole, after mentioning that George III's mother, who died in 1772, left but L27,000 when she was reckoned worth at least L300,000, adds:—'It is no wonder that it became the universal belief that she had wasted all on Lord Bute. This became still more probable as he had made the purchase of the estate at Luton, at the price of L114,000, before he was visibly worth L20,000; had built a palace there, another in town, and had furnished the former in the most expensive manner, bought pictures and books, and made a vast park and lake.' Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 19.

[413] To him Boswell dedicated his Thesis as excelsae familiae de Bute spei alterae (ante, ii. 20). In 1775, he wrote of him:—'He is warmly my friend and has engaged to do for me.' Letters of Boswell, p. 186

[414] He was mistaken in this. See ante, i. 260; also iii. 420.

[415] In England in like manner, and perhaps for the same reason, all Attorneys have been converted into Solicitors.

[416] 'There is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of errand boys, called Cawdies, who ply in the streets at night with paper lanthorns, and are very serviceable in carrying messages.' Humphrey Clinker. Letter of Aug. 8.

[417] Their services in this sense are noticed in the same letter.

[418]

'The formal process shall be turned to sport, And you dismissed with honour by the Court.' FRANCIS. Horace, Satires, ii.i.86.

[419] Mr. Robertson altered this word to jocandi, he having found in Blackstone that to irritate is actionable. BOSWELL.

[420] Quoted by Johnson, ante, ii. l97.

[421] His god-daughter. See post May 10, 1784.

[422] See post, under Dec. 20, 1782

[423] See ante, i. 155

[424] The will of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the original Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the expense of the University of Oxford. BOSWELL.

[425] He was a surgeon in this small Norfolk town. Dr. Burney's Memoirs, i. 106.

[426] Burney visited Johnson first in 1758, when he was living in Gough Square. Ante, i. 328.

[427] Mme. D'Arblay says that Dr. Johnson sent them to Dr. Burney's house, directed 'For the Broom Gentleman.' Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii. 180.

[428] 'Sept. 14, 1781. Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed. Once I was quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange discipline—starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time half demolished by its severity, he always in the end rises superior both to the disease and the remedy, which commonly is the most alarming of the two.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 107. On Sept. 18, his birthday, he wrote:—'As I came home [from church], I thought I had never begun any period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little festivity was not improper. I had a dinner, and invited Allen and Levett.' Pr. and Med. p. 199.

[429] This remark, I have no doubt, is aimed at Hawkins, who (Life, p. 553) pretends to account for this trip.

[430] Pr. and Med. p. 201. BOSWELL.

[431] He wrote from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27:—'All here is gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 209.

[432] The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. BOSWELL. Mrs. Boswell died June 4, 1789. MALONE.

[433] See account of him in the Gent. Mag. Feb. 1785. BOSWELL, see ante, i. 243, note 3.

[434] Mrs. Piozzi (Synonymy, ii. 79), quoting this verse, under Officious, says;—'Johnson, always thinking neglect the worst misfortune that could befall a man, looked on a character of this description with less aversion than I do.'

[435]

'Content thyself to be obscurely good.'

Addisons Cato, act. iv. sc. 4.

[436] In both editions of Sir John Hawkins's Life of Dr. Johnson, 'letter'd ignorance' is printed. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker (Boswell, p. I) says that 'Mr. Boswell is habitually unjust to Sir J. Hawkins.' As some kind of balance, I suppose, to this injustice, he suppresses this note.

[437] Johnson repeated this line to me thus:—

'And Labour steals an hour to die.'

But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. This poem is printed in the Ann. Reg. for 1783, p. 189, with the following variations:—l. 18, for 'ready help' 'useful care': l. 28, 'His single talent,' 'The single talent'; l. 33, 'no throbs of fiery pain,' 'no throbbing fiery pain'; l. 36, 'and freed,' 'and forced.' On the next page it is printed John Gilpin.

[438] Mr. Croker says that this line shows that 'some of Gray's happy expressions lingered in Johnson's memory' He quotes a line that comes at the end of the Ode on Vicissitude—'From busy day, the peaceful night.' This line is not Gray's, but Mason's.

[439] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:—'If you want events, Here is Mr. Levett just come in at fourscore from a walk to Hampstead, eight miles, in August.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 177.

[440] In the original, March 20. On the afternoon of March 20 Lord North announced in the House of Commons 'that his Majesty's Ministers were no more.' Parl. Hist. xxii. 1215.

[441] Pr. and Med. p. 209 [207]. BOSWELL.

[442] See ante, ii. 355, iii. 46, iv. 81, 100. Mr. Seward records in his Biographiana, p. 600—without however giving the year—that 'Johnson being asked what the Opposition meant by their flaming speeches and violent pamphlets against Lord North's administration, answered: "They mean, Sir, rebellion; they mean in spite to destroy that country which they are not permitted to govern."'

[443] In the previous December the City of London in an address, writes Horace Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and private counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable words:—"Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost." Words that could be used to no other King; no King had ever lost so much without losing all. If James II. lost his crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 483. The address is given in the Ann. Reg. xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish, having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should say we will have a King and ally ourselves with the House of Bourbon, what could be done to hinder or overthrow them?' Mr. Morrison's Autographs, vol. ii.

[444] In February and March, 1771, the House of Commons ordered eight printers to attend at the bar on a charge of breach of privilege, in publishing reports of debates. One of the eight, Miller of the Evening Post, when the messenger of the House tried to arrest him, gave the man himself into custody on a charge of assault. The messenger was brought before Lord Mayor Crosby and Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver, and a warrant was made out for his commitment. Bail was thereupon offered and accepted for his appearance at the next sessions. The Lord Mayor and Oliver were sent to the Tower by the House. Wilkes was ordered to appear on April 8; but the Ministry, not daring to face his appearance, adjourned the House till the 9th. A committee was appointed by ballot to inquire into the late obstructions to the execution of the orders of the House. It recommended the consideration of the expediency of the House ordering that Miller should be taken into custody. The report, when read, was received with a roar of laughter. Nothing was done. Such was, to quote the words of Burke in the Annual Register (xiv. 70), 'the miserable result of all the pretended vigour of the Ministry.' See Parl. Hist. xvii. 58, 186.

[445] Lord Cornwallis's army surrendered at York Town, five days before Sir Henry Clinton's fleet and army arrived off the Chesapeak. Ann. Reg. xxiv. 136.

[446] Johnson wrote on March 30:—'The men have got in whom I have endeavoured to keep out; but I hope they will do better than their predecessors; it will not be easy to do worse.' Croker's Boswell, p. 706.

[447] This note was in answer to one which accompanied one of the earliest pamphlets on the subject of Chatterton's forgery, entitled Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley, &c. Mr. Thomas Warton's very able Inquiry appeared about three months afterwards; and Mr. Tyrwhitt's admirable Vindication of his Appendix in the summer of the same hear, left the believers in this daring imposture nothing but 'the resolution to say again what had been said before.' MALONE.

[448] Pr. and Med. p. 207. BOSWELL.

[449] He addressed to him an Ode in Latin, entitled Ad Thomam Laurence, medicum doctissimum, quum filium peregre agentem desiderio nimis tristi prosequeretur. Works, i. 165.

[450] Mr. Holder, in the Strand, Dr. Johnson's apothecary. BOSWELL.

[451] 'Johnson should rather have written "imperatum est." But the meaning of the words is perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the messenger has orders to bring Holder to me." Mr. Croker translates the words as follows:-"If you consent, pray tell the messenger to bring Holder to me." If Mr. Croker is resolved to write on points of classical learning, we would advise him to begin by giving an hour every morning to our old friend Corderius.' Macaulay's Essays, ed. 1843, i 366. In The Answers to Mr. Macaulay's Criticism, prefixed to Croker's Boswell, p. 13, it is suggested that Johnson wrote either imperetur or imperator. The letter may be translated: 'A fresh chill, a fresh cough, and a fresh difficulty in breathing call for a fresh letting of blood. Without your advice, however, I would not submit to the operation. I cannot well come to you, nor need you come to me. Say yes or no in one word, and leave the rest to Holder and to me. If you say yes, let the messenger be bidden (imperetur) to bring Holder to me. May 1, 1782. When you have left, whither shall I turn?'

[452] Soon after the above letter, Dr. Lawrence left London, but not before the palsy had made so great a progress as to render him unable to write for himself. The folio wing are extracts from letters addressed by Dr. Johnson to one of his daughters:—

'You will easily believe with what gladness I read that you had heard once again that voice to which we have all so often delighted to attend. May you often hear it. If we had his mind, and his tongue, we could spare the rest.

'I am not vigorous, but much better than when dear Dr. Lawrence held my pulse the last time. Be so kind as to let me know, from one little interval to another, the state of his body. I am pleased that he remembers me, and hope that it never can be possible for me to forget him. July 22, 1782.'

'I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr. Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but his mind, and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much lament the rest. I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied.

'Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. 26, 1782.'

'Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it; for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me know, from time to time, all that you observe.

'Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance. Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.' BOSWELL.

[453] Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is addressed by his military title. BOSWELL.

[454] Eight days later he recorded:—'I have in ten days written to Aston, Lucy, Hector, Langton, Boswell; perhaps to all by whom my letters are desired.' Pr. and Med. 209. He had written also to Mrs. Thrale, but her affection, it should seem from this, he was beginning to doubt.

[455] See ante, p. 84.

[456] See ante, i. 247.

[457] See post, p. 158, note 4.

[458] Johnson has here expressed a sentiment similar to that contained in one of Shenstone's stanzas, to which, in his life of that poet, he has given high praise:—

'I prized every hour that went by, Beyond all that had pleased me before; But now they are gone [past] and I sigh, I grieve that I prized them no more.'

J. BOSWELL, JUN.

[459] She was his god-daughter. See post, May 10, 1784.

[460] 'Dr. Johnson gave a very droll account of the children of Mr. Langton, "who," he said, "might be very good children, if they were let alone; but the father is never easy when he is not making them do something which they cannot do; they must repeat a fable, or a speech, or the Hebrew alphabet, and they might as well count twenty for what they know of the matter; however, the father says half, for he prompts every other word."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 73. See ante, p. 20, note 2.

[461] A part of this letter having been torn off, I have, from the evident meaning, supplied a few words and half-words at the ends and beginnings of lines. BOSWELL.

[462] See vol. ii. p. 459. BOSWELL. She was Hector's widowed sister, and Johnson's first love. In the previous October, writing of a visit to Birmingham, he said:—'Mrs. Careless took me under her care, and told me when I had tea enough.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 205.

[463] This letter cannot belong to this year. In it Johnson says of his health, 'at least it is not worse.' But 1782 found him in very bad health; he passed almost the whole of the year 'in a succession of disorders' (post, p. 156). What he says of friendship renders it almost certain that the letter was written while he had still Thrale; and him he lost in April, 1781. Had it been written after June, 1779, but before Thrale's death, the account given of health would have been even better than it is (ante, iii. 397). It belongs perhaps to the year 1777 or 1778.

[464] 'To a man who has survived all the companions of his youth ... this full-peopled world is a dismal solitude.' Rambler, No. 69.

[465] See ante, i. 63.

[466] They met on these days in the years 1772, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 81, and 3.

[467] The ministry had resigned on the 20th. Ante, p. 139, note 1.

[468] Thirty-two years earlier he wrote in The Rambler, No. 53:-'In the prospect of poverty there is nothing but gloom and melancholy; the mind and body suffer together; its miseries bring no alleviation; it is a state in which every virtue is obscured, and in which no conduct can avoid reproach.' And again in No. 57:—'The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying, that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing.' See ante. 441.

[469] See ante, p. 128.

[470] Hannah More wrote in April of this year (Memoirs, i. 249):—'Poor Johnson is in a bad state of health. I fear his constitution is broken up.' (Yet in one week he dined out four times. Piozzi Letters, ii. 237.) At one of these dinners, 'I urged him,' she continues (ib. p. 251) 'to take a little wine. He replied, "I can't drink a little, child; therefore, I never touch it. Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult." He was very good-humoured and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, "Hush, hush," said he, "it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her; it is talking of the art of war before Hannibal."'

[471] This book was published in 1781, and, according to Lowndes, reached its seventh edition by 1787. See ante, i. 214.

[472] The clergyman's letter was dated May 4. Gent. Mag. 1786, p. 93. Johnson is explaining the reason of his delay in acknowledging it.

[473] What follows appeared in the Morning Chronicle of May 29, 1782:—'A correspondent having mentioned, in the Morning Chronicle of December 12, the last clause of the following paragraph, as seeming to favour suicide; we are requested to print the whole passage, that its true meaning may appear, which is not to recommend suicide but exercise.

'Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed: but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disjoined by an easy separation. It was a principle among the ancients, that acute diseases are from Heaven, and chronical from ourselves; the dart of death, indeed, falls from Heaven, but we poison it by our own misconduct: to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.' [The Rambler, No. 85.] BOSWELL.

[474] The Correspondence may be seen at length in the Gent. Mag. Feb. 1786. BOSWELL. Johnson, advising Dr. Taylor 'to take as much exercise as he can bear,' says:-'I take the true definition of exercise to be labour without weariness.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 461.

[475] Here he met Hannah More. 'You cannot imagine,' she writes (Memoirs, i. 261), 'with what delight he showed me every part of his own college. Dr. Adams had contrived a very pretty piece of gallantry. We spent the day and evening at his house. After dinner, Johnson begged to conduct me to see the College; he would let no one show it me but himself. "This was my room; this Shenstone's." Then, after pointing out all the rooms of the poets who had been of his college, "In short," said he, "we were a nest of singing-birds." When we came into the common-room, we spied a fine large print of Johnson, hung up that very morning, with this motto:—And is not Johnson ours, himself a host? Under which stared you in the face—From Miss More's "Sensibility." This little incident amused us; but, alas! Johnson looks very ill indeed—spiritless and wan. However, he made an effort to be cheerful.' Miss Adams wrote on June 14, 1782:—'On Wednesday we had here a delightful blue-stocking party. Dr. and Mrs. Kennicott and Miss More, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Henderson, &c., dined here. Poor Dr. Johnson is in very bad health, but he exerted himself as much as he could, and being very fond of Miss More, he talked a good deal, and every word he says is worth recording. He took great delight in showing Miss More every part of Pembroke College, and his own rooms, &c., and told us many things about himself when here. .. June 19, 1782. We dined yesterday for the last time in the company with Dr. Johnson; he went away to-day. A warm dispute arose; it was about cider or wine freezing, and all the spirit retreating to the center.' Pemb. Coll. MSS.