[1] Had he been 'busily employed' he would, no doubt, have finished the
edition in a few months. He himself had recorded at Easter, 1765: 'My
time has been unprofitably spent, and seems as a dream that has left
nothing behind.' _Pr. and Med_., p. 61.
[2] Dedications had been commonly used as a means of getting money by
flattery. I. D'Israeli in his _Calamities of Authors_, i. 64,
says:--'Fuller's _Church History_ is disgraced by twelve particular
dedications. It was an expedient to procure dedication fees; for
publishing books by subscription was an art not yet discovered.' The
price of the dedication of a play was, he adds, in the time of George I,
twenty guineas. So much then, at least, Johnson lost by not dedicating
_Irene_. However, when he addressed the _Plan of his Dictionary_ to Lord
Chesterfield (_ante_, i. 183) he certainly came very near a dedication.
Boswell, in the _Hypochondriack_, writes:--'For my own part, I own I am
proud enough. But I do not relish the stateliness of not dedicating at
all. I prefer pleasure to pride, and it appears to me that there is much
pleasure in honestly expressing one's admiration, esteem, or affection
in a public manner, and in thus contributing to the happiness of another
by making him better pleased with himself.' _London Mag_. for 1782, p.
454. His dedications were dedications of friendship, not of flattery or
servility. He dedicated his _Tour to Corsica_ to Paoli, his _Tour to the
Hebrides_ to Malone, and his _Life of Johnson_ to Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Goldsmith, in like manner, distrest though he so often was, dedicated
his _Traveller_ to his brother, the _Deserted Village_ to Sir Joshua,
and _She Stoops to Conquer_ to Johnson.
[3] A passage in Boswell's letter to Malone of Jan. 29, 1791 (Croker's
_Boswell_, p. 829), shows that it is Reynolds of whom he is writing. 'I
am,' he writes, 'to cancel a leaf of the first volume, having found that
though Sir Joshua certainly assured me he had no objection to my
mentioning that Johnson wrote a dedication for him, he now thinks
otherwise. In that leaf occurs the mention of Johnson having written to
Dr. Leland, thanking the University of Dublin for their diploma.' In the
first edition, this mention of the letter is followed by the passage
above about dedications. It was no doubt Reynolds's _Dedication of his
Discourses_ to the King in the year 1778 that Johnson wrote. The first
sentence is in a high degree Johnsonian. 'The regular progress of
cultivated life is from necessaries to accommodations, from
accommodations to ornaments.'
[4] 'That is to say,' he added, 'to the last generation of the Royal
Family.' See _post_, April 15, 1773. We may hope that the Royal Family
were not all like the Duke of Gloucester, who, when Gibbon brought him
the second volume of the _Decline and Fall_, 'received him with much
good nature and affability, saying to him, as he laid the quarto on the
table, "Another d----d thick, square book! Always scribble, scribble,
scribble! Eh! Mr. Gibbon?"' Best's _Memorials_, p. 68.
[5] Such care was needless. Boswell complained (_post_, June 24, 1774),
that Johnson did not _answer_ his letters, but only sent him _returns_.
[6] 'On one of the days that my ague disturbed me least, I walked from
the convent to Corte, purposely to write a letter to Mr. Samuel Johnson.
I told my revered friend, that from a kind of superstition agreeable in
a certain degree to him as well as to myself, I had, during my travels,
written to him from Loca Solennia, places in some measure sacred. That,
as I had written to him from the tomb of Melancthon (see _post_, June
28, 1777), sacred to learning and piety, I now wrote to him from the
palace of Pascal Paoli, sacred to wisdom and liberty.' Boswell's _Tour
to Corsica_, p. 218. How delighted would Boswell have been had he lived
to see the way in which he is spoken of by the biographer of Paoli: 'En
traversant la MA(C)diterranA(C)e sur de frA¬les navires pour venir s'asseoir au
foyer de la nationalitA(C) Corse, _des hommes graves_ tels que Boswel et
Volney obA(C)issaient sans doute A un sentiment bien plus A(C)levA(C) qu' au
besoin vulgaire d'une puerile curiositA(C).' _Histoire de Pascal Paoli_,
par A. Arrighi, i. 231. By every Corsican of any education the name of
Boswell is known and honoured. One of them told me that it was in
Boswell's pages that Paoli still lived for them. He informed me also of
a family which still preserved by tradition the remembrance of Boswell's
visit to their ancestral home.
[7] The twelve following lines of this letter were published by Boswell
in his _Corsica_ (p. 219) without Johnson's leave. (See _post_, March
23, 1768.) Temple, to whom the book had been shewn before publication,
had, it should seem, advised Boswell to omit this extract. Boswell
replied:--'Your remarks are of great service to me ... but I must have
my great preceptor, Mr. Johnson, introduced.' _Letters of Boswell_, p.
122. In writing to excuse himself to Johnson (_post_, April 26, 1768),
he says, 'the temptation to publishing it was so strong.'
[8] 'Tell your Court,' said Paoli to Boswell, 'what you have seen here.
They will be curious to ask you. A man come from Corsica will be like a
man come from the Antipodes.' Boswell's _Corsica_, p. 188. He was not
indeed the first 'native of this country' to go there. He found in
Bastia 'an English woman of Penrith, in Cumberland. When the Highlanders
marched through that country in the year 1745, she had married a soldier
of the French picquets in the very midst of all the confusion and
danger, and when she could hardly understand one word he said.' _Ib_, p.
226. Boswell nowhere quotes Mrs. Barbauld's fine lines on Corsica.
Perhaps he was ashamed of the praise of the wife of 'a little
Presbyterian parson who kept an infant boarding school.' (See _post_,
under Dec. 17, 1775.) Yet he must have been pleased when he read:--
'Such were the working thoughts which swelled the breast
Of generous Boswell; when with nobler aim
And views beyond the narrow beaten track
By trivial fancy trod, he turned his course
From polished Gallia's soft delicious vales,' &c.
Mrs. Barbauld's _Poems_, i. 2.
[9] Murphy, in the _Monthly Review_, lxxvi. 376, thus describes
Johnson's life in Johnson's Court after he had received his pension.
'His friend Levett, his physician in ordinary, paid his daily visits
with assiduity; attended at all hours, made tea all the morning, talked
what he had to say, and did not expect an answer; or, if occasion
required it, was mute, officious, and ever complying.... There Johnson
sat every morning, receiving visits, hearing the topics of the day, and
indolently trifling away the time. Chymistry afforded some amusement.'
Hawkins (_Life_, p. 452), says:--'An upper room, which had the
advantages of a good light and free air, he fitted up for a study. A
silver standish and some useful plate, which he had been prevailed on to
accept as pledges of kindness from some who most esteemed him, together
with furniture that would not have disgraced a better dwelling, banished
those appearances of squalid indigence which, in his less happy days,
disgusted those who came to see him.' Some of the plate Johnson had
bought. See _post_, April 15, 1781.
[10] It is remarkable, that Mr. Gray has employed somewhat the same
image to characterise Dryden. He, indeed, furnishes his car with but two
horses, but they are of 'ethereal race':
'Behold where Dryden's less presumptuous car,
Wide o'er the fields of glory bear
Two coursers of ethereal race,
With necks in thunder cloath'd, and long resounding pace.'
_Ode on the Progress of Poesy_. BOSWELL. In the '_Life of Pope (Works_,
viii. 324) Johnson says:--'The style of Dryden is capricious and varied;
that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his
own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition.
Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform,
and gentle.'
[11] In the original _laws or kings_.
[12]
'The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.'
_Paradise Lost_, i. 254.
'Caelum, non animum, mutant qui
trans mare current.'
Horace, _Epis_. i. II. 27. See also _ante_, i. 381. note 2.
[13] 'I once inadvertently put him,' wrote Reynolds, 'in a situation
from which none but a man of perfect integrity could extricate himself.
I pointed at some lines in _The Traveller_ which I told him I was sure
he wrote. He hesitated a little; during this hesitation I recollected
myself, that, as I knew he would not lie, I put him in a cleft-stick,
and should have had but my due if he had given me a rough answer; but he
only said, 'Sir, I did not write them, but that you may not imagine that
I have wrote more than I really have, the utmost I have wrote in that
poem, to the best of my recollection, is not more than eighteen lines.
[Nine seems the actual number.] It must be observed there was then an
opinion about town that Dr. Johnson wrote the whole poem for his friend,
who was then in a manner an unknown writer.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii.
458. See also _post_, April 9, 1778. For each line of _The Traveller_
Goldsmith was paid 11-1/4d. (_ante_, i. 193, note), Johnson's present,
therefore, of nine lines was, if reckoned in money, worth 8/5-1/4.
[14] See _ante_, i. 194, note.
[15] _Respublica et Status Regni Hungariae. Ex Officina Elzeviriana_,
1634, p. 136. This work belongs to the series of _Republics_ mentioned
by Johnson, _post_, under April 29, 1776.
[16] '"Luke" had been taken simply for the euphony of the line. He was
one of two brothers, Dosa.... The origin of the mistake [of Zeck for
Dosa] is curious. The two brothers belonged to one of the native races
of Transylvania called Szeklers or Zecklers, which descriptive addition
follows their names in the German biographical authorities; and this,
through abridgment and misapprehension, in subsequent books came at last
to be substituted for the family name.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 370.
The iron crown was not the worst of the tortures inflicted.
[17] See _post_, April 15, 1781. In 1748 Johnson had written (_Works_,
v. 231): 'At a time when so many schemes of education have been
projected.... so many schools opened for general knowledge, and so many
lectures in particular sciences attended.' Goldsmith, in his _Life of
Nash_ (published in 1762), describes the lectures at Bath 'on the arts
and sciences which are frequently taught there in a pretty, superficial
manner so as not to tease the understanding while they afford the
imagination some amusement.' Cunningham's _Goldsmith's Works_, iv 59.
[18] Perhaps Gibbon had read this passage at the time when he wrote in
his Memoirs:--'It has indeed been observed, nor is the observation
absurd, that, excepting in experimental sciences which demand a costly
apparatus and a dexterous hand, the many valuable treatises that have
been published on every subject of learning may now supersede the
ancient mode of oral instruction.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 50. See
_post_, March 20, 1776, note.
[19] See _ante_, i. 103.
[20] Baretti was in Italy at the same time as Boswell. That they met
seems to be shewn by a passage in Boswell's letter (_post_, Nov. 6,
1766). Malone wrote of him:--'He appears to be an infidel.' Prior's
_Malone_, p. 399.
[21] Lord Charlemont records (_Life_, i. 235) that 'Mrs. Mallet, meeting
Hume at an assembly, boldly accosted him in these words:--"Mr. Hume,
give me leave to introduce myself to you; we deists ought to know each
other." "Madame," replied Hume, "I am no deist. I do not style myself
so, neither do I desire to be known by that appellation."' Hume, in 1763
or 1764, wrote to Dr. Blair about the men of letters at Paris:--'It
would give you and Robertson great satisfaction to find that there is
not a single deist among them.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 181. There
was no deist, I suppose, because they were all atheists. Romilly
(_Life_, i. 179) records the following anecdote, which he had from
Diderot in 1781:--'Hume dAČna avec une grande compagnie chez le Baron
d'Holbach. Il A(C)tait assis A cA'tA(C) du Baron; on parla de la religion
naturelle. "Pour les AthA(C)es," disait Hume, "je ne crois pas qu'il en
existe; je n'en ai jamais vu." "Vous avez A(C)tA(C) un peu malheureux,"
rA(C)pondit l'autre, "vous voici A table avec dix-sept pour la premiA"re
fois."' It was on the same day that Diderot related this that he said to
Romilly, 'Il faut _sabrer_ la thA(C)ologie.'
[22] 'The inference upon the whole is, that it is not from the value or
worth of the object which any person pursues that we can determine his
enjoyment; but merely from the passion with which he pursues it, and the
success which he meets with in his pursuit. Objects have absolutely no
worth or value in themselves. They derive their worth merely from the
passion. If that be strong and steady and successful, the person is
happy. It cannot reasonably be doubted but a little miss, dressed in a
new gown for a dancing-school ball, receives as complete enjoyment as
the greatest orator, who triumphs in the splendour of his eloquence,
while he governs the passions and resolutions of a numerous assembly.'
Hume's _Essays_, i. 17 (_The Sceptic_). Pope had written in the _Essay
on Man_ (iv. 57):
'Condition, circumstance, is not the thing;
Bliss is the same in subject or in King.'
See also _post_, April 15, 1778.
[23] In _Boswelliana_, p. 220, a brief account is given of his life,
which was not altogether uneventful.
[24] We may compare with this what he says in _The Rambler_, No. 21,
about the 'cowardice which always encroaches fast upon such as spend
their time in the company of persons higher than themselves.' In No. 104
he writes:--'It is dangerous for mean minds to venture themselves within
the sphere of greatness.' In the court that Boswell many years later
paid to Lord Lonsdale, he suffered all the humiliations that the
brutality of this petty greatness can inflict. _Letters of Boswell_, p.
324. See also _post_, Sept. 22, 1777.
[25] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19, 1773.
[26] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 107) thus sums up his examination of
second-sight:--'There is against it, the seeming analogy of things
confusedly seen, and little understood; and for it, the indistinct cry
of natural persuasion, which may be, perhaps, resolved at last into
prejudice and tradition. I never could advance my curiosity to
conviction; but came away at last only willing to believe.' See also
_post_, March 24, 1775. Hume said of the evidence in favour of
second-sight--:'As finite added to finite never approaches a hair's
breadth nearer to infinite, so a fact incredible in itself acquires not
the smallest accession of probability by the accumulation of testimony.'
J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 480.
[27] 'I love anecdotes,' said Johnson. Boswell's _Hebridge_, Aug. 16,
1773. Boswell said that 'Johnson always condemned the word _anecdotes_,
as used in the sense that the French, and we from them, use it, as
signifying particulars.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 311. In his
_Dictionary_, he defined '_Anecdotes_ Something yet unpublished; secret
history.' In the fourth edition he added: 'It is now used, after the
French, for a biographical incident; a minute passage of private life.'
[28] See _ante_, July 19, 1763.
[29] Boswell, writing to Wilkes in 1776, said:--'Though we differ widely
in religion and politics, _il y a des points ou nos ames sont animes_,
as Rouseau said to me in his wild retreat.' Almon's _Wilkes_, iv. 319.
[30] Rousseau fled from France in 1762. A few days later his arrest was
ordered at Geneva. He fled from Neufchatel in 1763, and soon afterwards
he was banished from Berne. _Nonev. Biog. Gen., Xlii. 750_. He had come
to England with David Hume a few weeks before this conversation was
held, and was at this time in Chiswick. Hume's _Private Corres_.,
pp. 125, 145.
[31] Rousseau had by this time published his _Nouvelle Helloise_ and
_Emile_.
[32] Less than three months after the date of this conversation Rousseau
wrote to General Conway, one of the Secretaries of State, thanking him
for the pension which George III proposed secretly to confer on him.
Hume's _Private Corres_., p. 165. Miss Burney, in her preface to
_Evelina_, a novel which was her introduction to Johnson's strong
affection, mentioning Rousseau and Johnson, adds in a footnote:--
'However superior the capacities in which these great writers deserve to
be considered, they must pardon me that, for the dignity of my subject,
I here rank the authors of _Rasselas_ and _EloA-se_ as novelists.'
[33] Rousseau thus wrote of himself:
'Dieu est juste; il veut que je souffre; et il sait que je suis
innocent. VoilA le motif de ma confiance, mon coeur et ma raison me
crient qu'elle ne me trompera pas. Laissons donc faire les hommes et la
destinA(C)e; apprenons A souffrir sans murmure; tout doit A la fin rentrer
dans Fordre, et mon tour viendra tA't ou tard.' Rousseau's _Works_,
xx. 223.
[34] 'He entertained me very courteously,' wrote Boswell in his
_Corsica_, p. 140.
[35] In this preference Boswell pretended at times to share. See _post_,
Sept. 30, 1769.
[36] Johnson seems once to have held this view to some extent; for,
writing of Savage's poem _On Public Spirit_, he says (_Works_, viii.
156):--'He has asserted the natural equality of mankind, and endeavoured
to suppress that pride which inclines men to imagine that right is the
consequence of power.' See also _post_, Sept. 23, 1777, where he
asserts:--'It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original
state were equal.' For the opposite opinion, see _ante_, June 25, 1763.
[37] 'Qui mores hominum multorum vidit et urbes.' 'Manners and towns of
various nations viewed.' FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 1. 142.
[38] By the time Boswell was twenty-six years old he could boast that he
had made the acquaintance of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Paoli among
foreigners; and of Adam Smith, Robertson, Hume, Johnson, Goldsmith,
Garrick, Horace Walpole, Wilkes, and perhaps Reynolds, among Englishmen.
He had twice at least received a letter from the Earl of Chatham.
[39] In such passages as this we may generally assume that the
gentleman, whose name is not given, is Boswell himself. See _ante_, i.
4, and _post_, Oct. 16, 1769.
[40] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's 'Collection,' where this
assertion is called 'his usual remark.'
[41] See _post_, April 15, 1778.
[42] These two words may be observed as marks of Mr. Boswell's accuracy.
It is a jocular Irish phrase, which, of all Johnson's acquaintances, no
one probably, but Goldsmith, would have used.--CROKER.
[43] See _ante_, May 24, 1763.
[44] Johnson's best justification for the apparent indolences of the
latter part of his life may be found in his own words: 'Every man of
genius has some arts of fixing the attention peculiar to himself, by
which, honestly exerted, he may benefit mankind.... To the position of
Tully, that if virtue could be seen she must be loved, may be added,
that if truth could be heard she must be obeyed.' _The Rambler_, No. 87.
He fixed the attention best by his talk. For 'the position of Tully,'
see _post_, March 19, 1776.
[45] See _ante_, i. 192, and _post_, May 1, 1783. Goldsmith wrote _The
Traveller and Deserted Village_ on a very different plan. 'To save
himself the trouble of transcription, he wrote the lines in his first
copy very wide, and would so fill up the intermediate space with
reiterated corrections, that scarcely a word of his first effusions was
left unaltered.' Goldsmith's _Misc. Works_, i. 113.
[46] Mrs. Thrale in a letter to Dr. Johnson, said:--'Don't sit making
verses that never will be written.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 183. Baretti
noted opposite this in the margin of his copy: 'Johnson was always
making Latin or English verses in his mind, but never would write
them down.'
[47] Burke entered Parliament as member for Wendover borough on Jan.
14th, 1766. William Burke, writing to Barry the artist on the following
March 23, says:--'Ned's success has exceeded our most sanguine hopes;
all at once he has darted into fame. He is full of real business, intent
upon doing real good to his country, as much as if he was to receive
twenty per cent. from the commerce of the whole empire, which he labours
to improve and extend.' Barry's _Works_, i. 42.
[48] It was of these speeches that Macaulay wrote:--'The House of
Commons heard Pitt for the last time and Burke for the first time, and
was in doubt to which of them the palm of eloquence should be assigned.
It was indeed a splendid sunset and a splendid dawn.' Macaulay's
_Essays_ (edition 1874), iv. 330.
[49] See _post_, March 20, 1776.
[50] Boswell has already stated (_ante_, Oct. 1765) that Johnson's
_Shakespeare_ was 'virulently attacked' by Kenrick. No doubt there were
other attacks and rejoinders too.
[51] Two days earlier he had drawn up a prayer on entering _Novum
Museum_. _Pr. and Med_., p. 69.
[52] See _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.
[53] _Dictionarium Saxonico et Gothico-Latinum_. London, 1772. Lye died
in 1767. O. Manning completed the work.
[54] See Appendix A.
[55] Mr. Langton's uncle. BOSWELL.
[56] The place of residence of Mr. Peregrine Langton. BOSWELL.
[57] Mr. Langton did not disregard this counsel, but wrote the following
account, which he has been pleased to communicate to me:
'The circumstances of Mr. Peregrine Langton were these. He had an
annuity for life of two hundred pounds _per annum_. He resided in a
village in Lincolnshire; the rent of his house, with two or three small
fields, was twenty-eight pounds; the county he lived in was not more
than moderately cheap; his family consisted of a sister, who paid him
eighteen pounds annually for her board, and a niece. The servants were
two maids, and two men in livery. His common way of living, at his
table, was three or four dishes; the appurtenances to his table were
neat and handsome; he frequently entertained company at dinner, and then
his table was well served with as many dishes as were usual at the
tables of the other gentlemen in the neighbourhood. His own appearance,
as to clothes, was genteelly neat and plain. He had always a
post-chaise, and kept three horses.
'Such, with the resources I have mentioned, was his way of living, which
he did not suffer to employ his whole income: for he had always a sum of
money lying by him for any extraordinary expences that might arise. Some
money he put into the stocks; at his death, the sum he had there
amounted to one hundred and fifty pounds. He purchased out of his income
his household-furniture and linen, of which latter he had a very ample
store; and, as I am assured by those that had very good means of
knowing, not less than the tenth part of his income was set apart for
charity: at the time of his death, the sum of twenty-five pounds was
found, with a direction to be employed in such uses.
'He had laid down a plan of living proportioned to his income, and did
not practise any extraordinary degree of parsimony, but endeavoured that
in his family there should be plenty without waste; as an instance that
this was his endeavour, it may be worth while to mention a method he
took in regulating a proper allowance of malt liquor to be drunk in his
family, that there might not be a deficiency, or any intemperate
profusion: On a complaint made that his allowance of a hogshead in a
month, was not enough for his own family, he ordered the quantity of a
hogshead to be put into bottles, had it locked up from the servants, and
distributed out, every day, eight quarts, which is the quantity each day
at one hogshead in a month; and told his servants, that if that did not
suffice, he would allow them more; but, by this method, it appeared at
once that the allowance was much more than sufficient for his small
family; and this proved a clear conviction, that could not be answered,
and saved all future dispute. He was, in general, very diligently and
punctually attended and obeyed by his servants; he was very considerate
as to the injunctions he gave, and explained them distinctly; and, at
their first coming to his service, steadily exacted a close compliance
with them, without any remission; and the servants finding this to be
the case, soon grew habitually accustomed to the practice of their
business, and then very little further attention was necessary. On
extraordinary instances of good behaviour, or diligent service, he was
not wanting in particular encouragements and presents above their wages;
it is remarkable that he would permit their relations to visit them, and
stay at his house two or three days at a time.
'The wonder, with most that hear an account of his A"conomy, will be, how
he was able, with such an income, to do so much, especially when it is
considered that he paid for everything he had; he had no land, except
the two or three small fields which I have said he rented; and, instead
of gaining any thing by their produce, I have reason to think he lost by
them; however, they furnished him with no further assistance towards his
housekeeping, than grass for his horses, (not hay, for that I know he
bought,) and for two cows. Every Monday morning he settled his family
accounts, and so kept up a constant attention to the confining his
expences within his income; and to do it more exactly, compared those
expences with a computation he had made, how much that income would
afford him every week and day of the year. One of his A"conomical
practices was, as soon as any repair was wanting in or about his house,
to have it immediately performed. When he had money to spare, he chose
to lay in a provision of linen or clothes, or any other necessaries; as
then, he said, he could afford it, which he might not be so well able to
do when the actual want came; in consequence of which method, he had a
considerable supply of necessary articles lying by him, beside what was
in use.
'But the main particular that seems to have enabled him to do so much
with his income, was, that he paid for every thing as soon as he had it,
except, alone, what were current accounts, such as rent for his house
and servantsaEuro(TM) wages; and these he paid at the stated times with the
utmost exactness. He gave notice to the tradesmen of the neighbouring
market-towns that they should no longer have his custom, if they let any
of his servants have anything without their paying for it. Thus he put
it out of his power to commit those imprudences to which those are
liable that defer their payments by using their money some other way
than where it ought to go. And whatever money he had by him, he knew
that it was not demanded elsewhere, but that he might safely employ it
as he pleased.
'His example was confined, by the sequestered place of his abode, to the
observation of few, though his prudence and virtue would have made it
valuable to all who could have known it. These few particulars, which I
knew myself, or have obtained from those who lived with him, may afford
instruction, and be an incentive to that wise art of living, which he so
successfully practiced.aEuro(TM) BOSWELL
[58] Of his being in the chair of THE LITERARY CLUB, which at this time
met once a week in the evening. BOSWELL. See _ante_, Feb. 1764, note.
[59] See _post_, Feb. 1767, where he told the King that 'he must now
read to acquire more knowledge.'
[60] The passage omitted alluded to a private transaction. BOSWELL.
[61] The censure of my Latin relates to the Dedication, which was as
follows:
VIRO NOBILISSIMO, ORNATISSIMO,
JOANNI,
VICECOMITI MOUNTSTUART,
ATAVIS EDITO REGIBUS
EXCELSAE FAMILLAE DE BUTE SPEI ALTERAE;
LABENTE SECULO,
QUUM HOMINES NULLIUS ORIGINIS
GENUS AEQUARE OPIBUS AGGREDIUNTUR,
SANGUINIS ANTIQUI ET ILLUSTRIS
SEMPER MEMORI,
NATALIUM SPLENDOREM VIRTUTIBUS AUGENTI:
AD PUBLICA POPULI COMITIA
JAM LEGATO;
IN OPTIMATIUM VERO MAGNAć BRITANNIAć SENATU,
JURE HAćREDITARIO,
OLIM CONSESSURO:
VIM INSITAM VARIA DOCTRINA PROMOVENTE,
NEC TAMEN SE VENDITANTE,
PRAćDITO:
PRISCA FIDE, ANIMO LIBERRIMO,
ET MORUM ELEGANTIA
INSIGNI:
IN ITALIAć VISITANDAć ITINERE,
SOCIO SUO HONORATISSIMO,
HASCE JURISPRUDENTAć PRIMITIAS
DEVINCTISSIMAć AMICITIAć ET OBSERVANTIAć
MONUMENTUM,
D. D. C Q.