MALONE.

[391] 2 Corinthians, iv. 17.

[392] Boswell says (ante, i. 342):--'I am not satisfied if a year passes

without my having read _Rasselas_ through.'

[393] It appears that Johnson, now in his sixty-eighth year, was

seriously inclined to realise the project of our going up the Baltick,

which I had started when we were in the Isle of Sky [Boswell's

_Hebrides_, Sept. 16]; for he thus writes to Mrs. Thrale; _Letters_,

vol. i. p. 366:--

'Ashbourne, Sept. 13, 1777.

'BOSWELL, I believe, is coming. He talks of being here to day: I shall

be glad to see him: but he shrinks from the Baltick expedition, which, I

think, is the best scheme in our power: what we shall substitute I know

not. He wants to see Wales; but, except the woods of _Bachycraigh_, what

is there in Wales, that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the

thirst of curiosity? We may, perhaps, form some scheme or other; but, in

the phrase of _Hockley in the Hole_, it is a pity he has not a _better

bottom_.'

Such an ardour of mind, and vigour of enterprise, is admirable at any

age: but more particularly so at the advanced period at which Johnson

was then arrived. I am sorry now that I did not insist on our executing

that scheme. Besides the other objects of curiosity and observation, to

have seen my illustrious friend received, as he probably would have

been, by a Prince so eminently distinguished for his variety of talents

and acquisitions as the late King of Sweden; and by the Empress of

Russia, whose extraordinary abilities, information, and magnanimity,

astonish the world, would have afforded a noble subject for

contemplation and record. This reflection may possibly be thought too

visionary by the more sedate and cold-blooded part of my readers; yet I

own, I frequently indulge it with an earnest, unavailing regret.

BOSWELL. In _The Spectator_, No. 436, Hockley in the Hole is described

as 'a place of no small renown for the gallantry of the lower order of

Britons.' Fielding mentions it in _Jonathan Wild_, bk. i. ch. 2:--

'Jonathan married Elizabeth, daughter of Scragg Hollow, of Hockley

in the Hole, Esq., and by her had Jonathan, who is the illustrious

subject of these memoirs.' In _The Beggar's Opera_, act i. Mrs. Peachum

says to Filch: 'You should go to Hockley in the Hole, and to Marylebone,

child, to learn valour. These are the schools that have bred so many

brave men.' Hockley in the Hole was in Clerkenwell. That Johnson had

this valour was shewn two years earlier, when he wrote to Mrs. Thrale

about a sum of £14,000 that the Thrales had received: 'If I had money

enough, what would I do? Perhaps, if you and master did not hold me, I

might go to Cairo, and down the Red Sea to Bengal, and take a ramble in

India. Would this be better than building and planting? It would surely

give more variety to the eye, and more amplitude to the mind. Half

fourteen thousand would send me out to see other forms of existence, and

bring me back to describe them.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 266. To the 'King

of Sweden' _late_ was added in the second edition; Gustavus III having

been assassinated in March 1792. The story is somewhere told that George

III, on hearing the news, cried out, 'What, what, what! Shot, shot,

shot!' The Empress of Russia was Catherine II.

[394] It so happened. The letter was forwarded to my house at Edinburgh.

BOSWELL. Arthur Young (_Tour through the North of England_, iv. 431-5)

describes, in 1768, some of the roads along which Boswell was to travel

nine years later. 'I would advise all travellers to consider the country

between Newcastle-under-Line and Preston as sea, and as soon think of

driving into the ocean as venturing into such detestable roads. I am

told the Derby way to Manchester is good, but further is not

penetrable.' The road from Wigan to Preston he calls 'infernal,' and

'cautions all travellers, who may accidentally purpose to travel this

terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to

one they break their necks or their limbs. They will here meet with ruts

which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only

from a wet summer; what therefore must it be after a winter?'

[395] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 15, 1777:--'Last night came

Boswell. I am glad that he is come. He seems to be very brisk and

lively, and laughs a little at ---- [no doubt Taylor].' _Piozzi

Letters_, i. 368. On the 18th he wrote:--'Boswell is with us in good

humour, and plays his part with his usual vivacity.' On this Baretti

noted in his copy:--'That is, he makes more noise than anybody in

company, talking and laughing loud.' On p. 216 in vol. i. he

noted:--'Boswell is not quite right-headed in my humble opinion.'

[396] In the _Gent. Mag_. for 1777, p. 458, it is described as a

'violent shock.'

[397] 'Grief has its time' he once said (_post_, June 2, 1781). 'Grief

is a species of idleness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale (_Piozzi Letters_,

i. 77). He constantly taught that it is a duty not to allow the mind to

prey on itself. 'Gaiety is a duty when health requires it' (Croker's

_Boswell_, p. 529). 'Encourage yourself in bustle, and variety, and

cheerfulness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale ten weeks after the

death of her only surviving son (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 341). 'Even to

think in the most reasonable manner,' he said at another time, 'is for

the present not useful as not to think.' _Ib_ i. 202. When Mr. Thrale

died, he wrote to his widow:--'I think business the best remedy for

grief, as soon as it can be admitted.' _Ib_. ii 197. To Dr. Taylor

Johnson wrote:--'Sadness only multiplies self.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th

S., v. 461.

[398] 'There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is

something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot

be loved, nor will by me at least be thought worthy of esteem.' _Piozzi

Letters_, ii. 198. Against this Baretti has written in the margin:--

'Johnson never grieved much for anything. His trade was wisdom.' See

_ante_, ii. 94.

[399] See _ante_, iii 19. Mr. Croker gives a reference to p. 136 of his

edition. Turning to it we find an account of Johnson, who rode upon

three horses. It would seem from this that, because John=Jack, therefore

Johnson=Jackson.

[400] Mr. Croker remarks on this:--'Johnson evidently thought, either

that Ireland is generally mountainous, or that Mr. Burke came from a

part which was: but he was mistaken.' The allusion may well be, not to

Burke as a native of Ireland, but to him as a student of national

politics and economy, to whom any general reflections on the character

of mountaineers would be welcome. In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 201,

it is stated that 'it was the philosophy of the book that Burke thought

well of.'

[401] Mr. Langley, I have little doubt, is the Mr. L---- of the

following passage in Johnson's letter, written from Ashbourne on July

12, 1775:--'Mr. L---- and the Doctor still continue at variance; and the

Doctor is afraid and Mr. L---- not desirous of a reconciliation. I

therefore step over at by-times, and of by-times I have enough.' _Piozzi

Letters_, i. 267.

[402] See _ante_, ii. 52.

[403] George Garrick. See Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 141.

[404] See _ante_, March 26, 1776, and _post_, Sept. 21, 1777.

[405] 'While Lord Bathurst held the Great Seal, an attempt was in vain

made to corrupt him by a secret offer to Lady Bathurst of three thousand

guineas for the living of St. George's, Hanover Square. The offer was

traced to the famous Dr. Dodd, then a King's Chaplain, and he was

immediately dismissed.' Campbell's _Chancellors_, v. 464. See Walpole's

_Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 298.

[406] Horace Walpole, who accompanied Prince Edward to a service at the

Magdalen House in 1760, thus describes the service (_Letters_, iii. 282):

--'As soon as we entered the chapel the organ played, and the Magdalens

sung a hymn in parts. You cannot imagine how well. The chapel was

dressed with orange and myrtle, and there wanted nothing but a little

incense to drive away the devil,--or to invite him. Prayers then began,

psalms and a sermon; the latter by a young clergyman, one Dodd, who

contributed to the Popish idea one had imbibed, by haranguing entirely

in the French style, and very eloquently and touchingly. He

apostrophised the lost sheep, who sobbed and cried from their souls: so

did my Lady Hertford and Fanny Pelham, till, I believe, the city dames

took them both for Jane Shores. The confessor then turned to the

audience, and addressed himself to his Royal Highness, whom he called

most illustrious prince, beseeching his protection. In short, it was a

very pleasing performance, and I got _the most illustrious_ to desire it

might be printed.' Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 503) heard Dodd preach in

1769. 'We had,' he says, 'difficulty to get tolerable seats, the crowd

of genteel people was so great. The unfortunate young women were in a

latticed gallery, where you could only see those who chose to be seen.

The preacher's text was, "If a man look on a woman to lust after her,"

&c. The text itself was shocking, and the sermon was composed with the

least possible delicacy, and was a shocking insult on a sincere

penitent, and fuel for the warm passions of the hypocrites. The fellow

was handsome, and delivered his discourse remarkably well for a reader.

When he had finished, there were unceasing whispers of applause, which I

could not help contradicting aloud, and condemning the whole

institution, as well as the exhibition of the preacher, as _contra bonos

mores_, and a disgrace to a Christian city.' Goldsmith in 1774 exposed

Dodd as a 'quacking divine' in his _Retaliation_. He describes Dr.

Douglas as a 'The scourge of impostors, the terror of quacks,' and he

continues,--

'But now he is gone, and we want a detector,

Our Dodds shall be pious, our Kenricks shall lecture.'

See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[407] The fifth earl, the successor of the celebrated earl. On Feb. 22,

1777, Dodd was convicted of forging a bond for £4,200 in his name; _Ann.

Reg_. xx. 168. The earl was unfortunate in his tutors, for he had been

also under Cuthbert Shaw (_ante_, ii 31 note 2).

[408] Mr. Croker quotes the following letter of Dodd, dated 1750:--'I

spent yesterday afternoon with Johnson, the celebrated author of _The

Rambler_, who is of all others the oddest and most peculiar fellow I

ever saw. He is six feet high, has a violent convulsion in his head,

and his eyes are distorted. He speaks roughly and loud, listens to no

man's opinions, thoroughly pertinacious of his own. Good sense flows

from him in all he utters, and he seems possessed of a prodigious fund

of knowledge, which he is not at all reserved in communicating; but in a

manner so obstinate, ungenteel, and boorish, as renders it disagreeable

and dissatisfactory. In short it is impossible for words to describe

him. He seems often inattentive to what passes in company, and then

looks like a person possessed by some superior spirit. I have been

reflecting on him ever since I saw him. He is a man of most universal

and surprising genius, but in himself particular beyond expression.'

Dodd was born in 1729.

[409] 'One of my best and tenderest friends,' Johnson called him, _post_,

July 31, 1784. See _post_, April 10, 1778.

[410] _The Convict's Address to his Unhappy Brethren: Being a Sermon

preached by the Rev. Dr. Dodd, Friday, June 6, 1777, in the Chapel of

Newgate, while under sentence of death, for forging the name of the

Earl of Chesterfield on a bond for £4,200. Sold by the booksellers and

news-carriers. Price Two-pence_. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale from

Lichfield on Aug. 9:--'Lucy said, "When I read Dr. Dodd's sermon to the

prisoners, I said Dr. Johnson could not make a better."'

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 352. See _post_, p. 167.

[411] 'What must I do to be saved?' _Acts_ xvi. 30.

[412] 'And finally we must commend and entrust our souls to Him who

died for the sins of men; with earnest wishes and humble hopes that

He will admit us with the labourers who entered the vineyard at the last

hour, and associate us with the thief whom he pardoned on the cross.' p.

14.

[413] _The Gent. Mag_. for 1777 (p. 450) says of this address:--'As

none but a convict could have written this, all convicts ought to read

it; and we therefore recommend its being framed, and hung up in all

prisons.' Mr. Croker, italicising _could_ and suppressing the latter

part of the sentence, describes it as a criticism that must have been

offensive to Johnson. The writer's meaning is simple enough. The

address, he knew, was delivered in the Chapel of Newgate by a prisoner

under sentence of death. If, instead of 'written' he had said

'delivered,' his meaning would have been quite clear.

[414] Having unexpectedly, by the favour of Mr. Stone, of London

Field, Hackney, seen the original in Johnson's hand-writing, of 'The

Petition of the City of London to his Majesty, in favour of Dr. Dodd,' I

now present it to my readers, with such passages as were omitted

in-closed in crotchets, and the additions or variations marked in

Italicks.

'That William Dodd, Doctor of Laws, now lying under sentence of death

_in your Majesty's gaol of Newgate_, for the crime of forgery, has for a

great part of his life set a useful and laudable example of diligence in

his calling, [and as we have reason to believe, has exercised his

ministry with great fidelity and efficacy,] _which, in many instances,

has produced the most happy effect_.

'That he has been the first institutor, [or] _and_ a very earnest and

active promoter of several modes of useful charity, and [that] therefore

[he] may be considered as having been on many occasions a benefactor to

the publick.

'[That when they consider his past life, they are willing to suppose his

late crime to have been not the consequence of habitual depravity, but

the suggestion of some sudden and violent temptation.]

'[That] _Your Petitioners_ therefore considering his case, as in some of

its circumstances unprecedented and peculiar, _and encouraged by your

Majesty's known clemency_, [they] most humbly recommend the said William

Dodd to [his] your Majesty's most gracious consideration, in hopes that

he will be found not altogether [unfit] _unworthy_ to stand an example

of Royal Mercy.' BOSWELL.

[415] His Speech at the Old Bailey, when found guilty. BOSWELL.

[416] In the second edition he is described as 'now Lord Hawkesbury.'

He had entered public life as Lord Bute's private secretary, and,

according to Horace Walpole, continued in it as his tool.' _Memoirs of

the Reign of George III_, iv. 70, 115. Walpole speaks of him as one of

'the Jesuits of the Treasury' (_Ib_. p. 110), and 'the director or agent

of all the King's secret counsels. His appearance was abject, his

countenance betrayed a consciousness of secret guilt; and, though his

ambition and rapacity were insatiate, his demeanour exhibited such a

want of spirit, that had he stood forth as Prime Minister, which he

really was, his very look would have encouraged opposition.' _Ib_. p.

135. The third Earl of Liverpool wrote to Mr. Croker on Dec. 7, 1845:

--'Very shortly before George III's accession my father became

confidential secretary of Lord Bute, if you can call secretary a man who

all through his life was so bad a penman that he always dictated

everything, and of whom, although I have a house full of papers, I have

scarcely any in his own hand.' _Croker Corres_. iii. 178. The editor is

in error in saying that the Earl of Liverpool who wrote this was son of

the Prime Minister. He was his half-brother.

[417] Burke wrote to Garrick of Fitzherbert:--'You know and love him;

but I assure you, until we can talk some late matters over, you, even

you, can have no adequate idea of the worth of that man.' _Garrick

Corres_. i. 190. See _ante_, i. 82.

[418] 'I remember a man,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonomy_, i. 2l7),

'much delighted in by the upper ranks of society, who upon a trifling

embarrassment in his affairs hanged himself behind the stable door, to

the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and

most agreeable converser breathing. "What upon earth," said one at our

house, "could have made--[Fitzherbert] hang himself?" "Why, just his

having a multitude of acquaintance," replied Dr. Johnson, "and ne'er a

friend."' See _ante_, ii. 228.

[419] Dr. Gisborne, Physician to his Majesty's Household, has

obligingly communicated to me a fuller account of this story than had

reached Dr. Johnson. The affected Gentleman was the late John Gilbert

Cooper, Esq., author of a _Life of Socrates_, and of some poems in

Dodsley's _Collection_. Mr. Fitzherbert found him one morning,

apparently, in such violent agitation, on account of the indisposition

of his son, as to seem beyond the power of comfort. At length, however,

he exclaimed, 'I'll write an Elegy.' Mr. Fitzherbert being satisfied, by

this, of the sincerity of his emotions, slyly said, 'Had not you better

take a postchaise and go and see him?' It was the shrewdness of the

insinuation which made the story be circulated. BOSWELL. Malone

writes:--'Mr. Cooper was the last of the _benevolists_ or

sentimentalists, who were much in vogue between 1750 and 1760, and dealt

in general admiration of virtue. They were all tenderness in words;

their finer feeling evaporated in the moment of expression, for they had

no connection with their practice.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 427. See

_ante_, ii. 129. This fashion seems to have reached Paris a few years

later. Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:--'Dans notre

brillante capitale, où dominent les airs et la mode, s'attendrir,

s'émouvoir, s'affliger, c'est le bon ton du moment. La bonté, la

sensibilité, la tendre humanité sont devenues la fantaisie universelle.

On ferait volontiers des malheureux pour goûter la douceur de les

plaindre.' Garrick _Corres_. ii. 561.

[420] Johnson had felt the truth of this in the case of 'old Mr.

Sheridan.' _Ante_, i. 387.

[421] Johnson, in his letters from Ashbourne, used to joke about

Taylor's cattle:--'July 23, 1770. I have seen the great bull, and very

great he is. I have seen likewise his heir apparent, who promises to

enherit all the bulk and all the virtues of his sire, I have seen the

man who offered an hundred guineas for the young bull, while he was yet

little better than a calf.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 33. 'July 3, 1771. The

great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great

bull; and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence.' _Ib_. p.

39. 'July 10, 1771. There has been a man here to-day to take a farm.

After some talk he went to see the bull, and said that he had seen a

bigger. Do you think he is likely to get the farm?' _Ib_. p. 43. 'Oct.

31, 1772. Our bulls and cows are all well; but we yet hate the man that

had seen a bigger bull.' _Ib_. p. 61.

[422] Quoted by Boswell in his _Hebrides_, Aug. 16, 1773.

[423] In the letters that Boswell and Erskine published (_ante_, 384,

note) are some verses by Erskine, of very slight merit.

[424] Horace, _Odes_, ii. 4.

[425]

'The tender glance, the red'ning cheek,

O'erspread with rising blushes,

A thousand various ways they speak

A thousand various wishes.'

Hamilton's _Poems_, ed. 1760, p. 59.

[426] In the original, _Now. Ib_. p. 39.

[427] Thomson, in _The Seasons_, Winter, 1. 915, describes how the ocean

'by the boundless frost

Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd.'

In 1. 992, speaking of a thaw, he says,

'The rivers swell of bonds impatient.'

[428] See _ante_ March 24, 1776.

[429] Johnson wrote of Pope (_Works_, viii. 309):--'The indulgence and

accommodation which his sickness required had taught him all the

unpleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary man.'

[430] When he was ill of a fever he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'The doctor

was with me again to-day, and we both think the fever quite gone. I

believe it was not an intermittent, for I took of my own head physick

yesterday; and Celsus says, it seems, that if a cathartick be taken the

fit will return _certo certius_. I would bear something rather than

Celsus should be detected in an error. But I say it was a _febris

continua_, and had a regular crisis.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 89.

[431] Johnson must have shortened his life by the bleedings that he

underwent. How many they were cannot be known, for no doubt he was

often bled when he has left no record of it. The following, however, I

have noted. I do not know that he was bled more than most people of his

time. Dr. Taylor, it should seem, underwent the operation every quarter.

Dec. 1755. Thrice. 54 ounces. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 100.

Jan. 1761. Once. _Ib_. p. 122.

April 1770. Cupped. _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

Winter of 1772-3. Three times. _Ante_, ii. 206, and _Pemb. Coll. MSS_.

May 1773. Two copious bleedings. _Pr. and Med_. 130.

1774. Times not mentioned. 36 ounces. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 209.

Jan. 1777. Three bleedings. 22 ounces in first two. _Ib_. i. 343.

Jan. 1780. Once. _Post_, Jan. 20, 1780.

June 1780. Times not mentioned. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 649.

Jan. and Feb. 1782. Thrice. 50 ounces. _Post_, Feb. 4 and March 20,

1782.

May 1782. At least once. _Post_, under March 19, 1782, and _Piozzi

Letters_, ii. 240.

Yet he wrote to Mrs. Thrale, 'I am of the chymical sect, which holds

phlebotomy in abhorrence.' _Ib_. ii. 240. 'O why,' asks Wesley, who was

as strongly opposed to bleeding as he was fond of poulticing, 'will

physicians play with the lives of their patients? Do not others (as well

as old Dr. Cockburn) know that "no end is answered by bleeding in a

pleurisy, which may not be much better answered without it?"' Wesley's

_Journal_, ii. 310. 'Dr. Cheyne,' writes Pope, 'was of Mr. Cheselden's

opinion, that bleeding might be frequently repeated with safety, for he

advised me to take four or five ounces every full moon.' Elwin and

Courthope's _Pope's Works_, ix. 162.

[432] 'It is the heaviest stone that melancholy can throw at a man, to

tell him he is at the end of his nature.' _Sir Thomas Browne _quoted in

Johnson's _Works_, vi. 485. See _post_, April 15, 1778, and Boswell's

_Hebrides_, Sept. 12, 1773.

[433] In the last number of _The Idler_ Johnson says:--'There are few

things not purely evil of which we can say without some emotion of

uneasiness, _this is the last_.... The secret horrour of the last is

inseparable from a thinking being whose life is limited, and to whom

death is dreadful.'

[434] In the first edition for _scarce any man_ we find _almost no

man_. See _ante_, March 20, 1776, note.

[435] Bacon, in his _Essay on Death_, says:--'It is worthy the

observing, that there is no passion in the mind of man so weak but it

mates and masters the fear of death; and therefore death is no such

terrible enemy, when a man hath so many attendants about him, that can

win the combat of him.' In the _De Aug. Sci_. vi. 3. 12, he says:--'Non

invenias inter humanos affetum tam pusillum, qui si intendatur paullo

vehementius, non mortis metum superet.'

[436] Johnson, in his _Lives of Addison and Parnell_ (_Works_, vii. 399,

449), mentions that they drank too freely. See _post_, under Dec. 2,

1784.

[437] _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_. 3d edit. p. 240 [Sept. 22].

BOSWELL.

[438] In the _Life of Addison_ (_Works_, vii. 444) he says:--'The

necessity of complying with times, and of sparing persons, is the great

impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent monuments

and records; but Lives can only be written from personal knowledge,

which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever.

What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it might be told,

it is no longer known. The delicate features of the mind, the nice

discriminations of character, and the minute peculiarities of conduct,

are soon obliterated; and it is surely better that caprice, obstinacy,

frolick and folly, however they might delight in the description, should

be silently forgotten, than that, by wanton merriment and unseasonable

detection, a pang should be given to a widow, a daughter, a brother, or

a friend. As the process of these narratives is now bringing me among my

contemporaries, I begin to feel myself "walking upon ashes under which

the fire is not extinguished," and coming to the time of which it will

be proper rather to say "nothing that is false, than all that is true."'

See _ante_, i. 9, and 30.

[439] Dr. Taylor was very ready to make this admission, because the

party with which he was connected was not in power. There was then

some truth in it, owing to the pertinacity of factious clamour. Had he

lived till now, it would have been impossible for him to deny that his

Majesty possesses the warmest affection of his people. BOSWELL. See

_post_, March 21, 1783.

[440] The Duke of York in 1788, speaking in the House of Lords on

the King's illness, said:--'He was confident that his Royal Highness

[the Prince of Wales] understood too well the sacred principles which

seated the House of Brunswick on the throne of Great Britain ever to

assume or exercise any power, be his claim what it might, not derived

from the will of the people, expressed by their representatives, and

their lordships in parliament assembled.' _Parl. Hist_. xxvii. 678.

[441] See _ante_, i. 430.

[442] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 18, 1773, and _post_, under

date of Sept. 9, 1779, note.

[443] 'The return of my birth-day,' he wrote in 1773, 'if I remember

it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of

humanity to escape.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 134. In 1781 he viewed the

day with calmness, _if not with cheerfulness_. He writes:--'I rose,

breakfasted, and gave thanks at church for my creation, preservation and

redemption. As I came home, 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 Levet.' _Pr. and

Med_. p. 198. In 1783 he again had 'a little dinner,' and invited four

friends to keep the day. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 739. At Streatham the

day, it would seem, was always kept. Mrs. Piozzi writes (_Anec_. p.

211):--'On the birthday of our eldest daughter, and that of our friend,

Dr. Johnson, the 17th and 18th of September, we every year made up a

little dance and supper to divert our servants and their friends.'

[444] The son of a Mr. Coxeter, 'a gentleman,' says Johnson, 'who was

once my friend,' enlisted in the service of the East India Company.

Johnson asked Mr. Thrale to use his influence to get his discharge.

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 33.

[445] The bookseller whom Johnson beat, _ante_, i. 154.

[446] 'When a well-known author published his poems in the year 1777,

"Such a one's verses are come out," said I: "Yes," replied Johnson,

"and this frost has struck them in again. Here are some lines I have

written to ridicule them; but remember that I love the fellow dearly

now--for all I laugh at him.

'Wheresoe'er I turn my view,

All is strange, yet nothing new;

Endless labour all along,

Endless labour to be wrong;

Phrase that time has flung away;

Uncouth words in disarray,

Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet,

Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.'"'

Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 64.

Thomas Warton in 1777 published a volume of his poems. He, no doubt, is

meant.

[447] In _The Rambler_, No. 121. Johnson, twenty-six years earlier,

attacked 'the imitation of Spenser, which, by the influence of some men

of learning and genius, seems likely to gain upon the age.... They seem

to conclude that, when they have disfigured their lines with a few

obsolete syllables, they have accomplished their design, without

considering that they ought, not only to admit old words, but to avoid

new. The laws of imitation are broken by every word introduced since the

time of Spenser.'

[448] Warton's _Ode on the First of April_ is found a line which may

have suggested these two lines:--'The morning hoar, and evening chill.'

[449] 'Collins affected the obsolete when it was not worthy of revival;

and he puts his words out of the common order, seeming to think, with

some later candidates for fame, that not to write prose is certainly to

write poetry.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 404. Goldsmith, eleven years

earlier, said in his _Life of Parnell_ (_Misc. Works_, iv. 22):--'These

misguided innovators have not been content with restoring antiquated

words and phrases, but have indulged themselves in the most licentious

transpositions and the harshest constructions, vainly imagining that the

more their writings are unlike prose, the more they resemble poetry.'

Collins and Warton might have quoted by way of defence the couplet in

Milton's _L'Allegro_.--

'While the cock with lively din

Scatters the rear of _darkness thin_.'

[450] As some of my readers may be gratified by reading the progress of

this little composition, I shall insert it from my notes. 'When Dr.

Johnson and I were sitting _tête-à-tête_ at the Mitre tavern, May 9,

1778, he said "_Where_ is bliss," would be better. He then added a

ludicrous stanza, but would not repeat it, lest I should take it down.

It was somewhat as follows; the last line I am sure I remember:

"While I thus cried,

The hoary seer reply'd,

Come, my lad, and drink some beer."

In spring, 1779, when in better humour, he made the second stanza, as in

the text. There was only one variation afterwards made on my suggestion,

which was changing _hoary_ in the third line to _smiling_, both to avoid

a sameness with the epithet in the first line, and to describe the

hermit in his pleasantry. He was then very well pleased that I should

preserve it.' BOSWELL.

[451] When I mentioned Dr. Johnson's remark to a lady of admirable good

sense and quickness of understanding, she observed, 'It is true, all this

excludes only one evil; but how much good does it let in?'--To this

observation much praise has been justly given. Let me then now do myself

the honour to mention that the lady who made it was the late Margaret

Montgomerie, my very valuable wife, and the very affectionate mother of

my children, who, if they inherit her good qualities, will have no

reason to complain of their lot. _Dos magna parentum virtus_. BOSWELL.

The latter part of this note was first given in the second edition. The

quotation if from Horace:--

'Cos est magna parentium Virtus.'

'The lovers there for dowry claim

The father's virtue and the mother's fame.'

FRANCIS, Horace, Odes, iii. 24. 21.

[452] He saw it in 1774 on his way to Wales; but he must, I think, have

seen it since, for it does not appear from his _Journal of a Tour into

Wales_ that he then saw Lord Scarsdale. He met him also at Dr. Taylor's

in July 1775. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 267.

[453] I do not find the description in Young's _Six Months' Tour through

the North of England_, but in Pilkington's _Present State of Derbyshire_,

ii. 120.

[454]

'Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?'

'What place, what land in all the earth but with our grief is stored?'

Morris, _Æneids_, i. 460.

[455] See _ante_, March 21 and 28, 1776.

[456] At Derby.

[457] Baretti in his _Italy_, i. 236, says:--'It is the general custom

for our authors to make a present of their works to booksellers, who in

return scarcely give a few copies when printed.' The Venetian bookseller

to whom Metastasio gave his cleared, Baretti says, more than £10,000.

Goldoni scarcely got for each of his plays ten pounds from the manager of

the Venetian theatre, and much less from the booksellers. 'Our learned

stare when they are told that in England there are numerous writers who

get their bread by their productions only.'

[458] I am now happy to understand, that Mr. John Home, who was himself

gallantly in the field for the reigning family, in that interesting

warfare, but is generous enough to do justice to the other side, is

preparing an account of it for the press. BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle, who

knew Home well, says (_Auto_. p. 295):--'All his opinions of men and

things were prejudices, which, though it did not disqualify him for

writing admirable poetry, yet made him unfit for writing history.' See

_ante_, i. 225, for Boswell's projected works.

[459] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale the next day:--'The finer pieces [of

the Derby china] are so dear that perhaps silver vessels of the same

capacity may be sometimes bought at the same price; and I am not yet so

infected with the contagion of china-fancy as to like anything at that

rate which can so easily be broken.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 380.

[460] See _ante_, April 14, 1775.

[461] See Hutton's _History of Derby_, a book which is deservedly

esteemed for its information, accuracy, and good narrative. Indeed the

age in which we live is eminently distinguished by topographical

excellence. BOSWELL. According to Hutton the Italians at the beginning

of the eighteenth century had 'the exclusive art of silk-throwing.'

Lombe went to Italy, and by bribery got admittance into the works.

Having mastered the secret he returned to England with two of the

workmen. About the year 1717 he founded a great silk-mill at Derby. He

died early, being poisoned, it was asserted, by an Italian woman who had

been sent over to destroy him. In this mill, Hutton, as a child, 'had

suffered intolerable severity.' Hutton's _Derby_, pp. 193-205.

[462] 'I have enlarged my notions,' recorded Johnson in his _Journal of

a Tour into Wales_ (Aug. 3, 1774), after he had seen some iron-works.

[463] Young. BOSWELL.

'Think nought a trifle, though it small appear.'

Small sands the mountain, moments make the year,

And trifles life.'

_Love of Fame_, Satire vi.

[464] 'Pray, Sir, don't leave us;' said Johnson to an upholder of

Berkeley's philosophy, 'for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and

then you will cease to exist.' _Post_, 1780, in Langton's _Collection_.

See also _ante_, i. 471.

[465] Perhaps Boswell is thinking of Gray's lines at the close of the

_Progress of Poesy_:--

'Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate.'

[466] Goldsmith wrote:--'In all Pope's letters, as well as in those of

Swift, there runs a strain of pride, as if the world talked of nothing

but themselves. "Alas," says he in one of them, "the day after I am

dead the sun will shine as bright as the day before, and the world

will be as merry as usual." Very strange, that neither an eclipse nor an

earthquake should follow the loss of a poet!' Cunningham's _Goldsmith's

Works_, iv. 85. Goldsmith refers, I suppose, to Pope's letter to Steele

of July 15, 1712, where he writes:--'The morning after my exit the sun

will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants

spring as green, the world will proceed in its old course, people will

laugh as heartily, and marry as fast as they were used to do.' Elwin's

Pope's _Works_, vi. 392. Gray's friend, Richard West, in some lines

suggested by this letter, gives a pretty turn to Pope's thoughts where

he says:--

'For me, whene'er all-conquering Death shall spread

His wings around my unrepining head,

I care not; tho' this face be seen no more,

The world will pass as cheerful as before;

Bright as before the day-star will appear,

The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear.'

Mason's _Gray_, ed. 1807, i. 152.

[467] See _post_, April 12, 1778.

[468] A brother of Dodd's wife told Hawkins that 'Dodd's manner of

living was ever such as his visible income would no way account for.

He said that he was the most importunate suitor for preferment ever

known; and that himself had been the bearer of letters to great men,

soliciting promotion to livings, and had hardly escaped kicking down

stairs.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 435.

[469] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 523) says that a Mr. Selwin, who just missed

being elected Chamberlain of the City, went by request to see a man

under sentence of death in Newgate, 'who informed him that he was in

daily expectation of the arrival of the warrant for his execution;

"but," said he, "I have £200, and you are a man of character, and had

the court-interest when you stood for Chamberlain; I should therefore

hope it is in your power to get me off." Mr. Selwin was struck with so

strange a notion, and asked, if there were any alleviating circumstances

in his case. The man peevishly answered "No;" but that he had enquired

into the history of the place where he was, and could not find that any

one who had £200 was ever hanged. Mr. Selwin told him it was out of his

power to help him, and bade him farewell--"which," added he, "he did;

for he found means to escape punishment."'

[470] Dodd, in his Dedication of this Sermon to Mr. Villette, the

Ordinary of Newgate, says:--'The following address owes its present

public appearance to you. You heard it delivered, and are pleased to

think that its publication will be useful. To a poor and abject worm

like myself this is a sufficient inducement to that publication.'

[471] See _ante_, p. 97. 'They have,' says Lowndes (_Bibl. Man_.),

'passed through innumerable editions.' To how many the book-stalls

testify, where they are offered second-hand for a few pence.

[472] Goldsmith was thirty when he published _An Enquiry into the

Present State of Polite Learning in Europe_; thirty-six when he

published The _Traveller_; thirty-seven when he published _The Vicar of

Wakefield_, and thirty-nine when he brought out _The Good-Natured Man_.

In flowering late he was like Swift. 'Swift was not one of those minds

which amaze the world with early pregnancy; his first work, except his

few poetical Essays, was the _Dissentions in Athens and Rome_, published

in his thirty-fourth year.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 197. See _post_,

April 9, 1778.

[473] Burke, I think, is meant.

[474] This walking about his room naked was, perhaps, part of

Lord Monboddo's system that was founded 'on the superiority of the

savage life.' _Ante_, ii. 147.

[475] This regimen was, however, practised by Bishop Ken, of whom

Hawkins (_not Sir John_) in his life of that venerable Prelate, p. 4,

tells us: 'And that neither his study might be the aggressor on his

hours of instruction, or what he judged his duty prevent his

improvements; or both, his closet addresses to his GOD; he strictly

accustomed himself to but one sleep, which often obliged him to rise at

one or two of the clock in the morning, and sometimes sooner; and grew

so habitual, that it continued with him almost till his last illness.

And so lively and chearful was his temper, that he would be very

facetious and entertaining to his friends in the evening, even when it

was perceived that with difficulty he kept his eyes open; and then

seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing and

enabling him with more vigour and chearfulness to sing his morning hymn,

as he then used to do to his lute before he put on his cloaths.'

BOSWELL.

[476] See _ante_, under Dec. 17, 1775.

[477] Boswell shortened his life by drinking, if, indeed, he did

not die of it. Less than a year before his death he wrote to Temple:--'I

thank you sincerely for your friendly admonition on my frailty in

indulging so much in wine. I _do_ resolve _anew_ to be upon my guard, as

I am sensible how very pernicious as well as disreputable such a habit

is! How miserably have I yielded to it in various years!' _Letters of

Boswell_, p. 353. In 1776 Paoli had taken his word of honour that he

would not taste fermented liquor for a year, that he might recover

sobriety. _Ib_. p. 233. For a short time also in 1778 Boswell was a

water-drinker, _Post_, April 28, 1778.

[478] Sir James Mackintosh told Mr. Croker that he believed Lord Errol

was meant here as well as _post_, April 28, 1778. See Boswell's

_Hebrides_, Aug. 24, 1773.

[479] 'Must give us pause.' _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 1.

[480] 'He was the first,' writes Dr. T. Campbell (_Survey of the South

of Ireland_, p. 373), 'who gave histories of the weather, seasons, and

diseases of Dublin.' Wesley records (_Journal_, iv. 40):--'April 6,

1775. I visited that venerable man, Dr. Rutty, just tottering over the

grave; but still clear in his understanding, full of faith and love, and

patiently waiting till his change should come.'

[481] Cowper wrote of Johnson's _Diary_:--'It is certain that the

publisher of it is neither much a friend to the cause of religion nor to

the author's memory; for, by the specimen of it that has reached us, it

seems to contain only such stuff as has a direct tendency to expose both

to ridicule.' Southey's _Cowper_, v. 152.

[482] Huet, Bishop of Avranches, born 1630, died 1721, published in

1718 _Commentarius de rebus ad eum pertinentibus. Nouv. Biog. Gene_.

xxv. 380.

[483] When Dr. Blair published his Lectures, he was invidiously attacked

for having omitted his censure on Johnson's style, and, on the contrary,

praising it highly. But before that time Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_

had appeared, in which his style was considerably easier than when he

wrote _The Rambler_. It would, therefore, have been uncandid in Blair,

even supposing his criticism to have been just, to have preserved it.

BOSWELL.

[484] Johnson refers no doubt to the essay _On Romances, An Imitation_,

by A. L. Aikin (Mrs. Barbauld); in _Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose_, by

J. and A. L. Aikin (1773), p. 39. He would be an acute critic who could

distinguish this _Imitation_ from a number of _The Rambler_.

[485] See _post_, under Dec. 6, 1784.

[486] _Id est, The Literary Scourge_.

[487] See _ante_, ii. 236, where Johnson attacks 'the _verbiage_ of

Robertson.'

[488] 'We were now treading that illustrious island, which was once

the luminary of the Caledonian regions, whence savage clans and

roving barbarians derived the benefits of knowledge, and the blessings

of religion. To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be

impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were

possible. Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever

makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the

present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and

from my friends, be such rigid philosophy, as may conduct us,

indifferent and unmoved, over any ground which has been dignified by

wisdom, bravery or virtue. The [That] man is little to be envied, whose

patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose

piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.' Had our Tour

produced nothing else but this sublime passage, the world must have

acknowledged that it was not made in vain. Sir Joseph Banks, the present

respectable President of the Royal Society, told me, he was so much

struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained

for some time in an attitude of silent admiration. BOSWELL. See

Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 19, 1773, and Johnson's _Works_, ix. 145.

[489] 'He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of

larger meaning.' _Ante_, i. 218.

[490] In the original _island_.

[491] See _ante_, ii. 203, note 3.

[492] In this censure which has been carelessly uttered, I carelessly

joined. But in justice to Dr. Kippis, who with that manly candid good

temper which marks his character, set me right, I now with pleasure

retract it; and I desire it may be particularly observed, as pointed

out by him to me, that 'The new lives of dissenting Divines in the

first four volumes of the second edition of the _Biographia Brittanica_,

are those of John Abernethy, Thomas Amory, George Benson, Hugh Broughton

the learned Puritan, Simon Browne, Joseph Boyse of Dublin, Thomas

Cartwright the learned Puritan, and Samuel Chandler. The only doubt I

have ever heard suggested is, whether there should have been an article

of Dr. Amory. But I was convinced, and am still convinced, that he was

entitled to one, from the reality of his learning, and the excellent and

candid nature of his practical writings.

'The new lives of clergymen of the Church of England, in the same four

volumes, are as follows: John Balguy, Edward Bentham, George Berkley

Bishop of Cloyne, William Berriman, Thomas Birch, William Borlase,

Thomas Bott, James Bradley, Thomas Broughton, John Brown, John Burton,

Joseph Butler Bishop of Durham, Thomas Carte, Edmund Castell, Edmund

Chishull, Charles Churchill, William Clarke, Robert Clayton Bishop of

Clogher, John Conybeare Bishop of Bristol, George Costard, and Samuel

Croxall.--"I am not conscious (says Dr. Kippis) of any partiality in

conducting the work. I would not willingly insert a Dissenting Minister

that does not justly deserve to be noticed, or omit an established

Clergyman that does. At the same time, I shall not be deterred from

introducing Dissenters into the _Biographia_, when I am satisfied that

they are entitled to that distinction, from their writings, learning,

and merit."'

Let me add that the expression 'A friend to the Constitution in Church

and State,' was not meant by me, as any reflection upon this reverend

gentleman, as if he were an enemy to the political constitution of his

country, as established at the revolution, but, from my steady and

avowed predilection for a _Tory_, was quoted from Johnson's

_Dictionary_, where that distinction is so defined. BOSWELL. In his

_Dictionary_ a _Tory_ is defined as 'one who adheres to the ancient

constitution of the state and the apostolical hierarchy of the Church of

England.' It was on the _Biographia Britannica_ that Cowper wrote the

lines that end:--

'So when a child, as playful children use,

Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news,

The flame extinct he views the roving fire,

There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,

There goes the parson, oh! illustrious spark,

And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.'

Cowper's Works, viii. 320.

Horace Walpole said that the '_Biographia Britannica_ ought rather to be

called _Vindicatio Britannica_, for that it was a general panegyric upon

everybody.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 115.

[493] See _ante_, p. 99.

[494]

'Great wits are sure to madness near allied,

And thin partitions do their bounds divide.'

Dryden's _Absalom and Achitophel_, 1, 163.

[495] _Observations on Insanity_, by Thomas Arnold, M.D., London, 1782.

BOSWELL.

[496] We read in the Gospels, that those unfortunate persons who were

possessed with evil spirits (which, after all, I think is the most

probable cause of madness, as was first suggested to me by my

respectable friend Sir John Pringle), had recourse to pain, tearing

themselves, and jumping sometimes into the fire, sometimes into the

water. Mr. Seward has furnished me with a remarkable anecdote in

confirmation of Dr. Johnson's observation. A tradesman, who had acquired

a large fortune in London, retired from business, and went to live at

Worcester. His mind, being without its usual occupation, and having

nothing else to supply its place, preyed upon itself, so that existence

was a torment to him. At last he was seized with the stone; and a friend

who found him in one of its severest fits, having expressed his concern,

'No, no, Sir, (said he) don't pity me: what I now feel is ease compared

with that torture of mind from which it relieves me.' BOSWELL.

[497] See _ante_, i. 446. 'Johnson was a great enemy to the present

fashionable way of supposing worthless and infamous persons mad.'

Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 203.

[498] See _post_, April 1, 1779.

[499] See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[500] 'Reynolds,' writes Malone, 'was as fond of London as Dr. Johnson;

always maintaining that it was the only place in England where a

pleasant society might be found.' Prior's _Malone_ p. 433. Gibbon

wrote to Holroyd _Misc. Works_, ii 126:--'Never pretend to allure me by

painting in odious colours the dust of London. I love the dust, and

whenever I move into the Weald it is to visit you and my Lady, and not

your trees.' Burke, on the other hand, wrote (_Corres_. iii 422):--'What

is London? clean, commodious, neat; but, a very few things indeed

excepted, and endless addition of littleness to littleness, extending

itself over a great tract of land.' 'For a young man,' he says, 'for a

man of easy fortune, London is the best place one can imagine. But for

the old, the infirm, the straightened in fortune, the grave in character

or in disposition, I do not believe a much worse place can be found.'

_Ib_. iv. 250.

[501]

'Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captos

Ducit, et immemores non sinit esse sui.'

Ovid, _Ep. ex Ponto_, i. 3. 35.

[502] 'In the morn and liquid dew of youth.' _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 3.

[503] Now, at the distance of fifteen years since this conversation

passed, the observation which I have had an opportunity of making in

Westminster Hall has convinced me, that, however true the opinion of

Dr. Johnson's legal friend may have been some time ago, the same

certainty of success cannot now be promised to the same display of

merit. The reasons, however, of the rapid rise of some, and the

disappointment of others equally respectable, are such as it might seem

invidious to mention, and would require a longer detail than would be

proper for this work. BOSWELL. Boswell began to eat his dinners in the

Inner Temple in 1775. _Ante_, p. 45 note 1, and _Letters of Boswell_, p.

196. In writing to Temple he thus mentions his career as a barrister.

'Jan. 10, 1789. In truth I am sadly discouraged by having no practice,

nor probable prospect of it; and to confess fairly to you, my friend, I

am afraid that, were I to be tried, I should be found so deficient in

the forms, the _quirks_ and the _quiddities_, which early habit

acquires, that I should expose myself. Yet the delusion of Westminster

Hall, of brilliant reputation and splendid fortune as a barrister, still

weighs upon my imagination.' _Ib_. p. 267. 'Aug. 23, 1789. The Law life

in Scotland amongst vulgar familiarity would now quite destroy me. I am

not able to acquire the Law of England.' _Ib_. p. 304. 'Nov. 28, 1789. I

have given up my house and taken good chambers in the Inner Temple, to

have the appearance of a lawyer. O Temple! Temple! is this realising any

of the towering hopes which have so often been the subject of our

conversations and letters? ... I do not see the smallest opening in

Westminster Hall but I like the scene, though I have attended only one

day this last term, being eager to get my _Life of Johnson_ finished.'

_Ib_. p. 314. 'April 6, 1791. When my book is launched, I shall, if I am

alone and in tolerable health and spirits, have some furniture put into

my chambers in the Temple, and force myself to sit there some hours

a-day, and to attend regularly in Westminster Hall. The chambers cost me

£20 yearly, and I may reckon furniture and a lad to attend there

occasionally £20 more. I doubt whether I shall get fees equal to the

expense.' _Ib_. p. 335. 'Nov. 22, 1791. I keep chambers open in the

Temple, I attend in Westminster Hall, but there is not the least

prospect of my having business.' _Ib_. p. 344. His chambers, as he wrote

to Malone, were 'in the very staircase where Johnson lived.' Croker's

_Boswell_, p. 830.

[504] Sunday was the 21st.

[505] See _ante_, March 26, 1776, and _post_, under Nov. 17, 1784.

[506] In _Notes and Queries_ for April, May, and June 1882, is a series

of Johnson's letters to Taylor, between June 10, 1742 and April 12,

1784. In the first Johnson signs himself:--'Your very affectionate,'

(p. 304). On Nov. 18, 1756, he writes:--'Neither of us now can find many

whom he has known so long as we have known each other.... We both stand

almost single in the world,' (p. 324). On July 15, 1765, he reproaches

Taylor with not writing:--'With all your building and feasting you might

have found an hour in some wet day for the remembrance of your old

friend. I should have thought that since you have led a life so festive

and gay, you would have [invited] me to partake of your hospitality,'

(p. 383). On Oct. 19, 1779, he says:--'Write to me soon. We are both

old. How few of those whom we have known in our youth are left alive!'

(p. 461). On April 12, 1784, he writes:--'Let us be kind to one another.

I have no friend now living but you and Mr. Hector that was the friend

of my youth,' (p. 482, and _post_, April 12, 1784). See _ante_, p. 131,

for his regret on the death of his school-fellow, Henry Jackson, who

seemed to Boswell (_ante_, under March 22, 1776) to be a low man, dull

and untaught. 'One of the old man's miseries,' he wrote, (_post_, Feb.

3, 1778), 'is that he cannot easily find a companion able to partake

with him of the past.' 'I have none to call me Charley now,' wrote

Charles Lamb on the death of a friend of his boyhood (Talfourd's _Lamb_,

ed. 1865, p. 145). Such a companion Johnson found in Taylor. That, on

the death of his wife, he at once sent for him, not even waiting for the

light of morning to come, is a proof that he had a strong affection for

the man.

[507] _Ecclesiasticus_, ch. xxxviii. verse 25. The whole chapter may be

read as an admirable illustration of the superiority of cultivated minds

over the gross and illiterate. BOSWELL.

[508] Passages in Johnson's Letters to Mrs. Thrale are to the same

effect. 'Aug. 3, 1771. Having stayed my month with Taylor I came away on

Wednesday, leaving him, I think, in a disposition of mind not very

uncommon, at once weary of my stay, and grieved at my departure.'

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 52. 'July 13, 1775. Dr. Taylor and I spend little

time together, yet he will not yet be persuaded to hear of parting.'

_Ib_. p. 276. 'July 26, 1775. Having stayed long enough at Ashbourne, I

was not sorry to leave it. I hindered some of Taylor's diversions, and

he supplied me with very little.' _Ib_ p. 287.

[509] The second volume of these Sermons, which was published in 1789, a

year after the first, contains the following addition to the title:--'To

which is added a Sermon written by Samuel Johnson, L.L.D., for the

Funeral of his Wife.' 'Dr. Taylor had,' writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 171),

'The LARGEST BULL in England, and some of the best Sermons.'

[510] If the eminent judge was Lord Mansfield, we may compare with

Boswell's regret the lines in which Pope laments the influence of

Westminster Hall and Parliament:--

'There truant Windham every muse gave o'er,

There Talbot sunk, and was a wit no more.

How sweet an Ovid, Murray was our boast!

How many Martials were in Pulteney lost!'

_The Dunciad_, iv. 167.

[511] Boswell's brother David had been settled in Spain since 1768.

(_Boswelliana_, p. 5.) He therefore is no doubt the son, and Lord

Auchinleck the father.

[512] See _ante_, ii. 129, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22, 1773.

[513] 'Jack' had not shown all his manners to Johnson. Gibbon thus

describes him in 1762 (_Misc. Works_, i. 142):--'Colonel Wilkes, of

the Buckinghamshire militia, dined with us. I scarcely ever met with a

better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour,

and a great deal of knowledge; but a thorough profligate in principle as

in practice, his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full

of blasphemy and indecency. These morals he glories in--for shame is a

weakness he has long since surmounted.' The following anecdote in

_Boswelliana_ (p. 274) is not given in the _Life of Johnson_:--'Johnson

had a sovereign contempt for Wilkes and his party, whom he looked upon

as a mere rabble. "Sir," said he, "had Wilkes's mob prevailed against

government, this nation had died of _phthiriasis_. Mr. Langton told me

this. The expression, _morbus pediculosus_, as being better known would

strike more."'

[514] See _ante_, p. 79, note 1.

[515] See _ante_, p. 69.

[516] See _ante_, i. 402.

[517] See _ante_, i. 167.

[518] See _post_, under Sept. 30, 1783.

[519] See _post, ib_., where Johnson told Mrs. Siddons that 'Garrick was

no declaimer.'

[520] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, ii. 16) says that she once asked Garrick

'why Johnson was so often harsh and unkind in his speeches both of him

and to him:--"Why," he replied, "it is very natural; is it not to be

expected he should be angry that I, who have so much less merit than

he, should have had so much greater success?"'

[521] Foote died a month after this conversation. Johnson wrote to Mrs.

Thrale:--'Did you see Foote at Brighthelmstone? Did you think he would

so soon be gone? Life, says Falstaff, is a shuttle [_Merry Wives of

Windsor_, act v. sc. 1]. He was a fine fellow in his way; and the world

is really impoverished by his sinking glories. Murphy ought to write his

life, at least to give the world a _Footeana_. Now will any of his

contemporaries bewail him? Will genius change _his sex_ to weep? I

would really have his life written with diligence.' This letter is

wrongly dated Oct. 3, 1777. It was written early in November. _Piozzi

Letters_, i. 396. Baretti, in a marginal note on _Footeana_, says:--'One

half of it had been a string of obscenities.' See _post_, April 24,

1779, note.

[522] See _ante_, i. 447.

[523] _To pit_ is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[524] Very likely Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254.

[525] Two months earlier Johnson had complained that Langton's table was

rather coarse. _Ante_, p. 128.

[526] See _post_, April 13, 1781, where he again mentions this advice.

'He said of a certain lady's entertainments, "What signifies going

thither? There is neither meat, drink, nor talk."' Johnson's _Works_

(1787), xi. 207.

[527] William, third Duke of Devonshire, who died in 1755. Johnson

(_post_, April 1, 1779) 'commended him for a dogged veracity.' Horace

Walpole records of him a fact that 'showed a conscientious idea of

honesty in him. Sometime before his death he had given up to two of

his younger sons £600 a-year in land, that they might not perjure

themselves, if called upon to swear to their qualifications as Knights

of the Shire.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_, ii. 86.

[528] Philip Francis wrote to Burke in 1790:--'Once for all, I wish

you would let me teach you to write English. To me who am to read

everything you write, it would be a great comfort, and to you no sort of

disparagement. Why will you not allow yourself to be persuaded that

polish is material to preservation?' Burke's _Corres_, iii. 164.

[529] Edit. 2, p. 53. BOSWELL.

[530] This is a mistake. The Ports had been seated at Islam time out of

mind. Congreve had visited there, and his _seat_, that is _the bench_ on

which he sometimes sat, used to be shown. CROKER. On the way to Islam,

Johnson told Boswell about the dedication of his _Plan_ to Lord

Chesterfield. _Ante_, i. 183, note 4.

[531] See _ante_, i. 41.

[532] 'I believe more places than one are still shown in groves and

gardens where he is related to have written his _Old Bachelor_.'

Johnson's _Works_, viii. 23.

[533] Page 89. BOSWELL.

[534] See Plott's _History of Staffordshire_, p. 88, and the authorities

referred to by him. BOSWELL.

[535] See _ante_, ii. 247, and _post_, March 31, 1778.

[536] See _ante_, i. 444.

[537] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 109):--'In answer to the arguments

urged by Puritans, Quakers, etc. against showy decorations of the human

figure, I once heard him exclaim:--"Oh, let us not be found, when our

Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of

contention from our souls and tongues! ... Alas! Sir, a man who cannot

get to heaven in a green coat will not find his way thither the sooner

in a grey one."' See _ante_, i, 405.

[538] Campbell, who was an exciseman, had in July, 1769, caught a

favourite servant of Lord Eglintoune in smuggling 80 gallons of rum in

one of his master's carts. This, he maintains, led to an ill-feeling. He

had a right to carry a gun by virtue of his office, and from many of the

gentry he had licences to shoot over their grounds. His lordship,

however, had forbidden him to enter his. On Oct. 24, 1769, he passed

into his grounds, and walked along the shore within the sea-mark,

looking for a plover. Lord Eglintoune came up with him on the sea-sands

and demanded his gun, advancing as if to seize it. Campbell warned him

that he would fire if he did not keep off, and kept retiring backwards

or sideways. He stumbled and fell. Lord Eglintoune stopped a little, and

then made as if he would advance. Campbell thereupon fired, and hit him

in the side. He was found guilty of murder. On the day after the trial

he hanged himself in prison. _Ann. Reg_. xiii. 219. See _ante_, ii. 66,

and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 1.

[539] See _ante_, p. 40.

[540] _See ante_, ii. 10.

[541] Boswell here alludes to the motto of his Journal:--

'Oh! while along the stream of time thy name

Expanded flies, and gathers all its fame;

Say, shall my little bark attendant sail,

Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale?'

Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 383.

[542]

'His listless length at noontide would he stretch,

And pore upon the brook that babbles by.'

Gray's _Elegy_.

[543] Johnson, a fortnight or so later, mentions this waterfall in a

letter to Mrs. Thrale, after speaking of a pool that Mr. Thrale was

having dug. 'He will have no waterfall to roar like the Doctor's. I sat

by it yesterday, and read Erasmus's _Militis Christiani Enchiridion_.'

_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 3.

[544] See _post_, April 9 and 30, 1778. At the following Easter he

recorded: 'My memory is less faithful in retaining names, and, I am

afraid, in retaining occurrences.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 170.

[545] I am told that Horace, Earl of Orford, has a collection of

_Bon-Mots_ by persons who never said but one. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole

had succeeded to his title after the publication of the first edition of

this book.

[546] See Macaulay's _Essays_, i. 370.

[547] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 158) tells how 'Rochester lived worthless

and useless, and blazed out his youth and his health in lavish

voluptuousness; till, at the age of one and thirty, he had exhausted the

fund of life, and reduced himself to a state of weakness and decay.' He

describes how Burnet 'produced a total change both of his manners and

opinions,' and says of the book in which this conversion is recounted

that it is one 'which the critick ought to read for its elegance, the

philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety.' In

Johnson's answer to Boswell we have a play on the title of this work,

which is, _Some passages of the Life and Death of John Earl of

Rochester_.

[548] In the passages from Johnson's _Life of Prior_, quoted _ante_,

ii. 78, note 3, may be found an explanation of what he here says.

A poet who 'tries to be amorous by dint of study,' and who 'in his

amorous pedantry exhibits the college,' may be gross and yet not excite

to lewdness. Goldsmith, in 1766, in a book entitled _Beauties of English

Poetry Selected_, had inserted two of Prior's tales, 'which for once

interdicted from general reading a book with his name upon its

title-page.' Mr. Forster hereupon remarks 'on the changes in the public

taste. Nothing is more frequent than these, and few things so sudden.'

Of these changes he gives some curious instances. Forster's _Goldsmith_,

ii. 4.

[549] See _ante_, iii. 5.

[550] See _ante_, i. 428.

[551] Horace, _Odes_, ii. 14.

[552] I am informed by Mr. Langton, that a great many years ago he was

present when this question was agitated between Dr. Johnson and Mr.

Burke; and, to use Johnson's phrase, they 'talked their best;' Johnson

for Homer, Burke for Virgil. It may well be supposed to have been one

of the ablest and most brilliant contests that ever was exhibited. How

much must we regret that it has not been preserved. BOSWELL. Johnson

(_Works_, vii. 332), after saying that Dryden 'undertook perhaps the

most arduous work of its kind, a translation of Virgil,' continues:--'In

the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of

Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is

grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are therefore

difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained.' Mr.

E.J. Payne, in his edition of Burke's _Select Works_, i. xxxviii, says:--

'Most writers have constantly beside them some favourite classical author

from whom they endeavour to take their prevailing tone. Burke, according

to Butler, always had a "ragged Delphin _Virgil_" not far from his elbow.'

See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, note.

[553] According to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 'Mr. Burke, speaking of Bacon's

_Essays_, said he thought them the best of his works. Dr. Johnson was of

opinion that their excellence and their value consisted in being the

observations of a strong mind operating upon life; and in

consequence you find there what you seldom find in other books.'

Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 281.

[554] Mr. Seward perhaps imperfectly remembered the following passage in

the _Preface to the Dictionary_ (_Works_, v. 40):--'From the authors

which rose in the time of Elizabeth, a speech might be formed adequate to

all the purposes of use and elegance. If the language of theology were

extracted from Hooker and the translation of the Bible; the terms of

natural knowledge from Bacon; the phrases of policy, war, and navigation

from Raleigh; the dialect of poetry and fiction from Spenser and Sidney;

and the diction of common life from Shakespeare, few ideas would be lost

to mankind for want of English words in which they might be expressed.'

[555] Of Mallet's _Life of Bacon_, Johnson says (_Works_, viii. 465)

that it is 'written with elegance, perhaps with some affectation;

but with so much more knowledge of history than of science, that when he

afterwards undertook the _Life of Marlborough_, Warburton remarked, that

he might perhaps forget that Marlborough was a general, as he had

forgotten that Bacon was a philosopher.'

[556] It appears from part of the original journal in Mr. Anderdon's

papers that the friend who told the story was Mr. Beauclerk and the

gentleman and lady alluded to were Mr. (probably Henry) and Miss

Harvey. CROKER. Not Harvey but Hervey. See _ante_, i. 106, and ii. 32,

for another story told by Beauclerk against Johnson of Mr. Thomas

Hervey.

[557] Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, gives as the 17th meaning of _make,

to raise as profit from anything_. He quotes the speech of Pompey in

_Measure for Measure_, act iv. sc. 3:--'He made five marks, ready money.'

But Pompey, he might reply, was a servant, and his English therefore is

not to be taken as a standard.

[558] _Idea_ he defines as _mental imagination_.

[559] See _post_, May 15, 1783, note.

[560] In the first three editions of Boswell we find _Tadnor_ for

_Tadmor_. In Dodsley's _Collection_, iv. 229, the last couplet is as

follows:--

'Or Tadmor's marble wastes survey,

Or in yon roofless cloister stray.'

[561] This is the tune that William Crotch (Dr. Crotch) was heard

playing before he was two years and a half old, on a little organ that

his father, a carpenter, had made. _Ann. Reg_. xxii 79.

[562] See _ante_, under Dec. 17, 1775.

[563] In 1757 two battalions of Highlanders were raised and sent

to North America. _Gent. Mag_. xxvii. 42, 333. Boswell (_Hebrides_,

Sept. 3, 1773) mentions 'the regiments which the late Lord Chatham

prided himself in having brought from "the mountains of the north."'

Chatham said in the House of Lords on Dec. 2, 1777:--'I remember that I

employed the very rebels in the service and defence of their country.

They were reclaimed by this means; they fought our battles; they

cheerfully bled in defence of those liberties which they attempted to

overthrow but a few years before.' _Parl. Hist_. xix. 477.

[564]

'Yet hope not life from grief or danger free,

Nor think the doom of man reversed for thee.'

Line 154.

[565] See _ante_, ii. 168. Boswell, when a widower, wrote to Temple

of a lady whom he seemed not unwilling to marry:--'She is about

seven-and-twenty, and he [Sir William Scott] tells me lively and gay--

_a Ranelagh girl_--but of excellent principles, insomuch that she reads

prayers to the servants in her father's family every Sunday evening.'

_Letters of Boswell_, p. 336.

[566] Pope mentions [_Dunciad_, iv. 342],

'Stretch'd on the rack of a too easy chair.'

But I recollect a couplet quite apposite to my subject in _Virtue an

Ethick Epistle_, a beautiful and instructive poem, by an anonymous

writer, in 1758; who, treating of pleasure in excess, says:--

'Till languor, suffering on the rack of bliss,

Confess that man was never made for this.' BOSWELL.

[567] See _post_, June 12, 1784.

[568] See _ante_, p. 86.

[569] 'For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not

according to knowledge.' _Romans_, x. 2.

[570] Horace Walpole wrote:--'Feb. 17, 1773. Caribs, black Caribs, have

no representatives in Parliament; they have no agent but God, and he is

seldom called to the bar of the House to defend their cause.' Walpole's

_Letters_, v. 438. 'Feb. 14, 1774. 'If all the black slaves were in

rebellion, I should have no doubt in choosing my side, but I scarce wish

perfect freedom to merchants who are the bloodiest of all tyrants. I

should think the souls of the Africans would sit heavy on the swords of

the Americans.' _Ib_. vi. 60.

[571] See _ante_, ii. 27, 312.

[572] 'We are told that the subjection of Americans may tend to the

diminution of our own liberties; an event which none but very

perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus

fatally contagious, how is it that we hear,' etc. _Works_, vi. 262. In

his _Life of Milton_ (_ib_. vii. 116) he says:--'It has been observed

that they who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally

grant it.'

[573] See page 76 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[574] The address was delivered on May 23, 1770. The editor of _Rogers's

Table Talk_ quotes, on p. 129, Mr. Maltby, the friend of Rogers, who

says:--'Dr. C. Burney assured me that Beckford did not utter one

syllable of the speech--that it was wholly the invention of Horne Tooke.

Being very intimate with Tooke, I questioned him on the subject. "What

Burney states," he said, "is true. I saw Beckford just after he came

from St. James's. I asked him what he had said to the King; and he

replied, that he had been so confused, he scarcely knew what he had

said. But, cried I, _your speech_ must be sent to the papers; I'll write

it for you. I did so immediately, and it was printed forthwith."' Tooke

gave the same account to Isaac Reed. Walpole's _Letters_, v. 238, note.

Stephens (_Life of Horne Tooke_, i. 155-8) says, that the King's answer

had been anticipated and that Horne had suggested the idea of a reply.

Stephens continues:--'The speech in reply, as Mr. Horne lately

acknowledged to me, was his composition.' Stephens does not seem to have

heard the story that Beckford did not deliver the reply. He says that

Horne inserted the account in the newspapers. 'No one,' he continues,

'was better calculated to give copies of those harangues than the person

who had furnished the originals; and as to the occurrences at St.

James's, he was enabled to detail the particulars from the lips of the

members of the deputation.' Alderman Townshend assured Lord Chatham that

Beckford did deliver the speech. _Chatham Corres_. iii. 460. Horne

Tooke's word is not worth much. He did not resign his living till more

than seven years after he wrote to Wilkes:--'It is true I have suffered

the infectious hand of a bishop to be waved over me; whose imposition,

like the sop given to Judas, is only a signal for the devil to enter.'

Stephens's _Horne Tooke_, i. 76. Beckford, dying in his Mayoralty, is

oddly connected with Chatterton. 'Chatterton had written a political

essay for _The North Briton_, which, though accepted, was not printed on

account of Lord Mayor Beckford's death. The patriot thus calculated the

death of his great patron:--

£ s. d.

Lost by his death in

this Essay 1 11 6

Gained in Elegies £2.2

in Essays £3.3

----

5 5 0

-------------

Am glad he is dead by £3 13 6

D'Israeli's _Calamities of Authors_, i. 54.

[575] At the time that Johnson wrote this there were serfs in Scotland.

An Act passed in 1775 (15 Geo. III. c. 22) contains the following

preamble:--'Whereas by the law of Scotland, as explained by the judges

of the courts of law there, many colliers and salters are in a state of

slavery and bondage, bound to the collieries or saltworks where they

work for life, transferable with the coalwork and salteries,' etc. The

Act was ineffectual in giving relief, and in 1779 by 39 Geo. III. c. 56

all colliers were 'declared to be free from their servitude.' The last

of these emancipated slaves died in the year 1844. _Tranent and its

Surroundings_, by P. M'Neill, p. 26. See also _Parl. Hist_. xxix.

1109, where Dundas states that it was only 'after several years'

struggle that the bill was carried through both Houses.'

[576] See _ante_, ii. 13.

[577] 'The Utopians do not make slaves of the sons of their slaves; the

slaves among them are such as are condemned to that state of life for the

commission of some crime.' Sir T. More's _Utopia--Ideal Commonwealths_,

p. 129.

[578] The Rev. John Newton (Cowper's friend) in 1763 wrote of the

slave-trade, in which he had been engaged, 'It is indeed accounted a

genteel employment, and is usually very profitable, though to me it did

not prove so, the Lord seeing that a large increase of wealth could not

be good for me.' Newton's _Life_, p. 148. A ruffian of a London

Alderman, a few weeks before _The Life of Johnson_ was published, said

in parliament:--'The abolition of the trade would destroy our

Newfoundland fishery, which the slaves in the West Indies supported _by

consuming that part of the fish which was fit for no other consumption_,

and consequently, by cutting off the great source of seamen, annihilate

our marine.' _Parl. Hist_. xxix. 343.

[579] Gray's Elegy. Mrs. Piozzi maintained that 'mercy was totally

abolished by French maxims; for, if all men are equal, mercy is no

more.' Piozzi's _Synonymy_, i. 370. Johnson, in 1740, described

slavery as 'the most calamitous estate in human life,' a state 'which

has always been found so destructive to virtue, that in many languages a

slave and a thief are expressed by the same word.' _Works_, v. 265-6.

Nineteen years later he wrote of the discoveries of the

Portuguese:--'Much knowledge has been acquired, and much cruelty been

committed; the belief of religion has been very little propagated, and

its laws have been outrageously and enormously violated.' _Ib_. p. 219.

Horace Walpole wrote, on July 9, 1754, (_Letters_, ii. 394), 'I was

reading t'other day the _Life of Colonel Codrington_. He left a large

estate for the propagation of the Gospel, and ordered that three hundred

negroes should constantly be employed upon it. Did one ever hear a more

truly Christian charity than keeping up a perpetuity of three hundred

slaves to look after the Gospel's estate?' Churchill, in _Gotham_,

published in 1764 (_Poems_, ii. 101), says of Europe's treatment of the

savage race:--

'Faith too she plants, for her own ends imprest,

To make them bear the worst, and hope the best.'

[580]

'With stainless lustre virtue shines,

A base repulse nor knows nor fears;

Nor claims her honours, nor declines,

As the light air of crowds uncertain veers.'

FRANCIS. Horace _Odes_, iii. 2.

[581] Sir Walter Scott, in a note to _Redgauntlet_, Letter 1, says:--

'Sir John Nisbett of Dirleton's _Doubts and Questions upon the Law

especially of Scotland_, and Sir James Stewart's _Dirleton's Doubts

and Questions resolved and answered_, are works of authority in Scottish

jurisprudence. As is generally the case, the _Doubts_ are held more in

respect than the solution.'

[582] When Boswell first made Johnson's acquaintance it was he who

suffered from the late hours. _Ante_, i. 434.

[583] See _ante_, ii. 312.

[584] Burke, in _Present Discontents_, says:--'The power of the Crown,

almost dead and rotten as Prerogative, has grown up anew, with much more

strength and far less odium, under the name of Influence.' _Influence_

he explains as 'the method of governing by men of great natural interest

or great acquired consideration.' Payne's _Burke_, i. 10, 11. 'Influence,'

said Johnson,' must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it

should.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 18. To political life might be applied

what Johnson wrote of domestic life:--'It is a maxim that no man ever was

enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.' _Notes and Queries_,

6th S., v. 343.

[585] Boswell falls into what he calls 'the cant transmitted from age to

age in praise of the ancient Romans.' _Ante_, i. 311. To do so with

Johnson was at once to provoke an attack, for he looked upon the Roman

commonwealth as one 'which grew great only by the misery of the rest of

mankind.' _Ib_. Moreover he disliked appeals to history. 'General

history,' writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 138), 'had little of his regard.

Biography was his delight. Sooner than hear of the Punic War he

would be rude to the person that introduced the subject.' Mrs. Piozzi

says (_Anec_. p. 80) that 'no kind of conversation pleased him less, I

think, than when the subject was historical fact or general polity.

'What shall we learn from _that_ stuff?' said he. 'He never,' as he

expressed it, 'desired to hear of the _Punic War_ while he lived.' The

_Punic War_, it is clear, was a kind of humorous catch word with him.

She wrote to him in 1773:--'So here's modern politics in a letter from

me; yes and a touch of the _Punic War_ too.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 187.

He wrote to her in 1775, just after she had been at the first regatta

held in England:--'You will now find the advantage of having made one at

the regatta.... It is the good of public life that it supplies agreeable

topics and general conversation. Therefore wherever you are, and

whatever you see, talk not of the Punic War; nor of the depravity of

human nature; nor of the slender motives of human actions; nor of the

difficulty of finding employment or pleasure; but talk, and talk, and

talk of the regatta.' _Ib_. p. 260. He was no doubt sick of the constant

reference made by writers and public speakers to Rome. For instance, in

Bolingbroke's _Dissertation upon Parties_, we find in three consecutive

Letters (xi-xiii) five illustrations drawn from Rome.

[586] It is strange that Boswell does not mention that on this day they

met the Duke and Duchess of Argyle in the street. That they did so we

learn from _Piozzi Letters_, i. 386. Perhaps the Duchess shewed him 'the

same marked coldness' as at Inverary. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25.

[587] At Auchinleck he had 'exhorted Boswell to plant assiduously.'

Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 4.

[588] See _ante_, i. 72. In Scotland it was Cocker's _Arithmetic_ that

he took with him. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 31. He was not always

correct in his calculations. For instance, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale from

Ashbourne less than a fortnight after Boswell's departure: 'Mr. Langdon

bought at Nottingham fair fifteen tun of cheese; which, at an ounce

a-piece, will suffice after dinner for four-hundred-and-eighty thousand

men.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 2. To arrive at this number he must have

taken a hundredweight as equal to, not 112, but 100, pounds.

[589] Johnson wrote the next day:--'Boswell is gone, and is, I hope,

pleased that he has been here; though to look on anything with pleasure

is not very common. He has been gay and good-humoured in his usual way,

but we have not agreed upon any other expedition.' _Piozzi Letters_,

i. 384.

[590] He lent him also the original journal of his _Hebrides_, and

received in return a complimentary letter, which he in like manner

published. Boswell's _Hebrides_, near the end.

[591] 'The landlord at Ellon said that he heard he was the greatest man

in England, next to Lord Mansfield.' _Ante_, ii. 336.

[592] See _ante_, under March 15, 1776, where Johnson says that 'truth

is essential to a story.'

[593] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell kept his journal very

diligently; but then what was there to journalize? I should be glad

to see what he says of *********.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 390. The number

of stars renders it likely that Beauclerk is meant. See _ante_, p. 195,

note 1.

[594] See _ante_, ii. 279.

[595] Mr. Beauclerk. See _ante_, p. 195.

[596] Beauclerk.

[597] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell says his wife does not

love me quite well yet, though we have made a formal peace.' _Piozzi

Letters_, i. 390.

[598] A daughter born to him. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says that this

daughter was Miss Jane Langton, mentioned post, May 10, 1784.

[599] She had already had eleven children, of whom seven were by this

time dead. _Ante_, p. 109. This time a daughter was born, and not a

young brewer. _Post_, July 3, 1778.

[600] Three months earlier Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'We are not

far from the great year of a hundred thousand barrels, which, if three

shillings be gained upon each barrel, will bring us fifteen thousand

pounds a year.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 357. We may see how here, as

elsewhere, he makes himself almost one with the Thrales.

[601] See _ante_, p. 97.

[602] Mrs. Aston. BOSWELL.

[603] See _State Trials_, vol. xi. p. 339, and Mr. Hargrave's

argument. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 87.

[604] The motto to it was happily chosen:--

'Quamvis ille niger, quamvis tu candidus esses.'