Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 529 says that 'the most minute
pocket-author hath beneath him the writers of all pamphlets, or works
that are only stitched. As for a pamphleteer he takes place of none but
of the authors of single sheets.' The inferiority of a pamphlet is shewn
in Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 216:--'Johnson would not allow the
word _derange_ to be an English word. "Sir," said a gentleman who had
some pretensions to literature, "I have seen it in a book." "Not in a
_bound_ book," said Johnson; "_disarrange_ is the word we ought to use
instead of it."' In his _Dictionary_ he gives neither _derange_ nor
_disarrange_. Dr. Franklin, who had been a printer and was likely to use
the term correctly, writing in 1785, mentions 'the artifices made use of
to puff up a paper of verses into a pamphlet.' _Memoirs_, iii. 178.
[942] See _post_, March 16, 1779, for 'the exquisite address' with which
Johnson evaded a question of this kind.
[943] Garrick insisted on great alterations being made in _The Good
Natured Man_. When Goldsmith resisted this, 'he proposed a sort of
arbitration,' and named as his arbitrator Whitehead the laureate.
Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 41. It was of Whitehead's poetry that Johnson
said 'grand nonsense is insupportable.' _Ante_, i. 402. _The Good
Natured Man_ was brought out by Colman, as well as _She Stoops to
Conquer_.
[944] See _ante_, ii. 208, note 5.
[945] See _ante_, i. 416.
[946] 'This play, written in ridicule of the musical Italian drama, was
first offered to Cibber and his brethren at Drury Lane, and rejected;
it being then carried to Rich had the effect, as was ludicrously said,
of _making_ Gay _rich_ and Rich _gay_.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 66.
See _ante_, ii. 368.
[947] See _ante_, i. 112.
[948] In opposition to this Mr. Croker quotes Horace:---
'Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo
Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.'
'I'm hissed in public; but in secret blest,
I count my money and enjoy my chest.' Horace, _Sat_. i. I. 66.
See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 26.
[949] The anecdote is told in _Menagiana_, iii. 104, but not of a
'_maid_ of honour,' nor as an instance of '_exquisite flattery_.' 'M.
d'Uzès était chevalier d'honneur de la reine. Cette princesse lui
demanda un jour quelle heure il était; il répondit, "Madame, l'heure
qu'il plaira à votre majesté."' Menage tells it as _a pleasantry_ of M.
d'Uzès; but M. de la Monnoye says, that this duke was remarkable for
_naïvetés_ and blunders, and was a kind of _butt_, to whom the wits of
the court used to attribute all manner of absurdities. CROKER.
[950] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 2. II. The common reading is _solutis_.
Boswell (_Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773) says:--'Mr. Wilkes told me this
himself with classical admiration.'
[951] See this question fully investigated in the Notes upon my
_Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, edit. 3, p. 21, _et seq_. [Aug.
15]. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim _Suum cuique tribuito_,
I cannot forbear to mention, that the additional Note beginning with 'I
find since the former edition,' is not mine, but was obligingly
furnished by Mr. Malone, who was so kind as to superintend the press
while I was in Scotland, and the first part of the second edition was
printing. He would not allow me to ascribe it to its proper authour;
but, as it is exquisitely acute and elegant, I take this opportunity,
without his knowledge, to do him justice. BOSWELL. See also _ante_, i.
453, and _post_, May 15, 1784.
[952] Horace, _Sat_. i. I. 106. Malone points out that this is the
motto to _An Enquiry into Customary Estates and Tenants' Rights, &c.,
with some considerations for restraining excessive fines_. By Everard
Fleetwood, 8vo, 1737.
[953] A _modus_ is _something paid as a compensation for tithes
on the supposition of being a moderate equivalent_. Johnson's
_Dictionary_. It was more desirable for the landlord than the Parson.
Thus T. Warton, in his _Progress of Discontent_, represents the Parson
who had taken a college living regretting his old condition,
'When calm around the common-room
I puffed my daily pipe's perfume;
...
And every night I went to bed,
Without a _modus_ in my head.'
T. Warton's _Poems_, ii. 197.
[954] Fines are payments due to the lord of a manor on every admission
of a new tenant. In some manors these payments are fixed by custom; they
are then _fines certain_; in others they are not fixed, but depend on
the reasonableness of the lord and the paying capacity of the tenant;
they are _fines uncertain_. The advantage of _fines certain_, like that
of a _modus_ in tithes, is that a man knows what he shall get.
[955] _Ante_, iii. 35.
[956] Mr. P. Cunningham has, I think, enabled us to clear up Boswell's
mystery, by finding in the _Garrick Corres_, ii. 305, May 1778, that
Johnson's poor friend, Mauritius Lowe, the painter, lived at No. 3,
Hedge Lane, in a state of extreme distress. CROKER. See _post_, April 3,
1779, and April 12, 1783.
[957] 'In all his intercourse with mankind, Pope had great delight in
artifice, and endeavoured to attain all his purposes by indirect and
unsuspected methods. "He hardly drank tea without a stratagem." ["Nor
take her tea without a stratagem." Young's _Universal Passion, Sat_. vi.]
He practised his arts on such small occasions that Lady Bolingbroke used
to say, in a French phrase, that "he played the politician about cabbages
and turnips."' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 311.
[958] Johnson, _post_, under March 30, 1783, speaks of 'the vain
ostentatious importance of many persons in quoting the authority of
dukes and lords.' In his going to the other extreme, as he said he did,
may be found the explanation of Boswell's 'mystery.' For of
mystery--'the wisdom of blockheads,' as Horace Walpole calls it
(_Letters_, iii. 371)--Johnson was likely to have as little as any man.
As for Grosvenor-square, the Thrales lived there for a short time, and
Johnson had a room in the house (_post_, March 20, 1781).
[959] Tacitus, _Agricola_, ch. xxx. 'The unknown always passes for
something peculiarly grand.'
[960] Johnson defines _toy-shop_ as 'a shop where playthings and little
nice manufactures are sold.'
[961] See _ante_, ii. 241.
[962] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 237) says that 'the fore-top of all his
wigs were (sic) burned by the candle down to the very net-work. Mr.
Thrale's valet, for that reason, kept one always in his own hands, with
which he met him at the parlour door when the bell had called him down
to dinner.' Cumberland (_Memoirs_, i. 357) says that he wore 'a brown
coat with metal buttons, black waistcoat and worsted stockings, with a
flowing bob-wig; they were in perfectly good trim, and with the ladies
he had nothing of the slovenly philosopher about him.'
[963] See _ante_, ii. 432.
[964] Here he either was mistaken, or had a different notion of an
extensive sale from what is generally entertained: for the fact is,
that four thousand copies of that excellent work were sold very quickly.
A new edition has been printed since his death, besides that in the
collection of his works. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 310, note 2.
[965] 'In the neighbourhood of Lichfield [in 1750] the principal
gentlemen clothed their hounds in tartan plaid, with which they hunted
a fox, dressed in a red uniform.' Mahon's _Hist. of England_, iv. 10.
[966] So Boswell in his _Hebrides_ (Nov. 8), hoping that his father and
Johnson have met in heaven, observes, 'that they have met in a place
where there is no room for Whiggism.' See _ante_, i. 431.
[967] _Paradise Lost_, bk. i. 263. Butler (_Miscellaneous Thoughts_,
1. 169) had said:--
'The Devil was the first o' th' name
From whom the race of rebels came.'
[968] In the phraseology of Scotland, I should have said, 'Mr. John
Spottiswoode the younger, _of that ilk_.' Johnson knew that sense
of the word very well, and has thus explained it in his _Dictionary_,
_voce_ ILK:--'It also signifies "the same;" as, _Mackintosh of that
ilk_, denotes a gentleman whose surname and the title of his estate are
the same.' BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 427, note 2.
[969] He wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 19 of the next year:--'There are
those still who either fright themselves, or would fright others, with
an invasion.... Such a fleet [a fleet equal to the transportation of
twenty or of ten thousand men] cannot be hid in a creek; it must be
safely [?] visible; and yet I believe no man has seen the man that has
seen it. The ships of war were within sight of Plymouth, and only within
sight.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 461.
[970] See _ante_, iii. 42.
[971] It is observed in Waller's _Life_, in the _Biographia Britannica_,
that he drank only water; and that while he sat in a company who were
drinking wine, 'he had the dexterity to accommodate his discourse to the
pitch of theirs as it _sunk_.' If excess in drinking be meant, the
remark is acutely just. But surely, a moderate use of wine gives a
gaiety of spirits which water-drinkers know not. BOSWELL. 'Waller passed
his time in the company that was highest, both in rank and wit, from
which even his obstinate sobriety did not exclude him. Though he drank
water, he was enabled by his fertility of mind to heighten the mirth of
Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said that "no man in England
should keep him company without drinking but Ned Waller."' Johnson's
_Works_, vii. 197.
[972] See _ante_, iii. 41, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 17.
[973] Pope. _Satires_, Prologue, 1. 283.
[974] As he himself had said in his letter of thanks for his diploma of
Doctor of Laws, 'Nemo sibi placens non lactatur' (_ante_, ii. 333).
[975]
'Who mean to live within our proper sphere,
Dear to ourselves, and to our country dear.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Epistles_, i. 3. 29.
[976] Johnson recommended this before. _Ante_, p. 169. Boswell tried
abstinence once before. _Ante_, ii. 436, note 1, and iii. 170, note 1.
[977] Johnson wrote to Boswell in 1775:--'Reynolds has taken too much
to strong liquor, and seems to delight in his new character.' _Ante_,
ii. 292.
[978] See _ante_, p. 170, note 2.
[979] At the Castle of the Bishop of Munster 'there was,' writes Temple,
'nothing remarkable but the most Episcopal way of drinking that could
be invented. As soon as we came in the great hall there stood many
flagons ready charged; the general called for wine to drink the King's
health; they brought him a formal bell of silver gilt, that might hold
about two quarts or more; he took it empty, pulled out the clapper, and
gave it me who (sic) he intended to drink to, then had the bell filled,
drunk it off to his Majesty's health; then asked me for the clapper, put
it in, turned down the bell, and rung it out to shew he had played fair
and left nothing in it; took out the clapper, desired me to give it to
whom I pleased, then gave his bell to be filled again, and brought it to
me. I that never used to drink, and seldom would try, had commonly some
gentlemen with me that served for that purpose when it was necessary.'
Temple's _Works_, ed. 1757, i. 266.
[980] See _ante_, ii. 450, note 1, and iii. 79.
[981] The passages are in the _Jerusalem_, canto i. st. 3, and in
_Lucretius_, i. 935, and again iv. 12. CROKER.
[982] See _ante_, ii. 247, where Boswell says that 'no man was more
scrupulously inquisitive in order to discover the truth;' and iii. 188,
229.
[983] See _post_, under May 8, 1781.
[984] 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'I love Robertson, and I won't talk of his
book.' _Ante_, ii. 53.
[985] 'I was once in company with Smith,' said Johnson in 1763, 'and we
did not take to each other.' _Ante_, i. 427. See Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Oct. 29.
[986] See _ante_, ii. 63.
[987] See _ante_, ii. 84
[988] See _ante_, p. 3.
[989] This experiment which Madame Dacier made in vain, has since been
tried in our own language, by the editor of _Ossian_, and we must either
think very meanly of his abilities, or allow that Dr. Johnson was in the
right. And Mr. Cowper, a man of real genius, has miserably failed in his
blank verse translation. BOSWELL. Johnson, in his _Life of Pope_
(_Works_, viii. 253), says:--'I have read of a man, who being by his
ignorance of Greek compelled to gratify his curiosity with the Latin
printed on the opposite page, declared that from the rude simplicity of
the lines literally rendered he formed nobler ideas of the Homeric
majesty, than from the laboured elegance of polished versions,' Though
Johnson nowhere speaks of Cowper, yet his writings were not altogether
unknown to him. 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Cowper, 'read and recommended my
first volume.' Southey's _Cowper_, v. 171.
[990] 'I bought the first volume of _Manchester_, but could not read it;
it was much too learned for me, and seemed rather an account of Babel
than Manchester, I mean in point of antiquity.' Walpole's _Letters_,
vi. 207.
[991] Henry was injured by Gilbert Stuart, the malignant editor of the
_Edinburgh Magazine and Review_, who 'had vowed that he would crush his
work,' and who found confederates to help him. He asked Hume to review
it, thinking no doubt that one historian would attack another; when he
received from him a highly favourable review he would not publish it.
It contained a curious passage, where Hume points out that Henry and
Robertson were clergymen, and continues:--'These illustrious examples,
if any thing, must make the _infidel abashed of his vain cavils_.' J.H.
Burton's _Hume_, ii. 469.
[992] Hume wrote to Millar:--'Hamilton and Balfour have offered
Robertson [for his _Scotland_] a very unusual price; no less than £500
for one edition of 2000.' _Ib_. ii. 42. As Robertson did not accept this
offer, no doubt he got a better one. Even if he got no more, it would
not have seemed 'a moderate price' to a man whose preferment hitherto
had been only £100 a year. (See Dugald Stewart's _Robertson_, p. 161.)
Stewart adds (_ib_. p. 169):--'It was published on Feb. 1, 1759. Before
the end of the month the author was desired by his bookseller to prepare
for a second edition.' By 1793 it was in its fourteenth edition. _Ib_.
p. 326. The publisher was Millar; the price two guineas. _Gent. Mag_.
xxix. 84.
[993] Lord Clive. See _post_, p. 350, and Oct. 10, 1779.
[994] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 286) gives an instance of this
'romantick humour.' 'Robertson was very much a master of conversation,
and very desirous to lead it, and to raise theories that sometimes
provoked the laugh against him. He went a jaunt into England with
Dundas, Cockburn and Sinclair; who, seeing a gallows on a neighbouring
hillock, rode round to have a nearer view of the felon on the gallows.
When they met in the inn, Robertson began a dissertation on the
character of nations, and how much the English, like the Romans, were
hardened by their cruel diversions of cock-fighting, bull-baiting, &c.;
for had they not observed three Englishmen on horseback do what no
Scotchman or--. Here Dundas interrupted him, and said, "What! did you
not know, Principal, that it was Cockburn and Sinclair and me?" This put
an end to theories, &c., for that day.'
[995] This was a favourite word with Johnson and Mrs. Thrale. 'Long live
Mrs. G. that _downs_ my mistress,' he wrote (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 26).
'Did you quite _down_ her?' he asked of another lady (_Ib_. p. 100).
Miss Burney caught up the word: 'I won't be _downed_,' she wrote. Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 252.
[996] See _ante_, iii. 41, 327.
[997] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 474) tells how Robertson, with one of
his pupils, and he, visited at a house where some excellent claret
flowed freely. 'After four days Robertson took me into a window
before dinner, and with some solemnity proposed to make a motion to
shorten the drinking, if I would second him--"Because," added he,
"although you and I may go through it, I am averse to it on my pupil's
account." I answered that I was afraid it would not do, as our
toastmaster might throw ridicule upon us, as we were to leave the island
the day after the next, and that we had not proposed any abridgement
till the old claret was all done, the last of which we had drunk
yesterday. "Well, well," replied the Doctor, "be it so then, and let us
end as we began."'
[998] Johnson, when asked to hear Robertson preach, said:--'I will hear
him if he will get up into a tree and preach; but I will not give a
sanction by my presence to a Presbyterian assembly.' Boswell's
_Hebrides_, Aug. 27. See also _Ib_. Nov. 7.
[999] Mrs. Piozzi confidently mentions this as having passed in
Scotland, _Anecdotes_, p. 62. BOSWELL. She adds:--'I was shocked to
think how he [Johnson] must have disgusted him [Robertson].' She, we may
well believe, felt no more shock than Robertson felt disgust.
[1000] See Voltaire's _Siècle de Louis XIV_, ch. xiv.
[1001] See _ante_, p. 191.
[1002] See _ante_, p. 54.
[1003] It was on this day that Johnson dictated to Boswell his Latin
translation of Dryden's lines on Milton. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 22.
[1004] See _ante_, ii. 109.
[1005] '"Well, Sir," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes Sir;
you tossed and gored several persons."' _Ante_, ii. 66.
[1006] Very likely their host. See _ante_, iii. 48.
[1007] See _ante_, iii. 97.
[1008] _Acts_, X. 1 and 2.
[1009] Mr. Croker says, 'no doubt Dr. Robertson;' see _post_, under
June 16, 1784, where Johnson says much the same of 'an authour of
considerable eminence.' In this case Mr. Croker says, 'probably Dr.
Robertson.' I have little doubt that Dr. Beattie was there meant. He may
be meant also here, for the description of the conversation does not
agree with what we are told of Robertson. See _ante_, p. 335. note 1.
Perhaps, however, Dr. Blair was the eminent author. It is in Boswell's
manner to introduce the same person in consecutive paragraphs as if
there were two persons.
[1010] See _ante_, ii. 256.
[1011] Chappe D'Auteroche writes:--'La douceur de sa physionomie et sa
vivacité annonçaient plutôt quelque indiscrétion que l'ombre d'un
crime. Tous ceux que j'ai consultés par la suite m'ont cependant assuré
qu'elle était coupable.' _Voyage en Sibérie_, i. 227. Lord Kames
says:--'Of whatever indiscretion she might have been guilty, the
sweetness of her countenance and her composure left not in the
spectators the slightest suspicion of guilt.' She was cruelly knouted,
her tongue was cut out, and she was banished to Siberia. Kames's
_Sketches_, i. 363.
[1012] Mr. Croker says:--'Here I think the censure is quite unjust.
Lord Kames gives in the clearest terms the same explanation.' Kames
made many corrections in the later editions. On turning to the first,
I found, as I expected, that Johnson's censure was quite just. Kames
says (i. 76):--'Whatever be the cause of high or low interest, I am
certain that the quantity of circulating coin can have no influence.
Supposing the half of our money to be withdrawn, a hundred pounds lent
ought still to afford but five pounds as interest; because if the
principal be doubled in value, so is also the interest.' This passage
was struck out in later editions.
[1013] 'Johnson had an extraordinary admiration of this lady,
notwithstanding she was a violent Whig. In answer to her high-flown
speeches for _Liberty_, he addressed to her the following Epigram, of
which I presume to offer a translation:--
'_Liber ut esse velim suasiti pulchra Maria
Ut maneam liber pulchra Maria vale_,'
Adieu, Maria! since you'd have me free;
For, who beholds thy charms a slave must be.
A correspondent of _The Gentleman's Magazine_, who subscribes himself
SCIOLUS, to whom I am indebted for several excellent remarks, observes,
'The turn of Dr. Johnson's lines to Miss Aston, whose Whig principles he
had been combating, appears to me to be taken from an ingenious epigram
in the _Menagiana_ [vol. iii. p. 376, edit. 1716] on a young lady who
appeared at a masquerade, _habillée en Jésuite_, during the fierce
contentions of the followers of Molinos and Jansenius concerning
free-will:--
"On s'étonne ici que Caliste
Ait pris l'habit de Moliniste.
Puisque cette jeune beauté
Ote à chacun sa liberté,
N'est-ce pas une Janseniste?"