Pimperne, Dorset.
_Boswell's "Johnson."_--In vol. v. p. 272. of _my_ favourite edition, and
p. 784. of the edition in one volume, Johnson, writing to Brocklesby, under
date Sept. 2, 1784, calls Windham "inter stellas Luna minores." Boswell, in
a note, says, "It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson
should have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written
_stellas_ instead of _ignes_." Now, with all due deference, a Captain of
Native Infantry ventures to suggest that both _stellas_ and _ignes_ are
wrong, and that Johnson was thinking of the noble opening of Horace's 15th
Epode:
"Nox erat, et coelo fulgebat _Luna_ sereno,
_Inter minora_ sidera."