'It was a twelvemonth last Sunday since the convulsions in my breast
left me. I hope I was thankful when I recollected it; by removing
that disorder a great improvement was made in the enjoyment of life.'
--_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 163. (See _ante_, iii. 397, n. 1.)
He was at Ashbourne on June 18, 1779 (_ante_, iii. 453).
On April 20, 1778, the very day of which this letter bears the date,
he recorded:--
'After a good night, as I am forced to reckon, I rose seasonably....
In reviewing my time from Easter, 1777, I found a very melancholy
and shameful blank. So little has been done that days and months are
without any trace. My health has, indeed, been very much interrupted.
My nights have been commonly not only restless, but painful and fatiguing.
....Some relaxation of my breast has been procured, I think, by opium,
which, though it never gives me sleep, frees my breast from spasms.'
--_Prayers and Meditations_, p. 169. See _ante_, iii. 317, n. 1.
For Johnson's advice about bleeding, see _ante_, iii. 152; and for
possible occasions for 'suspected letters,' _ante_, i. 472, n. 4;
and ii. 202, n. 2.
_Mr. Mason's 'sneering observation in his "Memoirs of Mr. William
Whitehead"'_
(Vol. i, p. 31.)
I had long failed to find a copy of these _Memoirs_, though I had
searched in the Bodleian, the British Museum, and the London Library, and
had applied to the University Library at Cambridge, and the Advocates'
Library at Edinburgh. By the kindness of Mr. R. H. Soden Smith and Mr.
R. F. Sketchley, I have obtained the following extract from a copy in
the Dyce and Forster Libraries, in the South Kensington Museum:--
'Conscious, notwithstanding, that to avoid writing what is _unnecessary_
is, in these days, no just plea for silence in a biographer, I have some
apology to make for having strewed these pages so thinly with the
tittle-tattle of anecdote. I am, however, too proud to make this apology
to any person but my bookseller, who will be the only real loser by the
'Those readers, who believe that I do not write immediately under
his pay, and who may have gathered from what they have already read,
that I am not so passionately enamoured of Dr. Johnson's biographical
manner, as to take that for my model, have only to throw these pages
aside, and wait till they are new-written by some one of his numerous
disciples, who may follow his master's example; and should more anecdote
than I furnish him with be wanting (as was the Doctor's case in his
life of Mr. Gray), may make amends for it by those acid eructations
of vituperative criticism, which are generated by unconcocted taste and
intellectual indigestion.'--_Poems by William Whitehead_, York, 1788
(vol. iii, p. 128).
With this 'sneering observation,' which Boswell might surely have passed
over in silence, the Memoirs close.
_Michael Johnson as a bookseller._
(Vol. i, p. 36, n. 3.)
Mr. R. F. Sketchley kindly informs me that in the Dyce and Forster
Libraries at the South Kensington Museum there is a book with the
following title:--
_S. Shaw's 'Grammatica Anglo--Romana', London, printed for Michael
Johnson, bookseller: and are to be sold at his shops in Litchfield and
Uttoxiter in Stafford-shire; and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire,
1687._
Mr. C. E. Doble tells me that in the proposals issued in 1690 by Thomas
Bennet, St. Paul's Churchyard, for printing Anthony a Wood's _Athenae
Oxonienses_ and _Fasti Oxonienses_, among 'the booksellers who take
subscriptions, give receipts, and deliver books according to the
proposals' is 'Mr. Johnson in Litchfield.'
_The City and County of Lichfield_.
(Vol. i, p. 36, n. 4.)
'The City of Litchfield is a County of itself, with a jurisdiction
extending 10 or 12 miles round, which circuit the Sheriff rides every
year on Sept. 8.'--_A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain_,
ed. 1769, ii. 419.
Balliol College has a copy of this work containing David Garrick's
book-plate, with Shakespeare's head at the top of it, and the following
quotation from _Menagiana_ at the foot:--
'_La première chose qu'on doit faire quand on a emprunté un livre, c'est
de le lire, afin de pouvoir le rendre plutôt' (sic)_.
_Felixmarte of Hircania_.
(Vol. i, p. 49.)
'"He that follows is _Florismarte of Hyrcania_" said the barber. "What!
is Signor Florismarte there?" replied the priest; "in good faith he shall
share the same fate, notwithstanding his strange birth and chimerical
adventures; for his harsh and dry style will admit of no excuse. To the
yard with him, therefore." "With all my heart, dear Sir," answered the
housekeeper; "and with joyful alacrity she executed the command.'"
--_Don Quixote_, ed. 1820, i. 48.
Boswell speaks of _Felixmarte_ as the old Spanish romance. In the
_Bibliografia dei Romanzi e Poeini Cavallereschi Italiani_ (2nd ed.,
Milan, 1838), p. 351, it is stated that in the Spanish edition it is
called a translation from the Italian, and in the Italian edition a
translation from the Spanish. The Italian title is _Historia di Don
Florismante d'Ircania, tradotta dallo Spagnuolo_. Cervantes, in an
edition of _Don Quixote_, published in 1605, which I have looked at,
calls the book _Florismarte de Hircania_ (not _Florismante_). It should
seem that he made his hero read the Italian version.
_Palmerin of England and Don Belianis_.
(Vol. i, p. 49, n. 2; and vol. iii, p. 2.)
'"Let _Palmerin of England_ be preserved," said the licentiate, "and
kept as a jewel; and let such another casket be made for it as that
which Alexander found among the spoils of Darius appropriated to preserve
the works of the poet Homer....Therefore, master Nicholas, saving your
better judgment let this and _Amadis de Gaul_ be exempted from the
flames, and let all the rest perish without any farther inquiry." "Not
so neighbour," replied the barber, "for behold here the renowned
_Don Belianis_." The priest replied, "This with the second, third,
and fourth parts, wants a little rhubarb to purge away its excessive
choler; there should be removed too all that relates to the castle
of Fame, and other impertinencies of still greater consequence; let them
have the benefit, therefore, of transportation, and as they show signs
of amendment they shall hereafter be treated with mercy or justice; in
the meantime, friend, give them room in your house; but let nobody read
them."'
--_Don Quixote_, ed. 1820, i. 50.
_Mr. Taylor, a Birmingham manufacturer_.
(Vol. i, p. 86.)
'John Taylor, Esq. may justly be deemed the Shakspear or Newton of
Birmingham. He rose from minute beginnings to shine in the commercial
hemisphere, as they in the poetical or philosophical. To this uncommon
genius we owe the gilt button, the japanned and gilt snuff-box, with
the numerous race of enamels; also the painted snuff-box. ... He died
in 1775 at the age of 64, after acquiring a fortune of £200,000. His son
was a considerable sufferer at the time of the riots in 1791.'
--_A Brief History of Birmingham_, 1797, p. 9.
_Olivia Lloyd._
(Vol. i, p. 92.)
I am, no doubt, right in identifying Olivia Lloyd, the young quaker,
with whom Johnson was much enamoured when at Stourbridge School, with
Olive Lloyd, the daughter of the first Sampson Lloyd, of Birmingham,
and aunt of the Sampson Lloyd with whom he had an altercation (_ante_,
ii. 458 and _post_, p. liii). 'A fine likeness of her is preserved by
Thomas Lloyd, The Priory, Warwick,' as I learn from an interesting
little work called _Farm and its Inhabitants, with some Account of
the Lloyds of Dolobran_, by Rachel J. Lowe. Privately printed, 1883,
p. 24. Her elder brother married a Miss Careless; ib. p. 23. Johnson's
'first love,' Hector's sister, married a Mr. Careless (_ante_, ii. 459).
_Henry Porter, of Edgbaston_.
(Vol. i, p. 94, n. 3.)