(_Notes on Boswell's note on pages 403-405_.)
[F-1] In a letter quoted in Mr. Croker's Boswell, p. 427, Dr. Johnson
calls Thomas Johnson 'cousin,' and says that in the last sixteen months
he had given him £40. He mentions his death in 1779. _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 45.
[F-2] Hawkins (_Life_, p. 603) says that Elizabeth Herne was Johnson's
first-cousin, and that he had constantly--how long he does not
say--contributed £15 towards her maintenance.
[F-3] For Mauritius Lowe, see _ante_, iii. 324, and iv. 201.
[F-4] To Mr. Windham, two days earlier, he had given a copy of the _New
Testament_, saying:--'Extremum hoc munus morientis habeto.' Windham's
_Diary_, p. 28.
[F-5] For Mrs. Gardiner see _ante_, i. 242.
[F-6] Mr. John Desmoulins was the son of Mrs. Desmoulins (_ante_, iii.
222, 368), and the grandson of Johnson's god-father, Dr. Swinfen
(_ante_, i. 34). Johnson mentions him in a letter to Mrs. Thrale in
1778. 'Young Desmoulins is taken in an _under-something_ of Drury Lane;
he knows not, I believe, his own denomination.' _Piozzi Letters_,
ii. 25.
[F-7] The reference is to _The Rambler_, No. 41 (not 42 as Boswell
says), where Johnson mentions 'those vexations and anxieties with which
all human enjoyments are polluted.'
[F-8] Bishop Sanderson described his soul as 'infinitely polluted with
sin.' Walton's _Lives_, ed. 1838, p. 396.
[F-9] Hume, writing in 1742 about his _Essays Moral and Political_,
says:--
'Innys, the great bookseller in Paul's Church-yard, wonders there is not
a new edition, for that he cannot find copies for his customers.' J.H.
Burton's _Hume_, i. 143.
[F-10] Nichols (_Lit. Anec._ ii. 554) says that, on Dec. 7,
'Johnson asked him whether any of the family of Faden the printer were
living. Being told that the geographer near Charing Cross was Faden's
son, he said, after a short pause:--"I borrowed a guinea of his father
near thirty years ago; be so good as to take this, and pay it for me."'
[F-11] Nowhere does Hawkins more shew the malignancy of his character
than in his attacks on Johnson's black servant, and through him on
Johnson. With the passage in which this offensive _caveat_ is found he
brings his work to a close. At the first mention of Frank (_Life_, p.
328) he says:--
'His first master had _in great humanity_ made him a Christian, and his
last for no assignable reason, nay rather in despite of nature, and to
unfit him for being useful according to his capacity, determined to make
him a scholar.'
But Hawkins was a brutal fellow. See _ante_, i. 27, note 2, and 28, note
1.
[F-12] Johnson had written to Taylor on Oct. 23 of this year:--
'"Coming down from a very restless night I found your letter, which made
me a little angry. You tell me that recovery is in my power. This indeed
I should be glad to hear if I could once believe it. But you mean to
charge me with neglecting or opposing my own health. Tell me, therefore,
what I do that hurts me, and what I neglect that would help me." This
letter is endorsed by Taylor: "This is the last letter. My answer, which
were (_sic_) the words of advice he gave to Mr. Thrale the day he dyed,
he resented extremely from me."' Mr. Alfred Morrison's _Collection of
Autographs_, &c., ii. 343.
'The words of advice' which were given to Mr. Thrale _the day before_
the fatal fit seized him, were that he should abstain from full meals.
_Ante_, iv. 84, note 4. Johnson's resentment of Taylor's advice may
account for the absence of his name in his will.
[F-13] They were sold in 650 Lots, in a four days' sale. Besides the
books there were 146 portraits, of which 61 were framed and glazed.
These prints in their frames were sold in lots of 4, 8, and even 10
together, though certainly some of them--and perhaps many--were
engravings from Reynolds. The Catalogue of the sale is in the
Bodleian Library.