'His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd
Absolute rule; and hyacinthin locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clus'tring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.'
[_P.L._ iv. 300.] BOSWELL.
[242] 'Grattan's Uncle, Dean Marlay [afterwards Bishop of Waterford],
had a good deal of the humour of Swift. Once, when the footman was out
of the way, he ordered the coachman to fetch some water from the well.
To this the man objected, that _his_ business was to drive, not to run
on errands. "Well, then," said Marlay, "bring out the coach and four,
set the pitcher inside, and drive to the well;"--a service which was
several times repeated, to the great amusement of the village.' Rogers's
_Table-Talk_, p.176.
[243] See _ante_, ii. 241, for Johnson's contempt of puns.
[244] 'He left not faction, but of that was left.' _Absalom and
Achitophel_, l. 568.
[245] Boswell wrote of Gibbon in 1779:--'He is an ugly, affected,
disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' _Letters of
Boswell_, p.242. See _ante_, ii.443, note 1.
[246] _The schools_ in this sense means a University.
[247] See _ante_, ii.224.
[248] Up to the year 1770, controverted elections had been tried before
a Committee of the whole House. By the _Grenville Act_ which was passed
in that year they were tried by a select committee. _Parl. Hist._ xvi.
902. Johnson, in _The False Alarm_ (1770), describing the old method of
trial, says;--'These decisions have often been apparently partial, and
sometimes tyrannically oppressive.' _Works, vi. 169._ _In The Patriot_
(1774), he says:--'A disputed election is now tried with the same
scrupulousness and solemnity as any other title.' _Ib._ p.223. See
Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.10.
[249] Miss Burney describes a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, about this time,
at which she met Johnson, Boswell, and Dudley Long. Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, ii. 14.
[250] See _ante_, ii.171, _post_, two paragraphs before April 10, 1783,
and May 15, 1784.
[251] Johnson wrote on May i, 1780:--'There was the Bishop of St. Asaph
who comes to every place.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. Hannah More, in
1782, describes an assembly at this Bishop's. 'Conceive to yourself 150
or 200 people met together dressed in the extremity of the fashion,
painted as red as Bacchanals...ten or a dozen card-tables crammed with
dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics and yellow admirals.'
_Memoirs_, i.242. He was elected a member of the Literary Club, 'with
the sincere approbation and eagerness of all present,' wrote Mr.
(afterwards Sir William) Jones; elected, too, on the same day on which
Lord Chancellor Camden was rejected (_ante_, iii. 311, note 2). Two or
three years later Sir William married the Bishop's daughter. _Life of
Sir W Jones_, pp.240, 279.
[252] 'Trust not to looks, nor credit outward show; The villain lurks
beneath the cassocked beau.' Churchill's _Poems_ (ed. 1766), ii.41.
[253] No. 2.
[254] See vol. i p. 378. BOSWELL.
[255] Northcote, according to Hazlitt, said of this character with some
truth, that 'it was like one of Kneller's portraits--it would do for
anybody.' Northcote's _Conversations_, p.86.
[256] See _post_, p.98.
[257] _London Chronicle_, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is there
mentioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at Cofflect, the
seat of Thomas Veale, Esq., in his way to London. BOSWELL.
[258] Dr. Harte was the tutor of Mr. Eliot and of young Stanhope, Lord
Chesterfield's illegitimate son. 'My morning hopes,' wrote Chesterfield
to his son at Rome, 'are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters he
will give you; my evening ones in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive to
both.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, ii.263. See _ante_, i.163, note 1,
ii.120, and _post_, June 27, 1784.
[259] Robertson's _Scotland_ is in the February list of books in the
_Gent. Mag_. for 1759; Harte's _Gustavus Adolphus_ and Hume's _England
under the House of Tudor_ in the March list. Perhaps it was from Hume's
competition that Harte suffered.
[260] _Essays on Husbandry_, 1764.
[261] See _ante_, iii. 381.
[262] 'Christmas Day, 1780. I shall not attempt to see Vestris till the
weather is milder, though it is the universal voice that he is the only
perfect being that has dropped from the clouds, within the memory of man
or woman...When the Parliament meets he is to be thanked by the
Speaker.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 480.
[263] Here Johnson uses his title of Doctor (_ante_, ii.332, note 1),
but perhaps he does so as quoting the paragraph in the newspaper.
[264] William, the first Viscount Grimston. BOSWELL. Swift thus
introduces him in his lines _On Poetry, A Rhapsody_:--
'When death had finished Blackmore's reign,
The leaden crown devolved to thee,
Great poet of the hollow tree.'
Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston 'wrote the play when
a boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xi.
297. Two editions were published apparently by Grimston himself, one
bearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705 but no
name. By 1705 Grimston was 22 years old--no longer a boy. The former
edition was published by Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys,
Fleet-street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple
Gate. The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shewn by
the Preface. The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope was
published in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass is
represented bearing a coronet. Grimston's name is not given here, but
there is a dedication 'To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.' Three or
four notes are added, one of which is very gross. The election was for
St. Alban's, for which borough he was thrice returned.
[265] Dr. T. Campbell records (_Diary_, p. 69) that 'Boswell asked
Johnson if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master. "Aye,
and a dancing mistress too," says the Doctor; "but I own to you I never
took a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I could never make
a proficiency."'
[266] See vol. ii. p.286. BOSWELL.
[267] Miss Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:--'He is a professed
minority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition. Men of such
different principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot have much
cordiality in their political debates; however, the very superior
abilities of the former, and the remarkable good breeding of the latter
have kept both upon good terms.' She describes a hot argument between
them, and continues:--'Dr. Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour and
dexterity, and at length, though he could not convince, he so entirely
baffled him, that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet--which, with
a very good grace, he confessed. Dr. Johnson then recollecting himself,
and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute grew too serious,
with a skill all his own, suddenly and unexpectedly turned it to
burlesque.' D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 192.
[268] See _post_, Jan. 20, 1782.
[269] See _ante_, ii.355.
[270] Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words _Long_ and
_short_. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's reserve in his
presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguised amongst his
acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French
expression, '_Il pétille d'esprit_,' is particularly He has gratified me
by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if I were to lose
Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.' BOSWELL.
[271] William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court
of Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him
is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement.
But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend of
the late Sir James Macdonald, the _Marcellus_ of Scotland [_ante_,
i.449], whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever be
remembered with admiration and regret. BOSWELL.
[272] See note, _ante_, p. 65, which describes an attack made by Johnson
on Pepys more than two months after this conversation.
[273] Johnson once said to Mrs. Thrale:--'Why, Madam, you often provoke
me to say severe things by unreasonable commendation. If you would not
call for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it constantly
moves my indignation to be applied to, to speak well of a thing which I
think contemptible.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.132. See _ante_,
iii.225.
[274] 'Mrs. Thrale,' wrote Miss Burney in 1780, 'is a most dear
creature, but never restrains her tongue in anything, nor, indeed, any
of her feelings. She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makes
fun--does everything she has an inclination to do, without any study of
prudence, or thought of blame; and, pure and artless as is this
character, it often draws both herself and others into scrapes, which a
little discretion would avoid.' _Ib_. i.386. Later on she writes:--'Mrs.
Thrale, with all her excellence, can give up no occasion of making
sport, however unseasonable or even painful... I knew she was not to be
safely trusted with anything she could turn into ridicule.' _Ib_.
ii.24 and 29.
[275] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was constantly at the Thrales' (_ante_,
iii. 123).
[276] See _ante_, iii.228, 404.
[277] It was the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death.
[278] 'Mrs. Garrick and I,' wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 208), 'were
invited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to be a fine concert,
and all the fine people were to be there. Just as my hair was dressed,
came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr. Thrale was dead.'
[279] _Pr. and Med._ p 191. BOSWELL. The rest of the entry should be
given:--'On Wednesday, 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on
Wednesday 4; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures.
[On Sunday, 1st, the physician warned him against full meals, on Monday
I pressed him to observance of his rules, but without effect, and
Tuesday I was absent, but his wife pressed forbearance upon him again
unsuccessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him senseless in
strong convulsions. I staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs.
Thrale twice.] About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; I
felt, &c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on
thee. I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. The
decease of him from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities
of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge from
misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with myself.' The
passage enclosed in brackets I have copied from the original MS. Mr.
Strahan, the editor, omitted it, no doubt from feelings of delicacy.
What a contrast in this to the widow who published a letter in which she
had written:--'I wish that you would put in a word of your own to Mr.
Thrale about eating less!' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.130. Baretti, in a note
on _Piozzi Letters_, ii.142, says that 'nobody ever had spirit enough to
tell Mr. Thrale that his fits were apoplectic; such is the blessing of
being rich that nobody dares to speak out.' In Johnson's _Works_ (1787),
xi.203, it is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his last
moments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this awful
period, and why not his friend?"'
[280] Johnson's letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale's
death. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. No
death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. My
part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless
kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another.
April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn into
solitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what I
have lost. I never had such a friend before. April 11. I feel myself
like a man beginning a new course of life. I had interwoven myself with
my dear friend.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,'
wrote Miss Burney, in the following June, 'though I mention them not,
long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased
master, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
ii. 63. On his next birthday, he wrote:--'My first knowledge of Thrale
was in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.'
_Pr. and Med._ p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shew
her husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she writes:--'Mr.
Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am sure
he will go nowhere that he can help without you.' _Piozzi Letters_,
i.317. A few days later, she speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot be
quiet without you for a week.' _Ib._ p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaph
on Thrale (_Works_, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself had
laid down. In his _Essay on Epitaphs_ (_Ib._ v 263), he said:--'It is
improper to address the epitaph to the passenger [traveller], a custom
which an injudicious veneration for antiquity introduced again at the
revival of letters.' Yet in the monument in Streatham Church, we find
the same _Abi viator_ which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IV
of France.
[281] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been well
acquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year 1772,
Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her almost as if
he were a partner in the business. 'The first consequence of our late
trouble ought to be an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate...Unless this
can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not want
help.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.57. He urges economy in the household, and
continues:--'But the fury of housewifery will soon subside; and little
effect will be produced, but by methodical attention and even
frugality.' _Ib._ p.64. In another letter he writes:--'This year will
undoubtedly be an year of struggle and difficulty; but I doubt not of
getting through it; and the difficulty will grow yearly less and less.
Supposing that our former mode of life kept us on the level, we shall,
by the present contraction of expense, gain upon fortune a thousand a
year, even though no improvements can be made in the conduct of the
trade.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 66. Four years later, he writes:--'To-day I
went to look into my places at the Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins in
the counting-house. He crows and triumphs, as we go on we shall double
our business.' _Ib._ p. 333. When the executors first met, he
wrote:--'We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till
I was provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do and
suffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not suffer yourself
to be terrified.' _Ib._ ii. 197. Boswell says (_ante_, ii. 44l):--'I
often had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his
wisdom actually operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased a
farm, 'Johnson,' he writes (_ante_, iii. 207), 'made several
calculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in exercising
his mind on the science of numbers.' The letter (_ante_, ii. 424)
about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use Boswell's words, 'his
extraordinary precision and acuteness.' Boswell wrote to Temple:--'Dr.
Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him in
some interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted,
and so comes up.' _Ante_, iii. 51, note 3.
[282] Johnson, as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You
have, £500 for your immediate expenses, and, £2000 a year, with both the
houses and all the goods.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 192. Beattie wrote on
June 1:--'Everybody says Mr. Thrale should have left Johnson £200 a
year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very
inconsiderable deduction.' Beattie's _Life_, ed. 1824, p. 290.
[283] Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:--'Mrs. Thrale went
early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker,
who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me if
all went well she would wave a white handkerchief out of the
coach-window. Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs.
Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered in eager
expectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and a
white handkerchief was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 34.
The brewery was sold for £135,000. See _post_, June 16, 1781.
[284] See _post_, paragraph before June 22, 1784.
[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 369, says that 'the
two last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him £30,000 a year
neat profit.'
[286] In the fourth edition of his _Dictionary_, published in 1773,
Johnson introduced a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is sometimes
used for a factious disturber of the government.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_,
ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:--'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and
is already attempting to pronounce the words, _country_, _liberty_,
_corruption_, &c.; with what success time will discover.' Forty years
before Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:--'A
patriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty
of them within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in
one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent
demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been afraid of making
patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.' Coxe's
_Walpole_, i. 659. See _ante_, ii. 348, and iii. 66.
[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. _Ann. Reg._ xxiv. 217.
[288] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in
this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for
dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been the
dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley of
St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests. Why
Boswell recorded none of Johnson's conversation may be guessed from what
she tells. 'I was heartily disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, who
came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.' (See _post_, p.
109). The following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' she
writes, 'with pretended sharpness for reading _Les Pensées de Pascal_,
alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books written
by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me
with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," said
he, with the most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that you
read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'"
[289] On Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:--'It has happened this
week, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I have never
dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor
peculiar devotion' _Pr. and Med._ p. 163.
[290] No. 7.
[291] See _ante_, iii. 302.
[292] Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and
first Equerry to his present Majesty. MALONE. According to Mrs. Piozzi
(_Anec._ p. 156), he was Johnson's 'standard of true elegance.'
[293] See _ante_, iii. 186.
[294] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 449) thus describes Addison's 'familiar
day,' on the authority of Pope:--'He studied all morning; then dined at
a tavern; and went afterwards to Button's [coffee-house]. From the
coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and
drank too much wine.' Spence (_Anec._ p. 286) adds, on the authority of
Pope, that 'Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner that
Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing; dined _en famille_;
and then went to Wills's; only he came home earlier a'nights'
[295] Mr. Foss says of Blackstone:--'Ere he had been long on the bench
he experienced the bad effects of the studious habits in which he had
injudiciously indulged in his early life, and of his neglect to take the
necessary amount of exercise, to which he was specially averse.' He died
at the age of 56. Foss's _Judges_, viii. 250. He suffered greatly from
his corpulence. His portrait in the Bodleian shews that he was a very
fat man. Malone says that Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) wrote to
Blackstone's family to apologise for Boswell's anecdote. Prior's
_Malone_, p. 415. Scott would not have thought any the worse of
Blackstone for his bottle of port; both he and his brother, the
Chancellor, took a great deal of it. 'Lord Eldon liked plain port; the
stronger the better.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 486. Some one asked him
whether Lord Stowell took much exercise. 'None,' he said, 'but the
exercise of eating and drinking.' _Ib._ p. 302. Yet both men got through
a vast deal of hard work, and died, Eldon at the age of 86, and
Stowell of 90.
[296] See this explained, pp. 52, 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.
[297] See _ante_, ii. 7.
[298] William Scott was a tutor of University College at the age of
nineteen. He held the office for ten years--to 1775. He wrote to his
father in 1772 about his younger brother John (afterwards Lord Eldon),
who had just made a run-away match:--'The business in which I am engaged
is so extremely disagreeable in itself, and so destructive to health (if
carried on with such success as can render it at all considerable in
point of profit) that I do not wonder at his unwillingness to succeed me
in it.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 47, 74.
[299] The account of her marriage given By John Wesley in a letter
to his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, is curious. He wrote on Dec. 22,
1747:--'More than twelve years ago you told me God had revealed it to you
that you should marry my youngest sister ... You asked and gained her
consent... In a few days you had a counter-revelation, that you was not
to marry her, but her sister. This last error was far worse than the
first. But you was not quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor
astonished parents, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you
shortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.' Wesley's
_Journal_, ii. 39. Mrs. Hall suffered greatly for marrying a wretch who
had so cruelly treated her own sister, Southey's _Wesley_, i. 369.
[300] See _ante_, iii. 269.
[301] The original 'Robinhood' was a debating society which met near
Temple-Bar. Some twenty years before this time Goldsmith belonged to it,
and, it was said, Burke. Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 287, and Prior's
_Burke_, p. 79. The president was a baker by trade. 'Goldsmith, after
hearing him give utterance to a train of strong and ingenious reasoning,
exclaimed to Derrick, "That man was meant by nature for a Lord
Chancellor." Derrick replied, "No, no, not so high; he is only intended
for Master of the _Rolls_."' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 420. Fielding, in
1752, in _The Covent-Garden Journal_, Nos. 8 and 9, takes off this
Society and the baker. A fragment of a report of their discussions which
he pretends to have discovered, begins thus:--'This evenin the questin
at the Robinhood was, whether relidgin was of any youse to a sosyaty;
baken bifor mee To'mmas Whytebred, baker.' Horace Walpole (_Letters_,
iv. 288), in 1764, wrote of the visit of a French gentleman to England,
'He has _seen_ ... Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, the
Robinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, &c.' Romilly
(_Life_, i. 168), in a letter dated May 22, 1781, says that during the
past winter several of these Sunday religious debating societies had
been established. 'The auditors,' he was assured, 'were mostly weak,
well-meaning people, who were inclined to Methodism;' but among the
speakers were 'some designing villains, and a few coxcombs, with more
wit than understanding.' 'Nothing,' he continues, 'could raise up
panegyrists of these societies but what has lately happened, an attempt
to suppress them. The Solicitor-General has brought a bill into
Parliament for this purpose. The bill is drawn artfully enough; for, as
these societies are held on Sundays, and people pay for admittance, he
has joined them with a famous tea-drinking house [Carlisle House],
involving them both in the same fate, and entitling his bill, _A Bill to
regulate certain Abuses and Profanations of the Lord's Day_.' The Bill
was carried; on a division none being found among the Noes but the two
tellers. The penalties for holding a meeting were £200 for the master of
the house, £100 for the moderator of the meeting, and £50 for each of
the servants at the door. _Parl. Hist._ xxii. 262, 279.
[302] _St. Matthew_, xxvii. 52.
[303] I _Corinthians_, xv. 37.
[304] As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may
be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such
discussions, as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, that the
authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, and what he has
frequently denominated _the mysterious_; and therefore took every
opportunity of _leading_ Johnson to converse on such subjects. MALONE.
See _ante_, i. 406.
[305] Macbean (Johnson's old amanuensis, _ante_, i. 187) is not in
Boswell's list of guests; but in the Pemb. Coll. MSS., there is the
following entry on Monday, April 16:--'Yesterday at dinner were Mrs.
Hall, Mr. Levet, Macbean, Boswel (sic), Allen. Time passed in talk after
dinner. At seven, I went with Mrs. Hall to Church, and came back
to tea.'
[306] Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 192) that he said 'a long time
after my poor mother's death, I heard her voice call _Sam_.' She is so
inaccurate that most likely this is merely her version of the story that
Boswell has recorded above. See also _ante_, i. 405. Lord Macaulay made
more of this story of the voice than it could well bear--'Under the
influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his
imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the
town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would
distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his
name. But this was not the worst.' Macaulay's _Writings and Speeches_,
ed. 1871, p. 374.
[307]
'One wife is too much for most
husbands to bear,
But two at a time there's no
mortal can bear.'
Act iii. sc. 4.
[308] 'I think a person who is terrified with the imagination of ghosts
and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports
of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the
traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and
groundless.' _The Spectator_, No. 110.
[309] _St. Matthew_, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53. BOSWELL.
[310] Garrick died on Jan. 20, 1779.
[311] Garrick called her _Nine_, (the Nine Muses). 'Nine,' he said, 'you
are a _Sunday Woman_.' H. More's _Memoirs_, i. 113.
[312] See vol. iii. p. 331. BOSWELL.
[313] See _ante_, ii. 325, note 3.
[314] Boswell is quoting from Johnson's eulogium on Garrick in his _Life
of Edmund Smith. Works_, vii. 380. See _ante_, i. 81.
[315] How fond she and her husband had been is shewn in a letter, in
which, in answer to an invitation, he says:--'As I have not left Mrs.
Garrick one day since we were married, near twenty-eight years, I cannot
now leave her.' _Garrick Corres._ ii. 150. 'Garrick's widow is buried
with him. She survived him forty-three years--"a little bowed-down old
woman, who went about leaning on a gold-headed cane, dressed in deep
widow's mourning, and always talking of her dear Davy." (_Pen and Ink
Sketches_, 1864).' Stanley's _Westminster Abbey_, ed. 1868, p. 305.
[316] _Love's Labour's Lost_, act ii. sc. i.
[317] See _ante_, ii. 461.
[318] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 346) describes Hollis as 'a most
excellent man, a most immaculate Whig, but as simple a poor soul as ever
existed, except his editor, who has given extracts from the good
creature's diary that are very near as anile as Ashmole's. There are
thanks to God for reaching every birthday, ... and thanks to Heaven for
her Majesty's being delivered of a third or fourth prince, and _God send
he may prove a good man_.' See also Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of
George III_, i. 287. Dr. Franklin wrote much more highly of him.
Speaking of what he had done, he said:--'It is prodigious the quantity
of good that may be done by one man, _if he will make a business of
it_.' Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 135.
[319] See p. 77 of this volume. BOSWELL.
[320] See _ante_, iii. 97.
[321] On April 6 of the next year this gentleman, when Secretary of the
Treasury, destroyed himself, overwhelmed, just as Cowper had been, by
the sense of the responsibility of an office which had been thrust upon
him. See Hannah More's _Memoirs_, i. 245, and Walpole's _Letters_,
viii. 206.
[322] 'It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life
affords no matter for a narration; but the truth is, that of the most
studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of
the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another
man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs
and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier, or a statesman; nor
can I conceive why his affairs should not excite curiosity as much as
the whisper of a drawing-room or the factions of a camp.' _The
Idler_, No. 102.
[323] Hannah More wrote of this day (_Memoirs_, i. 212):--'I accused Dr.
Johnson of not having done justice to the _Allegro_ and _Penseroso_. He
spoke disparagingly of both. I praised _Lycidas_, which he absolutely
abused, adding, "if Milton had not written the _Paradise Lost_, he would
have only ranked among the minor Poets. He was a Phidias that could cut
a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of
cherry-stones."' See _post_, June 13, 1784. The _Allegro_ and
_Penseroso_ Johnson described as 'two noble efforts of imagination.' Of
_Lycidas_ he wrote:--'Surely no man could have fancied that he read it
with pleasure, had he not known the author.' _Works_, vii. 121, 2.
[324] Murphy (_Life of Garrick_, p. 374) says 'Shortly after Garrick's
death Johnson was told in a large company, "You are recent from the
_Lives of the Poets_; why not add your friend Garrick to the number?"
Johnson's answer was, "I do not like to be officious; but if Mrs.
Garrick will desire me to do it, I shall be very willing to pay that
last tribute to the memory of a man I loved." 'Murphy adds that he
himself took care that Mrs. Garrick was informed of what Johnson had
said, but that no answer was ever received.
[325] Miss Burney wrote in May:--'Dr. Johnson was charming, both in
spirits and humour. I really think he grows gayer and gayer daily, and
more _ductile_ and pleasant.' In June she wrote:--'I found him in
admirable good-humour, and our journey [to Streatham] was extremely
pleasant. I thanked him for the last batch of his poets, and we talked
them over almost all the way.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 23, 44.
Beattie, a week or two later, wrote:--'Johnson grows in grace as he
grows in years. He not only has better health and a fresher complexion
than ever he had before (at least since I knew him), but he has
contracted a gentleness of manner which pleases everybody.' Beattie's
_Life_, ed. 1824, p. 289.
[326] See _ante_, iii. 65. Wilkes was by this time City Chamberlain. 'I
think I see him at this moment,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 43),
'walking through the crowded streets of the city, as Chamberlain, on his
way to Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military boots, and a bag-wig--the
hackney-coachmen in vain calling out to him, "A coach, your honour."'
[327] See _ante_, ii. 201, for Beattie's _Essay on Truth_.
[328] Thurot, in the winter of 1759-60, with a small squadron made
descents on some of the Hebrides and on the north-eastern coast of
Ireland. In a sea fight off Ireland he was killed and his ships were
taken. _Gent. Mag_. xxx. 107. Horace Walpole says that in the alarm
raised by him in Ireland, 'the bankers there stopped payment.' _Memoirs
of the Reign of George II_, iii. 224.
[329]
'Some for renown on scraps of learning doat,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.'
Young's _Love of Fame_, sat. i. Cumberland (_Memoirs_, ii. 226) says
that Mr. Dilly, speaking of 'the profusion of quotations which some
writers affectedly make use of, observed that he knew a Presbyterian
parson who, for eighteenpence, would furnish any pamphleteer with as
many scraps of Greek and Latin as would pass him off for an
accomplished classic.'
[330] Cowley was quite out of fashion. Richardson (_Corres._ ii. 229)
wrote more than thirty years earlier:--'I wonder Cowley is so absolutely
neglected.' Pope, a dozen years or so before Richardson, asked,
'Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit.'
_Imitations of Horace_, Epis. ii. i. 75.
[331] See _ante_, ii. 58, and iii. 276.
[332] 'There was a club held at the King's Head in Pall Mall that
arrogantly called itself The World. Lord Stanhope (now Lord
Chesterfield) was a member. Epigrams were proposed to be written on the
glasses by each member after dinner. Once when Dr. Young was invited
thither, the doctor would have declined writing because he had no
diamond, Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote immediately--
"_Accept_ a miracle," &c.'
Spence's _Anecdotes_, p. 377. Dr. Maty (_Memoirs of Chesterfield_, i.
227) assigns the lines to Pope, and lays the scene at Lord Cobham's.
Spence, however, gives Young himself as his authority.
[333] 'Aug. 1778. "I wonder," said Mrs. Thrale, "you bear with my
nonsense." "No, madam, you never talk nonsense; you have as much sense
and more wit than any woman I know." "Oh," cried Mrs. Thrale, blushing,
"it is my turn to go under the table this morning, Miss Burney." "And
yet," continued the doctor, with the most comical look, "I have known
all the wits from Mrs. Montagu down to Bet Flint." "Bet Flint!" cried
Mrs. Thrale. "Pray, who is she?" "Oh, a fine character, madam. She was
habitually a slut and a drunkard, and occasionally a thief and a
harlot.... Mrs. Williams," he added, "did not love Bet Flint, but Bet
Flint made herself very easy about that."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,
i. 87, 90.
[334] Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive [see _ante_, i.
39], remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which
have been communicated to me by a young lady of his acquaintance:--
'When first I drew my vital breath,
A little minikin I came upon
earth;
And then I came from a dark
abode,
Into this gay and gaudy world.'
BOSWELL.
[335] The _Sessional Reports of the Old Bailey Trials_ for 1758, p. 278,
contain a report of the trial. The Chief Justice Willes was in the
Commission, but, according to the _Report_, it was before the Recorder
that Bet Flint was tried. It may easily be, however, that either the
reporter or the printer has blundered. It is only by the characters *
and that the trials before the Chief Justice and the Recorder are
distinguished. Bet had stolen not only the counterpane, but five other
articles. The prosecutrix could not prove that the articles were hers,
and not a captain's, whose servant she said she had been, and who was
now abroad. On this ground the prisoner was acquitted. Of Chief Justice
Willes, Horace Walpole writes:--'He was not wont to disguise any of his
passions. That for gaming was notorious; for women unbounded.' He
relates an anecdote of his wit and licentiousness. Walpole's _Reign of
George II_, i. 89. He had been Johnson's schoolfellow (_ante_, i. 45).
[336] Burke is meant. See _ante_, ii. 131, where Johnson said that Burke
spoke too familiarly; and _post_, May 15, 1784, where he said that 'when
Burke lets himself down to jocularity he is in the kennel.'
[337] Wilkes imperfectly recalled to mind the following passage in
Plutarch:--'[Greek: Euphranor ton Thaesea ton heatou to Parrhasiou
parebale, legon tor men ekeinou hroda bebrokenai, tor de eautou krea
boeia.]' 'Euphranor, comparing his own Theseus with Parrhasius's, said
that Parrhasius's had fed on roses, but his on beef.' _Plutarch_, ed.
1839, iii. 423.
[338] Portugal, receiving from Brazil more gold than it needed for home
uses, shipped a large quantity to England. It was said, though probably
with exaggeration, that the weekly packet-boat from Lisbon, brought one
week with another, more than £50,000 in gold to England. Smith's _Wealth
of Nations_, book iv. ch. 6. Portugal pieces were current in our
colonies, and no doubt were commonly sent to them from London. It was
natural therefore that they should be selected for this legal fiction.
[339] See _ante_, ii. III.
[340] 'Whenever the whole of our foreign trade and consumption exceeds
our exportation of commodities, our money must go to pay our debts so
contracted, whether melted or not melted down. If the law makes the
exportation of our coin penal, it will be melted down; if it leaves the
exportation of our coin free, as in Holland, it will be carried out in
specie. One way or other, go it must, as we see in Spain.... Laws made
against exportation of money or bullion will be all in vain. Restraint
or liberty in that matter makes no country rich or poor.' Locke's
_Works_, ed. 1824, iv. 160.
[341] 'Nov. 14, 1779. Mr. Beauclerk has built a library in Great
Russellstreet, that reaches half way to Highgate. Everybody goes to see
it; it has put the Museum's nose quite out of joint.' Walpole's
_Letters_, vii. 273. It contained upwards of 30,000 volumes, and the
sale extended over fifty days. Two days' sale were given to the works on
divinity, including, in the words of the catalogue, 'Heterodox! et
Increduli. Angl. Freethinkers and their opponents.' _Dr. Johnson: His
Friends and His Critics_, p. 315. It sold for £5,011 (ante, in. 420,
note 4). Wilkes's own library--a large one--had been sold in 1764, in a
five days' sale, as is shewn by the _Auctioneer's Catalogue_, which is
in the Bodleian.
[342] 'Our own language has from the Reformation to the present time
been chiefly dignified and adorned by the works of our divines, who,
considered as commentators, controvertists, or preachers, have
undoubtedly left all other nations far behind them.' _The Idler_,
No. 91.
[343] Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English
sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining
faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow's
first volume, and fourteenth sermon, _'Against foolish Talking and
Jesting.'_ My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious
_Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule_, calls it 'a profuse description of
Wit;' but I do not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out
some good circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known,
and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may
receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shall
here subjoin it:--'But first (says the learned preacher) it may be
demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness (or
_wit_ as he calls it before) doth import? To which questions I might
reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man,
"'Tis that which we all see and know." Any one better apprehends what it
is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed,
a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many
postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and
judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain
notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus, or to define the
figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a
known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in
forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases,
taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of
their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression:
sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it is lodged in
a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd
intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection:
sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in
a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling
of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical
representation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a mimical
look or gesture, passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity,
sometimes a presumptuous bluntness giveth it being: sometimes it riseth
only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange: sometimes from a crafty
wresting obvious matter to the purpose. Often it consisteth in one knows
not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are
unaccountable, and inexplicable; being answerable to the numberless
rovings of fancy, and windings of language. It is, in short, a manner of
speaking out of the simple and plain way, (such as reason teacheth and
proveth things by,) which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit
or expression, doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some
wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as
signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of
invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar; it
seeming to argue a rare quickness of parts, that one can fetch in remote
conceits applicable; a notable skill, that he can dextrously accommodate
them to the purpose before him; together with a lively briskness of
humour, not apt to damp those sportful flashes of imagination. (Whence
in Aristotle such persons are termed [Greek: _hepidexioi_], dextrous men,
and [Greek: _eustrophoi_], men of facile or versatile manners, who can
easily turn themselves to all things, or turn all things to themselves.)
It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness, as
semblance of difficulty: (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their
rarity; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness,
are beheld with pleasure:) by diverting the mind from its road of
serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by
provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or
complaisance; and by seasoning matters, otherwise distasteful or
insipid, with an unusual and thence grateful tang.' BOSWELL. Morris's
_Essay_ was published in 1744. Hume wrote:--'Pray do you not think
that a proper dedication may atone for what is objectionable in my
Dialogues'! I am become much of my friend Corbyn Morrice's mind, who
says that he writes all his books for the sake of the dedications.' J.
H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 147.
[344] The quarrel arose from the destruction by George II. of George
I.'s will (_ante_, ii. 342). The King of Prussia, Frederick the Great,
was George I.'s grandson. 'Vague rumours spoke of a large legacy to the
Queen of Prussia [Frederick's mother]. Of that bequest demands were
afterwards said to have been frequently and roughly made by her son, the
great King of Prussia, between whom and his uncle subsisted much
inveteracy.' Walpole's _Letters_, i. cxx.
[345] When I mentioned this to the Bishop of Killaloe, 'With the goat,'
said his Lordship. Such, however, is the engaging politeness and
pleasantry of Mr. Wilkes, and such the social good humour of the Bishop,
that when they dined together at Mr. Dilly's, where I also was, they
were mutually agreeable. BOSWELL. It was not the lion, but the leopard,
that shall lie down with the kid. _Isaiah_, xi. 6.
[346] Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet, authour of tracts relating to natural
history, &c. BOSWELL.
[347] Mrs. Montagu, so early as 1757, wrote of Mr. Stillingfleet:--'I
assure you our philosopher is so much a man of pleasure, he has left off
his old friends and his blue stockings, and is at operas and other gay
assemblies every night.' Montagu's _Letters_, iv. 117.
[348] See _ante_, in. 293, note 5.
[349] Miss Burney thus describes her:--'She is between thirty and
forty, very short, very fat, but handsome; splendidly and fantastically
dressed, rouged not unbecomingly yet evidently, and palpably desirous of
gaining notice and admiration. She has an easy levity in her air,
manner, voice, and discourse, that speak (sic) all within to be
comfortable.... She is one of those who stand foremost in collecting all
extraordinary or curious people to her London conversaziones, which,
like those of Mrs. Vesey, mix the rank and the literature, and exclude
all beside.... Her parties are the most brilliant in town.' Miss Burney
then describes one of these parties, at which were present Johnson,
Burke, and Reynolds. 'The company in general were dressed with more
brilliancy than at any rout I ever was at, as most of them were going to
the Duchess of Cumberland's.' Miss Burney herself was 'surrounded by
strangers, all dressed superbly, and all looking saucily.... Dr. Johnson
was standing near the fire, and environed with listeners.' Mme.
D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 179, 186, 190. Leslie wrote of Lady Corke in
1834 (_Autobiographical Recollections_, i. 137, 243):--'Notwithstanding
her great age, she is very animated. The old lady, who was a lion-hunter
in her youth, is as much one now as ever.' She ran after a Boston negro
named Prince Saunders, who 'as he put his Christian name "Prince" on his
cards without the addition of Mr., was believed to be a native African
prince, and soon became a lion of the first magnitude in fashionable
circles.' She died in 1840.
[350] 'A lady once ventured to ask Dr. Johnson how he liked Yorick's
[Sterne's] _Sermons_. "I know nothing about them, madam," was his reply.
But some time afterwards, forgetting himself, he severely censured them.
The lady retorted:--"I understood you to say, Sir, that you had never
read them." "No, Madam, I did read them, but it was in a stage-coach; I
should not have even deigned to look at them had I been at large."
Cradock's _Memoirs_, p. 208.
[351] See _ante_, iii. 382, note 1.
[352] Next day I endeavoured to give what had happened the most
ingenious turn I could, by the following verses:--
To THE HONOURABLE Miss MONCKTON.
'Not that with th' excellent Montrose
I had the happiness to dine;
Not that I late from table rose,
From Graham's wit, from generous wine.
It was not these alone which led
On sacred manners to encroach;
And made me feel what most I dread,
JOHNSON'S just frown, and self-reproach.
But when I enter'd, not abash'd,
From your bright eyes were shot such rays,
At once intoxication flash'd,
And all my frame was in a blaze.
But not a brilliant blaze I own,
Of the dull smoke I'm yet asham'd;
I was a dreary ruin grown,
And not enlighten'd though inflam'd.
Victim at once to wine and love,
I hope, MARIA, you'll forgive;
While I invoke the powers above,
That henceforth I may wiser live.'
The lady was generously forgiving, returned me an obliging answer, and I
thus obtained an _Act of Oblivion_, and took care never to offend
again. BOSWELL.
[353] See _ante_, ii. 436, and iv. 88, note I.
[354] On May 22 Horace Walpole wrote (_Letters_, viii. 44):--'Boswell,
that quintessence of busybodies, called on me last week, and was let in,
which he should not have been, could I have foreseen it. After tapping
many topics, to which I made as dry answers as an unbribed oracle, he
vented his errand. "Had I seen Dr. Johnson's _Lives of the Poets_?" I
said slightly, "No, not yet;" and so overlaid his whole impertinence.'
[355] See _ante_, iii. 1.
[356] See _ante_, ii. 47, note 2; 352, note I; and iii. 376, for
explanations of like instances of Boswell's neglect.
[357] See _ante_, i. 298, note 4.
[358] 'He owned he sometimes talked for victory.' Boswell's _Hebrides_,
opening pages.
[359] The late Right Hon. William Gerard Hamilton. MALONE.
[360] Dr. Johnson, being told of a man who was thankful for being
introduced to him, 'as he had been convinced in a long dispute that an
opinion which he had embraced as a settled truth was no better than a
vulgar error, "Nay," said he, "do not let him be thankful, for he was
right, and I was wrong." Like his Uncle Andrew in the ring at
Smithfield, Johnson, in a circle of disputants, was determined neither
to be thrown nor conquered.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 139. Johnson, in
_The Adventurer_, No. 85, seems to describe his own talk. He writes:--'
While the various opportunities of conversation invite us to try every
mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, we are
frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in themselves strictly
defensible; a man heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage
of the mistakes or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of concessions
to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on
his opponent, though he knows himself that they have no force.' J. S.
Mill gives somewhat the same account of his own father. 'I am inclined
to think,' he writes, 'that he did injustice to his own opinions by the
unconscious exaggerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and
that when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing to make
room for a great portion of the truths he seemed to deny.' Mill's
_Autobiography_, p. 201. See also _ante_, ii. 100, 450, in. 23, 277,
331; and _post_, May 18, 1784, and Steevens's account of Johnson just
before June 22, 1784.
[361] Thomas Shaw, D.D., author of _Travels to Barbary and the Levant_.
[362] See ante, iii. 314.
[363] The friend very likely was Boswell himself. He was one of 'these
_tanti_ men.' 'I told Paoli that in the very heat of youth I felt the
_nom est tanti_, the _omnia vanitas_ of one who has exhausted all the
sweets of his being, and is weary with dull repetition. I told him that
I had almost become for ever incapable of taking a part in active life.'
Boswell's _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 193.
[364] _Letters on the English Nation: By Batista Angeloni, a Jesuit, who
resided many years in London. Translated from the original Italian by
the Author of the Marriage Act. A Novel_. 2 vols. London [no printer's
name given], 1755. Shebbeare published besides six _Letters to the
People of England_ in the years 1755-7, for the last of which he was
sentenced to the pillory. _Ante_, iii. 315, note I. Horace Walpole
(_Letters_, iii. 74) described him in 1757 as 'a broken Jacobite
physician, who has threatened to write himself into a place or
the pillory.'
[365] I recollect a ludicrous paragraph in the newspapers, that the King
had pensioned both a _He_-bear and a _She_-bear. BOSWELL. See _ante_,
ii. 66, and _post_, April 28, 1783.
[366]
Witness, ye chosen train
Who breathe the sweets of his Saturnian reign;
Witness ye Hills, ye Johnsons, Scots, Shebbeares,
Hark to my call, for some of you have ears.'
_Heroic Epistle_. See _post_, under June 16, 1784.
[367] In this he was unlike the King, who, writes Horace Walpole,'
expecting only an attack on Chambers, bought it to tease, and began
reading it to, him; but, finding it more bitter on himself, flung it
down on the floor in a passion, and would read no more.' _Journal of the
Reign of George III_, i. 187.
[368] They were published in 1773 in a pamphlet of 16 pages, and, with
the good fortune that attends a muse in the peerage, reached a third
edition in the year. To this same earl the second edition of Byron's
_Hours of Idleness_ was 'dedicated by his obliged ward and affectionate
kinsman, the author.' In _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, he is
abused in the passage which begins:--
'No muse will cheer with renovating smile,
The paralytic puling of Carlisle.'
In a note Byron adds:--'The Earl of Carlisle has lately published an
eighteen-penny pamphlet on the state of the stage, and offers his plan
for building a new theatre. It is to be hoped his lordship will be
permitted to bring forward anything for the stage--except his own
tragedies.' In the third canto of _Childe Harold_ Byron makes amends. In
writing of the death of Lord Carlisle's youngest son at Waterloo,
he says:--
'Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine;
Yet one I would select from that proud throng,
Partly because they blend me with his line,
And partly that I did his Sire some wrong.'
For his lordship's tragedy see _post_, under Nov. 19, 1783.
[369] Men of rank and fortune, however, should be pretty well assured of
having a real claim to the approbation of the publick, as writers,
before they venture to stand forth. Dryden, in his preface to _All for
Love_, thus expresses himself:--
'Men of pleasant conversation (at least esteemed so) and endued with a
trifling kind of fancy, perhaps helped out by [with] a smattering of
Latin, are ambitious to distinguish themselves from the herd of
gentlemen, by their poetry:
_"Rarus enim fermè sensus communis in ilia
Fortuna,"----[Juvenal_, viii. 73.]
And is not this a wretched affectation, not to be contented with what
fortune has done for them, and sit down quietly with their estates, but
they must call their wits in question, and needlessly expose their
nakedness to publick view? Not considering that they are not to expect
the same approbation from sober men, which they have found from their
flatterers after the third bottle: If a little glittering in discourse
has passed them on us for witty men, where was the necessity of
undeceiving the world? Would a man who has an ill title to an estate,
but yet is in possession of it, would he bring it of his own accord to
be tried at Westminster? We who write, if we want the talents [talent],
yet have the excuse that we do it for a poor subsistence; but what can
be urged in their defence, who, not having the vocation of poverty to
scribble, out of mere wantonness take pains to make themselves
ridiculous? Horace was certainly in the right where he said, "That no
man is satisfied with his own condition." A poet is not pleased, because
he is not rich; and the rich are discontented because the poets will not
admit them of their number.' BOSWELL. Boswell, it should seem, had
followed Swift's advice:--
'Read all the prefaces of Dryden,
For these our critics much confide in;
Though merely writ at first for filling,
To raise the volume's price a shilling.'
Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 293.
[370] See _ante_, i. 402.
[371] Wordsworth, it should seem, held with Johnson in this. When he
read the article in the _Edinburgh Review_ on Lord Byron's early poems,
he remarked that 'though Byron's verses were probably poor enough, yet
such an attack was abominable,--that a young nobleman, who took to
poetry, deserved to be encouraged, not ridiculed.' Rogers's
_Table-Talk_, p. 234, note.
[372] Dr. Barnard, formerly Dean of Derry. See _ante_, iii. 84.
[373] This gave me very great pleasure, for there had been once a pretty
smart altercation between Dr. Barnard and him, upon a question, whether
a man could improve himself after the age of forty-five; when Johnson in
a hasty humour, expressed himself in a manner not quite civil. Dr.
Barnard made it the subject of a copy of pleasant verses, in which he
supposed himself to learn different perfections from different men. They
concluded with delicate irony:--
'Johnson shall teach me how to place
In fairest light each borrow'd grace;
From him I'll learn to write;
Copy his clear familiar style,
And by the roughness of his file
Grow, like _himself, polite_.'
I know not whether Johnson ever saw the poem, but I had occasion to find
that as Dr. Barnard and he knew each other better, their mutual regard
increased. BOSWELL. See Appendix A.
[374] See _ante_, ii. 357, iii. 309, and _post_, March 23, 1783.
[375] 'Sir Joshua once asked Lord B---- to dine with Dr. Johnson and the
rest, but though a man of rank and also of good information, he seemed
as much alarmed at the idea as if you had tried to force him into one of
the cages at Exeter-Change.' Hazlitt's _Conversations of Northcote_,
p. 41.
[376] Yet when he came across them he met with much respect. At Alnwick
he was, he writes, 'treated with great civility by the Duke of
Northumberland.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 108. At Inverary, the Duke and
Duchess of Argyle shewed him great attention. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct.
25. In fact, all through his Scotch tour he was most politely welcomed
by 'the great.' At Chatsworth, he was 'honestly pressed to stay' by the
Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (_post_, Sept. 9, 1784). See _ante_, iii.
21. On the other hand, Mrs. Barbauld says:--'I believe it is true that
in England genius and learning obtain less personal notice than in most
other parts of Europe.' She censures 'the contemptuous manner in which
Lady Wortley Montagu mentioned Richardson:--"The doors of the Great,"
she says, "were never opened to him."' _Richardson Corres._ i. clxxiv.
[377] When Lord Elibank was seventy years old, he wrote:--'I shall be
glad to go five hundred miles to enjoy a day of his company.' Boswell's
_Hebrides_, Sept. 12.
[378] _Romans_, x. 2.
[379] I _Peter_, iii. 15.
[380] Horace Walpole wrote three years earlier:--' Whig principles are
founded on sense; a Whig may be a fool, a Tory must be so.'
_Letters_, vii. 88.
[381] Mr. Barclay, a descendant of Robert Barclay, of Ury, the
celebrated apologist of the people called Quakers, and remarkable for
maintaining the principles of his venerable progenitor, with as much of
the elegance of modern manners, as is consistent with primitive
simplicity, BOSWELL.
[382] Now Bishop of Llandaff, one of the _poorest_ Bishopricks in this
kingdom. His Lordship has written with much zeal to show the propriety
of _equalizing_ the revenues of Bishops. He has informed us that he has
burnt all his chemical papers. The friends of our excellent
constitution, now assailed on every side by innovators and levellers,
would have less regretted the suppression of some of this Lordship's
other writings. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to _A Letter to the Archbishop
of Canterbury by Richard, Lord Bishop of Landaff_, 1782. If the revenues
were made more equal, 'the poorer Bishops,' the Bishop writes, 'would be
freed from the necessity of holding ecclesiastical preferments _in
commendam_ with their Bishopricks,' p. 8.
[383] De Quincey says that Sir Humphry Davy told him, 'that he could
scarcely imagine a time, or a condition of the science, in which the
Bishop's _Essays_ would be superannuated.' De Quincey's _Works_, ii.
106. De Quincey describes the Bishop as being 'always a discontented
man, a railer at the government and the age, which could permit such as
his to pine away ingloriously in one of the humblest among the
Bishopricks.' _Ib_. p. 107. He was, he adds, 'a true Whig,' and would
have been made Archbishop of York had his party staid in power a little
longer in 1807.'
[384] _Rasselas_, chap. xi.
[385] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30.
[386] 'They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden.'
_Genesis_, iii. 8.
[387]
... 'Vivendi recte qui prorogat horam,
Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis; at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.'
'And sure the man who has it in his power
To practise virtue, and protracts the hour,
Waits like the rustic till the river dried;
Still glides the river, and will ever glide.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Epist_. i. 2. 41.
[388] See _ante_, p. 59.
[389] See _ante_, iii. 251.
[390] See _ante_, iii. 136.
[391] This assertion is disproved by a comparison of dates. The first
four satires of Young were published in 1725; The South Sea scheme
(which appears to be meant,) was in 1720. MALONE. In Croft's _Life of
Young_, which Johnson adopted, it is stated:--'By the _Universal
Passion_ he acquired no vulgar fortune, more than £3000. A considerable
sum had already been swallowed up in the South Sea.' Johnson's _Works_,
viii. 430. Some of Young's poems were published before 1720.
[392] Crabbe got Johnson to revise his poem, _The Village_ (_post_,
under March 23, 1783). He states, that 'the Doctor did not readily
comply with requests for his opinion; not from any unwillingness to
oblige, but from a painful contention in his mind between a desire of
giving pleasure and a determination to speak truth.' Crabbe's _Works_,
ii. 12. See _ante_, ii. 51, 195, and iii. 373.
[393] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 390. See _ante_, iii. 6, note 2.
[394] He had within the last seven weeks gone up drunk, at least twice,
to a lady's drawing-room. _Ante_, pp. 88, note 1, and 109.
[395] Mr. Croker, though without any authority, prints _unconscious_.
[396] I Corinthians, ix. 27. See _ante_, 295.
[397] 'We walk by faith, not by sight.' 2 Corinthians, v. 7
[398] Dr. Ogden, in his second sermon _On the Articles of the Christian
Faith_, with admirable acuteness thus addresses the opposers of that
Doctrine, which accounts for the confusion, sin and misery, which we
find in this life: 'It would be severe in GOD, you think, to _degrade_
us to such a sad state as this, for the offence of our first parents:
but you can allow him to _place_ us in it without any inducement. Are
our calamities lessened for not being ascribed to Adam? If your
condition be unhappy, is it not still unhappy, whatever was the
occasion? with the aggravation of this reflection, that if it was as
good as it was at first designed, there seems to be somewhat the less
reason to look for its amendment.' BOSWELL.
[399] 'Which taketh away the sin' &c. St. John, i. 29.
[400] See Boswell's Hebrides, August 22.
[401] This unfortunate person, whose full name was Thomas Fysche Palmer,
afterwards went to Dundee, in Scotland, where he officiated as minister
to a congregation of the sect who called themselves _Unitarians_, from a
notion that they distinctively worship ONE GOD, because they _deny_ the
mysterious doctrine of the TRINITY. They do not advert that the great
body of the Christian Church, in maintaining that mystery, maintain also
the _Unity_ of the GODHEAD; the 'TRINITY in UNITY!--three persons and
ONE GOD.' The Church humbly adores the DIVINITY as exhibited in the holy
Scriptures. The Unitarian sect vainly presumes to comprehend and define
the ALMIGHTY. Mr. Palmer having heated his mind with political
speculations, became so much dissatisfied with our excellent
Constitution, as to compose, publish, and circulate writings, which were
found to be so seditious and dangerous, that upon being found guilty by
a Jury, the Court of Justiciary in Scotland sentenced him to
transportation for fourteen years. A loud clamour against this sentence
was made by some Members of both Houses of Parliament; but both Houses
approved of it by a great majority; and he was conveyed to the
settlement for convicts in New South Wales. BOSWELL. This note first
appears in the third edition. Mr. Palmer was sentenced to seven (not
fourteen) years transportation in Aug. 1793. It was his fellow prisoner,
Mr. Muir, an advocate, who was sentenced to fourteen years. _Ann. Reg._
1793, p. 40. When these sentences were brought before the House of
Commons, Mr. Fox said that it was 'the Lord-Advocate's fervent wish that
his native principles of justice should be introduced into this country;
and that on the ruins of the common law of England should be erected the
infamous fabric of Scottish persecution. ... If that day should ever
arrive, if the tyrannical laws of Scotland should ever be introduced in
opposition to the humane laws of England, it would then be high time for
my hon. friends and myself to settle our affairs, and retire to some
happier clime, where we might at least enjoy those rights which God has
given to man, and which his nature tells him he has a right to demand.'
_Parl. Hist._ xxx. 1563. For _Unitarians_, see _ante_, ii. 408, note I.
[402] Taken from Herodotus. [Bk. ii. ch. 104.] BOSWELL.
[403] 'The mummies,' says Blakesley, 'have straight hair, and in the
paintings the Egyptians are represented as red, not black.' _Ib_. note.
[404] See _ante_, i. 441, and _post_, March 28, and June 3, 1782.
[405] Mr. Dawkins visited Palmyra in 1751. He had 'an escort of the Aga
of Hassia's best Arab horsemen.' Johnson was perhaps astonished at the
size of their caravan, 'which was increased to about 200 persons.' The
writer treats the whole matter with great brevity. Wood's _Ruins of
Palmyra_, p. 33. On their return the travellers discovered a party of
Arab horsemen, who gave them an alarm. Happily these Arabs were still
more afraid of them, and were at once plundered by the escort, 'who
laughed at our remonstrances against their injustice.' Wood's _Ruins of
Balbec_, p. 2.
[406] He wrote a _Life of Watts_, which Johnson quoted. _Works_, viii.
382.
[407] See _ante_, iii. 422, note 6.
[408] In the first two editions _formal_.
[409] Johnson maintains this in _The Idler_, No. 74. 'Few,' he says,
'have reason to complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of
memory ... The true art of memory is the art of attention.' See
_ante_, iii. 191.
[410]The first of the definitions given by Johnson of _to remember_ is
_to bear in mind anything; not to forget. To recollect_ he defines _to
recover to memory_. We may, perhaps, assume that Boswell said, 'I did
not recollect that the chair was broken;' and that Johnson replied, 'you
mean, you did not remember. That you did not remember is your own fault.
It was in your mind that it was broken, and therefore you ought to have
remembered it. It was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that
is, recover to memory, what is not in our mind.' In the passage _ante_,
i. 112, which begins, 'I indeed doubt if he could have remembered,' we
find in the first two editions not _remembered_, but _recollected_.
Perhaps this change is due to euphony, as _collected_ comes a few lines
before. Horace Walpole, in one of his _Letters_ (i. 15), distinguishes
the two words, on his revisiting his old school, Eton:--'By the way, the
clock strikes the old cracked sound--I recollect so much, and remember
so little.'
[411] He made the same boast at St. Andrews. See Boswell's _Hebrides_,
Aug. 19. He was, I believe, speaking of his translation of Courayer's
_Life of Paul Sarpi and Notes_, of which some sheets were printed off.
_Ante_, i. 135.
[412] Horace Walpole, after mentioning that George III's mother, who
died in 1772, left but £27,000 when she was reckoned worth at least
£300,000, adds:--'It is no wonder that it became the universal belief
that she had wasted all on Lord Bute. This became still more probable as
he had made the purchase of the estate at Luton, at the price of
£114,000, before he was visibly worth £20,000; had built a palace there,
another in town, and had furnished the former in the most expensive
manner, bought pictures and books, and made a vast park and lake.'
_Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 19.
[413] To him Boswell dedicated his _Thesis_ as _excelsae familiae de
Bute spei alterae_ (_ante_, ii. 20). In 1775, he wrote of him:--'He is
warmly my friend and has engaged to do for me.' _Letters of Boswell_,
p. 186
[414] He was mistaken in this. See _ante_, i. 260; also iii. 420.
[415] In England in like manner, and perhaps for the same reason, all
Attorneys have been converted into Solicitors.
[416] 'There is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of errand boys,
called Cawdies, who ply in the streets at night with paper lanthorns,
and are very serviceable in carrying messages.' _Humphrey Clinker_.
Letter of Aug. 8.
[417] Their services in this sense are noticed in the same letter.
[418]
'The formal process shall be turned to sport,
And you dismissed with honour by the Court.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, ii.i.86.
[419] Mr. Robertson altered this word to _jocandi_, he having found in
Blackstone that to irritate is actionable. BOSWELL.
[420] Quoted by Johnson, _ante_, ii. l97.
[421] His god-daughter. See _post_ May 10, 1784.
[422] See _post_, under Dec. 20, 1782
[423] See _ante_, i. 155
[424] The will of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the
original Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the
expense of the University of Oxford. BOSWELL.
[425] He was a surgeon in this small Norfolk town. Dr. Burney's
_Memoirs_, i. 106.
[426] Burney visited Johnson first in 1758, when he was living in Gough
Square. _Ante_, i. 328.
[427] Mme. D'Arblay says that Dr. Johnson sent them to Dr. Burney's
house, directed 'For the Broom Gentleman.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_,
ii. 180.
[428] 'Sept. 14, 1781. Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed. Once I
was quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange
discipline--starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time half
demolished by its severity, he always in the end rises superior both to
the disease and the remedy, which commonly is the most alarming of the
two.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 107. On Sept. 18, his birthday, he
wrote:--'As I came home [from church], 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
Levett.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 199.
[429] This remark, I have no doubt, is aimed at Hawkins, who (_Life_, p.
553) pretends to account for this trip.
[430] _Pr. and Med._ p. 201. BOSWELL.
[431] He wrote from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27:--'All here is
gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful
confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is
most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 209.
[432] The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. BOSWELL. Mrs.
Boswell died June 4, 1789. MALONE.
[433] See account of him in the _Gent. Mag_. Feb. 1785. BOSWELL, see
ante, i. 243, note 3.
[434] Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 79), quoting this verse, under
_Officious_, says;--'Johnson, always thinking neglect the worst
misfortune that could befall a man, looked on a character of this
description with less aversion than I do.'
[435]
'Content thyself to be _obscurely good_.'
Addisons _Cato_, act. iv. sc. 4.
[436] In both editions of Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Dr. Johnson_,
'letter'd _ignorance_' is printed. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker (_Boswell_, p. I)
says that 'Mr. Boswell is habitually unjust to Sir J. Hawkins.' As some
kind of balance, I suppose, to this injustice, he suppresses this note.
[437] Johnson repeated this line to me thus:--
'And Labour steals an hour to die.'
But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. This poem
is printed in the _Ann. Reg_. for 1783, p. 189, with the following
variations:--l. 18, for 'ready help' 'useful care': l. 28, 'His single
talent,' 'The single talent'; l. 33, 'no throbs of fiery pain,' 'no
throbbing fiery pain'; l. 36, 'and freed,' 'and forced.' On the next
page it is printed _John Gilpin_.
[438] Mr. Croker says that this line shows that 'some of Gray's happy
expressions lingered in Johnson's memory' He quotes a line that comes at
the end of the _Ode on Vicissitude_--'From busy day, the peaceful
night.' This line is not Gray's, but Mason's.
[439] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'If you want
events, Here is Mr. Levett just come in at fourscore from a walk to
Hampstead, eight miles, in August.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177.
[440] In the original, _March_ 20. On the afternoon of March 20 Lord
North announced in the House of Commons 'that his Majesty's Ministers
were no more.' _Parl. Hist_. xxii. 1215.
[441] _Pr. and Med_. p. 209 [207]. BOSWELL.
[442] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, iv. 81, 100. Mr. Seward records in
his _Biographiana_, p. 600--without however giving the year--that
'Johnson being asked what the Opposition meant by their flaming speeches
and violent pamphlets against Lord North's administration, answered:
"They mean, Sir, rebellion; they mean in spite to destroy that country
which they are not permitted to govern."'
[443] In the previous December the City of London in an address, writes
Horace Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and
_private_ counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable
words:--_"Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your
navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost."_ Words that could be
used to no other King; no King had ever lost so much without losing all.
If James II. lost his crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.' _Journal
of the Reign of George III_, ii. 483. The address is given in the _Ann.
Reg._ xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr.
Taylor:--'Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so
much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish,
having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should
say we will have a King and ally ourselves with the House of Bourbon,
what could be done to hinder or overthrow them?' Mr. Morrison's
_Autographs_, vol. ii.
[444] In February and March, 1771, the House of Commons ordered eight
printers to attend at the bar on a charge of breach of privilege, in
publishing reports of debates. One of the eight, Miller of the _Evening
Post_, when the messenger of the House tried to arrest him, gave the man
himself into custody on a charge of assault. The messenger was brought
before Lord Mayor Crosby and Aldermen Wilkes and Oliver, and a warrant
was made out for his commitment. Bail was thereupon offered and accepted
for his appearance at the next sessions. The Lord Mayor and Oliver were
sent to the Tower by the House. Wilkes was ordered to appear on April 8;
but the Ministry, not daring to face his appearance, adjourned the House
till the 9th. A committee was appointed by ballot to inquire into the
late obstructions to the execution of the orders of the House. It
recommended the consideration of the expediency of the House ordering
that Miller should be taken into custody. The report, when read, was
received with a roar of laughter. Nothing was done. Such was, to quote
the words of Burke in the _Annual Register_ (xiv. 70), 'the miserable
result of all the pretended vigour of the Ministry.' See _Parl. Hist._
xvii. 58, 186.
[445] Lord Cornwallis's army surrendered at York Town, five days before
Sir Henry Clinton's fleet and army arrived off the Chesapeak. _Ann.
Reg._ xxiv. 136.
[446] Johnson wrote on March 30:--'The men have got in whom I have
endeavoured to keep out; but I hope they will do better than their
predecessors; it will not be easy to do worse.' Croker's _Boswell_,
p. 706.
[447] This note was in answer to one which accompanied one of the
earliest pamphlets on the subject of Chatterton's forgery, entitled
_Cursory Observations on the Poems attributed to Thomas Rowley_, &c. Mr.
Thomas Warton's very able _Inquiry_ appeared about three months
afterwards; and Mr. Tyrwhitt's admirable _Vindication of his Appendix_
in the summer of the same hear, left the believers in this daring
imposture nothing but 'the resolution to say again what had been said
before.' MALONE.
[448] _Pr. and Med._ p. 207. BOSWELL.
[449] He addressed to him an Ode in Latin, entitled _Ad Thomam Laurence,
medicum doctissimum, quum filium peregre agentem desiderio nimis tristi
prosequeretur. Works_, i. 165.
[450] Mr. Holder, in the Strand, Dr. Johnson's apothecary. BOSWELL.
[451] 'Johnson should rather have written "imperatum est." But the
meaning of the words is perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the messenger
has orders to bring Holder to me." Mr. Croker translates the words as
follows:-"If you consent, pray tell the messenger to bring Holder to
me." If Mr. Croker is resolved to write on points of classical learning,
we would advise him to begin by giving an hour every morning to our old
friend Corderius.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, i 366. In _The Answers
to Mr. Macaulay's Criticism_, prefixed to Croker's _Boswell_, p. 13, it
is suggested that Johnson wrote either _imperetur_ or _imperator_. The
letter may be translated: 'A fresh chill, a fresh cough, and a fresh
difficulty in breathing call for a fresh letting of blood. Without your
advice, however, I would not submit to the operation. I cannot well come
to you, nor need you come to me. Say yes or no in one word, and leave
the rest to Holder and to me. If you say yes, let the messenger be
bidden (imperetur) to bring Holder to me. May 1, 1782. When _you_ have
left, whither shall I turn?'
[452] Soon after the above letter, Dr. Lawrence left London, but not
before the palsy had made so great a progress as to render him unable to
write for himself. The folio wing are extracts from letters addressed by
Dr. Johnson to one of his daughters:--
'You will easily believe with what gladness I read that you had heard
once again that voice to which we have all so often delighted to attend.
May you often hear it. If we had his mind, and his tongue, we could
spare the rest.
'I am not vigorous, but much better than when dear Dr. Lawrence held my
pulse the last time. Be so kind as to let me know, from one little
interval to another, the state of his body. I am pleased that he
remembers me, and hope that it never can be possible for me to forget
him. July 22, 1782.'
'I am much delighted even with the small advances which dear Dr.
Lawrence makes towards recovery. If we could have again but his mind,
and his tongue in his mind, and his right hand, we should not much
lament the rest. I should not despair of helping the swelled hand by
electricity, if it were frequently and diligently supplied.
'Let me know from time to time whatever happens; and I hope I need not
tell you, how much I am interested in every change. Aug. 26, 1782.'
'Though the account with which you favoured me in your last letter could
not give me the pleasure that I wished, yet I was glad to receive it;
for my affection to my dear friend makes me desirous of knowing his
state, whatever it be. I beg, therefore, that you continue to let me
know, from time to time, all that you observe.
'Many fits of severe illness have, for about three months past, forced
my kind physician often upon my mind. I am now better; and hope
gratitude, as well as distress, can be a motive to remembrance.
Bolt-court, Fleet-street, Feb. 4, 1783.' BOSWELL.
[453] Mr. Langton being at this time on duty at Rochester, he is
addressed by his military title. BOSWELL.
[454] Eight days later he recorded:--'I have in ten days written to
Aston, Lucy, Hector, Langton, Boswell; perhaps to all by whom my letters
are desired.' _Pr. and Med._ 209. He had written also to Mrs. Thrale,
but her affection, it should seem from this, he was beginning to doubt.
[455] See _ante_, p. 84.
[456] See _ante_, i. 247.
[457] See _post_, p. 158, note 4.
[458] Johnson has here expressed a sentiment similar to that contained
in one of Shenstone's stanzas, to which, in his life of that poet, he
has given high praise:--
'I prized every hour that went by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are gone [past] and I sigh,
I grieve that I prized them no more.'