Chapter XXVIII: Letter IV: 'sir, (8)

[1055] 'He raised,' says Hawkins (_Life_, p. 236), 'the medical character to such a height of dignity as was never seen in this or any other country. I have heard it said that when he began to practise, he was a frequenter of the meeting at Stepney where his father preached; and that when he was sent for out of the assembly, his father would in his prayer insert a petition in behalf of the sick person. I once mentioned this to Johnson, who said it was too gross for belief; but it was not so at Batson's [a coffee-house frequented by physicians]; it passed there as a current belief.' See _ante_, i. 159. Young has introduced him in the second of his _Night Thoughts_--

'That time is mine, O Mead, to thee I owe; Fain would I pay thee with eternity.'

Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 260) says 'that he had nothing but pretensions.'

[1056] On Oct. 17, 1777, Burgoyne's army surrendered to the Americans at Saratoga. One of the articles of the Convention was 'that the army should march out of the camp with all the honours of war to a fixed place where they were to deposit their arms. It is said that General Gates [the American Commander] paid so nice and delicate an attention to the British military honour that he kept his army close within their lines, and did not suffer an American soldier to be a witness to the degrading spectacle of piling their arms.' _Ann. Reg_. xx. 173, 174. Horace Walpole, on Lord Cornwallis's capitulation in 1781, wrote:--'The newspapers on the Court side had been crammed with paragraphs for a fortnight, saying that Lord Cornwallis had declared he would never pile up his arms like Burgoyne; that is, he would rather die sword in hand.' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 475.

[1057] See _ante_, i. 342.

[1058] There was a Colonel Fullarton who took an important part in the war against Tippoo in 1783. Mill's _British India_, ed. 1840, iv. 276.

[1059] 'To count is a modern practice, the ancient method was to guess; and when numbers are guessed, they are always magnified.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 95.

[1060] He published in 1714 _An Account of Switzerland_.

[1061] See _ante_, ii. 468.

[1062] See Appendix C.

[1063] 'All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future which has not been given us. They are, I think, a crime, because they resign that life to chance which God has given us to be regulated by reason; and superinduce a kind of fatality, from which it is the great privilege of our nature to be free.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 83. Johnson (_Works_, vii. 52) praises the 'just and noble thoughts' in Cowley's lines which begin:--

'Where honour or where conscience does not bind,
No other law shall shackle me;
Slave to myself I ne'er will be;
Nor shall my future actions be confined
By my own present mind.'

See _ante_, ii. 21.

[1064] Juvenal, _Sat_. iii. 78. Imitated by Johnson in _London_.

[1065] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 16, and Johnson's _Tour into Wales_, Aug. 1, 1774.

[1066] The slip of paper on which he made the correction, is deposited by me in the noble library to which it relates, and to which I have presented other pieces of his hand-writing. BOSWELL. In substituting _burns_ he resumes the reading of the first edition, in which the former of the two couplets ran:--

'Resistless burns the fever of renown, Caught from the strong contagion of the gown.'

'The slip of paper and the other pieces of Johnson's hand-writing' have been lost. At all events they are not in the Bodleian.

[1067] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 76), criticising Milton's scheme of education, says:--'Those authors therefore are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, and historians. Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic or paradoxical; for if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on my side. It was his labour to turn philosophy from the study of nature to speculations upon life; but the innovators whom I oppose are turning off attention from life to nature. They seem to think that we are placed here to watch the growth of plants, or the motions of the stars. Socrates was rather of opinion that what we had to learn was how to do good and avoid evil. "[Greek: hotti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetuktai]."'

[1068] 'His ear was well-tuned, and his diction was elegant and copious, but his devotional poetry is, like that of others, unsatisfactory. The paucity of its topicks enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction. It is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others what no man has done well.' _Ib_. viii. 386. See _ante_, i. 312. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 200) says that when 'Johnson would inveigh against devotional poetry, and protest that all religious verses were cold and feeble,' she reminded him how 'when he would try to repeat the _Dies iræ, dies illa_, he could never pass the stanza ending thus, _Tantus labor non sit cassus_, without bursting into a flood of tears.'

[1069] See _ante_, ii. 169, note 2.

[1070] Dr. Johnson was by no means attentive to minute accuracy in his _Lives of the Poets_; for notwithstanding my having detected this mistake, he has continued it. BOSWELL. See _post_, iv. 51, note 2 for a like instance of neglect.

[1071] See _ante_, ii. 64.

[1072] See _ante_, ii. 278.

[1073] 'May 31, 1778. We shall at least not doze, as we are used to do, in summer. The Parliament is to have only short adjournments; and our senators, instead of retiring to horseraces (_their_ plough), are all turned soldiers, and disciplining militia. Camps everywhere.' Horace Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 75. It was a threat of invasion by the united forces of France and Spain, at the time that we were at war with America, that caused the alarm. Dr. J.H. Burton (Dr. A. Carlyle's _Auto_. p. 399) points out, that while the militia of England was placed nearly in its present position by the act of 1757, yet 'when a proposal for extending the system to Scotland was suggested (sic), ministers were afraid to arm the people.' 'It is curious,' he continues, 'that for a reason almost identical Ireland has been excepted from the Volunteer organisation of a century later. It was not until 1793 that the Militia Acts were extended to Scotland.'

[1074] 'Before dinner,' wrote Miss Burney in September of this year, 'to my great joy Dr. Johnson returned home from Warley Common.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 114. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Oct. 15:--'A camp, however familiarly we may speak of it, is one of the great scenes of human life. War and peace divide the business of the world. Camps are the habitations of those who conquer kingdoms, or defend them.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 22.

[1075] Third Edition, p. 111 [Aug. 28]. BOSWELL. It was at Fort George. 'He made a very good figure upon these topicks. He said to me afterwards that "he had talked ostentatiously."'

[1076] When I one day at Court expressed to General Hall my sense of the honour he had done my friend, he politely answered, 'Sir, I did _myself_ honour.' BOSWELL.

[1077] According to Malone, 'Mr. Burke said of Mr. Boswell that good nature was so natural to him that he had no merit in possessing it, and that a man might as well assume to himself merit in possessing an excellent constitution.' _European Mag_. 1798, p. 376. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21.

[1078] Langton. See _ante_, iii. 48.

[1079] No doubt his house at Langton.

[1080] The Wey Canal. See _ante_, ii. 136. From _navigation_, i.e. a canal for internal navigation, we have _navvy_. A _canal_ was the common term for an ornamental pool, and for a time it seemed that _navigation_ and not _canal_ might be the term applied to artificial rivers.

[1081] Langton.

[1082]

'He plunging downward shot his radiant head: Dispelled the breathing air that broke his flight; Shorn of his beams, a man to mortal sight.'

Dryden, quoted in Johnson's _Dictionary_ under _shorn_. The phrase first appears in _Paradise Lost_, i. 596.

[1083] Mrs. Thrale, this same summer, 'asked whether Mr. Langton took any better care of his affairs. "No, madam," cried the doctor, "and never will. He complains of the ill-effects of habit, and rests contentedly upon a confessed indolence. He told his father himself that he had _no turn to economy_, but a thief might as well plead that he had no _turn to honesty_!"' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 75.

[1084] Locke, in his last words to Collins, said:--'This world affords no solid satisfaction but the consciousness of well-doing, and the hopes of another life.' Warburton's _Divine Legation_, i. xxvi.

[1085] Not the young brewer who was hoped for (_ante_, iii. 210); therefore she is called 'poor thing.' One of Mr. Thrale's daughters lived to Nov. 5, 1858.

[1086] On Oct. 15 Johnson wrote:--'Is my master [i.e. Mr. Thrale, _ante_, i. 494, note 3] come to himself? Does he talk, and walk, and look about him, as if there were yet something in the world for which it is worth while to live? Or does he yet sit and say nothing? To grieve for evils is often wrong; but it is much more wrong to grieve without them.' _Piozzi Letters_. ii. 22. Nine days later he wrote:--'You appear to me to be now floating on the spring-tide of prosperity. I think it very probably in your power to lay up £8000 a-year for every year to come, increasing all the time, what needs not be increased, the splendour of all external appearance. And surely such a state is not to be put into yearly hazard for the pleasure of _keeping the house full_, or the ambition of _out-brewing Whitbread_? _Piozzi Letters_, p. 24.

[1087] See _ante_, ii. 136. The following letter, of which a fac-simile is given at the beginning of vol. iii. of Dr. Franklin's _Memoirs_, ed. 1818, tells of 'a difference' between the famous printer of Philadelphia and the King's Printer of London.

'Philada., July 5, 1775.

'Mr. Strahan,

'You are a Member of Parliament, and one of that Majority which has doomed my Country to Destruction.--You have begun to burn our Towns, and murder our People.--Look upon your Hands!--They are stained with the Blood of your Relations! You and I were long friends:--You are now my Enemy,--and

'I am, yours,

'B. FRANKLIN.'

When peace was made between the two countries the old friendship was renewed. _Ib_. iii. 147.

[1088] On this day he wrote a touching letter to Mr. Elphinston, who had lost his wife (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 66, note). Perhaps the thoughts thus raised in him led him to this act of reconciliation.

[1089] Dr. Johnson here addresses his worthy friend, Bennet Langton, Esq., by his title as Captain of the Lincolnshire militia, in which he has since been most deservedly raised to the rank of Major. BOSWELL.

[1090] President of the Royal Society.

[1091] The King visited Warley Camp on Oct. 20. _Ann. Reg_. xxi. 237.

[1092] He visited Coxheath Camp on Nov. 23. _Ib_. Horace Walpole, writing of April of this year when, in the alarm of a French invasion, the militia were called out, says:--'The King's behaviour was childish and absurd. He ordered the camp equipage, and said he would command the army himself.' Walpole continues:--'It is reported, that in a few days will be published in two volumes, folio, an accurate account of _His Majesty's Journeys to Chatham and Portsmouth, together with a minute Description of his numerous Fatigues, Dangers, and hair-breadth Escapes; to which will be added the Royal Bon-mots_. And the following week will be published an _History of all the Campaigns of the King of Prussia_, in one volume duodecimo.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 262, 264.

[1093] Boswell, eleven years later, wrote of him:--'My second son is an extraordinary boy; he is much of his father (vanity of vanities). He is of a delicate constitution, but not unhealthy, and his spirit never fails him. He is still in the house with me; indeed he is quite my companion, though only eleven in September.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 315. Mr. Croker, who knew him, says that 'he was very convivial, and in other respects like his father--though altogether on a smaller scale.' He edited a new edition of Malone's _Shakespeare_. He died in 1822. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 620.

[1094] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 30, 1773.

[1095] _Ib_. Nov. 1.

[1096] Regius Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church. Johnson wrote in 1783:--'At home I see almost all my companions dead or dying. At Oxford I have just left [lost] Wheeler, the man with whom I most delighted to converse.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 302. See _post_, Aug. 30, 1780.

[1097] Johnson, in 1784, wrote about a visit to Oxford:--'Since I was there my convivial friend Dr. Edwards and my learned friend Dr. Wheeler are both dead, and my probabilities of pleasure are very much diminished.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 371.

[1098] Dr. Edwards was preparing an edition of Xenophon's _Memorabilia_. CROKER.

[1099] Johnson wrote on the 14th:--'Dr. Burney had the luck to go to Oxford the only week in the year when the library is shut up. He was, however, very kindly treated; as one man is translating Arabick and another Welsh for his service.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 38.

[1100] Johnson three years later, hearing that one of Dr. Burney's sons had got the command of a ship, wrote:--'I question if any ship upon the ocean goes out attended with more good wishes than that which carries the fate of Burney. I love all of that breed whom I can be said to know, and one or two whom I hardly know I love upon credit, and love them because they love each other.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 225. See _post_, Nov. 16, 1784.

[1101] Vol. ii. p. 38. BOSWELL.

[1102] Miss Carmichael. BOSWELL.

[1103] See Appendix D.

[1104] See _ante_, ii. 382, note 1.

[1105] See _ante_, i. 446.

[1106] See _ante_, iii. 99, note 4.

[1107] It was the collected edition containing the first seven _Discourses_, which had each year been published separately. 'I was present,' said Samuel Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 18), 'when Sir Joshua Reynolds delivered his last lecture at the Royal Academy. On entering the room, I found that a semicircle of chairs immediately in front of the pulpit was reserved for persons of distinction, being labelled "Mr. Burke," "Mr. Boswell," &c.'

[1108] In an unfinished sketch for a _Discourse_, Reynolds said of those already delivered:--'Whatever merit they may have must be imputed, in a great measure, to the education which I may be said to have had under Dr. Johnson. I do not mean to say, though it certainly would be to the credit of these _Discourses_ if I could say it with truth, that he contributed even a single sentiment to them; but he qualified my mind to think justly.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, ii. 282. See _ante_, i. 245.

[1109] The error in grammar is no doubt Boswell's. He was so proud of his knowledge of languages that when he was appointed Secretary for Foreign Correspondence to the Royal Academy (_ante_, ii. 67, note 1), 'he wrote his acceptance of the honour in three separate letters, still preserved in the Academy archives, in English, French, and Italian.' _The Athenæum_, No. 3041.

[1110] The remaining six volumes came out, not in 1780, but in 1781. See _post_, 1781. He also wrote this year the preface to a translation of _Oedipus Tyrannus_, by Thomas Maurice, in _Poems and Miscellaneous Pieces_. (See preface to _Westminster Abbey with other Poems_, 1813.)

[1111] See _ante_, ii. 272.

[1112] _Life of Watts_ [_Works_, viii. 380]. BOSWELL.

[1113] See _ante_, ii. 107.

[1114] See _ante_, iii. 126.

[1115] 'Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused than Pomfret's _Choice_.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 222.

[1116] Johnson, in his _Life of Yalden_ (_Ib_. viii. 83), calls the following stanza from his _Hymn to Darkness_ 'exquisitely beautiful':--

'Thou dost thy smiles impartially bestow, And know'st no difference here below: All things appear the same by thee, Though Light distinction makes, thou giv'st equality.'

It is strange that Churchill was left out of the collection.

[1117] Murphy says, though certainly with exaggeration, that 'after Garrick's death Johnson never talked of him without a tear in his eyes. He offered,' he adds, 'if Mrs. Garrick would desire it of him, to be the editor of his works and the historian of his life.' Murphy's _Johnson_, p. 145. Cumberland (_Memoirs_, ii. 210) said of Garrick's funeral:--'I saw old Samuel Johnson standing beside his grave, at the foot of Shakespeare's monument, and bathed in tears.' Sir William Forbes was told that Johnson, in going to the funeral, said to William Jones:--'Mr. Garrick and his profession have been equally indebted to each other. His profession made him rich, and he made his profession respectable.' Forbes's _Beattie_, Appendix CC.

[1118] See _ante_, i. 456.

[1119] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 23.

[1120] The anniversary of the death of Charles I.

[1121] See _ante_, i. 211.

[1122] He sent a set elegantly bound and gilt, which was received as a very handsome present. BOSWELL.

[1123] On March 10 he wrote:--'I got my _Lives_, not yet quite printed, put neatly together, and sent them to the King; what he says of them I know not. If the king is a Whig, he will not like them; but is any king a Whig?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 43.

[1124] 'He was always ready to assist any authors in correcting their works, and selling them to booksellers. "I have done writing," said he, "myself, and should assist those that do write."' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 202. See _ante_, ii. 195.

[1125] In _The Rehearsal_. See _ante_, ii. 168.

[1126] Johnson wrote on Nov. 21, 1778:--'Baretti has told his musical scheme to B---- and B---- _will neither grant the question nor deny_. He is of opinion that if it does not fail, it will succeed, but if it does not succeed he conceives it must fail.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 41. Baretti, in a marginal note on his copy, says that B---- is Dr. Burney. He adds:--'The musical scheme was the _Carmen Seculare_. That brought me £150 in three nights, and three times as much to Philidor. It would have benefited us both greatly more, if Philidor had not proved a scoundrel.' 'The complaisant Italian,' says the _Gent Mag_. (xlix. 361), 'in compliment to our island chooses "to drive destructive war and pestilence" _ad Mauros, Seras et Indos_, instead of _ad Persas atque Britannos_.' Mr. Tasker, the clergyman, went a step further. 'I,' he says in his version of the _Carmen_,

'Honour and fame prognosticate To free-born Britain's naval state And to her Patriot-King.' _Ib_.

[1127] We may compare with this the scene in _Le Misanthrope_ (Act i. sc. 2), where Oronte reads his sonnet to Alceste; who thrice answers: --'Je ne dis pas cela, mais--.' See _ante_, iii. 320.

[1128] This was a Mr. Tasker. Mr. D'Israeli informed me that this portrait is so accurately drawn, that being, some years after the publication of this work, at a watering-place on the coast of Devon, he was visited by Mr. Tasker, whose name, however, he did not then know, but was so struck with his resemblance to Boswell's picture, that he asked him whether he had not had an interview with Dr. Johnson, and it appeared that he was indeed the author of _The Warlike Genius of Britain_. CROKER.

[1129] The poet was preparing a second edition of his _Ode_. 'This animated Pindaric made its first appearance the latter end of last year (1778). It is well calculated to rouse the martial spirit of the nation, and is now reprinted with considerable additions.' _Gent. Mag_. July, 1779, p. 357. In 1781 he published another volume of his poems with a poetical preface, in which he thus attacks his brother-in-law:--

'To suits litigious, ignorant and raw, Compell'd by an unletter'd brother-in-law.'

_Ib_. 1781, p. 227.

[1130] Boswell must have misheard what Johnson said. It was not Anson, but Amherst whom the bard praised. _Ode_, p. 7.

[1131] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Foote's death:--'Now, will any of his contemporaries bewail him? Will Genius change _his sex_ to weep?' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 396.

[1132]

'Genius of Britain! to thy office true, On Cox-Heath reared the waving banners view.

* * * * *

In martial vest By Venus and the Graces drest, To yonder tent, who leads the way? Art thou Britannia's Genius? say.'

_Ode_, p. 8.

[1133] Twenty-nine years earlier he wrote:--'There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which reproach, hatred, and opposition are names of happiness.' _The Rambler_, No. 2. In _The Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. xx, George says of his book:--'The learned world said nothing to my paradoxes, nothing at all, Sir.... I suffered the cruellest mortification, neglect.' See _ante_, ii. 61, 335. Hume said:--'The misfortune of a book, says Boileau, is not the being ill spoke [sic] of, but the not being spoken of at all.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 412

[1134] The account given in Northcote's _Reynolds_ (ii. 94-97) renders it likely that Sir Joshua is 'the friend of ours.' Northcote, quoting Mr. Courtenay, writes:--'His table was frequented by men of the first talents. Politics and party were never introduced. Temporal and spiritual peers, physicians, lawyers, actors, and musicians composed the motley group.' At one of these dinners Mr. Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, was the first who came. 'On entering, he said, "Well, Sir Joshua, and who [sic] have you got to dine with you to-day? for the last time I dined with you the assembly was of such a sort, that, by G--, I believe all the rest of the world were at peace, for that afternoon at least."' See _post_, under June 16, 1784, note. Boswell, in his _Letter to the People of Scotland_ (p. 95), boasts that he too is 'a very universal man.' 'I can drink, I can laugh, I can converse in perfect humour with Whigs, with republicans, with dissenters, with Independents, with Quakers, with Moravians, with Jews. But I would vote with Tories and pray with a Dean and Chapter.'

[1135] 'Finding that the best things remained to be said on the wrong side, I resolved to write a book that should be wholly new. I therefore drest up three paradoxes with some ingenuity. They were false, indeed, but they were new.' _Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. xx. See _ante_, i. 441, where Johnson says:--'When I was a boy, I used always to choose the wrong side of a debate, because most ingenious things, that is to say, most new things, could be said upon it.' In the _Present State of Polite Learning_ (ch. vii.), Goldsmith says:--'Nothing can be a more certain sign that genius is in the wane than its being obliged to fly to paradox for support, and attempting to be erroneously agreeable.'

[1136] The whole night spent in playing at cards (see next page) may account for part of his negligence. He was perhaps unusually dissipated this visit.

[1137] See _ante_, ii. 135.

[1138] 'Three men,' writes Horace Walpole, 'were especially suspected, Wilkes, Edmund Burke, and W. G. Hamilton. Hamilton was most generally suspected.' _Memoirs of George III_, iii. 401. According to Dr. T. Campbell (_Diary_, p. 35) Johnson in 1775 'said that he looked upon Burke to be the author of _Junius_, and that though he would not take him _contra mundum_, yet he would take him against any man.'

[1139] Sargeant Bettersworth, enraged at Swift's lines on him, 'demanded whether he was the author of that poem. "Mr. Bettesworth," answered he, "I was in my youth acquainted with great lawyers, who knowing my disposition to satire advised me that if any scoundrel or blockhead whom I had lampooned should ask, _Are you the author of this paper_? I should tell him that I was not the author; and therefore I tell you, Mr. Bettesworth, that I am not the author of these lines."' Johnson's Works, viii. 216. See _post_, June 13, 1784.

[1140] Mr. S. Whyte (_Miscellanea Nova_, p. 27) says that Johnson mistook the nature of the compliment. Sheridan had fled to France from his debtors. In 1766 an Insolvent Debtors' Relief Bill was brought into the House in his absence. Mr. Whyte, one of his creditors, petitioned the House to have Sheridan's name included. A very unusual motion was made, 'that petitioner shall not be put to his oath; but the facts set forth in his petition be admitted simply on his word.' The motion was seconded by an instantaneous Ay! Ay! without a dissenting voice. Sheridan wrote to Mr. Whyte:--'As the thing has passed with so much credit to me, the whole honour and merit of it is yours'.

[1141] In _The Rambler_, No. 39, he wrote of this kind of control:--'It may be urged in extenuation of this crime which parents, not in any other respect to be numbered with robbers and assassins, frequently commit, that, in their estimation, riches and happiness are equivalent terms.' He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'There wanders about the world a wild notion which extends over marriage more than over any transaction. If Miss ---- followed a trade, would it be said that she was bound in conscience to give or refuse credit at her father's choice? ... The parent's moral right can arise only from his kindness, and his civil right only from his money.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 83. See _ante_, i. 346.

[1142] See p. 186 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[1143] He refers to Johnson's letter of July 3, 1778, _ante_, p. 363.

[1144] See _ante_, iii. 5, 178.

[1145] 'By seeing London,' said Johnson, 'I have seen as much of life as the world can show.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 11. 'London,' wrote Hume in 1765, 'never pleased me much. Letters are there held in no honour; Scotmen are hated; superstition and ignorance gain ground daily.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 292.

[1146] See _ante_, i. 82.

[1147] 'I found in Cairo a mixture of all nations ... many brought thither by the desire of living after their own manner without observation, and of lying hid in the obscurity of multitudes; for in a city populous as Cairo it is possible to obtain at the same time the gratifications of society and the secrecy of solitude.' _Rasselas_, ch. xii. Gibbon wrote of London (_Misc. Works_, ii. 291):--'La liberté d'un simple particulier se fortifie par l'immensité de la ville.'

[1148] Perhaps Mr. Elphinston, of whom he said (_ante_, ii. 171), 'His inner part is good, but his outer part is mighty awkward.'

[1149] _Worthy_ is generally applied to Langton. His foibles were a common subject of their talk. _Ante_, iii. 48.

[1150] By the Author of _The Whole Duty of Man_. See _ante_, ii. 239, note 4. Johnson often quotes it in his _Dictionary_.

[1151] 'The things done in his body.' 2 _Corinthians_, v. 10.

[1152]

'Yes I am proud: I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me: Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone. O sacred weapon! left for truth's defence, Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence!'

Pope. _Satires, Epilogue_, ii. 208.

[1153] Page 173. BOSWELL.

[1154] At eleven o'clock that night Johnson recorded:--'I am now to review the last year, and find little but dismal vacuity, neither business nor pleasure; much intended and little done. My health is much broken, my nights afford me little rest.... Last week I published the _Lives of the Poets_, written, I hope, in such a manner as may tend to the promotion of piety. In this last year I have made little acquisition. I have scarcely read anything. I maintain Mrs. ---- [Desmoulins] and her daughter. Other good of myself I know not where to find, except a little charity.' _Ib_. p. 175.

[1155] Mauritius Lowe, the painter. _Ante_, p. 324.

[1156] See _ante_ ii 249.

[1157] 'Cry to it, nuncle, as the cockney did to the eels when she put 'em i' the paste alive; she knapped 'em o' the coxcombs with a stick, and cried, "Down wantons, down!"' _King Lear_, act ii. sc. 4.

[1158] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 23, where Johnson, speaking of claret, said that 'there were people who died of dropsies, which they contracted in trying to get drunk.'

[1159] 'If,' wrote Johnson in one of his _Debates_ (_Works_ xi. 392), 'the felicity of drunkenness can be more cheaply obtained by buying spirits than ale, it is easy to see which will be preferred.' See _post_, March 30, 1781.

[1160] Dempster, to whom Boswell complained that his nerves were affected, replied:--'One had better be palsied at eighteen than not keep company with such a man.' _Ante_, i. 434.

[1161] Marquis of Graham, afterwards third Duke of Montrose. In _The Rolliad_ (ed. 1795) he is thus attacked:--

'Superior to abuse He nobly glories in the name of Goose; Such Geese at Rome from the perfidious Gaul Preserved the Treas'ry-Bench and Capitol.'

He was one of the Lords of the Treasury. See also _The Rolliad_, p. 60

[1162] Johnson, however, when telling Mrs. Thrale that, in case of her husband's death, she ought to carry on his business, said:--'Do not be frighted; trade could not be managed by those who manage it if it had much difficulty. Their great books are soon understood, and their language,

"If speech it may be called, that speech is none Distinguishable in number, mood, or tense,"

is understood with no very laborious application.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 91. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 18.

[1163] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 26.

[1164] See _ante_, iii. 88, note 1.

[1165] The Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, with whom she lived seventeen years, and by whom she had nine children. _Ann. Reg_. xxii. 206. The Duke of Richmond attacked her in the House of Lords as one 'who was supposed to sell favours in the Admiralty for money.' Walpole's _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 248, and _Parl. Hist_. xix. 993. It so happened that on the day on which Hackman was hanged 'Fox moved for the removal of Lord Sandwich [from office] but was beaten by a large majority.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 194. One of her children was Basil Montague, the editor of _Bacon_. Carlyle writes of him:--'On going to Hinchinbrook, I found he was strikingly like the dissolute, questionable Earl of Sandwich; who, indeed, had been father of him in a highly tragic way.' Carlyle's _Reminiscences_, i. 224. Hackman, who was a clergyman of the Church, had once been in the army. Cradock's _Memoirs_, i. 140.

[1166] On the following Monday Boswell was present at Hackman's execution, riding to Tyburn with him in a mourning coach. _London Mag_. for 1779, p. 189.

[1167] At the Club. CROKER. See _ante_, ii. 345, note 5.

[1168] See _ante_, p. 281, for a previous slight altercation, and p. 195 for a possible cause of unfriendly feeling between the two men. If such a feeling existed, it passed away, at all events on Johnson's side, before Beauclerk's death. See _post_, iv. 10.

[1169] This gentleman who loved buttered muffins reappears in _Pickwick_ (ch. 44), as 'the man who killed himself on principle,' after eating three-shillings' worth of crumpets. Mr. Croker says that Mr. Fitzherbert is meant; but he hanged himself. _Ante_, ii. 228, note 3.

[1170] 'It is not impossible that this restless desire of novelty, which gives so much trouble to the teacher, may be often the struggle of the understanding starting from that to which it is not by nature adapted, and travelling in search of something on which it may fix with greater satisfaction. For, without supposing each man particularly marked out by his genius for particular performances, it may be easily conceived that when a numerous class of boys is confined indiscriminately to the same forms of composition, the repetition of the same words, or the explication of the same sentiments, the employment must, either by nature or accident, be less suitable to some than others.... Weariness looks out for relief, and leisure for employment, and surely it is rational to indulge the wanderings of both.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 232. See _post_, iv. 21.

[1171] 'See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept 10, and Johnson's _Works_, viii. 466. Mallet had the impudence to write to Hume that the book was ready for the press; 'which,' adds Hume, 'is more than I or most people expected.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 139.

[1172] The name is not given in the first two editions. See _ante_, i. 82.

[1173] See p. 289 of this vol., and vol. i. p. 207. BOSWELL. The saying is from Diogenes Laertius, bk. v. ch. I, and is attributed to Aristotle --[Greek: _ho philoi oudeis philos_.]

[1174]

'Love, the most generous passion of the mind, The softest refuge innocence can find; The safe director of unguided youth, Fraught with kind wishes, and secured by truth; That cordial drop Heaven in our cup has thrown, To make the nauseous draught of life go down.'

Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, _A Letter from Artemisia_, Chalmers's _Poets_, viii. 242. Pope (_Imitations of Horace_, _Epist_. I. vi. 126) refers to these lines:--

'If, after all, we must with Wilmot own, The cordial drop of life is love alone.'

[1175] Garrick wrote in 1776:--'Gout, stone, and sore throat! Yet I am in spirits.' _Garrick Corres_, ii. 138.

[1176] See ante, p. 70.

[1177] In _The Life of Edmund Smith_ (_Works_, vii. 380). See _ante_, i. 81.

[1178] Johnson wrote of Foote's death:--'The world is really impoverished by his sinking glories.' Piozzi _Letters_, i. 396. See _ante_, p. 185, note 1.

[1179] 'Allowance must be made for some degree of exaggerated praise,' he said in speaking of epitaphs. 'In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.' _Ante_, ii. 407.

[1180] Garrick retired in January 1776, three years before his death. He visited Ireland in 1742, and again in 1743. Davies's _Garrick_, i. 57, 91.

[1181] In the original _impoverished_.

[1182] Certainly not Horace Walpole, as had been suggested to Mr. Croker. He and Johnson can scarcely be said to have known each other (_post_, under June 19, 1784, note). A sentence in one of Walpole's _Letters_ (iv. 407) shews that he was very unlike the French wit. On Sept. 22, 1765, he wrote from Paris:--'The French affect philosophy, literature, and free-thinking: the first never did, and never will possess me; of the two others I have long been tired. _Free-thinking is for one's self, surely not for society_.' Perhaps Richard Fitzpatrick is meant, who later on joined in writing _The Rolliad_, and who was the cousin and 'sworn brother' of Charles Fox. Walpole describes him as 'an agreeable young man of parts,' and mentions his 'genteel irony and badinage.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 167 and ii. 560. He was Lord Shelburne's brother-in-law, at whose house Johnson might have met him, as well as in Fox's company. There are one or two lines in _The Rolliad_ which border on profanity. Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 104) said that 'Fitzpatrick was at one time nearly as famous for his wit as Hare.' Tickell in his _Epistle from the Hon. Charles Fox to the Hon. John Townshend_, p. 13, writes:--

'Oft shall Fitzpatrick's wit and Stanhope's ease, And Burgoyne's manly sense unite to please.'

[1183] See ante, i. 379, note 2.

[1184] According to Mr. Wright (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 630), this physician was Dr. James. I have examined, however, the 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 7th editions of his _Dissertation on Fevers_, but can find no mention of this. In the 7th edition, published in 1770, he complains (p. 111) of 'the virulence and rancour with which the fever-powder and its inventor have been traduced and persecuted by the vendors of medicines and their abettors.'

[1185] According to Mr. Croker this was Andrew Millar, but I doubt it. See ante, i. 287, note 3.

[1186] 'The Chevalier Taylor, Ophthalmiator Pontifical, Imperial, and Royal,' as he styled himself. _Gent. Mag_. xxxi. 226. Lord Eldon said that--'Taylor, dining with the barristers upon the Oxford circuit, having related many wonderful things which he had done, was asked by Bearcroft, "Pray, Chevalier, as you have told us of a great many things which you have done and can do, will you be so good as to try to tell us anything which you cannot do?" "Nothing so easy," replied Taylor, "I cannot pay my share of the dinner bill: and that, Sir, I must beg of you to do."' Twiss's _Eldon_, i 321.

[1187] Pope mentions Ward in the Imitations of Horace_, 2 Epistle, i. 180:--

'He serv'd a 'prenticeship who sets up shop; Ward try'd on puppies, and the poor, his drop.'

Fielding, in _Tom Jones_, bk. viii. ch. 9, says that 'interest is indeed a most excellent medicine, and, like Ward's pill, flies at once to the particular part of the body on which you desire to operate.' In the introduction to the _Voyage to Lisbon_ he speaks very highly of Ward's remedies and of Ward himself, who 'endeavoured, he says, 'to serve me without any expectation or desire of fee or reward.'

[1188] 'Every thing,' said Johnson, 'comes from Beauclerk so easily. It appears to me that I labour, when I say a good thing.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21. See _post_, under May 2, 1780. Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 219) mentions another great-grandson of Charles II. (Commissioner Cardonnel) who was 'the most agreeable companion that ever was. He excelled in story-telling, like his great-grandfather, Charles II., but he seldom or ever repeated them.'

[1189] No doubt Burke. _Ante_, ii. 222, note 4.

[1190] General Paoli's house, where for some years Boswell was 'a constant guest while he was in London.' _Ante_, p. 35

[1191] Allan Ramsay's residence: No. 67, Harley-street. P. CUNNINGHAM.

[1192] It is strange that he does not mention their visit in a letter in which he tells Temple that he is lame, and that his 'spirits sank to dreary dejection;' and utters what the editor justly calls an ambiguous prayer:--'Let us hope for gleams of joy here, and a _blaze_ hereafter.' This letter, by the way, and the one that follows it, are both wrongly dated. _Letters of Boswell_, p. 237.

[1193] See p. 344 of this Volume. BOSWELL.

[1194] 'Johnson's first question was, "What kind of a man was Mr. Pope in his conversation?" His Lordship answered, that if the conversation did not take something of a lively or epigrammatic turn, he fell asleep, or perhaps pretended to do so.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 200. Johnson in his _Life of Pope (Works_, viii. 309) says that 'when he wanted to sleep he "nodded in company."'

[1195] Boswell wrote to Temple late on this day, 'Let us not dispute any more about political notions. It is now night. Dr. Johnson has dined, drunk tea, and supped with only Mr. Charles Dilly and me, and I am confirmed in my Toryism.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 238.

[1196] In the original _or_. Boswell quotes the line correctly, _ante_, p. 220.

[1197] 'I do not (says Mr. Malone) see any difficulty in this passage, and wonder that Dr. Johnson should have acknowledged it to be _inaccurate_. The Hermit, it should be observed, had no actual experience of the world whatsoever: all his knowledge concerning it had been obtained in two ways; from _books_, and from the _relations_ of those country swains, who had seen a little of it. The plain meaning, therefore, is, "To clear his doubts concerning Providence, and to obtain some knowledge of the world by actual experience; to see whether the accounts furnished by books, or by the oral communications of swains, were just representations of it; [I say, _swains_,] for his oral or _vivá voce_ information had been obtained from that part of mankind _alone_, &c." The word _alone_ here does not relate to the whole of the preceding line, as has been supposed, but, by a common licence, to the words,--_of all mankind_, which are understood, and of which it is restrictive.'

Mr. Malone, it must be owned, has shewn much critical ingenuity in the explanation of this passage. His interpretation, however, seems to me much too recondite. The _meaning_ of the passage may be certain enough; but surely the _expression_ is confused, and one part of it contradictory to the other. BOSWELL. This note is first given in the third edition.

[1198] See ante, p. 297.

[1199] State is used for statement. 'He sate down to examine Mr. Owen's states.' Rob Roy, ed. 1860, viii. 101.

[1200] Johnson started for Lichfield and Ashbourne about May 20, and returned to London towards the end of June. _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 44, 55. 'It is good,' he wrote, 'to wander a little, lest one should dream that all the world was Streatham, of which one may venture to say, _none but itself can be its parallel_.' _Ib_. p. 47. 'None but thyself can be thy parallel' is from Theobald's _Double Falsehood_. Pope calls it 'a marvellous line,' and thus introduces it in _The Dunciad_, first edition, iii. 271:--'For works like these let deathless Journals tell, "None but thyself can be thy parallel."'

[1201] See _post_, Boswell's letter of Aug. 24, 1780, and Johnson's letter of Dec. 7, 1782.

[1202] Boswell, on his way to Scotland, wrote to Temple from this house:--'I am now at Southill, to which place Mr. Charles Dilly has accompanied; it is the house of Squire John Dilly, his elder brother. The family of Dilly have been land-proprietors in this county for two hundred years.... I am quite the great man here, and am to go forward on the North road to-morrow morning. Poor Mr. Edward Dilly is fast a-dying; he cried with affection at seeing me here; he is in as agreeable a frame as any Christian can be.... I am edified here.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 239.

[1203] On June 18 in the following year he recorded:--'In the morning of this day last year I perceived the remission of those convulsions in my breast, which had distressed me for more than twenty years. I returned thanks at church for the mercy granted me, which has now continued a year.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 183. Three days later he wrote:--'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. I am now as well as men at my age can expect to be, and I yet think I shall be better.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 163.

[1204] From a stroke of apoplexy. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You really do not use me well in thinking that I am in less pain on this occasion than I ought to be. There is nobody left for me to care about but you and my master, and I have now for many years known the value of his friendship, and the importance of his life, too well not to have him very near my heart.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 56. To him he wrote shortly after the attack, no doubt with a view to give the sick man confidence:--'To shew you how well I think of your health, I have sent you an hundred pounds to keep for me.' _Ib_. p. 54. Miss Burney wrote very soon after the attack:--'At dinner everybody tried to be cheerful, but a dark and gloomy cloud hangs over the head of poor Mr. Thrale which no flashes of merriment or beams of wit can pierce through; yet he seems pleased that everybody should be gay.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 220. The attack was in June. _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 47. On Aug. 3, Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor:--'Mr. Thrale has perfectly recovered all his faculties and all his vigour.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 461.

[1205] Which I communicated to him from his Lordship, but it has not yet been published. I have a copy of it. BOSWELL. The few notices concerning Dryden, which Lord Hailes had collected, the authour afterwards gave to Mr. Malone. MALONE. Malone published a _Life of Dryden_.

[1206] He recorded of his birth-day this year:--'On the 17th Mr. Chamier (_ante_, i. 478) took me away with him from Streatham. I left the servants a guinea for my health, and was content enough to escape into a house where my birth-day not being known could not be mentioned. I sat up till midnight was past, and the day of a new year, a very awful day, began.' _Pr. and Med_. pp. 181, 225.

[1207] See _ante_, ii. 427, note 1.

[1208] In one of his manuscript Diaries, there is the following entry, which marks his curious minute attention: 'July 26, 1768. I shaved my nail by accident in whetting the knife, about an eighth of an inch from the bottom, and about a fourth from the top. This I measure that I may know the growth of nails; the whole is about five eighths of an inch.'

Another of the same kind appears, 'Aug. 7, 1779, _Partem brachii dextri carpo proximam et cutem pectoris circa mamillam dextram rasi, ut notum fieret quanta temporis pili renovarentur_.'

And, 'Aug. 15, 1773. I cut from the vine 41 leaves, which weighed five oz. and a half, and eight scruples:--I lay them upon my book-case, to see what weight they will lose by drying.' BOSWELL.

In _The Idler_, No. 31, we have in Mr. Sober a portrait of Johnson drawn by himself. He writes:--'The art is to fill the day with petty business, to have always something in hand which may raise curiosity, but not solicitude, and keep the mind in a state of action, but not of labour. This art has for many years been practised by my old friend Sober with wonderful success.... His chief pleasure is conversation; there is no end of his talk or his attention; to speak or to hear is equally pleasing; for he still fancies that he is teaching or learning something, and is free for the time from his own reproaches. But there is one time at night when he must go home that his friends may sleep; and another time in the morning when all the world agrees to shut out interruption. These are the moments of which poor Sober trembles at the thought. But the misery of these tiresome intervals he has many means of alleviating.... His daily amusement is chymistry. He has a small furnace which he employs in distillation, and which has long been the solace of his life. He draws oils and waters, and essences and spirits, which he knows to be of no use; sits and counts the drops as they come from his retort, and forgets that whilst a drop is falling a moment flies away.' Mrs. Piozzi says (_Anec_. p. 236):--'We made up a sort of laboratory at Streatham one summer, and diverted ourselves with drawing essences and colouring liquors. But the danger Mr. Thrale found his friend in one day, when he got the children and servants round him to see some experiments performed, put an end to all our entertainment.'

[1209] Afterwards Mr. Stuart Wortley. He was the father of the first Lord Wharncliffe. CROKER.

[1210] Horace Walpole, in April 1778, wrote:--'It was very remarkable that on the militia being ordered out, two of Lord Bute's younger sons offered, as Bedfordshire gentlemen, to take any rank in the militia in that county. I warned Lord Ossory, the Lord Lieutenant, against so dangerous a precedent as admitting Scots in the militia. A militia can only be safe by being officered by men of property in each county.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 252.

[1211] Walpole wrote in Dec. 1778:--'His Majesty complained of the difficulty of recruiting. General Keppel replied aloud, "It is owing to the Scots, who raise their clans in and about London." This was very true; the Master of Lovat had received a Royal gift of £6000 to raise a regiment of his clan, and had literally picked up boys of fifteen in London and Westminster.' _Ib_. p. 316.

[1212] He made his will in his wife's life-time, and appointed her and Sir William Forbes, or the survivor of them, 'tutors and curators' to his children. _Boswelliana_, p. 186.

[1213] Head gardener at Stowe, and afterwards at Hampton Court and Windsor. He got his nickname from his habit of saying that grounds which he was asked to lay out had _capabilities_. Lord Chatham wrote of him:--'He writes Lancelot Brown Esquire, _en titre d'office_: please to consider, he shares the private hours of--[the King], dines familiarly with his neighbour of Sion [the Duke of Northumberland], and sits down at the tables of all the House of Lords, &c.' _Chatham Corres_. iv. 178, 430.

[1214] See _ante_, pp. 334, 350. Clive, before the Committee of the House of Commons, exclaimed:--'By God, Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at my own moderation.' Macaulay's _Essays_, iii. 198.

[1215] See _ante_, p. 216.

[1216] Yet, according to Johnson, 'the poor in England were better provided for than in any other country of the same extent.' _Ante_, ii. 130.

[1217] See _ante_, ii. 119.

[1218] See _ante_, i. 67, note 2.

[1219] The Rev. Dr. Law, Bishop of Carlisle, in the Preface to his valuable edition of Archbishop King's _Essay on the Origin of Evil_ [ed. 1781, p. xvii], mentions that the principles maintained in it had been adopted by Pope in his _Essay on Man_; and adds, 'The fact, notwithstanding such denial (Bishop Warburton's), might have been strictly verified by an unexceptionable testimony, _viz_ that of the late Lord Bathurst, who saw the very same system of the [Greek: to beltion] (taken from the Archbishop) in Lord Bolingbroke's own hand, lying before Mr. Pope, while he was composing his _Essay_.' This is respectable evidence; but that of Dr. Blair is more direct from the fountain-head, as well as more full. Let me add to it that of Dr. Joseph Warton; 'The late Lord Bathurst repeatedly assured me that he had read the whole scheme of _The Essay on Man_, in the hand-writing of Bolingbroke, and drawn up in a series of propositions, which Pope was to versify and illustrate.' _Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope_, vol. ii. p. 62. BOSWELL. In the above short quotation from Law are two parentheses. According to Paley, the Bishop was once impatient at the slowness of his Carlisle printer. '"Why does not my book make its appearance?" said he to the printer. "My Lord, I am extremely sorry; but we have been obliged to send to Glasgow for a pound of parentheses."' Best's _Memorials_, p. 196.

[1220] Johnson, defining _ascertain_ in its first meaning as _establish_, quotes from Hooker: 'The divine law _ascertaineth_ the truth of other laws.'

[1221] 'To those who censured his politicks were added enemies yet more dangerous, who called in question his knowledge of Greek, and his qualifications for a translator of Homer. To these he made no publick opposition; but in one of his letters escapes from them as well as he can. At an age like his, for he was not more than twenty-five, with an irregular education, and a course of life of which much seems to have passed in conversation, it is not very likely that he overflowed with Greek. But when he felt himself deficient he sought assistance; and what man of learning would refuse to help him?' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 252. Johnson refers, I think, to Pope's letter to Addison of Jan. 30, 1713-14.

[1222] 'That those communications had been consolidated into a scheme regularly drawn and delivered to Pope, from whom it returned only transformed from prose to verse, has been reported but can hardly be true. The Essay plainly appears the fabrick of a poet; what Bolingbroke supplied could be only the first principles; the order, illustration and embellishments must all be Pope's.' _Works_, viii. 287. Dr. Warton (_Essay on Pope_, ii. 58) says that he had repeatedly heard from Lord Bathurst the statement recorded by Dr. Blair.

[1223] 'In defiance of censure and contempt truth is frequently violated; and scarcely the most vigilant and unremitted circumspection will secure him that mixes with mankind from being hourly deceived by men, of whom it can scarcely be imagined that they mean any injury to him or profit to themselves.' _Works_, iv. 22.

[1224] See _ante_, pp. 226, 243.

[1225] Gibbon wrote of Lord Hailes:--'In his _Annals of Scotland_ he has shewn himself a diligent collector and an accurate critic.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 233.

[1226] See _ante_, ii. 237.

[1227] See _ante_, ii. 79.

[1228]

'Versate diu quid ferre recusent, Quid valeant humeri.' 'Weigh with care What suits your genius, what your strength can bear.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. 1. 39.

[1229] Boswell seems to be afraid of having his head made to ache again, by the sense that Johnson should put into it. See _ante_, p. 381.

[1230] _The Spleen_, a Poem. BOSWELL. The author was Matthew Green. Dodsley's _Collection_, i. 145. See _ante_, p. 38.

[1231] See _ante_, i. 182.