Chapter XXIII: Part 23

[1002] 'Thomas Hickey is now best remembered by a characteristic portrait of his friend Tom Davies, engraved with Hickey's name to it.' P. CUNNINGHAM.

[1003] See _ante_, ii. 92. In the _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, viii. 302), Johnson says that 'the shafts of satire were directed in vain against Cibber, being repelled by his impenetrable impudence.' Pope speaks of Gibber's 'impenetrability.' Elwin's _Pope_, ix. 231.

[1004] He alludes perhaps to a note on the _Dunciad_, ii, 140, in which it is stated that 'the author has celebrated even Cibber himself (presuming him to be the author of the _Careless Husband_).' See _post_, May 15, 1776, note.

[1005] See _ante_, ii. 32.

[1006] Burke told Malone that 'Hume, in compiling his _History_, did not give himself a great deal of trouble in examining records, &c.; and that the part he most laboured at was the reign of King Charles II, for whom he had an unaccountable partiality.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 368.

[1007] Yet Johnson (_Works_, vii. 177) wrote of Otway, who was nine years old when Charles II. came to the throne, and who outlived him by only a few weeks:--'He had what was in those times the common reward of loyalty; he lived and died neglected.' Hawkins (_Life_, p. 51) says that he heard Johnson 'speak of Dr. Hodges who, in the height of the Great Plague of 1665, continued in London, and was almost the only one of his profession that had the courage to oppose his art to the spreading of the contagion. It was his hard fate, a short time after, to die in prison for debt in Ludgate. Johnson related this to us with the tears ready to start from his eyes; and, with great energy, said, "Such a man would not have been suffered to perish in these times."'

[1008] Johnson in 1742 said that William III. 'was arbitrary, insolent, gloomy, rapacious, and brutal; that he was at all times disposed to play the tyrant; that he had, neither in great things nor in small, the manners of a gentleman; that he was capable of gaining money by mean artifices, and that he only regarded his promise when it was his interest to keep it.' _Works_, vi. 6. Nearly forty years later, in his _Life of Rowe_ (_ib_. vii. 408), he aimed a fine stroke at that King. 'The fashion of the time,' he wrote, 'was to accumulate upon Lewis all that can raise horrour and detestation; and whatever good was withheld from him, that it might not be thrown away, was bestowed upon King William.' Yet in the _Life of Prior_ (_ib_. viii. 4) he allowed him great merit. 'His whole life had been action, and none ever denied him the resplendent qualities of steady resolution and personal courage.' See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 24, 1773.

[1009] 'The fact of suppressing the will is indubitably true,' wrote Horace Walpole (_Letters_, vii. 142). 'When the news arrived of the death of George I, my father carried the account from Lord Townshend to the then Prince of Wales. The Council met as soon as possible. There Archbishop Wake, with whom one copy of the will had been deposited, advanced, and delivered the will to the King, who put it into his pocket, and went out of Council without opening it, the Archbishop not having courage or presence of mind to desire it to be read, as he ought to have done. I was once talking to the late Lady Suffolk, the former mistress, on that extraordinary event. She said, "I cannot justify the deed to the legatees; but towards his father, the late King was justifiable, for George I. had burnt two wills made in favour of George II."'

[1010] 'Charles II. by his affability and politeness made himself the idol of the nation, which he betrayed and sold.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 7.

[1011] 'It was maliciously circulated that George was indifferent to his own succession, and scarcely willing to stretch out a hand to grasp the crown within his reach.' Coxe's _Memoirs of Walpole_, i. 57.

[1012] Plin. _Epist_. lib. ii. ep. 3. BOSWELL.

[1013] Mr. Davies was here mistaken. Corelli never was in England. BURNEY.

[1014] Mr. Croker is wrong in saying that the Irishman in Mrs. Thrale's letter of May 16, 1776 (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 329), is Dr. Campbell. The man mentioned there had never met Johnson, though she wrote more than a year after this dinner at Davies's. She certainly quotes one of 'Dr. C-l's phrases,' but she might also have quoted Shakspeare. I have no doubt that Mrs. Thrale's Irishman was a Mr. Musgrave (_post_, under June 16, 1784, note), who is humorously described in Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 83. Since writing this note I have seen that the Edinburgh reviewer (Oct. 1859, p. 326) had come to the same conclusion.

[1015] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 26, 1773, where Johnson said that 'he did not approve of a Judge's calling himself Farmer Burnett, and going about with a little round hat.'

[1016] 'If all the employments of life were crowded into the time which it [sic] really occupied, perhaps a few weeks, days, or hours would be sufficient for its accomplishment, so far as the mind was engaged in the performance.' _The Rambler_, No. 8.

[1017] Johnson certainly did, who had a mind stored with knowledge, and teeming with imagery: but the observation is not applicable to writers in general. BOSWELL. See _post_, April 20, 1783.

[1018] See _ante_, i. 358.

[1019] See ante, i. 306.

[1020] There has probably been some mistake as to the terms of this supposed extraordinary contract, the recital of which from hearsay afforded Johnson so much play for his sportive acuteness. Or if it was worded as he supposed, it is so strange that I should conclude it was a joke. Mr. Gardner, I am assured, was a worthy and a liberal man. BOSWELL. Thurlow, when Attorney-General, had been counsel for the Donaldsons, in the appeal before the House of Lords on the Right of Literary Property (_ante_, i. 437, and ii. 272). In his argument 'he observed (exemplifying his observations by several cases) that the booksellers had not till lately ever concerned themselves about authors.' _Gent. Mag_. for 1774, p. 51.

[1021] 'The booksellers of London are denominated _the trade_' (_post_, April 15, 1778, note).

[1022] _Bibliopole_ is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[1023] The Literary Club. See _ante_, p. 330, note 1. Mr. Croker says that the records of the Club show that, after the first few years, Johnson very rarely attended, and that he and Boswell never met there above seven or eight times. It may be observed, he adds, how very rarely Boswell records the conversation at the club, Except in one instance (_post_, April, 3, 1778), he says, Boswell confines his report to what Johnson or himself may have said. That this is not strictly true is shewn by his report of the dinner recorded above, where we find reported remarks of Beauclerk and Gibbon. Seven meetings besides this are mentioned by Boswell. See _ante_, ii. 240, 255, 318, 330; and _post_, April 3, 1778, April 16, 1779, and June 22, 1784. Of all but the last there is some report, however brief, of something said. When Johnson was not present, Boswell would have nothing to record in this book.

[1024] _Travels through Germany, &c_., 1756-7.

[1025] _Travels through Holland, &c. Translated from the French_, 1743.

[1026] See _post_, March 24, 1776, and May 17, 1778.

[1027] _Description of the East_, 1743-5.

[1028] Johnson had made the same remark, and Boswell had mentioned Leandro Alberti, when they were talking in an inn in the Island of Mull. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14, 1773.

[1029] Addison does not mention where this epitaph, which has eluded a very diligent inquiry, is found. MALONE. I have found it quoted in old Howell. 'The Italian saying may be well applied to poor England:--"I was well--would be better--took physic--and died."' _Lett_. Jan. 20, 1647. CROKER. It is quoted by Addison in _The Spectator_, No. 25:--'This letter puts me in mind of an Italian epitaph written on the monument of a Valetudinarian: _Stavo ben, ma per star meglio sto qui_, which it is impossible to translate.'

[1030] Lord Chesterfield, as Mr. Croker points out, makes the same observation in one of his _Letters to his Son_ (ii. 351). Boswell, however, does not get it from him, for he had said the same in the _Hebrides_, six months before the publication of Chesterfield's _Letters_. Addison, in the preface to his _Remarks_, says:--'Before I entered on my voyage I took care to refresh my memory among the classic authors, and to make such collections out of them as I might afterwards have occasion for.'

[1031] See ante, ii. 156.

[1032] 'It made an impression on the army that cannot be well imagined by those who saw it not. The whole army, and at last all people both in city and country were singing it perpetually, and perhaps never had so slight a thing so great an effect.' Bumet's Own Time, ed. 1818, ii. 430. In Tristram Shandy, vol. i. chap. 21, when Mr. Shandy advanced one of his hypotheses:--'My uncle Toby,' we read, 'would never offer to answer this by any other kind of argument than that of whistling half-a-dozen bars of Lilliburlero.'

[1033] See ante, ii. 66.

[1034] 'Of Gibbon, Mackintosh neatly remarked that he might have been cut out of a corner of Burke's mind, without his missing it.' _Life of Mackintosh_, i. 92. It is worthy of notice that Gibbon scarcely mentions Johnson in his writings. Moreover, in the names that he gives of the members of the Literary Club, 'who form a large and luminous constellation of British stars,' though he mentions eighteen of them, he passes over Boswell. Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i.219. See also _post_, April 18, 1775.

[1035] We may compare with this Dryden's line:--

'Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.'

_Absalom and Achitophel_, l. 179. Hawkins (_Life_, p. 506) says that 'to party opposition Johnson ever expressed great aversion, and of the pretences of patriots always spoke with indignation and contempt.' He had, Hawkins adds, 'partaken of the short-lived joy that infatuated the public' when Walpole fell; but a few days convinced him that the patriotism of the opposition had been either hatred or ambition. For _patriots_, see _ante_, i. 296, note, and _post_, April 6, 1781.

[1036] Mr. Burke. See _ante_, p. 222, note 4.

[1037] Lord North's ministry lasted from 1770 to 1782.

[1038] Perhaps Johnson had this from Davies, who says (_Life of Garrick_, i. 124):--'Mrs. Pritchard read no more of the play of _Macbeth_ than her own part, as written out and delivered to her by the prompter.' She played the heroine in _Irene_ (_ante_, i. 197). See _post_ under Sept. 30, 1783, where Johnson says that 'in common life she was a vulgar idiot,' and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773.

[1039] A misprint for April 8.

[1040] Boswell calls him the 'Irish Dr. Campbell,' to distinguish him from the Scotch Dr. Campbell mentioned _ante_, i. 417.

[1041] See _ante_, i. 494.

[1042] Baretti, in a MS. note in his copy of _Piozzi Letters_, i. 374, says:--'Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms, and the silly Madam [Mrs. Thrale] never failed to echo that beastly kind of wit.'

[1043] According to Dr. T. Campbell, who was present at the dinner (_Diary_, p. 66), Barry and Garrick were the two actors, and Murphy the author. If Murphy said this in the heat of one of his quarrels with Garrick, he made amends in his _Life_ of that actor (p. 362):--'It was with Garrick,' he wrote, 'a fixed principle, that authors were entitled to the emolument of their labours, and by that generous way of thinking he held out an invitation to men of genius.'

[1044] Page 392, vol. i. BOSWELL.

[1045] Let me here be allowed to pay my tribute of most sincere gratitude to the memory of that excellent person, my intimacy with whom was the more valuable to me, because my first acquaintance with him was unexpected and unsolicited. Soon after the publication of my _Account of Corsica_, he did me the honour to call on me, and, approaching me with a frank courteous air, said, 'My name, Sir, is Oglethorpe, and I wish to be acquainted with you.' I was not a little flattered to be thus addressed by an eminent man, of whom I had read in Pope, from my early years,

'Or, driven by strong benevolence of soul, Will fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole.'

I was fortunate enough to be found worthy of his good opinion, insomuch, that I not only was invited to make one in the many respectable companies whom he entertained at his table, but had a cover at his hospitable board every day when I happened to be disengaged; and in his society I never failed to enjoy learned and animated conversation, seasoned with genuine sentiments of virtue and religion. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 127, and ii. 59, note 1. The couplet from Pope is from _Imitations of Horace_, _Epist_. ii. 2. 276.

[1046]

'Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never _is_, but always _to be_ blest.'

_Essay on Man_, i. 95.

[1047] 'The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.' _The Rambler_, No. 2. See _post_, iii. 53, and June 12, 1784. Swift defined happiness as 'a perpetual possession of being well deceived.' _Tale of a Tub_, Sect, ix., Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, iii. 154.

[1048] See _post_, March 29, 1776.

[1049] The General seemed unwilling to enter upon it at this time; but upon a subsequent occasion he communicated to me a number of particulars, which I have committed to writing; but I was not sufficiently diligent in obtaining more from him, not apprehending that his friends were so soon to lose him; for, notwithstanding his great age, he was very healthy and vigorous, and was at last carried off by a violent fever, which is often fatal at any period of life. BOSWELL.

[1050] See _ante_, p. 338.

[1051]

'Mediocribus esse poetis _Non homines, non Di_, non concessere columnae.' 'But God and man, and letter'd post denies That poets ever are of middling size.'

FRANCIS, Horace, _Ars Poet_. l. 372.

[1052] Why he failed to keep his journal may be guessed from his letter to Temple:--'I am,' he wrote on April 17, 'indeed enjoying this metropolis to the full, according to my taste, except that I cannot, I see, have a plenary indulgence from you for Asiatic multiplicity. Be not afraid of me, except when I take too much claret; and then indeed there is a _furor brevis_ as dangerous as anger.... I have rather had too much dissipation since I came last to town. I try to keep a journal, and shall show you that I have done tolerably: but it is hardly credible what ground I go over, and what a variety of men and manners I contemplate in a day; and all the time I myself am _pars magna_, for my exuberant spirits will not let me listen enough.' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 187-9.

[1053] Johnson, in _The Rambler_, No. 110, published on Easter Eve, 1751, thus justifies fasting:--'Austerity is the proper antidote to indulgence; the diseases of mind as well as body are cured by contraries, and to contraries we should readily have recourse if we dreaded guilt as we dread pain.'

[1054] From this too just observation there are some eminent exceptions, BOSWELL. 'Dr. Johnson said:--"Few bishops are now made for their learning. To be a bishop, a man must be learned in a learned age, factious in a factious age, but always of eminence."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, 1773.

[1055] Lord Shelburne wrote of him:--'He panted for the Treasury, having a notion that the King and he understood it from what they had read about revenue and funds while they were at Kew.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 141.

[1056] Chief Justice Pratt (afterwards Lord Camden) became popular by his conduct as a judge in Wilkes's case. In 1764 he received the freedom of the guild of merchants in Dublin in a gold box, and from Exeter the freedom of the city. The city of London gave him its freedom in a gold box, and had his portrait painted by Reynolds. _Gent. Mag_. 1764, pp. 44, 96, 144. See _ante_, p. 314.

[1057] The King, on March 3, 1761, recommended this measure to Parliament. _Parl. Hist_. xv. 1007. 'This,' writes Horace Walpole, 'was one of Lord Bute's strokes of pedantry. The tenure of the judges had formerly been a popular topic; and had been secured, as far as was necessary. He thought this trifling addition would be popular now, when nobody thought or cared about it.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, i. 41.

[1058] The money arising from the property of the prizes taken before the declaration of war, which were given to his Majesty by the peace of Paris, and amounted to upwards of AL700,000, and from the lands in the ceded islands, which were estimated at AL200,000 more. Surely there was a noble munificence in this gift from a Monarch to his people. And let it be remembered, that during the Earl of Bute's administration, the King was graciously pleased to give up the hereditary revenues of the Crown, and to accept, instead of them, of the limited sum of AL800,000 a year; upon which Blackstone observes, that 'The hereditary revenues, being put under the same management as the other branches of the publick patrimony, will produce more, and be better collected than heretofore; and the publick is a gainer of upwards of AL100,000 _per annum_ by this disinterested bounty of his Majesty.' Book I. Chap. viii. p. 330. BOSWELL. Lord Bolingbroke (_Works_, iii. 286), about the year 1734, pointed out that 'if the funds appropriated produce the double of that immense revenue of AL800,000 a year, which hath been so liberally given the King for life, the whole is his without account; but if they fail in any degree to produce it, the entire national fund is engaged to make up the difference.' Blackstone (edit, of 1778, i. 331) says:--'AL800,000 being found insufficient, was increased in 1777 to, AL900,000.' He adds, 'the public is still a gainer of near AL100,000.'

[1059] See _post_, iii. 163.

[1060] Lord Eldon says that Dundas, 'in broken phrases,' asked the King to confer a baronetcy on 'an eminent Scotch apothecary who had got from Scotland the degree of M. D. The King said:--"What, what, is that all? It shall be done. I was afraid you meant to ask me to make the Scotch apothecary a physician--that's more difficult."' He added:--'They may make as many Scotch apothecaries Baronets as they please, but I shall die by the College.' Twiss's _Eldon_, ii. 354. A Dr. Duncan, says Mr. Croker, was appointed physician to the King in 1760. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 448. A doctor of the same name, and no doubt the same man, was made a baronet in Aug. 1764. Jesse's _Selwyn_, i. 287.

[1061] Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Chancellor Loughborough, and Earl of Rosslyn. One of his 'errands' had been to bring Johnson bills in payment of his first quarter's pension. _Ante_, i. 376.

[1062] Home, the author of _Douglas_. Boswell says that 'Home showed the Lord Chief Baron Orde a pair of pumps he had on, and desired his lordship to observe how well they were made, telling him at the same time that they had been made for Lord Bute, but were rather too little for him, so his lordship had made John a present of them. "I think," said the Lord Chief Baron, "you have taken the measure of Lord Bute's foot."' _Boswelliana_, p. 252. Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 335), writes:--'With Robertson and Home in London I passed the time very agreeably; for though Home was now [1758] entirely at the command of Lord Bute, whose nod made him break every engagement--for it was not given above an hour or two before dinner--yet, as he was sometimes at liberty when the noble lord was to dine abroad, like a horse loosened from his stake, he was more sportful than usual.'

[1063] Lord North was merely the King's agent. The King was really his own minister at this time, though he had no seat in his own cabinet councils.

[1064] Only thirty-four years earlier, on the motion in the Lords for the removal of Walpole, the Duke of Argyle said:--'If my father or brother took upon him the office of a sole minister, I would oppose it as inconsistent with the constitution, as a high crime and misdemeanour. I appeal to your consciences whether he [Walpole] hath not done this... He hath turned out men lately for differing with him.' Lord Chancellor Hardwicke replied:--'A sole minister is so illegal an office that it is none. Yet a noble lord says, _Superior respondeat_, which is laying down a rule for a prime minister; whereas the noble Duke was against any.' _The Secker MS. Parl. Hist_. xi. 1056-7. In the Protest against the rejection of the motion it was stated:--'We are persuaded that a sole, or even a first minister, is an officer unknown to the law of Britain,' &c. _Ib_ p. 1215. Johnson reports the Chancellor as saying:--'It has not been yet pretended that he assumes the title of _prime minister_, or, indeed, that it is applied to him by any but his enemies ... The first minister can, in my opinion, be nothing more than a formidable illusion, which, when one man thinks he has seen it, he shows to another, as easily frighted as himself,' &c. Johnson's _Works_, x. 214-15. In his _Dictionary_, _premier_ is only given as an adjective, and _prime minister_ is not given at all. When the Marquis of Rockingham was forming his cabinet in March 1782, Burke wrote to him:--'Stand firm on your ground--but _one_ ministry. I trust and hope that your lordship will not let _one_, even but _one_ branch of the state ... out of your own hands; or those which you can entirely rely on.' Burke's _Corres_. ii. 462. See also _post_, iii. 46, April 1, 1781, Jan. 20, 1782, and April 10, 1783.

[1065] See _ante_, p. 300.

[1066] 'As he liberally confessed that all his own disappointments proceeded from himself, he hated to hear others complain of general injustice.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 251. See _post_, end of May, 1781, and March 23, 1783.

[1067] 'Boswell and I went to church, but came very late. We then took tea, by Boswell's desire; and I eat one bun, I think, that I might not seem to fast ostentatiously.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 138.

[1068] See ante, i. 433.

[1069] See ante, i. 332.

[1070] The following passages shew that the thought, or something like it, was not new to Johnson:--'BruyA"re declares that we are come into the world too late to produce anything new, that nature and life are preoccupied, and that description and sentiment have been long exhausted.' _The Rambler_, No. 143. 'Some advantage the ancients might gain merely by priority, which put them in possession of the most natural sentiments, and left us nothing but servile repetition or forced conceits.' _Ib_ No. 169. 'My earlier predecessors had the whole field of life before them, untrodden and unsurveyed; characters of every kind shot up in their way, and those of the most luxuriant growth, or most conspicuous colours, were naturally cropt by the first sickle. They that follow are forced to peep into neglected corners.' _The Idler_, No. 3. 'The first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description, and the most probable occurrences for fiction.' _Rasselas_, ch. x. Some years later he wrote:--'Whatever can happen to man has happened so often that little remains for fancy or invention.' _Works_, vii. 311. See also _The Rambler_, No. 86. In _The Adventurer_, No. 95, he wrote:--'The complaint that all topicks are preoccupied is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness.' See _post_, under Aug. 29, 1783. Dr. Warton (_Essay on Pope_, i. 88) says that 'St. Jerome relates that Donatus, explaining that passage in Terence, _Nihil est dictum quod non sit dictum prius_, railed at the ancients for taking from him his best thoughts. _Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerunt_.'

[1071] Warburton, in the Dedication of his _Divine Legation_ to the Free-thinkers (vol. I. p. ii), says:--'Nothing, I believe, strikes the serious observer with more surprize, in this age of novelties, than that strange propensity to infidelity, so visible in men of almost every condition: amongst whom the advocates of Deism are received with all the applauses due to the inventers of the arts of life, or the deliverers of oppressed and injured nations.' See _ante_, ii. 81.

[1072] In _The Rambler_, No. 89, Johnson writes of 'that interchange of thoughts which is practised in free and easy conversation, where suspicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where every man speaks with no other restraint than unwillingness to offend, and hears with no other disposition than desire to be pleased.' In _The Idler_, No. 34, he says 'that companion will be oftenest welcome whose talk flows out with inoffensive copiousness and unenvied insipidity.' He wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Such tattle as filled your last sweet letter prevents one great inconvenience of absence, that of returning home a stranger and an inquirer. The variations of life consist of little things. Important innovations are soon heard, and easily understood. Men that meet to talk of physicks or metaphysicks, or law or history, may be immediately acquainted. We look at each other in silence, only for want of petty talk upon slight occurrences.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 354.

[1073] _Pr. and Med_. p. 138. BOSWELL.

[1074] This line is not, as appears, a quotation, but an abstract of p. 139 of _Pr. and Med_.

[1075] This is a proverbial sentence. 'Hell,' says Herbert, 'is full of good meanings and wishings.' _Jacula Prudentum_, p. 11, edit 1651. MALONE.

[1076] Boswell wrote to Temple:--'I have only to tell you, as my divine, that I yesterday received the holy sacrament in St. Paul's Church, and was exalted in piety.' It was in the same letter that he mentioned 'Asiatic multiplicity' (_ante_ p. 352, note 1). _Letters of Boswell_, p. 189.

[1077]

'Nil admirari, prope res est una, Numici, Solaque, quae possit facere et servare beatum'

Horace, _Epis_. i. 6. 1.

'Not to admire is all the art I know, To make men happy and keep them so'

Pope's _Imitations_, adapted from Creech.

[1078]

'We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love; And even as these are well and wisely fixed, In dignity of being we ascend.'

Wordsworth's _Works_, ed. 1857, vi. 135.

[1079]

'Amoret's as sweet and good, As the most delicious food; Which but tasted does impart Life and gladness to the heart. Sacharissa's beauty's wine, Which to madness does incline; Such a liquor as no brain That is mortal can sustain.'

Waller's _Epistles_, xii. BOSWELL.

[1080] Not that he would have wished Boswell 'to talk from books.' 'You and I,' he once said to him, 'do not talk from books.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 3, 1773. See _post_, iii, 108, note 1, for Boswell's want of learning.

[1081] See _post_, under March 30, 1783.

[1082] Yet he sat to Miss Reynolds, as he tells us, perhaps ten times (_post_, under June 17, 1783), and 'Miss Reynolds's mind,' he said, 'was very near to purity itself.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 80. Eight years later Barry, in his _Analysis_ (_post_, May, 1783, note), said:--'Our females are totally, shamefully, and cruelly neglected in the appropriation of trades and employments.' Barry's _Works_, ii. 333.

[1083] The four most likely to be mentioned would be, I think, Beauclerk, Garrick, Langton, and Reynolds. On p. 359, Boswell mentions Beauclerk's 'acid manner.'

[1084] In his _Dictionary_, Johnson defines _muddy_ as _cloudy in mind, dull_; and quotes _The Winter's Tale_, act i. sc. 2. Wesley (_Journal_, ii. 10) writes:--'Honest, _muddy_ M. B. conducted me to his house.' Johnson (_post_, March 22, 1776), after telling how an acquaintance of his drank, adds, 'not that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always _muddy_.' It seems at first sight unlikely that he called Reynolds _muddy_; yet three months earlier he had written:--'Reynolds has taken too much to strong liquor.' _Ante_, p. 292, note 5.

[1085] In _The Rambler_, No. 72, Johnson defines good-humour as 'a habit of being pleased; a constant and perennial softness of manner, easiness of approach, and suavity of disposition.'

[1086] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 17, 1773.

[1087] 'It is with their learning as with provisions in a besieged town, every one has a mouthful, and no one a bellyful.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 200.

[1088] 'Men bred in the Universities of Scotland cannot be expected to be often decorated with the splendours of ornamental erudition, but they obtain a mediocrity of knowledge between learning and ignorance, not inadequate to the purposes of common life, which is, I believe, very widely diffused among them.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 158. Lord Shelburne said that the Earl of Bute had 'a great deal of superficial knowledge, such as is commonly to be met with in France and Scotland, chiefly upon matters of natural philosophy, mines, fossils, a smattering of mechanics, a little metaphysics, and a very false taste in everything.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 139. 'A gentleman who had heard that Bentley was born in the north, said to Porson: "Wasn't he a Scotchman?" "No, Sir," replied Porson, "Bentley was a great Greek scholar."' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 322.

[1089] Walton did not retire from business till 1643. But in 1664, Dr. King, Bishop of Chichester, in a letter prefixed to his _Lives_, mentions his having been familiarly acquainted with him for forty years; and in 1631 he was so intimate with Dr. Donne that he was one of the friends who attended him on his death-bed. J. BOSWELL, jun. His first wife's uncle was George Cranmer, the grandson of the Archbishop's brother. His second wife was half-sister of Bishop Ken.

[1090] Johnson himself, as Boswell tells us, 'was somewhat susceptible of flattery.' _Post_, end of 1784.

[1091] The first time he dined with me, he was shewn into my book-room, and instantly poured over the lettering of each volume within his reach. My collection of books is very miscellaneous, and I feared there might be some among them that he would not like. But seeing the number of volumes very considerable, he said, 'You are an honest man, to have formed so great an accumulation of knowledge.' BURNEY. Miss Burney describes this visit (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 93):--'Everybody rose to do him honour; and he returned the attention with the most formal courtesie. My father whispered to him that music was going forward, which he would not, my father thinks, have found out; and, placing him on the best seat vacant, told his daughters to go on with the duet, while Dr. Johnson, intently rolling towards them one eye--for they say he does not see with the other--made a grave nod, and gave a dignified motion with one hand, in silent approvance of the proceeding.' He was next introduced to Miss Burney, but 'his attention was not to be drawn off two minutes longer from the books, to which he now strided his way. He pored over them shelf by shelf, almost brushing them with his eye-lashes from near examination. At last, fixing upon something that happened to hit his fancy, he took it down, and standing aloof from the company, which he seemed clean and clear to forget, he began very composedly to read to himself, and as intently as if he had been alone in his own study. We were all excessively provoked, for we were languishing, fretting, expiring to hear him talk.' Dr. Burney, taking up something that Mrs. Thrale had said, ventured to ask him about Bach's concert. 'The Doctor, comprehending his drift, good-naturedly put away his book, and see-sawing with a very humorous smile, drolly repeated, "Bach, Sir? Bach's concert? And pray, Sir, who is Bach? Is he a piper?"'

[1092] Reynolds, noting down 'such qualities as Johnson's works cannot convey,' says that 'the most distinguished was his possessing a mind which was, as I may say, always ready for use. Most general subjects had undoubtedly been already discussed in the course of a studious thinking life. In this respect few men ever came better prepared into whatever company chance might throw him; and the love which he had to society gave him a facility in the practice of applying his knowledge of the matter in hand, in which I believe he was never exceeded by any man.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 454.

[1093] See _ante_, p. 225.

[1094] 'Our silly things called Histories,' wrote Burke (_Corres_, i. 337). 'The Duke of Richmond, Fox, and Burke,' said Rogers (_Table-Talk_, p. 82), 'were conversing about history, philosophy, and poetry. The Duke said, "I prefer history to philosophy or poetry, because history is _truth_." Both Fox and Burke disagreed with him: they thought that poetry was _truth_, being a representation of human nature.' Lord Bolingbroke had said (_Works_, iii. 322) that the child 'in riper years applies himself to history, or to that which he takes for history, to authorised romance.'

[1095] Mr. Plunket made a great sensation in the House of Commons (Feb. 28, 1825) by saying that history, if not judiciously read, 'was no better than an old almanack'--which Mercier had already said in his _Nouveau Tableau de Paris_--'Malet du Pan's and such like histories of the revolution are no better than an old almanack.' Boswell, we see, had anticipated both. CROKER.

[1096] It was at Rome on Oct. 15, 1764, says Gibbon in a famous passage, 'that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.' It was not till towards the end of 1772 that he 'undertook the composition of the first volume.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 198, 217-9.

[1097] See p. 348. BOSWELL. Gibbon, when with Johnson, perhaps felt that timidity which kept him silent in Parliament. 'I was not armed by nature and education,' he writes, 'with the intrepid energy of mind and voice _Vincentem strepitus, et natum rebus agendis_. Timidity was fortified by pride, and even the success of my pen discouraged the trial of my voice.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 221. Some years before he entered Parliament, he said that his genius was 'better qualified for the deliberate compositions of the closet, than for the extemporary discourses of the Parliament. An unexpected objection would disconcert me; and as I am incapable of explaining to others what I do not thoroughly understand myself, I should be meditating while I ought to be answering.' _Ib_ ii. 39.

[1098] A very eminent physician, whose discernment is as acute and penetrating in judging of the human character as it is in his own profession, remarked once at a club where I was, that a lively young man, fond of pleasure, and without money, would hardly resist a solicitation from his mistress to go upon the highway, immediately after being present at the representation of _The Beggar's Opera_. I have been told of an ingenious observation by Mr. Gibbon, that '_The Beggar's Opera_ may, perhaps, have sometimes increased the number of highwaymen; but that it has had a beneficial effect in refining that class of men, making them less ferocious, more polite, in short, more like gentlemen.' Upon this Mr. Courtenay said, that 'Gay was the Orpheus of highwaymen.' BOSWELL.

[1099] 'The play like many others was plainly written only to divert without any moral purpose, and is therefore not likely to do good; nor can it be conceived without more speculation than life requires or admits to be productive of much evil. Highwaymen and house-breakers seldom frequent the play-house, or mingle in any elegant diversion; nor is it possible for any one to imagine that he may rob with safety, because he sees Macheath reprieved upon the stage.' _Works_, viii. 68.

[1100] 'The worthy Queensb'ry yet laments his Gay.'

_The Seasons_. Summer, l. 1422. Pope (_Prologue to the Satires_, l. 259) says:--

'Of all thy blameless life the sole return My verse, and Queensb'ry weeping o'er thy urn.'

Johnson (_Works_, viii. 69) mentions 'the affectionate attention of the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry, into whose house he was taken, and with whom he passed the remaining part of his life.' Smollett, in _Humphry Clinker_, in the letters of Sept. 12 and 13, speaks of the Duke as 'one of the best men that ever breathed,' 'one of those few noblemen whose goodness of heart does honour to human nature.' He died in 1778.

[1101] This song is the twelfth air in act i.

[1102] 'In several parts of tragedy,' writes Tom Davies, 'Walker's look, deportment, and action gave a _distinguished glare to tyrannic rage_.' Davies's _Garrick_, i. 24.

[1103] Pope said of himself and Swift:--'Neither of us thought it would succeed. We shewed it to Congreve, who said it would either take greatly or be damned confoundedly. We were all at the first night of it in great uncertainty of the event, till we were very much encouraged by overhearing the Duke of Argyle say, "It will do--it must do! I see it in the eyes of them!" This was a good while before the first act was over, and so gave us ease soon: for that duke has a more particular knack than any one now living in discovering the taste of the publick. He was quite right in this, as usual: the good-nature of the audience appeared stronger and stronger every act, and ended in a clamour of applause.' Spence's _Anec_. p. 159. See _The Dundad_, iii. 330, and _post_, April 25, 1778.

[1104] R. B. Sheridan married Miss Linley in 1773.

[1105] His wife had AL3000, settled on her with delicate generosity by a gentleman to whom she had been engaged. Moore's _Sheridan_, i. 43.

[1106] 'Those who had felt the mischief of discord and the tyranny of usurpation read _Hudibras_ with rapture, for every line brought back to memory something known, and gratified resentment by the just censure of something hated. But the book, which was once quoted by princes, and which supplied conversation to all the assemblies of the gay and witty, is now seldom mentioned, and even by those that affect to mention it, is seldom read.' _The Idler_, No. 59.

[1107] In his _Life of Addison_, Johnson says (_Works_, vii. 431):--'The reason which induced Cervantes to bring his hero to the grave, _para mi solo nacio Don Quixote y yo para el_ [for me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him], made Addison declare, with undue vehemence of expression, that he would kill Sir Roger; being of opinion that they were born for one another, and that any other hand would do him wrong.'

[1108] 'It may be doubted whether Addison ever filled up his original delineation. He describes his knight as having his imagination somewhat warped; but of this perversion he has made very little use.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 431.

[1109] 'The papers left in the closet of Pieresc supplied his heirs with a whole winter's fuel.' _The Idler_, No. 65. 'A chamber in his house was filled with letters from the most eminent scholars of the age. The learned in Europe had addressed Pieresc in their difficulties, who was hence called "the attorney-general of the republic of letters." The niggardly niece, though entreated to permit them to be published, preferred to use these learned epistles occasionally to light her fires.' D'Israeli's _Curiosities of Literature_, i. 59.

[1110] Boswell was accompanied by Paoli. To justify his visit to London, he said:--'I think it is also for my interest, as in time I may get something. Lord Pembroke was very obliging to me when he was in Scotland, and has corresponded with me since. I have hopes from him.' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 182, 189, and _post_, iii. 122, note 2. Horace Walpole described Lord Pembroke in 1764 as 'a young profligate.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, i. 415.

[1111] Page 316. BOSWELL.

[1112] Page 291. BOSWELL.

[1113] In justice to Dr. Memis, though I was against him as an Advocate, I must mention, that he objected to the variation very earnestly, before the translation was printed off. BOSWELL.

[1114] Mr. Croker quotes _The World_ of June 7, 1753, where a Londoner, 'to gratify the curiosity of a country friend, accompanied him in Easter week to Bedlam. To my great surprise,' he writes, 'I found a hundred people, at least, who, having paid their twopence apiece, were suffered unattended to run rioting up and down the wards making sport of the miserable inhabitants. I saw them in a loud laugh of triumph at the ravings they had occasioned.' Young (_Universal Passion_, Sat. v.) describes Britannia's daughters

'As unreserved and beauteous as the sun, Through every sign of vanity they run; Assemblies, parks, coarse feasts in city halls, Lectures and trials, plays, committees, balls; Wells, _Bedlams_, executions, Smithfield scenes, And fortune-tellers' caves, and lions' dens.'

In 1749, William Hutton walked from Nottingham to London, passed three days there in looking about, and returned on foot. The whole journey cost him ten shillings and eight-pence. He says:--'I wished to see a number of curiosities, but my shallow pocket forbade. _One penny to see Bedlam was all I could spare_.' Hutton's _Life_, pp. 71, 74. Richardson (_Familiar Letters_, No. 153) makes a young lady describe her visit to Bedlam:--'The distempered fancies of the miserable patients most unaccountably provoked mirth and loud laughter; nay, so shamefully inhuman were some, among whom (I am sorry to say it) were several of my own sex, as to endeavour to provoke the patients into rage to make them sport.'

[1115] In the _Life of Dryden_ (_Works_, vii. 304), Johnson writes:--'Virgil would have been too hasty if he had condemned him [Statius] _to straw_ for one sounding line.' In _Humphry Clinker_ (Letter of June 10), Mr. Bramble says to Clinker:--'The sooner you lose your senses entirely the better for yourself and the community. In that case, some charitable person might provide you with a dark room and clean straw in Bedlam.' Churchill, in _Independence_ (Poems, ii. 307), writes:--

'To Bethlem with him--give him whips and straw, I'm very sensible he's mad in law.'

[1116] My very honourable friend General Sir George Howard, who served in the Duke of Cumberland's army, has assured me that the cruelties were not imputable to his Royal Highness. BOSWELL. Horace Walpole shews the Duke's cruelty to his own soldiers. 'In the late rebellion some recruits had been raised under a positive engagement of dismission at the end of three years. When the term was expired they thought themselves at liberty, and some of them quitted the corps. The Duke ordered them to be tried as deserters, and not having received a legal discharge, they were condemned. Nothing could mollify him; two were executed.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George II_, ii. 203.

[1117] It has been suggested that this is Dr. Percy (see _post_, April 23, 1778), but Percy was more than 'an acquaintance of ours,' he was a friend.

[1118] Very likely Mr. Steevens. See _post_, April 13, 1778, and May 15, 1784.

[1119] On this day Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Boswell has made me promise not to go to Oxford till he leaves London; I had no great reason for haste, and therefore might as well gratify a friend. I am always proud and pleased to have my company desired. Boswell would have thought my absence a loss, and I know not who else would have considered my presence as profit. He has entered himself at the Temple, and I joined in his bond. He is to plead before the Lords, and hopes very nearly to gain the cost of his journey. He lives much with his friend Paoli.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 216. Boswell wrote to Temple on June 6:--'For the last fortnight that I was in London I lay at Paoli's house, and had the command of his coach.... I felt more dignity when I had several servants at my devotion, a large apartment, and the convenience and state of a coach. I recollected that _this dignity in London_ was honourably acquired by my travels abroad, and my pen after I came home, so I could enjoy it with my own approbation.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 200. A year later he records, that henceforth, while in London, he was Paoli's constant guest till he had a house of his own there (_post_, iii. 34).

[1120] Lord Stowell told Mr. Croker that, among the Scottish _literati_, Mr. Crosbie was the only man who was disposed to _stand up_ (as the phrase is) to Johnson. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 270. It is said that he was the original of Mr. Counsellor Pleydell in Scott's novel of _Guy Mannering_. Dr. A. Carlyle (_Autobiography_, p. 420) says of 'the famous club called the Poker,' which was founded in Edinburgh in 1762:--'In a laughing humour, Andrew Crosbie was chosen Assassin, in case any officer of that sort should be needed; but David Hume was added as his Assessor, without whose assent nothing should be done, so that between _plus_ and _minus_ there was likely to be no bloodshed.' See Boswell's _Herbrides_, Aug. 16, 1773.

[1121] He left on the 22nd. 'Boswell,' wrote Johnson to Mrs. Thrale on May 22, 'went away at two this morning. He got two and forty guineas in fees while he was here. He has, by his wife's persuasion and mine, taken down a present for his mother-in-law.' [? Step-mother, with whom he was always on bad terms; _post_, iii. 95, note 1.] _Piozzi Letters_, i. 219. Boswell, the evening of the same day, wrote to Temple from Grantham:--'I have now eat (sic) a Term's Commons in the Inner Temple. You cannot imagine what satisfaction I had in the form and ceremony of the _Hall_.... After breakfasting with Paoli, and worshipping at St. Paul's, I dined tA¬te-A -tA¬te with my charming Mrs. Stuart. We talked with unreserved freedom, as we had nothing to fear; we were _philosophical_, upon honour--not deep, but feeling; we were pious; we drank tea, and bid each other adieu as finely as romance paints. She is my wife's dearest friend; so you see how beautiful our intimacy is. I then went to Mr. Johnson's, and he accompanied me to Dilly's, where we supped; and then he went with me to the inn in Holborn, where the Newcastle Fly sets out; we were warmly affectionate. He is to buy for me a chest of books, of his choosing, off stalls, and I am to read more and drink less; that was his counsel.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 196.

[1122] Yet Gilbert Walmsley had called him in his youth 'a good scholar.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 1; and Boswell wrote to him:--'Mr. Johnson is ready to bruise any one who calls in question your classical knowledge, and your happy application of it.' _Ib_ p. 622.

[1123] 'Those whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to write very seldom ramble.' Johnson to Mrs. Thrale. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 32. See _post_, April 17, 1778.

[1124] A letter from Boswell to Temple on this day helps to fill up the gap in his journal:--'It gives me acute pain that I have not written more to you since we parted last; but I have been like a skiff in the sea, driven about by a multiplicity of waves. I am now at Mr. Thrale's villa, at Streatham, a delightful spot. Dr. Johnson is here too. I came yesterday to dinner, and this morning Dr. Johnson and I return to London, and I go with Mr. Beauclerk to see his elegant villa and library, worth AL3000, at Muswell Hill, and return and dine with him. I hope Dr. Johnson will dine with us. I am in that dissipated state of mind that I absolutely cannot write; I at least imagine so. But while I glow with gaiety, I feel friendship for you, nay, admiration of some of your qualities, as strong as you could wish. My excellent friend, let us ever cultivate that mutual regard which, as it has lasted till now, will, I trust, never fail. On Saturday last I dined with John Wilkes and his daughter, and nobody else, at the Mansion-House; it was a most pleasant scene. I had that day breakfasted with Dr. Johnson. I drank tea with Lord Bute's daughter-in-law, and I supped with Miss Boswell. What variety! Mr. Johnson went with me to Beauclerk's villa, Beauclerk having been ill; it is delightful, just at Highgate. He has one of the most numerous and splendid private libraries that I ever saw; green-houses, hot-houses, observatory, laboratory for chemical experiments, in short, everything princely. We dined with him at his box at the Adelphi. I have promised to Dr. Johnson to read when I get to Scotland, and to keep an account of what I read; I shall let you know how I go on. My mind must be nourished.' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 193-5.

[1125] Swift did not laugh. 'He had a countenance sour and severe, which he seldom softened by any appearance of gaiety. He stubbornly resisted any tendency to laughter.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 222. Neither did Pope laugh. 'By no merriment, either of others or his own, was he ever seen excited to laughter.' _Ib_ p. 312. Lord Chesterfield wrote (_Letters_ i. 329):--'How low and unbecoming a thing laughter is. I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason nobody has ever heard me laugh.' Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 298) that 'Dr. Johnson used to say "that the size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth;" and his own was never contemptible.'

[1126] The day before he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Peyton and Macbean [_ante_, i 187] are both starving, and I cannot keep them.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 218. On April 1, 1776, he wrote:--'Poor Peyton expired this morning. He probably, during many years for which he sat starving by the bed of a wife, not only useless but almost motionless, condemned by poverty to personal attendance chained down to poverty--he probably thought often how lightly he should tread the path of life without his burthen. Of this thought the admission was unavoidable, and the indulgence might be forgiven to frailty and distress. His wife died at last, and before she was buried he was seized by a fever, and is now going to the grave. Such miscarriages when they happen to those on whom many eyes are fixed, fill histories and tragedies; and tears have been shed for the sufferings, and wonder excited by the fortitude of those who neither did nor suffered more than Peyton.' _Ib_ 312. Baretti, in a marginal note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 219, writes:--'Peyton was a fool and a drunkard. I never saw so nauseous a fellow.' But Baretti was a harsh judge.

[1127] A learned Greek. BOSWELL. 'He was a nephew of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and had fled from some massacre of the Greeks.' Johnstone's _Life of Parr_, i. 84.

[1128] See _ante_, p. 278.

[1129] Wife of the Rev. Mr. Kenneth Macaulay, authour of _The History of St. Kilda_. BOSWELL. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 28, 1773.

[1130] 'The Elzevirs of Glasgow,' as Boswell called them. (_Hebrides_, Oct. 29.)

[1131] See in Boswell's _Hebrides_, Johnson's letter of May 6, 1775.

[1132] A law-suit carried on by Sir Allan Maclean, Chief of his Clan, to recover certain parts of his family estates from the Duke of Argyle. BOSWELL.

[1133] A very learned minister in the Isle of Sky, whom both Dr. Johnson and I have mentioned with regard. BOSWELL. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 3, 1773, and Johnson's _Works_, ix. 54. Johnson in another passage, (_ib_. p. 115), speaks of him as 'a very learned minister. He wished me to be deceived [as regards Ossian] for the honour of his country; but would not directly and formally deceive me.' Johnson told him this to his face. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22. His credulity is shewn by the belief he held, that the name of a place called Ainnit in Sky was the same as the _Anaitidis delubrum_ in Lydia. _Ib_ Sept. 17.