Chapter XXVII: Letter IV: 'sir, (7)

[878] Mrs. Knowles, not satisfied with the fame of her needlework, the '_sutile pictures_' mentioned by Johnson, in which she has indeed displayed much dexterity, nay, with the fame of reasoning better than women generally do, as I have fairly shewn her to have done, communicated to me a Dialogue of considerable length, which after many years had elapsed, she wrote down as having passed between Dr. Johnson and herself at this interview. As I had not the least recollection of it, and did not find the smallest trace of it in my _Record_ taken at the time, I could not in consistency with my firm regard to authenticity, insert it in my work. It has, however, been published in _The Gent. Mag_. for June, 1791. It chiefly relates to the principles of the sect called _Quakers_; and no doubt the Lady appears to have greatly the advantage of Dr. Johnson in argument as well as expression. From what I have now stated, and from the internal evidence of the paper itself, any one who may have the curiosity to peruse it, will judge whether it was wrong in me to reject it, however willing to gratify Mrs. Knowles. BOSWELL. Johnson mentioned the '_sutile pictures_' in a letter dated May 16, 1776, describing the dinner at Messrs. Dilly's. 'And there,' he wrote, 'was Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker, that works the sutile [misprinted by Mrs. Piozzi _futile_] pictures. She is a Staffordshire woman, and I am to go and see her. Staffordshire is the nursery of art; here they grow up till they are transplanted to London.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 326. He is pleasantly alluding to the fact that he was a Staffordshire man. In the _Dialogue_ in _The Gent. Mag_. for 1791, p. 502, Mrs. Knowles says that, the wrangle ended thus:--'Mrs. K. "I hope, Doctor, thou wilt not remain unforgiving; and that you will renew your friendship, and joyfully meet at last in those bright regions where pride and prejudice can never enter." Dr. Johnson. "Meet _her_! I never desire to meet fools anywhere." This sarcastic turn of wit was so pleasantly received that the Doctor joined in the laugh; his spleen was dissipated, he took his coffee, and became, for the remainder of the evening, very cheerful and entertaining.' Did Miss Austen find here the title of _Pride and Prejudice_, for her novel?

[879] Of this day he recorded (_Pr. and Med_. p. 163):--'It has happened this week, as it never happened in Passion Week before, that I have never dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor peculiar devotion.'

[880] See _ante_, iii. 48, note 4.

[881] I believe, however, I shall follow my own opinion; for the world has shewn a very flattering partiality to my writings, on many occasions. BOSWELL. In _Boswelliana_, p. 222, Boswell, after recording a story about Voltaire, adds:--'In contradiction to this story, see in my _Journal_ the account which Tronchin gave me of Voltaire.' This _Journal_ was probably destroyed by Boswell's family. By his will, he left his manuscripts and letters to Sir W. Forbes, Mr. Temple, and Mr. Malone, to be published for the benefit of his younger children as they shall decide. The Editor of _Boswelliana_ says (p. 186) that 'these three literary executors did not meet, and the entire business of the trust was administered by Sir W. Forbes, who appointed as his law-agent, Robert Boswell, cousin-german of the deceased. By that gentleman's advice, Boswell's manuscripts were left to the disposal of his family; and it is believed that the whole were immediately destroyed.' The indolence of Malone and Temple, and the brutish ignorance of the Boswells, have indeed much to answer for. See _ante_, i. 225, note 2, and _post_, May 12, 1778.

[882] 'He that would travel for the entertainment of others should remember that the great object of remark is human life.' _The Idler_, No. 97.

[883] See _ante_, ii. 377.

[884] Johnson recorded (_Pr. and Med_. p. 163):--'Boswell came in to go to Church ... Talk lost our time, and we came to Church late, at the Second Lesson.'

[885] See _ante_, i. 461.

[886] Oliver Edwards entered Pembroke College in June, 1729. He left in April, 1730.

[887] _Pr. and Med_. p. 164. BOSWELL.

[888] 'Edwards observed how many we have outlived. I hope, yet hope, that my future life shall be better than my past.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 166.

[889] See _post_, April 30, 1778.

[890] See _ante_, p. 221.

[891] 'Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.' _Ante_, i. 471.

[892] Johnson said to me afterwards, 'Sir, they respected me for my literature; and yet it was not great but by comparison. Sir, it is amazing how little literature there is in the world.' BOSWELL.

[893] See _ante_, i. 320.

[894] Very near the College, facing the passage which leads to it from Pembroke Street, still stands an old alehouse which must have been old in Johnson's time.

[895] This line has frequently been attributed to Dryden, when a King's Scholar at Westminster. But neither Eton nor Westminster have in truth any claim to it, the line being borrowed, with a slight change, from an Epigram by Crashaw:--

'Joann. 2,

'_Aquæ in vinum versæ. Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis? Qua rosa mirantes tam nova mutat aquas? Numen, convinvæ, præsens agnoscite numen, Nympha pudica_ DEUM _vidit, et erubuit_.' MALONE.

What gave your springs a brightness not their own? What rose so strange the wond'ring waters flushed? Heaven's hand, oh guests; heaven's hand may here be known; The spring's coy nymph has seen her God and blushed.

[896] 'He that made the verse following (some ascribe it to Giraldus Cambrensis) could adore both the sun rising, and the sun setting, when he could so cleanly honour King Henry II, then departed, and King Richard succeeding.

"_Mira cano, Sol occubuit, nox nulla sequutaest_."'

Camden's _Remains_ (1870), p. 351.

[897] 'When Mr. Hume began to be known in the world as a philosopher, Mr. White, a decent, rich merchant of London, said to him:--"I am surprised, Mr. Hume, that a man of your good sense should think of being a philosopher. Why, _I_ now took it into my head to be a philosopher for some time, but tired of it most confoundedly, and very soon gave it up." "Pray, Sir," said Mr. Hume, "in what branch of philosophy did you employ your researches? What books did you read?" "Books?" said Mr. White; "nay sir, I read no books, but I used to sit whole forenoons a-yawning and poking the fire." _Boswelliana_, p. 221. The French were more successful than Mr. Edwards in the pursuit of philosophy, Horace Walpole wrote from Paris in 1766 (_Letters_, iv. 466):--'The generality of the men, and more than the generality, are dull and empty. They have taken up gravity, thinking it was philosophy and English, and so have acquired nothing in the room of their natural levity and cheerfulness.'

[898] See _ante_, ii. 8.

[899] See _ante_, i. 332.

[900] See _ante_, i. 468, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 4.

[901] I am not absolutely sure but this was my own suggestion, though it is truly in the character of Edwards. BOSWELL.

[902] Sixty-nine. He was born in 1709.

[903] See _ante_, i. 75, note 1.

[904]

'O my coevals! remnants of yourselves! Poor human ruins, tottering o'er the grave! Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees, Strike deeper their vile roots, and closer cling, Still more enamoured of this wretched soil?'

Young's _Night Thoughts_, Night iv.

[905] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20, 1773. According to Mrs. Piozzi 'he liked the expression so well that he often repeated it.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 208. He wrote to her:--'Have you not observed in all our conversations that my _genius_ is always in extremes; that I am very noisy or very silent; very gloomy or very merry; very sour or very kind?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 166. In Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ (ii. 310) we read that 'Dr. Johnson is never his best when there is nobody to draw him out;' and in her _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_ (ii. 107) she adds that 'the masterly manner in which, as soon as any topic was started, he seized it in all its bearings, had so much the air of belonging to the leader of the discourse, that this singularity was unsuspected save by the experienced observation of long years of acquaintance.' Malone wrote in 1783:--'I have always found him very communicative; ready to give his opinion on any subject that was mentioned. He seldom, however, starts a subject himself; but it is very easy to lead him into one.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. What Dugald Stewart says of Adam Smith (_Life_, p. 114) was equally true of Johnson:--'He was scarcely ever known to start a new topic himself, or to appear unprepared upon those topics that were introduced by others.' Johnson, in his long fits of silence, was perhaps like Cowper, but when aroused he was altogether unlike. Cowper says of himself:--'The effect of such continual listening to the language of a heart hopeless and deserted is that I can never give much more than half my attention to what is started by others, and very rarely start anything myself.' Southey's _Cowper_, v. 10.

[906] In summer 1792, additional and more expensive decorations having been introduced, the price of admission was raised to two shillings. I cannot approve of this. The company may be more select; but a number of the honest commonalty are, I fear, excluded from sharing in elegant and innocent entertainment. An attempt to abolish the one-shilling gallery at the playhouse has been very properly counteracted. BOSWELL.

[907] _Regale_, as a noun, is not in Johnson's Dictionary. It was a favourite word with Miss Burney.

[908] 'Tyers is described in _The Idler_, No. 48, under the name of Tom Restless; "a circumstance," says Mr. Nichols, "pointed out to me by Dr. Johnson himself."' _Lit. Anec_. viii. 81. 'When Tom Restless rises he goes into a coffee-house, where he creeps so near to men whom he takes to be reasoners, as to hear their discourse, and endeavours to remember something which, when it has been strained through Tom's head, is so near to nothing, that what it once was cannot be discovered. This he carries round from friend to friend through a circle of visits, till, hearing what each says upon the question, he becomes able at dinner to say a little himself; and as every great genius relaxes himself among his inferiors, meets with some who wonder how so young a man can talk so wisely.'

[909] 'That accurate judge of human life, Dr. Johnson, has often been heard by me to observe, that it was the greatest misfortune which could befall a man to have been bred to no profession, and pathetically to regret that this misfortune was his own.' _More's Practical Piety_, p. 313. MARKLAND.

[910] He had wished to study it. See _ante_, i. 134.

[911] The fourth Earl of Lichfield, the Chancellor of Oxford, died in 1772. The title became extinct in 1776, on the death of the fifth earl. The present title was created in 1831. Courthope's _Hist. Peerage_, p. 286.

[912] See _post_, March 23, 1783, where Boswell vexed him in much the same way.

[913] I am not entirely without suspicion that Johnson may have felt a little momentary envy; for no man loved the good things of this life better than he did; and he could not but be conscious that he deserved a much larger share of them, than he ever had. I attempted in a newspaper to comment on the above passage, in the manner of Warburton, who must be allowed to have shewn uncommon ingenuity, in giving to any authour's text whatever meaning he chose it should carry. [_Ante_, ii. 37, note 1.] As this imitation may amuse my readers, I shall here introduce it:--

'No saying of Dr. Johnson's has been more misunderstood than his applying to Mr. Burke when he first saw him at his fine place at Beaconsfield, _Non equidem invideo; miror magis_. These two celebrated men had been friends for many years before Mr. Burke entered on his parliamentary career. They were both writers, both members of THE LITERARY CLUB; when, therefore, Dr. Johnson saw Mr. Burke in a situation so much more splendid than that to which he himself had attained, he did not mean to express that he thought it a disproportionate prosperity; but while he, as a philosopher, asserted an exemption from envy, _non equidem invideo_, he went on in the words of the poet _miror magis_; thereby signifying, either that he was occupied in admiring what he was glad to see; or, perhaps, that considering the general lot of men of superiour abilities, he wondered that Fortune, who is represented as blind, should, in this instance, have been so just.' BOSWELL. Johnson in his youth had translated

'Non equidem invideo; miror magis'

(Virgil, _Eclogues_, i. II) by

'My admiration only I exprest, (No spark of envy harbours in my breast).'

_Ante_, i. 51.

[914] See _ante_ ii. 136.

[915] This neglect was avenged a few years after Goldsmith's death, when Lord Camden sought to enter The Literary Club and was black-balled. 'I am sorry to add,' wrote Mr. [Sir William] Jones in 1780, 'that Lord Camden and the Bishop of Chester were rejected. When Bishops and Chancellors honour us by offering to dine with us at a tavern, it seems very extraordinary that we should ever reject such an offer; but there is no reasoning on the caprice of men.' _Life of Sir W. Jones_, p. 240.

[916] Cradock (_Memoirs_, i. 229) was dining with The Literary Club, when Garrick arrived very late, full-dressed. 'He made many apologies; he had been unexpectedly detained at the House of Lords, and Lord Camden had insisted upon setting him down at the door of the hotel in his own carriage. Johnson said nothing, but he looked a volume.'

[917] Miss. [Per Errata; Originally: Mrs.] Burney records this year (1778) that Mrs. Thrale said to Johnson, 'Garrick is one of those whom you suffer nobody to abuse but yourself; for if any other person speaks against him, you browbeat him in a minute. "Why, madam," answered he, "they don't know when to abuse him, and when to praise him; I will allow no man to speak ill of David that he does not deserve."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 65. See _ante_, i. 393, note 1.

[918] The passage is in a letter dated Dublin, Oct. 12, 1727. 'Here is my maintenance,' wrote Swift, 'and here my convenience. If it pleases God to restore me to my health, I shall readily make a third journey; if not we must part, as all human creatures have parted.' He never made the third journey. Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xvii. 154.

[919] See _ante_, ii. 162.

[920] No doubt Percy.

[921] The philosopher was Bias. Cicero, _Paradoxa_, i.

[922] Johnson recorded of this day (_Pr. and Med_. p. 164):--'We sat till the time of worship in the afternoon, and then came again late, at the Psalms. Not easily, I think, hearing the sermon, or not being attentive, I fell asleep.'

[923] Marshall's _Minutes of Agriculture_.

[924] It was only in hay-time and harvest that Marshall approved of Sunday work. He had seen in the wet harvest of 1775 so much corn wasted that he 'was ambitious to set the patriotic example' of Sunday labour. One Sunday he 'promised every man who would work two shillings, as much roast beef and plumb pudding as he would eat, with as much ale as it might be fit for him to drink.' Nine men and three boys came. In a note in the edition of 1799, he says:--'The Author has been informed that an old law exists (mentioned by Dugdale), which tolerates husbandmen in working on Sundays in harvest; and that, in proof thereof, a gentleman in the north has uniformly carried one load every year on a Sunday.' He adds:--'Jan. 1799. The particulars of this note were furnished by the late Dr. Samuel Johnson; at whose request some considerable part of what was originally written, and _printed_ on this subject was cancelled. That which was published and which is now offered again to the public is, _in effect_, what Dr. Johnson approved; or, let me put it in the most cautious terms, that of which _Dr. Johnson did not disapprove_.' Marshall's _Minutes etc., on Agriculture_, ii. 65-70.

[925] Saturday was April 18.

[926] William Duncombe, Esq. He married the sister of John Hughes the poet; was the authour of two tragedies and other ingenious productions; and died 26th Feb. 1769, aged 79. MALONE. In his Life of Hughes (_Works_, vii. 477), Johnson says 'an account of Hughes is prefixed to his works by his relation, the late Mr. Duncombe, a man whose blameless elegance deserved the same respect.'

[927] See _ante_, i. 185, 243, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22.

[928] See _ante_, i. 145.

[929] See Appendix A.

[930] No doubt Parson Home, better known as Home Tooke, who was at this time in prison. He had signed an advertisement issued by the Constitutional Society asking for a subscription for 'the relief of the widows, etc., of our beloved American fellow-subjects, who had been inhumanly murdered by the King's troops at Lexington and Concord.' For this 'very gross libel' he had in the previous November been sentenced to a fine of £200 and a year's imprisonment. Ann. Reg. xx. 234-245. See _post_, May 13, 1778.

[931] Mr. Croker's conjecture that Dr. Shebbeare was the gentleman is supported by the favourable way in which Boswell (_post_, May 1781) speaks of Shebbeare as 'that gentleman,' and calls him 'a respectable name in literature.' Shebbeare, on Nov. 28, 1758, was sentenced by Lord Mansfield to stand in the pillory, to be confined for three years, and to give security for his good behaviour for seven years, for a libellous pamphlet intitled _A Sixth Letter to the People of England_. _Gent. Mag_. xxviii. 555. (See _ante_, p. 15, note 3.) On Feb. 7, 1759, the under-sheriff of Middlesex was found guilty of a contempt of Court, in having suffered Shebbeare to stand _upon_ the pillory only, and not _in_ it. _Ib_. xxix. 91. Before the seven years had run out, Shebbeare was pensioned. Smollett, in the preface to _Humphry Clinker_, represents the publisher of that novel as writing to the imaginary author:--'If you should be sentenced to the pillory your fortune is made. As times go, that's a sure step to honour and preferment. I shall think myself happy if I can lend you a lift.' See also in the same book Mr. Bramble's Letter of June 2.

[932] See p. 275 of this volume. BOSWELL. Why Boswell mentions this gentleman at all, seeing that nothing that he says is reported, is not clear. Perhaps he gave occasion to Johnson's attack on the Americans. It is curious also why both here and in the account given of Dr. Percy's dinner his name is not mentioned. In the presence of this unknown gentleman Johnson violently attacked first Percy, and next Boswell.

[933] Mr. Langton no doubt. See _ante_, iii. 48. He had paid Johnson a visit that morning. _Pr. and Med_. p. 165.

[934] See _ante_, p. 216.

[935] See _ante_, i. 494, where Johnson says that 'her learning is that of a schoolboy in one of the lower forms.'

[936] On this day Johnson recorded in his review of the past year:-- 'My nights have been commonly, not only restless, but painful and fatiguing.' He adds, 'I have written a little of the _Lives of the Poets_, I think with all my usual vigour.... This year the 28th of March passed away without memorial. Poor Tetty, whatever were our faults and failings, we loved each other. I did not forget thee yesterday. Couldest thou have lived!' _Pr. and Med_. pp. 169, 170.

[937] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, iii. 48.

[938] Malone was told by Baretti that 'Dr. James picked up on a stall a book of Greek hymns. He brought it to Johnson, who ran his eyes over the pages and returned it. A year or two afterwards he dined at Sir Joshua Reynolds's with Dr. Musgrave, the editor of _Euripides_. Musgrave made a great parade of his Greek learning, and among other less known writers mentioned these hymns, which he thought none of the company were acquainted with, and extolled them highly. Johnson said the first of them was indeed very fine, and immediately repeated it. It consisted of ten or twelve lines.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 160.

[939] By Richard Tickell, the grandson of Addison's friend. Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 54

[940] She was a younger sister of Peg Woffington (_ante_, p. 264). Johnson described her as 'a very airy lady.' (Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 23, 1773.) Murphy (_Life_, p. 137) says that 'Johnson, sitting at table with her, took hold of her hand in the middle of dinner, and held it close to his eye, wondering at the delicacy and the whiteness, till with a smile she asked:--"Will he give it to me again when he has done with it?"' He told Miss Burney that 'Mrs. Cholmondeley was the first person who publicly praised and recommended _Evelina_ among the wits.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 180. Miss Burney wrote in 1778:--'Mrs. Cholmondeley has been praising _Evelina_; my father said that I could not have had a greater compliment than making two such women my friends as Mrs. Thrale and Mrs. Cholmondeley, for they were severe and knowing, and afraid of praising _à tort et à travers_, as their opinions are liable to be quoted.' _Ib_. i. 47. To Mrs. Cholmondeley Goldsmith, just before his death, shewed a copy in manuscript of his _Retaliation_. No one else, it should seem, but Burke had seen it. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 412.

[941] Dr. Johnson is supported by the usage of preceding writers. So in _Musarum Deliciae_, 8vo. 1656 (the writer is speaking of Suckling's play entitled _Aglaura_, printed in folio):--

'This great voluminous _pamphlet_ may be said To be like one that hath more hair than head.'

MALONE.

Addison, in _The Spectator_, No. 529 says that 'the most minute pocket-author hath beneath him the writers of all pamphlets, or works that are only stitched. As for a pamphleteer he takes place of none but of the authors of single sheets.' The inferiority of a pamphlet is shewn in Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 216:--'Johnson would not allow the word _derange_ to be an English word. "Sir," said a gentleman who had some pretensions to literature, "I have seen it in a book." "Not in a _bound_ book," said Johnson; "_disarrange_ is the word we ought to use instead of it."' In his _Dictionary_ he gives neither _derange_ nor _disarrange_. Dr. Franklin, who had been a printer and was likely to use the term correctly, writing in 1785, mentions 'the artifices made use of to puff up a paper of verses into a pamphlet.' _Memoirs_, iii. 178.

[942] See _post_, March 16, 1779, for 'the exquisite address' with which Johnson evaded a question of this kind.

[943] Garrick insisted on great alterations being made in _The Good Natured Man_. When Goldsmith resisted this, 'he proposed a sort of arbitration,' and named as his arbitrator Whitehead the laureate. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 41. It was of Whitehead's poetry that Johnson said 'grand nonsense is insupportable.' _Ante_, i. 402. _The Good Natured Man_ was brought out by Colman, as well as _She Stoops to Conquer_.

[944] See _ante_, ii. 208, note 5.

[945] See _ante_, i. 416.

[946] 'This play, written in ridicule of the musical Italian drama, was first offered to Cibber and his brethren at Drury Lane, and rejected; it being then carried to Rich had the effect, as was ludicrously said, of _making_ Gay _rich_ and Rich _gay_.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 66. See _ante_, ii. 368.

[947] See _ante_, i. 112.

[948] In opposition to this Mr. Croker quotes Horace:---

'Populus me sibilat; at mihi plaudo Ipse domi, simul ac nummos contemplor in arca.' 'I'm hissed in public; but in secret blest, I count my money and enjoy my chest.' Horace, _Sat_. i. I. 66.

See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 26.

[949] The anecdote is told in _Menagiana_, iii. 104, but not of a '_maid_ of honour,' nor as an instance of '_exquisite flattery_.' 'M. d'Uzès était chevalier d'honneur de la reine. Cette princesse lui demanda un jour quelle heure il était; il répondit, "Madame, l'heure qu'il plaira à votre majesté."' Menage tells it as _a pleasantry_ of M. d'Uzès; but M. de la Monnoye says, that this duke was remarkable for _naïvetés_ and blunders, and was a kind of _butt_, to whom the wits of the court used to attribute all manner of absurdities. CROKER.

[950] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 2. II. The common reading is _solutis_. Boswell (_Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773) says:--'Mr. Wilkes told me this himself with classical admiration.'

[951] See this question fully investigated in the Notes upon my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_, edit. 3, p. 21, _et seq_. [Aug. 15]. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim _Suum cuique tribuito_, I cannot forbear to mention, that the additional Note beginning with 'I find since the former edition,' is not mine, but was obligingly furnished by Mr. Malone, who was so kind as to superintend the press while I was in Scotland, and the first part of the second edition was printing. He would not allow me to ascribe it to its proper authour; but, as it is exquisitely acute and elegant, I take this opportunity, without his knowledge, to do him justice. BOSWELL. See also _ante_, i. 453, and _post_, May 15, 1784.

[952] Horace, _Sat_. i. I. 106. Malone points out that this is the motto to _An Enquiry into Customary Estates and Tenants' Rights, &c., with some considerations for restraining excessive fines_. By Everard Fleetwood, 8vo, 1737.

[953] A _modus_ is _something paid as a compensation for tithes on the supposition of being a moderate equivalent_. Johnson's _Dictionary_. It was more desirable for the landlord than the Parson. Thus T. Warton, in his _Progress of Discontent_, represents the Parson who had taken a college living regretting his old condition,

'When calm around the common-room I puffed my daily pipe's perfume; ... And every night I went to bed, Without a _modus_ in my head.'

T. Warton's _Poems_, ii. 197.

[954] Fines are payments due to the lord of a manor on every admission of a new tenant. In some manors these payments are fixed by custom; they are then _fines certain_; in others they are not fixed, but depend on the reasonableness of the lord and the paying capacity of the tenant; they are _fines uncertain_. The advantage of _fines certain_, like that of a _modus_ in tithes, is that a man knows what he shall get.

[955] _Ante_, iii. 35.

[956] Mr. P. Cunningham has, I think, enabled us to clear up Boswell's mystery, by finding in the _Garrick Corres_, ii. 305, May 1778, that Johnson's poor friend, Mauritius Lowe, the painter, lived at No. 3, Hedge Lane, in a state of extreme distress. CROKER. See _post_, April 3, 1779, and April 12, 1783.

[957] 'In all his intercourse with mankind, Pope had great delight in artifice, and endeavoured to attain all his purposes by indirect and unsuspected methods. "He hardly drank tea without a stratagem." ["Nor take her tea without a stratagem." Young's _Universal Passion, Sat_. vi.] He practised his arts on such small occasions that Lady Bolingbroke used to say, in a French phrase, that "he played the politician about cabbages and turnips."' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 311.

[958] Johnson, _post_, under March 30, 1783, speaks of 'the vain ostentatious importance of many persons in quoting the authority of dukes and lords.' In his going to the other extreme, as he said he did, may be found the explanation of Boswell's 'mystery.' For of mystery--'the wisdom of blockheads,' as Horace Walpole calls it (_Letters_, iii. 371)--Johnson was likely to have as little as any man. As for Grosvenor-square, the Thrales lived there for a short time, and Johnson had a room in the house (_post_, March 20, 1781).

[959] Tacitus, _Agricola_, ch. xxx. 'The unknown always passes for something peculiarly grand.'

[960] Johnson defines _toy-shop_ as 'a shop where playthings and little nice manufactures are sold.'

[961] See _ante_, ii. 241.

[962] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 237) says that 'the fore-top of all his wigs were (sic) burned by the candle down to the very net-work. Mr. Thrale's valet, for that reason, kept one always in his own hands, with which he met him at the parlour door when the bell had called him down to dinner.' Cumberland (_Memoirs_, i. 357) says that he wore 'a brown coat with metal buttons, black waistcoat and worsted stockings, with a flowing bob-wig; they were in perfectly good trim, and with the ladies he had nothing of the slovenly philosopher about him.'

[963] See _ante_, ii. 432.

[964] Here he either was mistaken, or had a different notion of an extensive sale from what is generally entertained: for the fact is, that four thousand copies of that excellent work were sold very quickly. A new edition has been printed since his death, besides that in the collection of his works. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 310, note 2.

[965] 'In the neighbourhood of Lichfield [in 1750] the principal gentlemen clothed their hounds in tartan plaid, with which they hunted a fox, dressed in a red uniform.' Mahon's _Hist. of England_, iv. 10.

[966] So Boswell in his _Hebrides_ (Nov. 8), hoping that his father and Johnson have met in heaven, observes, 'that they have met in a place where there is no room for Whiggism.' See _ante_, i. 431.

[967] _Paradise Lost_, bk. i. 263. Butler (_Miscellaneous Thoughts_, 1. 169) had said:--

'The Devil was the first o' th' name From whom the race of rebels came.'

[968] In the phraseology of Scotland, I should have said, 'Mr. John Spottiswoode the younger, _of that ilk_.' Johnson knew that sense of the word very well, and has thus explained it in his _Dictionary_, _voce_ ILK:--'It also signifies "the same;" as, _Mackintosh of that ilk_, denotes a gentleman whose surname and the title of his estate are the same.' BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 427, note 2.

[969] He wrote to Dr. Taylor on Oct. 19 of the next year:--'There are those still who either fright themselves, or would fright others, with an invasion.... Such a fleet [a fleet equal to the transportation of twenty or of ten thousand men] cannot be hid in a creek; it must be safely [?] visible; and yet I believe no man has seen the man that has seen it. The ships of war were within sight of Plymouth, and only within sight.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 461.

[970] See _ante_, iii. 42.

[971] It is observed in Waller's _Life_, in the _Biographia Britannica_, that he drank only water; and that while he sat in a company who were drinking wine, 'he had the dexterity to accommodate his discourse to the pitch of theirs as it _sunk_.' If excess in drinking be meant, the remark is acutely just. But surely, a moderate use of wine gives a gaiety of spirits which water-drinkers know not. BOSWELL. 'Waller passed his time in the company that was highest, both in rank and wit, from which even his obstinate sobriety did not exclude him. Though he drank water, he was enabled by his fertility of mind to heighten the mirth of Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said that "no man in England should keep him company without drinking but Ned Waller."' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 197.

[972] See _ante_, iii. 41, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 17.

[973] Pope. _Satires_, Prologue, 1. 283.

[974] As he himself had said in his letter of thanks for his diploma of Doctor of Laws, 'Nemo sibi placens non lactatur' (_ante_, ii. 333).

[975]

'Who mean to live within our proper sphere, Dear to ourselves, and to our country dear.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Epistles_, i. 3. 29.

[976] Johnson recommended this before. _Ante_, p. 169. Boswell tried abstinence once before. _Ante_, ii. 436, note 1, and iii. 170, note 1.

[977] Johnson wrote to Boswell in 1775:--'Reynolds has taken too much to strong liquor, and seems to delight in his new character.' _Ante_, ii. 292.

[978] See _ante_, p. 170, note 2.

[979] At the Castle of the Bishop of Munster 'there was,' writes Temple, 'nothing remarkable but the most Episcopal way of drinking that could be invented. As soon as we came in the great hall there stood many flagons ready charged; the general called for wine to drink the King's health; they brought him a formal bell of silver gilt, that might hold about two quarts or more; he took it empty, pulled out the clapper, and gave it me who (sic) he intended to drink to, then had the bell filled, drunk it off to his Majesty's health; then asked me for the clapper, put it in, turned down the bell, and rung it out to shew he had played fair and left nothing in it; took out the clapper, desired me to give it to whom I pleased, then gave his bell to be filled again, and brought it to me. I that never used to drink, and seldom would try, had commonly some gentlemen with me that served for that purpose when it was necessary.' Temple's _Works_, ed. 1757, i. 266.

[980] See _ante_, ii. 450, note 1, and iii. 79.

[981] The passages are in the _Jerusalem_, canto i. st. 3, and in _Lucretius_, i. 935, and again iv. 12. CROKER.

[982] See _ante_, ii. 247, where Boswell says that 'no man was more scrupulously inquisitive in order to discover the truth;' and iii. 188, 229.

[983] See _post_, under May 8, 1781.

[984] 'Sir,' said Johnson, 'I love Robertson, and I won't talk of his book.' _Ante_, ii. 53.

[985] 'I was once in company with Smith,' said Johnson in 1763, 'and we did not take to each other.' _Ante_, i. 427. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 29.

[986] See _ante_, ii. 63.

[987] See _ante_, ii. 84

[988] See _ante_, p. 3.

[989] This experiment which Madame Dacier made in vain, has since been tried in our own language, by the editor of _Ossian_, and we must either think very meanly of his abilities, or allow that Dr. Johnson was in the right. And Mr. Cowper, a man of real genius, has miserably failed in his blank verse translation. BOSWELL. Johnson, in his _Life of Pope_ (_Works_, viii. 253), says:--'I have read of a man, who being by his ignorance of Greek compelled to gratify his curiosity with the Latin printed on the opposite page, declared that from the rude simplicity of the lines literally rendered he formed nobler ideas of the Homeric majesty, than from the laboured elegance of polished versions,' Though Johnson nowhere speaks of Cowper, yet his writings were not altogether unknown to him. 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Cowper, 'read and recommended my first volume.' Southey's _Cowper_, v. 171.

[990] 'I bought the first volume of _Manchester_, but could not read it; it was much too learned for me, and seemed rather an account of Babel than Manchester, I mean in point of antiquity.' Walpole's _Letters_, vi. 207.

[991] Henry was injured by Gilbert Stuart, the malignant editor of the _Edinburgh Magazine and Review_, who 'had vowed that he would crush his work,' and who found confederates to help him. He asked Hume to review it, thinking no doubt that one historian would attack another; when he received from him a highly favourable review he would not publish it. It contained a curious passage, where Hume points out that Henry and Robertson were clergymen, and continues:--'These illustrious examples, if any thing, must make the _infidel abashed of his vain cavils_.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 469.

[992] Hume wrote to Millar:--'Hamilton and Balfour have offered Robertson [for his _Scotland_] a very unusual price; no less than £500 for one edition of 2000.' _Ib_. ii. 42. As Robertson did not accept this offer, no doubt he got a better one. Even if he got no more, it would not have seemed 'a moderate price' to a man whose preferment hitherto had been only £100 a year. (See Dugald Stewart's _Robertson_, p. 161.) Stewart adds (_ib_. p. 169):--'It was published on Feb. 1, 1759. Before the end of the month the author was desired by his bookseller to prepare for a second edition.' By 1793 it was in its fourteenth edition. _Ib_. p. 326. The publisher was Millar; the price two guineas. _Gent. Mag_. xxix. 84.

[993] Lord Clive. See _post_, p. 350, and Oct. 10, 1779.

[994] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 286) gives an instance of this 'romantick humour.' 'Robertson was very much a master of conversation, and very desirous to lead it, and to raise theories that sometimes provoked the laugh against him. He went a jaunt into England with Dundas, Cockburn and Sinclair; who, seeing a gallows on a neighbouring hillock, rode round to have a nearer view of the felon on the gallows. When they met in the inn, Robertson began a dissertation on the character of nations, and how much the English, like the Romans, were hardened by their cruel diversions of cock-fighting, bull-baiting, &c.; for had they not observed three Englishmen on horseback do what no Scotchman or--. Here Dundas interrupted him, and said, "What! did you not know, Principal, that it was Cockburn and Sinclair and me?" This put an end to theories, &c., for that day.'

[995] This was a favourite word with Johnson and Mrs. Thrale. 'Long live Mrs. G. that _downs_ my mistress,' he wrote (_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 26). 'Did you quite _down_ her?' he asked of another lady (_Ib_. p. 100). Miss Burney caught up the word: 'I won't be _downed_,' she wrote. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 252.

[996] See _ante_, iii. 41, 327.

[997] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 474) tells how Robertson, with one of his pupils, and he, visited at a house where some excellent claret flowed freely. 'After four days Robertson took me into a window before dinner, and with some solemnity proposed to make a motion to shorten the drinking, if I would second him--"Because," added he, "although you and I may go through it, I am averse to it on my pupil's account." I answered that I was afraid it would not do, as our toastmaster might throw ridicule upon us, as we were to leave the island the day after the next, and that we had not proposed any abridgement till the old claret was all done, the last of which we had drunk yesterday. "Well, well," replied the Doctor, "be it so then, and let us end as we began."'

[998] Johnson, when asked to hear Robertson preach, said:--'I will hear him if he will get up into a tree and preach; but I will not give a sanction by my presence to a Presbyterian assembly.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 27. See also _Ib_. Nov. 7.

[999] Mrs. Piozzi confidently mentions this as having passed in Scotland, _Anecdotes_, p. 62. BOSWELL. She adds:--'I was shocked to think how he [Johnson] must have disgusted him [Robertson].' She, we may well believe, felt no more shock than Robertson felt disgust.

[1000] See Voltaire's _Siècle de Louis XIV_, ch. xiv.

[1001] See _ante_, p. 191.

[1002] See _ante_, p. 54.

[1003] It was on this day that Johnson dictated to Boswell his Latin translation of Dryden's lines on Milton. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 22.

[1004] See _ante_, ii. 109.

[1005] '"Well, Sir," said he, "we had good talk." BOSWELL. "Yes Sir; you tossed and gored several persons."' _Ante_, ii. 66.

[1006] Very likely their host. See _ante_, iii. 48.

[1007] See _ante_, iii. 97.

[1008] _Acts_, X. 1 and 2.

[1009] Mr. Croker says, 'no doubt Dr. Robertson;' see _post_, under June 16, 1784, where Johnson says much the same of 'an authour of considerable eminence.' In this case Mr. Croker says, 'probably Dr. Robertson.' I have little doubt that Dr. Beattie was there meant. He may be meant also here, for the description of the conversation does not agree with what we are told of Robertson. See _ante_, p. 335. note 1. Perhaps, however, Dr. Blair was the eminent author. It is in Boswell's manner to introduce the same person in consecutive paragraphs as if there were two persons.

[1010] See _ante_, ii. 256.

[1011] Chappe D'Auteroche writes:--'La douceur de sa physionomie et sa vivacité annonçaient plutôt quelque indiscrétion que l'ombre d'un crime. Tous ceux que j'ai consultés par la suite m'ont cependant assuré qu'elle était coupable.' _Voyage en Sibérie_, i. 227. Lord Kames says:--'Of whatever indiscretion she might have been guilty, the sweetness of her countenance and her composure left not in the spectators the slightest suspicion of guilt.' She was cruelly knouted, her tongue was cut out, and she was banished to Siberia. Kames's _Sketches_, i. 363.

[1012] Mr. Croker says:--'Here I think the censure is quite unjust. Lord Kames gives in the clearest terms the same explanation.' Kames made many corrections in the later editions. On turning to the first, I found, as I expected, that Johnson's censure was quite just. Kames says (i. 76):--'Whatever be the cause of high or low interest, I am certain that the quantity of circulating coin can have no influence. Supposing the half of our money to be withdrawn, a hundred pounds lent ought still to afford but five pounds as interest; because if the principal be doubled in value, so is also the interest.' This passage was struck out in later editions.

[1013] 'Johnson had an extraordinary admiration of this lady, notwithstanding she was a violent Whig. In answer to her high-flown speeches for _Liberty_, he addressed to her the following Epigram, of which I presume to offer a translation:--

'_Liber ut esse velim suasiti pulchra Maria Ut maneam liber pulchra Maria vale_,' Adieu, Maria! since you'd have me free; For, who beholds thy charms a slave must be.

A correspondent of _The Gentleman's Magazine_, who subscribes himself SCIOLUS, to whom I am indebted for several excellent remarks, observes, 'The turn of Dr. Johnson's lines to Miss Aston, whose Whig principles he had been combating, appears to me to be taken from an ingenious epigram in the _Menagiana_ [vol. iii. p. 376, edit. 1716] on a young lady who appeared at a masquerade, _habillée en Jésuite_, during the fierce contentions of the followers of Molinos and Jansenius concerning free-will:--

"On s'étonne ici que Caliste
Ait pris l'habit de Moliniste.
Puisque cette jeune beauté
Ote à chacun sa liberté,
N'est-ce pas une Janseniste?"

BOSWELL.

Johnson, in his _Criticism upon Pope's Epitaphs_ (_Works_, viii. 355), quotes the opinion of a 'lady of great beauty and excellence.' She was, says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 162), Molly Aston. Mrs. Piozzi, in her _Letters_ (ii. 383), writes:--'Nobody has ever mentioned what became of Miss Aston's letters, though he once told me they should be the last papers he would destroy.' See _ante_, i. 83.

[1014] See _ante_, ii. 470.

[1015] Pope's _Essay on Man_, iv. 380.

[1016] See _ante_, i. 294.

[1017] 'March 4, 1745. You say you expect much information about Belleisle, but there has not (in the style of the newspapers) the least particular _transpired_.' Horace Walpole's _Letters_, i. 344. 'Jan. 26, 1748. You will not let one word of it _transpire_.' Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_, iv. 35. 'It would be next to a miracle that a fact of this kind should be known to a whole parish, and not _transpire_ any farther.' Fielding's _Tom Jones_, bk. ii. c. 5. _Tom Jones_ was published before the _Dictionary_, but not so Walpole's _Letters_ and Chesterfield's _Misc. Works_. I have not found a passage in which Bolingbroke uses the word, but I have not read all his works.

[1018] 'The words which our authors have introduced by their knowledge of foreign languages, or ignorance of their own ... I have registered as they occurred, though commonly only to censure them, and warn others against the folly of naturalising useless foreigners to the injury of the natives.' Johnson's _Works_, v. 31. 'If an academy should be established for the cultivation of our style, which I, who can never wish to see dependance multiplied, hope the spirit of English liberty will hinder or destroy, let them, instead of compiling grammars and dictionaries, endeavour with all their influence to stop the license of translators, whose idleness and ignorance, if it be suffered to proceed, will reduce us to babble a dialect of France.' _Ib_. p. 49. 'I have rarely admitted any words not authorised by former writers; for I believe that whoever knows the English tongue in its present extent will be able to express his thoughts without further help from other nations.' _The Rambler_, No. 208.

[1019] Boswell on one occasion used _it came out_ where a lover of fine words would have said _it transpired_. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, November 1.

[1020] The record no doubt was destroyed with the other papers that Boswell left to his literary executors (_ante_, p. 301, note 1).

[1021] See _ante_, i. 154.

[1022] 'Of Johnson's pride I have heard Reynolds observe, that if any man drew him into a state of obligation without his own consent, that man was the first he would affront by way of clearing off the account.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 71.

[1023] See _post_, May 1, 1779.

[1024] This had happened the day before (May 11) in the writ of error in Horne's case (_ante_, p. 314). _Ann. Reg_. xii. 181.

[1025] '_To enucleate_. To solve; to clear.' Johnson's _Dictionary_.

[1026] In the original _me_.

[1027] Pope himself (_Moral Essays_, iii. 25) attacks the sentiment contained in this stanza. He says:--

'What nature wants (a phrase I must distrust) Extends to luxury, extends to lust.'

Mr. Elwin (Pope's _Works_, ii. 462) doubts the genuineness of this suppressed stanza. Montezuma, in Dryden's _Indian Emperour_, act ii. sc. 2, says:--

'That lust of power we from your Godheads have, You're bound to please those appetites you gave.'

[1028] 'Antoine Arnauld, surnommé le grand Arnauld, théologien et philosophe, né à Paris le 6 février 1612, mort le 6 août 1694 à Bruxelles.' _Nouv. Biog. Gén_. iii. 282.

[1029] 'It may be discovered that when Pope thinks himself concealed he indulges the common vanity of common men, and triumphs in those distinctions which he had affected to despise. He is proud that his book was presented to the King and Queen by the right honourable Sir Robert Walpole; he is proud that they had read it before; he is proud that the edition was taken off by the nobility and persons of the first distinction.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 278.

[1030] _Othello_, act iii. sc. 3.

[1031] Mr. Langton, I have little doubt. Not only does that which Johnson says of sluggishness fit his character, but the fact that he is spoken of in the next paragraph points to him.

[1032] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, iii. 48.

[1033] We may wonder whether _pasted_ is strictly used. It seems likely that the wealthy brewer, who had a taste for the fine arts, afforded Hogarth at least a frame.

[1034] See _ante_, i. 49.

[1035] Baths are called Hummums in the East, and thence these hotels in Covent Garden, where there were baths, were called by that name. CROKER.

[1036] Beauclerk.

[1037] Bolingbroke. _Ante_, ii. 246.

[1038] Lord Clive. _Ante_, p. 334.

[1039] _Hamlet_, act i. sc. 2.

[1040] Johnson, or Boswell in reporting him, here falls into an error. The editor of Chesterfield's _Works_ says (ii. 3l9), 'that being desirous of giving a specimen of his Lordship's eloquence he has made choice of the three following speeches; the first in the strong nervous style of Demosthenes; the two latter in the witty, ironical manner of Tully.' Now the first of these speeches is not Johnson's, for it was reported in _The Gent. Mag_. for July, 1737, p. 409, nine months before his first contribution to that paper. In spite of great differences this report and that in Chesterfield's _Works_ are substantially the same. If Johnson had any hand in the authorised version he merely revised the report already published. Nor did he always improve it, as will be seen by comparing with Chesterfield's _Works_, ii. 336, the following passage from the _Gent. Mag_. p. 411:--'My Lords, we ought in all points to be tender of property. Wit is the property of those who are possessed of it, and very often the only property they have. Thank God, my Lords, this is not our case; we are otherwise provided for.' The other two speeches are his. In the collected works (xi. 420, 489) they are wrongly assigned to Lord Carteret. See _ante_, i. Appendix A.

[1041] See _ante_, p. 340.

[1042] These words are quoted by Kames, iii. 267. In his abbreviation he perhaps passed over by accident the words that Johnson next quotes. If Clarendon did not believe the story, he wished his readers to believe it. He gives more than five pages to it, and he ends by saying:-- 'Whatever there was of all this, it is a notorious truth, that when the news of the duke's murder (which happened within few months after) was brought to his mother, she seemed not in the least degree surprised; but received it as if she had foreseen it.' According to the story, he had told her of the warning which had come to him through his father's ghost. Clarendon's _History_, ed. 1826, i. 74.

[1043] Kames maintains (iii. 95) that schools are not needful for the children of the labouring poor. They would be needful, 'if without regular education we could have no knowledge of the principles of religion and of morality. But Providence has not left man in a state so imperfect: religion and morality are stamped on his heart; and none can be ignorant of them, who attend to their own perceptions.'

[1044] 'Oct. 5, 1764. Mr. Elliot brings us woeful accounts of the French ladies, of the decency of their conversation, and the nastiness of their behaviour.' Walpole's _Letters_, iv. 277. Walpole wrote from Paris on Nov. 19, 1765, 'Paris is the ugliest, beastliest town in the universe,' and describes the nastiness of the talk of French women of the first rank. _Ib_. p. 435. Mrs. Piozzi, nearly twenty years later, places among 'the contradictions one meets with every moment' at Paris, 'A Countess in a morning, her hair dressed, with diamonds too perhaps, and a dirty black handkerchief about her neck.' Piozzi's _Journey_, i. 17. See _ante_, ii. 403, and _post_, under Aug. 29, 1783.

[1045] See Appendix B.

[1046] His lordship was, to the last, in the habit of telling this story rather too often. CROKER.

[1047] See _ante_, ii. 194.

[1048] See _ante_, iii. 178.

[1049] See _ante_, ii. 153.

[1050] 'Our eyes and ears may convince us,' wrote Wesley, 'there is not a less happy body of men in all England than the country farmers. In general their life is supremely dull; and it is usually unhappy too; for of all people in the kingdom, they are the most discontented, seldom satisfied either with God or man.' Southey's _Wesley_, i. 420. He did not hold with Johnson as to the upper classes. 'Oh! how hard it is,' he said, 'to be shallow enough for a polite audience.' _Ib_. p. 419.

[1051] Horne says:--'Even S. Johnson, though mistakenly, has attempted AND, and would find no difficulty with THEREFORE' (ed. 1778, p. 21). However, in a note on p. 56 he says:--'I could never read his preface [to his _Dictionary_] without shedding a tear.' See _ante_, i. 297, note 2.

[1052] In Mr. Horne Tooke's enlargement of that _Letter_, which he has since published with the title of [Greek: Epea pteroenta]; or, the _Diversions of Purley_; he mentions this compliment, as if Dr. Johnson instead of _several_ of his etymologies had said _all_. His recollection having thus magnified it, shews how ambitious he was of the approbation of so great a man. BOSWELL. Horne Tooke says (ed. 1798, part i, p. 156) 'immediately after the publication of my _Letter to Mr. Dunning_ I was informed by Mr. S. [Seward], an intimate friend of Dr. Johnson, that he had declared that, if he lived to give a new edition of his _Dictionary_, he should certainly adopt my derivations.' Boswell and Horne Tooke, says Stephens (_Life of Tooke_, ii. 438), had an altercation. 'Happening to meet at a gentleman's house, Mr. Boswell proposed to make up the breach, on the express condition, however, that they should drink a bottle of wine each between the toasts. But Mr. Tooke would not give his assent unless the liquor should be brandy. By the time a quart had been quaffed Boswell was left sprawling on the floor.'

[1053] See _ante_, iii. 314. Thurlow, the Attorney-General, pressed that Horne should be set in the pillory, 'observing that imprisonment would be "a slight inconvenience to one of sedentary habits."' It was during his imprisonment that he wrote his _Letter to Mr. Dunning_. Campbell's _Chancellors_, ed. 1846, v. 517. Horace Walpole says that 'Lord Mansfield was afraid, and would not venture the pillory.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 167.

[1054] '_Bulse_, a certain quantity of diamonds' (India). Webster's _Dictionary_.