Chapter XVII: Part 17

[214] Johnson referred, I believe, to the last of Tillotson's _Sermons preached upon Several Occasions_, ed. 1673, p. 316, where the preacher says:--'Supposing the _Scripture_ to be a Divine Revelation, and that these words (_This is My Body_), if they be in Scripture, must necessarily be taken in the strict and literal sense, I ask now, What greater evidence any man has that these words (_This is My Body_) are in the Bible than every man has that the bread is not changed in the sacrament? Nay, no man has so much, for we have only the evidence of _one_ sense that these words are in the Bible, but that the bread is not changed we have the concurring testimony of _several_ of our senses.'

[215] This also is Tillotson's argument. 'There is no more certain foundation for it [transubstantiation] in Scripture than for our Saviour's being substantially changed into all those things which are said of him, as that he is a _rock_, a _vine_, a _door_, and a hundred other things.' _Ib_. p. 313.

[216] Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. See _St. John's Gospel_, chap. vi. 53, and following verses. BOSWELL.

[217] See _ante_, p. 26.

[218] See _ante_, i. 140, note 5, and v. 50.

[219] Johnson, after saying that the inn was not so good as they expected, continues:--'But Mr. Boswell desired me to observe that the innkeeper was an Englishman, and I then defended him as well as I could.' _Works_, ix. 9.

[220] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 29, 1775 (_Piozzi Letters_, i. 292):--' I hope I shall quickly come to Streatham...and catch a little gaiety among you.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:--'_That_ he never caught. He thought and mused at Streatham as he did habitually everywhere, and seldom or never minded what was doing about him.' On the margin of i. 315 Baretti has written:--'Johnson mused as much on the road to Paris as he did in his garret in London as much at a French opera as in his room at Streatham.'

[221] _A Biographical Sketch of Dr. Samuel Johnson,_ by Thomas Tyers, Esq. See _ante_, iii. 308.

[222] This description of Dr. Johnson appears to have been borrowed from Tom Jones, bk. xi. ch. ii. 'The other who, like a ghost, only wanted to be spoke to, readily answered, '&c. BOSWELL.

[223] Perhaps he gave the 'shilling extraordinary' because he 'found a church,' as he says, 'clean to a degree unknown in any other part of Scotland.' _Works_, ix. 9.

[224] See _ante,_ iii. 22.

[225] See _ante,_ May 9, 1784. Yet Johnson says (_Works_, ix. 10):--'The magnetism of Lord Monboddo's conversation easily drew us out of our way.'

[226] There were several points of similarity between them; learning, clearness of head, precision of speech, and a love of research on many subjects which people in general do not investigate. Foote paid Lord Monboddo the compliment of saying, that he was an Elzevir edition of Johnson.

It has been shrewdly observed that Foote must have meant a diminutive, or _pocket_ edition. BOSWELL. The latter part of this note is not in the first edition.

[227] Lord Elibank (_post_, Sept. 12) said that he would go five hundred miles to see Dr. Johnson; but Johnson never said more than he meant.

[228] _Works_, ix. 10. Of the road to Montrose he remarks:--'When I had proceeded thus far I had opportunities of observing, what I had never heard, that there were many beggars in Scotland. In Edinburgh the the proportion is, I think, not less than in London, and in the smaller places it is far greater than in English towns of the same extent. It must, however, be allowed that they are not importunate, nor clamorous. They solicit silently, or very modestly.' _Ib._ p. 9. See _post_, p. 116, note 2.

[229] James Mill was born on April 6, 1773, at Northwater Bridge, parish of Logie Pert, Forfar. The bridge was 'on the great central line of communication from the north of Scotland. The hamlet is right and left of the high road.' Bain's _Life of James Mill_, p. 1. Boswell and Johnson, on their road to Laurence Kirk, must have passed close to the cottage in which he was lying, a baby not five months old.

[230] See _ante_, i. 211.

[231] There is some account of him in Chambers's _Traditions of Edinburgh_, ed. 1825, ii. 173, and in Dr. A. Carlyle's _Auto._ p. 136.

[232] G. Chalmers (_Life of Ruddiman_, p. 270) says:--'In May, 1790, Lord Gardenston declared that he still intended to erect a proper monument in his village to the memory of the late learned and worthy Mr. Ruddiman.' In 1792 Gardenston, in his _Miscellanies_, p. 257, attacked Ruddiman. 'It has of late become fashionable,' he wrote, 'to speak of Ruddiman in terms of the highest respect.' The monument was never raised.

[233] _A Letter to the Inhabitants of Laurence Kirk_, by F. Garden.

[234] 'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.' _Hebrews_ xiii, 2.

[235] This, I find, is considered as obscure. I suppose Dr. Johnson meant, that I assiduously and earnestly recommended myself to some of the members, as in a canvass for an election into parliament. BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii, 235.

[236] Goldsmith in _Retaliation_, a few months later, wrote of William Burke:--'Would you ask for his merits? alas! he had none; What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.' See _ante_, iii 362, note 2.

[237] See _ante_, iii. 260, 390, 425.

[238] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 252) wrote of Monboddo in 1782:--'He is such an extravagant adorer of the ancients, that he scarcely allows the English language to be capable of any excellence, still less the French. He said we moderns are entirely degenerated. I asked in what? "In everything," was his answer. He loves slavery upon principle. I asked him how he could vindicate such an enormity. He owned it was because Plutarch justified it. He is so wedded to system that, as Lord Barrington said to me the other day, rather than sacrifice his favourite opinion that men were born with tails, he would be contented to wear one himself.'

[239] Scott, in a note on _Guy Mannering_, ed. 1860, iv. 267, writes of Monboddo:--'The conversation of the excellent old man, his high, gentleman-like, chivalrous spirit, the learning and wit with which he defended his fanciful paradoxes, the kind and liberal spirit of his hospitality, must render these _noctes coenaeque_ dear to all who, like the author (though then young), had the honour of sitting at his board.'

[240] Lord Cockburn, writing of the title that Jeffrey took when he was raised to the Bench in 1834, said:--'The Scotch Judges are styled _Lords_; a title to which long usage has associated feelings of reverence in the minds of the people, who could not now be soon made to respect or understand _Mr. Justice_. During its strongly feudalised condition, the landholders of Scotland, who were almost the sole judges, were really known only by the names of their estates. It was an insult, and in some parts of the country it is so still, to call a laird by his personal, instead of his territorial, title. But this assumption of two names, one official and one personal, and being addressed by the one and subscribing by the other, is wearing out, and will soon disappear entirely.' Cockburn's _Jeffrey_, i. 365. See _post_, p. 111, note 1.

[241] _Georgics_, i. 1.

[242] Walter Scott used to tell an instance of Lord Monboddo's agricultural enthusiasm, that returning home one night after an absence (I think) on circuit, he went out with a candle to look at a field of turnips, then a novelty in Scotland. CROKER.

[243] Johnson says the same in his _Life of John Philips_, and adds:-- 'This I was told by Miller, the great gardener and botanist, whose experience was, that "there were many books written on the same subject in prose, which do not contain so much truth as that poem."' _Works_, vii. 234. Miller is mentioned in Walpole's _Letters_, ii. 352:--'There is extreme taste in the park [Hagley]: the seats are not the best, but there is not one absurdity. There is a ruined castle built by Miller, that would get him his freedom, even of Strawberry: it has the true rust of the Barons' Wars.'

[244] See _ante_, p. 27.

[245] My note of this is much too short. _Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio_. ['I strive to be concise, I prove obscure.' FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. l. 25.] Yet as I have resolved that _the very Journal which Dr. Johnson read_, shall be presented to the publick, I will not expand the text in any considerable degree, though I may occasionally supply a word to complete the sense, as I fill up the blanks of abbreviation, in the writing; neither of which can be said to change the genuine _Journal_. One of the best criticks of our age conjectures that the imperfect passage above was probably as follows: 'In his book we have an accurate display of a nation in war, and a nation in peace; the peasant is delineated as truly as the general; nay, even harvest-sport, and the modes of ancient theft are described.' BOSWELL. 'One of the best criticks is, I believe, Malone, who had 'perused the original manuscript.' See _ante_, p. 1; and _post_, Oct. 26, and under Nov. 11.

[246] It was in the Parliament-house that 'the ordinary Lords of Session,' the Scotch Judges, that is to say, held their courts. _Ante_, p. 39.

[247] Dr. Johnson modestly said, he had not read Homer so much as he wished he had done. But this conversation shews how well he was acquainted with the Maeonian bard; and he has shewn it still more in his criticism upon Pope's _Homer_, in his _Life_ of that Poet. My excellent friend, Mr. Langton, told me, he was once present at a dispute between Dr. Johnson and Mr. Burke, on the comparative merits of Homer and Virgil, which was carried on with extraordinary abilities on both sides. Dr. Johnson maintained the superiority of Homer. BOSWELL. Johnson told Windham that he had never read through the Odyssey in the original. Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. See _ante_, iii. 193, and May 1, 1783.

[248] Johnson ten years earlier told Boswell that he loved most 'the biographical part of literature.' _Ante_, i. 425. Goldsmith said of biography:--'It furnishes us with an opportunity of giving advice freely and without offence.... Counsels as well as compliments are best conveyed in an indirect and oblique manner, and this renders biography as well as fable a most convenient vehicle for instruction. An ingenious gentleman was asked what was the best lesson for youth; he answered, "The life of a good man." Being again asked what was the next best, he replied, "The life of a bad one."' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 395.

[249] See _ante_, p. 57.

[250] Ten years later he said:--'There is now a great deal more learning in the world than there was formerly; for it is universally diffused.' _Ante_, April 29,1783. Windham (_Diary_, p. 17) records 'Johnson's opinion that I could not name above five of my college acquaintances who read Latin with sufficient ease to make it pleasurable.'

[251] See _ante_, ii. 352.

[252] 'Warburton, whatever was his motive, undertook without solicitation to rescue Pope from the talons of Crousaz, by freeing him from the imputation of favouring fatality, or rejecting revelation; and from month to month continued a vindication of the _Essay on Man_ in the literary journal of that time, called the _Republick of Letters'_ Johnson's _Works_, viii. 289. Pope wrote to Warburton of the _Essay on Man_:--'You understand my work better than I do myself.' Pope's _Works_, ed. 1886, ix. 211.

[253] See _ante_, ii. 37, note I, and Pope's _Works_, ed. 1886, ix. 220. Allen was Ralph Allen of Prior Park near Bath, to whom Fielding dedicated _Amelia_, and who is said to have been the original of Allworthy in _Tom Jones_. It was he of whom Pope wrote:--

'Let low-born Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth and blush to find it fame.'

_Epilogue to the Satires_, i. 135.

_Low-born_ in later editions was changed to _humble_. Warburton not only married his niece, but, on his death, became in her right owner of Prior Park.

[254] Mr. Mark Pattison (_Satires of Pope_, p. 158) points out Warburton's 'want of penetration in that subject [metaphysics] which he considered more peculiarly his own.' He said of 'the late Mr. Baxter' (Andrew Baxter, not Richard Baxter), that 'a few pages of his reasoning have not only more sense and substance than all the elegant discourses of Dr. Berkeley, but infinitely better entitle him to the character of a great genius.'

[255] It is of Warburton that Churchill wrote in _The Duellist (Poems,_ ed. 1766, ii. 82):--

'To prove his faith which all admit
Is at least equal to his wit,
And make himself a man of note,
He in defence of Scripture wrote;
So long he wrote, and long about it,
That e'en believers 'gan to doubt it.'

[256] I find some doubt has been entertained concerning Dr. Johnson's meaning here. It is to be supposed that he meant, 'when a king shall again be entertained in Scotland.' BOSWELL.

[257] Perhaps among these ladies was the Miss Burnet of Monboddo, on whom Burns wrote an elegy.

[258] In the _Rambler_, No. 98, entitled _The Necessity of Cultivating Politeness_, Johnson says:--'The universal axiom in which all complaisance is included, and from which flow all the formalities which custom has established in civilized nations, is, _That no man shall give any preference to himself.'_ In the same paper, he says that 'unnecessarily to obtrude unpleasing ideas is a species of oppression.'

[259] Act ii. sc. 5.

[260] Perhaps he was referring to Polyphemus's club, which was

'Of height and bulk so vast
The largest ship might claim it for a mast.'

Pope's _Odyssey_, ix. 382.

Or to Agamemnon's sceptre:--

'Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear.'

_Iliad_, i. 310.

[261] 'We agreed pretty well, only we disputed in adjusting the claims of merit between a shopkeeper of London and a savage of the American wildernesses. Our opinions were, I think, maintained on both sides without full conviction; Monboddo declared boldly for the savage, and I, perhaps for that reason, sided with the citizen.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 115.

[262]

'Heroes are much the same, the point's agreed,
From Macedonia's madman to the Swede;
The whole strange purpose of their lives to find,
Or make, an enemy of all mankind!
Not one looks backward, onward still he goes,
Yet ne'er looks forward further than his nose.'

_Essay on Man,_ iv. 219.

[263] _Maccaroni_ is not in Johnson's _Dictionary_. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, iv. 178) on Feb. 6, 1764, mentions 'the Maccaroni Club, which is composed of all the travelled young men who wear long curls and spying-glasses.' On the following Dec. 16 he says:--'The Maccaroni Club has quite absorbed Arthur's; for, you know, old fools will hobble after young ones.' _Ib._ p. 302. See _post_, Sept. 12, for _buck_.

[264] 'We came late to Aberdeen, where I found my dear mistress's letter, and learned that all our little people were happily recovered of the measles. Every part of your letter was pleasing.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 115. For Johnson's use of the word _mistress_ in speaking of Mrs. Thrale see _ante_, i. 494.

[265] See _ante_, ii. 455. 'They taught us,' said one of the Professors, 'to raise cabbage and make shoes, How they lived without shoes may yet be seen; but in the passage through villages it seems to him that surveys their gardens, that when they had not cabbage they had nothing.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 116. Johnson in the same letter says that 'New Aberdeen is built of that granite which is used for the _new_ pavement in London.'

[266] 'In Aberdeen I first saw the women in plaids.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 116.

[267] Seven years later Mackintosh, on entering King's College, found there the son of Johnson's old friend, 'the learned Dr. Charles Burney, finishing his term at Aberdeen.' Among his fellow-students were also some English Dissenters, among them Robert Hall. Mackintosh's _Life,_ i. 10, 13. In Forbes's _Life of Beattie_ (ed. 1824, p. 169) is a letter by Beattie, dated Oct. 15, 1773, in which the English and Scotch Universities are compared. Colman, in his _Random Records,_ ii. 85, gives an account of his life at Aberdeen as a student.

[268] Lord Bolingbroke (Works, iii. 347) in 1735 speaks of 'the little care that is taken in the training up our youth,' and adds, 'surely it is impossible to take less.' See _ante_, ii. 407, and iii. 12.

[269] _London, 2d May_, 1778. Dr. Johnson acknowledged that he was himself the authour of the translation above alluded to, and dictated it to me as follows:--

Quos laudet vates Graius Romanus et Anglus
Tres tria temporibus secla dedere suis.
Sublime ingenium Graius; Romanus habebat
Carmen grande sonans; Anglus utrumque tulit.
Nil majus Natura capit: clarare priores
Quae potuere duos tertius unus habet. BOSWELL.

It was on May 2, 1778, that Johnson attacked Boswell with such rudeness that he kept away from him for a week. _Ante_, iii. 337.

[270] 'We were on both sides glad of the interview, having not seen nor perhaps thought on one another for many years; but we had no emulation, nor had either of us risen to the other's envy, and our old kindness was easily renewed.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 117.

[271] Johnson wrote on Sept. 30:--'Barley-broth is a constant dish, and is made well in every house. A stranger, if he is prudent, will secure his share, for it is not certain that he will be able to eat anything else.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. p. 160.

[272] See _ante_. p. 24.

[273] _Genesis_, ix. 6.

[274] My worthy, intelligent, and candid friend, Dr. Kippis, informs me, that several divines have thus explained the mediation of our Saviour. What Dr. Johnson now delivered, was but a temporary opinion; for he afterwards was fully convinced of the _propitiatory sacrifice_, as I shall shew at large in my future work, _The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D._ BOSWELL. For Dr. Kippis see _ante_, iii. 174, and for Johnson on the propitiatory sacrifice, iv. 124.

[275] _Malachi_, iv. 2.

[276] _St. Luke_, ii 32.

[277] 'Healing _in_ his wings,'_Malachi_, iv. 2.

[278] 'He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.' _St. Mark_, xvi. 16.

[279] Mr. Langton. See _ante_, ii. 254, 265.

[280] Spedding's _Bacon_, vii. 271. The poem is also given in _The Golden Treasury_, p. 37; where, however, 'limns _the_ water' is changed into 'limns _on_ water.'

[281] 'Addison now returned to his vocation, and began to plan literary occupations for his future life. He purposed a tragedy on the death of Socrates... He engaged in a nobler work, a defence of the Christian religion, of which part was published after his death.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 441, and Addison's _Works_, ed. 1856, v. 103.

[282] Dr. Beattie was so kindly entertained in England, that he had not yet returned home. BOSWELL. Beattie was staying in London till his pension got settled. Early in July he had been told that he was to have a pension of £200 a year (_ante_, ii. 264, note 2). It was not till Aug. 20 that it was conferred. On July 9, he, in company with Sir Joshua Reynolds, received the degree of D.C.L. at Oxford. On Aug. 24, he had a long interview with the King; 'who asked,' Beattie records, 'whether we had any good preachers at Aberdeen. I said "Yes," and named Campbell and Gerard, with whose names, however, I did not find that he was acquainted.' It was this same summer that Reynolds painted him in 'the allegorical picture representing the triumph of truth over scepticism and infidelity' (_post_, Oct. 1, note). Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824, pp. 151-6, 167.

[283] Dr. Johnson's burgess-ticket was in these words:--'Aberdoniae, vigesimo tertio die mensis Augusti, anno Domini millesimo septingentesimo septuagesimo tertio, in presentia honorabilium virorum, Jacobi Jopp, armigeri, praepositi, Adami Duff, Gulielmi Young, Georgii Marr, et Gulielmi Forbes, Balivorum, Gulielmi Rainie Decani guildae, et Joannis Nicoll Thesaurarii dicti burgi. 'Quo die vir generosus et doctrina clarus, Samuel Johnson, LL.D. receptus et admissus fuit in municipes et fratres guildae: praefati burgi de Aberdeen. In deditissimi amoris et affectus ac eximiae observantiae tesseram, quibus dicti Magistratus eum amplectuntur. Extractum per me, ALEX. CARNEGIE.' BOSWELL. 'I was presented with the freedom of the city, not in a gold box, but in good Latin. Let me pay Scotland one just praise; there was no officer gaping for a fee; this could have been said of no city on the English side of the Tweed.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 117. Baretti, in a MS. note on this passage, says:--'Throughout England nothing is done for nothing. Stop a moment to look at the rusticks mowing a field, and they will presently quit their work to come to you, and ask something to drink.' Aberdeen conferred its freedom so liberally about this time that it is surprising that Boswell was passed over. George Colman the younger, when a youth of eighteen, was sent to King's College. He says in his worthless _Random Records_, ii. 99:--'I had scarcely been a week in Old Aberdeen, when the Lord Provost of the New Town invited me to drink wine with him one evening in the Town Hall; there I found a numerous company assembled. The object of this meeting was soon declared to me by the Lord Provost, who drank my health, and presented me with the freedom of the City.' Two of his English fellow-students, of a little older standing, had, he said, received the same honour. His statement seemed to me incredible; but by the politeness of the Town-clerk, W. Gordon, Esq., I have found out that in the main it is correct. Colman, with one of the two, was admitted as an Honorary Burgess on Oct. 8, 1781, being described as _vir generosus_; the other had been admitted earlier. The population of Aberdeen and its suburbs in 1769 was, according to Pennant, 16,000. Pennant's _Tour_, p. 117.

[284] 'King's College in Aberdeen was an exact model of the University of Paris. Its founder, Bishop [not Archbishop] Elphinstone, had been a Professor at Paris and at Orleans.' Burton's _Scotland_, ed. 1873, iii. 404. On p. 20, Dr. Burton describes him as 'the rich accomplished scholar and French courtier Elphinstone, munificently endowing a University after the model of the University of Paris.'

[285] Boswell projected the following works:--1. An edition of _Johnson's Poems. Ante_, i. 16. 2. A work in which the merit of Addison's poetry shall be maintained, _ib_. p. 225. 3. A _History of Sweden_, ii. 156. 4. A_ Life of Thomas Ruddiman, ib._ p. 216. 5. An edition of Walton's_ Lives_ iii. 107. 6. A _History of the Civil War in_ _Great Britain in_ 1745 and 1746, _ib._, p. 162.

7. A _Life of Sir Robert Sibbald, ib._ p. 227. 8 An account of his own Travels, _ib_. p. 300. 9. A Collection, with notes, of old tenures and charters of Scotland, _ib_. p. 414, note 3. 10. A _History of James IV._ 11. 'A quarto volume to be embellished with fine plates, on the subject of the controversy (_ante_, ii. 367) occasioned by the _Beggar's Opera._' Murray's _Johnsoniana_, ed. 1836, p. 502.

Thomas Boswell received from James IV. the estate of Auchinleck. _Ante_, ii. 413. See _post_, Nov. 4.

[286] Mackintosh says, in his _Life_, i. 9:--'In October, 1780, I was admitted into the Greek class, then taught by Mr. Leslie, who did not aspire beyond teaching us the first rudiments of the language; more would, I believe, have been useless to his scholars.'

[287] 'Boswell was very angry that the Aberdeen professors would not talk.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 118. Dr. Robertson and Dr. Blair, whom Boswell, five years earlier, invited to meet Johnson at supper, 'with an excess of prudence hardly opened their lips' (_ante_, ii. 63). At Glasgow the professors did not dare to talk much (_post_, Oct. 29). On another occasion when Johnson came in, the company 'were all as quiet as a school upon the entrance of the headmaster.' _Ante_, iii. 332.

[288] Dr. Beattie says that this printer was Strahan. He had seen the letter mentioned by Gerard, and many other letters too from the Bishop to Strahan. 'They were,' he continues, 'very particularly acquainted.' He adds that 'Strahan was eminently skilled in composition, and had corrected (as he told me himself) the phraseology of both Mr. Hume and Dr. Robertson.' Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824, p. 341.

[289] An instance of this is given in Johnson's _Works_, viii. 288:--'Warburton had in the early part of his life pleased himself with the notice of inferior wits, and corresponded with the enemies of Pope. A letter was produced, when he had perhaps himself forgotten it, in which he tells Concanen, "Dryden, I observe, borrows for want of leisure, and Pope for want of genius; Milton out of pride, and Addison out of modesty."'

[290] 'Goldsmith asserted that Warburton was a weak writer. "Warburton," said Johnson, "may be absurd, but he will never be weak; he flounders well."' Stockdale's _Memoirs_, ii. 64. See Appendix A.

[291] _The Doctrine of Grace; or the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit vindicated from the Insults of Infidelity and the Abuses of Fanaticism_, 1762.

[292] _A Letter to the Bishop of Gloucester, occasioned by his Tract on the Office and Operations of the Holy Spirit_, by John Wesley, 1762.

[293] Malone records:--'I could not find from Mr. Walpole that his father [Sir Robert] read any other book but Sydenham in his retirement.' To his admiration of Sydenham his death was attributed; for it led him to treat himself wrongly when he was suffering from the stone. Prior's _Malone_, p. 387. Johnson wrote a _Life of Sydenham_. In it he ridicules the notion that 'a man eminent for integrity _practised Medicine by chance, and grew wise only by murder_.' _Works_, vi. 409.

[294] All this, as Dr. Johnson suspected at the time, was the immediate invention of his own lively imagination; for there is not one word of it in Mr. Locke's complimentary performance. My readers will, I have no doubt, like to be satisfied, by comparing them; and, at any rate, it may entertain them to read verses composed by our great metaphysician, when a Bachelor in Physick.

AUCTORI, IN TRACTATUM EJUS DE FEBRIBUS.

Febriles aestus, victumque ardoribus orbem
Flevit, non tantis par Medicina malis.
Nam post mille artes, medicae tentamina curae,
Ardet adhuc Febris; nec velit arte regi.
Praeda sumus flammis; solum hoc speramus ab igne,
Ut restet paucus, quem capit urna, cinis.
Dum quaerit medicus febris caussamque, modumque,
Flammarum & tenebras, & sine luce faces;
Quas tractat patitur flammas, & febre calescens,
Corruit ipse suis victima rapta focis.
Qui tardos potuit morbos, artusque trementes,
Sistere, febrili se videt igne rapi.
Sic faber exesos fulsit tibicine muros;
Dum trahit antiquas lenta ruina domos.
Sed si flamma vorax miseras incenderit aedes,
Unica flagrantes tunc sepelire salus.
Fit fuga, tectonicas nemo tunc invocat artes;
Cum perit artificis non minus usta domus.
Se tandem _Sydenham_ febrisque Scholaeque furori
Opponens, morbi quaerit, & artis opem.
Non temere incusat tectae putedinis [putredinis] ignes;
Nec fictus, febres qui fovet, humor erit.
Non bilem ille movet, nulla hic pituita; Salutis
Quae spes, si fallax ardeat intus aqua?
Nec doctas magno rixas ostentat hiatu,
Quîs ipsis major febribus ardor inest.
Innocuas placide corpus jubet urere flammas,
Et justo rapidos temperat igne focos.
Quid febrim exstinguat, varius quid postulet usus,
Solari aegrotos, qua potes arte, docet,
Hactenus ipsa suum timuit Natura calorem,
Dum saepe incerto, quo calet, igne perit:
Dum reparat tacitos male provida sanguinis ignes,
Praslusit busto, fit calor iste rogus.
Jam secura suas foveant praecordia flammas,
Quem Natura negat, dat Medicina modum.
Nec solum faciles compescit sanguinis aestus,
Dum dubia est inter spemque metumque salus;
Sed fatale malum domuit, quodque astra malignum
Credimus, iratam vel genuisse _Stygem_.
Extorsit _Lachesi_ cultros, Pestique venenum
Abstulit, & tantos non sinit esse metus.
Quis tandem arte nova domitam mitescere Pestem
Credat, & antiquas ponere posse minas?
Post tot mille neces, cumulataque funera busto,
Victa jacet parvo vulnere dira Lues.
Aetheriae quanquam spargunt contagia flammae,
Quicquid inest istis ignibus, ignis erit.
Delapsae coelo flammae licet acrius urant
Has gelida exstingui non nisi morte putas?
Tu meliora paras victrix Medicina; tuusque,
Pestis quae superat cuncta, triumphus eris [erit].
Vive liber, victis febrilibus ignibus; unus
Te simul & mundum qui manet, ignis erit.

J. LOCK, A.M. Ex. Aede Christi, Oxon. BOSWELL.

[295] See _ante_, ii. 126, 298.

[296] 'One of its ornaments [i.e. of Marischal College] is the picture of Arthur Johnston, who was principal of the college, and who holds among the Latin Poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 12. Pope attacking Benson, who endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments to Milton, and printing editions of Johnson's version of the _Psalms_, introduces the Scotch Poet in the _Dunciad_:-- On two unequal crutches propped he came, Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name.' _Dunciad_, bk. iv. l. III. Johnson wrote to Boswell for a copy of Johnston's _Poems_ (_ante_, iii. 104) and for his likeness (_ante_, March 18, 1784).

[297] 'Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrews, only the session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April' [five months, instead of seven]. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 116. In his _Works_ (ix. 14) Johnson by mistake gives eight months to the St. Andrews session. On p. 5 he gives it rightly as seven.

[298] Beattie, as an Aberdeen professor, was grieved at this saying when he read the book. 'Why is it recorded?' he asked. 'For no reason that I can imagine, unless it be in order to return evil for good.' Forbes's _Beattie_, ed. 1824. p. 337.

[299] See _ante_, ii. 336, and iii. 209.

[300] See _ante_, iii. 65, and _post_, Nov. 2.

[301] See _ante_, i. 411. Johnson, no doubt, was reminded of this story by his desire to get this book. Later on (_ante_, iii. 104) he asked Boswell 'to be vigilant and get him Graham's _Telemachus_.'

[302] I am sure I have related this story exactly as Dr. Johnson told it to me; but a friend who has often heard him tell it, informs me that he usually introduced a circumstance which ought not to be omitted. 'At last, Sir, Graham, having now got to about the pitch of looking at one man, and talking to another, said _Doctor_, &c.' 'What effect (Dr. Johnson used to add) this had on Goldsmith, who was as irascible as a hornet, may be easily conceived.' BOSWELL.

[303] Graham was of Eton College.

[304] It was to Johnson that the invitation was due. 'What I was at the English Church at Aberdeen I happened to be espied by Lady Dr. Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had seen to Mr. Boyd, Lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to Lord Errol's house.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 118. Boswell, perhaps, was not unwilling that the reader should think that it was to him that the compliment was paid.

[305] 'In 1745 my friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker, said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart.' _Ante_, April 28, 1783. Smollett (_History of England_, iv. 293) describes how, in 1758, the conquest of Senegal was due to this 'sensible Quaker,' 'this honest Quaker,' as he calls him, who not only conceived the project, but 'was concerned as a principal director and promoter of the expedition. If it was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be remembered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on according to the pacifick system of the Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side.' If there was no bloodshed, it was by good luck, for 'a regular engagement was warmly maintained on both sides.' It was a Quaker, then, who led the van in the long line of conquests which have made Chatham's name so famous. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 185) says:--'Dr. Johnson told me that Cummyns (sic) the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly, fell a sacrifice to the insults of the newspapers; having declared to him on his death-bed, that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of the common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into the slow fever of which he died.' Mr. Seward records (_Anec_. ii. 395):--'Mr. Cummins, the celebrated American Quaker, said of Mr. Pitt (Lord Chatham):--"The first time I come to Mr. Pitt upon any business I find him extremely ignorant; the second time I come to him, I find him completely informed upon it."'

[306] See _ante_, i. 232.

[307] See _ante_, i. 46.

[308] 'From the windows the eye wanders over the sea that separates Scotland from Norway, and when the winds beat with violence, must enjoy all the terrifick grandeur of the tempestuous ocean. I would not for any amusement wish for a storm; but as storms, whether wished or not, will sometimes happen, I may say, without violation of humanity, that I should willingly look out upon them from Slanes Castle.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 15.

[309] See _ante_, p. 68.

[310] Horace. _Odes_, i. 2.

[311] See _ante_, ii. 428.

[312] Perhaps the poverty of their host led to this talk. Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:--'Imprudence, or ill-fortune as fatal as the sands of Belhelvie [shifting sands that had swallowed up a whole parish], has swallowed up the estate of Errol, excepting this dreary mansion-house and a farm or two adjoining.' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iv. 187.

[313] See _ante_, ii. 421, note 1.

[314] Since the accession of George I. only one parliament had had so few as five sessions, and it was dissolved before its time by his death. One had six sessions, six seven sessions, (including the one that was now sitting,) and one eight. There was therefore so little dread of a sudden dissolution that for five years of each parliament the members durst contradict the populace.

[315] To Miss Burney Johnson once said:--'Sir Joshua Reynolds possesses the largest share of inoffensiveness of any man that I know.' _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, i. 343. 'Once at Mr. Thrale's, when Reynolds left the room, Johnson observed:--"There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity."' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. 82. Burke wrote of him:--'He had a strong turn for humour, and well saw the weak sides of things. He enjoyed every circumstance of his good fortune, and had no affectation on that subject. And I do not know a fault or weakness of his that he did not convert into something that bordered on a virtue, instead of pushing it to the confines of a vice.' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 638.

[316] He visited Devonshire in 1762. _Ante_, i. 377.

[317] Horace Walpole, describing the coronation of George III, writes:-- 'One there was ... the noblest figure I ever saw, the high-constable of Scotland, Lord Errol; as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the Giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very Hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block.' _Letters_, iii. 438. Sir William Forbes says:--'He often put me in mind of an ancient Hero, and I remember Dr. Johnson was positive that he resembled Homer's character of Sarpedon.' _Life of Beattie_, ed. 1824, Appendix D. Mrs. Piozzi says:--'The Earl dressed in his robes at the coronation and Mrs. Siddons in the character of Murphy's Euphrasia were the noblest specimens of the human race I ever saw.' _Synonymy_, i.43. He sprang from a race of rebels. 'He united in his person,' says Forbes, 'the four earldoms of Errol, Kilmarnock, Linlithgow, and Callander.' The last two were attainted in 1715, and Kilmarnock in 1745. _Life of Beattie_, Appendix D.

[318] Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son [iii. 130], complains of one who argued in an indiscriminate manner with men of all ranks, Probably the noble lord had felt with some uneasiness what it was to encounter stronger abilities than his own. If a peer will engage at foils with his inferior in station, he must expect that his inferior in station will avail himself of every advantage; otherwise it is not a fair trial of strength and skill. The same will hold in a contest of reason, or of wit.--A certain king entered the lists of genius with Voltaire. The consequence was, that, though the king had great and brilliant talents, Voltaire had such a superiority that his majesty could not bear it; and the poet was dismissed, or escaped, from that court.--In the reign of James I. of England, Crichton, Lord Sanquhar, a peer of Scotland, from a vain ambition to excel a fencing-master in his own art, played at rapier and dagger with him. The fencing-master, whose fame and bread were at stake, put out one of his lordship's eyes. Exasperated at this, Lord Sanquhar hired ruffians, and had the fencing-master assassinated; for which his lordship was capitally tried, condemned, and hanged. Not being a peer of England, he was tried by the name of Robert Crichton, Esq.; but he was admitted to be a baron of three hundred years' standing.--See the _State Trials_; and the _History of England_ by Hume, who applauds the impartial justice executed upon a man of high rank. BOSWELL. The 'stronger abilities' that Chesterfield encountered were Johnson's. Boswell thought wrongly that it was of Johnson that his Lordship complained in his letters to his son. _Ante_, i. 267, note 2. 'A certain King' was Frederick the Great. _Ante_, i. 434. The fencing-master was murdered in his own house in London, five years after Sanquhar (or Sanquire) had lost his eye. Bacon, who was Solicitor-General, said:--'Certainly the circumstance of time is heavy unto you; it is now five years since this unfortunate man, Turner, be it upon accident or despight, gave the provocation which was the seed of your malice.' _State Trials_, ii. 743, and Hume's _History_, ed. 1802, vi. 61.

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

[320] Perhaps Lord Errol was the Scotch Lord mentioned _ante_, iii. 170, and the nobleman mentioned _ib_. p. 329.

[321] 'Pitied by gentle minds Kilmarnock died.' _Ante_. i. 180.

[322] Sir Walter Scott describes the talk that he had in 1814 near Slains Castle with an old fisherman. 'The old man says Slains is now inhabited by a Mr. Bowles, who comes so far from the southward that naebody kens whare he comes frae. "Was he frae the Indies?" "Na; he did not think he came that road. He was far frae the Southland. Naebody ever heard the name of the place; but he had brought more guid out o' Peterhead than a' the Lords he had seen in Slains, and he had seen three."' Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, iv. 188. The first of the three was Johnson's host.

[323] See _ante_, ii. 153, and iii. 1, note 2.

[324] Smollett, in _Humphry Clinker_ (Letter of Sept. 6), writing of the Highlanders and their chiefs, says:--'The original attachment is founded on something prior to the _feudal system_, about which the writers of this age have made such a pother, as if it was a new discovery, like the _Copernican system_ ... For my part I expect to see the use of trunk-hose and buttered ale ascribed to the influence of the _feudal system_.' See _ante_, ii. 177.

[325] Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:--'Vous conviendrez que les nobles sont peu ménagés par vos auteurs; le sot, le fat, ou le malhonnête homme mêlé dans l'intrigue est presque toujours un lord.' _Garrick Corres_, ii. 561. Dr. Moore (_View of Society in France_, i. 29) writing in 1779 says:--'I am convinced there is no country in Europe where royal favour, high birth, and the military profession could be allowed such privileges as they have in France, and where there would be so few instances of their producing rough and brutal behaviour to inferiors.' Mrs. Piozzi, writing in 1784, though she did not publish her book till 1789, said:--'The French are really a contented race of mortals;--precluded almost from possibility of adventure, the low Parisian leads gentle, humble life, nor envies that greatness he never can obtain.' _Journey through France_, i. 13.

[326] He is the worthy son of a worthy father, the late Lord Strichen, one of our judges, to whose kind notice I was much obliged. Lord Strichen was a man not only honest, but highly generous; for after his succession to the family estate, he paid a large sum of debts contracted by his predecessor, which he was not under any obligation to pay. Let me here, for the credit of Ayrshire, my own county, record a noble instance of liberal honesty in William Hutchison, drover, in Lanehead, Kyle, who formerly obtained a full discharge from his creditors upon a composition of his debts; but upon being restored to good circumstances, invited his creditors last winter to a dinner, without telling the reason, and paid them their full sums, principal and interest. They presented him with a piece of plate, with an inscription to commemorate this extraordinary instance of true worth; which should make some people in Scotland blush, while, though mean themselves, they strut about under the protection of great alliance, conscious of the wretchedness of numbers who have lost by them, to whom they never think of making reparation, but indulge themselves and their families in most unsuitable expence. BOSWELL.

[327] See _ante_, ii. 194; iii. 353; and iv. June 30, 1784.

[328] Malone says that 'Lord Auchinleck told his son one day that it would cost him more trouble to hide his ignorance in the Scotch and English law than to show his knowledge. This Mr. Boswell owned he had found to be true.' _European Magazine_, 1798, p. 376.

[329] See _ante_, iv. 8, note 3, and iv. 20.

[330] Colman had translated _Terence. Ante_, iv. 18.

[331] Dr. Nugent was Burke's father-in-law. _Ante_, i. 477.

[332] Lord Charlemont left behind him a _History of Italian Poetry_. Hardy's _Charlemont_, i. 306, ii. 437.

[333] See _ante_, i. 250, and ii. 378, note 1.

[334] Since the first edition, it has been suggested by one of the club, who knew Mr. Vesey better than Dr. Johnson and I, that we did not assign him a proper place; for he was quite unskilled in Irish antiquities and Celtick learning, but might with propriety have been made professor of architecture, which he understood well, and has left a very good specimen of his knowledge and taste in that art, by an elegant house built on a plan of his own formation, at Lucan, a few miles from Dublin. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iv. 28.

[335] Sir William Jones, who died at the age of forty-seven, had 'studied eight languages critically, eight less perfectly, but all intelligible with a dictionary, and twelve least perfectly, but all attainable.' Teignmouth's _Life of Sir W. Jones_, ed. 1815, p. 465. See _ante_, iv. 69.

[336] See _ante_, i. 478.

[337] See _ante_, p. 16.

[338] Mackintosh in his _Life_, ii. 171, says:--'From the refinements of abstruse speculation Johnson was withheld, partly perhaps by that repugnance to such subtleties which much experience often inspires, and partly also by a secret dread that they might disturb those prejudices in which his mind had found repose from the agitations of doubt.'

[339] See _ante_, iv. 11, note 1.

[340] Our Club, originally at the Turk's Head, Gerrard-street, then at Prince's, Sackville-street, now at Baxter's, Dover-street, which at Mr. Garrick's funeral acquired a _name_ for the first time, and was called THE LITERARY CLUB, was instituted in 1764, and now consists of thirty-five members. It has, since 1773, been greatly augmented; and though Dr. Johnson with justice observed, that, by losing Goldsmith, Garrick, Nugent, Chamier, Beauclerk, we had lost what would make an eminent club, yet when I mentioned, as an accession, Mr. Fox, Dr. George Fordyce, Sir Charles Bunbury, Lord Ossory, Mr. Gibbon, Dr. Adam Smith, Mr. R.B. Sheridan, the Bishops of Kilaloe and St. Asaph, Dean Marley, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Dunning, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Scott of the Commons, Earl Spencer, Mr. Windham of Norfolk, Lord Elliott, Mr. Malone, Dr. Joseph Warton, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Lord Lucan, Mr. Burke junior, Lord Palmerston, Dr. Burney, Sir William Hamilton, and Dr. Warren, it will be acknowledged that we might establish a second university of high reputation. BOSWELL. Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote in 1780 (_Life_, p. 241):--'Of our club I will only say that there is no branch of human knowledge on which some of our members are not capable of giving information.'

[341] Here, unluckily, the windows had no pullies; and Dr. Johnson, who was constantly eager for fresh air, had much struggling to get one of them kept open. Thus he had a notion impressed upon him, that this wretched defect was general in Scotland; in consequence of which he has erroneously enlarged upon it in his _Journey_. I regretted that he did not allow me to read over his book before it was printed. I should have changed very little; but I should have suggested an alteration in a few places where he has laid himself open to be attacked. I hope I should have prevailed with him to omit or soften his assertion, that 'a Scotsman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland to truth,' for I really think it is not founded; and it is harshly said. BOSWELL. Johnson, after a half-apology for 'these diminutive observations' on Scotch windows and fresh air, continues:--'The true state of every nation is the state of common life.' _Works_, ix. 18. Boswell a second time (_ante_, ii. 311) returns to Johnson's assertion that 'a Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry.' _Works_, ix. 116.

[342] See _ante_, p. 40.

[343] A protest may be entered on the part of most Scotsmen against the Doctor's taste in this particular. A Finnon haddock dried over the smoke of the sea-weed, and sprinkled with salt water during the process, acquires a relish of a very peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburgh philosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at a dinner, where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnon-fish. These were served round without distinction whence they came; but only one gentleman, out of twelve present, espoused the cause of philosophy. WALTER SCOTT.

[344] It is the custom in Scotland for the judges of the Court of Session to have the title of _lords_, from their estates; thus Mr. Burnett is Lord _Monboddo_, as Mr. Home was Lord _Kames_. There is something a little awkward in this; for they are denominated in deeds by their _names_, with the addition of 'one of the Senators of the College of Justice;' and subscribe their Christian and surnames, as _James Burnett_, _Henry Home_, even in judicial acts. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 77, note 4.

[345] See _ante_, ii. 344, where Johnson says:--'A judge may be a farmer, but he is not to geld his own pigs.'

[346]

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

Pope, _Imitations of Horace_, Epistles, i. vi. 1.

[347] See _ante_, i. 461.

[348] See _ante_, iv. 152.

[349] See _ante_, iii. 322.

[350] In the _Gent. Mag._ for 1755, p. 42, among the deaths is entered 'Sir James Lowther, Bart., reckoned the richest commoner in Great Britain, and worth above a million.' According to Lord Shelburne, Lord Sunderland, who had been advised 'to nominate Lowther one of his Treasury on account of his great property,' appointed him to call on him. After waiting for some time he rang to ask whether he had come, 'The servants answered that nobody had called; upon his repeating the inquiry they said that there was an old man, somewhat wet, sitting by the fireside in the hall, who they supposed had some petition to deliver to his lordship. When he went out it proved to be Sir James Lowther. Lord Sunderland desired him to be sent about his business, saying that no such mean fellow should sit at his Treasury.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 34.

[351] I do not know what was at this time the state of the parliamentary interest of the ancient family of Lowther; a family before the Conquest; but all the nation knows it to be very extensive at present. A due mixture of severity and kindness, oeconomy and munificence, characterises its present Representative. BOSWELL. Boswell, most unhappily not clearly seeing where his own genius lay, too often sought to obtain fame and position by the favour of some great man. For some years he courted in a very gross manner 'the present Representative,' the first Earl of Lonsdale, who treated him with great brutality. _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 271, 294, 324, and _ante_, iv. May 15, 1783. In the _Ann. Reg._ 1771, p. 56, it is shewn how by this bad man 'the whole county of Cumberland was thrown into a state of the greatest terror and confusion; four hundred ejectments were served in one day.' Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto._ p. 418) says that 'he was more detested than any man alive, as a shameless political sharper, a domestic bashaw, and an intolerable tyrant over his tenants and dependants.' Lord Albemarle (_Memoirs of Rockingham,_ ii. 70) describes the 'bad Lord Lonsdale. He exacted a serf-like submission from his poor and abject dependants. He professed a thorough contempt for modern refinements. Grass grew in the neglected approaches to his mansion.... Awe and silence pervaded the inhabitants [of Penrith] when the gloomy despot traversed their streets. He might have been taken for a Judge Jefferies about to open a royal commission to try them as state criminals... In some years of his life he resisted the payment of all bills.' Among his creditors was Wordsworth's father, 'who died leaving the poet and four other helpless children. The executors of the will, foreseeing the result of a legal contest with _a millionaire,_ withdrew opposition, trusting to Lord Lonsdale's sense of justice for payment. They leaned on a broken reed, the wealthy debtor "Died and made no sign."' [2 _Henry VI,_ act iii. sc. 3.] See De Quincey's _Works,_ iii. 151.

[352] 'Let us not,' he says, 'make too much haste to despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence.' _Works_, ix. 20.

[353] Note by Lord _Hailes_. 'The cathedral of Elgin was burnt by the Lord of Badenoch, because the Bishop of Moray had pronounced an award not to his liking. The indemnification that the see obtained was, that the Lord of Badenoch stood for three days bare-footed at the great gate of the cathedral. The story is in the Chartulary of Elgin.' BOSWELL. The cathedral was rebuilt in 1407-20, but the lead was stripped from the roof by the Regent Murray, and the building went to ruin. Murray's _Handbook_, ed. 1867, p. 303. 'There is,' writes Johnson (_Works_, ix. 20), 'still extant in the books of the council an order ... directing that the lead, which covers the two cathedrals of Elgin and Aberdeen, shall be taken away, and converted into money for the support of the army.... The two churches were stripped, and the lead was shipped to be sold in Holland. I hope every reader will rejoice that this cargo of sacrilege was lost at sea.' On this Horace Walpole remarks (_Letters_, vii. 484):--'I confess I have not quite so heinous an idea of sacrilege as Dr. Johnson. Of all kinds of robbery, that appears to me the lightest species which injures nobody. Dr. Johnson is so pious that in his journey to your country he flatters himself that all his readers will join him in enjoying the destruction of two Dutch crews, who were swallowed up by the ocean after they had robbed a church.'