Chapter 11

of being his _surest_ descendant as is vulgarly said, has in reality no connection whatever with his blood. And secondly, independent of this theory, (which, if true, should completely exclude heirs general,) that if the preference of a male to a female, without regard to primogeniture, (as a son, though much younger, nay, even a grandson by a son, to a daughter,) be once admitted, as it universally is, it must be equally reasonable and proper in the most remote degree of descent from an original proprietor of an estate, as in the nearest; because,--however distant from the representative at the time,--that remote heir male, upon the failure of those nearer to the _original proprietor_ than he is, becomes in fact the nearest male to _him_, and is, therefore, preferable as _his_ representative, to a female descendant.--A little extension of mind will enable us easily to perceive that a son's son, in continuation to whatever length of time, is preferable to a son's daughter, in the succession to an ancient inheritance; in which regard should be had to the representation of the original proprietor, and not to that of one of his descendants.

I am aware of Blackstone's admirable demonstration of the reasonableness of the legal succession, upon the principle of there being the greatest probability that the nearest heir of the person who last dies proprietor of an estate, is of the blood of the first purchaser. But supposing a pedigree to be carefully authenticated through all its branches, instead of mere _probability_ there will be a _certainty_ that _the nearest heir male, at whatever period_, has the same right of blood with the first heir male, namely, _the original purchaser's eldest son_. Boswell.

[1241] Boswell wrote to Temple on Sept. 2, 1775:--'What a discouraging reflection is it that my father has in his possession a renunciation of my birthright, which I _madly_ granted to him, and which he has not the generosity to restore now that I am doing beyond his utmost hopes, and that he may incommode and disgrace me by some strange settlements, while all this time not a shilling is secured to my wife and children in case of my death!' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 216.

[1242] The technical term in Roman law for a building in good repair.

[1243] Which term I applied to all the heirs male. Boswell.

[1244] A misprint for 1776.

[1245] I had reminded him of his observation mentioned, ii. 261. BOSWELL.

[1246] The entail framed by my father with various judicious clauses, was settled by him and me, settling the estate upon the heirs male of his grandfather, which I found had been already done by my grandfather, imperfectly, but so as to be defeated only by selling the lands. I was freed by Dr. Johnson from scruples of conscientious obligation, and could, therefore, gratify my father. But my opinion and partiality of male succession, in its full extent, remained unshaken. Yet let me not be thought harsh or unkind to daughters; for my notion is, that they should be treated with great affection and tenderness, and always participate of the prosperity of the family. BOSWELL.

[1247] Temple, in _Popular Discontents_ (_Works_, iii. 62-64), examines the general dissatisfaction with the judicature of the House of Lords. Till the end of Elizabeth's reign, he states, the peers, who were few in number, were generally possessed of great estates which rendered them less subject to corruption. As one remedy for the evil existing in his time, he suggests that the Crown shall create no Baron, who shall not at the same time entail AL4000 a year upon that honour, whilst it continues in his family; a Viscount, AL5000; an Earl, AL6000; a Marquis, AL7000; and a Duke, AL8000.

[1248] 'A cruel tyranny bathed in the blood of their Emperors upon every succession; a heap of vassals and slaves; no nobles, no gentlemen, no freeman, no inheritance of land, no strip of ancient families, [nullA| stirpes antiquA|].' Spedding _Bacon_, vii. 22.

[1249] 'Let me warn you very earnestly against scruples,' he wrote on March 5, of this year:--'I am no friend to scruples,' he had said at St. Andrew's. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19. 'On his many, men miserable, but few men good.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 844.

[1250] A letter to him on the interesting subject of the family settlement, which I had read. BOSWELL.

[1251] Paoli had given Boswell much the same advice. 'All this,' said Paoli, 'is melancholy. I have also studied metaphysics. I know the arguments for fate and free-will, for the materiality and immateriality of the soul, and even the subtle arguments for and against the existence of matter. _Ma lasciamo queste dispute ai oziosi_. But let us leave these disputes to the idle. _Io tengo sempre fermo un gran pensiero_. I hold always firm one great object. I never feel a moment of despondency.' Boswell's _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 193. See _post_, March 14, 1781.

[1252] Johnson, in his letters to the Thrales during the year 1775, mentions this riding-school eight or nine times. The person recommended was named Carter. Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 72) says 'the profit of the _History_ has been applied to the establishment of a riding-school, that the polite exercises might be taught, I know not with what success, in the University.'

[1253] I suppose the complaint was, that the trustees of the Oxford Press did not allow the London booksellers a sufficient profit upon vending their publications. BOSWELL.

[1254] Cadell published _The False Alarm and The Journey to the Hebrides_. Gibbon described him as 'That honest and liberal bookseller.' Stewart's _Life of Robertson,_ p. 366.

[1255] I am happy in giving this full and clear statement to the publick, to vindicate, by the authority of the greatest authour of his age, that respectable body of men, the Booksellers of London, from vulgar reflections, as if their profits were exorbitant, when, in truth, Dr. Johnson has here allowed them more than they usually demand.

[1256] 'Behind the house was a garden which he took delight in watering; a room on the ground-floor was assigned to Mrs. Williams, and the whole of the two pair of stairs floor was made a repository for his books; one of the rooms thereon being his study. Here, in the intervals of his residence at Streatham, he received the visits of his friends, and to the most intimate of them sometimes gave not inelegant dinners.' Hawkins's _Johnson_, p. 531. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'This is all that I have to tell you, except that I have three bunches of grapes on a vine in my garden: at least this is all that I will now tell of my garden.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 178. This house was burnt down in 1819. _Notes and Queries_, 1st S., v. 233.

[1257] He said, when in Scotland, that he was _Johnson of that Ilk_. ROSWELL. See _post_, April 28, 1778, note.

[1258] See _ante_, ii. 229.

[1259] See vol. i. p. 375. BOSWELL. Boswell refers to the work of Dr. Cohausen of Coblentz, _Hermippus Redivivus_. Dr. Campbell translated it (_ante_, i. 417), under the title of _Hermippus Redivivus, or the Sage's Triumph over Old Age and the Grave_. Cohausen maintained that life might be prolonged to 115 years by breathing the breath of healthy young women. He founded his theory 'on a Roman inscription--_AEsculapio et Sanitati L. Colodius Hermippus qui vixit annos CXV. dies V. puellarum anhelitu_.' He maintained that one of the most eligible conditions of life was that of a Confessor of youthful nuns. _Lowndes's Bibl. Man_. p. 488, and _Gent. Mag_. xiii. 279. I. D'Israeli (_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, ii. 102) describes Campbell's book as a 'curious banter on the hermetic philosophy and the universal medicine; the grave irony is so closely kept up, that it deceived for a length of time the most learned. Campbell assured a friend it was a mere _jeu-d'-esprit_.' Lord E. Fitzmaurice (_Life of Shelburne_, iii. 447) says that Ingenhousz, a Dutch physician who lived with Shelburne, combated in one of his works the notion held by certain schoolmasters, that 'it was wholesome to inhale the air which has passed through the lungs of their pupils, closing the windows in order purposely to facilitate that operation.'

[1260] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 24.

[1261] The privilege of perpetuating in a family an estate and arms _indefeasibly_ from generation to generation, is enjoyed by none of his Majesty's subjects except in Scotland, where the legal fiction of _fine_ and _recovery_ is unknown. It is a privilege so proud, that I should think it would be proper to have the exercise of it dependent on the royal prerogative. It seems absurd to permit the power of perpetuating their representation, to men, who having had no eminent merit, have truly no name. The King, as the impartial father of his people, would never refuse to grant the privilege to those who deserved it. BOSWELL.

[1262] Boswell wrote to Temple about six weeks later:--'Murphy says he has read thirty pages of Smith's _Wealth_, but says he shall read no more; Smith, too, is now of our Club. It has lost its select merit.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 233. Johnson can scarcely have read Smith; if he did, it made no impression on him. His ignorance on many points as to what constitutes the wealth of a nation remained as deep as ever.

[1263] Mr. Wedderburne. CROKER.

[1264] A similar bill had been thrown out sixteen years earlier by 194 to 84. 'A Bill for a Militia in Scotland was not successful; nor could the disaffected there obtain this mode of having their arms restored. Pitt had acquiesced; but the young Whigs attacked it with all their force.' Walpole's _Reign of George II_, iii. 280. Lord Mountstuart's bill was thrown out by 112 to 95, the Ministry being in the minority. The arguments for and against it are stated in the _Ann. Reg_. xix 140. See _post_, iii. i. Henry Mackenzie (_Life of John Home_, i. 26) says:--'The Poker Club was instituted at a time when Scotland was refused a militia, and thought herself affronted by the refusal. The name was chosen from a quaint sort of allusion to the principles it was meant to excite, as a club to stir up the fire and spirit of the country.' See _ante_, p. 376.

[1265] 'Scotland paid only one fortieth to the land-tax, the very specific tax out of which all the expenses of a militia were to be drawn.' _Ann. Reg_. xix. 141.

[1266] In a new edition of this book, which was published in the following year, the editor states, that either 'through hurry or inattention some obscene jests had unluckily found a place in the first edition.' See _post_, April 28, 1778.

[1267] See _ante_, ii. 338, note 2.

[1268] The number of the asterisks, taken with the term _worthy friend_, renders it almost certain that Langton was meant. The story might, however, have been told of Reynolds, for he wrote of Johnson:--'Truth, whether in great or little matters, he held sacred. From the violation of truth, he said, in great things your character or your interest was affected; in lesser things, your pleasure is equally destroyed. I remember, on his relating some incident, I added something to his relation which I supposed might likewise have happened: "It would have been a better story," says he, "if it had been so; but it was not."' Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 457. Mrs. Piozzi records (_Anec_. p. 116):--'"A story," says Johnson, "is a specimen of human manners, and derives its sole value from its truth, When Foote has told me something, I dismiss it from my mind like a passing shadow; when Reynolds tells me something, I consider myself as possessed of an idea the more."'

[1269] Boswell felt this when, more than eight years earlier, he wrote:--'As I have related Paoli's remarkable sayings, I declare upon honour that I have neither added nor diminished; nay, so scrupulous have I been, that I would not make the smallest variation, even when my friends thought it would be an improvement. I know with how much pleasure we read what is perfectly authentick.' Boswell's _Corsia_, ed. 1879, p. 126. See _post_, iii. 209.

[1270] In his _Life of Browne_ (_Works_, vi. 478) he sayd of 'innocent frauds':--'But no fraud is innocent; for the confidence which makes the happiness of society is in some degree diminished by every man whose practice is at variance with his words.' 'Mr. Tyers,' writes Murphy (_Life_, p. 146), 'observed that Dr. Johnson always talked as if he was talking upon oath.' Compared with Johnson's strictness, Rouseau's laxity is striking. After describing 'ces gens qu'on appelle vrais dans le monde,' he continues;--'L'homme que j'appele _vrai_ fait tout le contraire. En choses parfaitnement indifferentes la vA(C)ritA(C) qu'alors l'autre respecte si fort le touche fort peu, et il ne se fera guA(C)re de scrupule d'amuser une compagnie par des faits controuvA(C), dont il ne rA(C)sulte aucun jugement injuste ni pour ni contre qui que ce soit vivant ou mort.' _Les RA(C)veries: IVine Promenade_.

[1271] No doubt Mrs. Fermor (_ante_, p. 392.)

[1272] No. 110.

[1273] No. 52.

[1274] But see _ante_, ii. 365, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19.

[1275] See _ante_, ii. 8, and _post_, April 7, 1778.

[1276] Three weeks later, at his usual fast before Easter, Johnson recorded:--'I felt myself very much disordered by emptiness, and called for tea with peevish and impatient eagerness.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 147.

[1277] Of the use of spirituous liquors, he wrote (_Works_, vi. 26):--'The mischiefs arising on every side from this compendious mode of drunkenness are enormous and insupportable, equally to be found among the great and the mean; filling palaces with disquiet and distraction, harder to be borne as it cannot be mentioned, and overwhelming multitudes with incurable diseases and unpitied poverty.' Yet he found an excuse for drunkenness which few men but he could have found. Stockdale (_Memoirs_, ii. 189) says that he heard Mrs. Williams 'wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves. "I wonder, Madam," replied Johnson, "that you have not penetration enough to see the strong inducement to this excess; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."'

[1278] Very likely Boswell. See _post_, under May 8, 1781, for a like instance. In 1775, under a yew tree, he promised Temple to be sober. On Aug. 12, 1775, he wrote:--'My promise under the solemn yew I have observed wonderfully, having never infringed it till, the other day, a very jovial company of us dined at a tavern, and I unwarily exceeded my bottle of old Hock; and having once broke over the pale, I run wild, but I did not get drunk. I was, however, intoxicated, and very ill next day.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 209. During his present visit to London he wrote:--'My promise under the solemn yew was not religiously kept, because a little wine hurried me on too much. The General [Paoli] has taken my word of honour that I shall not taste fermented liquor for a year, that I may recover sobriety. I have kept this promise now about three weeks. I was really growing a drunkard.' _Ib_ p. 233. In 1778 he was for a short time a water drinker. _Post_, April 28, 1778. His intemperance grew upon him, and at last carried him off. On Dec. 4, 1790, he wrote to Malone:--'Courtenay took my word and honour that till March 1 my allowance of wine per diem should not exceed four good glasses at dinner, and a pint after it, and this I have kept, though I have dined with Jack Wilkes, &c. On March 8, 1791, he wrote:--'Your friendly admonition as to excess in wine _has_ been often too applicable. As I am now free from my restriction to Courtenay, I shall be much upon my guard; for, to tell the truth, I did go too deep the day before yesterday.' Croker's _Boswell_, pp. 828, 829.

[1279] 'Mathematics are perhaps too much studied at our universities. This seems a science to which the meanest intellects are equal. I forget who it is that says, "All men might understand mathematics if they would."' Goldsmith's _Present Stale of Polite Learning_, ch. 13.

[1280] 'No, Sir,' he once said, 'people are not born with a particular genius for particular employments or studies, for it would be like saying that a man could see a great way east, but could not west. It is good sense applied with diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great application grew to be called by the generality of mankind a particular genius.' Miss Reynolds's _Recollections_. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 833:--'Perhaps this is Miss Reynolds's recollection of the following, in Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773':--JOHNSON. 'I could as easily apply to law as to tragick poetry.' BOSWELL. 'Yet, Sir, you did apply to tragick poetry, not to law.' JOHNSON. 'Because, Sir, I had not money to study law. Sir, the man who has vigour may walk to the east just as well as to the west, if he happens to turn his head that way.' 'The true genius,' he wrote (_Works_, vii. 1), 'is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.' Reynolds held the same doctrine, having got it no doubt from Johnson. He held 'that the superiority attainable in any pursuit whatever does not originate in an innate propensity of the mind to that pursuit in particular, but depends on the general strength of the intellect, and on the intense and constant application of that strength to a specific purpose. He regarded ambition as the cause of eminence, but accident as pointing out the _means_.' Northcote's _Reynolds_, i. II. 'Porson insisted that all men are born with abilities nearly equal. "Any one," he would say, "might become quite as good a critic as I am, if he would only take the trouble to make himself so. I have made myself what I am by intense labour."' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 305. Hume maintained the opposite. 'This forenoon,' wrote Boswell on June 19, 1775, 'Mr. Hume came in. He did not say much. I only remember his remark, that characters depend more on original formation than on the way we are educated; "for," said he, "princes are educated uniformly, and yet how different are they! how different was James the Second from Charles the Second!"' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 205. Boswell recorded, two years earlier (_Hebrides_, Sept. 16):--'Dr. Johnson denied that any child was better than another, but by difference of instruction; though, in consequence of greater attention being paid to instruction by one child than another, and of a variety of imperceptible causes, such as instruction being counteracted by servants, a notion was conceived that, of two children equally well educated, one was naturally much worse than another.'

[1281] See _ante_, i. 348.

[1282] The grossness of naval men is shewn in Captain Mirvan, in Miss Burney's _Evelina_. In her _Diary_, i. 358, she records:--'The more I see of sea-captains the less reason I have to be ashamed of Captain Mirvan, for they have all so irresistible a propensity to wanton mischief--to roasting beaus and detesting old women, that I quite rejoice I shewed the book to no one ere printed, lest I should have been prevailed upon to soften his character.'

[1283] Baretti, in a MS. note in _Piozzi Letters_, i. 349, describes Gwyn as 'the Welsh architect that built the bridge at Oxford.' He built Magdalen Bridge.

[1284] 'Whence,' asks Goldsmith, 'has proceeded the vain magnificence of expensive architecture in our colleges? Is it that men study to more advantage in a palace than in a cell? One single performance of taste or genius confers more real honour on its parent university than all the labours of the chisel.' _Present State of Polite Learning_, ch. 13. Newton used to say of his friend, the Earl of Pembroke, 'that he was a lover of stone dolls.' Brewster's _Newton_, ed. 1860, ii. 334.

[1285] Afterwards Lord Stowell. See the beginning of Boswell's _Hebrides_.

[1286] See _ante_, i. 446.

[1287] See _ante_, ii. 121, and _post_, Oct. 27, 1779.

[1288] See _ante_, p. 424.

[1289] See _post_, under April 4, 1781.

[1290] See _ante_, p. 315.

[1291] See _ante_, i. 398.

[1292] 'Hume told Cadell, the bookseller, that he had a great desire to be introduced to as many of the persons who had written against him as could be collected. Accordingly, Dr. Douglas, Dr. Adams, &c., were invited by Cadell to dine at his house, in order to meet Hume. They came; and Dr. Price, who was of the party, assured me that they were all delighted with David.' Rogers's _Table Talk_, p. 106.

[1293] Boswell, in his _Corsica_, ed. 1879, p. 204, uses a strange argument against infidelity. 'Belief is favourable to the human mind were it for nothing else but to furnish it entertainment. An infidel, I should think, must frequently suffer from ennui.' In his _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, note, he attacks Adam Smith for being 'so forgetful of _human comfort_ as to give any countenance to that dreary infidelity which would "make us poor indeed."'

[1294] 'JEMMY TWITCHER. Are we more dishonest than the rest of mankind? What we win, gentlemen, is our own, by the law of arms and the right of conquest. CROOK-FINGER'D JACK. Where shall we find such another set of practical philosophers, who to a man are above the fear of death?' _The Beggar's Opera_, act ii. sc. i.

[1295] Boswell, I think, here aims a blow at Gibbon. He says (_post_, under March 19, 1781), that 'Johnson had talked with some disgust of Mr. Gibbon's ugliness.' He wrote to Temple on May 8, 1779:--'Gibbon is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our literary club to me.' He had before classed him among 'infidel wasps and venomous insects.' _Letters of Boswell_, pp. 233, 242. The younger Coleman describes Gibbon as dressed 'in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword.' _Random Records_, i. 121.

[1296] 'Formam quidem ipsam, Marce fili, et tamquam faciem honesti vides, "quae si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores" ut ait Plato, "excitaret sapientiae."' Cicero, De _Off_. i. 5.

[1297] Of Beattie's attack on Hume, he said:--'Treating your adversary with respect, is striking soft in a battle.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15.

[1298] When Gibbon entered Magdalen College in 1752, the ordinary commoners were already excluded. 'As a gentleman commoner,' he writes, 'I was admitted to the society of the fellows, and fondly expected that some questions of literature would be the amusing and instructive topics of their discourse. Their conversation stagnated in a round of college business, Tory politics, personal anecdotes, and private scandal; their dull and deep potations excused the brisk intemperance of youth; and their constitutional toasts were not expressive of the most lively loyalty for the house of Hanover.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 53. In Jesse's edition of White's _Selborne_, p. ii, it is stated that 'White, as long as his health allowed him, always attended the annual election of Fellows at Oriel College, where the gentlemen-commoners were allowed the use of the common-room after dinner. This liberty they seldom availed themselves of, except on the occasion of Mr. White's visits; for such was his happy manner of telling a story that the room was always filled when he was there.' He died in 1793.

[1299] 'So different are the colours of life as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past, and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.... One generation is always the scorn and wonder of the other; and the notions of the old and young are like liquors of different gravity and texture which never can unite.' _The Rambler_, No. 69.

[1300] 'It was said of a dispute between two mathematicians, "_malim cum Scaligero errare quam cum Clavio recte sapere_" that "it was more eligible to go wrong with one than right with the other." A tendency of the same kind every mind must feel at the perusal of Dryden's prefaces and Rymer's discourses.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 303.

[1301] 'There is evidence of Phil. Jones's love of beer; for we find scribbled at the end of the college buttery-books, "O yes, O yes, come forth, Phil. Jones, and answer to your charge for exceeding the batells." His excess, perhaps, was in liquor.' _Dr. Johnson: His Friends, &c_., p. 23.

[1302] See _post_, iii. 1.

[1303] Dr. Fisher, who was present, told Mr. Croker that 'he recollected one passage of the conversation. Boswell quoted _Quern Deus vult perdere, prius dementat_, and asked where it was. A pause. At last Dr. Chandler said, in Horace. Another pause. Then Fisher remarked that he knew of no metre in Horace to which the words could be reduced: and Johnson said dictatorially, "The young man is right."' See _post_, March 30, 1783. For another of Dr. Fisher's anecdotes, see _ante_, p. 269. Mark Pattison recorded in his _Diary_ in 1843 (_Memoirs_, p. 203), on the authority of Mr. (now Cardinal) Newman:--'About 1770, the worst time in the University; a head of Oriel then, who was continually obliged to be assisted to bed by his butler. Gaudies, a scene of wild license. At Christ Church they dined at three, and sat regularly till chapel at nine.' A gaudy is such a festival as the one in the text.

[1304] The author of the _Commentary on the Psalms_. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, note.

[1305] See _ante_, pp. 279, 283.

[1306] 'I have seen,' said Mr. Donne to Sir R. Drewry, 'a dreadful vision since I saw you. I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me, through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms.' He learnt that on the same day, and about the very hour, after a long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered of a dead child. Walton's _Life of Dr. Donne_, ed. 1838, p. 25.

[1307] 'Biographers so little regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral.' _The Rambler_, No. 60. See _post_, iii. 71.

[1308] See _post_, iii. 112.

[1309] It has been mentioned to me by an accurate English friend, that Dr. Johnson could never have used the phrase _almost nothing_, as not being English; and therefore I have put another in its place. At the same time, I am not quite convinced it is not good English. For the best writers use the phrase '_Little or nothing_;' i.e. almost so little as to be nothing. BOSWELL. Boswell might have left _almost nothing_ in his text. Johnson used it in his writings, certainly twice. 'It will add _almost nothing_ to the expense.' Works, v. 307. 'I have read little, _almost nothing_.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 176. Moreover, in a letter to Mrs. Aston, written on Nov. 5, 1779 (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 640), he says:--'Nothing almost is purchased.' In _King Lear_, act ii. sc. 2, we have:--

'Nothing almost sees miracles But misery.'

[1310] 'Pope's fortune did not suffer his charity to be splendid and conspicuous; but he assisted Dodsley with a hundred pounds, that he might open a shop.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 318.

[1311] _A Muse in Livery: or the Footman's Miscellany_. 1732. A rhyme in the motto on the title-page shows what a Cockney muse Dodsley's was. He writes:--

'But when I mount behind the coach, And bear aloft a flaming torch.'

The Preface is written with much good feeling.

[1312] James Dodsley, many years a bookseller in Pall Mall. He died Feb. 19, 1797. P. CUNNINGHAM. He was living, therefore, when this anecdote was published.

[1313] Horace Walpole (_Letters_, iii. 135) says:--'You know how decent, humble, inoffensive a creature Dodsley is; how little apt to forget or disguise his having been a footman.' Johnson seems to refer to Dodsley in the following passage, written in 1756 (_Works_, v. 358):--'The last century imagined that a man composing in his chariot was a new object of curiosity; but how much would the wonder have been increased by a footman studying behind it.'

[1314] See _ante_, i. 417.

[1315] Yet surely it is a very useful work, and of wonderful research and labour for one man to have executed. BOSWELL. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 17, 1773.

[1316] Two days earlier, Hume congratulated Gibbon on the first volume of his _Decline and Fall_:--'I own that if I had not previously had the happiness of your personal acquaintance, such a performance from an Englishman in our age would have given me some surprise. You may smile at this sentiment, but as it seems to me that your countrymen, for almost a whole generation, have given themselves up to barbarous and absurd faction, and have totally neglected all polite letters, I no longer expected any valuable production ever to come from them.' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, ii. 484.

[1317] Five weeks later Boswell used a different metaphor. 'I think it is right that as fast as infidel wasps or venomous insects, whether creeping or flying, are hatched, they should be crushed.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 232. If the infidels were wasps to the orthodox, the orthodox were hornets to the infidels. Gibbon wrote (_Misc. Works_, i. 273):--'The freedom of my writings has indeed provoked an implacable tribe; but as I was safe from the stings, I was soon accustomed to the buzzing of the hornets.'

[1318] Macaulay thus examines this report (_Essays_, i. 360):--'To what then, it has been asked, could Johnson allude? Possibly to some anecdote or some conversation of which all trace is lost. One conjecture may be offered, though with diffidence. Gibbon tells us in his memoirs [_Misc. Works_, i. 56] that at Oxford he took a fancy for studying Arabic, and was prevented from doing so by the remonstrances of his tutor. Soon after this, the young man fell in with Bossuet's controversial writings, and was speedily converted by them to the Roman Catholic faith. The apostasy of a gentleman-commoner would of course be for a time the chief subject of conversation in the common room of Magdalene. His whim about Arabic learning would naturally be mentioned, and would give occasion to some jokes about the probability of his turning Mussulman. If such jokes were made, Johnson, who frequently visited Oxford, was very likely to hear of them.' Though Gibbon's _Autobiography_ ends with the year 1788, yet he wrote portions of it, I believe, after the publication of the _Life of Johnson_. (See _ante_, ii. 8, note 1.) I have little doubt that in the following lines he refers to the attack thus made on him by Boswell and Johnson. 'Many years afterwards, when the name of Gibbon was become as notorious as that of Middleton, it was industriously whispered at Oxford that the historian had formerly "turned Papist;" my character stood exposed to the reproach of inconstancy.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 65.

[1319] Steele, in his _Apology for Himself and his Writings_ (ed. 1714, p. 80), says of himself:--'He first became an author when an ensign of the Guards, a way of life exposed to much irregularity, and being thoroughly convinced of many things of which he often repented, and which he more often repeated, he writ, for his own private use, a little book called the _Christian Hero_, with a design principally to fix upon his own mind a strong impression of virtue and religion, in opposition to a stronger propensity towards unwarrantable pleasures. This secret admonition was too weak; he therefore printed the book with his name, in hopes that a standing testimony against himself, and the eyes of the world, that is to say of his acquaintance, upon him in a new light, might curb his desires, and make him ashamed of understanding and seeming to feel what was virtuous, and living so quite contrary a life.'

[1320] 'A man,' no doubt, is Boswell himself.

[1321] '"I was sure when I read it that the preface to Baretti's _Dialogues_ was Dr. Johnson's; and that I made him confess." "Baretti's _Dialogues_! What are they about?" "A thimble, and a spoon, and a knife, and a fork! They are the most absurd, and yet the most laughable things you ever saw. They were written for Miss Thrale, and all the dialogues are between her and him, except now and then a shovel and a poker, or a goose and a chair happen to step in."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 263.

[1322] 'April 4, 1760. At present nothing is talked of, nothing admired, but what I cannot help calling a very insipid and tedious performance; it is a kind of novel called _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy_; the great humour of which consists in the whole narration always going backwards.' Walpole's _Letters_, iii. 298. 'March 7, 1761. The second and third volumes of _Tristram Shandy_, the dregs of nonsense, have universally met the contempt they deserve.' _Ib_ 382. '"My good friend," said Dr. Farmer (_ante_, i. 368), one day in the parlour at Emanuel College, "you young men seem very fond of this _Tristram Shandy_; but mark my words, however much it may be talked about at present, yet, depend upon it, in the course of twenty years, should any one wish to refer to it, he will be obliged to go to an antiquary to inquire for it."' Croker's _Boswell_, ed. 1844, ii. 339. See _ante_, ii. 173, note 2, and 222.

[1323] Mrs. Rudd. She and the two brothers Perreau were charged with forgery. She was tried first and acquitted, the verdict of the jury being 'not guilty, according to the evidence before us.' The _Ann. Reg_.