Chapter 5

London. He had seen 'the mob requiring gentlemen and ladies of all ranks as they passed in their carriages, to shout for Wilkes and liberty, marking the same words on all their coaches with chalk, and No. 45 on every door. I went last week to Winchester, and observed that for fifteen miles out of town there was scarce a door or window shutter next the road unmarked; and this continued here and there quite to Winchester.'

[179] In his _Vindication of the Licensers of the Stage_, he thus writes:--'If I might presume to advise them [the Ministers] upon this great affair, I should dissuade them from any direct attempt upon the liberty of the press, which is the darling of the common people, and therefore cannot be attacked without immediate danger.' _Works_, v. 344. On p. 191 of the same volume, he shows some of the benefits that arise in England from 'the boundless liberty with which every man may write his own thoughts.' See also in his _Life of Milton_, the passage about _Areopagitica_, _Ib_ vii. 82. The liberty of the press was likely to be 'a constant topic.' Horace Walpole (_Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, ii. 15), writing of the summer of 1764, says:--'Two hundred informations were filed against printers; a larger number than had been prosecuted in the whole thirty-three years of the last reign.'

[180] 'The sun has risen, and the corn has grown, and, whatever talk has been of the danger of property, yet he that ploughed the field commonly reaped it, and he that built a house was master of the door; the vexation excited by injustice suffered, or supposed to be suffered, by any private man, or single community, was local and temporary; it neither spread far nor lasted long.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 170. See also _post_, March 31, 1772. Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, iii. 215) wrote to the AbbA(C) Morellet, on April 22, 1787:--'Nothing can be better expressed than your sentiments are on this point, where you prefer liberty of trading, cultivating, manufacturing, &c., even to civil liberty, this being affected but rarely, the other every hour.'

[181] See _ante_, July 6, 1763.

[182] See _ante_, Oct. 1765.

[183] 'I was diverted with Paoli's English library. It consisted of:--Some broken volumes of the _Spectatour_ and _Tatler_; Pope's _Essay on Man_; _Gulliver's Travels_; A _History of France_ in old English; and Barclay's _Apology for the Quakers_. I promised to send him some English books... I have sent him some of our best books of morality and entertainment, in particular the works of Mr. Samuel Johnson.' Boswell's _Corsica_, p. 169.

[184] Johnson, as Boswell believed, only once 'in the whole course of his life condescended to oppose anything that was written against him.' (See _ante_, i. 314.) In this he followed the rule of Bentley and of Boerhaave. 'It was said to old Bentley, upon the attacks against him, "why, they'll write you down." "No, Sir," he replied; "depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself."' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 1 1773. Bentley shewed prudence in his silence. 'He was right,' Johnson said, 'not to answer; for, in his hazardous method of writing, he could not but be often enough wrong.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 10, 1773. 'Boerhaave was never soured by calumny and detraction, nor ever thought it necessary to confute them; "for they are sparks," said he, "which, if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves."' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 288. Swift, in his _Lines on Censure_ which begin,--

'Ye wise instruct me to endure An evil which admits no cure.'

ends by saying:--

'The most effectual way to baulk Their malice is--to let them talk.' Swift's _Works_, xi. 58.

Young, in his _Second Epistle to Pope_, had written:--

'Armed with this truth all critics I defy; For if I fall, by my own pen I die.'

Hume, in his _Auto_. (p. ix.) says:--'I had a fixed resolution, which I inflexibly maintained, never to reply to any body.' This is not quite true. See J. H. Burton's _Life of Hume_, ii. 252, for an instance of a violent reply. The following passages in Johnson's writings are to the same effect:--'I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those that they provoke.' _Piozzi Letters_ ii. 289. 'It is very rarely that an author is hurt by his critics. The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket.' _Ib_ p. 110. 'The writer who thinks his works formed for duration mistakes his interest when he mentions his enemies. He degrades his own dignity by shewing that he was affected by their censures, and gives lasting importance to names, which, left to themselves would vanish from remembrance.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 294. 'If it had been possible for those who were attacked to conceal their pain and their resentment, the _Dunciad_ might have made its way very slowly in the world.' _Ib_ viii. 276. Hawkins (_Life of Johnson_, p. 348) says that, 'against personal abuse Johnson was ever armed by a reflection that I have heard him utter:--"Alas! reputation would be of little worth, were it in the power of every concealed enemy to deprive us of it."' In his _Parl. Debates_ (_Works_, x. 359), Johnson makes Mr. Lyttelton say:--'No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it.' Addison in _The Freeholder_, No. 40, says, that 'there is not a more melancholy object in the learned world than a man who has written himself down.' See also Boswell's _Hebrides_, near the end.

[185] Barber had entered Johnson's service in 1752 (_ante_, i. 239). Nine years before this letter was written he had been a sailor on board a frigate (_ante_, i. 348), so that he was somewhat old for a boy.

[186] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year; says:--'Dr. Robertson is come up laden with his _Charles V_.--three large quartos; he has been offered three thousand guineas for it.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 152.

[187] In like manner the professors at Aberdeen and Glasgow seemed afraid to speak in his presence. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug 23 and Oct 29, 1773. See also _post_, April 20, 1778.

[188] See _ante_, July 28, 1763.

[189] Johnson, in inserting this letter, says (Works, viii. 374):--'I communicate it with much pleasure, as it gives me at once an opportunity of recording the fraternal kindness of Thomson, and reflecting on the friendly assistance of Mr. Boswell, from whom I received it.' See _post_, July 9, 1777, and June 18, 1778.

[190] Murphy, in his _Life of Garrick_, p. 183, says that Garrick once brought Dr. Munsey--so he writes the name--to call on him. 'Garrick entered the dining-room, and turning suddenly round, ran to the door, and called out, "Dr. Munsey, where are you going?" "Up stairs to see the author," said Munsey. "Pho! pho! come down, the author is here." Dr. Munsey came, and, as he entered the room, said in his free way, "You scoundrel! I was going up to the garret. Who could think of finding an author on the first floor?"' Mrs. Montagu wrote to Lord Lyttelton from Tunbridge in 1760:--'The great Monsey (_sic_) came hither on Friday ... He is great in the coffee-house, great in the rooms, and great on the pantiles.' _Montagu Letters_, iv. 291. In Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p. 271, there is a curious account of him.

[191] See _ante_, July 26, 1763.

[192] My respectable friend, upon reading this passage, observed, that he probably must have said not simply, 'strong facts,' but 'strong facts well arranged.' His lordship, however, knows too well the value of written documents to insist on setting his recollection against my notes taken at the time. He does not attempt to _traverse_ the record. The fact, perhaps, may have been, either that the additional words escaped me in the noise of a numerous company, or that Dr. Johnson, from his impetuosity, and eagerness to seize an opportunity to make a lively retort, did not allow Dr. Douglas to finish his sentence. BOSWELL.

[193] 'It is boasted that between November [1712] and January, eleven thousand [of _The Conduct of the Allies_] were sold.... Yet surely whoever surveys this wonder-working pamphlet with cool perusal, will confess that it's efficacy was supplied by the passions of its readers; that it operates by the mere weight of facts, with very little assistance from the hand that produced them.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 203.

[194] 'Every great man, of whatever kind be his greatness, has among his friends those who officiously or insidiously quicken his attention to offences, heighten his disgust, and stimulate his resentment.' _Ib_ viii 266.

[195] See the hard drawing of him in Churchill's _Rosciad_. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 391, note 2.

[196] For _talk_, see _post_, under March 30 1783.

[197] See _post_, Oct. 6, 1769, and May 8, 1778, where Johnson tosses Boswell.

[198] See _post_, Sept. 22, 1777, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. i, 1773.

[199] See _post_, Nov. 27, 1773, note, April 7, 1775, and under May 8, 1781.

[200] He wrote the character of Mr. Mudge. See _post_, under March 20, 1781.

[201] 'Sept. 18, 1769. This day completes the sixtieth year of my age.... The last year has been wholly spent in a slow progress of recovery.' _Pr. and Med_. p. 85.

[202] In which place he has been succeeded by Bennet Langton, Esq. When that truly religious gentleman was elected to this honorary Professorship, at the same time that Edward Gibbon, Esq., noted for introducing a kind of sneering infidelity into his Historical Writings, was elected Professor in Ancient History, in the room of Dr. Goldsmith, I observed that it brought to my mind, 'Wicked Will Whiston and good Mr. Ditton.' I am now also of that admirable institution as Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, by the favour of the Academicians, and the approbation of the Sovereign. BOSWELL. Goldsmith, writing to his brother in Jan., 1770, said:--'The King has lately been pleased to make me Professor of Ancient History in a Royal Academy of Painting, which he has just established, but there is no salary annexed, and I took it rather as a compliment to the institution than any benefit to myself. Honours to one in my situation are something like ruffles to one that wants a shirt.' Prior's _Goldsmith_, ii. 221. 'Wicked Will Whiston,' &c., comes from Swift's _Ode for Music, On the Longitude_ (Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xxiv. 39), which begins,--

'The longitude miss'd on By wicked Will Whiston; And not better hit on By good Master Ditton.'

It goes on so grossly and so offensively as regards one and the other, that Boswell's comparison was a great insult to Langton as well as to Gibbon.

[203] It has this inscription in a blank leaf:--'_Hunc librum D.D. Samuel Johnson, eo quod hic loci studiis interdum vacaret_.' Of this library, which is an old Gothick room, he was very fond. On my observing to him that some of the _modern_ libraries of the University were more commodious and pleasant for study, as being more spacious and airy, he replied, 'Sir, if a man has a mind to _prance_, he must study at Christ-Church and All-Souls.' BOSWELL.

[204] During this visit he seldom or never dined out. He appeared to be deeply engaged in some literary work. Miss Williams was now with him at Oxford. BOSWELL. It was more likely the state of his health which kept him at home. Writing from Oxford on June 27 of this year to Mrs. Thrale, who had been ill, he says:--'I will not increase your uneasiness with mine. I hope I grow better. I am very cautious and very timorous.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 21.

[205] Boswell wrote a letter, signed with his own name, to the _London Magazine_ for 1769 (p. 451) describing the Jubilee. It is followed by a print of himself 'in the dress of an armed Corsican chief,' and by an account, no doubt written by himself. It says:--'Of the most remarkable masks upon this occasion was James Boswell, Esq., in the dress of an armed Corsican chief. He entered the amphitheatre about twelve o'clock. On the front of his cap was embroidered in gold letters, _Viva La Liberta_; and on one side of it was a handsome blue feather and cockade, so that it had an elegant, as well as a warlike appearance. He wore no mask, saying that it was not proper for a gallant Corsican. So soon as he came into the room he drew universal attention.' Cradock (_Memoirs_, i. 217) gives a melancholy account of the festival. The preparations were all behind-hand and the weather was stormy. 'There was a masquerade in the evening, and all zealous friends endeavoured to keep up the spirit of it as long as they could, till they were at last informed that the Avon was rising so very fast that no delay could be admitted. The ladies of our party were conveyed by planks from the building to the coach, and found that the wheels had been two feet deep in water.' Garrick in 1771 was asked by the Stratford committee to join them in celebrating a Jubilee every year, as 'the most likely method to promote the interest and reputation of their town.' Boswell caught at the proposal eagerly, and writing to Garrick said:--'I please myself with the prospect of attending you at several more Jubilees at Stratford-upon-Avon.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 414, 435.

[206] Garrick's correspondents not seldom spoke disrespectfully of Johnson. Thus, Mr. Sharp, writing to him in 1769, talks of 'risking the sneer of one of Dr. Johnson's ghastly smiles.' _Ib_ i. 334. Dr. J. Hoadly, in a letter dated July 25, 1775, says:--'Mr. Good-enough has written a kind of parody of Puffy Pensioner's _Taxation no Tyranny_, under the noble title of _Resistance no Rebellion_.' _Ib_ ii. 68.

[207] See ante, i. 181.

[208] In the Preface to my _Account of Corsica_, published in 1768, I thus express myself:

'He who publishes a book affecting not to be an authour, and professing an indifference for literary fame, may possibly impose upon many people such an idea of his consequence as he wishes may be received. For my part, I should be proud to be known as an authour, and I have an ardent ambition for literary fame; for, of all possessions, I should imagine literary fame to be the most valuable. A man who has been able to furnish a book, which has been approved by the world, has established himself as a respectable character in distant society, without any danger of having that character lessened by the observation of his weaknesses. To preserve an uniform dignity among those who see us every day, is hardly possible; and to aim at it, must put us under the fetters of perpetual restraint. The authour of an approved book may allow his natural disposition an easy play, and yet indulge the pride of superior genius, when he considers that by those who know him only as an authour, he never ceases to be respected. Such an authour, when in his hours of gloom and discontent, may have the consolation to think, that his writings are, at that very time, giving pleasure to numbers; and such an authour may cherish the hope of being remembered after death, which has been a great object to the noblest minds in all ages.' BOSWELL. His preface to the third edition thus ends:--'When I first ventured to send this book into the world, I fairly owned an ardent desire for literary fame. I have obtained my desire: and whatever clouds may overcast my days, I can now walk here among the rocks and woods of my ancestors, with an agreeable consciousness that I have done something worthy.' The dedication of the first edition and the preface of the third are both dated Oct. 29--one 1767, and the other 1768. Oct. 29 was his birthday.

[209] Paoli's father had been one of the leaders of the Corsicans in their revolt against Genoa in 1734. Paoli himself was chosen by them as their General-in-chief in 1755. In 1769 the island was conquered by the French. He escaped in an English ship, and settled in England. Here he stayed till 1789, when Mirabeau moved in the National Assembly the recall of all the Corsican patriots. Paoli was thereupon appointed by Louis XVI. Lieutenant-general and military commandant in Corsica. He resisted the violence of the Convention, and was, in consequence, summoned before it. Refusing to obey, an expedition was sent to arrest him. Napoleon Buonaparte fought in the French army, but Paoli's party proved the stronger. The islanders sought the aid of Great Britain, and offered the crown of Corsica to George III. The offer was accepted, but by an act of incredible folly, not Paoli, but Sir Gilbert Eliot, was made Viceroy. Paoli returned to England, where he died in 1807, at the age of eighty-two. In 1796 Corsica was abandoned by the English. By the Revolution it ceased to be a conquered province, having been formally declared an integral part of France. At the present day the Corsicans are proud of being citizens of that great country; no less proud, however, are they of Pascal Paoli, and of the gallant struggle for independence of their forefathers.

[210] According to the _Ann. Reg_. (xii. 132) Paoli arrived in London on Sept. 21. He certainly was in London on Oct. 10, for on that day he was presented by Boswell to Johnson. Yet Wesley records in his _Journal_ (iii. 370) on Oct. 13:--'I very narrowly missed meeting the great Pascal Paoli. He landed in the dock [at Portsmouth] but a very few minutes after I left the waterside. Surely He who hath been with him from his youth up hath not sent him into England for nothing.' In the _Public Advertiser_ for Oct. 4 there is the following entry, inserted no doubt by Boswell:--'On Sunday last General Paoli, accompanied by James Boswell, Esq., took an airing in Hyde Park in his coach.' Priors _Goldsmith_, i. 450. Horace Walpole writes:--'Paoli's character had been so advantageously exaggerated by Mr. Boswell's enthusiastic and entertaining account of him, that the Opposition were ready to incorporate him in the list of popular tribunes. The Court artfully intercepted the project; and deeming patriots of all nations equally corruptible, bestowed a pension of AL1000 a year on the unheroic fugitive.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, iii. 387.

[211] Johnson, writes Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_., p. 228), ridiculed a friend 'who, looking out on Streatham Common from our windows, lamented the enormous wickedness of the times, because some bird-catchers were busy there one fine Sunday morning. "While half the Christian world is permitted," said Johnson, "to dance and sing and celebrate Sunday as a day of festivity, how comes your puritanical spirit so offended with frivolous and empty deviations from exactness? Whoever loads life with unnecessary scruples, Sir," continued he, "provokes the attention of others on his conduct, and incurs the censure of singularity, without reaping the reward of superior virtue."' See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20, 1773.

[212] The first edition of Hume's _History of England_ was full of Scotticisms, many of which he corrected in subsequent editions. MALONE. According to Mr. J. H. Burton (_Life of Hume_, ii. 79), 'He appears to have earnestly solicited the aid of Lyttelton, Mallet, and others, whose experience of English composition might enable them to detect Scotticisms.' Mr. Burton gives instances of alterations made in the second edition. He says also that 'in none of his historical or philosophical writings does any expression used by him, unless in those cases where a Scotticism has escaped his vigilance, betray either the district or the county of his origin.' _Ib_ i. 9. Hume was shown in manuscript Reid's _Inquiry into the Human Mind_. Though it was an attack on his own philosophy, yet in reading it 'he kept,' he says, 'a watchful eye all along over the style,' so that he might point out any Scotticisms. _Ib_ ii. 154. Nevertheless, as Dugald Stewart says in his _Life of Robertson_ (p. 214), 'Hume fails frequently both in purity and grammatical correctness.' Even in his later letters I have noticed Scotticisms.

[213] In 1763 Wilkes, as author of _The North Briton_, No. 45, had been arrested on 'a general warrant directed to four messengers to take up any persons without naming or describing them with any certainty, and to bring them, together with their papers.' Such a warrant as this Chief Justice Pratt (Lord Camden) declared to be 'unconstitutional, illegal, and absolutely void.' _Ann. Reg_. vi. 145.

[214] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 24, 1773.

[215] In the Spring of this year, at a meeting of the electors of Southwark, 'instructions' had been presented to Mr. Thrale and his brother-member, of which the twelfth was:--'That you promote a bill for shortening the duration of Parliaments.' _Gent. Mag_. xxxix. 162.

[216] This paradox Johnson had exposed twenty-nine years earlier, in his _Life of Sir Francis Drake_, _Works_, vi. 366. In _Rasselas_, chap. xi., he considers also the same question. Imlac is 'inclined to conclude that, if nothing counteracts the natural consequence of learning, we grow more happy as our minds take a wider range.' He then enumerates the advantages which civilisation confers on the Europeans. 'They are surely happy,' said the prince, 'who have all these conveniences.' 'The Europeans,' answered Imlac, 'are less unhappy than we, but they are not happy. Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.' Writing to Mrs. Thrale from Skye, Johnson said: 'The traveller wanders through a naked desert, gratified sometimes, but rarely, with the sight of cows, and now and then finds a heap of loose stones and turf in a cavity between rocks, where a being born with all those powers which education expands, and all those sensations which culture refines, is condemned to shelter itself from the wind and rain. Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy, but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 150. See _post_, April 21 and May 7, 1773, April 26, 1776, and June 15, 1784.

[217] James Burnet, a Scotch Lord of Session, by the title of Lord Monboddo. 'He was a devout believer in the virtues of the heroic ages, and the deterioration of civilised mankind; a great contemner of luxuries, insomuch that he never used a wheel carriage.' WALTER SCOTT, quoted in Croker's _Boswell_, p. 227. There is some account of him in Chambers's _Traditions of Edinburgh_, ii. 175. In his _Origin of Language_, to which Boswell refers in his next note, after praising Henry Stephen for his _Greek Dictionary_, he continues:--'But to compile a dictionary of a barbarous language, such as all the modern are compared with the learned, is a work which a man of real genius, rather than undertake, would choose to die of hunger, the most cruel, it is said, of all deaths. I should, however, have praised this labour of Doctor Johnson's more, though of the meanest kind,' &c. Monboddo's _Origin of Language_, v. 274. On p. 271, he says:--'Dr. Johnson was the most invidious and malignant man I have ever known.' See _post_, March 21, 1772, May 8, 1773, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 21, 1773.

[218] His Lordship having frequently spoken in an abusive manner of Dr. Johnson, in my company, I on one occasion during the life-time of my illustrious friend could not refrain from retaliation, and repeated to him this saying. He has since published I don't know how many pages in one of his curious books, attempting, in much anger, but with pitiful effect, to persuade mankind that my illustrious friend was not the great and good man which they esteemed and ever will esteem him to be. BOSWELL.

[219] Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 108) says:--'Mr. Johnson was indeed unjustly supposed to be a lover of singularity. Few people had a more settled reverence for the world than he, or was less captivated by new modes of behaviour introduced, or innovations on the long-received customs of common life.' In writing to Dr. Taylor to urge him to take a certain course, he says:--'This I would have you do, not in compliance with solicitation or advice, but as a justification of yourself to the world; _the world has always a right to be regarded_.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 343. In _The Adventurer_, No. 131, he has a paper on 'Singularities.' After quoting Fontenelle's observation on Newton that 'he was not distinguished from other men by any singularity, either natural or affected,' he goes on:--'Some may be found who, supported by the consciousness of great abilities, and elevated by a long course of reputation and applause, voluntarily consign themselves to singularity, affect to cross the roads of life because they know that they shall not be jostled, and indulge a boundless gratification of will, because they perceive that they shall be quietly obeyed.... Singularity is, I think, in its own nature universally and invariably displeasing.' Writing of Swift, he says (_Works_, viii. 223):--'Whatever he did, he seemed willing to do in a manner peculiar to himself, without sufficiently considering that singularity, as it implies a contempt of the general practice, is a kind of defiance which justly provokes the hostility of ridicule; he, therefore, who indulges peculiar habits is worse than others, if he be not better.' See _ante_, Oct. 1765, the record in his _Journal_:--'At church. To avoid all singularity.'

[220] 'He had many other particularities, for which he gave sound and philosophical reasons. As this humour still grew upon him he chose to wear a turban instead of a periwig; concluding very justly that a bandage of clean linen about his head was much more wholesome, as well as cleanly, than the caul of a wig, which is soiled with frequent perspirations.' _Spectator_, No. 576.

[221] See _post_, June 28, 1777, note.

[222] 'Depend upon it,' he said, 'no woman is the worse for sense and knowledge.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 19; 1773--See, however, _post_, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection, where he says:--'Supposing a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome'

[223]

'Though Artemisia talks by fits Of councils, classics, fathers, wits; Reads Malbranche, Boyle, and Locke: Yet in some things, methinks she fails; 'Twere well if she would pare her nails, And wear a cleaner smock.'

SWIFT. _Imitation of English Poets, Works_, xxiv. 6.

[224] _A Wife_, a poem, 1614. BOSWELL.

[225] In the original _that_.

[226] What a succession of compliments was paid by Johnson's old school-fellow, whom he met a year or two later in Lichfield, who 'has had, as he phrased it, _a matter of four wives_, for which' added Johnson to Mrs. Thrale, 'neither you nor I like him much the better.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 41.

[227] Mr. Langton married the widow of the Earl of Rothes; _post_, March 20, 1771.

[228] Horace Walpole, writing of 1764, says:--'As one of my objects was to raise the popularity of our party, I had inserted a paragraph in the newspapers observing that the abolition of vails to servants had been set on foot by the Duke of Bedford, and had been opposed by the Duke of Devonshire. Soon after a riot happened at Ranelagh, in which the footmen mobbed and ill-treated some gentlemen who had been active in that reformation.' _Memoirs of the Reign of George III_, ii. 3.

[229]

'Alexis shunned his fellow swains, Their rural sports and jocund strains, (Heaven guard us all from Cupid's bow!) He lost his crook, he left his flocks; And wandering through the lonely rocks, He nourished endless woe.'

_The Despairing Shepherd_.

[230] 'In his amorous effusions Prior is less happy; for they are not dictated by nature or by passion, and have neither gallantry nor tenderness. They have the coldness of Cowley without his wit, the dull exercises of a skilful versifier, resolved at all adventures to write something about Chloe, and trying to be amorous by dint of study.... In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 15, 22.

[231] _Florizel and Perdita_ is Garrick's version of _The Winters Tale_. He cut down the five acts to three. The line, which is misquoted, is in one of Perdita's songs:--

'That giant ambition we never can dread; Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head; Content and sweet cheerfulness open our door, They smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.'