Chapter 11

poets, which are now eagerly sought after; yet, though all his publications were of the best kinds, and are now of increasing value, the taste of Tom Davies twice ended in bankruptcy.' See _post_, April 7, 1778.

[629] See _ante_, i. 391. Davies wrote to Garrick in 1763:--'I remember that during the run of _Cymbeline_ I had the misfortune to disconcert you in one scene of that play, for which I did immediately beg your pardon, and did attribute it to my accidentally seeing Mr. Churchill in the pit, with great truth; and that was the only time I can recollect of my being confused or unmindful of my business when that gentleman was before me. I had even then a more moderate opinion of my abilities than your candour would allow me, and have always acknowledged that gentleman's picture of me was fair.' He adds that he left the stage on account of Garrick's unkindness, 'who,' he says, 'at rehearsals took all imaginable pains to make me unhappy.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 165.

[630] He was afterwards Solicitor-General under Lord Rockingham and Attorney-General under the Duke of Portland. 'I love Mr. Lee exceedingly,' wrote Boswell, 'though I believe there are not any two specifick propositions of any sort in which we exactly agree. But the general mass of sense and sociality, literature and religion, in each of us, produces two given quantities, which unite and effervesce wonderfully well. I know few men I would go farther to serve than Jack Lee.' _Letter to the People of Scotland_, p. 75. Lord Eldon said that Lee, in the debates upon the India Bill, speaking of the charter of the East India Company, 'expressed his surprise that there could be such political strife about what he called "a piece of parchment, with a bit of wax dangling to it." This most improvident expression uttered by a Crown lawyer formed the subject of comment and reproach in all the subsequent debates, in all publications of the times, and in everybody's conversation.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 97. In the debate on Fox's India Bill on Dec. 3, 1783, Lee 'asked what was the consideration of a charter, a skin of parchment with a waxed seal at the corner, compared to the happiness of thirty millions of subjects, and the preservation of a mighty empire.' _Parl. Hist_. xxiv. 49. See Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 106-9, and 131, for anecdotes of Lee; and _ante_, ii. 48, note 1.

[631] 'For now we see _through_ a glass darkly; but then face to face.' I _Corinthians_, xiii. 12.

[632] Goldsmith notices this in the _Haunch of Venison_:--

My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come; For I knew it (he cried), both eternally fail, The one with his speeches, and _t'other with Thrale_.'

CROKER. See _ante_, i. 493.

[633] See _post_, April 1, 1781. 'Johnson said:--"He who praises everybody praises nobody."' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 216.

[634] See ante, p. 55.

[635] Johnson wrote in July 1775:--'Everybody says the prospect of harvest is uncommonly delightful; but this has been so long the summer talk, and has been so often contradicted by autumn, that I do not suffer it to lay much hold on my mind. Our gay prospects have now for many years together ended in melancholy retrospects.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 259. On Aug. 27, 1777, he wrote:--'Amidst all these little things there is one great thing. The harvest is abundant, and the weather _à la merveille_. No season ever was finer.' _Ib_. p. 360. In this month of March, 1778, wheat was selling at 5s. 3d. the bushel in London; at 6s. 10d. in Somerset; and at 5s. 1d. in Northumberland, Suffolk, and Sussex. _Gent. Mag_. xlviii. 98. The average price for 1778 was 5s. 3d. _Ann. Reg_. xxi. 282.

[636] See _post_, iii. 243, Oct. 10, 1779, and April 1, 1781.

[637] The first edition was in 1492. Between that period and 1792, according to this account, there were 3600 editions. But this is very improbable. MALONE. Malone assumes, as Mr. Croker points out, that this rate of publication continued to the year 1792. But after all, the difference is trifling. Johnson here forgot to use his favourite cure for exaggeration--counting. See _post_, April 18, 1783. 'Round numbers,' he said, 'are always false.' Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi. 198. Horace Walpole (_Letters_, viii. 300), after making a calculation, writes:--'I may err in my calculations, for I am a woeful arithmetician; but no matter, one large sum is as good as another.'

[638] The original passage is: 'Si non potes te talem facere, qualem vis, quomodo poteris alium ad tuum habere beneplacitum?' _De Imit. Christ_. lib. i. cap. xvi. J. BOSWELL, Jun.

[639] See p. 29 of this vol. BOSWELL.

[640] Since this was written the attainder has been reversed; and Nicholas Barnewall is now a peer of Ireland with this title. The person mentioned in the text had studied physick, and prescribed _gratis_ to the poor. Hence arose the subsequent conversation. MALONE.

[641] See Franklin's _Autobiography_ for his conversion from vegetarianism.

[642] See _ante_, ii. 217, where Johnson advised Boswell to keep a journal. 'The great thing to be recorded, is the state of your own mind.'

[643] 'Nobody can live long without knowing that falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered, and, once uttered, are sullenly supported.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 23.

[644] _Literary Magazine_, 1756, p. 37. BOSWELL. Johnson's _Works_, vi. 42. See _post_, Oct. 10, 1779.

[645]

'Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.' 'For while upon such monstrous scenes we gaze, They shock our faith, our indignation raise.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. 1. 188. Johnson speaks of 'the natural desire of man to propagate a wonder.' _Works_, vii. 2. 'Wonders,' he says, 'are willingly told, and willingly heard.' _Ib_. viii. 292. Speaking of Voltaire he says:--'It is the great failing of a strong imagination to catch greedily at wonders.' _Ib_. vi. 455. See _ante_, i. 309, note 3, ii. 247, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 19, 1773. According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 137) Hogarth said:--'Johnson, though so wise a fellow, is more like King David than King Solomon; for he says in his haste that all men are liars.'

[646] The following plausible but over-prudent counsel on this subject is given by an Italian writer, quoted by '_Rhedi de generatione insectarum_,' with the epithet of '_divini poetæ_:'

'_Sempre a quel ver ch'ha faccia di menzogna Dee l'uom chiuder le labbra quanto ei puote; Però che senza colpa fa vergogna_.' BOSWELL.

It is strange that Boswell should not have discovered that these lines were from Dante. The following is Wright's translation:--

'That truth which bears the semblance of a lie, Should never pass the lips, if possible; Tho' crime be absent, still disgrace is nigh.'

_Infern_. xvi. 124. CROKER.

[647] See _ante_, i. 7, note 1.

[648] See _ante_, i. 405.

[649] 'Of John Wesley he said:--"He can talk well on any subject."' _Post_, April 15, 1778. Southey says that 'his manners were almost irresistibly winning, and his cheerfulness was like perpetual sunshine.' _Life of Wesley_, i. 409. Wesley recorded on Dec. 18, 1783 (_Journal_, iv. 258):--'I spent two hours with that great man Dr. Johnson, who is sinking into the grave by a gentle decay.'

[650] 'When you met him in the street of a crowded city, he attracted notice, not only by his band and cassock, and his long hair white and bright as silver, but by his pace and manner, both indicating that all his minutes were numbered, and that not one was to be lost. "Though I am always in haste," he says of himself, "I am never in a hurry; because I never undertake any more work than I can go through with perfect calmness of spirit."' Southey's _Wesley_, ii. 397.

[651] No doubt the Literary Club. See _ante_, ii. 330, 345. Mr. Croker says 'that it appears by the books of the Club that the company on that evening consisted of Dr. Johnson president, Mr. Burke, Mr. Boswell, Dr. George Fordyce, Mr. Gibbon, Dr. Johnson (again named), Sir Joshua Reynolds, Lord Upper Ossory, and Mr. R. B. Sheridan.' E. no doubt stands for Edmund Burke, and J. for Joshua Reynolds. Who are meant by the other initials cannot be known. Mr. Croker hazards some guesses; but he says that Sir James Mackintosh and Chalmers were as dubious as himself.

[652] See Langhorne's _Plutarch_, ed. 1809, ii. 133.

[653] 'A man came in balancing a straw upon his nose, and the audience were clapping their hands in all the raptures of applause.' _The Citizen of the World_, Letter xxi. According to Davis (_Life of Garrick_, i. 113), 'in one year, after paying all expenses, £11,000 were the produce of Mr. Maddocks (the straw-man's agility), added to the talents of the players at Covent Garden theatre.'

[654] See _ante_, i. 399.

[655] 'Sir' said Edwards to Johnson (_post_, April 17, 1778), 'I remember you would not let us say _prodigious_ at College.'

[656] 'Emigration was at this time a common topick of discourse. Dr. Johnson regretted it as hurtful to human happiness.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 15, 1773.

[657] In 1766 Johnson wrote a paper (first published in 1808) to prove that 'the bounty upon corn has produced plenty.' 'The truth of these principles,' he says, 'our ancestors discovered by reason, and the French have now found it by experience. In this regulation we have the honour of being masters to those who, in commercial policy, have been long accounted the masters of the world.' _Works_, v. 323, 326, and _ante_, i. 518. 'In 1688 was granted the parliamentary bounty upon the exportation of corn. The country gentlemen had felt that the money price of corn was falling. The bounty was an expedient to raise it artificially to the high price at which it had frequently been sold in the times of Charles I. and II.' Smith's _Wealth of Nations_, book I. c.