Chapter 7

properest objects (those I mean who are most wretched and friendless) may as well aspire at a place at Court as at a place in the Hospital.'

[172] 'We were talking of Dr. Barnard, the Provost of Eton. "He was the only man," says Mr. Johnson quite seriously, "that did justice to my good breeding; and you may observe that I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity. No man," continued he, not observing the amazement of his hearers, "no man is so cautious not to interrupt another; no man thinks it so necessary to appear attentive when others are speaking; no man so steadily refuses preference on himself, or so willingly bestows it on another, as I do; no man holds so strongly as I do the necessity of ceremony, and the ill effects which follow the breach of it; yet people think me rude; but Barnard did me justice."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 36. On p. 258, Mrs. Piozzi writes:--'No one was indeed so attentive not to offend in all such sort of things as Dr. Johnson; nor so careful to maintain the ceremonies of life; and though he told Mr. Thrale once, that he had never sought to please till past thirty years old, considering the matter as hopeless, he had been always studious not to make enemies by apparent preference of himself.' See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 27, 1773, where Johnson said:--'Sir, I look upon myself as a very polite man.'

[173] The younger Colman in his boyhood met Johnson and Gibbon. 'Johnson was in his rusty brown and his black worsteds, and Gibbon in a suit of flowered velvet, with a bag and sword. He condescended, once or twice in the course of the evening, to talk with me;--the great historian was light and playful, suiting his matter to the capacity of the boy; but it was done more sua [sic]; still his mannerism prevailed; still he tapped his snuff-box; still he smirked, and smiled, and rounded his periods with the same air of good-breeding, as if he were conversing with men. His mouth, mellifluous as Plato's, was a round hole, nearly in the centre of his visage.' _Random Records_, i. 121.

[174] Samuel Sharp's _Letters from Italy_ were published in 1766. See _ante_, ii. 57, note 2, for Baretti's reply to them.

[175] It may be observed, that Mr. Malone, in his very valuable edition of Shakspeare, has fully vindicated Dr. Johnson from the idle censures which the first of these notes has given rise to. The interpretation of the other passage, which Dr. Johnson allows to be _disputable_, he has clearly shown to be erroneous. BOSWELL. The first note is on the line in _Hamlet_, act v. sc. 2--

'And many such like as's of great charge.'

Johnson says:--'A quibble is intended between _as_ the conditional particle, and _ass_ the beast of burthen.' On this note Steevens remarked:--'Shakespeare has so many quibbles of his own to answer for, that there are those who think it hard he should be charged with others which perhaps he never thought of.' The second note is on the opening of Hamlet's soliloquy in act iii. sc. i. The line--

'To be, or not to be, that is the question,'

is thus paraphrased by Johnson:--'Before I can form any rational scheme of action under this pressure of distress, it is necessary to decide whether, after our present state, we are to be or not to be.'

[176] See _post_, March 30, April 14 and 15, 1778, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 25.

[177] Wesley wrote on Jan. 21, 1767 (_Journal_, iii. 263):--'I had a conversation with an ingenious man who proved to a demonstration that it was the duty of every man that could to be "clothed in purple and fine linen," and to "fare sumptuously every day;" and that he would do abundantly more good hereby than he could do by "feeding the hungry and clothing the naked." O the depth of human understanding! What may not a man believe if he will?' Much the same argument Johnson, thirty-three years earlier, had introduced in one of his _Debates_ (_Works_, xi. 349). He makes one of the speakers say:--'Our expenses are not all equally destructive; some, though the method of raising them be vexatious and oppressive, do not much impoverish the nation, because they are refunded by the extravagance and luxury of those who are retained in the pay of the court.' See _post_, March 23, 1783. The whole argument is nothing but Mandeville's doctrine of 'private vices, public benefits.' See _post_, April 15, 1778.

[178] See _ante_, iii. 24.

[179] Johnson no doubt refers to Walpole in the following passage (_Works_, viii. l37):--'Of one particular person, who has been at one time so popular as to be generally esteemed, and at another so formidable as to be universally detested, Mr. Savage observed that his acquisitions had been small, or that his capacity was narrow, and that the whole range of his mind was from obscenity to politicks, and from politicks to obscenity.' This passage is a curious comment on Pope's lines on Sir Robert--

'Seen him I have, but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.'

_Epilogue to the Satires_, i. 29.

[180] Most likely Boswell himself. See _ante_, March 25, 1776, and _post_, April 10, 1778, for Johnson's dislike of questioning. See also _ante_, ii. 84, note 3.

[181] See _ante_, April 14, 1775.

[182] See _ante_, May 12, 1774.

[183] A Gallicism, which has it appears, with so many others, become vernacular in Scotland. The French call a pulpit, _la chaire de vérité_. CROKER.

[184] As a proof of Dr. Johnson's extraordinary powers of composition, it appears from the original manuscript of this excellent dissertation, of which he dictated the first eight paragraphs on the 10th of May, and the remainder on the 13th, that there are in the whole only seven corrections, or rather variations, and those not considerable. Such were at once the vigorous and accurate emanations of his mind. BOSWELL.

[185] It is curious to observe that Lord Thurlow has here, perhaps in compliment to North Britain, made use of a term of the Scotch Law, which to an English reader may require explanation. To _qualify_ a wrong, is to point out and establish it. BOSWELL.

[186]

'Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi, Et quorum pars magna fui.'

'Which thing myself unhappy did behold, Yea, and was no small part thereof.'

Morris, _Aeneids_, ii. 5.

[187] In the year 1770, in _The False Alarm_, Johnson attacked Wilkes with more than 'some asperity.' 'The character of the man,' he wrote, 'I have no purpose to delineate. Lampoon itself would disdain to speak ill of him, of whom no man speaks well.' He called him 'a retailer of sedition and obscenity;' and he said:--'We are now disputing ... whether Middlesex shall be represented, or not, by a criminal from a gaol.' _Works_, vi. 156, 169, 177. In _The North Briton_, No. xii, Wilkes, quoting Johnson's definition of a pensioner, asks:--'Is the said Mr. Johnson a _dependant_? or is he _a slave of state, hired by a stipend to obey his master_? There is, according to him, no alternative.--As Mr. Johnson has, I think, failed in this account, may I, after so great an authority, venture at a short definition of so intricate a word? A _pension_ then I would call _a gratuity during the pleasure of the Prince for services performed, or expected to be performed, to himself, or to the state_. Let us consider the celebrated Mr. _Johnson_, and a few other late pensioners in this light.'

[188] Boswell, in his _Letter to the People of Scotland_ (p. 70), mentions 'my old classical companion, Wilkes;' and adds, 'with whom I pray you to excuse my keeping company, he is so pleasant.'

[189] When Johnson was going to Auchinleck, Boswell begged him, in talking with his father, 'to avoid three topicks as to which they differed very widely; whiggism, presbyterianism, and--Sir John Pringle.' Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov 2, 1773. See also _ib_. Aug 24. 'Pringle was President of the Royal Society--"who sat in Newton's chair, And wonder'd how the devil he got there."' J. H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 165. He was one of Franklin's friends (Franklin's _Memoirs_ iii. III), and so was likely to be uncongenial to Johnson.

[190] No 22. CROKER. At this house 'Johnson owned that he always found a good dinner.' _Post_, April 15, 1778.

[191] This has been circulated as if actually said by Johnson; when the truth is, it was only _supposed_ by me. BOSWELL.

[192] 'Don't let them be _patriots_,' he said to Mr. Hoole, when he asked him to collect a city Club. _Post_, April 6, 1781.

[193] See p. 7 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[194] 'Indifferent in his choice to sleep or die.' Addison's _Cato_,