Chapter 5

in the advance of life.' His _Iliad_ he had dedicated to Congreve, but 'to his latter works he took care to annex names dignified with titles, but was not very happy in his choice; for, except Lord Bathurst, none of his noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his intimacy with them known to posterity; he can derive little honour from the notice of Cobham, Burlington, or Bolingbroke.' Johnson, it seems clear, is speaking, not of the noblemen whom Pope knew in general, but of those to whom he dedicated any of his works. Among them Lord Marchmont is not found, so that on him no slight is cast.

[180] Neither does Johnson actually say that Lord Marchmont had 'any concern,' though perhaps he implies it. He writes:--'Pope left the care of his papers to his executors; first to Lord Bolingbroke; and, if he should not be living, to the Earl of Marchmont: undoubtedly expecting them to be proud of the trust, and eager to extend his fame. But let no man dream of influence beyond his life. After a decent time, Dodsley the bookseller went to solicit preference as the publisher, and was told that the parcel had not been yet inspected; and, whatever was the reason, the world has been disappointed of what was "reserved for the next age."' _Ib_. p. 306. As Bolingbroke outlived Pope by more than seven years, it is clear, from what Johnson states, that he alone had the care of the papers, and that he gave the answer to Dodsley. Marchmont, however, knew the contents of the papers. _Ib_. p. 319.

[181] This neglect did not arise from any ill-will towards Lord Marchmont, but from inattention; just as he neglected to correct his statement concerning the family of Thomson the poet, after it had been shewn to be erroneous (_ante_, in. 359). MALONE.

[182] _Works, vii. 420._

[183] Benjamin Victor published in 1722, a _Letter to Steele_, and in 1776, _Letters, Dramatic Pieces, and Poems_ Brit. Mus. Catalogue.

[184] Mr. _Wilks_. See _ante_, i. 167, note 1.

[185] See _post_, p. 91 and Macaulay's _Essay on Addison_ (ed. 1974, iv. 207).

[186] 'A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine--why we could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as we do.' Thackery's _English Humourists_, ed. 1858, p. 94.

[187] See _ante_, i. 30, and iii. 155.

[188] See _post_, under Dec. 2, 1784.

[189] Parnell 'drank to excess.' _Ante_, iii. 155.

[190] I should have thought that Johnson, who had felt the severe affliction from which Parnell never recovered, would have preserved this passage. BOSWELL.

[191] Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson in May, 1780:-'Blackmore will be rescued from the old wits who worried him much to your disliking; so, a little for love of his Christianity, a little for love of his physic, a little for love of his courage--and a little for love of contradiction, you will save him from his malevolent critics, and perhaps do him the honour to devour him yourself.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 122. See _ante_, ii. 107.

[192] 'This is a tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composed like a painter; and was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by the wits of his time, who did not understand the principles of composition in poetry better than he did; and who knew little, or nothing, of what he understood perfectly, the general ruling principles of architecture and painting.' Reynolds's _Thirteenth Discourse_.

[193] Johnson had not wished to write _Lyttelton's Life_. He wrote to Lord Westcote, Lyttelton's brother, 'My desire is to avoid offence, and be totally out of danger. I take the liberty of proposing to your lordship, that the historical account should be written under your direction by any friend you may be willing to employ, and I will only take upon myself to examine the poetry.'--Croker's _Boswell_, p.650.

[194] It was not _Molly Aston_ (_ante_ i. 83) but Miss Hill Boothby (_ib_.) of whom Mrs. Thrale wrote. She says (_Anec_. p.160):--'Such was the purity of her mind, Johnson said, and such the graces of her manner, that Lord Lyttelton and he used to strive for her preference with an emulation that occasioned hourly disgust, and ended in lasting animosity.' There is surely much exaggeration in this account.

[195] Let not my readers smile to think of Johnson's being a candidate for female favour; Mr. Peter Garrick assured me, that he was told by a lady, that in her opinion Johnson was 'a very _seducing man_.' Disadvantages of person and manner may be forgotten, where intellectual pleasure is communicated to a susceptible mind; and that Johnson was capable of feeling the most delicate and disinterested attachment, appears from the following letter, which is published by Mrs. Thrale [_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 391], with some others to the same person, of which the excellence is not so apparent:--

'TO MISS BOOTHBY. January, 1755.

DEAREST MADAM,

Though I am afraid your illness leaves you little leisure for the reception of airy civilities, yet I cannot forbear to pay you my congratulations on the new year; and to declare my wishes that your years to come may be many and happy. In this wish, indeed, I include myself, who have none but you on whom my heart reposes; yet surely I wish your good, even though your situation were such as should permit you to communicate no gratifications to, dearest, dearest Madam, Your, &c. SAM JOHNSON.' (BOSWELL.)

[196] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 3.2, quoted also _ante_, i.352, note.

[197] The passage which Boswell quotes in part is as follows:--'When they were first published they were kindly commended by the _Critical Reviewers_; [i.e. the writers in the _Critical Review_. In some of the later editions of Boswell these words have been printed, _critical reviewers_; so as to include all the reviewers who criticised the work]; and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I have read, acknowledgements which can never be proper, since they must be paid either for flattery or for justice.' _Works_, viii.491. Boswell forgets that what may be proper in one is improper in another. Lyttelton, when he wrote this note, had long been a man of high position. He had 'stood in the first rank of opposition,' he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when he lost his post, he had been 'recompensed with a peerage.' See _ante_, ii. 126.

[198] See _post_, June 12 and 15, 1784.

[199] He adopted it from indolence. Writing on Aug. 1, 1780, after mentioning the failure of his application to Lord Westcote, he continues:--'There is an ingenious scheme to save a day's work, or part of a day, utterly defeated. Then what avails it to be wise? The plain and the artful man must both do their own work.--But I think I have got a life of Dr. Young.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 173.

[200] _Gent. Mag._ vol. lv. p. 10. BOSWELL.

[201] By a letter to Johnson from Croft, published in the later editions of the _Lives_, it seems that Johnson only expunged one passage. Croft says:--'Though I could not prevail on you to make any alteration, you insisted on striking out one passage, because it said, that, if I did not wish you to live long for your sake, I did for the sake of myself and the world.' _Works_ viii.458.

[202] The Late Mr. Burke. MALONE.

[203] See_post_, June 2, 1781.

[204] Johnson's _Works_, viii 440.

[205] _Ib._ p.436

[206] 'Eheu! fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni.' 'How swiftly glide our flying years!' FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, ii.14. i.

[207] The late Mr. James Ralph told Lord Macartney, that he passed an evening with Dr. Young at Lord Melcombe's (then Mr. Dodington) at Hammersmith. The Doctor happening to go out into the garden, Mr. Dodington observed to him, on his return, that it was a dreadful night, as in truth it was, there being a violent storm of rain and wind. 'No, Sir, (replied the Doctor) it is a very fine night. The LORD is abroad.' BOSWELL.

[208] See _ante_, ii.96, and iii.251; and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 30.

[209] 'An ardent judge, who zealous in his trust, With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just.' Pope's _Essay on Criticism_, l.677.

[210] _Works_, viii.459. Though the _Life of Young_ is by Croft, yet the critical remarks are by Johnson.

[211] _Ib._ p.460.

[212] Johnson refers to Chambers's _Dissertation on Oriental Gardening_, which was ridiculed in the _Heroic Epistle_. See _post_, under May 8, 1781, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 13.

[213] Boswell refers to the death of Narcissa in the third of the _Night Thoughts_. While he was writing the _Life of Johnson_ Mrs. Boswell was dying of consumption in (to quote Young's words)

The rigid north, Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew.'

She died nearly two years before _The Life_ was published.

[214] _Proverbs_, xviii.14.

[215] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 16.

[216] See vol. i. page 133. BOSWELL.

[217] 'In his economy Swift practised a peculiar and offensive parsimony, without disguise or apology. The practice of saving being once necessary, became habitual, and grew first ridiculous, and at last detestable. But his avarice, though it might exclude pleasure, was never suffered to encroach upon his virtue. He was frugal by inclination, but liberal by principle; and if the purpose to which he destined his little accumulations be remembered, with his distribution of occasional charity, it will perhaps appear, that he only liked one mode of expense better than another, and saved merely that he might have something to give.' _Works_, viii.222.

[218] _Ib_. p.225.

[219] Mr. Chalmers here records a curious literary anecdote--that when a new and enlarged edition of the _Lives of the Poets_ was published in 1783, Mr. Nichols, in justice to the purchasers of the preceding editions, printed the additions in a separate pamphlet, and advertised that it might be had _gratis_. Not ten copies were called for. CROKER.

[220] See _ante_, p.9, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 15.

[221] _Works_, vii. Preface.

[222] From this disreputable class, I except an ingenious though not satisfactory defence of HAMMOND, which I did not see till lately, by the favour of its authour, my amiable friend, the Reverend Mr. Bevill, who published it without his name. It is a juvenile performance, but elegantly written, with classical enthusiasm of sentiment, and yet with a becoming modesty, and great respect for Dr. Johnson. BOSWELL.

[223] Before the _Life of Lyttelton_ was published there was, it seems, some coolness between Mrs. Montagu and Johnson. Miss Burney records the following conversation in September 1778. 'Mark now,' said Dr. Johnson, 'if I contradict Mrs. Montagu to-morrow. I am determined, let her say what she will, that I will not contradict her.' MRS. THRALE. 'Why to be sure, Sir, you did put her a little out of countenance last time she came.'...DR. JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, I won't answer that I shan't contradict her again, if she provokes me as she did then; but a less provocation I will withstand. I believe I am not high in her good graces already; and I begin (added he, laughing heartily) to tremble for my admission into her new house. I doubt I shall never see the inside of it.' Yet when they met a few days later all seemed friendly. 'When Mrs. Montagu's new house was talked of, Dr. Johnson in a jocose manner, desired to know if he should be invited to see it. "Ay, sure," cried Mrs. Montagu, looking well pleased, "or else I shan't like it."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.118, 126. 'Mrs. Montagu's dinners and assemblies,' writes Wraxall, 'were principally supported by, and they fell with, the giant talents of Johnson, who formed the nucleus round which all the subordinate members revolved.' Wraxall's _Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i.160.

[224] Described by the author as 'a body of original essays.' 'I consider _The Observer,'_ he arrogantly continues, 'as fairly enrolled amongst the standard classics of our native language.' Cumberland's _Memoirs_, ii.199. In his account of this _Feast of Reason_ he quite as much satirises Mrs. Montagu as praises her. He introduces Johnson in it, annoyed by an impertinent fellow, and saying to him:--'Have I said anything, good Sir, that you do not comprehend?' 'No, no,' replied he, 'I perfectly well comprehend every word you have been saying.' 'Do you so, Sir?' said the philosopher, 'then I heartily ask pardon of the company for misemploying their time so egregiously.' _The Observer_, No. 25.

[225] Miss Burney gives an account of an attack made by Johnson, at a dinner at Streatham, in June 1781, on Mr. Pepys (_post_, p. 82), 'one of Mrs. Montagu's steadiest abettors.' 'Never before,' she writes, 'have I seen Dr. Johnson speak with so much passion. "Mr. Pepys," he cried, in a voice the most enraged, "I understand you are offended by my _Life of Lord Lyttelton_. What is it you have to say against it? Come forth, man! Here am I, ready to answer any charge you can bring."' After the quarrel had been carried even into the drawing-room, Mrs. Thrale, 'with great spirit and dignity, said that she should be very glad to hear no more of it. Everybody was silenced, and Dr. Johnson, after a pause, said:--"Well, Madam, you _shall_ hear no more of it; yet I will defend myself in every part and in every atom."... Thursday morning, Dr. Johnson went to town for some days, but not before Mrs. Thrale read him a very serious lecture upon giving way to such violence; which he bore with a patience and quietness that even more than made his peace with me.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 45. Two months later the quarrel was made up. 'Mr. Pepys had desired this meeting by way of a reconciliation; and Dr. Johnson now made amends for his former violence, as he advanced to him, as soon as he came in, and holding out his hand to him received him with a cordiality he had never shewn him before. Indeed he told me himself that he thought the better of Mr. Pepys for all that had passed.' _Ib._ p. 82. Miss Burney, in Dec. 1783, described the quarrel to Mr. Cambridge:--'"I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a passion but then; and dreadful indeed it was to see. I wished myself away a thousand times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr. Pepys so pale." "It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale certainly to quarrel in her house." "Yes, but he never repeated it; though he wished of all things to have gone through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu; and to refrain was an act of heroic forbearance. She came to Streatham one morning, and I saw he was dying to attack her." "And how did Mrs. Montagu herself behave?" Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very stiffly, and with a most distant air, and without even courtesying to him, and with a firm intention to keep to what she had publicly declared--that she would never speak to him more. However, he went up to her himself, longing to begin, and very roughly said:--"Well, Madam, what's become of your fine new house? I hear no more of it." "But how did she bear this?" "Why, she was obliged to answer him; and she soon grew so frightened--as everybody does--that she was as civil as ever." He laughed heartily at this account. But I told him Dr. Johnson was now much softened. He had acquainted me, when I saw him last, that he had written to her upon the death of Mrs. Williams [see _post_, Sept. 18, 1783, note], because she had allowed her something yearly, which now ceased. "And I had a very kind answer from her," said he. "Well then, Sir," cried I, "I hope peace now will be again proclaimed." "Why, I am now," said he, "come to that time when I wish all bitterness and animosity to be at an end."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 290.

[226] January, 1791. BOSWELL. Hastings's trial had been dragging on for more than three years when _The Life of Johnson_ was published. It began in 1788, and ended in 1795.

[227] _Gent. Mag_. for 1785, p. 412.

[228] Afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of his Majesty's Judges in India. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.274.

[229] 'He conceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman; and he drew up a plan with that view. It is said that the University of Oxford, in which Oriental learning had never, since the revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to be the seat of the institution which he contemplated.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, iii. 338.

[230] Lord North's. Feeble though it was, it lasted eight years longer.

[231] Jones's _Persian Grammar_. Boswell. It was published in 1771.

[232] _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_. BOSWELL.

[233] See _ante_, ii. 296.

[234] Macaulay wrote of Hastings's answer to this letter:--'It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to Dr. Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar. While the whole settlement was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient priesthood were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror in that deadly grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to write about the _Tour to the Hebrides_, Jones's _Persian Grammar_, and the history, traditions, arts, and natural productions of India.' Macaulay's _Essays_, ed. 1843, iii.376.

[235] Johnson wrote the Dedication, _Ante_, i.383.

[236] See _ante_, ii.82, note 2.

[237] _Copy_ is _manuscript for printing_.

[238] Published by Kearsley, with this well-chosen motto:--'From his cradle He was a SCHOLAR, and a ripe and good one: And to add greater honours to his age Than man could give him, he died fearing Heaven.' SHAKSPEARE. BOSWELL. This quotation is a patched up one from _Henry VIII_, act iv. sc.2. The quotation in the text is found on p. 89 of this _Life of Johnson_.

[239] Mr. Thrale had removed, that is to say, from his winter residence in the Borough. Mrs. Piozzi has written opposite this passage in her copy of Boswell:--'Spiteful again! He went by direction of his physicians where they could easiest attend to him.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 91. There was, perhaps, a good deal of truth in Boswell's supposition, for in 1779 Johnson had told her that he saw 'with indignation her despicable dread of living in the Borough.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.92. Johnson had a room in the new house. 'Think,' wrote Hannah More, 'of Johnson's having apartments in Grosvenor-square! but he says it is not half so convenient as Bolt-court.' H. More's _Memoirs_, i.2O7.

[240] See _ante_, iii. 250.

[241] Shakspeare makes Hamlet thus describe his father:--

'See what a grace was seated on this brow: Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald, Mercury, New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination, and a form, indeed, Where every god did seem to set his seal, To give the world assurance of a man.! [Act iii. sc. 4.]

Milton thus pourtrays our first parent, Adam:--

'His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd Absolute rule; and hyacinthin locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clus'tring, but not beneath his shoulders broad.' [_P.L._ iv. 300.] BOSWELL.

[242] 'Grattan's Uncle, Dean Marlay [afterwards Bishop of Waterford], had a good deal of the humour of Swift. Once, when the footman was out of the way, he ordered the coachman to fetch some water from the well. To this the man objected, that _his_ business was to drive, not to run on errands. "Well, then," said Marlay, "bring out the coach and four, set the pitcher inside, and drive to the well;"--a service which was several times repeated, to the great amusement of the village.' Rogers's _Table-Talk_, p.176.

[243] See _ante_, ii. 241, for Johnson's contempt of puns.

[244] 'He left not faction, but of that was left.' _Absalom and Achitophel_, l. 568.

[245] Boswell wrote of Gibbon in 1779:--'He is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.' _Letters of Boswell_, p.242. See _ante_, ii.443, note 1.

[246] _The schools_ in this sense means a University.

[247] See _ante_, ii.224.

[248] Up to the year 1770, controverted elections had been tried before a Committee of the whole House. By the _Grenville Act_ which was passed in that year they were tried by a select committee. _Parl. Hist._ xvi. 902. Johnson, in _The False Alarm_ (1770), describing the old method of trial, says;--'These decisions have often been apparently partial, and sometimes tyrannically oppressive.' _Works, vi. 169._ _In The Patriot_ (1774), he says:--'A disputed election is now tried with the same scrupulousness and solemnity as any other title.' _Ib._ p.223. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov.10.

[249] Miss Burney describes a dinner at Mr. Thrale's, about this time, at which she met Johnson, Boswell, and Dudley Long. Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 14.

[250] See _ante_, ii.171, _post_, two paragraphs before April 10, 1783, and May 15, 1784.

[251] Johnson wrote on May i, 1780:--'There was the Bishop of St. Asaph who comes to every place.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. Hannah More, in 1782, describes an assembly at this Bishop's. 'Conceive to yourself 150 or 200 people met together dressed in the extremity of the fashion, painted as red as Bacchanals...ten or a dozen card-tables crammed with dowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics and yellow admirals.' _Memoirs_, i.242. He was elected a member of the Literary Club, 'with the sincere approbation and eagerness of all present,' wrote Mr. (afterwards Sir William) Jones; elected, too, on the same day on which Lord Chancellor Camden was rejected (_ante_, iii. 311, note 2). Two or three years later Sir William married the Bishop's daughter. _Life of Sir W Jones_, pp.240, 279.

[252] 'Trust not to looks, nor credit outward show; The villain lurks beneath the cassocked beau.' Churchill's _Poems_ (ed. 1766), ii.41.

[253] No. 2.

[254] See vol. i p. 378. BOSWELL.

[255] Northcote, according to Hazlitt, said of this character with some truth, that 'it was like one of Kneller's portraits--it would do for anybody.' Northcote's _Conversations_, p.86.

[256] See _post_, p.98.

[257] _London Chronicle_, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is there mentioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at Cofflect, the seat of Thomas Veale, Esq., in his way to London. BOSWELL.

[258] Dr. Harte was the tutor of Mr. Eliot and of young Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield's illegitimate son. 'My morning hopes,' wrote Chesterfield to his son at Rome, 'are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters he will give you; my evening ones in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive to both.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, ii.263. See _ante_, i.163, note 1, ii.120, and _post_, June 27, 1784.

[259] Robertson's _Scotland_ is in the February list of books in the _Gent. Mag_. for 1759; Harte's _Gustavus Adolphus_ and Hume's _England under the House of Tudor_ in the March list. Perhaps it was from Hume's competition that Harte suffered.

[260] _Essays on Husbandry_, 1764.

[261] See _ante_, iii. 381.

[262] 'Christmas Day, 1780. I shall not attempt to see Vestris till the weather is milder, though it is the universal voice that he is the only perfect being that has dropped from the clouds, within the memory of man or woman...When the Parliament meets he is to be thanked by the Speaker.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 480.

[263] Here Johnson uses his title of Doctor (_ante_, ii.332, note 1), but perhaps he does so as quoting the paragraph in the newspaper.

[264] William, the first Viscount Grimston. BOSWELL. Swift thus introduces him in his lines _On Poetry, A Rhapsody_:--

'When death had finished Blackmore's reign, The leaden crown devolved to thee, Great poet of the hollow tree.'

Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston 'wrote the play when a boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xi. 297. Two editions were published apparently by Grimston himself, one bearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705 but no name. By 1705 Grimston was 22 years old--no longer a boy. The former edition was published by Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys, Fleet-street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple Gate. The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shewn by the Preface. The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope was published in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass is represented bearing a coronet. Grimston's name is not given here, but there is a dedication 'To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.' Three or four notes are added, one of which is very gross. The election was for St. Alban's, for which borough he was thrice returned.

[265] Dr. T. Campbell records (_Diary_, p. 69) that 'Boswell asked Johnson if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master. "Aye, and a dancing mistress too," says the Doctor; "but I own to you I never took a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I could never make a proficiency."'

[266] See vol. ii. p.286. BOSWELL.

[267] Miss Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:--'He is a professed minority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition. Men of such different principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot have much cordiality in their political debates; however, the very superior abilities of the former, and the remarkable good breeding of the latter have kept both upon good terms.' She describes a hot argument between them, and continues:--'Dr. Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour and dexterity, and at length, though he could not convince, he so entirely baffled him, that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet--which, with a very good grace, he confessed. Dr. Johnson then recollecting himself, and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute grew too serious, with a skill all his own, suddenly and unexpectedly turned it to burlesque.' D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 192.

[268] See _post_, Jan. 20, 1782.

[269] See _ante_, ii.355.

[270] Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words _Long_ and _short_. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's reserve in his presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguised amongst his acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French expression, '_Il pétille d'esprit_,' is particularly He has gratified me by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if I were to lose Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.' BOSWELL.

[271] William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court of Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement. But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend of the late Sir James Macdonald, the _Marcellus_ of Scotland [_ante_, i.449], whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever be remembered with admiration and regret. BOSWELL.

[272] See note, _ante_, p. 65, which describes an attack made by Johnson on Pepys more than two months after this conversation.

[273] Johnson once said to Mrs. Thrale:--'Why, Madam, you often provoke me to say severe things by unreasonable commendation. If you would not call for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it constantly moves my indignation to be applied to, to speak well of a thing which I think contemptible.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.132. See _ante_, iii.225.

[274] 'Mrs. Thrale,' wrote Miss Burney in 1780, 'is a most dear creature, but never restrains her tongue in anything, nor, indeed, any of her feelings. She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makes fun--does everything she has an inclination to do, without any study of prudence, or thought of blame; and, pure and artless as is this character, it often draws both herself and others into scrapes, which a little discretion would avoid.' _Ib_. i.386. Later on she writes:--'Mrs. Thrale, with all her excellence, can give up no occasion of making sport, however unseasonable or even painful... I knew she was not to be safely trusted with anything she could turn into ridicule.' _Ib_. ii.24 and 29.

[275] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was constantly at the Thrales' (_ante_, iii. 123).

[276] See _ante_, iii.228, 404.

[277] It was the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death.

[278] 'Mrs. Garrick and I,' wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 208), 'were invited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to be a fine concert, and all the fine people were to be there. Just as my hair was dressed, came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr. Thrale was dead.'

[279] _Pr. and Med._ p 191. BOSWELL. The rest of the entry should be given:--'On Wednesday, 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died on Wednesday 4; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures. [On Sunday, 1st, the physician warned him against full meals, on Monday I pressed him to observance of his rules, but without effect, and Tuesday I was absent, but his wife pressed forbearance upon him again unsuccessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him senseless in strong convulsions. I staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs. Thrale twice.] About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; I felt, &c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy on thee. I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. The decease of him from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunities of amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge from misfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with myself.' The passage enclosed in brackets I have copied from the original MS. Mr. Strahan, the editor, omitted it, no doubt from feelings of delicacy. What a contrast in this to the widow who published a letter in which she had written:--'I wish that you would put in a word of your own to Mr. Thrale about eating less!' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.130. Baretti, in a note on _Piozzi Letters_, ii.142, says that 'nobody ever had spirit enough to tell Mr. Thrale that his fits were apoplectic; such is the blessing of being rich that nobody dares to speak out.' In Johnson's _Works_ (1787), xi.203, it is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his last moments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this awful period, and why not his friend?"'

[280] Johnson's letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale's death. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. No death since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. My part of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundless kindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another. April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn into solitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what I have lost. I never had such a friend before. April 11. I feel myself like a man beginning a new course of life. I had interwoven myself with my dear friend.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,' wrote Miss Burney, in the following June, 'though I mention them not, long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceased master, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 63. On his next birthday, he wrote:--'My first knowledge of Thrale was in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.' _Pr. and Med._ p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shew her husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she writes:--'Mr. Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am sure he will go nowhere that he can help without you.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.317. A few days later, she speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot be quiet without you for a week.' _Ib._ p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaph on Thrale (_Works_, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself had laid down. In his _Essay on Epitaphs_ (_Ib._ v 263), he said:--'It is improper to address the epitaph to the passenger [traveller], a custom which an injudicious veneration for antiquity introduced again at the revival of letters.' Yet in the monument in Streatham Church, we find the same _Abi viator_ which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IV of France.

[281] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been well acquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year 1772, Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her almost as if he were a partner in the business. 'The first consequence of our late trouble ought to be an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate...Unless this can be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not want help.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.57. He urges economy in the household, and continues:--'But the fury of housewifery will soon subside; and little effect will be produced, but by methodical attention and even frugality.' _Ib._ p.64. In another letter he writes:--'This year will undoubtedly be an year of struggle and difficulty; but I doubt not of getting through it; and the difficulty will grow yearly less and less. Supposing that our former mode of life kept us on the level, we shall, by the present contraction of expense, gain upon fortune a thousand a year, even though no improvements can be made in the conduct of the trade.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 66. Four years later, he writes:--'To-day I went to look into my places at the Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins in the counting-house. He crows and triumphs, as we go on we shall double our business.' _Ib._ p. 333. When the executors first met, he wrote:--'We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, till I was provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do and suffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not suffer yourself to be terrified.' _Ib._ ii. 197. Boswell says (_ante_, ii. 44l):--'I often had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his wisdom actually operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased a farm, 'Johnson,' he writes (_ante_, iii. 207), 'made several calculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in exercising his mind on the science of numbers.' The letter (_ante_, ii. 424) about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use Boswell's words, 'his extraordinary precision and acuteness.' Boswell wrote to Temple:--'Dr. Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him in some interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted, and so comes up.' _Ante_, iii. 51, note 3.

[282] Johnson, as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'You have, £500 for your immediate expenses, and, £2000 a year, with both the houses and all the goods.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 192. Beattie wrote on June 1:--'Everybody says Mr. Thrale should have left Johnson £200 a year; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a very inconsiderable deduction.' Beattie's _Life_, ed. 1824, p. 290.

[283] Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:--'Mrs. Thrale went early to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker, who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me if all went well she would wave a white handkerchief out of the coach-window. Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs. Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered in eager expectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and a white handkerchief was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 34. The brewery was sold for £135,000. See _post_, June 16, 1781.

[284] See _post_, paragraph before June 22, 1784.

[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 369, says that 'the two last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him £30,000 a year neat profit.'

[286] In the fourth edition of his _Dictionary_, published in 1773, Johnson introduced a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:--'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, and is already attempting to pronounce the words, _country_, _liberty_, _corruption_, &c.; with what success time will discover.' Forty years before Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:--'A patriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fifty of them within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been afraid of making patriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.' Coxe's _Walpole_, i. 659. See _ante_, ii. 348, and iii. 66.

[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. _Ann. Reg._ xxiv. 217.

[288] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday in this year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing for dates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been the dinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley of St. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests. Why Boswell recorded none of Johnson's conversation may be guessed from what she tells. 'I was heartily disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, who came up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.' (See _post_, p. 109). The following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' she writes, 'with pretended sharpness for reading _Les Pensées de Pascal_, alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books written by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," said he, with the most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that you read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'"

[289] On Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:--'It has happened this week, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I have never dined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence nor peculiar devotion' _Pr. and Med._ p. 163.

[290] No. 7.

[291] See _ante_, iii. 302.

[292] Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and first Equerry to his present Majesty. MALONE. According to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 156), he was Johnson's 'standard of true elegance.'

[293] See _ante_, iii. 186.

[294] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 449) thus describes Addison's 'familiar day,' on the authority of Pope:--'He studied all morning; then dined at a tavern; and went afterwards to Button's [coffee-house]. From the coffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, and drank too much wine.' Spence (_Anec._ p. 286) adds, on the authority of Pope, that 'Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner that Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing; dined _en famille_; and then went to Wills's; only he came home earlier a'nights'

[295] Mr. Foss says of Blackstone:--'Ere he had been long on the bench he experienced the bad effects of the studious habits in which he had injudiciously indulged in his early life, and of his neglect to take the necessary amount of exercise, to which he was specially averse.' He died at the age of 56. Foss's _Judges_, viii. 250. He suffered greatly from his corpulence. His portrait in the Bodleian shews that he was a very fat man. Malone says that Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) wrote to Blackstone's family to apologise for Boswell's anecdote. Prior's _Malone_, p. 415. Scott would not have thought any the worse of Blackstone for his bottle of port; both he and his brother, the Chancellor, took a great deal of it. 'Lord Eldon liked plain port; the stronger the better.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 486. Some one asked him whether Lord Stowell took much exercise. 'None,' he said, 'but the exercise of eating and drinking.' _Ib._ p. 302. Yet both men got through a vast deal of hard work, and died, Eldon at the age of 86, and Stowell of 90.

[296] See this explained, pp. 52, 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.

[297] See _ante_, ii. 7.

[298] William Scott was a tutor of University College at the age of nineteen. He held the office for ten years--to 1775. He wrote to his father in 1772 about his younger brother John (afterwards Lord Eldon), who had just made a run-away match:--'The business in which I am engaged is so extremely disagreeable in itself, and so destructive to health (if carried on with such success as can render it at all considerable in point of profit) that I do not wonder at his unwillingness to succeed me in it.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 47, 74.

[299] The account of her marriage given By John Wesley in a letter to his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, is curious. He wrote on Dec. 22, 1747:--'More than twelve years ago you told me God had revealed it to you that you should marry my youngest sister ... You asked and gained her consent... In a few days you had a counter-revelation, that you was not to marry her, but her sister. This last error was far worse than the first. But you was not quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poor astonished parents, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, you shortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.' Wesley's _Journal_, ii. 39. Mrs. Hall suffered greatly for marrying a wretch who had so cruelly treated her own sister, Southey's _Wesley_, i. 369.

[300] See _ante_, iii. 269.

[301] The original 'Robinhood' was a debating society which met near Temple-Bar. Some twenty years before this time Goldsmith belonged to it, and, it was said, Burke. Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 287, and Prior's _Burke_, p. 79. The president was a baker by trade. 'Goldsmith, after hearing him give utterance to a train of strong and ingenious reasoning, exclaimed to Derrick, "That man was meant by nature for a Lord Chancellor." Derrick replied, "No, no, not so high; he is only intended for Master of the _Rolls_."' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 420. Fielding, in 1752, in _The Covent-Garden Journal_, Nos. 8 and 9, takes off this Society and the baker. A fragment of a report of their discussions which he pretends to have discovered, begins thus:--'This evenin the questin at the Robinhood was, whether relidgin was of any youse to a sosyaty; baken bifor mee To'mmas Whytebred, baker.' Horace Walpole (_Letters_,