Chapter 8

'An honest guardian, arbitrator just Be thou; thy station deem a sacred trust. With thy good sword maintain thy country's cause; In every action venerate its laws: The lie suborn'd if falsely urg'd to swear, Though torture wait thee, torture firmly bear; To forfeit honour, think the highest shame, And life too dearly bought by loss of fame; Nor to preserve it, with thy virtue give That for which only man should wish to live.'

[_Satires_, viii. 79.]

For this and the other translations to which no signature is affixed, I am indebted to the friend whose observations are mentioned in the notes, pp. 78 and 399. BOSWELL. Sir Walter Scott says, 'probably Dr. Hugh Blair.' I have little doubt that it was Malone. 'One of the best criticks of our age,' Boswell calls this friend in the other two passages. This was a compliment Boswell was likely to pay to Malone, to whom he dedicated this book. Malone was a versifier. See Prior's _Malone_, p. 463.

[971] I am sorry that I was unlucky in my quotation. But notwithstanding the acuteness of Dr. Johnson's criticism, and the power of his ridicule, _The Tragedy of Douglas_ sill continues to be generally and deservedly admired. BOSWELL. Johnson's scorn was no doubt returned, for Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto._ p. 295) says of Home:--'as John all his life had a thorough contempt for such as neglected his poetry, he treated all who approved of his works with a partiality which more than approached to flattery.' Carlyle tells (pp. 301-305) how Home started for London with his tragedy in one pocket of his great coat and his clean shirt and night-cap in the other, escorted on setting out by six or seven Merse ministers. 'Garrick, after reading his play, returned it as totally unfit for the stage.' It was brought out first in Edinburgh, and in the year 1757 in Covent Garden, where it had great success. 'This tragedy,' wrote Carlyle forty-five years later, 'still maintains its ground, has been more frequently acted, and is more popular than any tragedy in the English language.' _Ib._ p. 325. Hannah More recorded in 1786 (_Memoirs_, ii. 22), 'I had a quarrel with Lord Monboddo one night lately. He said _Douglas_ was a better play than Shakespeare could have written. He was angry and I was pert. Lord Mulgrave sat spiriting me up, but kept out of the scrape himself, and Lord Stormont seemed to enjoy the debate, but was shabby enough not to help me out.'

[972] See _ante_, ii. 230, note 1.

[973] See _ante_, p. 318.

[974] See _ante_, iii. 54

[975] See _ante_, p. 356.

[976] See _ante_, iii. 241, note 2.

[977] As a remarkable instance of his negligence, I remember some years ago to have found lying loose in his study, and without the cover, which contained the address, a letter to him from Lord Thurlow, to whom he had made an application as Chancellor, in behalf of a poor literary friend. It was expressed in such terms of respect for Dr. Johnson, that, in my zeal for his reputation, I remonstrated warmly with him on his strange inattention, and obtained his permission to take a copy of it; by which probably it has been preserved, as the original I have reason to suppose is lost. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 441.

[978] 'The islets, which court the gazer at a distance, disgust him at his approach, when he finds, instead of soft lawns and shady thickets, nothing more than uncultivated ruggedness.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 156.

[979] See _ante_, i. 200, and iv. 179.

[980] In these arguments he says:--'Reason and truth will prevail at last. The most learned of the Scottish doctors would now gladly admit a form of prayer, if the people would endure it. The zeal or rage of congregations has its different degrees. In some parishes the Lord's Prayer is suffered: in others it is still rejected as a form; and he that should make it part of his supplication would be suspected of heretical pravity.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 102. See _ante_, p. 121.

[981] 'A very little above the source of the Leven, on the lake, stands the house of Cameron, belonging to Mr. Smollett, so embosomed in an oak wood that we did not see it till we were within fifty yards of the door.' _Humphry Clinker_, Letter of Aug. 28.

[982] Boswell himself was at times one of 'those absurd visionaries.' _Ante_, ii. 73.

[983] See _ante_, p. 117.

[984] Lord Kames wrote one, which is published in Chambers's _Traditions of Edinburgh_, ed. 1825, i. 280. In it he bids the traveller to 'indulge the hope of a Monumental Pillar.'

[985] See _ante_, iii. 85; and v. 154.

[986] This address does not offend against the rule that Johnson lays down in his _Essay on Epitaphs_ (_Works_, v. 263), where he says:--'It is improper to address the epitaph to the passenger.' The impropriety consists in such an address in a church. He however did break through his rule in his epitaph in Streatham Church on Mr. Thrale, where he says:--'Abi viator.' _Ib._ i. 154.

[987] In _Humphry Clinker_ (Letter of Aug. 28), which was published a few months before Smollett's death, is his _Ode on Leven-Water_.

[988] The epitaph which has been inscribed on the pillar erected on the banks of the Leven, in honour of Dr. Smollett, is as follows. The part which was written by Dr. Johnson, it appears, has been altered; whether for the better, the reader will judge. The alterations are distinguished by Italicks.

Siste viator! Si lepores ingeniique venam benignam, Si morum callidissimum pictorem, Unquam es miratus, Immorare paululum memoriae TOBIAE SMOLLET, M.D. Viri virtutibus _hisce_ Quas in homine et cive Et laudes et imiteris, Haud mediocriter ornati: Qui in literis variis versatus, Postquam felicitate _sibi propria_ Sese posteris commendaverat, Morte acerba raptus Anno aetatis 51, Eheu: quam procul a patria! Prope Liburni portum in Italia, Jacet sepultres. Tali tantoque viro, patrueli suo, Cui in decursu lampada Se potius tradidisse decuit, Hanc Columnam, Amoris, eheu! inane monumentum In ipsis Leviniae ripis, Quas _versiculis sub exitu vitae illustratas_ Primis infans vagitibus personuit, Ponendam curavit JACOBUS SMOLLET de Bonhill. Abi et reminiscere, Hoc quidem honore, Non modo defuncti memoriae, Verum etiam exemplo, prospectum esse; Aliis enim, si modo digni sint, Idem erit virtutis praemium!

BOSWELL.

[989] Baretti told Malone that, having proposed to teach Johnson Italian, they went over a few stanzas of Ariosto, and Johnson then grew weary. 'Some years afterwards Baretti said he would give him another lesson, but added, "I suppose you have forgotten what we read before." "Who forgets, Sir?" said Johnson, and immediately repeated three or four stanzas of the poem.' Baretti took down the book to see if it had been lately opened, but the leaves were covered with dust. Prior's _Malone_, p. 160. Johnson had learnt to translate Italian before he knew Baretti. _Ante_, i. 107, 156. For other instances of his memory, see _ante_, i. 39, 48; iii. 318, note 1; and iv. 103, note 2.

[990] For sixty-eight days he received no letter--from August 21 (_ante_, p. 84) to October 28.

[991] Among these professors might possibly have been either Burke or Hume had not a Mr. Clow been the successful competitor in 1751 as the successor to Adam Smith in the chair of Logic. 'Mr. Clow has acquired a curious title to fame, from the greatness of the man to whom he succeeded, and of those over whom he was triumphant.' J.H. Burton's _Hume_, i. 351.

[992] Dr. Reid, the author of the _Inquiry into the Human Mind_, had in 1763 succeeded Adam Smith as Professor of Moral Philosophy. Dugald Stewart was his pupil the winter before Johnson's visit. Stewart's _Reid_, ed. 1802, p. 38.

[993] See _ante_, iv. 186.

[994] Mr. Boswell has chosen to omit, for reasons which will be presently obvious, that Johnson and Adam Smith met at Glasgow; but I have been assured by Professor John Miller that they did so, and that Smith, leaving the party in which he had met Johnson, happened to come to another company _where Miller was_. Knowing that Smith had been in Johnson's society, they were anxious to know what had passed, and the more so as Dr. Smith's temper seemed much ruffled. At first Smith would only answer, 'He's a brute--he's a brute;' but on closer examination, it appeared that Johnson no sooner saw Smith than he attacked him for some point of his famous letter on the death of Hume (_ante_, p. 30). Smith vindicated the truth of his statement. 'What did Johnson say?' was the universal inquiry. 'Why, he said,' replied Smith, with the deepest impression of resentment, 'he said, _you lie!_' 'And what did you reply?' 'I said, you are a son of a------!' On such terms did these two great moralists meet and part, and such was the classical dialogue between two great teachers of philosophy. WALTER SCOTT. This story is erroneous in the particulars of the _time, place,_ and _subject_ of the alleged quarrel; for Hume did not die for [nearly] three years after Johnson's only visit to Glasgow; nor was Smith then there. Johnson, previous to 1763 (see _ante_, i. 427, and iii. 331), had an altercation with Adam Smith at Mr. Strahan's table. This may have been the foundation of Professor Miller's misrepresentation. But, even _then_, nothing of this offensive kind could have passed, as, if it had, Smith could certainly not have afterwards solicited admission to the Club of which Johnson was the leader, to which he was admitted 1st Dec. 1775, and where he and Johnson met frequently on civil terms. I, therefore, disbelieve the whole story. CROKER.

[995] 'His appearance,' says Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 68), 'was that of an ascetic, reduced by fasting and prayer.' See _ante_, p. 68.

[996] See _ante_, ii. 27, 279.

[997] See _ante,_ p. 92.

[998] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'I was not much pleased with any of the Professors.' _Piozzi Letters,_ i. 199. Mme. D'Arblay says:-- 'Whenever Dr. Johnson did not make the charm of conversation he only marred it by his presence, from the general fear he incited, that if he spoke not, he might listen; and that if he listened, he might reprove.' _Memoirs of Dr. Burney,_ ii. 187. See _ante_, ii. 63

[999] Boswell has not let us see this caution. When Robertson first came in, 'there began,' we are told, 'some animated dialogue' (_ante,_ p.32). The next day we read that 'he fluently harangued to Dr. Johnson' (_ante,_ p.43).

[1000] See _ante,_ iii. 366.

[1001] He was Ambassador at Paris in the beginning of the reign of George I., and Commander-in-Chief in 1744. Lord Mahon's _England_, ed. 1836, i. 201 and iii. 275.

[1002] The unwilling gratitude of base mankind. POPE. [_Imitations of Horace_, 2 _Epis_. i. 14.] BOSWELL.

[1003] Dr. Franklin (_Memoirs_, i. 246-253) gives a curious account of Lord Loudoun, who was general in America about the year 1756. 'Indecision,' he says, 'was one of the strongest features of his character.' He kept back the packet-boats from day to day because he could not make up his mind to send his despatches. At one time there were three boats waiting, one of which was kept with cargo and passengers on board three months beyond its time. Pitt at length recalled him, because 'he never heard from him, and could not know what he was doing.'

[1004] See Chalmers's _Biog. Dict._ xi. 161 for an account of a controversy about the identity of this writer with an historian of the same name.

[1005] He had paid but little attention to his own rule. See _ante_, ii. 119.

[1006] 'I believe that for all the castles which I have seen beyond the Tweed, the ruins yet remaining of some one of those which the English built in Wales would supply Materials.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 152.

[1007] See _ante_, p. 40, note 4.

[1008] Johnson described her as 'a lady who for many years gave the laws of elegance to Scotland.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 200. Allan Ramsay dedicated to her his _Gentle Shepherd_, and W. Hamilton, of Bangour, wrote to her verses on the presentation of Ramsay's poem. Hamilton's _Poems_, p. 23.

[1009] See _ante_, ii. 66, and iii. 188.

[1010] 'She called Boswell the boy: "yes, Madam," said I, "we will send him to school." "He is already," said she, "in a good school;" and expressed her hope of his improvement. At last night came, and I was sorry to leave her.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 200. See _ante_, iii. 366.

[1011] See _ante_, pp. 318, 362.

[1012] Burns, who was in his fifteenth year, was at this time living at Ayr, about twelve miles away. When later on he moved to Mauchline, he and Boswell became much nearer neighbours.

[1013] He had, however, married again. _Ante_, ii. 140, note I. It is curious that Boswell in this narrative does not mention his step-mother.

[1014] 'Asper Incolumi gravitate jocum tentavit.' 'Though rude his mirth, yet laboured to maintain The solemn grandeur of the tragic scene.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet_. l. 221.

[1015] See _ante_, iii. 65, and v. 97.

[1016] See _ante_, iv. 163, 241.

[1017] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 425) says of Addison's dedication of the opera of _Rosamond_ to the Duchess of Marlborough, that 'it was an instance of servile absurdity, to be exceeded only by Joshua Barnes's dedication of a Greek _Anacreon_ to the Duke.' For Barnes see _ante_, iii. 284, and iv. 19.

[1018] William Baxter, the editor of _Anacreon_, was the nephew of Richard Baxter, the nonconformist divine.

[1019] He says of Auchinleck (_Works_, ix. 158) that 'like all the western side of Scotland, it is _incommoded_ by very frequent rain.' 'In all September we had, according to Boswell's register, only one day and a half of fair weather; and in October perhaps not more.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 182.

[1020] 'By-the-bye,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'I am far from being of the number of those angry Scotsmen who imputed to Johnson's national prejudices all or a great part of the report he has given of our country in his _Voyage to the Hebrides_. I remember the Highlands ten or twelve years later, and no one can conceive of 'how much that could have been easily remedied travellers had to complain.' _Croker Corres_. ii. 34

[1021] 'Of these islands it must be confessed, that they have not many allurements but to the mere lover of naked nature. The inhabitants are thin, provisions are scarce, and desolation and penury give little pleasure.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 153. In an earlier passage (p. 138), in describing a rough ride in Mull, he says:--'We were now long enough acquainted with hills and heath to have lost the emotion that they once raised, whether pleasing or painful, and had our minds employed only on our own fatigue.'

[1022] See _ante_, ii. 225.

[1023] In like manner Wesley said of Rousseau:--'Sure a more consummate coxcomb never saw the sun.... He is a cynic all over. So indeed is his brother-infidel, Voltaire; and well-nigh as great a coxcomb.' Wesley's _Journal,_, ed. 1830, iii. 386.

[1024] This gentleman, though devoted to the study of grammar and dialecticks, was not so absorbed in it as to be without a sense of pleasantry, or to be offended at his favourite topicks being treated lightly. I one day met him in the street, as I was hastening to the House of Lords, and told him, I was sorry I could not stop, being rather too late to attend an appeal of the Duke of Hamilton against Douglas. 'I thought (said he) their contest had been over long ago.' I answered, 'The contest concerning Douglas's filiation was over long ago; but the contest now is, who shall have the estate.' Then, assuming the air of 'an ancient sage philosopher,' I proceeded thus: 'Were I to _predicate_ concerning him, I should say, the contest formerly was, What _is_ he? The contest now is, What _has_ he?'--'Right, (replied Mr. Harris, smiling,) you have done with _quality_, and have got into _quantity_.' BOSWELL.

[1025] Most likely Sir A. Macdonald. _Ante_, p. 148.

[1026] Boswell wrote on March 18,1775:--'Mr. Johnson, when enumerating our Club, observed of some of us, that they talked from books,--Langton in particular. "Garrick," he said, "would talk from books, if he talked seriously." "_I_," said he, "do not talk from books; _you_ do not talk from books." This was a compliment to my originality; but I am afraid I have not read books enough to be able to talk from them.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 181. See _ante_, ii. 360, where Johnson said to Boswell:-- 'I don't believe you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more;' and i. 105, where he described 'a man of a great deal of knowledge of the world, fresh from life, not strained through books.'

[1027] 'Lord Auchinleck has built a house of hewn stone, very stately and durable, and has advanced the value of his lands with great tenderness to his tenants. I was, however, less delighted with the elegance of the modern mansion, than with the sullen dignity of the old castle.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 159. 'The house is scarcely yet finished, but very magnificent and very convenient.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 201. See _ante_, i. 462.

[1028] See _ante_, ii. 413, and v. 91.

[1029] The relation, it should seem, was remote even for Scotland. Their common ancestor was Robert Bruce, some sixteen generations back. Boswell's mother's grandmother was a Bruce of the Earl of Kincardine's family, and so also was his father's mother. Rogers's _Boswelliana_, pp. 4, 5.

[1030] He refers to Johnson's pension, which was given nearly two years after George Ill's accession. _Ante_, i. 372.

[1031] _Ante_, p. 51.

[1032] He repeated this advice in 1777. _Ante_, iii. 207.

[1033] 'Of their black cattle some are without horns, called by the Scots _humble_ cows, as we call a bee, an _humble_ bee, that wants a sting. Whether this difference be specifick, or accidental, though we inquired with great diligence, we could not be informed.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 78.

Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, gives the right derivation of humble-bee, from _hum_ and _bee_. The word _Humble-cow_ is found in _Guy Mannering_, ed. 1860, iii. 91:--'"Of a surety," said Sampson, "I deemed I heard his horse's feet." "That," said John, with a broad grin, "was Grizzel chasing the humble-cow out of the close."'

[1034] 'Even the cattle have not their usual beauty or noble head.' Church and Brodribb's _Tacitus_.

[1035] 'The peace you seek is here--where is it not? If your own mind be equal to its lot.' CROKER. Horace, I _Epistles_, xi. 29.

[1036] Horace, I _Epistles_, xviii. 112.

[1037] This and the next paragraph are not in the first edition. The paragraph that follows has been altered so as to hide the fact that the minister spoken of was Mr. Dun. Originally it stood:--'Mr. Dun, though a man of sincere good principles as a presbyterian divine, discovered,' &c. First edition, p. 478.

[1038] See _ante_, p. 120.

[1039] Old Lord Auchinleck was an able lawyer, a good scholar, after the manner of Scotland, and highly valued his own advantages as a man of good estate and ancient family; and, moreover, he was a strict presbyterian and Whig of the old Scottish cast. This did not prevent his being a terribly proud aristocrat; and great was the contempt he entertained and expressed for his son James, for the nature of his friendships and the character of the personages of whom he was _engoué_ one after another. 'There's nae hope for Jamie, mon,' he said to a friend. 'Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you think, mon? He's done wi' Paoli--he's off wi' the land-louping scoundrel of a Corsican; and whose tail do you think he has pinned himself to now, mon?' Here the old judge summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. 'A _dominie_, mon--an auld dominie: he keeped a schule, and cau'd it an acaadamy.' Probably if this had been reported to Johnson, he would have felt it more galling, for he never much liked to think of that period of his life [_ante_, i.97, note 2]; it would have aggravated his dislike of Lord Auchinleck's Whiggery and presbyterianism. These the old lord carried to such a height, that once, when a countryman came in to state some justice business, and being required to make his oath, declined to do so before his lordship, because he was not a _covenanted_ magistrate. 'Is that a'your objection, mon?' said the judge; 'come your ways in here, and we'll baith of us tak the solemn league and covenant together.' The oath was accordingly agreed and sworn to by both, and I dare say it was the last time it ever received such homage. It may be surmised how far Lord Auchinleck, such as he is here described, was likely to suit a high Tory and episcopalian like Johnson. As they approached Auchinleck, Boswell conjured Johnson by all the ties of regard, and in requital of the services he had rendered him upon his tour, that he would spare two subjects in tenderness to his father's prejudices; the first related to Sir John Pringle, president of the Royal Society, about whom there was then some dispute current: the second concerned the general question of Whig and Tory. Sir John Pringle, as Boswell says, escaped, but the controversy between Tory and Covenanter raged with great fury, and ended in Johnson's pressing upon the old judge the question, what good Cromwell, of whom he had said something derogatory, had ever done to his country; when, after being much tortured, Lord Auchinleck at last spoke out, 'God, Doctor! he gart kings ken that they had a _lith_ in their neck'--he taught kings they had a _joint_ in their necks. Jamie then set to mediating between his father and the philosopher, and availing himself of the judge's sense of hospitality, which was punctilious, reduced the debate to more order. WALTER SCOTT. Paoli had visited Auchinleck. Boswell wrote to Garrick on Sept. 18, 1771:--'I have just been enjoying the very great happiness of a visit from my illustrious friend, Pascal Paoli. He was two nights at Auchinleck, and you may figure the joy of my worthy father and me at seeing the Corsican hero in our romantic groves.' _Garrick Corres_. i. 436. Johnson was not blind to Cromwell's greatness, for he says (_Works_, vii. 197), that 'he wanted nothing to raise him to heroick excellence but virtue.' Lord Auchinleck's famous saying had been anticipated by Quin, who, according to Davies (_Life of Garrick_, ii. 115), had said that 'on a thirtieth of January every king in Europe would rise with a crick in his neck.'

[1040] See _ante_, p. 252.

[1041] James Durham, born 1622, died 1658, wrote many theological works. Chalmers's _Biog. Dict_. In the _Brit. Mus. Cata_. I can find no work by him on the _Galatians_; Lord Auchinleck's triumph therefore was, it seems, more artful than honest.

[1042] Gray, it should seem, had given the name earlier. His friend Bonstetten says that about the year 1769 he was walking with him, when Gray 'exclaimed with some bitterness, "Look, look, Bonstetten! the great bear! There goes _Ursa Major_!" This was Johnson. Gray could not abide him.' Sir Egerton Brydges, quoted in Gosse's _Gray_, iii. 371. For the epithet _bear_ applied to Johnson see _ante_, ii. 66, 269, note i, and iv. 113, note 2. Boswell wrote on June 19, 1775:--'My father harps on my going over Scotland with a brute (think, how shockingly erroneous!), and wandering (or some such phrase) to London.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 207.

[1043] It is remarkable that Johnson in his _Life of Blackmore_ [_Works_, viii. 42] calls the imaginary Mr. Johnson of the _Lay Monastery_ 'a constellation of excellence.' CROKER.

[1044] Page 121. BOSWELL. See also _ante_, iii. 336.

[1045] 'The late Sir Alexander Boswell,' wrote Sir Walter Scott, 'was a proud man, and, like his grandfather, thought that his father lowered himself by his deferential suit and service to Johnson. I have observed he disliked any allusion to the book or to Johnson himself, and I have heard that Johnson's fine picture by Sir Joshua was sent upstairs out of the sitting apartments at Auchinleck.' _Croker Corres_. ii. 32. This portrait, which was given by Sir Joshua to Boswell (Taylor's _Reynolds_, i. 147), is now in the possession of Mr. Charles Morrison.

[1046] 'I have always said that first Whig was the devil.' _Ante_, iii. 326

[1047] See _ante_, ii. 26.

[1048] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 266) has paid this tribute. 'Lord Elibank,' he writes, 'had a mind that embraced the greatest variety of topics, and produced the most original remarks. ... He had been a lieutenant-colonel in the army and was at the siege of Carthagena, of which he left an elegant account (which I'm afraid is lost). He was a Jacobite, and a member of the famous Cocoa-tree Club, and resigned his commission on some disgust.' Dr. Robertson and John Home were his neighbours in the country, 'who made him change or soften down many of his original opinions, and prepared him for becoming a most agreeable member of the Literary Society of Edinburgh.' Smollett in _Humphry Clinker_ (Letter of July 18), describes him as 'a nobleman whom I have long revered for his humanity and universal intelligence, over and above the entertainment arising from the originality of his character.' Boswell, in the _London Mag._ 1779, p. 179, thus mentions the Cocoa-tree Club:--'But even at Court, though I see much external obeisance, I do not find congenial sentiments to warm my heart; and except when I have the conversation of a very few select friends, I am never so well as when I sit down to a dish of coffee in the Cocoa Tree, sacred of old to loyalty, look round me to men of ancient families, and please myself with the consolatory thought that there is perhaps more good in the nation than I know.'

[1049] Johnson's _Works_, vii. 380. See _ante_, i. 81.

[1050] See _ante_, p. 53.

[1051] The Mitre tavern. _Ante_, i. 425.

[1052] Of this Earl of Kelly Boswell records the following pun:--'At a dinner at Mr. Crosbie's, when the company were very merry, the Rev. Dr. Webster told them he was sorry to go away so early, but was obliged to catch the tide, to cross the Firth of Forth. "Better stay a little," said Thomas Earl of Kelly, "till you be half-seas over."' Rogers's _Boswelliana_, p. 325.

[1053] See _ante_, i. 354.

[1054] In the first edition, _and his son the advocate_. Under this son, A. F. Tytler, afterwards a Lord of Session by the title of Lord Woodhouselee, Scott studied history at Edinburgh College. Lockhart's _Scott_, ed. 1839, i. 59, 278.

[1055] See _ante_, i. 396, and ii. 296.

[1056] 'If we know little of the ancient Highlanders, let us not fill the vacuity with Ossian. If we have not searched the Magellanick regions, let us however forbear to people them with Patagons.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 116. Horace Walpole wrote on May 22, 1766 (_Letters_, iv. 500):--'Oh! but we have discovered a race of giants! Captain Byron has found a nation of Brobdignags on the coast of Patagonia; the inhabitants on foot taller than he and his men on horseback. I don't indeed know how he and his sailors came to be riding in the South Seas. However, it is a terrible blow to the Irish, for I suppose all our dowagers now will be for marrying Patagonians.'

[1057] I desire not to be understood as agreeing _entirely_ with the opinions of Dr. Johnson, which I relate without any remark. The many imitations, however, of _Fingal_, that have been published, confirm this observation in a considerable degree. BOSWELL. Johnson said to Sir Joshua of Ossian:--'Sir, a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would _abandon_ his mind to it.' _Ante_, iv. 183.

[1058] In the first edition (p. 485) this paragraph ran thus:--'Young Mr. Tytler stepped briskly forward, and said, "_Fingal_ is certainly genuine; for I have heard a great part of it repeated in the original."--Dr. Johnson indignantly asked him, "Sir, do you understand the original?"--_Tytler_. "No, Sir."--_Johnson_. "Why, then, we see to what this testimony comes:--Thus it is."--He afterwards said to me, "Did you observe the wonderful confidence with which young Tytler advanced, with his front already _brased_?"'

[1059] For _in company_ we should perhaps read _in the company_.

[1060] In the first edition, _this gentleman's talents and integrity are_, &c.

[1061] 'A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth: he will always love it better than inquiry; and if falsehood flatters his vanity, will not be very diligent to detect it.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 116. See _ante_, ii. 311.

[1062] See _ante_, p. 164.

[1063] See _ante_, p. 242.

[1064] See _ante_, iv. 253.

[1065] Lord Chief Baron Geoffrey Gilbert published in 1760 a book on the Law of Evidence.

[1066] See _ante_, ii. 302.

[1067] Three instances, _ante_, pp. 160, 320.

[1068] See _ante_, ii. 318.

[1069] An instance is given in Sacheverell's _Account of the Isle of Man_, ed. 1702, p. 14.

[1070] Mr. J. T. Clark, the Keeper of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, obligingly informs me that in the margin of the copy of Boswell's _Journal_ in that Library it is stated that this cause was _Wilson versus Maclean_.

[1071] See _ante_, iv. 74, note 3.

[1072] See _ante_, iii 69, 183.

[1073] He is described in _Guy Mannering_, ed. 1860, iv. 98.

[1074] See _ante_, p. 50.

[1075] See _ante_, i. 458.

[1076] 'We now observe that the Methodists, where they scatter their opinions, represent themselves as preaching the Gospel to unconverted nations; and enthusiasts of all kinds have been inclined to disguise their particular tenets with pompous appellations, and to imagine themselves the great instruments of salvation.' Johnson's _Works_, vi. 417.

[1077]

Through various hazards and events we move.

Dryden, [_Aeneid_, I. 204]. BOSWELL.

[1078]

Long labours both by sea and land he bore.

Dryden, [_Aeneid_, I. 3]. BOSWELL.

[1079] The Jesuits, headed by Francis Xavier, made their appearance in Japan in 1549. The first persecution was in 1587; it was followed by others in 1590, 1597, 1637, 1638. _Encyclo. Brit_. 8th edit. xii. 697.

[1080] 'They congratulate our return as if we had been with Phipps or Banks; I am ashamed of their salutations.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 203. Phipps had gone this year to the Arctic Ocean (_ante_, p. 236), and Banks had accompanied Captain Cook in 1768-1771. Johnson says however (_Works_, ix. 84), that 'to the southern inhabitants of Scotland the state of the mountains and the islands is equally unknown with that of Borneo or Sumatra.' See _ante_, p. 283, note 1, where Scott says that 'the whole expedition was highly perilous.' Smollett, in _Humphry Clinker_ (Letter of July 18), says of Scotland in general:--'The people at the other end of the island know as little of Scotland as of Japan.'

[1081] In sailing from Sky to Col. _Ante_, p. 280.

[1082] Johnson, four years later, suggested to Boswell that he should write this history. _Ante_, iii. 162, 414.

[1083] Voltaire was born in 1694; his _Louis XIV._ was published in 1751 or 1752.

[1084] A society for debate in Edinburgh, consisting of the most eminent men. BOSWELL. It was founded in 1754 by Allan Ramsay the painter, aided by Robertson, Hume, and Smith. Dugald Stewart (_Life of Robertson_, ed. 1802, p. 5) says that 'it subsisted in vigour for six or seven years' and produced debates, such as have not often been heard in modern assemblies.' See also Dr. A. Carlyle's _Auto_. p. 297.

[1085] 'As for Maclaurin's imitation of a _made dish_, it was a wretched attempt.' _Ante,_ i. 469.

[1086] It was of Lord Elibank's French cook 'that he exclaimed with vehemence, "I'd throw such a rascal into the river."'_Ib._

[1087] 'He praised _Gordon's palates_ with a warmth of expression which might have done honour to more important subjects.' _Ib._

[1088] For the alarm he gave to Mrs. Boswell before this supper, see _ib._

[1089] On Dr. Boswell's death, in 1780, Boswell wrote of him:--'He was a very good scholar, knew a great many things, had an elegant taste, and was very affectionate; but he had no conduct. His money was all gone. And do you know he was not confined to one woman. He had a strange kind of religion; but I flatter myself he will be ere long, if he is not already, in Heaven.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 258.

[1090] Johnson had written the _Life_ of 'the great Boerhaave,' as he called him. _Works_, vi. 292.

[1091] 'At Edinburgh,' he wrote, 'I passed some days with men of learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, or with women of elegance, which, perhaps, disclaims a pedant's praise.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 159.

[1092] See _ante_, iv. 178.

[1093] 'My acquaintance,' wrote Richardson (_Corres_. iv. 317), 'lies chiefly among the ladies; I care not who knows it.' Mrs. Piozzi, in a marginal note on her own copy of the _Piozzi Letters_, says:--'Dr. Johnson said, that if Mr. Richardson had lived till _I_ came out, my praises would have added two or three years to his life. "For," says Dr. Johnson, "that fellow died merely from want of change among his flatterers: he perished for want of _more_, like a man obliged to breathe the same air till it is exhausted."' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 311. In her _Journey_, i. 265, she says:--'Richardson had seen little, and Johnson has often told me that he had read little.' See _ante_, iv. 28.

[1094] He may live like a gentleman, but he must not 'call himself _Farmer_, and go about with a little round hat.' _Ante_, p. 111.

[1095] Boswell italicises this word, I think, because Johnson objected to the misuse of it. '"Sir," said Mr. Edwards, "I remember you would not let us say _prodigious_ at college."' _Ante_, iii. 303.

[1096] As I have been scrupulously exact in relating anecdotes concerning other persons, I shall not withhold any part of this story, however ludicrous.--I was so successful in this boyish frolick, that the universal cry of the galleries was, '_Encore_ the cow! _Encore_ the cow!' In the pride of my heart, I attempted imitations of some other animals, but with very inferior effect. My reverend friend, anxious for my _fame_, with an air of the utmost gravity and earnestness, addressed me thus: 'My dear sir, I would _confine_ myself to the _cow_.' BOSWELL. Blair's advice was expressed more emphatically, and with a peculiar _burr_--'_Stick to the cow_, mon.' WALTER SCOTT. Boswell's record, which moreover is far more humorous, is much more trustworthy than Scott's tradition.

[1097] Mme. de Sévigné in describing a death wrote:--'Cela nous fit voir qu'on joue long-temps la comédie, et qu'à la mort on dit la vérité.' Letter of June 24, 1672. Addison says:--'The end of a man's life is often compared to the winding up of a well-written play, where the principal persons still act in character, whatever the fate is which they undergo.... That innocent mirth which had been so conspicuous in Sir Thomas More's life did not forsake him to the last. His death was of a piece with his life. There was nothing in it new, forced, or affected.' _The Spectator_, No. 349. Young also thought, or at least, wrote differently.

'A death-bed's a detector of the heart. Here tired dissimulation drops her mask.'

_Night Thoughts, ii._

'"Mirabeau dramatized his death" was the happy expression of the Bishop of Autun (Talleyrand).' Dumont's _Mirabeau_, p. 251. See _ante_, iii. 154.

[1098] See _ante_, i. 408, 447; and ii. 219, 329.

[1099] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 291) says of Blair's conversation that 'it was so infantine that many people thought it impossible, at first sight, that he could be a man of sense or genius. He was as eager about a new paper to his wife's drawing-room, or his own new wig, as about a new tragedy or a new epic poem.' He adds, that he was 'capable of the most profound conversation, when circumstances led to it. He had not the least desire to shine, but was delighted beyond measure to shew other people in their best guise to his friends. "Did not I shew you the lion well to-day?" used he to say after the exhibition of a remarkable stranger.' He had no wit, and for humour hardly a relish. Robertson's reputation for wisdom may have been easily won. Dr. A. Carlyle says (_ib_. p. 287):--'Robertson's translations and paraphrases on other people's thoughts were so beautiful and so harmless that I never saw anybody lay claim to their own.' He may have flattered Johnson by dexterously echoing his sentiments.

[1100] In the _Marmor Norfolciense (ante_, i. 141) Johnson says:--'I know that the knowledge of the alphabet is so disreputable among these gentlemen [of the army], that those who have by ill-fortune formerly been taught it have partly forgot it by disuse, and partly concealed it from the world, to avoid the railleries and insults to which their education might make them liable.' Johnson's _Works,_ vi. III. See _ante_, iii. 265.

[1101] 'One of the young ladies had her slate before her, on which I wrote a question consisting of three figures to be multiplied by two figures. She looked upon it, and quivering her fingers in a manner which I thought very pretty, but of which I knew not whether it was art or play, multiplied the sum regularly in two lines, observing the decimal place; but did not add the two lines together, probably disdaining so easy an operation.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 161.

[1102]

'Words gigantic.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Ars Poet._. 1. 97.

[1103] One of the best criticks of our age 'does not wish to prevent the admirers of the incorrect and nerveless style which generally prevailed for a century before Dr. Johnson's energetick writings were known, from enjoying the laugh that this story may produce, in which he is very ready to join them.' He, however, requests me to observe, that 'my friend very properly chose a _long_ word on this occasion, not, it is believed, from any predilection for polysyllables, (though he certainly had a due respect for them,) but in order to put Mr. Braidwood's skill to the strictest test, and to try the efficacy of his instruction by the most difficult exertion of the organs of his pupils.' BOSWELL. 'One of the best critics of our age' is, I believe, Malone. See _ante_, p. 78, note 5.

[1104] It was here that Lord Auchinleck called him _Ursa Major. Ante_, p. 384.

[1105] See _ante_, iii. 266, and v. 20, where 'Mr. Crosbie said that the English are better animals than the Scots.'

[1106] Johnson himself had laughed at them (_ante_, ii. 210) and accused them of foppery (_ante_, ii. 237).

[1107] Johnson said, 'I never think I have hit hard, unless it rebounds (_ante_, ii. 335), and, 'I would rather be attacked than unnoticed' (_ante_, iii. 375). When he was told of a caricature 'of the nine muses flogging him round Parnassus,' he said, 'Sir, I am very glad to hear this. I hope the day will never arrive when I shall neither be the object of calumny or ridicule, for then I shall be neglected and forgotten.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 837. See _ante_, ii. 61, and pp. 174, 273. 'There was much laughter when M. de Lesseps mentioned that on his first visit to England the publisher who brought out the report of his meeting charged, as the first item of his bill, "£50 for attacking the book in order to make it succeed." "Since then," observed M. de Lesseps, "I have been attacked gratuitously, and have got on without paying."' The Times, Feb. 19, 1884.

[1108]

'To wing my flight to fame.'

DRYDEN. Virgil, _Georgics_, iii. 9.

[1109] On Nov. 12 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'We came hither (to Edinburgh) on the ninth of this month. I long to come under your care, but for some days cannot decently get away.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 202.

[1110] He would have been astonished had he known that a few miles from Edinburgh he had passed through two villages of serfs. The coal-hewers and salt-makers of Tranent and Preston-Pans were still sold with the soil. 'In Scotland domestic slavery is unknown, except so far as regards the coal-hewers and salt-makers, whose condition, it must be confessed, bears some resemblance to slavery; because all who have once acted in either of the capacities are compellable to serve, and fixed to their respective places of employment during life.' Hargrave's _Argument in the case of James Sommersett_, 1772. Had Johnson known this he might have given as his toast when in company with some very grave men at _Edinburgh_:--'Here's to the next insurrection of the slaves in _Scotland_.' _Ante_, iii. 200.

[1111] The year following in the House of Commons he railed at the London booksellers, 'who, he positively asserted, entirely governed the newspapers.' 'For his part,' he added, 'he had ordered that no English newspaper should come within his doors for three months.' _Parl. Hist_. xvii. 1090.

[1112] See _ante_, iii. 373.

[1113] 'At the latter end of 1630 Ben Jonson went on foot into Scotland, on purpose to visit Drummond. His adventures in this journey he wrought into a poem; but that copy, with many other pieces, was accidentally burned.' Whalley's _Ben Jonson_, Preface, p. xlvi.

[1114] Perhaps the same woman showed the chapel who was there 29 years later, when Scott visited it. One of his friends 'hoped that they might, as habitual visitors, escape hearing the usual endless story of the silly old woman that showed the ruins'; but Scott answered, 'There is a pleasure in the song which none but the songstress knows, and by telling her we know it all ready we should make the poor devil unhappy.' Lockharts _Scott_, ed. 1839, ii. 106.

[1115] _ O rare Ben Jonson_ is on Jonson's tomb in Westminster Abbey.

[1116] See _ante_, ii. 365.

[1117] 'Essex was at that time confined to the same chamber of the Tower from which his father Lord Capel had been led to death, and in which his wife's grandfather had inflicted a voluntary death upon himself. When he saw his friend carried to what he reckoned certain fate, their common enemies enjoying the spectacle, and reflected that it was he who had forced Lord Howard upon the confidence of Russel, he retired, and, by a _Roman death_, put an end to his misery.' Dalrymple's _Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland_, vol. i. p. 36. BOSWELL. In the original after 'his wife's grandfather,' is added 'Lord Northumberland.' It was his wife's great-grandfather, the eighth Earl of Northumberland. He killed himself in 1585. Burke's _Peerage_.

[1118] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 293) says of Robertson and Blair:--'Having been bred at a time when the common people thought to play with cards or dice was a sin, and everybody thought it an indecorum in clergymen, they could neither of them play at golf or bowls, and far less at cards or backgammon, and on that account were very unhappy when from home in friends' houses in the country in rainy weather. As I had set the first example of playing at cards at home with unlocked door [Carlyle was a minister], and so relieved the clergy from ridicule on that side, they both learned to play at whist after they were sixty.' See _ante_, iii. 23.

[1119] See _ante_, i. 149, and v. 350.

[1120] See _ante_, iv. 54.

[1121] He wrote to Boswell on Nov. 16, 1776 (_ante_, iii. 93):--'The expedition to the Hebrides was the most pleasant journey that I ever made.' In his _Diary_ he recorded on Jan. 9, 1774:--'In the autumn I took a journey to the Hebrides, but my mind was not free from perturbation.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 136. The following letter to Dr. Taylor I have copied from the original in the possession of my friend Mr. M. M. Holloway:--

'DEAR SIR,

'When I was at Edinburgh I had a letter from you, telling me that in answer to some enquiry you were informed that I was in the Sky. I was then I suppose in the western islands of Scotland; I set out on the northern expedition August 6, and came back to Fleet-street, November 26. I have seen a new region.

'I have been upon seven of the islands, and probably should have visited many more, had we not begun our journey so late in the year, that the stormy weather came upon us, and the storms have I believe for about five months hardly any intermission.

'Your Letter told me that you were better. When you write do not forget to confirm that account. I had very little ill health while I was on the journey, and bore rain and wind tolerably well. I had a cold and deafness only for a few days, and those days I passed at a good house. I have traversed the east coast of Scotland from south to north from Edinburgh to Inverness, and the west coast from north to south, from the Highlands to Glasgow, and am come back as I went,

'Sir,

'Your affectionate humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'Jan. 15, 1774.

'To the Reverend Dr. Taylor,

'in Ashbourn,

'Derbyshire.'

[1122] Johnson speaking of this tour on April 10, 1783, said:--'I got an acquisition of more ideas by it than by anything that I remember.' _Ante_, iv. 199.

[1123] See _ante_, p. 48.

[1124] See _ante_, i. 408, 443, note 2, and ii. 303.

[1125] 'It may be doubted whether before the Union any man between Edinburgh and England had ever set a tree.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 8.

[1126] See _ante_, p. 69.

[1127] Lord Balmerino's estate was forfeited to the Crown on his conviction for high treason in 1746 (_ante_, i. 180).

[1128] 'I know not that I ever heard the wind so loud in any other place; and Mr. Boswell observed that its noise was all its own, for there were no trees to increase it.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 122. See _ante_, p. 304.

[1129] See _ante_, ii. 300.

[1130] 'Strong reasons for incredulity will readily occur. This faculty of seeing things out of sight is local and commonly useless. It is a breach of the common order of things, without any visible reason or perceptible benefit.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 106.

[1131] 'To the confidence of these objections it may be replied... that second sight is only wonderful because it is rare, for, considered in itself, it involves no more difficulty than dreams.' _Ib._

[1132] The fossilist of last century is the geologist of this. Neither term is in Johnson's _Dictionary_, but Johnson in his _Journey (Works_, ix. 43) speaks of 'Mr. Janes the fossilist.'

[1133] _Ib_. p. 157.

[1134] _Ib_. p. 6. I do not see anything silly in the story. It is however better told in a letter to Mrs. Thrale. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 112.

[1135] Mr. Orme, one of the ablest historians of this age, is of the same opinion. He said to me, 'There are in that book thoughts, which, by long revolution in the great mind of Johnson, have been formed and polished--like pebbles rolled in the ocean.' BOSWELL. See _ante_, ii. 300, and iii. 284.

[1136] See _ante_, iii. 301.

[1137] Johnson (_Works_, ix. 158) mentions 'a national combination so invidious that their friends cannot defend it.' See _ante_, ii. 307, 311.

[1138] See _ante_, p. 269, note 1.

[1139] Every reader will, I am sure, join with me in warm admiration of the truly patriotic writer of this letter. I know not which most to applaud--that good sense and liberality of mind, which could see and admit the defects of his native country, to which no man is a more zealous friend:--or that candour, which induced him to give just praise to the minister whom he honestly and strenuously opposed. BOSWELL.

[1140] The original MS. is now in my possession. BOSWELL.

[1141] The passage that gave offence was as follows:--'Mr. Macleod is the proprietor of the islands of Raasay, Rona, and Fladda, and possesses an extensive district in Sky. The estate has not during four hundred years gained or lost a single acre. He acknowledges Macleod of Dunvegan as his chief, though his ancestors have formerly disputed the pre-eminence.' First edition, p. 132. The second edition was not published till the year after Johnson's death. In it the passage remains unchanged. To it the following note was prefixed: 'Strand, Oct. 26, 1785. Since this work was printed off, the publisher, having been informed that the author some years ago had promised the Laird of Raasay to correct in a future edition a passage concerning him, thinks it a justice due to that gentleman to insert here the advertisement relative to this matter, which was published by Dr. Johnson's desire in the Edinburgh newspapers in the year 1775, and which has been lately reprinted in Mr. Boswell's _Tour to the Hebrides_.' (It is not unlikely that the publication of Boswell's _Tour_ occasioned a fresh demand for Johnson's _Journey_.) In later editions all the words after 'a single acre' are silently struck out. Johnson's _Works_, ix. 55. See _ante_, ii. 382.

[1142] Rasay was highly gratified, and afterwards visited and dined with Dr. Johnson at his house in London. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on May 12, 1775:--'I have offended; and what is stranger, have justly offended, the nation of Rasay. If they could come hither, they would be as fierce as the Americans. _Rasay_ has written to Boswell an account of the injury done him by representing his house as subordinate to that of Dunvegan. Boswell has his letter, and, I believe, copied my answer. I have appeased him, if a degraded chief can possibly be appeased: but it will be thirteen days--days of resentment and discontent--before my recantation can reach him. Many a dirk will imagination, during that interval, fix in my heart. I really question if at this time my life would not be in danger, if distance did not secure it. Boswell will find his way to Streatham before he goes, and will detail this great affair.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 216.

[1143] In like manner he communicated to Sir William Forbes part of his journal from which he made the _Life of Johnson_. _Ante_, iii. 208.

[1144] In justice both to Sir William Forbes, and myself, it is proper to mention, that the papers which were submitted to his perusal contained only an account of our Tour from the time that Dr. Johnson and I set out from Edinburgh (p. 58), and consequently did not contain the elogium on Sir William Forbes, (p. 24), which he never saw till this book appeared in print; nor did he even know, when he wrote the above letter, that this _Journal_ was to be published. BOSWELL. This note is not in the first edition.

[1145] _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 1.

[1146] Both _Nonpareil_ and _Bon Chretien_ are in Johnson's _Dictionary_; _Nonpareil_, is defined as _a kind of apple_, and _Bon Chretien_ as _a species of pear_.

[1147] See _ante_, p. 311.

[1148] See _ante_, iv. 9.

[1149] 'Dryden's contemporaries, however they reverenced his genius, left his life unwritten; and nothing therefore can be known beyond what casual mention and uncertain tradition have supplied.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 245. See _ante_, iii. 71.

[1150]

'Before great Agamemnon reign'd Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave Whose huge ambition's now contain'd In the small compass of a grave; In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown, No bard had they to make all time their own.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, iv. 9. 25.

[1151] Having found, on a revision of the first edition of this work, that, notwithstanding my best care, a few observations had escaped me, which arose from the instant impression, the publication of which might perhaps be considered as passing the bounds of a strict decorum, I immediately ordered that they should be omitted in the subsequent editions. I was pleased to find that they did not amount in the whole to a page. If any of the same kind are yet left, it is owing to inadvertence alone, no man being more unwilling to give pain to others than I am.

A contemptible scribbler, of whom I have learned no more than that, after having disgraced and deserted the clerical character, he picks up in London a scanty livelihood by scurrilous lampoons under a feigned name, has impudently and falsely asserted that the passages omitted were _defamatory_, and that the omission was not voluntary, but compulsory. The last insinuation I took the trouble publickly to disprove; yet, like one of Pope's dunces, he persevered in 'the lie o'erthrown.' [_Prologue to the Satires_, l. 350.] As to the charge of defamation, there is an obvious and certain mode of refuting it. Any person who thinks it worth while to compare one edition with the other, will find that the passages omitted were not in the least degree of that nature, but exactly such as I have represented them in the former part of this note, the hasty effusion of momentary feelings, which the delicacy of politeness should have suppressed. BOSWELL. In the second edition this note ended at the first paragraph, the latter part being added in the third. For the 'few observations omitted' see _ante_, pp. 148, 381, 388.

The 'contemptible scribbler' was, I believe, John Wolcot, better known by his assumed name of Peter Pindar. He had been a clergyman. In his _Epistle to Boswell (Works_, i. 219), he says in reference to the passages about Sir A. Macdonald (afterwards Lord Macdonald):--'A letter of severe remonstrance was sent to Mr. B., who, in consequence, omitted in the second edition of his _Journal_ what is so generally pleasing to the public, viz., the scandalous passages relative to that nobleman.' It was in a letter to the _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 285, that Boswell 'publickly disproved the insinuation' made 'in a late scurrilous publication' that these passages 'were omitted in consequence of a letter from his Lordship. Nor was any application,' he continues, 'made to me by the nobleman alluded to at any time to make any alteration in my _Journal_.'

[1152]

'Nothing extenuate Nor set down aught in malice.'

_Othello_, act v. sc. 2.

[1153] See _ante_, i. 189, note 2, 296, 297; and Johnson's _Works_, v. 23.

[1154] Of his two imitations Boswell means _The Vanity of Human Wishes_, of which one hundred lines were written in a day. _Ante_, i. 192, and ii. 15.

[1155] Johnson, it should seem, did not allow that there was any pleasure in writing poetry. 'It has been said there is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may have pleasure from writing after it is over, if you have written well; but you don't go willingly to it again.' _Ante_, iv. 219. What Johnson always sought was to sufficiently occupy the mind. So long as that was done, that labour would, I believe, seem to him the pleasanter which required the less thought.

[1156] Nathan Bailey published his _English Dictionary_ in 1721.

[1157]

'Woolston, the scourge of scripture, mark with awe! And mighty Jacob, blunderbuss of law.'

_The Dunciad_, first ed., bk. iii. l. 149. Giles Jacob published a _Law Dictionary_ in 1729.

[1158] _Ante_, p. 393.

[1159] A writer in the _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 388, with some reason says:--'I heartily wish Mr. Boswell would get this Latin poem translated.'

[1160] Boswell, briefly mentioning the tour which Johnson made to Wales in the year 1774 with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, says:--'I do not find that he kept any journal or notes of what he saw there' (_ante_, ii. 285). A journal had been kept however, which in 1816 was edited and published by Mr. Duppa. Mrs. Piozzi, writing in October of that year, says that three years earlier she had been shewn the MS. by a Mr. White, and that it was genuine. 'The gentleman who possessed it seemed shy of letting me read the whole, and did not, as it appeared, like being asked how it came into his hands.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 177. According to Mr. Croker (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 415) 'it was preserved by Johnson's servant, Barber. How it escaped Boswell's research is not known.' A fragment of Johnson's _Annals_, also preserved by Barber, had in like manner never been seen by Boswell; _ante_, i. 35, note 1. The editor of these _Annals_ says (Preface, p. v):--'Francis Barber, unwilling that all the MSS. of his illustrious master should be utterly lost, preserved these relicks from the flames. By purchase from Barber's widow they came into the possession of the editor.' It seems likely that Barber was afraid to own what he had done; though as he was the residuary legatee he was safe from all consequences, unless the executors of the will who were to hold the residue of the estate in trust for him had chosen to proceed against him. Mr. Duppa in editing this Journal received assistance from Mrs. Piozzi, 'who,' he says (Preface, p. xi), 'explained many facts which could not otherwise have been understood.' A passage in one of her letters dated Bath, Oct. 11, 1816, shows how unfriendly were the relations between her and her eldest daughter, Johnson's Queeny, who had married Admiral Lord Keith. 'I am sadly afraid,' she writes, 'of Lady K.'s being displeased, and fancying I promoted this publication. Could I have caught her for a quarter-of-an-hour, I should have proved my innocence, and might have shown her Duppa's letter; but she left neither note, card, nor message, and when my servant ran to all the inns in chase of her, he learned that she had left the White Hart at twelve o'clock. Vexatious! but it can't be helped. I hope the pretty little girl my people saw with her will pay her more tender attention.' Three days later she wrote:--'Johnson's _Diary_ is selling rapidly, though the contents are _bien maigre_, I must confess. Mr. Duppa has politely suppressed some sarcastic expressions about my family, the Cottons, whom we visited at Combermere, and at Lleweney.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 176-9. Mr. Croker in 1835 was able to make 'a collation of the original MS., which has supplied many corrections and some omissions in Mr. Duppa's text.' Mr. Croker's text I have generally followed.

[1161] 'When I went with Johnson to Lichfield, and came down to breakfast at the inn, my dress did not please him, and he made me alter it entirely before he would stir a step with us about the town, saying most satirical things concerning the appearance I made in a riding-habit; and adding, "'Tis very strange that such eyes as yours cannot discern propriety of dress; if I had a sight only half as good, I think I should see to the centre."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 288.

[1162] For Mrs. (Miss) Porter, Mrs. (Miss) Aston, Mr. Green, Mrs. Cobb, Mr. (Peter) Garrick, Miss Seward, and Dr. Taylor, see _ante_, ii. 462-473.

[1163] Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the physiologist and poet, grandfather of Charles Darwin. Mrs. Piozzi when at Florence wrote:--'I have no roses equal to those at Lichfield, where on one tree I recollect counting eighty-four within my own reach; it grew against the house of Dr. Darwin.' Piozzi's _Journey_, i. 278.

[1164] See _ante_, iii. 124, for mention of her father and brother.

[1165] The verse in _Martial_ is:--

'Defluat, et lento splendescat turbida limo.'

In the common editions it has the number 45, and not 44. DUPPA.

[1166] See _ante_, iii. 187.

[1167] Johnson wrote on Nov. 27, 1772, 'I was yesterday at Chatsworth. They complimented me with playing the fountain and opening the cascade. But I am of my friend's opinion, that when one has seen the ocean cascades are but little things.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.69.

[1168] 'A water-work with a concealed spring, which, upon touching, spouted out streams from every bough of a willow-tree.' _Piozzi MS_. CROKER.

[1169] A race-horse, which attracted so much of Dr. Johnson's attention, that he said, 'of all the Duke's possessions, I like Atlas best.' DUPPA.

[1170] For Johnson's last visit to Chatsworth, see _ante_, iv. 357, 367.

[1171] 'From the Muses, Sir Thomas More bore away the first crown, Erasmus the second, and Micyllus has the third.' In the MS. Johnson has introduced [Greek: aeren] by the side of [Greek: eilen], DUPPA. 'Jacques Moltzer, en Latin Micyllus. Ce surnom lui fut donné le jour où il remplissait avec le plus grand succès le rôle de Micyllus dans _Le Songe_ de Lucien qui, arrange en drame, fut représenté au collège de Francfort. Né en 1503, mort en 1558.' _Nouv. Biog. Gén._ xxxv. 922.

[1172] See _ante_, ii. 324, note I, and iii. 138.

[1173] Mr. Gilpin was an undergraduate at Oxford. DUPPA.

[1174] John Parker, of Brownsholme, in Lancashire [Browsholme, in Yorkshire], Esq. DUPPA.

[1175] Mrs. Piozzi 'rather thought' that this was _Capability Brown_ [_ante_, iii. 400]. CROKER.

[1176] Mr. Gell, of Hopton Hall, father of Sir William Gell, well known for his topography of Troy. DUPPA.

[1177] See _ante_, iii. 160, for a visit paid by Johnson and Boswell to Kedleston in 1777.

[1178] See _ante_, iii. 164.

[1179] The parish of Prestbury. DUPPA.

[1180] At this time the seat of Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton [Mrs. Thrale's relation], now, of Lord Combermere, his grandson, from which place he takes his title. DUPPA.

[1181] Shavington Hall, in Shropshire. DUPPA.

[1182] 'To guard. To adorn with lists, laces or ornamental borders. Obsolete.' Johnson's _Dictionary._

[1183] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Nov. 13, 1783:--'You seem to mention Lord Kilmurrey _(sic)_ as a stranger. We were at his house in Cheshire [Shropshire].... Do not you remember how he rejoiced in having _no_ park? He could not disoblige his neighbours by sending them _no_ venison.' _Piozzi Letters,_ ii. 326.

[1184] This remark has reference to family conversation. Robert was the eldest son of Sir L.S. Cotton, and lived at Lleweney. DUPPA.

[1185] _Paradise Lost,_ book xi. v. 642. DUPPA.

[1186] See Mrs. Piozzi's _Synonymy_, i. 323, for an anecdote of this walk.

[1187] Lleweney Hall was the residence of Robert Cotton, Esq., Mrs. Thrale's cousin german. Here Mr. and Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson staid three weeks. DUPPA. Mrs. Piozzi wrote in 1817:--'Poor old Lleweney Hall! pulled down after standing 1000 years in possession of the Salusburys.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 206.

[1188] Johnson's name for Mrs. Thrale. _Ante,_ i. 494.

[1189] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 13, 1777:--'Boswell wants to see Wales; but except the woods of Bachycraigh, what is there in Wales? What that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity?' _Piozzi Letters,_ i. 367. _Ante,_ iii. 134, note 1.

[1190] Pennant gives a description of this house, in a tour he made into North Wales in 1780:--'Not far from Dymerchion, lies half buried in woods the singular house of Bâch y Graig. It consists of a mansion of three sides, enclosing a square court. The first consists of a vast hall and parlour: the rest of it rises into six wonderful stories, including the cupola; and forms from the second floor the figure of a pyramid: the rooms are small and inconvenient. The bricks are admirable, and appear to have been made in Holland; and the model of the house was probably brought from Flanders, where this kind of building is not unfrequent. It was built by Sir Richard Clough, an eminent merchant, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The initials of his name are in iron on the front, with the date 1567, and on the gateway 1569.' DUPPA.

[1191] Bishop Shipley, whom Johnson described as _'knowing and convertible' Ante,_ iv. 246. Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, says that _'conversable_ is sometimes written _conversible_, but improperly.'

[1192] William Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph and afterwards of Worcester. He was one of the seven Bishops who were sent to the Tower in 1688. His character is drawn by Burnet, _History of His Own Time_, ed. 1818, i. 210. It was he of whom Bishop Wilkins said that 'Lloyd had the most learning in ready cash of any he ever knew.' _Ante_, ii. 256, note 3.

[1193] A curious account of Dodwell and 'the paradoxes after which he seemed to hunt' is given in Burnet, iv. 303. He was Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford. 'It was about him that William III uttered those memorable words: "He has set his heart on being a martyr; and I have set mine on disappointing him."' Macaulay's _England_, ed. 1874, iv. 226. See Hearne in Leland's _Itin._, 3rd ed. v. 136.

[1194] By Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1579. DUPPA.

[1195] See _ante_, iii. 357, and v. 42.

[1196] Perhaps Johnson wrote _mere_.

[1197] Humphry Llwyd was a native of Denbigh, and practised there as a physician, and also represented the town in Parliament. He died 1568, aged 41. DUPPA.

[1198] Mrs. Thrale's father. DUPPA.

[1199] Cowper wrote a few years later in the first book of _The Task_, in his description of the grounds at Weston Underwood:--

'Not distant far a length of colonnade Invites us. Monument of ancient taste, Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate. Our fathers knew the value of a screen From sultry suns, and in their shaded walks And long-protracted bowers enjoyed at noon The gloom and coolness of declining day. We bear our shades about us: self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree. Thanks to Benevolus [A]--he spares me yet These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines, And though himself so polished still reprieves The obsolete prolixity of shade.'

[1200] Such a passage as this shews that Johnson was not so insensible to nature as is often asserted. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 99) says:--'Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion: "Never heed such nonsense," would he reply; "a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if we _do_ talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of enquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind."' She adds (p. 265):-- 'Walking in a wood when it rained was, I think, the only rural image he pleased his fancy with; "for," says he, "after one has gathered the apples in an orchard, one wishes them well baked, and removed to a London eating-house for enjoyment."' See _ante_, pp. 132, note 1, 141, note 2, 333, note i, and 346, note i, for Johnson's descriptions of scenery. Passages in his letters shew that he had some enjoyment of country life. Thus he writes:--'I hope to see standing corn in some part of the earth this summer, but I shall hardly smell hay or suck clover flowers.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 140. 'What I shall do next I know not; all my schemes of rural pleasure have been some way or other disappointed.' _Ib._ p. 372. 'I hope Mrs. ------ when she came to her favourite place found her house dry, and her woods growing, and the breeze whistling, and the birds singing, and her own heart dancing.' _Ib._ p. 401. In this very trip to Wales, after describing the high bank of a river 'shaded by gradual rows of trees,' he writes:--'The gloom, the stream, and the silence generate thoughtfulness.' _Post,_ p. 454.

[A] Mr. Throckmorton the owner.

[1201] In the MS. in Dr. Johnson's handwriting, he has first entered in his diary, 'The old Clerk had great appearance of joy at seeing his Mistress, and foolishly said that he was now willing to die:' he afterwards wrote in a separate column, on the same leaf, under the head of _notes and omissions,_ 'He had a crown;' and then he appears to have read over his diary at a future time, and interlined the paragraph with the words 'only'--'given him by my Mistress,' which is written in ink of a different colour. DUPPA. 'If Mr. Duppa,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, 'does not send me a copy of Johnson's _Diary,_ he is as shabby as it seems our Doctor thought me, when I gave but a crown to the old clerk. The poor clerk had probably never seen a crown in his possession before. Things were very distant A.D. 1774 from what they are 1816.' Hayward's _Piozzi,_ ii. 178. Mrs. Piozzi writes as if Johnson's censure had been passed in 1816 and not in 1774.

[1202] Mrs. Piozzi has the following MS. note on this:--'He said I flattered the people to whose houses we went. I was saucy, and said I was obliged to be civil for two, meaning himself and me. He replied nobody would thank me for compliments they did not understand. At Gwaynynog _he_ was flattered, and was happy of course.' Hayward's _Piozzi,_ i. 75. Sept. 21, 1778. _Mrs. Thrale._ 'I remember, Sir, when we were travelling in Wales, how you called me to account for my civility to the people. "Madam," you said, "let me have no more of this idle commendation of nothing. Why is it that whatever you see, and whoever you see, you are to be so indiscriminately lavish of praise?" "Why I'll tell you, Sir," said I, "when I am with you, and Mr. Thrale, and Queeny [Miss Thrale], I am obliged to be civil for four."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i. 132. On June 11, 1775, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield:--'Everybody remembers you all: you left a good impression behind you. I hope you will do the same at------. Do not make them speeches. Unusual compliments, to which there is no stated and prescriptive answer, embarrass the feeble, who know not what to say, and disgust the wise, who knowing them to be false suspect them to be hypocritical.' _Piozzi Letters,_ i. 232. She records that he once said to her:--'You think I love flattery, and so I do, but a little too much always disgusts me. That fellow Richardson [the novelist] on the contrary could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.' Piozzi's _Anec._ p. 184. See _ante_, iii. 293, for Johnson's rebuke of Hannah More's flattery.

[1203] Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines _calamine_ or _lapis calaminaris_ as _a kind of fossile bituminous earth, which being mixed with copper changes it into brass._ It is native siliceous oxide of zinc. _The Imperial Dictionary._

[1204] See _ante,_ iii. 164.

[1205] 'No' or 'little' is here probably omitted. CROKER.

[1206] The name of this house is Bodryddan; formerly the residence of the Stapyltons, the parents of five co-heiresses, of whom Mrs. Cotton, afterwards Lady Salusbury Cotton, was one. DUPPA.

[1207] 'Dr. Johnson, whose ideas of anything not positively large were ever mingled with contempt, asked of one of our sharp currents in North Wales, "Has this _brook_ e'er a name?" and received for answer, "Why, dear Sir, this is the _River_ Ustrad." "Let us," said he, turning to his friend, "jump over it directly, and shew them how an Englishman should treat a Welsh river."' Piozzi's _Synonymy,_ i. 82.

[1208] See _ante_, i. 313, note 4.

[1209] On Aug. 16 he wrote to Mr. Levett:--'I have made nothing of the Ipecacuanha.' _Ante_, ii. 282. Mr. Croker suggests that _up_ is omitted after 'I gave.'

[1210] See _post_, p. 453.

[1211] F.G. are the printer's signatures, by which it appears that at this time four sheets (B, C, D, E), or 64 pages had already been printed. The MS. was 'put to the press' on June 20. _Ante_, ii. 278.

[1212] The English version Psalm 36 begins,--'My heart sheweth me the wickedness of the ungodly,' which has no relation to 'Dixit injustus.'

[1213] This alludes to 'A prayer by R.W., (evidently Robert Wisedom) which Sir Henry Ellis, of the British Museum, has found among the Hymns which follow the old version of the singing Psalms, at the end of Barker's _Bible_ of 1639. It begins,

'Preserve us, Lord, by thy deare word, From Turk and Pope, defend us Lord, Which both would thrust out of his throne Our Lord Jesus Christ, thy deare son.'

CROKER.

[1214] 'Proinde quum dominus Matth. 6 docet discipulos suos ne in orando multiloqui sint, nihil aliud docet quam ne credant deum inani verborum strepitu flecti rem eandem subinde flagitantium. Nam Graecis est [Greek: battologaesate]. [Greek: Battologein] autem illis dicitur qui voces easdem frequenter iterant sine causa, vel loquacitatis, vel naturae, vel consuetudinis vitio. Alioqui juxta precepta rhetorum nonnunquam laudis est iterare verba, quemadmodum et Christus in cruce clamitat. Deus meus, deus meus: non erat illa [Greek: battologia], sed ardens ac vehemens affectus orantis.' Erasmus's _Works_, ed. 1540, v. 927.

[1215] This alludes to Southwell's stanzas 'Upon the Image of Death,' in his _Maeonia_, [Maeoniae] a collection of spiritual poems:--

'Before my face the picture hangs, That daily should put me in mind Of those cold names and bitter pangs That shortly I am like to find: But, yet, alas! full little I Do thinke hereon that I must die.' &c.

Robert Southwell was an English Jesuit, who was imprisoned, tortured, and finally, in Feb. 1598 [1595] executed for teaching the Roman Catholic tenets in England. CROKER.

[1216] This work, which Johnson was now reading, was, most probably, a little book, entitled _Baudi Epistolae_. In his _Life of Milton_ [_Works_, vii. 115], he has made a quotation from it. DUPPA.

[1217] Bishop Shipley had been an Army Chaplain. _Ante_, iii. 251.

[1218] The title of the poem is [Greek: Poiaema nouthetikon]. DUPPA.

[1219] This entry refers to the following passage in Leland's _Itinerary_, published by Thomas Hearne, ed. 1744, iv. 112. 'B. _Smith_ in K.H.7. dayes, and last Bishop of _Lincolne_, beganne a new Foundation at this place settinge up a Mr. there with 2. Preistes, and 10. poore Men in an Hospitall. He sett there alsoe a Schoole-Mr. to teach Grammer that hath 10._l_. by the yeare, and an Under-Schoole-Mr. that hath 5._l_. by the yeare. King H.7. was a great Benefactour to this new Foundation, and gave to it an ould Hospitall called Denhall in Wirhall in Cheshire.'

[1220] _A Journey to Meqwinez, the Residence of the present Emperor of Fez and Morocco, on the Occasion of Commodore Stewart's Embassy thither, for the Redemption of the British captives, in the Year 1721_. DUPPA.

[1221] The _Bibliotheca Literaria_ was published in London, 1722-4, in 4to numbers, but only extended to ten numbers. DUPPA.

[1222] By this expression it would seem, that on this day Johnson ate sparingly. DUPPA.

[1223] 'A weakness of the knees, not without some pain in walking, which I feel increased after I have dined.' DUPPA.

[1224] Penmaen Mawr is a huge rock, rising nearly 1550 feet perpendicular above the sea. Along a shelf of this precipice, is formed an excellent road, well guarded, toward the sea, by a strong wall, supported in many parts by arches turned underneath it. Before this wall was built, travellers sometimes fell down the precipices. DUPPA.

[1225] See _post_, p. 453.

[1226] 'Johnson said that one of the castles in Wales would contain all the castles that he had seen in Scotland.' _Ante_, ii. 285.

[1227] This gentleman was a lieutenant in the Navy. DUPPA.

[1228] Lady Catharine Percival, daughter of the second Earl of Egmont: this was, it appears, the lady of whom Mrs. Piozzi relates, that 'For a lady of quality, since dead, who received us at her husband's seat in Wales with less attention than he had long been accustomed to, he had a rougher denunciation:--"That woman," cried Johnson, "is like sour small beer, the beverage of her table, and produce of the wretched country she lives in: like that, she could never have been a good thing, and even that bad thing is spoiled."' [_Anec_. p. 171.] And it is probably of her, too, that another anecdote is told:--'We had been visiting at a lady's house, whom, as we returned, some of the company ridiculed for her ignorance:--"She is not ignorant," said he, "I believe, of any thing she has been taught, or of any thing she is desirous to know; and I suppose if one wanted a little _run tea_, she might be a proper person enough to apply to.'" [_Ib_. p. 219.] Mrs. Piozzi says, in her MS. letters, 'that Lady Catharine comes off well in the _diary_. He _said_ many severe things of her, which he did not commit to paper.' She died in 1782. CROKER.

[1229] Johnson described in 1762 his disappointment on his return to Lichfield. _Ante_, i. 370.

[1230] 'It was impossible not to laugh at the patience Doctor Johnson shewed, when a Welsh parson of mean abilities, though a good heart, struck with reverence at the sight of Dr. Johnson, whom he had heard of as the greatest man living, could not find any words to answer his inquiries concerning a motto round somebody's arms which adorned a tomb-stone in Ruabon church-yard. If I remember right, the words were,

Heb Dw, Heb Dym, Dw o' diggon.

And though of no very difficult construction, the gentleman seemed wholly confounded, and unable to explain them; till Mr. Johnson, having picked out the meaning by little and little, said to the man, "_Heb_ is a preposition, I believe, Sir, is it not?" My countryman recovering some spirits upon the sudden question, cried out, "So I humbly presume, Sir," very comically.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 238. The Welsh words, which are the Myddelton motto, mean, 'Without God, without all. God is all-sufficient.' _Piozzi MS_. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 423.

[1231] In 1809 the whole income for Llangwinodyl, including surplice fees, amounted to forty-six pounds two shillings and twopence, and for Tydweilliog, forty-three pounds nineteen shillings and tenpence; so that it does not appear that Mr. Thrale carried into effect his good intention. DUPPA.

[1232] Mr. Thrale was near-sighted, and could not see the goats browsing on Snowdon, and he promised his daughter, who was a child of ten years old, a penny for every goat she would shew him, and Dr. Johnson kept the account; so that it appears her father was in debt to her one hundred and forty-nine pence. Queeny was the epithet, which had its origin in the nursery, by which Miss Thrale was always distinguished by Johnson. DUPPA. Her name was Esther. The allusion was to Queen Esther. Johnson often pleasantly mentions her in his letters to her mother. Thus on July 27, 1780, he writes:--'As if I might not correspond with my Queeney, and we might not tell one another our minds about politicks or morals, or anything else. Queeney and I are both steady and may be trusted; we are none of the giddy gabblers, we think before we speak.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 169. Four days later he wrote:--'Tell my pretty dear Queeney, that when we meet again, we will have, at least for some time, two lessons in a day. I love her and think on her when I am alone; hope we shall be very happy together and mind our books.' _Ib_. p. 173.

[1233] See _ante_, iv. 421, for the inscription on an urn erected by Mr. Myddelton 'on the banks of a rivulet where Johnson delighted to stand and repeat verses.' On Sept. 18, 1777, Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale: --'Mr. ----'s erection of an urn looks like an intention to bury me alive; I would as willingly see my friend, however benevolent and hospitable, quietly inurned. Let him think for the present of some more acceptable memorial.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 371.

[1234] Johnson wrote on Oct. 24, 1778:--'My two clerical friends Darby and Worthington have both died this month. I have known Worthington long, and to die is dreadful. I believe he was a very good man.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 26.

[1235] Thomas, the second Lord Lyttelton. DUPPA.

[1236] Mr. Gwynn the architect was a native of Shrewsbury, and was at this time completing a bridge across the Severn, called the English Bridge: besides this bridge, he built one at Acham, over the Severn, near to Shrewsbury; and the bridges at Worcester, Oxford [Magdalen Bridge], and Henley. DUPPA. He was also the architect of the Oxford Market, which was opened in 1774. _Oxford during the Last Century_, ed. 1859, p. 45. Johnson and Boswell travelled to Oxford with him in March, 1776. _Ante_, ii. 438. In 1778 he got into some difficulties, in which Johnson tried to help him, as is shewn by the following autograph letter in the possession of my friend Mr. M. M. Holloway:--

'SIR,

'Poor Mr. Gwyn is in great distress under the weight of the late determination against him, and has still hopes that some mitigation may be obtained. If it be true that whatever has by his negligence been amiss, may be redressed for a sum much less than has been awarded, the remaining part ought in equity to be returned, or, what is more desirable, abated. When the money is once paid, there is little hope of getting it again.

'The load is, I believe, very hard upon him; he indulges some flattering opinions that by the influence of his academical friends it may be lightened, and will not be persuaded but that some testimony of my kindness may be beneficial. I hope he has been guilty of nothing worse than credulity, and he then certainly deserves commiseration. I never heard otherwise than that he was an honest man, and I hope that by your countenance and that of other gentlemen who favour or pity him some relief may be obtained.

'I am, Sir, 'Your most humble servant, 'SAM. JOHNSON.' 'Bolt Court, Fleet-street, 'Jan. 30, 1778.'

[1237] An ancestor of mine, a nursery-gardener, Thomas Wright by name, after whom my grandfather, Thomas Wright Hill, was called, planted this walk. The tradition preserved in my family is that on his wedding-day he took six men with him and planted these trees. When blamed for keeping the wedding-dinner waiting, he answered, that if what he had been doing turned out well, it would be of far more value than a wedding-dinner.

[1238] The Rector of St. Chad's, in Shrewsbury. He was appointed Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, in the following year. See _ante_, ii. 441.

[1239] 'I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit except once in his life, and that was when we were all together at Ombersley.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 103. Mrs. Thrale wrote to him in 1778:--'Mr. Scrase gives us fine fruit; I wished you my pear yesterday; but then what would one pear have done for you?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 36. It seems unlikely that Johnson should not at Streatham have had all the wall-fruit that he wished.

[1240] This visit was not to Lord Lyttelton, but to his uncle [afterwards by successive creations, Lord Westcote, and Lord Lyttelton], the father of the present Lord Lyttelton, who lived at a house called Little Hagley. DUPPA. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1771:--'I would have been glad to go to Hagley in compliance with Mr. Lyttelton's kind invitation, for beside the pleasure of his conversation I should have had the opportunity of recollecting past times, and wandering _per montes notos et flumina nota_, of recalling the images of sixteen, and reviewing my conversations with poor Ford.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 42. He had been at school at Stourbridge, close by Hagley. _Ante_, i. 49. See Walpole's _Letters_, ix. 123, for an anecdote of Lord Westcote.

[1241] Horace Walpole, writing of Hagley in Sept. 1753 (_Letters_, ii. 352), says:--'There is extreme taste in the park: the seats are not the best, but there is not one absurdity. There is a ruined castle, built by Miller, that would get him his freedom even of Strawberry [Walpole's own house at Twickenham]: it has the true rust of the Barons' Wars.'

[1242] 'Mrs. Lyttelton forced me to play at whist against my liking, and her husband took away Johnson's candle that he wanted to read by at the other end of the room. Those, I trust, were the offences.' _Piozzi MS._ CROKER.

[1243] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 409) thus writes of Shenstone and the Leasowes:--'He began to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers and copied by designers. .... For awhile the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which they could not suppress by conducting their visitants perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily complain. Where there is emulation there will be vanity; and where there is vanity there will be folly. The pleasure of Shenstone was all in his eye: he valued what he valued merely for its looks; nothing raised his indignation more than to ask if there were any fishes in his water.' See _ante_, p. 345.

[1244] See _ante_, iii. 187, and v. 429.

[1245] 'He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. It is said that if he had lived a little longer he would have been assisted by a pension: such bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 410. His friend, Mr. Graves, the author of _The Spiritual Quixote_, in a note on this passage says that, if he was sometimes distressed for money, yet he was able to leave legacies and two small annuities.

[1246] Mr. Duppa--without however giving his authority--says that this was Dr. Wheeler, mentioned _ante_, iii. 366. The _Birmingham Directory_ for the year 1770 shews that there were two tradesmen in the town of that name, one having the same Christian name, Benjamin, as Dr. Wheeler.

[1247] Boswell visited these works in 1776. _Ante_, ii. 459.

[1248] Burke in the House of Commons on Jan. 25, 1771, in a debate on Falkland's Island, said of the Spanish Declaration:--'It was made, I admit, on the true principles of trade and manufacture. It puts me in mind of a Birmingham button which has passed through an hundred hands, and after all is not worth three-halfpence a dozen.' _Parl. Hist._ xvi. 1345.

[1249] Johnson and Boswell drove through the Park in 1776. _Ante_, ii. 451.

[1250] 'My friend the late Lord Grosvenor had a house at Salt Hill, where I usually spent a part of the summer, and thus became acquainted with that great and good man, Jacob Bryant. Here the conversation turned one morning on a Greek criticism by Dr. Johnson in some volume lying on the table, which I ventured (_for I was then young_) to deem incorrect, and pointed it out to him. I could not help thinking that he was somewhat of my opinion, but he was cautious and reserved. "But, Sir," said I, willing to overcome his scruples, "Dr. Johnson himself admitted that he was not a good Greek scholar." "Sir," he replied, with a serious and impressive air, "it is not easy for us to say what such a man as Johnson would call a good Greek scholar." I hope that I profited by that lesson--certainly I never forgot it.' Gifford's _Works of Ford_, vol. i. p. lxii. Croker's _Boswell_, p. 794. 'So notorious is Mr. Bryant's great fondness for studying and proving the truths of the creation according to Moses, that he told me himself, and with much quaint humour, a pleasantry of one of his friends in giving a character of him:--"Bryant," said he, "is a very good scholar, and knows all things whatever up to Noah, but not a single thing in the world beyond the Deluge."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, iii. 229.

[1251] This is a work written by William Durand, Bishop of Mende, and printed on vellum, in folio, by Fust and Schoeffer, in Mentz, 1459. It is the third book that is known to be printed with a date. DUPPA. It is perhaps the first book with a date printed in movable metal type. _Brunei_, ed. 1861, ii. 904. See _ante_, ii. 397.

[1252] Dr. Johnson, in another column of his _Diary_, has put down, in a note, 'First printed book in Greek, Lascaris's _Grammar_, 4to, Mediolani, 1476.' The imprint of this book is, _Mediolani Impressum per Magistrum Dionysium Paravisinum_. M.CCCC.LXXVI. Die xxx Januarii. The first book printed in the English language was the _Historyes of Troye_, printed in 1471. DUPPA. A copy of the _Historyes of Troy_ is exhibited in the Bodleian Library with the following superscription:--'Lefevre's _Recuyell of the historyes of Troye_. The first book printed in the English language. Issued by Caxton at Bruges about 1474.'

[1253] _The Battle of the Frogs and Mice_. The first edition was printed by Laonicus Cretensis, 1486. DUPPA.

[1254] Mr. Coulson was a Senior Fellow of University College. Lord Stowell informed me that he was very eccentric. He would on a fine day hang out of the college windows his various pieces of apparel to air, which used to be universally answered by the young men hanging out from all the other windows, quilts, carpets, rags, and every kind of trash, and this was called an _illumination_. His notions of the eminence and importance of his academic situation were so peculiar, that, when he afterwards accepted a college living, he expressed to Lord Stowell his doubts whether, after living so long in the _great world_, he might not grow weary of the comparative retirement of a country parish. CROKER. See _ante_, ii. 382, note.

[1255] Dr. Robert Vansittart, Fellow of All Souls, and Regius Professor of Law. DUPPA. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Nov. 3, 1773:--'Poor V------! There are not so many reasons as he thinks why he should envy me, but there are some; he wants what I have, a kind and careful mistress; and wants likewise what I shall want at my return. He is a good man, and when his mind is composed a man of parts.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 197. See _ante_, i. 348.

[1256] See _ante_, ii. 285, note 3.

THE END OF THE FIFTH VOLUME.