[527] I have, in my _Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides_ [p. 200, Sept.
13], fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject. The Revolution was
_necessary_, but not a subject for _glory_; because it for a long time
blasted the generous feelings of _Loyalty_. And now, when by the
benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our
_affections_, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a
shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had
not required. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 3, and iv. 40, note 4.
[528] Johnson reviewed this book in 1756. _Ante_, i. 309.
[529] Johnson, four months later, wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's
daughters:--'Never think, my sweet, that you have arithmetick enough;
when you have exhausted your master, buy books. ... A thousand stories
which the ignorant tell and believe die away at once when the computist
takes them in his gripe.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 296. See _post_,
April 18, 1783.
[530] See _ante_, p. 116; also iii. 310, where he bore the same topic
impatiently when with Dr. Scott.
[531] See _ante_, ii. 357.
[532]
'See nations, slowly wise and meanly just,
To buried merit raise the tardy bust.'
Johnson's _Vanity of Human Wishes_.
[533] He was perhaps, thinking of Markland. _Ante_, p. 161, note 3.
[534] 'Dr. Johnson,' writes Mrs. Piozzi, 'was no complainer of
ill-usage. I never heard him even lament the disregard shown to
_Irene_.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 386. See _ante_, i. 200.
[535] Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish
the number of the Lords of Session, 1785. BOSWELL. 'By Mr. Burke's
removal from office the King's administration was deprived of the
assistance of that affluent mind, which is so universally rich that, as
long as British literature and British politicks shall endure, it will
be said of Edmund Burke, _Regum equabat [sic] opes animis.'_ p.71.
[536] _Georgics_, iv. 132.
[537] See _ante_, iii. 56, note 2.
[538] Very likely Boswell.
[539] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 22.
[540] Johnson had said:--'Lord Chesterfield is the proudest man this day
existing.' _Ante_, i. 265.
[541] Lord Shelburne. At this time he was merely holding office till a
new Ministry was formed. On April 5 he was succeeded by the Duke of
Portland. His 'coarse manners' were due to a neglected childhood. In the
fragment of his _Autobiography_ he describes 'the domestic brutality and
ill-usage he experienced at home,' in the South of Ireland. 'It cost
me,' he continues, 'more to unlearn the habits, manners, and principles
which I then imbibed, than would have served to qualify me for any
_role_ whatever through life.' Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, i. 12, 16.
[542] Bentham, it is reported, said of of him that 'alone of his own
time, he was a "Minister who did not fear the people."' _Ib._ iii. 572.
[543] Malagrida, a Jesuit, was put to death at Lisbon in 1761, nominally
on a charge of heresy, but in reality on a suspicion of his having
sanctioned, as confessor to one of the conspirators, an attempt to
assassinate King Joseph of Portugal. Voltaire, _Siecle de Louis XV_, ch.
xxxviii. 'His name,' writes Wraxall (_Memoirs_, ed. 1815, i. 67), 'is
become proverbial among us to express duplicity.' It was first applied
to Lord Shelburne in a squib attributed to Wilkes, which contained a
vision of a masquerade. The writer, after describing him as masquerading
as 'the heir apparent of Loyola and all the College,' continues:--'A
little more of the devil, my Lord, if you please, about the eyebrows;
that's enough, a perfect Malagrida, I protest.' Fitzmaurice's
_Shelburne_, ii. 164. 'George III. habitually spoke of Shelburne as
"Malagrida," and the "Jesuit of Berkeley Square."' _Ib._ iii. 8. The
charge of duplicity was first made against Shelburne on the retirement
of Fox (the first Lord Holland) in 1763. 'It was the tradition of
Holland House that Bute justified the conduct of Shelburne, by telling
Fox that it was "a pious fraud." "I can see the fraud plainly enough,"
is said to have been Fox's retort, "but where is the piety?"' _Ib_. i.
226. Any one who has examined Reynolds's picture of Shelburne,
especially 'about the eyebrows,' at once sees how the name of Jesuit
was given.
[544] Beauclerk wrote to Lord Charlemont on Nov. 20, 1773:-'Goldsmith
the other day put a paragraph into the newspapers in praise of Lord
Mayor Townshend. [Shelburne supported Townshend in opposition to Wilkes
in the election of the Lord Mayor. Fitzmaurice's _Shelburne_, ii. 287.]
The same night we happened to sit next to Lord Shelburne at Drury Lane.
I mentioned the circumstance of the paragraph to him; he said to
Goldsmith that he hoped that he had mentioned nothing about Malagrida in
it. "Do you know," answered Goldsmith, "that I never could conceive the
reason why they call you Malagrida, _for_ Malagrida was a very good sort
of man." You see plainly what he meant to say, but that happy turn of
expression is peculiar to himself. Mr. Walpole says that this story is a
picture of Goldsmith's whole life.' _Life of Charlemont_, i. 344.
[545] Most likely Reynolds, who introduced Crabbe to Johnson. Crabbe's
_Works_, ed. 1834, ii. 11.
[546]
'I paint the cot,
As truth will paint it, and as Bards will not.
Nor you, ye Poor, of lettered scorn complain,
To you the smoothest song is smooth in vain;
O'ercome by labour, and bowed down by time,
Feel you the barren flattery of a rhyme?
Can poets soothe you, when you pine for bread,
By winding myrtles round your ruined shed?
Can their light tales your weighty griefs o'erpower,
Or glad with airy mirth the toilsome hour?'
_The Village_, book i.
See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 6.
[547] I shall give an instance, marking the original by Roman, and
Johnson's substitution in Italick characters:--
'In fairer scenes, where peaceful pleasures spring,
Tityrus, the pride of Mantuan swains, might sing:
But charmed by him, or smitten with his views,
Shall modern poets court the Mantuan muse?
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,
Where Fancy leads, or Virgil led the way?'
'_On Mincio's banks, in Caesar's bounteous reign,
If Tityrus found the golden age again,
Must sleepy bards the flattering dream prolong,
Mechanick echoes of the Mantuan song?_
From Truth and Nature shall we widely stray,
_Where Virgil, not where Fancy, leads the way?._
Here we find Johnson's poetical and critical powers undiminished. I
must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to _The
Traveller_ and _Deserted Village_ of Goldsmith, were so small as by no
means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour. BOSWELL.
[548] In the _Gent. Mag._ 1763, pp. 602, 633, is a review of his
_Observations on Diseases of the Army_. He says that the register of
deaths of military men proves that more than eight times as many men
fall by what was called the gaol fever as by battle. His suggestions are
eminently wise. Lord Seaford, in 1835, told Leslie 'that he remembered
dining in company with Dr. Johnson at Dr. Brocklesby's, when he was a
boy of twelve or thirteen. He was impressed with the superiority of
Johnson, and his knocking everybody down in argument.' C.R. Leslie's
_Recollections_, i. 146.
[549] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 28.
[550] See _ante_, i. 433, and ii. 217, 358.
[551] "In his _Life of Swift_ (_Works_, viii. 205) he thus speaks of
this _Journal_:-'In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a
journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and
quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs.
Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and
no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were
properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the
presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however,
some odd attraction: the reader, finding frequent mention of names which
he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of
information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is
disappointed, he can hardly complain.'"
[552] On his fifty-fifth birthday he recorded:--'I resolve to keep a
journal both of employment and of expenses. To keep accounts.' _Pr. and
Med_. 59. See _post_, Aug. 25, 1784, where he writes to Langton:--'I am
a little angry at you for not keeping minutes of your own _acceptum et
expensum_, and think a little time might be spared from Aristophanes for
the _res familiares_.'
[553] This Mr. Chalmers thought was George Steevens. CROKER. D'Israeli
(_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, vi. 76) describes Steevens as
guilty of 'an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious
ingenuity.' He gives curious instances of his literary impostures. See
_ante_, iii. 281, and _post_, May 15, 1784.
[554] If this be Lord Mansfield, Boswell must use _late_ in the sense of
_in retirement_; for Mansfield was living when the _Life of Johnson_ was
published. He retired in 1788. Johnson in 1772, said that he had never
been in his company (_ante_, ii. 158). The fact that Mansfield is
mentioned in the previous paragraph adds to the probability that he
is meant.
[555] See _ante_, ii. 318.
[556] In Scotland, Johnson spoke of Mansfield's 'splendid talents.'
Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11.
[557] 'I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other
men.' 2 _ Henry IV_, act i. sc. 2.
[558] Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his
Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable
appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him,
must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved
and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we
cannot be sorry that he misses his aim. BOSWELL. Wedderburne, afterwards
Lord Loughborough, is mentioned (_ante_, ii. 374), and again in Murphy's
_Life of Johnson_, p. 43, as being in company with Johnson and Foote.
Boswell also has before (_ante_, i. 387) praised the elegance of his
oratory. Henry Mackenzie (_Life of John Home_, i. 56) says that
Wedderburne belonged to a club at the British Coffee-house, of which
Garrick, Smollett, and Dr. Douglas were members.
[559] Boswell informed the people of Scotland in the Letter that he
addressed to them in 1785 (p. 29), that 'now that Dr. Johnson is gone to
a better world, he (Boswell) bowed the intellectual knee to _Lord
Thurlow_.' See _post_, June 22, 1784.
[560] Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 27.
[561]
'Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat,
Unable to support a gem of weight.'
DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, i. 29.
[562] He had published a series of seventy _Essays_ under the title of
_The Hypochondriack_ in the _London Magazine_ from 1777 to 1783.
[563] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 365. The common reading, however, is
'Nullum numen _habes_,' &c. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 218) records this
saying, but with a variation. '"For," says Mr. Johnson, "though I do not
quite agree with the proverb, that _Nullum numen adest si sit
prudentia_, yet we may very well say, that _Nullum numen adest, ni sit
prudentia."'
[564] It has since appeared. BOSWELL.
[565] Miss Burney mentions meeting Dr. Harington at Bath in 1780. 'It is
his son,' she writes, 'who published those very curious remains of his
ancestor [Sir John Harington] under the title _Nugae Antiquae_ which my
father and all of us were formerly so fond of.' Mme. D'Arblay's
_Diary_, i. 341.
[566]
'For though they are but trifles, thou
Some value didst to them allow.'
Martin's _Catullus_, p. 1.
[567]
--Underneath this rude, uncouth disguise,
A genius of extensive knowledge lies.'
FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, i. 3. 33.
[568] He would not have been a troublesome patient anywhere, for,
according to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 275),'he required less attendance,
sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.'
[569] 'That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow
much excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe
that the mind grows old with the body; and that he whom we are now
forced to confess superiour is hastening daily to a level with
ourselves.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 212.
[570] With the following elucidation of the saying-_Quos Deus_ (it
should rather be-_Quem Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat_-Mr.
Boswell was furnished by Mr. Pitts:--'Perhaps no scrap of Latin whatever
has been more quoted than this. It occasionally falls even from those
who are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not
admit a word into their compositions, which has not the sanction of the
first age. The word _demento_ is of no authority, either as a verb
active or neuter.--After a long search for the purpose of deciding a
bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments of
Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is given as a
translation of a Greek Iambick: [Greek: Ou Theos thelei apolesoi'
apophreuai.]
'The above scrap was found in the hand-writing of a suicide of fashion,
Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the room where he had
destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of classical acquirements: he
left no other paper behind him.'
Another of these proverbial sayings,
_Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim,_
I, in a note on a passage in _The Merchant of Venice_ [act iii. sc. 5],
traced to its source. It occurs (with a slight variation) in the
_Alexandreis_ of Philip Gualtier (a poet of the thirteenth century),
which was printed at Lyons in 1558. Darius is the person addressed:--
--Quo tendis inertem,
Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu! perdite, nescis
Quern fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem;
_Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim._
A line not less frequently quoted was suggested for enquiry in a note on
_The Rape of Lucrece:--
Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris--_:
But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered.
MALONE. The 'Greek lambick' in the above note is not Greek. To a learned
friend I owe the following note. 'The _Quem Jupiter vult perdere_, &c.,
is said to be a translation of a fragment of _Euripides_ by Joshua
Barnes. There is, I believe, no such fragment at all. In Barnes's
_Euripides_, Cantab. 1694, fol. p. 515, is a fragment of Euripides with
a note which may explain the muddle of Boswell's correspondent:--
"[Greek: otau de daimonn handri porsunae kaka ton noun heblapse proton,]"
on which Barnes writes:--"Tale quid in Franciados nostrae [probably his
uncompleted poem on Edward III.] l. 3. _Certe ille deorum Arbiter
ultricem cum vult extendere dextram Dementat prius._"' See _ante_, ii.
445, note 1. Sir D. O. is, perhaps, Sir D'Anvers Osborne, whose death is
recorded in the _Gent. Mag._ 1753, p. 591. 'Sir D'Anvers Osborne, Bart.,
Governor of New York, soon after his arrival there; _in his garden.'
Solamen miseris, &c._, is imitated by Swift in his _Verses on Stella's
Birthday_, 1726-7:--
'The only comfort they propose,
To have companions in their woes.'
Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 22. The note on _Lucrece_ was, I
conjecture, on line 1111:--
'Grief best is pleased with grief's society.'
[571]
'FAUSTUS--
"Tu quoque, ut hic video, non es ignarus amorum."
'FORTUNATUS--
"Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes."'
Baptistae Mantuani Carmelitae _Adolescentia, seu Bucolica_. Ecloga I,
published in 1498. 'Scaliger,' says Johnson (_Works_, viii. 391),
'complained that Mantuan's Bucolicks were received into schools, and
taught as classical. ... He was read, at least in some of the inferiour
schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the present
[eighteenth] century.'
[572] See _ante_, i. 368.
[573] See _ante_, i. 396.
[574] I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his
enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking
particularities pointed out:--Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend
Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary
motions, said to him, 'Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange
gestures?' 'From bad habit,' he replied. 'Do you, my dear, take care to
guard against bad habits.' This I was told by the young lady's brother
at Margate. BOSWELL. Boswell had himself told Johnson of some of them,
at least in writing. Johnson read in manuscript his _Journal of a Tour
to the Hebrides_. Boswell says in a note on Oct. 12:--'It is remarkable
that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own
peculiar habits, without saying anything on the subject, which I hoped
he would have done.'
[575] See _ante_, ii. 42, note 2, and iii. 324.
[576] Johnson, after stating that some of Milton's manuscripts prove
that 'in the early part of his life he wrote with much care,'
continues:--'Such reliques show how excellence is acquired; what we hope
ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.'
_Works_, vii. 119. Lord Chesterfield (_Letters_, iii. 146) had made the
same rule as Johnson:--'I was,' he writes, 'early convinced of the
importance and powers of eloquence; and from that moment I applied
myself to it. I resolved not to utter one word even in common
conversation that should not be the most expressive and the most elegant
that the language could supply me with for that purpose; by which means
I have acquired such a certain degree of habitual eloquence, that I must
now really take some pains if I would express myself very inelegantly.'
[577] 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Malone in 1783, 'is as correct and elegant in
his common conversation as in his writings. He never seems to study
either for thoughts or words. When first introduced I was very young;
yet he was as accurate in his conversation as if he had been talking to
the first scholar in England.' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92. See _post_,
under Aug. 29, 1783.
[578] See _ante_, iii. 216.
[579] See _ante_, ii. 323.
[580] The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story,
for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot:--A country parson, who was
remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one
of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor. 'He is a very
good preacher,' was his answer, 'but no _latiner_.' BOSWELL. For the
original of Lord Eliot's story see Twells's _Life of Dr. E. Pocock_, ed.
1816, p. 94. Reynolds said that 'Johnson always practised on every
occasion the rule of speaking his best, whether the person to whom he
addressed himself was or was not capable of comprehending him. "If,"
says he, "I am understood, my labour is not lost. If it is above their
comprehension, there is some gratification, though it is the admiration
of ignorance;" and he said those were the most sincere admirers; and
quoted Baxter, who made a rule never to preach a sermon without saying
