Chapter 22

Febriles aestus, victumque ardoribus orbemFlevit, non tantis par Medicina malis.Nam post mille artes, medicae tentamina curae,Ardet adhuc Febris; nec velit arte regi.Praeda sumus flammis; solum hoc speramus ab igne,Ut restet paucus, quem capit urna, cinis.Dum quaerit medicus febris caussamque, modumque,Flammarum & tenebras, & sine luce faces;Quas tractat patitur flammas, & febre calescens,Corruit ipse suis victima rapta focis.Qui tardos potuit morbos, artusque trementes,Sistere, febrili se videt igne rapi.Sic faber exesos fulsit tibicine muros;Dum trahit antiquas lenta ruina domos.Sed si flamma vorax miseras incenderit aedes,Unica flagrantes tunc sepelire salus.Fit fuga, tectonicas nemo tunc invocat artes;Cum perit artificis non minus usta domus.Se tandemSydenhamfebrisque Scholaeque furoriOpponens, morbi quaerit, & artis opem.Non temere incusat tectae putedinis [putredinis] ignes;Nec fictus, febres qui fovet, humor erit.Non bilem ille movet, nulla hic pituita; SalutisQuae spes, si fallax ardeat intus aqua?Nec doctas magno rixas ostentat hiatu,Quîs ipsis major febribus ardor inest.Innocuas placide corpus jubet urere flammas,Et justo rapidos temperat igne focos.Quid febrim exstinguat, varius quid postulet usus,Solari aegrotos, qua potes arte, docet,Hactenus ipsa suum timuit Natura calorem,Dum saepe incerto, quo calet, igne perit:Dum reparat tacitos male provida sanguinis ignes,Praslusit busto, fit calor iste rogus.Jam secura suas foveant praecordia flammas,Quem Natura negat, dat Medicina modum.Nec solum faciles compescit sanguinis aestus,Dum dubia est inter spemque metumque salus;Sed fatale malum domuit, quodque astra malignumCredimus, iratam vel genuisseStygem.ExtorsitLachesicultros, Pestique venenumAbstulit, & tantos non sinit esse metus.Quis tandem arte nova domitam mitescere PestemCredat, & antiquas ponere posse minas?Post tot mille neces, cumulataque funera busto,Victa jacet parvo vulnere dira Lues.Aetheriae quanquam spargunt contagia flammae,Quicquid inest istis ignibus, ignis erit.Delapsae coelo flammae licet acrius urantHas gelida exstingui non nisi morte putas?Tu meliora paras victrix Medicina; tuusque,Pestis quae superat cuncta, triumphus eris [erit].Vive liber, victis febrilibus ignibus; unusTe simul & mundum qui manet, ignis erit.

J. LOCK, A.M. Ex. Aede Christi, Oxon. BOSWELL.

[295]Seeante, ii. 126, 298.

[296]'One of its ornaments [i.e. of Marischal College] is the picture of Arthur Johnston, who was principal of the college, and who holds among the Latin Poets of Scotland the next place to the elegant Buchanan.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 12. Pope attacking Benson, who endeavoured to raise himself to fame by erecting monuments to Milton, and printing editions of Johnson's version of thePsalms, introduces the Scotch Poet in theDunciad:— On two unequal crutches propped he came, Milton's on this, on that one Johnston's name.'Dunciad, bk. iv. l. III. Johnson wrote to Boswell for a copy of Johnston'sPoems(ante, iii. 104) and for his likeness (ante, March 18, 1784).

[297]'Education is here of the same price as at St. Andrews, only the session is but from the 1st of November to the 1st of April' [five months, instead of seven].Piozzi Letters, i. 116. In hisWorks(ix. 14) Johnson by mistake gives eight months to the St. Andrews session. On p. 5 he gives it rightly as seven.

[298]Beattie, as an Aberdeen professor, was grieved at this saying when he read the book. 'Why is it recorded?' he asked. 'For no reason that I can imagine, unless it be in order to return evil for good.' Forbes'sBeattie, ed. 1824. p. 337.

[299]Seeante, ii. 336, and iii. 209.

[300]Seeante, iii. 65, andpost, Nov. 2.

[301]Seeante, i. 411. Johnson, no doubt, was reminded of this story by his desire to get this book. Later on (ante, iii. 104) he asked Boswell 'to be vigilant and get him Graham'sTelemachus.'

[302]I am sure I have related this story exactly as Dr. Johnson told it to me; but a friend who has often heard him tell it, informs me that he usually introduced a circumstance which ought not to be omitted. 'At last, Sir, Graham, having now got to about the pitch of looking at one man, and talking to another, saidDoctor, &c.' 'What effect (Dr. Johnson used to add) this had on Goldsmith, who was as irascible as a hornet, may be easily conceived.' BOSWELL.

[303]Graham was of Eton College.

[304]It was to Johnson that the invitation was due. 'What I was at the English Church at Aberdeen I happened to be espied by Lady Dr. Middleton, whom I had sometime seen in London; she told what she had seen to Mr. Boyd, Lord Errol's brother, who wrote us an invitation to Lord Errol's house.'Piozzi Letters, i. 118. Boswell, perhaps, was not unwilling that the reader should think that it was to him that the compliment was paid.

[305]'In 1745 my friend, Tom Cumming the Quaker, said he would not fight, but he would drive an ammunition cart.'Ante, April 28, 1783. Smollett (History of England, iv. 293) describes how, in 1758, the conquest of Senegal was due to this 'sensible Quaker,' 'this honest Quaker,' as he calls him, who not only conceived the project, but 'was concerned as a principal director and promoter of the expedition. If it was the first military scheme of any Quaker, let it be remembered it was also the first successful expedition of this war, and one of the first that ever was carried on according to the pacifick system of the Quakers, without the loss of a drop of blood on either side.' If there was no bloodshed, it was by good luck, for 'a regular engagement was warmly maintained on both sides.' It was a Quaker, then, who led the van in the long line of conquests which have made Chatham's name so famous. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 185) says:—'Dr. Johnson told me that Cummyns (sic) the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly, fell a sacrifice to the insults of the newspapers; having declared to him on his death-bed, that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of the common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into the slow fever of which he died.' Mr. Seward records (Anec. ii. 395):—'Mr. Cummins, the celebrated American Quaker, said of Mr. Pitt (Lord Chatham):—"The first time I come to Mr. Pitt upon any business I find him extremely ignorant; the second time I come to him, I find him completely informed upon it."'

[306]Seeante, i. 232.

[307]Seeante, i. 46.

[308]'From the windows the eye wanders over the sea that separates Scotland from Norway, and when the winds beat with violence, must enjoy all the terrifick grandeur of the tempestuous ocean. I would not for any amusement wish for a storm; but as storms, whether wished or not, will sometimes happen, I may say, without violation of humanity, that I should willingly look out upon them from Slanes Castle.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 15.

[309]Seeante, p. 68.

[310]Horace.Odes, i. 2.

[311]Seeante, ii. 428.

[312]Perhaps the poverty of their host led to this talk. Sir Walter Scott wrote in 1814:—'Imprudence, or ill-fortune as fatal as the sands of Belhelvie [shifting sands that had swallowed up a whole parish], has swallowed up the estate of Errol, excepting this dreary mansion-house and a farm or two adjoining.' Lockhart'sScott, ed. 1839, iv. 187.

[313]Seeante, ii. 421, note 1.

[314]Since the accession of George I. only one parliament had had so few as five sessions, and it was dissolved before its time by his death. One had six sessions, six seven sessions, (including the one that was now sitting,) and one eight. There was therefore so little dread of a sudden dissolution that for five years of each parliament the members durst contradict the populace.

[315]To Miss Burney Johnson once said:—'Sir Joshua Reynolds possesses the largest share of inoffensiveness of any man that I know.'Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 343. 'Once at Mr. Thrale's, when Reynolds left the room, Johnson observed:—"There goes a man not to be spoiled by prosperity."' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 82. Burke wrote of him:—'He had a strong turn for humour, and well saw the weak sides of things. He enjoyed every circumstance of his good fortune, and had no affectation on that subject. And I do not know a fault or weakness of his that he did not convert into something that bordered on a virtue, instead of pushing it to the confines of a vice.' Taylor'sReynolds, ii. 638.

[316]He visited Devonshire in 1762.Ante, i. 377.

[317]Horace Walpole, describing the coronation of George III, writes:— 'One there was ... the noblest figure I ever saw, the high-constable of Scotland, Lord Errol; as one saw him in a space capable of containing him, one admired him. At the wedding, dressed in tissue, he looked like one of the Giants in Guildhall, new gilt. It added to the energy of his person, that one considered him acting so considerable a part in that very Hall, where so few years ago one saw his father, Lord Kilmarnock, condemned to the block.'Letters, iii. 438. Sir William Forbes says:—'He often put me in mind of an ancient Hero, and I remember Dr. Johnson was positive that he resembled Homer's character of Sarpedon.'Life of Beattie, ed. 1824, Appendix D. Mrs. Piozzi says:—'The Earl dressed in his robes at the coronation and Mrs. Siddons in the character of Murphy's Euphrasia were the noblest specimens of the human race I ever saw.'Synonymy, i.43. He sprang from a race of rebels. 'He united in his person,' says Forbes, 'the four earldoms of Errol, Kilmarnock, Linlithgow, and Callander.' The last two were attainted in 1715, and Kilmarnock in 1745.Life of Beattie, Appendix D.

[318]Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son [iii. 130], complains of one who argued in an indiscriminate manner with men of all ranks, Probably the noble lord had felt with some uneasiness what it was to encounter stronger abilities than his own. If a peer will engage at foils with his inferior in station, he must expect that his inferior in station will avail himself of every advantage; otherwise it is not a fair trial of strength and skill. The same will hold in a contest of reason, or of wit.—A certain king entered the lists of genius with Voltaire. The consequence was, that, though the king had great and brilliant talents, Voltaire had such a superiority that his majesty could not bear it; and the poet was dismissed, or escaped, from that court.—In the reign of James I. of England, Crichton, Lord Sanquhar, a peer of Scotland, from a vain ambition to excel a fencing-master in his own art, played at rapier and dagger with him. The fencing-master, whose fame and bread were at stake, put out one of his lordship's eyes. Exasperated at this, Lord Sanquhar hired ruffians, and had the fencing-master assassinated; for which his lordship was capitally tried, condemned, and hanged. Not being a peer of England, he was tried by the name of Robert Crichton, Esq.; but he was admitted to be a baron of three hundred years' standing.—See theState Trials; and theHistory of Englandby Hume, who applauds the impartial justice executed upon a man of high rank. BOSWELL. The 'stronger abilities' that Chesterfield encountered were Johnson's. Boswell thought wrongly that it was of Johnson that his Lordship complained in his letters to his son.Ante, i. 267, note 2. 'A certain King' was Frederick the Great.Ante, i. 434. The fencing-master was murdered in his own house in London, five years after Sanquhar (or Sanquire) had lost his eye. Bacon, who was Solicitor-General, said:—'Certainly the circumstance of time is heavy unto you; it is now five years since this unfortunate man, Turner, be it upon accident or despight, gave the provocation which was the seed of your malice.'State Trials, ii. 743, and Hume'sHistory, ed. 1802, vi. 61.

[319]Hamlet, act i. sc. 2.

[320]Perhaps Lord Errol was the Scotch Lord mentionedante, iii. 170, and the nobleman mentionedib. p. 329.

[321]'Pitied by gentle minds Kilmarnock died.'Ante. i. 180.

[322]Sir Walter Scott describes the talk that he had in 1814 near Slains Castle with an old fisherman. 'The old man says Slains is now inhabited by a Mr. Bowles, who comes so far from the southward that naebody kens whare he comes frae. "Was he frae the Indies?" "Na; he did not think he came that road. He was far frae the Southland. Naebody ever heard the name of the place; but he had brought more guid out o' Peterhead than a' the Lords he had seen in Slains, and he had seen three."' Lockhart'sScott, ed. 1839, iv. 188. The first of the three was Johnson's host.

[323]Seeante, ii. 153, and iii. 1, note 2.

[324]Smollett, inHumphry Clinker(Letter of Sept. 6), writing of the Highlanders and their chiefs, says:—'The original attachment is founded on something prior to thefeudal system, about which the writers of this age have made such a pother, as if it was a new discovery, like theCopernican system... For my part I expect to see the use of trunk-hose and buttered ale ascribed to the influence of thefeudal system.' Seeante, ii. 177.

[325]Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:—'Vous conviendrez que les nobles sont peu ménagés par vos auteurs; le sot, le fat, ou le malhonnête homme mêlé dans l'intrigue est presque toujours un lord.'Garrick Corres, ii. 561. Dr. Moore (View of Society in France, i. 29) writing in 1779 says:—'I am convinced there is no country in Europe where royal favour, high birth, and the military profession could be allowed such privileges as they have in France, and where there would be so few instances of their producing rough and brutal behaviour to inferiors.' Mrs. Piozzi, writing in 1784, though she did not publish her book till 1789, said:—'The French are really a contented race of mortals;—precluded almost from possibility of adventure, the low Parisian leads gentle, humble life, nor envies that greatness he never can obtain.'Journey through France, i. 13.

[326]He is the worthy son of a worthy father, the late Lord Strichen, one of our judges, to whose kind notice I was much obliged. Lord Strichen was a man not only honest, but highly generous; for after his succession to the family estate, he paid a large sum of debts contracted by his predecessor, which he was not under any obligation to pay. Let me here, for the credit of Ayrshire, my own county, record a noble instance of liberal honesty in William Hutchison, drover, in Lanehead, Kyle, who formerly obtained a full discharge from his creditors upon a composition of his debts; but upon being restored to good circumstances, invited his creditors last winter to a dinner, without telling the reason, and paid them their full sums, principal and interest. They presented him with a piece of plate, with an inscription to commemorate this extraordinary instance of true worth; which should make some people in Scotland blush, while, though mean themselves, they strut about under the protection of great alliance, conscious of the wretchedness of numbers who have lost by them, to whom they never think of making reparation, but indulge themselves and their families in most unsuitable expence. BOSWELL.

[327]Seeante, ii. 194; iii. 353; and iv. June 30, 1784.

[328]Malone says that 'Lord Auchinleck told his son one day that it would cost him more trouble to hide his ignorance in the Scotch and English law than to show his knowledge. This Mr. Boswell owned he had found to be true.'European Magazine, 1798, p. 376.

[329]Seeante, iv. 8, note 3, and iv. 20.

[330]Colman had translatedTerence. Ante, iv. 18.

[331]Dr. Nugent was Burke's father-in-law.Ante, i. 477.

[332]Lord Charlemont left behind him aHistory of Italian Poetry. Hardy'sCharlemont, i. 306, ii. 437.

[333]Seeante, i. 250, and ii. 378, note 1.

[334]Since the first edition, it has been suggested by one of the club, who knew Mr. Vesey better than Dr. Johnson and I, that we did not assign him a proper place; for he was quite unskilled in Irish antiquities and Celtick learning, but might with propriety have been made professor of architecture, which he understood well, and has left a very good specimen of his knowledge and taste in that art, by an elegant house built on a plan of his own formation, at Lucan, a few miles from Dublin. BOSWELL. Seeante, iv. 28.

[335]Sir William Jones, who died at the age of forty-seven, had 'studied eight languages critically, eight less perfectly, but all intelligible with a dictionary, and twelve least perfectly, but all attainable.' Teignmouth'sLife of Sir W. Jones, ed. 1815, p. 465. Seeante, iv. 69.

[336]Seeante, i. 478.

[337]Seeante, p. 16.

[338]Mackintosh in hisLife, ii. 171, says:—'From the refinements of abstruse speculation Johnson was withheld, partly perhaps by that repugnance to such subtleties which much experience often inspires, and partly also by a secret dread that they might disturb those prejudices in which his mind had found repose from the agitations of doubt.'

[339]Seeante, iv. 11, note 1.

[340]Our Club, originally at the Turk's Head, Gerrard-street, then at Prince's, Sackville-street, now at Baxter's, Dover-street, which at Mr. Garrick's funeral acquired anamefor the first time, and was called THE LITERARY CLUB, was instituted in 1764, and now consists of thirty-five members. It has, since 1773, been greatly augmented; and though Dr. Johnson with justice observed, that, by losing Goldsmith, Garrick, Nugent, Chamier, Beauclerk, we had lost what would make an eminent club, yet when I mentioned, as an accession, Mr. Fox, Dr. George Fordyce, Sir Charles Bunbury, Lord Ossory, Mr. Gibbon, Dr. Adam Smith, Mr. R.B. Sheridan, the Bishops of Kilaloe and St. Asaph, Dean Marley, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Dunning, Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Scott of the Commons, Earl Spencer, Mr. Windham of Norfolk, Lord Elliott, Mr. Malone, Dr. Joseph Warton, the Rev. Thomas Warton, Lord Lucan, Mr. Burke junior, Lord Palmerston, Dr. Burney, Sir William Hamilton, and Dr. Warren, it will be acknowledged that we might establish a second university of high reputation. BOSWELL. Mr. (afterwards Sir) William Jones wrote in 1780 (Life, p. 241):—'Of our club I will only say that there is no branch of human knowledge on which some of our members are not capable of giving information.'

[341]Here, unluckily, the windows had no pullies; and Dr. Johnson, who was constantly eager for fresh air, had much struggling to get one of them kept open. Thus he had a notion impressed upon him, that this wretched defect was general in Scotland; in consequence of which he has erroneously enlarged upon it in hisJourney. I regretted that he did not allow me to read over his book before it was printed. I should have changed very little; but I should have suggested an alteration in a few places where he has laid himself open to be attacked. I hope I should have prevailed with him to omit or soften his assertion, that 'a Scotsman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland to truth,' for I really think it is not founded; and it is harshly said. BOSWELL. Johnson, after a half-apology for 'these diminutive observations' on Scotch windows and fresh air, continues:—'The true state of every nation is the state of common life.'Works, ix. 18. Boswell a second time (ante, ii. 311) returns to Johnson's assertion that 'a Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth; he will always love it better than inquiry.'Works, ix. 116.

[342]Seeante, p. 40.

[343]A protest may be entered on the part of most Scotsmen against the Doctor's taste in this particular. A Finnon haddock dried over the smoke of the sea-weed, and sprinkled with salt water during the process, acquires a relish of a very peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburgh philosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at a dinner, where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnon-fish. These were served round without distinction whence they came; but only one gentleman, out of twelve present, espoused the cause of philosophy. WALTER SCOTT.

[344]It is the custom in Scotland for the judges of the Court of Session to have the title oflords, from their estates; thus Mr. Burnett is LordMonboddo, as Mr. Home was LordKames. There is something a little awkward in this; for they are denominated in deeds by theirnames, with the addition of 'one of the Senators of the College of Justice;' and subscribe their Christian and surnames, asJames Burnett,Henry Home, even in judicial acts. BOSWELL. Seeante, p. 77, note 4.

[345]Seeante, ii. 344, where Johnson says:—'A judge may be a farmer, but he is not to geld his own pigs.'

[346]

'Not to admire is all the art I knowTo make men happy and to keep them so.'

Pope,Imitations of Horace, Epistles, i. vi. 1.

[347]Seeante, i. 461.

[348]Seeante, iv. 152.

[349]Seeante, iii. 322.

[350]In theGent. Mag.for 1755, p. 42, among the deaths is entered 'Sir James Lowther, Bart., reckoned the richest commoner in Great Britain, and worth above a million.' According to Lord Shelburne, Lord Sunderland, who had been advised 'to nominate Lowther one of his Treasury on account of his great property,' appointed him to call on him. After waiting for some time he rang to ask whether he had come, 'The servants answered that nobody had called; upon his repeating the inquiry they said that there was an old man, somewhat wet, sitting by the fireside in the hall, who they supposed had some petition to deliver to his lordship. When he went out it proved to be Sir James Lowther. Lord Sunderland desired him to be sent about his business, saying that no such mean fellow should sit at his Treasury.' Fitzmaurice'sShelburne, i. 34.

[351]I do not know what was at this time the state of the parliamentary interest of the ancient family of Lowther; a family before the Conquest; but all the nation knows it to be very extensive at present. A due mixture of severity and kindness, oeconomy and munificence, characterises its present Representative. BOSWELL. Boswell, most unhappily not clearly seeing where his own genius lay, too often sought to obtain fame and position by the favour of some great man. For some years he courted in a very gross manner 'the present Representative,' the first Earl of Lonsdale, who treated him with great brutality.Letters of Boswell, pp. 271, 294, 324, andante, iv. May 15, 1783. In theAnn. Reg.1771, p. 56, it is shewn how by this bad man 'the whole county of Cumberland was thrown into a state of the greatest terror and confusion; four hundred ejectments were served in one day.' Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto.p. 418) says that 'he was more detested than any man alive, as a shameless political sharper, a domestic bashaw, and an intolerable tyrant over his tenants and dependants.' Lord Albemarle (Memoirs of Rockingham,ii. 70) describes the 'bad Lord Lonsdale. He exacted a serf-like submission from his poor and abject dependants. He professed a thorough contempt for modern refinements. Grass grew in the neglected approaches to his mansion.... Awe and silence pervaded the inhabitants [of Penrith] when the gloomy despot traversed their streets. He might have been taken for a Judge Jefferies about to open a royal commission to try them as state criminals... In some years of his life he resisted the payment of all bills.' Among his creditors was Wordsworth's father, 'who died leaving the poet and four other helpless children. The executors of the will, foreseeing the result of a legal contest witha millionaire,withdrew opposition, trusting to Lord Lonsdale's sense of justice for payment. They leaned on a broken reed, the wealthy debtor "Died and made no sign."' [2Henry VI,act iii. sc. 3.] See De Quincey'sWorks,iii. 151.

[352]'Let us not,' he says, 'make too much haste to despise our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence.'Works, ix. 20.

[353]Note by LordHailes. 'The cathedral of Elgin was burnt by the Lord of Badenoch, because the Bishop of Moray had pronounced an award not to his liking. The indemnification that the see obtained was, that the Lord of Badenoch stood for three days bare-footed at the great gate of the cathedral. The story is in the Chartulary of Elgin.' BOSWELL. The cathedral was rebuilt in 1407-20, but the lead was stripped from the roof by the Regent Murray, and the building went to ruin. Murray'sHandbook, ed. 1867, p. 303. 'There is,' writes Johnson (Works, ix. 20), 'still extant in the books of the council an order ... directing that the lead, which covers the two cathedrals of Elgin and Aberdeen, shall be taken away, and converted into money for the support of the army.... The two churches were stripped, and the lead was shipped to be sold in Holland. I hope every reader will rejoice that this cargo of sacrilege was lost at sea.' On this Horace Walpole remarks (Letters, vii. 484):—'I confess I have not quite so heinous an idea of sacrilege as Dr. Johnson. Of all kinds of robbery, that appears to me the lightest species which injures nobody. Dr. Johnson is so pious that in his journey to your country he flatters himself that all his readers will join him in enjoying the destruction of two Dutch crews, who were swallowed up by the ocean after they had robbed a church.'

[354]I am not sure whether the Duke was at home. But, not having the honour of being much known to his grace, I could not have presumed to enter his castle, though to introduce even so celebrated a stranger. We were at any rate in a hurry to get forward to the wildness which we came to see. Perhaps, if this noble family had still preserved that sequestered magnificence which they maintained when catholicks, corresponding with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, we might have been induced to have procured proper letters of introduction, and devoted some time to the contemplation of venerable superstitious state. BOSWELL. Burnet (History of his own Times, ii. 443, and iii. 23) mentions the Duke of Gordon, a papist, as holding Edinburgh Castle for James II. in 1689.

[355]'In the way, we saw for the first time some houses with fruit-trees about them. The improvements of the Scotch are for immediate profit; they do not yet think it quite worth their while to plant what will not produce something to be eaten or sold in a very little time.'Piozzi Letters, i. 121.

[356]'This was the first time, and except one the last, that I found any reason to complain of a Scottish table.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 19.

[357]The following year Johnson told Hannah More that 'when he and Boswell stopt a night at the spot (as they imagined) where the Weird Sisters appeared to Macbeth, the idea so worked upon their enthusiasm, that it quite deprived them of rest. However they learnt the next morning, to their mortification, that they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country' H. More'sMemoirs, i. 50.

[358]Seeante, p. 76.

[359]Murphy (Life, p. 145) says that 'his manner of reciting verses was wonderfully impressive.' According to Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 302), 'whoever once heard him repeat an ode of Horace would be long before they could endure to hear it repeated by another.'

[360]Then pronouncedAffléck, though now often pronounced as it is written. Ante, ii. 413.

[361]At this stage of his journey Johnson recorded:—'There are more beggars than I have ever seen in England; they beg, if not silently, yet very modestly.'Piozzi Letters, i. 122. See ante, p. 75, note 1.

[362]Duncan's monument; a huge column on the roadside near Fores, more than twenty feet high, erected in commemoration of the final retreat of the Danes from Scotland, and properly called Swene's Stone. WALTER SCOTT.

[363]Swift wrote to Pope on May 31, 1737:—'Pray who is that Mr. Glover, who writ the epick poem calledLeonidas, which is reprinting here, and has great vogue?' Swift'sWorks(1803), xx. 121. 'It passed through four editions in the first year of its publication (1737-8).' Lowndes'sBibl. Man. p. 902. Horace Walpole, in 1742, mentionsLeonidasGlover (Letters, i. 117); and in 1785 Hannah More writes (Memoirs, i. 405):—'I was much amused with hearing old Leonidas Glover sing his own fine ballad ofHosier's Ghost, which was very affecting. He is past eighty [he was seventy-three]. Mr. Walpole coming in just afterwards, I told him how highly I had been pleased. He begged me to entreat for a repetition of it. It was the satire conveyed in this little ballad upon the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole's ministry which is thought to have been a remote cause of his resignation. It was a very curious circumstance to see his son listening to the recital of it with so much complacency.'

[364]See ante, i. 125.

[365]Seeante, i. 456, andpost, Sept. 22.

[366]Seeante, ii. 82, andpost, Oct. 27.

[367]'Nairne is the boundary in this direction between the highlands and lowlands; and until within a few years both English and Gaelic were spoken here. One of James VI.'s witticisms was to boast that in Scotland he had a town "sae lang that the folk at the tae end couldna understand the tongue spoken at the tother."' Murray'sHandbook for Scotland, ed. 1867, p. 308. 'Here,' writes Johnson (Works, ix. 21), 'I first saw peat fires, and first heard the Erse language.' As he heard the girl singing Erse, so Wordsworth thirty years later heard The Solitary Reaper:—

'Yon solitary Highland Lass Reaping and singing by herself.'

[368]

'Verse softens toil, however rude the sound;She feels no biting pang the while she sings;Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,Revolves the sad vicissitude of things.'

Contemplation.London: Printed for R. Dodsley in Pall-mall, and sold by M. Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster-Row, 1753.

The author's name is not on the title-page. In theBrit. Mus. Cata.the poem is entered under its title. Mr. Nichols (Lit. Illus.v. 183) says that the author was the Rev. Richard Gifford [not Giffard] of Balliol College, Oxford. He adds that 'Mr. Gifford mentioned to him with much satisfaction the fact that Johnson quoted the poem in hisDictionary.' It was there very likely that Boswell had seen the lines. They are quoted underwheel(with changes made perhaps intentionally by Johnson), as follows:

'Verse sweetens care however rude the sound;All at her work the village maiden sings;Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around,Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.'

Contemplation, which was published two years after Gray'sElegy, was suggested by it. The rising, not the parting day, is described. The following verse precedes the one quoted by Johnson:—

'Ev'n from the straw-roofed cot the note of joyFlows full and frequent, as the village-fair,Whose little wants the busy hour employ,Chanting some rural ditty soothes her care.'

Bacon, in hisEssay Of Vicissitude of Things(No. 58), says:—'It is not good to look too long upon these turningwheels of vicissitudelest we becomegiddy' This may have suggested Gifford's last two lines.Reflections on a Grave, &c.(ante, ii. 26), published in 1766, and perhaps written in part by Johnson, has a line borrowed from this poem:—

'These all the hapless state of mortals showThe sad vicissitude of things below.'

Cowper,Table-Talk, ed. 1786, i. 165, writes of

'The sweet vicissitudes of day and night.'

The following elegant version of these lines by Mr. A. T. Barton, Fellow and Tutor of Johnson's own College, will please the classical reader:—

Musa levat duros, quamvis rudis ore, labores;Inter opus cantat rustica Pyrrha suum;Nec meminit, secura rotam dum versat euntem,Non aliter nostris sortibus ire vices.

[369]He was the brother of the Rev. John M'Aulay (post, Oct. 25), the grandfather of Lord Macaulay.

[370]Seeante, ii. 51.

[371]In Scotland, there is a great deal of preparation before administering the sacrament. The minister of the parish examines the people as to their fitness, and to those of whom he approves gives little pieces of tin, stamped with the name of the parish astokens, which they must produce before receiving it. This is a species of priestly power, and sometimes may be abused. I remember a lawsuit brought by a person against his parish minister, for refusing him admission to that sacred ordinance. BOSWELL.

[372]Seepost, Sept. 13 and 28.

[373]Mr. Trevelyan (Life of Macaulay, ed.1877, i. 6) says: 'Johnson pronounced that Mr. Macaulay was not competent to have written the book that went by his name; a decision which, to those who happen to have read the work, will give a very poor notion my ancestor's abilities.'

[374]

'The thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman.'

Macbeth, act i. sc. 3.

[375]According to Murray'sHandbook,ed. 1867, p. 308, no part of the castle is older than the fifteenth century.

[376]Seepost, Nov. 5.

[377]The historian.Ante, p. 41.

[378]Seeante, iii. 336, andpost, Nov. 7.

[379]Seepost, Oct. 27.

[380]Baretti was the Italian. Boswell disliked him (ante, ii. 98 note), and perhaps therefore described him merely as 'a man ofsomeliterature.' Baretti complained to Malone that 'the story as told gave an unfair representation of him.' He had, he said, 'observed to Johnson that the petitionlead us not into temptationought rather to be addressed to the tempter of mankind than a benevolent Creator. "Pray, Sir," said Johnson, "do you know who was the author of the Lord's Prayer?" Baretti, who did not wish to get into any serious dispute and who appears to be an Infidel, by way of putting an end to the conversation, only replied:—"Oh, Sir, you know byourreligion (Roman Catholic) we are not permitted to read the Scriptures. You can't therefore expect an answer."' Prior'sMalone, p. 399. Sir Joshua Reynolds, on hearing this from Malone, said:—'This turn which Baretti now gives to the matter was an after-thought; for he once said to me myself:—"There are various opinions about the writer of that prayer; some give it to St. Augustine, some to St. Chrysostom, &c. What is your opinion? "'Ib. p. 394. Mrs. Piozzi says that she heard 'Baretti tell a clergyman the story of Dives and Lazarus as the subject of a poem he once had composed in the Milanese district, expecting great credit for his powers of invention.' Hayward'sPiozzi, ii. 348.

[381]Goldsmith (Present Slate of Polite Learning, chap. 13) thus wrote of servitorships: 'Surely pride itself has dictated to the fellows of our colleges the absurd passion of being attended at meals, and on other public occasions, by those poor men who, willing to be scholars, come in upon some charitable foundation. It implies a contradiction for men to be at once learning theliberalarts, and at the same time treated asslaves; at once studying freedom and practising servitude.' Yet a young man like Whitefield was willing enough to be a servitor. He had been a waiter in his mother's inn; he was now a waiter in a college, but a student also. See myDr. Johnson: His Friends and his Critics, p. 27.

[382]Dr. Johnson did not neglect what he had undertaken. By his interest with the Rev. Dr. Adams, master of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he was educated for some time, he obtained a servitorship for young M'Aulay. But it seems he had other views; and I believe went abroad. BOSWELL. Seeante, ii. 380.

[383]'I once drank tea,' writes Lamb, 'in company with two Methodist divines of different persuasions. Before the first cup was handed round, one of these reverend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, whether he chose tosay anything. It seems it is the custom with some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also. His reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an explanation, with little less importance he made answer that it was not a custom known in his church.'Essay on Grace before Meat.

[384]He could not bear to have it thought that, in any instance whatever, the Scots are more pious than the English. I think grace as proper at breakfast as at any other meal. It is the pleasantest meal we have. Dr. Johnson has allowed the peculiar merit of breakfast in Scotland. BOSWELL. 'If an epicure could remove by a wish in quest of sensual gratification, wherever he had supped he would breakfast in Scotland.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 52.

[385]Bruce, the Abyssinian Traveller, found in the annals of that region a king namedBrus, which he chooses to consider the genuine orthography of the name. This circumstance occasioned some mirth at the court of Gondar. WALTER SCOTT.

[386]Seeante, ii. 169, note 2, andpost, Sept. 2. Johnson, so far as I have observed, spelt the nameBoswel.

[387]Sir Eyre Coote was born in 1726. He took part in the battle of Plassey in 1757, and commanded at the reduction of Pondicherry in 1761. In 1770-71 he went by land to Europe. In 1780 he took command of the English army against Hyder Ali, whom he repeatedly defeated. He died in 1783. Chalmers'sBiog. Dict. x. 236. There is a fine description of him in Macaulay'sEssays, ed. 1843, iii. 385.

[388]Seeante, iii. 361.

[389]Reynolds wrote of Johnson:—'He sometimes, it must be confessed, covered his ignorance by generals rather than appear ignorant' Taylor'sReynolds, ii. 457.

[390]'The barracks are very handsome, and form several regular and good streets.' Pennant'sTour, p. 144.

[391]Seeante, p. 45.

[392]Here Dr. Johnson gave us part of a conversation held between a Great Personage and him, in the library at the Queen's Palace, in the course of which this contest was considered. I have been at great pains to get that conversation as perfectly preserved as possible. It may perhaps at some future time be given to the publick. BOSWELL. For 'a Great Personage' seeante, i. 219; and for the conversation, ii. 33.

[393]Seeante, ii. 73, 228, 248; iii. 4 and June 15, 1784.

[394]Seeante, i. 167, note 1.

[395]Booth actedCato, and Wilks Juba when Addison'sCatowas brought out. Pope told Spence that 'Lord Bolingbroke's carrying his friends to the house, and presenting Booth with a purse of guineas for so well representing the character of a person "who rather chose to die than see a general for life," carried the success of the play much beyond what they ever expected.' Spence'sAnec. p. 46. Bolingbroke alluded to the Duke of Marlborough. Pope in hisImitations of Horace, 2 Epist. i. 123 introduces 'well-mouth'd Booth.'

[396]Seeante, iii. 35, and under Sept. 30, 1783.

[397]'Garrick used to tell, that Johnson said of an actor who played Sir Harry Wildair at Lichfield, "There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow;" when, in fact, according to Garrick's account, "he was the most vulgar ruffian that ever went uponboards."'Ante, ii. 465.

[398]Mrs. Cibber was the sister of Dr. Arne the musical composer, and the wife of Theophilus Cibber, Colley Cibber's son. She died in 1766, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey. Baker'sBiog. Dram.i. 123.

[399]Seeante, under Sept. 30, 1783.

[400]Seeante, i. 197, and ii. 348.

[401]Johnson had set him to repeat the ninth commandment, and had with great glee put him right in the emphasis.Ante, i. 168.

[402]Act iii. sc. 2.

[403]Boswell's suggestion is explained by the following passage in Johnson'sWorks, viii. 463:—'Mallet was by his original one of the Macgregors, a clan that became about sixty years ago, under the conduct of Robin Roy, so formidable and so infamous for violence and robbery, that the name was annulled by a legal abolition.'

[404]Seeante, iii. 410, where he said to an Irish gentleman:—'Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you. We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had anything of which we could have robbed them.'

[405]It is remarkable that Dr. Johnson read this gentle remonstrance, and took no notice of it to me. BOSWELL. Seepost, Oct. 12, note.

[406]St. Matthew, v. 44.

[407]It is odd that Boswell did not suspect the parson, who, no doubt, had learnt the evening before from Mr. Keith that the two travellers would be present at his sermon. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 283) says that one day at Sir Joshua's dinner-table, when his host praised Malone very highly for his laborious edition ofShakespeare, he (Northcote) 'rather hastily replied, "What a very despicable creature must that man be who thus devotes himself, and makes another man his god;" when Boswell, who sat at my elbow, and was not in my thoughts at the time, cried out "Oh! Sir Joshua, then that is me!"'

[408]Johnson (Works, ix. 23) more cautiously says:—'Here is a castle, called the castle of Macbeth.'

[409]'This short dialogue between Duncan and Banquo, whilst they are approaching the gates of Macbeth's castle, has always appeared to me a striking instance of what in painting is termedrepose. Their conversation very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situation, and the pleasantness of the air; and Banquo, observing the martlet's nests in every recess of the cornice, remarks that where those birds most breed and haunt the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy conversation gives that repose so necessary to the mind after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakespeare asked himself, what is a prince likely to say to his attendants on such an occasion? whereas the modern writers seem, on the contrary, to be always searching for new thoughts, such as would never occur to men in the situation which is represented. This also is frequently the practice of Homer, who from the midst of battles and horrors relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of familiar domestick life.' Johnson'sShakespeare. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 144-151) quotes other notes by Reynolds.

[410]In the originalsenses. Act i, sc. 6.

[411]Act i. sc. 5.

[412]Boswell forgetsscoundrelism,ante, p. 106, which, I suppose, Johnson coined.

[413]Seeante, ii. 154, note 3. Peter Paragraph is one of the characters in Foote's Comedy ofThe Orators.

[414]When upon the subject of thisperegrinity, he told me some particulars concerning the compilation of hisDictionary, and concerning his throwing off Lord Chesterfield's patronage, of which very erroneous accounts have been circulated. These particulars, with others which he afterwards gave me,—as also his celebrated letter to Lord Chesterfield, which he dictated to me,—I reserve for hisLife.BOSWELL. Seeante,i. 221, 261.

[415]Seeante,ii. 326, 371, and v. 18.

[416]It is the third edition, published in 1778, that first bears this title. The first edition was published in 1761, and the second in 1762.

[417]'One of them was a man of great liveliness and activity, of whom his companion said that he would tire any horse in Inverness. Both of them were civil and ready-handed Civility seems part of the national character of Highlanders.'Works,ix. 25.

[418]'The way was very pleasant; the rock out of which the road was cut was covered with birch trees, fern, and heath. The lake below was beating its bank by a gentle wind.... In one part of the way we had trees on both sides for perhaps half a mile. Such a length of shade, perhaps, Scotland cannot shew in any other place.'Piozzi Letters, i. 123. The travellers must have passed close by the cottage where James Mackintosh was living, a child of seven.

[419]Boswell refers, I think, to a passage in act iv. sc. I of Farquhar's Comedy, where Archer says to Mrs. Sullen:—'I can't at this distance, Madam, distinguish the figures of the embroidery.' This passage is copied by Goldsmith inShe Stoops to Conquer, act iii., where Marlow says to Miss Hardcastle: 'Odso! then you must shew me your embroidery.'

[420]Johnson (Works, ix. 28) gives a long account of this woman. 'Meal she considered as expensive food, and told us that in spring, when the goats gave milk, the children could live without it.'

[421]It is very odd, that when these roads were made, there was no care taken forInns. TheKing's House, and theGeneral's Hut, are miserable places; but the project and plans were purely military. WALTER SCOTT. Johnson found good entertainment here, 'We had eggs and bacon and mutton, with wine, rum, and whisky. I had water.'Piozzi Letters, i. 124.

[422]'Mr. Boswell, who between his father's merit and his own is sure of reception wherever he comes, sent a servant before,' &c. Johnson'sWorks, ix. 30.

[423]On April 6, 1777, Johnson noted down: 'I passed the night in such sweet uninterrupted sleep as I have not known since I slept at Fort Augustus.'Pr. and Med.p.159. On Nov. 21, 1778, he wrote to Boswell: 'The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort Augustus.'Ante, iii. 369.

[424]Seeante, iii. 246.

[425]A McQueen is a Highland mode of expression. An Englishman would sayoneMcQueen. But where there areclansortribesof men, distinguished bypatronymicksurnames, the individuals of each are considered as if they were of different species, at least as much as nations are distinguished; so that aMcQueen, aMcDonald, aMcLean, is said, as we say a Frenchman, an Italian, a Spaniard. BOSWELL.

[426]'I praised the propriety of his language, and was answered that I need not wonder, for he had learnt it by grammar. By subsequent opportunities of observation I found that my host's diction had nothing peculiar. Those Highlanders that can speak English commonly speak it well, with few of the words and little of the tone by which a Scotchman is distinguished ... By their Lowland neighbours they would not willingly be taught; for they have long considered them as a mean and degenerate race.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 31. He wrote to Mrs. Thrale: 'This man's conversation we were glad of while we staid. He had been out, as they call it, in forty-five, and still retained his old opinions.'Piozzi Letters, i. 130.

[427]By the Chevalier Ramsay.

[428]'From him we first heard of the general dissatisfaction which is now driving the Highlanders into the other hemisphere; and when I asked him whether they would stay at home if they were well treated, he answered with indignation that no man willingly left his native country. Johnson'sWorks, ix. 33. Seeante, p. 27.

[429]'The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.'Ib.v. 49.

[430]Four years later, three years after Goldsmith's death, Johnson 'observed in Lord Scarsdale's dressing-room Goldsmith'sAnimated Nature; and said, "Here's our friend. The poor doctor would have been happy to hear of this."'Ante, iii.162.

[431]Seeante, i. 348 and ii. 438 andpost, Sept. 23. Mackintosh says: 'Johnson's idea that a ship was a prison with the danger of drowning is taken from Endymion Porter'sConsolation to Howellon his imprisonment in theFleet, and was originally suggested by the pun.'Life of Mackintosh, ii. 83. The passage to which he refers is found in Howell's letter of Jan. 2, 1646 (book ii. letter 39), in which he writes to Porter:—'You go on to prefer my captivity in thisFleetto that of a voyager at sea, in regard that he is subject to storms and springing of leaks, to pirates and picaroons, with other casualties.'

[432]Seeante, iii. 242.

[433]This book has given rise to much enquiry, which has ended in ludicrous surprise. Several ladies, wishing to learn the kind of reading which the great and good Dr. Johnson esteemed most fit for a young woman, desired to know what book he had selected for this Highland nymph. 'They never adverted (said he) that I had nochoicein the matter. I have said that I presented her with a book which Ihappenedto have about me.' And what was this book? My readers, prepare your features for merriment. It wasCocker's Arithmetick!—Wherever this was mentioned, there was a loud laugh, at which Johnson, when present, used sometimes to be a little angry. One day, when we were dining at General Oglethorpe's, where we had many a valuable day, I ventured to interrogate him. 'But, Sir, is it not somewhat singular that you shouldhappento haveCocker's Arithmetickabout you on your journey? What made you buy such a book at Inverness?' He gave me a very sufficient answer. 'Why, Sir, if you are to have but one book with you upon a journey, let it be a book of science. When you have read through a book of entertainment, you know it, and it can do no more for you; but a book of science is inexhaustible.' BOSWELL.

Johnson thus mentions his gift: 'I presented her with a book which I happened to have about me, and should not be pleased to think that she forgets me.'Works, ix. 32. The first edition ofCocker's Arithmeticwas published about 1660.Brit. Mus. Cata.Though Johnson says that 'a book of science is inexhaustible,' yet inThe Rambler, No. 154, he asserts that 'the principles of arithmetick and geometry may be comprehended by a close attention in a few days.' Mrs. Piozzi says (Anec. p. 77) that 'when Mr. Johnson felt his fancy disordered, his constant recurrence was to arithmetic; and one day that he was confined to his chamber, and I enquired what he had been doing to divert himself, he shewed me a calculation which I could scarce be made to understand, so vast was the plan of it; no other indeed than that the national debt, computing it at £180,000,000, would, if converted into silver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forget how broad, for the globe of the whole earth.' Seeante, iii. 207, and iv. 171, note 3.

[434]Swift'sWorks(1803), xxiv. 63.

[435]'We told the soldiers how kindly we had been treated at the garrison, and, as we were enjoying the benefit of their labours, begged leave to shew our gratitude by a small present.... They had the true military impatience of coin in their pockets, and had marched at least six miles to find the first place where liquor could be bought. Having never been before in a place so wild and unfrequented I was glad of their arrival, because I knew that we had made them friends; and to gain still more of their goodwill we went to them, where they were carousing in the barn, and added something to our former gift.'Works, ix. 31-2.

[436]

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