Chapter 25

'They vault from hunters to the managed steed.'

[697]Of Sir William Forbes of a later generation, Lockhart (Life of Scott, ix. 179) writes as follows:—'Sir William Forbes, whose banking-house was one of Messrs. Ballantyne's chief creditors, crowned his generous efforts for Scott's relief by privately paying the whole of Abud's demand (nearly £2000) out of his own pocket.'

[698]This scarcity of cash still exists on the islands, in several of which five shilling notes are necessarily issued to have some circulating medium. If you insist on having change, you must purchase something at a shop. WALTER SCOTT.

[699]'The payment of rent in kind has been so long disused in England that it is totally forgotten. It was practised very lately in the Hebrides, and probably still continues, not only in St. Kilda, where money is not yet known, but in others of the smaller and remoter islands.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 110.

[700]'A place where the imagination is more amused cannot easily be found. The mountains about it are of great height, with waterfalls succeeding one another so fast, that as one ceases to be heard another begins.'Piozzi Letters, i. 157.

[701]Seeante, i. 159.

[702]Johnson seems to be speaking of Hailes'sMemorials and Letters relating to the History of Britain in the reign of James I and of Charles I.

[703]Seeante, ii. 341.

[704]Seeante, iii. 91.

[705]'In all ages of the world priests have been enemies to liberty, and it is certain that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking and of expressing our thoughts is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds on which it is commonly founded.... Hence it must happen in such a government as that of Britain, that the established clergy, while things are in their natural situation, will always be of theCourt-party; as, on the contrary, dissenters of all kinds will be of theCountry-party.' Hume'sEssays, Part 1, No. viii.

[706]In the originalEvery island's but a prison.The song is by a Mr. Coffey, and is given in Ritson'sEnglish Songs(1813), ii. 122. It begins:—

'Welcome, welcome, brother debtor,To this poor but merry place,Where no bailiff, dun, nor setter,Dares to show his frightful face.'

Seeante, iii. 269.

[707]He wrote to Mrs. Thrale the day before (perhaps it was this day, and the copyist blundered):—' I am still in Sky. Do you remember the song—

We have at one time no boat, and at another may have too much wind; but of our reception here we have no reason to complain.'Piozzi Letters, i. 143.

[708]My ingenuously relating this occasional instance of intemperance has I find been made the subject both of serious criticism and ludicrous banter. With the banterers I shall not trouble myself, but I wonder that those who pretend to the appellation of serious criticks should not have had sagacity enough to perceive that here, as in every other part of the present work, my principal object was to delineate Dr. Johnson's manners and character. In justice to him I would not omit an anecdote, which, though in some degree to my own disadvantage, exhibits in so strong a light the indulgence and good humour with which he could treat those excesses in his friends, of which he highly disapproved.

In some other instances, the criticks have been equally wrong as to the true motive of my recording particulars, the objections to which I saw as clearly as they. But it would be an endless task for an authour to point out upon every occasion the precise object he has in view, Contenting himself with the approbation of readers of discernment and taste, he ought not to complain that some are found who cannot or will not understand him. BOSWELL.

[709]In the original, 'wherein is excess.'

[710]See Chappell'sPopular Music of the Olden Time, i. 231.

[711]Seeante, iii. 383.

[712]seeante, p. 184.

[713]Seeante, ii. 120, where he took upon his knee a young woman who came to consult him on the subject of Methodism.

[714]Seeante, pp. 215, 246.

[715]Seeante, iv. 176.

[716]

'If ev'ry wheel of that unwearied millThat turned ten thousand verses now stands still.'

Imitations of Horace, 2 Epis.ii. 78.

[717]Ante, p. 206.

[718]

'Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine captosDucit.'—Ovid,Ex Pont. i. 3. 35.

[719]Lift up your hearts.

[720]Mr. Croker prints the following letter written to Macleod the day before:—

'Ostig, 28th Sept. 1773.

'DEAR SIR,—We are now on the margin of the sea, waiting for a boat and a wind. Boswell grows impatient; but the kind treatment which I find wherever I go, makes me leave, with some heaviness of heart, an island which I am not very likely to see again. Having now gone as far as horses can carry us, we thankfully return them. My steed will, I hope, be received with kindness;—he has borne me, heavy as I am, over ground both rough and steep, with great fidelity; and for the use of him, as for your other favours, I hope you will believe me thankful, and willing, at whatever distance we may be placed, to shew my sense of your kindness, by any offices of friendship that may fall within my power.

'Lady Macleod and the young ladies have, by their hospitality and politeness, made an impression on my mind, which will not easily be effaced. Be pleased to tell them, that I remember them with great tenderness, and great respect.—I am, Sir, your most obliged and most humble servant,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'P.S.—We passed two days at Talisker very happily, both by the pleasantness of the place and elegance of our reception.'

[721]Johnson (Works, viii. 409), after describing how Shenstone laid out the Leasowes, continues:—'Whether to plant a walk in undulating curves, and to place a bench at every turn where there is an object to catch the view; to make water run where it will be heard, and to stagnate where it will be seen; to leave intervals where the eye will be pleased, and to thicken the plantation where there is something to be hidden, demands any great powers of mind, I will not inquire: perhaps a surly and sullen speculator may think such performances rather the sport than the business of human reason.'

[722]Johnson quotes this and the two preceding stanzas as 'a passage, to which if any mind denies its sympathy, it has no acquaintance with love or nature.'Ib. p. 413.

[723]'His mind was not very comprehensive, nor his curiosity active; he had no value for those parts of knowledge which he had not himself cultivated.'Ib.p. 411.

[724]In the preface to vol. iii. of Shenstone'sWorks, ed. 1773, a quotation is given (p. vi) from one of the poet's letters in which he complains of this burning. He writes:—'I look upon my Letters as some of mychef-d'auvres.' On p. 301, after mentioningRasselas, he continues:—'Did I tell you I had a letter from Johnson, inclosing Vernon'sParish-clerk?'

[725]'The truth is these elegies have neither passion, nature, nor manners. Where there is fiction, there is no passion: he that describes himself as a shepherd, and his Neaera or Delia as a shepherdess, and talks of goats and lambs, feels no passion. He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deserves to lose her; for she may with good reason suspect his sincerity.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 91. Seeante, iv. 17.

[726]His lines on Pulteney, Earl of Bath, still deserve some fame:—

'Leave a blank here and there in each pageTo enrol the fair deeds of his youth!When you mention the acts of his age,Leave a blank for his honour and truth.'

FromThe Statesman, H. C. Williams'sOdes, p. 47.

[727]Hamlet, act ii. sc. 2.

[728]He did not mention the name of any particular person; but those who are conversant with the political world will probably recollect more persons than one to whom this observation may be applied. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker thinks that Lord North was meant. For his ministry Johnson certainly came to have a great contempt (ante, iv. 139). If Johnson was thinking of him, he differed widely in opinion from Gibbon, who describes North as 'a consummate master of debate, who could wield with equal dexterity the arms of reason and of ridicule.' Gibbon'sMisc. Works, i. 221. On May 2, 1775, he wrote:—' If they turned out Lord North to-morrow, they would still leave him one of the best companions in the kingdom.'Ib.ii. 135.

[729]Horace Walpole is speaking of this work, when he wrote on May 16, 1759 (Letters, iii. 227):—'Dr. Young has published a new book, on purpose, he says himself, to have an opportunity of telling a story that he has known these forty years. Mr. Addison sent for the young Lord Warwick, as he was dying, to shew him in what peace a Christian could die—unluckily he died of brandy—nothing makes a Christian die in peace like being maudlin! but don't say this in Gath, where you are.'

[730]'His [Young's] plan seems to have started in his mind at the present moment; and his thoughts appear the effect of chance, sometimes adverse, and sometimes lucky, with very little operation of judgment.... His verses are formed by no certain model; he is no more like himself in his different productions than he is like others. He seems never to have studied prosody, nor to have had any direction but from his own ear. But with all his defects, he was a man of genius and a poet.' Johnson'sWorks, viii. 458, 462. Mrs. Piozzi (Synonymy, ii. 371) tells why 'Dr. Johnson despised Young's quantity of common knowledge as comparatively small. 'Twas only because, speaking once upon the subject of metrical composition, he seemed totally ignorant of what are called rhopalick verses, from the Greek word, a club—verses in which each word must be a syllable longer than that which goes before, such as:

Spes deus aeternae stationis conciliator.'

[731]He had said this before.Ante, ii. 96.

[732]

'Brunetta's wise in actions great and rare,But scorns on trifles to bestow her care.Thus ev'ry hour Brunetta is to blame,Because th' occasion is beneath her aim.Think nought a trifle, though it small appear;Small sands the mountains, moments make the year,And trifles life. Your care to trifles give,Or you may die before you truly live.'

Love of Fame, Satire vi. Johnson often taught that life is made up of trifles. Seeante, i. 433.

[733]

"But hold," she cries, "lampooner, have a care;Must I want common sense, because I'm fair?"O no: see Stella; her eyes shine as bright,As if her tongue was never in the right;And yet what real learning, judgment, fire!She seems inspir'd, and can herself inspire:How then (if malice rul'd not all the fair)Could Daphne publish, and could she forbear?We grant that beauty is no bar to sense,Nor is't a sanction for impertinence.

Love of Fame, Satire v.

[734]Johnson called on Young's son at Welwyn in June, 1781.Ante, iv. 119. Croft, in hisLife of Young(Johnson'sWorks, viii. 453), says that 'Young and his housekeeper were ridiculed with more ill-nature than wit in a kind of novel published by Kidgell in 1755, calledThe Card, under the name of Dr. Elwes and Mrs. Fusby.'

[735]Memoirs of Philip Doddridge, ed. 1766, p. 171.

[736]So late as 1783 he said 'this Hanoverian family is isolée here.'Ante, iv. 165.

[737]Seeante, ii. 81, where he hoped that 'this gloom of infidelity was only a transient cloud.'

[738]Boswell has recorded this saying,ante, iv. 194.

[739]In 1755 an English version of this work had been published.Gent. Mag. 1755, p. 574. In the Chronological Catalogue on p. 343 in vol. 66 of Voltaire'sWorks, ed. 1819, it is entered as'Histoire de la Guerre de1741, fondue en partie dans lePrécis du siècle de Louis XV.'

[740]Boswell is here merely repeating Johnson's words, who on April 11 of this year, advising him to keep a journal, had said, 'The great thing to be recorded is the state of your own mind.'Ante, ii. 217.

[741]This word is not in hisDictionary.

[742]Seeante, i. 498.

[743]Seeante, ii. 61, 335; iii. 375, andpost, under Nov. 11.

[744]Beattie had attacked Hume in hisEssay on Truth(ante, ii. 201 and v. 29). Reynolds this autumn had painted Beattie in his gown of an Oxford Doctor of Civil Law, with hisEssayunder his arm. 'The angel of Truth is going before him, and beating down the Vices, Envy, Falsehood, &c., which are represented by a group of figures falling at his approach, and the principal head in this group is made an exact likeness of Voltaire. When Dr. Goldsmith saw this picture, he was very indignant at it, and said:—"It very ill becomes a man of your eminence and character, Sir Joshua, to condescend to be a mean flatterer, or to wish to degrade so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Dr. Beattie; for Dr. Beattie and his book together will, in the space of ten years, not be known ever to have been in existence, but your allegorical picture and the fame of Voltaire will live for ever to your disgrace as a flatterer."' Northcote'sReynolds, i. 300. Another of the figures was commonly said to be a portrait of Hume; but Forbes (Life of Beattie, ed. 1824, p. 158) says he had reason to believe that Sir Joshua had no thought either of Hume or Voltaire. Beattie'sEssayis so much a thing of the past that Dr. J. H. Burton does not, I believe, take the trouble ever to mention it in hisLife of Hume. Burns did not hold with Goldsmith, for he took Beattie's side:—

'Hence sweet harmonious Beattie sungHisMinstrellays;Or tore, with noble ardour stung,TheSceptic'sbays.'

(The Vision, part ii.)

[745]Seeante, ii. 441.

[746]William Tytler published in 1759 anExamination of the Histories of Dr. Robertson and Mr. Hume with respect to Mary Queen of Scots. It was reviewed by Johnson.Ante, i. 354.

[747]Johnson'sRasselaswas published in either March or April, and Goldsmith'sPolite Learningin April of 1759.I do not find that they published any other works at the same time. If these are the works meant, we have a proof that the two writers knew each other earlier than was otherwise known.

[748]'A learned prelate accidentally met Bentley in the days ofPhalaris; and after having complimented him on that noble piece of criticism (theAnswerto the Oxford Writers) he bad him not be discouraged at this run upon him, for tho' they had got the laughers on their side, yet mere wit and raillery could not long hold out against a work of so much merit. To which the other replied, "Indeed Dr. S. [Sprat], I am in no pain about the matter. For I hold it as certain, that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself."'Warburton on Pope, iv. 159, quoted in Person'sTracts, p. 345. 'Against personal abuse,' says Hawkins (Life, p. 348), 'Johnson was ever armed by a reflection that I have heard him utter:—"Alas! reputation would be of little worth, were it in the power of every concealed enemy to deprive us of it."' He wrote to Baretti:—'A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.'Ante, i. 381. Voltaire in hisEssay Sur les inconvéniens attachés à la Littérature(Works, ed. 1819, xliii. 173), after describing all that an author does to win the favour of the critics, continues:—'Tous vos soins n'empêchent pas que quelque journaliste ne vous déchire. Vous lui répondez; il réplique; vous avez un procès par écrit devant le public, qui condamne les deux parties au ridicule.' Seeante, ii. 61, note 4.

[749]However advantageous attacks may be, the feelings with which they are regarded by authors are better described by Fielding when he says:—'Nor shall we conclude the injury done this way to be very slight, when we consider a book as the author's offspring, and indeed as the child of his brain. The reader who hath suffered his muse to continue hitherto in a virgin state can have but a very inadequate idea of this kind of paternal fondness. To such we may parody the tender exclamation of Macduff, "Alas! thou hast written no book."'Tom Jones, bk. xi. ch. 1.

[750]It is strange that Johnson should not have known that theAdventures of a Guineawas written by a namesake of his own, Charles Johnson. Being disqualified for the bar, which was his profession, by a supervening deafness, he went to India, and made some fortune, and died there about 1800. WALTER SCOTT.

[751]Salusbury, not Salisbury.

[752]Horace Walpole (Letters, .ii 57) mentions in 1746 his cousin Sir John Philipps, of Picton Castle; 'a noted Jacobite.'... He thus mentions Lady Philipps in 1788 when she was 'very aged.' 'They have a favourite black, who has lived with them a great many years, and is remarkably sensible. To amuse Lady Philipps under a long illness, they had read to her the account of the Pelew Islands. Somebody happened to say we were sending a ship thither; the black, who was in the room, exclaimed, "Then there is an end of their happiness." What a satire on Europe!'Ib. ix. 157.

Lady Philips was known to Johnson through Miss Williams, to whom, as a note in Croker'sBoswell(p. 74) shews, she made a small yearly allowance.

[753]'To teach the minuter decencies and inferiour duties, to regulate the practice of daily conversation, to correct those depravities which are rather ridiculous than criminal, and remove those grievances which, if they produce no lasting calamities, impress hourly vexation, was first attempted by Casa in his book ofManners, and Castiglione in hisCourtier; two books yet celebrated in Italy for purity and elegance.' Johnson'sWorks, vii. 428.The Courtierwas translated into English so early as 1561. Lowndes'sBibl. Man. ed. 1871, p. 386.

[754]Burnet (History of His Own Time, ii. 296) mentions Whitby among the persons who both managed and directed the controversial war' against Popery towards the end of Charles II's reign. 'Popery,' he says, 'was never so well understood by the nation as it came to be upon this occasion.' Whitby's Commentaryon the New Testamentwas published in 1703-9.

[755]By Henry Mackenzie, the author ofThe Man of Feeling. Ante, i. 360. It had been published anonymously this spring. The play of the same name is by Macklin. It was brought out in 1781.

[756]No doubt Sir A. Macdonald.Ante, p. 148. This 'penurious gentleman' is mentioned again, p. 315.

[757]Molière's play ofL'Avare.

[758]

'...facit indignatio versum.'

Juvenal,Sat. i. 79.

[759]Seeante, iii. 252.

[760]He was sixty-four.

[761]Still, perhaps, in theWestern Isles, 'It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles.' Tennyson'sUlysses.

[762]Seeante, ii, 51.

[763]Seeante, ii. 150.

[764]Sir Alexander Macdonald.

[765]'To be or not to be: that is the question.'Hamlet, act iii. sc. 1.

[766]Virgil,Eclogues, iii. III.

[767]'The stormy Hebrides.' Milton'sLycidas, 1. 156.

[768]Boswell was thinking of the passage (p. xxi.) in which Hawkesworth tells how one of Captain Cook's ships was saved by the wind falling. 'If,' he writes, 'it was a natural event, providence is out of the question; at least we can with no more propriety say that providentially the wind ceased, than that providentially the sun rose in the morning. If it was not,' &c. According to Malone the attacks made on Hawkesworth in the newspapers for this passage 'affected him so much that from low spirits he was seized with a nervous fever, which on account of the high living he had indulged in had the more power on him; and he is supposed to have put an end to his life by intentionally taking an immoderate dose of opium.' Prior'sMalone, p. 441. Mme. D'Arblay says that these attacks shortened his life.Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 278. He died on Nov. 17 of this year. Seeante, i. 252, and ii. 247.

[769]'After having been detained by storms many days at Sky we left it, as we thought, with a fair wind; but a violent gust, which Bos had a great mind to call a tempest, forced us into Col.'Piozzi Letters, i. 167. 'The wind blew against us in a short time with such violence, that we, being no seasoned sailors, were willing to call it a tempest... The master knew not well whither to go; and our difficulties might, perhaps, have filled a very pathetick page, had not Mr. Maclean of Col... piloted us safe into his own harbour.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 117. Sir Walter Scott says, 'Their risque, in a sea full of islands, was very considerable. Indeed, the whole expedition was highly perilous, considering the season of the year, the precarious chance of getting sea-worthy boats, and the ignorance of the Hebrideans, who, notwithstanding the opportunities, I may say thenecessities, of their situation, are very careless and unskilful sailors.' Croker'sBoswell, p. 362.

[770]For as the tempest drives, I shape my way. FRANCIS. [Horace,Epistles, i. 1. 15.] BOSWELL.

[771]

'Imberbus juvenis, tandem custode remoto,Gaudet equis canibusque, et aprici gramine campi.''The youth, whose will no froward tutor bounds,Joys in the sunny field, his horse and hounds.'

FRANCIS. Horace,Ars Poet. 1. 161.

[772]Henry VI, act i. sc. 2.

[773]Seeante, i. 468, and iii. 306.

[774]Johnson describes him as 'a gentleman who has lived some time in the East Indies, but, having dethroned no nabob, is not too rich to settle in his own country.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 117.

[775]This curious exhibition may perhaps remind some of my readers of the ludicrous lines, made, during Sir Robert Walpole's administration, on Mr. George (afterwards Lord) Lyttelton, though the figures of the two personages must be allowed to be very different:—

'But who is this astride the pony;So long, so lean, so lank, so bony?Dat be de great orator, Littletony.'BOSWELL.

These lines were beneath a caricature calledThe Motion, described by Horace Walpole in his letter of March 25, 1741, and said by Mr. Cunningham to be 'the earliest good political caricature that we possess.' Walpole'sLetters, i. 66. Mr. Croker says that 'the exact words are:— bony? O he be de great orator Little-Tony.'

[776]Seeante, ii. 213.

[777]In 1673 Burnet, who was then Professor of Theology in Glasgow, dedicated to LauderdaleA Vindication of the Authority, &c., of the Church and State of Scotland. In it he writes of the Duke's 'noble character, and more lasting and inward characters of his princely mind.'

[778]Seeante, i. 450.

[779]Seeante, p. 250.

[780]'Others have considered infinite space as the receptacle, or rather the habitation of the Almighty; but the noblest and most exalted way of considering this infinite space, is that of Sir Isaac Newton, who calls it thesensoriumof the Godhead. Brutes and men have theirsensoriola, or littlesensoriums, by which they apprehend the presence, and perceive the actions, of a few objects that lie contiguous to them. Their knowledge and observation turn within a very narrow circle. But as God Almighty cannot but perceive and know everything in which he resides, infinite space gives room to infinite knowledge, and is, as it were, an organ to Omniscience.' Addison,The Spectator, No. 565.

[781]'Le célèbre philosophe Leibnitz ... attaqua ces expressions du philosophe anglais, dans une lettre qu'il écrivit en 1715 à la feue reine d'Angleterre, épouse de George II. Cette princesse, digne d'être en commerce avec Leibnitz et Newton, engagea une dispute reglée par lettres entre les deux parties. Mais Newton, ennemi de toute dispute et avare de son temps, laissa le docteur Clarke, son disciple en physique, et pour le moins son égal en métaphysique, entrer pour lui dans la lice. La dispute roula sur presque toutes les idées métaphysiques de Newton, et c'est peut-être le plus beau monument que nous ayons des combats littéraires.' Voltaire'sWorks, ed. 1819, xxviii. 44.

[782]Seeante, iii. 248.

[783]Seeante, iv. 295, where Boswell asked Johnson 'if he would not have done more good if he had been more gentle.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; I have done more good as I am. Obscenity and impiety have always been repressed in my company.'

[784]'Mr. Maclean has the reputation of great learning: he is seventy-seven years old, but not infirm, with a look of venerable dignity, excelling what I remember in any other man. His conversation was not unsuitable to his appearance. I lost some of his good will by treating a heretical writer with more regard than in his opinion a heretick could deserve. I honoured his orthodoxy, and did not much censure his asperity. A man who has settled his opinions does not love to have the tranquillity of his conviction disturbed; and at seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 118.

[785]'Mr. Maclean has no publick edifice for the exercise of his ministry, and can officiate to no greater number than a room can contain; and the room of a hut is not very large... The want of churches is not the only impediment to piety; there is likewise a want of ministers. A parish often contains more islands than one... All the provision made by the present ecclesiastical constitution for the inhabitants of about a hundred square miles is a prayer and sermon in a little room once in three weeks.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 118.

[786]

'Our Polly is a sad slut, nor heedswhat we have taught her.I wonder any man alive willever rear a daughter.For she must have both hoodsand gowns, and hoops toswell her pride,With scarfs and stays, andgloves and lace; and shewill have men beside;And when she's drest with careand cost, all-tempting, fine and gay,As men should serve a cucumber,she flings herself away.'

Air vii.

[787]Seeante, p. 162.

[788]In 1715.

[789]

'When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,The line too labours, and the words move slow.'

Pope,Essay on Criticism, l. 370.

[790]Johnson's remark on these stones is curious as shewing that he had not even a glimpse of the discoveries to be made by geology. After saying that 'no account can be given' of the position of one of the stones, he continues:—'There are so many important things of which human knowledge can give no account, that it may be forgiven us if we speculate no longer on two stones in Col.'Works, ix. 122. Seeante, ii. 468, for his censure of Brydone's 'anti-mosaical remark.'

[791]

'Malo me Galatea petit, lasciva puella.''My Phillis me with pelted apples plies.'

DRYDEN. Virgil,Eclogues, iii. 64.

[792]

'The helpless traveller, with wild surprise,Sees the dry desert all around him rise,And smother'd in the dusty whirlwind dies.'

Catoact ii. sc. 6.

[793]Johnson seems unwilling to believe this. 'I am not of opinion that by any surveys or land-marks its [the sand's] limits have been ever fixed, or its progression ascertained. If one man has confidence enough to say that it advances, nobody can bring any proof to support him in denying it.'Works, ix. 122. He had seen land in like manner laid waste north of Aberdeen; where 'the owner, when he was required to pay the usual tax, desired rather to resign the ground.'Ib. p. 15.

[794]Box, in this sense, is not in Johnson'sDictionary.

[795]Seeante, ii. 100, and iv. 274.

[796]In the original,Rich windows. A Long Story, l. 7.

[797]'And this according to the philosophers is happiness.' Boswell says of Crabbe's poemThe Village, that 'its sentiments as to the false notions of rustick happiness and rustick virtue were quite congenial with Johnson's own.'Ante, iv. 175.

[798]'This innovation was considered by Mr. Macsweyn as the idle project of a young head, heated with English fancies; but he has now found that turnips will really grow, and that hungry sheep and cows will really eat them.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 121. 'The young laird is heir, perhaps, to 300 square miles of land, which, at ten shillings an acre, would bring him £96,000 a year. He is desirous of improving the agriculture of his country; and, in imitation of the Czar, travelled for improvement, and worked with his own hands upon a farm in Hertfordshire.'Piozzi Letters, i. 168.

[799]'In more fruitful countries the removal of one only makes room for the succession of another; but in the Hebrides the loss of an inhabitant leaves a lasting vacuity; for nobody born in any other parts of the world will choose this country for his residence.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 93.

[800]'In 1628 Daillé wrote his celebrated book,De l'usage des Pères, orOf the Use of the Fathers. Dr. Fleetwood, Bishop of Ely, said of it that he thought the author had pretty sufficiently proved they were ofno useat all.' Chalmers'sBiog. Dict. xi. 209.

[801]Enquiry after Happiness, by Richard Lucas, D.D., 1685.

[802]Divine Dialogues, by Henry More, D.D. Seeante, ii. 162, note I.

[803]By David Gregory, the second of the sixteen professors which the family of Gregory gave to the Universities.Ante, p. 48.

[804]'Johnson's landlord and next neighbour in Bolt-court.'Ante, iii. 141.

[805]'Cuper's Gardens, near the south bank of the Thames, opposite to Somerset House. The gardens were illuminated, and the company entertained by a band of music and fireworks; but this, with other places of the same kind, has been lately discontinued by an act that has reduced the number of these seats of luxury and dissipation.' Dodsley'sLondon and its Environs, ed. 1761, ii. 209. The Act was the 25th George II, for 'preventing robberies and regulating places of public entertainment.'Parl. Hist. xiv. 1234.

[806]'Mr. Johnson,' according to Mr. Langton, 'used to laugh at a passage in Carte'sLife of the Duke of Ormond,where he gravely observes "that he was always in full dress when he went to court; too many being in the practice of going thither with double lapells."'Boswelliana, p. 274. The following is the passage:—'No severity of weather or condition of health served him for a reason of not observing that decorum of dress which he thought a point of respect to persons and places. In winter time people were allowed to come to court with double-breasted coats, a sort of undress. The duke would never take advantage of that indulgence; but let it be never so cold, he always came in his proper habit, and indeed the king himself always did the same, though too many neglected his example to make use of the liberty he was pleased to allow.' Carte'sLife of Ormond, iv. 693. Seeante, i. 42. It was originally published inthreevolumes folio in 1735-6.

[807]Seneca's two epigrams on Corsica are quoted in Boswell'sCorsica, first edition, p. 13. Boswell, in one of hisHypochondriacks (London Mag.1778, p. 173), says:—'For Seneca I have a double reverence, both for his own worth, and because he was the heathen sage whom my grandfather constantly studied.'

[808]'Very near the house of Maclean stands the castle of Col, which was the mansion of the Laird till the house was built.... On the wall was, not long ago, a stone with an inscription, importing, that if any man of the clan of Maclonich shall appear before this castle, though he come at midnight, with a man's head in his hand, he shall there find safety and protection against all but the king. This is an old Highland treaty made upon a very memorable occasion. Maclean, the son of John Gerves, who recovered Col, and conquered Barra, had obtained, it is said, from James the Second, a grant of the lands of Lochiel, forfeited, I suppose, by some offence against the state. Forfeited estates were not in those days quietly resigned; Maclean, therefore, went with an armed force to seize his new possessions, and, I know not for what reason, took his wife with him. The Camerons rose in defence of their chief, and a battle was fought at Loch Ness, near the place where Fort Augustus now stands, in which Lochiel obtained the victory, and Maclean, with his followers, was defeated and destroyed. The lady fell into the hands of the conquerors, and, being found pregnant, was placed in the custody of Maclonich, one of a tribe or family branched from Cameron, with orders, if she brought a boy, to destroy him, if a girl, to spare her. Maclonich's wife, who was with child likewise, had a girl about the same time at which Lady Maclean brought a boy; and Maclonich, with more generosity to his captive than fidelity to his trust, contrived that the children should be changed. Maclean, being thus preserved from death, in time recovered his original patrimony; and, in gratitude to his friend, made his castle a place of refuge to any of the clan that should think himself in danger; and, as a proof of reciprocal confidence, Maclean took upon himself and his posterity the care of educating the heir of Maclonich.' Johnson'sWorks,ix. 130.

[809]'Mr. Croker tells us that the great Marquis of Montrose was beheaded at Edinburgh in 1650. There is not a forward boy at any school in England who does not know that the Marquis was hanged.' Macaulay'sEssays, ed. 1843, i. 357

[810]It is observable that men of the first rank spelt very ill in the last century. In the first of these letters I have preserved the original spelling. BOSWELL.

[811]Seeante,i., 127.

[812]Muir-fowl is grouse.Antep. 44.

[813]See ante, p. 162, note 1.

[814]'In Col only two houses pay the window tax; for only two have six windows, which, I suppose, are the laird's and Mr. Macsweyn's.' Johnson'sWorks, ix. 125. 'The window tax, as it stands at present (January 1775)...lays a duty upon every window, which in England augments gradually from twopence, the lowest rate upon houses with not more than seven windows, to two shillings, the highest rate upon houses with twenty-five windows and upwards.'Wealth of Nations,v. 2. 2 .1. The tax was first imposed in 1695, as a substitute for hearth money. Macaulay'sEngland,ed. 1874, vii. 271. It was abolished in 1851.

[815]Thomas Carlyle was not fourteen when, one 'dark frosty November morning,' he set off on foot for the University at Edinburgh—a distance of nearly one hundred miles. Froude'sCarlyle, i. 22.

[816]Ante, p. 290.

[817]Of the Nature and Use of Lots: a Treatise historicall and theologicall.By Thomas Gataker. London, 1619.The Spirituall Watch, or Christ's Generall Watch-word.By Thomas Gataker. London, 1619.

[818]Seeante, p. 264.

[819]He visited it with the Thrales on Sept. 22, 1774, when returning from his tour to Wales, and with Boswell in 1776 (ante, ii. 451).

[820]Mr. Croker says that 'this, no doubt, alludes to Jacob Bryant, the secretary or librarian at Blenheim, with whom Johnson had had perhaps some coolness now forgotten.' The supposition of the coolness seems needless. With so little to go upon, guessing is very hazardous.

[821]Topham Beauclerk, who had married the Duke's sister, after she had been divorced for adultery with him from her first husband Viscount Bolingbroke.Ante, ii. 246, note 1.

[822]Seepost, Dempster's Letter of Feb. 16, 1775.

[823]Seeante, ii. 340, where Johnson said that 'if he were a gentleman of landed property, he would turn out all his tenants who did not vote for the candidate whom he supported.'

[824]Seeante, iii. 378.

[825]'They have opinions which cannot be ranked with superstition, because they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops of grain by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon has great influence in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a precept annually given in one of the English almanacks, "to kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the better in boiling."' Johnson'sWorks,ix. 104. Bacon, in hisNatural History(No.892) says:—'For the increase of moisture, the opinion received is, that seeds will grow soonest if they be set in the increase of the moon.'

[826]The question which Johnson asked with such unusual warmth might have been answered, 'by sowing the bent, or couch grass.' WALTER SCOTT.

[827]Seeante,i. 484.

[828]Seeante, i. 483.

[829]It is remarkable, that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying any thing on the subject, which I hoped he would have done. BOSWELL. Seeante, p. 128, note 2, and iv. 183, where Boswell 'observed he must have been a bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his peculiarities.'

[830]In this he was very unlike Swift, who, in his youth, when travelling in England, 'generally chose to dine with waggoners, hostlers, and persons of that rank; and he used to lie at night in houses where he found written of the doorLodgings for a penny. He delighted in scenes of low life.' Lord Orrery'sSwift, ed. 1752, p. 33.

[831]This is from theJests of Hierocles.CROKER.

[832]'The grave a gay companion shun.' FRANCIS. Horace, 1Epis.xviii. 89.

[833]Boswell in 1776 found that 'oats were much used as food in Dr. Johnson's own town.'Ante, ii. 463.

[834]Ante, i. 294.

[835]Seeante, ii. 258.

[836]'The richness of the round steep green knolls, clothed with copse, and glancing with cascades, and a pleasant peep at a small fresh-water loch embosomed among them—the view of the bay, surrounded and guarded by the island of Colvay—the gliding of two or three vessels in the more distant Sound—and the row of the gigantic Ardnamurchan mountains closing the scene to the north, almost justify the eulogium of Sacheverell, [post,p. 336] who, in 1688, declared the bay of Tobermory might equal any prospect in Italy.' Lockhart'sScott,iv. 338.

[837]'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, that he who wants least is most like the gods who want nothing, was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who, on his own part, required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy.' Piozzi'sAnec.p. 275.

[838]Remarks on Several Parts of Italy(ante, ii. 346). Johnson (Works, vii. 424) says of theseTravels:—'Of many parts it is not a very severe censure to say that they might have been written at home.' He adds that 'the book, though awhile neglected, became in time so much the favourite of the publick, that before it was reprinted it rose to five times its price.'

[839]Seeante, iii. 254, and iv. 237.

[840]Johnson (Works, viii. 320) says of Pope that 'he had before him not only what his own meditation suggested, but what he had found in other writers that might beaccomodatedto his present purpose.' Boswell's use of the word is perhaps derived, as Mr. Croker suggests, fromaccommoder, in the sense ofdressing up or cooking meats. This word occurs in an amusing story that Boswell tells in one of his Hypochondriacks (London Mag. 1779, p. 55):—'A friend of mine told me that he engaged a French cook for Sir B. Keen, when ambassador in Spain, and when he asked the fellow if he had ever dressed any magnificent dinners the answer was:—"Monsieur, j'ai accommodé un dîner qui faisait trembler toute la France."' Scott, inGuy Mannering(ed. 1860, iii. 138), describes 'Miss Bertram's solicitude to soothe andaccommodateher parent.' Seeante, iv. 39, note 1, for 'accommodatedthe ladies.' To sum up, we may say with Justice Shallow:—'Accommodated! it comes ofaccommodo; very good; a good phrase.' 2Henry IV, act iii. sc. 2.

[841]'Louis Moréri, né en Provence, en 1643. On ne s'attendait pas que l'auteur duPays d'amour, et le traducteur deRodriguez, entreprît dans sa jeunesse le premier dictionnaire de faits qu'on eût encore vu. Ce grand travail lui coûta la vie... Mort en 1680.' Voltaire'sWorks, ed. 1819, xvii. 133.

[842]Johnson looked uponAnaas an English word, for he gives it in hisDictionary.

[843]I take leave to enter my strongest protest against this judgement.BossuetI hold to be one of the first luminaries of religion and literature. If there are who do not read him, it is full time they should begin. BOSWELL.

[844]

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