Life of Johnson Volume III Part 64

[711] 'The dinner was good, and the Bishop is knowing and conversible,'

wrote Johnson of an earlier dinner at Sir Joshua's where he had met the same bishop. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 334.

[712] See _post_, Aug 19, 1784.

[713] There is no mention in the _Journey to Brundusium_ of a brook.

Johnson referred, no doubt, to Epistle I. 16. 12.

[714]

'Ne ought save Tyber hastning to his fall Remaines of all. O world's inconstancie!

That which is firme doth flit and fall away, And that is flitting doth abide and stay.'

Spenser, _The Ruines of Rome_.

[715] Giano Vitale, to give him his Italian name, was a theologian and poet of Palermo. His earliest work was published in 1512, and he died about 1560. _Brunet_, and Zedler's _Universal Lexicon_.

[716]

'Albula Romani restat nunc nominis index, Qui quoque nunc rapidis fertur in aequor aquis.

Disce hinc quid possit Fortuna. Immota labasc.u.n.t, Et quae perpetuo sunt agitata manent.'

Jani Vitalis Panormitani _De Roma_. See _Delicia C.C. Italorum Poetarum_, edit. 1608, p. 1433, It is curious that in all the editions of Boswell that I have seen, the error _labesc.u.n.t_ remains unnoticed.

[717] See _post_, June 2, 1781.

[718] Dr. Shipley was chaplain to the Duke of c.u.mberland. CROKER.

The battle was fought on July 2, N.S. 1747.

[719]

'Inconstant as the wind I various rove; At Tibur, Rome--at Rome, I Tibur love.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Epistles_, i. 8. 12. In the first two editions Mr.

Cambridge's speech ended here.

[720]

'More constant to myself, I leave with pain, By hateful business forced, the rural scene.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Epist_., I. 14. 16.

[721] See _ante_, p. 167.

[722] Fox, it should be remembered, was Johnson's junior by nearly forty years.

[723] See _ante_, i. 413, ii. 214, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 2.

[724] See _ante_, i. 478.

[725] 'Who can doubt,' asks Mr. Forster, 'that he also meant slowness of motion? The first point of the picture is _that_. The poet is moving slowly, his tardiness of gait measuring the heaviness of heart, the pensive spirit, the melancholy of which it is the outward expression and sign.' Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 369.

[726] See _ante_, ii. 5.

[727] _Essay on Man_, ii. 2.

[728] Gibbon could have ill.u.s.trated this subject, for not long before he had at Paris been 'introduced,' he said, 'to the best company of both s.e.xes, to the foreign ministers of all nations, and to the first names and characters of France.' Gibbon's _Misc. Works_, i. 227. He says of an earlier visit:--'Alone, in a morning visit, I commonly found the artists and authors of Paris less vain and more reasonable than in the circles of their equals, with whom they mingle in the houses of the rich.' _Ib_. p. 162. Horace Walpole wrote of the Parisians in 1765, (_Letters_, iv. 436):--'Their gaiety is not greater than their delicacy--but I will not expatiate. [He had just described the grossness of the talk of women of the first rank.] Several of the women are agreeable, and some of the men; but the latter are in general vain and ignorant. The _savans_--I beg their pardon, the _philosophes_--are insupportable, superficial, overbearing, and fanatic.'

[729] See _post_, under Aug. 29, 1783, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 14.

[730] See _post_, April 28, 1783.

[731] See _ante_, p. 191.

[732] [Greek: 'gaerusko d aiei polla didaskomenos.'] 'I grow in learning as I grow in years.' Plutarch, _Solon_, ch. 31.

[733]

''Tis somewhat to be lord of some small ground In which a lizard may at least turn around.'

Dryden, _Juvenal_, iii. 230.

[734] _Modern characters from Shakespeare. Alphabetically arranged_.

A New Edition. London, 1778. It is not a pamphlet but a duodecimo of 88 pages. Some of the lines are very grossly applied.

[735] _As You Like it_, act iii. sc. 2. The giant's name is Gargantua, not Garagantua. In _Modern Characters_ (p. 47), the next line also is given:--'Tis a word too great for any mouth of this age's size.'

The lines that Boswell next quotes are not given.

[736] _Coriola.n.u.s_, act iii. sc. 1.

[737] See vol. i. p. 498. BOSWELL.

[738] See _ante_, ii. 236, where Johnson charges Robertson with _verbiage_. This word is not in his _Dictionary_.

[739] Pope, meeting Bentley at dinner, addressed him thus:--'Dr.

Bentley, I ordered my bookseller to send you your books. I hope you received them.' Bentley, who had purposely avoided saying anything about _Homer_, pretended not to understand him, and asked, 'Books! books! what books?' 'My _Homer_,' replied Pope, 'which you did me the honour to subscribe for.'--'Oh,' said Bentley, 'ay, now I recollect--your translation:--it is a pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it _Homer_.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 336, note.

[740] 'It is certainly the n.o.blest version of poetry which the world has ever seen; and its publication must therefore be considered as one of the great events in the annals of Learning.' _Ib_. p. 256. 'There would never,' said Gray, 'be another translation of the same poem equal to it.' Gray's _Works_, ed. 1858, v. 37. Cowper however says, that he and a friend 'compared Pope's translation throughout with the original.

They were not long in discovering that there is hardly the thing in the world of which Pope was so utterly dest.i.tute as a taste for _Homer_.'

Southey's _Cowper_, i. 106.

[741] Boswell here repeats what he had heard from Johnson, _ante_, p. 36.

[742] Swift, in his Preface to Temple's _Letters_, says:--'It is generally believed that this author has advanced our English tongue to as great a perfection as it can well bear.' Temple's _Works_, i. 226.

Hume, in his Essay _Of Civil Liberty_, wrote in 1742:--'The elegance and propriety of style have been very much neglected among us. The first polite prose we have was writ by a man who is still alive (Swift). As to Sprat, Locke, and even Temple, they knew too little of the rules of art to be esteemed elegant writers.' Mackintosh says (_Life_, ii.

205):--'Swift represents Temple as having brought English style to perfection. Hume, I think, mentions him; but of late he is not often spoken of as one of the reformers of our style--this, however, he certainly was. The structure of his style is perfectly modern.' Johnson said that he had partly formed his style upon Temple's; _ante_, i. 218.

In the last _Rambler_, speaking of what he had himself done for our language, he says:--'Something, perhaps, I have added to the elegance of its construction, and something to the harmony of its cadence.'

[743] 'Clarendon's diction is neither exact in itself, nor suited to the purpose of history. It is the effusion of a mind crowded with ideas, and desirous of imparting them; and therefore always acc.u.mulating words, and involving one clause and sentence in another.' _The Rambler_, No. 122.