Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 52

[404] See _ante_, i. 441, and _post_, March 28, and June 3, 1782.

[405] Mr. Dawkins visited Palmyra in 1751. He had 'an escort of the Aga of Ha.s.sia's best Arab hors.e.m.e.n.' Johnson was perhaps astonished at the size of their caravan, 'which was increased to about 200 persons.' The writer treats the whole matter with great brevity. Wood's _Ruins of Palmyra_, p. 33. On their return the travellers discovered a party of Arab hors.e.m.e.n, who gave them an alarm. Happily these Arabs were still more afraid of them, and were at once plundered by the escort, 'who laughed at our remonstrances against their injustice.' Wood's _Ruins of Balbec_, p. 2.

[406] He wrote a _Life of Watts_, which Johnson quoted. _Works_, viii.

382.

[407] See _ante_, iii. 422, note 6.

[408] In the first two editions _formal_.

[409] Johnson maintains this in _The Idler_, No. 74. 'Few,' he says, 'have reason to complain of nature as unkindly sparing of the gifts of memory ... The true art of memory is the art of attention.' See _ante_, iii. 191.

[410]The first of the definitions given by Johnson of _to remember_ is _to bear in mind anything; not to forget. To recollect_ he defines _to recover to memory_. We may, perhaps, a.s.sume that Boswell said, 'I did not recollect that the chair was broken;' and that Johnson replied, 'you mean, you did not remember. That you did not remember is your own fault.

It was in your mind that it was broken, and therefore you ought to have remembered it. It was not a case of recollecting; for we recollect, that is, recover to memory, what is not in our mind.' In the pa.s.sage _ante_, i. 112, which begins, 'I indeed doubt if he could have remembered,' we find in the first two editions not _remembered_, but _recollected_.

Perhaps this change is due to euphony, as _collected_ comes a few lines before. Horace Walpole, in one of his _Letters_ (i. 15), distinguishes the two words, on his revisiting his old school, Eton:--'By the way, the clock strikes the old cracked sound--I recollect so much, and remember so little.'

[411] He made the same boast at St. Andrews. See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 19. He was, I believe, speaking of his translation of Courayer's _Life of Paul Sarpi and Notes_, of which some sheets were printed off.

_Ante_, i. 135.

[412] Horace Walpole, after mentioning that George III's mother, who died in 1772, left but 27,000 when she was reckoned worth at least 300,000, adds:--'It is no wonder that it became the universal belief that she had wasted all on Lord Bute. This became still more probable as he had made the purchase of the estate at Luton, at the price of 114,000, before he was visibly worth 20,000; had built a palace there, another in town, and had furnished the former in the most expensive manner, bought pictures and books, and made a vast park and lake.'

_Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 19.

[413] To him Boswell dedicated his _Thesis_ as _excelsae familiae de Bute spei alterae_ (_ante_, ii. 20). In 1775, he wrote of him:--'He is warmly my friend and has engaged to do for me.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 186

[414] He was mistaken in this. See _ante_, i. 260; also iii. 420.

[415] In England in like manner, and perhaps for the same reason, all Attorneys have been converted into Solicitors.

[416] 'There is at Edinburgh a society or corporation of errand boys, called Cawdies, who ply in the streets at night with paper lanthorns, and are very serviceable in carrying messages.' _Humphrey Clinker_.

Letter of Aug. 8.

[417] Their services in this sense are noticed in the same letter.

[418]

'The formal process shall be turned to sport, And you dismissed with honour by the Court.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, ii.i.86.

[419] Mr. Robertson altered this word to _jocandi_, he having found in Blackstone that to irritate is actionable. BOSWELL.

[420] Quoted by Johnson, _ante_, ii. l97.

[421] His G.o.d-daughter. See _post_ May 10, 1784.

[422] See _post_, under Dec. 20, 1782

[423] See _ante_, i. 155

[424] The will of King Alfred, alluded to in this letter, from the original Saxon, in the library of Mr. Astle, has been printed at the expense of the University of Oxford. BOSWELL.

[425] He was a surgeon in this small Norfolk town. Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, i. 106.

[426] Burney visited Johnson first in 1758, when he was living in Gough Square. _Ante_, i. 328.

[427] Mme. D'Arblay says that Dr. Johnson sent them to Dr. Burney's house, directed 'For the Broom Gentleman.' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii. 180.

[428] 'Sept. 14, 1781. Dr. Johnson has been very unwell indeed. Once I was quite frightened about him; but he continues his strange discipline--starving, mercury, opium; and though for a time half demolished by its severity, he always in the end rises superior both to the disease and the remedy, which commonly is the most alarming of the two.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 107. On Sept. 18, his birthday, he wrote:--'As I came home [from church], I thought I had never begun any period of life so placidly. I have always been accustomed to let this day pa.s.s unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little festivity was not improper. I had a dinner, and invited Allen and Levett.' _Pr. and Med._ p. 199.

[429] This remark, I have no doubt, is aimed at Hawkins, who (_Life_, p.

553) pretends to account for this trip.

[430] _Pr. and Med._ p. 201. BOSWELL.

[431] He wrote from Lichfield on the previous Oct. 27:--'All here is gloomy; a faint struggle with the tediousness of time; a doleful confession of present misery, and the approach seen and felt of what is most dreaded and most shunned. But such is the lot of man.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 209.

[432] The truth of this has been proved by sad experience. BOSWELL. Mrs.

Boswell died June 4, 1789. MALONE.

[433] See account of him in the _Gent. Mag_. Feb. 1785. BOSWELL, see ante, i. 243, note 3.

[434] Mrs. Piozzi (_Synonymy_, ii. 79), quoting this verse, under _Officious_, says;--'Johnson, always thinking neglect the worst misfortune that could befall a man, looked on a character of this description with less aversion than I do.'

[435]

'Content thyself to be _obscurely good_.'

Addisons _Cato_, act. iv. sc. 4.

[436] In both editions of Sir John Hawkins's _Life of Dr. Johnson_, 'letter'd _ignorance_' is printed. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker (_Boswell_, p. I) says that 'Mr. Boswell is habitually unjust to Sir J. Hawkins.' As some kind of balance, I suppose, to this injustice, he suppresses this note.

[437] Johnson repeated this line to me thus:--

'And Labour steals an hour to die.'

But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. This poem is printed in the _Ann. Reg_. for 1783, p. 189, with the following variations:--l. 18, for 'ready help' 'useful care': l. 28, 'His single talent,' 'The single talent'; l. 33, 'no throbs of fiery pain,' 'no throbbing fiery pain'; l. 36, 'and freed,' 'and forced.' On the next page it is printed _John Gilpin_.

[438] Mr. Croker says that this line shows that 'some of Gray's happy expressions lingered in Johnson's memory' He quotes a line that comes at the end of the _Ode on Vicissitude_--'From busy day, the peaceful night.' This line is not Gray's, but Mason's.

[439] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'If you want events, Here is Mr. Levett just come in at fourscore from a walk to Hampstead, eight miles, in August.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177.

[440] In the original, _March_ 20. On the afternoon of March 20 Lord North announced in the House of Commons 'that his Majesty's Ministers were no more.' _Parl. Hist_. xxii. 1215.

[441] _Pr. and Med_. p. 209 [207]. BOSWELL.

[442] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, iv. 81, 100. Mr. Seward records in his _Biographiana_, p. 600--without however giving the year--that 'Johnson being asked what the Opposition meant by their flaming speeches and violent pamphlets against Lord North's administration, answered: "They mean, Sir, rebellion; they mean in spite to destroy that country which they are not permitted to govern."'

[443] In the previous December the City of London in an address, writes Horace Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and _private_ counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable words:--_"Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost."_ Words that could be used to no other King; no King had ever lost so much without losing all.

If James II. lost his crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, ii. 483. The address is given in the _Ann.

Reg._ xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr.