Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 56

Here we find Johnson's poetical and critical powers undiminished. I must, however, observe, that the aids he gave to this poem, as to _The Traveller_ and _Deserted Village_ of Goldsmith, were so small as by no means to impair the distinguished merit of the authour. BOSWELL.

[548] In the _Gent. Mag._ 1763, pp. 602, 633, is a review of his _Observations on Diseases of the Army_. He says that the register of deaths of military men proves that more than eight times as many men fall by what was called the gaol fever as by battle. His suggestions are eminently wise. Lord Seaford, in 1835, told Leslie 'that he remembered dining in company with Dr. Johnson at Dr. Brocklesby's, when he was a boy of twelve or thirteen. He was impressed with the superiority of Johnson, and his knocking everybody down in argument.' C.R. Leslie's _Recollections_, i. 146.

[549] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Sept. 28.

[550] See _ante_, i. 433, and ii. 217, 358.

[551] "In his _Life of Swift_ (_Works_, viii. 205) he thus speaks of this _Journal_:-'In the midst of his power and his politicks, he kept a journal of his visits, his walks, his interviews with ministers, and quarrels with his servant, and transmitted it to Mrs. Johnson and Mrs.

Dingley, to whom he knew that whatever befell him was interesting, and no accounts could be too minute. Whether these diurnal trifles were properly exposed to eyes which had never received any pleasure from the presence of the dean, may be reasonably doubted: they have, however, some odd attraction: the reader, finding frequent mention of names which he has been used to consider as important, goes on in hope of information; and, as there is nothing to fatigue attention, if he is disappointed, he can hardly complain.'"

[552] On his fifty-fifth birthday he recorded:--'I resolve to keep a journal both of employment and of expenses. To keep accounts.' _Pr. and Med_. 59. See _post_, Aug. 25, 1784, where he writes to Langton:--'I am a little angry at you for not keeping minutes of your own _acceptum et expensum_, and think a little time might be spared from Aristophanes for the _res familiares_.'

[553] This Mr. Chalmers thought was George Steevens. CROKER. D'Israeli (_Curiosities of Literature_, ed. 1834, vi. 76) describes Steevens as guilty of 'an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious ingenuity.' He gives curious instances of his literary impostures. See _ante_, iii. 281, and _post_, May 15, 1784.

[554] If this be Lord Mansfield, Boswell must use _late_ in the sense of _in retirement_; for Mansfield was living when the _Life of Johnson_ was published. He retired in 1788. Johnson in 1772, said that he had never been in his company (_ante_, ii. 158). The fact that Mansfield is mentioned in the previous paragraph adds to the probability that he is meant.

[555] See _ante_, ii. 318.

[556] In Scotland, Johnson spoke of Mansfield's 'splendid talents.'

Boswell's _Hebrides_, under Nov. 11.

[557] 'I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.' 2 _ Henry IV_, act i. sc. 2.

[558] Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved and stiff. If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his aim. BOSWELL. Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Loughborough, is mentioned (_ante_, ii. 374), and again in Murphy's _Life of Johnson_, p. 43, as being in company with Johnson and Foote.

Boswell also has before (_ante_, i. 387) praised the elegance of his oratory. Henry Mackenzie (_Life of John Home_, i. 56) says that Wedderburne belonged to a club at the British Coffee-house, of which Garrick, Smollett, and Dr. Douglas were members.

[559] Boswell informed the people of Scotland in the Letter that he addressed to them in 1785 (p. 29), that 'now that Dr. Johnson is gone to a better world, he (Boswell) bowed the intellectual knee to _Lord Thurlow_.' See _post_, June 22, 1784.

[560] Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 27.

[561]

'Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat, Unable to support a gem of weight.'

DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, i. 29.

[562] He had published a series of seventy _Essays_ under the t.i.tle of _The Hypochondriack_ in the _London Magazine_ from 1777 to 1783.

[563] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 365. The common reading, however, is 'Nullum numen _habes_,' &c. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 218) records this saying, but with a variation. '"For," says Mr. Johnson, "though I do not quite agree with the proverb, that _Nullum numen adest si sit prudentia_, yet we may very well say, that _Nullum numen adest, ni sit prudentia."'

[564] It has since appeared. BOSWELL.

[565] Miss Burney mentions meeting Dr. Harington at Bath in 1780. 'It is his son,' she writes, 'who published those very curious remains of his ancestor [Sir John Harington] under the t.i.tle _Nugae Antiquae_ which my father and all of us were formerly so fond of.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 341.

[566]

'For though they are but trifles, thou Some value didst to them allow.'

Martin's _Catullus_, p. 1.

[567]

--Underneath this rude, uncouth disguise, A genius of extensive knowledge lies.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Satires_, i. 3. 33.

[568] He would not have been a troublesome patient anywhere, for, according to Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 275),'he required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.'

[569] 'That natural jealousy which makes every man unwilling to allow much excellence in another, always produces a disposition to believe that the mind grows old with the body; and that he whom we are now forced to confess superiour is hastening daily to a level with ourselves.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 212.

[570] With the following elucidation of the saying-_Quos Deus_ (it should rather be-_Quem Jupiter) vult perdere, prius dementat_-Mr.

Boswell was furnished by Mr. Pitts:--'Perhaps no sc.r.a.p of Latin whatever has been more quoted than this. It occasionally falls even from those who are scrupulous even to pedantry in their Latinity, and will not admit a word into their compositions, which has not the sanction of the first age. The word _demento_ is of no authority, either as a verb active or neuter.--After a long search for the purpose of deciding a bet, some gentlemen of Cambridge found it among the fragments of Euripides, in what edition I do not recollect, where it is given as a translation of a Greek Iambick: [Greek: Ou Theos thelei apolesoi'

apophreuai.]

'The above sc.r.a.p was found in the hand-writing of a suicide of fashion, Sir D. O., some years ago, lying on the table of the room where he had destroyed himself. The suicide was a man of cla.s.sical acquirements: he left no other paper behind him.'

Another of these proverbial sayings,

_Incidit in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim,_

I, in a note on a pa.s.sage in _The Merchant of Venice_ [act iii. sc. 5], traced to its source. It occurs (with a slight variation) in the _Alexandreis_ of Philip Gualtier (a poet of the thirteenth century), which was printed at Lyons in 1558. Darius is the person addressed:--

--Qu tendis inertem, Rex periture, fugam? nescis, heu! perdite, nescis Quern fugias: hostes incurris dum fugis hostem; _Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim._

A line not less frequently quoted was suggested for enquiry in a note on _The Rape of Lucrece:--

Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris--_:

But the author of this verse has not, I believe, been discovered.

MALONE. The 'Greek lambick' in the above note is not Greek. To a learned friend I owe the following note. 'The _Quem Jupiter vult perdere_, &c., is said to be a translation of a fragment of _Euripides_ by Joshua Barnes. There is, I believe, no such fragment at all. In Barnes's _Euripides_, Cantab. 1694, fol. p. 515, is a fragment of Euripides with a note which may explain the muddle of Boswell's correspondent:--

"[Greek: otau de daimonn handri porsunae kaka ton noun heblapse proton,]"

on which Barnes writes:--"Tale quid in Franciados nostrae [probably his uncompleted poem on Edward III.] l. 3. _Certe ille deorum Arbiter ultricem c.u.m vult extendere dextram Dementat prius._"' See _ante_, ii.

445, note 1. Sir D. O. is, perhaps, Sir D'Anvers...o...b..rne, whose death is recorded in the _Gent. Mag._ 1753, p. 591. 'Sir D'Anvers...o...b..rne, Bart., Governor of New York, soon after his arrival there; _in his garden.'

Solamen miseris, &c._, is imitated by Swift in his _Verses on Stella's Birthday_, 1726-7:--

'The only comfort they propose, To have companions in their woes.'

Swift's _Works_, ed. 1803, xi. 22. The note on _Lucrece_ was, I conjecture, on line 1111:--

'Grief best is pleased with grief's society.'

[571]

'FAUSTUS-- "Tu quoque, ut hic video, non es ignarus amorum."

'FORTUNATUS-- "Id commune malum; semel insanivimus omnes."'

Baptistae Mantuani Carmelitae _Adolescentia, seu Bucolica_. Ecloga I, published in 1498. 'Scaliger,' says Johnson (_Works_, viii. 391), 'complained that Mantuan's Bucolicks were received into schools, and taught as cla.s.sical. ... He was read, at least in some of the inferiour schools of this kingdom, to the beginning of the present [eighteenth] century.'