Life of Johnson Volume IV Part 72

[1076] _Anec_. p. 63. BOSWELL.

[1077] 'Johnson one day, on seeing an old terrier lie asleep by the fire-side at Streatham, said, "Presto, you are, if possible, a more lazy dog that I am."' Johnson's _Works_, ed. 1787, xi. 203.

[1078] Upon mentioning this to my friend Mr. Wilkes, he, with his usual readiness, pleasantly matched it with the following _sentimental anecdote_. He was invited by a young man of fas.h.i.+on at Paris, to sup with him and a lady, who had been for some time his mistress, but with whom he was going to part. He said to Mr. Wilkes that he really felt very much for her, she was in such distress; and that he meant to make her a present of two hundred louis-d'ors. Mr. Wilkes observed the behaviour of Mademoiselle, who sighed indeed very piteously, and a.s.sumed every pathetick air of grief; but eat no less than three French pigeons, which are as large as English partridges, besides other things. Mr.

Wilkes whispered the gentleman, 'We often say in England, _Excessive sorrow is exceeding dry_, but I never heard _Excessive sorrow is exceeding hungry_. Perhaps _one_ hundred will do.' The gentleman took the hint. BOSWELL.

[1079] See _post_, p. 367, for the pa.s.sage omitted.

[1080] Sir Joshua Reynolds, on account of the excellence both of the sentiment and expression of this letter, took a copy of it which he shewed to some of his friends; one of whom, who admired it, being allowed to peruse it leisurely at home, a copy was made, and found its way into the newspapers and magazines. It was transcribed with some inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson's own hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes (_Life_, p. 574):--'Johnson, upon being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am betrayed," but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or supposed injuries, the error that made the publication possible.'

[1081] Cowper wrote of Thurlow:--'I know well the Chancellor's benevolence of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world.

When he was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do them too in the most secret manner.' Southey's _Cowper_, vii. 128. Yet Thurlow did not keep his promise made to Cowper when they were fellow-clerks in an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am n.o.body, and shall be always n.o.body, and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are.' He smiled, and replied, 'I surely will.' _Ib._ i. 41. When Cowper sent him the first volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least notice of my present.' _Ib._ xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15, 1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can a.s.sure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that although he hates _our_ species in general, yet his particular hatred is directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's _Corres._ ii. 488, and iii. 10.

[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained; and before Christmas the author of the _English Dictionary_ and of the _Lives of the Poets_ had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke of Fleet-street.' _Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,_ ed. 1871, p. 413.

Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon, 'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been 'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88), shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving each 1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, 500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:--'It was impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this letter. The Chancellor had written:--'It would have suited the purpose better, if n.o.body had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J.

Boswell.' _Boswell_ has been erased--'artfully' too, says--Mr. Croker-so that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."'

Mr. Croker, with his usual suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.'

But it is very likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration, regardless of grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have been better still had Boswell not been in the secret.

[1083] See _ante_, iii. 176.

[1084] On June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (_ante_, p. 293).

The date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is dated July 12.

[1085] 'Even in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace, i. _Epistles_, I. 41.

[1086] See vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL.

[1087] Mrs. Johnson died in 1752. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2.

[1088] See Appendix.

[1089] Printed in his _Works_ [i. 150]. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 241, note 2.

[1090] He wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:--'Be pleased to let the whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the papers.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381.

[1091] Boileau, _Art Poetique_, chant iv.

[1092] This is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press.

_Removes_ seems to be the word intended. MALONE.

[1093] See _ante_, i. 332, and _post_ p. 360.

[1094] See _ante_, p. 267.

[1095] I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 103.

[1096] At the Ess.e.x Head, Ess.e.x-street. BOSWELL.

[1097] Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 8:--

'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.'

_Vanity of Human Wishes_, l. 15.

[1098] Mr. Allen, the printer. BOSWELL. See _ante_, iii. 141, 269.

[1099] It was on this day that he wrote the prayer given below (p. 370) in which is found that striking line--'this world where much is to be done and little to be known.'

[1100] His letter to Dr. Heberden (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 789) shews that he had gone with Dr. Brocklesby to the last Academy dinner, when, as he boasted, 'he went up all the stairs to the pictures without stopping to rest or to breathe.' _Ante_, p. 270, note 2.

[1101]

Quid te exempta _levat_ spinis de pluribus una?

'Pluck out one thorn to mitigate thy pain, What boots it while so many more remain?'

FRANCIS. Horace, 2 _Epistles_, ii. 212.

[1102] See _ante_, iii. 4, note 2.

[1103] Sir Joshua's physician. He is mentioned by Goldsmith in his verses to the Miss Hornecks. Forster's _Goldsmith_, ii. 149.

[1104] How much balloons filled people's minds at this time is shewn by such entries as the following in Windham's _Diary_:-'Feb 7, 1784. Did not rise till past nine; from that time till eleven, did little more than indulge in idle reveries about balloons.' p. 3. 'July 20. The greater part of the time, till now, one o'clock, spent in foolish reveries about balloons.' p. 12. Horace Walpole wrote on Sept. 30 (_Letters_, viii. 505):--'I cannot fill my paper, as the newspapers do, with air-balloons; which though ranked with the invention of navigation, appear to me as childish as the flying kites of school-boys.' 'Do not write about the balloon,' wrote Johnson to Reynolds (_post_, p. 368), 'whatever else you may think proper to say.' In the beginning of the year he had written:--'It is very seriously true that a subscription of 800 has been raised for the wire and workmans.h.i.+p of iron wings.'

_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 345.

[1105] It is remarkable that so good a Latin scholar as Johnson, should have been so inattentive to the metre, as by mistake to have written _stellas_ instead of _ignes_. BOSWELL.

[1106]

'Micat inter omnes Julium sidus, velut inter ignes Luna minores.'

'And like the Moon, the feebler fires among, Conspicuous s.h.i.+nes the Julian star.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, i. 12. 46.

[1107] See _ante_, iii. 209.

[1108]

'The little blood that creeps within his veins Is but just warmed in a hot fever's pains.'

DRYDEN. Juvenal, _Satires_, x. 217.

[1109] Lunardi had made, on Sept. 15, the first balloon ascent in England. _Gent. Mag_. 1784, p. 711. Johnson wrote to Mr. Ryland on Sept.

18:--'I had this day in three letters three histories of the Flying Man in the great Balloon.' He adds:--'I live in dismal solitude.' _Notes and Queries_, 5th S. vii. 381.

[1110] 'Sept. 27, 1784. Went to see Blanchard's balloon. Met Burke and D. Burke; walked with them to Pantheon to see Lunardi's. Sept. 29. About nine came to Brookes's, where I heard that the balloon had been burnt about four o'clock.' Windham's _Diary_, p. 24.

[1111] His love of London continually appears. In a letter from him to Mrs. Smart, wife of his friend the Poet, which is published in a well-written life of him, prefixed to an edition of his Poems, in 1791, there is the following sentence:-'To one that has pa.s.sed so many years in the pleasures and opulence of London, there are few places that can give much delight.'