Life of Johnson Volume V Part 40

[142] Dr. A Carlyle (_Auto._ p. 114) tells how in 1745 he found 'Professor Maclaurin busy on the walls on the south side of Edinburgh, endeavoring to make them more defensible [against the Pretender]. He had even erected some small cannon.' See _ante_, iii, 15, for a ridiculous story told of him by Goldsmith.

[143]

'Crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago:'

'grim grief on every side, And fear on every side there is, and many-faced is death.'

Morris, Virgil _Aeneids_, ii. 368.

[144] Mr. Maclaurin's epitaph, as engraved on a marble tomb-stone, in the Grey-Friars church-yard, Edinburgh:--

Infra situs est COLIN MACLAURIN, Mathes. olim in Acad. Edin. Prof.

Electus ipso Newtono suadente.

H.L.P.F.

Non ut nomini paterno consulat, Nam tali auxilio nil eget; Sed ut in hoc infelici campo, Ubi luctus regnant et pavor, Mortalibus prorsus non absit solatium; Hujus enim scripta evolve, Mentemque tantarum rerum capacem Corpori caduco superst.i.tem crede.

BOSWELL.

[145] See _ante_, i. 437, and _post_, p. 72.

[146]

'What is't to us, if taxes rise or fall, Thanks to our fortune we pay none at all.

No statesman e'er will find it worth his pains To tax our labours and excise our brains.

Burthens like these vile earthly buildings bear, No tribute's laid on _Castles_ in the _Air_'

Churchill's _Poems, Night,_ ed. 1766, i. 89.

[147] Pitt, in 1784, laid a tax of ten s.h.i.+llings a year on every horse 'kept for the saddle, or to be put in carriages used solely for pleasure.'_Parl. Hist._ xxiv. 1028.

[148] In 1763 he published the following description of himself in his _Correspondence with Erskine_, ed. 1879, p.36. 'The author of the _Ode to Tragedy_ is a most excellent man; he is of an ancient family in the west of Scotland, upon which he values himself not a little. At his nativity there appeared omens of his future greatness. His parts are bright; and his education has been good. He has travelled in post-chaises miles without number. He is fond of seeing much of the world. He eats of every good dish, especially apple-pie. He drinks old hock. He has a very fine temper. He is somewhat of an humorist, and a little tinctured with pride. He has a good manly countenance, and he owns himself to be amorous. He has infinite vivacity, yet is observed at times to have a melancholy cast. He is rather fat than lean, rather short than tall, rather young than old.' He is oddly enough described in Arighi's _Histoire de Pascal Paoli_, i. 231, 'En traversant la Mediterranee sur de freles navires pour venir s'a.s.seoir au foyer de la nationalite Corse, des hommes _graves_ tels que Boswel et Volney obeissaient sans doute a un sentiment bien plus eleve qu'au besoin vulgaire d'une puerile curiosite'

[149] See _ante_, i. 400.

[150] For _respectable_, see _ante_, iii. 241, note 2.

[151] Boswell, in the last of his _Hypochondriacks_, says:--'I perceive that my essays are not so lively as I expected they would be, but they are more learned. And I beg I may not be charged with excessive arrogance when I venture to say that they contain a considerable portion of original thinking.'_London Mag_. 1783, p. 124.

[152] Burns, in _The Author's Earnest Cry and Prayer_, says:--

'But could I like Montgomeries fight, Or gab like Boswell.'

Boswell and Burns were born within a few miles of each other, Boswell being the elder by eighteen years.

[153]

'For pointed satire I would Buckhurst choose, The best good man, with the worst-natured muse.'

Rochester's _Imitations of Horace, Sat_. i. 10.

[154] Johnson's _Works_, ix. i. See _ante_, ii. 278, where he wrote to Boswell:--'I have endeavoured to do you some justice in the first paragraph [of the _Journey_].' The day before he started for Scotland he wrote to Dr. Taylor:--'Mr. Boswell, an active lively fellow, is to conduct me round the country.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 422. 'His inquisitiveness,' he said, 'is seconded by great activity.' _Works_, ix.

8. On Oct. 7 he wrote from Skye:--'Boswell will praise my resolution and perseverance; and I shall in return celebrate his good humour and perpetual cheerfulness.... It is very convenient to travel with him, for there is no house where he is not received with kindness and respect.'

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 198. He told Mrs. Knowles that 'Boswell was the best travelling companion in the world.' _Ante_, iii. 294. Mr. Croker says (_Croker's Boswell_, p. 280):--'I asked Lord Stowell in what estimation he found Boswell amongst his countrymen. "Generally liked as a good-natured jolly fellow," replied his lords.h.i.+p. "But was he respected?" "Well, I think he had about the proportion of respect that you might guess would be shown to a jolly fellow." His lords.h.i.+p thought there was more regard than respect.' _Hebrides,_ p. 40.

[155] See _ante_, ii. 103, 411.

[156] There were two quarto volumes of this Diary; perhaps one of them Johnson took with him. Boswell had 'accidently seen them and had read a great deal in them,' as he owned to Johnson (_ante_, under Dec. 9, 1784), and moreover had, it should seem, copied from them (_ante_, i.

251). The 'few fragments' he had received from Francis Barber (_ante_, i. 27).

[157] In the original 'how much we lost _at separation_' Johnson's _Works_, ix. I. Mr. William Nairne was afterwards a Judge of the Court of Sessions by the t.i.tle of Lord Dunsinnan. Sir Walter Scott wrote of him:--'He was a man of scrupulous integrity. When sheriff depute of Perths.h.i.+re, he found upon reflection, that he had decided a poor man's case erroneously; and as the only remedy, supplied the litigant privately with money to carry the suit to the supreme court, where his judgment was reversed.' Croker's _Boswell_, p. 280.

[158]

'Non illic urbes, non tu mirabere silvas: Una est injusti caerula forma maris.

_Ovid. Amor._ L. II. El. xi.

Nor groves nor towns the ruthless ocean shows; Unvaried still its azure surface flows.

BOSWELL.

[159] See _ante_. ii. 229.

[160] My friend, General Campbell, Governour of Madras, tells me, that they made _speldings_ in the East-Indies, particularly at Bombay, where they call them _Bambaloes_. BOSWELL. Johnson had told Boswell that he was 'the most _unscottified_ of his countrymen.'_Ante_, ii. 242.

[161] 'A small island, which neither of my companions had ever visited, though, lying within their view, it had all their lives solicited their notice.' Johnson's _Works_, ix. 1.

[162] 'The remains of the fort have been removed to a.s.sist in constructing a very useful lighthouse upon the island. WALTER SCOTT.

[163]

'Unhappy queen!

Unwilling I forsook your friendly state.'

Dryden. [_Aeneid_, vi. 460.] BOSWELL.

[164] Dr. A. Carlyle (_Auto_. p. 331) says of his journey to London in 1758:--'It is to be noted that we could get no four-wheeled chaise till we came to Durham, those conveyances being then only in their infancy. Turnpike roads were only in their commencement in the north.'

'It affords a southern stranger,' wrote Johnson (_Works_ ix. 2), 'a new kind of pleasure to travel so commodiously without the interruption of toll-gates.'

[165] See _ante_, iii. 265, for Lord Shelburne's statement on this subject.

[166] See _ante_, ii. 339, and iii. 205, note 4.

[167] See _ante_, iii. 46.

[168] The pa.s.sage quoted by Dr. Johnson is in the _Character of the a.s.sembly-man_; Butler's _Remains_, p. 232, edit. 1754:--'He preaches, indeed, both in season and out of season; for he rails at Popery, when the land is almost lost in Presbytery; and would cry Fire! Fire! in Noah's flood.'

There is reason to believe that this piece was not written by Butler, but by Sir John Birkenhead; for Wood, in his _Athenae Oxonienses_, vol.

ii. p. 640, enumerates it among that gentleman's works, and gives the following account of it: