Life of Johnson Volume V Part 59

[813] See ante, p. 162, note 1.

[814] 'In Col only two houses pay the window tax; for only two have six windows, which, I suppose, are the laird's and Mr. Macsweyn's.'

Johnson's _Works_, ix. 125. 'The window tax, as it stands at present (January 1775)...lays a duty upon every window, which in England augments gradually from twopence, the lowest rate upon houses with not more than seven windows, to two s.h.i.+llings, the highest rate upon houses with twenty-five windows and upwards.' _Wealth of Nations,_ v. 2. 2 .1.

The tax was first imposed in 1695, as a subst.i.tute for hearth money.

Macaulay's _England,_ ed. 1874, vii. 271. It was abolished in 1851.

[815] Thomas Carlyle was not fourteen when, one 'dark frosty November morning,' he set off on foot for the University at Edinburgh--a distance of nearly one hundred miles. Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 22.

[816] _Ante_, p. 290.

[817] _Of the Nature and Use of Lots: a Treatise historicall and theologicall._ By Thomas Gataker. London, 1619. _The Spirituall Watch, or Christ's Generall Watch-word._ By Thomas Gataker. London, 1619.

[818] See _ante_, p. 264.

[819] He visited it with the Thrales on Sept. 22, 1774, when returning from his tour to Wales, and with Boswell in 1776 (_ante_, ii. 451).

[820] Mr. Croker says that 'this, no doubt, alludes to Jacob Bryant, the secretary or librarian at Blenheim, with whom Johnson had had perhaps some coolness now forgotten.' The supposition of the coolness seems needless. With so little to go upon, guessing is very hazardous.

[821] Topham Beauclerk, who had married the Duke's sister, after she had been divorced for adultery with him from her first husband Viscount Bolingbroke. _Ante_, ii. 246, note 1.

[822] See _post_, Dempster's Letter of Feb. 16, 1775.

[823] See _ante_, ii. 340, where Johnson said that 'if he were a gentleman of landed property, he would turn out all his tenants who did not vote for the candidate whom he supported.'

[824] See _ante_, iii. 378.

[825] 'They have opinions which cannot be ranked with superst.i.tion, because they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops of grain by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon has great influence in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a precept annually given in one of the English almanacks, "to kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the better in boiling."' Johnson's _Works,_ ix. 104. Bacon, in his _Natural History_(No.892) says:--'For the increase of moisture, the opinion received is, that seeds will grow soonest if they be set in the increase of the moon.'

[826] The question which Johnson asked with such unusual warmth might have been answered, 'by sowing the bent, or couch gra.s.s.' WALTER SCOTT.

[827] See _ante,_ i. 484.

[828] See _ante_, i. 483.

[829] It is remarkable, that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying any thing on the subject, which I hoped he would have done. BOSWELL. See _ante_, p. 128, note 2, and iv. 183, where Boswell 'observed he must have been a bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his peculiarities.'

[830] In this he was very unlike Swift, who, in his youth, when travelling in England, 'generally chose to dine with waggoners, hostlers, and persons of that rank; and he used to lie at night in houses where he found written of the door _Lodgings for a penny_. He delighted in scenes of low life.' Lord Orrery's _Swift_, ed. 1752, p. 33.

[831] This is from the _Jests of Hierocles._ CROKER.

[832] 'The grave a gay companion shun.' FRANCIS. Horace, 1 _Epis._ xviii. 89.

[833] Boswell in 1776 found that 'oats were much used as food in Dr.

Johnson's own town.' _Ante_, ii. 463.

[834] _Ante_, i. 294.

[835] See _ante_, ii. 258.

[836] 'The richness of the round steep green knolls, clothed with copse, and glancing with cascades, and a pleasant peep at a small fresh-water loch embosomed among them--the view of the bay, surrounded and guarded by the island of Colvay--the gliding of two or three vessels in the more distant Sound--and the row of the gigantic Ardnamurchan mountains closing the scene to the north, almost justify the eulogium of Sacheverell, [_post,_ p. 336] who, in 1688, declared the bay of Tobermory might equal any prospect in Italy.' Lockhart's _Scott,_ iv. 338.

[837] 'The saying of the old philosopher who observes, that he who wants least is most like the G.o.ds who want nothing, was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who, on his own part, required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature. Conversation was all he required to make him happy.' Piozzi's _Anec._ p. 275.

[838] _Remarks on Several Parts of Italy_ (_ante_, ii. 346). Johnson (_Works_, vii. 424) says of these _Travels_:--'Of many parts it is not a very severe censure to say that they might have been written at home.'

He adds that 'the book, though awhile neglected, became in time so much the favourite of the publick, that before it was reprinted it rose to five times its price.'

[839] See _ante_, iii. 254, and iv. 237.

[840] Johnson (_Works_, viii. 320) says of Pope that 'he had before him not only what his own meditation suggested, but what he had found in other writers that might be _accomodated_ to his present purpose.'

Boswell's use of the word is perhaps derived, as Mr. Croker suggests, from _accommoder_, in the sense of _dressing up or cooking meats_. This word occurs in an amusing story that Boswell tells in one of his Hypochondriacks (_London Mag_. 1779, p. 55):--'A friend of mine told me that he engaged a French cook for Sir B. Keen, when amba.s.sador in Spain, and when he asked the fellow if he had ever dressed any magnificent dinners the answer was:--"Monsieur, j'ai accommode un diner qui faisait trembler toute la France."' Scott, in _Guy Mannering_ (ed. 1860, iii.

138), describes 'Miss Bertram's solicitude to soothe and _accommodate_ her parent.' See _ante_, iv. 39, note 1, for '_accommodated_ the ladies.' To sum up, we may say with Justice Shallow:--'Accommodated! it comes of _accommodo_; very good; a good phrase.' 2 _Henry IV_, act iii. sc. 2.

[841] 'Louis Moreri, ne en Provence, en 1643. On ne s'attendait pas que l'auteur du _Pays d'amour_, et le traducteur de _Rodriguez_, entreprit dans sa jeunesse le premier dictionnaire de faits qu'on eut encore vu.

Ce grand travail lui couta la vie... Mort en 1680.' Voltaire's _Works_, ed. 1819, xvii. 133.

[842] Johnson looked upon _Ana_ as an English word, for he gives it in his _Dictionary_.

[843] I take leave to enter my strongest protest against this judgement.

_Bossuet_ I hold to be one of the first luminaries of religion and literature. If there are who do not read him, it is full time they should begin. BOSWELL.

[844]

Just in the gate, and in the jaws of h.e.l.l, Revengeful cares, and sullen sorrows dwell; And pale diseases, and repining age; Want, fear, and famine's unresisted rage; Here toils and death, and death's half-brother, sleep, Forms terrible to view their sentry keep.

Dryden, _Aeneid_, vi. 273. BOSWELL. Voltaire, in his Essay _Sur les inconveniens attaches a la Litterature_ (_Works_, xliii. 173), says:--'Enfin, apres un an de refus et de negociations, votre ouvrage s'imprime; c'est alors qu'il faut ou a.s.soupir les _Cerberes_ de la litterature ou les faire aboyer en votre faveur.' He therefore carries on the resemblance one step further,--

'Cerberus haec ingens latratu regna trifauci Personat.' _Aeneid_, vi.

417.

[845] It was in 1763 that Boswell made Johnson's acquaintance. _Ante_, i. 391.

[846] It is no small satisfaction to me to reflect, that Dr. Johnson read this, and, after being apprized of my intention, communicated to me, at subsequent periods, many particulars of his life, which probably could not otherwise have been preserved. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i. 26.

[847] Though Mull is, as Johnson says, the third island of the Hebrides in extent, there was no post there. _Piozzi Letters_, i. 170.

[848] This observation is very just. The time for the Hebrides was too late by a month or six weeks. I have heard those who remembered their tour express surprise they were not drowned. WALTER SCOTT.

[849] _ The Charmer, a Collection of Songs Scotch and English._ Edinburgh, 1749.

[850] By Thomas Willis, M.D. It was published in 1672. 'In this work he maintains that the soul of brutes is like the vital principle in man, that it is corporeal in its nature and perishes with the body. Although the book was dedicated to the Archbishop of Canterbury, his orthodoxy, a matter that Willis regarded much, was called in question.' Knight's _Eng. Cyclo_. vi. 741. Burnet speaks of him as 'Willis, the great physician.' _History of his Own Time_, ed. 1818, i. 254. See _Wood's Athenae_, iii. 1048.

[851] See _ante_, ii. 409 and iii. 242, where he said:--'Had I learnt to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.'

[852] _Ante_, p. 277.

[853] _Ante_, p. 181.

[854] Mr. Langton thinks this must have been the hasty expression of a splenetick moment, as he has heard Dr. Johnson speak of Mr. Spence's judgment in criticism with so high a degree of respect, as to shew that this was not his settled opinion of him. Let me add that, in the preface to the _Preceptor_, he recommends Spence's _Essay on Papers Odyssey_, and that his admirable _Lives of the English Poets_ are much enriched by Spence's Anecdotes of Pope. BOSWELL. For the _Preceptor_ see _ante_, i.

192, and Johnson's _Works_, v. 240. Johnson, in his _Life of Pope (ib_.