Life of Johnson Volume V Part 68

Boswell has his letter, and, I believe, copied my answer. I have appeased him, if a degraded chief can possibly be appeased: but it will be thirteen days--days of resentment and discontent--before my recantation can reach him. Many a dirk will imagination, during that interval, fix in my heart. I really question if at this time my life would not be in danger, if distance did not secure it. Boswell will find his way to Streatham before he goes, and will detail this great affair.'

_Piozzi Letters_, i. 216.

[1143] In like manner he communicated to Sir William Forbes part of his journal from which he made the _Life of Johnson_. _Ante_, iii. 208.

[1144] In justice both to Sir William Forbes, and myself, it is proper to mention, that the papers which were submitted to his perusal contained only an account of our Tour from the time that Dr. Johnson and I set out from Edinburgh (p. 58), and consequently did not contain the elogium on Sir William Forbes, (p. 24), which he never saw till this book appeared in print; nor did he even know, when he wrote the above letter, that this _Journal_ was to be published. BOSWELL. This note is not in the first edition.

[1145] _Hamlet_, act iii. sc. 1.

[1146] Both _Nonpareil_ and _Bon Chretien_ are in Johnson's _Dictionary_; _Nonpareil_, is defined as _a kind of apple_, and _Bon Chretien_ as _a species of pear_.

[1147] See _ante_, p. 311.

[1148] See _ante_, iv. 9.

[1149] 'Dryden's contemporaries, however they reverenced his genius, left his life unwritten; and nothing therefore can be known beyond what casual mention and uncertain tradition have supplied.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 245. See _ante_, iii. 71.

[1150]

'Before great Agamemnon reign'd Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave Whose huge ambition's now contain'd In the small compa.s.s of a grave; In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown, No bard had they to make all time their own.'

FRANCIS. Horace, _Odes_, iv. 9. 25.

[1151] Having found, on a revision of the first edition of this work, that, notwithstanding my best care, a few observations had escaped me, which arose from the instant impression, the publication of which might perhaps be considered as pa.s.sing the bounds of a strict decorum, I immediately ordered that they should be omitted in the subsequent editions. I was pleased to find that they did not amount in the whole to a page. If any of the same kind are yet left, it is owing to inadvertence alone, no man being more unwilling to give pain to others than I am.

A contemptible scribbler, of whom I have learned no more than that, after having disgraced and deserted the clerical character, he picks up in London a scanty livelihood by scurrilous lampoons under a feigned name, has impudently and falsely a.s.serted that the pa.s.sages omitted were _defamatory_, and that the omission was not voluntary, but compulsory.

The last insinuation I took the trouble publickly to disprove; yet, like one of Pope's dunces, he persevered in 'the lie o'erthrown.' [_Prologue to the Satires_, l. 350.] As to the charge of defamation, there is an obvious and certain mode of refuting it. Any person who thinks it worth while to compare one edition with the other, will find that the pa.s.sages omitted were not in the least degree of that nature, but exactly such as I have represented them in the former part of this note, the hasty effusion of momentary feelings, which the delicacy of politeness should have suppressed. BOSWELL. In the second edition this note ended at the first paragraph, the latter part being added in the third. For the 'few observations omitted' see _ante_, pp. 148, 381, 388.

The 'contemptible scribbler' was, I believe, John Wolcot, better known by his a.s.sumed name of Peter Pindar. He had been a clergyman. In his _Epistle to Boswell (Works_, i. 219), he says in reference to the pa.s.sages about Sir A. Macdonald (afterwards Lord Macdonald):--'A letter of severe remonstrance was sent to Mr. B., who, in consequence, omitted in the second edition of his _Journal_ what is so generally pleasing to the public, viz., the scandalous pa.s.sages relative to that n.o.bleman.' It was in a letter to the _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 285, that Boswell 'publickly disproved the insinuation' made 'in a late scurrilous publication' that these pa.s.sages 'were omitted in consequence of a letter from his Lords.h.i.+p. Nor was any application,' he continues, 'made to me by the n.o.bleman alluded to at any time to make any alteration in my _Journal_.'

[1152]

'Nothing extenuate Nor set down aught in malice.'

_Oth.e.l.lo_, act v. sc. 2.

[1153] See _ante_, i. 189, note 2, 296, 297; and Johnson's _Works_, v.

23.

[1154] Of his two imitations Boswell means _The Vanity of Human Wishes_, of which one hundred lines were written in a day. _Ante_, i. 192, and ii. 15.

[1155] Johnson, it should seem, did not allow that there was any pleasure in writing poetry. 'It has been said there is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may have pleasure from writing after it is over, if you have written well; but you don't go willingly to it again.' _Ante_, iv. 219. What Johnson always sought was to sufficiently occupy the mind. So long as that was done, that labour would, I believe, seem to him the pleasanter which required the less thought.

[1156] Nathan Bailey published his _English Dictionary_ in 1721.

[1157]

'Woolston, the scourge of scripture, mark with awe!

And mighty Jacob, blunderbuss of law.'

_The Dunciad_, first ed., bk. iii. l. 149. Giles Jacob published a _Law Dictionary_ in 1729.

[1158] _Ante_, p. 393.

[1159] A writer in the _Gent. Mag._ 1786, p. 388, with some reason says:--'I heartily wish Mr. Boswell would get this Latin poem translated.'

[1160] Boswell, briefly mentioning the tour which Johnson made to Wales in the year 1774 with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, says:--'I do not find that he kept any journal or notes of what he saw there' (_ante_, ii. 285). A journal had been kept however, which in 1816 was edited and published by Mr. Duppa. Mrs. Piozzi, writing in October of that year, says that three years earlier she had been shewn the MS. by a Mr. White, and that it was genuine. 'The gentleman who possessed it seemed shy of letting me read the whole, and did not, as it appeared, like being asked how it came into his hands.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 177. According to Mr. Croker (Croker's _Boswell_, p. 415) 'it was preserved by Johnson's servant, Barber. How it escaped Boswell's research is not known.' A fragment of Johnson's _Annals_, also preserved by Barber, had in like manner never been seen by Boswell; _ante_, i. 35, note 1. The editor of these _Annals_ says (Preface, p. v):--'Francis Barber, unwilling that all the MSS. of his ill.u.s.trious master should be utterly lost, preserved these relicks from the flames. By purchase from Barber's widow they came into the possession of the editor.' It seems likely that Barber was afraid to own what he had done; though as he was the residuary legatee he was safe from all consequences, unless the executors of the will who were to hold the residue of the estate in trust for him had chosen to proceed against him. Mr. Duppa in editing this Journal received a.s.sistance from Mrs.

Piozzi, 'who,' he says (Preface, p. xi), 'explained many facts which could not otherwise have been understood.' A pa.s.sage in one of her letters dated Bath, Oct. 11, 1816, shows how unfriendly were the relations between her and her eldest daughter, Johnson's Queeny, who had married Admiral Lord Keith. 'I am sadly afraid,' she writes, 'of Lady K.'s being displeased, and fancying I promoted this publication. Could I have caught her for a quarter-of-an-hour, I should have proved my innocence, and might have shown her Duppa's letter; but she left neither note, card, nor message, and when my servant ran to all the inns in chase of her, he learned that she had left the White Hart at twelve o'clock. Vexatious! but it can't be helped. I hope the pretty little girl my people saw with her will pay her more tender attention.' Three days later she wrote:--'Johnson's _Diary_ is selling rapidly, though the contents are _bien maigre_, I must confess. Mr. Duppa has politely suppressed some sarcastic expressions about my family, the Cottons, whom we visited at Combermere, and at Lleweney.' Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii.

176-9. Mr. Croker in 1835 was able to make 'a collation of the original MS., which has supplied many corrections and some omissions in Mr.

Duppa's text.' Mr. Croker's text I have generally followed.

[1161] 'When I went with Johnson to Lichfield, and came down to breakfast at the inn, my dress did not please him, and he made me alter it entirely before he would stir a step with us about the town, saying most satirical things concerning the appearance I made in a riding-habit; and adding, "'Tis very strange that such eyes as yours cannot discern propriety of dress; if I had a sight only half as good, I think I should see to the centre."' Piozzi's _Anec_. p. 288.

[1162] For Mrs. (Miss) Porter, Mrs. (Miss) Aston, Mr. Green, Mrs. Cobb, Mr. (Peter) Garrick, Miss Seward, and Dr. Taylor, see _ante_, ii. 462-473.

[1163] Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the physiologist and poet, grandfather of Charles Darwin. Mrs. Piozzi when at Florence wrote:--'I have no roses equal to those at Lichfield, where on one tree I recollect counting eighty-four within my own reach; it grew against the house of Dr.

Darwin.' Piozzi's _Journey_, i. 278.

[1164] See _ante_, iii. 124, for mention of her father and brother.

[1165] The verse in _Martial_ is:--

'Defluat, et lento splendescat turbida limo.'

In the common editions it has the number 45, and not 44. DUPPA.

[1166] See _ante_, iii. 187.

[1167] Johnson wrote on Nov. 27, 1772, 'I was yesterday at Chatsworth.

They complimented me with playing the fountain and opening the cascade.

But I am of my friend's opinion, that when one has seen the ocean cascades are but little things.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.69.

[1168] 'A water-work with a concealed spring, which, upon touching, spouted out streams from every bough of a willow-tree.' _Piozzi MS_. CROKER.

[1169] A race-horse, which attracted so much of Dr. Johnson's attention, that he said, 'of all the Duke's possessions, I like Atlas best.' DUPPA.

[1170] For Johnson's last visit to Chatsworth, see _ante_, iv. 357, 367.

[1171] 'From the Muses, Sir Thomas More bore away the first crown, Erasmus the second, and Micyllus has the third.' In the MS. Johnson has introduced [Greek: aeren] by the side of [Greek: eilen], DUPPA. 'Jacques Moltzer, en Latin Micyllus. Ce surnom lui fut donne le jour ou il remplissait avec le plus grand succes le role de Micyllus dans _Le Songe_ de Lucien qui, arrange en drame, fut represente au college de Francfort. Ne en 1503, mort en 1558.' _Nouv. Biog. Gen._ x.x.xv. 922.

[1172] See _ante_, ii. 324, note I, and iii. 138.

[1173] Mr. Gilpin was an undergraduate at Oxford. DUPPA.

[1174] John Parker, of Brownsholme, in Lancas.h.i.+re [Browsholme, in Yorks.h.i.+re], Esq. DUPPA.

[1175] Mrs. Piozzi 'rather thought' that this was _Capability Brown_ [_ante_, iii. 400]. CROKER.

[1176] Mr. Gell, of Hopton Hall, father of Sir William Gell, well known for his topography of Troy. DUPPA.