Life of Johnson Volume V Part 69

[1177] See _ante_, iii. 160, for a visit paid by Johnson and Boswell to Kedleston in 1777.

[1178] See _ante_, iii. 164.

[1179] The parish of Prestbury. DUPPA.

[1180] At this time the seat of Sir Lynch Salusbury Cotton [Mrs.

Thrale's relation], now, of Lord Combermere, his grandson, from which place he takes his t.i.tle. DUPPA.

[1181] Shavington Hall, in Shrops.h.i.+re. DUPPA.

[1182] 'To guard. To adorn with lists, laces or ornamental borders.

Obsolete.' Johnson's _Dictionary._

[1183] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Nov. 13, 1783:--'You seem to mention Lord Kilmurrey _(sic)_ as a stranger. We were at his house in Ches.h.i.+re [Shrops.h.i.+re].... Do not you remember how he rejoiced in having _no_ park? He could not disoblige his neighbours by sending them _no_ venison.' _Piozzi Letters,_ ii. 326.

[1184] This remark has reference to family conversation. Robert was the eldest son of Sir L.S. Cotton, and lived at Lleweney. DUPPA.

[1185] _Paradise Lost,_ book xi. v. 642. DUPPA.

[1186] See Mrs. Piozzi's _Synonymy_, i. 323, for an anecdote of this walk.

[1187] Lleweney Hall was the residence of Robert Cotton, Esq., Mrs.

Thrale's cousin german. Here Mr. and Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson staid three weeks. DUPPA. Mrs. Piozzi wrote in 1817:--'Poor old Lleweney Hall!

pulled down after standing 1000 years in possession of the Salusburys.'

Hayward's _Piozzi_, ii. 206.

[1188] Johnson's name for Mrs. Thrale. _Ante,_ i. 494.

[1189] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 13, 1777:--'Boswell wants to see Wales; but except the woods of Bachycraigh, what is there in Wales? What that can fill the hunger of ignorance, or quench the thirst of curiosity?' _Piozzi Letters,_ i. 367. _Ante,_ iii. 134, note 1.

[1190] Pennant gives a description of this house, in a tour he made into North Wales in 1780:--'Not far from Dymerchion, lies half buried in woods the singular house of Bach y Graig. It consists of a mansion of three sides, enclosing a square court. The first consists of a vast hall and parlour: the rest of it rises into six wonderful stories, including the cupola; and forms from the second floor the figure of a pyramid: the rooms are small and inconvenient. The bricks are admirable, and appear to have been made in Holland; and the model of the house was probably brought from Flanders, where this kind of building is not unfrequent. It was built by Sir Richard Clough, an eminent merchant, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The initials of his name are in iron on the front, with the date 1567, and on the gateway 1569.' DUPPA.

[1191] Bishop s.h.i.+pley, whom Johnson described as _'knowing and convertible' Ante,_ iv. 246. Johnson, in his _Dictionary_, says that _'conversable_ is sometimes written _conversible_, but improperly.'

[1192] William Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph and afterwards of Worcester.

He was one of the seven Bishops who were sent to the Tower in 1688. His character is drawn by Burnet, _History of His Own Time_, ed. 1818, i.

210. It was he of whom Bishop Wilkins said that 'Lloyd had the most learning in ready cash of any he ever knew.' _Ante_, ii. 256, note 3.

[1193] A curious account of Dodwell and 'the paradoxes after which he seemed to hunt' is given in Burnet, iv. 303. He was Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford. 'It was about him that William III uttered those memorable words: "He has set his heart on being a martyr; and I have set mine on disappointing him."' Macaulay's _England_, ed. 1874, iv. 226. See Hearne in Leland's _Itin._, 3rd ed.

v. 136.

[1194] By Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in 1579. DUPPA.

[1195] See _ante_, iii. 357, and v. 42.

[1196] Perhaps Johnson wrote _mere_.

[1197] Humphry Llwyd was a native of Denbigh, and practised there as a physician, and also represented the town in Parliament. He died 1568, aged 41. DUPPA.

[1198] Mrs. Thrale's father. DUPPA.

[1199] Cowper wrote a few years later in the first book of _The Task_, in his description of the grounds at Weston Underwood:--

'Not distant far a length of colonnade Invites us. Monument of ancient taste, Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate.

Our fathers knew the value of a screen From sultry suns, and in their shaded walks And long-protracted bowers enjoyed at noon The gloom and coolness of declining day.

We bear our shades about us: self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree.

Thanks to Benevolus [A]--he spares me yet These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines, And though himself so polished still reprieves The obsolete prolixity of shade.'

[1200] Such a pa.s.sage as this shews that Johnson was not so insensible to nature as is often a.s.serted. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec._ p. 99) says:--'Mr.

Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man.

But when he wished to point them out to his companion: "Never heed such nonsense," would he reply; "a blade of gra.s.s is always a blade of gra.s.s, whether in one country or another. Let us, if we _do_ talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of enquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind."' She adds (p. 265):-- 'Walking in a wood when it rained was, I think, the only rural image he pleased his fancy with; "for," says he, "after one has gathered the apples in an orchard, one wishes them well baked, and removed to a London eating-house for enjoyment."' See _ante_, pp. 132, note 1, 141, note 2, 333, note i, and 346, note i, for Johnson's descriptions of scenery. Pa.s.sages in his letters shew that he had some enjoyment of country life. Thus he writes:--'I hope to see standing corn in some part of the earth this summer, but I shall hardly smell hay or suck clover flowers.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 140. 'What I shall do next I know not; all my schemes of rural pleasure have been some way or other disappointed.' _Ib._ p. 372. 'I hope Mrs. ------ when she came to her favourite place found her house dry, and her woods growing, and the breeze whistling, and the birds singing, and her own heart dancing.'

_Ib._ p. 401. In this very trip to Wales, after describing the high bank of a river 'shaded by gradual rows of trees,' he writes:--'The gloom, the stream, and the silence generate thoughtfulness.' _Post,_ p. 454.

[A] Mr. Throckmorton the owner.

[1201] In the MS. in Dr. Johnson's handwriting, he has first entered in his diary, 'The old Clerk had great appearance of joy at seeing his Mistress, and foolishly said that he was now willing to die:' he afterwards wrote in a separate column, on the same leaf, under the head of _notes and omissions,_ 'He had a crown;' and then he appears to have read over his diary at a future time, and interlined the paragraph with the words 'only'--'given him by my Mistress,' which is written in ink of a different colour. DUPPA. 'If Mr. Duppa,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, 'does not send me a copy of Johnson's _Diary,_ he is as shabby as it seems our Doctor thought me, when I gave but a crown to the old clerk. The poor clerk had probably never seen a crown in his possession before. Things were very distant A.D. 1774 from what they are 1816.' Hayward's _Piozzi,_ ii. 178. Mrs. Piozzi writes as if Johnson's censure had been pa.s.sed in 1816 and not in 1774.

[1202] Mrs. Piozzi has the following MS. note on this:--'He said I flattered the people to whose houses we went. I was saucy, and said I was obliged to be civil for two, meaning himself and me. He replied n.o.body would thank me for compliments they did not understand. At Gwaynynog _he_ was flattered, and was happy of course.' Hayward's _Piozzi,_ i. 75. Sept. 21, 1778. _Mrs. Thrale._ 'I remember, Sir, when we were travelling in Wales, how you called me to account for my civility to the people. "Madam," you said, "let me have no more of this idle commendation of nothing. Why is it that whatever you see, and whoever you see, you are to be so indiscriminately lavish of praise?"

"Why I'll tell you, Sir," said I, "when I am with you, and Mr. Thrale, and Queeny [Miss Thrale], I am obliged to be civil for four."' Mme.

D'Arblay's _Diary,_ i. 132. On June 11, 1775, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield:--'Everybody remembers you all: you left a good impression behind you. I hope you will do the same at------. Do not make them speeches. Unusual compliments, to which there is no stated and prescriptive answer, embarra.s.s the feeble, who know not what to say, and disgust the wise, who knowing them to be false suspect them to be hypocritical.' _Piozzi Letters,_ i. 232. She records that he once said to her:--'You think I love flattery, and so I do, but a little too much always disgusts me. That fellow Richardson [the novelist] on the contrary could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.' Piozzi's _Anec._ p. 184. See _ante_, iii. 293, for Johnson's rebuke of Hannah More's flattery.

[1203] Johnson, in his Dictionary, defines _calamine_ or _lapis calaminaris_ as _a kind of fossile bituminous earth, which being mixed with copper changes it into bra.s.s._ It is native siliceous oxide of zinc. _The Imperial Dictionary._

[1204] See _ante,_ iii. 164.

[1205] 'No' or 'little' is here probably omitted. CROKER.

[1206] The name of this house is Bodryddan; formerly the residence of the Stapyltons, the parents of five co-heiresses, of whom Mrs. Cotton, afterwards Lady Salusbury Cotton, was one. DUPPA.

[1207] 'Dr. Johnson, whose ideas of anything not positively large were ever mingled with contempt, asked of one of our sharp currents in North Wales, "Has this _brook_ e'er a name?" and received for answer, "Why, dear Sir, this is the _River_ Ustrad." "Let us," said he, turning to his friend, "jump over it directly, and shew them how an Englishman should treat a Welsh river."' Piozzi's _Synonymy,_ i. 82.

[1208] See _ante_, i. 313, note 4.

[1209] On Aug. 16 he wrote to Mr. Levett:--'I have made nothing of the Ipecacuanha.' _Ante_, ii. 282. Mr. Croker suggests that _up_ is omitted after 'I gave.'

[1210] See _post_, p. 453.

[1211] F.G. are the printer's signatures, by which it appears that at this time four sheets (B, C, D, E), or 64 pages had already been printed. The MS. was 'put to the press' on June 20. _Ante_, ii. 278.

[1212] The English version Psalm 36 begins,--'My heart sheweth me the wickedness of the unG.o.dly,' which has no relation to 'Dixit injustus.'

[1213] This alludes to 'A prayer by R.W., (evidently Robert Wisedom) which Sir Henry Ellis, of the British Museum, has found among the Hymns which follow the old version of the singing Psalms, at the end of Barker's _Bible_ of 1639. It begins,

'Preserve us, Lord, by thy deare word, From Turk and Pope, defend us Lord, Which both would thrust out of his throne Our Lord Jesus Christ, thy deare son.'

CROKER.