[527] The play is by Ambrose Philips. ‘It was concluded with the most successful Epilogue that was ever yet spoken on the English theatre. The three first nights it was recited twice; and not only continued to be demanded through the run, as it is termed, of the play; but, whenever it is recalled to the stage, where by peculiar fortune, though a copy from the French, it yet keeps its place, the Epilogue is still expected, and is still spoken.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 389. See post, April 21, 1773, note on Eustace Budgel. The Epilogue is given in vol. v. p. 228 of Bonn’s Addison, and the great success that it met with is described in The Spectator, No. 341.
[528] Such poor stuff as the following is certainly not by Johnson:—
‘Let musick sound the voice of joy!
Or mirth repeat the jocund tale;
Let Love his wanton wiles employ,
And o’er the season wine prevail.’
[529] ‘Dodsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English Dictionary; but I had long thought of it.’ Post, Oct. 10, 1779.
[530] It would seem from the passage to which Boswell refers that Pope had wished that Johnson should undertake the Dictionary. Johnson, in mentioning Pope, says:—‘Of whom I may be justified in affirming that were he still alive, solicitous as he was for the success of this work, he would not be displeased that I have undertaken it.’ Works, v. 20. As Pope died on May 30, 1744, this renders it likely that the work was begun earlier than Boswell thought.
[531] In the titlepage of the first edition after the name of Hirch comes that of L. Hawes.
[532] ‘During the progress of the work he had received at different times the amount of his contract; and when his receipts were produced to him at a tavern-dinner given by the booksellers, it appeared that he had been paid a hundred pounds and upwards more than his due.’ Murphy’s Johnson. p. 78. See post, beginning of 1756.
[533] ‘The truth is, that the several situations which I have been in having made me long the plastron [butt] of dedications, I am become as callous to flattery as some people are to abuse.’ Lord Chesterfield, date of Dec. 15, 1755; Chesterfield’s Misc. Works, iv. 266.
[534] September 22, 1777, going from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, to see Islam. BOSWELL.
[535] Boswell here says too much, as the following passages in the Plan prove:—‘Who upon this survey can forbear to wish that these fundamental atoms of our speech might obtain the firmness and immutability of the primogenial and constituent particles of matter?’ ‘Those translators who, for want of understanding the characteristical difference of tongues, have formed a chaotick dialect of heterogeneous phrases;’ ‘In one part refinement will be subtilised beyond exactness, and evidence dilated in another beyond perspicuity.’ Johnson’s Works, v. 12, 21, 22.
[536] Ausonius, Epigram i. 12.
[537] Whitehead in 1757 succeeded Colley Cibber as poet-laureate, and dying in 1785 was followed by Thomas Warton. From Warton the line of succession is Pye, Southey, Wordsworth, Tennyson. See post, under June 13, 1763.
[538] Hawkins (Life, p. 176) likewise says that the manuscript passed through Whitehead and ‘other hands’ before it reached Chesterfield. Mr. Croker had seen ‘a draft of the prospectus carefully written by an amanuensis, but signed in great form by Johnson’s own hand. It was evidently that which was laid before Lord Chesterfield. Some useful remarks are made in his lordship’s hand, and some in another. Johnson adopted all these suggestions.’
[539] This poor piece of criticism confirms what Johnson said of Lord Orrery:—‘He grasped at more than his abilities could reach; tried to pass for a better talker, a better writer, and a better thinker that he was.’ Boswell’s Hebrides, Sept. 22, 1773. See post, under April 7, 1778.
[540] Birch, MSS. Brit. Mus. 4303. BOSWELL.
[541] ‘When I survey the Plan which I have laid before you, I cannot, my Lord, but confess that I am frighted at its extent, and, like the soldiers of Cæsar, look on Britain as a new world, which it is almost madness to invade.’ Johnson’s Works, v. 21.
[542] There might be applied to him what he said of Pope:—“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. He, indeed, who forms his opinion of himself in solitude without knowing the powers of other men, is very liable to error; but it was the felicity of Pope to rate himself at his real value.” Johnson’s Works, viii, 237.
[543] ‘For the Teutonick etymologies I am commonly indebted to Junius and Skinner…. Junius appears to have excelled in extent of learning and Skinner in rectitude of understanding…. Skinner is often ignorant, but never ridiculous: Junius is always full of knowledge, but his variety distracts his judgment, and his learning is very frequently disgraced by his absurdities.’ Ib. v. 29. Francis Junius the younger was born at Heidelberg in 1589, and died at Windsor, at the house of his nephew Isaac Vossius, in 1678. His Etymologicum Anglicanum was not published till 1743. Stephen Skinner, M.D., was born in 1623, and died in 1667. His Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ was published in 1671. Knight’s Eng. Cycle.
[544] Thomas Richards published in 1753 Antiquæ Linguæ Britannicæ Thesaurus, to which is prefixed a Welsh Grammar and a collection of British proverbs.
[545] See Sir John Hawkins’s Life of Johnson [p. 171], BOSWELL.
[546] ‘The faults of the book resolve themselves, for the most part, into one great fault. Johnson was a wretched etymologist.’ Macaulay’s Misc. Writings, p. 382. See post, May 13, 1778, for mention of Horne Tooke’s criticism of Johnson’s etymologies.
[547] ‘The etymology, so far as it is yet known, was easily found in the volumes where it is particularly and professedly delivered … But to COLLECT the WORDS of our language was a task of greater difficulty: the deficiency of dictionaries was immediately apparent; and when they were exhausted, what was yet wanting must be sought by fortuitous and unguided excursions into books, and gleaned as industry should find, or chance should offer it, in the boundless chaos of a living speech.’ Johnson’s Works, v. 31.
[548] See post, under April 10, 1776. BOSWELL.
[549] ‘Mr. Macbean,’ said Johnson in 1778, ‘is a man of great learning, and for his learning I respect him, and I wish to serve him. He knows many languages, and knows them well; but he knows nothing of life. I advised him to write a geographical dictionary; but I have lost all hopes of his ever doing anything properly, since I found he gave as much labour to Capua as to Rome.’ Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary, i, 114. See post beginning of 1773, and Oct 24, 1780.
[550] Boswell is speaking of the book published under the name of Cibber mentioned above, but ‘entirely compiled,’ according to Johnson, by Shiels. See post, April 10, 1776.
[551] See Piozzi Letters, i. 312, and post, May 21, 1775, note.
[552] ‘We ourselves, not without labour and risk, lately discovered Gough Square…. and on the second day of search the very House there, wherein the English Dictionary was composed. It is the first or corner house on the right hand, as you enter through the arched way from the North-west … It is a stout, old-fashioned, oak-balustraded house: “I have spent many a pound and penny on it since then,” said the worthy Landlord: “here, you see, this bedroom was the Doctor’s study; that was the garden” (a plot of delved ground somewhat larger than a bed-quilt) “where he walked for exercise; these three garret bedrooms” (where his three [six] copyists sat and wrote) “were the place he kept his—pupils in”: Tempus edax rerum! Yet ferax also: for our friend now added, with a wistful look, which strove to seem merely historical: “I let it all in lodgings, to respectable gentlemen; by the quarter or the month; it’s all one to me.”—“To me also,” whispered