to the Satires, 1. 99):—
‘Does not one table Bavius still admit?
‘Still to one bishop Philips seem a wit?’
Pattison’s Pope’s Satires, p. 107. In the Life of Addison, Johnson mentioning Dr. Madden adds:—‘a name which Ireland ought to honour.’ Johnson’s Works, vii. 455.
[943] See ante, p. 175. Hawkins writes (Life, p. 363):—‘I congratulated him length, on his being now engaged in a work that suited his genius. His answer was:—“I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary; it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.”’
[944] They have been reprinted by Mr. Malone, in the Preface to his edition of Shakspeare. BOSWELL.
[945] At Christmas, 1757, he said that he should publish about March, 1758 (post, Dec. 24, 1757). When March came he said that he should publish before summer (post, March 1, 1758).
[946] In what Johnson says of Pope’s slow progress in translating the Iliad, he had very likely his own case in view. ‘Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker’s mind. He that runs against time has an antagonist not subject to casualties.’ Johnson’s Works, viii. 255. In Prior’s Goldsmith (i. 238) we have the following extracts from letters written by Grainger (post, March 21, 1776) to Dr. Percy:—‘June 27, 1758. I have several times called on Johnson to pay him part of your subscription [for his edition of Shakespeare]. I say, part, because he never thinks of working if he has a couple of guineas in his pocket; but if you notwithstanding order me, the whole shall be given him at once.’ ‘July 20, 1758. As to his Shakespeare, movet sed non promovet. I shall feed him occasionally with guineas.’
[947] Hawkins (Life, p. 440) says that ‘Reynolds and some other of his friends, who were more concerned for his reputation than himself seemed to be, contrived to entangle him by a wager, or some other pecuniary engagement, to perform his task by a certain time.’ Just as Johnson was oppressed by the engagement that he had made to edit Shakespeare, so was Cowper by his engagement to edit Milton. ‘The consciousness that there is so much to do and nothing done is a burthen I am not able to bear. Milton especially is my grievance, and I might almost as well be haunted by his ghost, as goaded with such continual reproaches for neglecting him.’ Southey’s Cowper, vii. 163.
[948] From The Ghost, Bk. iii. 1. 801. Boswell makes two slight errors in quoting: ‘You cash’ should be ‘their cash; and ‘you know’ should be ‘we know.’
[949] See post, April 17, 1778.
[950] Mrs. Thrale writing to him in 1777, says:—‘You would rather be sick in London than well in the country.’ Piozzi Letters. i. 394. Yet Johnson, when he could afford to travel, spent far more time in the country than is commonly thought. Moreover a great part of each summer from 1766 to 1782 inclusive he spent at Streatham.
[951] The motto to this number
‘Steriles nec legit arenas,
Ut caneret paucis, mersitque hoc pulvere verum.’
(Lucan).
Johnson has thus translated:—
‘Canst thou believe the vast eternal mind
Was e’er to Syrts and Libyan sands confin’d?
That he would choose this waste, this barren ground,
To teach the thin inhabitants around,
And leave his truth in wilds and deserts drown’d?’
[952] It was added to the January number of 1758, but it was dropped in the following numbers.
[953] According to the note in the Gent. Mag. the speech was delivered ‘at a certain respectable talking society.’ The chairman of the meeting is addressed as Mr. President. The speech is vigorously written and is, I have no doubt, by Johnson. ‘It is fit,’ the speaker says, ‘that those whom for the future we shall employ and pay may know they are the servants of a people that expect duty for their money. It is said an address expresses some distrust of the king, or may tend to disturb his quiet. An English king, Mr. President, has no great right to quiet when his people are in misery.’
[954] See post, May 19, 1777.
[955] See post, March 21, 1772.
[956] ‘I have often observed with wonder, that we should know less of Ireland than of any other country in Europe.’ Temple’s Works, iii. 82.
[957] The celebrated oratour, Mr. Flood has shewn himself to be of Dr. Johnson’s opinion; having by his will bequeathed his estate, after the death of his wife Lady Frances, to the University of Dublin; ‘desiring that immediately after the said estate shall come into their possession, they shall appoint two professors, one for the study of the native Erse or Irish language, and the other for the study of Irish antiquities and Irish history, and for the study of any other European language illustrative of, or auxiliary to, the study of Irish antiquities or Irish history; and that they shall give yearly two liberal premiums for two compositions, one in verse, and the other in prose, in the Irish language.’ BOSWELL.
[958] Dr. T. Campbell records in his Diary of a Visit to England (p. 62), that at the dinner at Messieurs Dilly’s (post, April 5, 1775) he ‘ventured to say that the first professors of Oxford, Paris, &c., were Irish. “Sir,” says Johnson, “I believe there is something in what you say, and I am content with it, since they are not Scotch.”’
[959] ‘On Mr. Thrale’s attack of apoplexy in 1779, Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—‘I remember Dr. Marsigli, an Italian physician, whose seizure was more violent than Mr. Thrale’s, for he fell down helpless, but his case was not considered as of much danger, and he went safe home, and is now a professor at Padua.’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 48.
[960] ‘Now, or late, Vice-Chancellor.’ WARTON.—BOSWELL. He was Vice-Chancellor when Johnson’s degree was conferred (ante, p. 282), but his term of office had now come to an end.
[961] ‘Mr. Warton was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in the preceding year.’ WARTON.-BOSWELL.
[962] ‘Miss Jones lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She was a very ingenious poetess, and published a volume of poems; and, on the whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman. She was a sister to the Reverend River Jones, Chanter of Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the Chantress. I have heard him often address her in this passage from Il Penseroso:
“Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among I woo,” etc.
She died unmarried.’ WHARTON
[963] Tom. iii. p. 482. BOSWELL.
[964] Of Shakspeare. BOSWELL.
[965] This letter is misdated. It was written in Jan. 1759, and not in 1758. Johnson says that he is forty-nine. In Jan. 1758 he was forty-eight. He mentions the performance of Cleane, which was at the end of 1758; and he says that ‘Murphy is to have his Orphan of China acted next month.’ It was acted in the spring of 1759.
[966] Juvenal, Sat. iii. 1.
‘Though grief and fondness in my breast rebel,
When injured Thales bids the town farewell,
Yet still my calmer thoughts his choice commend,
I praise the hermit, but regret the friend;
Resolved at length from vice and London far