[1364] See ante, p. 421.
[1365] Boswell wrote to Temple on July 28, 1763:—‘My departure fills me with a kind of gloom that quite overshadows my mind. I could almost weep to think of leaving dear London, and the calm retirement of the Inner Temple. This is very effeminate and very young, but I cannot help it.’ Letters of Boswell, p. 46.
[1366] Mrs. Piozzi says (Anec. p. 297) that ‘Johnson’s eyes were so wild, so piercing, and at times so fierce, that fear was, I believe, the first emotion in the hearts of all his beholders.’
[1367] Johnson was, in fact, the editor of this work, as appears from a letter of Mr. T. Davies to the Rev. Edm. Bettesworth:—‘Reverend Sir,—I take the liberty to send you Roger Ascham’s works in English. Though Mr. Bennet’s name is in the title, the editor was in reality Mr. Johnson, the author of the Rambler, who wrote the life of the author, and added several notes. Mr. Johnson gave it to Mr. Bennet, for his advantage,’ &c.—CROKER. Very likely Davies exaggerated Johnson’s share in the book. Bennet’s edition was published, not in 1763, but in 1761.
[1368] ‘Lord Sheffield describes the change in Gibbon’s opinions caused by the reign of terror:—‘He became a warm and zealous advocate for every sort of old establishment. I recollect in a circle where French affairs were the topic and some Portuguese present, he, seemingly with seriousness, argued in favour of the Inquisition at Lisbon, and said he would not, at the present moment, give up even that old establishment.’ Gibbons’s Misc. Works, i. 328. One of Gibbon’s correspondents told him in 1792, that the Wealth of Nations had been condemned by the Inquisition on account of ‘the lowness of its style and the looseness of the morals which it inculcates.’ Ib. ii. 479. See also post, May 7, 1773.
[1369] Johnson wrote on Aug. 17, 1773:—‘This morning I saw at breakfast Dr. Blacklock, the blind poet, who does not remember to have seen light, and is read to by a poor scholar in Latin, Greek, and French. He was originally a poor scholar himself. I looked on him with reverence.’ Piozzi Letters, i. 110. See also Boswell’s Hebrides, Aug. 17, 1773. Spence published an Account of Blacklock, in which he meanly omitted any mention of Hume’s great generosity to the blind poet. J. H. Burton’s Hume, i. 392. Hume asked Blacklock whether he connected colour and sound. ‘He answered, that as he met so often with the terms expressing colours, he had formed some false associations, but that they were of the intellectual kind. The illumination of the sun, for instance, he supposed to resemble the presence of a friend.’ Ib. p. 389.
[1370] They left London early and yet they travelled only 51 miles that day. The whole distance to Harwich is 71 miles. Paterson’s Itinerary, i. 323.
[1371] Mackintosh (Life, ii. 162) writing of the time of William III, says that ‘torture was legal in Scotland, and familiar in every country of Europe but England. Was there a single writer at that time who had objected to torture? I think not.’ In the Gent. Mag. for 1742 (p. 660) it is stated that ‘the King of Prussia has forbid the use of torture in his dominions.’ In 1747 (p. 298) we read that Dr. Blackwell, an English physician, had been put to the torture in Sweden. Montesquieu in the Esprit des Lois, vi. 17, published in 1748, writing of ‘la question ou torture centre les criminels,’ says:—‘Nous voyons aujourd’hui une nation très-bien policée [la nation anglaise] la rejeter sans inconvénient. Elle n’est donc pas nécessaire par sa nature.’ Boswell in 1765 found that Paoli tortured a criminal with fire. Corsica, p. 158. Voltaire, in 1777, after telling how innocent men had been put to death with torture in the reign of Lewis XIV, continues—‘Mais un roi a-t-il le temps de songer à ces menus details d’horreurs au milieu de ses fètes, de ses conquêtes, et de ses mattresses? Daignez vous en occuper, ô Louis XVI, vous qui n’avez aucune de ces distractions!’ Voltaire’s Works, xxvi. 332. Johnson, two years before Voltaire thus wrote, had been shown la chambre de question—the torture-chamber-in Paris. Post, Oct. 17, 1775. It was not till the Revolution that torture was abolished in France. One of the Scotch judges in 1793, at the trial of Messrs. Palmer and Muir for sedition (post, June 3, 1781, note), ‘asserted that now the torture was banished, there was no adequate punishment for sedition.’ Parl. Hist. xxx. 1569.
[1372] ‘A cheerful and good heart will have a care of his meat and drink.’ Ecclesiasticus, xxx. 25.
‘Verecundari neminem apud mensam decet, Nam ibi de divinis atque humanis cernitur.’ Trinummus, act 2, sc. 4.
Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 149) records that ‘Johnson often said, “that wherever the dinner is ill got, there is poverty, or there is avarice, or there is stupidity; in short, the family is somehow grossly wrong; for,” continued he, “a man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner; and if he cannot get that well dressed, he should be suspected of inaccuracy in other things.”’ Yet he ‘used to say that a man who rode out for an appetite consulted but little the dignity of human nature.’ Johnson’s Works (1787), xi. 204.
[1373] This essay is more against the practices of the parasite than gulosity. It is entitled The art of living at the cost of others. Johnson wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale’s children:—‘Gluttony is, I think, less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more sparingly, and are less curious in the choice of meat; but if once you find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her mind is enslaved to the lowest and grossest temptation.’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 298.
[1374] Hawkins (Life, p. 355) mentions ‘the greediness with which he ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his profound silence at the moment of refection.’
[1375] Cumberland (Memoirs, i. 357) says:—‘He fed heartily, but not voraciously, and was extremely courteous in his commendations of any dish that pleased his palate.’
[1376] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on July 10, 1780:—‘Last week I saw flesh but twice and I think fish once; the rest was pease. You are afraid, you say, lest I extenuate myself too fast, and are an enemy to violence; but did you never hear nor read, dear Madam, that every man has his genius, and that the great rule by which all excellence is attained and all success procured, is to follow genius; and have you not observed in all our conversations that my genius is always in extremes; that I am very noisy or very silent; very gloomy or very merry; very sour or very kind? And would you have me cross my genius when it leads me sometimes to voracity and sometimes to abstinence?’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 166.
[1377] ‘This,’ he told Boswell, ‘was no intentional fasting, but happened just in the course of a literary life.’ Boswell’s Hebrides, Oct. 4, 1773. See post, April 17, 1778.
[1378] In the last year of his life, when he knew that his appetite was diseased, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—‘I have now an inclination to luxury which even your table did not excite; for till now my talk was more about the dishes than my thoughts. I remember you commended me for seeming pleased with my dinners when you had reduced your table; I am able to tell you with great veracity, that I never knew when the reduction began, nor should have known what it was made, had not you told me. I now think and consult to-day what I shall eat to-morrow. This disease will, I hope, be cured.’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 362.
[1379] Johnson’s visit to Gordon and Maclaurin are just mentioned in Boswell’s Hebrides, under Nov. 11, 1772.
[1380] The only nobleman with whom he dined ‘about the same time’ was Lord Elibank. After dining with him, ‘he supped,’ says Boswell, ‘with my wife and myself.’ Ib.
[1381] See post, April 15, 1778.
[1382] Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 102) says, ‘Johnson’s own notions about eating were nothing less than delicate; a leg of pork boiled till it dropped from the bone, a veal-pie with plums and sugar, or the outside cut of a salt buttock of beef were his favourite dainties.’ Cradock saw Burke at a tavern dinner send Johnson a very small piece of a pie, the crust of which was made with bad butter. ‘Johnson soon