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Life of Johnson, Volume 4 · Chapter 42Footnotes: (10)

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As a specimen of his writings, I shall quote the following passage, which appears to me equally absurd and impious, and which might have been retorted upon him by the men who were prosecuted for burning his house. 'I cannot, (says he,) as a necessarian, [meaning necessitarian] hate any man; because I consider him as being, in all respects, just what GOD has made him to be; and also as doing with respect to me, nothing but what he was expressly designed and appointed to do; GOD being the only cause, and men nothing more than the instruments in his hands to execute all his pleasure.'— Illustrations of Philosophical Necessity, p. 111.

The Reverend Dr. Parr, in a late tract, appears to suppose that 'Dr. Johnson not only endured, but almost solicited, an interview with Dr. Priestley. In justice to Dr. Johnson, I declare my firm belief that he never did. My illustrious friend was particularly resolute in not giving countenance to men whose writings he considered as pernicious to society. I was present at Oxford when Dr. Price, even before he had rendered himself so generally obnoxious by his zeal for the French Revolution, came into a company where Johnson was, who instantly left the room. Much more would he have reprobated Dr. Priestley. Whoever wishes to see a perfect delineation of this Literary Jack of all Trades, may find it in an ingenious tract, entitled, 'A SMALL WHOLE-LENGTH OF DR. PRIESTLEY,' printed for Rivingtons, in St. Paul's Church-Yard. BOSWELL. See Appendix B.

[740] Burke said, 'I have learnt to think better of mankind.' Ante, iii.236.

[741] He wrote to his servant Frank from Heale on Sept. l6:—'As Thursday [the 18th] is my birthday I would have a little dinner got, and would have you invite Mrs. Desmoulins, Mrs. Davis that was about Mrs. Williams, and Mr. Allen, and Mrs. Gardiner.' Croker's Boswell, p.739. See ante, iii.157, note 3.

[742] Dr. Burney had just lost Mr. Bewley, 'the Broom Gentleman' (ante, p. 134), and Mr. Crisp. Dr. Burney's Memoirs, ii.323, 352. For Mr. Crisp, see Macaulay's Review of Mme. D'Arblay's Diary. Essays, ed. 1874, iv.104.

[743] He wrote of her to Mrs. Montagu:—'Her curiosity was universal, her knowledge was very extensive, and she sustained forty years of misery with steady fortitude. Thirty years and more she had been my companion, and her death has left me very desolate.' Croker's Boswell, p. 739. This letter brought to a close his quarrel with Mrs. Montagu (ante, p. 64).

[744] On Sept. 22 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'If excision should be delayed, there is danger of a gangrene. You would not have me for fear of pain perish in putrescence. I shall, I hope, with trust in eternal mercy, lay hold of the possibility of life which yet remains.' Piozzi Letters, ii.312.

[745] Rather more than seven years ago. Ante, ii.82, note 2.

[746] Mrs. Anna Williams. BOSWELL.

[747] See ante, p. 163, and Boswell's Hebrides, Nov 2.

[748] Dated Oct. 27. Piozzi Letters, ii.321.

[749] According to Mrs. Piozzi (Letters, ii.387), he said to Mrs. Siddons:—'You see, Madam, wherever you go there are no seats to be got.' Sir Joshua also paid her a fine compliment. 'He never marked his own name [on a picture],' says Northcote, 'except in the instance of Mrs. Siddons's portrait as the Tragic Muse, when he wrote his name upon the hem of her garment. "I could not lose," he said, "the honour this opportunity offered to me for my name going down to posterity on the hem of your garment."' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 246. In Johnson's Works, ed. 1787, xi. 207, we read that 'he said of Mrs. Siddons that she appeared to him to be one of the few persons that the two great corrupters of mankind, money and reputation, had not spoiled.'

[750] 'Indeed, Dr. Johnson,' said Miss Monckton, 'you must see Mrs. Siddons.' 'Well, Madam, if you desire it, I will go. See her I shall not, nor hear her; but I'll go, and that will do.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 198.

[751] 'Mrs. Porter, the tragedian, was so much the favourite of her time, that she was welcomed on the stage when she trod it by the help of a stick.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 319.

[752] He said:—'Mrs. Clive was the best player I ever saw.' Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 126. See ante, p. 7. She was for many years the neighbour and friend of Horace Walpole.

[753] She acted the heroine in Irene. Ante, i. 197. 'It is wonderful how little mind she had,' he once said. Ante, ii. 348. See Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 126.

[754] See ante, iii. 183.

[755] See ante, iii. 184.

[756] 'Garrick's great distinction is his universality,' Johnson said. 'He can represent all modes of life, but that of an easy, fine-bred gentleman.' Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 126. See ante, iii. 35. Horace Walpole wrote of Garrick in 1765 (Letters, iv. 335):—'Several actors have pleased me more, though I allow not in so many parts. Quin in Falstaff was as excellent as Garrick in Lear. Old Johnson far more natural in everything he attempted; Mrs. Porter surpassed him in passionate tragedy. Cibber and O'Brien were what Garrick could never reach, coxcombs and men of fashion. Mrs. Clive is at least as perfect in low comedy.'

[757] See ante, ii. 465.

[758] Mr. Kemble told Mr. Croker that 'Mrs. Siddons's pathos in the last scene of The Stranger quite overcame him, but he always endeavoured to restrain any impulses which might interfere with his previous study of his part.' Croker's Boswell, p. 742. Diderot, writing of the qualifications of a great actor, says:—'Je lui veux beaucoup de jugement; je le veux spectateur froid et tranquille de la nature humaine; qu'il ait par conséquent beaucoup de finesse, mais nulle sensibilité, ou, ce qui est la même chose, l'art de tout imiter, et une égale aptitude à toutes sortes de caractères et de rôles; s'il était sensible, il lui serait impossible de jouer dix fois de suite le même rôle avec la même chaleur et le même succès; très chaud à la première représentation, il serait épuisé et froid comme le marble à la troisième,' &c. Diderot's Works (ed. 1821), iii. 274. See Boswell's Hebrides, post, v. 46.

[759] My worthy friend, Mr. John Nichols, was present when Mr. Henderson, the actor, paid a visit to Dr. Johnson; and was received in a very courteous manner. See Gent. Mag. June, 1791.

I found among Dr. Johnson's papers, the following letter to him, from the celebrated Mrs. Bellamy [ante, i. 326]:—

'To DR. JOHNSON.

'SIR,

'The flattering remembrance of the partiality you honoured me with, some years ago, as well as the humanity you are known to possess, has encouraged me to solicit your patronage at my Benefit.

'By a long Chancery suit, and a complicated train of unfortunate events, I am reduced to the greatest distress; which obliges me, once more, to request the indulgence of the publick.

'Give me leave to solicit the honour of your company, and to assure you, if you grant my request, the gratification I shall feel, from being patronized by Dr. Johnson, will be infinitely superiour to any advantage that may arise from the Benefit; as I am, with the profoundest respect, Sir,

'Your most obedient, humble servant, G. A. BELLAMY. No. 10 Duke-street, St. James's, May 11, 1783.'

I am happy in recording these particulars, which prove that my illustrious friend lived to think much more favourably of Players than he appears to have done in the early part of his life. BOSWELL. Mr. Nichols, describing Henderson's visit to Johnson, says:—'The conversation turning on the merits of a certain dramatic writer, Johnson said: "I never did the man an injury; but he would persist in reading his tragedy to me."' Gent. Mag: 1791, p. 500.

[760] Piozzi Letters, vol. ii. p. 328. BOSWELL.

[761] Piozzi Letters, vol. ii. p. 342. BOSWELL. The letter to Miss Thrale was dated Nov. 18. Johnson wrote on Dec. l3:—'You must all guess again at my friend. It was not till Dec. 31 that he told the name.

[762] Miss Burney, who visited him on this day, records:—'He was, if possible, more instructive, entertaining, good-humoured, and exquisitely fertile than ever.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 284. The day before he wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's little daughters:—'I live here by my own self, and have had of late very bad nights; but then I have had a pig to dinner which Mr. Perkins gave me. Thus life is chequered.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 327.

[763] See ante, i. 242.

[764] See ante, i. 242.

[765] Nos. 26 and 29.

[766] Piozzi Letters, i. 334. See ante, p. 75.

[767] He strongly opposed the war with America, and was one of Dr. Franklin's friends. Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 108.

[768] It was of this tragedy that the following story is told in Rogers's Table-Talk, p. 177:—'Lord Shelburne could say the most provoking things, and yet appear quite unconscious of their being so. In one of his speeches, alluding to Lord Carlisle, he said:—"The noble Lord has written a comedy." "No, a tragedy." "Oh, I beg pardon; I thought it was a comedy."' See ante, p. 113. Pope, writing to Mr. Cromwell on Aug. 19, 1709, says:—'One might ask the same question of a modern life, that Rich did of a modern play: "Pray do me the favour, Sir, to inform me is this your tragedy or your comedy?"' Pope's Works, ed. 1812, vi. 81.

[769] Mrs. Chapone, when she was Miss Mulso, had written 'four billets in The Rambler, No. 10.' Ante, i. 203. She was one of the literary ladies who sat at Richardson's feet. Wraxall (Memoirs, ed. 1815, i. 155) says that 'under one of the most repulsive exteriors that any woman ever possessed she concealed very superior attainments and extensive knowledge.' Just as Mrs. Carter was often called 'the learned Mrs. Carter,' so Mrs. Chapone was known as 'the admirable Mrs. Chapone.'

[770] See ante, iii. 373.

[771] A few copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to the authour's friends. BOSWELL.

[772] Dr. Johnson having been very ill when the tragedy was first sent to him, had declined the consideration of it. BOSWELL.

[773] Johnson refers, I suppose, to a passage in Dryden which he quotes in his Dictionary under mechanick:—'Many a fair precept in poetry is like a seeming demonstration in mathematicks, very specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanick operation.'

[774]

[775] Lord Cockburn (Life of Lord Jeffrey, i. 74) describing the representation of Scotland towards the close of last century, and in fact till the Reform Bill of 1832, says:—'There were probably not above 1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be held, hope included, in Government's hand. The election of either the town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper.'

[776] Six years later, when he was Praeses of the Quarter-Sessions, he carried up to London an address to be presented to the Prince of Wales. 'This,' he wrote, 'will add something to my conspicuousness. Will that word do?' Letters of Boswell, p. 295.

[777] This part of this letter was written, as Johnson goes on to say, a considerable time before the conclusion. The Coalition Ministry, which was suddenly dismissed by the King on Dec. 19, was therefore still in power. Among Boswell's 'friends' was Burke. See ante, p. 223.

[778] On Nov. 22 he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'I feel the weight of solitude very pressing; after a night of broken and uncomfortable slumber I rise to a solitary breakfast, and sit down in the evening with no companion. Sometimes, however, I try to read more and more.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 482. On Dec. 27 he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'You have more than once wondered at my complaint of solitude, when you hear that I am crowded with visits. Inopem me copia fecit. Visitors are no proper companions in the chamber of sickness. They come when I could sleep or read, they stay till I am weary.... The amusements and consolations of langour and depression are conferred by familiar and domestick companions, which can be visited or called at will.... Such society I had with Levett and Williams; such I had where I am never likely to have it more.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 341.

[779] The confusion arising from the sudden dismissal of a Ministry which commanded a large majority in the House of Commons had been increased by the resignation, on Dec. 22, of Earl Temple, three days after his appointment as Secretary of State. Parl. Hist. xxiv. 238.

[780] 'News I know none,' wrote Horace Walpole on Dec. 30, 1783 (Letters, viii. 447), 'but that they are crying Peerages about the streets in barrows, and can get none off.' Thirty-three peerages were made in the next three years. (Whitaker's Almanac, 1886, p. 463.) Macaulay tells how this December 'a troop of Lords of the Bedchamber, of Bishops who wished to be translated, and of Scotch peers who wished to be reelected made haste to change sides.' Macaulay's Writings and Speeches, ed. 1871, p. 407.

[781] See ante, ii. 182. He died Oct. 28, 1788.

[782]'Prince Henry was the first encourager of remote navigation. What mankind has lost and gained by the genius and designs of this prince it would be long to compare, and very difficult to estimate. Much knowledge has been acquired, and much cruelty been committed; the belief of religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been outrageously and enormously violated. The Europeans have scarcely visited any coast but to gratify avarice, and extend corruption; to arrogate dominion without right, and practise cruelty without incentive. Happy had it then been for the oppressed, if the designs of Henry had slept in his bosom, and surely more happy for the oppressors.' Johnson's Works, v. 219. See ante, ii. 478.

[783] 'The author himself,' wrote Gibbon (Misc. Works, i. 220), 'is the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject; no one is so sincerely interested in the event.'

[784] Mickle, speaking in the third person as the Translator, says:— 'He is happy to be enabled to add Dr. Johnson to the number of those whose kindness for the man, and good wishes for the Translation, call for his sincerest gratitude.' Mickle's Lusiad, p. ccxxv.

[785] A brief record, it should seem, is given, ante, iii. 37.

[786] See ante, iii. 106, 214.

[787] The author of Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr, Johnson says (p. 153) that it was Johnson who determined Shaw to undertake this work. 'Sir,' he said, 'if you give the world a vocabulary of that language, while the island of Great Britain stands in the Atlantic Ocean your name will be mentioned.' On p. 156 is a letter by Johnson introducing Shaw to a friend.

[788] 'Why is not the original deposited in some publick library?' he asked. Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 10.

[789] See ante, i. 190.

[790] See Appendix C.

[791] 'Dec. 27, 1873. The wearisome solitude of the long evenings did indeed suggest to me the convenience of a club in my neighbourhood, but I have been hindered from attending it by want of breath.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 340. 'Dec. 31. I have much need of entertainment; spiritless, infirm, sleepless, and solitary, looking back with sorrow and forward with terrour.' Ib, p. 343.

[792] '"I think," said Mr. Cambridge, "it sounds more like some club that one reads of in The Spectator than like a real club in these times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those of a single night in other clubs."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 290. Mr. Cambridge was thinking of the Two-penny Club. Spectator, No. ix.

[793] I was in Scotland when this Club was founded, and during all the winter. Johnson, however, declared I should be a member, and invented a word upon the occasion: 'Boswell (said he) is a very clubable man.' When I came to town I was proposed by Mr. Barrington, and chosen. I believe there are few societies where there is better conversation or more decorum. Several of us resolved to continue it after our great founder was removed by death. Other members were added; and now, above eight years since that loss, we go on happily. BOSWELL. Mr. Croker says 'Johnson had already invented unclubable for Sir J. Hawkins,' and refers to a note by Dr. Burney (ante, i. 480, note I), in which Johnson is represented as saying of Hawkins, while he was still a member of the Literary Club:—'Sir John, Sir, is a very unclubable man.' But, as Mr. Croker points out (Croker's Boswell, p. 164), 'Hawkins was not knighted till long after he had left the club.' The anecdote, being proved to be inaccurate in one point, may be inaccurate in another, and may therefore belong to a much later date.

[794] See Appendix D.

[795] Ben Jonson wrote Leges Convivales that were 'engraven in marble over the chimney in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern, Temple Bar; that being his Club Room.' Jonson's Works, ed. 1756, vii. 291.

[796] RULES.

'The Club shall consist of four-and-twenty.

'The meetings shall be on the Monday, Thursday, and Saturday of every week; but in the week before Easter there shall be no meeting.

'Every member is at liberty to introduce a friend once a week, but not oftener.

'Two members shall oblige themselves to attend in their turn every night from eight to ten, or to procure two to attend in their room.

'Every member present at the Club shall spend at least sixpence; and every member who stays away shall forfeit three-pence.

'The master of the house shall keep an account of the absent members; and deliver to the President of the night a list of the forfeits incurred.

'When any member returns after absence, he shall immediately lay down his forfeits; which if he omits to do, the President shall require.

'There shall be no general reckoning, but every man shall adjust his own expences.

'The night of indispensable attendance will come to every member once a month. Whoever shall for three months together omit to attend himself, or by substitution, nor shall make any apology in the fourth month, shall be considered as having abdicated the Club.

'When a vacancy is to be filled, the name of the candidate, and of the member recommending him, shall stand in the Club-room three nights. On the fourth he may be chosen by ballot; six members at least being present, and two-thirds of the ballot being in his favour; or the majority, should the numbers not be divisible by three.

'The master of the house shall give notice, six days before, to each of those members whose turn of necessary attendance is come.

'The notice may be in these words:—"Sir, On —— the —— of —— — will be your turn of presiding at the Essex-Head. Your company is therefore earnestly requested."

'One penny shall be left by each member for the waiter.'

Johnson's definition of a Club in this sense, in his Dictionary, is, 'An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.' BOSWELL.

[797] She had left him in the summer (ante, p. 233), but perhaps she had returned.

[798] He received many acts of kindness from outside friends. On Dec. 31 he wrote:—'I have now in the house pheasant, venison, turkey, and ham, all unbought. Attention and respect give pleasure, however late or however useless. But they are not useless when they are late; it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 343.

[799] 'Dec. 16, 1783. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Johnson, who indeed is very ill, and whom I could hardly tell how to leave. He was very, very kind. Oh! what a cruel, heavy loss will he be! Dec. 30. I went to Dr. Johnson, and spent the evening with him. He was very indifferent indeed. There were some very disagreeable people with him; and he once affected me very much by turning suddenly to me, and grasping my hand and saying:—"The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some very bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah! priez Dieu pour moi."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 293, 5. 'I snatch,' he wrote a few weeks later, 'every lucid interval, and animate myself with such amusements as the time offers.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 349.

[800] He had written to her on Nov. 10. See Croker's Boswell, p. 742.

[801] Hawkins (Life, 562) says that this November Johnson said to him:—'What a man am I, who have got the better of three diseases, the palsy, the gout, and the asthma, and can now enjoy the conversation of my friends, without the interruptions of weakness or pain.'

[802] 'The street [on London Bridge], which, before the houses fell to decay, consisted of handsome lofty edifices, pretty regularly built, was 20 feet broad, and the houses on each side generally 26-1/2 feet deep.' After 1746 no more leases were granted, and the houses were allowed to run to ruin. In 1756-7 they were all taken down. Dodsley's London and its Environs, ed. 1761, iv. 136-143.

[803] In Lowndes's Bibl. Man. i. 328 is given a list of nearly fifty of these books. Some of them were reprinted by Stace in 1810-13 in 6 vols. quarto. Dr. Franklin, writing of the books that he bought in his boyhood says:—'My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate little volumes. I afterwards sold them to enable me to buy R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were small chapmen's books, and cheap. Forty volumes in all.' Franklin's Memoirs, i. 17.

[804] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale this same day:—'Alas, I had no sleep last night, and sit now panting over my paper. Dabit Deus his quoque finem.' ['This too the Gods shall end.' MORRIS, Virgil, Aeneids, 1.199.] Piozzi Letters, ii. 347.

[805] Boswell's purpose in this Letter was to recommend the Scotch to address the King to express their satisfaction that the East India Company Bill had been rejected by the House of Lords. Ib. p. 39. 'Let us,' he writes, 'upon this awful occasion think only of property and constitution;' p. 42. 'Let me add,' he says in concluding, 'that a dismission of the Portland Administration will probably disappoint an object which I have most ardently at heart;' p. 42. He was thinking no doubt of his 'expectations from the interest of an eminent person then in power' (ante, p. 223.)

[806] On p. 4 Boswell condemns the claim of Parliament to tax the American colonies as 'unjust and inexpedient.' 'This claim,' he says, 'was almost universally approved of in Scotland, where due consideration was had of the advantage of raising regiments.' He continues:—'When pleading at the bar of the House of Commons in a question concerning taxation, I avowed that opinion, declaring that the man in the world for whom I have the highest respect (Dr. Johnson) had not been able to convince me that Taxation was no Tyranny.'

[807] Boswell wrote to Reynolds on Feb. 6:—'I intend to be in London next month, chiefly to attend upon Dr. Johnson with respectful affection.' Croker's Boswell, p. 748.

[808] 'I have really hope from spring,' he wrote on Jan. 21, 'and am ready, like Almanzor, to bid the sun fly swiftly, and leave weeks and months behind him. The sun has looked for six thousand years upon the world to little purpose, if he does not know that a sick man is almost as impatient as a lover.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 347. Almanzor's speech is at the end of Dryden's Conquest of Granada:—

See ante, i. 332, where Johnson said, 'This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every day is bright,' and post, Aug. 2, 1784.

[809] He died in the following August at Dover, on his way home. Walpole's Letters, viii. 494. See ante, iii. 250, 336, and post, Aug. 19, 1784.

[810] On the last day of the old year he wrote:—'To any man who extends his thoughts to national consideration, the times are dismal and gloomy. But to a sick man, what is the publick?' Piozzi Letters, ii. 344.

The original of the following note is in the admirable collection of autographs belonging to my friend, Mr. M. M. Holloway:—

'TO THE REV. DR. TAYLOR,

'in Ashbourne,

'Derbyshire.

'DEAR SIR,

'I am still confined to the house, and one of my amusements is to write letters to my friends, though they, being busy in the common scenes of life, are not equally diligent in writing to me. Dr. Heberden was with me two or three days ago, and told me that nothing ailed me, which I was glad to hear, though I knew it not to be true. My nights are restless, my breath is difficult, and my lower parts continue tumid.

'The struggle, you see, still continues between the two sets of ministers: those that are out and in one can scarce call them, for who is out or in is perhaps four times a day a new question. The tumult in government is, I believe, excessive, and the efforts of each party outrageously violent, with very little thought on any national interest, at a time when we have all the world for our enemies, when the King and parliament have lost even the titular dominion of America, and the real power of Government every where else. Thus Empires are broken down when the profits of administration are so great, that ambition is satisfied with obtaining them, and he that aspires to greatness needs do nothing more than talk himself into importance. He has then all the power which danger and conquest used formerly to give; he can raise a family and reward his followers.

'Mr. Burke has just sent me his Speech upon the affairs of India, a volume of above a hundred pages closely printed. I will look into it; but my thoughts seldom now travel to great distances.

'I would gladly know when you think to come hither, and whether this year you will come or no. If my life be continued, I know not well how I shall bestow myself.

'I am, Sir,

'Your affectionate &c.,

'SAM. JOHNSON.'

'London, Jan. 24, 1784.'

[811] See post, v. 48.

[812] See post, p. 271.

[813] I sent it to Mr. Pitt, with a letter, in which I thus expressed myself:—'My principles may appear to you too monarchical: but I know and am persuaded, they are not inconsistent with the true principles of liberty. Be this as it may, you, Sir, are now the Prime Minister, called by the Sovereign to maintain the rights of the Crown, as well as those of the people, against a violent faction. As such, you are entitled to the warmest support of every good subject in every department.' He answered:—'I am extremely obliged to you for the sentiments you do me the honour to express, and have observed with great pleasure the zealous and able support given to the CAUSE OF THE PUBLICK in the work you were so good to transmit to me.' BOSWELL. Five years later, and two years before The Life of Johnson was published, Boswell wrote to Temple:—'As to Pitt, he is an insolent fellow, but so able, that upon the whole I must support him against the Coalition; but I will work him, for he has behaved very ill to me. Can he wonder at my wishing for preferment, when men of the first family and fortune in England struggle for it?' Letters of Boswell, p. 295. Warburton said of Helvetius, whom he disliked, that, if he had met him, 'he would have worked him.' Walpole's Letters, iv. 217.

[814] Out of this offer, and one of a like nature made in 1779 (ante, iii. 418), Mr. Croker weaves a vast web of ridiculous suspicions.

[815] From his garden at Prestonfield, where he cultivated that plant with such success, that he was presented with a gold medal by the Society of London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. BOSWELL.

[816] In the original effusion. Johnson's Works, vii. 402.

[817] Who had written him a very kind letter. BOSWELL.

[818] On Jan. 12 the Ministry had been in a minority of 39 in a House of 425; on March 8 the minority was reduced to one in a House of 381. Parliament was dissolved on the 25th. In the first division in the new Parliament the Ministry were in a majority of 97 in a House of 369. Parl. Hist. xxiv. 299, 744, 829.

[819] See ante, p. 241.

[820] 'In old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first president was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as one of the revivers of elegant learning.' Johnson's Works, ix. 11.

[821] See ante, iii. 104.

[822] In his dining-room, no doubt, among 'the very respectable people' whose portraits hung there. Ante, p. 203, note.