b My friend, Mr. Courtenay, whose eulogy on Johnson’s Latin Poetry has been inserted in this Work, is no less happy in praising his English Poetry.
But hark, he sings! the strain ev’n Pope admires;
Indignant virtue her own bard inspires.
Sublime as Juvenal he pours his lays,
And with the Roman shares congenial praise; –
In glowing numbers now he fires the age,
And Shakspeare’s sun relumes the clouded stage.
a September 22, 1777, going from Ashbourne in Derbyshire, to see Islam.
a Birch, MSS. Brit. Mus. 4303.
b See Sir John Hawkins’s Life of Johnson.
c See post, under April 10, 1776.
a He was afterwards for several years Chairman of the Middlesex Justices, and upon occasion of presenting an address to the King, accepted the usual offer of Knighthood. He is authour of ‘A History of Musick,’ in five volumes in quarto. By assiduous attendance on Johnson in his last illness, he obtained the office of one of his executors; in consequence of which, the booksellers of London employed him to publish an edition of Dr. Johnson’s works, and to write his Life.
a Sir John Hawkins, with solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem as a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the fact is, that the poem was published on the 9th of January, and the tragedy was not acted till the 6th of the February following.
b ‘Nov. 25, 1748. I received of Mr. Dodsley fifteen guineas, for which I assign to him the right of copy of an imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal, written by me; reserving to myself the right of printing one edition. ‘SAM. JOHNSON.’
a From Mr. Langton.
b In this poem one of the instances mentioned of unfortunate learned men is Lydiat:
‘Hear Lydiat’s life, and Galileo’s end.’
The history of Lydiat being little known, the following account of him may be acceptable to many of my readers. It appeared as a note in the Supplement to the Gent. Mag. for 1748, in which some passages extracted from Johnson’s poem were inserted, and it should have been added in the subsequent editions. – A very learned divine and mathematician, fellow of New College, Oxon, and Rector of Okerton, near Banbury. He wrote, among many others, a Latin treatise De Natura cæli, etc., in which he attacked the sentiments of Scaliger and Aristotle, not bearing to hear it urged, that some things are true in philosophy and false in divinity. He made above 600 Sermons on the harmony of the Evangelists. Being unsuccessful in publishing his works, he lay in the prison of Bocardo at Oxford, and in the King’s Bench, till Bishop Usher, Dr. Laud, Sir William Boswell, and Dr. Pink, released him by paying his debts. He petitioned King Charles I, to be sent into Ethiopia, etc., to procure MSS. Having spoken in favour of monarchy and bishops, he was plundered by the parliament forces, and twice carried away prisoner from his rectory; and afterwards had not a shirt to shift him in three months, without he borrowed it, and died very poor in 1646.
a Mahomet was, in fact, played by Mr. Barry, and Demetrius by Mr. Garrick; but probably at this time the parts were not yet cast.
a The expression used by Dr. Adams was ‘soothed.’ I should rather think the audience was awed by the extraordinary spirit and dignity of the following lines:
‘Be this at least his praise, be this his pride,
To force applause no modern arts are tried:
Should partial catcalls all his hopes confound,
He bids no trumpet quell the fatal sound;
Should welcome sleep relieve the weary wit,
He rolls no thunders o’er the drowsy pit;
No snares to captivate the judgement spreads,
Nor bribes your eyes to prejudice your heads.
Unmov’d, though witlings sneer and rivals rail,
Studious to please, yet not asham’d to fail,
He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain,
With merit needless, and without it vain;
In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust;
Ye fops be silent, and ye wits be just!’
b Aaron Hill (vol. ii. p. 355), in a letter to Mr. Mallett, gives the following account of Irene after having seen it: ‘I was at the anomalous Mr. Johnson’s benefit, and found the play his proper representative; strong sense ungraced by sweetness or decorum.’
a I have heard Dr. Warton mention, that he was at Mr. Robert Dodsley’s with the late Mr. Moore, and several of his friends, considering what should be the name of the periodical paper which Moore had undertaken. Garrick proposed The Sallad, which, by a curious coincidence, was afterwards applied to himself by Goldsmith:
‘Our Garrick’s a sallad, for in him we see
Oil, vinegar, sugar, and saltness agree!’
At last, the company having separated, without any thing of which they approved having been offered, Dodsley himself thought of The World.
b Prayers and Meditations, p. 9.
c [In the original folio edition of The Rambler the concluding paper is dated Saturday, March 17. But Saturday was in fact March 14. This circumstance is worth notice, for Mrs. Johnson died on the 17th.]
d Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 28 {16 Aug.}.
a Hawkins’s Life of Johnson, p. 268 {p. 265}.
a This most beautiful image of the enchanting delusion of youthful prospect has not been used in any of Johnson’s essays.
a Sir John Hawkins has selected from this little collection of materials, what he calls the ‘Rudiments of two of the papers of The Rambler.’ But he has not been able to read the manuscript distinctly. Thus he writes, p. 266, ‘Sailor’s fate any mansion;’ whereas the original is ‘Sailor’s life my aversion.’ He has also transcribed the unappropriated hints on Writers for bread, in which he decyphers these notable passages, one in Latin, fatui non famce, instead of fami non famce; Johnson having in his mind what Thuanus says of the learned German antiquary and linguist, Xylander, who, he tells us, lived in such poverty, that he was supposed fami non famce scribere;86 and another in French, Degentede fate et affamid’ argent, instead of Degoute de fame, (an old word for renommee) et affame d’argent.87 The manuscript being written in an exceedingly small hand, is indeed very hard to read; but it would have been better to have left blanks than to write nonsense.
a It was executed in the printing-office of Sands, Murray, and Cochran, with uncommon elegance, upon writing-paper, of a duodecimo size, and with the greatest correctness; and Mr. Elphinston enriched it with translations of the mottos. When completed, it made eight handsome volumes. It is, unquestionably, the most accurate and beautiful edition of this work; and there being but a small impression, it is now become scarce, and sells at a very high price.