[250] See _ante_, ii.171, _post_, two paragraphs before April 10, 1783,and May 15, 1784.[251] Johnson wrote on May i, 1780:--'There was the Bishop of St. Asaphwho comes to every place.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 111. Hannah More, in1782, describes an assembly at this Bishop's. 'Conceive to yourself 150or 200 people met together dressed in the extremity of the fashion,painted as red as Bn or a dozen card-tables crammed withdowagers of quality, grave ecclesiastics and yellow admirals.'_Memoirs_, i.242. He was elected a member of the Literary Club, 'withthe sincere approbation and eagerness of all present,' wrote Mr.(afterwards Sir William) Jones; elected, too, on the same day on whichLord Chancellor Camden was rejected (_ante_, iii. 311, note 2). Two orthree years later Sir William married the Bishop's daughter. _Life ofSir W Jones_, pp.240, 279.[252] 'Trust not to looks, nor credit outward show; The villain lurksbeneath the cassocked beau.' Churchill's _Poems_ (ed. 1766), ii.41.[253] No. 2.[254] See vol. i p. 378. BOSWELL.[255] Northcote, according to Hazlitt, said of this character with sometruth, that 'it was like one of Kneller's portraits--it would do foranybody.' Northcote's _Conversations_, p.86.[256] See _post_, p.98.[257] _London Chronicle_, May 2, 1769. This respectable man is therementioned to have died on the 3rd of April, that year, at Cofflect, theseat of Thomas Veale, Esq., in his way to London. BOSWELL.[258] Dr. Harte was the tutor of Mr. Eliot and of young Stanhope, LordChesterfield's illegitimate son. 'My morning hopes,' wrote Chesterfieldto his son at Rome, 'are justly placed in Mr. Harte, and the masters hewill give you; my evening ones in the Roman ladies: pray be attentive toboth.' Chesterfield's _Letters_, ii.263. See _ante_, i.163, note 1,ii.120, and _post_, June 27, 1784.[259] Robertson's _Scotland_ is in the February list of books in the_Gent. Mag_. for 1759; Harte's _Gustavus Adolphus_ and Hume's _Englandunder the House of Tudor_ in the March list. Perhaps it was from Hume'scompetition that Harte suffered.[260] _Essays on Husbandry_, 1764.[261] See _ante_, iii. 381.[262] 'Christmas Day, 1780. I shall not attempt to see Vestris till theweather is milder, though it is the universal voice that he is the onlyperfect being that has dropped from the clouds, within the memory of manor woman...When the Parliament meets he is to be thanked by theSpeaker.' Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 480.[263] Here Johnson uses his title of Doctor (_ante_, ii.332, note 1),but perhaps he does so as quoting the paragraph in the newspaper.[264] William, the first Viscount Grimston. BOSWELL. Swift thusintroduces him in his lines _On Poetry, A Rhapsody_:--'When death had finished Blackmore's reign,The leaden crown devolved to thee,Great poet of the hollow tree.'Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston 'wrote the play whena boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.' Swift's _Works_ (1803), xi.297. Two editions were published apparently by Grimston himself, onebearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705 but noname. By 1705 Grimston was 22 years old--no longer a boy. The formeredition was published by Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys,Fleet-street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle TempleGate. The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shewn bythe Preface. The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope waspublished in 1736. There is another illustration in which an ass isrepresented bearing a coronet. Grimston's name is not given here, butthere is a dedication 'To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.' Three orfour notes are added, one of which is very gross. The election was forSt. Alban's, for which borough he was thrice returned.[265] Dr. T. Campbell records (_Diary_, p. 69) that 'Boswell askedJohnson if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master. "Aye,and a dancing mistress too," says the Doctor; "but I own to you I nevertook a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I could never makea proficiency."'[266] See vol. ii. p.286. BOSWELL.[267] Miss Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:--'He is a professedminority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition. Men of suchdifferent principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot have muchcordiality in their political debates; however, the very superiorabilities of the former, and the remarkable good breeding of the latterhave kept both upon good terms.' She describes a hot argument betweenthem, and continues:--'Dr. Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour anddexterity, and at length, though he could not convince, he so entirelybaffled him, that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet--which, witha very good grace, he confessed. Dr. Johnson then recollecting himself,and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute grew too serious,with a skill all his own, suddenly and unexpectedly turned it toburlesque.' D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 192.[268] See _post_, Jan. 20, 1782.[269] See _ante_, ii.355.[270] Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words _Long_ and_short_. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long's reserve in hispresence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguised amongst hisacquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the Frenchexpression, '_Il petille d'esprit_,' is particularly He has gratified meby mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, 'Sir, if I were to loseBoswell, it would be a limb amputated.' BOSWELL.[271] William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Courtof Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with himis not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement.But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend ofthe late Sir James Macdonald, the _Marcellus_ of Scotland [_ante_,i.449], whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever beremembered with admiration and regret. BOSWELL.[272] See note, _ante_, p. 65, which describes an attack made by Johnsonon Pepys more than two months after this conversation.[273] Johnson once said to Mrs. Thrale:--'Why, Madam, you often provokeme to say severe things by unreasonable commendation. If you would notcall for my praise, I would not give you my censure; but it constantlymoves my indignation to be applied to, to speak well of a thing which Ithink contemptible.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i.132. See _ante_,iii.225.[274] 'Mrs. Thrale,' wrote Miss Burney in 1780, 'is a most dearcreature, but never restrains her tongue in anything, nor, indeed, anyof her feelings. She laughs, cries, scolds, sports, reasons, makesfun--does everything she has an inclination to do, without any study ofprudence, or thought of blame; and, pure and artless as is thischaracter, it often draws both herself and others into scrapes, which alittle discretion would avoid.' _Ib_. i.386. Later on she writes:--'Mrs.Thrale, with all her excellence, can give up no occasion of makingsport, however unseasonable or even painful... I knew she was not to besafely trusted with anything she could turn into ridicule.' _Ib_.ii.24 and 29.[275] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was constantly at the Thrales' (_ante_,iii. 123).[276] See _ante_, iii.228, 404.[277] It was the seventh anniversary of Goldsmith's death.[278] 'Mrs. Garrick and I,' wrote Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 208), 'wereinvited to an assembly at Mrs. Thrale's. There was to be a fine concert,and all the fine people were to be there. Just as my hair was dressed,came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr. Thrale was dead.'[279] _Pr. and Med._ p 191. BOSWELL. The rest of the entry should begiven:--'On Wednesday, 11, was buried my dear friend Thrale, who died onWednesday 4; and with him were buried many of my hopes and pleasures.[On Sunday, 1st, the physician warned him against full meals, on MondayI pressed him to observance of his rules, but without effect, andTuesday I was absent, but his wife pressed forbearance upon him againunsuccessfully. At night I was called to him, and found him senseless instrong convulsions. I staid in the room, except that I visited Mrs.Thrale twice.] About five, I think, on Wednesday morning he expired; Ifelt, &c. Farewell. May God that delighteth in mercy have had mercy onthee. I had constantly prayed for him some time before his death. Thedecease of him from whose friendship I had obtained many opportunitiesof amusement, and to whom I turned my thoughts as to a refuge frommisfortunes, has left me heavy. But my business is with myself.' Thepassage enclosed in brackets I have copied from the original MS. Mr.Strahan, the editor, omitted it, no doubt from feelings of delicacy.What a contrast in this to the widow who published a letter in which shehad written:--'I wish that you would put in a word of your own to Mr.Thrale about eating less!' _Piozzi Letters_, ii.130. Baretti, in a noteon _Piozzi Letters_, ii.142, says that 'nobody ever had spirit enough totell Mr. Thrale that his fits were apoplectic; such is the blessing ofbeing rich that nobody dares to speak out.' In Johnson's _Works_ (1787),xi.203, it is recorded that 'Johnson, who attended Thrale in his lastmoments, said, "His servants would have waited upon him in this awfulperiod, and why not his friend?"'[280] Johnson's letters to the widow show how much he felt Thrale'sdeath. 'April 5, 1781. I am not without my part of the calamity. Nodeath since that of my wife has ever oppressed me like this. April 7. Mypart of the loss hangs upon me. I have lost a friend of boundlesskindness, at an age when it is very unlikely that I should find another.April 9. Our sorrow has different effects; you are withdrawn intosolitude, and I am driven into company. I am afraid of thinking what Ihave lost. I never had such a friend before. April 11. I feel myselflike a man beginning a new course of life. I had interwoven myself withmy dear friend.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 191-97. 'I have very often,'wrote Miss Burney, in the following June, 'though I mention them not,long and melancholy discourses with Dr. Johnson about our dear deceasedmaster, whom, indeed, he regrets incessantly.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_,ii. 63. On his next birthday, he wrote:--'My first knowledge of Thralewas in 1765. I enjoyed his favour for almost a fourth part of my life.'_Pr. and Med._ p.191. One or two passages in Mrs. Thrale's Letters shewher husband's affection for Johnson. On May 3, 1776, she writes:--'Mr.Thrale says he shall not die in peace without seeing Rome, and I am surehe will go nowhere that he can help without you.' _Piozzi Letters_,i.317. A few days later, she speaks of 'our dear master, who cannot bequiet without you for a week.' _Ib._ p.329. Johnson, in his fine epitaphon Thrale (_Works_, i.153) broke through a rule which he himself hadlaid down. In his _Essay on Epitaphs_ (_Ib._ v 263), he said:--'It isimproper to address the epitaph to the passenger [traveller], a customwhich an injudicious veneration for antiquity introduced again at therevival of letters.' Yet in the monument in Streatham Church, we findthe same _Abi viator_ which he had censured in an epitaph on Henry IVof France.[281] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew that he had long been wellacquainted with the state of her husband's business. In the year 1772,Mr. Thrale was in money difficulties. Johnson writes to her almost as ifhe were a partner in the business. 'The first consequence of our latetrouble ought to be an endeavour to brew at a cheaper rate...Unless thiscan be done, nothing can help us; and if this be done, we shall not wanthelp.' _Piozzi Letters_, i.57. He urges economy in the household, andcontinues:--'But the fury of housewifery will soon subside; and littleeffect will be produced, but by methodical attention and evenfrugality.' _Ib._ p.64. In another letter he writes:--'This year willundoubtedly be an year of struggle and difficulty; but I doubt not ofgetting through it; and the difficulty will grow yearly less and less.Supposing that our former mode of life kept us on the level, we shall,by the present contraction of expense, gain upon fortune a thousand ayear, even though no improvements can be made in the conduct of thetrade.' _Piozzi Letters_, i. 66. Four years later, he writes:--'To-day Iwent to look into my places at the Borough. I called on Mr. Perkins inthe counting-house. He crows and triumphs, as we go on we shall doubleour business.' _Ib._ p. 333. When the executors first met, hewrote:--'We met to-day, and were told of mountainous difficulties, tillI was provoked to tell them, that if there were really so much to do andsuffer, there would be no executors in the world. Do not suffer yourselfto be terrified.' _Ib._ ii. 197. Boswell says (_ante_, ii. 44l):--'Ioften had occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have hiswisdom actually operate on real life.' When Boswell had purchased afarm, 'Johnson,' he writes (_ante_, iii. 207), 'made severalcalculations of the expense and profit; for he delighted in exercisinghis mind on the science of numbers.' The letter (_ante_, ii. 424)about the book-trade 'exhibits,' to use Boswell's words, 'hisextraordinary precision and acuteness.' Boswell wrote to Temple:--'Dr.Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him insome interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted,and so comes up.' _Ante_, iii. 51, note 3.[282] Johnson, as soon as the will was read, wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'Youhave, L500 for your immediate expenses, and, L2000 a year, with both thehouses and all the goods.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 192. Beattie wrote onJune 1:--'Everybody says Mr. Thrale should have left Johnson L200 ayear; which, from a fortune like his, would have been a veryinconsiderable deduction.' Beattie's _Life_, ed. 1824, p. 290.[283] Miss Burney thus writes of the day of the sale:--'Mrs. Thrale wentearly to town, to meet all the executors, and Mr. Barclay, the Quaker,who was the bidder. She was in great agitation of mind, and told me ifall went well she would wave a white handkerchief out of thecoach-window. Four o'clock came and dinner was ready, and no Mrs.Thrale. Queeny and I went out upon the lawn, where we sauntered in eagerexpectation, till near six, and then the coach appeared in sight, and awhite handkerchief was waved from it.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 34.The brewery was sold for L135,000. See _post_, June 16, 1781.[284] See _post_, paragraph before June 22, 1784.[285] Baretti, in a MS. note on _Piozzi Letters_, i. 369, says that 'thetwo last years of Thrale's life his brewery brought him L30,000 a yearneat profit.'[286] In the fourth edition of his _Dictionary_, published in 1773,Johnson introduced a second definition of _patriot_:--'It is sometimesused for a factious disturber of the government.' Gibbon (_Misc. Works_,ii. 77) wrote on Feb. 21, 1772:--'Charles Fox is commenced patriot, andis already attempting to pronounce the words, _country_, _liberty_,_corruption_, &c.; with what success time will discover.' Forty yearsbefore Johnson begged not to meet patriots, Sir Robert Walpole said:--'Apatriot, Sir! why patriots spring up like mushrooms. I could raise fiftyof them within the four-and-twenty hours. I have raised many of them inone night. It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or an insolentdemand, and up starts a patriot. I have never been afraid of makingpatriots; but I disdain and despise all their efforts.' Coxe's_Walpole_, i. 659. See _ante_, ii. 348, and iii. 66.[287] He was tried on Feb. 5 and 6, 1781. _Ann. Reg._ xxiv. 217.[288] Hannah More (_Memoirs_, i. 210) records a dinner on a Tuesday inthis year. (Like Mrs. Thrale and Miss Burney, she cared nothing fordates.) It was in the week after Thrale's death. It must have been thedinner here mentioned by Boswell; for it was at a Bishop's (Shipley ofSt. Asaph), and Sir Joshua and Boswell were among the guests. WhyBoswell recorded none of Johnson's conversation may be guessed from whatshe tells. 'I was heartily disgusted,' she says, 'with Mr. Boswell, whocame up stairs after dinner much disordered with wine.' (See _post_, p.109). The following morning Johnson called on her. 'He reproved me,' shewrites, 'with pretended sharpness for reading _Les Pensees de Pascal_,alleging that as a good Protestant I ought to abstain from books writtenby Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took mewith both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, "Child," saidhe, with the most affecting earnestness, "I am heartily glad that youread pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'"[289] On Good-Friday, in 1778, Johnson recorded:--'It has happened thisweek, as it never happened in Passion-week before, that I have neverdined at home, and I have therefore neither practised abstinence norpeculiar devotion' _Pr. and Med._ p. 163.[290] No. 7.[291] See _ante_, iii. 302.[292] Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, andfirst Equerry to his present Majesty. MALONE. According to Mrs. Piozzi(_Anec._ p. 156), he was Johnson's 'standard of true elegance.'[293] See _ante_, iii. 186.[294] Johnson (_Works_, vii. 449) thus describes Addison's 'familiarday,' on the authority of Pope:--'He studied all morning; then dined ata tavern; and went afterwards to Button's [coffee-house]. From thecoffee-house he went again to a tavern, where he often sat late, anddrank too much wine.' Spence (_Anec._ p. 286) adds, on the authority ofPope, that 'Addison passed each day alike, and much in the manner thatDryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in writing; dined _en famille_;and then went to Wills's; only he came home earlier a'nights'[295] Mr. Foss says of Blackstone:--'Ere he had been long on the benchhe experienced the bad effects of the studious habits in which he hadinjudiciously indulged in his early life, and of his neglect to take thenecessary amount of exercise, to which he was specially averse.' He diedat the age of 56. Foss's _Judges_, viii. 250. He suffered greatly fromhis corpulence. His portrait in the Bodleian shews that he was a veryfat man. Malone says that Scott (afterwards Lord Stowell) wrote toBlackstone's family to apologise for Boswell's anecdote. Prior's_Malone_, p. 415. Scott would not have thought any the worse ofBlackstone for his bottle of port; both he and his brother, theChancellor, took a great deal of it. 'Lord Eldon liked plain port; thestronger the better.' Twiss's _Eldon_, iii. 486. Some one asked himwhether Lord Stowell took much exercise. 'None,' he said, 'but theexercise of eating and drinking.' _Ib._ p. 302. Yet both men got througha vast deal of hard work, and died, Eldon at the age of 86, andStowell of 90.[296] See this explained, pp. 52, 53 of this volume. BOSWELL.[297] See _ante_, ii. 7.[298] William Scott was a tutor of University College at the age ofnineteen. He held the office for ten years--to 1775. He wrote to hisfather in 1772 about his younger brother John (afterwards Lord Eldon),who had just made a run-away match:--'The business in which I am engagedis so extremely disagreeable in itself, and so destructive to health (ifcarried on with such success as can render it at all considerable inpoint of profit) that I do not wonder at his unwillingness to succeed mein it.' Twiss's _Eldon_, i. 47, 74.[299] The account of her marriage given By John Wesley in a letterto his brother-in-law, Mr. Hall, is curious. He wrote on Dec. 22,1747:--'More than twelve years ago you told me God had revealed it to youthat you should marry my youngest sister ... You asked and gained herconsent... In a few days you had a counter-revelation, that you was notto marry her, but her sister. This last error was far worse than thefirst. But you was not quite above conviction. So, in spite of her poorastonished parents, of her brothers, of all your vows and promises, youshortly after jilted the younger and married the elder sister.' Wesley's_Journal_, ii. 39. Mrs. Hall suffered greatly for marrying a wretch whohad so cruelly treated her own sister, Southey's _Wesley_, i. 369.[300] See _ante_, iii. 269.[301] The original 'Robinhood' was a debating society which met nearTemple-Bar. Some twenty years before this time Goldsmith belonged to it,and, it was said, Burke. Forster's _Goldsmith_, i. 287, and Prior's_Burke_, p. 79. The president was a baker by trade. 'Goldsmith, afterhearing him give utterance to a train of strong and ingenious reasoning,exclaimed to Derrick, "That man was meant by nature for a LordChancellor." Derrick replied, "No, no, not so high; he is only intendedfor Master of the _Rolls_."' Prior's _Goldsmith_, i. 420. Fielding, in1752, in _The Covent-Garden Journal_, Nos. 8 and 9, takes off thisSociety and the baker. A fragment of a report of their discussions whichhe pretends to have discovered, begins thus:--'This evenin the questinat the Robinhood was, whether relidgin was of any youse to a sosyaty;baken bifor mee To'mmas Whytebred, baker.' Horace Walpole (_Letters_,iv. 288), in 1764, wrote of the visit of a French gentleman to England,'He has _seen_ ... Jews, Quakers, Mr. Pitt, the Royal Society, theRobinhood, Lord Chief-Justice Pratt, the Arts-and-Sciences, &c.' Romilly(_Life_, i. 168), in a letter dated May 22, 1781, says that during thepast winter several of these Sunday religious debating societies hadbeen established. 'The auditors,' he was assured, 'were mostly weak,well-meaning people, who were inclined to Methodism;' but among thespeakers were 'some designing villains, and a few coxcombs, with morewit than understanding.' 'Nothing,' he continues, 'could raise uppanegyrists of these societies but what has lately happened, an attemptto suppress them. The Solicitor-General has brought a bill intoParliament for this purpose. The bill is drawn artfully enough; for, asthese societies are held on Sundays, and people pay for admittance, hehas joined them with a famous tea-drinking house [Carlisle House],involving them both in the same fate, and entitling his bill, _A Bill toregulate certain Abuses and Profanations of the Lord's Day_.' The Billwas carried; on a division none being found among the Noes but the twotellers. The penalties for holding a meeting were L200 for the master of