The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [822]
a I suppose in another compilation of the same kind.
b Doubtless, Lord Hardwick.
c Birch’s MSS. in the British Museum, 4302.
d I am assured that the editor is Mr. George Chalmers, whose commercial works are well known and esteemed.
a Hawkins’s Life of Johnson, p. 100.
b A bookseller of London.
c Not the Royal Society; but the Society for the encouragement of learning, of which Dr. Birch was a leading member. Their object was to assist authors in printing expensive works. It existed from about 1735 to 1746, when having incurred a considerable debt, it was dissolved.
d There is no erasure here, but a mere blank; to fill up which may be an exercise for ingenious conjecture.
e Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 167 {10 Sept.}.
a The Plain Dealer was published in 1724, and contained some account of Savage.
b I have not discovered what this was.
a Angliacas inter pulcherrima Laura puellas, / Mox uteri pondus depositura grave, / Adsit, Laura, tibi facilis Lucina dolenti, / Neve tibi noceat praznituisse De&.66
Mr. Hector was present when this Epigram was made impromptu. The first line was proposed by Dr. James, and Johnson was called upon by the company to finish it, which he instantly did.
a
To DR. MEAD.
‘SIR, – That the Medicinal Dictionary is dedicated to you, is to be imputed only to your reputation for superior skill in those sciences which I have endeavoured to explain and facilitate: and you are, therefore, to consider this address, if it be agreeable to you, as one of the rewards of merit; and if otherwise, as one of the inconveniences of eminence.
‘However you shall receive it, my design cannot be disappointed; because this publick appeal to your judgement will shew that I do not found my hopes of approbation upon the ignorance of my readers, and that I fear his censure least, whose knowledge is most extensive. I am, Sir, your most obedient humble servant,
‘R. JAMES.’
a As a specimen of his temper, I insert the following letter from him to a noble Lord67 to whom he was under great obligations, but who, on account of his bad conduct, was obliged to discard him. The original was in the hands of the late Francis Cockayne Cust, Esq., one of His Majesty’s Counsel learned in the law:
‘Right Honourable BRUTE, and BOOBY,
‘I find you want (as Mr. — is pleased to hint,) to swear away my life, that is, the life of your creditor, because he asks you for a debt. – The publick shall soon be acquainted with this, to judge whether you are not fitter to be an Irish Evidence, than to be an Irish Peer. – I defy and despise you. I am, your determined adversary, R.S.
a Sir John Hawkins gives the world to understand, that Johnson, ‘being an admirer of genteel manners, was captivated by the address and demeanour of Savage, who, as to his exterior, was, to a remarkable degree, accomplished.’ Hawkins’s Life, p. 52. But Sir John’s notions of gentility must appear somewhat ludicrous, from his stating the following circumstance as presumptive evidence that Savage was a good swordsman: ‘That he understood the exercise of a gentleman’s weapon, may be inferred from the use made of it in that rash encounter which is related in his life.’ The dexterity here alluded to was, that Savage, in a nocturnal fit of drunkenness, stabbed a man at a coffee-house, and killed him; for which he was tried at the Old-Bailey, and found guilty of murder.
Johnson, indeed, describes him as having ‘a grave and manly deportment, a solemn dignity of mien; but which, upon a nearer acquaintance, softened into an engaging easiness of manners.’ How highly Johnson admired him for that