The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [833]
c Mrs. Sheridan was authour of Memoirs of Miss Sydney Biddulph, a novel of great merit, and of some other pieces. – See her character, post, beginning of 1763, pp. 206–7.
d Prayers and Meditations, p. 44.
a I have had inquiry made in Ireland as to this story, but do not find it recollected there. I give it on the authority of Dr. Johnson, to which maybeadded that of the Biographical Dictionary, and Biographia Dramatica; in both of which it has stood many years. Mr. Malone observes, that the truth probably is, not that an edition was published with Rolt’s name in the title-page, but, that the poem being then anonymous, Rolt acquiesced in its being attributed to him in conversation.
b I have both the books. Innes was the clergyman who brought Psalmanazar to England, and was an accomplice in his extraordinary fiction.
a The originals of Dr. Johnson’s three letters to Mr. Baretti, which are among the very best he ever wrote, were communicated to the proprietors of that instructive and elegant monthly miscellany, The European Magazine, in which they first appeared.
a This is a very just account of the relief which London affords to melancholy minds.
a At one of these seats Dr. Amyat, Physician in London, told me he happened to meet him. In order to amuse him till dinner should be ready, he was taken out to walk in the garden. The master of the house, thinking it proper to introduce something scientifick into the conversation, addressed him thus: ‘Are you a botanist, Dr. Johnson?’ ‘No, Sir, (answered Johnson,) I am not a botanist; and, (alluding, no doubt, to his near sightedness) should I wish to become a botanist, I must first turn myself into a reptile.’
b See ante, p. 161.
a ‘MADAM, – To approach the high and the illustrious has been in all ages the privilege of Poets; and though translators cannot justly claim the same honour, yet they naturally follow their authours as attendants; and I hope that in return for having enabled Tasso to diffuse his fame through the British dominions, I may be introduced by him to the presence of YOUR MAJESTY.
‘TASSO has a peculiar claim to YOUR MAJESTY’S favour, as follower and panegyrist of the House of Este, which has one common ancestor with the House of HANOVER; and in reviewing his life it is not easy to forbear a wish that he had lived in a happier time, when he might, among the descendants of that illustrious family, have found a more liberal and potent patronage.
‘I cannot but observe, MADAM, how unequally reward is proportioned to merit, when I reflect that the happiness which was withheld from TASSO is reserved for me; and that the poem which once hardly procured to its authour the countenance of the Princes of Ferrara, has attracted to its translator the favourable notice of a BRITISH QUEEN.
‘Had this been the fate of TASSO, he would have been able to have celebrated the condescension of YOUR MAJESTY in nobler language, but could not have felt it with more ardent gratitude, than MADAM, YOUR MAJESTY’S most faithful and devoted servant.’
b As great men of antiquity such as Scipio Africanus had an epithet added to their names, in consequence of some celebrated action, so my illustrious friend was often called Dictionary Johnson, from that wonderful atchievement of genius and labour, his Dictionary of the English Language; the merit of which I contemplate with more and more admiration.
a P. 447.
b My position has been very well illustrated by Mr. Belsham of Bedford, in his Essay on Dramatic Poetry. ‘The fashionable doctrine (says he) both of moralists and criticks in these times is, that virtue and happiness are constant concomitants; and it is regarded as a kind of dramatick impiety to maintain that virtue should not be rewarded, nor vice punished in the last scene of the last act of every tragedy. This conduct in our modern poets is, however, in my opinion, extremely injudicious; for, it labours in vain to inculcate a doctrine in theory, which every one knows to be false in fact, viz. that virtue in real life is always productive of