The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [842]
a When Mr. Foote was at Edinburgh, he thought fit to entertain a numerous Scotch company, with a great deal of coarse jocularity, at the expense of Dr. Johnson, imagining it would be acceptable. I felt this as not civil to me; but sat very patiently till he had exhausted his merriment on that subject; and then observed, that surely Johnson must be allowed to have some sterling wit, and that I had heard him say a very good thing of Mr. Foote himself. ‘Ah, my old friend Sam (cried Foote,) no man says better things; do let us have it.’ Upon which I told the above story, which produced a very loud laugh from the company. But I never saw Foote so disconcerted. He looked grave and angry, and entered into a serious refutation of the justice of the remark.’What, Sir, (said he,) talk thus of a man of liberal education; – a man who for years was at the University of Oxford; – a man who has added sixteen new characters to the English drama of his country!’
a I have since had reason to think that I was mistaken; for I have been informed by a lady, who was long intimate with her, and likely to be a more accurate observer of such matters, that she had acquired such a niceness of touch, as to know, by the feeling on the outside of the cup, how near it was to being full.
a An acute correspondent of the European Magazine, April, 1792, has completely exposed a mistake which has been unaccountably frequent in ascribing these lines to Blackmore, notwithstanding that Sir Richard Steele, in that very popular work, The Spectator, mentions them as written by the Authour of The British Princes, the Honourable Edward Howard. The correspondent above mentioned, shews this mistake to be so inveterate, that not only I defended the lines as Blackmore’s, in the presence of Dr. Johnson, without any contradiction or doubt of their authenticity, but that the Reverend Mr. Whitaker has asserted in print, that he understands they were suppressed in the late edition or editions of Blackmore. ‘After all (says this intelligent writer) it is not unworthy of particular observation, that these lines so often quoted do not exist either in Blackmore or Howard.’ In The British Princes, 8vo. 1669, now before me, p. 96, they stand thus: –
‘A vest as admir’d Voltiger had on,
Which, from this Island’s foes, his grandsire won,
Whose artful colour pass’d the Tyrian dye,
Oblig’d to triumph in this legacy.’
It is probable, I think, that some wag, in order to make Howard still more ridiculous than he really was, has formed the couplet as it now circulates.
a Pr. and Med. p. 95 {p. 101}.
a Son of the learned Mrs. Grierson, who was patronised by the late Lord Granville, and was the editor of several of the Classicks.
a [In a Discourse by Sir William Jones, addressed to the Asiatick Society, Feb. 24, 1785, is the following passage: – ‘One of the most sagacious men in this age who continues, I hope, to improve and adorn it, Samuel Johnson, remarked in my hearing, that if Newton had flourished in ancient Greece, he would have been worshipped as a Divinity.’]
a [These lines have been discovered by the author’s second son in the London Magazine for July, 1732, where they form part of a poem on Retirement, copied, with some slight variations, from one of Walsh’s smaller poems, entitled The Retirement. They exhibit another proof that Johnson retained in his memory fragments of neglected poetry. In quoting verses of that description, he appears by a slight variation to have sometimes given them a moral turn,