The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [866]
‘JOANN. 2,
‘AquiS in vinum versee.
‘Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis?
Quae rosa mirantes tarn nova mutat aquas?
Numen, convive, pr&sens agnoscite numen,
Nympba pudica DEUM vidit, et erubuit.’]818
a I am not absolutely sure but this was my own suggestion, though it is truly in the character of Edwards.
a In summer 1792, additional and more expensive decorations having been introduced, the price of admission was raised to two shillings. I cannot approve of this. The company may be more select; but a number of the honest commonalty are, I fear, excluded from sharing in elegant and innocent entertainment. An attempt to abolish the one-shilling gallery at the playhouse has been very properly counteracted.
a I am not entirely without suspicion that Johnson may have felt a little momentary envy; for no man loved the good things of this life better than he did; and he could not but be conscious that he deserved a much larger share of them, than he ever had. I attempted in a newspaper to comment on the above passage, in the manner of Warburton, who must be allowed to have shewn uncommon ingenuity, in giving to any authour’s text whatever meaning he chose it should carry. As this imitation may amuse my readers, I shall here introduce it: –
‘No saying of Dr. Johnson’s has been more misunderstood than his applying to Mr. Burke when he first saw him at his fine place at Beaconsfield, Non equidem invideo; miror magis. These two celebrated men had been friends for many years before Mr. Burke entered on his parliamentary career. They were both writers, both members of The Literary Club; when, therefore, Dr. Johnson saw Mr. Burke in a situation so much more splendid than that to which he himself had attained, he did not mean to express that he thought it a disproportionate prosperity; but while he, as a philosopher, asserted an exemption from envy, non equidem invideo, he went on in the words of the poet miror magis; thereby signifying, either that he was occupied in admiring what he was glad to see; or, perhaps, that considering the general lot of men of superiour abilities, he wondered that Fortune, who is represented as blind, should, in this instance, have been so just.’
a [William Duncombe, Esq. He married the sister of John Hughes the poet; was the authour of two tragedies and other ingenious productions; and died 26th Feb. 1769, aged 79.]
a By Richard Tickell.
b [Dr. Johnson is supported by the usage of preceding writers. So in Musarum Delicite,832 8vo. 1656 (the writer is speaking of Suckling’s play entitled Aglaura, printed in folio): –
‘This great voluminous pamphlet may be said
To be like one that hath more hair than head.’]
a See this question fully investigated in the Notes upon my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 21, et seq. {15 Aug.}. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim Suum cuique tribuito,839 I cannot forbear to mention, that the additional Note beginning with ‘I find since the former edition,’ is not mine, but was obligingly furnished by Mr. Malone, who was so kind as to superintend the press while I was in Scotland, and the first part of the second edition was printing. He would not allow me to ascribe it to its proper authour; but, as it is exquisitely acute and elegant, I take this opportunity, without his knowledge, to do him justice.
a Here he either was mistaken, or had a different notion of an extensive sale from what is generally entertained: for the fact is, that four thousand copies of that excellent work were sold very quickly. A new edition has been printed since his death, besides that in the collection of his works.
b In the phraseology of Scotland, I should have said, ‘Mr. John Spottiswoode the younger, of that ilk.’ Johnson knew that sense of the word very well, and has thus explained it in his Dictionary, voce Ilk: – ‘It also signifies “the same;” as, Mackintosh ofthat ilk, denotes a gentleman whose surname and the title of his estate