The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [867]
a It is observed in Waller’s Life, in the Biographia Britannica, that he drank only water; and that while he sat in a company who were drinking wine, ‘he had the dexterity to accommodate his discourse to the pitch of theirs as it sunk.’ If excess in drinking be meant, the remark is acutely just. But surely, a moderate use of wine gives a gaiety of spirits which water-drinkers know not.
a This experiment which Madame Dacier made in vain, has since been tried in our own language, by the editor of Ossian, and we must either think very meanly of his abilities, or allow that Dr. Johnson was in the right. And Mr. Cowper, a man of real genius, has miserably failed in his blank verse translation.
a Mrs. Piozzi confidently mentions this as having passed in Scotland. Anecdotes, p. 62.
a Johnson had an extraordinary admiration of this lady, notwithstanding she was a violent Whig. In answer to her high-flown speeches for Liberty, he addressed to her the following Epigram, of which I presume to offer a translation: –
‘Liber ut esse velim suasisti pulchra Maria,
Ut maneam liber pulchra Maria vale.’
Adieu, Maria! since you’d have me free;
For, who beholds thy charms a slave must be.
A correspondent of The Gentleman’s Magazine, who subscribes himself Sciolus, to whom I am indebted for several excellent remarks, observes, ‘The turn of Dr. Johnson’s lines to Miss Aston, whose Whig principles he had been combating, appears to me to be taken from an ingenious epigram in the lAenagiana on a young lady who appeared at a masquerade, habillee en jesuite,858 during the fierce contentions of the followers of Molinos and Jansenius concerning free-will: –
“On s’etonne ici que Caliste
Ait pris l’habit de Moliniste.
Puisque cette jeune beaute
Ote à chacun sa liberte,
N’est-ce pas une Janseniste?” ‘859
a In Mr. Horne Tooke’s enlargement of that Letter, which he has since published with the title of 7Epea pseqoe´msa;875 or, the Diversions of Purley; he mentions this compliment, as if Dr. Johnson instead of several of his etymologies had said all. His recollection having thus magnified it, shews how ambitious he was of the approbation of so great a man.
a The slip of paper on which he made the correction is deposited by me in the noble library to which it relates, and to which I have presented other pieces of his handwriting.880
a dr. johnson was by no means attentive to minute accuracy in his lives of the poets; for notwithstanding my having detected this mistake, he has continued it.
a Third edition, p. 111 {28 Aug.}.
b When I one day at Court expressed to General Hall my sense of the honour he had done my friend, he politely answered, ‘Sir, I did myself honour.’
a [Perhaps affecting.]
a Dr. Johnson here addresses his worthy friend, Bennet Langton, Esq., by his title as Captain of the Lincolnshire militia, in which he has since been most deservedly raised to the rank of Major.
a Vol. ii, p. 38.
b Miss Carmichael.
a Life of Watts.
a He sent a set elegantly bound and gilt, which was received as a very handsome present.
a p. 173.
a See ante, pp. 116, 680.
a See ante, pp. 709–10.
a ‘I do not (says Mr. Malone,) see any difficulty in this passage, and wonder that Dr. Johnson should have acknowledged it to be inaccurate. The Hermit, it should be observed, had no actual experience of the world whatsoever: all his knowledge concerning it had been obtained in two ways; from books, and from the relations of those country swains, who had seen a little of it. The plain meaning, therefore, is, “To clear his doubts concerning Providence, and to obtain some knowledge of the world by actual experience; to see whether the accounts furnished by books, or by the oral communications of swains, were just representations of it; [I say, swains,] for his oral or viva voce information had been obtained from that part of mankind alone, &c.” The word alone here does not relate to the whole of the preceeding line, as has been supposed, but, by a common licence, to the words,