The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [874]
a William, the first Viscount Grimston.
a See p. 415.
b Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words Long and short. But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long’s reserve in his presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguished amongst his acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French expression, ‘Il pétille d’esprit,’1015 is particularly suited. He has gratified me by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, ‘Sir, if I were to lose Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.’
c William Weller Pepys, Esq., one of the Masters in the High Court of Chancery, and well known in polite circles. My acquaintance with him is not sufficient to enable me to speak of him from my own judgement. But I know that both at Eton and Oxford he was the intimate friend of the late Sir James Macdonald, the Marcellus1016 of Scotland, whose extraordinary talents, learning, and virtues, will ever be remembered with admiration and regret.
a Pr. and Med. p. 191.
a [Richard Berenger, Esq., many years Gentleman of the Horse, and first equerry to his present Majesty.]
a See this explained, ante, p. 791.
a [As this subject frequently recurs in these volumes, the reader may be led erroneously to suppose that Dr. Johnson was so fond of such discussions, as frequently to introduce them. But the truth is, that the authour himself delighted in talking concerning ghosts, and what he has frequently denominated the mysterious; and therefore took every opportunity of leading Johnson to converse on such subjects.]
a St. Matthew, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53.
b See ante, p. 702.
a See ante, p. 807.
a Johnson, whose memory was wonderfully retentive, remembered the first four lines of this curious production, which have been communicated to me by a young lady1034 of his acquaintance: –
‘When first I drew my vital breath,
A little minikin I came upon earth:
And then I came from a dark abode,
Into this gay and gaudy world.’
a Mr. Wilkes probably did not know that there is in an English sermon the most comprehensive and lively account of that entertaining faculty, for which he himself is so much admired. It is in Dr. Barrow’s first volume, and fourteenth sermon, ‘Against foolish Talking and Jesting.’ My old acquaintance, the late Corbyn Morris, in his ingenious Essay on Wit, Humour, and Ridicule, calls it ‘a profuse description of Wit;’ but I do not see how it could be curtailed, without leaving out some good circumstance of discrimination. As it is not generally known, and may perhaps dispose some to read sermons, from which they may receive real advantage, while looking only for entertainment, I shall here subjoin it:–
‘But first (says the learned preacher) it may be demanded, what the thing we speak of is? Or what this facetiousness (or wit as he calls it before) doth import? To which questions I might reply, as Democritus did to him that asked the definition of a man, “ ’Tis that which we all see and know.” Any one better apprehends what it is by acquaintance, than I can inform him by description. It is, indeed, a thing so versatile and multiform, appearing in so many shapes, so many postures, so many garbs, so variously apprehended by several eyes and judgements, that it seemeth no less hard to settle a clear and certain notion thereof, than to make a portrait of Proteus,1038 or to define the figure of the fleeting air. Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application of a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale; sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humourous expression: sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes