The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [879]
a It has since appeared.
a I am happy, however, to mention a pleasing instance of his enduring with great gentleness to hear one of his most striking particularities pointed out: – Miss Hunter, a niece of his friend Christopher Smart, when a very young girl, struck by his extraordinary motions, said to him, ‘Pray, Dr. Johnson, why do you make such strange gestures?’ ‘From bad habit,’ (he replied). ‘Do you, my dear, take care to guard against bad habits.’ This I was told by the young lady’s brother at Margate.
a The justness of this remark is confirmed by the following story, for which I am indebted to Lord Eliot: – A country parson, who was remarkable for quoting scraps of Latin in his sermons, having died, one of his parishioners was asked how he liked his successor: ‘He is a very good preacher,’ (was his answer,) ‘but no latiner.’
a The Honourable Horace Walpole, late Earl of Orford, thus bears testimony to this gentleman’s merit as a writer: – ‘Mr. Chambers’s Treatise on Civil Architecture, is the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that ever was written on that science.’ – Preface to Anecdotes of Painting in England.
a The introductory lines are these: – ‘It is difficult to avoid praising too little or too much. The boundless panegyricks which have been lavished upon the Chinese learning, policy, and arts, shew with what power novelty attracts regard, and how naturally esteem swells into admiration. I am far from desiring to be numbered among the exaggerators of Chinese excellence. I consider them as great, or wise, only in comparison with the nations that surround them; and have no intention to place them in competition either with the antients or with the moderns of this part of the world; yet they must be allowed to claim our notice as a distinct and very singular race of men: as the inhabitants of a region divided by its situation from all civilized countries, who have formed their own manners, and invented their own arts, without the assistance of example.’
a Johnson being asked his opinion of this Essay, answered, ‘Why, Sir, we shall have the man come forth again; and as he has proved Falstaff to be no coward, he may prove Iago to be a very good character.’
a What the great TWALMLEY was so proud of having invented, was neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen.
a Bar.
b Nard.
c Barnard.
a [Written by John, Earl of Egmont.]
b [The real authour… was I. P. Marana, a Genoese, who died at Paris in 1693. John Dunton in his Life says, that Mr. William Bradshaw received from Dr. Midgeley forty shillings a sheet for writing part of the Turkish Spy; but I do not find that he any where mentions Sault as engaged in that work.]
a We accordingly carried our scheme into execution, in October, 1792; but whether from that uniformity which has in modern times, in a great degree, spread through every part of the Metropolis, or from our want of sufficient exertion, we were disappointed.
a It is suggested to me by an anonymous Annotator on my Work, that the reason why Dr. Johnson collected the peels of squeezed oranges may be found in the 558th {358th} Letter in Mrs. Piozzi’s Collection, where it appears that he recommended ‘dried orange-peel, finely powdered,’ as a medicine.
a I think it necessary to caution my readers against concluding that in this or any other conversation of Dr. Johnson, they have his serious and deliberate opinion on the subject of duelling. In my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 386 {p. 366, 24 Oct.}, it appears that he made this frank confession: – ‘Nobody at times, talks more laxly than I do;’ and, ib., p. 231 {19 Sept.}, ‘He fairly owned he could not explain the rationality of duelling.’ We may, therefore, infer, that he could not think that justifiable, which seems so inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel. At the same time it must be