The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [912]
23. Rod… thy duty: Cf. 2 Henry VI, IV.ix.64: ‘Sword, I will hallow thee for this thy deed.’
24. Pastoral I: Virgil, Eclogues, i (Virgil’s Eclogues were commonly referred to as ‘Pastorals’ in the eighteenth century).
25. The Distressed Mother: The Distressed Mother (1712), by Ambrose Philips, is modelled very closely on Racine’s Andromaque. It was a great success when first performed, and was lavishly praised by Steele in The Spectator, 290 (1 February 1712).
26. that gentleman: Probably Andrew Corbet.
27. Ex alieno… versificator: ‘A poet by another’s genius, merely a versifier by his own’ – J. C. Scaliger, Poetices, bk VI, ch. 4 (1561), p. 308.
28. the tuneful Nine: The nine Muses, in Greek mythology the daughters of Mnemosyne, and goddesses of literature and the arts.
29. one of the chapters of his Rasselas: Chapter 44, ‘The Dangerous Prevalence of Imagination’.
30. Igneus… origo: ‘To these seeds a flame-like vigour belongs, and a divine origin’ – Virgil, Aeneid, vi.730.
31. ‘The Whole Duty of Man’: Richard Allestree, The Whole Duty of Man (1658), an enormously popular work of practical morality and religion, many times reprinted for over a century after its first publication.
32. De veritate Religionis: ‘Of the Truth of Religion’; books so entitled were composed by Hugo Grotius (Leyden, 1627), Philip van Limborch (Gouda, 1687), and Philippe du Plessis Mornay (Antwerp, 1583).
33. Stet pro ratione voluntas: ‘Let my desires be reason enough’ – Juvenal, Satires, vi.223.
34. what… to be saved: Cf. Acts 16:30.
35. somebody: Possibly William Vyse.
36. res angusta domi: ‘Financial constraint at home’ – Juvenal, Satires, iii.164.
37. petites morales: Minor social conventions or morals; the ethics of everyday life (OED).
38. My time… happily spent: The opening line of ‘A Pastoral’ by John Byrom (1692–1763).
39. usher: An assistant to a schoolmaster or head teacher; an under-master, assistant master (OED, 4).
40. Julii 16… petii: ‘July 16. I betook myself to Bosworth on foot.’
41. his admirable philosophical tale: The History of Rasselas (1759).
42. in quo Natura… compensavit: ‘In whom, as formerly in Angelo Polit-iano, nature compensated for bodily ugliness with great intellectual eminence’.
43. first… in the Gent. Mag.: Gentleman’s Magazine, lv (1785), 3-8.
44. multos et felices annos: Many years, and happy ones.
45. Delightful task… toshoot: James Thomson, ‘Spring’ (1728), ll.1152-3.
46. Utpueris… discere prima: ‘As teachers sometimes give little boys cakes to coax them into learning their letters’ – Horace, Satires, I.i.25-6.
47. a relation: The Revd Samuel Ford (1717–93), Johnson’s cousin.
48. the Turkish History: Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603). Johnson admired this work immoderately, and drew from it the plot of his unsuccessful play Irene (composed 1736, first performed 1749).
49. porter’s knot: A kind of double shoulder pad, with a loop passing round the forehead, the whole roughly resembling a horse collar, used by London market porters for carrying their burdens (OED, ‘knot’, 5).
50. His Ofellus… an Irish painter: Ofellus is the wise peasant in Horace’s Satires II.ii, who is able to teach the art of frugal living. The Irish painter was possibly Michael Ford.
51. disjecta membra: ‘Dismembered limbs’ – Horace, Satires, I.iv.62.
52. gave the wall: Yielded passage (the side of the pavement nearest the wall being cleaner and safer).
53. Iris: In Greek mythology, the goddess of the rainbow.
54. Lewis le Grand: That is, Louis XIV (1638–1715), king of France.
55. Will no… happy Muse: Samuel Derrick, ‘Fortune, a rhapsody’, Gentleman’s Magazine, xxi (1751), 527.
56. May I… a Paul: Charles Churchill, The Conference (1763), p. 13.
57. deterre: Unearthed, or dug up.
58. ne ullius… moraretur: That no election of a teacher be delayed more than three months.
59. impransus: