The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [914]
84. Oι ΦιγOι ΦιγOζ: ‘He had friends, but no friend’ – Diogenes Laertius, V.i.
85. Principum amicitias: ‘The [deadly] friendships of princes’ – Horace, Odes, II.i.4.
86. fami non famce scribere: To write for food, not fame.
87. Degoute… d’argent: Disgusted with fame, and starving for money.
88. bark and steel for the mind: Bark was used in tanning and preserving leather; so ‘bark and steel’ suggests that Johnson’s prose preserves and strengthens the mind.
89. No. 88: In fact no. 98.
90. A GREAT PERSONAGE: George III.
91. Cum tabulis… divite lingua: ‘When he takes his tablets to write he will take also the spirit of an honest censor. Any words that he shall find lacking in dignity, or without proper weight, or that are held unworthy of the rank, he will have heart of courage to degrade from their position, however unwilling they may be to retire, and bent still on haunting the precincts of Vesta [in Roman religion, the goddess of the blazing hearth, who was worshipped in every household]. Phrases of beauty that have been lost to popular view he will kindly disinter and bring into the light – phrases which, though they were on the lips of a Cato and a Cethegus of old time, now lie uncouth because out of fashion and disused because old. He will admit to the franchise new phrases which use has fathered and given to the world. In strength and clearness, like a crystal stream, he will pour his wealth along, and bless Latium with a richer tongue.’
92. Si forte… nomen: ‘If so there be abstruse things which absolutely require new terms to make them clear, it will be in your power to frame words which never sounded in the ears of a cinctured Cethegus, and free pardon will be granted if the licence be used modestly. New words and words of yesterday’s framing will find acceptance if the source from which they flow be Greek, and if the stream be turned on sparingly. Think you that there is any licence which the Romans will grant to Caecilius and Plautus, and then refuse to Virgil and Varius? Why should you grudge even such a one as myself the right of adding, if I can, something to the store, when the tongue of Cato and of Ennius has been permitted to enrich our mother speech by giving to the world new names for things? Each generation has been allowed, and will be allowed still, to issue words that bear the mint mark of the day’ – Horace, Ars Poetica, ll. 48–59.
93. Camdeo’s sports: Camdeo, the Hindu god of love, was the subject of Sir William Jones’s ‘A Hymn to Camdeo’ (1784).
94. Lethe: David Garrick, Lethe, a dramatic satire (1749).
95. O.S.: Old Style. See n. 19.
96. intenerate: Make tender, soften (Johnson).
97. Eheu… 1752: ‘Ah! Elizabeth Johnson, wedded 9 July 1736, died (alas) 17 March 1752.’
98. the expedition against the Havannah: On 12 August 1762 English forces under the command of the 3rd Earl of Albemarle launched a successful assault on Havana, then occupied by the Spanish.
99. Vix Priamus… fuit: ‘The death of Priam and the capture of Troy were hardly worth the cost’ – Ovid, Heroides, i.4.
100. dulce decus: ‘Dear dignity’ – Horace, Odes, I.i.2.
101. Thy love of folly, and thy scorn of fools: More accurately, ‘Your Taste of Follies, with our Scorn of Fools’ – ‘Epistle to a Lady’ (1735), in Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, ii.276.
102. I hope… gentleman: Having survived the battle of Shrewsbury, Falstaff resolves to ‘purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do’ (1 Henry IV, V.iv.156-7).
103. an authouress: Either Catherine Talbot or Elizabeth Carter.
104. my particular friends: John Hawkesworth and (probably) Elizabeth Carter.
105. Esau sold his birth-right: See Genesis 25:29–34.
106. the Tarpeian maid… ornaments: During a siege of Rome by the Sabines, Tarpeia, the daughter of the commanding officer, betrayed the citadel in return for what the Sabines bore on their left arms (i.e. golden bracelets).