The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [915]
107. Le vainqueur… dela terre: The conqueror of the conqueror of the world.
108. The shepherd… the rocks: An allusion to Virgil, Eclogue viii.43-5: ‘Now I know what love is. On flinty crags Tmarus bore him, or Rhodope, or the farthest Garamantes – a child not of our race or blood.’
109. one of the vices… of society: That is, adultery.
110. no. a late noble Lord: George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield.
111. Lost in. Lost in… gloom: Alexander Pope, ‘Eloisa to Abelard’ (1717), l. 38.
112. Vallis… nubes: ‘See spicy clouds from lowly Saron rise’ – Alexander Pope, Messiah (1712), l. 27.
113. one other Fellow… now resident: John Collins.
114. the Titans: In Greek mythology the Titans were the children of the primeval couple, Uranus and Ge. There were twelve of them – six of each sex.
115. a learned Swede: Possibly Peter Chriström.
116. Oιμμ… ππóΦαμν: ‘Alas – but wherefore alas? We have suffered the fate of men’ – Euripides, fragment.
117. Calypso… Polypheme… resist: In Greek mythology Calypso was the daughter of Atlas; she detained Odysseus seven years on the island of Ogygia (Homer, Odyssey, V). Polyphemus was a cyclops (a one-eyed giant), and the son of Poseidon. Odysseus escaped from him by blinding him with a stake (Odyssey, IX).
118. Crescimbeni: A reference to recent works of Italian literary history by Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni – probably the Istoria della volgar poesia (1698) and the Commentarii (1702-n).
119. Term. Scti.… munitum: ‘Hilary Term 1755. The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, to all who may read this, greetings. Whereas our ancestors instituted academic degrees to the end that men of outstanding genius and learning might be distinguished by titles also; and whereas the learned Samuel Johnson of Pembroke College has long been known to the world of letters by writings that have shaped the manners of his countrymen and is even now labouring at a work of the greatest usefulness in adorning and fixing our native tongue (he is about to publish an English Dictionary, compiled with the greatest diligence and judgement); therefore we, the Chancellor, Masters and Scholars, have unanimously made the said Samuel Johnson a Master of Arts, and we wish him joy of all the rights and privileges that belong to that degree. In evidence of this we have affixed the seal of the University of Oxford. Given in the Convocation House 20 February 1755. The diploma written above was read out by the Registrar, and was confirmed by the decree of Convocation and with the seal of the University.’
120. Dom. Doctori Huddesford… existimo: ‘To Dr Huddesford, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Both you and I would think me ungrateful if I failed to express in a letter (the most trifling form of acknowledgement) the pleasure I feel in the honour which (I imagine at your instigation) the Senatus Academicus has done me. I should be equally ungrateful if I did not acknowledge the kindness of the excellent man who has put into my hands the proof of your regard. My pleasure is enhanced by this, that I am enrolled in your ranks at a time when cunning but foolish men are straining every nerve to lessen your authority and to injure the good name of Oxford. I have always opposed them in so far as an obscure scholar can, and always shall. Whoever, in these days of trouble, fails in his duty to you and the University I regard as failing in his duty to virtue and learning, to himself and posterity.’ The reference to attempts to injure the good name of Oxford invites the reader to recall the events of the Oxfordshire election of 1754-5, which had been bitterly fought, and in which a politically polarized University had been besmirched once more with allegations of Jacobitism, notoriously by Pitt the elder in the House of Commons on 26 November 1754. See The History of the University of Oxford, vol. V, ‘The Eighteenth Century’, ed. L. S. Sutherland and L. G. Mitchell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 129–42.
121. vasta mole superbus: