The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [918]
203. Orpheus… the Argonauts: In Greek mythology Orpheus was a legendary poet, whose playing on the lyre could hold wild beasts spellbound. He accompanied Jason and the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece, and by his song he enabled them to resist the lure of the Sirens.
204. Formosam… silvas: ‘And the woods resound with the name of Amaryllis’ – Virgil, Eclogues, i.5.
205. a certain friend of his: Possibly Edmund Burke.
206. the Convocation: The principal provincial synod or assembly of the clergy of the Church of England, constituted by statute and called together to deliberate on ecclesiastical matters. The bitter controversy which attended the repeal of the Schism Act (1714) in 1719 caused Convocation to be adjourned indefinitely, and it did not meet again until 1854: see J. P. Kenyon, Revolution Principles: The Politics of Party 1689–1720 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 196.
207. Jean Bull philosophe: John Bull the philosopher. John Bull was the embodiment of Englishness, popularized in a series of pamphlets by John Arbuthnot published in 1712 in opposition to English involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession.
208. gulosity: Gluttony, greediness, voracity (OED).
209. a nobleman’s French cook: The nobleman was possibly Lord Elibank.
210. a lady: Probably Mrs Boswell.
211. turned him… aside: A misquotation of ll. 5-6 of Alexander Pope’s The Second Satire of the Second Book of Horace Paraphrased (1734): ‘Not when a gilt Buffet’s reflected pride | Turns you from sound Philosophy aside’. The reference is to Edmund Burke.
212. Who born… mankind: Oliver Goldsmith, Retaliation: A Poem (1774), ll. 31-2.
213. the Frisick language: The language of Friesland, or the northern Netherlands.
214. Unelbow’d… player: Pope, ‘Epistle to Bathurst’, l. 242.
215. That Davies… wife: Charles Churchill, The Rosciad, 2nd edn (1761), p. 10, l. 222.
216. poor Mrs. Macaulay: Catherine Macaulay (1731–91) had begun to publish her Whiggish History of England in 1763.
217. OMNIBUS… Kearney: To all who may read this, greeting. We, the Provost and senior fellows of Queen Elizabeth’s College of the holy and undivided Trinity at Dublin, declare that Samuel Johnson, gentleman, in recognition of the outstanding elegance and usefulness of his writings, was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Laws this eighth day of July 1765. In evidence thereof we attach the following signatures and the common seal; given on the twenty-third day of July 1765. William Clement Francis Andrews R. Murray Thomas Wilson Provost Robert Law Thomas Leland Michael Kearney
218. The Conscious Lovers: Richard Steele, The Conscious Lovers (first performed 1722).
219. Un gentilhomme… gentilhomme: ‘A gentleman is always a gentleman.’
220. Damien’s bed of steel: Robert-Francois Damiens (1715–57) attempted to assassinate Louis XV on 5 January 1757, and was executed on 2 March in a protracted ceremony full of symbolic violence. It is described by Michel Foucault in the first chapter of Surveiller et punir: naissance de la prison (Paris, 1975; trans. as Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, 1977).
221. a foreign friend of his: Giuseppe Baretti.
222. a gay friend: John Wilkes.
223. Profession… Vicaire Savoyard: ‘A Savoyard Vicar’s Profession of Faith’, in Emile (1762).
224. multorum… urbes: ‘The cities and the customs of many men’ – Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 142.
225. a young gentleman: James Boswell.
226. The passage omitted… transaction: Boswell’s copy at Yale supplies the missing information. Johnson had asked Boswell why he had dedicated the work to Lord Mountstuart, a man for whom he had no regard.
227. V7.ro NOBiLissiMO… JACOBUS BOSWELL: ‘James Boswell dedicates the first fruits of his legal studies, as a token of devoted friendship and respect, to the honoured companion of his Italian travels, to the most noble John, Viscount Mountstuart, of kingly line, the second hope of the noble family of Bute: a man ever mindful of his ancient and illustrious blood in a degenerate age, when men of no origin strive to level birth with