The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [919]
228. Jurisprudentije… solemus: ‘No study is richer or more noble than jurisprudence; for in discussing laws we consider both the manners of peoples and the vicissitudes from which laws derive.’
229. Hcec sunt… age: ‘Such are the warnings I am able to give you. Go, then’ – Virgil, Aeneid, iii.461-2 (slightly misquoted).
230. modo… reliquit: ‘She dropped twin kids, hope of my flock, on the naked flint.’
231. Spemque… simul: ‘At once the hope and the flock.’
232. prcesidium: Defence or protection. Cf. Horace, Odes, I.i.2.
233. Spes tu nunc una… Te penes: ‘You are now our only hope – the honour and sovereignty of Latinus are in your hands.’
234. Excelsce familice de Bute spes prima… spes altera: The first hope of the lofty family of Bute… the second hope.
235. Et juxta… RomiS: ‘And beside him Ascanius, the second hope of great Rome.’
236. Juris Civilis Fontes: The Sources of the Civil Law.
237. Nam huic… nescio: ‘I don’t know where this other girl comes from.’
238. hoc ipsa… audivi: ‘By chance I heard her tell that on the way to the other girl.’
239. xατ’ Σoχην: ‘Par excellence.’
240. Et genus… alga est: ‘Without substance, blood and valour are less than seaweed.’
241. Et genus… donat: ‘Even birth and beauty can be bestowed by Queen Money.’
242. Nam genus… voco: ‘For birth and lineage, and whatever we ourselves have not created, can hardly be called our own.’
243. Nascetur… Ccesar: ‘A Caesar will be born from the fair line of Troy.’
244. Ille tamen… nomen: ‘And yet his name is drawn from our lineage.’
245. a garreteer: One who lives in a garret; an impecunious author or literary hack (OED) – in this case William Horsley.
246. False Delicacy: Hugh Kelly, False Delicacy (1768).
247. The Provoked Husband: Sir John Vanbrugh and Colley Cibber, The Provok’d Husband: or, A Journey to London (1728).
248. Sir Francis Wronghead: A character in The Provok’d Husband.
249. The Suspicious Husband: Benjamin Hoadly, The Suspicious Husband (1747).
250. The great Douglas Cause: A dispute over the Douglas family estates between Archibald Douglas (thought by some not to be the son of Lady Jane Douglas) and the Duke of Hamilton, who would inherit if Archibald Douglas’s claim were to be dismissed. The Judges of the Court of Session gave judgement in favour of the Duke of Hamilton on a casting vote, which was then overturned by the House of Lords.
251. a gentleman who… speculation: James Boswell.
252. esprits forts: ‘Strongminded’ persons; usually, ones who profess superiority to current prejudices, especially ‘freethinkers’ in religion (OED).
253. Maupertuis… peu de chose: ‘Maupertuis, dear Maupertuis, what a paltry thing is life!’ – ‘Ode VIII. A Maupertuis. La vie est un songe’, in Frederick II, Oeuvres du philosophe de Sans-Souci, 2 vols. (Potsdam, 1760), I, 35.
254. a gentleman… a lady: James Boswell; the woman was Isabelle de Zuylen. Boswell eventually married Margaret Montgomerie, on 25 November 1769.
255. an oppressed nation… free: A reference to the ultimately unavailing Corsican struggle for independence from Genoa and subsequently France, led by the charismatic Corsican general Pasquale Paoli, whom Boswell had visited in 1765. Boswell’s An Account of Corsica was published in 1768.
256. Wicked Will Whiston and good Mr. Ditton: The allusion is to a poem once attributed to Swift, the ‘Ode for Music, on the Longitude’, which contains the lines: ‘The longitude miss’d on | By wicked Will Whiston; | And not better hit on | By good master Ditton’. See n. 129.
257. Hunc librum… vacaret: ‘This book is the gift of Samuel Johnson, who from time to time was at leisure to study here.’
258. the question… of general warrants: John Wilkes, the author of issue No. 45 of the North Briton, which in April 1763 had denounced