The Life of Samuel Johnson - James Boswell [931]
665. Foote’s patent: Samuel Foote had obtained in 1766 a patent to operate the Haymarket Theatre in the summer season. In October 1776 Foote leased this patent to George Colman.
666. Saw God in clouds: Pope, An Essay on Man, i.100.
667. Vita… lcetandum: ‘Resolved: to order my life, to read the Bible, to study theology, to serve God with gladness.’
668. De minimis… lex: The law does not concern itself with trifles.
669. Monitoire: Warning.
670. Papadendrion: Father of plantations.
671. sermones… aurei: Golden sermons – nay, more golden than gold.
672. Johnstoni Poemata: Poemata Omnia (1642) by Arthur Johnston, a Scottish Latin poet.
673. magnum nomen: Great name.
674. Timeo… ferentes: ‘I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts’ – Virgil, Aeneid, ii.49.
675. the Act of Queen Anne: The Act of 1709 of which the full title is ‘An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies during the times therein mentioned’. The purpose of the Act was to provide machinery for the enforcement of copyright.
676. fervour of Loyalty: James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785), p. 243 (13 September).
677. July 9, 1777: In fact 9 June.
678. Studious… to deceive: Matthew Prior, ‘Gualterus Danistonus ad Amicos. Imitated’ (1710), l. 1.
679. a Moravian: The Revd Benjamin Latrobe. A Moravian is a member of a Protestant Church founded in 1722 in Saxony by emigrants from Moravia, continuing the tradition of the Unitas Fratrum, a body holding Hussite doctrines (i.e. using a liturgy in the vernacular, and administering Communion to the laity in the forms of both bread and wine) which had its chief seat in Moravia and Bohemia (OED, 2).
680. viaticum: A supply of money or other necessaries for a journey (OED, 2).
681. to Mr. Edward Dilly: In fact addressed to William Sharp.
682. sedes avitce: Ancestral seat.
683. poor dear —: Bennet Langton.
684. To virtue… breast: The reference is to the concluding line of a sonnet by Sir Philip Sidney included in Sir John Harington’s Ariosto (1591), p. 87.
685. a pituitous defluxion: An excess of phlegm.
686. light afflictions: Cf. 2 Corinthians 4:17.
687. Hockley in the Hole: A bear garden and venue for dog-fights and prize fights in Clerkenwell, which had a reputation for disorder and drunkenness. In The Spectator, 436 (21 July 1712), it was celebrated as ‘a Place of no small Renown for the Gallantry of the lower Order of Britons’. In Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera Mrs Peachum, advising Filch to ‘learn Valour’, includes Hockley in the Hole among ‘the Schools that have bred so many brave Men’ (I.vi). In Fielding’s Jonathan Wild (1743), Jonathan’s mother comes from Hockley in the Hole (bk 1, ch. 2).
688. bottom: Physical resources, ‘staying power’, power of endurance; said especially of pugilists, wrestlers, race-horses, etc. (OED, 14).
689. a gentleman: Littleton Poyntz Meynell.
690. a certain person: George Garrick.
691. What shall I do to be saved: Acts 16:30. And cf. p. 43.
692. Ne sit… amor, &c: ‘Your love for a handmaid need cost you no blushes…’ – Horace, Odes, II.iv.i.
693. See Winter… constrains: William Hamilton, ‘Ode III’, in Poems on Several Occasions (1749), p. 32.
694. a friend of mine: George Dempster.
695. a gentleman of eminence in literature: Thomas Warton the younger.
696. Dos magna parentum virtus: ‘Their ample dowry is their parents’ worth’ – Horace, Odes, III.xxiv.21.
697. Daniel… Nebuchadnezzar’s dream: Daniel 2:1-49.
698. Quce terra… laboris: ‘What land is not yet full of our sorrow?’ – Virgil, Aeneid, i.460.
699. Sands… the year: Edward Young, The Love of Fame (1728), satire vi.194; slightly misquoted.
700. one of his friends: Edmund Burke.
701. vis inertice: The power of inertness.
702. a certain Scotch Lord: Archibald Montgomerie, nth Earl of Eglinton.
703. a person: Ibid.
704. obnubilation: The action of darkening or fact of being darkened with or as with a cloud (OED).
705. De rebus ad eum pertinentibus: ‘On matters that concerned