The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  778. Romce… Romam: ‘I am as fickle as the wind – when in Rome, I love Tibur, when in Tibur, Rome’ – Horace, Epistles, I.viii.12. (Tibur is modern Tivoli, a town in the hills to the east of Rome, where Horace is said to have had a villa.)

  779. Me constare… Romam: ‘You know that I am consistent, and that it is with a heavy heart that I go away whenever the business which I hate draws me to Rome’ – Ibid., I.xiv.16.

  780. as Pope observes: Pope, An Essay on Man, ii.2.

  781. One of the company: Richard Cambridge.

  782. γησασxιν διδασxóμνoζ: γηζασxω δ’αιι πoγγα διδασxóμνoζ: ‘I grow in learning as I grow in years’ – attributed to Solon by Plutarch in his Life of Solon, xxxi.

  783. One of the company: Richard Cambridge.

  784. Est aliquid… lacertce: ‘It is something in whatever spot, however remote, to have become the possessor of a single lizard!’ – Juvenal, Satires, iii.230–31.

  785. I must… mouth: Cf. As You Like It, III.ii.205.

  786. He would not… to thunder: Coriolanus, III.i.256-7.

  787. a gentleman: Bennet Langton.

  788. freni strictio: A tight rein.

  789. fortunam… habet: ‘Treats his good fortune with deference’ – Ausonius, Epigrammata, viii.7.

  790. an eminent friend: John Mudge, whose son William was Johnson’s godson.

  791. a gentleman: James Boswell.

  792. the authour of that song: The song, beginning ‘Welcome, welcome, brother debtor’, has been attributed to Charles Coffey (d. 1745), and appeared in The Charmer (1749), pp. 269–70.

  793. Smith’s Latin verses… the great traveller: Edmund Smith (1672–1710) wrote a Latin ode on the orientalist Dr Edward Pococke (1604–91) which Johnson, in his ‘Life of Smith’, praised as ‘excellent’ (Lives of the Poets, ed. Lonsdale, II, 173). The ‘great traveller’, however, was Dr Richard Pococke (1704–65).

  794. said in his wrath: Cf. Psalms 2:5.

  795. Odin: One of the principal gods in Norse mythology.

  796. Salus populi: The first part of the classical legal tag ‘salus populi suprema lex est’, meaning ‘the safety of the people is the supreme law.’

  797. a gentleman: Perhaps Norton Nicholls.

  798. Parcus… relictos: ‘I have been a grudging and infrequent worshipper of the gods while I wandered, following a wisdom that is folly; I have been forced now to turn my sails backward and steer again in the course which I had abandoned’ – Horace, Odes, I.xxxiv.1-5.

  799. facies… tamen: ‘Features neither exactly alike, nor yet diverse’ – Ovid, Metamorphoses, ii.13.

  800. in potestate… in actu: Potentially… actually.

  801. a friend: George Steevens.

  802. Veniam… vicissim: ‘This licence we claim ourselves, and in our turn we grant the like’ – Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 11.

  803. an old gentleman: Littleton Poyntz Meynell.

  804. Coarse… thinks it luxury: Addison, Cato, I.iv.63–71, p. 10.

  805. Maccaronick verses: A burlesque form of verse in which vernacular words are introduced into the context of another language (originally and chiefly Latin), often with corresponding inflections and constructions; hence designating any form of verse in which two or more languages are mingled together (OED).

  806. Kγνββoισιν βανχθν: Klubboisin ebancten.

  807. an English Benedictine Monk: The abbe Hooke.

  808. If two… must ride behind: Much Ado about Nothing, III.v.33.

  809. He… has no friend: Cf. Diogenes Laertius, V.i. – ‘He had friends, but no friend.’

  810. Do the devils lie… not subsist: Thomas Brown, Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646), I.xi.16; cf. Samuel Johnson, Adventurer, 50 (1753).

  811. Miss —: Hannah More.

  812. The righteous… in his death: Proverbs 14.32.

  813. I have fought… crown of life: Cf. 2 Timothy, 4:7-8.

  814. Miss —: Jane Harry.

  815. Copernican and Ptolemaick systems: The Ptolemaic system is a model of the universe created by the Alexandrian mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy about ad 100. It assumes that the Earth is the stationary centre of the universe. The Copernican system is a model of the solar system created by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), which places the Sun at the centre and arranges the Earth and the other planets circling around it.

  816. a gentleman: Bennet Langton.

  817. Tempe: The vale of Tempe is a narrow valley in north-eastern Thessaly. The ancient Greeks dedicated Tempe to the cult of Apollo, who, legend says, purified himself in the waters of the Pinios after killing the serpent Python. A temple was built in a recess on the right bank, and every eighth year a procession came from Delphi to gather sacred laurels to be awarded to the victors of contests.

  818. Jo Ann. 2… erubuit: ‘John 2 | Water turned into Wine | Whence comes this redness, this strange purple colour? | What new blush changes the wondering waters? |A God, O guests! recognize the present God! | The shy nymph saw her God, and blushed’ – Richard Crashaw, Epigrammatum sacrorum liber (1634), p. 37.

  819. Mira… secuta est: I sing a marvel: the sun set, but no night followed.’ Camden tentatively ascribed the line to Giraldus Cambrensis (William Camden, Remaines Concerning Britain, 6th edn (1657), p. 321).

  820. a gentleman: The Revd James Phipps.

  821. O my coevals… yourselves: Edward Young, Night Thoughts: ‘Night’, iv.109 (1743).

  822. Non equidem… magis: ‘I do not envy you; rather, I marvel’ – Virgil, Eclogues, i.n.

  823. A reverend friend of ours: Dr Blair.

  824. Omnia… porto: ‘All that is mine, I carry with me’ – Cicero, Paradoxa, i.

  825. the authour: William Marshall, the author of Minutes of Agriculture (1778).

  826. April 14: In fact 18 April.

  827. a… delinquent: Horne Tooke.

  828. a gentleman: John Shebbeare.

  829. The Gentleman: The Revd Norton Nicholls.

  830. a gentleman: Bennet Langton.

  831. a gentleman: Ibid.

  832. Musarum Delicice: Sir John Mennes, Musarum Deliciae: or, The Muses Recreation (1656).

  833. a lady: Lady Lucan and her daughter.

  834. Historia Studiorum: ‘History of my studies’.

  835. one of his friends: Bishop Percy.

  836. the Ana: A collection of the memorable sayings or table-talk of anyone (OED).

  837. on the shoulders: In Latin, ‘on the shoulders’ is humeris (in place of the numerisque in the Horatian original).

  838. Numerisque… solutus: ‘As he [Pindar] is carried along in irregular metre’ – Horace, Odes, IV.ii.n-12.

  839. Suum cuique tribuito: ‘To each his due’ – Justinian, Institutes, I.i.i.

  840. Est modus… fines: ‘There is measure in everything, there are fixed limits’ – Horace, Satires, I.i.106.

  841. a poor man: Mauritius Lowe.

  842. un politique… aux raves: A politician among cabbages and turnips.

  843. Omne… est: ‘All things are magnified by the condition of being unknown’ – Tacitus, Agricola, xxx.

  844. toy-shop: A shop for the sale of trinkets, knick-knacks, or small ornamental articles; a fancy shop (OED, citing this passage).

  845. Better… in Heaven: John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667), i.263.

  846. Curst… my foe: Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, ll. 283-4.

  847. Si patrice… cari: ‘If we wish to live in a way which endears us to our country, and to ourselves’ – Horace, Epistles, I.iii.29.

  848. a nobleman: Archibald Montgomerie, nth Earl of Eglinton.

  849. superfoetation: Literally, the formation of a second foetus in a uterus already pregnant; metaphorically, superabundant production or accumulation (OED).

  850. a certain nobleman: Lord Clive.

  851. An ingenious gentleman: Robert Adam.

  852. the Sphinx’s description… night: An allusion to the riddle which the winged Sphinx
of Thebes was supposed to have posed to Oedipus: ‘What is it that walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, on three in the evening?’ The answer is ‘Man’, who crawls in infancy, walks when grown, and in old age uses a stick (so the times of day correspond to these three ages of man).

  853. Nestor: In Homeric legend, an elder statesman and counsellor in the Greek camp at the siege of Troy.

  854. one of our friends: Possibly Bennet Langton.

  855. Cornelius, a devout man: Acts 10:1.

  856. flow of talk: An allusion to Johnson’s comment on Dryden, that ‘such rapidity of composition naturally promises a flow of talk’ (Lives of the Poets, ed. Lonsdale, II, 112; cf. Thomas Chatterton, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse (1778), p. 99.

  857. An eminent authour: William Robertson.

  858. habillee en Jesuite: Dressed in Jesuit costume.

  859. On s’etonne… Janseniste: ‘It’s astonishing that Caliste has dressed as a Molinist. Since this young beauty denies everyone their liberty, is she not a Jansenist?’ –Menagiana, 4 vols. (Amsterdam, 1713–16), III, 376. The joke turns on the theological differences between these religious sects in respect of free will.

  860. enucleated: Literally, having the kernel or nucleus extracted; so, by extension, having the essential point at issue defined and disengaged from its less important circumstances.

  861. a curious clergyman: Dr Michael Lort.

  862. Vous gagnerez… des honnettes gens: ‘You will win over two or three libertines, and will alienate goodness knows how many decent folk.’

  863. He… not robb’d at all: Othello, III.iii.347-8.

  864. a gentleman: Bennet Langton.

  865. one of our friends: Bennet Langton senior.

  866. Hummums: Turkish baths.

  867. cupped: Bled by means of a cupping-glass (in which a partial vacuum is created by heating) (OED, 1).

  868. —: Topham Beauclerk.

  869. Lord—: Frederick St John, 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke.

  870. an Earl’s brother: A brother of Lord Rothes.

  871. ––––––: Lord Clive.

  872. weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable: Hamlet, I.ii.133.

  873. a Baronet: Sir Nicholas Bayley.

  874. Lord—: Lord Charlemont.

  875. Eπα πτζoντα: Winged words.

  876. bulse: A package of diamonds or gold-dust (OED).

  877. piling their arms: Placing muskets or rifles (usually in threes) with their butts on the ground and their muzzles meeting to support one another in an upright position, either at the cessation of fighting or as part of an act of surrender (OED).

  878. Il y a… dans la guerre: There is much childishness in warfare.

  879. In ccelum jusseris ibit: ‘And bid him go to heaven, to heaven he will go’ – Juvenal, Satires, iii.78. Cf. Samuel Johnson, London: A Poem (1738), l.116.

  880. The slip… hand-writing: Presented to the Bodleian Library in 1947 by Col. Ralph H. Isham.

  881. —: Bennet Langton.

  882. —: Langton, in Lincolnshire.

  883. shorn of his beams: With his brightness removed or diminished – cf. Milton, Paradise Lost, i.596; John Dryden, Aeneis (1697), xii.887 (quoted by Johnson in his Dictionary under ‘shorn’).

  884. to frank my letters: Members of Parliament, such as Strahan, were entitled to free postage, and it was a fairly common practice during the eighteenth century for the friends of MPs to ask them to supply them with ‘franks’, that is to say, a letter or envelope bearing their superscription.

  885. The Coxheath men: George III had visited Warley Camp on 20 October 1778, and Coxheath Camp on 23 November 1778.

  886. Pour le Chevalier Reynolds… la peinture: ‘For Sir Joshua Reynolds, as evidence of the pleasure I felt in reading his excellent discourse on painting.’

  887. in the year 1780: In fact in 1781.

  888. conge d’elire: Royal permission to a monastic body or cathedral chapter to fill up a vacant see or abbacy by election (OED).

  889. a clergyman: The Revd William Tasker.

  890. Bayes: See n. 328.

  891. a friend of ours: Perhaps Sir Joshua Reynolds.

  892. one of his old acquaintances: James Elphinston.

  893. the drunken Helot: The helots were the slave caste of ancient Sparta. Plutarch in his ‘Life of Lycurgus’ (xxviii) records that the Spartans would display drunken helots to their children, to instil in them a contempt for intoxication.

  894. A gentleman: William Strahan.

  895. one of our friends: Bennet Langton.

  896. The Government of the Tongue: Richard Allestree, The Government of the Tongue (1 667); cf. also William Perkins, A Direction for the Government of the Tongue (1632).

  897. and one: Mauritius Lowe.

  898. an eminent physician: Dr William Heberden.

  899. no man… his windows: The reference is to notorious disturbances in London on 23 April 1715, the anniversary of the accession of Queen Anne, when a Tory mob, intent on disruptive celebration, went about ‘imperiously commanding the People to illuminate their Windows, and contribute to their Bonefires. They were so intent upon Mischief, that they not only threw Stones, &c. at such Windows as were not illuminated, but at such People as were setting up Candles to prevent their Windows being broke; and threw Flint-Stones of such a Size and Weight, as were enough to have kill’d any Person they had hit. They likewise stopt Coaches, to extort Money from the Passengers; insulted those that were passing the Streets about their lawful Occasions, robb’d them of their Hats, Wigs, &c. buffeted them, and threatn’d farther Mischief if they would not Huzza, God bless the Queen and High Church’ (The annals of King George, year the first (1716), p. 405).

  900. a nobleman: John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich.

  901. Lord––––––: Lord Charles Spencer.

  902. Mr. —: Mr Delmis.

  903. a young Lord and an eminent traveller: Viscount Althorp and Sir Joseph Banks.

  904. another gentleman: George Steevens.

  905. se’nnight: A period of seven days and nights; a week (OED).

  906. to make… go down: Lord Rochester, A Letter from Artemiza in the Towne to Chloe in the Country’ (composed? i673~5), l. 45.

  907. a celebrated wit: John Wilkes.

  908. Il n’a de l’esprit que contre Dieu: ‘He is witty only when he attacks God’ – a quip attributed to Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux (1636–1711), and said to have been made at the expense of Francois Payot de Lignieres (1628–1704), a satirist who was at first Boileau’s friend, and then his adversary.

  909. a physician: Dr Robert James.

  910. A bookseller: Andrew Millar.

  911. an eminent friend of ours: Edmund Burke.

  912. a little girl: Boswell’s daughter Veronica.

  913. Partem… renovarentur: I shaved my right arm next the wrist, and the skin round the right nipple, to discover how soon the hair would grow again.’

  914. τò βγτιoν: The better.

  915. quid valeant humeri: ‘What your shoulders can bear’ – Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 39.

  916. aliis lcetus, sapiens sibi: Happy with others, wise when alone.

  917. The Spleen, a Poem: See n. 601.

  918. A gentleman: James Boswell.

  919. a notorious infidel: Edward Gibbon.

  920. a celebrated friend: Topham Beauclerk.

  921. corrupted by evil communications: 1 Corinthians 15:33.

  922. invented the other day: See p. 741.

  923. one of the Prebendaries: The Revd Roger Barnston.

  924. amor nummi: ‘Love of money’ – Juvenal, Satires, xiv.139.

  925. Circe: In Homer’s Odyssey (x), Odysseus was detained for a year by the enchantress Circe on the island of Aeaea, where his companions were turned into swine.

  926. In culpa… usquam: ‘The true culprit is the mind, which can never run away from itself – Horace, Epistles, I.xiv.13.

  927. a gentleman: James Susannah Patton.

 
; 928. Delenda est Carthago: ‘Carthage must be destroyed’ – the sentence with which the elder Cato is said to have concluded every speech he made in the Senate.

  929. nec… dabis joca: ‘Nor wilt thou play any longer as thou art wont’ – Hadrian, ‘Animula, vagula, blandula’.

  930. manifestum habemus furem: We have caught the thief in the act.

  931. a taylor’s daughter: Jenny Guest.

  932. to ride with him now… : The ellipsis should read, ‘Captain Cotton who married Miss Aston’.

  933. Fitzosborne’s Letters: William Melmoth, Letters on Several Subjects. By the late Sir Thomas Fitzosborne, Bart. (1748).

  934. par pluribus: A host in herself.’

  935. outrage… civilized country: In 1779 Lord George Gordon organized and made himself head of the Protestant associations formed to secure the repeal of the Catholic Relief Act of 1778. He led a mob that marched on the Houses of Parliament on 2 June 1780, to present a petition against the Act. The ensuing riot lasted a week, causing great property damage and nearly 500 casualties. For his part in instigating this violence, Gordon was arrested on a charge of high treason, but he was acquitted on the ground that he had no treasonable intentions.

  936. Sic fata ferunt: ‘The fates wrought to this end’ – Virgil, Aeneid, ii.34.

  937. a young clergyman: The Revd Charles Lawrence.

  938. O! preclarum diem: ‘O glorious day!’ – Cicero, De Senectute, 84.

  939. Herculaneum: An ancient city at the base of Mount Vesuvius which was destroyed in the eruption of ad 79. Excavation of the site began in the eighteenth century, and the discoveries provided a rich and detailed vision of life in the ancient world which transformed men’s understanding of antiquity.

  940. dactyl: A metrical foot consisting of a long syllable followed by two short (or, in modern verse, of an accented syllable and two unaccented) (OED).

  941. Tu… non sei filosofo: ‘You are a saint, but you are not a philosopher.’

  942. anfractuosities: Winding or tortuous crevices, channels, passages (OED).

  943. gabble monstrously: Cf. The Tempest, I.ii.358–60, where Miranda tells Caliban ‘When thou didst not, savage, | Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like | A thing most brutish…’

  944. High Life below Stairs: The Revd James Townley, High Life below Stairs (1759).