BOSWELL. Murphy (Life, p. 157), criticising the above quotation from Johnson, says:--'He forgot the observation of Dryden: "If too many foreign words are poured in upon us, it looks as if they were designed, not to assist the natives, but to conquer them."'
[648] Idler, No. 70. BOSWELL. In the same number Johnson writes:--'Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers than the use of hard words.... But words are hard only to those who do not understand them; and the critic ought always to inquire, whether he is incommoded by the fault of the writer or by his own. Every author does not write for every reader.' See post, Sept. 19, 1777, where Johnson says:--'If Robertson's style be faulty he owes it to me; that is, having too many words, and those too big ones.'
[649] The following passages in Temple's writings shew that a likeness may be discovered between his style and Johnson's:--'There may be firmness and constancy of courage from tradition as well as of belief: nor, methinks, should any man know how to be a coward, that is brought up with the opinion, that all of his nation or city have ever been valiant.' Temple's Works, i. 167. 'This is a disease too refined for this country and people, who are well, when they are not ill, and pleased, when they are not troubled; are content, because they think little of it; and seek their happiness in the common eases and commodities of life, or the increase of riches; not amusing themselves with the more speculative contrivances of passion, or refinements of pleasure.' Ib. p. 170. 'They send abroad the best of their own butter into all parts, and buy the cheapest out of Ireland, or the north of England, for their own usc. In short they furnish infinite luxury which they never practise, and traffic in pleasures which they never taste.' Ib. p. 195. See post, April 9, 1778, where Johnson says:--'Temple was the first writer who gave cadence to English prosc.'
[650] Dean Stanley calls Ephraim Chambers 'the Father of Cyclopedias.' Memorials of Westminster Abbey, p. 299, note. The epitaph which Chambers wrote for himself the Dean gives as:--'Multis pervulgatus, paucis notus, qui vitam inter lucem et umbram, nec eruditus nec idioticis literis deditus, transegit.' In the Gent. Mag. for 1740, p. 262, the last line is given, no doubt correctly, as:--'Nec eruditus nec idiota, literis deditus.' The second edition of Chambers's Cyclopaedia was published in 1738. There is no copy of his Proposal in the British Museum or Bodleian. The resemblance between his style and Johnson's is not great. The following passage is the most Johnsonian that I could find:--'None of my predecessors can blame me for the use I have made of them; since it is their own avowed practice. It is a kind of privilege attached to the office of lexicographer; if not by any formal grant, yet by connivance at least. I have already assumed the bee for my device, and who ever brought an action of trover or trespass against that avowed free-booter? 'Tis vain to pretend anything of property in things of this nature. To offer our thoughts to the public, and yet pretend a right reserved therein to oneself, if it be not absurd, yet it is sordid. The words we speak, nay the breath we emit, is not more vague and common than our thoughts, when divulged in print.' Chambers's Preface, p. xxiii.
[651] 'There were giants in the earth in those days.' Gen. vi. 4.
[652] A GREAT PERSONAGE first appears in the second edition. In the first edition we merely find 'by one whose authority,' &c. Boswell in his Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773, speaks of George III. as 'a Great Personage.' In his Letter to the People of Scotland (p. 90) he thus introduces an anecdote about the King--and Paoli:--'I have one other circumstance to communicate; but it is of the highest value. I communicate it with a mixture of awe and fondness.--That Great Personage, who is allowed by all to have the best memory of any man born a Briton, &c. In the Probationary Odes for the Laureateship, published a few months after Boswell's Letter, a 'Great Personage' is ludicrously introduced; pp. xxx. 63.
[653] The first nine lines form the motto.
[654] Horat. Epist. Lib. ii. Epist. ii. {1, 110} BOSWELL.
But how severely with themselves proceed The men, who write such verse as we can read! Their own strict judges, not a word they spare That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care, Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place, Nay, though at court, perhaps, it may find grace: Such they'll degrade; and some-times, in its stead, In downright charity revive the dead; Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears, Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years; Command old words that long have slept to wake, Words that wise Bacon or brave Rawleigh spake; Or bid the new be English, ages hence, (For use will father what's begot by sense;) Pour the full tide of eloquence along, Serenely pure, and yet divinely strong, Rich with the treasures of each foreign tongue.'
Pope, Imitations of Horace, ii.