In this statement there is a slight mistake. The English account, which was written by Johnson, was the original the Italian was a translation, done by Baretti. See post, end of 1755. MALONE. Johnson has twice entered in his own hand that 'Zachariah Williams, died July 12, 1755, in his eighty-third year,' and also on the title-page that he was 82.
[806] See ante, p. 133.
[807] The compliment was, as it were, a mutual one. Mr. Wise urged Thomas Warton to get the degree conferred before the Dictionary was published. 'It is in truth,' he wrote, 'doing ourselves more honour than him, to have such a work done by an Oxford hand, and so able a one too, and will show that we have not lost all regard for good letters, as has been too often imputed to us by our enemies.' Wooll's Warton, p. 228.
[808] 'In procuring him the degree of Master of Arts by diploma at Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.
[809] 'Lately fellow of Trinity College, and at this time Radclivian librarian, at Oxford. He was a man of very considerable learning, and eminently skilled in Roman and Anglo-Saxon antiquities. He died in 1767.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.
[810] No doubt The Rambler.
[811] 'Collins (the poet) was at this time at Oxford, on a visit to Mr. Warton; but labouring under the most deplorable languor of body, and dejection of mind.' WARTON. BOSWELL. Johnson, writing to Dr. Warton on March 8, 1754, thus speaks of Collins:-'I knew him a few years ago full of hopes, and full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under the government of those who lately would not have been able to comprehend the least and most narrow of its designs.' Wooll's Warton 1. 219. Again, on Dec. 24, 1754:--'Poor dear Collins! Let me know whether you think it would give him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often been near his state, and therefore have it in great commiseration.' Ib. p. 229. Again, on April 15, 1756:--'That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty: but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire.' Ib. p. 239. See post, beginning of 1763.
[812] 'Of publishing a volume of observations on the best of Spenser's works. It was hindered by my taking pupils in this College.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.
[813] 'Young students of the lowest rank at Oxford are so called.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 28, 1773.
[814] 'His Dictionary.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.
[815] Johnson says (Works, viii. 403) that when Collins began to feel the approaches of his dreadful malady 'with the usual weakness of men so diseased he eagerly snatched that temporary relief with which the table and the bottle flatter and seduce.'
[816] 'Petrarch, finding nothing in the word eclogue of rural meaning, supposed it to be corrupted by the copiers, and therefore called his own pastorals aeglogues, by which he meant to express the talk of goatherds, though it will mean only the talk of goats. This new name was adopted by subsequent writers.' Johnson's Works, viii. 390.
[817] 'Of the degree at Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.
[818] This verse is from the long-lost Bellerophon, a tragedy by Euripides. It is preserved by Suidas. CHARLES BURNEY. 'Alas! but wherefore alas? Man is born to sorrow.'
[819]
'Sento venir per allegrezza un tuono Que fremer l'aria, e rimbombar fa l'onrle:-- Odo di squille,' &c.
Orlando Furioso. c. xlvi. s. 2.
[820] 'His degree had now past, according to the usual form, the surrages of the heads of Colleges; but was not yet finally granted by the University. It was carried without a single dissentient voice.' WARTON. BOSWELL.
[821] 'On Spenser.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.
[822] Lord Eldon wrote of him:--'Poor Tom Warton! He was a tutor at Trinity; at the beginning of every term he used to send to his pupils to know whether they would wish to attend lecture that term.' Twiss's Eldon, iii. 302.
[823] The fields north of Oxford.
[824] 'Of the degree.' WARTON.--BOSWELL.
[825] 'Principal of St. Mary Hall at Oxford. He brought with him the diploma from Oxford.' WARTON.--BOSWELL. Dr. King (Anec. p. 196) says that he was one of the Jacobites who were presented to the Pretender when, in September 1750, he paid a stealthy visit to England. The Pretender in 1783 told Sir Horace Mann that he was in London in that very month and year and had met fifty of his friends, among whom was the Earl of Westmoreland, the future Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Mahon's England, iv. II. Hume places the visit in 1753. Burton's Hume, ii. 462. See also in Boswell's Hebrides, the account of the Young Pretender. In 1754, writes Lord Shelburne, 'Dr. King in his speech upon opening the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, before a full theatre introduced three times the word Redeat, pausing each time for a considerable space, during which the most unbounded applause shook the theatre, which was filled with a vast body of peers, members of parliament, and men of property.