Mudge was, in his opinion, the wisest man he had ever met with in his life. He has always told me that he owed his first disposition to generalise, and to view things in the abstract, to him.' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 112, 115.
[1118] See post, under March 20, 1781.
[1119] See ante, p. 293. BOSWELL.
[1120] The present Devonport.
[1121] A friend of mine once heard him, during this visit, exclaim with the utmost vehemence 'I hate a Docker.' BLAKEWAY. Northcote (Life of Reynolds, i. 118) says that Reynolds took Johnson to dine at a house where 'he devoured so large a quantity of new honey and of clouted cream, besides drinking large potations of new cyder, that the entertainer found himself much embarrassed between his anxious regard for the Doctor's health and his fear of breaking through the rules of politeness, by giving him a hint on the subject. The strength of Johnson's constitution, however, saved him from any unpleasant consequences.' 'Sir Joshua informed a friend that he had never seen Dr. Johnson intoxicated by hard drinking but once, and that happened at the time that they were together in Devonshire, when one night after supper Johnson drank three bottles of wine, which affected his speech so much that he was unable to articulate a hard word, which occurred in the course of his conversation. He attempted it three times but failed; yet at last accomplished it, and then said, "Well, Sir Joshua, I think it is now time to go to bed."' Ib. ii. 161. One part of this story however is wanting in accuracy, and therefore all may be untrue. Reynolds at this time was not knighted. Johnson said (post, April 7, 1778): 'I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this.' See however post, April 24, 1779, where he said:--'I used to slink home when I had drunk too much;' also ante, p. 103, and post, April 28, 1783.
[1122] George Selwyn wrote:--'Topham Beauclerk is arrived. I hear he lost L10,000 to a thief at Venice, which thief, in the course of the year, will be at Cashiobury.' (The reference to this quotation I have mislaid.)
[1123] Two years later he repeated this thought in the lines that he added to Goldsmith's Traveller. Post, under Feb. 1766.
[1124] We may compare with this what 'old Bentley' said:--'Depend upon it, no man was ever written down but by himself.' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 1, 1773.
[1125] The preliminaries of peace between England and France had been signed on Nov. 3 of this year. Ann Reg. v. 246.
[1126] Of Baretti's Travels through Spain, &c., Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'That Baretti's book would please you all I made no doubt. I know not whether the world has ever seen such Travels before. Those whose lot it is to ramble can seldom write, and those who know how to write very seldom ramble.' Piozzi Letters, i. 32.
[1127] See ante, p. 370.
[1128] See ante, p. 242, note 1.
[1129] Huggins had quarrelled with Johnson and Baretti (Croker's Boswell, 129, note). See also post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.
[1130] See ante, p. 370.
[1131] Cowper, writing in 1784 about Collins, says:--'Of whom I did not know that he existed till I found him there'--in the Lives of the Poets, that is to say. Southey's Cowper, v. II.
[1132] To this passage Johnson, nearly twenty years later, added the following (Works, viii. 403):--'Such was the fate of Collins, with whom I once delighted to converse, and whom I yet remember with tenderness.'
[1133] 'MADAM. To approach the high and the illustrious has been in all ages the privilege of Poets; and though translators cannot justly claim the same honour, yet they naturally follow their authours as attendants; and I hope that in return for having enabled TASSO to diffuse his fame through the British dominions, I may be introduced by him to the presence of YOUR MAJESTY.
TASSO has a peculiar claim to YOUR MAJESTY'S favour, as follower and panegyrist of the House of Este, which has one common ancestor with the House of HANOVER; and in reviewing his life it is not easy to forbear a wish that he had lived in a happier time, when he might, among the descendants of that illustrious family, have found a more liberal and potent patronage.
I cannot but observe, MADAM, how unequally reward is proportioned to merit, when I reflect that the happiness which was withheld from TASSO is reserved for me; and that the poem which once hardly procured to its authour the countenance of the Princess of Ferrara, has attracted to its translator the favourable notice of a BRITISH QUEEN.
Had this been the fate of TASSO, he would have been able to have celebrated the condescension of YOUR MAJESTY in nobler language, but could not have felt it with more ardent gratitude, than MADAM, Your MAJESTY'S Most faithful and devoted servant.'--BOSWELL.
[1134] Young though Boswell was, he had already tried his hand at more than one kind of writing. In 1761 he had published anonymously an Elegy on the Death of an Amiable Young Lady, with an Epistle from Menalcas to Lycidas.