A few days later he was served with a subpoena upon an information exhibited against him by the Attorney-General in the Court of King's Bench. He did not enter an appearance, holding, as he said, the serving him with the subpoena as a violation of the privilege of parliament. Parl. Hist. xv. 1360.
[1161] Mr. Sheridan was then reading lectures upon Oratory at Bath, where Derrick was Master of the Ceremonies; or, as the phrase is, KING. BOSWELL. Dr. Parr, who knew Sheridan well, describes him 'as a wrong-headed, whimsical man.' 'I remember,' he continues, 'hearing one of his daughters, in the house where I lodged, triumphantly repeat Dryden's Ode upon St. Cecilia's Day, according to the instruction given to her by her father. Take a sample:--
"None but the brave None but the brave. None but the brave deserve the fair."
Naughty Richard [R. B. Sheridan], like Gallio, seemed to care nought for these things.' Moore's Sheridan, i. 9, 11. Sheridan writing from Dublin on Dec. 7, 1771, says:--'Never was party violence carried to such a height as in this session; the House [the Irish House of Parliament] seldom breaking up till eleven or twelve at night. From these contests the desire of improving in the article of elocution is become very general. There are no less than five persons of rank and fortune now waiting my leisure to become my pupils.' Ib. p. 60. See post, July 28, 1763.
[1162] Bonnell Thornton. See post July 1, 1763.
[1163] Lloyd was one of a remarkable group of Westminster boys. He was a school-fellow not only of Churchill, the elder Colman, and Cumberland, buy also of Cowper and Warren Hastings. Bonnell Thornton was a few years their senior. Not many weeks after this meeting with Boswell, Lloyd was in the Fleet prison. Churchill in Indepence(Poems ii 310) thus addresses the Patrons of the age:--
'Hence, ye vain boasters, to the Fleet repair And ask, with blushes ask if Lloyd is there.'
Of the four men who thus enlivened Boswell, two were dead before the end of the following year. Churchill went first. When Lloyd heard of his death, '"I shall follow poor Charles," was all he said, as he went to the bed from which he never rose again.' Thornton lived three or four years longer, Forster's Essays, ii 217, 270, 289. See also his Life of Goldsmith i. 264, for an account how 'Lloyd invited Goldsmith to sup with some friends of Grub Street, and left him to pay the reckoning.' Thornton, Lloyd, Colman, Cowper, and Joseph Hill, to whom Cowper's famous Epistle was addressed, had at one time been members of the Nonsense Club. Southey's Cowper, i. 37.
[1164] The author of the well-known sermons, see post, under Dec. 21, 1776.
[1165] See post, under Dec. 9, 1784.
[1166] See post, Feb. 7, 1775, under Dec. 24, 1783, and Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 10, 1773.
[1167] 'Sir,' he said to Reynolds, 'a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it;' post, under March 30, 1783.
[1168] 'Or behind the screen' some one might have added, ante, i. 163.
[1169] Wesley was told that a whole waggon-load of Methodists had been lately brought before a Justice of the Peace. When he asked what they were charged with, one replied, 'Why they pretended to be better than other people, and besides they prayed from morning to night.' Wesley's Journal, i. 361. See also post, 1780, near the end of Mr. Langton's Collection.
[1170] 'The progress which the understanding makes through a book has' he said, 'more pain than pleasure in it;' post, May 1, 1783.
[1171] Matthew, vi. 16.
[1172] Boswell, it is clear, in the early days of his acquaintance with Johnson often led the talk to this subject. See post, June 25, July 14, 21, and 28, 1763.
[1173] See post, April 7, 1778.
[1174] He finished his day, 'however late it might be,' by taking tea at Miss Williams's lodgings; post, July 1, 1763.
[1175] See post, under Feb. 15, 1766, Feb. 1767, March 20, 1776, and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 20, 1773, where Johnson says:--'I have been trying to cure my laziness all my life, and could not do it.' It was this kind of life that caused so much of the remorse which is seen in his Prayers and Meditations.
[1176] Horace Walpole writing on June 12, 1759 (Letters, iii. 231), says:--'A war that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace, and from Madras to California, don't produce an article half so long as Mr. Johnson's riding three horses at once.' I have a curious copper-plate showing Johnson standing on one, or two, and leading a third horse in full speed.' It bears the date of November 1758. See post, April 3, 1778.
[1177] In the impudent Correspondence (pp. 63, 65) which Boswell and Andrew Erskine published this year, Boswell shows why he wished to enter the Guards. 'My fondness for the Guards,' he writes, 'must appear very strange to you, who have a rooted antipathy at the glare of scarlet. But I must inform you, that there is a city called London, for which I have as violent an affection as the most romantic lover ever had for his mistress.... I am thinking of the brilliant scenes of happiness, which I shall enjoy as an officer of the guards.