A man can tell but what he knows, and I never got any further than the first pages."' In Zenobia two and Tigranes.
[375] Hume was one who had this idle dream. Shortly before his death one of his friends wrote:--'He still maintains that the national debt must be the ruin of Britain; and laments that the two most civilised nations, the English and French, should be on the decline; and the barbarians, the Goths and Vandals of Germany and Russia, should be rising in power and renown.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 497.
[376] Hannah More was with Dr. Kennicott at his death. 'Thus closed a life,' she wrote (Memoirs, i. 289), 'the last thirty years of which were honourably spent in collating the Hebrew Scriptures.' See also Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 16, 1773.
[377] Johnson (Works, viii. 467) says that Mallet, in return for what he wrote against Byng, 'had a considerable pension bestowed upon him, which he retained to his death.' See ante, i. 268.
[378] See ante, ii. 76.
[379] 'It is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other at a time when opinions are fixed, and habits are established; when friendships have been contracted on both sides; when life has been planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of its own prospects.' Rasselas, ch. xxix.
[380] Malone records that 'Cooper was round and fat. Dr. Warton, one day, when dining with Johnson, urged in his favour that he was, at least, very well informed, and a good scholar. "Yes," said Johnson, "it cannot be denied that he has good materials for playing the fool, and he makes abundant use of them."' Prior's Malone, p. 428. See post, Sept. 15, 1777, note.
[381] See post, Sept 21, 1777, and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22, 1773.
[382] But see ante, i. 299, where Johnson owned that his happier days had come last.
[383]
'In youth alone unhappy mortals live, But ah! the mighty bliss is fugitive; Discolour'd sickness, anxious labours come, And age, and death's inexorable doom.'
DRYDEN. Virgil, Georgics, iii. 66. In the first edition Dr. Maxwell's Collectanea ended here. What follows was given in the second edition in Additions received after the second edition was printed, i. v.
[384] To Glaucus. Clarke's translation is:--'Ut semper fortissime rem gererem, et superior virtute essem aliis.' Iliad, vi. 208. Cowper's version is:--
'That I should outstrip always all mankind In worth and valour.'
[385] Maxwell calls him his old master, because Sharpe was Master of the Temple when Maxwell was assistant preacher. CROKER.
[386] Dr. T. Campbell, in his Survey of the South of Ireland, p. 185, writes: 'In England the meanest cottager is better fed, better lodged, and better dressed than the most opulent farmers here.' See post, Oct. 19, 1779.
[387] In the vice-royalty of the Duke of Bedford, which began in Dec. 1756, 'in order to encourage tillage a law was passed granting bounties on the land carriage of corn and flour to the metropolis.' Lecky's Hist. of Eng. ii. 435. In 1773-4 a law was passed granting bounties upon the export of Irish corn to foreign countries. Ib iv. 415.
[388] See ante, i. 434.
[389] See ante, ii. 121. Lord Kames, in his Sketches of the History of Man, published in 1774, says:--'In Ireland to this day goods exported are loaded with a high duty, without even distinguishing made work from raw materials; corn, for example, fish, butter, horned cattle, leather, &c. And, that nothing may escape, all goods exported that are not contained in the book of rates, pay five per cent, ad valorem.' ii. 413. These export duties were selfishly levied in what was supposed to be the interest of England.
[390] 'At this time [1756] appeared Brown's Estimate, a book now remembered only by the allusions in Cowper's Table Talk [Cowper's Poems, ed. 1786, i. 20] and in Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace [Payne's Burke, p. 9]. It was universally read, admired, and believed. The author fully convinced his readers that they were a race of cowards and scoundrels; that nothing could save them; that they were on the point of being enslaved by their enemies, and that they richly deserved their fate.' Macaulay's Essays, ii. 183. Dr. J.H. Burton says:--'Dr. Brown's book is said to have run to a seventh edition in a few months. It is rather singular that the edition marked as the seventh has precisely the same matter in each page, and the same number of pages as the first.' Life of Hume, ii. 23. Brown wrote two tragedies, Barbarossa and Athelstan, both of which Garrick brought out at Drury Lane. In Barbarossa Johnson observed 'that there were two improprieties; in the first place, the use of a bell is unknown to the Mahometans; and secondly, Otway had tolled a bell before Dr. Brown, and we are not to be made April fools twice by the same trick.' Murphy's Garrick, p. 173. Brown's vanity is shown in a letter to Garrick (Garrick Corres. i. 220) written on Jan. 19, 1766, in which he talks of going to St. Petersburg, and drawing up a System of Legislation for the Russian Empire.