70.
[483] See ante, i. 29.
[484] In his Life of Akenside ( Works, viii. 475) he says:--'Of Akenside's Odes nothing favourable can be said.... To examine such compositions singly cannot be required; they have doubtless brighter and darker parts; but when they are once found to be generally dull, all further labour may be spared; for to what use can the work be criticised that will not be read?' See post, April 10, 1776.
[485] See post, just before May 15, 1776.
[486] See post, Sept. 23, 1777.
[487] The account of his trial is entitled:--'The Grand Question in Religion Considered. Whether we shall obey God or Man; Christ or the Pope; the Prophets and Apostles, or Prelates and Priests. Humbly offered to the King and Parliament of Great Britain. By E. Elwall. With an account of the Author's Tryal or Prosecution at Stafford Assizes before Judge Denton. London.' No date. Elwall seems to have been a Unitarian Quaker. He was prosecuted for publishing a book against the doctrines of the Trinity, but was discharged, being, he writes, treated by the Judge with great humanity. In his pamphlet he says (p. 49):--'You see what I have already done in my former book. I have challenged the greatest potentates on earth, yea, even the King of Great Britain, whose true and faithful subject I am in all temporal things, and whom I love and honour; also his noble and valiant friend, John Argyle, and his great friends Robert Walpole, Charles Wager, and Arthur Onslow; all these can speak well, and who is like them; and yet, behold, none of all these cared to engage with their friend Elwall.' See post, May 7, 1773. Dr. Priestley had received an account of the trial from a gentleman who was present, who described Elwall as 'a tall man, with white hair, a large beard and flowing garments, who struck everybody with respect. He spoke about an hour with great gravity, fluency, and presence of mind.' The trial took place, he said, in 1726. 'It is impossible,' adds Priestley (Works, ed. 1831, ii. 417), 'for an unprejudiced person to read Elwall's account of his trial, without feeling the greatest veneration for the writer.' In truth, Elwall spoke with all the simple power of the best of the early Quakers.
[488] Boswell, in the Hypochrondriack (London Mag. 1783, p. 290), writing on swearing, says:--'I have the comfort to think that my practice has been blameless in this respect.' He continues (p. 293):-- 'To do the present age justice, there is much less swearing among genteel people than in the last age.'
[489] 'The Life of Dr. Parnell is a task which I should very willingly decline, since it has been lately written by Goldsmith, a man of such variety of powers, and such felicity of performance, that he always seemed to do best that which he was doing.... What such an author has told, who would tell again? I have made an abstract from his larger narrative, and have this gratification from my attempt, that it gives me an opportunity of paying due tribute to the memory of Goldsmith. [Greek: Togargerasesti Thanonton].' Johnson's Works, vii. 398.
[490] See ante, i. 26, and post, April 11, 1773.
[491] 'Mr. Ruffhead says of fine passages that they are fine, and of feeble passages that they are feeble; but recommending poetical beauty is like remarking the splendour of sunshine; to those who can see it is unnecessary, and to those who are blind, absurd.' Gent. Mag. May, 1769, p. 255. The review in which this passage occurs, is perhaps in part Johnson's.
[492] See ante, i. 448.
[493] See post, April 5, 1775.
[494] It was Lewis XIV who said it. 'Toutes les fois que je donne une place vacante, je fais cent mecontens et un ingrat.' Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV, ch. 26. 'When I give away a place,' said Lewis XIV, 'I make an hundred discontented, and one ungrateful.' Johnson's Works, viii. 204.
[495] See post, May 15, 1783.
[496] This project has since been realized. Sir Henry Liddel, who made a spirited tour into Lapland, brought two rein-deer to his estate in Northumberland, where they bred; but the race has unfortunately perished. BOSWELL.
[497] Dr. Johnson seems to have meant the Address to the Reader with a KEY subjoined to it; which have been prefixed to the modern editions of that play. He did not know, it appears, that several additions were made to The Rehearsal after the first edition. MALONE. In his Life of Dryden (Works, vii. 272) Johnson writes:--'Buckingham characterised Dryden in 1671 by the name of Bayes in The Rehearsal.... It is said that this farce was originally intended against Davenant, who in the first draught was characterised by the name of Bilboa.... It is said, likewise, that Sir Robert Howard was once meant. The design was probably to ridicule the reigning poet, whoever he might be. Much of the personal satire, to which it might owe its first reception, is now lost or obscured.'
[498] 'The Pantheon,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 489), a year later than this conversation, 'is still the most beautiful edifice in England.' Gibbon, a few weeks before Johnson's visit to the Pantheon, wrote:--'In point of ennui and magnificence, the Pantheon is the wonder of the eighteenth century and of the British empire.' Gibbon's Misc.