336.
[585] It should seem that this dictionary work was not unpleasant to Johnson; for Stockdale records (Memoirs, ii. 179) that about 1774, having told him that he had declined to edit a new edition of Chambers's Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, 'Johnson replied that if I would not undertake, he would. I expressed my astonishment that, in his easy circumstances, he should think of preparing a new edition of a tedious, scientific dictionary. "Sir," said he, "I like that muddling work." He allowed some time to go by, during which another editor was found--Dr. Rees. Immediately after this intelligence he called on me, and his first words were:--"It is gone, Sir."'
[586] He, however, wrote, or partly wrote, an Epitaph on Mrs. Bell, wife of his friend John Bell, Esq., brother of the Reverend Dr. Bell, Prebendary of Westminster, which is printed in his Works [i. 151]. It is in English prose, and has so little of his manner, that I did not believe he had any hand in it, till I was satisfied of the fact by the authority of Mr. Bell. BOSWELL. 'The epitaph is to be seen in the parish church of Watford.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 471.
[587] See ante, i. 187. Mme. D'Arblay (Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 271) says that this year Goldsmith projected a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, in which Johnson was to take the department of ethics, and that Dr. Burney finished the article Musician. The scheme came to nothing.
[588] We may doubt Steevens's taste. Garrick 'produced Hamlet with alterations, rescuing,' as he said, 'that noble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act' (ante, ii. 85, note 7.) Steevens wrote to Garrick:--'I expect great pleasure from the perusal of your altered Hamlet. It is a circumstance in favour of the poet which I have long been wishing for. You had better throw what remains of the piece into a farce, to appear immediately afterwards. No foreigner who should happen to be present at the exhibition, would ever believe it was formed out of the loppings and excrescences of the tragedy itself. You may entitle it The Grave-Diggers; with the pleasant Humours of Osric, the Danish Macaroni.' Garrick Corres. i. 451.
[589] A line of an epigram in the Life of Virgil, ascribed to Donatus.
[590] Given by a lady at Edinburgh. BOSWELL.
[591] There had been masquerades in Scotland; but not for a very long time. BOSWELL. 'Johnson,' as Mr. Croker observes, 'had no doubt seen an account of the masquerade in the Gent. Mag. for January,' p. 43. It is stated there that 'it was the first masquerade ever seen in Scotland.' Boswell appeared as a dumb Conjurer.
[592] Mrs. Thrale recorded in 1776, after her quarrel with Baretti:--'I had occasion to talk of him with Tom Davies, who spoke with horror of his ferocious temper; "and yet," says I, "there is great sensibility about Baretti. I have seen tears often stand in his eyes." "Indeed," replies Davies, "I should like to have seen that sight vastly, when--even butchers weep."' Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 340. Davies said of Goldsmith:--'He least of all mankind approved Baretti's conversation; he considered him as an insolent, overbearing foreigner.' Davies, in the same passage, speaks of Baretti as 'this unhappy Italian.' Davies's Garrick, ii. 168. As this was published in Baretti's life-time, the man could scarcely have been so ferocious as he was described.
[593] 'There were but a few days left before the comedy was to be acted, and no name had been found for it. "We are all in labour," says Johnson, whose labour of kindness had been untiring throughout, "for a name to Goldy's play." [See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 14, 1773.] What now stands as the second title, The Mistakes of a Night, was originally the only one; but it was thought undignified for a comedy. The Old House a New Inn was suggested in place of it, but dismissed as awkward. Sir Joshua offered a much better name to Goldsmith, saying, "You ought to call it The Belle's Stratagem, and if you do not I will damn it." When Goldsmith, in whose ear perhaps a line of Dryden's lingered, hit upon She Stoops to Conquer.' Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 337, and Northcote's Reynolds, i. 285. Mr. Forster quotes the line of Dryden as
'But kneels to conquer, and but stoops to rise.'
In Lord Chesterfield's Letters, iii. 131, the line is given,
'But stoops to conquer, and but kneels to rise.'
[594] This gentleman, who now resides in America in a publick character of considerable dignity, desired that his name might not be transcribed at full length. BOSWELL.
[595] Now Doctor White, and Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Pennsylvania. During his first visit to England in 1771, as a candidate for holy orders, he was several times in company with Dr. Johnson, who expressed a wish to see the edition of his Rasselas, which Dr. White told him had been printed in America. Dr. White, on his return, immediately sent him a copy. BOSWELL.
[596] Horace. Odes, iii. I. 34.
[597] See post, Oct. 12, 1779.
[598] Malone had the following from Baretti: 'Baretti made a translation of Rasselas into French.