NORTH.'
[807] See Boswell's answer, post, May 12.
[808] See post, April 16, 1775.
[809] See ante, i. 122, note 2.
[810] Iona.
[811] 'I was induced,' he says, 'to undertake the journey by finding in Mr. Boswell a companion, whose acuteness would help my inquiry, and whose gaiety of conversation and civility of manners are sufficient to counteract the inconveniences of travel in countries less hospitable than we have passed.' Quoted by Boswell in his Hebrides, Aug. 18, 1773.
[812] See post, Nov. 16, 1776.
[813] Boswell wrote to Temple on May 8, 1779:--'I think Dr. Johnson never answered but three of my letters, though I have had numerous returns from him.' Letters of Boswell. See post, Sept. 29, 1777.
[814] Dr. Goldsmith died April 4, this year. BOSWELL. Boswell wrote to Garrick on April 11, 1774:--'Dr. Goldsmith's death would affect all the club much. I have not been so much affected with any event that has happened of a long time. I wish you would give me, who am at a distance, some particulars with regard to his last appearance.' Garrick Corres. i. 622.
[815] See ante, p. 265.
[816] See ante, ii. 27, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 29, 1773.
[817] These books Dr. Johnson presented to the Bodleian Library, BOSWELL.
[818] On the cover enclosing them, Dr. Johnson wrote, 'If my delay has given any reason for supposing that I have not a very deep sense of the honour done me by asking my judgement, I am very sorry.' BOSWELL.
[819] See post, March 20, 1776.
[820] 'Sir Joshua was much affected by the death of Goldsmith, to whom he had been a very sincere friend. He did not touch the pencil for that day, a circumstance most extraordinary for him who passed no day without a line. Northcote's Reynolds, i. 325.
[821] He owed his tailor L79, though he had paid him L110 in 1773. In this payment was included L35 for his nephew's clothes. We find such entries in his own bills as--'To Tyrian bloom satin grain and, garter blue silk beeches 8L 2s. 7d. To Queen's-blue dress suit 11L 17s. 0d. To your blue velvet suit 21L 10s. 9d.' (See ante, ii. 83.) Filby's son said to Mr. Prior:--'My father attributed no blame to Goldsmith; he had been a good customer, and had he lived would have paid every farthing.' Prior's Goldsmith, ii. 232.
[822] 'Soon after Goldsmith's death certain persons dining with Sir Joshua commented rather freely on some part of his works, which, in their opinion, neither discovered talent nor originality. To this Dr. Johnson listened in his usual growling manner; when, at length, his patience being exhausted, he rose with great dignity, looked them full in the face, and exclaimed, "If nobody was suffered to abuse poor Goldy, but those who could write as well, he would have few censors."' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 327. To Goldsmith might be applied the words that Johnson wrote of Savage (Works, viii. 191):--'Vanity may surely be readily pardoned in him to whom life afforded no other comforts than barren praises, and the consciousness of deserving them. Those are no proper judges of his conduct who have slumbered away their time on the down of plenty; nor will any wise man presume to say, "Had I been in Savage's condition, I should have lived or written better than Savage."'
[823] Mrs. Thrale's mother died the summer before (ante, p. 263). Most of her children died early. By 1777 she had lost seven out of eleven. Post, May 3, 1777.
[824] Johnson had not seen Langton since early in the summer of 1773. He was then suffering from a fever and an inflammation in the eye, for which he was twice copiously bled. (Pr. and Med. 130.) The following winter he was distressed by a cough. (Ib p. 135.) Neither of these illnesses was severe enough to be called dreadful. In the spring of 1770 he was very ill. (Ib p. 93.) On Sept. 18, 1771, he records:--'For the last year I have been slowly recovering from the violence of my last illness.' (Ib p. 104.) On April 18, 1772, in reviewing the last year, he writes:--'An unpleasing incident is almost certain to hinder my rest; this is the remainder of my last illness.' (Ib p. iii.) In the winter of 1772-3, he suffered from a cough. (Ib p. 121.) I think that he must mean the illness of 1770, though it is to be noticed that he wrote to Boswell on July 5, 1773:--'Except this eye [the inflamed eye] I am very well.' (Ante, p. 264.)
[825] 'Lord have mercy upon us.'
[826] See Johnson's Works, i. 172, for his Latin version. D'Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, vi. 368) says 'that Oldys [ante, i. 175] always asserted that he was the author of this song, and as he was a rigid lover of truth I doubt not that he wrote it. I have traced it through a dozen of collections since the year 1740, the first in which I find it.'
[827] Mr. Seward (Anec, ii. 466) gives the following version of these lines:
'Whoe'er thou art with reverence tread Where Goldsmith's letter'd dust is laid. If nature and the historic page, If the sweet muse thy care engage. Lament him dead whose powerful mind Their various energies combined.'
[828] See ante, p.