265.
[829] At Lleweney, the house of Mrs. Thrale's cousin, Mr. Cotton, Dr. Johnson stayed nearly three weeks. Johnson's Journey into North Wales, July 28, 1774. Mr. Fitzmaurice, Lord Shelburne's brother, had a house there in 1780; for Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on May 7 of that year:--'He has almost made me promise to pass part of the summer at Llewenny.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 113.
[830] Lord Hailes was Sir David Dalrymple. See ante, i. 267. He is not to be confounded with Sir John Dalrymple, mentioned ante, ii. 210.
[831]
E'en in a bishop I can spy desert; Seeker is decent, Rundel has a heart.'
Pope's Epilogue to the Satires, ii. 70.
[832] In the first two editions forenoon. Boswell, in three other passages, made the same change in the third edition. Forenoon perhaps he considered a Scotticism. The correction above being made in one of his letters, renders it likely that he corrected them before publication.
[833] Horace, Ars Poet. l. 373.
[834] 'Do not you long to hear the roarings of the old lion over the bleak mountains of the North?' wrote Steevens to Garrick. Garrick Corres, ii. 122.
[835] 'Aug. 16. We came to Penmanmaur by daylight, and found a way, lately made, very easy and very safe. It was cut smooth and enclosed between parallel walls; the outer of which secures the passenger from the precipice, which is deep and dreadful.... The sea beats at the bottom of the way. At evening the moon shone eminently bright: and our thoughts of danger being now past, the rest of our journey was very pleasant. At an hour somewhat late we came to Bangor, where we found a very mean inn, and had some difficulty to obtain lodging. I lay in a room where the other bed had two men.' Johnson's Journey into North Wales.
[836] He did not go to the top of Snowdon. He says:--'On the side of Snowdon are the remains of a large fort, to which we climbed with great labour. I was breathless and harassed,' Ib Aug. 26.
[837] I had written to him, to request his interposition in behalf of a convict, who I thought was very unjustly condemned. BOSWELL.
[838] He had kept a journal which was edited by Mr. Duppa in 1816. It will be found post, in vol. v.
[839] 'When the general election broke up the delightful society in which we had spent some time at Beconsfield, Dr. Johnson shook the hospitable master of the house [Burke] kindly by the hand, and said, "Farewell my dear Sir, and remember that I wish you all the success which ought to be wished you, which can possibly be wished you indeed--by an honest man."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 242. The dissolution was on Sept. 30. Johnson, with the Thrales, as his Journal shows, had arrived at Beconsfield on the 24th. See ante, ii. 222, for Johnson's opinion of Burke's honesty.
[840] Mr. Perkins was for a number of years the worthy superintendant of Mr. Thrale's great brewery, and after his death became one of the proprietors of it; and now resides in Mr. Thrale's house in Southwark, which was the scene of so many literary meetings, and in which he continues the liberal hospitality for which it was eminent. Dr. Johnson esteemed him much. He hung up in the counting-house a fine proof of the admirable mizzotinto of Dr. Johnson, by Doughty; and when Mrs. Thrale asked him somewhat flippantly, 'Why do you put him up in the counting-house?' he answered, 'Because, Madam, I wish to have one wise man there.' 'Sir,' (said Johnson,) 'I thank you. It is a very handsome compliment, and I believe you speak sincerely.' BOSWELL.
[841] In the news-papers. BOSWELL.
[842] 'Oct. 16, 1774. In Southwark there has been outrageous rioting; but I neither know the candidates, their connections, nor success.' Horace Walpole's Letters, vi. 134. Of one Southwark election Mrs. Piozzi writes (Anec. p. 214):--'A Borough election once showed me Mr. Johnson's toleration of boisterous mirth. A rough fellow, a hatter by trade, seeing his beaver in a state of decay seized it suddenly with one hand, and clapping him on the back with the other. "Ah, Master Johnson," says he, "this is no time to be thinking about hats." "No, no, Sir," replies our doctor in a cheerful tone, "hats are of no use now, as you say, except to throw up in the air and huzza with," accompanying his words with the true election halloo.'
[843] See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 19, 1773. Johnson thus mentions him (Works, ix. 142):--'Here we had the last embrace of this amiable man, who, while these pages were preparing to attest his virtues, perished in the passage between Ulva and Inch Kenneth.'
[844] Alluding to a passage in a letter of mine, where speaking of his Journey to the Hebrides, I say, 'But has not The Patriot been an interruption, by the time taken to write it, and the time luxuriously spent in listening to its applauses?' BOSWELL.
[845] We had projected a voyage together up the Baltic, and talked of visiting some of the more northern regions. BOSWELL. See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 16.
[846] See ante, i. 72.
[847] John Hoole, the son of a London watchmaker, was born in Dec.