258, where she is described as 'a female patriot bewailing the miseries of her friends and fellow-citizens.' See ante, i. 447.
[989] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773, and post, Sept. 24, 1777, for another landlord's account of Johnson.
[990] From Dryden's lines on Milton.
[991] Horace Walpole wrote, on Jan. 15, 1775 (Letters, vi. 171):--'They [the Millers] hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux of quality at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman Vase, dressed with pink ribands and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival: six judges of these Olympic games retire and select the brightest compositions, which the respective successful acknowledge, kneel to Mrs. Calliope Miller, kiss her fair hand, and are crowned by it with myrtle, with--I don't know what.'
[992] Miss Burney wrote, in 1780:--'Do you know now that, notwithstanding Bath-Easton is so much laughed at in London, nothing here is more tonish than to visit Lady Miller. She is a round, plump, coarse-looking dame of about forty, and while all her aim is to appear an elegant woman of fashion, all her success is to seem an ordinary woman in very common life, with fine clothes on.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 364.
[993] 'Yes, on my faith, there are bouts-rimes on a buttered muffin, made by her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland.' Walpole's Letters, vi. 171. 'She was,' Walpole writes, 'a jovial heap of contradictions. She was familiar with the mob, while stifled with diamonds; and yet was attentive to the most minute privileges of her rank, while almost shaking hands with a cobbler.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 419. Dr. Percy showed her Goldsmith's ballad of Edwin and Angelina in MS., and she had a few copies privately printed. Forster's Goldsmith, i. 379.
[994] Perhaps Mr. Seward, who was something of a literary man, and who visited Bath (post, under March 30, 1783).
[995]
'--rerum Fluctibus in mediis et tempestatibus urbis.'
Horace, Epistles, ii. 2. 84. See ante, i. 461.
[996]
'Qui semel adspexit quantum dimissa petitis Praestent, mature redeat repetatque relicta.'
Horace, Epistles, i. 7. 96.
'To his first state let him return with speed, Who sees how far the joys he left exceed His present choice.' FRANCIS.
Malone says that 'Walpole, after he ceased to be minister, endeavoured to amuse his mind with reading. But one day when Mr. Welbore Ellis was in his library, he heard him say, with tears in his eyes, after having taken up several books and at last thrown away a folio just taken down from a shelf, "Alas! it is all in vain; I cannot read."' Prior's Malone, p. 379. Lord Eldon, after his retirement, said to an inn-keeper who was thinking of giving up business:--'Believe me, for I speak from experience, when a man who has been much occupied through life arrives at having nothing to do, he is very apt not to know what to do with himself.' Later on, he said:--'It was advice given by me in the spirit of that Principal of Brasenose, who, when he took leave of young men quitting college, used to say to them, "Let me give you one piece of advice, Cave de resignationibus." And very good advice too.' Twiss's Eldon, iii. 246.
[997] See post, April 10, 1775. He had but lately begun to visit London. 'Such was his constant apprehension of the small-pox, that he lived for twenty years within twenty miles of London, without visiting it more than once.' At the age of thirty-five he was inoculated, and henceforth was oftener in town. Campbell's British Poets, p. 569.
[998] Mr. S. Raymond, Prothonotary of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, published in Sydney in 1854 the Diary of a Visit to England in 1775. by an Irishman (The Rev. Dr. Thomas Campbell,) with Notes. The MS., the editor says, was discovered behind an old press in one of the offices of his Court. The name of the writer nowhere appears in the MS. It is clear, however, that if it is not a forgery, the author was Campbell. In the Edinburgh Review for Oct., 1859, its authenticity is examined, and is declared to be beyond a doubt. Lord Macaulay aided the Reviewer in his investigation. Ib p. 323. He could scarcely, however, have come to his task with a mind altogether free from bias, for the editor 'has contrived,' we are told, 'to expose another of Mr. Croker's blunders.' Faith in him cannot be wrong who proves that Croker is not in the right. The value of this Diary is rated too highly by the Reviewer. The Master of Balliol College has pointed out to me that it adds but very little to Johnson's sayings. So far as he is concerned, we are told scarcely anything of mark that we did not know already. This makes the Master doubt its genuineness. I have noticed one suspicious passage. An account is given of a dinner at Mr. Thrale's on April 1, at which Campbell met Murphy, Boswell, and Baretti. 'Johnson's bons mots were retailed in such plenty that they, like a surfeit, could not lie upon my memory.' In one of the stories told by Murphy, Johnson is made to say, 'Damn the rascal.' Murphy would as soon have made the Archbishop of Canterbury swear as Johnson; much sooner the Archbishop of York.