Johnson argued for the Italian method of pronouncing Latin.
[1216] See ante, ii. 80.
[1217] As Mme. de Boufflers is mentioned in the next paragraph, Boswell no doubt, wishes to shew that the letter was addressed to her. She was the mistress of the Prince of Conti. She understood English, and was the correspondent of Hume. There was also a Marquise de Boufflers, mistress of old King Stanislaus.
[1218] In the Piozzi Letters (i. 34), this letter is dated May 16, 1771; in Boswell's first and second editions, July 16, 1771; in the third edition, July 16, 1775. In May, 1771, Johnson, so far as there is anything to shew, was in London. On July 16, both in 1771 and 1775, he was in Ashbourne. One of Hume's Letters (Private Corres., p. 283), dated April 17, 1775, shews that Mme. de Boufflers was at that time 'speaking of coming to England.'
[1219] Mme. de Boufflers was in England in the summer of 1763. Jesse's Selwyn, i. 235.
[1220] Boscovich, a learned Jesuit, was born at Ragusa in 1711, and died in 1787. He visited London in 1760, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Chalmers's Biog. Dict. See ante, p. 125.
[1221] See ante, p. 288.
[1222] Four years later Johnson thus spoke to Miss Burney of her father:--'"I love Burney; my heart goes out to meet him." "He is not ungrateful, Sir," cried I; "for most heartily does he love you." "Does he, Madam? I am surprised at that." "Why, Sir? Why should you have doubted it?" "Because, Madam, Dr. Burney is a man for all the world to love: it is but natural to love him." I could have almost cried with delight at this cordial, unlaboured eloge.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 196.
[1223] 'Though a sepulchral inscription is professedly a panegyrick, and therefore not confined to historical impartiality, yet it ought always to be written with regard to truth. No man ought to be commended for virtues which he never possessed, but whoever is curious to know his faults must inquire after them in other places.' Johnson's Works, v. 265. See post, April 24, 1779.
[1224] See ante, i. 46.
[1225] See post, iii. 12, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 22.
[1226] Johnson's Dick Wormwood, in The Idler, No. 83, a man 'whose sole delight is to find everything wrong, triumphs when he talks on the present system of education, and tells us with great vehemence that we are learning words when we should learn things.' In the Life of Milton (Works, vii, 75), Johnson writes:--'It is told that in the art of education Milton performed wonders; and a formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read in Aldersgate-street, by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider, that nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of the horse.' He advised Boswell 'not to refine in the education of his children. You must do as other people do.' Post, iii. 169. Yet, in his Life of Barretier (Works, vi. 380), he says:--'The first languages which he learnt were the French, German, and Latin, which he was taught, not in the common way, by a multitude of definitions, rules, and exceptions, which fatigue the attention and burden the memory, without any use proportionate to the time which they require and the disgust which they create. The method by which he was instructed was easy and expeditious, and therefore pleasing. He learnt them all in the same manner, and almost at the same time, by conversing in them indifferently with his father.'
[1227] Miss Aikin, better known as Mrs. Barbauld. Johnson uses Presbyterian where we should use Unitarian. 'The Unitarians of the present day [1843] are the representatives of that branch of the early Nonconformists who received the denomination of Presbyterians; and they are still known by that name.' Penny Cyclo. xxvi. 6.
[1228] Othello, act ii. sc. 1.
[1229] He quotes Barbauld's Lessons for Children (p. 68, ed. of 1878). Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 16), speaking of books for children says:--'Mrs. Barbauld had his best praise; no man was more struck than Mr. Johnson with voluntary descent from possible splendour to painful duty.' Mrs. Piozzi alludes to Johnson's praise of Dr. Watts:--'Every man acquainted with the common principles of human action, will look with veneration on the writer, who is at one time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in their fourth year. A voluntary descent from the dignity of science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach.' Works, viii. 384. He praised Milton also, who, when 'writing Paradise Lost, could condescend from his elevation to rescue children from the perplexity of grammatical confusion, and the trouble of lessons unnecessarily repeated.' Ib vii. 99. Mrs. Barbauld did what Swift said Gay had shown could be done. 'One may write things to a child without being childish.' Swift's Works, xvii. 221. In her Advertisement, she says:--'The task is humble, but not mean; to plant the first idea in a human mind can be no dishonour to any hand.' 'Ethicks, or morality,' wrote Johnson, 'is one of the studies which ought to begin with the first glimpse of reason, and only end with life itself.' Works, v. 243.