'Boniface, Sir, I have now in my cellar ten tun of the best ale in Staffordshire; 'tis smooth as oil, sweet as milk, clear as amber, and strong as brandy; and will be just fourteen year old the fifth day of next March, old style.' Act i. sc. i. See post, April 20, 1781.
[1356] Though his letters to her are very affectionate, yet what he wrote of her to Mrs. Thrale shews that her love for him was not strong. Thus he writes:--'July 20, 1767. Miss Lucy is more kind and civil than I expected.' Piozzi Letters, i. 4. 'July 17, 1771. Lucy is a philosopher, and considers me as one of the external and accidental things that are to be taken and left without emotion. If I could learn of Lucy, would it be better? Will you teach me?' Ib p. 46. 'Aug. 1, 1775. This was to have been my last letter from this place, but Lucy says I must not go this week. Fits of tenderness with Mrs. Lucy are not common, but she seems now to have a little paroxysm, and I was not willing to counteract it.' Ib p. 293. 'Oct. 27, 1781. Poor Lucy's illness has left her very deaf, and I think, very inarticulate ... But she seems to like me better than she did.' Ib ii. 208. 'Oct. 31, 1781. Poor Lucy's health is very much broken ... Her mental powers are not impaired, and her social virtues seem to increase. She never was so civil to me before.' Ib p. 211. On his mother's death he had written to her:--'Every heart must lean to somebody, and I have nobody but you.' Ante i. 515.
[1357] See ante, p. 311.
[1358] See post, iii. 131.
[1359] Boswell varies Johnson's definition, which was 'a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.' ante, i. 294, note 8.
[1360] '"I remember," said Dr. Johnson, "when all the decent people in Lichfield got drunk every night."' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 19. See post, iii. 77.
[1361] He had to allow that in literature they were behind the age. Nearly four years after the publication of Evelina, he wrote:--'Whatever Burney [by Burney he meant Miss Burney] may think of the celerity of fame, the name of Evelina had never been heard at Lichfield till I brought it. I am afraid my dear townsmen will be mentioned in future days as the last part of this nation that was civilised. But the days of darkness are soon to be at an end; the reading society ordered it to be procured this week.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 221.
[1362] See ante, ii. 159.
[1363] Garrick himself, like the Lichfieldians, always said--shupreme, shuperior. BURNEY.
[1364] Johnson did not always speak so disrespectfully of Birmingham. In his Taxation no Tyranny (Works, vi. 228), he wrote:--'The traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of narrow selfishness by a manly recommendation to Parliament of the rights and dignity of their native country.' The boobies in this case were sound Tories.
[1365] This play was Gibber's Hob; or The Country Wake, with additions, which in its turn was Dogget's Country Wake reduced. Reed's Biog. Dram. ii. 307.
[1366] Boswell says, post, under Sept. 30, 1783, that 'Johnson had thought more upon the subject of acting than might be generally supposed.'
[1367] A nice observer of the female form. CROKER. Terence, Eun. iii. 5.
[1368] In Farquhar's Comedy of Sir Harry Wildair.
[1369] Gilbert Walmesley, ante, i. 81
[1370] See ante, i. 83.
[1371] Cradock (Memoirs i. 74) says that in the Cathedral porch, a gentleman, 'who might, perhaps, be too ambitious to be thought an acquaintance of the great Literary Oracle, ventured to say, "Dr. Johnson, we have had a most excellent discourse to day," to which he replied, "That may be, Sir, but it is impossible for you to know it."'
[1372] The Tempest, act iv., sc. 1.
[1373] See post, iii. 151.
[1374] Johnson, in 1763, advising Miss Porter to rent a house, said:--'You might have the Palace for twenty pounds.' Croker's Boswell, p. 145.
[1375] Boswell, after his book was published, quarrelled with Miss Seward. He said that he was forced to examine these communications 'with much caution. They were tinctured with a strong prejudice against Johnson.' His book, he continued, was meant to be 'a real history and not a novel,' so that he had 'to suppress all erroneous particulars, however entertaining.' He accused her of attacking Johnson with malevolence. Gent. Mag. 1793, p. 1009. For Boswell's second meeting with her, see post, iii. 284.
[1376] A Signor Recupero had noticed on Etna, the thickness of each stratum of earth between the several strata of lava. 'He tells me,' wrote Brydone, 'he is exceedingly embarrassed by these discoveries in writing the history of the mountain. That Moses hangs like a dead weight upon him, and blunts all his zeal for inquiry; for that really he has not the conscience to make his mountain so young as that prophet makes the world. The bishop, who is strenuously orthodox--for it is an excellent see--has already warned him to be upon his guard, and not to pretend to be a better natural historian than Moses.' Brydone's Tour, i.