141.
[1377] He wrote:--'Mr. Boswell is with me, but I will take care that he shall hinder no business, nor shall he know more than you would have him.' Mr. Morison's Collection of Autographs, vol. ii.
[1378] 'March 23, 1776. Master Thrale, son of Mr. Thrale, member for the Borough, suddenly before his father's door.' Gent. Mag. 1776, p. 142.
[1379] See post, iii. 95.
[1380] 'Sir,' he said, 'I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk' (post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection). He had written of the boy the previous summer:--'Pray give my service to my dear friend Harry, and tell him that Mr. Murphy does not love him better than I do.' Piozzi Letters, i. 262.
[1381] See an accurate and animated statement of Mr. Gastrel's barbarity, by Mr. Malone, in a note on Some account of the Life of William Shakspeare, prefixed to his admirable edition of that poet's works, vol. i. p. 118. BOSWELL.
[1382] See Prior's Life of Malone, p. 142.
[1383] Piozzi Letters, i. 307.
[1384] See post, iii. 18, note 1.
[1385] Mr. Hoole wrote of Johnson's last days:--'Being asked unnecessary and frivolous questions, he said he often thought of Macbeth [act iii. sc. 4]--"Question enrages him."' Croker's Boswell, p. 843. See post, iii. 57, 268.
[1386] Sir Fletcher Norton, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and in 1782 created Baron Grantley. MALONE. For Norton's ignorance, see ante, ii. 91. Walpole (Letters, iv. 124) described him as 'a tough enemy; I don't mean in parts or argument, but one that makes an excellent bull-dog.' When in 1770 he was made Speaker, Walpole wrote:--'Nothing can exceed the badness of his character, even in this bad age.' Ib v. 217. In his Memoirs of the Reign of George III, i. 240, Walpole says:--'It was known that in private causes he took money from both parties.' Horne (afterwards Horne Tooke) charged Norton with this practice; Parl. Hist. xvii. 1010; and so did Junius in his Letter xxxix. Churchill, in The Duellist (Poems, ed. 1766, ii. 87), writing of him, says:--
'How often... Hath he ta'en briefs on false pretence, and undertaken the defence of trusting fools, whom in the end He meant to ruin, not defend.'
Lord Eldon said that 'he was much known by the name of Sir Bull-face Double Fee.' He added that 'he was not a lawyer.' Twiss's Eldon, iii. 98. 'Acting, it was supposed from resentment, having been refused a peerage,' he made on May 7, 1777, a bold speech to the King on presenting the Civil List Bill. 'He told him that his faithful Commons, labouring under burthens almost too heavy to be borne, had granted him a very great additional revenue--great beyond example, great beyond his Majesty's highest wants.' Parl. Hist. xix. 213, and Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 113.
[1387] Burns's Holy Willie, like Boswell, was an Ayrshire man.
[1388] Johnson, on May 16, wrote of him to Mrs. Thrale:--'He has his head as full as yours at an election. Livings and preferments, as if he were in want with twenty children, run in his head. But a man must have his head on something, small or great.' Piozzi Letters, i. 325.
[1389] Johnson wrote on May 25, 1780 (Piozzi Letters, ii. 136):'---- is come to town, brisk and vigorous, fierce and fell, to drive on his lawsuit. Nothing in all life now can be more profligater than what he is; and if, in case, that so be, that they persist for to resist him, he is resolved not to spare no money, nor no time.' Taylor, no doubt, is meant, and Baretti, in a marginal note, says:--'This was the elegant phraseology of that Doctor.' See post, iii. 180.
[1390] See ante, p. 460.
[1391] He did not hold with Steele, who in The Spectator, No. 153, writes:--'It was prettily said, "He that would be long an old man must begin early to be one."' Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 275) says that 'saying of the old philosopher, that he who wants least is most like the gods who want nothing, was a favourite sentence with Dr. Johnson, who required less attendance, sick or well, than ever I saw any human creature.'
[1392] Dr. Butter, of Derby, is mentioned post, iii. 163, and under May 8, 1781.
[1393] Andrew Stuart's Letters to Lord Mansfield (ante, ii. 229).
[1394] Johnson was thinking of Charles's meeting with the King of Poland. 'Charles XII. etait en grosses bottes, ayant pour cravate un taffetas noir qui lui serrait le cou; son habit etait, comme a l'ordinaire, d'un gros drap bleu, avec des boutons de cuivre dore.' Voltaire's Works, ed. 1819, xx. 123.