458, 739. Miss Burney wrote of her:--'Allowing a little for parade and ostentation, which her power in wealth and rank in literature offer some excuse for, her conversation is very agreeable.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 325. See post, April 7, 1778, note.
[151]
'Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.'
Pope, Sat. Ep. i. 135.
[152] Johnson refers to Jenyns's View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion, published this spring. See post, April 15, 1778. Jenyns had changed his view, for in his Origin of Evil he said, in a passage quoted with applause by Johnson (Works, vi. 69), that 'it is observable that he who best knows our formation has trusted no one thing of importance to our reason or virtue; he trusts to our vanity or compassion for our bounty to others.'
[153] Mr. Langton is certainly meant. It is strange how often his mode of living was discussed by Johnson and Boswell. See post, Nov. 16, 1776, July 22, and Sept. 22, 1777, March 18, April 17, 18, and 20, May 12, and July 3, 1778.
[154] Baretti made a brutal attack on Mrs. Piozzi in the European Mag. for 1788, xiii. 313, 393, and xiv. 89. He calls her 'the frontless female, who goes now by the mean appellation of Piozzi; La Piozzi, as my fiddling countrymen term her; who has dwindled down into the contemptible wife of her daughter's singing-master.' His excuse was the attacks made on him by her in the correspondence just published between herself and Johnson (see Piozzi Letters, i. 277, 319). He suspected her, and perhaps with reason, of altering some of these letters. Other writers beside Baretti attacked her. To use Lord Macaulay's words, grossly exaggerated though they are, 'She fled from the laughter and hisses of her countrymen and countrywomen to a land where she was unknown.' Macaulay's Writings and Speeches, ed. 1871, p. 393. According to Dr. T. Campbell (Diary, p. 33) Baretti flattered Mrs. Thrale to her face. 'Talking as we were at tea of the magnitude of the beer vessels, Baretti said there was one thing in Mr. Thrale's house still more extraordinary; meaning his wife. She gulped the pill very prettily--so much for Baretti.' See post, Dec. 21, 1776.
[155] Likely enough Boswell himself. On three other occasions he mentions Otaheite; ante, May 7, 1773, post, June 15, 1784 and in his Hebrides, Sept. 23, 1773. He was fond of praising savage life. See ante, ii. 73.
[156] Chatterton said that he had found in a chest in St. Mary Redcliffe Church manuscript poems by Canynge, a merchant of Bristol in the fifteenth century, and a friend of his, Thomas Rowley. He gave some of these manuscripts to George Catcot, a pewterer of Bristol, who communicated them to Mr. Barret, who was writing a History of Bristol. Rose's Biog. Dict. vi. 256.
[157] See Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 22.
[158] See ante, i. 396.
[159] 'Artificially. Artfully; with skill.' Johnson's dictionary.
[160] Mr. Tyrwhitt, Mr. Warton, Mr. Malone. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on May 16:--'Steevens seems to be connected with Tyrwhitt in publishing Chatterton's poems; he came very anxiously to know the result of our inquiries, and though he says he always thought them forged, is not well pleased to find us so fully convinced.' Piozzi Letters, i. 326.
[161] Catcot had been anticipated by Smith the weaver (2 Henry VI. iv. 2)--'Sir, he made a chimney in my father's house, and the bricks are alive at this day to testify it; therefore deny it not.'
[162] Horace Walpole says (Works, iv. 224) that when he was 'dining at the Royal Academy, Dr. Goldsmith drew the attention of the company with an account of a marvellous treasure of ancient poems lately discovered at Bristol, and expressed enthusiastic belief in them; for which he was laughed at by Dr. Johnson, who was present.... You may imagine we did not at all agree in the measure of our faith; but though his credulity diverted me, my mirth was soon dashed; for, on asking about Chatterton, he told me he had been in London, and had destroyed himself.'
[163] Boswell returned a few days earlier. On May 1 he wrote to Temple: --'Luckily Dr. Taylor has begged of Dr. Johnson to come to London, to assist him in some interesting business; and Johnson loves much to be so consulted, and so comes up. I am now at General Paoli's, quite easy and gay, after my journey; not wearied in body or dissipated in mind. I have lodgings in Gerrard Street, where cards are left to me; but I lie at the General's, whose attention to me is beautiful.' Letters of Boswell, p. 234. Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on May 6:--'Tomorrow I am to dine, as I did yesterday, with Dr. Taylor. On Wednesday I am to dine with Oglethorpe; and on Thursday with Paoli. He that sees before him to his third dinner has a long prospect.' Piozzi Letters, i. 320.
[164] See ante, May 12, 1775.
[165] In the Dramatis Personae of the play are 'Aimwell and Archer, two gentlemen of broken fortunes, the first as master, and the second as servant.' See ante, March 23, 1776, for Garrick's opinion of Johnson's 'taste in theatrical merit.'
[166] Johnson is speaking of the Respublicae Elzevirianae, either 36 or 62 volumes.