[294] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773.
[295] 'I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.' Ib. Oct. 14.
[296] 'The Duke of Argyle was obliging enough to mount Dr. Johnson on a stately steed from his grace's stable. My friend was highly pleased, and Joseph [Boswell's Bohemian servant] said, "He now looks like a bishop."' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 26.
[297] See ante, ii. 196.
[298] Even Burke falls into the vulgarism of 'mutual friend.' See his Correspondence, i. 196, ii. 251. Goldsmith also writes of 'mutual acquaintance.' Cunningham's Goldsmith's Works, iv. 48.
[299] He means to imply, I suppose, that Johnson was the father of plantations. See ante, under Feb. 7, 1775. note.
[300] For a character of this very amiable man, see Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 36. [Aug. 17.] BOSWELL.
[301] By the then course of the post, my long letter of the 14th had not yet reached him. BOSWELL.
[302] History of Philip the Second. BOSWELL.
[303] See ante, Jan. 21, 1775.
[304] See ante, iii. 48.
[305] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Jan. 15, 1777, that he had had about twelve ounces of blood taken, and then about ten more, and that another bleeding was to follow. 'Yet I do not make it a matter of much form. I was to-day at Mrs. Gardiner's. When I have bled to-morrow, I will not give up Langton nor Paradise. But I beg that you will fetch me away on Friday. I do not know but clearer air may do me good; but whether the air be clear or dark, let me come to you.' Piozzi Letters, i. 344. See post, Sept. 16, 1777, note.
[306] See ante, i. 411, and Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773.
[307] Johnson tried in vain to buy this book at Aberdeen. Ib. Aug. 23.
[308] See ante, May 12, 1775.
[309] No doubt her Miscellanies. Ante, ii. 25.
[310] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 22.
[311] Johnson is the most common English formation of the Sirname from John; Johnston the Scotch. My illustrious friend observed that many North Britons pronounced his name in their own way. BOSWELL. Boswell (Hebrides, Oct. 21, 1773) tells of one Lochbuy who, 'being told that Dr. Johnson did not hear well, bawled out to him, "Are you of the Johnstons of Glencro, or of Ardnamurchan?"'
[312] See post, under Dec. 24, 1783.
[313] Johnson's old amanuensis. Ante, i. 187. Johnson described him as 'a man of great learning.' Croker's Boswell, p. 654.
[314] On account of their differing from him as to religion and politicks. BOSWELL. See post, April 13, 1778. Mr. Croker says that 'the Club had, as its records show, for many of his latter years very little of his company.'
[315] See ante, i. 225 note 2, July 4, 1774, and March 20, 1776.
[316] Boswell was no reader. 'I don't believe,' Johnson once said to him, 'you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself to borrow more.' Ante, April 16, 1775. Boswell wrote to Temple on March 18, 1775:--'I have a kind of impotency of study.' Two months later he wrote:--'I have promised to Dr. Johnson to read when I get to Scotland, and to keep an account of what I read. I shall let you know how I go on. My mind must be nourished.' Letters of Boswell, pp. 181, 195.
[317] Chesterfield's Letters to his Son were published in 1774, and his Miscellaneous Works, together with Memoirs and Letters to his Friends, early in 1777.
[318] 'Whatso it is, the Danaan folk, yea gift-bearing I fear.' Morris, AEneids, ii. 49.
[319] He wrote to Mrs. Thrale on March 19, 1777:--'You are all young, and gay, and easy; but I have miserable nights, and know not how to make them better; but I shift pretty well a-days, and so have at you all at Dr. Burney's to-morrow.' Piozzi Letters, i. 345.
[320] A twelfth was born next year. See post, July 3, 1778.
[321] It was March 29.
[322] Pr. and Med. p. 155. BOSWELL
[323] See ante, i. 341, note 3.
[324] See ante, i. 439.
[325] Johnson's moderation in demanding so small a sum is extraordinary. Had he asked one thousand, or even fifteen hundred guineas, the booksellers, who knew the value of his name, would doubtless have readily given it. They have probably got five thousand guineas by this work in the course of twenty-five years. MALONE.
[326] See post, beginning of 1781.
[327] See ante, ii. 272, note 2.
[328] Mr. Joseph Cooper Walker, of the Treasury, Dublin, who obligingly communicated to me this and a former letter from Dr. Johnson to the same gentleman (for which see vol. i. p. 321), writes to me as follows: --'Perhaps it would gratify you to have some account of Mr. O'Connor. He is an amiable, learned, venerable old gentleman, of an independent fortune, who lives at Belanagar, in the county of Roscommon; he is an admired writer, and Member of the Irish Academy.--The above Letter is alluded to in the Preface to the 2nd edit, of his Dissert, p. 3.'--Mr. O'Connor afterwards died at the age of eighty-two. See a well-drawn character of him in the Gent. Mag. for August 1791. BOSWELL.
[329] Mr. Croker shows good reason for believing that in the original letter this parenthesis stood:--'if such there were.'
[330] See ante, i.