2l7), 'much delighted in by the upper ranks of society, who upon a trifling embarrassment in his affairs hanged himself behind the stable door, to the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and most agreeable converser breathing. "What upon earth," said one at our house, "could have made--[Fitzherbert] hang himself?" "Why, just his having a multitude of acquaintance," replied Dr. Johnson, "and ne'er a friend."' See ante, ii. 228.
[419] Dr. Gisborne, Physician to his Majesty's Household, has obligingly communicated to me a fuller account of this story than had reached Dr. Johnson. The affected Gentleman was the late John Gilbert Cooper, Esq., author of a Life of Socrates, and of some poems in Dodsley's Collection. Mr. Fitzherbert found him one morning, apparently, in such violent agitation, on account of the indisposition of his son, as to seem beyond the power of comfort. At length, however, he exclaimed, 'I'll write an Elegy.' Mr. Fitzherbert being satisfied, by this, of the sincerity of his emotions, slyly said, 'Had not you better take a postchaise and go and see him?' It was the shrewdness of the insinuation which made the story be circulated. BOSWELL. Malone writes:--'Mr. Cooper was the last of the benevolists or sentimentalists, who were much in vogue between 1750 and 1760, and dealt in general admiration of virtue. They were all tenderness in words; their finer feeling evaporated in the moment of expression, for they had no connection with their practice.' Prior's Malone, p. 427. See ante, ii. 129. This fashion seems to have reached Paris a few years later. Mme. Riccoboni wrote to Garrick on May 3, 1769:--'Dans notre brillante capitale, ou dominent les airs et la mode, s'attendrir, s'emouvoir, s'affliger, c'est le bon ton du moment. La bonte, la sensibilite, la tendre humanite sont devenues la fantaisie universelle. On ferait volontiers des malheureux pour gouter la douceur de les plaindre.' Garrick Corres. ii. 561.
[420] Johnson had felt the truth of this in the case of 'old Mr. Sheridan.' Ante, i. 387.
[421] Johnson, in his letters from Ashbourne, used to joke about Taylor's cattle:--'July 23, 1770. I have seen the great bull, and very great he is. I have seen likewise his heir apparent, who promises to enherit all the bulk and all the virtues of his sire, I have seen the man who offered an hundred guineas for the young bull, while he was yet little better than a calf.' Piozzi Letters, i. 33. 'July 3, 1771. The great bull has no disease but age. I hope in time to be like the great bull; and hope you will be like him too a hundred years hence.' Ib. p. 39. 'July 10, 1771. There has been a man here to-day to take a farm. After some talk he went to see the bull, and said that he had seen a bigger. Do you think he is likely to get the farm?' Ib. p. 43. 'Oct. 31, 1772. Our bulls and cows are all well; but we yet hate the man that had seen a bigger bull.' Ib. p. 61.
[422] Quoted by Boswell in his Hebrides, Aug. 16, 1773.
[423] In the letters that Boswell and Erskine published (ante, 384, note) are some verses by Erskine, of very slight merit.
[424] Horace, Odes, ii. 4.
[425]
'The tender glance, the red'ning cheek, O'erspread with rising blushes, A thousand various ways they speak A thousand various wishes.'
Hamilton's Poems, ed. 1760, p. 59.
[426] In the original, Now. Ib. p. 39.
[427] Thomson, in The Seasons, Winter, 1. 915, describes how the ocean
'by the boundless frost Is many a fathom to the bottom chain'd.'
In 1. 992, speaking of a thaw, he says,
'The rivers swell of bonds impatient.'
[428] See ante March 24, 1776.
[429] Johnson wrote of Pope (Works, viii. 309):--'The indulgence and accommodation which his sickness required had taught him all the unpleasing and unsocial qualities of a valetudinary man.'
[430] When he was ill of a fever he wrote to Mrs. Thrale:--'The doctor was with me again to-day, and we both think the fever quite gone. I believe it was not an intermittent, for I took of my own head physick yesterday; and Celsus says, it seems, that if a cathartick be taken the fit will return certo certius. I would bear something rather than Celsus should be detected in an error. But I say it was a febris continua, and had a regular crisis.' Piozzi Letters, i. 89.
[431] Johnson must have shortened his life by the bleedings that he underwent. How many they were cannot be known, for no doubt he was often bled when he has left no record of it. The following, however, I have noted. I do not know that he was bled more than most people of his time. Dr. Taylor, it should seem, underwent the operation every quarter.
Dec. 1755. Thrice. 54 ounces. Croker's Boswell, p. 100.
Jan. 1761. Once. Ib. p. 122.
April 1770. Cupped. Pemb. Coll. MSS.
Winter of 1772-3. Three times. Ante, ii. 206, and Pemb. Coll. MSS.
May 1773. Two copious bleedings. Pr. and Med. 130.
1774. Times not mentioned. 36 ounces. Piozzi Letters, i. 209.
Jan. 1777. Three bleedings. 22 ounces in first two.