236, says:--'It is the general custom for our authors to make a present of their works to booksellers, who in return scarcely give a few copies when printed.' The Venetian bookseller to whom Metastasio gave his cleared, Baretti says, more than L10,000. Goldoni scarcely got for each of his plays ten pounds from the manager of the Venetian theatre, and much less from the booksellers. 'Our learned stare when they are told that in England there are numerous writers who get their bread by their productions only.'
[458] I am now happy to understand, that Mr. John Home, who was himself gallantly in the field for the reigning family, in that interesting warfare, but is generous enough to do justice to the other side, is preparing an account of it for the press. BOSWELL. Dr. A. Carlyle, who knew Home well, says (Auto. p. 295):--'All his opinions of men and things were prejudices, which, though it did not disqualify him for writing admirable poetry, yet made him unfit for writing history.' See ante, i. 225, for Boswell's projected works.
[459] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale the next day:--'The finer pieces [of the Derby china] are so dear that perhaps silver vessels of the same capacity may be sometimes bought at the same price; and I am not yet so infected with the contagion of china-fancy as to like anything at that rate which can so easily be broken.' Piozzi Letters, i. 380.
[460] See ante, April 14, 1775.
[461] See Hutton's History of Derby, a book which is deservedly esteemed for its information, accuracy, and good narrative. Indeed the age in which we live is eminently distinguished by topographical excellence. BOSWELL. According to Hutton the Italians at the beginning of the eighteenth century had 'the exclusive art of silk-throwing.' Lombe went to Italy, and by bribery got admittance into the works. Having mastered the secret he returned to England with two of the workmen. About the year 1717 he founded a great silk-mill at Derby. He died early, being poisoned, it was asserted, by an Italian woman who had been sent over to destroy him. In this mill, Hutton, as a child, 'had suffered intolerable severity.' Hutton's Derby, pp. 193-205.
[462] 'I have enlarged my notions,' recorded Johnson in his Journal of a Tour into Wales (Aug. 3, 1774), after he had seen some iron-works.
[463] Young. BOSWELL.
'Think nought a trifle, though it small appear.' Small sands the mountain, moments make the year, And trifles life.'
Love of Fame, Satire vi.
[464] 'Pray, Sir, don't leave us;' said Johnson to an upholder of Berkeley's philosophy, 'for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.' Post, 1780, in Langton's Collection. See also ante, i. 471.
[465] Perhaps Boswell is thinking of Gray's lines at the close of the Progress of Poesy:--
'Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate.'
[466] Goldsmith wrote:--'In all Pope's letters, as well as in those of Swift, there runs a strain of pride, as if the world talked of nothing but themselves. "Alas," says he in one of them, "the day after I am dead the sun will shine as bright as the day before, and the world will be as merry as usual." Very strange, that neither an eclipse nor an earthquake should follow the loss of a poet!' Cunningham's Goldsmith's Works, iv. 85. Goldsmith refers, I suppose, to Pope's letter to Steele of July 15, 1712, where he writes:--'The morning after my exit the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green, the world will proceed in its old course, people will laugh as heartily, and marry as fast as they were used to do.' Elwin's Pope's Works, vi. 392. Gray's friend, Richard West, in some lines suggested by this letter, gives a pretty turn to Pope's thoughts where he says:--
'For me, whene'er all-conquering Death shall spread His wings around my unrepining head, I care not; tho' this face be seen no more, The world will pass as cheerful as before; Bright as before the day-star will appear, The fields as verdant, and the skies as clear.'
Mason's Gray, ed. 1807, i. 152.
[467] See post, April 12, 1778.
[468] A brother of Dodd's wife told Hawkins that 'Dodd's manner of living was ever such as his visible income would no way account for. He said that he was the most importunate suitor for preferment ever known; and that himself had been the bearer of letters to great men, soliciting promotion to livings, and had hardly escaped kicking down stairs.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 435.
[469] Hawkins (Life, p. 523) says that a Mr. Selwin, who just missed being elected Chamberlain of the City, went by request to see a man under sentence of death in Newgate, 'who informed him that he was in daily expectation of the arrival of the warrant for his execution; "but," said he, "I have L200, and you are a man of character, and had the court-interest when you stood for Chamberlain; I should therefore hope it is in your power to get me off." Mr. Selwin was struck with so strange a notion, and asked, if there were any alleviating circumstances in his case.