Harris is explained by a reference to what Boswell said (ante, p. 245) of Harris's analytic method in his Hermes.
[745] 'Dr. Johnson said of a modern Martial [no doubt Elphinston's], "there are in these verses too much folly for madness, I think, and too much madness for folly."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 61. Burns wrote on it the following epigram:--
'O thou whom Poetry abhors, Whom Prose has turned out of doors, Heard'st thou that groan--proceed no further, 'Twas laurell'd. Martial roaring murder.'
For Mr. Elphinston see ante, i. 210.
[746] It was called The Siege of Aleppo. Mr. Hawkins, the authour of it, was formerly Professor of Poetry at Oxford. It is printed in his Miscellanies, 3 vols. octavo. BOSWELL. 'Hughes's last work was his tragedy, The Siege of Damascus, after which a Siege became a popular title.' Johnson's Works, vii. 477. See ante, i. 75, note 2. Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 200) mentions another Siege by a Mrs. B. This lady asked Johnson to 'look over her Siege of Sinope; he always found means to evade it. At last she pressed him so closely that he refused to do it, and told her that she herself, by carefully looking it over, would be able to see if there was anything amiss as well as he could. "But, Sir," said she, "I have no time. I have already so many irons in the fire." "Why then, Madame," said he, quite out of patience, "the best thing I can advise you to do is to put your tragedy along with your irons."' Mrs. B. was Mrs. Brooke. See Baker's Biog. Dram. iii. 273, where no less than thirty-seven Sieges are enumerated.
[747] That the story was true is shewn by the Garrick Corres. ii. 6. Hawkins wrote to Garrick in 1774:--'You rejected my Siege of Aleppo because it was "wrong in the first concoction," as you said.' He added that his play 'was honoured with the entire approbation of Judge Blackstone and Mr. Johnson.'
[748] The manager of Covent Garden Theatre.
[749] Hawkins wrote:--'In short, Sir, the world will be a proper judge whether I have been candidly treated by you.' Garrick, in his reply, did not make the impertinent offer which he here boasts of. Hawkins lived in Dorsetshire, not in Devonshire; as he reminds Garrick who had misdirected his letter. Garrick Corres. ii. 7-11.
[750] See ante, i. 433.
[751] 'BOSWELL. "Beauclerk has a keenness of mind which is very uncommon." JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; and everything comes from him so easily. It appears to me that I labour, when I say a good thing." BOSWELL. "You are loud, Sir, but it is not an effort of mind."' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 21. See post, under May 2, 1780.
[752] Boswell seems to imply that he showed Johnson, or at least read to him, a portion of his journal. Most of his Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides had been read by him. Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 18, and Oct. 26.
[753] Hannah More wrote of this evening (Memoirs, i. 146):--'Garrick put Johnson into such good spirits that I never knew him so entertaining or more instructive. He was as brilliant as himself, and as good-humoured as any one else.'
[754] He was, perhaps, more steadily under Johnson than under any else. In his own words he was 'of Johnson's school.' (Ante, p. 230). Gibbon calls Johnson Reynolds's oracle. Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 149.
[755] Boswell never mentions Sir John Scott (Lord Eldon) who knew Johnson (ante, ii. 268), and who was Solicitor-General when the Life of Johnson was published. Boswell perhaps never forgave him the trick that he and others played him at the Lancaster Assizes about the years 1786-8. 'We found,' said Eldon, 'Jemmy Boswell lying upon the pavement--inebriated. We subscribed at supper a guinea for him and half-a-crown for his clerk, and sent him next morning a brief with instructions to move for the writ of Quare adhaesit pavimento, with observations calculated to induce him to think that it required great learning to explain the necessity of granting it. He sent all round the town to attornies for books, but in vain. He moved however for the writ, making the best use he could of the observations in the brief. The judge was astonished and the audience amazed. The judge said, "I never heard of such a writ--what can it be that adheres pavimento? Are any of you gentlemen at the Bar able to explain this?" The Bar laughed. At last one of them said, "My Lord, Mr. Boswell last night adhaesit pavimento. There was no moving him for some time. At last he was carried to bed, and he has been dreaming about himself and the pavement."' Twiss's Eldon, i. 130. Boswell wrote to Temple in 1789:--'I hesitate as to going the Spring Northern Circuit, which costs L50, and obliges me to be in rough, unpleasant company four weeks.' Letters of Boswell, p. 274. See ante, ii. 191, note 2.
[756] 'Johnson, in accounting for the courage of our common people, said (Works, vi. 151):--'It proceeds from that dissolution of dependence which obliges every man to regard his own character. While every man is fed by his own hands, he has no need of any servile arts; he may always have wages for his labour, and is no less necessary to his employer than his employer is to him.'
[757] He says of a laird's tenants:--'Since the islanders no longer content to live have learned the desire of growing rich, an ancient dependant is in danger of giving way to a higher bidder, at the expense of domestick dignity and hereditary power.