The stranger, whose money buys him preference, considers himself as paying for all that he has, and is indifferent about the laird's honour or safety. The commodiousness of money is indeed great; but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wise man will by the love of money be tempted to forego.' Ib. ix. 83.
[758] 'Every old man complains ... of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation. He recounts the decency and regularity of former times, and celebrates the discipline and sobriety of the age in which his youth was passed; a happy age, which is now no more to be expected, since confusion has broken in upon the world, and thrown down all the boundaries of civility and reverence.' The Rambler, No. 50.
[759] Boswell, perhaps, had in mind The Rambler, No. 146:--'It is long before we are convinced of the small proportion which every individual bears to the collective body of mankind; or learn how few can be interested in the fortune of any single man; how little vacancy is left in the world for any new object of attention; to how small extent the brightest blaze of merit can be spread amidst the mists of business and of folly.'
[760] See ante, ii. 227.
[761]
'Fortunam reverenter habe, quicumque repente Dives ab exili progrediere loco.'
Ausonius, Epigrammata, viii. 7.
Stockdale records (Memoirs, ii. 186), that Johnson said to him:--'Garrick has undoubtedly the merit of an unassuming behaviour; for more pains have been taken to spoil that fellow than if he had been heir apparent to the Empire of India.'
[762] A lively account of Quin is given in Humphry Clinker, in the letters of April 30 and May 6.
[763] See ante, i. 216.
[764] A few days earlier Garrick wrote to a friend:--'I did not hear till last night that your friends have generously contributed to your and their own happiness. No one can more rejoice at this circumstance than I do; and as I hope we shall have a bonfire upon the occasion, I beg that you will light it with the inclosed.' The inclosed was a bond for L280. Garrick Corres. ii. 297. Murphy says:--'Dr. Johnson often said that, when he saw a worthy family in distress, it was his custom to collect charity among such of his friends as he knew to be affluent; and on those occasions he received from Garrick more than from any other person, and always more than he expected.' Life of Garrick, p. 378. 'It was with Garrick a fixed principle that authors were intitled to the emolument of their labours, and by that generous way of thinking he held out an invitation to men of genius.' Ib. p. 362. See ante, p. 70, and post, April 24, 1779.
[765] When Johnson told this little anecdote to Sir Joshua Reynolds, he mentioned a circumstance which he omitted to-day:--'Why (said Garrick) it is as red as blood.' BOSWELL. A passage in Johnson's answer to Hanway's Essay on Tea (ante, i. 314) shews that tea was generally made very weak. 'Three cups,' he says, 'make the common quantity, so slightly impregnated that, perhaps, they might be tinged with the Athenian cicuta, and produce less effects than these letters charge upon tea.' Works, vi. 24.
[766] To Garrick might be applied what Johnson said of Swift:--'He was frugal by inclination, but liberal by principle.' Works, viii. 222.
[767] See post, under March 30, 1783. In Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, ii. 329, is a paper by Lord Shelburne in which are very clearly laid down rules of economy--rules which, to quote his own words (p. 337), 'require little, if any, more power of mind, than to be sure to put on a clean shirt every day.' Boswell records (Hebrides, Aug. 18) that Johnson said:--'If a man is not of a sluggish mind, he may be his own steward.'
[768] 'Lady Macbeth urges the excellence and dignity of courage, a glittering idea which has dazzled mankind from age to age, and animated sometimes the housebreaker, and sometimes the conqueror.' Johnson's Works, v. 69.
[769] Smollett, who had been a ship's doctor, describes the hospital in a man-of-war:--'Here I saw about fifty miserable distempered wretches, suspended in rows, so huddled one upon another, that not more than fourteen inches space was allotted for each with his bed and bedding; and deprived of the light of the day as well as of fresh air; breathing nothing but a noisome atmosphere ... devoured with vermin.' &c. The doctor, when visiting the sick, 'thrust his wig in his pocket, and stript himself to his waistcoat; then creeping on all fours under their hammocks, and forcing up his bare pate between two, kept them asunder with one shoulder until he had done his duty.' Roderick Random, i. ch. 25 and 26.
[770] See ante, ii. 339.
[771] 'The qualities which commonly make an army formidable are long habits of regularity, great exactness of discipline, and great confidence in the commander ... But the English troops have none of these requisites in any eminent degree. Regularity is by no means part of their character.' Johnson's Works, vi. 150.
[772] See ante, i. 348.
[773] In the Marmor Norfolciense (Works, vi.