With a fair pride I can boast of the honour of her Grace's correspondence, specimens of which adorn my archives. BOSWELL.
[794] 'The gardens are trim to the highest degree, and more adapted to a villa near London than the ancient seat of a great Baron. In a word, nothing except the numbers of unindustrious poor that swarm at the gate excites any one idea of its former circumstances.' Pennant's Scotland, p. 31.
[795] Mr. Croker quotes a passage from The Heroic Epistle, which ends:--
'So when some John his dull invention racks To rival Boodle's dinners, or Almack's, Three uncouth legs of mutton shock our eyes, Three roasted geese, three buttered apple pies.'
[796] Johnson saw Alnwick on his way to Scotland. 'We came to Alnwick,' he wrote, 'where we were treated with great civility by the Duke: I went through the apartments, walked on the wall, and climbed the towers.' Piozzi Letters, i. 108.
[797] 'When Reynolds painted his portrait looking into the slit of his pen and holding it almost close to his eye, as was his custom, he felt displeased, and told me he would not be known by posterity for his defects only, let Sir Joshua do his worst. I said that the picture in the room where we were talking represented Sir Joshua holding his ear in his hand to catch the sound. "He may paint himself as deaf, if he chooses," replied Johnson, "but I will not be blinking Sam."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 248.
[798] 'You look in vain for the helmet on the tower, the ancient signal of hospitality to the traveller, or for the grey-headed porter to conduct him to the hall of entertainment. Instead of the disinterested usher of the old times, he is attended by a valet to receive the fees of admittance.' Pennant's Scottland, p. 32.
[799] It certainly was a custom, as appears from the following passage in Perce-forest, vol. iii. p. 108:--'Fasoient mettre au plus hault de leur hostel un heaulme, en signe que tous les gentils hommes et gentilles femmes entrassent hardiment en leur hostel comme en leur propre.' KEARNEY.
[800] The title of a book translated by Dr. Percy. BOSWELL. It is a translation of the introduction to l'Histoire de Danemarck, par M. Mallet. Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. 1871, p. 1458.
[801] He was a Welshman.
[802] This is the common cant against faithful Biography. Does the worthy gentleman mean that I, who was taught discrimination of character by Johnson, should have omitted his frailties, and, in short, have bedawbed him as the worthy gentleman has bedawbed Scotland? BOSWELL.
[803] See Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands, 296 [Works, ix. 124];--see his Dictionary article, oats:--and my Voyage to the Hebrides, first edition. PENNANT.
[804] Mr. Boswell's Journal, p. 286, [third edition, p. 146, Sep. 6.] PENNANT.
[805] See ante, ii. 60.
[806] Percy, it should seem, took offence later on. Cradock (Memoirs, i. 206) says:--'Almost the last time I ever saw Johnson [it was in 1784] he said to me:--"Notwithstanding all the pains that Dr. Farmer and I took to serve Dr. Percy in regard to his Ancient Ballads, he has left town for Ireland without taking leave of either of us."' Cradock adds (p. 238) that though 'Percy was a most pleasing companion, yet there was a violence in his temper which could not always be controlled.' 'I was witness,' he writes (p. 206), 'to an entire separation between Percy and Goldsmith about Rowley's [Chatterton's] poems.'
[807] Sunday, April 12, 1778. BOSWELL.
[808] Johnson, writing of the uncertainty of friendship, says: 'A dispute begun in jest upon a subject which, a moment before, was on both sides regarded with careless indifference, is continued by the desire of conquest, till vanity kindles into rage, and opposition rankles into enmity. Against this hasty mischief I know not what security can be obtained; men will be sometimes surprised into quarrels.' The Idler, No. 23. See ante, ii. 100, note 1.
[809] Though the Bishop of Dromore kindly answered the letters which I wrote to him, relative to Dr. Johnson's early history; yet, in justice to him, I think it proper to add, that the account of the foregoing conversation and the subsequent transaction, as well as some other conversations in which he is mentioned, has been given to the publick without previous communication with his Lordship. BOSWELL. This note is first given in the second edition, being added, no doubt, at the Bishop's request.
[810] See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.
[811] Chap. xlii. is still shorter:--'Concerning Owls.
'There are no owls of any kind in the whole island.'
Horrebow says in his Preface, p. vii:--'I have followed Mr. Anderson article by article, declaring what is false in each.' A Member of the Icelandic Literary Society in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette, dated May 3, 1883, thus accounts for these chapters:--'In 1746 there was published at Hamburg a small volume entitled, Nachrichlen von Island, Groenland und der Strasse Davis. The Danish Government, conceiving that its intentions were misrepresented by this work, procured a reply to be written by Niels Horrebow, and this was published, in 1752, under the title of Tilforladelige Efterretninger om Island; in 1758, an English translation appeared in London.