See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 29.
[986] See ante, ii. 63.
[987] See ante, ii. 84
[988] See ante, p. 3.
[989] This experiment which Madame Dacier made in vain, has since been tried in our own language, by the editor of Ossian, and we must either think very meanly of his abilities, or allow that Dr. Johnson was in the right. And Mr. Cowper, a man of real genius, has miserably failed in his blank verse translation. BOSWELL. Johnson, in his Life of Pope (Works, viii. 253), says:--'I have read of a man, who being by his ignorance of Greek compelled to gratify his curiosity with the Latin printed on the opposite page, declared that from the rude simplicity of the lines literally rendered he formed nobler ideas of the Homeric majesty, than from the laboured elegance of polished versions,' Though Johnson nowhere speaks of Cowper, yet his writings were not altogether unknown to him. 'Dr. Johnson,' wrote Cowper, 'read and recommended my first volume.' Southey's Cowper, v. 171.
[990] 'I bought the first volume of Manchester, but could not read it; it was much too learned for me, and seemed rather an account of Babel than Manchester, I mean in point of antiquity.' Walpole's Letters, vi. 207.
[991] Henry was injured by Gilbert Stuart, the malignant editor of the Edinburgh Magazine and Review, who 'had vowed that he would crush his work,' and who found confederates to help him. He asked Hume to review it, thinking no doubt that one historian would attack another; when he received from him a highly favourable review he would not publish it. It contained a curious passage, where Hume points out that Henry and Robertson were clergymen, and continues:--'These illustrious examples, if any thing, must make the infidel abashed of his vain cavils.' J.H. Burton's Hume, ii. 469.
[992] Hume wrote to Millar:--'Hamilton and Balfour have offered Robertson [for his Scotland] a very unusual price; no less than L500 for one edition of 2000.' Ib. ii. 42. As Robertson did not accept this offer, no doubt he got a better one. Even if he got no more, it would not have seemed 'a moderate price' to a man whose preferment hitherto had been only L100 a year. (See Dugald Stewart's Robertson, p. 161.) Stewart adds (ib. p. 169):--'It was published on Feb. 1, 1759. Before the end of the month the author was desired by his bookseller to prepare for a second edition.' By 1793 it was in its fourteenth edition. Ib. p. 326. The publisher was Millar; the price two guineas. Gent. Mag. xxix. 84.
[993] Lord Clive. See post, p. 350, and Oct. 10, 1779.
[994] Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 286) gives an instance of this 'romantick humour.' 'Robertson was very much a master of conversation, and very desirous to lead it, and to raise theories that sometimes provoked the laugh against him. He went a jaunt into England with Dundas, Cockburn and Sinclair; who, seeing a gallows on a neighbouring hillock, rode round to have a nearer view of the felon on the gallows. When they met in the inn, Robertson began a dissertation on the character of nations, and how much the English, like the Romans, were hardened by their cruel diversions of cock-fighting, bull-baiting, &c.; for had they not observed three Englishmen on horseback do what no Scotchman or--. Here Dundas interrupted him, and said, "What! did you not know, Principal, that it was Cockburn and Sinclair and me?" This put an end to theories, &c., for that day.'
[995] This was a favourite word with Johnson and Mrs. Thrale. 'Long live Mrs. G. that downs my mistress,' he wrote (Piozzi Letters, ii. 26). 'Did you quite down her?' he asked of another lady (Ib. p. 100). Miss Burney caught up the word: 'I won't be downed,' she wrote. Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 252.
[996] See ante, iii. 41, 327.
[997] Dr. A. Carlyle (Auto. p. 474) tells how Robertson, with one of his pupils, and he, visited at a house where some excellent claret flowed freely. 'After four days Robertson took me into a window before dinner, and with some solemnity proposed to make a motion to shorten the drinking, if I would second him--"Because," added he, "although you and I may go through it, I am averse to it on my pupil's account." I answered that I was afraid it would not do, as our toastmaster might throw ridicule upon us, as we were to leave the island the day after the next, and that we had not proposed any abridgement till the old claret was all done, the last of which we had drunk yesterday. "Well, well," replied the Doctor, "be it so then, and let us end as we began."'
[998] Johnson, when asked to hear Robertson preach, said:--'I will hear him if he will get up into a tree and preach; but I will not give a sanction by my presence to a Presbyterian assembly.' Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 27. See also Ib. Nov. 7.
[999] Mrs. Piozzi confidently mentions this as having passed in Scotland, Anecdotes, p. 62. BOSWELL. She adds:--'I was shocked to think how he [Johnson] must have disgusted him [Robertson].' She, we may well believe, felt no more shock than Robertson felt disgust.
[1000] See Voltaire's Siecle de Louis XIV, ch.