Piozzi Letters, ii. 47. On Aug. 3, Johnson wrote to Dr. Taylor:--'Mr. Thrale has perfectly recovered all his faculties and all his vigour.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 461.
[1205] Which I communicated to him from his Lordship, but it has not yet been published. I have a copy of it. BOSWELL. The few notices concerning Dryden, which Lord Hailes had collected, the authour afterwards gave to Mr. Malone. MALONE. Malone published a Life of Dryden.
[1206] He recorded of his birth-day this year:--'On the 17th Mr. Chamier (ante, i. 478) took me away with him from Streatham. I left the servants a guinea for my health, and was content enough to escape into a house where my birth-day not being known could not be mentioned. I sat up till midnight was past, and the day of a new year, a very awful day, began.' Pr. and Med. pp. 181, 225.
[1207] See ante, ii. 427, note 1.
[1208] In one of his manuscript Diaries, there is the following entry, which marks his curious minute attention: 'July 26, 1768. I shaved my nail by accident in whetting the knife, about an eighth of an inch from the bottom, and about a fourth from the top. This I measure that I may know the growth of nails; the whole is about five eighths of an inch.'
Another of the same kind appears, 'Aug. 7, 1779, Partem brachii dextri carpo proximam et cutem pectoris circa mamillam dextram rasi, ut notum fieret quanta temporis pili renovarentur.'
And, 'Aug. 15, 1773. I cut from the vine 41 leaves, which weighed five oz. and a half, and eight scruples:--I lay them upon my book-case, to see what weight they will lose by drying.' BOSWELL.
In The Idler, No. 31, we have in Mr. Sober a portrait of Johnson drawn by himself. He writes:--'The art is to fill the day with petty business, to have always something in hand which may raise curiosity, but not solicitude, and keep the mind in a state of action, but not of labour. This art has for many years been practised by my old friend Sober with wonderful success.... His chief pleasure is conversation; there is no end of his talk or his attention; to speak or to hear is equally pleasing; for he still fancies that he is teaching or learning something, and is free for the time from his own reproaches. But there is one time at night when he must go home that his friends may sleep; and another time in the morning when all the world agrees to shut out interruption. These are the moments of which poor Sober trembles at the thought. But the misery of these tiresome intervals he has many means of alleviating.... His daily amusement is chymistry. He has a small furnace which he employs in distillation, and which has long been the solace of his life. He draws oils and waters, and essences and spirits, which he knows to be of no use; sits and counts the drops as they come from his retort, and forgets that whilst a drop is falling a moment flies away.' Mrs. Piozzi says (Anec. p. 236):--'We made up a sort of laboratory at Streatham one summer, and diverted ourselves with drawing essences and colouring liquors. But the danger Mr. Thrale found his friend in one day, when he got the children and servants round him to see some experiments performed, put an end to all our entertainment.'
[1209] Afterwards Mr. Stuart Wortley. He was the father of the first Lord Wharncliffe. CROKER.
[1210] Horace Walpole, in April 1778, wrote:--'It was very remarkable that on the militia being ordered out, two of Lord Bute's younger sons offered, as Bedfordshire gentlemen, to take any rank in the militia in that county. I warned Lord Ossory, the Lord Lieutenant, against so dangerous a precedent as admitting Scots in the militia. A militia can only be safe by being officered by men of property in each county.' Journal of the Reign of George III, ii. 252.
[1211] Walpole wrote in Dec. 1778:--'His Majesty complained of the difficulty of recruiting. General Keppel replied aloud, "It is owing to the Scots, who raise their clans in and about London." This was very true; the Master of Lovat had received a Royal gift of L6000 to raise a regiment of his clan, and had literally picked up boys of fifteen in London and Westminster.' Ib. p. 316.
[1212] He made his will in his wife's life-time, and appointed her and Sir William Forbes, or the survivor of them, 'tutors and curators' to his children. Boswelliana, p. 186.
[1213] Head gardener at Stowe, and afterwards at Hampton Court and Windsor. He got his nickname from his habit of saying that grounds which he was asked to lay out had capabilities. Lord Chatham wrote of him:--'He writes Lancelot Brown Esquire, en titre d'office: please to consider, he shares the private hours of--[the King], dines familiarly with his neighbour of Sion [the Duke of Northumberland], and sits down at the tables of all the House of Lords, &c.' Chatham Corres. iv. 178, 430.
[1214] See ante, pp. 334, 350. Clive, before the Committee of the House of Commons, exclaimed:--'By God, Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at my own moderation.' Macaulay's Essays, iii. 198.