[693] No doubt Burke, who was Paymaster of the Forces. He is Boswell's 'eminent friend.' See ante ii.222, and post, Dec. 24, 1783, and Jan.8, 1784. In these two consecutive paragraphs, though two people seem to be spoken of, yet only one is in reality.
[694] I believe that Burke himself was present part of the time, and that he was the gentleman who 'talked of retiring. On May 19 and 21 he had in Parliament defended his action in restoring to office two clerks, Powell and Bembridge, who had been dismissed by his predecessor, and he had justified his reforms in the Paymaster's office. 'He awaited,' he said, the 'judgement of the House. ...If they so far differed in sentiment, he had only to say, Nunc dimittis servum tuum.' Parl. Hist. xxiii.919.
[695] A copy of Evelina had been placed in the Bodleian. 'Johnson says,' wrote Miss Burney, 'that when he goes to Oxford he will write my name in the books, and my age when I writ them, and then,' he says, 'the world may know that we So mix our studies, and so joined our fame. For we shall go down hand in hand to posterity.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i.429. The oldest copy of Evelina now in the Bodleian is of an edition published after Johnson's death. Miss Burney, in 1793, married General D'Arblay, a French refugee.
[696] Macaulay maintained that Johnson had a hand in the composition of Cecilia. He quotes a passage from it, and says:--'We say with confidence, either Sam. Johnson or the Devil.' (Essays, ed. 1874, iv. 157.) That he is mistaken is shown by Mme. D'Arblay's Diary (ii. 172). 'Ay,' cried Dr. Johnson, 'some people want to make out some credit to me from the little rogue's book. I was told by a gentleman this morning that it was a very fine book, if it was all her own.' "It is all her own," said I, "for me, I am sure, for I never saw one word of it before it was printed."' On p. 196 she records the following:--'SIR JOSHUA. "Gibbon says he read the whole five volumes in a day." "'Tis impossible," cried Mr. Burke, "it cost me three days; and you know I never parted with it from the day I first opened it."' See post, among the imitators of Johnson's style, under Dec. 6, 1784.
[697] In Mr. Barry's printed analysis, or description of these pictures, he speaks of Johnson's character in the highest terms. BOSWELL. Barry, in one of his pictures, placed Johnson between the two beautiful duchesses of Rutland and Devonshire, pointing to their Graces Mrs. Montagu as an example. He expresses his 'reverence for his consistent, manly, and well-spent life.' Barry's Works, ii. 339. Johnson, in his turn, praises 'the comprehension of Barry's design.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 256. He was more likely to understand it, as the pictures formed a series, meant 'to illustrate one great maxim of moral truth, viz. that the obtaining of happiness depends upon cultivating the human faculties. We begin with man in a savage state full of inconvenience, imperfection, and misery, and we follow him through several gradations of culture and happiness, which, after our probationary state here, are finally attended with beatitude or misery.' Barry's Works, ii. 323. Horace Walpole (Letters, viii. 366) describes Barry's book as one 'which does not want sense, though full of passion and self, and vulgarisms and vanity.'
[698] Boswell had tried to bring about a third meeting between Johnson and Wilkes. On May 21 he wrote:--'Mr. Boswell's compliments to Mr. Wilkes. He finds that it would not be unpleasant to Dr. Johnson to dine at Mr. Wilkes's. The thing would be so curiously benignant, it were a pity it should not take place. Nobody but Mr. Boswell should be asked to meet the doctor.' An invitation was sent, but the following answer was returned:--'May 24, 1783. Mr. Johnson returns thanks to Mr. and Miss Wilkes for their kind invitation; but he is engaged for Tuesday to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and for Wednesday to Mr. Paradise.' Owing to Boswell's return to Scotland, another day could not be fixed. Almon's Wilkes, iv. 314, 321.
[699] 'If the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be.' Ecclesiastes, xi. 3.
[700] 'When a tree is falling, I have seen the labourers, by a trivial jerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it should lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend, by a little interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person's everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenance their presumption.' Shenstone's Works, ed. 1773, ii. 255.
[701] Hazlitt says that 'when old Baxter first went to Kidderminster to preach, he was almost pelted by the women for maintaining from the pulpit the then fashionable and orthodox doctrine, that "Hell was paved with infants' skulls.'" Conversations of Northcote, p. 80.
[702] Acts, xvii. 24.
[703] Now the celebrated Mrs. Crouch. BOSWELL.
[704] Mr. Windham was at this time in Dublin, Secretary to the Earl of Northington, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. BOSWELL. See ante, p.200.