'By a long Chancery suit, and a complicated train of unfortunate events, I am reduced to the greatest distress; which obliges me, once more, to request the indulgence of the publick.
'Give me leave to solicit the honour of your company, and to assure you, if you grant my request, the gratification I shall feel, from being patronized by Dr. Johnson, will be infinitely superiour to any advantage that may arise from the Benefit; as I am, with the profoundest respect, Sir,
'Your most obedient, humble servant, G. A. BELLAMY. No. 10 Duke-street, St. James's, May 11, 1783.'
I am happy in recording these particulars, which prove that my illustrious friend lived to think much more favourably of Players than he appears to have done in the early part of his life. BOSWELL. Mr. Nichols, describing Henderson's visit to Johnson, says:--'The conversation turning on the merits of a certain dramatic writer, Johnson said: "I never did the man an injury; but he would persist in reading his tragedy to me."' Gent. Mag: 1791, p. 500.
[760] Piozzi Letters, vol. ii. p. 328. BOSWELL.
[761] Piozzi Letters, vol. ii. p. 342. BOSWELL. The letter to Miss Thrale was dated Nov. 18. Johnson wrote on Dec. l3:--'You must all guess again at my friend. It was not till Dec. 31 that he told the name.
[762] Miss Burney, who visited him on this day, records:--'He was, if possible, more instructive, entertaining, good-humoured, and exquisitely fertile than ever.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 284. The day before he wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale's little daughters:--'I live here by my own self, and have had of late very bad nights; but then I have had a pig to dinner which Mr. Perkins gave me. Thus life is chequered.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 327.
[763] See ante, i. 242.
[764] See ante, i. 242.
[765] Nos. 26 and 29.
[766] Piozzi Letters, i. 334. See ante, p. 75.
[767] He strongly opposed the war with America, and was one of Dr. Franklin's friends. Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 108.
[768] It was of this tragedy that the following story is told in Rogers's Table-Talk, p. 177:--'Lord Shelburne could say the most provoking things, and yet appear quite unconscious of their being so. In one of his speeches, alluding to Lord Carlisle, he said:--"The noble Lord has written a comedy." "No, a tragedy." "Oh, I beg pardon; I thought it was a comedy."' See ante, p. 113. Pope, writing to Mr. Cromwell on Aug. 19, 1709, says:--'One might ask the same question of a modern life, that Rich did of a modern play: "Pray do me the favour, Sir, to inform me is this your tragedy or your comedy?"' Pope's Works, ed. 1812, vi. 81.
[769] Mrs. Chapone, when she was Miss Mulso, had written 'four billets in The Rambler, No. 10.' Ante, i. 203. She was one of the literary ladies who sat at Richardson's feet. Wraxall (Memoirs, ed. 1815, i. 155) says that 'under one of the most repulsive exteriors that any woman ever possessed she concealed very superior attainments and extensive knowledge.' Just as Mrs. Carter was often called 'the learned Mrs. Carter,' so Mrs. Chapone was known as 'the admirable Mrs. Chapone.'
[770] See ante, iii. 373.
[771] A few copies only of this tragedy have been printed, and given to the authour's friends. BOSWELL.
[772] Dr. Johnson having been very ill when the tragedy was first sent to him, had declined the consideration of it. BOSWELL.
[773] Johnson refers, I suppose, to a passage in Dryden which he quotes in his Dictionary under mechanick:--'Many a fair precept in poetry is like a seeming demonstration in mathematicks, very specious in the diagram, but failing in the mechanick operation.'
[774]
'I could have borne my woes; that stranger Joy Wounds while it smiles:--The long imprison'd wretch, Emerging from the night of his damp cell, Shrinks from the sun's bright beams; and that which flings Gladness o'er all, to him is agony.' BOSWELL.
[775] Lord Cockburn (Life of Lord Jeffrey, i. 74) describing the representation of Scotland towards the close of last century, and in fact till the Reform Bill of 1832, says:--'There were probably not above 1500 or 2000 county electors in all Scotland; a body not too large to be held, hope included, in Government's hand. The election of either the town or the county member was a matter of such utter indifference to the people, that they often only knew of it by the ringing of a bell, or by seeing it mentioned next day in a newspaper.'
[776] Six years later, when he was Praeses of the Quarter-Sessions, he carried up to London an address to be presented to the Prince of Wales. 'This,' he wrote, 'will add something to my conspicuousness. Will that word do?' Letters of Boswell, p. 295.
[777] This part of this letter was written, as Johnson goes on to say, a considerable time before the conclusion. The Coalition Ministry, which was suddenly dismissed by the King on Dec. 19, was therefore still in power. Among Boswell's 'friends' was Burke. See ante, p. 223.
[778] On Nov. 22 he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'I feel the weight of solitude very pressing; after a night of broken and uncomfortable slumber I rise to a solitary breakfast, and sit down in the evening with no companion. Sometimes, however, I try to read more and more.' Notes and Queries, 6th S.