Five years later, and two years before The Life of Johnson was published, Boswell wrote to Temple:--'As to Pitt, he is an insolent fellow, but so able, that upon the whole I must support him against the Coalition; but I will work him, for he has behaved very ill to me. Can he wonder at my wishing for preferment, when men of the first family and fortune in England struggle for it?' Letters of Boswell, p. 295. Warburton said of Helvetius, whom he disliked, that, if he had met him, 'he would have worked him.' Walpole's Letters, iv. 217.
[814] Out of this offer, and one of a like nature made in 1779 (ante, iii. 418), Mr. Croker weaves a vast web of ridiculous suspicions.
[815] From his garden at Prestonfield, where he cultivated that plant with such success, that he was presented with a gold medal by the Society of London for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. BOSWELL.
[816] In the original effusion. Johnson's Works, vii. 402.
[817] Who had written him a very kind letter. BOSWELL.
[818] On Jan. 12 the Ministry had been in a minority of 39 in a House of 425; on March 8 the minority was reduced to one in a House of 381. Parliament was dissolved on the 25th. In the first division in the new Parliament the Ministry were in a majority of 97 in a House of 369. Parl. Hist. xxiv. 299, 744, 829.
[819] See ante, p. 241.
[820] 'In old Aberdeen stands the King's College, of which the first president was Hector Boece, or Boethius, who may be justly reverenced as one of the revivers of elegant learning.' Johnson's Works, ix. 11.
[821] See ante, iii. 104.
[822] In his dining-room, no doubt, among 'the very respectable people' whose portraits hung there. Ante, p. 203, note.
[823] Horace Walpole (Letters, viii. 466) wrote on March 30:--'The nation is intoxicated, and has poured in Addresses of Thanks to the Crown for exerting the prerogative against the palladium of the people.'
[824] The election lasted from April 1 to May 16. Fox was returned second on the poll. Ann. Reg. xxvii. 190.
[825] He was returned also for Kirkwall, for which place he sat for nearly a year, while the scrutiny of the Westminster election was dragging on. Parl. Hist. xxiv. 799.
[826] Hannah More wrote on March 8 (Memoirs, i. 310):--'I am sure you will honour Mr. Langton, when I tell you he is come on purpose to stay with Dr. Johnson, and that during his illness. He has taken a little lodging in Fleet-street in order to be near, to devote himself to him. He has as much goodness as learning, and that is saying a bold thing of one of the first Greek scholars we have.'
[827] Floyer was the Lichfield physician on whose advice Johnson was 'touched' by Queen Anne. Ante, i. 42, 91, and post, July 20, 1784.
[828] To which Johnson returned this answer:--
'TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL OF PORTMORE.
'Dr. Johnson acknowledges with great respect the honour of Lord Portmore's notice. He is better than he was; and will, as his Lordship directs, write to Mr. Langton.
'Bolt-court, Fleet-street,
April 13, 1784.'
BOSWELL. Johnson here assumes his title of Doctor, which Boswell says (ante, ii. 332, note 1), so far as he knew, he never did. Perhaps the letter has been wrongly copied, or perhaps Johnson thought that, in writing to a man of title, he ought to assume such title as he himself had.
[829] The eminent painter, representative of the ancient family of Homfrey (now Humphry) in the west of England; who, as appears from their arms which they have invariably used, have been, (as I have seen authenticated by the best authority,) one of those among the Knights and Esquires of honour who are represented by Holinshed as having issued from the Tower of London on coursers apparelled for the justes, accompanied by ladies of honour, leading every one a Knight, with a chain of gold, passing through the streets of London into Smithfield, on Sunday, at three o'clock in the afternoon, being the first Sunday after Michaelmas, in the fourteenth year of King Richard the Second. This family once enjoyed large possessions, but, like others, have lost them in the progress of ages. Their blood, however, remains to them well ascertained; and they may hope in the revolution of events, to recover that rank in society for which, in modern times, fortune seems to be an indispensable requisite. BOSWELL.
[830] Son of Mr. Samuel Paterson. BOSWELL. In the first two editions after 'Paterson' is added 'eminent for his knowledge of books.' See ante, iii. 90.
[831] Humphry, on his first coming to London, poor and unfriended, was helped by Reynolds. Northcote's Reynolds, ii. 174.
[832] On April 21 he wrote:--'After a confinement of 129 days, more than the third part of a year, and no inconsiderable part of human life, I this day returned thanks to God in St. Clement's Church for my recovery.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 365.
[833] On April 26 he wrote:--'On Saturday I showed myself again to the living world at the Exhibition; much and splendid was the company, but like the Doge of Genoa at Paris [Versailles, Voltaire, Siecle de Louis XIV, chap, xiv.], I admired nothing but myself.