Levett. BOSWELL. Ante, p. 138
[846] If it was Boswell to whom this advice was given, it is not unlikely that he needed it. The meagreness of his record of Johnson's talk at this season may have been due, as seems to have happened before, to too much drinking. Ante, p.88, note 1.
[847] Ante, ii. 100.
[848] George Steevens. See ante, iii. 281.
[849] Forty-six years earlier Johnson wrote of this lady:-'I have composed a Greek epigram to Eliza, and think she ought to be celebrated in as many different languages as Lewis le Grand.' Ante, i. 122. Miss Burney described her in 1780 as 'really a noble-looking woman; I never saw age so graceful in the female sex yet; her whole face seems to beam with goodness, piety, and philanthropy.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 373.
[850] 'Mrs. Thrale says that though Mrs. Lennox's books are generally approved, nobody likes her.' Ib. p. 91. See ante, i. 255, and iv. 10.
[851] 'Sept. 1778. MRS. THRALE. "Mrs. Montagu is the first woman for literary knowledge in England, and if in England, I hope I may say in the world." DR. JOHNSON. "I believe you may, Madam. She diffuses more knowledge in her conversation than any woman I know, or, indeed, almost any man." MRS. THRALE. "I declare I know no man equal to her, take away yourself and Burke, for that art."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 118. It is curious that Mrs. Thrale and Boswell should both thus instance Burke. Miss Burney writes of her in much more moderate terms:--'Allowing a little for parade and ostentation, which her power in wealth and rank in literature offer some excuse for, her conversation is very agreeable; she is always reasonable and sensible, and sometimes instructive and entertaining.' Ib. p. 325. See ante, ii. 88, note 3. These five ladies all lived to a great age. Mrs. Montagu was 80 when she died; Mrs. Lennox, 83; Miss Burney (Mme. D'Arblay), 87; Miss More and Mrs. (Miss) Carter, 88. Their hostess, Mrs. Garrick, was 97 or 98.
[852] Miss Burney, describing how she first saw Burke, says:--'I had been told that Burke was not expected; yet I could conclude this gentleman to be no other. There was an evident, a striking superiority in his demeanour, his eye, his motions, that announced him no common man.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 145. See ante, ii. 450, where Johnson said of Burke:--'His stream of mind is perpetual;' and Boswell's Hebrides post,, v. 32, and Prior's Life of Burke, fifth edition, p. 58.
[853] Kennel is a strong word to apply to Burke; but, in his jocularity, he sometimes 'let himself down' to indelicate stories. In the House of Commons he had told one--and a very stupid one too--not a year before. Parl. Hist, xxiii. 918. Horace Walpole speaks of Burke's 'pursuit of wit even to puerility.' Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 443. He adds (ib. ii. 26):--'Burke himself always aimed at wit, but was not equally happy in public and private. In the former, nothing was so luminous, so striking, so abundant; in private, it was forced, unnatural, and bombast.' See ante, p. 104, where Wilkes said that in his oratory 'there was a strange want of taste.'
[854] Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, third edition, p. 20 [post, v. 32.] BOSWELL. See also ante, i. 453, and iii. 323.
[855] I have since heard that the report was not well founded; but the elation discovered by Johnson in the belief that it was true, shewed a noble ardour for literary fame. BOSWELL. Johnson wrote on Feb. 9:--'One thing which I have just heard you will think to surpass expectation. The chaplain of the factory at Petersburgh relates that the Rambler is now, by the command of the Empress, translating into Russian, and has promised, when it is printed, to send me a copy.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 349. Stockdale records (Memoirs, ii. 98) that in 1773 the Empress of Russia engaged 'six English literary gentlemen for instructors of her young nobility in her Academy at St. Petersburgh.' He was offered one of the posts. Her zeal may have gone yet further, and she may have wished to open up English literature to those who could not read English. Beauclerk's library was offered for sale to the Russian Ambassador. Ante, iii. 420. Miss Burney, in 1789, said that a newspaper reported that 'Angelica Kauffmann is making drawings from Evelina for the Empress of Russia.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, v. 35.
[856]
'--me peritus Disect Iber, Rhodanique potor.'
'To him who drinks the rapid Rhone Shall Horace, deathless bard, be known.'
FRANCIS. Horace, Odes, ii. 20. 19.
[857] See ante, iii. 49.
[858] See post, June 12, 1784.
[859] See ante, p. 126.
[860] H. C. Robinson (Diary, i. 29) describes him as 'an author on an infinity of subjects; his books were on Law, History, Poetry, Antiquities, Divinity, Politics.' He adds (ib. p. 49l):--'Godwin, Lofft, and Thelwall are the only three persons I know (except Hazlitt) who grieve at the late events'--the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. He found long after his death 'a MS. by him in these words:--"Rousseau, Euripides, Tasso, Racine, Cicero, Virgil, Petrarch, Richardson.