It was transcribed with some inaccuracies. I print it from the original draft in Johnson's own hand-writing. BOSWELL. Hawkins writes (Life, p. 574):--'Johnson, upon being told that it was in print, exclaimed in my hearing, "I am betrayed," but soon after forgot, as he was ever ready to do all real or supposed injuries, the error that made the publication possible.'
[1081] Cowper wrote of Thurlow:--'I know well the Chancellor's benevolence of heart, and how much he is misunderstood by the world. When he was young he would do the kindest things, and at an expense to himself which at that time he could ill afford, and he would do them too in the most secret manner.' Southey's Cowper, vii. 128. Yet Thurlow did not keep his promise made to Cowper when they were fellow-clerks in an attorney's office. 'Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are.' He smiled, and replied, 'I surely will.' Ib. i. 41. When Cowper sent him the first volume of his poems, 'he thought it not worth his while,' the poet writes, 'to return me any answer, or to take the least notice of my present.' Ib. xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15, 1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can assure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that although he hates our species in general, yet his particular hatred is directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's Corres. ii. 488, and iii. 10.
[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained; and before Christmas the author of the English Dictionary and of the Lives of the Poets had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke of Fleet-street.' Macaulay's Writings and Speeches, ed. 1871, p. 413. Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon, 'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been 'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88), shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving each L1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each, L500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:--'It was impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this letter. The Chancellor had written:--'It would have suited the purpose better, if nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J. Boswell.' Boswell has been erased--'artfully' too, says--Mr. Croker-so that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."' Mr. Croker, with his usual suspiciousness, suspects 'an uncandid trick.' But it is very likely that Thurlow himself made the obliteration, regardless of grammar. He might easily have thought that it would have been better still had Boswell not been in the secret.
[1083] See ante, iii. 176.
[1084] On June 11 Boswell and Johnson were together (ante, p. 293). The date perhaps should be July 11. The letter that follows next is dated July 12.
[1085] 'Even in our flight from vice some virtue lies.' FRANCIS. Horace, i. Epistles, I. 41.
[1086] See vol. ii. p. 258. BOSWELL.
[1087] Mrs. Johnson died in 1752. See ante, i. 241, note 2.
[1088] See Appendix.
[1089] Printed in his Works [i. 150]. BOSWELL. See ante, i. 241, note 2.
[1090] He wrote to Mr. Ryland on the same day:--'Be pleased to let the whole be done with privacy that I may elude the vigilance of the papers.' Notes and Queries, 5th S. vii. 381.
[1091] Boileau, Art Poetique, chant iv.
[1092] This is probably an errour either of the transcript or the press. Removes seems to be the word intended. MALONE.
[1093] See ante, i. 332, and post p. 360.
[1094] See ante, p. 267.
[1095] I have heard Dr. Johnson protest that he never had quite as much as he wished of wall-fruit, except once in his life.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 103.
[1096] At the Essex Head, Essex-street. BOSWELL.
[1097] Juvenal, Satires, x. 8:--
'Fate wings with every wish the afflictive dart.'
Vanity of Human Wishes, l. 15.
[1098] Mr. Allen, the printer.