In our island every man goes to sleep unable to guess whether he shall behold in the morning a bright or cloudy atmosphere, whether his rest shall be lulled by a shower, or broken by a tempest. We therefore rejoice mutually at good weather, as at an escape from something that we feared; and mutually complain of bad, as of the loss of something that we hoped.' See ante, i. 332, and iv. 353.
[1117] His Account of the Musical Performances in Commemoration of Handel. See ante, p. 283.
[1118] The celebrated Miss Fanny Burney. BOSWELL.
[1119] Dr. Burney's letter must have been franked; otherwise there would have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a separate letter.
[1120] He does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as members of either House of Parliament.
[1121] Consolation is clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecture mortification seems absurd.
[1122] See ante, iii. 48, and iv. 177.
[1123] Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the former of these letters was written. See ante, p. 356.
[1124] This may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer, mentioned ante, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, was not likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous November.
[1125] Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:--
'Seen him I have but in his happier hour Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.'
Satires. Epilogue, i. 29.
[1126] Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country. He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of almost all nations. BOSWELL.
[1127] Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL.
[1128] Mr. Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. Ante, p. 239.
[1129]Allan Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784, in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. See ante, p. 260.
[1130] Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I know,' he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment would be offered to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with regard to soliciting for it; but he was informed that it was a necessary point of etiquette, with which at last he complied.' His 'furious purposes' should seem to have been his intention to resign the Presidency of the Academy, on finding that the place was not at once given him, and in the knowledge that in the Academy there was a party against him. Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 448.
[1131] See ante, p. 348.
[1132] The Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See ante, p. 350, note.
[1133] The Duke of Devonshire has kindly given me the following explanation of this term:--'It was formerly the custom at some (I believe several) of the large country-houses to have dinners at which any of the neighbouring gentry and clergy might present themselves as guests without invitation. The custom had been discontinued at Chatsworth before my recollection, and so far as I am aware is now only kept-up at Wentworth, Lord Fitzwilliam's house in Yorkshire, where a few public dinners are still given annually. I believe, however, that all persons intending to be present on such occasions are now expected to give notice some days previously. Public dinners were also given formerly by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and if I am not mistaken also by the Archbishop of York. I have myself been present at a public dinner at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and I have been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since receiving this explanation I have read the following in the second part of the Greville Memoirs, i. 99:--'June 1, 1838. I dined yesterday at Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public dinner, the handsomest entertainment I ever saw. There were nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed or in uniform. Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole arrangement.'
[1134] Six weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long as he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, and may make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 412.
[1135] See ante, p. 349, note.
[1136] 'He alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced from L200 to L50 per annum.' Northcote's Reynolds, ii.