109.
[873] See ante, iii. 41, 327
[874] 'Towards evening Sir Allan told us that Sunday never passed over him like another day. One of the ladies read, and read very well, the evening service;--"and Paradise was opened in the wild."' Piozzi Letters, i. 173. The quotation is from Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, l. 134:--
'You raised these hallowed walls; the desert smil'd, And Paradise was open'd in the wild.'
[875] He sent these verses to Boswell in 1775. Ante ii. 293.
[876] Boswell wrote to Johnson on Feb. 2, 1775, (ante, ii. 295):--'Lord Hailes bids me tell you he doubts whether--
"Legitimas faciunt pectora pura preces,"
be according to the rubrick, but that is your concern; for you know, he is a Presbyterian.'
[877] In Johnson's Works, i. 167, these lines are given with amendments and additions, mostly made by Johnson, but some, Mr. Croker believes, by Mr. Langton. In the following copy the variations are marked in italics.
INSULA KENNETHI, INTER HEBRIDAS. Parva quidem regio sed religione priorum Clara Caledonias panditur inter aquas. Voce ubi Cennethus populos domuisse feroces Dicitur, et vanos dedocuisse deos. Huc ego delatus placido per caerula cursu, Scire locus volui quid daret iste novi. Illic Leniades humili regnabat in aula, Leniades, magnis nobilitatus avis. Una duas cepit casa cum genitore puellas, Quas Amor undarum crederet esse deas. Nec tamen inculti gelidis latuere sub antris, Accola Danubii qualia saevus habet. Mollia non desunt vacuae solatia vitae Sive libros poscant otia, sive lyram. Fulserat illa dies, legis qua docta supernae Spes hominum et curas gens procul esse jubet. Ut precibus justas avertat numinis iras, Et summi accendat pectus amore boni. Ponti inter strepitus non sacri munera cultus Cessarunt, pietas hic quoque cura fuit. Nil opus est oeris sacra de turre sonantis Admonitu, ipsa suas nunciat hora vices. Quid, quod sacrifici versavit foemina libros? Sint pro legitimis pura labella sacris. Quo vagor ulterius? quod ubique requiritur hic est, Hic secura quies, hic et honestus amor.
Mr. Croker says of the third line from the end, that in a copy of these verses in Johnson's own hand which he had seen, 'Johnson had first written
Sunt pro legitimis pectora pura sacris.
He then wrote
Legitimas faciunt pura labella preces.
That line was erased, and the line as it stands in the Works is substituted in Mr. Langton's hand, as is also an alteration in the 16th line, velit into jubet.' Jubet however is in the copy as printed by Boswell. Mr. Langton edited some, if not all, of Johnson's Latin poems. (Ante, iv. 384.)
[878] 'Boswell, who is very pious, went into the chapel at night to perform his devotions, but came back in haste for fear of spectres.' Piozzi Letters, i. 173.
[879] Ante p. 169.
[880] John Gerves, or John the Giant, of whom Dr. Johnson relates a curious story; Works ix. 119.
[881] Lord Chatham in the House of Lords, on Nov. 22, 1770, speaking of 'the honest, industrious tradesman, who holds the middle rank, and has given repeated proofs that he prefers law and liberty to gold,' had said:--'I love that class of men. Much less would I be thought to reflect upon the fair merchant, whose liberal commerce is the prime source of national wealth. I esteem his occupation, and respect his character.' Parl. Hist. xvi. 1107.
[882] See ante, iii. 382.
[883] He was born in Nordland in Sweden, in 1736. In 1768 he and Mr. Banks accompanied Captain Cook in his first voyage round the world. He died in 1782. Knight's Eng. Cyclo. v. 578. Miss Burney wrote of him in 1780:--'My father has very exactly named him, in calling him a philosophical gossip.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 305. Horace Walpole the same year, just after the Gordon Riots, wrote (Letters, vii. 403):--'Who is secure against Jack Straw and a whirlwind? How I abominate Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, who routed the poor Otaheitans out of the centre of the ocean, and carried our abominable passions amongst them! not even that poor little speck could escape European restlessness.' See ante ii. 148.
[884] Boswell tells this story again, ante, ii. 299. Mrs. Piozzi's account (Anec. p. 114) is evidently so inaccurate that it does not deserve attention; she herself admits that Beauclerk was truthful. In a marginal note on Wraxall's Memoirs, she says:--'Topham Beauclerk (wicked and profligate as he wished to be accounted), was yet a man of very strict veracity. Oh Lord! how I did hate that horrid Beauclerk!' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 348. Johnson testified to 'the correctness of Beauclerk's memory and the fidelity of his narrative.' Ante, ii. 405.
[885] 'Mr. Maclean of Col, having a very numerous family, has for some time past resided at Aberdeen, that he may superintend their education, and leaves the young gentleman, our friend, to govern his dominions with the full power of a Highland chief.' Johnson's Works, ix.