BOSWELL. In the second edition this note ended at the first paragraph, the latter part being added in the third. For the 'few observations omitted' see ante, pp. 148, 381, 388.
The 'contemptible scribbler' was, I believe, John Wolcot, better known by his assumed name of Peter Pindar. He had been a clergyman. In his Epistle to Boswell (Works, i. 219), he says in reference to the passages about Sir A. Macdonald (afterwards Lord Macdonald):--'A letter of severe remonstrance was sent to Mr. B., who, in consequence, omitted in the second edition of his Journal what is so generally pleasing to the public, viz., the scandalous passages relative to that nobleman.' It was in a letter to the Gent. Mag. 1786, p. 285, that Boswell 'publickly disproved the insinuation' made 'in a late scurrilous publication' that these passages 'were omitted in consequence of a letter from his Lordship. Nor was any application,' he continues, 'made to me by the nobleman alluded to at any time to make any alteration in my Journal.'
[1152]
'Nothing extenuate Nor set down aught in malice.'
Othello, act v. sc. 2.
[1153] See ante, i. 189, note 2, 296, 297; and Johnson's Works, v. 23.
[1154] Of his two imitations Boswell means The Vanity of Human Wishes, of which one hundred lines were written in a day. Ante, i. 192, and ii. 15.
[1155] Johnson, it should seem, did not allow that there was any pleasure in writing poetry. 'It has been said there is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may have pleasure from writing after it is over, if you have written well; but you don't go willingly to it again.' Ante, iv. 219. What Johnson always sought was to sufficiently occupy the mind. So long as that was done, that labour would, I believe, seem to him the pleasanter which required the less thought.
[1156] Nathan Bailey published his English Dictionary in 1721.
[1157]
'Woolston, the scourge of scripture, mark with awe! And mighty Jacob, blunderbuss of law.'
The Dunciad, first ed., bk. iii. l. 149. Giles Jacob published a Law Dictionary in 1729.
[1158] Ante, p. 393.
[1159] A writer in the Gent. Mag. 1786, p. 388, with some reason says:--'I heartily wish Mr. Boswell would get this Latin poem translated.'
[1160] Boswell, briefly mentioning the tour which Johnson made to Wales in the year 1774 with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, says:--'I do not find that he kept any journal or notes of what he saw there' (ante, ii. 285). A journal had been kept however, which in 1816 was edited and published by Mr. Duppa. Mrs. Piozzi, writing in October of that year, says that three years earlier she had been shewn the MS. by a Mr. White, and that it was genuine. 'The gentleman who possessed it seemed shy of letting me read the whole, and did not, as it appeared, like being asked how it came into his hands.' Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 177. According to Mr. Croker (Croker's Boswell, p. 415) 'it was preserved by Johnson's servant, Barber. How it escaped Boswell's research is not known.' A fragment of Johnson's Annals, also preserved by Barber, had in like manner never been seen by Boswell; ante, i. 35, note 1. The editor of these Annals says (Preface, p. v):--'Francis Barber, unwilling that all the MSS. of his illustrious master should be utterly lost, preserved these relicks from the flames. By purchase from Barber's widow they came into the possession of the editor.' It seems likely that Barber was afraid to own what he had done; though as he was the residuary legatee he was safe from all consequences, unless the executors of the will who were to hold the residue of the estate in trust for him had chosen to proceed against him. Mr. Duppa in editing this Journal received assistance from Mrs. Piozzi, 'who,' he says (Preface, p. xi), 'explained many facts which could not otherwise have been understood.' A passage in one of her letters dated Bath, Oct. 11, 1816, shows how unfriendly were the relations between her and her eldest daughter, Johnson's Queeny, who had married Admiral Lord Keith. 'I am sadly afraid,' she writes, 'of Lady K.'s being displeased, and fancying I promoted this publication. Could I have caught her for a quarter-of-an-hour, I should have proved my innocence, and might have shown her Duppa's letter; but she left neither note, card, nor message, and when my servant ran to all the inns in chase of her, he learned that she had left the White Hart at twelve o'clock. Vexatious! but it can't be helped. I hope the pretty little girl my people saw with her will pay her more tender attention.' Three days later she wrote:--'Johnson's Diary is selling rapidly, though the contents are bien maigre, I must confess. Mr. Duppa has politely suppressed some sarcastic expressions about my family, the Cottons, whom we visited at Combermere, and at Lleweney.' Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 176-9. Mr. Croker in 1835 was able to make 'a collation of the original MS., which has supplied many corrections and some omissions in Mr. Duppa's text.' Mr. Croker's text I have generally followed.