.... For awhile the inhabitants of Hagley affected to tell their acquaintance of the little fellow that was trying to make himself admired; but when by degrees the Leasowes forced themselves into notice, they took care to defeat the curiosity which they could not suppress by conducting their visitants perversely to inconvenient points of view, and introducing them at the wrong end of a walk to detect a deception; injuries of which Shenstone would heavily complain. Where there is emulation there will be vanity; and where there is vanity there will be folly. The pleasure of Shenstone was all in his eye: he valued what he valued merely for its looks; nothing raised his indignation more than to ask if there were any fishes in his water.' See ante, p. 345.
[1244] See ante, iii. 187, and v. 429.
[1245] 'He spent his estate in adorning it, and his death was probably hastened by his anxieties. He was a lamp that spent its oil in blazing. It is said that if he had lived a little longer he would have been assisted by a pension: such bounty could not have been ever more properly bestowed.' Johnson's Works, viii. 410. His friend, Mr. Graves, the author of The Spiritual Quixote, in a note on this passage says that, if he was sometimes distressed for money, yet he was able to leave legacies and two small annuities.
[1246] Mr. Duppa--without however giving his authority--says that this was Dr. Wheeler, mentioned ante, iii. 366. The Birmingham Directory for the year 1770 shews that there were two tradesmen in the town of that name, one having the same Christian name, Benjamin, as Dr. Wheeler.
[1247] Boswell visited these works in 1776. Ante, ii. 459.
[1248] Burke in the House of Commons on Jan. 25, 1771, in a debate on Falkland's Island, said of the Spanish Declaration:--'It was made, I admit, on the true principles of trade and manufacture. It puts me in mind of a Birmingham button which has passed through an hundred hands, and after all is not worth three-halfpence a dozen.' Parl. Hist. xvi. 1345.
[1249] Johnson and Boswell drove through the Park in 1776. Ante, ii. 451.
[1250] 'My friend the late Lord Grosvenor had a house at Salt Hill, where I usually spent a part of the summer, and thus became acquainted with that great and good man, Jacob Bryant. Here the conversation turned one morning on a Greek criticism by Dr. Johnson in some volume lying on the table, which I ventured (for I was then young) to deem incorrect, and pointed it out to him. I could not help thinking that he was somewhat of my opinion, but he was cautious and reserved. "But, Sir," said I, willing to overcome his scruples, "Dr. Johnson himself admitted that he was not a good Greek scholar." "Sir," he replied, with a serious and impressive air, "it is not easy for us to say what such a man as Johnson would call a good Greek scholar." I hope that I profited by that lesson--certainly I never forgot it.' Gifford's Works of Ford, vol. i. p. lxii. Croker's Boswell, p. 794. 'So notorious is Mr. Bryant's great fondness for studying and proving the truths of the creation according to Moses, that he told me himself, and with much quaint humour, a pleasantry of one of his friends in giving a character of him:--"Bryant," said he, "is a very good scholar, and knows all things whatever up to Noah, but not a single thing in the world beyond the Deluge."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, iii. 229.
[1251] This is a work written by William Durand, Bishop of Mende, and printed on vellum, in folio, by Fust and Schoeffer, in Mentz, 1459. It is the third book that is known to be printed with a date. DUPPA. It is perhaps the first book with a date printed in movable metal type. Brunei, ed. 1861, ii. 904. See ante, ii. 397.
[1252] Dr. Johnson, in another column of his Diary, has put down, in a note, 'First printed book in Greek, Lascaris's Grammar, 4to, Mediolani, 1476.' The imprint of this book is, Mediolani Impressum per Magistrum Dionysium Paravisinum. M.CCCC.LXXVI. Die xxx Januarii. The first book printed in the English language was the Historyes of Troye, printed in 1471. DUPPA. A copy of the Historyes of Troy is exhibited in the Bodleian Library with the following superscription:--'Lefevre's Recuyell of the historyes of Troye. The first book printed in the English language. Issued by Caxton at Bruges about 1474.'
[1253] The Battle of the Frogs and Mice. The first edition was printed by Laonicus Cretensis, 1486. DUPPA.
[1254] Mr. Coulson was a Senior Fellow of University College. Lord Stowell informed me that he was very eccentric. He would on a fine day hang out of the college windows his various pieces of apparel to air, which used to be universally answered by the young men hanging out from all the other windows, quilts, carpets, rags, and every kind of trash, and this was called an illumination. His notions of the eminence and importance of his academic situation were so peculiar, that, when he afterwards accepted a college living, he expressed to Lord Stowell his doubts whether, after living so long in the great world, he might not grow weary of the comparative retirement of a country parish.