text should not be much mended thereby, yet it was no small advantage to know that we had as good a text as the most consummate industry and diligence could procure.' "Johnson observed, that so many objections might be made to every thing, that nothing could overcome them but the necessity of doing something. No man would be of any profession, as simply opposed to not being of it; but every one must do something.' "He remarked, that a London parish was a very comfortless thing: for the clergyman seldom knew the face of one out of ten of his parishioners. "Of the late Mr. Mallet he spoke with no great respect: said, he was ready for any dirty job; that he had wrote against Byng at the instigation of the ministry, and was equally ready to write for him, provided he found his account in it. "A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience. "He observed, that a man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It was a miserable thing when the conversation could only be such as, whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that. "He did not approve of late marriages, observing that more was lost in point of time, than compensated for by any possible advantages. Even ill-assorted marriages were preferable to cheerless celibacy. "Of old Sheridan he remarked, that he neither wanted parts nor literature; but that his vanity and Quixotism obscured his merits. "He said, foppery was never cured; it was the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, were never rectified: once a coxcomb, and always a coxcomb. "Being told that Gilbert Cooper called him the Caliban of literature. 'Well,' said he, 'I must dub him the Punchinello."1 College, Oxford, in 1750, and D.D. in 1760,-having distinguished himself by a learned dissertation on the state of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, was, about 1759, persuaded by Archbishop Secker, and encouraged by a large subscription, to undertake a collation of all the Hebrew MSS. of the Old Testament. The first volume of his learned labour was, however, not published till 1776; and the second, with a general dissertation, completed the work in 1783. He was Radcliffe Librarian, and canon of Christ Church; in which cathedral he was buried in 1783.-Croker. John Gilbert Cooper, Esq., author of a good deal of prose and verse, "Speaking of the old Earl of Cork and Orrery, he said, 'That man spent his life in catching at an object (literary eminence), which he had not power to grasp.' "To find a substitution for violated morality, he said, was the leading feature in all perversions of religion. "He often used to quote, with great pathos, those fine lines of Virgil: 'Optima quæque dies miseris mortalibus ævi Prima fugit; subeunt morbi, tristisque senectus, "Speaking of Homer, whom he venerated as the prince of poets," Johnson remarked that the advice given to Diomed by his father, when he sent him to the Trojan war, was the noblest exhortation that could be instanced in any heathen writer, and comprised in a single line : Αἰὲν ἀριστεύειν καὶ ὑπείροχον ἔμμεναι ἄλλων : which if I recollect well, is translated by Dr. Clarke thus:-semper appetere præstantissima, et omnibus aliis antecellare. "He observed, it was a most mortifying reflection for any man to consider, what he had done, compared with what he might have done.' "He said few people had intellectual resources sufficient to forego the pleasures of wine. They could not otherwise contrive how to fill the interval between dinner and supper. "He went with me, one Sunday, to hear my old master, Gregory Sharpe, preach at the Temple. In the prefatory prayer, Sharpe ranted but best known as the author of a Life of Socrates, and a consequent dispute with Bishop Warburton. Cooper was in person short and squab; hence Johnson's allusion to Punch. He died in 1769.-Croker. 1 Georg. iii. 66. 2 Johnson's usual seal, at one time of his life, was a head of Homer, and at another, a head of Augustus, as appears from the envelopes of his letters. - Croker. 3 Dr. Maxwell's memory has deceived him. Glaucus is the person who received this counsel; and Clarke's translation of the passage (Il. vi. 208) is as follows :—“ Ut semper fortissime rem gererem, et superior virtute essem aliis.”—J. Boswell, jun. 4 Gregory Sharpe, D.D., F.R.S. and F.A.S., born in 1713. He published some religious works, and several critical Essays on the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages. Maxwell calls him his old master, because Sharpe was Master of the Temple when Maxwell was assistant preacher. He died in 1771.—Croker. about liberty, as a blessing most fervently to be implored, and its continuance prayed for. Johnson observed, that our liberty was in no sort of danger :-he would have done much better to pray against our licentiousness. "One evening at Mrs. Montagu's, where a splendid company had assembled, consisting of the most eminent literary characters, I thought he seemed highly pleased with the respect and attention that were shown him, and asked him, on our return home, if he was not highly gratified by his visit. 'No, Sir,' said he, 'not highly gratified; yet I do not recollect to have passed many evenings with fewer objections. "Though of no high extraction himself, he had much respect for birth and family, especially among ladies. He said, 'adventitious accomplishments may be possessed by all ranks; but one may easily distinguish the born gentlewoman.' "He said, the poor in England were better provided for than in any other country of the same extent: he did not mean little cantons, or petty republics. Where a great proportion of the people,' said he, ' are suffered to languish in helpless misery, that country must be ill policed, and wretchedly governed: a decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation. Gentlemen of education,' he observed, 'were pretty much the same in all countries; the condition of the lower orders, the poor especially, was the true mark of national discrimination.' "When the corn laws were in agitation in Ireland, by which that country has been enabled not only to feed itself, but to export corn to a large amount, Sir Thomas Robinson observed, that those laws might be prejudicial to the corn-trade of England. Sir Thomas,' said he, 'you talk the language of a savage: what, Sir, would you prevent any people from feeding themselves, if by any honest means they can do it?' "It being mentioned, that Garrick assisted Dr. Browne,' the author of the 'Estimate,' in some dramatic composition, 'No, Sir,' said Johnson; he would no more suffer Garrick to write a line in his play, than he would suffer him to mount his pulpit.' 1 1 Dr. John Browne, born in 1715; B.A. of St. John's, Cambridge, in 1735, and D.D. in 1755; besides his celebrated Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times,—a work which, in one year, ran through seven editions, and is now forgotten,-and several religious and miscellaneous works, he was the author of two tragedies, Barbarossa and Athelstan. He was a man of considerable, but irregular genius; and died insane, by his own hand, in 1766.—Croker. "Speaking of Burke, he said, 'It was commonly observed he spoke too often in parliament; but nobody could say he did not speak well, though too frequently and too familiarly.' "Speaking of economy, he remarked, it was hardly worth while to save anxiously twenty a pounds a year. If a man could save to that degree, so as to enable him to assume a different rank in society, then, indeed, it might answer some purpose. "He observed, a principal source of erroneous judgment was viewing things partially and only on one side; as for instance, fortunehunters, when they contemplated the fortunes singly and separately, it was a dazzling and tempting object; but when they came to possess the wives and their fortunes together, they began to suspect they had not made quite so good a bargain. "Speaking of the late Duke of Northumberland1 living very magnificently when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, somebody remarked, it would be difficult to find a suitable successor to him: Then,' exclaimed, Johnson, he is only fit to succeed himself!' "He advised me, if possible, to have a good orchard. He knew, he said, a clergyman of small income, who brought up a family very reputably, which he chiefly fed with apple dumplings. "He said he had known several good scholars among the Irish gentlemen; but scarcely any of them correct in quantity. He extended the same observation to Scotland. "Speaking of a certain prelate, who exerted himself very laudably 'Sir Hugh Smithson, who, by his marriage with the daughter of Algernon, last Duke of Somerset, of that branch, became second Earl of Northumberland of the new creation, was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from 1763 to 1765; he was created a duke in 1766. I suppose Johnson's phrase was meant as an Hibernicism, imitated from Theobald's celebrated blunder, in the περὶ βάθους, "None but himself can be his parallel !" which, however, Warton discovered to be itself borrowed from Seneca's Hercules Furens -Croker. "Queris Alcidæ parem? Nemo, nise ipse." i. 84. ? Probably Dr. Richard Robinson, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland from 1765 to 1795. He was created Lord Rokeby in 1777, with remainder to the issue of his cousin, Matthew Robinson, of West Layton. He built what is called Canterbury Gate, and the adjacent quadrangle, in Christ Church, Oxford.-Croker. in building churches and parsonage houses; however,' said he, I do not find that he is esteemed a man of much professional learning, or a liberal patron of it ;-yet, it is well where a man possesses any strong positive excellence. Few have all kinds of merit belonging to their character. We must not examine matters too deeply. No, Sir, a fallible being will fail somewhere? "Talking of the Irish clergy, he said, 'Swift was a man of great parts, and the instrument of much good to his country. Berkeley was a profound scholar, as well as a man of fine imagination; but Usher,' he said, 'was the great luminary of the Irish church: and a greater,' he added, 'no church could boast of; at least in modern times.' "We dined tête-à-tête at the Mitre, as I was preparing to return to Ireland, after an absence of many years. I regretted much leaving London, where I had formed many agreeable connections; 'Sir,' said he, 'I don't wonder at it: no man, fond of letters, leaves London without regret. But remember, Sir, you have seen and enjoyed a great deal ;-you have seen life in its highest decorations, and the world has nothing new to exhibit. No man is so well qualified to leave public life as he who has long tried it and known it well. We are always hankering after untried situations, and imagining greater felicity from them than they can afford. No, Sir, knowledge and virtue may be acquired in all countries, and your local consequence will make you some amends for the intellectual gratifications you relinquish.' Then he quoted the following lines with great pathos :"He who has early known the pomps of state, 1 (For things unknown 'tis ignorance to condemn ;) And having view'd the gaudy bait, Can boldly say, the trifle I contemn; With such a one contented could I live, Being desirous to trace these verses to the fountain head, after having in vain turned over several of our elder poets with the hope of lighting on them, I applied to Dr. Maxwell, now resident at Bath, for the purpose of ascertaining their author: but that gentleman could furnish no aid on this occasion. At length the lines have been discovered by the author's second son, Mr. James Boswell, in the London Magazine for July 1732, where they form part of a poem on Retirement, there published anonymously, but in fact (as he afterwards found) copied, with some slight variations, from one of Walsh's smaller poems, entitled The Retirement; and they exhibit another proof of what has been elsewhere observed by the author of the work before us, that Johnson retained in his memory fragments of obscure 1 |