a Mrs. Knowles, not satisfied with the fame of her needlework, the ‘sutile pictures’ mentioned by Johnson, in which she has indeed displayed much dexterity, nay, with the fame of reasoning better than women generally do, as I have fairly shewn her to have done, communicated to me a Dialogue of considerable length, which after many years had elapsed, she wrote down as having passed between Dr. Johnson and herself at this interview. As I had not the least recollection of it, and did not find the smallest trace of it in my Record taken at the time, I could not in consistency with my firm regard to authenticity, insert it in my work. It has, however, been published in The Gent. Mag. for June 1791. It chiefly relates to the principles of the sect called Quakers; and no doubt the Lady appears to have greatly the advantage of Dr. Johnson in argument as well as expression. From what I have now stated, and from the internal evidence of the paper itself, any one who may have the curiosity to peruse it, will judge whether it was wrong in me to reject it, however willing to gratify Mrs. Knowles.
a I believe, however, I shall follow my own opinion; for the world has shewn a very flattering partiality to my writings, on many occasions.
a Pr. and Med. p. 164.
a Johnson said to me afterwards, ‘Sir, they respected me for my literature; and yet it was not great but by comparison. Sir, it is amazing how little literature there is in the world.’
a [This line has frequently been attributed to Dryden, when a King’s Scholar at Westminster. But neither Eton nor Westminster have in truth any claim to it, the line being borrowed, with a slight change, from an Epigram by Crashaw: –
‘JOANN. 2,
‘AquiS in vinum versee.
‘Unde rubor vestris et non sua purpura lymphis?
Quae rosa mirantes tarn nova mutat aquas?
Numen, convive, pr&sens agnoscite numen,
Nympba pudica DEUM vidit, et erubuit.’]818
a I am not absolutely sure but this was my own suggestion, though it is truly in the character of Edwards.
a In summer 1792, additional and more expensive decorations having been introduced, the price of admission was raised to two shillings. I cannot approve of this. The company may be more select; but a number of the honest commonalty are, I fear, excluded from sharing in elegant and innocent entertainment. An attempt to abolish the one-shilling gallery at the playhouse has been very properly counteracted.
a I am not entirely without suspicion that Johnson may have felt a little momentary envy; for no man loved the good things of this life better than he did; and he could not but be conscious that he deserved a much larger share of them, than he ever had. I attempted in a newspaper to comment on the above passage, in the manner of Warburton, who must be allowed to have shewn uncommon ingenuity, in giving to any authour’s text whatever meaning he chose it should carry. As this imitation may amuse my readers, I shall here introduce it: –
‘No saying of Dr. Johnson’s has been more misunderstood than his applying to Mr. Burke when he first saw him at his fine place at Beaconsfield, Non equidem invideo; miror magis. These two celebrated men had been friends for many years before Mr. Burke entered on his parliamentary career. They were both writers, both members of The Literary Club; when, therefore, Dr. Johnson saw Mr. Burke in a situation so much more splendid than that to which he himself had attained, he did not mean to express that he thought it a disproportionate prosperity; but while he, as a philosopher, asserted an exemption from envy, non equidem invideo, he went on in the words of the poet miror magis; thereby signifying, either that he was occupied in admiring what he was glad to see; or, perhaps, that considering the general lot of men of superiour abilities, he wondered that Fortune, who is represented as blind, should, in this instance, have been so just.’
a [William Duncombe, Esq. He married the sister of John Hughes the poet; was the authour of two tragedies and other ingenious productions; and died 26th Feb. 1769, aged 79.]
a By Richard Tickell.
b [Dr. Johnson is supported by the usage of preceding writers. So in Musarum Delicite,832 8vo. 1656 (the writer is speaking of Suckling’s play entitled Aglaura, printed in folio): –
‘This great voluminous pamphlet may be said
To be like one that hath more hair than head.’]
a See this question fully investigated in the Notes upon my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, 3rd edit. p. 21, et seq. {15 Aug.}. And here, as a lawyer mindful of the maxim Suum cuique tribuito,839 I cannot forbear to mention, that the additional Note beginning with ‘I find since the former edition,’ is not mine, but was obligingly furnished by Mr. Malone, who was so kind as to superintend the press while I was in Scotland, and the first part of the second edition was printing. He would not allow me to ascribe it to its proper authour; but, as it is exquisitely acute and elegant, I take this opportunity, without his knowledge, to do him justice.
a Here he either was mistaken, or had a different notion of an extensive sale from what is generally entertained: for the fact is, that four thousand copies of that excellent work were sold very quickly. A new edition has been printed since his death, besides that in the collection of his works.
b In the phraseology of Scotland, I should have said, ‘Mr. John Spottiswoode the younger, of that ilk.’ Johnson knew that sense of the word very well, and has thus explained it in his Dictionary, voce Ilk: – ‘It also signifies “the same;” as, Mackintosh ofthat ilk, denotes a gentleman whose surname and the title of his estate are the same.’
a It is observed in Waller’s Life, in the Biographia Britannica, that he drank only water; and that while he sat in a company who were drinking wine, ‘he had the dexterity to accommodate his discourse to the pitch of theirs as it sunk.’ If excess in drinking be meant, the remark is acutely just. But surely, a moderate use of wine gives a gaiety of spirits which water-drinkers know not.
a This experiment which Madame Dacier made in vain, has since been tried in our own language, by the editor of Ossian, and we must either think very meanly of his abilities, or allow that Dr. Johnson was in the right. And Mr. Cowper, a man of real genius, has miserably failed in his blank verse translation.
a Mrs. Piozzi confidently mentions this as having passed in Scotland. Anecdotes, p. 62.
a Johnson had an extraordinary admiration of this lady, notwithstanding she was a violent Whig. In answer to her high-flown speeches for Liberty, he addressed to her the following Epigram, of which I presume to offer a translation: –
‘Liber ut esse velim suasisti pulchra Maria,
Ut maneam liber pulchra Maria vale.’
Adieu, Maria! since you’d have me free;
For, who beholds thy charms a slave must be.