57. deterre: Unearthed, or dug up.
58. ne ullius… moraretur: That no election of a teacher be delayed more than three months.
59. impransus: Not having dined.
60. Elisje Carters… 1738: Dr Thomas Birch to Elizabeth Carter. I have now read your translation of Crousaz’s Examen, with admiration of the consummate elegance of your style and of its fitness to a very difficult subject. Written 27 November 1738.
61. Pica: A size of type, now standardized as 12 point (OED, ia).
62. the Brunswick succession… upon it: The Brunswick succession refers to the accession of the House of Hanover to the throne of Great Britain with George I in 1714, a dynastic change which cemented the exclusion of the House of Stuart; ‘measures of government’ refers to the management of the House of Commons by Sir Robert Walpole which secured majorities for the King’s business, and which in the eyes of the disaffected was tantamount to corruption.
63. telum imbelle: ‘Unwarlike [i.e. harmless] spear’ – Virgil, Aeneid, ii.544.
64. Emptoris sit eligere: The purchaser has the right of choice.
65. Great Primer: A size of type approximately equal to 18 point, formerly much used in Bibles (OED, ‘primer’, 3b).
66. Angliacas… Dece: ‘Laura, prettiest girl in England, you will soon be rid of your grievous burden. May Lucina be kind to you in your pains; may you not suffer for having excelled a goddess.’ Lucina in Roman religion was a name associated with Juno as goddess of childbirth – ‘parituram’ in the epigram’s title means ‘about to give birth’.
67. a noble Lord: Lord Tyrconnel.
68. Ad Ricardum Savage… genus: ‘To Richard Savage. May the human race cherish him, in whose breast burns the love of human kind.’
69. Respicere… jubebo: ‘I advise him to take as his model real life and manners’ – Horace, Ars Poetica, l. 317.
70. falsum… omnibus: ‘False in one respect, false in all.’
71. his great philological work: That is his Dictionary of the English Language (1755).
72. one of the best criticks of our age: Probably Edmond Malone.
73. Dulce et decorum… mori: ‘It is sweet and becoming to die for one’s homeland’ – Horace, Odes, III.ii.13.
74. Cur… putat: ‘Why should I say that I cannot do what he thinks I am capable of?’ – Ausonius, Epigrams, i.12.
75. a noble Lord: Possibly William, 3rd Earl of Jersey.
76. Sed hie sunt nugce: ‘But they are trifles.’
77. the Charterhouse: A charitable institution or ‘hospital’ founded in London, in 1611, upon the site of the Carthusian monastery (OED, ‘Charterhouse’, 2).
78. the Monument: The column erected in the City of London to commemorate the Great Fire of 1666, and imputing the guilt of that disaster to the actions of Roman Catholics – cf. Alexander Pope, ‘Epistle to Bathurst’ (1733), ll. 339–40.
79. genus irritabile: ‘Fretful tribe [of poets]’ – Horace, Epistles, II.ii.102.
80. notanda: Things to be noted.
81. Dial… conspicimus: ‘The sly shadow steals away upon the dial, and the quickest eye can discover no more than that it is gone’ – Joseph Glanvill, Scepsis scientifica (1664), xi.6o. Quoted in Johnson’s Dictionary.
82. Bruy: Jean de la Bruyere (1645–96), French satirist and moralist.
83. Scribebamus, &c. Mart.: ‘Scribebamus epos; coepisti scribere: cessi, | aemula ne starent carmina nostra tuis. | transtulit ad tragicos se nostra Thalia cothurnos: | aptasti longum tu quoque syrma tibi. | fila lyrae movi Calabris exculta Camenis: | plectra rapis nobis, ambitiose, nova. | audemus saturas: Lucilius esse laboras. | ludo levis elegos: tu quoque ludis idem. | quid minus esse potest? epigrammata fingere coepi: | huic etiam petitur iam mea palma tibi. | elige quid nolis – quis enim pudor omnia velle? – | et si quid non vis, Tucca, relinque mihi’ – ‘I was writing an epic; you started to write one. I gave up, so that my poetry should not stand in comparison with yours. My Thalia [the muse of comedy] transferred herself to tragic buskins; you too fitted the long train on yourself. I stirred the lyre strings, as practised by Calabrian Muses; eager to show off, you snatch my new quill away from me. I try my hand at satire; you labour to be Lucilius. I play with light elegy; you play with it too. What can be humbler? I start shaping epigrams; here again you too are already after my trophy. Choose what you don’t want (modesty forbids us to want everything), and if there’s anything you don’t want, Tucca, leave it for me’: Martial, Epigrams, xii.94.
84. Oι ΦιγOι ΦιγOζ: ‘He had friends, but no friend’ – Diogenes Laertius, V.i.
85. Principum amicitias: ‘The [deadly] friendships of princes’ – Horace, Odes, II.i.4.
86. fami non famce scribere: To write for food, not fame.
87. Degoute… d’argent: Disgusted with fame, and starving for money.
88. bark and steel for the mind: Bark was used in tanning and preserving leather; so ‘bark and steel’ suggests that Johnson’s prose preserves and strengthens the mind.
89. No. 88: In fact no. 98.
90. A GREAT PERSONAGE: George III.
91. Cum tabulis… divite lingua: ‘When he takes his tablets to write he will take also the spirit of an honest censor. Any words that he shall find lacking in dignity, or without proper weight, or that are held unworthy of the rank, he will have heart of courage to degrade from their position, however unwilling they may be to retire, and bent still on haunting the precincts of Vesta [in Roman religion, the goddess of the blazing hearth, who was worshipped in every household]. Phrases of beauty that have been lost to popular view he will kindly disinter and bring into the light – phrases which, though they were on the lips of a Cato and a Cethegus of old time, now lie uncouth because out of fashion and disused because old. He will admit to the franchise new phrases which use has fathered and given to the world. In strength and clearness, like a crystal stream, he will pour his wealth along, and bless Latium with a richer tongue.’
92. Si forte… nomen: ‘If so there be abstruse things which absolutely require new terms to make them clear, it will be in your power to frame words which never sounded in the ears of a cinctured Cethegus, and free pardon will be granted if the licence be used modestly. New words and words of yesterday’s framing will find acceptance if the source from which they flow be Greek, and if the stream be turned on sparingly. Think you that there is any licence which the Romans will grant to Caecilius and Plautus, and then refuse to Virgil and Varius? Why should you grudge even such a one as myself the right of adding, if I can, something to the store, when the tongue of Cato and of Ennius has been permitted to enrich our mother speech by giving to the world new names for things? Each generation has been allowed, and will be allowed still, to issue words that bear the mint mark of the day’ – Horace, Ars Poetica, ll. 48–59.
93. Camdeo’s sports: Camdeo, the Hindu god of love, was the subject of Sir William Jones’s ‘A Hymn to Camdeo’ (1784).