401. —: Bennet Langton.
402. —: Langton, in Lincolnshire.
403. Flora: Flora MacDonald (1722–90), a Jacobite heroine, who assisted Bonnie Prince Charlie in escaping from Hanoverian troops in 1745.
404. Maria… cogunt: ‘Mary Queen of Scots, worthy of a better age, reluctantly surrenders her rights to her rebellious people’; ‘Rebellious subjects force Mary Queen of Scots against her will to abdicate her office.’
405. novce… vires: ‘In the battle new strength returns’ – a misremembering of Virgil, Aeneid, xii.424, ‘novae rediere in pristina vires’: ‘new-born strength returned to its old vigour’.
406. A gentleman: Edward Gibbon.
407. tell Dr. Blair… begin again: See p. 410.
408. simile non est idem: Likeness is not identity.
409. Maria… data 15—: ‘Mary Queen of Scots, born 15—, driven into exile by her countrymen 15—, executed by her hostess 15—.’
410. Kνσι γησoν: ‘Lord have mercy upon us.’
411. Busy, curious, thirsty fly: Johnson composed a Latin version of this popular song.
412. Töv ταΦoν… Φνσιxóν: ‘Stranger, you behold the tomb of Oliver Goldsmith. Tread not on his hallowed ashes with careless feet. If you have any care for nature, for the beauty of verse, for antiquity, then weep for a poet, a historian, and a naturalist.’
413. Ipecacuanha: A South American small shrubby plant, which possesses emetic, diaphoretic, and purgative properties (OED).
414. Even… see desert: A reworking of Alexander Pope, ‘Epilogue to the Satires’ (1738), ii.70.
415. concessere columnce: ‘Booksellers [never] concede’– Horace, Ars Poetica, l.373.
416. a convict: John Reid.
417. the Pollio and Gallus: Respectively Virgil, Eclogues iv and x.
418. Bis datqui cito dat: ‘He who gives quickly gives twice over’– Erasmus, Adages.
419. witching time o’ night: Hamlet, III.ii.358.
420. monumentum perenne: ‘Enduring monument’ – Horace, Odes, III.xxx.i.
421. the resolutions… Bostonians: The Boston Port Bill of 1774 had closed Boston as a port for the landing and shipping of goods.
422. Legitimas… preces: ‘Pure hearts make lawful prayers.’
423. De non existentibus… ratio: There is no distinction to be drawn between what does not exist and what does not appear.
424. of something after death: Hamlet, III.i.80.
425. an account of it: John Knox, A tour through the Highlands of Scotland, and the Hebride isles, in MDCCLXXXVI. By John Knox (1787).
426. a Scot, if ever Scot there were: Untraced.
427. natale solum: Native soil.
428. some low man: The Revd Donald M’Nicol.
429. another Scotchman: James Macpherson.
430. loved Scotland better than truth: Johnson, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), p. 192. The allusion is to the saying, attributed to Aristotle, that truth was to him an even dearer friend than Plato.
431. Resolutions… the American Congress: See n. 15.
432. a certain popular Lord Chancellor: Lord Camden.
433. Fallitur… Claudianus: ‘It is a mistake to think that obedience to a prince is slavery; a more pleasant freedom is not to be found than with a pious monarch’ – Claudian, Consulatus Stilichonis, iii.133.
434. a Right Honourable friend: William Gerard Hamilton.
435. counterfeiting Apollo’s coin: Johnson’s remark implies that Sheridan had no right to set himself up as a judge on literary matters.
436. The Hypocrite… Cibber’s Nonjuror: Isaac Bickerstaffe, The Hypocrite (1768); Colley Cibber, The Nonjuror (1717).
437. oath of abjuration: See n. 97 to the Introduction.
438. had he not… swore: Cf. Macbeth, II.ii.12–13, which has ‘slept’ rather than ‘swore’.
439. a poor boy from the country: William Davenport.
440. Bon Ton: David Garrick, Bon Ton: or, high life above stairs (1759).
441. Os homini… tollere vultus: ‘Man looks aloft, and with uplifted eyes | Beholds his own hereditary skies’– Ovid, Metamorphoses, i.85, tr. Dryden.
442. Weave… room enough: Gray, ‘The Bard’, ll. 49–51.
443. A young lady… a man: Lady Susan Fox and William O’Brien.
444. virum volitare per ora: ‘To fly through the mouths of men’ – Virgil, Georgics, iii.9.
445. One of the company: James Boswell.
446. CANCELLARIUS… quinto: ‘The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, to all those who may read this, greeting. Know that the illustrious Samuel Johnson, a man learned in all humane letters and happy in his grasp of the sciences, long since became so famous for his writings, eminently calculated in form and matter to improve the manners of his countrymen, that the University thought him worthy of signal honour and so enrolled him among its honoured Masters. Now whereas this distinguished man has won such repute by his subsequent labours, notably in refining and fixing our language, that he is justly reckoned a chief and leader in the republic of letters, therefore we the Chancellor, Master, and Scholars of the University of Oxford, wishing at once to honour him as he deserves, and to record our own devotion to letters, have in our solemn Convocation of Doctors and Masters made the said Samuel Johnson a Doctor of Civil Law, and have by the present diploma made him free of all the rights and privileges that belong to that degree. Given in our Convocation House, 30 March 1775.’
447. un gentilhomme comme un autre: A gentleman like any other.
448. Viro… 1775: ‘To the Reverend Thomas Fothergill, Professor of Theology, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Dr Samuel Johnson. I need not use many words to tell you how I receive the commendation with which the University over which you preside has transmitted my name to posterity. Every man is glad to think well of himself; and that man must think well of himself, of whom you, the arbiters of letters, can think well. But the good you have done me has one drawback: henceforth any fault of mine, of commission or omission, will hurt your reputation; I must always fear that what is a signal honour to me may one day bring discredit upon you. 7 April 1775’
449. a gentleman: James Bruce.
450. a certain political lady: Catherine Macaulay.
451. The force… no farther go: John Dryden, ‘Lines on Milton’ (1688), l. 5.
452. Bouts rimé s: Rhymed endings.
453. a gentleman… who wrote for the Vase: Captain Constantine Phipps (later Baron Mulgrave).
454. Clarissa: Samuel Richardson, Clarissa (1748–9).
455. another King: George II.
456. bibliopole: A dealer in books, a bookseller (OED).