1114. Omne… magnifico est: ‘The unknown is always taken for something grand’ – Tacitus, Agricola, xxx.
1115. Inspissated: Thickened.
1116. Pomatum: An ointment for the skin or hair (OED, 1).
1117. nonpareils: Several formerly popular varieties of apple characterized by very late ripening and a sweet-sharp flavour (OED, 4).
1118. Currat Lex: Let the law take its course.
1119. a noble friend: Lord Mountstuart.
1120. Amici fures temporis: ‘Friends are the thieves of time’ – Bacon, Advancement of Learning, bk 2.
1121. a near relation… antagonist: Lieutenant David Cuninghame had killed Mr Riddell.
1122. Unto him… the other: Luke 6:29.
1123. From him… not away: Matthew 5:42.
1124. Between the stirrup… mercy found: Camden, Remaines Concerning Britain, p. 387 (where however it reads, ‘Betwixt the stirrop and the ground | Mercy I askt, mercy I found’).
1125. a gentleman: Sir Thomas Rumbold.
1126. communibus sheetibus: For average sheets.
1127. his oratorical plans: In 1756 Thomas Sheridan had published a work of which the purpose and argument are made plain in its title: British Education: Or, the Source of the Disorders of Great Britain. Being an Essay towards proving, that the Immorality, Ignorance, and false Taste, which so generally prevail, are the natural and necessary Consequences of the present defective System of Education. With an Attempt to shew, that a Revival of the Art of Speaking, and the Study of our own Language, might contribute, in a great measure, to the Cure of those Evils.
1128. Monday, April 29: In fact Wednesday 30 April.
1129. Parcus… infrequens: ‘A grudging and infrequent worshipper of the gods’ – Horace, Odes, i.34.
1130. a worthy friend: Bennet Langton.
1131. one of our friends: Edmund Burke.
1132. an eminent person: Probably Burke once more.
1133. A gentleman: Again, possibly Burke.
1134. Friday, May 29: Actually a Thursday.
1135. a very learned man: Bennet Langton.
1136. As the tree… must lie: Cf. Ecclesiastes 11:3.
1137. Shenstone’s witty remark… death-bed: ‘When a tree is falling, I have seen the laborers, by a trivial jerk with a rope, throw it upon the spot where they would wish it should lie. Divines, understanding this text too literally, pretend by a little interposition in the article of death, to regulate a person’s everlasting happiness. I fancy the allusion will hardly countenance their presumption’: William Shenstone, ‘On Religion’, in Works in Verse and Prose, 2 vols. (1764), II, 297.
1138. cantharides: The pharmacopoeial name of the dried beetle Cantharis vesicatoria or Spanish Fly. Used externally as a rubefacient and vesicant; internally as a diuretic and stimulant to the genito-urinary organs, etc. Formerly considered an aphrodisiac (OED, 2).
1139. one of his friends: William Bowles.
1140. a certain literary friend: Dr Joseph Warton.
1141. rest… for the people of God: Cf. Hebrews 4:9.
1142. sarcocele: A hard fleshy enlargement of the testicle (OED).
1143. Constance, Catharine, and Isabella, in Shakspeare: Characters in, respectively, King John, Henry VIII and Measure for Measure.
1144. a common friend: Edmond Malone.
1145. the election… fictitious qualifications: In the unreformed House of Commons qualifications of various kinds, including property qualifications, were sought from both candidates and electors to ensure that only men of a certain standing might either vote for or become Members of Parliament (see Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1765–9), I, 164–74). Boswell is probably referring to the notorious practice whereby men were fraudulently granted freeholds (that is to say, the contract transferring the property contained an agreement to reconvey the property back to the original owner) in order temporarily to qualify them to vote (ibid., I, 167). By this expedient large landowners might create a number of electors in their own interest at the time of an election. This would certainly amount to ‘unconstitutional influence’.
1146. the sentence as it now stands: ‘… he is happy to be enabled to add Dr. Johnson to the number of those, whose kindness for the man, and good wishes for the translation, call for his sincerest gratitude’ – William Mickle (tr.), The Lusiad, 3rd edn, 2 vols. (1798), I, cccxxxi–ii.
1147. To-day… Milton:JohnMilton, Sonnet xxi,‘Cyriack, whose grandsire on the royal bench’ (composed? 1655, first published 1673), ll. 5–6.
1148. his name-sake… the Rules of his Club: Ben Jonson composed the ‘Leges Conviviales’ which were engraved over the mantelpiece in the Apollo of the Old Devil Tavern at Temple Bar, which he used as his club room.
1149. consilium medicum: Medical advice.
1150. squills: A preparation made from the bulb or root of the sea-onion or other related plant (OED).
1151. the triumph… over aristocratical influence: In January 1784 the ministry had been in a minority of 39 (in a House of 425); by April, and following a general election, they were in a majority of 97 (in a House of 369). On 30 March 1784 Horace Walpole, commenting on this reversal, noted its popularity: ‘The nation is intoxicated, and has poured in addresses of thanks to the crown for exerting the prerogative against the palladium of the people.’ The exertion of prerogative had been the dissolution of Parliament on 25 March 1784.
1152. the fervent prayer of this righteous man: Cf. James 5:16.
1153. One of the company: James Boswell.
1154. a gentleman of eminence: George Steevens.
1155. On Tuesday… not to appoint that gentleman minister: A reference to the mobbing of George III when he opened Parliament that day. Other witnesses suggest that the mob was favourable to Fox.
1156. Sit… Langtono: May my soul be with Langton.
1157. a very eminent friend: Edmund Burke.
1158. image in Bacon… shot by a child: In fact an image of Robert Boyle’s, not Bacon’s, and quoted in a compressed form by Johnson in the fourth edition of his Dictionary under crossbow. The passage occurs in the ‘Preface’ to Boyle’s Some Considerations About the Reconcileableness of Reason and Religion (1675), and reads, ‘[T]here are some arguments, which being clearly built upon sense, or evident experiments, need borrow no assistance from the refutation of any of the proposers or approvers and may, I think, be fitly enough compared to arrows shot out of a cross-bow, and bullets shot out of a gun, which have the same strength, and pierce equally, whether they be discharged by a child, or a strong man. But then, there are other ratiocinations, which either do, or are supposed to depend, in some measure, upon the judgment and skill of those, that make the observations, whereon they are grounded, and their ability to discern truth from counterfeits, and solid things from those, that are but superficial ones: and these may be compared to arrows shot out of a long-bow, which make much the greater impres sion, by being shot by a strong and skilful archer’ (Robert Boyle, Works. A New Edition, 6 vols. (1772), IV, 156).