James Boswell

“ When he comes to bear testimony, and aims a shaft at any man's character, the bow that he draws is drawn with the weakness of the hand of a worn-out and shameless profligate.
Mr. Shepherd quotes an unpublished letter of Boswell to Wilkes, dated Rome, April 22, 1765, to show 'that the two men had become familiars, not only long before Wilkes's famous meeting with Dr. Johnson was brought about, but before even the friendship of Boswell himself with Johnson had been consolidated.' It needs no unpublished letters to show that. It must be known to every attentive reader of Boswell. ”

“ PRACTICE. 'He does not wear out his principles in practice'
(Beauclerk) , iii. 282.
PRAISE. 'All censure of a man's self is oblique praise,' iii. 323;
'I know nobody who blasts by praise as you do,' iv. 8l;
'Praise and money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind,' iv. 242;
'There is no sport in mere praise, when people are all of a mind,'
v. 273.
PRAISES. 'He who praises everybody praises nobody,' iii. 225, n. 3.
PRANCE. 'Sir, if a man has a mind to prance he must study at
Christ Church and All Souls,' ii. 67, n. 2. ”

“ MEANLY. 'Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea,' iii. 265.
MEMORY. 'The true art of memory is the art of attention,' iv. 126, n. 6.
MEN. 'Johnson was willing to take men as they are' (Boswell) , iii. ”

“ Johnson did not generally 'print his name.' He published anonymously his translation of Lobos Voyage to Abyssinia; London; The Life of Savage; The Rambler, and The Idler, both in separate numbers and when collected in volumes; Rasselas; The False Alarm; Falkland's Islands; The Patriot;, and Taxation no Tyranny; (when these four pamphlets were collected in a volume he published them with the title of Political Tracts, by the Authour of the Rambler) . ”

“ In the copy of the first edition in the Bodleian Library, which had belonged to Gough the antiquary, there is written in his hand, as a foot-note to 'neighbours': 'There is now, as I have heard, a body of men not less decent or virtuous than the Scottish Council, longing to melt the lead of an English Cathedral. What they shall melt, it were just that they should swallow.' It can scarcely be doubted that this is the suppressed passage. The English Cathedral to which Johnson refers was, I believe, Lichfield. ”

“ Nicholas's, Worcester, and author of The Life of Richard Baxter of Kidderminster, Preacher and Prisoner (London, Kent & Co., 1887) , kindly informs me, in answer to my inquiries, that he believes that Johnson may allude to the following passage in the fourth chapter of Baxter's Reformed Pastor:—
'I think the Magistrate should be the hedge of the Church. I am against the two extremes of universal license and persecuting tyranny. The Magistrate must be allowed the use of his reason, to know the cause, and follow his own judgment, not punish men against it. ”

“ TRUTH. 'I considered myself as entrusted with a certain portion of truth,' iv. 65; 'Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it,' iv. 12; 'Nobody has a right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by telling what is not truth,' iii. ”

“ I thought I had to say.
'You will please to remember that I once asked you to receive an apprentice, who is a scholar, and has always lived in a clergyman's house, but who is mishapen, though I think not so as to hinder him at the case. It will be expected that I should answer his Friend who has hitherto maintained him, whether I can help him to a place. He can give no money, but will be kept in cloaths. ”

“ FISHES. 'If a man comes to look for fishes you cannot blame him if he does not attend to fowls,' v. 221.
FLATTERERS. 'The fellow died merely from want of change among his flatterers,' v. 396, n. 1.
FLATTERY. 'Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow it so freely,' iv. 341.
FLEA. 'A flea has taken you such a time that a lion must have served you a twelvemonth,' ii. 194; 'There is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea,' iv. ”

“ WHINE. 'A man knows it must be so and submits. It will do him no good to whine,' ii. 107.
WHORE. 'They teach the morals of a whore and the manners of a
dancing-master,' i. 266;
'The woman's a whore, and there's an end on't,' ii. 247.
See SLUT.
WHY, SIR. 'Why, Sir, as to the good or evil of card-playing—,' iii. 23.
WIG. 'In England any man who wears a sword and a powdered wig is ashamed to be illiterate,' iii. 254.
WILDS. See BRIARS.
WIND. 'The noise of the wind was all its own' (Boswell) , v. 407. ”

“ BURROW. 'The chief advantage of London is that a man is always so near his burrow' (Meynell) , iii. 379.
BURSTS. 'He has no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions,' iv. 27
BUSINESS. 'It is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a business of it' (Franklin) , iv. 97 n. 3.
Buz. 'That is the buz of the theatre,' v. 46.
C. CABBAGE. 'Such a woman might be cut out of a cabbage, if there was a skilful artificer,' v. 231.
CALCULATE. 'Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate,' iii. 49. ”

“ If, for instance, he believes himself to be Macbeth he has committed murder, he is a vile assassin who, in violation of the laws of hospitality as well as of other principles, has imbrued his hands in the blood of his King while he was sleeping under his roof. ”

“ But his philosophy had been formed in the school of Locke, his divinity in that of Limborch and Le Clerc; in a long and laborious life several generations of pupils were taught to think and even to write; his lessons rescued the Academy of Lausanne from Calvinistic prejudice; and he had the rare merit of diffusing a more liberal spirit among the clergy and people of the Pays de Vaud.' —Memoirs of Edward Gibbon, ed. 1827, i. 66.
The new pavement in London. ”

“ Mr. Richard Herne Shepherd, in Watford's Antiquarian for January, 1887, p. 34, asserts that the actual words which Johnson used when he told Garrick that he would no longer frequent his Green Room were indecent; so indecent that Mr. Shepherd can only venture to satisfy those whom he calls students by informing them of them privately. For proof of this charge against the man whose boast it was that 'obscenity had always been repressed in his company' (ante, iv. 295) he brings forward John Wilkes. ”

“ Henry Viscount Cornbury, who was called up to the House of Peers by the title of Lord Hyde, in the lifetime of his father, Henry Earl of Rochester, by a codicil to his will, dated Aug. 10, 1751, left divers MSS. of his great grandfather, Edward Earl of Clarendon, to Trustees, with a direction that the money to arise from the sale or publication thereof, should be employed as a beginning of a fund for supporting a Manage or Academy for riding and other useful exercises in Oxford; a plan of this sort having been also recommended by Lord Clarendon in his Dialogue on Education. ”

“ I will try to take some more care but can promise nothing; when I am told there is a sheet or two I order it away. You will find it sometimes close; when I make up any myself, which never happens but when I have nobody with me, I generally clip it close, but one cannot always be on the watch.
'I am Sir, Your most, &c.
'SAM. JOHNSON.'
These letters refer to the printing of the Dictionary, of which Dodsley and Millar were two among the proprietors, and Strahan the printer. Francis Stuart or Stewart was one of Johnson's amanuenses (ante, i. 187) . ”

“ MR. BOSWELL TO BISHOP PERCY.
'Feb. 9, 1788.
'I am ashamed that I have yet seven years to write of his life. ... Mrs. (Thrale) Piozzi's Collection of his letters will be out soon. ... I saw a sheet at the printing-house yesterday... It is wonderful what avidity there still is for everything relative to Johnson. I dined at Mr. Malone's on Wednesday with Mr. W. G. Hamilton, Mr. Flood, Mr. Windham, Mr. Courtenay, &c.; and Mr. Hamilton observed very well what a proof it was of Johnson's merit that we had been talking of him all the afternoon.' —Nichols's Literary History, vii. 309. ”

“ The story, indeed, as it is told by Boswell, is not too trustworthy, for he had it through Hume from Garrick. As it reaches Mr. Shepherd it comes from Garrick through Wilkes. Garrick, no doubt, as Johnson says (ante, v. 391) , was, as a companion, 'restrained by some principle,' and had 'some delicacy of feeling.' Nevertheless, in his stories, he was, we may be sure, no more on oath than a man is in lapidary inscriptions (ante, ii. 407) . ”

“ END. 'I am sure I am right, and there's an end on't' (Boswell in
imitation of Johnson) , iii. 301;
'We know our will is free, and there's an end on't,' ii. 82;
'What the boys get at one end they lose at the other,' ii. 407.
ENDLESS. 'Endless labour to be wrong,' iii. 158, n. 3.
ENGLAND. 'It is not so much to be lamented that Old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it,' iii. 78.
ENGLISHMAN. 'An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has
nothing to say,' iv. 15;
'We value an Englishman highly in this country, and yet Englishmen
are not rare in it,' iii. 10. ”

“ GENIUS. 'A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself,' i. 381.
GENTEEL. 'No man can say "I'll be genteel,"' iii. 53.
Gentilhomme. 'Un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme' (Boswell) , i. 492.
GENTLE. 'When you have said a man of gentle manners you have said enough,' iv. 28.
GENTLEMAN. 'Don't you consider, Sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman?' iii. 268.
GEORGE. 'Tell the rest of that to George' (R. O. Cambridge) , iv. 196, n. 3.
GHOST. 'If I did, I should frighten the ghost,' v. 38.
GLARE. 'Gave a distinguished glare to tyrannic rage' (Tom Davies) , ii. 368, n. 3. ”

“ How poor some of the students were is shown by the following anecdote, told by the College Porter, who had to collect the crowns. 'I am just come,' he said, 'from a poor student indeed. I went for the window croon; he cried, begged, and prayed not to pay it, saying, "he brought but a croon to keep him all the session, and he had spent sixpence of it; so I have got only four and sixpence."' His father, a labourer, who owned three cows, 'had sold one to dress his son for the University, and put the lamented croon in his pocket to purchase coals. All the lower students study by fire-light. ”

“ SCOTCHMEN. 'Droves of Scotchmen would come up and attest anything for the honour of Scotland,' ii. 311; 'I shall suppose Scotchmen made necessarily, and Englishmen by choice,' v. 48; 'It was remarked of Mallet that he was the only Scot whom Scotchmen did not commend,' ii. 159, n. 3; 'We have an inundation of Scotchmen' (Wilkes) , iv. 101.
SCOTLAND. 'A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not
love Scotland better than truth,' ii. 311, n. 4; v. 389, n. 1;
'Describe the inn, Sir? Why, it was so bad that Boswell wished to
be in Scotland,' iii. 51 ”

“ However, take what course you will, if you be diligent you will be a scholar.'
George Strahan attended Johnson on his death-bed, and published the volume called Prayers and Meditations composed by Samuel Johnson. Ante, i. 235, n. i; iv. 376, n. 4.
William Strahan's 'affair with the University' was very likely connected with the lease of the University Printing House. From the 'Orders of the Delegates of the Press,' 1758, I have been permitted to copy the following entry, which bears a date but six days later than that of Johnson's letter. ”

“ VIVACITY. 'There is a courtly vivacity about the fellow,' ii. 465; 'Depend upon it, Sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit,' ii. 462.
Vivite. 'Vivite laeti,' i. 344, n. 4.
VOW. 'The man who cannot go to heaven without a vow may go—,' iii. 357.
W. WAG. 'Every man has some time in his life an ambition to be a wag,' iv. I, n. 2.
WAIT. 'Sir, I can wait,' iv. 21.
WALK. 'Let us take a walk from Charing Cross to Whitechapel, through,
I suppose, the greatest series of shops in the world,' ii. 218. ”

“ I was fortunate enough to find that the purchasers, with but one exception, were mindful of what Boswell so well describes as 'the general courtesy of literature [1] ,' and were ready to place their treasures at my service. To one of them, Mr. Frederick Barker, of 43, Rowan Road, Brook Green, I am still more indebted, for he entrusted me not only with the original letters which he had just bought, but also with some others that he had previously possessed. His Johnsonian collection is one of unusual interest. ”

“ NATURE. 'All the rougher powers of nature except thunder were in motion,' iii. 455; 'You are so grossly ignorant of human nature as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles without having good practice,' v. ”

“ He says: 'The great and glorious part which Nottingham held in the annals of racing this year, arose from the prize of the King's plate, which was to be contended for by the two horses which everybody I heard speak considered as undoubtedly the best in England, and perhaps equal to any that had ever been known, Childers alone excepted. Their names were Careless and Atlas.....There was a story in circulation that Atlas, on account of his size and clumsiness, had been banished to the cart-breed ”

“ It was to Oxford that a copy of the pamphlet was to be franked to Johnson. That he was there at the time is shown by a letter from him in Mrs. Piozzi's Collection (vol. i. p. 212) , dated 'University College, Oxford, March 3, 1775.' Writing to her, evidently from Bolt Court, on February 3, he had said: 'My pamphlet has not gone on at all' (ib. i. 211) . Mrs. Aston (or rather Miss Aston) is mentioned ante, ii. 466.
XI A letter about 'copy' and a book by Professor Watson, dated Oct. 14, 1776'. [In the possession of Mr. H. Fawcett, of 14, King Street, Covent Garden.] ”