‘In arms,’ wrote Parr, ’were all the Johnsonians:  Malone, Steevens, Sir W. Scott, Windham, and even Fox, all in arms.  The epithet was cold.  They do not understand it, and I am a Scholar, not a Belles-Lettres man.’

Parr had wished to pass over all notice of Johnson’s poetical character.  To this, Malone said, none of his friends of the Literary Club would agree.  He pointed out also that Parr had not noticed ’that part of Johnson’s genius, which placed him on higher ground than perhaps any other quality that can be named—­the universality of his knowledge, the promptness of his mind in producing it on all occasions in conversation, and the vivid eloquence with which he clothed his thoughts, however suddenly called upon.’  Parr, regardless of Johnson’s rule that ’in lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath’ (ante, ii. 407), replied, that if he mentioned his conversation he should have to mention also his roughness in contradiction, &c.  As for the epithet probabili, he ’never reflected upon it without almost a triumphant feeling in its felicity.’  Nevertheless he would change it into ’poetae sententiarum et verborum ponderibus admirabili.’  Yet these words, ’energetic and sonorous’ though they were, ’fill one with a secret and invincible loathing, because they tend to introduce into the epitaph a character of magnificence.’  With every fresh objection he rose in importance.  He wrote for the approbation of real scholars of generations yet unborn.  ’That the epitaph was written by such or such a man will, from the publicity of the situation, and the popularity of the subject, be long remembered.’  Johnstone’s Life of Parr, iv. 694-712.  No objection seems to have been raised to the five pompous lines of perplexing dates and numerals in which no room is found even for Johnson’s birth and birth-place.

‘After I had written the epitaph,’ wrote Parr to a friend, ’Sir Joshua Reynolds told me there was a scroll.  I was in a rage.  A scroll!  Why, Ned, this is vile modern contrivance.  I wanted one train of ideas.  What could I do with the scroll?  Johnson held it, and Johnson must speak in it.  I thought of this, his favourite maxim, in the Life of Milton, [Johnson’s Works, vii. 77],

    “[Greek:  Otti toi en megaroisi kakon t agathon te tetuktai.].”

In Homer [Odyssey, iv. 392] you know—­and shewing the excellence of Moral Philosophy.  There Johnson and Socrates agree.  Mr. Seward, hearing of my difficulty, and no scholar, suggested the closing line in the Rambler [ante, i. 226, note 1]; had I looked there I should have anticipated the suggestion.  It is the closing line in Dionysius’s Periegesis,

“[Greek:  Anton ek makaron antaxios eiae amoibae.].”

I adopted it, and gave Seward the praise.  “Oh,” quoth Sir William Scott, “[Greek:  makaron] is Heathenish, and the Dean and Chapter will hesitate.”  “The more fools they,” said I. But to prevent disputes I have altered it.