[198] See post, June 12 and 15, 1784.

[199] He adopted it from indolence.  Writing on Aug. 1, 1780, after mentioning the failure of his application to Lord Westcote, he continues:—­’There is an ingenious scheme to save a day’s work, or part of a day, utterly defeated.  Then what avails it to be wise?  The plain and the artful man must both do their own work.—­But I think I have got a life of Dr. Young.’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 173.

[200] Gent.  Mag. vol. lv. p. 10.  BOSWELL.

[201] By a letter to Johnson from Croft, published in the later editions of the Lives, it seems that Johnson only expunged one passage.  Croft says:—­’Though I could not prevail on you to make any alteration, you insisted on striking out one passage, because it said, that, if I did not wish you to live long for your sake, I did for the sake of myself and the world.’ Works viii.458.

[202] The Late Mr. Burke.  MALONE.

[203] See_post_, June 2, 1781.

[204] Johnson’s Works, viii 440.

[205] Ib. p.436

[206] ‘Eheu! fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni.’  ’How swiftly glide our flying years!’ FRANCIS.  Horace, Odes, ii.14. i.

[207] The late Mr. James Ralph told Lord Macartney, that he passed an evening with Dr. Young at Lord Melcombe’s (then Mr. Dodington) at Hammersmith.  The Doctor happening to go out into the garden, Mr. Dodington observed to him, on his return, that it was a dreadful night, as in truth it was, there being a violent storm of rain and wind.  ’No, Sir, (replied the Doctor) it is a very fine night.  The LORD is abroad.’  BOSWELL.

[208] See ante, ii.96, and iii.251; and Boswell’s Hebrides, Sept. 30.

[209] ’An ardent judge, who zealous in his trust, With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just.’  Pope’s Essay on Criticism, l.677.

[210] Works, viii.459.  Though the Life of Young is by Croft, yet the critical remarks are by Johnson.

[211] Ib. p.460.

[212] Johnson refers to Chambers’s Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, which was ridiculed in the Heroic Epistle.  See post, under May 8, 1781, and Boswell’s Hebrides, Sept. 13.

[213] Boswell refers to the death of Narcissa in the third of the Night Thoughts.  While he was writing the Life of Johnson Mrs. Boswell was dying of consumption in (to quote Young’s words)

     The rigid north,
     Her native bed, on which bleak
     Boreas blew.’

She died nearly two years before The Life was published.

[214] Proverbs, xviii.14.

[215] See Boswell’s Hebrides, Aug. 16.

[216] See vol. i. page 133.  BOSWELL.