[264] William, the first Viscount Grimston.  BOSWELL.  Swift thus introduces him in his lines On Poetry, A Rhapsody:—­

     ’When death had finished Blackmore’s reign,
     The leaden crown devolved to thee,
     Great poet of the hollow tree.’

Mr. Nichols, in a note on this, says that Grimston ’wrote the play when a boy, to be acted by his schoolfellows.’  Swift’s Works (1803), xi. 297.  Two editions were published apparently by Grimston himself, one bearing his name but no date, and the other the date of 1705 but no name.  By 1705 Grimston was 22 years old—­no longer a boy.  The former edition was published by Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys, Fleet-street, and the latter by the same bookseller at the Middle Temple Gate.  The grossness of a young man of birth at this period is shewn by the Preface.  The third edition with the elephant on the tight-rope was published in 1736.  There is another illustration in which an ass is represented bearing a coronet.  Grimston’s name is not given here, but there is a dedication ‘To the Right Sensible the Lord Flame.’  Three or four notes are added, one of which is very gross.  The election was for St. Alban’s, for which borough he was thrice returned.

[265] Dr. T. Campbell records (Diary, p. 69) that ’Boswell asked Johnson if he had never been under the hands of a dancing master.  “Aye, and a dancing mistress too,” says the Doctor; “but I own to you I never took a lesson but one or two; my blind eyes showed me I could never make a proficiency."’

[266] See vol. ii. p.286.  BOSWELL.

[267] Miss Burney writes of him in Feb. 1779:—­’He is a professed minority man, and very active and zealous in the opposition.  Men of such different principles as Dr. Johnson and Sir Philip cannot have much cordiality in their political debates; however, the very superior abilities of the former, and the remarkable good breeding of the latter have kept both upon good terms.’  She describes a hot argument between them, and continues:—­’Dr. Johnson pursued him with unabating vigour and dexterity, and at length, though he could not convince, he so entirely baffled him, that Sir Philip was self-compelled to be quiet—­which, with a very good grace, he confessed.  Dr. Johnson then recollecting himself, and thinking, as he owned afterwards, that the dispute grew too serious, with a skill all his own, suddenly and unexpectedly turned it to burlesque.’  D’Arblay’s Diary, i. 192.

[268] See post, Jan. 20, 1782.

[269] See ante, ii.355.

[270] Here Johnson condescended to play upon the words Long and short.  But little did he know that, owing to Mr. Long’s reserve in his presence, he was talking thus of a gentleman distinguised amongst his acquaintance for acuteness of wit; one to whom I think the French expression, ‘Il petille d’esprit,’ is particularly He has gratified me by mentioning that he heard Dr. Johnson say, ’Sir, if I were to lose Boswell, it would be a limb amputated.’  BOSWELL.