[527] I have, in my Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides [p. 200, Sept. 13], fully expressed my sentiments upon this subject.  The Revolution was necessary, but not a subject for glory; because it for a long time blasted the generous feelings of Loyalty.  And now, when by the benignant effect of time the present Royal Family are established in our affections, how unwise it is to revive by celebrations the memory of a shock, which it would surely have been better that our constitution had not required.  BOSWELL.  See ante, iii. 3, and iv. 40, note 4.

[528] Johnson reviewed this book in 1756. Ante, i. 309.

[529] Johnson, four months later, wrote to one of Mrs. Thrale’s daughters:—­’Never think, my sweet, that you have arithmetick enough; when you have exhausted your master, buy books. ...  A thousand stories which the ignorant tell and believe die away at once when the computist takes them in his gripe.’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 296.  See post, April 18, 1783.

[530] See ante, p. 116; also iii. 310, where he bore the same topic impatiently when with Dr. Scott.

[531] See ante, ii. 357.

[532]

     ’See nations, slowly wise and meanly just,
     To buried merit raise the tardy bust.’ 
     Johnson’s Vanity of Human Wishes.

[533] He was perhaps, thinking of Markland. Ante, p. 161, note 3.

[534] ‘Dr. Johnson,’ writes Mrs. Piozzi, ’was no complainer of ill-usage.  I never heard him even lament the disregard shown to Irene.’ Piozzi Letters, ii. 386.  See ante, i. 200.

[535] Letter to the People of Scotland against the attempt to diminish the number of the Lords of Session, 1785.  BOSWELL.  ’By Mr. Burke’s removal from office the King’s administration was deprived of the assistance of that affluent mind, which is so universally rich that, as long as British literature and British politicks shall endure, it will be said of Edmund Burke, Regum equabat [sic] opes animis.’ p.71.

[536] Georgics, iv. 132.

[537] See ante, iii. 56, note 2.

[538] Very likely Boswell.

[539] See Boswell’s Hebrides, Sept. 22.

[540] Johnson had said:—­’Lord Chesterfield is the proudest man this day existing.’ Ante, i. 265.

[541] Lord Shelburne.  At this time he was merely holding office till a new Ministry was formed.  On April 5 he was succeeded by the Duke of Portland.  His ‘coarse manners’ were due to a neglected childhood.  In the fragment of his Autobiography he describes ’the domestic brutality and ill-usage he experienced at home,’ in the South of Ireland.  ’It cost me,’ he continues, ’more to unlearn the habits, manners, and principles which I then imbibed, than would have served to qualify me for any role whatever through life.’  Fitzmaurice’s Shelburne, i. 12, 16.