[553] This Mr. Chalmers thought was George Steevens.  CROKER.  D’Israeli (Curiosities of Literature, ed. 1834, vi. 76) describes Steevens as guilty of ’an unparalleled series of arch deception and malicious ingenuity.’  He gives curious instances of his literary impostures.  See ante, iii. 281, and post, May 15, 1784.

[554] If this be Lord Mansfield, Boswell must use late in the sense of in retirement; for Mansfield was living when the Life of Johnson was published.  He retired in 1788.  Johnson in 1772, said that he had never been in his company (ante, ii. 158).  The fact that Mansfield is mentioned in the previous paragraph adds to the probability that he is meant.

[555] See ante, ii. 318.

[556] In Scotland, Johnson spoke of Mansfield’s ‘splendid talents.’  Boswell’s Hebrides, under Nov. 11.

[557] ’I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.’ 2 _ Henry IV_, act i. sc. 2.

[558] Knowing as well as I do what precision and elegance of oratory his Lordship can display, I cannot but suspect that his unfavourable appearance in a social circle, which drew such animadversions upon him, must be owing to a cold affectation of consequence, from being reserved and stiff.  If it be so, and he might be an agreeable man if he would, we cannot be sorry that he misses his aim.  BOSWELL.  Wedderburne, afterwards Lord Loughborough, is mentioned (ante, ii. 374), and again in Murphy’s Life of Johnson, p. 43, as being in company with Johnson and Foote.  Boswell also has before (ante, i. 387) praised the elegance of his oratory.  Henry Mackenzie (Life of John Home, i. 56) says that Wedderburne belonged to a club at the British Coffee-house, of which Garrick, Smollett, and Dr. Douglas were members.

[559] Boswell informed the people of Scotland in the Letter that he addressed to them in 1785 (p. 29), that ’now that Dr. Johnson is gone to a better world, he (Boswell) bowed the intellectual knee to Lord Thurlow.’  See post, June 22, 1784.

[560] Boswell’s Hebrides, Oct. 27.

[561]

     ’Charged with light summer-rings his fingers sweat,
      Unable to support a gem of weight.’ 
     DRYDEN.  Juvenal, Satires, i. 29.

[562] He had published a series of seventy Essays under the title of The Hypochondriack in the London Magazine from 1777 to 1783.

[563] Juvenal, Satires, x. 365.  The common reading, however, is ‘Nullum numen habes,’ &c.  Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 218) records this saying, but with a variation. ’"For,” says Mr. Johnson, “though I do not quite agree with the proverb, that Nullum numen adest si sit prudentia, yet we may very well say, that Nullum numen adest, ni sit prudentia."’

[564] It has since appeared.  BOSWELL.