Life of Johnson, Volume 5 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 730 pages of information about Life of Johnson, Volume 5.

Life of Johnson, Volume 5 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 730 pages of information about Life of Johnson, Volume 5.

[815] Thomas Carlyle was not fourteen when, one ’dark frosty November morning,’ he set off on foot for the University at Edinburgh—­a distance of nearly one hundred miles.  Froude’s Carlyle, i. 22.

[816] Ante, p. 290.

[817] Of the Nature and Use of Lots:  a Treatise historicall and theologicall. By Thomas Gataker.  London, 1619. The Spirituall Watch, or Christ’s Generall Watch-word. By Thomas Gataker.  London, 1619.

[818] See ante, p. 264.

[819] He visited it with the Thrales on Sept. 22, 1774, when returning from his tour to Wales, and with Boswell in 1776 (ante, ii. 451).

[820] Mr. Croker says that ’this, no doubt, alludes to Jacob Bryant, the secretary or librarian at Blenheim, with whom Johnson had had perhaps some coolness now forgotten.’  The supposition of the coolness seems needless.  With so little to go upon, guessing is very hazardous.

[821] Topham Beauclerk, who had married the Duke’s sister, after she had been divorced for adultery with him from her first husband Viscount Bolingbroke. Ante, ii. 246, note 1.

[822] See post, Dempster’s Letter of Feb. 16, 1775.

[823] See ante, ii. 340, where Johnson said that ’if he were a gentleman of landed property, he would turn out all his tenants who did not vote for the candidate whom he supported.’

[824] See ante, iii. 378.

[825] ’They have opinions which cannot be ranked with superstition, because they regard only natural effects.  They expect better crops of grain by sowing their seed in the moon’s increase.  The moon has great influence in vulgar philosophy.  In my memory it was a precept annually given in one of the English almanacks, “to kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the better in boiling."’ Johnson’s Works, ix. 104.  Bacon, in his Natural History(No.892) says:—­’For the increase of moisture, the opinion received is, that seeds will grow soonest if they be set in the increase of the moon.’

[826] The question which Johnson asked with such unusual warmth might have been answered, ‘by sowing the bent, or couch grass.’  WALTER SCOTT.

[827] See ante, i. 484.

[828] See ante, i. 483.

[829] It is remarkable, that Dr. Johnson should have read this account of some of his own peculiar habits, without saying any thing on the subject, which I hoped he would have done.  BOSWELL.  See ante, p. 128, note 2, and iv. 183, where Boswell ’observed he must have been a bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his peculiarities.’

[830] In this he was very unlike Swift, who, in his youth, when travelling in England, ’generally chose to dine with waggoners, hostlers, and persons of that rank; and he used to lie at night in houses where he found written of the door Lodgings for a penny.  He delighted in scenes of low life.’  Lord Orrery’s Swift, ed. 1752, p. 33.

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Life of Johnson, Volume 5 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.