Johnson on an actor’s transformation.

(Vol. iv, p. 244.)

Boswell in his Remarks on the Profession of a Player (Essay ii), first printed in the London Magazine for 1770, says:—­

’I remember to have heard the most illustrious authour of this age say:  “If, Sir, Garrick believes himself to be every character that he represents he is a madman, and ought to be confined.  Nay, Sir, he is a villain, and ought to be hanged.  If, for instance, he believes himself to be Macbeth he has committed murder, he is a vile assassin who, in violation of the laws of hospitality as well as of other principles, has imbrued his hands in the blood of his King while he was sleeping under his roof.  If, Sir, he has really been that person in his own mind, he has in his own mind been as guilty as Macbeth.” ’—­Nichols’s Literary History, ed. 1848, vii. 373.

Sir John Flayer ‘On the Asthma.’

(Vol. iv, p. 353.)

Johnson, writing from Ashbourne to Dr. Brocklesby on July 20, 1784, says:  ’I am now looking into Floyer who lived with his asthma to almost his ninetieth year.’  Mr. Samuel Timmins, the author of Dr. Johnson in Birmingham, informs me that he and two friends of his lately found in Lichfield a Lending Book of the Cathedral Library.  Among the entries for 1784 was:  ‘Sir John Floyer on the Asthma, lent to Dr. Johnson.’  Johnson, no doubt, had taken the book with him to Ashbourne.

Mr. Timmins says that the entries in this Lending Book unfortunately do not begin till about 1760 (or later).  ‘If,’ he adds, ’the earlier Lending Book could be found, it would form a valuable clue to books which Johnson may have borrowed in his youth and early manhood.’

Boswell’s expectations from Burke.

(Vol. iv, p. 223, n. 2; and p. 258, n. 2.)

Boswell, in May 1783, mentioned to Johnson his ’expectations from the interest of an eminent person then in power.’  The two following extracts from letters written by him show what some of these expectations had been.

’JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ.  TO JAMES ABERCROMBIE, ESQ., of Philadelphia.  ’July 28,1793.

’I have a great wish to see America; and I once flattered myself that I should be sent thither in a station of some importance.’  Nichols’s Literary History, vii. 317.

Boswell had written to Burke on March 3, 1778:  ’Most heartily do I rejoice that our present ministers have at last yielded to conciliation (ante, iii. 221).  For amidst all the sanguinary zeal of my countrymen, I have professed myself a friend to our fellow-subjects in America, so far as they claim an exemption from being taxed by the representatives of the King’s British subjects.  I do not perfectly agree with you; for I deny the declaratory act, and I am a warm Tory in its true constitutional sense.  I wish I were a commissioner, or one of the secretaries of the commission for the grand treaty.  I am to be in London this spring, and if his Majesty should ask me what I would choose, my answer will be to assist at the compact between Britain and America.’ —­Burke’s Correspondence, ii. 209.