unreasonable and irregular possession. Mind your own affairs, and leave the Corsicans to theirs. I am, dear sir, "Your most humble servant, "London, Aug. 21, 1766." "SAM. JOHNSON." 66 TO DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON. "MUCH ESTEEMED AND DEAR SIR, “ Auchinleck, Nov. 6, 1766. "I PLEAD not guilty to1********* *************** "Having thus, I hope, cleared myself of the charge brought against me, I presume you will not be displeased if I escape the punishment which you have decreed for me unheard. If you have discharged the arrows of criticism against an innocent man, you must rejoice to find they have missed him, or have not been pointed so as to wound him. "To talk no longer in allegory, I am, with all deference, going to offer a few observations in defence of my Latin, which you have found fault with. "You think I should have used spei primæ, instead of spei altera. Spes is, indeed, often used to express something on which we have a future dependence, as in Virg. Eclog. i. 1. 14. modo namque gemellos, Spem gregis, ah! silice in nudâ connixa reliquit.' and in Georg. iii. l. 473. Spemque gregemque simul," for the lambs and the sheep. Yet it is also used to express any thing on which we have a present de 1 The passage omitted explained the transaction to which the preceding letter had alluded. pendence, and is well applied to a man of distinguished influence, ―our support, our refuge, our præsidium, as Horace calls Mæcenas. So, in Æneid xii. 1. 57, Queen Amata addresses her son-in-law, Turnus :- Spes tu nunc una: and he was then no future hope, for she adds, · decus imperiumque Latini Te penes.' which might have been said of my Lord Bute some years ago. Now I consider the present Earl of Bute to be Excelsa familia de Bute spes prima;' and my Lord Mountstuart, as his eldest son, to be spes altera. So in Æneid xii. l. 168, after having mentioned Pater Æneas,' who was the present 'spes,' the reigning 'spes,' as my German friends would say, the spes prima, the poet adds, 'Et juxta Ascanius, magna spes altera Romæ.' "You think altera ungrammatical, and you tell me it should have been alteri. You must recollect, that in old times alter was declined regularly; and when the ancient fragments preserved in the Juris Civilis Fontes were written, it was certainly declined in the way that I use it. This, I should think, may protect a lawyer who writes altera in a dissertation upon part of his own science. But as I could hardly venture to quote fragments of old law to so classical a man as Mr. Johnson, I have not made an accurate search into these remains, to find examples of what I am able to produce in poetical composition. We find in Plaut. Rudens, act iii. scene 4, "Nam huic alteræ patria quæ sit profecto nescio.' Plautus is, to be sure, an old comick writer; but in the days of Scipio and Lelius, we find Terent. Heautontim. act ii. scene 3. VOL. II. M hoc ipsa in itinere alteræ Dum narrat, forte audivi.' "You doubt my having authority for using genus absolutely, for what we call family, that is, for illustrious extraction. Now I take genus in Latin, to have much the same signification with birth in English; both in their primary meaning expressing simply descent, but both made to stand xar xn, for noble descent. Genus is thus used in Hor. lib. ii. Sat. v. 1. 8. 'Et genus et virtus, nisi cum re, vilior algâ est.' And in lib. i. Epist. vi. 1. 37. • Et genus et formam Regina Pecunia donat.' And in the celebrated contest between Ajax and Ulysses, Ovid's Metamorph. lib. xiii. l. 140. 'Nam genus et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco.' "Homines nullius originis, for nullis orti majoribus, or nullo loco nati, is, 'you are afraid, barbarous.' Origo is used to signify extraction, as in Virg. Æneid i. 286, "Nascetur pulchrâ Trojanus origine Cæsar.' and in Æneid x. 1. 618, 'Ille tamen nostrâ deducit origine nomen.' and as nullus is used for obscure, is it not in the genius of the Latin language to write nullius originis, for obscure extraction? "I have defended myself as well as I could. 66 Might I venture to differ from you with regard to the utility of vows? I am sensible that it would be very dangerous to make vows rashly, and without a due consideration. But I cannot help thinking that they may often be of great advantage to one of a variable judgement and irregular inclinations. I always remember a passage in one of your letters to our Italian friend Baretti; where talking of the monastick life, you say you do not wonder that serious men should put themselves under the protection of a religious order, when they have found how unable they are to take care of themselves. For my own part, without affecting to be a Socrates, I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil Principle; and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude. * * * * * * * * "I am ever, with the highest veneration, "Your affectionate humble servant, It appears from Johnson's diary, that he was this year at Mr. Thrale's, from before Midsummer till after Michaelmas, and that he afterwards passed a month at Oxford. He had then contracted a great intimacy with Mr. Chambers of that University, afterwards Sir Robert Chambers, one of the Judges in India. He published nothing this year in his own name; but the noble dedication* to the King, of Gwyn's "London and Westminster Improved," was written by him; and he furnished the Preface,† and several of the pieces, which compose a volume of Miscellanies by Mrs. Anna Williams, the blind lady who had an asylum in his house. Of these, there are his "Epitaph on Philips ;"* ;"*"Translation of a Latin Epitaph on 1 [The following account of this publication is given by a lady well acquainted with Mrs. Williams: "As to her poems, she many years attempted to publish them: the half-crowns she had got towards the publication, she confessed to me, went for necessaries, and that the greatest pain she ever felt Sir Thomas Hanmer ;+" "Friendship, an Ode ;*" and, "The Ant,*" a paraphrase from the Proverbs, of which I have a copy in his own hand-writing; and, from internal evidence, I ascribe to him, "To Miss on her giving the Authour a gold and silk net-work Purse of her own weaving;t" and "The happy Life.+"-Most of the pieces in this volume have evidently received additions from his superiour pen, particularly " Verses to Mr. Richardson, on his Sir Charles Grandison;" "The Excursion;" "Reflections on a Grave digging in Westminster Abbey." There is in this collection a poem, "On the death of Stephen Grey, the Electrician;*" which, on reading it, appeared to me to be undoubtedly Johnson's. I asked Mrs. Williams whether it was not his. "Sir (said she, with some warmth), I wrote that poem before I had the honour of Dr. Johnson's acquaintance." I, however, was so much impressed with my first notion, that I mentioned it to Johnson, repeating, at the same time, what Mrs. Williams had said. His answer was, "It is true, sir, that she wrote it before she was acquainted with me; but she has not told you that I wrote it all over again, except two lines." "The Fountains,” a beautiful little Fairy tale in prose, written with exquisite simplicity, is one of Johnson's productions; and I cannot with was from the appearance of defrauding her subscribers: 'but what can I do? the Doctor [Johnson] always puts me off with 'Well, we'll think about it,' and Goldsmith says, 'Leave it to me." However, two of her friends, under her directions, made a new subscription at a crown, the whole price of the work, and in a very little time raised sixty pounds. Mrs. Carter was applied to by Mrs. Williams's desire, and she, with the utmost activity and kindness, procured a long list of names. At length the work was published, in which is a fine written but gloomy tale of Dr. Johnson. The money Mrs. Williams had various uses for, and a part of it was funded." By this publication Mrs. Williams got 150l. M.] |