In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college.' Johnson's Works, viii. 15, 22.
[231] Florizel and Perdita is Garrick's version of The Winters Tale. He cut down the five acts to three. The line, which is misquoted, is in one of Perdita's songs:--
'That giant ambition we never can dread; Our roofs are too low for so lofty a head; Content and sweet cheerfulness open our door, They smile with the simple, and feed with the poor.'
Act ii. sc. 1.
[232] Horace. Sat. i. 4. 34.
[233] See ante, ii. 66.
[234] Horace Walpole told Malone that 'he was about twenty-two [twenty-four] years old when his father retired; and that he remembered his offering one day to read to him, finding that time hung heavy on his hands. "What," said he, "will you read, child?" Mr. Walpole, considering that his father had long been engaged in public business, proposed to read some history. "No," said he, "don't read history to me; that can't be true."' Prior's Malone, p. 387. See also post, April 30, 1773, and Oct. 10, 1779.
[235] See ante, i 75, post, Oct 12, 1779, and Boswell's Hebrides, August 15, 1773. Boswell himself had met Whitefield; for mentioning him in his Letter to the People of Scotland (p. 25), he adds:--'Of whose pious and animated society I had some share.' Southey thus describes Whitefield in his Life of Wesley (i. 126):--'His voice excelled both in melody and compass, and its fine modulations were happily accompanied by that grace of action which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which has been said to be the chief requisite of an orator. An ignorant man described his eloquence oddly but strikingly, when he said that Mr. Whitefield preached like a lion. So strange a comparison conveyed no unapt a notion of the force and vehemence and passion of that oratory which awed the hearers, and made them tremble like Felix before the apostle.' Benjamin Franklin writes (Memoirs, i. 163):--'Mr. Whitefield's eloquence had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I myself was an instance.' He happened to be present at a sermon which, he perceived, was to finish with a collection for an object which had not his approbation. 'I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's dish, gold and all.'
[236] 'What an idea may we not form of an interview between such a scholar and philosopher as Mr. Johnson, and such a legislatour and general as Paoli.' Boswell's Corsica, p. 198.
[237] Mr. Stewart, who in 1768 was sent on a secret mission to Paoli, in his interesting report says:--'Religion seems to sit easy upon Paoli, and notwithstanding what his historian Boswell relates, I take him to be very free in his notions that way. This I suspect both from the strain of his conversation, and from what I have learnt of his conduct towards the clergy and monks.' Fitzmaurice's Shelburne, ii. 158. See post, April 14, 1775, where Johnson said:--'Sir, there is a great cry about infidelity; but there are in reality very few infidels.' Yet not long before he had complained of an 'inundation of impiety.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 30, 1773.
[238] I suppose Johnson said atmosphere. CROKER. In Humphry Clinker, in the Letter of June 2, there is, however, a somewhat similar use of the word. Lord Bute is described as 'the Caledonian luminary, that lately blazed so bright in our hemisphere; methinks, at present, it glimmers through a fog.' A star, however, unlike a cloud, may pass from one hemisphere to the other.
[239] See post, under Nov. 5, 1775. Hannah More, writing in 1782 (Memoirs, i. 242), says:--'Paoli will not talk in English, and his French is mixed with Italian. He speaks no language with purity.'
[240] Horace Walpole writes:--'Paoli had as much ease as suited a prudence that seemed the utmost effort of a wary understanding, and was so void of anything remarkable in his aspect, that being asked if I knew who it was, I judged him a Scottish officer (for he was sandy-complexioned and in regimentals), who was cautiously awaiting the moment of promotion.' Memoirs of the Reign of George III, iii. 387
[241] Boswell introduced this subject often. See post, Oct. 26, 1769, April 15, 1778, March 14, 1781, and June 23, 1784. Like Milton's fallen angels, he 'found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.' Paradise Lost, ii. 561.
[242] 'To this wretched being, himself by his own misconduct lashed out of human society, the stage was indebted for several very pure and pleasing entertainments; among them, Love in a Village, The Maid of the Mill.' Forster's Goldsmith, ii. 136. 'When,' says Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 168), 'Mr. Bickerstaff's flight confirmed the report of his guilt, and my husband said in answer to Johnson's astonishment, that he had long been a suspected man: "By those who look close to the ground dirt will be seen, Sir, (was his lofty reply); I hope I see things from a greater distance."' In the Garrick Corres (i.