He joined not one word in the general talk.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 237. See ante, ii. 41, note 1.
[19] By Garrick.
[20] See ante, i. 201.
[21] See post, under Sept. 30, 1783.
[22] The actor. Churchill introduces him in The Rosciad (Poems, i. 16):--'Next Holland came. With truly tragic stalk, He creeps, he flies. A Hero should not walk.'
[23] In a letter written by Johnson to a friend in 1742-43, he says: 'I never see Garrick.' MALONE.
[24] See ante, ii. 227.
[25] The Wonder! A Woman keeps a Secret, by Mrs. Centlivre. Acted at Drury Lane in 1714. Revived by Garrick in 1757. Reed's Biog. Dram. iii. 420.
[26] In Macbeth.
[27] Mr. Longley was Recorder of Rochester, and father of Archbishop Longley. To the kindness of his grand-daughter, Mrs. Newton Smart, I owe the following extract from his manuscript Autobiography:--'Dr. Johnson and General Paoli came down to visit Mr. Langton, and I was asked to meet them, when the conversation took place mentioned by Boswell, in which Johnson gave me more credit for knowledge of the Greek metres than I deserved. There was some question about anapaestics, concerning which I happened to remember what Foster used to tell us at Eton, that the whole line to the Basis Anapaestica was considered but as one verse, however divided in the printing, and consequently the syllables at the end of each line were not common, as in other metres. This observation was new to Johnson, and struck him. Had he examined me farther, I fear he would have found me ignorant. Langton was a very good Greek scholar, much superior to Johnson, to whom nevertheless he paid profound deference, sometimes indeed I thought more than he deserved. The next day I dined at Langton's with Johnson, I remember Lady Rothes [Langton's wife] spoke of the advantage children now derived from the little books published purposely for their instruction. Johnson controverted it, asserting that at an early age it was better to gratify curiosity with wonders than to attempt planting truth, before the mind was prepared to receive it, and that therefore, Jack the Giant-Killer, Parisenus and Parismenus, and The Seven Champions of Christendom were fitter for them than Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Trimmer.' Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 16) says:--'Dr. Johnson used to condemn me for putting Newbery's books into children's hands. "Babies do not want," said he, "to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles, and of somewhat which can stretch and stimulate their little minds." When I would urge the numerous editions of Tommy Prudent or Goody Two Shoes; "Remember always," said he, "that the parents buy the books, and that the children never read them.'" For Johnson's visit to Rochester, see post, July, 1783.
[28] See post, beginning of 1781, after The Life of Swift, and Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 15.
[29] See ante, under Sept. 9, 1779.
[30] Johnson wrote of this grotto (Works, viii. 270):--'It may be frequently remarked of the studious and speculative that they are proud of trifles, and that their amusements seem frivolous and childish.'
[31] See ante, i. 332.
[32] Epilogue to the Satires, i. 131. Dr. James Foster, the Nonconformist preacher. Johnson mentions 'the reputation which he had gained by his proper delivery.' Works, viii. 384. In The Conversations of Northcote, p. 88, it is stated that 'Foster first became popular from the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke stopping in the porch of his chapel in the Old Jewry out of a shower of rain: and thinking he might as well hear what was going on he went in, and was so well pleased that he sent all the great folks to hear him, and he was run after as much as Irving has been in our time.' Dr. T. Campbell (Diary, p. 34) recorded in 1775, that 'when Mrs. Thrale quoted something from Foster's Sermons, Johnson flew in a passion, and said that Foster was a man of mean ability, and of no original thinking.' Gibbon (Misc. Works, v. 300) wrote of Foster:--'Wonderful! a divine preferring reason to faith, and more afraid of vice than of heresy.'
[33] It is believed to have been her play of The Sister, brought out in 1769. 'The audience expressed their disapprobation of it with so much appearance of prejudice that she would not suffer an attempt to exhibit it a second time.' Gent. Mag. xxxix. 199. It is strange, however, if Goldsmith was asked to hiss a play for which he wrote the epilogue. Goldsmith's Misc. Works, ii. 80. Johnson wrote on Oct. 28, 1779 (Piozzi Letters, ii. 72):--'C---- L---- accuses ---- of making a party against her play. I always hissed away the charge, supposing him a man of honour; but I shall now defend him with less confidence.' Baretti, in a marginal note, says that C---- L---- is 'Charlotte Lennox.' Perhaps ---- stands for Cumberland. Miss Burney said that 'Mr. Cumberland is notorious for hating and envying and spiting all authors in the dramatic line.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 272.
[34] See ante, i. 255.
[35] In The Rambler, No. 195, Johnson describes rascals such as this man. 'They hurried away to the theatre, full of malignity and denunciations against a man whose name they had never heard, and a performance which they could not understand; for they were resolved to judge for themselves, and would not suffer the town to be imposed upon by scribblers.