Anec. viii. 416. See ante, iii. 111. In Mr. Morrison's Collection of Autographs &c., vol. ii, 'is Johnson's receipt for 100l., from the proprietors of The Lives of the Poets for revising the last edition of that work.' It is dated Feb. 19, 1783. 'Underneath, in Johnson's autograph, are these words: "It is great impudence to put Johnson's Poets on the back of books which Johnson neither recommended nor revised. He recommended only Blackmore on the Creation, and Watts. How then are they Johnson's? This is indecent."' The poets whom Johnson recommended were Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret, and Yalden. Ante, under Dec. 29, 1778.
[128] Gibbon says of the last five quartos of the six that formed his History:--'My first rough manuscript, without any intermediate copy, has been sent to the press.' Misc. Works, i. 255. In the Memoir of Goldsmith, prefixed to his Misc. Works, i. 113, it is said:--'In whole quires of his Histories, Animated Nature, &c., he had seldom occasion to correct or alter a single word.' See ante, i. 203.
[129] From Waller's Of Loving at First Sight. Waller's Poems, Miscellanies, xxxiv.
[130] He trusted greatly to his memory. If it did not retain anything exactly, he did not think himself bound to look it up. Thus in his criticism on Congreve (Works, viii. 31) he says:--'Of his plays I cannot speak distinctly; for since I inspected them many years have passed.' In a note on his Life of Rowe, Nichols says:--'This Life is a very remarkable instance of the uncommon strength of Dr. Johnson's memory. When I received from him the MS. he complacently observed that the criticism was tolerably well done, considering that he had not read one of Rowe's plays for thirty years.' Ib. vii. 417.
[131] Thus:--'In the Life of Waller, Mr. Nichols will find a reference to the Parliamentary History from which a long quotation is to be inserted. If Mr. Nichols cannot easily find the book, Mr. Johnson will send it from Streatham.'
'Clarendon is here returned.'
'By some accident, I laid your note upon Duke up so safely, that I cannot find it. Your informations have been of great use to me. I must beg it again; with another list of our authors, for I have laid that with the other. I have sent Stepney's Epitaph. Let me have the revises as soon as can be. Dec. 1778.'
'I have sent Philips, with his Epitaphs, to be inserted. The fragment of a preface is hardly worth the impression, but that we may seem to do something. It may be added to the Life of Philips. The Latin page is to be added to the Life of Smith. I shall be at home to revise the two sheets of Milton. March 1, 1779.'
'Please to get me the last edition of Hughes's Letters; and try to get Dennis upon Blackmore, and upon Calo, and any thing of the same writer against Pope. Our materials are defective.'
'As Waller professed to have imitated Fairfax, do you think a few pages of Fairfax would enrich our edition? Few readers have seen it, and it may please them. But it is not necessary.'
'An account of the Lives and works of some of the most eminent English Poets. By, &c.--"The English Poets, biographically and critically considered, by SAM. JOHNSON."--Let Mr. Nichols take his choice, or make another to his mind. May, 1781.'
'You somehow forgot the advertisement for the new edition. It was not inclosed. Of Gay's Letters I see not that any use can be made, for they give no information of any thing. That he was a member of the Philosophical Society is something; but surely he could be but a corresponding member. However, not having his life here, I know not how to put it in, and it is of little importance.'
See several more in The Gent. Mag., 1785. The Editor of that Miscellany, in which Johnson wrote for several years, seems justly to think that every fragment of so great a man is worthy of being preserved. BOSWELL. In the original MS. in the British Museum, Your in the third paragraph of this note is not in italics. Johnson writes his correspondent's name Nichols, Nichol, and Nicol. In the fourth paragraph he writes, first Philips, and next Phillips. His spelling was sometimes careless, ante, i. 260, note 2. In the Gent. Mag. for 1785, p. 10, another of these notes is published:--'In reading Rowe in your edition, which is very impudently called mine, I observed a little piece unnaturally and odiously obscene. I was offended, but was still more offended when I could not find it in Rowe's genuine volumes. To admit it had been wrong; to interpolate it is surely worse. If I had known of such a piece in the whole collection, I should have been angry. What can be done?' In a note, Mr. Nichols says that this piece 'has not only appeared in the Works of Rowe, but has been transplanted by Pope into the Miscellanies he published in his own name and that of Dean Swift.'
[132] He published, in 1782, a revised edition of Baker's Biographia Dramatica. Baker was a grandson of De Foe. Gent. Mag. 1782, p. 77.
[133] Dryden writing of satiric poetry, says:--'Had I time I could enlarge on the beautiful turns of words and thoughts, which are as requisite in this as in heroic poetry itself; of which the satire is undoubtedly a species.