MALONE. See ante, i. 406.
[305] Macbean (Johnson's old amanuensis, ante, i. 187) is not in Boswell's list of guests; but in the Pemb. Coll. MSS., there is the following entry on Monday, April 16:--'Yesterday at dinner were Mrs. Hall, Mr. Levet, Macbean, Boswel (sic), Allen. Time passed in talk after dinner. At seven, I went with Mrs. Hall to Church, and came back to tea.'
[306] Mrs. Piozzi records (Anec. p. 192) that he said 'a long time after my poor mother's death, I heard her voice call Sam.' She is so inaccurate that most likely this is merely her version of the story that Boswell has recorded above. See also ante, i. 405. Lord Macaulay made more of this story of the voice than it could well bear--'Under the influence of his disease, his senses became morbidly torpid, and his imagination morbidly active. At one time he would stand poring on the town clock without being able to tell the hour. At another, he would distinctly hear his mother, who was many miles off, calling him by his name. But this was not the worst.' Macaulay's Writings and Speeches, ed. 1871, p. 374.
[307]
'One wife is too much for most husbands to bear, But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.'
Act iii. sc. 4.
[308] 'I think a person who is terrified with the imagination of ghosts and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations, thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless.' The Spectator, No. 110.
[309] St. Matthew, chap. xxvii. vv. 52, 53. BOSWELL.
[310] Garrick died on Jan. 20, 1779.
[311] Garrick called her Nine, (the Nine Muses). 'Nine,' he said, 'you are a Sunday Woman.' H. More's Memoirs, i. 113.
[312] See vol. iii. p. 331. BOSWELL.
[313] See ante, ii. 325, note 3.
[314] Boswell is quoting from Johnson's eulogium on Garrick in his Life of Edmund Smith. Works, vii. 380. See ante, i. 81.
[315] How fond she and her husband had been is shewn in a letter, in which, in answer to an invitation, he says:--'As I have not left Mrs. Garrick one day since we were married, near twenty-eight years, I cannot now leave her.' Garrick Corres. ii. 150. 'Garrick's widow is buried with him. She survived him forty-three years--"a little bowed-down old woman, who went about leaning on a gold-headed cane, dressed in deep widow's mourning, and always talking of her dear Davy." (Pen and Ink Sketches, 1864).' Stanley's Westminster Abbey, ed. 1868, p. 305.
[316] Love's Labour's Lost, act ii. sc. i.
[317] See ante, ii. 461.
[318] Horace Walpole (Letters, vii. 346) describes Hollis as 'a most excellent man, a most immaculate Whig, but as simple a poor soul as ever existed, except his editor, who has given extracts from the good creature's diary that are very near as anile as Ashmole's. There are thanks to God for reaching every birthday, ... and thanks to Heaven for her Majesty's being delivered of a third or fourth prince, and God send he may prove a good man.' See also Walpole's Journal of the Reign of George III, i. 287. Dr. Franklin wrote much more highly of him. Speaking of what he had done, he said:--'It is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a business of it.' Franklin's Memoirs, ed. 1818, iii. 135.
[319] See p. 77 of this volume. BOSWELL.
[320] See ante, iii. 97.
[321] On April 6 of the next year this gentleman, when Secretary of the Treasury, destroyed himself, overwhelmed, just as Cowper had been, by the sense of the responsibility of an office which had been thrust upon him. See Hannah More's Memoirs, i. 245, and Walpole's Letters, viii. 206.
[322] 'It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords no matter for a narration; but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier, or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his affairs should not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room or the factions of a camp.' The Idler, No. 102.
[323] Hannah More wrote of this day (Memoirs, i. 212):--'I accused Dr. Johnson of not having done justice to the Allegro and Penseroso. He spoke disparagingly of both. I praised Lycidas, which he absolutely abused, adding, "if Milton had not written the Paradise Lost, he would have only ranked among the minor Poets. He was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry-stones."' See post, June 13, 1784. The Allegro and Penseroso Johnson described as 'two noble efforts of imagination.' Of Lycidas he wrote:--'Surely no man could have fancied that he read it with pleasure, had he not known the author.' Works, vii. 121, 2.
[324] Murphy (Life of Garrick, p. 374) says 'Shortly after Garrick's death Johnson was told in a large company, "You are recent from the Lives of the Poets; why not add your friend Garrick to the number?" Johnson's answer was, "I do not like to be officious; but if Mrs. Garrick will desire me to do it, I shall be very willing to pay that last tribute to the memory of a man I loved." 'Murphy adds that he himself took care that Mrs.