p. 163. 'Oct. 30. In the evening we all went to Mrs. Hatsel's. Dr. Johnson was not invited.' Ib. p. 165. 'Oct. 31. A note came to invite us all, except Dr. Johnson, to Lady Rothes's.' Ib. p. 168. 'Nov. 2. We went to Lady Shelley's. Dr. Johnson again excepted in the invitation. He is almost constantly omitted, either from too much respect or too much fear. I am sorry for it, as he hates being alone.' Ib. p. 160. 'Nov. 7. Mr. Metcalfe called upon Dr. Johnson, and took him out an airing. Mr. Hamilton is gone, and Mr. Metcalfe is now the only person out of this house that voluntarily communicates with the Doctor. He has been in a terrible severe humour of late, and has really frightened all the people, till they almost ran from him. To me only I think he is now kind, for Mrs. Thrale fares worse than anybody.' Ib. p. 177.
[499] '"Dr. Johnson has asked me," said Mr. Metcalfe, "to go with him to Chichester, to see the cathedral, and I told him I would certainly go if he pleased; but why I cannot imagine, for how shall a blind man see a cathedral?" "I believe," quoth I [i.e. Miss Burney] "his blindness is as much the effect of absence as of infirmity, for he sees wonderfully at times."' Ib. p. 174. For Johnson's eyesight, see ante, i. 41.
[500] The second letter is dated the 28th. Johnson says:--'I have looked often,' &c.; but he does not say 'he has been much informed,' but only 'informed.' Both letters are in the Gent. Mag. 1784, p. 893.
[501] The reference is to Rawlinson's MS. collections for a continuation of Wood's Athenae (Macray's Annals of the Bodleian, p. 181).
[502] Jortin's sermons are described by Johnson as 'very elegant.' Ante, in. 248. He and Thirlby are mentioned by him in the Life of Pope. Works, viii. 254.
[503] Markland was born 1693, died 1776. His notes on some of Euripides' Plays were published at the expense of Dr. Heberden. Markland had previously destroyed a great many other notes; writing in 1764 he said:--'Probably it will be a long time (if ever) before this sort of learning will revive in England; in which it is easy to foresee that there must be a disturbance in a few years, and all public disorders are enemies to this sort of literature.' Gent. Mag. 1778, P. 3l0. 'I remember,' writes Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 252), 'when lamentation was made of the neglect shown to Jeremiah Markland, a great philologist, as some one ventured to call him: "He is a scholar undoubtedly, Sir," replied Dr. Johnson, "but remember that he would run from the world, and that it is not the world's business to run after him. I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and [who] does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark"' A brief account of him is given in the Ann. Reg. xix. 45.
[504] Nichols published in 1784 a brief account of Thirlby, nearly half of it being written by Johnson. Thirlby was born in 1692 and died in 1753. 'His versatility led him to try the round of what are called the learned professions.' His life was marred by drink and insolence.' His mind seems to have been tumultuous and desultory, and he was glad to catch any employment that might produce attention without anxiety; such employment, as Dr. Battie has observed, is necessary for madmen.' Gent. Mag. 1784, pp. 260, 893.
[505] He was attacked, says Northcote (Life of Reynolds, ii. 131), 'by a slight paralytic affection, after an almost uninterrupted course of good health for many years.' Miss Burney wrote on Dec. 28 to one of her sisters:--'How can you wish any wishes [matrimonial wishes] about Sir Joshua and me? A man who has had two shakes of the palsy!' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 218.
[506] Dr. Patten in Sept. 1781 (Croker's Boswell, p. 699) informed Johnson of Wilson's intended dedication. Johnson, in his reply, said:--'What will the world do but look on and laugh when one scholar dedicates to another?'
[507] On the same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:-'This, my dear Sir, is the last day of a very sickly and melancholy year. Join your prayers with mine, that the next may be more happy to us both. I hope the happiness which I have not found in this world will by infinite mercy be granted in another.' Notes and Queries, 6th S. v. 462.
[508] 'Jan. 4, 1783. Dr. Johnson came so very late that we had all given him up; he was very ill, and only from an extreme of kindness did he come at all. When I went up to him to tell how sorry I was to find him so unwell, "Ah," he cried, taking my hand and kissing it, "who shall ail anything when Cecilia is so near? Yet you do not think how poorly I am."
All dinner time he hardly opened his mouth but to repeat to me:--"Ah! you little know how ill I am." He was excessively kind to me in spite of all his pain.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 228. Cecilia was the name of her second novel (post, May 26, 1783). On Jan. 10 he thus ended a letter to Mr. Nichols:--'Now I will put you in a way of shewing me more kindness. I have been confined by ilness (sic) a long time, and sickness and solitude make tedious evenings.