308. 'Here,' writes Johnson (Works, ix. 21), 'I first saw peat fires, and first heard the Erse language.' As he heard the girl singing Erse, so Wordsworth thirty years later heard The Solitary Reaper:--
'Yon solitary Highland Lass Reaping and singing by herself.'
[368]
'Verse softens toil, however rude the sound; She feels no biting pang the while she sings; Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitude of things.'
Contemplation. London: Printed for R. Dodsley in Pall-mall, and sold by M. Cooper, at the Globe in Paternoster-Row, 1753.
The author's name is not on the title-page. In the Brit. Mus. Cata. the poem is entered under its title. Mr. Nichols (Lit. Illus. v. 183) says that the author was the Rev. Richard Gifford [not Giffard] of Balliol College, Oxford. He adds that 'Mr. Gifford mentioned to him with much satisfaction the fact that Johnson quoted the poem in his Dictionary.' It was there very likely that Boswell had seen the lines. They are quoted under wheel (with changes made perhaps intentionally by Johnson), as follows:
'Verse sweetens care however rude the sound; All at her work the village maiden sings; Nor, as she turns the giddy wheel around, Revolves the sad vicissitudes of things.'
Contemplation, which was published two years after Gray's Elegy, was suggested by it. The rising, not the parting day, is described. The following verse precedes the one quoted by Johnson:--
'Ev'n from the straw-roofed cot the note of joy Flows full and frequent, as the village-fair, Whose little wants the busy hour employ, Chanting some rural ditty soothes her care.'
Bacon, in his Essay Of Vicissitude of Things (No. 58), says:--'It is not good to look too long upon these turning wheels of vicissitude lest we become giddy' This may have suggested Gifford's last two lines. Reflections on a Grave, &c. (ante, ii. 26), published in 1766, and perhaps written in part by Johnson, has a line borrowed from this poem:--
'These all the hapless state of mortals show The sad vicissitude of things below.'
Cowper, Table-Talk, ed. 1786, i. 165, writes of
'The sweet vicissitudes of day and night.'
The following elegant version of these lines by Mr. A. T. Barton, Fellow and Tutor of Johnson's own College, will please the classical reader:--
Musa levat duros, quamvis rudis ore, labores; Inter opus cantat rustica Pyrrha suum; Nec meminit, secura rotam dum versat euntem, Non aliter nostris sortibus ire vices.
[369] He was the brother of the Rev. John M'Aulay (post, Oct. 25), the grandfather of Lord Macaulay.
[370] See ante, ii. 51.
[371] In Scotland, there is a great deal of preparation before administering the sacrament. The minister of the parish examines the people as to their fitness, and to those of whom he approves gives little pieces of tin, stamped with the name of the parish as tokens, which they must produce before receiving it. This is a species of priestly power, and sometimes may be abused. I remember a lawsuit brought by a person against his parish minister, for refusing him admission to that sacred ordinance. BOSWELL.
[372] See post, Sept. 13 and 28.
[373] Mr. Trevelyan (Life of Macaulay, ed.1877, i. 6) says: 'Johnson pronounced that Mr. Macaulay was not competent to have written the book that went by his name; a decision which, to those who happen to have read the work, will give a very poor notion my ancestor's abilities.'
[374]
'The thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman.'
Macbeth, act i. sc. 3.
[375] According to Murray's Handbook, ed. 1867, p. 308, no part of the castle is older than the fifteenth century.
[376] See post, Nov. 5.
[377] The historian. Ante, p. 41.
[378] See ante, iii. 336, and post, Nov. 7.
[379] See post, Oct. 27.
[380] Baretti was the Italian. Boswell disliked him (ante, ii. 98 note), and perhaps therefore described him merely as 'a man of some literature.' Baretti complained to Malone that 'the story as told gave an unfair representation of him.' He had, he said, 'observed to Johnson that the petition lead us not into temptation ought rather to be addressed to the tempter of mankind than a benevolent Creator. "Pray, Sir," said Johnson, "do you know who was the author of the Lord's Prayer?" Baretti, who did not wish to get into any serious dispute and who appears to be an Infidel, by way of putting an end to the conversation, only replied:--"Oh, Sir, you know by our religion (Roman Catholic) we are not permitted to read the Scriptures. You can't therefore expect an answer."' Prior's Malone, p. 399. Sir Joshua Reynolds, on hearing this from Malone, said:--'This turn which Baretti now gives to the matter was an after-thought; for he once said to me myself:--"There are various opinions about the writer of that prayer; some give it to St. Augustine, some to St. Chrysostom, &c. What is your opinion? "' Ib. p. 394. Mrs. Piozzi says that she heard 'Baretti tell a clergyman the story of Dives and Lazarus as the subject of a poem he once had composed in the Milanese district, expecting great credit for his powers of invention.' Hayward's Piozzi, ii.