of great and brilliant life, told me, that he had dined in company with Pope, and that after dinner the little man, as he called him, drank his bottle of burgundy, and was exceedingly gay and entertaining.

I cannot withhold from my great friend a censure of at least culpable inattention to a nobleman who, it has been shown, behaved to him with uncommon politeness. He says, "Except lord Bathurst, none of Pope's noble friends were such as that a good man would wish to have his intimacy with them known to posterity." This will not apply to lord Mansfield, who was not ennobled in Pope's lifetime; but Johnson should have recollected, that lord Marchmont was one of those noble friends. He includes his lordship along with lord Bolingbroke, in a charge of neglect of the papers which Pope left by his will; when, in truth, as I myself pointed out to him before he wrote that poet's life, the papers were "committed to the sole care and judgement of lord Bolingbroke, unless he (lord Bolingbroke) shall not survive me;" so that lord Marchmont had no concern whatever with them. After the first edition of the Lives, Mr. Malone, whose love of justice is equal to his accuracy, made, in my hearing, the same remark to Johnson; yet he omitted to correct the erroneous statement. These particulars I mention, in the belief that there was only forgetfulness in my friend; but I owe this much to the earl of Marchmont's reputation, who, were there no other memorials, will be immortalized by that line of Pope, in the verses on his grotto:

And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul.

short remarks and anecdotes, with a quiet pleasant gravity that was exceedingly engaging. Never shall I forget the hours which I enjoyed with him at his apartments in the royal palace of Holy Rood House, and at his seat near Edinburgh, which he himself had formed with an elegant taste.-BOSWELL.

* This neglect, however, assuredly did not arise from any ill will towards lord Marchmont, but from inattention; just as he neglected to correct his statement concerning the family of Thomson the poet, after it had been shown to be erroneous.-MALONE.

Various readings in the Life of Pope.

"[Somewhat free] sufficiently bold in his criticism. "All the gay [niceties] varieties of diction.

"Strikes the imagination with far [more] greater force. It is [probably] certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen.

"Every sheet enabled him to write the next with [less trouble] more facility.

"No man sympathises with [vanity depressed] the sorrows of vanity.

"It had been [criminal] less easily excused.

"When he [threatened to lay down] talked of laying down his pen.

66

Society [is so named emphatically in opposition to] politically regulated, is a state contra-distinguished from a state of nature.

"A fictitious life of an [absurd] infatuated scholar. "A foolish [contempt, disregard,] disesteem of kings. "His hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows [were like those of other mortals] acted strongly upon his mind.

"Eager to pursue knowledge and attentive to [accumulate] retain it.

"A mind [excursive] active, ambitious, and adventurous. "In its [noblest] widest searches still longing to go forward.

66

He wrote in such a manner as might expose him to few [neglects] hazards.

"The [reasonableness] justice of my determination. "A [favourite] delicious employment of the poets. "More terrifick and more powerful [beings] phantoms perform on the stormy ocean.

"The inventor of [those] this petty [beings] nation. "The [mind] heart naturally loves truth"."

"The

y Hints for the life of Pope, referred to in page 37 of this volume. lines in Italics," remarks D'Israeli, "Johnson had scratched with red ink, probably after having made use of them."

Nothing occasional. No haste. Practised only one form of verse.

POPE.

No rivals. No compulsion.
Facility from use.

In the life of Addison we find an unpleasing account of his having lent Steele a hundred pounds, and "reclaimed his loan by an execution." In the new edition of the Biographia Britannica, the authenticity of this anecdote is

Emulated former pieces. Cooper's-hill. Dryden's ode.

Affected to disdain flattery. Not happy in his selection of patrons. Cobham. Bolingbroke*.

Cibber's abuse will be better to him than a dose of hartshorn.

Poems long delayed.

Satire and praise late, alluding to something past.

He had always some poetical plan in his head t.

Echo to the sense.

Would not constrain himself too much.

Felicities of language. Watts.

Luxury of language.

Motives to study-want of health, want of money-helps to study—some small patrimony.

Prudent and frugal-pint of wine.

LETTERS.

Amiable disposition—but he gives his own character.

Elaborate. Think what to say-say what one thinks. Letter on sickness to Steele.

On Solitude. Ostentatious benevolence. Professions of sincerity.

Neglect of fame. Indifference about every thing.

Sometimes gay and airy, sometimes sober and grave.

Too proud of living among the great. Probably forward to make acquaintance. No literary man ever talked so much of his fortune. Grotto. Importance. Post-office, letters open. Cant of despising the world.

Affectation of despising poetry.

His easiness about the criticks.

Something of foppery.

His letters to the ladies—pretty.

Abuse of scripture-not all early.

Thoughts in his letters that are elsewhere.

ESSAY ON MAN.

Ramsay missed the fall of man.

Others the immortality of the soul. Address to our Saviour.

Excluded by Berkeley.

Bolingbroke's notions not understood.

Scale of being, turn it in prose.

Part and not the whole always said.

*He has added in the life the name of Burlington.

In the life, Johnson gives Swift's complaint, that Pope was never at leisure for conver

sation, because "he had always some poetical scheme in his head."

✦ Johnson, in the life, has given Watts's opinion of Pope's poetical diction.

denied. But Mr. Malone has obliged me with the following note concerning it:

Many persons having doubts concerning this fact, I applied to Dr. Johnson, to learn on what authority he asserted it. He told me, he had it from Savage, who lived in intimacy with Steele, and who mentioned, that Steele told him the story with tears in his eyes.-Ben Victor, Dr. Johnson said, likewise informed him of this remarkable transaction, from the relation of Mr. Wilkes the comedian, who was also an intimate of Steele's".-Some, in defence of Addison, have said, that the act was done with the good-natured view of rousing Steele, and correcting that profusion which always made him necessitous.'-' If that were the case,' said Johnson, and that he only wanted to

He never laughed.

No conversation.

No writings against Swift.

Parasitical epithets. Six lines of Iliad +.

He used to set down what occurred of thoughts—a line-a couplet.

The humorous lines end sinner. Prunello ‡.

First line made for the sound, or v. versa.

Foul lines in Jervas.

More notice of books early than late.

DUNCIAD.

The line on Philips borrowed from another poem.
Pope did not increase the difficulties of writing.

Poetæ pullorum.

*Ruffhead's Life of Pope.

† In the life, Johnson says, "Expletives he very early rejected from his verses; but he now and then admits an epithet rather commodious than important. Each of the first six lines of the Iliad might lose two syllables with very little diminution of the meaning; and sometimes, after all his art and labour, one verse seems to be made for the sake of another." "He has a few double rhymes: but always, I think, unsuccessfully, except one in the Rape of the Lock."-LIFE OF POPE.

z The late Mr. Burke informed me, in 1792, that lady Dorothea Primrose, who died at a great age, I think in 1768, and had been well acquainted with Steele, told him the same story.-MALONE.

alarm Steele, he would afterwards have returned the money to his friend, which it is not pretended he did.'-'This, too,' he added, 'might be retorted by an advocate for Steele, who might allege, that he did not pay the loan intentionally, merely to see whether Addison would be mean and ungenerous enough to make use of legal process to recover it. But of such speculations there is no end: we cannot dive into the hearts of men; but their actions are open to observation.'

I then mentioned to him, that some people thought that Mr. Addison's character was so pure, that the fact, though true, ought to have been suppressed. He saw no reason for this. If nothing but the bright side of characters should be shown, we should sit down in despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in any thing. The sacred writers,' he observed, 'related the vicious as well as the virtuous actions of men; which had this moral effect, that it kept mankind from despair, into which otherwise they would naturally fall, were they not supported by the recollection that others had offended like themselves, and by penitence and amendment of life had been restored to the favour of heaven".'

"March 15, 1781.

E. M."

The last paragraph of this note is of great importance; and I request that my readers may consider it with particular attention. It will be afterwards referred to in this work.

a I have since observed, that Johnson has further enforced the propriety of exhibiting the faults of virtuous and eminent men in their true colours, in the last paragraph of the 164th number of his Rambler.

"It is particularly the duty of those who consign illustrious names to posterity, to take care lest their readers be misled by ambiguous examples. That writer may be justly condemned as an enemy to goodness, who suffers fondness or interest to confound right with wrong, or to shelter the faults which even the wisest and the best have committed, from that ignominy which guilt ought always to suffer, and with which it should be more deeply stigmatized, when dignified by its neighbourhood to uncommon worth; since we shall be in danger of beholding it without abhorrence, unless its turpitude be laid open, and the eye secured from the deception of surrounding splendour."—Malone.