[804] Communicated by the Reverend Mr. Thomas Warton, who had the original. BOSWELL. In the imaginary college which was to be opened by The Club at St. Andrew's, Chambers was to be the professor of the law of England. See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 25, 1773; also post, July 5, 1773 and March 30, 1774.
[805] I presume she was a relation of Mr. Zachariah Williams, who died in his eighty-third year, July 12, 1755. When Dr. Johnson was with me at Oxford, in 1755, he gave to the Bodleian Library a thin quarto of twenty-one pages, a work in Italian, with an English translation on the opposite page. The English titlepage is this: 'An Account of an Attempt to ascertain the Longitude at Sea, by an exact Variation of the Magnetical Needle, &c. By Zachariah Williams. London, printed for Dodsley, 1755.' The English translation, from the strongest internal marks, is unquestionably the work of Johnson. In a blank leaf, Johnson has written the age, and time of death, of the authour Z. Williams, as I have said above. On another blank leaf, is pasted a paragraph from a newspaper, of the death and character of Williams, which is plainly written by Johnson. He was very anxious about placing this book in the Bodleian: and, for fear of any omission or mistake, he entered, in the great Catalogue, the title-page of it with his own hand.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
In this statement there is a slight mistake. The English account, which was written by Johnson, was the original the Italian was a translation, done by Baretti. See post, end of 1755. MALONE. Johnson has twice entered in his own hand that 'Zachariah Williams, died July 12, 1755, in his eighty-third year,' and also on the title-page that he was 82.
[806] See ante, p. 133.
[807] The compliment was, as it were, a mutual one. Mr. Wise urged Thomas Warton to get the degree conferred before the Dictionary was published. 'It is in truth,' he wrote, 'doing ourselves more honour than him, to have such a work done by an Oxford hand, and so able a one too, and will show that we have not lost all regard for good letters, as has been too often imputed to us by our enemies.' Wooll's Warton, p. 228.
[808] 'In procuring him the degree of Master of Arts by diploma at Oxford.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
[809] 'Lately fellow of Trinity College, and at this time Radclivian librarian, at Oxford. He was a man of very considerable learning, and eminently skilled in Roman and Anglo-Saxon antiquities. He died in 1767.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.
[810] No doubt The Rambler.
[811] 'Collins (the poet) was at this time at Oxford, on a visit to Mr. Warton; but labouring under the most deplorable languor of body, and dejection of mind.' WARTON. BOSWELL. Johnson, writing to Dr. Warton on March 8, 1754, thus speaks of Collins:-'I knew him a few years ago full of hopes, and full of projects, versed in many languages, high in fancy, and strong in retention. This busy and forcible mind is now under the government of those who lately would not have been able to comprehend the least and most narrow of its designs.' Wooll's Warton 1. 219. Again, on Dec. 24, 1754:—'Poor dear Collins! Let me know whether you think it would give him pleasure if I should write to him. I have often been near his state, and therefore have it in great commiseration.' Ib. p. 229. Again, on April 15, 1756:—'That man is no common loss. The moralists all talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and the transitoriness of beauty: but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change, that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire.' Ib. p. 239. See post, beginning of 1763.
[812] 'Of publishing a volume of observations on the best of Spenser's works. It was hindered by my taking pupils in this College.' WARTON.—BOSWELL.