For modus and fines see post, April 25, 1778.
[835] Lucretius, i. 23
[836]
'Hence ye prophane; I hate ye all,
Both the Great Vulgar and the Small.'
Cowley's Imit. of Horace, Odes, iii. 1.
[837] Journal Britannique. It was to Maty that Gibbon submitted the manuscript of his first work. Gibbon's Misc. Works, i. 123.
[838] Maty, as Prof. de Morgan pointed out, had in the autumn of 1755 been guilty of 'wilful suppression of the circumstances of Johnson's attack on Lord Chesterfield.' In an article in his Journal he regrets the absence from the Dictionary of the Plan. 'Elle eût épargné à l'auteur la composition d'une nouvelle préface, qui ne contient qu'en partie les mêmes choses, et qu'on est tenté de regarder comme destinée à faire perdre de vue quelques-unes des obligations que M. Johnson avait contractées, et le Mécène qu'il avait choisi.' Notes and Queries, 2nd S. iv. 341.
[839] He left London in 1751 and returned to it in 1760. Memoirs of Dr. Barney, i. 85, 133.
[840] See ante, p. 183, note 2.
[841] Sir John Hawkins, p. 341, inserts two notes as having passed formally between Andrew Millar and Johnson, to the above effect. I am assured this was not the case. In the way of incidental remark it was a pleasant play of raillery. To have deliberately written notes in such terms would have been morose. BOSWELL.