'29th Nov. 1755. W. Murray.' In one of the Parl. Debates of 1742 Johnson makes Pitt say that 'it is probable that we shall detect bribery descending through a long subordination of wretches combined against the public happiness, from the prime minister surrounded by peers and officers of state to the exciseman dictating politics amidst a company of mechanics whom he debauches at the public expense, and lists in the service of his master with the taxes which he gathers.' Parl. Hist., xii. 570. See ante, p. 36, note 5.
[867] He defined Favourite as 'One chosen as a companion by a superiour; a mean wretch, whose whole business is by any means to please:' and Revolution as 'change in the state of a government or country. It is used among us kat hexochaen for the change produced by the admission of King William and Queen Mary.' For these definitions Wilkes attacked him in The North Briton, No. xii. In the fourth edition Johnson gives a second definition of patriot:—'It is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government.' Premier and prime minister are not defined. Post, April 14, 1775. See also ante, p. 264 note, for the definition of patron; and post, April 28, 1783 for that of alias.
[868] 'There have been great contests in the Privy Council about the trial of the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford [on a charge of Jacobitism]: Lord Gower pressed it extremely. He asked the Attorney-General his opinion, who told him the evidence did not appear strong enough. Lord Gower said:—"Mr. Attorney, you seem to be very lukewarm for your party." He replied:—"My Lord, I never was lukewarm for my party, nor ever was but of one party!"' Walpole's Letters, ii. 140. Mr. Croker assumes that Johnson here 'attempted a pun, and wrote the name (as pronounced) Go'er. Johnson was very little likely to pun, for 'he had a great contempt for that species of wit.' Post, April 30, 1773.
[869] Boswell omits the salutation which follows this definition:
Chair Ithakae met haethla, met halgea pikra Haspasios teon oudas ikanomai.
'Dr. Johnson,' says Miss Burney, 'inquired if I had ever yet visited Grub-street, but was obliged to restrain his anger when I answered "No;" because he had never paid his respects to it himself. "However," says he, "you and I, Burney, will go together; we have a very good right to go, so we'll visit the mansions of our progenitors, and take up our own freedom together."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 415.
[870] Lord Bolingbroke had said (Works, in. 317): 'I approve the devotion of a studious man at Christ Church, who was overheard in his oratory entering into a detail with God, and acknowledging the divine goodness in furnishing the world with makers of dictionaries. These men court fame, as well as their betters, by such means as God has given them to acquire it. They deserve encouragement while they continue to compile, and neither affect wit, nor presume to reason.' Johnson himself in The Adventurer, No. 39, had in 1753 described a class of men who 'employed their minds in such operations as required neither celerity nor strength, in the low drudgery of collating copies, comparing authorities, digesting dictionaries,' &c. Lord Monboddo, in his Origin of Language, v. 273, says that 'J. C. Scaliger called the makers of dictionaries les portefaix de la république des lettres.'
[871] Great though his depression was, yet he could say with truth in his Preface:—'Despondency has never so far prevailed as to depress me to negligence.' Works, v. 43.
[872] Ib. p. 51. 'In the preface the author described the difficulties with which he had been left to struggle so forcibly and pathetically that the ablest and most malevolent of all the enemies of his fame, Horne Tooke, never could read that passage without tears.' Macaulay's Misc. Writings, p. 382. It is in A Letter to John Dunning, Esq. (p. 56) that Horne Tooke, or rather Horne, wrote:—'I could never read his preface without shedding a tear.' See post, May 13, 1778. On Oct. 10, 1779, Boswell told Johnson, that he had been 'agreeably mistaken' in saying:—'What would it avail me in this gloom of solitude?'
[873] It appears even by many a passage in the Preface—one of the proudest pieces of writing in our language. 'The chief glory,' he writes, 'of every people arises from its authors: whether I shall add anything by my own writings to the reputation of English literature must be left to time.' 'I deliver,' he says, 'my book to the world with the spirit of a man that has endeavoured well…. In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow.' Works, v. pp. 49-51. Thomas Warton wrote to his brother:—'I fear his preface will disgust by the expressions of his consciousness of superiority, and of his contempt of patronage.' Wooll's Warton, p. 231.