[927] See post, June 3, 1781, when Boswell went to this church.
[928] Johnson reprinted this Review in a small volume by itself. See Johnson's Works, vi. 47, note.
[929]
'I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth.'
Henry VIII, Act iii. sc. 2.
[930] Musical Travels through England, by Joel Collier [not Collyer], Organist, 1774. This book was written in ridicule of Dr. Burney's Travels, who, says his daughter, 'was much hurt on its first appearance.' Dr. Burney's Memoirs, i. 259.
[931] See ante, p. 223.
[932] Some time after Dr. Johnson's death there appeared in the newspapers and magazines an illiberal and petulant attack upon him, in the form of an Epitaph, under the name of Mr. Soame Jenyns, very unworthy of that gentleman, who had quietly submitted to the critical lash while Johnson lived. It assumed, as characteristicks of him, all the vulgar circumstances of abuse which had circulated amongst the ignorant. It was an unbecoming indulgence of puny resentment, at a time when he himself was at a very advanced age, and had a near prospect of descending to the grave. I was truly sorry for it; for he was then become an avowed, and (as my Lord Bishop of London, who had a serious conversation with him on the subject, assures me) a sincere Christian. He could not expect that Johnson's numerous friends would patiently bear to have the memory of their master stigmatized by no mean pen, but that, at least, one would be found to retort. Accordingly, this unjust and sarcastick Epitaph was met in the same publick field by an answer, in terms by no means soft, and such as wanton provocation only could justify:
'EPITAPH,
'Prepared for a creature not quite dead yet.