[958] Dr. T. Campbell records in his Diary of a Visit to England (p. 62), that at the dinner at Messieurs Dilly's (post, April 5, 1775) he 'ventured to say that the first professors of Oxford, Paris, &c., were Irish. "Sir," says Johnson, "I believe there is something in what you say, and I am content with it, since they are not Scotch."'
[959] 'On Mr. Thrale's attack of apoplexy in 1779, Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale:—'I remember Dr. Marsigli, an Italian physician, whose seizure was more violent than Mr. Thrale's, for he fell down helpless, but his case was not considered as of much danger, and he went safe home, and is now a professor at Padua.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 48.
[960] 'Now, or late, Vice-Chancellor.' WARTON.—BOSWELL. He was Vice-Chancellor when Johnson's degree was conferred (ante, p. 282), but his term of office had now come to an end.
[961] 'Mr. Warton was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in the preceding year.' WARTON.-BOSWELL.
[962] 'Miss Jones lived at Oxford, and was often of our parties. She was a very ingenious poetess, and published a volume of poems; and, on the whole, was a most sensible, agreeable, and amiable woman. She was a sister to the Reverend River Jones, Chanter of Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford, and Johnson used to call her the Chantress. I have heard him often address her in this passage from Il Penseroso:
"Thee, Chantress, oft the woods among I woo," etc.
She died unmarried.' WHARTON
[963] Tom. iii. p. 482. BOSWELL.
[964] Of Shakspeare. BOSWELL.
[965] This letter is misdated. It was written in Jan. 1759, and not in 1758. Johnson says that he is forty-nine. In Jan. 1758 he was forty-eight. He mentions the performance of Cleane, which was at the end of 1758; and he says that 'Murphy is to have his Orphan of China acted next month.' It was acted in the spring of 1759.