[1450] Yet one year he recorded:—'March 3, I have never, I thank God, since new year's day deviated from the practice of rising. In this practice I persisted till I went to Mr. Thrale's sometime before Midsummer; the irregularity of that family broke my habit of rising. I was there till after Michaelmas.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 458, note. Hawkins places this in 1765; but Johnson states (Pr. and Med. p. 71), 'I returned from Streatham, Oct. 1, —66, having lived there more than three months.'
[1451] Boswell wrote to Temple in 1775:—'I am at present in a tourbillon of conversations; but how come you to throw in the Thrales among the Reynoldses and the Beauclerks? Mr. Thrale is a worthy, sensible man, and has the wits much about his house; but he is not one himself. Perhaps you mean Mrs. Thrale.' Letters of Boswell, p. 192. Murphy (Life, p. 141) says:—'It was late in life before Johnson had the habit of mixing, otherwise than occasionally, with polite company. At Mr. Thrale's he saw a constant succession of well-accomplished visitors. In that society he began to wear off the rugged points of his own character. The time was then expected when he was to cease being what George Garrick, brother to the celebrated actor, called him the first time he heard him converse. "A TREMENDOUS COMPANION"'
[1452] Johnson wrote to Dr. Warton on Oct. 9:—'Mrs. Warton uses me hardly in supposing that I could forget so much kindness and civility as she showed me at Winchester.' Wooll's Warton, p. 309. Malone on this remarks:—'It appears that Johnson spent some time with that gentleman at Winchester in this year.' I believe that Johnson is speaking of the year 1762, when, on his way to Devonshire, he passed two nights in that town. See Taylor's Reynolds, i. 214.
[1453] It was in 1745 that he published his Observations on Macbeth, as a specimen of his projected edition (ante, p. 175). In 1756 he issued Proposals undertaking that his work should be published before Christmas, 1757 (p. 318). On June 21, 1757, he writes:—'I am printing my new edition of Shakspeare' (p. 322). On Dec. 24 of the same year he says, 'I shall publish about March' (p. 323). On March 8, 1758, he writes:—'It will be published before summer…. I have printed many of the plays' (p. 327). In June of the same year Langton took some of the plays to Oxford (p. 336). Churchill's Ghost (Parts 1 and 2) was published in the spring of 1762 (p. 319). On July 20, 1762, Johnson wrote to Baretti, 'I intend that you shall soon receive Shakspeare' (p. 369). In October 1765 it was published.
[1454] According to Mr. Seward (Anec. ii. 464), 'Adam Smith styled it the most manly piece of criticism that was ever published in any country.'
[1455] George III, at all events, did not share in this blind admiration. 'Was there ever,' cried he, 'such stuff as great part of Shakespeare? only one must not say so. But what think you? What? Is there not sad stuff? What? What?' 'Yes, indeed, I think so, Sir, though mixed with such excellencies that—' 'O!' cried he, laughing good-humouredly, 'I know it is not to be said! but it's true. Only it's Shakespeare, and nobody dare abuse him.' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii, 398.
[1456] That Johnson did not slur his work, as has been often said, we have the best of all evidence—his own word. 'I have, indeed,' he writes (Works, v. 152), 'disappointed no opinion more than my own; yet I have endeavoured to perform my task with no slight solicitude. Not a single passage in the whole work has appeared to me corrupt which I have not attempted to restore; or obscure which I have not attempted to illustrate.'
[1457] Steevens wrote to Garrick:—'To say the truth, the errors of Warburton and Johnson are often more meritorious than such corrections of them as the obscure industry of Mr. Farmer and myself can furnish. Disdaining crutches, they have sometimes had a fall; but it is my duty to remember, that I, for my part, could not have kept on my legs at all without them.' Garrick Corres. ii, 130. 'Johnson's preface and notes are distinguished by clearness of thought and diction, and by masterly common sense.' Cambridge Shakespeare, i. xxxvi.
[1458] Kenrick later on was the gross libeller of Goldsmith, and the far grosser libeller of Garrick. 'When proceedings were commenced against him in the Court of King's Bench [for the libel on Garrick], he made at once the most abject submission and retractation.' Prior's Goldsmith, i. 294. In the Garrick Carres, (ii. 341) is a letter addressed to Kenrick, in which Garrick says:—'I could have honoured you by giving the satisfaction of a gentleman, if you could (as Shakespeare says) have screwed your courage to the sticking place, to have taken it.' It is endorsed:—'This was not sent to the scoundrel Dr. Kenrick…. It was judged best not to answer any more of Dr. Kenrick's notes, he had behaved so unworthily.'
[1459] Ephraim Chambers, in the epitaph that he made for himself (ante, p. 219), had described himself as multis pervulgatus paucis notus.' Gent. Mag. x. 262.