[168] Mrs. Piozzi wrote of him: 'His character is easily seen, and his soul above disguise, haughty and insolent, and breathing defiance against all mankind; while his powers of mind exceed most people's, and his powers of purse are so slight that they leave him dependent on all. Baretti is for ever in the state of a stream damned up; if he could once get loose, he would bear down all before him.' Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 335.
[169] According to Hawkins (Life, p. 460), the watch was new this year, and was, he believed, the first Johnson ever had.
[170] St. John, ix. 4. In Pr. and Med., p. 233, is the following:—'Ejaculation imploring diligence. "O God, make me to remember that the night cometh when no man can work."' Porson, in his witty attack on Sir John Hawkins, originally published in the Gent. Mag. for 1787, quotes the inscription as a proof of Hawkins's Greek. 'Nux gar erchetai. The meaning is (says Sir John) For the night cometh. And so it is, Mr. Urban.' Porson Tracts, p. 337.
[171] He thus wrote of himself from Oxford to Mrs. Thrale:—'This little dog does nothing, but I hope he will mend; he is now reading Jack the Giant-killer. Perhaps so noble a narrative may rouse in him the soul of enterprise.' Piozzi Letters, i. 9.
[172] See ante, ii. 3
[173] Under the same date, Boswell thus begins a letter to Temple:—'Your moral lecture came to me yesterday in very good time, while I lay suffering severely for immorality. If there is any firmness at all in me, be assured that I shall never again behave in a manner so unworthy the friend of Paoli. My warm imagination looks forward with great complacency on the sobriety, the healthfulness, and the worth of my future life.' Letters of Boswell, p. 147
[174] Johnson so early as Aug. 21, 1766, had given him the same advice (ante, ii. 22). How little Boswell followed it is shewn by his letter to the Earl of Chatham, on April 8, 1767, in which he informed him of his intention to publish his Corsica, and concluded:—'Could your Lordship find time to honour me now and then with a letter? I have been told how favourably your Lordship has spoken of me. To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit of virtuous fame.' Chatham Corres., iii. 246. On the same day on which he wrote to Johnson, he said in a letter to Temple, 'Old General Oglethorpe, who has come to see me, and is with me often, just on account of my book, bids me not marry till I have first put the Corsicans in a proper situation. "You may make a fortune in the doing of it," said he; "or, if you do not, you will have acquired such a character as will entitle you to any fortune."' Letters of Boswell, p. 148. Four months later, Boswell wrote:—'By a private subscription in Scotland, I am sending this week £700 worth of ordnance [to Corsica] … It is really a tolerable train of artillery.' Ib p. 156. In 1769 he brought out a small volume entitled British Essays in favour of the Brave Corsicans. By Several Hands. Collected and published by James Boswell, Esq.
[175] From about the beginning of the fourteenth century, Corsica had belonged to the Republic of Genoa. In the great rising under Paoli, the Corsicans would have achieved their independence, had not Genoa ceded the island to the crown of France.
[176] Boswell, writing to Temple on May 14 of this year, says:—'I am really the great man now. I have had David Hume in the forenoon, and Mr. Johnson in the afternoon of the same day, visiting me. Sir J. Pringle and Dr. Franklin dined with me to-day; and Mr. Johnson and General Oglethorpe one day, Mr. Garrick alone another, and David Hume and some more literati another, dine with me next week. I give admirable dinners and good claret; and the moment I go abroad again, which will be in a day or two, I set up my chariot. This is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and appearing like the friend of Paoli.' Letters of Boswell, p. 151.
[177] See post, April 12, 1778, and May 8, 1781.