See also post, under June 16, 1784.
[372] See ante, i. Appendix F.
[373] Dr. Maxwell is perhaps here quoting the Idler, No. 69, where Johnson, speaking of Bioethics on the Confronts of Philosophy, calls it 'the book which seems to have been the favourite of the middle ages.'
[374] Yet it is Murphy's tragedy of Zenobia that Mrs. Piozzi writes (Anec. p. 280):—'A gentleman carried Dr. Johnson his tragedy, which because he loved the author, he took, and it lay about our rooms some time. "Which answer did you give your friend, Sir?" said I, after the book had been called for. "I told him," replied he, "that there was too Tig and Terry in it." Seeing me laugh most violently, "Why, what would'st have, child?" said he. "I looked at nothing but the dramatis [personae], and there was Tigranes and Tiridates, or Teribaeus, or such stuff. A man can tell but what he knows, and I never got any further than the first pages."' In Zenobia two and Tigranes.
[375] Hume was one who had this idle dream. Shortly before his death one of his friends wrote:—'He still maintains that the national debt must be the ruin of Britain; and laments that the two most civilised nations, the English and French, should be on the decline; and the barbarians, the Goths and Vandals of Germany and Russia, should be rising in power and renown.' J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 497.
[376] Hannah More was with Dr. Kennicott at his death. 'Thus closed a life,' she wrote (Memoirs, i. 289), 'the last thirty years of which were honourably spent in collating the Hebrew Scriptures.' See also Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 16, 1773.
[377] Johnson (Works, viii. 467) says that Mallet, in return for what he wrote against Byng, 'had a considerable pension bestowed upon him, which he retained to his death.' See ante, i. 268.
[378] See ante, ii. 76.
[379] 'It is dangerous for a man and woman to suspend their fate upon each other at a time when opinions are fixed, and habits are established; when friendships have been contracted on both sides; when life has been planned into method, and the mind has long enjoyed the contemplation of its own prospects.' Rasselas, ch. xxix.
[380] Malone records that 'Cooper was round and fat. Dr. Warton, one day, when dining with Johnson, urged in his favour that he was, at least, very well informed, and a good scholar. "Yes," said Johnson, "it cannot be denied that he has good materials for playing the fool, and he makes abundant use of them."' Prior's Malone, p. 428. See post, Sept. 15, 1777, note.