[580] The Essay on Truth, published in May, 1770. Beattie wrote on Sept. 30, 1772:—'The fourth edition of my Essay is now in the press.' Forbes's Beattie, ed. 1824, p. 134. Three translations—French, Dutch, and German—had, it seems, already appeared. Ib p. 121. 'Mr. Johnson made Goldsmith a comical answer one day, when seeming to repine at the success of Beattie's Essay on Truth. "Here's such a stir," said he, "about a fellow that has written one book, and I have written many." "Ah, Doctor," says he, "there go two and forty sixpences you know to one guinea."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 179. See Boswell's Hebrides, Oct 1, 1773.
[581] See ante, ii. 144, 183.
[582] On the same day he wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'Your uneasiness at the misfortunes of your relations, I comprehend perhaps too well. It was an irresistible obtrusion of a disagreeable image, which you always wished away, but could not dismiss, an incessant persecution of a troublesome thought, neither to be pacified nor ejected. Such has of late been the state of my own mind. I had formerly great command of my attention, and what I did not like could forbear to think on. But of this power, which is of the highest importance to the tranquillity of life, I have been so much exhausted, that I do not go into a company towards night, in which i foresee anything disagreeable, nor enquire after anything to which I am not indifferent, lest something, which I know to be nothing, should fasten upon my imagination, and hinder me from sleep.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 383. On Oct. 6 he wrote to Dr. Taylor:—'I am now within a few hours of being able to send the whole Dictionary to the press [ante, ii. 155], and though I often went sluggishly to the work, I am not much delighted at the completion. My purpose is to come down to Lichfield next week.' Ib p. 422. He stayed some weeks there and in Ashbourne. Piozzi Letters, i. 55-70.
[583] See ante, ii. 141, note 3.
[584] 'While of myself I yet may think, while breath my body sways.' Morris's Aeneids, iv. 336.
[585] It should seem that this dictionary work was not unpleasant to Johnson; for Stockdale records (Memoirs, ii. 179) that about 1774, having told him that he had declined to edit a new edition of Chambers's Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, 'Johnson replied that if I would not undertake, he would. I expressed my astonishment that, in his easy circumstances, he should think of preparing a new edition of a tedious, scientific dictionary. "Sir," said he, "I like that muddling work." He allowed some time to go by, during which another editor was found—Dr. Rees. Immediately after this intelligence he called on me, and his first words were:—"It is gone, Sir."'
[586] He, however, wrote, or partly wrote, an Epitaph on Mrs. Bell, wife of his friend John Bell, Esq., brother of the Reverend Dr. Bell, Prebendary of Westminster, which is printed in his Works [i. 151]. It is in English prose, and has so little of his manner, that I did not believe he had any hand in it, till I was satisfied of the fact by the authority of Mr. Bell. BOSWELL. 'The epitaph is to be seen in the parish church of Watford.' Hawkins's Johnson, p. 471.
[587] See ante, i. 187. Mme. D'Arblay (Memoirs of Dr. Burney, i. 271) says that this year Goldsmith projected a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, in which Johnson was to take the department of ethics, and that Dr. Burney finished the article Musician. The scheme came to nothing.
[588] We may doubt Steevens's taste. Garrick 'produced Hamlet with alterations, rescuing,' as he said, 'that noble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act' (ante, ii. 85, note 7.) Steevens wrote to Garrick:—'I expect great pleasure from the perusal of your altered Hamlet. It is a circumstance in favour of the poet which I have long been wishing for. You had better throw what remains of the piece into a farce, to appear immediately afterwards. No foreigner who should happen to be present at the exhibition, would ever believe it was formed out of the loppings and excrescences of the tragedy itself. You may entitle it The Grave-Diggers; with the pleasant Humours of Osric, the Danish Macaroni.' Garrick Corres. i. 451.
[589] A line of an epigram in the Life of Virgil, ascribed to Donatus.