This volume was published in 1776. The copy in the library of Pembroke
College, Oxford, bears the inscription in Johnson's hand: 'To Sir Joshua
Reynolds from the Authour.' On the title-page Sir Joshua has written
his own name.
[924] R. B. Sheridan thought of joining in these attacks. In his Life by Moore (i. 151) fragments of his projected answer are given. He intended to attack Johnson on the side of his pension. One thought he varies three times. 'Such pamphlets,' he writes, 'will be as trifling and insincere as the venal quit-rent of a birth-day ode.' This again appears as 'The easy quit-rent of refined panegyric,' and yet again as 'The miserable quit-rent of an annual pamphlet.'
[925] See post, beginning of 1781.
[926] Boswell wrote to Temple on June 19, 1775:—'Yesterday I met Mr. Hume at Lord Kame's. They joined in attacking Dr. Johnson to an absurd pitch. Mr. Hume said he would give me half-a-crown for every page of his Dictionary in which he could not find an absurdity, if I would give him half-a-crown for every page in which he did not find one: he talked so insolently really, that I calmly determined to be at him; so I repeated, by way of telling that Dr. Johnson could be touched, the admirable passage in your letter, how the Ministry had set him to write in a way that they "could not ask even their infidel pensioner Hume to write." When Hume asked if it was from an American, I said No, it was from an English gentleman. "Would a gentleman write so?" said he. In short, Davy was finely punished for his treatment of my revered friend; and he deserved it richly, both for his petulance to so great a character and for his talking so before me.' Letters of Boswell, p. 204. Hume's pension was £400. He obtained it through Lord Hertford, the English ambassador in Paris, under whom he had served as secretary to the embassy. J. H. Burton's Hume, ii. 289.
[927] See post, Aug. 24 1782.
[928] Dr. T. Campbell records on March 16 of this year (Diary, p. 36):—'Thrale asked Dr. Johnson what Sir Joshua Reynolds said of Taxation no Tyranny. "Sir Joshua," quoth the Doctor, "has not read it." "I suppose," quoth Thrale, "he has been very busy of late." "No," says the Doctor, "but I never look at his pictures, so he won't read my writings." He asked Johnson if he had got Miss Reynold's opinion, for she, it seems, is a politician. "As to that," quoth the Doctor, "it is no great matter, for she could not tell after she had read it on which said of the question Mr. Burke's speech was."'
[929] W.G. Hamilton.
[930] See post, Nov. 19, 1783.
[931] Sixteen days after this pamphlet was published, Lord North, as Chancellor of the University of Oxford, proposed that the degree of Doctor in Civil Law should be conferred on Johnson (post, p. 331). Perhaps the Chancellor in this was cheaply rewarding the service that had been done to the Minister. See ante, ii. 373.
[932] Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, ed. 1785, p. 256. [Johnson's Works, ix. 108.] BOSWELL. See ante, ii. 10, note 3.