[1011] 'It was maliciously circulated that George was indifferent to his own succession, and scarcely willing to stretch out a hand to grasp the crown within his reach.' Coxe's Memoirs of Walpole, i. 57.
[1012] Plin. Epist. lib. ii. ep. 3. BOSWELL.
[1013] Mr. Davies was here mistaken. Corelli never was in England. BURNEY.
[1014] Mr. Croker is wrong in saying that the Irishman in Mrs. Thrale's letter of May 16, 1776 (Piozzi Letters, i. 329), is Dr. Campbell. The man mentioned there had never met Johnson, though she wrote more than a year after this dinner at Davies's. She certainly quotes one of 'Dr. C-l's phrases,' but she might also have quoted Shakspeare. I have no doubt that Mrs. Thrale's Irishman was a Mr. Musgrave (post, under June 16, 1784, note), who is humorously described in Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, ii. 83. Since writing this note I have seen that the Edinburgh reviewer (Oct. 1859, p. 326) had come to the same conclusion.
[1015] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 26, 1773, where Johnson said that 'he did not approve of a Judge's calling himself Farmer Burnett, and going about with a little round hat.'
[1016] 'If all the employments of life were crowded into the time which it [sic] really occupied, perhaps a few weeks, days, or hours would be sufficient for its accomplishment, so far as the mind was engaged in the performance.' The Rambler, No. 8.
[1017] Johnson certainly did, who had a mind stored with knowledge, and teeming with imagery: but the observation is not applicable to writers in general. BOSWELL. See post, April 20, 1783.
[1018] See ante, i. 358.
[1019] See ante, i. 306.
[1020] There has probably been some mistake as to the terms of this supposed extraordinary contract, the recital of which from hearsay afforded Johnson so much play for his sportive acuteness. Or if it was worded as he supposed, it is so strange that I should conclude it was a joke. Mr. Gardner, I am assured, was a worthy and a liberal man. BOSWELL. Thurlow, when Attorney-General, had been counsel for the Donaldsons, in the appeal before the House of Lords on the Right of Literary Property (ante, i. 437, and ii. 272). In his argument 'he observed (exemplifying his observations by several cases) that the booksellers had not till lately ever concerned themselves about authors.' Gent. Mag. for 1774, p. 51.