[1039] A misprint for April 8.
[1040] Boswell calls him the 'Irish Dr. Campbell,' to distinguish him from the Scotch Dr. Campbell mentioned ante, i. 417.
[1041] See ante, i. 494.
[1042] Baretti, in a MS. note in his copy of Piozzi Letters, i. 374, says:—'Johnson was often fond of saying silly things in strong terms, and the silly Madam [Mrs. Thrale] never failed to echo that beastly kind of wit.'
[1043] According to Dr. T. Campbell, who was present at the dinner (Diary, p. 66), Barry and Garrick were the two actors, and Murphy the author. If Murphy said this in the heat of one of his quarrels with Garrick, he made amends in his Life of that actor (p. 362):—'It was with Garrick,' he wrote, 'a fixed principle, that authors were entitled to the emolument of their labours, and by that generous way of thinking he held out an invitation to men of genius.'
[1044] Page 392, vol. i. BOSWELL.
[1045] Let me here be allowed to pay my tribute of most sincere gratitude to the memory of that excellent person, my intimacy with whom was the more valuable to me, because my first acquaintance with him was unexpected and unsolicited. Soon after the publication of my Account of Corsica, he did me the honour to call on me, and, approaching me with a frank courteous air, said, 'My name, Sir, is Oglethorpe, and I wish to be acquainted with you.' I was not a little flattered to be thus addressed by an eminent man, of whom I had read in Pope, from my early years,
'Or, driven by strong benevolence of soul, Will fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole.'
I was fortunate enough to be found worthy of his good opinion, insomuch, that I not only was invited to make one in the many respectable companies whom he entertained at his table, but had a cover at his hospitable board every day when I happened to be disengaged; and in his society I never failed to enjoy learned and animated conversation, seasoned with genuine sentiments of virtue and religion. BOSWELL. See ante, i. 127, and ii. 59, note 1. The couplet from Pope is from Imitations of Horace, Epist. ii. 2. 276.
[1046]