'We live by Admiration, Hope, and Love;
And even as these are well and wisely fixed,
In dignity of being we ascend.'
Wordsworth's Works, ed. 1857, vi. 135.
[1079]
'Amoret's as sweet and good,
As the most delicious food;
Which but tasted does impart
Life and gladness to the heart.
Sacharissa's beauty's wine,
Which to madness does incline;
Such a liquor as no brain
That is mortal can sustain.'
Waller's Epistles, xii. BOSWELL.
[1080] Not that he would have wished Boswell 'to talk from books.' 'You and I,' he once said to him, 'do not talk from books.' Boswell's Hebrides, Nov. 3, 1773. See post, iii, 108, note 1, for Boswell's want of learning.
[1081] See post, under March 30, 1783.
[1082] Yet he sat to Miss Reynolds, as he tells us, perhaps ten times (post, under June 17, 1783), and 'Miss Reynolds's mind,' he said, 'was very near to purity itself.' Northcote's Reynolds, i. 80. Eight years later Barry, in his Analysis (post, May, 1783, note), said:—'Our females are totally, shamefully, and cruelly neglected in the appropriation of trades and employments.' Barry's Works, ii. 333.
[1083] The four most likely to be mentioned would be, I think, Beauclerk, Garrick, Langton, and Reynolds. On p. 359, Boswell mentions Beauclerk's 'acid manner.'
[1084] In his Dictionary, Johnson defines muddy as cloudy in mind, dull; and quotes The Winter's Tale, act i. sc. 2. Wesley (Journal, ii. 10) writes:—'Honest, muddy M. B. conducted me to his house.' Johnson (post, March 22, 1776), after telling how an acquaintance of his drank, adds, 'not that he gets drunk, for he is a very pious man, but he is always muddy.' It seems at first sight unlikely that he called Reynolds muddy; yet three months earlier he had written:—'Reynolds has taken too much to strong liquor.' Ante, p. 292, note 5.