'London,
'31 October, 1791.
'To John Richards, Esq., R.A. &c.'
Bennet Langton's letter of acceptance of the Professorship of Ancient
Literature in the place of Johnson is dated April 2, 1788.
I must express my acknowledgments to the President and Council of the Royal Academy for their kindness in allowing me to copy the above letters from the originals that are in their possession.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See ante, March 15, 1776.
[2] Anecdotes of Johnson, p. 176. BOSWELL. 'It is,' he said, 'so very difficult for a sick man not to be a scoundrel.' Ib. p. 175. He called Fludyer a scoundrel (ante, March 20, 1776), apparently because he became a Whig. 'He used to say a man was a scoundrel that was afraid of anything. "Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is," he said, "a scoundrel."' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 199, 211. Mr. Croker points out that 'Johnson in his Dictionary defined knave, a scoundrel; sneakup, a scoundrel; rascal, a scoundrel; loon, a scoundrel; lout, a scoundrel; poltroon, a scoundrel; and that he coined the word scoundrelism' (Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 25, 1773). Churchill, in The Ghost, Book ii. (Poems, i. 1. 217), describes Johnson as one
'Who makes each sentence current pass,
With puppy, coxcomb, scoundrel, ass.'
Swift liked the word. 'God forbid,' he wrote, 'that ever such a scoundrel as Want should dare to approach you.' Swift's Works, ed. 1803, xviii. 39.