[222]
'Oft have I heard thee mourn the wretched lot
Of the poor, mean, despised, insulted Scot,
Who, might calm reason credit idle tales,
By rancour forged where prejudice prevails,
Or starves at home, or practises through fear
Of starving arts which damn all conscience here.'
Churchill's Prophecy of Famine, Poems, i. 105.
[223] For Johnson's praise of Lichfield see ante, March 23, 1776. For the use of the word civility, see ante ii. 155.
[224] See ante, i. 447.
[225] See ante, April 18, 1775.
[226] See post, April 15, 1778.
[227] It would not become me to expatiate on this strong and pointed remark, in which a very great deal of meaning is condensed. BOSWELL.
[228] 'Mr. Wilkes's second political essay was an ironical dedication to the Earl of Bute of Ben Jonson's play, The Fall of Mortimer. "Let me entreat your Lordship," he wrote, "to assist your friend [Mr. Murphy] in perfecting the weak scenes of this tragedy, and from the crude labours of Ben Jonson and others to give us a complete play. It is the warmest wish of my heart that the Earl of Bute may speedily complete the story of Roger Mortimer."' Almon's Wilkes, i. 70, 86.
[229] Yet Wilkes within less than a year violently attacked Johnson in parliament. He said, 'The two famous doctors, Shebbeare and Johnson, are in this reign the state hirelings called pensioners.' Their names, he continued, 'disgraced the Civil List. They are the known pensioned advocates of despotism.' Parl. Hist. xix. 118. It is curious that Boswell does not mention this attack, and that Johnson a few months after it was made, speaking of himself and Wilkes, said:—'The contest is now over.' Post, Sept 21, 1777.