[262] Dr. Johnson afterwards told me, that he was of opinion that a clergyman had this right. BOSWELL.
[263] Johnson, nearly three years earlier, had said of Granger:—'The dog is a Whig. I do not like much to see a Whig in any dress; but I hate to see a Whig in a parson's gown.' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 24, 1773.
[264] 'I did my utmost,' wrote Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 168), 'to dissuade Mr. Granger from the dedication, and took especial pains to get my virtues left out of the question.'
[265]
'In moderation placing all my glory,
While Tories call me Whig, and Whigs a Tory.'
Pope, Imitations of Horace, Bk. ii Sat. I. 1. 67.
[266] 'One of the dippers at Brighthelmstone, seeing Mr. Johnson swim in the year 1766, said:—"Why, Sir, you must have been a stout-hearted gentleman forty years ago."' Piozzi's Anec. p. 113. Johnson, in his verses entitled, In Rivum a Mola Stoana Lichfeldiæ diffluentem (Works, i. 163), writes:—
'Errat adhuc vitreus per prata virentia rivus,
Quo toties lavi membra tenella puer;
Hic delusa rudi frustrabar brachia motu,
Dum docuit blanda voce natare pater.'
[267] For this and Dr. Johnson's other letters to Mr. Levett, I am indebted to my old acquaintance Mr. Nathaniel Thomas, whose worth and ingenuity have been long known to a respectable, though not a wide circle; and whose collection of medals would do credit to persons of greater opulence. BOSWELL.
[268] Johnson's letters to Mrs. Thrale shew the difference between modern Brighton and the Brighthelmstone of his days. Thus he writes:— 'Ashbourne, Sept. 27, 1777. I know not when I shall write again, now you are going to the world's end [i.e. Brighton]. Extra anni solisque vias, where the post will be a long time in reaching you. I shall, notwithstanding all distance, continue to think on you.' Piozzi Letters, i. 387. 'Oct. 6, 1777. Methinks you are now a great way off; and if I come, I have a great way to come to you; and then the sea is so cold, and the rooms are so dull; yet I do love to hear the sea roar and my mistress talk—For when she talks, ye gods! how she will talk. I wish I were with you, but we are now near half the length of England asunder. It is frightful to think how much time must pass between writing this letter and receiving an answer, if any answer were necessary.' Ib. ii. 2.