'Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.'
Pope's Essay on Man, i. 99.
[289] '"I inherited," said Johnson, "a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober."' Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 16, 1773. See ante, i. 65, and post, Sept. 20, 1777.
[290] Pr. and Med. p. 155. BOSWELL.
[291] Pr. and Med. p. 158. BOSWELL.
[292] He continues:—'I passed the afternoon with such calm gladness of mind as it is very long since I felt before. I passed the night in such sweet uninterrupted sleep as I have not known since I slept at Fort Augustus.' See post, Nov. 21, 1778, where in a letter to Boswell he says:—'The best night that I have had these twenty years was at Fort Augustus.' In 1767 he mentions (Pr. and Med. p. 73) 'a sudden relief he once had by a good night's rest in Fetter Lane,' where he had lived many years before. His good nights must have been rare indeed.
[293] Bishop Percy says that he handed over to Johnson various memoranda which he had received from 'Goldsmith's brother and others of his family, to afford materials for a Life of Goldsmith, which Johnson was to write and publish for their benefit. But he utterly forgot them and the subject.' Prior successfully defends Johnson against the charge that he did not include Goldsmith's Life among the Lives of the Poets. 'The copy-right of She Stoops to Conquer was the property of Carnan the bookseller (surviving partner of F. Newbery); and Carnan being "a most impracticable man and at variance with all his brethren," in the words of Malone to the Bishop, he refused his assent, and the project for the time fell to the ground.' But Percy clearly implies that it was a separate work and not one of the Lives that Johnson had undertaken. See Prior's Goldsmith, Preface, p. x. Malone, in a note on Boswell's letter of July 9, 1777, says:—'I collected some materials for a Life of Goldsmith, by Johnson's desire.' He goes on to mention the quarrel with Carnan. It should seem then that Johnson was gathering materials for Goldsmith's Life before the Lives of the Poets were projected; that later on he intended to include it in that series, but being thwarted by Carnan that he did nothing.
[294] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 24, 1773.
[295] 'I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.' Ib. Oct. 14.
[296] 'The Duke of Argyle was obliging enough to mount Dr. Johnson on a stately steed from his grace's stable. My friend was highly pleased, and Joseph [Boswell's Bohemian servant] said, "He now looks like a bishop."' Boswell's Hebrides, Oct. 26.