[394] It so happened. The letter was forwarded to my house at Edinburgh. BOSWELL. Arthur Young (Tour through the North of England, iv. 431-5) describes, in 1768, some of the roads along which Boswell was to travel nine years later. 'I would advise all travellers to consider the country between Newcastle-under-Line and Preston as sea, and as soon think of driving into the ocean as venturing into such detestable roads. I am told the Derby way to Manchester is good, but further is not penetrable.' The road from Wigan to Preston he calls 'infernal,' and 'cautions all travellers, who may accidentally purpose to travel this terrible country, to avoid it as they would the devil; for a thousand to one they break their necks or their limbs. They will here meet with ruts which I actually measured four feet deep, and floating with mud only from a wet summer; what therefore must it be after a winter?'
[395] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Sept. 15, 1777:—'Last night came Boswell. I am glad that he is come. He seems to be very brisk and lively, and laughs a little at —— [no doubt Taylor].' Piozzi Letters, i. 368. On the 18th he wrote:—'Boswell is with us in good humour, and plays his part with his usual vivacity.' On this Baretti noted in his copy:—'That is, he makes more noise than anybody in company, talking and laughing loud.' On p. 216 in vol. i. he noted:—'Boswell is not quite right-headed in my humble opinion.'
[396] In the Gent. Mag. for 1777, p. 458, it is described as a 'violent shock.'
[397] 'Grief has its time' he once said (post, June 2, 1781). 'Grief is a species of idleness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale (Piozzi Letters, i. 77). He constantly taught that it is a duty not to allow the mind to prey on itself. 'Gaiety is a duty when health requires it' (Croker's Boswell, p. 529). 'Encourage yourself in bustle, and variety, and cheerfulness,' he wrote to Mrs. Thrale ten weeks after the death of her only surviving son (Piozzi Letters, i. 341). 'Even to think in the most reasonable manner,' he said at another time, 'is for the present not useful as not to think.' Ib i. 202. When Mr. Thrale died, he wrote to his widow:—'I think business the best remedy for grief, as soon as it can be admitted.' Ib. ii 197. To Dr. Taylor Johnson wrote:—'Sadness only multiplies self.' Notes and Queries, 6th S., v. 461.
[398] 'There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved, nor will by me at least be thought worthy of esteem.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 198. Against this Baretti has written in the margin:— 'Johnson never grieved much for anything. His trade was wisdom.' See ante, ii. 94.
[399] See ante, iii 19. Mr. Croker gives a reference to p. 136 of his edition. Turning to it we find an account of Johnson, who rode upon three horses. It would seem from this that, because John=Jack, therefore Johnson=Jackson.
[400] Mr. Croker remarks on this:—'Johnson evidently thought, either that Ireland is generally mountainous, or that Mr. Burke came from a part which was: but he was mistaken.' The allusion may well be, not to Burke as a native of Ireland, but to him as a student of national politics and economy, to whom any general reflections on the character of mountaineers would be welcome. In Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 201, it is stated that 'it was the philosophy of the book that Burke thought well of.'
[401] Mr. Langley, I have little doubt, is the Mr. L—— of the following passage in Johnson's letter, written from Ashbourne on July 12, 1775:—'Mr. L—— and the Doctor still continue at variance; and the Doctor is afraid and Mr. L—— not desirous of a reconciliation. I therefore step over at by-times, and of by-times I have enough.' Piozzi Letters, i. 267.
[402] See ante, ii. 52.
[403] George Garrick. See Murphy's Johnson, p. 141.