'Through him the rays of regal bounty shine.' BOSWELL.
[623] See ante, p. 205.
[624] 'In my mind's eye, Horatio.' Hamlet, act i. sc. 2.
[625] Mr. Langton. See ante, p. 48.
[626] See ante, May 12, 1775.
[627] Daughter of Dr. Swinfen, Johnson's godfather, and widow of Mr. Desmoulins, a writing-master. BOSWELL.
[628] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Montagu on March 5:—'Now, dear Madam, we must talk of business. Poor Davies, the bankrupt bookseller, is soliciting his friends to collect a small sum for the repurchase of part of his household stuff. Several of them gave him five guineas. It would be an honour to him to owe part of his relief to Mrs. Montagu.' Croker's Boswell, p. 570. J. D'Israeli says (Calamities of Authors, i. 265):—'We owe to Davies beautiful editions of some of our elder poets, which are now eagerly sought after; yet, though all his publications were of the best kinds, and are now of increasing value, the taste of Tom Davies twice ended in bankruptcy.' See post, April 7, 1778.
[629] See ante, i. 391. Davies wrote to Garrick in 1763:—'I remember that during the run of Cymbeline I had the misfortune to disconcert you in one scene of that play, for which I did immediately beg your pardon, and did attribute it to my accidentally seeing Mr. Churchill in the pit, with great truth; and that was the only time I can recollect of my being confused or unmindful of my business when that gentleman was before me. I had even then a more moderate opinion of my abilities than your candour would allow me, and have always acknowledged that gentleman's picture of me was fair.' He adds that he left the stage on account of Garrick's unkindness, 'who,' he says, 'at rehearsals took all imaginable pains to make me unhappy.' Garrick Corres. i. 165.
[630] He was afterwards Solicitor-General under Lord Rockingham and Attorney-General under the Duke of Portland. 'I love Mr. Lee exceedingly,' wrote Boswell, 'though I believe there are not any two specifick propositions of any sort in which we exactly agree. But the general mass of sense and sociality, literature and religion, in each of us, produces two given quantities, which unite and effervesce wonderfully well. I know few men I would go farther to serve than Jack Lee.' Letter to the People of Scotland, p. 75. Lord Eldon said that Lee, in the debates upon the India Bill, speaking of the charter of the East India Company, 'expressed his surprise that there could be such political strife about what he called "a piece of parchment, with a bit of wax dangling to it." This most improvident expression uttered by a Crown lawyer formed the subject of comment and reproach in all the subsequent debates, in all publications of the times, and in everybody's conversation.' Twiss's Eldon, iii. 97. In the debate on Fox's India Bill on Dec. 3, 1783, Lee 'asked what was the consideration of a charter, a skin of parchment with a waxed seal at the corner, compared to the happiness of thirty millions of subjects, and the preservation of a mighty empire.' Parl. Hist. xxiv. 49. See Twiss's Eldon, i. 106-9, and 131, for anecdotes of Lee; and ante, ii. 48, note 1.
[631] 'For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face.' I Corinthians, xiii. 12.