[632] Goldsmith notices this in the Haunch of Venison:—
My friend bade me welcome, but struck me quite dumb
With tidings that Johnson and Burke would not come;
For I knew it (he cried), both eternally fail,
The one with his speeches, and t'other with Thrale.'
CROKER. See ante, i. 493.
[633] See post, April 1, 1781. 'Johnson said:—"He who praises everybody praises nobody."' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 216.
[634] See ante, p. 55.
[635] Johnson wrote in July 1775:—'Everybody says the prospect of harvest is uncommonly delightful; but this has been so long the summer talk, and has been so often contradicted by autumn, that I do not suffer it to lay much hold on my mind. Our gay prospects have now for many years together ended in melancholy retrospects.' Piozzi Letters, i. 259. On Aug. 27, 1777, he wrote:—'Amidst all these little things there is one great thing. The harvest is abundant, and the weather à la merveille. No season ever was finer.' Ib. p. 360. In this month of March, 1778, wheat was selling at 5s. 3d. the bushel in London; at 6s. 10d. in Somerset; and at 5s. 1d. in Northumberland, Suffolk, and Sussex. Gent. Mag. xlviii. 98. The average price for 1778 was 5s. 3d. Ann. Reg. xxi. 282.
[636] See post, iii. 243, Oct. 10, 1779, and April 1, 1781.
[637] The first edition was in 1492. Between that period and 1792, according to this account, there were 3600 editions. But this is very improbable. MALONE. Malone assumes, as Mr. Croker points out, that this rate of publication continued to the year 1792. But after all, the difference is trifling. Johnson here forgot to use his favourite cure for exaggeration—counting. See post, April 18, 1783. 'Round numbers,' he said, 'are always false.' Johnson's Works (1787), xi. 198. Horace Walpole (Letters, viii. 300), after making a calculation, writes:—'I may err in my calculations, for I am a woeful arithmetician; but no matter, one large sum is as good as another.'
[638] The original passage is: 'Si non potes te talem facere, qualem vis, quomodo poteris alium ad tuum habere beneplacitum?' De Imit. Christ. lib. i. cap. xvi. J. BOSWELL, Jun.
[639] See p. 29 of this vol. BOSWELL.