[800] The title of a book translated by Dr. Percy. BOSWELL. It is a translation of the introduction to l'Histoire de Danemarck, par M. Mallet. Lowndes's Bibl. Man. ed. 1871, p. 1458.
[801] He was a Welshman.
[802] This is the common cant against faithful Biography. Does the worthy gentleman mean that I, who was taught discrimination of character by Johnson, should have omitted his frailties, and, in short, have bedawbed him as the worthy gentleman has bedawbed Scotland? BOSWELL.
[803] See Dr. Johnson's Journey to the Western Islands, 296 [Works, ix. 124];—see his Dictionary article, oats:—and my Voyage to the Hebrides, first edition. PENNANT.
[804] Mr. Boswell's Journal, p. 286, [third edition, p. 146, Sep. 6.] PENNANT.
[805] See ante, ii. 60.
[806] Percy, it should seem, took offence later on. Cradock (Memoirs, i. 206) says:—'Almost the last time I ever saw Johnson [it was in 1784] he said to me:—"Notwithstanding all the pains that Dr. Farmer and I took to serve Dr. Percy in regard to his Ancient Ballads, he has left town for Ireland without taking leave of either of us."' Cradock adds (p. 238) that though 'Percy was a most pleasing companion, yet there was a violence in his temper which could not always be controlled.' 'I was witness,' he writes (p. 206), 'to an entire separation between Percy and Goldsmith about Rowley's [Chatterton's] poems.'
[807] Sunday, April 12, 1778. BOSWELL.
[808] Johnson, writing of the uncertainty of friendship, says: 'A dispute begun in jest upon a subject which, a moment before, was on both sides regarded with careless indifference, is continued by the desire of conquest, till vanity kindles into rage, and opposition rankles into enmity. Against this hasty mischief I know not what security can be obtained; men will be sometimes surprised into quarrels.' The Idler, No. 23. See ante, ii. 100, note 1.
[809] Though the Bishop of Dromore kindly answered the letters which I wrote to him, relative to Dr. Johnson's early history; yet, in justice to him, I think it proper to add, that the account of the foregoing conversation and the subsequent transaction, as well as some other conversations in which he is mentioned, has been given to the publick without previous communication with his Lordship. BOSWELL. This note is first given in the second edition, being added, no doubt, at the Bishop's request.