[1279] Boswell, on Jan. 4, wrote to Temple:—'How inconsiderable are both you and I, in comparison with what we used to hope we should be! Yet your learning and your memoirs set you far above the common run of educated men. And Son pittore anche io. I too, in several respects, have attained to superiority. But we both want solidity and force of mind, such as we observe in those who rise in active life.' Letters of Boswell, p. 249.
[1280]
'For in the mind alone our follies lie,
The mind that never from itself can fly.'
FRANCIS. Horace, Epistles, i. 14. 13.
[1281] Requesting me to inquire concerning the family of a gentleman who was then paying his addresses to Miss Doxy. BOSWELL.
[1282] It is little more than half that distance.
[1283] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Nov. 7:—'My master, I hope, hunts and walks, and courts the belles, and shakes Brighthelmston. When he comes back, frolick and active, we will make a feast, and drink his health, and have a noble day.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 79.
[1284] See page 368. BOSWELL. On Nov. 16 he wrote:—'At home we do not much quarrel; but perhaps the less we quarrel, the more we hate. There is as much malignity amongst us as can well subsist without any thought of daggers or poisons.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 93.
[1285] See ante, i. 187.
[1286] See post, p. 421, and Feb. 27, 1784.