[184] Mr. Wilks. See ante, i. 167, note 1.
[185] See post, p. 91 and Macaulay's Essay on Addison (ed. 1974, iv.
207).
[186] 'A better and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine—why we could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as we do.' Thackery's English Humourists, ed. 1858, p. 94.
[187] See ante, i. 30, and iii. 155.
[188] See post, under Dec. 2, 1784.
[189] Parnell 'drank to excess.' Ante, iii. 155.
[190] I should have thought that Johnson, who had felt the severe affliction from which Parnell never recovered, would have preserved this passage. BOSWELL.
[191] Mrs. Thrale wrote to Johnson in May, 1780:-'Blackmore will be rescued from the old wits who worried him much to your disliking; so, a little for love of his Christianity, a little for love of his physic, a little for love of his courage—and a little for love of contradiction, you will save him from his malevolent critics, and perhaps do him the honour to devour him yourself.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 122. See ante, ii. 107.
[192] 'This is a tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composed like a painter; and was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by the wits of his time, who did not understand the principles of composition in poetry better than he did; and who knew little, or nothing, of what he understood perfectly, the general ruling principles of architecture and painting.' Reynolds's Thirteenth Discourse.