Life of Johnson, Volume 4 / 1780-1784

by James Boswell

[209] 'An ardent judge, who zealous in his trust, With warmth gives sentence, yet is always just.' Pope's Essay on Criticism, l.677.

[210] Works, viii.459. Though the Life of Young is by Croft, yet the critical remarks are by Johnson.

[211] Ib. p.460.

[212] Johnson refers to Chambers's Dissertation on Oriental Gardening, which was ridiculed in the Heroic Epistle. See post, under May 8, 1781, and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 13.

[213] Boswell refers to the death of Narcissa in the third of the Night Thoughts. While he was writing the Life of Johnson Mrs. Boswell was dying of consumption in (to quote Young's words)

The rigid north, Her native bed, on which bleak Boreas blew.'

She died nearly two years before The Life was published.

[214] Proverbs, xviii.14.

[215] See Boswell's Hebrides, Aug. 16.

[216] See vol. i. page 133. BOSWELL.