[1195] See ante, iii. 357, and v. 42.
[1196] Perhaps Johnson wrote mere.
[1197] Humphry Llwyd was a native of Denbigh, and practised there as a physician, and also represented the town in Parliament. He died 1568, aged 41. DUPPA.
[1198] Mrs. Thrale's father. DUPPA.
[1199] Cowper wrote a few years later in the first book of The Task, in his description of the grounds at Weston Underwood:—
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'Not distant far a length of colonnade Invites us. Monument of ancient taste, Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate. Our fathers knew the value of a screen From sultry suns, and in their shaded walks And long-protracted bowers enjoyed at noon The gloom and coolness of declining day. We bear our shades about us: self-deprived Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread, And range an Indian waste without a tree. Thanks to Benevolus [A]—he spares me yet These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines, And though himself so polished still reprieves The obsolete prolixity of shade.' |
[1200] Such a passage as this shews that Johnson was not so insensible to nature as is often asserted. Mrs. Piozzi (Anec. p. 99) says:—'Mr. Thrale loved prospects, and was mortified that his friend could not enjoy the sight of those different dispositions of wood and water, hill and valley, that travelling through England and France affords a man. But when he wished to point them out to his companion: "Never heed such nonsense," would he reply; "a blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another. Let us, if we do talk, talk about something; men and women are my subjects of enquiry; let us see how these differ from those we have left behind."' She adds (p. 265):— 'Walking in a wood when it rained was, I think, the only rural image he pleased his fancy with; "for," says he, "after one has gathered the apples in an orchard, one wishes them well baked, and removed to a London eating-house for enjoyment."' See ante, pp. 132, note 1, 141, note 2, 333, note i, and 346, note i, for Johnson's descriptions of scenery. Passages in his letters shew that he had some enjoyment of country life. Thus he writes:—'I hope to see standing corn in some part of the earth this summer, but I shall hardly smell hay or suck clover flowers.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 140. 'What I shall do next I know not; all my schemes of rural pleasure have been some way or other disappointed.' Ib. p. 372. 'I hope Mrs. ——— when she came to her favourite place found her house dry, and her woods growing, and the breeze whistling, and the birds singing, and her own heart dancing.' Ib. p. 401. In this very trip to Wales, after describing the high bank of a river 'shaded by gradual rows of trees,' he writes:—'The gloom, the stream, and the silence generate thoughtfulness.' Post, p. 454.
[A] Mr. Throckmorton the owner.
[1201] In the MS. in Dr. Johnson's handwriting, he has first entered in his diary, 'The old Clerk had great appearance of joy at seeing his Mistress, and foolishly said that he was now willing to die:' he afterwards wrote in a separate column, on the same leaf, under the head of notes and omissions, 'He had a crown;' and then he appears to have read over his diary at a future time, and interlined the paragraph with the words 'only'—'given him by my Mistress,' which is written in ink of a different colour. DUPPA. 'If Mr. Duppa,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, 'does not send me a copy of Johnson's Diary, he is as shabby as it seems our Doctor thought me, when I gave but a crown to the old clerk. The poor clerk had probably never seen a crown in his possession before. Things were very distant A.D. 1774 from what they are 1816.' Hayward's Piozzi, ii. 178. Mrs. Piozzi writes as if Johnson's censure had been passed in 1816 and not in 1774.
[1202] Mrs. Piozzi has the following MS. note on this:—'He said I flattered the people to whose houses we went. I was saucy, and said I was obliged to be civil for two, meaning himself and me. He replied nobody would thank me for compliments they did not understand. At Gwaynynog he was flattered, and was happy of course.' Hayward's Piozzi, i. 75. Sept. 21, 1778. Mrs. Thrale. 'I remember, Sir, when we were travelling in Wales, how you called me to account for my civility to the people. "Madam," you said, "let me have no more of this idle commendation of nothing. Why is it that whatever you see, and whoever you see, you are to be so indiscriminately lavish of praise?" "Why I'll tell you, Sir," said I, "when I am with you, and Mr. Thrale, and Queeny [Miss Thrale], I am obliged to be civil for four."' Mme. D'Arblay's Diary, i. 132. On June 11, 1775, he wrote to Mrs. Thrale from Lichfield:—'Everybody remembers you all: you left a good impression behind you. I hope you will do the same at———. Do not make them speeches. Unusual compliments, to which there is no stated and prescriptive answer, embarrass the feeble, who know not what to say, and disgust the wise, who knowing them to be false suspect them to be hypocritical.' Piozzi Letters, i. 232. She records that he once said to her:—'You think I love flattery, and so I do, but a little too much always disgusts me. That fellow Richardson [the novelist] on the contrary could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.' Piozzi's Anec. p. 184. See ante, iii. 293, for Johnson's rebuke of Hannah More's flattery.