HKB
'And love and hate alike implore The skies--"That Stella mourn no more."'
'The Winter's Walk' has two good lines, but these may have been supplied by Johnson. The lines to 'Lyce, an elderly Lady,' would, if written by him, have been taken as a satire on his wife.
[517] See post under Sept. 18, 1783.
[518] See Johnson's Works, vii. 4, 34.
[519] Boswell italicises conceits to shew that he is using it in the sense in which Johnson uses it in his criticism of Cowley:--'These conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which consists of thoughts true in one sense of the expression and false in the other.' Ib. vii 35.
[520] Namby Pamby was the name given to Ambrose Philips by Pope Ib. viii. 395
[521] Malone most likely is meant. Mr. Croker says:--'Johnson has "indifferently" in the sense of "without concern" in his Dictionary, with this example from Shakespeare, "And I will look on death indifferently."' Johnson however here defines indifferently as in a neutral state; without wish or aversion; which is not the same as without concern. The passage, which is from Julius Caesar, i. 2, is not correctly given. It is--
'Set honour in one eye and death i' the other And I will look on both indifferently.'
We may compare Johnson's use of indifferent in his Letter to Chesterfield, post, Feb. 7, 1755:--'The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours ... has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it.'
[522] 'Radcliffe, when quite a boy, had been engaged in the rebellion of 1715, and being attainted had escaped from Newgate.... During the insurrection [of 1745], having been captured on board a French vessel bound for Scotland, he was arraigned on his original sentence which had slumbered so long. The only trial now conceded to him was confined to his identity. For such a course there was no precedent, except in the case of Sir Walter Raleigh, which had brought shame upon the reign of James I.' Campbell's Chancellors (edit. 1846), v. 108. Campbell adds, 'his execution, I think, reflects great disgrace upon Lord Hardwicke [the Lord Chancellor].'
[523] In the original end.
[524] "These verses are somewhat too severe on the extraordinary person who is the chief figure in them, for he was undoubtedly brave. His pleasantry during his solemn trial (in which, by the way, I have heard Mr. David Hume observe, that we have one of the very few speeches of Mr. Murray, now Earl of Mansfield, authentically given) was very remarkable. When asked if he had any questions to put to Sir Everard Fawkener, who was one of the strongest witnesses against him, he answered, 'I only wish him joy of his young wife.' And after sentence of death, in the horrible terms in cases of treason, was pronounced upon him, and he was retiring from the bar, he said, 'Fare you well, my Lords, we shall not all meet again in one place.' He behaved with perfect composure at his execution, and called out 'Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori?'
'What joys, what glories round him wait, Who bravely for his country dies!"
FRANCIS. Horace, Odes, iii.2. 13.
BOSWELL.
'Old Lovat was beheaded yesterday,' wrote Horace Walpole on April 10, 1747, 'and died extremely well: without passion, affectation, buffoonery, or timidity; his behaviour was natural and intrepid.' Letters, ii. 77.
[525] See post, 1780, in Mr. Langton's Collection.
[526] My friend, Mr. Courtenay, whose eulogy on Johnson's Latin Poetry has been inserted in this Work [ante, p. 62], is no less happy in praising his English Poetry.
But hark, he sings! the strain ev'n Pope admires; Indignant virtue her own bard inspires. Sublime as juvenal he pours his lays, And with the Roman shares congenial praise;-- In glowing numbers now he fires the age, And Shakspeare's sun relumes the clouded stage.
BOSWELL.