52. Johnson's views of the anti-Court party had been somewhat modified when in his Dict. he stated of the word Patriot that "it is sometimes used for a factious disturber of the government." 53. explain away strictly, to obscure, or indeed pervert by glosses. = 54. The Spaniards, to suppress the frequent smuggling carried on by English vessels in the West Indies, had asserted the right of search on the high seas. "Ships were often illegally detained and their crews sometimes treated with severity." See the story of Jenkins' Ear. It was on the 21st of March, of the year in which London was published, that that worthy exhibited his famous ear to the House of Commons, out of a box in which he always carried it about him, wrapt up in cotton." Although the country generally so completely sympathized with him and what he represented (viz. resistance to the Spanish Right of Search) that it went to war with Spain, there were many who ridiculed his tale, and felt that Spain had some justification for its policy. It is to these Johnson here refers. See Knight's Pop. Hist. Eng. VI. chap. vi. 56. [What is the force of lend here? What of confidence? What "case" is lie?] 58. The 2nd of Adam Smith's Four maxims or principles on the subject of Taxation is (see Wealth of Nations, published 1776): "The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor and to every other person," &c. Certainly the Roman financial economy was far from satisfying these conditions. The Publicani were notorious extortioners. And so the corresponding functionaries of modern countries. farm a lottery. State-lotteries were a favourite mode of raising money for the public service during the whole of the 18th century, and down to the year 1826, when the last one was drawn in England. See Chambers' Book of Days, ii. 465-8. An act was made in the 19th year of George III. to license and regulate the Keepers of such offices. See Kerr's Blackstone's Comment. Private lotteries were suppressed "as public nuisances" in the reign of Queen Anne. See Knight's Pop. Hist. Eng. V. Chap. iii. farm. The noun farm (A. S. feorme) means radically food. "Lands were let on condition of supplying the lord with so many nights' entertainment for his household.... This mode of reckoning constantly appears in Doomsday Book: 'Reddet firmam trium noctium'" (Wedgwood). Then, this entertainment being commuted for money, farm = so much money, rent; and then by a natural transition, arm = the land producing that money or rent; and, as a verb, to occupy such land; whence in a general sense, to hold or occupy or manage anything for which rent is to be paid. This latter verbal sense is the sense here. 59. silenc'd stage. It was in 1737 that Walpole "moved an amendment to the Vagrant Act as far as related to the common players of interludes... Under this bill the Lord Chamberlain might prohibit the representation of plays; and copies of all new plays, additions to old plays, prologues and epilogues, were to be submitted to that officer for the purpose of being licensed." See Knight's Pop. Hist. Eng. VI. chap. vi. It was the political personalities which had begun to find a place upon the stage, as in Fielding's Pasquin, that led to this interference. Walpole's enactment still remains in force. Some Editions read licens'd here, wrongly and feebly. Comp. Horace's Ep. ad Pis. 283: "Successit vetus his comœdia, non sine multâ Dignam lege regi; lex est accepta, chorusque 63. [Explain rebellious here.] 68. Comp. Juvenal: "Quid Romæ faciam? mentiri nescio." 61. 72. The Gazetteer was the Court newspaper of the time. 73. [Explain in half his pension dress'd.] 80. [Explain to puzzle right.] varnish wrong = disguise the proper hue or colour of wrong. Comp. the phrase "a coloured account." 81. a spy. See Pope's Satires of Dr Donne versified, iv. 279: and ib. 158: "Scared at the grizly forms, I sweat, I fly, Donne writes: and "He like a privileg'd spy, whom nothing can 83. [What is meant by social guilt?] Comp. Juvenal: "Quis nunc diligitur nisi conscius?.... Carus erit Verri, qui Verrem tempore quo vult 86. Marlborough. In 1708, "exclusive of Blenheim, the duke's fixed yearly income, from offices and emoluments, was very nearly fifty-five thousand pounds; and the income of the duchess, from her offices at court, was nine thousand five hundred pounds" (Knight's Pop. Hist. Eng. V. chap. xxii.). See Johnson's Life of Swift; "That is no longer doubted of which the nation was then [in Swift's Conduct of the Allies] first informed, that the war was unnecessarily protracted to fill the pockets of Marlborough; and that it would have been continued without end, if he could have continued his annual plunder." As to his parsimony Johnson here, and Thackeray in his Esmond, have only too good authority for their attacks, allusive or direct, upon him. Villiers. See Dryden's Abs. and Achit. Part i. 544-568, and Pope's Moral Essays, Ep. iii. 299-314, where Pope notes: "This lord, yet more famous for his vices than his misfortunes, after having been possess'd of about £50,000 a year, and passed thro' many of the highest posts in the kingdom, died in the year 1687, in a remote inn in Yorkshire, reduced to the utmost misery." 89. [Explain self-approving day. What part of the sentence is it?] 93. [What is meant by gen'ral here?] 94. Rome. By Rome he means Italy generally. [Is common sewer a metaphor or a simile?] 97. [Explain transports. Should we use the word in the same way?] 99. See Spect. no. 329: "Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon Edward the Third's sword, and leaning upon the pummel of it gave us the whole history of the Black Prince, concluding that in Sir Richard Baker's opinion Edward the Third was one of the greatest princes that ever sate upon the English throne." 100. [Mention some saints of English birth.] 106. See 1. 28. 108. Gibbet, Fr. gibet, Ital. giubbette (which is closely connected with giubetto, which is a dim. of giubba, which properly means an under-waistcoat) a halter. Then the framework from which the halter was suspended, in which, the modern, sense Robert of Gloucester uses it, and Chaucer, in his House of Fame, i.: 66 "Cresus that was King of Lide That high upon a gebet dide." 108. wheel. Breaking on the wheel, according to Haydn's Dict. of Dates, Ed. 1863, was used for the punishment of great criminals, such as assassins and parricides, first in Germany; it was also used by the Inquisition, and rarely anywhere else, until Francis I. ordered it to be inflicted upon robbers, first breaking their bones by strokes with a heavy iron club, and then leaving them to expire on the wheel, A.D. 1515." Shakspere makes Coriolanus speak of "Death on the wheel" (III. ii. 2). See also Winter's Tale, III. ii. 176: "What studied torments, tyrant, hast for me? What wheels? racks? fires? what flaying? boiling? In leads or oils? what old or newer torture Must I receive, whose every word deserves See The Traveller, 435. 62. 113. Comp. Juvenal: Augur, schoenobates, medicus, magus; omnia novit A great dislike of the French was one of Johnson's many violent prejudices. 118. See Spect. 329: "The glorious names of Henry the Fifth and Queen Elizabeth gave the knight great opportunities of shining and of doing justice to Sir Richard Baker," &c. 119. Comp. Hor. Ep. II. i. 156. So Butler, with respect to dress of his time, Hud. I. iii. 923: "And as the French we conquer'd once Now give us laws for pantaloons, The length of breeches and the gathers, Port cannons, perriwigs, and feathers," &c. gulled. Gull is possibly connected with guile; but rather, perhaps, it is the seafowl's name used as a verb, in a secondary sense, to treat as a gull, i. e. as something very stupid. 128. See St. Matthew's Gospel, A.V. xxiii. 24, where for "out" is incorrectly printed "at." The Greek is oi divλíšovtes. 129. awkward. "Aukwarde, frowarde, peruers. Aukwar, lefte-handed, gauche. Auke, stroke reuers" (Palsgrave). The Promptorium Parvulorum gives "awke or wrong, Sinister." 131. There were French actors in England as early as the reign of James I. It was probably by a French troupe that actresses were first introduced upon our stage; See Prynne's Histriomastix. English women do not seem to have 'gone upon the stage" till after the Restoration. καὶ ξυγχαίρουσιν ὁμοιοπρεπείς ἀγέλαστα πρόσωπα βιαζόμενοι.” 141. dog days. See Lycidas, 138. 143. [What is the meaning of fix here? What other meanings has the word?] 153. commence your lords Comp. the Uuiversity phrase, "to commence M.A." The construction is elliptical. 154. [What is the sense of by numbers here?] 155. Perhaps no poet has treated Poverty with less mercy than Pope. See the Dunciad, passim. 63. 163. Comp. Juvenal: "Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se Quam quod ridiculos homines facit." 169. The Pope, Alexander VI., at the beginning of the 16th century, had assigned to Spain all lands discovered more than 470 leagues west of the Azores. 170. Comp. Hor. Epod. xvi. 177. The groom, i. e. The great man's great man. 180. [What is the force of rais'd here?] 192. spread. Comp. the Lat. sterno, as frequently in Virgil. So Ovid's Met. xii. 550: 64. 199. dome is used by Pope and Prior also in the simple sense of a house, a building. 200. They pay back, in part at least, what has been paid them for their support in parliament for so selling their souls, for so "their sauls indentin'," as Burns has it (Twa Dogs, 148). "Every man has his price," was Walpole's theory, founded on an extensive experience. 206. the park and play should rather be the park and the play. [What should be the difference in meaning?] 210. the smiling land. See Gray's Elegy, 63. 211. [What is the force of rent here?] 212. Much attention was about this time beginning to be paid to landscape gardening. See, for instance, Johnson's Life of Shenstone. When Leasowes had in 1745 come into Shenstone's possession, "he took the whole estate into his own hands, more to the improvement of its beauty than the increase of its produce. Now was excited his delight in rural pleasures, and his ambition of rural elegance; he began from this time to point his prospects, to diversify his surface, to entangle his walks, and to wind his waters; which he did with such judgment and such fancy as made his little domain the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful; a place to be visited by travellers and copied by designers," &c. Aislabie begun to "lay out" the grounds of Studley Royal (= Fountain's Abbey) about 1720. 218. With the rhyme between smile and toil, comp. Dunciad, ii. 221: "Now turn to different sports, the goddess cries, And learn, my sons, the wond'rous pow'r of noise." 224. frolick. See note to L'Alleg. 18. In what sense do we now use burst?] 238. In one year ninety-seven malefactors were executed in London; on one morning twenty were hanged. "Hanging-day" came round regularly. See Knight's Pop. Hist. Eng. VII. chap. vi. In Butler's time there was a great executing once a month; see Hudibras, I. ii. 532. "Tyburn was anciently a manor and village west of London, in the Tybourn or Brook, subsequently the West-bourn, the western boundary of the district, now incorporated in Paddington.' (Timbs' Curiosities of London.) As early as 1195, the execution of London and Middlesex criminals took place on its banks. Then, early in the 15th century, the gallows was for a time brought nearer London, to St Giles'-in-the-Fields. Then again it was removed westward to its old neighbourhood; and there remained till 1783, when the place of execution was changed to Newgate. As to its precise site, it would seem to have been originally Elms Lane, Bayswater (see Map of London); there lay the channel of the old stream; then to have been transferred eastward, and been, at various times where Connaught Square now is, where Oxford Street and the Edgeware Road meet, and thirdly, at the junction of Upper Bryanston Street and the Edgeware Road. See Oldham's Satires, Imitation of the Third of Juvenal: "Then fatal carts through Holborn seldom went, And Tyburn with few pilgrims was content." 65. 243. George II. several times visited his continental possessions, e. g. in 1735, and 1736. These absences made him highly unpopular at home. In 1736 "People of all ranks were indignant at the king's long stay in Germany. The national ill-humour was expressed in pasquinades... In December the king came home after the public hopes rather than fears had been excited by the belief that he was at sea during a terrible storm in which many ships had been wrecked." See Knight's Pop. Hist. Eng. VI. Chap. v. 244 gaol and cage, strangely different as they look, are probably derived ultimately from the same Latin word, viz. cavea, gaol coming from the dim. form. See Ital. gaiola =gabbiuola. French geôle. See Wedgwood, to whom "the origin seems gael, gabh, to take, seize, to make prisoner, hold or contain." But is not the origin rather to be seen in the Lat. cavus, cavea, meaning radically much the same as caverna? The place where Joshua confined the five kings was literally a gaol. The first notion is that of a hole or hollow. Just such was the Tullianum at Rome; and just such very commonly were the prisons of the mediæval castles. But perhaps cavus may be ultimately connected with capio. Alfred's reign is the golden age with many a Satirist and many a historian. 248. No special juries. There were no juries at all, in our sense of the word, known in King Alfred's time. Trial by jury, however pertinaciously assigned to him by popular tradition, does really date from the 13th century or thereabouts. According to eminent authorities, as Sir F. Palgrave, it was of Norman rather than of "Anglo-Saxon" origin. 253. wilds is perhaps a corruption of wealds, woods, wooded districts. A. S. weald, Germ. wald. The extent of the Weald of South Kent may still be traced by the placenames ending in den and hurst, as Tenterden, Standen, Sandhurst, &c. VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES. This piece was published in 1749, the twelfth year of Johnson's London struggles. It was in that same year that Gray finished his Elegy. As London of the Third, so this is an imitation of Juvenal's Tenth Satire. There is much difference of tone between the two Satires as well in the originals as in the English versions. The Tenth Satire is not only destructive, it is partly constructive; that is, it is not only satirical, it is also didactic. The text might well be: "He gave them their desire, and sent leanness withal into their soul" (Psalm cvi. 15, the Book of Common Prayer Version). See Horace's Od. 1. xxxi. [See Juvenal's Tenth Satire, and Dryden's Translation of it along with this imitation. Notice any differences between Johnson's style here and that of London. Take any 20 lines of each poem, and compare them together. Can you see any differences in grammatical structure, in the word-order, in the language, &c.? |