[861] Dunciad, iv. 394, note.

[862] The King opened Parliament this day.  Hannah More during the election found the mob favourable to Fox.  One night, in a Sedan chair, she was stopped with the news that it was not safe to go through Covent Garden.  ‘There were a hundred armed men,’ she was told, ’who, suspecting every chairman belonged to Brookes’s, would fall upon us.  A vast number of people followed me, crying out “It is Mrs. Fox; none but Mr. Fox’s wife would dare to come into Covent Garden in a chair; she is going to canvas in the dark."’ H. More’s Memoirs, i. 316.  Horace Walpole wrote on April 11:—­’In truth Mr. Fox has all the popularity in Westminster.’ Letters, viii. 469.

[863] See post, under June 9, 1784, where Johnson describes Fox as ’a man who has divided the kingdom with Caesar.’

[864] See ante, p. 111.

[865] See ante, ii. 162.

[866] Boswell twice speaks of W. G. Hamilton as ‘an eminent friend’ of Johnson.  He was not Boswell’s friend. (Ante, p. 111, and post, under Dec. 20, 1784.) But Boswell does not here say ‘a friend of ours.’  By ‘eminent friend’ Burke is generally meant, and he, possibly, is meant here.  Boswell, it is true, speaks of his ’orderly and amiable domestic habits’ (ante, iii. 378); but then Boswell mentions the person here ‘as a virtuous man.’  If Burke is meant, Johnson’s suspicions would seem to be groundless.

[867] See ante, p. 168, where Johnson ’wonders why he should have any enemies.’

[868] After all, I cannot but be of opinion, that as Mr. Langton was seriously requested by Dr. Johnson to mention what appeared to him erroneous in the character of his friend, he was bound, as an honest man, to intimate what he really thought, which he certainly did in the most delicate manner; so that Johnson himself, when in a quiet frame of mind, was pleased with it.  The texts suggested are now before me, and I shall quote a few of them.  ’Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.’ Mat. v. 5.—­’I therefore, the prisoner of the LORD, beseech you, that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called; with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.’ Ephes. v. [iv.] 1, 2.—­’And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.’ Col. iii. 14.—­’Charity suffereth long and is kind; charity envieth not, charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up:  doth not behave itself unseemly, is not easily provoked.’ 1 Cor. xiii. 4, 5.  BOSWELL.  Johnson, in The Rambler, No. 28, had almost foretold what would happen.  ’For escaping these and a thousand other deceits many expedients have been proposed.  Some have recommended the frequent consultation of a wise friend, admitted to intimacy and encouraged by sincerity.  But this appears a remedy by no means adapted to general use; for,