[1002] See ante, ii. 96.

[1003] See ante, p. iii.

[1004] She Stoops to Conquer was first acted on March 15, 1773.  The King of Sardinia had died on Feb. 20. Gent.  Mag. 1773, pp. 149, 151.

[1005] Hannah More (Memoirs, i. 170) describes how, in 1780, she went to one of Mrs. Ord’s assemblies at a time when ’the mourning for some foreign Wilhelmina Jaquelina was not over.  Every human creature was in deep mourning, and I, poor I, all gorgeous in scarlet.  Even Jacobite Johnson was in deep mourning.’

[1006] In the tenth edition of the Rambler, published in 1784, the entry is still found:—­’Milton, Mr. John, remarks on his versification.’  In like manner we find:—­’Shakspeare, Mr. William, his eminent success in tragi-comedy;’ ’Spenser, Mr. Edmund, some imitations of his diction censured;’ ‘Cowley, Mr. Abraham, a passage in his writing illustrated.’

[1007] See ante, p. 116.

[1008] See ante, iii. 425, note 3.

[1009] Hawkins (Life, p. 571) writes:—­’The plan for Johnson’s visiting the Continent became so well known, that, as a lady then resident at Rome afterwards informed me, his arrival was anxiously expected throughout Italy.’

[1010] Edward Lord Thurlow.  BOSWELL.

[1011] See ante, p. 179.

[1012] In 1778.

[1013] ’With Lord Thurlow, while he was at the bar, Johnson was well acquainted.  He said to Mr. Murphy twenty years ago, “Thurlow is a man of such vigour of mind that I never knew I was to meet him, but—­I was going to tell a falsehood; I was going to say I was afraid of him, and that would not be true, for I was never afraid of any man—­but I never knew that I was to meet Thurlow, but I knew I had something to encounter."’ Monthly Review for 1787, lxxvi. 382.  Murphy, no doubt, was the writer.  Lord Campbell (Lives of the Chancellors, ed. 1846, v.621) quotes from ‘the Diary of a distinguished political character’ an account of a meeting between Thurlow and Horne Tooke, in 1801.  ’Tooke evidently came forward for a display, and as I considered his powers of conversation as surpassing those of any person I had ever seen (in point of skill and dexterity, and if necessary in lying), so I took for granted old grumbling Thurlow would be obliged to lower his top-sail to him—­but it seemed as if the very look and voice of Thurlow scared him out of his senses from the first moment.  So Tooke tried to recruit himself by wine, and, though not generally a drinker, was very drunk, but all would not do.’

[1014] It is strange that Sir John Hawkins should have related that the application was made by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he could so easily have been informed of the truth by inquiring of Sir Joshua.  Sir John’s carelessness to ascertain facts is very remarkable.  BOSWELL.