It is
sufficient for Watts to have done better than others what no man has
done well.' _Ib_. viii. 386. See _ante_, i. 312. Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_.
p. 200) says that when 'Johnson would inveigh against devotional poetry,
and protest that all religious verses were cold and feeble,' she
reminded him how 'when he would try to repeat the _Dies irae, dies illa_,
he could never pass the stanza ending thus, _Tantus labor non sit
cassus_, without bursting into a flood of tears.'
[1069] See _ante_, ii. 169, note 2.
[1070] Dr. Johnson was by no means attentive to minute accuracy in his
_Lives of the Poets_; for notwithstanding my having detected this
mistake, he has continued it. BOSWELL. See _post_, iv. 51, note 2 for a
like instance of neglect.
[1071] See _ante_, ii. 64.
[1072] See _ante_, ii. 278.
[1073] 'May 31, 1778. We shall at least not doze, as we are used to do,
in summer. The Parliament is to have only short adjournments; and our
senators, instead of retiring to horseraces (_their_ plough), are all
turned soldiers, and disciplining militia. Camps everywhere.' Horace
Walpole's _Letters_, vii. 75. It was a threat of invasion by the united
forces of France and Spain, at the time that we were at war with
America, that caused the alarm.
Pages:
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923