'
_Ode_, p. 8.
[1133] Twenty-nine years earlier he wrote:--'There is nothing more
dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which reproach,
hatred, and opposition are names of happiness.' _The Rambler_, No. 2. In
_The Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. xx, George says of his book:--'The learned
world said nothing to my paradoxes, nothing at all, Sir.... I suffered
the cruellest mortification, neglect.' See _ante_, ii. 61, 335. Hume
said:--'The misfortune of a book, says Boileau, is not the being ill
spoke [sic] of, but the not being spoken of at all.' J.H. Burton's
_Hume_, i. 412
[1134] The account given in Northcote's _Reynolds_ (ii. 94-97) renders
it likely that Sir Joshua is 'the friend of ours.' Northcote, quoting
Mr. Courtenay, writes:--'His table was frequented by men of the first
talents. Politics and party were never introduced. Temporal and
spiritual peers, physicians, lawyers, actors, and musicians composed the
motley group.' At one of these dinners Mr. Dunning, afterwards Lord
Ashburton, was the first who came. 'On entering, he said, "Well, Sir
Joshua, and who [sic] have you got to dine with you to-day? for the last
time I dined with you the assembly was of such a sort, that, by G--, I
believe all the rest of the world were at peace, for that afternoon at
least.
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