'In lapidary inscriptions a man is not
upon oath.' _Ante_, ii. 407.
[1180] Garrick retired in January 1776, three years before his death.
He visited Ireland in 1742, and again in 1743. Davies's _Garrick_,
i. 57, 91.
[1181] In the original _impoverished_.
[1182] Certainly not Horace Walpole, as had been suggested to Mr.
Croker. He and Johnson can scarcely be said to have known each other
(_post_, under June 19, 1784, note). A sentence in one of Walpole's
_Letters_ (iv. 407) shews that he was very unlike the French wit. On
Sept. 22, 1765, he wrote from Paris:--'The French affect philosophy,
literature, and free-thinking: the first never did, and never will
possess me; of the two others I have long been tired. _Free-thinking is
for one's self, surely not for society_.' Perhaps Richard Fitzpatrick is
meant, who later on joined in writing _The Rolliad_, and who was the
cousin and 'sworn brother' of Charles Fox. Walpole describes him as 'an
agreeable young man of parts,' and mentions his 'genteel irony and
badinage.' _Journal of the Reign of George III_, i. 167 and ii. 560. He
was Lord Shelburne's brother-in-law, at whose house Johnson might have
met him, as well as in Fox's company.
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