y answer, or to take the least notice of my
present.' _Ib._ xv. 176. Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Jones, in two letters
to Burke, speaks of Thurlow as the [Greek: thaerion] (beast). 'I heard
last night, with surprise and affliction,' he wrote on Feb. 15,
1783,'that the [Greek: thaerion] was to continue in office. Now I can
assure you from my own positive knowledge (and I know him well), that
although he hates _our_ species in general, yet his particular hatred is
directed against none more virulently than against Lord North, and the
friends of the late excellent Marquis.' Burke's _Corres._ ii. 488,
and iii. 10.

[1082] 'Scarcely had Pitt obtained possession of unbounded power when an
aged writer of the highest eminence, who had made very little by his
writings, and who was sinking into the grave under a load of infirmities
and sorrows, wanted five or six hundred pounds to enable him, during the
winter or two which might still remain to him, to draw his breath more
easily in the soft climate of Italy. Not a farthing was to be obtained;
and before Christmas the author of the _English Dictionary_ and of the
_Lives of the Poets_ had gasped his last in the river fog and coal smoke
of Fleet-street.' _Macaulay's Writings and Speeches,_ ed. 1871, p. 413.
Just before Macaulay, with monstrous exaggeration, says that Gibbon,
'forced by poverty to leave his country, completed his immortal work on
the shores of Lake Leman.' This poverty of Gibbon would have been
'splendour' to Johnson. Debrett's Royal Kalendar, for 1795 (p. 88),
shews that there were twelve Lords of the King's Bedchamber receiving
each L1000 a year, and fourteen Grooms of the Bedchamber receiving each,
L500 a year. As Burns was made a gauger, so Johnson might have been made
a Lord, or at least a Groom of the Bedchamber. It is not certain that
Pitt heard of the application for an increased pension. Mr. Croker
quotes from Thurlow's letter to Reynolds of Nov. 18, 1784:--'It was
impossible for me to take the King's pleasure on the suggestion I
presumed to move. I am an untoward solicitor.' Whether he consulted Pitt
cannot be known. Mr. Croker notices a curious obliteration in this
letter. The Chancellor had written:--'It would have suited the purpose
better, if nobody had heard of it, except Dr. Johnson, you and J.
Boswell.' _Boswell_ has been erased--'artfully' too, says--Mr. Croker-so
that 'the sentence appears to run, "except Dr. Johnson, you, and I."'
Mr. Croker, with hi