have been no frugality, for each enclosure was charged as a
separate letter.

[1120] He does not know, that is to say, what people of his acquaintance
were in town, privileged to receive letters post free; such as members
of either House of Parliament.

[1121] _Consolation_ is clearly a blunder, Malone's conjecture
_mortification_ seems absurd.

[1122] See _ante_, iii. 48, and iv. 177.

[1123] Windham visited him at Ashbourne in the end of August, after the
former of these letters was written. See _ante_, p. 356.

[1124] This may refer, as Mr. Croker says, to Hamilton's generous offer,
mentioned _ante_, p. 244. Yet Johnson, with his accurate mind, was not
likely to assign to the spring an event of the previous November.

[1125] Johnson refers to Pope's lines on Walpole:--

'Seen him I have but in his _happier hour_
Of social pleasure, ill-exchanged for power.'

_Satires. Epilogue_, i. 29.

[1126] Son of the late Peter Paradise, Esq. his Britannick Majesty's
Consul at Salonica, in Macedonia, by his lady, a native of that country.
He studied at Oxford, and has been honoured by that University with the
degree of LL.D. He is distinguished not only by his learning and
talents, but by an amiable disposition, gentleness of manners, and a
very general acquaintance with well-informed and accomplished persons of
almost all nations. BOSWELL.

[1127] Bookseller to his Majesty. BOSWELL.

[1128] Mr. Cruikshank attended him as a surgeon the year before. _Ante_,
p. 239.

[1129]Allan Ramsay, Esq. painter to his Majesty, who died Aug. 10, 1784,
in the 71st year of his age, much regretted by his friends. BOSWELL. See
_ante_, p. 260.

[1130] Northcote (_Life of Reynolds_, ii. 187) says that Johnson 'most
probably refers to Sir Joshua's becoming painter to the King. 'I know,'
he continues, 'that Sir Joshua expected the appointment would be offered
to him on the death of Ramsay, and expressed his disapprobation with
regard to soliciting for it; but he was informed that it was a necessary
point of etiquette, with which at last he complied.' His 'furious
purposes' should seem to have been his intention to resign the
Presidency of the Academy, on finding that the place was not at once
given him, and in the knowledge that in the Academy there was a party
against him. Taylor's _Reynolds_, ii. 448.

[1131] See _ante_, p. 348.

[1132] The Chancellor had not, it should seem, asked the King. See
_ante_, p.