eart.' _Ib_. p. 113. See also
Walpole's _Letters_, vi. 302, and _ante_, ii. 430, note 1.

[82] Garrick himself was a good deal of an infidel: see _ante_, ii. 85,
note 7.

[83] _Ante_, i. 181.

[84] The Tempest, act iv. sc. i. In _The Rambler_, No. 127, Johnson
writes of men who have 'borne opposition down before them, and left
emulation panting behind.' He quotes (_Works_, vii. 261) the following
couplet by Dryden:--

'Fate after him below with pain did move,
And victory could scarce keep pace above.'

Young in _The Last Day_, book I, had written:--

'Words all in vain pant after the distress.'

[85] I am sorry to see in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh_, vol. ii, _An Essay on the Character of Hamlet_, written, I
should suppose, by a very young man, though called 'Reverend;' who
speaks with presumptuous petulance of the first literary character of
his age. Amidst a cloudy confusion of words, (which hath of late too
often passed in Scotland for _Metaphysicks_,) he thus ventures to
criticise one of the noblest lines in our language:--'Dr. Johnson has
remarked, that "time toil'd after him in vain." But I should apprehend,
that this is _entirely to mistake the character_. Time toils after
_every great man_, as well after Shakspeare. The _workings_ of an
ordinary mind _keep pace_, indeed, with time; they move no faster; _they
have their beginning, their middle, and their end_; but superiour
natures can _reduce these into a point_. They do not, indeed, _suppress_
them; but they _suspend_, or they _lock them up in the breast_.' The
learned Society, under whose sanction such gabble is ushered into the
world, would do well to offer a premium to any one who will discover its
meaning. BOSWELL.

[86] 'May 29, 1662. Took boat and to Fox-hall, where I had not been a
great while. To the old Spring Garden, and there walked long.' Pepys's
_Diary_, i. 361. The place was afterwards known as Faux-hall and
Vauxhall. See _ante_, iii. 308.

[87] 'One that wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service and art nothing
but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar.' _King Lear_,
act ii. sc. 2.

[88] Yet W.G. Hamilton said:--'Burke understands everything but gaming
and music. In the House of Commons I sometimes think him only the second
man in England; out of it he is always the first.' Prior's _Burke_, p.
484. See _ante_, ii. 450. Bismarck once 'rang the bell' to old Prince
Metternich. 'I lis