o die.'

But he afterwards altered it to the present reading. BOSWELL. This poem
is printed in the _Ann. Reg_. for 1783, p. 189, with the following
variations:--l. 18, for 'ready help' 'useful care': l. 28, 'His single
talent,' 'The single talent'; l. 33, 'no throbs of fiery pain,' 'no
throbbing fiery pain'; l. 36, 'and freed,' 'and forced.' On the next
page it is printed _John Gilpin_.

[438] Mr. Croker says that this line shows that 'some of Gray's happy
expressions lingered in Johnson's memory' He quotes a line that comes at
the end of the _Ode on Vicissitude_--'From busy day, the peaceful
night.' This line is not Gray's, but Mason's.

[439] Johnson wrote to Mrs. Thrale on Aug. 14, 1780:--'If you want
events, Here is Mr. Levett just come in at fourscore from a walk to
Hampstead, eight miles, in August.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 177.

[440] In the original, _March_ 20. On the afternoon of March 20 Lord
North announced in the House of Commons 'that his Majesty's Ministers
were no more.' _Parl. Hist_. xxii. 1215.

[441] _Pr. and Med_. p. 209 [207]. BOSWELL.

[442] See _ante_, ii. 355, iii. 46, iv. 81, 100. Mr. Seward records in
his _Biographiana_, p. 600--without however giving the year--that
'Johnson being asked what the Opposition meant by their flaming speeches
and violent pamphlets against Lord North's administration, answered:
"They mean, Sir, rebellion; they mean in spite to destroy that country
which they are not permitted to govern."'

[443] In the previous December the City of London in an address, writes
Horace Walpole, 'besought the King to remove both his public and
_private_ counsellors, and used these stunning and memorable
words:--_"Your armies are captured; the wonted superiority of your
navies is annihilated, your dominions are lost."_ Words that could be
used to no other King; no King had ever lost so much without losing all.
If James II. lost his crown, yet the crown lost no dominions.' _Journal
of the Reign of George III_, ii. 483. The address is given in the _Ann.
Reg._ xxiv. 320. On Aug. 4 of this year Johnson wrote to Dr.
Taylor:--'Perhaps no nation not absolutely conquered has declined so
much in so short a time. We seem to be sinking. Suppose the Irish,
having already gotten a free trade and an independent Parliament, should
say we will have a King and ally ourselves with the House of Bourbon,
what could be done to hinder or overthrow them?' Mr. Morrison's
_Autographs_, vol. ii.

[444] In