s and designs of this prince it
would be long to compare, and very difficult to estimate. Much knowledge
has been acquired, and much cruelty been committed; the belief of
religion has been very little propagated, and its laws have been
outrageously and enormously violated. The Europeans have scarcely
visited any coast but to gratify avarice, and extend corruption; to
arrogate dominion without right, and practise cruelty without incentive.
Happy had it then been for the oppressed, if the designs of Henry had
slept in his bosom, and surely more happy for the oppressors.' Johnson's
_Works_, v. 219. See _ante_, ii. 478.

[783] 'The author himself,' wrote Gibbon (_Misc. Works_, i. 220), 'is
the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on
the subject; no one is so sincerely interested in the event.'

[784] Mickle, speaking in the third person as the Translator, says:--
'He is happy to be enabled to add Dr. Johnson to the number of those
whose kindness for the man, and good wishes for the Translation, call
for his sincerest gratitude.' Mickle's _Lusiad_, p. ccxxv.

[785] A brief record, it should seem, is given, _ante_, iii. 37.

[786] See _ante_, iii. 106, 214.

[787] The author of _Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Dr, Johnson_
says (p. 153) that it was Johnson who determined Shaw to undertake this
work. 'Sir,' he said, 'if you give the world a vocabulary of that
language, while the island of Great Britain stands in the Atlantic Ocean
your name will be mentioned.' On p. 156 is a letter by Johnson
introducing Shaw to a friend.

[788] 'Why is not the original deposited in some publick library?' he
asked. Boswell's _Hebrides_, Nov. 10.

[789] See ante, i. 190.

[790] See Appendix C.

[791] 'Dec. 27, 1873. The wearisome solitude of the long evenings did
indeed suggest to me the convenience of a club in my neighbourhood, but
I have been hindered from attending it by want of breath.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 340. 'Dec. 31. I have much need of entertainment;
spiritless, infirm, sleepless, and solitary, looking back with sorrow
and forward with terrour.' _Ib_, p. 343.

[792] '"I think," said Mr. Cambridge, "it sounds more like some club
that one reads of in _The Spectator_ than like a real club in these
times; for the forfeits of a whole year will not amount to those of a
single night in other clubs."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii. 290. Mr.
Cambridge was thinking of the Two-penny Club. _Spectator_,