uttons for three shillings.[1248] Spoons struck at
once.

SEPTEMBER 21.

Wheeler came to us again.

We came easily to Woodstock.

SEPTEMBER 22.

We saw Blenheim and Woodstock Park.[1249] The Park contains two thousand
five hundred acres; about four square miles. It has red deer. Mr.
Bryant[1250] shewed me the Library with great civility. _Durandi
Rationale_, 1459[1251]. Lascaris' _Grammar_ of the first edition, well
printed, but much less than later editions[1252]. The first
_Batrachomyomachia_[1253].

The Duke sent Mr. Thrale partridges and fruit.

At night we came to Oxford.

SEPTEMBER 23.

We visited Mr. Coulson[1254]. The Ladies wandered about the University.

SEPTEMBER 24.

We dine with Mr. Coulson. Vansittart[1255] told me his distemper.

Afterwards we were at Burke's, where we heard of the dissolution of the
Parliament. We went home[1256].

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See _ante_, ii. 434, note 1, and iii. 209.

[2] His _Account of Corsica_, published in 1768.

[3] Horace Walpole wrote on Nov.6, 1769 (_Letters_, v. 200):--'I found
Paoli last week at Court. The King and Queen both took great notice of
him. He has just made a tour to Bath, Oxford, &c., and was everywhere
received with much distinction.' See _ante_, ii. 71.

[4] Boswell, when in London, was 'his constant guest.' Ante, iii 35.

[5] Boswell's son James says that 'in 1785 Mr. Malone was shewn at Mr.
Baldwin's printing-house a sheet of the _Tour to the Hebrides_
which contained Johnson's character. He was so much struck with the
spirit and fidelity of the portrait that he requested to be introduced
to its writer. From this period a friendship took place between them,
which ripened into the strictest and most cordial intimacy. After Mr.
Boswell's death in 1795 Mr. Malone continued to shew every mark of
affectionate attention towards his family.' _Gent. Mag._ 1813, p. 518.

[6] Malone began his edition of _Shakespeare_ in 1782; he brought it out
in 1790. Prior's _Malone_, pp. 98, 166.

[7] Boswell in the 'Advertisement' to the second edition, dated Dec. 20,
1785, says that 'the whole of the first impression has been sold in a
few weeks.' Three editions were published within a year, but the fourth
was not issued till 1807. A German translation was published in Luebeck
in 1787. I believe that in no language has a translation been published
of the _Life of Johnson_. Johnson was indeed, as Boswell often calls
him, 'a trueborn Englishman'-