See _ante_, i. 65.

[605] On Sept. 13, 1777, Johnson wrote:--'Boswell shrinks from the
Baltick expedition, which, I think, is the best scheme in our power.'
_Ante_, iii. 134, note 1.

[606] See _ante_, ii. 59, note 1.

[607] See _ante_, iii. 368.

[608] 'Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are
almost always cunning ... nor is caution ever so necessary as with
associates or opponents of feeble minds.' _The Idler_, No. 92. In a
letter to Dr. Taylor Johnson says:--'To help the ignorant commonly
requires much patience, for the ignorant are always trying to be
cunning.' _Notes and Queries_, 6th S. v. 462. Churchill, in _The
Journey_ (_Poems_, ed. 1766, ii. 327), says:--

''Gainst fools be guarded; 'tis a certain rule,
Wits are safe things, there's danger in a fool.'

[609] See _ante_, p. 173.

[610]

'For thee we dim the eyes, and stuff the head
With all such reading as was never read;
For thee explain a thing till all men doubt it,
And write about it, goddess, and about it.'

_The Dunciad_, iv. 249.

[611] Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pictures; and the art of
the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject.
But it is in painting as in life; what is greatest is not always best. I
should grieve to see Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to
empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is now employed in
diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the
affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.' _The
Idler_, No. 45. 'Southey wrote thirty years later:--'I find daily more
and more reason to wonder at the miserable ignorance of English
historians, and to grieve with a sort of despondency at seeing how much
that has been laid up among the stores of knowledge has been neglected
and utterly forgotten.' Southey's _Life_, ii. 264. On another occasion
he said of Robertson:--'To write his introduction to _Charles V_,
without reading these _Laws_ [the _Laws_ of Alonso the Wise], is one of
the thousand and one omissions for which he ought to be called rogue, as
long as his volumes last. _Ib_. p. 318

[612]

'That eagle's fate and mine are one,
Which on the shaft that made him die,
Espy'd a feather of his own,
Wherewith he wont to soar so high.'
_Epistle to a Lady._

Anderson's _Poets_, v. 480.

[613] See _ante_, iii. 271.

[614] 'In Engl