SAM JOHNSON.' (BOSWELL.)
[196] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 3.2, quoted also _ante_, i.352, note.
[197] The passage which Boswell quotes in part is as follows:--'When
they were first published they were kindly commended by the _Critical
Reviewers_; [i.e. the writers in the _Critical Review_. In some of the
later editions of Boswell these words have been printed, _critical
reviewers_; so as to include all the reviewers who criticised the work];
and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I
have read, acknowledgements which can never be proper, since they must
be paid either for flattery or for justice.' _Works_, viii.491. Boswell
forgets that what may be proper in one is improper in another.
Lyttelton, when he wrote this note, had long been a man of high
position. He had 'stood in the first rank of opposition,' he had been
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when he lost his post, he had been
'recompensed with a peerage.' See _ante_, ii. 126.
[198] See _post_, June 12 and 15, 1784.
[199] He adopted it from indolence. Writing on Aug. 1, 1780, after
mentioning the failure of his application to Lord Westcote, he
continues:--'There is an ingenious scheme to save a day's work, or part
of a day, utterly defeated.
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