ministry, which some years after ended in the downfall of Sir Robert Walpole; and as it has been said, that Tories are Whigs when out of place, and Whigs, Tories when in place: so, as a Whig administration ruled with what force it could, a Tory opposition had all the animation and all the eloquence of resistance to power, aided by the common topicks of patriotism, liberty, and independence! Accordingly, we find in Johnson's London the most spirited invectives against tyranny and oppression, the warmest predilection for his own country, and the purest love of virtue; interspersed with traits of his own particular character and situation, not omitting his prejudices as a 'true-born Englishman[1],' not only against foreign countries, but against Ireland and Scotland[2]. On some of these topicks I shall quote a few passages:
Mark whom the great caress, who frown on me.'
'Has heaven reserv'd in pity to the poor.
No pathless waste, or undiscover'd shore?
No secret island in the boundless main?
No peaceful desart yet unclaim'd by Spain?- ↑ It is, however, remarkable, that he uses the epithet, which undoubtedly, since the union between England and Scotland, ought to denominate the natives of both parts of our island:—
Boswell.
'Was early taught a Briton's rights to prize.'
Swift, in his Journal to Stella (Nov. 23, 1711), having to mention England, continues:—'I never will call it Britain, pray don't call it Britain.' In a letter written on Aug. 8, 1738, again mentioning England, he adds,—'Pox on the modern phrase Great Britain, which is only to distinguish it from Little Britain, where old clothes and old books are to be bought and sold' (Swift's Works, 1803, xx. 185). George III 'gloried in being born a Briton;' post, 1760. Boswell thrice more at least describes Johnson as 'a true-born Englishman;' Post, under Feb. 7, 1775. under March 30, 1783, and Boswell's Hebrides under Aug. 11, 1773. The quotation is from Richard II, Act i. sc. 3.
- ↑ 'For who would leave, unbrib'd, Hibernia's land,
Or change the rocks of Scotland for the Strand?
There none are swept by sudden fate away,
But all, whom hunger spares, with age decay.'
London, 1. 9-12.
