"To see Dr Samuel Johnson lying in that bed, in the isle of Sky, in the house of Miss Flora Macdonald, struck me with such a group of ideas as it is not easy for words to describe, as they passed through the mind."
— Boswell, James (1740-1795)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed by Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly
Date
1785
Metaphor
"To see Dr Samuel Johnson lying in that bed, in the isle of Sky, in the house of Miss Flora Macdonald, struck me with such a group of ideas as it is not easy for words to describe, as they passed through the mind."
Metaphor in Context
The room where we lay was a celebrated one. Dr Johnson's bed was the very bed in which the grandson of the unfortunate King James the Second lay, on one of the nights after the failure of his rash attempt in 1745-6, while he was eluding the pursuit of the emissaries of government, which had offered thirty thousand pounds as a reward for apprehending him. To see Dr Samuel Johnson lying in that bed, in the isle of Sky, in the house of Miss Flora Macdonald, struck me with such a group of ideas as it is not easy for words to describe, as they passed through the mind. He smiled and said, 'I have had no ambitious thoughts in it.' The room was decorated with a great variety of maps and prints. Among others, was Hogarth's print of Wilkes grinning, with the cap of liberty on a pole by him. That too was a curious circumstance in the scene this morning; such a contrast was Wilkes to the above group. It reminded me of Sir William Chambers's Account of Oriental Gardening, in which we are told all odd, strange, ugly, and even terrible objects, are introduced, for the sake of variety; a wild extravagance of taste which is so well ridiculed in the celebrated Epistle to him. The following lines of that poem immediately occurred to me;
(pp. 265-6)
Here too, O king of vengeance! in thy fane,
Tremendous Wilkes shall rattle his gold chain.
(pp. 265-6)
Categories
Provenance
C-H Lion
Citation
At least 5 entries in ESTC (1785, 1786, 1791).
See The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. By James Boswell, Esq. Containing Some Poetical Pieces by Dr. Johnson, relative to the Tour, and never before published; A Series of his Conversation, Literary Anecdotes, and Opinions of Men and Books: With an Authentick Account of The Distresses and Escape of the Grandson of King James II. in the Year 1746. (London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, 1785). <Link to ECCO>
Text from Johnson, Samuel and James Boswell. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, ed. Peter Levi. (New York: Penguin Books, 1984).
See The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. By James Boswell, Esq. Containing Some Poetical Pieces by Dr. Johnson, relative to the Tour, and never before published; A Series of his Conversation, Literary Anecdotes, and Opinions of Men and Books: With an Authentick Account of The Distresses and Escape of the Grandson of King James II. in the Year 1746. (London: Printed by Henry Baldwin, 1785). <Link to ECCO>
Text from Johnson, Samuel and James Boswell. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, ed. Peter Levi. (New York: Penguin Books, 1984).
Date of Entry
06/26/2013
