The Life of Samuel Johnson

by James Boswell

  Norton, Sir Fletcher (1716–89), ist Baron Grantley; Speaker of the House of Commons (1770); MP for Guildford (1768–82); Solicitor-General, knighted and created DCL of Oxford University (1762); Attorney General (1763-5); Chief Justice in Eyre South of the Trent, sworn of the Privy Council (1769); awarded the freedom of the City of London (1777); created Baron Grantley (1782); reputation for being coarse, tactless and ill-tempered: 307

  Norwich, bishop of, see Horne, Dr George

  Nourse, John (d. 1780), London bookseller: 526 n. a

  Nowell, Dr Thomas (1730–1801), Church of England clergyman and religious controversialist; public orator for Oxford University (1760–76); principal of St Mary Hall, Oxford (1764); regius professor of modern history at Oxford (1771); controversial preaching to Commons on 30 January 1772; J.B. and S.J. dined with him in 1784; no edited sermons or writings compiled posthumously: 927

  Nugent, Dr Christopher (d. 1775), physician; father-in-law of Burke; one of the original nine members of the Literary Club; was to be professor of physic in the imaginary college of St Andrews; licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (1765); author of An Essay on the Hydrophobia (1753); close friend of S.J.: 251, 269, 387

  O’CONNOR, OR O’CONOR, CHARLES (1710–91), IRISH ANTIQUARY: 173, 580 AND N. B

  OFFLEY (OR OFFELY), LAWRENCE (1719–49): 57

  OGDEN, DR SAMUEL (1716–78), CHURCH OF ENGLAND CLERGYMAN; MASTER OF THE HEATH GRAMMAR SCHOOL, HALIFAX (1744–53); VICAR OF THE ROUND CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE, CAMBRIDGE (1753); VICAR OF DAMERHAM, WILTS. (1754–66); WOOD-WARDIAN PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT CAMBRIDGE (1764); SERMONS GREATLY ADMIRED BY J.B. AND RECOMMENDED TO S.J., WHO LARGELY CONCURRED: 658, 831 N. A

  OGIER DE GOMBAULD, JEAN, SEE GOMBAULD, JEAN OGIER DE

  OGILBY, JOHN (1600–76), AUTHOR AND PRINTER: 36

  OGILVIE, DR JOHN (1733–1813), PRESBYTERIAN DIVINE AND AUTHOR: 223, 224 ANDN. A, 225

  OGLETHORPE, GENERAL JAMES EDWARD (1696–1785), ARMY OFFICER AND THE FOUNDER OF THE COLONY OF GEORGIA; SET UP AMBITIOUS SCHEME TO SET UP A COLONY IN GEORGIA (1730–32); DESIRE TO OUTLAW SLAVERY IN THE PROVINCE OVERHAULED BY PARLIAMENT (1735); SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDED GEORGIA FROM SPANISH ASSAULT (1742); ACCORDED THE RANK OF BRIGADIER-GENERAL IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HIS SUCCESS (1743); RETIRED IN ENGLAND (1758); CIRCLE OF FRIENDS IN RETIREMENT INCLUDED J.B., S.J. AND HANNAH MORE: 74, 355–7, 376, 383, 406, 449 AND N. A, 521, 544, 547, 674, 676, 825, 858–9

  OGLETHORPE, SIR THEOPHILUS (1650–1702), GENERAL OGLETHORPE’S FATHER, AND BRIGADIER-GENERAL OF JAMES IIS ARMY: 859

  OLDFIELD, DR (PERHAPS DR JOSHUA OLDFIELD, 1656–1729, PRESBYTERIAN DIVINE): 547

  OLDHAM, JOHN (1653–83), POET; AUTHOR OF SATYRS UPON THE JESUITS (1680); ADAPTED OVID IN SOME NEW PIECES (1681) AND FOLLOWED WITH TRANSLATIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF JUVENAL, ANACREON, CATULLUS, HORACE ET AL. IN POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS (1683); SEEN BY DRYDEN AS A KINDRED SPIRIT; NOT INCLUDED AMONG S.J.’S POETS: 69–71, 976

  OLDMIXON, JOHN (1673–1742), HISTORIAN AND POLITICAL PAMPHLETEER; FULL-TIME POLEMICIST ON BEHALF OF THE WHIGS FROM 1710; HELPED SET UP THE MEDLEY, A WHIG WEEKLY (1710–11); AUTHOR OF THE SECRET HISTORY OF EUROPE (4 VOLS., 1712–15), Memoirs of North-Britain (1715) and The Critical History of England (2 vols., 1724–6); attacked Pope in The Catholick Poet (1716); Pope retaliated in The Dunciad; customs collector for the port of Bridgwater (1716); involved in major enterprise of Whig history-making: 161 n. a

  Oldys, William (1696–1761), antiquary and herald; poem ‘Busy, Curious, Thirsty Fly!’ translated into Latin by S.J.; published own researches in The British Librarian from 1737; Harley’s literary secretary (1738); with S.J., produced the Catalogus Bibliothecae Harleianae (1743-4) to aid the sale of Harley’s collection; Norroy king-at-arms (1755); many incomplete annotations and editions harnessed by writers such as Warton and, in his Lives of the English Poets, S.J.: 20, 89, 100

  Oliver, Dame (d. i73i), S.J.’s schoolmistress: 29

  Omai (c. 1753-c. 1780), a native of the South SeaIslands; the first Tahitian to visit England, and feted as an embodiment of the ‘noble savage’; the subject of a celebrated portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds: 523

  Opie, John (1761–1807), portrait and history painter; child prodigy; Reynolds and Horace Walpole enthusiastic admirers; dramatic success in history painting on a large scale with The Assassination of James I of Scotland (1786), exhibited at the Royal Academy; often talked of as an ‘English Rembrandt’; Royal Academician (1787); lecturer at the British Institution (1804-5): 1000 n. c

  Orme, Captain (fl. 1781): 812

  Orme, Robert (1728–1801), historian of India and East India Company servant; member of the Madras council (1754); governorship of Madras lasted just days after exposed for leaking confidential documents (1758); first official historiographer of the East India Company (1769); fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (1770); author of History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan (2 vols., 1763–78); friends and admirers included Reynolds and Sir William Jones: 423, 452, 677

  Orrery, John Boyle, 5th Earl of (1707–62), biographer; son of Charles Boyle, 4th Earl of Orrery; Tory and Jacobite when entering the House of Lords (1735); associate of Bolingbroke; on intimate terms with Pope from the early 1730s; best known for Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr. Jonathan Swift (1751); translated Horace’s odes (1741) and Pliny’s letters (1751); thought of disparagingly by S.J.: 12, 105–6, 133, 139, 162, 328, 653, 658, 693, 784, 861

  Osborn (fl. 1733), a Birmingham printer: 51

  Osborne, Francis (1593–1659), author of Advice to a Son: 362

  Osborne, Thomas (d. 1767), bookseller; purchased the Harleian Library and issued a catalogue, prepared by Johnson and William Oldys (1741-5); confrontation with Johnson over interference in his scholarship; substituted for Samuel Chapman in the urinating contest with Edmund Curll in Book 2 of the 1743 Dunciad; published Oldys’s The British Librarian: 12, 20, 89, 91, 93, 608, 709

  Ossory, JohnFitzpatrick (i745-i8i8), 2nd Earl of Upper, see Upper Ossory, John Fitzpatrick, 2nd Earl of

  Otway, Thomas (1652–85), playwright and poet; staunch Tory; author of the plays The History and Fall of Caius Marius (1679), The Orphan (1680) and, most famously, Venice Preserv’d (1682), regarded as the best political tragedy of the period; S.J. commented of Venice Preserv’d that ‘striking passages are in every mouth’ (Lives of the English Poets): 773

  Overbury, Sir Thomas (1581–1613), poet and victim of court intrigue: 300

  Ovid, Publius Ovidius Naso (43 bc–ad 18), poet; banished by Augustus on grounds of immorality; his Metamorphoses greatly influenced early modern English poetry: 40, 45, 59, 169, 206, 275, 356, 386 n. a, 529 n. a

  Oxford, bishops of, see Bancroft, Dr John; Lowth, Dr Robert

  Oxford, Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of (1689–1741), book collector and patron of the arts; patron of Pope, correspondent and friend of Swift; arranged for the publication of Prior’s Poems; devoted to developing his father’s collection of manuscripts into one of the most impressive private libraries of the time; collection reached 50, 000 printed books, 350, 000 printed pamphlets and 41, 000 prints by the time of his death; library eventually catalogued by S.J. and William Oldys: 11, 88

  Palmer, John (1729?–90), Unitarian divine: 681 n. a

  Palmer, Revd Thomas Fyshe (1747–1802), Unitarian minister and radical; dined with S.J. in London c.i781; arrested for sedition after a mistake over the authorship of a document by the Friends of Liberty (1793); among the exiled reformers who settled in New South Wales and cultivated the colony: 9, 833 and n. a

  Palmerston, Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount (1739–1802), politician and traveller; seat at the Board of Trade (1765); transferred to the Board of the Admiralty (1766–77); Board of the Treasury (1777–82); travels took precedence over political career; member of the Royal Society (1776); intimate with Garrick, Reynolds and Gibbon; member of the Literary Club; father of the future prime minister: 186 n. e, 252, 890, 943

  Paoli, (Filippo Antonio) Pasquale
(1725–1807), politician in Corsica; general of Corsica (1755–69); exiled to Britain (1769), arriving a hero for his stand against the Genoese and the French and the lavish praise from Rousseau in The Social Contract (1762); much publicized by J.B., who edited British Essays in Favour of the Brave Corsicans (1768); met S.J. in October 1769 and circle expanded to include Garrick, Bute, Burke, Horace Walpole and Fanny Burney; hopes for an Anglo-Corsican kingdom shattered by 1795: 262, 294, 298, 3°2, 3°3, 348, 361, 377, 379, 4°°,479, 536, 544, 575, 605, 672, 673, 674,676, 698, 699, 702,723, 734, 819, 944,946

  Paradise, John (1743–95), linguist; Whig and pro-American; founder member of the Essex Head Club (1783); S.J. a frequent dining guest; S.J.’s most devoted friend during his protracted illness; had fluent knowledge of at least eight languages and a prodigious ability for language acquisition: 41, 731,903, 914,966

  Paradise, Peter (1704–79), British consul in Salonika, Macedonia (from 1741); returned to London in the 1760s; father of John Paradise, both of whom part of S.J.’s circle: ^66 n. a

  Parker, Sackville (1707–96), Oxford bookseller: 934

  Parnell, Thomas (1679–1718), poet and essayist; minor canon of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin (1704), where he became a friend of Swift; contributor to The Spectator and The Guardian; prebend of Dunlavin (1713); member of the Scriblerus Club; Poems on Several Occasions edited by Pope and published posthumously (1722): 349, 586 n. a, 606, 643, 735, 792–3 and n. a,987

  Parr, Dr Samuel (1747–1825), schoolmaster; established a school at Stanmore (1771) after failing to achieve promotion to headmaster at Harrow; Stanmore became the first English school to stage a Greek play; headmaster of Norwich Grammar School (1778); reputation as a controversialist, engagements including Richard Hurd; supporter of Fox and published The Characters of Charles James Fox (1809); has been commonly known as the ‘Whig Johnson’: 771, 893 n. a, 1001, 1002 n. a

  Pascal, Blaise (1623–62), French mathematician, physicist and moralist; author of Les Provinciales (1656-7), a work of delicate and sustained irony directed at the Jesuits, and Les Pensees (1670), a defence of the Christian religion: 728

  Pasoris, G.: 743

  Paterson, Samuel (1728–1802), bookseller and auctioneer; introduced Charlotte Lennox to S.J.; success as a book auctioneer after earlier failure as a publisher; issued the catalogues Bibliotheca Anglica curiosa (1771) and Bibliotheca univer-salis selecta (ijj6); catalogues established him as a pioneer in the book auction trade: 353 and nn. aandb, 887 n. c, 912 n. b

  Paterson Jr, Samuel (fl. 1776–89), third son of Samuel Paterson and S.J.’s godson: 567–8, 887 and n. c, 912 n. b

  Patrick, Dr Simon (1626–1707), bishop successively of Chichester and Ely: 547

  Patten, DrThomas (1714–90), divine: 855

  Paul, Father, see Sarpi, Father Paul

  Paul, St: 325, 598, 683, 831, 926–7, 929 n. a, 986

  Payne, John (d. 1787), bookseller; member of the Ivy Lane Club; published Lauder’s Essay on Milton’s Use and Imitation of the Moderns inhis ‘Paradise Lost’ (1750), with S.J.’s help and contribution – a project that damaged both of their reputations; published S.J.’s Rambler and Adventurer essays; co-founder of the Universal Chronicle, to which S.J. contributed the first of his Idler essays (1758); accountant-general of the Bank of England (1780): 133, 171

  Payne, Thomas (1719–99), London bookseller: 171 (in error for Mr John Payne, above)

  Payne, William (d. between 1773 and 1779), miscellaneous writer: 14, 171

  Pearce, DrZachary (1690–1774), bishop of Rochester (1756); dean of Winchester (1739); attacked the imprisoned Atterbury in To the Clergy of the Church of England (1722); bishop of Bangor (1748); dean of Westminster (1756): 16, 79, 160, 581

  Pearson, Dr John (1613–86), bishop of Chester (1673); archdeacon of Surrey (1660); rector of St Christopher-le-Stocks, Threadneedle Street, London (1660); canon of Ely (1660); Lady Margaret’s professor of divinity at Cambridge (1661); master of Trinity College, Cambridge (1662); member of the Royal Society (1667); author of Vindiciae epistolarum S. Ignatii (1672) and Exposition of the Creed(1659): 211

  Pearson, Revd John Batteridge (1749–1808), perpetual curate of St Michael’s, Lichfield, etc: 517, 844,890, 904

  Peiresc, see Pieresc

  Pelham, Hon. Henry (1696–1754), prime minister (1746–54); Whig; brother of the ist Duke of Newcastle; MP for Sussex (1722–54); leader of the House of Commons (1742); first lord of the Treasury then chancellor (1743); restructuring of the national debt a crucial legacy to Britain and enabled victory in the Seven Years War; overshadowed by Newcastle; through a peaceable ministry, helped restore national confidence after the troubles of the 1740s: 145–6, 321

  Pellett, Dr Thomas (1671?–1744), physician; president of the Royal College of Physicians (1735-9); delivered the Harveian oration in 1719; edited Newton’s Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms (1728): 713

  Pembroke, Henry Herbert, 10th Earl of (1734–94), army officer; Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire (1756); lord of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales (1756–62); lord of the bedchamber (1769–80); aide-de-camp to George II (1758); author of A Method of Breaking Horses, and Teaching Soldiers to Ride (1761); promoted Lieutenant General (1770); promoted General (1780); governor of Portsmouth (1782): 437 n. a, 460, 586 n. a

  Penn, Richard (1736–1811), colonial official and politician; deputy governor of Pennsylvania (1771-3); MP for Appleby, Westmorland (1784); examined before the House of Lords as to the support for independence in the colonies on his return to England: 759 n. a

  Pennant, Thomas (1726–90), naturalist, traveller and writer; fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (1754–60); author of British Zoology (5 vols., 1766–1812), Indian Geology (1769) and A Tour of Scotland, 1769 (1771); fellow of the Royal Society (1767); 1772 Tour in Scotland innuenced S.J.: 447, 477 n. b, 590, 66^, 670–71, 673, 674

  Pepys, Sir Lucas (1742–1830), physician; physician to the Middlesex Hospital (1769); fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (1775) then censor (1777, 1782, 1786 and 1796), treasurer (1788–98) and president (1804–1810); physician-in-ordinary to the King (1792); physician-general to the army (1794): 799, 858, 888

  Pepys, Sir William Weller (1740–1825), baronet, Master in Chancery: 754, 809 and n. c

  Percy, Dr Thomas (1729–1811), writer and Church of Ireland bishop of Dromore (1782); chaplain and secretary to Lord Northumberland and tutor to his son (1765); King’s chaplain-in-ordinary (1769); friends included Burke, Garrick, Goldsmith and Johnson; author of A Key to the New Testament (1766) and Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765); produced verses on the death of S.J. (1785); dean of Carlisle (1778): 31, 32, 83, 252, 253, 255, 294, 295, 332, 335, 433, 506 n. a, 507 and n. a, 562, 642 n. b, 662, 669–74, 693, 695, 721, 748 n. a, 749, 751, 760 n. a, 817, 934 n. a, 989 n. a

  Percy, Hugh, Earl (afterwards 2nd Duke of Northumberland) (1742–1817), soldier and politician: 598, 673

  Perkins, John ($$), brewer: 415 n. a, 809, 810, 828, 850, 905, 965, 989 n. a

  Perkins, Mrs, wife of John Perkins: 905, 965

  Perth, James Drummond, 4th Earl and 1st titular Duke (1648–1716), politician; Lord Chancellor of Scotland (1684); sheriff-principal of the county of Edinburgh and governor of the Bass (1684); chief agent of James IIs administration of Scotland until 1688; exiled after the Glorious Revolution; knight of the Order of the Garter (1706); accompanied James on his unsuccessful attempt to invade Scotland (1708); loyal but unwise in political judgement: 647

  Peterborough, bishop of, see Hinchliffe, Dr John

  Peterborough, Charles Mordaunt, 3rd Earl of (c. 1658–1735): 947

  Petrarch, Francis (1304–74), Italian poet: 38, 53 and n. c, 475

  Pether, William (1738?-! 821), engraver: 529 n. a

  Petty, Sir William (1623–87), natural philosopher and administrator in Ireland; physician to the army in Ireland (1652); knighted in 1661; published the first map of the Irish counties, Hiberniae delineatio (1685); judge and registrar of the Admiralty Court in Dublin (1
676); first president of the Dublin Philosophical Society (1684); enthusiastic, if largely unsuccessful, agitator for administrative, economic and agricultural reform in Ireland: 232, 764

  Peyton, Mr (d. 1776), one of S.J.’s Dictionary assistants: 106, 107, 343

  Philidor, Francois Andre Danican (1726–95), French musician and chess player; based in London, 1747–54; friend of Diderot; remained famous through reputation as the best chess player in England and France and wrote L’analyze des echecs (1748); composed Le sorcier (1764) and the libretto Ernelinde: 725

  Philips, Ambrose (1674–1749), poet and playwright; Pastorals published in Tonson’s Miscellany (1709) and ridiculed by Pope in The Guardian (1713); intimate with Addison; author of the play The Distrest Mother (1712); Proposals for Printing an English Dictionary anticipated much of S.J.’s: 754, 782 n. a, 794

  Philips, Charles Claudius (d. 1732), a musician: 85–6, 276

  Phillips, Anna Maria, see Crouch, Mrs

  Phillips, Peregrine (d. 1801), father of Mrs Crouch: 887

  Phipps, Captain, see Mulgrave, Constantine John Phipps, 2nd Baron

  Pieresc, Nicolas Claude Fabri de (1580–1637), French antiquary and philologist: 459

  Pindar (c. 520–440 Bc), Greek lyric poet, whose bold originality of form and metre greatly influenced Cowley, Dryden, Swift and Gray: 368, 369, 557, 726, 777, 794

  Pink, or Pinck, Dr Robert (1573–1647), warden of New College, Oxford: 109 n. b

  Pinkerton, John (1758–1826), Scottish antiquary and historian: 945

  Piozzi, Gabriel Mario (1740–1809), Italian musician; controversial husband of Hester Thrale: 950

  Piozzi, Mrs, see Thrale, Hester Lynch

  Pitt, William, the elder, see Chatham, William Pitt, ist Earl of

  Pitt, William, the younger (1759–1806), prime minister; son of William Pitt the elder; first lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer (1783); secured independent majority (1784); career threatened by the ‘regency crisis’ after the King’s mental collapse (1788-9); resigned over the proposal for Catholic emancipation (1801); partial retirement (1801-4); prime minister for a second ministry (1804-6); prodigiously early rise; captivating orator; believer in improvement rather than revolution: 907 n. a, 909, 926