{381}the word [Greek] in the sense which we assign to it. Would Mr. Croker translate [Greek], a man who acquires wisdom by means of love, or [Greek], a man who makes money by means of love? In fact, it requires no Bentley or Casaubon to perceive, that Philarchus is merely a false spelling for Phylarchus, the chief of a tribe. Mr. Johnson was not a first-rate Greek scholar; but he knew more Greek than most boys when they leave school; and no schoolboy could venture to use the word [Greek] in the sense which Mr. Croker ascribes to it without imminent danger of a flogging. Mr. Croker has also given us a specimen of his skill in translating Latin. Johnson wrote a note in which he consulted his friend Dr. Lawrence, on the propriety of losing some blood. The note contains these words:--“Si per te licet, imperatur nuncio Holderum ad me deducere.” Johnson should rather have written “imperatum est.” But the meaning of the words is perfectly clear. “If you say yes, the messenger has orders to bring Holder to me.” Mr. Broker translates the words as follows: “If you consent, pray tell the 1 IV. 251. {382}messenger to bring Holder to me.” (1) If Mr. Croker is resolved to write on points of classical learning, we would advise him to begin by giving an hour every morning to our old friend Corderius. Indeed we cannot open any volume of this work in any place, and turn it over for two minutes in any direction, without lighting on a blunder. Johnson, in his Life of Tickell, stated that the poem entitled The Royal Progress, which appears in the last volume of the Spectator, was written on the accession of George I. The word “arrival” was afterwards substituted for “accession.” “The reader will observe,” says Mr. Croker, “that the Whig term _accession_, which might imply legality, was altered into a statement of the simple fact of King George’s _arrival_.’” (2) Now Johnson, though a bigoted Tory, was not quite such a fool as Mr. Croker here represents him to be. In the Life of Granville, Lord Lansdowne, which stands a very few pages from the Life of Tickell, mention is made of the accession of Anne, and of the accession of George I. The word arrival was used in the Life of Tickell for the simplest of all reasons. It was used because the subject of the poem called The Royal Progress was the arrival of the king, and not his accession, which took place near two months before his arrival. The editor’s want of perspicacity is indeed very amusing. He is perpetually telling us that he cannot understand something in the text which is as plain as language can make it. “Mattaire,” said Dr. Johnson, “wrote Latin verses from time to time, and published a set in his old age, which he called Senilia, in which he shows so little learning or taste in writing, as to make Carteret a dactyl.” (3) Hereupon we have this (1) V. 17. (2) IV. 425. (3) IV. 335.