you remember your old acquaintance Dr. Johnson?" said she. "Ah, Lady Emily! have you left off your old tricks?" was the reply. "All the bad ones, I hope," answered Lady Emily, coldly, and turned away.

On Goldsmith told of a ghost?

Who would believe Goldy when he

A man whom one could not be

lieve when he told of a brother. It is questionable now whether he had a brother or not.

Boswell. "Would you not allow a man to drink for that reason (to make him forget what is disagreeable)?" Johnson."Yes, Sir, if he sate next you." Dr. Johnson said: "The man compels me to treat him so."

"You continue to stand high with Mrs. Thrale," (Johnson to Boswell, February 22nd, 1773.) Poor Mrs. Thrale was obliged to say so in order to keep well with Johnson.

On the story of the tallow-chandler and melting day : It was Murphy's story originally, who always told it of dripping night, instead of melting day.

On a passage in Johnson's letter, August 27th, 1775, to Boswell: "She has a great regard for you." Not I— never had: I thought him a clever and a comical fellow.

Johnson to Boswell.-"Have you no better manners? That is your want" (1770). So it was. Curiosity carried Boswell farther than it ever carried any mortal breathing. He cared not what he provoked so as he saw what such a one would say or do.

On the remark that Lord Lyttelton employed an

other man to point (stop) his history: Yes, a cork

cutter.

As to Dr. Dodd: If the King could have saved any man it would have been Ryland, whom he personally loved; but having tried his interest for that man, “Now,” said he, “if I am ever solicited to pardon for forgery, you shall be made to remember these arguments."

On it being said that Pope's sorrowful reflection, that all things would be as gay as ever on the day of his death, is natural and common: I don't know how common, but not natural in the least to me. I am glad other people go on if I am forced to stop.

On Johnson's declaration of readiness to sit up all night being called an animated speech from a man of sixty-eight: Not from Johnson, who delighted to sit up all night and lie in bed all day.

"I have been put so to the question by Bozzy, this morning," said Dr. Johnson, one day, "that I am now panting for breath.” "What sort of questions did he ask, I wonder?" "Why, one question was:— 'Pray, Sir, can you tell why an apple is round and a pear pointed?' Would not such talk make a man hang himself?"

"Pennant has the true spirit of a gentleman.” (Johnson, as reported by Boswell): So he has. I wish he had the style of a gentleman; but his perverse imitation of countinghouse brevity, leaving the personal pronoun out so perpetually, teazes a reader more than one could imagine. His style resembles a letter

in the "Spectator" recommending Whittington to the Temple of Fame.

Bozzy was like a man in Mrs. Inchbald's comedies, I forget his name, who brings people together for his own sport, and they sometimes quarrel, but make it up so often that he is at length happily persuaded of his own benevolence.

*

On Boswell's saying that she had mistaken sutile for futile. It was no mistake. As pictures they are futile; so are Miss Linwood's. The moth, the sunshine, every thing may destroy the beautiful work. Alas! On Boswell's fearing to go into a world where Shakspeare is unknown. shall die," says Cowley.

however, that we may not

"And Virgil's sacred work Note: I am not so sure,

repeat Virgil, as I am that

we shall not see the pictures of Raphael and Correggio. They must be taken from us I fear. The verses may be remembered.

As to wine unlocking the heart.

"Wine," says the

* Dr. Lort, writing to Bishop Percy, says: "I take for granted that you have read Dr. Johnson's Correspondence, published by Mrs. Piozzi: and though you might not have been sorry to have read the whole, yet I wish, for the Doctor's sake, that only half of it had been printed. In one letter it is said, 'I have seen Mrs. Knowles, the quaker, and her futile pictures;' it should be sutile, a word, though not to be found in his Dictionary, yet very aptly made to express the mode of painting, viz. in needlework, of which sort there are two portraits of the king and queen made by Mrs. Knowles at Buckingham House. I desired a sight of the original letter in order to determine a wager. There it plainly appeared that a dash had been put across the long s, Johnson's usual mode of writing that letter, perhaps by the printer or corrector of the press."

orator in Esdras, "enables a man to speak with his talent."

"And a new thought is a very uncommon thing in conversation, even of witty men." (Johnson.) A new thought is like a new coin, and has more glitter but not more weight than the expression we have long been used to.

"Querulousness of old age." (Malone, as quoted by Boswell.) Was not Johnson querulous? In whom else would such querulousness have been endured ?

On Johnson's saying of Beauclerc, "No man was ever so free, when he was going to say a good thing, from a look that expressed that it was coming; or, when he had said it, from a look that expressed that it had come." Note: Yes, Beauclerc was first upon the languid list of Ton people. Dr. Johnson, who was all emphasis himself, felt épris of such a character: a man of quality who disdained effect in conversation, to which he never came unprepared.

Otway's hag is a very fine one; completely what you see every day. Yet he makes it impress you at the fiftieth reading :

"Oh, seen for ever, yet for ever new

can be applied only to Otway's hag.

"The truth is, it is impossible perfectly to translate poetry. In a different language it may be the same tune, but it has not the same tone. Homer plays it on a bassoon: Pope on a flageolet."- Boswell. Homer played on the organ: Pope on the Cremona fiddle.

"You must not expect I should tell you anything, if I had anything to tell." (Johnson to Boswell, July Very true; he never did tell him any

13th, 1779.)

thing for fear of misrepresentation.

On Windham's remark (May 16th, 1778) that we were more uneasy from thinking of our wants, than happy in thinking of our acquisitions: No need of Mr. Windham to tell us that.

"What need of books those truths to tell
Which folks perceive who cannot spell;
And must we spectacles apply

To see what hurts our naked eye?'"

"Thrale cared not about it." (Johnson's letter to Boswell, March 13th, 1779.) To be sure he did not. "Mrs. Thrale was in the coach." (Id.) Which he cared no more for than her husband cared about Boswell's anxiety.

On Johnson's remark that a father had no right to control the inclinations of his daughter in marriage: Some of his auditors were, however, of opinion that children might control their parents in marriage.

On Johnson's reference to a man with an inverted understanding: I have a notion it was the Rev. Mr. Mence, of whom I once heard Dr. Johnson say to old Burney: "Sir, Mence is a man who should be stuck upon a pole, and a large writing under him to say, 'Do nothing as Mence does it.""

Parents expecting a return: They must be silly parents sure, of no experience at all-Scotch parents,