"Such implements, tho' fine and splendid, With common fame that truth is blended, If bounteous Thrale could thus confer "Paupers from Grub Street at her gate For thoughts-not pens of gold. "For not alone the gift of tongues, Bestow the Attic flavour. "The Virtues all around her wait And every duty regulate Of parent, wife, and child. "Such judgment to direct each storm, A mind so pure, a heart so warm, There was a merry tale told about the town of some musical nobleman having been refused tickets for his private concert about this time by blind Stanley, who he had always patronised: and of his going to a grave friend's, I forget who, where, foaming with anger, he at length exclaimed: "But I will go to Burney's house to-night (where there was music), and that will do for him." “Are you mad, my dear Lord?" says the grave man amazed: "to talk of setting a blind man's house on fire, because he has refused your favourite girl a ticket? Fie! fie! I am ashamed of listening to such strange things." The équivoque was now well understood, but having no acquaintance with the doctor, the gentleman thought he had menaced going to burn his house. We had been talking of the French rondeaux one day, and both doctors said they were impracticable in English, so I made this― Musa loquitur: To burn ye with rapture, or melt you with pity, A rondeau was never intended: Yet the lines should be light, and the turn should be witty, And the jest is to see how 'tis ended. To finish it neat in an elegant style Though Phoebus himself should discern ye; And though to throw light on the troublesome toil, Should he shine hot enough for to burn ye, You still would be vex'd, Incumbered, perplex'd, So teizing the rhymes would return ye: Then this moment forbear, And let me some humility learn ye: And each talent to please, And making of rondeax to-Burney. "I shall be in danger of crying out, with Mr. Head, catamaran, whatever that may mean.”—Johnson. A comical hack joke. Ask me, and I will tell you one or two more tales about catamaran. Come; here it is: You do not hate nonsense with affected fastidiousness, or fastidious affectation, like those who have little Turn the page then, over. sense. This Mr. Head, whose real name was Plunkett, a low Irish parasite, dependant on Mr. Thrale primarily ; and I suppose, secondarily on Mr. Murphy, was employed by them in various schemes of pleasure, as you men call profligacy: and on this occasion was deputed to amuse them by personating some lord, whom his patrons had promised to introduce to the beautiful Miss Gunnings when they first came over with intent to make their fortunes. He was received accordingly, and the girls played off their best airs, and cast kind looks on his introducers from time to time: till the fellow wearied, as Johnson says, and disgusted with his ill-acted character, burst out on a sudden as they sate at tea, and cried, "Catamaran! young gentlemen with two shoes and never a heel: when will you have done with 66 silly jokes now? Leddies;" turning to the future peeresses, never mind these merry boys; but if you really can afford to pay for some incomparable silk stockings, or true India handkerchiefs, here they are now:" rummaging his smuggler's pocket; but the girls jumped up and turned them all three into the street, where Thrale and Murphy cursed their senseless assistant, and called him Head, like lucus a non lucendo, because they swore he had none. The duchess (of Hamilton), however, never did forgive this impudent frolic; Lady Coventry, more prudently, pretended to forget it. Catamaran! was probably a mere Irish exclamation which burst from the fellow when impatient to be selling his smuggled goods. There is exactly such a character in Richardson's "Clarissa: " Captain Tomlinson, employed by Lovelace. " But and you have had, with all your adulations, nothing finer said of you than was said last Saturday night of Burke and me. We were at the Bishop of 's, a bishop little better than your bishop; and towards twelve we fell into talk, to which the ladies listened, just as they do to you; and said, as I heard, there is no rising unless somebody will cry fire."-Johnson, May 23, 1780. The lady was Mrs. Montagu; Johnson's bishop was the Bishop of St. Asaph (Shipley); Mrs. P.'s the Bishop of Peterborough (Hinchliffe). Mrs. Piozzi replies: "I have no care about enjoying undivided empire, nor any thoughts of disputing it with Mrs. Montagu. She considers her title as indisputable most probably, though I am sure I never heard her urge it. Queen Elizabeth, you remember, would not suffer hers to be inquired into, and I have read somewhere that the Great Mogul is never crowned." In a postscript she says: "Apropos to gallantry, here is a gentleman hooted out of Bath for showing a lady's loveletters to him; and such is the resentment of all the females, that even the house-maid refused to make his bed. I think them perfectly right, as he has broken all the common ties of society; and if he were to sleep on straw for half a year instead of our old favourites the Capucin friars, it would do him no harm, and set the men a good example." In the margin is written "Mr. Wade." 66 Gluttony is, I think, less common among women than among men. Women commonly eat more sparingly, and are less curious in the choice of meat; but if once you find a woman gluttonous, expect from her very little virtue. Her mind is enslaved to the lowest and grossest temptation. "Of men, the examples are sufficiently common. I had a friend, of great eminence in the learned and the witty world, who had hung up some pots on his wall to furnish nests for sparrows. The poor sparrows, not knowing his character, were seduced by the convenience, and I never heard any man speak of any future enjoyment with such contortions of delight as he |