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 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." "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 exhibited, when he talked of eating the young ones."Johnson. The name of Isaac Hawkins Browne is written in the margin, and it is added that the young sparrows were eaten in a pie. "DEAR SIR,Communicate your letters regularly. Your father's inexorability not only grieves but amazes me. He is your father. He was always accounted a wise man; nor do I remember any thing to the disadvantage of his good nature; but in his refusal to assist you, there is neither good nature, fatherhood, nor wisdom."-Johnson. I think you will be surprised to hear that this so serious letter should have been written to the crazy fellow, of whom a ludicrous story is told in the "Anecdotes ": Joe Simson, as Dr. Johnson called him, when he related the ridiculous incidents of his marriage, his kept mistress, his footman, and himself; all getting so drunk with the nuptial bowl of punch, purchased with borrowed money, that the hero of the tale tumbled down stairs and broke his leg or arm, I forget which, and sent for Dr. Johnson to assist him. He had another friend of much the same description, though this gentleman was a lawyer: the other a poet. Boyce was the author of some pretty things in the "Gentleman's Magazine," and Johnson showed me the following verses in manuscript, which I translated: but which are not half so pleasant as was his account of Mr. Boyce lying a-bed: not for lack of a shirt, because he seldom wore one, supplying the want with white paper wristbands: but for want of his scarlet cloak, laced with gold, his usual covering, which lay unredeemed at the pawnbroker's. The verses were addressed to Cave, of St. John's Gate, who saved him from prison that time at least: Ex gehennâ debitoria, Oh witness Heaven for me this day Sufficient in this hell to souse |