which he went, the fathers were often desirous of producing their sons to him for his opinion of their parts, and of the proficiency they had made at school, which, in frequent instances, came out to be but small. He once told me, that being at the house of a friend, whose son in his school-vacation was come home, the father spoke of this child as a lad of pregnant parts, and said, that he was well versed in the classics, and acquainted with history, in the study whereof he took great delight. Having this information, Johnson, as a test of the young scholar's attain ments, put this question to him : ' At what time did the
heathen oracles cease ? '- The boy, not in the least daunted,
answered : ' At the dissolution of religious houses V (Page
469.)
About this time [1775-6], Dr. Johnson changed his dwelling in Johnson's court, for a somewhat larger in Bolt court 2 , Fleet street, where he commenced an intimacy with the landlord of it, a very worthy and sensible man, some time since deceased, Mr. Edmund Allen the printer 3 . Behind it was a garden, which he took delight in watering; a room on the ground-floor was assigned to Mrs. Williams, and the whole of the two pair of stairs floor was made a repository for his books ; one of the rooms thereon being his study. Here, in the intervals of his residence
' the most eminent ecclesiastic ' of the Lord Bishop of Chester.* Gentle-
State of Neufchatel, and as 'one of man's Magazine, 1771, p. 235.
the best and most judicious divines Horace Walpole, writing of the
of the age : he was bringing that Prince at the age of nineteen, says
Church to a near agreement with our (Journal of the Reign of George III,
forms of worship.' Burnet's History ii. 503) : ' Nothing was coarser than
of His Own Time, ed. 1818, iv. his conversation and phrases; and
165. it made men smile to find that in the
Many of his works were translated palace of piety and pride his Royal
into English. Highness had learnt nothing but the
The Prince of Wales was but eight dialect of footmen and grooms.'
years old, when ' orders were given x Mrs. Piozzi tells a similar story,
from the Lord Chamberlain's Office Ante, i. 303.
for a Chaplain in waiting to attend 2 Life, ii. 427.
at the Queen's Palace to read prayers, 3 On his death he said : ' I have
for the first time, to the Prince of lost one of my best and tenderest
Wales, in the absence of their friends.' Ib. iv. 354. Majesties, under the direction of the
at
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