RECOLLECTIONS OF DR. JOHNSON BY MISS REYNOLDS
��[THESE Recollections were published by Mr. Croker from some MSS. in Miss Reynolds's handwriting, communicated to him by the Rev. John Palmer, grandson of Sir Joshua Reynolds's sister Mary, who married John Palmer of Torrington. They have been kindly lent me by their present owner, Lady Colomb of Dronquinna, Kenmare, the Rev. John Palmer's granddaughter. One set is tolerably complete ; the other is made up of at least two, and probably three, versions. It was clearly with a view to publication that Miss Reynolds revised and rewrote her Recollections. On one page, where she gives Johnson's poem on Levett, she says : ' I think I may be excused for publishing it, tho' it has already appear'd in print, if only because Dr. Johnson gave it to me .with his own hand V No doubt at the last her courage failed her, as it had failed her earlier in the case of the poems and essays which she had thought of printing (post, p. 279), and her Recollections were confined to her desk. It was all in vain that Boswell had tried to get from her the letters which she had received from Johnson. ' I am sorry,' he wrote, ' that her too nice delicacy will not permit them to be published.' (Life, i. 486, n. i).]
��THE first time I was in company with Dr. Johnson I remember
1 In this version in the line, she writes, 'No summons shock'd,'
' No summons mock'd by chill &c. delay/
the
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