ANECDOTES
FROM PENNINGTON'S MEMOIRS OF MRS. CARTER
��MRS. CARTER always spoke in high terms of Dr. Johnson's constant attendance to religious duties, and the soundness of his moral principles. In one of their latest conversations she was expressing this opinion of him to himself ; he took her by the hand, and said with much eagerness ; ' You know this to be true, and testify it to the world when I am gone.' Vol. i. p. 41.
The following epigram by Dr. Johnson, found among Mrs. Carter's poems, in his own hand-writing has never, I believe, been published before.
'Quid mihi cum cultu? Probitas inculta nitescit,
Et juvat Ingenii vita sine arte rudis. Ingenium et mores si pulchra probavit Elisa, Quid majus inihi spes ambitiosa dabit 1 ?'
Vol. i. p. 398.
To these parties [at Mrs. Montagu's and Mrs. Vesey's] it was not difficult for any person of character to be introduced. There was no ceremony, no cards and no supper. Even dress was so little regarded, that a foreign gentleman, who was to go there with an acquaintance, was told in jest that it was so little necessary that he might appear there, if he pleased, in blue stockings. This he understood in the literal sense ; and when he spoke of it in French called it the Bas Bleu meeting. And this was the origin
1 For his other epigrams to her, see Life, i. 122, 140, and Works, i. 170.
of
�� �
