64 Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock.
butter in the crust that smells so disagreeably.' Dr. Johnson just at this time, sitting opposite, desired one of us to send him some of the beef-steak pie. We sent but little, which he soon dispatched, and then returned his plate for more. Johnson particularly disliked that any notice should be taken of what he eat 1 , but Burke ventured to say he was glad to find that Dr. Johnson was anywise able to relish the beef-steak pie. Johnson, not perceiving what he alluded to, hastily exclaimed, ' Sir, there is a time of life when a man requires the repairs of the table ! ' The company rather talked for victory than social intercourse. I think it was in consequence of what passed that evening, that Dr. Goldsmith wrote his Retaliation 2 . Mr. Richard Burke was present, talked most, and seemed to be the most free and easy of any of the company 3 . I had never met him before. Burke seemed desirous of bringing his relative forward. In Mr. Chalmers's account of Goldsmith, different sorts of liquor are offered as appropriate to each guest. To the two Burkes ale from Wicklow, and wine from Ferney to me : my name is in italics, as supposing I am a wine-bibber ; but the author's allusion to the wines of Ferney was meant for me, I rather think, from my having taken a plan of a tragedy from Voltaire.
Mrs. Percy, afterwards nurse to the Duke of Kent 4 , at Buckingham House, told me that Johnson once stayed near a month with them at their dull parsonage at Easton Mauduit 5 ; that Dr. Percy looked out all sorts of books to be ready
x Boswell says that on their tour Richard,' thus described in Retalia te the Highlands he contrived ' that tion :
Dr. Johnson should not be asked * What spirits were his ! what wit
twice to eat or drink anything and what whim !
(which always disgusts him).' Life, Now breaking a jest, and now
v. 264. breaking a limb !
2 Cradock first met Johnson in Now wrangling and grumbling to 1776, more than two years after keep up the ball ! Goldsmith's death. Such a blunder Now teasing and vexing, yet laugh- as this shows that not much trust ing at all ! '
can be placed in his anecdotes. Ac- 4 Letters, \. 414, n. 2. The Duke of
cording to Cumberland (Memoirs, i. Kent was the father of Queen Victoria.
369) it was at the St. James's Coffee s Johnson spent with the Percies
House that the dinner took place part of June, July, and August of
which led to Retaliation. 1764. Life, i. 486, and/^J/ in Percy's
3 Edmund Burke's brother, ' honest Anecdotes. ' The little terrace in the
for
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