��Anecdotes.
��besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment *. Such a mind may be made a good one ; but the natural spendthrift, who grasps his pleasures greedily and coarsely, and cares for nothing but immediate indulgence, is very little to be valued above a negro.' We talked of Lady Tavi-
- She was rich and wanted employment (says Johnson), so she
cried till she lost all power of restraining her tears : other women are forced to outlive their husbands, who were just as much beloved, depend on it; but they have no time for grief: and I doubt not, if we had put my Lady Tavistock into a small chandler's shop, and given her a nurse-child to tend, her life would have been saved. The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow 3 .' We were speaking of a gentleman who loved his friend ' make him prime minister (says Johnson), and see how long his friend will be remembered V But he had a rougher answer for me, when I commended a sermon preached by an intimate acquaintance of our own at the trading end of the
��1 * Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of think ing beings.' Life, v.334; Works, \x.
145-
2 Horace Walpole wrote on March 19, 1767: 'Lord Tavistock, the Duke of Bedford's only son, has killed himself by a fall and kick of his horse, as he was hunting. . . . No man was ever more regretted ; the honesty, generosity, humility, and moderation of his character endeared him to all the world. The desola tion of his family is extreme. Lady Tavistock, passionately in love with him, is six months gone with child.' Walpole's Letters, v. 43. She died at Lisbon on Nov. I, 1768. Gentle man's Magazine, 1768, p. 542. The child was Lord William Russell, who, on May 6, 1840, was murdered by
��his Swiss valet, Courvoisier. Burke's Peerage.
3 ' Dr. Johnson told me the other day he hated to hear people whine about metaphysical distresses, when there was so much want and hunger in the world. I told him I supposed then he never wept at any tragedy but Jane Shore, who had died for want of a loaf. He called me a saucy girl, but did not deny the inference.' Hannah M ore's Memoirs, i. 249. Jane Shore is by Nicholas Rowe. Johnson's Works, vii. 410, and /0.r/, p. 284.
4 See Life, iii. 2, where Johnson ' shewed that a man who has risen in the world, must not be condemned too harshly for being distant to former acquaintance, even though he may have been much obliged to them.'
For prime minister see Life, ii. 355, n. 2, and Letters, i. 92, n. 2.
town.
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