invitation abroad, but gave a dinner to such of his poor friends as might else have gone without one J . (Page 452.)
To impress the more strongly on his mind the value of time, and the use it behoved every wise man to make of it, he in dulged himself in an article of luxury, which, as far as my observation and remembrance will serve me, he never enjoyed till this late period of his life : it was a watch, which he caused to be made for him, in the year 1768, by those eminent artists Mudge and Button : it was of metal, and the outer case covered with tortoise-shell ; he paid for it seventeen guineas. On the dial-plate thereof, which was of enamel, he caused to be inscribed, in the original Greek, these words of our blessed Saviour, Ni>f yap epx^rai, but with the mistake of a letter /* for v : the meaning of them is, ' For the night cometh.' This, though a memento of great importance, he, about three years after, thought pedantic ; he, therefore, exchanged the dial-plate for one in which the in scription was omitted 2 . (Page 460.)
Novelty, and variety of occupations, were objects that engaged his attention, and from these he never failed to extract informa tion. Though born and bred in a city 3 , he well understood both the theory and practice of agriculture, and even the management
1 Mrs. Piozzi says that ' Dr. John- son spoke well of \Life, iv. 77]. The son, commonly spending the middle watch-maker in gratitude exerted of the week at our house, kept his himself in making it. For Thomas numerous family in Fleet-street upon Mudge, the watch-maker, see Letters, a settled allowance ; but returned to i. 93, n. 2.
them every Saturday to give them Canon Pailye of Lichfield told Mr.
three good dinners and his company, Croker that he had purchased the
before he came back to us on the watch from Barber. Croker's Bos-
Monday night.' Ante, i. 205. well, x. 106.
2 Life, ii. 57. For Person's humorous letter about In R. Polwhele's Traditions, p. the watch, see ante, ii. 81.
353, an extract is given from a letter The same Greek inscription Scott dated April 29, 1794, in which the put on his dial in his garden at Abbots- writer, a Christ Church man, B ford. Ante, i. 123,72.4.
says that he has bought Johnson's 3 Lichfield was so small a city that
watch from Francis Barber, ' who is a few minutes' walk would have taken
now settled at Lichfield, and I am him into the fields. Even so late as
afraid in great want.' The watch, he 1781 it did not contain 4,000 in-
says, was made by Mudge, the brother habitants. Harwood's History of
of Dr. Mudge, whose sermons John- Lichfield, p. 380.
of
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