called me a saucy girl J , but did not deny the inference. , Memoirs, i. 249.
London, 1782.
I dined very pleasantly one day last week at the Bishop of Chester's 2 . Johnson was there, and the Bishop was very desirous to draw him out, as he wished to show him off to some of the company who had never seen him. He begged me to sit next him at dinner, and to devote myself to making him talk. To this end, I consented to talk more than became me, and our stratagem succeeded. You would have enjoyed seeing him take me by the hand in the middle of dinner, and repeat with no small enthusiasm, many passages from the c Fair Penitent Y &c. I urged him to take a little wine, he replied, ' I can't drink a little, child, therefore I never touch it. Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.' He was very good- humoured and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, ' Hush, hush,' said he, ' it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her ; it is talking of the art of war before Hannibal.' He continued his jokes, and lamented that I had not married Chatterton, that posterity might have seen a propagation of poets 4 . Memoirs, i. 251.
Oxford, June 13, 1782.
Who do you think is my principal Cicerone at Oxford ? Only Dr. Johnson 5 ! and we do so gallant it about ! You cannot imagine with what delight he showed me every part of his own College (Pembroke), nor how rejoiced Henderson 6 looked, to
' being in the front of a stage-box at He told Nichols about this time
a country theatre, and hearing the that ' he had not read one of Rowe's
wretched Jane in vain supplicating plays for thirty years.' Life, iv. 36,72.3.
" a morsel to support her famished 4 Chatterton was born in Bristol
soul," and crying out, " Give me but in 1752, and Hannah More came to
to eat!" said, "Madame, will you live there about 1756. Memoirs, i. 14.
have my OLLANGE." ' H. M ore's 5 He was the guest of Dr. Ed-
Memoirs, iii. 72. wards, Vice-Principal of Jesus
1 She was thirty-seven years old. College. Letters, ii. 257, n. 4.
2 On April 23 or 24. Letters, ii. 6 ' A student of Pembroke College, 250. The Bishop was Beilby Por- celebrated for his wonderful acquire- teus. Life, iii. 413. ments in Alchymy, Judicial Astro-
3 By Nicholas Rowe ; * one of the logy, and other abstruse and curious most pleasing tragedies on the stage,' learning.' Life, iv. 298.
Johnson calls it. Works, vii. 408. Richard Sharp told Francis Homer
make
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