Anecdotes by Hannah More.
��' Here we walked, there we played at cricket V He ran over with pleasure the history of the juvenile days he passed there. When we came into the common room 2 , we spied a fine large print of Johnson, framed and hung up that very morning, with this motto : ' And is not Johnson ours, him self a host! Under which stared you in the face, ' From Miss Mores Sensibility V This little incident amused us ; but alas ! Johnson looks very ill indeed spiritless and wan. However, he made an effort to be cheerful, and I exerted myself much to make him so.
We are just setting off to spend a day or two at the Bishop of Llandaff's 4 , near Wallingford. But first I must tell you I am engaged to dine on my return with the learned Dr. Edwards of Jesus College, to meet Dr. Johnson, Thomas Warton, and what ever else is most learned and famous in this University 5 . Memoirs, i. 261.
��1 Johnson must have pointed to a field outside the College precincts, for within them there was no room for cricket.
2 In the Common Room, which then stood in the garden, Johnson, in the days when it was open to the undergraduates, ' used to play at draughts with Phil Jones and Flud- yer.' Life, ii. 444. By the year 1776, in some of the Colleges, the students were excluded from the Common Room. Ib. ii. 443. The Junior Common Room of Pembroke College kept its centenary in 1894.
3 'Though purer flames thy hal-
low'd zeal inspire Than e'er were kindled at the
Muse's fire ; Thee, mitred Chester 1 , all the
Nine shall boast ; And is not Johnson ours ? him self an host.'
In the Senior Common Room there now hangs a fine portrait of Johnson by Reynolds, the gift of
1 'Dr. Beilby Porteus, then Bishop of Chester. See his admirable poem on " Death." ' Note by //. More.
Hoole
��the late Mr. Andrew Spottiswoode. See Life, iv. 151, n. 2.
4 Shute Barrington. Dr. Watson who succeeded him, settling on the banks of Windermere, did not live any nearer his diocese, and scarcely ever visited it. After he had been Bishop twenty-seven years he boasts of holding ' a confirmation at a place where no Bishop had ever held a confirmation before, Merthyr Tid- vil ' With perfect complacency he writes : ' I have spent above twenty years in this delightful country (West moreland) ... I have much recovered my health, entirely preserved my in dependence, set an example of a spirited husbandry to the country, and honourably provided for my family.' Life of Bishop Watson, i. 389 ; ii. 367-
5 For the sudden rise this week of the ' battels ' of many of the Fellows and Scholars of Jesus College see Letters, ii. 261, n. I.
�� �
