68 Anecdotes by Joseph Cradock.
that Johnson only meant to attack the metre ; but he certainly turned the whole poem into ridicule :
- I put my hat upon my head,
And walk'd into the Strand, And there I met another man With his hat in his hand 1 .'
Mr. Garrick, in a letter to me, soon afterwards asked me, ' Whether I had seen Johnson's criticism on the Hermit ; it is already,' said he, ' over half the town.' Almost the last time that I ever saw Johnson, he said to me, * Notwithstanding all the pains that Dr. Farmer and I took to serve Dr. Percy, in regard to his Ancient Ballads, he has left town for Ireland 2 , without taking leave of either of us.'
Admiral Walsingham, who sometimes resided at Windsor, and sometimes in Portugal Street, frequently boasted that he was the only man to bring together miscellaneous parties, and make them all agreeable ; and, indeed, there never before was so strange an assortment as I have occasionally met there. At one of his dinners were the Duke of Cumberland 3 , Dr. Johnson,
1 The Hermit was published in who took the name of Walsingham ; 1771. There is no stanza of which but it is hardly possible that Dr. this is a close parody, so far as the Johnson should have met the Duke words are concerned. The nearest of Cumberland at dinner without is the third : Mr. Boswell's having mentioned it.'
4 With hospitable haste he rose, Croker's Bosivell, ix. 242 n. Mr.
And wak'd his sleeping fire ; Croker forgets that there are men
And snatching up a lighted brand who can dine with a Duke and not
Forth hied the reverend sire.' boast of it.
2 Percy was made Bishop of Dro- ' Having observed the vain osten- more in 1782. According to Dr. tatious importance of many people Anderson (Life of Johnson, 3rd ed., in quoting the authority of Dukes p. 252), * Percy from a high sense of and Lords, as having been in their duty constantly resided there. The company, Dr. Johnson said, he went episcopal palace, which none of his to the other extreme, and did not predecessors had inhabited, and the mention his authority when he should demesne, formerly rude and un- have done it, had it noi been of a cultivated, owe to him their magnifi- Duke or a Lord.' Life, iv. 183. cence and picturesque beauty.' Boswell accused him of making 'but
3 ' It is possible,' writes Mr. Croker, an awkward return ' in leaving in his 'Dr. Johnson may have been ac- Lives of the Poets l an acknowledge- quainted with the Hon. Robert Boyle, ment unappropriated to his Grace,'
Mr.
�� �
