have you ever seen Brentford?' and I took the liberty to add, 'My dear sir, surely that was shocking.'— 'Why then, sir (he replied), you have never seen Brentford.' Though his usual phrase for conversation was talk, yet he made a distinction; for when he once told me that he dined the day before at a friend's house, with a very pretty company'; and I asked him if there was good conversation, he answered, 'No, sir; we had talk enough, but no conversation; there was nothing discussed.' Talking of the success of the Scotch in London, he imputed it in a considerable degree to their spirit of nationality. 'You know, sir (said he), that no Scotchman publishes a book, or has a play brought upon the stage, but there are five hundred people ready to applaud him.' He gave much praise to his friend Dr. Burney's elegant and entertaining travels, and told Mr. Seward that he had them in his eye, when writing his Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Such was his sensibility, and so much was he affected by pathetic poetry, that when he was reading Dr. Beattie's Hermit, in my presence, it brought tears into his eyes.1 He disapproved much of mingling real facts with fiction. On this account he censured a book entitled Love and Madness. Mr. Hoole told him he was born in Moorfields, and had received part of his early instruction in [The particular passage which excited this strong emotion was, as I have heard from my father, the third stanza, 'Tis night,' etc.-J. BOSWELL, Junior.] |