to show he was in earnest " (smiling). He at an after period added the following stanza:

"Thus I spoke; and speaking sighed,

Scarce repressed the starting tear;

When the smiling sage replied

Come, my lad, and drink some beer."

-Boswell.

I went into his room on the morning of my birthday, and said to him, "Nobody sends me any verses now, because I am five-and-thirty years old; and Stella was fed with them till forty-six, I remember." My being just recovered from illness and confinement will account for the manner in which he burst out suddenly, without the least previous hesitation, and without having entertained the smallest intention toward it half a minute before:

"Oft in danger, yet alive,

We are come to thirty-five;
Long may better years arrive,
Better years than thirty-five.
Could philosophers contrive
Life to stop at thirty-five,

Time his hours should never drive

O'er the bounds of thirty-five.

High to soar, and deep to dive,

Nature gives at thirty-five.

Ladies, stock and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five;

For, howe'er we boast and strive,
Life declines from thirty-five;

He that ever hopes to thrive,

Must begin by thirty-five;

And all who wisely wish to wive

Must look on Thrale at thirty-five."

"And now," said he, as I was writing them down, "you may see what it is to come for poetry to a dictionary-maker; you may observe that the rhymes run in alphabetical order exactly."—Mrs. Piozzi.

When Dr. Percy first published his collection of ancient English ballads, perhaps he was too lavish in commendation of the beautiful simplicity and poetic merit he supposed himself to discover in them. This circumstance provoked Johnson to observe, one evening at Miss Reynolds's tea-table, that he could rhyme as well, and as elegantly, in common narrative and conversation. "For instance," says he:

"As with my hat upon my head,

I walked along the Strand,

I there did meet another man

With his hat in his hand."

Or, to render such poetry subservient to my own immediate

use:

"I therefore pray thee, Renny dear,

That thou wilt give to me,

With cream and sugar softened well,
Another dish of tea.

"Nor fear that I, my gentle maid,

Shall long detain the cup,

When once unto the bottom I
Have drunk the liquor up.

"Yet hear, alas! this mournful truth--
Nor hear it with a frown-

Thou canst not make the tea so fast
As I can gulp it down."

And thus he proceeded through several more stanzas till the reverend critic cried out for quarter.-George Steevens.

Some of the old legendary stories put in verse by modern writers provoked him to caricature them one day at Streatham; but they are already well known, I am sure:

"The tender infant, meek and mild,

Fell down upon the stone;

The nurse took up the squealing child,

But still the child squealed on."

I could give another comical instance of caricature imita

tion. One day when I was praising these verses of Lopez de Vega

more than he thought they deserved, Mr. Johnson instantly observed that they were "founded on a trivial conceit, and that conceit ill explained, and ill expressed besides. The lady, we all know, does not conquer in the same manner as the lion does. 'Tis a mere play of words," added he, "and you might as well say that

If the man who turnips cries,
Cries not when his father dies,

"Tis a proof that he had rather

Have a turnip than his father."

And this humor is of the same sort with which he answered the friend who commended the following line:

"Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free."

"To be sure," said Dr. Johnson,

"Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."

This readiness of finding a parallel, or making one, was shown by him perpetually in the course of conversation. When the French verses of a certain pantomime were quoted thus:

"Je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux,

Pour vous faire entendre, mesdames et messieurs,
Que je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux;"

he cried out gayly and suddenly, almost in a moment,

"I am Cassandra come down from the sky,

To tell each by-stander what none can deny,

That I am Cassandra come down from the sky."

The pretty Italian verses, too, at the end of Baretti's book he did in the same manner:

"Viva! viva la padrona!
Tutta bella, e tutta buona,
La padrona è un angiolella
Tutta buona e tutta bella;
Tutta bella e tutta buona,
Viva! viva la padrona!"

"Long may live my lovely Hetty!
Always young and always pretty,
Always pretty, always young,
Live my lovely Hetty long!
Always young and always pretty;

Long may live my lovely Hetty!"

When some one in company commended the verses of M. de Beuserade à son Lit:

"Théatre des ris et des pleurs,
Lit! où je nais, et où je meurs,
Tu nous fais voir comment voisins
Sont nos plaisirs, et nos chagrins ;"

he replied, without hesitating:

"In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die;
The near approach a bed may show
Of human bliss to human woe."

-Mrs. Piozzi.

COMMON-SENSE.

MRS. DESMOULINS made tea; and she and I talked before him upon a topic which he had once borne patiently from me when we were by ourselves-his not complaining of the world because he was not called to some great office, nor had attained to great wealth. He flew into a violent passion-I confess with some justice-and commanded us to have done. "Nobody," said he, "has a right to talk in this manner -to bring before a man his own character and the events of his life-when he does not choose it should be done. I never have sought the world; the world was not

to seek me. It is rather wonderful that so much has been done for me. All the complaints which are made of the world are unjust. I never knew a man of merit neglected: it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success. A man may hide his head in a hole; he may go into the country, and publish a book now and then, which nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected. There is no reason why any person should exert himself for a man who has written a good book: he has not written it for any individual. I may as well make a present to a postman who brings me a letter. When patronage was limited, an author expected to find a Mæcenas, and complained if he did not find one. Why should he complain? This Mæcenas has others as good as he, or others who have got the start of him." Boswell: "But surely, sir, you will allow that there are men of merit at the bar who never get practice." Johnson: Sir, you are sure that practice is got from an opinion that the person employed deserves it best; so that if a man of merit at the bar does not get practice, it is from error, not from injustice. He is not neglected. A horse that is brought to market may not be bought, though he is a very good horse; but that is from ignorance, not from intention." -Boswell.

When asked how he felt upon the ill success of his tragedy, he replied, "Like the Monument;" meaning that he continued firm and unmoved as that column. And let it be remembered, as an admonition to the genus irritabile of dramatic writers, that this great man, instead of peevishly complaining of the bad taste of the town, submitted to its decision without a murmur. He had, indeed, upon all occasions a great deference for the general opinion. "A man," said he, "who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct or amuse them; and the public to whom he appeals must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions."-Boswell.