427. AT the sale of Dr Johnson's books, Rogers met General Oglethorpe, then very, very old, the flesh of his face looking like parchment. He amused us youngsters by talking of the alterations that had been made in London, and of the great additions it had received within his recollection. He said that he had shot snipes in Conduit Street! 428. A PORTUGUESE was one day boasting to me of their great poet Camoëns (this nation are very partial to themselves, and despisers of all other people), and mentioned among his other excellences that he had invented two thousand words, which were admitted into popular use. In France I know the most eminent writer could not make one pass into usage. Menage piqued himself on his own term vénustè, but it did not become current.-Longuerana. THE knowledge. 429. HE following anecdote is related by Southey, the truth of it having fallen within his own A dog, which had belonged to an Irishman, and was sold by him in England, would never touch a morsel of food on a Friday. The Irishman had made him as good a Catholic as himself. This dog never forsook the sick bed of his late master, and when he was dead refused to eat, and died also. 430. SECR ECRETARY CRAGGS brought Dick Estcourt once to Sir Godfrey Kneller's, where he mimicked several persons whom he knew; as Lords Godolphin, Somers, Halifax, &c. Sir Godfrey was highly delighted, took the joke, and laughed heartily. Then they gave him the wink, and he mimicked Sir Godfrey himself, who cried, "Nay, now you are out, man; by G―, that is not me." 431. You may depend upon it religion is, in its essence, the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will alone gentilise, if unmixed with cant; and I know nothing else that will, alone. Certainly not the army, which is thought to be the grand embellisher of manners.-Coleridge. 432. FANCY lyrics from "Jack Randall's Scrap - Book": : "By Crib, I'm sick of sickly songs, Come, Randall, leave the boxing throngs, "Oh! sing those days of triumph, when "Laud high the god-like Belcher race, Dick Humphries-he who fought with grace, Of Harry Pearce, The Chicken. Sing Crib, who fought the giant black, "Come, Nonpareil, now gaily sing, Or Shamrock, Leek, or Thistle." 433. THE comedy of the "Learned Ladies” brought Molière into vogue. On the rise of his reputation, he said, "I have no occasion to study Plautus or Terence, or to consume my labour in examining the fragments of Menander: the world is my theatre." Notwithstanding this declaration, the poet sometimes goes beyond actual observation. The "Learned Ladies" exhibit more what Molière thought comic than what he knew to be just. This writer is not only indebted to Plautus and Terence, but to Italian writers; in particular to Trivelini. His "Impostor" is the most generally admired of his plays. Boileau gives the preference to the "Misanthrope;" but a great objection lies against this piece, the circumstance of the S misanthrope appearing so often on the stage; for his part does not contain less than eighteen hunHe almost engrosses the whole repre dred lines. sentation. 434. PORSON said that Pitt carefully considered his sentences before he uttered them; but that Fox threw himself into the middle of his, and left it to God Almighty to get him out again. I 435. WAS walking with Lord Lonsdale on the terrace at Lowther Castle, when he said, “I wish I could do something for poor Campbell." My rejoinder was, "I wish you would do something for poor Wordsworth, who is in such straitened circumstances that he and his family deny them-selves animal food several times a week." Lord Lonsdale was the more inclined to assist Wordsworth, because the Wordsworth family had been hardly used by the preceding Lord Lonsdale; and he eventually proved one of his kindest friends.— Rogers. TH 436. HE fastidiousness of Addison, in regard to his literary compositions, is no less remarkable than the general negligence of his friend and coadjutor, Steele. Mr Richard Nutt, one of the first printers of the Tatler, remembered that the press was stopped, and not seldom, but not always by Addison, as has been affirmed, solely for the sake of inserting new prepositions or conjunctions. "It was often stopped," he said, "for want of copy." In these cases, he had sometimes a hard task to find out Steele, who frequently furnished him with the needful supply, written hastily in a room adjoining to the printing-office. Mr Nutt mentioned one particular paper which he saw rapidly written by Steele, at midnight, and in bed, whilst he waited to carry it to the press. THE 437. 'HE chief companions of Addison were Steele, Budgell, Philips, Carey, Davenant, and Colonel Bret. With one or other of these he always breakfasted. He studied all the morning, then dined at a tavern, and went afterwards to Button's. 438. A LADY once complained to Segrais of the evil influence of her natal star, which had occasioned her to commit such an action 66 against her will. Madam," replied Segrais (awaking from a reverie), "do you pretend to have a star to yourself? Astronomers tell me that there are not above twenty thousand in all, so you see that everybody cannot have a star to himself." All this Segrais said with such gravity of manner and vivacity of countenance that the fair astrologist was ashamed of her philosophy. |