Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/154

 THE CHILD

courage of mothers is proverbial. There is no danger which they will not brave in behalf of their offspring. But I have always thought that, for sheer foolhardiness, no one ever approached the English lady who asked Dr. Johnson to read her young daughter's translation from Horace. He did read it, because the gods provided no escape; and he told his experience to Miss Reynolds, who said soothingly, "And how was it, Sir?" "Why, very well for a young Miss's verses," was the contemptuous reply. "That is to say, as compared with excellence, nothing; but very well for the person who wrote them. I am vexed at being shown verses in that manner."

The fashion of focussing attention upon children had not in Dr. Johnson's day assumed the fell proportions which, a few years later, practically extinguished childhood. It is true that he objected to Mr. Bennet Langton's