Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/273

 ��Mr. Thrale once asked him which had been the happiest period of his past life ? he replied, ' it was that year in which he spent one whole evening with M y As n \ That indeed (said he) was not happiness, it was rapture ; but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole year.' I must add, that the evening alluded to was not passed tete-a-Ute, but in a select company, of which the present Lord Killmorey 2 was one. ' Molly (says Dr. Johnson) was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and whig ; and she talked all in praise of liberty : and so I made this epigram upon her She was the loveliest creature I ever saw ! ! !

Liber ut esse velim, suasisti finlchra Maria, Ut maneam liber pulchra Maria, vale f

Will it do this way in English, Sir (said I) ?

Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you ; If freedom we seek fair Maria, adieu !

a lady, and the ladies never loved M y As n.' I asked him what his wife thought of this attachment ? * She was jealous to be sure (said he), and teized me sometimes when I would let her ; and one day, as a fortune-telling gipsey passed us when we were walking out in company with two or three friends in the country, she made the wench look at my hand, but soon repented her curiosity ; for (says the gipsey) Your heart is divided, Sir, between a Betty and a Molly : Betty loves you best, but you take most delight in Molly's company: when I turned about to laugh, I saw my wife was crying. Pretty charmer ! she had no reason ! '
 * It will do well enough (replied he) ; but it is translated by

It was, I believe, long after the currents of life had driven him to a great distance from this lady, that he spent much of his time with Mrs. F zh b t 3, of whom he always spoke with

1 Molly Aston. She was the 2 Johnson, with the Thrales, visited daughter of Sir Thomas Aston, and his house in 1774. 'Lord Kilmorey,' wife of Captain Brodie of the navy. he wrote, ' shewed the place with Life, i. 83 ; ii. 466. She explained too much exultation.' 16. v. 433. to Johnson a question in political 3 Fitzherbert. ' Of her Dr. John- economy which puzzled him and son said that she had the best under- Lord Kames. Ib. iii. 340. standing he ever met with in any

esteem

�� �