Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/284

 266 Anecdotes.

' Of all conversers however (added he), the late Hawkins Browne was the most delightful with whom I ever was in com pany : his talk was at once so elegant, so apparently artless, so pure, and so pleasing, it seemed a perpetual stream of sentiment, enlivened by gaiety, and sparkling with images V When I asked Dr. Johnson, who was the best man he had ever known? ' Psalmanazar,' was the unexpected reply : he said, likewise, 'that though a native of France, as his friend imagined, he possessed more of the English language than any one of the other foreigners who had separately fallen in his way. Though there was much esteem however, there was I believe but little confidence between them ; they conversed merely about general topics, religion and learning, of which both were undoubtedly stupendous examples ; and, with regard to true Christian per fection, I have heard Johnson say, * that George Psalmanazar's piety, penitence, and virtue exceeded almost what we read as wonderful even in the lives of saints 2 .'

I forget in what year it was that this extraordinary person lived and died at a house in Old-street 3, where Mr. Johnson was witness to his talents and virtues, and to his final preference of the church of England, after having studied, disgraced, and adorned so many forms of worship 4. The name he went by, was

1 ' Isaac Hawkins Browne,' said 2 ' Once talking of George Psal-

Johnson, ' one of the first wits of this manazar, whom he reverenced for his

country, got into Parliament and piety, he said : " I should as soon

never opened his mouth.' Life, ii. 339. think of contradicting a Bishop.'"


 * Dr. Johnson told us that Browne Life, iv. 274.

drank freely for thirty years, and I have examined Psalmanazar's

that he wrote his poem De Animi penitence in Appendix A to vol. iii.

Immortalilate in some of the last of the Life.

of these years.' Ib. v. 156. 'The 3 He died in Ironmonger Row,

pretty Mrs. Cholmondely said she Old Street, on May 3, 1763'. Gentle-

was soon tired of him, because the man's Magazine, 1763, p. 257.

first hour he was so dull there was no 4 He belonged only to the Church

bearing him ; the second he was so of Rome and the Church of England,

witty there was no bearing him ; though * he invented an awkward

the third he was so drunk there was show of worship, turning his face to

no bearing him.' Hayward's Piozzi, the rising or setting sun, and pleased

i. 294. See Letters, ii. 324, n. I, for to be taken notice of for so doing.'

his gluttony, and Campbell's British Life, iii. 447. Poets for specimens of his verses.

not

�� �