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 1 92 Anecdotes by Hannah More.

with Mr. Smelt, Langton, Ramsay, and Johnson. Johnson told me he had been with the king that morning, who enjoined him to add Spencer [sic] to his Lives of the Poets x. I seconded the motion ; he promised to think of it, but said the booksellers had not included him in their list of the poets 2. . ..

Instead of going to Audley Street 3, where I was invited, I went to Mrs. Reynolds's 4, and sat for my picture. Just as she began to paint, in came Dr. Johnson, who staid the whole time, and said good things by way of making me look well. I did not forget to ask him for a page for your memorandum book 5, and he promised to write, but said you ought to be con tented with a quotation ; this, however, I told him you would not accept. Memoirs, i. 174.

London, 1781.

Mrs. B. 6 having recently desired Johnson to look over her new play of the ' Siege of Sinope ' before it was acted, he always found means to evade it ; at last she pressed him so closely that he actually refused to do it, and told her that she herself, by carefully looking it over, would be able to see if there was any thing amiss as well as he could. 6 But, sir/ said she, ' I have no time. I have already so many irons in the fire.' c Why then, madam,' said he, (quite out of patience) 'the best thing I can advise you to do is, to put your tragedy along with your irons.' Memoir 's, i. 200.

London, 1781.

c Praise/ says Dr. Johnson, * is the tribute which every man is expected to pay for the grant of perusing a manuscript 7 .'. . . Think of Johnson's having apartments in Grosvenor Square 8 !

1 Life, iv. 410. which, as her brother said, * made

2 ' The edition of The English other people laugh and him cry,' see Poets was not an undertaking directed Northcote's Reynolds, ii. 160.

by Johnson, but he was to furnish 5 A collection of autographs of

a Preface and Life to any poet the eminent persons which her sister was

booksellers pleased.' Ib. iii. 137. making at that time. Note by

3 Mrs. Boscawen's house. See Roberts.

Memoirs, i. 162. 6 Frances Brooke. Ante, i. 322.

4 Hannah More hitherto has 7 For the ' exquisite address ' with generally spoken of her as Miss Rey- which he once evaded paying this nolds. She was born in 1729 (Tay- tribute, see Life, iii. 373.

lor's Reynolds, i. 4), and was fifty 8 ' Mr. Thrale (writes Boswell) years old. For her oil-paintings, had removed, I suppose by the soli-

but

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