Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/301

 1 Do you think,' said he to Johnson, ' that I should be conquered at Chess by a savage ? ' * I know you were/ says Johnson. Barretti insisting upon the contrary, Johnson rose from his seat in a most violent rage/ ' I'll hear no more.' On which Barretti in a fright flew out of his House, and perhaps never entered it after. I believe he was never invited. This I was told by Mrs. Williams, who was present at their disputation.

Poor Mrs. Williams ! Dr. Johnson seemed much to lament her loss ' as his companion for thirty years V and often express'd a very high opinion of her mental accomplishments. She was, he said, ' a very great woman.' I rather expected he would have honour'd her memory with a few elegiack lines, as he did her fellow Inmate, Dr. Levit \sic\ 2, a copy of which Dr. Johnson gave to me soon after he wrote them.

[Here followed Johnson's Letter to Sir Joseph Banks given in the Life, ii. 144.]

And I have also a desire to say something about the latin epitaph that Dr. Johnson composed for Parnel, because Mr. Boswell has said too little 3, no blame to him, I imagine, for I suppose Dr. Johnson did not inform him that he produced it extempory one evening at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, in compliance with Dr. Goldsmith's request 4. ' Pray, Sir, be so good as to write an epitaph for Dr. Parnell/ and almost immediately after, to the surprise of all present, he recited with solemn accent :

Hie requiescit Thomas Parnel,

Qui Sacerdos pariter et Poeta

Utrasque partes ita implevit,

Ut neque sacerdoti suavitas Poetae,

Nee poetae sacerdotis sanctitas deesset.

1 He wrote to Miss Reynolds on Goldsmith in this work, lamenting Oct. I, 1783 : 'To my other afflic- the obscurity of the lives of men who tions is added solitude. Mrs.Williams, become famous after death, finely a companion of thirty years, is gone.' says : ' When a poet's fame is in- Letters, ii. 337. creased by time, it is then too late to

2 Life, iv. 137. investigate the peculiarities of his

3 Ib. iv. 54 ; v. 404. disposition ; the dews of the morn-

4 Goldsmith wrote a Life of Parnell^ ing are past, and we vainly try to of which Johnson said: 'It is poor; continue the chace by the meridian not that it is poorly written, but that splendour.' Misc. Works, ed. 1801, he had poor materials.' Ib. ii. 166. iv. 3.

Every

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