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 As with my hat upon my head I walk'd along the Strand, I there did meet another man With his hat in his hand.

Or to render such poetry subservient to my own immediate use,

I therefore pray thee, Renny 1 dear, That thou wilt give to me, With cream and sugar soften'd well, Another dish of tea.

Nor fear that I, my gentle maid, Shall long detain the cup, When once unto the bottom I Have drunk the liquor up.

Yet hear, alas ! this mournful truth, Nor hear it with a frown ; Thou canst not make the tea so fast As I can gulp it down.

And thus he proceeded through several more stanzas, till the Reverend Critic cried out for quarter.

'Pray, 1 said Garrick's mother to Johnson, 'What is your opinion of my son David ? ' ' Why, Madam,' replied the Doctor, ' David will either be hanged, or become a great man 2 .'

When Bolingbroke died, and bequeathed the publication of his works to Mallet, Johnson observed : * His Lordship has loaded a blunderbuss against Religion, and has left a Scoundrel to pull the trigger 3 / Being reminded of this a few years ago, the Doctor exclaimed, ' Did I really say so?' 'Yes, Sir.' He replied, ' I am heartily glad of it.'

' You knew Mr. Capel 4, Dr. Johnson ? ' ' Yes, Sir ; I have seen

1 For Johnson's abbreviations of as it is, he doth gabble monstrously." ' names see Life, ii. 258. Life, iv. 5.

2 Garrick was a pupil of Johnson's ' Defects of style apart, this preface academy at Edial. Ante, ii. 237. was by far the most valuable contri-

3 Life, i. 268 ; ante, i. 408. bution to Shakespearian criticism

4 Edward Capell. * Of the Preface that had yet appeared, and the text to Capell's Shakespeare, Dr. Johnson was based upon a most searching said : " If the man would have come collation of all the Folios and of all to me, I would have endeavoured to the Quartos known to exist at that endow his purposes with words ; for, time His unequalled zeal and in-

him

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