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 392 Minor Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson.

might,' he said, 'bear internal evidence of its futility, I laid the scene in an island at the conflux of the Boristhenes and the Danube ; rivers which run at the distance of a hundred leagues from each other. The lady, however, believed the story, and never forgave the deception; the consequence of which was, that I lost an agreeable companion, and she was deprived of an innocent amusement *.' And he added, as an extraordinary circumstance, that the Russian ambassador sent in great haste to the printer, to know from whence he had received the intelligence. Another time, at Dr. Taylor's, a few days after the death of the wife of the Rev. Mr. Kennedy, of Bradley 2, a woman of extraordinary sense, he described the eccentricities of the man and the woman, with a nicety of discrimination, and a force of language, equal to the best of his periodical essays. Now, with such powers, and the full confidence he felt in himself before any audience, he must have made an able and impressive speaker in Parliament 3.

��BY THE REV. W. COLE.

[From Cole's Collection in the British Museum. Croker's Boswell, x. 123.]

I was told by Mr. Farmer, the present Master of Emanuel College 4, that he being in London last year [1774] with Mr. Arnold, tutor in St. John's College, was desired to introduce

1 The lady was Mrs. Salusbury, The following anecdote is recorded Mrs. Thrale's mother. She was re- of one branch of the Meynells in conciled to Johnson. Ante, i. 235. Button's History of Derby, ed. 1867,

2 A village in Derbyshire, where p. 267. ' While the Meynell family Johnson visited the Meynells. Life, were spending their sober evening i. 82 ; Letters, i. 45, n. 6. ' In 1762 by the glow of their own fire, a coach he wrote for the Rev. Dr. John and six was heard rolling up to the Kennedy, the Rector of Bradley, in door. " Bring candles," says the a strain of very courtly elegance a lady of the mansion, with some dedication to the King.' Life, i. emotion, while she stept forward to 366. It is probably the same Dr. receive the guests ; but instantly re- Kennedy who wrote a foolish tragedy turning, " Light up a rush," said she, which had been shown to Mr. Fitz- "it is only my cousin Curzon." ' herbert, and who married Miss Mey- 3 Ante, ii. 362 n.

nell. Ib. iii. 238. 4 Life, iii. 38.

the

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