Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/437

 I then observed him with Herculean strength tugging 1 at a nail which he was endeavouring to extract from the bark of a plum tree; and having accomplished it, he exclaimed, 'There, Sir, I have done some good to-day; the tree might have festered. I make a rule, Sir, to do some good every day of my life.'

Returning through the house, he stepped into a small study or book-room. The first book he laid his hands upon was Harwood's Liberal Translation of the New Testament*. The passage which first caught his eye was from that sublime apostrophe in St. John, upon the .raising of Lazarus, 'Jesus wept ; ' which Harwood had conceitedly rendered l and Jesus, the Saviour of the world, burst into a flood of tears.' He contemptuously threw the book aside, exclaiming, ' Puppy ! ' I then showed him Sterne's Sermons 2. * Sir,' raid he, c do you ever read any others ? ' * Yes, Doctor ; I read Sherlock, Tillot- son, Beveridge, and others.' ' Ay, Sir, there you drink the cup of salvation to the bottom ; here you have merely the froth from the surface.'

Within this room stood the Shakspearean mulberry vase 3 , a pedestal given by me to Mr. Garrick, and which was recently sold, with Mr. Garrick's gems, at Mrs. Garrick's sale at Hampton. The Doctor read the inscription :

' SACRED TO SHAKSPEARE,

And in honour of

DAVID GARRICK, ESQ.

The Ornament the Reformer

Of the British Stage.'

1 By Dr. Edward Harwood. Bos- Sterne's Sermons, said : 'I did well describes it as 'a fantastical read them, but it was in a stage- translation of the New Testament in coach ; I should not have even modern phrase, and with a Socinian deigned to look at them had I been twist.' Life, iii. 39. ' I have written,' at large.'

Harwood boasted, ' more books than 3 Johnson often visited at Lich-

any one person now living, except field Mrs. Gastrel, the wife of ' the

Dr. Priestley.' Nichols, Lit. Anec. clergyman who, with Gothick bar-

ix. 580. barity, cut down Shakespeare's mul-

2 See Life, iv. 109, n. i, where berry-tree.' Ib. ii. 470. Johnson, owning that he had read

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