sisted of fine gentlemen that came to him to sit for their pictures. If every man who wears a laced coat (that he can pay for) was extirpated, who would miss them?" With all this haughty contempt of gentility, no praise was more welcome to Dr. Johnson than that which said he had the notions or manners of a gentleman: which character I have heard him define with accuracy, and describe with elegance. "Officers (he said) were falsely supposed to have the carriage of gentlemen; whereas no profession left a stronger brand behind it than that of a soldier; and it was the essence of a gentleman's character to bear the visible mark of no profession whatever." He once named Mr. Berenger as the standard of true elegance; but some one objecting, that he too much resembled the gentleman in Congreve's comedies, Mr. Johnson said, "We must fix then upon the famous Thomas Hervey, whose manners were polished even to acuteness and brilliancy, though he lost but little in solid power of reasoning, and in genuine force of mind." Mr. Johnson had however an avowed and scarcely limited partiality for all who bore the name or boasted the alliance of an Aston or a

Hervey; and when Mr. Thrale once asked him which had been the happiest period of his past life? he replied, "It was that year in which he spent one whole evening with M-y As-n. That indeed (said he) was not happiness, it was rapture; but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole year." I must add, that the evening alluded to was not passed tête-à-tête, but in a select company, of which the present Lord Killmorey was one. "Molly (says Dr. Johnson) was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a Whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty: and so I made this epigram upon her-She was the lovliest creature I ever saw !!!

Liber ut esse velim, suasisti pulchra Maria,

Ut maneam liber-pulchra Maria, vale!"

Will it do this way in English, sir? said I,

Persuasions to freedom fall oddly from you;

If freedom we seek-fair Maria, adieu!

"It will do well enough (replied he); but it is translated by a lady, and the ladies never loved My AsAsn. I asked him what is wife

thought of this attachment? "She was jealous

1

to be sure (said he), and teased me sometimes, when I would let her; and one day, as a fortunetelling gipsey passed us when we were walking out in company with two or three friends in the country, she made the wench look at my hand, but soon repented her curiosity; for, says the gipsey, Your heart is divided, sir, between a Betty and a Molly: Betty loves you best, but you take most delight in Molly's company: when I turned about to laugh, I saw my wife was crying. Pretty charmer! she had no reason!" It was, I believe, long after the currents of life had driven him to a great distance from this lady, that he spent much of his time with Mrs. F-zh-b-t, of whom he always spoke with esteem and tenderness, and with a veneration very difficult to deserve." That woman (said he) loved her husbandas we hope and desire to be loved by our guardian angel. F-tzh-b-t was a gay good-humoured fellow, generous of his money and of his meat, and desirous of nothing but good cheerful society among people distinguished in some way, in any way I think; for Rousseau and St. Austin would have been equally welcome to his table and to his kindness: the lady however was of another

way of thinking; her first care was to preserve her husband's soul from corruption; her second, to keep his estate entire for their children: and I owed my good reception in the family to the idea she had entertained, that I was fit company for F-tzh-b-t, whom I loved extremely. They dare not (said she) swear, and take other conversation-liberties before you." I asked if her husband returned her regard? "He felt her influence too powerfully (replied Mr. Johnson): no man will be fond of what forces him daily. to feel himself inferior. She stood at the door of her paradise in Derbyshire, like the angel with the flaming sword, to keep the devil at a distance. But she was not immortal, poor dear! she died, and her husband felt at once afflicted and released." I enquired if she was handsome?" She would have been handsome for a queen (replied the panegyrist); her beauty had more in it of majesty than of attraction, more of the dignity of virtue than the vivacity of wit." The friend of this lady, miss B-thby succeeded her in the management of Mr. F-tzh-b-t's family, and in the esteem of Dr. Johnson; though he told me she pushed her piety to bigotry, her devotion to enthusiasm;

that she somewhat disqualified herself for the duties of this life by her perpetual aspirations after the next: such was however the purity of her mind, he said, and such the graces of her manner, that lord Lyttelton and he used to strive for her preference with an emulation that occasioned hourly disgust, and ended in lasting animosity. "You may see (said he to me, when the Poets' Lives were printed) that dear B-thby is at my heart still. She would delight in that fellow Lyttelton's company though, all that I could do; and I cannot forgive even his memory the preference given by a mind like hers." I have heard Baretti say, that when this lady died, Dr. Johnson, was almost distracted with his grief; and that the friends about him had much ado to calm the violence of his emotions. Taylor too related once to Mr. Thrale and me, that when he lost his wife, the negro Francis ran away, though in the middle of the night, to Westminster, to fetch Dr. Taylor to his master, who was all but wild with excess of sorrow, and scarce knew him when he arrived: after some minutes however, the doctor proposed their going to prayers, as the only rational method of calming the disorder this misfortune had ocça

Dr.