256 Anecdotes.
��esteem and tenderness, and with a veneration very difficult to deserve. { That woman (said he) loved her husband as we hope and desire to be loved by our guardian angel. F tz- h b t was a gay good-humoured fellow, generous of his money and of his meat, and desirous of nothing but 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 I : 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 tz- h b t, whom I loved extremely 2 . 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 3 . 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
human being.' Life, i. 83. See also sparkle, no brilliancy in Fitzherbert ;
ib. iv. 33, and Letters, i. 45, n. 6. In but I never knew a man who was
the Gentleman 1 s Magazine for 1753, so generally acceptable. He made
p. 148, is a notice of her death, every body quite easy, overpowered
written perhapsby Johnson: 'March nobody by the superiority of his
12. Wife of Wm. Fitzherbert of talents, made no man think worse of
Derby, Esq., in the flower of her himself by being his rival, seemed
age, distinguished for her piety and always to listen, did not oblige you
fine accomplishments.' to hear much from him, and did not
1 Miss Hill Boothby wrote of him oppose what you said.' Life, iii. 148. to Johnson on Aug. 20, 1755: 'What eminence he had was by a ' Mr. Fitzherbert and his company felicity of manner ; he had no more arrived here [at Tissington] on learning than what he could not Thursday last, all at a loss what to help.' Ib. iii. 386. He hanged him- do with themselves in still life. self in a fit of insanity, after going to They set out yesterday to Derby see some convicts executed in the race, and return on Friday with morning. Ib. ii. 228, n. 3.
some forty more people, to eat a 3 It is not said either in the Bible
turtle." An Account of the Life of or in Paradise Lost that it was the
Dr. Johnson, &c., 1805, p. 113. devil who was kept at a distance by
2 ' There was (said Johnson) no the flaming sword.
would
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