except perhaps among the old comedians, such as Tarleton, and a few others mentioned by Gibber. By means of this he was enabled to give to any relation that required it, the graces and aids of expression, and to discriminate with the nicest exactness the characters of those whom it concerned. In aping this faculty I have seen Warburton disconcerted, and when he would fain have been thought a man of pleasantry, not a little out of countenance. (Page 257.)
To return to Johnson, I have already said that he paid no regard to time or the stated hours of refection, or even rest ; and of this his inattention I will here relate a notable instance. Mrs. Lenox, a lady now well known in the literary world, had written a novel intitled, ' The life of Harriot Stuart/ which in the spring of 1751 was ready for publication 1 . One evening at the club, Johnson proposed to us the celebrating the birth of Mrs. Lenox's first literary child, as he called her book, by a whole night spent in festivity. Upon his mentioning it to me, I told him I had never sat up a whole night in my life ; but he continuing to press me, and saying, that I should find great delight in it, I, as did all the rest of our company, consented. The place appointed was the Devil tavern 2 , and there, about
after that, I will say, Thrale, if you and deplorable actress/ Letters, ii. will oblige me, you will call for another 1 26. Johnson, in a letter dated Dec. bottle of Toulon, and then we will set 10, 1751, speaks of ' our Charlotte's to it, glass for glass, till that is done : book.' Letters, i. 26. For Miss and by the time we should have Burney's criticism of the extravagant drunk the two bottles, we should be praise he bestowed on Mrs. Lennox, so happy, and such good friends, see ante, i. 102, n. 4. that we should fly into each other's Mrs. Lennox was the daughter of arms, and both together call for the Colonel James Ramsay, Lieutenant- third ! " ' Vol. i. p. 75. Governor of New York. < She died
- These volumes contain a series in distress' in 1804, at the age of
of love-affairs from n years of age, eighty-three, ' in Dean's Yard, West- attended with a number of her ad- minster, and lies buried with the ventures and misfortunes, which were common soldiery in the further bury- borne with the patience, and are ing -ground of Broad Chapel.' penn'd with the purity of a Clarissa.' Nichols's Lit. Anec. iii. 435. Gentleman's Magazine, December, 2 Life, iv. 254, n. 4. I75> P- 575- 'Near Temple Bar is the Devil Horace Walpole, writing two years Tavern, so called from its sign of earlier, describes her as ' a poetess St. Dunstan seizing the evil spirit by
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