326 Anecdotes by George Steevens.
Dr. Johnson delighted in the company of women. 'There are few things,' he would say, * that we so unwillingly give up, even in an advanced age, as the supposition that we have still the power of ingratiating ourselves with the Fair Sex.' Among his singularities, his love of conversing with the prostitutes whom he met with in the streets was not the least. He has been known to carry some of these unfortunate creatures into a tavern, for the sake of striving to awaken in them a proper sense of their condition. His younger friends now and then affected to tax him with less chastised intentions. But he would answer * No Sir ; we never proceeded to the Opus Magnum. On the contrary, I have rather been disconcerted and shocked by the replies of these giddy wenches, than flattered or diverted by their tricks. I remember asking one of them for what purpose she supposed her Maker had bestowed on her so much beauty ? Her answer was " To please the gentlemen, to be sure ; for what other use could it be given me x ? "
The Doctor is known to have been, like Savage, a very late visitor 2 ; yet at whatever hour he returned, he never went to bed without a previous call on Mrs. Williams, the blind lady who for so many years had found protection under his roof 2 . Coming home one morning between four and five, he said to her, ' Take notice, Madam, that for once I am here before others are asleep. As I returned into the court, I ran against a knot of bricklayers.' ' You forget, my dear Sir,' replied she, ' that these people have all been a-bed, and are now preparing for their day's work.' ' Is it so, then, Madam ? I confess that circumstance had escaped me 3 .'
- Garrick, I hear, complains that I am the only popular author
the spinning-machine invented by ing home from Brookes's about day- Lewis Paul, which was in many re- break used frequently to pass the spects imitated by Arkwright in his stall of a cobbler who had already machine. Letters, i. 6, n. 3. commenced his work. As they were
1 Life, i.223. ; iv. 321, 396; ante, the only persons stirring in that ii. 213. quarter, they always saluted each
2 Life, i. 421. other. "Good night, friend," said
3 'The Duke of Devonshire [the the Duke. "Good morning, Sir," husband of the beautiful Duchess said the cobbler.' Rogers' s Table- whom Reynolds painted] when walk- Talk, p. 191.
of
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