ANECDOTES BY JOSEPH CRADOCK^
��THE first time I dined in company with Dr. Johnson was at T. Davies's 2 , Russell Street, Covent Garden, as mentioned by Mr. Boswell, in his Life of Johnson*. On mentioning my engagement previously to a friend, he said, ' Do you wish to be well with Johnson?' 'To be sure, Sir,' I replied, 'or I should not have taken any pains to have been introduced into his company. 5 'Why then, Sir,' says he, 'let me offer you some advice: you must not leave him soon after dinner to go to the play; during dinner he will be rather silent it is a very
years after this dinner Johnson wrote to Mrs. Montagu : ' Poor Davies, the bankrupt bookseller, is soliciting his friends to collect a small sum for the repurchase of part of his house hold stuff. 3 Letters, ii. 64.
3 < On Friday, April 12 [1776], I dined with him at our friend Tom Davies's, where we met Mr. Cradock, of Leicestershire, authour ofZobeide, a tragedy ; a very pleasing gentleman ; and Dr. Harwood, who has written and published various works ; par ticularly a fantastical translation of the New Testament, in modern phrase, and with a Socinian twist.' Life, iii. 38.
- There is a new tragedy at Covent
Garden, called Zobeide, which, I am told, is very indifferent, though written by a country-gentleman.' Walpole's Letters, v. 356.
serious
��1 * From Mr. Cradock's Memoirs. \Literary Memoirs, 4 vols. London, 1828.] These anecdotes are certainly very loose and inaccurate ; but as they have been republished in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1828, "with some corrections and additions from the author's MS.," I think it right to notice them ; and, as they profess to be there enlarged from the MS., I copy this latter ver sion, which differs, in some points, from the memoirs.' Croker, ix. 236. Croker does not always follow the version in the Gentlemaris Magazine.
2 Life, i. 390.
Dr. Campbell said of Davies : ' he was not a bookseller, but a gentleman dealing in books.' Nichols's Lit. Anec. vi. 429 n. Perhaps he was too much of a gentleman, and too little of a tradesman, for less than two
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