larly my attendance at Lord Lonsdale, have lost us many evenings. . . . . The week before last I indulged myself by giving one dinner. I had Wilkes, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Flood, the Irish orator, Malone, Courtenay, Governor Penn, grandson of old William, who brought over the petition from Congress which was so obstinately and unwisely rejected; and my brother David. We had a very good day. Would I were able to give many such dinners! Malone gives them without number. Last Sunday I dined with him, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Joseph Banks, Mr. Metcalf, Mr. Windham, Mr. Courtenay, and some of Johnson’s friends, to settle as to effectual measures for having a monument erected to him in Westminster Abbey.
A few other acknowledgments appear early in the following year.
It is better that I am still here; for I am within a short walk of Mr. Malone, who revises my Life of Johnson. . . . . 13th.—I drink with Lord Lonsdale one day, the next I am quiet in Malone’s elegant study, revising my Life of Johnson, of which I have high expectations, both as to fame and profit. . . . .
Though my mind felt very sick, I soon felt relief in London. I dined that day quietly with Malone. On Sunday I was at St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, and dined again with Malone.
An evening’s walk home after dinner with an intelligent companion furnished the subject of this work with the following anecdotes of Dr. Johnson:—
“Baretti, with whom I dined at Mr. Courtenay’s (Sunday, April 5, 1789,) mentioned two extraordinary instances of Dr. Johnson’s wonderful memory. Baretti had once proposed to teach him Italian. They went over a few stanzas of Ariosto’s Orlando
