When some one in company commended the verses of M. de Benserade[1] à son Lit;
Théâtre des ris et des pleurs,
Lit! où je nais, et où je meurs,
Tu nous fais voir comment voisins,
Sont nos plaisirs, et nos chagrins.
To which he replied without hesitating,
'In bed we laugh, in bed we cry,
And born in bed, in bed we die;
The near approach a bed may shew,
Of human bliss to human woe.'
The inscription on the collar of Sir Joseph Banks's goat which had been on two of his adventurous expeditions with him, and was then, by the humanity of her amiable master, turned out to graze in Kent, as a recompence for her utility and faithful service, was given me by Johnson in the year 1777 I think, and I have never yet seen it printed.
Perpetui, [Perpetua.] ambitâ bis terrâ, premia lactis,
Hœc habet altrici Capra secunda Jovis[2].
The epigram written on Lord Anson's house many years ago, 'where (says Mr. Johnson) I was well received and kindly treated[3], and with the true gratitude of a wit ridiculed the master of the house before I had left it an hour,' has been falsely printed in many papers since his death. I wrote it down from his own lips one evening in August 1772, not neglecting the little preface, accusing himself of making so graceless a return for the civilities shewn him. He had, among other elegancies about the park and gardens, been made to observe a temple to the winds, when this thought naturally presented itself to a wit.
- ↑ 'Isaac de Benserade, 1612-1691. Sa petite maison de Gentilli, où il se retira stir la fin de sa vie, était remplie d'inscriptions en vers, qui valaient bien ses autres ouvrages; c'est dommage qu'on ne les ait pas recueillies.' Œuvres de Voltaire, ed. 1819, xvii. 49.
- ↑ It was in 1772 that Johnson made these lines. Life, ii. 144.
- ↑ Lord Anson died suddenly at his seat at Moor Park in Hertfordshire on June 6, 1762. Gentleman's Magazine, 1762, p. 264. His elder brother had been member for Lichfield. Burke's Peerage, under Earl of Lichfield.
