Anecdotes by Hannah More.
��thorpe 1 , Sir Joshua, Langton, Boswell, Gibbon, and to my agreeable surprise, Dr. Johnson, were there.
Mrs. Garrick and he had never met since her bereavement 2 . I was heartily disgusted with Mr. Boswell, who came upstairs after dinner, much disordered with wine 3 , and addressed me in a manner that drew from me a sharp rebuke, for which I fancy he will not easily forgive me. Johnson came to see us the next morning, and made us a long visit. On Mrs. Garrick's telling him she was always more at ease with persons who had suffered the same loss with herself, he said that was a comfort she could seldom have, considering the superiority of his merit, and the cordiality of their union. He bore his strong testimony to the liberality of Garrick 4 . He reproved me with pretended sharpness for reading ' Les Pensees de Pascal V or any of the Port Royal authors, alleging that as a good Protestant, I ought to abstain from books written by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, * Child,' said he,' with the most affecting earnestness, ' I am heartily glad that you read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written 6 .' Memoirs^ i. 210.
London, 1781.
We begin now to be a little cheerful at home 7 , and to have our small parties. One such we have just had, and the day and
��nine years old, very much in debt.' Memoir of Viscount Althorp, ed. 1876; Preface, p. 19.
1 Second Earl and Countess Spen cer. Letters, ii. 65, n. 9, in, n. 2.
2 Garrick died on Jan. 20, 1779.
3 This same spring he went to the Hon. Miss Monckton's, ' certainly in extraordinary spirits, and above all fear or awe, ; where Johnson, he writes, 4 kept me as quiet as possible.' Life, iv. 109.
4 Ante, i. 437.
5 He gave Boswell a copy on Good Friday, 1779. Ante, i. 87.
6 They were a change from Tom Jones. Ante, ii. 190.
��7 She was living with Mrs. Gar rick, who called her ' her Chaplain.' Garrick called her Nine (the Nine Muses). ' Nine,' he said, * you are a Sunday Woman' Life, iv. 96.
Of Mrs. Garrick Mrs. Piozzi wrote in 1 789:' That woman has lived a very wise life, regular and steady in her conduct, attentive to every word she speaks and every step she treads, decorous in her manners and graceful in her person.' Hayward's Piozzi, ed. 1861, i. 302. 'There is,' wrote Miss Burney in 1771, 'some thing so peculiarly graceful in her motion, and pleasing in her address, that the most trifling words have evening
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