a performer who had studied his art, or could give an intelligible reason for what he did V
Though Dr. Johnson was no enemy to a proper and well- timed compliment, he would sometimes express his dislike of awkward and hyperbolical adulation. To a literary dame 2 , who had persecuted him throughout a whole afternoon with coarse and incessant flattery (after making several fruitless efforts to stop her career), he said, and loud enough for half the company present to hear 'My dear, before you are so lavish of your praise, you ought to consider whether it be worth having.'
- I am convinced (said he to a friend) I ought to be present
at divine service more frequently than I am ; but the provo cations given by ignorant and affected preachers too often disturb the mental calm which otherwise would succeed to prayer 3 . I am apt to whisper to myself on such occasions How can this illiterate fellow dream of fixing attention, after we have been listening to the sublimest truths, conveyed in the most chaste and exalted language, throughout a Liturgy which must be regarded as the genuine offspring of piety impregnated by wisdom ? Take notice, however though I make this confession respecting myself, I do not mean to recommend the fastidiousness that led me to exchange con gregational for solitary worship.' Dr. Johnson, notwithstanding, was at Streatham church when the unfortunate Dodd's first application to him was made. The Doctor went out of his pew immediately, wrote a suitable reply to the letter he had
better acting scene in the English boards, and on the whole has always
drama than this. I now felt the seemed to me a vain, foolish woman
truth of the criticism.' Trevelyan's spoiled (and no wonder) by un-
Macaulay, ed. 1877, ii. 265. bounded adulation to a degree that
1 ' I should like (wrote Sir Walter deserved praise tasted faint on her
Scott), if it were possible, to ana- palate.' Familiar Letters, Boston,
tomize Mrs. Siddons' intellect, that 1894, ii. 42.
we might discover in what her un- 2 Hannah More. Ante, i. 273 ;
rivalled art consisted; she has not ii. 179^.
much sense, and still less sound 3 For his l great reluctance to go
taste, no reading but in her pro- to Church,' see Life, i. 67, and for his
fession, and with a view to the irregular attendance, ante, i. 81.
received
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