who said to me, that you had paid his father a very fine compliment \ I mentioned Johnson, to sound if there was any objection. He made none. In the evening Burke told me he had read your Henry VI., with all its accompaniment, and it was exceedingly well done. He left us for some time ; I suppose on some of his cursed politics ; but he returned I at him again, and heard from his lips what, believe me, I delighted to hear, and took care to write down soon after. ' I have read his History of the Stage, which is a very capital piece of criticism and anti-agrarianism 2 . I shall now read all Shakspeare through, in a very different manner from what I have yet done, when I have got such a commentator.' Will not this do for you my friend ? Burke was admirable company all that day. He never once, I think, mentioned the French revolution 3 , and was easy with me, as in days of old*.
Dec. 1 6. I was sadly mortified at the Club on Tuesday, where I was in the chair, and on opening the box found three
had each the same sum left for the 2 Bos well, I suppose, wrote anti-
same object. Taylor's Reynolds, ii. quarianism.
636. 3 Burke this day never 'thought
Sir William Scott was Dr. Scott of convincing, while they thought of
(Lord Stowell), who with Reynolds dining.'
and Hawkins had been Johnson's 4 In 1783 Boswell visited Burke
executor. He outlived this dinner at Beaconsfield. Life, iv. 210. A
forty-five years. few weeks later he wrote : ' I men-
1 * At length the task of revising tioned my expectations from the
these plays was undertaken by interest of an eminent person then in
one [Johnson] whose extraordinary power ' (no doubt Burke). Ib. p. 223.
powers of mind, as they rendered On May 28, 1794, Malone wrote of
him the admiration of his contempo- the Club : 'We are now so distracted
raries, will transmit his name to pos- by party there, in consequence of
terity as the brightest ornament of Windham and Burke, and I might
the eighteenth century ; and will add the whole nation, being on one
transmit it without competition, if we side, and Fox and his little phalanx
except a great orator, philosopher on the other, that we in general keep
and statesman x now living, whose as clear of politics as we can, and
talents and virtues are an honour to did so yesterday.' Hist. MSS.
human nature.' Malone's Shake- Com., Thirteenth Report, App. viii.
speare, ed. 1790, i. Preface, p. 68. 239.
1 The Right Honourable Edmund Burke. Note by Malone.
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