��Anecdotes by George Steevens.
��[The following anecdote included by Croker in Steevens's Collection is not given in the European Magazine for January,
1785]-
- Night,' Mr. Tyers has told us, * was Johnson's time for
composition 1 / But this assertion, if meant for a general one, can be refuted by living evidence. Almost the whole Preface to Shakespeare, and no inconsiderable part of the Lives of the Poets, were composed by daylight, and in a room where a friend 2 was employed by him in other investigations. His studies were only continued through the night when the day had been preoccupied,
��Blackstone, after citing the statute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 20, continues : ' If such dean and chapter do not elect in the manner by this act appointed . . . they shall incur all the penalties of & praemunire? Commentaries, ed.
1775. i- 379-
When, in 1847, the Dean of Hereford, holding the opinion of 1 the gentleman ' of the anecdote, in formed the Prime-minister, Lord John Russell, that he would not comply with the conge d'elire by electing Dr. Hampden, Lord John replied : ' Sir, I have had the honour to receive your letter of the 22nd inst., in which you intimate to me your intention of violating the law. I have, &c.,
J. RUSSELL/
Walpole's Life of Lord J. Russell, i. 480.
At the confirmation of Hampden's election in Bow Church, ' after the judge had told the opposers that he could not hear them, the citation for opposers to come forward was re peated, at which the people present laughed out, as at a play.' H. C. Robinson's Diary, 1869, iii. 311.
'The truth of it is, a woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding-clothes. When she has made her own choice, for
��form's sake she sends a conge d'elire to her friends.' Addison, The Spec tator, No. 475.
1 Post, p. 346.
2 Mr. Croker is probably right in saying that this friend was Steevens himself. Nevertheless there is no thing to show what those investiga tions were in which he was engaged while Johnson was writing the Preface to Shakespeare. In 1766, the year after it was published, Steevens brought out twenty plays of Shake speare in four volumes. ' A coalition having been effected between him and Johnson, another edition made its appearance in 1773.' Nichols, Lit. Hist. v. 428. A second of these joint editions was published in 1778, and a third in 1785. Lowndes, BibL Man. p. 2270. That in preparing his notes for all three editions he often worked in Johnson's room is very likely. He lived at the top of Hampstead Heath, in a house still standing. ' He was always an early riser, and rarely failed walking to London and back.' His custom was to call at Isaac Reed's in Staple Inn by 7 o'clock in the morning, where he found a room ready. Later on in the day ' he generally passed some time with Dr. Johnson.' When carrying his last edition through the
or
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