ANECDOTES BY THE REV. PERCIVAL STOCKDALE
��[FROM Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Per civ al Stockdale. 2, vols. 8vo, 1809, (vol. ii. pp. 44, 59, 64, 185, 189). For a brief account of Stockdale see Life, ii. 113.
In 1776 Garrick wrote to Lord Sandwich, the first Lord of the Admiralty, to ask for leave of absence for Stockdale, who was a sea-chaplain. Sandwich replied : ' I fear the attending in London upon a literary business and the duty of a sea-chaplain are incompatible. ... If a fortnight's leave of absence would enable him to finish his pamphlet, I could strain a point to make it easy to him.' Garrick thanked him for having ' bestowed a great favour upon a man of letters and talents when he most wanted it.' Garrick Corres. ii. 173.]
��ABOUT the year 1770, I was invited by the lively and hos pitable Tom Davies to dine with him, to meet some interesting characters. Dr. Johnson was of the party, and this was my first introduction to him : there were others, with whom every intelligent mind would have wished to converse, Dr. Goldsmith and Mr. Meyer, the elegant miniature painter x . Swift was one of our convivial subjects ; of whom it was Dr. Johnson's invariable
1 Jeremiah Meyer. It was at the of his presidency and his seat as an election of his successor as a Royal Academician. Leslie and Taylor's Academician that the dispute arose Reynolds , ii. 570. which led to Reynolds's resignation
custom
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