390 Minor Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson.
took place in the hall, or passage x . Johnson, like many other men, was always in much better humour after dinner than before.
Mr. Barclay saw Johnson ten days before he died, when the latter observed, ' That they should never meet more. Have you any objection to receive an old man's blessing?' Mr. Barclay knelt down, and Johnson gave him his blessing with great fervency.
��BY H. D. BEST.
[From Personal and Literary Memorials, i vol., 8vo. London, 1829, pp. 11,62, 63,65.]
Mrs. Digby told me that when she lived in London with her sister Mrs. Brooke 2 , they were every now and then honoured by the visits of Dr. Johnson. He called on them one day soon after the publication of his immortal dictionary. The two ladies paid him due compliments on the occasion. Amongst other topics of praise they very much commended the omission of all naughty words. ' What, my dears ! then you have been looking for them?' said the moralist. The ladies, confused at being thus caught, dropped the subject of the dictionary.
In early youth I knew Bennet Langton, of that ilk, as the Scotch say. With great personal claims to the respect of the public, he is known to that public chiefly as a friend of Johnson. He was a very tall, meagre, long-visaged man, much resembling, according to Richard Paget, a stork standing on one leg, near the shore, in Raphael's cartoon of the miraculous draught of fishes. His manners were in the highest degree polished; his conversation mild, equable, and always pleasing. He had the uncommon faculty of being a good reader 3 . I formed an
1 Ante, i. 307. more, let's go into the slaughter-
2 Ante, i. 322 ; ii. 192. house again, Lanky. But I am afraid
3 He read Dodsley's Cleone to there is more blood than brains." ' Johnson, who ' at the end of an Life, iv. 20.
act said, " Come, let's have some
intimacy
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