en Mrs. Siddons called upon Johnson in
1783, he "particularly asked her which of Shakespeare's characters she
was most pleased with. Upon her answering that she thought the character
of Queen Catharine, in _Henry the Eighth_, the most natural:--'I think so
too, Madam, (said he;) and when ever you perform it, I will once more
hobble out to the theatre myself.'"--Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (ed.
Birkbeck Hill), iv. 242.

{183b} See letters of February and December 1881.

{184a} See 'Letters,' ii. 244, 249.

{184b} On June 30, 1880, he wrote to me, 'Half her Beauty is the liquid
melodiousness of her language--all unpremeditated as a Blackbird's.'

{186} See letter of May 5, 1877.

{187} In a letter to me of the same date he wrote: 'Last night when Miss
Tox was just coming, like a good Soul, to ask about the ruined Dombey, we
heard a Splash of Rain, and I had the Book shut up, and sat listening to
the Shower by myself--till it blew over, I am sorry to say, and no more
of the sort all night. But we are thankful for that small mercy.

'I am reading through my Sevigne again--welcome as the flowers of May.'

{188a} On June 9, 1879, FitzGerald wrote to me: "I was from Tuesday to
Saturday last in Norfolk with my old Bredfield Party--George, not very
well: and, as he has not written to tell me he is better, I am rather
anxious. You should know him; and his Country: which is still the old
Country which we have lost here; small enclosures, with hedgeway timber:
green gipsey drift-ways: and Crome Cottage and Farmhouse of that
beautiful yellow 'Claylump' with red pantile roof'd--not the d---d Brick
and Slate of these parts."

{188b} See 'Letters,' ii. 290.

{190} See letter of Madame de Sevigne to Madame de Grignan, June 15,
1689.

{191} In one of FitzGerald's Common Place Books he gives the story thus:
"When Chancellor Cheverny went home in his Old Age and for the last time,
'Messieurs' (dit-il aux Gentilshommes du Canton accourus pour le saluer),
'Je ressemble au bon Lievre qui vient mourir au Gite.'"

{192a} Tom Taylor died July 12, 1880.

{192b} On July 16 FitzGerald wrote to me: 'Not being assured that you
were back from Revision, I wrote yesterday to Cowell asking him--and you,
when returned--to call on Professor Goodwin, of American Cambridge, who
goes to-morrow to your Cambridge--to see--if not to stay with--Mr. Jebb.
Mr. Goodwin proposed to give me a look here before he went to Cambridge:
but I tol