old him that his two sons should repeat
Gray's "Elegy" to him alternately, that he might judge who had the
happiest cadence. "No, pray, sir," said he, "let the dears both speak it
at once; more noise will by that means be made, and the noise will be
sooner over." He told me the story himself, but I have forgot who the
father was.

Mr. Johnson's mother was daughter to a gentleman in the country, such as
there were many of in those days, who possessing, perhaps, one or two
hundred pounds a year in land, lived on the profits, and sought not to
increase their income. She was, therefore, inclined to think higher of
herself than of her husband, whose conduct in money matters being but
indifferent, she had a trick of teasing him about it, and was, by her
son's account, very importunate with regard to her fears of spending more
than they could afford, though she never arrived at knowing how much that
was, a fault common, as he said, to most women who pride themselves on
their economy. They did not, however, as I could understand, live ill
together on the whole. "My father," says he, "could always take his
horse and ride away for orders when things went badly." The lady's
maiden name was Ford; and the parson who sits next to the punch-bowl in
Hogarth's "Modern Midnight Conversation" was her brother's son. This
Ford was a man who chose to be eminent only for vice, with talents that
might have made him conspicuous in literature, and respectable in any
profession he could have chosen. His cousin has mentioned him in the
lives of Fenton and of Broome; and when he spoke of him to me it was
always with tenderness, praising his acquaintance with life and manners,
and recollecting one piece of advice that no man surely ever followed
more exactly: "Obtain," says Ford, "some general principles of every
science; he who can talk only on one subject, or act only in one
department, is seldom wanted, and perhaps never wished for, while the man
of general knowledge can often benefit, and always please." He used to
relate, however, another story less to the credit of his cousin's
penetration, how Ford on some occasion said to him, "You will make your
way the more easily in the world, I see, as you are contented to dispute
no man's claim to conversation excellence; they will, therefore, more
willingly allow your pretensions as a writer." Can one, on such an
occasion, forbear recollecting the predictions of Boileau's father, when
strokin