l he courted, and asked me to write
him some verses that he might present her in return. I promised, but
forgot; and when he called for his lines at the time agreed on--'Sit
still a moment,' says I, 'dear Mund, and I'll fetch them thee,' so
stepped aside for five minutes, and wrote the nonsense you now keep such
a stir about."

Upon revising these anecdotes, it is impossible not to be struck with
shame and regret that one treasured no more of them up; but no experience
is sufficient to cure the vice of negligence. Whatever one sees
constantly, or might see constantly, becomes uninteresting; and we suffer
every trivial occupation, every slight amusement, to hinder us from
writing down what, indeed, we cannot choose but remember, but what we
should wish to recollect with pleasure, unpoisoned by remorse for not
remembering more. While I write this, I neglect impressing my mind with
the wonders of art and beauties of nature that now surround me; and shall
one day, perhaps, think on the hours I might have profitably passed in
the Florentine Gallery, and reflecting on Raphael's St. John at that
time, as upon Johnson's conversation in this moment, may justly exclaim
of the months spent by me most delightfully in Italy--

"That I prized every hour that passed by,
Beyond all that had pleased me before;
But now they are past, and I sigh
And I grieve that I prized them no more."

SHENSTONE.

Dr. Johnson delighted in his own partiality for Oxford; and one day, at
my house, entertained five members of the other University with various
instances of the superiority of Oxford, enumerating the gigantic names of
many men whom it had produced, with apparent triumph. At last I said to
him, "Why, there happens to be no less than five Cambridge men in the
room now." "I did not," said he, "think of that till you told me; but
the wolf don't count the sheep." When the company were retired, we
happened to be talking of Dr. Barnard, the Provost of Eton, who died
about that time; and after a long and just eulogium on his wit, his
learning, and his goodness of heart, "He was the only man, too," says Mr.
Johnson, quite seriously, "that did justice to my good breeding; and you
may observe that I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity. No
man," continued he, not observing the amazement of his hearers, "no man
is so cautious not to interrupt another; no man thinks it so necessary to
appear attentive when others