uld I always write ridiculously? Perhaps because I made
these verses to imitate such a one," naming him:

"'Hermit hoar, in solemn cell
Wearing out life's evening grey;
Strike thy bosom, sage! and tell
What is bliss, and which the way?'

"Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed,
Scarce repressed the starting tear,
When the hoary sage replied,
'Come, my lad, and drink some beer.'"

I could give another comical instance of caricatura imitation.
Recollecting some day, when praising these verses of Lopez de Vega--

"Se acquien los leones vence,
Vence una muger hermosa,
O el de flaco averguence,
O ella di ser mas furiosa,"

more than he thought they deserved, Mr. Johnson instantly observed "that
they were founded on a trivial conceit, and that conceit ill-explained
and ill-expressed besides. The lady, we all know, does not conquer in
the same manner as the lion does. 'Tis a mere play of words," added he,
"and you might as well say that

"'If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.'"

And this humour is of the same sort with which he answered the friend who
commended the following line:--

"Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free."

"To be sure," said Dr. Johnson--

"'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'"

This readiness of finding a parallel, or making one, was shown by him
perpetually in the course of conversation. When the French verses of a
certain pantomime were quoted thus:

"Je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux,
Pour vous faire entendre, mesdames et messieurs,
Que je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux,"

he cried out gaily and suddenly, almost in a moment--

"I am Cassandra come down from the sky,
To tell each bystander what none can deny,
That I am Cassandra come down from the sky."

The pretty Italian verses, too, at the end of Baretti's book called "Easy
Phraseology," he did all' improviso, in the same manner:

"Viva! viva la padrona!
Tutta bella, e tutta buona,
La padrona e un angiolella
Tutta buona e tutta bella;
Tutta bella e tutta buona;
Viva! viva la padrona!"

"Long may live my lovely Hetty!
Always young and always pretty,
Always pretty, always young,
Live my lovely Hetty long!
Always young and always pretty!
Long may live my lovely Hetty!"

The famous distich,