n the order in which they are to stand for printing; and arranges
what is called the _form_, from which an impression is taken. BOSWELL.

[995] This circumstance therefore alluded to in Mr. Courtenay's
_Poetical Character_ of him is strictly true. My informer was Mrs.
Desmoulins, who lived many years in Dr. Johnson's house. BOSWELL. The
following are Mr. Courtenay's lines:--

'Soft-eyed compassion with a look benign,
His fervent vows he offered at thy shrine;
To guilt, to woe, the sacred debt was paid,
And helpless females blessed his pious aid;
Snatched from disease, and want's abandoned crew,
Despair and anguish from their victims flew;
Hope's soothing balm into their bosoms stole,
And tears of penitence restored the soul.'

[996] The _Cross Readings_ were said to be formed 'by reading two
columns of a newspaper together onwards,' whereby 'the strangest
connections were brought about,' such as:--

'This morning the Right Hon. the Speaker
was convicted of keeping a disorderly house.
Whereas the said barn was set on fire by
an incendiary letter dropped early in the morning.
By order of the Commissioners for Paving
An infallible remedy for the stone and gravel.
The sword of state was carried
before Sir John Fielding and committed to Newgate.'

_The New Foundling Hospital for Wit_, i. 129. According to Northcote
(_Life of Reynolds_, i. 217), 'Dr. Goldsmith declared, in the heat of
his admiration of these _Cross Readings_, it would have given him more
pleasure to have been the author of them than of all the works he had
ever published of his own.' Horace Walpole (Letters, v. 30) writes:--
'Have you seen that delightful paper composed out of scraps in the
newspapers? I laughed till I cried. I mean the paper that says:--

"This day his Majesty will go in great state to fifteen notorious common
prostitutes."'

[997] One of these gentlemen was probably Mr. Musgrave (_ante_, ii. 343,
note 2), who, says Mrs. Piozzi (_Anec_. p. 295), when 'once he was
singularly warm about Johnson's writing the lives of our famous prose
authors, getting up and entreating him to set about the work
immediately, he coldly replied, "Sit down, Sir."' Miss Burney says that
'the incense he paid Dr. Johnson by his solemn manner of listening, by
the earnest reverence with which he eyed him, and by a theatric start of
admiration every time he spoke, joined to