s yet, though for a few months
of the year before he had been Chief Secretary for Ireland (_ante_, p
200). He was in Parliament, but he had never spoken. His _Diary_ shews
that he had no 'important occupations.' On Dec. 12, for instance, he
records (p. 30):--'Came down about ten; read reviews, wrote to Mrs.
Siddons, and then went to the ice; came home only in time to dress and
go to my mother's to dinner.' See _ante_, p. 356, for his interest
in balloons.

[1239] 'My father,' writes Miss Burney, 'saw him once while I was away,
and carried Mr. Burke with him, who was desirous of paying his respects
to him once more in person. He rallied a little while they were there;
and Mr. Burke, when they left him, said to my father:--"His work is
almost done, and well has he done it."' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, ii.
333. Burke, in 1792, said in Parliament that 'Dr. Johnson's virtues were
equal to his transcendent talents, and his friendship he valued as the
greatest consolation and happiness of his life.' _Parl. Debates_,
xxx. 109.

[1240] On the same undoubted authority, I give a few articles, which
should have been inserted in chronological order; but which, now that
they are before me, I should be sorry to omit:--

'In 1736, Dr. Johnson had a particular inclination to have been engaged
as an assistant to the Reverend Mr. Budworth, then head master of the
Grammar-school, at Brewood, in Staffordshire, "an excellent person, who
possessed every talent of a perfect instructor of youth, in a degree
which, (to use the words of one of the brightest ornaments of
literature, the Reverend Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worcester,) has been rarely
found in any of that profession since the days of Quintilian." Mr.
Budworth, "who was less known in his life-time, from that obscure
situation to which the caprice of fortune oft condemns the most
accomplished characters, than his highest merit deserved," had been bred
under Mr. Blackwell [Blackwall], at Market Bosworth, where Johnson was
some time an usher [_ante_, i. 84]; which might naturally lead to the
application. Mr. Budworth was certainly no stranger to the learning or
abilities of Johnson; as he more than once lamented his having been
under the necessity of declining the engagement, from an apprehension
that the paralytick affection, under which our great Philologist
laboured through life, might become the object of imitation or of
ridicule, among his pupils.' Captain Budworth, his grandson, has
co