occasion.' Johnson's _Works_, viii. 353.

Bacon the sculptor was anxious, wrote Malone, 'that posterity should
know that he was entitled to annex R.A. to his name.' Parr was ready to
give his name, lest if it were omitted 'Bacon should slily put the
figure of a hog on Johnson's monument'; just as 'Saurus and Batrachus,
when Octavia would not give them leave to set their names on the Temples
they had built in Rome, scattered one of them [Greek: saurai] [lizards],
and the other [Greek: batrachoi] [frogs] on the bases and capitals of
the columns.' But as for the R.A., the sculptor 'very reluctantly had to
agree to its omission.' Johnstone's _Parr_, iv. 705 and 710.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nothing can compensate for this want this year of all years.
Johnson's health was better than it had been for long, and his mind
happier perhaps than it had ever been. The knowledge that in his _Lives
of the Poets_, he had done, and was doing good work, no doubt was very
cheering to him. At no time had he gone more into society, and at no
time does he seem to have enjoyed it with greater relish. 'How do you
think I live?' he wrote on April 25. 'On Thursday, I dined with
Hamilton, and went thence to Mrs. Ord. On Friday, with much company at
Reynolds's. On Saturday, at Dr. Bell's. On Sunday, at Dr. Burney's; at
night, came Mrs. Ord, Mr. Greville, &c. On Monday with Reynolds, at
night with Lady Lucan; to-day with Mr. Langton; to-morrow with the
Bishop of St. Asaph; on Thursday with Mr. Bowles; Friday ----; Saturday,
at the Academy; Sunday with Mr. Ramsay.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 107. On
May 1, he wrote:--'At Mrs. Ord's, I met one Mrs. B---- [Buller], a
travelled lady, of great spirit, and some consciousness of her own
abilities. We had a contest of gallantry an hour long, so much to the
diversion of the company that at Ramsay's last night, in a crowded room,
they would have pitted us again. There were Smelt, [one of the King's
favourites] and the Bishop of St. Asaph, who comes to every place; and
Lord Monboddo, and Sir Joshua, and ladies out of tale.' _Ib_. p. 111.
The account that Langton gives of the famous evening at Mrs. Vesey's,
'when the company began to collect round Johnson till they became not
less than four, if not five deep (_ante_, May 2, 1780), is lively
enough; but 'the particulars of the conversation' which he neglects,
Boswell would have given us in full.

[2] In 1792, Miss Burney, after recording that Boswell told some of