lton and he used to strive for her preference with an
emulation that occasioned hourly disgust, and ended in lasting
animosity.' There is surely much exaggeration in this account.

[195] Let not my readers smile to think of Johnson's being a candidate
for female favour; Mr. Peter Garrick assured me, that he was told by a
lady, that in her opinion Johnson was 'a very _seducing man_.'
Disadvantages of person and manner may be forgotten, where intellectual
pleasure is communicated to a susceptible mind; and that Johnson was
capable of feeling the most delicate and disinterested attachment,
appears from the following letter, which is published by Mrs. Thrale
[_Piozzi Letters_, ii. 391], with some others to the same person, of
which the excellence is not so apparent:--

'TO MISS BOOTHBY. January, 1755.

DEAREST MADAM,

Though I am afraid your illness leaves you little leisure for the
reception of airy civilities, yet I cannot forbear to pay you my
congratulations on the new year; and to declare my wishes that your
years to come may be many and happy. In this wish, indeed, I include
myself, who have none but you on whom my heart reposes; yet surely I
wish your good, even though your situation were such as should permit
you to communicate no gratifications to, dearest, dearest Madam, Your,
&c. SAM JOHNSON.' (BOSWELL.)

[196] Horace, _Odes_, iv. 3.2, quoted also _ante_, i.352, note.

[197] The passage which Boswell quotes in part is as follows:--'When
they were first published they were kindly commended by the _Critical
Reviewers_; [i.e. the writers in the _Critical Review_. In some of the
later editions of Boswell these words have been printed, _critical
reviewers_; so as to include all the reviewers who criticised the work];
and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned, in a note which I
have read, acknowledgements which can never be proper, since they must
be paid either for flattery or for justice.' _Works_, viii.491. Boswell
forgets that what may be proper in one is improper in another.
Lyttelton, when he wrote this note, had long been a man of high
position. He had 'stood in the first rank of opposition,' he had been
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and when he lost his post, he had been
'recompensed with a peerage.' See _ante_, ii. 126.

[198] See _post_, June 12 and 15, 1784.

[199] He adopted it from indolence. Writing on Aug. 1, 1780, after
mentioning the failure of his application to Lord Westcote, he
co