t; and here you find me roasting apples,
and reading the _History of Birmingham_."' Prior's _Malone_, p. 92.

[672] On April 19, he wrote:--'I can apply better to books than I could
in some more vigorous parts of my life--at least than I _did_; and I
have one more reason for reading--that time has, by taking away my
companions, left me less opportunity of conversation.' Croker's
_Boswell_, p. 727.

[673] He told Mr. Windham that he had never read the _Odyssey_ through
in the original. Windham's _Diary_, p. 17. 'Fox,' said Rogers (_Table
Talk_, p. 92), 'used to read Homer through once every year. On my asking
him, "Which poem had you rather have written, the _Iliad_ or the
_Odyssey_?" he answered, "I know which I had rather read" (meaning the
_Odyssey_).'

[674] 'Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence
and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or
resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to
more delightful amusements.' Johnson's _Works_, iv. 145. Of Pope Johnson
wrote (_ib_. viii. 321):--'To make verses was his first labour, and to
mend them was his last. ... He was one of those few whose labour is
their pleasure.' Thomas Carlyle, in 1824, speaking of writing, says:--'I
always recoil from again engaging with it.' Froude's _Carlyle_, i. 213.
Five years later he wrote:--'Writing is a dreadful labour, yet not so
dreadful as _idleness_.' _Ib_. ii. 75. See _ante_, iii. 19.

[675] See _ante_, ii. 15.

[676] Miss Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale in 1780:--'I met at Sir Joshua's
young Burke, who is made much ado about, but I saw not enough of him to
know why.' Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_, i. 416. Mrs. Thrale replied:--'I
congratulate myself on being quite of your opinion concerning Burke the
minor, whom I once met and could make nothing of.' _Ib_. p. 418. Miss
Hawkins (_Memoirs_, i. 304) reports, on Langton's authority, that Burke
said:--'How extraordinary it is that I, and Lord Chatham, and Lord
Holland, should each have a son so superior to ourselves.'

[677] Cruikshank, not Cruikshanks (see _post_, under Sept. 18, 1783, and
Sept. 4 1784). He had been Dr. Hunter's partner; he was not elected
(_Gent. Mag._ 1783, p. 626). Northcote, in quoting this letter, says
that 'Sir Joshua's influence in the Academy was not always answerable to
his desire. "Those who are of some importance everywhere else," he said,
"find themselves nobody when they come to the Academy."'