as a settled and unalienable friend; do not, do not drive me
from you, for I have not deserved either neglect or hatred.'
_Ib._ p.271.

[712] On Aug. 20 he wrote:--'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for my
picture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with the
patience of _mortal born to bear_; at last she declared it quite
finished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was _Johnson's
grimly ghost_. It is to be engraved, and I think _in glided_, &c., will
be a good inscription.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 302. Johnson is quoting
from Mallet's ballad of _Margaret's Ghost_:--

'Twas at the silent solemn hour,
When night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.'

_Percy Ballads_, in. 3, 16.

According to Northcote, Reynolds said of his sister's oil-paintings,
'they made other people laugh and him cry.' 'She generally,' Northcote
adds, 'did them by stealth.' _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 160.

[713] 'Nocte, inter 16 et 17 Junii, 1783.

Summe pater, quodcunque tuum de corpore Numen
Hoc statuat, precibus Christus adesse velit:
Ingenio parcas, nee sit mihi culpa rogasse,
Qua solum potero parte placere tibi.'

_Works_, i.159.

[714] According to the _Gent. Mag_. 1783, p.542, Dr. Lawrence died at
Canterbury on June 13 of this year, his second son died on the 15th.
But, if we may trust Munk's _Roll of the College of Physicians_, ii.153,
on the father's tomb-stone, June 6 is given as the day of his death. Mr.
Croker gives June 17 as the date, and June 19 as the day of the son's
death, and is puzzled accordingly.

[715] Poor Derrick, however, though he did not himself introduce me to
Dr. Johnson as he promised, had the merit of introducing me to Davies,
the immediate introductor. BOSWELL. See _ante_, i.385, 391.

[716] Miss Burney, calling on him the next morning, offered to make his
tea. He had given her his own large arm-chair which was too heavy for
her to move to the table. '"Sir," quoth she, "I am in the wrong chair."
"It is so difficult," cried he with quickness, "for anything to be wrong
that belongs to you, that it can only be I that am in the wrong chair to
keep you from the right one."' Dr. Burney's _Memoirs_, ii. 345.

[717] His Lordship was soon after chosen, and is now a member of THE
CLUB. BOSWELL. He was father of the future prime-minister, who was born
in the following year.

[718] He wrote on J