ife of Johnson," or "Johnson's Poets," it may
be some mitigation of the censure I so justly deserve. Yet I may be
suffered to suggest to your correspondent, who has so kindly corrected
me, that my paper was more in the suppository style than he seems to
have imagined; and that I did not assert that Boswell, Savage, and
Johnson, met at the latter's "house in Bolt Court, and discussed
subjects of polite literature." The expression used is, "We can
_imagine_," &c. constituting a creation of the fancy rather than a
positive portraiture. Certain it is that Johnson's dwelling was in the
neighbourhood of Temple Bar at the time of the nocturnal perambulation
alluded to; and that it was Savage (to whom he was so unaccountably
attached, in spite of the "bastard's" frailties) who enticed the
doctor from his bed to a midnight ramble. My primary mistake consists
in transposing the date of the doctor's residence in Bolt Court, and
introducing Savage at the era of Boswell's acquaintance with Johnson;
whereas the wayward poet finished his miserable existence in a prison,
at Bristol, 21 years prior to that event. Here I may be allowed a
remark or two on the animadversion which has been heaped on Johnson
for that beautiful piece of biography, "The Life of Richard Savage."
It has hitherto been somewhat of a mystery that the stern critic whose
strictures so severely exposed the minutest derelictions of genius in
all other instances, should have adopted "the melting mood" in
detailing the life of such a man as Savage; for, much as we may admire
the concentrated smiles and tears of his two poems, "The Bastard," and
"The Wanderer," pitying the fortunes and miseries of the author, yet
his ungovernable temper and depraved propensities, which led to his
embruing his hands in blood, his ingratitude to his patrons and
benefactors, (but chiefly to Pope,) and his degraded misemployment of
talents which might have raised him to the capital of the proud column
of intellect of that day,--all conduce to petrify the tear of mingled
mercy and compassion, which the misfortunes of such a being might
otherwise demand. Nevertheless, as was lately observed by a
respectable journal, "there must have been _something_ good about him,
or Samuel Johnson would not have loved him."

**H.

* * * * *

DREAMS.

(_For the Mirror_.)

We see our joyous home,
Where the sapphire waters fall;
The porch, with its lone gloom,