attempt.' _Ante,_ i. 469.

[1086] It was of Lord Elibank's French cook 'that he exclaimed with
vehemence, "I'd throw such a rascal into the river."'_Ib._

[1087] 'He praised _Gordon's palates_ with a warmth of expression which
might have done honour to more important subjects.' _Ib._

[1088] For the alarm he gave to Mrs. Boswell before this supper, see
_ib._

[1089] On Dr. Boswell's death, in 1780, Boswell wrote of him:--'He was a
very good scholar, knew a great many things, had an elegant taste, and
was very affectionate; but he had no conduct. His money was all gone.
And do you know he was not confined to one woman. He had a strange kind
of religion; but I flatter myself he will be ere long, if he is not
already, in Heaven.' _Letters of Boswell_, p. 258.

[1090] Johnson had written the _Life_ of 'the great Boerhaave,' as he
called him. _Works_, vi. 292.

[1091] 'At Edinburgh,' he wrote, 'I passed some days with men of
learning, whose names want no advancement from my commemoration, or with
women of elegance, which, perhaps, disclaims a pedant's praise.'
Johnson's _Works_, ix. 159.

[1092] See _ante_, iv. 178.

[1093] 'My acquaintance,' wrote Richardson (_Corres_. iv. 317), 'lies
chiefly among the ladies; I care not who knows it.' Mrs. Piozzi, in a
marginal note on her own copy of the _Piozzi Letters_, says:--'Dr.
Johnson said, that if Mr. Richardson had lived till _I_ came out, my
praises would have added two or three years to his life. "For," says Dr.
Johnson, "that fellow died merely from want of change among his
flatterers: he perished for want of _more_, like a man obliged to
breathe the same air till it is exhausted."' Hayward's _Piozzi_, i. 311.
In her _Journey_, i. 265, she says:--'Richardson had seen little, and
Johnson has often told me that he had read little.' See _ante_, iv. 28.

[1094] He may live like a gentleman, but he must not 'call himself
_Farmer_, and go about with a little round hat.' _Ante_, p. 111.

[1095] Boswell italicises this word, I think, because Johnson objected
to the misuse of it. '"Sir," said Mr. Edwards, "I remember you would not
let us say _prodigious_ at college."' _Ante_, iii. 303.

[1096] As I have been scrupulously exact in relating anecdotes
concerning other persons, I shall not withhold any part of this story,
however ludicrous.--I was so successful in this boyish frolick, that the
universal cry of the galleries was, '_Encore_ the cow! _Encore_ the
cow!' In the pr