ridan's
well-informed, animated, and bustling mind never suffered conversation
to stagnate; and Mrs. Sheridan was a most agreeable companion to
an intellectual man. She was sensible, ingenious, unassuming, yet
communicative. I recollect, with satisfaction, many pleasing hours which
I passed with her under the hospitable roof of her husband, who was
to me a very kind friend. Her novel, entitled Memoirs of Miss Sydney
Biddulph, contains an excellent moral while it inculcates a future state
of retribution; and what it teaches is impressed upon the mind by a
series of as deep distress as can affect humanity, in the amiable and
pious heroine who goes to her grave unrelieved, but resigned, and full
of hope of 'heaven's mercy.' Johnson paid her this high compliment upon
it: 'I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to
make your readers suffer so much.'

Mr. Thomas Davies the actor, who then kept a bookseller's shop in
Russel-street, Covent-garden, told me that Johnson was very much his
friend, and came frequently to his house, where he more than once
invited me to meet him; but by some unlucky accident or other he was
prevented from coming to us.

Mr. Thomas Davies was a man of good understanding and talents, with the
advantage of a liberal education. Though somewhat pompous, he was
an entertaining companion; and his literary performances have no
inconsiderable share of merit. He was a friendly and very hospitable
man. Both he and his wife, (who has been celebrated for her beauty,)
though upon the stage for many years, maintained an uniform decency of
character; and Johnson esteemed them, and lived in as easy an intimacy
with them, as with any family which he used to visit. Mr. Davies
recollected several of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was one of the
best of the many imitators of his voice and manner, while relating them.
He increased my impatience more and more to see the extraordinary man
whose works I highly valued, and whose conversation was reported to be
so peculiarly excellent.

At last, on Monday the 16th of May, when I was sitting in Mr. Davies's
back-parlour, after having drunk tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson
unexpectedly came into the shop; and Mr. Davies having perceived him
through the glass-door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing
towards us,--he announced his aweful approach to me, somewhat in the
manner of an actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamle