e
sorrow is exceeding dry," but I never heard "Excessive sorrow is
exceeding hungry." Perhaps one hundred will do. The gentleman took
the hint." Mrs. Piozzi's marginal ebullition is: "Very like my hearty
supper of larks, who never eat supper at all, nor was ever a hot dish
seen on the table after dinner at Streatham Park."

Two instances of inaccuracy, announced as particularly worthy of
notice, are supplied by "an eminent critic," understood to be Malone,
who begins by stating, "I have often been in his (Johnson's) company,
and never _once_ heard him say a severe thing to any one; and many
others can attest the same." Malone had lived very little with
Johnson, and to appreciate his evidence, we should know what he and
Boswell would agree to call a severe thing. Once, on Johnson's
observing that they had "good talk" on the "preceding evening," "Yes,
Sir," replied Boswell, "you tossed and gored several persons." Do
tossing and goring come within the definition of severity? In another
place he says, "I have seen even Mrs. Thrale stunned;" and Miss
Reynolds relates that "One day at her own table he spoke so very
roughly to her, that every one present was surprised that she could
bear it so placidly; and on the ladies withdrawing, I expressed great
astonishment that Dr. Johnson should speak so harshly to her, but to
this she said no more than 'Oh, dear, good man.'"

One of the two instances of Mrs. Piozzi's inaccuracy is as
follows:--"He once bade a very celebrated lady (Hannah More) who
praised him with too much zeal perhaps, or perhaps too strong an
emphasis (which always offended him) consider what her flattery was
worth before she choaked _him_ with it."

Now, exclaims Mr. Malone, let the genuine anecdote be contrasted with
this:

"The person thus represented as being harshly treated, though a very
celebrated lady, was _then_ just come to London from an obscure
situation in the country. At Sir Joshua Reynolds's one evening, she
met Dr. Johnson. She very soon began to pay her court to him in the
most fulsome strain. 'Spare me, I beseech you, dear Madam,' was his
reply. She still _laid it on_. 'Pray, Madam, let us have no more of
this,' he rejoined. Not paying any attention to these warnings, she
continued still her eulogy. At length, provoked by this indelicate
and _vain_ obtrusion of compliments, he exclaimed, 'Dearest lady,
consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow
it so freely.'

"H