otes:

"Of the various states and conditions of humanity, he despised none
more, I think, than the man who marries for maintenance: and of a
friend who made his alliance on no higher principles, he said once,
'Now has that fellow,' it was a nobleman of whom we were speaking,
'at length obtained a certainty of three meals a day, and for that
certainty, like his brother dog in the fable, he will get his neck
galled for life with a collar.'" The nobleman was Lord Sandys.

"He recommended, on something like the same principle, that when one
person meant to serve another, he should not go about it slily, or,
as we say, underhand, out of a false idea of delicacy, to surprise
one's friend with an unexpected favour; 'which, ten to one,' says he,
'fails to oblige your acquaintance, who had some reasons against such
a mode of obligation, which you might have known but for that
superfluous cunning which you think an elegance. Oh! never be seduced
by such silly pretences,' continued he; 'if a wench wants a good
gown, do not give her a fine smelling-bottle, because that is more
delicate: as I once knew a lady lend the key of her library to a poor
scribbling dependant, as if she took the woman for an ostrich that
could digest iron.'" This lady was Mrs. Montagu.

"I mentioned two friends who were particularly fond of looking at
themselves in a glass--'They do not surprise me at all by so doing,'
said Johnson: 'they see reflected in that glass, men who have risen
from almost the lowest situations in life; one to enormous riches,
the other to everything this world can give--rank, fame, and fortune.
They see, likewise, men who have merited their advancement by the
exertion and improvement of those talents which God had given them;
and I see not why they should avoid the mirror.'" The one, she
writes, was Mr. Cator, the other, Wedderburne. Another great lawyer
and very ugly man, Dunning, Lord Ashburton, was remarkable for the
same peculiarity, and had his walls covered with looking-glasses. His
personal vanity was excessive; and his boast that a celebrated
courtesan had died with one of his letters in her hand, provoked one
of Wilkes's happiest repartees.

Opposite a passage descriptive of Johnson's conversation she has
written: "We used to say to one another familiarly at Streatham Park,
'Come, let us go into the library, and make Johnson speak Ramblers.'"

Dr. Lort writes to Bishop Percy:

"December 16th, 1786.

"I had a letter