entury to require here more than the mere mention of his name, even to
those who are accustomed to associate every thing with its pecuniary
value; as Murphy's portrait, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds for Mr.
Thrale, sold at Christie's in the sale of Mr. Watson Taylor's pictures
(June, 1823), for 94 pounds 10s. Murphy had prepared his translation of
Tacitus {26} for the press, at his house on Hammersmith Terrace (the last
at the west end); but declining health and circumstances induced his
removal into lodgings near London, at "14 Knightsbridge." From these
apartments "he soon removed to others in Brompton Row, where he did not
remain long, not liking the mistress of the house, but returned to his
former residence (No. 14), where he resided till the time of his death."
In 1803, the late Lord Sidmouth (then Mr. Addington), conferred a pension
of 200 pounds a-year on Murphy, "to mark the sense" his majesty
entertained "of literary merit, particularly when accompanied with sound
principles and unquestionable character;" which gracious mark of royal
favour Murphy acknowledged on the 2nd of March, from "14 Queen's Row,
Knightsbridge." Here he wrote his life of Garrick, {27a} a work which,
notwithstanding Mr. Foot's ingenious defence of it, shews that Garrick's
life remains to be written, and that Murphy's intellectual powers were,
at the time when he composed it, in a state of decay.

Murphy, according to his biographer, "possessed the first and second
floors of a very pleasant, neat house, where there was a long gravel walk
in the garden; {27b} and though his library had been much diminished,
yet, in the remaining part, he took care to reserve the Elzevir editions
of the classics. Mrs. Mangeon (the mistress of the house) was a neat and
intelligent woman, and Mr. Murphy secured her friendship by giving her
son a presentation to Christ's Hospital. Anne Dunn, his own
servant-maid, was an excellent servant, honest, faithful, and attentive;
so that, what with the services he had rendered to the mistress of the
house, and what with the intrinsic fidelity of his female domestic, he
could put the whole family into a state of requisition, and command an
elegant table, as well as ready attention, upon any particular occasion.
Such was the situation of a man of genius, and an author, in the decline
of a long life, and in a country at the highest pitch of grandeur and
wealth. But it must be remembered, that the comforts he possessed