it worth his while to fend ambassadors He from his court to that of Siam." was no gentler with myself, or those for whom I had the greatest regard. When I one day lamented the lofs of a first coufin killed in America "Prithee, my dear (faid he), have done with canting: how would the world be worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations were at once spitted like larks, and roafted for Presto's supper?" Presto was the dog that lay under the table while we talked. When we went into Wales together, and spent some time at Sir Robert Cotton's at Lleweny, one day at dinner I meant to please Mr. Johnson particularly with a dish of very young peas. Are not they charming? faid I to him, while he was eating them." Perhaps (faid he) they would be fo-to a pig." I only instance these replies, to excuse my mentioning those he made to others. When a well-known author published his poems in the year 1777: Such a one's verses are come out, faid I: "Yes (replied Johnson), and this frost has ftruck them in again. Here are some lines I have written to ridicule them : but remember that I love the fellow dearly, now-for all I laugh at him. Wherefoe'er I turn my view, When he parodied the verses of another eminent writer, it was done with more provocation, I believe, and with some merry malice. A ferious translation of the fame lines, which I think are from Euripides, may be found in Burney's History of Music. Here are the burlesque ones: Err shall they not, who resolute explore Times gloomy backward with judicious eyes; And scanning right the practices of yore, Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwife. They to the dome where smoke with curling play The better use of notes, or fweet or fhrill, Oh! fend them to the fullen manfions dun, When cates luxuriant pile the spacious dish, And purple nectar glads the festive hour; The guest, without a want, without a wish, Can yield no room to Music's foothing pow'r. Some of the old legendary stories put in verse by modern writers provoked him to caricature them thus one day at Streatham; but they are already wellknown, I am fure. F The tender infant, meek and mild, A famous ballad also, beginning Rio verde, Rio verde, when I commended the tranflation of it, he said he could do it better himself-as thus : Glassy water, glassy water, But Sir, faid I, this is not ridiculous at all. "Why no (replied he), why should I always write ridiculously?-perhaps because I made these verses to imitate fuch a one, naming him: Hermit hoar, in folemn celk Thus I spoke, and speaking figh'd, I could give another comical instance of caricatura imitation. Recollecting some day, when praising these verses of Lopez de Vega, Se acquien los leones vence more than he thought they deferved, Mr. Johnson instantly observed, " that they were founded on a trivial conceit; and that conceit ill-explained, and illexpressed beside. The lady, we all know, does not conquer in the fame manner as the lion does: 'Tis a mere play of words (added he), and you might as well say, that If the man who turnips cries, And this humour is of the fame fort with which he answered the friend |