A Pretty Compliment
Although Dr. Johnson had (or professed to have) a profound and unjustified
contempt for actors, he succeeded in comporting himself towards Mrs.
Siddons with great politeness; and once, when she called to see him at
Bolt Court, and his servant Frank could not immediately furnish her with
a chair, the doctor said, "You see, madam, that wherever you go there
are no seats to be got."
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A Carouse At Boileau's
Boileau, the celebrated French comedian, usually passed the summer at his villa of Auteuil, which is pleasantly situated at the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne. Here he took delight in assembling under his roof the most eminent geniuses of the age;... A Composition With Conscience
Lully, the composer, being once thought mortally ill, his friends called a confessor, who, finding the patient's state critical, and his mind very ill at ease, told him that he could obtain absolution only one way--by burning all that he had by him ... A Hard Hit At Pope
Pope was one evening at Button's Coffee-house, where he and a set of literati had got poring over a Latin manuscript, in which they had found a passage that none of them could comprehend. A young officer, who heard their conference, begged that he m... A Learned Young Lady
Fraulein Dorothea Schlozer, a Hanoverian lady, was thought worthy of the highest academical honours of Goettingen University, and, at the jubilee of 1787, she had the degree of Doctor of Philosophy conferred upon her, when only seventeen years of ag... A Pretty Compliment
Although Dr. Johnson had (or professed to have) a profound and unjustified contempt for actors, he succeeded in comporting himself towards Mrs. Siddons with great politeness; and once, when she called to see him at Bolt Court, and his servant Frank ... A Snail Dinner
The chemical philosophers, Dr. Black and Dr. Hutton, were particular friends, though there was something extremely opposite in their external appearance and manner. Dr. Black spoke with the English pronunciation, and with punctilious accuracy of exp... A String Of Jerrold's Jokes
At a club of which Jerrold was a member, a fierce Jacobite, and a friend, as fierce, of the Orange cause, were arguing noisily, and disturbing less excitable conversationalists. At length the Jacobite, a brawny Scot, brought his fist down heavily up... Alfieri's Hair
Alfieri, the greatest poet modern Italy produced, delighted in eccentricities, not always of the most amiable kind. One evening, at the house of the Princess Carignan, he was leaning, in one of his silent moods, against a sideboard decorated with a ... An Odd Present To Shenstone
An Edinburgh acquaintance is related to have sent to Shenstone, in 1761, as a small stimulus to their friendship, "a little provision of the best Preston Pans snuff, both toasted and untoasted, in four bottles; with one bottle of Highland Snishon, a... Anacreontic Invitation By Moore
The following, one of the latest productions of the poet Moore, addressed to the Marquis of Lansdowne, shows that though by that time inclining to threescore and ten, he retained all the fire and vivacity of early youth. It is full of those exquisit... Bad's The Best
Canning was once asked by an English clergyman, at whose parsonage he was visiting, how he liked the sermon he had preached that morning. "Why, it was a short sermon," quoth Canning. "O yes," said the preacher, "you know I avoid being tedious." "Ah,... Bolingbroke At Battersea
When the late Sir Richard Phillips took his "Morning's Walk from London to Kew," in 1816, he found that a portion of the family mansion in which Lord Bolingbroke was born had been converted into a mill and distillery, though a small oak parlour had ... Booksellers In Little Britain
Little Britain, anciently Breton-street, from the mansion of the Duke of Bretagne on that spot, in more modern times became the "Paternoster-row" of the booksellers; and a newspaper of 1664 states them to have published here within four years, 464 p... Boswell's Bear-leading
It was on a visit to the parliament house that Mr. Henry Erskine, (brother of Lord Buchan and Lord Erskine,) after being presented to Dr. Johnson by Mr. Boswell, and having made his bow, slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, whispering that it was... Boswell's Life Of Johnson
Sir John Malcolm once asked Warren Hastings, who was a contemporary and companion of Dr. Johnson and Boswell, what was his real estimation of Boswell's Life of Johnson? "Sir," replied Hastings, "it is the dirtiest book in my library;" then proceedin... Bulwer's Pompeian Drawing-room
In 1841, the author of Pelham lived in Charles-street, Berkeley-square, in a small house, which he fitted up after his own taste; and an odd melee of the classic and the baronial certain of the rooms presented. One of the drawing-rooms, we remember,... Bunyan's Copy Of The Book Of Martyrs
There is no book, except the Bible, which Bunyan is known to have perused so intently as the Acts and Monuments of John Fox, the martyrologist, one of the best of men; a work more hastily than judiciously compiled, but invaluable for that greater an... Bunyan's Escapes
Bunyan had some providential escapes during his early life. Once, he fell into a creek of the sea, once out of a boat into the river Ouse, near Bedford, and each time he was narrowly saved from drowning. One day, an adder crossed his path. He stunne... Bunyan's Preaching
It is said that Owen, the divine, greatly admired Bunyan's preaching; and that, being asked by Charles II. "how a learned man such as he could sit and listen to an itinerant tinker?" he replied: "May it please your Majesty, could I possess that tink...