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[ Fanny's step-mother.—ED.]
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[ Boswell prints these lines as follows:
“When first I drew my vital breath,
A little minikin I came upon earth
And then I came from a dark abode,
Into this gay and gaudy world,”—ED,]
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[ Malone gives some further particulars about Bet Flint in a note to Boswell's “Life of Johnson.” She was tried, and acquitted, at the Old Bailey in September, 1758, the prosecutrix, Mary Walthow, being unable to prove “that the goods charged to have been stolen (a counterpane, a silver spoon, two napkins, etc.) were her property. Bet does not appear to have lived at that time in a very genteel style; for she paid for her ready-furnished room in Meard's-court, Dean-street, Soho, from which these articles were alleged to be stolen, only five shillings a week.”—ED.]
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[ Margaret Caroline Rudd was in great notoriety about the year 1776, from the fame of her powers of fascination, which, it was said, had brought a man to the gallows. This man, her lover, was hanged in January, 1776, for forgery, and the fascinating Margaret appeared as evidence against him. Boswell visited her in that year, and to a lady who expressed her disapprobation of such proceedings, Johnson said: “Nay, madam, Boswell is right: I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have got a trick of putting every thing into the newspapers.”—ED.]