[162] Mr. Hector informs me, that this was made almost impromptu, in his presence. BOSWELL.
[163] This he inserted, with many alterations, in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1743 [p. 378]. BOSWELL. The alterations are not always for the better. Thus he alters
'And the long honours of a lasting name'
into
'And fir'd with pleasing hope of endless fame.'
[164] Settle was the last of the city-poets; post, May 15, 1776.
[165] 'Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great.' Dunciad, i. 141.
[166] Some young ladies at Lichfield having proposed to act The Distressed Mother, Johnson wrote this, and gave it to Mr. Hector to convey it privately to them. BOSWELL. See post, 1747, for The Distressed Mother.
[167] Yet he said to Boswell:—'Sir, in my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now' (post, July 21, 1763). He told Mr. Langton, that 'his great period of study was from the age of twelve to that of eighteen' (Ib. note). He told the King that his reading had later on been hindered by ill-health (post, Feb. 1767).
[168] Hawkins (Life, p. 9) says that his father took him home, probably with a view to bring him up to his own trade; for I have heard Johnson say that he himself was able to bind a book. 'It were better bind books again,' wrote Mrs. Thrale to him on Sept. 18, 1777, 'as you did one year in our thatched summer-house.' Piozzi Letters, i. 375. It was most likely at this time that he refused to attend his father to Uttoxeter market, for which fault he made atonement in his old age (post, November, 1784).