[1306] 'I have seen,' said Mr. Donne to Sir R. Drewry, 'a dreadful vision since I saw you. I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me, through this room, with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms.' He learnt that on the same day, and about the very hour, after a long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered of a dead child. Walton's Life of Dr. Donne, ed. 1838, p. 25.
[1307] 'Biographers so little regard the manners or behaviour of their heroes, that more knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree, and ended with his funeral.' The Rambler, No. 60. See post, iii. 71.
[1308] See post, iii. 112.
[1309] It has been mentioned to me by an accurate English friend, that Dr. Johnson could never have used the phrase almost nothing, as not being English; and therefore I have put another in its place. At the same time, I am not quite convinced it is not good English. For the best writers use the phrase 'Little or nothing;' i.e. almost so little as to be nothing. BOSWELL. Boswell might have left almost nothing in his text. Johnson used it in his writings, certainly twice. 'It will add almost nothing to the expense.' Works, v. 307. 'I have read little, almost nothing.' Pr. and Med. p. 176. Moreover, in a letter to Mrs. Aston, written on Nov. 5, 1779 (Croker's Boswell, p. 640), he says:—'Nothing almost is purchased.' In King Lear, act ii. sc. 2, we have:—
'Nothing almost sees miracles But misery.'
[1310] 'Pope's fortune did not suffer his charity to be splendid and conspicuous; but he assisted Dodsley with a hundred pounds, that he might open a shop.' Johnson's Works, viii. 318.
[1311] A Muse in Livery: or the Footman's Miscellany. 1732. A rhyme in the motto on the title-page shows what a Cockney muse Dodsley's was. He writes:—
'But when I mount behind the coach,
And bear aloft a flaming torch.'
The Preface is written with much good feeling.
[1312] James Dodsley, many years a bookseller in Pall Mall. He died Feb. 19, 1797. P. CUNNINGHAM. He was living, therefore, when this anecdote was published.