[1363] Garrick himself, like the Lichfieldians, always said—shupreme, shuperior. BURNEY.
[1364] Johnson did not always speak so disrespectfully of Birmingham. In his Taxation no Tyranny (Works, vi. 228), he wrote:—'The traders of Birmingham have rescued themselves from all imputation of narrow selfishness by a manly recommendation to Parliament of the rights and dignity of their native country.' The boobies in this case were sound Tories.
[1365] This play was Gibber's Hob; or The Country Wake, with additions, which in its turn was Dogget's Country Wake reduced. Reed's Biog. Dram. ii. 307.
[1366] Boswell says, post, under Sept. 30, 1783, that 'Johnson had thought more upon the subject of acting than might be generally supposed.'
[1367] A nice observer of the female form. CROKER. Terence, Eun. iii. 5.
[1368] In Farquhar's Comedy of Sir Harry Wildair.
[1369] Gilbert Walmesley, ante, i. 81
[1370] See ante, i. 83.
[1371] Cradock (Memoirs i. 74) says that in the Cathedral porch, a gentleman, 'who might, perhaps, be too ambitious to be thought an acquaintance of the great Literary Oracle, ventured to say, "Dr. Johnson, we have had a most excellent discourse to day," to which he replied, "That may be, Sir, but it is impossible for you to know it."'
[1372] The Tempest, act iv., sc. 1.