[22] The gilt lion's-head letter-box, used in the publication of the 'Guardian,' and then placed in Button's coffee-house, was afterwards for many years at the Shakespeare tavern, in Covent Garden. The master of this tavern becoming insolvent, the lion's head was sold among his effects, Nov. 8, 1804, for £17 10s.
[23] I have ever had a great respect for the most ingenious as well as most populous society within the liberties, namely, the authors and carvers of news, generous men! who daily retail their histories and their parts by pennyworths, and lodge high, and study nightly for the instruction of such as have the Christian charity to lay out a few farthings for these their labours, which, like rain, descend from the clouds for the benefit of the lower world.
My fellow authors are all men of martial spirits, and have an ungovernable appetite for blood and mortality. As if they were the sextons of the camp, and their papers the charnel-houses, they toll thousands daily to their long home; a charitable office! but they are paid for it.
[24] Nothing is so valuable as Time; and he who comes undesired to help to pass it away, might with the same civility and good sense give you to understand that he is come, out of pure love to you, with a coach-and-six and all his family, to help you to pass away your estate. To have one's hours and recesses at the mercy of visitants and intruders is arrant thraldom; and though I am an author, I farther declare I would rather pay a mere trifler half-a-crown a time than be entertained with his visits and his compliments.
[25] Author of 'Fables for the Female Sex;' he probably approached the nearest of all Gay's imitators to the excellences of that poet. Moore also wrote successfully for the stage. He was the author of the comedies of the 'Foundling' and 'Gil Blas,' and of the famous tragedy of the 'Gamester.'
[26] Alluding to the country custom of gathering May-dew.
[27] The plate garlands of London.
[28] The characteristics printed in italics belong to George Colman.
[29] The orator's epistle is in reality couched in violent and opprobrious language; and No. 70 is equally abusive and uncomplimentary to Mr. Town. The communications of both of the reverend gentlemen pertain to the bellicose order, and threaten breaches of the peace.
[30] Dr. Johnson seems here to point his homily from the instance of his friend Goldsmith. This circumstance gives an individual interest to a slightly ponderous sketch.