24 JOHNSON. 



At the time of his associating with Savage the circle 



o O 



of Johnson's acquaintance was very limited, and those 

 whom he knew were in humble circumstances. One 

 exception is afforded in Mr. Hervey, son of Lord Bristol, 

 of whom he always spoke with admiration and esteem, 

 although he admitted the profligacy of his friend's life. 

 Mr. Hervey left the army and went into the church ; 

 nor can it be doubted that his pleasing manners, the 

 talents, which like all his race he possessed, and his 

 familiarity with the habits of high life, formed an attrac- 

 tion which Johnson could not at any time resist. " Call a 

 dog, Hervey," he would say, "and I shall love him."""" 

 The friendship which, soon after his removal to London, 

 he formed with Reynolds, can scarcely be reckoned a 

 second exception; for at that time Sir Joshua's cir- 

 cumstances were so little above his own, that an anecdote 

 is preserved of some ladies, at whose house the author 

 and the artist happened to meet, feeling much discon- 

 certed by the arrival of a Duchess while " they were in 

 such company." Johnson, perceiving their embarrass- 



manuer unaccountable, except that the most execrable crimes are 

 sometimes committed without apparent temptation," he adds, " This 

 mother is still alive, and may perhaps even yet, though her malice 

 was so often defeated, enjoy the pleasure of reflecting that the life 

 which she so often endeavoured to take away was at least shortened 

 by her unnatural offences." She must have been near seventy at 

 this time, and the chief scandal of her life had been fifty years 

 before. 



* The persons described by his black servant as most about him 

 some years later, and when he h;id extended his acquaintance, were 

 Williams, an apothecary, with whom he used to dine every Sunday, 

 Mrs. Masters, a poetess, that lived in Cave's house, some booksellers 

 and printers, and copyists, one or two authoresses, and Mrs. Gardner, 

 the wife of a tallow chandler. 



