30 



AUTHORS. 



or of sudden necessity, is beyond 

 the reach and power of the most 

 active and comprehensive mind. I 

 am informed by Mr. Thyer of Man- 

 chester, that excellent editor of this 

 author's reliques, that he could show 

 something of Hudibras in prose. He 

 has in his possession the common- 

 place book, in which Butler repo- 

 sited, not such events and precepts 

 as are gathered by reading, but such 

 remarks, similitudes, allusions, as- 

 semblages, or inferences, as occasion 

 prompted, or meditation produced, 

 those thoughts that were generated 

 in his own mind, and might be use- 

 fully applied to some future purpose. 

 Such is the labour of those who 

 write for immortality. (Dr. John- 

 son.) 



FAVOURITE DISHES. 



Dr. Rondelet, an ancient \vriter 

 on fishes, was so fond of figs, that 

 lie died in 1566, of a surfeit occa- 

 .sioned by eating them to excess. 

 In a letter to a friend, Dr. Parr 

 -confesses his love of "hot boiled 

 lobsters, with a profusion of shrimp 

 .sauce." Pope, who was an epicure, 

 "would lie in bed for days at Lord 

 Bolingbroke's, unless he were told 

 that there were stewed lampreys 

 for dinner, when he arose instantly, 

 and came down to table. A gentle- 

 man treated Dr. Johnson to new 

 honey and clouted cream, of which 

 he ate so largely, that his enter- 

 tainer became akmned. All his 

 lifetime Dr. Johnson had a vora- 

 cious attachment for a leg of mut- 

 ton. " At my aunt Ford's,' ' says he, 

 "I ate so much of a boiled leg of 

 mutton, that she used to talk of it. 

 My mother, who was affected by 

 little things, told me seriously that 

 it would hardly ever be forgotten." 

 Dryden, writing in 1699 to a lady, 

 declining her invitation to a hand- 

 some supper, says, "If beggars 

 might be choosers, a chine of honest 

 bacon would please my appetite 

 more than all the marrow puddingy 



for I like them better plain, having 

 a very vulgar stomach." Dr. George 

 Fordyce contended that as one 

 meal a day was enough for a lion, 

 it ought to suffice for a man. Ac- 

 cordingly, for more than twenty 

 years, the Doctor used to eat only 

 a dinner in the whole course of the 

 day. This solitary meal he took 

 regularly at four o'clock, at Dolly's 

 chop-house. A pound and a-half 

 of rump steak, half abroiled chicken, 

 a plate of fish, a bottle of port, a 

 quarter of a pint of brandy, and a 

 tankard of strong ale, satisfied the 

 Doctor's moderate wants till four 

 o'clock next day, and regularly en- 

 gaged one hour and a-half of 1m 

 time. Dinner over, he returned to 

 his home in Essex Street, Strand, 

 to deliver his six o'clock lecture on 

 anatomy and chemistry. Baron 

 Maseres, who lived nearly to the 

 age of ninety, used to go home one ' 

 day in every week without any din- 

 ner, eating only a round of dry toast 

 at tea. Aristotle, like a true poet, 

 seems to have literally feasted on 

 fancy. Few could live more frugally ; 

 in one of his poems, he says of him- 

 self, "that he was a fit person to 

 have lived in the world when acorns 

 were the food of men." (Salad for 

 the Solitary.) 



MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 



At Paris, you may be sure, we 

 met with entertainment enough : 

 at the Scotch Jesuits there, I fancy 

 either you or Mr. Baker would 

 have willingly took a peep with us. 

 There was a folio volume of letters 

 of Mary Queen of Scots and her 

 husband, and King James I. and 

 his Queen, &c., all originals: but 

 most were Queen Mary's to the 

 Archbishop of Glasgow, who gave 

 the Society this book, and many 

 other papers. At the end of the. 

 book was Queen Mary's will in her 

 own writing, the day before her 

 being beheaded ; all in French. I 

 read many parts of it ; and last of 



