the glasses, by each member after dinner; once when Dr. Young was invited thither, the doctor would have declined writing, because he had no diamond: Lord Stanhope lent him his, and he wrote immediately "Accept a miracle, instead of wit; See two dull lines, with Stanhope's pencil writ." Dr. Young. The title of my poem (Night Thoughts) not affected; for I never compose but at night, except sometimes when I am on horseback.-Dr. Young. "Quid dices de me quando reverteris in patriam tuam ?” said Dr. King to a Swede who had resided in Oxford some time for his studies (with an air of anxious and proud expectation)" Dicam, Insignissime Vir,-te esse magnum Grammaticum," said the Swede. The doctor turned away quite mortified and chop-fallen.—Mr. H(ooke,) Jun. END OF SUPPLEMENTAL ANECDOTES. THIS ADDITIONAL NOTES. P. 7, Southcote. HIS anecdote is related in different terms in Ruffhead's life of Pope, p. 509. P. 18, Wycherley, &c.—In a letter to Mr. Blount, dated 21 January, 1718, Pope hints at this anecdote, and makes the following addition: "The evening before he expired, he called his young wife to his bed-side, and earnestly entreated her not to deny him one request, the last he should make. Upon her assurances of consenting to it, he told her :-' My dear, it is only this, that you will never marry an old man again :' I cannot help remarking, that sickness, which often destroys both wit and wisdom, yet seldom has power to remove that talent which we call humour. Mr. Wycherley showed his, even in this last compliment, though I think his request a little hard, for why should he bar her from doubling her jointure on the same easy terms." P. 34, Dr. Clarke.—In a letter of Ramsay's to the younger Racine, is the following very curious passage, which has been already pointed out by Dr. Joseph Warton, Essay on Pope, vol. ii. p. 180. "M. Le Chevalier Newton, grand géométre et nullement métaphysicien, étoit persuadé de la vérité de la religion: mais il voulut raffiner sur d'anciennes erreurs Orientales, et renouvella l'Arianisme par l'organe de son fameux disciple et interprête, M. Clarke; qui m'avoua quelque tems avant que de mourir, après plusieurs conférences que j'avois eues avec lui, combien il se repentoient d'avoir fait imprimer son ouvrage. Je fus témoin, il y a douze ans, à Londres, des derniers sentimens de ce modeste et vertueux Docteur."Euvres de L. Racine. tom. i. p. 233. U P. 114-15, Garth, &c.—Of Garth, Pope says in his letters: "The best natured of men, Sir Samuel Garth, has left me in the truest concern for his loss. His death was very heroical, and yet unaffected enough to have made a saint or philosopher famous. But ill tongues, and worse hearts, have branded his last moments, as wrongfully as they did his life with irreligion. You must have heard many tales upon this subject: but if ever there was a good Christian, without knowing himself to be so, it was Dr. Garth."-It was finely said of Garth, that no physician knew his art more, nor his trade less. P. 139, Parnell, &c.-Ruffhead, on the authority of Warburton, has given a different account of the cause which led to Parnell's intemperance: "When Parnell had been introduced by Swift to Lord Treasurer Oxford, and had been established in his favour by the assistance of Pope, he soon began to entertain ambitious views. The walk he chose to shine in was popular preaching he had talents for it, and began to be distinguished in the mob places of Southwark and London, when the queen's sudden death destroyed all his prospects, and at a juncture. when famed preaching was the readiest road to preferment. This fatal stroke broke his spirits; he took to drinking, became a sot, and soon finished his course." P. 258, Rowe.-Mrs. Oldfield used to say: "The best school she had ever known, was only hearing Rowe read her part in his tragedies." |