Such intercession was too powerful to be resisted; and Mr. Lowe’s performance was admitted at Somerset Place[631].  The subject, as I recollect, was the Deluge, at that point of time when the water was verging to the top of the last uncovered mountain.  Near to the spot was seen the last of the antediluvian race, exclusive of those who were saved in the ark of Noah.  This was one of those giants, then the inhabitants of the earth, who had still strength to swim, and with one of his hands held aloft his infant child.  Upon the small remaining dry spot appeared a famished lion, ready to spring at the child and devour it.  Mr. Lowe told me that Johnson said to him, ’Sir, your picture is noble and probable.’  ’A compliment, indeed, (said Mr. Lowe,) from a man who cannot lie, and cannot be mistaken.’

About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health, and that he intended a visit to Lichfield.  ’It is, (says he,) with no great expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into the country; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been often experienced.’

On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement’s church, as formerly.  When we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in a placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily.  JOHNSON.  ’Were I a country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have crowds in my house[632].’  BOSWELL.  ’Sir Alexander Dick[633] tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house:  that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.’  JOHNSON.  ‘That, Sir, is about three a day.’  BOSWELL.  ’How your statement lessens the idea.’  JOHNSON.  ’That, Sir, is the good of counting[634].  It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.’  BOSWELL.  ’But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est[635]:  one is sorry to have this diminished.’  JOHNSON.  ‘Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with errour.’  BOSWELL.  ‘Three a day seem but few.’  JOHNSON.  ’Nay, Sir, he who entertains three a day, does very liberally.  And if there is a large family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get:  there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or thrown out.’  BOSWELL.  ’I observe in London, that the poor go about and gather bones, which I understand are manufactured.’  JOHNSON.  ’Yes, Sir; they boil them, and extract a grease from them for greasing wheels and other purposes.  Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is used for hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces they burn and pound, and sell the ashes.’  BOSWELL.  ‘For what purpose, Sir?’ JOHNSON.  ’Why, Sir, for making a furnace