“Taglia Amore un coltello,
  Cara, l’hai sentita dire;
  Per l’Amore alla Moda,
  Esso poco puo soffrire. 
  Cuori che non mai fur giunti
  Pronti stanno a separar,
  Cari nodi come i nostri
  Non son facili tagliar. 
  Questo dico, che se spezza
  Tua tenera bellezza,
  Molto ancor ci restera;
  Della mia buona fede
  Il Coltello non s’avvede,
  Ne di tua gran bonta. 
  Che tagliare speranze
    Ben tutto si puo,
  Per piaceri goduti
    Oh, questo poi no? 
      Dolci segni! 
      Cari pegni! 
  Di felecita passata,
  Non temer la coltellata,
  Resterete—­Io loro: 
    Se del caro ben gradita,
    Trovo questa donatura,
    Via pur la tagliatura
    Sol d’Amore sta ferita.”

“The power of emptying one’s head of a great thing and filling it with little ones to amuse care, is no small power, and I am proud of being able to write Italian verses while I am bargaining 150,000_l_., and settling an event of the highest consequence to my own and my children’s welfare.  David Barclay, the rich Quaker, will treat for our brewhouse, and the negotiation is already begun.  My heart palpitates with hope and fear—­my head is bursting with anxiety and calculation; yet I can listen to a singer and translate verses about a knife.”

“Mrs. Montagu has been here; she says I ought to have a statue erected to me for my diligent attendance on my compting-house duties.  The wits and the blues (as it is the fashion to call them) will be happy enough, no doubt, to have me safe at the brewery—­out of their way.”

“A very strange thing happened in the year 1776, and I never wrote it down,—­I must write it down now.  A woman came to London from a distant county to prosecute some business, and fell into distress; she was sullen and silent, and the people with whom her affairs connected her advised her to apply for assistance to some friend.  What friends can I have in London? says the woman, nobody here knows anything of me.  One can’t tell that, was the reply.  Where have you lived?  I have wandered much, says she, but I am originally from Litchfield.  Who did you know in Litchfield in your youth?  Oh, nobody of any note, I’ll warrant:  I knew one David Garrick, indeed, but I once heard that he turned strolling player, and is probably dead long ago; I also knew an obscure man, Samuel Johnson, very good he was too; but who can know anything of poor Johnson?  I was likewise acquainted with Robert James, a quack doctor. He is, I suppose, no very reputable connection if I could find him.  Thus did this woman name and discriminate the three best known characters in London—­perhaps in Europe.”

“‘Such,’ says Mrs. Montagu, ’is the dignity of Mrs. Thrale’s virtue, and such her superiority in all situations of life, that nothing now is wanting but an earthquake to show how she will behave on that occasion.’  Oh, brave Mrs. Montagu!  She is a monkey, though, to quarrel with Johnson so about Lyttleton’s life:  if he was a great character, nothing said of him in that book can hurt him; if he was not a great character, they are bustling about nothing.”