brother’s death.’  Macbean asserted that this inexplicable calling was a thing very well known.  Dr. Johnson said, that one day at Oxford, as he was turning the key of his chamber, he heard his mother distinctly call Sam.  She was then at Lichfleld; but nothing ensued.  This phaenomenon is, I think, as wonderful as any other mysterious fact, which many people are very slow to believe, or rather, indeed, reject with an obstinate contempt.

Some time after this, upon his making a remark which escaped my attention, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall were both together striving to answer him.  He grew angry, and called out loudly, ’Nay, when you both speak at once, it is intolerable.’  But checking himself, and softening, he said, ‘This one may say, though you are ladies.’  Then he brightened into gay humour, and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in The Beggar’s Opera:—­

‘But two at a time there’s no mortal can bear.’

‘What, Sir, (said I,) are you going to turn Captain Macheath?’ There was something as pleasantly ludicrous in this scene as can be imagined.  The contrast between Macheath, Polly, and Lucy—­and Dr. Samuel Johnson, blind, peevish Mrs. Williams, and lean, lank, preaching Mrs. Hall, was exquisite.

On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life.  Mrs. Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with her.  The company was Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she called her Chaplain; Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Burney, Dr. Johnson, and myself.  We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him ‘who gladdened life.’  She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that ’death was now the most agreeable object to her.’  The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering.

We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs. Boscawen, ’I believe this is as much as can be made of life.’  In addition to a splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale, which had a peculiar appropriated value.  Sir Joshua, and Dr. Burney, and I, drank cordially of it to Dr. Johnson’s health; and though he would not join us, he as cordially answered, ’Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you do me.’

The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance; but I do not find much conversation recorded.  What I have preserved shall be faithfully given.