The chief incident in Mrs. Montagu’s life in the year 1781, one which threw a shade over several succeeding years, was her quarrel with Doctor Johnson, founded on certain depreciatory passages in Johnson’s “Life of Lyttelton.” When Johnson sent to Mrs. Montagu his MS. of the Life before it went to press, the homage implied that he submitted it to her judgment for approval or correction. Mrs. Montagu disapproved the tone, and Johnson sent his copy to press without altering a word or modifying a sentiment. Nevertheless, Johnson’s account of Lyttelton seems fair enough to readers of the present day, though it greatly offended the lady who paid Lyttelton a homage of reverential affection. Johnson duly records Lyttelton’s precocity at Eton, and his creditable attempt in his “Blenheim,” to become a poet, at Oxford. His political career, as the opponent of Walpole, by whose fall Lyttelton came into office, is told without passion, and Lyttelton’s honest progress from honest doubt to honest conviction of the truth of Christianity is delicately and sympathetically narrated. His merits as a landlord, his good fortune as a politician, his fidelity as a friend, and his anxiety to be at least accurate as an historian, are chronicled without reserve. The details of Lyttelton’s dignified death might have made his best friend forget and forgive the criticisms on some of his writings. Mrs. Montagu might forget a part, but she could not forgive an expression of compassionate contempt, which was worse than adverse criticism. She might forget that Johnson spoke of “The Progress of Love,” as verses that “cant of shepherds and flocks, and crooks dressed with flowers.” She may have been only momentarily stung by the censurer’s remark that, in the “Persian Letters,” the ardour for liberty which found expression there, was only such “as a man of genius always catches when he enters the world, and always suffers to cool as he passes forward.” She might herself have sneered at Johnson’s praise of the “Advice to Belinda,” on the score of its purity, truth, vigour, elegance, and prudence, whereas, with some merits, it is a poem which no one now would dare to read aloud, where it was meant to be read, to Belindas of the time being. The paragraph in the Life which gave Mrs. Montagu such exquisite pain was the following, in reference to the “Dialogues of the Dead:” “When they were first published, they were kindly commended by the critical reviewers; and poor Lyttelton, with humble gratitude, returned his acknowledgments in a note which I have read; acknowledgments either for flattery or justice.” This paragraph gave the great offence. The words “poor Lyttelton” rendered it almost unpardonable. Notwithstanding the offence, Mrs. Montagu subsequently invited Johnson to dinner; but she could not treat him with her old cordiality, nor would she fall into conversation with him. General Paoli sat next to the doctor. Johnson turned to him and