while to send ambassadors from his court to that of _Siam_." He was no gentler with myself, or those for whom I had the greatest regard. When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin killed in America, "Prithee, my dear," said he, "have done with canting. How would the world be worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations were at once spitted like larks, and roasted for Presto's supper?" Presto was the dog that lay under the table while we talked. When we went into Wales together, and spent some time at Sir Robert Cotton's, at Lleweny, one day at dinner I meant to please Mr. Johnson particularly with a dish of very young peas. "Are not they charming?" said I to him, while he was eating them. "Perhaps," said he, "they would be so--to a _pig_." I only instance these replies, to excuse my mentioning those he made to others. When a well-known author published his poems in the year 1777: "Such a one's verses are come out," said I. "Yes," replied Johnson, "and this frost has struck them in again. Here are some lines I have written to ridicule them; but remember that I love the fellow dearly now, for all I laugh at him:-- "'Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new; Endless labour all along, Endless labour to be wrong; Phrase that Time has flung away; Uncouth words in disarray, Tricked in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.'" When he parodied the verses of another eminent writer, it was done with more provocation, I believe, and with some merry malice. A serious translation of the same lines, which I think are from Euripides, may be found in Burney's "History of Music." Here are the burlesque ones:-- "Err shall they not, who resolute explore Time's gloomy backward with judicious eyes; And scanning right the practices of yore, Shall deem our hoar progenitors unwise. "They to the dome where smoke with curling play Announced the dinner to the regions round, Summoned the singer blithe, and harper gay, And aided wine with dulcet streaming sound. "The better use of notes, or sweet or shrill, By quivering string, or modulated wind; Trumpet or lyre--to their harsh bosoms chill, Admission ne'er had sought, or could not find. "Oh! send them to the sullen mansions dun, Her baleful eyes where Sorrow rolls around; Where gloom-enamoured Mischief loves to dwell, And Murder, all blood-boltered, schemes the wound. "When cates luxuriant pile the spacious dish, And purple nectar glads the festive hour; The guest, without a want, without a wish, Can yield no room to Music's soothing power." Some of the old legendary stories put in verse by modern writers provoked him to caricature them thus one day at Streatham; but they are already well known, I am sure.