What does the reader anticipate? Why in course that this property was bequeathed in just and reasonable proportions to the above-mentioned children and grand-children. No such thing. Such a humdrum and every day mode of proceeding would have been unworthy of the poetess, the authoress, the confidential friend of the benevolent Johnson. Our lively lady (Boswell, we thank thee for that word) aimed at fairer wreaths and brighter laurels. No! diligent search was to be made in the Alps, for some booby relative of the last poor dear man, and the search succeeded. A young Italian mountaineer turned up, calling himself the nephew to the never enough to be lamented musician man. He was accordingly imported to this northern region, educated first at an expensive school, and afterwards at the University; and upon him, and his heirs for ever, are the estates and honours of one of the oldest families of Cambrian origin, irrevocably vested and settled. The old family mansion, forsooth, was not good enough for his Italian Highness. This was accordingly pulled down, and a new and splendid structure erected for his Honour, at an expence of not much less than twenty thousand pounds. To carry the jest as far as it will possibly endure to be carried, this paragon of mothers and of widows, constantly carries her dear boy’s miniature picture in her bosom, and exhibits it, on all occasions, with the most unnatural and preposterous exultation. So no more at present, good people, of the worthy hostess of _Johnson_. Accede O tinea illa quæ pusillo Ventrem corpore tam geris voracem, Tene Pieridum aggredi ministros Tene arrodere tam sacros labores Nec factum mihi denega. Ecce furti Tui exempla, tuæ et voracitatis. CHAPTER LVIII. Walk in, Ladies and Gentlemen, and you shall see what you shall see. The next female whom you are to contemplate, sits under that large and spreading canopy, made, by the way, out of some old bed-furniture; she is the celebrated authoress of—all manner of things—Translations from the German, Novels, Sermons, Divinity Tracts, Original Novels, founded on domestic facts, and what not besides. But to render this lady the amplest justice, we insert the whole of her history, as recorded by the Sexagenarian. Come then the colours and the ground prepare. What is here related concerning this very distinguished Lady, must of course be authentic, for no other reference is necessary than to her own memorials of herself: these will generally be confirmed by that personal knowledge, which circumstances enabled the writer to possess. She has indeed exhibited the portraits of her family, her relatives, her friends, and herself, rather in uncouth lineaments, and in a somewhat high style of caricature. This is entirely her own concern, as it also is to settle the account with her filial piety, for representing parental infirmities in colours too vivid to be overlooked, and too characteristic to be misapplied.