[210] A more amusing version of the story, is in _Johnsoniana_
(ed. 1836, p. 413) on the authority of Mr. Fowke. '"So Sir," said
Johnson to Cibber, "I find you know [knew?] Mr. Dryden?" "Know him? O
Lord! I was as well acquainted with him as if he had been my own
brother." "Then you can tell me some anecdotes of him?" "O yes, a
thousand! Why we used to meet him continually at a club at Button's. I
remember as well as if it were but yesterday, that when he came into the
room in winter time, he used to go and sit by the fire in one corner;
and in summer time he would always go and sit in the window." "Thus,
Sir," said Johnson, "what with the corner of the fire in winter and the
window in summer, you see that I got _much_ information from Cibber of
the manners and habits of Dryden.'" Johnson gives, in his _Life of
Dryden_ (_Works_, vii. 300), the information that he got from Swinney
and Cibber. Dr. Warton, who had written on Pope, found in one of the
poet's female-cousins a still more ignorant survivor. 'He had been
taught to believe that she could furnish him with valuable information.
Incited by all that eagerness which characterised him, he sat close to
her, and enquired her consanguinity to Pope.
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