468, and Boswell's _Hebrides_, Oct. 4.
[901] I am not absolutely sure but this was my own suggestion, though it
is truly in the character of Edwards. BOSWELL.
[902] Sixty-nine. He was born in 1709.
[903] See _ante_, i. 75, note 1.
[904]
'O my coevals! remnants of yourselves!
Poor human ruins, tottering o'er the grave!
Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees,
Strike deeper their vile roots, and closer cling,
Still more enamoured of this wretched soil?'
Young's _Night Thoughts_, Night iv.
[905] See Boswell's _Hebrides_, Aug. 20, 1773. According to Mrs. Piozzi
'he liked the expression so well that he often repeated it.' Piozzi's
_Anec_. p. 208. He wrote to her:--'Have you not observed in all our
conversations that my _genius_ is always in extremes; that I am very
noisy or very silent; very gloomy or very merry; very sour or very
kind?' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 166. In Mme. D'Arblay's _Diary_ (ii. 310)
we read that 'Dr. Johnson is never his best when there is nobody to draw
him out;' and in her _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_ (ii. 107) she adds that
'the masterly manner in which, as soon as any topic was started, he
seized it in all its bearings, had so much the air of belonging to the
leader of the discourse, that this singularity was unsuspected save by
the experienced observation of long years of acquaintance.
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