An attempt to abolish the one-shilling gallery
at the playhouse has been very properly counteracted. BOSWELL.
[907] _Regale_, as a noun, is not in Johnson's Dictionary. It was a
favourite word with Miss Burney.
[908] 'Tyers is described in _The Idler_, No. 48, under the name of Tom
Restless; "a circumstance," says Mr. Nichols, "pointed out to me by
Dr. Johnson himself."' _Lit. Anec_. viii. 81. 'When Tom Restless
rises he goes into a coffee-house, where he creeps so near to men whom
he takes to be reasoners, as to hear their discourse, and endeavours to
remember something which, when it has been strained through Tom's head,
is so near to nothing, that what it once was cannot be discovered. This
he carries round from friend to friend through a circle of visits, till,
hearing what each says upon the question, he becomes able at dinner to
say a little himself; and as every great genius relaxes himself among
his inferiors, meets with some who wonder how so young a man can talk so
wisely.'
[909] 'That accurate judge of human life, Dr. Johnson, has often been
heard by me to observe, that it was the greatest misfortune which
could befall a man to have been bred to no profession, and pathetically
to regret that this misfortune was his own.
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