)
[1111] See _ante_, ii. 272.
[1112] _Life of Watts_ [_Works_, viii. 380]. BOSWELL.
[1113] See _ante_, ii. 107.
[1114] See _ante_, iii. 126.
[1115] 'Perhaps no composition in our language has been oftener perused
than Pomfret's _Choice_.' Johnson's _Works_, vii. 222.
[1116] Johnson, in his _Life of Yalden_ (_Ib_. viii. 83), calls the
following stanza from his _Hymn to Darkness_ 'exquisitely beautiful':--
'Thou dost thy smiles impartially bestow,
And know'st no difference here below:
All things appear the same by thee,
Though Light distinction makes, thou giv'st equality.'
It is strange that Churchill was left out of the collection.
[1117] Murphy says, though certainly with exaggeration, that 'after
Garrick's death Johnson never talked of him without a tear in his eyes.
He offered,' he adds, 'if Mrs. Garrick would desire it of him, to be the
editor of his works and the historian of his life.' Murphy's _Johnson_,
p. 145. Cumberland (_Memoirs_, ii. 210) said of Garrick's funeral:--'I
saw old Samuel Johnson standing beside his grave, at the foot of
Shakespeare's monument, and bathed in tears.' Sir William Forbes was
told that Johnson, in going to the funeral, said to William Jones:--'Mr.
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