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NOTES:-Johnson and Miss Lucy Porter, 201-A Curious It should be borne in mind that the controversy which afterwards raged about these lines had not yet begun, and that, so far as can be seen, Miss Seward had no motive then for stating what she did not believe to be true. Further, it must be recollected that she and Mrs. Piozzi were not on the Dictionary of National Biography-Books Illustrated by best of terms; at any rate, when the latter pubtheir Authors-Shakspeare's Richard III.,' 205-Font of lished her 'Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson,' she conHarrow Church-Epitaph-Keats's School at Enfield-tradicted the above statement, as we shall find later English Reflective Verbs-Sale of Pictures, 206. on. Boswell thereupon communicated with Miss QUERIES:-" Arkle "-Portrait of Surgeon Wynne-James Seward, and received the following reply :Smith-Author of Play Wanted-Submarine Telegraphy. Lewknor-Grimsby Castle-'The School for Scandal'Adolphus Family-Portrait of Mary, Queen of ScotsT. Brewer, 207- Malingering"-"Catching the Speaker's Bye"-Newcastle Stones-C. C. Greville-Dover: Smith's Folly Sir R. Jenkinson-Missing Proverb-Gilt-edged Writing-paper "Driving a coach and six," &c.-Pulse Glasses, 208-Berry-Swans-Story Wanted, 209. REPLIES:-"Maunder," 209-Freemasonry: Albert Pike, 210-Charles Selby, 211-Arms of the See of Canterbury, NOTES ON BOOKS:-Rashdall's Universities of Europe Notices to Correspondents. Hotes. DR. JOHNSON AND MISS LUCY PORTER. In a little book recently published ('Dr. Johnson and the Fair Sex') I happened to say that Johnson addressed his lines ‘On a Sprig of Myrtle' to Miss Lucy Porter. For this statement I was speedily taken to task by critics who, properly, no doubt, regarded the question as being of importance. To one of these I replied by quoting Miss Seward's positive assertion in conformity with my own; but I was silenced by the rejoinder that Mr. Hector's letter of 9 Jan., 1794, had "finally settled" the point. As I am unable to view Mr. Hector's statement in that light, perhaps you will allow me to recapitulate briefly the history of a controversy out of all proportion to the merit of the lines in question. In collecting the materials for his first edition Boswell was glad enough to have Miss Seward's assistance, and on her authority incorporated the following paragraph in his work :— “I am assured by Miss Seward that he [Johnson] conceived a tender passion for Miss Lucy Porter, daughter of the lady whom he afterwards married. Miss Porter was gent very young on a visit to Lichfield, where Johnson had frequent opportunities of seeing and admiring her; and he addressed to her the following verses on her presenting him with a nosegay of myrtle. [Here follow the verses in question.] "Fitzgerald's edition, vol. i. P. 49. "I know these verses were addressed to Lucy Porter, two or three years before he had seen her mother, his whom he [Johnson] was enamoured of in his boyish days, future wife. He wrote them at my grandfather's, and gave them to Lucy in the presence of my mother, to whom he showed them on the instant. She [Lucy] used to repeat them to me when I asked her for the verses Dr. Johnson gave her on a sprig of myrtle." Miss Seward is evidently writing, as she professes, from hearsay; and we are confronted with two alternatives-she is either stating what, upon the authority of her mother and Lucy, she believes to be true, or she is fabricating. Now, as she simply repeats, only more circumstantially, what she stated before there was any ostensible motive for misrepresentation, the latter alternative seems unlikely; and if this be so, her mother and Lucy are open to the charge of deliberate falsehood, committed for no apparent reason-at least, the vanity which might have prompted the younger lady could hardly have actuated the elder. Let us now examine the grounds for regarding the whole statement as unveracious, and see how far their claim to be a "final settlement" of the question is valid. For purposes of comparison I give Mrs. Piozzi's and Mr. Hector's versions in parallel columns : Piozzi, speaking forty years 1794, or some sixty years after the event. "I think it is now just at the time agreed on, Sit thee.' So stepped aside after the event. near the elder brother of a me, and wished much to verse. I applied to Johnson, who was with me, and in about half an hour dictated the verses which I sent my friend." The discrepancies between these two statements are so marked that one might well be excused for thinking that two different occasions are referred to. This is not my view, though I cannot hold that, taken together, they afford evidence on which Miss Seward can fairly be regarded as untruthful. |