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Article ANECDOTES OF DR. JOHNSON, &c. ← Page 2 of 8 →
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Anecdotes Of Dr. Johnson, &C.
little else than that there lay in the room a translation into German of his Clarissa * . " Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which tff & re was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds , in which Johnson himself came in for a share , " Pray , " said he , " let us have it read aloud from beginning to end ; " which being done , he with a ludicrous earnestnessand not directing his look to an }' particular
-, per son , called out , " Are we alive after all this satire I " Of a certain Noble Lord he said , " Respect him you could not ; for he had no mind of his own—Love him you could not , for that which you could do with him , every one else could . " Of Dr . Goldsmith he said , " No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his handor more wise when he had one . "
, He told in his lively manner the following literary anecdote — ? ' Green and Guthrie , an Irishman and a Scotchman , undertook a translation of Duhalde ' s History of China . Green said of Guthrie , that he knew no English , and Guthrie of Green , that he knew no French ; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde ' s History of China . In this translation there was found , ' the twenty-sixth
day of the new moon . ' Now as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days , the moon , instead of being new , was nearly as old as it could be . The blunder arose from their mistaking the word newvieme , ninth , for nouvelte or ueuve , new . " On occasion of Dr . Johnson ' s publishing his pamphlet of " The False Alarm , " there came out a veiy angry answer ( by many supposed to be hy Mr . Wilkes ); Dr . Johnson determined on not
answering it , but , in conversation with Mr . Langton , mentioned a particular or two , that if he had replied to it , he might perhaps have inserted . —In the Answerer ' s pamphlet it had been said with solemnity , " Do you consider , Sir , that a House of Commons is to the People as a Creature is to its Creator . " "To this question , " said Johnson , "I could have replied , that , In the first place , the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature : Then , it cannot be conceived that a crea ,-ture can make laws for its CREATOR . "
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Anecdotes Of Dr. Johnson, &C.
little else than that there lay in the room a translation into German of his Clarissa * . " Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which tff & re was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds , in which Johnson himself came in for a share , " Pray , " said he , " let us have it read aloud from beginning to end ; " which being done , he with a ludicrous earnestnessand not directing his look to an }' particular
-, per son , called out , " Are we alive after all this satire I " Of a certain Noble Lord he said , " Respect him you could not ; for he had no mind of his own—Love him you could not , for that which you could do with him , every one else could . " Of Dr . Goldsmith he said , " No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his handor more wise when he had one . "
, He told in his lively manner the following literary anecdote — ? ' Green and Guthrie , an Irishman and a Scotchman , undertook a translation of Duhalde ' s History of China . Green said of Guthrie , that he knew no English , and Guthrie of Green , that he knew no French ; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde ' s History of China . In this translation there was found , ' the twenty-sixth
day of the new moon . ' Now as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days , the moon , instead of being new , was nearly as old as it could be . The blunder arose from their mistaking the word newvieme , ninth , for nouvelte or ueuve , new . " On occasion of Dr . Johnson ' s publishing his pamphlet of " The False Alarm , " there came out a veiy angry answer ( by many supposed to be hy Mr . Wilkes ); Dr . Johnson determined on not
answering it , but , in conversation with Mr . Langton , mentioned a particular or two , that if he had replied to it , he might perhaps have inserted . —In the Answerer ' s pamphlet it had been said with solemnity , " Do you consider , Sir , that a House of Commons is to the People as a Creature is to its Creator . " "To this question , " said Johnson , "I could have replied , that , In the first place , the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature : Then , it cannot be conceived that a crea ,-ture can make laws for its CREATOR . "