owns at
Lichfield--calling on friends--waited on by the manager of the local
Theatre, etc., we are forcibly reminded of the visits to Rochester and
Ipswich.

Boswell one night dropped into a tavern in Butcher Row, and saw his great
friend in a warm discussion with a strange Irishman, who was very short
with him, and the sketch recalls very forcibly Mr. Pickwick at the Magpie
and Stump, where old Jack Bamber told him that he knew nothing about the
mysteries of the old haunted chambers in Clifford's Inn and such places.
The Turk's Head, the Crown and Anchor, the Cheshire Cheese, The Mitre,
may be set beside the Magpie and Stump, the George and Vulture, and White
Horse Cellars.

More curious still in Boswell's life, there is mentioned a friend of
Johnson's who is actually named--Weller! I leave it as a pleasant crux
for the ingenious Pickwickian to find out where.

Johnson had his faithful servant, Frank: Mr. Pickwick his Sam. The two
sages equally revelled in travelling in post-chaises and staying at inns;
both made friends with people in the coaches and commercial rooms. There
are also some odd accidental coincidences which help in the likeness.
Johnson was constantly in the Borough, and we have a good scene with Mr.
Pickwick at the White Hart in the same place. Mr. Pickwick had his
widow, Mrs. Bardell; and Johnson his in the person of the fair Thrale.
Johnson had his friend Taylor at Ashbourne, to whom he often went on
visits, always going down by coach; while Mr. Pickwick had his friend
Wardle, with whom he stayed at Manor Farm, in Kent. We know of the
review at Rochester which Mr. Pickwick and friends attended, and how they
were charged by the soldiery. Oddly enough Dr. Johnson attended a review
also at Rochester, when he was on a visit to his friend Captain Langton.
Johnson, again, found his way to Bath, went to the Assembly Rooms, etc.;
and our friend Mr. Pickwick, we need not say, also enjoyed himself there.
In Boswell's record we have a character called Mudge, an "out of the way"
name; and in Pickwick we find a Mudge. George Steevens, who figures so
much in Boswell's work, was the author of an antiquarian hoax played off
on a learned brother, of the same class as "Bill Stumps, his mark." He
had an old inscription engraved on an unused bit of pewter--it was well
begrimed and well battered, then exposed for sale in a broker's shop,
where it was greedily purchased by the credulous virtuoso. The notion,
by