e amusement of
some and the sympathy of others of his auditory.--The banker dispatched
one of his clerks with the unlucky wight to one of the Public Offices,
for the purpose of describing the depredator, altho' with very small
chance of recovering the property.{1}

Eliminating on the folly of this credulous countryman, our perambulators
now proceeded down Fleet Street, where casting a look into Bolt
Court--"Here," said Dashall, "lived and died the colossus of English
literature, Doctor Samuel Johnson,{2} a man whose like the world may

1 In all the Coach and Waggon yards in London there are
fellows loitering about with the view of plunder; they
frequently are taken by the unwary countryman, for domestics
of the Inn, and as such are entrusted with property with
which they immediately decamp, and by many other artful
manouvres secure their spoil.

2 The most trivial circumstance in the life of a great man,
carries with it a certain somewhat of importance, infinitely
more agreeable to the generality of readers than the long
details which history usually presents. Amongst the numerous
anecdotes of Doctor Johnson, perhaps the following is not
the least amusing.--When the Doctor first became acquainted
with David Mallet, they once went, with some other
gentlemen, to laugh away an hour at South-wark-fair. At one
of the booths where wild beasts were exhibited to the
wondering crowd, was a very large bear, which the showman
assured them was "cotched" in the undiscovered deserts of
the remotest Russia. The bear was muzzled, and might
therefore be approached with safety; but to all the company,
except Johnson, was very surly and ill tempered. Of the
philosopher he appeared extremely fond, rubbed against him,
and displayed every mark of awkward partiality, and ursine
kindness. "How is it, (said one of the company,) that; this
savage animal is so attached to Mr. Johnson?" From a very
natural cause, replied Mallet: "the bear is a Russian
philosopher, and he knows that Linnaeus would have placed him
in the same class with the English moralist. They are two
barbarous animals of one species."--Johnson disliked Mallet
for his tendency to infidelity, and this sarcasm turned his
dislike into downright hatred. He never spoke to him
afterwards, but has gibbeted him in his octavo dict