h Colley Cibber, and thought him
ignorant of the principles of his art. Garrick, Madam; was no declaimer;
there was not one of his own scene-shifters who could not have spoken To
be, or not to be, better than he did; yet he was the only actor I ever
saw, whom I could call a master both in tragedy and comedy; though I
liked him best in comedy. A true conception of character, and natural
expression of it, were his distinguished excellencies." Having
expatiated, with his usual force and eloquence, on Mr. Garrick's
extraordinary eminence as an actor, he concluded with this compliment
to his social talents: "And after all, Madam, I thought him less to be
envied on the stage than at the head of a table."'

Johnson, indeed, had thought more upon the subject of acting than might
be generally supposed. Talking of it one day to Mr. Kemble, he said,
'Are you, Sir, one of those enthusiasts who believe yourself transformed
into the very character you represent?' Upon Mr. Kemble's answering that
he had never felt so strong a persuasion himself; 'To be sure not, Sir,
(said Johnson;) the thing is impossible. And if Garrick really believed
himself to be that monster, Richard the Third, he deserved to be hanged
every time he performed it.'

I find in this, as in former years, notices of his kind attention to
Mrs. Gardiner, who, though in the humble station of a tallow-chandler
upon Snow-hill, was a woman of excellent good sense, pious, and
charitable. She told me, she had been introduced to him by Mrs. Masters,
the poetess, whose volumes he revised, and, it is said, illuminated here
and there with a ray of his own genius. Mrs. Gardiner was very zealous
for the support of the Ladies' charity-school, in the parish of St.
Sepulchre. It is confined to females; and, I am told, it afforded a hint
for the story of Betty Broom in The Idler.

The late ingenious Mr. Mickle, some time before his death, wrote me a
letter concerning Dr. Johnson, in which he mentions,--'I was upwards of
twelve years acquainted with him, was frequently in his company, always
talked with ease to him, and can truly say, that I never received from
him one rough word.'

Mr. Mickle reminds me in this letter of a conversation, at dinner
one day at Mr. Hoole's with Dr. Johnson, when Mr. Nicol the King's
bookseller and I attempted to controvert the maxim, 'better that
ten guilty should escape, than one innocent person suffer;' and were
answered by Dr. Johnson with great po