ose they have more knowledge at
five or six years old than other children, what use can be made of it?
It will be lost before it is wanted, and the waste of so much time and
labour of the teacher can never be repaid. Too much is expected from
precocity, and too little performed. Miss ---- was an instance of
early cultivation, but in what did it terminate? In marrying a little
Presbyterian parson, who keeps an infant boarding-school, so that all
her employment now is,

"To suckle fools, and chronicle small-beer."

She tells the children, "This is a cat, and that is a dog, with four
legs and a tail; see there! you are much better than a cat or a dog, for
you can speak." If I had bestowed such an education on a daughter, and
had discovered that she thought of marrying such a fellow, I would have
sent her to the Congress.'

'After having talked slightingly of musick, he was observed to listen
very attentively while Miss Thrale played on the harpsichord, and with
eagerness he called to her, "Why don't you dash away like Burney?" Dr.
Burney upon this said to him, "I believe, Sir, we shall make a musician
of you at last." Johnson with candid complacency replied, "Sir, I shall
be glad to have a new sense given to me."'

'He had come down one morning to the breakfast-room, and been a
considerable time by himself before any body appeared. When, on a
subsequent day, he was twitted by Mrs. Thrale for being very late, which
he generally was, he defended himself by alluding to the extraordinary
morning, when he had been too early. "Madame, I do not like to come down
to VACUITY."'

'Dr. Burney having remarked that Mr. Garrick was beginning to look old,
he said, "Why, Sir, you are not to wonder at that; no man's face has had
more wear and tear."'

1776: AETAT. 67.]--Having arrived in London late on Friday, the 15th of
March, I hastened next morning to wait on Dr. Johnson, at his house; but
found he was removed from Johnson's-court, No. 7, to Bolt-court, No. 8,
still keeping to his favourite Fleet-street. My reflection at the time
upon this change as marked in my Journal, is as follows: 'I felt a
foolish regret that he had left a court which bore his name;* but it was
not foolish to be affected with some tenderness of regard for a place
in which I had seen him a great deal, from whence I had often issued
a better and a happier man than when I went in, and which had often
appeared to my imagination while I trod its pavements,