ew Memorabilia of
Johnson. There is, however, to be found, in his bulky tome
[p. 87], a very excellent one upon this subject:--'In
contradiction to those, who, having a wife and children,
prefer domestick enjoyments to those which a tavern affords,
I have heard him assert, that a tavern chair was the throne
of human felicity.--"As soon," said he, "as I enter the door
of a tavern, I experience an oblivion of care, and a freedom
from solicitude: when I am seated, I find the master
courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call; anxious
to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates
my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an
interchange of discourse with those whom I most love: I
dogmatise and am contradicted, and in this conflict of
opinions and sentiments I find delight."'--BOSWELL.

In the afternoon, as we were driven rapidly along in the post-chaise, he
said to me 'Life has not many things better than this.'

We stopped at Stratford-upon-Avon, and drank tea and coffee; and it
pleased me to be with him upon the classick ground of Shakspeare's
native place.

He spoke slightingly of Dyer's Fleece.--'The subject, Sir, cannot be
made poetical. How can a man write poetically of serges and druggets?
Yet you will hear many people talk to you gravely of that excellent
poem, The Fleece.' Having talked of Grainger's Sugar-Cane, I mentioned
to him Mr. Langton's having told me, that this poem, when read in
manuscript at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, had made all the assembled wits
burst into a laugh, when, after much blank-verse pomp, the poet began a
new paragraph thus:--

'Now, Muse, let's sing of rats.'

And what increased the ridicule was, that one of the company, who slily
overlooked the reader, perceived that the word had been originally MICE,
and had been altered to RATS, as more dignified.

Johnson said, that Dr. Grainger was an agreeable man; a man who would do
any good that was in his power. His translation of Tibullus, he thought,
was very well done; but The Sugar-Cane, a poem, did not please him; for,
he exclaimed, 'What could he make of a sugar-cane? One might as well
write the "Parsley-bed, a Poem;" or "The Cabbage-garden, a Poem."'
BOSWELL. 'You must then pickle your cabbage with the sal atticum.'
JOHNSON. 'You know there is already The Hop-Garden, a Poem: and, I
think, one could say a great deal about cabbage. The