earlier years of their
acquaintance exposed her to an occasional rebuff. "She does not gain
upon me, sir; I think her empty-headed," was one of his remarks; and it
was to her that he said, according to Mrs. Thrale, though Boswell
reports a softened version of the remark, that she should "consider what
her flattery was worth, before she choked him with it." More frequently,
he seems to have repaid it in kind. "There was no name in poetry," he
said, "which might not be glad to own her poem"--the _Bas Bleu_.
Certainly Johnson did not stick at trifles in intercourse with his
female friends. He was delighted, shortly before his death, to "gallant
it about" with her at Oxford, and in serious moments showed a respectful
regard for her merits. Hannah More, who thus sat at the feet of Johnson,
encouraged the juvenile ambition of Macaulay, and did not die till the
historian had grown into manhood and fame. The other friendship noticed
was with Fanny Burney, who also lived to our own time. Johnson's
affection for this daughter of his friend seems to have been amongst the
tenderest of his old age. When she was first introduced to him at the
Thrales, she was overpowered and indeed had her head a little turned by
flattery of the most agreeable kind that an author can receive. The
"great literary Leviathan" showed himself to have the recently published
_Evelina_ at his fingers' ends. He quoted, and almost acted passages.
"La! Polly!" he exclaimed in a pert feminine accent, "only think! Miss
has danced with a lord!" How many modern readers can assign its place to
that quotation, or answer the question which poor Boswell asked in
despair and amidst general ridicule for his ignorance, "What is a
Brangton?" There is something pleasant in the enthusiasm with which men
like Johnson and Burke welcomed the literary achievements of the young
lady, whose first novels seem to have made a sensation almost as lively
as that produced by Miss Bronte, and far superior to anything that fell
to the lot of Miss Austen. Johnson seems also to have regarded her with
personal affection. He had a tender interview with her shortly before
his death; he begged her with solemn energy to remember him in her
prayers; he apologized pathetically for being unable to see her, as his
weakness increased; and sent her tender messages from his deathbed.

As the end drew near, Johnson accepted the inevitable like a man. After
spending most of the latter months of 1784 in t