Mr. Lowe told me that Johnson said to him, 'Sir, your picture is
noble and probable.' 'A compliment, indeed, (said Mr. Lowe,) from a man
who cannot lie, and cannot be mistaken.'
About this time he wrote to Mrs. Lucy Porter, mentioning his bad health,
and that he intended a visit to Lichfield. 'It is, (says he,) with no
great expectation of amendment that I make every year a journey into the
country; but it is pleasant to visit those whose kindness has been often
experienced.'
On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual
manner upon that day, drinking tea without milk, and eating a cross-bun
to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When
we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at
his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air and in a
placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily. JOHNSON. 'Were I a
country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have
crowds in my house[632].' BOSWELL. 'Sir Alexander Dick[633] tells me,
that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his
house: that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined
there.
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