There is another little circumstance
which I cannot but remark. Her book was published in 1785, she had then
in her possession a letter from Dr. Johnson, dated in 1777[1070], which
begins thus:--'Cholmondeley's story shocks me, if it be true, which I
can hardly think, for I am utterly unconscious of it: I am very sorry,
and very much ashamed[1071].' Why then publish the anecdote? Or if she
did, why not add the circumstances, with which she was well acquainted!
In his social intercourse she thus describes him[1072]:--
'_Ever musing till he was called out to converse, and conversing till
the fatigue of his friends, or the promptitude of his own temper to take
offence, consigned him back again to silent meditation_.'
Yet, in the same book[1073], she tells us,--
'_He was, however, seldom inclined to be silent, when any moral or
literary question was started; and it was on such occasions that, like
the Sage in _"Rasselas[1074]," _he spoke, and attention watched his
lips; he reasoned, and conviction closed his periods_.'
His conversation, indeed, was so far from ever _fatiguing_ his friends,
that they regretted when it was interrupted, or ceased, and could
exclaim in Milton's language,--
'With thee conversing, I forget all time[1075].
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