'
_Ib._ p.271.
[712] On Aug. 20 he wrote:--'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for my
picture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with the
patience of _mortal born to bear_; at last she declared it quite
finished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was _Johnson's
grimly ghost_. It is to be engraved, and I think _in glided_, &c., will
be a good inscription.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 302. Johnson is quoting
from Mallet's ballad of _Margaret's Ghost_:--
'Twas at the silent solemn hour,
When night and morning meet;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.'
_Percy Ballads_, in. 3, 16.
According to Northcote, Reynolds said of his sister's oil-paintings,
'they made other people laugh and him cry.' 'She generally,' Northcote
adds, 'did them by stealth.' _Life of Reynolds_, ii. 160.
[713] 'Nocte, inter 16 et 17 Junii, 1783.
Summe pater, quodcunque tuum de corpore Numen
Hoc statuat, precibus Christus adesse velit:
Ingenio parcas, nee sit mihi culpa rogasse,
Qua solum potero parte placere tibi.
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