I went up the stairs to
the pictures without stopping to rest or to breathe,
"In all the madness of superfluous health."
[Pope's _Essay on Man_, iii. 3.] The Prince of Wales had promised to be
there; but when we had waited an hour and a half, sent us word that he
could not come.' _Piozzi Letters_, ii. 367. 'The first Gentleman in
Europe' was twenty-one years old when he treated men like Johnson and
Reynolds with this insolence. Mr. Forster (_Life of Goldsmith_, ii. 244)
says that it was at this very dinner that 'Johnson left his seat by
desire of the Prince of Wales, and went to the head of the table to be
introduced.' He does not give his authority for the statement.
[834] Mr. Croker wrote in 1847 that he had 'seen it very lately framed
and glazed, in possession of the lady to whom it was addressed.'
Croker's _Boswell_, p. 753.
[835] Shortly before he begged one of Mrs. Thrale's daughters 'never to
think that she had arithmetic enough.' _Ante_, p. 171, note 3. See
_ante_, iii. 207, note 3.
[836] Cowper wrote on May 10 to the Rev. John Newton:--'We rejoice in
the account you give us of Dr.
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