'
Once, upon reading that line in the curious epitaph quoted in _The
Spectator;_
'Born in New-England, did in London die;'
he laughed and said, 'I do not wonder at this. It would have been
strange, if born in London, he had died in New-England.' BOSWELL. Mrs.
Smart was in Dublin when Johnson wrote to her. After the passage quoted
by Boswell he continued:--'I think, Madam, you may look upon your
expedition as a proper preparative to the voyage which we have often
talked of. Dublin, though a place much worse than London, is not so bad
as Iceland.' Smart's _Poems_, i. xxi. For Iceland see _ante_, i. 242.
The epitaph, quoted in _The Spectator_, No. 518, begins--
Here Thomas Sapper lies interred. Ah why!
Born in New-England, did in London die.'
[1112] _St. Mark_, v. 34.
[1113] There is no record of this in the _Gent. Mag_. Among the 149
persons who that summer had been sentenced to death (_ante_, p. 328) who
would notice these two?
[1114] See _ante_, p. 356, note 1
[1115] Johnson wrote for him a Dedication of his _Tasso_ in 1763.
_Ante_, i. 383.
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