who seemed to think that Miss Burney would make him a good wife. (Mme. D’Arblay’s Diary, i. 79.) According to Mr. Hayward (Life of Piozzi, i. 69) it was Lade who having asked Johnson whether he advised him to marry, received as answer:  ’I would advise no man to marry, Sir, who is not likely to propagate understanding.’  See ante, ii. 109, note 2.  Mr. Hayward adds that ’he married a woman of the town, became a celebrated member of the Four-in-Hand Club, and contrived to waste the whole of a fine fortune before he died.’  In Campbell’s Chancellors (ed. 1846, v. 628) a story is told of Sir John Ladd, who is, I suppose, the same man.  The Prince of Wales in 1805 asked Lord Thurlow to dinner, and also Ladd.  ’When “the old Lion” arrived the Prince went into the ante-room to meet him, and apologised for the party being larger than he had intended, but added, “that Sir John was an old friend of his, and he could not avoid asking him to dinner,” to which Thurlow, in his growling voice, answered, “I have no objection, Sir, to Sir John Ladd in his proper place, which I take to be your Royal Highness’s coach-box, and not your table."’

[1256] British Synonymy was published in 1794, later therefore than Boswell’s first and second editions.  In both these the latter half of this paragraph ran as follows:—­“From the specimen which Mrs. Piozzi has exhibited of it (Anecdotes, p. 196) it is much to be wished that the world could see the whole.  Indeed I can speak from my own knowledge; for having had the pleasure to read it, I found it to be a piece of exquisite satire conveyed in a strain of pointed vivacity and humour, and in a manner of which no other instance is to be found in Johnson’s writings.  After describing the ridiculous and ruinous career of a wild spendthrift he consoles him with this reflection:—­

     “You may hang or drown at last."’

[1257] Sir John.

[1258]’"Les morts n’ecrivent point,” says Madame de Maintenon.’  Hannah More’s Memoirs, i. 233.  The note that Johnson received ‘was,’ says Mr. Hoole, ’from Mr. Davies, the bookseller, and mentioned a present of some pork; upon which the Doctor said, in a manner that seemed as if he thought it ill-timed, “too much of this,” or some such expression.’  Croker’s Boswell, p. 844.

[1259] Sir Walter Scott says that ’Reynolds observed the charge given him by Johnson on his death-bed not to use his pencil of a Sunday for a considerable time, but afterwards broke it, being persuaded by some person who was impatient for a sitting that the Doctor had no title to exact such a promise.’  Croker’s Corres. ii. 34.  ’Reynolds used to say that “the pupil in art who looks for the Sunday with pleasure as an idle day will never make a painter."’ Northcote’s Reynolds, i. 119.  ’Dr. Johnson,’ said Lord Eldon, ’sent me a message on his death-bed, to request that I would attend public worship every Sunday.’