“O, I sha’n’t settle yet,” cried Mr. Seward, very dryly.  “I shall put up six shirts, and then do as I find it.”

" Six shirts!” exclaimed Mr. Crutchley ’; and then, with equal dryness, added—­“Oh, I suppose you wear two a-day.”

And so on. . . .

June 26.-Mr. Crutchley said he had just brought Mr. Seward to town in his phaeton, alive.  He gave a diverting account of the visit, which I fancy proved much better than either party pretended to expect, as I find Mr. Seward not only went a day sooner, but stayed two days later, than was proposed; and Mr. Crutchley, on his part, said he had invited him to repeat his visit at any time when he knew not in what other manner “to knock down a day or two.  When he was at my place,” continued Mr. Crutchley, “he did himself up pretty handsomely;

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he ate cherries till he complained most bitterly of indigestion, and he poured down madeira and port most plentifully, but without relief.  Then he desired to have some peppermint-water, and he drank three glasses; still that would not do, and he said he njust have a large quantity of ginger.  We had no such thing in the house.  However, he had brought some, it seems, with him, and then he took that, but still to no purpose.  At last, he desired some brandy, and tossed off a glass of that; and, after all, he asked for a dose of rhubarb.  Then we had to send and inquire all over the house for this rhubarb, but our folks had hardly ever heard of such a thing.  I advised him to take a good bumper of gin and gunpowder, for that seemed almost all he had left untried.”

Two celebrated DUCHESSEs discussed.

Wednesday, June 26.-Dr. Johnson, who had been in town .some days, returned, and Mr. Crutchley came also, as well as my father.  I did not see the two latter till summoned to dinner; and then Dr. Johnson seizing my hand, while with one of his own he gave me a no very gentle tap on the shoulder, half drolly and half reproachfully called out—­

“Ah, you little baggage, you! and have you known how long I have been here, and never to come to me?”

And the truth is, in whatever sportive mood he expresses it, he really likes not I should be absent from him half a minute whenever he is here, and not in his own apartment.

Dr. Johnson, as usual, kept me in chat with him ’in the library after all the rest had dispersed ; but when Mr. Crutchley returned again, he went upstairs, and, as I was finishing some work I had in hand, Mr. Crutchley, either from civility or a sudden turn to loquacity, forbore his books, to talk.

Among other folks, we discussed the two rival duchesses, Rutland and Devonshire.(140) “The former,” he said, “must, he

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fancied, be very weak and silly, as he knew that she endured being admired to her face, and complimented perpetually, both upon her beauty and her dress;” and when I asked whether he was one who joined in trying her—­