‘A prey to melancholy’

Abstract

[Letter to her sister dated April 1784] Did I tell you I went to see Dr Johnson? Miss Monckton¹ carried me, and we paid him a very long visit. He received me with the greatest kindness and affection, and as to the Bas Bleu,² all the flattery I ever received from everybody together would not make up the sum. He said — but I seriously insist you do not tell anybody, for I am ashamed of writing it even to you — he said there was no name in poetry that might not be glad to own it. You cannot imagine how I stared: all this from Johnson, that parsimonious praiser! I told him I was delighted at his approbation; he answered quite characteristically, ‘And so you may, for I give you the opinion of a man who does not rate his judgment in these things very low, I can tell you.’

William Roberts, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More (2nd edn, 1834) I, pp. 319–20, 330, 376–80.