United States or South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He now returned to the use of wine, which, when he did take it, he swallowed greedily. About this time Mr. Thrale died, leaving Johnson one of his executors, with a legacy of 200l. The death of Levett, in the same year, and of Miss Williams, in 1783, left him yet more lonely.
They come when I could sleep or read, they stay till I am weary.... The amusements and consolations of langour and depression are conferred by familiar and domestick companions, which can be visited or called at will.... Such society I had with Levett and Williams; such I had where I am never likely to have it more. Piozzi Letters, ii. 341.
Dr. Percy, the Bishop of Dromore, humorously observed, that Levett used to breakfast on the crust of a roll, which Johnson, after tearing out the crumb for himself, threw to his humble friend. BOSWELL. Perhaps the word threw is here too strong. Dr. Johnson never treated Levett with contempt.
Now the Stuarts had friends who stuck by them so late as 1745. When the right of the King is not reverenced, there will not be reverence for those appointed by the King. He repeated to me his verses on Mr. Levett, with an emotion which gave them full effect; and then he was pleased to say, 'You must be as much with me as you can. You have done me good.
It was for this reason, Sir Robert Walpole said, he always talked bawdy at his table, because in that all could join. Being irritated by hearing a gentleman* ask Mr. Levett a variety of questions concerning him, when he was sitting by, he broke out, 'Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me.
The rooms of his house became a sort of harbour of refuge in which several strange battered hulks found their last moorings. There were the blind Mr. Levett, and the acidulous Mrs. Williams, and the colourless Mrs. De Moulins, all old and ailing a trying group amid which to spend one's days.
In more modern times it was extended to the country beyond, as far as the St. Croix River. Under Gorges' influence Christopher Levett made a settlement in 1623 on an island in Saco Bay which has been called "the first regular settlement in Maine." The same year some Plymouth merchants planted a colony upon Monhegan Island, which had been long a place of general resort for fishermen.
Levett, which event he thus communicated to Dr. Lawrence: 'SIR, Our old friend, Mr. Levett, who was last night eminently cheerful, died this morning. The man who lay in the same room, hearing an uncommon noise, got up and tried to make him speak, but without effect, he then called Mr. Holder, the apothecary, who, though when he came he thought him dead, opened a vein, but could draw no blood.
Thrale in playful mood, telling of his household troubles, he says, "Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them." And he, the great, gruff and mighty Ursa Major, listened to all their woes, caring for them in sickness, wiping the death-dew from their foreheads, wearing crape upon his sleeve for them when dead.
I have always been accustomed to let this day pass unnoticed, but it came this time into my mind that some little festivity was not improper. I had a dinner, and invited Allen and Levett. Pr. and Med. p. 199. Pr. and Med. p. 201.
Word Of The Day