ANECDOTES BY GEORGE STEEPENS
��[PUBLISHED in the European Magazine, January, 1785, p. 51, under the title of Johnsoniana. The editor says by way of introduction: 'Of the various anecdotes of Dr. Johnson which have been given to the Public Papers we select the present collection, as we have every reason to rely on their authenticity'
'These anecdotes were contributed by Steevens himself, and if they are not altogether fictitious, their language is coloured by their brutality' W. P. COURTNEY, Diet. Nat. Biog. xi. 371. One or two of them which are told by Boswell I have omitted. Life, iv. 324. For Steevens's malignancy and untruthfulness see ib. iii. 281 ; iv. 178, n. i.]
��I HAVE been told, Dr. Johnson, says a friend, that your translation of Pope's Messiah was made either as a common exercise, or as an imposition for some negligence you had been guilty of at College'. 'No, Sir,' replied the Doctor. 'At Pembroke the former were always in prose 2, and to the latter 3 I would not have submitted. I wrote it rather to shew the tutors what I could do, than what I was willing should be done. It answered
1 Hawkins (p. 13) states that it 2 For one of Johnson's exercises in
was imposed on him on account of prose see ib. i. 60, n. 7.
his * absenting himself from early 3 ' Johnson never used the phrases
prayers.' According to Boswell he the former and the latter' Ib. iv.
was asked by his tutor to do it as 190. a Christmas exercise. Life, i. 61.
my
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