When Hannah More came to London in 1773, or 1774, she was domesticated
with Garrick, and was received with favour by Johnson, Reynolds, and
Burke. Her sister has thus described her first interview with Johnson:--
“We have paid another visit to Miss Reynolds; she had sent to engage Dr.
Percy, (‘Percy’s Collection,’ now you know him), quite a sprightly
modern, instead of a rusty antique, as I expected: he was no sooner gone
than the most amiable and obliging of women, Miss Reynolds, ordered the
coach to take us to Dr. Johnson’s very own house: yes, Abyssinian
Johnson! Dictionary Johnson! Ramblers, Idlers, and Irene Johnson! Can
you picture to yourselves the palpitation of our hearts as we approached
his mansion? The conversation turned upon a new work of his just going
to the press (the ‘Tour to the Hebrides’), and his old friend
Richardson. Mrs. Williams, the blind poet, who lives with him, was
introduced to us. She is engaging in her manners, her conversation
lively and entertaining. Miss Reynolds told the Doctor of all our
rapturous exclamations on the road. He shook his scientific head at
Hannah, and said she was ‘a silly thing.’ When our visit was ended, he
called for his hat, as it rained, to attend us down a very long entry to
our coach, and not Rasselas could have acquitted himself more _en
cavalier_. I forgot to mention, that not finding Johnson in his little
parlour when we came in, Hannah seated herself in his great chair
hoping to catch a little ray of his genius: when he heard it, he laughed
heartily, and told her it was a chair on which he never sat. He said it
reminded him of Boswell and himself when they stopped a night, as they
imagined, where the weird sisters appeared to Macbeth. The idea so
worked on their enthusiasm, that it quite deprived them of rest.
However, they learned the next morning, to their mortification, that
they had been deceived, and were quite in another part of the country.”