Note 470 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 3)
Reading edition
Hannah More wrote in April of this year (Memoirs, i. 249):—'Poor Johnson is in a bad state of health. I fear his constitution is broken up.' (Yet in one week he dined out four times. Piozzi Letters, ii. 237.) At one of these dinners, 'I urged him,' she continues (ib. p. 251) 'to take a little wine. He replied, "I can't drink a little, child; therefore, I never touch it. Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult." He was very good-humoured and gay. One of the company happened to say a word about poetry, "Hush, hush," said he, "it is dangerous to say a word of poetry before her; it is talking of the art of war before Hannibal."'