Note 712 — THE LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. (continued 4)
Reading edition
On Aug. 20 he wrote:—'I sat to Mrs. Reynolds yesterday for my picture, perhaps the tenth time, and I sat near three hours with the patience of mortal born to bear; at last she declared it quite finished, and seems to think it fine. I told her it was Johnson's grimly ghost. It is to be engraved, and I think in glided, &c., will be a good inscription.' Piozzi Letters, ii. 302. Johnson is quoting from Mallet's ballad of Margaret's Ghost:—