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Life of Johnson, Volume 5

Note 752 — SATURDAY, OCTOBER 2.

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Horace Walpole (Letters, .ii 57) mentions in 1746 his cousin Sir John Philipps, of Picton Castle; 'a noted Jacobite.'... He thus mentions Lady Philipps in 1788 when she was 'very aged.' 'They have a favourite black, who has lived with them a great many years, and is remarkably sensible. To amuse Lady Philipps under a long illness, they had read to her the account of the Pelew Islands. Somebody happened to say we were sending a ship thither; the black, who was in the room, exclaimed, "Then there is an end of their happiness." What a satire on Europe!' Ib. ix. 157.

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