Few books, I believe, have had a more extensive
sale. It is remarkable, that it begins very much like the poem of Dante;
yet there was no translation of Dante when Bunyan wrote. There is reason
to think that he had read Spenser.'
A proposition which had been agitated, that monuments to eminent persons
should, for the time to come, be erected in St. Paul's church as well
as in Westminster-abbey, was mentioned; and it was asked, who should be
honoured by having his monument first erected there. Somebody suggested
Pope. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, as Pope was a Roman Catholick, I would
not have his to be first. I think Milton's rather should have the
precedence. I think more highly of him now than I did at twenty. There
is more thinking in him and in Butler, than in any of our poets.'
The gentlemen went away to their club, and I was left at Beauclerk's
till the fate of my election should be announced to me. I sat in a state
of anxiety which even the charming conversation of Lady Di Beauclerk
could not entirely dissipate.
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