Some time after this, upon his making a remark which escaped my
attention, Mrs. Williams and Mrs. Hall were both together striving to
answer him. He grew angry, and called out loudly, 'Nay, when you both
speak at once, it is intolerable.' But checking himself, and softening,
he said, 'This one may say, though you ARE ladies.' Then he brightened
into gay humour, and addressed them in the words of one of the songs in
The Beggar's Opera:--
'But two at a time there's no mortal can bear.'
'What, Sir, (said I,) are you going to turn Captain Macheath?' There was
something as pleasantly ludicrous in this scene as can be imagined.
The contrast between Macheath, Polly, and Lucy--and Dr. Samuel Johnson,
blind, peevish Mrs. Williams, and lean, lank, preaching Mrs. Hall, was
exquisite.
On Friday, April 20, I spent with him one of the happiest days that I
remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs. Garrick,
whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as
wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the
first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with
her.
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