Johnson acceded to that opinion in the strongest terms.
On Sunday, June 13, our philosopher was calm at breakfast. There was
something exceedingly pleasing in our leading a College life, without
restraint, and with superiour elegance, in consequence of our living
in the Master's house, and having the company of ladies. Mrs. Kennicot
related, in his presence, a lively saying of Dr. Johnson to Miss Hannah
More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet who had written Paradise
Lost should write such poor Sonnets:--'Milton, Madam, was a genius
that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon
cherry-stones.'
On Monday, June 14, and Tuesday, 15, Dr. Johnson and I dined, on one
of them, I forget which, with Mr. Mickle, translator of the Lusiad, at
Wheatley, a very pretty country place a few miles from Oxford; and on
the other with Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College. From Dr.
Wetherell's he went to visit Mr. Sackville Parker, the bookseller; and
when he returned to us, gave the following account of his visit, saying,
'I have been to see my old friend, Sack Parker; I find he has married
his maid; he has done right.
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