(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)


"I am corrected, sir; but hear me speak--
When admiration glows with such a fire
As to o'ertop the memory, error then
May merit mercy." _Old Play_.

In justice to myself and the readers of the MIRROR, I must be allowed
to offer a few apologetic remarks on the almost unpardonable
anachronisms which I so inadvertently suffered to occur in my
communication on the subject of Dr. Johnson's Residence in Bolt Court.
But when I state that the chronological metathesis occurred entirely
in consequence of my referring to that most treacherous portion of
human intellect, the memory; and that it is upwards of seven years
since I read "Boswell's Life of Johnson," or "Johnson's Poets," it may
be some mitigation of the censure I so justly deserve. Yet I may be
suffered to suggest to your correspondent, who has so kindly corrected
me, that my paper was more in the suppository style than he seems to
have imagined; and that I did not assert that Boswell, Savage, and
Johnson, met at the latter's "house in Bolt Court, and discussed
subjects of polite literature." The expression used is, "We can
_imagine_," &c. constituting a creation of the fancy rather than a
positive portraiture. Certain it is that Johnson's dwelling was in the
neighbourhood of Temple Bar at the time of the nocturnal perambulation
alluded to; and that it was Savage (to whom he was so unaccountably
attached, in spite of the "bastard's" frailties) who enticed the
doctor from his bed to a midnight ramble. My primary mistake consists
in transposing the date of the doctor's residence in Bolt Court, and
introducing Savage at the era of Boswell's acquaintance with Johnson;