them was still in his possession. This very piece was, after his death,
published by some person who had been about him, and, for the sake of a
little hasty profit, was fallaciously advertised, so as to make it be
believed to have been written by Johnson himself.

I said, I disliked the custom which some people had of bringing their
children into company,[81] because it in a manner forced us to pay
foolish compliments to please their parents. JOHNSON. 'You are right,
Sir. We may be excused for not caring much about other people's
children, for there are many who care very little about their own
children. It may be observed, that men, who from being engaged in
business, or from their course of life in whatever way, seldom see their
children, do not care much about them. I myself should not have had much
fondness for a child of my own.'[82] MRS. THRALE. 'Nay, Sir, how can you
talk so?' JOHNSON. 'At least, I never wished to have a child.'

Mr. Murphy mentioned Dr. Johnson's having a design to publish an edition
of _Cowley_. Johnson said, he did not know but he should; and he
expressed his disapprobation of Dr. Hurd, for having published a
mutilated edition under the title of _Select Works of Abraham
Cowley_.[83] Mr. Murphy thought it a bad precedent; observing that any
authour might be used in the same manner; and that it was pleasing to
see the variety of an authour's compositions, at different periods.

We talked of Flatman's Poems; and Mrs. Thrale observed, that Pope had
partly borrowed from him _The dying Christian to his Soul_.[84] Johnson
repeated Rochester's verses upon Flatman[85], which I think by much too
severe:

'Nor that slow drudge in swift Pindarick strains,