He told Beauclerc that it was a love match on both
sides; and Garrick used to draw ludicrous pictures of their mutual
fondness, which he heightened by representing her as short, fat,
tawdrily dressed, and highly rouged.
[Footnote 1: See "Croker's Boswell," p. 672, and Malone's note in the
prior edition.]
On the question whether "Molly Aston" or "dear Boothby" was the cause
of his dislike of Lyttleton, one of Mrs. Piozzi's marginal notes is
decisive. "Mrs. Thrale (says Boswell) suggests that he was offended
by Molly Aston's preference of his lordship to him." She retorts: "I
never said so. I believe Lord Lyttleton and Molly Aston were not
acquainted. No, no: it was Miss Boothby whose preference he professed
to have been jealous of, and so I said in the 'Anecdotes.'"
One of Rochefoucauld's maxims is: "Young women who do not wish to
appear _coquette_, and men of advanced years who do not wish to
appear ridiculous, should never speak of love as of a thing in which
they might take part." Mrs. Thrale relates an amusing instance of
Johnson's adroitness in escaping from the dilemma: "As we had been
saying one day that no subject failed of receiving dignity from the
manner in which Mr. Johnson treated it, a lady at my house said, she
would make him talk about love; and took her measures accordingly,
deriding the novels of the day because they treated about love. 'It
is not,' replied our philosopher, 'because they treat, as you call
it, about love, but because they treat of nothing, that they are
despicable: we must not ridicule a passion which he who never felt,
never was happy, and he who laughs at, never deserves to feel--a
passion which has caused the change of empires, and the loss of
worlds--a passion which has inspired heroism and subdued avarice.
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