'[from Bennet Langton's collection of 1780 Johnsoniana, passed to Boswell] Talking of Gray's "Odes", he said, "They are forced plants raised in a hot-bed; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after all." A gentleman present, who had been running down Ode-writing in general, as a bad species of poetry, unluckily said, "Had they been literally cucumbers, they had been better things than Odes."--"Yes, Sir, (said Johnson,) for a [italics] hog [end italics]."'