The Life of Samuel Johnson quotes

For instance, he would call up a boy and ask him Latin for a candlestick, which the boy could not expect to be asked.

Now, Sir, if a boy could answer every question, there would be no need of a master to teach him.'

It is, however, but justice to the memory of Mr. Hunter to mention, that though he might err in being too severe, the school of Lichfield was very respectable in his time. The late Dr.

Indeed Johnson was very sensible how much he owed to Mr. Hunter. Mr. Langton one day asked him how he had acquired so accurate a knowledge of Latin, in which, I believe, he was exceeded by no man of his time; he said,

'My master whipt me very well. Without that, Sir, I should have done nothing.'

He told Mr. Langton, that while Hunter was flogging his boys unmercifully, he used to say, 'And this I do to save you from the gallows.' Johnson, upon all occasions, expressed his approbation of enforcing instruction by means of the rod.

the intellectual difference, which in other cases of comparison of characters, is often a matter of undecided contest, being as clear in his case as the superiority of stature in some men above others.

Johnson did not strut or stand on tiptoe; He only did not stoop.

From his earliest years his superiority was perceived and acknowledged. He was from the beginning [Greek text omitted], a king of men. His school-fellow, Mr. Hector, has obligingly furnished me with many particulars of his boyish days:

for the truth is, that he was then depressed by poverty, and irritated by disease. When I mentioned to him this account as given me by Dr. Adams, he said;

'Ah, Sir, I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick.

I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and all authority.'

and, that since his death, the integrity of his character has been fully vindicated. Being himself a poet, Johnson was peculiarly happy in mentioning how many of the sons of Pembroke were poets; adding, with a smile of sportive triumph, '

Sir, we are a nest of singing birds.

'

Johnson had been told of this note; and Sir Joshua Reynolds informed him of the compliment which it contained, but, from delicacy, avoided shewing him the paper itself. When Sir Joshua observed to Johnson that he seemed very desirous to see Pope's note, he answered,

'Who would not be proud to have such a man as Pope so solicitous in inquiring about him?'

The infirmity to which Mr. Pope alludes, appeared to me also, as I have elsewhere observed, to be of the convulsive kind, and of the nature of that distemper called St. Vitus's dance;

It has been confidently related, with many embellishments, that Johnson one day knocked Osborne down in his shop, with a folio, and put his foot upon his neck. The simple truth I had from Johnson himself.

'Sir, he was impertinent to me, and I beat him. But it was not in his shop: it was in my own chamber.'

1744: AETAT. 35.]—He produced one work this year, fully sufficient to maintain the high reputation which he had acquired. This was The Life of Richard Savage;

The rapidity with which this work was composed, is a wonderful circumstance. Johnson has been heard to say,

'I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the Life of Savage at a sitting; but then I sat up all night.'

It is remarkable, that in this biographical disquisition there appears a very strong symptom of Johnson's prejudice against players; a prejudice which may be attributed to the following causes:

Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick, that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement, from considerations of rigid virtue; saying,

'I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.'

1750: AETAT. 41.]—In 1750 he came forth in the character for which he was eminently qualified, a majestick teacher of moral and religious wisdom.

which the Italians have literally, but ludicrously translated by Il Vagabondo; and which has been lately assumed as the denomination of a vehicle of licentious tales, The Rambler's Magazine. He gave Sir Joshua Reynolds the following account of its getting this name:

'What MUST be done, Sir, WILL be done.

When I was to begin publishing that paper, I was at a loss how to name it. I sat down at night upon my bedside, and resolved that I would not go to sleep till I had fixed its title.

He acknowledges to have received 'elegant translations' of many of them from Mr. James Elphinston; and some are very happily translated by a Mr. F. Lewis, of whom I never heard more, except that Johnson thus described him to Mr. Malone:

'Sir, he lived in London, and hung loose upon society.'

His just abhorrence of Milton's political notions was ever strong. But this did not prevent his warm admiration of Milton's great poetical merit, to which he has done illustrious justice, beyond all who have written upon the subject.

The ladies were regretting the death of a friend, to whom they owed great obligations; upon which Reynolds observed,

'You have, however, the comfort of being relieved from a burthen of gratitude.'

They were shocked a little at this alleviating suggestion, as too selfish; but Johnson defended it in his clear and forcible manner, and was much pleased with the MIND, the fair view of human nature, which it exhibited, like some of the reflections of Rochefaucault.

Every thing thou dost shews the one, and every thing thou say'st the other.' At another time he said to him,

'Thy body is all vice, and thy mind all virtue.'

Beauclerk not seeming to relish the compliment, Johnson said, 'Nay, Sir, Alexander the Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, could not have desired to have had more said to him.'

Garrick being told of this ramble, said to him smartly, 'I heard of your frolick t'other night. You'll be in the Chronicle.' Upon which Johnson afterwards observed,

'HE durst not do such a thing. His WIFE would not LET him!'

1753: AETAT. 44.]—He entered upon this year 1753 with his usual piety, as appears from the following prayer, which I transcribed from that part of his diary which he burnt a few days before his death:

during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour.

Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before.

'The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.

'

Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?

The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it;

'Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?

The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.

I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the Publick should consider me as owing that to a Patron, which Providence has enabled me to do for myself.

'Sir (said Johnson) that is not Lord Chesterfield; he is the proudest man this day existing.' 'No, (said Dr. Adams) there is one person, at least, as proud; I think, by your own account, you are the prouder man of the two.'

'But mine (replied Johnson, instantly) was DEFENSIVE pride.'

This, as Dr. Adams well observed, was one of those happy turns for which he was so remarkably ready.

Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom:

'This man (said he) I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!'

And when his Letters to his natural son were published, he observed, that 'they teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.'

Johnson, hearing of their tendency, which nobody disputed, was roused with a just indignation, and pronounced this memorable sentence upon the noble authour and his editor.

'Sir, he was a scoundrel, and a coward: a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman, to draw the trigger after his death!'

Johnson this year found an interval of leisure to make an excursion to Oxford, for the purpose of consulting the libraries there.

'You know poor Mr. Dodsley has lost his wife; I believe he is much affected. I hope he will not suffer so much as I yet suffer for the loss of mine.

I have ever since seemed to myself broken off from mankind; a kind of solitary wanderer in the wild of life, without any direction, or fixed point of view: a gloomy gazer on a world to which I have little relation.

Yet I would endeavour, by the help of you and your brother, to supply the want of closer union, by friendship: and hope to have long the pleasure of being, dear Sir, most affectionately your's,

nor was he at all disconcerted when an instance was pointed out to him. A lady once asked him how he came to define Pastern the KNEE of a horse: instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered,

'Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.'

His definition of Network* has been often quoted with sportive malignity, as obscuring a thing in itself very plain. But to these frivolous censures no other answer is necessary than that with which we are furnished by his own Preface.

Thus: 'Grub-street, the name of a street in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called Grub-street.'—

'Lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.'

It must undoubtedly seem strange, that the conclusion of his Preface should be expressed in terms so desponding, when it is considered that the authour was then only in his forty-sixth year.

It is a sad saying, that 'most of those whom he wished to please had sunk into the grave;' and his case at forty-five was singularly unhappy, unless the circle of his friends was very narrow. He said to Sir Joshua Reynolds,

'If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair.'

In July this year he had formed some scheme of mental improvement, the particular purpose of which does not appear. But we find in his Prayers and Meditations, p. 25, a prayer entitled 'On the Study of Philosophy, as an Instrument of living;'

and therefore I would counsel you to omit no decent nor manly degree of importunity. Your debts in the whole are not large, and of the whole but a small part is troublesome.

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.

You must, therefore, be enabled to discharge petty debts, that you may have leisure, with security to struggle with the rest. Neither the great nor little debts disgrace you.

Smollet, that his master kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He said,

'No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.'

And at another time, 'A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.' The letter was as follows:—

'MADAM,—I hope you will believe that my delay in answering your letter could proceed only from my unwillingness to destroy any hope that you had formed.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords

: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged, must end in disappointment.

Johnson, it should seem, was satisfied, for he did not call again till he had accepted the pension, and had waited on Lord Bute to thank him. He then told Sir Joshua that Lord Bute said to him expressly,

'It is not given you for anything you are to do, but for what you have done.'

His Lordship, he said, behaved in the handsomest manner, he repeated the words twice, that he might be sure Johnson heard them, and thus set his mind perfectly at ease.

Johnson, affecting to entertain the passions of the place, was violent in opposition; and, half-laughing at himself for his pretended zeal where he had no concern, exclaimed,

'No, no! I am against the dockers; I am a Plymouth man. Rogues! let them die of thirst. They shall not have a drop!'

1763: AETAT. 54.]—This is to me a memorable year; for in it I had the happiness to obtain the acquaintance of that extraordinary man whose memoirs I am now writing;

A pension of two hundred pounds a year had been given to Sheridan. Johnson, who, as has been already mentioned, thought slightingly of Sheridan's art, upon hearing that he was also pensioned, exclaimed,

'What! have they given HIM a pension? Then it is time for me to give up mine.'

Johnson complained that a man who disliked him repeated his sarcasm to Mr. Sheridan, without telling him what followed, which was, that after a pause he added, 'However, I am glad that Mr. Sheridan has a pension, for he is a very good man.'

Johnson paid her this high compliment upon it:

'I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.'

Mr. Thomas Davies the actor, who then kept a bookseller's shop in Russel-street, Covent-garden, told me that Johnson was very much his friend, and came frequently to his house, where he more than once invited me to meet him;

and, as if I had said that I had come away from it, or left it, retorted,

'That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.'

This stroke stunned me a good deal; and when we had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and apprehensive of what might come next. He then addressed himself to Davies: 'What do you think of Garrick?

The subject having been introduced by Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Blair, relying on the internal evidence of their antiquity, asked Dr. Johnson whether he thought any man of a modern age could have written such poems? Johnson replied,

'Yes, Sir, many men, many women, and many children.'

Johnson, at this time, did not know that Dr. Blair had just published a Dissertation, not only defending their authenticity, but seriously ranking them with the poems of Homer and Virgil;

but he said to me, 'Nay, don't go.' 'Sir, (said I,) I am afraid that I intrude upon you. It is benevolent to allow me to sit and hear you.' He seemed pleased with this compliment, which I sincerely paid him, and answered,

'Sir, I am obliged to any man who visits me.'

I have preserved the following short minute of what passed this day:—

He seemed pleased with this compliment, which I sincerely paid him, and answered, 'Sir, I am obliged to any man who visits me.' I have preserved the following short minute of what passed this day:—

'Madness frequently discovers itself merely by unnecessary deviation from the usual modes of the world.

My poor friend Smart shewed the disturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place.

His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else. Another charge was, that he did not love clean linen; and I have no passion for it.'—Johnson continued.

'Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labour; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.'

Talking of Garrick, he said, 'He is the first man in the world for sprightly conversation.'

Trusting that I was now in his good graces, I answered, that he had not given me much encouragement, and reminded him of the check I had received from him at our first interview.

'Poh, poh! (said he, with a complacent smile,) never mind these things. Come to me as often as you can. I shall be glad to see you.'

I had learnt that his place of frequent resort was the Mitre tavern in Fleet-street, where he loved to sit up late, and I begged I might be allowed to pass an evening with him there soon, which he promised I should.

Sir, he had heard something of the fabulous tale of the wren sitting upon the eagle's wing, and he had applied it to a linnet. Cibber's familiar style, however, was better than that which Whitehead has assumed.

GRAND nonsense is insupportable.

Whitehead is but a little man to inscribe verses to players.

Sir, he had heard something of the fabulous tale of the wren sitting upon the eagle's wing, and he had applied it to a linnet. Cibber's familiar style, however, was better than that which Whitehead has assumed. GRAND nonsense is insupportable.

Whitehead is but a little man to inscribe verses to players.

'Sir, I do not think Gray a first-rate poet. He has not a bold imagination, nor much command of words. The obscurity in which he has involved himself will not persuade us that he is sublime.

Our conversation proceeded. 'Sir, (said he) I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society.

There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.

'

and once at the exhibition of the Fantoccini in London, when those who sat next him observed with what dexterity a puppet was made to toss a pike, he could not bear that it should have such praise, and exclaimed with some warmth, '

Pshaw! I can do it better myself.

'

No man had the art of displaying with more advantage as a writer, whatever literary acquisitions he made. 'Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit.'

His mind resembled a fertile, but thin soil.

There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of the forest did not grow there; but the elegant shrubbery and the fragrant parterre appeared in gay succession.

'Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit.' His mind resembled a fertile, but thin soil. There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck.

The oak of the forest did not grow there; but the elegant shrubbery and the fragrant parterre appeared in gay succession.

It has been generally circulated and believed that he was a mere fool in conversation; but, in truth, this has been greatly exaggerated.

He had increased my admiration of the goodness of Johnson's heart, by incidental remarks in the course of conversation, such as, when I mentioned Mr. Levet, whom he entertained under his roof, '

He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson

;' and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I had heard a very bad character, 'He is now become miserable; and that insures the protection of Johnson.'

Levet, whom he entertained under his roof, 'He is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough to Johnson;' and when I wondered that he was very kind to a man of whom I had heard a very bad character, '

He is now become miserable; and that insures the protection of Johnson.

'

He did not attack me violently till he found I did not like his poetry; and his attack on me shall not prevent me from continuing to say what I think of him, from an apprehension that it may be ascribed to resentment.

No, Sir, I called the fellow a blockhead at first, and I will call him a blockhead still.

However, I will acknowledge that I have a better opinion of him now, than I once had; for he has shewn more fertility than I expected. To be sure, he is a tree that cannot produce good fruit: he only bears crabs.

No, Sir, I called the fellow a blockhead at first, and I will call him a blockhead still. However, I will acknowledge that I have a better opinion of him now, than I once had; for he has shewn more fertility than I expected.

To be sure, he is a tree that cannot produce good fruit: he only bears crabs.

But, Sir, a tree that produces a great many crabs is better than a tree which produces only a few.'

I went to Johnson in the morning, and talked of it as a serious distress. He laughed, and said, '

Consider, Sir, how insignificant this will appear a twelvemonth hence.

'—Were this consideration to be applied to most of the little vexatious incidents of life, by which our quiet is too often disturbed, it would prevent many painful sensations. I have tried it frequently, with good effect.

for he observed, that Scotland had a great many noble wild prospects. JOHNSON. 'I believe, Sir, you have a great many. Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects.

But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!

' This unexpected and pointed sally produced a roar of applause. After all, however, those, who admire the rude grandeur of Nature, cannot deny it to Caledonia.

adding, however, that it was good for the vegetable creation. Johnson, who, as we have already seen, denied that the temperature of the air had any influence on the human frame, answered, with a smile of ridicule. '

Why yes, Sir, it is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals.

' This observation of his aptly enough introduced a good supper; and I soon forgot, in Johnson's company, the influence of a moist atmosphere.

'Idleness is a disease which must be combated; but I would not advise a rigid adherence to a particular plan of study. I myself have never persisted in any plan for two days together.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

A young man should read five hours in a day, and so may acquire a great deal of knowledge.'

I retain the same principles. It is true, that I cannot now curse (smiling) the House of Hanover; nor would it be decent for me to drink King James's health in the wine that King George gives me money to pay for.

But, Sir, I think that the pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover, and drinking King James's health, are amply overbalanced by three hundred pounds a year.

'

A Jacobite believes in the divine right of Bishops. He that believes in the divine right of Bishops believes in the divine authority of the Christian religion. Therefore, Sir, a Jacobite is neither an Atheist nor a Deist.

That cannot be said of a Whig; for Whiggism is a negation of all principle.

'*

I described to him an impudent fellow from Scotland, who affected to be a savage, and railed at all established systems. JOHNSON. 'There is nothing surprizing in this, Sir. He wants to make himself conspicuous.

He would tumble in a hogstye, as long as you looked at him and called to him to come out.

But let him alone, never mind him, and he'll soon give it over.'

JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, if the fellow does not think as he speaks, he is lying; and I see not what honour he can propose to himself from having the character of a liar.

But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

'

From this habit I have been enabled to give the world so many anecdotes, which would otherwise have been lost to posterity. I mentioned that I was afraid I put into my journal too many little incidents. JOHNSON. '

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man.

It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.'

Johnson's conversation, that to his honour be it recorded, when I complained that drinking port and sitting up late with him affected my nerves for some time after, he said, '

One had better be palsied at eighteen than not keep company with such a man.

'

On Wednesday, July 20, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Dempster, and my uncle Dr. Boswell, who happened to be now in London, supped with me at these Chambers. JOHNSON. '

Pity is not natural to man. Children are always cruel. Savages are always cruel.

Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

Paul's Church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shewn to be very insignificant. In civilized society, personal merit will not serve you so much as money will. Sir, you may make the experiment.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

If you wish only to support nature, Sir William Petty fixes your allowance at three pounds a year; but as times are much altered, let us call it six pounds.

for, coeteris paribus, he who is rich in a civilized society, must be happier than he who is poor; as riches, if properly used, (and it is a man's own fault if they are not,) must be productive of the highest advantages.

Money, to be sure, of itself is of no use; for its only use is to part with it.

Rousseau, and all those who deal in paradoxes, are led away by a childish desire of novelty.

When I was running about this town a very poor fellow, I was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty; but I was, at the same time, very sorry to be poor.

Sir, all the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, shew it to be evidently a great evil.

You never find people labouring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune.—So you hear people talking how miserable a King must be; and yet they all wish to be in his place.'

I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine with us." I thus, Sir, shewed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me since.

Sir, your levellers wish to level DOWN as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling UP to themselves.

They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?' I mentioned a certain authour who disgusted me by his forwardness, and by shewing no deference to noblemen into whose company he was admitted. JOHNSON.

He maintained that a boy at school was the happiest of human beings. I supported a different opinion, from which I have never yet varied, that a man is happier; and I enlarged upon the anxiety and sufferings which are endured at school. JOHNSON. '

Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him.

'

He asked me, I suppose, by way of trying my disposition, 'Is not this very fine?' Having no exquisite relish of the beauties of Nature, and being more delighted with 'the busy hum of men,' I answered, '

Yes, Sir; but not equal to Fleet-street.

' JOHNSON. 'You are right, Sir.'

'

At your age, Sir, I had no head-ache.

'

Next day, Sunday, July 31, I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. JOHNSON. '

Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all.

'

and it was doubtless not very suitable to the character of a philosopher, who should be distinguished by self-command. But it must be owned, that Johnson, though he could be rigidly ABSTEMIOUS, was not a TEMPERATE man either in eating or drinking.

He could refrain, but he could not use moderately.

He told me, that he had fasted two days without inconvenience, and that he had never been hungry but once.

At supper this night* he talked of good eating with uncommon satisfaction. 'Some people (said he,) have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat.

For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.

' He now appeared to me Jean Bull philosophe, and he was, for the moment, not only serious but vehement. Yet I have heard him, upon other occasions, talk with great contempt of people who were anxious to gratify their palates;

One day when we had dined with his neighbour and landlord in Bolt-court, Mr. Allen, the printer, whose old housekeeper had studied his taste in every thing, he pronounced this eulogy: '

Sir, we could not have had a better dinner had there been a Synod of Cooks.

'

While we were left by ourselves, after the Dutchman had gone to bed, Dr. Johnson talked of that studied behaviour which many have recommended and practised. He disapproved of it; and said, '

I never considered whether I should be a grave man, or a merry man, but just let inclination, for the time, have its course.

'

I teazed him with fanciful apprehensions of unhappiness. A moth having fluttered round the candle, and burnt itself, he laid hold of this little incident to admonish me; saying, with a sly look, and in a solemn but quiet tone, '

That creature was its own tormentor, and I believe its name was BOSWELL.

'

I happened to say it would be terrible if he should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined to so dull a place. JOHNSON. '

Don't Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. It would NOT be TERRIBLE, though I WERE to be detained some time here.

'

It was Johnson's custom to observe certain days with a pious abstraction; viz. New-year's-day, the day of his wife's death, Good Friday, Easter-day, and his own birth-day. He this year says:—'

I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving; having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I have done nothing.

The need of doing, therefore, is pressing, since the time of doing is short. O GOD, grant me to resolve aright, and to keep my resolutions, for JESUS CHRIST'S sake. Amen.'

He then used this emphatical expression of the misery which he felt: '

I would consent to have a limb amputated to recover my spirits.

'

I told him that Voltaire, in a conversation with me, had distinguished Pope and Dryden thus:—'Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of neat trim nags; Dryden a coach, and six stately horses.' JOHNSON. '

Why, Sir, the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but Dryden's horses are either galloping or stumbling: Pope's go at a steady even trot.

' He said of Goldsmith's Traveller, which had been published in my absence, 'There has not been so fine a poem since Pope's time.'

JOHNSON. 'Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true.

A peasant and a philosopher may be equally SATISFIED, but not equally HAPPY.

Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.'

JOHNSON. 'Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally SATISFIED, but not equally HAPPY.

Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.

A peasant has not capacity for having equal happiness with a philosopher.'

BOSWELL. 'I don't deny, Sir, but that his novel may, perhaps, do harm; but I cannot think his intention was bad.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that will not do. We cannot prove any man's intention to be bad.

You may shoot a man through the head, and say you intended to miss him; but the Judge will order you to be hanged.

An alleged want of intention, when evil is committed, will not be allowed in a court of justice. Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man.

Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.' BOSWELL. 'Sir, do you think him as bad a man as Voltaire?' JOHNSON. '

Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.

'

On his favourite subject of subordination, Johnson said, '

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

'

This, I observed, could not apply to all, for there must be some who have nobody worse than they are. JOHNSON. 'Why, to be sure, Sir, there are; but they don't know it.

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.

'

BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, why don't you give us something in some other way?' GOLDSMITH. 'Ay, Sir, we have a claim upon you.' JOHNSON. No, Sir, I am not obliged to do any more.

No man is obliged to do as much as he can do. A man is to have part of his life to himself.

If a soldier has fought a good many campaigns, he is not to be blamed if he retires to ease and tranquillity.

BOSWELL. 'But I wonder, Sir, you have not more pleasure in writing than in not writing.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, you MAY wonder.

'

Johnson said, he thought he had already done his part as a writer. '

I should have thought so too, (said the King,) if you had not written so well.

'—Johnson observed to me, upon this, that 'No man could have paid a handsomer compliment; and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive.'

and it was fit for a King to pay. It was decisive.' When asked by another friend, at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, whether he made any reply to this high compliment, he answered, 'No, Sir. When the King had said it, it was to be so.

It was not for me to bandy civilities with my Sovereign.

' Perhaps no man who had spent his whole life in courts could have shewn a more nice and dignified sense of true politeness, than Johnson did in this instance.

His Majesty then talked of the controversy between Warburton and Lowth, which he seemed to have read, and asked Johnson what he thought of it. Johnson answered, 'Warburton has most general, most scholastick learning; Lowth is the more correct scholar.

I do not know which of them calls names best.

' The King was pleased to say he was of the same opinion; adding, 'You do not think, then, Dr. Johnson, that there was much argument in the case.' Johnson said, he did not think there was.

After the King withdrew, Johnson shewed himself highly pleased with his Majesty's conversation, and gracious behaviour. He said to Mr. Barnard, '

Sir, they may talk of the King as they will; but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.

' And he afterwards observed to Mr. Langton, 'Sir, his manners are those of as fine a gentleman as we may suppose Lewis the Fourteenth or Charles the Second.'

Johnson, rolling with joy at the thought which beamed in his eye, turned quickly round, and replied, '

True, Sir: and when we see a very foolish FELLOW, we don't know what to think of HIM.

' He then rose up, strided to the fire, and stood for some time laughing and exulting.

To obviate all the reflections which have gone round the world to Johnson's prejudice, by applying to him the epithet of a BEAR, let me impress upon my readers a just and happy saying of my friend Goldsmith, who knew him well: '

Johnson, to be sure, has a roughness in his manner; but no man alive has a more tender heart. He has nothing of the bear but his skin.

'

It cannot entertain, far less can it instruct. Lord Monboddo, one of your Scotch Judges, talked a great deal of such nonsense. I suffered HIM; but I will not suffer YOU.'—BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, does not Rousseau talk such nonsense?' JOHNSON. '

True, Sir, but Rousseau KNOWS he is talking nonsense, and laughs at the world for staring at him.

' BOSWELL. 'How so, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, a man who talks nonsense so well, must know that he is talking nonsense. But I am AFRAID, (chuckling and laughing,) Monboddo does NOT know that he is talking nonsense.' BOSWELL.

JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but that is occasioned by the largeness of it, which is the cause of all the other advantages.' BOSWELL. 'Sometimes I have been in the humour of wishing to retire to a desart.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, you have desart enough in Scotland.

'

I presume that her having been married before had, at times, given him some uneasiness; for I remember his observing upon the marriage of one of our common friends,

'He has done a very foolish thing, Sir; he has married a widow, when he might have had a maid.'

We drank tea with Mrs. Williams. I had last year the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Thrale at Dr. Johnson's one morning, and had conversation enough with her to admire her talents, and to shew her that I was as Johnsonian as herself. Dr.

I boasted that we had the honour of being the first to abolish the unhospitable, troublesome, and ungracious custom of giving vails to servants. JOHNSON. '

Sir, you abolished vails, because you were too poor to be able to give them.

'

Mrs. Thrale stood to her gun with great courage, in defence of amorous ditties, which Johnson despised, till he at last silenced her by saying, '

My dear Lady, talk no more of this. Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense.

'

JOHNSON. 'Nay, my dear Lady, this will never do. Poor David! Smile with the simple;—What folly is that? And who would feed with the poor that can help it?

No, no; let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.

' I repeated this sally to Garrick, and wondered to find his sensibility as a writer not a little irritated by it. To sooth him, I observed, that Johnson spared none of us;

He would not allow much merit to Whitefield's oratory. 'His popularity, Sir, (said be,) is chiefly owing to the peculiarity of his manner.

He would be followed by crowds were he to wear a night-cap in the pulpit, or were he to preach from a tree.

'

'Sir, (said Johnson,) you talk of language, as if you had never done any thing else but study it, instead of governing a nation.' The General said, 'Questo e un troppo gran complimento;' this is too great a compliment. Johnson answered, '

I should have thought so, Sir, if I had not heard you talk.

' The General asked him, what he thought of the spirit of infidelity which was so prevalent. JOHNSON.

Fear is one of the passions of human nature, of which it is impossible to divest it. You remember that the Emperour Charles V, when he read upon the tomb-stone of a Spanish nobleman, "Here lies one who never knew fear," wittily said, "

Then he never snuffed a candle with his fingers.

"'

Mrs. Montagu, a lady distinguished for having written an Essay on Shakspeare, being mentioned; REYNOLDS. 'I think that essay does her honour.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir: it does HER honour, but it would do nobody else honour. I have, indeed, not read it all.

But when I take up the end of a web, and find it packthread, I do not expect, by looking further, to find embroidery.

Sir, I will venture to say, there is not one sentence of true criticism in her book.' GARRICK. 'But, Sir, surely it shews how much Voltaire has mistaken Shakspeare, which nobody else has done.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, nobody else has thought it worth while.

One day at Sir Joshua's table, when it was related that Mrs. Montagu, in an excess of compliment to the authour of a modern tragedy, had exclaimed, 'I tremble for Shakspeare;' Johnson said, '

When Shakspeare has got —— for his rival, and Mrs. Montagu for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed.

'

JOHNSON. 'Most of them, Sir, have never thought at all.' BOSWELL. 'But is not the fear of death natural to man?' JOHNSON. '

So much so, Sir, that the whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of it.

' He then, in a low and earnest tone, talked of his meditating upon the aweful hour of his own dissolution, and in what manner he should conduct himself upon that occasion:

Talking of our feeling for the distresses of others;—JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, there is much noise made about it, but it is greatly exaggerated. No,

Sir, we have a certain degree of feeling to prompt us to do good: more than that, Providence does not intend. It would be misery to no purpose.

' BOSWELL. 'But suppose now, Sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged.' JOHNSON. 'I should do what I could to bail him, and give him any other assistance;

and, at the same time, recommending to him an industrious young man who kept a pickle-shop. JOHNSON. '

Ay, Sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy; a friend hanged, and a cucumber pickled.

We know not whether Baretti or the pickle-man has kept Davies from sleep; nor does he know himself. And as to his not sleeping, Sir; Tom Davies is a very great man; Tom has been upon the stage, and knows how to do those things.

BOSWELL. 'I have often blamed myself, Sir, for not feeling for others as sensibly as many say they do.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, don't be duped by them any more. You will find these very feeling people are not very ready to do you good.

They PAY you by FEELING.

'

BOSWELL. 'Foote has a great deal of humour?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'He has a singular talent of exhibiting character.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, it is not a talent; it is a vice; it is what others abstain from.

It is not comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that of a miser gathered from many misers: it is farce, which exhibits individuals.' BOSWELL. 'Did not he think of exhibiting you, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, fear restrained him;

you go to see a man who will be entertained at your house, and then bring you on a publick stage; who will entertain you at his house, for the very purpose of bringing you on a publick stage.

Sir, he does not make fools of his company; they whom he exposes are fools already: he only brings them into action.

'

This appeared to me very satisfactory. Johnson did not answer it; but talking for victory, and determined to be master of the field, he had recourse to the device which Goldsmith imputed to him in the witty words of one of Cibber's comedies: '

There is no arguing with Johnson; for when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.

' He turned to the gentleman, 'well, Sir, go to Dominicetti, and get thyself fumigated; but be sure that the steam be directed to thy HEAD, for THAT is the PECCANT PART.'

I know not how so whimsical a thought came into my mind, but I asked, 'If, Sir, you were shut up in a castle, and a newborn child with you, what would you do?' JOHNSON. '

Why, Sir, I should not much like my company.

' BOSWELL. 'But would you take the trouble of rearing it?' He seemed, as may well be supposed, unwilling to pursue the subject: but upon my persevering in my question, replied, 'Why yes, Sir, I would; but I must have all conveniencies.

After a conflict, he drives them back into their dens; but not killing them, they were still assailing him. To my question, whether we might not fortify our minds for the approach of death, he answered, in a passion, '

No, Sir, let it alone. It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.

The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.' He added, (with an earnest look,) 'A man knows it must be so, and submits. It will do him no good to whine.'

I told him that David Hume said to me, he was no more uneasy to think he should NOT BE after this life, than that he HAD NOT BEEN before he began to exist. JOHNSON.

Sir, if he really thinks so, his perceptions are disturbed; he is mad: if he does not think so, he lies.

He may tell you, he holds his finger in the flame of a candle, without feeling pain; would you believe him? When he dies, he at least gives up all he has.' BOSWELL.

I went home exceedingly uneasy. All the harsh observations which I had ever heard made upon his character, crowded into my mind; and

I seemed to myself like the man who had put his head into the lion's mouth a great many times with perfect safety, but at last had it bit off.

Next morning I sent him a note, stating, that I might have been in the wrong, but it was not intentionally; he was therefore, I could not help thinking, too severe upon me.

I went to him early on the morning of the tenth of November. '

Now (said he,) that you are going to marry, do not expect more from life, than life will afford.

You may often find yourself out of humour, and you may often think your wife not studious enough to please you; and yet you may have reason to consider yourself as upon the whole very happily married.'

'

Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.

'When exasperated by contradiction, he was apt to treat his opponents with too much acrimony: as, "Sir, you don't see your way through that question:"—"Sir, you talk the language of ignorance."

'Speaking of a dull tiresome fellow, whom he chanced to meet, he said, "

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

"

'

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.

'He observed, that a man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It was a miserable thing when the conversation could only be such as, whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.

No man is so well qualifyed to leave publick life as he who has long tried it and known it well.

We are always hankering after untried situations and imagining greater felicity from them than they can afford.

No, Sir, knowledge and virtue may be acquired in all countries, and your local consequence will make you some amends for the intellectual gratifications you relinquish."

Williams's room, and drank tea. I mentioned that we were to have the remains of Mr. Gray, in prose and verse, published by Mr. Mason. JOHNSON. 'I think we have had enough of Gray. I see they have published a splendid edition of Akenside's works.

One bad ode may be suffered; but a number of them together makes one sick.

' BOSWELL. 'Akenside's distinguished poem is his Pleasures of Imagination; but for my part, I never could admire it so much as most people do.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I could not read it through.' BOSWELL. 'I have read it through;

We talked of the proper use of riches. JOHNSON. '

If I were a man of a great estate, I would drive all the rascals whom I did not like out of the county at an election.

'

JOHNSON. 'But, Sir, there is half a guinea's worth of inferiority to other people in not having seen it.' BOSWELL. 'I doubt, Sir, whether there are many happy people here.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, there are many happy people here.

There are many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are watching them.

'

I said there was not half a guinea's worth of pleasure in seeing this place. JOHNSON. '

But, Sir, there is half a guinea's worth of inferiority to other people in not having seen it.

' BOSWELL. 'I doubt, Sir, whether there are many happy people here.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, there are many happy people here. There are many people here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds are watching them.'

What Frenchman is prevented from passing his life as he pleases?' SIR ADAM. 'But, Sir, in the British constitution it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit in the people, so as to preserve a balance against the crown.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, I perceive you are a vile Whig.

Why all this childish jealousy of the power of the crown? The crown has not power enough. When I say that all governments are alike, I consider that in no government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.

BOSWELL. 'Will you not allow, Sir, that he draws very natural pictures of human life?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is of very low life. Richardson used to say, that had he not known who Fielding was, he should have believed he was an ostler.

Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom Jones.

I, indeed, never read Joseph Andrews.' ERSKINE. 'Surely, Sir, Richardson is very tedious.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself.

Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's, than in all Tom Jones. I, indeed, never read Joseph Andrews.' ERSKINE. 'Surely, Sir, Richardson is very tedious.' JOHNSON. '

Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself.

But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.'

but I maintain, that an individual of any society, who practises what is allowed, is not a dishonest man.' BOSWELL. 'So then, Sir, you do not think ill of a man who wins perhaps forty thousand pounds in a winter?' JOHNSON. '

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsocial man, an unprofitable man.

Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good. Trade gives employment to numbers, and so produces intermediate good.'

Of our friend, Goldsmith, he said, '

Sir, he is so much afraid of being unnoticed, that he often talks merely lest you should forget that he is in the company.

' BOSWELL. 'Yes, he stands forward.' JOHNSON. 'True, Sir; but if a man is to stand forward, he should wish to do it not in an aukward posture, not in rags, not so as that he shall only be exposed to ridicule.' BOSWELL.

BOSWELL. 'But, was it not hard, Sir, to expel them, for I am told they were good beings?' JOHNSON. 'I believe they might be good beings; but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford.

A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.

' Lord Elibank used to repeat this as an illustration uncommonly happy.

JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, that may be an argument for drinking, if you suppose men in general to be liars.

But, Sir, I would not keep company with a fellow, who lyes as long as he is sober, and whom you must make drunk before you can get a word of truth out of him.

'

Johnson, on whom I happened to call in the morning, said he would join us, which he did, and we spent a very agreeable day, though I recollect but little of what passed.

He said, 'Walpole was a minister given by the King to the people: Pitt was a minister given by the people to the King,—as an adjunct.'

'The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation is this: he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small.

'The misfortune of Goldsmith in conversation is this: he goes on without knowing how he is to get off. His genius is great, but his knowledge is small.

As they say of a generous man, it is a pity he is not rich, we may say of Goldsmith, it is a pity he is not knowing.

He would not keep his knowledge to himself.'

I as much believe that he wrote it, as if I had seen him do it. Sir, had he shewn it to any one friend, he would not have been allowed to publish it.

He has, indeed, done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well done.

I suppose he has been so much elated with the success of his new comedy, that he has thought every thing that concerned him must be of importance to the publick.' BOSWELL.

BOSWELL. 'I fancy, Sir, this is the first time that he has been engaged in such an adventure.' JOHNSON. '

Why, Sir, I believe it is the first time he has BEAT; he may have BEEN BEATEN before.

This, Sir, is a new plume to him.'

Lord Chesterfield being mentioned, Johnson remarked, that almost all of that celebrated nobleman's witty sayings were puns. He, however, allowed the merit of good wit to his Lordship's saying of Lord Tyrawley and himself, when both very old and infirm: '

Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years; but we don't choose to have it known.

'

I told him that Goldsmith had said to me a few days before, 'As I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the taylor, so I take my religion from the priest.' I regretted this loose way of talking. JOHNSON. '

Sir, he knows nothing; he has made up his mind about nothing.

'

Were they to be in this pretty state of equality, they would soon degenerate into brutes;—they would become Monboddo's nation;—their tails would grow. Sir, all would be losers were all to work for all—they would have no intellectual improvement.

All intellectual improvement arises from leisure; all leisure arises from one working for another.

'

not only abounding with beautiful rural imagery, and just and pleasing sentiments, but being a real picture of manners; and I offered to teach Dr. Johnson to understand it. 'No, Sir, (said he,)

I won't learn it. You shall retain your superiority by my not knowing it.

'

Mrs. Williams said, that another printer, Mr. Hamilton, had not waited so long as Mr. Strahan, but had kept his coach several years sooner. JOHNSON. 'He was in the right.

Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better.

'

Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON. 'I have looked into it.' 'What, (said Elphinston,) have you not read it through?' Johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly, '

No, Sir, do YOU read books THROUGH?

'

On Wednesday, April 21, I dined with him at Mr. Thrale's. A gentleman attacked Garrick for being vain. JOHNSON. 'No wonder, Sir, that he is vain; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived.

So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder.

' BOSWELL. 'And such bellows too. Lord Mansfield with his cheeks like to burst: Lord Chatham like an Aeolus. I have read such notes from them to him, as were enough to turn his head.' JOHNSON. 'True.

It did not require much sagacity to foresee that such a sentiment would not be permitted to pass without due animadversion. JOHNSON. 'Do not allow yourself, Sir, to be imposed upon by such gross absurdity. It is sad stuff; it is brutish.

If a bull could speak, he might as well exclaim,—Here am I with this cow and this grass; what being can enjoy greater felicity?

'

Johnson's own superlative powers of wit set him above any risk of such uneasiness. Garrick had remarked to me of him, a few days before, 'Rabelais and all other wits are nothing compared with him. You may be diverted by them; but

Johnson gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will or no.

'

History it is not. Besides, Sir, it is the great excellence of a writer to put into his book as much as his book will hold. Goldsmith has done this in his History. Now Robertson might have put twice as much into his book.

Robertson is like a man who has packed gold in wool: the wool takes up more room than the gold.

No, Sir; I always thought Robertson would be crushed by his own weight,—would be buried under his own ornaments. Goldsmith tells you shortly all you want to know: Robertson detains you a great deal too long.

Seduced, perhaps, by the charms of the lady in question, I thus attempted to palliate what I was sensible could not be justified; for when I had finished my harangue, my venerable friend gave me a proper check: '

My dear Sir, never accustom your mind to mingle virtue and vice. The woman's a whore, and there's an end on't.

'

But his fear was from reflection; his courage natural. His fear, in that one instance, was the result of philosophical and religious consideration.

He feared death, but he feared nothing else, not even what might occasion death.

Many instances of his resolution may be mentioned. One day, at Mr. Beauclerk's house in the country, when two large dogs were fighting, he went up to them, and beat them till they separated;

As to his prejudice against the Scotch, which I always ascribed to that nationality which he observed in THEM, he said to the same gentleman, '

When I find a Scotchman, to whom an Englishman is as a Scotchman, that Scotchman shall be as an Englishman to me.

' His intimacy with many gentlemen of Scotland, and his employing so many natives of that country as his amanuenses, prove that his prejudice was not virulent;

… once expressed to him an apprehension, that if he should visit Ireland he might treat the people of that country more unfavourably than he had done the Scotch, he answered, with strong pointed double-edged wit, 'Sir, you have no reason to be afraid of me.

The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, Sir; the Irish are a FAIR PEOPLE;—they never speak well of one another.

'

The effect which it had upon Johnson was, to produce this pleasant observation to Mr. Seward, to whom he lent the book: 'This fellow must be a blockhead. They don't know how to go about their abuse.

Who will read a five-shilling book against me? No, Sir, if they had wit, they should have kept pelting me with pamphlets.

'

Boswell.' I answered, 'I was but the humble attendant of Dr. Johnson.' The Chief Justice replied, with that air and manner which none, who ever saw and heard him, can forget, '

He speaks ill of nobody but Ossian.

'

Next day I dined with Johnson at Mr. Thrale's. He attacked Gray, calling him 'a dull fellow.' BOSWELL. 'I understand he was reserved, and might appear dull in company; but surely he was not dull in poetry.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull every where.

He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him GREAT. He was a mechanical poet.' He then repeated some ludicrous lines, which have escaped my memory, and said, 'Is not that GREAT, like his Odes?' Mrs.

'Nay, Sir, I have the better chance for that. She is like the Amazons of old; she must be courted by the sword. But I have not been severe upon her.' BOSWELL. 'Yes, Sir, you have made her ridiculous.' JOHNSON. 'That was already done, Sir.

To endeavour to make HER ridiculous, is like blacking the chimney.

'

BOSWELL. 'Such as Carte's History?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. When a man writes from his own mind, he writes very rapidly.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

'

Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: '

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

' But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest.

JOHNSON. 'Sir, if it were not for the notion of immortality, he would cut a throat to fill his pockets.' When I quoted this to Beauclerk, who knew much more of the gentleman than we did, he said, in his acid manner, '

He would cut a throat to fill his pockets, if it were not for fear of being hanged.

'

and I regretted that I had lost much of my disposition to admire, which people generally do as they advance in life. JOHNSON. '

Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration—judgement, to estimate things at their true value.

' I still insisted that admiration was more pleasing than judgement, as love is more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir;

One was ACID, another was MUDDY, and to the others he had objections which have escaped me. Then, shaking his head and stretching himself at ease in the coach, and smiling with much complacency, he turned to me and said, '

I look upon MYSELF as a good humoured fellow.

' The epithet FELLOW, applied to the great Lexicographer, the stately Moralist, the masterly critick, as if he had been SAM Johnson, a mere pleasant companion, was highly diverting; and this light notion of himself struck me with wonder.

'This (said he,) is the best. But I could caricature my own style much better myself.' He defended his remark upon the general insufficiency of education in Scotland; and confirmed to me the authenticity of his witty saying on the learning of the Scotch;—'

Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.

' 'There is (said he,) in Scotland, a diffusion of learning, a certain portion of it widely and thinly spread. A merchant there has as much learning as one of their clergy.

No sooner had we made our bow to Mr. Cambridge, in his library, than Johnson ran eagerly to one side of the room, intent on poring over the backs of the books. Sir Joshua observed, (aside,) '

He runs to the books, as I do to the pictures: but I have the advantage. I can see much more of the pictures than he can of the books.

' Mr. Cambridge, upon this, politely said, 'Dr. Johnson, I am going, with your pardon, to accuse myself, for I have the same custom which I perceive you have.

But it seems odd that one should have such a desire to look at the backs of books.' Johnson, ever ready for contest, instantly started from his reverie, wheeled about, and answered, 'Sir, the reason is very plain.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and the backs of books in libraries.'

Johnson's laugh was as remarkable as any circumstance in his manner. It was a kind of good humoured growl. Tom Davies described it drolly enough: '

He laughs like a rhinoceros.

'

JOHNSON. 'Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.'—'But, Sir, you will allow that some players are better than others?' JOHNSON. '

Yes, Sir, as some dogs dance better than others.

'

'

I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night, and then the nap takes me.

'

'The writer of an epitaph should not be considered as saying nothing but what is strictly true. Allowance must be made for some degree of exaggerated praise.

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

'

Dr. Burney upon this said to him, "I believe, Sir, we shall make a musician of you at last." Johnson with candid complacency replied, "

Sir, I shall be glad to have a new sense given to me.

"'

'Dr. Burney having remarked that Mr. Garrick was beginning to look old, he said, "

Why, Sir, you are not to wonder at that; no man's face has had more wear and tear.

"'

I shall ever recollect this scene with great pleasure, I exclaimed to her, 'I am now, intellectually, Hermippus redivivus, I am quite restored by him, by transfusion of mind.' '

There are many (she replied) who admire and respect Mr. Johnson; but you and I LOVE him.

'

He said, '

The value of every story depends on its being true.

A story is a picture either of an individual or of human nature in general: if it be false, it is a picture of nothing. For instance:

I observed, that Foote entertained us with stories which were not true; but that, indeed, it was properly not as narratives that Foote's stories pleased us, but as collections of ludicrous images. JOHNSON. '

Foote is quite impartial, for he tells lies of every body.

'

When one who loved mischief, thinking to produce a severe censure, asked Johnson, a few days afterwards, 'Well, Sir, what did your friend say to you, as an apology for being in such a situation?' Johnson answered, '

Sir, he said all that a man SHOULD say: he said he was sorry for it.

'

I again visited him on Monday. He took occasion to enlarge, as he often did, upon the wretchedness of a sea-life. '

A ship is worse than a gaol. There is, in a gaol, better air, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.'—'Then (said I) it would be cruel in a father to breed his son to the sea.' JOHNSON. 'It would be cruel in a father who thinks as I do.

BOSWELL. 'I think he should play once a year for the benefit of decayed actors, as it has been said he means to do.' JOHNSON. '

Alas, Sir! he will soon be a decayed actor himself.

'

'Painting (said he) consumes labour not disproportionate to its effect; but a fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty.

You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.

'

and his expression was, 'You are taking a church out of the way, that the people may go in a straight line to the bridge.'—'No, Sir, (said Gwyn,)

I am putting the church IN the way, that the people may not GO OUT OF THE WAY.

' JOHNSON. (with a hearty loud laugh of approbation,) 'Speak no more. Rest your colloquial fame upon this.'

JOHNSON. (with a hearty loud laugh of approbation,) '

Speak no more. Rest your colloquial fame upon this.

'

Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, 'A man so afflicted, Sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.' BOSWELL. 'May not he think them down, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.

To attempt to THINK THEM DOWN is madness.

He should have a lamp constantly burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed, take a book, and read, and compose himself to rest.

but he had been a scoundrel all along to be sure.' BOSWELL. 'Was he a scoundrel, Sir, in any other way than that of being a political scoundrel? Did he cheat at draughts?' JOHNSON. '

Sir, we never played for MONEY.

'

I censured some ludicrous fantastick dialogues between two coach-horses and other such stuff, which Baretti had lately published. He joined with me, and said, '

Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.

' I expressed a desire to be acquainted with a lady who had been much talked of, and universally celebrated for extraordinary address and insinuation. JOHNSON. 'Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of people. Depend upon it, Sir, they are exaggerated.

and saw that now, by the genius of Brown, a magnificent body of water was collected, I said, '

They have DROWNED the Epigram.

' I observed to him, while in the midst of the noble scene around us, 'You and I, Sir, have, I think, seen together the extremes of what can be seen in Britain:—the wild rough island of Mull, and Blenheim park.'

No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospect of an immediate reward, in proportion as they please.

No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

'* He then repeated, with great emotion, Shenstone's lines:—

In the afternoon, as we were driven rapidly along in the post-chaise, he said to me '

Life has not many things better than this.

'

Lloyd's, where we were entertained with great hospitality. Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd had been married the same year with their Majesties, and like them, had been blessed with a numerous family of fine children, their numbers being exactly the same. Johnson said, '

Marriage is the best state for a man in general; and every man is a worse man, in proportion as he is unfit for the married state.

'

BOSWELL. 'I own, Sir, I have not so much feeling for the distress of others, as some people have, or pretend to have: but I know this, that I would do all in my power to relieve them.' JOHNSON. '

Sir it is affectation to pretend to feel the distress of others, as much as they do themselves.

It is equally so, as if one should pretend to feel as much pain while a friend's leg is cutting off, as he does. No, Sir; you have expressed the rational and just nature of sympathy.

'

Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive.

'

'

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

It is assuming a superiority, and it is particularly wrong to question a man concerning himself. There may be parts of his former life which he may not wish to be made known to other persons, or even brought to his own recollection.'

And you find the King of Prussia dresses plain, because the dignity of his character is sufficient.' I here brought myself into a scrape, for I heedlessly said, 'Would not YOU, Sir, be the better for velvet and embroidery?' JOHNSON. '

Sir, you put an end to all argument when you introduce your opponent himself. Have you no better manners? There is YOUR WANT.

' I apologised by saying, I had mentioned him as an instance of one who wanted as little as any man in the world, and yet, perhaps, might receive some additional lustre from dress.

On Thursday, March 28, we pursued our journey. He said, '

It is commonly a weak man who marries for love.

' We then talked of marrying women of fortune; and I mentioned a common remark, that a man may be, upon the whole, richer by marrying a woman with a very small portion, because a woman of fortune will be proportionally expensive;

Will you not add,—or when driving rapidly in a post-chaise?' JOHNSON. '

No, Sir, you are driving rapidly FROM something, or TO something.

'

Upon the question whether a man who had been guilty of vicious actions would do well to force himself into solitude and sadness; JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, unless it prevent him from being vicious again.

With some people, gloomy penitence is only madness turned upside down.

A man may be gloomy, till, in order to be relieved from gloom, he has recourse again to criminal indulgencies.'

But I won't mention it to Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, as it might vex them.' I suggested, that going to Italy might have done Mr. and Mrs. Thrale good. JOHNSON. 'I rather believe not, Sir.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates.

You must wait till grief be DIGESTED, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.'

BOSWELL. 'Why then, Sir, did he talk so?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, to make you answer as you did.' BOSWELL. 'I don't know, Sir; he seemed to dip deep into his mind for the reflection.' JOHNSON. '

He had not far to dip, Sir: he said the same thing, probably, twenty times before.

'

Sixteen-string Jack* towered above the common mark.' BOSWELL. 'Then, Sir, what is poetry?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not.

We all KNOW what light is; but it is not easy to TELL what it is.

'

JOHNSON. 'Perhaps, contempt.—And, Sir, it is not necessary to be drunk one's self, to relish the wit of drunkenness. Do we not judge of the drunken wit, of the dialogue between Iago and Cassio, the most excellent in its kind, when we are quite sober?

Wit is wit, by whatever means it is produced; and, if good, will appear so at all times.

I admit that the spirits are raised by drinking, as by the common participation of any pleasure: cock-fighting, or bear-baiting, will raise the spirits of a company, as drinking does, though surely they will not improve conversation.

'I am (said he,) in very good spirits, when I get up in the morning. By dinner-time I am exhausted; wine puts me in the same state as when I got up; and I am sure that moderate drinking makes people talk better.' JOHNSON. '

No, Sir; wine gives not light, gay, ideal hilarity; but tumultuous, noisy, clamorous merriment.

I have heard none of those drunken,—nay, drunken is a coarse word,—none of those VINOUS flights.' SIR JOSHUA. 'Because you have sat by, quite sober, and felt an envy of the happiness of those who were drinking.' JOHNSON.

'She is better employed at her toilet, than using her pen.

It is better she should be reddening her own cheeks, than blackening other people's characters.

'

Johnson looked a little angry, and said, '

Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.

' At another time, when she said, perhaps affectedly, 'I don't like to fly.' JOHNSON. 'With YOUR wings, Madam, you MUST fly: but have a care, there are CLIPPERS abroad.'

Johnson looked a little angry, and said, 'Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.' At another time, when she said, perhaps affectedly, 'I don't like to fly.' JOHNSON. '

With YOUR wings, Madam, you MUST fly: but have a care, there are CLIPPERS abroad.

'

We were by no means pleased with our inn at Bristol. 'Let us see now, (said I,) how we should describe it.' Johnson was ready with his raillery. '

Describe it, Sir?—Why, it was so bad that Boswell wished to be in Scotland!

'

'That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while.

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

'

Lord Eliot informs me, that one day when Johnson and he were at dinner at a gentleman's house in London, upon Lord Chesterfield's Letters being mentioned, Johnson surprized the company by this sentence: '

Every man of any education would rather be called a rascal, than accused of deficiency in THE GRACES.

' Mr. Gibbon, who was present, turned to a lady who knew Johnson well, and lived much with him, and in his quaint manner, tapping his box, addressed her thus:

The uncommon vivacity of General Oglethorpe's mind, and variety of knowledge, having sometimes made his conversation seem too desultory, Johnson observed, '

Oglethorpe, Sir, never COMPLETES what he has to say.

'

He on the same account made a similar remark on Patrick Lord Elibank: '

Sir, there is nothing CONCLUSIVE in his talk.

'

Being irritated by hearing a gentleman* ask Mr. Levett a variety of questions concerning him, when he was sitting by, he broke out, '

Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

' 'A man, (said he,) should not talk of himself, nor much of any particular person. He should take care not to be made a proverb; and, therefore, should avoid having any one topick of which people can say, "We shall hear him upon it."

'But he has wit too, and is not deficient in ideas, or in fertility and variety of imagery, and not empty of reading; he has knowledge enough to fill up his part. One species of wit he has in an eminent degree, that of escape.

You drive him into a corner with both hands; but he's gone, Sir, when you think you have got him—like an animal that jumps over your head.

Then he has a great range for wit; he never lets truth stand between him and a jest, and he is sometimes mighty coarse. Garrick is under many restraints from which Foote is free.' WILKES. 'Garrick's wit is more like Lord Chesterfield's.' JOHNSON.

Somebody observed that Garrick could not have done this. WILKES. '

Garrick would have made the small-beer still smaller. He is now leaving the stage; but he will play Scrub all his life.

' I knew that Johnson would let nobody attack Garrick but himself, as Garrick once said to me, and I had heard him praise his liberality; so to bring out his commendation of his celebrated pupil, I said, loudly, 'I have heard Garrick is liberal.'

After dinner we had an accession of Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker lady, well known for her various talents, and of Mr. Alderman Lee. Amidst some patriotick groans, somebody (I think the Alderman) said, 'Poor old England is lost.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that Old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it.

' WILKES. 'Had Lord Bute governed Scotland only, I should not have taken the trouble to write his eulogy, and dedicate Mortimer to him.'

'The difference with Lord Auchinleck is now over; and since young Alexander has appeared, I hope no more difficulties will arise among you; for I sincerely wish you all happy.

Do not teach the young ones to dislike me, as you dislike me yourself; but let me at least have Veronica's kindness, because she is my acquaintance.

'You will now have Mr. Boswell home; it is well that you have him; he has led a wild life. I have taken him to Lichfield, and he has followed Mr. Thrale to Bath. Pray take care of him, and tame him.

'You will now have Mr. Boswell home; it is well that you have him; he has led a wild life. I have taken him to Lichfield, and he has followed Mr. Thrale to Bath.

Pray take care of him, and tame him.

The only thing in which I have the honour to agree with you is, in loving him; and while we are so much of a mind in a matter of so much importance, our other quarrels will, I hope, produce no great bitterness.

'MADAM,—Though I am well enough pleased with the taste of sweetmeats, very little of the pleasure which I received at the arrival of your jar of marmalade arose from eating it.

I received it as a token of friendship, as a proof of reconciliation, things much sweeter than sweetmeats

, and upon this consideration I return you, dear Madam, my sincerest thanks. By having your kindness I think I have a double security for the continuance of Mr.

Taylor thus described to me his old schoolfellow and friend, Johnson: 'He is a man of a very clear head, great power of words, and a very gay imagination; but there is no disputing with him.

He will not hear you, and having a louder voice than you, must roar you down.

'

You may accustom yourself to other periodical evacuations, because should you omit them, Nature can supply the omission; but Nature cannot open a vein to blood you.'—'I do not like to take an emetick, (said Taylor,) for fear of breaking some small vessels.'—'

Poh! (said Johnson,) if you have so many things that will break, you had better break your neck at once, and there's an end on't.

You will break no small vessels:' (blowing with high derision.)

from that desire of praise which never quits us. I said, Dr. Dodd seemed to be willing to die, and full of hopes of happiness. 'Sir, (said he,)

Dr. Dodd would have given both his hands and both his legs to have lived. The better a man is, the more afraid he is of death, having a clearer view of infinite purity.

' He owned, that our being in an unhappy uncertainty as to our salvation, was mysterious; and said, 'Ah! we must wait till we are in another state of being, to have many things explained to us.'

He observed, that a gentleman of eminence in literature had got into a bad style of poetry of late. '

He puts (said he,) a very common thing in a strange dress till he does not know it himself, and thinks other people do not know it.

' BOSWELL. 'That is owing to his being so much versant in old English poetry.' JOHNSON. 'What is that to the purpose, Sir?

In our way, Johnson strongly expressed his love of driving fast in a post-chaise. '

If (said he,) I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman; but she should be one who could understand me, and would add something to the conversation.

' I observed, that we were this day to stop just where the Highland army did in 1745. JOHNSON. 'It was a noble attempt.' BOSWELL. 'I wish we could have an authentick history of it.' JOHNSON.

The minute diversities in every thing are wonderful. Talking of shaving the other night at Dr. Taylor's, Dr. Johnson said, '

Sir, of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.

' I thought this not possible, till he specified so many of the varieties in shaving;—holding the razor more or less perpendicular;—drawing long or short strokes;—beginning at the upper part of the face, or the under;—at the right side or the left side.

Dr. Johnson told us at tea, that when some of Dr. Dodd's pious friends were trying to console him by saying that he was going to leave 'a wretched world,' he had honesty enough not to join in the cant:—'

No, no, (said he,) it has been a very agreeable world to me.

' Johnson added, 'I respect Dodd for thus speaking the truth; for, to be sure, he had for several years enjoyed a life of great voluptuousness.

for when Mr. Seward expressed a doubt to you that it was not Dodd's own, because it had a great deal more force of mind in it than any thing known to be his, you answered,—"Why should you think so?

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

"' JOHNSON. Sir, as Dodd got it from me to pass as his own, while that could do him any good, there was an IMPLIED PROMISE that I should not own it.

He said, '

Goldsmith was a plant that flowered late.

There appeared nothing remarkable about him when he was young; though when he had got high in fame, one of his friends began to recollect something of his being distinguished at College.

Johnson advised me to-night not to REFINE in the education of my children. '

Life (said he,) will not bear refinement: you must do as other people do.

'

I talked to him of Forster's Voyage to the South Seas, which pleased me; but I found he did not like it. 'Sir, (said he,) there is a great affectation of fine writing in it.' BOSWELL. 'But he carries you along with him.' JOHNSON. '

No, Sir; he does not carry ME along with him: he leaves me behind him: or rather, indeed, he sets me before him; for he makes me turn over many leaves at a time.

'

BOSWELL. 'No, no, Sir: and as a proof of the merit of great acting, and of the value which mankind set upon it, Garrick has got a hundred thousand pounds.' JOHNSON. '

Is getting a hundred thousand pounds a proof of excellence? That has been done by a scoundrel commissary.

'

Now, Sir, to talk of RESPECT for a PLAYER!' (smiling disdainfully.) BOSWELL. 'There, Sir, you are always heretical: you never will allow merit to a player.' JOHNSON. '

Merit, Sir! what merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer, or a ballad-singer?

' BOSWELL. 'No, Sir: but we respect a great player, as a man who can conceive lofty sentiments, and can express them gracefully.' JOHNSON.

JOHNSON. 'Sir, you cannot be sure how a contest will end; and no man has a right to engage two people in a dispute by which their passions may be inflamed, and they may part with bitter resentment against each other.

I would sooner keep company with a man from whom I must guard my pockets, than with a man who contrives to bring me into a dispute with somebody that he may hear it.

This is the great fault of ———,(naming one of our friends,) endeavouring to introduce a subject upon which he knows two people in the company differ.' BOSWELL. 'But he told me, Sir, he does it for instruction.' JOHNSON.

Mr. Burke's Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol, on the affairs of America, being mentioned, Johnson censured the composition much, and he ridiculed the definition of a free government, viz. 'For any practical purpose, it is what the people think so.'—'

I will let the King of France govern me on those conditions, (said he,) for it is to be governed just as I please.

' And when Dr. Taylor talked of a girl being sent to a parish workhouse, and asked how much she could be obliged to work, 'Why, (said Johnson,) as much as is reasonable: and what is that? as much as SHE THINKS reasonable.'

And when Dr. Taylor talked of a girl being sent to a parish workhouse, and asked how much she could be obliged to work, '

Why, (said Johnson,) as much as is reasonable: and what is that? as much as SHE THINKS reasonable.

'

Dr. Taylor (the only time I ever heard him say any thing witty) observed, that if Rochester had been castrated himself, his exceptionable poems would not have been written.' I asked if Burnet had not given a good Life of Rochester. JOHNSON. '

We have a good Death: there is not much Life.

' I asked whether Prior's Poems were to be printed entire: Johnson said they were.

and of daring resolution, so that I was inclined to rush into the thickest part of the battle. '

Sir, (said he,) I should never hear it, if it made me such a fool.

'

Yet I observed that things were done upon the supposition of happiness; grand houses were built, fine gardens were made, splendid places of publick amusement were contrived, and crowded with company. JOHNSON. '

Alas, Sir, these are all only struggles for happiness.

When I first entered Ranelagh, it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as I never experienced any where else.

One evening, when I was sitting with him, Frank delivered this message: 'Sir, Dr. Taylor sends his compliments to you, and begs you will dine with him to-morrow. He has got a hare.'—'

My compliments (said Johnson,) and I'll dine with him—hare or rabbit.

'

I went to Streatham on Monday, March 30. Before he appeared, Mrs. Thrale made a very characteristical remark:—'

I do not know for certain what will please Dr. Johnson: but I know for certain that it will displease him to praise any thing, even what he likes, extravagantly.

'

but little variations in narrative must happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching.' JOHNSON. 'Well, Madam, and you OUGHT to be perpetually watching.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.

'

Talking of ghosts, he said, 'It is wonderful that five thousand years have now elapsed since the creation of the world, and still it is undecided whether or not there has ever been an instance of the spirit of any person appearing after death.

All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

'

J. 'Less just and more beneficent.' JOHNSON. 'And really it is wonderful, considering how much attention is necessary for men to take care of themselves, and ward off immediate evils which press upon them, it is wonderful how much they do for others.

As it is said of the greatest liar, that he tells more truth than falsehood; so it may be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.

' BOSWELL. 'Perhaps from experience men may be found HAPPIER than we suppose.' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; the more we enquire, we shall find men the less happy.'

and that Dunning observed, upon this, 'One is always willing to listen to Dr. Johnson:' to which I answered, 'That is a great deal from you, Sir.'—'Yes, Sir, (said Johnson,) a great deal indeed.

Here is a man willing to listen, to whom the world is listening all the rest of the year.

' BOSWELL. 'I think, Sir, it is right to tell one man of such a handsome thing, which has been said of him by another. It tends to increase benevolence.' JOHNSON. 'Undoubtedly it is right, Sir.'

JOHNSON. (laughing,) 'No, Sir; it must be born with a man to be contented to take up with little things. Women have a great advantage that they may take up with little things, without disgracing themselves: a man cannot, except with fiddling.

Had I learnt to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.

' BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, did you ever play on any musical instrument?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. I once bought me a flagelet; but I never made out a tune.' BOSWELL. 'A flagelet, Sir!—so small an instrument?

BOSWELL. 'A flagelet, Sir!—so small an instrument? I should have liked to hear you play on the violoncello. THAT should have been YOUR instrument.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, I might as well have played on the violoncello as another; but I should have done nothing else.

No, Sir; a man would never undertake great things, could he be amused with small.

I once tried knotting. Dempster's sister undertook to teach me; but I could not learn it.' BOSWELL. 'So, Sir; it will be related in pompous narrative, "Once for his amusement he tried knotting; nor did this Hercules disdain the distaff."' JOHNSON.

JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, he is not content with the present; he has always some new scheme, some new plantation, something which is future. You know he was not content as a widower; for he married again.' BOSWELL. 'But he is not restless.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, he is only locally at rest. A chymist is locally at rest; but his mind is hard at work.

This gentleman has done with external exertions. It is too late for him to engage in distant projects.' BOSWELL. 'He seems to amuse himself quite well; to have his attention fixed, and his tranquillity preserved by very small matters. I have tried this;

BOSWELL. 'I think, Sir, you once said to me, that not to drink wine was a great deduction from life.' JOHNSON. 'It is a diminution of pleasure, to be sure; but I do not say a diminution of happiness.

There is more happiness in being rational.

' BOSWELL. 'But if we could have pleasure always, should not we be happy? The greatest part of men would compound for pleasure.' JOHNSON. 'Supposing we could have pleasure always, an intellectual man would not compound for it.

Of Goldsmith he said, 'He was not an agreeable companion, for he talked always for fame. A man who does so never can be pleasing.

The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.

An eminent friend of ours is not so agreeable as the variety of his knowledge would otherwise make him, because he talks partly from ostentation.'

At dinner, Mrs. Thrale expressed a wish to go and see Scotland. JOHNSON. '

Seeing Scotland, Madam, is only seeing a worse England. It is seeing the flower gradually fade away to the naked stalk.

Seeing the Hebrides, indeed, is seeing quite a different scene.'

He deserved a place in Westminster-Abbey, and every year he lived, would have deserved it better. He had, indeed, been at no pains to fill his mind with knowledge.

He transplanted it from one place to another; and it did not settle in his mind; so he could not tell what was in his own books.

'

JOHNSON. 'I think not, my Lord, if he exerts himself.' One of the company rashly observed, that he thought it was happy for an old man that insensibility comes upon him. JOHNSON. (with a noble elevation and disdain,) '

No, Sir, I should never be happy by being less rational.

' BISHOP OF ST. ASAPH. 'Your wish then, Sir, is [Greek text omitted].' JOHNSON. 'Yes, my Lord.'

We talked of old age. Johnson (now in his seventieth year,) said, '

It is a man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.

' The Bishop asked, if an old man does not lose faster than he gets. JOHNSON. 'I think not, my Lord, if he exerts himself.'

JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, I knocked Fox on the head, without ceremony. Reynolds is too much under Fox and Burke at present.

He is under the Fox star and the Irish constellation. He is always under some planet.

' BOSWELL. 'There is no Fox star.' JOHNSON. 'But there is a dog star.' BOSWELL. 'They say, indeed, a fox and a dog are the same animal.'

what is this? what is that? why is a cow's tail long? why is a fox's tail bushy?' The gentleman, who was a good deal out of countenance, said, 'Why, Sir, you are so good, that I venture to trouble you.' Johnson. '

Sir, my being so GOOD is no reason why you should be so ILL.

'

'

There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.

'

I, however, once knew an old gentleman who was absolutely malignant. He really wished evil to others, and rejoiced at it.' BOSWELL. 'The gentleman, Mr. Beauclerk, against whom you are so violent, is, I know, a man of good principles.' BEAUCLERK. '

Then he does not wear them out in practice.

'

Mr. Topham Beauclerk came in the evening, and he and Dr. Johnson and I staid to supper. It was mentioned that Dr. Dodd had once wished to be a member of THE LITERARY CLUB. JOHNSON. '

I should be sorry if any of our Club were hanged. I will not say but some of them deserve it.

' BEAUCLERK. (supposing this to be aimed at persons for whom he had at that time a wonderful fancy, which, however, did not last long,) was irritated, and eagerly said, 'You, Sir, have a friend, (naming him) who deserves to be hanged;

But you shall see what a Book of Cookery I shall make! I shall agree with Mr. Dilly for the copy-right.' Miss SEWARD. 'That would be Hercules with the distaff indeed.' JOHNSON. 'No, Madam.

Women can spin very well; but they cannot make a good book of Cookery.

'

And women have not the same temptations that we have: they may always live in virtuous company; men must mix in the world indiscriminately. If a woman has no inclination to do what is wrong being secured from it is no restraint to her.

I am at liberty to walk into the Thames; but if I were to try it, my friends would restrain me in Bedlam, and I should be obliged to them.

' MRS. KNOWLES. 'Still, Doctor, I cannot help thinking it a hardship that more indulgence is allowed to men than to women. It gives a superiority to men, to which I do not see how they are entitled.' JOHNSON.

nay, may let his wife and children starve.' JOHNSON. 'Madam, you must consider, if the mason does get himself drunk, and let his wife and children starve, the parish will oblige him to find security for their maintenance.

We have different modes of restraining evil. Stocks for the men, a ducking-stool for women, and a pound for beasts.

If we require more perfection from women than from ourselves, it is doing them honour. And women have not the same temptations that we have: they may always live in virtuous company; men must mix in the world indiscriminately.

Surely, Madam, your sect must approve of this; for, you call all men FRIENDS.' MRS. KNOWLES. 'We are commanded to do good to all men, "but especially to them who are of the household of Faith."' JOHNSON. '

Well, Madam. The household of Faith is wide enough.

' MRS. KNOWLES. 'But, Doctor, our Saviour had twelve Apostles, yet there was ONE whom he LOVED. John was called "the disciple whom JESUS loved."' JOHNSON. (with eyes sparkling benignantly,) 'Very well, indeed, Madam. You have said very well.' BOSWELL. 'A fine application.

From this pleasing subject, he, I know not how or why, made a sudden transition to one upon which he was a violent aggressor; for he said, '

I am willing to love all mankind, EXCEPT AN AMERICAN

:' and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he 'breathed out threatenings and slaughter;' calling them, Rascals—Robbers—Pirates;' and exclaiming, he'd 'burn and destroy them.'

his knowing what to observe; his power of contrasting one mode of life with another. As the Spanish proverb says, "He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him."

So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

' BOSWELL. 'The proverb, I suppose, Sir, means, he must carry a large stock with him to trade with.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir.'

It was a delightful day: as we walked to St. Clement's church, I again remarked that Fleet-street was the most cheerful scene in the world. 'Fleet-street (said I,) is in my mind more delightful than Tempe.' JOHNSON. '

Ay, Sir; but let it be compared with Mull.

'

JOHNSON. (who never liked to think of being old,) 'Don't let us discourage one another.' EDWARDS. 'Why, Doctor, you look stout and hearty, I am happy to see you so; for the news-papers told us you were very ill.' JOHNSON. '

Ay, Sir, they are always telling lies of US OLD FELLOWS.

'

JOHNSON. 'Sir, the life of a parson, of a conscientious clergyman, is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain.

I would rather have Chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.

No, Sir, I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.' Here taking himself up all of a sudden, he exclaimed, 'O! Mr. Edwards! I'll convince you that I recollect you.

EDWARDS. 'You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson.

I have tried too in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in.

'—Mr. Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Courtenay, Mr. Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of character.

EDWARDS. 'I have been twice married, Doctor. You, I suppose, have never known what it was to have a wife.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faultering tone) I have known what it was to LOSE A WIFE.—It had almost broke my heart.

'

I am a straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here or observed there.' EDWARDS. 'Don't you eat supper, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir.' EDWARDS. '

For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in order to get to bed.

'

JOHNSON. 'You are a lawyer, Mr. Edwards. Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with. They have what he wants.' EDWARDS. 'I am grown old: I am sixty-five.' JOHNSON. 'I shall be sixty-eight next birth-day.

Come, Sir, drink water, and put in for a hundred.

'

Johnson once observed to me, 'Tom Tyers described me the best: "

Sir, (said he,) you are like a ghost: you never speak till you are spoken to.

"'

and now that the title of Lichfleld, your native city, is extinct, you might have had it.' Johnson, upon this, seemed much agitated; and, in an angry tone, exclaimed, '

Why will you vex me by suggesting this, when it is too late?

'

I afterwards asked him why he had said so harsh a thing. JOHNSON. Because, Sir, you made me angry about the Americans.' BOSWELL. 'But why did you not take your revenge directly?' JOHNSON. (smiling,) '

Because, Sir, I had nothing ready. A man cannot strike till he has his weapons.

' This was a candid and pleasant confession.

and said, 'Mrs. Thrale sneered when I talked of my having asked you and your lady to live at my house. I was obliged to tell her, that you would be in as respectable a situation in my house as in hers.

Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out.

' BOSWELL. 'She has a little both of the insolence of wealth, and the conceit of parts.' JOHNSON. 'The insolence of wealth is a wretched thing; but the conceit of parts has some foundation. To be sure it should not be.

JOHNSON. 'The insolence of wealth is a wretched thing; but the conceit of parts has some foundation. To be sure it should not be. But who is without it?' BOSWELL. 'Yourself, Sir.' JOHNSON. 'Why, I play no tricks: I lay no traps.' BOSWELL. '

No, Sir. You are six feet high, and you only do not stoop.

'

I cannot but pause a moment to admire the fecundity of fancy, and choice of language, which in this instance, and, indeed, on almost all occasions, he displayed. It was well observed by Dr. Percy, now Bishop of Dromore, '

The conversation of Johnson is strong and clear, and may be compared to an antique statue, where every vein and muscle is distinct and bold. Ordinary conversation resembles an inferiour cast.

'

On Monday, April 20, I found him at home in the morning. We talked of a gentleman who we apprehended was gradually involving his circumstances by bad management. JOHNSON. '

Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means.

If it were a stream, they'd stop it. You must speak to him. It is really miserable. Were he a gamester, it could be said he had hopes of winning. Were he a bankrupt in trade, he might have grown rich;

Were he a bankrupt in trade, he might have grown rich; but he has neither spirit to spend nor resolution to spare. He does not spend fast enough to have pleasure from it.

He has the crime of prodigality, and the wretchedness of parsimony.

If a man is killed in a duel, he is killed as many a one has been killed; but it is a sad thing for a man to lie down and die;

He was quick in catching the MANNER of the moment, and answered her somewhat in the style of the hero of a romance, '

Madam, you crown me with unfading laurels.

'

We talked of a lady's verses on Ireland. MISS REYNOLDS. 'Have you seen them, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Madam. I have seen a translation from Horace, by one of her daughters. She shewed it me.' MISS REYNOLDS. 'And how was it, Sir?' JOHNSON. '

Why, very well for a young Miss's verses;—that is to say, compared with excellence, nothing; but, very well, for the person who wrote them.

I am vexed at being shewn verses in that manner.' MISS REYNOLDS. 'But if they should be good, why not give them hearty praise?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, because I have not then got the better of my bad humour from having been shown them.

'But if they should be good, why not give them hearty praise?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Madam, because I have not then got the better of my bad humour from having been shown them. You must consider, Madam; beforehand they may be bad, as well as good.

Nobody has a right to put another under such a difficulty, that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by telling what is not true.

' BOSWELL. 'A man often shews his writings to people of eminence, to obtain from them, either from their good-nature, or from their not being able to tell the truth firmly, a commendation, of which he may afterwards avail himself.' JOHNSON. 'Very true, Sir.

or what depends on mensuration; as, "I am six feet high." He is sure he has been at Richmond; he is sure he is six feet high: but he cannot be sure he is wise, or that he has any other excellence.

Then, all censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare.

It has all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the reproach of falsehood.'

BOSWELL. 'I drank chocolate, Sir, this morning with Mr. Eld; and, to my no small surprize, found him to be a Staffordshire Whig, a being which I did not believe had existed.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, there are rascals in all countries.

' BOSWELL. 'Eld said, a Tory was a creature generated between a non-juring parson and one's grandmother.' JOHNSON. 'And I have always said, the first Whig was the Devil.' BOSWELL. 'He certainly was, Sir. The Devil was impatient of subordination;

JOHNSON. 'Sir, there are rascals in all countries.' BOSWELL. 'Eld said, a Tory was a creature generated between a non-juring parson and one's grandmother.' JOHNSON. 'And

I have always said, the first Whig was the Devil.

' BOSWELL. 'He certainly was, Sir. The Devil was impatient of subordination; he was the first who resisted power:—

It only puts in motion what has been locked up in frost. But this may be good, or it may be bad.' SPOTTISWOODE. 'So, Sir, wine is a key which opens a box; but this box may be either full or empty.' JOHNSON. '

Nay, Sir, conversation is the key: wine is a pick-lock, which forces open the box and injures it.

A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives.' BOSWELL. 'The great difficulty of resisting wine is from benevolence.

We talked of drinking wine. JOHNSON. 'I require wine only when I am alone. I have then often wished for it, and often taken it.' SPOTTISWOODE. 'What, by way of a companion, Sir?' JOHNSON. '

To get rid of myself, to send myself away.

Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil. A man may have a strong reason not to drink wine; and that may be greater than the pleasure.

Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company had repressed.

It only puts in motion what has been locked up in frost.

But this may be good, or it may be bad.' SPOTTISWOODE. 'So, Sir, wine is a key which opens a box; but this box may be either full or empty.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, conversation is the key:

It makes a man mistake words for thoughts.' BOSWELL. 'I think it is a new thought; at least, it is in a new ATTITUDE.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, it is only in a new coat; or an old coat with a new facing. (Then laughing heartily,)

It is the old dog in a new doublet.

—An extraordinary instance however may occur where a man's patron will do nothing for him, unless he will drink: THERE may be a good reason for drinking.'

They who submit to drink as another pleases, make themselves his slaves.' Boswell. 'But, Sir, you will surely make allowance for the duty of hospitality. A gentleman who loves drinking, comes to visit me.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, a man knows whom he visits; he comes to the table of a sober man.

' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, you and I should not have been so well received in the Highlands and Hebrides, if I had not drunk with our worthy friends. Had I drunk water only as you did, they would not have been so cordial.' JOHNSON.

But it must be considered, that we have now more knowledge generally diffused; all our ladies read now, which is a great extension.

Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.

Greece appears to me to be the fountain of knowledge; Rome of elegance.' RAMSAY. 'I suppose Homer's Iliad to be a collection of pieces which had been written before his time.

JOHNSON. 'Yet this man cut his own throat.

The true strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.

Now I am told the King of Prussia will say to a servant, "Bring me a bottle of such a wine, which came in such a year; it lies in such a corner of the cellars."

Now I am told the King of Prussia will say to a servant, "Bring me a bottle of such a wine, which came in such a year; it lies in such a corner of the cellars."

I would have a man great in great things, and elegant in little things.

' He said to me afterwards, when we were by ourselves, 'Robertson was in a mighty romantick humour, he talked of one whom he did not know; but I DOWNED him with the King of Prussia.'

JOHNSON. 'Well, I am sorry for it. I'll make it up to you twenty different ways, as you please.' BOSWELL. 'I said to-day to Sir Joshua, when he observed that you TOSSED me sometimes—

I don't care how often, or how high he tosses me, when only friends are present, for then I fall upon soft ground: but I do not like falling on stones, which is the case when enemies are present.

—I think this a pretty good image, Sir.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, it is one of the happiest I have ever heard.'

We were instantly as cordial again as ever, and joined in hearty laugh at some ludicrous but innocent peculiarities of one of our friends. BOSWELL. 'Do you think, Sir, it is always culpable to laugh at a man to his face?' JOHNSON. '

Why, Sir, that depends upon the man and the thing. If it is a slight man, and a slight thing, you may; for you take nothing valuable from him.

'

I don't care to know about Pope.' MRS. THRALE. (surprized as I was, and a little angry,) 'I suppose, Sir, Mr. Boswell thought, that as you are to write Pope's Life, you would wish to know about him.' JOHNSON. '

Wish! why yes. If it rained knowledge I'd hold out my hand; but I would not give myself the trouble to go in quest of it.

' There was no arguing with him at the moment. Some time afterwards he said, 'Lord Marchmont will call on me, and then I shall call on Lord Marchmont.' Mr. Thrale was uneasy at his unaccountable caprice;

He has sometimes suffered me to talk jocularly of his group of females, and call them his Seraglio. He thus mentions them, together with honest Levett, in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale: '

Williams hates every body; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll* loves none of them.

'**

Johnson, whose regard for truth was uncommonly strict, seemed to be puzzled for a moment, what answer to make; as he certainly could not honestly commend the performance: with exquisite address he evaded the question thus, '

Sir, I do not say that it may not be made a very good translation.

' Here nothing whatever in favour of the performance was affirmed, and yet the writer was not shocked. A printed Ode to the Warlike Genius of Britain, came next in review; the bard was a lank bony figure, with short black hair;

She is walking across Coxheath, in the military uniform, and I suppose her to be the Genius of Britain.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you are giving a reason for it; but that will not make it right.

You may have a reason why two and two should make five; but they will still make but four.

'

He said he expected to be attacked on account of his Lives of the Poets. 'However (said he,) I would rather be attacked than unnoticed.

For the worst thing you can do to an authour is to be silent as to his works.

An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse; an assault may be unsuccessful; you may have more men killed than you kill; but if you starve the town, you are sure of victory.'

Talking of a friend of ours associating with persons of very discordant principles and characters; I said he was a very universal man, quite a man of the world. JOHNSON. '

Yes, Sir; but one may be so much a man of the world as to be nothing in the world.

I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."' BOSWELL. 'That was a fine passage.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir:

But I soon gave this over; for, I found that generally what was new was false."' I said I did not like to sit with people of whom I had not a good opinion. JOHNSON. '

But you must not indulge your delicacy too much; or you will be a tete-a-tete man all your life.

'

that I had spent a whole night in playing at cards, and that I could not look back on it with satisfaction; instead of a harsh animadversion, he mildly said, '

Alas, Sir, on how few things can we look back with satisfaction.

'

and how I used to have a head-ache after sitting up with him. He did not like to have this recalled, or, perhaps, thinking that I boasted improperly, resolved to have a witty stroke at me: '

Nay, Sir, it was not the WINE that made your head ache, but the SENSE that I put into it.

' BOSWELL. 'What, Sir! will sense make the head ache?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, (with a smile,) when it is not used to it.'—No man who has a true relish of pleasantry could be offended at this;

He was persuaded to drink one glass of it, that he might judge, not from recollection, which might be dim, but from immediate sensation. He shook his head, and said, 'Poor stuff!

No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling), must drink brandy.

In the first place, the flavour of brandy is most grateful to the palate; and then brandy will do soonest for a man what drinking CAN do for him. There are, indeed, few who are able to drink brandy.

HE had two charged pistols; one was found lying charged upon the table by him, after he had shot himself with the other.' 'Well, (said Johnson, with an air of triumph,) you see here one pistol was sufficient.' Beauclerk replied smartly, '

Because it happened to kill him.

' And either then or a very little afterwards, being piqued at Johnson's triumphant remark, added, 'This is what you don't know, and I do.' There was then a cessation of the dispute;

'

To be contradicted, in order to force you to talk, is mighty unpleasing. You SHINE, indeed; but it is by being GROUND.

'

One of the company mentioned Lord Chesterfield, as a man who had no friend. JOHNSON. 'There were more materials to make friendship in Garrick, had he not been so diffused.' BOSWELL. '

Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf. Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.

' JOHNSON. 'Garrick was a very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself.

Beauclerk's, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Jones, (afterwards Sir William,) Mr. Langton, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Paradise, and Dr. Higgins. I mentioned that Mr. Wilkes had attacked Garrick to me, as a man who had no friend. 'I believe he is right, Sir. [Greek text omitted]—

He had friends, but no friend.

Garrick was so diffused, he had no man to whom he wished to unbosom himself. He found people always ready to applaud him, and that always for the same thing: so he saw life with great uniformity.'

Talking of celebrated and successful irregular practisers in physick; he said, '

Taylor was the most ignorant man I ever knew; but sprightly.

Ward the dullest. Taylor challenged me once to talk Latin with him; (laughing). I quoted some of Horace, which he took to be a part of my own speech. He said a few words well enough.' BEAUCLERK.

We left Mr. Strahan's at seven, as Johnson had said he intended to go to evening prayers. As we walked along, he complained of a little gout in his toe, and said, 'I shan't go to prayers to-night; I shall go to-morrow:

Whenever I miss church on a Sunday, I resolve to go another day. But I do not always do it.

' This was a fair exhibition of that vibration between pious resolutions and indolence, which many of us have too often experienced.

but if I am caught, I don't want to get free again. If I am caught, I hope to be kept.' Then when the two glasses of water were brought, smiling placidly to the young lady, he said, '

Madam, let us RECIPROCATE.

'

Of his fellow-collegian, the celebrated Mr. George Whitefield, he said, 'Whitefield never drew as much attention as a mountebank does; he did not draw attention by doing better than others, but by doing what was strange.

Were Astley to preach a sermon standing upon his head on a horse's back, he would collect a multitude to hear him; but no wise man would say he had made a better sermon for that.

I never treated Whitefield's ministry with contempt; I believe he did good. He had devoted himself to the lower classes of mankind, and among them he was of use.

Dr. Johnson may, who is uniformly exemplary in his conduct. But it is not very consistent to shun an infidel to-day, and get drunk to-morrow.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, this is sad reasoning.

Because a man cannot be right in all things, is he to be right in nothing? Because a man sometimes gets drunk, is he therefore to steal?

This doctrine would very soon bring a man to the gallows.'

JOHNSON. 'It is the last place where I should wish to travel.' BOSWELL. 'Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?' JOHNSON. '

No, Sir! Dublin is only a worse capital.

' BOSWELL. 'Is not the Giant's-Causeway worth seeing?' JOHNSON. 'Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see.'

JOHNSON. 'It is the last place where I should wish to travel.' BOSWELL. 'Should you not like to see Dublin, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir! Dublin is only a worse capital.' BOSWELL. 'Is not the Giant's-Causeway worth seeing?' JOHNSON. '

Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see.

'

Yet he had a kindness for the Irish nation, and thus generously expressed himself to a gentleman from that country, on the subject of an UNION which artful Politicians have often had in view—'

Do not make an union with us, Sir. We should unite with you, only to rob you.

We should have robbed the Scotch, if they had had any thing of which we could have robbed them.'

Of an acquaintance of ours, whose manners and every thing about him, though expensive, were coarse, he said, '

Sir, you see in him vulgar prosperity.

'

from the only companion with whom he has shared much good or evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future.

The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless, till it is driven by external causes into a new channel.

But the time of suspense is dreadful.

But still he complains of sleepless nights and idle days, and forgetfulness, or neglect of resolutions. He thus pathetically expresses himself,—'

Surely I shall not spend my whole life with my own total disapprobation.

'

There might, indeed, be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of him, "

Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night, may well be expected to be somewhat elated;

" yet he would treat theatrical matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned one evening, "I met David coming off the stage, drest in a woman's riding-hood, when he acted in The Wonder; I came full upon him, and I believe he was not pleased."'

'His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with emotion,) "

Sir, I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save Beauclerk.

"'

You do not know what a Bramin has to say for himself. In short, Sir, I have got no further than this:

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

"'

One of the company having read it aloud, Dr. Johnson said, "

Bolder words and more timorous meaning, I think never were brought together.

"

'

Greek, Sir, (said he,) is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.

'

Johnson said nothing. Garrick then ventured to observe, "I do not think that the happiest line in the praise of Shakspeare." Johnson exclaimed (smiling,) "

Prosaical rogues! next time I write, I'll make both time and space pant.

"'

'When Mr. Vesey was proposed as a member of The LITERARY CLUB, Mr. Burke began by saying that he was a man of gentle manners. "Sir, (said Johnson,) you need say no more.

When you have said a man of gentle manners; you have said enough.

"'

which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any particular person, called out, "

Are we alive after all this satire!

"'

'Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "

No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.

"'

What have you to do with Liberty and Necessity? Or what more than to hold your tongue about it? Do not doubt but I shall be most heartily glad to see you here again, for

I love every part about you but your affectation of distress.

'I have at last finished my Lives, and have laid up for you a load of copy, all out of order, so that it will amuse you a long time to set it right.

'I have at last finished my Lives, and have laid up for you a load of copy, all out of order, so that it will amuse you a long time to set it right.

Come to me, my dear Bozzy, and let us be as happy as we can.

We will go again to the Mitre, and talk old times over. I am, dear Sir, yours affectionately,

he said he was engaged to go out in the morning. 'Early, Sir?' said I. JOHNSON. '

Why, Sir, a London morning does not go with the sun.

'

there never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink wine, it was copiously.

He could practise abstinence, but not temperance.

Mrs. Thrale and I had a dispute, whether Shakspeare or Milton had drawn the most admirable picture of a man.* I was for Shakspeare; Mrs. Thrale for Milton; and after a fair hearing, Johnson decided for my opinion.

He said, 'Mrs. Montagu has dropt me.

Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.

' He certainly was vain of the society of ladies, and could make himself very agreeable to them, when he chose it; Sir Joshua Reynolds agreed with me that he could. Mr.

and as an excuse, when challenged by the chairman for such behaviour, bluntly answered, 'I had made up my mind upon that case.'—Johnson, with an indignant contempt, said, '

If he was such a rogue as to make up his mind upon a case without hearing it, he should not have been such a fool as to tell it.

' 'I think (said Mr. Dudley Long, now North,) the Doctor has pretty plainly made him out to be both rogue and fool.'

which, as it may be observed in similar cases, they carried to noisy excess. Johnson, who they expected would be ENTERTAINED, sat grave and silent for some time; at last, turning to Beauclerk, he said, by no means in a whisper, '

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

'

I saw him again on Monday evening, at which time he was not thought to be in immediate danger; but early in the morning of Wednesday, the 4th, he expired. Johnson was in the house, and thus mentions the event: '

I felt almost the last flutter of his pulse, and looked for the last time upon the face that for fifteen years had never been turned upon me but with respect and benignity.

' Upon that day there was a Call of The LITERARY CLUB; but Johnson apologised for his absence by the following note:—

and on being asked what he really considered to be the value of the property which was to be disposed of, answered, '

We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich, beyond the dreams of avarice.

'

The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as pedantry. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

'

'Bet (said he,) wrote her own Life in verse, which she brought to me, wishing that I would furnish her with a Preface to it, (laughing.)

I used to say of her that she was generally slut and drunkard; occasionally, whore and thief.

She had, however, genteel lodgings, a spinnet on which she played, and a boy that walked before her chair. Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey.

Poor Bet was taken up on a charge of stealing a counterpane, and tried at the Old Bailey. Chief Justice ———, who loved a wench, summed up favourably, and she was acquitted. After which Bet said, with a gay and satisfied air, "

Now that the counterpane is MY OWN, I shall make a petticoat of it.

"'

After this day there was another pretty long interval, during which Dr. Johnson and I did not meet. When I mentioned it to him with regret, he was pleased to say, '

Then, Sir, let us live double.

'

A singular instance happened one evening, when she insisted that some of Sterne's writings were very pathetick. Johnson bluntly denied it. 'I am sure (said she,) they have affected ME.' '

Why, (said Johnson, smiling, and rolling himself about,) that is, because, dearest, you're a dunce.

' When she some time afterwards mentioned this to him, he said with equal truth and politeness; 'Madam, if I had thought so, I certainly should not have said it.'

"I shall print no list of subscribers;" said Johnson, with great abruptness: but almost immediately recollecting himself, added, very complacently, "

Sir, I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers;—one, that I have lost all the names,—the other, that I have spent all the money.

"

He said, 'It would have hung heavy on my heart if I had not seen him. No man ever paid more attention to another than he has done to me; and I have neglected him, not wilfully, but from being otherwise occupied.

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness.

He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.'

The Sage, aware of human vicissitudes, gently checked me: 'Don't you be too sure of that.' He made two or three peculiar observations; as when shewn the botanical garden, '

Is not EVERY garden a botanical garden?

' When told that there was a shrubbery to the extent of several miles: 'That is making a very foolish use of the ground; a little of it is very well.' When it was proposed that we should walk on the pleasure-ground;

JOHNSON. 'Sir it is a very foolish resolution to resolve not to marry a pretty woman. Beauty is of itself very estimable. No, Sir, I would prefer a pretty woman, unless there are objections to her.

A pretty woman may be foolish; a pretty woman may be wicked; a pretty woman may not like me.

But there is no such danger in marrying a pretty woman as is apprehended: she will not be persecuted if she does not invite persecution. A pretty woman, if she has a mind to be wicked, can find a readier way than another;

'Fox never talks in private company; not from any determination not to talk, but because he has not the first motion. A man who is used to the applause of the House of Commons, has no wish for that of a private company.

A man accustomed to throw for a thousand pounds, if set down to throw for sixpence, would not be at the pains to count his dice.

Burke's talk is the ebullition of his mind; he does not talk from a desire of distinction, but because his mind is full.'

A man accustomed to throw for a thousand pounds, if set down to throw for sixpence, would not be at the pains to count his dice.

Burke's talk is the ebullition of his mind; he does not talk from a desire of distinction, but because his mind is full.

'

BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, can you trace the cause of your antipathy to the Scotch?' JOHNSON. 'I cannot, Sir.' BOSWELL. 'Old Mr. Sheridan says, it was because they sold Charles the First.' JOHNSON. '

Then, Sir, old Mr. Sheridan has found out a very good reason.

'

Williams's room, at tea and coffee with her and Mrs. Desmoulins, who were also both ill; it was a sad scene, and he was not in very good humour. He said of a performance that had lately come out, '

Sir, if you should search all the madhouses in England, you would not find ten men who would write so, and think it sense.

'

I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me. It is rather wonderful that so much has been done for me. All the complaints which are made of the world are unjust.

I never knew a man of merit neglected: it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success.

A man may hide his head in a hole: he may go into the country, and publish a book now and then, which nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected.

It is rather wonderful that so much has been done for me. All the complaints which are made of the world are unjust. I never knew a man of merit neglected: it was generally by his own fault that he failed of success.

A man may hide his head in a hole: he may go into the country, and publish a book now and then, which nobody reads, and then complain he is neglected.

There is no reason why any person should exert himself for a man who has written a good book: he has not written it for any individual. I may as well make a present to the postman who brings me a letter.

In the evening I came to him again. He was somewhat fretful from his illness. A gentleman asked him, whether he had been abroad to-day. 'Don't talk so childishly, (said he.)

You may as well ask if I hanged myself to-day.

' I mentioned politicks. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I'd as soon have a man to break my bones as talk to me of publick affairs, internal or external. I have lived to see things all as bad as they can be.'

Talking of an acquaintance of ours, whose narratives, which abounded in curious and interesting topicks, were unhappily found to be very fabulous; I mentioned Lord Mansfield's having said to me, 'Suppose we believe one HALF of what he tells.' JOHNSON. '

Ay; but we don't know WHICH half to believe. By his lying we lose not only our reverence for him, but all comfort in his conversation.

' BOSWELL. 'May we not take it as amusing fiction?' JOHNSON. 'Sir, the misfortune is, that you will insensibly believe as much of it as you incline to believe.'

Johnson, I know not upon what degree of investigation, entertained no exalted opinion of his Lordship's intellectual character. Talking of him to me one day, he said, '

It is wonderful, Sir, with how little real superiority of mind men can make an eminent figure in publick life.

' He expressed himself to the same purpose concerning another law-Lord, who, it seems, once took a fancy to associate with the wits of London; but with so little success, that Foote said, 'What can he mean by coming among us?

I told him I should send him some Essays which I had written, which I hoped he would be so good as to read, and pick out the good ones. JOHNSON. '

Nay, Sir, send me only the good ones; don't make ME pick them.

'

One evening when we were in the street together, and I told him I was going to sup at Mr. Beauclerk's, he said, 'I'll go with you.' After having walked part of the way, seeming to recollect something, he suddenly stopped and said, '

I cannot go,—but I do not love Beauclerk the less.

'

He observed, '

There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects.

If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, "His memory is going."'

Johnson, that he wished for some additional members to THE LITERARY CLUB, to give it an agreeable variety; for (said he,) there can now be nothing new among us: we have travelled over one another's minds. Johnson seemed a little angry, and said, '

Sir, you have not travelled over MY mind, I promise you.

' Sir Joshua, however, thought Goldsmith right; observing, that 'when people have lived a great deal together, they know what each of them will say on every subject. A new understanding, therefore, is desirable;

for when he once told me that he dined the day before at a friend's house, with 'a very pretty company;' and I asked him if there was good conversation, he answered, '

No, Sir; we had TALK enough, but no CONVERSATION; there was nothing DISCUSSED.

'

and when I asked for it again, seemed to be rather out of humour. A droll little circumstance once occurred: as if he meant to reprimand my minute exactness as a creditor, he thus addressed me;—'

Boswell, LEND me sixpence—NOT TO BE REPAID.

'

Mr. Morgann* argued with him directly, in vain. At length he had recourse to this device. 'Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you reckon Derrick or Smart the best poet?' Johnson at once felt himself roused; and answered, '

Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.

'

He would not allow Mr. David Hume any credit for his political principles, though similar to his own; saying of him, '

Sir, he was a Tory by chance.

'

His acute observation of human life made him remark, '

Sir, there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying a superiour ability or brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at the time; but their envy makes them curse him in their hearts.

'

Langton, of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, '

But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.

'

it is a tale told. Gravina, an Italian critick, observes, that every man desires to see that of which he has read; but no man desires to read an account of what he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality.

Description only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it.

Other people may go and see the Hebrides.' BOSWELL. 'I should wish to go and see some country totally different from what I have been used to; such as Turkey, where religion and every thing else are different.' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir;

that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there.' JOHNSON. 'That, Sir, is about three a day.' BOSWELL. 'How your statement lessens the idea.' JOHNSON. '

That, Sir, is the good of counting. It brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely.

'

and you may have the early apples and pears.' BOSWELL. 'We cannot have nonpareils.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you can no more have nonpareils than you can have grapes.' BOSWELL. 'We have them, Sir; but they are very bad.' JOHNSON. '

Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing merely to shew that you CANNOT have it.

From ground that would let for forty shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground when the trees are grown up; you cannot while they are young.' BOSWELL.

Garrick's funeral was talked of as extravagantly expensive. Johnson, from his dislike to exaggeration, would not allow that it was distinguished by any extraordinary pomp. 'Were there not six horses to each coach?' said Mrs. Burney. JOHNSON. '

Madam, there were no more six horses than six phoenixes.

'

SEWARD. 'One should think that sickness and the view of death would make more men religious.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, they do not know how to go about it: they have not the first notion.

A man who has never had religion before, no more grows religious when he is sick, than a man who has never learnt figures can count when he has need of calculation.

'

It has been said, there is pleasure in writing, particularly in writing verses. I allow you may have pleasure from writing, after it is over, if you have written well; but you don't go willingly to it again.

I know when I have been writing verses, I have run my finger down the margin, to see how many I had made, and how few I had to make.

'

On Thursday, May 1, I visited him in the evening along with young Mr. Burke. He said, '

It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing.

People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them. There must be an external impulse; emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it.

but I was not VEXED.' BOSWELL. 'I declare, Sir, upon my honour, I did imagine I was vexed, and took a pride in it; but it WAS, perhaps, cant; for I own I neither ate less, nor slept less.' JOHNSON. '

My dear friend, clear your MIND of cant.

You may TALK as other people do: you may say to a man, "Sir, I am your most humble servant." You are not his most humble servant. You may say, "These are bad times; it is a melancholy thing to be reserved to such times."

Another day I spoke of one of our friends, of whom he, as well as I, had a very high opinion. He expatiated in his praise; but added, '

Sir, he is a cursed Whig, a BOTTOMLESS Whig, as they all are now.

'

JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir. Why do you speak here? Either to instruct and entertain, which is a benevolent motive; or for distinction, which is a selfish motive.' I mentioned Cecilia. JOHNSON. (with an air of animated satisfaction,) '

Sir, if you talk of Cecilia, talk on.

'

I asked whether a man naturally virtuous, or one who has overcome wicked inclinations, is the best. JOHNSON. 'Sir, to YOU, the man who has overcome wicked inclinations is not the best. He has more merit to HIMSELF:

I would rather trust my money to a man who has no hands, and so a physical impossibility to steal, than to a man of the most honest principles.

There is a witty satirical story of Foote. He had a small bust of Garrick placed upon his bureau. "You may be surprized (said he,) that I allow him to be so near my gold;—but you will observe he has no hands."'

He said, 'Get as much force of mind as you can.

Live within your income. Always have something saved at the end of the year. Let your imports be more than your exports, and you'll never go far wrong.

I assured him, that in the extensive and various range of his acquaintance there never had been any one who had a more sincere respect and affection for him than I had. He said, 'I believe it, Sir.

He said, 'I believe it, Sir. Were I in distress, there is no man to whom I should sooner come than to you.

I should like to come and have a cottage in your park, toddle about, live mostly on milk, and be taken care of by Mrs. Boswell.

She and I are good friends now; are we not?'

I am not an uncandid, nor am I a severe man. I sometimes say more than I mean, in jest; and people are apt to believe me serious: however, I am more candid than I was when I was younger.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man A GOOD MAN, upon easier terms than I was formerly.

"'

'Mrs. Siddons, in her visit to me, behaved with great modesty and propriety, and left nothing behind her to be censured or despised.

Neither praise nor money, the two powerful corrupters of mankind, seem to have depraved her.

I shall be glad to see her again. Her brother Kemble calls on me, and pleases me very well. Mrs. Siddons and I talked of plays; and she told me her intention of exhibiting this winter the characters of Constance, Catharine, and Isabella, in Shakspeare.'

A true conception of character, and natural expression of it, were his distinguished excellencies." Having expatiated, with his usual force and eloquence, on Mr. Garrick's extraordinary eminence as an actor, he concluded with this compliment to his social talents: "

And after all, Madam, I thought him less to be envied on the stage than at the head of a table.

"'

'I could not have the consent of the physicians to go to church yesterday; I therefore received the holy sacrament at home, in the room where I communicated with dear Mrs. Williams, a little before her death.

O! my friend, the approach of death is very dreadful.

I am afraid to think on that which I know I cannot avoid. It is vain to look round and round for that help which cannot be had. Yet we hope and hope, and fancy that he who has lived to-day may live to-morrow.

'

In the mean time, let us be kind to one another.

I have no friend now living but you and Mr. Hector, that was the friend of my youth. Do not neglect, dear Sir, yours affectionately,

Johnson would make one a fool all one's life;' and that I answered, 'Madam, I shall make him a fool to-day, by repeating this to him,' he said, '

I am too old to be made a fool; but if you say I am made a fool, I shall not deny it. I am much pleased with a compliment, especially from a pretty woman.

'

His anger burst out in an unjustifiable retort, insinuating that the gentleman's remark was a sally of ebriety; '

Sir, there is one passion I would advise you to command: when you have drunk out that glass, don't drink another.

' Here was exemplified what Goldsmith said of him, with the aid of a very witty image from one of Cibber's Comedies: 'There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.'

'Sir, there is one passion I would advise you to command: when you have drunk out that glass, don't drink another.' Here was exemplified what Goldsmith said of him, with the aid of a very witty image from one of Cibber's Comedies: '

There is no arguing with Johnson; for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.

' Another was this: when a gentleman of eminence in the literary world was violently censured for attacking people by anonymous paragraphs in news-papers;

One of the company mentioned his having seen a noble person driving in his carriage, and looking exceedingly well, notwithstanding his great age. JOHNSON. 'Ah, Sir; that is nothing.

Bacon observes, that a stout healthy old man is like a tower undermined.

'

and said, with heat, 'How can a man know WHERE his departed friends are, or whether they will be his friends in the other world? How many friendships have you known formed upon principles of virtue?

Most friendships are formed by caprice or by chance, mere confederacies in vice or leagues in folly.

'

We talked of our worthy friend Mr. Langton. He said, '

I know not who will go to Heaven if Langton does not.

Sir, I could almost say, Sit anima mea cum Langtono.' I mentioned a very eminent friend as a virtuous man. JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but ——— has not the evangelical virtue of Langton. ———, I am afraid, would not scruple to pick up a wench.'

And when I questioned him what occasion I had given for such an animadversion, all that he could say amounted to this,—that I sometimes contradicted people in conversation.

Now what harm does it do to any man to be contradicted?

' BOSWELL. 'I suppose he meant the MANNER of doing it; roughly,—and harshly.' JOHNSON. 'And who is the worse for that?' BOSWELL. 'It hurts people of weak nerves.' JOHNSON. 'I know no such weak-nerved people.' Mr.

BOSWELL. 'I suppose he meant the MANNER of doing it; roughly,—and harshly.' JOHNSON. 'And who is the worse for that?' BOSWELL. 'It hurts people of weak nerves.' JOHNSON. 'I know no such weak-nerved people.' Mr. Burke, to whom I related this conference, said, '

It is well, if when a man comes to die, he has nothing heavier upon his conscience than having been a little rough in conversation.

'

Miss Williams told me, that the only other time she was fortunate enough to be in Dr. Johnson's company, he asked her to sit down by him, which she did, and upon her inquiring how he was, he answered, '

I am very ill indeed, Madam. I am very ill even when you are near me; what should I be were you at a distance?

'

He talked a great deal, but I am sorry I have preserved little of the conversation. Miss Beresford was so much charmed, that she said to me aside, '

How he does talk! Every sentence is an essay.

' She amused herself in the coach with knotting; he would scarcely allow this species of employment any merit. 'Next to mere idleness (said he,) I think knotting is to be reckoned in the scale of insignificance; though I once attempted to learn knotting.

The ladies I saw wondered to see the great philosopher, whose wisdom and wit they had been admiring all the way, get into ill-humour from such a cause. He scolded the waiter, saying, '

It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.

'

Our ladies endeavoured to defend their sex from this charge; but he roared them down! 'No, no, a lady will take Jonathan Wild as readily as St. Austin, if he has threepence more; and, what is worse, her parents will give her to him.

Women have a perpetual envy of our vices; they are less vicious than we, not from choice, but because we restrict them;

they are the slaves of order and fashion; their virtue is of more consequence to us than our own, so far as concerns this world.'

Johnson, were not lost upon him. She happened to tell him that a little coffeepot, in which she had made his coffee, was the only thing she could call her own. He turned to her with a complacent gallantry, '

Don't say so, my dear; I hope you don't reckon my heart as nothing.

'

Yet, Sir, many people who might have been benefited by your conversation, have been frightened away. A worthy friend of ours has told me, that he has often been afraid to talk to you.' JOHNSON. '

Sir, he need not have been afraid, if he had any thing rational to say. If he had not, it was better he did not talk.

'

for merit of every sort was entitled to reward. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I will not allow this man to have merit. No, Sir; what he has is rather the contrary; I will, indeed, allow him courage, and on this account we so far give him credit.

We have more respect for a man who robs boldly on the highway, than for a fellow who jumps out of a ditch, and knocks you down behind your back.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.'

We have more respect for a man who robs boldly on the highway, than for a fellow who jumps out of a ditch, and knocks you down behind your back.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

'

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.

'

Upon his mentioning that when he came to College he wrote his first exercise twice over; but never did so afterwards; MISS ADAMS. 'I suppose, Sir, you could not make them better?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Madam, to be sure, I could make them better.

Thought is better than no thought.

' MISS ADAMS. 'Do you think, Sir, you could make your Ramblers better?' JOHNSON. 'Certainly I could.' BOSWELL. 'I'll lay a bet, Sir, you cannot.' JOHNSON. 'But I will, Sir, if I choose. I shall make the best of them you shall pick out, better.'

such a disposition should be cultivated in the shade.

Placing him at a publick school is forcing an owl upon day.

'

A dull country magistrate gave Johnson a long tedious account of his exercising his criminal jurisdiction, the result of which was his having sentenced four convicts to transportation. Johnson, in an agony of impatience to get rid of such a companion, exclaimed, '

I heartily wish, Sir, that I were a fifth.

'

'

Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.

'

Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman; his opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling manner, happened to say, 'I don't understand you, Sir:' upon which Johnson observed, '

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

'

Johnson agreed with him; and Sir Joshua having also observed that the real character of a man was found out by his amusements,—Johnson added, '

Yes, Sir; no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

'

The difference, he observed, between a well-bred and an ill-bred man is this: 'One immediately attracts your liking, the other your aversion.

You love the one till you find reason to hate him; you hate the other till you find reason to love him.

'

He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style; for when he had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into it. Talking of the Comedy of The Rehearsal, he said, '

It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.

' This was easy; he therefore caught himself, and pronounced a more round sentence; 'It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.'

Talking of the Comedy of The Rehearsal, he said, 'It has not wit enough to keep it sweet.' This was easy; he therefore caught himself, and pronounced a more round sentence; '

It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction.

'

He observed one day of a passage in them, 'I think I might as well have said this myself:' and once when Mr. Langton was sitting by him, he read one of them very eagerly, and expressed himself thus:—'

Very well, Master Reynolds; very well, indeed. But it will not be understood.

'

he said, '

Painting, Sir, can illustrate, but cannot inform.

'

Baldwin's printing-house, composed a part of the first edition of this work concerning him. By producing the manuscript, he at once satisfied Dr. Johnson that he was not to blame. Upon which Johnson candidly and earnestly said to him, '

Mr. Compositor, I ask your pardon. Mr. Compositor, I ask your pardon, again and again.

'

but to little purpose were they lighted, for most of them completely failed.

The authour of The Rambler, however, may be considered, on this occasion, as the ringleader of a successful riot, though not as a skilful pyrotechnist.

'

… find every one else in black, received the intelligence with a profusion of thanks, hastened to change his attire, all the while repeating his gratitude for the information that had saved him from an appearance so improper in the front row of a front box.

"I would not (added he,) for ten pounds, have seemed so retrograde to any general observance."

'He would sometimes found his dislikes on very slender circumstances. Happening one day to mention Mr. Flexman, a Dissenting Minister, with some compliment to his exact memory in chronological matters; the Doctor replied, "Let me hear no more of him, Sir.

'He would sometimes found his dislikes on very slender circumstances. Happening one day to mention Mr. Flexman, a Dissenting Minister, with some compliment to his exact memory in chronological matters; the Doctor replied,

"Let me hear no more of him, Sir. That is the fellow who made the Index to my Ramblers, and set down the name of Milton thus: Milton, MR. John."

'

I have mentioned what Johnson said of him to me when he was at the bar; and after his Lordship was advanced to the seals, he said of him,

'I would prepare myself for no man in England but Lord Thurlow. When I am to meet with him I should wish to know a day before.'

How he would have prepared himself I cannot conjecture. Would he have selected certain topicks, and considered them in every view so as to be in readiness to argue them at all points? and what may we suppose those topicks to have been?

I recollect nothing that passed this day, except Johnson's quickness, who, when Dr. Beattie observed, as something remarkable which had happened to him, that he had chanced to see both No. 1, and No. 1000, of the hackney-coaches, the first and the last;

'Why, Sir, (said Johnson,) there is an equal chance for one's seeing those two numbers as any other two.'

On Friday, June 25, I dined with him at General Paoli's, where, he says in one of his letters to Mrs. Thrale, 'I love to dine.'

Eliot, of Port Eliot,) Dr. Beattie, and some other company. Talking of Lord Chesterfield;—JOHNSON. 'His manner was exquisitely elegant, and he had more knowledge than I expected.' BOSWELL. 'Did you find, Sir, his conversation to be of a superiour style?' JOHNSON.

'Sir, in the conversation which I had with him I had the best right to superiority, for it was upon philology and literature.'

Lord Eliot, who had travelled at the same time with Mr.

Besides, ridicule is not your talent; you have THERE neither intuition nor sagacity.' The gentleman protested that he had intended no improper freedom, but had the greatest respect for Dr. Johnson. After a short pause, during which we were somewhat uneasy,—JOHNSON.

'Give me your hand, Sir. You were too tedious, and I was too short.'

Mr. *****. 'Sir, I am honoured by your attention in any way.' JOHNSON. 'Come, Sir, let's have no more of it. We offended one another by our contention; let us not offend the company by our compliments.'

Johnson. After a short pause, during which we were somewhat uneasy,—JOHNSON. 'Give me your hand, Sir. You were too tedious, and I was too short.' Mr. *****. 'Sir, I am honoured by your attention in any way.' JOHNSON.

'Come, Sir, let's have no more of it. We offended one another by our contention; let us not offend the company by our compliments.'

He now said, 'He wished much to go to Italy, and that he dreaded passing the winter in England.' I said nothing; but enjoyed a secret satisfaction in thinking that I had taken the most effectual measures to make such a scheme practicable.

Johnson's merit. But it will be necessary, if I should be so unfortunate as to miss seeing you, to converse with Sir Joshua on the sum it will be proper to ask,—in short, upon the means of setting him out.

It would be a reflection on us all, if such a man should perish for want of the means to take care of his health.

Yours, &c.