knowledge and richness of expression; but Johnson always seized upon the conversation, in which, however, he acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very great that night: Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have wished to hear more from another person (plainly intimating that he meant Mr. Burke). '0, no,' said Mr. Burke, it is enough for me to have rung the bell to him.'

6

"Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was awkward at counting money; 'Why, Sir,' said Johnson, I am likewise awkward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason is plain; I have had very little money to count.'

"He had an abhorrence of affectation.

Talking of old Mr. Langton, of whom he said, 'Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his exemplary life;' he added, 'and, Sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions: he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality.'

"Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, Pray, Sir, don't leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to

exist.'

"Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to him with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, I shall soon be in better chambers than these.' Johnson at the same time checked him and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of his talents should be

above attention to such distinctions,-Nay, Sir, never mind that: Nil te quæsiveris extra."

"At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble literary ambition, Had this happened twenty years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabick, as Pococke did.'

"As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West's translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passages as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general dignity which should prevail :

"Down then from thy glittering nail,

Take, O Muse, thy Dorian lyre.'

6

"When Mr. Vesey (1) 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.'

"The late Mr. Fitzherbert told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.'

"My dear friend, Dr. Bathurst,' said he, with a warmth of approbation, declared he was glad that his father, who was a West India planter, had left his affairs in total ruin, because, having no estate, he was not under the temptation of having slaves.'

"Richardson had little conversation, except about his own works, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad to have them introduced. Johnson, when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this allusive expression, Sir, I can

(1) The Right Hon. Agmondesham Vesey was elected a member of the Literary Club in 1773, and died August 11th, 1786.-M.

make him rear.' But he failed; for in that interview Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German.

"Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in for a share, Pray,' said he, let us have it read aloud from beginning to end; 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?'

6

"He had a strong prejudice against the political character of Secker, one instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the old-established toast, Church and king.'The Archbishop of Canterbury,' said he, with an affected, smooth, smiling grimace, drinks, Constitution in church and state." Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, he said, 'Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant something.' Yet when the life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton, his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost avidity, and said, 'It is a life well written, and that well deserves to be recorded.'

"Of a certain noble lord (1), he said, ' Respect him you could not; for he had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for that which you could do with him every one else could.'

"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.'

"He told, in his lively manner, the following literary anecdote:- Green and Guthrie, an Irishman and a

(1) See antè, p. 365., an allusion to probably the same over civil lord.-C.

Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde's History of China. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde's History of China. In this translation there was found, "the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.' Now, as the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon, instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. The blunder arose from their mistaking the word neuvième, ninth, for nouvelle, or neuve, new.'

"Talking of Dr. Blagden's (1) copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said, ' Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow.'

"On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of The False Alarm,' there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes). Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with Mr. Langton, mentioned a particular or two, which, if he had replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, Do you consider, Sir, that a house of commons is to the people as a creature is to its Creator?' To this question,' said Dr. Johnson, 'I could have replied, that, in the first place, the idea of a Creator must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature. Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its Creator.' (2)

(1) Afterwards Sir Charles Blagden. Hannah More's account of him is, "Doctor Blagden is Secretary to the Royal Society, so modest, so sensible, and so knowing, that he exemplifies Pope's line, "Willing to teach, and yet not proud to know."" Life, Vol. II. p. 98. — C.

(2) His profound adoration of the Great First Cause was such as to set him above that "philosophy and vain deceit" with which men of narrow conceptions have been infected. I have heard him strongly maintain that "what is right is not so

6

"Depend upon it,' said he, that if a man talks of his misfortunes, there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.'

"A man must be a poor beast, that should read no more in quantity than he could utter aloud.'

"Imlac, in Rasselas,' I spelt with a c at the end, because it is less like English, which should always have the Saxon k added to the c.' (1)

"Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized a person (2), of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually : had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved."

"He apprehended that the delineation of characters in the end of the first book of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand' was the first instance of the kind that was known.

6

"Supposing,' said he, a wife to be of a studious or argumentative turn, it would be very troublesome for instance, if a woman should continually dwell upon the subject of the Arian heresy.'

"No man speaks concerning another, even suppose it to be in his praise, if he thinks he does not hear

and it is certainly so, because he has predisposed the relations of things so, as that which he wills must be right.

(1) I hope the authority of the great master of our language will stop that curtailing innovation by which we see critic, public, &c. frequently written instead of critick, publick, &c.—B.Why should we not retrench an obvious superfluity? In the preceding age, public and critic were written publique and critique. Johnson himself, in a memorandum among Mr. Anderdon's papers, dated in 1784, writes "cubic feet." C.

(2) Johnson had, no doubt, his poor friend Smart in his recollection: see antè, Vol. II. p. 170.