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The words were not much stronger than Johnson's retorts often were; but the tone in which he spoke them seems to have been unusually offensive, for Percy was hurt, and shortly afterwards left the room.

The fact will not disguise, that our Author was not always very courteous in his manner of arguing a man down. When angered by opposition he would sometimes close the debate thus: "Sir, you don't see your way through that question:" or, "Sir, you talk the language of ignorance." Goldsmith used to say—applying to the Doctor the witty words of Colley Cibber: "There is no arguing with Johnson; for, when his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it." But then, it is wonderful how seldom the pistol misses fire, considering the number of times he shot and the rapidity with which he often had to load his piece. We do not, however, claim perfection for our Author; we admit his fallibility: and, as he himself says, "a fallible man will fail somewhere.”

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CHAPTER XVIII

CONVERSATIONS-GENERAL PAOLI INTRODUCED-BOSWELL AN OFFENDER-JOHNSON'S "PECCAVI."

(1769.)

PART of the summer of 1769 Johnson spent at Oxford and Lichfield, and in the autumn we find him at Brighton with the Thrales. On his return to town, his friends, as usual, gathered round him evening after evening; and the intellectual feast was again spread before them. His conversation about this time was brilliant beyond comparison with anything we have yet set before the reader.

September 30th: The Mitre Tavern.

Boswell, to set Johnson a-talking, argued for the superior happiness of the savage life.

I

JOHNSON: "Sir, there can be nothing more false. The savages have no bodily advantages beyond those of civilised men. They have not better health; and as to care or mental uneasiness, they are not above it, but below it, like bears. No, Sir; you are not to talk such paradox: let me have no more on't. It cannot entertain, far less can it instruct. Lord Monboddo, one of your Scotch judges, talked a great deal of such nonsense. 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: "Is it wrong, then, Sir, to affect singularity, in

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order to make people stare?"-JOHNSON: "Yes, if you do it by propagating error; and, indeed, it is wrong in any way. There is in human nature a general inclination to make people stare; and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does cure himself. If you wish to make people stare by doing better than others, why, make them stare till they stare their eyes out. But consider how easy it is to make people stare by being absurd. I may do it by going into a drawing-room without my shoes.

You remember the gentleman in 'The Spectator,' who had a commission of lunacy taken out against him for his extreme singularity, such as never wearing a wig, but a night-cap. Now, Sir, abstractedly, the night-cap was best: but, relatively, the advantage was overbalanced by his making the boys run after him."

Speaking of London :

JOHNSON: "The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit, than in all the rest of the kingdom."BOSWELL: "The only disadvantage is the great distance at which people live from one another."-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 desert."-JOHNSON: "Sir, you have desert enough in Scotland."

Boswell, being about to marry, was very anxious to get his friend to lighten up by his wisdom and experience the dark future of the prospective relationship. But Johnson did not seem inclined to say much to-night; although at other times he was very ready to speak on this as on most other subjects of sublunary interest. When told once of a gentleman who, although his first marriage had proved a mistake, had nevertheless made a second immediately on the death of his first wife, Johnson said: "It was the triumph of love over experience." On another occasion, he had observed that a man of sense and education should seek a suitable companion in a wife. "It was a miserable thing when the

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conversation could only be such as, whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that." All this and much more he had been got to say upon other occasions; but this evening the intending bridegroom could draw out only the following, in reply to a remark of his that he had censured an acquaintance for marrying a second time on the ground of the implied disrespect to the memory of his first wife :

JOHNSON: "Not at all, Sir. On the contrary, were he not to marry again, it might be concluded that his first wife had given. him a disgust to marriage; but by taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time."

But this about second marriages is not much to the point when an anxious man yearns to know if he ought to marry once. "To the man whose mouth is watering for a peach, it is of no use to offer the largest vegetable marrow."

October 6th: Streatham Villa-MR. THRALE'S Country

Residence.

Boswell observed that England was obliged to Scotland for gardeners, almost all the good gardeners being Scotchmen.

JOHNSON: "Why, Sir, that is because gardening is much more. necessary amongst you than with us, which makes so many of your people learn it. It is all gardening with you. Things which grow wild here, must be cultivated with great care in Scotland. Pray, now [throwing himself back in his chair and laughing], are you ever able to bring the sloe to perfection ?"

Mrs. Thrale disputed with the Doctor about Prior; she defending that naughty poet. Johnson took the opposite side, of course; said he wrote of love like a man who had never felt it, and recited one of his songs in such a funny way that all except Mrs. Thrale were made to wonder how they could ever have admired such stuff. The lady, however, stood to her guns manfully, until Johnson, who could only trifle for a limited period,

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closed the debate with: "My dear lady, talk no more of this. Nonsense can be defended but by nonsense."

Mrs. Thrale then fell a-praising Garrick's talents for light gay poetry; and quoted, as a typical specimen, one of his songs, dwelling fondly on this line :

"I'd smile with the simple, and feed with the poor."

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."

This is most exquisite fooling.

October 10th: The Doctor's House.

THIS day beheld the presentation of General Paoli, the Corsican Patriot, to our Author. It was altogether a courtly scene, half-humorous in its stateliness. The General spoke Italian, and Johnson spoke English, Boswell acting as interpreter whenever need arose. When the Doctor approached, Paoli (by way of military salute) said: "From what I have read of your works, Sir, and from what Mr. Boswell has told me of you, I have long held you in great veneration." The General then talked of languages, and the impossibility of translating the spirit of one lan- . guage into another tongue. Johnson replied, with a courtesy that would have done honour to the manners of Lord Chesterfield himself: "Sir, you talk of language, as if you had never done anything else but study it, instead of governing a nation." The General said, "Questo è 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."

This delicious interchange of civilities being over, the conversation became general. Paoli asked what Johnson thought about the prevailing infidelity.

JOHNSON: "Sir, this gloom of infidelity, I hope, is only a transient cloud passing through the hemisphere, which will soon be dissipated, and the sun break forth with his usual splendour."PAOLI "You think, then, that they will change their principles