recollect, that you fet out with attacking the Scotch; fo you got a whole nation for your enemies."-JOHNSON. 66 Why, I own, that by my definition of oats I meant to vex them." -BOSWELL. "Pray, Sir, can you trace the caufe of your antipathy to the Scotch ?"7. "I cannot, Sir."-B. " Old Mr. Sheridan fays, it was because they fold Charles the Firft."-7." Then, Sir, old Mr. Sheridan found out a very good reason."

He once took occafion to enlarge on the advantages of reading, and combated the idle fuperficial notion, that knowledge enough may be acquired in conversation. "The foundation (faid he) must be laid by reading. General principles must be had from books, which, however, must be brought to the test of real life. In converfation you never get a fyftem. What is faid upon a subject is to be gathered from a hundred people: The parts of a truth which a man gets thus are at fuch a distance from each other, that he never attains to a full view.".

His acute obfervation of human life made him remark, "that there was nothing by which a man exafperated most people more, than by displaying a fuperior ability or brilliancy in converfation. They feem pleased at the

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the time; but their envy makes them curfe him in their hearts."

"Having once vifited him on a Good Friday (fays Mr. B.), and finding that we infenfibly fell into a train of ridicule upon the 'foibles of one of our friends, a very worthy man; I, by way of a check, quoted fome good admonition from "The Government of the Tongue," that very pious book. It happened alfo remarkably enough, that the fubject of the fermon preached to us by Dr. Burrows, the rector of St. Clement Danes, was, the certainty that at the laft day we must give an account of "the deeds done in the body;" and, amongst various acts of culpability, he mentioned evilfpeaking. As we were moving flowly along in the croud from church, Johnson jogged my elbow, and faid, "Did you attend to the fermon?"-" Yes, Sir (faid I), it was very applicable to us." He, however, ftood upon the defenfive." Why, Sir, the fense of ridicule is given us, and may be lawfully ufed. The author of The Government of the Tongue' would have us treat all men alike."

"To be contradicted (he obferved) in order to force you to talk, is mighty unpleafing, You fine, indeed; but it is by being ground."

Mr.

Mr. Bofwell one day unguardedly faid to Dr. J. "I wish I could fee you and Mrs. Macaulay together." He grew very angry; and, after a paufe, while a cloud gathered on his brow, he burft out, "No, Sir; you would not fee us quarrel to make you sport. Don't you know that it is very uncivil to pit two people against one another?" Then, checking himself, and wifhing to be more gentle, he added, "I do not fay you should be hanged or drowned for this; but it is very uncivil." Dr. Taylor (who was prefent) thought him in the wrong, and spoke to him privately of it; " yet (fays Mr. B.) I afterwards acknowledged to Johnson that I was to blame; for I candidly owned, that I meant to exprefs a defire to fee a conteft between Mrs. Macaulay and him; but then I knew how the conteft would end; fo that I was to fee him triumph."-JOHNSON. «Sir, you cannot be fure how a contest will end; and no man has a right to engage two people in a dispute by which their paffions may be inflamed, and they may part with bitter refentment against each other. I would fooner keep company with a man from whom I must guard my pockets, than with a man who contrives to bring me into a difpute with fomebody that he may hear it. This is the great fault

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fault of, (naming one of our friends) endeavouring to introduce a subject upon which he knows two people in the company differ." -B. "But he told me, Sir, he docs it for instruction."-7. "Whatever the motive be, Sir, the man who does fo does very wrong. He has no more right to inftruct himself at fuch risk, than he has to make two people fight a duel, that he may learn how to defend himself."

Mr. B. ventured to mention a ludicrous paragraph in the news-papers, that Dr. J. was learning to dance of Veftris. Lord, Charlemont, wifhing to excite him to talk, propofed in a whifper, that he should be asked, whether it was true. "Shall I ask him?" faid his Lordship. A great majority were for making the experiment. Upon which his Lordship very gravely, and with a courteous air, faid, "Pray, Sir, is it true that you are taking leffons of Veftris ?" This was rifking a good deal, and required the boldness of a General of Irish Volunteers to make the attempt. Johnson was at firft ftartled, and in fome heat answered, "How can your Lordfhip afk fo fimple a queftion ?" But immediately recovering himself, whether from unwillingness to be deceived, or to appear deceived, or whether from real good humour, he

kept

kept up the joke:

Nay, but if any body

were to answer the paragraph, and contradict it, I'd have a reply, and would fay, that he who contradicted it was no friend either to Veftris or me. For why fhould not Dr. Johnson add to his other powers a little corporeal agility? Socrates learnt to dance at an advanced age, and Cato learnt Greek at an advanced age. Then it might proceed to fay, that this Johnson, not content with dancing on the ground, might dance on the rope; and they might introduce the elephant dancing on the rope. A nobleman wrote a play, called Love in a Hollow Tree,' He found out that it was a bad one, and therefore wifhed to buy up all the copies, and burn them. The Duchefs of Marlborough had kept one; and when he was against her at an election, she had a new edition of it printed, and prefixed to it, as a frontifpiece, an elephant dancing on a rope; to fhew, that his Lordship's writing comedy was as awkward as an elephant dancing on a rope.

Johnfon was, at a certain period of his life, a good deal with the Earl of Shelburne, now Marquis of Lanfdown.

Maurice Morgan, Efq. author of the "Effay on the Character of Falstaff," being a particular friend of his Lordfhip, had once an op

portunity