THE true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.-Johnson, 609.

JOHNSON. "Well, sir, Ramsay gave us a splendid dinner. I love Ramsay. You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and more elegance, than in Ramsay's."-Boswell. What I admire in Ramsay is his continuing to be so young."-Johnson. "Why, yes, sir, it is to be admired. I value myself upon this, that there is nothing of the old man in my conversation. I am now sixty-eight, and I have no more of it than at twenty-eight . . ." He added, "I think myself a very polite man."-Boswell, 610.

HE is not a pleasant man. His conversation is neither instructive nor brilliant. He does not talk as if impelled by any fulness of knowledge or vivacity of imagination. His conversation is like that of any other sensible man. He talks with no wish either to inform or to hear, but only because he think sit does not become [Dr. Robertson] to sit in a company and say nothing.-Johnson, 611.

BOSWELL. "I have been at work for you to-day, sir; I have been with Lord Marchmont. He bade me tell you he has a great respect for you, and will call on you to-morrow at one o'clock, and communicate all he knows about Pope."-Johnson. "I shall not be in town to-morrow. I don't care to know about Pope."-Mrs. Thrale (surprised 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." [Boswell's intervention in this affair, unsolicited and unauthorised, exhibits the bustling vanity of his own character, and Johnson was unwilling to be dragged before Lord Marchmont by so headstrong a master of the ceremonies.-Croker.] -Boswell, 618.

I KNOW nothing more offensive than repeating what one knows to be foolish things, by way of continuing a dispute, to see what a man will answer to make him your buttJohnson, 615.

LOOKING at Messrs. Dilly's splendid edition of Lord Chesterfield's miscellaneous works, Johnson laughed, and said, "Here are, now, two speeches ascribed to him, both of which were written by me; and the best of it is, they have found out that one is like Demosthenes, and the other like Cicero."

-Boswell.

THE French are a gross, ill-bred, untaught people: a lady

there will spit on the floor, and rub it with her foot. What I gained by being in France was learning to be better satisfied with my own country. Time may be employed to more advantage from nineteen to twenty-four almost in any way than in travelling.-Johnson, 616.

I THINK "Candide has more power in it than anything that Voltaire has written. The lyrical part of Horace never can be perfectly translated; so much of the excellence is in the numbers and expression. Francis has done it the best. I'll take his, five out of six, against them all.-617.

I SHALL do what I can for Dr. Watts; but my materials are very scanty. His poems are by no means his best works. I cannot praise his poetry itself highly, but I can praise its design.-618.

THERE is but one solid basis of happiness, and that is the reasonable hope of a happy futurity. This may be had everywhere. I do not blame your preference to London to other places, for it is really to be preferred if the choice is free; but few have the choice of their place or their manner of life; and mere pleasure ought not to be the prime motive of action. Mrs. Thrale, poor thing, has a daughter. Mr. Thrale dislikes the times, like the rest of us. Mrs. Williams is sick; Mrs. Desmoulins is poor. I have miserable nights. Nobody is well but Mr. Levett. I am, dear sir, your most, &c., SAM. JOHNSON. (To Boswell), 619.

WILLIAMS hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll [Miss Carmichael.-Boswell. I have not learned how this lady was connected with Dr. Johnson. It would seem from Madame D'Arblay's acount that she was invited to enliven the gloom of Bolt-court, but did not in that respect answer Johnson's expectations. It was no doubt his domestic experience which prompted his complimentary exclamation to Hannah More and her four sisters. "What! five women live happily together!" "More's Life," vol. I., p. 67.-Croker.] loves none of them. -620.

JOHNSON this year (1778) expressed great satisfaction at the publication of the first volume of Discourses to the Royal Academy," by Sir Joshua Reynolds, whom he always considered as one of his literary school. Much praise, indeed, is due to those excellent Discourses, which are so universally admired, and for which the author received from the Empress of Russia a gold snuff-box, adorned with her profile in basrelief, set in diamonds, and containing, what is infinitely

more valuable, a slip of paper, on which are written, with her imperial majesty's own hand, the following words:" Pour le Chevalier Reynolds, en témoignage du contentement que j'ai ressentie à la lecture de ses excellens Discours sur la Peinture."Boswell, 621.

I GOT my "Lives," not yet quite printed, put neatly together, and sent them to the king: what he says of them I know not. If the king is a Whig he will not like them; but is any king a Whig? King George IV. told me of his having once made a somewhat similar observation to Mr. Fox, who in their earlier days happened to propose something that would be "worthy of a Whig prince." "Yes," replied the prince, who did not like the proposition, "but do you think that there will ever be a Whig king?"-Croker.]-Johnson, 623.

HE said he expected to be attacked on account of his "Lives of the Poets." 66 However," said he, "I would rather be attacked than unnoticed; for the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.-Boswell, 624.

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."-Johnson.

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. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained. And yet as in all pleasure hope is a considerable part, I know not but fruition comes too quick by brandy.-627.

I REMINDED him how heartily he and I used to drink wine together, when we were first acquainted; and how I used to have a headache after sitting up with him. He did not like to have this recalled; or, perhaps, thinking that 1 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."-Boswell.

TO BE contradicted in order to force you to talk is mighty unpleasing. You shine, indeed; but it is by being ground.Johnson, 629.

I MENTIONED that Mr. Wilkes had attacked Garrick to me, as a man who had no friend.-Johnson. "1 believe he is right, sir. He had friends, but no friend. Garrick was so diffused,

he had no man to whom he wished to unbosom himself. Many men would not be content to live so. I hope I should not. They would wish to have an intimate friend, with whom they might compare minds, and cherish private virtues." 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. 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." I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick in his "Lives of the Poets." "You say, sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations."-Johnson. "I could not have said more or less. It is the truth; eclipsed, not extinguished; and his death did eclipse: it was like a storm."-Boswell. "But why nations? Did his gaiety extend further than his own nation ?"-Johnson. "Why, sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said, if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, and to have gaiety—which they have not. You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful."-Boswell.

"One

A CELEBRATED wit being mentioned, Johnson said, may say of him, as was said of a French wit, Il n'a de l'esprit que contre Dieu.'"

JOHNSON's first question, as he told Sir. J. Hawkins, was, "What kind of a man was Mr. Pope in his conversation? Lord Marchmont answered, "That if the conversation did not take something of a lively or epigrammatic turn, he fell asleep, or, perhaps, pretended to be so."-Croker, 630.

DR. JOHNSON was always exceedingly fond of chemistry; and we made up a sort of laboratory at Streatham one summer, and diverted ourselves with drawing essences and colouring liquors. But the danger in which Mr. Thrale found his friend one day, when I had driven to London, and he had got the children and the servants assembled round him to see some experiments performed, put an end to all our entertainment; as Mr. Thrale was persuaded that his short sight would have occasioned his destruction in a moment by bringing him close to a fierce and violent flame. Indeed, it was a perpetual miracle that he did not set himself on fire reading abed, as was his constant custom, when quite unable to keep clear of mischief with our best help; and accordingly the foretops of all his wigs were burned by the candle down to the very network.Piozzi, 634.

Ir is amazing, sir, what deviations there are from precise truth, in the account which is given about everything. I told Mrs. Thrale, "you have so little anxiety about truth, that you never tax your memory with the exact thing." Now what is the use of the memory to truth, if one is careless of exactness ?-Johnson, 636.

JOHNSON. "Dodsley first mentioned to me the scheme of an English Dictionary; but I had long thought of it." Boswell. "You did not know what you were undertaking."-Johnson. "Yes, sir, I knew very well what I was undertaking, and very well how to do it, and have done it very well."-Boswell.

He who has not the virtue of courage has no security for any other virtue.-Johnson, 637.

WHEN familiarity and noise claim the praise due to knowledge, art, and elegance, we must beat down such pretensions. -638.

I TOLD him that when I objected to keeping company with a notorious infidel, a celebrated friend [no doubt Mr. Burke. -Croker.] of ours said to me, "I do not think that men who live laxly in the world, as you and I do, can with propriety assume such an authority: 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.”—Boswell.

JOHNSON 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 anything of which we could have robbed them."

A FOREIGN minister of no very high talents, who had been in Johnson's company for a considerable time quite overlooked, happened luckily to mention that he had read some of his "Rambler" in Italian, and admired it much. This pleased him greatly. He observed that the title had been translated. "Il Genio erranto," though I have been told it was rendered more ludicrously, "Il Vagabondo;" and finding that this minister gave such a proof of his taste, he was all attention to him, and on the first remark which he made, however simple,