to be found in his writings." He often lamented his conversations as time wasted. of his life when he began "to write little and talk much," he apologised thus: "No man is bound to do as much as he can do, every man should have part of his life to himself." Thinking that his writings would reach infinitely more than his conversations, he compares himself to a physician who had long practised in a city, retires to a country parish and takes less practice. "Now, sir, the good I can do by my conversation bears the same proportion to the good I can do my writings that the practice of a physician retired to a town, does to his practice in a great city." It is evident that he did anticipate, and justly too, that the "Dictionary," the "Rambler," "Rasselas," and the "Lives" would carry his name to distant ages; and that now in possession of a pension, and with his life work done, he could afford to spend the few years that yet remained of life, in conversation. little did he dream of the mighty audience his conversation was to reach; little did he dream that his conversations with Boswell were spoken to a How listening world little did he dream that these conversations were destined to give instruction, and to be read with rapturous pleasure, "as long as the English exists, either as a living or as a dead language." We will not presume specifically to illustrate his colloquial powers, that would be impossible; but simply remark in passing, that one of the secrets of that power was his sincerity and abhorrence of cant. The gospel which he preached in his best conversations was, " Clear your mind of cant." "Throw cant utterly away." Let us next consider the critical phase of JOHNSON'S character. As an impromptu critic he was unrivalled. His idea was that "sincere criticism ought to raise no resentment, because judgment is not under the control of will; but involuntary criticism, as it has still less of choice, ought to be more remote from possibility of offence." "On one occasion," says Boswell," we talked of the stage and of Garrick's acting. 'Sir,' said JOHNSON, 'Garrick's great distinction is his universality.'" When JOHNSON had one day recited with great power Bentley's verses in Dodsley's collection, Adam Smith, who was present, remarked, in his dignified professional style, " Very well-very well." "Yes, sir," answered JOHNSON," they are very well; but you may observe in what manner they are well. They are the forcible verses of a man of a strong mind, but not accustomed to write verse; for there is some uncouthness in the expression." One evening when JOHNSON denied the authenticity of Ossian's poems, "Sir," said a gentleman, "could any man living write such poems now?" "Yes, sir," said the Doctor, "many men, many women, and many children. A man might write such rubbish for ever, if he abandoned his mind to it." Of Fingal he said, "Why is not the original deposited in some public library, instead of exhi biting attestations of its existence? Suppose there were a question in a court of justice whether a man be dead or alive: you aver he is alive, and you bring fifty witnesses to swear it: I answer, 'Why do you not produce the man?'” "My assertions are, for the most part, purely negative: I deny the existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious peregrination through the Gaelic regions I have never been able to find it. What I could not see myself, I suspect to be equally invisible to others; and I suspect with the more reason, as among all those who have seen it no man can show it. To Macpherson, the translator of Ossian, who had sent JOHNSON an impertinent letter, he replied as follows: "MR. JAMES MACPHERSON.-I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian. "What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will. "SAM. JOHNSON." Lord Lovat boasted to an English nobleman that he had two thousand men whom he could at any time call into the field. The Hon. Alexander Gordon observed that those two thousand men brought him to the block. "True, sir," said JOHNSON; "but you may just as well argue concerning a man who has fallen over a precipice to which he has walked too near, 'his two legs brought him to that.' Is he not the better for having two legs?" Of Peter the Great he said that he had not sense to see that the mere mechanical work may be done by anybody. Sir Christopher Wren might as well have served his time to a bricklayer, and first, indeed, to a brickmaker. "I told him," says Boswell, "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, |