though certain, it is remote. The paffage would be injured by contraction, and I therefore give it at length.

Many philofophers imagine, that the elements ⚫ themselves may in time be exhausted; that the fun, by fhining long, will effufe all its light; and that • by the continual waste of aqueous particles, the < whole earth will at last become a fandy defart.

'I would not advise my readers to disturb themfelves by contriving how they fhall live without light and water; for the days of univerfal thirft and perpetual darknefs are at a great distance. The ocean and the fun will laft our time, and we may leave pofterity to fhift for themselves.

But if the stores of nature are limited, much more narrow bounds must be set to the modes of life; and mankind may want a moral or amufing paper many years before they fhall be deprived of drink or day-light. This want, which to the bufy and inventive may feem eafily remediable by fome fub• ftitute or other, the whole race of idlers will feel with all the fenfibility that all fuch torpid animals can * fuffer.'

A friend of his used often to vifit him, who, though a man of learning and great good fenfe, had a style of conversing so peculiarly eloquent and verbose, as to be fometimes unintelligible: Johnson had a mind one day to give me a fpecimen of it, and affuming his manner, he, in a connected fpeech on a familiar fubject, uttered a fucceffion of fentences, in language refembling the ftyle of metaphyfics, but, though fluent, fo obfcured by parentheses and other involu

tions, that I was unable to collect from it a single idea. After he had for five minutes continued this gibberish, he faid, This is the manner in which entertains me whenever he comes here.'

In the fame vein of humour he once ridiculed Hervey's Meditations on a Flower-garden and other subjects, in the following extemporaneous reflections on a pudding:

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Let us feriously reflect on what a pudding is compofed of. It is compofed of flour that once waved in the golden grain, and drank the dews of the morning-of milk preffed from the fwelling udder by the gentle hand of the beauteous milk-maid, whofe beauty and innocence might have recommended a worse draught; who, 'whilst she stroked the udder, indulged no ambitious thoughts of dwelling in palaces, and formed no fchemes for the deftruction of her fellow-creatures-milk which is drawn from the cow, that • useful animal, that eats the grafs of the field, and fupplies us with that which made the greatest part ⚫ of the food of that age, which the poets have agreed

to call golden.

It is made with an egg, that miracle of nature, which the theoretical Burnet has compared to creation-an egg that contains water within its beautiful fmooth furface, and an unformed mafs which, by the incubation of the parent, becomes a regular animal, furnished with bones and finews, and covered with feathers.

Let us confider-can there be any thing wanting to complete this meditation on a pudding-if more

is wanting, more may be found. It contains falt, which preferves the fea from putrefaction; falt, < which is made the image of intellectual excellence, < contributes to the formation of a pudding.'

He excelled alfo in the talent of burlesque verfifi-
cation, and, upon occafion of a difcourfe at Sir Joshua
Reynolds's on Dr. Percy's Reliques of ancient Eng-
lish poetry,' in which the beautiful fimplicity of many
of the ballads therein contained was remarked with
fome exaggeration, Johnson contended, that what was
called fimplicity was, in truth, inanity; and, to illus-
trate his argument, and ridicule that kind of
uttered the following impromptu :

< As with my hat upon my head,
'I walk'd along the Strand,
I there did meet another man,
With his hat in his hand.'

poetry,

And it being at a tea-converfation, he, addreffing himself to Mifs Reynolds, went on rhyming thus,

• With cream and fugar temper'd well,

• Another dish of tea,

Yet hear, at laft, this mournful truth,
• Nor hear it with a frown,

Thou can't not make the tea so fast,
As I can gulp it down.'

With these powers of inftructing and delighting those with whom he converfed, it is no wonder that the acquaintance of Johnson was fought by many; and I will not fay, either that he fet fo great a value on his time, as not to be acceffible to all who wished for the pleasure of it, or that his vanity was not gratified by the visits of bishops, of courtiers, fenators, scholars, travellers, and women.

In his converfation with the laft in this enumeration, he had fuch a felicity as would put vulgar gallantry out of countenance. Of the female mind, he conceived a higher opinion than many men, and though he was never fufpected of a blameable intimacy with any individual of them, had a great esteem for the fex. The defect in his powers of fight rendered him totally infenfible to the charms of beauty; but he knew that beauty was the attribute of the sex, and treated all women with fuch an equable complacency, as flattered every one into a belief, that she had her share of that or fome more valuable endowment. In his difcourfes with them, his compliments had ever a neat and elegant turn: they were never direct, but always implied the merit they were intended to `at-. teft.

In this enjoyment of himself and his friends, his engagements to the public were forgotten: his critical talents lay dormant, and not any, nor all of those

who

who wished to fee his Shakefpeare, could roufe his attention to the profecution of that work; yet was he ready, at the call of almost any one, to assist, either by correction, or by a preface, or dedication, in the publication of works not his own. Dr. Madden, fo wellknown by his premiums for the encouragement of Proteftant working-fchools in Ireland, and other inftances of beneficence in favour of that country, in the year 1745 published a panegyrical poem on archbishop Boulter; fome years after, being minded to re-publish it, he fubmitted it to Johnson's correction, and I found among his books a copy of the poem, with a note, in a spare leaf thereof, purporting, that the author had made him a visit, and, for a very few remarks and alterations of it, had prefented him with ten guineas. Such cafual emoluments as thefe Johnfon frequently derived from his profeffion of an author. For the dedication to his prefent majefty, of Adams's book on the ufe of the globes, he was, as himself informed me, gratified: with a prefent of a very curious meteorological inftrument, of a new and ingenious construction..

About this time, as it is fuppofed, he, for fundry beneficed clergymen that requested him, compofed pulpit difcourfes*, and for thefe, he made no fcruple of confeffing, he was paid: his price, I am informed, was a moderate one, a guinea; and fuch was his notion

The practice of preaching fermons compofed by others is now become fo common, that many of the clergy fcruple not to avow it, and think themselves juftified by the authority of Mr. Addison, who in one of his Spectators has very incautiously given countenance thereto, and put into the mouths not only of fuch clergymen as are minus idonei, but of fuch as, contrary to their. engagement.

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