he has not the fagacity of the hound, the docility of the fpaniel, nor the courage of the bull-dog, yet he is ftill a pretty fellow.

Johnfon faid he was better pleafed with the commendations beftowed on his account of the Hebrides than on any book he had ever written. Burke, fays he, thought well of the philofophy of it; Sir William Jones of the obfervations on language; and Mr. Jackfon of thofe on trade.

Of Foote's wit and readiness of repartee he thought very highly;-He was, fays he, the readiest dog at an escape I ever knew; if you thought you had him on the ground fairly down, he was upon his legs and over your fhoulders again in an inftant.

When fome one afked him, whether they fhould introduce Hugh Kelly, the author, to him ;-No,Sir, fays he, I never defire to converfe with a man who has written more than he has read:-yet when his play was acted for the benefit of his widow, Johnson furnished a prologue.

He repeated poetry with wonderful energy and feeling. He was feen to weep whilft he repeated Goldfimith's character of the English in his Traveller, beginning thus:

Stern o'er each bofom, &c.

He was fuppofed to have affifted Goldsmith very much in that poem, but has been heard to say, he might have contributed three or four lines, taking together all he had done.

He

He held all authors very cheap, that were not fatisfied with the opinion of the publick about them. He used to fay, that every man who writes, thinks he can amufe or inform mankind, and they must be the best judges of his pretenfions.

Of Warburton he always fpoke well. He gave me, fays he, his good word when it was of use to me. Warburton, in the Preface to his Shakespeare, has commended Johnfon's Obfervations on Macbeth.

Two days before he died, he faid, with fome pleafantry,-Poor Johnfon is dying; **** will fay, he dies of taking a few grains more of fquills than were ordered him; ***** will fay, he dies of the fcarifications made by the furgeon in his leg.-His laft act of understanding is faid to have been exerted in giving his bleffing to a young lady that requested it of him.

He was always ready to affift any authors in correcting their works, and felling them to bookfellers. —I have done writing, faid he, myself, and should affift thofe that do write.

Johnfon always advised his friends, when they were about to marry, to unite themselves to a woman of a pious and religious frame of mind.-Fear of the world, and a fenfe of honour, faid he, may have an effect upon a man's conduct and behaviour; a woman without religion is without the only motive that in general can incite her to do well.

When fome one afked him for what he fhould marry, he replied, firft, for virtue; fecondly, for wit; thirdly, for beauty; and fourthly, for money.

Не

He thought worse of the vices of retirement than of thofe of fociety.

He attended Mr. Thrale in his laft moments, and stayed in the room praying, as is imagined, till he had drawn his laft breath.-His fervants, faid he, would have waited upon him in this awful period, and why not his friend?

He was extremely fond of reading the lives of great and learned perfons. Two or three years before he died, he applied to a friend of his to give him a lift of thofe in the French language that were well written and genuine. He faid, that Bolingbroke had declared he could not read Middleton's life of Cicero.

He was a great enemy to the prefent fashionable way of fuppofing worthlefs and infamous perfons mad.

He was not apt to judge ill of perfons without good reafons; an old friend of his ufed to fay, that in general he thought too well of mankind.

One day, on feeing an old terrier lie afleep by the fire-fide at Streatham, he faid, Prefto, you are, if poffible, a more lazy dog than I am.

Being told that Churchill had abufed him under the character of Pompofo, in his Ghoft,-I always thought, faid he, he was a fhallow fellow, and I think fo ftill.

The duke of *** once faid to Johnfon, that every religion had a certain degree of morality in it;-Aye, my lord, anfwered he, but the Christian religion alone puts it on its proper bafis.

When fome one asked him how he felt at the indifferent reception of his tragedy at Drury-lane ;Like the Monument, faid he, and as unshaken as that fabrick.

Being afked by Dr. Lawrence what he thought the best system of education, he replied,-School in fchool-hours, and home-inftruction in the intervals.

I would never, faid he, defire a young man to neglect his business for the purpose of pursuing his ftudies, because it is unreafonable; I would only defire him to read at thofe hours when he would otherwise be unemployed. I will not promife that he will be a Bentley; but if he be a lad of any parts, he will certainly make a fenfible man.

The picture of him by Sir Joshua Reynolds, which was painted for Mr. Beauclerk, and is now Mr. Langton's, and scraped in mezzotinto by Doughty, is extremely like him; there is in it that appearance of a labouring working mind, of an indolent repofing body, which he had to a very great degree. Beauclerk wrote under his picture,

ingenium ingens

Inculto habet hoc fub corpore.

Indeed, the common operations of dreffing, fhaving, &c. were a toil to him; he held the care of the body very cheap. He used to say, that a man who rode out for an appetite confulted but little the dignity of human nature.

. The life of Charles XII. by Voltaire, he said, was one of the finest pieces of history ever written.

He

He was much pleased with an Italian improvifatore, whom he faw at Streatham, and with whom he talked much in Latin. He told him, if he had not been a witnefs to his faculty himself, he should not have thought it poffible. He faid, Ifaac Hawkins Browne had endeavoured at it in English, but could not get beyond thirty verses.

When a Scotfman was one day talking to him of the great writers of that country that were then exifting, he said,-We have taught that nation to write, and do they pretend to be our teachers? let me hear no more of the tinfel of Robertson, and the foppery of Dalrymple. He faid, Hume had taken his ftyle from Voltaire. He would never hear Hume mentioned with any temper:-A man, faid he, who endeavoured to perfuade his friend who had the stone to fhoot himself!

Upon hearing a lady of his acquaintance commended for her learning, he faid,-A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek. My old friend, Mrs. Carter, faid he, could make a pudding, as well as tranflate Epictetus from the Greek, and work a handkerchief as well as compofe a poem. He thought fhe was too referved in converfation upon fubjects fhe was fo eminently able to converse upon, which was occafioned by her modefty and fear of giving offence.

Being afked whether he had read Mrs. Macaulay's fecond volume of the Hiftory of England, No, Sir, fays he, nor her firft neither.-He

would