charged him with an intention to render them ridiculous, and were hardly appeafed by his affurances that he copied no particular fubject, but drew from archetypes which his obfervation had furnished, and his imagination had improved.

Johnson was now become fo well known, and had by the Rambler, and other of his writings, given fuch evidences, not only of great abilities, and of his skill in human life and manners, but of a fociable and benevolent difpofition, that many became defirous of his acquaintance, and to this they were farther tempted by the character he had acquired of delighting in converfation, and being free and communicative in his difcourfe. He had removed, about the beginning of the year 1760, to chambers two doors down the Inner-Temple lane; and I have been told by his neighbour at the corner, that during the time he dwelt there, more enquiries were made at his shop for Mr. Johnson, than for all the inhabitants put together of both the Inner and Middle Temple. This circumftance in his life leads me to mention, that Richardfon poffeffed, but in a lefs degree, the like powers of attraction, but they operated chiefly on young females, who, being defirous of inftruction in the duties of life, were permitted by their parents and friends to visit and receive from him fuch leffons of prudence as he was ever ready and well qualified to give them; and it is well known, that many ingenious young women, who reforted to his houfe as to an academy for tuition, became fo improved by his converfation and his extemporary commentaries on his own writings, as afterwards to make a confiderable figure

in the literary world*. And here let me observe, that the benefits of oral inftruction, joined with the perufal of fuch authors as we now put into female hands, may be estimated by the degree of mental improvement at which the fex is at this day arrived, which, as Johnson once remarked to me on receiving a lady's letter, is fo great, that in that kind of compofition, we who were their teachers, may learn of them.

From this propenfity to difcurfive communication, in which Johnson and Richardson resembled each other, nothing more is to be understood, than that both took pleasure in that interchange of fentiments and opinions, which renders conversation inftructive and delightful, for, in other refpects, they were men of very different endowments and tempers. Richardson being bred to a mechanic occupation, had no learning, nor more reading than was fufficient to enable him to form a ftyle easy and intelligible, and a little raised above that of vulgar narrative. His fentiments were his own, and of this he was fo fenfible, and alfo of the originality and importance of many of them, that he would ever be talking of his writings, and the words fentiment and fentimentality became, not only a part of the cant of his school, but were adopted by fucceeding writers, and have been used to recommend to fome readers fentimental journies, sentimental letters, fentimental fermons, and a world of trash,

* See a poem in Fawkes and Woty's Poetical calendar,' intitled The Feminead,' written by the Rev. Mr. Duncombe, late of Canterbury, deceased.

which,

which, but for this filly epithet, would never have attracted notice.

Richardfon's converfation was of the preceptive kind, but it wanted the diversity of Johnson's, and had no intermixture of wit or humour. Richardfon could never relate a pleafant ftory, and hardly relifh one told by another: he was ever thinking of his own writings, and listening to the praifes which, with an emulous profufion, his friends were inceffantly beftowing on them, he would fcarce enter into free converfation with any one that he thought had not red Clariffa,' or 'Sir Charles Grandifon,' and at best, he could not be faid to be a companionable man.

Those who were unacquainted with Richardson, and had red his books, were led to believe, that they exhibited a picture of his own mind, and that his temper and domeftic behaviour could not but correfpond with that refined morality which they inculcate, but in this they were deceived. He was auftere in the government of his family, and iffued his orders to fome of his fervants in writing only. His nearest female relations, in the prefence of ftrangers, were mutes, and

I once travelled with him in the Fulham ftage-coach, in which, at my getting in, I found him feated. I learned, by fomewhat he faid to the coachman, who he was, and made fome eflays towards converfation, but he feemed difinclined to any. There was one other paffenger, who being a female, I was, in common civility, bound to take notice of; but my male companion I left to indulge himself in a reverie, which neither he nor I interrupted by the utterance of fingle word, and lafted till he was fet down at his houfe on Parfon's green. He had the courtesy to ask us in, but as our acquaintance had but lately commenced, and had received but little improvement in our journey, the civility was declined.

feemed

feemed to me, in a vifit I once made him, to have been disciplined in the fchool of Ben Jonson's Morofe, whose injunction to his fervant was, Anfwer

me not but with your leg.' In short, they appeared to have been taught to converfe with him by figns; and it was too plain to me, that on his part, the most frequent of them were frowns and gefticulations, importing that they should leave his prefence. I have heard it faid, that he was what is called a nervous man; and how far nervofity, with fo good an understanding as he is allowed to have poffeffed, will excufe a conduct fo oppofite to that philanthropy which he laboured to inculcate, I cannot fay: his benevolence might have taken another direction, and in other inftances be very ftrong; for I was once a witness to his putting into the hand of Mr. Whiston the bookfeller, ten guineas for the relief of one whom a fudden accident had made a widow.

Johnson's mind was never occupied on trifles: his fpeculations were grand and noble, his reading various and extensive, and, on some subjects, profound. As he profeffed always to speak in the best and most correct phrafe, rejecting ali fuch common and vulgar combinations of speech as are in use only till others equally affected and infignificant are invented, his converfation-style bore a great refemblance to that of his writings, fo that, in his common discourse, he might feem to incur the cenfure which bishop Burnet casts on the lord chancellor Nottingham, of being too eloquent; but fo far were his hearers from thinking so, that many wished for the power of retaining as well the colloquial form as the fubftance of his converfations;

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tions; and fome there were, who to that end, in imitation of the Colloquia Menfalia of Luther, and the Table-talk of Selden, not to fay of the books in ana* as they are called, made common-places of his fayings, his precepts, and his apophthegms; but the want of judgment in the felection of them, has rendered moft of the collections of this kind, that I have ever seen, of little worth.

Gesticular mimicry and buffoonery he hated, and would often huff Garrick for exercifing it in his prefence; but of the talent of humour he had an almost enviable portion. To defcribe the nature of this faculty, as he was wont to display it in his hours of mirth and relaxation, I muft fay, that it was ever of that arch and dry kind, which lies concealed under the appearance of gravity, and which acquiefces in an error for the purpose of refuting it. Thus, in the Rambler, No. 1, he tells his readers, very gravely, that it is one among many reafons for which he purposes to entertain his countrymen, that he hopes not much to tire those whom he fhall not happen to please, and if he is not commended for the beauty of his works, to be at least pardoned for their brevity.

But whether,' adds he, my expectations are most ⚫ fixed on pardon or praife, I think it not neceffary to <difcover.'-And in the Idler, No. 3, he fuggetts confolation against the dread of an imaginary evil founded on falfe philofophy, by admitting, that

These are the Menagiana, Parrhafiana, Huetiana, Scaligeriana, Naudæana, Patiniana, Poggiana, Thuana, Perroniana, Pithaana, Colomefiana, Sorberiana, Valefiana, and others lefs. known.

though