with him directly in vain. At length he had recourse to this device. "Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you reckon Derrick or Smart the best poet?" Johnson at once felt himself roused; and answered, "Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.”

He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were left alone in his study, "Boswell, I think I am easier with you than with almost any body."

His acute observation of human life made him remark, "Sir, there is nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying a superior ability of brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at the time; but their envy makes them curse him at their hearts.”

Dr. Johnson's Love of Little Children

Johnson's love of little children, which he discovered upon all occasions, calling them "pretty dears," and giving them sweetmeats, was an undoubted proof of the real humanity and gentleness of his disposition.

His uncommon kindness to his servants, and serious concern, not only for their comfort in this world, but their happiness in the next, was another unquestionable evidence of what all, who were intimately acquainted with him, knew to be true.

His Fondness for Animals

Nor would it be just under this head, to omit the fondness which he shewed for animals which he had taken under his protection. I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat; for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants, having that trouble, should take a dislike to the poor

creature. I am, unluckily, one of those who have an antipathy to a cat, so that I am uneasy when in the room with one; and I own, I frequently suffered a good deal from the presence of this same Hodge. I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and halfwhistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying "why, yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;" and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed."

This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave Mr. Langton, of the despicable state of a young gentleman of good family. "Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats." And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, "But Hodge shan't be shot: no, no, Hodge shall not be shot."

His Respect for the Hierarchy

His respect for the Hierarchy, and particularly the Dignitaries of the Church, has been more than once exhibited in the course of this work. Mr. Seward saw him presented to the Archbishop of York, and described his Bow to an ARCHBISHOP, as such a studied elaboration of homage, such an extension of limb, such a flexion of body, as have seldom or ever been equalled.

The Common Affairs of Life

On April 18, (being Good-Friday,) I found him at breakfast, in his usual manner upon that day, drinking

tea without milk, and eating a cross bun to prevent faintness; we went to St. Clement's church, as formerly. When we came home from church, he placed himself on one of the stone-seats at his garden-door, and I took the other, and thus in the open air, and in a placid frame of mind, he talked away very easily.

JOHNSON. "Were I a country gentleman, I should not be very hospitable, I should not have crowds in my house."

BOSWELL. "Sir Alexander Dick tells me, that he remembers having a thousand people in a year to dine at his house; that is, reckoning each person as one, each time that he dined there."

JOHNSON. "That, Sir, is about three a day."

It

BOSWELL. "How your statement lessens the idea.” JOHNSON. "That, Sir, is the good of counting. brings every thing to a certainty, which before floated in the mind indefinitely."

BOSWELL. "But Omne ignotum pro magnifico est: one is sorry to have this diminished."

JOHNSON. "Sir, you should not allow yourself to be delighted with error."

BOSWELL. "Three a day seem but few.”

JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, he who entertains three a day does very liberally. And if there is a large family, the poor entertain those three, for they eat what the poor would get there must be superfluous meat; it must be given to the poor, or thrown out."

BOSWELL. "I observe in London, that the poor go about and gather bones, which I understand are manufactured."

JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir; they boil them, and extract a grease from them for greasing wheels and other purposes. Of the best pieces they make a mock ivory, which is used

for hafts to knives, and various other things; the coarser pieces they burn, and pound, and sell the ashes."

BOSWELL. "For what purpose, Sir?”

JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, for making a furnace for the chemists for melting iron. A paste made of burnt bones will stand a stronger heat than any thing else. Consider, Sir; if you are to melt iron, you cannot line your pot with brass, because it is softer than iron, and would melt sooner; nor with iron, for though malleable iron is harder than cast iron, yet it would not do; but a paste of burnt-bones will not melt."

BOSWELL. "Do you know, Sir, have discovered a manufacture to a great extent, of what you only piddle at, scraping and drying the peel of oranges. At a place in Newgate-street, there is a prodigious quantity prepared, which they sell to the distillers."

JOHNSON. "Sir, I believe they make a higher thing out of them than a spirit; they make what is called orange-butter, the oil of the orange inspissated, which they mix perhaps with common pomatum, and make it fragrant. The oil does not fly off in the drying."

BOSWELL. "I wish to have a good walled garden." JOHNSON. "I don't think it would be worth the expense to you. We compute, in England, a park-wall at a thousand pounds a mile; now a garden-wall must cost at least as much. You intend your trees should grow higher than a deer will leap. Now let us see;-for a hundred pounds you could only have forty-four square yards, which is very little; for two hundred pounds, you may have eighty-four square yards, which is very well. But when will you get the value of two hundred pounds of walls, in fruit, in your climate? No, Sir, such contention with Nature is not worth while. I would plant an orchard, and have plenty of such fruit as ripen well

in your country. My friend, Dr. Madden, of Ireland, said, that, 'in an orchard there should be enough to eat, enough to lay up, enough to be stolen, and enough to rot upon the ground.' Cherries are an early fruit, you may have them; and you may have the early apples and pears.

BOSWELL. "We cannot have nonpareils."

JOHNSON. "Sir, you can no more have nonpareils than you can have grapes."

BOSWELL. "We have them, Sir; but they are very

bad."

JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, never try to have a thing, merely to shew that you cannot have it. From ground that would let for forty shillings you may have a large orchard; and you see it costs you only forty shillings. Nay, you may graze the ground, when the trees are grown up; you cannot, while they are young."

BOSWELL. "Is not a good garden a very common thing in England, Sir?"

JOHNSON. "Not so common, Sir, as you imagine. In Lincolnshire there is hardly an orchard; in Staffordshire very little fruit."

BOSWELL. "Has Langton no orchard?"
JOHNSON. "No, Sir."

BOSWELL. "How so, Sir?"

JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, from the general negligence of the county. He has it not, because nobody else has it." BOSWELL. "A hot-house is a certain thing; I may have that."

JOHNSON.

"A hot-house is pretty certain; but you must first build it, then you must keep fires in it, and you must have a gardener to take care of it.”

BOSWELL. "But if I have a gardener at any rate." JOHNSON. "Why, yes."