"It is well known that there was formerly a rude custom for those who were sailing upon the Thames, to accost each other as they passed, in the most abusive language they could invent, generally, however, with as much satirical humour as they were capable of producing. Addison gives a specimen of this ribaldry, in Number 383 of The Spectator,' when Sir Roger de Coverly and he are going to Spring-garden. Johnson was once eminently successful in this species of contest; a fellow having attacked him with some coarse raillery, Johnson answered him thus, Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house, is a receiver of stolen goods.' One evening when he and Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were in company together, and the admirable scolding of Timon of Athens was mentioned, this instance of Johnson's was quoted, and thought to have at least equal excellence."

"As Johnson always allowed the extraordinary talents of Mr. Burke, so Mr. Burke was fully sensible of the wonderful powers of Johnson. Mr. Langton

recollects having passed an evening with both of them, when Mr. Burke repeatedly entered upon topicks which it was evident he would have illustrated with extensive knowledge and richness of expression; but Johnson always seized upon the conversation, in which, however, he acquitted himself in a most masterly manner. As Mr. Burke and Mr. Langton were walking home, Mr. Burke observed that Johnson had been very great that night; Mr. Langton joined in this, but added, he could have wished to hear more from another person; (plainly intimating that he meant Mr. Burke.) O, no (said Mr. Burke) it is enough for me to have rung the bell to him.”

"Beauclerk having observed to him of one of their friends, that he was aukward at counting money,

Why, Sir, said Johnson, I am likewise aukward at counting money. But then, Sir, the reason is plain; I have had very little money to count.""

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"He had an abhorrence of affectation. Talking of old Mr. Langton, of whom he said, Sir, you will seldom see such a gentleman, such are his stores of literature, such his knowledge in divinity, and such his exemplary life;' he added, and Sir, he has no grimace, no gesticulation, no bursts of admiration on trivial occasions: he never embraces you with an overacted cordiality."

"Being in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind; when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, Pray, Sir, don't leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.” ”

"Goldsmith, upon being visited by Johnson one day in the Temple, said to him with a little jealousy of the appearance of his accommodation, I shall soon be in better chambers than these.' Johnson at the same time checked him and paid him a handsome compliment, implying that a man of his talents should be above attention to such distinctions, Nay, Sir, never mind that: Nil te quæsiveris extra.'”

"At the time when his pension was granted to him, he said, with a noble literary ambition, "Had this happened twenty years ago, I should have gone to Constantinople to learn Arabick, as Pococke did."

"As an instance of the niceness of his taste, though he praised West's translation of Pindar, he pointed out the following passages as faulty, by expressing a circumstance so minute as to detract from the general dignity which should prevail :

Down then from thy glittering nail,
Take, O Muse, thy Dorian lyre."

2

"When Mr. Vesey was proposed as a member of the LITERARY CLUB, Mr. Burke began by saying, that he was a man of gentle manners. Sir, said Johnson, you need say no more. When you have said a man of gentle manners, you have said enough.'

"The late Mr. Fitzherbert told Mr. Langton, that Johnson said to him, Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.”

"My dear friend Dr. Bathurst, (said he with a warmth of approbation) declared, he was glad that his father, who was a West-India planter, had left his affairs in total ruin, because, having no estate, he was not under the temptation of having slaves."

"Richardson had little conversation, except about his own works, of which Sir Joshua Reynolds said he was always willing to talk, and glad to have them introduced. Johnson, when he carried Mr. Langton to see him, professed that he could bring him out into conversation, and used this allusive expression, Sir, I can make him rear.' But he failed; for in that interview Richardson said little else than that there lay in the room a translation of his Clarissa into German." 3

2

[The Right Honourable Agmondesham Vesey was elected a member of the LITERARY CLUB in 1773, and died August 11th, 1786. MALONE.]

3 A literary lady has favoured me with a characteristick anecdote of Richardson. One day at his country house at Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who was just returned from Paris, willing to please Mr. Richardson, mentioned to him a very flattering circumstance,-that he had seen his Clarissa lying on the King's brother's table. Richardson observing that part of the company were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to attend to it: but by and by, when there was a general silence, and he thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to the gentleman, I think, Sir, you were saying somewhat about,'-pausing in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman provoked at this inordinate vanity, resolved not to indulge it, and,

"Once when somebody produced a newspaper in which there was a letter of stupid abuse of Sir Joshua Reynolds, of which Johnson himself came in for a share,

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Pray, said he, let us have it read aloud from beginning to end;' which being done, he with a ludicrous earnestness, and not directing his look to any particular person, called out, Are we alive after all this satire;' "He had a strong prejudice against the political character of Secker, one instance of which appeared at Oxford, where he expressed great dissatisfaction at his varying the old established toast, Church and King,' The Archbishop of Canterbury, said he, (with an affected smooth smiling grimace) drinks, Constitution in Church and State.' Being asked what difference there was between the two toasts, he said, Why, Sir, you may be sure he meant something.' Yet when the life of that prelate, prefixed to his sermons by Dr. Porteus and Dr. Stinton, his chaplains, first came out, he read it with the utmost avidity, and said, 'It is a life well written, and that well deserves to be recorded.'"

"Of a certain noble Lord, he said, 'Respect him, you could not; for he had no mind of his own. Love him you could not; for that which you could do with him, every one else could.""

"Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.""

"He told in his lively manner the following literary

with an exquisitely sly air of indifference, answered, 'A mere trifle, Sir, not worth repeating.' The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and appeared to enjoy it much. [Mr. Northcote in his Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, informs us that Dr. Johnson introduced Sir Joshua and his sister to Richardson, but hinted to them, at the same time, that if they wished to see the latter in good humour, they must expatiate on the excellencies of his Clarissa.' A. C.]

anecdote: Green and Guthrie, an Irishman and a Scotchman, undertook a translation of Duhalde's history of China. Green said of Guthrie, that he knew no English, and Guthrie of Green, that he knew no French; and these two undertook to translate Duhalde's history of China. In this translation there was found, -the twenty-sixth day of the new moon.' Now as,

the whole age of the moon is but twenty-eight days, the moon, instead of being new, was nearly as old as it could be. The blunder arose from their mistaking the word neuviéme ninth, for nouvelle, or neuve, new."

"Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, Dr. Johnson said, Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow.""

"On occasion of Dr. Johnson's publishing his pamphlet of The False Alarm,' there came out a very angry answer (by many supposed to be by Mr. Wilkes) Dr. Johnson determined on not answering it; but, in conversation with Mr. Langton mentioned a particular or two, which if he had replied to it, he might perhaps have inserted. In the answerer's pamphlet, it had been said with solemnity, Do you consider, Sir, that a House of Commons is to the people as a creature is to its Creator.' To this question, said Dr. Johnson, I could have replied, that--in the first place the idea of a CREATOR must be such as that he has a power to unmake or annihilate his creature.

"Then it cannot be conceived that a creature can make laws for its CREATOR.4"

4 His profound adoration of the GREAT FIRST CAUSE was such as to set him above that "Philosophy and vain deceit," with which men of narrow conceptions have been infected. I have heard him strongly maintain that "what is right is not so from any natural fitness, but because GOD wills it to be right;" and it is certainly so, because he has predisposed the relations of things so, as that which he wills must be right. BOSWELL.