thing sincerely and precisely as it appears to you. I say such a one walked across the street; if he really did so, I told a physical truth. If I thought so, though

I should have been mistaken, I told a moral truth. (')

"Huggins, the translator of Ariosto, and Mr. Thomas Warton, in the early part of his literary life, had a dispute concerning that poet, of whom Mr. Warton, in his Observations on Spenser's Fairy Queen,' gave some account which Huggins attempted to answer with violence, and said, 'I will militate no longer against his nescience.' Huggins was master of the subject, but wanted expression. Mr. Warton's knowledge of it was then imperfect, but his manner lively and elegant. Johnson said, ' It appears to me, that Huggins has ball without powder, and Warton powder without ball.'

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"Talking of the farce of High Life below Stairs,' he said, Here is a farce which is really very diverting when you see it acted, and yet one may read it and not know that one has been reading any thing at all.'

"He used at one time to go occasionally to the green-room of Drury-lane theatre, where he was much regarded by the players, and was very easy and facetious with them. He had a very high opinion of Mrs. Clive's comic powers, and conversed more with her than with any of them. He said, 'Clive, Sir, is a good thing to sit by; she always understands what you say.' And she said of him, 'I love to sit by Dr. Johnson; he always entertains me.' One night, when "The Recruiting Officer' was acted, he said to Mr. Holland, who had been expressing an apprehension that Dr. Johnson would disdain the works of Farquhar, 'No, Sir, I think Farquhar a man whose writings have considerable merit.'

(1) This account of the difference between moral and physical truth is in Locke's "Essay on Human Understanding," and many other books. - KEARNEY.

"His friend Garrick was so busy in conducting the drama, that they could not have so much intercourse as Mr. Garrick used to profess an anxious wish that there should be. (1) There might indeed be something in the contemptuous severity as to the merit of acting, which his old preceptor nourished in himself, that would mortify Garrick after the great applause which he received from the audience. For though Johnson said of him, Sir, a man who has a nation to admire him every night may well be expected to be somewhat elated;' yet he would treat theatrical matters with a ludicrous slight. He mentioned one evening, I met David coming off the stage, dressed in a woman's riding-hood, when he acted in The Wonder; I came full upon him, and I believe he was not pleased.'

"Once he asked Tom Davies, whom he saw dressed in a fine suit of clothes,' And what art thou to-night?' Tom answered, The Thane of Ross;' which it will be recollected is a very inconsiderable character. 'O, brave!' said Johnson.

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"Of Mr. Longley (2), at Rochester, a gentleman of considerable learning, whom Dr. Johnson met there, he said, My heart warms towards him. I was surprised to find in him such a nice acquaintance with the metre in the learned languages; though I was somewhat mortified that I had it not so much to myself as I should have thought.'

Talking of the minuteness with which people will record the sayings of eminent persons, a story was told, that when Pope was on a visit to Spence at Oxford, as they looked from the window they saw a gentleman commoner, who was just come in from riding, amusing himself with whipping at a post. Pope took

he

(1) In a letter written by Johnson to a friend in Jan. 1742-3, says, "I never see Garrick."-M.

(2) A barrister-Recorder of Rochester, father of the present master of Harrow. He died in 1822. — C.

occasion to say, 'That young gentleman seems to have little to do.' Mr. Beauclerk observed, Then, to be sure, Spence turned round and wrote that down;' and went on to say to Dr. Johnson, Pope, Sir, would have said the same of you, if he had seen you distilling.' JOHNSON.Sir, if Pope had told me of my distilling, I would have told him of his grotto.' (1)

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"He would allow no settled indulgence of idleness upon principle, and always repelled every attempt to urge excuses for it. A friend one day suggested, that it was not wholesome to study soon after dinner. JOHNSON. Ah, Sir, don't give way to such a fancy. At one time of my life I had taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to study between breakfast and dinner.' "Mr. Beauclerk one day repeated to Dr. Johnson Pope's lines,

'Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten metropolitans in preaching well;'

then asked the doctor, Why did Pope say this?' JOHNSON. Sir, he hoped it would vex somebody.' (2)

(1) This would have been a very inadequate retort, for Johnson's chemistry was a mere pastime, while Pope's grotto_was, although ornamented, a useful, and even necessary work. Johnson has explained his views of this point very copiously in his Life of Pope: where he says, "that being under the necessity of making a subterraneous passage to a garden on the other side of the road, Pope adorned it with fossil bodies, and dignified it with the title of a grotto — a place of silence and retreat from which he endeavoured to persuade his friends and himself that care and passions could be excluded. A grotto is not often the wish or pleasure of an Englishman, who has more frequent need to solicit than to exclude the sun; but Pope's excavation was requisite as an entra to his garden; and as some men try to be proud of their defects, he extracted an ornament from an inconvenience, and vanity produced a grotto where necessity enforced a passage.' C.

(2) Dr. James Foster was an eminent preacher among the dissenters; and Pope professes to prefer his merit in so humble a station to the more splendid ministry of the metropolitans. Pope's object certainly was to vex the clergy; but Mr. Beau