the custom was for each passenger to give only sixpence, he took him aside, and scolded him, saying, that what he had done would make the coachman dissatisfied with all the rest of the passengers, who gave him no more than his due. This was a just reprimand; for in whatever way a man may indulge his generosity or his vanity in spending his money, for the sake of others he ought not to raise the price of any article, for which there is a constant demand.

Mrs. Thrale was short, plump, and brisk. She has herself given us lively view of the idea which Johnson had of her person, on her appearing before him in a dark-coloured gown : "You little creatures should never wear those sort of clothes, however; they are unsuitable in every way. What! have not all insects gay colours?"

He said, foppery was never cured; it was the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, were never rectified; once a coxcomb, and always a coxcomb.

A gentleman attacked Garrick for being vain. JOHNSON. "No wonder, sir, that he is vain; a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived! So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder." BosWELL. "And such bellows too: lord Mansfield with his cheeks like to burst: lord Chatham like an Eolus: I have read such notes from them to him, as were enough to turn his head." JOHNSON. "True: when he whom every body else flatters, flatters me, I then am truly happy." MRS. THRALE. "The sentiment is in

Congreve, I think." JOHNSON. "Yes, madam, in 'The Way of the World:

'If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see

That heart which others bleed for, bleed for me.'

66

Boswell won a small bet from lady Diana Beau clerk, by asking Johnson as to one of his particularities, which her ladyship laid he durst not do. He had been frequently observed at the club to put into his pocket the Seville oranges, after he had squeezed the juice of them into the drink which he made for himself. Beauclerk and Garrick talked of it to Boswell, and seemed to think that he had a strange unwillingness to be discovered. They could not divine what he did with them; and this was the bold question to be put. Seeing on his table the spoils of the preceding night, some fresh peels nicely scraped and cut into pieces, Boswell said, O, sir, I now partly see what you do with the squeezed oranges which you put into your pocket at the club." JOHNSON. "I have a great love for them." BOSWELL. "And pray, sir, what do you do with them? You scrape them, it seems, very neatly; and what next?" JOHNSON. "Let them dry, sir." BOSWELL." And what next?" JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, you shall know their fate no farther." BOSWELL. "Then the world must be left in the dark. It must be said (assuming a mock solemnity,) he scraped them, and let them dry, but what he did with them next, he never could be prevailed upon to tell." JOHNSON. Nay, sir, you should say it more emphatically :-he could not be prevailed upon, even by his dearest friends, to tell."

Johnson observed, that the force of our early

habits was so great, that though reason approved, nay, though our senses relished a different course→→→ almost every man returned to them.

Talking of a young gentleman's marriage with an eminent singer, and his determination that she should no longer sing in public, though his father was very earnest she should, because her talents would be liberally rewarded, so as to make her a good fortune; it was questioned whether the young gentleman, who had not a shilling in the world, but was blessed with very uncommon talents, was not foolishly delicate, or foolishly proud, and his father truly rational, without being mean. Johnson, with all the high spirit of a Roman senator, exclaimed, “He resolved wisely and nobly to be sure: he is a brave man. Would not a gentleman be disgraced by having his wife singing publicly fór hire? No, sir, there can be no doubt here. I know not if I should not prepare myself for a public singer, as readily as let my wife be one."

The family likeness of the Garricks was very striking; and Johnson thought that David's vivacity was not so peculiar to himself as was supposed.

Sir," said he, "I don't know but if Peter had cultivated all the arts of gaiety as much as David has done, he might have been as brisk and lively. Depend upon it, sir, vivacity is much an art, and depends greatly on habit." Boswell adds: "I believe there is a good deal of truth in this, notwithstanding a ludicrous story told me by a lady abroad, of a heavy German baron, who had lived much with the young English at Geneva, and was ambitious to be as lively as they; with which view, he, with assiduous exertion, was jumping over the tables and

chairs in his lodgings; and when the people of the house ran in, and asked, with surprise, what was the matter? he answered-Sh' apprens t'être fif!"

Johnson said, " Mrs. Williams was angry, that Thrale's family did not send regularly to her every time they heard from me while I was in the Hebrides. Little people are apt to be jealous; but they should not be jealous: for they ought to consider, that superior attention will necessarily be paid to superior fortune or rank. Two persons may have equal merit, and on that account may have equal claim to attention; but one of them may have also fortune and rank, and so may have a double claim."

Boswell happened to start a question, whether, when a man knows that some of his intimate friends are invited to the house of another friend, with whom they are all equally intimate, he may join them without an invitation. JOHNSON. No, sir; he is not to go when he is not invited: they may be invited on purpose to abuse him.”—(smiling.)

At a dinner party, one of the company not being come at the appointed hour, the master of the house proposed, as usual upon such occasions, to order dinner to be served; adding, " Ought six people to be kept waiting for one?" Why, yes," answered Johnson, with a delicate humanity, "if the one will suffer more by your sitting down, than the six will do by waiting."

He said, "Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, I think, might be made a very pretty book. Take out the immorality, and it should be put into the hands of every young gentleman. An elegant man

ner and easiness of behaviour are acquired gradually and imperceptibly. No man can say, 'I'll be genteel.' There are ten genteel women for one genteel man, because they are more restrained. A man. without some degree of restraint is insufferable; but we are all less restrained than women. Were a woman, sitting in company, to put out her legs before her as most men do, we should be tempted to kick them in." No man was a more attentive and nice observer of behaviour in those in whose company he happened to be, than Johnson; or, however strange it may seem to many, had a higher estimation of its refinements. Lord Eliot tells us, that one day when Johnson and he were at dinner in a gentleman's house in London, upon lord Chesterfield's Letters being mentioned, Johnson surprised the company by this sentence-" Every man of any education would rather be called a rascal, than accused of deficiency in the graces." Mr. Gibbon, who was present, turned to a lady who knew Johnson well, and lived much with him, and in his quaint manner, tapping his box, addressed her thus: "Don't you think, madam, (looking towards Johnson) that among all your acquaintance you could find one exception?" The lady smiled, and seemed to acquiesce.

In a small party, Dr. Johnson, as usual, spoke contemptuously of Colley Cibber. "It is wonderful that a man, who for forty years had lived with the great and the witty, should have acquired so ill the talents of conversation; and he had but half to furnish; for one half of what he said was oaths." He, however, allowed considerable merit to some of his comedies, and said there was no reason to believe