pudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects." SIR JOSHUA. "You are talking of the effects of excess in wine; but a moderate glass enlivens the mind, by giving a proper circulation to the blood. I am in very good spirits when I get up in the morning; by dinner time I am exhausted; wine puts me in the same state as when I got up and I am sure that mode. rate drinking makes people talk better." JOHNSON. 16 No, sir; wine gives not light, gay, ideal, hilarity; but tumultuous, noisy, clamorous merriment. I have heard none of those drunken-nay, drunken is a coarse word—none of those vinous flights." SIR JOSHUA, "Because you have sat by, quite sober, and felt an envy of the happiness of those who were drinking." JOHNSON. "Perhaps contempt. And, -sir, it is not necessary to be drunk one's self, to relish the wit of drunkenness. Do we not judge of the drunken wit of the dialogue between Iago and Cassio (the most excellent in its kind), when we are quite sober? Wit is wit, by whatever means it is produced; and, if good, will appear so at all times. I admit that the spirits are raised by drinking, as by the common participation of any pleasure: cockfighting, or bear-baiting will raise the spirits of a company, as drinking does, though surely they will not improve conversation. I also admit, that there are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking, as there are fruits which are not good till they are rotten there are such men, but they are medlars. I indeed allow that there have been a very few men of talents who were improved by drinking, but I maintain that I am right as to the effects of drinking in general: and let it be considered, that

there is no position, however false in its univer sality, which is not true of some particular man.” SIR WILLIAM FORBES. "May not a man warmed with wine be like a bottle of beer, which is made brisker by being set before the fire!" JOHNSON(laughing.) "Nay, I cannot answer that: that is too much for me." BOSWELL. "Wine does some people harm, by inflaming, confusing, and irritating their minds; but the experience of mankind has declared in favour of moderate drinking." JOHNSON. "Sir, I do not say it is wrong to produce self-complacency by drinking; I only deny that it improves the mind. When I drank wine, I scorned to drink it when in company. I have drunk many a bottle by myself; in the first place, because I had need of it to raise my spirits; in the second place, because I would have nobody to witness its effects upon me."

Shiels, who in part compiled Cibber's Lives of the Poets, was one day sitting with Johnson: the doctor took down Thomson, and read aloud a large portion of him, and then asked, "Is not this fine?" Shiels having expressed the highest admiration, "Well, sir," said Johnson, "I have omitted every other line."

A very celebrated lady, then just come to London from an obscure situation in the country, met Dr. Johnson at sir Joshua Reynolds's one evening. She very soon began to pay her court to him in the most fulsome strain. "Spare me, I beseech you, dear madam," was his reply. She still laid it on. " Pray, madam, let us have no more of this," he rejoined. Not paying any attention to these warnings, she continued still her eulogy. At length, provoked by

this indelicate and vain obtrusion of compliment, he exclaimed, "Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow it so freely."

Boswell relating that he had travelled all the preceding night; gone to bed at Leek, in Staffordshire; and, when he rose to go to church in the afternoon, he was informed there had been an earthquake, of which, it seems, the shock had been felt in some degree at Ashbourne-Johnson, who was just arrived, said, "Sir, it will be much exaggerated in public talk: for, in the first place, the common people do not accurately adapt their thoughts to the objects; nor, secondly, do they accurately adapt their words to their thoughts: they do not mean to lie; but, taking no pains to be exact, they give you very false accounts. A great part of their language is proverbial: if any thing rocks at all, they say it rocks like a cradle; and in this way they go

on.

Dr. Johnson being ill, Boswell breakfasted with him, and he seemed much relieved, having taken opium the night before. He however protested against it, as a remedy that should be given with the utmost reluctance, and only in extreme necessity. Boswell mentioned how commonly it was used in Turkey, and that therefore it could not be so pernicious as he apprehended. He grew warm, and said, “Turks take opium, and Christians take opium; but Russel, in his account of Aleppo, tells us, that it is as disgraceful in Turkey to take too much opium, as it is with us to get drunk. Sir, it is amazing how things are exaggerated. A gentleman was lately telling in a company where I was pre

sent, that in France, as soon as a man of fashion marries, he takes an opera girl into keeping; and this he mentioned as a general custom. Pray, sir,' said I, how many opera girls may there be?' He answered,About fourscore.' Well then, sir,' said I, you see there can be no more than fourscore men of fashion who can do this."

Another proof of the importance of simple calculation in reducing things to their true level, occurred in the following conversation. 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." Boswell. "How your statement lessens the idea!" JOHNSON. "That, sir, is the good of counting: it 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 al low yourself to be delighted with error." BoswEli. "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."

The subject of quotation being introduced, Mr. Wilkes censured it as pedantry. JOHNSON. "No, sir, it is a good thing; there is a community of mind in it: classical quotation is the parole of lite

rary men all over the world." WILKES. "Upon the continent they all quote the vulgate Bible: Shakspeare is chiefly quoted here; and we quote also Pope, Prior, Butler, Waller, and sometimes Cowley."

Having spent an evening at Mr. Langton's with the reverend Dr. Parr, he was much pleased with the conversation of that learned gentleman; and, after he was gone, said to Mr. Langton, "Sir, I am obliged to you for having asked me this evening. Parr is a fair man. I do not know when I have had an occasion of such free controversy. It is remarkable how much of a man's life may pass without meeting with any instance of this kind of open dis-* cussion."

Another time he said to Boswell, "If you come to settle here, we will have one day in the week ou which we will meet by ourselves. That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments."

Dr. Adams relating, that in some of the colleges at Oxford, the fellows had excluded the students from social intercourse with them in the common room. JOHNSON. "They are in the right, sir: there can be no real conversation, no fair exertion of mind amongst them, if the young men are by; for a man who has a character does not choose to stake it in their presence." Boswell. “ But, sir, may there not be very good conversation without a contest for superiority?" JOHNSON. "No animated conversation, sir; for it cannot be but one or other will come off superior: I do not mean that the victor must have the better of the argument, for