which his Lordship very gravely, and with a courteous air, said, "Pray, Sir, is it true that you are taking lessons of Vestris?" This was risking a

good deal, and required the boldness of a General of Irish Volunteers to make the attempt. Johnson was at first startled, and in some heat answered, "How can your Lordship ask so simple a question?" But immediately recovering himself, whether from unwillingness to be deceived, or to appear deceived, or whether from real good humour, he kept up the joke: "Nay, but if any body were to answer the paragraph, and contradict it, I'd have a reply, and would say, that he .who contradicted it was no friend either to Vestris or me. For why should not Dr. Johnson add to his other powers a little corporeal agility? Socrates learnt to dance at an advanced age, and Cato learnt Greek at an advanced age. Then it might proceed to say, that this Johnson, not content with dancing on the ground, might dance on the rope; and they might introduce the elephant dancing on the rope. A nobleman wrote a play, called Love in a Hollow Tree.' He found out that it was a bad one, and therefore wished to buy up all the copies, and burn them. The Duchess of Marlborough had kept one; and when he was against her at an election, she had a new edition of it printed, and prefixed to it, as a frontispiece, an elephant dancing on a

rope; to shew, that his Lordship's writing comedy was as awkward as an elephant dancing on a rope."

Johnson was, at a certain period of his life, a good deal with the Earl of Shelburne, now Mar-' quis of Lansdown.

Maurice Morgan, Esq. author of the "Essay on the Character of Falstaff," being a particular friend of his Lordship, had once an opportunity of entertaining Johnson for a day or two at Wickham, when its Lord was absent. One night,

pretty late, Mr. Morgan and he had a dispute in which Johnson would not give up, though he had the wrong side, and in short both kept the field. Next morning, when they met in the breakfasting-room, Dr. J. with great candour, accosted Mr. Morgan thus: "Sir, I have been thinking on our dispute last night-You were in the right."

Sir Joshua Reynolds once observed to him, that he had talked above the capacity of some people with whom they had been in company together."No matter, Sir (said Johnson), they consider it as a compliment to be talked to as if they were wiser than they are."

"There is nothing more likely to betray a man into absurdity than condescension; when he seems to suppose his understanding too powerful for his company."

"No man (he used to say) speaks concerning

another, even supposing it to be in his praise, if he thinks he does not hear him, exactly as he would, if he thought he was within hearing."

"Never (said he) speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive."

Johnson could not brook appearing to be worsted in argument, even when, to show the force and dexterity of his talents, he had taken the wrong side. When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once when Mr. B. was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped him thus: "My dear B. let's have no more of this; you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather have you whistle a Scotch tune."

taken to distinguish talked for victory,"

Care, however, must be between Johnson when he and Johnson when he had no desire but to inform and illustrate. "One of his principal talents (says an eminent friend of his) was shown in maintaining the wrong side of an argument, and in a splendid perversion of the truth. If you could contrive to have his fair opinion on a subject, and without any bias from personal prejudice, or from a wish to be victorious in argument, it was wisdom itself, not only convincing, but overpowering."

He had, however, all his life habituated himself to consider conversation as a trial of intellectual vigour and skill; and to this may perhaps be ascribed that unexampled richness and brilliancy which appeared in his own. As a proof at once of his eagerness for colloquial distinction, and his high notion of this eminent friend, he once addressed him thus: "We now have been several hours together, and you have said but one thing for which I envied you."

He disliked much all speculative desponding considerations, which tended to discourage men from diligence and exertion. He was in this like Dr. Shaw, the great traveller, who used to say, "I hate a cui bono man." Upon being asked by a friend what he should think of a man who was apt to say non est tanti? "That he's a stupid fellow, Sir (answered Johnson). What would these tanti men be doing the while?" When one, in a low-spirited fit, was talking to him with indifference of the pursuits which generally engage us in a course of action, and inquiring a reason for taking so much trouble; "Sir, (said he in an animated tone) it is driving on the system of life."

Of his fellow collegian Mr. Edwards, with whom he had accidentally met after many years separation, he said, "Here is a man who has passed through life without experience: yet I

would rather have him with me than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is always willing to say what he has to say." Yet (says Mr. B.) Dr. J. had himself by no means that willingness which he praised so much and so justly; for who has not felt the painful effect of the dreary void, when there is a total silence in a company for any length of time; or, which is as bad, or perhaps worse, when the conversation is with difficulty kept up by a perpetual effort?

He related, that he had once in a dream a contest of wit with some other person, and that he was very much mortified by imagining that his opponent had the better of him. "Now (said he) one may mark here the effect of sleep in weakening the power of reflection; for bad not my judgment failed me, I should have seen, that the wit of this supposed antagonist, by whose superiority I felt myself depressed, was as much furnished by me, as that which I thought I had been uttering in my own character."

Of a certain player he remarked, that his conversation usually threatened and announced more than it performed; that he fed you with a continual renovation of hope, to end in a constant succession of disappointment.

When exasperated by contradiction, he was apt to treat his opponents with too much acrimony; as, "Sir, you don't see your way through