Goldsmith says Garrick writes like an angel, but talks like poor Poll; and JOHNSON said of him: "No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had." Report has it that Carlyle and our own poet laureate, would sit for an hour together without exchanging a word, and congratulate each other at parting, that they had spent such a pleasant and profitable hour. "Scan the entire list" of our immortals, and you will find that, as a conversationalist, JOHNSON stands unique.

Speaking of JOHNSON'S conversational powers, Burke eloquently remarks that "JOHNSON appears far greater in Boswell's books than in his own." Macaulay endorses the eloquent remark, but both might have added that the conversations recorded by Boswell are but the merest fragments in comparison with JOHNSON'S mighty utterances during his seventy-five years' liferent here.

JOHNSON little understood the influence that his conversation was having on the age in which he lived. He seemed to think it a secondary thing. "The best part of an author," said he, "is always

to be found in his writings."

He often lamented

his conversations as time wasted. At that period of his life when he began "to write little and talk much," he apologised thus: "No man is bound to do as much as he can do, every man should have part of his life to himself." Thinking that his writings would reach infinitely more than his conversations, he compares himself to a physician who had long practised in a city, retires to a country parish and takes less practice. "Now, sir, the good I can do by my conversation bears the same proportion to the good I can do my writings that the practice of a physician retired to a town, does to his practice in a great city." It is evident that he did anticipate, and justly too, that the "Dictionary," the "Rambler," "Rasselas," and the "Lives" would carry his name to distant hat ages; and now in possession of a pension, and with his life work done, he could afford to spend the few years that yet remained of life, in conversation. How little did he dream of the mighty audience his conversation was to reach; little did he dream that his conversations with Boswell were spoken to a

listening world: little did he dream that these conversations were destined to give instruction, and to be read with rapturous pleasure," as long as the English exists, either as a living or as a dead language."

We will not presume specifically to illustrate his colloquial powers, that would be impossible; but simply remark in passing, that one of the secrets of that power was his sincerity and abhorrence of cant. The gospel which he preached in his best conversations was, "Clear your mind of cant." "Throw cant utterly away."

Let us next consider the critical phase of JOHNSON'S character. Ito vas As an impromptu critic he was unrivalled. His idea was that "sincere criticism ought to raise no resentment, because judgment is not under the control of will; but involuntary criticism, as it has still less of choice, ought to be more remote from possibility of offence.” "Omoonel occasion," says Boswell," we talked of the stage and of Garrick's

acting. 'Sir,' said JOHNSON, 'Garrick's great distinction is his universality.""

When JOHNSON had one day recited with great power Bentley's verses in Dodsley's collection, Adam Smith, who was present, remarked, in his dignified professional style," Very well-very well." "Yes, sir," answered JOHNSON," they are very well; but you may observe in what manner they are well. They are the forcible verses of a man of a strong mind, but not accustomed to write verse; for there is some uncouthness in the expression."

One evening when JOHNSON denied the authenticity of Ossian's poems, "Sir," said a gentleman, "could any man living write such poems now?" "Yes, sir," said the Doctor, "many men, many women, and many children. A man might write such rubbish for ever, if he abandoned his mind.

to it."

Of Fingal he said, "Why is not the original deposited in some public library, instead of exhibiting attestations of its existence? Suppose there were a question in a court of justice whether a man be dead or alive you aver he is alive, and you

bring fifty witnesses to swear it: I answer, 'Why do you not produce the man?'” "My assertions

are, for the most part, purely negative: I deny the existence of Fingal, because in a long and curious peregrination through the Gaelic regions I have never been able to find it. What I could not see myself, I suspect to be equally invisible to others; and I suspect with the more reason, as among all those who have seen it no man can show it.

To Macpherson, the translator of Ossian, who had sent JOHNSON an impertinent letter, he replied as follows:

"MR. JAMES MACPHERSON.-I received your foolish and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do my best to repel; and what I cannot do for myself, the law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

"What would you have me retract? I thought your book an imposture; I think it an imposture. still. For this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable; and what I hear of your