himself to Mr. Reynolds, who sat next him, and with a loud voice said, "I wonder which of us two could get most money at his trade in one week, were we to work hard at it from morning to night?" Mr. Reynolds, who relates this story, says that the ladies, rising soon after, went away without knowing what trade they were of.

His ardent attachment to Reynolds is somewhat marvellous, when, as Burke says, "JOHNSON neither understood nor desired to understand anything of painting, and had no distinct idea of its nomenclature, even in those parts which had got most into use in common life." "Indeed," says Mrs. Thrale, "Dr. JOHNSON's utter scorn of painting was such that I have heard him say that he should sit very quietly in a room hung round with the works of the greatest masters, and never feel the slightest disposition to turn them if their backs were outermost, unless it might be for the sake of telling Sir Joshua that he had turned them." This can be understood when we consider his defective eyesight. And yet now and again he could give an original idea to Sir Joshua, which helped him in

his profession. One day Reynolds mentioned some picture as excellent. "It has often grieved me, sir," said JOHNSON, "to see so much mind as as the science of painting requires, laid out upon such perishable materials. Why do you not make use of copper? I could wish your superiority in the art you profess to be preserved in stuff more durable than canvas." At the close of his famous Discourses, Sir Joshua nobly acknowledges his indebtedness to JOHNSON in these words “ The very discourses which I have had the honour of delivering from this place, whatever merit they have, must be imputed in a great measure to the education which I may be said to have had under Dr. JOHNSON." And again he says "The observations which he made on poetry, on life, and on everything about us, I applied to our art; with what success others must judge." Bennet Langton rather spitefully remarked, on JOHNSON'S death, to Sir John Hawkins-"We shall now know whether he has or has not assisted Sir Joshua in his Discourses." But he who never varied from the truth of fact, "had assured

Sir Joshua that his assistance had never exceeded the substitution of a word or two in preference to what Sir Joshua had written."

His estimate of Reynolds was very high. Says Mr. Humphry-“I asked Dr. JOHNSON if he had seen Mr. Reynolds' pictures lately. 'No, sir.' 'He has painted many fine ones.' 'I know he has,' he said, 'as I hear he has been fully employed of late.' I told him that I imagined Mr. Reynolds was not much pleased to be overlooked by the Court, as he must be conscious of his superior talent. 'Not at all displeased,' he said; 'Mr. Reynolds has too much good sense to be affected by it. When he was younger, he believed it would have been agreeable; but now, he does not want their favour. It has ever been more profitable to be popular among the people than favoured by the King; it is no reflection on Mr. Reynolds not to be employed by them; but it will be a reflection for ever on the Court not to have employed him. The King perhaps knows nothing but that he employs the best painters, and as for the Queen, I don't imagine she has any other idea of a picture

but that it is a thing composed of many colours.' Although such friends they had, as all true friends have, slight altercations. Everybody knows the incident at which Boswell says JOHNSON blushed, "Sir, I will not argue any more with you, you are too far gone." "I should have thought so too," said Reynolds, "if I had made that speech."

In 1755 Reynolds painted the famous and now historical portrait of JOHNSON, which represents him as reading and near-sighted, with the appearance of a labouring working mind, and "an indolent reposing body." The Doctor, when he saw it, was greatly displeased, and sharply reproved Sir Joshua for painting him in that manner and attitude, saying, "It is not friendly to hand down to posterity the imperfections of any man.” Reynolds' motive, however, was to paint his friend as Cromwell desired to be painted by Lely-" with every wart and blemish delineated, as characterising the person, and therefore as giving additional value to the portrait."

Although JOHNSON never liked the portrait himself, and expressed his opinion of it to Sir Joshua,

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he would allow no one else to find fault with it.
One day when Dr. Walcot, speaking of this very
portrait, remarked to him "that it was not
sufficiently dignified," he flatly contradicted him,
replying, with a kind of bull-dog growl, "No
sir, the pencil of Reynolds never wanted dignity,
nor the graces." In spite of little tiffs, JOHNSON
and Reynolds remained fast friends until death.
Another illustrious friend of Dr. JOHNSON was
Edmund Burke, one of the greatest orators that ever
entered Parliament, and the most philosophical
political writer of his age. He was a Whig. A
"bottomless Whig" was the application given to him
by JOHNSON, and his idea was that Whiggism was
the negation of all principle. To Arnold, of St.
John's College, he said, "Sir, you are a young
man, but I have seen a great deal of the world, and
take it upon my word and experience, that where-
ever you see a Whig you
first Whig was the Devil."

see a Rascal. Sir, the But in his calm reflec

tive moments, when he was not talking for victory, he said, "A wise Tory and a wise Whig will, I believe, agree. Their principles are the same,