When you have said a man of gentle manners, you have faid enough." The late Mr. Fitzherbert told Mr. Langton that Johnson said to him, " Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing, than to aft one; no more right to say a rude thing to an other than to knock him down. On fome occafion he observed, "Though many men are nominally entrusted with the administration of hospitals and other publick institutions, almost all the good is done by one man, by whom the rest are driven on; owing to confidence in him, and indolence in them. Speaking of a gentleman whose house was much frequented by low company, " Rags (said he) will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it.x Of the fame gentleman's mode of living, he faid, "The servants, instead of doing what they are bid, stand round the table in idle clufters, gaping upon the guests; and seem as unfit to attend a company, as to steer a man of war." He remarked, " that a man should pass a part of his time with the laughers, by which means any thing ridiculous or particular about him might be presented to his view, and corrected." Mr. Bofwell observed, that he must have been a bold laugher who would have ventured 12 ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his par ticularities. "There is (faid Johnson) a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat it is nothing; but if the fame inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, 'His memory is going." Of a certain noble Lord he said, " Respect him you could not ; for he had no mind of his own: love him you could not; for that which you could do with him, every one else could." Being asked by a young nobleman, what was become of the gallantry and military spirit of the old English nobility, he replied, "Why, my Lord, I'll tell you what is become of it; it is gone into the city to look for a fortune." Speaking of a dull tiresome fellow, whom he chanced to meet, he faid, "That fellow feems to me to poffefs but one idea, and that is a wrong one." To a correspondent who had been tardy in his communications, he wrote thus: "Are you playing the fame trick again, and trying who can keep filence longest? Remember that all tricks are either knavish or childish; and that it is as foolish to make experiments upon the 1 the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife. What can be the cause of this second fit of filence, I cannot conjecture; but after one trick, I will not be cheated by another, nor will harass my thoughts with conjectures about the motives of a man who probably acts only by caprice." He one day observed to Sir William Scott, "The age is running mad after innovation ; all the business of the world is to be done in a new way; men are to be hanged in a new way'; Tyburn itself is not safe from the fury of innovation." It having been argued that this was an improvement, "No, Sir (faid he eagerly), it is not an improvement: they object that the old method drew together a number of spectators;-Sir, executions are intended to draw spectators. If they do not draw spectators, they do not answer the purpose. The old method was most satisfactory to all parties; the public was gratified by a procession; the criminal was supported by it. Why is all this to be swept away *?" He said, " Mankind have a strong attachment to the habitations to which they have * " I perfectly agree (says Mr. Bofwell) with Dr. Johnfon upon this head, and am perfuaded that executions now, the folemn procession being discontinued, have not nearly the effect which they formerly had. Magistrates, both in London, and elsewhere, have, I am afraid, in this had too much regard to their own cafe." 13 been been accustomed. You see the inhabitants of Norway do not with one consent quit it, and go to some part of America, where there is a mild climate, and where they may have the same produce from land, with the tenth part of the labour. No, Sir; their affection for their old dwellings, and the terror of a general change, keep them at home. Thus we see many of the finest spots in the world thinly inhabited, and many rugged spots well inhabited." "Madness (he faid on fome other occafion) frequently discovers itself merely by unnecefsary deviation from the usual modes of the world. My poor friend Smart shewed the difturbance of his mind, by falling upon his knees, and saying his prayers in the street, or in any other unusual place. Now although, rationally speaking, it is greater madness not to pray at all, than to pray as Smart did, I am afraid there are so many who do not pray, that their understanding is not called in question." In a conversation on gaming, a gentleman animadverted on it with feverity. "Nay, gentlemen (faid Johnson), let us not aggravate the matter. It is not roguery to play with a man who is ignorant of the game, while you are master of it, and so win his money; for he thinks he can play better than you, as you think you can play better than he; and the fuperior superior skill carries it." ERSKINE. He is a fool, but you are not a rogue." JOHNSON. "That's much about the truth, Sir. It must be confidered, that a man who only does what every one of the society to which he belongs would do, is not a dishonest man. In the republic of Sparta it was agreed, that stealing was not dishonourable, if not discovered. I do not commend a society where there is an agreement that what would not otherwise be fair, shall be fair; but I maintain, that an individual of any society, who practises what is allowed, is not a dishoneft man." -BOSWELL, "So then, Sir, you do not think ill of a man who wins perhaps forty thousand pounds in a winter?"-7. " Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsocial man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good. Trade gives employment to numbers, and so produces intermediate good." Talking of a gentleman who was supposed to be gradually involving his circumstances by bad management, Johnson said to Mr. B. "Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means. If it were astream, they'd stop it, You must speak to him. It is really miferable. Were he a gamester, it could be said he had hopes of winning. Were he a bankrupt in trade, 14 |