tague shewed him fome China plates which had once belonged to Queen Elizabeth, he told her, " that they had no reason to be ashamed of their present poffeffor, who was so little inferior to the first." I likewife remember that he pronounced one day at my house a most lofty panegyric upon Jones the Orientalist, who seemed little pleased with the praise, for what cause I know not. He was not at all offended, when comparing all our acquaintance to fome animal or other, we pitched upon the elephant for his resemblance, adding that the proboscis of that creature was like his mind most exactly, strong to buffet even the tyger, and pliable to pick up even the pin. The truth is, Mr. Johnfon was often good humouredly willing to join in childish amusements, and hated to be left out of any innocent merriment that was going forward. Mr. Murphy always faid, he was incomparable at buffoonery; and I verily think, if he had had good eyes, and a form less inflexible, he would have made an admirable mimic. He certainly rode on Mr. Thrale's old hunter with a good firmness, and though he would follow the hounds fifty miles an end sometimes, would never own himself either tired or amufed. " I have now learned (faid he), by hunting, to perceive, that it is no diversion at all, nor ever takes a man out of himself for a moment: the dogs have less sagacity than I could have prevailed on myself to suppose; and the gentlemen often call to me not to ride over thern. It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should perfuade us ever to call hunting one of them." He was however proud to be amongst the sports men; and I think no praise ever went fo close to his heart, as when Mr. Hamilton called out one day upon Bright helmstone Downs, Why Johnson rides as well, for ought I fee, as the most illiterate fellow in England. 1 Though Dr. Johnson owed his very life to air and exercise, given him when his organs of respiration could scarcely play, in the year 1766, yet he ever perfisted in the notion, that neither of them had any thing to do with health. "People live as long (faid he) in Pepper-alley as on Salisbury-plain; and they live so much happier, that an inhabitant of the first would, if he turned cottager, starve his understanding for want of conversation, and perish in a state of mental inferiority." Mr. Johnson indeed, as he was a very talking man himself, had an idea that nothing promoted happiness so much as converfation. A friend's erudition was commended one day as equally deep and strong-" He will not talk Sir (was the reply), fo his learning does no good, and his wit, if he has it, gives us no pleasure: out of all his boasted stores 1 never heard him force but one word, and that word was Richard." - With a contempt not inferior he received the praises of a pretty lady's face and behaviour : "She says nothing Sir (answers Johnson); a talking blackamoor were better than a white creature who adds nothing to life, and by fitting down before one thus desperately filent, takes away the confidence one should have in the company of her chair if she were once out of it." - No one was however less willing to begin any discourse than himfelf: his friend Mr. Thomas Tyers faid, he was like the ghosts, who never speak till they are spoken to: and he liked the expreffion so well, that he often repeated it. He had indeed no necessity to lead the stream of chat to a favourite channel, that his fulness on the fubject might be shewn more clearly, whatever was the topic; and he usually left the choice to others. His information best enlightened, his argument strengthened, and his wit made it ever remembered. Of him it might have been faid, as he often delighted to say of Edmund Burke, "that you could not stand five minutes with that man beneath a shed while it rained, but you must be convinced you had been standing with the greatest man you had ever yet seen." As we had been saying one day that no subject failed of receiving dignity from the manner in which Mr. Johnfon treated it, a lady at my house faid, she would make him talk about love; and took her measures accordingly, deriding the novels of the day because they treated about love. "It is not (replied our philosopher) because they treat, as you call it, about love, but because they treat of nothing, that they are despicable: we must not ridicule a P 1 |