divert himself; he shewed me a calculation which I could scarce be made to understand, so vast was the plan of it, and so very intricate were the figures: no other indeed than that the national debt, computing it at one hundred and eighty millions sterling, would, if converted into filver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forgot how broad, for the globe of the whole earth, the real globe. On a fimilar occasion I asked him (knowing what subject he would like best to talk upon), How his opinion stood towards the question between Pafchal and Soame Jennings about number and numeration? as the French philosopher observes that infinity, though on all fides aftonishing, appears most so when the idea is connected with the idea of number; for the notions of infinite number, and infinite number we know there is, stretches one's capacity still more than the idea of infinite space: "Such a notion indeed (adds he) can scarcely find room in the human mind." Our English author on the other hand exclaims, let no man give himself leave to talk about infinite number, for infinite number is a contradiction in terms; whatever is once numbered, we all fee cannot be infinite. " I think (faid Mr. Johnfon after a pause) we must settle the matter thus: numeration is certainly infinite, for eternity might be employed in adding unit to unit; but every number is in itself finite, as the possibility of doubling it easily proves: besides, stop at what point you will, you find yourself as far from infinitude as ever." These passages I wrote down as soon as I had heard them, and repent that I did not take the fame method with a differtation

he made one other day that he was very ill, concerning the peculiar properties of the number Sixteen, which I afterwards tried, but in vain, to make him repeat.

As ethics or figures, or metaphyfical reafoning, was the fort of talk he most delighted in, so no kind of conversation pleased him less I think, than when the subject was historical fact or general polity. "What shall we learn from that stuff (faid he)? let us not fancy like Swift that we are exalting a woman's character by telling how she

Could name the ancient heroes round,
Explain for what they were renown'd, &c."

I must not however lead my readers to suppose that he meant to referve such talk for men's company as a proof of preeminence. "He never (as he expressed it) defired to hear of the Punic war while he lived: fuch conversation was loft time (he faid), and carried one away from common life, leaving no ideas behind which could serve living wight as warning or direction."

How I should act is not the cafe,
But how would Brutus in my place?

" And now (cries Mr. Johnson, laughing with obstreperous violence), if these two foolish lines can be equalled in folly, except by the two succeeding ones-shew them me."

I asked him once concerning the conversation powers of a gentleman with whom I was myself unacquainted-" He talked to me at club one day (replies our Doctor) concerning Catiline's confpiracy-fo I withdrew my attention, and thought about Tom Thumb."

.

Modern politics fared no better. I was one time extolling the character of a statesman, and expatiating on the skill required to direct the different currents, reconcile the jarring interests, &c. "Thus (replies he) a mill is a complicated piece of mechanism enough, but the water is no part of the workmanfhip." On another occasion, when some one lamented the weakness of a

then present minister, and complained that he was dull and tardy, and knew little of affairs,-" You may as well complain, Sir (says Johnson), that the accounts of time are kept by the clock; for he certainly does stand still upon the ftair-head-and we all know that he is no great chronologer." In the year 1777, or thereabouts, when all the talk was of an invafion, he said most pathetically one afternoon, "Alas! alas! how this unmeaning stuff spoils all my comfort in my friends conversation! Will the people never have done with it; and shall I never hear a fentence again without the French in it? Here is no invafion coming, and you know there is none. Let the vexatious and frivolous talk alone, or suffer it at least to teach you one truth; and learn by this perpetual echo of even unapprehended diftress, how historians magnify events expected, or calamities endured; when you know they are at this very mo