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Topham Beauclerk (Johnson's friend) was strangely absent person. One day he had a party coming to dinner; and, just before their arrival, he went up stairs to change his dress. He forgot all about them; thought that it was bed-time, pulled off his clothes, and got into bed. A servant, who presently entered the room to tell him that his guests were waiting for him, found him fast asleep.

I remember taking Beattie's Minstrel down from my father's shelves, on a fine summer evening, and reading it, for the first time, with such delight! It still charms me (I mean the First Book; the Second Book is very inferior).

During my youth umbrellas were far from common. At that time every gentleman's family had one umbrella, a huge thing, made of coarse cotton, -which used to be taken out with the carriage, and which, if there was rain, the footman held over the ladies' heads, as they entered, or alighted from, the carriage,

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My first visit to France was in company with Boddington, just before the Revolution began. When we arrived at Calais, we saw both ladies and gentlemen walking on the pier with small fox-muffs. While we were dining there, a poor monk came into the room and asked us for charity; and B. annoyed me much by saying to him, "Il faut travailler."* The monk bowed meekly, and withdrew. Nothing would satisfy B. but that we should ride on horseback the first stage from Calais; and accordingly, to the great amusement of the inn-keeper and chambermaid, we were furnished with immense jack-boots and hoisted upon our steeds. When we reached Paris, Lafayette gave us a general invitation to dine with him every day. At his table we once dined with about a dozen persons (among them the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, Condorcet, &c.), most of whom afterwards came to an untimely end.

At a dinner-party in Paris, given by a French

* "But we distinguish, said I, laying my hand upon the sleeve of his [the Monk's] tunic, in return for his appeal,- —we distinguish, my good father, betwixt those who wish only to eat the bread of their own labour, and those who eat the bread of other people's, and have no other plan in life but to get through it in sloth and ignorance, for the love of God." Sterne's Sentimental Journey,—The Monk.— ED.

nobleman, I saw a black bottle of English porter set on the table as a great rarity, and drunk out of small glasses.

Boddington had a wretchedly bad memory; and, in order to improve it, he attended Feinaigle's lectures on the Art of Memory. Soon after, somebody asked Boddington the name of the lecturer; and, for his life, he could not recollect it.-When I was asked if I had attended the said lectures on the Art of Memory, I replied, "No: I wished to learn the Art of Forgetting."

One morning, when I was a lad, Wilkes came into our banking-house to solicit my father's vote. My father happened to be out, and I, as his representative, spoke to Wilkes. At parting, Wilkes shook hands with me; and I felt proud of it for a week after.

He was quite as ugly, and squinted as much, as his portraits make him; but he was very gentlemanly

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appearance and manners. I think I see him at this moment, walking through the crowded streets of the City, as Chamberlain, on his way to Guildhall, in a scarlet coat, military boots, and a bag-wig,-the hackney-coachmen in vain calling out to him, "A coach, your honour?"

Words are so twisted and tortured by some writers of the present day, that I am really sorry for them, I mean, for the words. It is a favourite fancy of mine that perhaps in the next world the use of words may be dispensed with,—that our thoughts may stream into each others' minds without any verbal communication.

When a young man, I went to Edinburgh, carrying letters of introduction (from Dr. Kippis, Dr. Price, &c.) to Adam Smith, Robertson, and others. When I first saw Smith, he was at breakfast, eating strawberries; and he descanted on the superior flavour of those grown in Scotland.* I found him very

* Every Englishman who has tasted the strawberries of Scotland will allow that Smith was right.-ED.

kind and communicative. He was (what Robertson was not) a man who had seen a great deal of the world. Once, in the course of conversation, I happened to remark of some writer, that "he was rather superficial, a Voltaire."-" Sir," cried Smith, striking the table with his hand, "there has been but one Voltaire!"

Robertson, too, was very kind to me. He, one morning, spread out the map of Scotland on the floor, and got upon his knees, to describe the route I ought to follow in making a tour on horseback through the Highlands.

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At Edinburgh I became acquainted with Henry Mackenzie, who asked me to correspond with him;

which I (then young, romantic, and an admirer of his Julia de Roubignè) willingly agreed to. We accordingly wrote to each other occasionally during several years; but his letters, to my surprise and disappointment, were of the most commonplace description. Yet his published writings display no ordinary talent; and, like those of Beattie, they are remarkable for a pure English idiom,-which cannot be said of Hume's writings, beautiful as they are.

The most memorable day perhaps which I ever