morals inclines me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. You may print this if you will. "SAM. JOHNSON."

Lord Lovat boasted to an English nobleman that he had two thousand men whom he could at any time call into the field. The Hon. Alexander Gordon observed that those two thousand men brought him to the block. "True, sir," said JOHNSON; "but you may just as well argue concerning a man who has fallen over a precipice to which he has walked too near, 'his two legs brought him to that.' Is he not the better for having two legs?'

Of Peter the Great he said that he had not sense to see that the mere mechanical work may be done by anybody. Sir Christopher Wren might as well have served his time to a bricklayer, and first, indeed, to a brickmaker.

"I told him," says Boswell, "that Voltaire in a conversation with me had distinguished Pope and Dryden thus: 'Pope drives a handsome chariot, with a couple of neat trim nags; Dryden a coach, and six stately horses." JOHNSON: "Why, sir,

the truth is, they both drive coaches and six; but Dryden's horses are either galloping or stumbling: Pope's go at a steady even trot."

He always thought very contemptuously of Churchill's poetry, observing that "it had a contemporary currency only from its audacity of abuse, and being filled with living names, it would sink into oblivion." When Boswell ventured to hint to him that he was not quite a fair judge, as Churchhill had attacked him violently. "Nay, sir," said JOHNSON, "I am a very fair judge. He did not attack me violently till he found I did not like his poetry. No, sir, I called the fellow a blockhead at first, and I will call him a blockhead still."

When told by Boswell that David Hume had said "that he was no more uneasy to think he should not be after his life than that he had not

been before he began to exist." Said JOHNSON

all he has." Boswell: "Foote, sir, told me that when he was very ill he was not afraid to die." JOHNSON: "It is not true, sir. Hold a pistol to Foote's breast, or to Hume's, and threaten to kill them, and you'll see how they behave."

When reminded by a friend of certain nations which were ruined through luxury, "Sir," said JOHNSON, "No nation was ever ruined by luxury, for it could extend only to a very few." To a lady who was canting about the death of a very casual acquaintance, said JOHNSON, "Madam, have done with canting; a death affects no man, except it be that of a very near and dear friend, so as to eat a potato the less at dinner. We think this sentiment due to fact. Have not all of us been startled at the dinner table for a moment by the announcement of some death? How dreadful, we exclaimPass the wine, please.'

He was quite prepared with a criticism upon every conceivable subject. A gentleman said a small bull dog was as good as a large one. JOHNSON: “No, sir, for in proportion to his size he has strength; and your argument would prove that a

good bull dog may be as small as a mouse." Going to see one druidical temple, as he justly observed, is only to see that it is nothing; for there is neither art nor power in it, and seeing one is quite enough. "The English," said he, “are the only nation who ride hard a-hunting. A Frenchman goes out upon a managed horse, and capers in the field, and no more thinks of leaping a hedge than of mounting a breach." Speaking of the French literati, he said : "There are none of them now alive to visit whom I would cross a sea." When Boswell pointed out to him in the newspaper, one of Mr. Grattan's animated and glowing speeches in favour of the freedom of Ireland, in which this expression occurred, "We will persevere till there is not one link of the English chain left to clank upon the rags of the meanest beggar in Ireland!" "Nay, sir," said JOHNSON, "don't you perceive that one link cannot clank."

He would not allow it to be said that life is longer in places where there are fewer opportunities of luxury. "A cottager," says he, "grows old over his oaten cakes, like a citizen at a turtle feast. He

h

cxvi.

should himself be fat.'

am vexed with our replied JOHNSON,

On a certain occasi

the phrase, to "mak
sir," said JOHNSON,
To make money is to
money." One evenir

Said Boswell one day, "I politics." "That is cant, sir,"

Public affairs vex no man."

on in speaking, Boswell used e, e money." "Don't you see, ok h

ld

the impropriety of the phrase?

avi

coin it. You should say get igat a dinner party, a learned

Professor, in speaking to him, talked about "a the Why, sir," said JOHNSON, “is

botanical garden."

F

not every garden botanical?" "To be distinct," said he, “we must talk analytically. If we analyse

lis

language, we must peak of it grammatically; if we analyse argument we must speak of it logically."

hal

We shall now try

to illustrate the SARCASTICAL

PHASE of JOHNSON 'S character.

V

A gentleman having said that a congé d'elire has not perhaps the force of a command, but may be

Sir," replied John son, who overheard him, "it is such a recommendation, as if I should throw you