ing whom both Robertson and Ramsay agreed that he had a constant firmness of mind; for after a laborious day, and amidst a multiplicity of cares and anxieties, he would sit down with his sisters and be quite cheerful and good-humoured. Such a disposition, it was observed, was the happy gift of nature. JOHNSON. "I do not think so: a man has from nature a certain portion of mind; the use he makes of it depends upon his own free will. That a man has always the same firmness of mind, I do not say: because every man feels his mind less firm at one time than another; but I think, a man's being in a good or bad humour depends upon his will." I, however, could not help thinking that a man's humour is often uncontrollable by his will.

Johnson harangued against drinking wine. "A man," said he, "may choose whether he will have abstemiousness and knowledge, or claret and ignorance." Dr. Robertson, (who is very companionable), was beginning to dissent as to the proscription of claret. JOHNSON (with a placid smile). "Nay, sir, you shall not differ with me; as I have said that the man is most perfect who takes in the most things, I am for knowledge and claret." ROBERTSON (holding a glass of generous claret in his hand). "Sir, I can only drink your health." JOHNSON. "Sir, I should be sorry if you should be ever in such a state as to be able to do nothing more." ROBERTSON. "Dr. Johnson, allow me to say, that in one respect I have the advantage of you; when you were in Scotland you would not come to hear any of our preachers, whereas, when I am here, I attend your publick worship without scruple, and, indeed, with great satisfaction." JOHNSON. "Why, sir, that is not so extraordinary: the King of Siam sent ambas

sadors to Louis the Fourteenth, but Louis the Fourteenth sent none to the King of Siam '."

Here my friend for once discovered a want of knowledge or forgetfulness; for Louis the Fourteenth did send an embassy to the King of Siam, and the Abbé Choisi, who was employed in it, published an account of it in two volumes.

Next day, Thursday, April 30, I found him at home by himself. JOHNSON. "Well, sir, Ramsay gave us a splendid dinner. I love Ramsay. You will not find a man in whose conversation there is more instruction, more information, and more elegance, than in Ramsay's." BOSWELL. "What I admire in Ramsay, is his continuing to be so young." JOHNSON. "Why, yes, sir, it is to be admired. I value myself upon

this, that there is nothing of the old man in my conversation. I am now sixty-eight, and I have no more of it than at twenty-eight." BOSWELL. "But, sir, would not you wish to know old age? He who is never an old man, does not know the whole of human life; for old age is one of the divisions of it." JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, what talk is this?" Boswell. "I mean, sir, the Sphinx's description of it :—morning, noon, and night. I would know night, as well as morning and noon." JOHNSON. "What, sir, would you know what it is to feel the evils of old age? Would you have the gout? Would you have decrepitude ?” Seeing him heated, I would not argue any farther; but I was confident that I was in the right. I would,

Mrs. Piozzi confidently mentions this as having passed in Scotland.Anecdotes, p. 62.-BoswELL.

2 The Abbé de Choisi was sent by Louis XIV. on an embassy to the King of Siam in 1683, with a view, it has been said, to convert the king of the country to Christianity.-MALONE.

3 [Johnson, in his "Meditations" (April 20, ante, p. 176), congratulates himself on writing with all his usual vigour. "I have made sermons," says he, "as readily as formerly." Probably, those which were left for publication by Dr. Taylor, and written, perhaps (or some of them), at Ashbourne in the pre'ceding autumn. See ante, p. 32.—HALL.]

Piozzi, p. 27, 8.

in due time, be a Nestor, an elder of the people; and there should be some difference between the conversation of twenty-eight and sixty-eight'. A grave picture should not be gay. There is a serene, solemn, placid old age. JOHNSON, "Mrs. Thrale's mother said of me what flattered me much. A clergyman was complaining of want of society in the country where he lived; and said, 'They talk of runts, (that is, young cows). 'Sir (said Mrs. Salisbury), Mr. Johnson would learn to talk of runts;' meaning that I was a man who would make the most of my situation, whatever it was." He added, "I think myself a very polite man."

[Johnson expressed a similar opinion of his own politeness to Mrs. Thrale, and, oddly enough, on two particular occasions, in which the want of that quality seemed remarkably apparent. Dr. Johnson delighted in his own partiality for Oxford; and one day, at her house, entertained five members of the other university with various instances of the superiority of Oxford, enumerating the gigantic names of many men whom it had produced, with apparent triumph. At last Mrs. Thrale said to him, "Why there happens to be no less than five Cambridge men in the room now." "I did not," said he, "think of that till you told me; but the wolf don't count the sheep."

Johnson clearly meant (what the author has often elsewhere mentioned), that he had none of the listlessness of old age, that he had the same activity and energy of mind, as formerly; not that a man of sixty-eight might dance in a publick assembly with as much propriety as he could at twenty-eight. His conversation being the product of much various knowledge, great acuteness, and extraordinary wit, was equally well suited to every period of life; and as in his youth it probably did not exhibit any unbecoming levity, so certainly in his later years it was totally free from the garrulity and querulousness of old age.— MALONE.

Such is the signification of this word in Scotland, and it should seem in Wales. (See Skinner in v.) But the heifers of Scotland and Wales, when brought to England, being always smaller than those of this country, the word runt has acquired a secondary sense, and generally signifies a heifer diminutive in size, small beyond the ordinary growth of that animal; and in this sense alone the word is acknowledged by Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary.-MALONE.

p. 27, 8.

When the company were retired, the domestic circle Piozzi, happened to be talking of Dr. Barnard, the provost of Eton, who died about that time; and after a long and just eulogium on his wit, his learning, and goodness of heart, Dr. Johnson said, quite seriously," He was the only man, too, that did justice to my good breeding; and you may observe that I am well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity. No man," continued he, not observing the amazement of his hearers, "no man is so cautious not to interrupt another; no man thinks it so necessary to appear attentive when others are speaking; no man so steadily refuses preference to himself, or so willingly bestows it on another, as I do; nobody holds so strongly as I do the necessity of ceremony, and the ill effects which follow the breach of it: yet people think me rude; but Barnard did me justice." ""Tis pity," said Mrs. Thrale, laughing, "that he had not heard you compliment the Cambridge men after dinner to-day!"

200.

On another occasion, he had been professing that p. 199, he was very attentive not to offend, and very careful to maintain the ceremonies of life; and had told Mr. Thrale, that though he had never sought to please till he was past thirty, considering the matter as hopeless, yet he had been always studious not to make enemies, by apparent preference of himself. It happened, that this curious conversation, of which Mrs. Thrale was a silent auditress, passed, in her coach, in some distant province, either Shropshire or Derbyshire; and as soon as it was over, Dr. Johnson took out of his pocket a little book and was reading, when a gentleman, of no small distinction for his birth and elegance, suddenly rode up to the carriage, and paying them all his proper compliments, was desirous not to neglect Dr. Johnson; but observing that he did not see him, tapped him gently on the

P. 200.

Piozzi, shoulder. ""Tis Mr. Cholmondley," said Mr. Thrale. "Well, sir! and what if it is Mr. Cholmondley!" said the other sternly, just lifting his eyes a moment from his book, and returning to it again with renewed avidity.] [Miss Reynolds describes these points of Johnson's character with more discrimination.

ED.

Reyn.
Recol.

“That Dr. Johnson possessed the essential principles of politeness and of good taste (which I suppose are the same, at least concomitant), none who knew his virtues and his genius will, I imagine, be disposed to dispute. But why they remained with him, like gold in the ore, unfashioned and unseen, except in his literary capacity, no person that I know of has made any inquiry, though in general it has been spoken of as an unaccountable inconsistency in his character. Much, too, may be said in excuse for an apparent asperity of manners which were, at times at least, the natural effect of those inherent mental infirmities to which he was subject. His corporeal defects also contributed largely to the singularity of his manners; and a little reflection on the disqualifying influence of blindness and deafness would suggest many apologies for Dr. Johnson's want of politeness. The particular instance' I have just mentioned, of his inability to discriminate the features of any one's face, deserves perhaps more than any other to be taken into consideration, wanting, as he did, the aid of those intelligent signs, or insinuations, which the countenance displays in social converse; and which, in their slightest degree, influence and regulate the manners of the polite, or even the common observer. And to his defective hearing, perhaps, his unaccommodating manners may be equally ascribed, which not only precluded him from the perception of the

[Ante, vol. iii. p, 286, n.-ED.]