side: yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of plumb-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind."

"I told him (says Mr. B.) that I had dined lately at Foote's, who showed me a letter to him from Tom Davies, telling him that he had not been able to sleep from the concern which he felt on account of this sad affair of Baretti,' begging of him to try if he could suggest any thing that might be of service; and, at the same time, recommending to him an industrious young man. who kept a pickle-shop."-J," Aye, sir, here you have a specimen of human sympathy; a friend hanged, and a cucumber pickled. We know not whether Baretti or the pickle-man has kept Davies from sleep: nor does he know himself. And as to his not sleeping, sir, Tom Davies is a very great man; Tom has been upon the stage, and knows how to do those things I have not been upon the stage, and cannot do those things."-B. "I have often blamed myself, sir, for not feeling for others as sensibly as many say they do."-J." Sir, don't be duped by them any more. You will find these very feeling people are not very ready to do you good. They pay you by feeling.".

Of the late Mr. Fitzherbert, of Derbyshire, he said, "There was no sparkle, no brilliancy in Fitzherbert; but I never knew a man who was so generally acceptable. He made every body quite easy; overpowered nobody by the superiority of his talents; made no man think worse of himself by being his rival; seemed always to listen; did not oblige you to hear much from him; and did

not oppose what you said. Every body liked him; but he had no friend, as I understand the word, nobody with whom he exchanged intimate thoughts. People were willing to think well of every thing about him. A gentleman was making an affected rant, as many people do, of great feelings about his dear son,' who was at school near London; how anxious he was lest he might be ill, and what he would give to see him.-' Can't you (said Fitzherbert) take a post-chaise, and go to him?' This, to be sure, finished the affected man, but there was not much in it*. However, this was circulated as wit for a whole winter, and I believe part of a summer too; a proof that he was no very witty man. He was an instance of the truth of the observation, that a man will please more upon the whole by negative qualities than by positive; by never offending, than by giving a great deal of delight. In the first place, men hate more steadily than they love; and if I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him."

On another occasion Johnson remarked, "That pity is not natural to man. Children are always

* The affected gentleman is understood to have been the late John Gilbert Cooper, Esq., author of a life of Socrates, and of some poems in Dodsley's collection. Mr. Fitzherbert found him one morning, apparently, in such violent agitation, on account of the indisposition of his son, as to seem beyond the power of comfort. At length, however, he exclaimed, "I'll write an elegy." Mr. Fitzherbert, being satisfied by this of the sincerity of his emotions, slyly said, "Had not you better take a post-chaise, and go and see him?" It was the shrewdness of the insinuation which made the story be circulated.

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cruel. Savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them. When I am on my way to dine with a friend, and finding it late, have bid the coachman make haste, if I happen to attend when he whips his horses, I may feel unpleasantly that the animals are put to pain, but I do not wish him to desist. No, sir, I wish him to drive on."

On a very wet day, Mr. Boswell complained of the disagreeable effects of such weather; but Johnson said, "Sir, this is all imagination, which physicians encourage; for man lives in air, as a fish lives in water; so that if the atmosphere press heavy from above, there is an equal resistance from below. To be sure, bad weather is hard upon people who are obliged to be abroad; and men cannot labour so well in the open air in bad weather as in good: but, sir, a smith or a tailor, whose work is within doors, will surely do as much in rainy weather as in fair. Some very delicate frames, indeed, may be affected by wet weather, but not common constitutions."

One evening, when Johnson was somewhat fretful from illness, a gentleman asked him, whether he had been abroad that day." Don't talk so childishly (said he), you may as well ask if I hanged myself to-day." Mr. B. mentioned politics.-J. "Sir, I'd as soon have a man to break my bones, as talk to me of public affairs, internal or external. I have lived to see things all as bad as they can be." He some time after observed, "That disease produces much

selfishness. A man in pain is looking after ease; and lets most other things go as chance shall dispose of them."

To Mr. Boswell he once said, "You are always complaining of melancholy, and I conclude, from those complaints, that you are fond of it. No man talks of that which he is desirous to conceal, and every man desires to conceal that of which he is ashamed. Do not pretend to deny it-manifestum habemus furem ; make it an invariable and obligatory law to yourself never to mention your own mental diseases; if you are never to speak of them, you will think on them but little; and if you think little of them, they will molest you rarely. When you talk of them, it is plain that you want either praise or pity; for praise there is no room, and pity will do you no good; therefore, from this hour speak no more, think no more about them."

"I one day asked him (says his biographer) if he was not dissatisfied with having so small a share of wealth, and none of those distinctions in the State which are the objects of ambition. He had only a pension of three hundred a year. Why was henot in such circumstances as to keep his coach? Why had he not some considerable office?"-J." Sir, I have never complained of the world; nor do I think that I have reason to complain. It is rather to be wondered at that I have so much. My pension is more out of the usual course of things than any instance that I have known. Here, sir, was a man avowedly no friend to government at the time, who got a pension without asking for it. I never courted the great; they sent for me; but I think they now

give me up. They are satisfied; they have seen enough of me." Upon my observing, that I could not believe this, for they must certainly be highly pleased by his conversation; conscious of his own superiority, he answered, "No, sir; great lords and great ladies don't love to have their mouths stopped." This was very expressive of the effect which the force of his understanding and brilliancy of his fancy could not but produce; and, to be sure, they must have found themselves strangely diminished in his company. When I warmly declared how happy I was at all times to hear him" Yes, sir (said he); but if you were lord chancellor, it would not be so; you would then consider your own dignity."

He found great fault with a certain gentleman for keeping a bad table. "Sir (said he), when a man is invited to dinner, he is disappointed if he does not get something good. I advised Mrs. Thrale, who has no card parties at her house, to give sweetmeats, and such good things, in an evening, as are not commonly given, and she would find company enough come to her; for every body loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation." Such was his attention to the minutia of life and manners.

To the question, whether when a man knows that some of his intimate friends are invited to the house of another friend, with whom they are all equally intimate, he may join them without an invitation, Johnson answered, "No, sir; he is not to go when he is not invited. They may be invited on purpose to abuse him" (smiling).

One of a company not being come at the ap