tion of Lisbon by an earthquake when it first happened: "Oh! not for six months," said he, " at least: I did think that story too dreadful to be credited, and can hardly yet persuade myself that it was true to the full extent we all of us have heard."

64. Contradiction.

Burney. Pepys.- Skaiting. Among the numberless people, however, whom I heard him flatly contradict, I never yet saw any one who did not take it patiently excepting Dr. Burney, from whose habitual softness of manners I little expected such an exertion of spirit: the event was as little to be expected. Mr. Johnson asked his pardon generously and genteelly, and when he left the room rose up to shake hands with him, that they might part in peace.

On another occasion, when he had violently provoked Mr. Pepys (1), in a different but perhaps not a less offensive manner, till something much too like a quarrel was grown up between them, the moment he was gone, "Now," says Dr. Johnson, "is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him better than I did before: he spoke in defence of his dead friend; but though I hope I spoke better who spoke against him, yet all my eloquence will gain me nothing but an honest man for my enemy !" He did not, however, cordially love Mr. Pepys, though he respected his abilities. "I knew the dog was a scholar," said he, when they had been disputing about the classics for three hours together one morning at Streatham; "but that he had so much taste and so much knowledge I did not believe. I might have taken Barnard's word, though, for Barnard would not lie."

We had got a little French print among us at Brighthelmstone, in November, 1782, of some people skaiting, with these lines written under :

VOL IX.

(1) See antè, Vol. VIII. p. 57. — C.

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"Sur un mince chrystal l'hyver conduit leurs pas,

Le précipice est sous la glace;

Telle est de nos plaisirs la legère surface,

Glissez mortels; n'appuyez pas."

And I begged translations from every body. Dr. Johnson gave me this :

"O'er ice the rapid skaiter flies,

With sport above and death below;
Where mischief lurks in gay disguise,

Thus lightly touch and quickly go."

He was, however, most exceedingly enraged when he knew that in the course of the season I had asked half a dozen acquaintance to do the same thing, and said, it was a piece of treachery, and done to make every body else look little when compared to my favourite friends the Pepyses, whose translations were unquestionably the best. I will insert them, because he did say so. This is the distich given me by Sir Lucas, to whom I owe more solid obligations, no less than the power of thanking him for the life he saved, and whose least valuable praise is the correctness of his taste :

"O'er the ice as o'er pleasure you lightly should glide;

Both have gulphs which their flattering surfaces hide."

This other more serious one was written by his brother :

"Swift o'er the level how the skaiters slide,

And skim the glitt'ring surface as they go:
Thus o'er life's specious pleasures lightly glide,
But pause not, press not on the gulph below."

Dr. Johnson seeing this last, and thinking a moment, repeated,

"O'er crackling ice, o'er gulphs profound,

With nimble glide the skaiters play;
O'er treacherous pleasure's flow'ry ground
Thus lightly skim, and haste away."

65. Severity.-Dogs and Wives. Mrs. Johnson.

When I once mentioned Shenstone's idea, that some little quarrel among lovers, relations, and friends was useful, and contributed to their general happiness upon the whole, by making the soul feel her elastic force, and return to the beloved object with renewed delight; "Why, what a pernicious maxim is this now,' cries Johnson: "all quarrels ought to be avoided studiously, particularly conjugal ones, as no one can possibly tell where they may end; besides that lasting dislike is often the consequence of occasional disgust, and that the cup of life is surely bitter enough, without squeezing in the hateful rind of resentment."

It was upon something like the same principle, and from his general hatred of refinement, that when I told him how Dr. Collier, in order to keep the servants in humour with his favourite dog, by seeming rough with the animal himself on many occasions, and crying out, "Why will nobody knock this cur's brains out?" meant to conciliate their tenderness towards Pompey; he returned me for answer, "that the maxim was evidently

false, and founded on ignorance of human life: that the servants would kick the dog the sooner for having obtained such a sanction to their severity: and I once," added he, “chid my wife for beating the cat before the maid, who will now,' said I, 'treat puss with cruelty, perhaps, and plead her mistress's example.'

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I asked him upon this, if he ever disputed with his wife? (I had heard that he loved her passionately.) "Perpetually," said he: "my wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber: A clean floor is so comfortable,' she would say

sometimes, by way of twitting; till at last I told her, that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling."

I have heard him blame her for a fault many people have, of setting the miseries of their neighbours half unintentionally, half wantonly before their eyes, showing them the bad side of their profession, situation, &c. He said, "she would lament the dependence of pupilage to a young heir, &c.; and once told a waterman who rowed her along the Thames in a wherry, that he was no happier than a galley slave, one being chained to the oar by authority, the other by want. I had, however," said he, laughing, "the wit to get her daughter on my side always before we began the dispute. She read comedy better than any body he ever heard," he said; "in tragedy she mouthed too much."

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66. Husband and Wife.- Boarding-Schools. When any disputes arose between our married acquaintance, Mr. Johnson always sided with the husband, "whom," he said, " the woman had probably provoked so often, she scarce knew when or how she had disobliged him first." Women," says Dr. Johnson, give great offence by a contemptuous spirit of noncompliance on petty occasions. The man calls his wife to walk with him in the shade, and she feels a strange desire just at that moment to sit in the sun: he offers to read her a play, or sing her a song, and she calls the children in to disturb them, or advises him to seize that opportunity of settling the family accounts. Twenty such tricks will the faithfulest wife in the world not refuse to play, and then look astonished when the fellow fetches in a mistress."

Boarding-schools were established," continued he, " for the conjugal quiet of the parents: the two partners cannot agree which child to fondle, nor how to

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fondle them, so they put the young ones to school, and remove the cause of contention. The little girl pokes her head, the mother reproves her sharply: Do not mind your mamma,' says the father, my dear, but do your own way.' The mother complains to me of this: Madam,' said I, 'your husband is right all the while; he is with you but two hours of the day perhaps, and then you tease him by making the child cry. Are not ten hours enough for tuition? And are the hours of pleasure so frequent in life, that when a man gets a couple of quiet ones to spend in familiar chat with his wife, they must be poisoned by petty mortifications? Put missey to school; she will learn to hold her head like her neighbours, and you will no longer torment your family for want of other talk.''

67. Vacuity of Life.

Such

The vacuity of life had, at some early period of his life, struck so forcibly on the mind of Mr. Johnson, that it became, by repeated impression, his favourite hypothesis, and the general tenor of his reasonings commonly ended there, wherever they might begin. things, therefore, as other philosophers often attribute to various and contradictory causes, appeared to him uniform enough; all was done to fill up the time, upon his principle. I used to tell him, that it was like the clown's answer, in "As You Like It," of " Oh Lord, 'Sir!" for that it suited every occasion. One man, for example, was profligate and wild, as we call it, followed the girls, or sat still at the gaming-table. Why, life must be filled up," says Johnson, "and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford." Another was a hoarder: "Why, a fellow must do something; and what so easy to a narrow mind as hoarding halfpence till they turn into sixpences ? "