will he say, is my will, which I have just made, with the assistance of one of the ablest lawyers in the kingdom;' and he will read it to him (laughing all the time). He believes he has made this will; but he did not make it: you, Chambers, made it for him. I trust you have had more conscience than to make him say, 'being of sound understanding;' ha, ha, ha! I hope he has left me a legacy. I'd have his will turned into verse, like a ballad."

In this playful manner did he run on, exulting in his own pleasantry, which certainly was not such as might be expected from the author of "The Rambler," but which is here preserved, that my readers may be acquainted even with the slightest occasional characteristics of so eminent

a man.

Mr. Chambers did not by any means relish this jocularity upon a matter of which pars magna fuit, and seemed impatient till he got rid of us. Johnson could not stop his merriment, but continued it all the way till he got without the Temple-gate. He then burst into such a fit of laughter that he appeared to be almost in a convulsion, and, in order to support himself, laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the foot-pavement, and sent forth peals so loud that, in the silence of the night, his voice seemed to resound from Temple Bar to Fleet Ditch.-Boswell.

DISLIKE FOR GESTICULATION.—He had a great aversion to gesticulating in company. He called once to a gentleman who offended him in that point, "Don't attitudenize." And when another gentleman thought he was giving additional force to what he uttered by expressive movements of his hands, Johnson fairly seized them and held them down.-Boswell.

MANNER OF RECITING.-When repeating to me one day Grainger's "Ode on Solitude," I shall never forget the concordance of his voice with the grandeur of those images;

nor, indeed, the Gothic dignity of his aspect, his look and manner, when repeating sublime passages. But what was very remarkable, though his cadence in reading poetry was so judiciously emphatical as to give additional force to the words uttered, yet in reading prose, particularly on common or familiar subjects, nothing could be more injudicious than his manner, beginning every period with a pompous accent, and reading it with a whine, or with a kind of spasmodic struggle for utterance; and this not from any natural infirmity, but from a strange singularity, in reading on in one breath, as if he had made a resolution not to respire till he had closed the sentence.-Miss Reynolds (abridged).

TABLE MANNERS.-When at table he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment: his looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite, which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in the act of eating the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. To those whose sensations were delicate this could not but be disgusting; and it was doubtless not very suitable to the character of a philosopher, who should be distinguished by self-command. But it must be owned that Johnson, though he could be rigidly abstemious, was not a temperate man either in eating or drinking. He could refrain, but he could not use moderately. He told me that he had fasted two days without inconvenience, and that he had never been hungry but once. They who beheld with wonder how much he ate upon all occasions, when his dinner was to his taste, could not easily conceive what he must have meant by hunger; and not only was he remarkable for the extraordinary quantity which he ate, but he was, or affected to be, a man of very nice discernment in the science of cookery. He used to descant critically on the dishes which had been at table

where he had dined or supped, and to recollect very minutely what he had liked.—Boswell.

It was at no time of his life pleasing to see him at a meal; the greediness with which he ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his profound silence in the hour of refection, were circumstances that at the instant degraded him, and showed him to be more a sensualist than a philosopher.-Sir John Hawkins.

WINE - DRINKER AND ABSTAINER.-Talking of drinking wine, he said, "I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it. University College has witnessed this."— Boswell.

He has great virtue in not drinking wine or any fermented liquor, because, as he acknowledged to us, he could not do it in moderation. Lady Macleod would hardly believe him, and said, "I am sure, sir, you would not carry it too far." Johnson: "Nay, madam, it carried me. I took the opportunity of a long illness to leave it off. It was then prescribed to me not to drink wine; and having broken off the habit, I have never returned to it."Boswell.

The strongest liquors, and in very large quantities, produced no other effect on him than moderate exhilaration. Once, and but once, he is known to have had his dose; a circumstance which he himself discovered, on finding one of his sesquipedalian words hang fire; he then started up, and gravely observed, "I think it time we should go to bed." "After a ten years' forbearance of every fluid except tea and sherbet, I drank," said he, "one glass of wine to the health of Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the evening of the day on which he was knighted. I never swallowed another drop,

until old Madeira was prescribed to me as a cordial during my present indisposition."-Sir John Hawkins.

Mr. Thrale told me I might now have the pleasure to see Dr. Johnson drink wine again, for he had lately returned to it. When I mentioned this to Johnson, he said, "I drink it now sometimes, but not socially." The first evening that I was with him at Thrale's, I observed he poured a large quantity of it into a glass, and swallowed it greedily. Everything about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink wine, it was copiously. He could practice abstinence, but not temperance.-Boswell.

MEMORY.-We had this morning a singular proof of Dr. Johnson's quick and retentive memory. Hay's translation of Martial was lying in a window. I said I thought it was pretty well done, and showed him a particular epigram, I think, of ten, but am certain of eight lines. He read it, and tossed away the book, saying, "No, it is not pretty well." As I persisted in my opinion, he said, "Why, sir, the original is thus-" (and he repeated it), "and this man's translation is thus," and then he repeated that also, exactly, though he had never seen it before, and read it over only once, and that, too, without any intention of getting it by heart.— Boswell.

Baretti had once proposed to teach him Italian. They went over a few stanzas of Ariosto's "Orlando Inamorato," and Johnson then grew weary. Some years afterward Baretti reminded him of his promise to study Italian, and said he would give him another lesson; but added, "I suppose you have forgot what we read before." "Who forgets, sir?" said Johnson, and immediately repeated three or

four stanzas of the poem. Baretti was astonished, and took an opportunity, before he went away, of privately taking down the book to see if it had been recently opened; but the leaves were entirely covered with dust.-Malone.

FONDNESS FOR NICKNAMES.-Johnson had a way of contracting the names of his friends: as Beauclerk, Beau; Boswell, Bozzy; Langton, Lanky; Murphy, Mur; Sheridan, Sherry. I remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that Dr. Johnson said, “We are all in labor for a name to Goldy's play," Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, "I have often desired him not to call me Goldy." Tom was remarkably attentive to the most minute circumstance about Johnson. I recollect his telling me once, on my arrival in London, “Sir, our great friend has made an improvement on his appellation of old Mr. Sheridan. He calls him now Sherry derry."-Boswell.

LATE HOURS.—He told me that he generally went abroad at four in the afternoon, and seldom came home till two in the morning. Boswell.

IRREGULARITIES.-My wife paid him the most assiduous and respectful attention, while he was our guest; so that I wonder how he discovered her wishing for his departure. The truth is, that his irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as turning the candles with their heads downward, when they did not burn bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not but be disagreeable to a lady.-Boswell.

DRESS. The great bushy wig, which throughout his life he affected to wear, by that closeness of texture which it had contracted, was nearly as impenetrable by a comb as a quickset hedge; and little of the dust that had once settled