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promptly; it is so much more difficult to improve in speed than in accuracy." Watson: I own I am for much attention to accuracy in composing, lest one should get bad habits of doing it in a slovenly manner." Johnson: “Why, sir, you are confounding doing inaccurately with the necessity of doing inaccurately. A man knows when his composition. is inaccurate, and when he thinks fit he'll correct it. But if a man is accustomed to compose slowly, and with difficulty, upon all occasions, there is danger that he may not compose at all, as we do not like to do that which is not done easily; and, at any rate, more time is consumed in a small matter than ought to be." Watson: "Dr. Hugh Blair has taken a week to compose a sermon." Johnson: “Then, sir, that is for want of the habit of composing quickly, which I am insisting one should acquire." Watson: “Blair was not composing all the week, but only such hours as he found himself disposed for composition." Johnson: “Nay, sir, unless you tell me the time he took, you tell me nothing. If I say I took a week to walk a mile, and have had the gout five days, and been ill otherwise another day, I have taken but one day. I myself have composed about forty sermons. I have begun a sermon after dinner, and sent it off by the post that night. I wrote forty-eight of the printed octavo pages of the 'Life of Savage' at a sitting; but then I sat up all night. I have also written six sheets in a day of translation from the French." Boswell: "We have all observed how one man dresses himself slowly, and another fast." Johnson: "Yes, sir; it is wonderful how much time some people will consume in dressing; taking up a thing and looking at it, and laying it down, and taking it up again. Every one should get the habit of doing it quickly. I would say to a young divine, 'Here is your text; let me see how soon you can make a sermon.' Then I'd say, 'Let me see how much better you can make it.' Thus I should see both his powers and his judgment.". Boswell.

POMPOSITY OF STYLE.

THERE can be no doubt that Johnson laboriously cultivated the pompous style of writing which we still call Johnsonian. Even in his own day, when rhetoric was far more highly valued than it is at present, his manner was often the theme of criticism and satire. Boswell relates one of Goldsmith's speeches upon this subject, which, for once, must have silenced the great talker; for there is no record of a repartee. The talk had run upon fable-writing, and Goldsmith observed that in most fables the animals seldom talk in character. "For instance," said he, "the fable of the little fishes, who petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds-the skill consists in making them talk like little fishes."

This struck Johnson as very ridiculous talk, and he began to roll himself about, and to shake with laughter; when Goldsmith broke in upon his entertainment by saying, "Why, Doctor Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales."-Editor.

Sir Joshua Reynolds once asked him by what means he had attained his extraordinary accuracy and flow of language. He told him that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on every occasion, and in every company to impart whatever he knew in the most forcible language he could put it in; and that by constant practice, and never suffering any careless expressions to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without arranging them in the clearest manner, it became habitual to him.Boswell.

His talk was generally pithy and simple, but he sometimes forced himself into his characteristic style and "talked like a book." He once objected to Boswell's calling a mountain "immense," and corrected him by saying, "No, it

is no more than a considerable protuberance." When some one told him of a man who had forgotten his own name, he said, "Sir, that was a morbid oblivion." Macaulay says, "It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work of which the 'Journey to the Hebrides' is the translation. When we were taken up-stairs,' says he, in one of his letters, a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed on which one of us was to lie.' This incident is recorded in the 'Journey' as follows: 'Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose started up, at our entrance, a man black as a Cyclops from the forge.' Here are a few more passages illustrating his cultivation of the grand manner.-Editor.

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Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon Johnson's recommendation. Johnson, having inquired after him, said, “Mr. Strahan, let me have five guineas on account, and I'll give this boy one. Nay, if a man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it is sad work. Call him down." I followed him into the courtyard, behind Mr. Strahan's house; and there I had a proof of what I had heard him profess, that he talked alike to all. "Some people tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their hearers. I never do that. I speak uniformly in as intelligible a manner as I can."-" Well, my boy, how do you go on?" "Pretty well, sir; but they are afraid I ain't strong enough for some parts of the business." Johnson: "Why, I shall be sorry for it; for when you consider with how little mental power and corporeal labor a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occupation for you. Do you hear-take all the pains you can; and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of

life for you. There's a guinea." Here was one of the many, many instances of his active benevolence. At the same time the slow and sonorous solemnity with which, while he bent himself down, he addressed a little thick short-legged boy, contrasted with the boy's awkwardness and awe, could not but excite some ludicrous emotions.-Boswell.

Talking of London, he observed, "Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists."-Boswell.

Having asked Mr. Langton if his father and mother had sat for their pictures, which he thought it right for each generation of a family to do, and being told they had opposed it, he said, "Sir, among the anfractuosities of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one that there is a superstitious reluctance to sit for a picture.”—Boswell.

Lord Lucan tells a very good story, which, if not precisely exact, is certainly characteristical: that, when the sale of Thrale's brewery was going forward, Johnson appeared bustling about, with an inkhorn and pen in his button-hole, like an exciseman; and on being asked what he really considered to be the value of the property which was to be disposed of, answered, "We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice."-Boswell.

He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own. style; for when he had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into it. Talking of the comedy of "The Rehearsal," he said, "It has not wit enough to keep it

sweet." This was easy; he therefore caught himself, and pronounced a more round sentence: "It has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction."-Boswell.

DISEASES.

He is shockingly near-sighted. He did not even know Mrs. Thrale, till she held out her hand to him; which she did very engagingly. After the first few minutes he drew his chair close to the pianoforte, and then bent down his nose quite over the keys to examine them and the four hands at work upon them, till poor Hetty and Susan hardly knew how to play on, for fear of touching his phiz; or, which was harder still, how to keep their countenances.— Madame D'Arblay.

The old tutor of Macdonald always ate fish with his fingers, alleging that a knife and fork gave it a bad taste. I took the liberty to observe to Dr. Johnson that he did so. "Yes," said he; "but it is because I am short-sighted, and afraid of bones, for which reason I am not fond of eating many kinds of fish, because I must use my fingers."—Boswell.

Dr. Johnson's sight was so very defective that he could scarcely distinguish the face of his most intimate acquaintance at half a yard, and, in general, it was observable that his critical remarks on dress, etc., were the result of very close inspection of the object.-Miss Reynolds.

I met him at Drury Lane playhouse in the evening. Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Mrs. Abington's request, had promised to bring a body of wits to her benefit; and having secured forty places in the front boxes, had done me the honor to put me in the group. Johnson sat on the seat directly behind me; and as he could neither see nor hear at such a dis

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