T

LONDON.

ALKING with Boswell about London, Johnson said, "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 con

sists."

What would he have said of

the London of to-day?

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Talking of London life, he said, "The happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say, there is more learning and science within the circuit of ten miles from where we now sit than in all the rest of the kingdom." Boswell: "The only disadvantage is the great distance at which people live from one another." Johnson: "Yes, sir; but that is occasioned by the largeness of it, which is the cause of all the other advantages."

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On another occasion he said that "a man stored his mind better there than anywhere else; and that in remote situations a man's body might be feasted, but his mind was starved, and his faculties apt to degenerate from

want of exercise and competition. No place, he said, cured a man's vanity or arrogance so well as London; for as no man was either great or good per se, but as compared with others. not so good or great, he was sure to find in the metropolis many his equals and some his superiors."

It being remarked that one might grow tired of London, and lose the exquisite zest with which occasional visits are relished, Johnson said, "Why, sir, you find no man at all intellectual who is willing to leave London. No, sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

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He said also, "There is no place where economy can be so well practised as in London; more can be had for the money, even by the ladies, than

anywhere else. You cannot play tricks with your fortune in a small place; you must make a uniform appearance. Here a lady may have well-furnished apartments, and elegant dress, without any meat in the kitchen."

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Walking to church at St. Clement Danes, Boswell remarked that Fleet Street was the most cheerful scene in the world, more delighful than the Vale of Tempé. "Ay, sir," responded Johnson; "but let it be compared with Mull!" To a similar remark on another occasion Johnson replied, "Yes, sir, Fleet Street has a very animated appearance; but I think the full tide of human existence is at Charing Cross."