Thrale was talking with him one day about her proposed marriage with Piozzi, he said of that gentleman, "Why, madam, he is not only a stupid, ugly dog, but he is an old dog, too." Boswell gives a long account of an argument. about wine which took place at a dinner-party, in the course of which the following dialogue occurred: Sir Joshua Reynolds: "But to please one's company is a strong motive." Johnson (who, from drinking only water, supposed everybody who drank wine to be elevated): "I won't argue any more with you, sir; you are too far gone." Sir Joshua: "I should have thought so, indeed, sir, had I made such a speech as you have now done." Johnson (drawing himself in, and, I really thought, blushing): "Nay, don't be angry; I did not mean to offend you." But he could be even ruder; for, when travelling in Wales, he gave the following instance of "freedom of speech:" A nobleman, at whose house he had been entertained, asked him what he thought of a neighboring peer. The answer was: "He is a dull, commonplace sort of man, just like you and your brother." There was something worse than mere rudeness in a cruel stab which he gave Garrick. Garrick was playing Lear, and Johnson and Murphy were meantime conversing loudly behind the scenes. When Garrick came off the stage, he very properly expostulated with them, and said, "You two talk so loud, you destroy all my feelings." And Johnson replied, "Prithee do not talk of feelings; Punch has no feelings."-Editor.

Talking of a very respectable author, he told us a curious circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil. Reynolds: "A printer's devil, sir! Why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face, and in rags." Johnson: "Yes, sir. But I suppose he had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her." (Then looking very serious and very earnest.) "And she did not disgrace him; the woman had a bottom of good sense.' The word bottom, thus introduced, was so ludicrous, when con

trasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing, though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slyly hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotic power, glanced sternly around, and called out, in a strong tone, "Where's the merriment ?" Then collecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and, as it were, searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, "I say the woman was fundamentally sensible;" as if he had said, "Hear this now, and laugh if you dare." We all sat composed as at a funeral.-Boswell.

Dr. Johnson did not like any one who said they were happy, or who said any one else was so. "It was all cant," he would cry; "the dog knows he is miserable all the time.” A friend whom he loved exceedingly told him on some occasion, notwithstanding, that his wife's sister was really happy, and called upon the lady to confirm his assertion, which she did somewhat roundly, as we say, and with an accent and manner capable of offending Dr. Johnson, if her position had not been sufficient, without anything more, to put him in a very ill humor. "If your sister-in-law is really the contented being she professes herself, sir," said he, "her life gives the lie to every research of humanity; for she is happy without health, without beauty, without money, and without understanding." This story he told me himself; and when I expressed some of the horror I felt, "The same stupidity,' said he," which prompted her to extol felicity she never felt hindered her from feeling what shocks you on repetition. I tell you, the woman is ugly, and sickly, and foolish, and poor; and would it not make a man hang himself to hear such a creature say it was happy?"—Mrs. Piozzi.

POWERS OF INVECTIVE AND SATIRE.

BEING in company with a gentleman who thought fit to maintain Dr. Berkeley's ingenious philosophy, that nothing exists but as perceived by some mind, when the gentleman was going away, Johnson said to him, "Pray, sir, don't leave us; for we may perhaps forget to think of you, and then you will cease to exist.”—Boswell.

Next day, Sunday, July 3d, I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."-Boswell.

"Hume and other sceptical innovators are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity: so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull."-Boswell.

On the 6th of March came out Lord Bolingbroke's works, published by Mr. David Mallet. The wild and pernicious ravings, under the name of "Philosophy," which were thus ushered into the world, gave great offence to all well-principled men. Johnson, hearing of their tendency, which nobody disputed, was roused with a just indignation, and pronounced this memorable sentence upon the noble author and his editor: "Sir, he was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger after his death!"Boswell.

My much-valued friend, Dr. Barnard, now Bishop of Killaloe, having once expressed to him an apprehension that if he should visit Ireland he might treat the people of that country more unfavorably than he had done the Scotch, he answered, with strong, pointed, double-edged wit, "Sir, you have no reason to be afraid of me. The Irish are not in a conspiracy to cheat the world by false representations of the merits of their countrymen. No, sir; the Irish are a FAIR PEOPLE-they never speak well of one another."Boswell.

Johnson one day asked me, "Have you observed the difference between your own country impudence and Scotch impudence?" The answer being in the negative, “Then I will tell you," said Johnson; "the impudence of an Irishman is the impudence of a fly that buzzes about you, and you put it away; but it returns again, and still flutters and teases. The impudence of a Scotchman is the impudence of a leech, that fixes and sucks your blood."—Arthur Murphy.

Sir Allan Maclean bragged that Scotland had the advantage of England, by its having more water. Johnson: "Sir, we would not have your water, to take the vile bogs which produce it. You have too much! A man who is drowned has more water than either of us;" and then he laughed. (But this was surely robust sophistry; for the people of taste in England, who have seen Scotland, own that its variety of rivers and lakes makes it naturally more beautiful than England in that respect.) Pursuing his victory over Sir Allan, he proceeded: "Your country consists of two things, stone and water. There is, indeed, a little earth above the stone in some places, but a very little; and the stone is always appearing. It is like a man in rags; the naked skin is still peeping out."—Boswell.

We were by no means pleased with our inn at Bristol.

"Let us see now," said I," how we should describe it." Johnson was ready with his raillery. "Describe it, sir? Why, it was so bad that Boswell wished to be in Scotland!"-Boswell.

Mr. Johnson's hatred of the Scotch is so well known, and so many of his bon mots expressive of that hatred have been already repeated, that it is perhaps scarcely worth while to write down the conversation between him and a friend of that nation who always resides in London, and who at his return from the Hebrides asked him, with a firm tone of voice, what he thought of his country? "That it is a very vile country, to be sure, sir," returned for answer Mr. Johnson. "Well, sir!" replies the other, somewhat mortified, "God made it." "Certainly He did," answers Mr. Johnson, again; "but we must always remember that He made it for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan; but God made hell."-Mrs. Piozzi.

It having been mentioned, I know not with what truth, that a certain female political writer, whose doctrines he disliked, had of late become very fond of dress, sat hours together at her toilet, and even put on rouge: Johnson: “She is better employed at her toilet than using her pen. It is better she should be reddening her own cheeks than blackening other people's characters."—Boswell.

A dull country magistrate gave Johnson a long, tedious account of his exercising his criminal jurisdiction, the result of which was having sentenced four convicts to transportation. Johnson, in an agony of impatience to get rid of such a companion, exclaimed, "I heartily wish, sir, that I were a fifth !"-Boswell.

Johnson having now explicitly avowed his opinion of Lord Chesterfield, did not refrain from expressing himself concerning that nobleman with pointed freedom: "This