In the morning we had talked of old families, and the respect due to them. Johnson: "Sir, you have a right to that kind of respect, and are arguing for yourself. I am for supporting the principle, and am disinterested in doing it, as I have no such right." Boswell: "Why, sir, it is one more incitement to a man to do well." Johnson : “Yes, sir; and it is a matter of opinion, very necessary to keep society together. What is it but opinion, by which we have a respect for authority, that prevents us, who are the rabble, from rising up and pulling down you who are gentlemen from your places, and saying, 'We will be gentlemen in our turn?' Now, sir, that respect for authority is much more easily granted to a man whose father has had it than to an upstart, and so society is more easily supported." Boswell: "Perhaps, sir, it might be done by the respect belonging to office, as among the Romans, where the dress, the toga, inspired reverence." Johnson: "Why, we know very little about the Romans. But, surely, it is much easier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year. In republics, there is no respect for authority, but a fear of power." Boswell: "At present, sir, I think riches seem to gain most respect." Johnson: “No, sir, riches do not gain hearty respect; they only procure external attention. A very

rich man, from low beginnings, may buy his election in a borough; but, cæteris paribus, a man of family will be preferred. People will prefer a man for whose father their fathers have voted, though they should get no more money, or even less. That shows that the respect for family is not merely fanciful, but has an actual operation. If gentlemen of family would allow the rich upstarts to spend their money profusely, which they are ready enough to do, and not vie with them in expense, the upstarts would soon be at an end, and the gentlemen would remain; but if the gentlemen will vie in expense with the

upstarts, which is very foolish, they must be ruined."Boswell.

He again insisted on the duty of maintaining subordination of rank. "Sir, I would no more deprive a nobleman of his respect than of his money. I consider myself as acting a part in the great system of society, and I do to others as I would have them to do to me. I would behave to a nobleman as I should expect he would behave to me were I a nobleman, and he Sam Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macaulay in this town, a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and said to her, 'Madam, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine with us.' I thus, sir, showed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has never liked me since. Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all have some people under them; why not then have some people above them?" I mentioned a certain author who disgusted me by his forwardness, and by showing no deference to noblemen into whose company he was admitted. Johnson: "Suppose a shoemaker should claim an equality with him, as he does with a lord: how he would stare! Why, sir, do you stare ?' says the shoemaker; 'I do great service to society. "Tis true, I am paid for doing it; but so are you, sir: and I am sorry to say it, better paid than I am, for doing something not so necessary. For mankind could do better without your books than without my shoes.' Thus, sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the distinction of rank, which creates no jealousy, as it is allowed to be accidental.”—Boswell.

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Mr. Dempster having endeavored to maintain that intrinsic merit ought to make the only distinction among mankind-Johnson: "Why, sir, mankind have found that this cannot be. How shall we determine the proportion of intrinsic merit? Were that to be the only distinction amongst mankind, we should soon quarrel about the degrees of it. Were all distinctions abolished, the strongest would not long acquiesce, but would endeavor to obtain a superiority by their bodily strength. But, sir, as subordination is very necessary for society, and contentions for superiority very dangerous, mankind, that is to say, all civilized nations, have settled it upon a plain, invariable principle. A man is born to hereditary rank; or his being appointed to certain offices gives him a certain rank. Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure." I said, I considered distinction or rank to be of so much importance in civilized society, that if I were asked on the same day to dine with the first duke in England, and with the first man in Britain for genius, I should hesitate which to prefer. Johnson: "To be sure, sir, if you were to dine only once, and it were never to be known where you dined, you would choose rather to dine with the first man for genius; but to gain most respect, you should dine with the first duke in England. For nine people in ten that you meet with would have a higher opinion of you for having dined with a duke; and the great genius himself would receive you better, because you had been with the great duke."-Boswell.

PREJUDICES AND NARROWNESS.

AN Irish gentleman said to Johnson, "Sir, you have not seen the best French players." Johnson: "Players, sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.” “But, sir, you will allow that some players are better than others ?" Johnson: "Yes, sir, as some dogs dance better than others."-Boswell.

I told him that one morning when I went to breakfast with Garrick, who was very vain of his intimacy with Lord Camden, he accosted me thus: "Pray now, did you-did you meet a little lawyer turning the corner, eh?" "No, sir," said I. "Pray what do you mean by the question ?" "Why," replied Garrick, with an affected indifference, yet as if standing on tiptoe, "Lord Camden has this moment left me. We have had a long walk together." Johnson: "Well, sir, Garrick talked very properly. Lord Camden was a little lawyer to be associated so familiarly with a player.". Boswell.

Johnson: "Colley Cibber once consulted me as to one of his birthday Odes a long time before it was wanted. I objected very freely to several passages. Cibber lost patience, and would not read his ode to an end. When we had done with criticism, we walked over to Richardson's, the author of 'Clarissa,' and I wondered to find Richardson displeased that I'did not treat Cibber with more respect.' Now, sir, to talk of respect for a player!" (smiling disdainfully). Boswell: "There, sir, you are always heretical; you never will allow merit to a player." Johnson: "Merit, sir! what merit? Do you respect a rope-dancer or a ballad - singer ?" Boswell: "No, sir; but we respect a great player, as a man who can conceive lofty sentiments, and can express them gracefully." Johnson: "What, sir, a fellow who claps a

hump on his back, and a lump on his leg, and cries, 'I am Richard the Third? Nay, sir, a ballad-singer is a higher man, for he does two things: he repeats and he sings. There is both recitation and music in his performance; the player only recites." Boswell: "My dear sir, you may turn anything into ridicule. I allow that a player of farce is not entitled to respect; he does a little thing; but he who can represent exalted characters, and touch the noblest passions, has very respectable powers; and mankind have agreed in admiring great talents for the stage. We must consider, too, that a great player does what very few people are capable to do: his art is a very rare faculty. Who can repeat Hamlet's soliloquy, 'To be, or not to be,' as Garrick does it?" Johnson: "Anybody may. Jemmy there (a boy about eight years old, who was in the room) will do it as well in a week."-Boswell.

His negro servant, Francis Barber, having left him, and been some time at sea, not pressed, as has been supposed, with his own consent, it appears, from a letter to John Wilkes, Esq., from Dr. Smollett, that his master kindly interested himself in procuring his release from a state of life of which Johnson always expressed the utmost abhorrence. He said, "No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned." And at another time, "A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."—Boswell.

He said, "I am willing to love all mankind, except an American;" and his inflammable corruption bursting into horrid fire, he "breathed out threatenings and slaughter," calling them "Rascals-robbers-pirates," and exclaiming he'd "burn and destroy them." Miss Seward, looking to him with mild but steady astonishment, said, "Sir, this is an instance that we are always most violent against those whom