Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies I.djvu/265

 ��seeming rough with the animal himself on many occasions, and crying out, Why will nobody knock this cur's brains out ? meant to conciliate their tenderness towards Pompey ; he returned me for answer, ' that the maxim was evidently false, and founded on ignorance of human life : that the servants would kick the dog the sooner for having obtained such a sanction to their severity : and I once (added he) chid my wife for beating the cat before the maid, who will now (said I) treat puss with cruelty perhaps, and plead her mistress's example V

I asked him upon this, if he ever disputed with his wife? (I had heard that he loved her passionately.) ' Perpetually (said he) : my wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweep ing their husbands out of the house as dirt and useless lumber : a clean floor is so comfortable, she would say sometimes, by way of twitting ; till at last I told her, that I thought we had had talk enough about the floor, we would now have a touch at the ceiling?

On another occasion I have heard him blame her for a fault many people have, of setting the miseries of their neighbours half unintentionally, half wantonly before their eyes, shewing them the bad side of their profession, situation, &c. 2 He said, 'she would lament the dependence of pupillage to a young heir, &c., and once told a waterman who rowed her along the Thames in a wherry, that he was no happier than a galley-slave,

��1 ' I never shall forget the indul- does not complain, and which there gence with which he treated Hodge, are no means proposed of alleviating.' his cat : for whom he himself used Rambler, No. 75. ' Unnecessarily to to go out and buy oysters, lest the obtrude unpleasing ideas is a species servants having that trouble should of oppression.' Ib. No. 98. See Life, take a dislike to the poor creature/ iii. 310, iv. 171 for occasions where Life, iv. 197. Bos well angered Johnson by making

2 'No one ought to remind another him think of some great dignity to of misfortunes of which the sufferer which he might have attained.

one

�� �