Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/10

 Apophthegms, Sentiments

��He used to say, that no man read long together with a folio on his table : Books, said he, that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all. He would say, such books form the man of general and easy reading z.

He was a great friend to books like the French E sprits d'un tel; for example, Beauties of Watts 2, &c., &c., at which, said he, a man will often look and be tempted to go on, when he would have been frightened at books of a larger size and of a more erudite appearance.

C Being once asked if he ever embellished a story No, said A! he; a story is to lead either to the knowledge of a fact or f character, and is good for nothing if it be not strictly and L. literally true 3.

Round numbers, said he, are always false 4. Watts's Improvement of the Mind was a very favourite book with him 5 ; he used to recommend it, as he also did Le Diction- AbbeL'Avocat 6.

he distinguished himself by the vio lence of his attacks, first on Washing ton and John Adams, and next on Jefferson. Diet, of Nat. Biog. It was a long step from The Beauties of Johnson.

Lamb wrote on Feb. 26, 1808: 'We have Specimens of Ancient Eng lish Poets, Specimens of Modern English Poets, Specimens of Ancient English Prose Writers without end. They used to be called Beauties. You have seen Beauties of Shake speare; so have many people that never saw any beauties in Shake speare.' Ainger's Letters of Lamb, i. 244.

3 Ante, i. 225.

4 Life, iii. 226, n. 4.

5 In his Life of Watts he says : ' Few books have been perused by me with greater pleasure than his Improvement of the Mind? Works, viii. 385.

6 This work is not in the British Museum.

He

��more than it performed ; that he fed you with a continual renovation of hope, to end in a constant succes sion of disappointment.'

According to the Edinburgh Cou- rant, June 16, 1792, this player was Macklin. Foote accused him ' of reading in the morning for the pur pose of shewing off at night.' Cooke's Memoirs of Macklin, p. 246. See post, in Steevens's Anecdotes.

1 'Johnson advised me to read just as inclination prompted me, which alone, he said, would do me any good ; for I had better go into company than read a set task.' Let ters of Boswell, p. 28.

2 In 1781 The Beauties of Johnson was published. Life,'\v. 148. Accord ing to Dr. Anderson (Life of Johnson, ed. 1815, p. 231) the selection was made by Thomson Callender, the nephew of the poet Thomson, who eleven years later fled to America to escape a prosecution for his Political Progress of Great B?itain. There

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