Page:Johnsonian Miscellanies II.djvu/100

 92 Extracts from

��the servants obsequious to my call ; anxious to know and ready to supply my wants : wine there exhilarates my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation and an interchange of dis course with those whom I most love : I dogmatise and am con tradicted, and in this conflict of opinions and sentiments I find delight 1 / (Page 87.)

The debates penned by Johnson were not only more methodical and better connected than those of Guthrie 2, but in all the ornaments of stile superior : they were written at those seasons when he was able to raise his imagination to such a pitch of fervour as bordered upon enthusiasm, which, that he might the better do, his practice was to shut himself up in a room assigned him at St. John's gate, to which he would not suffer any one to approach, except the compositor or Cave's boy for matter, which, as fast as he composed it, he tumbled out at the door 3. (Page 99.)

j His discourse, which through life was of the didactic kind, was

fL replete with original sentiments expressed in the strongest and

/ most correct terms, and in such language, that whoever could

(have heard and not seen him would have thought him reading 4.

For the pleasure he communicated to his hearers he expected

v/not the tribute of silence : on the contrary he encouraged others,

particularly young men, to speak, and paid a due attention to

what they said 5 ; but his prejudices were so strong and deeply

rooted, more especially against Scotchmen 6 and Whigs, that

whoever thwarted him ran the risque of a severe rebuke, or at

dinners at the Mitre after he had re- 2 Life, i. 1 16.

moved to the other side of Fleet 3 Ib. iv. 408.

Street. Nevertheless we may take 4 Ib. i. 204 ; iv. 183 ; post in

the account as direct evidence of Reynolds's Anecdotes.

what could scarcely be doubtful that 5 Johnson, speaking of himself,

Johnson often dined in the tavern. said : ' No man is so cautious not

1 Quoted by Boswell. Life, ii. 452. to interrupt another ; no man thinks

When I had the honour of meeting it so necessary to appear attentive

Mr. Gladstone at Oxford on Feb. 6, when others are speaking.' Ante,

1890, he quoted this passage in his i. 169.

strong, deep voice, with deliberate 6 Ante, i. 429; Life, ii. 77, 121,

utterance, and praised it highly. 306 ; iv. 169.

best

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