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 of the antiquity and illustriousness of their families, himself being quite a new man) cried out, with the ghost in Hamlet,

' This eternal blazon

Must not be to ears of flesh and blood 1 .'

One who had long known Johnson, said of him, In general you may tell what the man to whom you are speaking will say next : this you can never do of Johnson : his images, his allusions, his great powers of ridicule throw the appearance of novelty upon the most common conversation 2.

He was extremely fond of Dr. Hammond's Works 3, and some times gave them as a present to young men going into orders : he also bought them for the library at Streatham. 1 Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock, said Johnson, is a scoundrel : having nothing in particular to do himself, and having none of his time appropriated, he was a troublesome guest to persons who had much to do 4.

He rose as unwillingly as he went to bed s.

He said, he was always hurt when he found himself ignorant of any thing 6.

He was extremely accurate in his computation of time 7. He could tell how many heroick Latin verses could be repeated in such a given portion of it ; and was anxious that his friends should take pains to form in their minds some measure for estimating the lapse of it.

Of authors he used to say, that as they think themselves wiser or wittier than the rest of the world, the world, after all, must be the judge of their pretensions to superiority over them 8.

1 Hamlet, Act i. sc. 5. 1. 21. nothing so minute or inconsiderable,

2 W. G. Hamilton said of him : that I would not rather know it than only nothing can fill up, but which of him : ' He sometimes, it must be nothing has a tendency to fill up. confessed, covered his ignorance by next best : there is nobody ; no Taylor's Reynolds, ii. 457.
 * He has made a chasm which not not." ' Life, ii. 357. Reynolds wrote

man can be said to put you in mind 7 Life, i. 72.

of Johnson.' Life, iv. 420. 8 * He had indeed, upon all occa-

3 Ante, i. 107, and Life, iii. 58. sions, a great deference for the

4 Ante, i. 231. 5 Ante, i. 340. general opinion : "A man (said he) 6 ' He observed, " All knowledge who writes a book, thinks himself

is of itself of some value. There is wiser or wittier than the rest of man-

C 2 Complainers

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