swers Mr. Johnson again, "but we must always
remember that He made it for Scotchmen, and comparisons are odious, Mr.
S---; but God made hell."

Dr. Johnson did not, I think, much delight in that kind of conversation
which consists in telling stories. "Everybody," said he, "tells stories
of me, and I tell stories of nobody. I do not recollect," added he,
"that I have ever told _you_, that have been always favourites, above
three stories; but I hope I do not play the Old Fool, and force people to
hear uninteresting narratives, only because I once was diverted with them
myself." He was, however, no enemy to that sort of talk from the famous
Mr. Foote, "whose happiness of manner in relating was such," he said, "as
subdued arrogance and roused stupidity. _His_ stories were truly like
those of Biron in Love's Labour's Lost, so _very_ attractive--

'That aged ears played truant with his tales,
And younger hearings were quite ravished,
So sweet and voluble was his discourse.'

Of all conversers, however," added he, "the late Hawkins Browne was the
most delightful with whom I ever was in company: his talk was at once so
elegant, so apparently artless, so pure, so pleasing, it seemed a
perpetual stream of sentiment, enlivened by gaiety, and sparkling with
images." When I asked Dr. Johnson who was the best man he had ever
known? "Psalmanazar," was the unexpected reply. He said, likewise, "that
though a native of France, as his friend imagined, he possessed more of
the English language than any one of the other foreigners who had
separately fallen in his way." Though there was much esteem, however,
there was, I believe, but little confidence between them; they conversed
merely about general topics, religion and learning, of which both were
undoubtedly stupendous examples; and, with regard to true Christian
perfection, I have heard Johnson say, "That George Psalmanazar's piety,
penitence, and virtue exceeded almost what we read as wonderful even in
the lives of saints."

I forget in what year it was this extraordinary person lived and died at
a house in Old Street, where Mr. Johnson was witness to his talents and
virtues, and to his final preference of the Church of England, after
having studied, disgraced, and adorned so many modes of worship. The
name he went by was not supposed by his friend to be that of his family,
but all inquiries were vain. His reasons for concealing his original
were penitentiary; he d