it is a proof at least that he
loves more to please me than to sit silent when he need say nothing."

That natural roughness of his manner so often mentioned would,
notwithstanding the regularity of his notions, burst through them all
from time to time; and he once bade a very celebrated lady, who praised
him with too much zeal, perhaps, or perhaps too strong an emphasis (which
always offended him), "Consider what her flattery was worth before she
choked _him_ with it." A few more winters passed in the talking world
showed him the value of that friend's commendations, however; and he was
very sorry for the disgusting speech he made her.

I used to think Mr. Johnson's determined preference of a cold, monotonous
talker over an emphatical and violent one would make him quite a
favourite among the men of ton, whose insensibility, or affectation of
perpetual calmness, certainly did not give to him the offence it does to
many. He loved "conversation without effort," he said; and the encomiums
I have heard him so often pronounce on the manners of Topham Beaucler in
society constantly ended in that peculiar praise, that "it was without
_effort_."

We were talking of Richardson, who wrote "Clarissa." "You think I love
flattery," says Dr. Johnson, "and so I do; but a little too much always
disgusts me. That fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be
contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation without longing
to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar."

With regard to slight insults from newspaper abuse, I have already
declared his notions. "They sting one," says he, "but as a fly stings a
horse; and the eagle will not catch flies." He once told me, however,
that Cummyns, the famous Quaker, whose friendship he valued very highly,
fell a sacrifice to their insults, having declared on his death-bed to
Dr. Johnson that the pain of an anonymous letter, written in some of the
common prints of the day, fastened on his heart, and threw him into the
slow fever of which he died.

Nor was Cummyns the only valuable member so lost to society. Hawkesworth,
the pious, the virtuous, and the wise, for want of that fortitude which
casts a shield before the merits of his friend, fell a lamented sacrifice
to wanton malice and cruelty, I know not how provoked; but all in turn
feel the lash of censure in a country where, as every baby is allowed to
carry a whip, no person can escape except by chance. The unpublishe