tell something of
Mr. Burke now." We were all silent, and the honest Hibernian began to
relate how Mr. Burke went to see the collieries in a distant province;
and he would go down into the bowels of the earth (in a bag), and he
would examine everything. "He went in a bag, sir, and ventured his
health and his life for knowledge: but he took care of his clothes, that
they should not be spoiled, for he went down in a bag." "Well, sir,"
says Mr. Johnson, good-humouredly, "if our friend Mund should die in any
of these hazardous exploits, you and I would write his life and panegyric
together; and your chapter of it should be entitled thus: 'Burke in a
Bag.'"

He had always a very great personal regard and particular affection for
Mr. Edmund Burke, as well as an esteem difficult for me to repeat, though
for him only easy to express. And when at the end of the year 1774 the
General Election called us all different ways, and broke up the
delightful society in which we had spent some time at Beaconsfield, Dr.
Johnson shook the hospitable master of the house kindly by the hand, and
said, "Farewell, my dear sir, and remember that I wish you all the
success which ought to be wished you, which can possibly be wished you,
indeed--_by an honest man_."

I must here take leave to observe, that in giving little memoirs of Mr.
Johnson's behaviour and conversation, such as I saw and heard it, my book
lies under manifest disadvantages, compared with theirs, who having seen
him in various situations, and observed his conduct in numberless cases,
are able to throw stronger and more brilliant lights upon his character.
Virtues are like shrubs, which yield their sweets in different manners
according to the circumstances which surround them; and while generosity
of soul scatters its fragrance like the honeysuckle, and delights the
senses of many occasional passengers, who feel the pleasure, and half
wonder how the breeze has blown it from so far, the more sullen but not
less valuable myrtle waits like fortitude to discover its excellence,
till the hand arrives that will _crush_ it, and force out that perfume
whose durability well compensates the difficulty of production.

I saw Mr. Johnson in none but a tranquil, uniform state, passing the
evening of his life among friends, who loved, honoured, and admired him.
I saw none of the things he did, except such acts of charity as have been
often mentioned in this book, and such writings as are u