niversally known.
What he said is all I can relate; and from what he said, those who think
it worth while to read these anecdotes must be contented to gather his
character. Mine is a mere _candle-light_ picture of his latter days,
where everything falls in dark shadow except the face, the index of the
mind; but even that is seen unfavourably, and with a paleness beyond what
nature gave it.

When I have told how many follies Dr. Johnson knew of others, I must not
omit to mention with how much fidelity he would always have kept them
concealed, could they of whom he knew the absurdities have been
contented, in the common phrase, to keep their own counsel. But
returning home one day from dining at the chaplain's table, he told me
that Dr. Goldsmith had given a very comical and unnecessarily exact
recital there of his own feelings when his play was hissed: telling the
company how he went, indeed, to the Literary Club at night, and chatted
gaily among his friends, as if nothing had happened amiss; that to
impress them still more forcibly with an idea of his magnanimity, he even
sung his favourite song about an old woman tossed in a blanket seventeen
times as high as the moon; "but all this while I was suffering horrid
tortures," said he, "and verily believe that if I had put a bit in my
mouth it would have strangled me on the spot, I was so excessively ill.
But I made more noise than usual to cover all that, and so they never
perceived my not eating, nor I believe at all imaged to themselves the
anguish of my heart; but when all were gone except Johnson here, I burst
out a-crying, and even swore by --- that I would never write again." "All
which, Doctor," says Mr. Johnson, amazed at his odd frankness, "I thought
had been a secret between you and me; and I am sure I would not have said
anything about it for the world. Now see," repeated he, when he told the
story, "what a figure a man makes who thus unaccountably chooses to be
the frigid narrator of his own disgrace. Il volto sciolto, ed i pensieri
stretti, was a proverb made on purpose for such mortals, to keep people,
if possible, from being thus the heralds of their own shame; for what
compassion can they gain by such silly narratives? No man should be
expected to sympathise with the sorrows of vanity. If, then, you are
mortified by any ill-usage, whether real or supposed, keep at least the
account of such mortifications to yourself, and forbear to proclaim how
meanl