lief, and his soul susceptible of gratitude, and of
every kind impression: yet though he had refined his sensibility he had
not endangered his quiet, by encouraging in himself a solicitude about
trifles, which he treated with the contempt they deserve.

It was well enough known before these sheets were published, that Mr.
Johnson had a roughness in his manner which subdued the saucy, and
terrified the meek; this was, when I knew him, the prominent part of a
character which few durst venture to approach so nearly; and which was
for that reason in many respects grossly and frequently mistaken, and it
was perhaps peculiar to him, that the lofty consciousness of his own
superiority which animated his looks, and raised his voice in
conversation, cast likewise an impenetrable veil over him when he said
nothing. His talk, therefore, had commonly the complexion of arrogance,
his silence of superciliousness. He was, however, seldom inclined to be
silent when any moral or literary question was started; and it was on
such occasions that, like the sage in "Rasselas," he spoke, and attention
watched his lips; he reasoned, and conviction closed his periods; if
poetry was talked of, his quotations were the readiest; and had he not
been eminent for more solid and brilliant qualities, mankind would have
united to extol his extraordinary memory. His manner of repeating
deserves to be described, though at the same time it defeats all power of
description; but whoever once heard him repeat an ode of Horace would be
long before they could endure to hear it repeated by another.

His equity in giving the character of living acquaintance ought not
undoubtedly to be omitted in his own, whence partiality and prejudice
were totally excluded, and truth alone presided in his tongue, a
steadiness of conduct the more to be commended, as no man had stronger
likings or aversions. His veracity was, indeed, from the most trivial to
the most solemn occasions, strict, even to severity; he scorned to
embellish a story with fictitious circumstances, which, he used to say,
took off from its real value. "A story," says Johnson, "should be a
specimen of life and manners; but if the surrounding circumstances are
false, as it is no more a representation of reality, it is no longer
worthy our attention."

For the rest--that beneficence which during his life increased the
comforts of so many may after his death be, perhaps, ungratefully
forgotten; but that p