a few
hours if the windows are shut. Open those of your sleeping rooms
whenever you quit them to go to your workshops. Keep the windows of your
workshops open whenever the weather is not insupportably cold. I have no
_interest_ in giving you this advice; remember what I, your countryman
and a physician, tell you. If you would not bring infection and disease
upon yourselves, and to your wives and little ones, change the air you
breathe, change it many times a day, by opening your windows.'

"So saying, he stepped down from the tub, and, returning with his party
to their boat, they pursued their voyage."[146]

Could any missionary be more perfectly sober and sensible, or more alive
to the immorality of trying to effect too sudden a modification in the
organisms he was endeavouring to influence? If the men of Nottingham
want a statue in their market-place, I would respectfully suggest that a
subject is here afforded them.

* * * * *

"Dr. Johnson was several times at Lichfield on visits to Mrs. Lucy
Porter, his daughter-in-law, while Dr. Darwin was one of the
inhabitants. They had one or two interviews, but never afterwards sought
each other. Mutual and strong dislike subsisted between them. It is
curious that in Johnson's various letters to Mrs. Thrale, now Mrs.
Piozzi, published by that lady after his death, many of them dated from
Lichfield, the name of Darwin cannot be found, nor, indeed, that of any
of the ingenious and lettered people who lived there; while of its mere
common-life characters there is frequent mention, with many hints of
Lichfield's intellectual barrenness, while it could boast a Darwin and
other men of classical learning, poetic talents, and liberal
information."[147]

Here there follows a pleasant sketch of the principal Lichfield
notabilities, which I am compelled to omit.

"_These_ were the men," exclaims Miss Seward, "whose intellectual
existence passed unnoticed by Dr. Johnson in his depreciating estimate
of Lichfield talents. But Johnson liked only _worshippers_. Archdeacon
Vyse, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Robinson paid all the respect and attention to
Dr. Johnson, on these his visits to their town, due to his great
abilities, his high reputation, and to whatever was estimable in his
_mixed_ character; but they were not in the herd that 'paged his heels,'
and sunk in servile silence under the force of his dogmas, when their
hearts and their judgments bore _contrary_ testim