ontaneous testimonies of approbation from such men, without any
personal acquaintance with me, are truly valuable and encouraging.
BOSWELL.

[924]

'Tout se plaint, tout gemit en cherchant le bien-etre;
Nul ne voudrait mourir, nul ne voudrait renaitre.'

Voltaire, _Le desastre de Lisbonne. Works_, ed. 1819, x. 124. 'Johnson
said that, for his part, he never passed that week in his life which he
would wish to repeat, were an angel to make the proposal to him.'
_Ante_, ii. 125. Yet Dr. Franklin, whose life overlapped Johnson's at
both ends, said:-'I should have no objection to go over the same life
from its beginning to the end, requesting only the advantage authors
have of correcting in a second edition the faults of its first. So would
I also wish to change some incidents of it for others more favourable
Notwithstanding, if this condition was denied, I should still accept the
offer of re-commencing the same life.' Franklin's _Memoirs_, i. 2.

[925] Mackintosh thus sums up this question:--'The truth is, that
endless fallacies must arise from the attempt to appreciate by
retrospect human life, of which the enjoyments depend on hope.' _Life of
Mackintosh_, ii. 160. See _ante_, ii. 350.

[926] In the lines on Levett. _Ante_, p. 137.

[927] AURENGZEBE, act iv. sc. 1. BOSWELL. According to Dr. Maxwell
(_ante_, ii. 124), Johnson frequently quoted the fourth couplet of these
lines. Boswell does not give the last--

'I'm tired with waiting for this chemic gold
Which fools us young, and beggars us when old.'

[928] Johnson, speaking of the companions of his college days, said:--
'It was bitterness which they mistook for frolick.' _Ante_, i. 73.

[929]

'--to thee I call
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name
O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams.'

Milton's _Paradise Lost_, iv. 35.

[930] Yet there is no doubt that a man may appear very gay in company
who is sad at heart. His merriment is like the sound of drums and
trumpets in a battle, to drown the groans of the wounded and
dying. BOSWELL.

[931] Mme. D'Arblay (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, ii. 103) tells how Johnson
was one day invited to her father's house at the request of Mr.
Greville, 'the finest gentleman about town,' as she earlier described
him (_ib_. i. 25), who desired to make his acquaintance. This 'superb'
gentleman was afraid to begin to speak. 'Assuming his most supercilious
air of distant superiority he pl