ave been thinking on our dispute
last night--_You were in the right_[602].'

The other was as follows:--Johnson, for sport perhaps, or from the
spirit of contradiction, eagerly maintained that Derrick[603] had merit
as a writer. Mr. Morgann argued with him directly, in vain. At length he
had recourse to this device. 'Pray, Sir, (said he,) whether do you
reckon Derrick or Smart[604] the best poet?' Johnson at once felt
himself roused; and answered, 'Sir, there is no settling the point of
precedency between a louse and a flea.'

Once, when checking my boasting too frequently of myself in company, he
said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much, as to provoke ridicule.
You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn
with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, "Do
you know, Sir, who I am?" "No, Sir, (said the other,) I have not that
advantage." "Sir, (said he,) I am the _great_ TWALMLEY, who invented the
New Floodgate Iron[605]."' The Bishop of Killaloe, on my repeating the
story to him, defended Twalmley, by observing, that he was entitled to
the epithet of _great_; for Virgil in his groupe of worthies in the
Elysian fields--

_Hic manus ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi_, &c.

mentions

_Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes_[606].

He was pleased to say to me one morning when we were left alone in his
study, 'Boswell, I think I am easier with you than with almost
any body.'

He would not allow Mr. David Hume any credit for his political
principles, though similar to his own; saying of him, 'Sir, he was a
Tory by chance[607].'

His acute observation of human life made him remark, 'Sir, there is
nothing by which a man exasperates most people more, than by displaying
a superiour ability or brilliancy in conversation. They seem pleased at
the time; but their envy makes them curse him at their hearts[608].'

My readers will probably be surprised to hear that the great Dr. Johnson
could amuse himself with so slight and playful a species of composition
as a _Charade_. I have recovered one which he made on Dr. _Barnard_, now
Lord Bishop of Killaloe; who has been pleased for many years to treat me
with so much intimacy and social ease, that I may presume to call him
not only my Right Reverend, but my very dear Friend. I therefore with
peculiar pleasure give to the world a just and elegant compliment thus
paid to his Lordship by Johnson[609].

CHARADE.

'My