and such answers are not to be
called rude when the rudeness, if such there be, is only one ingredient
in a compound of which the principal parts are humour and felicity.
And, of course, even this measure of rudeness is only present
occasionally, while the amazing exactness of felicity seldom fails.
Who does not envy the readiness of mind which instantly provided him
with the exact analogy which he used to crush Boswell's plea for the
Methodist undergraduates expelled from Oxford in 1768? "But was it not
hard, sir, to expel them, for I am told they were good beings?" "I
believe they might be good beings: but they were not fit to be in the
University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we
turn her out of a garden." Note that, as usual with Johnson,--and that
is the astonishing thing--the illustration, however far-fetched, is not
merely humorous but exactly to the point. Plenty of men can compose
such retorts at leisure: the unique Johnsonian gift was that he had
them at his instant command. Or take one other illustration; a
compliment this time, and one of the swiftest as well as happiest on
record. Mrs. Siddons came to see him the {164} year before he died,
and when she entered his room there was no chair for her. Another man
would have been embarrassed by such a circumstance combined with such a
visitor. Not so Johnson, who turned the difficulty into a triumph by
simply saying with a smile, "Madam, you who so often occasion a want of
seats to other people, will the more readily excuse the want of one
yourself."

The third great quality of Johnson's talk is its style. His command of
language was such as that he seems never to have been at a loss; never
to have fumbled, or hesitated, or fallen back upon the second best
word; he saw instantly the point he wanted to make, and was instantly
ready with the best words in which to make it. It was said of him that
all his talk could be written down and printed without a correction.
That would, indeed, be double-edged praise to give to most men: but
with Johnson it is absolutely true without being in the least damaging.
For his talk is always talk, not writing or preaching; and it is always
his own. That dictum of Horace which he and Wilkes discussed at the
famous dinner at Dilly's, _Difficile est proprie communia dicere_,
gives the exact praise of Johnson as a talker. There are few things
more difficult than to put the truths of common sense