have an extreme degree of timidity, resolved to send
him to a publick school, that he might acquire confidence;--'Sir, (said
Johnson,) this is a preposterous expedient for removing his infirmity;
such a disposition should be cultivated in the shade. Placing him at a
publick school is forcing an owl upon day.'

Speaking of a gentleman whose house was much frequented by low company;
'Rags, Sir, (said he,) will always make their appearance where they have
a right to do it.'

Of the same gentleman's mode of living, he said, 'Sir, the servants,
instead of doing what they are bid, stand round the table in idle
clusters, gaping upon the guests; and seem as unfit to attend a company,
as to steer a man of war.'

A dull country magistrate gave Johnson a long tedious account of his
exercising his criminal jurisdiction, the result of which was his having
sentenced four convicts to transportation. Johnson, in an agony of
impatience to get rid of such a companion, exclaimed, 'I heartily wish,
Sir, that I were a fifth.'

Johnson was present when a tragedy was read, in which there occurred
this line:--

'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free.'

The company having admired it much, 'I cannot agree with you (said
Johnson). It might as well be said,--

'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'

Johnson having argued for some time with a pertinacious gentleman; his
opponent, who had talked in a very puzzling manner, happened to say, 'I
don't understand you, Sir:' upon which Johnson observed, 'Sir, I
have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an
understanding.'

Talking to me of Horry Walpole, (as Horace late Earl of Orford was
often called,) Johnson allowed that he got together a great many curious
little things, and told them in an elegant manner. Mr. Walpole thought
Johnson a more amiable character after reading his Letters to Mrs.
Thrale: but never was one of the true admirers of that great man. We may
suppose a prejudice conceived, if he ever heard Johnson's account to Sir
George Staunton, that when he made the speeches in parliament for the
Gentleman's Magazine, 'he always took care to put Sir Robert Walpole
in the wrong, and to say every thing he could against the electorate
of Hanover.' The celebrated Heroick Epistle, in which Johnson is
satyrically introduced, has been ascribed both to Mr. Walpole and
Mr. Mason. One day at Mr. Courtenay's, when a gentleman expressed his
opinion that t