y.

His love of London is but a part of his hunger for men. 'The happiness
of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it.'
'Why, Sir, you find no man at all intellectual who is willing to leave
London: No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for
there is in London all that life can afford.' As he loved London, so he
loved a tavern for its sociability. 'Sir, there is nothing which has yet
been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a
good tavern.' 'A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.'

Personal words are often upon his lips, such as 'love' and 'hate,' and
vast is the number, range, and variety of people who at one time or
another had been in some degree personally related with him, from Bet
Flint and his black servant Francis, to the adored Duchess of Devonshire
and the King himself. To no one who passed a word with him was he
personally indifferent. Even fools received his personal attention.
Said one: 'But I don't understand you, Sir.' 'Sir, I have found you an
argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.' 'Sir, you
are irascible,' said Boswell; 'you have no patience with folly or
absurdity.'

But it is in Johnson's capacity for friendship that his greatness is
specially revealed. 'Keep your friendships in good repair.' As the old
friends disappeared, new ones came to him. For Johnson seems never to
have sought out friends. He was not a common 'mixer.' He stooped to no
devices for the sake of popularity. He pours only scorn upon the lack of
mind and conviction which is necessary to him who is everybody's friend.

His friendships included all classes and all ages. He was a great
favorite with children, and knew how to meet them, from little
four-months-old Veronica Boswell to his godchild Jane Langton. 'Sir,'
said he, 'I love the acquaintance of young people, . . . young men have
more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every
respect.' At sixty-eight he said: 'I value myself upon this, that there
is nothing of the old man in my conversation.' Upon women of all classes
and ages he exerts without trying a charm the consciousness of which
would have turned any head less constant than his own, and with their
fulsome adoration he was pleased none the less for perceiving its real
value.

But the most important of his friendships developed between him and such
men of genius as Boswell, David Garrick, Oliver Gold