ersation.
Talking of constitutional melancholy, he observed, 'A man so afflicted,
Sir, must divert distressing thoughts, and not combat with them.'
BOSWELL. 'May not he think them down, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. To
attempt to THINK THEM DOWN is madness. He should have a lamp constantly
burning in his bed-chamber during the night, and if wakefully disturbed,
take a book, and read, and compose himself to rest. To have the
management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a
considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.' BOSWELL.
'Should not he provide amusements for himself? Would it not, for
instance, be right for him to take a course of chymistry?' JOHNSON. 'Let
him take a course of chymistry, or a course of rope-dancing, or a course
of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to
have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it
can fly from itself. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy is a valuable work.
It is, perhaps, overloaded with quotation. But there is great spirit and
great power in what Burton says, when he writes from his own mind.'

Next morning we visited Dr. Wetherell, Master of University College,
with whom Dr. Johnson conferred on the most advantageous mode of
disposing of the books printed at the Clarendon press. I often had
occasion to remark, Johnson loved business, loved to have his wisdom
actually operate on real life.

We then went to Pembroke College, and waited on his old friend Dr.
Adams, the master of it, whom I found to be a most polite, pleasing,
communicative man. Before his advancement to the headship of his
college, I had intended to go and visit him at Shrewsbury, where he was
rector of St. Chad's, in order to get from him what particulars he could
recollect of Johnson's academical life. He now obligingly gave me part
of that authentick information, which, with what I afterwards owed to
his kindness, will be found incorporated in its proper place in this
work.

Dr. Adams told us, that in some of the Colleges at Oxford, the fellows
had excluded the students from social intercourse with them in the
common room. JOHNSON. 'They are in the right, Sir: there can be no real
conversation, no fair exertion of mind amongst them, if the young men
are by; for a man who has a character does not choose to stake it
in their presence.' BOSWELL. 'But, Sir, may there not be very good
conversation without a contest for superiority?' JOHNSON.