is wonderful how the whelp has
written such things.'

We were by no means pleased with our inn at Bristol. 'Let us see
now, (said I,) how we should describe it.' Johnson was ready with his
raillery. 'Describe it, Sir?--Why, it was so bad that Boswell wished to
be in Scotland!'

After Dr. Johnson's return to London, I was several times with him
at his house, where I occasionally slept, in the room that had
been assigned to me. I dined with him at Dr. Taylor's, at General
Oglethorpe's, and at General Paoli's. To avoid a tedious minuteness, I
shall group together what I have preserved of his conversation during
this period also, without specifying each scene where it passed, except
one, which will be found so remarkable as certainly to deserve a very
particular relation.

'Garrick (he observed,) does not play the part of Archer in The Beaux
Stratagem well. The gentleman should break out through the footman,
which is not the case as he does it.'

'That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief
from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is
a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.'

'Lord Chesterfield's Letters to his Son, I think, might be made a very
pretty book. Take out the immorality, and it should be put into the
hands of every young gentleman. An elegant manner and easiness of
behaviour are acquired gradually and imperceptibly. No man can say "I'll
be genteel." There are ten genteel women for one genteel man, because
they are more restrained. A man without some degree of restraint is
insufferable; but we are all less restrained than women. Were a woman
sitting in company to put out her legs before her as most men do, we
should be tempted to kick them in.'

No man was a more attentive and nice observer of behaviour in those in
whose company he happened to be, than Johnson; or, however strange it
may seem to many, had a higher estimation of its refinements. Lord
Eliot informs me, that one day when Johnson and he were at dinner at
a gentleman's house in London, upon Lord Chesterfield's Letters being
mentioned, Johnson surprized the company by this sentence: 'Every man
of any education would rather be called a rascal, than accused of
deficiency in THE GRACES.' Mr. Gibbon, who was present, turned to a
lady who knew Johnson well, and lived much with him, and in his quaint
manner, tapping his box, addressed her thus: 'Don't you think, Madam,
(loo