LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
Good Friday-Bad Housewifery-Books of Travels-Fleet Street-Meeting with Mr. Oliver Edwards-Lawyers-Tom Tyers-Choice of a Profession-Dignity of Literature-Lord Camden-George Psalmanazar-Daines Barrington-Punishment of the Pillory-Insolence of Wealth-Extravagance-" Demosthenes Taylor "-Pamphlets-Goldsmith's Comedies"The Beggar's Opera "-Johnson's "Historia Studiorum "-Gentleman's Magazine— Avarice--Bon-Mots-Burke's Classical Pun--Egotism.
APRIL 17, being Good Friday, I waited on Johnson, as usual. I observed at breakfast, that although it was a part of his abstemious discipline, on this most solemn fast, to take no milk in his tea, yet when Mrs. Desmoulins inadvertently poured it in, he did not reject it. I talked of the strange indecision of mind, and imbecility in the common occurrences of life, which we may observe in some people. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, I am in the habit of getting others to do things for me." BOSWELL. " What, Sir! have you that weakness ?" JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir. 'Yes, Sir. But I always think afterwards I should have done better for myself."
I told him that at a gentleman's house where there was thought to be such extravagance or bad management that he was living much beyond his income, his lady had objected to the cutting of a pickled mango, and that I had taken an opportunity to ask the price of it, and found it was only two shillings; so here was a very poor