It having been observed that there was little hospitality in London: JOHNSON. "Nay, sir, any man who has a name or who has the power of pleasing, will be generally invited in London. The man Sterne, I have been told, has had engagements for three months." GOLDSMITH." And a very dull fellow." JOHNSON. "Why, no, sir."

He said, "London is nothing to some people; but to a man whose pleasure is intellectual, London is the place. And there is no place where economy can be so well practised as in London: more can be had here for the money, even by ladies, than any where else. You cannot play tricks with your fortune in a small place; you must make an uniform appearance. Here a lady may have well-furnished apartments, and elegant dress, without any meat in her kitchen."

"I was amused," adds Boswell, "by considering with how much ease and coolness he could write or talk to a friend, exhorting him not to suppose that happiness was not to be found as well in other places as in London; when he himself was at all times sensible of its being, comparatively speaking, a heaven upon earth. The truth is, that by those who, from sagacity, attention, and experience, have learnt the full advantage of London, its pre-eminence over every other place, not only for variety of enjoyment, but for comfort, will be felt with a philosophical exultation. The freedom from remark and petty censure, with which life may be passed there, is a circumstance which a man who knows the teasing restraint of a narrow circle must relish highly. Mr. Burke, whose orderly and ami« able domestic habits might make the eye of obser

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vation less irksome to him than to most men, said once very pleasantly, in my hearing, Though I have the honour to represent Bristol, I should not like to live there; I should be obliged to be so much upon my good behaviour.' In London, a man may live in splendid society at one time, and in frugal retirement at another, without animadversion. There, and there alone, a man's own house is truly his castle, in which he can be in perfect safety from intrusion whenever he pleases. I never shall forget how well this was expressed to me one day by Mr. Meynell; The chief advantage of London,' said he,' is, that a man is always so near his burrow."

To Boswell he said: "It is wonderful, sir, what is to be found in London. The most literary conversation that I ever enjoyed, was at the table of Jack Ellis, a money-scrivener behind the Royal Exchange, with whom I at one period used to dine generally once a week."

As Boswell and Johnson walked to St. Clement's church, and saw several shops open upon the most solemn fast-day of the Christian world, Boswell remarked, that one disadvantage arising from the immensity of London, was, that nobody was heeded by his neighbour; there was no fear of censure for not observing Good-Friday, as it ought to be kept, and as it is kept in country-towns. Johnson said, it was, upon the whole, very well observed even in London. He, however, owned that London was too large; but added, "It is nonsense to say the head is too big for the body. It would be as much too big, though the body were ever so large; that is to say, though the country were ever so exten

sive. It has no similarity to a head connected with a body."

Boswell talked of the cheerfulness of Fleet-street, owing to the constant quick succession of people which we perceive passing through it. JOHNSON, "Why, sir, Fleet-street has a very animated appearance; but I think the full tide of human existence is at Charing-cross."

No. XIV.

MANNERS.

THOUGH of no high extraction himself, Johnson had much respect for birth and family, especially among ladies. He said, "Adventitious accomplishments may be professed by all ranks; but one may easily distinguish the born gentlewoman.”

The same feeling probably much influenced his attachment to Mr. Langton and Mr. Beauclerk, two gay young men of good birth. Johnson, at first, thought it strange that Langton should associate so much with one who had the character of being loose, both in his principles and practice: but, by degrees, he himself was fascinated. Mr. Beauclerk's being of the St. Albans family, and having, in some particulars, a resemblance to Charles the Second, contributed, in Johnson's imagination, to throw a lustre upon his other qualities; and, in a short time, the moral, pious Johnson, and the gay, dissipated Beauclerk, were companions. "What a coalition!" said Garrick, when he heard of this:

I shall have my old friend to bail out of the round-house." But it was a very agreeable association. Beauclerk was too polite, and valued learning and wit too much, to offend Johnson by sallies of infidelity or licentiousness; and Johnson delighted in the good qualities of Beauclerk, and hoped to correct the evil. Innumerable were the scenes in which Johnson was amused by these young men. Beauclerk could take more liberty with him than any body; but, on the other hand, Beauclerk was not spared by his respectable companion, when reproof was proper. Beauclerk had such a propensity to satire, that at one time Johnson said to him, " You never open your mouth but with intention to give pain: and you have often given me pain, not from the power of what you said, but from seeing your intention." At another time, applying to him, with a slight alteration, a line of Pope, he said,

"Thy love of folly, and thy scorn of fools

Every thing thou dost shows the one, and every thing thou sayest the other." At another time, he said to him," Thy body is all vice, and thy mind all virtue." Beauclerk not seeming to relish the compliment, Johnson said, "Nay, sir, Alexander the Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, could not have desired to have had more said to him."

Johnson was some time with Beauclerk at his house at Windsor, where he was entertained with experiments in natural philosophy. One Sunday,

when the weather was very fine, Beauclerk enticed him, insensibly, to saunter about all the morning, They went into a church-yard, in the time of divine service, and Johnson laid himself down at his ease upon one of the tomb-stones. "Now, sir," said Beauclerk, you are like Hogarth's Idle Appren tice." When Johnson got his pension, Beauclerk said to him, in the humorous phrase of Falstaff, "I hope you'll now purge and live cleanly, like a gentleman."

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One night, when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple, till at last he appeared in his shirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that some ruffians were coming to attack him. When he discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he smiled, and with great good humour agreed to their proposal: "What, is it you, you dogs? I'll have a frisk with you." He was soor dressed, and they sallied forth together into Covent-garden, where the green-grocers and fruiterers were beginning to arrange their hampers, just come in from the country. Johnson made some attempts to help them; but the honest gardeners stared so at his figure and manner, and odd interference, that he soon saw his services were not relished. They then repaired to one of the neighbouring taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called bishop, which Johnson had always liked;