30. Caricatura Imitation.-Fat Oxen, &c. I could give another comical instance of caricatura imitation. Recollecting some day, when praising these verses of Lopez de Vega, 'Se aquien los leones vence O ella di ser mas furiosa," more than he thought they deserved, Mr. Johnson instantly observed, "that they were founded on a trivial conceit; and that conceit ill-explained, and ill-expressed beside. The lady, we all know, does not conquer in the same manner as the lion does: 'tis a mere play of words," added he, " and you might as well say, that If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, Have a turnip than his father." And this humour is of the same sort with which he answered the friend who commended the following line : Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free. "To be sure," said Dr. Johnson, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat." This readiness of finding a parallel, or making one, was shown by him perpetually in the course of conversation. When the French verses of a certain pantomime were quoted thus, "Je suis Cassandre descendue des cieux, Pour vous faire entendre, mesdames et messieurs, he cried out gaily and suddenly, almost in a moment, "I am Cassandra come down from the sky, The pretty Italian verses, too, at the end of Baretti's book, called "Easy Phraseology," he did all' improvviso in the same manner : "Viva! viva la padrona! Tutta bella, e tutta buona, "Long may live my lovely Hetty! The famous distich, too, of an Italian improvvisatore, who, when the Duke of Modena ran away from the comet in the year 1742 or 1743, "Se al venir vestro i principi sen' vanno, which,” said he, "would do just as well in our language thus: - If at your coming princes disappear, Comets! come every day—and stay a year." When some one in company commended the verses of M. de Benserade à son Lit; "Théatre des ris et des pleurs, he replied without hesitating, "In bed we laugh, in bed we cry, 66 The epigram written at Lord Anson's house many years ago, where," says Mr. Johnson, “I was well received and kindly treated, and with the true gratitude of a wit ridiculed the master of the house before I had left it an hour," has been falsely printed in many papers since his death. I wrote it down from his own lips one evening in August, 1772, not neglecting the little preface, accusing himself of making so graceless a return for the civilities shown him. He had, among other elegancies about the park and gardens, been made to observe a temple to the winds, when this thought naturally presented itself to a wit. "Gratum animum laudo; Qui debuit omnia ventis, 32. Dr. Lawrence. Poor Dr. Lawrence had long been his friend and confident. The conversation I saw them hold together in Essex Street one day in the year 1781 or 1782 was a melancholy one, and made a singular impression on my mind. He was himself exceedingly ill, and I accompanied him thither for advice. The physician was, however, in some respects, more to be pitied than the patient Johnson was panting under an asthma and dropsy; but Lawrence had been brought home that very morning struck with the palsy, from which he had, two hours before we came, strove to awaken himself by blisters: they were both deaf, and scarce able to speak besides; one from difficulty of breathing, the other from paralytic debility. To give and receive Inedical counsel, therefore, they fairly sat down on each side a table in the doctor's gloomy apartment, adorned with skeletons, preserved monsters, &c. and agreed tɔ write Latin billets to each other. Such a scene did I 66 are timidè and never see! "You," said Johnson, gelidè;" finding that his friend had prescribed palliative, not drastic remedies. "It is not me," replies poor Lawrence in an interrupted voice; "'t is nature that is gelide and timidè." In fact, he lived but few months after, I believe, and retained his faculties a still shorter time. He was a man of strict piety and profound learning, but little skilled in the knowledge of life or manners, and died without having ever enjoyed the reputation he so justly deserved. When Mr. Johnson felt his fancy, or fancied he felt it, disordered, his constant recurrence was to the study of arithmetic; and one day that he was totally confined to his chamber, and I enquired what he had been doing to divert himself, he showed me a calculation which I could scarce be made to understand, so vast was the plan of it, and so very intricate were the figures: no other indeed than that the national debt, computing it at one hundred and eighty millions sterling, would, if converted into silver, serve to make a meridian of that metal, I forget how broad, for the globe of the whole earth, the real globe. 34. Number and Numeration. On a similar occasion, I asked him (knowing what subject he would like best to talk upon), how his opinion stood towards the question between Pascal and Soame Jenyns about number and numeration? as the French philosopher observes that infinity, though on all sides astonishing, appears most so when the idea is connected with the idea of number; for the notions of infinite number, and infinite number we know there is, can stretches one's capacity still more than the idea of infinite space: "Such a notion, indeed," adds he, 66 scarcely find room in the human mind." Our English author, on the other hand, exclaims, Let no man give himself leave to talk about infinite number, for infinite number is a contradiction in terms; whatever is once numbered, we all see cannot be infinite. “I think,” said Mr. Johnson, after a pause, 66 we must settle the matter thus: numeration is certainly infinite, for eternity might be employed in adding unit to unit; but every number is in itself finite, as the possibility of doubling it easily proves: besides, stop at what point you will, you find yourself as far from infinitude as ever." 35. Historical Fact. General Polity. As ethics or figures, or metaphysical reasoning, was the sort of talk he most delighted in, so no kind of conversation pleased him less, I think, than when the subject was historical fact or general polity. "What shall we learn from that stuff?" said he: "let us not fancy, like Swift, that we are exalting a woman's character by telling how she Could name the ancient heroes round, Explain for what they were renown'd," &c. I must not, however, lead my readers to suppose that he meant to reserve such talk for men's company as a proof of pre-eminence. "He never," as he expressed it, "desired to hear of the Punic war while he lived: such conversation was lost time," he said, " and carried one away from common life, leaving no ideas behind which could serve living wight as warning or direction. How I should act is not the case, But how would Brutus in my place? And now," cries Mr. Johnson, laughing with obstreperous violence, "if these two foolish lines can be |