invitation, I know not : as it was conveyed in very handsome expressions, it required some apology for declining it, and I cannot but think he framed one. (Page 328.)
Invitations to dine with such of those as he liked, he so seldom declined, that to a friend of his, he said, ' I never but once, upon a resolution to employ myself in study, balked x an invitation out to dinner, and then I stayed at home and did nothing V (Page 341.)
��Johnson looked upon eating as a very serious business, enjoyed the pleasure of a splendid table equally with most men. It was, at no time of his life, pleasing to see him at a meal ; the , greediness with which he ate, his total inattention to those among whom he was seated, and his profound silence in the hour of refection, were circumstances that at the instant degraded him, and shewed him to be more a sensualist than a philo sopher 3 . Moreover, he was a lover of tea to an excess hardly ^ credible ; whenever it appeared, he was almost raving, and by his impatience to be served, his incessant calls for those in gredients which make that liquor palatable, and the haste with which he swallowed it down, he seldom failed to make that a fatigue to every one else 4 , which was intended as a general
a composition of vanity, versatility, 3 Percy remarks on the passage in
and servility. In short, there is but the Life (i. 468) where Boswell de-
one feature wanting his wit, of which scribes Johnson's voracious eating :
in his whole book there are not three ' This is extremely exaggerated. He
sallies. I often said of Lord Hervey ate heartily, having a good appetite,
and Dodington, that they were the but not with the voraciousness de-
only two I ever knew who were al- scribed by Mr. Boswell ; all whose
ways aiming at wit, and yet generally extravagant accounts must be read
found it.' with caution and abatement.' Ander-
1 Johnson gives as the third mean- son's Johnson, ed. 1815, p. 471.
ing of balk 'to omit, or refuse any- 4 In John Knox's Tour through
thing.' Hawkins uses \\. post, p. 115. the Highlands, ed. 1787, p. 143, it is
2 * I fancy,' writes Dr. Maxwell, * he stated that at Dunvegan ' Lady Mac- must have read and wrote chiefly in leod, who had repeatedly helped the night, for I can scarcely recollect Dr. Johnson to sixteen dishes or up* that he ever refused going with me wards of tea, asked him if a small to a tavern.' Life,\\. 119. For the basin would not save him trouble, hours at which he wrote see post in and be more agreeable. " I wonder, Steevens's Anecdotes. Madam," answered he roughly, " why
refreshment
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