i66 Anecdotes of Johnson
he poured out upon his audience in all the fullness of informa tion not but he observed Swift's rule, ' of giving every man time to take his share in the conversation x ; ' and when the company thought proper to engage him in the general discussion of little matters, no man threw back the ball with greater ease and pleasantry.
He always expressed himself with clearness and precision, and seldom made use of an unnecessary word each had its due weight, and stood in its proper place. He was sometimes a little too tenacious of his own opinion, particularly when it was in danger of being wrested from him by any of the company. Here he used to collect himself with all his strength and here he shewed such skill and dexterity in defence, that he either tired out his adversary, or turned the laugh against him, by the power of his wit and irony 2 .
In this place, it would be omitting a very singular quality of his, not to speak of the amazing powers of his memory 3 . The great stores of learning which he laid in, in his youth, were not of that cumbrous and inactive quality, which we meet with in many who are called great scholars ; for he could, at all times, draw bills upon this capital with the greatest security of being paid. When quotations were made against him in conversation, either by applying to the context, he gave a different turn to the passage, or quoted from other parts of the same author, that which was more favourable to his own opinion : if these failed him, he would instantly call up a whole phalanx of other authorities, by which he bore down his antagonist with all the superiority of allied force.
But it is not the readiness with which he applied to different authors, proves so much the greatness of his memory, as the extent to which he could carry his recollection upon occasions. I remember one day, in a conversation upon the miseries of old a g e > a gentleman in company observed, he always thought Juvenal's description of them to be rather too highly coloured
1 Ante, i. 169. give room by a pause for any other
' Swift did not claim the right of speaker.' Works, viii. 225.
talking alone ; for it was his rule, 2 Life, ii. 100.
when he had spoken a minute, to 8 Ib. v. 368 ; ante, ii. 85, 87.
upon
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