addressing your discourse to him, turn from you anxl talk to his next neighbour, or give any indication that he was tired of your company x ; if such manners form your ideas of a fine gentleman, Garrick certainly had them not.
GlB. I mean that Garrick was more overawed by the presence of the great, and more obsequious to rank, than Foote, who considered himself as their equal, and treated them with the same familiarity as they treated each other.
JOHNS. He did so, and what did the fellow get by it? The grossness of his mind prevented him from seeing that this familiarity was merely suffered as they would play with a dog ; he got no ground by affecting to call peers by their surnames ; the foolish fellow fancied that lowering them was raising himself to their level ; this affectation of familiarity with the great, this childish ambition of momentary exaltation obtained by the neglect of those ceremonies which custom has established as the barriers between one order of society and another, only showed his folly and meanness 2 ; he did not see that by encroaching on others' dignity, he puts himself in their power either to be repelled with helpless indignity, or endured by clemency and condescension 3 . Garrick, by paying due respect to rank, respected himself; what he gave was returned, and
1 * There are (said Johnson) ten man and he Sam. Johnson. . . . There genteel women for one genteel man, would be a perpetual struggle for because they are more restrained. precedence were there no fixed in- A man without some degree of re- variable rules for the distinction of straint is insufferable; but we are rank, which creates no jealousy as all less restrained than women. Were it is allowed to be accidental.' Ib. a woman sitting in company to put i. 447. ' No one,' wrote Mrs. Piozzi, out her legs before her as most men ' was so careful to maintain the cere- do, we should be tempted to kick monies of life as Dr. Johnson.' Ante, them in.' Life, iii. 53. i. 318.
' He again insisted on the duty 3 'A great mind disdains to hold
of maintaining subordination of rank. any thing by courtesy, and therefore
" Sir, I would no more deprive a never usurps what a lawful claimant
nobleman of his respect, than of his may take away. He that encroaches
money. I consider myself as acting on another's dignity puts himself in
a part in the great system of society, his power ; he is either repelled with
and I do to others as I would have helpless indignity, or endured by
them to do to me. I would behave clemency and condescension.' Works,
to a nobleman as I should expect he viii. 225. would behave to me, were I a noble-
R 2, what
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