��in his Lives of the later Poets *, what may I not apprehend, who, if I relate anecdotes of Mr. Johnson, am obliged to repeat ex pressions of severity, and sentences of contempt ? Let me at least soften them a little, by saying, that he did not hate the persons he treated with roughness, or despise them whom he drove from him by apparent scorn. He really loved and re spected many whom he would not suffer to love him. And when he related to me a short dialogue that passed between himself and a writer of the first eminence in the world, when he was in Scotland, I was shocked to think how he must have
disgusted him. Dr. asked me (said he) why I did not join
in their public worship when among them ? for (said he) I went to your churches often when in England. * So (replied Johnson) I have read that the Siamese sent ambassadors to Louis Quatorze, but I never heard that the king of France thought it worth his while to send ambassadors from his court to that of Stam 2 .' He was no gentler with myself, or those for whom I had the greatest regard. When I one day lamented the loss of a first cousin killed in America ' Prithee, my dear (said he), have done with canting : how would the world be worse for it, I may ask, if all your relations were at once spitted like larks, and roasted for Presto's supper 3 ? ' Presto was the dog that lay under the table
1 ' The necessity of complying with Life, iii. 336. For the King of Siam times, and of sparing persons, is the see Voltaire's Sihle de Louis XIV, great impediment of biography. . . . ch. xiv.
What is known can seldom be im- 3 For Baretti's account of what
mediately told ; and when it might was said see Life, iv. 347 ; also
be told, it is no longer known. . . . Prior's Malone, p. 398. For the
As the process of these narratives is name Presto see Letters, i. 151, n. 2.
now bringing me among my con- The dog is mentioned in the follow-
temporaries, I begin to feel myself ing anecdote told by Baretti of ' poor
walking upon ashes under which little Harry Thrale, some months be-
the fire is not extinguished," and fore the boy died.' ' " Harry," said
coming to the time of which it will his father to him on entering the
be proper rather to say " nothing that room, " are you listening to what the
is false, than all that is true." ' Doctor and mamma are about ? "
Works, vii. 444. " Yes, papa," answered the boy.
2 It was at Allan Ramsay's house "And," quoth Mr. Thrale, "what in London, more than four years are they saying ? " " They are dis- after Johnson's tour in Scotland, that puting," replied Harry; "but mamma this ' short dialogue passed.' The has just such a chance against Dr. eminent writer was Dr. Robertson. Johnson as Presto would have if he
while
�� �
