locution, but opposed, directly and abruptly, his antagonist. He fought with all sorts [of] weapons ; [with] ludicrous comparisons and similes ; [and] if all failed, with rudeness and overbearing. He thought it necessary never to be worsted in argument x . He had one virtue which I hold one of the most difficult to practise. After the heat of contest was over, if he had been informed that his antagonist resented his rudeness, he was the first to seek after a reconciliation 2 ; and of his virtues the most distinguished was his love of truth 3 .
,-He sometimes, it must be confessed, covered his ignorance by [generals rather than appear ignorant 4 . You will wonder to hear la person who loved him so sincerely speak thus freely of his 'iend, but, you must recollect I am not writing his panegyrick, >ut as if upon oath, not only to give the truth but the whole truth.
His pride had no meanness in it ; there was nothing little or mean about him.
Truth, whether in great or little matters, he held sacred.
From the violation of truth, he said, in great things your char acter or your interest was affected, in lesser things your pleasure is equally destroyed. I remember, on his relating some incident, I added something to his relation which I supposed might likewise have happened : ' It would have been a better story,' says he, ' if it had been so ; but it was not V Our friend Dr. Goldsmith was not so scrupulous ; but he said he only indulged himself in white lyes, light as feathers, which he threw up in the air, and on whomever they fell, nobody was hurt. ' I wish/ says Dr. Johnson, you would take the trouble of moulting your feathers.'
I once inadvertently put him in a situation from which none but a man of perfect integrity could extricate himself. I pointed at some lines in the Traveller which I told [him] I was sure he wrote. He hesitated a little ; during this hesitation I recollected myself, that as I knew he would not lye I put him in a cleft stick, and should have had but my due if he had given me
1 Ante, i. 390. 3 Ante, ii. 218.
2 Ante, i. 212, 453. 4 Life, v. 124, n. 4.
5 Ante, i. 225 ; Life, ii. 433.
a rough
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