by Miss Reynolds.
��Of latter years he grew much more companionable, anc} I have icard him say, that he knew himself to be so. ' In my younger days,' he would say, ' it is true I was much inclined to treat man kind with asperity and contempt ; but I found it answered no good end. I thought it wiser and better to take the world as it goes. Besides, as I have advanced in life I have had more reason k to be satisfied with it. Mankind have treated me with more ^ndness, and of course I have more kindness for them I .'
[n the latter part of his life, indeed, his circumstances were
- ry different from what they were in the beginning. Before he
id the Pension, he literally drest like a Beggar ; and from what have been told, literally lived as such 2 ; at least respecting cor^mon conveniences in his apartments, wanting even a chair to sit on 3 , particularly in his study, where a gentleman who fre quently visited him whilst writing his Idlers always found him at his Desk, sitting on one with three legs ; and on rising from it, he remark'd that Mr. Johnson never forgot its defect, but would either hold it in his hand or place it with great composure against some support, taking no notice of its imperfection to his visitor. How he sat, whether on the window-seat, on a chair, or on a pile of Folios, or how he sat, I do not remember to have heard 4 .
��1 ' I never have sought the world ; the world was not to seek me. It is rather wonderful that so much has been done for me.' Life, iv. 172.
- The world is not so unjust or un
kind as it is peevishly represented.' Letters, ii. 215. See also ante, ii. 244.
2 Even for some time after he re ceived his pension 'his apartment and furniture and morning dress were sufficiently uncouth.' Life, i. 396. See also ante, ii. 141, for his decent drawing-room at a later period. How unlike he was in this to Swift, who
- seems to have wasted life in dis
content by the rage of neglected pride and the languishment of un satisfied desire. He is querulous and fastidious, arrogant and malig nant : he scarcely speaks of himself
��but with indignant lamentations.' Works, viii. 225.
3 In a note in the Life, i. 328, I say, 'there can be little question that she is describing the same room [as that described by Mr. Burney in Gough Square] a room in a house in which Miss Williams was lodged, and most likely Mr. Levet.' I may be mistaken ; for when he was writing the Idler he was living not only in Gough Square, but also in Staple Inn and Gray's Inn, and perhaps in Inner Temple Lane. In none of these places did Miss Williams lodge. See Life, i. 350, n. 3, and ante, ii. 1 1 6. It is absurd to suppose that he had no chairs in his sitting-room.
4 ' After dinner, Mr. Johnson pro posed to Mr. Burney to go up with
2 It
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