Besides the conveniences for ftudy, with which he was furnished at Streatham, he had opportunities of exercise, and the pleasure of airings and excurfions. He was once prevailed on by Mr. Thrale to join in

to tables---my friend now goes without me--I restrain, not direct.

Nothing fo unfortunate as a wit by profeffion, one who raifes expectation at his entry—always in debt---many pay with common places-others unwilling to part with what chance has brought them, spend their lives in ftraining, or get at one place to retail in another. Wit depends upon a thoufand cafualties-an occafion, combination of ideas, prefence of mind, time, accidental fit. That excel in wit will own it is very little in a man's power. That no man can appoint an hour in which he will be witty. The luckiest thoughts such as a man not led to by a regular train. The mind of a witty man the foil in which wit planted grows, but few cultivate. A man, many thoughts in walk, bed, which when • he has his pen and paper he cannot recover. Folly of fuffering reputation to depend on a repartee which often favours the dull. The first principle of wit out of our power. Scaliger's genius. The English-Mifery of writing without the vein then flowing. The happy have their days, and the unhappy, and the genius the happy, who has flows often and knows their value. The ⚫ little power men have over their effufions Genius made ancients attribute to impulse.'

The hints here inferted, were indubitably the rudiments of a paper, No. 101, in the Rambler, the concluding paragraph of which is in the following words: I believe, Mr. Rambler, that it

has fome time happened to others, who have the good or ill fortune to be celebrated for wits, to fall under the fame cenfures upon the like occafions. I hope, therefore, that you will prevent any mif⚫ representations of fuch failures, by remarking, that invention is not wholly at the command of its poffeffor; that the power of pleafing is very often obftructed by the defire; that all expectation leffens furprife, yet, fome furprife is neceffary to gaiety; and that those who defire to partake of the pleafure of wit, muft contribute to its production, fince the mind ftagnates without external ventilation; and that effervescence of the fancy, which flashes into tranfport, can be raised only by the infufion of diflimilar ideas.'

the

the pleasures of the chace, in which he fhewed himself a bold rider, for he either leaped, or broke through, many of the hedges that obftructed him. This he did, not because he was eager in the purfuit, but, as he faid, to fave the trouble of alighting and remounting, He did not derive the pleasure or benefit from riding that many do: it had no tendency to raise his fpirits; and he once told me that, in a journey on horfeback, he fell asleep, In the exercise of a coach he had great delight; it afforded him the indulgence of indolent poftures, and, as I difcovered when I have had him in my own, the noise of it affifted his hearing*.

It cannot be fuppofed but that these indulgences were a great relief to Johnfon in his declining years; they, nevertheless, indifpofed him for meditation and reflection; and, as he has noted in his diary, affigning for the reason the irregularity of the family, it broke his habit of early rifing, which he had perfifted in from new-year's day 1765, to about the midfummer following t. It is poffible that the family, had they

been

* In Dr. Pope's Wish, I meet with the following note: I have known feveral who could hear but little in their chambers, but when they were in a coach rattling upon the ftones heard very well. I alfo knew a lady in Effex, whofe name was Tyrrel, who, while fhe had occafion to difcourfe, ufed to beat a great drum, without which he could not hear at all; the reafon whereof is this; the most frequent caufe of deafnefs is, the • relaxation of the tympanum or drum of the ear, which, by this ⚫ violent and continual agitation of the air, is extended, and ⚫ made more tight and springy, and better reflects founds, like a ⚫ drum new braced.'

+ March 3. I have never, I thank God, fince new year's day, deviated from the practife of rifing.

been difpofed to it, might with equal truth have complained, that he was little lefs irregular, and that, if they obliged him to break his refolution of early rifing, he often prevented their retiring to rest, at a seasonable hour, that he might not want the gratification of tea.

About this time, Johnson had the honour of a converfation with his majefty, in the library, at the queen's houfe. Whether the occafion of it was accidental, or otherwise, I have never been informed; but from this account of it, given by him, it afforded him great fatisfaction. He spoke to me of the king's behaviour, in terms of the highest gratitude and approbation, and defcribed it as equalling in grace and condefcenfion what might have been expected from Lewis the fourteenth, when the manners of the French court were in the highest state of cultivation. The publiz are already in poffeffion of the handfome compliment which his majefty made him; I will, nevertheless, give it here a place; he asked Johnson, if he intended to give the world any more of his compofitions; Johnfon answered, he believed he should not, for that he thought he had written enough; I fhould have 'thought fo too,' replied his majesty, if not written fo well t,'

you

had

Johnfon

In this practice I perfifted till I went to Mr. Thrale's fome time before midfummer: the irregularity of that family broke my habit of rising. I was there till after Michaelmas.'

+Many fayings of princes have been thought worthy of recording. I recollect one, of George the fecond, which, for the elegance of it, deferves to be remembered. In the rebellion in 1745, Mr. Thornton, a Yorkshire gentleman, raifed, at his own expence, a body of horfe, and, though but newly married to a

beautiful

Johnfon was now approaching towards fixty. He was an exact computer of time, and, as his effays abundantly fhew, regretted deeply the lapfe of those minutes that could not be recalled, and though, in his own judgment of himfelf, he had been criminal in the wafte of it, he was ever refolving to fubtract from his fleep thofe hours which are fittest for study and meditation. Numberlefs are the refolutions that I meet with in his diaries, for a feries of years back, to rife at eight; but he was unable, for any long continuance, to perform them, a weakness, less inexcufable than he thought it, for he was ever a bad fleeper, and was fufficiently fenfible of his infirmity, in that refpect, to have allayed his fcrupulofity, had he not been a moft rigorous judge of his actions. To im. prefs the more ftrongly on his mind the value of time, and the ufe it behoved every wife man to make of it, he indulged himself in an article of luxury, which, as far as my obfervation and remembrance will ferve me, he never enjoyed till this late period of his life it was a watch, which he caused to be made for him, in the year 1768, by thofe eminent artifts Mudge and Dutton: it was of metal, and the outer cafe covered with tortoife-fhell; he paid for it feventeen guineas. On the dial-plate thereof, which

4

beautiful young woman, headed it, and joined the king's army. After the defeat at Culloden, he, with his wife, went to court, where being feen by the king, who had noticed Mrs. Thornton, he was thus accofted by the monarch: Mr. Thornton, I have been told of the fervices you have rendered to your country, and

your attachment to me and my family, and have held myself obliged to you for both; but I was never able to eftimate the degree of the obligation till now that I fee the lady whom you left • behind you.'

was

was of enamel, he caufed to be infcribed, in the original Greek, thefe words of our bleffed Saviour, Nu γαρ έρχεται *, but with the miftake of a letter μ

for

: the meaning of them is, For the night cometh." This, though a memento of great importance, he, about three years after, thought pedantic; he, therefore, exchanged the dial-plate for one in which the infcription was omitted.

In the fame year, 1768, upon the establishment of the royal academy of painting, fculpture, &c. Johnfon was nominated profeffor of ancient literature, an office merely honorary, and conferred on him, as it is supposed, upon the recommendation of the prefident, Sir Joshua Reynolds.

In the variety of fubjects on which he had exercifed his pen, Johnson had hitherto forborne to meddle with the difputes of contending factions, which is all, that, at this day, is to be understood by the word politics. He was ever a friend to government, in a general fenfe of the term, as knowing what benefits fociety derives from it; and was never tempted to write on the fide of what is called oppofition, but at a period of his life, when experience had not enabled him to judge of the motives which induce men to affume the characters of patriots. In the year 1769, he faw with indignation the methods which, in the bufinefs of Wilkes, were taken to work upon the populace, and, in 1770, published a pamphlet, intitled,

The falfe alarm,' wherein he afferts, and labours to fhew, by a variety of arguments founded on precedents, that the expulfion of a member of the house of