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By Root 5357 0

the Scotch to be a nation, and to have gaiety, – which they have not. You are an exception, though. Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.’ BEAUCLERK. ‘But he is a very unnatural Scotchman.’ I, however, continued to think the compliment to Garrick hyperbolically untrue. His acting had ceased some time before his death; at any rate he had acted in Ireland but a short time, at an early period of his life, and never in Scotland. I objected also to what appears an anticlimax of praise, when contrasted with the preceding panegyrick, – ‘and diminished the public stock of harmless pleasure!’ – ‘Is not harmless pleasure very tame?’ JOHNSON. ‘Nay, Sir, harmless pleasure is the highest praise. Pleasure is a word of dubious import; pleasure is in general dangerous, and pernicious to virtue; to be able therefore to furnish pleasure that is harmless, pleasure pure and unalloyed, is as great a power as man can possess.’ This was, perhaps, as ingenious a defence as could be made; still, however, I was not satisfied.

A celebrated wit907 being mentioned, he said, ‘One may say of him as was said of a French wit, Il n’a de l’esprit que contre Dieu.908 I have been several times in company with him, but never perceived any strong power of wit. He produces a general effect by various means; he has a cheerful countenance and a gay voice. Besides his trade is wit. It would be as wild in him to come into company without merriment, as for a highwayman to take the road without his pistols.’

Talking of the effects of drinking, he said, ‘Drinking may be practised with great prudence; a man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk; a sober man who happens occasionally to get drunk, readily enough goes into a new company, which a man who has been drinking should never do. Such a man will undertake any thing; he is without skill in inebriation. I used to slink home, when I had drunk too much. A man accustomed to self-examination will be conscious when he is drunk, though an habitual drunkard will not be conscious of it. I knew a physician909 who for twenty years was not sober; yet in a pamphlet, which he wrote upon fevers, he appealed to Garrick and me for his vindication from a charge of drunkenness. A bookseller910 (naming him,) who got a large fortune by trade, was so habitually and equably drunk, that his most intimate friends never perceived that he was more sober at one time than another.’

Talking of celebrated and successful irregular practisers in physick; he said, ‘Taylor was the most ignorant man I ever knew; but sprightly. Ward the dullest. Taylor challenged me once to talk Latin with him; (laughing). I quoted some of Horace, which he took to be a part of my own speech. He said a few words well enough.’ BEAUCLERK. ‘I remember, Sir, you said that Taylor was an instance how far impudence could carry ignorance.’ Mr. Beauclerk was very entertaining this day, and told us a number of short stories in a lively elegant manner, and with that air of the world which has I know not what impressive effect, as if there were something more than is expressed, or than perhaps we could perfectly understand. As Johnson and I accompanied Sir Joshua Reynolds in his coach, Johnson said, ‘There is in Beauclerk a predominance over his company, that one does not like. But he is a man who has lived so much in the world, that he has a short story on every occasion; he is always ready to talk, and is never exhausted.’

Johnson and I passed the evening at Miss Reynolds’s, Sir Joshua’s sister. I mentioned that an eminent friend of ours,911 talking of the common remark, that affection descends, said, that ‘this was wisely contrived for the preservation of mankind; for which it was not so necessary that there should be affection from children to parents, as from parents to children; nay, there would be no harm in that view though children should at a certain age eat their parents.’ JOHNSON. ‘But, Sir, if this were known generally to be the case, parents would not have affection for children.