204 Anecdotes.
��success, or another's capitulation ? Ok, pray let us hear no more
of it ! ' No man however was more zealously attached to his
party ; he not only loved a tory himself, but he loved a man the better if he heard he hated a whig. * Dear Bathurst x (said he to me one day) was a man to my very heart's content : he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a whig; he was a very good hater?
Some one mentioned a gentleman of that party for having behaved oddly on an occasion where faction was not concerned : 'Is he not a citizen of London, a native of North America, and a whig 2 ? (says Johnson) Let him be absurd, I beg of you : when a monkey is too like a man, it shocks one.'
Severity towards the poor was, in Dr. Johnson's opinion (as is visible in his Life of Addison 3 particularly), an undoubted and constant attendant or consequence upon whiggism ; and he was not contented with giving them relief, he wished to add also indulgence. He loved the poor as I never yet saw any one else do, with an earnest desire to make them happy. What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to common beggars ? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. ' And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson) 4 ? it is surely very savage to refuse them every
1 Ante, p. 29. One evening at Mr. Thrale's John-
2 Alderman Lee {Life, iii. 78 ; son said : * Addison had made his Letters, i. 397) was all three. Sir Andrew Freeport a true Whig,
3 'Steele had made Sir Andrew arguing against giving charity to Freeport, in the true spirit of un- beggars, and throwing out other such feeling commerce, declare that he ungracious sentiments ; but that he " would not build an hospital for idle had thought better, and made amends people.'" Works, vii. 432. Johnson by making him found an hospital quoted from memory and quoted for decayed farmers.' Life, ii. 212. wrongly ; for, ' Sir Andrew, after The Spectator, No. 232, was written giving money to some importunate neither by Addison nor Steele ; who beggars, says : ' I ought to give to wrote it is uncertain.
an hospital of invalids, to recover 4 ' He frequently gave all the silver as many useful subjects as I can, in his pocket to the poor, who but I shall bestow none of my watched him between his house and bounties upon an almshouse of idle the tavern where he dined.' Ib. ii. people.' Spectator, No. 232. 119. ' You are much surer,' he said,
possible
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