��seldom consulted and little obeyed, how much cause shall his contemporaries have to rejoice that their living Johnson forced them to feel the reproofs due to vice and folly while Seneca and Tillotson were no longer able to make impression except on our shelves. Few things indeed which pass well enough with others would do with him: he had been a great reader of Mandeville J , and was ever on the watch to spy out those stains of original corruption, so easily discovered by a penetrating observer even in the purest minds. I mentioned an event, which if it had happened would greatly have injured Mr. Thrale and
his family and then, dear Sir, said I, how sorry you would
have been ! ' I hope (replied he after a long pause) I should have
been very sorry ; but remember Rochefoucault's maxim 2 .'
1 would rather (answered I) remember Prior's verses,
and ask.
What need of books these truths to tell,
Which folks perceive that [who] cannot spell ?
And must we spectacles apply,
To see [view] what hurts our naked eye 3 ?
Will any body's mind bear this eternal microscope that you place upon your own so ? 'I never (replied he) saw one that would, except that of my dear Miss Reynolds and her's is very
near to purity itself 4 .' Of slighter evils, and friends less
distant than our own household, he spoke less cautiously. An acquaintance lost the almost certain hope of a good estate that had been long expected 5 . Such a one will grieve (said I) at her friend's disappointment. ' She will suffer as much perhaps (said
he) as your horse did when your cow miscarried.' 1 professed
myself sincerely grieved when accumulated distresses crushed Sir George Colebrook's family ; and I was so. ' Your own
1 'I read Mandeville,' he said, pas.' See Letters, ii. 421, n. 2.
' forty, or, I believe, fifty years ago. For the strong interest which
He did not puzzle me ; he opened Johnson took in Mr. Thrale's affairs
my views into life very much.' Life, see ib. i. 194, n.
iii. 292. Dr. Franklin describes 3 Alma, 1. 1660.
Mandeville as ' a most facetious, en- 4 Boswell complained that 'her
tertaining companion.' Franklin's too nice delicacy would not permit
Works, ed. 1887, i. 89. Johnson's letters to her to be pub-
2 'Dans 1'adversite de nos meil- lished.' Life, i. 486, n. i.
leurs amis nous trouvons toujours 5 Mrs. Thrale herself suffered such
quelque chose qui ne nous deplait a loss. Letters, i. 292, n. 5.
prosperity
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