282 Anecdotes.
��old fellow, and help to tuck him in, till he, contented with the exchange of fame for ease, e'en resolves to let them set the pillows at his back, and gives no further proof of his existence than just to suck the jelly that prolongs it V
For such a life or such a death Dr. Johnson was indeed never intended by Providence : his mind was like a warm climate, which brings every thing to perfection suddenly and vigorously, not like the alembicated 2 productions of artificial fire, which always betray the difficulty of bringing them forth when their size is disproportionate to their flavour. Je ferois un Roman tout comme un atttre, mais la vie nest point un Roman, says a famous French writer ; and this was so certainly the opinion of the Author of the Rambler, that all his conversation precepts tended towards the dispersion of romantic ideas, and were chiefly intended to promote the cultivation of
That which before thee [us] lies in daily life.
MILTON 3 .
And when he talked of authors, his praise went spontaneously to such passages as are sure in his own phrase to leave something behind them useful on common occasions, or observant of common manners. For example, it was not the two last, but the two first, volumes of Clarissa that he prized ; * For give me a sick bed, and a dying lady (said he), and I'll be pathetic my self: but Richardson had picked the kernel of life (he said), while Fielding was contented with the husk 4 .' It was not King
1 ' There is nothing,' said Johnson, love of ease against diligence and ' against which an old man should be perseverance.' Letters, i. 401. so much upon his guard as putting 2 This word apparently is of Mrs. himself out to nurse.' Life, ii. 474. Piozzi's coining. She seems to be Writing to Mrs. Thrale of her hus- speaking of fruit grown in a hot- band he says: 'Every man has house. It is a pity that she forgot to those about him who wish to soothe include alembicated in her British him into inactivity and delitescence, Synonymy. nor is there any semblance of kind- 3 Paradise Lost, viii. 193. ness more vigorously to be repelled 4 ' In comparing those two writers, than that which voluntarily offers he used this expression : * that there a vicarious performance of the tasks was as great a difference between of life, and conspires with the natural them as between a man who knew
Lear
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