��Two Dialogues by
��is to investigate and to discriminate character, to men who have no discriminative powers z .
REY. But Garrick, as a companion, I heard you say no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale's table
JOHNS. You tease me, Sir. Whatever you may have heard me say, no longer ago than last Wednesday, at Mr. Thrale's table, I tell you I do not say so now : besides, as I said before, you may not have understood me, you misapprehended me, you may not have heard me.
REY. I am very sure I heard you.
JOHNS. Besides, besides, Sir, besides, do you not know, are you so ignorant as not to know, that it is the highest degree of rudeness to quote a man against himself 2 ?
REY. But if you differ from yourself, and give one opinion to-day
JOHNS. Have done, Sir ; the company, you see, are tired, as well as myself 3 .
��1 'Dr. Johnson (said Reynolds) was fond of discrimination, which he could not show without pointing out the bad as well as the good in every character; and as his friends were those whose characters he knew best, they afforded him the best oppor tunity for showing the acuteness of his judgment.' Life, ii. 306.
2 ' One of the company provoked him greatly by doing what he could least of all bear, which was quoting something of his own writing, against what he then maintained. "What, Sir, (cried the gentleman,) do you say to
( The busy day, the peaceful night, Unfelt, uncounted, glided by?"'
Johnson rinding himself thus pre sented as giving an instance of a man who had lived without uneasiness, was much offended, for he looked upon such a quotation as unfair.
��His anger burst out in an unjustifi able retort, insinuating that the gentleman's remark was a sally of ebriety; "Sir, there is one passion I would advise you to command : when you have drunk out that glass, don't drink another.'" Ib. iv. 274. The quotation is from the Lines on Levett. Ib. iv. 138.
3 * Johnson could not brook ap pearing to be worsted in argument, even when he had taken the wrong side, to shew the force and dexterity of his talents. When, therefore, he perceived that his opponent gained ground, he had recourse to some sudden mode of robust sophistry. Once when I was pressing upon him with visible advantage, he stopped me thus : " My dear Boswell, let's have no more of this ; you'll make nothing of it. I'd rather have you whistle a Scotch tune.'" Ib. iv. ill.
��T'OTHER
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