extinguishing it ; there is much humanity exerted in saving the lives and properties of the poor sufferers ; yet, says he, after all this, who can say a fire is a good thing ?
Speaking of schoolmasters, he used to say, they were worse than the Egyptian task-masters of old. No boy, says he, is sure any day he goes to school to escape a whipping : how can the schoolmaster tell what the boy has really forgotten, and what he has neglected to learn ; what he has had no oppor tunities of learning, and what he has taken no pains to get at the knowledge of? yet for any of these, however difficult they may be, the boy is obnoxious to punishment x .
He used to say something tantamount to this : When a woman affects learning, she makes a rivalry between the two sexes for the same accomplishments, which ought not to be, their provinces being different 2 . Milton said before him,
' For contemplation he and valour form'd, For softness she and sweet attractive grace 3 .'
He used to say, that in all family-disputes the odds were in favour of the husband, from his superior knowledge of life and manners: he was, nevertheless, extremely fond of the company and conversation of women, and was early in life much attached to a most beautiful woman at Lichfield, of a rank superior to his own 4 .
He never suffered any one to swear before him. When
, a libertine, but a man of some note, was talking before
him, and interlarding his stories with oaths, Johnson said, ' Sir, all this swearing will do nothing for our story, I beg you will not swear.' The narrator went on swearing: Johnson said,
- I must again intreat you not to swear.' He swore again :
Johnson quitted the room 5 .
1 For the brutality of schoolmasters not the learning itself.
of old see Life, i. 44, n. 2 ; ii. 144, n. 2 ; 3 Paradise Lost, iv. 297.
146,157. ' There is now less flogging 4 Molly Aston. Ante, i. 255.
in our great schools than formerly, 5 * Davies reminded Dr. Johnson of
but then less is learned there ; so Mr. Murphy's having paid him the
that what the boys get at one end highest compliment that ever was
they lose at the other.' Life, ii. 407. paid to a layman, by asking his par-
2 Ante, ii. n. It was the affecta- don for repeating some oaths in the tion of learning that he disliked, course of telling a story.' Life, iii.4O.
VOL. ii. c He
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