' But pray, Dr. Johnson, do you really think that he deserves that illustrious theatrical character, and that prodigious fame, which he has acquired ? ' ' Oh, Sir,' said he, ' he deserves every thing that he has acquired, for having seized the very soul of Shakspeare; for having embodied it in himself; and for having expanded its glory over the world V I was not slow in com municating to Garrick the answer of the Delphic oracle. The tear started in his eye ' Oh ! Stockdale/ said he, * such a praise from such a man ! this atones for all that has passed.'
I called on Dr. Johnson one morning, when Mrs. Williams, the blind lady, was conversing with him. She was telling him where she had dined the day before. ' There were several gentlemen there,' said she, ' and when some of them came to the tea-table, I found that there had been a good deal of hard drinking/ She closed this observation with a common and trite moral reflection ; which, indeed, is very ill-founded, and does great injustice to animals ' I wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of themselves ! ' ' I wonder, Madam/ replied the Doctor, ' that you have not penetration enough to see the strong inducement to this excess ; for he who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man 2 . J
Mrs. Bruce, an old Scotch lady, the widow of Captain Bruce, who had been for many years an officer in the Russian service, drank tea with me one afternoon at my lodgings in Bolt Court, when Johnson was one of the company. She spoke very broad Scotch ; and this alarmed me for her present social situation. As we were conversing on a subject in which we were interested, she interrupted us by saying that we should give Dr. Johnson an opportunity of favouring the company with his sentiments. By this absurd interruption the Doctor was naturally far less com municative. That undaunted dame was, however, determined to
- ' BOSWELL. " But has not Gar- vile, quotes the following passage
rick brought Shakespeare into from one of Shenstone's letters :
notice ? " JOHNSON. " Sir, to allow ' For a man of high spirits ... to be
that would be to lampoon the age." ' forced to drink himself into pains of
Life, ii. 92. the body in order to get rid of the
2 Johnson, in his Life of Somer- pains of the mind is a misery.'
make
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