208 Anecdotes.
��prosperity (said he) may possibly have so far increased the natural tenderness of your heart, that for aught I know you may be a little sorry ; but it is sufficient for a plain man if he does not laugh when he sees a fine new house tumble down all on a sudden, and a snug cottage stand by ready to receive the owner, whose birth entitled him to do nothing better, and whose limbs are left him to go to work again with V
I used to tell him in jest, that his morality was easily contented ; and when I have said something as if the wicked ness of the world gave me concern, he would cry out aloud against canting, and protest that he thought there was very little gross wickedness in the world 2 , and still less of extraordinary virtue. Nothing indeed more surely disgusted Dr. Johnson than hyperbole 3 ; he loved not to be told of sallies of excellence, which he said were seldom valuable, and seldom true. ' Heroic virtues (said he) are the bans mots of life ; they do not appear often, and when they do appear are too much prized I think; like the aloe-tree, which shoots and flowers once in a hundred years. But life is made up of little things 4 ; and that character is the best which does little but repeated acts of beneficence ; as that conversation is the best which consists in elegant and pleasing thoughts expressed in natural and pleasing terms 5 . With regard to my own notions of moral virtue (continued he), I hope I have not lost my sensibility of wrong ; but I hope likewise that I have lived long enough in the world, to prevent
1 'May i, 1 774. Sir George Cole- human nature.' Works, viii. 188. brook, a citizen and martyr to what See post, p. 262.
is called speculation, had his pictures 3 Life, i. 309, n. 3.
sold by auction last week.' Walpole's 4 ' There is nothing, Sir, too little
Letters, vi. 81. As ,80,000 had been for so little a creature as man. It is
settled on Lady Colebrook and her by studying little things that we
family the cottage was likely to be attain the great art of having as
snug enough. Gentleman's Maga- little misery and as much happiness
zine, 1773, P- 2 4& as possible.' Ib. i. 433.
2 Writing of Savage he says : 5 ' That is the happiest conversa-
- The knowledge of life was his chief tion/ he said, ' where there is no
attainment ; and it is not without competition, no vanity, but a calm some satisfaction that I can produce quiet interchange of sentiments.' Ib. the suffrage of Savage in favour of ii. 359. See also Letters, ii. 19.
me
�� �
