��had long been a suspected man : ' By those who look close to the ground, dirt will be seen, Sir (was the lofty reply) : I hope I see things from a greater distance.'
His desire to go abroad, particularly to see Italy, was very great ' ; and he had a longing wish too to leave some Latin verses at the Grand Chartreux 2 . He loved indeed the very act of travelling 3 , and I cannot tell how far one might have taken him in a carriage before he would have wished for refreshment. He was therefore in some respects an admirable companion on the road, as he piqued himself upon feeling no inconvenience, and on despising no accommodations 4 . On the other hand however, he expected no one else to feel any, and felt exceeding inflamed with anger if any one complained of the rain, the sun, or the dust. 'How (said he) do other people bear them 5 ?' As for general uneasiness, or complaints of long confinement in a car riage, he considered all lamentations on their account as proofs of an empty head, and a tongue desirous to talk without mate rials of conversation 6 . * A mill that goes without grist (said he) is as good a companion as such creatures.'
I pitied a friend before him, who had a whining wife that found every thing painful to her and nothing pleasing ' He
1 In the Life, iii. 453, I have ex- Johnson was calm. I said, he was amined Lord Macaulay's wild asser- so from vanity. JOHNSON. " No, tion that 'of foreign travel . . . Sir, it is from philosophy." It Johnson spoke with the fierce and pleased me to see that the Rambler boisterous contempt of ignorance.' could practise so well his own les-
2 He was perhaps stirred by the sons.' Ib. v. 146. See, however, Alcaic Ode which Gray, in August, ib. iv. 284 for his ill-humour over an 1741, had written in the Album of inn-dinner.
the Grande Chartreuse. Mason's 5 Ante, p. 218.
Gray, ed. 1807, i. 275. 6 Of the drive from Monboddo to
3 'In the afternoon, as we were Aberdeen Boswell says: 'We had driven rapidly along in the post-chaise, tedious driving this afternoon, and he said to me, " Life has not many were somewhat drowsy.' Life, v. 83. things better than this."' Life, ii. Of the same drive Johnson writes : 453. See also ib. iii. 162. ' We did not affect the impatience
4 Boswell wrote of the hovel in we did not feel, but were satisfied which they lodged at Glenelg : with the company of each other, ' Our bad accommodation here made as well riding in the chaise as sitting me uneasy, and almost fretful. Dr. at an inn.' Works, ix. 10.
does
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