Apophthegms, Sentiments
��opinion about any Latin composition, than that of any other person in England.
Dr. Sumner, of Harrow x , used to tell this story of Johnson : they were dining one day, with many other persons, at Mrs. Macaulay's ; she had talked a long time at dinner about the natural equality of mankind ; Johnson, when she had finished her harangue, rose up from the table, and with great solemnity of countenance, and a bow to the ground, said to the servant, who was waiting behind his chair, Mr. John, pray be seated in my place, and permit me to wait upon you in my turn : your mistress says, you hear, that we are all equal 2 .
When some one was lamenting Foote's unlucky fate in being kicked in Dublin, Johnson said he was glad of it ; he is rising in the world, said he : when he was in England, no one thought it worth while to kick him 3 .
He was much pleased with the following repartee: Fiat experimental* in corpore vili, said a French physician to his colleague, in speaking of the disorder of a poor man that understood Latin, and who was brought into an hospital ; corpus non tarn vile est, says the patient, pro quo Chris tus ipse non dedignatus est mori 4 .
Johnson used to say, a man was a scoundrel that was afraid of any thing 5 .
After having disused swimming for many years, he went into the river at Oxford, and swam away to a part of it that he had been told of as a dangerous place, and where some one had been drowned 6 .
He waited on Lord Marchmont 7 to make some inquiries after particulars of Mr. Pope's life ; his first question was, What kind of a man was Mr. Pope in his conversation ? his lordship answered, that if the conversation did not take something
1 Ante, i. 161. 5 For Johnson's one dread see
2 Life, i. 447 ; iii. 77. post, p. 16 ; for his use of the word
3 Ante, i. 424. scoundrel see Life, iii. i.
4 * Let the experiment be tried 6 Ib. ii. 299.
on a worthless body.' Not so 7 Ib. iii. 392. Lord Marchmont's worthless is the body for which daughter gave Sir Walter Scott 'per- Christ himself thought it no scorn sonal reminiscences of Pope.' Lock- to die.' hart's Scott, ed. 1839, i. 343.
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