4o8
for investigating principles,
of the chanson : —
In the spirit
Faut de l'esprit : pas trop n'en faut; L'excès en tout est un défaut. Un bon mot est l'éclair qui brille Son feu parfois peut enrayer; On mit Voltaire à la Bastille Pour en avoir trop fait briller.
maid of honour in France, who, being asked by the Queen what o'clock it was, answered, ' What your Majesty pleases.' He (Johnson) admitted that Mr. Btirke's classical pun upon Mr. Wilkes being carried on the shoulders of the mob, — numerisque fertur Lege solutus.
Johnson once vigorously denounced a pro was admirable; and though he was strange ly unwilling to allow to that extraordinary posal mentioned to him by Bosvvell, of pub lishing the bon mots of Dr. Johnson. But man the talent of wit, he also laughed with though the following jeux d'esprit are re approbation at another of his playful con lated by Boswell, they are not Johnson's; ceits, which was, that ' Horace has in one line hence there is some excuse for calling atten given a description ofa good desirable manor : Est modus in rebus, sunt certi denique fines, tion to them. "The conversation having turned on bon mots, he quoted, from one of that is to say, a modus as to the tithes, and the Ana, an exquisite instance of flattery in a certain fines.'" — Ex.
