��exist on the daily forage that they pick up by running about, and snatching what drops from their neighbours as ignorant as themselves, will never ferment into any knowledge valuable or durable x ; but like the light wines we drink in hot countries, please for the moment though incapable of keeping. In the study of mankind much will be found to swim as froth, and much must sink as feculence, before the wine can have its effect, and become that noblest liquor which rejoices the heart, and gives vigour to the imagination.'
I am well aware that I do not, and cannot give each expres sion of Dr. Johnson with all its force or all its neatness ; but I have done my best to record such of his maxims, and repeat such of his sentiments, as may give to those who knew him not, a just idea of his character and manner of thinking. To endea vour at adorning, or adding, or softening, or meliorating such anecdotes, by any tricks my inexperienced pen could play, would be weakness indeed 2 ; worse than the Frenchman who presides over the porcelain manufactory at Seve 3 ; to whom when some Greek vases were given him as models, he lamented la tristesse de telles formes ; and endeavoured to assist them by clusters of flowers, while flying Cupids served for the handles of urns originally intended to contain the ashes of the dead. The misery is, that I can recollect so few anecdotes, and that I have recorded no more axioms of a man whose every word merited attention, and whose every sentiment did honour to human nature. Remote from affectation as from error or falsehood, the comfort a reader has in looking over these papers, is the cer tainty that those were really the opinions of Johnson, which are related as such.
Fear of what others may think, is the great cause of affecta tion ; and he was not likely to disguise his notions out of
1 See Life, iii. 308, n. 3, for Tom said roughly : "He would not Restless. cut off his claws, nor make a tiger
2 * I besought Boswell's tenderness a cat, to please anybody." ' H. More's for our virtuous and most revered Memoirs, i. 403.
departed friend, and begged he would 3 The Thrales and Johnson visited mitigate some of his asperities. He Sevres in 1775. Life, ii. 397.
cowardice.
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