But it is better when a man reads
from immediate inclination.'
He repeated a good many lines of Horace's Odes, while we were in the
chaise. I remember particularly the Ode Eheu fugaces.
He told me that Bacon was a favourite authour with him; but he had never
read his works till he was compiling the English Dictionary, in which,
he said, I might see Bacon very often quoted. Mr. Seward recollects his
having mentioned, that a Dictionary of the English Language might be
compiled from Bacon's writings alone, and that he had once an intention
of giving an edition of Bacon, at least of his English works, and
writing the Life of that great man. Had he executed this intention,
there can be no doubt that he would have done it in a most masterly
manner.
Wishing to be satisfied what degree of truth there was in a story
which a friend of Johnson's and mine had told me to his disadvantage, I
mentioned it to him in direct terms; and it was to this effect: that
a gentleman who had lived in great intimacy with him, shewn him much
kindness, and even relieved him from a spunging-house, having afterwards
fallen into bad circumstances, was one day, when Johnson was at dinner
with him, seized for debt, and carried to prison; that Johnson sat still
undisturbed, and went on eating and drinking; upon which the gentleman's
sister, who was present, could not suppress her indignation: 'What,
Sir, (said she,) are you so unfeeling, as not even to offer to go to my
brother in his distress; you who have been so much obliged to him?' And
that Johnson answered, 'Madam, I owe him no obligation; what he did for
me he would have done for a dog.
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