Sir William Scott informs me, that upon the death
of the late Lord Lichfield, who was Chancellor of the University of
Oxford, he said to Johnson, 'What a pity it is, Sir, that you did not
follow the profession of the law. You might have been Lord Chancellor of
Great Britain, and attained to the dignity of the peerage; and now that
the title of Lichfleld, your native city, is extinct, you might have had
it.' Johnson, upon this, seemed much agitated; and, in an angry tone,
exclaimed, 'Why will you vex me by suggesting this, when it is too
late?'
But he did not repine at the prosperity of others. The late Dr. Thomas
Leland, told Mr. Courtenay, that when Mr. Edmund Burke shewed Johnson
his fine house and lands near Beaconsfield, Johnson coolly said, 'Non
equidem invideo; miror magis.'*
* I am not entirely without suspicion that Johnson may have
felt a little momentary envy; for no man loved the good
things of this life better than he did and he could not but
be conscious that he deserved a much larger share of them,
than he ever had.
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