You love the one till you find reason to hate him; you hate the other
till you find reason to love him.'
A foppish physician once reminded Johnson of his having been in
company with him on a former occasion; 'I do not remember it, Sir.' The
physician still insisted; adding that he that day wore so fine a coat
that it must have attracted his notice. 'Sir, (said Johnson,) had you
been dipt in Pactolus I should not have noticed you.'
He seemed to take a pleasure in speaking in his own style; for when he
had carelessly missed it, he would repeat the thought translated into
it. Talking of the Comedy of The Rehearsal, he said, 'It has not wit
enough to keep it sweet.' This was easy; he therefore caught himself,
and pronounced a more round sentence; 'It has not vitality enough to
preserve it from putrefaction.'
Though he had no taste for painting, he admired much the manner in which
Sir Joshua Reynolds treated of his art, in his Discourses to the Royal
Academy. He observed one day of a passage in them, 'I think I might as
well have said this myself:' and once when Mr.
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