London in a coach, then denominated, on account of its _quick_
travelling, 'a Fly,' being three or four days and nights on the road. On
the panels were the words, _Sat cito, si sat bene_, (Fast enough, if
well enough,) which made a most lasting impression on my mind, and have
had their influence on my conduct in all subsequent life." He then
exhibits a specimen of that sly humour which characterized him to the
last.

"A Quaker fellow-traveller stopped the coach at the inn at Tuxford to
give the chambermaid a sixpence, telling her that he had forgotten it
when he slept there two years before. I was a very saucy boy, and I said
to him, 'Friend, have you seen the motto on the coach?' 'No.' 'Then look
at it, for I think giving her only sixpence _now_ is neither _sat cito_
nor _sat bene_."

On his arrival in London, he was overturned, with his brother, in a
sedan chair. "This," thought he, "is more than _sat cito_, and it
certainly is not _sat bene_." He concludes more gravely by saying, "It
was this impression which made me that deliberative judge, as some have
said _too_ deliberative. And reflection upon all that is past, will not
authorize me to deny, that while I have been thinking, 'Sat cito, si sat
bene,' I may not have sufficiently remembered whether 'Sat bene, si sat
cito' has had its due influence."

The chief feature of this portion of the biography is its recollections
of remarkable persons. We have heard this one of Johnson before: but the
names and place are now first given from Lord Eldon's anecdote-book.

"I had a walk in the New Inn Hall garden with Dr Johnson, Sir Robert
Chambers, and some other gentlemen, (Chambers was principal of the Hall,
and Vinerian professor of law. He was at this period on the point of
proceeding to India as judge.) Sir Robert was gathering snails, and
throwing them over the wall into his neighbour's garden. The doctor
attacked him roughly, and charged his conduct as being unneighbourly.
'Sir,' said Sir Robert, 'my neighbour is a dissenter.' 'Oh,' said the
doctor, 'if so, toss away, toss away as hard as you can!'"

This was evidently one of Johnson's odd freaks, a piece of his growling
humour; for though no man disliked sectarianism more, no man had a
stronger sense of charity to all.

His manners now and then exhibited strange absence. Lord Eldon says that
he had seen him standing for a considerable time, with one foot on each
side of the kennel of the High Street of Oxford, g