hinking, into
which the forces of the time were even then silently breathing a new
spirit. The friendship between Burke and Johnson lasted as long as
they lived; and if we remember that Johnson was a strong Tory, and
declared that the first Whig was the devil, and habitually talked
about cursed Whigs and bottomless Whigs, it is an extraordinary fact
that his relations with the greatest Whig writer and politician of his
day were marked by a cordiality, respect, and admiration that never
varied nor wavered. "Burke," he said in a well-known passage, "is such
a man that if you met him for the first time in the street, where you
were stopped by a drove of oxen, and you and he stepped aside to take
shelter but for five minutes, he'd talk to you in such a manner that,
when you parted, you would say, This is an extraordinary man. He is
never what we would call humdrum; never unwilling to begin to talk,
nor in haste to leave off." That Burke was as good a listener as he
was a talker, Johnson never would allow. "So desirous is he to talk,"
he said, "that if one is talking at this end of the table, he'll talk
to somebody at the other end." Johnson was far too good a critic, and
too honest a man, to assent to a remark of Robertson's, that Burke had
wit. "No, sir," said the sage, most truly, "he never succeeds there.
'Tis low, 'tis conceit." Wit apart, he described Burke as the only
man whose common conversation corresponded to his general fame in the
world; take up whatever topic you might please, he was ready to meet
you. When Burke found a seat in Parliament, Johnson said, "Now we who
know Burke, know that he will be one of the first men in the country."
He did not grudge that Burke should be the first man in the House of
Commons, for Burke, he said, was always the first man everywhere. Once
when he was ill, somebody mentioned Burke's name. Johnson cried out,
"That fellow calls forth all my powers; were I to see Burke now it
would kill me."

Burke heartily returned this high appreciation. When some flatterer
hinted that Johnson had taken more than his right share of the
evening's talk, Burke said, "Nay, it is enough for me to have rung
the bell for him." Some one else spoke of a successful imitation
of Johnson's style. Burke with vehemence denied the success: the
performance, he said, had the pomp, but not the force of the original;
the nodosities of the oak, but not its strength; the contortions of
the sibyl, but none of the in