try is more promoted by spending money than by giving it
away. A man who spends his money is sure he is doing good with it: he is
not so sure when he gives it away. A man who spends ten thousand a year
will do more good than a man who spends two thousand and gives away
eight.'

In the evening I came to him again. He was somewhat fretful from his
illness. A gentleman asked him, whether he had been abroad to-day.
'Don't talk so childishly, (said he.) You may as well ask if I hanged
myself to-day.' I mentioned politicks. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I'd as soon have
a man to break my bones as talk to me of publick affairs, internal or
external. I have lived to see things all as bad as they can be.'

He said, 'Goldsmith's blundering speech to Lord Shelburne, which has
been so often mentioned, and which he really did make to him, was only a
blunder in emphasis: "I wonder they should call your Lordship Malagrida,
for Malagrida was a very good man;" meant, I wonder they should use
Malagrida as a term of reproach.'

Soon after this time I had an opportunity of seeing, by means of one of
his friends, a proof that his talents, as well as his obliging service
to authours, were ready as ever. He had revised The Village, an
admirable poem, by the Reverend Mr. Crabbe. Its sentiments as to
the false notions of rustick happiness and rustick virtue were quite
congenial with his own; and he had taken the trouble not only to suggest
slight corrections and variations, but to furnish some lines, when he
thought he could give the writer's meaning better than in the words of
the manuscript.

On Sunday, March 30, I found him at home in the evening, and had the
pleasure to meet with Dr. Brocklesby, whose reading, and knowledge
of life, and good spirits, supply him with a never-failing source of
conversation.

I shall here insert a few of Johnson's sayings, without the formality of
dates, as they have no reference to any particular time or place.

'The more a man extends and varies his acquaintance the better.' This,
however, was meant with a just restriction; for, he on another occasion
said to me, 'Sir, a man may be so much of every thing, that he is
nothing of any thing.'

'It is a very good custom to keep a journal for a man's own use; he may
write upon a card a day all that is necessary to be written, after
he has had experience of life. At first there is a great deal to be
written, because there is a great deal of novelty; but when once a man
h