offence for which he might be hanged.'
JOHNSON. 'I should do what I could to bail him, and give him any other
assistance; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should not suffer.'
BOSWELL. 'Would you eat your dinner that day, Sir?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir;
and eat it as if he were eating it with me. Why, there's Baretti, who
is to be tried for his life to-morrow, friends have risen up for him on
every side; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a slice of
plumb-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic feeling goes a very little
way in depressing the mind.'

I told him that I had dined lately at Foote's, who shewed me a letter
which he had received from Tom Davies, telling him that he had not been
able to sleep from the concern which he felt on account of 'This sad
affair of Baretti,' begging of him to try if he could suggest any thing
that might be of service; and, at the same time, recommending to him an
industrious young man who kept a pickle-shop. JOHNSON. 'Ay, Sir, here
you have a specimen of human sympathy; a friend hanged, and a cucumber
pickled. We know not whether Baretti or the pickle-man has kept Davies
from sleep; nor does he know himself. And as to his not sleeping, Sir;
Tom Davies is a very great man; Tom has been upon the stage, and knows
how to do those things. I have not been upon the stage, and cannot
do those things.' BOSWELL. 'I have often blamed myself, Sir, for not
feeling for others as sensibly as many say they do.' JOHNSON. 'Sir,
don't be duped by them any more. You will find these very feeling people
are not very ready to do you good. They PAY you by FEELING.'

BOSWELL. 'Foote has a great deal of humour?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir.'
BOSWELL. 'He has a singular talent of exhibiting character.' JOHNSON.
'Sir, it is not a talent; it is a vice; it is what others abstain from.
It is not comedy, which exhibits the character of a species, as that
of a miser gathered from many misers: it is farce, which exhibits
individuals.' BOSWELL. 'Did not he think of exhibiting you, Sir?'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, fear restrained him; he knew I would have broken his
bones. I would have saved him the trouble of cutting off a leg; I would
not have left him a leg to cut off.' BOSWELL. 'Pray, Sir, is not
Foote an infidel?' JOHNSON. 'I do not know, Sir, that the fellow is
an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is
an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.'*
BOSWELL. 'I suppose, Sir, he