l sat with me till night; we had some serious talk.' It
also appears from the same record, that after I left him he was occupied
in religious duties, in 'giving Francis, his servant, some directions
for preparation to communicate; in reviewing his life, and resolving
on better conduct.' The humility and piety which he discovers on such
occasions, is truely edifying. No saint, however, in the course of his
religious warfare, was more sensible of the unhappy failure of pious
resolves, than Johnson. He said one day, talking to an acquaintance on
this subject, 'Sir Hell is paved with good intentions.'

On Sunday, April 16, being Easter Day, after having attended the solemn
service at St. Paul's, I dined with Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Williams. I
maintained that Horace was wrong in placing happiness in Nil admirari,
for that I thought admiration one of the most agreeable of all our
feelings; and I regretted that I had lost much of my disposition to
admire, which people generally do as they advance in life. JOHNSON.
'Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than
admiration--judgement, to estimate things at their true value.' I still
insisted that admiration was more pleasing than judgement, as love is
more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that
of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened
with champagne. JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; admiration and love are like
being intoxicated with champagne; judgement and friendship like being
enlivened. Waller has hit upon the same thought with you: but I don't
believe you have borrowed from Waller. I wish you would enable yourself
to borrow more.'

He then took occasion to enlarge on the advantages of reading, and
combated the idle superficial notion, that knowledge enough may be
acquired in conversation. 'The foundation (said he,) must be laid by
reading. General principles must be had from books, which, however, must
be brought to the test of real life. In conversation you never get a
system. What is said upon a subject is to be gathered from a hundred
people. The parts of a truth, which a man gets thus, are at such a
distance from each other that he never attains to a full view.'

On Tuesday, April 15, he and I were engaged to go with Sir Joshua
Reynolds to dine with Mr. Cambridge, at his beautiful villa on the banks
of the Thames, near Twickenham. Dr. Johnson's tardiness was such, that
Sir Joshua, who had an appointment at Richmon