'No animated
conversation, Sir, for it cannot be but one or other will come off
superiour. I do not mean that the victor must have the better of the
argument, for he may take the weak side; but his superiority of parts
and knowledge will necessarily appear: and he to whom he thus shews
himself superiour is lessened in the eyes of the young men.'

We walked with Dr. Adams into the master's garden, and into the common
room. JOHNSON. (after a reverie of meditation,) 'Ay! Here I used to play
at draughts with Phil. Jones and Fludyer. Jones loved beer, and did not
get very forward in the church. Fludyer turned out a scoundrel, a Whig,
and said he was ashamed of having been bred at Oxford. He had a living
at Putney, and got under the eye of some retainers to the court at that
time, and so became a violent Whig: but he had been a scoundrel all
along to be sure.' BOSWELL. 'Was he a scoundrel, Sir, in any other way
than that of being a political scoundrel? Did he cheat at draughts?'
JOHNSON. 'Sir, we never played for MONEY.'

He then carried me to visit Dr. Bentham, Canon of Christ-Church, and
Divinity Professor, with whose learned and lively conversation we were
much pleased. He gave us an invitation to dinner, which Dr. Johnson told
me was a high honour. 'Sir, it is a great thing to dine with the Canons
of Christ-Church.' We could not accept his invitation, as we were
engaged to dine at University College. We had an excellent dinner there,
with the Master and Fellows, it being St. Cuthbert's day, which is kept
by them as a festival, as he was a saint of Durham, with which this
college is much connected.

We drank tea with Dr. Horne, late President of Magdalen College, and
Bishop of Norwich, of whose abilities, in different respects, the
publick has had eminent proofs, and the esteem annexed to whose
character was increased by knowing him personally.

We then went to Trinity College, where he introduced me to Mr. Thomas
Warton, with whom we passed a part of the evening. We talked of
biography--JOHNSON. 'It is rarely well executed. They only who live with
a man can write his life with any genuine exactness and discrimination;
and few people who have lived with a man know what to remark about him.
The chaplain of a late Bishop, whom I was to assist in writing some
memoirs of his Lordship, could tell me scarcely any thing.'

I said, Mr. Robert Dodsley's life should be written, as he had been so
much connected with the wits of