m sure that moderate drinking makes people talk better.'
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir; wine gives not light, gay, ideal hilarity; but
tumultuous, noisy, clamorous merriment. I have heard none of those
drunken,--nay, drunken is a coarse word,--none of those VINOUS flights.'
SIR JOSHUA. 'Because you have sat by, quite sober, and felt an envy
of the happiness of those who were drinking.' JOHNSON. 'Perhaps,
contempt.--And, Sir, it is not necessary to be drunk one's self, to
relish the wit of drunkenness. Do we not judge of the drunken wit, of
the dialogue between Iago and Cassio, the most excellent in its kind,
when we are quite sober? Wit is wit, by whatever means it is produced;
and, if good, will appear so at all times. I admit that the spirits
are raised by drinking, as by the common participation of any pleasure:
cock-fighting, or bear-baiting, will raise the spirits of a company, as
drinking does, though surely they will not improve conversation. I also
admit, that there are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as
there are fruits which are not good till they are rotten. There are such
men, but they are medlars. I indeed allow that there have been a very
few men of talents who were improved by drinking; but I maintain that
I am right as to the effects of drinking in general: and let it
be considered, that there is no position, however false in its
universality, which is not true of some particular man.' Sir William
Forbes said, 'Might not a man warmed with wine be like a bottle of
beer, which is made brisker by being set before the fire?'--'Nay, (said
Johnson, laughing,) I cannot answer that: that is too much for me.'

I observed, that wine did some people harm, by inflaming, confusing, and
irritating their minds; but that the experience of mankind had declared
in favour of moderate drinking. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I do not say it is wrong
to produce self complacency by drinking; I only deny that it improves
the mind. When I drank wine, I scorned to drink it when in company. I
have drunk many a bottle by myself; in the first place, because I had
need of it to raise my spirits; in the second place, because I would
have nobody to witness its effects upon me.'

He told us, 'almost all his Ramblers were written just as they were
wanted for the press; that he sent a certain portion of the copy of
an essay, and wrote the remainder, while the former part of it was
printing. When it was wanted, and he had fairly sat down to it, he wa