ad taken it into my head that it was not wholesome to study
between breakfast and dinner."'

'Dr. Goldsmith, upon occasion of Mrs. Lennox's bringing out a play, said
to Dr. Johnson at THE CLUB, that a person had advised him to go and hiss
it, because she had attacked Shakspeare in her book called Shakspeare
Illustrated. JOHNSON. "And did not you tell him he was a rascal?"
GOLDSMITH. "No, Sir, I did not. Perhaps he might not mean what he said."
JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, if he lied, it is a different thing." Colman slily
said, (but it is believed Dr. Johnson did not hear him,) "Then the
proper expression should have been,--Sir, if you don't lie, you're a
rascal."'

'His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk
was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his
death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with emotion,) "Sir,
I would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save
Beauclerk."'

'Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, authour of a treatise on
Agriculture; and said of him, "Sir, of the objects which the Society of
Arts have chiefly in view, the chymical effects of bodies operating upon
other bodies, he knows more than almost any man." Johnson, in order
to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an
arrear which had run on for two years. On this occasion he mentioned
a circumstance as characteristick of the Scotch. "One of that nation,
(said he,) who had been a candidate, against whom I had voted, came
up to me with a civil salutation. Now, Sir, this is their way. An
Englishman would have stomached it, and been sulky, and never have taken
further notice of you; but a Scotchman, Sir, though you vote nineteen
times against him, will accost you with equal complaisance after each
time, and the twentieth time, Sir, he will get your vote."'

'Talking on the subject of toleration, one day when some friends were
with him in his study, he made his usual remark, that the State has a
right to regulate the religion of the people, who are the children of
the State. A clergyman having readily acquiesced in this, Johnson, who
loved discussion, observed, "But, Sir, you must go round to other States
than your own. You do not know what a Bramin has to say for himself. In
short, Sir, I have got no further than this: Every man has a right to
utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him
down for it. Martyrdom is the test."'