sholds or squares in the carpet with the right or left leg
foremost, and when he did not appear at dinner might be found vainly
endeavouring to pass a particular spot in the anteroom. He loved late
hours, or more properly (say Mrs. Thrale) hated early ones. Nothing
was more terrifying to him than the idea of going to bed, which he
never would call going to rest, or suffer another to call it so. "I
lie down that my acquaintance may sleep; but I lie down to endure
oppressive misery, and soon rise again to pass the night in anxiety
and pain." When people could be induced to sit up with him, they were
often amply compensated by his rich flow of mind; but the resulting
sacrifice of health and comfort in an establishment where this
sitting up became habitual, was inevitably great.[1] Instead of being
grateful, he always maintained that no one forbore his own
gratification for the purpose of pleasing another, and "if one did
sit up, it was probably to amuse oneself." Boswell excuses his wife
for not coinciding in his enthusiasm, by admitting that his
illustrious friend's irregular hours and uncouth habits, such as
turning the candles with their ends downwards when they did not burn
bright enough, and letting the wax drop upon the carpet, could not
but be displeasing to a lady. He was generally last at breakfast, but
one morning happened to be first and waited some time alone; when
afterwards twitted by Mrs. Thrale with irregularity, he replied,
"Madam, I do not like to come down to vacuity."

[Footnote 1: Dr. Burney states that in 1765 "he very frequently met
Johnson at Streatham, where they had many long conversations, after
sitting up as long as the fire and candles lasted, and much longer
than the patience of the servants subsisted."]

He was subject to dreadful fits of depression, caused or accompanied
by compunction for venial or fancied sins, by the fear of death or
madness--(the only things he did fear), and by ingrained ineradicable
disease. When Boswell speaks of his "striving against evil," "Ay,"
she writes in the margin, "and against the King's evil."

If his early familiarity with all the miseries of destitution,
aggravated by disease, had increased his natural roughness and
irritability, on the other hand it had helped largely to bring out
his sterling virtues,--his discriminating charity, his genuine
benevolence, his well-timed generosity, his large-hearted sympathy
with real suffering. But he required it to b