Johnson thought the poems published as translations from Ossian had so little merit, that he said, ’Sir, a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it[573].’

He said, ’A man should pass a part of his time with the laughers, by which means any thing ridiculous or particular about him might be presented to his view, and corrected.’  I observed, he must have been a bold laugher who would have ventured to tell Dr. Johnson of any of his particularities[574].

Having observed the vain ostentatious importance of many people in quoting the authority of Dukes and Lords, as having been in their company, he said, he went to the other extreme, and did not mention his authority when he should have done it, had it not been that of a Duke or a Lord[575].

Dr. Goldsmith said once to Dr. Johnson, that he wished for some additional members to the LITERARY CLUB, to give it an agreeable variety; for (said he,) there can now be nothing new among us:  we have travelled over one another’s minds.  Johnson seemed a little angry, and said, ‘Sir, you have not travelled over my mind, I promise you.’  Sir Joshua, however, thought Goldsmith right; observing, that ’when people have lived a great deal together, they know what each of them will say on every subject.  A new understanding, therefore, is desirable; because though it may only furnish the same sense upon a question which would have been furnished by those with whom we are accustomed to live, yet this sense will have a different colouring; and colouring is of much effect in every thing else as well as in painting.’

Johnson used to say that he made it a constant rule to talk as well as he could both as to sentiment and expression, by which means, what had been originally effort became familiar and easy[576].  The consequence of this, Sir Joshua observed, was, that his common conversation in all companies was such as to secure him universal attention, as something above the usual colloquial style was expected[577].

Yet, though Johnson had this habit in company, when another mode was necessary, in order to investigate truth, he could descend to a language intelligible to the meanest capacity.  An instance of this was witnessed by Sir Joshua Reynolds, when they were present at an examination of a little blackguard boy, by Mr. Saunders Welch[578], the late Westminster Justice.  Welch, who imagined that he was exalting himself in Dr. Johnson’s eyes by using big words, spoke in a manner that was utterly unintelligible to the boy; Dr. Johnson perceiving it, addressed himself to the boy, and changed the pompous phraseology into colloquial language.  Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was much amused by this procedure, which seemed a kind of reversing of what might have been expected from the two men, took notice of it to Dr. Johnson, as they walked away by themselves.  Johnson said, that it was continually the case; and that he was always obliged to translate the Justice’s swelling diction, (smiling,) so as that his meaning might be understood by the vulgar, from whom information was to be obtained[579].