may by degrees be varied so as to be totally different from what really happened.’  Our lively hostess, whose fancy was impatient of the rein, fidgeted at this, and ventured to say ’Nay, this is too much.  If Dr. Johnson should forbid me to drink tea, I would comply, as I should feel the restraint only twice a day:  but little variations in narrative must happen a thousand times a day, if one is not perpetually watching.’ Johnson.  ’Well, Madam, and you ought to be perpetually watching.  It is more from carelessness about truth, than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.’”

Now for the illustrative incident, which occurred during the same visit:—­

“I had before dinner repeated a ridiculous story told me by an old man, who had been a passenger with me in the stage-coach to-day.  Mrs. Thrale, having taken occasion to allude to it in talking to me, called it, ‘The story told you by the old woman.’  ‘Now, Madam,’ said I, ’give me leave to catch you in the fact:  it was not an old woman, but an old man, whom I mentioned as having told me this.’  I presumed to take an opportunity, in the presence of Johnson, of showing this lively lady how ready she was, unintentionally, to deviate from exact authenticity of narration.”

In the margin:  “Mrs. Thrale knew there was no such thing as an Old Man:  when a man gets superannuated, they call him an Old Woman.”

The remarks on the value of truth attributed to Johnson are just and sound in the main, but when they are pointed against character, they must be weighed in reference to the very high standard he habitually insisted upon.  He would not allow his servant to say he was not at home when he was.  “A servant’s strict regard for truth,” he continued, “must be weakened by such a practice.  A philosopher may know that it is merely a form of denial; but few servants are such nice distinguishers.  If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for himself?”

One of his townspeople, Mr. Wickens, of Lichfield, was walking with him in a small meandering shrubbery formed so as to hide the termination, and observed that it might be taken for an extensive labyrinth, but that it would prove a deception, though it was, indeed, not an unpardonable one.  “Sir,” exclaimed Johnson, “don’t tell me of deception; a lie, Sir, is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear.”  Whilst he was in one of these paradoxical humours, there was no pleasing him; and he has been known to insult persons of respectability for repeating current accounts of events, sounding new and strange, which turned out to be literally true; such as the red-hot shot at Gibraltar, or the effects of the earthquake at Lisbon.  Yet he could be lax when it suited him, as speaking of epitaphs:  “The writer of an epitaph should not be considered as saying nothing but what is strictly true.  Allowance