time ago.’  Beauclerk.  ‘I should learn of you, Sir.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, you have given me opportunities enough of learning, when I have been in your company.  No man loves to be treated with contempt.’  Beauclerk. (with a polite inclination towards Johnson,) ’Sir, you have known me twenty years, and however I may have treated others, you may be sure I could never treat you with contempt.’  Johnson.  ’Sir, you have said more than was necessary.’  Thus it ended; and Beauclerk’s coach not having come for him till very late, Dr. Johnson and another gentleman sat with him a long time after the rest of the company were gone; and he and I dined at Beauclerk’s on the Saturday se’nnight following.

After this tempest had subsided, I recollect the following particulars of his conversation:—­

’I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning; for that is a sure good.  I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book.  He’ll get better books afterwards.’

’To be contradicted, in order to force you to talk, is mighty unpleasing.  You shine, indeed; but it is by being ground.’

On Saturday, April 24, I dined with him at Mr. Beauclerk’s, with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr. Jones, (afterwards Sir William,) Mr. Langton, Mr. Steevens, Mr. Paradise, and Dr. Higgins.  I mentioned that Mr. Wilkes had attacked Garrick to me, as a man who had no friend.  ’I believe he is right, Sir. [Greek text omitted]—­He had friends, but no friend.  Garrick was so diffused, he had no man to whom he wished to unbosom himself.  He found people always ready to applaud him, and that always for the same thing:  so he saw life with great uniformity.’  I took upon me, for once, to fight with Goliath’s weapons, and play the sophist.—­Garrick did not need a friend, as he got from every body all he wanted.  What is a friend?  One who supports you and comforts you, while others do not.  Friendship, you know, Sir, is the cordial drop, “to make the nauseous draught of life go down:”  but if the draught be not nauseous, if it be all sweet, there is no occasion for that drop.’  Johnson.  ’Many men would not be content to live so.  I hope I should not.  They would wish to have an intimate friend, with whom they might compare minds, and cherish private virtues.  One of the company mentioned Lord Chesterfield, as a man who had no friend.  Johnson.  ’There were more materials to make friendship in Garrick, had he not been so diffused.’  Boswell.  ’Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf.  Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.’  Johnson.  ’Garrick was a very good man, the cheerfullest man of his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by