I told him of one of Mr. Burke's playful sallies upon Dean Marlay: 'I don't like the Deanery of Ferns, it sounds so like a barren title.'-'Dr. Heath should have it,' said I. Johnson laughed, and condescending to trifle in the same mode of conceit, suggested Dr. Moss.

He said, 'Mrs. Montagu has dropped me. Now, sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.' He certainly was vain of the society of ladies, and could make himself very agreeable to them, when he chose it; Sir Joshua Reynolds agreed with me that he could. Mr. Gibbon, with his usual sneer, controverted it, perhaps in resentment of Johnson's having talked with some disgust of his ugliness, which one would think a philosopher would not mind. Dean Marlay wittily observed: 'A lady may be vain, when she can turn a wolf-dog into a lap-dog.'

The election for Ayrshire, my own county, was this spring tried upon a petition, before a Committee of the House of Commons. I was one of the counsel for the sitting member, and took the liberty of previously stating different points to Johnson, who never failed to see them clearly, and to supply me with some good hints. He dictated to me the following note upon the registration of deeds:

All laws are made for the convenience of the community;

void of them.-Milton's description appears to me more picturesque.KEARNEY).

1[Dr. Richard Marlay, afterwards Lord Bishop of Waterford, very amiable, benevolent, and ingenious man. He was chosen a member of the Literary Club in 1777, and died in Dublin, July 2, 1802, in his seventy-fifth year.-M.]

2 [He (Gibbon) is an ugly, affected, disgusting fellow, and poisons our Literary Club to me.'-Boswell's Letters.-A. B.]

what is legally done, should be legally recorded, that the state of things may be known, and that wherever reverence is requisite, evidence may be had. For this reason, the obligation to frame and establish a legal register is enforced by a legal penalty, which penalty is the want of that perfection and plenitude of right which a register would give. Thence it follows, that this is not an objection merely legal; for the reason on which the law stands being equitable, makes it an equitable objection.'

'This (said he) you must enlarge on, when speaking to the Committee. You must not argue there, as if you were arguing in the schools; close reasoning will not fix their attention; you must say the same thing over and over again, in different words. If you say it but once, they miss it in a moment of inattention. It is unjust, sir, to censure lawyers for multiplying words when they argue; it is often necessary for them to multiply words.'

His notion of the duty of a member of Parliament, sitting upon an election-committee, was very high; and when he was told of a gentleman upon one of those committees, who read the newspapers part of the time, and slept the rest, while the merits of a vote were examined by the counsel; and as an excuse, when challenged by the chairman for such behaviour, bluntly answered, 'I had made up my mind upon that case';-Johnson, with an indignant contempt, said, 'If he was such a rogue as to make up his mind upon a case without hearing it, he should not have been such a fool as to tell it.' 'I think (said Mr. Dudley Long, now North) the Doctor has pretty plainly made him out to be both rogue and fool.'

Johnson's profound reverence for the hierarchy made him expect from bishops the highest degree of

decorum; he was offended even at their going to taverns: 'A bishop (said he) has nothing to do at a tippling-house. It is not indeed immoral in him to go to a tavern; neither would it be immoral in him to whip a top in Grosvenor Square: but, if he did, I hope the boys would fall upon him, and apply the whip to him. There are gradations in conduct; there is morality-decency-propriety. None of these should be violated by a bishop. A bishop should not go to a house where he may meet a young fellow leading out a wench.' BOSWELL: 'But, sir, every tavern does not admit women.' JOHNSON: 'Depend upon it, sir, any tavern will admit a well-dressed man and a welldressed woman; they will not perhaps admit a woman whom they see every night walking by their door, in the street. But a well-dressed man may lead in a well-dressed woman to any tavern in London. Taverns sell meat and drink, and will sell them to anybody who can eat and can drink. You may as well say, that a mercer will not sell silks to a woman of the town.'

He also disapproved of bishops going to routs, at least of their staying at them longer than their presence commanded respect. He mentioned a particular bishop. 'Poh! (said Mrs. Thrale) the Bishop of 1 is never minded at a rout.' BoswELL: 'When a bishop places himself in a situation where he has no distinct character, and is of no consequence, he degrades the dignity of his order.' JOHNSON: 'Mr. Boswell,

madam, has said it as correctly as it could be.'

Nor was it only in the dignitaries of the Church that Johnson required a particular decorum and

1[Probably the Bishop of St. Asaph, Dr. Shipley, a very gay prelate. Sir William Jones married his daughter.-A. B.]