is a power rather to be wished for than attained. And yet (proceeded he) as in all pleasure hope is a considerable part, I know not but fruition comes too quick by brandy. Florence wine I think the worst; it is wine only to the eye; it is wine neither while you are drinking it, nor after you have drunk it; it neither pleases the taste, nor exhilarates the spirit." "I reminded him (says Mr. B.) how heartily he and I used to drink wine together when we were first acquainted, and how I used to have a head-ache after sitting up with him. He did not like to have this recalled, or perhaps, thinking that I boasted improperly, resolved to have a witty stroke at me:-" Nay, Sir, it was not the wine that made your head ache, but the sense that I put into it.”—B. "What, Sir, will sense make the head ache?". "Yes, Sir (with a smile), when it is not used to it." "No man (adds Mr. B.) who has a true relish of pleasantry could be offended at this; especially if Johnson in a long intimacy had given him repeated proofs of his regard and good estimation. I used to say, that as he had given me a thousand pounds in praise, he had a good right now and then to take a guinea from me."-7. "I require wine only when I am alone. I have then often wished for it, and often taken it.”—“ What, (said Mr. Spottiswoode, the Solicitor, who was present) by way of a companion, Sir?"-J. "To get rid

of myself, to send myself away. Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good unless counterbalanced by evil. A man may have a strong reason not to drink wine; and that may be greater than the pleasure. Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. Sometimes it does. But the danger is, that while a man grows better pleased with himself, he may be growing less pleasing to others. Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what has been locked up in frost. But this may be good, or it may be bad."-SPOTTISWOODE. "So, Sir, wine is a key which opens a box; but this box may be either full or empty." -JOHNSON. "Nay, Sir, conversation is the key wine is a pick-lock which forces open the box and injures it. A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine which wine gives."-B. "The great difficulty of resisting wine is from benevolence. For instance, a good worthy man asks you to taste his wine which he has had twenty years in his cellar."-7. "Sir, all this notion about benevolence arises from a man's imagining himself to be of more importance to others than

he really is. They don't care a farthing whether he drinks wine or not."-SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. "Yes, they do for the time."-7. "For the time! If they care this minute, they forget it the next. And as for the good worthy man; how do you know he is good and worthy? No good and worthy man will insist upon another man's drinking wine. As to the wine twenty years in the cellar-of ten men, three say this merely because they must say something; three are telling a lie when they say they have had the wine twenty years; three would rather save the wine;-one perhaps cares. I allow it is something to please one's company; and people are always pleased with those who partake pleasure with them. But after a man has brought himself to relinquish the great personal pleasure which arises from drinking wine, any other consideration is a trifle. To please others by drinking wine is something only if there be nothing against it. I should, however, be sorry to offend worthy men:

Curst be the verse, how well so e'er it flow,
That tends to make one worthy man my foe."

--B. "Curst be the spring, the water."-J. "But let us consider what a sad thing it would be if we were obliged to drink or do any thing else that may happen to be agreeable to the company where we are."-LANGTON. "By the same

rule you must join with a gang of cut-purses.”— J. "Yes, Sir: but yet we must do justice to wine; we must allow it the power it possesses. To make a man pleased with himself, let me tell you, is doing a very great thing."

Some time after this Johnson again harangued against drinking wine: "A man (said he) may choose whether he will have abstemiousness and knowledge, or claret and ignorance." Dr. Robertson (who was very companionable) was beginning to dissent as to the proscription of claret. J. (with a placid smile) "Nay, Sir, you shall not differ with me; as I have said that the man is most perfect who takes in the most things, I am for knowledge and claret." "Mr. Eliot (says Mr. B.) mentioned a curious liquor peculiar to his country, which the Cornish fishermen drink. They call it mahogany; and it is made of two parts gin and one part treacle, well beaten together. I begged to have some of it made, which was done with proper skill by Mr. Eliot. I thought it very good liquor; and said it was a counterpart of what is called Athol porridge in the Highlands of Scotland, which is a mixture of whiskey and honey." J. said, "that must be a better liquor than the Cornish, for both its component parts are better." He also observed, "mahogany must be a modern name, for it is not long since the wood called mahogany was known

in this country." I mentioned his scale of liquors; claret for boys-port for men-brandy for heroes. "Then (said Mr. Burke) let me have claret: I love to be a boy; to have the careless gaiety of boyish days."-J. "I should drink claret too if it would give me that-but it does not; it neither makes boys men, nor men boys. You'll be drowned by it before it has any effect upon you."

Talking of a man's resolving to deny himself the use of wine from moral and religious considerations, he said, "He must not doubt about it. When one doubts as to pleasure we know what will be the conclusion. I now no more think of drinking wine than a horse does. The wine upon the table is no more for me than for the dog that is under the table. Yet (added he) I did not leave off wine because I could not bear it; I have drunk three bottles of port without being the worse for it.-University College has witnessed this."-B. "Why then, Sir, did you leave it off?"-J. "Why, Sir, because it is so much better for a man to be sure that he is never to be intoxicated, never to lose the power over himself. I shall not begin to drink wine again till I grow old and want it."-B. "I think, Sir, you once said to me, that not to drink wine was a great deduction from life."-7. "It is a dimi nution of pleasure, to be sure; but I do not say