From Swift, there was an easy transition to Mr. Thomas Sheridan—­Johnson.  ’Sheridan is a wonderful admirer of the tragedy of Douglas, and presented its authour with a gold medal.  Some years ago, at a coffee-house in Oxford, I called to him, “Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Sheridan, how came you to give a gold medal to Home, for writing that foolish play?” This you see, was wanton and insolent; but I meant to be wanton and insolent.  A medal has no value but as a stamp of merit.  And was Sheridan to assume to himself the right of giving that stamp?  If Sheridan was magnificent enough to bestow a gold medal as an honorary reward of dramatick excellence, he should have requested one of the Universities to choose the person on whom it should be conferred.  Sheridan had no right to give a stamp of merit:  it was counterfeiting Apollo’s coin.’

On Monday, March 27, I breakfasted with him at Mr Strahan’s.  He told us, that he was engaged to go that evening to Mrs. Abington’s benefit.  ’She was visiting some ladies whom I was visiting, and begged that I would come to her benefit.  I told her I could not hear:  but she insisted so much on my coming, that it would have been brutal to have refused her.’  This was a speech quite characteristical.  He loved to bring forward his having been in the gay circles of life; and he was, perhaps, a little vain of the solicitations of this elegant and fashionable actress.  He told us, the play was to be the The Hypocrite, altered from Cibber’s Nonjuror, so as to satirize the Methodists.  ’I do not think (said he,) the character of The Hypocrite justly applicable to the Methodists, but it was very applicable to the Nonjurors.’

Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon Johnson’s recommendation.  Johnson having enquired after him, said, ’Mr. Strahan, let me have five guineas on account, and I’ll give this boy one.  Nay if a man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it is sad work.  Call him down.’

I followed him into the court-yard, behind Mr. Strahan’s house; and there I had a proof of what I had heard him profess, that he talked alike to all.  ’Some people tell you that they let themselves down to the capacity of their hearers.  I never do that.  I speak uniformly, in as intelligible a manner as I can.’

’Well, my boy, how do you go on?’—­’Pretty well, Sir; but they are afraid I an’t strong enough for some parts of the business.’  Johnson.  ’Why, I shall be sorry for it; for when you consider with how little mental power and corporeal labour a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a very desirable occupation for you.  Do you hear,—­take all the pains you can; and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of life for you.  There’s a guinea.’

Here was one of the many, many instances of his active benevolence.  At the same time, the slow and sonorous solemnity with which, while he bent himself down, he addressed a little thick short-legged boy, contrasted with the boy’s aukwardness and awe, could not but excite some ludicrous emotions.