may be done so much, that a man may deserve to be kicked.’  Beauclerk.  ‘He is very malignant.’  Johnson.  ’No, Sir; he is not malignant.  He is mischievous, if you will.  He would do no man an essential injury; he may, indeed, love to make sport of people by vexing their vanity.  I, however, once knew an old gentleman who was absolutely malignant.  He really wished evil to others, and rejoiced at it.’  Boswell.  ’The gentleman, Mr. Beauclerk, against whom you are so violent, is, I know, a man of good principles.’  Beauclerk.  ’Then he does not wear them out in practice.’

Dr. Johnson, who, as I have observed before, delighted in discrimination of character, and having a masterly knowledge of human nature, was willing to take men as they are, imperfect and with a mixture of good and bad qualities, I suppose though he had said enough in defence of his friend, of whose merits, notwithstanding his exceptional points, he had a just value; and added no more on the subject.

On Wednesday, April 15, I dined with Dr. Johnson at Mr. Dilly’s, and was in high spirits, for I had been a good part of the morning with Mr. Orme, the able and eloquent historian of Hindostan, who expressed a great admiration of Johnson.  ’I do not care (said he,) on what subject Johnson talks; but I love better to hear him talk than any body.  He either gives you new thoughts, or a new colouring.  It is a shame to the nation that he has not been more liberally rewarded.  Had I been George the Third, and thought as he did about America, I would have given Johnson three hundred a year for his Taxation no Tyranny alone.’  I repeated this, and Johnson was much pleased with such praise from such a man as Orme.

At Mr. Dilly’s to-day were Mrs. Knowles, the ingenious Quaker lady, Miss Seward, the poetess of Lichfield, the Reverend Dr. Mayo, and the Rev. Mr. Beresford, Tutor to the Duke of Bedford.  Before dinner Dr. Johnson seized upon Mr. Charles Sheridan’s Account of the late Revolution in Sweden, and seemed to read it ravenously, as if he devoured it, which was to all appearance his method of studying.  ’He knows how to read better than any one (said Mrs. Knowles;) he gets at the substance of a book directly; he tears out the heart of it.’  He kept it wrapt up in the tablecloth in his lap during the time of dinner, from an avidity to have one entertainment in readiness when he should have finished another; resembling (if I may use so coarse a simile) a dog who holds a bone in his paws in reserve, while he eats something else which has been thrown to him.

The subject of cookery having been very naturally introduced at a table where Johnson, who boasted of the niceness of his palate, owned that ’he always found a good dinner,’ he said, ’I could write a better book of cookery than has ever yet been written; it should be a book upon philosophical principles.  Pharmacy is now made much more simple.  Cookery may be made so too.  A prescription which is now