[1167] 'Sir,' he said to Reynolds, 'a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it;' post, under March 30, 1783.
[1168] 'Or behind the screen' some one might have added, ante, i. 163.
[1169] Wesley was told that a whole waggon-load of Methodists had been lately brought before a Justice of the Peace. When he asked what they were charged with, one replied, 'Why they pretended to be better than other people, and besides they prayed from morning to night.' Wesley's Journal, i. 361. See also post, 1780, near the end of Mr. Langton's Collection.
[1170] 'The progress which the understanding makes through a book has' he said, 'more pain than pleasure in it;' post, May 1, 1783.
[1171] Matthew, vi. 16.
[1172] Boswell, it is clear, in the early days of his acquaintance with Johnson often led the talk to this subject. See post, June 25, July 14, 21, and 28, 1763.
[1173] See post, April 7, 1778.
[1174] He finished his day, 'however late it might be,' by taking tea at Miss Williams's lodgings; post, July 1, 1763.
[1175] See post, under Feb. 15, 1766, Feb. 1767, March 20, 1776, and Boswell's Hebrides, Sept. 20, 1773, where Johnson says:—'I have been trying to cure my laziness all my life, and could not do it.' It was this kind of life that caused so much of the remorse which is seen in his Prayers and Meditations.
[1176] Horace Walpole writing on June 12, 1759 (Letters, iii. 231), says:—'A war that reaches from Muscovy to Alsace, and from Madras to California, don't produce an article half so long as Mr. Johnson's riding three horses at once.' I have a curious copper-plate showing Johnson standing on one, or two, and leading a third horse in full speed.' It bears the date of November 1758. See post, April 3, 1778.