After repeating to him some of his pointed, lively sayings, I said, 'It is a pity, Sir, you don't always remember your own good things, that you may have a laugh when you will.' JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, it is better that I forget them, that I may be reminded of them, and have a laugh on their being brought to my recollection.'

When I recalled to him his having said as we sailed up Loch-lomond[560], 'That if he wore any thing fine, it should be very fine;' I observed that all his thoughts were upon a great scale. JOHNSON. 'Depend upon it, Sir, every man will have as fine a thing as he can get; as a large diamond for his ring.' BOSWELL. 'Pardon me, Sir: a man of a narrow mind will not think of it, a slight trinket will satisfy him:

"Nee sufferre queat majoris pondera gemmae[561]."'

I told him I should send him some Essays which I had written[562], which I hoped he would be so good as to read, and pick out the good ones. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, send me only the good ones; don't make me pick them.'

I heard him once say, 'Though the proverb Nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia[563], does not always prove true, we may be certain of the converse of it, Nullum numen adest, si sit imprudentia.'

Once, when Mr. Seward was going to Bath, and asked his commands, he said, 'Tell Dr. Harrington that I wish he would publish another volume of the Nugae antiquae[564]; it is a very pretty book[565].' Mr. Seward seconded this wish, and recommended to Dr. Harrington to dedicate it to Johnson, and take for his motto, what Catullus says to Cornelius Nepos:—

'——namque tu solebas,
Meas esse aliquid putare NUGAS[566].'

As a small proof of his kindliness and delicacy of feeling, the following circumstance may be mentioned: One evening when we were in the street together, and I told him I was going to sup at Mr. Beauclerk's, he said, 'I'll go with you.' After having walked part of the way, seeming to recollect something, he suddenly stopped and said, 'I cannot go,—but I do not love Beauclerk the less.'

On the frame of his portrait, Mr. Beauclerk had inscribed,—

'——Ingenium ingens
Inculto latet hoc sub corpore[567].'