J.—Besides, sir, besides, besides—do not you know—are you so ignorant as not to know that it is the highest degree of rudeness to quote a man against himself?
R.—But if you differ from yourself, and give one opinion to-day——
J.—Have done, sir, the company are tired, you see, as well as myself.
T’OTHER SIDE.
Dr. Johnson and Mr. Gibbon.
Johnson.—No, sir, Garrick’s fame was prodigious, not only in England but over all Europe, even in Russia. I have been told he was a proverb; when anybody had repeated well he was called a second Garrick.
Gibbon.—I think he had full as much reputation as he deserved.
J.—I do not pretend to know, sir, what your meaning may be by saying he had as much reputation as he deserved; he deserved much, and he had much.
G.—Why, surely, Dr. Johnson, his merit was in small things only; he had none of those qualities that make a real great man.
J.—Sir, I as little understand what your meaning may be when you speak of the qualities that make a great man: it is a vague term. Garrick was no common man: a man above the common size of men, may surely, without any great impropriety, be called a great man. In my opinion, he has very reasonably fulfilled the prophecy which he once reminded me of having made to his mother, when she asked me how little David got on at school, that I should say to her, that he would come to be hanged, or come to be a great man. No, sir, it is undoubtedly true that the same qualities, united with virtue, or with vice, make a hero or a rogue, a great general or a highwayman. Now Garrick, we are sure, was never hanged, and in regard to his being a great man, you must take the whole man together. It must be considered in how many things Garrick excelled in which every man desires to excel, setting aside his excellence as an actor, in which he is acknowledged to be unrivalled; as a man, as a poet, as a convivial companion, you will find but few his equals, and none his superior. As a man he was kind, friendly, benevolent, and generous.