you're a rascal."'

'His affection for Topham Beauclerk was so great, that when Beauclerk
was labouring under that severe illness which at last occasioned his
death, Johnson said, (with a voice faultering with emotion,) "Sir, I
would walk to the extent of the diameter of the earth to save
Beauclerk[36]."'

'One night at the CLUB he produced a translation of an Epitaph which
Lord Elibank had written in English, for his Lady, and requested of
Johnson to turn into Latin for him. Having read _Domina de North et
Gray_, he said to Dyer, "You see, Sir, what barbarisms we are compelled
to make use of, when modern titles are to be specifically mentioned in
Latin inscriptions." When he had read it once aloud, and there had been
a general approbation expressed by the company, he addressed himself to
Mr. Dyer in particular, and said, "Sir, I beg to have your judgement,
for I know your nicety[37]." Dyer then very properly desired to read it
over again; which having done, he pointed out an incongruity in one of
the sentences. Johnson immediately assented to the observation, and
said, "Sir, this is owing to an alteration of a part of the sentence,
from the form in which I had first written it; and I believe, Sir, you
may have remarked, that the making a partial change, without a due
regard to the general structure of the sentence, is a very frequent
cause of errour in composition."'

'Johnson was well acquainted with Mr. Dossie, authour of a treatise on
Agriculture[38]; and said of him, "Sir, of the objects which the Society
of Arts have chiefly in view, the chymical effects of bodies operating
upon other bodies, he knows more than almost any man." Johnson, in order
to give Mr. Dossie his vote to be a member of this Society, paid up an