"Sir," said Doctor Johnson to a talkative politician, at a dinner-party,
"I perceive you are a vile Whig," and then he proceeded to demolish him.
Yet Johnson himself was a Whig, although he never knew it; just as he was
a liberal in religion, and yet was boastful of being a stanch Churchman.

Johnson's irritability never vented itself against the helpless. His
charity knew no limit--not even the bottom of his purse. When he had no
money to give, he borrowed it. And when his pension was three hundred
pounds a year, the Thrales could not figure out that he spent more than
seventy or eighty on himself. The rest went to his dependents. In his
latter days his home was a regular museum of waifs and strays. There was
Miss Williams, the ancient aristocratic spinster who came to London to
have an operation performed on one of her eyes. She came to Johnson's home
and remained ten years, because she had been a friend of his wife. This
claim was enough, and she slid into the head place in Johnson's household.
Her peevishness used to drive the old man, at times, into the street; but
that tongue of his, with its crushing retorts, was ever silent and tender
towards her. The poor creature became blind, and used to shock the finicky
Boswell by testing the fulness of the teacups with her finger.

Then there was a Mrs. Desmoulins and her daughter, who drifted down from
Lichfield and came to Johnson, because forty years before, he, too, had
lived in Lichfield. He gave them house-room, treated them as guests, and
each week left a half-guinea on the mantel of their room.

Then there was the broken-down Levett, and Francis Barber, who, coming as
a servant, remained as one of the family, because he was too old to work.
A Miss Carmichael, in green spectacles and bombazine, carrying a cane,
completed what the Doctor called his "seraglio." Writing to Mrs. Thrale in
playful mood, telling of his household troubles, he says, "Williams hates