don't count the sheep." When the company were retired, we happened to be
talking of Dr. Barnard, the Provost of Eton, who died about that time; and
after a long and just eulogium on his wit, his learning, and his goodness
of heart, "He was the only man, too," says Mr. Johnson, quite seriously,
"that did justice to my good breeding; and you may observe that I am
well-bred to a degree of needless scrupulosity. No man," continued he, not
observing the amazement of his hearers, "no man is so cautious not to
interrupt another; no man thinks it so necessary to appear attentive when
others are speaking; no man so steadily refuses preference to himself, or
so willingly bestows it on another, as I do; nobody holds so strongly as I
do the necessity of ceremony, and the ill effects which follow the breach
of it, yet people think me rude; but Barnard did me justice." "'Tis pity,"
said I, laughing, "that he had not heard you compliment the Cambridge men
after dinner to-day." "Why," replied he, "I was inclined to DOWN them sure
enough; but then a fellow DESERVES to be of Oxford that talks so." I have
heard him at other times relate how he used so sit in some coffee-house
there, and turn M----'s "C-r-ct-c-s" into ridicule for the diversion of
himself and of chance comers-in. "The 'Elf-da,'" says he, "was too
exquisitely pretty; I could make no fun out of that." When upon some
occasions he would express his astonishment that he should have an enemy in
the world, while he had been doing nothing but good to his neighbours, I
used to make him recollect these circumstances. "Why, child," said he,
"what harm could that do the fellow? I always thought very well of M----n
for a CAMBRIDGE man; he is, I believe, a mighty blameless character." Such
tricks were, however, the more unpardonable in Mr. Johnson, because no one
could harangue like him about the difficulty always found in forgiving
petty injuries, or in provoking by needless offence. Mr. Jordan, his
tutor, had much of his affection, though he despised his want of scholastic
learning. "That creature would," said he, "defend his pupils to the last:
no young lad under his care should suffer for committing slight