but every one must do something.

'He remarked, that a London parish was a very comfortless thing; for the
clergyman seldom knew the face of one out of ten of his parishioners.

'Of the late Mr. Mallet he spoke with no great respect: said, he was
ready for any dirty job: that he had wrote against Byng at the
instigation of the ministry[377], and was equally ready to write for him,
provided he found his account in it.

'A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately
after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over
experience.

'He observed, that a man of sense and education should meet a suitable
companion in a wife[378]. It was a miserable thing when the conversation
could only be such as, whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted,
and probably a dispute about that.

'He did not approve of late marriages, observing that more was lost in
point of time, than compensated for by any possible advantages[379]. Even
ill assorted marriages were preferable to cheerless celibacy.

'Of old Sheridan he remarked, that he neither wanted parts nor
literature; but that his vanity and Quixotism obscured his merits.

'He said, foppery was never cured; it was the bad stamina of the mind,
which, like those of the body, were never rectified: once a coxcomb, and
always a coxcomb.