impede your fall. The diminished appearance of the boats, and other
circumstances, are all very good description; but do not impress the
mind at once with the horrible idea of immense height. The impression is
divided; you pass on by computation, from one stage of the tremendous
space to another. Had the girl in _The Mourning Bride_ said, she could
not cast her shoe to the top of one of the pillars in the temple, it
would not have aided the idea, but weakened it.'

Talking of a Barrister who had a bad utterance, some one, (to rouse
Johnson,) wickedly said, that he was unfortunate in not having been
taught oratory by Sheridan[263]. JOHNSON. 'Nay, Sir, if he had been taught
by Sheridan, he would have cleared the room.' GARRICK. 'Sheridan has too
much vanity to be a good man.' We shall now see Johnson's mode of
_defending_ a man; taking him into his own hands, and discriminating.
JOHNSON. 'No, Sir. There is, to be sure, in Sheridan, something to
reprehend, and every thing to laugh at; but, Sir, he is not a bad man.
No, Sir; were mankind to be divided into good and bad, he would stand
considerably within the ranks of good. And, Sir, it must be allowed that
Sheridan excels in plain declamation, though he can exhibit no
character.'

I should, perhaps, have suppressed this disquisition concerning a person
of whose merit and worth I think with respect, had he not attacked
Johnson so outrageously in his _Life of Swift_, and, at the same time,
treated us, his admirers, as a set of pigmies[264]. He who has provoked
the lash of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

Mrs. Montagu, a lady distinguished for having written an Essay on
Shakspeare, being mentioned. REYNOLDS. 'I think that essay does her
honour.' JOHNSON, 'Yes, Sir; it does _her_ honour, but it would do