_Friday._--We took dinner at the house of a worthy silk-mercer. The company was in no sense literary or intellectual. Talk indeed we had, but conversation if reduced to a monologue perforce perishes. Boswell broke a lance or two with me for the benefit of those present; but there was no man there of a calibre to awaken my interest, no opposing material of a surface rough enough to rub a spark from me. We returned in a chaise, and Boswell appeared so elated that I asked him the reason of his high spirits. BOSWELL: “Well, sir, I have rarely enjoyed conversation so much.” JOHNSON: “Words were uttered, even to weariness, but I heard no conversation.” BOSWELL: “Why, sir, they hung on your every utterance.” JOHNSON: “Ay, as they would hang on the actions of a contortionist, of a rope-dancer, or the voice of an Italian singer.” BOSWELL: “True, there was nothing to call out _your_ powers.” JOHNSON: “No, sir.” BOSWELL: “Yet I felt myself talking a great deal and confuting the city people with ease.” JOHNSON: “If it was within your power to confute them, there can have existed but little need for me to speak.” BOSWELL: “But I am glad you did not oftener take the other side, and so turn my victory into defeat.” He came with me to my dwelling, and we sat late, for he was about to return to Scotland, and there seemed no probability of another meeting between us for extended periods of time. As the moment of our parting approached Mr. Boswell relapsed into silence and sighs. JOHNSON: “Nay, sir, have done with these futile expressions of an artificial emotion. We have enjoyed each the society of the other, and now the tide of human affairs renders a parting of greater or less duration necessary between us. Heed your business; recollect the advantages of your education, the exactions consequent on your position, and the duty you owe to your God, your father, and your king. Write as the occasion serves, but let me have no more unmanly outbursts of imaginary low-spirits or simulated misery. You are as yet young, and the world lies before you; seek, therefore, to be contented; remember your friends and be grateful for small mercies. These precepts duly followed will rob evil of half its sting, will fortify your soul against the world, and enable you, with a mind conscious of right, to look your fellows in the face and fear no man. Now farewell.” He made a reply, which combined expressions of regard and an incoherent assembly of ill-assorted adjectives. He then pressed my hand fervently, and went upon his way.