breaking in."--Mr Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Mr Courtenay, Mr Malone, and, indeed, all the eminent men to whom I have mentioned this, have thought it an exquisite trait of character. The truth is, that philosophy, like religion, is too generally supposed to be hard and severe, at least so grave as to exclude all gaiety. EDWARDS: "I have been twice married, Doctor. You, I suppose, have never known what it was to have a wife." JOHNSON: "Sir, I have known what it was to have a wife, and (in a solemn, tender, faltering tone) I have known what it was to _lose a wife_. It had almost broke my heart." EDWARDS: "How do you live, sir? For my part, I must have my regular meals, and a glass of good wine. I find I require it." JOHNSON: "I now drink no wine, sir. Early in life I drank wine: for many years I drank none, I then for some years drank a great deal." EDWARDS: "Some hogsheads, I warrant you." JOHNSON: "I then had a severe illness, and left it off. I am a straggler. I may leave this town and go to Grand Cairo, without being missed here or observed there." EDWARDS: "Don't you eat supper, sir?" JOHNSON: "No, sir." EDWARDS: "For my part, now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in order to get to bed." JOHNSON: "You are a lawyer, Mr Edwards. Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with. They have what he wants." EDWARDS: "I am grown old, I am sixty-five." JOHNSON: "I shall be sixty-eight next birthday. Come, sir, drink water, and put in for a hundred." ... Mr Edwards, when going away, again recurred to his consciousness of senility, and looking full in Johnson's face, said to him, "You'll find in Dr Young, 'O my coevals! remnants of yourselves.'" Johnson did not relish this at all; but shook his head with impatience. Edwards walked off seemingly highly pleased with the honour of having been thus noticed by Dr Johnson. When he was gone, I said to Johnson I thought him but a weak man. JOHNSON: "Why, yes, sir. Here is a man who has passed through life without experience: yet I would rather have him with me than a more sensible man who will not talk readily. This man is always willing to say what he has to say."'