man, who ate enormous meals, drank sometimes twenty-five cups of tea at one sitting, wore slovenly and dirty clothes, half-burnt wigs, and slippers almost in tatters. Then he contradicted flatly, and his anger was of a very vehement kind; though he always declared himself to be a "most polite man," and was occasionally ceremonious to a wonderful degree. And yet as he discoursed, men listened to him with such pleasure that they forgot entirely his many monstrous failings. His power of argument was magnificent; never could man so slay an adversary by his words as could this vigorous, quarrelsome, brilliant talker, and though he hit hard, he did not hit cruelly. There was no venom in his words, and however violently he argued, he never seems to have lost a friend through it. On the contrary his circle of admirers constantly grew, and cheerfully submitted to whatever demands he made upon them. Chief among those friends, of course, stands the faithful Boswell, who idolised him with a worship that must have been very wearisome. If Johnson so much as opened his mouth Boswell bent forward wild with eagerness, terrified lest one precious word should escape him; he sat as close to him as he could get, he hung around him like a dog, and no amount of snubbing could damp his ardour. He delighted in asking his master a series of such questions as these:—"What would you do if you were shut up in a castle with a new-born baby?" Or, "Why is a cow’s tail long?" "I will not be baited with what and why," Johnson would answer impatiently. "You have only two subjects, yourself and me. I am sick of both. If your presence does not drive a man out of his house, nothing will." Johnson’s daily life seems to have been mapped out in this wise. He lay in bed late into the morning, surrounded by an admiring circle of men friends, who consulted him on every particular, and listened respectfully to all his opinions. He only rose in time for a late dinner at some tavern which occupied most of the afternoon, as other circles of friends came to listen to him. Then he would drink tea at some house, frequently spending the rest of the evening there, unless he was supping with other acquaintances. Except for his "Lives of the Poets," he wrote but little at this period of his life, and said in excuse, "that a man could do as much good by talking as by writing."