JOHNSON. 79 



was little to be extolled; while in our own day Wind- 

 ham, with almost all that his friend possessed, had an 

 exquisite polish* to which none that have been named 

 but Bolingbroke could make any pretension. Yet, 

 whether because all these, except Steele, had important 

 public stations to fill, or because they did not so much 

 make society the business of their lives, or because their 

 very excellence in conversation prevented them from 

 being mannerists, or finally, because no one, except in 

 Swift's case, thought of giving their names the termi- 

 nation in ana; certain it is, that they do not fill any 

 thing like the same space with Johnson in this particular. 

 He lent himself, too, very readily, and, indeed, naturally 

 to occupying this foreground; for he delighted in dog- 

 matical sentences easily carried away; he spoke in an 

 epigram style that first seized on men's attention and 

 then fixed itself in their memory; he loved polemical 

 discussion, and was well fitted for it by his readiness, by 

 the flow of both his sayings and his point, and by the 

 plain and strong sarcasm which he had ever ready at a 

 call. His talk, indeed, was akin to his writings, for he 

 wrote off-hand, and just as easily as he spoke. He 

 loved to fill a chair, surrounded with a circle well known 

 to him, and ex cathedra to deliver his judgments. It 

 cannot be said, that this was any thing like a high style 

 of conversation ; it had nothing like full or free discus- 

 sion; it had little even like free interchange of senti- 

 ments or opinions; it was occasionally enlivened with 

 wit, oftener broken by a growl or a sneer from him and 

 from him alone ; but his part of it was always arrogant 

 and dictatorial; nor after men's curiosity had once been 

 gratified by assisting at one of these talks, did any but 



