82 JOHNSON. 



Blue Queen, he had on very coarse black worsted 

 stockings."' 55 ' 



They, however, who only saw this distinguished person 

 once or twice in society, were apt to form a very 

 erroneous estimate of his temper, which was not at all 

 morose or sullen, but rather kindly and sociable. He 

 loved relaxation ; he enjoyed merriment ; he even liked 

 to indulge in sportive and playful pleasantry, when his 

 animal spirits were gay pleasantry, indeed, somewhat 

 lumbering, but agreeable, from its perfect heartiness. 

 Nothing can be more droll than the scene of this kind of 

 which Mr. Boswell has preserved the account, and into 

 the humour of which he seems to have been incapable of 

 entering. When some one was mentioned as having 

 come to Mr. (afterwards Sir Win.) Chambers, to draw his 

 will, giving his estate to Sisters, Johnson objected, as it 

 had not been gained by trade ; '"If it had/ said he, ' he 

 might have left it to the dog Towser, and let him keep 

 his own name." He then went on "laughing immode- 

 rately at the testator as he kept calling him. ' I dare 

 say/ said he, 'he thinks he has done a mighty thing ; he 

 won't wait till he gets home to his seat he'll call up the 

 landlord of the first inn on the road, and, after a suitable 

 preface on mortality and the uncertainty of life, will tell 

 him that he should not delay making his will; 'and here, 



* It is truly painful to say, what is the real truth, that so excel- 

 lent a writer as this lady once was, should have ended by being the 

 very worst, without any single exception, of all writers whose name 

 ever survived themselves. Such vile passages as this are in every 

 page of her late works, and are surpassed by others " A sweetness 

 of mental attraction that magnetized longer from infirmity and 

 deterioration of intellect from decay of years." (II., 44.) Such 

 outrages are all but breaches of decorum. 



