far worse faults than have ever been laid to his charge.
Nay, the very asperity of the man's outside becomes en-
deared to us by the association. His irritability never
vented itself against the helpless, and his rough impa-
tience of fanciful troubles implied no want of sympathy
for real sorrow. One of Mrs. Thrale's anecdotes is in-
tended to show Johnson's harshness: -- "When I one day
lamented the loss of a first cousin killed in America,
'Pr'ythee, my dear,' said he, 'have done with canting;
how would the world be the worse for it, I may ask, if all
your relations were at once spitted like larks and roasted
for Presto's supper?' Presto was the dog that lay under
the table while we talked." The counter version, given
by Boswell is, that Mrs. Thrale related her cousin's death
in the midst of a hearty supper, and that Johnson, shocked
at her want of feeling, said, "Madam, it would give you
very little concern if all your relations were spitted like
those larks, and roasted for Presto's supper." Taking the
most unfavourable version, we may judge how much real
indifference to human sorrow was implied by seeing how
Johnson was affected by a loss of one of his humblest
friends. It is but one case of many. In 1767, he took
leave, as he notes in his diary, of his "dear old friend,
Catherine Chambers," who had been for about forty-three
years in the service of his family. "I desired all to with-
draw," he says, "then told her that we were to part for
ever, and, as Christians, we should part with prayer, and
that I would, if she was willing, say a short prayer beside
her. She expressed great desire to hear me, and held up her
poor hands as she lay in bed, with great fervour, while I
prayed, kneeling by her, in nearly the following words" --
which shall not be repeated here -- "I then kissed her,"
he adds. "She told me that to part was the greatest pain

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