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Updated: June 3, 2025
Thrale made a very characteristical remark: 'I do not know for certain what will please Dr. Johnson: but I know for certain that it will displease him to praise any thing, even what he likes, extravagantly . At dinner he laughed at querulous declamations against the age, on account of luxury , increase of London, scarcity of provisions, and other such topicks.
Lest all these topicks of persuasion should fail, the greater actor of patriotism has tried another, in which terrour and pity are happily combined, not without a proper superaddition of that admiration which latter ages have brought into the drama.
Would he have selected certain topicks, and considered them in every view so as to be in readiness to argue them at all points? and what may we suppose those topicks to have been? I once started the curious inquiry to the great man who was the subject of this compliment: he smiled, but did not pursue it.
He said, 'A country gentleman should bring his lady to visit London as soon as he can, that they may have agreeable topicks for conversation when they are by themselves. As I meditated trying my fortune in Westminster Hall, our conversation turned upon the profession of the law in England. JOHNSON. 'You must not indulge too sanguine hopes, should you be called to our bar.
I BELONG to an order of mankind, considerable at least for their number, to which your notice has never been formally extended, though equally entitled to regard with those triflers, who have hitherto supplied you with topicks of amusement or instruction. I am, Mr.
The same remark may be applied to every stage but that of Shakespeare. The theatre, when it is under any other direction, is peopled by such characters as were never seen, conversing in a language which was never heard, upon topicks which will never rise in the commerce of mankind.
Holmes, whose excellent "Annals of America" occupy an honoured place upon my shelves. Withdrawn from the active duties of my profession by the settlement of a colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four-Corners, I might find time for further contributions to general literature on similar topicks. I have made large advances toward a completer genealogy of Mrs.
During this tempest I sat in great uneasiness, lamenting his heat of temper; till, by degrees, I diverted his attention to other topicks. Talking of Miss , a literary lady, he said, 'I was obliged to speak to Miss Reynolds, to let her know that I desired she would not flatter me so much. Somebody now observed, 'She flatters Garrick. JOHNSON. 'She is in the right to flatter Garrick.
When Johnson was going to Auchinleck, Boswell begged him, in talking with his father, 'to avoid three topicks as to which they differed very widely; whiggism, presbyterianism, and Sir John Pringle. Boswell's Hebrides, Nov 2, 1773. See also ib. Aug 24. 'Pringle was President of the Royal Society "who sat in Newton's chair, And wonder'd how the devil he got there." J. H. Burton's Hume, i. 165.
It has been treated with that freedom which is necessary for the investigation of truth, and with no greater freedom. On such a subject, extensive in its nature, and important in its consequences, the examination has necessarily been long, and the topicks treated of have been various.
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