Nobody
would at first think that this could be English; but, when we enquire,
we find _roes_, rose, and _nopie_, knob; so we have _rosebuds_'.
JOHNSON. 'I have been reading Thicknesse's _Travels_, which I think are
entertaining.' BOSWELL. 'What, Sir, a good book?' JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir, to
read once; I do not say you are to make a study of it, and digest it;
and I believe it to be a true book in his intention. All travellers
generally mean to tell truth; though Thicknesse observes, upon Smollet's
account of his alarming a whole town in France by firing a
blunderbuss[662], and frightening a French nobleman till he made him tie
on his portmanteau[663], that he would be loth to say Smollet had told two
lies in one page; but he had found the only town in France where these
things could have happened[664]. Travellers must often be mistaken. In
every thing, except where mensuration can be applied, they may honestly
differ. There has been, of late, a strange turn in travellers to be
displeased[665].'
E. 'From the experience which I have had,--and I have had a great
deal,--I have learnt to think _better_ of mankind[666].' JOHNSON. 'From my
experience I have found them worse in commercial dealings, more disposed
to cheat, than I had any notion of; but more disposed to do one another
good than I had conceived[667].
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