' JOHNSON. 'Sir, you have done what I had not
courage to do. But he did not ask my advice, and I did not force it upon
him, to make him angry with me.' GARRICK. 'But as a friend, Sir--'
JOHNSON. 'Why, such a friend as I am with him--no.' GARRICK. 'But if you
see a friend going to tumble over a precipice?' JOHNSON. 'That is an
extravagant case, Sir. You are sure a friend will thank you for
hindering him from tumbling over a precipice; but, in the other case, I
should hurt his vanity, and do him no good. He would not take my advice.
His brother-in-law, Strahan, sent him a subscription of fifty pounds,
and said he would send him fifty more, if he would not publish.'
GARRICK. 'What! Is Strahan a good judge of an Epigram? Is not he rather
an _obtuse_ man, eh?' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, he may not be a judge of an
Epigram: but you see he is a judge of what is _not_ an Epigram.'
BOSWELL. 'It is easy for you, Mr. Garrick, to talk to an authour as you
talked to Elphinston; you, who have been so long the manager of a
theatre, rejecting the plays of poor authours. You are an old Judge, who
have often pronounced sentence of death. You are a practiced surgeon,
who have often amputated limbs; and though this may have been for the
good of your patients, they cannot like you.
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