192]; Sir John
says, (p. 444,) 'Mr. Garrick knew not what risque he ran by this offer.
Johnson had so strange a forgetfulness of obligations of this sort, that
few who lent him books ever saw them again.' This surely conveys a most
unfavourable insinuation, and has been so understood. Sir John mentions
the single case of a curious edition of Politian [_ante_, i. 90], which
he tells us, 'appeared to belong to Pembroke College, and which,
probably, had been considered by Johnson as his own, for upwards of
fifty years.' Would it not be fairer to consider this as an
inadvertence, and draw no general inference? The truth is, that Johnson
was so attentive, that in one of his manuscripts in my possession, he
has marked in two columns, books borrowed, and books lent.
In Sir John Hawkins's compilation, there are, however, some passages
concerning Johnson which have unquestionable merit. One of them I shall
transcribe, in justice to a writer whom I have had too much occasion to
censure, and to shew my fairness as the biographer of my illustrious
friend: 'There was wanting in his conduct and behaviour, that dignity
which results from a regular and orderly course of action, and by an
irresistible power commands esteem.
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