1 68 SAMUEL JOHNSON

FROM " SMITH "

OF Gilbert Walmsley, thus presented to my mind, let me indulge myself in the remem- brance. I knew him very early ; he was one of the first friends that literature procured me, and I hope that at least my gratitude made me worthy of his notice.

He was of an advanced age, and I was only not a boy ; yet he never received my notions with contempt. He was a whig, with all the virulence and malevolence of his party ; yet difference of opinion did not keep us apart. I honoured him, and he endured me.

He had mingled with the gay world, with- out exemption from its vices or its follies, but had never neglected the cultivation of his mind ; his belief of revelation was unshaken ; his learning preserved his principles ; he grew first regular, and then pious.

His studies had been so various, that I am not able to name a man of equal knowledge. His acquaintance with books was great ; and what he did not immediately know, he could at least tell where to find. Such was his ampli- tude of learning, and such his copiousness of communication, that it may be doubted, whe- ther a day now passes in which I have not some advantage from his friendship.

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