universality, which is not true of some particular man.' Sir William
Forbes said, 'Might not a man warmed with wine be like a bottle of beer,
which is made brisker by being set before the fire?' 'Nay, (said
Johnson, laughing,) I cannot answer that: that is too much for me.'

I observed, that wine did some people harm, by inflaming, confusing, and
irritating their minds; but that the experience of mankind had declared
in favour of moderate drinking. JOHNSON. 'Sir, I do not say it is wrong
to produce self complacency by drinking; I only deny that it improves
the mind. When I drank wine, I scorned to drink it when in company.[129] I
have drunk many a bottle by myself; in the first place, because I had
need of it to raise my spirits; in the second place, because I would
have nobody to witness its effects upon me.'

He told us, 'almost all his _Ramblers_ were written just as they were
wanted for the press; that he sent a certain portion of the copy[130] of
an essay, and wrote the remainder, while the former part of it was
printing. When it was wanted, and he had fairly sat down to it, he was
sure it would be done.'[131]

He said, that for general improvement, a man should read whatever his
immediate inclination prompts him to; though, to be sure, if a man has a
science to learn, he must regularly and resolutely advance. He added,
'what we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we
read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the
attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.'[132]
He told us, he read Fielding's _Amelia_ through without stopping.[133] He
said, 'if a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an
inclination to go on, let him not quit it, to go to the beginning. He
may perhaps not feel again the inclination.'