Life of Johnson.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20282, 17 April 1934, Page 8

Life of Johnson.

H E did not give me full credit when I mentioned that I had carried on a short conversation by signs with some Esquimaux who were then in London, particularly with one of them who was a priest. He thought I could not make them understand me. No man was more incredulous as to particular facts, which were at all extraordinary; and therefore no man was more scrupulously inquisitive, in order to discover the truth. JJAWKESWORTH’S compilation of the voyages to the South Sea being mentioned; Johnson. “Sir, if you talk of it as a subject of commerce, it will be gainful; if as a book that is to increase human knowledge, I believe there will not be much of that. Hawkeswortli can tell only what the voyagers have told him; and they have found very little, only one new animal, I think.” Boswell. “ But many insects, Sir.” Johnson. “ Why, Sir, as to insects, Ray reckons of British insects twenty thousand species. They might have staid at home and discovered enough in that way.”