Arthur Reade

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ...no longer write under the influence of alcohol. As Mr. George R. Sims says, the idea that drink quickly excites the brain is exploded. Healthier stimulants have taken its place. It cannot be denied that some good work has been done under the influence of tea. Look at Dr. Johnson, for instance. That fine old Tory is worthy of the title of the king of the tea-drinkers. He loved tea quite as much as Person loved gin. Tea was Johnson's only stimulant. He drank it in bed, he drank it with his friends, and he drank it while compiling his dictionary. One of his friends thus describes his mode of life: \" About twelve o'clock I commonly visited him, and frequently found him in bed, or declaiming over his tea, which he drank very plentifully. He generally had a levee of morning visitors, chiefly men of letters. He declaimed all the morning, then went to dinner at a tavern, where he commonly stayed late, and then drank his tea at some friend's house, over which he loitered a great while, but seldom took supper.\" At his house in Gough Square, off Fleet Street, he frequently drank tea with his dependants, some of whom were blind, and some were deaf. Boswell has left us a graphic picture of these interesting gatherings:--\" We went home to his house to tea. Mrs. Williams made it with sufficient dexterity, notwithstanding her blindness,\" though he describes her putting her fingers into the cups to feel if they were full; but then it was Johnson's favourite beverage, and he adds, \" I willingly drank cup after cup, as if it had been the Heliconian Spring. There was a pretty large circle there, and the great doctor was in very good humour, lively and ready to talk upon all sorts of subjects.\" Mr. F. Sherlock, a fertile writer on the temperance question,...

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